RB20 - Miller Time

[Sirian]

Hereditary Rule is not allowed to us. We have very specific Civics options in this game.

 

[Iustus]

Hereditary Rule is not allowed to us. We have very specific Civics options in this game.

Yes, I know

You were the one that brought up the balance discussion between HR and Drama!

Strauss, you out there?

-Iustus

 

[Strauss]

Yes I'm here. Wanted to play earlier, but things got in the way. Will post the report now.

 

[Strauss]

IT (775 BC): I make this trade:

IBT 1: The barb archer decides not to pillage the farm, but attack New York directly! It gets slaughtered of course.

Turn 1 (760 BC): I make this trade:

Turn 3 (730 BC): I gift Liz Priesthood. We're now at +4 relationships (this will decrease to +3 later in the turnset).

The next 12 turns were very tough: barbs popping out from everywhere and pillaging us like there's no tomorrow (including the New York farm). I probably shouldn't have invited those Archers for a beer, now they all want some! So I was forced to build an Archer in Washington instead of continuing on Library/Workers/Settlers, simply because New York couldn't handle the defence of America on its own. I'm thankful that no archer appeared at Philadelphia because it was still defended by Warriors. I've sent an Archer there now though.

By the end of my turnset, things still haven't quieted down much, but our cities are safe (the lands around them are a different matter though). I've finally sent out the Settler towards Pink Dot, but with the lands around it explored I don't especially like the city site (only explored those lands when I sent the Settler out).

Next turns will probably be mainly spent on repairing our lands. Washington doesn't look like a great Settler/Worker factory anymore with half of its food gone!

Hm... doesn't look like a very HAPPY report, so I'll have to compensate.

WHAT TIME IS IT? That's right! Not for Tatran though

Roster:
* Sirian
* Strauss --> just played
* Tatran --> UP!
* Iustus --> on deck
* mike p

 

[mihau]

I've finally sent out the Settler towards Pink Dot, but with the lands around it explored I don't especially like the city site (only explored those lands when I sent the Settler out).

Flood plains R the enough of the reason for me.
And we will need every single commerce from the river - liquor costs
CHHERS!

With BW (at last! mmy precioussss... sorry: wrong story) it will enable :whip: ..eep ...wrong story again, but atleast we will have copp... wrong story for the 3rd time! ...SOLD!
What was this BW for anyway?

 

[Strauss]

With BW (at last! mmy precioussss... sorry: wrong story) it will enable :whip: ..eep ...wrong story again, but atleast we will have copp... wrong story for the 3rd time! ...SOLD!
What was this BW for anyway?

We need it for Metal Casting, which we need for Machinery, which we need for our watermills. It's still far away, but one must always look at 'the big picture'! (right?)

 

[Sirian]

We needed BW sooner rather than later so as to better avoid accidentally settling ON a Copper source.

Did we give away any tech gifts with other AIs? Sounds like not. Don't want Persia going postal on us with their chariot UU.


- Sirian

 

[Strauss]

We needed BW sooner rather than later so as to better avoid accidentally settling ON a Copper source.

And that.

Did we give away any tech gifts with other AIs? Sounds like not. Don't want Persia going postal on us with their chariot UU.

Hm.. didn't think about Persia's UU. They're still far, far away though, so if the next player gives him some tech(s), we should be fine. As for other civs, I didn't think giving techs to them would be very wise as we (lacking cottages) will soon lag behind in research and should try to trade whatever we can research before the AI.

 

[mihau]

All techs enabling military units are highly priced by AIs. As U can see it was uneven trade: 120 to 120+100 beakers. In the beginning of the game U can usually expect pretty even trades, in the later game AIs get more greedy.

Second thing is what U have said Yourself: Mining+BW+pottery is for Machinery, but it is a longshot. I appreciate that. We need machinery sooner or late, but at the moment we gain NOTHING from those techs: no mines, no cottages, no copper (no Axeman), no slavery, even Granaries are of little use. This adds to big zero, but the AIs can use the tech they got and benefit from them immidietly

Third: the more/sooner Civs have BW the more/sooner Axeman will appear in barb attacks.

