SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

Ronnie1 · Dec 6, 2006

@All, Joemama has played and the current save is from 1600BC. It looks nice!

The current roster order is

Joemama - just played
Igelkott - Up Now
Scout214 - on deck -
Ronnie1 - coordinating
da_Vinci - managing the GIA
C63 - advising

Confusion - Injured Reserve until further notice

@Scout214, stay close, I haven't heard from Igelkott for a few days.

I just looked at the turn log, :cry:

at least we have cash!

Joemama · Dec 6, 2006

Sorry guys, this will be quick and no screenshots tonight.

0. Everything looks ok.
1. Settler-->WB, I see a barb warrior across the bay to the west.
2. St. Pete is founded. I started building a work boat to farm second clam, in hind site maybe a warrior would have been better? Warriors begin shift to north for explorer.
3. Quarry->Chop mine
4. Mysticism->Pottery, I think arcery is not needed with so few land tiles to spawn barbs.
5. zzz
6. zzz (Epic makes for a long game)
7. WB with chop -> Stonehenge
8. Warrior wins vs. Warrior.
9. zzz
10. St. Pete gets clams.
11. zzz
12. Pottery -> AH (I am hoping for some horses to leave the deadend archery alone for awhile).
13. Exploring warrior heals and is back on patrol.
14. zzz
15. Warrior sees copper at opposite end of our horseshoe shaped island.
16. Warrior defeats warrior -> woodsmanI (Should I have saved the promotion?
17. Stonehenge built in a distant land!!! We were three turns away!!
18. 137 gold from wonder -> Warrior to help fears for safety in Moscow.
19. zzz
20. zzz
For those who care, the boring turn log.

Comments: How to move on from the loss of stonehenge? I guess we will need some oblisks in our new cities now. Fortifying warrior due in 1 in Moscow, I vote settler -> Pyramids. I am tired and going to bed now, will be happy to discuss more tomorrow.

Spoiler :

da_Vinci · Dec 7, 2006

Great job Joemama! First combat victories, first promotion, found copper ...not a bad turnset at all !

Bummer about 'henge. In retrospect, our plan had one missing element: we did not commit fully to 'henge once it was makable. Looks like if we had planned to switch production to henge as soon as myst came in, and chopped it, we might have pulled it off.

Not criticizing Joemama at all on this, as he followed the plan to the letter, as far as I can see. As a group we didn't plan a full court press. In the future, we should go all out if we try to go for a wonder.

On the bright side, looks like we got 2 gold for each hammer invested in henge. Not too shabby!!

Looking at progress page, it does not look like we are any worse for the henge effort, and maybe better off with the cash, if no one else made the attempt.

Rather than invest 45 H in obelisks, I would rather get to writing soon and just make libraries (135 H).

Mids is an intersting thought, but do you suppose an industrious civ with stone is already way ahead of us? There is one pop 7 city and a couple of pop 6 our there. Mids is 675 H, we'll have 12 H/turn after second mine, doubled to 24, 27 turns to build. If we get 2 to 1 gold for hammers even if we fail, maybe not a bad investment either way. Managing unhappiness in Moscow will take some care

But first, I think we want to change over to sailing now, build a galley (pop or chop rush), sail a setter and a worker to the copper, and found Novgorod. Then finish AH and go for writing. Then IW while we build libraries, then alphabet? So many possibilities. Although food will be a problem for a while in Novg and is it vulnerable to barbs? If Nov is founded soon, maybe the other north warrior heads that way to fogbust saddle bag 2 (we founded on saddlebag 1)? Fogbusting considerations may play a role in where to settle Novg.

See screenshot for city locations (solid boxes) and alternates (hollow boxes). Leaning more toward the plains for Novg since the screenshot prepared.

dV

igelkott · Dec 7, 2006

go on if you can, scout214, I won't be able to play until the weekend and I need to catch up a little with the discussion..

da_Vinci · Dec 7, 2006

Hi all,

Joemama's interest in Pyramids brings us to a huge fork in the road. Looks like a 27 or 28 turn committment of Moscow's production to do that, unless we eventually pop rush it (which we might have to do as unhappiness looms). Might need to move off the fish to prevent pop overgrowth at some point.

If we do want to do mid, then we need, I think, to go whole hog on it now. Warrior is due in 1, we could pop rush him, and have the overflow for mids. There is also a chop in Moscow in progress now, and that may be the last chop it gets. So a delay of that until mid is up would be worthwhile.

The idea of jumping to representation now, and getting some great engineers does have a lot of appeal. It does divert production ... can we pop rush St. Pete enough to get out a few more cities while we build mids?

