SGOTM 11 - Team Newbie

[archphoenix]

I have no exp on Feud (for my over 100 games, never revolution to Feud), so expect for further turns and
will follow exactly experts' guidance when my turn arrive.

 

[PaperBeetle]

One quibble is that it is important to DOW Russia before we move the scout back onto their territory and pillage their road. Otherwise it will count as a ROP Rape and I think should keep our ROP reputation intact for abuse later.

Yep, sorry, forgot to mention that. Preserving rep was the reason for stepping out of Russia first, of course. It's a shame - it holds the plan up by a turn, which increases the chance that Riding will get sold around the AI before we can do our deals. Mind you, we might consider doing the trading now and taking the gpt pain for a couple of turns... either way, I agree that we should save our rep for a ROP-rape which actually does some serious damage.

I have no exp on Feud (for my over 100 games, never revolution to Feud), so expect for further turns and
will follow exactly experts' guidance when my turn arrive.

Actually, I always have bad experiences with Feudalism, but that's probably just because in general I'm better at PtW than C3C. I am sure it must be the right government for this game. It is very powerful for military and 100k play. Think of it like Monarchy, only with pop rushing instead of cash rushing. Also, unit support is changed to favour towns over cities, which fits well with industrial-scale whipping.

 

[Bucephalus]

Is anyone able to swap with me? I'm 'up' in the SG, "Madagascar's pathetic attempt at conquest", and the turns are really long.
Failing that, would an extension until Wednesday be acceptable?

 

[Wardancer]

Well you could swap with Soc.. Socr.. the other guy how ever you spell his name

 

[Wardancer]

Actually, I always have bad experiences with Feudalism, but that's probably just because in general I'm better at PtW than C3C. I am sure it must be the right government for this game. It is very powerful for military and 100k play. Think of it like Monarchy, only with pop rushing instead of cash rushing. Also, unit support is changed to favour towns over cities, which fits well with industrial-scale whipping.

I've always had fantastic experience with Feudalism in dom games. Once your empire gets big the productive power of pop rushing in Feudalism is amazing. I've had well over 200 units in the early middle ages phase of dom games using Feudal pop rushing. Furthermore, PaperBeetle is the expert when it comes to managing your empire to get the most out of Feudalism and I'm eager to learn his secrets.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Is anyone able to swap with me? I'm 'up' in the SG, "Madagascar's pathetic attempt at conquest", and the turns are really long.
Failing that, would an extension until Wednesday be acceptable?

Well, our team captain should be back in the next couple of days, and I think he deserves a say in whether or not we execute the tech trade / world war plan that Wardancer and I have sketched out. So waiting until Wednesday seems appropriate, unless socralynnek particularly wants to play it himself as soon as he re-emerges.

 

[socralynnek]

I am back! I will read through this thread this morning and will tell you my thoughts about the plan.
I am not eager to jump in, so waiting until Wednesday is fine with me, I can play after Bucephalus then.

 

[socralynnek]

So, I have read through the thread.

Your plan sounds good, PaaperBeetle.
Possible drawbacks:
- Korea might not declare war for our money + techs. I think this is unlikely. I think they'd do it.

-The others might still attack us instead of Korea's block. Unlikely. As far as i can see, Korea is on the way to us. Only if Egypt gets MapMaking soon, we are at a risk. But I guess we could handle some few landings.

-Someone else could get signed against us (even from korea's block), but that would be a phony war and thus we don't get declared by the whole block.

As most captured towns would get destroyed the war will even hurt the winner more than it would help him. The only thing could be that it might be expensive to get peace with all civs again, so we need some military then (would take at least 20 turns because we don't want to break the alliance with korea by signing peace too early)

So I am fine with the plan. The risk is worth it and if we want to get an award, playing tentative is not the right way to go.

I guess we don't want to capture towns in that war, do we?
Maybe some Egyptians if we get to MM first.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Welcome back!
You make some good points. I must admit I hadn't planned how to conduct the war in great detail. I don't think these guys pose any military threat to us, even if they do ignore Korea and head straight for us (Arabia can get to the choke without going through anyone else's land I think). By the time they get any units down to our end, we can have a small pack of archers and horses waiting for them.
Perhaps the interesting question is what can we get from this war apart from tech parity and damaged AI expansion. Looking at the other teams' progress, Shaka add 39 tiles of territory between turns 60 and 70. Surely this can't all be settlers - did they capture towns, or did they get junk towns in a peace deal? Similarly, the Bunnies double their territory from 77 to 155 in the 2 turnsets between 70 and 90. Note also that the Bunnies have now changed government: they seem to have had 5 turns of anarchy between turns 100 and 110.

