RB20 - Miller Time

[Iustus]

First of all, I hate the new upload system. Whose bright idea was it to mess up the perfectly functional system. Renaming all uploads to unique numbers is a real pain! I actually understand some of the reasons, but the renaming files has to go. And since when has there been a 15 image limit in posts?

1835 (0)

New York looks good, all the lumbermills built already. Lets see 4 turns to Democracy, anything I can build to get a little leftovers? It is generating 43/turn, a worker (3) is 90 hammers, so will have (43*3)-90 = 39 leftover, I doubt I can do better than that. So, in one turn, I will start a worker.

Also note, in 5 turns we will generate a great person in New York, with a 56% chance of an engineer. Since Mansa is building the Statue of Liberty, it may make sense to use two engineers in order to ensure we get it. If this is a boneheaded move, sorry guys.

I see our engineer is already at New York, ready to do his magic dance.

New York is our highest production city, with Atlanta, Boston, and Washington all close behind.

How close are we to shortening the research time by 1 turn? Democracy is 4148/6930, so we have 2782 to go. We are researching 585/turn at -45/turn gold, which comes out to 4.75 turns, one more than the game is telling us. Which means we are getting a discount on Democracy that isn’t being reflected?

Well, it does not seem possible to reduce the time by 1 turn, and it seems we could be a bit more efficient at getting exactly to 4 turns. I see that San Francisco, Miami, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Washington are all building research. Many of these places do not have Universities, so I am going to start some Universities without losing our 4 turns to Democracy.

Well scratch that idea, when I start building with New York, we go right to the line, so I will just leave things as they are until we get Democracy, then I will start Universities everywhere that were building research.

Someone queued up barracks everywhere before building forges. Now we have libraries queued up before partially finished barracks. After some thought, I will leave things as is, and let the queued up stuff build. As things finish, I will queue up forges.

I change the worked plots at Santa Fe so the Granary will finish in less than 50 turns

I see I have 4 settlers to put somewhere, huh? All in the southeast.

Elizabeth is willing to trade copper and 1/turn for banana and incense, will want to do this for statue of libery.

Move the settler by Palo Alto toward new home by the lake.

Why is there a worker asleep at Palo Alto? Wake him up and send him off to work.

By the way, are we allowed to build forts in locations we cannot farm yet, that we do not want to grow forests? Not sure it matters, we should have biology soon anyway.

1836 (1)

Cincinnati: library finished, start forge (14)
Phoenix: theatre finished, hire artist, start forge (36)
Palo Alto: theatre finished, start granary (18) (no food to hire an artist)

New York: Start worker (3)

Fredrick spreads Confucianism to Memphis and Oakland

Jacksonville founded on the snow. This nets us sheep and deer when we can get it with culture fight. What do we do if we aquire a silver mine by culture? Destroy it? Granary (45) started in Jacksonville

Savannah founded, it will max out pretty small city, but there was no better spot in this area, and we need to fill the spot before the English plop a city down. Start granary (45)

Lots of worker actions to do.

We are getting pretty far behind on techs.

1837 (2)

Mansa asks us to adopt Free Market. That is not one of our allowed civics, so I am forced to decline.

We only lose -1, not so bad:

Boston: finish Rifleman, start Riflemen (2)
Baltimore: finished Library, start Barracks (6)

Palo Alto pops its borders.

I am having a hard time finding a spot for the 4th settler. The best I can find is a city that will max out around size 4 or 5. Not that the other spots are that much better. I suppose a city is a city at some point.

1838 (3)

Portland: finished University, start Buddist Temple (4), we need 2 more to build Stupa
Las Vegas: finished courthouse, start Bank (19)
Miami: changed from research to University (12)
San Francisco: changed from research to University (15)
New Orleans: changed from research to Bank (15)
Philadelphia: changed from research to Grocer (10)
Los Angeles: changed from research to Buddhist Temple (4)

Ok, well I see the choice this way. Found here by the river:

Which nets a city which will only have 3 plots with two or more food.

