Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
IT 1000BC: Whip 20 shields progress at Antioch, then swap to library. Some other towns in need of their first cultural building end up on library, as does Silktown. Wonder why Persepolis is running six food and lower shields, correct the situation.
975BC: Tyre founded on left orange dot, starts library.
950BC: Gordium trains worker, starts library. Arbela builds temple, starts library.
925BC: Pasargadae trains settler, starts another. Settler heading south to found on the horse tile. Tarsus builds granary, starts settler. Currency has been discovered. I'm waiting for it to make the rounds.
900BC: Whip Susa, progress from 20 to 40, back to granary, due in ten turns. (I'll delay growth a turn to make sure we grow after the granary completes).
875BC: Iro's settle Gawauga. Bleh. It's in range to pressure our VITAL iron/horse city. We're going to have to spend to make sure our city dominates in the culture war. At least we have a significant head start.
850BC: Persepolis builds granary, starts settler. Antioch builds library, starts worker. Bactra trains worker, starts library. All now have construction except for Japan. All have currency except Japan and Aztecs. I buy currency from Joanie for ~380g, then trade that, rest of our cash and 5gpt to Aztecs for construction. We have entered middle ages, get Monotheism as our free tech. Babs also being scientific have it already, so it's only worth 3rd price at the moment. I sell currency to Japan for their treasury (~120g) plus RoP. I sell Monotheism to France for all their money (~570g, counting what we traded for currency) and also I think I asked for RoP too. No one else has more than ~120g, and I doubt that's enough under the new patch for the AI's to broker just yet, so I gamble and sit on the tech for now. No more deals, even though there's about 350g total on the table between about four civs.
Change anything? Nope. We're still training settlers, building granaries and temples and libraries. Start a cathedral now??? Don't make me giggle.
825BC: Sardis founded on horses, starts worker. Romans discover Monarchy and instantly revolt, which drops them to Cautious. This is how it will be until we also revolt to improve our govt.
800BC: I decided to disband that warrior out in the far east. No short or medium term chance to bring him home, and he'll cost 1gpt to maintain after we swap to Republic. I tried to run some intereference on an Iro settler pair but they were not impressed.
775BC: Persepolis trains settler, starts another.
750BC: Pasargadae and Tarsus train settlers, start more. These are heading toward the two new purple dots on the maps below. Settler from Persepolis moves into position on the orange dot just above the capital and south of Silktown.
NOTES: Tyre is ready to whip its library next turn. It only has one good tile at the moment, and now's the time to grab more 1000 year bonus, not just here, but almost anywhere we can. I would have whipped Silktown but I waited too long, might as well let it finish naturally. It's about to get more shields online. Also, Antioch can be MM'ed next turn, put it on high food and it will still pull in the incense shields when it grows. Pasargadae needs MM action at times, as does Persepolis when the auto-selection after growth messes with the food total. We want 5 per turn, every turn, and crank those settlers every four turns!
DOTMAPS: In the dotmaps below, the north map shows the purple to grab that spice after all. Unescorted settler en route, but we're in a race here. Add troops later. IF the French beat us to that area, then red dot is no longer good, as it would be pressured by their superior culture. The orange dots are both dry but coastal. Ships don't play a huge role on Pangaea, but they do sometimes have some use. Carriers in particular, or ships to attack the AI troop ships. Also, don't neglect the orange dot above Susa! We MUST get all that jungle, for coal and rubber odds, and just because it will be GREAT land after it's been cleared and is so close to the capital.
In the south, the settler is heading for purple dot, but it MAY be wiser to beeline right for yellow dot, and leave the next settler to grab the purple location. Light blue would be fishing for oil and saltpeter in the desert, and to form a safe border opposite Chittagong. Orange dot in the south is a fertile, coastal city on fresh water. It can wait a bit, but don't lose it by waiting too long! Keep those settlers churning! Red dots are distant, and probably won't get them all. Dark Blue dot is a loser because we'll never get it in time. If India kindly stopped advancing, though, it would make a good location.
