Math01 - My first SG: OCC Space Race

My goodness! We had some striking luck there didn't we, what with no losses to barbs, and the suicide runs. So very nice turns, Renata -- luck tends to follow good choices, as my old man would say.

Renata said:
A question: when does MoM expire?
It doesn't, I think.

Renata said:
Why not currency next after math?
Yes, do this. The name of this game is economy.

Mathias said:
Builds: After MoM, I would like to start prebuild for next wonder.
Definitely Lighthouse. GW and GLH are the same shield cost, so they'll both give the same tourism, yet we get nothing out of the GW, and an extra boat move out of the GLH. At least it's something. (As far as my old eyes can see, we're surrounded by ocean, so we won't get trade out of the GLH...)

Renata said:
True enough about the cash going away, but if it keeps the neighbors happy enough not to march 17 swords up to our doorstep it might be worth it.
I'm ok with embassies with the neighbors. Definitely don't bother with the other continent.

Edit: X-post with Chuck. Hi, Chuck! :wavey:
 
I don't see Japan as so much of a threat. He's lagging behind Russia, and apparently lacks iron. He will inevitably end up in a war with Russia, and I'd rather not have Russia in a clearly superior position.

See my worker plan for the previous turnset to see how we could have been fully-developed. I think I'd be beating a dead horse to ramble about this much longer.

Construction before currency just in case we can't get map making. In either order, we will have both before we are ready to build market. We will be running 0% to treasury for most of the time, so the market will only pay for itself after we can trade for luxuries.

The barb camps in the west that our curraghs sighted have already been cleared by the AI, otherwise they would still be on the map. The AI knows where the camps are without looking for them, and will send units directly. We do need to hunt down barb camps, but we need to be hunting in the east where there is less competition. We won't actually have to pay for maps. We can add them to our tech deals.

The Great Wall is for tourism only. Besides a marketplace and harbor, what else are we going to build?

I have not experienced such aggression this early in any OCC. I have only had war when I refused to give in to AI demands. They will be happy to sell us luxuries when trade routes are open, for which we may need even more gold.

The Mausoleum does not expire.

I'm off to bed. The next few days are busy for me, with only a couple of hours in the afternoon for game discussion.
 
Just another thought: We can probably sell the temple if we want to dump some culture (up to 4cpt now) and maintenance cost. MoM will keep us good at 10% lux even after the Golden Age ends, and keeping it won't allow 0%.

We did have good luck with the suicide runs. Counting dl's dash over to the island, we're up to six turns in a row without sinking. Even with seafaring trait, there's less than 20% chance of that. Early contact with other continents is so nice.

Who's up next?

Renata
 
I can take it now, if Khan doesn't mind. I'll play tonight or tomorrow morning.
 
Okay so here are the next 15 turns:

Save

Preturn- No changes.

Turn 1--1350bc: Workers finish road, I'll move them to mine the wheat. They'll be done in three turns. Our archer kills a horse in the barb camp, no hitpoint loss. I take Mathias's advise and disband the archer far afield. Contact everybody, but there's nothing really worth trading for. I could trade for Russia's 96 gold, but not without giving up one of our monopoly techs, and I think we could get a better deal later. I move the warrior to the mountain for a commanding view.

Turn 2--1325bc: We disperse the barbarian camp, getting 25 gold, and revealing a fortified warrior at the tip of the peninsula. I'll take care of him eventually. Kick Sci back 10%, no loss in research time and +3gpt.

Turn 3--1300bc: Nothing really to report. Curraghs still exploring.

Turn 4--1275bc: Workers finish mining wheat, move to wines. Start mine, three times. Mapmaking next turn. Can't turn science back, though. However, I do shift a citizen to work a sea tile for an extra trade, +4gpt. We still get MoM in 3 turns.

Turn 5--1250bc: We get MM, and start to research Math, 4 turns at 60%. We kill the warrior at the end of the penninsula, lose a hitpoint. The slave finishes his road, I sell him back to the Japanese for 23 gold, all I could get.

