RB6 - Island Hopping

[Arhiss]

Ok, I have my work cut out for me!

My goals this round:
Further the spread of French-Taoist-zen philosophy
Build or at least start production on at least 2 ships.
Keep exploring with the ship, and, if I can, settle on fishing island.
Capture Polynesian! (If I can)
Don't mess up!


Taking stock of the situation, I see that anarchy currently reigns in our lands. Trust Sirian to send me a nation thrust into the depths of chaos! Nothing left for me to do this turn, so might as well move on after taking stock.

520 AD - Turn 1:
Taoism has spread in Rosette! (one less Missionary to build)
Continue moving axemen west towards Tours, for the eventual quick hop to Polynesian. Spread Taoism in Paris with the missionary Sirian moved there.

I move the Warrior on Polynesian-island one tile west into the forest.... to find barbarian warriors RIGHT next to me - I can forsee a battle

IT: We win, with some heavy losses: Down to 0.8/2 Strength. A second Barb warrior moves in to replace the first!!!

540 AD - Turn 2:
Obelisk completes in Rosette - Start on Gallery. I note we could Immediately whip again for 3 pop points. We are growing in 2 turns, though, and I'd like to avoid first turn penalties. At least get the boat STARTED before whipping the poor souls

Promote Warrior in the East to Woodsman I -- He's not going to be in the frontline of our attack on Polynesian, and he needs the health now to take on that second barb, unless I want to run away. Besides, we can use Woodsman II to effectively explore the island if we so choose. We are not afraid!


IT - We survive again.... barely. 0.0/2 Strength !!

Looks like he'll be healing for a century or 2 ....

560 AD - Turn 3:
More scouting of Asoka's lands:

Start a chop near Rosette (near where green dot will be) -- I don't mind losing the forest in the tundra area because this is on a hill, and we can put a mine there anyhow. Will leave the forest/tundra tile alone, as we can throw a lumbermill there later. That's the best / only improvement I can think of on a Tundra tile.

580 AD - Turn 4:

Whip the Galley at Rosette, now that they've Grown once. Unhappiness for 15 Turns now. Now getting +2 unhappy people as well.
More exploring of Asoka's lands.

600 AD - Turn 5:
Galley finished at Rosette. Start Galley. Send first Galley to Tours. The forest chop near green dot sends its shields to Rosette rather than Tours as I had expected. Second Galley in 1 Turn!

Red arrow shows First Galley headed to Tours. Yellow arrow is of course, what I'm hovering my mouse cursor over. We have a sizable army on it's way to Polynesian...

 

[Arhiss]

620 AD - Turn 6:
More exploring up north. Second Galley Finished. Start third (Sirian DID say he wanted a navy, right? Right?!?!?!?! )

Homer and Xi Lang Shi born in distant lands... the AI's seem to be cranking out the Great People themselves..... And a gratuitous shot of my 2 turn navy (just add water...)

640 AD - Turn 7:
Settler finished in New Orleans -> Work boat for the Fish north of Fishing isle.
Load up the 2 galleys with 3 axeman and a chariot, Set sail for Polynesian.
660 AD - Turn 8:
Research Monarchy. Start Mathematics. Math is a gateway to a large number of techs, including what I think may be a pivotal tech for us with such a large sea base: Currency. Another wonder I think we should nab if we can would be the colussus.

Aaaand.....................

Start a swap to Pacifism and Heredetary Rule.

To celebrate, I drop the settlers off on Fishing island.

680 AD - Turn 9:

Poisson is founded They immediately start a lighthouse to search for more fish out in the vast waters that surround them.

Start unloading troops near Polynesian.
We have to turn science down to 50% to cover the current cost of our troops, due to pacifism.

700 AD - Turn 10:

Taoism spreads in Marseilles. More free religion is always a good thing.

The assault on Polynesian yields good results - we capture the city and a worker! Apologies I didn't get an action shot this time heh.

I move the surviving troops into the city.

Send one of the invading galleys to the south of our new island to scout, the other one is returning to Tours, for possible ferrying of troops and / or settlers.

Leaving the worker at Polynesian active for the next player to decide what to do with it.

Also, while I was looking through the final screens gathering screenshots, I noticed Asoka would trade gems. Since we have no less than 4 deer, I offload some to him for some shiny rocks. (Deer for Gems) I think this is a stellar deal

 

[Arhiss]

And to wrap things up....

