LotR6 - Progressive Paranoia

[Skyfish]

In short I ran a farmer's gambit and established our second city but we should forget it for a while now and build up some defence.

Preturn : The Granary is delayed by one turn.

3000 : Granny completes set to Settler. Was a hard choice whether I should go for 1 more warrior or settler but went for the farmers gambit
2950 : sprinting towards the American workers trying to protect them but...
ibt : ...no they get destroyed by barbs
2800 : Exploring warrior spots a Lake !
Deity ROP means we got loads of AIs chasing barbs through our territory.
2750 : Settler completes, prod set to spear in order to take advantage of the game forest chop.
2710: 10 shields come in and pop to size 2 Spearman ready in 1 turn with no shield wasted. Lux up to 10%
2670: Spear -> Settler (ready in 6 but 5 with pop growth) Lux back down to 0.
English have monopoly on the Wheel, no thx.
2590: Edrine founded on lake with wheat in range, worker building road towards Edrine. Two big stacks of English warriors in our territory hope they are just after barbs...

Actually this is too much of a gamble I switch prod to Spear (due in 2) in Istanbul, just too many English around, we don't
want this game to end just now...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LotR6-2590_BC.zip

 

[Skyfish]

DP

 

[T-hawk]

I'm up then? I see it, can probably get to it late tonight. Will work on getting irrigation over to Istanbul's game tile, attending to barbs, dotmapping, and other stuff.

 

[Skyfish]

Beware of the English T-Hawk I really don't trust them : they were heading up north then the Americans came running down back South and the English went 1 tile West (towards us ) instead of North last ibt....

Might want to set the luxes to 30% and get the Spear to cover our worker...

 

[Arathorn]

T-hawk? Where are you? What's happened? Did the English wipe us out? Testing, testing....Is this thing on?

Arathorn

 

[T-hawk]

Eeek! I, uh, managed to completely forget about this one. Sorry!

==========

Inherited turn:

The problem with building a spearman is that the English stack, if it's attacking Istanbul, is going to get there before the unit is completed. It pains me to waste 5 shields (the city's prodution this turn; there's exactly 10 in the box), but the city swaps to a warrior.

Also, let's at least get a tech for cheap if England attacks us. 32 gold + 5/turn to England for The Wheel. We can resell it to Korea for 64 gold (I wouldn't do the deal without this brokerage.)

England goes to cautious. And the other benefit of the deal is that we can see our horses that are two squares NW of Edrine; Istanbul's second culture expansion will claim them.


Between turns, the English warriors move NW, still within our territory but not towards Istanbul. Over the next few turns, the English warriors wander in apparently random directions within Istanbul's land...


2430 BC: Istanbul is producing another spearman, so I send its warrior out NW to explore. Edrine's warrior also left to explore because the city's building another.

2350 BC: Istanbul builds a worker. We're industrious, let's take advantage of it; and we REALLY want irrigation over to Istanbul's game. Also this turn, the English warriors have left our land. Whew.

Not much else happened. Here's a screenshot:

I don't know if we can really dotmap, since it'll pretty much depend on what the AIs leave for us. Claiming the silks and the one gems tile to the west would be good, but other than that there's really nothing of particular interest up there. (There's gotta be some iron somewhere...)

Blue line shows where irrigation needs to go. Worker A is on that tile, building a road, because that's where he could reach in that turn.

The Great Micromanager decrees this. Worker A must build a road, then move one square west and road that tile, while Worker B moves to the horses tile and irrigates it. Then worker A can irrigate the tile it's currently on (it'll be done building the two roads at that time), while worker B roads the horses tile; then worker A should follow the blue line with irrigation while worker B irrigates some regular plains tiles for Edrine (the city needs two-food squares to keep growing.)

This plan gets the irrigation project done while wasting zero worker turns - both workers will be moving along roads the entire way, neither has to move more than 3 tiles to reach a project, and each tile is entered without a road only once. This will also help the movement of our settlers by having roads in place.

As for diplomacy: England and Korea have Writing while Abe lacks it. We're "close to a deal" on buying it right now; keep an eye on that to broker. My Wheel deal proved to be not so smart, but it was worth the chance and just might have stopped England attacking us.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr6-2150bc.zip

 

[Arathorn]

Whoops! Don't forget us again, OK, T-hawk?

It happens. I thought that might have been it.

OK, JMB, you're up. I'm on deck.

I want to be sure we claim all 3 luxes near our starting position, at the very least.

We're gonna want to do some warring before we get too tactless....pointy-stick with numerous alliances, probably. Who's gonna be the victim? At least we don't have to worry about deadly UUs!

