SGOTM 05 - Mac Team

[peter grimes]

Okay, it seems that StoneHenge is a no-brainer in this case. So we need to whip/chop a settler to head down to GreenDot as our next priority. We also need to get Masonry and Wheel in hand to allow resource trade - unless we can get Sailing earlier, for trade along the coast?

Let it be stated plainly: I can whip, but I'm no whipping expert. My techniques are currently limited to whipping when there's (30n + 1) remaining hammers. I've never understood the whole idea of whipping more than once per turn, and I'm not very good at keeping track of when Whip wears off. But I do try to whip 2 pop (31 ) at a time, while my cities are between, say 4 and 8.

Back to the nitty-gritty - yes, it appears that we need to research Worker techs :sigh:

 

[dr_s]

Some more thoughts.

I haven't given up on the idea of a conquest/domination win; we just need to see more of the map. If we could get a good foothold on the big land mass, we could potentially implement our chariot rush idea.

I would prioritize Pyramids over Stonehenge, but we could go for both. In that case, I would try for Stonehenge in the stone city, and Pyramids in the capital. Of course we could also do Stonehenge+Oracle.

Saladin is on an island to the south of us, directly below the little peninsula on the SW part of our island. We should send the scout down there to see if his island is reachable by galley. He may be victim #1.

On the SE part of the island, if you look just to the NE of where the lion is, you can see that our coastal tiles touch the coastal tiles of another island. So we can certainly get to another land mass that way. It might be the land that Alexander is on, which might also connect (can't tell yet) to the big land mass. If so, he should probably be victim #1.

We should remember that even though we are somewhat isolated we are still at war. An AI galley with a couple of units on it could surprise us. I don't think we should delay sailing too long. That will also allow us to connect our cities via the coast and save on some road building, although we would still need some roads to hook the stone up to the stone city.

I realized we can and should keep track of our free beakers. I looked at the save and a couple previous autosaves. Here's the current situation:

Fishing: 28 of 117, +2 per turn
Agriculture: 19 of 175, +1 per turn
Hunting: 39 of 117, +2 per turn
Archery: 111 of 175, +5 per turn
Mysticism: 6 of 145, +1 per turn

Since I think all the AIs start with archery, this tells us our max free beakers per turn (not counting what the barbs generate directly, which is generally small) is 5. Not great, but not too bad. We'll have archery in 13 turns or so at this rate. Our own beaker output right now is 10, so this effectively doubles our research.

 

[willpax]

We might want to hurry fishing along and do some workboat scouting while hurrying a settler to the stone-clam-gold spot.

 

[a_man]

AlanH...... happy Xth Anniversary of your 25th birthday
(i figured you wouldn't see it here untill after a few days)

 

[peter grimes]

OKay, I've got the save. I'll try to play tomorrow (less than 24 hours from this post), or even tonight if I can't sleep

I'll continue Barracks for a while, then switch to a worker so that we can chop once BW is done. Then I'll go back to the barracks to whip the overflow into a worker. After the worker: workboat, another warrior, and then a settler.

Techs: Masonry, Sailing, Wheel, Mysticism.

I'll also log the barbarian beakers in all other techs in my report.

Please speak up if I've missed anything.

 

[peter grimes]

I played 20 turns. Ended at 2500 bc.

I am confused about the upload procedure - the form asks for the Player name, as it appears in the forum posts. Should I enter Peter Grimes, or Mac Team??

Once I have an answer on that, I'll upload the save.

Quick sysnopsis, more to come in a couple hours:
-Got BW, revolted to slavery
-whipped the barrack, overflow into worker
-got archery for free
-cease fire with Alex
-Saladin IS reachable by galley!
-finished mysticism, started masonry

 

[dr_s]

I used dr_s, so I think you should use peter grimes.

The only thing I would have recommended that you do differently is start on the settler right after the worker. Don't know if you got that far, though! Not sure we need another warrior right now, but it can't hurt.

Looking forward to the update.

 

[dojoboy]

A little confused over the play order. I believe the first three were/are:

dr_s
peter grimes
a_man

Unknown:

willpax
Welnic
dojoboy

Is that the order?

I haven't seen Welnic around here or in the SG he and I are in together, lately.

 

[peter grimes]

I've uploaded the save. It is here.

 

[peter grimes]

Screenshots:

Arab Isle, and the coastal lane between there and Barbaria



Barbaria, with a couple ideas for city placement. Feel free to remove or change the signs while playing the turnset



Alexander wanted peace. I wanted something in exchange


I did a CeaseFire with Alexander, so no worries

I didn't know how to grab the event log - otherwise I would have posted that as well.

 

[dr_s]

If you look in the prefs, under the first HOF screen, you'll see the name of the autolog file. It's probably autolog.txt. Then you can look in the Civ IV folder under your home folder. I think the folder your looking for is right there, called "Autolog". The file is inside. It's probably got autologs from your practice games as well, you can open it up in TextEdit and grab the bottom part if you want to post it.

That's a crappy location for the copper. (Man, this map sucks!) Hope we have iron or horses in our capital's BFC. I'll make up some new dot maps when I get home tonight. I think we should make our cities coastal where possible.

 

[dr_s]

I downloaded the save and made a dotmap (attached).

