SGOTM 03 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[Kodii]

Overall production:

Moscow:
Get gardens 'a hangin

Yaroslavl':
Get Colossus 'a buildin

All:
Get ships 'a explorin
Get axemen 'a threatenin
Get workers 'a choppin
Get spearmen 'a defendin

 

[LKendter]

Add get spears 'a defendin to the list. We should have something around to counter horse archers / elephants.

 

[Kodii]

I think that all I need to confirm before my turnset is tech order. I'm thinking along the lines of:

Literature (for GL), Mathematics (for HG), [Construction?] (for cats), [Currency?], Monotheism, Theology, Paper...

Do we want to try getting the free artist from Music?

Do we want to initiate some tech trades? We could probably get Mathematics from Gandhi by trading Iron Working and Pottery.

 

[Iainuki]

We need to agree on a tech plan before you go, Kodii, IMO.

 

[Kodii]

Yup, thats why I attempted to initiate discussion in the post above.

 

[grangerm]

I didn't worry about a MP in St. Pete cause it is still happy, though it might go unhappy at some point soon (not sure what it's happy surplus is). We can certainly move Moscow's warrior, but that essentially chains one of the axes as an MP in Moscow unless we want it to go unhappy.

I explored down one of the southern islands west of China, but I pulled the galley back once I ran into some tundra and ice. Even if we could make it around the southern point of that island, it would just lead us to China where we don't have OB and have to backtrack. Instead it is exploring around Rome right now. We could use another galley exploring India. Make sure to move the exploring boats into the opposing cities so that we can see more of the surrounding land.

I didn't mention it yet, but Rome has a lot of galleys. I saw at least 5.

We should definitely make some tech trades, but we need to be careful not to pick up some crappy techs like Meditation if we hope to use our 1st GS on something other than Philosophy.

To be honest, I'm not enamored with building the Colossus, though for 125 hammers it's not expensive. I just worry that we could use the iron city to pump out more axes instead.

I wasn't sure what our long term plans were for the land around Novograd. That's one other reason why I let it stay at size 4 and didn't build a library. It can't grow and be productive at the same time unless it uses the fish. It can't get any farms until Electricity (I think), so are we even going to improve the grassland? Or will we just put extra citizens to work on the water tiles?

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Requesting permission to lurk...

 

[Compromise]

Requesting permission to lurk...

Yes please! And feel free to participate fully in our discussions too.

 

[Compromise]

I only have time for a quick post, and I should be able to download the save later today. But I wanted to throw out a suggestion about this:

70 BC - 12)
Alphabet finished, start Lit. Due in 4, GE in 15. That means we can sneak another tech in if we so choose.

We're making 5 GE GPP in Moscow, right? Our philosophical status doubles that to 10, and our second GP costs 300 GPP. So, that means we've got about 150 GE GPP in Moscow now and need another 150. (That's gotta be close, at least.)

Here's my (radical?) suggestion: Why don't we keep working toward Literature at full rate and accelerate Moscow's GP production by putting a couple scientist specialists to work? They will add 12 GS GPP between the two of them. That should cut our GP time in half. It will probably give us a 80% GE, 20% GS chance. I can live with those odds. If we get a GS instead, we can use it to pop Philosophy and then we can run Pacifism sooner. That'll be like running an extra two scientist in each GP farm with a library.

I can probably compute the odds more exactly when I look at the save.

 

[LKendter]

Here's my (radical?) suggestion: Why don't we keep working toward Literature at full rate and accelerate Moscow's GP production by putting a couple scientist specialists to work? They will add 12 GS GPP between the two of them. That should cut our GP time in half. It will probably give us a 80% GE, 20% GS chance. I can live with those odds. If we get a GS instead, we can use it to pop Philosophy and then we can run Pacifism sooner. That'll be like running an extra two scientist in each GP farm with a library.

Sorry, but I don't feel like rolling the dice for the Great Library. I vote for keeping the GE pool 100% clean. St. Pete should be pumping out about GS points soon enough.

 

[Puddleduck]

Requesting permission to lurk...

As long as were peering out from behind the shrubbery ... I've been really enjoying your game ... and learning a lot from it. KUTGW!

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Yes please! And feel free to participate fully in our discussions too.

Okiedokie...well if it's backdoor dom you're going for then isn't it time to start with the ?

 

[Compromise]

I don't feel like rolling the dice for the Great Library. I vote for keeping the GE pool 100% clean. St. Pete should be pumping out about GS points soon enough.

I think we're rolling the dice either way: If we pollute the pool, we risk getting a scientist rather than an engineer. If we keep the pool clean, we risk losing the Great Library to whatever (presumably industrious with marble) civ it is that built the Oracle and the Parthenon.

Since the downside to polluting the pool is the ability to get more GPP sooner via a Philosophy pop, I lean--slightly--to the pollution.

