RR12 - A perfect spy

[nocho]

I'd say SoZ in Lali, as it has a more direct use (free up room to settle towards Wang).

Also fine with your settling ideas. B after windmills won't be too bad indeed. I don't know if the aesthetics wonders are still up for grabs, if so maybe settle marble soon to get one of those wonders in AA. Parthenon may have its uses anyhow.

Can't remember well how many trades we did yet, but I think it were few. Maybe just get sailing and poly in trade. Fishing is such a small tech that we can do that in a turn, maybe no need to spend WFYABTA on, though otoh it may not be much of an issue here.

 

[lymond]

Parth would be good indeed for speeding up Gspies. Maybe build it in AA.

Yeah, I'm not too worried about WFYABTA with Monty. Who knows where we will be with him later - maybe a constant state of war. And I figure we should out -tech him like crazy.

Anywho, I looked at things again and see a better option. Everyone but Darius has Maths. We can get Poly and and Fishing for Maths and start on Parth right away in AA. SoZ in Lali. In this case, we probably want to get marble city up pronto. No one can build Parth currently, but Wang may be close to Poly - he is the only one with Aesths. So I would pop out 2 settlers quickly to grab the wine site and the marble.

By the way, I'm probably playing soon. I'm off today. TGIF!

hmmm....Lit may be a good option now....at least for the NE. Speed up Gspies even more and even if we get an occasional GA, we can bomb with it or start a golden age.

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm for AA, I think we can save those chops for something else ( like sistine, for example )

Parth is a good idea indeed , but trading for fishing and Poly ... it's revolting Anyway , it is probably the best we can do.

Lit ... dunno. Anyway, I think that would a issue to be discussed after 1-2 turns and some trades up to Calendar and whatever, when the picture becomes clearer....

 

[lymond]

I went ahead and played the turnset:

Fairly peaceful (from our standpoint) and actually a quick turnset despite all the micro. I got out about 5 or 6 workers and we still need more - we were so bad off in that regard.

Made a few trades to get Fishing, Poly, Sailing, Calendar, and Monarchy and some gold here and there along the way. CS is in and I did a double HR/Bureau switch near the end. I set our course for Music for now since it looks like it's in the bag.

Poly opened up Parth, which I started in AA. I pre-chopped the forests there in expectation of getting up the marble. Marble is improved, forest chopped, and Parth will finish next turn.

I start Shwegie Pegedie in Yeha, which also has some good culture buildings in place and is already eating up Mali land. (Mansa doesn't like that either) We may not get Shwegie but may have a chance with the bonus, 2 chops in process, and the city can take some whips for OF. Nice culture building and actually Free Religion would be nice since we appear to be opting out of religion..

Settled the Wine spot and Marble spot. I goofed on the wine spot and settled it 1E of wine. I have no clue what my brain was thinking at the time. It didn't grab the deer and is not optimal in the push against Persia. However, we can still push his western city nicely and work from there. The deer can be used for another city anyway, which is not all that bad.

I got one settler out of Aksum and consider starting another one, but wanted it to finish growth onto another cottage, so I built a barracks and started a spy. I think we should start the spy push now since we have some nice EPs against Mansa now.

I put Gondor on unit duty after getting a worker out and finishing a monastery, which it really didn't need but it was started.

I know we want to settle the marginal land in the south, but we need to get some settlers ready soon to start power settling against the AI. We do have several cities now that can get settlers out pretty quickly.

We need to decide on where to put the NE. We can also build the Great Library, but I did not start it.

Oh...we popped Iron in Aksum on one of the hills!!!

Here's so more stuff with screenshots:


Lincoln came in early with this request to switch to his religion...I think not Mr. Prez:

Spoiler :

Wang finishes both GLH and MoM on same turn...did not realize he had Calendar yet. MoM would be very nice. Maybe we will get it one day, although it makes culture whoring that much more difficult against that city:

Spoiler :

Shaka attacks Lincoln a few turns in and Monty attacks Mansa the same turn, which was no surprise at all...I saw him moving units up there each turn:

Spoiler :

Completed SoZ. Lali has it's 3rd border pop on last turn, so our culture is now spilling over into Wang's last ring nicely. We should be able to commando settle up there soon:

Spoiler :

Wang asks us ever so nicely to stop trading with Monty. That would not be a wise move and I ever so not nicely tell him to stick where the sun don't shine:

Spoiler :

 

[lymond]

rolo - i now see I completely missed your post. Well, I got SoZ up in Lali anyway, but we still have plenty of chops for Sistine, which would be a great wonder indeed. I only needed one chop for Soz - a worker whip did the rest. Also, with Parth in AA next turn, the west will be in good shape.

 

[LKendter]

I see we have stolen the Rice from Monty. Addis is now a nice city.

Nice adds on happiness with the techs. Time to start growing our cities up and get some cottages on-line.

I vote to keep Gondar on permanent military building. We need to up our military power, and if unit costs get to high we can get rid of the out of date warriors.

My big worry is where our cottages - I only counted two in use in the capitol.

 

[nocho]

Excellent progress, lymond!

The little goof-up with Matara is amply compensated by a great progress in tech, worker count, enormous happy increase and wonders. Music and Sistine will be nice, from there on we can push for lib I suppose. What do we want to lib? Demo would be nice, but maybe that's a long shot without GSs to bulb along the philo/paper/edu path...

 

[lymond]

Re: Cottages - we really haven't had the luxury. Aksum can now really start to push cottages and Debra can help overlap and help grow them. However, Debra is fairly new and just now getting some growth potential. Elsewhere, we don't have a tremendous amount of cottageable land. Yeha could get some. I always emphasize growth early much more than cottages, unless a city just screams cottages.

Some of our outlying cities are going to struggle for growth for a while. Gondor should probably focus more on food and hammers -potential HE city. As should Lali and AA. Good production cities that allow for some hammer economy as well. We are going to get a lot of mileage out of Bureau Aksum for EPs.

edit: Aksum will grow on a new cottage next turn and a worker is starting another one nearby

 

[lymond]

Excellent progress, lymond!

The little goof-up with Matara is amply compensated by a great progress in tech, worker count, enormous happy increase and wonders. Music and Sistine will be nice, from there on we can push for lib I suppose. What do we want to lib? Demo would be nice, but maybe that's a long shot without GSs to bulb along the philo/paper/edu path...

thanks, nocho...can't believe i goofed on that city

We don't have a glaring NE city and I'm hesitant to put NE in Aksum so that we can keep the spy GP pure as possible. We might consider AA or Lali as a WW NE type city and just wonder whore the GPPs and build the Great Library there too. Not sure which one has the best food potential but both have decent production. AA probably is better overall hammer wise - it's turning into a nice city and can be chain farmed. Anyway, with TGL we can get a GS or two and with Parth, we will still get Gspies out of Aksum. It should time nicely to get the next Gspy out of Aksum before the NE city start pumping.

 

[Thrar]

Got it.

I'm inclined to switch research to Drama for now, then follow up with Music. Nobody else has Lit yet and we have by far the largest GNP, so we should be safe. We want Drama soon anyway for the theaters and by doing them in this order we save a few beakers. I will monitor the tech progress and switch back to Music should WK get Lit.
After Music, I can think of two main alternatives. Either get Philo for the religion and denial of a high-culture holy city, or go MC->Machinery for windmills in the south. Paper would be an option, but it doesn't do any good by itself and MM is researching it anyway. We could consider sparing a few EP to steal it when it's done.

While the GA is obviously valuable, I don't think we should use him just yet. At the moment, our border cities are making good progress as they're roughly as old as the cities they're pushing against. Later in the game, our new settlements or flips will have to push against mature cities, we'll be glad for any GA we have left by then.

What do we do with the GSpy? Settling him in Aksum will be the most effective thing for a long time as no other city comes close in EP output (nobody produces more than 2 EP in fact). Settling him will produce 24EP/turn from now until forever, it'll be a long time before we generate enough EP via slider to break even with that in any city. We'll get there eventually, but we have to keep in mind the opportunity cost (i.e. lost time). I'm inclined to settle him now and double our EP output, these points will come in handy against MM, Monty and even WK way before an SY could ever become effective.

Regarding GLib, I'd build it in Yeha. It has plenty of food and is surrounded by grassland, an excellent specialist city. It already has 16 hammers invested in SPaya but I'd prefer to switch to GLib anyway. NE should go there as well. We could build Paya in Lali instead.

I will get out a commando settler for the desert east of Lali (44% ours). We could settle the south (I like clam/clam/horse and clam/fur/iron, sharing one clam), but we don't need the resources atm and they'll be a strain on our eco so I wouldn't want to do that yet.

 

[lymond]

I agree about the free GA and the Great Spy we pop. Settling it in Aksum with SY will net more EPs over the long haul and we don't have any other glaring commerce city to create another SY at the moment. (Gspy mission are all or nothing and could backfire - the only justification for it is to run the mission on Wang or Monty -i.e., on of the AIs we are not focusing EPs on) The GA can be save for a power bomb when we need it most or a golden age.

