SGOTM 05 - Gypsy Kings

[Conquistador 63]

HW: what are your ideas on where to settle and what to tech? Propose them and maybe you'll get enough support to complete your turnset.

 

[da_Vinci]

City3 (or 4) could go W of copper, it would be coastal, get copper + 3 hills. It'd have banana, dyes, riverside grass to farm. Also is close to capital for low maintenance. How bad is this?
In fact as we won't get stone before SH is ready and we intend to go axe-rush (Lehm's suggestion), why don't we settle it first instead?
About tech: if the axe rush is supported by the team, we tech towards sailing now?

it's 11pm here (East European time)
And yes the main question is sailing or IW now.
And can i play till the henge is ready or not(16 turn more)?
Exept founding 2nd city nothing will happend in this 16 turns anyway.(And we need to decide where).
And for the second city i prefer e of the stone because we will get the gold sonner and this is important(research and +1 happy face)

We need IW to develop the W of copper city, don't we? Need to chop jungle. I like the copper +3 hills there as much as my east of copper, but I would not settle it next, wait until after we get IW.

So, settle the hw # 4 site, or settle a gold site sooner? Gold mine will increase our research rate by almost 50%, won't it? Faster to IW, which means that hw#4 and C63 west of copper can be developed sooner. And we arm the barbs better sooner. I agree that I like gold in city #2.

But where to put the gold city? E of stone is incompatible with hw#4 site.

Sailing or IW next? We are trying to axe rush Saladin? Will we get enough production soon enough? Is he settled on hills? If we concentrate on teching to cats, then attack, we want gold ASAP, right? If we want the axe rush, then sailing. We will get sailing for free (or almost free) eventually.

I think that we are too undecided at present about next tech and city site for hw to play further tonight, unless a flurry of concordant posts appear in the next hour.

Let's pause, collect our thoughts, get a consensus and then move forward.

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

it's 11pm here (East European time)
Can i play till the henge is ready or not(16 turn more)?
Exept founding 2nd city nothing will happend in this 16 turns anyway.(And we need to decide where).
And for the second city i prefer E of the stone because we will get the gold sonner and this is important(research and +1 happy face)
And yea C63 is right that W of the copper get the 3 hills + bananas and it is a costal. We will get this 3rd city soon anyway.
So IMO: 2nd E of the stone the third W of the copper. And i think IW> beline for cats is the best way as we will get sailing for free till Construction is ready.
I dont think axe rush will be good because Medina is on hill and already has 40% cutrure diff. Saladin's second town looks like on hill too.
And one more thing - for these 13 turn so many barbs die that we will get the -1 for WW very soon.

OK, if you are saying E of stone for city #2 now, forget hw#4 (the canal), found #3 W of copper later ... then I can support that.

Research ... I like IW more than sailing next. Do we make a play for oracle? Free metal casting would be nice ... more happy from gold after forges. But that is a tech detour, so maybe not.

Can we start making peace? Who is ready to make peace? Might maintain war with Saladin to impede him (pillage), make peace with most others? That should tamp down the WW.

Doubtful that we will hear from Lehm and Thrallia before hw's window of time to play on will close, based on time zone issues.

dV

 

[Ronnie1]

We need IW to develop the W of copper city, don't we? Need to chop jungle. I like the copper +3 hills there as much as my east of copper, but I would not settle it next, wait until after we get IW.

I agree 100% here. There is no reason to found in the jungle without IW and a couple workers to start clearing.

Let's pause, collect our thoughts, get a consensus and then move forward.

I agree here also. There is no reason to rush through turnsets. We have not even heard from 1/2 of the team.

I am going to declare that hw is complete with his turnset. Good Job hw!!

The roster order is

Lehm - waiting
Conquistador 63 - waiting
hellwitch - just played
da_Vinci - UP NOW(10-15 turns or natural break point)
Thrallia - on deck
g_storrow - in the hole
Scout 214 - waiting
Ronnie1 - waiting

The 1st point we need a CONSENSUS on is where to settle city#2. Make your arguments, and lets see where the votes fall.