As long as were peering out from behind the shrubbery ... I've been really enjoying your game ... and learning a lot from it.

Welcome!

Okiedokie...well if it's backdoor dom you're going for then isn't it time to start with the :hammer ?

This is good motivation. Let me answer by proposing the following: We've started the ability to field a reasonable military. We need to do that to dissuade would-be attackers. On archipelago, I think a good navy is the key to a good defense, so I think we need 4 or 5 galleys patrolling our waters looking out for ships filled with baddies.

Next stage: Get pacifism and pump out great scientists.

Next stage: Get optics and a few caravels for defense and exploring

Next stage: Rush to education via Theology. Use Theology as trade bait to backfill Currency, Construction, Bureaucracy techs

Next stage: Get Liberalism and choose astonomy. This will give us observatories to improve our research rate and galleons to protect our shores.

Next stage: Rush to Cossacks.

Finally: Take high food and high production cities. Rule the world with cossacks. While doing so, use great people to largely pop our way to Mass Media and the UN.

We might need frigates (chemistry + traded-for engineering) to protect our galleons.

Very rough outline, very open to debate. I have the hope that galleons+cossacks on monarch equals rapid conquering. Maybe that's foolish.

Ideally, we want to get 51% of the population on the turn that we finish the UN. Our guess right now is that it will be the tech pace rather than the population that will slow us down, so we're concentrating on building up a powerful tech/empire-supporting infrastructure.

 

[Iainuki]

Ok, I've spent some time looking over the save, and here are my feelings.

The most important thing:

Exploration! It's 70 BC and we have not sent any workboats out to find the other civilizations. We have Alphabet now, but we can't actually tech broker because we don't know anyone. Kodii, if you don't do anything else during your turnset, I think it's essential for you to get two workboats and send them past Gandhi and Alex. (Sign open borders with the latter.)

Comments on things that have gone before:

I'm a little troubled we chopped the grassland forest near Yaroslavl'. That island has no water, and our workshops are going to suck for a long, long time, so I think we should have left it intact. It's not a big deal, but in the future before chopping forests in similar cases, can we talk about it?

Future builds:

We need libraries in all of our cities on the main island, since they all produce substantial amounts of commerce. We want forges everywhere, since they boost our one pre-Calendar happiness resource, our production, and enable engineers (probably the best specialists in our current position). We should get lighthouses everywhere, because all of our cities are relying on seafood. We want the Colossus somewhere.

What's the order on these things? Here are my proposals:

St. Pete: it doesn't need a lighthouse right now. Switch it to a forge for an engineer specialist, so it can get actual production.

Novgorod: Do we want to build the Colossus here or Yaroslavl'? If not, it should build explorers/military/workers, and then switch to a library.

Rostov: finish the forge, then get a library.

Moscow: explorers/military/workers.

Yaroslavl': finish forge, then granary, then either barracks and explorers/military, or Colossus.

We need more workers, though not many more at this point. We still have lots of jungle to chop, and only five workers to do it with. We should cottage the grasslands on the west side of the island, including the land around Novgorod. St. Pete needs irrigation, and Moscow needs cottages, first on the open grasslands, then on the jungle grassland: I think we should save the remaining forests for the health benefits and future need.

Tech trades:

If we can get Mathematics from Gandhi without giving up Alphabet, I think we should. Don't trade Alphabet! Breaking that monopoly is just not worth it at this point, especially since we haven't met the other AIs.

Tech path:

I don't have any clear ideas of what we should do here. Here are two critical questions:

What do we have our first scientist lightbulb? Philosophy is the obvious choice; does anyone have good alternative suggestions? If we aim for Philosophy, I think we should have a back-up plan in case someone else lightbulbs it and founds Taoism, because it's not useful without the religion to run Pacifism.

Do we want to go for the Music great artist?

Some less urgent, but still important questions:

Construction is off our Mass Media and cossacks beelines. Do we want to develop it ourselves, or trade for it? If the former, when?

Do we want to shoot for an early Liberalism slingshot, or sandbag it?

How do we approach acquiring Education? Christianity is already gone, removing one possible advantage of the Theology approach.

It feels like there's more to talk about, but I don't see what it is for now, so I'll conclude here.

 

[LKendter]

We need more workers,

I couldn't agree more.

What's the order on these things? Here are my proposals:

St. Pete: it doesn't need a lighthouse right now. Switch it to a forge for an engineer specialist, so it can get actual production.

Novgorod: Do we want to build the Colossus here or Yaroslavl'? If not, it should build explorers/military/workers, and then switch to a library.

Rostov: finish the forge, then get a library.

Moscow: explorers/military/workers.

Yaroslavl': finish forge, then granary, then either barracks and explorers/military, or Colossus.