Don't take this personally, I appreciate U defending the cities from barbs.
I also see that there was no other trades possible for those characters. Plus we will probably benefit from improved relations.

Lets drink for this

EDIT: It is 5 replies about the turnset withing 1h from posting it. Good attitude guys! Good attitude!

 

[Strauss]

All techs enabling military units are highly priced by AIs. As U can see it was uneven trade: 120 to 120+100 beakers. In the beginning of the game U can usually expect pretty even trades, in the later game AIs get more greedy.

Second thing is what U have said Yourself: Mining+BW+pottery is for Machinery, but it is a longshot. I appreciate that. We need machinery sooner or late, but at the moment we gain NOTHING from those techs: no mines, no cottages, no copper (no Axeman), no slavery, even Granaries are of little use. This adds to big zero, but the AIs can use the tech they got and benefit from them immidietly

Third: the more/sooner Civs have BW the more/sooner Axeman will appear in barb attacks.

Don't take this personally, I appreciate U defending the cities from barbs.
I also see that there was no other trades possible for those characters. Plus we will probably benefit from improved relations.

Wow. I didn't even know about 3.. I've been playing CivIV since December, but right now I feel like a total n00b all over again.
However, the uneven trade was including Sailing, which is pointless (on itself) on this map. And as Sirian said, we want to prevent accidentaly settling on 'unallowed' resources. And as you said, we get improved relations.

I guess there are about as many pros as cons on the BW trade. Worst case, I'll blame it on drunken stupor

 

[mihau]

The funny thing is that AI don't take into consideration the environment it is in ==> AI don't take sailing as unimportant (Although: I think calendar is researched or not depending on the resources AIs have and it falls quickly on tropical maps). It means we can actually use sailing for trade.

As U mentioned this it gives me an idea :lightbulb: : sailing is PERFECT for using as a gift-tech. Pretty sarcastic if U can imagine a "real-life" situation when king's emissary is making the gift (Sailing) to the other pretty confused king .

About barbarians issue: I got to know few weeks ago during the RealmsBeyond event. It was a barbarian nightmare . Try searching http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=13 for "epic 4" if U want to learn more. Or better try the epic: http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/c4tourney/epic4.html before reading the spoilers

2am - yawn...
c ya!

 

[Strauss]

About barbarians issue: I got to know few weeks ago during the RealmsBeyond event. It was a barbarian nightmare . Try searching http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=13 for "epic 4" if U want to learn more. Or better try the epic: http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/c4tourney/epic4.html before reading the spoilers

I know about the barbarian nightmare in Epic 4. I actually played Epic 4, but never finished it, in favor of playing Epic 5 (which I didn't finish either since my PC broke down halfway through). I originally used 'nightmare' to describe the barbarian invasions in my turnset, but changed it into 'very tough' as I was expecting references to Epic 4.

 

[Sirian]

Strauss has invoked Drunken Stupor. End of debate.




Truly, getting highly positive relations by giving away a couple hundred beakers of tech is more than worthwhile. Will cost a lot more later to get the same result. At some point, we can trade Alphabet itself, to a bunch of civs on the same turn, if there are enough goodies out there to trade for. From Bronze, we could trade for Iron, for Metal Casting, maybe some others I forget at this point.

Anyway, it's done. I'm more concerned about hitting We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced too quickly, but I suppose that needs to be a lower concern in this game, since we NEED to get to our Civics options and Machinery/Irrigation spreading before we do actually fall out of the tech trading loop.

Don't sweat it too much, though. This is Miller Time. Time to relax a bit.


- Sirian

 

[ruff_hi]

Wow. I didn't even know about 3.. I've been playing CivIV since December, but right now I feel like a total n00b all over again.

Yes - I popped horse riding from a hut and thought 'great' but then people said that it just sped up the barbs bringing horse archers - they (HA) did turn up and made things difficult for me.

Question? What if you don't like Miller - will a yuengling do as a substitute?