I say keep going with Shwegie in Yeha. We may not even get it and there are already hammers in it. Not sure about NE and TGL there. I'd say use a high hammer city like AA or Lali to create a power Wonder Whore NE city to that will mass generate some culture. AA as a WW NE city could take out Monty all by itself. Lali makes more logistical sense but AA is just a better overall production city.

Drama is nice, but at this point I'd say keep going with Music and then Philo. Drama's not worth the risk of possibly losing these and Wang and Darius are starting to gain some ground. Wang has the GLH now so he has a boost. Drama is an easy trade later. Also, it's best to get a head start on Sistine in Lali. I'd like to get Music and Philo out of the way and then make the push for Lib.

Here is a repost of the cities I mapped out in the south. These are the two that best uses all the land down there:

Spoiler :

Possible cities near the whales on each side can be settled much later as they are very very crappy - just resource cities basically.

 

[nocho]

Not really sure about settling GSpy vs other SY.

Quick calculation: the 4 spy buildings give base 22 spy points +100%. So with 2 fully outfitted cities with SY we get 2*(22+200%)=2*66=132 spy points per turn.

With settling those 2 cities would be 1*(22+100%)+1*(34+200%)=44+102=146 spy points per turn.

Mmm, so actually with spy infra, settling is also better... Of course the caveat is the spy slider. With that SY in 2 cities would be better ofc, then again we may not run spy slider for a very long time, beside the fact that settling now gives better returns pre-spy-infra.

Okay, started to write this thinking a 2nd SY would be better, but seems I convinced myself of the contrary. Now somebody shoot a hole in this logic, please! Only thing is that if we settle, we should have done it the other way around with the spies (settle first, SY next). Oh, well.

Otherwise, I'm fine with the PPP. Do like GLib in Yeha, but lymond's ideas about the wonders are also ok. Agree with his dotmap. Would go music and philo first over drama as well.

 

[Thrar]

T0 - switched Yeha over to GLib. I don't think using a wonder city for the NE is a good idea; we'll need those wonders to generate culture in our border cities. I don't see us accumulating a lot of wonders in just one city, so prefer to have a regular specialist city with NE (i.e. Yeha). Started building Paya in Lali instead.
Switched research to Drama, getting it first will save us beakers on both Music and Philo. I will keep monitoring the tech screen and switch back should anyone get Lit.
Is there any particular reason for that collection of different military units queued up in Gondar? I left it there, but I'm surprised to see so many different units.

T1 - Parthenon is built. MM captures a barbarian city north of Monty. Aksum grew. It could use another farm or two for growth. I'd have liked to build a farm in the northern forest, but unfortunately, the worker is tasked to build a cottage there. I usually prefer to have workers chop first and then build, it takes the same time but offers more flexibility. Nobody has Lit yet.

T2 - Nobody has Lit yet. Aksum Spy->Settler.

T3 - WK asks us to convert to Buddhism. Nobody has Lit yet. Micro Aksum a little to get a settler out next turn for Lali's desert (49% ours).

T4 - Lincoln wants us to cancel deals with Shaka. No. Darius wants Aesthetics for free. I give in for the sake of good neighborhood relations. Drama comes in, reducing the research time for Music and Philo by a combined 3 turns. Almost worth its 4 turns research just for that.
Aksum finishes the commando settler, starts training another spy. MM completes Miss Sophie. The desert to settle on has become ours.

T5 - MM and Monty have made peace. Yeha can rush the GLib for 3 pop. It's growing like a weed anyway (6 food surplus at size 6, will be 9 at size 3) so I do it.

T6 - GLib completed. Settle Hawulti on the desert towards WK. Note that since we have Drama, theatres are a stronger first build than steles, giving 3 culture rather than 1.75 and being a little cheaper as well. Anyway, Hawulti starts on a granary as we're in no rush culture-wise on that front.

T7 - AA got its border expansion and is now pumping culture straight into Teotihuacan. Research dialed down to 50% to break even. We should actually get some courthouses for courthouses' sake...

T8 - 10 turns peace to Darius have been canceled. WTH? I gave in to his demand just 4 turns ago! Lincoln recaptures Philadelphia from Shaka.
Switch Adulis to a granary - even though it has gold, a library first isn't doing much good I think. Should have done that in T0 but missed it.

T9 - Music comes in. Paya is built. I switch to FR immediately. Michelangelo is born and goes to sleep in Aksum. Don't forget him! I'm a little surprised, that means Homer must have already been born elsewhere!
MM finished Paper, I don't see any need to trade for now though.

T10 - We're back online. Nothing else really.

