LP1: That's the wrong end of the gun

[dalamb]

Turn 65: A new mayor switches production in Nidaros to a barracks to let it grow to the happy cap.

Turn 68: The Vikings finish Agriculture, start Archery.

Turn 72: "It was a very good year...." Nidaros grows to size 6, the barracks finishes, and we resume building the settler. We finish Archery, and start Sailing. The worker finishes the stone quarry and moves south to chop the forested hills. Adjusting the city production slightly, we'll finish the settler in nine turns minus however much the chop saves us:

Spoiler alternative :

Working the lake means the settler takes 10 turns and doesn't improve the time to get Sailing:

Turn 73: A little bird tells us that in a faraway land, someone has built Stonehenge.

Turn 76: Our scout is exploring the seacoast west of Berlin, when the Germans claim that land and escort us to the far east of their city of Hamburg. Fortunately we have found their river, so Sailing should give us a trade route.

Turn 77: Our worker finishes chopping our first forest, which enables our first settlers to speed their preparations for departure. We begin a mine the next turn.

Turn 79: We finish researching Sailing and begin Writing. The mayor of Nidaros puzzles over the lack of a trade route to Hamburg:

Slapping his forehead, the mayor realizes he forgot that our caravans must know the route from Hamburg to the German capital before they can trade; we must wait for open borders with Germany to scout the last few miles. The settlers finish their preparations and we begin recruiting an archer to protect them.

That's it for where I said I'd take us to. I long to build a lighthouse and sail the seas, but we agreed to REX first. The only unit with a continuing action is the miners. Roster:
Nictel
ChuckDizzle
dalamb
vranasm -- now up
Norvin_Green -- on deck
Admiral Kutzov

 

[vranasm]

got the save, checking situation and formulating plan, I suppose I have 15 tursn to work.

edit: as it seems i cant do anything with it... what's the problem there? could be it some mod?

 

[dalamb]

I picked things up at turn 62 and deliberately took a short turn so there was more time to discuss the things that seemed undecided. So there's precedent for you to take 25-30 turns, I think. Maybe play until you settle the first two cities and supply a couple more workers?

 

[vranasm]

I picked things up at turn 62 and deliberately took a short turn so there was more time to discuss the things that seemed undecided. So there's precedent for you to take 25-30 turns, I think. Maybe play until you settle the first two cities and supply a couple more workers?

well I have there bigger problem...the game looks like it is in read-only mode... so I am probably out of the game.

 

[dalamb]

Nope, its just paused -- hit the "pause" key again and all will be well. I am in the habit of pausing the game when I take breaks; sorry it caused some confusion.

 

[vranasm]

Nope, its just paused -- hit the "pause" key again and all will be well. I am in the habit of pausing the game when I take breaks; sorry it caused some confusion.

lol nice! it was really it...didnt know there is something like "pause"...

 

[vranasm]

ok to my plan...

I think that the area is good fogbusted and i could send the settler to the fp right away. I would love to switch the archer to worker. 2 cities 1 worker is bad situation.
Other problem is we are at happy cap with cap, so producing workers/settlers helps with unhappiness. So i would use in my turn cap for pumping settlers/workers.

The grass above lakes I would chop, for 2 reasons:
1st hammers
2nd that place would allow me to manipulate better with that pigs to reducing grow at cap when we dont build workers/settlers.

big decision is about the 3rd city. I still am leaning towards the double food in north, but production city between fp city and cap seems viable too.

So to more concrete plans:

- cap builds 2x worker, settler (without chops it's 22 turns), worker
- settler goes right away to fps to settle, city builds warrior, monument (more on it later), farm 1-2 flood arround to get citizens for whips of infra until border pop
- research - finish writing, make mysticism for monument, mathematics (for currency, it's better to build wealth and get slider up) - on prince AI's tech slower so I dont see much use for aesthetics.

