SGOTM 06 - Fifth Element

Merum · Jan 23, 2008

Agree on the courthouse whip. A settler for the gold mines is also good. I think we might as well spend the GP on theo, it's gotta happen anyway, why keep him sitting there? HBR before currency. Kumbi Saleh is questionable, I wish it had more or less resources to make the decision more clear.

Civ, where do you play poker?

Civicide · Jan 23, 2008

Merum said:
Civ, where do you play poker?

Mostly $0.50/$1.00 No Limit Hold 'Em at Full Tilt Poker. A little bit at PokerStars, and the occasional tournament.

Merum · Jan 23, 2008

Ha! I'm playing on FTP right now.

Sweetacshon · Jan 24, 2008

Still alive, Blub?

I realise I didn't comment, but you pretty much nailed all of those points...

8) Agreed, though isn't Theology pretty much inevitable?

Well, it was part of the plan, so we may as well, unless... it may aid the AI in trading freedom if more civs have it, but I'm not sure by how much. One thing about the grand civics switch, we can maximise our time in the science phase by prebuilding units - an dumbo and a cat, I guess - to within 1 turn in each city, thereby getting a heap of high xp units within a few turns of the change, while maintaining the extra science from our current choices.

BLubmuz · Jan 24, 2008

Hell, i has to reset my PC (my fault).
I'll play tomorrow morning, if no more troubles happen.

Would been better to wait to LB Theo with our GP and consequentially wait to revolt to Theocracy?
We have enough units to wipe our continent, and i'd like to wait to see if Astro is needed.

As i already said, i can bet it is.

BLubmuz · Jan 25, 2008

TS played:
IT 252 - 1172 AD
few small MM adjustements, whipped CH as agreed
t254
our winery finally on line removed the last unhappies
research HBR between 10% + 11 and 20% - 2
Gao under siege
t256
Gao razed for 2 cats, our treasury is in better shape now, res to 20%
no news from scouts, i see no bridges in the NW
t258
Whipped CH in Hadrum
t261
a source of gems popped near Carthage - please verify if there's a road to the mine -
ready to attack KS, i'll keep it
t262
KS is ours for 1 ele+ 1 cat - i kept it 'cause it has good terrain/resources + some developed cottage and it's in a good position. It comes with LH, started CH, Mansa is no more, the continent is ours

FP in Djenne? or Utica?

t267
no news, currency due in 1 @ 20% -34, it's worth for the +1 t/r Stopped.
Hanni is hidden somewhere, now we got a trireme near Carthage, hopefully we can find him. Explore that sector will tell us about Astro or not.
All our cities are Confu, but the last founded one i don't remember if i started a missionary somewhere.

I think that HBR before Currency was a mistake, but i didn't thought to the +1 t/r, nor to the chance to produce wealth.

Perhaps we can go for Alpha after currency, so we can produce science, too. Then the path to Optics.

Our next goals are:
- find and eliminate Hanni;
- know if Astro is needed, and it seems so
- take Saxon, and keep it, IMO
- raze the other barb city, it seems poor

the save

Roster:
Civicide - up
Sweetacshon - on deck
Merum
Greatbeyond
Blubmuz - resting

culdeus · Jan 25, 2008

Since there's nothing to look at I looked at the graphs. Looks like this team is in 9th of 12th place more or less.

Murky is getting the job done without a great army, or perhaps with a small army that takes many losses while continuing to pump out troops at home. They are clearly the favorite. And given their overwhelming post count, no single aspect of any turn goes un-noticed...

I really wonder that if starting with a late cultural victory would have been the play. I always have doubts in the mid-game of any reasonable likelyhood of success. I still sort of get the feeling that knowing the difficulty of the variant a domination victory is possible sans Astro, but conquest not. Perhaps that's what CRC is struggling with now.

Civicide · Jan 25, 2008

Okay, I have the save. Good turnset as always BLubmuz. We have some truly scary units (I LOVE our Commando dumbo!) I will play soon. My goals:

1) Find and finish Hannibal. Pray for a land bridge.

