SGOTM 09 - Xteam

[PaulisKhan]

I made an error in optimising the airships scouting of the NE island and possibly took an extra turn than I should have =/

Spoiler :

up to turn 52 just did what we planned including whipped granary in Delphi
Delphi and Athens both building one phalanx each (I'll explain why soon) while they grow
Direct spare workers to new cityNo city is working unimproved tiles

Atlantis

-turn 53 let Piraeus grow to pop5 as slavery unhappy wears off by switching to granary on the IBT, then switch back to worker, but now with the copper mine in play (yay!).
Turn research down to zero for one turn (we have no other cash income planned atm and our academy is about to come online, best not to waste academy turns. We need to do something about money soon though
Scout NE island, very promising land, definitely worth settling

-turn 54
phalanx built in Athens, set to worker until forest preserve completes
worker micro, boring
Complete scouting of NE Island (only a couple of fog tiles, but I didn't scout optimally the first time and we need the info the decide on where to settle)

Academy in Athens

-turn 55
phalanx built in Thebes, set to library, zero hammers invested
Worker turns completed however I have left all Phalanx and Airship turns alone so we can discuss where to move our defenders
CoL in
Confuc founded in newest city, doh, oh well. We'll make do, at least it will have the hammers to build wall street quickly if we desire.
Set research to Monarchy, zero hammers invested.

Things to do
Athens needs to finish the forest preserve and watermill that the workers are currently improving, it also needs a cottage on the corner grassland river tile. It will probably be growing constantly from now on until it reaches size 20

Pyraeus is in the process of growing to size 6, at which point it can focus on settlers.

Thebes is currently growing and working on a library, could also possibly be used to push out a settler.

Airship is ready for foreign scouting missions


The save

 

[PaulisKhan]

Atlantis is interesting, I see a totem pole, an airport, a castle(citadel?), possibly a shale plant?
I don't see the Moai statues which leads me to suspect that the city might own the unique building of each civ (minus duplicate buildings), ie a levee providing the hammers?
Is that a garden thing in there too? Hammys unique building?

Maybe it's just the unique building of each civ in the current game which could provide some clues?
WIll be interested in hearing your thoughts.

We do need to defend against those barbs though.

-edit- Damn, our score after my turnset is significantly below CFR =/
Did we miss an opportunity to spam more settlers?

 

[Frederiksberg]

Nice set PK

Damn, our score after my turnset is significantly below CFR =/
Did we miss an opportunity to spam more settlers?

Yes, CFR seems to be doing extremely well. I don't think it has anything to do with your turn set in particular. Maybe they found a better tech path? Postponing BW? Looks like we are 5 turns behind already.

Atlantis is clearly worth capturing, but we are not going to do that any time soon. An amphibious attack on a hill city against highly promoted archers is not exactly easy.

One advantage of Sparta being a holy city is that borders expand more rapidly and it will be easier to block Hammy when we settle the wine city

 

[leif erikson]

Nice work PK, your first SGOTM set under your belt!

Atlantis is looking like the rock of Gibraltar!

Roster:
rrau - UP
Cactus Pete - On Deck
DJMGator13
leif
ShannonCT
Frederiksberg
PaulisKhan - Got us a religion, Sparta and my Airship! (with a look at Atlantis)

Grover22 - Keeping a close eye!

 

[PaulisKhan]

I don't see any way to crack Atlantis before we get paratroopers, does anyone have any hairbrained schemes?
Want to worldbuild an Atlantis so we can run some simulations?

Also, notice the three food per sea tile. I wonder if we'd get to keep that? It's like the city has two lighthouses and a levee >.<

 

[ShannonCT]

Well done PK!

Airship is ready for foreign scouting missions

I'd like to run one more airship mission to the eastern island to see if we should settle multiple cities or just one. If we run the airship to the northern fur (on a hill), we should get a good view of the rest of the area.

Atlantis is interesting, I see a totem pole, an airport, a castle(citadel?), possibly a shale plant?
I don't see the Moai statues which leads me to suspect that the city might own the unique building of each civ (minus duplicate buildings), ie a levee providing the hammers?
Is that a garden thing in there too? Hammys unique building?

Maybe it's just the unique building of each civ in the current game which could provide some clues?
WIll be interested in hearing your thoughts.

I think you're on to something. Atlantis actually has:

Ikhanda (Shaka)
Dike (Willem)
Trading Post (Ragnar)
Totem Pole (Sitting Bull)
Castle
Granary
Lighthouse
Barracks
Airport
West Point
Red Cross
Heroic Epic
National Park
Globe Theater

So I guess we know who our other 4 opponents are likely to be. We should make sure we "know thy enemy" and look up the traits of these four.

