SGOTM 01 - Team One

[Harok]

Military pacts and free religion are nice things we want to get eventually but the ability to get to and take out the AI are things we MUST have if we want to have a chance at winning this competition. The biggest problem with MPs is the fact others have pointed out....they end when you declare war which we will be doing a bit of in the future.

I am strongly against any research that doesn't directly lead to Optics, Astronomy, or Guilds/Chemistry depending on what unit we want to use to start taking out the AI. Personally I would aim for a knight/cats war. I haven't done a ton of Grenadier warfare but I believe macemen can be given City Raider and then upgraded to Grenadiers while Grens can't get that promotion if built from scratch.

As for GS usage....unless we can get a tech from him that is on the path we want (which it doesn't sound like) I would build an academy or join him to our capital depending on whatever gives us the most beakers right now. I would also make sure we have both monasteries in any high research cities and we are working as many commerce tiles we can in all cities. We need to shave as many turns off our research as possible until we are able to produce Caravels/Galleons/killing unit.

 

[blastoidstalker]

Modified Roster for this turnset:

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

I will play this afternood in about 6 hours. I would like to hear opinions on use of great scientist. I was hoping for a great enigneer to save for foribbidden palace in a future time.
If we use it for paper then the education- libralism may be possible to get astronomy that way so
Optics -gs paper- education -libralsism- free tech astronomy. I haven't checked my homework on this. We also would want to see whhere the AI's are in tech to see if they will beat us to it, which would make doing this a giant waste. I need to open the game before looking at how much research we will gain with the second acadamy or a great scientist in moscow.
I still lean towards optics- astronomy but If the majority feel otherwise then I will try to execute the alternative plan.

 

[Mutineer]

It is better to research paper ourself (AS GS give more beakers then Paper cost). My sugestion is to burn it to speed up education.
Education speed up our research in general because of universaties.
It is not a detour, Education lead to Gunpowder. Liberalism will give as a free tech, astronomy if we orgonised it right.

 

[Mutineer]

One more option, if you really argently want Optics. When you research Machinery GS will offer to research Optics.
Instant Optics.

In this case there is a small chance to get Astronomy from the hut(If we research Education or nationalism to come to renesance age).

I did get Astronomy from the hut one's. So, if be build caravels and put explorers on them and go out and if there some islands around we will have chance for astronomy from the hat.

 

[blastoidstalker]

Mutineer, Do you know how many beakers a GS would research right now?
I agree that if we do not use it for optics it makes more sense to use him for education as we will not waste any or lose less beakers.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I took a bit of a look at our situation in the save and did some number crunching.
First of all we need to be a little more carefull micromanaging the cities I found to unimporved hill tiles and numerous forest tiles bieng worked. I micromanaged things so our economy could work at 75 rather than 70 percent and put some scientists to work as well. This increased our research rate from 162 beakers per turn to 178. We need to do a better job of city managment if we want any chance of winning this thing. On the positve note unit placment and city's building orders made sense. Also some cities need additional imporvements in order to propaly work there expanding population. I think i will be able to do this in my turn.


A reloaded an old save of GOTM 4 to get a look at how many beakers are scientist could produce. I found that scientist produce more beakers for research than other specialist. At epic speed (whihc GOTM 4 was) a scientist should produce 2632 beakers in 740 AD, arounf 2650 in 815 AD. It seems to increase in multiples of 4 every 2-3 years.

I see two routes to where we are going

1) Beeline to astronomy
Machinary 1226 beakers remaining
Optics 1345 beakers
Astronomy 4485 Beakers
this would take 40 turns at our current research rate to get to (it will be less as cities grow)

If we use the great scientist to find optics then it will take us 32 turns to get to at current rate. but we would waste about 1000 potential beakers from the scientist


2) Libralism route to astronomy
machinary 1226 beakers remaining
Optics 1345 Beakers
Paper 1345 beakers
Education 4036 beakers use great scientist here to cut to 1361
liberalism 3139 beakers
Astronomy free tech

this would take 47 turns to do at the current rate.


So we can either get astronomy around 15 turns earlier (probaly will be more like 12 turns) or we can get astronomy later and get education which allows universities but more importantly gets us quicker to chemistry and free market and gunpowder.

there is the risk to the liberalism route that we are not the first to get there, in which case we will get astronomy about 40 turns later (bad bad bad). unfortuantly I forget to check if Gahndi has paper yet. Does anybody know?

