SGOTM 03 - Geezers

[Thrallia]

Update on other teams:

• 2800BC we were last in culture, this means we moved longer than anyone else did so we might be the only ones who settled Moscow on the production spot
• from ~1500BC-700BC Murky Waters gained almost 300 culture, which can't be a religion...it has to be either Stonehenge or Oracle, most likely stonehenge and from ~700BC-550BC they gained about 130 culture which could be from either a religion, another wonder(Lighthouse?), or from lots of cities having obelisks from stonehenge
• from ~1000BC-700BC Real Ms. Beyond gained around 170 culture, due most likely to a Metal Casting Slingshot with the Oracle(not enough culture to have done a CoL or CS Slingshot)
• those compare to us where from ~1300BC-700BC a little under 100 culture just from a palace and 2 obelisks, yet that put us in 3rd place in culture in 700BC
• At 700BC, we are #2 in score. Real Ms Beyond is #1 and likely declared war(and started taking cities) on someone at around the time I proposed a worker steal from Alex
• Also note that until we lost that warrior to Alex after the worker steal, we were #1 out of the teams in power!

Suffice to say, I think we are in very good shape. The settlers we are pumping out should help a ton and 3-4 workers should clear out the jungle fast enough, while a war with Alex when he is metalless could boost us fast into the #1 spot above Mao.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Wow, Thrallia has the honour of the first wartime turns :bow: That worker will come in mighty useful Shame about the warrior.

I guess it's me next in the roster. I'll start playing as soon as it looks like we have some consensus on the key decisions.

I notice you (Thrallia) recommended a different spot for the central, gem, city, 1N of mine. I think Thrallia's suggestion is better, less overlap but same resources.

I think we should still concentrate on settlers/workers in Moscow, using galley/military build for regrowing after poprushes. We're getting short of warriors again (and I'm guessing we won't be able to build them once our copper is hooked up). Warriors are useful as cheap builds to deal with city happiness.

Isle of Lodestones isn't fogbusted so I think we want to unload a military unit there before dropping off the worker or settler.

Site for Lodestone City. I don't think we want to be aggressive towards Caesar, I'd say either Thrallia's max. growth site or the tile 1S of it. Settling 1S means the jungle gets cleared automatically, we have an extra forest, and we get the crab without culture growth (still need a workboat though). The max growth site means two food resources, and we could use one immediately - snag is, only by taking it off St. P. Max growth site is easier to defend too, and has fewer ocean. I think it's pretty even between them.

 

[Thrallia]

oh yeah, I placed the sign for the Northern city and then forgot about it completely lol(btw, I recommend you go ahead and change Novgorod to Coppertownski and name the city on Isle of Lodestones as Lodestone City)

We don't really have a military unit we can put on the galley quickly, but if you move the galley around the northern edge of the Isle you should be able to fogbust all of it...and once the city is built there'll be no problems.

I agree we don't necessarily want to place it aggressively against Julius, I thought of that spot because it we were to improve its culture enough it could take a clam from India and a horse from Rome...but without those resources it has no good food tiles. I like the top growth site and the one 1S of it, I didn't realize that was a jungle square, I thought it was forest for some reason. If it is jungle, I vote for it to immediately chop the jungle and leave an extra forest for later chops...it would also retain plenty of production tiles in addition to the grassland iron(one of the best prod. tiles period, IMO)

In Moscow, perhaps do a 2 pop rush on a worker as soon as possible once the iron is hooked up and use the overflow/pop regrowth stage to pump out 2-3 swords and axes. That should be enough to compete with Alex.

 

[markh]

Looks good !

The borders of Coppertownski will exand next turn and copper will become available. Simon is right that we cannot build warriors any more once the copper is connected.

I like the jungle site most on the island. We would have two forest available for chopping. The jungle would not give us anything. Furthermore we do not have overlapping with SP.

Roster :

Thrallia - just played
Simon - UP
Sam - on deck
Dagnabit
Htadus
Mark

 

[Dagnabit]

Thrallia! Nice worker steal. Also very intuitive reasoning on what our competitors are doing. I haven't tried to quantify culture/turn for the various culture producers before but your logic makes sense

Just opened save and when brousing City Screen, noticed we can pick up an extra hammer and lower the library build by 1 if we work the mine 2W of Moscow instead of the marble N.

