SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

Ronnie1 · Dec 12, 2006

@dV
I'm with C63 on not thinking we will get CoL first, but you do make some really great points about the benefits that CoL will provide. However, we can't build Forbidden Palace until we have 8 cities and 6 CH's. If we can start producing some cats right away, we will have 8 cities that much sooner. Our maintenance costs are not that bad yet, Yaro is supporting itself with 1 gem mine at this point.

C63 hit the nail on the head when he said cats are over powered early. 3 or 4 cats will decimate cities before longbows and knights show up. So 4 galleys with wit 4 cats and 4 other attackers/defenders will be enough to get us a strong foothold on any other continent.

By dV,
If we think we can build enough troops for defense, an attack stack, and enought galleys to move them, before const is done as the tech after priest and CoL, then maybe go const first. But I am not clear that we can build so fast that we do not have time to go CoL, then Const.

This is exactly what I think, we will need time to assemble the troops we need, hence getting construction now!

On other topics, I noticed Novgorod is working the fish ( city set to citizen automation yes). If we work the gems starting right now, the Granary will be completed 1 turn before the pop grows, cutting pop growth time in half now and forever more. The gems are also the single most productive tile in that city radius (9 vs 6 for the fish). St Petes is not set to citizen automation and building a settler while working a 2F/1C tile instead of the 2F/1H tile which would knock 3 turns off the settler production. Rostov will have a gem tile within reach at the border expansion. Following your earlier logic of working the most productive tiles first, we would want to work these tiles asap.

Ronnie1 · Dec 12, 2006

Let's think about this in further detail.
At our current science rate, Priesthood (3 turns), CoL (24 turns), trade for Math, Construction (24 turns).

If we go CoL first, we can start producing attacker/defenders and galleys now for 51 turns and then start on cats.

Galleys cost 75H
Swords cost 60H
Axes/Spears cost 52H
Archers cost 37H
Catapults cost 60H

Moscow will produce 12H/turn when it grows to size 5 (using all developed tiles). It can grow to size 6 after poprush unhappiness wears off but there are no more improved tiles to work so we would probably want to pop rush back down to size 5 at that point.

At 12H/turn Moscow can produce a Sword every 5 turns, or a galley every 6.25 turns (4 galleys in 25t). Moscow alone can produce an attacking stack of 6 Swords and 4 galleys in 55 turns without any pop rushing. Then we can start building cats at that point and set sail after that. (4 cats at 60H each = 20 turns to produce all in Moscow) Do we want to wait that long?

If we research Construction now we can start building cats after 24 turns.

I will go which ever way we decide, but I am voting for attack sooner and ask questions later!

Conquistador 63 · Dec 12, 2006

Really nice debate, and definitely a tough choice! I would only add a couple of points:
1. We shouldn't be changing civics frequently, we're not spiritual (although I'm a bit spoiled by this trait from the last few GOTM's

);
2. I think we need currency before we can sell techs for cash, as da Vinci suggested.

Again, I will follow whichever path is set in my turns. :cool:

da_Vinci · Dec 12, 2006

Ronnie1 said:
@dV C63 hit the nail on the head when he said cats are over powered early. 3 or 4 cats will decimate cities before longbows and knights show up. So 4 galleys with wit 4 cats and 4 other attackers/defenders will be enough to get us a strong foothold on any other continent.

This is exactly what I think, we will need time to assemble the troops we need, hence getting construction now!

My point is maybe we can make all of the galleys, axes (defend swords from axe counterattack), spears (defend swords and cats from horse archers) and swords while we get CoL then Const. By the time CoL comes in, can spam scientists in our food-rich cities and get const pretty quickly (lots of the gems will be on line by then too). Then turn Moscow, Novgorod, and Yaros to cat production, even pop rush them, and set sail.

