Lotr5 -- Tactless Darius

Inherited turn:

I'm trying to figure out if Susa with its four wheats can hit the worker every turn threshold. In this configuration: working two irrigated grassland wheat, two FORESTED wheat, one mined bonus-grass, and one mined regular grass, the city would be at +10 food surplus and +8 shields, and it could be given a forest square to auto-pick for 10 shields. The problem with that is corruption; it'd need to produce about 12 raw shields to get 10, so it can't do it.

Susa could make the 3-every-4 worker pattern, if it had forests planted on about five of its squares; but that would cause headaches to the cities around it.

So we're stuck with workers every two turns. Susa, Arbela, and Pasargadae could all do that. None of the eastern cities can due to lack of any food bonuses. I think we should have all three of these cities farm workers until we get all the other cities up to size 12. These three cities are all quite cramped and aren't going to gain much by growing anyway.

Susa and Pasargadae have loaded shield boxes that I'll turn into marketplaces before they start farming workers. Arbela gets started on workers right away.

As for research, the current techs cost about 600 beakers to research. Let's set research to 10% until we accumulate 500 or so gold.

==========

1210 AD: Our galley discovers the Russian city of Besancon. Guess somebody had themselves a little war...

1230 AD: Pasargadae has finished its marketplace and begins cranking workers.

Russia's got a LOT of ships moving around; must be in quite a war.

1240 AD: Persepolis finished its marketplace; begins another galley to explore a bit more. Susa also finishes the marketplace and begins cranking workers.

1250 AD: Wang Kon pops up and offers us Ivory if we pay him Spices + 3/turn. Sure!

Lux can go down to 0% and we only need one entertainer, in Heidelburg.

1255 AD: We begin the migration process by pumping Antioch (the FP) up to size 11. It's working on a colosseum; if we get Monotheism soon it'll swap to a cathedral but the colosseum would help by itself too.

1265 AD: With 974 gold in the bank, well enough to buy a tech if one is offered, we switch back to research on Monotheism.

A bunch of civs start Shakespeare's Theater.

1275 AD: Monotheism finished. Theology is ordered up. It's a total beaker cost of about 950, same as our current treasury. So to keep enough cash on hand for possible tech buys, we start researching it at 60% science, breakeven cash, due in 5 turns.

1280 AD: Whoops, I wasn't keeping track of time. Well, I'll go 15 turns again to 1300 AD because little is happening and to even out the numbers.

I decide to raise the lux tax to 10% again, since several cities just completed aqueducts and got workers merged in. That'll tide them over while they build marketplaces. Heidelburg just completed a marketplace, and gets taken to size 12.


1300 AD: Theology has finished. Education is ordered up, obviously. The beaker cost is right around 1000, so let's keep that 1000 gold in our treasury for possible tech buys. Education's due in 5 at 50% science and +16 gold. Antioch, Persepolis, Konigsberg, and Heidelburg are all prebuilding for their universities. Gordium is the next worker merge target, then Tarsus and Liepzig.

We have three galleys exploring now, finding all sorts of interesting places; this map looks to be one heck of an archipelago!

The three worker farms will want to keep that up for a while longer. Arbela runs fine by itself; the other two (Susa and Pasargadae) need some micromanagement, especially Susa that needs to borrow the one irrigated grassland from Konigsberg sometimes. The German workers were there adjusting terrain improvements as I needed; what they should do now is go plant some forests for Persepolis which is full size and wants some more shields.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr5-1300ad.zip

Map to follow in next post.
 
lotr5-1300ad.jpg


Our economy is, if not exactly cooking, at least simmering at medium-brown. Once all the cities get up to size 12 with banks and universities, we'll actually be pretty darn powerful. Well, except for that whole watching the Russians launch a spaceship while we build a factory thing :rolleyes:

Oh, and we have a few ongoing luxury deals that haven't been renegotiated. I was assuming that we don't touch them unless the other civ wants to, by the variant rules. Because those luxuries could get yanked out from under us at any time, we do want to try and achieve self-sufficiency for happiness; get those cathedrals built sometime :)
 
Looking good. Hopefully, the AI civs are embroiled in deep wars, staying out of democracy. I'm glad to see they wasted research all the way to Free Artistry, meaning less Industrial techs have been researched. Has anybody even started Universal Sufferage yet?

