SGOTM 09 - Fifth Element

Simon_c · May 3, 2009

Is it worth hanging on the GSci until we're ready to decide to bulb edu or not.
if we have AIs with WHEOOH, then bulb edu to get defensive paras that 8-10 turns earlier.

If we're clear, then settle then.

If we get a GEng, then we must save him.

If we get a GSpy, and we've got the Pyramids, then I'd consider settling, but happy to GA now, or later.

Mesix · May 3, 2009

Settle GS as soon as he pops.

greatbeyond · May 3, 2009

I'll address the suggestions made so far and then check back this evening before playing. That way we'll have a chance for further input.

Research: no changes, No LBing

Civics: no changes

Builds:
LP - Pyramids (3T), Anarchy (1T), Settler (1T), Airport (5T), Settler (1T)
The original means: Site E can be settled on T79 (next TS) and Site D settled
on T82 with appropriate
Escort sent ahead and using one of the other Workers to assist in getting the
road completed.
If we do an Airport first, the settle dates will be T82 and T84.
If we do one Settler then Airport, the Settler, our dates are: T79 and T81

Athens - Forge (4T, after growing to Pop 4 and working Marble)
"Worker, please when
we hit s.4"
Granary (5T, to promote faster growth)"OK, but see
above"

Sparta - change from CH to Archer (3T) send current Archer ahead to secure
Site E

New cities should have a granary first. Look at the maintenance costs for
Sparta. It does not pay yet to have a CH. FAster growth is more valuable.

Exploration - NC
City MM - NC Until we get close to the Happy cap (12) continue to run 1 Eng and 1 Scientist (growth in 7, use new citizen for 2nd Scientist)
Trading - NC
Demands - NC except giving Joao PH

Great People -
Settle the GS right away.
We could save a GSpy until we settle our 5th city. I would not wait until Liberalism.

GE: Hoarding a GE for at least 50+ turns is not the best use of him. Unless we are goiing to use him to speed the U of S (see below) he will not be ready to hurry the HG or Colossus until probably the next TS.

At some point Are we going to switch to Judaism to keep Hammi happy? Whether we do that or adopt Confucianism it would make the U of S worth it. IF we are NOT going to have a State Religion, then U of S isn't nearly as important. This is an important point. I am thinking after we are secure in defense against Hammi and Joao, a religion may help quite a bit.

Wonders -

U of S, see above.
Colossus - I would not build the Colossus in LP. It can be done in 3T but will use up one of our Wonders allowed.
HG - It depends on how quickly we got our Aquaduct completed
CI - I think we can disregard this.

Worker actions -

W1 finish Wheat, Road between Sparta and Site E, then go to Cows.
W2 &W3 - Finish chop, the help road to Sparta and Sites E and D.
W4 - NC

No criticism seen, good analysis. We have slightly different opinions on some points but that's what we pre plan and discuss for.

In cases where there's changes, please make your opinions known. If there isn't a clear consensus, I'll use my best judgment as the TS develops.

BLubmuz · May 3, 2009

GB: You posted

Civics: no changes

there's a misunderstanding: i meant revolt only to Rep.

Religion
revolt to Judaism would keep Hammu happy. And the Buddist Joao? he's the main threat, trust me.
Anyway no one of us wants lose 1 turn.

HG sure, i'd like to have it. But we can build only in LP, which is busy with settlers.
For the Colossus we can wait and see.

Great People: OK for the GS, if GSpy let's wait your report, then we'll discuss.
But A GAge without MoM and with only 3-4 cities is a waste, IMO.

New cities should have a granary first. Look at the maintenance costs for
Sparta. It does not pay yet to have a CH. FAster growth is more valuable.

Wait to see when we'll have all our cities up. You'll agree with CH first.

GE: Hoarding a GE for at least 50+ turns is not the best use of him. Unless we are goiing to use him to speed the U of S (see below) he will not be ready to hurry the HG or Colossus until probably the next TS.

The GEs are precious. I don't care to keep one or even 2 of them idle for some dozen turns. If he's the only one we'll pop, he's our ONLY chance for Mining Inc. If we're so lucky to pop 2, one of them can build over an half of the SoL. No other wonder is worth a GE.

We seem to be synched for the rest.

