SG Lurkers, ready?

[Scowler]

(0) 360AD:
First of all, sorry to Luv_Muffin: I had a major moment and cancelled your farm at Djenne to build a road to the horses. It was only after finishing that I remembered they were already connected by the river (you’d think the chariots might have tipped me off there!).
Apart from that blunder, I start stroking the beavers at Timbuktu, which gives us an extra 1gpt and knocks a turn off Horse Riding. I do the same with the horses at Djenne: barracks drops from 13 to 6 turns, and Horse Riding falls further to 6 turns. I’m also able to reduce the science down to 80% without impacting progress on HR, which reduces our spending slightly.

(1) 370AD:
Alex converts to Buddhism. Our chariot at Timbuktu is finished and a worker is begun. The worker at Kumbi starts building a road towards the stone resource.

(2) 380AD:
Hinduism spreads to Kumbi.

(3) 390AD:
Cyrus asks for open borders, but I turn him down because Nappy hates him, and it might cause problems later.

(4) 400AD:
Hinduism spreads to Angle

(5) 410AD:
Confucianism is founded in a distant land.

(6) 420AD:
Horse Riding is finished and Alphabet started. Fortunately, the barracks at Djenne is finished on the same turn so we are able to start on a horse archer right away. It turns out the Hatty was the founder of Confucianism, and she now converts.

(7) 430AD:


(8) 440AD:
Kumbi’s borders expand just as the worker finishes the road to our stone resource. Quarrying begins right away.

(9) 450AD:
Our new worker is completed at Timbuktu, and another horse archer goes into production.
Barracks also ready at Kumbi, so we start on another horse archer there.
Meanwhile our warrior from Djenne has been heading towards the barb outpost to the east, but it disappears just as he arrives – and this is why!

(10) 460AD:


(11) 470AD:
Tokugawa converts to Judaism

(12) 480AD:
The obollox is ready at Angle, which now switches to a skirmisher.
Our sheep resource at Timbuktu is finally connected, and the worker there now heads off to the iron at Angle.

(13) 490AD:


(14) 500AD:
Worker reaches iron and starts building a mine.

Comments: we desperately need more workers and military (not to mention money!) I’m worried about our relations with our neighbours: none of them share our religion, leading to poor relations – and Monty is annoyed with us! Is it worth ditching Hinduism for the time being? We don’t want to be caught with our pants down, if one of the more militant leaders decides we would make an easy target.
Also: look what just appeared to our south-west!

Current state of the empire:

BTW, I've lost track of how many turns I'm supposed to be playing, so I decided to aim for a nice round year

Turn order:
Blackluck
Liquidated
Luv_Muffin
Scowler -- dismissed
Percinho -- on parade
Sir Toma -- polishing boots
Greggo

EDIT: oops, forgot to attach save!

 

[Luv_Muffin]

I think you did a splendid job!

I also agree with our need for development by workers, and am greatly relieved to see the barracks being put to use to produce better quality troops.
Don't know what our military ranking is, but I bet we could use a lot more troops. We have three high military value targets to protect, horses, iron and stone.

Smart thinking, tweaking our city management to squeeze extra research out of them.

I guess there are now two barbarian cities to our west.
One on the coast west of Gao (mystery roadville), and one southwest of Kumbi (pigtown).
I think we want them both, but can we produce an army fast enough to take them before someone else does?
Also noticed that Toku has leapt up the rankings (wasn't he in last place a while ago?)
Now he is solidly in fourth! He has iron and horses too now?
Aargh!
Maybe Toku, Hatty, Napolean and Cyrus will all take swings at each other, and leave us alone?

Overall, Scowler put us on the right track. Nice moves!
Glad you follow me in turn order, to pick up any slack I left dangling.

Looking forward to Percinho doing his thang!

 

[Scowler]

As of 500AD:

Looks like Nappy is more popular than we are at the moment.

