SGOTM 01 - Short Straw

[Danthor]

How do we feel about the use of the "avoid growth" button on the city management menu?

Good. As long as it is activated the city will not grow, no matter how many surplus food there is.

 

[ungy]

Danthor-
nice going with the war.

RTB--good plans. As far as tech goes, my guess is that we will be late on COL for religion so I would lean alpha after writing.

As much as I'd like to get a 3rd settler out I don't think we can break from either the pyramids or the WC. I'd vote at least one chop on the pyramids as getting a few turns early will allow both cities to grow as well as get 3rd started earlier.

not sure if it makes sense to put city 3 near Cat--if we on plan we can take ST Pet before getting another settler out and then blocking her irrelevant. So better to start to the east in one of the better locations.

as far as city locations 4e and 5e of memphis both have advantages. either one will spot us the other side of the mountain. 5E vs 4E is -2 health, -1 hill, -1 FP but +fish and +1 coast +1 ocean and + mystery. 4E is also 1 closer
and shares more with Memphis. with all these FP health could be a problem so we might not use the extra fish food.

As far as the war goes--we might be very well positioned to pick off archers with WC as they advance onto the bronze. Obviously we learn a lot more from scouting so u will have a better handle on strategy --ungy

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Okay,
I've looked through the posts and will chop for the pyramids. After pyramids, a settler will be started in Thebes. This won't be finished during my turn so positioning can be debated later. I will keep St. Pete's and sue for peace if Cat does something stupid and I can try.

finish mysticism, then writing, and start alphabet. Hopefully, we can get open boarders with cat after the war and find neighbours we can start trading with.

RtB

 

[Lmtoops]

Okay,
I've looked through the posts and will chop for the pyramids. After pyramids, a settler will be started in Thebes. This won't be finished during my turn so positioning can be debated later. I will keep St. Pete's and sue for peace if Cat does something stupid and I can try.

finish mysticism, then writing, and start alphabet. Hopefully, we can get open boarders with cat after the war and find neighbours we can start trading with.
RtB

I would only chop 1 forest, but that is up to you.

We don't have St. Pete, yet. If St. Pete has only archers, we need 5-6 WC to take it (I'm not running the numbers, just drawing on my vast experience ). If the have a spearman, we will need 2 additional WC. Until all the WC are in place, they can pick off archers that are headed towards the copper.

 

[Grogs]

as far as city locations 4e and 5e of memphis both have advantages. either one will spot us the other side of the mountain. 5E vs 4E is -2 health, -1 hill, -1 FP but +fish and +1 coast +1 ocean and + mystery. 4E is also 1 closer and shares more with Memphis. with all these FP health could be a problem so we might not use the extra fish food.

Yeah, I guess that pretty well sums up why I recommended 4e vs. 5e. Getting the +2 health from the river will help, and at size 8 it can churn out 17-20 hpt. It could be our military production center for the remainder of the game. The health issue definitely becomes a problem when you start putting things like forges, drydocks, and coal plants in the cities. In my last SG (Emp. level) we were hurting so badly on health resources we couldn't even build factories in our cities. We're doing a bit better for resources here though, since we've got rice, cattle, fish, and clams to play with.

As for the 'Turn On Avoid Growth' button, I'm not a big fan for a couple of reasons. First, we can use that excess pop. to rush production (we have to switch to slavery, but we're spiritual so we can do it at any time with no anarchy.) Second is I always forget to turn the darn thing off. I've lost 30 turns of growth in a city because I forgot it was on. If the button would only avoid growth if it would make the city unhappy, I'd like it a lot better.

EDIT: Looking at the save a little more, once we get a sizable force near St. Pete (3 chariots or so) we probably want to lay siege. If we can park chariots on top of the decent tiles (copper/cows/grass-hill) she won't be able to build more defenders in the city. If the city is connected back to Moscow, cutting that road would also help our effort and hopefully make her a softer target when we're ready to go in.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

A quick summary of my turn at the wheel. Some good some bad.
The good - Pyramids are complete.
Scout chariot discovered a second source of copper and prevented hookup.
No horses or metal for Cat means only archers.

