RB4 - Desert Runner

With the reporting and double-checking everything these 10 turns took longer than most of my single player sessions. :) How do people find time for several SGs simultaneously?

Here is my report. Is it too long/too short/too informal, or fine as it is?

1200BC (0) The mighty Persian Empire looks good in 1200BC. We are 3rd in land area, army size and food production and 4th in most other areas. The only concerns are our slow research pace and limited infrastructure.

Since all our cities are more healthy than happy, we will not need corn for a long time. So the worker at Pasargadae is ordered to stop farming corn and go to build cottages. This town has no barracks and will take 9 turns to finish its axeman. Our capital, on the other hand, is about to get Barracks and will be able to put out an axeman every 4 turns. So Pasargadae is ordered to stop training troops and start building Granary (10 turns) and Library (30 turns).

The settler is ordered to move to the spot marked above. That would give us access to ivory, stone and spices, while making good cottage city on our primary river (so we will not need extra roads to connect it to our trade network).

Finally, since we can now sign open borders, I sign open borders treaty with everybody. This will give us many positive relationship points and trade route opportunities. If we decide that some treaties are bad, we can cancel them later, with no penalty.

Archer that was guarding the settler goes to scout out Indian territory. (Settler will be moving through our territory until he meets new escort near destination.) Bombay is guarded by 2 archers.

IBT We hear rumors that Stonehenge was built in a distant land. We don’t care about useless piles of stones. (We are creative, so no need for obelisks.)

1160BC (1) Persepolis completes the first Barracks in our empire. Our generals order a massive celebration, which involves a lot of marching and shouting. The architects start working on a Granary (3 turns, in time for growth in 4). (We are Expansive, so Granaries are cheap.)

Susa also throws in a Granary in 5 before its grows in 6. Axeman has 3 turns left and can be moved to front of queue if need arises. Both western archers move into Indian territory.

1120BC (2) Troops march. Workers work. Cities build.
Archer in SE gets a map from villagers.

1080BC (3) Archer scouting around planned city site sees barbarian archer. Moves to a nearby hill.

IBT Archer wins against barbarian, proving once again the superiority of Persian culture.

1040BC (4) Persepolis is about to grow into unhappiness. Ooops. MM to avoid growth. Axeman in 3.

1000BC (5) Troops march. Workers work. Cities build.

IBT Archer scouting in SW kills a barbarian warrior. Those savages never learn.

975 BC (6) Arbela is founded. Starts on Granary.

950 BC (7) Axeman is trained in Persepolis and sets out to destroy yet another barbarian archer that foolishly ventured close to our lands. Persepolis starts training Worker in 3. Worker completes mine near Susa, goes to help build cottages near Persepolis. I wanted to build a road to start a trade route along India’s river, but those barbarians didn’t have enough sense to connect their cities on the river to their capital. Perhaps they haven’t invented the wheel yet. :)

Delhi is protected by 3 archers, two with city garrison. Lyons by an archer and a spearman with no promotions.

IBT Axeman defending in forest kills barbarian archer with just a scratch. Perhaps that will teach them to respect our borders.

925 and 900 BC (8 and 9) Susa completes Axeman and starts working on Barracks in 8. City governor gets an angry lecture about building Barracks before you start training your army.

I notice barbarian border east of Persepolis. Axeman goes to investigate what kind of defenses these savages have in their cities. Susa axeman moves in the same direction to join the fun. Archer scouting in the southwest is recalled back to Susa. (Will return in 8 turns.)

875BC (10) Persepolis is arranged to build a worker in 4, but can be switched to an axeman if you decide that 2 axemen isn’t enough to take that barbarian town. A worker is standing on ivory waiting for border expansion due in 2 turns.

We are still 4th in GNP and 3rd in most other things and are falling behind technologically. Research will have to drop to 70% in 2 turns, even without taking barbarian town. We need a lot more workers to build tons of cottages around Arabela, Pasargadae and Barbarian town (once you clear the jungle). And we'll need to mine some hills around Pasargadae to solve its production problem. We also need a library in Persepolis and Arabela. Persepolis can grow as soon as we connect Ivory. Alphabet is due in 3 turns, so that should catch us up technologically for the time being, but we still need those cottages.

Attached screenshot is overview of our empire at the end of my turn. The barbarian city is located under the red dot (directly north of sugar).

PS About diplomatic situation, Louis, Alex and Peter all like each other (and have open borders) and dislike Ghandi and Victoria. However, Peter still hadn't met Louis. If those 3 form an alliance and we aren't a part of it, we might be in trouble unless we have a strong alliance ourselves.

