SGOTM 08 - Fifth Element

[Mesix]

If we settle one NE of the stone, we can get Sheep, Clams, and Stone all in the BFC of that city. We need to decide whether to prioritize the Stone for Pyramids build or getting the Cow city in before Shaka spreads into our area.

 

[BLubmuz]

That stone is precious, but it's in a bad position.
To have whales in BFC we'll have to settle a poor city, and also to have them in 2nd borders expansion.
I think the best position is 1N of stone, maybe also 1NE.

I think it's better to settle the city close to the capital first, for 2 reasons:
1) avoid Shaka settle there, or close
2) it's closest and it's better for our economy

I think that we must produce the settler for the stone in Parma once it reaches size 3.
The capital will be busy with LH and the GLH if we decide to go for that (and i think it's worth the risk).

Trading: Shaka will not trade techs, but prolly Joao do: better go for Alpha.

Religion: there're high chances Confu will spread to our neighbours, and the conversion will ALWAYS cost 1 turn. We can wait, but we can seriously consider to convert.

Better Fifthburg works fish while producing the settler. Or perhaps the FPH after bureau if this gains us 1 turn.

So we agree to free revolt to caste and delay the decision for slavery hopefully after Pyramids?

 

[greatbeyond]

I agree with Blubmuz about settling closest to the capitol first. I 'll have to look at the other questions a little closer before rendering an opinion.
I was crossing my fingers hoping we'd get the Oracle. That is a big hurdle to cross. I'm not sold yet on what to research next.
The Marble Island has turned out very well for us with that extra fish. The pessimist in me is feeling a little miffed that his worries are unfounded.

 

[berserks01]

Caste works for me. I always feel cruel when I whipped too much in slavery anyway

I think the capital's next settler should settle close to it and then concentrate on Pyramids and GLH. Parma can produce the settler for Stone city, or even Marble city can sidetrack a few turns to produce the settler (while working all 3 fishies) before finishing Moai.

Also stone city will need a worker with the settler to quarry the stone fast to help with the Mids.

Let's wait on converting ourselves until at least Joao or Shaka (or both) converts first.

 

[culdeus]

Well caste is easy to choose for now (free w/ bureau). Once we chop out the GLH and Pyramids, we'll want to go Representation...and probably slavery at that time.

I don't think barbs come out of the ocean, so we may be protected on the east. I guess one could come out of the north? I don't really know barbs well.

Barbs will not land like Civ3 from galleys. They will sail unmanned galleys around and in maps like this with lots of islands they will spawn from the north and head down to us until we have the coast fog busted. They can really come from anywhere there is a long stretch of coast in fog. They will show up soon as certainly all the AI has sailing by now.

The next big decision is mids or not? I say Mids then aqueduct (or baray for us) then HG. Make a big GE rush to be able to settle the GL in city 4 perhaps. Lets just hope Jaoe or Shaka builds the GLH. We can make sure they have the techs just in case they don't.

 

[Sweetacshon]

The Marble Island has turned out very well for us with that extra fish. The pessimist in me is feeling a little miffed that his worries are unfounded.

Damn, you're a hard man to please!

So we seem to be agreed on Caste and the cow city first. Also another (2 more) workers, warriors for garrison, a wb for Marble's 3rd fish, and another galley (it is really triremes we need, tho) are all natural builds. The missionary can go to Joao, and we'll go alpha next in the hope of trades. Thanks for answering those questions... I guess I have a few more for longer term:

1. What wonders to build, and where?
2. What are the research goals?
3. At what point (and with what units) are going to take on Shaka?

These are, of course dependent on each other. If we are going to build a couple of wonders, say mids and TGLH, and maybe THG, that doesn't leave too much production for units, so any classical attack might come up against high culture by the time we get a stack together. So we need either construction for cats, or beeline machinery for maces, which is fine by me.. closer to optics which I'm feeling surer we'll need.

 

[dutchfire]

I think taking Shaka isn't very important right now, only when we don't have to put our production into wonders (and wonder techs) is it time to take Shaka. But we shouldn't let our defences go down, because Shaka *will* exploit that.

 

[culdeus]

I think taking Shaka isn't very important right now, only when we don't have to put our production into wonders (and wonder techs) is it time to take Shaka. But we shouldn't let our defences go down, because Shaka *will* exploit that.

Not if we convert him and ourselves at the same time. May be the expedient thing to do. Especially if he turns his sights to Joao.

