Phaedo's 1st basic skills training game: patience required

[Phaedo]

I looked at the save and things look faantastic. My goal will be to get the Arabs down to 1CC . I'm hoping to give away the GL. Obviously it can't go to the Arabs now . Part of me would like to give it to the Duch for irony's sake but I worry about the city in the middle flipping. Maybe the Hittites would be a good call. It would be difficult for the Dutch to declare on them and it would be seperated from their capital by both the Dutch and us. Thoughts?

 

[Aabraxan]

I don't think it matters much. I'd give it to the Celts. It's furthest from their core.

 

[Phaedo]

Alright I'm going to play my turns so if anyone has any last minute thoughts, now would be the time

 

[Bucephalus]

Alright I'm going to play my turns so if anyone has any last minute thoughts, now would be the time

I suggest that if you don't give the GL to the Dutch, at least keep a couple of spare AC's on it's border, ready to intervene if the Dutch get restless.
I know that's probably 'belts and braces' but why take chances?

 

[Phaedo]

I ended up giving it to the Celts. They had an archer kicking around so it has a bit of defence. Our land is between it and the Dutch so there will be lots of warning if they get restless and we can get a couple of ACs there in 2 turns. It is size 2 now anyway so we shouldn't have to worry about it autorazing.

I've got IT working on the pentagon and we'll have the Heroic epic in 5. I'm on turn 3 now. Nothing is too exciting. took another Arab city and ought ot have Mecca in a couple of turns. St Pete's has nothing to build other a courthouse and temple. It seems such a waste to put 12 shields into wealth. Mikes Workshop is the only other wonder option but it we wouldn't get it for something like 50 turns. I suppose it could become a pre-build. It will finish a MI in 2 turns after that I guess I'll switch to wealth. Any other options?

 

[Bucephalus]

I ended up giving it to the Celts. They had an archer kicking around so it has a bit of defence. Our land is between it and the Dutch so there will be lots of warning if they get restless and we can get a couple of ACs there in 2 turns. It is size 2 now anyway so we shouldn't have to worry about it autorazing.

I've got IT working on the pentagon and we'll have the Heroic epic in 5. I'm on turn 3 now. Nothing is too exciting. took another Arab city and ought ot have Mecca in a couple of turns. St Pete's has nothing to build other a courthouse and temple. It seems such a waste to put 12 shields into wealth. Mikes Workshop is the only other wonder option but it we wouldn't get it for something like 50 turns. I suppose it could become a pre-build. It will finish a MI in 2 turns after that I guess I'll switch to wealth. Any other options?

The general feeling among the better players is that Temples are a waste of gold/shields, and I can't see a C'house paying for itself in St. Pete's. With all the land that we have, I'm sure workers wouldn't go amiss.

 

[Phaedo]

Here's the log. Not really too exciting all and all but we now controll the continent other than a few corners.

350 AD T00
Took a tour and changed a few things. Took off some tax men so the small 1 cities would start to grow, woke the sleeping slaves in Najran to do some roading and watering and gifted Great Library to the Celts. At the end of the day I thought that was best as the Collossus was in there too so it would give the Dutch a big boost. I don't think they would become a threat but there's no reson to take the pressure off them.

IBT Our eastern galley died

360AD T01
Attacked and took Medina. Next stop Mecca.
St Pete's finished its Marketplace and I started the Hanging Gardens as a place holder. We could get it in 30 and I'll probably change it next turn I guess It was just tempting. Iron Town finished its galley and I started the Pentagon (3 armies in the field)
A lot of worker turns
Started library in Tradnotarsk. We have 5 luxes hooked up to our cities. Marketplaces would give us a lot of happiness but those cheap libraries are just so hard to resist.
Made a bit of a mouse click mistake and sent our army and a number of units onto a mountain buit I'll live with it.

IBT We produced another AC and got some more of the palace built.

370 AD T02
A bunch of worker turns. The jungle ought to be cleared shortly.
Killed some stray MIs of the Arabs and consolodated our forced
Went back to St Pete's to change the build but other a courthouse (that we don't need) and a temple the only thing left to build are units that we can't afford so I leave the HG build. It can always become a pre-build for something else.

