MB3 - Old Testament Bunfight

[Earp]

0 - 1790 BC
Switch Bursa to a temple
MM Uskudar and Adrianople to be able to work all three improved BGs
Trade Situation
Rome - 24 gold - tech parity
Greece - 4 gold - down 4 techs
Persia - 0 gold - tech parity - lacks comm w/ Zulu, Babs, and Egypt
Zulu - 2 gold - down 2 techs - lacks comm w/ Persia
Celts - 36 gold - up Polytheism
Egypt - 4 gold - down writing - lacks comm w/ Persia
Babylon - 3 gold - down writing - lacks comm w/ Persia
Aztecs - 126 gold - tech parity
Iroquois - 26 gold - tech parity
Carthage - 41 gold - tech parity


1 - 1750 BC
Constantinople grows. Increase lux slider to 10%.
Celts still only civ with Poly. Everyone now has contact except the Zulu and Persia.
Sell Shaka contact with Persia for 8 gold.


2 - 1725 BC
MM Iznik to gain an extra food this turn.
Persia now has Philosophy.
Celts have Polytheism.
We should be able to get a 2fer soon. Both civs want a lot more than our 13gpt and 65 gold for the techs. Not that we would want to buy the techs at 2nd civ prices.


3 - 1700 BC
Constantinople Settler --> Settler
Iznik Warrior --> Warrior
Move Warrior to Adrianpole so that I can turn off the lux slider
No new techs


4 - 1675 BC
No new techs


5 - 1650 BC
A barb horseman appears near Brusa.
MM Adrianpole to gain more gold and still finish Temple in 2 turns
No new techs


6 - 1625 BC
Rome moves 3 warriors to mountain next to Uskudar
Last turn we were at tech parity with almost everyone. Persia had Philosophy and Celts had Polytheism.
Here is the tech situation now:
Rome - 24 gold - up Phil, CoL, MM, Poly
Greece - 0 gold - down Math
Persia - 0 gold - up Phil, CoL
Zulu - 0 gold - up Phil, CoL
Celts - 64 gold - up Phil, CoL, MM, Poly
Egypt - 0 gold - up Phil, CoL
Babylon - 29 gold - tech parity
Aztecs - 0 gold - up Phil, CoL
Iroquois - 26 gold - tech parity
Carthage - 345 gold - up Phil, CoL, MM, Poly

Sell WM to Carthage for 9 gold
Sell WM to Celts for 12 gold
Buy MM from Rome for WM, 9 gpt, and 137 gold
Sell WM to Babylon for TM and 29 gold
Sell WM to Iroquois for WM and 26 gold
Sell WM to Rome for 1 gold
Sell WM to Celts for 1 gold
Sell WM to Carthage for 1 gold
Trade WM with Babylon
Sell WM to Rome for 1 gold
Sell WM to Celts for 9 gold
Sell WM to Carthage for 9 gold
Trade Math to Greece for WM
Trade MM to Aztecs for CoL and WM
Sell WM to Rome for 4 gold
Sell WM to Celts for 1 gold
Trade MM to Zulu for WM and Philosophy
Trade WMs with Persia
Sell WM to Rome for 22 gold
Sell WM to Celts for 6 gold
Sell WM to Carthage for 11 gold
Trade WMs with Egypt
Sell WM to Celts for WM and 14 gold
Sell WM to Carthage for WM and 15 gold
Sell WM to Rome for 4 gold

Here is the tech situation now:
Rome - 129 gold - up Poly
Greece - 0 gold - down Phil, CoL, and MM
Persia - 0 gold - down MM
Zulu - 0 gold - tech parity
Celts - 21 gold - up Poly
Egypt - 0 gold - down MM
Babylon - 0 gold - down Phil, CoL, and MM
Aztecs - 0 gold - tech parity
Iroquois - 0 gold - down Phil, CoL, and MM
Carthage - 300 gold - up Poly

We gained the full WM, 38 gold, MM, CoL, and Philosophy, for 9 gpt. 3 civs are up Poly, 2 are at parity, 2 are down MM, and 3 are down 3 techs.

