SGOTM 02 - Geezers

[klarius]

And, BTW, I played my save twice to civil service. Once settling south on the plains hill near the gems. Got the Oracle slingshot after building worker-barracks-warriors.
None of the warriors was lost in the capitol, though hordes of archers attacked (and the mines on the gems needed a few rebuilds). Chopped every tree to get the Oracle.

Second try I walked 18 tiles eastwards (for only -4gpt) and settled behind Inca. Build only 1 extra warrior then Obelisk, which allowed to culture snatch the Incan stone (complete with quarry ). Build stonehenge and lost the Oracle by 1 turn . But still got a decent date for CS by using a prophet to help research it.
Both games should allow to get to Samurai at a time where the AIs and Barbs have no real defense against them.

Edit (Crosspost)
markh, I only compare tiles within the same minimap. The bright spot around the capital is always a 5X5 square and I measure the distance by this square.

 

[markh]

I still think Kyoto and the settler in your save are too far apart. -7 is too tough.

Why are you keen to build the oracle ? I really do not care about the oracle. In all my games on Monarch or now emperor I do not care about wonders. I never build any great wonders. In my opinion it is a waste. After BW go straight for alphabet for tech trading. This is most efficient.

 

[klarius]

I'm not interested in the Oracle per se.
But I'm interested in techs, which we need urgently and are not easily traded. We don't need alphabet that urgent, but Code of Laws, so we can build our cheap courthouses.
And we need the very expensive Civil Service for Samurai. Then we will have the buying power to get a lot other techs.

BTW I just see an interesting post in the maintenance thread:

1. We now know that there are seven rivals on the map (not including the barbs).

2. Much pixel-counting effort has been expended to try to work out the distance between Kyoto and the settler. To settle the debates, and to help your strategy discussions move forward, we'll divulge that the second city, if built where the settler stands, would cost 7 gpt in maintenance.

 

[juballs2001]

7gpt... ouch... very early in the game.

so here are my suggestions

1) scout as stated above with the settler and warrior and find a location that helps not only the distance/gpt problem but has 2-3 solid luxuries in its workable area.
in actuality this unfounded city is our capital. it isnt in technical terms, but nothing is coming out of that 1 tile island city for a while, this settler that seems to be on the mainland is our key to the rest of the civs.
we need to find a location that can produce workers/settlers quickly.



my suggestions/concerns

1. our settler dying, i mean, this game could be over in the first 20 turns if we are not careful. im not saying cheat and save every turn, that is not aloud, but i mean, we have to be super cautious as to how long we plan on letting our mainland exploration duo wander around.
2. if barbs arent as aggresive as thought, lets get our settler settled, i mean a good spot may end up better then a great spot 10-15 turns away.
3. we need to focus on what techs will get us out of the -gpt hole asap.


we also need to think up a roster... i will post one momentarily.

my thinking is to let klarius do the first turn. i have watched you play before and am amazed by some of the things you have pulled out of the bag. i know you would make the right moves to get us started.


roster will be up shortly

 

[juballs2001]

Rough Roster

Klarius
Trippstowe
Sam Yeager
Markh
Juballs
Thrallia


gives tripp a chance to play before he comes back to the western hemisphere. and lets thrallia go on vacation and be back just before his turnset begins, i put myself before him, so i will finish around the time he will be returning.
the last member of our team hasnt reported yet, but he/she can go at the end if or when they check in.


any comments or concerns.... lets here them

 

[Thrallia]

first comment: thrallia is a he, not a she

second comment: I agree we should try to move our settler much closer to Kyoto, but in every single one of my test games, I had an archer barb show up before 2500BC, and in all but one of them, I saw at least one human barb by 2700BC. I think we should attempt to settler by 3500BC at the latest. The good news is that we should have time then to still research hunting>archery quickly since we already have a city established.

third comment: If we can found Osaka near an AI or two, I wonder what the merits of going builder until Samurai is compared to straight out conquest? If we do builder/fast teching to get the CS-slingshot and use a GE or research Machinery, then we'll have a great chance to take out at least a few AI with Samurai when they still have archers/axemen.

edit: fourth comment: I changed my user group thing...I'm fairly sure it fits (23 years old)

What do you guys think?