The bad - We appear to be on an island with Cat. No other neighbours mean I probably should have switched from Alphabet to Fishing/Sailing.
Cat is keeping 3 archers in St. Pete's so I've been unable to mount an assault. She keeps whipping more archers. A few archers have been picked off and we have a few upgraded chariots (2 flanking, 1 power2) but she is sending the fourth archer out to attack not the third.
I wasted Danthor's fine military start and a couple of warriors trying to get Cat to move archers out of St. Pete's.

I'll add a turn log now:

Turn 80 (Continuation of Danthor's turn):
Move chariot #1 to cow pasture to start sweeping past St. Pete's.

Turn81
Farm completed near Thebes move worker 1 w to chop river grassland forest.
Chariot #1 west of St. Pete's

Turn82
chariot#2 produced in memphis start chariot #3
start moving fog buster back to memphis (I forgot now 1 turn of unhappiness - my bad)
chariot 1 passes St. Pete's to begin scouting

Cat produces a 3rd archer in St. Pete's which moves to copper square.

Turn83
worker 1 starts cottaging floodplains
worker 2 road at mine (will need later to hook up rice)
fog buster back in memphis
ruski worker finishes road to russian boarder
chariot #2 arrives on top of worker and decide to attack archer for promotion before in attacks warriors - chariot defeats archer (2.2 strength left)

russian archer attacks and kills chariot #2 (str 1.3) Only one archer left in St. Pete's but I don't have forces in place to take advantage.

Turn 84 Warrior #1 killed attacking archer (str 0.4)
Warrior #4 kills archer (str 0.7)
Ruskie worker builds road nw of Thebes to optimize route to front.
chariot #1 discovers Moscow (3 archers + a settler) so far so good.

Turn85 Chariot #3 produced in Memphis heads toward front
Warrior #4 back to WOP
Catherine offers peace (Moscow, St. Pete's and Novogorad are her cities)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=127062&stc=1&d=1147886572
cat says hi.JPG

Turn86 Mysticism discovered start writing
Chariot #1 finds a second source of copper! No mine yet will explore a bit more then guard.
Worker 2 chops W of Thebes
worker 3 finishes chop N of Thebes

Turn87 Worker 1 and Ruski worker S of Memphis to chop chariots
Chariot #1 finds Novogorad
Turn88 Chariot #4 produced start #5
worker 3 and ruskii start chop for chariot
Chariot #1 parks on copper
Chariot #3 starts flanking St. Pete's to watch horses.

catherine makes a third archer in St. Pete's and moves it to copper

Turn89 Chariot #4 to front

Turn90 Chariot #4 attacks archer win (2.2str 6/5exp) and withdraws to WOP
Forest chopped S of Memphis.
ruski worker starts cottage

Turn91 chariot #5 produced in Memphis
worker 2 cottage N of Thebes
worker 1 to forest nw of Thebes
worker 3 help cottage with ruski
chariot #4 promoted (Flanking) rest

barb warrior appears NE of horses

Turn92 chariot #6 produced
chariot #6 attacks barb (win,promotion and no damage)
worker 1 chop NW of Thebes
chariot #5 to copper (try to draw out an archer)
chariot #4 rest (1 more turn needed to heal)
chariot #1 explore (workers are camping in novogorad)
chariot #3 SW of St.Pete's watching horses

Turn93
chariot#6 Flanking promotion
ruski worker to river plains SE of Memphis for cottage
Memphis to no growth
Turn94 chariot #7 in Memphis
oracle built in a far away land
cottaging around cities
Turn95 Pyramids in Thebes! start warrior for garrison. Switch from mine to FP cottage for more pop growth.
Short Straw adopts Representation
Short Straw adopts Slavery
Switch Memphis back to growth
chariots 4,5,6,7 to copper with warrior 4

Turn96 warrior 4 to cows as sacrifice to draw 3rd archer out of St. Pete's (try 5 chariots vs 2 archers)
worker 2 to rice (need hooked up now for Thebes - spent too long building cottages)

I'm an idiot! I forgot to pillage the road to the cows. Archer kills warrior and retreats to St. Pete. Just to spite me Cat whips a fourth archer in St. Pete.

