RBD9 SG - Five Russian Cities

[Zed-F]

We probably want to do it as soon as we've got a temple going in Charistroika. Even if cultural victory is disabled, (a) happiness = bigger city = more production, and (b) more culture = better AI relations. (Sirian, I wonder if the problem with lousy AI relations at the beginning of Emperor diff is that you haven't got enough culture yet? Might be worth examining.)

Of course, for that to work, we need more workers to chop forests & irrigate around Charistroika. We probably ultimately need at least 8 and preferably a dozen for an empire this size since we're not industrious. We might get away with less if our land weren't so dry...

I agree, let's not give Persia our map, at least for now. I doubt Persia will move against us even once he does send a scouting party down our way, until he starts feeling crowded, which means settling all that icky jungle north of us. Hopefully by that time we'll have enough culture and defensive units that he'll think twice about it or we can pay someone to get involved on our side. One thing we can do to discourage settlement in our "circle" is to plop down some spare military units in likely city-founding sites until our borders expand sufficiently to cover them up. That might take a lot of units at least at first, but it's worth considering. (Remember the AI won't build anywhere within 3 squares of a foreign city or 4 squares on a straight NE/NW/SE/SW line.)

 

[Cyrene]

It looks like the "red dot" is the chosen location. I'll found Cyrilla there tonight.

Besides the obvious, the name was inspired by all the nice trees around, and it is NOT intended to invoke the fortunes of the Martyr by that name...

--Cy Cyrillic

 

[Cyrene]

Cyrilla founded.

I took it all the way to 1750 BC as I hunted down a couple of Barb settlements.

I delayed the Temple in C-Town to get another worker out to buff our cap city, otherwise not much happened.

--Cy

 

[Sirian]

Inherited Turn: Ruh Roe. Persia has Iron Working? I find that I can buy Masonry off them for Alphabet and 54 gold. That's a totally unfair price, but I'm thinking we ought to make SOME kind of deal with them soon, or else we'll be giving in to some demand of theirs soon, or going to war. That thick jungle and long distance might let us build up enough to fend them off in a war, but I'm also curious as to how costly that Palace will be.

Ugh! 300 shields for the Palace move? Somebody at Blizz North-- er... I mean Firaxis... --is smoking some seriously PUNGENT weed. OK? Yeah yeah, it may be convenient and all that to have a Palace placeholder on large maps that can store up to 1000 shields, but as far as the option actually MOVE your Palace, they're out of their freakin minds! You'd need to spend a Great Leader or give up a major wonder to do it. BAH, I say. Whether or not we should do it anyway, remains open to debate. It might still be worth it. We're going for space race win?

Well, OK. I swap Charistroika to max shields and plan to whip its temple. At least get that going before the town is locked into Palace building for the next 50000 years. I also raise our science rate so that writing will come in a turn sooner. Finally, I wake our scouts and send them toward Persian lands. "What are you?" "We're scouts, Your Majesty." "So... go scout something! You useless bastages." If we leave them sitting around out in the wilderness, they'll just end up being eaten by some barbarians. They might have been on watch duty if they were closer to home, but they are all alone out in the middle of nowhere with no hope of military support.

1725BC: I increase luxury to 10% to keep Tamaringrad from getting unruly.

1650BC: Xerxes demands we remove our "smelly infidels" from his lands. We promise to, then keep right on scouting his territory. I hope to dash across his lands and emerge on the other side to keep exploring before he pulls a hissy fit and throws our scouts off his lands.

Writing discovered. After much hard pondering, I choose Literature. We don't have any cities prebuilding the GL yet and it's almost 1500BC? We'd better HOPE Tamaringrad can pull it out, because that's going to be our only chance to get it.

I whip the Charistroika temple.

1600BC: Um... there IS NO OTHER SIDE to Persian land. He's on a knob at the end of our continent, with just enough land to build one full ring of cities around his capital. He's got the world's whole silk supply, I believe, and sadly, there is a road to a mountain next to his second city. KNOWING that the AI beelines in cheating fashion for the sites where future resources will show up, I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that he's got iron online. He would naturally send his first settler right to the iron. We are in some deep Russian latrine goo here, folks. Going to need a LOT, and I mean a TON, of horsies, which we can eventually upgrade all the way to Cossacks. Start thinking mounted units, and building chariots even, if necessary. Going to take a lot of horsies (and maybe some cata's) to fend off the inevitable immortal stacks coming our way at some future date.

1525BC: Zedropolis changed to max trade config to get enough trade to pull a lux out of 10%. It's due to build a spear next turn, when it can back off max trade. Some irrigation of plains south of Zed needs to take place, for both cities, so I started on that.

