SGOTM 03 - Geezers

[Dagnabit]

An observation about St Pete. Growth is going to be severely limited without additional + . (Size 3 or 4? maybe) I am not so sure we want to wait for gems if settling DynamicSpirit's Coppertownski ( which I still like). Thrallia's spot gets them a little quicker but is food challenged in the early going. What if : we settle on the Copper. Then a town 2 west of fish picks up the additional gems when we fill in island. We get metal right away and gems can be mined directly which help Moscow and St Pete grow larger sooner.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I think it is a good plan. The worker is going to be busy for awhile. After chopping the two hills should he cottage StPete floodplain before mining?

Probably doesn't matter too much either way. Personally I might have mined one hill straight after chopping so Moscow keeps a reasonable number of ongoing hammers (in fact, I wouldn't tell the worker to chop at all, I'd directly tell it to mine on the forest, that way you don't lose any production due to turns between the forest going and the mine appearing).

Actually, scary thought has occurred to me. Every turn the we delay building a cottage = 1 commerce/turn for 105 (?? 70 on normal speed so I'm guessing 105 on epic) turns loss of income (until it's a town), even before allowing for library etc. Delay the cottage by 5 turns and over the next 105 turns you've lost 525 commerce. That's like, one complete early tech!

I Like Dynamic Spirits Location for Coppertownski because it picks up the fish. It does however leave copper outside cultural boarder necessitating library(writing) or obolisk(meditation)-about 15turns plus mining time. (Assuming we transport worker by galley)Can we delay that long to get metal or Settle Thrallia's original spot?

<g>. Yep, that's why I picked that spot. It's the only spot that lets you work the copper and grow at the same time. Any other spot and the town has a choice between production or (modest) growth: Can't do both.

I know this is thinking some way ahead, but some rough calculations. Assuming we have just got a settler and worker there.
Thrallia's spot:
5 turns to mine copper (I think that's right)
3 turns to build road
-> 8 turns for copper.
(At this point city is size 1. If we want to work copper, it'll be I think another 20-25 turns before it hits size 2)

My spot:
start working the plains (so 2 hammers/turn). Chop a forest, contributing 20 hammers (not 30 as it's outside our cultural borders). Obelisk in 13 turns.
As soon as obelisk complete, change from working plain to working fish (if we have a workboat ready)
15 turns for culture to expand.
No turns for road (would be 6 but can do that while waiting for culture).
5 turns for copper.
-> total 33 turns for copper. But at this point city is probably size 3, maybe even 4, and can continue to grow, even while working the copper.

So Thrallia's spot gets us the copper 25 turns faster and without needing to research mysticism, but at the cost of the city never being much of a viable city, in terms of being able to grow, (and also not being able to viably poprush in it).

I don't think mysticism is much of a deal, it's a very cheap tech. Which city spot is best depends on how urgently we need the axemen at that point.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

An observation about St Pete. Growth is going to be severely limited without additional + . (Size 3 or 4? maybe) I am not so sure we want to wait for gems if settling DynamicSpirit's Coppertownski ( which I still like). Thrallia's spot gets them a little quicker but is food challenged in the early going. What if : we settle on the Copper. Then a town 2 west of fish picks up the additional gems when we fill in island. We get metal right away and gems can be mined directly which help Moscow and St Pete grow larger sooner.

I'm confused. How does getting the gems and metal help Moscow and St. Petersburg grow? Interesting idea re settling on the copper. That certainly gets us the copper a lot quicker

 

[Thrallia]

he's thinking of hitting the happiness threshold in Moscow and St Pete, although I'm not sure we'd hit that until size 5. The reason I chose the spot I did for the copper city is because I had already picked the cow city as being able to work the fish, that may be one of my flaws in my gameplay...once I see a city site, I don't like overlap at all and its hard for me to change my plans around any new info, especially if it would involve overlap.

In this case I can definitely see the merits in some overlap as the cow city has other tiles it could use for growth whenever it does get settled, whereas the copper city likely would not.

As for settling the copper, it would get it to us quicker, but I don't like the idea of settling on one of the few great production tiles on our island.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

<snip lots>
EDIT: Ideas for S.Petes builds? Provisionally I think Granary for whipping efficiency.

Yep, that all sounds good to me, though I agree with Thrallia on waiting till slavery - revolt either when the worker is working or (even better) when the settler is on his way to found St. Petersburg, unless we find we think we'll need to poprush earlier.