Turn97 Writing start alphabet.
Confucianism is founded in distant land
chariot #8 start #9
thebes completes warrior (garison) and starts granary (1 turn to grow before switching to settler)
finish surrounding St. Pete.
chariot 5 cuts St. Pete off from Moscow

archer attacks chariot #3 defeated (no damage + promotion)
Turn98 switch Thebes to settler
promote chariot #3 to power2

Turn99 ruski worker goes to help rice hookup
chariot #9 produced

Wait its 1000BC so I missed a turn somewhere in my log, I'll hand the game over now.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=127064&stc=1&d=1147887534
end Overview.JPG

Team Short Straw:
Grogs
Mushroonshirt
Lmtoops
Danthor
RobertTheBruce - Just Played
llib_rm - Up
VirusMonster - On Deck
Ungy

I don't know how to include a link to the save so I'll leave that to someone else.

 

[Grogs]

Confucianism is founded in distant land

Not just in a distant land, it was founded by the Inca. That's great news! Now we know who we're going to try and steal our religion from.

Good set of turns RTB. It looks like we've nearly got the forces to take St. Pete, especially if she'll send the 3rd archer out again. If not, we may want to get a couple more down there just to make sure. The fact she's offering us peace is a good sign. If we can keep the war going long enough to get Alphabet, we may be able to extort a couple of techs for peace. Great news on the Pyramids as well. We can go to 7/6 on city size now, 8/7 if we can get ahold of the gems.

Also, I'm not sure how you concluded we're all alone on an island though. There's still unexplored land SW of Moscow and I can see FP's in the fog west of there. Rostov must be W of Moscow as well, judging by the cultural boundaries.

I can see health is going to be an issue (Thebes is already unhealthy, at least until we hook up the rice) so we probably need to research fishing after Alphabet (unless we can trade/extort it) to hook up those fish by Memphis.

llib_rm is supposed to be next, but since he's still out of town until tomorrow/Friday, I'd like to pull VirusMonster up to play next.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Also, I'm not sure how you concluded we're all alone on an island though. There's still unexplored land SW of Moscow and I can see FP's in the fog west of there. Rostov must be W of Moscow as well, judging by the cultural boundaries.

You're right. I'm just suspicious we are alone. Cat has writing so I assume she would have open boarders with any other neighbour. I didn't see any scouts wandering around her lands and 1000BC is getting pretty late on Monarch for the AI to still be exploring the continent.

Maybe its another massive pangea like the last GOTM.

 

[Grogs]

You're right. I'm just suspicious we are alone. Cat has writing so I assume she would have open boarders with any other neighbour. I didn't see any scouts wandering around her lands and 1000BC is getting pretty late on Monarch for the AI to still be exploring the continent.

You're right, that makes sense. I still think Huayna has to be somewhere, at least within galley range. It would make no sense to start the game locked in a war we can't even meet until Optics.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

You're right, that makes sense. I still think Huayna has to be somewhere, at least within galley range. It would make no sense to start the game locked in a war we can't even meet until Optics.

Who knows what the designers thought. Then again we may want to send a work boat past that strange screening range of mountains to see if there is more last just east of our civ.

 

[Lmtoops]

Who knows what the designers thought. Then again we may want to send a work boat past that strange screening range of mountains to see if there is more last just east of our civ.

Many, many posts ago, someone mentioned their suspicion about that mountain range. Given that it's a fractional map, it could be the luck of the draw, but I bet there is something there.

When time permits, we could send a bout out there. Right now, we don't have the excess capacity to chase that theory.

 

[Lmtoops]

RTB, well played turns.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Any hints from someone on how to rename the units (warrior1, war chariot #2, etc.)? I'm embarrassed to say that I can't figure out how to do it...

EDIT: PS looks like we are in great shape to take St. Pete's and to crush Russia!

 

[Danthor]

Any hints from someone on how to rename the units (warrior1, war chariot #2, etc.)? I'm embarrassed to say that I can't figure out how to do it...

EDIT: PS looks like we are in great shape to take St. Pete's and to crush Russia!

Select the unit then click on its name (on the lower left box).

 

[ungy]

Nice going Robert--seems like we are on plan here.

Just to cast a STRONG vote for putting city#3 up north either 4E or 5E of Memphis. Probably 4E is better in the short run as health will be trouble soon. We don't need to block off territory from Cat--St. Pt will do that. What we do need is to get our economy going and that means cottages and that city will grow fast. A side bonus is that we will expose the other side of the mountain without having to sail over there. I know this is farfetched, but there is a small chance that our "friend" is within galley range on the other side of the mountains and if he settles our spot were screwed.

