SGOTM 03 - Geezers

[Thrallia]

weird...I thought our save files were protected? I just went to try to check out our situation and for some reason when I double-click our save file, it loads vanilla vanilla...no HOF mod, not even my Blue Marble mod, whihch I didn't think COULD be turned off.

 

[Thrallia]

uh...scratch that, I'm just being an idiot lol I didn't turn on any of the advisors...I forgot we had to do that. Although I'm still not sure Blue Marble is active...it might just be the low quality graphics I'm stuck with.

 

[Thrallia]

First thought: Trade Polytheism to Vicky for Priesthood.

Second: Is binary research worth it now? We no longer get 1 turn of 100% for 1 turn of 0%. The best we can do is 1 turn of 0% and 3 turns of 70%.

Third: I don't think Alex has copper, or we would have seen a phalanx by now. So I think we should send a chariot and axe over in the next shipment.

Fourth: We should be able to take Sparta with the units we have there, at least, once we upgrad the two new axes with CR1.

Fifth: We definitely need to build another settler in either Moscow or St. Pete. Once we do we can open borders with our friends, Gandhi and Julius.

 

[Htadus]

Got it.

I will look at the save and post any questions and a turn plan.

 

[markh]

The chart on the results page looks VERY NICE. I like it !

Did not have a look at the save, yet. Will do this in the evening.

Regarding research I do not think that we will have that big problems. With that many AIs we always should find somebody to trade with. We just have to keep an eye on our science and keep it at a good level, so we have to avoid growing/conquering too fast once we settled our last city. It will be important now to find more AIs for trading, so we should consider to make OB with Mao and JC to send galleys around these islands.

Roster :

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

 

[Thrallia]

I'm not sure Mao will make an OB with us until Alex is dead...he doesn't like that we declared war on his friend. We may have to gift him a resource or something after we finish off Alex to get him to open his borders.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I don't think I would be in too much of a hurry to give OB to Mao. After Alex I think there's a strong likelihood we may be at war with him, most likely initiated by him.

An OB with Ghandhi to begin with should be fine. Obviously after we settle the north.

EDIT:
@DynamicSpirit - Looking at SGOTM02 threads is fine. Just be very sure you don't open a SGOTM03 thread by accident. Some of the names are very similar.

 

[Htadus]

Looked at the save and see that two cities will be completing the builds and almost all will grow during the turns. Took me a while to realize the science is at zero.

Couple of points for Htadus ....

• St P is ready to poprush its library (it's unhappy and poprushing requires two pop. Perfect conditions).

Rushing the Lib in St P is also another option as DynamicSpirit Pointed out. However, would this not delay the research since we loose gold from two citz's? Also since this city is a fast growing city is it better to do so and end up with 30 turns of unhappiness?

• Worker chopping forest near Lodestone City. Do we want to complete that, or do we want to save the chop for a wonder? Lodestone City has decent production, can poprush and so has no obvious urgency for forest chops. Another worker's doing the same in Coppertownski, although since we're building military there, there's probably an advantage in doing that in order to get the units to take Athens and Sparta more quickly.
• Is it worth having Moscow build a settler after its library is complete, so we can get our last city founded and then open borders?
• Coppertownski will get unhappy in 6 turns if we don't put a military unit there. Options: 1: Build a chariot there after the swordsman, will complete just in time. 2: (more risky but better for our invasion of Greece). Take the warrior from Moscow to Coppertownski (he can get there just in time too), and replace by moving that axe into Moscow. Then Coppertownski can continue producing swordsmen. With the forest chop we'll have 3 swords in 6-7 turns.

What kind of a City are we planning L City to be? Hybrid of sort? Either way if we are not pressed for hammers, I too would prefer not to chop there. As for the chop in Cski, I am for it. I prefer the first option of building a chariot. We will most likely need mobile units.

Also to note:

• Caesar is +5 towards us but still only cautious(!!!). What do we have to do to turn that into pleased? Open borders?

I think he and Vick is waiting to see who's side we will take. Could be useful.


I also noticed that worker action is going to highlight the next turn set. I see both Novgrode's need the rice irrigated asap.

When L City grow, the new citz should work the hamlet.

If we do not pop rush in St P, the new citz work the fish.

I think we should build another military unit in L City.

BTW....I had the worst luck in several test games recently when attacking cities. Is 4 unit enough to take the two Archers? Do the two axes have an unused promotion? Is it still enough? If the combat odds are less than a certain value, say 40%, is it worth attacking?

 

[Htadus]

I don't think I would be in too much of a hurry to give OB to Mao. After Alex I think there's a strong likelihood we may be at war with him, most likely initiated by him.

