SGOTM 08 - Geezers

[Misotu]

Well done on Ulundi AgedOne! I agree with erikthecelt that we need to heal up before moving in force to the next target, although we might want a small scouting party to move on up the road a little & fortify (outside Shaka's cultural borders) to see what we can see.

Initial thoughts:

Priest/Shrine: The GP will be born in Yas in 40 turns. There is only tiny scientist pollution - we're already 95% probability for a priest. If we are agreed that the shrine is key to maintaining our research rate, then the last thing we want is any pollution in Yas. As erikthecelt mentioned, Shwedagon Paya generates priests. The additional plus point is that it's a double-speed build with gold. I think this is my favourite next option, and I think we can also build The Parthenon in Ulundi with a little planning, plus the GLib in Yas.

Tech: If we like this route, I think we should head straight for Poly (2 turns), Monotheism (2) swith to organised religion & 25% wonder boost (1 turn), then Aesthetics (5) followed by Lit (4) - times are maximum (they will be shorter) and are based on running 100% research and running the clams in Yas. I still think that erikthecelt's idea of trading IW for peace with Shaka when he's down to one city is worth considering - and actually he has archery and horse-back riding as well. We might get all three

Missionary: If we intend to build The Parthenon in Ulundi, send him off there now. If Confu hasn't spread to Ulundi by the time the Parthenon starts, we use him to get the 25% boost from organised religion.

Wonders I think the Shwedagon Paya in Yas is my favourite next option, plus The Parthenon in Ulundi and then the GLib in Yas. This affects our next city choice ...

New City: Of the three potential sites, I originally favoured stone because I didn't want to lose the opportunity. However, I can't see Joao's borders on the map - so I think it unlikely we're in competition right now. I like Marble City - close to capital for lower maintenance, no worker required immediately, fishing boats can be built quickly in Hari and/or Yas, and Aesthetics opens up The Parthenon & GLib, both of which are double-speed builds with marble.

Settler: Will build next turn. If we do Marble City, should sail off immediately in the galley. After drop-off, the galley returns to pick up the newly-built spear.

Newly-Built Spear currently on ivory: Should move off towards pick-up point, ready to be collected by galley & dropped off in Marble City for MP.

Yas: Finish settler (1 turn) then workboat for Marble City (2 turns). Then we have 5 or 6 turns before Aesthetics researched so our options are to build a second workboat for Marble City, a monastery for the 10% research boost (*really* fast, especially after organised religion. Either 2 or 3 turns), another worker to help at Ulundi, a spare missionary, more military depending on how the war is going, another settler ... etc etc.

Hari. Lose the 2 scientists for mine/cottage. 2 cats should be sufficient to take Shaka's third city, so we could switch to a worker, as erikthecelt suggests, followed by the second workboat for Marble City and then probably start the market. Marble City will have horribly poor production (we need to enable it to work that forest currently in Yas' BFC and cottage the plains square fairly early). However, with caste, it can start producing GPs really quickly (as long as it doesn't beat our priest )

Workers: If we build a worker in Hari, I think we should stop the 2 current workers and send them off to Nobamba to finish road to Nobamba, pasture horse & cow and finish road to Ulundi, then start mining two forested hills at Ulundi (extra production & the chopped hammers go to Parthenon). Need to watch out for Shaka/barbarians though, especially pasturing horse. We get some warning of danger from the chokepoint at the cows. When the third worker builds in Hari, he can finish cottages at Hari and Yas and maybe cottage the plains square at Marble City - or go straight to Ulundi and get stuck in on the mining and chopping.

Nobamba: Keep on with courthouse. Right now, the best we can do production-wise with that second pop is to run a 1f2H square. However, I think we should consider running a merchant. If we run 100% science, we have a deficit of -15/turn. A merchant cuts this to -12 per turn and the city will still grow in 3 turns. Once we pasture the cows and horse, the hammers there will really take off anyway (enabling us to knock out a quick cat if necessary) and producing a courthouse in a very reasonable time-frame.