PPS Perhaps instead of capturing the barb city we should raze it and build our own west of the peak. That would give us better space utilization, access to same resources (by the time we can use sugar, borders will expand to cover it), and more minable hills and some farmable land near the river. Or we could capture it AND build our own, but that would cause too much overlap in city radii.
 

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Hi,

Zeviz said:
With the reporting and double-checking everything these 10 turns took longer than most of my single player sessions. :) How do people find time for several SGs simultaneously?
I second that. Playing SGs means playing with other people, so I double-check everything so not to screw up anything. Especially with a team that has players I think that are better than me, my 10 turns take a looong time... ;)
Now imagine we would double-check everything in our private games! :eek:

Here is my report. Is it too long/too short/too informal, or fine as it is?
I like it! I especially like it when players spell out why they did something, not only what they did. :goodjob:

Alphabet is due in 3 turns
Yay, looks like I get some trading to do! :)

Got it.

-Kylearan
 
Zeviz, I thought your report was great. I'm getting good vibes about this team!

After Alphabet, I think we might want to embark on the long research to courthouses, unless we want to persue a military strategy. Getting the courthouses built as early as possible will let us continue our expansion without getting hopelessly bankrupt. This is especially useful because we get such cheap courthouses.

I'm glad to see your note about the Louis Peter Alex alliance that seems to be forming - I've learned that it's important to watch these things and ensure you form trading alliances with one particular group of friendly civs. In one of my early single player games I ended up with a -4 diplomatic modifier with every single civ by trading indiscriminately, so I've learned that lesson well!

:goodjob:
 
I second the thumbsup on the reports by everyone, actually :).

From the looks of it, we might very well have named Arbela "Pink Dot"- it's way out there ! OTOH, those extra luxuries will sure come in handy and stone might even help us nab the Hanging Gardens at some point.

I'm also wondering if it's feasible to start a road to Gandhi to help religion spread to us ? That is, if the happiness gain doesn't outweigh the diplomatic minuses.
 
Snaproll, thanks for mentioning that courthouses are cheap for us - I forgot about that! The question is what to go for first, currency (for the extra trade route) or CoL for the courthouses?

jameson, I agree on the religion thing. We don't need to convert, but the option of building temples would be nice.

Personally, I would delay converting to any religion as long as possible, until we know who is allied with whom and which side we want to be on. I agree with Snaproll that choosing sides is very important; you cannot be friend with everyone. We should keep that also in mind when trading resources!

Does anybody know if trading techs counts as "trading with worst enemy"? I don't think so, but I'm not entirely sure.

-Kylearan
 
I suspect courthouses will be valuable sooner seeing as we can probably trade only domestically at this point anyway.

No clue about the tech trading thing.
 
Code of Laws is actually easier to get than Currency, as it has an "or" gate from priesthood, which is really cheap. We could go Mathematics -> Currency, but I think that would take a bit longer. If we weren't expansionist, I'd probably go for markets first, but in this case I'd probably do Code of Laws. If we get it, then we will also found Confucianism!
 
Whoops, double post.

While I'm editing, I should mention in response to jameson that we can trade with Alex already, as he started on the same river that we did. However, I'd probably still go with courthouses.
 
About "trade with enemy" relationship modifier, I think it's equal to the "enemy's" "fair and forthright trade" relationship modifier. So we don't have to worry about it unless we start selling techs for much less than their value and giving gifts/tribute.

For research path, we will get much more benefit from Currency, because our current upkeep is only 8$, so even after we build a courthouse in every city we'll save at most 4$. Currency on the other hand will instantly give us at least 4$ (1 trade route per city) without need to build anything. Courthouses are also limited by the fact that our remote settlements in the desert are very weak on production and have many more important things to build (granaries, libraries, etc.) Finally, Math gives us Hanging Gardens and a chance to research Construction (elephants and catapults).

EDIT: About road to Ghandi, the last time I checked, he didn't have his river cities connected to the capitol. However, his worker seemed to be building a road the last time I saw him before moving the archer. So it might make sence to build a road to his river in about 6-12 turns. (To make sure his capital is connected to river cities by the time we build our road.)
 
A day late and a dollar short, I know, but I just wanted to point out that a city couldn't have been founded on the "Culture Flipper" tile anyway since it was within 2 tiles of Bombay.

