SGOTM 01 - Peanut

[civ_steve]

Yes, I'm up and I've 'got-it'.

Everyone's had 2 turns at the helm, so either order is fine. We can work to the most recent turn sequence and rearrange if someone needs to swap or delay their turn.

I'll post some more coherent questions tomorrow, and plan to play tomorrow night.

I'd just as soon save 2 gpt if possible, so the WC move (and occasionally checking the Finance Advisor) looks like a good one. Also, scouting for additional land masses - more contacts.

More questions or statements tomorrow.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I'd just as soon save 2 gpt if possible, so the WC move (and occasionally checking the Finance Advisor) looks like a good one.

Just to clarify, I think it's 1 gpt for the 2 WCs: the unit supply cost is 1 gpt per 2 units outside your borders (above the 4 free units).

 

[civ_steve]

OK, 1 gpt saved.

I've looked at the save and have a better understanding of our status. I need some clarification on our research goals for now; it seems that Mathmatics (more shields from Forest chops, Aquaduct) and MetalCasting (forge) are the options; Mathmatics can get us to Civil Service and Macemen; MetalCasting to Guilds and Knights. I'm inclined to go for MetalCasting and see if we can trade for Math along the way.

Near term - develop our cities, prepare for a WC/Swords assault on Cyrus, scout the India/Persia continent and see if there are more lands to reach.

Regarding GPP, Academy in Thebes should be useful; if we have reasonably easy access to other lands, this might not be a major thrust of our game.

I notice that we were paired with Catherine, and India is paired with Cyrus. I expect one more continent, HC paired with another civ.

Anything else?

 

[DaviddesJ]

Since we're halfway to Metal Casting (Phabuk turned our research rate up for a while, then back down), we have no real choice at this point but to continue toward that goal.

Gandhi has Mathematics, at some point he will be willing to trade it to us.

Note there are 7 total civs, I believe. Two on our continent, two on the Cyrus/Gandhi continent, and three more undiscovered (including Huayna Capac).

Unless we have some reason not to do so, we should, relatively soon, assign two scientists somewhere, so we can at least get our first GP and either use it for an academy or for research. It doesn't have to be in our "ultimate GP city"; we can always shift to a different GP city later. Heliopolis is the best GP city location, but it doesn't have a library (and won't for some time).

BTW, Memphis should be working a floodplain for growth and income, not the mine.

 

[civ_steve]

Metal Casting it is. The F8 screen (I think its F8) showed 5 Rivals to eliminate for Conquest, but that might have been existing rivals.

I've taken note to review the cities for good use of terrain.

Still at work, so sometime tonight I should be able to play.

BTW, I noticed yesterday that we were leading the Spam count with 2.08 posts per turn played! Some players contend that high Spam count is an indication of superior play. I don't fall in that camp ... but it is a sign that the team is performing a lot of discussion, which is a good thing.

 

[civ_steve]

Turns are finished -

Turn 0 - 400 BC
Switch Memphis around to work 2 more Floodplains - Axe is delayed for more Commerce
Thebes - switch from Farm to cottaged Floodplains, Worker still in 6
Elephantine - move from Plains Hill to Plains Forest
Switch PI-Ramses to Granary
Sci at 40% - MetCast in 13 turns
Most cities have pop-rushed recently
Move Settler SW towards Moscow area - make available for push into Persia

Turn 1 - 385 BC
Moscow completes Worker --> Axeman
Workers are Cottaging near Moscow and Memphis, roading to Novgorod and Iron near PiRamses
Scouting with Workboat and 1 Galley (and 2 WC's) is on-going

Turn 2 - 370 BC
Adjust Heliopolis for no growth (would cause Unhappy citizen)

Turn 3 - 355 BC
Heliopolis finishes Lighthouse --> Worker
Iron is connected - Switch Moscow to Swords
2 more turns for Axe in Memphis, so let it finish then go to Sword

Costs have increase 6 gpt over the last few turns - mostly in Civic Upkeep, and some City Maintenance
Adjust Sci to 30% - +2 gpt and 14 for MetCast

Turn 4 - 340 BC
Moses is born far away

St Pete's finishes Galley --> Barracks
Novgorod finishes Granary --> Galley
Interesting - our Galley can enter Ocean, if it's within Gandhi's cultural radius (or anyone elses, I suppose)

HC knows Metal Casting
Workers start chopping Jungles near Nov and PiRam

(IBT Gandhi asks for Alphabet - we say no)

Turn 5 - 325 BC
Mahavira has been born in a far away land!

