PH07: The School of Athens

pholkhero · May 9, 2007

The southerly green IS a much better location. I just mis-calculated your initial placement.

the NW one, though, loses us the silk for jungled incense. I would rather snag that with our blue dot city. I'm not so sure that Toku will be expanind THAT far towards us, at least in the near-term.

Why not go for Pink Dot (or NW New Green) first, and then when IW comes in, plant another city? Have sparta give us military, and Athens whip out some settlers, workers??

edit: i also agree with Patagonia; Pyramids were MADE to stolen :satan:

lukep · May 9, 2007

IBT
revolt to Slavery should have been done before !
drop the Oracle to Archer in Athens
send worker hook horses

1360BC
whip archer in Sparta. I hate whipping for 1 pop, but no real choice here

1320BC
accept OB with Peter

1240BC
writing in, search iron due in 8

1200BC
Athens archer in start barrack
accept OB with Louis

1160BC
first barb archer appear south of Athens
horse hooked, switch to charriot

1120BC
Archer in Sparta sent garrison in woods to the north (future cow protection), start barrack
whip chariot in Athens
1080BC
barb pillage rice farm
Sparta roaded, start chariot
Athens chariot kill barb archer
start hooking cow
barb appear near horses ! send reinforcements to protect it

1000BC
chariot kill barb
garrison archer in wood SW of horses

975BC
barracks in, Athens start Chariot

950BC
cow hooked in Sparta

900BC
iron working known start Polytheism

875BC
stopping here

NOTES:
We have Iron nearby, we can found city 1S of the lake W of Athens
I would still found city 2S of horse first.
Athens should be whipped in 3 turns and start Settler with overflow
Sparta should start a settler too.
We need more workers too.
I played 16 turns to put the counter correctly. Watch F8 screen to see it

Build units, whip each time you can (after anger stopped, so at least after 10 turns)

COMMENTS
We are in a much less worrying state, but it was very on the edge. we could have been mauled.

About Pink versus Green : Answer is much faster growth, which we need badly

the save

Zophos · May 9, 2007

patagonia said:
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...

Good point, actually. I would be more than happy for him to build the Pyramids, especially since it'll keep him from building units. Regardless, I don't think WE can make a credible bid for the 'mids ourselves.

Of course, that means we need to have something to capture cities with... :mischief:

EDIT: Cross-posted w/ lukep - good turns! (One request, though: please scale your pics down to 800 pixels wide.) Looks like our next city should grab the Iron and Cows in the southeast. Need more exploring over there.

pholkhero · May 9, 2007

@ LukeP: yeah, good turns ~ could use a few more pics :mishcief: but i'm not flabbling ~ I think 2 cities would be good; one by Iron and one for the horses, and we could be ready to think about moving on Louis. Thinking extremely long-term, i'd be up for warring up until we're #1 in land, and then shifting gears towards our win.

@ Zophos: is that a "git ot"?

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

edit: also, i think i've changed my mind about sparta ~ at size 6 we'll be able to work all 3 hills, plus run a scientist ~ would make a nice prod. center for a bit and launching point for our assault into france.

Zophos · May 9, 2007

pholkhero said:
@ Zophos: is that a "git ot"?

Ah...I suppose it is. :salute:

Comes around fast with a small roster, eh?

I'll see if I get off work early enough to play tonight. If not...tomorrow.

frankcor · May 10, 2007

Rex, sign me up if you do decide to run a Cottage-spam counterpart to this game. Call it the Anti-Pholk School of Athens?

Rex Tyrannus · May 10, 2007

frankcor said:
Rex, sign me up if you do decide to run a Cottage-spam counterpart to this game. Call it the Anti-Pholk School of Athens?

His pholkship never posted the 4000 BC start, did he? I suppose we could go off the 3100 save he posted. Hmmm....

Though, to be honest, I probably wouldn't do it for fear that it'd be interpreted as trying to show up this game.

Codeman · May 10, 2007

you would have all the insight to resources, good city sites, neighbors, etc. so we would just say you had inside knowledge and should do much better.

frankcor · May 10, 2007

Rex Tyrannus said:
Though, to be honest, I probably wouldn't do it for fear that it'd be interpreted as trying to show up this game.

You mean that wasn't your intent? :rolleyes:

Regardless, it'd be inappropriate to read this thread while playing a cottage variant. It'll be more fun to kibbitz in this one.

frankcor (scurrying off to catch up reading the last few turn reports)

pholkhero · May 10, 2007

i actually did post the save earlier (somewhere in the first 40 posts; i'm too lazy to find it for you)

and, in all honesty, i've wanted to compare the spec and cottage economies, and was going to use an always peace variant with Alex and Ragnar as the two subjects; the AGG trait would be nulled by the Always Peace variant. ahh well, in good time...perhaps for PH08 or 09 . ..