I'm learning a lot about the Oasis map by reading this SG, so thank you all! (My first experiences with the Oasis map ended in tears. :sad: )
 
Heh, I hadn't even realized that it couldn't have been founded there. In any case, hopefully I avoided screwing things up too badly on my turn (I'm probably one of the less experienced here).
 
I emphasize food in Pasargadae to speed up growth to max happiness, then hit enter.

850BC (1): Set Pasargadae and Susa to max hammers now that they have reached max happiness. Our axeman investigates Ghuzz, the barbarian city: It has 3 archers as garrison.

825BC (2): Gandhi completes the Oracle.

800BC (3): Alphabet comes in. Let's see who has what... Notation: we have/they have, * means AI won't trade.

Alex: writing, horseback riding / meditation, fishing, *masonry
Louis: alphabet, horseback riding, iron working / meditation, polytheism, fishing, masonry, *mathematics
Victoria: alphabet, horseback riding / fishing, masonry, *mathematics
Peter: horseback riding / fishing, masonry
Gandhi: agriculture, writing, horseback riding, iron working / polytheism, fishing, masonry

What's up with Gandhi? Despite building the oracle, he's so far behind?
Trade Gandhi agriculture and iron working for polytheism, fishing, masonry.
Trade Alex writing for meditation.

More trades won't be possible this turn. However, next turn the next techs after the ones we got this turn will become visible.

I ponder setting research to metal casting (nice trading material, and we need production/have health) instead of mathematics, hoping Victoria or Louis will trade mathematics after some turns. This is a bit risky however, as both might want to build the hanging gardens and won't trade it, so I start research on mathematics nonetheless.

775BC (4): Persepolis completes worker, starts settler. Do another tech check:

Alex: polytheism ,alphabet, horseback riding / priesthood, sailing
Louis: alphabet, iron working, horseback riding / monotheism ,sailing, *mathematics
victoria: meditation, polytheism, alphabet, horseback riding / sailing, *mathematics
peter: meditation, polytheism, horseback riding / sailing
Gandhi: meditation, writing, horseback riding / priesthood, monotheism

Trade Gandhi writing and meditation for monotheism
Trade Alex polytheism for priesthood

750BC (5): Gandhi now knows *monarchy. Ivory is hooked up, so cities can grow again. Switch Persepolis to library for a turn to let it grow, then switch it back to settler.

725BC (6): A French archer has killed one of the barbarian archers in Ghuzz, but our two axemen (one with no experience!) won't be enough to take out the two other archers, so I wait for a third axe to arrive.

700BC (7): Nothing to report.

675BC (8): We meet Hatshepsut! Ouch, we already have a -4 modifier for trading with her worst enemies! :eek: How's that possible? She's the only one we have a "worst enemy" penalty with. Maybe she has been at war already? :confused:

Anyway, she immediately suggests open borders, and I accept. Maybe that will improve relations a bit. She's also friend with Gandhi and Victoria.

650BC (9): :sleep:

625BC (10): A barbarian archer appears at Arbela! I notice we only have an archer in the city and nothing to protect our resources. :eek: I move an axe towards Arbela, but it will take an eternity for him to arrive.


Some general thoughts:

- I noticed we have several improved tiles without roads. Maybe that's just a matter of varying playstyles, but I prefer to road a tile where my worker stands on. That saves worker moves, especially on hills.

- A friendly reminder: Please avoid leaving units on goto; I didn't notice an archer was on a long goto until after playing 8 turns or so. Thanks! :)

- Arbela is on max shields at the moment until the granary will be completed. Then, switch it back to max growth until it has reached its happiness limit.

- Gandhi now has monarchy for trade. Even if we have to pay through the nose for it (alphabet and horseback riding, I think), I would consider doing the trade. We could switch to hereditary rule, allowing us to grow even more.

- When mathematics comes in, switch either Susa or Persepolis to aqueduct, then hanging gardens. Susa would have two forests on hills to chop, but Persepolis might have a slightly better production - not sure.

- Where should we send our next settlers to? Grabbing iron is a priority, but after that I'd suggest settling two cities in the area where the barbarian city now is, to grab all the resources.


Roster:
Kylearan -> just played
jameson -> UP NOW
Snaproll -> on deck
hiob
dopplex
Zeviz

-Kylearan
 
Kylearan said:
- Gandhi now has monarchy for trade. Even if we have to pay through the nose for it (alphabet and horseback riding, I think), I would consider doing the trade. We could switch to hereditary rule, allowing us to grow even more.