3rd city -
variant A: prod city to east (safer) - finish road, sheep, mine hills, farm flood, build monument, warrior/s at reasonable size (3-4) worker to help with empire.
variant B: food north (gambit) - road, improve food, build library (chop + whip?) - start 2 science specialists, those 2 food give +6 food equivalent of 3 specialists, library is 2, so there is some food for more growth.

well that should cover basically the whole turnset, will leave the game with only 4 workers probably for 3 cities and thats a bit low. But I didnt calculate it properly so maybe i could squeeze in 1 more worker, and there should be at least 1 more chop in cap.

 

[dalamb]

"Pause" mostly just stops the "how long I played" timer that gets displayed at the end of the game. It would be better if it forbade all changes of game state but unfortunately if you, for example, hit enter, it doesn't happen immedately but takes effect immediately after you un-pause. IMHO it should be totally ignored.

 

[dalamb]

I have no serious objection to switching from archer to worker, but if you're settling the FP city I'd rather not see it build anything but what's absolutely essential -- so build its warrior/archer elsewhere, such as in the 2nd (production) city. If you want Nidaros not to grow while building something other than a settler, switch from working the crabs to working a forested plain -- +2 though -3

I'd much rather wait on chopping the 2 grassland forests until after Mathematics; we can't work those tiles until we can raise the happy cap, and I don't think production in Nidaros is so urgent as to waste the 50% bonus. But I can see why people might prefer 30 hammers now to 44 later.

I am not up to crunching the numbers, but I'm still not convinced that a monument is the right thing for the FP city; how long would it take to whip a library once we've farmed 2 flood plains? Like I said, Mysticism seems like a low-value diversion to me.

The double food city seems kind of far away, which will create maintenance problems at some point. I'd prefer a production city between the capital and the FP.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I'm old, don't die laughing, but where or which one is the "pause" key?

for 3rd city, grab the ivory.

 

[dalamb]

On a typical PC keyboard there's a key labeled "pause" in a set of 3 that include "print screen" near the top of the keyboard, towards the right.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Normally 2 cities 1 worker is bad but Nidaros is pretty much working all its "good" tiles anyway. Letting the archer complete and then building a settler next will work. If you want you can even whip the settler with overflow going into a granary or trading post while it regrows. I wouldn't worry too much about settling the FP city to get the gold. There are enough FP's but low hammers so I'd settle on the river and coast western side of the river. It will allow trade routes with our ivory city before we know it. The sole worker can head over with the settler to farm/cottage as needed. We don't need to chop anymore in Nidaros. It has decent hammers to pop buildings/units out while re-growing after a gentle whip (in other words let's not overdo it). A settler will only take 10 turns anyway (not sure were 22 came from). The admiral is right in settling the ivory city next. With our tech speed it might be wise for us to tech to alpha so that we can pick up IW in trade.

 

[vranasm]

22 turns is for 2x worker+settler.

As it seems north variant is considered as "good one", so that's clear. i will settle the city 1W then previously arranged, it seems better there is forrest.

About building the archer... i will think it through, we really lack workers, not for cap, but for new cities. But we will need at least 1 new unit to the north spot.

To the techs, alphabet doesnt look too bad, it allows currency and that thing i would love to have soon.

I will play the turn later this day and post save.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Sorry for misunderstanding the 22 turns. On second thought another worker now won't hurt but a third could wait until after another settler or archer. Nidaros doesn't need any more tile improvements after the grass hill gets mined as it can only work 6 tiles right now anyway. At that point our two worker can go to city #2 and together farm a FP or two cutting the build time in half. They can also road along the way if the settler isn't ready (more for the benefit of troop movement then the trade route, though that doesn't hurt).
Good luck during your set vranasm!

P.S. Welcome aboard Admiral Kutzov (pun intended)

 

[vranasm]

I am still considering cutting the forrest at the lake, I know I am a bit in minority with that, but it will quicken the 2nd settler and that place in the north through the 2 food specials will make good scientist city and the sooner the better.
I hope 1 forrest is not something everyone will hate me for ;-).