Should be noted that J has not had a religion put on him yet either. Probably means he hasn't found any AI yet except the ones we have. Beginning to wonder if we are cut off by ocean to the other AI. BTS AI prioritize work boat exploring much more than vanilla. I would have expected to see one or two stray continental WB by this point.

 

[greatbeyond]

I think Culdeus is right and we are cut off by ocean from the other Civs. This fits with my expectations that we are in the islands or small portion of the big and small map. If we can encourage Joao and Shaka to build wonders then we won't have to travel to far to take what we need at the end.
Two problems I see with this is that they will expand more and lock us out of any more good land and will they ever build any wonders?
For Joao this isn't so critical as we don't want cities so far away from our capitol and he does build wonders.
With Shaka it can become problematic. IF he starts feeling invincible, he will attack us, shared religion notwithstanding. (IIRC he has a 20% chance of DOW even at pleased) With just five to 7 cities ( 3 on our starting landmass, Marble Is., Stone Is., North Is., and possibly Horse Is.) we will not be a production powerhouse. Even superior units can succumb to sheer numbers. I usually lean toward taking Shaka out as early as possible because he is so unpredictable. This could give us a good number of cities that we don't have to build ourselves and are already improved and good production centers. I can't recall a game where Shaka was a big "wonder builder", so I don't think he's going to help us toward our goal. We would want to take him out as quickly as possible to keep WW at a manageable level.
Joao also seems to tech like mad, of course maybe at this difficulty level it won't be as bad.
I guess this takes me back to what overall strategy we should adopt. I'm strongly leaning toward eliminating Shaka, then switching to building as many wonders as possible ourselves. This should give us the tech lead and once we get Astro, we can be in a good position for a Domination push at the end. Has anyone tried to figure out yet (or seen a HOF warning) how many land tiles we have visible and what ratio this is to the Domination limit? I counted 348 visible tiles. Is the 1275 Tile score the total number of land tiles? I didn't count any of the inland lakes. I checked the last log and didn't see any warning. Let's make sure we turn it on. It seems like there is a lot of visible land already for the type of map. Of course this contradicts my first sentence.....could the map be designed to make sure the remaining civs are on small islands with poor production so they won't build many wonders. I suppose we won't know that for awhile.

I'm thinking BW then MC instead of Alpha. With only knowing 2 Civs, unless we find more Civs to the West of Joao, we won't get that much in trade from Alpha. This would change if we meet any other Civs, especially if they don't know Shaka and Joao. We should be ahead in techs for awhile. We have zero strong military unit techs now. If Shaka has BW and decides to attack, he could roll us up quickly. BW gives us a good offensive/defensive unit. MC will give us Forges which are essential to building our production, especially in city 4. I think we could also complete the Colossus and reap the benefits of the extra Gold. We will be working quite a few sea tiles anyhow. If we weren't working very many it wouldn't make sense. MC also gives us Triremes for defending our Fish assets. Barb Galleys tend to appear quickly and in large numbers.

After doing some close up fog gazing I don't see any connection to the East. The most likely area is along the bottom, but there appear to be at least two ocean tiles at the eastern end and bottom of the bottom land mass. From where our WB explorer is there are only 7 or 8 tiles to the Top of the map, making the chances of meeting another Civ there unlikely.

 

[BLubmuz]

First off, i must say that i share GB's worries about Shaka.
Looking at the save i noticed 2 axes and 2 impis guarding Ulundi.
2 axes are more than enough to take our miserable forces.

OTOH is a pity self research BW if we can trade for it with Joao (for sure not with Shaka).
I think we must build barracks on Parma, and in Fifthburg after the LH, then some axes.
I can bet we'll find copper in Fifthburg's BFC, but we need barracks in any case.

 

[Mesix]

I like the idea to settle the cows first. I think that it is important to get the stone ASAP as well to 1/2 the production time for mids. A strategy that I think can help this to happen would be to build the stone city and then build a second city on that island too. Once we research Feudalism, we can spin off the worthless cities on that island into a colony and have a vassal.

I am not a big fan of diluting the GE points in the mids city. Wherever we build mids, we should also build HG and HS. We will want to run as many engineer specialists as possible there as well which means a forge and eventually a factory and the Iron Works. If we decide this city should be the capitol then we shoud not build GM porducing wonders there. Perhaps the cow city can be out engineer city...but can we build the mids fast enough with the limited resources of that city? I guess what I am saying is that if we build the GLH we should follow it up with other GM producing wonders specialize our cities so that we can better plan for the great people that we will eventually need rather than leave them up to chance.