Or found up north with 3 English cities putting culture pressure on our lands:

Even without putting culture pressure, we would have 6 food tiles that can support themselves, and if we manage to get our whole full fat cross, we will gain cows, and 1 more two food tile. I am going to go for it, call it a bonehead move if you want.

1839 (4)

Democracy in!

Not really sure what to research next. All the good things we want, someone else has. The only one we can research that no one has is Communism. Corporation would be nice, +1 trade routes, is cheep, but everyone has it. I am going to take a gamble and go for Communism, to hope for some n-fer trades. It will finish just in time for the next person to do the trades.

Boston: rifleman finished, start rifleman (2) (it is kindof funny we can still build chariots!)

New York: start statue of liberty, 52 turns, 2250 hammers

Make the trade with Elizabeth for copper:

statue of liberty, now 28 turns, 2250 total hammers:

Our Engineer will add 1320 hammers. If we get a second engineer next turn, I am going to use them both:

San Fransisco has health trouble, now that I traded away our banana, queue up an aqueduct (8) before finishing university (14) (We will get banana back eventually when borders pop.

Chicago changed from building research to wealth

continued...

 

[Iustus]

1840 (5)

Atlanta: Observatory finishes, start University (7)
Denver: Barracks finishes, start Courthouse (6)
Albuquerque: Buddhist missionary finishes, start Buddhist Missionary (6)
Oakland: courthouse finishes, start Granary (30), also hire an artist.

Guess what!!!

We have 2095 left to build on Statue of Liberty. Each engineer does 1320 shields. That means using two, we waste over 700 shields, but I am going to do it anyway, I hope this was the right move. I think there is a decent chance we could get it without using two, but it will be very close, like a few turns either way could make the difference. With this huge map, I am going to ensure we get the Statue.

Charlston founded at a pretty marginal site, but it fills a hole in our border with Alexander. Start granary (90)

These are our finances prior to the statue:

1841 (6)

We do not have a lot of culture, even with our taxes.

Alexander asks us to adopt Hereditary Rule. Not an allowed choice, even if I wanted to give up Representation.

Look what we built! The light sources look great with my new Crayola graphics card!

And here is our new finances, with Statue:

Boston: Rifleman finishes, start Rifleman (2)
Seattle: finished University, start Buddhist Temple (3)

Hmm, I was going to queue up Oxford in DC, but as Sirian said, Wall Street probably makes more sense, so where to put Oxford? We can build it now. San Francisco is our highest commerce city. New York is bringing in slightly more beakers right now, and will increase by 12 commerce with electricity. SF will gain 6 commerce from electricity. Both cities have other things to build right now, so I will wait for now. My thoughts are that it is alright to start it somewhere we will not keep it, because you can always cancel the build, start it somewhere else, and take the money from ‘not being able to finish’, it is even a better conversion ratio than building wealth.

No one has communism yet, it will finish in 8 turns now. At -21/turn and dropping, with over 300 gold, we can deficit spend to get it. No one has anything but corporation for trade, and that is not worth a trade for Democracy.

continued...

 

[Iustus]

1842 (7)

Los Angeles: Buddhist Temple finished, start research
Portland: Buddhist Temple finished, start research, commumism goes from 7 to 6 turns
West Point: Library finished, start University (16), after that we might want to build some culture multipliers here.
Baltimore: Barracks completes, start Observatory (11)
Pittsburgh: Granary finishes, start Theatre. Because it is not connected, it is starving at size 3, I have a worker on the way, but we probably should have sent one sooner.

