SGOTM 02 - Geezers

[trippstowe]

Well, I downloaded the save before going to work, so I got it, but didn't open it.

I intend to play in the evening.

My test games lead me to the conclusion that settling on a hill is a must. Exploring some time is no problem, if we get a good city spot and indeed increases our research quite a bit.
So I will settle near our current location, only if I find a great spot. Otherwise I will try to walk towards our capital.
Researchwise, I now prefer to go mining->bronze working. Forest chops and slavery both may save the day in an emergency.
I did even two games, where I didn't settle until I knew where copper is (and settled near copper). Both worked OK, but the risk is probably to high for a SGOTM .

sounds good! i have become a big fan of whipping recently. plus we will have to have it in our capital if we ever want to build anything. btw, can someone point out an article on the slavery "bug"? i need to reread, and i think that everyone else should read it too. everyone seems to use it in the GOTM and there are no complaints from the admins, so i assume it it legal to use. it is basically taking advantage of rounding, like the 100%/0% research rate, which we should use after we build our first library.

i dont think it has been mentioned on this thread, but this team last time used the (flexible)24hour/48hour rule. it worked out well, we should go by this again.

how long till we get bronze working? do you think it is feasible that we can use our second settler for copper? will toku's brother make it that long?

 

[klarius]

The reference for many quirks including pop rushing

Note that of 1.61 the bug is useful only if you have a production bonus, not like before already by playing epic speed.

Bronze working will need roughly 30 turns, if we don't settle before.
The problem is that we may have to defend the city against several human barbs with only 1 warrior.
It worked fine in my test games (a warrior fortified in a hill town is pretty strong: +25% city defense +25% hill +25% fortify +10% combat 1), but bad RNG may lose the city even at good chances, especially if by accident 2 barbs arrive in the same turn early.

 

[klarius]

The save

Well I played a lot of turns, but I really wanted to see copper and after settling early this took some time.

Ok here we go, turnlog form my first SGOTM

Turn 0 4000BC:
Move the warrior on the hill and already see a much better location with sheep and gems.
But it's on the wrong side relative to our capital. Not quite good enough.
Settler moves 2 times sw. Also better stuff (wheat), but also not good enough for me. And I fog gaze coast in the west, so it doesn't look like we will really get a lot nearer to the capital.

Set research to mining.
Capital stays on work boat, what else .

Turn 1 3970BC:
Warrior se and I think I have the power location. Gems, gold and an oasis.
Settler swings se to come back to there eventually.

Turn 2 3940BC:
Settler 2 ne. Warrior ne.

Turn 3 3910BC:
So now where to settle. The location the settler is, isn't bad but will give the gems only after culture expansion.
And it will have several desert tiles (not so important in the next few 1000 years).
I could settle on the gold, but that would give only 1 shield in the city center.
So, I choose the plains hill 2n, to be settled in 2 turns.
Will have oasis (counts as fresh water), gems and gold. And it will have sheep and rice on expansion.
Not so nice is that we will start with -8gpt probably, but that will be offset by the oasis.

Turn 4 3880BC:
Settler moves to spot. Warrior continues scouting.

Turn 5 3850BC:
Settle Osaka. Build warrior. -8gpt . Warrior continues scouting.

Turn 6 3820BC:
Warrior continues scouting. Finds stone, though we will not use this anytime soon.

Turn 7 3790BC:
More exploration. Kyotos borders expand and we see land we can reach with galleys. But it looks like tiny islands to me.
Nevertheless we should put sailing higher on our list. We can settle two towns which can easily earn us some gold.

Turn 8-13 3760BC-3580BC :
warrior explores. And we meet Spain. Her scout is at our capital and at the same time our warrior sees her border.

Turn 14 3550BC:
Our warrior is at the spanish border. There might be a chance to steal a worker soon.

Turn 15 3520BC:
There is now an spanish archer on the tile I thought a worker might come. Give up the idea of worker stealing for now.
Warrior will track back. Mining is in ->BW. Osaka completes warrior and builds now worker.

Turn 16-20 3490BC-3340BC:
warriors move and have a few animal encounters. I think I do some more, there's really nothing happening. Maybe until BW.

Turn 21 3310BC:
Work boat finishes. Goes on fish. Kyoto builds warrior. Another work boat would let it go unhappy before we have a warrior.

Turn 22 3280BC:
Isabella is Buddhist now.

