RK13 - The Great Prophet Game

[Glare Seethe]

I remember one time I rolled a ring map and I got a long, cylindrical tube-shaped world. Dunno if they changed the script in 3.19 or something, but yeah it's a rectangle now. With some 'neutral' territory in the middle.

Anyway... land looks really nice. Will save the dotmapping for after some of those fogged tiles are revealed as we won't get out a settler during my set anyway. Am thinking AH > Mining > Priesthood, finish two warriors and then start SH. Or is one warrior enough? Maybe I'll build one and then if he or our scout dies insert another before finishing SH. We'll see.

Maybe we should also go back to NSR until the religious situation becomes clearer. Ideally I'd like to convert Joao and Gilga to Taoism before they go Christian. We may want the monastery sooner rather than later. Favorite civic of both is HR so with that plus religion it should be really easy to get them to Friendly.

I got some grocery shopping to do and then probably some bread baking but I'll have lots of time to play in a few hours... well such early sets don't take too long anyway.

edit: we should start thinking about what we want to get from the Oracle. Monarchy might be good for HR, we don't really need the happiness but for the diplo benefits. Or we can try and snag a second religion with CoL or Theo...

 

[Meatbuster]

We don't seem to need a second religion. But I would get CoL for free and research Monarchy manually.

I would keep the state religion though. If we are to convert the neighbors, we won't have to worry much about diplo penalty with non-neighbors like Charlie.

 

[Glare Seethe]

IT, 3250BC:

Press enter.

3225BC:

Send scout westwards to see who's our closest neighbor in that direction.

3200BC:

Borders of Bibracte expand.

3175BC:

Not much.

3150BC:

Not much.

3125BC:

Yeah, not much.

3100BC:

Worker finishes farming the rice and has nothing much to do until AH comes in so I have him farm a riverside grassland for now.

3075BC:

Bibracte grows to size 3 and I work the gems to cut AH down a turn. Scout's hiding from a wolf in the jungle.

3050BC:

Scout kills wolf, promoted to Woodsman.

3025BC:

Not much.

3000BC:

Scout kills panther, hrm. Will have to retreat back into the jungle until he heals. Exploration has been slowed down these last few turns. Our warrior's almost out, though, so he can scout up north a little.

2975BC:

Not much.

2950BC:

Warrior's done, sent north. Growth in one turn so I switch from the unimproved cows to a riverside grassland for one extra commerce without delaying growth. Every little bit helps... maybe.

2925BC:

Not much.

2900BC:

AH is in, there are horses to the west, beyond the jungle. Start on Mining. Worker just finished the farm and goes to pasture the cows.

2875BC:

Not much.

2850BC:

Our warrior meets Gandhi's scout coming from the north. He is Gilga's worst enemy already. Typical for Gandhi. Also realized I forgot to change the placeholder warrior build to Stonehenge a few turns ago, but since we've only had the 1 hammer from the capital contributing it's not like we missed out on many hammers. In any case, change build to Stonehenge.

2825BC:

Not much.

2800BC:

Not much.

2775BC:

Bibracte grows to size 5, working a plains forest now for some hammers.

2750BC:

Not much.

2725BC:

We are the most cultured civilization in the world. Worker finishes pasture and I have a choice between mining the gems or mining a hill. Gems will give us tons of research but only one extra hammer. We need hammers more at the moment, so I send him to the hill. I am personally starting to doubt us getting Stonehenge.

2700BC:

Mining is in, start Priesthood. Scout is healed and can finally move again!

2675BC:

Not much.

2650BC:

Not much.

2625BC:

Scout kills a lion, gets Woodsman II thanks to Charismatic.

2600BC:

Switch to another warrior for happiness control. Three turns and then we're back to SH.

2575BC:

Scout spots Gilga's borders in the west.

2550BC:

Not much.

2525BC:

Gandhi founds Hinduism from Monotheism and converts. SH in 13 turns.

2500BC:

Not much.

2475BC:

Priesthood in, I pick Writing as a placeholder and save game.

