SGOTM 01 - Fifth Element

[Dolphan]

@Merum #59

Tefnut should look out for a worker steal opportunity. I think the horses clinches the deal for a settler - I'd say get one right after the worker.

@Goodenuf #60

I still say settle 1SE of the horses. I know 2W gets the fish, but 1SE is a very nice city site that we can use for whatever we want, without all that nasty tundra. We can get fish to the east of thebes later if necessary.

I agree with mining for research path. Chariots will get eaten by spearmen later, so we'll need axemen - I'm thinking head for bronze working rather than archery because we want to know where the copper is asap, and because it would be good to have the option of chopping units even if we don't end up using it.

 

[gskur]

Note that there might be mutually contradicting statements/ideas here. Also, it is just a patchwork, and incomlete at that as well.

Rushing Catherine now:
Do we have any advantage? I do not see anything obvious, so I assume we would be wasting time and effort trying.

Expansion:
Landgrab is very important. We do not know how much space Catherine got in the back, but I would bet she will quickly try to expand to her North regardless of what she’s got there. We want that land as well! If that’s the ONLY way she can expand and we grab it first then she will choke for the lack of space and will be an easier target a bit later. We do not know now, but still: grab that territory! Somewhere at the isthmus by the cows, W-SW of Thebes is the spot!

Build order in Thebes:
Finish worker; build settler and settle W-SW. Then we need to see how much land is in the fog-of-war. This is because of the “Barbarians are coming!” problem if we have any land fogged. They will be archers, and axes, many of them. We either light up the land by spreading our units (warrier/warreir/warrier&#8230 or research Archery and build archers. Building archers does not preclude lighting up the land using them (to an extent)—they are more exensive—and they are good to have in the city by Catherine’s border, but it is an extra research to do—as if we didn’t have enough to learn without it. Need to explore the dark areas before committing. This also means that maybe the second settler goes SW to shut Catherine off. Need to explore SW of Thebes!!!

We need money for research, guys. So far we are in bad shape here. Pottery is about the ONLY answer for us (for a while) on this map: we need that to start building cottages on the floodplains.

Research (Archery might be necessary as well)
1. Fishing (gains 20% off on Pottery). Switch to working the fresh water lake tile to boost research.
2. Pottery. Build a cottage ASAP, add as needed. Switch from lake tile. Meantime develop cows (3H+3F).
3. Mining (it is one of the 2 optional prerequisites for Masonry, gives 20% off Masonry; Mysticism is another one). Mine on of the plain hills, say the one SW of the city, for 4H production. Note: farm rice for health, only if needed—I hope we will grow fast enough without working it. For food use floods with cottages, and make sure they are being worked (MM if necessary).
4. Mysticism (for another 20% discount on Masonry)—maybe?
5. Masonry (can build city walls and Pyramids). Build quarry on the stone tile. This will give us 5H.
6. Bronze Working. (By the way, it will take less time to research Mysticism+Masonry than BW!)

Tiles worked on in the city:
Pop 2: cows+flood
Pop 3: cows+flood+lake?
Pop 4: cows+flood+mine+flood/forest
Pop 5: cows+flood+mine+flood+stone

Worker works on:
Cows, Cottage, Mine, Cottage; fill in building roads. If a worker has nothing to do, build the road towards the next city site.

We should avoid chopping wood until Writing/Math for greater yield. Pluse the additional doubling when building Pyramids with stone hooked up! Got to have at least 2 more cities with good production befor going for the Pyramids though.

It would be great if the players would always show to the rest of the team Resources, Yields, and the Grid in the screen shots! If those are in the way of something, supplement with the “plain vanilla” images.

What do you think?

 

[Dolphan]

@Gskur #62

The advantage is the only one we're going to get - our UU. We cannot stand up to the AI by trying to out build it on this level - it'll just outclass us. We need an early advantage, and Cathy's cities would give us that. Taking the land to her north is not going to make her easier later - the longer we wait, the further ahead of us she'll get, in tech, cities, production, everything. Also, she might start making deals with other civs, in which case attacking her is going to make any possible diplo victory that much more of a struggle. If we get the horses with the 2nd city, it doesn't matter if she gets that land - we'll just be taking it back.