Airport before settlers: as you noted, we lose 3 turns for the first one and only 2 for the second. If you add that we'll save some 3-4 turns for the third and more 2 for the 4th, you see that the airport first is better. Even not considering we need it for the war, to airlift Xbows in the new cities and the additional TR.

unclethrill · May 3, 2009

BLubmuz said:
GB: You posted there's a misunderstanding: i meant revolt only to Rep.

This was the only correction I was gonna make. Otherwise it looks great.

Sweetacshon · May 3, 2009

If we do an Airport first, the settle dates will be T82 and T84.
If we do one Settler then Airport, the Settler, our dates are: T79 and T81

The second option does look good.... as long as we keep an eye on Hammi's hands.

Also, another worker after the forge would be good. I think I'm also in the "save the GE" camp. Not keen for any religion anarchy, but would consider it in a GA. We still have a confu missionary, right? All looks good.

BLubmuz · May 4, 2009

Sweetacshon said:
The second option does look good.... as long as we keep an eye on Hammi's hands.
Yes, looks good to me too. I misread yesterday.

Also, another worker after the forge would be good. I think I'm also in the "save the GE" camp. Not keen for any religion anarchy, but would consider it in a GA. We still have a confu missionary, right? All looks good.

Not only on Hammu. Watch Joao, too.

greatbeyond · May 4, 2009

TS completed

The Save:http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm9/Fifth_Element_SG009_AD0080_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

Highlights
GSpy born
Pyramids completed
Meet Shaka
Discover Atlantis
Minor trades of PH
Two minor demands

Turn Log:

Spoiler :

I'll add my comments and screen shots in a couple of hours

greatbeyond · May 4, 2009

I actually ended my TS at the start of T78. No units have been moved and nothing else was done.

The Settler needs to be moved onto Site E this turn and settle next.
I id have to change the production for Sparta to a XB after the Archer. We'll have to use XBx for escorts as Barb Axes and Swords are freely roaming the area. At the end of my turn there are also Barb Horse Archers. We may have to build a Spear and send Spear/XB pairs for Settler escorts. I used the Airship to bomb a nearby Archer to ensure our Archer's survival.

Workers will need to be given orders

We circumnavigated the world.

Traded PH to WK for 20G and WM, traded PH to Joao for 10G. I know it wasn't much but it beats giving it to him.
Stalin demanded Meditation which I gave him
Joao comes back and demands WM, I debated for awhile what to do and finally decided to give in, He only has contact with Hammurabi right now. We'll probably need to keep good relations with him for awhile yet.

No one would trade any techs the whole TS.

Check out the Barb city of Atlantis just off our East coast. It is already Size 23 and sits on Iron. Hmm, could that be one of Gyathaar's surprises? There seem to be lotd of Barb cities and units on the other land mass.

Mesix · May 4, 2009

I agree with your decision to keep Joao happy. I personally would have gifted him Priesthood if all it was worth was 10 gold. Gifting gives a higher diplo bonus for fair trade relations. If we can box off the northern continent and keep good relations with Joao, we may only need to DOW Hammy to get a big enough empire. If we play our cards right, we can get Joao to DOW Hammy too and have the shared war diplo bonus. Joao won't have nough units in the northern continent to take any of Hammy's cities before our Paratroopes decimate Babylon.

Sweetacshon · May 4, 2009

Atlantis is 23?! The GW is soooo worth it, even if we did get a spy. <-- grrr. I won't have time to check the save tonight, unfortunately. :sleep:

BLubmuz · May 4, 2009

GB, reading your reports it seems well done. :goodjob:

I'll take a look on the save in few hours to find something to criticize

.
My great dates in my tests were helped by great luck with the first GSs.
Not happens in the actual game.

But we can try to help our luck, with 3Sci+1Eng at work.

So, do you saved at the beginning of turn 78? The log reports until 76, but maybe nothing happens in 77.

No need to escort settlers, just fogbust should be enough: ther barbs usually go for a city, and we own the GW... with the barb city you described, we took the right decision, i think.

I think we can consider a GAge right after Lib, if we manage the MoM.

We circumnavigated the world.

Who posted something about "my stupid airship"?

Simon_c · May 4, 2009

Just looking at the save now. Atlantis looks very tough and strange.
It's walled, on a hill, seems to have the red cross in it (maybe it's just a hospital). The water tiles are producing 3 :food:

each too. Not sure how that's been done !