Tentative dotmap time:

Gonna check on my dough and be back for some thoughts on city sites.

 

[Meatbuster]

Tentative dotmap comments!
Well I wouldn't go as far light blue site. It's so far from us and it looks like Gilgamesh territory. I would put a city near the clams though, on the isthmus as a stop-gap. Same with the dark purple site to stop whomever's up north (Joao?) from getting any ideas. But for the second city, I am looking at Yellow, it seems to be a good good site.

I would also build warriors to spawn-bust. 2-3 more warriors should cover our land nicely.

edit, checked the save:
I think we should've mined the gems. It seems like a lot of research lost every turn it's not mined.

I would mine the gems asap after hill mine (looks like worker is building it already), then after henge is in (or out), build 2-3 more warrior for spawnbust and to grow to size 8 (w/ gems) then settler, worker, Oracle.

Research should probably be BW next for defense. Writing too for our CoL slingshot. I would build Oracle in main city (no whipping if possible), while chopping settler in new city. Third city could be on Red site for fish... cities 4-5 could be for blocking north neighbor or Gilgamesh (whomever's capital is closer to the isthmus).

 

[Glare Seethe]

Okay, well cyan and blue seem like the best options to block west and north. Cyan could be a really nice GP farm if we had any intentions on generating GPs, but Bibracte will probably be our main source of GPs with prophet-producing wonders, so I'd say cyan is cottages. It blocks Gilga nicely without being being provocative in any way, unless he decides to settle the horses/pigs site and cramp us with his culture.

Yellow is obviously a nice commerce site. Pink/magenta looks like a good production city. We also have the option of moving it 1SE to make it coastal if we want some coastal production. Pretty sure we don't, though, the world is flat so we can't sail eastwards anyway, we could only sail north and south and if we're doing that we might as well just go by land. So the current location looks better.

The other cities are not as good and mainly just resource grabs. I'd like to see some alternatives if you guys have any, though, dotmapping is nowhere near my strong point.

Stonehenge is due in 11 turns but that'll be cut down a little once the second mine is up. Afterwards I think we should head straight to The Oracle. If we want CoL then Writing should be next, then I think it's time for BW as we've been delaying it long enough. Bibracte is defended by a single warrior at the moment and the barbs will start to get frisky shortly.

Alternatively we can go BW instead of Writing and take either IW or MC from the Oracle. After the Oracle we need to compensate for the early wonders by grabbing as much land as we can. With such a narrow piece of land fogbusting with warriors/archers alone should be very possible, though.

We also need The Wheel and Pottery probably sooner rather than later, as the massive expansion phase that will follow The Oracle would have to be supported financially somehow. I suppose a settled great prophet would soften the blow, though.

So the question is what do we want from the Oracle. I am okay with CoL, but if we don't want the second religion it seems much less attractive to me. We can't make much use of it at the moment anyway. Chichen Itza gives prophet points but without stone we can forget it completely. I think SH/Oracle is enough to start with (temples will add to that later) with regards to GPP, though.

How about taking Alphabet from the Oracle? We could wait for the AIs to get it but normally you'd give them Aesthetics for it, except in this game Aesthetics is not particularly attractive to us. Alphabet this early could be nice.

Tentative dotmap comments!
Well I wouldn't go as far light blue site. It's so far from us and it looks like Gilgamesh territory. I would put a city near the clams though, on the isthmus as a stop-gap. Same with the dark purple site to stop whomever's up north (Joao?) from getting any ideas. But for the second city, I am looking at Yellow, it seems to be a good good site.

It's not that far, though you're right there is a risk that Gilga will place a city closer to the horses and consequently get a little pissed at us. We can put a city 1N of the bananas as an alternative, maybe?

I would also build warriors to spawn-bust. 2-3 more warriors should cover our land nicely.

Before The Oracle or after, though? I'm not sure myself.

 

[Meatbuster]

1n of the banana in the "bridge" to Gilga's area looks good. But it is still far. I hope we can afford its maintenance after CoL.

