SGn00b - for those new to SG's

[pling]

Yeah, I'd agree with that tech order Like the look of the start, too.

OOC, SirToma, what's your time difference from GMT? I'm too UK centric with my awareness of timezones

 

[Sir Toma]

@Pling
GMT time difference is +10 (i think)

Anyway to my turn...
A man stood on a small hill near the place where the river flowed into the sea. As he gazed out into the horizon, a few more people walked up behind him.
"It's beautiful isn't it" said the man
"Yes" replied the others. They both looked at each other. "Sire, we have almost run out of food, we cannot stay here any longer."
"Of course we can, in fact i think we'll stay here for ever. We know how to make plants grow and how to dig rocks out of the earth, if we stayed here we would never be hungry again."
So the entire tribe stayed in the valley and grew prosporous over the years under their leader. His name was Toma. After his untimely death in 3240BC he was renamed. He became Sir Toma, Lord of the n00bs, Bringer of Prosperity. During his life he managed to teach the people of the n00b tribe how to heard animals together so they could be eaten, he contacted and befreinded another tribe who taught him how animals could be hunted as well another one who had also settled and called themselves the Aztecs, he explored the river valley and far beyond, and he trained more explorers to go out and reveal the secrets of the world. He died whilst watching that same horizon which he had looked out upon around 800 years ago knowing that the Chinese people, as they called themselves, would live to be the greatest tribe on earth.

Sorry about the long story but i had far too much time on my hands, don't feel obliged to write a story like i did.

Anyway here's my turn log

[1] 4000BC: Found Beijing, start building warrior,explore, start researching animal husbandry

[2-6] 3960-3800BC: Yawn

[7] 3760BC: Discover a great place for our second city, it has cows, clams, rice and a fair few hills

[8] 3720BC: Yawn

[9] 3680BC: The boarders of Beijing expand

[10] 3640BC: Yawn

Between Turns: Our warrior is attacked by a lion, he fights bravely and survives without a scratch, the n00b gods favour him.

[11] 3600BC: Pop a goody hut and get hunting for free! All praise to the gods of the n00bs

[12-13] 3560-3520BC: Yawn

[14] 3480BC: Find a source of stone to the south of beijing.

[15] 3440BC: Oh Crap!!! this game just became insane , that's right we just met... Montezuma . NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!:suicide:

[16] 3400BC: Yawn

[17] 3360BC: Animal Husbandry has been completed, start work on archery. (Meeting Montezuma has re-awakened the defense nut within me )

[18] 3320BC: Find some horses 1 tile east of Beijing. Warrior is completed send him to explore westwards, bengin another.

[19] 3280BC: Yawn

[20] 3240BC: Not much. I haven't pressed enter for this turn just in case the next player wants to change anything.

Pling your up next. After this warrior is finished i would recomend a worker to improve the land around Beijing and hook up some of our juicy resources. After that its your choice. Make the n00b gods proud.

Roster
Sir Toma (just played)
Pling (Up now)
Chriseay (On deck)
Sadan01
BeefontheBone
Admiral Kutzov
Pie-es Tasty

I have posted some maps of the area around us and marked out some future city sites. I think that red would be a good bet for our first city if nothing interesting appears to our west. Blue would be a crap city but i think its worth it for the stone. Green wouldn't be too bad but we don't know enough about it yet.

 

[pling]

Got the save Won't play till after lunch though (can't have lunch till housework's done, mustn't play games till after lunch ... only way I get the housework done now Civ4 arrived ) It's only 9:20am here so that'll be a three hour gap before I start to play if anyone's waiting with bated breath (or hanging in the wings with advice!)

First thoughts though are 'Argh! Monty!' and a yes on the worker, too And now I'll stop thinking and go do Stuff so I get my lunch promptly

 

[Sir Toma]

Just in case anyone is confused you should post a "got it" within 24 hours of the save being posted and then put up a report of your turns along with the save within 48 hours of your "got it" post.
If your out by an hour or you accidentaly forget the save we won't kill you. It happened to me in my other SG (which is still going).

