SGOTM 01 - Smurkz

[Marc Aurel]

Something to the Victory Condition:
I think we should decide that later. Before 500 BC we cannot judge, if we get away without much fighting. If we have to fight OTOH we probably will build up a town throwing units out very fast. Then it might be just effective to push on to domination. So let's see later on. I don't want to hurt any relation in the early game (so far I can see now), since Huayna is probably enough for an enemy at the moment.

I had the same thought than Methos and zyxy about this strange mountain chain. I believe Huayna is on the other side. Knocking him out early will solve that problem and we can more likely chose the diplomatic route.

 

[zyxy]

The stone - with the stone in our direct reach - the question of early wonders arise.
Stonehenge ? After blocking we would have possibly time for such thing.
Contra: we would have no benefit from the obelisks (some more culture, but we do not go for a culture victory)
Pro: we get a Great Prophet. If we found one of the midterm religions we have it's Great building right there giving us a lot of gold, if we send missionaries around

Clever idea! We might get Taoism or Confucianism, and will likely be able to get Islam - ignored by the AI it seems.

Another option: do you think we could pull off the Pyramids? Looks like a very powerful wonder to me, as it gives access to all government types, but I have never tried it. For example, representation would be a useful early govt type, and Universal Suffrage seems very strong once our cottage industry is mature.

I’ve never quit understood the difference between being connected through irrigation, and self-irrigated. What difference is it game-wise? Is it affected differently later in the game by something?

The difference is 1 food. If you build a farm on the rice tile now, it counts as an unirrigated farm. Once we get the Civil Service tech, we can make an irrigation chain from one of the rivers. The effect is similar to when you make a chain and then break the chain by destroying one of the farms: the unconnected ones now lose 1 food.

We’re each playing 20 turns the first round, and than ten turns each after that.

OK, I'll play twenty then. If needed, I'll pause after ten for input. Plan atm is for a settler after the warrior.

I believe Mining, Bronze Working, and Writing are next in line. Granted, this is subject to change as we learn more of our surroundings.

I believe that too. Will start on mining after AH comes in.

I think you’re right. Remember that G/COTM where the ‘Great Wall’ was put up? Every mountain had a pre-stationed spearmen or something. I believe we played as the Mongols in that game. HC is probably just on the other side.

Or it is a ruse. I remember a Vanilla GOTM as Rome which featured a mountain range from northpole to southpole, the "spine of the world". Very nice game, they translated lots of stuff into Latin .

 

[zyxy]

Turn 0, 3400BC: all perfect.

Turn 1, 3370BC: our warrior finds sugar south of Thebez (lux; available with calendar tech). He sees that the russian borders are very close across the water. There's more sugar near Russia.

Turn 2, 3340BC: zzz.

Turn 3, 3310BC: zzz.

Turn 4, 3280BC: Scared citizens report 2 groups of lions east of Thebez.

Turn 5, 3250BC: zzz.

Turn 6, 3220BC: zzz.

Turn 7, 3190BC: Our cottage is done, 14 turns unitl it grows to hamlet. The worker moves south to build another.

Turn 8, 3160BC: zzz.

Turn 9, 3130BC: We find clam (health resource) on the western shore.

Turn 10, 3100BC: Thebez has grown to size 2 and completed the warrior. I'll start a settler as we desperately need to get that choke. Buddhism has been founded in an unknown land. Our new warrior heads southeast. Our first warrior spots gems.

Turn 11, 3070BC: zzz.

Turn 12, 3040BC:

"Blessed shall be the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep."
Fine, fine, how about some horses? We start researching Mining. There are horses up north, and near Russia. We find more clam, this time on the eastern shores. Our western warrior arrives at the russian border, and sees lots of sugar, and more gems. Cathy has been mining a bit. This is probably Moscow as the city is a fat cross:

Turn 13, 3010BC: Our warrior confirms that the southeastern lands end very quickly.

