Racing Deity to Space

[Spoonwood]

Go ahead Ignas, it's all yours.

 

[ignas]

2550 ..

IBT: Athens warrior->barracks (granary prebuild);
Athens grow to size 3

2510 exploring warrior spots 2 game forests nearby;
worker goes to chop forest

IBT: Sparta grown

2470 ..

IBT: "Persians building Pyramids" pops up

2430 contact Persians, 6 towns, up same techs as Babylon;
make these trades: give Persians Alphabet for CB, The Wheel, pottery + 31 gold
give Babylon Alphabet for Masonry + 8 gold
Persians up Mysticism + Wc, Babs WC
Production switched to granaries in Athens and Sparta

IBT: Thermopylae curragh->curragh

2390 curragh goes East

IBT: Athens grown;


2350 both AI's up IW, WC, Myst now;
contact German spear: 7 towns, lack Masonry and Alpha, up WC and IW;
trade Masonry for WC + 15 gold

IBT: ..

2310 sign 2 scientists to speed up Writing research by a turn: one in Thermopylae, other in Athens. This slows
growth in Thermopylae only, we would need to slow growth in Athens in any case since it should complete granary before growth to size 5

IBT: Writing->CoL

2270 ..

IBT: ..

2230 ..

IBT: Athen granary->settler;
Thermopylae grown

2190 ..

IBT: Sparta granary

2150 didn't move workers
CoL in 24 turns

 

[Bucephalus]

Nice.

I'm glad to see holding-on to Alphabet worked out for us; shame we couldn't get IW from the Germans.

Sparta looks good for a second Settler pump, if we get the chance to expand without fighting - Akkad is so far in our face that surely Hammi will need a smack before too long.

Bit concerned at the absence of lux's so far.

 

[Spoonwood]

Alright, so I'm up. I want to send the first settler west/northwest and to place it on the blackened out hill out by the game. Then the next one goes north/northeast and goes all the way to the end of the claims land on the end of that river, with another one coming right behind it and claiming land at a CxxxC from Akkad on top of the forest. Does that sound good to you guys? Also, where do we put the Forbidden Palace? I see either a new city northwest/west of us as a spot, or Thermopylae... which if we choose Thermopylae, I'd think we should get started on a pre-build as soon as the curragh finishes. Sparta might give us a worker or two (so it has more shields), and then settlers to hopefully get all the territory south. Athens looks like it can turn into a settler-warrior combo factory here soon.

Concerning Babylon... remember we have the AIs at least agressive. Then again, they seem like perhaps the most aggressive ancient age scientific tribe (it's the cheap temples). An early war might prove bad, but I doubt such would last all that long... if it happens. I hope having France in there doesn't mess up the Republic slingshot.

I'll wait to play until I hear from you guys about city placement and the Forbidden Palace.

 

[ignas]

Next town 4SW,W near the game sounds good.

Then the next one goes north/northeast and goes all the way to the end of the claims land on the end of that river

Very long to travel without roads, probably settling faster near food is better, for example settler from Sparta could travel fast near the cow and plant a city.

I'd place towns tight and near rivers (no aqueduct - 100 shields saved).

Also important to get +5fpt in Sparta for 2 turn workers.

A bit of DM.
Firstly could go white dot, then settler from Sparta on black dot, then yellow and blue.

 

[Bucephalus]

Concerning Babylon... remember we have the AIs at least agressive. Then again, they seem like perhaps the most aggressive ancient age scientific tribe (it's the cheap temples). An early war might prove bad, but I doubt such would last all that long... if it happens.

I think you might be missing my point, Spoonwood; I'm suggesting that a relitively early war is desirable for us. Akkad has infringed right into our core area - it is intolerable that it should remain there, IMO.

re. the FP: usual criteria, for me - somewhere that will receive maximum benefit from low corruption/waste, that can be built relitively quickly.

 

[Spoonwood]

I don't see how a *full* early war will benefit us. We'll need to get libraries up and market/temples/maybe cathedrals with our luxury situation. I don't see how we can get enough shields to do all that this early. We'll also probably suffer some causalities from attacking (we can't expect our first attacking units to win and 30 shield horseman vs. 40 shield libraries/100 shield markets), and since Babylon would fairly readily attack us with its extra starting units where we don't have hoplites that seems like a war weariness situation. Getting hoplites everywhere we'd need them seems even more costly. And then we'd probably want some barracks. Even with an early GA I don't see our production getting quite high enough for all that. Later on, once we have cavalry and maybe artillery/rails and have more of our infrastructure up (and the AIs become less useful for research), I can see us much more minimizing losses and not having much weariness. Especially with the effective use of artillery.