7 - 1600 BC
Adrianople Temple --> Warrior
Iznik and Constantinople grow. Increase lux slider to 10% and hire scientist in Iznik for 1 turn. A warrior will finish in Iznik next turn. Turn off science slider.
Sell WM for 7 gold.

The trading turn was very long and I am going to end early.

The Save

The scientist in Iznik should probably be fired next turn and the science slider put back on 10%.
I think the settler should found our next city where he is standing.
Now that we have the full WM, our two exploring workers should be brought home. We only have 9 units of our allowed 20, so disbanding them will not save us any money.
Don't forget to sell our WM each turn.

 

[Earp]

Here is a screenshot if anyone wants to make an updated dotmap. We should finish a settler next turn. I think our next settler should be sent west to grab the spice. The city will be in the middle of the jungle and not very productive, but the luxury will save us money the entire game. An escort should probably be sent with the settler. I think we should found next to the silks to the north for the same reason. I think we should then found another city SW of Adrianople before expanding east.

 

[Northern Pike]

Oh-oh, I don't think those Roman warriors next to Uskudar are there on a package tour. I think we have to establish an embassy with the Romans and then pay them whatever they want for an RoP agreement, right now. It'll be expensive, but if the Romans sneak-attack Uskudar and then advance on Constantinople, game over.

Superb exploitation of the Map Making opportunity, Earp.

 

[mad-bax]

OK. I'm UP.

I'll have a go at a dot map before playing. I'll try to get to it today, but more likely I will play over the weekend.

As NP says, it could be a very short game.

 

[mad-bax]

I've just downloaded the save and had a closer look.
Neither the Romans or the Celts have iron that they can hook up any time soon. So just to state the obvious, it would probably not be a good idea to hook up our iron at the moment.

To me the Romans look to be a good early target. (But maybe not on my turns).

 

[Karasu]

Another example of great trading. Earp!

Looking at the WM, it seems that we are in the middle of a crossroads; we are going to watch a lot of troop movements through our territory...


On city locations, I love the tile where the settler is.
I also agree that the next two are well placed next to luxuries. Spices fist, lest someone else grabs them.
The Silk City would be 3N of Consty, right?

After that, we may keep on expanding towards the Celts, or place a city to the SE (more or less where the two small lakes meet), even though it may get settled in the meantime.

Should Adri build a Granary next?

I sadly have agree on preparing for an "early" war -many of you already know that I am more a peaceful-builder type of player...
On the other hand, it is possible that the Romans have already made a choice for us, targeting our growing empire first ":crossfingers:"...

 

[mad-bax]

No SG is complete without one. So here is my first stab.

Yellow dot already has a settler on it

Mauve dot is a coast/river location that gets the spices and has the most economical roadin route to the core.

Green dot is on a BG and not wet, but is on the 4.5 RCP radius. It is very close to Iznik, but this doesn't concern me. It is a given site so obviously low priority (if at all).

Dk Blue dot is wet and has lots of BG's.

Red dot is on the 4.5 radius and gets the silks (but will need a temple or better a library pretty quick).

Light blue dot is on the horse. A difficult placement which will require Lugdunam to be razed. Again it's on the 4.5 ring.

White dot is Wet and can use the wheat. I sited this tile as a proposal for the FP site. Green Dot and Iznik are both on another 4.5 RCP ring.

So what I need to know is which of these dots should be moved and what order of priority would you place on them?

 

[Earp]

I like your dotmap. I would settle them yellow, purple, red, blue, green.

We are paying Rome 9 gpt. Hopefully that is some incentive for them not to sneak attack us.

 

[TedJackson]

Looks OK to me except for the horse Southish from Lugdunum looks a tight squeeze and are you certain the White is actually on a river?