Unfortunately, if we captured Atlantis, we would lose a lot of the improvements. Barracks and Ikhanda never survive capture, nor Totem Pole, nor any National Wonder. Everything else has a 66% chance of surving capture. We could try to culture flip it to keep everything, but then National Park would be wasted.

-edit- Damn, our score after my turnset is significantly below CFR =/
Did we miss an opportunity to spam more settlers?

We do need to build a couple more settlers in Athens and Piraeus in the next few turns, but I don't think that explains the score difference. I think it's highly likely that CFR and Misfits have researched Alphabet and have picked up techs like Sailing, Archery, Polytheism, Monotheism, Mining, BW, IW, etc in tech trades. That would give them ~30-40 more points. Should we research Alpha ourselves?

 

[Cactus Pete]

Well done, PK. Guessing the other teams know how likely (or unlikely) Joao and Ham are to research Alphabet. We need to find out quickly if there are any more civs nearby.

 

[leif erikson]

I'd like to run one more airship mission to the eastern island to see if we should settle multiple cities or just one. If we run the airship to the northern fur (on a hill), we should get a good view of the rest of the area.

Depending upon what we see (there is a forested hill that will probably block vision to the southeast. We could also run a mission to the tile north of the oil tile?

More on Airships below.

So I guess we know who our other 4 opponents are likely to be. We should make sure we "know thy enemy" and look up the traits of these four.

Shaka - Zulus
Aggressive - Free CBT1 for Melee and Gunpowder units, dbl speed of Ikhanda and Drydock
Expansive - +2 Health per city, 25% faster production of Worker, dbl speed Granry and Harbor
Favorite civic = Police State
Unique unit - Impi
UBuilding - Ikhanda - replaces Barracks - +3 experience, +2 happy with Nationhood, -20% maintenance

Willem - Dutch
Creative - +2 culture per city, dbl speed Library
Financial - +1 Commerce on plots with 2 or more.
Favorite civic - Free Religion
Unique Unit - East Indiaman - Carries 4 units, replaces Galleon
Unique Building - Dike - +1 Water and River tiles

My Buddy Ragnar - Vikings
Aggressive - See Shaka
Financial - See Willem
Favorite civic - Hereditary Rule
UU - Berserker - Replaces Maceman - Amphibious
UBuliding - Trading Post - Free navigation1 promo

Sitting Bull - Native Amercian
Philosophical - +100% GP birth rate, dbl speed Iniversity
Protective - Free promo to CG1 and Drill1 for Archery units and Guinpowder units
Favorite civic - Environmentalism
UU - Dog Soldier - +100% versus melee, replaces Axeman
UBuilding - Totem Pole - new Archery units receive +3 experience

Unfortunately, if we captured Atlantis, we would lose a lot of the improvements. Barracks and Ikhanda never survive capture, nor Totem Pole, nor any National Wonder. Everything else has a 66% chance of surving capture. We could try to culture flip it to keep everything, but then National Park would be wasted.

Don't see how we could flip it. Our culture will not extend beyond the first ocean tile?

We do need to build a couple more settlers in Athens and Piraeus in the next few turns, but I don't think that explains the score difference. I think it's highly likely that CFR and Misfits have researched Alphabet and have picked up techs like Sailing, Archery, Polytheism, Monotheism, Mining, BW, IW, etc in tech trades. That would give them ~30-40 more points. Should we research Alpha ourselves?

I think to make Alphabet worth more, we should consider building another Airship and sending them to Hammi's and Joao's cities to scout far and wide. In additon, we may need to hurry the city at site C in order to get a look at the land jutting out to the southeast, behind Atlantis.

 

[ShannonCT]

Depending upon what we see (there is a forested hill that will probably block vision to the southeast. We could also run a mission to the tile north of the oil tile?

Yes, the forestsed hill would block our line of sight due SE, but we've already uncovered that line of sight. If there aren't any other forested hills or peaks in the fog, scouting the northern fur hill will reveal everything we need to see.

When you use an airship to scout a hill, only forested hills and peaks can block the line of sight. And if you scout a peak, you can see over everything.

 

[PaulisKhan]

In my test game Hamm was researching Alpha at about our current turn.
However if we don't see it by the end of monarchy we may want to consider delaying math another 3-4 turns.
The problem is it's one of those techs that has a wide variance in a civs tech selection.

