SGOTM 01 - Team One

[blastoidstalker]

If it is alright with everybody, lets switch the order to what is below for this round only.

Roster:

Mutineer -
Strobe -
Conroe- up
Doc TK- on deck
Blastoidstalker
Harok
amh52


Doc, if Conroe plays tonight will you be able to play before the weekend?

 

[Mutineer]

Cyrys practically never attack, especially if he weeker. In this case he is mach weeker.

 

[Conroe]

Situation Assessment: Our diplomatic situation is looking real good. We are on friendly terms at +15 with Gandhi. If we were to sign a Permanent Alliance with Gandhi, then his lands and population will count towards our domination victory. To that end, we will need to sign a Defensive Pact with him before we can get the PA agreement. Until that happens, anything Gandhi wants he gets! Refuse no demand. And, most importantly, do not do any trading with his worst enemy. Fortunately, he does not appear to have a worst enemy at the moment.

As for conquering Cyrus, I would prefer that Gandhi be the one to take his cities. In that way, Gandhi would be responsible for the maintenance of those cities. Currently, Gandhi has no interest in a war with Cyrus. That really isn't a problem at the moment, though.

We are currently researching Metal Casting on the road to Optics. After Optics, we should probably head straight for Military Tradition to enable Defensive Pacts. Military Tradition requires Music, but unfortunately, the free Great Artist from Music is already gone. The quickest way to Military Tradition is through Philosophy. I am considering switching to it now to hopefully net us Taoism. Having another religion will come in handy when we switch to Free Religion.

Financially, we could be doing better. We have 14 gold in the bank and are spending it at -4gpt with 70% on the research slider. That may go down with the founding of 2 new cities. We are currently building 2 Settlers, due in 1 turn and 3 turns.

In looking through our cities, I'm not too sure about some of the specialization that is going on. Memphis, supposedly a production city, has 2 cottages being worked and is also the only city running a specialist. Meanwhile, our GP farm at Elephantine doesn't have a single specialist, yet it is running with 18 excess food. Alexandria, another production city, has currently in its build queue a Settler, a Harbor, and a Market. The Settler I can understand, but a Harbor and a Market? I guess they go along with the Library that has already been built. This city has a grand total of 7 commerce!

Turn 0 - 500AD: I start by doing some MM in our cities, most notably shaving a turn off of Thebes' Settler build. I also swap out our research to Philosophy.

IBT: Thucydides publishes a list of the largest civilizations in the world. This definitely reinforces my opinion that we need to get a PA with Gandhi.

Turn 1 - 515AD: Memphis completes a Hindu Missionary and begins construction of a Harbor that was already in the build queue. Pi-Ramesses completes a Lighthouse and also begins construction of a queued up Harbor.

Alexandria completes the 1st Settler and wants to swap to the queued up Harbor. Instead, I clear the Harbor and the Market from the build queue and start a Worker. We have 7 Workers for 8 cities and are getting ready to move that up to 10 cities. We could use the Workers.

IBT: Cyrus builds the Buddhist Shrine.

Turn 2 - 530AD: Thebes completes the Settler and resumes work on the previously begun Aqueduct.

Giza is founded on the site of the horses. It immediately begins construction of a Granary. It is necessary to lower the research slider to 60% which adds a turn to the Philosophy build. We currently have 2 gold in the bank.

Turn 3 - 545AD: Hinduism is spread to Alexandria. This was a mistake -- I should have sent the missionary on down to Giza.

Turn 4 - 560AD: Our 2nd Settler is in position to found a city next to the iron. I decide to hold off a couple of turns in order to shore up our financial situation.

Turn 5 - 575AD: Thebes completes an Aqueduct and begins a Hindu Missionary. Moscow completes a Hindu Monastery and begins a Worker. Alexandria completes a Worker and starts another one.

Turn 6 - 590AD: Cyrus has 110 gold in his bank and is currently pleased with us. I decide to ask him for all of his money and he gives it to us freely.

With the influx of gold, I go ahead and found Byblos on a plains hill overlooking our iron mine. The city begins construction of a Granary.

Turn 7 - 605AD: Thebes completes a Hindu Missionary and starts another one. Memphis completes a Harbor and starts a Market. I'm not real thrilled about this idea, but since the city already has 2 cottages and a Harbor it sort of makes sense. Meanwhile, Novgorod, a commerce city, completes a Market and starts a Harbor.

Turn 9 - 635AD: Thebes completes a Hindu Missionary and starts a Hindu Monastery.

