SGOTM 09 - Team CFR

I think that we can get several contacts with Airship. May be they will be unrevealed for our neighbours. And it will be possible to trade and retrade techs for a while. That's why I think that Alpha is the primary target. I also think that we should consider about building airship as soon as possible without reasonable harm for expansion and growth ofc.
 
The land around the capital is very low on food, mostly plains. The only green tiles are along the western coast, but the cities there would be threatened by the barbs. So it looks like we should focus strongly on capital's growth rather then settling more cities, that won't be able to grow big before biology. I would say get capital to max size with all forest reserves built ASAP.
 
New test save.

We have Caesar instead of Babylon. During the 11 turns passed barbs have built 6 warriors. Check out the barb galleys - homing for the closest maritime AI?
 

Attachments

Gyathar said in the maintenance thread that he didn't give any units or techs to the barbs. So they cannot have galleys before they get sailing. Founding the cows/clams city should be more or less safe.
 
Made a test for 2-pop start - Oracle 1300BC, rather late. Inet is offline at home, posting only now from work

Worker: 2 farms, windmill, road on windmill hill and northern corn, windmill near Athens, preserve near Athens

Athens: warrior + grow to 2, settler, worker 2, settler, grow on warrior to 5, settler, Library (finished 1 turn before Oracle, can get 1st GS in Athens)

Worker 2: road SW from Athens (saves settler 1 turn), windmill on plains hill SE from marble, sheep, finish road Athens-Corinth

Sparta: fishing boat on wmill + grow to pop 2, warrior, worker 3, warrior (waiting for Wri), Library

Corinth: 1 turn on warrior prebuild in case of emergency waiting for Phood, then Oracle using windmill tile or switching to sheep (delays by 1 turn – finished 1300BC – rather late)

Techs: AH, Myst, Medi, Phood, Masonry, Wri, Alpha (unfinished)

In my game barbs captured Djenne from Mali. I believe they were homing for nearest maritime city – Rome, but then Mali founded Djenne which was on the way.

By 1300 BC AI archers start to pop – we must not ignore our defenses. I planted 4th city in 1300 BC at cow-corn-3wines location.
 

Attachments

A bit on Hammurabi personality:
Despite Aggressive trait, he’s rather peaceful (iBasePeaceWeight 8 while Gandhi has 10, Genghis 0) vs other peaceful AI, but neutral vs Human (iBaseAttitude 0). Same time, iWarmongerRespect 1 – he loves everybody :)
Rather fond of Wonders (iWonderConstructRand 40 – one of the tops).
Average on Espionage
Not a great tech trader = needs 40% of known AI have the tech to trade it away, will stop trading techs after you purchase rounddown[10*1,35 (difficulty level adjustment)] = 13 techs from other AI. It decays, 1 trade a 100 turns on average - too slow for Quick.

Is less likely to declare war on non-neighbour.
Likely to join the war on his own, without bribing, to kick the loser.
Likely to declare a small war (steal couple of workers and a town) if you refuse a demand.
Will not raze captured cities
Likes to build units, especially city defenders – still lesser chances of getting him with rush

Has no hidden diplo negatives if you’re higher in score rank
Has average hidden pluses if he’s higher in rank
Moderately pissed off with closed borders
Maximum diplo + for same religion = 6 (7, if he’s a founder)
Maximum diplo - from different religion = 6 (7, if he’s a founder)
Maximum diplo + for Favorite Civic (Bureaucracy, yay!) = 4

Trades techs at Cautious+
Trades strategic resources at Pleased + (thus might be subject to the bug, I think it wasn’t fixed in HoF mod – that the code believes it’s always Cautious, and you’ll never get a trade)
Trades health and happiness resources at Cautious+
Will refuse declaring war on others if he isn’t Pleased with us and at least Annoyed with them
Will not consider stop trading with others requests if is Cautious with them
Will change civics and religion on request if Pleased with us (might be subject to same bug)
Open borders at Cautious
DefPact, PermAlliance and willingly Vassalizes at Friendly

While researching, prefers high-cultural-flavored techs (likely to be first to Music, after Writing will likely go for Aesthetics and Literature)

Will not declare war on his own if Pleased

Favorite improvements: farm and windmill – good choice for this map
 
Settler on size 2 isn't effective. Only 1 turn earlier then at size 3 but Worker at same turn and loss 1 or 2 turns of Windmill using. Next Worker/Settler are more effective on size 3 too.
 
Perhaps, as we build 2 settlers and worker before growing. I will test growth to pop 3 this evening the same way.
 
Oracle at 1300BC at monarch is safe at monarch IMO. I would actually prefer to build it later, after getting Alphabet. We should at least be able to trade for mysticism, and if we are lucky we can even get meditation ot polytheism. Faster Alphabet also allows us to get both pottery and AH early.

This game is quite different from standard: the land around the capital is quite poor, while the capital itself is excellent and we have no happiness/health problems. So we should focus more on capital's growth then on REXing.

Here are some suggestions:

* The capital needs a granary ASAP. Build two settlers + granary, not three settlers. This means researching pottery->writing instead of AH->writing. But if we beeline Alphabet and use northern fish as our second city we can trade for AH on time.

* The Oracle should be built in the capital. It should be growing, not building workers/settlers, but while growing it produces lots of hammers, that we should invest into something usefull.

