RB6 - Island Hopping

[Sirian]

IT 1050AD: We seem to be in pretty good shape.

I made a couple of adjustments, such as speeding Angkor Wat by a turn, and halting the forest chop at Lyons. (Why all the forest chopping? Wow. I think we cut down a few too many trees! We had two trees at Rosette and now down to one? What is THAT about?!?)


1070AD: The Indian units are scouting the island before they settle. I am not sure where they will end up!

If they settled there, they'd claim the whole western third of the island, but the city would have no trade access to the sea. (They can't be planning that, can they?)


1090AD: We build Angkor Wat. One goal for my round is to get going on our FP (Forbidden Palace) on West Isle, so we need three more Courthouses. I am working on it.

1100AD: Like I said...

I move the governor to Emphasize Food, to regrow those four pop points ASAP. This is very lucrative in a city with three food resources!

Green Circle is another missing forest. Why was that one chopped? As of v152, Forests are now worth 0.5 health apiece instead of 0.4. So we had four in range of that city, and now one is gone. More to the point, there is NOTHING USEFUL to do with a plain Tundra plot. A forest on tundra could eventually be a 1/3/0 plot in the late game, and useful to the city later. Chopped, however, that is a USELESS plot from now until forever. Worth it anyway, if the chop made the difference on our wonder, but even that is a pretty high price to pay. Would be better if we get the wonder without such a sacrifice!

Our fifth Courthouse:

Also put to Food Emphasis to regrow.

This leaves us needing one more Courthouse, and I will build it in Paris.
Next player up should be able to start on the FP!

 

[Sirian]

If anybody needs proof that the AI no longer "cheats" in picking city sites, here it is:

The Indian units scouted around to see what was there...
...then headed back to the spot they landed on!
Five turns up in smoke!


1120AD: Buddhism spreads to our lands for the first time.

As you can see, Polynesian is building a settler.
It could build another after that one, if appropriate!


So guys, keep in mind that we are running Hereditary Rule!
Got a happiness problem?

Ship in some more military!

I trained a few Axemen this round, but clearly we need to beef our entire military very soon!

After the Indians settled, I shifted our dot westward one.
Also chopping, to get 20 shields closer to that Forbidden Palace!

(The shields don't go to the FP, but they help the FP city.)
(And otherwise they would simply have burned when I settled there!)


1150AD: My "steady as she goes" round is completed.

Calendar due next turn, and worker in position to start hooking up Incense!

Blue Dot is a city site. The Yellow forest should attach to it, but orange mine should go to Poly.

Pink-circled Forest is outside city ranges and should be chopped!

FP City ready to whip its Lighthouse next turn, then grow and grow and grow!

A worker there has started on a mine+chop:

The FP should be started there by then! The chop should go to the FP!
Two more forests circled in yellow should be chopped to speed the FP, too!
(And clear the lands by the river.)
Don't go chop-happy, though. Leave the red-circled ones so the site stays strong!

 

[Sirian]

Two Iron showed up back home. One is on the Icy Island.

The other is on the mainland near Tours, but that is a bad spot to take advantage.
I hooked it up already, so we have Iron online.
Need to settle at Red and White Dots.
I have Red Dot lined up for next player.

A ship is in the area (and needs to move closer).
Settler working at Orleans.
Work Boat ready to work the Crabs.
Need some more military there, though!

In fact, our next two techs should be two of these four military techs:

It almost doesn't matter which ones. Longbows, Macemen, Catapults, Crossbows, all helpful.
We need to learn up, then train up.
Leave our obsolete units, though. They help with city happiness!


Here's a useful tip. The city governors are set to EMPHASIZE cottages.
To invest in them even when they aren't paying back much, to mature them for later.
It is generally NOT a good idea at all to build "temporary" cottages!
You may shoot yourself in the foot, to be working a bad tile on "investment" mode...
...and then have to pave over it later anyway.

