SGOTM 02 - Memphis Blues

ShannonCT · Aug 12, 2006

Frederiksberg said:
I think that chopping a library makes good sense - we should try to make the most of having researched writing early. Having said that I would still prefer that we stick to the plan of hooking copper first. That would mean building 1-2 more archers and a settler. In the meantime I think we should post an archer on the plains hill to the east of Osaka and start building a road from the gems mine through the plains forrest and through the hill. That way Osaka will be immediately connected with the copper city when we found it. Even if we MM Osaka to use both mines it will take us 37 turns to finish barracks, build an archer and build a settler. This means that our worker has plenty of time he could use to pre-chop and build some roads.

I agree completely

Frederiksberg said:
Regarding Kyoto I was thinking that it might be better to switch immediately to Sailing. We could have this in 8 turns if we MM Osaka and increase science rate to 80%. This means that the settler will be done at the same time we discover sailing and we can start working on a galley in Kyoto while researching writing and allowing the city to grow to size 6. As soon as writing is researched we switch production to Library and whip it for 3 pops (thats why we need size 6 in Kyoto. Then we allow the galley to be finalized. I don't think we will get the Library much later this way because we need the pop growth, and the galley will surely come faster and thus we will have Cow City faster to support our economy.

Let's see... the galley costs 75 hammers and the library 135. Kyoto produces 2 hammers. So if we switch to sailing and work on a galley for ~10 turns while we wait for writing, we would have ~55 hammers left for the galley when writing came in. Kyoto should be at pop6 then. I think we should whip the galley then if we're going that route. The whip will cost two pop and produce 90 hammers, so 35 overflow to the library. Kyoto is at pop4 and library needs 100 more hammers. Waiting 5 turns will reduce this to 90, with Kyoto returning to pop5, and will let us finish it with another whip of two pop. Kyoto is back to pop3 and has 2 unhappiness, so three useful citizens. We can hire one scientists and work two fish and/or two scientitsts and one fish and time pop4 to when the first whip wears off. This would give us a settling party roughly 18 turns from now and a library 24 turns from now.

If we stay with writing and it comes in after 8 turns as you say, we wait ~8 more turns to get to pop6, giving us 16 hammers for the library, and then whip the library the turn before sailing comes in. We're back to pop3 with 16 hammers overflow into the galley. we can wait 7 more turns to recover population and then whip 1 pop when the galley gets to 45 hammers to go. Again, Kyoto is back to pop3. So this strategy gives us a library roughly 17 turns from now and a settling party 24 turns from now.

As one would expect, it takes about the same amount of time to get the second item finished and there's no difference in population remaining in Kyoto. It really comes down to whether we want the library in Kyoto sooner, with the extra science, or to get the Cow city settled sooner and have it get growing and building earlier. I can't see that it makes a big difference. I defer to KingdomBrunel's judgement.

Frederiksberg · Aug 12, 2006

ShannonCT said:
As one would expect, it takes about the same amount of time to get the second item finished and there's no difference in population remaining in Kyoto. It really comes down to whether we want the library in Kyoto sooner, with the extra science, or to get the Cow city settled sooner and have it get growing and building earlier. I can't see that it makes a big difference. I defer to KingdomBrunel's judgement.

I forgot that the hammers we spend on Library while waiting for the moment when we can pop rush will come back as extra overflow and speed up the galley. In light of this we might as well stick to the original plan and get the Library first. I think that will help us more and it will also speed up the time to or first Great Scientist.

KingdomBrunel · Aug 12, 2006

OK, I'm going to play now - I'll try and explore some more around Kyoto, and see if we can work out how much we'll be able to settle - that should give us an idea about whether we should have multiple cities there or not. I'll get writing for libraries, and then decide whether sailing or progress towards CoL is best. Should post back in an hour or two.

KingdomBrunel · Aug 12, 2006

OK, my turnset is complete. The big news is that we've found where our first victim is, and she's close. Isabella is located 8N and 1E of Osaka, and has another city just NNE of the stone. I haven't seen her with any copper, so there's a good chance we can take her soon.

With this in mind, once we discovered the secrets of writing (although how we do this without an alphabet I'm not quite sure), I went after Iron Working. I assume we'll want swordsmen ASAP.

Osaka has started producing a settler, and has also part produced another archer (we had 4 barbs approaching at one point). This should leave us in a good position to settle near Iron as soon as we get the chance.

Barbs have been a nuisance - Woody was the only casualty, getting caught in the open trying to catch a glimpse of Issy' second city. Otherwise, plenty of promotions all round. Barbs are now appearing as a mix of archers & warriors.

Otherwise, nothing of real note. Judaism's gone, but hey, we were never going to be after that. Whipped a library in Kyoto, and have 2 scientists there.