If we go const, then priest-CoL, but can't get the invasion launched before CoL comes in anyway, then it would have been better to go CoL first. Unless we are quite sure that the invasion fleet sails much earlier with const first, I'd say lets get the CoL boost to science ASAP (farm in St Pete, and really spam scientists). And if we get confus (may or may not), so much the better.

That said, if everyone thinks const first gets the troops off significantly earlier, I'm fine with that. Maybe you are planning to sail with a leaner force than I would bring

. Added afterthought: I plan to leave my turnset with Novgorod almost ready to make troops, (see below), so maybe const first is a good idea for early attack. If we do that, promise me that CoL is next!

Ronnie1 said:
On other topics, I noticed Novgorod is working the fish ( city set to citizen automation yes). If we work the gems starting right now, the Granary will be completed 1 turn before the pop grows, cutting pop growth time in half now and forever more. The gems are also the single most productive tile in that city radius (9 vs 6 for the fish). St Petes is not set to citizen automation and building a settler while working a 2F/1C tile instead of the 2F/1H tile which would knock 3 turns off the settler production. Rostov will have a gem tile within reach at the border expansion. Following your earlier logic of working the most productive tiles first, we would want to work these tiles asap.

The Novgorod play is a pop rush thing. I recall that off the fish, the pop comes in at someting like 9 and the granary at 8. My thought was to get pop in 2 or 3, whip the granary, overflow into barracks. Pop recovers quickly, to gems then to horse, and now we have our second troop production city, complete with barracks and granary. Copper mine will be next to work. Gee, maybe start with construction after all ... :lol:

With a granary, the effect of surplus food production (beyond what is eaten) on pop growth is effectively doubled so the fish tile is effectively a 9P tile (2F eaten, 2x3 surplus F + 1 C) :goodjob:

(as long as you are using it to grow pop - it is just 6P for building settlers or workers).

The St. Pete thing might be one of these tile shifts on the exchange of the save, as I recall that I was on the 2/1/0 for exactly that reason. I recall that in the first round Moscow opened for me working a tile that was not the one you closed with.

We are all a go for settling the SW island? Just want to confirm. Might pop rush a galley to get first axe on the island stat, then pop rush the settler and land him with a second axe. Would want a 2 axe 1 spear garrison there eventually, as solid defense against both praetorians and horse archers. Considering that we have no land route to reinforce it.

Also, need a plan for dealing with tribute demands. If Mao demands alphabet, I think I need to give it to him. What about Hatty, who I think is annoyed with Mao (not at the game now). Should make a list of who to keep happy, and who not to worry about.

dV

Ronnie1 · Dec 12, 2006

@All,
Completely offtopic! Have any of you looked into Blakes "Better AI" Mod? I'm downloading it right now and am going to give it a try. It sounds like he has made some significant and positive changes!

@dV
As I said in the very beginning, ultimately we all play the turns that we have in front of us. Hopefully we are all mostly on the same page. It would be nice to hear some opinions from the other Gypsy Kings though.

da_Vinci · Dec 12, 2006

Since there seems to be a lot of interest in early war, and since cats are very useful defenders against invading stacks (should we need them), I am going to go with construction after trading for alphabet. I think that Novgorod, and perhaps even Yaros will be troop cities, so maybe we get a faster invasion by starting with const.

I would like to get CoL after that, for the courthouses in conquered lands, and to get to caste system.

Finish and upload tonight, and then C63 can take it from there.

dV

Joemama · Dec 12, 2006

After reading both sides of the argument, I don't think it matters much. I am in favor of an early war (I hope our young economy can withstand adding a few more cities) so if I were playing, I would go for construction.

However, another advantage to us getting a religion is that we more or less control who gets it. If we are going for a diplomatic win, I think we need just a couple of religion blocks. If there were just 2 religion blocks, we can ally with the largest for the votes. I would think 5 or 6 religions spread evenly throughout the world will make a dipomatic win that much harder.

