SAM-01 Smoke and Mirrors

[Glare Seethe]

Well since I don't celebrate Easter I have a lot of time to make some more dotmaps...

Pink is a decent early production city. Blue is one of the only obvious commerce sites I can see on this map (floodplains excluded).

White can be a good coastal production city if it picks up the fish, especially with Moai Statues. We lose the cows, though. Alternatively we can save the fish for a city on that little tundra volcano island for intercontinental trade routes.

Black picks up four grasslands. I considered it 1W for the riverside grassland but I think it's better here; it could also work some cottages for Stalingrad if needed.

This is my revised SW tundra plan:

And the western regions. I like Xanthus' placement of yellow and cyan, but I moved green a bit down. This way it'll have some hills for production and lose a desert tile.

I think we need to prioritize production, so pink would be my choice to settle first. It can pump units while Stalingrad builds more settlers and workers. Blue blocks Napoleon from the central regions of the map and is a good site with all the grasslands, so that is a priority too. If we want to block Napoleon then Yellow/Green would seal him out entirely and then we can settle the tundra at our leisure. I don't see Huayna expanding in our direction since he has a lot of great land to his north; there are a few sites in the east that we could settle to block him but I didn't bother cause they're not as good as the west and it's not as big a priority.

The question is also what Napoleon's land looks like, and how much land he actually has (this is Pavlov's job next round). If we to block him in too aggressively we risk prompting an early DOW.

 

[Glare Seethe]

I'll take a look at the save and come back with more comments, but I think, since human barbarians are appearing, Moscow should stick to military builds until Stalingrad is finished with the Oracle, maybe whip a barracks when it has enough population to spare?

Yeah I agree with barracks next in Moscow. I considered it also but decided units are more important. In retrospect Stalingrad was able to handle that well enough during my turnset, and we get cheap barracks anyway. I get a little lost if I don't have monuments or granaries to choose for a first build in a city.

I'm still a little iffy on how well things'll work if all three of us have the same religion. I played a recent game (on prince, if that makes a difference) where I basically converted 7 out of the 9 AIs to Judaism, but that didn't stop them from pounding on each other (they left me alone, thankfully). We'll be in between Napoleon and Huayna Capac, so it worries me a bit, but perhaps I'm being a little too paranoid.

Hmm that depends on the AIs in question and their relations before they were converted, I guess (if they were warring before they started sharing a religion, for example). Both Huayna and Napoleon can declare at Pleased, though, so we won't be totally safe until they're both at Friendly. Shared religion will get Huayna there pretty fast, but Nappy will take some time. We could hold him off if he gets antsy and declares, though. However, if we do get both Confu and Christianity there is definitely an option to brew some trouble.

I also agree that the northern sites are more important, the tundra can wait.

 

[radiofreestl]

Got it. Look tonight, play tomorrow.

 

[radiofreestl]

I agree pretty much with all that's been said. Visit Nappy and keep fogbusting, preferably without creating another memorial to a fallen explorer. Tech Pottery>Masonry>Poly. Stalingrad will go Oracle>Ax>Settler (whip), and take CoL from Oracle (Theo gambit would take 40 turns at current rates), while its worker chops and then cottages. Moscow goes Chariot>Rax (whip) while its worker hooks up copper and then farms.

I think we'll likely end up commerce-ing Moscow, since it's likely to be the Confucian holy city and therefore a WS candidate (Stalinesque cultural victory with capital and two holy cities, anyone? ), but I'd like to lay down a farm or two to get it going.

 

[Norvin_Green]

I did this dotmap based on Glare's. Not much different but just offering up some alternatives. I marked the cities he had with signs and tried to use the same colors.

Northwest area:

Spoiler :

Southwest area:

Spoiler :

I would think we would settle the blue (cow/rice/river) city next.

 

[Dave Hartwick]

Maybe after radio's turnset we can get the save flagged with signage.

 

[radiofreestl]

0- Switch to Pottery and off we go.

1- Choppity chop chop.

2- Moscow grows to 2.

3- A Wolf donates an exp point to our SE Chariot. Second choppity chop.

