MSTK1 - Monarch (Training?) Game

[dalgo]

Sounds OK to me. I've got it, will play today.

 

[Symphony D.]

lurker's comment:

:shakehead Sorry... Not a good idea....

Lets see 2 workers paired up will build a road in 1 turn... Yep...True...
Step-Step (Turn 1) -Road-Road (Turn 2)
Step-Step (Turn 3) -Road-Road (Turn 4)
In 4 turns using 2 workers... Thats 2 roaded tiles. Notice this is 8 worker turns! (2 worker turns per 'turn')

Doing it seperatly
Step (Turn 1) -Road (Turn 2) -Road (Turn 3)
Step (Turn 1) -Road (Turn 2) -Road (Turn 3)
Will require only 6 worker turns.

Stacking workers is a good idea when Mining/Irrigating/Clearing allready roaded tiles. But to road? Best do it with 1 worker if you want to be efficient with your worker turns.

You actually get to use the roads rather than waiting for them though. If you have a team of 4 workers leapfrogging you will get a road up and running far faster over a longer distance than if you sent one worker out for each tile. Plus you can use it in the meantime. It results in a cumulative time advantage, not a short term one. Unless my internal math is wrong, which it very well could be.

 

[Bede]

You're both right....

namliaM's approach is better for town development: road two fields, than stack to develop one (irrigate or mine), then split up to road two more.

SymphonyD's approach works when you want to go a longer distance, like in the mddle of a war and you need a road to the front, or across enemy territory.

 

[dalgo]

NIce set of turns mate. I wonder will I ever be able to plan things as throughly as you do guys, instead of just doing stuff that "feels" right at the moment :/

That's what I normally do too. But this game is forcing me to think ahead. I usually have just one course of action so I'm finding it helpful to hear other opinions. I'm not very good at dot maps either so am especially glad of this:

I propose sending Washington's Settler to Purple Dot as you suggest and Boston's to Lime Dot. Then to consolidate support costs it might be better to get out two more Settlers and send them to Red and Yellow or Yellow and Orange before revolting. It might actually be better to go Red and Yellow because then Gems can be colonized rather than having to stick Workers on that mountain for however many turns.

Pre-turn:
Since everyone else has The Wheel I check for trades. France or England will do a straight swap for Writing. Inca and the Netherlands already have Writing and want Philosophy or Code of Laws for it. England is the weakest civ at present so I trade with them.

We have horses In fact Washington is sitting on them. There are also horses near purple dot and on the empty peninsula to our west. It looks like France has missed out though which is to our advantage.

Change Seattle to Curragh, NY to Barracks and move a few swordsmen for defence. Hit Enter.

IBT - Boston: Settler => Settler
Seattle: Curragh => Worker
Chicago: Barracks => Worker

Turn 1 – 1250 BC: Rename our curragh: ‘Discovery’ and send it off to hopefully find the missing civs. Move workers to hook up lux and Boston settler towards lime dot with a warrior escort.

IBT - Washington: Settler => Settler

Turn 2 – 1225 BC: Unfortunately the Dutch have beaten us to purple dot presumably to secure the horses there. OK we go with plan B and wait for the Atlanta temple to complete. So that leaves red or yellow dot for the settler. I choose red on the basis that we are more likely to lose it than yellow.

Revolution: We draw 4 turns I go through the towns and have to hire a few clowns. Washington and Philadelphia are at zero growth but no one is negative.

Turn 3 – 1200 BC: Miami built on lime dot. Move some regular warriors around and disband them and the scouts.

IBT – Atlanta: Temple => Mausoleum of Mausollos (Zeus pre-build)
Greece completes the Colossus
Dutch switch to Pyramids (lets hope they win that race)

Turn 4 – 1175 BC: Gem colony created. Washington and Philly clowns can go.

Turn 5 – 1150 BC: Houston built at red dot. Boston grows and needs a clown.