An OB with Ghandhi to begin with should be fine. Obviously after we settle the north.

I think there is a good chance that Mao will play interferance after we take the first city. So I say no OB with him too.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

As far as techs go, what should we looking to research? Optics would be desirable as then we don't need to worry about OBs. But then Bureaucracy has strong advantages as does Monarchy.

 

[markh]

I considered Alex gone before signing OB with Mao of course. Should have mentioned that. It would take a bit of time to build the galleys anyway and the first one I would send towards Gandhi as long as Alex is still there.

4 attackers should be enough to take out the 2 archers. Double amount of attacking units than defenders usually is enough in the early stage of the game. Especially if you take swords with CR promotion. Still the RNG can play tricks on you, but usually it should be enough. I think soon there will be a third archer. I would bet that he is building one there if our troops are standing at the city.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

BTW....I had the worst luck in several test games recently when attacking cities. Is 4 unit enough to take the two Archers? Do the two axes have an unused promotion? Is it still enough? If the combat odds are less than a certain value, say 40%, is it worth attacking?

I think Thrallia mentioned needing six attackers earlier. Although there are only two archers at present it looks as though they're protected by a wall. Also one of our axes is wounded.

 

[markh]

As far as techs go, what should we looking to research? Optics would be desirable as then we don't need to worry about OBs. But then Bureaucracy has strong advantages as does Monarchy.

I am not sure what I want next. Metal Casting (forges), Monarchy (happiness), Calendar (hooking up the spice) or Code of Laws (courts). All these are tempting and maybe we can get anything of that in trades for literature.

 

[Thrallia]

Rushing the Lib in St P is also another option as DynamicSpirit Pointed out. However, would this not delay the research since we loose gold from two citz's? Also since this city is a fast growing city is it better to do so and end up with 30 turns of unhappiness?

Actually, since it is unhappy right now we'd only lose one productive worker, and since it would be a single poprush(using two pop at once) we would only get the obligatory 15 turn unhappiness. I'd say its a great time to do so, and then put the overflow from it into a granary(if one isn't built already)

What kind of a City are we planning L City to be? Hybrid of sort? Either way if we are not pressed for hammers, I too would prefer not to chop there. As for the chop in Cski, I am for it. I prefer the first option of building a chariot. We will most likely need mobile units.

I believe we were considering mainly production...lumbermills, workshops, mines/windmills, and the iron would make for a great production city especially since it has a fish to work. I agree not to chop there. chopping in coppertownski is fine with me since there are plenty of hammer tiles there and we need quick military to finish Alex off before this war drags on too long. I would prefer Swords over Chariots because unless we go to war against Mao, we don't need mobility in war anytime soon...Alex has a very small empire.

I also noticed that worker action is going to highlight the next turn set. I see both Novgrode's need the rice irrigated asap.

When L City grow, the new citz should work the hamlet.

If we do not pop rush in St P, the new citz work the fish.

I think we should build another military unit in L City.

BTW....I had the worst luck in several test games recently when attacking cities. Is 4 unit enough to take the two Archers? Do the two axes have an unused promotion? Is it still enough? If the combat odds are less than a certain value, say 40%, is it worth attacking?

Rice can be taken care of, but I'm not sure it is more important than clearing out all that jungle. I believe irrigating it would only add one more food, so it can wait a bit if needed. But yes, worker actions will be very important to solidifying our infrastructure...I found out while replaying GOTM1 that I really suck at taking care of workers and building that infrastructure efficiently.

As for attacking...the new new axes that are to the NW of Sparta both have unused promotions, I think they should both be used for City Raider, it'll give +20% city attack, most likely raising their chances to 50%. As for if there are enough units...I'd say yes there are, especially since if we wait it'll only get harder to break the city. I would recommend using a CR(City Raider) axe first, and if it damages the first archer enough, use the second one for the next archer...that should hurt both archers enough, even if we lose those two axes, that we can take them out with our remaining axes. Then we can use the reinforcements I think we should be sending asap to help hold the city and to press the attack on Athens.

I am not sure what I want next. Metal Casting (forges), Monarchy (happiness), Calendar (hooking up the spice) or Code of Laws (courts). All these are tempting and maybe we can get anything of that in trades for literature.

Metal Casting would be my preference, mainly because we could then get Colossus. I know we are not prioritizing wonders, but an extra commerce in every single ocean square, I think, is too big a bonus to pass up on this map.
Although I would wait on trading literature until we are almost done building the Library...we don't want Gandhi to be racing us for it.

I think Thrallia mentioned needing six attackers earlier. Although there are only two archers at present it looks as though they're protected by a wall. Also one of our axes is wounded.