4- Stalingrad grows to 4, Oracle in 5. Can see Nap's borders in the fog. He's going to beat us easily to the floodplains.

5- A Barb Warrior will donate another exp to our SE Chariot in the IT. Vladimir finally wakes up and gets back to work.

6- Chariot wins, but has to heal for 2 turns.

7- Zzz.

8- Pottery>Masonry

Vlad ends his turn next to a Barb Archer, but he's on a forested hill with Cover. All of Russia waits with bated breath.

9- Russia rejoices at Vlad's glorious victory, but he'll be healing for a while.

Missionary heads to confuse Stalingrad, which goes to a Rax (3 turns).

11- Moscow grows to 3. Stalingrad likes Confucius.

12- Since Stal will get a quick Rax, I go Chariot>Granary in Moscow and plan to whip.

In other, more serious news, Barbs have desecrated Pete's tomb.

13- Stal Rax>Ax. Pavlov, who is poking around France, ends on a flatland next to a Barb Warrior.

14- Pavlov wins, but will be healing for a while. Move him to a hill.

16- Poly next. Still no Mono anywhere. We could've gotten Judaism if we'd beelined, methinks.

17- Nap founds Lyons somewhere. Stal Ax>Settler.

19-

Wow, two techs and the Cover event, nice. Surely we will suffer some tornadoes and slave revolts to compensate later.

So sayeth the prophet:

(Don't let the screenie fool you. Took the second one.)

That screws up my master plan to 2-pop whip the Settler and go from 5 to 3 (instead of 4 to 2). Still think the Cover promo was worth it though.

A Barb Archer will take on our SE Chariot in a forest in the IT.

20- Chariot wins, will heal for 3. Moscow grows to 4, bust out the whip.

21- Moscow Gran>Rax (1 turn with overflow).

22- Moscow Rax>Ax. Works its new farm to grow back.

25- Stal 2-pop whipped Settler>Granary. HC founds Machu Picchu somewhere.

26- Judaism finally FIDAL. And let's hear it for Stonehenge+Oracle and holy city border pops.

28- Stop here.

Our gold-and-tech situation looks worse than it really is, because of the recent whips. But we have cottages now to work when we grow back, and a shrine GP due in 4 turns, so we're fine. Picked Mono as a placeholder.

Our SE Chariot is about to get some more Barb experience. Pavlov lost some turns exploring France since he had to heal, but he has the gist of it. Vladimir has explored that northern peninsula.

I started moving the Settler toward that prod city that was originally discussed, but knowing Nap's situation, I agree with Norv that we should settle the cows/rice/river next, as that will close off the eastern two-thirds of the continent to Nap. He doesn't have much room at all up there. Settler and escort are on the way.

A couple Barb Archers to the NW of Moscow keep acting like they're going to move in on us, but haven't done so yet. Next player be aware. Also be careful with that SE Chariot as we move him back, as there are Archers crawling all over that area from the Barb city polluting Pete's resting place.

Mother Russia:

That foul pestilence upon our hero's grave:

France (note those FPs we were eyeing immediately to Nappy's southeast):

Our land lacks for...well, pretty much everything. Gearing toward food and using the whip + a AP/AW religious push to compensate for production and commerce looks pretty good to me.

Roster:
Whosit
Dave Hartwick
Glare Seethe
radiofreestl
Norvin Green (up)
Xanthus (on deck)

[Emailed the save to Norv, as my Internet is "special." He'll post it when he gets it.]

 

[Whosit]

Sounds like that was a solid set, radio. I'm pleased that the Oracle to Code of Laws shot worked, but who was I to ever doubt it? A shame we didn't land Judaism, too, but it sounds like it wasn't founded on our continent, so I suppose it's unimportant. Hopefully it means more religious strife somewhere else, right? I also take it that we haven't switched to a state religion yet. I guess we don't need to until that extra happy face really becomes an issue. Oh, yeah, and you definitely called Moscow as the Holy City.

Those barbarian heathens desecrating St. Pete's grave are indeed troublesome, but I suppose their just deserts will have to wait until we've solidified our hold on our territory. I've also suddenly got a serious case of deja vu . . . .