A short "fake" war with a more distant tribe to trigger our GA can certainly give us a large boon, but I don't see how early aggression against Babylon makes sense. We certainly don't want to have a war state with them a turn before we pop into the middle ages... esepcially if they don't have The Republic technology yet. Soon after they enter the middle ages they'll have pikes (unless Hammy's missing iron) and we don't have time to go to Invention or Chivalry ourselves. I agree that Akkad does seem a nuisance, but some of Tone's fast SS games have faced similar situations. It's Deity, it happens sometimes, no need to sweat it.

Sorry if I sound overbearing. I like to state my reasoning as thoroughly as I can.

I'll give Andronicus a day or two to chime in before I play in case he sees something we haven't.

Addendum: Babylon might be our best technology trading partner in this game. We won't really know this until sometime in the middle ages. I suspect early war with Hammy would make him more likely to want to declare on us later, and we don't want the best AIs going Fascist or even to Monarchy.

 

[Bucephalus]

I don't see how a *full* early war will benefit us.

I agree that a full-on war wouldn't be beneficial, but that's not really what I'm thinking of; Akkad is reasonably far from their Capital, and if we took it they would probably be ready to talk before any serious fighting - at this stage of the game that usually means after 6 turns. And having lost a city, they wouldn't require reparations. Certainly, I wouldn't want to get Hoplites involved.

But that close to our core, Akkad is preventing the placing of several useful city sites, and I dread to think what that will cost us economically in a long game.

It's Deity, it happens sometimes, no need to sweat it.

Sure, it happens, and I'm not sweating it; in my games I usually deal with such intrusions, rather than suffer their inconvenience.

Sorry if I sound overbearing. I like to state my reasoning as thoroughly as I can.

No need to apologize, mate; actually, your verbosity is one of the things I like about you.

I'll give Andronicus a day or two to chime in before I play in case he sees something we haven't.

Sure, no rush.

Addendum: Babylon might be our best technology trading partner in this game. We won't really know this until sometime in the middle ages. I suspect early war with Hammy would make him more likely to want to declare on us later, and we don't want the best AIs going Fascist or even to Monarchy.

That's not been my experience; unless we raze Akkad, I doubt that there will be any long-term grudge held.

 

[DWetzel]

Lurker comment re: dotmap-- wouldn't black dot make more sense either SE (in the fog) or S (on the hill), depending on what the fog is hiding? Seems to be better spacing and more importantly gets it on the coast, which is of course handy for science.

Lurker comment #2: Babs would make a pretty good trading partner, in principle, but if you're going to have enough land to research quickly at Deity level, it's hard to see how you get it without relocating them sooner or later. It may as well be a bit sooner; hopefully you can beat a tech out of them as part of the bargain.

 

[Bucephalus]

Lurker comment re: dotmap-- wouldn't black dot make more sense either SE (in the fog) or S (on the hill), depending on what the fog is hiding? Seems to be better spacing and more importantly gets it on the coast, which is of course handy for science.

Took the words right out of my mouth........

 

[ignas]

market/temples/maybe cathedrals

What? Temples, cathedrals in space race game? I see you play in a builder mode. Better to invest shields into units so happiness will come from captured luxes, science from science farms (ICS).

re: dotmap-- wouldn't black dot make more sense either SE (in the fog) or S (on the hill), depending on what the fog is hiding? Seems to be better spacing and more importantly gets it on the coast, which is of course handy for science.

Took the words right out of my mouth........

That's for sure.

 

[Andronicus]

I sit in the "take the land from the AI" camp. Ultimately we will be a better researcher than Babylon if all goes well. We need those low corruption tiles in our core to be productive for us. I also agree with Ignas, the solution to our lux deficiency is to get some ourselves.
Our first war should be as Buce describes, a short quick annexation of Akkad. We are far from ready for this yet though. I have little doubt it will wait till after we are in republic assuming we are successful in the sling shot. At present I think we need to get out settlers and workers as quickly as possible so we later have the capacity to build libs and military.

Agree with moving black dot

 

[ignas]

I suggest worker near Sparta goes NE to road towards future town site (so after settler build finishes in Sparta it cuild build town 1 turn faster).
Worker near Athens to road other bg, then mine bg's for a warrior/settler combo.

 

[Spoonwood]

What? Temples, cathedrals in space race game? I see you play in a builder mode. Better to invest shields into units so happiness will come from captured luxes, science from science farms (ICS).

