Matrix1 - Ziggurat Addiction

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

That's a nice wrap-up, thanks. I'm pretty familiar with the mechanics but what I lack is a feeling for the situation and a set of rules for my thumbs to guide the speed of my expansion. Like, I get that we'll build lots of courthouses really fast but I'm not quite adept at judging how much faster this will enable our expansion to become. There is also mention of 3 settlers after the GW - with cottages for at least the western river and the capital to some extent. Those sound like economy-specialized cities but I'm not sure how many we need spec'd for military, for raw commerce and for research/espionage.

Would I be right to assume you need a commerce city with developped cottages to sustain 2 of other specializations, or is 1/3 too much/too little? Can we look forward to a 1/4 or 1/5 ratio with our mass zigg build?

Thanks a lot(!) for the response; until I get my bearings I'll try it on single player and keep an ear to the ground here.

 

[kolokol]

Hey guys, Sorry but I won't be active for a couple of day. My computer just died on me. Broken back light I think, so I can bearly see the screen. I plan on having it fixed in a couple of days
until then good luck

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

MtK
HT
MH << up
B << on deck
kol (hiatus)
IO (back in time for his set?)
AK

 

[Mikehendi]

Settler first sounds good to me.

Do we want to get a settler out before GW? I'd rather wait until after (we'll have GW earlier = free Gspy oxford earlier. Also, chances of missing it to some early building AI increase. Less capital development, if we build warriors-gw now and explore while growing the cap to size 5/6/7, we can get 3 settlers out after gw, the capital can easily handle that economically by then.)

Well? I'd like some more input here on this before playing my set.

Another plus for GW first is, since we'll have zigs almost immediately in new cities, we could settle farther away on a very juicy spot, or a good blocking spot.

 

[happyturtle]

I guess as long as none of our neighbors are particularly close, it's okay to delay settlers in favor of growth. Another worker or two might be good to slot in though, for pre-chopping and such.

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

Yeah, go for GW first. We'll be needing those EPs.

 

[Mikehendi]

OK, I'll be playing in a few hours!

 

[Mikehendi]

Inherited turn T44: Changed Uruk to a warrior (and it kept building warriors until starting the GW). I thought about fitting in a worker, but he wouldn't have useful things to do, as we'll only have 1 city for a while. On top of that, it would stagnate our already slow city growth.

T45: worker completes FP cottage. next turn start on another FP cottage.

T47: Mining in, start masonry. Spot very nice city site! If it is still available after GW, I'd settle this one first:

T49: Meet boudica.
T50: Bear eats our jungle explorer @23% odds. No big loss, new warriors are being sent out exploring/fogbusting.

T51: Some ancient researcher thinks we're a mediocre powerful nation (missed screenie somehow, sorry!


T53: Worker completes 2nd FP cottage, moves to 2nd Ivory next.

T56: I mistimed masonry+warrior completion, so I put 1 turn production in a granary.

T57: Maosnry --> BW

T63: Cap grows to size 5, end turnset.

I've been able to explore all nearby land, except for the jungle. There are a few good spots available to settle, let's hope that the AI's don't expand like crazies.

I've added a white dot in addition to the red and green dot. If we decide to settle a city on the incense (includes the wheat), it might be a better long-term spot then red/yellow.

Well, since it'll be some time before we have a settler, we can postpone this decision for a while. Let's see where copper is first.

The amazing gold/corn/cow/hills site:

This is Uruk, building the great wall:

I think we'll have BW in 6 turns, as one cottage is about to become a hamlet. The worker can chop 1-2 forests into the GW after completing the cottage (preferably from the riverside hill tiles or riverside grasslands), then go for a settler @ size 6, working the new cottage in addition to the others.


I've put down a few signs in the save for discussing current situation, they can be removed at the start of the next turnset.

Even though we'll get GW, I've put out a few fogbusters. It gives our future settlers a free passing through, keeps barb cities from spawning at 1-tile off a perfect location, and keeps an eye on how close the AI's are getting.

I'm NOT gonna forget the save this time

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

Man, that gold/corn/cow site looks awesome. Six non-gold hills + plains cow is pretty good production capability, while grassland corn + plains cow is decent food. Then we could either cottage or farm the rest. Making an irrigation chain from the nearby river to the corn is a must when we get CS. Irrigated Grassland Corn, mmmm... Corn on the Cob for all Sumerians!