IBT: Gandhi kicks off a golden age.

Turn 10 - 650AD: Philosophy comes in and I start us on Metal Casting. Taoism is founded in Byblos. Not the city that I would have preferred. I send the free missionary to Thebes (on GoTo orders) so that the city can start building Taoist missionaries should we decide to spread the religion.

Elephantine completes a Library and starts on a Aqueduct. The city is currently at -3 health and will grow next turn. I leave the 2 Merchants assigned. Alexandria completes a Worker and starts another one.

Notes: Hinduism has now been spread to all 10 of our cities. We can now start spreading Taoism, although there will not be an immediate benefit until we build a shrine or get Free Religion.

There are 2 War Chariots enroute to Elephantine for the extra happiness. Do we want to consider switching to Caste System? Also, Pacifism is now available.

Our Island:

The Save:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Team_One_SG001_AD0650_01.Civ4SavedGame

 

[Mutineer]

This Greates civilisations actially garanty that we NEVER will be able to form defence alliance with Gandy, exept if we really do something drastic.

Conditions of forming permanent alliance:
1) Need to be friendly with civ and have defence pact for some time.
2) At the moment of forming alliance no any potential partners can be first in score.
So, Untill we form alliance we should not strengten Gandy, he allready to big.

I am afraid we have to simply go oversea and beat every one up.
It is actially not a problem, because we can do it mach early befor alliances become avalible.

 

[Harok]

I am afraid we have to simply go oversea and beat every one up.
It is actially not a problem, because we can do it mach early befor alliances become avalible.

It will be a problem if we flip flop on our goals and start researching things that don't help us get to and kill the enemy. The biggest thing playing in GOTMs and reading the really great players write-ups is they stay FOCUSED on their objective and don't get distracted by other techs that might or might not be helpful in their goal. We badly need to get Caravels and then Galleons/Frigates with a unit capable of taking whatever defenses the AI has (hopefully Longbows but will be gunpowder units if we get off course). I am against any research that doesn't directly get us to these units.

 

[Mutineer]

WE do need compass, but after that we should go to Liberalism Slingshot why getting economical technologies.
It is actially fastest way to get Astronomy and that Galeons.
So, we would need philosify anyway.

 

[Doc TK]

Thanks Blastoid for the switch. I will be able to play tomorrow early AM if not before.

Not sure I get going for Military Tradition before going for Astronomy (for Galleons). I understand wanting to get Defensive Pact, but don't we need mobility to go conquer other AIs? I agree on getting to Liberalism first if we can and using that to get Astronomy. Do we go there first or aim to Military Tradition? Probably not much of an issue during my turnset since I'm going Optics.

Whoa - hang on - "IBT: Cyrus builds the Buddhist Shrine."

That changes some things in my mind. Why aren't we going after the Holy City? He's weak. Holy city would be a great source of Gold. Also it has Crabs and Fish? One of his cities has silk - and there's Marble somewhere.

What do we think of getting some Cats to go take some Cyrus stuff?

 

[Toastedzergling]

Hi, lurking here for a while, nice play guys, I agree with Mutaneer permanent alliances can be tricky, in my last game I was aiming for a domination and all friendly AI refused PA saying "You are too powerful for us" Not sure if this is gonna be a factor in this game

 

[Harok]

WE do need compass, but after that we should go to Liberalism Slingshot why getting economical technologies.
It is actially fastest way to get Astronomy and that Galeons.
So, we would need philosify anyway.

Can you list for me the economical techs you are talking about?

Looking at the tech tree, no matter which way we go it appears we need:

Metal - 450 (I believe these beaker amounts are normal speed)
Machinery - 700
Compass - 400
Optics - 600

After that we need either:
Astronomy - 2000

or fastest route I see to Liberalism:

Paper - 600
Education - 1800
Liberalism - 1400 and hope we are the first there as we don't know where the civs are on the tech tree that we haven't met yet.

Liberalism slingshot appears longer and risky to me (even with us already using 800 beakers on Philosophy which would have done Metal plus half of Machinery) but maybe I missing something as my tech reading off a spreadsheet isn't nearly as accurate as when I can bring up the game and look at the tech tree there.

The only techs I might think about going for besides the fastest path to Astronomy is for Guilds if we want to fight a Knight/Cat war which is normally very effective against Longbows.

As for going to Military Tradition, I don't see a defensive pact/perm. alliance getting us to our goal of fast domination quicker than just taking the land ourselves.