On an unrelated note, I feel like when I type these replys, I end up being more indecisive than when I started.

da_Vinci · Dec 12, 2006

(The save is on the results page)

Prince da_Vinci is pleased to report tremendous progress for the empire in the last 225 years (ain't immortality great!).

We now know 11 other nations, and after learning alphabet, we have leveraged ironworking and alphabet for 7 new technologies and 80 gold (some trades were newly aquired techs in trade for additional techs). The RWB (Russian Work Boat) Enterprise is on the verge of completing transit of the fabled Northwest Passage, and the RBW Prometheus is making similar progress in the southeast.

We have built our first galley, and are ready to occupy the SW island with a brave axeman. A setter and second axeman are in training to settle that island. A workboat is ready to harvest the crabs for that new city.

Several cities are about to make granaries and boost their populations. Moscow continues to build our army, and Novgorod and Yaroslavl' are also destined to be military centers.

In summary, the potential energy building in our empire has begun to be released. More is yet to burst forth during the reign of Conquistador 63

Prince da_Vinci

Since last intraturn save:

Spoiler :

Thoughts by city:

Spoiler :

Log from the upload:

Spoiler :

The autolog:

Spoiler :

Ronnie1 · Dec 13, 2006

Nice Work da_Vinci, :goodjob:

@All,
General thoughts on city control. I think we should try to grow populations to unhappiness caps before we pop rush. We always want to pop rush 2 pop at that point to avoid immediate return to unhappy level. Troops should be built in all cities that have no other build options or are designated as "troop builders". We need to farm in St Petes to speed settler and worker production and to allow for scientists.

We want to work all of the gem squares if possible. The commerce from the gems is our single greatest asset at this point. When I opened the save this time, Novgorod was working the horses, working the gems there would take 2 turns off of Construction research and only slow down granary production by 2 turns, a good trade off in my opinion. When the gems are available in Rostov, working that tile will allow Rostov to cover its own maintenance. The WB that is near Roman territory can come back up and start working the other clams in St Petes to speed settler production there. I think we need 1 or 2 more workers to clear jungle and we will need top send 1 to the island for a few turns. Also, I always try to clear all forest or jungle next to the city square. I hate it when I get attacked and I allow a strong defensive unit to fortify right next to one of my cities on a 50% bonus square!

Where do we want settle on the SW island? I favor the jungle tile for the immediate use of both bonus tiles and then we don't have to clear the jungle either.

The roster order is:

da_Vinci - just played
C63 - Up Now
Joemama - on deck
Igelkott - in the hole
Scout214 - waiting
Ronnie1 - waiting

Confusion - Injured Reserve until further notice

da_Vinci · Dec 13, 2006

Ronnie1 said:
General thoughts on city control. I think we should try to grow populations to unhappiness caps before we pop rush. We always want to pop rush 2 pop at that point to avoid immediate return to unhappy level.

I think that there are routine pop rushes, and then there are time sensitive pop rushes. If you are waiting for a certain item of production to execute some plan you want to do fast (like settle the Island), or some building that leverages your other production (granary, library for fat cross, barracks to build troops), the gain in time might outweigh the general rule of maintaining city pop.

Ronnie1 said:
The commerce from the gems is our single greatest asset at this point. When I opened the save this time, Novgorod was working the horses, working the gems there would take 2 turns off of Construction research and only slow down granary production by 2 turns, a good trade off in my opinion.

The tradeoff is only that good because the horses pumped hammers into it for the preceding turns, making it that close to completion. If I had run gems throughout, granary would be a ways off.

If we stick with my plan, horses til gran (comes next turn), fish to next pop (3more after gran I think), then fish and gems, that is fastest route to pop 3 when we can work the fish, gems and horse. It may turn out that changing to gems now takes off two turns from construction (15 to 13), but changing four turns later might also take off 2 (11 to 9) which is the same thing in the long run, but with faster pop growth! It is an issue of leveraging time. And even if const is a few turns slower, more pop growth gets barracks and troop production going in Novgorod sooner, for our early war. If max research rate is #1 priority, then we should be researching CoL now, IMO. But since early agression seemed to be the consensus, barracks in Novgorod is high priority.