IBT Americans build the Hanging Gardens

380AD T03
Switch St Pete's to a MI and then I guess it'll go to wealth. If someone can tell me after my set what would be better, I would appreciate it. After taking some advice, it will switch to a worker.
The Celt archer is moving out of GL and heading towards our undefended city so some units head down. We can have 2 ACs there next turn

IBT Zzzz

390AD T04
Take Mecca with the army and an eAC. The army is in the red but that should be ok. It looks like the Arabs only have 3 or 4 more cities.
The Arab war is the only really interesting thing. The rest of the turn was moving units and getting boats into position to try to cross the ocean

IBT We learned Gunpowder

400AD T05
Set Mecca to starve and pull the troops out. Send our stack towards Damascus. The Arabs have Monotheism.i may make peace with them after taking Damascus if they will give me cities. We have to take Bagdhad to deprive them of iron regardless.
movement and next turn we'll have 2 boats going out

IBT palace upgrade

410AD T06
The boats move out and we take Damascus. The Arab capital switched to Bagdhad so that's the next target.
Not much else to tell

IBT some disorder (sorry about that I guess I got sloppy) and our western boat dies (eastern one is safe)

420AD T07
We finally have a foothold on the other continent! It looks like there is unpopulated land. We could actually settle there quite esily if we could cross ocean squares. It is only 2 turns from Anjar (S of GL)
Keep starving Mecca and Bagdhad. Move some workers and end the turn

IBT Zzzzz

430AD T08
Get in position ot take Bagdhad next turn and start exploring the new continent.
Western boats keep trying to make contact
LOTS of worker moves

IBT We have completed the Heroic Epic

440AD T09
Take 2 Arab cities and they are at 1CC. Make peace. They wouldn't give us Mono so we only got 4 gold for the peace but it's not really a big deal.
Oh yea, Bagdhad had the Temple of Artimis in it. Maybe temples are worthwhile building now?
Well, it looks like that unpopulated land is an island. We could populate it in a bit but I don't think it'll get us to the other continent (at least not yet)

IBT Zzzzz

450AD T10
Well, I left some workers asleep with moves left near the old jungle (4 slaves). It seems there is a city on that island and we ought to be able to get to the mainland without ending on the ocean. It looks like the Americans on the Island but I guess Sal can find out
I also started sending troops back to the centre of our empire as we don't need tham way down on the SW tip anymore.

Good luck!

And here are the screenies:

Our exploratory mission

 

[Bucephalus]

I've only had time for a quick glance, but looks like a good job.

Couple of things spring out at me:

1) If we have the ToA, it gives free temples everywhere so pointless building them still.

2) The sleeping workers in Najran was not an oversight; I like to keep workers close by during military operations for quick roads where needed.

More later.....

 

[Bucephalus]

Ok, I've looked at the save, and it's good, efficient job. Nice work Phaedo.

To elaborate on my previous comments:

Re Temples: We have 5 native lux's and Markets where necessary, which means that since our cities will never grow beyond size 12, we will never have need of Temples or Cathedrals; we would merely be wasting gold and shields.

Re Courthouse: St. Pete's is barely corrupt; a Courthouse would save 1 gpt, the same as it costs in maintainance.

One minor point: The Science slider could be cut back 20% without losing any turns on Chemistry, something like a 70gpt difference.

Sal will probably be looking to swap some of those Wealth builds for Settlers since we have room for 10 or so cities still.

I also would suggest that we eliminate the Dutch and the Hittites ASAP, and Arabia as soon as our treaty expires; fewer Civs = lower tech costs.

 

[Salarakas]

I have no time to read the turnlogs or comments right now but just to let you know I got it and will try to play tomorrow or on Monday at the latest. If there's some reason why I should wait please let me know.

 

[Bucephalus]

If there's some reason why I should wait please let me know.

Not from my point of view; you're a competent player and you know where we're going with this, so play when you're ready unless the others object.

 

[Phaedo]

Anytime you are ready is fine with me

 

[Salarakas]

Start off by reading the last two turnlogs and all the comments. I agree that creating an MI-army was a good move. No point in keeping 3 empty ones.

I was kind of hoping to kick some AI bum but looks like you guys didn't leave me much work

Temple Of Artemis is a fantastic wonder when you capture it before it gets obsolete. Free border expansions are great, especially in AW games. We also have the Oracle so that means 2 free extra content faces in all our towns!


