PH07: The School of Athens

[Warpoo]

got it, must reach 10 character limit. there we go.

 

[Warpoo]

turn 1:
nothing
Turn 2: warrior finished, started settler.
Turn 3: worker started chopping wood

move on to turn 12 several techs finish.
I founded sparta. I started a worker. After the worker, ill start the oracle

turn 16-17. animal finished and horsed spawned near the capital.

Louis Expanded

capital

Sparta

State of the World, North

South

BOTH warriors got killed by Barb archers.

I think i played 20. I had to count in my head. How do you get the turns to show up in vanilla?

Has for the game, imo we should have at least three cities by now and a few more workers. I usually chop to fast expand and get workers than work on improvements. The next person should chop to finish the oracle and get the caste system moving.

Roster:
First Round, 20 Turns
Pholkhero >>
Codeman >>
Warpoo >> just played
Lukep >> Up
Zophos >> on deck

 

[Codeman]

i welcome feedback on things i should have done and things i shouldn't have done.

 

[pholkhero]

nice turns, though i'm not sure I've ever seen so many warriors built before, Codeman

I think putting Sparta where it is now might've been a bit weedy ~ we could've founded on the flood plains, and at least grabbed the Silk as well as trading a plains hill for a desert and gaining a grass hill. oh well.

w/the oracle,too, we're a bit stuck on tech path. I wish we'd discussed that plan a bit since we had to out of our way for Priesthood, and i'm not so sure that we're going to be able to take full advantage of Caste System so early in the game [plus, and I don't know b/c i play on Epic mostly, 24 turns seems like a heck of a lot for the Oracle).

well, we're defintely going to need some archers up and running around for defense very soon since again the game has screwed me w/no close copper. Any other tech needed for CoL after Writing?? If not, we should whip a library ASAP in the Athens to help with Iron Working and hopefully grab a city near the metal.

It looks as if Louis was kind enough to settle some choice cities for us as he's not stuck in the middle of the desert.

ps. let's hook up those horses, too, rather soon.

 

[Codeman]

i found this on the strat forum. it was posted by futurehermit. it pertains to specialist econ.

When I first wrote about the SE I was under the belief that settling GSs was the way to go. Acidsatyr convinced me otherwise. The lightbulbed and traded-for beakers vastly outweigh the settled beakers in the short-to-mid-term, which is always more important than the long-and-very-long term in this game. Settling may be an attractive option if going for a space race win via SE, but I am still unsure about that.

re: Pyramids. People always say it's not necessary, and it isn't. BUT, it makes the SE incredibly more powerful (doubles all the base output of your specialists). So, if you have stone, go for it!! Also, this makes industrious leaders quite attractive for me. The best domination victory I've recorded thusfar was with Louis and I build the pyramids, GL, and parthenon and had a phenomenal economy, which I could completely transition into military production (draft/whipping) whenever I had a tech advantage, which I often had.

re: GL. It is never pyramids OR GL. The GL is the staple of the SE. You should always gun for it. You want to be generating GSs and two free scientists is just huge. Lit also comes with the NE (and the HE), which you should get going asap in your GL city (run many scientists to minimize the amount of GAs you get).

-re: Phil vs. Ind. These are two of the strongest SE traits. If you go phil, the goal is GSs early and often. So target the GL and get libraries up early to start producing them. If you go ind, the goal is the wonder combo: pyramids-parthenon (built in a military city to avoid GS-GE polution)-GL. Industrious will have better base beaker production. It will have slower and ultimately fewer GS production, but this is offset somewhat by the parthenon.

-Slavery vs Caste system: Again, it's not either-or, it's both, making spiritual an attractive SE trait. When you are in "research mode" you run caste system, along with pacificism and ideally representation (and mercantilism later). When you're in "military mode" you run slavery, along with feudalism or nationhood, theocracy, and ideally police state. The strength of the SE is the ability to transition your ENTIRE empire (minus say your HE city, which is constant) from research to military as dictated by the circumstances. You can see why I really like Rameses and Gandhi.

-Acidsatyr never had much use for CS (he liked its production bonus) and would never cottage the capital. The thing is the capital is usually high-food so makes a great SE city. It's really too bad there isn't a SE-economic civic in that category. I tend to cottage the capital and run bureaucracy until nationhood comes on board, but if the capital has amazing food output (specials, not floodplains) then I will pass on bureaucracy and run specialists instead.