I want to hold off a little while on my turnset and get peoples opinion on this because how we use the GS will determine which route we go and that will come up in about 5 turns. This is a big decision.

regardless of that I will get caravals out ASAP, Prbably using 1 chop each in 3 cities to make 3 caravals. The next player will need to race these across the globe to get the +1 movement bonus

Also in this decision we are deciding our fighting approach for the upcoming war. Is it a knights catapults war our a grenardier calvery war. I have little expierence conqueoring to another continent and do not have a good feel for what units our oponents will have. If we need to go with grenadiers then i think the Liberalism route is best, if we only need knights and cats then the astronomy direct is best.

 

[Cosmichail]

Lurking again and cheering you on. I thought of something else regarding Defensive Pact that might be helpful. You cannot initiate one whilst you are at "WAR" with someone namely HC. In order to go that route you would have to get rid of HC. You are doing really well as I looked at your recent game except I think you are a little light on defense. Depends of course how strong HC is. You are definitely considering all the options and very strong on science. Your civilization is doing very well and have no doubt that you will pass Ghandi in strength/score. Good luck.

 

[blastoidstalker]

We are light on defense because no one can attack us right now except Cyrus and he is only a threat to Pi-Ramses and not capable of much. We have minimized milatary and focused on development as we have no one worthwhile to kill at the moment

 

[amh52]

Gandhi doesn't have Paper. He has Feudalism that we should try to trade from him if we want to go with Guilds and Knights.

Thank you Blastoid for making the calculations. We are going for fast Domination so I still believe we should get this war started asap and therefore take the direct route to Astronomy. We can always get Liberalism later if we think it is needed. I know it is not the most optimal research path but I believe it fits our goal better.

I would start the war with Cat, Maceman and Knights and switch to Grenadier later. Research Guilds, Gunpowder, Engineering, Chemistry.

I also like Mutineer's idea of putting Explorer on Caravel if we can do that.

Should we also build a Jewish Monastry in Novgorod and spread the religion?

 

[blastoidstalker]

I realized I made the arguments for both sides and did not put in my opinion.
I am in favor of the direct to astonomy option. I think harok and AMH have outlined the reasons well already.
What I am planning to do unless I am convinced otherwise. In case you are woundering how I have so much time to write volumes of stuff, i am proctering tests today and have nothing better to do)

build 2 explorers ASAP,
time some owrkers to finish chopping some wood in two cities 1-2 turns after machinary is finished
use great scientist to research optics (I hope this is what comes avaliable for it).
get the two caravals out with the explorers, racing in opposite directions. avoid HC as he may attack our caravals. land explorers on other civs land if possible.
reseach astronomy
finish forges, make sure barracks are in our production cities and start making macemen and cats.
I will try to get feudalism from gahndi If i do not have to give up an exploration or liberalsim track tech. if not then someoine later should get it from him.

 

[Strobe]

Good analysis blast.

I agree with amh on the tech route. I would rather get the war started earlier if possible.

However I would also use scientist for Education later and still try for liberalism if it looks possible.

If caravels reveal that knights war is not sensible we can re-focus at that point but the best plan would be to prepare for quick war I think.

We should certainly send caravel out with an explorer which we can pre-build ready and always disband once we have the land layout, or use as a weak-point scout for our landing party.

 

[Harok]

First to the lurkers.....
Thanks for your comments, it is great to get outside opinions and thoughts, please keep adding comments/ideas whenever you have them.

Next on the GS usage.....
32 turns vs. 47 turns is a MASSIVE difference. I vote for the GS to be used in whatever way gets us to Guilds/Optics/Astronomy the fastest. All other techs and plans are secondary to our goal.

 

[Harok]

Forgot to add that I would probably go for Guilds after we have Optics then onto Astronomy so we can have our attack force of Knights and Cats ready to load up into the boats once we finish Astronomy. Getting Feudalism from Gandhi would be great and I would probably trade anything besides Optics to get it from him.

 

[blastoidstalker]

This was an eventful turn set
I finished of Doc’s turns as well to keep the numbers even.

Doc T6 740 AD- set research into binary system. Changed civics from slavery to caste system. Loaded up elephantine with 5 scientists. Started explorers in Moscow and Novgorod. Tried to trade with Gandhi but her wants both Civil service and philosophy for Feudalism so I wait for a time when I have some money to flash at him.