Ronnie1 said:
We need to farm in St Petes to speed settler and worker production and to allow for scientists. We want to work all of the gem squares if possible.

Complete agreement here. My thought was after mining gems in Rostov, worker pair farms FP in St.Pete. This frees the WB to work crabs to get growth in new island city. Consider pop rushing the settler ASAP, finish the WB in St pete queue (pop rush that too if needed), then build workers (after some pop regrowth). Don't see a place for more settlers anytime soon (expand by conquest).

Or, if the RWB Potemkin does the clams in St Pete, we can chop the WB in the queue and send that one to the crabs, which may be the best use of the WB, now that I think of it.

Ronnie1 said:
Where do we want settle on the SW island? I favor the jungle tile for the immediate use of both bonus tiles and then we don't have to clear the jungle either.

Only reason not to settle the jungle is if we want to share the clams with St.Pete. But that requires settling on the hill or in the forest, losing either the mine, or the chop. So I am inclined to settle on the jungle, and keep both clams for St Pete

dV

Ronnie1 · Dec 13, 2006

Bv dV
The tradeoff is only that good because the horses pumped hammers into it for the preceding turns, making it that close to completion. If I had run gems throughout, granary would be a ways off.

Yes, the granary would still be 5 turns away, but it would be built 1 turn before pop growth and pop growth to size 2 would happen 11 turns earlier. All numbers and data pulled from your 310BC save.

If we stick with my plan, horses til gran (comes next turn), fish to next pop (3more after gran I think), then fish and gems, that is fastest route to pop 3 when we can work the fish, gems and horse. It may turn out that changing to gems now takes off two turns from construction (15 to 13), but changing four turns later might also take off 2 (11 to 9) which is the same thing in the long run, but with faster pop growth! It is an issue of leveraging time.

Lets look at the 2 options

option 1 (R1)
6B/t for 12t = 72B grow to size 2
7B/t for 7t = 49B grow to size 3
7B/t @ size 3 after 19t
total B after 19t = 121B

option 2 (dV)
2B/t for 5t = 10B (horses)
2B/t for 4t = 8B (fish) grow size 2
7B/t for 4t = 28B (gems and fish)
7B/t @ size 3 after 13t to 19t = 42B
total B after 19t = 88B

Now both cities @ size 3 working same tiles but option 1 gains
33B.
These results can probably be extrapolated to all grass gem tiles when other options are available.
Now that we are 4 turns further into the above cycle the difference won't be as much, but we could still gain ~22 beakers if we change now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronnie1
General thoughts on city control. I think we should try to grow populations to unhappiness caps before we pop rush. We always want to pop rush 2 pop at that point to avoid immediate return to unhappy level.

By dV
I think that there are routine pop rushes, and then there are time sensitive pop rushes. If you are waiting for a certain item of production to execute some plan you want to do fast (like settle the Island), or some building that leverages your other production (granary, library for fat cross, barracks to build troops), the gain in time might outweigh the general rule of maintaining city pop.

I agree 100%, I was just trying to point out that our main production cities will be much more consistently productive if we try to keep them near the happiness and/or "improved" tile use limits. I just did not see a need to pop rush a galley that we have no settler to put aboard. Now Moscow has to grow to get back to the production capacity it had, and the silver that dV picked up in the trade could be supporting 1 more pop (scientist) if no improved tiles to work until it reaches size 8 (unhappy level). Then pop for 2 and we only lose the scientist and 1 production tile, but that is made up for by the overflow and the speed increase of the unit or building (maybe lighthouse) that was popped.

Conquistador 63 · Dec 13, 2006

Hi all, reporting for duty!

I've opened the save for a quick glance. I won't be able to play until tomorrow night, but I guess it leaves us a little time to find a consensus on the micromanaging debate and some other issues.