I agree we're going to need pottery sooner rather than later. But get mining first. If we sit still, I highly doubt we'll end up better off than teams that attack Cathy.

 

[Perugia]

PLEASE ENSURE RESOURCES ARE ON FOR SCREESHOTS Ctrl + R and consider whether you want to minimise Ctrl + I or remove Alt + I the interface.

There are two possible locations for the canal city but as one is actually on top of the pigs the only logical choice is the desert tile 1N of the pigs. This also converts the desert into something useful and also nets the clams.

However, there is no need to get that site settled until we either need those clams or find ourself having to build a navy. This city can wait. It would be good to get a city settled to block out Catherine the best site is 1N of where Tefnut stands in the screenie avoiding any overlap of fat crosses with the canal city.

The worker should pasturise the cows and then farm and road the rice. We should be working the rice (1 loaf unirrigated) instead of a mine or forest when building workers and settlers

I support the research plan proposed by gskur. We need cottages for research and having the option to build a granary in food poor or unhealthy cities will be useful later.

I agree we should leave the forests for health and also as they are our only source of extra shields and being able to replace them with mines is a looong way off just now.

We should build a minimum number of extra warriors as a cheap way to push back the fog of war. But once we get some chariots we can let a few barbs spawn to earn promotions. Later these warriors can be garrisons to avoid the 'We need protection' penalty

Don't worry about losing the shields on the barracks. AFAIR these don't start getting depleted for 50 turns on buildings (10 turns on a units). So we have until turn 65 to resart the barracks.

We should settle the tile 1SE of the horses.

We can grow to size 4 before health penaty kicks in, size 6 with the cows and rice. The. we will need happiness.

 

[Merum]

I'm going to finish out this turnset this afternoon. Please try to comment before 4PM CDT (2200GMT) if you haven't yet. We are pretty divided on tech path right now, and in a perfect world everybody would comment before I choose, but I'll go with what I have at the time.

 

[gskur]

Re: Dolphan 63

@Gskur #62

The advantage is the only one we're going to get - our UU. We cannot stand up to the AI by trying to out build it on this level - it'll just outclass us.

Of course we can: just have enough production capacity! It's the RESEARCH that the AIs will kill us with if we do not pay special attention to it. And it is Catherine's research vs. our research that is an issue now, before tech trading is possible. We need to pressure her to spend her efforts on building not on research. We can do it by showing off with a big arny at her border, or by grabbing land close to her and pressing her borders (do not forget we get +2 culture for being what we are--this is our weapon as well! and it is a strong one!) At least this is my experience, albeit not vast, at Monarch. And this takes money. Domination victory is not likely otherwise.

Explore around Catherine. When we research BW and can see Bronze on the map, and we have it in our domain, we'll know with a good degree of certainty if she's got it as well. If not--we party!

 

[BrianS]

Normally, I like to get BW as early as possible because you end up with a production booster and those critical axes. In this case though, I'm inclined to rely on the chariots, and go with gskur's approach, at least through Mining. Then we have a tough choice whether to go for Masonry/Pyramids or BW killing power. However, that won't happen in this set of turns, so we can leave that for the future.

 

[Dolphan]

@Gskur #66

By out-build I meant get ahead on research, land and everything. The AI has a head start on expansion and production - we're not going to catch up without a war. The later we leave the war, the harder it gets.

 

[gskur]

You are right in general: without being a very large and very rich country we can never outperform AIs peacefully. Well, there is that Diplomatic approach... but we do not what it, do we? So war it is--smartly, carefully, assuredly!

 

[Dolphan]

@Gskur #69

Can you win diplo without fighting? Can you win anything except cultural without fighting? Its the soul of this game Yes, we do have to be careful. But I keep falling victim to the 'I'll just wait and build up an unassailable army before attacking' line of thought - it doesn't work very well, and if you look at some of the GOTM spoilers, it pays to be bold.