We'd better hurry up and get more soldiers in those cities and make them look less inviting, otherwise someone might get greedy... The last thing we want is one of the Buddhist clique declaring on us and dragging in his friends!

 

[Sir Toma]

I say we swich our state religion to Judaism as Toguwaga has it and no one except us has hinduism.I also suggest sending a few missionaries to Napoleon to convert him also to Judaism as everyone else is budist or Confusist. That way everyone else will hate Napoleon and Napoleon will hate them so he kills them not us. Just a suggestion

 

[Scowler]

Another thought: Gao badly needs the attentions of a worker to help it grow. It is currently maxed out on hammers for the barracks and therefore stagnant (it would never have grown to size 3 before the barracks was finished anyway), but it might be a better idea to change to an obelisk to expand the borders and allow us to work the water tiles. In the meantime (since that will take AGES), if a worker is available some improvement ought to be considered.

 

[Luv_Muffin]

I am sure that the missionary strategy will work in our favor, but the build time for a missionary is similar to many soldier types.
Give me a grunt before a preacher anyday.
However.... if we actually want to avoid imminent war, maybe spreading the Luv ain't such a bad idea after all! (may help send coins into our laps too)

As for Gao, I would be happy keeping the production at min, and maxing food/growth for that town. Barracks was just to siphon some hammers in that direction during growth, so when it grew to size 3, it could switch to a balanced city and finish the barracks rapidly. I think maxing hammers on a size 1 town isn't as productive (long term) as maxing food for the extra population, and then making it switch to hammers.
(I went with barracks because I know those barbs are next door. Obelisk sounds good, walls ain't nothing to sneeze at either)
In any case, if another city built a worker for Gao, it'd be a moot point anyway. As soon as that city expands it's influence, get a work boat on it asap for them fishes! If we can get a worker to connect Timbuktu, Gao and Kumbi, we'd be sitting in a stronger position too.

Of course, if we had tanks right now, I'd feel a lot better as well.

EDIT: Of course, since Scowler played last, he'd more likely know what's going on with Gao than me, so listen more carefully to him.
I'm just talking theory anyway.

 

[Scowler]

As for Gao, I would be happy keeping the production at min, and maxing food/growth for that town. Barracks was just to siphon some hammers in that direction during growth, so when it grew to size 3, it could switch to a balanced city and finish the barracks rapidly. I think maxing hammers on a size 1 town isn't as productive (long term) as maxing food for the extra population, and then making it switch to hammers.

Agreed. The problem is that even when maxed out on food, we are still looking at at least 20turns before Gao reaches size 3 It's the one-tile-off-the-coast problem.

 

[Luv_Muffin]

Do what Scowler says....if he insists on making sense.
(No offense, but it's like arguing with Mrs. Muffin. I have my "opinion", and she has her "logic", "reason" and "facts". Makes things less fun when debating with a person who knows they are right.)
Just kidding scowler. I think you know what you're talking about.
Your worker plan sounds like the best bet anyway.

Good luck, Percinho! We'll all be looking forward, with baited breath, to see what you decide to do anyway.

 

[Scowler]

(No offense, but it's like arguing with Mrs. Muffin. I have my "opinion", and she has her "logic", "reason" and "facts". Makes things less fun when debating with a person who knows they are right.)

So you're basically saying that I argue like a girl???

I guess there are now two barbarian cities to our west.
One on the coast west of Gao (mystery roadville), and one southwest of Kumbi (pigtown).

Yes, sorry I'm being thick. The road definitely has a barbarian border on it now (actually I think it was there in the original screenshot, but was concealed by some trees). Here's a clearer view:

 

[Blackluck]

Those barbs really know how to place their cities.
Not.

OTBS (on the bright side) at least it saves us from producing our own settlers.
Once we get some workers going here, we should be able to at least hold our own.