 

[vranasm]

I did my turn, I hope no one will be much angry at me .

T0 - prep.
Cap - switch build to worker
Settler - go to FP city
Scout help fogbust north (took him a bit back)
T1 - zzz
T2 -
lost our scout (he was on forrest hill defeated by barb war)
buddhism spread to nidaros, didnt switch
T3 -
Uppsala founded, start building warrior
T4 -
mine finished - nidaros switched to work the mine
T5 -
worker goes chop lake forrest
bismark founds munich
northleft war goes fogbust northern city spot
T6 -
nid. worker finished - switch settler
built worker goes farm uppsala
worker starts chopping forrest
T7 - zzz
T8 -
writing finished - mysticism (3t)
T9 - starting uppsala farm
T10 - chop finished (nid.)
T11 -
mysticism -> alphabet
worker starts road directly north
T12 - zzz
T13 - zzz
T14 -
nid. finished settler - worker
settler sent north
T15 - ottoman founds Ankara
T16 - bismark offers open borders - accepted
T17 - zzz
T18 -
we found Haithabu - starting library (future plans to chop 2 grassland forrests and whip eventually, really need more workers there!)
T19 -
nid. finishes worker - starts warrior
uppsala worker -> farm finished, start cottage
T20 - zzz
T21 -
nid. war finished, another in 1T, finish him
war goes fogbust SE (horses city)
T22 -
nid. starts settler
built war goes north for future
worker starts farming corn
T23 - zzz (nid. could whip settler for 3 though)
T24 - SE wars defeats barb. warrior
T25 -
uppsala - finished warrior, switch monument
built warrior will go east to fogbust at gold
T26 -
izzy wants us to convert to buddhism - denied, she hates us most and will probably be our first target
T27 -
uppsala whips monument

rounded turns to 105.
Nidaros will finish settler in 6

The Izzy decision I feel was kind of big, but I didnt expected it turn sooner and didnt have save turn before so I had to make some.

 

[dalamb]

I don't understand what was wrong with caving in to Izzy's demand. She may be our first target, as you say, but that's still quite a ways away since we have no copper and need iron to be able to build an appropriate army. The only downside would have been the diplo hit with Sulieman, whose territory is far enough away that we haven't even found it yet. Also, getting a religion eventually increases our happy cap, once it spreads, so it had its upside. In any case, you should edit CivilizationIV.ini and set AutoSaveInterval = 1, so that when you get a surprise "big decision" you can discuss it and then load the auto-save to continue.

I'm pretty sure Alpha was a poor choice since the AIs prioritize it and so you can almost always get it in trade for Aesthetics, plus trade Aesthetics for plenty of other back-fill. I used to always go for Alpha, too, but I've recently switched after having seen lots of people say "go for Aesthetics". It worked fine on Prince for me the first time I tried it, gaining me about a half-dozen back-fill techs. Also, warmongers eventually need Literature for the Heroic Epic anyway. So even if Alphabet is the only tech you ever get in trade, it might still be worth going for Aesthetics instead of Alphabet: two techs for the cost of researching only one.

I'm very puzzled as to the location of Haithabu -- I don't recall any discussion of that specific spot, and I thought that the Admiral's suggestion meant it was going to be where the sign says "city for partial block".

Edit: also, Nictel suggested we wait 24 hours between plan and execution; you rushed that by about 4.5 your post was 4.5 hours earlier than that which means you started your turn even earlier. Not sure how much difference it would have made, but it might have, since I logged in right around the time you posted.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I did my turn, I hope no one will be much angry at me .

not at all. I've done much worse things such as starting wars without permission intentionally... I will be good however for this game.