In my test game, Henge was built in 1480 BC, so in the real game it fell much faster. That same AI could be going for mids already. In my test, mids went to AI in 520 BC. So maybe if we can get it at about 700 BC we are fast enough?

dV

Joemama · Dec 7, 2006

A few more comments from my turnset.

Moscow will be done with a warrior in one turn, I suggest a settler next. The settler can head north of Moscow or could head to the copper. My main concern with the copper is there is no good food source nearby. I would love to work all of those gem tiles, but I don't think a copper city could support that population.

St. Pete can whip the workboat and maybe start a granary? The workboat could do a little exploring since it may be awhile for the second clam tile

.

Tech wise, I would suggest finishing up AH in 6 turns to find the horses. This could change our next prospective city placement.

I think our last chance for the pyramids will be after the settler in Moscow. I haven't done the math, but the earliest 'mids I had in my test games was 910BC and it will take around 28 turns to build.

Joemama · Dec 7, 2006

Wow Da Vinci, there are a frightening amount of similarities in our last posts. After thinking things over a bit I had another way to look at this decision. Against just the AI, I would go settler and play it safe, but we are playing against other teams and need something to give us an edge. The pyramids are risky but give us that edge. My vote is to scrap the settler and go with Pyramids. If nothing else, we can at least say we tried.

Conquistador 63 · Dec 7, 2006

A few quick thoughts. The following are my personal views, not backed by test games (and I still haven't opened the latest save), just experience and intuition, I don't claim them to be the truth:
1. Forget Pyramids. Too expensive and in a crowded island map, you can bet AI will build them sooner than us. Even if we suceed, I don't think its benefits are that huge to compensate for our slowed expansion. Maybe we can get lucky and have a neighbouring city to build it for us.

Also we won't be needing that cash we'd get if it fails any soon. Let's focus on expansion, and infrastructure (that is, workers/settlers/granaries/libraries/exploring fishboats).

2. Future cities placement: the city north of Moscow on solid box (eastern shore, using the fish on the outer sea). The city for the copper could be grassland jungle N/NE of the copper, getting the inner sea fish, copper and 2 gems. This way it'll have enough food to support the 2 plain hills in its fat cross. If we can fogbust efficiently, no need to rush next settler to copper, the 4th city can go there. (edit: attached a city placement proposal)

3. Tech: finish AH, then writing for libraries and open borders (no building obelisks, if we can avoid it) then sailing. After that, Alphabet if enough civs contacted (where are those exploring FB's anyway? :crazyeye:

), or else IW to work the jungle tiles.

Ronnie1 · Dec 7, 2006

@All, I'm with C63 on basic expansion strategy at this point, unfortunately we swung and missed at SH. If we were going to pursue a wonder at this point, I'd lean towards Colossus. It looks like C63 has a nice spread on his city placement as well. We might as well finish AH, it may alter city placement, I like writing next for the same reasons, I'd lean towards IW after that to start knocking down jungle.

As far as production goes, in Moscow, if we pop rush the warrior right now, it will dump a bunch of hammers into the next build which I think should be Granary(double overflow). The Granary will be done before the current chop is done which should go into a settler next. In St Petes, I'd switch to 2 grass forrest tiles and the clams after it grows to size 3 this turn to speed up production of that WB and head it out exploring.

@Scout214
Why don't you play now, I may make a permanent change and swap you and Igelkott, or it may be a 1 time deal.

@C63, The copper is actually a grass hill, bonus for us!

da_Vinci · Dec 7, 2006

An interesting observation: the gems by the copper are all on grassland under that jungle. So if we planed to only intermittently work the hills, until the pop grew, we could put the copper city in a location to get all of the gems, and after IW still have +2 food to grow pop. Mined grass gems will be 2/1/6 !!

Or, if we go with C63's location to get fish and copper in one, faster growth but we do give up one of the gems.

Seems like our major military threat will be from the sea. I don't have a clear sense of when the AI will take to the sea, but if they were to drop a settler on our copper, we'd be hard pressed to take it back with our current military technology. That is why I would like to lock in the copper soon.

I too worry about what we give up if we go for mids. I guess the question to ask is this: how comfortable are we to proceed without mids? I have almost never built mids, so it would feel normal to me, provided not having mids is a decision to forgo it, not being beat to it. Not having mids and not having the 337 hammers of production worth of settlers and workers might be tough.

Any benefit to sailing earlier? Lighthouses would boost the seafood output, and we could really poprush, and it would give us an option to go for GL. A galley would allow us to sail over to the copper instead of walking the long route.

dV

Scout214 · Dec 8, 2006

I've got the download and will proceed per instructions.