Turn 23-30 3250BC-3100BC
not much.

Turn 31 3070BC:
Finally worker completes and I mine Gems. Set production to warrior.

turn 32-36 3040BC-2920BC
not much. Somewhere the warrior in Kyoto completes-> workboat

turn 37 2890:
warrior completes in Osaka->barracks. Gems are mined.

turn 38 2860:
Yawn.

Turn 39 2830:
BW is in. Copper is visible. but not in range of Osaka. Revolt.



Hand-off notes:

Well we will not be able to afford a copper city anytime soon .

Human barbs will appear soon. I wouldn't try to defend the worker at bad odds, rather have the warriors in the city and let the worker run. But I think we can defend with warriors for quite some time, if they are cover promoted.

In the capital the next build after the workboat we should already think of building a settler instead of growing to unhappy six. But don't complete it, just let it sit at one turn to completion. A third workboat doesn't help us much currently.

I would say we should research sailing now. We can then settle the northern islands from our capital. A galley should be pop-rushed for this then.
And we may even get a religion in Osaka. With a road to the river we are connected to Spain after sailing.

 

[trippstowe]

hey guys i definitely will not be able to play tonight or tomorrow. there is a chance i might have some time late tomorrow night or thursday. even then i will probably do a shorter set(10 turns?). is this ok? should someone go ahead of me?

 

[juballs2001]

take your move slowly tripp... dont worry about this turnset, we have 3 other players eager to get their feet wet in this game




good turnset klarius, i also agree that sailing should be moved up. harbours and ships could help us get some resources on those islands. however, we may not be able to afford those towns until we get the courthouses.


Klarius - just played
Trippstowe - skip till moved
Markh - UP
Juballs - on deck
Sam Yeager
Thrallia (on vacation)

 

[klarius]

The towns on the islands will easily pay for themselves.
They are so near to the capital that they don't have distance maintenance, just number of cities cost.
They will work coastal tiles with commerce.
And they will get a trade route for another coin (and one trade route in the capital).

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Having had a quick look at the save I think that we will need to look at our military in the not too distant future. Izzy is already annoyed at us and we all know what that means.

It would be nice to grab the copper to the NE. However with the funds as they are this is probably not that feasible in the short term. Fortunately there is copper to the south as well.

Given that this game as presented to us has started off as a bummer I wouldn't be surprised to find that Izzy or someone else will be coming after us shortly. Perhaps we need to consider Archery fairly soon? I know warriors are probably ok against barbs but Izzy is likely to be rather nastier.

 

[juballs2001]

i agree... but will founding 1-2 cities on the northern islands benefit our gpt probloems more then founding a more productive city near our 2nd town?
the distance will kick in again...

i always think in the back of my mind... why dont we just raze our capital.... lol, still got civ 3 in the back of my mind

 

[markh]

I am not 100% sure, but I think with revealing copper the barbs get axemen as well, so we have to expect some of these when the barbs start to appear.

Maybe Izzy is already annoyed as we are playing with aggressive AI.

 

[klarius]

A few thoughts about the game .

Izzy being annoyed seems normal to me. Never had it different except when converting to her religion, which might be an option, if it spreads to Osaka. But overall I think Izzy is not the problem - the raging barbs are.
We could send a pillaging/harassing party into her land as soon as we can spare a few warriors, which would shut down her development. But the problem in the next few turnsets will be to defend against barbs and we might not even be able to spare a couple of warriors.

We have met only one AI and it doesn't look very likely that we soon meet more. So alphabet -> tech trading will probably not cut it. That means we have to research needed techs ourselves for quite some time.
With further thinking I'm now unsure what to research next.
Sailing is high on the list, but looking again on our capital, we will not be able to use it (build settler and pop-rush galley) by the time it is researched. So another research could be fit in before.
But nevertheless towns on the islands will benefit our economy. They will probably have -1gpt maintenance and may increase the cost of Osaka by 1gpt. But they immediately add a trade route and population growth working coastal tiles will then really add income.

We probably have to research hunting-archery at some time, so maybe now.
I don't see how we can hold a city by one of the coppers (and the copper tile itself) by warriors alone. But we can anyway not afford a second -9 or -10gpt city soon, especially not one without high commerce tiles.
Another problem is the number of units. Nicely promoted warriors can do a lot, but you need tons of them, which will lead to major unit maintenance.

