SGOTM 03 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[Compromise]

Going for Ironworking right after Sailing is definitely worth considering. It's certainly faster than waiting until after pottery and writing. And there are at least a couple spots within our first three cities' cultural borders where iron could still quite usefully appear for us.

On the other hand, pottery would come in right around when the pyramids finish, thus setting up an immediate granary. That effectively makes 1F go from ~1H to ~1.5H, and we have a lot of food there.

It's even possible for us to go for Ironworking before Sailing. It should finish right around when the pyramids do. We'll lose some commerce because of lack of trade routes, but our workers will be able to chop jungle immediately upon completing the pyramids. Otherwise it'll be a 12T wait or something (though they could build roads to the gems mine in the mean time.

(I think I still lean toward Sailing first though.)

When we get close to the end of the pyramids, and it becomes apparent that another chop won't accelerate them, we could start the road to the St Pete gem mine.

Let's plan to stop after sailing (assuming that's next) to see where we're at.

 

[Iainuki]

Going for Ironworking right after Sailing is definitely worth considering. It's certainly faster than waiting until after pottery and writing. And there are at least a couple spots within our first three cities' cultural borders where iron could still quite usefully appear for us.

On the other hand, pottery would come in right around when the pyramids finish, thus setting up an immediate granary. That effectively makes 1F go from ~1H to ~1.5H, and we have a lot of food there.

It's even possible for us to go for Ironworking before Sailing. It should finish right around when the pyramids do. We'll lose some commerce because of lack of trade routes, but our workers will be able to chop jungle immediately upon completing the pyramids. Otherwise it'll be a 12T wait or something (though they could build roads to the gems mine in the mean time.

(I think I still lean toward Sailing first though.)

When we get close to the end of the pyramids, and it becomes apparent that another chop won't accelerate them, we could start the road to the St Pete gem mine.

Let's plan to stop after sailing (assuming that's next) to see where we're at.

I think we need to get Sailing first because we may want to start galleys in the outlying cities before the Pyramids finish. (We don't need copper hooked up for that, and I still think it's the most cost-effective defense we can field.) The copper/horses hook-up to Moscow and the trade routes are also important.

If granaries come in right after the Pyramids, i can see them being useful, but whipping unhappiness will be the constraint on our production more than growth until we get Iron Working and start cutting jungles. (I don't think we should overwhip our cities unless it's imperative for military defense: it will take a long time for it to wear off, longer than it will take to grow back with granaries and our food power.)

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I think we need to get Sailing first because we may want to start galleys in the outlying cities before the Pyramids finish. (We don't need copper hooked up for that, and I still think it's the most cost-effective defense we can field.)

On this map, a strong navy will save our bacon. If we can control first the waters around our island; and later the sea lanes; we will be able to grow and prosper.

Long term, we need to consider each tech that will give us naval superiority, a priority.

 

[Kodii]

We are on such a great roll with discussion, and I didn't want to stop it by delaying my playing. Thats why I'm playing it now, at midnight

That is also the reason for the poor report, but alas, continual discussion is more important than a fancy report.

IHT - Switched to Sailing

1540 BC - Stonehenge BIDL; Worker complete in St. Pete's (and I name the workers)

1510 BC - Judaism FIDL

1450 BC - Workers mine plain hills, Moscow grows to size 6, I switch to settler.

1360 BC - Settler completes after whipping.

1300 BC - Oracle BIDL , Sailing comes in so I stop. The workers have chopped another forest, and have begun another. St. Pete's will grow next turn, the settler is on its way to the blue dot. I've tentatively set research to Pottery. St. Pete's is building an obelisk.

I think Pottery should come before Iron Working, but I could see how Iron Working could come in before Pottery. Keep discussing

Save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG003_BC1300_01.Civ4SavedGame

 

[grangerm]

This might be a little spoilerish from SGOTM2, in that The Real Ms. Beyond team hasn't finished yet, but I think it is ok, cause it's just about development strategy not map features or anything that could affect their current game. I'll put it in spoiler tags just in case.

Spoiler :

CFR absolutely blew everyone out of the water in SGOTM2 and the way they did it was by deciding early on to produce Great Scientists to research Compass, Optics and Astronomy.

This strategy required them to avoid discovering certain technologies (CS to not open up paper and Meditation to open up Philosophy) until after they had burned the GS.