1. Shall we convert to Hindu? Pros: better relations with a bunch of civs, and no other state religions are currently adopted by any other civ we know. Cons: 1 turn of anarchy, no religious civic available for additional benefit, and possibly bad relations with a civ yet to be discovered.

2. Pre-war troop deployment: where should we place the troops we'll produce for our war of conquest? I think west border, aiming for India, disembarking on a forested hill NE of Madras (?). Any ideas?

3. Also, I think an archer and an axeman is enough to garrison the new city for a while. We need to focus on our attack. But that won't be happening in my turnset anyway, I guess.

My 2¢ about MM: I respect both views. I personally focus on reaching pop cap ASAP, so we can work more (productive) tiles, unless there is a large bonus tile. I don't plan to poprush anything in my turns, maybe except the settler. Our people may even call me "C63 the benevolent" in the future! :lol:

Scout214 · Dec 13, 2006

Ronnie1 said:
As we all know from past experience, certain world leaders are rather difficult to reason with. Monty of course >is at the top of this list, along with my other favorites Alex and Toku. Then there are the religious zealots led by Isabella, I throw >Saladin and Musa in this group. Then there is the just plain unreasonable group, HC, Genghis Khan, Louis and Napolean and Catherine >(but of course we won't see the lovely one this go round).

Almost all of us know that from past experience! One of us is still learning that...

[Looks like I didn't do the quote thing properly. I'll get dV to tutor me on that.]

Ronnie1 said:

Slightly , I once read a very good book titled "Guns, Germs and Steel". The premise is that all of human development can be traced back to the natural resources and topography that different "starting" groups of humans were dealt. Why were the Spanish able to send Conquistadors to South America instead of the Aztec's sailing to Spain. And why when the
100's of Conquistadors arrived, was their virtually no effective response from the millions of local warriors. It is a very interesting read, I would recommend it to anyone!

Haven't seen the book or PBS show but am well familiar with the history. Went to grad school in it. Yes, Western Europe developed guns before anyone else in the world and used them to conquer everyone else. Doesn't mean its culture or philosophy or values were better - only that they had guns when no one else did. (Pizzarro discovered that the Incas had ships capable of sailing directly against the wind, something that no European understood. Julius Caesar likewise encountered Britonnic Celts who had ships similar to the Incas, but prevailed with better weapons and tactics.) It is an important and relevant point for this discussion.

My personal preference is to get Construction, and thus catapults, first. Otherwise, we're looking at about 50 turns of research before we can start making cats. Way too long to wait even if we aren't ready to launch our Guns, Germs and Steel just yet.

After that, though, I think we should get COL. The more subtle strategic point in its favor is with regard to trading techs with the AI's. Faster science research keeps us getting techs before some if not all of them, making what we have to trade valuable. The more we beat them to techs, the more we can get others out of them and blow past them in score and technology (as well as the other teams in their games). We don't want to be be trying to trade for techs with AI's that each have four more than we do. We want to be dealing from strength as much as possible. Likewise, that will give us a leg up getting to Space, the (other) Final Frontier, before them. It has the added benefit of enabling us to reduce what will be a growing overhead cost as we begin to take cities farther afield.

As Ronnie notes, getting some of the different and more sought after techs also puts us in a "seller's market" as well.

Looks like Mao might be the best bet for a future Permanent Alliance.

In an unrelated topic, I think we are closing in on the leaders in terms of numbers of posts on our thread...

Click to expand...

da_Vinci · Dec 13, 2006

Ronnie1 said:
I just did not see a need to pop rush a galley that we have no settler to put aboard.

My thinking on that went as follows: In my mind, I want at least two axes in the island city, since Rome's cult border is tickling the island, and only axes can stand up to praetorians. So I need one trip to bring one axe, and by the time I get the second trip, I have pop rushed the settler and can bring him and the axe building in Moscow. That was the idea, anyway, always possible that I have miscalculated it :crazyeye:

Mao was sailing around with settlers and archers early in my turnset, so I don't want to let Caesar beat us to the island. So I was going whole hog for fastest settling there.