* Capital needs an academy ASAP. We can do two things: build a library in the northern fish city (start building it after a workboat), or use the capital's library. In the first case we further speed up capital's growth, in the second case we can use northern city for building workers/settlers. I am not sure which way is better.

* The marble city is very weak in the long term, so it doesn't need any buildings. But it can be used as a decent worker/settler factory during our REX phase.

* We should consider not founding the marble city at all, but expanding southwards instead. If 1N of cows is dangerous because of the barbs, we can settle 1N,1NW of the cows. That gets us the cow, 8 green tiles (2 of them shared with Athens), 2 wines on plains, uranium mine (as good as a windmill on plains hill), lots of forests.
 
As tests showed, we can get AI build Oracle as fast as 2000BC giving him gold and marble, so 1300 is no guarantee. Still, can't see much what we can do here.

Note we can hardly insert granaries in the building queues anywhere in first three cities before Alpha, so no Pottery. However, I agree with Obormot we can delay AH to trade it from Alpha as one can use only plains hill windmill and get Oracle 1 turn earlier in my run (having 1 pop less in Corinth). And you still need researching yourself Masonry and Medi and Phood (with almost certainty). So I'll try going Myst-Medi-Phood-Masonry-Wri-Alpha this time as well as growing to pop 3, and later trade for AH and Pottery.

Obormot, please make your test so that we can compare.
 
I prefer researching Pottery->Writing->Alphabet, then trade for AH, Mysticism, Mining, BW. If have a really good trading partner like Mansa we'll also get Masonry and/or Meditation/Polytheism. If not research Polytheism, Masonry, Priesthood. But yes, this may put Oracle in danger.

It is better to research Polytheism, not Meditation, becaouse it leads to Monotheism. We can then make a double or tripple revolt which still costs one turn at quick.
 
Yes, it's good to revolt to Her,Buro,Slav,Org in 1 turn. Next revolt to Rep,Cast,Pac already after NatPark and with GA.
 
If we drop out AH, I believe we have time to get Poly instead of Medi while waiting for settler - that is, if we build marble city.
 
I tried the test game.

Built warrior and let capital grow to size 3, then built settler (north city), worker, settler (for marble city). After that capital focused on growth and built granary, library, Oracle. It also produced several more workers when it didn't have enough improved tiles to work.

Northern city built workboat then library and then stayed at size 4 building workers and keeping 2 scientists.

Marble city produced several MP warriors as it grew to size 3, then switched to workers/settlers and stayed at size 2 working sheep and windmill.

Researched Pottery, Writing, Alphabet, traded for Mysticism, Mining, BW, AH, Archery, IW. I could get Polytheism from Mansa, but I didn't because it is a test game, and we may not have Mansa as a trading partner in the real game. So I researched Polytheism, Priesthood, Masonry.

At 960BC the city sizes are 11,4,2, we have 6 workers and 4 warriors. Athens has granary, library, academy; Sparta has library.

I continued playing up to 400BC, discovered CS and Monotheism and made a triple revolt to slavery+bureaucracy+org. religion. Settled two more cities and almost built a settler for the 6th one. City sizes are 16,4,2,2,1. We have 9 workers, 3 archers, 4 warriors, 1 airship. We founded confucianism and have it in all our cities except one. We also got a 2nd GS, that can be used to speed up Education. Our 5th and 6th cities might not be developing fast enough to build libraries and univercities quickly, but we may use some forest chopping for a faster Oxford.
 

Attachments

Obormot, Why Fish City still size 4 in 400BC? After Workers build FPreserves between Capital and Fish city it can grow further.
 
It could grow, but it didn't have enough good tiles to work. Capital took all the tiles. Perhaps I could build even more workers to build preserves on remaining forests, but that is only 1-2 citizens, and then it needs a lighthouse to work coast (and that is only 2 coins per citizens). I decided that it would be better to generate another GS in that city to bulb Education rather then invest hammers into lighthouse (and running 2 scientists leaves the city with just 1 fpt). With slavery the city can pop-rush granary & lighthouse and regrow very quickly.
 
Tried my stated above plan of Wri vs Phood, got Oracle in marble city on 1420BC, but Writing only in 1720BC, which will delay Academy and techtrades. Will need to think this over.
 
With Alphabet even without trading for all religious techs we can build Oracle in 1000BC in Capital and 840BC in Marble City. Tomorrow I will try some other optimizations.
 
Well, 840BC is too late IMO, but 1000BC is OK, I think. Not perfectly safe, but reasonably safe. And I see nothing wrong with building the Oracle in the capital. We only need our first and maybe second GP to be 100% scientists (for academy and perhaps for bulbing Education). And the fish city can take care of that. After that getting a prophet may actually be a good thing, as we need different kinds of GP for multiple golden ages.
 
I made some test with Oracle in the Capital optimization. With self-researching Myst-Medi-Priest-Masonry it's possible to build Oracle in 1040BC (Capital has negative food for 2 turns but without starvation) or very comfortable in 1000BC. I use Size 3 Settler-Worker-Worker-Settler-Granary-Library-Oracle sequence in the Capital. 3d Worker before Settler increases science a little bit and Capital always has reserve for happiness. For this strategy we shoul not lost our Scout, find at least 1 additional AI and trade for Bronze or Archery near 1000BC for produsing defence for southern cities.
 
Back
Top Bottom