On a side note, I think the marble city will become a good site for running specialists and building wonders. Once we finish MS in the marble city and eventually build a workshop it will have a decent amount of production. Since it is somewhat isolated, it is a good site for building wonders...especially wonders that we have a tech lead and little competition for completion. With three sea food resources, this city should be able to adjust its specialists to support whatever goals we have for great people as the game progresses.

Perhaps we should transition the capitol to running either merchants or engineers (depending on the consensus of what to build there) and have the marble city run scientists for now. A second Academy on our specialist farm will probably pay dividends well.

Parma should concentrate on building troops if the other cities are building wonders and infrastructure. I think that Shaka should be dealt with early, but even if we don't declare war we should build up troops to prevent him from wiping us out easily.

 

[WastinTime]

Parma: Must build the temple it has in the queue now and work a priest until the Prophet comes. If we don't rush this, then the capitol will make a GMan first.

Marbles: How about popping out 2 settlers from this city after getting to size 3? Or Settler/worker/settler. Makes good use of that food. Once we take on slavery, this city will need to whip out library, granary, lighthouse, then moai. If we don't want settlers coming from here, then I'd say library now.

Capitol: Maybe cancel the settler and let Marbles to it? and get on WB, Lighthouse/ GLH.

I agree with Alphabet next. (free BW, pottery), then MC.

Let's let the missionary wander around until someone get's it auto-spread. I read once that just having a missionary pass thru makes it more likely to spread. Myth? I also read that connecting roads makes it spread. Never checked the code.

 

[berserks01]

Any city connected by road/sea has a higher chance of spreading than those that aren't. That's what I know ...

 

[culdeus]

Like I said in the few advanced games I've done I've had little to no success with trading anything in this timeframe. The AI either won't trade or has nothing worth trading for. I defer to our mastertraders here whether it makes sense to just gift techs away.

I do think we must do BW now. Have to know if we have metal. My gut says it's either 1S of marble or on that stone island or some other island. Can't see it being easily available. Once hooked rush some axes towards Shaka and take the isthmus island and sue for peas. Then upgrade to maces and he's done. We must convert him to confused asap and convert ourselves. No use in risking the SGOTM7 situation here.

 

[Sweetacshon]

WT, you know you're up next, right?

Well, this is what I mean - settlers, workers, axes, as well as wonders.. there's a lot to do. We have to nail down which wonders are going where, as at 1000BC or so, we need to get started on them. WT mentioned TGLH in the capital. Can you explain why this is better then doing the mids and then THG in the capital, so we can more quickly switch to rep and slavery, where we can more quickly get Marbles onto TGLH?

I am concerned by BW and Shaka. My gut says we have a bit of time while he further settles his area, but we surely are a juicy target for him. Hopefully our power from techs and wonders will keep him at bay. I certainly wouldn't be sad to spend 4 turns on BW, but if everyone wants to stick it out with alpha, that is ok.

The idea about jettisoning the stone city to a colony/vassal is a good one, although I rarely use this. Can you do it for only 2 cities? In any case, let's get stoney in there asap after cows. So I think let settler finish in the capital (with the southern fish), but another wb first might be ok, so Marbles can shoot a worker out - the settler should be done by the time the wb gets to the fish, so Marbles can use all 3 for the worker. Now I'm just confusing myself.... and then onto lh/TGLH or mids.

 

[BLubmuz]

I wish to inform you that Perla, my cat and my CFC avatar is died tonight.
She was at least 16 years old, we don't know exactly 'cause she's with us since early 1995.

I' very sad for this, even if i expected it.

That's why i added the Ankh to her picture.

 

[berserks01]

Sorry to here that Blub. Did she leave you any kittens to take care of?

 

[BLubmuz]

No, she was already sterilized when she arrived.
In addition, the cat of my daughter (a 2 years old black) disappeared over 2 weeks ago.
I wasn't worried initially, he disappeared for 13 days last year, but now we're thinking the worst.

bah

 

[greatbeyond]

Having had a long term feline friend, I can understand your sorrow. They make you feel privileged when they curl up with you and purr.

 

[culdeus]

My condolences.