I'm very puzzled as to the location of Haithabu -- I don't recall any discussion of that specific spot, and I thought that the Admiral's suggestion meant it was going to be where the sign says "city for partial block".

me too

I'm pretty sure Alpha was a poor choice since the AIs prioritize it and so you can almost always get it in trade for Aesthetics, plus trade Aesthetics for plenty of other back-fill. I used to always go for Alpha, too, but I've recently switched after having seen lots of people say "go for Aesthetics". It worked fine on Prince for me the first time I tried it, gaining me about a half-dozen back-fill techs. Also, warmongers eventually need Literature for the Heroic Epic anyway. So even if Alphabet is the only tech you ever get in trade, it might still be worth going for Aesthetics instead of Alphabet: two techs for the cost of researching only one.

this is gonna be interesting. I don't think I've ever intentionally researched Aesthetics.

I think I have found the mysterious pause key. Didn't realize my laptop had DVR controls.

@NG - my suggestion is to take off all the old tags from the map and put on 2 or 3 new ones.

For the old and senile amongst us (i.e. me) why are we farming the FP instead of cottaging? I know we're gonna whip, but
there's only a one food difference and I'd rather have the money.

Haithabu isn't in a bad place, just different than I anticipated.

I cleared the map of tags and put in some others. The numbers don't indicate an order. I'd vote for 5 next and then maybe 1.

Some things I want to make sure I understand:
1. No wonders in the foreseable future?
2. trade alpha for iron? What are we going for after that? 5 brings in gold which makes MC worthwhile.

 

[vranasm]

I am sorry that I maybe rushed my turn before limit, I probably misunderstood what Nictel ment with playing "quicker" when it's not "much" opposition to plan. and 3 people already somewhat agreed with my plan. I think for this I have to appologize.

To the buddhism, I didnt convert because basically I didnt want anarchy in an expansion phase and i much rather have hinduism to be on board with ottoman, but that we didnt discuss and basically i wanted to be without state religion for not creating unnecessary -X in diplomacy. that -1 hit for not gaving in to Isabella is not as bad as -2 - -3 soon with suleiman.

When I talked about northern city in my plan I meant the place with food and I checked and there was already sign for city and I placed it directly there. From posts of NG and AK I thought they both agree with settling north first and i wrote about place between foods. Hmm basically AK's "grab ivory" I understood take northern spot which will have ivory in.

Alphabet i considered better option then Aesthetics, because on prince AIs really tech slower and we would have to wait for them to catch up. And it opens currency that is very important tech for us.

So if the team didnt like what I did, well basically NG could take dalamb's save and continue, I will continue only lurking here.

@AK fp city has no production tiles, only those forrests + itself, so some whipping will be needed and even after border pop we dont have much hills there.

 

[Norvin_Green]

It looks like a good set vranasm. For you new SG'ers the first few sets you play are tough because every move you make comes under fire by 4-5 other folks so try not to feel defensive about criticism. After a while you'll start to not take it personally and realize that this will actually make you a better player.
For example, we didn't really need mysticism yet. Both Uppsala and Haithabu have enough workable tiles without a border pop that it could have waited. Not a game-ending mistake at all but something to think about. Both cities are going to be cottaged up so they will get libraries which would have takien care of the border pop anyway.
I'm also not a fan of roading from Nidaros to Haithabu. It wastes worker turns that could have the corn online already. We are getting a 2 trade routes from Germany so we are ok in that respect.
So my PPP is as follows"
Nidaros will finish settler for ivory/fish site and then build a granary (should usually be the first build in just about every city) then a worker (doubt my set will go that far)
Uppsala will complete the monument then go granary>library.
Haithabu will get switched to granary first then library. This city has enough food to regrow quickly so whipping a little will be ok.
In 3 turns will try to pick up IW and Math in trade for alpha.
The settler from Nidaros will go to the fish/ivory site. Our next city will depend on the location of iron so no need to worry about that yet.
Good suggestion Admiral Kutzov to remove all signs/city placements and refresh. Will do so and post a suggested city site plan during my set.
I think we should take Buddhism. It gives an extra in Nidaros plus starts to stir up tension. You guys do want to fight, right?