Basically, the SE has two main economic functions: 1) beakers from scientists and 2) beakers from lightbulbing and trading lightbulbed techs. Originally, I failed to see the power of the latter and focused exclusively on the former. I think now that this is a mistake since you can use 'bulbed techs from GSs to beeline liberalism quite effectively, especially at higher levels.

The SE goes hand-in-hand with military pursuits since your base of farms everywhere allows you to regrow much faster after whipping and drafting. Also, since you are not relying on the science slider for beakers, you can expand your empire much larger, much earlier even to the point where your slider is at 0. And you can do this constantly throughout the game. This is in contrast to the CE where you want to stay over 50% and closer to 70%.

here is the thread.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=220470

 

[Zophos]

@Pholk - I've never played SE, so this should be intriguing, plus a good chance to meet some new players. I'll take that spot you offered. I'd still like to get the 4000 BC save, though, in case I ever want to play this CE-style for comparison. And Rex wants it, too, I think.

Now, on to our game.

I'll second Pholk's request that we take a moment to discuss major decisions, like tech paths and city locations. It's one of the great advantages of SGs - I know I've learned a lot from such discussions (which simply means that I suck less than I would have otherwise. )

For instance, I was looking for a good city site to the northeast, where we could grab the Stone resource. It looks like Louis put his second city right where he should have - it grabs four resources, including the stone, and he doesn't have to stress about getting the border pop. The mountain range is a pain, but you can't have everything, I suppose. How soon can we take it away from him? (Note, for us, I was also looking at the tile 1SW of the cows - fewer resources, but also fewer useless tiles, plus it's somewhat closer to the capital. But we'd still have gotten into an immediate border war with Ringlet-Boy. )

Now, while I'm thinking about stone...I think the Oracle may be a distraction right now. The Pyramids, then a beeline for Lit and the GL, would be much more in line with our variant. As far as I've read, those are THE two most important Wonders for an SE.

We had Masonry a thousand years ago, and not only have we not started on the 'mids, we have tied up our main production center with a different Wonder that won't complete until, oh, 800 BC or so. Thoughts?

 

[Codeman]

i agree. do you think we can still get the 'mids?

on taking that city... archers and warriors i doubt will do it. can not hook up horses until we get roads from Athens to there and the pasture. alot of turns to do all that and hope they don't get pillaged. the quickest way to hook up the horses and defend them may be to found a city close to them.

would be nice to have swords. if we get oracle, what will be the tech we want?

 

[Warpoo]

Yeah 30 turns is a lot for any speed. heh. Thats why i said chop to finish it. As for tech we are doing really good, i mean writing is only going to take 5 turns. Thats good for normal speed... i guess.

I put that city there cause A. We need an expo ASAP. B. I wanted that cow and those hills. And the use of the flood plain for the extra food. I really couldn't see putting the city somewhere else and it blocks louis.

@Codeman: I build a worker when the city is size 2. Than build something until its a 3. than i chop the settler, build another worker and than another settler. I usually dont see size for 4 for a while.

 

[pholkhero]

I'll second Pholk's request that we take a moment to discuss major decisions, like tech paths and city locations.

Yes, that's something I should've put in my opening post, but didn't think to include it. Plus, Warpoo did such a quick turn-around anyway on the save [which I can never fault ], but ideally, i'd like us to have a dotmap or a notated map in-game for city placement, and discuss larger goals, ie, going for Oracle.

i agree. do you think we can still get the 'mids?

I actually don't think so. W/Louis being IND AND having Stone, I think it's a (and this is a technical term) long-ass-shot. Come what may, Louis must die

Thats good for normal speed... i guess.

I have trouble gauging speeds on normal, but 5 seems good to me

As far as the next course of action, I think we abandon the Oracle, and work on the homefront w/settlers, workers and garrisons; get some Chariots up for the barbs that're going to be along soonish; and keep our mind on the Great Library, but would like to know what everyone else thinks.