The 2nd point point is about war/peace and the WW issue. Who do we make peace with? When do we make peace? Where can the barbs help us the most?

Are we interested in the Great Lighthouse on this water map? It is a very powerful wonder if you have a high percentage of coastal cities.

I think I have changed my mind, and now favor the 1E of the stone site for city #2, grabbing the gold sooner. But since I am waffling, I would like to hear other arguments.

 

[da_Vinci]

Regarding city decisions, it is not just a one city decision, it is a question of what the set of cities will look like. Founding one changes where you can / want to found the others. So as we make city proposals, propose and advocate for an entire city set.

Issues to balance (or ignore I suppose) besides city placement...

WW and the role of the barbs?

Diplomacy and tech trading?

Speed of tech acquisition overall (do we need astro?)?

Particular tech paths?

Wonders?

Things to address in the coming discussion.

dV

 

[Thrallia]

Regarding city decisions, it is not just a one city decision, it is a question of what the set of cities will look like. Founding one changes where you can / want to found the others. So as we make city proposals, propose and advocate for an entire city set.

Issues to balance (or ignore I suppose) besides city placement...

WW and the role of the barbs?

Diplomacy and tech trading?

Speed of tech acquisition overall (do we need astro?)?

Particular tech paths?

Wonders?

Things to address in the coming discussion.

dV

I'm not good at placing my own cities during games, so I'll leave the city placement choices up to you guys. I think I like whichever plan allows us to have the copper+3 hills coastal HE city. I'm always bad at building a decent navy(its already bitten me in the butt once on BtS!), so having a city excelling at military production and on the coast is a good way to make sure we don't forget that aspect.

As for wonders, I think we need the Pyramids, if we are to run an SE(although I've not heard anyone other than dV talk about what type of economy we want to run)

In that same vein, we will need Writing soon if we are to run an SE in order to build Libraries after we finish up with the Pyramids.(not to mention, represenation will give us much higher happy caps in our main cities)

 

[Scout214]

Looking at our current map, my suggestion for city placement is...

1. 1E of the Gold. Gets us the isthmus for naval purposes, gets the gold production going to speed up IW, preserves the isthmus near the clams for another later city.

2. IW of the copper, as per C63's logic.

3. 2W of the clams, on the longer isthmus.

4. 1N or the rice in the far west, to get our eventual ships close enough to island hop to the next island west of there.

Got dV on the phone and we weighed various locations and the rationale behind them with the current map in front of each of us.

Looks like we're doing good, guys! Keep it going.

 

[hellwitch]

Ok teamates i am on a trip for few days. Have a nice play.
My opinion from here on is IW>AH>Writing>Math>Construction(we will get sailing free by that point). I dont belive axe rush will be successive as Sal's capitol and second city are on hills. And the Question is - what we will earn from axe rush? So i think we must complete the henge, make 3rd city,some axes for diffence then 4th city then axes+cats ----> invade Sal. And then the culture brigde to the big continent looks like the best path.
And for the cities placement i think we must make not more than 4-5 on our island (IMO E of the stone for the second) as we will conquer more from Sal and a lot on the big continent very early.

 

[Thrallia]

on the big continent, I wonder if it might be better to just raze everything, giving the barbs plenty of room to spawn and attack and pillage.

 

[Lehm]

I agree to city #2 east of the stone. City #3 as C63 said has to wait until we get IW and is better placed with the bananas inside the FC. The suggestion of dV´s 3rd city is not a good decision I think because there is no food to work all those tiles. Or am I calculating wrong? We only get a surplus of two food from the two farmed river grassland tiles but we have three grassland hills where we lose 3 food. It would be a nice city anyway but I prefer to have not too much cities on our island to keep maintenance costs low.

