SGOTM 08 - Geezers

[markh]

I do not think we have a big chance on The Great Lighthouse which is pity with all our coastal cities . Usually it is built around this time. Ulundi should concentrate getting The Panthenon

 

[Harbourboy]

Nice idea on having the strategy on the first page. I can never figure out what we have agreed on.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

We have Iron where we expected it.

I obviously didn't read the earlier posts well enough. I expected the iron to be on the grassland to the south. Presumably there's another resource there.

I'm surprised that we didn't pillage that copper under Bulawayo to deny it to Shaka. It also brings in a few which never hurts. I think it's worth sending a unit back to do this.

EDIT: I see our UU is now available.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Do we want to go for Parthenon or G. Lighthouse in Ulundi??? I would like to go lighthouse but I know both Hawk and Misotu want the Parthenon so anyone else have a preference?

The GL would be nice. However I suspect mark is right and it will fall shortly.

We should have 1 axe exploring south and another going west.

Scouting south is understandable and definitely overdue. By west do you mean into Shaka's lands?

EDIT: Having checked the save again I now realise what you meant by west. Doh!

Latest file, it now has three tabs, World Wonders, National/Shrine/Corporations and Cities.
View attachment 191138

Please let me know of any other additions or mdoifications.

I've updated post #3.

Second, for each required GP, can we also list a target city?

I don't recall seeing this in the spreadsheet.

 

[markh]

I'm surprised that we didn't pillage that copper under Bulawayo to deny it to Shaka. It also brings in a few which never hurts. I think it's worth sending a unit back to do this.

Now I am confused. We have razed Bulawayo, so the copper mine is gone with it.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Now I am confused. We have razed Bulawayo, so the copper mine is gone with it.

I've double checked the save and it shows a mine there. I assume that it was previously mined, perhaps whilst in Ulundi's cultural influence before it changed hands, and subsequently settled by Shaka. Scratch that. It's obviously too early in the morning. You're right and I was wrong.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Checking the roster I've just realised I'm up next. Any thoughts on the way ahead?

Btw I'll mark Thrallia as skipped until we hear from him again.

 

[AgedOne]

I'm in the familiar position of having to catch up umpteen posts after a day busy with family things. Such a chatty bunch, the Geezers!

Looking at the latest save. Another productive turnset. cpt markh

A few thoughts:
We are just about to found Iron-cow city. (like the way the iron prediction turned out ). At that point I imagine we will start losing gold faster than our current 2 per turn. Are we going to MM our cities to max commerce to counter this? I guess we'll still have numerous turns before we run out of gold, but a lot fewer than the 70 turns we're looking at right now.

Is the aim to make Hari our shrineville? We're not generating Gt Profs in Hari, but in Yas (as has already been commented on) but the next one isn't due for 30 turns. But! Of course Shewdagon Paya is due in 8 and will add +2 GP points. OK. That's better than I thought Excuse me while I think aloud during posts.

We are exploring by sea with our WB to the north. Are we planning to use our galley for exploration also? Or is it to be used more cautiously for defence against barb pillagers. I would say explore with it. Yas can produce another one in 1 turn if needed.

Exploration of our continent is another priority. I want to see Joao's lands and we can make decisions about our future treatment of him. I notice his power rating is virtually the same as ours.

With Literature due in 2, I guess we're looking to build the Gt Lib sometime? Not top priority, as we are probably first to Lit. More important to get Parthenon and Epics. Also, where would we build it? Yas is out, as that would pollute the GProf pool. Maybe Iron-Cow once it has grown?

[PS. Where is Thrallia? It's been almost a month since he was last active on CFC. Do they have a dungeon in his university?]

 

[Misotu]

Hallo - I'm in the same position as AgedOne. Loads of posts and another good turn-set. Excellent news on the tech trades and really good idea to have those first-page summary posts.

I agree with Markh on the Great Lighthouse - I don't think we'll make it, it always went very early in all of my test games. I never found a way to build it myself without missing more important Wonders. Still think the Parthenon is really important for us and we should try for this as soon as we can, because it does tend to go fairly early in most games (not always though - it's an odd one). Ulundi is the best candidate for this, as it already has quite good hammers and will grow quickly with the existing granary/lighthouse while building. Plus we will get the chops from the mines. It would be a great shame to get half-way and miss it ... I'm inclined to think building the Parthenon before the courthouse would make sense.

