SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

Conquistador 63 · Feb 1, 2007

@dV on SGOTM1:
Your move to grab copper was perfect. We have no other source for it. It could as well be the only source for the (sub?)continent. If Cathy was to grab it, our life would be a lot harder. I think she doesn't have BW, she hasn't adopted slavery yet. She's into religious stuff, but already has chariots.

My plan would be attack her ASAP, with 4/5 chariots and at least 1 spear. The later we do it, the higher the cultural defense bonus. I suppose StPete is on a hilltop, which just make matters worse. We should pillage her horses too.
I think St Pete should be producing at least 7 :culture:

/turn. 5 from holy city + 2 from creative Cathy. It could be eating Memphis borders real soon. IIRC, the 51% russian tile you referred to was 50% a few turns earlier.

Work the clams to get pop2 asap. Then poprush granary ASAP. On hindsight, barracks might have been a better choice than granary (but this allows more frequent whipping). By that time we should be able to produce spears in Memphis at a reasonable rate. On Thebes, after settler, more chariots? One or both workers can get back north, to Thebes or to the new city.

Tech: definitely hunting first. It is dirt cheap. Writing can wait, IMO.

da_Vinci · Feb 1, 2007

Conquistador 63 said:
@dV on SGOTM1:
Your move to grab copper was perfect.

Figured it was the way to go, despite the distance, maint and close borders.

Conquistador 63 said:
My plan would be attack her ASAP, with 4/5 chariots and at least 1 spear. The later we do it, the higher the cultural defense bonus. I suppose StPete is on a hilltop, which just make matters worse. We should pillage her horses too.

Hmm ... +40 to +60 defense from culture, on a hill, archers defending, build a wall ... that's just Pickett's Charge or Marye's Heights without cats! :eek:

Unless there is only one defender. It is already at 40% cult defense. Archer in there is 6.45 combat after bonuses unpromoted, 7.05 with garrison I, and that is without a wall! :eek:

Maybe the approach is a war of pillage with war chariots while we wait for cats. Horse are great pillagers, as they can move and destroy in one turn in good terrain.

Conquistador 63 said:
I think St Pete should be producing at least 7/turn. 5 from holy city + 2 from creative Cathy. It could be eating Memphis borders real soon. IIRC, the 51% russian tile you referred to was 50% a few turns earlier.

Maybe not the culture crisis you fear after all? St. P is undoubtedly on the hill 3S1W of Memphis. I think the cultural pressure on a tile drops with distance from the city, doesn't it? At least my games have seemed to behave that way. If we get a library up in Memphis quickly, it will produce 5 cult per turn, and being closer, that might be enough to own and hold the two land tiles to the south?

If so, then there is less rush to war, we could work on Mids or Oracle (which do you think?), and we won't have a pile of dead chariots at the gates of St. Petersburg (whether we take it or not). Maybe let the barbs found a city south of Thebes and we take that to exercise our troops until we get cats for Cathy. By then, maybe she will have built us a shrine? The early war, if it means assauting the hill without cats, just seems too bloody and may not succeed.

Conquistador 63 said:
Work the clams to get pop2 asap. Then poprush granary ASAP.

Are you sure ASAP poprush is best? pop2 in 6, by that time the copper is 2F 4H, so maybe better to work the clams and the copper with the two pop? Granary built in 10 without rush, but I might rush at the end to overflow hammers into ... LIBRARY if we get writting first? (I think we can get writing in time if we go 100% sci)

Regrow pop 2 in a few turns to be back on the clams and copper.

Conquistador 63 said:
Tech: definitely hunting first. It is dirt cheap. Writing can wait, IMO.

Unless we decide that war is not highest priority. St. Pete assault seems risky, so is Library next, OB with Cathy, explore with WB, make Mids or Oracle (or both if we are not going to war?), maybe later a pillage war vs Cathy, and then take her out with cats?

Seems like two distinct paths ... the early war, or the peaceful path. Which do we prefer? I'm leaning towards peace, at least for now. If we go war, maybe CR I axes are the way to go for the attack (war chariots can't get a CR I promotion)?

dV

I guess R1 is up in this short rotation, unless any other GK are going to join it? Let me see if Scout214 is interested via my email channel.

Ronnie1 · Feb 1, 2007

I'm going to grab the save and then post my plans for the turn set. I'll be back to you in a little while.

City three will be NW of the stone, grabbing the fish and the cows.
There are 14 turns until Writing. I'll probably stop here.
Thebes will finish settler and start on grannary, then worker.
Memphis will finish grannary and build library next.
City 3...
I'm not sure which way to go here. I sort of favor going for Pyramids right now and improving the Stone and Cows ASAP. The worker will be done with the copper in 3 turns and can start on the stone before the settler gets there. I think the quarry will take 8 turns, then worker can go right to the cows, and then start chopping forests.

