SGOTM 04 - Geezers

[Sam_Yeager]

Tech wise I vote for Ag, Wheel and Pot before writing. We need to farm, connect copper and gold sooner than later and need to use the food to its max.

I don't think Agriculture is as important as the other two. We need Mysticism for cultural expansion in new cities as well. So my preferred initial tech path would be Wheel, Mysticism and Pottery.

How well do we think we are going to be able to trade techs early?

Tech trading could be interesting. IIRC the AI won't trade unless it knows at least two civs. Alphabet needs to be known by at least one civ. Ghandhi won't trade with us anyway. Neither Ghandhi or Kublai know each other yet. It's another reason why we want to know if Ghandhi is sharing his land with anyone else.

I want to officially say not going to build the oracle is a mistake. (in the second city to get CoL or MC) But I guess we have to plan for the Pyramids. Oh by the way do you guys ever go for WWonders to get cash for 100 percent science in mid game?

I'm not sure exactly where this was said. However if we wanted to go down that route we would need Mysticism -> Meditation -> Priesthood and with the exception of the first that's not on either of our tech paths.

 

[markh]

My attempt of a dotmap. The yellow city is a bit too far ahead I think.

I am not too sure about the oracle. Pyramids would be nice for sure, but I think most important now is to get two more cities planted.

Next tech should be The Wheel to get the copper connected. Had some bad experience lately building too few military and barbs swarmed all over me and I lost a lot improvements and even one newly built city. I think we will have quite some as there seems nobody in the North and Kahn also seems to be a bit away.

No, I do not build wonders for cash usually. I always need those hammers.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

My attempt of a dotmap. The yellow city is a bit too far ahead I think.

Pleased to see this mark. My own attempts didn't go too well. I find it disappointing that both the western cities are non coastal. Yellow city is presumably meant to be fourth. In that case I really think that blue city should either be in Thrallia's spot or else in Htadus's first spot.

The reason why I would like an early coastal city is so that we can scout Ghandhi's lands and equally important find if there are any other civs. If there aren't then we will not have any early trading partners.

 

[Thrallia]

for some reason I didn't realize that there was corn so close to the gold...in that case I'd be fine with building the gold city where mark and Htadus placed it. It would only use the pigs to grow at first, then it could switch over to the corn, since corn provides just as much food as pigs do it won't hurt that city and the capital will be able to take it over again.

Sam, the pigs are already under capitol culture, thus would be immediately accessible to a new city.

Finally, the only city in that dotmap I would move is the corn city. I do assume it to be the 4th city, but I would move it to the grasslands coast where I have placed that sign. There it gains 2 gems, a few hills, and 2 sea-based food resources. It therefore could build or poprush a number of triremes and galleys to be used in containing and harrassing Gandhi.

As far as what we would be able to trade to people...As long as there are enough civs that know each other to even desire to trade...I'm certain we could trade the Alphabet for pretty much every single ancient tech, and perhaps even IW.

 

[Jenarie]

Using Mark's city sites I tried to map out what the rest might look like. It fits although some of it is awkward.



Orange would almost have to go there if we want the fish unless we move light blue and orange both one to the west. Going to play with it some more but that's what I have based on Htadus & Mark proposed sites.

 

[Thrallia]

More thoughts on tech:
I think our tech path should be Masonry, Wheel, Mysticism, either Writing or Sailing.

I see no current reason to get Pottery. We don't need it to unlock MC since we aren't going toward the Oracle, and since we've got so many hills/food resoruces available right now, we don't need it for cottages anytime soon. I think it is perfectly viable waiting to get Pottery until we can trade for it. A Granary would be nice, but with our desire to explore, expand, and get Pyramids, I can't see any time in the next 50 turns or so to throw in granaries.

side note: From the culture graphs of the 8 teams who have submitted saves, it appears us and Smurks are the only ones who did not settle on turn 1.

Another side note: how do you make dot maps? they'd be very handy for me to make I'd like to make my own with my proposed city sites.

 

[Jenarie]

I'd like to get wheel first. We need to hook up that copper and we'll want to hook up gold/gems when we can as well although gems aren't an issue as we won't have them until after we learn Iron Working.

To make dot maps: Scroll around the map until you have what you need showing. Then if you hit CTR ALT F you get "flying camera mode" which means you can have the cultural boundaries and the resources or basically anything you want showing at the same time. I hit Print Screen (so I don't get that naming square) and then paste it into paint. You can use any editing software but paint is easy - just use the line drawing utility to get your lines.

I was going to do yours next cause some of them intrigue me but if you are doing yours I'll skip that one.

 

[Thrallia]

sounds fair, we can't use masonry immediately anyway, so Wheel, Mysticism, Masonry, Writing

We do want Masonry in there so that we can start working on the Pyramids in our capital as soon as possible. Putting Mysticism and Wheel before it should allow us to get the pigs and copper ready, along with a number of hills mines...that shoudl give us at least 20 hammers per turn in the capital, giving us a great production speed on it. We've also got plenty of chopable forests if we want to use them.