Spawn-bust should be before Oracle, look at how foggy our land is. 1 barb axeman = game over
Warriors can be stationed on gray dot, dark blue dot and 1n of magenta dot. Also scout should go back home and stand guard at 2w1n of the silk at the south.

I think we have time to settle a city before Oracle. Alternatively we can go BW next and settler in main city, whip the settler once BW is in, then build the spawnbust warriors and a worker in the new city, while Bibracte goes for Oracle. We can use the worker from Bibracte onto the new city I think we've already covered all the tiles needed for 8-10 population.

I would take MC or CoL from Oracle. They are expensive techs and especially MC isn't being prioritized by AI. CoL because we need to pay the bills for REX soon.

Tech: BW->Wheel->Pots->Writing
Writing may be finished by the time we're through with Oracle so we have time to pick our poisons. We should get pottery before second city grows a bit. It's always nice to cottage spam flood plains.

 

[White Dragon]

Hot Darn! Now that is some action. I love it. Will take a look at save ASAP and consult with my PPP. Sounds like we have two or three different ways to play it. Will put my thoughts together a little later.

 

[White Dragon]

We really are all over the board with our tech and build order. How about I play two-staged set to see what we are working with. I will research BW to see how copper will play into our city placement. Finish the Henge then growing with a warrior or two. Have the worker finish the mine then move on to improve the gems. I will then post a play set and we can discuss further.

Also, I have included a screenshot of the Gilgamesh block city taking into account the original suggestion, the 1N of bananas comment, my own suggestion 1 SW of bananas (yeah we loose the wine but I hope we can start a war that way really soon ), and the original placement of the green Silver City. I don't like by city but am too lazy to go back and fix the screen shot.

Spoiler :

 

[Glare Seethe]

We really are all over the board with our tech and build order. How about I play two-staged set to see what we are working with. I will research BW to see how copper will play into our city placement. Finish the Henge then growing with a warrior or two. Have the worker finish the mine then move on to improve the gems. I will then post a play set and we can discuss further.

This sounds good, I agree we are a little unsure of where we are going. I think we need more players to add more discussion and ideas. If anyone reading this feels like joining please do, just three players in a SG is a little lonely.

 

[White Dragon]

It is a little lonely but at least it moves like lightning.

 

[White Dragon]

The Prophecy of the Dragon, Part 1a​

Spoiler :

Turn 61 2475 BC (Inherited)
1.) Updated/Added dotmapping to save.
2.) Switched to BW.
3.) Sent Scout to explore westerly.
4.) Warrior retreats SW to a forest to avoid a bwarrior.
5.) SH completed in 11 turns.

Turn 62 2450 BC
Exploring

Turn 63 2425 BC
Exploring

Turn 64 2400 BC
Warrior attacked by bwarrior & survives, just barely (0.1/2).

Turn 65 2375 BC
Exploring

Turn 66 2350 BC
1.) Grassland hills mine is completed. SH in 5. Move worker to gems.
2.) Our scout, while stealthily creeping though the forest, wander upon a barcher. He could try to slip his throat, but alas, he decided to retreat in shame.

Turn 67 2325 BC
Exploring

Turn 68 2300 BC
1.)Worker reaches gems and starts mine.
2.) Again, our scout creeps up on a barcher but wisely chooses to retreat.

Turn 69 2275 BC
Exploring

Turn 70 2250 BC
Exploring

Turn 71 2225 BC
1.) Stonehenge is completed.
2.) Set Bibracte for a warrior (6) while mming for maximum growth (3).
3.) Move exploring.
4.) Joao finds another city.

Turn 72 2200 BC
Exploring

Turn 73 2175 BC
More Exploring. How boring. No wait, who do I spy with my little set of eyes.

Spoiler :

Your friend and mine, the one, the only, Alex Trebeck. He showed up around Bibracte in his Caddy that was rollin on dubs.