 

[chriseay]

The red dot looks real good to me, and the blue could be ok and that stone could be important if we want wonders. I think that we should work on sailing soonish, as the lighthouses and being able to trade on the coasts would be very good for our empire, which it appears is going to be semi (if not completely) coastal. I also agree with the worker next, and then maybe one more warrior (or archer) and then a settler for the second city would be my plan.

 

[Sir Toma]

I was thinking the same thing as Chriseay for our next moves, although after sailing (if we decide to get it) i think we should try and secure Judaism for our religion.

 

[pling]

Hopefully playing promptly isn't an issue - I can always wait a full day after Sir Toma posts his save in future if that's what people would prefer

Turn 0 (3240 BC)
All looks good, so off I go ...

Turn 1 (3200 BC), Turn 2 (3160 BC)
Not a lot

Turn 3 (3120 BC)
Beijing grows: 3

Turn 4 (3080 BC)
Contact made: Incan Empire
Tweaked citzen placement in Beijing to work the gold, cutting back growth a bit, but speeding our warrior and our research into Archery

Panther attack! Warrior defeats (1.70/2): Barbarian Panther

Turn 5 (3040 BC)
Missed out on goody hut due to that damn thief Monty
Tech learned: Archery

Turn 6 (3000 BC)
Research begun: Bronze Working
Dithered between this, The Wheel and Fishing, but I think all the resources we have so far are linked up with the river, and given the Incans and Aztecs are hanging about I'm keen on the 'offence is a good defence' uses of copper (if we get it, fingers crossed) ... fishing & stuff next, perhaps? Though that's Chriseay's choice
Beijing finishes: Warrior

Turn 7 (2960 BC)
Beijing begins: Worker
Fortified new Warrior to give Beijing some protection

Turn 8 (2920 BC)

Turn 9 (2880 BC)
Warrior defeats (1.04/2): Barbarian Panther

Turn 10 (2840 BC)
Warrior promoted: Woodsman I

Turn 11 (2800 BC), Turn 12 (2760 BC), Turn 13 (2720 BC), Turn 14 (2680 BC), Turn 15 (2640 BC)

Turn 16 (2600 BC)
Contact made: Malinese Empire

Turn 17 (2560 BC)
Warrior defeats (1.64/2): Barbarian Bear

Turn 18 (2520 BC)
Warrior promoted: Woodsman I
Warrior defeats (1.70/2): Barbarian Wolf

Turn 19 (2480 BC)

Turn 20 (2440 BC)
I've not pressed enter on this turn, so the next person up can tweak things before starting off I'm pretty sure I left the governor OFF for instance.

Roster
Sir Toma
Pling (Just played)
Chriseay (Up next)
Sadan01
BeefontheBone
Admiral Kutzov
Pie-es Tasty


View attachment 106753

 

[pling]

Forum newbie question - how do I make the images show up in the body of the post? Coz the way I tried obviously didn't work

 

[chriseay]

Got it. I'll play after work today, about 4ish EST (7 hours from now). I should have my report up before the end of the night. My plan is to finish bronzeworking and start on fishing -> sailing and to get a settler and escort out of Beijing ASAP. I plan to go for the red dot first.

Possibilities I've been pondering include a 3rd city soon? What to do if we don't have copper? Do we want to go for any early wonders? Should I switch to slavery when we get bronze? Early wars or not?

My preferences in a personal game would be a 3rd city ASAP and to still go for fishing -> sailing if we don't have copper. The others would depend on the situation. Let me know what everyone thinks though, and if I get in the situation to make those decisions I'll take the group consensus.

 

[pling]

Possibilities I've been pondering include a 3rd city soon? What to do if we don't have copper? Do we want to go for any early wonders? Should I switch to slavery when we get bronze? Early wars or not?