Matrix
happyturtle
Mikehendi - just went
Beorn - up
kolokol
IO
Kutzov

Not sure who exactly is on deck... Depends on how fast they can get back.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

Nice job on the exploring! You found some sweet city sites. Agree the debate can wait until the GW finishes.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Man, that gold/corn/cow site looks awesome. Six non-gold hills + plains cow is pretty good production capability, while grassland corn + plains cow is decent food. Then we could either cottage or farm the rest. Making an irrigation chain from the nearby river to the corn is a must when we get CS. Irrigated Grassland Corn, mmmm... Corn on the Cob for all Sumerians!

[Lurker comment] Personally I'd farm the site, as it'll never be a huge commerce site (but the gold will cut maintenance), it is one of the best production sites I've seen playing the game. Farms give 12 extra (estimate, may be more) food including the resources, and the mines will take 10 of that surplus, so you'll be able to run a few workshops as well post biology. Of course that's if you're allowed to settle it.[/end lurker comment]

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Got the save, 2 main questions before I roll:

• How much axing do we want and on what tiles? While we're making a wonder I wouldn't mind having a hill or two handy, so I'm eyeing the river grass and plain hills for a chop.
  
• I rarely fogbust this early, although I see now that it would do me some good every now and then. How many of our 5 grunts can be spared for exploration?

We currently have 4 fogbusters and a lonely explorer in the Ethiopian south. Borders pop again in 13 turns so we'll have 1 less buster to worry about, then. For now I'd send the westmost fogbuster further west and rotate the other ones into the same positions, so as to keep our scout useful. The rotation would only take 6 turns, assuming we keep 4 busters. In 13 when the closest buster is no longer required I'd send him north (he also happens to be our only grunt with experience at the moment with 1/2, so he'll get woodsman faster).
Oh and I don't plan on roading anything since there will be no time and we want chops sooner than later.

If this sounds ok, I can play this tomorrow in time for dinner.

And btw lurkers, the green text is from lurker's comment: tags around your post - no text or color to add. Easier like that

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

How much axing do we want and on what tiles? While we're making a wonder I wouldn't mind having a hill or two handy, so I'm eyeing the river grass and plain hills for a chop.

We're improving our land so that when we get the GW out the city will be good to go. However, I wouldn't mind one chop. I was going to go on some tirade about keeping the forests on the plains hills but I realised that we're already working the elephants and cow which are better. So, go ahead and chop the plains hills in preparation for mines.

I don't think we should chop the two riverside forested flatland plains tiles yet. We can either build lumbermills on them (base 1f3h1c, railroad +1h) or workshops (base 2h1c, Guilds +1h, Chemistry +1h, Caste +1h). Which one we choose will depend on whether or not we will be utilizing Caste System or not, and whether or not we want the 1f that a lumbermill has. Workshops also come in earlier and get to their full potential earlier. The non-riverside forested flatland plains tiles are more easy, though. Workshops, definitely. Plains hills, mine. Grassland hill, mine, but maybe we'd want to turn it into a windmill later on. Riverside flat grasslands, cottage probably since we'll want to have the EP slider as high as possible, though we could have like one be a farm with the other two being cottages, to leverage a little more food. The non-riverside flat grassland, maybe cottage, but we don't have a whole lot of growth so we'd probably just leave it alone for a while since we have other better tiles for cottages to work. Maybe a farm there when we get Civil Service (irrigation chain from the lake). Our lone non-forested riverside flatland plains could work either as a cottage or a workshop, I doubt the forest will spread to it in time, but who knows.

Well, there's my thoughts on the capital's BFC.

 

[Mikehendi]

Got the save, 2 main questions before I roll:

• How much axing do we want and on what tiles? While we're making a wonder I wouldn't mind having a hill or two handy, so I'm eyeing the river grass and plain hills for a chop.
  
• I rarely fogbust this early, although I see now that it would do me some good every now and then. How many of our 5 grunts can be spared for exploration?

We currently have 4 fogbusters and a lonely explorer in the Ethiopian south. Borders pop again in 13 turns so we'll have 1 less buster to worry about, then. For now I'd send the westmost fogbuster further west and rotate the other ones into the same positions, so as to keep our scout useful. The rotation would only take 6 turns, assuming we keep 4 busters. In 13 when the closest buster is no longer required I'd send him north (he also happens to be our only grunt with experience at the moment with 1/2, so he'll get woodsman faster).
Oh and I don't plan on roading anything since there will be no time and we want chops sooner than later.