Turn 74 2150 BC
1.) We have Gems. Now we are rolling in the .
2.) Bibracte grows but is . Need some roads for rice/cows.
3.) Only have 6 tile improvements for our 9 capital so I set worker to build another farm since that is about all he can do.
4.) Oh that stealthy scout. He rolls up on another barcher in the woods but retreats yet again. His luck has to run out soon.

Turn 75 2125 BC
Looks like our scout's luck has run out. All that creeping and her baby's daddy finally finds out and comes after us with . He has no choice but to sneak out the back and hide in the .

Turn 76 2100 BC
1.) Well, hiding out in the outside her window didn't help. He into our ass, but because he was out he misses and some bullets ricochet and :suicide:. Sweet, now we can .
2.) BW is in.

Spoiler :

3.) Revolt to slavery. Hello .
4.) And, the results are ...

Spoiler :

Yeah right.

Spoiler :

Just our luck. Only one source in our entire empire and here it is.

5.) My suggestion.

Spoiler :

6.) The results of exploration.

Spoiler :

7.) Finally, a thought for Gilgamesh.

Spoiler :

 

[Meatbuster]

Funny how it's almost my turn already so fast!

I'd be surprised if we could actually settle all the sites that we want.

Open Borders is like a double-edged sword, they may settle in our lands but we can't send missionaries to them. I think we could block off Joao with the third city (he's imperialistic) and keep open borders with Gilga who doesn't look likely to expand towards us. We can work on converting Gilga first, and Joao later when we've got our lands settled. If ever Joao gets a religion we can go NSR if our relations are low.

I don't get your Turn 76... surely you mean the scout is still alive? She has to be since there's still a white patch in the map on the final screenshot

Your new dots imply settling 1 tile away from the shore. Sucks that the bronze is... well placed.
Oh well, I guess we can't get everything in the BFC without concessions.

It seems that my turn (and perhaps the rest of yours) will mostly be spent building spawnbust, settlers and workers.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Here's my alternate suggestion:

Magenta would be an amazing production city, I think we can feed almost if not all of the hills just with the pigs and rice alone. Everything else can be farmed and workshopped and it'll be great.

Yellow is an obvious commerce site and I think we should settle it first. The first border pop alone would fog/spawnbust a lot of area and make it much easier to settle the blue and magenta later. We can farm the floodplains to begin with and whip whatever we need before converting it to a commerce city.

As for Gilga, I'm thinking either 1N or 1S of the bananas. Maybe 1S is better. I'd rather not to settle off the coast.

Techwise, Meatbuster if you feel like you can do without archers then I say The Wheel > Pottery because we really need to start laying down some cottages, not to mention Pottery is a pre-req for Metal Casting (if we want to take that from the Oracle). Build order settler > warriors (as many as you feel like you need) > the Oracle and we should probably whip it as soon as we can despite the penalty for whipping wonders, I think it's getting a little late for it considering we have no marble and are not Industrious. But we did get Stonehenge rather late, too, so hopefully...

 

[Meatbuster]

Archery -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing... this is fine.
Temporarily we can build a farm in a flood plain in the new city to help growth. We can replace it with cottages once Pottery is in.

I don't see the bronze being online in a long time. But our new settler will be out soon. I don't mind a little more security... at least with Archers 1 axeman doesn't mean death.

Settling order maybe yellow -> magenta -> Glare's original blue -> block Gilga -> red/green -> city near gold -> red/green

Since there is much room to expand, I don't mind not warring and just building fogbusters and defensive troops to increase our power.

 

[Meatbuster]

I would like to remind Whitey of the second half of his turns.

 

[White Dragon]

Thanks for the bump. Somehow I forgot about running two sets of turns. Will do it Monday morning, PST.

 

[White Dragon]

The Prophecy of the Dragon, Part 1B​

Spoiler :

Don't know if anyone enjoys the turn by turn with color commentary so I will keep this one short.

Turn 76 Enter

Turns 77-79 Exploring

Turn 80 Archery -> Wheel

Turn 81 Explore

Turn 82 Farm Done. Set to chop outside BFC. Scout healed and explore. Whip Settler.

Turn 83 Overflow to Warrior (1) with more overflow.

