SGOTM 03 - Geezers

[Sam_Yeager]

Summary

Objectives mostly met. Nanjing is ours. Liberalism and Astronomy are known. Printing Press completes next turn. We have forces next to Guangzhou but we need reinforcements. Mao has another iron mine online as he's just built another mace. Vicki's a PITA for asking for tech at the wrong time.

Turn 250 - 1160 AD
Moved galley by Tianjin to be nearer to Lodestone. Can't quite reach the nets. MM Beijing & Rostov for production.
IBT:
Livy says we're mediocre:

Turn 251- 1166 AD
Take Nanjing at the cost of 3 cats and a sword. The screenshot shows Nanjing after the 3 cats have attacked.

Mao tries to sneak a HA towards Sparta. A war elephant deals convincingly with it.
IBT:
Mansa asks for an OB. Can't remember our status with him so I decline. Izzy makes peace with Kublai.
Turn 252 - 1172 AD
The LB that was on the iron heads towards Mao's territory. Kill the LB but lose another sword in the process. Our caravel in the NE meets Washington (Judaism & Annoyed).
IBT:
Izzy declares war on Louis.
Turn 253 - 1178 AD
Moscow now has a harbour. Tell it to start on a sword. Vicki asks to trade world maps. Don't see any harm so I agree. Mao's war elephant that has been wandering about in the forest finally comes out and is killed. Lose one of our war elephants in the process though.
Turn 254 - 1184 AD
Coppertownski finishes a cat and starts on a sword.
Turn 255 - 1190 AD
Novogorod now has a lighthouse and starts on a harbour.
Turn 256 - 1196 AD
New Novgorod now as a harbour and starts on a lighthouse. (Like the symmetry?) Beijing finishes the cat and starts on a sword. Kill Mao's caravel near Athens for the loss of one of our own. At long last I can farm the sea there. Mao had been building a mine on the isthmus copper. Land a war elephant to pillage it.
Turn 257 - 1202 AD
Moscow finishes the sword and starts on a caravel. Rostov completes the courthouse and resumes working on that galley in the queue. Decide we don't need another galley so I replace it by a lighthouse build. Our elephant pillages the copper.
IBT:
Our war elephant is attacked by LBs. After killing one LB it succumbs to the second. Frederick demands we cancel our deals with Monty. Decline. Kublai offers music plus 60 gold for feudalism. Decline.
Turn 2588 - 1208 AD
Liberalism comes in. Take astronomy as free tech as agreed. Start Printing Press and partially lightbulb it with our GS. Time to complete drops by 8 turns. However funds are a bit low so I put research to 0% for a turn. Coppertownski completes the sword and starts a harbour. I also decide to hire a GE specialist there. Btw, hands up all those who remembered that astronomy obsoletes the colossus?

Mao sends a single cat to threaten Beijing. Kill it but lose another sword. Sigh. As the majority of our forces have healed I decide I might as well start attacking Guangzhou.
IBT:
Ghandi wants to swap world maps - shrug, why not?
Turn 259 - 1214 AD
Sparta finishes a cat and starts on a theatre. Whip the theatre in Nanjing since the pop is starving anyway. Increase research back to 100%.
IBT:
Vicki turns up wanting astronomy. You want our most expensive tech for nothing Vicki? Why of course! How remiss of me not to have gifted it to you before! Needless to say I declined her kind request. Diplo or not that's just a bit too expensive, especially since she's not even friendly with us.
Turn 10 - 500 AD
Both Shanghai and Nanjing finish their theatres. They both start a courthouse. Our initial force reaches Guangzhou. Although reinforcements have reached Beijing we will definitely need more. It looks like Mao has got another iron mine online as a mace has appeared in Guanzhou.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Sounds pretty good Bad luck about the elephants - that maceman could cause some havoc on our Guangzhou stack without them, but it can't be helped. I agree we'll need reinforcements for the Guangzhou stack to take the city.

Our diplo relations are looking good - 7 civs pleased towards us, and Monty is on +4 although cautious.