Do we have a strategy for using the whip in the early part of the game? All those flood plains, we could farm a couple of them early to promote rapid growth and make sure we are whipping once every 15 turns.

I'll wait to hear some feed back before I play.

Edit:

Are you sure ASAP poprush is best? pop2 in 6, by that time the copper is 2F 4H, so maybe better to work the clams and the copper with the two pop? Granary built in 10 without rush, but I might rush at the end to overflow hammers into ... LIBRARY if we get writting first? (I think we can get writing in time if we go 100% sci) Regrow pop 2 in a few turns to be back on the clams and copper.

I was thinking along these same lines, wait to pop rush until there is a large overflow. I think this will get us back to pop 3 a little sooner also. Writing can be cut to 12 turns @100% Sci, but we can only keep it up for 10 turns before we are out of gold. Definitely no pop rush before library is available.

Hmm ... +40 to +60 defense from culture, on a hill, archers defending, build a wall ... that's just Pickett's Charge or Marye's Heights without cats! Unless there is only one defender. It is already at 40% cult defense. Archer in there is 6.45 combat after bonuses unpromoted, 7.05 with garrison I, and that is without a wall! Maybe the approach is a war of pillage with war chariots while we wait for cats. Horse are great pillagers, as they can move and destroy in one turn in good terrain.

I was thinking we might want get open borders after writing, and have a little look around Cathy's landscape before we attack her. Better to be a little more prepared I feel.

Conquistador 63 · Feb 2, 2007

Might be too late, but here goes...
Ok, so let's play on the safe side. But even then, wouldn't be safe to get hunting (3/4 turns of research?), so we could produce a spear or 2, if only to defend Memphis?
Otherwise I agree on the other suggested plans. Btw we got 2 workers (kinda working in pair). I think they should go to 3rd city, work cow then stone then chop. 1st build could a fishboat then pyramids. But I am away from the game now, so take it with a grain of salt

p.s. last night I started playing WOTM5 (Zulu, prince level) and it's been fun. If you have warlords you should also try it.

Scout214 · Feb 2, 2007

Geezers posted turn descriptions through Turn 400. We are ahead of them officially.

Murky Waters in splaying their next set tonight. We'll see if they close out in four turns. If not, they may also fumble around for 30-40 turns trying to figure out how to close out their game in a situation that they didn't expect. All in all, though, I think they will better us.

Ronnie1 · Feb 2, 2007

I played 21t, stopped at T100.

I decided to go with writing first to get a jump on Libraries. 100% Sci had it at 12 turns, not sustainable.

The settler came on T85, founded Heliopolis on T86, started WB working stone for 6H/t, done in 8.

T91 was big, we learned writing, and got OB with Cathy, she had converted to Hindu about 5 turns earlier and was cautious towards us, still is! :mischief:

Started researching Hunting! After Hunting, I went with Math for better forest chopping and it leads to Construction.

St Petes is on our border and is a double Holy City.

I pop rushed Granaries in both Thebes and Memphis and overflowed into Libraries.

I have explored most of Cathy's land, we just need to circle back SW of Moscow.

The first WB I sent exploring to the east, it is near the mountains.

The Autolog

Spoiler :

Ronnie1 · Feb 2, 2007

I think after the second WB, Helio should start on Mids. It would be great if we could wait to chop until after we get Math, but I think we may need to chop them sooner.

Thebes and Memphis should go barracks and military after the libraries are complete.

We can come back and fill in the gaps after we take out Cathy. She won't have copper until she founds another city, or her southern city expands again. I suppose she could research IW sooner maybe.

da_Vinci · Feb 2, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
I think after the second WB, Helio should start on Mids. It would be great if we could wait to chop until after we get Math, but I think we may need to chop them sooner.

Is there a way to "pre-chop" a forest? So that it only takes one turn coming back to it to finish the chop? I thought I read that someone did that for their UN construction in SGOTM 3?

dV

Ronnie1 · Feb 2, 2007

You can stop any worker action on any tile, and the game remembers how many turns you already have invested in the action. If/when you come back to that tile, you pick up where you left off.

da_Vinci · Feb 2, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
You can stop any worker action on any tile, and the game remembers how many turns you already have invested in the action. If/when you come back to that tile, you pick up where you left off.

And it doesn't wear off, like the hammers in a build or the flasks in research?

dV

da_Vinci · Feb 3, 2007

Agent Tamborine reports that the good news and bad news expected in a previous post has come to pass: Geezers has progressed to 1770, relieving us of the wooden spoons. But Murky Waters pulled off the expected early diplo in 1688, relieving us of the golden laurels :cry:

here are the standings (number represents place among those who are finished):

CFR -370
Flying -190
Choko 425
CDZ 845
Smurkz 995
Memphis 1322
Real Ms 1661

1. Murky Waters 1688
2. Gypsy Kings 1766

Geezers 1770

FBG 1280

Real Ms. is at turn 357 with 27 turns to go to MM, leaving 14 turns to build UN, get elected sec gen, and have a vote. They don't have a lot of + diplo, so it would be hard for them to beat our date.