Gandhi completes Great Lighthouse (we still had 18 turns to go!)
Pop rush Sword in Moscow

Turn 6 - 310 BC
We get 104 gold from Great Lighthouse build, research to 50%
Thebes completes Worker, starts on Sword
Put 2 Citizens of Thebes into the Labs as Scientists

Cyrus has Iron 2 spaces North of Persepolis; a Worker is roading the space, a mine can't be far behind!
Cyrus has 2 Archers in Pasargadae, 2 Archers (now) in Arbela and 3 Archers in Persepolis

Gandhi completes Temple of Solomon

Turn 7 - 295 BC
Tarsus has been founded on Coast between Persep and Susa - 1 Archer defending
Attack Units are being loaded
Alexandria finishes its Lighthouse, and starts Working Coast spaces

Turn 8 - 280 BC
Worker is Mining Cyrus' Copper

Turn 9 - 400 BC
Advance units towards Persia coast

Turn 10 - 400 BC
Jungle cleared near PiRamses - start on Cottage
Finish Cottage on cleared Jungle near Nov - move towards hills for Mining

end of log

Cyrus's Eastern holdings have been scouted - he has 5 cities, and nothing but Archers present. 3 Archers in Persepolis, with no promotions. He is working Iron and Copper, but they aren't mined and connected yet.

We still have 2 WC's scouting around - I've been positioning them for expulsion. 3 Galleys are along the Persian coast - containing 3 WCs, 2 Axes and a Sword. We certainly can start operations against Persia - where is a good question. The 6 units plus a 7th (southernmost scout WC) should take Persepolis; perhaps this force can then go up the coast while additional units (as built and brought over) can start at Arbela, raze it to build on Incense, then go down the coast. This would definitely prevent him from getting any use of his Iron. The Northernmost WC can probably prevent the Copper from being connected.

We are 2 turns away from Learning Metal Casting. Thebes is accumulating GPP for now.

Over to you, ainwood!

250 BC Save

 

[DaviddesJ]

I'm away from home, and I forgot to bring my Civ4 disk with me, so I won't be able to look at the save for another 30 hours or so.

I think we should have given Gandhi Alphabet when he asked for it?

 

[civ_steve]

I didn't see a negative diplomatic effect for denying him his request. Also, since we're in locked peace mode with him, I'm not sure how that interacts with typical diplomatic effects. If we're going to give it to him, I'd just as soon trade it, perferably for Math, but that is still not an option.

Alternatively, we're about to learn Metal Casting. In my (limited) experience, giving Techs to an AI may sometimes open the door to trade Techs that are currently non-tradeable. If we gave Alphabet to the Indians, and traded it to Cyrus for the 2 Techs he'll trade with us (make the Trade first, just before declaring War), that might please Gandhi enough that Mathmatics will be available for trade once we learn Metal Casting.

As far as India goes, I think the trick here is not to let them capture too much land. They're up to 15% of available land. I don't think we want them to be involved with the war against Cyrus - we want to control that land, not the Indians. We may also want to see if we can ship Settlers over to any open territory and try to take it before Gandhi does. And at some point we may want to take territory culturally away from India; if so we'll eventually want Drama.

 

[DaviddesJ]

How fast can we realistically get to Communism? It's not all that far past Astronomy. One approach to fastest victory is to try to form Permanent Alliance with Gandhi. In that case we don't really care how big he gets, as long as he likes us enough.

I'm (pleasantly) surprised if we didn't get the -2 penalty for "You refused to help us." I think, however we proceed, keeping Gandhi as happy as possible with us is important (whether it's for forming permanent alliance, or getting him to join wars, or give or trade technologies to us), so my instinct is to say yes if he makes a demand. If we gave him Alphabet, we'd still have Metal Casting (soon) to trade for Mathematics.

I haven't really ever played the diplo game though (and never with permanent alliances enabled).

 

[civ_steve]

What does Permanent Alliance do? Are we talking about switching to a diplo victory? We'd still need to research to Fission in that case. We need a lot more Cottages!

I'm fairly confident that gifting Alphabet will gain us a Math for Metal Casting trade (not 100% but fairly certain).

 

[MailMan]

permanent alliance affects the game play in several levels:

- sharing the victory conditions:
both our lands will count for domination
both out population will count for diplo win
the top 3 cities of both our empires will count to cultural (if it was relevant)
we share score, space ship parts and we do not have to kill each other to win conquest.

- research:
we share our technologies
we can either research the same thing together, or two thing apart
we can ask him what to research
I believe that the research cost is increased to balance this.

- we fight wars together
we can ask him to attack specific targets.

- we also share some other stuff
wonders effects
visibility
he will give us any resource that will ask of him (even if it his last)

 

[DaviddesJ]

For our purposes, the relevant effect of Permanent Alliance is that it lets us combine our pop and area with Gandhi for purpose of achieving Domination victory (which is our goal). In case that's easier than directly claiming all the territory we need, or if Gandhi gets too big and we can't.

If we're trying to get Gandhi to trade more with us, perhaps we should start by converting to Judiasm. We're going to do this eventually. We can first trade Alphabet to Cyrus for whatever we can get? It doesn't matter after that if he dislikes us, if we're going to attack him soon.

 

[civ_steve]

Sound good! Looks like we need Astronomy either way, and a Permanent Alliance helps out for either VC.

 

[ainwood]

OK - I probably can't play for another 36 hours, and haven't looked at the save either. I'll try to check it tonight, and then formulate what to do in the turnset. Input welcome.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I don't think Diplomatic Victory is on the table at this point: I'm sure we can achieve domination faster than we can build the UN.

Astronomy can be achieved quite early with a beeline research strategy: it doesn't have many prereqs and it's highly valued by Great Scientists so you can get them to pay for most of it.

