New SG - Monarch, Standard Settings, Continents, Large Map

[tycoonist]

So a few observations..

Popping the hut undoubtedly right and bad luck versus the barbs...

Stone. The stone for us is a complete red herring. Our next border pop is a long way away (55turns) so forget leveraging it for any early wonders (Henge / Pyramids). If we wanted it quciker we would be settling a very marginal city (deer / stone) when there are far better sites available.

Research post BW. I would look at Agri, AH to Writing as each one is a useful tech by itself with crops to be farmed and Cows/ pigs (later) to be hooked up which will be useful for our next few cities. Before researching the relatively expensive tech of Iron Working I would have a library plus two scientists up in our capital as we will get to IW a lot faster.

I would slip in the wheel only if we have copper on hand so we can hook it up to produce Axemen.

Micro Management. It looks to me as if we we could have switched a citizen to the three hammer hill a couple of turns ago once we hit size 2 . This would have got our worker started a turn earlier and so accelerated our progress slightly. A detailed nit picking MM point but as you go up the difficulty levels it is good for these to become second nature.

SO decisions for the team to discuss

Research path post BW.

Build post WB, Worker Warrior or vice versa?

just to quickly pick up on a couple of points here:

initial setup of the capital is crucial. we should have been working the highest hammer tile immediately to get the WB out ASAP.

we have three options for next build: worker, warrior or WB

on the one hand, warrior might be the best choice: i can't see much land explored so that might be a problem for planning cities.

on the other hand we could build a worker. i'm not leaning towards this one much as there isn't much for him to do apart from build mines and chop forests.

on the (third???) hand, we have an interesting opportunity to grow to size 3 before pumping out the first worker. this has the advantage of added growth and more commerce early on but might come at the price of an earlier settler.


personally i would go straight for another WB, as our worker won't have much to do at the start and i don't think a new warrior is necessary quite yet.

whichever we choose the city setup should be the same: on the first turn, settle the WB and switch the workers around: one to the clams the other to the 3 hammer hill. this will allow Rome to grow to size 3 using a +2 food surplus to coincide with the completion of the WB/warrior if that is chosen. then working 2 clams and the 3 hammer hill, pump out a worker. if we choose the worker option then we should work the same tiles for maximum production/commerce.

 

[scrubkai]

Question...
Do you all check in on what tiles your cities are working every turn for all your cities throughout the entire game, or do you just check every turn at first and some lesser amount after that?

 

[tycoonist]

Question...
Do you all check in on what tiles your cities are working every turn for all your cities throughout the entire game, or do you just check every turn at first and some lesser amount after that?

at the start, there isn't much to check, so i do it fairly regularly. it becomes quicker with practice as you begin to know instinctively what to do. later on in the game, i like to check new cities and every city every 20-30 turns. it really is necessary if you want to succeed at a level like immortal to know what is going on all the time. planning is crucial: especially in the early game, timing a build match a new tech or city growth can help alot.

in SG, i would recommend that you check each city at the start of the turnset if you aren't pressed for time. you only have to play 10-15 turns so it won't take long anyway. this is a major reason why people can challenge effectively on much harder levels in a SG.

 

[gigi_muschi]

Sorry guys, but i need a swap or skip. I got a nasty virus and i must reinstall the windows. What's worse, i don't have the cd at me, so i will have to wait about 3 days before i can get it.

 

[dazedroyalty]

gigi, that's too bad. I hope your computer recovers quickly.

 

[scrubkai]

Ouch that sucks...

well given this is the first round, should we just grop gigi to 6th and move everyone else up one in the rotation?

In that case Ralph would be up next.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

OK Got it

Ralph

 

[butlerj1982]

Definately. Drop gigi to last, everyone else moves up a spot, sounds good.

Sorry to hear about the computer gigi. I went up to Vista and everything went haywire (printer, cheap ipod clone, external HD, CD-rom drive, everything) so I'm back to XP and happy again. But I empathize.

If we don't get bronze, does that change the calculation of what to go for next?

I think the fact that we are against Carthage and Greece is a little unfortunate since both have early UUs that get bonuses against melee units.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Well unsurprisingly a very quiet set of 210 turns.

There seemed to be broad consensus to go down the Agri – Animal Hus line, with the proviso of putting in the wheel if we had copper in our BFC cross.

As far as builds no strong preference emerged and each of 2nd WB, Warrior, Worker had their merits and I decided I fancied Tycoonist’s aggressive 2nd WB path. Now note at Immortal or so we would be in real danger of an AI exploiting our power weakness and having a go at us but at Monarch this is still safe enough.

The #+s of this path is once the second wb is built and deployed we will grow like a weed , rapidly pumping out Warriors, workers and settlers as required.

So 1stWB and deployed on clams and 2nd workboat started.

