SGOTM 10 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

Can't test or even look at saves these days, so no comment on micro. I did some things differently before, but the plan sounds good.

Yup, not much we can do about the settler. I was afraid of that... He's definitely not settling on that hill - too close to his capital. I don't think he will on the fp either. Somewhere in 2t, including cow? If he goes 2SE, we're really boxed in right away. Except, his explorer couldn't have seen the horses yet...

I'm starting to think an early galley or two might be necessary, which might be hard to squeeze into StP's early build order. That island in the north could be something we need. Sadly, the ice island looks appealing...

I think we definitely need to recall the north LB now. We need to steal a worker or two.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

not much we could do. If you DOW he most likely settle on that hill.

That's what i would do too (Dow NOW)... Gandhi is damn annoying mad: at the rules ) I will look at your micro after work, but we should now think how to get cow/horse site in a timely manner. Otherwise our empire will be quite ridiculous (we are gonna live with crazy overlap anyway )

I am not expert on culture war. Does beeing to second/third border first by few turns makes stuff better?

Cause first thing AI doies with a city is build culture to second ring...

Yeah, you get free culture points (+20) in inner rings each time the border pop. We have to be fast anyway.

Besides we have clear sight north is dead end. most of it will be busted by St. Pete anyway. maybe it is finally time to get longbow southwards? You can simply squeeze warrior somewhere between builds to send there if some are worried about these few tiles so much.

I agree. Another LB will be nice south now. a warrior and a wb will be needed for fogbusting/exploration

Edit: on ice iron makes passable spot. Not stellar in long run but silver is damn good with free forge.

Agreed too.

PS: [I am more a rum dude ]

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[mdy]

I agree with bringing the longbow South, and with building another one in the capital. A clam/crab/horse city still looks possible with a relativly early 3rd settler. After that. and the northern city I agree that we will need galleys. If we put a chop into one after the 5 resources in the capital have been built we should be able to get it early enough without delaying the library much.

If Gandi is going to effectivly block us to the South we may want to reconsider going to war with him.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

If we dow now, Gandhi is likely to settle in place or even go back... I would then settle east of where the LB stands AND the crab/clam/horse sites.
i really don't want to give up that land... better him than us!

 

[shyuhe]

The only concern I have is whether those LB will head towards our city if we declare. I'll try testing to see how Gandhi responds.

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[shyuhe]

The only reason I'd declare is to prevent Gandhi from settling city #2 period. If he'll settle regardless of war status, then it's not worth declaring. Better to declare later to steal workers.

If he does settle city #2, do we want to reconsider running a GE in Moscow for possibly rushing the Taj? That should deal with any culture he may pump out.

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[babybluepants]

The only reason I'd declare is to prevent Gandhi from settling city #2 period. If he'll settle regardless of war status, then it's not worth declaring. Better to declare later to steal workers.

If he does settle city #2, do we want to reconsider running a GE in Moscow for possibly rushing the Taj? That should deal with any culture he may pump out.

I agree. I was hoping it might be possible to prevent the second city. Otherwise, I would bring the north LB down and stalk workers before DOW. How fast does he get the second border pop in Delhi? We should hit him before that. We know he runs engineers early, so no artist culture...

How does the Taj in Moscow deal with something like Sistine? I think we'll just have to adopt Caste by the time we start settling more cities.

 

[shyuhe]

St. P will build a WB in 5 turns working its current tiles. If you change tiles, it'll take 6 turns.

Gandhi will probably get a religion in his second city so it'll pop the same time that St. P does. So I don't think there's much we can do once he settles the city. The Taj is a 10 culture wonder so it will help fight border wars.

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[shyuhe]

Good point. Didn't think about that.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

not sure that city [east of longbow] would be worth anything with all shared tiles and culture fight.

The idea is that city would help in the culture war with the overlap. Besides, with our SE approach, overlap is not som much of an issue. (and St Pet and Moscow overlaps quite a lot already)... That being said, I will go with the team consensus ofc. Let see what Shyuhe's tests give (please go back Gandhi)

 

[shyuhe]

Ok I tested some. Gandhi WILL settle even if you declare on him. I even tried putting a modern armor next to his settler and declared on him, but he still proceeded to settle city #2 So declaring will only help by guiding his settler away from spots that we want to settle. Since the escorting LB have non-attack scripts (I think), they will only escort his LB and not attack us. I put a worker and settler next to his escorting troops and he still ignores them.

 

[shyuhe]

Just some more thoughts. So we can declare and move the LB onto the FP, keeping him from heading in that direction. We can move the explorer up to block potential city sites as well and try to get him to put city #2 to the west. Of course we'll have to recall our LB if we take this route. Gandhi put out the first offensive unit after about 20 turns. Oddly enough, he'll take peace for almost free (actually he offered his map for peace even though I killed 0 troops and built 0 troops).

 

[babybluepants]

I'm wondering... If the settler's coming in our direction, does that mean Gandhi has nowhere to go in the west? I don't really know AI settling behaviour. Could we test this by worldbuildering in different map setups?

 

[shyuhe]

Here's a base map if you want to fiddle around. I put in extra resources because I was trying to modify AI settling behavior.

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion