NO-1: Tree huggers of the world unite

[NoChildren]

Ok I can pass on GLH, but lets keep the option open.

What do you think of my suggestion for 1E of cow for gold city skipping banana? (more coast, and a cottageable tile)

i agree, this is smarter. i still haven't quite adjusted to thinking about the rules of this variant. let's grab some more ocean, those forest tiles doesn't do us much good.

i'd like to know if there's any good land to the south and if there's only coast or we have another opponent down there.

as for GLH, i think it's a good wonder and it looks like we will have a bunch of coastal cities. if we could settle the land in the north and block both napoleon and charlie i say maybe we should go for it after that.

 

[Tatran]

Let's do some more scouting in the south and then decide what's the best spot to settle, with or without the banana.

I prefer to make Utrecht our military city. We can mine one of the hills.

 

[NoChildren]

Ok I'm going to play another dozen turns soon. 1S of the corn does look like a good city site post IW, I'll keep scouting. Refar will probably found the gold city, please consider skipping the banana for that city, I think 1E makes a better commerce city.

Can we have a consensus on tech? I'm either going sailing-IW or sailing-masonry depending on if we're getting the GLH. NoChildren what's your opinion? Utrecht will be able to build settlers too soon.

sailing first for sure. and if we blocked of the land in the south for ourselves i think shooting for GLH is a good option, otherwise IW to find the iron and more important clear all the jungle.

 

[NoChildren]

Let's do some more scouting in the south and then decide what's the best spot to settle, with or without the banana.

I prefer to make Utrecht our military city. We can mine one of the hills.

utrecht will most certainly be our military city, it's high on production and close to the front.

 

[Quechua]

sailing first for sure. and if we blocked of the land in the south for ourselves i think shooting for GLH is a good option, otherwise IW to find the iron and more important clear all the jungle.

Ok this sounds good to me. I am very glad we got Utrecht for production (just think..we almost missed seeing it). I should have a new save in an hour or so.

 

[Quechua]

Ok, I finished sailing, and since we would've gotten masonry before we would complete (or want to build) a lighthouse, I banked a couple research turns in IW instead. Please remember to switch this to complete in time with a lighthouse build.

Our scout in the north goes west and finds a couple barb warriors and an archer. He takes shelter in a forest and survives a warrior attack. I give him woodsman naturally.

While healing in that forest he also kills the other warrior and the archer (he killed a bear earlier, this unit is awesome).

Our scout in the SW jungle finds a barb city and some sugar.

He survives the warrior attack, but loses later to an archer. My fault for not healing properly.

Our scout in the French peninsula does heal, but still loses to an archer in pretty much the same spot you see an archer in my previous post.

I found The Hague in the agreed spot:

Are you sure this isn't raging barbs?

Our first archer headed south exploring the coast and found lots of resources:

Notice Ragnar's warrior, I suspect he's south of us.

Micromanagement:
Amsterdam is building an archer, we will still grow into unhappiness at this rate so please put some hammers into a settler/worker before we grow to 5. Once the unhappiness stacking isn't so bad we can 2-pop whip a granary and get nearly a full pop point of overflow.

Amsterdam's worker is roading towards the Hague in time for the border pop in 7 turns I think. Utrecht's worker is nearly done with copper, I think we want to farm a floodplain.

I tweaked our espionage a little so we can see Charlie and Ragnar's charts, this should be readjusted.

Not the most natural stopping point, but I didn't want to play too much.

 

[Tatran]

First, I still vote for one city to claim cow + gold + banana.
The city will grow to slow when working the gold.
Also, we have to face the culture of Aachen which already possesses one coastal tile.

Second, Nappy still can expand by boat.
We can't do much about that until Amsterdam reaches the next cultural level.

 

[NoChildren]

First, I still vote for one city to claim cow + gold + banana.
The city will grow to slow when working the gold.
Also, we have to face the culture of Aachen which already possesses one coastal tile.

Second, Nappy still can expand by boat.
We can't do much about that until Amsterdam reaches the next cultural level.

it's still pretty early, i don't think we have to worry about nappy expanding by boat just yet.
about gold, cows bananas city, i think it should be founded ASAP!

 

[Refar]

If you want to take it now that's fine. I didn't play a full turnset though, I just paused now that we have a look at some city sites, and are a point at the tech path that depends on our gameplan.