Anyway, what was I going to say . . . . Ah, right, right. I'm glad you threw some military builds in there 'cuz we need it. Good thing I wasn't playing this set; I'm such a builder that I probably would have just built, I dunno, courthouses or something. At least we have 'em available for when we can build them. Hmm, I won't be able to look at the save until tomorrow (I guess it's a bit moot since it's not up yet). I want to mess with our dot map plan a bit. Partly to do with my desire to get those incense resources in an actual city radius . . . . I know it's probably not worth it, but the commerce bonus makes up for them being a desert resource, right? Edit: I take it back, moving the dot south from the riverbend is the best move. Getting one incense doesn't make up for adding a peak, desert, and desert hill to the city's radius.

The resource pop-ups weren't on, but I was pretty sure Napoleon had horses. Couldn't tell if he had any bronze. If he has no metal . . . I suppose I have an urge to leverage our cover bonus before it becomes useless. A mix of axes and spears should be able to handle Nappy if he just has archers and horses, right? Personally, I really want to get him out of the way, or at least neutralize his power a bit so that we're not locked out of the flood plains. Therefore, if anyone else signs up on my suicidal plan of aggression, we'd use our new settler to found a productive city to the west to use as a forward base . . . . Though I suppose it might still be a bit early for warfare.

Actually, looking at the screen shots again, I guess there is no good productive spot to the west . . . . Just some good commerce spots. Locking out Nappy would be good . . . . could we afford to quickly settle both our commerce and production spots to the north? Or am I just channeling a bit too much Stalin? Yikes, I've almost written enough for a report. Well, I look forward to everyone's opinions. As far as I can tell, we seem to be in a pretty good position.

Edit Again: Looking at the various maps and dot maps, even if we settle north commerce first, do you think we can grab South Riverbend city before Napoleon gets there? It seems like he's expanding north for some reason, since Paris is his southernmost town. I like it since it gives us some more presence to the west, but is far enough from France that it shouldn't experience any culture squeeze. And unless I'm mistaken, we can leverage the floodplains and plains hills to make it a decent production town at this point in the game, despite lacking any food or strategic resources to work with. Lesse, looks like three hills (two riverside!), so that'll cost 6 food. Farmed floodplains are 4 food. 2 farmed FPs = 8 food + 2 from the city -4 food for FP workers = 6 surplus, if I did my maths correctly. So we can work all the hills for 5 population (which should be our happy cap, right?) and with a granary it shouldn't be too bad. And that'll make us . . . 4x3 + 1 hammer = 13 base hammers. Is that decent production at this stage? I don't micro-manage much, so I'm not sure. If I'm calculating correctly, is that a 5 turn Axe on Epic speed?

Edit Yet Again!: Or I guess we could utilize the floodplains and riverside grassland tiles to whip the vodka out of the town. Farming all of them is, what, 20 food total, counting the city square. I guess we'd mine the hills and use them to control growth when happiness became an issue? I'm still learning my whip management, though. Ok. I promise I won't add or edit my comment again 'till other people have said stuff.

 

[radiofreestl]

A shame we didn't land Judaism, too, but it sounds like it wasn't founded on our continent, so I suppose it's unimportant.

Doesn't appear so, as no conversion followed.

I also take it that we haven't switched to a state religion yet. I guess we don't need to until that extra happy face really becomes an issue. Oh, yeah, and you definitely called Moscow as the Holy City.

With the whips that I did, plus the slave revolt which took a turn off Poly, it didn't seem a good idea to switch yet. So we have that switch in our back pocket still.

If you have only two cities, it's >90% that the holy city will be the non-capital, unless for some reason that city has a higher pop than your capital, IIRC.

The resource pop-ups weren't on, but I was pretty sure Napoleon had horses. Couldn't tell if he had any bronze. If he has no metal . . . I suppose I have an urge to leverage our cover bonus before it becomes useless. A mix of axes and spears should be able to handle Nappy if he just has archers and horses, right?