My number one concern in all of this is BUILD MILITARY. No matter what city we choose I want to get to the point where we have a least one city on military production. I am far past my tolerance point for low military. I really want some land troops. Galleys have proven terribly unreliable for stopping invasions for me. I will count galleys as military. Workboats don't count even though we need some exploring.

 

[grangerm]

I know this sounds stupid, but I see a lot of things that people say we "need", but there's a limited amount of production to be used. We can't have it all right now.

Sure, we'd like to have more WBs exploring. But from where? When? Instead of trying to build the Colossus in Yaroslavl, we could have started another WB and let the 1st continue to explore instead of having to turn around and get back in time for the border pop. Since we don't have OB with the eastern bloc, we've got a galley cruising past southern Rome currently and one that can explore Ghandi's neck of the woods soon too.

It would be nice to have more workers too, but if we want to build them, we have to sacrifice growth and one of our builds.

My point is that there is give and take.

If we want to leverage our knowledge of alphabet by being a trade broker, we need more exploration. That will weaken our ability to defend our current cities and possibly cost us a shot at the Colossus.

If we want to make sure that we don't get crippled by 2 galleys worth of troops from our Greek or Chinese friends, we need more galleys and more military. Obviously that will weaken our endeavors in other areas.

If we make developing our home tiles a priority, we will need to sacrifice some defense and exploration.

I'm a little troubled we chopped the grassland forest near Yaroslavl'

I don't think chopping the forests at Yaroslavl is a major concern. After the clams, crabs, iron, 2 mined plains hills and an engineer specialist, those forests would have been the 7th best tile for a citizen to work. Getting the forge out sooner will allow us to get the Colossus sooner if that's still the plan.

I can't imagine us being able to pop Philosophy first. We are probably 30 turns away from getting our 1st GS out of St. Pete. At the rate that the AI is going, I think Taoism will be founded before that. Because of that, I think we should hold off on acquiring Meditation until the turn we plan on lightbulbing Philosophy (if Taoism hasn't been founded by the time we get our GS).

I am not in favor of polluting the GP pool either. I don't think that any civs will be in the position to complete the GL before we can rush it. Even if an industrious civ w/ marble builds it in a city with 16 base production, they'll need Literature in like 3 turns to beat our rush. I don't see that happening.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I was going to answer everyone in turn, but if I try that I'll be up all night!

Aside from Compromise, who has outlined his broad strategy (turtle til Astro/Cossacks), I think the team is getting too focused on micro issues at the expense of the end goal (fastest finish).

You're all good players: discuss and decide on medium/long term goals, but trust each other to take care of the micro.

 

[LKendter]

The Wooden Spoons are awarded for the lowest scoring finish, which was achieved by The Real Ms. Beyond with a brilliantly conceived plan to let the international gang of criminals escape in a spaceship and blow themselves up on the way to Alpha Centauri. History may yet tell us whether this ploy will succeed.

[IMG=LEFT]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/players/awards/civwoodenspoon2.png[/IMG]

The Real Ms. Beyond, lost to Mansa Musa's Spaceship in 1953 AD.
regoarrarr
BeefontheBone
Compromise
EL_OSO
Kodii
ruff_hi
Snaproll
Zalson
​

Just what did I get into? My name in history as a dud?

 

[Compromise]

Just what did I get into? My name in history as a dud?

Spoons baby!

Our plan is to win both the Golden laurels and the "most amazing turnaround" award with this one!

Since I basically lost that game for us, this also emphasizes the size of the grain of salt with which you should read every one of my posts.

 

[Compromise]

So many posts, so little time. Okay, I'll reply at length later, but in light of this good advice:

I think the team is getting too focused on micro issues at the expense of the end goal (fastest finish).

You're all good players: discuss and decide on medium/long term goals, but trust each other to take care of the micro.

there are a couple of decisions to make before Kodii plays.

First, pollute or don't pollute the Moscow GE GPP pool. Currently, the team is leaning no.

Second, next research goal? Math is an option, and it lets us start aqueduct/Hanging Gardens in Moscow. For Literature: I don't think we have a sufficiently promoted troop to build Heroic Epic yet. The only other reason to get Literature before the last moment is to build the National Epic. Are we ready to start that in St. Pete yet? On the other hand, we don't want to forget about getting Literature!

Third, military or explore. I think we need to get some explorers out there asap. Otherwise, alphabet's value is much diminished. Let's get those workboats out there. Save some money so we can make emergency warrior upgrades. At this point, I think we can open borders with everyone. Then get the military going. With three galleys, we should be able to sink at least one troop-bearing ship. Two axes in Moscow and two in Yaroslavl' will give us bare minimum defenses.

Fourth, we need to think about if/when/where we want to put any more cities on our home island. The site on the southern spices will be food-rich and will make a good secondary GS generator.