Next point on Cyrus....I don't know how much Buddhism has spread so I can't say how big of a boost it would be to get that city. I was for taking Cyrus out earlier but most wanted to leave him to the end, not sure if him building the shrine will change people's opinion or not. I would rather take his land than build more cities on our own island as IMO we want as few cities as possible covering as much land as possible. The only exception being a city that won't get a lot of land but will provide a massive production boost in our upcoming boat/unit building.

 

[Doc TK]

Harok - I agree on expansion. I don't think we should add more cities on our own land. If we feel the need to expand cities, then let's take Cyrus cities., especially the shrine+food/production city that looks to be pretty juicy.

On techs - you can go straight from Optics to Astronomy - I thought you had to get Education for Astronomy, but that's not the case. So, I think we go straight up to Astronomy through Optics. Astronomy will take a while, but we can have a few Caravels out scouting.

Oh, and let's continue to try to make Ghandi happy in case we can get him in a PA, but let's not bank on it, so plan to go out an conquer. We'll need to do that either way.

 

[amh52]

Let's get the Caravels going please. We need the exploration and the +1 movement over water.

Otherwise I agree with Harok, we need Galleons AND a unit to take enemy cities and we should focus on that. Long term Liberalism might be better techwise but I don't think it is needed in our case. Also there is the risk of missing it (I see Gandhi ask for Philosophy while we still research Optics). PA is a great idea but it seems to risky to me as we don't have much experience with it. Maybe we can consider after Astronomy.

Do you guys think we can win by Domination if we take out all other Civs except Gandhi or is he too big already? If not, PA or the UN might become more of a priority.

I still don't think it is worth going after Cyrus at this point.

 

[blastoidstalker]

We need to get caraval ASAP then move to Galleons ASAP after that go for guilds and set up the war machine. Libralism is a side route that will only slow us down.
If the Caravals find any unoccupied islands (especially near Gahndi) we need to get to them with settlers before Gahndi does. We should have a couple of settler ready for this while we research Astronomy. If other civs take islands that is OK we can take them later. As we can not take out Gahndi we will need the island land to get to domination limit.
I think we basicaly ignore Cyrus at this point. I f Gahndi declares on him we give him stuff to declrae peace. We can not let Gahndi take Cyrus.

 

[Strobe]

I agree with the comment on focus, especially when you have lots of players on the same game.

If we are going for domination then we need to meet and destroy other civs quickly. Our initial expansion has gone well but we must get 2 caravels quickly now and send them opposite way round globe to get the movement bonus and meet the other civs.

To this end we should have used 1st scientist for tech research, the earlier we can hit the other civs before they have galleons or military tradition/chemistry the better.

If we were going to take cyrus we should have already done it (In hindsight I agree it was best to leave him alone), but now he would just be a distraction.

If we are serious about liberalism then we should get a scientist (thought we were doing another scientist before merchants anyway ?) and use it for paper/education research, this will lower the risk for liberalism to an acceptable level.

 

[Mutineer]

ON city even good and with srine for the cost of loosing trade partner only DAMAGE us. Keep Cyrus on a good side.

 

[Conroe]

Apparently, I set off a bit of a fire storm by researching philosophy. I apologize if I offended anyone. At the time that I did it, I thought it was inline with our game plan. There really isn't a big need to keep Gandhi happy with us unless we intended to form an alliance with him. I'm sorry if I misunderstood the point.

I do believe, however, that forming a PA with Gandhi will significantly speed up reaching dominiation. The reason is that his population and land will be added to ours to determine whether the victory condition has been met. And, I think it would be quite peachy if he were the one to conquer Cyrus, as we wouldn't have to pay the city maintenance on what looks to be a bunch of ugly cities.

After researching Optics, I feel that we should beeline to Military Tradition to get a DP going with Gandhi. After that, we should head straight to Liberalism and then either Astronomy or Chemistry. And, I could probably be talked into researching Liberalism before Military Tradition, especially if I thought someone might beat us to it.

2) At the moment of forming alliance no any potential partners can be first in score.

I guess maybe they changed PA's in the last patch. I know for a fact that you can sign a PA when the potential partner is first in score. We just did it in another SG (n0x-02). And it was with Gandhi that we did it with. Gandhi was 1st in score and we are playing as an OCC.

Long term Liberalism might be better techwise but I don't think it is needed in our case.