If this sounds ok, I can play this tomorrow in time for dinner.

And btw lurkers, the green text is from lurker's comment: tags around your post - no text or color to add. Easier like that

lurker's comment:


I usually stop exploring (continue later with 2-move units) after I've seen all land I possibly want to settle. You can do the rotation if you want, but I got them in place now before too many barb archers are spawning (getting fortify bonus). Well, I've listed the reasons I fogbust early before, but the most important reason for me is not having to escort the settlers (and watching AI expansion towards us).

I think you'll only have time for 1 (maybe 2) chop(s) into the GW before it completes naturally. If the AMAZING site hasn't gone yet after GW, I'd chop the settler also (no whipping in this cap IMO), and send them off together, while building a new worker in the cap.

If we research all allowed techs (first two colums - writing - priesthood - alphabet), and save priesthood for the last, we are probably able to give it a monument before we unlock ziggurats, which would be great!

I think we should ultimately farm up the gold/corn/cow/hills site. For now, improving recourses + hills is fine.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

If the AMAZING site hasn't gone yet after GW, I'd chop the settler also (no whipping in this cap IMO), and send them off together,

I agree.

If the AMAZING site hasn't gone yet after GW, I'd chop the settler also (no whipping in this cap IMO), and send them off together,

ditto

 

[happyturtle]

Or maybe even pile a couple of warriors at the spot and ambush any settler that arrives?

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Pre-turn: 2425BC, T63: Concensus reached on a halt to exploration for now. Mike thought of a nice fogbuster spot near the SE gold hills so I'll relocate our 2 S-SE fogbusters to try and coordinate more busting out of them. There's something strange ... in the neighbor hills ... who you gonna call?

T64:Barb archer spotted W of the city, could stir a problem by the plain hill while we work it.

T65: IT'S A GHOST! Lost barb as it moved away into the foggy fumes of incense.

IT: Win an arm wrestling match with the 0.6 injured bear. Spot a barb warrior crew near the SE gold fogbusting site.

T66: New fogbusting sites are reached, here's our new view:

Not perfect, but close enough for now.

T67: Barb warrior SE approached from the north so I moved the warrior east to try and hustle a brawling match across the river

IT: Success! 0.7 victory. Left unpromoted for now.

T68: FP cottage grows to Hamlet, BW in 1. Worker completes the cottage on FP #3.

2275BC, T69: BW => Discussion. Here are the two known sources of orange ore: One near arctic fish bay and the other by the jungle belt. They are not immediately accessible but one is close enough for the capital to grab it with culture. I'd get writing now for a quick lib in the capital, taking advantage of both the extra culture and beakers.

Neither look particularly appealing for settling at this instant; the south one is far away and to grab the north one, we either need a lot of culture or an oddly settled city. The closest to an ideal spot I can think of is W of the rice: coastal and a food source but still a jungle nightmare.

Worker is done and needs to move. He will surely go to chop the hill plains but hey, it's break time, I don't want to get a grievance from the union.

This cuts my set short a bit but we have a tech, a ressource and a worker move coming together and it's a 9 (mod 10) turn therefore orderly sets of 10 on round numbers can ensue.

Roster:

MtK
HT
MH
B just went
IO << Back on the 18th, therefore UP
AK << On deck
kol (hiatus)

 

[happyturtle]

We're probably safe to grab that copper with culture, if we want to wait that long before having axes. I doubt an AI will cross all that resourceless jungle to settle that spot any time soon.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

The question is, do we want/need to deny it from the Ethiopians? Locating iron could shed some light onto that, but a library first would help with securing the local source. I suggest Writing-IW.

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

The question is, do we want/need to deny it from the Ethiopians? Locating iron could shed some light onto that, but a library first would help with securing the local source. I suggest Writing-IW.

I was going to do some math regarding whether researching Mysticism and building a monument would get us there faster than researching Writing and building a Library, but looking at Uruk's culture, we'll be there in 7t. We won't even need to build a Monument or Library to get that copper.

I'll suggest researching either Mysticism or Archery. We can't research IW as per the variant.