But for tech development we should beeline for writing, which we urgently need for a library in the capital and the path to Code of Law.

As usual all is clear like muddy water. I'm even unsure, if the settling of Osaka at all will in the end turn out to be better than losing the settler. The capital region with 3 island towns could be a major research center if the economy isn't dragged down by Osaka and later by the unit cost for defending it.
Osaka can generate a lot commerce, but I'm pretty sure the barbs will not let us work the best tiles all the time. Only with a courthouse it will really shine.

Well, what does this all mean .
I think we don't want to give up Osaka to get a nice island research empire and shift all military action to later.
So I think we have to research archery now first. After that I think we still need sailing to get the islands. All in all a big delay towards writing, so research isn't as hot as we would like.
Another path would be to go to priesthood and writing now and try to chop/build the Oracle for CoL, while researching the lower needed techs. But I doubt the barbs will let us do this. Still mysticism for an Obelisk should probably also slotted in.
I think we can't make Civil Service with the Oracle. We would have to beeline to CoL now and build the Oracle, while defending with warriors.
So we should probably not research masonry, though the stony island could be a nice place to build the Great Lighthouse (slowly, but with stone should be possible), to keep the option to lightbulb CS with a prophet w/o having to research a lot other techs.

Another small note to Osaka. The worker should now improve the gold hill. Osaka will grow to size 3 shortly after that. Then it should work oasis, gems and gold. You will have to assign this manually - no automatic option will give these tiles. That's a major pain when barbs will step on our tiles and you will have to check every turn.

@markh, I'm pretty sure that barb axemen are not directly related to revealing copper. They will come at some time, but not right now.

 

[markh]

@markh, I'm pretty sure that barb axemen are not directly related to revealing copper. They will come at some time, but not right now.

I think I read it somewhere, but I am not sure. However as far as my old brain can recall it there is a connection. Anyhow we would not be able to do much about it at the moment.

I will have a look at the save after work and throw my 0.02 in. Options we will have plenty and it will be quite difficult to judge what way will be best.

 

[markh]

I got it and just hit enter to get out of anarchy to see how things are. Saved and came back here.

Looking at the map we are on a peninsula with a choke to Izzy. Then I would say the land will go westwards towards our capital. On the most eastern tile that is visible there is coast, so I do not think that there will be much more land to settle.

I thought of building a settler in Osaka and put a city at the indicated spot. Connect the copper and build abt. 5 axemen and go for Izzy. While in settling mode they are quite weak. Two defenders and this early the cities have no defensive bonus. The downside is that this would kill our research. Techs we could get in peace negotiations only. Furthermore the barbs may keep us too busy to let us go for Izzy that early. Researching sailing and settling the islands around Kyoto we could do while building the settler in Osaka.

Another thought : as soon as we have built the settler in Osaka and settled at the copper we could let the barbs take Osaka temporarily to reduce the maintenance. We would swap the cities for a certain period of time as it will not be very hard to take Osaka back when we can afford it. This of course is just an idea if we want to be very aggressive in the beginning. Maybe it is too weird.

Researching sailing is a priority to settle the islands at Kyoto. This should be done asap in my opinion. At Osaka we cannot settle due to the high maintenance and we need more cities.

This is what I thought of now. I will not play today as I like to have more ideas from the team. With this setting everything is even more important in the beginning.

 

[klarius]

Well, as I stated before, I don't think you can settle where you want without archers.
You will need to mine the copper and defend the city and mine against archers and even then the first axe will take quite some time to build. I also don't think we can build a settler currently. We first need enough military to prevent pillaging of our improvements.
Giving up Osaka will gain nothing. When the city works both high commerce tiles it can pay for itself. But the new city will really be a big drag with no commerce tiles to work.
If we really have enough military to defend several flatland tiles, I would rather build roads first and then settle on the copper to immediately connect it to Osaka, where the production is much higher.
Another idea would be to settle the plains hill on the river and build an obelisk to get the copper on expansion. Still a problem to defend the copper, but at least the city is pretty easy to defend. Sharing commerce tiles with Osaka (which should then also have expansion already), is a further plus.


But still I don't think we gain a lot by destroying Izzy. I see no reason to believe that there is really a large extension to the west. And Madrid will be another city just dragging down our economy completely.
As an Old Philosopher "klarius" once said (probably stolen from Drazek):
It's not the first city that counts, it's the last one.