My priorities would be Yellow, Red, Blue, Purple. Things will have changed too much to go further than that.


Ted

 

[Karasu]

The first five sites (red, cyan, mauve, yellow, blue) seem perfect.

I fear the white is not on a river. 1SW and 1N1NW should have access to water, but in the first case we have lots of jungle and in the second we should probably reconsider Green...

Priority:
1: Yellow for sure.
2: Red. It's fast to get there, and if Lugdunum's borders expand we loose the Silks.
3: If we want to settle Cyan, we should try to hurry for the same reason. But then we'd risk that the AI settles our southern borders in the meantime.
4: It's blue/mauve to be decided later on.

As an option to FP in white, we could build it in Iznik (Const, Ad and Bu are all 4.5 around it, btw). That might cover the area within all those mountain ranges pretty well, and leave us the chance for a Palace jump/rush anywhere else (sorry if this is a stupid idea).

 

[mad-bax]

I hope I have kept everyone happy with what I did here. The good news is we're still alive.

Turnlog.
1600BC: Pre-turn.
Build Embassy in Rome for 40g
Rome has no improvements, is building the Colossus which will complete in 5 turns. It is producing 6spt and 2 surplus food per turn. It grows to size 6 next turn and will get a clown for it's trouble. The 13gpt it is making (1 corrupt) is all going into beakers. So the Romans are researching at 100%.
Rome is polite towards us and a declaration now would be an ROP rape anyway. I don't think an ROP agreement which would cost 56g would help us.
Adrian changed to settler.

IBT:
Roman units waltz past Uskadar towards the Celts.
Constantinople Settler - Settler
Iznik warrior - settler

1575BC:
New settler starts journey to mauve dot. Will pick up escort at Uskadar.
Found Izmit - Warrior
Start to move 2 exploring warriors home.
Trading position unchanged.
Give Izniks Scientist a shovel.
Science slider to 10%

IBT:
No news

1550BC:
A couple of worker turns.
Trading situation unchanged.

IBT:
Aztech warrior moves next to undefended Uskadar.

1525BC:
Warrior moves into Uskadar.
Trading situation unchanged.

IBT:
Caesar wants to exchange WM for WM +1g. OK.

1500BC:
Const. and Adrian get an expansion.
Trading situation again unchanged.

IBT:
Adrian Settler - rax
Romans finish Colossus on queue
Big cascade to Pyramids which the Zulu complete.
Aztecs cascade to Lighthouse. The others dump their shields

1475AD:
Adrians Settler starts towards dark blue spot.
MM to give Adrian the wheat and rduce the time to Izniks settler.

IBT:
Cartahgians want to trade WM for WM + 1g. Not sure really. But I do it anyway.
Constantinople settler - warrior.
Persians start lighthouse.
Zulu start lighthouse.

1450BC:
Found Aydin - warrior (Spices)
Trading Situation unchanged.

IBT:
No News

1425BC:
Found Antalya - Warrior
Rome and Egypt have Literature.
Greece has a worker.
The Celts and Carthags who have Poly but no Lit value Poly much higher than the others value Lit. So no 2fer availble.
The worker is tempting as I haven't built any. In the end I decide not to trade yet. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me.

IBT:
We get FP message.
Uskadar rax - warrior
Egypt start GL

1400BC:
Found Konya near silks (Red dot) - spear (should be temple but I'm a coward).
Carthags now have Lit.

IBT:
Constantinople warrior - settler
Iznik settler - rax

1375BC:
Izniks settler goes SE.
The Celts have currency.
So I trade carthags lit for 148g +1gpt + WM. But I screwed up, as Poly is still a rip off and we would not want to buy currency at 1st civ prices. We can't afford currency anyway.

IBT:
Romans start GL

1350BC:
Settler wanders onto green dot.
MM a couple of towns to maximise commerce. This can obviously be reversed.

Unlike those who went b4 I am a complete trading failure.

Here is the empire.