Turn log is below, along with a picture of Spain's borders.

Spoiler :

Frederiksberg · Aug 12, 2006

KingdomBrunel said:
OK, I'm going to play now - I'll try and explore some more around Kyoto, and see if we can work out how much we'll be able to settle - that should give us an idea about whether we should have multiple cities there or not. I'll get writing for libraries, and then decide whether sailing or progress towards CoL is best. Should post back in an hour or two.

Sailing is quite essential now since it's needed to get our settler to Cow Island. Good luck with your turns!

EDIT: Posted this before I saw that the turns were done.

Frederiksberg · Aug 12, 2006

Well done with the exploration and defense. It's essential that we know the location of our first opponent. Did you manage to do anything with our worker or did the barbs prevent this? I don't seee any new improvements, but you might have done some pre-chopping or pre-roadbuilding.

Regarding techs I understand why you switched to IW. I'm not sure, however, that we need swordsmen to attack Isabella and I still tend to favor sailing. Rigth now we have a settler in Kyoto doing nothing. He could be put to good use if we researched sailing and founded a city on Cow Island. This might even be essential to support our economy in the phase before we have moved our palace. I would suggest that we switch to sailing immediately and start building a workboat in Kyoto. When Sailing is discovered we switch again to galley and pop rush this. Then we finalize the workboat and the Granary. It will take us 17 turns before we have the settler so we would still have time to research IW (after Sailing) before our settler is done.

Remember to keep an eye on the city governor. Rigth now we are working the gems mine and one of the grassland forrests in Osaka. I think we should work both mines even though it doesn't give us any growth. Also beware that we can't work tiles with barbs on them. This means that the city governor will start working a new tile when barbs appear on a tile we are currently working - and he won't necessarily work the tile again after the barbs have disappeared! In this early phase of the game this type of micromanagement does matter a lot!

Regarding promotions I would like us to have an archer with the cover promotion soon. We really need an archer killer!!

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Mad Professor · Aug 12, 2006

Good progress. Nice job finiding a couple of Spanish city locations. Notice Issy is moving south, we want to get to our eastern copper as fast as we can. We absolutely do not want her getting it.

Pity about woody, but he had to die sometime. Only one loss so far to barbarians is OK. They'll come mych thicker though from about 1100BC - or at least they have when I've been practicing. We need more archers ASAP as well.

Mad Professor · Aug 12, 2006

Frederiksberg said:
Regarding techs I understand why you switched to IW. I'm not sure, however, that we need swordsmen to attack Isabella and I still tend to favor sailing. Rigth now we have a settler in Kyoto doing nothing. He could be put to good use if we researched sailing and founded a city on Cow Island. This might even be essential to support our economy in the phase before we have moved our palace. I would suggest that we switch to sailing immediately and start building a workboat in Kyoto. When Sailing is discovered we switch again to galley and pop rush this. Then we finalize the workboat and the Granary. It will take us 17 turns before we have the settler so we would still have time to research IW (after Sailing) before our settler is done.

I see your point, and hopefully my nervousness about meaner barbarians than we've yet seen is over developed. Having Cow city running would be good for the economy/science. On the other hand, having iron or copper hooked up and axes or swords coming off the production line is essential to combat barbarian axes that will come sooner or later. In several games and practices I've had lately barbarians came in big waves from about 1100BC onwards for a while. Good fogbusting will help this of course, but we need more military next up as soon as we can I think. I also wasnt IW soon because I want to know where the iron is, exactly. We don't want Issy getting any of that either.

Perhaps ShannonCT can see to getting that copper hooked up, that will help, though we need more military units then to protect the two cities, and to get the worker to build a road between the two so that Osaka can also produce axes.

Frederiksberg · Aug 12, 2006

Mad Professor said:
I see your point, and hopefully my nervousness about meaner barbarians than we've yet seen is over developed. Having Cow city running would be good for the economy/science. On the other hand, having iron or copper hooked up and axes or swords coming off the production line is essential to combat barbarian axes that will come sooner or later. In several games and practices I've had lately barbarians came in big waves from about 1100BC onwards for a while. Good fogbusting will help this of course, but we need more military next up as soon as we can I think. I also wasnt IW soon because I want to know where the iron is, exactly. We don't want Issy getting any of that either.

Perhaps ShannonCT can see to getting that copper hooked up, that will help, though we need more military units then to protect the two cities, and to get the worker to build a road between the two so that Osaka can also produce axes.

I'm definitely aware of the barbarian threat and I think it should be dealt with as soon as possible by settling SW of the copper and building a road from the gems mine through the forrest and the plains hills (Nice spot for a fortified archer btw.). We could of course get lucky and find iron near Osaka but we can't count on that. Note, that swordsmen are primarily good for city attack - they suck at defending against barb axemen. Also note, that researching sailing now does not prevent us from researching IW before our settler is ready - and why would we want it sooner than that?