So, that seems to indicate the barbs have the same tech advantages we had. GB, Did you note what forces he had in there when you did your flyby in the airship ?

So, we think Joao is in the south in the fog.
Is it worth sending the GSpy down there as an invulnerable scout while he's waiting around to spark a GA ? In a normal game i would settle him for 6 :science:

and 12 EPs which will give us much better visibility on the AI. But, I expect in this game a GA will be better.

Simon_c · May 4, 2009

OK. Here's my PPP based on my thoughts. I'm expecting lots of discussion though so lots of edits. I'm also expecting it's very wrong, so lots more edits.

T77 now.

Research/techs
Education (T80). Were we then going to Detour to Calendar for MoM ? ((T83) then Philosophy (T89) Liberalism (T100, Rifling for free) (these could all go out of kilter as we will probably have to drop Sci% down)

Builds
Launchpad:
Airport (T79) Settler (T81) xbow(T83) xBow (T85). University
Athens:
Worker (T79). Granary (T85)
Bulbsville has the following queued up: xbow (T79) Court (T82) Lib(T87)

City management
Launchpad can fit one more FP to the east. Do we want that or a lunber mill ? A granary will be 2T to build, do we want to slip one in before we grow in on T84?

Athens will grow on T85 just as the granary is done which is perfect I think.
Bulbzville: Work Urainium the next turn after growth to S3. Switch to cows when they are done.

Exploration
Send the spy down south ?

Trading

demands
I can gently tell people to go to hell ? Is this some now HOF addon key combination ? Please tell me

Great People
Launchpad: T84.
Do we hire the 2nd Sci, or keep running 1 + 1 Eng to try to sprint the Geng for MiningInc ?

Wonders : Non due to finish, and I can't think of any worth starting now.

Workers:
I've named them all to make it easier (for me) to follow the discussion in future.
Worker 1: Currently building farm 2E of LP
Worker 2: Pasturing cows WWN of Bulbz,
Worker 3 & 4: Waiting in the site for the next city. Talking of which, how about Parnetha or Pindus
for the name. Both greek nationals park that have lots of forests (at least, according to wikipedia)

Sooo. I'm not very good with doing the right thing with workers, so here's my ideas.
Worker 1: after farming, moves NW to farm Grassland there for Athens. Then moves E of LP for a FP or LM
Worker 2: road the cows, and 1S of the cows. (6 turns in total)
Worker 3: road SE of new city, (3 turns)
Worker 4: road wine NE of new city (t2) on T80, let worker 3 finish road SE of city, then worker4 moves to the rice and farms. It does start farming the rice 1 turn later, but gets the wine roaded up and doesn't loose 2 worker turns moving them both into the woods. Is that work it, or just send them both that way to farm the rice as soon as they can ?
I'm guessing at least one worker then fills it's time up with FPing the forest

BLubmuz · May 4, 2009

GB, Everithing seems well done, also by looking' at the save.
Only one thing: how can you have chopped and being farming one of the precious forests of LP?
The water to Athens will arrive as i indicate in the image below. I know one farm is useless, but this would be to keep the forest for the LP.
We're almost to the happy cap (12) and this can be raised only with FPs, for awhile.

Spoiler :

At the very beginning of next TS, i recommend to stop the worker farming, hoping that the forest will regrow helped by some FP.

City placement: if this map is as it looks like, we can build Panama!
Fogbusting, i think some of the hidden tiles is coast, as i indicate. If confirmed (just move the airship in city being settled and recon S) this can be the placements:

Spoiler :

HC has Calendar. If he put it on the table, we can try to buy it with CoL
our WM, or Currency. Then build the MoM with intensive chopping in Athens, after the worker/forge.

Those 3 :food:

in the tiles around Atlantis look strange: there's any building which can do this and the only thing i can think is the Lanun Civ in FfH.
There's an Hospital, the Red Cross, the HE, ST, WP, a drydock, barracks and a Totem Pole.