Sorry did not want to snag your turns - seen you only played 12 turns or so, and was not sure from your text, so seeing the save attached i reasoned that you are.

But now i am up, ain't am ?

Tha AI is usually a bit reluctant to found enclaves by boat, as long as it has other options, and it's early, so i think we dont need to worry to much here.

I am for taking Gold+Cow+Banana with the same city as well.

 

[NoChildren]

yepp, you're up refar.
i guess the plan is to try and get GLH if it won't cripple our expansion too much, in that case you should see to that masonry is in before completing a lighthouse. otherwise tech IW and settle Gold+Cow+Banana.

Roster:
NoChildren (On Deck)
Tatran
Quechua
Refar (Waiting for got it)

 

[Refar]

Got it

And yep try GLH and Gold/Cow/Banana is the plan. We have enought coastal cities to make it worth it.

 

[Quechua]

I don't think the banana is worth much when we have no tiles to work. Even with Aachen's culture, which we'll take anyway, we get 5 extra workable tiles. With banana we have just the gold to work, true we can run an extra scientist that way though, but that's not a good tradeoff IMO.

But I guess if everyone wants that site...

 

[Tatran]

But I guess if everyone wants that site...

That's democracy and we all hate it.

 

[NoChildren]

I don't think the banana is worth much when we have no tiles to work. Even with Aachen's culture, which we'll take anyway, we get 5 extra workable tiles. With banana we have just the gold to work, true we can run an extra scientist that way though, but that's not a good tradeoff IMO.

But I guess if everyone wants that site...

What do you suggest? i'd like to hear what our options are. a pure commerce city in the jungle to get the banana?

 

[Refar]

The discussion is unfortunately pointless.

I had quite a bad set, tho i would like to think it is not entirely my fault.
Built the Settler in Amsterdam as soon as i could, but the site was already taken when he arrived.

Does not look too good on the Great Lighthouse front either - Amsterdam is just too poor on ... Whipping something for overflow is our only chance there - if any.

And last - however not the worst thing - our cows near Amsterdam got pillaged by a Barb Spear... No way to prevent him from doing so with a Archer and a Warrior i hat at disposal.
Worker is dispatched (on Goto) to fix the problem.

Utrech built two Axes. I ordered Barracks now, then it should go back to Axes. There was a "Someone completes his great work" popup at the beginning of my set and we were dead last in power.
And there is lots of Barb activity as well.
Archers might be enought to protect the cities, but they cant counterattack against pillaging Barbs.

Turns 91 - 117 / 1725 BC - 1075 BC

Turn 92: Meet just anothrt jerk AI. Who let all those in ?! On the bright side - he already got 2 Worst enemies. I wonder how... Coming from the south, i think - only seen his archer.

Turn 96: Meet Rameses... Suddnely i start worrying about us getting the GLH in time... He seem to be somewhere in the West, past Charlemagne.
Also Naps has a Slave Revolt.

On a sidenote, because it happens to be in the screenshot: We shall be carefull where we road - roads have great negative impact on forest spread and can not be pillaged back. So let at least when possible try not too road tiles where the forest can spread to - we are not allowed to improve them further anyway. Otherwise its really pointless to leave those tiles unimproved.

Turn 103: Exploring Archer dies on a hill vs a Barb Archer

Turn 104: Meet Justinian. Should be the last AI. And of course a insane one as well. No idea where he is - i did not even see the unit that made contact. But i think past Charlie to the west, as i dont have explorers left in the south.

Turn 111: Utrecht got a food boost from those "Mooses"

Turn 112: Loose another Explorer to barbs

Turn 113: Come to find gold/cow/banana site claimed by Charlie already.
Not sure how long it is there - i could have had the settler there maybe 2 or 3 turns sooner at best. Don't know if it would have made a difference, but i dont think so - the city must have been founded in the very first turns of my set (or be there already) - i had a warrior patroling Charlies Boarder and seen no Settling Party move past me.

IW in a couple of turns, so i hild back the Settler fo a moment.

Trun 116: Lighhouse built in amsterdam, GLH will take 50 Turns in the -poor capital.

Turn 117: At least some good news - Iron is close, with the Settler who failed to claim Gold/Cow/Banana in the proximity...

