SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

bobrath · Aug 14, 2006

IMO, cow island should be settled as soon as we get courthouses up on the "mainland". Stone island... I just don't see that it brings in enough commerce to outweigh the -gpt that our mainland cities will incur as the number grows. Don't forget that we've got another (I'd guess) bout 4 cities to place in the southwest of our island. Not to mention the ones we take (and keep) from Izzy. Right now 3 cities has our economy on the tipping (backwards) point. Lets not nuke our nice start.

namliaM · Aug 14, 2006

Stone city will bring 7 or 8 gpt to the table no problem I dont see it costing us that much....

eektor · Aug 14, 2006

I think cow island will be more of a priority than stone island. I don't think we are going to work on a wonder that would get double production from stone any time soon. Also, the cow island has a lot more food to whip than the stone island and we get two extra healthy points for the cow island.

You know we might want to start thinking of moving our capital to Osaka. Osaka with the gems and gold is going to be great once we get bureacracy. Also, it will help all the cities we plan to settle and take on that continent.

One thing that made me a little bit anxious is that we know that settling on one of those islands near Kyoto wouldn't cost that much maintenance but one more city jumps up the maintenance cost of the other cities as well. I would also like to make more cities on the main continent as well.

bobrath · Aug 14, 2006

Maybe they should rename this SGOTM to "a fine balancing act".

Cosmichail · Aug 14, 2006

I don't see 7/8 gpt from stone city. Whales only give 1 coin without boat and tiles 2 coin. Clams would give 2 coin so we would more likely get the necessary influx of coin from cow island. I doubt there will be much main for cow island and with fishing boats will grow quickly. Just getting a worker there for the cows is another thing. (will help with health in kyoto too)

Cow island

cows once put in pasture: 4food 2 hammers

2Xclams: 4f2coin (once fishing boats are placed) +1f with LH

Clams/cows offer 14 food maxed out/4 coins

Stone Island

2xwhales: 2f1c1happy with lighthouse 3food
plus remaining tile with LH 2food/2coin not all (exterior ones tend to be one coin)

whales offer 6 food with LH plus 1 tile (equal to 3 citizens as considered for cow island) so max food for 3 citizens would be 8 food/5 coins

Now looking at this I deduce why you want to settle there which is the happy but will we get it without the boat. (probably not) civpedia is confusing in that it doesn't elaborate but just lists.

So by looking stone island would produce more commerce however cow island would grow much faster offering commerce faster too.

Cosmichail · Aug 14, 2006

Bobrath you right it is a fine balancing act indeed. Eektor makes a good point about main so we should hold off on settling until we get the courthouses built. You're right we should be careful not to nuke our great start.

bobrath · Aug 14, 2006

Too me, at this stage in the game, the faster growth cow island offers more whipping potential and thus it will more immeadiatly contribute whereas stone island while better in the long term would bog us down too much.

No worries, in 15 turns we'll have a better picture of where we're at.

bobrath · Aug 14, 2006

We popped the GP, and we're 2 turns out on CoL. I did fire the scientists in Kyoto because the percentage was creeping up to 10%. The scientists are rehired.

Parthenon was bifal.

Our chariot and top promoted archer (the medic) lost to a barb axe down by the copper. We avenged him, and that archer is healing in our territory. We've got the majority of the fog busted, but there is a 3 archer (and 1 worker) barb city in a nice location. Izzy is galley scouting, but we can probably figure on her landing a settler in our backyard soon.

Our galley in Kyoto is loaded with a settler and a worker. I held off settling cow island until CoL came in and we made some progress on courthouses. Currently building our first axe in tokyo (after barracks finished) and a monastery in Osaka. I'm putting hammers into the monastery to increase cultural pressure on toledo AND so we can spread religion ourselves. Only one turn of hammers in it tho, so feel free to switch out.