Turn 0 - 450 AD
-our towns are a complete mess. I spend at least 15 minutes micromanaging and change a whole lot of builds. I can't see any reason why we should be building wealth in so many towns. Settlers, galleys, anything that might come in handy...

-wealth in St. Petersburg??? Change it to a musketman. Normally I wouldn't build any but it might come in handy when we invade the other continent. After it grows a bit I'll build a settler there.

-spot some fortified workers

-we have a town building a spearman and it doesn't even have a barracks. Change to a galley. Another town is building a musket with no barracks.

-Riverton is very corrupt but is building a marketplace. Change to a courthouse so it can actually do some good to us.


-2 turns peace left with the Celts
-I'm not sure why we have a regular medieval infantry around
-I would have definately captured Khurasan before making peace with the Arabs
-we have some tiles with mines but no road. I spotted at least a couple such tiles on some previous turnset but didn't mention anything then. Always road a mined/irrigated tile before moving the worker out


Turn 1 - 460 AD
-we meet the Germans. They don't even have monotheism yet. We're up invention and gunpowder.
-we meet the Americans. They don't even have engineering yet.


Turn 2 - 470 AD
-chemistry in, start researching metallurgy (which will sadly obsolete the statue of zeus)
-Hattusas, which I rename Pyramid Town, has 2 hittite citizens but there's no point in starving it to size 1 now
-can't understand why a worker was irrigating a grassland tile next to Rostov in our core


Turn 3 - 480 AD
-zzz


Turn 4 - 490 AD
-get a whole bunch of border expansions thanks to the Temple of Artemis


Turn 5 - 500 AD
-declare war on the Celts
-capture Alesia
-declare war on the Dutch
-capture Great Library again


Turn 6 - 510 AD
-get a great leader. Think about rushing the pentagon but we've already spent too many shields on it. Build an army instead
-capture Groningen from the Dutch. They are down to 1 city now.
-we meet the Romans. They are down monarchy and engineering


Turn 7 - 520 AD
-we get monotheism from the GL
-our stack of 19 catapults and 1 trebuchet is barely enough to redline the heroic defenders (2 regular spearmen) of the Celt capital Camulodunum The Celts are destroyed.
-declare war on the Hittites
-we get the last AC, conveniently 1 turn before the SoZ goes obsolete


Turn 8 - 530 AD
-the Hittites move 4 or 5 units right next to Adana
-capture Ankuwa, the Hittite capital, and the Hittites are destroyed. Thanks for moving most of the defenders out
-merged a couple of workers to Iron Town as it was growing very slowly and needs the extra shields to finish the Pentagon sooner
-disbanded both our spearmen and the regular sword


Turn 9 - 540 AD
-capture Maastricht. The Dutch are destroyed.
-disband the regular medieval infantry
-merge 2 workers to Yekaterinburg


Turn 10 - 550 AD
-zzz


Notes for the next player:
-there is no safe way to cross the sea until we get caravels
-we have 9 turns left of peace with the Arabs. Finish them after that. I've moved some units there (or on their way there) including some elite swords
-the musket builds should be switched to cossacks once we get military tradition
-we might want to attack the Arabs with our first cossack and start our golden age. Our core is almost completely improved so a golden age right now would be great
-I see absolutely no reason to gift the Great Library town to anyone right now. All the civs are backwards compared to us
-we can disband all the swords once the Arabs are dead. We can use the MI-army, AC units and maybe a couple of cossacks for defending the whole continent. I doubt any of the AI get caravels/galleons before we punish them big time. The only units we might want to upgrade are some cats/trebs to cannons but the money will be better used for max research towards caravels

 

[Salarakas]

 

[Salarakas]

I just reread my log and some of the comments seem a bit harsh. My apologies for that

 

[Phaedo]

No worries about sounding harsh, I felt like I was floundering a bit on city management. In my defence, St Pete's was building workers until it dropped to size 7. I didn't want it to drop to size 6 so I switched to wealth to get the pop up. That was the reasoning behind all the corrupt cities as well. W had something like 30gpt unit support and all the army we needed to finish off the continent so I didn't think military builds were worthwhile.