 

[Frederiksberg]

A couple of random thoughts after looking at the save:

• I think we should whip the library in Delphi next turn (T56) and the granary in Piraeus two turns from now (T57). Both cities will then regrow immediately and we have gained some hammers from food at a 2:1 ratio.
• The warrior SE of Sparta could go fogbusting and so could the phalanx on the windmill SW of Athens. The phalanx NE of Sparta should hurry into Sparta to protect against barbs in galleys.
• The airship could rebase to Sparta (after one more recon of the eastern island) and start mapping Babylonian territory (after first recon rebase to Babylonian city and then continue recon).
• We need 2 workers building windmills on the tundra hills around Delphi, 2 workers around Sparta, 3-4 workers in the Athens/Piraeus area and two workers roading south to our next city (probably protected by the fog busting phalanx). So we are 3 workers short. One is coming in Athens next turn and we should probably plan for building two more soon.

What about civics? Do we plan a change to HR/Caste/OR in one go? How long do we wait for an AI with Alpha and the opportunity to trade for Poly+Mono? HR is the most pressing need because happiness is limited. It would help to get the wine and the fur on the eastern island.

 

[rrau]

Hey, guys. Looking good. I can grab it and get a plan together tomorrow, but I'm leaving Friday to be out of town until sometime on Monday. That should give plenty of time for you to look over the plan.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Hey, guys. Looking good. I can grab it and get a plan together tomorrow, but I'm leaving Friday to be out of town until sometime on Monday. That should give plenty of time for you to look over the plan.

With this group, you may have some reading to do on Monday, rrau.

 

[leif erikson]

I think we should whip the library in Delphi next turn (T56) and the granary in Piraeus two turns from now (T57). Both cities will then regrow immediately and we have gained some hammers from food at a 2:1 ratio.

Sounds good. Then, once Piraeus reaches 5 again, Settler?

The warrior SE of Sparta could go fogbusting and so could the phalanx on the windmill SW of Athens. The phalanx NE of Sparta should hurry into Sparta to protect against barbs in galleys.

Not sure we should use units to fog bust? Shouldn't that Warrior be headed home for MP? We can get nearly the whole continent lit up with a couple of Airships. (Ooops, back on my soap box)

I think we need to think big on recon, with the idea in mind that we need to find other civs in order to plan and trade. For me, that means building a couple of more Airships. Can we build one in between workers in Athens?

The airship could rebase to Sparta (after one more recon of the eastern island) and start mapping Babylonian territory (after first recon rebase to Babylonian city and then continue recon).

Yes, we also need to check out Joao's area and then whatever else we may find. See above.

We need 2 workers building windmills on the tundra hills around Delphi, 2 workers around Sparta, 3-4 workers in the Athens/Piraeus area and two workers roading south to our next city (probably protected by the fog busting phalanx). So we are 3 workers short. One is coming in Athens next turn and we should probably plan for building two more soon.

We also need Settlers and Phalanx escorts. And Airships ...

How do we produce all this stuff in the most efficient way?

What about civics? Do we plan a change to HR/Caste/OR in one go? How long do we wait for an AI with Alpha and the opportunity to trade for Poly+Mono? HR is the most pressing need because happiness is limited. It would help to get the wine and the fur on the eastern island.

With all our food resources in the core, do we want to change away from Slavery so soon?

We have Wines close to home. If we intend to go to the east, we'll need Sailing. I assume to get Sailing, we'll want Alphabet?

 

[PaulisKhan]

Athens will have plenty of time to build airships in the next several turnsets while we try to grow it to pop 18-20.
Our smaller cities could be used to build MP units when we're growing them.

My one question for now is what to do with the hammers from the forests around Athens as they are cleared to make room for improvements.
Do we deposit them into settlers? In which case if our improvements are completed faster than the city grows, we can deposit enough chops to complete a settler in one turn, minimising our lost turns of growth.
Or do we save those chops for cash, or for an army, or for something else entirely?
ile we
We also may want to consider devoting both corn to Athens while we grow it and let Pyraeus stagnate.

 

[leif erikson]

Athens will have plenty of time to build airships in the next several turnsets while we try to grow it to pop 18-20.

Yes, but time is not our ally. We are in a race for space, tech development is our primary goal? I'm no space expert, but it would seem to me that the faster we meet the other civs, the more trading opportunities we may have, and may even be able to broker techs.

We are not the only ones that have Airships available. If our friendly AI's should happen to fly around, and I do not know how likely that is, and happen to acquire Alphabet, then they may trade most of the techs around before we get into the game? Seems we should be prioritizing meeting the other civs and getting our tech trade into gear? Perhaps our succession game team opponents, who show more power than we do, have already met more civs and are trading?

 

[PaulisKhan]

Sorry, I mean that we have free turns in athens to build things like airships because we can not afford to stunt its grow by growing settlers and workers there.
It was another positive reason to build airships now rather than later =)

I'm leaning towards teching alphabet after monarchy and trying to trade for math, along with everything else we need from the AI.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Yes, but time is not our ally. We are in a race for space, tech development is our primary goal? I'm no space expert, but it would seem to me that the faster we meet the other civs, the more trading opportunities we may have, and may even be able to broker techs.