Earlier in our discussion C63 advocated "whip early, whip often", and you quoted Obermot as saying "whip til your hands bleed" I haven't always worked out all the numbers on paper, but my reasoning has been that whipping some critical infrasturcture (granary, library, or a unit for a time-sensitive objective) would pay off in earlier use of that item.

I will have to take a close look at your calculations about the two Novgorod options. I could have been wrong in my thinking :blush:

It is not clear until I get a close look that your calculation based on flasks (really commerce, as flasks depends on the slider) is also accounting for differences in hammers and production between the two approaches. If it does, then I suppose I goofed

C63 won't have to do much whipping as I think I have already whipped all of the critical infrastructure, for better or for worse. Yet, whipping a barracks in Yaros might get us the invasion army that much faster.

dV

Ronnie1 · Dec 13, 2006

@dV, 100% correct on beakers vs commerce, I started the calcs in beakers while looking at the 310BC save, and after switching to the 250 save I didn't want to re-calc the previous work in coins. I think what Obormot was actually trying to get at, don't be afraid to use the whip. The part of his post that I didn't really reference was the part that said max city pops asap and then whip for balance as often as necessary. Not that big a deal really, it is still very early in this campaign. I don't usually make detailed calcs like I did in the above post, I'm more of a feel player. But your post about using the tiles with the most total units landed for me in a way that I had not thought of before. Then when I counted 9 total units for the mined gem squares, it just seemed to make sense to try and use them 1st. Obviously the commerce from those squares will help tremendously with both our science output and our city maintenance issues as we start to acquire more cities.

On the acquiring cities issue. Hopefully Gandhi will get a prophet and build the shrine before we liberate Delhi (assuming of course it is the holy city, don't see how it couldn't be). That will pay for most of the cities that we take from there judging by how much of the pop is Hindu.

On the issue of adopting a religion, I would favor no at this point. As C63 points out, we have few benefits to gain from adopoting at this point.

da_Vinci · Dec 13, 2006

Ronnie1 said:
The part of his post that I didn't really reference was the part that said max city pops asap and then whip for balance as often as necessary. Not that big a deal really, it is still very early in this campaign. I don't usually make detailed calcs like I did in the above post, I'm more of a feel player. But your post about using the tiles with the most total units landed for me in a way that I had not thought of before. Then when I counted 9 total units for the mined gem squares, it just seemed to make sense to try and use them 1st.

Even though we are sometimes butting heads, I am loving these debates (and learning a lot!) :goodjob:

Hope you are too.

I have been making these decisions on feel and some quick and dirty in my head calculations, so lets see how good or bad that has been.

Starting with Novgorod's current position, you (R1) suggest work the gems. Net output is 2 food (4-2), 2 hammer (doubled to 4 because we are producing a granary, so despite 80/90 done, gets it done in 3 turns) and 7 commerce. That runs 9 turns to get to pop 2. The 18 food is exact for the pop 2. we get 8 hammers in 2 turns, I suppose 3 next turn (double 1 to finish Granary, then 1 into overflow), then 6 turns at 2 for 13 toward the next build (barracks, I presume). 9x7 commerce is 63. So after 9 turns, we have pop 2, 13 hammers into barracks, and 63 commerce.

(As an aside, since the hammers are doubled for the granary, would that make the horse worth 10 production while it builds a granary? If so, horse is the most productive tile during that build, and I am vindicdated

I had not thought this way when I decided it, but it occurs to me now.)