Maybe we should limit ourselves to two religions (Confus, Tao). This way, we might not need the extra prophet. Prophets are going to be hard to build, especially if we are going to push research (scientists). Since this is a longer game, I suspect the AI’s will eventually build the shrines for us.

I absolutely agree with this - Yas is our best wonder-builder and it will really make things hard for us if we're trying not to pollute the prophets throughout the mid-game. We can't leave ourselves too much to do in the late game, conquest-wise, so we should try to build as many Wonders ourselves as we reasonably can and that does mean using Yas.

In long-term plans for cities, can we put Ulundi down as "2nd production city and GP farm"?

Just wondering about monotheism for organised religion, especially now we've researched polytheism. I know it costs us a turn to switch, but if we're trying to build Shwedagon/Great Library/Parthenon in the shortish term, the 25% boost to hammers might be worth having? Or do we just go Pacifism as soon as we get the Shwedagon and hope to build the Wonders anyway?

PS: If we're not going OR at all & our objective is max tech, can we knock out that monastery in Yas after the Shwedagon to enable us to build missionaries & also provide 10% research boost?

 

[The-Hawk]

Looks good Mark.

I think I would have settled stone before iron, or else built another settler before Shwedagon. Maybe we can get a settler into the queue on one of our cities next (Hari?).

One other thought for your turn Sam... we have a confusian missionary sleeping in Yaso. Let's send him over to the west. I'd like to send him south with our scouting axeman so he can get Joao to switch. Might as well be friends with Joao.

Still think the Parthenon is really important for us and we should try for this as soon as we can, because it does tend to go fairly early in most games (not always though - it's an odd one). Ulundi is the best candidate for this, as it already has quite good hammers and will grow quickly with the existing granary/lighthouse while building. Plus we will get the chops from the mines. It would be a great shame to get half-way and miss it ... I'm inclined to think building the Parthenon before the courthouse would make sense.

I think this idea has merit. Ulundi maintenance is not killing us. Parthenon is huge. Once we get our prophets out of the way, we can get the rest of our corporation GP's from caste system (and the GE from fusion). Let's switch to Parthenon. The city pop grows in one turn, get him working the copper. A worker can chop out a mine while it grows again.

Parthenon might mean we can build some scientists along the way. Some early bulbing might be huge. For example, I would like to follow the current prophet in Yaso with a scientist and bulb Philo. In my experience, if we can grab Philo before others are building it, we can stretch out Liberalism for a better tech.

In long-term plans for cities, can we put Ulundi down as "2nd production city and GP farm"?

Yes, I think this is right.

Just wondering about monotheism for organised religion, especially now we've researched polytheism. I know it costs us a turn to switch, but if we're trying to build Shwedagon/Great Library/Parthenon in the shortish term, the 25% boost to hammers might be worth having? Or do we just go Pacifism as soon as we get the Shwedagon and hope to build the Wonders anyway?

I would go OR. We will want to spread confusianism, but don't want to force Yaso to build them (Yaso will be building wonders).

PS: If we're not going OR at all & our objective is max tech, can we knock out that monastery in Yas after the Shwedagon to enable us to build missionaries & also provide 10% research boost?

I'm OK with monastery even if we stay on OR for a while.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

For example, I would like to follow the current prophet in Yaso with a scientist and bulb Philo.

Cue erik spluttering into his drink as his strong preference not to pollute the GP pool in Yas is ignored. Surely it would be better to rehire a scientist in Hari instead if we want a GS?

On the subject of prophet points I'll mention Moai Statues as that generates prophet points and Yas should be able to knock it out fairly fast. Where do we want to build the GLib? It looks like Ulundi will be the GA city with the Parthenon.

I think I would have settled stone before iron, or else built another settler before Shwedagon.

We haven't settled Iron city yet so we could still go for Stone city first although I'll need to build a MP for the city as we'll still need the warrior to fogbust.

I was going to raise the subject of research. Since Mono has been mentioned what about Mono->Monarchy or would Mono->MC be better?

 

[Harbourboy]

What a shame we can get Ballista Elephants but there are no obvious targets to use them on. Where are Cyrus and Genghis when you need them? Elephants do have a reasonably long life (in more ways than one) so hopefully we get a chance to unleash them at some point.

 

[erikthecelt]

Cue erik spluttering into his drink as his strong preference not to pollute the GP pool in Yas is ignored. Surely it would be better to rehire a scientist in Hari instead if we want a GS?

Well, the scientists can be fired for the next GP so it's not really polluting. We can build Ankor Wat in Yas after Philo, so with 4 priests + the wonders, the next prophet will come.