I didn´t want an axe rush! In my games I am almost always waiting until I get cats except the enemy cities are easy to reach. So IMO we should concentrate on building our 5 or so cities and once we get the cats we can start to conquer. But at this time we already should have some axes so that all of our cities can build cats and amount them in a short time.

 

[Thrallia]

I agree with that...I rarely use axe rushes on archipelago, because by the time you can travel to the enemy they've got too much cultural defenses.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I'm away from my game PC until Sun evening. So here's a few more thoughts:
.If we get a city to the S, this should get stone/gold/clam;
.city W of copper can get to size 3 working copper tile and 2 grass hills (chopped),stagnating. I think we won't have a much higher happy/health cap in it for a while anyway.
.I'm ok with IW then. I'd like to have pottery soon for cheap granaries
.Pyramids could be great not only for representation, but better yet for Police State if WW will be that big problem.

 

[da_Vinci]

Observation #1: Big continent can be reached by galleys.

Observation #2: Saladin is islolated except for reaching us. He does not have iron on his island, it appears.

So, do we save him for last? Direct our efforts at the big continent first?

City placement: I think we agree about W of copper (how do we not settle east of copper? C63 finds a better place west, that's how! I had missed that there was that hill by the river delta, or I would have said W of copper too! ) And the west culture bridge is a no brainer.

Let's discuss whether E of gold might be better than E of stone for city 2. See the screens below. E of gold takes a few turns longer to settle, but it allows us to settle a canal city (it is actually a canal city itself), it has rice for food (clam is a bit better after lighthouse), and gets the stone in fat cross. It's food is not at risk from sea attack.

Allowing city 5 on the Isthsmus would be part of a tight pack local empire, raze the enemy strategy. Five or six cities close to captial, low distance maint, let the barbs rule the rest of the land. Might we prefer to preserve that option?

If WW is going to be huge, more smaller cities makes sense, and E of gold may be better for that approach.

That said, I can be equally happy with E of stone. Still need to work out how I get henge in the next 16 turns, maybe I need stone sooner?

Pyramids for Police State might be really important here ... build it in city #3 I imagine ... so do we skip Oracle?

Maybe as far as peace goes maybe we make peace with Qin and Saladin, and let the barbs terrorize the mainland for a while?

More thoughts later ...

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

At the moment, henge is saying it is 34 turns away. I think that considers the 50 hammers from the settler whip waiting, as that leaves 130 at 4 hpt. Can shave 60 hammers with two more chops in 10 turns or so, that is 70 at 4 hpt for 18 turns, or I could work a forest for 5 hpt making the 70 hammers a 14 turn item.

In my simulations, henge was built elsehwere at turns 80 and 81 ... this is getting rather tight. I don't think a third chop will arrive in time to matter.

Right now one pop is avail for whip. Will one more pop (8 turns away) make a whip of two available? Or will it just be one pop avail? I know C63 knows the formula, I can't recall at the moment.

If one more pop makes whip 2 avail, then I'd stay on the farm until added pop, then move to forest. Whip 2 pop ASAP for henge.

If one more pop does not matter, then work forest right away, whip 1 pop to finish henge ASAP.

I know there is a penalty whipping wonders, but our city planning is based on the fat crosses from Stonehenge, so I think we have to ensure that we get it. I remember how missing it by two turns or so in SGOTM 03 slowed us down.

Just to be official, I have the save, plan to play to the completion of henge tomorrow night (some 14 turns or so). About 15 per turnset for the rest of this inning might be about right, then 10 per set after that.

@R1: Nice to have you back in the big chair! Hope your understudy's performance meets with your approval ...

dV

 

[hellwitch]

About the Henge - make only one chop and after 16 turn when the capitol goes to 4pop(set the new pop 3 on forest) wimp 2pop to finish it - thats all ive made the calcs 3 times and this timing is absolutely sure. My point is to save the sesond forest for now as we don't have many hammer sources in the capitol

 

[Ronnie1]

If we settle city #2 1E of the stone, will we be able to get a quarry up and roaded to help with Henge?