We are not the only ones that have Airships available. If our friendly AI's should happen to fly around, and I do not know how likely that is, and happen to acquire Alphabet, then they may trade most of the techs around before we get into the game? Seems we should be prioritizing meeting the other civs and getting our tech trade into gear? Perhaps our succession game team opponents, who show more power than we do, have already met more civs and are trading?

I think we can do a lot of recon with the one airship we already have and it's not clear to me that we will get significant benefit from building another immediately. It looks like there is only little unexplored land near Portuguese territory so the areas west of Hammurabi is currently our best bet of finding more land with other AIs. If there are only 3 Civ's on our continent the question is if the sea separating us from other continents can be crossed by an airship. We should be able to investigate this quite soon with the airship we have if we rebase to Sparta, recon one of Hammy's cities, rebase to this city and repeat recon - possibly across ocean if Hammy is close to the western edge of our continent. So in 4 turns we may already be more informed.

Not sure we should use units to fog bust? Shouldn't that Warrior be headed home for MP? We can get nearly the whole continent lit up with a couple of Airships.

Yes, the warrior could be used for MP duty in Athens instead. The phalanx would not only be fog busting but also securing the next city site and guarding road building workers before the settler arrives. We need ground troops for city and worker defense and as MP's.

If we intend to go to the east, we'll need Sailing. I assume to get Sailing, we'll want Alphabet?

Unless an AI gets Alpha in which case we may be able to trade for Sailing with that AI. The question is how long we can wait before we must self research Alpha.

What about the Confucian missionary? Perhaps spread Confucianism to Athens just in case we want to adopt it some time later. Right now it might be better to adopt the Jewish faith in order to please Hammy (and he has a missionary on the way). I suppose we want both ourselves and Joao to become Jewish to stimulate tech trade.

 

[ShannonCT]

I think we should whip the library in Delphi next turn (T56) and the granary in Piraeus two turns from now (T57). Both cities will then regrow immediately and we have gained some hammers from food at a 2:1 ratio.

I can understand the library in Delphi. It doesn't have a third improved tile to work right now. (Let's get on that. Maybe new worker from Athens should start another windmill on a tundra hill.)

What's the goal with Piraeus? To grow it into a GP farm? Since we aren't in HR or CS yet, does Piraeus have a reason to grow right now? Maybe we should switch to workers/settlers there and whip the granary when we're ready to do something with more population. It doesn't make sense to whip a granary and then build settlers/workers.

We need 2 workers building windmills on the tundra hills around Delphi, 2 workers around Sparta, 3-4 workers in the Athens/Piraeus area and two workers roading south to our next city (probably protected by the fog busting phalanx). So we are 3 workers short. One is coming in Athens next turn and we should probably plan for building two more soon.

And we need a settler for the cow/wheat/wine site. Can we build the settler in Athens when it hits Pop8? We won't have immediate use for Pop9+ in Athens.

What about civics? Do we plan a change to HR/Caste/OR in one go? How long do we wait for an AI with Alpha and the opportunity to trade for Poly+Mono? HR is the most pressing need because happiness is limited. It would help to get the wine and the fur on the eastern island.

If we have to research Alpha ourselves, Monotheism would be 6+ turns after Monarchy. We should probably adopt HR (and Maybe CS) as soon as Monarchy is done, and adopt OR at the same time as Bureaucracy. We won't be building a lot of buildings while we research Math and Civil Service.

 

[ShannonCT]

My one question for now is what to do with the hammers from the forests around Athens as they are cleared to make room for improvements.
Do we deposit them into settlers? In which case if our improvements are completed faster than the city grows, we can deposit enough chops to complete a settler in one turn, minimising our lost turns of growth.
Or do we save those chops for cash, or for an army, or for something else entirely?
We also may want to consider devoting both corn to Athens while we grow it and let Pyraeus stagnate.

I think we want to at least chop the two riverside forests where we can build two more watermills. I suggest the worker 1S of Athens helps finish the watermill-under-construction next turn. Then those two workers each go to a separate riverside forest east of Athens and chop. When the chop comes in, make sure it goes into a worker or settler. Then those two workers can complete two more watermills (northern one first). The forest preserve being built near Athens can be its last. Other needed happiness can come from wine, fur, religion, MPs, etc. That would free up those two workers for laying the groundwork for the cow/wheat/wine city.

The corns should be used to grow whichever city can benefit from more population immediately. For instance, if we switch to Caste, Piraeus will want to get to Pop7-8 quickly.