 

[gskur]

@Dolphan 70

Yes, it pays to be bold, true. But you see the successful attempts, and all the multitude of failures go undeclared. it's like "it pays to play state lottery." And I too have many a time fallen "victim to the 'I'll just wait and build up an unassailable army before attacking' line of thought"--I know exactly what you mean, and agree with you on futility of being timid.

And yes, you can get diplo without fighting, if you can "trick" AIs into voting for you, which has been done before (providing you survive that long).

 

[Perugia]

I agree we need to engage with Catherine pretty soon to keep her down to size. Our UU gives us an opening to do that as at this stage we don't need to capture cities its about hit and run tactics. Remember we have an command and control edge when it comes to warfare. Catherine starts with hunting so we must not let her build a copper mine, if we can't do this and see spears deployed against us, we can retreat back up the isthmus until our axes come on line without damage to our core.

It is absolutly essential that the next few moves should scout out Russia. I think it would be better to get as much info on Russia as we need before attempting a worker steal. Once we have the info by all means steal. It would be great to get some road building from both ends of the isthmus if we can pull that off. Might be better to steal when the Russian worker is doing something on the NW side of their territory to make good our excape.

The inside corner of the Russian border makes this city looks like the capital to me (palace expansion) so I expect we could easily get beaten to the gem/horse site as this could be the Russian second city.

Therefore my vote would go with building a settler immediately after the worker. Use the worker to maximise food + hammer yields to get the settler out as soon as possible. Then build a force of chariots to send down to Russia.

Meanwhile we can research towards pottery to get cottages in the flood plains in both cities. With cottages on line we can go down below for BW to give our force some defensive backbone then we can send a settler towards Russia to create a forward base. Our creative trait means a forward base even if close to Moscow will hold its own culturally. With luck copper will be inside out borders quite soon ater that again due to the creative trait.

 

[Merum]

Pottery is 13 turns away. Mining is 9. If we go to pottery we have a cottage 16-17 turns from now. If we go mining we have a mine 12-13 turns from now. Do we benefit more from the added hammers, or from the added 1 gold 4 turns later? I'm not sure. The granary will help, but that's a good 30 turns away at least.

Do we really want to build settler at size 2? That's going to take forever. Perhaps it might be best to grow to 3 first. We'll probably end up getting the settler in the same net number of turns, and have a warrior as a bonus. We'll also benefit from the gold the extra citizen gains us for those turns (if we put them on gold-bearing squares). That means faster research.

I'm inclined to go for the south horses first. Catherine is Creative, which means she gets +2 culture from her cities. I agree that that city is probably Moscow, but it may not be. She's going to push her borders culturally just as hard as we push ours, if not harder.

BW is almost useless to us for chopping on the land we have now. Chopping any of those forests will give us serious health issues. There's simply not enough of them. In that context, BW should be considered in terms of axemen only.

If Catherine gets to copper before we can attack, we're screwed. We have to hit her hard and fast. No amount of extra gold from cottages will fix that. It's a difficult set of choices.

Catherine's gem mine is not hooked up with roads. She may not have the wheel yet. I'm planning to send Tefnut around that border with the next 5 moves, and Anhur is heading SW to check and see if we have more than one path to Russia.

 

[Perugia]

Merum,

I see where you are coming from now and agree. Most everyone is agreed we should war with Catherine, to war we need shields and we need 'em as soon as possible so go for mining.

I like your ideas about getting some more gold in without cottages if we agree to work the rivers. Growing to size 3 before the settler is also fine by me as we can work rice/cow and a lake or river tile for commerce. We really could do with another warrior to protect Thebes and the worker and with all the jungle/forest on the Russian border if would be good to send Anhur down there with potential for Woodsman 1 as his 2XP promo.

If we can get the southern horses and mining then we can get some commerce from the gems.