If no, I kind of like the security of city #2 1E of the Gold using the Rice to grow and whip.

I'll be off to buy Bts this afternoon, hopefully I'll be able to view an actual save by tomorrow.

 

[da_Vinci]

About the Henge - make only one chop and after 16 turn when the capitol goes to 4pop(set the new pop 3 on forest) wimp 2pop to finish it - thats all ive made the calcs 3 times and this timing is absolutely sure. My point is to save the sesond forest for now as we don't have many hammer sources in the capitol

This makes me nervous ... no guarantee that the AI does not come it at turn 78 with henge.

I am inclined to apply a full court press to gettng henge done, as if we don't, we will have a long wait for the fat crosses. What exactly are we saving a forest in the capital for, that we can't whip?

And city #3 will be our primary hammer city, and the gold/stone city and the west culture bridge city will have good hammers too.

I just know that if we miss henge by one or two turns because we did not chop second forest, we will all be kicking ouselves (as we did in SGOTM 03).

So, to play Sunday I need consensus on:

Where to put city #2? E of stone, or E of gold? I kind of like E of gold, but not that strong a preference.

Do I chop the second forest for henge? If I have to wait 16 turns to whip for two, I am outside the under turn 80 target.

Research IW next?

Let's take a close look at the hw plan ...

64 turns are done.

Want to finish in 16 turns or less.

8 turns to next pop, with 4 food in the bin. Pop after will take 9 turns I would think, so at best I am whiping at turn 81.

180 hammers. 50 coming up, 130 left. 4 per turn for 8 turns is 32. Then 5 per turn fo for 8 turns is 40. 130 - 72 is 58. We apply the current chop for 30, leaves us 28. Which we whip for two 16 or 17 turns in. And waste hammers on the whip penalty for wonders (is there a chop penalty for wonders?).

The alternative is ... 130 after this 50 comes in. Work forest immediately, 14 turns at 5 each is 70 hammers. That leaves 60 hammers to go. In 10 turns I can finish current chop and do one more, so there is the 60. Henge is done turn 78 instead of 89 or 81 in the save forest plan. And for the cost of a forest (30 hammers now, 45 after math), I have saved one pop, who is also worth 45 hammers, right (or have I saved two pop)? So the hammers are a wash, and I'm two to three turns faster, right? Or what have I missed?

And, for added insurance, I can cut maybe 4 more turns off by whipping it for one at the end.

Unless someone can show me that these numbers are wrong, I am using the forest now, double chop, final whip for one plan.

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

If we settle city #2 1E of the stone, will we be able to get a quarry up and roaded to help with Henge?

If no, I kind of like the security of city #2 1E of the Gold using the Rice to grow and whip.

I'll be off to buy Bts this afternoon, hopefully I'll be able to view an actual save by tomorrow.

Stone answer is no ... we are 8 turns from masonry, then the quarry takes what, about 8 turns? There is our 16 turn window. I am thinking that if I work the forest right away, and chop two forests, I get henge in 14 for sure, maybe as early as 10 with a final whip for one! I think henge in 10 to 12 will happen with my plan. So we can settle where it is best long term.

dV

 

[Thrallia]

there's no chop penalty for wonders, and I'd prefer chopping any forests we need to in order to guarantee we get the wonder. For the type of game we are planning, Henge and Pyramids are the only two wonders I'd classify pretty much essential. Since Pyramids isn't planned for the capital, there's nothing we need to save those forests for.

 

[Lehm]

I vote for city #2 E of Gold because it has more land tiles in the fat cross.
Chop everything you need dV to make sure we get the henge. Maybe we are lucky and some forrests will grow after a while. And IW is fine as the barbs will have swordman quickly and we will be able to chop some jungle tiles for our next cities. But we also need some granaries soon... So pottery should come next after IW.