SGFN-02: Spain to the Stars

[firepeoplebb]

Okay I kinda cheated and went ahead and reserched philo. We got it first and it gave us a SGL. Note I didn't save it. I just wanted to see what would happen so please tell me now should I reserch philo still or not.

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

0_o NOOOOOOOOOO! a missed SGL :'( we could of goten the pyramids AGAIN or the colloss :'( o well

reasurch Philo

 

[anaxagoras]

Please don't do that in the future, even without saving. If you have doubts, ask the group and then we'll just play as best we can. Besides, I don't think the issue here was whether or not we'd get there first if we researched it immediately. The issue is whether or not we can get the Republic slingshot if we research CoL and then Philosophy.

If no one else we know has Writing, and if we haven't put more than a couple of turns into Phil already, then I vote we try CoL first. If we miss, we miss.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Go all out 100% for CoL, then do philo, as the Republic slingshot is something that we really really want. With Republic, we can trade ourselves and everyone we know into the MA. If we miss the slingshot, it will probably cost us the win, every turn counts. I hope we get it, and the fact that in your test you got an SGL was a good sign that we have a chance.

1. TheOverseer=>waiting
2. Othniel=>waiting longer
3. Tad Empire=>just played
4. firepeoplebb=>playing
5. Kumquat=>on deck
6. Anaxagoras=>warming up

 

[Othniel]

Okay I kinda cheated and went ahead and reserched philo. We got it first and it gave us a SGL. Note I didn't save it. I just wanted to see what would happen so please tell me now should I reserch philo still or not.

Sorry, but like anaxagoras said, this is a big . You now have spoiler information because you've seen the game a few turns into the future and the "preserve random seed" is on for this game. It's similar to the reload game cheat, which is no good.

So, firepeoplebb, I'm not totally sure what to do at this point, but please don't post any spoilerish info (terrain features, battle outcomes, etc.) that we would not know if you hadn't played those extra turns.

Research:
Anyhow, on the research thing, I still strongly advocate researching CoL next and then researching philo. Do the other AI's know Writing yet? The goal, and I probably should have posted this more clearly, was to not trade the AI writing until we had researched CoL.

If we don't trade writing, we have an excellent chance at getting Philo and taking Republic for free. Remember, Republic is far and away the most expensive tech of the AA. If we are forced to self-research it, it will delay our game by a huge amount of turns while we languish in Despotism.

Normally, the AI will research Map Making--and other--techs before they get Philosophy, so as long as we don't give the AI Writing prematurely, we should easily get Philo and the Republic for free.

Ok, to sum it up, I vote we research CoL --> Philo, even if that means losing a couple of turns of research already spent on Philo.

Miscellaneous Notes:
I'd prefer to not move that Iron settler to the fresh water source. If we do move it 1N, that will crowd our cities in our core a little more than I would like, and a number of our cities will not be on fresh water sources anyway.

Patience. Killing the Germans will come in time. We should fight them when we are ready to fight them--and at the moment of our choosing.

I strongly doubt that we are in much danger of a German stab, regardless of Bismarck's aggression. There is still a lot of available land to settle, and the AI will normally fill the land in before attacking. Also, we are in a fine military position in regards to them because we have Barcelona as an archer factory and Iron soon to be on-line.

I agree with anaxagoras' suggestion of building warriors and then doing a mass-upgrade to swords.

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

um thats a problem going all our on Colossus- in my save... byzantines where building it in their cap. maybe building a embassy would decide if we should or not <--- forget this


Yeah I agree to get CoL first cause the aI usually go for poly math & MM first than we should have enough time to get philo hopefully

 

[TheOverseer714]

If the AI starts any wonder in its' capital, it or another will get that wonder, hopeless cause, unless you have it practically built. The only wonders you get at emperor level are those that you have huge tech lead on(you get ToE and you get Electronics and have Hoover nearly finished before the AI's get there). Tad, if you or fire didn't trade writing, we have a shot at the Republic slingshot, which is very important. By the way, fire, are you done with your 10 turns? We don't want to take too long, or team members will be doing other Civ stuff, and turn off to this game....

 

[Othniel]

We should check the F7 wonder screen just to be sure on whether the Byz have started the Colossus, but in any case I don't think having the Colossus will be mission critical for us. Very nice, yes, but essential, no. As such, I'd prefer to not build the Byzantine embassy just yet. BTW, I'm not surprised it's the Byz building it; they are the only Scientific/Seafaring civ.

It's entirely possible to build wonders on Emperor. The important thing is to plan carefully which wonders we want, and then start a pre-build timed with when we have access to the right tech. It's a bit trickier with early AA wonders like the Colossus, but I think we will easily be able to get Copernicus and Newtons in our super-science city unless we really blow it. Let me know if anyone does not understand the concept of a pre-build and I'll explain it a little further...

Yep, I still think our number one priority must be the Republic slingshot.