Remember, this is an SG not a Diplo game. You are UP so you listen to everyone's opinion and then make the executive decisions.

 

[Merum]

Here's the last 5 of my 11. I don't want to bury it up behind all the discussion we've had.

Turn 26 3250BCE: I decide to go for mining. We need hammers more than the potential for gold later on. As other civs research pottery, it will become cheaper for us, and maybe we can get both in the same net turns. Tefnut heads south along the russian border, and Anhur heads to the potential middle route to Russia. A lion is spotted near Anhur. I'm tempted to give him woodsman, but the lion is far enough away yet to make me do that now. Tefnut reaches another coastline, and can see across a small bay to what looks like more land. She can't go any farther this way, so turns around to explore the northern Russian border.


Turn 27 3220BCE: I put Anhur in the forest to give him extra defense vs the Lion without spending the promo just yet, and he defeats the beast during the IBT, gutting it and storing away the meat for his voyage. The protein will give him strength.


Turn 28 3190BCE: Nothing of much interest to report.


Turn 29 3160BCE: The "Middle route" does not lead to russia, but to more salt water. There's sugar here, and we'll make use of that for happiness once we get Calendar. Anhur needs to go SW of Thebes now, to see what he can see.


Turn 30 3130BCE: The worker builds, and I send him to the cows. I put the build on warrior, this could be changed to scout if the next player desires. Warrior and scout both build in 8, and growth is in 12. We'll have to decide what we spend those other 4 turns on. Thebes growth will change after the pasture is built, so it may not be an issue.

Edit to add: I don't think a scout is a very good build right now, based on what we can see of the map. We may already be hemmed in until open borders or war.

Anhur is at 1.7 health. You can rest him or continue to explore.

Turnlog (Thanks, AlanH!)

Spoiler :

Turn 23, 3310 BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Tefnut (Warrior) (3.40)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Combat Odds: 3.6%
Turn 23, 3310 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Fifth Element's Tefnut (Warrior) is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Fifth Element's Tefnut (Warrior) is hit for 15 (70/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Fifth Element's Tefnut (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) (3.40)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Combat Odds: 3.6%
Turn 26, 3220 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 28, 3160 BC: You have trained a Worker in Thebes. Work has now begun on a Barracks (I switched this to worker)

The Schedule: Doom_Train, you are UP!

Doom_Train (up)
BrianS (On deck)
Dolphan
gskur
Groin_Apologist
Goodenuf (skip on May 19-22)
Perugia
Merum (just played)

PS: I recommend "Shu" for the next warrior's name.

The pics:

 

[AlanH]

(somebody tell me how to spoiler this and I will)

put [spoiler ] ..... [/spoiler] tags round it without the space in the first one.

 

[Groin_Apologist]

Just checking in again, since I appear to be more lurking than anything else as of yet. I understand we are going with the settler once we reach size 3, but it seems like we're unclear as to where we will found our second city. Are we saying that we will try to steal Cathy's horses (and the two gems besides)? What are our chances of beating her to them? And if we are trying that, should we hold a warrior (this build or next) to escort the settler?
But I agree with going to war earlier rather than later. I think we have to use the war chariots as soon as we possibly can, or they become obsolete (once Cathy gets copper and spearmen).

 

[Groin_Apologist]

Also, I'd better ask this sooner than later: how do I capture a screen shot?

 

[Merum]

@GA 77: See my fourth screenshot (Added in an edit) for my suggested 2nd city placement.

@ 78: Press "Print Screen" and the screenie will go to your \My Documents\My Games\Civilization 4\ScreenShots folder.

 

[Dolphan]

@Merum #75

I see the logic behind your suggested location. We should think about connecting it up though - do we want to set the worker off building roads right behind the settler, so he can then stick a pasture down straight away? We're going to need a 2nd worker at some point, whatever we do.

Loving this so far guys - I think we're coping reasonably, and its strangely enjoyable just sitting discussing a game most of us haven't played in yet!