I think that it would be a good idea for the team to look at the techs we can use our GP for and see how we can get to Mass Media (and possibly MT) the quickest.

Here's the thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

At least our 1st GP will be an engineer. If we find that scientists would be most useful for us (and Physics and Scientific Method are at the top of their list, pre-reqs to Mass Media), it may be worth it to use it to build the Great Library in St. Pete instead of Moscow. That way, along with a couple regular scientist specialists, St. Pete would get us an unpolluted GP pool of scientists coming in at 24 GPP/turn.

 

[Compromise]

Since I'm still actively playing SGOTM2, does the spoiler tag contain any information not in the first spoiler thread for SGOTM2?

Regardless, I have two thoughts regarding our development.

First, Kylearan made an impressive showing in the Horse Feathers Epic by racing out and attacking the AI. Early aggression may be our friend.

Second, we should think about how to leverage our philosophical trait. I suspect that if we are skilled and lucky, that building the UN might be the limiting factor in how quickly we can get our diplomatic victory. The UN can be rushed by a great engineer, so we'll probably want one of those by then.

Also, Mass Media and Radio are highly favored by (otherwise fairly useless) great artists. And Scientific Method and Physics are most favored by great scientists. So, we may want to seriously consider generating and stockpiling a bunch of great people for a final tech rush.

I'm not sure how many people it will take for each tech.

If we want to pop earlier techs with scientists, we have to be a little careful with tech prerequisites. I think it's possible to get Astronomy if you do it properly (or maybe it's Optics).

In Adventure 13, T-Hawk did a great job by beelining Astronomy--I don't remember if he used great people or not--but that was only prince level.

Of course, with 18 civs in our game, tech trading might be the way to go.

Another note: when do we want to think about trying for the circumnavigation bonus? After writing allows us open borders, I suspect. We could probably get away with using workboats since our galleys will likely be needed for home island defense.

 

[Compromise]

Looking at Kodii's save, I see that there is an outline of Alex's borders NE of Sparta. That means that Mao is either trapped behind him or is south of Sparta. It also means that we won't be going very far east with any boats before open borders (or war, I guess) with Alex.

 

[grangerm]

Looking back at the 1st spoiler for SGOTM2, CFR did explain their early game thought process, so people who read that thread probably already knew anyway. So that would be a "no".

 

[Compromise]

Okay, I read the spoiler tag. Dovetails perfectly with what I was working on last night!

The only things that artists prefer more than radio and mass media are literature, drama, music, polytheism and monarchy. We'll probably want all of those anyway. (Except music; maybe we can trade for it.)

I still like using our first engineer for the great library. Putting it in our great person farm makes sense to me. We should discuss what to do with that first scientist. Team CFR (SGOTM2) used it for optics, but being philosophical, we might be better off with a super-science capital academy. I'm not sure yet.

With the Oracle falling so early (that seems *really* early!) and confucianism not getting founded the same turn, that probably means an AI took Metalcasting with it. That means someone's getting a jump start on forges and the Colossus. It also means that whoever was building the Oracle wasn't building the pyramids, so that's good.

It's good to see that Alex and Mao are both still threatening us with archers (not axes).

Also, our workers could be split up after chopping this forest so they don't lose a movement turn on the same forest.

 

[Iainuki]

Okay, I read the spoiler tag. Dovetails perfectly with what I was working on last night!.

I wonder if you're working on the same thing I'm working on?

 

[Compromise]

I wonder if you're working on the same thing I'm working on?

Here's what I started doing. I found this thread and looked at the tech tree to see what we needed and what kind of great person could pop them. I started from the end (UN requiring mass media) and looked backwards.

One of the problems with building the National Epic is that you usually get a few junk great artists. But here, since we'll want the UN, we can burn them on radio and mass media.

In addition to trading fodder, it makes going for Music first at least a little appealing, though with all these monarch AIs in the game, that might be asking a lot.

Since there's no city razing, we have to be pretty careful about our economy. We want at least currency, and probably Code of Laws before we grow too big.

I'm just trying to get a handle on our overall gameplan.

 

[Iainuki]

Here's what I started doing. I found this thread and looked at the tech tree to see what we needed and what kind of great person could pop them. I started from the end (UN requiring mass media) and looked backwards.

One of the problems with building the National Epic is that you usually get a few junk great artists. But here, since we'll want the UN, we can burn them on radio and mass media.

. . .

I'm just trying to get a handle on our overall gameplan.