Yes, he has horses, but no copper. Crippling him early might be something to think about. I wouldn't settle to block too aggressively, as that would be the same as inviting him into an early war of his choosing, but setting the Cows+Rice city for the conservative block and then building up in a few turnsets might be a good idea. If we had more commerce, I'd suggest we REX aggressively toward both our neighbors, but we don't, so maybe we could cultivate HC as an ally, let him settle his jungles up north, and chip away at Nap as our economy allows.

For this reason, it may not be a bad idea to prioritize IW soon even though we already have strategic resources and no jungle--both to see if we can field Swords to use against him, and to see if he has any himself.

Ultimately though, I think this is going to be one of those games where our expansion is going to be dictated more by our economy and less by our military advantage. As you say, we can hold him off if he doesn't have metals with no problem, so since we're deficient in commerce, we shouldn't push it until we feel capable of taking on that extra territory.

Here's a screenie of the land between us and Nap, to tide you over until Norv gets the save up:

 

[Glare Seethe]

I probably should've kept my mouth shut about the slave revolts...

I agree with everyone that settling the blue cows/rice city next makes sense, and also about not aggressively blocking Nappy. We can give him some breathing room so he doesn't feel cornered and DOW us before we're ready (cause he'll probably do it anyway eventually). If he really doesn't have a lot of land up there (and no metal) he won't be a major factor in the game. After settling blue the next city should block him to the south once we decide which site we go with.

Tech-wise, we need Monotheism to open up Theology, so getting that out of the way looks good. Organized Religion won't hurt, either, once we make the conversion. Should we bulb Theo with our first GP or the second? Since Judaism has been founded at least one civ can tech / bulb Theology already. On the other hand our production needs to focus on settlers at the moment, not the AP, so delaying Theo until the second GP makes sense. After all we don't need Christianity, just the AP. We can also start thinking about the Spiral Minaret and UoS to solidify the religious economy.

After Mono I'm not sure. Alphabet, maybe, I doubt Nappy or Huayna will tech it before us. Aesthetics is an option if we prioritize settling the marble soon, but wonders are going slow this game so there is no rush, especially since we popped Writing from a hut - we most likely have a nice lead over everyone at the moment.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Better to have a a crappy internet connection than a crappy player, radiofreestl So far things are more or less going according to plan, huh? I'll look at the save later and post my plan probably this afternoon followed by hopefully playing tonight.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Looking at the save, it seems we may have a decent GP farm site in the northern peninsula grabbing fish/clams/rice, although we'd want to reveal the rest of the ocean tiles there to finalize any city sites. But it's at least nice to know we have that option after all.

My only other comment is about the worker mining the plains hill in Stalingrad - it's usually best to set workers to chop first, then tell them to build the improvement once the forest's cleared. That way we get the chop hammers a few turns earlier.

With all this talk about Nappy we've been neglecting Huayna a bit - he is probably going to turn into a bit of a monster with all that land. Sending him an axeman-escorted missionary in the near future would be good, he's too far away to get trade routes and wait for a natural religion spread.

I think we rolled a really interesting map. Even though we have a lot of land to expand to, most of it sucks and Huayna's got just as much, so we're guaranteed an interesting late game. I wonder if the other four civs are stuck on a tiny continent or if there's just a lot of land on this map.

 

[Whosit]

Peeked at the save. A couple comments.

We can probably remove the "pre-chopped" signs from the farms.

3 gems on the east coast! I know we'll never get them . . . but I can have my dreams.

More importantly, I took a look at Moscow. The worker camped by Moscow should probably mine the grassland hill. It's at the happy cap and growing, but we can stagnate it by moving the farm to the cottage and moving the cow to hill mine, or the plains forest until the mine is built.

As far as the great prophet goes, I'm a little unsure. The shrine would be nice, but it won't do us much good at the moment with only two cities converted and we probably won't be building monasteries any time soon.

Blue dot commerce does sound like the way to go, hopefully it can help fund our expansion. I still vote for town four to be 5 tiles west of Moscow (riverbend). It won't block Napoleon by itself, but I think it'd be a good link.

Oh, and you're right about Capac, Glare. We shouldn't forget about him, even with Napoleon as our friendly neighbor. I agree that we should convert him at our earliest opportunity.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Nice job radio! Not that I expected less.

Here's my plan for this turn set.