Zophos · May 11, 2007

Ok...20 turns played. Let the abuse begin.

I had ~~two~~ three priorities for this turnset:

Get access to Iron ASAP
Head for Literature & the GL
Avoid getting killed by anyone

Let's see how I did:

The Quest for Iron

We have one obvious source of metal - SE of Athens. The only real question was where to put the city. I pumped out a Settler, and sent a chariot to explore. The city site looked obvious to me:

Corinth was founded 1S of the lake, for several reasons:

Fresh water bonus
Iron in the first ring (for quick access)
Gets cows and overlaps the rice at Athens (for quick growth)
Avoids immediate border clash with Peter (the red border to the south)

At the end of the set, the Iron was mined, and I have a worker roading it, and a second building a road back toward Athens. Should have the metal fully hooked up in about 5 turns.

Teching

Again, this seemed obvious to me.

Poly came in, and I went to Alphabet next. However, I had to go back to 80% tech when we ran out of cash, so it's due in one turn from the inherited set. Literature should be 11 turns after that.

Other options we could consider are Code of Laws (Confucianism has been FIADL, but Caste System might be worthwhile) or Math->Construction for warring. Discuss.

Not Getting Dead

Well, the barbs weren't much of a problem. They mostly sent Axes, and our Chariots ate 'em alive:

I built one more Chariot and one more Archer, but spent the rest of my time on the Settler and infrastructure. Chopped a monument in Corinth to get access to the cows quicker. Built a third Worker in Sparta. And at the end of the set, working on Libraries in Athens/Sparta and a Barracks in Corinth.

This leaves us VERY short of military, but my theory was (a) we've handled the barbs OK with chariots, and (b) we're about to get metal, so we can build axes, swords, and our UU. I put hammers elsewhere in the meantime. If it was :smoke:

, well, so be it.

So...what else. Oh, right.

The Good News

We knew we weren't going to get the Pyramids. And we didn't. But guess who did?

So, at least they're close by (to our south, somewhere). We just have to go get 'em.

The Bad News

Peter is getting chummy with, of all people, Tokugawa.

Both are Buddhist, and Peter has a +5 with the normally isolationist Jap. Toku is to our west & southwest, so if we go after Peter, we have to at least consider that Toku will backstab us.

Other stuff

A few more screenies for planning purposes:

Northwest part of the Empire:

Southeast part of the Empire:

Other stuff:

Spoiler turn log :

And, of course, the SAVE

lukep · May 11, 2007

Nara is the reason why i wanted us to found green dot first. Togu always expand aggressively against player and avoid jungle.

Now both greens are closed. And we have too few cities.

We have OB with everyone (except Togu but that's normal), we need to send chariots scouting now.

Our only chance now is war, but we are way too weak at the moment

Togu is probably the first target

lukep · May 11, 2007

You should probably have whipped the library in Sparta, but the rest is ok.

We have consolidated our (very little) civ nicely

Note that i think we cannot afford building the GL (too few production in Athens).

But Louis has both GW and ToA, which are very desirable wonders. And he is likely to go for GL fast. So If we build an army we could go against him later.

Why i would target Togu first ? We need a military production city and dont have any. Sparta is not bad but not enough. Previous green dot would have fullfilled the need.

We can target Louis when we have cats.

pholkhero · May 11, 2007

Turn 101/460 (375 BC) [11-May-2007 15:38:08]

IBT:

Turn 102/460 (350 BC) [11-May-2007 15:40:02]
ABCs came in, and I'm going for Maths for now. We do need to take out SOMEbody or else we're doomed to rot here in the middle of this continent. So, Maths > Const sounds good to me for now.

Oracle is BIDL, as I send our Southern Chariot inot Russia to scout that out. I also whipped the Libray at Sparta, and turned on "Emph Hammers" and "No Growth" The next player will have to remember to watch that their first turn. I'll whip Athens when I can as well. We should've let it gowth to six, and whipped the Library instantly, but oh well
Corinth grows: 3

IBT:

Turn 103/460 (325 BC) [11-May-2007 15:44:16]
After the Libary, Sparta began a Chariot, which was done in 1 thanks to the overflow. I also am going ot mine that Grass Hill there, too, for us to work at Stagnation.

We got 22 g for our previous investment in the Oracle. Would we've made it?? Perhaps? So, it might've been :smoke:

to stop, but my guts tell me it wasn't.