 

[markh]

7 gpt for the second city is not nice. Great analysis, klarius Will practice some more with these settings.

 

[trippstowe]

Rough Roster

Klarius
Trippstowe
Sam Yeager
Markh
Juballs
Thrallia


gives tripp a chance to play before he comes back to the western hemisphere. and lets thrallia go on vacation and be back just before her turnset begins, i put myself before her, so i will finish around the time she will be returning.
the last member of our team hasnt reported yet, but he/she can go at the end if or when they check in.


any comments or concerns.... lets here them

this sounds good to me. hopefully i will be able to play between packing. i will keep you guys updated this week.

btw, how many turns to start out? 20? for the first couple of players. i also think it would be a good idea to let klarious play until he at least settles osaka, since he sounds like he has done a lot of analysis on this subject.

 

[Thrallia]

sounds good to me too, especially since that means klarius will be able to clean up after I screw things up during my turns

 

[klarius]

I have no problem with starting this, but a little warning .
I have lots of experience with civ3, as some people might know , but haven't played much .

I also think we should start with 20ish turnsets - not much happening per turn in the beginning in CIV epic speed.
But as always every player should come back to this thread if something interesting is happening.

 

[juballs2001]

I have no problem with starting this, but a little warning .
I have lots of experience with civ3, as some people might know , but haven't played much .

I also think we should start with 20ish turnsets - not much happening per turn in the beginning in CIV epic speed.
But as always every player should come back to this thread if something interesting is happening.

agreed.

take her to sea klarius

 

[juballs2001]

i have also PM'd AlanH to tell him that if our 7th leg does not show, that we are not in need of a replacement.
some teams out there had only 4-5 people show up to their threads, they need the help more then we do.
i think with the 6 we got and even with all the vacations and moves, we can keep up the pace and challenge for the win.
any thoughts on this?

 

[Thrallia]

I think we're good with 6, trippstowe and I only have the beginning turns we might miss, after that it sounds like all of us are good for the game.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

@juballs2001 - I'm happy that we can manage with 6 people in the team. As far as the roster goes I would prefer to be a bit further down the order as I am still not that good on the higher levels.

@klarius - I had a few plays on your map and eventually managed to get the CS slingshot. However it then took me ages to get Machinery so that I could build Samurai. On your map I didn't have any copper nearby so I had to research Iron Working which didn't help.

A couple of questions:

• What's our fallback strategy if we miss the slingshot?
• Even if we get the slingshot what will be the impact if there is no copper or iron nearby?

 

[Thrallia]

ok, I'm gone on vacation now...I'll be back by the 16th, so I hope to see good things then

good luck everyone!

 

[juballs2001]

since thrallia is gone sam, you can go after me for the first 1-2 tunrsets... ok?

i made it like this because we have 2 of 3 that are good a high difficulties in each group of 6... i think lol

so for the first round you can take thrallias spot and markh and myself will
move up one


Klarius
Trippstowe
Markh
Juballs
Sam Yeager
Thrallia (on vacation)

 

[Sam_Yeager]

since thrallia is gone sam, you can go after me for the first 1-2 tunrsets... ok?

Yes that's fine juballs.

I know how much early errors can really foul up the whole game which is why I didn't really want to go early.

 

[Thrallia]

btw, as far as getting machinery fast also...perhaps we should look at getting MC fast after the slingshot and then get a forge and Hanging Gardens built in Osaka and pump out a GE to research Machinery for us?

now I'm really gone

 

[klarius]

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 .

 

[markh]

Unfortunately I did not have the time to test some more. Surprising visitors and I was up in another SG.

I would go mining and bronze working, too. I did this in my first trial game and it worked quite well having copper in the range of the first city.