Now BW comes in and we switch to slavery as with 2 seafood resources hooked up soon we shouldn’t be shy on the whip…

And do we feel lucky punk…oh yes, copper right next door. For this reason we go Wheel, Agri, AH so we can hook up copper.

In the meanwhile on turn 26 Hinduism founded

Now timing of builds… Whilst building the bulk of the 2nd WB we worked the clams and forested hill tile for max speed. But this would get us the WB before we were size 3 and if we wanted a worker next this would be inefficient so for the last couple of turns I switch tiles as seen below. There is not net loss as we get 3 “things” from the tile (2 food 1 hammer vs 3 hammers from the hill) but it mean we will hit size 3 when the WB completes which will get us our worker noticeably faster.

Once the 2nd WB was built we had choice of Fish (5F1C) or then 2nd Clam (4F2C) not much to choose between these as the one less food is balanced with 1 extra commerce but I went for fish as this will get our worker sooner.

In the meanwhile on turn 26 Hinduism founded.

After that is was just starting to research Agriculture whilst part building the worker who was whipped on the last turn..

Although we got a rand event with only one option worth taking!

Our city will grow like a weed whilst we pump out a couple of warriors. The worker can mine copper first then hook it up.

 

[dazedroyalty]

Great job. I got it. Will play tonight and report tomorrow.

Any thoughts from the team for the next turnset?

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Top of Mind thoughts...

Warriors to size 4
One explore one garrison
Then whip settler for fish, clam , corn site
Research Agri, AH, Writing.

Enjoy..

Ralph

 

[scrubkai]

Second City is being founded on the desert square due north of Rome right?
That's really the only way to get the Fish, clams and corn in the BFC.

As for building, we need warriors for defense and fog busting.
Research Sounds like Agri>AH>Write is the general feeling here.

 

[butlerj1982]

Since the corn/fish/clams city's only resources are food, and we don't have any happiness resources or religion on the horizon, do we want to claim more territory with the second city? It seems like we can backfill into that seaside city by the corn pretty easy, and with all those resources it will grow really fast... maybe claim some territory directly to the west toward Carthage by the pigs and hills?

Just a thought...

 

[dazedroyalty]

It might be worth it if we could see more out there. The benefit of corn/claim/fish is rapid growth. With the whip, that makes rapid production as well. Also, maintenance costs are lower closer to the capitol. Our third city can be more aggressive.

 

[tycoonist]

ralph, what option did you take for the random event. it looks like you took the +1 for ten turns. if so, why not the risky final option, which nearly always gets you +2 health for the entire game?

on the city settling side, i would recommend that we settle aggressively. the high food city to our north will make an excellent GP farm but it doesn't need to be settled yet. having said that, there is a lack of good sites in view, so if one isn't found then that looks like the best site available.

 

[butlerj1982]

OK, dazedroyalty is up.

Priorities I think are hooking up the copper, and chop-building a settler while also building a warrior.

 

[dazedroyalty]

(1) Worker completes, start working on a warrior.

(2) Worker starts mining bronze.


(3-6) Hit enter.

(7) Warrior completes and he heads out scouting. Start working on second warrior.


(8) Agriculture finishes, select Animal Husbandry next.

(9) Warrior continues towards unknown.

(10) I micro Rome so that the warrior will complete the same turn as growth happens.

(11) We don't even make it to the top 8 of cultured civilizations. Little does Machiavelli know that we read his book and will be mercilessly applying his principles to our neighbors.



(12) Warrior still heading towards the unknown.

(13) Our warrior valiantly destroys a barbarian the bunkers down to heal:



Second warrior completes in Rome. Work begins on Settler. Micro to finish AH one turn sooner.

(14) I don't know enough about the whipping mechanics, so I decide to wait another turn before whipping our settler to let the original anger wear off. Our warrior moves to avoid being attacked by a lion.

(15) The Settler gets whipped.

(16) Settler done. I make a weedy move and go straight to a work boat thinking it will help our second city grow faster.

(17) Moving settler into place. I decided to go with the coastal city rather than inland.

(18) Antium is built. I don't know what to build there since I made the weedy move in Rome. Set to warrior.



(19) City connected

(20) Worker starts farming.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Wouldn't decribe our capital building a workboat for Antium as weedy in the slightest as looks like it can go to the northern clams and help Antium grow. Seems like a sound move to me??

Waiting a turn for whip anger to wear off in Rome prior to whipping the settler was definitely right and I agree with your city placement so all round looks like a good set to me..

Ralph

p.s Tycoonist for some reason I thought the + health was only for a certain number of turns so that it was "irrelevant" as we wouldn't reach our health cap before it expired. Apologies we learn something new every game!!

 

[scrubkai]

So what do we want to do for the next few turns.

Obvious things are:
Research AH>Write.
Warrior explores the darkness...

The big question
What do we want to build next?

 

[tycoonist]

edit: forget it, i posted this on the wrong thread