Be ESPECIALLY CAREFUL by ignoring this dotmap completely in any border areas if India advances in a way to put pressure on any of these locations. It's going to be a while before we're in a position to stand up to these civs, and we don't need to be getting into trouble by having their strong cultures flip our cities away from us because we've not taken enough care with the locations to retain full control of all 21 tiles in each city. On Deity we do NOT want to get into cultural border conflicts if we can help it. (And if we do, we may have to spend gobs of cash rushing culture improvements to try to stay ahead. Tough going).
Finally, our borders are not matching up well so far. There's a half-city's worth of dead space in several locations, where the AI's are likely to push in and grab space, threating cities of our that are already established. Not good. Not good at all. The white dot above Arbela may have to be settled to secure that city from pressure. The green dots and the white circle at the worker are sites that would retain control of all 21 of their tiles regardless of the strength of enemy culture, and would thus be defensive settlements if we manage to land all the higher priority sites we're hoping to grab.
We probably won't get all or even most of what I've marked, but we're sure to get some if we keep pressing expansion. Might soon need one town on troop production, though, and Persepolis might make a good town for that, if we let it grow large after another settler or two. It's cranking settlers every four turns right now, though, and that's by far our fastest producer. Started running farmer's gambit here on this round, and that's a bit risky, but there's only so much window of opportunity on the land grab phase.
RBE1 - Persia - 750BC
- Sirian
975BC: Tyre founded on left orange dot, starts library.
950BC: Gordium trains worker, starts library. Arbela builds temple, starts library.
925BC: Pasargadae trains settler, starts another. Settler heading south to found on the horse tile. Tarsus builds granary, starts settler. Currency has been discovered. I'm waiting for it to make the rounds.
900BC: Whip Susa, progress from 20 to 40, back to granary, due in ten turns. (I'll delay growth a turn to make sure we grow after the granary completes).
875BC: Iro's settle Gawauga. Bleh. It's in range to pressure our VITAL iron/horse city. We're going to have to spend to make sure our city dominates in the culture war. At least we have a significant head start.
850BC: Persepolis builds granary, starts settler. Antioch builds library, starts worker. Bactra trains worker, starts library. All now have construction except for Japan. All have currency except Japan and Aztecs. I buy currency from Joanie for ~380g, then trade that, rest of our cash and 5gpt to Aztecs for construction. We have entered middle ages, get Monotheism as our free tech. Babs also being scientific have it already, so it's only worth 3rd price at the moment. I sell currency to Japan for their treasury (~120g) plus RoP. I sell Monotheism to France for all their money (~570g, counting what we traded for currency) and also I think I asked for RoP too. No one else has more than ~120g, and I doubt that's enough under the new patch for the AI's to broker just yet, so I gamble and sit on the tech for now. No more deals, even though there's about 350g total on the table between about four civs.
Change anything? Nope. We're still training settlers, building granaries and temples and libraries. Start a cathedral now??? Don't make me giggle.
825BC: Sardis founded on horses, starts worker. Romans discover Monarchy and instantly revolt, which drops them to Cautious. This is how it will be until we also revolt to improve our govt.
800BC: I decided to disband that warrior out in the far east. No short or medium term chance to bring him home, and he'll cost 1gpt to maintain after we swap to Republic. I tried to run some intereference on an Iro settler pair but they were not impressed.
775BC: Persepolis trains settler, starts another.
750BC: Pasargadae and Tarsus train settlers, start more. These are heading toward the two new purple dots on the maps below. Settler from Persepolis moves into position on the orange dot just above the capital and south of Silktown.
NOTES: Tyre is ready to whip its library next turn. It only has one good tile at the moment, and now's the time to grab more 1000 year bonus, not just here, but almost anywhere we can. I would have whipped Silktown but I waited too long, might as well let it finish naturally. It's about to get more shields online. Also, Antioch can be MM'ed next turn, put it on high food and it will still pull in the incense shields when it grows. Pasargadae needs MM action at times, as does Persepolis when the auto-selection after growth messes with the food total. We want 5 per turn, every turn, and crank those settlers every four turns!