Turn 6 – 1125 BC: America is now a Republic. Our total commerce is now 93 per turn compared with 48 under Despotism. Army support is only 14 gpt. I disbanded our regular warriors but I did keep one veteran warrior and I now send him to our gem colony, as there is a French warrior sniffing round it.

Inca and the Netherlands have Mapmaking, which they would swap for Code of Laws, but they don’t have any cash to go with it.

Turn 7 – 1100 BC: France sold Maths to the Dutch then traded it to the Inca for Mapmaking and all their cash. So I trade Code of Laws to the Inca for Mapmaking + Mathematics + 35 gold (we only saved one turn on Maths). Horseback Riding in 4.

IBT – Seattle: Worker => Harbour
Philadelphia: Sword => Sword

Turn 8 – 1075 BC: Move workers around. I hate rivers. Move the slider back a notch, HR in 3.

IBT – Boston: Settler => Settler
Chicago: Worker => Archer (can change to Horseman later)
French Warrior enters our territory

Turn 9 – 1050 BC: I politely ask the French to leave but he says he is just taking a shortcut home. Hmm. I move some defence to Washington just in case. The Boston settler heads for yellow dot. I send the new worker to chop the silk forest near Miami. This silk produces 6 gold but Miami needs food so isn’t being worked at present. The chop will also help build the temple. Discovery passes the great fur farm at Marseilles.

IBT – Washington: Settler => Settler
French warrior moves next to Washington.

Turn 10 – 1025 BC: I’ve run out of dots so I send the settler west. We have that peninsula blocked off by land but the Dutch have mapmaking and are seafaring so I would expect them to land there at some stage. The gold hill mine completes. It is worth 6 gold so should be worked each turn (it is within the radius of three towns).

We are ahead in tech with Horseback Riding due in 1 and the other civs are still in Despotism. We also have some gold in the bank for a change. Looking good.

Screen shot to follow.

 

[Bede]

Looks like it's over to TGOM, got it and will play today.

Guess I shouldn't be in such a lather, there's no save posted yet. I'll try to contain myself

 

[dalgo]

Sorry Bede, here it is:

 

[Bede]

No problem, I was just getting ahead of myself, should read the logs first

 

[dalgo]

America in 1025 BC

 

[namliaM]

lurker's comment:

SymphonyD's approach works when you want to go a longer distance, like in the mddle of a war and you need a road to the front, or across enemy territory.

For roading to the front lines OR ofcourse 'new' frontlines... Offcourse stack away... to road or to Rail...

Roading like that can be efficient with up to 6 workers leap-frogging their way to the other side of the continent if needed.

Railing I am not sure... Never tried that... I guess as many tiles * as many workers ... it takes to rail in 1 turn.

But yeah in general for "normal" development, dont stack. unless there is a road.

 

[Bede]

Trained some swords, built some catapults, swapped Atlanta to SoZ, researched Literature, sent three settlers to the western peninsula and founded three towns.

Reinforced Miami and swapped the temple build to a library.

Set up Chicago to settler abandon on the IT. When the pop-up asksif you want to abandon, answer yes, move 1 SW and re-build.

Opened an embassy with the Dutch and fended off Pacha's demand for the Republic.

Now researching Currency due in 5 at a deficit but with plenty in the bank and a scientist at Philly.

Rheims is ripe for the plucking if anybody wants to start a war.

The other nations remain broke and ignorant.

 

[MSTK]

ack, I'll be on vacation until the 16th. Same reason that caught me last SG.

 

[dalgo]

MSTK, I'd be happy to take over roster duties while you are away if you like.

Had a look at the save. Great job Bede. Are you sure 7 swordsmen and a cat are enough for Rheims Where next for them? Marseilles for the lux or Paris which would virtually take the French out of the game. I suggest some horsemen next to give us more flexible defence while our swords are away.

If we mine the Iron Mt at Atlanta we can speed up Zeus a bit. The curragh approaches Andahuaylas where the coastal water extends offshore either to an island or the other continent.

