SGOTM 05 - Trash Team

[Cam_H]

Two things;

(a.) I'm nervous because when I open the game all of the tribes' scores are zero, yet Cabert's screenie in #90 shows scores (and therefore there may be something wrong with my set up?);

(b.) I am still unsure if we're going after the Copper or Gold-Rice, and if Gold-Rice exactly which tile we finally agreed on!

 

[cabert]

Two things;

(a.) I'm nervous because when I open the game all of the tribes' scores are zero, yet Cabert's screenie in #90 shows scores (and therefore there may be something wrong with my set up?);

(b.) I am still unsure if we're going after the Copper or Gold-Rice, and if Gold-Rice exactly which tile we finally agreed on!

don't be scared about the score, I had the same thing. It comes back to normal after you press enter.
About copper first or gold first, I think it's gold first that was somewhat agreed on, but if there was a vote, I'd vote for copper first.

 

[remconius]

Aye score should come back and gold first! Then copper and stone cities in rapid succession.

 

[Cam_H]

I re-loaded the save several times, and the score came up on the third re-load. Thanks for the re-assurance though!

... and if Gold-Rice exactly which tile we finally agreed on!

I'm actually inclined to Gold-Rice too, but getting Mysticism, building a Monument, then waiting for a border pop all for 'fresh water' seems a bit drawn out for my liking.

My understanding is that at some later point we'll deal with a Stone site such as "A" - even this one might be debated, but was it "B" (no border pop required) or "C" (border pop required, fresh water, immediate goodie hut reward) that we liked for Gold-Rice?

 

[remconius]

I am in favour of B, then A.

I think this game will benefit from short term gain.

 

[stuge]

Let's go with B. Fresh water isn't a big deal since we are expansive, and we can farm the riverside.

But I'd settle cabert's copper site before going for A. I advocate rushing Arabia ASAP and combat 1/cover axes do wonders against archers. If the RNG screws us over and jungle grows over the copper, an early rush will be much harder (impossible if we haven't got horses), since IW will take damn long to research.

 

[Cam_H]

Well, I can see what Cabert meant by hitting the 'Enter' button a lot.

Chopped out one of the Karakorum forests to get the Settler out in 2320BC. Went straight after another Settler build there. As agreed, the Worker went with the just-built Settler, and started on the Gold Mine once Gold-Rice was founded;

I opted for a Worker build in Beshbalik. At the end of the turnset the Mine was completed and the Worker is ready to farm the Rice.

Tech-wise;

• We're researching The Wheel with the Barbs with 2 turns to go.
• Partial research from Barbarian effect on Animal Husbandry with 4 turns to go.
• Partial research from Barbarian effect on Masonry with 9 turns to go.
• Partial research from Barbarian effect on Mysticism with 6 turns to go.
• No from Barbarian effect to Iron Working at this point.

The Barbarians have;

• 12 Archers
• 11 Warriors
• 11 Axemen
• 3 Galleys ... somewhat better understanding of coastlines, but more info' needed.

________________________________________________
Here is your Session Turn Log from 2500 BC to 1900 BC:

Turn 58, 2260 BC: Hinduism has been founded in Barcelona!
Turn 59, 2230 BC: Isabella converts to Hinduism!
Turn 60, 2200 BC: Qin Shi Huang adopts Slavery!
Turn 63, 2110 BC: You have discovered Hunting! (Barbs)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Beshbalik has been founded.
Turn 64, 2080 BC: You have discovered Sailing!
Turn 67, 1990 BC: You have discovered Agriculture!
________________________________________________​

The Save

 

[stuge]

So, that makes me up for 15. I'm thinking of settling the copper and researching wheel-> AH-> mysticism.

Any thoughts?

 

[remconius]

Copper site is good, go ahead!

We'll take stone after

 

[Cam_H]

I'm happy enough with the Copper proposal.

Finish off The Wheel, 'yes' to Animal Husbandry, but I question Mysticism. It should float in 'naturally' I would think.