We're starting to make progress on the tech front. Suggestions on next target? Banking? Astronomy? Cheapest available while we build up our cities? After thinking about it a bit, I guess I'm thinking cheapest available (feudalism, I believe) while universities complete (hopefully 4 turns), then on to banking so we have another building after universities complete, then along the bottom of the tech tree, hoping to buy astronomy.... Is there a better option available?

Why is Frankfurt building a granary? Are we really expecting to let it grow naturally?

It is a very interesting map that is being revealed. It's kinda fun to actually reveal a map by exploration instead of by purchase. And it's important that we do so, because we may well need to raze a capital or two to prevent what T-hawk was concerned about -- no SS loss for us, I hope....

Oh, and I got it. Gothmog is on deck. I think/hope I can play tonight but no guarantees. RL is a bit hectic these days.

Arathorn
 
What, no longbow rush? :lol:

Seriously, nice work T-hawk.
I agree with Arathorn's tech path assessment, at least upto banking. I also am enjoying the unknown nature of the map, we want to explore as much as possible - who knows we may want to win by domination... but first let's build some more infrastructure!
 
I'd suggest Banking next, since some of our cities will be finished with their universities just about as we get Education and we want to keep them churning along on infrastructure. Also the techs do start to get more expensive, so after Education we probably want to run the treasury up to about 1500 before we start research again, and by then the cities will be wanting to build banks.

Frankfurt's granary - yeah, change that; I wasn't really paying much attention to those cities. :crazyeye: The cities that I was paying attention to are all set to no surplus food to pull maximum shields, since they won't be growing other than worker merges.
 
Another straight-forward 10 turns.

Diplo front:
India came and cancelled our lux for lux deal, forcing me to raise the lux tax by 10%. They can maybe be erased, now that a few more marketplaces have finished. I didn't check carefully.
Ghandi reappeared later, offering his TM for our TM+30 gold. I accepted, eager to see a bit more of the world.

Tech front:
Education came in 4 with only a very minor loss in gold. The Feudalism in 4 to build up cash. Banking in 4 is almost done, losing about 100 gold total (at ~1150 now, halfway into that run). Current cathedral/palace builds can either complete or be changed to banks (I would change unless we lose another lux deal).

After Banking, I urge strongly going across the bottom of the tech free for a bit, building up a bit of cash, and then going for Astronomy. We're still 8 or so techs from the IA, but that might only be ~35 turns....

Defense:
We're still relying on smoke, mirrors, and water. I disbanded even a few more units, to get our gpt up. We have spears and immortals. France, at least, has cavs and rifles. Russia has cossacks at least. A war now would be dicey, to say the least.

Worker farms:
All 3 kept cranking all my turns. We're getting most cities up to size 12 by now. The southernmost city in the east (I forget its name) only finished its aqueduct recently, so it's not up to size yet. And the tundra cities in the north are still small, but that's it. I would recommend turning Susa or Pasagardae into a "real" city about mid-way through the next set of turns. We'll need a couple aqueducts built before most other cities can be grown. And we're eagerly awaiting Electricity, so we can irrigate some dry areas.

Threat front:
We're second in land area, pop, and some of the production categories. We're up to tied for fourth in score and will get to third before too long. I have little doubt we can catch France merely by superior builds and optimizations. Russia, OTOH, is a bit scary, building RRs already and obviously the #1 nation. At some point, I'm relatively certain, we're gonna have to try to at least prune Cathy. Not now, though!!!

Save file at http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr5-1350ad.zip

Gothmog -- UP now
Charis -- on deck (pending notification of RL sanity)

Arathorn
 
Was just about to say.. things are sane, then I remembered I'm out of town this weekend, out of commission on Sat and gone thru Thurs afternoon.

If I'm up in that span (likely), plz skip me with apologies.
Thanks,
Charis
 
No prob on the skips, Charis. We all know how that goes.

Order for now is:
Gothmog -- UP
Charis -- skipped
JMB -- on deck
T-hawk -- in the hole
Arathorn -- on the bench

As for buying vs. researching, if we can't get a 1500 beaker tech for 900 gold, it's not worth it to buy it. We can research better/faster, because we have more research beaker boosters (libraries and universities most everywhere) than cash boosters (marketplaces in many cities, banks nowhere). Each commerce devoted to research is worth almost 2.5 beakers, but each to cash is worth <1.5 gold. That's about a 5:3 ratio, which means 1500 beakers is worth 900 cash, to us, at this point. Also note that we can research invention in 4 turns and still gain cash....