2) Start the FP. It looks like Djenne is the better spot for it. The only down-side is that it will take longer to build there than in Utica, but long term we'll gain more from it being in Djenne.

3) Road up the carthage gems (they have none at the moment), and build fishing boats for our eastern shore (including building one in Carthage and trucking it to Athens).

4) We will get a GP in Athens during my TS, probably an engineer. What to use this for? We can build the Chichen Itza (worthless IMO), lightbulb Machinery, or save for a future wonder. My vote would actually, I think, be to lightbulb Machinery, for a quicker path to Astronomy.

5) Research path: finish Currency -> Compass -> Machinery (lightbulbed) -> Optics. By then we should know wheter or not we need Astronomy for sure, and caravels will still help us.

BLubmuz · Jan 25, 2008

Sorry to have not posted SSs, but i was in a hurry when finished my TS.
Not that there's much new, only few tiles are revealed. Gao was in strong overlap with Timbu and KS is on a nice NE corner of the eastern landmass (i divided our continent as east - from York meridian to the east coast and of course west London and its landmass).

Thank civ, i agree with everything you posted, also the CH placement: that's why i didn't started it already. I think it's better finish the forge, then start it.
Hanni: try to scout around the furs, just to be sure.

Another thing to do, that i tried but i forgot to complete: count the tiles on our continent and turn to a low % the HoF dom alert, so we can know how much we need. Then count also the tiles (but keep them divided) in the nearby islands.
In the far north there's ice blocking the path to west.

I don't care what the other teams do, if Astro is needed i'm convinced our strategy can beat them. If not... well, no laurels, we at best can win the game.
Ohh another one speaks about a cultural: too late i suppose, and it's AW after all.

Civicide · Jan 25, 2008

Okay, I've played 6 of the turns so far. We indeed did get a GE in Athens, and also made contact with a Ragnar caravel which sank one of our galleys. His score is 846, slightly behind our 996, and he probably making quite a few of his scary UU

No sign of Hanni's last city yet.

I'd like confirmation from at least one other team member that we want to use the GE to lightbulb Machinery, as this affects our immediate research path.

Merum · Jan 25, 2008

Ragnar... damn. I vote for machinery with the GE. We should start thinking about LBs, too, for the inevitable berserker assault.

BLubmuz · Jan 25, 2008

Ragnar... double damn.
As i already said, for me the best use for the GE is Machinery, no doubt.
Ragnar's caravel makes me think that if he could have reached us by galley, the contact was established long time ago.
This makes me think also that will be veeery hard for us to gain the circumnavigation bonus, that probably Ragnar would gain, added to the +1 movemnt he has from his UB, this put his ships to an insane +2.
Anyway, we can try, there's always the hope he can be blocked by some ice.
Thus i think the priority is to go for Optics, then upgrade our triremes. I suggest Alpha after Optics, we'll can produce science and see what techs the other Civs got.

Lastly, i think i've won my bet that Astro is needed, for the same reason he reached us by caravel.
The good sides of this are:
1) We can be safe from his Berserkers until Astro, so nothing to worry (but better verify using our caravels)
2) now i'm curious to see how the other teams manage to afford a long game if they razed every city or if they are without CHs. This can put us in good shape, and we are when our stuctures will be developed.

Now, what about take Saxon? i'm still in the opinion that it's a good city, and pretty close to London. Use cats, it has walls.
Just to discuss, in case we can also move the capital, London is the in the West border: what about a Palace move in York, and re-think to the FP?

Civicide · Jan 26, 2008

Okay, turnset played. Here is the save

I went a little bit over so as to get us one turn into optics, to help us figure out our options from here on out. I was able to upgrade one of our Western triremes into a caravel and got one turn of exploration in. Here's what it yielded:

Spoiler :

As you can see that appears to be a fairly significant landmass, accessible from a possible culture bridge, but the fact that it's unsettled may mean we would need another bridge, and by the time we got that, we'd probably already have astro.

