SGOTM 03 - Team One

[amh52]

Thanks for running all the numbers. I still prefer red cross and stone city but I am ok with ph/fp too.

Mdy had a very good point about the red cross needing a border pop and I now also prefer the red cross first if we choose this combination. The main reason to build north first would be to make sure we beat the AIs to the spot. I just hope we can still do it if we settle the red cross first.

The red cross also has the advantage that we can settle this turn.

If we start with a warrior we should finish it before starting a wb. Or we could put the hammers in a barrack. I would do the warrior. If we settle on the red cross, we could build slow by working the fp and whip the wb as soon as we get bronze. The ph/stone makes building a warrior easier.

 

[TDK]

What do you think about this:
3970: Red Cross founded
3760: Fishing learned, begin work boat.
3430: The Wheel, start Pottery
3190: Work boat finished, start worker
3040: Pottery finished, begin Bronze working.
2890: Worker finished, start Granary.
2710: Change to settler.
2650: First cottage built on floodplain.
2560: Bronze woking completed.
2410: Settler completed, second cottage built on floodplain.
2350: Granary completed, city built on stone.
(85 bulps on Writing and ~11 turns to go)

The advantage of this approach is the early worker and 2 cottages already up and running and developed one level! We will have a much stronger economy and an early library can easily be chopped/whipped when we have the granary. In my test game I popped a great scientist and built an academy in 1390BC. In my opinion, an early science lead is to be preferred for a slightly earlier second city.

[edit:] I'm not to concerned for the AI settling there, it is an archipelago map after all.

 

[mdy]

Either sit would be a good start plains hill gives slightly better early production, red cross prefers slightly better early commerce city.

If we proceed as TDK suggested perhaps it would be better to cottage spam red cross instead of using it as a GP farm? It would get a better bonus from bureacracy and the best GP farm would have farms on the flood plains instead of cottages.

 

[TDK]

If we proceed as TDK suggested perhaps it would be better to cottage spam red cross instead of using it as a GP farm? It would get a better bonus from bureacracy and the best GP farm would have farms on the flood plains instead of cottages.

I was thinking it could be a little bit of both in the beginning of the game. It could certainly pop 2-3 early gp's while functioning as a science city.

TDK

 

[TDK]

I will play now. Stand by...

TDK

 

[TDK]

Turn 1, 3970 BC: Moscow has been founded.

Turn 8, 3760 BC: You have discovered Fishing!
Turn 8, 3760 BC: The borders of Moscow have expanded!

Turn 14, 3580 BC: Barbarian's Bear (3.00) vs Team One's Scout (2.70)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Combat Odds: 68.7%
Turn 14, 3580 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: (Class Animal Combat: +100%)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Team One's Scout is hit for 21 (79/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Team One's Scout is hit for 21 (58/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Barbarian's Bear is hit for 18 (82/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Team One's Scout is hit for 21 (37/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Team One's Scout is hit for 21 (16/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Barbarian's Bear is hit for 18 (64/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Team One's Scout is hit for 21 (0/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Barbarian's Bear has defeated Team One's Scout!

Turn 15, 3550 BC: Hinduism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 16, 3520 BC: You have trained a Warrior in Moscow. Work has now begun on a Work Boat.

Turn 18, 3460 BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 21, 3370 BC: You have discovered The Wheel!

We met the Greeks in 3700BC and the Chinese in 3670BC(See map). I deviated slightly from the test game described above as I opted to complete the warrior as per amh's post and the larger than expected island.

Note to the next player: Moscow will grow in 8 turns and the work boat will complete the turn after. I put the worker in queue and I recommend working a floodplain, the fish and the forest for max speed on the worker.

TDK

 

[mdy]

Lookng at the map I think stone city is still the best site for city 2. After that it looks like we won`t have any good city sites until iron working was discovered. Were the greeks/chinese on our island? If not we could delay further expansion until after iron working. Any third city we build looks as if it will need a quick border expansion to become a decent city. This means we either need obelisks or stonehenge. If we research mysticism and masonry after brone working we could get stonhege built in the stone city around 163 BC and still get an academy around 985BC.

 

[TDK]

Were the greeks/chinese on our island?

There are color coded crosses on the map above where the AI units where seen.

TDK

 

[amh52]

Good start TDK. Funny that Hinduism was founded before Buddhism.

I agree with mdy that stone city is probably still the best site. It would be nice to include the gems by settling on the hill where the warrior is. But I don't like that it is not coastal and also we would need a border pop to work the clams.

We might be able to expand west across the water before going north in the jungle. We should also see where the bronze is before settling any further.

If we settle on the stone we will not need masonry to build Stonehenge. We could do it. I am just not sure if it is a priority. Other wonders that we could consider since we have stone are Pyramids (need masonry) and Great Lighthouse (need sailing, masonry).

In Moscow we could consider Oracle (we might be too late already) and Great Library (if we want to continue on the science path).

Techwise I would like to pause after bronze and consider our options.

Who wants to play next? If we go according to time zome it should be mdy or mboza? Who volunteers first?

 

[mdy]

I could play on monday evening if that is alright with everyone.

 

[mboza]

I will not play until tomorrow night either, so mdy might as well take it.

Moscow grows in 8 turns, wb complete in 9.
we are currently producing (9+1) * 1.2 = 12 bulbs /turn, pottery is 0/178 (15 turns)

after the growth, and the wb, we will be getting 6f and 2h + 1 bonus towards the worker, and so it will be 11 turns, allowing for the delay to deploy the wb. the extra commerce will bring pottery forward a turn.