Culture will grow in Coppertownski next turn giving us access to the copper, and I see the workboat is in place to cover the seafood-again! . I think the workboat for Lodestone will have to come from Moscow or St.Pete. It will take forever on Lodestone and Coppertownski will be busy.

One last discussion on the Gandhi block site. When I looked at the grids, our original site is 2 grids diagonal over (sea?). I remember several team discussions during last SGOTM2(As a lurker ) which talked about what culture can and can not do over water. If I knew how to try it in worldbuilder I think I would test it. At the very least take our settler to the spot first and see if it is blocked. I don't know if it is smart (or maybe even against the rules) to go into one of the forums and ask for info on the subject. It might tip other teams as to intentions.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There's no way to have every tile on Isle of Lodestones fogbusted from the sea. By my reckoning, I can have the city founded in 3 turns, if we're willing to risk unloading the worker with two tiles in FOW, 4 turns if we use the scout to test the waters before offloading the settler, or 5 turns if we use the chariot. In the latter two cases we'd need to ferry the worker separately, but there's useful stuff he can do on the mainland in the meantime. Personally I'd feel more comfortable with the chariot on the isle because we don't yet know Caesar's intentions.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Hmm. I saw Thrallia's post this morning but I didn't twig that he had paused rather than finished his turn. As a result I thought I had more time to comment. Sorry about that. As far as the city on Lodestone goes I agree with settling on the jungle to the east of the iron.

As far as the war with Alex is concerned, I see we have a demerit with Mao for attacking his friend. Let's hope Alex doesn't get Mao to join him.

I think we should still concentrate on settlers/workers in Moscow, using galley/military build for regrowing after poprushes. We're getting short of warriors again (and I'm guessing we won't be able to build them once our copper is hooked up). Warriors are useful as cheap builds to deal with city happiness.

Grrr. Further delays to the library. However needs must. Rather than build a warrior I think building a chariot or two in Moscow is better. I know I would certainly feel more comfortable with some better defence there. Especially if our only other chariot is going to Lodestone. We also need to remember that Alex might get sailing from Mao and our axes will take a while to build as the mine is yet to be built.

EDIT: Btw Thrallia, could you include the turn years in your reports? With the log there should be no excuse not to know them.

 

[Dagnabit]

Just tried to see if I could figure out Worldbuilder. Here is a shot of us 2 tiles away from Gandhi I gave him 20 culture to have the culture touch our shore:
Don't know if I did things right but it suggests the original site is possible. Am I really, really crazy?

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Just tried to see if I could figure out Worldbuilder. Here is a shot of us 2 tiles away from Gandhi I gave him 20 culture to have the culture touch our shore:
Don't know if I did things right but it suggests the original site is possible. Am I really, really crazy?

I have a vague recollection reading some post about how the two tile restriction doesn't apply across water. Certainly worth trying the original site as you suggested earlier.

 

[Dagnabit]

What I did was just add 2 settlers Gandhi, and Us to a spot I created on one of the test games. I waited until Gandhi founded and went back in to give him a bunch of culture. I had just settled the original Moscow settler to start the evolution. That is what all the other info is referring to on the screen. When Gandhis culture was touching our shore I then moved the current settler to present position. It even had a blue circle HaHa!

 

[Dagnabit]

Just to reconfirm how much I am learning playing this game- that was the First time I heve ever even opened the worldBuilder. What a rush! (That's some true Geezer speak )

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Just to reconfirm how much I am learning playing this game- that was the First time I heve ever even opened the worldBuilder. What a rush! (That's some true Geezer speak )

I have to admit that it was one of the earlier SGOTMs that got me experimenting with WB as well. I think there's a sticky in the C&C forum which gives more details about how to edit Wb saves.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Yeah, Dagnabit's correct! I just checked in worldbuilder myself. It seems that the 2-tile limit on city placement doesn't apply if the cities are on separate continents - Dagnabit, you're not only learning Civ now, you're finding out things for the rest of us So we should be able to settle in the original spot.

