SGOTM 05 - Fistful of Dynamite

[xatsmann]

Nice turnset Manic.

Xatsmann I am glad to have you on the team and we were always going to lose an axe or two taking Medina so no problem. Manics tip of alt -tabbing into Notepad sounds cool to track activities being I confess to using paper and a fountain pen

Seems like we are at another key deicsion point of where do we go techwise after taking down Saladin (his days are numbered).

Suggest we all down load the save and talk things through this weekend as our pace has been very good.

Ralph

Thanks for the advice guys. Sorry for not being around this weekend. I was out gaming on Saturday and forgot on Sunday. I will try and make it a point to check in at least once every two days from now on.

I like the notepad idea and I will use it in the future.

 

[xatsmann]

My thoughts on the our tech progression. Note that we are currently running 100% but will need to cut back shortly (even with few extra turns' from capturing additional Saladin cities) so I have indicated number of turns based on, say, 60% to get a better idea of research times.

Horseback Riding (55 turns)
- I'm not convinced HBR is worth it at this stage; we already have access to Iron, and compared to swordsmen, Keshiks look pretty weak for what we want (taking lots of enemy cities, fast); swords get +10 city attack, free combat1 promotion, and access to cover (+25 v. archers) and City-Raider promotions (up to +75% extra city attack); Keshiks get none of the above, no defensive bonuses (useful with all those terrain features on the main continent) and fairly weak promotions; and are just as vulnerable to spears as swords are to axes.

HBR is not a cheap tech, so I suggest we ignore it for now. Only really becomes useful if / when the AI starts to get crossbowmen (and by then we should have control of all their iron anyway, with our vast axe, sword and cat army ).

Meditation (7 turns)
- definitely need this (and Priesthood for temples - 3 turns) to quickly spread religion to our cities for extra to compensate for all the WW
- however, I don't think we should research it directly, because we aren't able to use it yet (should build more axes to finish off Saldin first) - and we getting plenty of free towards both of these in the meantime, so let's let that continue for the time being so we don't waste the free ...

Alphabet (66 turns)
- as above, will be useful for getting techs from Toka, Izzie etc. for temporary peace once we start to take their cities, but not needed just yet (maybe another 75-100 turns away) AI usually very late in researching this, so we will need to this ourselves if we want to use it

Mathematics (55 turns)
- absolutely crucial to our military campaign as it is required for both Currency (marketplace and +1 trade routes) and Mathematics (catapults, war elephants, and the +1 from colosseum will come in handy as well); though we still have the option of lightbulbing this for 'free', by popping a GS from a library with 2 scientist specialists, instead of researching it directly...

So I think at this stage, our choice is between Maths or Alpha, depending on whether we decide to include a Great Scientist in our next phase...
Edit: 150 are required for our first Great Person on these settings - only 25 turns using a library with 2 scientist specialists

I agree we can wait on HBK because it is so expensive but I like the tech because with a good road network you can recover much easier from mistakes with a nice kick ass stack of horse archers.

I like alphabet more if we were planning on trading but with that -100 hole I don't think we'll get much from trading in this game.

We do need mathematics to get catapults to reduce cities and to help our economy.

We should pick up mediation simply because the cost is so low. We can't expect to trade to fill in the back techs since it is unlikely the other civs will trade with us.

I do have one question--what techs can we count on getting from other barbarians, if any at his point?

 

[xatsmann]

Calendar would certainly be useful for the +2 . However, if a tech detour is required to address , we might want to look at Monarchy or Metal Working instead.
- Monarchy is cheaper and gives more (1 from wine, 1 or more from military units).
- Metal Working costs the same, but forge gives extra as well as +2 from gold, silver (and later gems - may even be able to trade for this with Cyrus since he is currently offering Open Borders)
- Calendar also obsoletes Stonehenge (can capture from Tokagawa), which will be very useful in popping cultural boundaries of captured cities on the main continent.

Depending on how quickly we can get the military campaign underway, it's
still possible we will not need to detour to any of the above techs, since we will start to capture extra luxury resources from the AI (gems from Cyrus, Spices & Silk from Toka, Ivory & Dye from Izzie) - we will still get the bonus from captured plantations even without Calendar. Assuming we can prevent our barb friends from pillaging them once we DOW...