No :whipped:

in my turn. Should be 12 turns of whip weariness left in Kyoto. Sheep are pasturized, but not roaded completly yet. We don't have a total barricade on the southwest, but its a long walk for Izzy.

Sorry bout the loses to the lone axe, I tried to be as aggresive as possible in clearing fog and we're pretty close to be spawn free (except for the city).

The Save

Dotmappable???

Spoiler :

Cosmichail · Aug 14, 2006

Those axes can be a pain with just archers/chariot but will be able to deal with them now. This game has a real conundrum we can't expand on mainland it will shut us down until we start building courthouses. The makers obviously put these extras in to make it a bit more difficult. This does allow Izzy to spawn like crazy and soon she will have copper/iron and we will find it hard to take her out.

Roster: (15 turns now according to our illustrious leader)

bobrath -- Black Leader -- just played --> Good building round
namliaM -- UP --> The official whipping expert
Cosmichail --> on deck --> want Izzy's head on a stick for display for Toku's brother
Pigswill --> doesn't like cows, but they give millk/beef
LuvtoBuild --> Will he turn to the dark side?
eektor --> Got us the cities we badly need

We might have to wait until we have maces/cats to deal with her until we get our main under control. I looked again Osaka (prior to Bobrath playing) and that city is at -13gpt and Tokyo -10gpt which total -23gpt. Even with CH it will cost us -12gpt for main which is still high considering when cities are all on one map/area it's more like -2 or -3. We are going to need currency more so than anything else to alleviate that. I am not suggesting changing tech paths but our finances are going to be a problem until we get some real revenue happening.

bobrath · Aug 14, 2006

The savings from the courthouses on the mainland should provide the wiggle room for our cow island city (imo) and/or a 3rd mainland site. I'd suggest the site NE - N of the iron just above I have an archer camped now. That's a logical landing site for Izzy, so we'd be delaying her expansion; its closer to our capital so maint will be a bit lower. It also would have clams right away for faster growth and would secure an iron resource that's not on our front lines. It plus the barb city pretty much wall of the west coast of the mainland. Finally, getting a city on the coast and roaded into Osaka/Tokyo will bring the trade network within our nation alive.

Popping another GProph will be slow at only +2 GPP per turn, but a GProph will give us Monarchy and then Literature. (beating a horse I know). I think we just go scientists on STICK and don't worry as much about the GP that pops.

We should definitly research Alphabet next, if only to figure out what Izzy knows and if we can profit form it without making her too tough a nut to crack.

bobrath · Aug 14, 2006

Yah.... I couldn't help myself: dotmapped! (tm)

I actually like the barb cities location and light blue seems like the obvious 3rd city for us (to me). Once properly cottaged up, it will be a great commerce city. Green may be on the river (not sure and if not one road gets it on the trade network), but will also benefit from cottages. Purple... is really there to fill out the mainland, but you can't turn your nose up at a site with 3 resources in the small cross...

I'm seding the far eastern iron to Izzy. It will be easy enough to raize when we go to war and would only drain our economy to try to settle

Cosmichail · Aug 14, 2006

Looking at the save I see that Izzy has no metals whatsoever. If we want to take her without too much trouble we need to strike soon. Since she has the ability to get to our back door so to speak, why not open borders and do some scouting and see what we are up against. Since we are intending on building TGL in Kyoto Osaka could be used for soldiers. I just smell blood and feel we should act on it soon. Deprive her of the metals for as long as possible and once alpha is discovered then get some new techs and plunge the knife in her back. MOHAAAAA

Popping another GProph will be slow at only +2 GPP per turn, but a GProph will give us Monarchy and then Literature.