1843 (8)

Boston: Rifleman finishes, start Rifleman (2)

1844 (9)

Seattle: Buddhist Temple finished, start research
Portland: cancel research, didn’t have an Observatory (6)
Buffalo: bank finished, start grocer (9)

San Antonio founded at my take a chance site:

1845 (10)

Boston: Rifleman -> Rifleman (2)
Huston: Observatory -> University (15)
St. Louis: Market -> Observatory (7)
Denver: Courthouse -> Buddhist Stupa (9)
Dallas: Barracks->Forge (13)
Albaquerque: Buddhist Missionary -> Buddhist Missionary (6)
Olympia:Granary -> Forge (36)

1846 (11)

New York: Bank->Grocer (5)
Philadelphia: Grocer->Buddhist Temple (4)
Memphis: Forge->University (15)
Richmond: Courthouse -> Forge (36)
Santa Fe: Granary->Forge (25)

1847 (12)

Boston: Rifleman -> Library (3)
Atlanta: University->Worker (2)
Detroit: Barracks->Observatory (18)
San Diego: Barracks->Forge (15)

Another Great Engineer born. I would like us to consider trying to get the Three Gorges Dam, with no coal plants, this would be a huge boon.

1848 (13)

Communism in.

Alexander cancels open borders.

Well, we have a monopoly on Communism, but nothing we can get for it at this time. I should have been sending missionaries to Cyrus or Fredrick, to get better relations so I could get some of their techs. Although, Elizabeth is Free Religion, and still does not want to trade anything except Corporation.

Research set to Physics->Electricity but mike can change it, corporation might not be bad to grab, I was hoping I could get it as an extra in a trade. Perhaps we could get something more expensive if we research corporation ourselves.

1849 (14)

Atlanta: Worker->Buddhist Temple (2)
Miami: University->Bank (11)
Cincinnati: Forge->University(17)
Centralia: Granary->Forge (45)

1850 (15)

Genghis demands we cancel deals with Mansa, um, no! Come have a beer instead!

Philadelphia: Buddhist Temple-> Buddhist Missionary (2)
Portland: Observatory-> Rifleman(4)
Albuquerque: Buddhist Missionary->Buddhist Missionary(5)
Tacoma: Granary->Forge (45)

Left everyone for you to move this turn Mike!

here is the save: Miller 1850 AD Civ4SavedGame

The one thing that I did not do is send a worker off toward San Antonio. Send one asap, only 1 tile needs a road to hook the city up. We need to start building culture there fast to make my gamble pay off.

We should also decide where we are thinking for Ironworks, Oxford, Red Cross, etc. (I was thinking Red Cross/Iron Works in the same city).

-Iustus

 

[Iustus]

Oh yeah, I would suggest we not cancel our copper deal until after we build some Buddist Stupas (or not cancel it at all, we will be getting those resources back as soon as some borders pop and workers get to work.

I was working on getting our northern jungle cities connected to our trade network, and after that almost all our jungle cities need improvements done on the non-jungle tiles. We definitely have a lot of improvements to build everywhere. Too bad we cannot trade for steam power.

Those workers northwest of DC were working their way up to the northwest jungle cities. I was trying not to waste worker turns, so rather than do a full move, move 1 less and do an improvement. Once that lumbermill is done, at least one of them should move northwest.

Even though we still have cities that need buddhism, it is probably smarter to send them to the Fredrick and Cyrus (far side), so we can improve relations. I used the ones built on my turns on our cities which had aquired a different first religion. If I had sent all of them to Cyrus or Fredrick, especially while I could get through the open borders of Alex, we might have been able to trade Demo or Communism now.

I did not make any civics changes, but Emancipation is an option when/if we need it.

-Iustus

 

[Sirian]

Ha! Just minutes after my prod, your turns are up. Well, the good part of that is that I "used up" the last post on the previous page.

I, too, am no fan of the change to uploads. There is one good thing about it, though. I can choose not to "clean out" my folder, and thus my stuff posted to it will still be there in a few years. (I wish some of my best Civ3 SGs were still intact, but no, the pics are all gone.) Of course, when I run out of room, it means I stop playing SGs here, but at the slow rate I am playing, that could take a while to reach.

There's always the Epics, of course, and my reports posted to my own site. That's probably a topic for another thread, though.


Turnset looks good. Getting the Statue was worth doing. Regarding tech, keep in mind that once we have Environmentalism, all our health and happy woes will simply GO AWAY, more or less.