We need a Plantation there ASAP. Our workers are in the western part of the isle...
...but should be able to get there fairly soon.


Building Angkor Wat in a high food city was a GREAT MOVE!

We are running Pacifism, plus Parthenon, and our Priests give 2shield apiece!
Now running three at a time in that city!
We should be able to pop a Prophet next round, and build our Shrine!


Rosette is all lined up to crank settlers for the next couple of centuries!

Somewhere else is going to have to crank some military, though!
(Paris would be a good candidate.)


Since we DO have Angkor Wat, our towns need to get Temples done before too long.
(To enable Priest specialist!)

So many things we need to do! Some very interesting choices to make here.

 

[Sirian]

This city has two Cottages on plots that will eventually get farmed over.
(We are getting close to Bureaucracy!)

In the mean time, I have governor disabled. Recommend to keep it that way!
No use working those dead cottages.
(We need FOOD to feed specialists!)

In general, keep our cities growing on high food until they top out on happy, then max specialists.


North Isle got explored. Lot o Jungle(TM).

Some good looking dots, if we can get NON-OBSOLETE TROOPS plus Settlers up there.
Our chances may be better than you think, since the AI is less than fond of dense jungle.


Should Rosette's next settler head up there?

Or should it grab White Dot and get cranking on it, with the Deer and Iron already hooked up?

Poor Tours is just a crappy fishing village, looking ahead...
...but DID get us to West Isle and out of our hole!

Speaking of which, there is yet another opportunity to cross a channel, to our far west.

There is also the fact that we are Creative.
We could delay Light Blue Dot in favor of Pink Dot, and try to FLIP that Indian city!
Got to get started on that quickly, though, if going for it.

Lots of possibilities, and we can't realize them all.
Some good stuff from which to choose, though.


Arhiss is UP NOW!
I hope Zagaz will be back with us soon, too.

Happy New Year.


- Sirian

 

[Arhiss]

Consider this my "got it" post. I'm at work atm (someone has to work the holidays in a tech support type company, and unfortunately I'm it!).

I'll play my turns this evening.

 

[Arhiss]

Done turns, posting in a short bit.

 

[Arhiss]

IT 1150 AD:

Taking stock, and summarizing my goals:

- Complete Forbidden Palace at Chartres
- Settle Red Dot.

Choices:
- Beef military or Build Temples to Leverage Ankor Wat.

I know we need military soon, however my feeling is it can wait a couple turns to get the priests churning out. I'm usually a fan of beefing infrastructure as much as feasible then churning out military for a couple. I will concentrate more (though not exclusively) on the temples.

- Settle Agressively at Pink DoT & Send Rosette's next settler to north isle, or play conservative, and go for Light Blue Dot, and White Dot.
I'm feeling a little today, so I think I'm going to go as agressively as I can. Fortune favors the bold!

- Pick a military tech to go to next turn --- many choices here, all with good rewards. I don't think we immediately have a need for farms to spread irrigation -- also of note is that to get macemen requires machinery in the first place. We could eventually pick up ivory on north isle for war elephants if we go the construction route, however I don't see any immediate gains. Feudalism could net us some nice civic choices, and finally getting machinery would lead us to being able to make windmills and watermills. Those are some nice tile upgrades; however the big gain there is also being able to head for optics immediately thereafter. Personally I'd like to see us maintain a very strong navy - we need to meet others so we can open up vital tech trades, and the circumnavigation bonus would be sweet as well. Also if in the future we were to pick up Civil Service we'd be able to immediately start churning out macemen. My path is set! The French will attempt to push towards seeing what is across the sea!


1160 AD(Turn 1):
Discover Calendar - start on machinery. Start a plantation on the incense near Polynesian. Galleys wander the ocean in search of land.
Polynesian Completes Settler, who heads towards pink dot in an agressive bid to make west Island ours. Sirian had a forge queued up, I leave that going.

