RB1 - Let's get started

That's good, not lucky...wise decision keeping the Warrior home . Man our gold production seriously sucks, Trapping is a hard tech to skip I guess when you don't have a lot of luxuries to sell. THere is no reason to rush to Steel unless we have Iron so if the math works out that we can squeeze trapping in, go for it.

I'll give surnise089 24 hours to claim it, otherwise I'll hog another turnset .

Darrell

 

Okay sunrise089 IM'd me a "got it" .

Darrell

 

Correct, and I can say "got it" here now as well. I'll play tonight, after reading over the thread (no RB or CFC for 5 days!)

 

Nice report Sciz.

One general thought: this is the first time I've fired up Civ5 since my last turnset. Video games are my biggest hobby in terms of weekly hours, and while I spend most of my time focusing on work, family, etc, I still find time to play. The fact that the only full-price game I've purchased in the last year hasn't held my interest for a month is gross Not that the game is all bad (see the lively "Civilization 5 Announced" thread over at RB for thoughts on that), but that for my play style it's incredibly tedious to play.

I start by walking through the tedium of manually moving the save and logging in to Steam. I'll end via the tedium of manually converting screenshots. There aren't deal breakers, but if Firaxis is really going to pump out patches they would be nice things to fix

Sciz left us with a few choices at the end of his turnset. First, I swap Cincinati (ha!) to a work boat, which I think is worthwhile. After all, gold is needed to get that Maritime state allied. Along the same lines, I swap research to Trapping (we'll return back to Metal Casting when the tech is in). I leave the two Scientist specialists assigned, since more points towards a Great Scientis is always good. Oh, did I misspell that? Not according to the Unit List



T1 - Darius asks for a Pact of Cooperation. I still don't know what this does, so I coinflip mentally and accept. One Civ4 feature that wasn't perfectly implemented was the ability to investigate current diplo deals and relations when a new deal was proposed. There was no way to minimize the request, but there were some limited screens still accessible. Civ5 decides that was way too much freedom, as I have no ability to view any info before I accept or decline deals like this.

The enemy archer walks forward and I bombard for 1 damage. This reveals a second archer though.



This allows an opportunity to be a bit tactical. The game reports attacking the second archer, even with our warrior wounded, would be a Major Victory. Therefore I don't use the free heal promo, instead preferring to let the enemy archer bombard me this turn so I can then fully heal. Let's hope that pays off...

We also hit...107 culture (???) and can adopt a new Social Policy. This certainly impacts our settling strategy, and we may need to discus it.

Finally, we meet these guys



T2 - Sell open borders to Darius for 30g. Our warrior got hit hard and dropped to 3hp. I burn the promo and heal him back up.

T4 - Trapping is in (and we're back on Metal Casting). Worker starts a Trading Post at our capital to compliment the farm I'm also constructing. And (good job AI warfare, seriously) Persia looses it's capital.

T5 - Gandhi completes the Oracle. Darius makes peace with Alex, which makes sense after the capital capture (is AI peace automatic when that happens?).

Cinsinatti completes its work boat (which nets the fish right away). Washington and Cinncinati both need builds. The capital starts another worker, and the 2nd city starts a 21t Colossus build. That may be silly, but we're going to be working at least one water tile there forever, and the wonder only takes 9t longer than a library.

Our capital bombards the enemy archer that finally approaches, and warrior 1 kills it. There is yet another enemy archer in the fog though, so warrior 2 is advanced up.

T9 - Greece and India have made a research agreement. Lizzy completes the Hanging Gardens. Dublin cancels the barb encampment request...so I'm not sure what encampment they even wanted taken out.

So barb spawning is kind of ridiculous - the hills between our lands and the encampment means we can't hit enemy archers without them walking all the way to our city or letting them bombard us. Plus the encampment spawned another brute to go along with the archer+brute that were patrolling last turn. Sooooo...I noticed our scout had Major Victory odds versus the wounded brute in the encampment, and...