Arathorn
 
'I got it', will try to play tonight or in the morning.

Looks good Arathorn, I'm eager to see our current map. On my last turn the first galley had just headed out.

Second in land area and pop bodes well for us in the long run. If we can survive the military technology disparity in the short run - and I think we can! Actually, I have no idea about AI wars so the UN may be a problem for us. Somehow, I don't see the tactless one wining by diplo' :p .
 
Orient myself… Still some good cities w/out universities. Hamburg seems to have been pushed past its ability to sustain its population by 1 worker. The three worker farms sort of weird me out, two first ring and one second ring cities still at size five and six w/out city improvements. We wont need three during my turns as most cities have been grown out already.

(IT) – Abu demands TM, I cave -> polite.

(1) 1355 - not much.

(IT) – Banking -> Astronomy in 4 @ small loss. Swap to banks where appropriate.

(2) 1360 – Susa and Pasargadae taken off worker duity and swapped to aquaducts. Arbela will be our only worker farm for now. Arabia has a anti-sea invasion wall built up, is the AI using an obvious exploit? ;)

lotr5-exploit.jpg


(IT) – nada

(3) 1365 – Konigsburg now at size 12 and sweet with gold and gems, 67 cpt. Russia owns Besanion, Granoble and Dijon as well as Chittagong. Can you say 500 lb guerilla? The Arabian wall goes on.

(IT) – Russia starts ToE

(4) 1370 – nothing of note.

(IT) – French start U.S.

(5) 1375 – see entry for 1370.

(IT) – I slow research by 1 turn to give us cash to rush aquaduct in Pasargadae. Carthage demands horses. Since they are the low man on the totem pole I refuse… they back down -> annoyed.

(6) 1380 – Nuthin.

(IT) – Astronomy -> Invention in 4 @ +65 gpt. Antioch now with bank and uni at size 12 w/full food box -> worker.

(7) 1385 – rush aquaduct in Pasargadae for 220.

(IT) – Russia starts J.S. Bach’s, India starts U.S.

(8) 1390 – Pasargadae pumped upto size 12, our income jumps 10gpt.

(IT) Russia demands and gets gems -> polite. France starts Bach’s.

(9) 1395 – Invention now in 2 @ +128 gpt.

(IT) – Russia completes ToE :eek:

(10) 1400 – I would rush the aquaduct in Susa next turn, the workers are in position. We grow strong, but are still way behind Russia. If we could build a decent military we would stop getting extorted. Judging by how fast Russia completed ToE they must be at war and have gotten a leader. So they get two more techs and must be way out in front of everyone. We can only hope they are at war and go to communism before too long.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr5-1400ad.zip

lotr5-map.jpg
 
Grrr... :mad: First I lose my report to Notepad crashing and then the forum eats what little I was able to save...

Overall, a quiet set of turns. Highlights: Korea no longer feels our Spices and 3 gpt are good enough for their Ivory. Joanie offers to trade her TM for ours and 8 gold. Russia has infantry. Korea or India (I can't remember who I saw as I find their colours pretty similar...) is at war with someone...

I have still been using horsemen to shuffle shields around, but as we can now build musketmen, it might be a good idea to switch the cities with barracks producing horsemen to musketmen. Also, we now have something like 8 or 9 native workers, so we might want to consider having Arbela build a harbor soon and letting it grow (it shoud be able to get a fair bit of commerce... This should also free up a couple of good tiles for Susa to work.).

I think Physics is due in something like 3 turns with a small deficit.

Here's the save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr5_1450AD.zip

I hope someone will consider trading with us again during your turn T-hawk...

JMB
 
T-hawk,

I have never seen it crash before, but I think I accidentally hit F1 (Alt-Tabing between programs...), then the program didn't respond and Windows automatically shut it down...

JMB
 
OK. I'm going to have Arbela keep building workers, since we will need them for rails fairly soon. Arbela actually already had an aqueduct when we set up the worker farms; actually that city should've been grown while Susa kept putting out workers. Especially since Susa can easily make worker-every-turn once rails arrive.

Builds - I think we should build everything - cathedrals and even colosseums. We're still at 20% luxuries right now; it'd be quite nice if we could become self-sufficient on happiness since we can never rely on luxury imports.

The beaker research cost of Metallurgy would be almost exactly 1500, so I'm happy with our 1600 in the bank.