Ulundi: Stays producing a courthouse but on maximum growth until Aesthetics, Org Religion, Marble are on-line and then I think we should go hell-for-leather for The Parthenon. Hopefully Confu has spread to Ulundi by then, but if not we use the missionary. We have fast growth and can have great hammers there if we mine those forest hills, plus there is ample opportunity for a few chops - I think we should use them. If we keep our research going, competition for Wonders should become less intense as we move on through the game.

Military: Completely heal up outside Shaka's cultural borders. Then head for that third city and mash it

 

[Misotu]

PS: Marble City. We are settling on the marble, right?

 

[Sam_Yeager]

A few comments/queries.

• With the exception of Misfits we're comfortably ahead of the other teams in terms of turns played so we've plenty of time to discuss what to do next.
  
• I do find it weird that our holy city where we hope to build a shrine has been building GS points whilst our capital is building GP points. I'm sure there are good reasons why we've done things this way but it is confusing.
  
• I really don't see why Marble city should be built on the marble. We can interrupt the worker building a cottage by Yas this turn and send it over with the settler to quarry the marble.
  
• I know we've got a small surplus of at present but let's not blow it all. Research @ 100% will cost us 15 per turn which is fine for a while. As we've already discovered the effects of random events can be annoying. However some of them can be avoided or the effects mitigated by the expenditure of I suggest keeping back at least 50 .
  
• I suggest our medic spear would be better off in Ulundi rather than Nobamba. Even if we are going to create a medic 3 warrior/spear with the GG it will still take longer for this to get to Ulundi.
  
• We already have a WB near Marble city that we can use in the short term. Yas could build another one to explore that land to our north before it heads back to Marble city.

 

[erikthecelt]

I do find it weird that our holy city where we hope to build a shrine has been building GS points whilst our capital is building GP points. I'm sure there are good reasons why we've done things this way but it is confusing.

Because we built the Oracle in Yas so it must have GP points anyway. It really is the only way for us to do what we've done so far.

[*]I really don't see why Marble city should be built on the marble. We can interrupt the worker building a cottage by Yas this turn and send it over with the settler to quarry the marble.

Because on the Marble it gets the fish, Off the marble it doesn't. But, do we really need the city. Does anyone know if we can have a fort and a quarry on the same tile?

I know we've got a small surplus of at present but let's not blow it all. Research @ 100% will cost us 15 per turn which is fine for a while. As we've already discovered the effects of random events can be annoying. However some of them can be avoided or the effects mitigated by the expenditure of I suggest keeping back at least 50 .

I agree we don't want to run out of gold but we have at least one more city to take.

I suggest our medic spear would be better off in Ulundi rather than Nobamba. Even if we are going to create a medic 3 warrior/spear with the GG it will still take longer for this to get to Ulundi.

We have a medic axe by Ulundi - it would promote to a mace. We should promote one of the two unless we want to have a medic chariot once the horses are on line.

We already have a WB near Marble city that we can use in the short term. Yas could build another one to explore that land to our north before it heads back to Marble city.

Good point. I would rather have a galley exploring now, we will soon be seeing barb galleys so a WB would not last very long.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Because we built the Oracle in Yas so it must have GP points anyway. It really is the only way for us to do what we've done so far.

As I mentioned: I was sure there was a good reason. It's still confusing though.

Because on the Marble it gets the fish, Off the marble it doesn't. But, do we really need the city. Does anyone know if we can have a fort and a quarry on the same tile?

South of the marble it gets another fish which is nearer to the WB and without even needing a cultural expansion. No idea about a fort and a quarry but if not then we need the city. Sounds like a candidate for world builder.

We have a medic axe by Ulundi - it would promote to a mace. We should promote one of the two unless we want to have a medic chariot once the horses are on line.

 

[markh]

I will have a look at the game later today. I will be able to play Friday at the earliest as I will be going back home tomorrow. If we agree quickly on how to proceed and the next player wants to play tomorrow or Friday I will need to swapped.

 

[Misotu]

South of the marble it gets another fish which is nearer to the WB and without even needing a cultural expansion.