More or less agree with the tech tree, but think we should focus on HBR sooner:
1.MINING>BW>
2.FISHING >SAILING>
3.AH (pigs) > HBR >
4.THE WHEEL > POTTERY >
5.WRITING >ALPHABET > MATHEMATICS > CONSTRUCTION >
(Agri /archery/mysticism for free)
We could do 4 before 3 or even before 2 to start cottages as soon as possible.

 

[stuge]

Warning: The following report may cause uncontrollable, hideous laughter, false hope and delusions of supremacy. We strongly recommend putting down any beverages before reading further to avoid unseemly choking accidents.

***

Behold! Delhi, the birthplace of the Indian civilization, the holy city of the world's oldest religion and the capital of the barbarian state.

What can I say? Delhi was defended by a single archer and three barb axes hit it on the same turn. Asoka never even got a settler out. The mind boggles...

And the carnage didn't stop there, no sir! The men in black whupped some Chinese behind too:

Unfortunately, the Japanese got lucky too:

What a shame, such a dreamy site. Oh well, payback will come soon, with interest.

Research went wheel-> AH-> pottery. HBR is in with 52 turns to go but with no beakers invested. Some cottages will help, of course.

And do we have horses?

Karakorum finished the settler and I started another worker, with 5 turns to go.

When the rice farm at Beshbalik finished, I set the city to build a warrior and grow. It'll grow in two turns, at which point the worker should be finished. The rice and gold are hooked up, so the current worker should head towards our new city.

Yes, I founded Turfan 1N of cabert's sign, mostly because that allowed access to two forests without the need for a monument. I set it to build a galley first.

That's it, except for the save.

Patagonia is up for 15 turns of hammertime goodness.

 

[remconius]

These barbarians rock!

So the barbarians have started a civilization with an excellent holy city!

If we can direct their forces they might be able to do more damage. Right now we cannot sign peace with anyone. Once we can we could sign peace with Toku and Isa. Then the barbs can focus on Cyrus. We might not need astronomy at all

Let's build a few more settlers after workers and galley.

Roster
Remconius (on deck for 15 turns)
Pigswill
cabert
Cam_H
Stuge (just played)
patagonia (UP for 15)

 

[cabert]

one less AI
And gandhi's capital will immediately give 5cpt to our barb allies.
I sugest keeping an eye on the city, and sue for peace if a real threat comes towards it.
HBR will give our allies even more power, let's stick to the plan.

 

[patagonia]

Got the save and opened it - yay!

I've done some fog-gazing and if someone can confirm the mechanics of culture crossing oceans, I think we may be able to access the whole world by galley. It all depends on whether we can build a culture bridge to the island to the SE of Beshbalik by settling another city on the most southern forest tile on that peninsula, because you can reach Greek culture from the east coast of that island giving us a potential invasion site (I can't post screenies at the moment, sorry).

I see research is set to HBR. That'll take 33 turns if we work the goldmine at Beshbalik too. Is that acceptable, or should we go for IW first? That'd get some city-busting barb swordsmen out into the world and allow us to start clearing some jungle much quicker.

==========

Basic plan for my 15:

Finish the worker in the capital and start on another.
Slow-build elsewhere (we want Beshbalik at size 2 or above so it can work the gold, and the galley won't be whippable on by set).
Research: HBR or IW?

I probably won't have time to get round to this, what with horses and pigs to pasture and bronze to mine, but do we want to cottage or farm round Karakorum?

I can play Monday morning or Wednesday evening.

 

[remconius]

Good stuff about the culture bridge. I think that works.

Not sure about another worker. I would prefer another settler first.

I'd say cottages around karakorum and HBR for research.

 

[Cam_H]

Can't see the game unfortunately for a few days - but great to hear that the Barb's took Delhi ... I was watching them get picked off as single units all over the place and didn't think that they were ever going to co-ordinate an attack. Delhi had one Archer, but from recollection it had Combat 1 and City Garrison 1 and 2 and was on a Hill with Cultural defense, so I'm a bit surprised that it fell ... pleasantly surprised!

