Raliuven SG1

[creamcheese]

How about I put you in the Roster and if after you turn you decide it isn't for you, just let me know. You'll make a nice #5. I know that players drop out of SGs from time to time, I'd like to keep the Roster intact if I can, but realize that RL take over from time to time (how wrong is that?)

That sounds good.

Commenting on the first set: Raging barbs I usually play with roaming or none. Oh well, time for a change I guess. I would vote for controlling the spices. Denying the AI luxuries can rally hamper their growth, and provide easy pickings for us later. Not to mention the trade opportunities.

With raging barbs a barracks might be a better idea than a granary, and with no bonus food we are not going to be expanding quickly anyway.

 

[CKS]

I also vote to change the granary to a barracks, build a few warriors, and then a settler to claim the food.

@Elephantium: We are expansionist. No barbs from huts.

 

[Elephantium]

Dur, I should have known that! So much for my vaunted Civ knowledge

 

[Raliuven]

Okay, here is the last of the Log:

Spoiler :

After discussion – Swap granary for barracks. Move settler towards fish and spices. I intend to use the scout to watch for barb camps until the settler is I place.

Turn 19 (3100 BC) – Barracks builds, start warrior.

Scout 2SE. Meet an Iroquois scout – he has WC & Mysticism, we have Masonry. He is head right towards the Russian cities. No one else knows Mysticism yet. Trade Iro Masonry + 5gp for Myst.

I check and Russia has WC (of course), America has 2 workers hiding in its capital. It will take Myst, all our 46gp and 2gpt to get them. After the trade with Russia, I'm should recoup a huge 5gp & WC. Losing 2 workers will also hamstring the Americans.

Make the deal. Go back to Russia and trade Myst for WC and 5gp, all they have. We are now up Myst and WC on France.

Move Scout #2 to check the area for barbs and move settler towards fish & spices.

Move our two new slave worker to spices to start road.

Turn 20 (3050 BC) Scout #1 2S. Scout #2 checks settling spot for settler then moves W. Coast is all clear. Settler is in place. Slaves start to road spices.

France has WC now but not Myst.

I made a trade that I may get flack over - I traded America Myst, 46gp & 2gpt to pick up both of the workers hiding in their captial on turn 19. That's just about all of our gold and gpt. Research is set to min on writing with +1gpt.

We are equal tech with everyone and up myst on France. I don't know if we are still the only people to know France, they suddenly picked up WC on the last round, but they may have been researching it.

As of last round we made first contact with the Iroquois, but they are right next to Russia. They may not have met yet, but it should be soon.

The bonus settler is in place. 1st Warrior due next turn.

@creamcheese - As I play a lot of GOTM, barbarians are always set to a high level. It's just what I am accustomed to. It can be a pain, but I often feel that they are just as inconviencing to the AI as they are to us, probably more so because we war better than the AI. I think it was GOTM 111 were the barbarians in my game pretty much decimated Greece the entire game (well, until I walked over them later).

@Elephantium - in the screen shot I was working the forest tile to slow growth so that the granary would complete first. I switched it back to the BG so it should grow as expected.

RE: the granary - I usually start out with a granary first under the belief of food=power. My thought was that the Granary would make the city capable of spitting out workers/settlers occasionally. Like creamcheese, however, I accept the wisdom of my fellow players and it is time to experience something new.

And, of course, the Save.

 

[Elephantium]

Log:

Spoiler :

Pre-turn:

Look around a bit. There's nothing to change!

IBT:

Mecca: Warrior > Warrior

Turn 1 (3000 BC):

I move a Worker, and the move doesn't animate. Hmm, I should check on preferences. I turn off Always Renegotiate Deals; that leads to extra 20-turn commitments to peace treaties after wars.

Create the city of Medina next to the fish and Spices. It starts building a Warrior.

We meet Rome! They have no new techs, and they lack Masonry. They only have 4 gold, so it's not worth selling it ... yet.

IBT:

Zzz...

Turn 2 (2950 BC): On IBT - Mecca: Warriors

Turn 3 (2900 BC):

Send one of Mecca's Warriors south. He spots a GH.
Our Western Scout spots Roman borders.

IBT:

Zzz...