Turn 84 Overflow to Warrior (1). Retreat warrior for fogbusting.

Turn 85 Warrior -> Warrior (3). Grow in (3). Almost settled at old yellow location.

Turn 86 Vienne founded -> Warrior

Turn 87 Scout defends against wounded archer. Earns Guerrilla I. Wheel -> Pottery (6)

Turn 88 Bibracte grows: Warrior -> Worker. Chops in.

Turn 89 Whip Worker.

Turn 90 Bibracte: Worker -> Archer. Revolt out of slavery.

Turn 91 Bibracte: Archer -> Warrior. Archer to fortify, warrior to bust.

Turn 92 Scout ends exploration by finding Charlemagne way to the east. Wait for Writing? or back to west?

Turn 93 1675 BC Pottery in. Writing (8). Bibracte: Warrior -> Granary. Chops in. Worker starts cottaging FP in Vienne. 3 Warriors have movement. 2 busters in place to north but their locals may be bad.

Looks like I played too many turns. Sorry bout that.

 

[Glare Seethe]

I enjoy the detailed reports, for the record.

Bibracte should start The Oracle ASAP I think. It's reassuring that TGW hasn't been built yet as usually it's gone by ~2200BC or so, but we still can't be too complacent about it. And we could use the GP points. I would have Bibracte's worker chop like hell to get it, starting with the riverside forests. After that he can lay down some cottages.

In Vienne I think the cows should be pastured before any cottages are laid down, they will contribute more. And some of the floodplains could be farmed before switching over to cottages later on. With the cows Vienne should be able to help us with settler production while Bibracte is busy with the Oracle... I would not delay the blue dot blocking Joao too much. We can send another warrior up there to help fogbust though I think once Vienne's borders pop the two warriors we have there now can do the job on their own.

Writing next, but the slider can go down to 80%. After Writing we should go 100% gold until libraries are up and some cottages are around. We can't run scientists so all our research will be from commerce; I'd rather collect gold and then run deficit research once we're generating some commerce for the libraries to give their 25% bonus on. Of course it may be worthwhile to wait only until Bibracte's library is up as with the gems plus palace it will provide most of our research anyway at this point.

I'd keep the scout around Charlemagne and wait to open borders.

We may want to consider the Shwedagon Paya for extra GP points... we have the gold but we need to figure out how to settle it. Unfortunately short of completely revising the dotmap any city in that area will kind of suck for a long time. On the other hand, working a gold mine is almost enough in itself to justify plunking down a city there...

 

[White Dragon]

Thanks for the comment regarding the report. Will go back to the original style.

I like your thinking regarding the next steps. I would have never thought to go to 100% gold while we build cottages & libraries so the deficit research would be more beneficial. The chop of the granary is just in so if we switch to oracle it should go there instead. I chopped outside the BFC because there was nothing that could be built inside besides farms, which we wouldn't have worked anyway. Plus I thought they might regrow to be chopped again. I did overwhip Bibracte, so that's my bad but i figured with the big cap we could afford the extra turns of

As for the dot maps, I agree. With the emergence of copper it really screwed up our plans. Should we settle the two blocking cities first or just blue to the north and wait to block west.

 

[Meatbuster]

Sounds like a trip down Aesthetics lane to me.

Playing more turns than required is all right. It's allowed in standard SG etiquette anyway...

Actually Glare, running Scientists is fine. But if we get a Great Scientist, s/he must be terminated and transformed.

Chop wood make Oracle seems to be a prudent plan for the capital. Right now, even Metal Casting for free is fine.

I don't understand why Gilga's score is so high. He doesn't have any wonders yet and he only has 2 cities. I'd expect Joao to be higher. He's Imperialistic after all. I wouldn't be surprised if Joao has REX to 4 cities already... and making the blocking city all the more important.

Pre-turn:
Slider down to 80%. Writing in 10 turns.
Move Vienne warrior to spawnbust the left side.

Will play for real in around 14 hours.

EDIT: Sorry I'm sleepy. Add 10 more hours.