Having said that, I'm not sure why we'd want to now? Without a big culture push we won't be able to work any of the coastal tiles, we'll get a -1 'close borders spark tension' on our diplomacy, and now that India's borders reach our coast, a city there won't give any protection to the rest of our continent from AI settlers in galleys until its culture expands; settling NE of that spot gives instant galley-blocking and an overall stronger city.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Hmm. I saw Thrallia's post this morning but I didn't twig that he had paused rather than finished his turn. As a result I thought I had more time to comment. Sorry about that. As far as the city on Lodestone goes I agree with settling on the jungle to the east of the iron.

LOL! Well you have about another 10-12 hours at least now. I'm not going to start my turnset until tomorrow morning, to make sure there's been time for discussion first.

 

[Dagnabit]

Concerning fogbusting Loadstone island, if we are going to settle the jungle on the southern end, won't we fogbust enough to land the worker and then the settler if we unload from the southern end next to the site?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Concerning fogbusting Loadstone island, if we are going to settle the jungle on the southern end, won't we fogbust enough to land the worker and then the settler if we unload from the southern end next to the site?

No, there's still at least one tile (the one NE of the jungle) that won't be visible from the galley. Of course the likelihood of there being a barb sitting in that tile is pretty small (and you could make it even smaller by waiting a turn, on the assumption that if there is a barb there he'll probably move to a non-fogbusted tile the next turn), but *if* there is a barb there, then it's definitely goodbye to whichever of the settler or worker you unloaded first.

 

[Dagnabit]

A tough choice. The prudent thing to do is be 100% safe- especially with a settler. That not withstanding I think we have to be as efficient as possibe in our moves. Every extra turn at this stage in our development is exponentially a detriment to a fast development of our Commerce and Production sites. If we are truely worried about barbs on Lodestone Island then I would send the first settler North ASAP and then agressively chop a second for Lodestone while the scout/warrior/chariot fogbusts. I don't like leaving a worker/setttler unoccupied for more than a couple of turns while it relocates so I would have the worker help chop St Petes river bottom for the new Lodestone settler. Even with the stolen worker my gut tells me we can keep 2-3 more workers flat out for the foreseeable future and should bite the bullet and build them now. I am repeating myself when I say this and am not apposed to chopping a few forests for a library with them before they head into the jungles of Muscovy Island, but we need to be ruthless in hooking up our resources and getting our commerce started. Time is not our friend on a map with 18 AI and they are going to start messing with us before we are ready. If our settlers and workers aren't out and producing by then we may be fighting a long uphill battle just to defend what we have instead of taking what we want when we are ready. - Just my paranoia getting the better of me when surrounded by at least 3 grumpies with bad breath. And we were talking about Barbarians hiding in the woods Silly me.

 

[Thrallia]

here's my thoughts...from the spot 1N of the plains hill, we can see the forests, the hill, ensuring that there are no barbs there. Pass a turn and move to 1NW and 1SW to move around the forested hill, that ensures that the two coastal grasslands are barb free and we place the worker on the forested hill, where it is safe for at least one turn regardless. next turn go SW twice to get around the corner and move the worker 1SW to reveal the jungle(if a barb in jungle continue SW to the corner where it can reboard the galley the following turn) and when it is shown as barb free, drop the settler that turn on the island where it is guaranteed safe as well. Next turn we finish moving the galley around the island and see it is barb free, thus, in the minimum number of turns we are already roading the iron and have the settler in the jungle ready to found Lodestone City.

Is that too complicated? I just don't like the idea of delaying for a number of turns to get military over there when it is very unlikely there is one there. As CFR seems to say, high risk, high reward. I'd personally move the galley straight there and save a turn or two that way to get it there and minimize the chances of either Julius or barbs getting there.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Hey ho, we're paying the price for the fogbusting and running light in the cities. I was thinking of suggesting we take the warrior from SP, except we don't have one there. So, although it will take longer I support DynamicSpirit's proposal to take some military across to Lodestone.

I also think we need to get some military in SP, be it warrior or chariot, as it's just a open target at present since we can't reinforce it quicky. Rushing a chariot in Moscow, after a turn, and then building another sounds good to me.

 

[Thrallia]

well...we can blame me and Alex for the lack of a warrior in St. Pete...I took him over to Greece for some sightseeing and he got ambushed by a band of rabid archers. I figured after we get the next warrior out of moscow build a new warrior or something and send it to St. Pete.