- Sirian

 

[Iustus]

Ha! Just minutes after my prod, your turns are up. Well, the good part of that is that I "used up" the last post on the previous page.

Hah. I didn't even know you prodded me until now! And I checked the thread right before I started composing. It takes me a few hours to do it all.

Turnset looks good. Getting the Statue was worth doing.

Yeah, the question is did we need to use two engineers.

I would like to see us get some more wonders, but of them all, I would really like to see us get the three gorges dam.

Any thoughts on ironworks, oxford, etc?

-Iustus

 

[mike p]

Got it, and I'll play tomorrow. Corporation is nice, and so is Physics to Electricity. I'll take a look and figure out which is going to have a bigger impact - probably Electricity, and Corporation will be easier to trade for, but I'll do due dilligence before making selections. Actually, screw that, Electricity is a pre-req for Refrigeration, and this game is all about cold ones. Physics up next.

Good work on the Statue of Liberty. I don't mind spending 2 GEs for what is one of the best wonders for this map.

I'm also looking forward to having some mills and being able to build stuff that will finish in my turnset. I plan on getting us started on Oxford, and whatever other National Wonders we've unlocked. So if you have suggestions as to sites, make them.

Is it really worth locking up garbage terrain and extending our borders for size 5 cities? If we're just looking for population there are probably spots north of San Fran or in the hills south of Minneapolis that can get us 4-7 pop or so with less maintanence and easier defense.

 

[Liquidated]

statue of liberty is such a back breaker on this map that to gamble it on the whim of an engineer simply wasn;t worth it.

imo spending 2 engineers on it was the right choice.

getting another eng for hoover is win as well... sometimes better to be lucky than good?


Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Sirian]

I'm not convinced about the need for Three Gorges. DC, NYC, Atlanta, and SanFran are all on rivers and can build hydro plants. I think we have a couple of more river sites here and there. We have a shield rich variant and already outproduce the AIs. What are we going to need those shields FOR anyway? Extra Troops only if we get attacked (and that seems less and less likely as time passes). No space race. We can keep on adding buildings, but there are almost 200 turns left. We'll be down to "building culture" and "building wealth" and such. Better to do something about grabbing Broadway and especially Eiffel Tower, nabbing Radio, etc.

We might get 3GD even with no engineers, so long as we are not, like, a gazillion turns late grabbing the tech.

At this point, we should be building Kremlin somewhere just for the wonder points.

Wall Street in DC is my chief request. Red Cross or West Point in Boston, to go with the Epic. Globe can go anywhere that really needs the culture (preferably somewhere that can feed the artists).

Ironworks... eh. Somewhere that is both high on shields and food would be good. If it can possibly feed six Engineers...


- Sirian

 

[Iustus]

Atlanta has a lot of shields, but cannot feed any specialists.

As to what we would do with all those shields... build wonders!!!!

Ok, maybe not, since it is near the end of the wonder train.

I almost started the Kremlin somewhere, but since no universal suffrage, I was not sure why... actually does it reduce the population cost of drafting? In any case, you make a good point about building it for wonder points.

Atlanta might be a good spot, it may be tricky fitting everything in.

Remember Corporation is required for Assembly Line, so we cannot see who has that yet. We also cannot see who has Railroads, we do not have Steel yet.

I definitely think we need to catch up in tech soon, if we want a chance at a lot of the wonders. Mansa might already be building Broadway right now, he could already have Electricity.

I usually like to go with West Point with the Heroic Epic and Red Cross with Ironworks, but on this map, with no ships, it does not matter as much either way. (You can have medic ships, so better to put ironworks with that). We might even want to Iron Works at New York (does it already have a national wonder?)

I think the key is to get Cyrus and Fredrick to go to Free Religion, so we can do some n-way tech trades.

I was keeping an eye on our military power, even though I kept building riflemen, we are slowly slipping down the list, Fredrick took a jump, which might be steel coming online, or it could mean he has Assembly Line.