IBT:

Turn 104/460 (300 BC) [11-May-2007 15:44:44]
More chariot production at Sparta as I wait for our metals to be hooked up. [And it is by the end of the turn.]

Also, our scout sends back his first report.

IBT:
Attitude Change: Tokugawa(Japan) towards Wang Kon(Korea), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'

Turn 105/460 (275 BC) [11-May-2007 15:46:15]

IBT:

Turn 106/460 (250 BC) [11-May-2007 15:47:17]
St Petersberg:

IBT:

Turn 107/460 (225 BC) [11-May-2007 15:48:43]

IBT:

Turn 108/460 (200 BC) [11-May-2007 15:49:03]
Sparta finished another chariot and is starting on a sword, as our other cities are. However, I think we still need a Barracks at Corinth (i forgot to check

)

And heeeeeeeeeere's Moscow!

IBT:
Attitude Change: Louis XIV(France) towards Peter(Russia), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased' Oh yeah, that's just great!

Turn 109/460 (175 BC) [11-May-2007 15:50:22]
whipping the Lib @ Athens for 2 pop.

another Russian city!

IBT:
Civics Change: Wang Kon(Korea) from 'Slavery' to 'Caste System' WK has CoL, and maybe Confucianism??

Turn 110/460 (150 BC) [11-May-2007 15:52:03]
Athens begins: Swordsman (14 turns)
Corinth grows: 4

IBT:
Judaism has spread: Sparta

Turn 111/460 (125 BC) [11-May-2007 15:52:46]
Even though we've got religion now, I didn't swap yet (though I think we should ~ Louis is Jewish). Just wanted to get a consensus on it before doing so (and I didn't want to hand it off in anarchy).

Finally, he's one more Russian city:

I"m guessing that Toku's probably overexpanded and is just waiting for someone to kick in the door. However, with the PRO trait, his archers are going to be dangerous w/a capital D. Peter, though in slightly less desirable lands, should be our target I think, if we're going to annex a whole empire.

Otherwise, if we want to just expand to the west, and grab 3 or so Japanese cities, that might be doable. It's just too bad we won't be able to scout ahead of time.

Here's an overview pic of Russia:

And, for giggles, tiny Greece:

One last thought: I didn't trade any techs yet, so perhaps the next player should.

pholkhero · May 11, 2007

Also, I'll be OoP until Sun, FWIW

Roster (10 turns):
Codeman >> UP NOW
Warpoo >> on deck
Lukep >>
Zophos >>
Pholkhero >> just played

Codeman · May 11, 2007

looks like some fighting in the near future. i agree peter may be better choice for now since we have some intel. to allow all a chance to chime in with thier thoughts will not play 'til tomorrow.

please share your thoughts, concerns, and suggestions.

lukep · May 11, 2007

Still better to take toku first i think.

Peter will remove the jungle for us.
We have not the power to absorb Russia in one go.
Prot archer are hard, but Aggr Samuraïs are scary.
We really need a true production city (near Nara)

Now, Peter as pyramids, but it's no use for us yet

pholkhero · May 11, 2007

that's a good point about the jungle and the production city.

the more I think about, the more inclined i am to say we should try to grab whatever cities are to the west of our empire, probably about 3 or 4, so that we divide the continent in half. I still think Toku's probably spread thin, and waiting for someone to come on over :hammer:

Zophos · May 11, 2007

Ok...I guess I deserve :spank:

for not grabbing the Nara site on my set - I could have beaten Toku to it. I was more worried about Peter grabbing the Iron site, when I saw his borders so close nearby. If we were totally without metals, we were pretty much hosed. But I guess that's water under the bridge.

I wholeheartedly agree that Toku is the first target, probably at Nara. A handful of swords and perhaps a Cat or two (if we have 'em in time) should get us started. It's even worth autorazing Nara and building another settler, if we're ready before it grows (not sure we will be, but hey).

Peter and/or Louis can wait until we secure a manufacturing base.

lukep · May 11, 2007

Zophos said:
Ok...I guess I deserve for not grabbing the Nara site on my set - I could have beaten Toku to it. I was more worried about Peter grabbing the Iron site, when I saw his borders so close nearby. If we were totally without metals, we were pretty much hosed. But I guess that's water under the bridge.

Your turnset was rather good, and if i did say found the Nara site first, i did not explained much why.

Founding iron city was not weedy, just a bit sub-optimal. Problem is that we are so weak that even minor errors have dire consequences.

Concerning Oracle, we would probably could have got it. But as we would have been mauled by the barbs, we would have been dead at that time.

PH07: The School of Athens

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