SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

[LowtherCastle]

Myst, which we need anyway, so the barbs might build SH, already having stone connected, is genius goodjob: klarius). Otherwise, our only hope for SH is to attack QIn asap and capture it.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Hi, Gnejs.

Bye, Gnejs.

 

[LowtherCastle]

For MW and EK, we don't technically need a farm, if we're poprushing units...

Guys, I've edited this above, because I forgot that we can't poprush for 2 pop-points at pop3. D'oh!

It's especially useful to know if we can grow our city to almost pop5, but not pop5, because of WW.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Ioan's Turnset

I can't find any good way to build half-full granaries and settlers at the same time. I can get both granaries built half full in a matter of turns, but all it really does is postpone making the settlers.

I would do what klarius recommended for EK: T0:switch citizen to bananas; T1: citizen to Copper, T2: pop2 citizens work both and start building a settler (warrior is done).

In MW, T0: citizens on pigs, grass; T1: switch to Pigs, bananas; T2 switch back to pigs, grass...T5: (warrior done) build granary, make sure citizen is working the farmed grass...T9 pop3 make sure 3rd citizen is working farmed grass...

Wkrs: Finish the Copper mine>both workers farm the roaded grass tile>both wkrs road second grass>wkr1 roads farm (NE of EK), wkr2 goes S of Mountain and starts roading toward gold (2 jungle roads will save teh settler 2 turns! and wkr has nothing else to do now)>Wkr1 cottages dyes.

Note: I would NOT poprush in MW, rather grow the pop to pop4 (or almost, depending on WW), and start building SettlerQin (now we're into the next turnset, btw). By saving the chop, we can poprush the settler for 90, run the overflow into a galley +chop and the galley is finished 1 turn after the settler, ready to rumble.

 

[Erkon]

We would like to keep:
Every city that has a few population points to rush.
Every city that has a few forests to cut.
Forget about villages or towns, pillage for a few coins.

We need troops out of captured cities. At some point, it gets irrelevant what we can build in our core.

This will surely crash our economy with the risk that we have to disband units. I only managed to play like this once (the aztec / small map GOTM). Is this a style you've successfully played before? I ask since I don't know myself how to pull it off. I like it in theory though.

 

[Erkon]

Suggestions for Ioan's turnset (I've included LC's part with small adjustments):

Erkopper builds settler when warrior is completed. Ensure that the city reaches size 2 first.

MW builds granary when warrior is completed. Ensure that the city is working farmed grassland.

Worker1 activity after copper mine is completed: Farm grass tile 1N of Erkopper, Farm grass tile 1NE of Erkopper, Cottage dye, cottage plain 1S of MW (or chop MW forest?)

Worker2 activity after copper mine is completed: Farm grass tile 1N of Erkopper, Farm grass tile 1NE of Erkopper, road jungle 1SE of Erkopper, road jungle 2E of Erkopper.

Research after pottery: Sailing, then mysticism (?)

Exploration: make sure the wb reaches all corner coastal tiles when moving around islands. We don't want to miss coastal tiles diagonal from land, so no short cut . It seams like the work boat cannot move further north, so I suggest that you revert back (go the easter side of Qui Gate) and the move south along the eastern coast of our continent if you can't find anything exciting on the way back .

Counting barbarian kill ratio: Please monitor how many barbarians each AI kills. Keep track of where all barbs are at the end of your turn and check at the beginning of next turn what has happened to them. I know this is tedious but will help us a lot to predict WW and sutiable city sizes.

Peace with AI: please check each turn if any AI is willing to peace, but don't give away Erkopper! ;-)

We haven't reached a concensus if we should redeclare on Cyrus. Please stay in peace one more turn. Then, if you see that one axeman is next to Cyrus border you can redeclare.

The above is just suggestions/proposal how to play. And please wait to play until LC and klarius have commented this proposal

 

[klarius]

Is this a style you've successfully played before?

No, despite my talk, I'm in reality more of a peaceful builder and only then type.
But here, we have really no core to build up. We will not trade very probable, so our cities stay small.
Others manage to pull this type of stunts, why not we .

But we should really think now about, when we put the science slider to 0 (well before we are forced to).