So the worker should finish at the end of the next turnset, and bw will be 6 turns in?

I assume the warrior is to stay on that hill to fog bust, as we have not planned to build any more.

One potential problem is that we cannot raze barb cities in the wrong place.

I would build on the stone, and then try and fit the gems in by builidng south of the cow? Not sure if we can really fit both gems on the eastern side into good city sites.

 

[mdy]

I have got the save and will play now.

 

[mdy]

Nothing particularly interesting happened this round. We have complted the worker and discovered pottery. There are 13 turns left until we complete brone working.

We should probably have a pause in the middle of the next turnset (after bronze working is discovered) to consider our future options.

 

[mboza]

Poor mdy . Did you just hit enter 20 times, with a short break to select bronze working, the worker, and move the wb to the fish? Must be the quietest turnset since FUBAR had their disaster in SGOTM2.

Got the save. Will play at least till bronze in about 18 hours time, to give some time for comments.

13 turns to bronze, 19 turns (7f, 1h, 5 overflow) to build a settler. Should I research bronze, convert to slavery immediately, and whip 1 pop for the settler? That should bring it down to 14. Then build choices are a warrior, or the second wb or a granary.

Or does anyone want to build something before the settler?

Techwise, writing then sailing? We are some 34 turns away from priesthood, so I think the oracle might be a stretch too far. Do we try for stonehenge in the stone city?

And the will stone city will build a wb first, or should we look to our defenses?

 

[amh52]

I agree with building a settler and I suggest we whip it as soon as we get slavery. We will lose 4-5 turns of working the second cottage but I think it is acceptable. I think the second wb can wait as we only have 5 happiness unless we want to use it to explore (might be needed if we don't have bronze in our starting area). We would also need a warrior to eliminate the unhappiness due to having no defense. At this point I think I would build the granary next, whip it for 2 pop 15 turns later and put the overflow in the warrior. But this might change if we need to look for bronze.

Writing and sailing sounds all right to me. Maybe we should swap if we don't have bronze in the starting area. If we build Stonehenge we will need Mysticism too. I am not sure of the timing but it would probably need to come in between. I am ok to skip the Oracle. It would be nice but it is indeed probably too risky.

I would build a wb first in stone city. Maybe we can use the worker to chop a forrest and build a mine after he's done with the cottages. I am not necessarily against Stonehenge if you guys want to do it but I am not sure it is really useful. Again I think it depends if we have bronze in the starting area. If we don't I would rather build galley and warrior in stone city and settler in Moscow.

Good luck mboza, find us some bronze!

 

[mdy]

I agree with switching to slavery ASAP. Whipping the settler should speed things up, I would suggest putting the overflow hammers into a warrior to deal eith happiness issues. After that a granary could be built to improve the effectiveness of whipping.

The point about building stonehenge is that any reasonable city we build in the jungle is going to need an early border pop to be effective. The only way for us to do this at the moment is either by obelisks or stonehenge. Building obelisks in these cities is going to take a long time, even with the whip, building stonehenge would allow us to get these cities up and running much quicker. We have stone so it would probably cost us fewer hammers to build stonehenge anyway. Does anyone know when the AI is likely to build stonhenge on this map? If it is around 1500BC we would need to go resarch mysticism and masonry after bronze working to guarantee beatin the AI to it. If we researched writing after masonry we could still get a great scientist around 1000BC.

I agree the Oracle is now probably to big a risk. Sailing is not really necessary for exploring, a workboat can do it more cheaply.

I suggest Building a workboat then stonehenge in stone city, it would be quickest if we worked the plains hill to begin with, which could then be mined. The workboat could be used for exploration.

 

[TDK]

I agree we should whip the settler but I would prefer to let Moscow grow to 4 and whip it for 2 pop. Another option is to build the granary first and then the settler. I'm not sure if it would be much slower but Mboza can figure that one out.

I think we should research writing after BW, I feel we could press our economic/science advantage by getting that library early.

I don't know about wonders, it is risky but I can see the advantage of building Stonehenge. Pyramids would be even better but I dont know if it is possible. If we were to get them we are approaching the possiblity of a pure specialist economy. I haven't checked the great persons tech preference list for this kind of game, but I will get to it one of these days.

TDK

 

[TDK]

Oh, we won't get stone until we research masonry, not even if we found a city on it.
A prophet from Stonehenge won't do us much good if we open up monotheism by researching masonry, so that's another reason to consider Pyramids.

TDK

 

[hamfist]

Wow. Quick set of turns. I need to set this forum to update me on every message. I would vote for Settler/Work Boat/Granary till next growth/Worker.

Stone City looks good. City 3 may be best across the water, either by Alex and Mao or the other side of what appears to be a horseshoe. Keep down the maintenance.

As a side note, I can really only check the forum once per day, at around 8 AM PST. I've just moved and the internet connection is not up yet.

 

[mdy]

The AI on monarch tends to build the pyramids some time shortly after 1000BC, I doubt we could finish it berfore then so the pyramids will be a big risk. It would also tie down our second city for much longer.

If we kept 2 scientists in Moscow most of the time we would never get a prophet from stonehenge so we won`t waste a GP.

If we built a warrior by working 1 forest before the settler we could whip for 2 pop and still build the settler at roughly the same time.

If we fo for stonehange we should go for mysticism next to guarantee beating the AI to it, otherwise it would be better to research writing first.
I think the longer term benefits of stonehenge will be greater than getting a slightly earlier academy, we could still get an academy by 1000BC if we built stonehenge first.