SGOTM 02 - Team CFR

[Dynamic]

At least Buddism wasn't founded by Spain... because she still isn't coverted. If Judaism also will be founded far away we have chance for good relation with Spain if our religion will spread to them.

 

[Dynamic]

May be we need to research Priesthood and Writing for Code of Lows slingshot with Oracle... but when?

 

[akots]

By the way we may want to delay posting our next save until more teams make progress in their games. Our culture graph would give them a very clear confirmation that early religion is possible.

That is OK. There are rules and we got to play by the rules. No need to go for "dirty" tricks imo.

May be we need to research Priesthood and Writing for Code of Lows slingshot with Oracle... but when?

Another imo, only after archery. Also, Wheel might be worth researching. Unless the other continent is really crowded, the AIs are substantially slowed down by raging barbarians as well and usually getting Orcale is not a big problem. Big problem is to fight off barbarians and build the Oracle. That might be rather tricky.

An important issue is whether we want to be in good relationship with Spain or try to steal a worker or do some other bad stuff against them really early. It is hard to tell. Samurai is a great unit on Monarch and we have a lot of land to settle down. So, might be possible to postpone war until we can build a few Samurai. Another issue is with Astronomy. Do we need it or not? That is essentially impossible to tell now. So, we can farm Spain as a research partner before we can get contact with another continent otherwise research to Astronomy might take forever.

Long term goal might involve building as many cities as required to move the Palace to the solid ground from the island or enough cities (8) and 6 courthouses to build Forbidden Palace on the mainland which would be actually extremely helpful.

That all is important but only if we are able to survive without major damage against the barbarians.

 

[Obormot]

Great news on getting hindu!

I think that our main goal no should be to get 8 cities built quickly and CoL researched for the FP. With such a great capital I think we can still learn all the essential techs on time. We can get CoL with the Oracle directly or we can get it with a prophet from temple & Oracle and use Oracle for Alphabet.

First of all we propably need to ensure that our cities are protected because the barbs will start coming in numbers in about 20 turns or so. Archery may not be that bad of a choice now, because we have sheep and will propably want to learn AH, so it is just one useless tech, not two. We may also need it to build archers in Kyoto to protect northern colonists since it is unlikely that we have bronze on that hill (but that is only after sailing). I don't know whether it is that urgent though - agressive warriors seem to be good enough untill barb axemen appear (and by that time we may laready have axemen too).

What we definitely need is AH, Wheel and BW. We can skip Agriculture because the rice is not irrigated and only gives 4 food. We may also need sailing, depending on what our second boat finds. I am not sure what is the optimal order, I need to think about it more.

Re: the roster. I am fine if CB plays before me as long as I can still play before weekend, but I feel we are moving a bit too fast now, and some slowing down and more discussion is needed, which means that we might not be able to play two turnsets in three days.

 

[IL2T]

The first survey after holiday
Warning: It is not enough advanced post for protection against barbs with a good defensive bonus
Warrior will be not good enough Archers more preferably

 

[Ptitsa Consul]

Dynamic, one question please.
I can't to see save now, and could not saw before. Can we sail to islands nearby capital.
M.b. we must try to begin our reconnaissance. Anm one more: we can make our capital's civilians simply citizens (with one hummer) to prevent early city growth and increace speed of production.

For reserch, I think for Archery. When we'll have some archers for defend, we can build anything without fear.
And Bronse (late) will be good for us too (in the capital for example)

 

[Dynamic]

Dynamic, one question please.
I can't to see save now, and could not saw before. Can we sail to islands nearby capital.
M.b. we must try to begin our reconnaissance. Anm one more: we can make our capital's civilians simply citizens (with one hummer) to prevent early city growth and increace speed of production.

Yes, we can reah those islands.
About preventing grows: Yes, we can use specialists, but if we won't increase some building the better way is set automatic preventing growth on, because if we could use all citizens on the sea we could get more commerce.

 

[Ptitsa Consul]

because if we could use all citizens on the sea we could get more commerce.

Yes, there is no doubt!

 

[Obormot]

.. and it would be even better to let it grow into unhappiness and then kill all those angry citizens to build something expensive quickly.

 

[Dynamic]

I add capital's picture

 

[Obormot]

OK, I made an approximate plan of our developement with archery as the next goal, I'll also make a plan without archery to see how much we loose by researching it... Osaka growth is synchronised with second mine, then we work 2 mines to tech quickly then we work both mine and sheep pasture and the at size4 we work 2 gem mines, gold mine and sheep pasture. I don't think growing further to work oasises is justified. I would build a settler at size4.

The safe plan:

Techs: hunting(6), archery(7,13), AH(~10,~23), BW(~11,~34), sailing(~10,~44) - ?, priesthood(~6,50), writing.