Turn 14, 2980BC: A panther is spotted southwest of Thebes! Panic in the streets .

Turn 15, 2950BC: Second cottage is done, the worker moves south again to herd the cow. Our russian explorer finds rice near Russia, and it seems the land ends near Moscow.

Turn 16, 2920BC: This is mean:

There may be a landbridge to the lands further southwest, but we cannot pass. It looks like a war with Russia will be forced upon us.

There is no time for our second warrior to go north and confirm lands end there, and be back in time for the settler, so he'll bust fog and find that panther southwest of Thebez.

Turn 17, 2890BC: Our russian explorer heads back to our lands to help escorting the settler.

Turn 18, 2860BC: Apparently the Russian scout has killed a lion east of Thebez. We spot the panther again.

Turn 19, 2830BC: We can now "move a mountain", that is, we have learned the secrets of Mining. Research is set to Bronze Working. The border of Thebez expands, and the Russian border does likewise. Fortunately we can still get past. We spot a lion West of Thebez.

Turn 20, 2800BC: Hinduism is founded somewhere. Our warrior is threatened by a lion and a panther. Although the defense of a hill is lower than that of a forest, I move the warrior to a hil so that only the lion can attack next turn. Our cow now has a pasture, and one citizen moves from cottage to cow for a 5 turn speed-up on the settler.

Sorry for landing the next player in trouble with those animals. Let's hope it goes ok. Whether we can get the settler out in time will be a matter of luck really.

Here's a tentative dotmap (of course this may need changes once we see copper); blue dot is priority I think:

The save

 

[dojoboy]

Sorry for landing the next player in trouble with those animals. Let's hope it goes ok. Whether we can get the settler out in time will be a matter of luck really.

No problem, we ought to be able to survive this.

Here's a tentative dotmap (of course this may need changes once we see copper); blue dot is priority I think:

I'll move on the blue-dot.

I'll load the save and report back w/ thought and questions before playing.

 

[dojoboy]

We've got ten turns to building the settler. Any chance chopping would move this along sooner?

Noticed no roads were built. Simply avoiding unnecessary production turns here?

There are 12 turns to BW. Do we want to queue up for Sailing next, or go with Hunting -> Archery (thinking barbs will be coming by soon). FYI, I've never played on epic.

Build orders after settler:

(1) worker, warrior, settler
(2) warrior, worker, settler

Not a great deal at risk, it seems, so I'll look for some feedback over the next 1 to 1.5 hrs. before playing my 20-turn set. And, if anything important comes up, I'll pause and report back w/ screenies.

Are there any rules against posting a save during turns for team feedback? I assume not, but just checking.

 

[McLMan]

I like the blue dot. Even there though, it will be under cultural pressure from Moscow, esp with Cathy being creative and all.

We won't research BW in time to help the Settler with a chop. I'd consider letting Thebez grow to 3, then going for another worker (aided by a chop), followed by a Settler (another chop).

We really should consider Sailing, it will be the only way to get the new town in the trade network without building one heck of a road through hostile, unsettled territory.

Another thing to consider with BW on the horizon - Slavery. I NEVER used to adopt slavery until I had another civic that I really wanted and piggy-backed it. I just never thought the one turn of anarchy was worth it. I'm not too fond of whipping in Civ III & it carried over here. However, in a current SG I have seen the error of my ways. It is quite powerful, especially in the early game where it also helps a great deal in controlling health/happiness issues besides getting buildings/units quicker. I'm not saying switch as soon as BW comes in, but when we see a need for the whip, we shouldn't hesitate.

 

[Methos]

Not a great deal at risk, it seems, so I'll look for some feedback over the next 1 to 1.5 hrs. before playing my 20-turn set.

IMO I'd wait at least 24 hours if possible. We have players scattered throughout the world so some of them are asleep right now. Niklas is from Sweden, Marc Aurel is from Germany, and even though zyxy has already played, note he's from the UK. With this being a competition game I'd suggest waiting at least 24 hours if you're able to. We've waited longer before in previous games.