 

[Kumquat]

If we do not get the Republic slingshot our deadline is out of question

 

[TheOverseer714]

Maybe not, my "practice game" I am an era short, but that's me playing solo and only 3 scientific rivals. I can build ToE anytime, but I will try to get as many techs as I can first. It's doable still, but we'll need plenty of room for specialist farms, and plenty of luxes. Need to be the techno nerd with velvet gloves but with an iron fist!

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

velvit gloves but with iron fist? :O thats a good one. by the way firepeople are you almost done with your turn? I didnt get writing in my turns

 

[anaxagoras]

A couple points: I do think it is important to settle near fresh water wherever possible. It saves 100 shields and 1gpt for any city we intend to let grow. That's a pretty big savings. Yes, in this case, the city spacing is a tiny bit closer than perfect, but I think it is worth it. If you really object to 3xNW+1N, then let's settle 2xNW. That still preserves a well-spaced lake site for future expansion.

As for the slingshot, while it is important, I think the importance has been overstated a bit. Trying for the slingshot has the downside that we might not make it, but if we do make it we save perhaps 10 turns over Philo -> CoL -> Repub. Those ten turns are important, but probably not make-or-break. Still, I think we should try to get the slingshot unless we have already 5 turns or more invested in Philosophy.

I don't disagree that we should be patient in attacking the Germans. We need to be prepared. But I think we should step up our efforts to prepare. It is only going to get harder as things progress. Remember, Bismark has access to the isthmus, while we do not. As long as Bismark remains, we are effectively on an island over here. And as I mentioned, Bismark also has a ready source of iron. At the very least we should plan to send a pillaging force to go unhook him.

 

[firepeoplebb]

I had turn by turn notes but my sister deleted them but I still remember this much. Founding santiago, making road to santiago and finishing the one to toledo making 2 archers from barcelona, switching production to currugh in toledo after I saw a city on that other island, I think I sold IW to the ottos for 63 (highest I could get), I set science to the most it was helping and I sent three workers up to that iron to mine it heres a screenshot http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/88548/screenshot2.JPG

and heres the save http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/88548/SGFN_Spain_to_the_Galaxy.SAV

PS: I think i'm going to need to quite because I don't have enough time to play this with all the other things i'm doing right now so, i'm sorry, but i'm gonna quite but I remind you that I still have time to lurk.

 

[Othniel]

Sorry to hear you're leaving us...Thanks for playing and please do lurk all you want.

@HyCrest or AskReeves, as the alternates are you guys able/wanting to take firepeoplebb's spot?

Regarding the in-game situation: Examining the screenshot...

Worker actions:
I'd prefer to not mine the iron now. We need to work our high-food tiles to expand pop and a mined mountain, even with iron, is still too weak with the despotic penalty. Plus, it takes forever to mine...

It would be beneficial to not hook up the iron yet and have our barracks cities produce vet warriors for a few turns, then mass upgrade.

I noticed the BGs near Toledo have/are being irrigated. We definitely want to mine those, especially for Toledo because we want it to be a high shield-producer.

We need to mine the other Barcelona river BG so that it can get more shields. BTW, what tiles is Barcelona working because it's only growing in 14 turns?

We might think about not roading the Madrid forest. That tile really should have been chopped for the granary, and we still may think about chopping it and putting the shields into a settler. Roading non-tundra forests is generally a MM because it wastes too many worker turns.

City Builds:
Seville got a granary, right? I remember that from a previous screenshot. If so, it should build settlers/workers and not be building archers...

Santiago should build a barracks once the worker finishes. With those BG's it'll be good unit producer

Did we find out if Byz were building the Colossus? If not, Toledo should be building that. Otherwise, I say have it build a rax and start on some vet warriors. We can't build much better things there...Build the curragh first, though...

German War:
If we build vet warriors in Barcelona and Santiago (once Santiago builds a rax), plus possibly use Toledo for that also, we'll be in good shape. Mass upgrade in a few turns (Don't hook up the iron now!).

Once we get, oh, 6-8 swords, let's hit them. I predict that sometime in Overseer's turnset (2 sets from now) we should be ready.

Miscellaneous Notes:
Why are we making +7gpt on our Research? We should be burning 100&#37; for CoL.

We can culture poach the horses from Germans (near Barcelona) by settling nearby. I don't think we want to do this yet because of flip risk.

We don't need an MP in every city....

@anaxagoras.
-Agree on settling near fresh water; the free aquaduct is huge. That said, I still like this city spacing pattern (obviously fixed now that Santiago is settled). We can fit two nice cities on the fresh water to the north. One on the forest between the lake and the river, and the other on the tundra coast 1N of the river at it's edge.

I do think the Republic slingshot is critical. Can we still win without it? Yes. However, remember that Republic costs like 3x as many beakers as CoL. I think doing the Philo --> CoL --> Republic route would cost us more like 20-30 turns, not 10, plus a bunch of gpt as we'd probably need to run -gpt research. That's a ton of lost production, IMO.