BLubmuz · May 4, 2009

Simon_c said:
(...)T77 now. Yes, not 78 as GB said

Research/techs
Education (T80). Were we then going to Detour to Calendar for MoM ? ((T83) then Philosophy (T89) Liberalism (T100, Rifling for free) (these could all go out of kilter as we will probably have to drop Sci% down)Nice, but we need GP too. Let's try to see if we can trade for Calendar.
Builds
Launchpad:
Airport (T79) Settler (T81) xbow(T83) xBow (T85). University
Airport (T79) Settler (T81) xbow(T83) Settler, settler, settler
Athens:
Worker (T79). Granary (T85) Or switch to MoM if we can trade for calendar
Bulbsville has the following queued up: xbow (T79) Court (T82) Lib(T87) another thing i don't like of GB's TS. OK one less to build for LP.

City management
Launchpad can fit one more FP to the east. Do we want that or a lunber mill ? A granary will be 2T to build, do we want to slip one in before we grow in on T84?
LP will have only FPs (see my post above) Put immediately another Sci at work
Athens will grow on T85 just as the granary is done which is perfect I think.
Bulbzville: Work Urainium the next turn after growth to S3. Switch to cows when they are done.

Exploration
Send the spy down south ? No need for this, but if you like... we can use the airship once scouted the Rockies, Panama and the Eastern Island.
Trading

demands
I can gently tell people to go to hell ? Is this some now HOF addon key combination ? Please tell me No, i usually refuse in a kind way if i got the chance. Otherwise ...

Great People
Launchpad: T84.
Do we hire the 2nd Sci, or keep running 1 + 1 Eng to try to sprint the Geng for MiningInc ? See above, but running a 2nd Sci immediately next GP will pop in 6 turns.
So we can see who is by your report.
Anyway if a GS you can settle him immediately, i think the majority of us agree on this.
If a GE you know my thoughts.
Let's keep our fingers crossed to not have a GSpy.
Wonders : Non due to finish, and I can't think of any worth starting now.

Workers:
I've named them all to make it easier (for me) to follow the discussion in future.
Worker 1: Currently building farm 2E of LP
Worker 2: Pasturing cows WWN of Bulbz,
Worker 3 & 4: Waiting in the site for the next city. Talking of which, how about Parnetha or Pindus To be honest i like Sparta. But this is a decision usually to the one in charge of the TS.
for the name. Both greek nationals park that have lots of forests (at least, according to wikipedia)

Sooo. I'm not very good with doing the right thing with workers, so here's my ideas.
Worker 1: after farming, moves NW to farm Grassland there for Athens. Then moves E of LP for a FP or LM
Worker 2: road the cows, and 1S of the cows. (6 turns in total) 1SW, then a FP
Worker 3: road SE of new city, (3 turns)
Worker 4: road wine NE of new city (t2) hey, new city will be 2W of rice, right? if so you have to road the wine 1S from the city to go south on T80, let worker 3 finish road SE 2S of city, then worker4 moves to the rice and farms.OK It does start farming the rice 1 turn later, but gets the wine roaded up and doesn't loose 2 worker turns moving them both into the woods. Is that work it, or just send them both that way to farm the rice as soon as they can ? see above
I'm guessing at least one worker then fills it's time up with FPing the forest

Good details, just some minor correction

what about them?

greatbeyond · May 4, 2009

Turn # difference - Perhaps this is the game option of having Turn 0 be Turn 1 instead. IF you change it mid-game does it renumber or just continues like it was?

Barbs
Atlantis had a garrison of 8 to 10 units, Swords, Spears, Archers. No modern units. Barbs are appearing like crazy on our continent. While exploring with the Airship I saw several Axes, Archers, and Phalanx wandering the AI's territory.
I assume that the Moai Statues were built or edited into Athens. It is surrounded by seafood resources. I wouldn't be surprised if it could support a city pop of 40+. If they build the Globe it would be an awesome city. Do you think Gyathaar means to have the Barbs launch a SS?

The XB in Blubzville (sorry, I keep calling it Sparta because of the tag) is necessary to escort our next Settler to Site D. There is a Barb Sword and HA patrolling that area, as well as the one Archer I killed. I didn't want to take the risk of sending just an Archer for an escort. WE should consider building a Spear in place of the XB in LP to use with the XB for Settler escorts. Once the city is built, an Archer can take over garrison duty. I think we are going to see a Barb city pop along our east coast soon.

Irrigation near LP
I proposed two options in my PPP, the second option (which I explored in my post and discarded) is the same as you have proposed. The second option will only irrigate 1 grassland tile for Athens, and will take 10 turns or so to complete. There would be no way to irrigate the other GL tiles to the NE of Athens without irrigating the forested plains tiles. Athens desperately needs irrigated grasslands to grow. I looked at the pros and cons and decided the first option was/is superior. Even if we lose one FP in LP, the gain in Athens more than makes up for it. I think this is a key point that everyone needs to look at and make a decision.