Give me some guidance on whether to insert Sailing somewhere. There doesn't seem to be a consensus on that yet. My concern is that once we have Open Borders with civs we find via Fishing Boats that their exploration of us will reveal how lightly held our position is, inviting attack. OTOH, Writing and Iron Working are good progressions anyway, though. Alphabet combined with an exploring Work Boat could give us the chance to trade for Sailing.

Scout214 · Dec 8, 2006

Need some input guys. It's turn 94 (1180 BC). Pop rushed both cities turn 80. Both cities grew on Turn 81. Then got granaries in each. Then made a Settler in Moscow, heading north. Both cities unhappy.

Making a Worker (6) in Moscow and a Warrior (10) in St Pete. Is that what you want? Just did it, so I can change to whatever the consensus says.

Work Boat has found Rome to the SW and India to the W. Heading south again to explore south of us, between Rome and Alexander.

Finished Animal Husbandry and started Writing. Done Turn 99. Then what? Iron Working (24), Sailing (12), Alphabet (42)? Agriculture is 9 and Horseback Riding 30.

Horses appeared NE of Copper. It will take 10 more turns for the Settler to get to the square 1N of the Horses, straddling the Fish, Copper, Horses and two of the Gems. Only one turn to the designated settlement spot north of Moscow. Which do you want me to do first? Do you want me to start another Settler right away? Could switch to Settler in Moscow and Worker in St Pete, for instance.

Cash Flow is -3 with 146 in the Treasury and 100% research.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Gypsy_Kings_SG003_BC1180_01.Civ4SavedGame

da_Vinci · Dec 8, 2006

Scout214 said:
Need some input guys. It's turn 94 (1180 BC). Pop rushed both cities turn 80. Both cities grew on Turn 81. Then got granaries in each. Then made a Settler in Moscow, heading north. Both cities unhappy.

We are suffering the zero garrison unhappiness. Since we need to keep the fogbusting in place, my thought is to switch Moscow to warrior (3 turns, then back to worker) and also move the settler to chop the forest 1 N of St Pete right away (stop mining) to speed up that warrior. We can't afford idle citizens. Putting those citizens back to work on 1F 2C coast will speed research without overpopulating us into unhappiness. Wait to hear from the others first, though.

Edit: on second thought ... We currently have one whipping unhappiness in each city. A pop rush in St. Pete says cost 1 citizen, 1 unhappy for 16 turns. Since the usual unhappy interval is 15, does that mean that the whip unhappy goes away next turn anyway? Seems right from the turn count. If that is true, we don't need the warriors to be built, at least not yet. May need one in Moscow soon, as number of improved tiles is matching happy limit. Maybe in Moscow we finish worker (send to Novgorod), make warrior, then pop rush a library?

Scout214 said:
Finished Animal Husbandry and started Writing. Done Turn 99. Then what? Iron Working (24), Sailing (12), Alphabet (42)? Agriculture is 9 and Horseback Riding 30.

I think we have to get IW next to chop jungle. Need the gems for happiness.

Scout214 said:
Horses appeared NE of Copper. It will take 10 more turns for the Settler to get to the square 1N of the Horses, straddling the Fish, Copper, Horses and two of the Gems. Only one turn to the designated settlement spot north of Moscow. Which do you want me to do first? Do you want me to start another Settler right away? Could switch to Settler in Moscow and Worker in St Pete, for instance.

I think we have to walk to the horse-copper site in the 10 turns. There are no hammers in the north of moscow site until we pasture the cows, and all resources except the rice have to wait for the fat cross, which could take a while with no hammers (and can't be developed until IW). So the north of Moscow site will be pretty dead for a while. I might consider an obelisk in Novgorod to get to the fat cross ASAP (fish, copper) and get a worker to it after the warrior chop in St Pete. We can pasture the horses right away, which also favors settling west first.

Rome is close by (praetorians). We need axes, the sooner, the better.

Take care moving settler past the fogged gems in the north as an untimely barb spawn could kill him. Move through the grassland cows to save a move and stay 2 tiles away from the fog.

We will need a consensus about open borders, as we do look vulnerable at present.

Long term, maybe Alex is a target for expansion by war. Close to our capital for less maintenance, weakest of the AI we know.

But let's see what the rest think.

dV

igelkott · Dec 8, 2006

i'd like to play tomorrow, is that OK?

da_Vinci · Dec 8, 2006

igelkott said:
i'd like to play tomorrow, is that OK?

Just to be sure we are all on the same page, I think Scout214 has 6 turns left, even though he uploaded the save.