I don't think we need 6 right now...we should definitely be ready with more, but I think we could take Sparta right now if we are willing to try.

Final thought is that if we can wrap this war with Alex up fast and take him out, we'll be in very good shape compared to the other teams. I think Murky Waters and Real Ms Beyond right now are our strongest competition, and I don't think either took over Alex and settled the island this fast.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Actually, since it is unhappy right now we'd only lose one productive worker, and since it would be a single poprush(using two pop at once) we would only get the obligatory 15 turn unhappiness. I'd say its a great time to do so, and then put the overflow from it into a granary(if one isn't built already)

St P does have a granary. Lighthouse would be the next thing on the list to build. However, I've just noticed it's still suffering unhappiness from the previous poprush - I think that means poprushing now would be a bad idea. Sorry, I didn't notice that before. What we could do is to wait 5 turns till it grows again, then change to a settler or worker. That way we take advantage of the thing where unhappy people don't eat any food if you're building a settler/worker.

Rice can be taken care of, but I'm not sure it is more important than clearing out all that jungle. I believe irrigating it would only add one more food, so it can wait a bit if needed.

Yes it'll only ad one more food, however I think it is more important, on the basis that it gives us one very good square that we can use instantly.

btw the worker is currently set to build a farm. It'd be better if he was set to clear the jungle, then build a farm afterwards, because then we get the benefit of cleared jungle (a 3-food tile) as soon as it's clear instead of only after the farm is built.

As for attacking...the new new axes that are to the NW of Sparta both have unused promotions, I think they should both be used for City Raider, it'll give +20% city attack, most likely raising their chances to 50%.

Those archers have 6.75 defence, so city raider still means our first two axemen are likely to lose. I'd say if we attack now we have no more than a 50-60% chance of taking the city (it'd be a much higher chance if the 4th axe wasn't injured). We could attack with one CR axe, and then decide whether to continue the attack based on how much damage that axe actually does. Or we could circle the axes round to prevent Alex bringing in reinforcements while we wait for a couple of swords.

Metal Casting would be my preference, mainly because we could then get Colossus. I know we are not prioritizing wonders, but an extra commerce in every single ocean square, I think, is too big a bonus to pass up on this map.
Although I would wait on trading literature until we are almost done building the Library...we don't want Gandhi to be racing us for it.

I agree. Not only that but, we can build the colossus quickly coz we have copper, and metal casting opens up forges (= happiness + engineers). I say, research MC, not literature, next.

 

[markh]

Those archers have 6.75 defence, so city raider still means our first two axemen are likely to lose. I'd say if we attack now we have no more than a 50-60% chance of taking the city (it'd be a much higher chance if the 4th axe wasn't injured). We could attack with one CR axe, and then decide whether to continue the attack based on how much damage that axe actually does. Or we could circle the axes round to prevent Alex bringing in reinforcements while we wait for a couple of swords.

After some thinking about it I would prefer to wait until we have more troops in Greece and finish Alex off in one go and be able to defend against Mao. Probably we will lose 2 axes on the attack and then we cannot do much there other than waiting for reinforcements anyway. If we are unlucky and the two axes defeating the archers are badly wounded and Alex takes back the city on the next turn. Unlikely, but still possible. We are not in a real hurry, so I would wait a bit. These cities will just add maintenance and our science rate will go further down.

I agree. Not only that but, we can build the colossus quickly coz we have copper, and metal casting opens up forges (= happiness + engineers). I say, research MC, not literature, next.

Would be my favourite, too. If we want the colossus we have to start asap. In my test games it was built by the AI quite fast.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

A couple of days ago I took a look at some of the fastest-finishing diplomatic wins from GOTMs.

GOTM07 (Prince, Arabia) - ChunkyMonkey in 1376AD
GOTM08 (Monarch, Bismarck, archipelago) - Piscator in 1460AD
GOTM09 (Emperor, Huayna Capac) - Lawrence in 1544AD

(I did this before the recent results came out, but I don't think the more recent ones are as relevent because noone pulled off diplomatic in the same sort of time frame)

A couple of points:

• In all cases, they'd researched (or traded) almost every tech up to Liberalism (and parallel techs). Beyond that they knew very little other than those techs on a direct line to mass-media.
• The dates look consistent with a fifteenth century win being the best we can reasonably achieve.
• In all cases, science by the end was in the 800-1000 beakers/turn range. ChunkyMonkey and Lawrence achieved it with small civs (7-9 cities) running civil service, and the capital alone giving about half the research.
• Piscator achieved his by conquering a sizeable fraction of the world. His research was down to 60% but his bigger civ size compensated.