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

yeah & since we are religios we get out of anarchy in 1 turn & get a head start on other techs

 

[TheOverseer714]

Yes, I missed my republic slingshot on my practice game and ended up losing a lot of time as a republic by having to actually research it. It's not life or death to our victory, but it's damn close. Sorry to hear you are leaving us, fire, please keep in touch. Askreeves, if you are still interested, you can take that slot. Heres the updated roster:

1. TheOverseer=>warming up
2. Othniel=>waiting
3. Tad Empire=>waiting longer
4. firepeoplebb=>just played, dropped out due to RL being busy...slot is open
5. Kumquat=>up
6. Anaxagoras=>on deck

 

[anaxagoras]

Quick comments (I can't look at the SAV until later):

Iron: I agree we should NOT hook it until we have a good number of warriors built. We'll want to max out the treasury for upgrades, which are 60gp each, IIRC. Until then we build warriors, stack 'em, pack 'em, and rack 'em. However, remember that it will take 9wt to get the road built, so we need to anticipate.

Cities: Let's not count our chickens. The site next to the mountain may be preferable to the forest by the river. At this point the lake is irrelevant.

Research: CoL is underway, so clearly we're going for the slingshot. I agree with Othniel that we need to do it faster. Research at a slight deficit is OK for the moment. (Don't want to make the deficit too high, though. The research path is long.)

Improvements: Agree with Rax in Santiago and Toledo both (assuming Byz is building Colossus). We'll need to be able to pump out units quickly, so I think we need both as producer cities. Not sure why we need curragh first, actually. May consider mining and roading at least one of the Gold Rush Hills. It takes a lot of wt, but the production of one of those is huge, and Republic is hopefully not far.

German War: I don't see any advantage to denying horses. The Germans have another source next to Hamburg, anyway. At worst, we cost them a few worker turns for a flip risk. More likely, it just ticks them off in return for a flip risk. Let's not forget to send an expeditionary force to the isthmus. That force can be launched ahead of the main attack.

Anyone else care to comment?

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

yeah I think barcelona should make a settler instead of a archer, & if building millatary be building cheap warriors

I agree with anaxagoras that taking away his horses, but if we did than he would STILL have horses near Hamburg. The Ai Doesnt road that fast. while we are connecting iron we should be building vet warriors than when we connect we should mass upgrade & than start a war with germany. The germans will probably not have swords because they dont build lots of workers and dont road.

Also I checked the save & at 100&#37; we only lose 2 gpt, I think we should go at 100 with both CoL & Philosophy, we dont want to have to be stuck with having to resurch The Republic by scratch & still have something in the back of our minds that we might of got it, if we resurched at any higher science rate time to kill some germans

 

[TheOverseer714]

I've frankly never had the money for the warrior-to-sword mass upgrade due to deficit research and excessive unit support. If we can do it, fine, but we need that 100&#37; research to get the slingshot, that has to be top priority. It's always a delicate balance in Civ3. I think we need to watch about building settlers in Madrid, that can really kill science at bad times. Losing 2 citizens can mean 4 or more beakers per turn. I've watched 7 turns become 10 as citizen levels oscillate in the capital. Good luck, Kumquat.

 

[Othniel]

yeah I think barcelona should make a settler instead of a archer, & if building millatary be building cheap warriors

I'm assuming that you're meaning Seville here. Barcelona is our main archer factory at the moment, and if we went to the trouble to build a rax there, we better darn well use it!

Not sure why we need curragh first, actually.

I think we wanted the curragh because Tad spotted a contact opportunity on a nearby island. If so, I think the curragh is desirable. Contacts are vital for us.

German War: I don't see any advantage to denying horses. The Germans have another source next to Hamburg, anyway. At worst, we cost them a few worker turns for a flip risk. More likely, it just ticks them off in return for a flip risk. Let's not forget to send an expeditionary force to the isthmus. That force can be launched ahead of the main attack.

Agreed on the horses. I didn't look closely enough to see that the Germans had another source. I think that pretty soon we'll want to build a few horseman for a roaming defensive force, but that can wait

Can you explain more on why we need the expeditionary force? I'm not totally following you on that one. If the concern is that we'll get trapped if some else is controlling the passageway, I don't think that'll be much of a problem...

May consider mining and roading at least one of the Gold Rush Hills. It takes a lot of wt, but the production of one of those is huge, and Republic is hopefully not far.

I completely agree here. In fact, we really need to be spamming a bunch more workers and get the land as improved as possible, especially the high commerce tiles like the gold hills.

Remember that Republic gets the commerce bonus, but also it has WAY less unit support than despotism. That means we need our land improved to be able to support our troops and still have a high science rate.

Kumquat, can you start getting some workers pumped out? Maybe Seville would be better as a worker factory than a settler factory for the time being.

I think we need to discuss our next city placements a bit more as my dotmap is a little outdated now...

Also, anaxagoras or Overseer, since the first German assault will probably fall on your turns, can you come up some kind of a skeleton attack plan on how we might best take down the German empire? Thanks guys...