Also, here's the save for would-be Shadow Gamers ~ Rex, maybe swap out Alex and sub in Ragnar and run a cottage-spam game/SG ~

 

[Warpoo]

As far as the next course of action, I think we abandon the Oracle, and work on the homefront w/settlers, workers and garrisons; get some Chariots up for the barbs that're going to be along soonish; and keep our mind on the Great Library, but would like to know what everyone else thinks.

Good idea, how about u start the dot mapping.

 

[lukep]

Pyramids are far from being lost yet. And building oracle first is not necessary a bad move.

Oracle can be leveraged 2 way :

- Oracle / Code Of Law or monarchy depending of the Goal
- Oracle / MC for the forge and buiilding mids with a GE

Oracle must be built before 900BC to be safe.

Oracle/MC is hard to pull without a good preparation, but the alternative is not bad either.

Mids are rarely built before 500BC. And we can also take them, we just lose the culture, not the GPP points.

I will look at the save later today, but what may be more problematic is city placement and units. this may be a valid reason to drop Oracle

I will never build pyramids directly unless industrious, stone or not.

 

[lukep]

Oh by the way, speed i gave are for epic. for normal we have a bit more leverage. So Oracle would be still feasible i think.

However we have many problems. I looked at the save and it is not very pretty.

City placement :

Athens is surrounded by flood plains, has only one true mine in its bfc, and the 2 forests were chopped.

That means we have lost much of our production and lost health bonus.
And the starting site was already hammer poor for a capital.

Sparta Placement is rather ok, but where are the improvements ?
Hooking the cow is top priority. Monument should have been chopped.

Where is the third city ?

Military We have absolutely no fogbuster, so 3 units per city is mandatory since 1600BC or the barbs will feast.

On the science front, thanks to the gold we are ok i think, but why did we researched meditation ? Poly is needed for litterature.

Having no copper, researching iron would have been good move.

Also we are at turn 396. I will play 16 to put counter ok. (F8 screen gives number of turn left).

Considering situation, dropping Oracle is correct move, methink. the hammers invested will be token gold.

We need a third city fast. Only sites i see are :

6S of Athens. fresh water, grab diamonds and rice, 2 mines. need iron working tech to remove jungle. Slow site now, but very good later

2S of horse. not excellent, but faster to get productive and cost less maintenance

There is probably a site East of sparta, but only if seafood present. We cannot afford to chek.

we need military now.

Will wait for your comments before play.

 

[pholkhero]

I agree with all your thoughts above, and will mark your proposed sites on the dot-map i throw up in a bit.

the word of the day has to be "infrastructure" or else this game will be short-lived (then we can restart with a better map )

 

[lukep]

the word of now is charriots ! then at least one settler, then infrastructure.

But we are good on science, so GL still ok i think.

I really dont mind missing pyramids with alexander.

 

[pholkhero]

You'll notice I didn't capture the north. France has that area pretty well locked up so, this is just the south.

Red Dot is the first one lukep proposed.
The Green slash is the general area where we'd like a city to grab those cows, but i'd like to see what else is there.
Pink Dot is good filler city to make use of those resources.
Blue Dot is a good city for later on down the line.

I'd also like to see what's happening to our west. We may get something over there worthwhile. Of course, too, things might change once we get IW, which we should do sooner rather than later.

 

[Warpoo]

the pink spot is where the third city should go. Those cities to the south arent going to be any use to us now and we need stuff now.

 

[lukep]

Red dot is misplaced, i prefer the green site.

other site i proposed is the other green dot. share a food plain with athens has more mine, exchange silk for spices when compared to pink.

pink growth would be slow

the 2 greens work well with blue, but blue 2S could be better. depends.

However, Toku is likely to settle toward us.

 

[Codeman]

we could research iron while we are building the chariots. 3rd settler wouldn't be ready until iron was done anyway. we could keep these sites in mind while we wait for that moment.

do like the proposed sites.

 

[Codeman]

didn't see new dot map.

wouldn't moving red to the green location give 3 hills to mine instead of 2? hard to see from here... second green dot would give better food and probably more river tiles... and either way borders would likely expand to add the other resource to our empire.

 

[patagonia]

Lurker's comment:
Louis is Industrial and now has stone, plus he's got one of the highest "ooh...shiny!" factors in the game. You should be planning to capture the Pyramids from him...