1170 AD(Turn 2):
Orleans Completes a settler -> Taoist Temple
Rheims completes forge -> Taoist Temple
Tours expands its borders.
I check out our Tech trades window. Asoka has a good number of techs we need. I trade Currency and Monarchy to him for Construction and Monotheism (filling in old techs).

Huayna Capac already has machinery by the way! It will likely be a race for circumnavigation!

1180 AD (Turn 3):
Paris Completes Courthouse -> Axemen (got to do at least SOME military!)
The borders of Rosette expand.
Hanno (Great Merchant) is born in Paris!

He can net us Civil Service; rather than try for some gold, or convert him to a super citizen, I think I'll take Farm Irrigation for 1040 beakers, Alec. It's a daily triple! (Construction, Machinery, and Civil service -- three of the 4 techs Sirian wanted for Christmas -- one by research, one by trade, one by Great Person). Only 2 gpt (and the turn of anarchy) to swap civics to Bureaucracy, so I take it.


1190 AD (Turn 4):
Start a plantation on the Silk by Paris.

We have adopted Bureucracy.
Huyna Cupac adopts Hereditary Rule (He must finally have gotten Monarchy)
Whip settler in Rosette -- we have boats waiting for him! And start on another Settler.

1200 AD(Turn 5):
Double chop next to pink Dot -- the settler should arrive next turn just as the forest is cleared. The forge at Polynesian is just taking too long to complete on it's own. Time to break out the whip -- it will be done next turn. I emphasize food at Polynesian to regrow the lost "labor force".

Besancon founded at pink dot. Starts on lighthouse.

Settler at Rosette Grabs a warrior buddy and hops on a boat towards North isle. We have to detour all the way past Asoka's lands to get there, it will be a LONG trip. The next player can decide where we want to stake our claim up there.

1210 AD (Turn 6):
Polynesian Completes Forge, starts Worker.
Rouen founded on the south Fishing isle -> Starts lighthouse. We are now hemorraghing cash at a rate of -13 gpt. We shall need to reduce science (yet again) soon, if we don't get the forbidden palace done soon, we might be in a spot of financial trouble

1220 AD (Turn 7):
Tours finishes library, starts on Forge.
Chartres (FP city) finishes Lighthouse, starts on Courthouse (needed to construct FP). Queue FP after courthouse.
Worker near Chartres has also finished his mine + chop, and heads to the southern yellow circled forest to chop. The incense plantation worker has also done his plantation, and heads towards the wasted forest next to the rice patch to chop there.

1230 AD (Turn 8): Rheims completes Temple -> Starts catapult I queue Aqueduct as well, though that may get vetoed down the line.

Taoism spreads in Tours, Ptolemy is born in a distant land.


1240 AD (Turn 9):
Rosette finishes Settler, starts Taoist Temple. (I'm not sure how much further we can push our expansion without dipping dangerously low in finances.) As is, we've killed our bank account, I have to set science to 40%.

Orleans has finished Taoist Temple, Starts catapult.
Marseilles finished Temple -> Barracks

Start farming over the other City near Paris. We need FOOD to fund our priests

1250 AD (Final Turn):
Finish Machinery which now (thanks to the Great merchant) unlocks both Macemen and Crossbowmen for us -- the reason I held off making more axes, and instead built catapults. Start optics (next player free to veto, but I reccomend it).

Rheims finish catapult, start macemen. (Feel free to veto) -- this would be a good time to do that military building Sirian wants, however.

Leaving a bunch of units active for the next player to play with.

There are many decsisions still to make:
-continue sending the galley-settler-warrior stack up to Asoka's lands, or take a detour west of Western Isle, and try to expand that direction (in furtherance of circumnavigating the world). -

- Huyana Capac now has optics!!! We have 6 turns yet to go to get the tech, leaving him with a 6 turn advantage. However, we have already pre-scouted Tokugawa's lands, so we MIGHT get the circumnavigation ahead of him yet! One sneaky tactic I've used in the past is to trade world maps for cash (not giving the other party any extra knowledge) and building circumnavigation that way. If we don't get it, it's not THAT big a deal, but it's quite handy to have.