Yes, but there are three fish near Marble Island. One is in use by Yas. Marble City gets the other 2 fish only if we site the city right on top of the marble. Then it starts looking like a very good GP farm.

Also @Sam_Yeager: Good point on the random events and keeping back 50 gold sounds like a good plan. If we run a merchant in Nobamba then the cost per turn is only 12 rather than 15. If we found Marble City, we could get that running merchants quite quickly - according to erikthecelt's analysis IIRC we need 2 great merchants at some point anyway.

I agree about the work boat too - I forgot there was one already in the area and sending the Yas workboat off to scout would definitely save turns.

@erikthecelt. I don't know the answer to the fort either Perhaps The-Hawk knows - he knew about the canal thing If a fort works, then that does give us another option. But with the 2 fish, the city looks like quite a good GP farm and the maintenance costs will be quite low, because it's so very close to Yas. I'd probably still be inclined to build it but ... It's true that we are pressed, with so many good sites available.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Yes, but there are three fish near Marble Island. One is in use by Yas. Marble City gets the other 2 fish only if we site the city right on top of the marble. Then it starts looking like a very good GP farm.

Perhaps I'm having a senior moment here but it seems to me that you can get all fish whether or we settle on the marble. The key difference between the two spots is that two cultural expansions are needed for the last fish if we don't settle the marble.

However this may be moot. I've had a quick play with WB and the answer is that you can have either a fort or a quarry but not both. However a fort will make the marble available when it's on land. You just don't get the extra and that a quarry would give you. Still to be tested is whether it's also available when the marble is on an island as is the case here.

 

[Harbourboy]

I continue to be blown away by the depth of this analysis. And whilst everyone is contributing (well, I'm not contributing much of any value), it does seem that Misotu is the catalyst for the highest quality Geezer discussion I have ever experienced. Thanks, Misotu, for being a great addition to the Geezer family!

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Still to be tested is whether it's also available when the marble is on an island as is the case here.

Rats. It doesn't seem possible to make the marble available when it's on an island regardless of whether a fort or quarry and road is used. Perhaps someone else should try and see if they can the same results.

 

[erikthecelt]

Rats. It doesn't seem possible to make the marble available when it's on an island regardless of whether a fort or quarry and road is used. Perhaps someone else should try and see if they can the same results.

The fort would probably need a road to a city.

 

[markh]

Had a look at the save. Nice work General AgedOne.

I was about to mention that Shaka will whip until he cannot anymore if we threaten his city, but forgot. In BTS it is always better to heal your stack outside of cities cultural borders. Anyhow this way our troops got more xps.

Shwedagon Paya would be my choice, too with settling ON the marble. This city will just be a GP farm and a cottage on the plain tile will be enough.

However I would like to have two more workers. After the settler Yas can build a workboat and at least one worker. The current two workers should road towards Nobamba and pasture the horses and cows asap. Nobamba switches to working the horse tile instead of the 2f1h tile.

On reserch I agree to go full speed to Aesthetics and Lit. We could get IW and Archery for COL. Might be worth considering, although I do not see an immediate need for IW now. Once we have the next settler going for the cow site it will be more important. By then the price should have dropped more and we should get it at a cheaper price.

Hari I would switch to the cottage now to get it growing again and we benefit from the gold asap. If I see the cat is needed for the remaining cities of Shaka I will switch back. I will see this when I have scouted a little more. However I think we will have enough troops to get him down now. One cat for each of his cities should be enough. We have sufficient axes and spears. If it is only archers he can build we should be good.

 

[Misotu]

@Harbourboy: :embarrassed shuffle: Nice of you. But I think I'm probably really just the most long-winded new addition to the Geezer Family

Did I mention that I'm a bit of a micro-manager?

 

[Misotu]

However I would like to have two more workers. After the settler Yas can build a workboat and at least one worker. The current two workers should road towards Nobamba and pasture the horses and cows asap.