That says to me that we have a choice - we can go for victory by staying small or by conquering lots of AIs and accepting a lower science rate (but still researching fast because we're big).

I vote that we go conquering. I think there are several factors on this map that favour that approach (and I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that Piscator's conquering victory was on an archipelago map too):

• Lots of AIs means shorter wars so less war weariness.
• Lots of AIs means most of them will be short of resources (as are we right now). We conquer, we have more resources we can give away, which may make up for the 'you declared war on our friend' penalty.
• Lots of AIs means many of them won't meet each other till very late (or never?) So in many cases we'll completely eliminate AIs without any chance for it to affect relations with other AIs.
• Archipelago means it'll be very hard to get a city that can be our capital and work enough cottages to give 400+ beakers/turn. Most of our cities simply have too many sea tiles.
• Lots of AIs means it'll be harder for us to muster enough allies for a diplo vote. So the more votes that come from our own population the better.

 

[Dagnabit]

After some thinking about it I would prefer to wait until we have more troops in Greece and finish Alex off in one go and be able to defend against Mao. Probably we will lose 2 axes on the attack and then we cannot do much there other than waiting for reinforcements anyway. If we are unlucky and the two axes defeating the archers are badly wounded and Alex takes back the city on the next turn. Unlikely, but still possible. We are not in a real hurry, so I would wait a bit. These cities will just add maintenance and our science rate will go further down.

I agree we should wait at least until we have 2 more troop ferried across before we take Sparts. I think we need to produce swords/axes in Coppertownski,Moscow, and Lodestone to get it quickly. And As I have said before we do not have enough galleys to do this. It is 8 turns round trip from Coppertownski and 6 from Lodestone. We can't get enough troops ashore fast enough even if we have the production capability.

A couple of days ago I took a look at some of the fastest-finishing diplomatic wins from GOTMs. ....snip...
....
That says to me that we have a choice - we can go for victory by staying small or by conquering lots of AIs and accepting a lower science rate (but still researching fast because we're big).

I vote that we go conquering. I think there are several factors on this map that favour that approach (and I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that Piscator's conquering victory was on an archipelago map too):

• Lots of AIs means shorter wars so less war weariness.
• Lots of AIs means most of them will be short of resources (as are we right now). We conquer, we have more resources we can give away, which may make up for the 'you declared war on our friend' penalty.
• Lots of AIs means many of them won't meet each other till very late (or never?) So in many cases we'll completely eliminate AIs without any chance for it to affect relations with other AIs.
• Archipelago means it'll be very hard to get a city that can be our capital and work enough cottages to give 400+ beakers/turn. Most of our cities simply have too many sea tiles.
• Lots of AIs means it'll be harder for us to muster enough allies for a diplo vote. So the more votes that come from our own population the better.

Logically then we should have troops ready for MAO assoon after as practicable. We don't know much about his capabilities at this point, but if he is land locked you can bet he is going to want to take any weakly defended sites we have in Alex's former empire. If he has Horse Archers/axes he could be a pain.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I vote that we go conquering. I think there are several factors on this map that favour that approach (and I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that Piscator's conquering victory was on an archipelago map too)

Easy tiger! A few points:

• 1500's sounds around right. We got our SGOTM01 diplo victory in 1560 AD as I recall. However with exception of one war it was peaceful. It consisted of 4 small continents I believe.
• You didn't say what kind of terrain Piscator had in his game. Looking at our 'island' all that grassland looks perfect for science farms but doesn't do much for production.
• We need more info about where the AI are and whether we have large groups together in blocks.
• Rather than do the fighting ourselves we may find it better to bribe the AI to fight each other instead.

I think we have 'insufficient data' to make a decision at present. I believe we should prioritise:

1. Killing off Alex.
2. Building up our infrastructure and military
3. Getting Optics so we can find out where everyone is and who they are

This isn't meant to be a complete rebuttal. Neither do I rule out your suggestion. I just honestly think we need more info, a solid infrastructure and better production before we can sensibly decide if it's best to go down that route.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I agree we should wait at least until we have 2 more troop ferried across before we take Sparts. I think we need to produce swords/axes in Coppertownski,Moscow, and Lodestone to get it quickly. And As I have said before we do not have enough galleys to do this. It is 8 turns round trip from Coppertownski and 6 from Lodestone. We can't get enough troops ashore fast enough even if we have the production capability.

I wouldn't do direct ferrying from Coppertownski. I'd have one galley ferrying Cski->St P and another galley ferrying from East of St P to near Sparta. (That obviously leaves Lodestone City out, but the Lodestone could be building a 3rd galley if we want it to contribute to the war effort )