I don't think we stand much chance right now for the great merchant from economics - Vicky has guilds (no way to tell if she already has banking too) and her research is phenomenal - how is she doing it???? I'd suggest we attach a high priority to trying to make her friendly towards us, that way she may become willing to trade those techs that she currently won't trade, including guilds, (she probably won't trade them coz she's the only one who knows them, often AIs need to be friendly to trade those) (But having said that, I rather agree with not giving her astronomy - that would've been a *huge* gift)

On the science front, we ought to be able to trade away education (or perhaps, printing press instead, next turn?) to get civil service, engineering and music and some gold. We can also get 5gpt from Hatty for an ivory. We're going to get a great scientist from Novgorod in 9 turns, but we won't get another one for another 40 turns at current rates. Not sure what to do with science after we have printing press - guilds seems potentially a waste if there's any chance of getting it from Vicky? But there's not really anything else that'll give our commerce much boost, so maybe we should just head for scientific method? I feel nervous about doing that because it means we're now looking at a chain of hugely expensive techs that we don't yet have the science to research in any kind of reasonable timeframe per tech, but offhand I don't see any good alternative, unless anyone else does?

And yeah, the thing about astronomy obsoleting colossus occured to me after I looked at your save. I think I'd still stand by it though - astronomy was a very nice expensive tech to get from liberalism, it was something we needed for mass media. And it means Russia rules the waves for now (Have I misquoted the song somehow there... )

 

[Dagnabit]

Summary

Turn 10 - 500 AD
Both Shanghai and Nanjing finish their theatres. .....

I hope our time machine will get us back before cocktails!

 

[Dagnabit]

Wrote my thoughts in Word and can't figure how to get them into the body of this msg so it is attached below

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Have word open, copy all the text (think it's CTRL+A to select all, then CTRL+C to copy the text, or you can use the mouse to do it), then hit reply to the post in the thread as usual, and hit CTRL+V to paste the copied text into the reply.

I quite often compose messages in Word or Notepad before replying - especially GOTM spoiler posts where I probably write the post some days before the thread I want to post it in is opened. It's quite a cool way of doing it.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Change to Bureaucracy with CS. Should we also change to Free Religion for the +1 happy and +10% research?

That would be good!

Printing press in 1 (good job Sam). Military Tradition next. We will have another Great Scientist in Novgorod in about 8-9 turns and I would propose using him to lightbulb part of Mil Tradition. I tried to calculate number of turns to complete with use of GS but not sure how many beakers we get for lightbulbing. Does anyone know where to find this info?

I'm curious, what's your reason for wanting military tradition?

The scientist won't offer to lightbulb military tradition, he'll offer to lightbulb scientific method. I don't know how to work out how many beakers he'll offer, but I do know it's related to the size of your civ (your population I think?). The bigger you are, the more beakers you get.

If doable I want to take down roads to his Copper but don’t think I can do more during my turn set. I would like some more discussion on why we don’t want to eventually eliminate him all together. I know the tundra cities are the pits (maybe leave them) but Tiniun? and the other city on the peninsula should be able to pay for themselves and do make votes for us.

The problem with taking Tianjin is that the the culture from the city just to the South of it (which IIRC is near Tundra and therefore not much good?), will render Tianjin next to useless to us unless we take that city too. Also, IIRC, Tianjin doesn't have any food resources, which means it'll grow pretty slowly.

The problem with capturing cities is that each city costs a bit more than the last city, so eventually you have to wait a loooong time before they pay for themselves. On this map there's an added problem that most cities don't have that many cottageable tiles, and it's the cottages that normally make the cities pay for themselves quickly. In fact, if it wasn't for Guangzhou's culture making Beijing next to useless, I'd be suggesting making peace with Mao now.

The immediate advantage for our game of more cities is that you get more resources, which means we can trade more and build up more diplomatic bonuses. However I don't think Tianjin has any resources? (I don't have the game in front of me). Also the extra population means lightbulbing works better

It's true that the extra population helps you in the diplo vote, but that's not relevent until the diplo vote actually takes place. We can easily sit back and wait, then start doing some more conquering later on, when we are close to discovering mass media and therefore don't care about the immediate damage to our science. (Although the danger then is that if we've been focussing on mass media, we'll be behind other civs in military techs)

 

[Dagnabit]

:thanx Ok so do I feel stupid!!: I kept messing with Easy Upload and manage attachments and they didn't like .doc. Couldn't be so easy as cut and paste

As I see it:
My focus will be to take Guangzou and Hangzou as quickly as possible. Troops are probably sufficient except I would be a little more comfortable with a couple more Cats (we have 6 ATM). After trading for CS I will likely upgrade a couple Axes to Macemen to neutralize Mao’s. If doable I want to take down roads to his Copper but don’t think I can do more during my turn set. I would like some more discussion on why we don’t want to eventually eliminate him all together. I know the tundra cities are the pits (maybe leave them) but Tiniun? and the other city on the peninsula should be able to pay for themselves and do make votes for us.
Trades- We can pickup 400+ gold trading World Map to everyone. Mansa will give us Music and Civil Service for Education. Gandhi will give us 110G and Engineering for Education. Toku will give us 180 gold for Theology and 6gpt for clam. Hatti will give us 5gpt for Ivory. Still need to hook up Rostov cow so we can trade it.

Civics- Change to Bureaucracy with CS. Should we also change to Free Religion for the +1 happy and +10% research?

Research- Printing press in 1 (good job Sam). Military Tradition next. We will have another Great Scientist in Novgorod in about 8-9 turns and I would propose using him to lightbulb part of Mil Tradition. I tried to calculate number of turns to complete with use of GS but not sure how many beakers we get for lightbulbing. Does anyone know where to find this info? I think it is about 2000beakers and if so we would need another 8-9 turns at 100% research. MT (5300-2000=3300 a quick adding of city beakers gives +- 350 a turn)

City Builds- Use hammer overflow in Nanjing for Cat (1turn). Rush Cat in Beijing>finish sword>WB. Also work cottage instead of sea tile. Sparta work Iron instead of Marble-speeds Library to 4turns. Lots of food there, do we want to hire Specialists? Athens doesn’t need Library yet so would work 2 more clams. Grow in 3. Lib from 15 to 17 turns. Rostov looking good. After lighthouse work cottages. Moscow defer Caravelle. Lighthouse>University>Caravelle. St Pete work spices to grow. Harbor>Market>poprush theatre. New Novrogod Lighthouse then switch and work 2 cottages for growth.

About it- what does everyone think. Can play in 24hours.

 

[Dagnabit]

I'm curious, what's your reason for wanting military tradition?

I ment Scientific Method Its that age thing again

The problem with taking Tianjin is that the the culture from the city just to the South of it (which IIRC is near Tundra and therefore not much good?), will render Tianjin next to useless to us unless we take that city too. Also, IIRC, Tianjin doesn't have any food resources, which means it'll grow pretty slowly.

The problem with capturing cities is that each city costs a bit more than the last city, so eventually you have to wait a loooong time before they pay for themselves. On this map there's an added problem that most cities don't have that many cottageable tiles, and it's the cottages that normally make the cities pay for themselves quickly. In fact, if it wasn't for Guangzhou's culture making Beijing next to useless, I'd be suggesting making peace with Mao now.

Didn't realize each new city cost more than previous

The immediate advantage for our game of more cities is that you get more resources, which means we can trade more and build up more diplomatic bonuses. However I don't think Tianjin has any resources? (I don't have the game in front of me). Also the extra population means lightbulbing works better

It's true that the extra population helps you in the diplo vote, but that's not relevent until the diplo vote actually takes place. We can easily sit back and wait, then start doing some more conquering later on, when we are close to discovering mass media and therefore don't care about the immediate damage to our science. (Although the danger then is that if we've been focussing on mass media, we'll be behind other civs in military techs)

Makes sense

 

[Thrallia]

its looking good, but I'm still here voting for Engineering next so Ctown can build the Hagia Sophia! That and an engineer spec will give Ctown +10!!! GE points per turn. That should enable us to get at least 1 GE before we reach Mass Media. If anyone isn't entirely sure why I am pushing for a GE for it so hard...a GE could potentially save us 25-40 turns of UN construction! I believe 100% that unless we are able to use at least 1 GE for building the UN we won't be able to get the laurels.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

My focus will be to take Guangzou and Hangzou as quickly as possible. Troops are probably sufficient except I would be a little more comfortable with a couple more Cats (we have 6 ATM). After trading for CS I will likely upgrade a couple Axes to Macemen to neutralize Mao’s.

I admire your confidence in our troops. However I feel it is somwhat misplaced. 'Tiddly' Nanjing accounted for 3 cats and a sword and only had a spear and two LBs, albeit well promoted ones. Guangzhou has a mace and 6 LBs. I grant you that the majority of these units are unpromoted but I think you would have to reckon on a minimum of that scale of loss, probably more.

@Thrallia - Hagia Sofia sounds nice but we may want to use CT to build military. As an aside I was surprised to note that Heroic Epic hadn't been built by anyone. I did actually think about whether we should build it but discounted the idea as we were supposed to be mostly peaceful after we take Mao down.