St. Petersburg builds - I'm guessing either granary or workboat. Not done the maths to figure which is best.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Yep, that all sounds good to me, though I agree with Thrallia on waiting till slavery - revolt either when the worker is working or (even better) when the settler is on his way to found St. Petersburg, unless we find we think we'll need to poprush earlier.

My thinking on switching earlier than later is that it's too easy to keep putting it off and then find you need it in a hurry and then have to wait that extra turn. However, it's a good point about waiting until after the worker has completed.

EDIT: Do we want to build SP on the flood plain? Personally I prefer 1 tile north.

 

[Dagnabit]

To defend myself a little bit, St Pete in suggested location will be limited to a size 3-4-5 until we hook up + . In my limited experience, the sooner we get + the better. If research is our goal, then a combination of growth and commerce increase should be our priority. My personal thinking, as I have stated is to be more expansive and try and quickly establish a presence on the islands/mainlands around us. If not we need to actively pursue building workers to fully develop our island.

 

[Thrallia]

I hate to give up a floodplain, but I believe we lose a spice if we settle one north, in addition to having 5 overlap tiles rather than just 2....

 

[DynamicSpirit]

If you settle 1N, you lose

• 1 clam
• 1 spice
• 1 forest-chop
• I make it 4 tiles overlap with Moscow, compared to 2
• chance to work clam before border expansion

I'm not sure if the clam issue may make it harder to use the city as a poprushing centre.

you gain

• 1 additional floodplain
• 1 additional plain (not shared with Moscow)
• 1 hill and a couple of plains (shared with Moscow)

Getting the extra production might be good, and 4 tiles overlap by itself is probably OK - if we're aiming for a diplo victory then we ought to win the game before many cities are hitting max size anyway. However I'm worried that Moscow was I thought going to be to some extent a production centre (it's not exactly the best location for commerce), and the overlap squares include some of the squares that Moscow is likely to require almost permanent use of to fulfull that role - especially that hill.

ISTM it's a close call; at the moment I still think the benefit lies on balance with the original planned spot, but it's not that clear cut.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

To defend myself a little bit, St Pete in suggested location will be limited to a size 3-4-5 until we hook up + . In my limited experience, the sooner we get + the better. If research is our goal, then a combination of growth and commerce increase should be our priority. My personal thinking, as I have stated is to be more expansive and try and quickly establish a presence on the islands/mainlands around us. If not we need to actively pursue building workers to fully develop our island.

Yeah, I understood the happiness point after Thrallia explained. I totally agree on being more expansive. In fact I'd say that founding cities and grabbing land as fast as possible, before the AI gets it, should be our absolute priority right now. The commerce will inevitably catch up now we have pottery, and especially once we uncover those gems, though that does give a reason for getting iron working soon (as well as building swordsmen)

 

[markh]

Simon, you did alright with your handover. You should hand over the game at the end of the turn, so the next one starts with turn 51 up to 60, etc, so we always end on an even turn number. What you did is perfectly alright.

I am for settling St.Pete on the original starting position. It has enough growth potential and could be a good GP farm.

Regarding the copper city we can still wait a bit. If we do not need axes badly I would go for Simons' suggestion. It will be a better location in the long run. Still some way to go, though. In urgent need settling on the copper would be a good alternative. Remains to be seen.

With sailing barb galleys can appear I think, so we should not forget to protect our fishing nets. A galley for transport services and protection would be nice.

Roster:

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

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Summary 2500BC - 1900BC

Fairly quiet set of turns. Toynbee ranked the most advanced civs:



Interesting to see that Mao tops the table. The power graph also shows him as rather more powerful than ourselves. I suspect that this means trouble in the not too distant future.

Our warrior on his way to CopperTownski met a barb warrior. Yep, it's barb time. Our warrior dealt with him and earned a promotion. I've left him unpromoted for the time being.

As far techs go we now know Pottery and will know Sailing next turn. Dispiriting to see Alex building cottages before us.

Chopping the settler didn't go quite as planned. Because of the delay caused by losing a turn each time the worker moved to a forest the final chop came on the turn the settler finished. As Sailing wasn't in I started a workboat instead. The next player gets the glory of founding St. Petersburg.

Because of unhappiness over no protection I've MM'd Moscow to grow more slowly. I think it's worth building another warrior to station there after the workboat. The other warrior can keep SP happy.

To keep you all busy I've signposted my choice for CopperTownski.



It doesn't get the fish but it does get the copper and more hammers even though it may not grow very fast. It's also on the coast. Another alternative is the hill where the warrior is, which would get the copper and a gem.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Interesting to see that Mao tops the table. The power graph also shows him as rather more powerful than ourselves. I suspect that this means trouble in the not too distant future.