- We also have a second settler-on-a-boat (sans military escort) Right outside of Tours. You could repurpose him to settle on White dot that has the deer and mine pre-hooked up, for a fast start, but I'm of a more expansionist bent myself.

- Paris needs more health to grow further, it still has no priests or any other specialists for that matter allocated.

 

[Arhiss]

A summary of how we're doing now:

Fi

First of all, the state of Religion:

- We have quite a few cities yet that aren't our state religion. We may need to spread by missionary soon. Also Asoka is really flogging the religion path, he's founded 3 religions so far. However, we're very competitive as far as how far Taoism has spread.


Second, our economy (while only at 40% science ) is taking off:

We should be doing well.... however take a look at this screen!

Of particular note is the GNP --- we're in second place, over 9 million gold / turn over the average, yet whoever is in first place is an ABSOLUTE MONSTER, at 22 million gold per turn more than us!

We're ahead in every other category, though we hold the military lead by a small margin. We're killing all the other AI's in production, food, population etc.

Finally, the save:

 

[PeeDub]

lurker's comment: Whoever is in first in GNP may be in a golden age ...

 

[Clovis]

Do you have to have connecting maps all round the world, or do you have to send a ship all round the world to get the circumnavigation bonus?

If you could manage to get open borders with Tokugawa, then it would be easy, but that doesn't appear to be a possibility. I do think you should try to convert a few countries (other than Toku and Asoka, of course) to Taoism. A few well-placed missionaries would boost your income.

I don't know how good of an idea this is, either, but you could attack Toku in the not so near future, gaining more territory.

That is my humble opinion, as someone who has only played Civilization II

 

[Arhiss]

Do you have to have connecting maps all round the world, or do you have to send a ship all round the world to get the circumnavigation bonus?

All you need is to have proven that the world is round; that is you just need to have your map connected east-west. You needn't have sailed it yourself.

 

[sozopol]

Hi all, thanks from another civ-less lurker, playing vicariously through posted games like this... I'll be getting the game some time in the next month hopefully...

Love the screenshots and discussions, keep them up! Your time/effort is appreciated. For every one like me that pipes up, there must be many silent but appreciative lurkers.

Question (feel free to ignore obviously): since you guys are leading in nearly every category (very impressive BTW), what can realistically slow you down at this point? Where will serious trouble come from, and how likely is it? Will there be inevitable deterioration of foreign relations, ending in multiple-front military conflicts? Will health or happiness cause growth/production problems? Your science/commerce looks like its cooking. Just wondering how Civ4 responds when you are heading towards the age of caravels and gunpowder with the lead. Have you had any experiences thus far where you really struggle to maintain, or even lose, a lead in the mid or late game?

 

[Sirian]

Question: since you guys are leading in nearly every category (very impressive BTW), what can realistically slow you down at this point? Where will serious trouble come from, and how likely is it?

Since our stated game goal is Diplomatic Victory, serious trouble could hit us from any direction. I agree we are rolling on the economic side, though. The question is whether we can translate that success in to diplomatic success. We need to meet the rest of the civs, soon, so the idea of working on Machinery was a good one!


- Sirian

 

[dawn]

Since our stated game goal is Diplomatic Victory, serious trouble could hit us from any direction. I agree we are rolling on the economic side, though. The question is whether we can translate that success in to diplomatic success. We need to meet the rest of the civs, soon, so the idea of working on Machinery was a good one!


- Sirian

Another long-time lurker here, loving the game!