Osaka: warrior-1(7), grow->2(8), warrior-2(12), archer-1(19), grow->3(26) archer-2(27), archer-3(33), grow->4(37), warrior-3(37), settler-?

Worker: gem mine(2), move(1,3), gem mine(6,9), ...(prebuilds & mine gold hill)..., pasture(6,29), chopping-?

After ~20 turns when barbs are expected to come we will have 3 warriors (including the starting one) and an archer. Then we build 2 more archers and a warrior. This should be enough for protection for a while.

I think that the second workboat from Kyoto should explore the northern islands. Maybe we can find more land, or maybe we can discover some sea resources that would make those 2 islands worth colonising. We need to know whether we need early sailing or not.

The risky plan (without archery) is coming...

 

[Lexad]

Great news again!

As for our future development, maybe we could toss bronze and writing earlier to use captal food potential to its max? I'd rather kill Isabella fast with axes, which are also beter defenders than archers as they are stronger than barbs' axes both defending and attacking. But we need a fast settler then to grab copper.
Writing is good for capital usage: pop-rush library and then put numerous scientists with castes. Priesthood can come later with wood already prechopped for Oracle.

Stone is good if we're going for pyramids - are we? We can get Astronomy from GS if we do not research Mediation or Drama for Philo and CS or Theology for Paper. Then research CS for Samurai, and that should be enough.

Possible alphabet from Oracle - we haven't met civ other than Spain in 30+ turns, so might not meet soon. Then some other tech could fit better, like Macinery or Metal Casting or CS.

Edit: as for researching wheel, doesn't Japan get it as a starting tech?

Another edit: checked safe Obormot's plan, our worker seems to do nothing like 11-12 turns - slow growth, loss of temp due to archery. If we put BW earlier, we can locate copper and chop a settler while waiting for AH to develop our food-generating sheep. We also can make some use of our capital like 17 turns earlier, esp if we go for writing after AH.

Early barbs are warriors, our aggressive warriors stationed in woods and wooded hills would do just fine. An archer reqires 25 hammers - almost twice as much as warrior (15), so no great gain here. When barbs start sending archers, we should be already facing them with our axes. That is the short of my proposal to negect archery.

 

[Lexad]

The long of my proposal:
worker movt - same as Obormot, but while waiting for AH, chop settler.
tech - BW, hunting (or agri for rice and faster pottery later), AH, writing.
Osaka - grow to size 3 while building warriors, then finish partially chopped settler, then warriors again until we get copper and conect to capital.
Kyoto - finish warrior, grow to 5 while building workboats, then accumulate pop for pop-rushing library when Writing arrives and put them as scientists.

 

[Obormot]

As for our future development, maybe we could toss bronze and writing earlier to use captal food potential to its max? I'd rather kill Isabella fast with axes, which are also beter defenders than archers as they are stronger than barbs' axes both defending and attacking. But we need a fast settler then to grab copper.
Writing is good for capital usage: pop-rush library and then put numerous scientists with castes. Priesthood can come later with wood already prechopped for Oracle.

I think we should research AH before bronze to grow our capital faster (working both gem mine really slows us down, but we need the science boost). Pop rushing a library won't help us much for research, because a scientist is worth 3 beakers, while just working the sea is 2 gold, almost that much. Chopping is nice, but can be delayed a bit. If we decide that those islands up north are worth colonising, I would rather build settlers and whip galleys & archers/warriors in Kyoto.

And I think that slavery is much better the castes in the early game since it will allow us to build those 6 courts fast. If we find marble, we can build TGL and NE quickly and that will give us enough GPPs. Even if we don't find marble we should seriously consider building those wonders (perhaps mass chopping with math). If we don't build TGL, then we should switch to castes, but that can wait a bit - in the early game we need whipping.

Anyway, here is the plan without archery:

Pasture is finished on turn 21.

Techs: hunting(6), AH(9,15), BW(~11,~26), sailing(~11,~37) - ?, priesthood(~6,43), writing.

Osaka: warrior-1(7), grow->2(8), warrior-2(12), warrior-3(17), warrior-4(23), grow->3(24) warrior-5(27), warrior-6(32), grow->4(34), warrior-7(35) - ?, settler-?

We gain 3 turns of growth and about 6 turns of research. But our defenses will be 8 warriors (including the starting one) vs. 3 archers & 4 warriors.

In the rsecond plan we can also change hunting to agriculture. There is a nice spot for the second city near wheat/sheep SW of Osaka...

 

[Obormot]

Osaka - grow to size 3 while building warriors, then finish partially chopped settler, then warriors again until we get copper and conect to capital.

I doubt that we will have sufficent defense for that by that time. Also you delay working the gold hill a lot.