755 AD- granary finished in Byblos start barracks

770 AD ZZZZ

785 AD ZZZZ

800 AD ZZZZ

My turn 1 815 AD Moscow finishes explorer starts forge.

830 AD forge finished in Thebes I start producing units there. I make 2 catapults and two macemen and 1 longbowman over my turn set there.

845 AD machinery finished. Use GS for optics. Start caravels is Pi- ramesses and Novogorod. Send workers to finish precuts at both cities. I try to trade Civil Sevice and machinery to Gandhi for feudalism and theology but to no avail. I set research to zero and wait one more turn for more money

860 AD switch back to slavery and whip caravels, both ready to go next turn. This is the part some tech hoarders will hate. I trade civil service-philosophy to Gandhi for civil service, theology and 10 gold. This makes him much more of a threat to get liberalism but it keeps him away from the optics astronomy path for now. I think this ends up being the right move, as I hope you see as the turn set continues. I start researching guilds for Knights. Research back at 100% to use all the excess cash I stored to try to trade

875 AD Caravels off with explores aboard. Heliopolis starts harbor. We have found Huayan Capac with a galley of all things. He is just east of that funny mountain range east of our capital. 1 square of ocean separates us.

890 AD we reach 1,000,000 Huayna Capac adopts pacifism

905 AD I start barracks in Pi Ramseses- I see Cyrus has 2 swords and an axe sitting a bit south of our boarder.

920 AD our eastward caravel finds and Incan caravel in the middle of the ocean, we run away and he does not quite get to us.

935 ZZZZZ

950 We discover an island just north of Gandhi (put explorer on it). We need to settle it as soon as we get astronomy. Our other galley finds Saladin. He is very backwards in tech and should make a good trade partner before we pick him off.

We now know the location of 2 of the other 3 civs and they appear not to be on the same landmass.
Huayna Capac is very close and had caravels so we need to produce more naval units to protect or fishing resources especially around elephantine.
Moscow just grew unhappy but there are two new units (a cat and a mace) moving down there to fix the problem. A longbowman is on go to order to go to the southern tip of our continent to be transferred to Pi Ramseses for guarding that city, just in case Cyrus gets suicidal.
Once guilds is done in a couple of turns we can really start building up our military, taking out the Inca first.
Our economics are slightly weaker because I am running scientists in elephantine rather than merchants; this is to get a great scientist produced for education a bit later in the game. After a GS is produced I think we should go back to merchant. Once the national epic is finished there it should steam along quickly with great people.

I have images but the image shack thingy is not working right now. I will post the world map one as an attachment and try to get the other ones up later.

I lost the save linking copying this message but you can just get it from the progress page.

edit- looking carefully at the pic of the island north of Gahndi I think it is accessable by Galley? if so we need to get a settler there pronto!!

 

[Mutineer]

Caravell can not pillage, so no danger in that at all.

 

[Mutineer]

I look at save and Our war enamy is very near, but not accessable by galey. He might get acess to as if he expand his borders.
Based on that I would suggest follow research plan:
Guilds-Gunpowder-Astronomy-Nationalism
Idea is to attack with mixture of Maceman-Muskets-Knights-Cats
reasons:
Sligth delay in going to astronomy i favor of milithary tech in order to let as to have a chance to get Astronomy from a hat.
It is posible if we lucky.
Nationalism after astronomy will let as to recroute a bit more army to fill up cities we will take. We probably should put couple of LB in cities near Capac just in case.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I am hoping for a hut on the island the explorer is currently on.
I think astronomy is still more important to get to than gunpowder though.
I think you are right about making sure we have some defense in case incan boarders expand. I think the macemen we are building for the attack can double for it. We just should make sure we get another unit in heliopolis as it is so remote.

 

[amh52]

Is it time to settle the city on the blue dot? It would be a nice production city just opposite HC that we could use as launching site. Or is it not worth the extra economic burden?

From the picture it doesn't look to me like we can reach the island north of Gandhi with Galleys.

I think we need a few more Caravels to explore

 

[blastoidstalker]

I have one or two caraval bieng built at the end of my turnset. I would settler the island north of Gahndi first so we get that percentage to our domination score.

 

[Harok]

Turn 0 950AD: Whip barracks in PiRamseses, whip forge in Moscow, switch Novrogod from Caravel to Forge. Cancel deal with Gandhi - Spices for 5 GPT and then trade him Spices for 7 GPT.