I'm not sure how volatile Napoleon is; in other games, he's usually embroiled in many wars, and, in most cases, is dogpiled by other AI and eliminated. Looks like he has a strong start here, though. Toku picks a Civ he doesn't like, usually a neighbor, and just wars constantly with them without regard to religion. In my experience, he's annoying, strong early, but fades middle/late game. We are definitely going to need both a strong economy and a strong military to keep our neighbors reigned in ... we've a bit of a slow start here (a function of marginal lands more than anything else imo), but should be able to get up to speed soon enough.

 

[Luv_Muffin]

*Very informative screenie, Scowler*

I think we should send all our new cavalry units (including Mr. Chariot) to one of those barbarian cities, "pronto". (That's an ancient native american word, meaning ASAP, which is an anachronim for AllSoldiersAttackPffft. Pffft is an even more ancient phrase that means "them barbarian cites west of Gao")
It's true. Fine, don't believe me then.

Anyhoo... we have a herd of horse archers coming due soon. I think grabbing these barb cities sooner, rather than later makes sense.
Not sure which one is more strategically important, so I say take 'em both! Let Blackluck figure out how to handle our growing Lurker Empire! Heh heh. And keep popping out soldiers in at least one of our cities. Maybe once Kumbi gets the stone hooked up, it can increase it's production and start spamming skirmishers or horse archers for a few?

We'd need to send skirmishers etc to fortify these newly captured cities soon, and these grunts will boost our military statistic. We might even build a galley for rapid transit to the coast city, bringing skirmishers or workers to our conquered prizes.
(*notice, in my theoretical strategies, we never suffer any losses, so keep that in mind*)

If we mass our cavalry at our first target, we should take the city and have the promotions to take the next town soon afterwards. Maybe....
How we go about taking two cities, and producing at least one worker for Gao, and making missionaries, and looking after the rest of the empire if for greater minds than mine to decide.

It's not my turn for a while, I'm comfortably seated in the peanut gallery.

EDIT: Some green empire is very near the barbarian cities.
The only green civ I know of is Monty. Can we afford to allow him to take a city so close to our stone resource?
The tension is killer. So glad the next few turns are out of my hands.

And I'm agreeing with Blackluck here. Them barbs are not helping us out any with their city placement. Somebody PM them my email addy, I'll make them a dotmap since they haven't been blowing my skirt up with their latest choices.

 

[Percinho]

How we go about taking two cities, and producing at least one worker for Gao, and making missionaries, and looking after the rest of the empire if for greater minds than mine to decide.

we're in trouble then because it's me next and I'm not at all sure I fit that bill!

I'm afraid I might have to draw out the tension and wait until tomorrow to play out.

 

[Blackluck]

I would say prioritize Porktown before Monty can get it.
Chop rush a worker or three to get our three core cities generating commerce.

Another settler/town east of Djenne or Angle to contain Tokuwaga from futher encrouching on our territory, but I don't know from which town. We need more coastal cities, too. The treasury is going to be hurting for a while. Try to make a trade with Napolean (furs) to get one of our religions to spread to him. This will help both relations and income. (Btw, Is Gao not on the coast?)

And, totally off topic:
It's currently snowing about 2"/hour here. Should be a fun drive home!

 

[Luv_Muffin]

Yes, Gao is a coast town.
Are you thinking of building a lighthouse there?
If we keep farming them sheep, that city will grow soon enough.
(from my old savegame, just 12 turns for growth to size 2 using the sheep)

At size two, there isn't any other high growth resources, so we could use the extra pop to work the coast.
1 bread, three coins, as we wait for the worker to arrive.
Would be nice though to start working the rest of the shoreline,
but it has to pop an expansion first. Once it expands, we can drop fishing boats on the fish resource. That would solve all our immediate problems.
The trick is, getting it to grow fast enough now, and get that culture expansion.

Isn't snow lovely? Living on the west coast, I saw snow a week ago. It was nice to look at that evening, but was gone by next afternoon.
Maybe we'll get a few more hours of snow this winter.

EDIT: Ahh... it is all so clear to me now....
Gao is already size two, and is taking forever to hit three!
Ever have those moments where you just want to smack yourself?