Memphis is at turn 277, and 84 turns of 100% science to get MM (turn 361) leaving 37 turns to build it and get the vote. They have a pretty good diplo screen now, so they are a threat.

Others are too far away to assess.

dV reporting for AT

da_Vinci · Feb 3, 2007

Nuf said!

Scout214 hasn't decided yet about jumping in on this, so I'll move it forward.

Do we agree pyramids rather than oracle as wonder du jour?

dV

Conquistador 63 · Feb 3, 2007

I've looked at the save. Memphis is definitely losing the culture battle. The city itself is already 20% russian.

I still think we could have attacked sooner. Moscow has only 2 archers. What St Pete had? Even if it had 2 archers, 4/5 war chariots plus a spear could have done the job. I see Math is 23 turns away. I didn't even bother to check how many more turns to Construction. By the time we get cats, Memphis could have flipped to the Russians.
Btw Oracle and SH are already built IADL. HC has founded Confu, so I reckon he got the Oracle. :sad:

Luckily, this is just a game for fun and learning.

da_Vinci · Feb 3, 2007

Conquistador 63 said:
I've looked at the save. Memphis is definitely losing the culture battle. The city itself is already 20% russian. I still think we could have attacked sooner. Moscow has only 2 archers. What St Pete had? Even if it had 2 archers, 4/5 war chariots plus a spear could have done the job. I see Math is 23 turns away. I didn't even bother to check how many more turns to Construction. By the time we get cats, Memphis could have flipped to the Russians.

Fear not, oh great King Conquistador! The divining of Prince da_Vinci has proven correct once again. The library in Memphis, poprushed on turn 104 (four turns into the set), has stabilized that cultural front, as predicted. Perhaps the inverse square law applies here as well?

Memphis itself became 79% Egyptian on turn 101, but is 80% at turn 120. The two land tiles to the south are ours as well, but just barely at 51% (had been 52% at one time for us, so the tide might be turning again).

When I strolled our WC past St P initially, it had 4 archers in it! But most went off with settlers, so just one now.

Not going to war meant that our WB got around the south of Cathy, to find Cyrus border and an Indian archer. OB with both (all turn 120). Cathy knows neither, they know each other.

Mids built elsewhere turn 110, no way I was going to beat that. So lib in Helio (all three have lib now). Got math somewhere around 115, now we are 15 from construction. helio finishing barracks. I just started a cottage there, but maybe worker should chop the barracks?

We lack happiness resources, so scientists are running to speed cats and cap pops. After const we could use that pop to whip troops. Thebes has been making chariots nonstop, and Memphis now making spearman. I figure foot at the front, and chariots in the rear as they arrive quickly.

If C63 is really hell bent on a chariot rush against the one archer in St P, then we can MM the commerce to hammers, there are two WC in Memphis and one adjacent to St P with more on the way. Keep in mind that Cathy has probably just hooked up the copper near Rostov.

Conquistador 63 said:
Btw Oracle and SH are already built IADL. HC has founded Confu, so I reckon he got the Oracle.
Luckily, this is just a game for fun and learning.

I am more optimisitic! :goodjob:

We have followed a very dedicated path to cats, using libraries to speed research. No time wasted on wonders. Might be similar to the plan followed by CFR-V in SGOTM3 (except they seem to have libraries AND wonders). Our approach seems like a single-minded road to conquest. Maybe none of us are used to that, but maybe that is the way to a fast dom? Let's go for it. I think we can take Cathy out of the game by 1 AD!

autolog:

Spoiler :

dV

Conquistador 63 · Feb 4, 2007

da_Vinci said:
Fear not, oh great King Conquistador! The divining of Prince da_Vinci has proven correct once again.

Well done, dV! :goodjob:

Culture flipping (or not) is one of the many mysterious aspects of Civ4 to me. :blush:

da_Vinci said:
I am more optimisitic! We have followed a very dedicated path to cats, using libraries to speed research. No time wasted on wonders. Might be similar to the plan followed by CFR-V in SGOTM3 (except they seem to have libraries AND wonders). Our approach seems like a single-minded road to conquest. Maybe none of us are used to that, but maybe that is the way to a fast dom? Let's go for it. I think we can take Cathy out of the game by 1 AD!

It might be possible. We'll need to hurry, though.

In fact I meant to wait until the cats were ready to attack, but...I couldn't resist, and attacked 3 turns before construction was due!!! :ar15:

By that time, we had 1 Axe, 1 Spear, 6 WC's (2 of them combat2, thanks to barbs spamming SE of Thebes. End result: 3 WC's dead, but St Pete (and some 150 :gold:

) are now ours!