Mad Professor · Aug 12, 2006

Frederiksberg said:
I'm definitely aware of the barbarian threat and I think it should be dealt with as soon as possible by settling SW of the copper and building a road from the gems mine through the forrest and the plains hills (Nice spot for a fortified archer btw.). We could of course get lucky and find iron near Osaka but we can't count on that. Note, that swordsmen are primarily good for city attack - they suck at defending against barb axemen. Also note, that researching sailing now does not prevent us from researching IW before our settler is ready - and why would we want it sooner than that?

You're right on all counts. <chuckle> Iron near Osaka? Well, we can dream. On a normally generated map that would be impossible, there's no way so many resources would be within one city's fat cross. Of course, this map is almost certainly heavily modified so I suppose anything is possible. While we're dreaming, why don't we wish for it on one of those hills so it's easier to defend?

I think not. All the same, I'll be looking to the discovery of IW with great interest to see where it IS. Keeping Issy without metals is nearly as important as having them ourselves. That lesson I learned from our war against Catherine in SGOTM1. If Issy has to defend with archers against axes and swords, we can make a nasty mess of her fairly quickly.

The the swords vs axe thing, you're also right - we need axes too. In fact axes might be good for defense against the nastier barbarians, while swords would be good for stomping on Issy, if we can have both. If we can't I'll settle for just axes from that copper to the east.

EDIT: Hey Frederiksberg, shouldn't you be in bed? Or do you sleep during the day?

Mad Professor · Aug 12, 2006

I've just been looking in the file. We can see evidence of three Spanish cities. There's the one near the suger and stone just north of the eastern copper we want, and there's the bigger cultural influence including the rice and sugar in the north. Beyond that though we can see a small land bridge heading north, and just where the Spanish border disappears into the black there, it starts to bulge out again - evidence of at least a third city.

The existence of this land bridge though raises the thought of our continent being bigger than it first appeared. I wonder if this land bridge leads to significant amounts of land, and another civ within our reach before astronomy?

ShannonCT · Aug 12, 2006

KingdomBrunel said:
OK, my turnset is complete. The big news is that we've found where our first victim is, and she's close. Isabella is located 8N and 1E of Osaka, and has another city just NNE of the stone. I haven't seen her with any copper, so there's a good chance we can take her soon.

With this in mind, once we discovered the secrets of writing (although how we do this without an alphabet I'm not quite sure), I went after Iron Working. I assume we'll want swordsmen ASAP.

Osaka has started producing a settler, and has also part produced another archer (we had 4 barbs approaching at one point). This should leave us in a good position to settle near Iron as soon as we get the chance.

Barbs have been a nuisance - Woody was the only casualty, getting caught in the open trying to catch a glimpse of Issy' second city. Otherwise, plenty of promotions all round. Barbs are now appearing as a mix of archers & warriors.

Otherwise, nothing of real note. Judaism's gone, but hey, we were never going to be after that. Whipped a library in Kyoto, and have 2 scientists there.

Nice work finding our first victim.

That was some serious carnage on your turn. Score to date is Barbs 1 - Memphis Blues 24. Now that we know that Issy is in the north, I think I will try to do some fog-busting in the south and east to reduce the number of barbs that appear and give our worker a chance to build a road unmolested.

Here are some screenshots from the save file:

Kyoto

Spain

Roads to Spain

Osaka as it would look working the gold mine

We’re 5 turns to iron working and 7-8 turns to sailing. Since we can’t do much with the knowledge of IW until we have a settler and since the settler is 18 turns away, I would like to switch to sailing and be able to whip the galley in Kyoto soon after, with the overflow going to a work boat. This would mean a few turns with two unhappiness. The whip of the library will wear off in 13 turns. I think I would like Kyoto to be at pop5 as soon as sailing comes in so that we’ll drop to pop3 and not pop2 after the whip and still be able to keep one scientist. So that would mean dropping back to one scientist for a couple turns while waiting for sailing.

I’ve been thinking about the tradeoff of working a seafood tile in Kyoto vs. hiring a scientist. When we are already at or above our happiness limit using a scientist instead of working the crabs gains 1.25 beakers and 3 GPPs per turn (which are worth a lot before the first GP) at the cost of 4 food (which can be converted to ~5 hammers with slavery). When we are under our happiness limit, using a scientist instead of the crabs gains 1.25 beakers and 3 GPPs per turn in the immediate term at the cost of 4 food that could be used to increase our population to the happiness limit and increase food/hammer and gold/science output faster. So when Kyoto is under its happiness limit, it will usually make sense to send a scientist back to work as a food gatherer until the happiness limit is reached.