Also, I found Hannibal's last city, on an island to the NE of Kumbi Saleh. Only found it because of the optics boost.

Spoiler :

Finally, we have what appears to be a possible Viking city off our West coast, which is a bit strange as all of Ragnar's caravels have come in from the East.

Spoiler :

One more turn should make it pretty clear just what's going on in that area, as I upgraded one of the triremes near Athens to figure this out.

A couple more Viking caravels showed up and decimated my eastern exploration fleet, and are currently being a nuisance to Carthage by preventing it from working its seafood. Luckily they can't pillage.

The domination limit is 780 tiles, we have 254. Someone can count if they want but it really doesn't look like domination is possible on our continent alone.

Here's the autolog.

Spoiler :

BLubmuz · Jan 26, 2008

Good one, Civ.
I think now we have to start a building phase, to build a decent economy.
There's some (little) hope that the orange borders are in a continental landmass and not on an island, anyway in next TS we'll know it well.

If the city is on a island, raze it, unless there are interesting resources;
if on a continent, it can be a foothold, so it can be worth keep it.

In any case, protect our galleys. And move the caravels only in pairs, also to cover our fishing nets.

Yes, those on the west seem Viking borders, but you said all the caravels are coming from East? strange. Can they be yellow perhaps?

I think it's too soon for Astro: what do we use against the berserkers, WE?
No, better go for Alpha first, then CS, Engineering and finally Astro.

I've seen from your SSs you're running @ 30% +13gpt: with some more market and the FP on line we can significantly improve.
Noticed also Ragnar is the Buddha Boss... no spiritual civs but MM in this game? He can have coquered the holy city, but...
Anyway he's far behind us in score, for what is worth.

Not a word about Saxon... time to take it, IMO.

I think i don't need to update the roster, already updated the list of saves.

dutchfire · Jan 26, 2008

Let´s try killing Hannibal as soon as possible, and find out how we can reach the other continent(s) best. It's too late for cultural bridges now.

BLubmuz · Jan 28, 2008

Is there anybody still alive?

dutchfire · Jan 28, 2008

I'm alive, without Warlords though.

Sweetacshon · Jan 28, 2008

I'm here also, and it looks like I'm up. It was Australia Day long weekend...I haven't had time to do anything but socialise. :cool:

I'll need to study the save.... get back to you this afternoon.

Sweetacshon · Jan 29, 2008

General plan:
Change research from Astro to alpha> lit. We still don't know if we need astro.
Get a navy and find out what is going on.
Halt work on the FP - are we sure we aren't going for dom win? What if there is a lot of land o/s and it's more useful over there?
Queue up units for the great civics switch.
Other things... do we want to settle the gold mine sites? Or keep Saxon?

Merum · Jan 29, 2008

I'm not convinced that changing to Alpha is worthwhile... we can't trade tech, spies aren't useful in warlords, and we should be building military or wealth, not research. Whether we need astro to get to the other side or not, our opponents are going to have it, and will munch our galleys like cookies. the additional cargo space will also be useful.

I'm pretty indifferent to keeping Saxon or not. If we can afford it, keep it. Otherwise, raze it down.

The gold mines should be settled ASAP. Each one is 7g we're leaving on the table.

I'm a little underwhelmed by our lack of military. Once we do find the enemy, we're going to have to spend time building an army before we can attack. Also, what happens if Ragnar or somebody else lands a fat stack on us? We barely have the forces to adequately defend this much territory, let alone go on the offense.

SGOTM 06 - Fifth Element

Permanent Jet Lag

Prince

Permanent Jet Lag

In the foetal position

HoF Quattromaster

HoF Quattromaster

Emperor

Prince

HoF Quattromaster

Prince

Permanent Jet Lag

HoF Quattromaster

Prince

HoF Quattromaster

Deity

HoF Quattromaster

Deity

In the foetal position

In the foetal position

Permanent Jet Lag

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