Now look at my plan. Work the horse 1 more turn, get granary next turn (no overflow). That adds 1 food to the pop, and 2 commerce. Move to work fish. now have net +5 food, need 17 so it takes 4 more turns to get pop 2. That adds 4 hammers to barracks, and 8 more commerce, and 3 overflow food

So 5 turns in my plan has pop 2 already, 4 hammers toward barracks, 10 commerce produced, and 3 food in the bin. Now I work the fish and the gems. The granary effectively doubles the value of food for pop growth, so the fish might be considered an 11 production tile. Growth to pop 3 takes 36 food, cut in half is 18. Or is it I keep half of the 33 from last pop growth, which is 16, add my 3 overflow, and I only need 17 food. At +5 net food, pop 3 happens in 4 turns. in those 4 turns, I add 8 hammers to barracks, and 4x9 commerce = 36.

Net after 9 turns my way: pop 3, 2 food in bin, 12 hammers into barracks, 46 commerce.

I spent 1 hammer and 63 - 46 = 17 commerce to buy 1 pop and 2 food in bin vs. your suggestion. But now your pop 2 works what, fish and gems, while my pop 3 works fish, gems and mined copper. I make 7 hammer vs your 2 for the next 4 turns it takes you to get to pop 3, and I hit pop 4 a turn after and work the horse to be 4 hammers ahead, until you catch up in pop. So I net about 36 or so extra hammers from turn 9 to 19 after 250 BC. Not a bad return on my investment of 17 commerce, don't you think?

Have I got this right, or have I missed something? I think my approach spends a little commerce to get a big hammer boost, which means we can pump troops out of Novgorod sooner, and attack sooner. Wasn't that the whole point of const before CoL?

Now, if C63 can pop rush the settler in St Pete on the first pass of the Galley, then my vindication will be complete :lol:

dV

da_Vinci · Dec 13, 2006

Conquistador 63 said:
1. Shall we convert to Hindu? Pros: better relations with a bunch of civs, and no other state religions are currently adopted by any other civ we know. Cons: 1 turn of anarchy, no religious civic available for additional benefit, and possibly bad relations with a civ yet to be discovered.

No need to convert yet. We are ok with all the rational leaders

, no civics to use yet, don't want anarchy until after SW isle is settled. We can still build temples and monastery if not state religion. Monastery would be a cheap culture building for SW isle, to push back Caesar. Would need to build monastery and missonary in Yaros to do that, so maybe not.

Conquistador 63 said:
2. Pre-war troop deployment: where should we place the troops we'll produce for our war of conquest? I think west border, aiming for India, disembarking on a forested hill NE of Madras (?). Any ideas?

That hill is a good spot to go for Madras. Note there appears to be an Indian city 3E 1S of Madras, by the border pattern. Taking Madras we can cut that other one off and pick it off too.

Conquistador 63 said:
3. Also, I think an archer and an axeman is enough to garrison the new city for a while. We need to focus on our attack. But that won't be happening in my turnset anyway, I guess.

Praetorians are a potential threat if Caesar gets uppity, so I would like two axes on the island. Also, if the rest get Hriding (only Mao has now), a spear would be a good idea. We can't reinforce quickly over the water, so I would like enough strength from the get go.

Conquistador 63 said:
My 2¢ about MM: I respect both views. I personally focus on reaching pop cap ASAP, so we can work more (productive) tiles, unless there is a large bonus tile. I don't plan to poprush anything in my turns, maybe except the settler. Our people may even call me "C63 the benevolent" in the future!

I would say grow to work tiles producing 4 or more products, but add scientists instead of pop working 3 product tiles. All cities will have granaries in 3 turns. Maybe pop rush library or barracks in Yaros, depending on whether you go for the gems, or for another military city. Oh yeah, pop rush that settler, preferably right when the galley arrives, so I can justify my pop rushing the galley to R1

dV

da_Vinci · Dec 13, 2006

da_Vinci said:
In summary, the potential energy building in our empire has begun to be released. More is yet to burst forth during the reign of Conquistador 63

Prince da_Vinci

WOW C63! I knew that we were in for some more brisk score growth in your reign, but your score slope is even steeper than mine! And I was the one in the position to trade for 7 techs. Can't wait to see what you did to boost our score like that! :goodjob:

Maybe all of that stuff I poprushed paid off in your turn (granaries + workboats = fast pop growth)

The other vanilla teams must be shaking in their boots ! footballguys must be having cardiac arrests looking at our graph!