I'd certainly stick two Cottages down at Karakorum fairly soon - one south of the Horses because you don't need that tile for chain irrigation and it's riverside and non-coastal (less likely to get pillaged by any prospective invaders) ... the second tile - take your pick other than the one south west of the Horses which probably should be Farmed for chain irrigating purposes provided the jungle south of it is not deemed to have Fresh Water (apologies again - can't load the game and check).

I'm not sure if it will make much of a difference whether we go with Iron Working or Horseback Riding in light of the other stuff we have going, but I'm mildly inclined towards Iron Working - we'll find out where the Iron is for city placement or Cottage placement consideration, Barbarian Swordsmen are 'on par' with Barbarian Horse Archers, and we can at least start contemplating Jungle clearing for our Workers once they've dealt with their more meaningful tasks. I am aware that there is a push to get our invasion started 'sooner rather than later', but I see no great harm in holding off production of Keshiks for one tech' longer while we can still build Galleys, Axes, and Spears ... but I'm not 'that' fussed either way .

Can I mention The Colossus yet? Beshbalik hardly has 'great' production, but might be able to do the job with the Gold mine and the two Forests. We have Copper, and Qin's latest problems with the Barbarians might have set him back a bit as the only Industrious leader. Or is it just going to be easier to capture it?

 

[stuge]

I'd let Karakorum grow to max size before building more settlers or workers. Pasturize (is that even a word?) the pigs and the horses, farm the banana and lay down a couple of cottages. Build a barracks or a galley while growing.

I too think that it's possible to reach every landmass via culture bridges. Island hopping will be too expensive for a while, though.

Re the Colossus, I'd rather see us head along the upper line first. Although it can be built surprisingly late, what with the AIs prioritising anything else than MC.

 

[cabert]

I'd let Karakorum grow to max size before building more settlers or workers. Pasturize (is that even a word?) the pigs and the horses, farm the banana and lay down a couple of cottages. Build a barracks or a galley while growing.

I too think that it's possible to reach every landmass via culture bridges. Island hopping will be too expensive for a while, though.

Re the Colossus, I'd rather see us head along the upper line first. Although it can be built surprisingly late, what with the AIs prioritising anything else than MC.

please notice that the psture on the pigs doesn't give a lot more than the mine.
In fact,with the low production that we have, I think the mine on the pigs can be the best for us for a while.

 

[remconius]

I can get into Cam's reasoning for IW first and tend to agree.

I dont think we should let karakorum grow to full size. Each pop only adds 1 production to workers/settlers although it would increase cottage growth around karakorum. Let's grow to size 3 to work Pigs, horses and bananas and build settlers/workers.

This game allows REX-'civ III style' so we build a few more cities before growing the capital. We'll catch up the difference in no time once we have 5-7 cities growing at the same time with cottages. And we wont be far behind the AI as they are dealing with the barbarian menace.

 

[cabert]

I wouldn't Rex that much, without cottage growing already.
Karalorum can grow while working cottages and it would be a mistake not to do so+ we have pottery and should whip a granary asap.
We don't want more than 4 cities without currency or CoL or cottages growing, do we?
I think we should start building up an army = galleys + axemen to go strike the nearest neighbours before planting city n°5 on our island.
There aren't really brilliant city sites anyway.
About techs, iron working before HBR is good, but not necessarily better.
It's a question of home developpement vs barb pain for the rest of the world.
If we go HBR first, the barbs will spawn fast moving pillagers a lot more = more pain for them.
If we go IW first, the barbs will spawn slow moving swordsmen, which may do better in city taking.
So all in all, IW first may be better... I'm still unsure, but I can see what IW can do for us jungle dwellers.

About home developpement, I'd really stop after the 4th city (this means capital + gold city + copper city + stone city) and start growing them all to size 3, working improved tiles. This means we will need workers.
I think growing karakorum while building (whipping!) a granary(, a lighthouse?), barracks and a few troops and building workers in size 2 outer cities may be the best move.