I saved just after Construction was done, so we can discuss next steps. I set research to Alpha, but that can be changed. See autolog.

Spoiler :

p.s.1:We just converted to Hindu to alleviate Heliopolis from unhappiness - isn't it nice to be Spiritual?

p.s.2: there is a barb axemen in the fog SE of Thebes.

p.s.3: we have 1 WC headed to pillage copper.

View attachment Gypsy Kings SGOTM01 BC-0445.Civ4SavedGame

da_Vinci · Feb 5, 2007

Let's have a look ...

Nicely done C63! :goodjob:

I think we want to pump out cats and go get Moscow. Agree pillage the copper while we await the cats, but I might send more than one WC as if several units attack it, it may not survive. The axe, spear, WC makes a nice combined arms squad. We could pillage the roads on the way, to reduce reinforcement of Moscow. Nice that the WC is the match to an axe, as axe does not get bonus against horse. Axe protects WC from spears, and spear protects the stack from horse.

I see we have a settler building in Helio, and I wonder if we might change to a cat? If we are capturing cities, why build our own (at least until code of laws)? Just added maint, unless there is one we really want to build? Could hold pop at bay by running a scientist.

I think that this is the earliest in a game that I have ever had cats. The tradeoff is that we have no religion techs at all. But, we have two trading partners, and if we get alpha, I bet we can backfill all the religious techs.

A curious test: Gandhi and Cyrus are each other's worst enemy, since they are more friendly with us ... or maybe you have to be annoyed or worse to be enemy? We will see how trading affects that, and if we get worst enemy trading hits.

I am rather bad at city specialization, so how about we make a very overt effort to specialize cities as we go forward so I can learn something on that score? I think we sort of casually specialized cities in SGOTM 3, so maybe a more deliberate approach to that would help is be faster?

dV

Ronnie1 · Feb 5, 2007

@ C63, Always the rebel! :goodjob:

I know I can count on you for decisive action when needed.

@ All,

Agree pillage the copper while we await the cats, but I might send more than one WC as if several units attack it, it may not survive. The axe, spear, WC makes a nice combined arms squad. We could pillage the roads on the way, to reduce reinforcement of Moscow. Nice that the WC is the match to an axe, as axe does not get bonus against horse. Axe protects WC from spears, and spear protects the stack from horse.

I like the mixed stack idea for pillaging, better chances for survival, and can attack reinforcements before they get into Moscow.

I see we have a settler building in Helio, and I wonder if we might change to a cat? If we are capturing cities, why build our own (at least until code of laws)? Just added maint, unless there is one we really want to build? Could hold pop at bay by running a scientist.

Are we going to try and take Cathy out completely now, or are going to try and extort a tech for peace at some point? If we are going for the early kill, I think cats are more important now and the settler can wait. If we are going to pause the assault at some point, we may want to get some settlers out.

I am rather bad at city specialization, so how about we make a very overt effort to specialize cities as we go forward so I can learn something on that score? I think we sort of casually specialized cities in SGOTM 3, so maybe a more deliberate approach to that would help is be faster?

I know my game could use some refinement in this area as well!

I guess I'm up in the short rotation. I'll have a look at the save and post some plans for the next turnset.

Conquistador 63 · Feb 5, 2007

My apologies for:
1. Starting building a settler in Helio. Maybe because it was under unhappy cap pop, and there are indeed good settling spots available. But I agree on changing it to cat production.
2. Sending the WC alone to pillage. I moved it to attack an archer in the open besides Moscow. I'm not sure it'll be attacked though, unless Cathy pops a spear. Maybe pair it with an axe. She has no horses anymore, so axes are the foot troops of choice now. But the WC can retreat or wait for reinforcements.
I'm away from the game but last time I checked, capitol would be commerce (I started to cottage there), the other 2 production sites. City 4 (with 3 food resources?) could be the GP farm. I don't remember well the layout of our future cities in former Russia, though. But I do recall plenty of mined hills there.

Ronnie1 · Feb 5, 2007

Plans for the next turnset.

Hook up the Axe and Spear near Moscow with the Chariot to form a pillaging stack and head for the copper first, followed by targets of opportunity.

Switch all cities to troop production, cats and axes.

City 4 (with 3 food resources?) could be the GP farm.

I don't see this? If you are talking about the desert square SE of Thebes, we can only get 2 resources in the fat cross. I have included a dot map of this site and another future site SW of Thebes.

I don't remember well the layout of our future cities in former Russia, though. But I do recall plenty of mined hills there.

I have included a map of Russia also. I don't really like the locations of Novgorod or Yaroslavl'. We will need to discuss whether to keep or raze these cities.

Ronnie1 · Feb 5, 2007

I'm ready to play now, but I'll wait until I hear from both of you before I proceed. Are we just the Three Musketeers now?

SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

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