We might want to move the warrior by the copper off hill 1 E so he fogbusts the intended square for the copper city. But I guess he fogbusts more from the hill. I might also consider having the northernmost warrior escort the settler if we move that way, and push the warrior on the isthmus west to fogbust ahead of setter, or escort with him as well. Losing that settler would be a huge blow, and I don't trust archer vs one warrior, even in woods.

Which might be an argument to settle north of Moscow, go sailing and rush galley to get a settler more safely to the copper. But that does delay the IW. Too much to do!

dV

Ronnie1 · Dec 8, 2006

@Igelkott, Scout214 is in mid-turn, when he finishes his last 6, you're up next.

@ Scout214, I'd settle the cows, rice, gem spot next turn. That will allow us to move the fog busters for better distribution. Finish worker in Moscow and then settler I think, also turn on automation, it will gain us beakers while Moscow is not growing. I'd start on a settler right now in St Petes and chop 1 forrest to speed it up. The settler/worker builds are good to keep population from growing after pop rushing. After writing, I'd think IW.

da_Vinci · Dec 8, 2006

Ronnie1 said:
@Igelkott, Scout214 is in mid-turn, when he finishes his last 6, you're up next.

@ Scout214, I'd settle the cows, rice, gem spot next turn. That will allow us to move the fog busters for better distribution. Finish worker in Moscow and then settler I think, also turn on automation, it will gain us beakers while Moscow is not growing. I'd start on a settler right now in St Petes and chop 1 forrest to speed it up. The settler/worker builds are good to keep population from growing after pop rushing. After writing, I'd think IW.

I don't think that Scout214 or I have ever used citzen automation (knowingly) before, so you might want to give us some details on that.

Settling the cow/rice/gem/fish (that is the spot you mean, I assume) north of Moscow next does avoid the risk to settler on long journey, and as you say, will improve fogbusting. But it will grow really slow until we can get some culture there. Any tricks to deal with that?

I think we really need IW and sailing, and any value to get sail first to get started on a galley to use to settle the copper? Or do we just take the long overland route? I would really hate to see the AI boat a settler+archer onto our only military resources.

dV

Joemama · Dec 8, 2006

I suppose a late push for pyramids is a bit unrealistic. One selfish reason I would have liked to get them is that I don't usually go for it and I have never run a specialist economy. The better move is to use the hammers for settlers and workers.

I vote for settling copper site now. With India so close, I don't think we can risk them settling and taking both horses and copper.

I count 12 turns to move the settler from Moscow to the copper site. How long will it take to research sailing and build a galley? At last look just to research takes 12 turns. The lighthouses will be benifical later on, but we have more food than we know what to do with now. I vote for Ironworking next and then Alphabet. Iron working will tell us where our last early stratigic resource is and allolw us to develop the jungle to the north. After Alphabet, we should already know 10 or so other civs and can fill in the rest of the tech tree with trades.

I think city automation is frowned upon on these games. Our team should be able to work out how to assign citizens better than the compuer can.

Scout214 · Dec 8, 2006

The consensus about what to research next seems to be Iron Working. I'll finish my set today and get that going Turn 99.

My two cents about where to put the next Settler is at the far end to grab the Horses and Copper. I've seen AI's too many times beat me to something juicy like that. Seems like most of us favor that plan.

I'll switch the city builds to Settlers and get a couple more in the works, chop trees north of St Pete. Doing it that way, we could have a Settler in place north of Moscow a few turns after the extant mobile one reaches the far end of the island!

We're gonna need more Workers. Need roads to connect all this stuff, particularly so we can build Horse Archers, Axemen in Moscow, St Pete when the need arises. Lots of jungle to chop once we have Iron Working. Eventually Farms, Pastures, Cottages, etc.

Scout214 · Dec 8, 2006

Work Boat is now astride Macedonia and discovered China south of them.

China Cities (5) VP (245)
India (3) (208)
Rome (4) (206)
Macedonia (2) (149)
Russia (2) (149) (w/ 3 more cities in the works)

At Turn 100, Settler in Moscow will finish in 5 turns. Settler in St Pete ready in 13 turns, less when chopping is done. Then Moscow reverts to building Worker.

Turn 90, Oracle was built in a faraway land.

Mobile Settler is 3 turns from designated homestead 1N of Horses, on the coast of the lagoon. Being escorted by the NW Warrior.

As dV noted, unhappiness for both cities ended with the next turn.

Cash is 129 with -3 per turn cash flow.

Uploading momentarily for Igelkott to take over.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Gypsy_Kings_SG003_BC1000_01.Civ4SavedGame

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