Sounds good. I think we could do settler-workboat-worker-monastery before Aesthetics comes on line. Once we're in Organised Religion, I think we can build the Shwedagon Paya in something like 7 turns

Nobamba switches to working the horse tile instead of the 2f1h tile.

That will be a few turns away and we already have loads of food there, so we could consider either 1f2h or a merchant to reduce the -15 deficit for 100% research down to -12? As Sam pointed out, we need to keep some gold back in case of random events & this will enable us to run 100% research for quite a few more turns.

On reserch I agree to go full speed to Aesthetics and Lit.

Are you thinking after poly/monotheism or ... ?

We could get IW and Archery for COL. Might be worth considering, although I do not see an immediate need for IW now. Once we have the next settler going for the cow site it will be more important. By then the price should have dropped more and we should get it at a cheaper price.

I agree that IW doesn't seem urgent and I'd be reluctant to trade CoL for it, given that we could self-research in 3 turns. What do you think about erikthecelt's idea of taking the third city then trading IW plus whatever else we can get from Shaka in exchange for (very temporary ) peace?

Hari I would switch to the cottage now to get it growing again and we benefit from the gold asap.

Are you planning to work the mine too? Or keep a scientist?

What do you think about going for The Parthenon in Ulundi?

Playing this turn Friday or the weekend seems quite soon enough to me and will give The-Hawk a chance to comment, plus more time for the rest of us to reflect. We're at quite a pivotal point (just for a change )

 

[markh]

Hari : I would just switch the citizen from the mined hill to the cottaged tile. It grows with 1 surplus food. We can take the science a little down once we have Aesthetics and Lit. I would keep science as high as possible for the moment.

Nobamba : The horses are 1f2h. I am a fan of getting cities to the happy limit and then switch to specialists. We already have Hari keeping as a small city. For my taste this is enough. Nobamba will be great once the cows and horses are pastured. Hopefully during my set.

Research : I would go Aest, Poly, Mono, Lit. Let's start Shwedagon Paya asap.

I would like to get rid of Shaka asap. I would not like to have him sitting around with a city, but I will check a possible trade for IW once he is down to one city and I will stop then if he would make the deal, so we can discuss here.

Panthenon in Ulundi sounds good. Nobamba can take over settler production once it has grown and works the best tiles.

 

[Harbourboy]

Can someone please explain why they love Shedwagon Paya so much? Aren't we going to be using Organised Religion to help build the wonders anyway? Why do we need to unlock Theocracy and Pacifism so early?

Other than the fact that we need as many wonders as possible, why is this particular one such a high priority?

 

[erikthecelt]

Can someone please explain why they love Shedwagon Paya so much? Aren't we going to be using Organised Religion to help build the wonders anyway? Why do we need to unlock Theocracy and Pacifism so early?

Other than the fact that we need as many wonders as possible, why is this particular one such a high priority?

We have gold hooked up already for the 100% bonus, so it's quick to build.
It adds Prophet points in the city where we are trying get a GProphet.

Angkor Wat would be better but we need to research Philo for that.

I don't like the idea of turning Ulundi into a production city or building the Parthenon there. With the National Park, it will be able to support 20 specialists, with NE and Pacifism that 182 gp points per turn, 212 if we have Parthenon somewhere, plus the gold or beakers. It will support 6 specialists before the NP.

I would prefer chopping the forests for Nobamba for the Parthenon once we settle the marble.

 

[Misotu]

I don't like the idea of turning Ulundi into a production city or building the Parthenon there. With the National Park, it will be able to support 20 specialists, with NE and Pacifism that 182 gp points per turn, 212 if we have Parthenon somewhere, plus the gold or beakers. It will support 6 specialists before the NP.I would prefer chopping the forests for Nobamba for the Parthenon once we settle the marble.

When you put it like that, it does sound tempting ... Oh lord.

