SGOTM 01 - Short Straw

[mushroomshirt]

Exactly, for only 1 extra hammer (plus 1 less commerce) the lost working turns is big. Well, not THAT big, but still important enough to notice it.

Good point, I hadn't thought of the commerce.

 

[ungy]

Couple of thoughts: as we will have BW before our settler is out if there is bronze over towards Catherine I would vote for putting our second city there and then building another settler immediately to get the good spot up north

also not trying to nitpick but we'd be better off working a FP than the stone until we get the mine up.

as for general strategy--I would give stonehenge a pass and strongly favor building pyramids. I think we have a good chance to build pyramids AND take out Catherine pretty quick with WC unless she gets copper hooked up pretty quick. --ungy

 

[mushroomshirt]

also not trying to nitpick but we'd be better off working a FP than the stone until we get the mine up.

Yep, per my last post I had neglected to think about commerce. Luckily we have only been working that square for one turn. I can't have done too much damage.

 

[llib_rm]

Folks, I will be traveling and unavailable to play until Thursday, most likely Friday. If my turn comes up, feel free to drop me to the end of the rotation. I may be able to check in on ocassion. Thanks.

 

[Danthor]

Who's up now?

 

[Lmtoops]

I'm back from the weekend, and I see it's my turn. I've read through the posts, and have looked at the thread...and King Leo has played his 20 turns...not really

On Turn 1, I will change Thebes to work the unimproved FP.

Also, I think warrior1 and warrior2 can wait to see if Lion will disappear into the unknown before I venture onto the grassland. I don't see any urgency in exploring Cathrine's area; I sure she has popped any nearby goody huts. I would like to get a map of the area, but all in good time.

The big things going on during my turn(along with my thoughts) are:

Worker will road the mined stone, and then advance to the City2 cow(1,1) and build the pasture. I'm thinking about stopping the mining of the stones, immediately. It sounds like we are going to build the Pyramids (that is my vote). With that in mind, we will have masonry soon and will need to build a quarry. Please give my your thoughts.

Settler build in 13t. Settler will advance to the coastal plain site (-1,2). First build should be Barracks(?). City will work the improved plain Cow(1,1).

Techs: BW in 8t. What to build after? Pottery or Masonry. I vote Pottery.

Explore Southern territory with minimal risk.

What does Thebes build after the Settler? It sounds like most of us want to target building the Pyramids. Does this effect our next build? I think a 2nd worker makes sense.

 

[Lmtoops]

Oh, and our last long lost teammate, Mahatmajon, has answered my PM. He is interested in playing.He also PMed AlanH. Although it is technically not too late, I think our team is big enough. So a quick vote as to whether Mahatmajon is IN or OUT. I vote OUT.

 

[Danthor]

Worker will road the mined stone, and then advance to the City2 cow(1,1) and build the pasture. I'm thinking about stopping the mining of the stones, immediately. It sounds like we are going to build the Pyramids (that is my vote). With that in mind, we will have masonry soon and will need to build a quarry. Please give my your thoughts.

I'm agree!

Settler build in 13t. Settler will advance to the coastal plain site (-1,2). First build should be Barracks(?). City will work the improved plain Cow(1,1).

Techs: BW in 8t. What to build after? Pottery or Masonry. I vote Pottery.

I vote Masonry.

What does Thebes build after the Settler? It sounds like most of us want to target building the Pyramids. Does this effect our next build? I think a 2nd worker makes sense.

Maybe the second worker can come from city 2 so we can focus on Pyramids (and make sure we're not beaten to it).
What about stonehenge?, I'm pretty sure we can get both.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Worker will road the mined stone, and then advance to the City2 cow(1,1) and build the pasture. I'm thinking about stopping the mining of the stones, immediately. It sounds like we are going to build the Pyramids (that is my vote). With that in mind, we will have masonry soon and will need to build a quarry. Please give my your thoughts.

Oh well, there is only one turn of work there anyway. Let me make one last pitch for the mining of the stone. If you do go pottery next it may be a while before you build the quarry (at least 20 turns or so to get those two techs). The extra hammer could come in very handy (particularly if we move to pyramids or Stonehenge - as Danthor pointed out floodplains are almost as good for building workers/settlers). Plus it will take a few turns just to get back to the floodplains. We can always build a quarry later on top of the mine. Anyway that's the last I'll say about it - I promise! I really wasn't trying to do something that would be so controversial.

 

[Lmtoops]

Oh well, there is only one turn of work there anyway. Let me make one last pitch for the mining of the stone. If you do go pottery next it may be a while before you build the quarry (at least 20 turns or so to get those two techs). The extra hammer could come in very handy (particularly if we move to pyramids or Stonehenge - as Danthor pointed out floodplains are almost as good for building workers/settlers). Plus it will take a few turns just to get back to the floodplains. We can always build a quarry later on top of the mine. Anyway that's the last I'll say about it - I promise! I really wasn't trying to do something that would be so controversial.

Mostly a matter of changing priorities. Before, we were not going to go for Masonry in the near future...but that has changed. By targeting the Pyramids, we need masonry. Also, we need to get the Stone connected for the 100% build bonus...which requires a Quarry.

 

[ungy]

Pottery or Masonry. I vote Pottery.