Don't think we need to make a decision yet though as we are still several turnsets away from having mathematics (and if we just build up in the shortterm, can always rush Monarchy later at 100% if the WW starts to get out of hand).

I like the idea of Monarchy since I believe it will come down in cost as we get other techs around it. I also forgot about its ability to increase happiness by stationing units in cities.

Metal working is nice because of the forge but isn't kind of pricey? I think calendar might be easier to get first.

 

[xatsmann]

Ok - rest of the turnset fairly uneventful:
- offered peace with Qin and Toka every turn, but they're still not interested
- founded 3rd Mongol city 1E of the gold as planned
- border pop in Karakorum has revealed a cultural / coastal bridge to Qin (in case we want to reach him later)
- barbs continue to suicide many units against Toka and Qin defenses
- Qin has founded and converted to Confucianism.

More detailed notes and screenshots here:

Spoiler :

initial turn:
1. Move worker back to mainland for jungle clearing duty by the rice city site.

2. Try peace with Toka and Qin again (as every turn) - no joy.

3. 2 unused axes still on the mainland head west for fog-busting duty (to prevent barb city spawning).

-- ENTER --

IBT: Possible chance for the barbs at Satsuma where a barb Axe is advancing on Satsuma, defended by a combat1 spear.

View attachment 158665

Some good news: WW is back down to +2 in Karakoum; looks like it took 1 turn for the Arabian WW to disappear?

-- ENTER --

IBT: Barb axe fails in Satsuma...

1. Mecca comes out of revolt. Clams and pigs in the fat cross will make this a food-rich city, but the happiness cap will prevent us growing too large = ideal city for settler and worker spamming (and let cottage spam cities on mainland focus on building libraries, temples etc)... Start building workboat to work the clams.

-- ENTER --

IBT: Discover meditation.

1. Whip settler in Karakorum. This brings us back to 5 v. 4

2. Finish 2nd archer in Medina, and switch to Monastery. We are about to get first cultural border pop in Medina which will pick up cows and copper, which will make it a very decent site - plan this to be our missionary spamming city. (Note - we may want to try converting Cyrus if he is still atheist once we pop our cultural border in the west rice city, which will give us access to the main continent).

-- ENTER --

IBT: Discover Priesthood! Switch to code of laws (the courthouses / forbidden palace will be very useful in controlling maintenance costs) but move slider back to 100% (only +2 per turn even at 100%! Need to build up those cottages...)

1. Settler finished in Karakorum and heads down to GOLD site. Karakorum is now size 2, so switch to library to allow some population regrowth.

2. Continue shipping our axes back to the mainland, since we can't reach anywhere else by galley from Arabia.

Note: 2nd cultural border pop in Karakourm has revealed another small island to the north, and another cultural / coastal bridge, this time to Qin in the north.

View attachment 158664

The 1 1 shown against the ocean square (circled) indicates that the tile can be worked from a city fat cross (probably located at the X, which appears to be a forest / plains tile from looking at the edge of the fog). This means it will also fall within our cultural boundaries after a border pop from that same city, allowing us to enter it with a galley and reach Qin via the green arrow shown.

Not necessarily something we need to pursue since we do not need access to Chinese lands for our overall plan for domination victory, but something to be aware of in case we want to knock Qin back a bit so that we can declare peace / slow him down / capture his fur resources (+2 with market).

-- ENTER --

IBT: Toka continues to expand, and has sent a settler party west.

View attachment 158663

-- ENTER --
-- ENTER --

IBT: The usual barb suicide attacks against Qin and Toka...

1. Turfan is founded, 1E of the gold as planned. Worker is already on location and starts on the gold mine. We get a free scout from the goody hut. I decide to see if we can load him onto the barb galley and get a free ride over to explore the second sugar island we can see to our east:

View attachment 158666

With five cities, we are now running +0 at 100%

-- ENTER --

1. Mecca grows to size 3 and gets an extra 2 from WW / crowding, so now has 2 citizens. Whip the rest of the Hindu temple there to restore order. Suggest we build barracks here next while working the clams to get it back up to size - then switch to settler spamming once we reach the happiness cap there.

Units with goto orders:

1. various axes on the mainland, which are heading back for cultural borders around Besh (to reduce supply cost )

2. worker near rice site is building a road east, which will save the settler 1 turn to reach the rice site once we finish building him in Besh.

Save here:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm5/Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG005_BC0445_01.Civ4SavedGame

Official turn log here:

Spoiler :

Turn 127, 595 BC: You have discovered Meditation!

Turn 128, 580 BC: You have discovered Priesthood!
Turn 128, 580 BC: The borders of Medina have expanded!
Turn 128, 580 BC: The borders of Mecca have expanded!

Turn 130, 550 BC: The Great Lighthouse has been built in a far away land!

Turn 134, 490 BC: The villagers have provided you with a Scout!
Turn 134, 490 BC: Turfan has been founded.

Turn 135, 475 BC: Mecca will grow to size 4 on the next turn
Turn 135, 475 BC: Mecca will become unhappy on the next turn
Turn 135, 475 BC: Confucianism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 136, 460 BC: Clearing a Forest has created 30 ? for Mecca.
Turn 136, 460 BC: Karakorum will grow to size 3 on the next turn
Turn 136, 460 BC: Mecca has grown to size 4
Turn 136, 460 BC: Mecca has become unhappy
Turn 136, 460 BC: Qin Shi Huang converts to Confucianism!

Question: How do you get the spoiler boxes in? And how do you extract the official turn log?

 

[xatsmann]

Yep - you're up next. Wed / thurs sounds fine to me. Xatsmann - are you around this week as well to play after Ralph? Cheers.

Yes I am around and ignore my post on the spoiler, I figured it out.

 

[Manic_]

To get the spoiler tabs simply highlight the text you want in the spoiler, then click the (Spoil) button on the menu list above the text input box.

It will put boxes round your text (Like this but without spaces = [S P O I L] [/ S P O I L] ).

Same with inserting pics.

When you upload your turnset on the civ GOTM page - it will give you the link to 'copy shortcut' into your post. And underneath that is the turn log.

Simply copy the text and paste it into a spoiler.

 

[Manic_]

sorry did'nt see you other post.

 

[Manic_]

As far as techs go - as we are teamed with barbs - they get the bonus of getting a research boost to techs that ai have researched (Say every time an AI get a tech the barbs get 10% of the beakers for that tech, just as an example, math not accurate).

I think med should be a priority in order to get a monistary in the hindu cities. Then Maths as its a longer tech.

Maths then gives us a lot of options. Even swapping it for lesser techs like HBK or religious techs (As we may need to offer over the odds for the -100 penalty).

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

So basic plan for this round has been laid out and onto reporting what happened (for insomniacs out there it wasn’t terribly exciting so could be useful if you are looking for an alternative to counting sheep)..

IHT Realise we are paying supply costs for our troops being outside our borders move them back in. I was mistaken worrying about a Barb City spawning on our home Island as it is too small.

430B. Our Scout hops onto a free ride from a passing Barbarian Galley (No he can’t walk on water we are Hindu’s remember!!). He gets to the Island to the north but not much of interest up there.


370BC Gold is hooked up relieving some of our :angry: temporarily.. But to balance things up Cyrus cancels OB so getting tasty trade routes from him is out of the Question for the moment



340 BC. Hinduism spreads by itself to Gold City which is good news as it needs a border pop to work the rice and start growing profitably. Unfortunately no other free religions spreads occur.

325BC In world news tonight Qin is getting financially stronger now he has built his shrine and the Isolated Barb city towards the W of Big Island falls to Toku. Unfortunately this is hardly driving them to feel nervous and neither will agree to peace throughout my turn set. Plus we get Polytheism for free ..


310BC. Monastery finished and we start cranking missionaries, decide to finish my turn set at first missionary made as feels a sensible turning point.

220 BC Close of Play

1 Missionary loaded and destined for GP city



Ning-Hsia (GP City) rice is busy being farmed and we cleared the jungle for the riverside grassland farm before the city was founded,. Suggest build of granary – Library using whip when justified.

Turfan .Border will pop in about 7 turns and worker is on its way ready to farm rice. Note I may have left the worker on go to orders if so apologies.

Economy is better and in a few turns we will have enough for a 100% run to Alphabet. We may need to consider using it as part of a peace treaty with Qin and Toku as we are only just staying on top of War Weariness at the moment.

Couldn’t get peace with Toku and Qin or OB with Alex despite checking every turn.


The Save

Spoiler :

Turn 143, 355 BC: Hinduism has spread in Turfan.

Turn 144, 340 BC: Uzbek has been captured by the Japanese Empire!!!
Turn 144, 340 BC: You have discovered Polytheism!

Turn 145, 325 BC: Moses has been born in a far away land!

Turn 146, 310 BC: The Kong Miao has been built in a far away land!

Turn 150, 250 BC: Ning-hsia has been founded

 

[Munro]

Nice turnset and write-up. Shame about Cyrus closing his borders. Taking a closer look at the save now ...

 

[Munro]

Overall looks like we are in good shape. Good to see the economy perking up.

Slightly surprised to see library on the production queue though in Mecca - relatively low but lots of so better to focus instead on finishing the baracks and building up our invasion force (or some settlers to increase our cottage-spamming cities)? Note we are only 20 turns away from getting access to the mainland (spreading Hinduism to Ning-Sha, and popping the first cultural boundary to give coastal access).

That said, the library is now halfway built - and Mecca has surplus , so maybe we should whip the library instead (next turn, after Mecca grows and becomes ) and use this is our city instead, running 2 scientist specialists for a GS and lightbulb maths about 20 turns earlier than we could using Ning-Sha.

In that case, I would cottage the rice at Ning-Sha and use it as a cottage city instead (we don't need the extra food if we are not going to run specialists there).

Meanwhile continue filling the main continent with cottage spam sites and also settle the iron / coastal city in the far SE too, so we can start adding swords to our invasion stack. (The quicker we can get our first stack over to the mainland, the quicker we will win). The silver will help as well: +1 is another +4-5 in each of our cottage spam cities and will easily compensate for the additional city maintenance IMHO (and we want to settle down there eventually anyway).

 

[xatsmann]

That said, the library is now halfway built - and Mecca has surplus , so maybe we should whip the library instead (next turn, after Mecca grows and becomes ) and use this is our city instead, running 2 scientist specialists for a GS and lightbulb maths about 20 turns earlier than we could using Ning-Sha.

In that case, I would cottage the rice at Ning-Sha and use it as a cottage city instead (we don't need the extra food if we are not going to run specialists there).

Does everyone agree with this idea to switch the worker improvement at Ning-Sha from rice farm to cottage? I agree that we don't need two science cities at this point. I say we do the change Munro suggests.

What does the team think?

 

[xatsmann]

To get the spoiler tabs simply highlight the text you want in the spoiler, then click the (Spoil) button on the menu list above the text input box.

It will put boxes round your text (Like this but without spaces = [S P O I L] [/ S P O I L] ).

Same with inserting pics.

When you upload your turnset on the civ GOTM page - it will give you the link to 'copy shortcut' into your post. And underneath that is the turn log.

Simply copy the text and paste it into a spoiler.

No actually I'm glad you answered I didn't know about the turn log. Good stuff. Thanks.

 

[xatsmann]

Meanwhile continue filling the main continent with cottage spam sites and also settle the iron / coastal city in the far SE too, so we can start adding swords to our invasion stack. (The quicker we can get our first stack over to the mainland, the quicker we will win). The silver will help as well: +1 is another +4-5 in each of our cottage spam cities and will easily compensate for the additional city maintenance IMHO (and we want to settle down there eventually anyway).

For the location fo the iron/coastal city, I assume you mean S of Turfan, correct? We also want it on the coast but having the iron immediately available to mine. Should we consider building a road to link all of our cities on our main island or at least Beshbalik, Karakorum and Turfan with our new worker? I will continue to build cottages with the two workers.

We also are not currently producing a settler. I thought I would produce it in Beshbalik since it will be the first city to finish its current production of a worker in five turns. I will also pull a couple of axeman to accompany our settler once it is built.

Can we influence "Barbarian" research in anyway? I see they are researching Mathematics, which is good, but it will take them almost 700 turns to get it, which is bad. Can we help them along or influence the Barbs to put more resources into research? Just a thought.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Re the above posts. Cant look at the game at the moment so this comes from memory.

1. I did have a reason for picking Library in Mecca which I seem to remember was based around it producing sufficent commerce (can support 2 riverside cottages) to justify the library in the 100% science runs for Alphabet and Catapults we will be doing. I confess it wasn't as an alternative GP City but that could be a good back up. My thinking process is...

2. Basically I think we are underestimating how far we are from being able to economically afford to invade the mainland and how far we are from the Catapults we will need for that invasion to be effective.

3. We should be wary of building more military yet - a few more units outside or borders + a distant culture bridge silver Iron city could have us back at break even and unable to research through for cats.

4. So as we neeed quite a few turns (30-40?) of gently expand, build cottages etc with out spamming more units the emphasis is on Infrastructure (Workers, Missionaries, Granaries, Temples and Libraries..) cities like Mecca will be running 100% in the future long enough to justify a Library.

Hope that makes sense. Comments and spotting flaws gratefully received.

Ralph

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

OK had a look back at why I prioritised a Library in Mecca not because I am dead sensitive about the decision but because it I think brings to life the question as to how far are we away from going full on “invasion military mode” because if we are close such builds are pointless but if we are a long way away then they will pay for themselves.

According to our plan to win this war we need the following outstanding techs

Phase 1. Alphabet and Construction for catapults
Phase 2. Code of Laws for Caste system (doubt we will get much use out of courthouses). This is Phase 2 as I would be happy to invade whilst still researching this but can’t invade without catapults)

Alphabet is Phase 1 tech for me as

1. We may use it to extort techs during the invasion if we need to pause and the occasion arises. (Its is entirely possible we will blitz through Cyrus, Issie and Toku without a peace treaty)
2. .We may do some tech trading. (I think it would be realistic to partially research Code of Laws and pick it with an AI for Alphabet…)
3. For me crucially (and why it’s the next tech to be researched IMHO) we can use it to get peace with Toku and Qin. This would eliminate war weariness during our beef up commerce and build invasion army phase which would be very helpful

So where are we in researching Phase 1 Techs. Well according to my calculations we are 6 turns away from a 100% run to Alphabet which I think we should do as soon as possible. As this will occur during the next set should be agreed before next round. We can decide on trading it away for peace et al after the next set.

Economy

Alongside the techs above the other thing we need is an economy that can support the costs of our invasion army. Hence cottage spamming lots of cities.

Our economy looks quite healthy now but this is with

1. Zero unit supply which will go up by 0.5 GPT (I think) for each unit outside our borders i.e. with 10 Galleys and 20 units in our invasion force we would be back to losing money at 0% with our current economy.
2. So our economy needs to grow quite considerably before we can “afford” to invade. Now obviously as it will take time to research Alphabet and Construction we have got time to build up this economy whilst researching so OK.

What does all this mean … it means were a city has time to build a library (bearing in mind priority list probably goes Granary, Hindu Temple, Library barracks) it should as it will make the spend of our gold on researching Alphabet and construction more efficient.

So which cities should have libraries – currently I would say all but Medina. Take Mecca as the test case.



Whilst in research (and of course grow economy) mode it will work these 3 riverside cottages and a library significantly improves it. When in build military mode yes it will emphasise hammers by working the 2 mines but I think a library will still be worthwhile and this will probably apply to some of our yet un-built cottage spam cities.

Very long post but I wanted to think things through.

Decision needed for next turn set
1. 100% run to Alphabet as soon as possible? I say yes
2. Keep Rice City as GP farm. I say yes as I think we still get Mathematics when we need it prior to researching construction and Mecca is a Hybrid city rather than GP farm.
3. Do we try and found another city this turn set. I think so but not sure where.. (Silver + iron Island City will be high upkeep due to distance)
4. Builds. We need more workers!!

Ralph

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Just to say I will be out of the loop from tomorrow until Sunday afternoon as I am off to Amsterdam for a friends birthday. Shouldn't be an issue unless you all decide to zip through your turns at warp speed..

Ralph

 

[Munro]

Ralph - good questions and discussion. Currently at work but will post some thoughts on the above when I get home this evening.

 

[Manic_]

Nice one Ralph - have been last few days so been out the loop - will look at it in more depth tomorrow and sat and give some long term & short term ideas.

 

[xatsmann]

Nice one Ralph - have been last few days so been out the loop - will look at it in more depth tomorrow and sat and give some long term & short term ideas.

I will be out all day Saturday so I will plan on doing our move on Sunday (or Monday night if we want to wait for Ralph to get back and comment)