Edit: and Sirian - my name is even funnier when you consider that I thought it up for yahoo bridge where 'ruff' is a way of winning a trick with a trump and if you ruff with the Ace or King, it is called 'ruffing high'. But - yes, I was going going for the friendly 'hi ruff' response.

 

[Iustus]

I think the following spot looks good for that settler:

That nets us 3 flood plains (yellow squares), 4? (at least 2) grassland plains (it looks like the northern fog is almost definitely flood plains, and the southern 2 are grassland, although one or even both might be hills), and one grass hill we can windmill. Normally one east of that might be better, but not being able to clear the forest, I think its best we settle on the forested plains, and leave the grassland on the river free for a farm or watermill.

So, with the split river, I think we could watermill every yellow and purple square if we were so inclined, although running low farms would mean we would not be able to put active lumbermills in every forest. Even with some farms, this looks to me like a very high production city, yes?

I am a bit unclear on the goal with our tech trading/gifting. I too fear the WFYATA. I think we should pick a few techs that we want to actively get by trading for the next couple ages and not take every trade we can, or am I wrong here?

Similarly, I would like some direction on the tech gifting. Do we want to just make sure we gift at least one tech to each civ? Are we going to try to be as neutral as possible or are we going to pick someone who we will not be befriending? I think it is going to be near impossible to be friends with everyone if we keep a state religion, but perhaps I am wrong.

Going back to the gifting, is one gift enough? One gift every 100 turns? I have never really tried to get on someone's good side through tech gifts.

Unfortunately, our river dead ends pretty quickly. So if we want to establish a trade route with someone, Elizabeth seems the closest, but it will still take at least 13 units of roads. On the good side, barbarians will not pillage roads that are outside all cultural borders.

Peter is at least 20 units of roads away.

That barbarian city to the northwest may eventually start building some roads to other barbarian cities, which may eventually help.

In the short term, I think there are not going to be a whole lot of trade routes around, unless we want to devote a minimum of a worker/archer pair to roading for a long long time. I do not think there is any way to make ourselves a 'trade hub' in civ, meaning any roads we build help everyone else at least as much as they help us.

It would be interesting if a central civ could build straight roads to other civs that were located in a circle around and benefit more than the outer hubs, but as far as I know, there is no computation in trade routes checking to see if they pass through another civ (with open borders). Either civs are connected or they are not, there is no 'toll fee' that a middle civ can impose on all traffic passing through.

-Iustus

 

[Iustus]

I forgot to mention there looks to be a fortified scout at full health right next to the fogged in area. Since I like the red dot, regardless of whats under those fog squares, I would move the scout to the northeast, to get that fogged dot on the edge of the mountains. If thats pigs or something we can use, perhaps adjust the red dot, if not, go with red dot, which will reveal the fog.

I think its better to scout with the scout, if he dies, he dies, unless we think its worth just doing nothing with him and upgrading him to an explorer. To me, it seems like its better to explore and die to a barbarian archer than just sit him around and do nothing.

-Iustus

 

[mihau]

Don't sweat it too much, though. This is Miller Time. Time to relax a bit.

Actually I am as relaxed as it gets don't mean to spoil the fun to anybody, really.

@Iustus: reddot is great, but I would consider skipping it for now and going 5S and 1E and settle on the hills. Reasons:
- hills will provide def. bonus - I fear barbs - we need to secure the area,
- cows will make the citty better for early production and lake is better for early commerce (size 2 city will equal size 4 reddot city in the manner of production and revenue, not mentioning the maintenance cost of 2 and 4 size city)
I would come back to reddot issue after getting machinery.

First going for horsecity (Sirian's yellowdot), then for cowcity and afterwards ... arrange a RODEO

 

[Strauss]

@ Iustus, I can't recall fortifying the scout. If I did though, it was only on my last turn, so he has been exploring ever since he's been popped.

 

[mihau]

BTW:
@Strauss: we will need BW to chop forests for plantations soon

 

[Strauss]

See? I told you it was a good trade, but would you listen? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo