SGOTM 04 - Geezers

[Sam_Yeager]

Any other views, plans, questions before we move on?

Presumably the idea of Poly and Priesthood is to get Monarchy (?). I would suggest that we go for Literature which opens up the Great Library, Heroic Epic and National Epic. An alternative would be Calendar so that we could could connect the sugar etc. Metal Casting would be another good tech but I would prefer Literature first.

Tabriz may be somewhat expensive atm but I suppose it's on the way to Chehalis & Samarqand.

 

[Htadus]

Nice decapitation.
Lets see:

we lost an Axe, a Spear, 2 chariots and 3 cats
We killed 5 Keshiks and 4 Archers. Razed 1 City.

I like these results.

Lit is my selection for Science next too.

We should be able to take both of those cities next turn. At Tabriz, should we lead off with a promoted cat? Hopefully it will retreat if not doing well and the swords can snack on the Archers.

I cant believe he dropped another city. The sword and a cover promoted Axe should be able to do that one in and let the others head to east side of river for bombarding Turfan.

We should send the Chariot to the gold hill to moniter the iron tile. Got to go.

 

[Harbourboy]

We should be able to take both of those cities next turn.

No pressure....

 

[markh]

@harbourboy : I was a little astonished he had that many Keshiks around and unfortunately he was lucky to kill our spear of the blocking team a little too fast. Apart from that it was not too bad, but more or less as expected. He has archers for defense only and we built up our forces nicely. With a little luck you can raze Ortar, Turfan and Ning Hsia with the forces we have down there. Depends a little on the RNG.

For Tabriz it was exactly my plan to attack with the cat and then go in with the swords. If we want to be safe bring another spear or axe.

@Sam : Literature was also my choice, but we need poly first. Without poly you cannot research lit. When I noticed that priesthood would take just one 1 turn I took it. We can still change it. The beakers are not yet invested.

 

[Harbourboy]

Are we razing everything then?

Where do you want to build The Great Library?

 

[markh]

Deep down South I would just raze. The maintenance would kill our research completely. Tabriz I am not sure, but it does not look very tempting to me. I would raze and settle a new city south of Uppsala to get the marble connected.

I am not very confident in getting the great library. We do not have marble, so no 50% bonus and I guess that other civs are already working on it. If we tried I think Nidaros has the best potential to build it, but we need a lib there first. This will take another 6 or 7 turns.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

@Sam : Literature was also my choice, but we need poly first. Without poly you cannot research lit. When I noticed that priesthood would take just one 1 turn I took it. We can still change it. The beakers are not yet invested.

I am not very confident in getting the great library. We do not have marble, so no 50% bonus and I guess that other civs are already working on it. If we tried I think Nidaros has the best potential to build it, but we need a lib there first. This will take another 6 or 7 turns.

Well if we want to go for GL then I suggest switching from Priesthood to Literature now. We don't have religion and we're razing those cities that do, so temples aren't an immediate need. Nidaros could start building the library whilst we're researching Literature. We can also get some workers pre-chopping forests for GLib as well.

If we're beaten to GLib then the gold we get back will further help us to research @ 100%.

 

[Harbourboy]

Summary: 3 Mongolian cities gone for only minor losses, but so has the Great Library.

Detail:
IBT: Priesthood => Literature
365 AD: Down to zero gold so had to reduce science to 30%. Attacked Tabriz. Lost a catapult and a swordsman (bad luck). Razed for 54 gold and shifted science back up to 100%.

IBT: Nothing
380 AD: Nidaros: Work Boat => Catapult. Yayoi: Granary => Library. Attacked Ortrar. Lost a swordsman. Razed for 19 gold. Science now at 70%.

IBT: Nothing
395 AD: Workboat reveals 4 archers in Old Sarai and 2 in Beshbalik. Science down to 50%.

IBT: Nothing
410 AD: Uppsala: Catapult=> Swordsman. Science to 40%

IBT: Nothing
425 AD: Moved stack across river from Turfan, which contains 2 archers and a catapult.

IBT: Turfan stack attacked by catapult and suffers collateral damage. Ghandi adopts Theocracy (!)
440 AD: Nidaros: Catapult => Library. Uppsala: Catapult => Market. Chariot pillages the road to Ning Hsia. Catapults bombard Turfan while units heal collateral damage.

IBT: Advisor suggests a settler. Congratulations on 2 million souls. Big Picture shows we are 7th in Soldiers and have none of the top 5 cities. There are some big boys (and girls) out there in the darkness. Nidaros grows to 9 and is now unhappy. War weariness is now an issue.
455 AD: Catapults bombard Turfan to 28% while units heal collateral damage. A farm is pillaged for a precious 6 gold. Work boat runs away from an Indian trireme.

IBT: Literature => Calendar (for plantations and to get closer to good boats)
470 AD: Bombarded the defences in Turfan to 17%.

IBT: The Great Library has been built in a far away land. Yayoi grows and becomes unhappy. Clearing a Forest has created 44 hammers for Yayoi.
485 AD: Uppsala: Swordsman => Axeman. Swordsman attacks Turfan (2 archers and 3 catapults). Charles Martel is born in El Dorado Sala. Turfan razed for 133 gold. No units lost. Science back to 100% Geezers finally overtake Khan’s score.

IBT: Genghis Khan converts to Taoism.
500 AD: Iron Sheep: Spearman => Swordsman. Turfan units healing. Science still at 100%

Comments for next turns:
1. There is a Great General to be processed.
2. The units that razed Turfan are still healing before probably heading to Ning hsia.
3. Another stack is waiting south of El Dorado sala that can be headed wherever you want to target next.
4. Great Library has gone so we really need a new medium term objective. What is the plan?
5. Ghandi has gone to Theocracy so we may be under further attack shortly.
6. Economy is still rough, but cottages are starting to power up.
7. I did not whip anything and there are some cities starting to suffer war weariness so you may be able to crack the leather on some of them.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm4/Geezers_SG004_AD0500_01.CivWarlordsSave

 

[Jenarie]

wow looks good... tons of empty land down there!
I almost feel sorry for Khan.

Research: Civil Service, Metal Casting & Machinery will give us Berserkers. I think we should do this very soon. Gandhi switching to Theocracy most likely means an attack soon and we don't have very good units including defense especially if he is ahead of us in tech.

Uppsala is our second best production site atm although that won't hold as we chop its forests. Was thinking it might be a good place to plant the Great General as a military instructor. Iron sheep has more mine potential but it looks like we are cottaging it. I'm really bad at specialization so having trouble envisioning... do we know what the plans are for each city?

 

[Harbourboy]

We will need to fend off Gandhi, but at least we have the luxury of knowing we don't actually have to go and attack him. Defending should be manageable. Maybe enough Power would deter him, which would be best outcome as we don't want him to waste resources on us.

Big strategy now has to be getting some sort of contact with the rest of the world.

 

[Jenarie]

Oh good point. Optics is much higher priority in this game then I would usually give it (I hate boats and play on pangea a lot).

For berserkers we need: Civil Service / Metal Casting / Machinery
For caravels we need: Metal Casting / Machinery / Compass / Optics

Not sure what other things we should be looking at going for but both those share Metal Casting and Machinery.

I'd probably go Civil Service > Metal Casting > Machinery > Compass > Optics but those all have pretty large research times even at 100% which we won't be able to keep up. Military is costing 24gpt atm but hopefully we can wrap up the war soon which would cut that down by at least 8 as our troops moved back into our territory.

 

[Harbourboy]

What are some of the other teams up to? Some of those graphs have gone nuts.

I'm still not sure about how well our plan to move off this island is going to go. I get the feeling that the other AI civilisations are miles ahead of us. We will need a flotilla of longships loaded with beserkers in order to make an impact - some real Viking roleplaying will be required. Go the Vikings!

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Comments for next turns:
1. There is a Great General to be processed.
2. The units that razed Turfan are still healing before probably heading to Ning hsia.
3. Another stack is waiting south of El Dorado sala that can be headed wherever you want to target next.
4. Great Library has gone so we really need a new medium term objective. What is the plan?
5. Ghandi has gone to Theocracy so we may be under further attack shortly.
6. Economy is still rough, but cottages are starting to power up.
7. I did not whip anything and there are some cities starting to suffer war weariness so you may be able to crack the leather on some of them.

Good progress in the war Harbourboy.

I suspect Ghandhi will be looking to expand so I suggest deferring the library in Nidaros and starting a settler for our commerce city on the west coast. Once the cost is down to three pop it should be which should relieve the unhappiness there. The overflow should help finish the library. The settler should be finished just about the time we wipe out Chehalis.

I would be inclined to go for Heroic Epic as we're going to have to do some warring overseas. However we need to get a unit up to level 4 before we can start building that, so don't throw away our more experienced units. Nidaros currently has good production but I think there is a reasonable case to build it in El Do instead. That way we won't pollute the GE pool in Nidaros. The GG should settle as an instructor in whatever city we build the HE in.

I'm not sure just how many additional military we need at the moment. It partly depends on just what we want to do with Khan. Kick him off the mainland? If so I think that's another 20 turns or so. We want to start getting the markets and cottages going. As Harbourboy has pointed out we're not making much use of our financial trait. Hopefully we should get at least a couple of workers from Chehalis & Samarqand to help with cottaging.

I think it's pretty certain that there is one, if not two, tech maniac civs out there that we'll have to take down to stop them beating Ghandhi to the stars. No doubt there'll be an aggressive civ on good relations with them as well just to make it more interesting.

EDIT: We should probably whip the library in Yayoi. Perhaps start a trireme afterwards?

 

[markh]

Sounds like you had some fun, Harbouboy.

After thinking a bit more about Khan I would vote for wiping him out completely. If we get to peace with him he will just build new cities defended by longbows not too far ahead. Then we have to go for him again.

Now I try some reading from the results page : Somebody noticed the drop of score of the CRC team. Maybe they just decided to move south to where Khan was and gave the first city to Gandhi. That would explain their drop in score. Either that or Khan made some more trouble what I would doubt, though. Does that make sense ?

 

[Harbourboy]

Thrallia seems to have the best skills in reading those graphs. It is amazing how differently people can approach an identical game situation. It will be interesting to read the spoiler stories when they come out.

Wiping out Khan will be easy. Jenarie built us a great army and I really hardly broke a sweat sacking those 3 cities during those 10 turns. Swordsmen against archers is not fair. It all seemed much easier than it does in my offline games, where I seem to always need loads of suicide catapults.

What have CRC done to get such a massive boost in their score? Do you think they have just met another civilisation and traded loads of technologies? Or have they gone on a rampage and mistakenly taken over Gandhi's empire?

 

[Harbourboy]

Whose turn is it now? Looks like Thrallia is still off on covert operations.

When are we going to get another strategic analysis from The Hawk?

 

[Htadus]

Got it. Can play in 24 hrs. BTW it appears that Team CRC kept the Cities.

Just looked at the save. Good job on clearing those 3 cities Harbourboy. Nice to get the gold too . I am to see Tabriz go. I should have tried harder to convince the team instead of going along with the raze all city idea. I t would have made a good second Science farm, and also had good amount of shields for building and cottage space.

Science:
I disagree with the Calander option . The reason is that Kahn has it and as we reduce him down to 1 city he will be willing to give most of his techs up for survival. He will have 10 turns to survive when we re DOW on him and finish him on that island.

But we have invested so much on it and wonder should we complete it? Please comment.

We have to focus on getting Optics and for that we need MC (Kahn), Machinary and compass. We will have a GE in a 16 turns and he will help us learn Machinary. We are on our own to learn Optics if we can not contact that other civ by Kahns Island to get Philo because our first GS will open Philo before Optics. In the mean time we should learn Compass and/or CS. I vote for Compass.

War:
We have a problem. Kahn has Monarchy and may be close to getting Feud. So we need to reduce him to the island asap. We need to build about 3 galleys and Triremes next. We also need a few recon chariots.

Growth:
We need that commerce city to claim all those gems and resources. We should also build another to be a second science farm. We may want to keep New Sarai and rush a Lib or raze it and build a city one tile north and chop a Lib. Old Tabiz site is also good if not better.

Ten turn Plan:
Cities:
Yayui: Extream rushing and Run 2 Scientist. Start Outpost.
Iron-Sheep: Work food and start Market instead of Sword.
Cap: Rush a Settler after the Lib. Start Galley.
El-Do: Nothing
Uppsala: Start Trireme after Axe.

War:
South: Taking all healthy units to kill Beshbalik. Others will heal.
West: Going after the Gems. May bring Axe and Chariot from ElDO to the party for Insurance. Capital Axe will go to ElDo.

 

[Harbourboy]

But we have invested so much on it and wonder should we complete it?

Can't we just trade Monarchy off him instead of Calendar?

Looking forward to seeing your expert city management skills at work to get our empire tuned up and humming. I guess a settler is not far off being built as well.

 

[markh]

Administrational stuff :

Thrallia - skipped until he reports back
Htadus - UP
Sam- on deck
Jenarie
Mark
Harbourboy - just played

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Science:
I disagree with the Calander option . The reason is that Kahn has it and as we reduce him down to 1 city he will be willing to give most of his techs up for survival. He will have 10 turns to survive when we re DOW on him and finish him on that island.

But we have invested so much on it and wonder should we complete it? Please comment.

We have to focus on getting Optics and for that we need MC (Kahn), Machinary and compass. We will have a GE in a 16 turns and he will help us learn Machinary. We are on our own to learn Optics if we can not contact that other civ by Kahns Island to get Philo because our first GS will open Philo before Optics. In the mean time we should learn Compass and/or CS. I vote for Compass.

Calendar is only 25% researched. In addition I'm fairly certain that the AI is more willing to part with techs that are part researched. So it may be worth our while to part research the techs we want, where we are able to do so e.g. MC & Monarchy.

War:
We have a problem. Kahn has Monarchy and may be close to getting Feud. So we need to reduce him to the island asap. We need to build about 3 galleys and Triremes next. We also need a few recon chariots.

I'm more relaxed about the timescale for completely wiping out Khan. I agree we want a trireme or so soonish but that's more for scouting Ghandhi's land and killing off Khan's trireme.

Ten turn Plan:
Cities:
Yayui: Extream rushing and Run 2 Scientist. Start Outpost.
Iron-Sheep: Work food and start Market instead of Sword.
Cap: Rush a Settler after the Lib. Start Galley.
El-Do: Nothing
Uppsala: Start Trireme after Axe.

Would it not be better to build a trireme in Yayoi after rushing the lib? I would prefer a trireme before a galley in Nidaros first. I still think my suggestion of starting and rushing the settler in Niadaros before finishing the lib has merit i.e. we get the settler faster and the lib is only delayed a turn or so more than it would have been originally.

War:
South: Taking all healthy units to kill Beshbalik. Others will heal.
West: Going after the Gems. May bring Axe and Chariot from ElDO to the party for Insurance. Capital Axe will go to ElDo.

You've got three swords, three cats and a couple of spears to take Chehalis & Samarqand. I don't see a need to reduce El Do's forces.