Yep at 300 GPpoints needed it will take 130 turns and even more for the next level. With the scientist in there it will take 33 turns. (300 less 41 leaving 259 points leftover.) Is the next level double that like 600. Considering that Bobrath we'd be quicker researching those techs. Too bad we don't have a religion in Kyoto as having a couple of priests in there would help us get a GP faster but right now looks like a scientist. (although we might be lucky and pop a GP it's happened to me when I've had four scientist in there)

I just realized too giving her alphabet wouldn't be that big of deal since she has no trading partners. But I would like to see us have lit and TGL already started before we do that. We could trade IW with her if she doesn't have it just so she could clear jungle for us. (MOHAAAA) Risky approach but we would maybe get some good techs out of it.

We do have to consider war at some point and right now I SMELL BLOOD. It's the bloodlust and she's weak as a lamb as she is too busy spawning and going after religions. (she has already three of them apparently)

Wir fahren jegen Spanien..........

Cosmichail · Aug 14, 2006

Bobrath,

Great dotmap. How do you do that. I have tried that and can't even get close. The light blue spot would be a great third site for the production/food and commerce from the coast. As you stated would also slow down Izzy as she would have to go around quite a ways to settle. We should have a coastal city too to deal with her galleys and Izzy tends to build a lot of them.

One other way to deal with the finances is getting currency and putting a city on wealth (such as Kyoto when TGL is finished) We have good commerce there and once we get pop cap up (Monarchy seems to be the only way right now) can get some more commerce. Now if we go with caste system can we not put up some merchants too without market? (PS I found the answer and it's yes) I fear this distance crap is going to slow us down a lot until we have astronomy where trade will take place and the cities are connected.

I just checked on caste system and it allows: Unlimited scientist, artist, merchants only so that leaves priests/engineers out. But that would help us financially being able to use merchants. I know the caste system isn't cheap and deprives us of whipping but it has some real advantages with food heavy cities which cow island would be great for too.

bobrath · Aug 15, 2006

How do I do what? putting the lines on the map? I take a screen shot and open it up in paint... Not really techy.

What makes you say she has no metals?

namliaM · Aug 15, 2006

Cosmichail said:
Bobrath you right it is a fine balancing act indeed. Eektor makes a good point about main so we should hold off on settling until we get the courthouses built. You're right we should be careful not to nuke our great start.

Why not build the FP in Osaka? True, with Burocracy we get a nice bonus in our capitol... But where are we going to put the FP? Kyoto?

Cow Island first, stone second... I agree that stone Island will not be as good, but still at size 4 it can work 4 coastal tiles = 8 commerce right? Forsaking the (better food, but less commerce) Whales. Once we get a Granary, a Lighthouse and a Courthouse in there (not necesarraly in that order)... It will add to our economy.... Short term investment, long term benifits.

Izzy can still use a boat as well

to settle OUR

backyard

bobrath said:
What makes you say she has no metals?

Trading screen

How about moving blue 1 NE on the river? and then move green 1W or 1NW on its current location its not on the river...

Actually I am only noticing now... Is that land due SW of that barb city?

I got it, will play in 12 hours or so...

pigswill · Aug 15, 2006

Still droning on about this. Hold off cow island; Kyoto can stockpile settlers until we're ready. One more city on Osaka island and we can build palace in Osaka (160 hammers ain't that expensive really). Whip Courthouse in Kyoto. Expand on Osaka island until we get 8 cities/6courthouses then FP Kyoto and expand to cow/stone island.
Barbs in my limited experience are much less aggresive once they've urbanised so a bit of city spamming/palace building would be priority. Or for the resident team psychopath (and no team is complete without one) plan B is palace-building/Bella-stomping.

Edit: Several hours later. Beginning to come round to namliaM's viewpoint. Cities on cow island and stone island with whipped courthouses would help towards total for FP. Keeping palace in Kyoto saves us building palace+FP. Maybe holding off on Bella for now and getting 8 cities/6courthouses and FP in Osaka in the way to go; though we'd still need to build military to stop Bella stomping us first.

eektor · Aug 15, 2006

In my experience as long as you have the same religion as Isabella she won't go on a crusade against you. So we just need to make sure we keep the same religion and have enough military so we wouldn't appear as an easy target.