This probably depends on the luxes nearby and who makes for the best trading partner. If we take luxes from the best one or two AIs, we'll either drag them into Fascism or Monarchy or decrease their population such that we've slowed down the overall tech pace. We don't know *yet* where on the map the best AIs lie. To break 1100, probably even 1200 AD at this level, we need good trading partners both for gpt and research, even in the industrial age. We also can't get weariness. Raze and replace I don't think will work all too well, since that pisses off the other AIs and it requires a population loss from our core at least initially, which slows down our growth and thus our commerce and science. The more the best AIs get mad at us, the more of a potential target we become... and they will get bombers... and later nukes. Taking a city and holding it at this level might work with the weaker AIs, but it's tricky due to cultural pressure... especially if we only have libraries and universities and no temples anywhere. If it works, then it's well worth it. But, if it doesn't... as far as I understand it... a city lost on a flip contributes a significant amount to war weariness.

Hopefully we'll be able to trade for all the luxuries, but we'll have to see about that.

Agree with moving black dot, I almost commented on that earlier, but I didn't feel sure if I like just one tile on the coast, because I'd prefer to get all the coastal tiles we can get. I don't know if we'd get the cow then.

If we plan to take out Akkad, I'd expect it to come during the Middle Ages, as we probably have about 1150 years left, if that until then. And as long as Hammy has his iron hooked up, that will mean pikes. If that long even.

 

[vmxa]

Kibitzer:

At Deity the AI's max transition from one gov to the next is 2 turns. They will not worry about switching, hence even if they do go to Monarchy, it will not be for the rest of the game.

 

[Spoonwood]

@VMXA True, but that could mean that we'll have to research Magnetism or Industrialization or something when we could have traded for it otherwise.

 

[Spoonwood]

1-2150 Mine near Sparta. The worker coming out of Sparta will road in the NE next. Worker near Athens north to road BG. I thought we didn't have a curragh out yet. Seeing that we do, I swap Thermopylae from a curragh to a settler.

2-2110 Not much.

3-2070 Sparta worker-settler. The Ottomans swing by one of our warriors. He lacks Alphabet. I can pick up Iron Working now via Alphabet with a little cash thrown in, but we need some deficit research, so I forget that. MM Athens a little.

4-2030 Athens settler-settler. Move about a little.

5-1990 Enkidu sneaks up by our warrior and speaks an ancient tongue. Gilgamesh doesn't know Iron Working (what gives?). He doesn't know The Wheel, but has Mysticism. Trade The Wheel for Mysticism and 39 gold. He *does* have ivory. I'll guess he's reseraching Polytheism right now. The white dot isn't a hill. It's a mountain.

6-1950 Hammy plants Eulbar down south... goodness gracious. Sparta grows and it's unhappy, so I hire a scientist... I don't like the thought of 40% luxury and going for the slingshot. Persia and Babylon get Writing.

7-1910 Found Corinth in between two Eulbar and Akkad. I put on the Palace. If it has the Forbidden Palace later, I don't think it can flip.

8-1870 Athens settler-settler. Sparta settler-settler (feel free to change). Raise sci. to 80% for a turn at least. Settler from Athens heads towards the yellow. Settler from Sparta heads

9-1830 Sci. back down to 70%, lux. to 30%. Move some units.

10-1790 Thermopylae settler-warrior/as you see fit. This settler I think should go north/northeast, out towards the whale. Osman starts The Temple of Artemis. No one else has Polytheism.

The settler on the moutain can go west out by the forest and plant there it should still not get pressure from Eulbar that way and won't waste tiles. We can then put one on the hill at a CxxC east of that town. The settler coming from Athens soon can go north and plant near Akkad (I think Ignas put it one tile too close to Akkad for this level). The next player gets to have a lot of fun planting towns *s*. You might want to check settings before you play, as I turn animations off (except for battles) since I have an older machine.

I feel the situation a little less tolerable since Hammy planted Eulbar.

 

[Andronicus]

Our first war should be as Buce describes, a short quick annexation of Akkad.

edit that
... a short quick annexation of Akkad and Eulbar

 

[Spoonwood]

Um yeah... so this map has turned out certainly less than ideal (read 4 letter word). A short, quick annexation of two AI cities with all scientific opponents. Regardless of the tech pace, I don't see that. Sure, we could take them both, but I don't see us having enough military prior to pikes to do that all too *quickly*... unless we get lucky... or I'm just a a pessimist.

Andronicus-up
Bucephalus-on deck
Ignas-warming up
Spoonwood-enjoying a nap... dreaming of the death of Hammurabi.

 

[Andronicus]

son's 18th b'day tonight
I'll look at the save tomorrow