Early turns: France completes Universal Suffrage. Physics done, Magnetism started. Our galley observes a HUGE stack of SIXTY-PLUS Russian units attacking Indian infantry in Theveste, and they eventually capture the city.

Middle: very little. Persepolis got some forests planted to alleviate its food surplus.

Late: Magnetism finishes, Metallurgy begun. Korea sells us their TM (we already had it) for 4 gold.

1500 AD: Metallurgy due in 2 turns. I really want to lower our lux tax, but we need a few more cathedrals to complete first. 1900 is in the treasury in case anyone wants to sell us Theory of Gravity.

Next leader will see our free Industrial technology; let's all wish fervently for Steam Power. :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr5-1500ad.zip
 
Got it. I think I'll be able to get to it tonight. It's looking pretty good. We still have no real offense and if somebody invades with infantry, we're in trouble. But I'm happy to see Russia throwing away big stacks of units fighting fortified infantry in places that will probably be totally corrupt for them.

As I see it, our plan for the next few sets of turns is:
- Hope and pray we have coal for RRs
- Hope and pray we have rubber
- More infra (factories and commercial docks)
- Start prepping for an invasion of Russian mainland

The last of those is the one I think needs the most comment. Russia will NEED to be pruned or they will win, it looks pretty apparent. A force of 24 infantry, 23 artillery, and 1 worker (to build a fortification) on a mountain will take a major amount of effort to dislodge and can pillage by bombardment a fairly large swath. This will really hurt Russia. BUT we can't decide on peace on our terms and we might face a dogpile, so it's a reasonably major commitment, requiring defense of our home island, too.

That's a ways off, though.

Another issue we probably want to start thinking about as a team is whether we go for some techs not required for advancement into the next age -- namely trying to get espionage, because stealing is cheaper than researching, as we all know. Thoughts/opinions on that? I'll, of course, be getting Steam Power ASAP. Then what, though? Electricity to irrigate dry areas? Industrialization and Corporation? Medicine to head towards Sanitation and larger cities? My initial inclination is to get factories and commercial docks ASAP, but I can see good counter-arguments.

Certainly this game has been different than your average deity game (and probably very different than if it had turned out to be a pangea map...)

Arathorn
 
Omm.. Steam Power, Steam Power :worshp:
Omm.. Coal, Coal :worshp:
Omm.. Rubber, Rubber :worshp:

We better have resources because no one is going to offer to trade them to us. If we lack one or more we will have to factor that in our plans. Don't forget about Stock Markets and Wall Street. A wonder we can get!

I was very happy indeed to find that Russia must be at war, although it was tempered by their acquisition of ToE. :p
We will want maps of their land as a priority over other exploration.

I do think we want espionage, but it would be great to get Factories and possibly Hospitals first. As long as we can do 4 turn research we don't need espionage, even 5 turn. I'm not sure what our current situation wrt Industrial tech research is. So it will depend somewhat on what the AI has already researched and spread around, e.g. if no-one has Medicine we don't want to research it @ 1st (OK second since we know Russia already has it) or really even @3rd.

Re worker farms: I decided on Susa because I was then able to give Konigsberg enough food to work gold and gems @size 12. This also allowed Parsa to have some good tiles while Susa got +5 gpt +5 spt. I am not doubting your MM skills T-hawk, just stating my reasoning. Also while Arbella had an auaduct it didn't have a harbor, which it will need to grow. So that was a wash. I must admit I didn't look forward to what city would be able to go 1 wpt @rails, but I am not sure that would have changed my play.

I've enjoyed this game so far, it's been like an AW game without all the war :D , and the start vs. Germany had its moments too.
 
You forgot one!

Omm.. Iron Works, Iron Works :worshp: :D

Espionage - probably eventually, but not soon. When you figure in the spy costs and the possibility of failure, stealing isn't cheaper than researching until Atomic Theory, Electronics, Radio, Flight, and modern techs. Also figure that Espionage requires Nationalism, unless we get that for free; if we get Rep Parts soon we can actually skip Nationalism forever.

I agree with Industrialization ASAP. Those factories are expensive; and don't forget we have to build all our own coal plants instead of relying on Hoover. After that would depend on what techs are devalued, but there's one problem with that - we aren't allowed to see what techs the civs have!

I'd lean towards Corporation first to get the Stock Exchanges and Wall Street rolling. Would probably go with Electricity and then Rep Parts after that, though it isn't a clear-cut decision by any means.
 
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