IBT: Colossus built in a far away land.

Turn 1 965AD: Sign Open Borders with Saladin so I can have explorer look around. Moscow completes forge starts Cat. PiRamseses finishes barracks starts Mace. Alexandria whips Heroic Epic. Novrogord whips Forge. Memphis whips Market.

Turn 2 980AD: Guilds finishes and I start research on Astronomy. Start building Knights in Novgorod, Memphis, and Alexandria. We meet what is most likely the last civ.


He shares the same landmass as Saladin and is currently about as backwards as Saladin but has built Pyramids, Great Lighthouse, and Colossus so he may have some nice income soon and a research spike. I sign Open Borders with him for exploring reasons. I have fully explored the little island north of Gandhi and there were no huts.



Turn 3 995AD: Roosevelt begs for Alphabet and I turn him down, figuring we want to keep him as backwards as possible. Thebes finishes Mace and starts Grocer which gets one forest chop as it won't lower health and Thebes is our commerce center.

Turn 4 1010 AD: zzzzz

Turn 5 1025AD: zzzz

Turn 6 1040AD: We have a 70/30 percent chance for a Great Scientist/Merchant in Elephantine and a Scientist is born. I would have rather had the merchant as I think Astronomy is the last big tech we need but a scientist for Education wouldn't be terrible. Gandhi and HC have met somewhere and HC is furious with him for religion and trading with us. I renegotiate Clams deal with Cyrus for an extra GPT.

IBT: Gandhi founds Islam in Bangalore

Turn 7 1055AD: Giza finishes Granary and starts Courthouse.

Turn 8 1070AD: Cyrus stack near PiRamseses grows to 3 Swords and 1 Axe and I think he is considering declaring on us soon. The Longbow Blastoid sent that direction is given City promotion and fortifies so it will have max bonus possible. Maceman being built there can be whipped but I hold off to see if he really declares. I move a new Knight that direction also who I intend to transfer over. I whip National Epic in Novgorod. Byblos completes Harbor and starts Courthouse. We will soon need as little maintenance as possible on all our cities.

IBT: Angkor Wat built in far away land.

Turn 9 1085AD: Elephantine starts Grocer, we don't have any of the resources to get the +1 health right now but might be able to trade or get them in conquest and it needs as much health as it can get.

IBT: A barb galley attacks a Caravel and we win with 2.5 health left. Cyruses stack moves west instead of NW towards us. Maybe he has changed his mind about declaring, maybe he is headed to Gandhi instead, or maybe he just really wants to protect that worker.


Turn 10 1100AD: We are the first to navigate the world and get the +1 ship movement.

Saladin and part of America -



The rest of America's land that we have seen so far-



Roosevelt has a big force in Washington but the other cities I saw were much less lightly defended-



The little part of HC's land we can see-



I found 3 more island masses but only 1 of them appears worth settling as the others are only 2-4 land plots. It is East of HC's land as can be seen in the minimap-



Situation Assessment-
I did quite a bit of whipping to finish up some infrastructure so we could get cranking on military units. I don't see us doing much more whipping on our island so we could switch out of Slavery if wanted. I created 3 Knights, 1 mace (we had 2 at start), and 1 cat (we had 2 of these also) during my turnset with 5 more knights being built now and 1 mace. As soon as Astronomy finishes up (15 turns away) we should have a very good sized attack force ready to go. HC seems like the obvious target as we can't have peace with him, he is close, and he appears closer to Astronomy than anyone else. He doesn't have macemen, pikes, longbows, or knights yet so we need to hit him as soon and as hard as possible. Once the Knights finish that are being built we need to build a nice mix of Cats/Knights/Maces. Also of note is the fact he has Chichen Itza giving his cities extra defense bonus so bring plenty of cats to take him down to 0% bonus in 1 or at most 2 turns. Lastly we have a Caravel at each end of his land and we should circle him with the Northern Caravel going East and the Southern one goind West so we know as much as possible about his land.

We also need to get a couple of Settlers built if we want the 2 bigger islands we have found so far. I started moving most units to either Memphis which will most likely be making our first Galleons or Elephantine which is our closest city to HC so they can be picked up either as a second wave or on the way to HC. We may want to run a chariot through Cyrus's land just to get an idea of what his military looks like.

Save File -
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Team_One_SG001_AD1100_01.Civ4SavedGame