Correct me if I'm wrong (and it wouldn't be the first time) but with the goal of Diplomatic Victory, shouldn't there be a drive to get those Taoist monks out to spread the religion? Or at least convert to a religion of your future AI partners (although spreading your religion can be lucrative). With other AI converted, it should allow for making friends a lot easier. Unless you switch to Free Religion. I have found that useful for making friends, but I'm not sure what, if anything, that civic does to the "religious contributions".

 

[Sirian]

No word from Zagaz in a while. I'm going to move him to the Alternate Roster for the moment.

Rabhison: Hey. Are you around? Haven't heard anything from you, either, but maybe you're a quiet type. If you are around, and up for it, I'll move you in to the open slot!

Meanwhile, I want to move things forward, so we'll go with a 4-man team for the time being.

Weakciv: you're UP NOW!


RB6 ROSTER:

Sirian
Arhiss
Weakciv -- UP NOW!
Garath

Alternates:
* rabhison
* Sadan01
* Zagaz


- Sirian

 

[weakciv]

Downloaded.
Dang, wish I had been home earlier. I would have been able to play tonight then post tomorrow. Oh well.

I will play and (hopefully) post tomorrow night.

 

[zagaz]

Sorry I have not reported in awhile. Been really busy at work, wierd shifts, going back and forth from overnights to evenings. Anywho, this weekend I am going away. I see I have been moved to the alternates, probably better that way, have missed so much, would probably not be wise for me to jump back in, might screw up carefully laid plans with my ignorance of the situation. Good luck to you all...oh and happy new year!

 

[Sirian]

Sorry I have not reported in awhile. Been really busy at work, wierd shifts, going back and forth from overnights to evenings.

That sounds painful. What do you do?

If things ease up on you and you can take a turn within any given 48 hour period, and follow the game more closely, let me know and I'll move you back in to the rotation.

Happy New Year to you as well! Thanks for checking in.


- Sirian

 

[weakciv]

sorry for late post. family issues. Game complete. Posting shortly.

 

[weakciv]

Inherited turn:
Lots of choices here. And I hate to make bad choices. I spend about 2 hours looking over our situation and have a coin flip.

1) send settler to expand west
2) go aggressive for the northern jungle land near Asoka.

I choose to go expand. Reason, I dont know.
jungle + distance + close borders
or
distance + possible route west.

Neither really jump at you. The settler-warrior-galley I sent toward Far West Isle. I send settler-galley to found on light blue.

3 turns for Courthouse in Chartres only costs 1 pop with the whip and then we can start on Forbidden Palace. I wanna get this done my turn. A chop (last one for a while) on the last yellow forest will go to use on the FP.

Turn 1 (1260):
YIKES! all i do is push End of Turn and BANG! Qin Shi Huang says Hello. He has been in contact with Toku only and has open borders with him. He also has Optics!

Catapult completes in Paris I start it on a Harbor
Poly completes worker and starts on Courthouse
Rouen expands so I move the work boat to the crab
I move the worker near Chartres to start chop on last yellow circled forest.
But did anyone know this was a flood plain? I didn't

Turn 2 (1270):
Catapult completes in Orleans start on Aquaduct. This will help it to keep fishing.
For 2 pop I whip harbor (6 turns) in Paris
I bump research up to 50% to save us 1 turn on Optics. It only costs us 7gpt
I move 1 worker from Paris toward Marseilles to farm over the useless cotteges there.

Turn 3 (1280):
We need to see whats in the west fast. Qin has already sent a caravel to our lands.

Harbor completes in Paris starts on Market
Temple completes in Lyons starts on Harbor

Ok you tell me what is wrong here. Rheims has an 85% chance to get a Great Prophet, a 14% chance for a Great Scientist, and a 1% chance for a Great Engineer. Just guess what Rheims pops ....

Doesnt matter it wasnt a Prophet

I guess we're gonna need to wait on that shrine. His tech to discover is Optics. We will discover that in 2 turns so I choose to wait and see what his next tech is before actually using him. Meanwhile I move him to Paris in the event we use him for an acadamy.