Research Monotheism > Alpha (hopefully we'll be able to trade for IW and Monarchy plus with ep's from early CH's we can utilize some spies)

Stalingrad - with a temple it will have a happy cap of 6 and then 7 when we convert to Confu. I'll finish the granary the same turn unhappiness subsides and probably whip a temple and build an axe or a CH.

Moscow - needs 3 farms to work its 17 tiles. There is already one there so I'd farm either the 2 plains river tiles or two more grass river tiles and then cottage everything else. We should build cheap units and station them here for HR. After the axe > temple > CH. I'd get a monastery going here too even if we go to OR as it will be our big earner.

The settler that's in route is for the cow/rice/river city correct?

I also like the idea of where radio marked the city to our west.

Whosit, in 3 turns Moscow will expand to encompass one of the two desert incense tiles. Sure we won't get the jing from it but eventually it will boost our happiness.

I want to post some info on Nappy and HC but the pixels get all funky so I'll have to do it when I get home (@ work now)

 

[radiofreestl]

My only other comment is about the worker mining the plains hill in Stalingrad - it's usually best to set workers to chop first, then tell them to build the improvement once the forest's cleared. That way we get the chop hammers a few turns earlier.

I initially wanted to delay because we were size 5 and working on a Settler that I would whip, after which we could build a chop-fueled Granary. What I should've done after the slave revolt took away a pop was switch to the chop-Gran first as we grew back to 5, then done the whipped Settler so we could stay at 3 and work the cottage.

I'm onboard with Norv's plan. Think we should switch to OR after Mono, send out some escorted Missionaries to our neighbors, and then go Alpha>IW.

I can't remember off the top of my head how many GPP Stal is generating, but if our next GP will come in a reasonable amount of time for the Theo bulb, I'm for the shrine now, as it will pay off in the long run and 2 gold is better than none. Let's send Vlad up to Inca to keep an eye on them as we focus on getting the better lands to the W and SE.

@Norv: The Settler isn't on go-to. I ended him between that prod city N of Stal that someone had previously preferred and the cows+rice that I preferred after seeing what Nap had, so we could go either way.

[Edit: Don't know how long you plan on playing, Norv, but when Alpha comes in, I'd be a little stingy with the trades. Whatever tech lead we have atm is more the product of popping 3 (!) techs from huts than our awesome commerce, so I expect that helping them catch up with us will probably outweigh whatever benefits we'd get from trading. Obviously this depends on what they have though, so use your judgment, but just thought I'd throw that out there.]

 

[Norvin_Green]

Turn 0 (1375 BC)

Make a few MM changes like working the cottage in Moscow for +1 gold. Hit enter.

I've been dying to fix this since the game started!!

Turn 1 (1350 BC)

Send the northern chariot to fogbust for settler. Too late as the barbs have beaten us to it. Decide to send settler out west to fp’s.

Turn 2 (1325 BC)

Go west young man!!

Turn 3 (1300 BC)

You’re joking, right?!?!

Spoiler :

Turn 4 (1275 BC)

The great prophet, Atisha, is born in Stalingrad. Off to Moscow we go please. The axe finishes in Stalingrad so we begin construction of our first Confucian temple. Our western chariot that spotted yet-to-be named barb city gets taken out by two archers. RIP.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Turn 5 (1250 BC)

Not much happening here.

Turn 6 (1225 BC)

In Moscow a shrine is erected to spread the ONE religion. Ok, one for now. Our finances go from +1 to +3 pre turn @ 70%. Boost our science to 80%, drops Mono a turn and we’re still at +1 gold per turn.

Spoiler :

Turn 7 (1200 BC)

Found Novosibirsk. Please don’t ask me. Thank God for google! Granary first.

Spoiler :

Someone builds the GW:

Turn 8 (1175 BC)

Whip the temple in Moscow. Our axe picks off an archer for some xp’s.

Turn 9 (1150 BC)

Start on a CH in Moscow.

Turn 10 (1125 BC)

Move worker in Stalingrad to chop next turn.

Turn 11 (1100 BC)

Snoozefest.

Turn 12 (1075 BC)

Nada.