1500BC: How long before the X-man comes demanding writing from us? I have no idea. At least he doesn't have the land up there for massive expansion. Most of his cities are heavily coastal, and he's got some ice. Silks are one of the best luxuries though. Only wines and gems offer more benefit.

We're almost done with colossus. After that, the GL will kick off our golden age. We could probably use mapmaking, but the next 50 turns are not my problem any more.


- Sirian

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Originally posted by Sirian
Silks are one of the best luxuries though. Only wines and gems offer more benefit.

Umm? Could you explain this? I thought the different luxuries were all exactly equal (in game terms) -- do they have extra benefits that I'm unaware of?

My turn, but it may be a while before I get to it, what with RBD5 going on too.

--
Jaffa

 

[Charis]

Ugh, that's an expensive palace. I would *NOT* make the move anytime soon at all, there's just too much else to do. If we're at a point where no wonder to build or it's a placeholder for a far out wonder, that if we don't get, "well fine, I'll let the palace complete" then.

Good call on the horses as our solution to Iron. If we can survive to reach Cossacks, Persia is toast. That's a Huge 'if' though.
Question: Persia is a bona fide threat, do we handle it by i) avoidance of war, or ii) being ready for war. They're very different approaches. The former gives him good deals, trades him whatever he needs, builds a worker army so when he counts (cough) military strength it doesn't look inviting to go after us... basically buying time until we get our Cossacks and raze him right off the continent. The latter approach says combat is inevitable and builds barracks at our north-most city and in a troop-crank city, and builds up a plausible army of solid attack and defense units. Those are the two poles, not the two only choices. We can still make barracks in zed and make several horses and workers without fully committing either way. Research wise though, it does turn Horseback riding into a must have.

The thing I fine MOST annoying about X-man is that, unlike many other civs I've seen, he can be ultra-polite and smiling and yet, if there's weakness, he'll surprise attack every time. And if we're alone on this rock with just him... smiles or not he's coming after us.

Jaffa, I would suggest slipping this game in before you finish 5. See Sirian's comments and my followup in the infantry thread on turn length and game delays. Consider 5 as now having a 72 hr turnaround while we're at war. It will take a while anyway, so don't delay a game THIS young for that one.

Charis

 

[Zed-F]

Jaffa, I think he means in terms of +food/shields/trade, not in terms of "lux value".

Sirian: shall we fix my position in the turn order here as well & give me 72hrs?

 

[Sirian]

Ya, gems add four trade per tile! Wines add food and trade, silks add 2 trade, furs add a shield and a trade. I've also noticed that gems seem to trade for slightly higher -- there may also be SOME difference in the pricing of various luxuries, too.

Zed: that would be up to Jaffa. I'm good with anything he wants for this game, he's running this show.


- Sirian

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

0) 1500BC I look out over our HUGE empire (well, I was just playing RBD11 ).

1) 1475BC Zedropolis starts another spearman (and continues building them the rest of my turn). Tamaringrad grows to size 5, runs a tax collector to avoid unrest (we still get Colossus in 2 turns). The warrior from Charistroika is reassigned to Tamaringrad to help pacify the populace.

Persians start building Pyramids.

2) 1450BC We finish the Colossus Jestrograd finishes temple.

3) 1425BC Start on Pyramids as placeholder, and hope nobody can finish them in before we get Literature in about 16 turns.

The worker building a mine in Jestrograd's mountains is allowed to finish since he only has 2 turns left. Mining the plains would have been more useful. Whip temple at Cyrilla.

5) 1375BC Whip barracks at Cyrilla.

8) 1300BC Whip barracks at Jestrograd.

10) 1250BC I realise I could have reduced luxury tax when Tamaringrad got its extra defender. Ooops.

Zedropolis will unrest if nothing is done when it grows next turn.

Pyramids in Tamaringrad is a placeholder for Great Library.

We need to contact somebody else if GL is going to benefit us (unless we want to do an RBD7 ).

Zed: 10 turns on 5 cities shouldn't ever take that long. You can go into a normal rotation if you think you would normally be able to play within 48 hrs or so. Or you can stick with the 'it's Zed's turn when it gets to the weekend' arrangement, but no jumping in midweek -- that just gets too confusing. Your choice

For this round, I'll pass on by email to whichever of Zed or Jester posts to say they can play within the next day or so (and gives an email address).

 

[Iester]

Badda bing, badda boom, I'm ready, willing and able.