 

[dojoboy]

IMO I'd wait at least 24 hours if possible. We have players scattered throughout the world so some of them are asleep right now. Niklas is from Sweden, Marc Aurel is from Germany, and even though zyxy has already played, note he's from the UK. With this being a competition game I'd suggest waiting at least 24 hours if you're able to. We've waited longer before in previous games.

I'll gladly wait. I was just sitting here thinking I wouldn't be able to play through tonight.

 

[Methos]

Normally next I would research Writing for the libraries, but I’m not so sure right now. The settler will complete in ten turns (BW will have seven left) and it’ll take him five turns to reach blue dot (BW will have two turns left). Fishing will take seven turns to research and Writing will take fifteen turns, so we need to discuss what will be the first build for blue dot city as well as Thebez. Fishing allows us to work water tiles and build fishing boats, so going for it next may be the best thing. Libraries (Writing) grants a +25% research rate, so is very helpful too.

If both warriors move 1NW we won’t need an escort. Remember that both barbs and animals spawn only in the fog. By posting on a hill we can push back the fog more, thereby giving the barbs less tiles to spawn from. A tactic we’ve used before in SG’s is posting units on hills to push all the fog back, thereby removing barbs out totally on our landmass. I don’t believe that would be wise here, as it’d take too many turns.

I’m thinking after the settler completes we probably want to grow to size three before building another worker or settler. This would allow our second cottage to get worked. Remember that the only way for cottages to grow is to be worked. If they’re not worked, they don’t grow.

I just never thought the one turn of anarchy was worth it.

Remember we’re Spiritual, therefore don’t suffer anarchy. We still have to wait five turns between each civic switch.

 

[zyxy]

Noticed no roads were built. Simply avoiding unnecessary production turns here?

Yes. Building roads is a civ3 habit that I am trying to unlearn, at least for the early stage of the game. Later on, I do like to have a road on every tile .

There are 12 turns to BW. Do we want to queue up for Sailing next, or go with Hunting -> Archery (thinking barbs will be coming by soon). FYI, I've never played on epic.

In part it depends on whether we have copper. If we do, then military wise we are all set. If not, then Iron Working becomes more relevant, but probably it can still wait, as we have horses already.
That being said, I am in doubt between Sailing and Writing. Writing is nice because of the libraries - they combine nicely with the cottages to speed up research. Also, we will soon need something to build while growing towns, and we cannot keep building warriors all the time. OTOH, we do not need the ability to sign open borders yet, so I think Writing can wait, and we should at least do Fishing first.

I would like to avoid hunting -> archery. It's a useless dead end. Instead of archers, we can try to get horses online. Question for the experienced among you on the trade network: can you connect roads to rivers? For example, suppose we settle red dot and want to connect horses to Thebez. Is it enough to road the tile E-NE of Thebez to connect the two rivers, the horse tile and the tile south of it, and pasture the horses?

I like the build order: finish the settler - warrior (and grow Thebez to size 3) - worker - settler. The last two can be aided with a chop, in fact the worker can mine and road the tile south of Thebez, and irrigate the rice tile in 18 turns if I compute correctly. Once we road the rice we get a health bonus, but first we need to chop to speed up the worker. Then both workers can chop 2-3 forests total to help the settler.
EDIT: or, if we want to get the rice online, we can road the cow tile (just to use up some worker turns), then road the hill tile south of Thebez, followed by farm and road on the rice, also for 18 turns total.

Are there any rules against posting a save during turns for team feedback? I assume not, but just checking.

No, in fact, if you check back with questions partway during your turn, posting a save is very helpful. Please post as attachment, not as upload.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Yes, the dotmap looks perfect – and the blue dot has definitely priority. After that I would think the red dot in the north is important for resources – we need those horses! And 3rd the pink dot in the south for bottling Russia up safely.

