OB06 - Six of the Best

[Ozbenno]

Well after due consideration, I think Conroe's idea is the best, get the settler in place and only settle if we need to. Starting some build up for the inevitable war with Tokogawa will be attempted as well.

As I start our turns the way forward seems more muddled. Unit costs are just as bad for our finances (7gpt) as city maintenance (also 7gpt). Our cities currently don't have great production so getting anything out of them is hard. Utrecht gets a library whipped, so I can employ a scientist.

Amsterdam doesnm't have a barracks, so no point starting the military production here (I queue one up).

With no pre-calendar happiness resource, we are stuck at a happy limit of 5/4 (capital/others) which doesn't give great scope.

I'm not sure Aesthetics is the right tech to be researching. Wang already has it (as well as Alphabet and other techs). We have no techs on him. Alphabet (IMHO) would have been a better choice.



Utrecht has a barracks but every unit it produces adds to our costs.

I played a quick 10 as we need to start tightening up our strategy here. All cities are currently at max population (Utrecht can grow when whip anger dissapates) and Aesthetics still 12 turns away.



Should we increase the army at the cost of the economy? Should we disband some troops to improve the economy? Should we found the fourth city as our army support costs will fall to counter incresed maintenance (no sign of Toko wanting the spot)? How can we increase our happy limit? Should we turtle or go on the offensive? Should we settle a city closer to home?

I'm not really sure what is the best answer to the above. We can't really afford to turtle at 4 cities but none of the sites available to us now gives us anything we need (production, commerce or happiness) and we don't really have the tools to go attacking yet. Calendar is fast becoming a huge issue. Our capital is potentially great but only if we can grow it.

The game isn't going great for us but is far from hopeless, we just need to have a good plan .

Thoughts?

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

We can only afford to have two units outside of city borders so we need to move all but two (most likely the settler and the archer) back inside cultural borders. I think we need to forgo working mines and concentrate on working cottages and food tiles. We should use the whip for production if needed. I agree Aesthetics was a bad choice but probably never got thought of with debate over city sites. At Immortal I've always found it important to ensure researching techs which you can then trade to opponents for other techs. Hopefully this way you can keep at a level. I think we should cut our losses on Aesthetics and move onto Maths. This will open up Calendar to us and also allow us greater production from forest chopping. Neither WK or Hammy have it yet so if that remains the case then we should hopefully get a trade or two there (IW would be good to get). In the meantime there is option we could trade WK Copper for Gems. This would give us +1 happiness in two of our cities (WE NEED TO GET HAGUE CONNECTED BY ROAD). There is the obvious risk of losing access to copper but unless Toku has a source (Havent seen evidence of this yet) then we should be ok. We could move a citizen from the mine in Amsterdam to either another scientist or spare riverside cottage.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

OK Just to say I am back from Holidays and gradually catching up on SG's I am involved in so feel free to put me in the roster as suits.

Ralph

 

[ungy]

Back from holiday as well--a few thoughts on the game:

I confess I don't follow some of our tile and builds. Why are we building a lighthouse in Utrecht when we aren't bothering to work our food tiles? Same goes for the capital (tho it's built).

We need workers and settlers as well as defense--both our sites are plenty good enough to settle asap as well as axes for defense. Blue should be settled immediately to complete the block--Toku might settle the corn otherwise.

our archer to the NW got trapped--might as well disband it. We can also disband the warrior by Nara and the one at the Hague.

We are hardly working any of our big food tiles--those should be worked and buildings, settlers, workers, units whipped--we should get a lib up in the Hague ASAP--we're in a culture war there.

As for tech, I would not switch from Aesthetics. We are half way there and we should be able to trade for alpha with Ham (once we get a little into it), then IW at least and math if we're lucky with MM. The AI prioritizes the other lines normally so aesthetics holds up much better for trade purposes. There are still 2 more contacts to be had, we may pick up another trading partner soon.

It's really important to work the big food tiles--we can work specs as well.
Although we're limited in number, getting our six GP earlier is huge.

We need to hook up the corn by Utrecht ASAP and try and trade that to Ham for the gems. If that fails we could trade the copper but that's a little risky.

 

[Ozbenno]

I forgot to put in a roster as well. As Ralph is back, he can slot right back in and take it away!

I wasn't sugesting we abandon Aesthetics, we should keep it going and hope we can get an Alphabet trade out of it.