I would put city 4 SE, 1S of Thebes next


I would also recommend staying at war until we can get tech unless we get war weary.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Nice going Robert--seems like we are on plan here.

Just to cast a STRONG vote for putting city#3 up north either 4E or 5E of Memphis. Probably 4E is better in the short run as health will be trouble soon. We don't need to block off territory from Cat--St. Pt will do that. What we do need is to get our economy going and that means cottages and that city will grow fast. A side bonus is that we will expose the other side of the mountain without having to sail over there. I know this is farfetched, but there is a small chance that our "friend" is within galley range on the other side of the mountains and if he settles our spot were screwed.

I would put city 4 SE, 1S of Thebes next


I would also recommend staying at war until we can get tech unless we get war weary.

This city spot (4E of Memphis) does have the additional advantage that it's a killer production city with all the plains hills.

I like your argument that capturing St. Pete's will block Cat. We just need to make sure we capture that city in the next 10-20 turns.

From Grogs' city post http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4055653&postcount=117 It looks like you are proposing
1. Blue
2. Pink
3. ?

I would propose
1. Blue
2. Red (let's start a GP / settler farm and build some cottages & a library at Thebes?)
3. Green
4. Pink
5. Purple

I am curious why you like the pink city (or one near it) so much? (assuming you mean SW and not SE?)

I know Confucianism is already taken, but how do people feel about code of laws after alphabet and fishing? courthouses could help us keep the war effort going without having to build too many cottages or razing any of Catherine's cities.

 

[Grogs]

From Grogs' city post http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4055653&postcount=117 It looks like you are proposing
1. Blue
2. Pink
3. ?

I would propose
1. Blue
2. Red (let's start a GP / settler farm and build some cottages & a library at Thebes?)
3. Green
4. Pink
5. Purple

I think you guys are talking about the same spot. Ungy's directions are a bit confusing, but the description sounds the same. The pink site is pretty worthless until IW, and not much better until calendar, so it's definitely a ways down the road.

I agree also with the blue city. We can farm a FP (2NE of Thebes I believe) and have it ready by the time the settler gets there. Then farm another FP and work that once the city grows to size 2, then mine 2 plains hills. At size 3, we put 2 citizens on the plains hills until a granary is finished. All told, we can have that city to size 3 and have a granary built in 24 turns. After that, we can use it for whatever we need, be it military production, more settlers, workers, or whatever. Also, once the city's cultural borders expand, we should be able to see over the mountains, at least 1 tile, and maybe get a better idea if there's land down there.

Also, I think a GP city would be good for our 4th (or 5th if we can grab St. Pete!) We just want to make sure that, since we've grabbed the pyramids, Thebes produces the first GP. A Great Engineer could grab the Great Library for us. Combined with Republic, that would help our research a lot.

 

[ungy]

I am curious why you like the pink city (or one near it) so much? (assuming you mean SW and not SE?)

we are talking about the same city

 

[ungy]

I agree also with the blue city. We can farm a FP (2NE of Thebes I believe) and have it ready by the time the settler gets there. Then farm another FP and work that once the city grows to size 2, then mine 2 plains hills. At size 3, we put 2 citizens on the plains hills until a granary is finished. All told, we can have that city to size 3 and have a granary built in 24 turns. After that, we can use it for whatever we need, be it military production, more settlers, workers, or whatever. Also, once the city's cultural borders expand, we should be able to see over the mountains, at least 1 tile, and maybe get a better idea if there's land down there.

3 words: cottages, cottages, cottages. We may be alone here with Cat who will be easy to finish off sooner or later. What we need to do is build our economy. Eventually the AI will start trading with each other and if there is a large continent we are at risk of falling way behind in tech. So I would not farm anything and get 2 more cities going with max cottages. Even the GP city I would cottage the FP--we will be size and health as well as #specs for a while. we can always irrigate later.

BTW I assume we will eventually settle on the grassland above the southern mountain so if we put city 4 out of reach of the clam(desert hill) to get the +2 health we will still work the clam.

 

[Lmtoops]

Where is virusmonster? It's been 24 hours and he is not checking the the sub-forum. He last posted in our team thread on May 13th.

We can skip him and move on to Ungy. If virusmonster shows up, he can play next time around.

Leo