Ronnie1, do you feel better now?

dV

Conquistador 63 · Dec 13, 2006

Well it turned out I could play earlier than expected, and I already submitted the save at 40BC (14 turns). I stopped 1 turn earlier because we just finished Construction and the next player can decide what to research next.

Making a short story even shorter, I let our cities grow up to their efficient tiles limit, and traded all techs available to us. Bad news: no new contacts, WB's got to dead-end routes and are trying alternate routes. Good news, there is a hindu shrine waiting for us. Also, we're looking good at the score graphs.

Here is the upload log.

Spoiler :

Now the autolog file (somewhat garbled in the beginning, forgot to set it to forum tags style).

Spoiler :

Ronnie1 · Dec 14, 2006

@All, Just looked at the graphs! Nice! The power curve looks even better than the score curve!
@dV, Yes and Yes
@C63, Have not even looked at the save yet but it must look nice as well! :goodjob:

@Joemama, You're It! Why don't you scout the east coast of Gandhi's island and see if you can locate Delhi. We may want to just march straight into the fire and take that new shrine!

He has Stonehenge as well, hopefully in Delhi also. I guess we should just really push the troop production at this point. Our infrastructure seems to be in pretty good shape.
Gandhi is lacking both construction and horseback riding. I think we should try to take the heart out of his domain right from the start. He has 5 cities including Delhi.

Our current assets

workers 4
warriors 5
archers 1
axes 3
swords 1
galleys 1

I think we need to keep all of our current assets at home for defense except the galley. That means we need to build the following IMO.

Needed for invasion fleet

Galleys 4
Cats 4
Swords 2-3
Axes 2-3
Archers 1-2
Horse Archers 2-3
Spears - we need to scout his coast and see if he has any mounted units!

Two trips with 4 galleys gets 16 units onto the new continent

Moscow is @ 12H/t = Sword every 5t ; 4 swords in 20
Novgorod will be @ 12H/t = Cat every 5t ; 4 cats in 24 (counting barracks finish)
Axes will take 4t/each in Moscow or Novgorod and HA will take 6+/each.
If we alternate we can get 1 each every 10.5 turns. This does not include any pop rushing which we can do about every 15t once we hit the happy cap.

If we chop the jungle and mine the other hill in Yaroslavl it will be 6H/t and the 3rd most productive city. It can start producing the Galleys since there is no barracks there yet (11 turns per galley). But we will probably want to pop rush the library after it grows to size 5 because we will be out of improved tiles. So aproximately 33 turns after Library to get 3 more galleys.

I think we need to send a worker to the small island or build one there asap.

I know we talked about CoL after Construction, but will it really benefit us right now? Our population cannot really support lots of specialists at this point. We will probably want to pop rush in captured cities to quell the ungrateful newcomers to the wonderful Russian way of life!

That means sticking with slavery for a little while at least. I think metal casting will be more useful in the short run. Forges will boost our happy limits and our production. Nobody has MC at this point, (good trade bait) and we can get the inside track to Colossus if we want to try that, (a good wonder on a water map).

The current roster is,

C63 - just played
Joemama - UP NOW!
Igelkott - on deck
Scout214 - preparing for battle
Ronnie1 - waiting
da_Vinci - waiting

Confusion - Injured Reserve until further notice

SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

Deity

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Gypsy Prince

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Chieftain

Gypsy Prince

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Gypsy Prince

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Pawn in the game of Civ

Gypsy Prince

Deity

Gypsy Prince

Gypsy Prince

Gypsy Prince

Deity

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