Turn 4 (2850 BC):

Climbing a mountain, the Eastern scout spots a GH
Rome has Workers for sale, but they're too expensive (all our gold and gpt plus Masonry).

IBT:

Roman Warrior comes into view of the Eastern Scout. I guess they'll meet France soon if they haven't already.
Mecca: Warriors

Turn 5 (2800 BC):

Lux slider to 0%
Warrior pops a GH: 25 gold.
Scout pops a GH: The Circassian tribe teaches us the Wheel!
Hmm, we met Carthage somehow. We're up Pottery, The Wheel, and CB. They have 10 gold and two cities, including their capital.

IBT:

Spice road N of Mecca is complete.

Turn 6 (2750 BC):

Nothing...

IBT:

Mecca: Warrior > Settler. Growth is due in 4, Settler is due in 5, so we'll drop back to size 2 (5 spt aka 2-turn Warriors vs. 3 spt if I'd made the settler before the Warriors)

Turn 7 (2710 BC):

Eastern Scout is suddenly next to Carthaginian borders! They must have just plopped down a new city.

Turn 8 (2670 BC): Nothing happens
Turn 9 (2630 BC): Nothing happens
Turn 10 (2590 BC):

Handoff time. I have the two Scouts moving towards each other in the South; once they meet up, my plan is to have one continue scouting the South while the other turns North past Russia.

The Warrior S of the capital is headed West to explore the jungle; hopefully a good city site is hiding in that area.

The two American workers are about to road the horses. After that, I was planning on having them build a road towards the wheat and cow, connecting our second city towards the end of the next turnset.

The Iroquois learned Iron Working but we can't afford it just yet.

* Note: CivAssist says it's Turn 29. I think that's because it considers 4000 BC "Turn 0".

Spoiler :

 

[Raliuven]

Pre-turn:

Look around a bit. There's nothing to change!

Well, I didn't actually leave you with much to begin with! My stress level skyrockets in the first 60 turns.

ROSTER:
-Raliuven
-Elephantium (just played)
-TheOverseer714 (Playing)
-CKS (On Deck)
-creamcheese

 

[CommandoBob]

lurker's comment:
The terrain here really doesn't help. Whether the RCP is 3 or 4, the mountains just get in the way of good city placement.

Hint: In CivAssist II -> World Map, right click on the map and select Distance Ring and then select a distance. Any and all cities built on the '1' spots will have the same corruption. Any and all cities built on the '2' spots will also have the same corruption, but it will greater than the '1' spots since the 2s are more distant from the capital.

New York is on Ring 3 if the RCP is 3.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Got the save, will play later. I'll have to see if RCP3 includes a decent spot for the SF. We will also iikely need a "bridge" city to get water to the SF.

 

[Elephantium]

Here's one possible dotmap. The best thing I can say about it (darn mountains) is that the settler factory goes in the right place.

I'm not sure which tile to put the white dot on ... a second port would be nice, but one tile away from the sea is better in terms of giving space to the cities.

 

[Raliuven]

Thanks for the dot map!

Re: the white dot - I think we're good with one port city. We can always place a second port city in the second ring or as part of a second core if it becomes necessary. Besides, we appear to be in a cove of some type - it might be better to place a 2nd port on the other side of the settler factory.

The bad thing about the red dot is that we'll need a temple to use either food resource. I can't see a better alternative given the set up. It's like we're in a big crater!

At least the roads are leading in the right direction and temples are cheap for us. If we place the second city on the red dot we can pick up both food sources and the horses. It is close enough that it should have relativelly low corruption until we are still filling in the 1st ring. Hopefully America won't crowd us too quick. I'm not usually a big temple, but I'm not sure ther is an alternative here.

 

[CKS]

Other cities will work rather than a temple, but since we have cheap temples, that would be easy. It is going to take a long time to water the cows and wheat, though, so we could plop down a couple of coastal cities before then.

I'd rather build a temple and focus our expansion elsewhere, though. We can always sell the temple later, but I think it'll be handy. Corruption is going to make us run the settler factory with a pretty high population.

 

[Elephantium]

Looking again, we might want to raze New York and place a city 1E of that site. River + Coastal + Ring 3

As for the SF city, I think this is the best of the available options. With RCP 4 I think the ring hits the cow and then goes into the sea.