Things on our Eastern Front:

Things on our Western Front:

Our Demographics situation:

We're in 5th place for GNP. I still view this as a bad situation -- Hopefully our GPP factory can turn this around. We are number 1 for land area, production, and of course, food production .

Here's a shot of our Religion situation:

We're catching up in terms of religious indoctrination of our lands. I agree with Sirian that a religious push may definately be in the cards.

And finally, a peek as Asoka's lands:

Overall, I'd call that a very successful 10 turns... NEXT!

EDIT: It would help if you all had the save

 

[Sirian]

Indeed. Most excellent!

I loved the "accidental" extra galley, which enabled you to achieve the conquest of Polynesian in shockingly little time. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. You capitalized on every available opportunity, and even the wounded Warrior survived back to back assaults. Wow.

Zagaz is up next. We'll give him some extra time to check in, since this is right on top of Christmas.

It's OK to move the game to v1.52, I think.


Merry Christmas, guys.


- Sirian

 

[weakciv]

Merry Christmass to all.

I will update to 152 shortly.
I have been playing since release day and only today have I begun to get major crash issues. 1 turn then crash after autosave, 8 times today.

 

[Arhiss]

Just updated to 1.52

Merry Christmas to all.

 

[Bouchehog]

Pre-play map analysis is very helpful. I don’t have Civ until I get back from my folks, so I can’t open your saves and look at the whole picture and hence the analysis is particularly useful!

Also Sirian that not “soprano-singing Christian music!” it’s a treble singing Allegri’s Miserere – a soprano would be female!

How do you decide where to put cottages? Max farms will obviously get your population up and allow you to work the mines, so why the one cottage in Paris? Is that for some decent £££ later when the plantation comes online, or is it to give you some flexibility?

 

[Sirian]

Also Sirian that not “soprano-singing Christian music!” it’s a treble singing Allegri’s Miserere – a soprano would be female!

There are some female voices in some of the songs. I'm definitely talking about real soprano. So we are both correct on this one.

How do you decide where to put cottages? Max farms will obviously get your population up and allow you to work the mines, so why the one cottage in Paris? Is that for some decent £££ later when the plantation comes online, or is it to give you some flexibility?

Cottages are an issue of "as much as you can afford". The more the better, except where food shortages will leave you unable to make use of all of your good tiles.


- Sirian

 

[Arhiss]

Just as a side note, I did build one additional cottage for Paris, so it has 2.

A question that I've been meaning to ask you Sirian. Earlier on Page 6, you gave the following screenshot:

and said the following:

Notice the percentages on the religion screen.
Incans have Buddhism and its spread the farthest.
Americans have Confucianism and have spread it pretty far too.
India's religions have not spread very far yet. (They have HinJewIsm).

How from that screen did you determine that Incans have Buddhism when we haven't even met them yet? To date we had only met India and Japan. Furthermore you stated that India had HinJewism, but that screen only points out that Hinduism had been founded in India as you stated, but that the founder of Judaism is unknown.

It seems like you had some other method of determining all this.... or had some method of spying hehe Can you explain?

 

[Sirian]

How from that screen did you determine that Incans have Buddhism when we haven't even met them yet? To date we had only met India and Japan. Furthermore you stated that India had HinJewism, but that screen only points out that Hinduism had been founded in India as you stated, but that the founder of Judaism is unknown.

It seems like you had some other method of determining all this.... or had some method of spying hehe Can you explain?

Asoka's score in the lower right shows his current religion and that he possesses the holy city for it. We also saw that Delhi is the Holy city of Hinduism. So that one is no great mystery.

I got the info about Incans and Americans from F9. Top Five Cities plus the Wonders info. (America possesses Kong Miao, Incans Mahabodi. From there, you can do the math, right?)

I took a screen of F9 info, actually, but it didn't take. I didn't go back to get another.


It's good that you are paying close attention, though. Success lies in mastering more of the details.


- Sirian

 

[Arhiss]

Ahhh much more sense. Thanks.

 

[Sirian]

RB6 ROSTER:

Sirian
Arhiss
Zagaz --- UP NOW!
weakciv -- On Deck.
Garath

Alternates:
* rabhison
* Sadan

I know Zagaz is out for the holiday, but not sure when he'll be back. He hasn't checked in lately, either.

