RFSTL-01: Got Change?

[yena]

Sure, get some settlers out for the best free tiles.

Both Alex and SB are slow researchers, so we might not be able to trade until much later unless we go for Alphabet ourselves. I would suggest a sidetrack to Pottery for Granaries since my AH gamble didn't pay off.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

IHT. Despatch warriors to light the way to proposed blocking sites ready for when settlers appear
Turn 3 Pyramids are in immediately take the double civic switch to Representation and Slavery.

Turn 6 The Barbs have actually established a city in a good spot!! Desptach an Axe to keep an eye on it and gradually build up forces so we can take it next set. (By the end was still defended by 3 Archers but now had a worker as well, what co-operative Barbs we have)

Turn 8 With Alexander and SB now both Jewish decide to OB with both of them as a spread of religion might be useful

Turn 12. Settler arrives just in time and we can see SB sending us a missionary. Now at least Alex’s settler means we don’t need to debate where to settle and we found our 4th city straight away. This was a pretty good spot but I might have gone 1 S if Alex hadn’t made the decision for us.

Turn 16 SB’s Missionary spreads Judaism to our capital. See no rush to adopt it so leave it for the team to discuss.

With Aesthetics in take pottery so we can have the health to support our higher happy cap. This means playing through to turn 21 but seems more sensible than stopping with 1 turns research to goi so we can decide on next research as Yena called it right and no one has Alphabet yet.

EOT Options
There is still a good site available for the settler about to come out of our capital but we will get a bit of close border tension with SB but seems worthwhile.

We have our Pyramids fuelled great Enigineer. So options for him feel like Parthenon or Great Library?

Research wise do we go for.
a) Poly -> Literature -> Great Library ?
b) Alphabet ourselves?
c) Something else (e.g. IW) though I find a) and b) to be the most attractive..

 

[radiofreestl]

I assume we keep the first GP and delete the second and so forth? When a GG appears does he count in the list e.g deleted if even kept if odd if that makes sense?

Good question, hadn't thought of that. The point of deleting every other is to nerf the Phil bonus, which GGs don't count toward, so I don't think we should include them.

Along that same line, any tech-related GPs (e.g., first to Econ or Physics) wouldn't be included either.

 

[radiofreestl]

Got it, though probably won't play till Tuesday.

I like spending the GE on the Parthenon, founding the Marble city, and doing the Lit run.

We already have close borders with Alex, so if we take it with SB as well, we may need to become Jewish and play nice for a while.

 

[yena]

I agree. GE for Parthenon (not in London), then settle the marble spot and go for the great library. Wouldn't hurt to adopt Judaism since it seem that we won't be attacking any time soon.

 

[radiofreestl]

I agree. GE for Parthenon (not in London)

Maybe Marble city? We have to wait for Poly to to build it anyway, and that 10 culture will carve out a lot of room. OTOH, I've been sneaked enough to be squeamish about important wonders in border cities...

 

[radiofreestl]

Played a few turns and stopped for discussion, as SB settled Marble city on Turn 4.

We could settle east for the block (2N and 3W of Moundville, SE of the Ax), build the Parthenon there, and knock SB off the Corn. I wonder though if the maintenance would be worth it and we shouldn't sit on the Settler for now, or perhaps settle closer to London (maybe to the north to get Pigs).

Still think Lit's the best way to go. I plan to pre-chop in London and build more military, as Alex is running around with a couple Swords near York. Haven't converted to Jud yet, but I think I'll do that after Poly comes in, because I think otherwise Alex will come for us in 15-20 turns.

I'll pick this up tomorrow after feedback.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Ummm SB is a PITA but not one we can do anything about...

I would take Judaism as we are compelled to play nice for a while and send Settler N for pigs as you suggest and use the Military we are building to take the Barb city as we definitely don't want the AI stealing that one off us.

liteature run seems definitely strongest and hope the AI will trade us maths / IW for Aesthetics to enhance chops / open up jungle for us.

Ralph

Ralph

 

[radiofreestl]

Nottingham already has the Pigs. We could go further north for Sheep.

Assuming no sea resources in the uncovered tiles: Red Dot, Blue Dot, or wait?

I'd go for Red Dot, as Blue Dot won't pull its weight until CS.

 

[yena]

It's grim up north. I think you should settle between Moundville and Nottingham instead, and build the Parthenon there to claim tiles. With the barb city we'll have six decent cities, which is enough for now.

 

[radiofreestl]

Sorry it took so long to finish, I've been sick the past couple of days.

0- Switch research to Poly, otherwise looking good.

3- We get an annoying event.

4- SB founds Marble city as mentioned. Switch plans to Block city.

6- SB would trade Horses or Iron, if we had anything to give him.

7- Poly>Lit. Convert to Judaism. Confucianism FIADL. Canterbury (Block city) founded.

8- We come back from anarchy breaking even at 10%. I hire a couple Scientists.

9-

10- Well, kicking him off the Corn didn't take long.

As you can see in the screenie, SB is heading for the barb city with an inadequate army to weaken it for our attack.

14- All but one of our cities are Jewish now. And...

15- Too bad I had to kill this guy.

We can now keep the next one (hopefully another GS).

Lit in 3. I've been doing some prechopping, so keep an eye on that. Red circle is done already.