T10 - For whatever reason, the full-health brute does not attack out wounded scout. Hooray for silly AI! We kill the remaining archer, which means only the visible brute is left alive. The next player should be able to grab the settler already on the move and plant in the spot of their choice. I prefer the river spot with the variety of resource FWIW.

Also, lets discuss social policies before settling and raising the cost.

The roster:

darrelljs - up!
regoarrarr - on deck
sunrise089 - just played
Sciz

The save:

 

Yeah we should definitely get our social policies before we settle our third. We're not in medieval yet are we? We still have the great scientist to use btw, we could use it to take CS now if we want to.

 

See it, should be able to play in about 24HR.

Looks like you did an excellent job handling those pesky barbs. The Colossus? Not so sure on that one. The Library allows Scientists which allow Great Scientists. What about a Warrior? We want to have several of those so we can cash upgrade them...

Darrell

 

Are we going to go for the patronage policies then?

 

I generally like to go with Patronage policies, but I'm open to alternatives .

Darrell

 

I think you guys are in a bit of a drift. You need to decide upon a strategy and stick with it.

Due to the civilization you picked, Washington, and the situation you're in- not in it for a culture victory, your drive should be towards an expansionist empire, with an emphasis on combat, since you're quite far behind in everything else. Your terrain, while not very good for the early game, is going to prove vital later on, when you get oil and whatnot for heavy combat units.

The best thing for you to do is start pumping out settlers. The southern areas could desperately use some colonization, I see at least two places to seat cities.

However, you're about to settle in a critical area, the eastern part. You need to choose a policy.

Since you need something expansionist, I say go for liberty. It will help you out immensely throughout the game, whether it be keeping your culture fairly steady, your production levels rather high, or your happiness up.

Adopt Liberty, then go straight for Collective Rule, followed by The Republic. The batch of new cities you need to field will get a jump start of 3-4 turns, which will factor exponentially later on. Most importantly, you'll save about 12 turns of growth in Cincinatii when you choose to make another settler, and another 6 turns in each new city founded, just to produce stuff.

Washington needs to grow, and grow soon. The Republic will help alleviate this issue, as you will be able to focus on food, and still have decent production. This will allow you to focus more on production a little bit later.

I can't really see the use of going for patronage; you're not exactly headed for culture or whatnot, and you don't have any really key relationships that you need with city-states.

Science-wise, you need more cities to get more libraries and more science. Liberty will help in this regard. Just head next for rationalism. this way, you'll have science/expansion open.

Everything about your game demands expansion, it's a simple plan to keep together, just go for it. Liberty Tree, come on.

 

Liberty is rather useless imo, at least compared to the latter policies. We don't need to go for a culture victory for patronage to be good, since the more city states you have as allies the better; you get their resources, you get food from maritime, units from military (though this isnt a big boost) and the culture from cultural also helps a bit for getting more policies, though it's the maritime that's the big boost here.

 

What's key is the +1 happiness, which allows you to create spammable level 5 happiness cities, instead of level 4 ones.

You also have plenty of good early game territory which would net you plenty of advances, plus some very good territory for late-game tech.

The thing is, you don't have enough gold to be truly effective with the city-states, and you could use the fast expansion right now, considering the massive territory you have to expand in.

If you really want to go for culture, then hit piety, tradition, and some wonders. It's possible, but I think you'll find it to be more difficult, considering your situation.

 

I think the goal is domination for sure.

Guys, let's talk about the Colossus build a bit. The way I see it, we are only working the one water tile at Cincilacky. If we value hammers at 4g, the investment pays back in about 200 turns. I want to switch to a Settler as its t90 and we only have the two cities. I am reluctant to change another player's build, though, so I'd like a little discussion before making this swap. FYI, we have 40H invested alreayd, and are 16t out from completing it.