And here is the unzipped <<save>>.

 

[mad-bax]

Ted: You were right about white dot. It isn't on the river. My mistake. It needs to go one tile west.

Lugdunum is popping settlers ATM so it won't have culture soon. But maybe the next settler should go on the horses anyway. It's an aggressive site, but I think it would be a good move.

BTW: Space - You're UP (again).

 

[a space oddity]

Nice progress on the growth, Mad. Trading is all about opportunity, if it isn't there it just isn't and that's that.

UP again I'm having a full week with the SGs, glad I took yesterday evening off.

edit: ...forgot to add "got it".

 

[TedJackson]

Originally posted by mad-bax
Ted: You were right about white dot. It isn't on the river. My mistake. It needs to go one tile west.

Erm... would that be one tile EAST? Or are we going to take a timeshare in Hispalis?


Ted

 

[mad-bax]

Look I've had a hard day OK?

 

[Northern Pike]

Fine expansion turn, mad-bax. I'm amazed that we've managed to settle all our primary objectives, except for a city to the NW of Constantinople.

I like the dotmap--or perhaps that should be "liked", since you've settled so many of the indicated sites that it's now largely redundant.

Karasu, I think building the FP in Iznik and performing a palace jump later could be exactly the right idea here, though of course it's too early to know.

 

[Northern Pike]

It seems to me that our settler presently on green dot should not settle there. There's a remarkable amount of open land to our east, for deity; but it won't stay open long, and we need to be at least mildly aggressive in settling it. We can found on green dot whenever we want.

The relatively cautious play would be to settle on the river two tiles east of green dot (green +2E). This would provide a fourth city 4.5 from our potential FP location of Iznik. Or if we're feeling a little more daring, we could try to claim the eastern iron (or even iron plus wine?) with the settler now on green dot, and then fill in the hole in our position by founding on green +2E with the settler now building in Constantinople.

Perhaps we needn't be thinking in terms of an early war. It's easier to settle land than fight for it, and there's quite a lot left to settle. If we're confident we can carve up an ironless opponent, that's another matter, of course.

 

[a space oddity]

@NP: that was what I was thinking too, it seems a shame the use that settler there when so much land is still available (although the info is probably not quite up-to-date). I was thinking to build some vet archers. I think we need some to have a decent chance when some AI decides it wants to fight us, or maybe just to convince them we are not weak. If we decide to go to war soonish we'd have a head start.

 

[Earp]

I like the idea of sending the settler on green dot to the location with iron/wine. He should settle on the hill E of the iron. I am not sure if he will get there soon enough, but it wouldn't hurt to try. I think the settler being built should be sent to Green+2E.

 

[mad-bax]

I think the Iron/wine location is a fine idea. We will be able to settle at least a dozen towns by 1000BC and aggressively going after the third lux is a luxury we can afford. Also on a standard map with too many civs on it, taking another iron out of the game will give the AI something to think about. Green dot was only on the dot map because it is an available 4.5 distance tile. Actually I would suggest we never settle it because it shares too many tiles with Iznik for my taste.

Rather than build archers I would continue to build warriors for the moment, but this opinion I have to say is mainly due to my distaste for the archer upgrade path.

The Zulus have built the pyramids and have expanded aggressively. I am thinking that the pyramids would be a highly valuable commodity on this map. The Celts seem to have missed the iron boat. So I would suggest that our first military push should be North West, with swords at first, gradually replaced with horses. Fighting the Impi with horses is much preferred since the impi cannot retreat from them.

Finally, Space: you will notice that Izmit and Iznik both need several tiles improved in the near future.
Izmit in particular will be a fine worker pump once it has a granary. Unfortunately it needs to make 7 spt to knock them out every other turn because of corruption.

Really finally, I would go with the FP in Iznik otherwise we could find ourselves at 1000AD still looking for a site and a leader for the FP, and on deity that's not good.

Can anyone tell I've had a