T11 - Shaka wants us to cancel deals with Lincoln, who in turn asks us to declare on Shaka. No to both. A spy is born and settled in Aksum. I fire Aksum's regular spy as I don't think we'll generate another one there. This should be discussed, feel free to rehire him if that's the consensus, I didn't analyze it in detail.
Our first spy has waited for 5 turns in Djenne and now spreads culture. Net effect is that we go from 11% to 14% for 39 EP.


I'll hand it over here. A settler will be finished in Aksum next turn. I don't think settling the south is urgent, but there's another nice PH spot northeast of Lali where we could settle against WK.
Remember that there's a GA sleeping in Aksum!
I built a few more roads as workers were available and not urgently needed elsewhere. Especially roading mines is worthwhile (unless they have a river route) because only when having a route they can pop resources. I also roaded a few resources in case we want to trade them later.
We need to figure out where to build Sistine's. We're low on choppable forests in most border cities, so the best option to me seems to be AA with all its mines. Which, incidentally, should be roaded at some point.

 

[r_rolo1]

Forget it, thar already posted his game , lol

Ok, on this one:

- We have music Now on to build Sistine ( that should be done ASAP ) : Aksum 15 turns, AA 16, Labi 18 , Gondar 19 , all the rest above 30. IMHO the real contenders are AA and Labi. My preference goes to AA, though.

- We need a city 4N of Gondar or somewhere close. Mansa settled near the dyes as monty had done and we need to put pressure in there. Settling againsk Wang is also needed as thar stated

- Techwise: Philo and then what ? We can bargain Construction from either Mansa or Wang and paper out of MM ... if thing go right we can go Edu right after Philo ... good ol'Lib natio strat ? We will probably be able to trade for MC soon, since mansa is teching it and Wang already has it ... just the time of someone doing Collosus in the worst possible scenario.

- We need to beef up the border with Monty. One axe will not hold it ... just look at the stack he has in his dyes city.

 

[LKendter]

@r_rolo1 - roster?

 

[r_rolo1]

Oh, I forgot

r_rolo1
Thy_Spellcraft -skipped
Brian Shanahan -somewhere out there
lymond
Thrar - Just played
LKendter - UP
nocho -on deck

 

[Thrar]

I think we should consider stealing Paper and other techs rather than trading for them. We have plenty of EP against MM and are generating quite a few; as long as we don't need them all for culture we might as well keep them backwards and avoid giving away techs.

Unless we have somebody else closing in on Lib, we might as well take our time - no reason to just get Nationalism. Getting Constitution should be possible, maybe even Democracy or some similarly expensive tech.

 

[LKendter]

560 AD

I do a pre-start review.
We are way short of workers, and I found at least one city that can grow but would have to work unimproved tiles.
We are also to short of military. There are too many goals to fix in a few turns.
Number one goal is Sistine. I swap Addis to Sistine. It is best to build it in a border town to push borders.

Nobody has talked about Moai Statues. Two crabs will be a power house city with this built. I'm going to get this started along with dye push city.


600 AD
I split our EP between Monty and Mansa. We already have 1K vs. Mansa, and Monty is just as important to start working on.
We spread culture in Djenne. I hope Mansa builds us the shrine.
(IT) Lincoln built Chicen Itza.


620 AD
I take feudalism, construction, and $55 from Wang for civil service, drama and literature.


640 AD
I give Mansa civil service, literature and drama. I get paper, metal casting, world map and $40. I make some cash from map trading and upgrade 2 archers to long bows.


660 AD
We fail to spread culture to Djenne.


680 AD
This is my main city building turn.





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(IT) Crab city is the home of Taoism.


700 AD
We spread culture in Djenne.


740 AD
WAR - Mansa and Darius are fighting Monty. It is nice to have our closest neighbors beating down each other.


780 AD
(IT) I hate to give anything away, but a lousy $80 isn't worth a diplomatic hit with Monty.


800 AD
(IT) Spies destroyed our granary in Debre.
We rank #5 in most powerful civs.

840 AD
(IT) Sorry Mansa, but you aren't getting Philosophy for free.
We complete the Sistine Chapel.


860 AD
I reconfigure Addis for growth. It can support several cottages and work the hills.

Massawa needs to be whipped next turn for the lighthouse. It is already working one crab. I would build another work boat after that. The goal is Maoi Statues to get another shield heavy city.

One Gondar completes the forge; it should go back on military builds.

Our worker count went from 11 to 19 and we are still behind in development IMO.
Our military count went from 18 to 22 plus 2 unit upgrades.

 

[nocho]

Sounds good. I hope to have a look this evening, but definitely won't be able to play before Friday.

 

[r_rolo1]

I agree , it looks good. Will give it a look later.

Anyway, nocho is UP and got it, I'm on deck