There is also another interesting site with gold some food and lots of Jungle in the south near Ragnar. I am thinking Rice/Jumbo/Gold - 1NW from gold.

We need to decide on new tech (Preliminary Clicked Writing);
And on new City location;
And on if pursuing the GLH with ETA 49 is a good idea... (We could gain a few turns by a couple of overflow whips i guess...)

Edit:
Oh, yes, you need the save...

 

[NoChildren]

too bad about the spot already being taken, nothing much you could have done about it though as it seems.

49 turns for GLH seems like quite a lot.

It would be great to claim both gold and ivory, but i think the corn/iron city should be settled first, it would provide some production with that mineable hill as well. The ivory/gold city is a bit far away and has tons of jungle it will take a lot of workers to make something of it.

but i say either we try and found both iron/corn and gold/ivory or just settle with iron/corn and start building a military and punish either charlie or nappy as they are so close to our borders

this is also my got it, i will not play until tomorrow so we have some time to come up with a strategy.

Roster:
NoChildren (got it, playing tomorrow)
Tatran (On Deck)
Quechua
Refar

 

[Refar]

The Gold/Jumbo/Rice site is not that far away, and we are short on -Ressources. So we definitely should get both, and then punish Charlie.

My first instinct was to Settle for Iron first, then try to get out a new Settler fast (Maybe from Amsterdam forefitting the GLH) for the Gold/Jumbo site. However i am not 100% - Gold/Jumbos is close to Ragnar, so he might try to claim it as well.

Teh 49 turns for GLH will get a tiny bit better - Amsterdam can grow one more to happy cap giving 2 more /turn, but it will be still very slow.

 

[Quechua]

It's not your fault that we missed the city or lost the cows to a barb (I saw how bad the barbs were my set). But still I have to say there are a lot of things I'm not crazy about, especially the pigs in the Hague not being improved (were you serious about your road comment?).

Our capital is not hammer poor. With cows and forests at size 5 we complete it in 25 turns. With tricks like overflowing the lighthouse into the wonder, and starving the granary we can cut it further, and this is epic speed. I know we lost the cows but it's a big priority to hook them back up, and anyway we have strictly better tiles than the floodplains we are working now.

I'm not crazy about the development of Utrecht either, but I don't want too be too critical (I had a bad day at work, sorry, maybe I'm venting). I'll look at the save in more detail later, and try to be more constructive sorry.

 

[NoChildren]

ok, i think we should agree on a strategy. it seems like most of us want to settle both the city sites. but which one should be settled first?
i think the one close to ragnar is the more urgent one...
and then get another settler out and grab iron/corn.

and what should we do about GLH? i rarely play monarch level games so i have no idea how early it usually goes, but the 25 turns Quechua says it will take to build sounds like a good investment. what to do otherwise? build troops and attack whomever is the weaker of nappy and charlie?

 

[Refar]

ok, i think we should agree on a strategy. it seems like most of us want to settle both the city sites. but which one should be settled first?
i think the one close to ragnar is the more urgent one...
and then get another settler out and grab iron/corn.

and what should we do about GLH? i rarely play monarch level games so i have no idea how early it usually goes, but the 25 turns Quechua says it will take to build sounds like a good investment. what to do otherwise? build troops and attack whomever is the weaker of nappy and charlie?

I rarely actually prusue GLH, but usually it falls early. However the Great Wall was just built, so at least one of the IND Winderhogs had something else to do...

Settling - the danger of loosing the gold spot might be higher than the danger to loose iron, so maybe gold first.

And we need workers

-----

The pigs i actually missed - had to look into the save to find out what you are talking about.

The rest i - don't really know. The floodplains must be worked right now, as otherwise Amsterdam will not grow. It will improve with the cows back online - and the worker is on his way - but naturally he was somewhere else working, rather than waiting, just in case i loose the cow.

The road comment must have come as rant - it wasn't meant as one - as i said - just marked this road because it was in the screenie.
I have no problem if we need that peace of road to connect trade network or or for some strategic reason.
But the idea is serious. The game is about preserving/spreading forest. A tile we can't improve because it is adjacent to a forest will actually become better, if a forst spreads on it, givin additional and allowing a preserve alter.
Roads hinder this. So if possible we should prefer "safe" routes.