Ok, here my plan (no idea if this can work out). Slider 0 after IW, no fancy builder stuff like writing or CoL. We build a bankroll to be able to either conquer everything directly, or research later with boni from others already known.

 

[Erkon]

I've done more excelling regarding our long term development. I've assumed the following:

We build another 3 cities (Gold City, Qin Gate, Klarius Klam). Total build before we can start building units:

3 settlers => 450 production
5 granaries => 450 production
2 lighthouses => 180 production
5 barracks => 225 production
3 warriors => 66 production
2 obelisks => 90 production
Total production = 1461

GC is built and enters full production state on turn 100 (1000 BC)
QG is build and enters full production state on turn 110 (850 BC)
KK is build and enters full production state on turn 120 (700 BC)

Cities are in general grown to almost size 5, then whipped for 2 pop. They grow back to size 3 almost at once, and grow with +3 food / turn to size 4, the towards size 5 at +2 food / turn to almost size 5.

90 from whip every 15 turns => 6 / turn
Average production apart from whip = 4 / turn
Total production / city / turn = 10

All non-unit production is then completed on turn 125 (625 BC).
At that time we have researched sailing, mysticism and IW.
Axes costs 52
Swords costs 60
Galleys costs 75
Average unit cost = 60

0.8 units / turn

The following list show how many units we have built at certain dates:
[pre]
Year Turn Units
550 BC 130 6
400 BC 140 14
250 BC 150 22
100 BC 160 31
[/pre]

 

[klarius]

Nice plan, but it misses one important point.
How do we get war weariness down, to be able to even grow to 4. With 50% WW this is all only a dream.

 

[Erkon]

One of the purposes with this plan was to provide a reference around which we can discuss. So, if we have 50% WW, I would guess that we can grow to 3, and then we can poprush to size1. The main effect will be that our commerce will take a hit and production capacity will shrink a bit. We can also take action to reduce WW by gifting silly cities to AI. If we gift cyrus a city on the far west (1N of rice) he will build us the cultural bridge for free

One other purpose was to give an example on the year when we will start the war. Perhaps I'm 300 years off, and perhaps we should research something else. Can anyone come up with a suggestion how to a) begin the war earlier (such as settle only two more cities), or b) have a higher unit output? Or if you think I'm too optimistic, what shall we do to come as close as possible to my reference?

Another purpose was to give an indication of what kind of upkeep we can expect. We will probably have more than 30 units outside our borders, and we need to find a way to support them. We will loose units as well, but we really need to reduce the time in transit.

 

[Erkon]

No, despite my talk, I'm in reality more of a peaceful builder and only then type.
But here, we have really no core to build up. We will not trade very probable, so our cities stay small.
Others manage to pull this type of stunts, why not we . - Because it's difficult and we don't have the experience perhaps? Both Obermot and Balbes have done it, so we don't only need to succeed, we need to do it better than them

But we should really think now about, when we put the science slider to 0 (well before we are forced to). - Agree

Ok, here my plan (no idea if this can work out). Slider 0 after IW, no fancy builder stuff like writing or CoL. We build a bankroll to be able to either conquer everything directly, or research later with boni from others already known.

I agree with that. Shall we rely on the barbs to give us mysticism, masonry, animal husbandry then? If so, we need only to research sailing and BW ourselves (about 50 turns of research ~700 BC).

 

[LowtherCastle]

Exploration We need to eventually send that WB down to NE Gold Peninsula>trade route to The Continent.

Notes on Erkon's Plan:

• Granaries are 1/2 price
• QG, EK, KK work as pop4-pop2 cities (We can't pr from pop3>pop1 don't forget...)
• GC is a pop5-pop3 or pop4-pop3 city
• We're not suffering "we fear for our safety" right now?!? Will warriors make any difference?

War Weariness

• For WW <60%, for pop5-pop3 we need 7 Happies.
• For WW <67%, for pop4-pop2, we need 5 Happies.

Warring and Finances
Early Swordsman Rush is one of my game plans, although I usually go for cats cuz I like to build and run my score. On the recent emporer GOTM, most of my conquest was w/o cats. I'm certain the Gold Laurels winner will not use cats, but it will probably be nip and tuck.