I'm looking at more or less the same thing. Keep in mind that artists only contribute about 1000 beakers to those later techs: we probably won't have better ways to use them, but they're still junk.

 

[Tatran]

Lurker's comment :

The path to Mass Media is relative short. You don't have to research
a lot of (military) techs. You'll have to find a balance between the required
techs for Mass Media and the necessary (military) techs to get enough
population at the moment of voting.
You can't rely on the AIs, with 18 civs and a lot of war declarations
which will give you negative relation points.

 

[Compromise]

Lurker's comment :

The path to Mass Media is relative short. You don't have to research
a lot of (military) techs. You'll have to find a balance between the required
techs for Mass Media and the necessary (military) techs to get enough
population at the moment of voting.
You can't rely on the AIs, with 18 civs and a lot of war declarations
which will give you negative relation points.

I think this is exactly right. With a crowded archipelago map, the question boils down to:

Population or the UN: Which will we be waiting for at the end of the game?

And unless we ally with one or two religious blocks early, I doubt if we can count on any votes. Aggressive AI just makes it harder.

Maybe if there's someone who has a favorite civic that we're likely to use early on and has a religion that we have (and want to adopt) and who isn't in our immediate ring-of-early-conquest. But that seems unlikely.

On to the game at hand. Other than Pottery vs Ironworking, what do we need to decide before the next turnset (Bugsy)? After obelisk in St Pete, I assume workboat for the fish. Moscow just cranks away at the pyramids now, maximizing production at happy pop.

 

[Compromise]

Okay, one more post and then I'll stop spamming this thread for a while:

I'm assuming that for the UN vote, each point of population counts the same. So three size 2 cities count the same as one size 6 city. Is this right?

This is different than the way "Population" is calculated in the demographics because larger cities are weighted more heavily there (2 size 1 cities have less population than 1 size 2 city).

 

[Kodii]

I think that Bugsy could play pretty soon. Are we for Pottery or Iron Working? I personally think its not too big of a deal.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I am up next. I will play as soon as I get some direction. A "Do this Bugsy" list would be most helpful. The first thing we need to decide is: what tech do we research next?

So far I have:

1. St. Pete: Obelisk=>fishing boat
2. Moscow: Pyramids - chop as much as possible with max happy people. Don't stack the workers.
3. Maintain fog busters.
4. Settle copper city (blue dot) - what do we want to build here? worker? fishing boat? The newbie thinks boat then worker. we probably want to cover that city with a warrior.

All guidance and instruction is necessary and welcome.

 

[Iainuki]

So far I have:

1. St. Pete: Obelisk=>fishing boat
2. Moscow: Pyramids - chop as much as possible with max happy people. Don't stack the workers.
3. Maintain fog busters.
4. Settle copper city (blue dot) - what do we want to build here? worker? fishing boat? The newbie thinks boat then worker. we probably want to cover that city with a warrior.

All guidance and instruction is necessary and welcome.

I had build orders for the cities that should still be good, but I don't remember where the thread I put them. (Sorry, my notes are kind of out of order right now.)

This depends on exact timing, but here's roughly what needs to happen, in what order:

Moscow: build Pyramids, grow to size 6 and whip settler, build Pyramids.

St. Pete: whip obelisk, workboat for fish. Grow to size 2, then work the fish and cows while building a settler or worker to halt growth. Whip the workboat to completion when whip unhappiness dissipates. Anyone have an exact build order?

Novgorod: start by growing (working the fish, which should be hooked up by then I hope), whip an obelisk ASAP, then start a worker, I think.

I think I vote for Iron Working as our tech--I think all of our build queues will be filled with workers, workboats, settlers, and obelisks for awhile longer.

 

[Kodii]

4. Settle copper city (blue dot) - what do we want to build here? worker? fishing boat? The newbie thinks boat then worker. we probably want to cover that city with a warrior.

I think we want to start with an obelisk. There is no need for the fishing boat, as it is coming from St. Pete's. A worker isn't much use until borders expand. It would only be able pasture the horses. A warrior isn't necessary because our island is completely fogbusted and barbs won't be a threat to it. I think the only decision we need to make before you play is: Pottery or Iron Working?

 

[Kodii]

I just noticed now that I crossposted with Iainuki:

Moscow has already built the settler. Moscow's build order is this:

Pyramids. The workers are chopping the second forest along the river. Keep chopping until its finished!