So... we'll give this another 24 hours, and open it to the Alternates. If any of the three of you (Zagaz, rabhison, Sadan) can play tonight or tomorrow, the first one to post Got It has it. If no word by 5PM EST Tuesday, then we'll skip ahead to weakciv and continue on from there.

Hope everybody had a happy Christmas.


- Sirian

 

[weakciv]

I know alot of folks travel for the holidays. Im one of those sick sad people who choose to invite everyone over to my house.

Ah well, at least my wife doesnt mind me playing computer games when she has 8 other women to talk to.

 

[Clovis]

Great game, guys!! I love reading these things

It seems to me that your best strategy at this time would be to spread Taoism to Tokugawa, (wait a minute, no open borders could be a problem! ) Where exactly do you plan on spreading your religion?

Other than that, it looks like you should spread as far into the west island as possible, before someone else colonizes it (if they haven't already).

Thanks for saving my life, since I can't play Civ4 until June

 

[Sirian]

OK. Time's up on Zagaz's slot, so we're passing to weakciv. Then on to Garath.

weakciv? Can you duck away from your household full of women long enough to play some video games?


- Sirian

 

[Sirian]

I can't play Civ4 until June

Why is that? Lacking a computer? Or too busy with urgent priorities?


- Sirian

 

[weakciv]

Downloaded and playing ....

 

[weakciv]

Done with turns :yawn: now I need to sleep.
I will report tomorrow. (good thing i dont have to work )

 

[Bouchehog]

Cottages are an issue of "as much as you can afford". The more the better, except where food shortages will leave you unable to make use of all of your good tiles.
- Sirian

So do you actively work out the number of tiles that will be required to ensure that all of the workable squares are used, or do you guess and adjust later. By that I mean, so you work out the number of irrigation tiles that will be required to mine all those hills, or do you work on a 'if I mine this it only gives me 1 food, so I need to get +1 elsewhere' approach? Also, I tend to find that there are periods where my workers are doing very little (unless I can get a war going at that point). Would be a good idea to irrigate too many tiles in the early game to maximise growth/give flexibility for max shields and then convert them to cottages or watermills later (with the appropriate civics)?

I know that there's no one answer, but it's quite useful for us beginners to have a better insight into how you all think (it being too tedious to point out where and why in a thread like this!).

​

 

[Sirian]

So do you actively work out the number of tiles that will be required to ensure that all of the workable squares are used, or do you guess and adjust later. By that I mean, so you work out the number of irrigation tiles that will be required to mine all those hills...

I want my good cities to be able to grow quickly even with high population counts. Six or eight surplus food is great, since you can always turn that in to three or four specialists. However, a city with six farms is a city that passed up six cottages.

Really, there is no pat answer. I try to make the most of both my terrain and my traits/techs. Hills can get windmills instead of mines. Flatlands can get farms (if irrigated only, though), or cottages, or workshops. River plots can get farms or cottages or watermills. For every hill/flatland pair, you can go farm/mine, or cottage/windmill, or farm/windmill. You'll have to do more of the latter if in low-food regions (plains, tundra, desert) but you can do a lot of cottages in heavy grassland regions (especially jungles). However, if there are a lot of hills, and you do farm/mine pairs, then you soon realize that you have a size 12 city with no cottages at all. Oops!

It's a question of balancing commerce vs production. That production can get you commerce-boosting improvements, but you have to have enough base commerce for it to matter. Well, you can get that from trade routes and open borders, if you've got a few cottages on hand, and still maintain high production. Three or four cottages is "above average" for me. More than four is pretty much a "commerce city". Sometimes you want that, though. However, you can also go Representation+Mercantilism and high food and specialists, especially if Philosophical. And you can pull high production and cash rushing out of Universal Suffrage and Free Speech, if you have enough grasslands on hand to run commerce cities all over the place.

The one thing that trips up the all-cottage city is city growth rate. Cottages don't mature until you work them, and you don't get the UniSuff production bonus until they are all the way mature! Plus if they get pillaged, you are really hurt then.


I don't tend to have idle workers. You are probably building more workers than I am. I only need enough to have all my cities working improved tiles to the limit of their happy and health. You want to be AHEAD of that curve, but not by too much. On higher difficulty, you hit that ceiling sooner, and it's an inefficient use of resources to have overworked your land. So I may be going thinner on workers than you are. *shrug*


Now was any of that useful? I wonder. I wrote a lot, but not sure I said very much.


- Sirian