I'm just looking at the cities we know we're probably going to have (and maybe the next 2 Shaka cities might change the outlook). In order to build as many Wonders as possible and reduce the number we'd need to conquer later, I think we need a minimum of two really good early production cities. Yas is obviously one. Marble City, Hari and Stone City are all out. That leaves:

Ulundi: Copper 6 4 mines 12 1 plains forest 2 Total: 20
Nobamba: Horse 4 cow 3 1 mine 3 2 plains 4 Total: 15
Iron City: Cow 3 ivory 3 mine 3 2 plains 4 Total: 13

(Hope I've counted right - senility tends to kick in at these times )

Iron City is out as we're making that our cottage city so we won't be wanting to work plains forest tiles and mine.
Ulundi will have 20 hammers after chopping the forest on those 4 hills, plus a load of 2f1h tiles if we are really pressed for a few extra hammers occasionally.
Nobamba will only have 10 hammers after chopping the 4 available forests to rush The Parthenon. I just don't feel that it's a good enough production city for what we're trying to do.

So what I'm thinking is that Ulundi is really the only viable long-term second production city.

On the other hand, can't we do both things in Ulundi? Great GP farm and great production? I haven't played a long enough game in BtS yet to use the National Park, so apologies if I'm getting anything wrong here, but as I understand it, you get an extra specialist per forest preserve and it requires Biology - which is pretty late-game. So although it will have fantastic GP points then, there might be a limit as to how we can deploy them to contribute to our Wonder score.

If we make Ulundi our early second Wonder city, we probably only need to mine those 4 hills, (which also gives us 4 chops for the Parthenon), which would mean that we would still have 10 forests left. That's only 4 specialists fewer when the National Park arrives, which doesn't seem critical really? I'm thinking that those early mines and terrific production at this stage in the game should be worth more than 4 extra specialists post-Biology? Also, in terms of GP production, the Wonders we will build in Ulundi will generate a load of earlier GP points, which might be more useful.

When there is no Wonder being built in Ulundi, we can stop working the mines/copper and run extra specialists. With all that food - and the production to build things like the National Epic very fast - surely it's still a great GP farm?

We might be over-estimating the GP points we'll get from the National Park a bit - we need Scientific Method for biology, so the Parthenon becomes obsolete. The other thing is that, given the number of Wonders we have to build, we might be running organised religion rather than pacifism pretty much all the way through the game?

 

[Misotu]

Hari : I would just switch the citizen from the mined hill to the cottaged tile. It grows with 1 surplus food. We can take the science a little down once we have Aesthetics and Lit. I would keep science as high as possible for the moment.

But if we lose the 2 scientists then Hari grows faster, the worker builds in 5 and we don't get our target techs more slowly - Poly still 2 or Aesthetics still 5 as long as we run 100% science. OTOH if we keep the 2 scientists and work the cottage, the worker takes 20 turns.

Nobamba : The horses are 1f2h.

oops. So they are

I am a fan of getting cities to the happy limit and then switch to specialists. We already have Hari keeping as a small city.

Me and erikthecelt are saying lose the specialists in Hari Then I'm saying gain a merchant in Nobamba to reduce deficit to -12/turn for the cost of only 1f/2h (and work horse as soon as it's actually pastured of course to get the courthouse quickly). I'm in a minority of one on this though

Research : I would go Aest, Poly, Mono, Lit. Let's start Shwedagon Paya asap.

We would get the great prophet a bit earlier this way, that's true.

 

[erikthecelt]

My thinking has been that we run a conquest style game. keeping any cities with Wonders and razing most of the rest. After eliminating most of the AI, we focus on tech until we have reached the peak of the wonder curve.

The GP production is meant to happen late in the game when we have corporation (biology comes fairly close in most of my games). By running GA we would actually be able to increase the GP points being generated. 4 Golden Ages strung together with the help of the Mausoleum will let us rush a lot of wonders at the end of the game. At the same time we can switch between OR and Pacifism without cost. I expect we will get the free GM, GS and GE from research so early on, we only need Prophet points. Later in the game a large specialist force will let us grab all of the corporations.

That said, the mining of the hills around Ulundi will help the conquest.

I think we probably should not be trying to build so many of the early wonders by our selves.

Which city is going to have Heroic Epic? Yas or Ulundi? Will we put Oxford in the Iron (hopefully) city