The keys to financial stability are:

• barb hindering AI REX
• shutting down research
• early campaigns
• capturing cities (for )

Also helpful:

• building a few cottages
• our early axes pillaging
• pillaging (minimal but helps)
• razing useless cities for less maintenance

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

Uppps - I'm not able to start/load the game.

It give me something like "Locked assets" ... I've installed BTS and I suppose that will work - but I didn't.

Later edit - it worked ! My mistake : the files need to be copied in Mods and not in MODS folder.

 

[Erkon]

Exploration We need to eventually send that WB down to NE Gold Peninsula>trade route to The Continent. - yes, I thought I was clear on that? Perhaps not..

Notes on Erkon's Plan:

• Granaries are 1/2 price - My mistake
• QG, EK, KK work as pop4-pop2 cities (We can't pr from pop3>pop1 don't forget...) - I forgot
• GC is a pop5-pop3 or pop4-pop3 city
• We're not suffering "we fear for our safety" right now?!? Will warriors make any difference? - I think it will at size 4

War Weariness

• For WW <60%, for pop5-pop3 we need 7 Happies.
• For WW <67%, for pop4-pop2, we need 5 Happies.

Warring and Finances
Early Swordsman Rush is one of my game plans, although I usually go for cats cuz I like to build and run my score. On the recent emporer GOTM, most of my conquest was w/o cats. I'm certain the Gold Laurels winner will not use cats, but it will probably be nip and tuck.

The keys to financial stability are:

• barb hindering AI REX
• shutting down research
• early campaigns - I would rephrase that as quick campaigns?!
• capturing cities (for )

Also helpful:

• building a few cottages
• our early axes pillaging
• pillaging (minimal but helps)
• razing useless cities for less maintenance - I would suggest that we raze cities that are not excellent.

Regarding the emperor GOTM: I didn't succeed at all on that since I ran into longbowmen and I chickened out. You beat me by 400 years I think . When will LBM show up in this game? 500 AD?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Okay, getting back to Ioan's turnset, I vote for research Pottery>Myst>Sailing

and

I vote for DoWing Cyrus on turn Zero, because we get WW from those axes suiciding Cyrus or Asoka, but we stand much more to gain from Cyrus. And waiting just allows those axes to go farther away, making it less likely they'll attack Cyrus en masse.

PLUS: Guys, WW is not a problem for us now. Our pop is too low anyway and won't be coming up for a while because we're building settlers. We want barb attacks AS MUCH AS F'ING POSSIBLE. That's our game plan.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Another point of discussion

Peace with AIs: We don't want it. NO NO NO! We never want peace with Asoka. He's too far away. We NEVER EVER EVER want his settler to leave Delhi.

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

I started to play the game - 2 turns played.

Erkooper is now at size 2, because I switched to bananas.
Copper was mined & roaded.
Workers will be moved to farm a river tile near our capitol ( ? ).

Barbs vs. AI : Asoka seems to be under serious pressure of our "wandering" allies - look at screenshot.

I belive that I found a isolated-1-spot-island which could be a good place for a GP Farm ...

Regards - and I'm awaiting your suggestion.

 

[Erkon]

LC and klarius, do you have any comments on my turnset proposal to Ioan?

FYI: counting from Erkopper we have:
24 tiles to Bejing
15 tiles to Mecca
19 tiles to Athens (perhaps more)
34 tiles to Madrid and Delhi (western route)
42 tiles to Tokyo and Pasargade (eastern route)

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

[*]We're not suffering "we fear for our safety" right now?!? Will warriors make any difference?

I didn't notice something like this.
Probably because we are allied with barbarians this didn't exist at all at begining or because our cities are only size 2 ?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Copper was mined & roaded. Are we still building warriors? If not, roading copper was a mistake, as klarius said.
Workers will be moved to farm a river tile near our capitol ( ? ). We farm next to the jungle on the river where both cities can us the tile. Best is the tile N of Erkopper.
Barbs vs. AI : Asoka seems to be under serious pressure of our "wandering" allies - look at screenshot. This is why I wanted DoW with Cyus asap.

LC and klarius, do you have any comments on my turnset proposal to Ioan?

I think you're proposal is Great and thatIoan should stick to it--it's what the team agreed on...