 

[Jenarie]

Newbie question: I'm not at all against it but I'm curious why we want pyramids? I usually only want them if I'm spiritual since then being able to change around whenever I want is nice. I'm weak on picking the right civics for max benefit so I'm wondering what pyramids would do for us. Everyone seems to asume we want them and I'm sure you are right but I feel stupid for not knowing WHY.

 

[markh]

The governmental civics are quite powerful. Take representation that early and you get more science and happiness or police state to work against the war weariness in this scenario. These civics come quite late in the game and we would have agreat advantage using these civics this soon.

 

[Thrallia]

Representation and Police State are very helpful in this type of game.
We've got major food sources, allowing us to have lots of specialists, so representation will allow us larger cities with more science.

Later on, if/when war weariness becomes a major issue, we can switch to Police State.

I'm not entirely sure WW has any effect when locked into permanent war...but we'll surely have some later on when warring with other civs(gandhi's vassals or our own independent wars)

 

[Thrallia]

and I'm still wanting to know how to make dot maps

 

[Jenarie]

I've been playing with dot maps for a while now and I can't seem to get one I'm happy with. The one I posted above is ok but I agree with Sam that we need more coastal cities on that side. It would probably be better if we shifted orange and light blue west.

I'm afraid we may be kicking ourselves later if we need to get over there fast and have to sail all the way around. Orange may be enough to cover it as it is but if we want to move fast we may want two cities on that side making boats?

 

[Jenarie]

Ack Thrallia I posted instructions but I edited into my reply probably at the same time you were posting after me so it didn't show up for you as new. Its up a couple posts sorry.

To make dot maps: Scroll around the map until you have what you need showing. Then if you hit CTR ALT F you get "flying camera mode" which means you can have the cultural boundaries and the resources or basically anything you want showing at the same time. I hit Print Screen (so I don't get that naming square) and then paste it into paint. You can use any editing software but paint is easy - just use the line drawing utility to get your lines.

Edit: I edit a lot I may have to stop that but it saves some of the post spam by me.
I'm looking forward to seeing your map I was going to work on one based on your suggestions but since you said you were going to do I haven't done those.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

To make dot maps: Scroll around the map until you have what you need showing. Then if you hit CTR ALT F you get "flying camera mode" which means you can have the cultural boundaries and the resources or basically anything you want showing at the same time. I hit Print Screen (so I don't get that naming square) and then paste it into paint. You can use any editing software but paint is easy - just use the line drawing utility to get your lines.

Don't you have to enable 'flying camera mode' in the .ini file first?

I usually used to just zoom out enough and then hit Print Screen and edit in Paint. However it doesn't seem to work as well in Warlords for some reason. The grid lines don't show up as well either. I'll have to investigate further.

Btw the way I believe there is a bug in Warlords where the resources don't show for the bottom four rows.

 

[Jenarie]

Ohh I may have had to edit ini file for flying mode I don't remember. I like it because it shows the grids - if you zoom out in normal mode you don't get the grid and you can't get the resources AND the culture colors it is either/or.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I see no current reason to get Pottery. We don't need it to unlock MC since we aren't going toward the Oracle, and since we've got so many hills/food resoruces available right now, we don't need it for cottages anytime soon. I think it is perfectly viable waiting to get Pottery until we can trade for it.

Ragnar is Aggressive & Financial. Not getting cottages up and running early strikes me as foolish and not making best use of our civ's traits. I agree that the Wheel and Mysticism need to come next but I feel Pottery should come soon after that.

On the point about waiting until we trade for it this has been the reason why I have been going on about getting a coastal city in the west. Ghandhi won't trade with us. The AI will only trade when they know at least two civs and Kublai hasn't met Ghandhi yet. Even when he does he may not be that helpful. We could be waiting quite a while before we can trade with anybody.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Sam, the pigs are already under capitol culture, thus would be immediately accessible to a new city.

Hmmm, I thought cities could only work resources that were within their cultural boundary. Are you saying that's not the case?

 

[Jenarie]

Cities don't have a cultural boundary exactly. The entire nation has one and it just starts and is earned by each city. Once a tile is in your cultural boundary it can be worked by any city that has it in the fat cross no matter which city earned the culture.

Hope that makes sense. Easiest way to see it would probably be to start a couple games and overlap some cities. You get some odd shapes but you do get to work the tile.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Cities don't have a cultural boundary exactly. The entire nation has one and it just starts and is earned by each city. Once a tile is in your cultural boundary it can be worked by any city that has it in the fat cross no matter which city earned the culture.

Hope that makes sense. Easiest way to see it would probably be to start a couple games and overlap some cities. You get some odd shapes but you do get to work the tile.

I had a play with Htadus's test save and yes it works as you & Thrallia said. Another thing I didn't realise before.