The lighthouse was a place holder as it is that or military (which will further erode the economy). We're not working the big food tiles as all cities are at happiness limits. Can we afford to keep whipping away unhappiness (also limits growth)?

I must admit to being weedy and not noticing the gems trade. The corn would be the best to trade away (we're not in health problems so any health resource would be good) but I would hesitate to trade the copper.

If we disband a couple of troops, I would settle the blue (start it on a worker straight away) and possibly start another settler to claim the seafood to the east.

As for the other two AI, I was sure that the workboat exploring the west would find something, so hopefully it isn't far away.

We can probably afford to work the second scientist in Amsterdam as well.

Ralph is UP.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

OK Got it, Will be wedndesdayt beforen the report is up. WIll posst any questions et al Tuesday to make sure I ahve the flow of the game before playing.

Ralph

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

OK played 10 but think we have made nice progress

So start by :-

Hiring 2nd Scientists in Capital

Get Scientist in Utrecht and when whip unhappiness wears off grow and assign second.

This combined with deleting trapped / redundant units like this one gets

Aesthetics down from 12 turns to 7 as we need it fast for it have trade value.

We hook up corn with the hope of trading it with Wang for Gems, but unfortunately he has a source of corn!!



I umm and ahh but decided I would rather live with smaller cities than have no source of Copper in case Toku gets feisty on us!!

575BC Hammy goes Confucian but is not the founder
And we spot a Toku Settler party. Luckily I had started moving our settler to Blue dot already as we will win the settling race by 1 turn !



Note he has swordsmen

525BC Christianity FIADL (a religious nut out there with both Confucianism & Christianity??)

450BC Aesthetics in but unfortunately trade optins not great as Hammy wont give us Alphabet for it



but we pick up



The crucial maths from Mansa and start Calendar and IW from Hammy.

We pick no worst enemy points form Toku for these so seemed the best options. Unfortunately we have no source of Iron.

On the last turn pick up this sheep trade from Joao so lets see if Wang Might give us gems for it next turn.




Economy healthier with calendar due in 8

Getting close to circumnavigation if there is a route from Joao main Island west

 

[Ozbenno]

Excellent. Things are moving along. Calendar will be great for us.

Has there been any AI demands? I didn't receive any, maybe they are playing nice.

We have 4/6 cities settled now and 1/6 civics changes, that's all we've used.

Roster
Ozbenno
Ralph_Jackson
Mighty Dwaarf - UP
ungy - On Deck
Conroe
Kodii

 

[Kodii]

Toku settled our pink dot and there is a barb city NE of Utrecht

He also has quite the unit amalgamation in Nara that we may want to be wary of.

 

[Ozbenno]

Wow, that's some serious power gap. Bring out the axes I say.

We'll need to get Alphabet going as well as we're unlikely to pick it up in a trade at this stage.

 

[Ozbenno]

Mighty Dwaarf seems to have missed his got it, ungy is now UP.

 

[ungy]

OK-got it. I'm assuming a 10 turn set.
work on the road network, watch Toku for WHEOOH, build an axe or two.
trade calender for alpha. trade first calender resource for gems.
we've got room on the E for two cities--clam+2 sugar and 2fish. Not ideal but can work. Methinks use the settler for the clam+2 sugar site but not sure that is this set. Should be able to play tomorrow night.

 

[Ozbenno]

We have 4 of our 6 cities. I'd only build one more in the east (clam 2 sugar seems better) and maybe leave one up our sleeves so we can raze/replace a toko city later maybe.

 

[Conroe]

I don't like the looks of that power graph at all!

I agree that we need Alphabet and Calendar ... but what about after that? Do we need to start discussing victory conditions. I'm not sure that cultural is still possible, given our variant and the late start. Do we want to try for the AP?


On another note, I will be out of pocket for most of next week. I will be leaving the afternoon of the 5th, returning on the evening of the 10th or 11th. All times are, of course, US central which is -6 from GMT and about a whole day behind the outback.

 

[Ozbenno]

I always thought space would be the easiest 'peaceful victory' for us in any case.

As for after Alphabet, Code of Laws and Civil Service maybe? How are we going to approach Tokogawa? Maces and Trebuchets or wait for rifles and cannons?

 

[Kodii]

How are we going to approach Tokogawa? Maces and Trebuchets or wait for rifles and cannons?

I guess we don't really have to decide right away, but I would say maces/trebs because the longer we leave him, the more likely he'll do something scarier to us first.