Hmm, we'll need a LOT of worker turns to get the SF up and running. We'll probably want to peel off Workers from the capital between other builds, following one of these patterns:

1. current Settler (drops to size 2 w/2f) > Archer > Archer (size 2 w/18f) > Worker (hits size 3 on the first turn, drops back to size 2 when the worker completes).
2. current Settler (drops to size 2 w/2f) > build 4 Archers (hitting Size 3 w/18f) > Worker (drops to size 3, giving us 7spt if we mine the BG 1W of Mecca).

We can use the Archers to do anti-Barbarian patrols, attack New York, or even disband towards the Temple in the SF city.

Another thought: We might want to consider putting our first ring on RCP 4 and then going out to 7 for the SF and second ring (vs. pure RCP 3 or RCP 4).

 

[Raliuven]

I'm an RCP 4 kind of player, but that's probably because I'm a builder. We're already facing pressure from America and REX is going to SLOW with this start. I don't know that we've got the time and reinforcing might be critical.

Some considerations of RCP 4; the blue dot is of the coast but the white dot can then be placed on the coast. The yellow dot reclaims a deseret tile instead of a grassland tile. We could keep the 2nd ring in place and stagger then between the 1st ring placement for spacing, but that would probably push any plan for a 3rd wide.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Bad news for the dot map, I went RCP4 and placed the SF 1 tile SE of the wheat. I guess I played too soon. The good news is, RCP4 works well to give us 2 strong rings. I will post the save and log later.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Here it is, in all its RCP4 glory:

I dd a couple of screenies with my proposed dotmaps:

Spoiler :

Inner ring:

2nd ring

The turn-log:

Spoiler :

Pre-flight: CivAssist 2, Word running. Get the save loaded. I find the only distance ring that fits is RCP4, so thats my plan. No changes needed.

Press Enter=> No significant movement. Medina Warrior=>Warrior.

Turn 1, 2550 BC: Scouts find nothing major. Can't buy Iron Working.

IBT: Mecca Settler=>Archer.

Turn 2, 2510 BC: Scouts meet. Warrior finds Wines 7 tiles SSW of Mecca! Move Settler out toward SF spot. Can't buy Iron Working.

IBT: Nada

Turn 3, 2470 BC: Scouts scout, one north, other west.

IBT: Nada

Turn 4, 2430 BC:Rome has Iron Working, they will trade it for the Wheel and Masonry. Iroquois won't. Make the trade. New York has Iron and that's the only nearby source at the moment, which means

IBT: A green-clad Warrior appears beside Medina.

Turn 5, 2390 BC:Meet Japan, they are 4 techs down.

IBT: Mecca Archer=>Archer.

Turn 6, 2350 BC:Rome has 2 workers available. Borrow 50 gold from Iroquois for 3gpt. Trade IW to America for 33. Get Japan's 10 for Mysticism. Trade 116 for 1 of them. Retreat Scout from barb camp that appeared in front of him.

IBT: Nada

Turn 7, 2310 BC: Settle Damascus in the only RCP4 spot. =>Temple (needed to get Cow in our border).

IBT: Nada

Turn 8, 2270 BC:Scout ends turn in Russian territory, sorry Cathy.

IBT: Nada

Turn 9, 2230 BC:West Scout finds Ivory, that makes 5 luxes within 30 tiles or so.

IBT: Mecca Archer=>Archer.

Turn 10, 2190 BC: Exploring.

IBT: Medina Warrior=>Warrior.

Turn 11, 2150 BC: Leave units unmoved, save here.

Non-Combat
Worker 1
Slaves 3
Scouts 2

Military units:
Warriors 6
Archers 2

Contacts
Rome=>Peace
Iroquois=>Peace
Russia=>Peace
Japan=>Peace
Carthage=>Peace
America=>Peace
France=>Peace

Capital Size 3, grows in 10, Archer in 2 turns.

Sliders
1/9/1, Writing in 14 turns at 5 gpt, 76 in the bank.