Arathorn

 

[Gothmog]

I like America as our victim. We know they lost three workers and that has got to hurt :arrow:. We also know they don't have irrigation and wont have it until they get the water from us but they will build more workers. Further, they are closest to us and that is often the criteria I use for my first victim . Also, is that three wheat I see by their cities in what would be our first and second ring?

Our other choices Korea and England are already butting up against each other at Pusan and Coventry so as long as both of them don't come in on the American side they wont be any trouble whatsoever.

 

[Skyfish]

Yeah we got some great whipping boys around

America definitely my victim of choice

 

[cromagnon]

[/lurk] Sorry to butt in, but I was hoping you could clear a couple of things up for me, Gothmog.

(9) 3600 BC – spot NY borders just to our south, has unhooked furs and water to its SE. BW has now lost some trade value so I pull trigger on BW+1gold for CB.

How did BW drop in price if you didn't meet anyone else, and you weren't reseraching it?

I spot two barbs (damn american scouts)

I thought expansionist civs couldn't pop barbs from huts?

Thanks, and I look forward to learning more from your games, as always.

[lurk]

EDIT: I totally misread your original post, Gothmog. I thought you were trying to buy BW, forgetting that you were Ottos.

And thanks for the info on the scouts/barbs.

 

[Gothmog]

Hey cromagnon, no problem I am happy to oblige. BTW, I always chuckle when I see your sig.

I was checking each turn to trade BW for it's full value. I couldn't get full value for it at first unless I packaged it with 3gpt which I didn't want to give america. We were researching pottery so I was hoping that eventually I could get pottery + CB for it. Or I would meet another civ and thus devalue one of the American techs that way. But the trade value of BW dropped, this means one of two things, either america met another civ that has BW and so valued it less or they were researching it themselves. I assume it was the former because it dropped alot in value in one turn to the point where I had to sweeten the pot with 1 gold to get CB for it.

The american scouts busted the fog to the north of us allowing barbs to spawn there. It is my understanding that barbarians will not spawn on tiles that have never been seen by AI or human. That is why unexplored islands are not teeming with barbarian villages... unless of course the AI has been there first.

 

[T-hawk]

That is why unexplored islands are not teeming with barbarian villages... unless of course the AI has been there first.

Actually, an unsettled landmass is another check against barbarian spawnings. The part about fog is true, too; but if an island is explored and not settled it still won't have barbs. (See TH4.)

 

[Gothmog]

Thanks for the update T-hawk. I can't interest you in GM-2 can I? I would love for you to take the first 20 in that one.

 

[JMB]

Got it.

JMB

 

[JMB]

2150 - Nothing to do, but hit enter. IBT, our warrior gets attacked by a barb and wins (and promotes ) without taking any damage. The English begin the Pyramids.

2110 - I send our warrior outside of Pusan homeward as I think he'll be more useful for MP than scouting... On second thought, I don't. Instead, he is sent east. IBT, Korea demands we remove our troops and we comply. An American scout moves onto the hill I was going to settle next turn.

2070 - With so many American troops in the neighborhood, I decide not to kill their scout...

2030 - Not much.

1990 - We found Gems by JMB. Unfortunately, we are still unable to purchase writing.

1950 - Not much.

1910 - Not much. IBT, Istanbul produces a settler.

1870 - I send the settler SE, towards the hill by the gold. IBT, Lizzy asks us to remove our troops. I comply.

1830 - The race is on for the hill site. An American warrior settler pair is heading towards the same area...

1790 - Well, our deal with England expired this turn, and we can afford Writing, but it would require almost all of our gold to purchase it (she wants our WM , 85 gold, and 6 gpt for it; currently we have 96 gold and are only making 7 gpt...). America still hasn't purchased writing yet (Abe is making 0 gpt, and only has 44 gold in the bank...), so I'll hold off for one more turn. IBT, Korea demands 23 gold in trubute. Since he has a warrior next to our worker, I comply.

1750 - We settle Furs R Us. I set it to produce a granary, but this can be changed (perhaps to a temple? Either way, we can whip its progress in 20 turns). Once our worker outside of Edrine finishes the road, we might want to have him chop the forest furs tile to the South (the shields can be used towards the granary). As it is right now, the extra shield from the furs is lost, and by chopping the forest and irrigating the plains we should be able to get 2 fpt and 2 spt instead of 1 fpt and 2 spt. This will also allow us to bring water down to Furs R Us more easily.

We can get writing from Lizzy for our WM, 67 gold, and 7 gpt. Wang won't part with writing for all our gold and gpt (80 and 7 gpt). Abe still hasn't purchased writing (and is still making 0 gpt; maybe he's researching something and is close to a breakthrough...). Mysticism is worth 78 gold and 1 gpt from Wang, so I imagine that we should be able to get Mysticism from Abe (and perhaps a bit more gold...) if we purchase writing and broker it. I'll let Arathorn choose whether to make the deal or not .