Send it to Jesterlord@hotmail.com

Jester

P.S: You're whipping my beautiful, beautiful city? I feel so... so... violated!

 

[Cyrene]

Speaking of whipping...

I have using this game to replay sequences of turns to try to evaluate the long term cost/benefit of whipping just once for a temple.

The issue is not clear-cut at all. In the one situation I have checked more than I care to ever do again, you end up losing most of the turns you saved due to the snowballing effect of losing that pop point so early.

For example, if you whip a temple to save 19 turns, build barracks, then build spearman, vs normal build, you end up only saving about 5 turns and with a size 3, 7 shield/7 food (gross) town vs a size 5 10/11 town. The longer you extend the comparison out, the muddier the waters get as you have to decide what statistic carries more value. Not at all clear cut 8-0.

Obviously, though, the variables are immense, and the value to whipping grows greatly with distance from the Capitol (well, actually, I am *assuming* it does, and I used to *assume* whipping speeded thing up, so...).

Clear as mud, eh?

--Cy

 

[Sirian]

Jestograd was not whipped. Charistroika was, on my turn, and Cyrilla was set to be. Did Jaffa whip Cyrilla? (Nobody seems to read poor Jaffa's genuinely brilliant and witty reports! ).

Oh, and the mining of the gold mountain was King Cy's idea, not mine. I decided not to veto, though. Might as well get that out of the way early, as rough as some of our happiness problems are, might be better to run break even food with the mountain than grow too large and use a taxman.

Still, I would definitely not have chosen to mine there first. Not until the Good Tiles were operational at least.


- Sirian

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Originally posted by Sirian
(Nobody seems to read poor Jaffa's genuinely brilliant and witty reports! ).

Witty and brilliant? Oh, ack!! I assure you I was aiming solely for 'functional', and if any wit or brilliance leaked in it was entirely accidently and not my fault!

 

[Zed-F]

Might as well throw me in the rotation on this one. Wherever fits is good.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Okay. I'll put you in after Jester from now on, so turn order is:

Jaffa
Jester (playing)
Zed (on deck)
Charis
Cyrene
Sirian

Time limits flexible, but aim to play within 48 hrs. "Got it" post and ETA appreciated if it's going to be more than 24.

 

[Iester]

"8) 1300BC Whip barracks at Jestrograd. "

My beautiful city!

It did happen! I'm not just crazy! I'm not! Really!

P.S: I don't have the game. Am I supposed to be getting that by email? It might be too big for hotmail... has this been tried yet?

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Originally posted by Iester
P.S: I don't have the game. Am I supposed to be getting that by email? It might be too big for hotmail... has this been tried yet?

Yes, you were supposed to be. I did send it.

Oh well. Guess I'll just post it here now.

 

[Sirian]

Aha! So those lazy slobs in Jestograd WERE whipped into shape!

Ah, but not by my! Not me! I'm just an angel, the most benevolent of Russian leaders toward the good and kindly people on the north sea, the stalwart peasants of Jestograd.

I'm the Leader Without a City, so maybe I'll plant roots in fair Jestograd and bask in the glow of devotion (when Jester's out of town) and stoke up the fires against the capitalist pigs living in the rich capital city of Tamaringrad.

Oh hey, and be thankful! You COULD BE living in Cyrilla!


- Sirian

 

[Iester]

Caretaker turn this time around.

Mined a grassland or two, built some roads. Tamaringrad is building the GL, and the others are mostly building granaries, seeing as how we're likely going to miss the pyramids, and libraries, because you can't get in on that action soon enough for my taste.

Science has been set to minimal. If this library is ours (and it sure better be) we're not going to need it. If the library isn't ours, we'll need money to catch up. Mapmaking is on deck, since nearly everything else will be instantly GL'ed.

No other civilizations talked to us. The persians threatened us for our entire treasury. I gave them all six shiny pennies, since I thought we'd rather have happy persians for the moment, rather than angry persians wiping our poor little civilization out completely. Besides, 6 bucks is cheap for anything, even a kick in the ass.

I did zero whipping on my turn. I just don't like it, and I'm not even that convinced that it helps, at least considering how much we've already done. If the next ruler wishes to overturn this decision, go right ahead, make up for lost time.

Oh, and why was charistroika (love that name) building a palace? So we could move our capital sometime by about 600 AD? 132 turns is longer than I'm willing to stomach for that project. I switched to a library, then a granary. Hope I haven't ruined any dreams.

Jester

 

[Zed-F]

Got it. I'll most likely fit this in before I finish Infantry (or however much of Infantry I can get done... )