I think I will have to disagree with this. I don't see Liberalism as being an optional tech. We will need the Free Religion civic opened up to us to combat war weariness. Having an extra religion in those large cities goes a long way to combating war weariness. I think Liberalism is a must-have tech and getting a free Tech out of the deal makes it that much better!

 

[Mutineer]

I would say go Optics after Philosofy.

Build health building and National epic in our GP farm (I am lost why we do not whiped them yet) we can swtich to Pacifism and get fast a few GM or GS to speed up our research.
Bouth of them work, Gs for Education and GM to send to Gandy for trade mission.

About whipping food ritch cities. It does not matter for how long unhappiness last, because we can compencate for that with military units.
On other hand fast wipping will let as to start to produce this GP mach faster at full speed.

I would still keep Gandy happy just in case, but I do believe One city challenge govern by special rules.
Or may be this rule apply to Power, not to score and Gandy useally does not produce mach military.

So, If I am mistaken and we can form alliance with Gandy = even better.
In any case I would not want Gandy to get any more land and him been unargessive he will not start war himself.

 

[Conroe]

I would say go Optics after Philosofy.

Build health building and National epic in our GP farm (I am lost why we do not whiped them yet) we can swtich to Pacifism and get fast a few GM or GS to speed up our research.
Bouth of them work, Gs for Education and GM to send to Gandy for trade mission.

We already have Philosophy -- completed it on my last turn. Elephantine just started an Aqueduct, so it can be whipped next turn. Somebody already hired a scientist in Memphis. I left it alone since the city had already accumulated more than half the points necessary. I then hired 2 merchants in Elephantine. Memphis has a 50-50 chance of either a GS or a GE for our 2nd great person. After that, all of our great people should probably be coming out of Elephantine. Right now Elephantine has a 100% probability of a GM. Oh, there are a couple more Chariots enroute to Elephantine to deal with the happiness issues.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I may be mistaken in this but I seem to rember that you break a defense pact if you declare war on someone, which I am sure we will due, likely before we can make a permenant alliance with Gahndi. I do not want to hinge our stratigy on whether we can permant allaince with Gahndi as it seems likely that several factors (such as one of us leading in score or population) could cause it not to happen. I strongly believe that we need to go Astronomy first then the other key techs (guilds, chemistry, military tradion). We can use the trade from astronomy and we need to pick off any unoccupied land that may exist before others do. This is an important thing to do to get domination in this set up. We can do this while we start are military buildup. I would suggest rushing the 2-3 caravals out ASAP as we get Optics go running across the world.

In this game I think that the though the extra tech from liberalism is nice it is not neccesary. If once we have Astronomy, Liberalism has not been founded yet, we can take a look at what the other civs have (i.e. paper) and decide whhether or not to go for it. We will want to get it at some point for free speech, but if someone gets it first it becomes a lower priority. In this case we should go for chemistry or guilds depending on the situation.

 

[Cosmichail]

Another lurker here and blastoid you are correct as soon as you declare war the DP is cancelled. Domination seems you're best option and just think all the warmongering you can do. Especially HC I love taking that one out he's just on of those civs that will outdo you if you don't get rid of him soon. Good job so far guys taking that entire continent is well done IMO.

 

[Doc TK]

I stopped my turns short because I'm not sure what to do with the GS who was born in Memphis.

Options
a. Academy somewhere, e.g., Moscow
b. Research Paper
c. Hold and Wait for something better to be researched

T0-650 AD

Started heroic in Alexandria based on prior suggestion (instead of worker) partly because I wanted it to grow a bit more as well

T1-665

Worker done in Moscow started another
Revolted to Pacifism - upkeep from 42 - 28
Whipped Aqua in Ele
Spread Taoism in Thebes

T2 - 680

Mon done in Thebes, started Tao Mon
Started Harbor in Ele
Playing with Tech Rate during turns to have a soft landing (we are roughly at 70%)

T3 - 695

Cyrus offers horse + 20 for compass - I switch him to currency
Are any of the techs that Ghandi has worth trading for?
Harbor complete in Pi - started Library - there's really nothing obvious to build here (and a couple other places)

T4 - 710

ZZZ

T5 - 725

MC done, started Machinery - heading straight to Optics
Forges started in Moscow, Alex (HE on hold for Forge) and Memphis - I wasn't sure where else we would want them

T6 - 740

GS born in Memphis, I pull the 2 scientists off, but am not sure if we should leave them for extra research


Save File:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Team_One_SG001_AD0740_01.Civ4SavedGame


FYI - I'm out starting Saturday through Monday.