Nice of Amsterdam to build our Pyramids for us

 

[Bede]

....
Had a look at the save. Great job Bede. Are you sure 7 swordsmen and a cat are enough for Rheims Where next for them? Marseilles for the lux or Paris which would virtually take the French out of the game. I suggest some horsemen next to give us more flexible defence while our swords are away.

Horses would be good, but I would wait for Currency to finish, then short rush them to get them down quick. Buy an embassy with Inca and ally with them against France that will keep his javelin guys busy and tie up France in the east.

If we mine the Iron Mt at Atlanta we can speed up Zeus a bit. The curragh approaches Andahuaylas where the coastal water extends offshore either to an island or the other continent.

I debated doing that but it is going to tie up a fair number of worker turns that could be better employed elsewhere. The best way to shave turns off the build is add some workers to get the population up and get replacements from Washington or even Boston.

The SoZ build would never have worked at Emperor in a pop4 town, BTW. THe AI production discount would have doomed it.

Nice of Amsterdam to build our Pyramids for us

Only problem is they are a long ways away and might just cost us SoZ if an offshore nation builds them.

 

[dalgo]

Only problem is they are a long ways away and might just cost us SoZ if an offshore nation builds them.

I hadn't thought of that. The Dutch would have already had a lot of shields in the box when they switched to the Pyramids so hopefully they are ahead. All we can do is push ahead with Zeus as fast as possible. I like your idea of merging workers to speed it up. If we do lose out there will always be another Wonder to switch to, right up to Sun Tzu if necessary.

 

[Melhisedek]

Sorry for the delay, I'll play later today...

 

[dalgo]

Good luck with the


Current Roster:

Symphony D. <-- On Deck
dalgo
Bede
Melhisedek <-- Playing today
MSTK <-- On Vacation until the 16th

 

[Melhisedek]

Here it comes guys:

T1:
built another Sword and Settler, and build some infrastructure, sent settler to "nice spot for fishing camp"

T2:
Order Cat from Houston and Inca start Oracle... I've never used Catapults or Arties before so this will be interessting Ordering troops to Miami

T3:
We loose quite a bit of gpt and with 2 turns left on Currency I can lower it to 80%. As we want Embassy with Inca we need money so I consider trading Literature with Incas and Dutch (30G each) its pretty low I know, and it is probably wrong decision, and I decide to wait a turn and see if I can lower science some more next turn... Need a clown in Boston :/

T4:
I can't lower science slider not a budge :/ So we get down to 16G and have currency. I decide to trade Literature with everyone... 33Incas, 35 Dutch and 13 French.

T5:
Currency is finished and I order Construction, Build Embassy with Inca... I lower science to 40 and set Lux to 10...

Sadly I need to fix a few things now before declaring on French. I'll finish rest of turns in couple of hours...

Save:

 

[Melhisedek]

Here comes the rest:

T5 cont:
I declare war on French, and get Incas to join in for Currency...


T6:
We loose one Sword and raze Reines I decide to move our troops to take Rouen and Marseilles...

T7:
Scoting a bit and regrooping...

T8:
Sending army to Houston and Miami to take on North part of France...

T9:
I'm still building Army units in case some of out neigbours decide that we are a bit weak... I see now I should have prepared units before declaring and send them out to borders, we are loosing turns :/

T10:
Found Baltimore, destroyed Rouen, near Marseilles and dispatched settler that way. We need more settlers... I also sent way too many troops south, so they need to travel back north I'm not used to wars this early on. Zeus statue in 4.

That would be it for now
Save:

 

[dalgo]

Great set of turns Mel. 2 French towns down and Marseilles next giving us another lux. No retaliation yet so your alliance with the Incas must have worked, I see one Inca town has gone.

Current Roster:

Symphony D. <-- Up Next
dalgo <-- On Deck
Bede
Melhisedek <-- Just Played
MSTK <-- On Vacation until the 16th

 

[Bede]

Way to hit 'em Mel. Roll on forward. AC's will help. Short rush a barracks in Atlanta when SoZ finishes.