I hope our time machine will get us back before cocktails!

The perils of editing the last writeup in a hurry.

EDIT:

We can pickup 400+ gold trading World Map to everyone.

I still think we need to be careful who we trade with so that we don't get too many demerits. So far the best we have is 'Pleased'.

@All - I see we've already got a WFYABTA with one of the civs (Julius?) so the next round of trading may well be the last.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

its looking good, but I'm still here voting for Engineering next so Ctown can build the Hagia Sophia!

It looks like we've got a pretty good chance of getting it in trade.

 

[Dagnabit]

@All - I see we've already got a WFYABTA with one of the civs (Julius?) so the next round of trading may well be the last.

I give up. WFYABTA ?

 

[Thrallia]

if someone already has Engineering, we definitely need to get it ASAP for us to build the Hagia Sophia, I'm not confident in our ability to get a GE without it. As an aside, it will make the workers we have much more efficient.

as for the WFYABTA that Julius has, he's had that at least since my turnset...I think mark or Dagnabit might have mentioned it during theirs also. He'll stay that way until he becomes friendly. Vicky, Hatty, and Gandhi will always trade with us and if Mansa becomes more advanced, he'll always trade with us as well.

@Dagnabit, it means 'we fear you are becoming too advanced'

 

[Dagnabit]

if someone already has Engineering, we definitely need to get it ASAP for us to build the Hagia Sophia, I'm not confident in our ability to get a GE without it. As an aside, it will make the workers we have much more efficient.

I don't have the game open but my notes tell me GANDHI will give us 110G, Engineering, and World Map for Education now. My book says the Hagia Sophia takes 550H (Double speed w/marble and talks about worker speed increase but doesn't say anything about GE. Do we get more Eng Specialists or just more GE points per turn?

as for the WFYABTA that Julius has, he's had that at least since my turnset...I think mark or Dagnabit might have mentioned it during theirs also. He'll stay that way until he becomes friendly. Vicky, Hatty, and Gandhi will always trade with us and if Mansa becomes more advanced, he'll always trade with us as well.

@Dagnabit, it means 'we fear you are becoming too advanced'

Thanks. Again I knew that, just slow on the uptake

 

[Dagnabit]

I have been reading some Hagia Sophia Wonder threads and see it's benefit. I know it would be a little slower to build in Moscow but can we give up our best production city for ?15-20 turns. Does the AI (in this case Gandhi who is willing to give us Eng) aggressively builds the HagSof or do we have a little time.? I think I can put either Ctown or Moscow to work on it soonest if that is what we want-without affecting the War with Mao. It will limit some growth
if in Ctown as max hammers will stagnate the city without lighthouse. (Maybe even with one?)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I have been reading some Hagia Sophia Wonder threads and see it's benefit. I know it would be a little slower to build in Moscow but can we give up our best production city for ?15-20 turns. Does the AI (in this case Gandhi who is willing to give us Eng) aggressively builds the HagSof or do we have a little time.? I think I can put either Ctown or Moscow to work on it soonest if that is what we want-without affecting the War with Mao. It will limit some growth
if in Ctown as max hammers will stagnate the city without lighthouse. (Maybe even with one?)

Cski was really our military city, but once our current war with Mao is over, do we need to build any more military (other than perhaps a few maces/galleons to make sure we're up to date)? My impression is we're not immediately planning to go to war with anyone else, and the number of units we're running has been a drain on our science for quite a while now. Once we have Guangzhou/Hangzhou, Mao isn't exactly going to be a threat any more.

If we don't need to build more military then Cski doesn't really have much to do so it may as well build the Hagia Sophia.

If we are going to try and build the Hagia Sophia then I don't think we have any time to spare, since we don't have marble; any AI with marble may be able to build it a lot faster than we can.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm going to make a really radical suggestion. Rather than adopt free religion, we convert to Christianity and adopt pacifism.

Why? We need a lot more great scientists. We're facing an uphill tech struggle: At 50% research (not quite sustainable yet) scientific method is showing up at 29 turns, physics 57 turns, electricity 64 turns! We'll never win the laurels at those kinds of rates, even allowing for them going down a bit as cottages mature. But great scientists will lightbulb all three techs (electricity: Only if we avoid discovering gunpowder first).