We have absolutely no idea what the land is like. As long as I don't see a proof that astronomy is not needed on this map, I don't like to virtually shut down research by having 3 cities this far from the capital. So I would rather not capture any cities before we have CoL. Gaining Bronze via the river site might be affordable, though still a big investment.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Looking at the save I estimate it would take about 34 turns to build a settler, assuming we defer the barracks, in Osaka based on 8 turns @ 3hammers & 26 @ 5 hammers after Osaka grows to 3. Whilst I may well be too pessimistic I can't see it being built in less than 25 turns at best. Izzy has already had her first expansion and has plenty of food to grow. Copper city and temporarily losing Osaka is nice lateral thinking but I don't think it's feasible. If you can convince me otherwise then that's another matter.

On the subject of techs I like klarius's idea of hunting and mining. I would also add masonry because Osaka has zero culture i.e. it's not going to expand so that we can work the gems to the north.

EDIT: I agree that we should build north of Kyoto sooner rather than later. As far as the mainland goes I think we are just going to have to make the best of a bad job for the time being. I suspect Izzy will grab the copper to the NE. I'm sure that Gyathaar planned it this way to make difficult for anyone to get early victories.

We also need more scouting both on the mainland and around those islands to the north when we get the workboat.

 

[markh]

I would have not taken any Spanish city. I would just raze them. Taking them we cannot afford. Normally I just take cities if the AI has had Code of Laws for a certain period time. If you then take cities they usually have courthouses in it, so it is worthwhile.

I think Izzy will settle her second city soon. Before that we will never have any chance to get to Madrid, so my thinking was razing her second city to keep her low. Once she starts settling she will gain speed.

I would not have settled without archers or any units. I would have taken all units from Osaka to the copper city and let the barbs take Osaka. Osaka would not be given up. It would be borrowed. Barbs manage the cities and build improvements and they would not pillage in that area. We could use that for a certain period of time. Of course the city at the copper or on the copper would not be a good place, but it could get us some axemen which we will need. I do not know at all if this is possible. It was just an idea I had having another beer.

Back to my turnset : I would research sailing now and then I would come back here to report. The barbs will appear soon and we might be able to judge better after the next 10 turns what to research after sailing.

 

[klarius]

It just came to my mind that there is something else we could do first.
That's research iron working. Maybe Gyathaar was so nice to put iron (which we need anyways for samurai) in a better location than these steenkin' bad copper locations. Now with swords we really could think of a Spanish adventure.

Still I don't see why we should raze Spanish cities. It would be nice if the spanish could soak up some of the raging barbs, otherwise they will come from all directions to Osaka and we will be hard pressed to defend our tile improvements.

 

[klarius]

I thought some more about it and come to the conclusion that the chance that we could have iron in the city range of Osaka is to good to let pass. And for sure we shouldn't settle a copper city if there is a chance to get a better iron city. The copper locations are just too bad.
Also sailing right away isn't such a big advantage because the capital could use a bit more development first.
So I would research iron working now. That should be less than 20 turns assuming we work gems and gold in Osaka at size 3.
The capital could pop-rush the workboat now, grow back to size 4 (don't let it go unhappy) and work on a settler then.
This should give roughly the right timing if we do sailing after IW.
Osaka should build warriors after the barracks, which should be enough to defend for the next 20 turns.

 

[trippstowe]

got it and will play soon

 

[trippstowe]

i started playing. i started iron working too. i guess this means it will be difficult for us to get the cs slingshot. after a little bit of playing i explored the copper area to the east. there is also fish, a coast, and lots of trees, and stone (maybe for the pyramids). now i regret going for iron working. maybe should have gone for ag and animal husband. will post more later.

 

[klarius]

I don't see that fish would make the lousy spot much better. By the time you build a workboat this town would be long overrun by barbs. And the stone is worth nothing w/o masonry and food.
Sure pyramids is a nice wonder, but I don't see that we would have the production to spare anytime soon. And chopping 10 forests while the barbs are running around is also not as easy.
And BTW what the hell would you want with animal husbandry.
But anyway, if iron working should spare us the effort to build another high maintenance city, the investment will pay off in faster research overall. But still I don't believe in CS slingshot with Oracle. It just turns out we have to sidetrack too much. We may be able to get the Oracle in Osaka, but we will not have CoL in time then. So we could take CoL or metal casting with Oracle and later lighbulb CS with the prophet generated from Oracle. But for that we must not research masonry.