But I guess we can decide more current base. CoL and CS is probably the best choice whether or not we want to attack using maces/trebs or rifles/cannons.

 

[ungy]

As for Toku, I'm not a big fan of attacking him with mace/treb or some such.
His units are extra promoted, he rates to way outbuild us.
He should go down easy to drafted rifles tho as he's got lots of worst enemies.
As for him attacking us, could happen but the AI is pretty lame on offense and it's just much easier to hold him off.

 

[ungy]

I always thought space would be the easiest 'peaceful victory' for us in any case.

As for after Alphabet, Code of Laws and Civil Service maybe? How are we going to approach Tokogawa? Maces and Trebuchets or wait for rifles and cannons?

I'm for getting currency ASAP as we have overseas trade routes.
The other urgent tech is monarchy IMHO.
I'm also for the later war but that is a question for the next set--although I think we need to settle the 6th city if so. I would argue for it anyway--we need it for the globe and Oxford. Globe is very powerful for a rifle/cannon war.


Anyway starting off:

We have a GP in 7 turns. Not sure what to do with him but worry about that later.

IT--tiles and builds are good.

350 Utrecht worker-WB. start on road network.

IBT we get conf. demands will start coming.
325 ...
300...
IB
275...
250...
225 I switch Amsterdam to gran which I'll whip once calender is in. Utrecht WB-axe.
200 GS born Amsterdam, whip gran.
IBT calender in.
Ham won't trade us alpha but wang will:




175 we make the trade. set research to myst.
reconfigure to work all good food tiles for growth.

150 trade sugar to Wang for gems:



IBT Hanging gardens bidl.

125...

Some thoughts:

Toku is not currently planning to attack us but he is nearly done with construction so we have to take him more seriously.

4 civs are in HR so I would recommend researching med-priest then trade for monarchy.

We still have 3 more calender resources to connect (silk, dye, incense), so we should still be in city growth mode.

We might want to close borders with MM. He is Toku's worst enemy and if we do it unasked we don't take a penalty with him.

We might want to scout the NE--doesn't look great but I think soon we can spare an axe. If we get lucky we might farm some barbs for the HE.

We have a GS. The philo lightbulb is pretty big--I think we want to do that. I don't think we get another in time but if we can then ??

Another tech possibility is to just go straight for currency. That'll allow us to sell our resources and give us around 15gpt on trade routes--pretty massive.
That also cheapens COL --the downside is that the AI will rarely trade COL due to the wonder but normally will trade currency.

I'm in favor of settling the 2 fish city and using that to build the globe (with whip overflow). If we defeat Toku we have enough land to win space and the wonders we need are:
Oxford--definately
HE-if we can get it.
IW--??
so there's plenty of room for globe--and we need 6 for Oxford anyway.

If we take Toku with rifles it's really pretty useless to raze/resettle--just too late to make it worthwhile. Only reason to keep a city in our pocket is if we go to war earlier and I don't think that is worth it.

 

[ungy]

save is here:

 

[Ozbenno]

Good set ungy!

Calendar is huge for us now, maximising growth is the right call. Good point on Currency, you are right it would be the best for us now. We will have many excess resources to sell. It appears we're on Mysticism at the moment, is Currency more important than Monarchy? I think so, as we have plenty of growing room at the moment while the Calendar resources build up, we can afford to leave Monarchy and HE for a little while. Currency will give us a big economic boost now.

Is a Philosophy bulb better than an Academy? What techs can we receive in return (can't open the save at the moment)? We need Meditation to open it up anyway.

Agree on settling 6 cities now as I also think a later war will be better (Tokogawa will fall further behind in tech as he won't trade with anyone). Let's check out the barb city and see if there is anything worth taking and capture/raze (probably raze) and settle the last cities in the east. Do we have a settler around?

As for wonders in space, Iron works is a definate I think and National Park goes well with Globe if we have a big food site.

It appears we still haven't gotten a demand from the AI! I think closing OB with Mansu might be prudent as we won't take a diplo hit from him and Tokogawa (more important).

Here is the status of the variant, I'm not sure how many workers we have.

We have 4/6 cities built
We have 0/6 cities captured
We have 1/6 great people (currently not used)
We have 0/6 wonders
We have ??/6 workers
We currently have 0 requests/demands from the AI (must give in to every 6th)

Roster
Ozbenno
Ralph_Jackson
Mighty Dwaarf
ungy
Conroe - UP
Kodii - On Deck