 

[Scowler]

(Btw, Is Gao not on the coast?)

Yes... and no

EDIT: actually Luv_Muffin has already explained it much more clearly than I ever could, so just look at the pretty picture

Even when maxed out on food it will take over 35 turns to reach size 3. As LM suggested, get those sheep pasteurised, change to obelisk, max production, and then build a lighthouse and workboat for the fishies once borders expand. Of course, if I'd thought of all that at the beginning of my session we wouldn't be in this mess now...

 

[Blackluck]

Yes, a lighthouse. We can build Colossus in Timbuktu very quickly; it would increase our commerce greatly and provide food. Gao will be a very good town, we just need to kick start it. I think building a barracks is a sub-optimal choice: It's growth is already stagnant, so a worker there would be better, given our dire worker need; production in that city is already low -- I don't see it building military units. Generally speaking, I prefer one decent shield (hammer!) city with a barracks producing military units while our other cities ... do other stuff. With our religions, there really shouldn't be a need for an obelisk. Our biggest drawback right now, imho, is our lack of workers. We're also not taking advantage of our religons, I don't think. (As an aside, I just abandoned a private game as the English. In that game I failed to produce enough workers, instead building units/settlers. However, since I had so few terrain improvements the AI hemmed me in very, very quickly. Workers can really change the pace of the early game.)

That said, I'm always weak on military build up. I tend to neglect it in favor of culture/economy/tech/wonders. In this game, though, we have not one, not two, but three aggressive neighbors.

Our varient, way back in the beginning, states we cannot declare war.
However, I have a feeling that that won't shackle us as I forsee terrible trouble.

By the way, the above is just my musings. I'm enjoying this SG as it forces me to think outside my usual pattern.

Oh, and the snow?
Got stuck in the parking lot at work for a bit.
Barely made it to the house as our neighborhood had not yet been plowed (our poor Nissan Maxima had to really work to make it through the foot deep snow.) And! It only took two hours to snowblow/shovel the driveway clear.

It's not even winter yet

 

[Liquidated]

man I sleep for a mere 20 hours and I miss the bored at work back and forth of luv and scowl.

I miss everything ::whine::

anyway horse archers are the win against barbs... so long as they do not pop any spears it doesn;t take many to take over a barb town.

as for the dot map:suicide:


Rest in peices.

Cheers!
-Liq

ps cannot believe no one dropped out on us!!! what super troops!!!!

 

[Liquidated]

whomp

BTW if you're going to SG this is a very cool feature that details what happened over your turns instead of writing it all down. That way you take pictures, summarize and play.
Autolog

sorry I missed this the first time... I for one actually enjoy the process of writing down the turns events as it makes me really think about what I'm doing...

I'll look at the tool and try and see if I cannot incorporate some of it's output into my posts.

thanks guy

BTW
After this round of sg's I'll start a raging barb war-a-thon sg with some, as of yet undecided, twist of lemon. Want to make it as hectic as possible.

The (idiots) in this thread are first to be invited when the time comes if they want to go through that BS again

I only use the term 'idiots' in the most loving of fashions!

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Sir Toma]

BTW
After this round of sg's I'll start a raging barb war-a-thon sg with some, as of yet undecided, twist of lemon. Want to make it as hectic as possible.
-Liq

Pick me! As much as i hated the raging barbs (MUST KILL THOSE F***ERS ) peaceful games do get kind of boring after a while. However if your "twist of lemon", as you describe it, turns out to be something along the lines of we can only build 2 miliatary units per city i will personally kill you in your sleep.

When you get it started sign me up. I love killin' those barbs

p.s Is it currently my turn?

 

[Scowler]

BTW
After this round of sg's I'll start a raging barb war-a-thon sg with some, as of yet undecided, twist of lemon. Want to make it as hectic as possible.

Count me in too! How about raging barbs/aggressive AI/always war/OCC/deity? Oh, and no military-orientated buildings or civics allowed... That hectic enough for you?