Settling the cow city now shouldn't be too much of a problem. Maintenance should be around 4 and with us building courthouses our maintenance should go down dramatically.

I think we should consider building the palace in Osaka since we are planning on going for bureacracy. With two gems and gold and we could build cottages, Osaka would create lots of commerce than Kyoto would. Also, Osaka would have more hammers as well. This would definitely help us when we get the 50% bonus to commerce and hammers.

Edit: Everyone keeps saying maces but its samurais. They come with combat 1 and drill 1 (I think)

bobrath · Aug 15, 2006

namliaM said:
How about moving blue 1 NE on the river? and then move green 1W or 1NW on its current location its not on the river...

That moves the iron out of the cross and doesn't improve the other tiles. We have sailing, so we have coastal trade routes, which means blue would be hooked to that river just by being on the coast (I beleive).

Moving green 1 NW is probably the better spot anyway. Sure we have some overlap with blue, but its not horrible. OR you leave green there and a single road (on the sheep) hooks you into the river.

If we can deal with the maint costs, then skipping ahead to just putting the FP down on the mainland is obviously the hammer smarter idea. No hammers "wasted" on moving the palace. I suspect the only realistic way of doing that will be through sudden and massive growth my aquiring Izzy's lands and (yum) wonders.

LuvToBuild · Aug 15, 2006

Man, that'll teach me to not check the board for a day or so. Lot's to read. Well, it looks like we're starting to feel the effects of expansion on the mainland in a big way. I vote for putting the palace in Osaka myself. I think Bureaucracy would do a lot more for us there, not to mention we could accomplish that a lot more quickly than waiting around for the required cities and courthouses to build the FP. We need to be setting ourselves up for an early war with Izzy. We can't afford the maintenance from taking and holding Izzy's cities if we have no center of government in Osaka. The faster we accomplish that, the faster we can afford a war. We need the extra maintenance to be going towards the military and not supporting cities. We also can't afford to find ouselves way behind in military techs when we meet the next victim.

So I say, move our palace to Osaka in time for Bureaucracy , settle green city (1NW of marked spot), blue (where marked), and purple (where marked). Settle cow island and stone island. That gives us 8 cities so build courthouses first thing in new cities as they are settled. Tokyo should get CH soon. When FP is available, build it in Kyoto. Once palace has been completed in Osaka and CH in Tokyo, they can start gearing up for war. Get some promotions against the barb city, maybe even add it in to the empire. Our science will take a pretty good hit during this process so we should have finished CS before expanding too much further. It will take a bit to get settlers and defenders anyway. We might get in Monarchy, Alphabet, and Literature but I doubt it. So we will need to prioritize what's more important. Conquest and expansion? or TGL? Conquest and expansion will give us way more science in the long run than TGL if we can get maintenance under control.

In taking Izzy, grabbing the Hindu holy city early on would be a great boost in offsetting our maintenance. I'm hoping its coastal, meaning we could get some galleys in the blue city and load up to invade much deeper and quicker than trying to move north through the jungle. We could use a jungle foray as a distraction to draw troops out of her heartland while we sail up to plunge the knife in deep. That's a ways off of course and our maintenance might be a ton better by then. We'll still have to take her out eventually though and getting some shrine income would help a lot in running the science slider high.

Cosmichail · Aug 15, 2006

Not sure if she has metals or not but when I look at her landmass I don't see any iron in the jungle. She might have it that's why I want to scout plus I notice a continuation of this landmass north of Madrid that might yield us another civ if we go scouting up there. We can't stop her from settling anymore so let's open borders and do some scouting.

As to the FP well we would need 8 cities and 6 courthouses to get it. We are a very long ways off from that unless we start in on Izzy. I just have a gut feeling she is weak as it seems she has done quite a bit settling and religious pursuit. Rather take her out soon in that state then wait until we have Samurai's (thanks for the correction Eektor) when she might have maces.