ShannonCT · Aug 13, 2006

Here's a plan for busting some of the fog:

The red dots are tiles unfogged by Osaka. The orange dots are tiles unfogged by Issy. The green dots are tiles unfogged by the proposed copper city. The blue-numbered tiles are proposed sites for our units with blue dots the tiles unfogged.

ShannonCT · Aug 13, 2006

I will plan on playing about 36 hours from this post unless there is still a heated discussion going on tomorrow.

Mad Professor · Aug 13, 2006

ShannonCT said:
Here's a plan for busting some of the fog:

Fogbusting plan looks good. Don't let any barbs slip past you while you're sending them out.

Get that copper hooked up quick too.

Are you planning to go back to IW after getting sailing? That would make sense to me. I agree that sailing first is best since it is EXTREMELY unlikely that we're going to be able to use iron without another settler on the Osaka continent.

Mad Professor · Aug 13, 2006

24-1 is good. May it get ever better!

Actually, reducing the barbarian incidence would also be good, so I like the fogbusting plans.

ShannonCT · Aug 14, 2006

Mad Professor said:
Fogbusting plan looks good. Don't let any barbs slip past you while you're sending them out.

Get that copper hooked up quick too.

Are you planning to go back to IW after getting sailing? That would make sense to me. I agree that sailing first is best since it is EXTREMELY unlikely that we're going to be able to use iron without another settler on the Osaka continent.

I think this would make sense. We're already invested, we want to know if Issy has any iron, and we might find a better site to settle that would give us a more versatile metal.

It looks like the settler wont be able to settle by the copper until the end of my turnset, but I hope to have all the roads in place. While Osaka is waiting for access to copper, I was thinking of producing a warrior. There are two forested hills that are begging for units (1 and 2 on my fog-busting map), and warriors would be a cheap, effective solution. With the woodsman I upgrade, sitting on the forested hill, a warrior would be getting a 105% bonus (strength 4.1) before fortification and a 130% bonus (4.6) after full fortification. If it manages to survive the first battle, it gets an additional 30% bonus with woodsman II. That starts out as an 88.2% chance to defeat an archer in the first battle and goes up to 95.5% chance with woodsman II and fortification.

Archers instead of warriors would be a nearly sure bet. 2 warriors could be had in 7 turns which is about how long it will take the settler to settle and the worker to mine the copper. 1 archer could be had in 6 turns.

In the immediate term, one of the archers in Osaka should probably go to the plains hill near the copper site to provide cover for the worker.

KingdomBrunel · Aug 14, 2006

Briefly - my thoughts behind IW and not sailing were get IW, settle near iron if available or copper if not, knock over two Spanish cities, to leave us with four close cities, and the opportunity to move the palace, and only one distant city (Kyoto).

radiopill · Aug 14, 2006

Frederiksberg said:
Regarding techs I understand why you switched to IW. I'm not sure, however, that we need swordsmen to attack Isabella and I still tend to favor sailing. Rigth now we have a settler in Kyoto doing nothing. He could be put to good use if we researched sailing and founded a city on Cow Island. This might even be essential to support our economy in the phase before we have moved our palace. I would suggest that we switch to sailing immediately and start building a workboat in Kyoto. When Sailing is discovered we switch again to galley and pop rush this. Then we finalize the workboat and the Granary. It will take us 17 turns before we have the settler so we would still have time to research IW (after Sailing) before our settler is done.

I agree this strategy if we can have sailing first and having IW just in time for the copper settler. Plus "cowsaka" :lol:

would be really helpfull for the research with the 2 scientific...

Frederiksberg said:
Regarding promotions I would like us to have an archer with the cover promotion soon. We really need an archer killer!!

I still agree, but I'd like some archer killer, in case Izzy send us some settler/archers near our copper... :sniper:

radiopill · Aug 14, 2006

ShannonCT said:
It looks like the settler wont be able to settle by the copper until the end of my turnset, but I hope to have all the roads in place. While Osaka is waiting for access to copper, I was thinking of producing a warrior. There are two forested hills that are begging for units (1 and 2 on my fog-busting map), and warriors would be a cheap, effective solution. With the woodsman I upgrade, sitting on the forested hill, a warrior would be getting a 105% bonus (strength 4.1) before fortification and a 130% bonus (4.6) after full fortification. If it manages to survive the first battle, it gets an additional 30% bonus with woodsman II. That starts out as an 88.2% chance to defeat an archer in the first battle and goes up to 95.5% chance with woodsman II and fortification.

Good idea, and the more fogbusters we have, the less risk they have to be kill. So if we place a warrior in the spot 2, he don't have a lot of risk, til there's an archer in 5...

SGOTM 02 - Memphis Blues

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Warlord

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