DOTMAPS: In the dotmaps below, the north map shows the purple to grab that spice after all. Unescorted settler en route, but we're in a race here. Add troops later.
IF the French beat us to that area, then red dot is no longer good, as it would be pressured by their superior culture. The orange dots are both dry but coastal. Ships don't play a huge role on Pangaea, but they do sometimes have some use. Carriers in particular, or ships to attack the AI troop ships. Also, don't neglect the orange dot above Susa! We MUST get all that jungle, for coal and rubber odds, and just because it will be GREAT land after it's been cleared and is so close to the capital.In the south, the settler is heading for purple dot, but it MAY be wiser to beeline right for yellow dot, and leave the next settler to grab the purple location. Light blue would be fishing for oil and saltpeter in the desert, and to form a safe border opposite Chittagong. Orange dot in the south is a fertile, coastal city on fresh water. It can wait a bit, but don't lose it by waiting too long! Keep those settlers churning! Red dots are distant, and probably won't get them all. Dark Blue dot is a loser because we'll never get it in time. If India kindly stopped advancing, though, it would make a good location.
Be ESPECIALLY CAREFUL by ignoring this dotmap completely in any border areas if India advances in a way to put pressure on any of these locations. It's going to be a while before we're in a position to stand up to these civs, and we don't need to be getting into trouble by having their strong cultures flip our cities away from us because we've not taken enough care with the locations to retain full control of all 21 tiles in each city. On Deity we do NOT want to get into cultural border conflicts if we can help it. (And if we do, we may have to spend gobs of cash rushing culture improvements to try to stay ahead. Tough going).
Finally, our borders are not matching up well so far. There's a half-city's worth of dead space in several locations, where the AI's are likely to push in and grab space, threating cities of our that are already established. Not good. Not good at all. The white dot above Arbela may have to be settled to secure that city from pressure. The green dots and the white circle at the worker are sites that would retain control of all 21 of their tiles regardless of the strength of enemy culture, and would thus be defensive settlements if we manage to land all the higher priority sites we're hoping to grab.
We probably won't get all or even most of what I've marked, but we're sure to get some if we keep pressing expansion. Might soon need one town on troop production, though, and Persepolis might make a good town for that, if we let it grow large after another settler or two. It's cranking settlers every four turns right now, though, and that's by far our fastest producer. Started running farmer's gambit here on this round, and that's a bit risky, but there's only so much window of opportunity on the land grab phase.
RBE1 - Persia - 750BC
- Sirian
The AI civs seem to be not expanding anymore, or at least not very quickly. We still have a lot of space left, and India/France/Babylon are not moving to claim it. Are they worried about going too far over the optimum city number? Odd indeed, but good so long as it lasts. 
![[pimp]](/images/smilies/pimp.gif "Pimp [pimp]")
But Arbela at least should be safe; it has both a temple and library and will hit the 100 and 1000 culture levels much earlier than its neighbors. Add in the 1000-year bonus, and we will have a very high culture city. Weird stuff has happened to me before, but I think that critical city is, in fact, safe so long as we make sure to put a cathedral and other such buildings there as well. 
I'll get back into a normal SG rhythm here shortly, though. I hope. 
We had some luck with them being somewhat far away from us, but that is a monumental feat nonetheless. Cash is there to be used, and I don't have a problem with Sirian's massive deficit spending at all if it locks down out borders culturally and greatly reduces the chance of flips. With our cheap libaries/universities, I wouldn't be surprised if we can manage even culture with some of the other civs eventually (or at least a civ like the Romans). Just from the picture though I can see that we need a ton of workers. Like... an absolute TON of workers. My overriding goal for this next turn will be to build as many as possible, because we need them everywhere. The game's looking good at this point guys, real good. 