The fastest route to Domination may be to get Astronomy and soon after shut down research and pour $$$ into upgrading a large stockpile of cheap prebuilds, then at some point crank up culture to control territory. This conflicts with going for Permanent Alliance, though, so we will have to make a decision at some point.

One team finished in the early 1600s, I think. We certainly should be able to do better than that.

 

[DaviddesJ]

A couple of quibbles with the last save:

Moscow is working rice instead of cows, which is costing it 2 hammers, in favor of 1 extra food that we don't need (because we're at the happiness limit anyway).

Heliopolis is working an unimproved floodplain, when it could be working a floodplain/hamlet instead (Thebes could shift its citizen to a different hamlet), or at least a floodplain/cottage.

Elephantine has one citizen that isn't assigned at all!

The mine east of Alexandria will never, ever be useful.

Memphis should probably build WCs rather than Swordsmen, just because the latter take so long to get into action. It looks like we're going for a quick attack, we want to throw lots of troops into action quickly, it doesn't matter if we lose several (since once Cyrus is gone it looks like we won't be fighting again for a long time).

It would be nice to connect up our rice resource. Why did we build the road to Novgorod through the hills (where it doesn't do anything for us) instead of through the rice?

 

[DaviddesJ]

Looking at the save position, I think we should go for the quick attack on Cyrus before he gets metal. I would declare war next turn. Move the galleys near Susa 1 space SW (which puts them outside Cyrus's borders), then declare war, then grab his worker with one or more units off the boats. Also move the galley near Arbela 2 spaces S before declaring war.

The WC west of Susa may be able to grab the worker there, depending on where it moves this turn.

The WC near Tarsus should be able to move back toward the iron hill and either capture that worker or drive it away. Cyrus is in a very weak position because he doesn't really have any units that can go on offense against us.

We could take Susa, but it's not such a prize (in the short term it will cost us more than it gains us) so we would probably raze it. Or maybe we should just ignore it and drive south. The purpose of declaring war at this time isn't so much to grab cities, as to make sure he never gets metal which will make him easy to kill, and to disrupt his economy.

Before we declare war on Cyrus, I would go ahead and trade Alphabet to him for whatever we can get. Then I would convert to Judaism and see how much that helps our relationship with Gandhi. It would obviously be nice to get Mathematics. If we declare war on Cyrus, then there's also no reason not to give Alphabet to Gandhi (if we can get Math or something useful for it); he doesn't have anyone else to trade with, and we would rather he research something we want, rather than researching Alphabet himself.

 

[DaviddesJ]

P.S. We can get Metal Casting in 1 turn by pushing research up to 60%. We should go ahead and do that. I don't know if there's any advantage in getting Metal Casting before we declare war, but there's certainly no disadvantage. Might be useful in trading.

Then we should put research down to 0% for quite some time. Note that we'll still get some research from our specialists. We do have to decide what to put that into. The choices that make sense to me are: Code of Laws, Currency, or Calendar. I like Currency more than some other people because it gives an immediate income boost at no cost (through extra trade routes), it creates the possibility of perhaps getting some gold from Gandhi through trading, it gives a discount toward Code of Laws. This obviously works best if Gandhi researches Calendar, and we can trade Currency (or something else) for Calendar.

We have to get Priesthood or Mathematics, of course, to research any of these.

Literature is also an option, I suppose.

 

[civ_steve]

Sorry about Elephantine! I was reassigning citizens and my computer is really bad about selecting a citizen to be taken out or put back into a space; I didn't notice that one specialist had been created.

Alexandria - I should not have let the Worker finish the mine; only one space other than coast can ever be used by Alexandria, and that will always be the Silver.

Good points about Moscow and Heliopolis.

Road through Rice - ; that would be better

War plan sounds good. Another round to position Galleys and WC's should just about do it. If we plan to go for Permanent Alliance with India, razing Susa should be fine. No doubt we can either harass or capture the workers, and pillage Cyrus' resource before he can do anything about it. I switched St Pete's to Barracks to give us 2 good production cities in the South for Ground Units and Novgorod to Galley production. Memphis in the North is a good production center but it is very far away. WC's at Memphis sound good for quicker access to the South and to Cyrus and will give us more Horse based units to decide what to do with later in the game.

Hopefully gifting Alphabet to India will open up a MC for Math trade in a few turns. (BTW, I like the thinking that this will ensure India ISN'T researching Alphabet and probably researching something useful for us!) Currency sounds OK - I like the extra trade route per city and per DaviddesJ's discussion, a trade for Calendar would be great.

Going for Astronomy - requires Optics and Calendar; Optics requires Compass and we have to research Machinery. Our first Great Scientist will give us Compass (I believe?), so if we trade for Calendar, we can go Machinery, then Optics, next Astronomy. Is research of Currency beneficial enough on our path to Astronomy to justify the cost, or should we go for Machinery next and try to trade for Currency later? It looks like Astronomy will be required to reach the other civs and Currency may delay that up to 20 or so turns.

Good Luck, ainwood!

 

[ainwood]

Shouldn't we use our first GS for an academy?