The Pentagon would be nice, just for points and denial, but I suspect we do not have a realistic shot at it, we are too far behind in techs. We have a slightly better shot at Broadway, but again, several people have had Physics for a long time. Mansa is still gaining 2 techs for every one we research.

You might want to take an across the board look at our cities, and turn some of our free engineer specialists into scientists. (I considered this, but there were so many buildings to build as well).

Also, take a look at all the cities building wealth or research, you might want to build some things there. I tried to strike a balance, and rotate which cities were building research when I had buildings to build in both.

-Iustus

 

[Jabah]

Wall Street in DC is my chief request. Red Cross or West Point in Boston, to go with the Epic.
- Sirian

The way your game is going, you might have to wait for ages before having a level 5 unit for West Point ...

Jabah

 

[mike p]

1850 I start Chicago building Scotland Yard. We may as will build it somewhere and Chicago won't be a 2 national wonder town anyway. Also, its main infrastructure is already done too.

I switch San Fran from four scientists to 4 merchants - it's in the process of building an observatory, so it's not the best place for scientists, especially in light of the fact that all of the commerce boosting buildings are done there.

In LA, we're set to build research. But we've hired an engineer. I replace him with a scientist. Whenever you're building research or wealth directly, you're probably better off with merchants or scientists. As well, specialists are better than working low food, high production tiles in this case - which is why I stop working the plains/hills/lumber mills in Atlanta and hire some guys instead.

I'm looking to build the Kremlin and Oxford, so I cancel the copper deal with Liz to make this deal instead:

I couldn't keep the copper deal, make the stone deal and keep all of our citizens happy and healthy, so I let the copper lapse.

I fire four scientists in DC and hire 4 priests, which shaves one turn off the Kremlin, which is now due 14 turns.

1851 AD Cyrus offers us a Defensive Pact. I politely decline, but the option is still open to us.

Liz also declares on Napoleon.

San Fran is probably a better spot long term for Oxford, but I start it in NY, since it will get built a lot quicker and we probably won't keep the stone deal once the Kremlin is done - not to mention that San Fran is still building its university.

1852 AD Our expansion seems to be done since Cyrus laid this city down:

For some reason Cleveland, which is getting slaughtered culturally by Mali is building a Barracks. As soon as I spot that, I cancel it and start a temple instead.

Buddhism spreads to Charleston.

In the spirit of the game, Mike goes to the refridgerator and opens up a bottle of Gritty's Best Bitter Ale that his buddy Stroop left from the poker game last night. It tastes a lot long Longtrail.

1853 AD Cyrus and Fred both have Steam Power and are willing to trade.

I make the following deal with Peter:

I also turn science up to 60% to shave one turn off of Physics.

1854 AD This is slightly intimidating:

1855 AD Peter asks us to cancel our deals with the Germans, but I decline.

1856 AD Physics is done, and we're 10 turns from Electricty. Mansa already has it.

Liz asks us to pile on Napoleon, but we're a peaceful people.

Las Vegas is glowing!

I pull the trigger on this:

I also traded Physics to Cyrus for Steel, some gold and a map. I spot two goodie huts on the map along the south edge and start moving our Horse Archer towards them.

We have four sources of coal within our borders. Luckily, there's one near Philadelphia but not in any of our fat crosses. That's where I build a mine so we can build Railroads later. (That's acceptable for this game, right?)

 

[mike p]

1857 AD Buddhism spreads to Springfield just ahead of our missionaries. There are a whole bunch of people with Artillery now too.

1858 AD Oxford is completed in New York.

Bescanon is captured by the English.

I spot a Great Engineer in New York - I thought we used all of our GE's up building the Statue of Liberty, but this guy can either help us with Assembly Line, or maybe let us pull a fast one on Mansa and grab Broadway.

1859 AD Good day and welcome to Beer #2. This time it's a can of Piels Draft Style. Yummy. Our economy is picking up a bit, it looks like we'll get Electricity one turn sooner than originally projected. At 50% science we're only running a 13 gpt deficit.