I would vote masonry. While I want to start spamming cottages, I think we have a lot to do with our workers now(pastures and road connect for city 2, and quarry) and won't get to cottages for a while anyway. I don't think we need granaries in the near future


What does Thebes build after the Settler? It sounds like most of us want to target building the Pyramids. Does this effect our next build? I think a 2nd worker makes sense.[/QUOTE]

sounds good unless we see bronze near Catherine. if so i think either settle city 2or 3 there and in either case build another settler before worker. --ungy

 

[RobertTheBruce]

I think a second worker makes sense and a second city at the horse and cow site regardless of copper. The map layout suggests we may never see any barbs and we are planning the first war with chariots not axes.
I don't think Thebes is the best choice for the pyramids. If we are serious about building them before a war with Catherine then city 2 is probably a better choice and will expand quickly with 2 cows.
Cottaging around Thebes for commerce after improving tiles for city 2 and focusing on Alphabet to extort techs and Math for chopping the pyramids.
If copper appears near the cow,clam ithmus site; then an aggressive expansion toward Catherine for city 3 is probably necessary.
I'm not too excited about immediately heading for the pyramids and giving Catherine too much time to grow cities. She is creative and we are going to have to throw a lot of chariots at cities with 40% and 60% cultural defence if we wait too long.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

This is an interesting map. With Moscow's placement, it looks like we will have to commit to destroying Russia before we discover if we are on a small continent with possibly ony 2 civs or a large continent with more.

 

[Grogs]

I ran some numbers and I think if we decide to go now and really focus our efforts on the pyramids, we can finish them at turn 96/7 (1120/1090 BC.) That's fast, and frankly I'd be pretty surprised if we got beaten on an Emperor game (and this is Monarch.) I attached a spreadsheet to give an idea of how that would work. It may be pretty cryptic to anybody but me though. We really need to commit now and stick with it if we want to go that way. The pyramids really aren't something we can dicker around with and still expect to get. Anything longer than turn 120-30, and we're running into a good chance the AI beats us.

Specifically, my plan would be:

• Our current worker stops mining and builds the 2 sections of road to connect the stone to Thebes. We'll need it hooked up soon
• Worker then moves up to the cow and begins a pasture.
• We research Masonry after BW. We have 8 turns left on BW and 13 for Masonry - 21 turns
• We build a 2nd worker after the settler finishes. He'll be done in 22 turns, right after masonry finishes
• 2nd worker moves to the stone (1 turn thanks to the roads) and quarries it (9 turns)
• After the 2nd worker, Thebes builds a 3rd to help with the 2 mines and a farm that need to be built quickly around Thebes.
• Thebes builds the pyramids, focusing on rapid growth initially which will add more citizens eventually getting pyramid production up to 34hpt
• Pyramids finish around turn 97.
• During this time, Memphis (2nd city) should have been able to build a barracks and 6-7 war chariots, a decent invasion force and should be producing a new one every 4 turns or so (but see below.)

I'd also like to recommend we move the planned location of Memphis to a spot 1SE of the horse. While the one on the coast would be a decent city at size 4, it doesn't have a lot of great tiles after that. The one I'm proposing will be an *awesome* production city all the way into the modern era (if we get that far.) That spot also lets our first worker move from the cow and start pasturing the horses the turn Memphis is laid down.

The pros of going for the pyramids are obvious: we get the pyramids. We can pick representation for the +2 happiness and 3bpt per specialist, or hereditary rule if we need a lot of happiness without having to rush to Monarchy.

The con is that we'll only have 2 cities after 100 turns. That's pretty slow expansion, but hopefully we can 'liberate' a couple of cities from Catherine shortly after and add a couple of our own.

 

[Grogs]

Sorry for double posting. I just wanted to separate the admin stuff from the gameplay stuff:

Oh, and our last long lost teammate, Mahatmajon, has answered my PM. He is interested in playing.He also PMed AlanH. Although it is technically not too late, I think our team is big enough. So a quick vote as to whether Mahatmajon is IN or OUT. I vote OUT.

I think Alan's is the one that counts ultimately, but yeah, I agree. With 9, we'll go 180 turns on our 1st rotation. 360 after 2 (assuming we stay at 20) and the game will be over by then if we're really on it.

@Danthor: I was reading through the rules thread and saw something about appointing a team scribe. I remember you had volunteered to do something along those lines in an earlier post, so if you'd still like to do it, that would be great. I think the scribe's main job is posting the team progress in the spoiler threads when we get to that point.

@All: Here's the current roster:

Grogs
Mushroomshirt - Just Played
Lmtoops - Up
Danthor - On Deck
RobertTheBruce
llib_rm
VirusMonster
Ungy

It's usually a good idea to post it with your log because people will forget who they follow, especially on the first rotation.

 

[AlanH]

I didn't want to take you up to nine either. I negotiated for Mahatmajon to join Realms Beyond, as they were at seven players.

 

[Lmtoops]

Danthor - Please be the Team Scribe.

I will play late tonight (in about 9 hours). So you have that time to get any last minute changes.

I think Grogs Pyramid plan is very good. I checked out the spreadsheet, and could not find any errors. I am very confident we will be the first to build the Great Pyramid. For the plan to work, we all must be committed to sticking to the build order.

Even if we find copper in the South and Catherine beats us too it...I have little worries. Hopefully, she picks a good city site for our next city. In any case, I think it's a good plan regardless of where the copper lies.

As per RobertheBruce comments regarding the map, I also think it is interesting. I still wonder if there is a thin (inaccessable) connection on the other side of the Eastern mountain range. In any case, we must go through Cathrine.

 

[Lmtoops]

I didn't want to take you up to nine either. I negotiated for Mahatmajon to join Realms Beyond, as they were at seven players.

AlanH, Thank you for taking care of this.

 

[Danthor]

Hurra! I'll be the scribe

 

[ungy]

as far as Catherine and the bronze--it was really more to keep it out of her hands. We will have a tough time with WC if she has bronze as we will see a lot of spears

would be nice to squeeze out a third city before war and cottage spam--we could be miles behind in tech if we alone with Cath and go all war. I guess we catch up quick tho. --ungy