I am not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but I am pretty sure we are on an island/continent with just the English, Americans, and Koreans (it does seem like there might be another island to the East of England around where our scouting warrior is...).

Here's the game: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LOTR6PP1750BC.zip

Have fun Arathorn!

JMB

 

[Gothmog]

Heh, good choice on the scout JMB - have you been going to anger management classes?

 

[Arathorn]

Got it.... I'll try to get to it tonight, but RL is being a real time drain right now. I might need the relief, but it might well be tomorrow night.

Looking good. I didn't plan opponents at all....we just got lucky that the three worst UUs (F-15, man-o-war, and h'wacha) are all on our continent. And the map was fully random. I kinda liked the idea of starting on a gold hill, and with 3 luxes in the nearby radius, it just seemed natural to go for it.

Arathorn

 

[JMB]

Gothmog,

Nope, no anger management classes yet... I think I have become much more aggressive and short-tempered with all the recent warmaking. Hopefully, my short break from warmaking will help me recover without having to seek professional help...

JMB

 

[Arathorn]

Inherited turn:

Well, let's see. America is researching full-bore. There are two possibilities. One is that they're researching writing. If so, purchasing writing and trying to sell it to them is a losing proposition, because we won't get anywhere near full value for it and be stuck. Second option is that they're researching something else. If so, when they get that, they'll get writing, too, for sure, and our brokering opportunity would be out the window.

Pondering the evidence available....mostly the fact that they've apparently been researching for a while, I go ahead and pull the trigger. WM + 7 gpt + 67 gold to England (better price than Korea for mysterious reasons) for Writing. Writing to America for Mysticism and 44 gold. Pretty expensive, really, even for two techs, but almost assuredly the only twofer available.

England has MM up on us, at this point, and all 3 IW, but our min research on IW is almost done.

(I) Liz extorts 21 gold. Great. No way in heck I can tell her no, though.

(1) 1725 -- I start forming some semblance of a moving blockade of the American settler pair in our territory. I want the land to the north and I don't want to fight for the good spots.

(2) 1700 -- Korea gets MM. Our WM gets his TM and a couple gold. New WM worth 1 gold to England. Occasional map sales help our economy throughout my reign. HBR also appears with all 3 civs, meaning it's pretty likely America researched it, although he doesn't show up with extra cash, so maybe WK did. Anyway.....

(I) England boots an exploring warrior.

(4) 1650 -- Gems tries to become our first military factory, working on a barracks now. Will be chop-assisted.

(I) IW comes in. I start us on Polytheism, as that's generally low on the AI priority list. It's also low on our list, as we really want to revolt once, to Republic. BUT we can wait 40 turns for Polytheism, probably, while using cash to broker the techs across the top of the tree. London completes Oracle, giving it two WotW already.

(5) 1625 -- Hmmm....hey, let's look for iron. Hmmm...hey, I can see one source of iron, clear over in English territory. Diplo checking reveals that America has a source, too. We have no sources anywhere visible at all. I guess it's horsemen against America, once we're ready.

(6) 1600 -- Furs come online and lux tax can go down.

(7) 1575 -- England shows up with Code of Laws. WK does, too, soon hereafter, but I don't remember when exactly.

(9) 1525

(I) Seoul completes Pyramids. A non-industrious civ completing Pyramids first? Very interesting. I wonder if the other 4 civs are separated or on very bad starts. I certainly hope so. Has anybody checked F10 yet to see who our opponents are? I forgot to do so last night.

(10) 1500 -- We've got two American settler pairs in our territory, with a third to appear shortly. We also have two settlers due to pop soon. We should use whatever means necessary (including pulling MP units) to continue the blockade until we are sure to get our two top sites in the north, getting cows and horses, I would hope.

I did found one city to get horses and silks. I didn't note what year I did so, but it was about half-way through my reign.

I would strongly consider building a bunch of vet chariots and upgrading to horsemen to take out Abe. We want to get to him before he gets pikemen. Of course, if a good brokering opportunity arises to get us HBR before our chariots are ready, go for it/use your best judgment. We have zero barracks currently.....

I would found the next two cities (Edrine's settler will get chop-assistance and finish reasonably quickly) and then start working on military. If all goes well, we can take a few American cities in the south and get a city or two in the north from his as tribute for peace. That would be my plan/hope, anyway.

Gothmog, you're up.
Skyfish, on deck.

Save is http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr6-1500bc.zip

Picture to follow.
Arathorn

 

[Arathorn]