Oh, and there's also this:

Those two Swords are all he has so far that we can see. York currently has an Ax and 2 Archers defending, but Hastings (the river city SE of London) only has an Archer.

[Since there's only 3 of us, let's play 15 this round and then go to 10.]

Roster:
1) radiofreestl (Just Played)
2) yena (UP)
3) Ralph Jackson (On Deck)
4) Open
5) Open

[Reminder: KEEP the next GP.]

 

[yena]

Got it. Looks like the Greek are up to no good. Will get some reinforcements to be border cities.

 

[yena]

We were lucky - the Greeks attacked SB instead.

They made various demands that I had to turn down, but they are still pleased with us.

Chopping and whipping got us the Great Library. London now has to grow for a few turns.

Our warrior brought back a map of Greece and Native America.

At the beginning of my set we were losing money at 10% and we are not allowed to build cottages; this mean lots of MM to maximize the available gold tiles and employ scientists to keep the research rate healthy, and I decided to go for CoL after Literature (but only after wasting a few turns on Mathematics before I understood how serious the situation was). We are now 4 turns from CoL and also 4 turns before the next GS. Note that York is starving - needed to work the gold and employ scientists to bring down CoL to 4 turns. Please adjust as soon CoL is in.

I suggest that we continue Mathematics after CoL and perhaps Currency next. The trade routes wouldn't hurt. Another option is Construction in case we want to backstab Alex (but can we afford it?).

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Ok Got it, thoughts tonight and i will play over the weekend.

Ralph

 

[yena]

We should probably avoid warfare until we have courthouses. Btw, what happens when we capture cities with cottages. Do we have to pillage the cottages?

I'm off to a conference abroad, so please skip me until November 20.

 

[radiofreestl]

Block City and Barb City have stretched us out as far as we can go for now...so my thoughts boil down to, "Do whatever's best for the economy."

[Edit: Yes, pillage the cottages, or at the very least don't work them.]

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

So a few rambling thoughts...

Now obviously Scientists are going to carry out our research so where is the commerce to support our Empire coming from??

Now I don’t think merchants are right until we have pushed past liberalism so our best options for are actually oru coastal tiles with Thracian soon to macth our capital in output just from working coastal tiles... Especially with the extra trade route(s).

Now this means once we have our courthouses whipped in (end of my set?) we can look at expanding our Empire as we do actually have some decent self supporting city sites with the min infrastructure of granary library, lighthouse, courthouse carrying some research load running 1 or two scientists and paying for upkeep with their coastal tiles and they are fortunately located in spots with more than their fair share of coastal tiles.

So basically get courthouses, hope somebody researches alphabet for us, and prepare for the next phase of expansion.

Tech Trade priority feels like
Maths (+ Sailing hopefully )to open up currency & civil service.

Views ??

 

[radiofreestl]

I like the dots and the overall strategy, but keep in mind one of our variants:

2) Ocean tiles without resources may not be worked unless there are no land tiles with an equal or greater food + hammer yield.

So, for example, Thracian can work the Clams, but we need to take it off the coast until we use up all of the forests.

The strategy is still viable, but the new cities will need to grow first. We benefit in a way by the fact that our land is so crappy, since the desert tiles in the BFC gets us to coasts quicker.

Blue Dot (with some MMing from London) and Red Dot can work non-resource coasts by size 4-5, so they can go pretty quickly. Yellow Dot might wait until after CS, as it won't get to work coasts until size 9.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

2) Ocean tiles without resources may not be worked unless there are no land tiles with an equal or greater food + hammer yield.

I was reading this literally as OCEAN tiles not being worked therfore I thought we didn't need to

Thracian can work the Clams, but we need to take it off the coast until we use up all of the forests.

Not urgent to resolve as my set will still be about courthouse + growth and not expanding our fishing villages but we need a definite ruling here!

Ralph

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Well a very quiet builders turn set and undoubtedly not the right number of turns but with a short roster I feel we can be flexible..
Start with one of those “Ummm haven’t seen that before moments” when the Barbarians of Thrace want to join their motherland??

Anyway it soon wears off.

In 475Ad Alexander gets Alphabet and with 1 turn of self research is prepared to trade with us which sets off a long series of tech trades which unlock the key techs we wanted.

With Maths unlocked and when Code of Laws come in we start out on Civil Service

Now half way along we get one of those nice demands... By nice I mean he is welcome to Priesthood and this pushes him up to pleased, and of course being pleased he is promptly ready to give us sugar for free helping our happy cap in our small cities.

Similarly keeping Alexander on-side has meant he is also willing to give us a freebie.. Nice!!

Now on the GP front we got our scientist who has built an Academy in our capital

Also on the nice side of the Balance sheet Iron Working revealed some at Canterbury which has turned this into a city with a decent amount of Hammers.

Of course there has to be a painful moment and deleting this Great Engineer caused me to wince...

So how are we doing, we have kept up the pace on techs through trading and we have a decent research rate at 87 a turn and Civil Service due in 5.

Of course our slider is locked at 0% and even with courthouses coming on stream if we stick with not working Coastal tiles (hint we might want to relax this one!!) it will be tricky to expand our fishing village filler cities. Due to our economy we haven't gone Org religion although we are building infrastructure but we just cant afford it yet, but will be able to soon.