Hopefully for Alex, not for us

To keep you all busy I've signposted my choice for CopperTownski.

I can see we're all going to have some interesting discussions about this city!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Coo! Another turnset in, we're moving ahead now.

More random thoughts: Time to select next tech. I know there was previously a consensus on writing, but I'm not sure now if that's going to help us right away, since the obvious place to explore immediately is the Great Unknown, to see if there's settleable land there, and we don't need open borders for that. (Explore a little with the workboat then return to clam-ify St. P?)

I'm thinking it's a toss-up between animal husbandry, to find where any horses are, and mysticism (St. Petersburg will presumably want an obelisk soon if it's to become useful as a commerce/poprushing city). And I'm thinking mysticism, since it's a nice cheap tech, would be the better one to throw in next (Plus we can use mysticism in St P immediately, we likely can't use AH until we have another settler). (Iron working would be cool but is v expensive right now)

btw @Sam: I thought we wanted Moscow to grow into unhappiness because then we can poprush something in it?

 

[Dagnabit]

Since we are going down this path i would say AH, Myst are the next path. I still advocate IW (Jungle!!). I know it is expensive but we need a galley to get off this isle. ( I think I am repeating myself ) Until we see more of a threat can't warrriors protect our two cities? Especially since we can whip if a threat appears

 

[Sam_Yeager]

More random thoughts: Time to select next tech. I know there was previously a consensus on writing, but I'm not sure now if that's going to help us right away, since the obvious place to explore immediately is the Great Unknown, to see if there's settleable land there, and we don't need open borders for that. (Explore a little with the workboat then return to clam-ify St. P?)

I thought the idea of Writing was more for the library rather than OB?

I'm thinking it's a toss-up between animal husbandry, to find where any horses are, and mysticism (St. Petersburg will presumably want an obelisk soon if it's to become useful as a commerce/poprushing city). And I'm thinking mysticism, since it's a nice cheap tech, would be the better one to throw in next (Plus we can use mysticism in St P immediately, we likely can't use AH until we have another settler).

No probs with Mysticism first.

btw @Sam: I thought we wanted Moscow to grow into unhappiness because then we can poprush something in it?

Well I don't remember seeing that explicitly stated. However I think there's a number of things we want to build whilst keeping our, puny, research rate up e.g warrior to replace our existing scout or build another scout, galley to transport scout over to the Great unknown and a Granary. The first couple are a bit of a waste for pop rushing. For the last we want to get as quickly as possible to the point where we can pop rush it. For all of these we want hammers. Writing needs a reasonable amount of science so we want to keep that reasonably high.

 

[Htadus]

Why would we want to waste hammers on an Oblisk? When we learn calander oblisk is a faded memory is it not? Would it not better to build a Lib after learning writing?

I say we go for AH and writing.

 

[markh]

Why would we want to waste hammers on an Oblisk? When we learn calander oblisk is a faded memory is it not? Would it not better to build a Lib after learning writing?

I say we go for AH and writing.

An Obelisk is just for giving us access to the copper if we settle on Simons' proposed site. This would give us copper much faster than researching writing and building a lib.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Why would we want to waste hammers on an Oblisk? When we learn calander oblisk is a faded memory is it not? Would it not better to build a Lib after learning writing?

I say we go for AH and writing.

The rationale for obelisks is that they are a lot cheaper than libraries. 45 shields, or 1 pop to poprush (once you've built 1 hammer of them) as opposed to 135 hammers or 3 pop to poprush (after first hammer). I agree that after calendar they are useless, so in a lot of cities they are a waste of hammers. But sometimes you can't get a city productive enough to be able to build a library (or much else) in a reasonable time without expanding borders first - that's where cheap-to-build obelisks come in. It looks to me (based on intuition, not done the exact calculation) like St P is in that situation. It has such low production that we'd probably want to poprush most of its library hammers. But until its borders expand to bring in that 2nd clam, it's not going to have enough growth to get big enough to let you do that reasonably quickly.

(Sorry, I'm tending to miss steps in my reasoning coz I assume people know them, but as you've said you're new to Civ 4 I probably should explain more).

 

[Dagnabit]

(Sorry, I'm tending to miss steps in my reasoning coz I assume people know them, but as you've said you're new to Civ 4 I probably should explain more).

Don't forget, I am really a beginner and benefit a lot from your explainations/rationale