Another edit: checked safe Obormot's plan, our worker seems to do nothing like 11-12 turns - slow growth, loss of temp due to archery. If we put BW earlier, we can locate copper and chop a settler while waiting for AH to develop our food-generating sheep. We also can make some use of our capital like 17 turns earlier, esp if we go for writing after AH.

I think mining the gold hill is usefull work, and as you correctly pointed out, we have the wheel right from the start, so we can also build roads in the remaining 5-6 turns. And as soon as the pasture is complete we can start chopping.

 

[Lexad]

As I have the same worker schedule as you, settler at pop 3 means working 2 gem and 1 gold mine. Most hammers come from chopping.

Maybe we should not push science too much? Alphabet and (less) Literature are costly, as well as GL (with or without marble, and its effect can be simulated just by founding a city west from Osaka having the fish and library) and NEpic (we won't need much GScientists that way - 1 for Optics and 1 for Astro, maybe, it is not Domination where we had to keep cities and blow culture bombs). Research Machinery instead of these 2 - and you have xbows and are hafway to Samurai. I think, we should play this game simpler and more aggressive. Do not forget that enemy development will be stagered by barbs and aggressive neighbours.

Edit to your edit :11-12 was after mining gold and building road from between gems to capital, but accidentally included the time for pasture. The correct number is ~5-6 turns - enough for a chop.

 

[Obormot]

As I have the same worker schedule as you, settler at pop 3 means working 2 gem and 1 gold mine. Most hammers come from chopping.

OK, I see, but then you loose hammers from not working the sheep tile. Hammers from chopping by themselves don't count, because I am going to chop everything too. You are going to gain some hammers from founding the second city earlier, but I don't think it is enough. And you'll also have something like 5 warriors to protect two cities, seems a bit thin to me.

Maybe we should not push science too much? Alphabet and (less) Literature are costly, as well as GL (with or without marble, and its effect can be simulated just by founding a city west from Osaka having the fish and library) and NEpic (we won't need much GScientists that way - 1 for Optics and 1 for Astro, maybe, it is not Domination where we had to keep cities and blow culture bombs). Research Machinery instead of these 2 - and you have xbows and are hafway to Samurai. I think, we should play this game simpler and more aggressive. Do not forget that enemy development will be stagered by barbs and aggressive neighbours.

Well, Alphabet pays off definitely. With Alphabet we can trade for many usefull techs (hopefully). Literature is cheap, actually Aplhabet + Literature are only about 1/2 of Machinery. And with TGL, NE and 2 normal scientists we can use 3 or even 4 scientists towards Astronomy (compass, optics and 2 for astronomy itself). Or we can use GPs for a golden age.

 

[Obormot]

OK, we have three plans to choose from. I would go with my second (risky) plan and use agriculture instead of hunting What do you think? I think if we come to an agreement today CB can play next and then I can play the next turnset before the weekend.

 

[Balbes]

Another edit: checked safe Obormot's plan, our worker seems to do nothing like 11-12 turns - slow growth, loss of temp due to archery. If we put BW earlier, we can locate copper and chop a settler while waiting for AH to develop our food-generating sheep. We also can make some use of our capital like 17 turns earlier, esp if we go for writing after AH.

Early barbs are warriors, our aggressive warriors stationed in woods and wooded hills would do just fine...

I'm very tempted to go with Bronze Working, but keep in mind we have just 18 turn to set up our defences. In my testing, barbarian archers appeared simultaneously with the warriors, not later. On T48 you see nothing but anmals on the map, next turn, poof! there's 2 warriors plus 2 archers per civilization. It's just the RNG then that determines if you're found first by a warrior or by an archer. Once they locate you, they all rush in to attack. We have to fight off an almost constant stream of attackers for 30 turns.

I've thrown together a quick plan for our colonial defense, just to get an idea how many troops we need. Opinions please?

D1-D5 is the vital perimeter defense. We seem to need 5 units as the bare minimum. Defending the northern gem mine is the hardest part. Just 2 units in the north do not prevent some of the attackers from spotting the mine earlier than killing themselves on our defenders, and they'll rush in to pillage, so we may be forced to fight some offensive fights too. Ideally we'll have some reserves too, in order to reinforce the perimeter in case succesive attacks come from the same direction. A road should be built as shown, in order to be able to reach all of our mines in 1 turn from the capital.

F1-F4 is the fogbusting patrol line, if we could afford such luxury.

(Hmm, how do I get an attached screenshot to display directly?)

 

[Balbes]

I must say I'm in favor of Obormot's #2 (daring) plan. With proper tactcs, we should be able to hold the fort until Bronze Working at least. Proper tactics = defending in the woods across the river with the Woodsman II promotion, rotating units through the city to heal, anticipating the barbs' movements and moving in extra units to intercept in favorable terrain. We're going to need a road network for that so no worries about workers sitting idle After BW we need to decide archers or axemen.