On research :

My approach is simply – looking for what the ressources need. I am playing in favour of asap getting larger cities and I want to get health and happiness up asap. So what is in reach?
With red and blue dot settled, we have two sea food resources that could bring the health up – that would make fishing mandatory IMHO.
I agree with zyxy that archery at the moment is a dead end. We should get the horses and the chariots.
The problem we have is more the missing early luxuries. We can get only one - the gems S of blue dot. But they are as often in a jungle. To remove this we need iron working. Later on there is the sugar, but that is still far ahead. With rice and cow we have two foods already. For growing we therefore would more urgently need happiness.
(For the fp towns we still need the fishes with same priority)
Heredity rule therefore seems very effective, cause we get one happy face by each unit in town and if we can get this fast by the pyramids – would be great! (Including the GP growth initiation) So masonry is also on my list for techs to be researched fast. The Alphabet however is not on my list for very urgent techs, because we now can see that there will be on the midterm run only one partner to deal with. To get to know the others, I think we need the galley to sail eastward. I assume as said before Capac in the east, so we don’t need to worry his borders, however we need to fear his navy. Getting along his shore before he can attack us on the sea has a great value IMHO. So that’s it from my point:

-Fishing (health)
-Masonry (I want the pyramids and maybe stonehenge also)
-Iron working (I want that gems!)
-Sailing (I want to meet the others on our continent, if there are any besides Capac and Cathrine)
Writing would help with the lib in the capital. The other cities have not enough commerce yet for libs (they only give 25%) and since we agree on settling blue dot first, the cottages around the green dot city won’t be available so fast.

 

[Methos]

Question for the experienced among you on the trade network: can you connect roads to rivers?

Yes. A road does not need to be connected from the resource to the city. Merely connect the resource to a river with a road, and than make sure the city is connected to the river.

 

[dojoboy]

Okay, all but Niklas has chimed in. He may be out picking up the game.

Preturn overview: (unlikely all will take place during my turn-set)

Research - begin Fishing after obtaining BW

Settlement #2 - blue dot (place warriors on high ground to prevent barb-spawn)

Build queue - Warrior, Worker, Settler
* Chop for worker
* Chop for settler using both workers

Work cottage tiles and road rice/cows.

I'll likely play and post by this evening or have an update posted for feedback.

 

[Methos]

The Alphabet however is not on my list for very urgent techs, because we now can see that there will be on the midterm run only one partner to deal with.

I agree, Alphabet isn’t vital at the moment, especially if we are the only one Cathy knows. If she only knows us she won’t be willing to trade, or if she does it’ll be expensive.

Build queue - Warrior, Worker, Settler
* Chop for worker
* Chop for settler using both workers

Make sure Thebez is at size three before starting the Worker. Cottages only grow when worked, so they’re useless sitting idle.

Unless I’m mistaken, I believe there is 17 turns left on BW, not twelve. Currently it’ll take seven turns to research Fishing, so dojoboy won’t complete Fishing.

We might want to have our worker follow the settler over and corral that cow. This will help speed up blue dot. I’m guessing start a warrior when blue dot is settled?

Sounds like you got a good plan dojoboy!

 

[dojoboy]

We might want to have our worker follow the settler over and corral that cow. This will help speed up blue dot. I’m guessing start a warrior when blue dot is settled?

Good idea. Thebez shouldn't grow at a rate that one worker couldn't keep up with. How soon should we connect the second city? Unless others object, I think a warrior is a good first build for the second city.

What about naming the new settlement? I noticed Thebe(z) was a team tradition. Does the same go for all cities, in some manner?

 

[zyxy]

@dojoboy: good plan! Although one of the cottages will stop growing, I would work the cow now that we are making a settler. Then switch back to cottage when building the warrior.