Turn 6--1225bc: Move yet another citizen to work the coast. Math back to 50%, +10 gpt.

Turn 7--1200bc: MoM built. Sell temple, set lux back to 10%, +18gpt. Build an archer in 1 turn. I figure that if there's a massive uprising, we could use the extra bow.

Turn 8--1175bc: Archer build, set production to the light house. It'll take 9 turns, so we didn't lose any turns by building that archer first (last turn it said ten turns). Not so coincidently, the workers finish mining the wines. I see the hint of a yellow border near the southern curragh. I'll make contact next turn.

Turn 9--1150bc: Discover Math, I set research on Construction at 90%, -11 gpt, we get it in six turns. The yellow is Cleopatra. I sell her Alpha for 50 gold. Begin to mine the grassland SE of London. Could have got 3 slaves from Russia plus some gold for Math, but given what was said earlier, I pass it up.

Turn 10-1125bc: Not a lot to do.

Turn 11-1100bc: About the same. Still can't kick the research rate back.

Turn 12-1075bc: Workers finish mining. I send them to road other tiles in our city radius. Might as well.

Turn 13-1050bc: Not too much.

Turn 14-1025bc: Construction next turn. Set research to 80%, -4 gpt.

Turn 15-1000bc: We discover construction. I set research to currency. Estimated in 5 turns, but when our GA ends, it'll be more. We can build the Lighthouse in two turns, if we want to make it the Great Wall, that'll be the group's call.
 
Why do we need to go for GW? Only culture, no use at all. The tech pace on monarch is extremely slow, so we can't afford going for too many wonders now and be forced to avoid the musts like Cops, Newton and Shakes. I'd consider a cultural win as a loss...
I've got it, expect update tonight.
 
We wasted 5 turns studying Map Making.
Khan, please do not continue without further discussion.
 
Wait wait wait -- I thought you wanted us to go for mapmaking. You were speaking of the Great Lighthouse, and twice downplayed the worth of a market. That being the case, what's the difference between maps-math-constr-currency and math-constr-currency-maps? We'll be able to use GW as a prebuild for a market in a couple of turns. In the meantime we could even build a harbor so as not to lose food when working the highest-commerce tiles, and so as to have trading opportunities once our neighbors get around to it. (edit: nevermind; we'll be out of the GA one the Lighthouse is built)

Renata
 
The difference is that four of our rival now have Map Making. We could easily trade Math or CoL to get MM.

Also, we will not be able to run 10% lux without a temple. Outside of our GA, we have 54 base commerce if we work 12 land tiles. This gives us 5 happy at 10%, but we need 6 without temple.
 
OK. I'll look this tonight, but will only check the save and post my thoughts.
After, I'll do my turns tomorrow morning or late tonight.
 
One last thing before I sign off. I would like to irrigate rather than mine the 4 unused grasses. I'll be back in about 9 hours, then I will have less than 2 hours to read and post.
 
I just took a glance and everything looks great.

I can't see what happened with the tech situation, but I'll just type this out loud <steps on to podium>: everyone check trades every turn. We want to be researching a new tech as much as possible. It's probably not worth trading for a monopoly, but when a tech that we don't have starts getting traded around, we should grab it if we have the means. In other words, take care of your mapstat, and it will take care of you. :)

<trips off podium, falls flat on face>

Ok, finish currency then start the burn toward astronomy. I considered gifting everyone, or only the sci civs, up to the MA soon, to hopefully nab free techs with our rep monopoly, but there are only 2 sci civs, so forget that.

Builds: I don't feel strongly about anything here. I'm not excited about market since we have so much in the bank, and I'm not excited about harbor yet since IMO the ai's are slow to build them, and trade is the only reason we want one. So do whatever. I'd suggest building a couple of spears to replace our warriors. Oh yes, and build embassies with our neighbors -- it'll increase relations, reducing demands. I don't care what they demand on the other continent, say no. A little war happiness and we'll be able to sell our temple.