My preferences in a personal game would be a 3rd city ASAP and to still go for fishing -> sailing if we don't have copper. The others would depend on the situation. Let me know what everyone thinks though, and if I get in the situation to make those decisions I'll take the group consensus.

My preferences would also be to get a third city out ASAP - particularly because the Incans are sitting quite close to the green site, so if we wait too long then we'll lose it and it does look rather nice. I think I'm keener on an early religion than you, so if I were just playing myself I'd beeline for Monotheism to get Judaism and also get Stonehenge along the way ... but equally, I can see that we need fishing at the very least as otherwise we're not going to be able to work half our tiles!

 

[BeefontheBone]

A second city, you mean?
I'm worried that that red dot is too far away from beijing - it wastes a few tiles and gets increased maintenance costs. Of course, the copper reveal we're about to get will probably change things. There's a few hills near the lake south of beijing which could contain it, and that's a handy place for a city anyway.
We should probably go for HBR fairly soon too since we've horses next to beijing - horse archers would be very useful for containing Monty / Huayana agression. OTOH if we're building the Oracle we'll want to get monotheism or CoL with it for a religion, so some prerequisites will be needed before then.

 

[chriseay]

A second city, you mean?
I'm worried that that red dot is too far away from beijing - it wastes a few tiles and gets increased maintenance costs. Of course, the copper reveal we're about to get will probably change things. There's a few hills near the lake south of beijing which could contain it, and that's a handy place for a city anyway.
We should probably go for HBR fairly soon too since we've horses next to beijing - horse archers would be very useful for containing Monty / Huayana agression. OTOH if we're building the Oracle we'll want to get monotheism or CoL with it for a religion, so some prerequisites will be needed before then.

Nope, I meant a 3rd. The second is a given in my mind, and a third is questionable, but I would try to do it if I can. My preferred play style is to almost overexpand and then reel it back in, rather than be cautious and lose land and resources to other civs. On HBR, I didn't realize that we had horses in Beijing. Knowing that I agree that we should go for that pretty soon. I like to use the Oracle to get either COL or Theology, so if we're planning on building it, I'll try to steer us on the path to them as much as possible. I'll have to take a look at the situation, but I don't anticipate being able to move the settler myself anyway, so it will probably be Sadan01 making the decision in the end.

 

[chriseay]

Turn 1 (2400 BC)
Tech learned: Bronze Working

Turn 2 (2360 BC)
Research begun: Fishing
Beijing finishes: Worker
I wanted to start HBR, but it would still take 35 turns and that is much too long. We should eventually switch to slavery, but I want to wait a little longer until we can get more use out of it.

Turn 3 (2320 BC)
Beijing begins: Archer
Start the worker on the pigs, then gold and wheat. The river is nice because for now we can neglect roads, which means we can neglect researching the wheel.

Turn 4 (2280 BC)
Contact made: Roman Empire

Turn 5 (2240 BC)

Turn 6 (2200 BC)

Turn 7 (2160 BC)
Tech learned: Fishing

Turn 8 (2120 BC)
Research begun: Mysticism
I think we want to go either for the Oracle or Judaism (or maybe both) so I figured I'd start us down the path to Preisthood and Monothesim.

Turn 9 (2080 BC)
The pasture finishes, and it makes it possible to time the archer, growth in Beijing and Mysticism to finish in 5 turns, subtracting 3 turns from the build and 4 from the research. I also start mining the gold before the wheat, as that seems more important since we've got one bonus food already hooked up.
Turn 10 (2040 BC)

Turn 11 (2000 BC)

Turn 12 (1975 BC)
We're rated 4th most advanced civilization by Thucydides.

Turn 13 (1950 BC)
Tech learned: Mysticism
Beijing grows: 4
Beijing finishes: Archer

Turn 14 (1925 BC)
Beijing begins: Settler
Research begun: Polytheism
Warrior defeats (1.80/2): Barbarian Wolf
Hinduism hasn't been founded yet, so I figure we can try for that, and if we don't get it at least we needed the tech for Monotheism and Judaism.