Had I taken Khurasan, there wouldn't have been any Arabs to mke peace with . I hadn't met the Yanks or Krauts yet so I was still thinking that we wanted more civs in the game so we would get the most out of re-capturing GL (just for the record, do you realize that we didn't even get one tech from that thing? It's a good lesson for those who feel it's a necessity). It doesn't look like we'll get many from it either. Maybe up to Ed if we're lucky.

Oh yea. Riverton... I know a marketplace wasn't the best call. I did figure it was easily changable as I hadn't started it too many turns before the end of the set. Truth be told, I was building it for the happiness factor and not the cash factor. With our 5 luxes, a marketplace will give us 9 happyfaces! Wouldn't the 1gpt upkeep be overcome by the reduction of the lux slider? Regardless, the courthouse first is by far the better call.

Having said all that, I think you did the right thing Sal. disbanding our swords ought to go a long way in clearning up that.

I do have a couple of questions that would be great if I could get comments on though

1. What is the deal with the fewer number of civs affecting the tech price? I read that discussion in D'arts (I think) SG but didn't really follow it. Does it mean that it will take us less time to research them or just mean we will pay less to trade for them?
2. As I understand it, with 5 luxes a marketplace almost doubles the happy faces. Doesn't this make it worthwhile build even in corrupt towns (if we are going to make tax farms bigger than pop 6)
3. Finally, if we are going to make specialist farms, is it better to put in aqueducts in them and get the pop up ( I guess for unit upkeep) or build them CxC and keep them at 6 pop with 2 or 3 specialists and no upkeep?

On a final note, I have extended an invitation to Mr_2_u to join our game. He is currently reading the logs and will let us know when he is ready. I have suggested he submit a pre-set goal list for consideration before he starts his set for advice and to make sure he understnds what is going on (I should probably take my own advice )

And finally....Nice set Sal

 

[Salarakas]

We did get one tech from the GL - monotheism. It is not a necessery wonder in a normal emperor level game but helps heaps in higher difficulties and AW games. The thing is that our continent had so many civs and therefore the tech pace was swift. With some nice trading we were able to keep up with that. The other 3 civs apparently have poorer land and less contacts and therefore are lagging behind us.


Yes, Riverton needs a marketplace as well but a courthouse first is better in my opinion. A marketplace should probably be the next build there.


About disbanding the swords/medieval infantry units... remember to spend the shields wisely. A sword will give 7 shields, I think, and an MI 10 shields. Great way of speeding up some slow builds like courthouses (where needed). I built a town in the desert area in our core which will serve as a fishing village. It won't be able to grow much until it gets a harbor so disbanding some units there would be great.


What victory condition are we aiming for? Conquest or domination? Domination would be quicker and one tile islands could really hurt if we aim for a conquest victory.

In my defence, St Pete's was building workers until it dropped to size 7. I didn't want it to drop to size 6 so I switched to wealth to get the pop up.

I strugled with that dilemma as well. I wanted to keep the town at size 7 or higher but the only things to build there were a courthouse which wasn't needed, a cathedral which is just a big waste of shields and money, troops which we didn't need and wonders - none of which we really need

As I understand it, with 5 luxes a marketplace almost doubles the happy faces. Doesn't this make it worthwhile build even in corrupt towns (if we are going to make tax farms bigger than pop 6)

No, it doesn't make it worthwhile. We'll be using the extra population as specialists and therefore we don't need to keep them happy. We already have all the happy help we need.

Finally, if we are going to make specialist farms, is it better to put in aqueducts in them and get the pop up ( I guess for unit upkeep) or build them CxC and keep them at 6 pop with 2 or 3 specialists and no upkeep?

The thing is to build them next to fresh water so they don't need an aqueduct. I wouldn't bother building any aqueducts in the corrupt areas as this game won't last that long and it takes ages to build them.

 

[Aabraxan]

. . . .

The Celts are destroyed.

. . . .

the Hittites are destroyed

. . . .

The Dutch are destroyed.

Quite the turnset, I'd say.

 

[TheLoneMan]

I saw your entry in the Game Registry... you still in need of a player?

 

[Aabraxan]

Currently, it stands:

Salarakas (trainer)
Bucephalus (guest player)
Phaedo
Myself
Mr_2_You (assuming he accepts the invitation)

I have no objection to your joining.