At some point we're gonna want to peel off new workers, to merge back in when we can. Workers can be our food bin. But not yet, I think, don't wanna spend the unit support yet...
 
*headdesk* Many apologies on the temple thing; I was calculating for one of the citizens working the coast and didn't even realize it. I should just keep my mouth shut when I'm that sleepy.

Edit @ Mach -- the temple's already gone -- Chuck apparently took my midnight ravings at face value. :cry: Three turns to rebuild. The shield loss from being forced to work a coast tile doesn't become noticeable until we start building something that costs 160 shields or more, though, so there's time.

If we want it, engineering will give us a bit more flexibility, because we have four tiles (three on river and currently being worked, one off-river and not able to be worked until the temple is rebuilt) that could benefit from forests. If I'm calculating corrently (and I think I am this time), we could forest two tiles and still run a food surplus or three tiles and run at -1fpt for up to 40 turns (assuming we have a harbor if we're still working the coast tile). That'd allow up 25 spt sustainably once we have the temple back, or 26spt at food loss. 25spt would be very nice to have for building Copernicus.

Renata
 
Actually I've considered pulling up the scientific civs too, for 2 reasons.
First, there can be a trade to be done that can save us a lot of turns of research. Republic is a valuable tech and medieval techs are really expensive.
Second, even if we don't manage to trade, this will cheapen the research price and will be worth.
Also, I think that we must gift republic around to help research. And we must avoid wars, they slow down the pace. So we can cave to the reasonnable demands. I would really like to avoid researching ourselves every tech up to robotics in an OCC.
Also, lets build embassies all around. We'll be able to see the wars and help an eventual losing civ to sign peace with techs gifting. Briefly, I'm against taking a serious tech lead in this game, at least until Modern Age.
 
Oh, the temple is gone. Okie dokie, build it again.

That engineering-forest idea is a good one, although running 0fpt will mean no skimmed workers for us. So we should do it but keep in mind we'll want to undo it someday well before we get the shakes/hospital.

What does everyone think about tech gifting? We don't need to do it right away, we can wait until they've gotten closer to the MA first. Also, I was considering gifting everyone, actually, not just the sci civs -- I'd hate to give two civs such a big upper hand over the others...
 
I see no problem in gifting tech to everyone we know.
EDIT: Checked the save. Will play tomorrow morning european time. Have nothing more to say about tactic or game management.
 
Renata said:
Edit @ Mach -- the temple's already gone -- Chuck apparently took my midnight ravings at face value. :cry:
Renata

Sorry about that...But it'll give us something to build besides wonders, and we don't have to worry about its culture doubling.

Another note...I did check trades every turn, but nobody had anything worth trading for. I could have traded a monopoly tech for 140 to the russians, but other than that, the best trade was writing for 25 gold from (i think) the Sumerians. We didn't need any gold, having over 500 in the treasury at one point during my administration. Therefore, I decided no trade was in our best interest and didn't trade.

Edit: Tech gifting would be okay with me. Are we talking about gifting republic, or what?
 
ChuckDizzle said:
Another note...I did check trades every turn
Yeah, I figured you did; from your description, it sounds like you did just right in this respect. My comments weren't directed at you necessarily, but Mathias brought it up so I figured I'd make it clear. If I've learned anything about sg's, it's to speak the obvious when in doubt. :)

Chuck said:
Are we talking about gifting republic, or what?
Actually, we're talking gifting all required first age techs. That way, the scientific civs will get their free techs, and we'll still have our republic and literature monopolies to help trade for them. At the very least, it will reduce some research costs. I didn't think this was a good idea at first, but then it's gotten some positive response, so I'm starting to rethink. Now I'm waiting for our heavy hitters (:wavey: Mathias and Renata!) to check in on this one...
 
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