Vlad on vacation:

Spoiler :

Turn 13 (1050 BC)

Stalingrad finishes an axe and go for a temple.

Turn 14 (1025 BC)

Vlad finds HC’s sweet gem city.

Spoiler :

Turn 15 (1000 BC)

Move our 3 axes to the north as I think we should take Jute out to plant our city. Also, move a chariot to the vicinity to hopefully deter more barb cities.

Turn 16 (975 BC)

Mono is in so convert to Confucianism. Will take OR next turn and call it a set.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Turn 17 (950 BC)

Move the Russians into an Organized Religion. Enter takes us into anarchy.

Turn 18 (925 BC)

Save game.


Roster:
Xanthus (up)
Whosit (on deck)
Dave Hartwick
Glare Seethe
radiofreestl
Norvin Green

 

[Whosit]

Man, barbarian cities at BOTH our prime city spots. Seems like the game is making up for our early luck. The only consolation is that maybe, just maybe, the barb town to the west will slow Nappy down. The good news is that our cover axemen should make short work of barb archers, I think. Anyway, I think you did well with the cards you were dealt, Norv.

Oh, and I wanted to ask how you change the player name in game. And did you look up a Russian city to replace the name suggested by the name generator? I guess at least Novosi-, er, Novosibirsk will net us marble and silver (lovely happy resource). I wasn't sure at first about your decision to go for temples over military, what with the barb towns, but now I realize that raising the happy cap for our towns will help us overall. That and choosing a state religion, so our happy cap increased by 2!

I can't look at the save at the moment, so I'll try to make some educated guesses for our next moves. With Organized Religion, we can train missionaries without monasteries, so are we going to make converting H.C. a priority? We probably need another worker (or two!) to improve the tiles around our iceberg town and build a road to it, and Axemen (and settlers) to burn down those annoying barbarian towns. I guess we just need more of everything!

The tech plan was to research alphabet next for possible tech trades/peeking, and then maybe iron working, right? We can build libraries, but I'm guessing that we're not putting out enough beakers for it to be worth it at the moment. And it'd slow down expansion. I'll stop thinking out loud and let better minds discuss this.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Sorry for the poor choice of city placement. My logic was to get the extra happiness from the silver and get marble online plus it was a relatively close city. We also have all techs to make use of its resources. I thought about it all day and instead of settling there I should have paused the game and looked for input from the team. Again, my apologies.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Heh, shame about the barbs. However, we can still settle our commerce city on our alternate riverbend site if we choose to as it's 3 tiles away from the barb city. It'll put cultural pressure on the barbs and with both these cities Nappy will be blocked. We'd just have to keep an eye out and make sure he doesn't try to take the city.

Agree with taking Jute out ASAP, but we'll need more axes. I'd remove the courthouse from Moscow's build as maintenance is not that high yet in favor of, say, two more axes, then a worker because it's time for another one.

Moscow can build settlers once it reaches its happy cap, we need to catch up on expansion. I'd also remove the citizen from the plains mine and have him work the cottage for faster growth; it only delays the temple by one turn and we don't need the happiness urgently since we're not at the happy cap yet anyhow.

Actually, maybe just raze Jute and settle our blue city, then send whatever remaining axes we have plus reinforcements to the other barb town, with a settler close behind. We don't really have to wait until Napoleon makes a move, might as well get them out of the way as soon as we can, as we were going to settle there anyway.

Whosit - I think you can change the player name in the 'Your Details' menu when you hit ESC.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Sorry for the poor choice of city placement. My logic was to get the extra happiness from the silver and get marble online plus it was a relatively close city. We also have all techs to make use of its resources. I thought about it all day and instead of settling there I should have paused the game and looked for input from the team. Again, my apologies.

Nah, I think I would've done the same. The silver will add some much needed commerce and in the absence of better sites it makes sense. We should definitely focus on expansion now that we've accomplished all of our initial goals (SH, Oracle, Religion). I think the next few sets should be nothing other than more axes, settlers and workers. Our slider's way too high, we need to force it down to 10% or something. If we can sneak in a missionary here and there for our neighbors that'd be a bonus.