1860 AD I spread Buddhism to a couple more of our cities, and send a few riflemen towards our Northeast borders, just to shore things up a bit.

1861 AD Napoleon asks us to cancel our deals with Elizabeth, but I refuse. Buddhism spreads to Spokane and we're at +1gpt at 50% science. We've really turned the corner in the last 1000 years or so!

Unfortunately, Mansa Musa completes Broadway.

I start the Iron Works in Seattle.

Our horse archer defeats a barb horse archer and pops the hut underneath, revealing a hostile warrior. I really hoping to pop Assembly Line, but not every plan can work out. I send the Horse Archer on an automove towards the other hut - he'll arrive early in Sirian's turnset. I figured this was easier than making you find it on the map.

1862 AD Cyrus is now willing to trade us Railroad, but I defer a decision on that.

1863 AD Cleveland starts a forge. Not sure if we need culture more than hammers here, but this should help us build a Stupa and/or Mandir more quickly.

1864 AD

Good work Comrades. After a long job like that, it's definitely Miller Time. But not a long break, since we want to get started on Wall Street!

I cancel the Stone deal with Genghis, which makes us happier and healthier.

1865 AD Electricity is in. That jumps our income up by about 85 gold, even at only a 30% tax rate. We're now fourth in GDP.

Behold the Awesome Power of our fully operational wind, water, and lumber mills.

There's also a Buddhist missionary on Goto orders to Jacksonville, which is our last non Buddhist city.

Looking things over at the end of these turns, I badly neglected building tile improvements in our newer cities to the southeast.

We also need one more windmill in Detriot (if that's the town west of San Fran). I stopped working the incense (7 commerce) so we can grow and work 2 desert hill windmills instead (1F 2H 3C). There's also another incense to the north of there that came within our borders that we can hook up and trade away.

Take it away Sirian.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/56599/1156468269.civ4savedgame

There are trading opportunities with Fred and Cyrus. We can probably pick up Railroad and Biology right now. I've selected Radio provisionally for research since Mansa hasn't learned it yet and it opens up Rock n Roll.

 

[Sirian]

I've got Diablo with Griselda, Cyrene and Sulla in about half an hour. Not sure if I'll play after that (starting to get late) or wait until tomorrow, but surely I will not have any reporting up tonight.

Everything seems to be on course. We'll want to grab Eiffel with the Engineer, if possible. I'll see what I can do.


- Sirian

 

[Strauss]

Still playing Diablo 2 huh? I played it a few years ago but I never got past the first half of Act 2. I bought it again a couple of months ago and I got to Act 3, then I became annoyed by respawning creatures whenever I had to close the game.

 

[Rowain deWolf]

I really hoping to pop Assembly Line, but not every plan can work out.

AFAIK Astronomy is the latest tech you can get from a hut

 

[Sullla]

Still playing Diablo 2 huh? I played it a few years ago but I never got past the first half of Act 2. I bought it again a couple of months ago and I got to Act 3, then I became annoyed by respawning creatures whenever I had to close the game.

Diablo 2? No, you mishead Sirian. We had our weekly Diablo game last night.

 

[mihau]

Still playing Diablo 2 huh?

Diablo 2? No, you mishead Sirian. We had our weekly Diablo game last night.

I was expecting this reply to happen.
Anybody fancy Warlords play-by-email ?

 

[Strauss]

I was expecting this reply to happen.

Strangely enough, so was I.

 

[Sirian]

I've played my round. Honestly, I'm not sure when I'll have the report done. It's not that it's gargantuan or anything, but this is a really busy weekend for me. Let's say Sunday at the latest, but probably sooner.

For that long of a gap, I suppose I owe a real teaser this time. So... Let me tell you that I trained eight new settlers this round and that was NOT ENOUGH to claim all the worthwhile sites within my grasp.




*walks away whistling "I've been workin' on the railroad"*


- Sirian