The forest that we chopped SE of LP regrew on the very next turn.

Simons PPP

Research - Don't research Calendar. Someone will trade it. In my tests as soon as one civ gets it, the others get it very quickly and it loses it's value as a monopoly tech.

Builds -(revised) They look OK. I'm still thinking that with chopping around Athens (needed to irrigate plus outlying tiles) we can build an Aquaduct and then HG for the health and GE benefits.

GSpy - Don't send him along the roads. Either airlift him to an AI city or leave him in place. He could be airlifted (?) to one of Joao's cities and explore which leaves the Airship able to provide local aircover and bombardment of any Barb units that threaten our Settlers. Remember though, that once airlifted to an AI, he can only travel via road. We don't want the roaming Barbs taking out our GSpy.

Using the GSpy to infiltrate - It doesn't seem we've explored this option yet. It would work like this:
Airlift (If he can be airlifted) the GSpy to the AI that is most advanced and infiltrate his city. Build a Spy and use the GSpy points to steal the lower end techs, such as calendar, construction, Literature, etc...
of course this means we can't use him for a GA. I guess if we are unlucky enough to get another GSpy we could try it and keep one for a GA.
One other benefit of infiltrating the GSpy is that we'll be able to see what the AI is building and sabotage if appropriate.

Workers - if you road to the SE of city E, you make it quicker for the next Settler to get to Site D. As soon as the border pops you can do another road tile.

Mesix · May 4, 2009

Simon_c said:
Just looking at the save now. Atlantis looks very tough and strange.
It's walled, on a hill, seems to have the red cross in it (maybe it's just a hospital). The water tiles are producing 3 each too. Not sure how that's been done !

So, that seems to indicate the barbs have the same tech advantages we had. GB, Did you note what forces he had in there when you did your flyby in the airship ?

So, we think Joao is in the south in the fog.
Is it worth sending the GSpy down there as an invulnerable scout while he's waiting around to spark a GA ? In a normal game i would settle him for 6 and 12 EPs which will give us much better visibility on the AI. But, I expect in this game a GA will be better.

I just rant a test with world builder. If I place both the Lighthouse and the Trading Post (Viking UB for Lighthouse) in the city it will get +2 :food:

per tile. My guess is that Atlantis has both a Lighthouse and a Trading Post in it...probably a Dyke too giving it +1 :hammers:

. They may have given the barbarian city of Atlantis all of the buildings or at least several special buildings.

Simon_c · May 5, 2009

GSpy - Don't send him along the roads. Either airlift him to an AI city or leave him in place. He could be airlifted (?) to one of Joao's cities and explore which leaves the Airship able to provide local aircover and bombardment of any Barb units that threaten our Settlers. Remember though, that once airlifted to an AI, he can only travel via road. We don't want the roaming Barbs taking out our GSpy.

I thought GSpy's were invisible to *every* other unit, including barbs. I'll run a quick WB test. if they can be eaten by barbs, then there's no point in him scouting.

We don't know any of Joao's cities do we ? That's why I thought about sending the GSpy down there.

The workers, settler and archer are all waiting NWW of the rice, NN of the southern wine and SW of the northern wine. Let me dig out the city location dotmap, and mark them up on the game.

BLubmuz · May 5, 2009

A GSpy is invisible to any unit and can't be exposed.
He can be safely used as scout.
For scout use, i think a spy is safe too. While operating in neutral/our territory a normal spy is invisible and can't be exposed.

Usually i don't use active espionage. If we decide to infiltrate the GSpy to steal techs, we need also spies to do so. I don't know if they can be airlifted. The only AI worth this seems to be HC.

Better we do some test first, it can be worth a try.

Simon, what about that? better see the test results before you start?

SGOTM 09 - Fifth Element

Prince

Obergruppenführer

King

HoF Quattromaster

Why am I up right now?

In the foetal position

HoF Quattromaster

King

King

Obergruppenführer

In the foetal position

HoF Quattromaster

Prince

Prince

HoF Quattromaster

HoF Quattromaster

King

Obergruppenführer

Prince

HoF Quattromaster

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