Darrell

 

I'm fine with a settler swap. With the nature of research in Civ5 I didn't like a library build. I avoided a settler myself because the city was low-pop and I was reluctant to unilaterally stop its growth.

 

Guys, I hate to say it but my kids are sick and my wife is out of town, and I'm of town this weekend, so I am going to need a skip.

regoarrarr, that puts you up.

Darrell

 

Back from my trip...since rego didn't play that must make me up still . I'll play in about 18 hours.

Darrell

 

(90) - Okay after chatting with sunrise089 I decide to build a Warrior next. Its much cheaper to upgrade a Warrior to a Longsword than to cash rush a Longsword. This will also give us 3 Warriors total, which can insta-upgrade to a fairly respectable force.

(91) - The Brute moves towards us. He is blocking our Settler .

(92) - Alexander wants a pact of secrecy, which I politely decline. According to Sulla, these only cause anger. Tactical:



Bombard for 2. Garrisoned Warrior has a bonus on rough terrain and hits for 5. Wounded Warrior cleans up and is down to 2 HPs, curse the luck. At least the Settler's path is clear. I assume the Scout is standing on the tile to found. If not, it's a good spot so that is where I head .

(93) - These boots were made for walking...

(94) - The Colossus is built in a far away land! I feel better about the swap now.

(95) - Elizabeth comes asking for this:



I noodle over gold and what I think are expiring deals and take it. For goodness sake, we have to play the save and declare on her before the patch comes out! New tech in, research selected:



I bulb Steel! We can make Longswordsman! Uh...as soon as the Iron is connected . Are timing is off this game, as the lurkers have noted.

(96) - And our Warrior completes and promptly disappeares . Seriously. He's gone. Stupid Cincinsnacki must have eaten him. Or its a bug. Or it has something to do with the Warrior being obsoleted by Metal Casting. Either way, 6 turns from our best production city are flushed. I am tempted to reload but decide not to. Settler is next. Our research pact with Bismarck ends, and we net:



Meh...could be worse I guess. New York is founded:



Yes, yes the Worker is coming. He had a farm we weren't going to work to finish first.

(97) - Bismarck wants war with Alex . I politely decline. Let me know how that goes for you buddy. A barbarian Archer shows up blocking the Marble . Bombard, attack, attack. No more Archer but our Warriors are redlined again. Deals expire. I sell Alexander OB and Horse for 140g, Gandhi OB for 50g, and Elizabeth OB for a pittance. Not quite 500g yet.

(98) Masonry is in, and I go Contsruction next for Colosseums. Brussels wants to pen KL's name in the dead book.

(99) -

(100) - Okay, we have 500g. I don't think we should spend it on Genoa, I prefer upgrading our Warriors and cash rushing a Longsword. Three should be enough to kill Elizabeth, right? Washington is 13 turns for a Great Scientist, I think we have to sling Civil Service there. I think we need to get Libraries in all our cities and start running scientists everywhere. We also need to start getting some trading posts down, our gold rate is terrible. It would be nice to have Catapults to back our our Longswords.

regoarrarr, you are up!

Darrell

 

with the discovery of steel warriors become obsolete. all outstanding build orders are canceled, hammers lost. not a very nice mechanism.

 

Civ5's obsolete-unit hammer conversion is sure a lot better. Because IIRC in Civ4 when a unit obsoleted your save file corrupted, your civ install deleted itself, and your hard drive platter shot out your CD tray. Or am I thinking of something else?...

Re: Gold - in the instant case I think your plan in fine darrell. Going forward though, I actually don't think 200 gold research pacts are good ideas when we can use that money on city state bribes.

 

Man...too bad I didn't wait a turn to bulb Steel. That's unfortunate.

@sunrise089 - Yeah, thinking about it I agree with you. We'll probably get a lousy tech out of it too.

Darrell

 

Too funny!

Who gets to decide what tech is researched? Are research pacts initiated by the AI only or can you take their gold in return for a future tech? what happens if you enter into a research pact but never complete the tech ?