With Shewydagon, it makes no sense to reasearch Mono. We will have access to OR anyway.

Moai is wasted on Yas otherwise I would agree. As we seem to think that shrines will be made available by the ever intelligent AI, I guess we are not going to worry about making certain that we get all of the possible shrines.

I don't see the urgency for settling the stone. As Misotu has pointed out, there are no Joao cultural borders there and there is no way to sail around the southern edge, that island will be available for some time.

Given that we have prioritized the economy, I think getting our major commerce city up and runing is more important. I would settle the cow and let Yas produce settler and worker after Shweydagon. If Hari is going to hire the scientist, then the settler will have to come from somewhere else.

Ein Prosit (It's both Octoberfest and Thanksgiving here this weekend)

 

[Sam_Yeager]

• Send axe to explore west. The axe can then head down to the south. Finish cat in Hari and then build worker.
• DoW Shaka when peace treaty ends and move into his lands. This will be towards the end of my turnset so the next player up will have the job of eliminating Shaka.
• Found Iron city 1W of cows.
• Switch Ulundi to Parthenon.
• Send missionary around to Nobamba so that it can head south with escort.
• Continue scouting with WB.
• Finish Literature. Research TBD. Could be one of Mono, Monarchy, MC or Compass afterwards.
• Pasture cows south of Nobamba and by Iron city. Mine iron afterwards
• Any other ideas?

I tend to be a bit short of time on Monday evenings so I'll probably play on Tuesday evening.

 

[erikthecelt]

MC for Colosus
Calendar for Mausoleum

I like both.

 

[The-Hawk]

Cue erik spluttering into his drink as his strong preference not to pollute the GP pool in Yas is ignored. Surely it would be better to rehire a scientist in Hari instead if we want a GS?

OK, I was not very clear. My thought was we hire a sci spec back in Hari and MM so that Hari pops a GS before Yaso finished the second GP.

I don't see the urgency for settling the stone. As Misotu has pointed out, there are no Joao cultural borders there and there is no way to sail around the southern edge, that island will be available for some time.

Given that we have prioritized the economy, I think getting our major commerce city up and runing is more important. I would settle the cow and let Yas produce settler and worker after Shweydagon.

Yes, maybe you are right about the stone being safe. Will take Joao forever to get a boat around there. Would be nice to get our cottage city started.

 

[Misotu]

With Shewydagon, it makes no sense to reasearch Mono. We will have access to OR anyway.

Oh yeah

@Sam_Yeager - on the draft turnset plan, looks good. We have 4 workers - the one at Yas can mine that hill & then go to help at Cow City. Worker already there should build a road to connect city before pasturing cows & going to iron. I think the 2 at Nobamba should split up - one to pasture Nobamba cows and the other to start the mine on the river/forest/grassland hill square south of Ulundi, so that we can build hammers at Ulundi asap. Once the cows at Nobamba are pastured, that worker can go to help with the hill mines at Ulundi.

No strong feelings about next tech - I quite like metal casting for forges and we should be able to get the Colossus if we go for it early.

 

[Harbourboy]

I'm happy with that general plan, although it would be good to agree on the upcoming tech path. The AI tends to research calendar pretty quickly so sometimes it can be a good one to get in a trade, but that depends on how long we think it will be before we find enough people to trade with.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

• Send axe to explore west. The axe can then head down to the south together with missionary. Finish cat in Hari and then build worker.
• Send missionary around to Nobamba to link up with axe.
• DoW Shaka when peace treaty ends and move into his lands. This will be towards the end of my turnset so the next player up will have the job of eliminating Shaka.
• Found Iron city 1W of cows.
• Switch Ulundi to Parthenon. Start settler or worker in Yas after Shwedagon Paya?
• Continue scouting with WB.
• Finish Literature. I've made an executive decision to head for MC next.
• Workers: Mine hill by Yas and then head to Iron city. Build road to Iron city. Pasture cows south of Nobamba and by Iron city. Mine hill south of Ulundi. Mine iron afterwards
• Any other ideas?

Nobody has posted ideas on where to build GLib so I'll ignore it for the time being. I'll play on Tuesday evening.

As an aside I had forgotten we've already had two GS born. One to bulb Maths & the other for the academy.

 

[erikthecelt]

You have not said this, so just so we are sure, when you DOW Shaka, have all of our troops on the border. GLib can go anywhere you can chop rush it except Yas.