If we manage to settle blue dot, I would build warrior -> workboat, probably followed by worker. That will allow the city to grow a bit first. I don't remember what fishing clams does, but probably either lots of food or lots of gold. Both are good.
The first two workers will be needed near Thebez for a while I think - for chopping, and, in case we want a wonder, preparing mines/quarry.

I think you can choose a name for the new city. We'll all get a chance to found a city hopefully.

Good luck with the barbs! And let's hope Cathy doesn't beat us to that spot.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Yes zyxy, I support working the cow now. The reason is simple. On Monarch the AI already has a valuable advantage at the start and is often terribly fast on throwing out settlers. Since the blue dot is closer to Moscow than to the capital of Smurgypt Catherine has a lot of advantages in this competition. It might be a close race we are having with Catherine. I will not be content before this important race is won.

(Edit: I've seen the mistake by myself; it's also 5 turns from Moscow to blue-dot; so let's hope)

Your plan, dojoboy, -warrior -worker -settler sounds good.
Keep Methos advice for letting Thebez first grow to 3 after the settler- warrior. The invested food shall not be wasted. I often forget this when playing sloppy. If necessary fit the start of the barracks in, switch to worker after size 3 is reached and continue the barracks later on.
For the name - find your own - but somehow work something from "Smurkz" in.

 

[CommandoBob]

What about naming the new settlement? I noticed Thebe(z) was a team tradition. Does the same go for all cities, in some manner?

lurker's comment: Ah, city naming in Smurkz, the most challenging (and creative) part of the game. As you see, lots of team input and discussion on what to do and how to do it. But naming the new city, well, here you're on your own.

In SGOTM 9 there were many cities named SmurkzSomethingOrOther. For me, however, the three best city names did not fit that pattern, but were 'Olive or Die', 'House of the Beard' and 'City for the Sages'. And, No, these were not my cities.

 

[dojoboy]

Preturn: (2800 BC) Reviewed notes and looked over map real well.

IBT - Warrior kills attacking Lion.

1 - 2770 BC: Cow accessed; Huayna Capac converts to Hinduism; move warrior to hill away from approaching panther.

IBT - Panther kills warrior. Sorry guys, didn't account for the panther's movement. I expected him to move into the jungle. I didn't move southwest because I didn't want to get cornered.

2 - 2740 BC: Move ramining warrior north to confront panther; farming rice.

3 - 2710 BC: Warrior north.

4 - 2680 BC: Warrior north.

IBT - Warrior kills attacking panther.

5 - 2650 BC: Promote warrior to Woodsman I; leave warrior to heal.

IBT - Russia settles near isthmus, encroaching on selected location.

6 - 2620 BC: zzz

7 - 2590 BC: zzz

8 - 2560 BC: zzz

9 - 2530 BC: zzz

10 - 2500 BC: Settler completed, moving toward "preferred area;" set Thebez to warrior.

11 - 2470 BC: zzz

12 - 2440 BC: zzz

13 - 2410 BC: "Currently saved here."

NOTES: Thebez grows to 3 in three turns and completes the warrior in 2 turns. Attached image of current situtation regarding second settlement. I'm considering settling where the cursor currently points. Thoughts?

 

[zyxy]

Ouch. This was to be expected though - it looks as if Russia has nowhere else to go. And the AI gets a free worker, I think? So they must be faster with the first settler than we.

So where did Russia settle? Just south of Blue dot? Terrible location, as it misses the clams.

I would not settle this close to Russia. We can only settle 4-5 towns (?) before maintenance becomes a killer, so we need to make each one count. For that reason, I would go for the yellow dot from my pic a few posts up. That grabs a reasonably productive spot and leaves the Russians with just one more spot, near the sugar. Hopefully we can get there first, then they have nothing, while we have at least two and perhaps three more good spots east and north. Later we can hopefully whack the Russians around a bit and settle blue dot after all.

Btw, it seems you're not working the 2nd cottage . Let's hope Methos doesn't notice.