Turn 15 (1900 BC)
Hooking up the gold reduces Polytheism by 4 turns, and I'm headed for the wheat next. After that we should probably farm the flood plains.

Turn 16 (1875 BC)

Turn 17 (1850 BC)

Turn 18 (1825 BC)

Turn 19 (1800 BC)

Turn 20 (1775 BC)
Just exploring. Haven't pressed enter, so the next turn will start here.

All in all I think that we are doing well. We have no copper close, but there is some to the west a little north of the Incans. We may want to try to grab it, but it could cause friction. Here's a little dotmap of my two preferred sites for the second city.

edit: removed because of revision....see below

On the tech front, we should finish our religion aims, get the wheel, pottery and sailing, and then focus on military for a little while. We'll need either horseback riding or to get iron working. Iron working is a gamble though, because we know we have horses.

Here's a couple screenshots from my last turn:

Roster
Sir Toma
Pling
Chriseay (Just played)
Sadan01 (Up now)
BeefontheBone (On deck)
Admiral Kutzov
Pie-es Tasty

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

the opinions below are soley those of the idiot writing them and should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

I like stonehange even without stone for border expansions.

I like to build cities in the direction of the nearest AI.

Open borders is not necessarily a given.

Enough horse archers can take the Aztecs down to one city.

Courthouses are more important than ever.

No wonder building in the capital, do it in a well placed second city.

 

[BeefontheBone]

I'd like to see that blue dot shifted north 1 tile - it overlaps less with the red one (which I'd be likely to build second to reduce maintenance), gets an extra gold in the radius (those commerce/prod bonuses are huge and we can already hook it up), gets more hills for possible later resources, is still on fresh water and wastes fewer tiles. This dotmap still wastes some great tiles along the coast though - ivory and some river tiles. My preferred location would be on the forest 2S of the warrior in that shot, then 1SW of red dot and 1N of blue dot - gets more resources, wastes fewer tiles, keeps the fresh water supplies up and has only slightly more overlap than the original plan with an extra city in there. It also leaves an excellent location 1SW of the mountain to the SW of blue dot with plenty of river grassland and no overlap - a perfect location for a Great Person-spewing specialist city, so long as we avoid the Inca getting over there ahead of us. In fact, I'll edit the dotmap.

Hmm, I realised that 1N of blue dot overlapped a lot - here's what it looks like on the gold 1W of there, which would be something of a waste perhaps, but the others are better IMO:

There might even be room for another one right at the bottom of the shot 2S of the word "enter" - can't see what the rest of the terrain is like.

 

[chriseay]

Agree on everything about the dot map, in fact I looked at it again and I'm not really sure what I was thinking. These two spots look a lot better, though I'm not 100 percent sure about the yellow:

 

[Pie-es-Tasty]

Regarding dotmaps:
Chriseay's looks the best to me so far, because there's less wasted space, altough everyone's so far is viable.

Remember to watch out for Montezuma.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

i'm okay with chreasey's dotmap. In fact, I really really like it. blue first then yellow

 

[Sadan01]

Got it. I'll play it tonight. This game is moving quick. Expect my turn update either late tonight (say 10-12hrs from now) or tomorrow morning - I wish I wasnt at work at the moment - I could read up on this game and take note of the direction. All I can do is skim each post. It seems like we've done well so far even though Monte is near. Genghis and Alexander mustn't be too far away either I hope not!

More of my thoughts later.

 

[Sir Toma]

About Chriseay's dotmap, i would move yellow south 1 or 2 squares to make use of the food resources down there. I think the blue dot should be our first city and we can settle yellow later. I'd prefer to move west and take some land off the inca's even if it means we get some quite ordinary cities. I think we should begin a war against either the Aztecs or Incas when catapults come along, hopefully they won't attack us before that.
Keep up the good work

edit: on the next page i have posted my dotmaps on what i think we should do