I'd wait till we have mathematics and try to get monarchy without giving up our alphabet-monopoly (assuming we have it ;-))

If we really want to settle the ironsite, which i wouldn't, not because its bad, but it will be quite costly being that far away, it would be good to have some military in that area, preferably before the settler gets there.
 
Sorry about leaving that archer on auto-move.

About tech trading, I would hold on to alphabet for now. If Ghandi is behind technologically, we probably shouldn't give him this chance to catch up.

Sorry about lack of axemen at Arabela. The newly trained axeman was on the way there when I got distracted by that barb town. By the way, we absolutely have to take that town. If Louis gets it, we will lose all the resources it controls. So should we build a couple more axemen and go for it? (3 axemen should be enough to take out 2 archers and if Louis is attacking it already, we don't have much time.)

What about following military strategy?
1) Train 1 or 2 more axemen to make sure we have 3 available.
2) Take the barb town.
3) Send 1 axeman to guard iron site, 1 to guard the road between Pasagadae and iron site and leave the 3rd one to protect our core.
4) Settle iron site.

PS About roads on improvements, my strategy is to build only the roads we absolutely need while we are short on workers. Those 2 or 3 turns spent putting a road on a mine could be spent building a desperately needed cottage. (Or a trade route to our neighbor.) Those extra roads can be filled in later, when our workers run out of tasks.
 
hiob said:
If we really want to settle the ironsite, which i wouldn't, not because its bad, but it will be quite costly being that far away, it would be good to have some military in that area, preferably before the settler gets there.

I'm still not convinced that going to Code of Laws before Currency isn't the right move, for exactly this reason. I am not saying that it is an obvious better choice compared to currency and marketplaces, but I don't think going for markets is obviously better either.

There are a couple nice things about going for code of laws first over going for currency:

1) We get a religion, increasing happiness, which will give us more citizens, and more gold.
2) Courthouses can be built quickly in our smaller, remote cities, where they will have the most effect anyway. This has the benefit of not tying up our core cities during this critical military / settler expansion phase. Markets are fairly costly, especially so early, and this will tie up our capitol at a key point in the expansion phase. I feel that markets shouldn't be built until the initial land grab phase is over.
3) Remember that courthouses reduce the maintainance costs directly, whereas markets give us 25% more commerce. At high research rates, very little of the marketplace's increased commerce will give us any more actual gpt. Now, we will be getting more science, that is true. As I said its not an easy decision.
4) The same is true for the trade route income that was mentioned. True, we'll get 4 more commerce but very little if any of that will actually be applied to our gpt (I think that's true, but I'm not 100% sure of that). Theres no disputing that if you want to decrease the amount of gpt you are spending, courthouses are the most effective early way to do this, IMHO. And, they are so cheap that we can put them in early cities with minimum effort!

Anyway, just some thoughts for us to discuss. Even if it doesn't end up applying directly to this game since we've already started on math, I wanted to bring it up.
 
Finished playing, don't have time to post anymore though. Report up tonight.
 
Hi,

Zeviz said:
By the way, we absolutely have to take that town. If Louis gets it, we will lose all the resources it controls. So should we build a couple more axemen and go for it? (3 axemen should be enough to take out 2 archers and if Louis is attacking it already, we don't have much time.)
I already moved a third axeman to the city; the three were ready to attack in one turn. Let's hope Louis wasn't faster (he had two archers there - do the AIs get a bonus vs. Barbs?).

About roads on improvements, my strategy is to build only the roads we absolutely need while we are short on workers. Those 2 or 3 turns spent putting a road on a mine could be spent building a desperately needed cottage.
I prefer to build the roads at once as it will save time overall, and in case you get attacked, I value a good road net very high.

But that's the fun about SGs, seeing how different playstyles turn out. :)

-Kylearan
 
Hi,

Snaproll said:
Markets are fairly costly, especially so early, and this will tie up our capitol at a key point in the expansion phase. I feel that markets shouldn't be built until the initial land grab phase is over.
I agree, but I like to research currency not for the markets (which I sometimes build never at all :eek: ) but for the +1 trade routes, which helps economy immediately without having to build anything.

But then I had great success with building courthouses in my late games; they did help my economy a lot more than I had expected - so I'm still undecided in what situations which choice is better.

-Kylearan
 
I agree it's a tough decision (courthouses vs. markets). Remember the +1 trade routes add to commerce, which will make almost no difference in gpt. Courthouses add directly to your gpt. (I'm pretty sure I'm right about that, but not 100%)
 
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