The save:

 

[Elephantium]

Good work

I love the blue dot between Mecca and Damascus - that's a great location. I think we'll need to settle the red dot first, though, to get water to Damascus. Looking at the save ... Mecca can easily finish a Settler in 10 turns: 2 to finish the Archer, 3 to finish a second one, and 5 to build the Settler. That gets us to (Game) Turn 50 -- and the Settler crosses the river. On Turn 51, the Settler gets to the red dot. On Turn 52, he builds the new city.

The worker turns work out like this:

40, 41, 42: Watering the current square
43: Move to the BG 1S of the horses.
44, 45: Road the BG
46, 47, 48: Water the BG
49, 50, 51: Water the Horses
52: Move through the new city.
53, 54: Road the grass 1N of the new city.
55, 56: Water the tile (with help from the other workers)
57, 58: Water the coastal forest tile 2NW from Damascus
59, 60: Water the wheat

The two American workers do this:
40: Move to the BG next to Damascus
41, 42, 43: Road the BG
44: Move to the Wheat
45, 46, 47: Road the Wheat
48: Move to the forest NW of the wheat
49, 50, 51, 52: Chop the forest
53, 54, 55: Road the ex-forest
56: Join the watering crew
57: One worker stays with the watering crew. The other moves to Damascus.
58: Either start mining the BG or roading the grass 1S of Damascus.

What do you guys think? The other way to go would be to road & mine towards the cow right away and let the watering crew handle the forest chop, but I feel like this sequence would work pretty well...

 

[Raliuven]

I'm taking a look at the save and posts and I'll update with any thoughts I might have - nice slight of hand on trading on turn 6, 2350 BC, though. Not sure I would have thought of that!

Other business:

ROSTER:
-Raliuven
-Elephantium
-TheOverseer714 (just played)
-CKS (Playing)
-creamcheese (On Deck)

Edit: Thoughts on the posted save -

MM Damascus off the BG and to the wheat, pick up the extra food; the shield is waste. Alternative, if we want to slow growth to avoid lux tax, put it on a coastal tile to pick up and extra 1gpt. You could alternate between the wheat and coastal tile to keep the same growth but pick up +1gp/2t. Might be petty, but the extra gold could come in handy. And .5gpt represents a 10% bump to what we are putting into the treasury.

Looks like Carthage got the nice starting location - FP + wheat (x2). They already have 4 cities on top of industrious/commerical. Only nice thing is that France and Russia are running interference. They are down techs, though, and that is good. I'm a little nervous about the French dual-warriors in our area.

 

[CKS]

I've got it. I'll do my best to follow directions.

 

[CKS]

I just noticed a problem with the worker directions. This is PTW. Forest chops take 10 turns, not 4. I've purchased another worker, too, so things will work out differently anyway.

 

[CKS]

The Russians are building in our space, and the French are trying to cut off Medina. Otherwise things are going according to plan.

Turn Log

Spoiler :

Turn 1:
Swap Damascus to wheat. Debate temple vs worker in Medina, but leave it for now. We'll need some culture down there because of the proximity of France. A settler would be nice, too, allowing us to grab the dyes and iron.

Fortify warrior in Medina. Workers follow Elephantium's orders. Everyone else explores.

IBT: Nothing exciting.

Turn 2:
Buy a worker from Carthage for IW plus 44 g. This one crosses the river while the others work.

IBT: Mecca builds archer, starts a second one.

Turn 3:
New worker heads toward American workers. Archer crosses river so it can protect the workers if barbs pop up nearby.

IBT: Nothing.

Turn 4:
Continue with the worker plans - moving to BG. New worker joins Americans.

IBT: Road completes, Damascus grows, knowledge of HBR spreads to 4 more tribes.

Turn 5:
Workers road BG, others move to wheat.

IBT: Apologize to Hannibal for intruding. Mecca builds an archer and starts a settler.

Turn 6:
Road the wheat.

IBT: Nothing.

Turn 7:
Irrigate the BG.

IBT: America demands 22 g. We are strong vs them, so I don't think they'll declare. I refuse and they back down.

Turn 8:
Move to forest. Barb comes up from the south in between Mecca and Damascus.

IBT: Barb dies attacking 4/4 archer.

Turn 9:
Start chopping forest.

IBT: Nothing.

Turn 10: Start irrigating horses. I've moved units, but I'm not going to press enter in case we want to change the Medina build.