There's other advantages: We'll improve our relations with Caesar, Gandhi and Victoria. Caesar's important coz he's the only civ that might attack us and could be a real threat if he did. Vicky's important because she's currently refusing to trade techs that noone else has. I know we'll worsen our relations with the Hatty-Cyrus block, but we can always go back to free religion nearer the diplo vote.

The downside is the bigger unit cost may make our science rate drop.

I'd also suggest turning Athens into a great person farm asap. If we adopt caste system, then as soon as the other clams there are hooked up, we can run 6 specialists there - that will give us 54 great person points/turn, enough for a scientist every 11-12 turns!! (36/turn without pacifism) (May be prudent to build a forge there so we can make one of them an engineer if desired - give us a chance that one of the great people will be an extra engineer, and library to add to its science output from the scientists. We do need to watch we don't destroy our chances of getting an engineer, and there is a risk if Athens keeps running ahead of Coppertownski). Also, if converting to caste system, we'd want to make sure that we've done all poprushing we need to first (Might consider poprushing the Hagia Sophia to guarantee getting it if we're nearly there, though that'll cost a *lot* of population for only a few turns).

At present, all our potential specialist cities already have Christianity except Athens, so we'd need to build a monastery somewhere and spread it there.

 

[Dagnabit]

I'm going to make a really radical suggestion. Rather than adopt free religion, we convert to Christianity and adopt pacifism.

Why? We need a lot more great scientists. We're facing an uphill tech struggle: At 50% research (not quite sustainable yet) scientific method is showing up at 29 turns, physics 57 turns, electricity 64 turns! We'll never win the laurels at those kinds of rates, even allowing for them going down a bit as cottages mature. But great scientists will lightbulb all three techs (electricity: Only if we avoid discovering gunpowder first).

There's other advantages: We'll improve our relations with Caesar, Gandhi and Victoria. Caesar's important coz he's the only civ that might attack us and could be a real threat if he did. Vicky's important because she's currently refusing to trade techs that noone else has. I know we'll worsen our relations with the Hatty-Cyrus block, but we can always go back to free religion nearer the diplo vote.

The downside is the bigger unit cost may make our science rate drop.

I'd also suggest turning Athens into a great person farm asap. If we adopt caste system, then as soon as the other clams there are hooked up, we can run 6 specialists there - that will give us 54 great person points/turn, enough for a scientist every 11-12 turns!! (36/turn without pacifism) (May be prudent to build a forge there so we can make one of them an engineer if desired - give us a chance that one of the great people will be an extra engineer, and library to add to its science output from the scientists. We do need to watch we don't destroy our chances of getting an engineer, and there is a risk if Athens keeps running ahead of Coppertownski). Also, if converting to caste system, we'd want to make sure that we've done all poprushing we need to first (Might consider poprushing the Hagia Sophia to guarantee getting it if we're nearly there, though that'll cost a *lot* of population for only a few turns).

At present, all our potential specialist cities already have Christianity except Athens, so we'd need to build a monastery somewhere and spread it there.

More to think about. Also I just had a look at the game and didn't realize Moscow is heads above Coppertownski in hammer production and if maxed can create the Hag in 24 turns. (it seems to take 850H epic) There are also 3 forrests to chop. I think you really pay apenalty if you rush a wonder-something like double. Coppertownski will take closer to 40 turns with only 1 chop available. I would vote to start the Hag in Moscow and chop it to death +-20 turns plus 2turns anarchy (which ever religious civic we take) one more for caste I think.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Couple of calculations for background...

As far as I can see, the absolute max production we can get Cski up to is around 32 hammers/turn (that's with workshops and the chemistry/guilds bonuses).

We can get a bit more out of Moscow with workshopping - about 36 hammers, again with the bonuses.

Both of those will obviously go to around 50 if we run civil service with that town as the capital. That means about 30 turns to build the UN, without an engineer. The engineer will probably save us about 20-25 of those turns. I'm not sure how many turns each great scientist will save us on research - I'm guessing around 10-20 depending on our science rate. (@Sam: Can you recall more precisely what effect the printing press lightbulbing had?). That to me suggests that getting an engineer is worth more to us than a scientist, but getting 2 or 3 scientists is worth more than one engineer.

 

[Thrallia]

That sounds good then. Ctown will stay our military city and Moscow will start immediately on the Hagia Sophia. We don't need to protect Education anymore since we've already finished researching Liberalism so I'd do that trade with Gandhi immediately.