Peter, I don't like your proposed location for the gold/stone city because it misses the clams. Likewise, your proposed city by the copper doesn't have any food. Moving it 1N allows it to work the bananas for growth.

Another comment. After the worker is done, I think we should build a settler ASAP. I don't think we need another warrior, and since we have archery, we should build archers instead of warriors when we build military units in any case.

I note that there are no barbs on Alex's island. I wonder if it's so small that he's able to fogbust it? It looks like some of our allies should be marching on other AI cities pretty soon.

I think we should do the following: Build a settler ASAP and settle the green site near the stone. I moved it 1NW in my new dotmap to make room for a second city down by the rice/gold and to put both the clams and the stone in the first ring of tiles. We should start building stonehenge there as the first build.

In techs, we are currently at:

Fishing: 70 of 117
Wheel: 20 of 175
Agriculture: 40 of 175
Hunting: 86 of 117
Animal Hus.: 28 of 292
Sailing: 4 of 292

Peter, do you have an autosave from the previous turn? If so, we can calculate how long we have to wait for these techs. After Masonry, I think we should go Wheel followed by Iron Working. The worker can mine the pig hill to give the capital some hammers (for now, then change it after we get AH) and start building roads to connect our cities. Of course, we could research Sailing instead of building a road to connect the cities by the coast.

I think we should put our own beakers toward techs that we need and that we aren't getting free barb beakers for. That will maximize our free beakers. I think IW is important (a) to reveal iron (hopefully in our BFC), (b) to chop jungle, and (c) to enable barb swords to spawn.

Once we have the settler out, I think we should start the Pyramids in the capital and whip/chop it as necessary. Once we have Stonehenge/Pyramids, we can start focusing on units and/or expanding.

 

[peter grimes]

Great suggestions! Your dotmap will work much better than mine, clearly

I was forgetting to think about food, and just thinking about getting all the resources - I'm not used to overlapping bfc's , but clearly that's called for here.

I've attached the autosave from just before 2500 bc. I'm not sure how we can calculate the expected arrival date for the techs... Do we look at the change in beakers between last turn and this turn, then extrapolate?

As for the warrior - I was simply choosing the cheapest defensive unit. A warrior is a bit quicker to produce than an archer, and once we're in Hereditary Rule we'll have cheap providers. I just don't think it's worth investing 50% more in a defensive unit just now. The faster we can get some cities out, the better

All the other ideas I completely agree with. I wasn't even certain of my choice of tech, but as I was choosing it on my very last turn, I figured a_man could switch to something else if necessary.

Sorry I wasn't able to post the more detailed log, but thanks for showing me where to find it. Also, when I left for work this morning, I left my note sheet on the table - that's where I wrote down all the barb beakers

 

[peter grimes]

yeah, so the upload thing isn't working at all for me.

I've established a gmail account for our team:
sgotm DOT mac DOT team at gmail

password: macintosh

the autosave is uploaded there, in a draft.

we can use this account to upload images and such, without taking up civfanatics server space

 

[dojoboy]

I agree w/ going after Sailing and The Wheel after Masonry. It's important to get up a second city soon, in order to free up Karakorum to build the Great Lighthouse, I feel.

After worker, build settler.

Who's up? It's been over 24 hrs w/out a "got it."

 

[dr_s]

I would think a_man is next.

I don't see why you want to build the Great Lighthouse, dojoboy. Are we ever going to have many foreign trade routes? Wouldn't Colossus be a better sea-based wonder for us (after Pyramids/Stonehenge)?

 

[dojoboy]

I would think a_man is next.

I don't see why you want to build the Great Lighthouse, dojoboy. Are we ever going to have many foreign trade routes? Wouldn't Colossus be a better sea-based wonder for us (after Pyramids/Stonehenge)?

Hm, I was thinking it provided +1 naval movement. May be thinking about Civ3.

 

[peter grimes]

Yes, in civ3 the Great Lighthouse provides safe passage in sea (and possibly ocean?). The current civ3 mtdg is a small continents sort of map, and the Great Lighthouse became a key strategic move. My team (The Council) failed to get it. The team that did get it (BABE) used it's safe passage powers to launch and attack against one of the other teams... with interesting consequences.

In cIV, The Great Lighthouse provides +2 trade routes in all coastal cities

Colossus: +1 commerce for water tiles in all cities

 

[a_man]

Sorry about that i'm here i'll take my turn tomarrow morning i was just a little busy/ear infection but i should be fine for tomarrow
so finish worker then settler then SH/and or Pyri. i was thinking settling on the green dot or mabye 1 space SW of blue dot which one were ya'll thinking

as for techs when done with masonry, wheel then iron working(which wo'nt be done on my turn)

and finally should i play 20 or 30 turns?

 

[dojoboy]

Sorry about that i'm here i'll take my turn tomarrow morning i was just a little busy/ear infection but i should be fine for tomarrow
so finish worker then settler then SH/and or Pyri. i was thinking settling on the green dot or mabye 1 space SW of blue dot which one were ya'll thinking

as for techs when done with masonry, wheel then iron working(which wo'nt be done on my turn)

and finally should i play 20 or 30 turns?

20 turns

Was Iron Working after The Wheel? I thought Sailing?