I have always found early war is a lot easier than later war. She will get a hold of copper/iron soon and if there is a continuation of land up there that leads to another civ she might be in contact already. If that's the case then we have to rethink how we deal with her. We need to build a trade network (road) to one of her cities to find out what she has in the way of resources.

summarize:
1. check out continuation of landmass north of Madrid
2. NamliaM thinks there is more land south of the barbs (looked and looks like ice to me)
3. Connect Izzy to the trade network to see what resources she has
4. Scout her cities to see how we tactically stand

Ok here's something to consider as Eektor points out:

Osaka with gold/gems/cottages will produce max 33 gold (of course has to be worked but we have a pop cap of 7 there so one on the sheep two on the gems one on the gold two on cottages leaving room for a scientist once we get pop to 7 or work a mine on the plains hill with the 7th citizen)

Kyoto with two specialist and pop cap of 5 will never get past 6 gold. (with buro/palace will yield 13/14 gold)

Considering that I think it's paramount we move the palace. Yes I know I want war but when I look at those numbers just doing that will solve our financial problem big time. 33 gold with palace is nothing to sneeze at. With bureaucracy Osaka would be a powerhouse city science/commerce/ and not bad at production too. It would allow us to expand faster on the mainland too as I think that's where we need to grow. That cow island isn't going anywhere for a while.

Just think 33 + 8 (from palace)= 41 gold x 50% = 20 giving us 61 gold. There is our main problem out of the way. Our production is also amplified by 50% and Osaka has 12 hammers increasing it to 18 hammers great for war production. With another plains mine will be more like 24 hammers.

Ok guys are you going to ignore that 6X the gold is available in Osaka or just leave it in Kyoto with a grand total of 13 gold. whooppeee no wonder we got financial problems. What sounds better 61 gold or 13 gold. That's a difference of 48 gold. We are losing on main 23 gpt which with palace would be eliminated to much lower and Kyoto of course would skyrocket but with that income wouldn't matter. We just should priortize settling on mainland which in the long run is much better anyways.

Don't you think the other teams (some of them) have done the math and already moved the palace.

So to summarize again since this is a lot of reading:

1. Move palace to gain at some point over 48 gold/6 hammers
2. Scout Izzy lands and check out connection north of Madrid
3. Get a tactical analysis of Izzy's military
4. Build TGL if we still can pull it off. (in my SP games usually have it now)
5. Settle on blue soon and bite the bullet on main until we get palace to Osaka

I don't know if you'll agree but 48 gold is a lot of help to get us going towards war/expansion. Kyoto will suffer pop cap will drop to 4 but it's served it's purpose and frankly TGL would be better in Osaka but again that would slow any kind of war. However with another city with iron in the blue it might prove to help in building soldiers for us.

Turnwise:
Alpha/lit 36 turns (add a fews turns for CS as GP won't give it all.)
Palace would take 20 turns to build in Osaka

Next military phase would take 85 turns at current research MC/Machinery.

With palace/buro in Osaka would shave a lot of turns of the next military phase and considering that we could wait for the samurais. I not saying we aren't in the window with swords but if we need to move palace (hope some see the logic there) build TGL in Osaka then we won't have much opportunity to build military and for the time being appease Izzy. Yes I want war but Eektor made a good point so I investigated and feel he's absolutely right.

EDIT: It appears that consensus is 4 players for moving the palace.
Eektor - yes
Pigswill - yes
LuvtoBuild - yes
Cosmichail - yes

So in the world of democracy (erhem is there really such a thing) we are in favor of moving pronto.

NamliaM you're up next so hopefully after monastery you will start the palace. Tokyo could yield us another settler for now. Just the math tells me it would give us a huge boost once CS is in.

SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

Emperor

Deity

Prince

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Deity

fly (one day)

Prince

Emperor

Prince

Dark Lord of The Sith

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