 

[Bucephalus]

Okay, just to confirm that it's my intention to play this tonight.
Does anyone have any final thoughts?

 

[Bucephalus]

Zimbabwe is due to grow in 5, barracks in 1; should it yield a settler next?

If so, any suggestions for placement?

 

[socralynnek]

If we want to execute that evil plan, a little military to frighten them off and let them make peace cheaper after the alliance ends would be nice.

Did I get it correct that we wanted to do a 4-6 Setller factory? If so, then build a unit in between s.t. the Settler is ready at size 6. (can't look at the save atm, so ignore if we are close to size 6)
Generally that dot marked with 2 turn worker factory by PaperBeetle I consider important because of the choke, so maybe there.

 

[PaperBeetle]

At the moment we aren't quite following the spreadsheet (the one in post #44) to the letter, becasue we have extra workers in the area who have got the goat mined ahead of time, and the irrigated plain is being used by the Aqueduct Town. But hopefully the spirit of the thing remains: grow every 3 turns, try to pawn any wasted shields off into commerce, and time the next settler to arrive at size 6, the turn before we fill the food bin (i.e. turn 58). This should still give us 30 shields' worth of military after the barracks and before the settler.
We have just now settled the sheep town. After that, the next place for a town is surely on top of the horse south of Zimbabwe? I'm almost tempted to suggest bringing the settler forward to get the horse hooked faster, but I don't think it is worth it because (a) the limiting factor there is actually getting a road over the mountains - we could divert workers from the Great East Road to do it, (b) the axe we build before that settler will be handy to ensure the settler doesn't get barbed en route, and (c) Zimbabwe would spend longer at an 'awkward' size, shieldwise (i.e. 8 or 9 shields per turn, yuk).

 

[Bucephalus]

If we want to execute that evil plan, a little military to frighten them off and let them make peace cheaper after the alliance ends would be nice.

Did I get it correct that we wanted to do a 4-6 Setller factory? If so, then build a unit in between s.t. the Settler is ready at size 6. (can't look at the save atm, so ignore if we are close to size 6)
Generally that dot marked with 2 turn worker factory by PaperBeetle I consider important because of the choke, so maybe there.

Given the imminence of war, my own thoughts are to hook-up horses by settling the square NW of the horses nearest to Zimbabwe; we could have that during my turnset, but it would require generating the settler at pop 5.
The 'choke' will be pointless without the military to garrison it.

 

[Bucephalus]

the axe we build before that settler will be handy to ensure the settler doesn't get barbed en route

After trading we may have iron, so might this change things?

 

[PaperBeetle]

With a bit of rough estimation, I think that if we switch the granary to settler and grab the horse now, we could get barracks, 1 x axe, 1 x horse by turn 64 (at which point the combo factory will be in full swing). If we finish the rax, then go for the settler, we have 1 x archer, 1 x horse in the same time frame. If we leave the settler until turn 58, we have barracks, 1 x axe, 1 x archer, 1 x horse.
And if we are lucky enough to strike iron underneath Aqueduct Town, then we'd probably want to do sword instead of horse in each case, and substitute sword for axe+archer in the last instance. Any which way, I don't see the gain in bringing the settler forward.
I think all these units we mention here have time to reach the choke before Arabia can get there, unless they are already using horses of course, in which case we may have bitten off more than we can chew .

 

[Bucephalus]

unless they are already using horses of course, in which case we may have bitten off more than we can chew .

No, they haven't got HBR yet...... until we trade it to them.

 

[Bucephalus]

Pre-turn:

Move archer from Ulundi, to drive barb down from the mountains near Bapedi; change build in Isandlwana to barracks; adjust science slider to 0%, pre-trade;

Making the trade now will cost us 11g, but we can’t risk losing the trading opportunity for the sake of loose change.

So I drop in on Cleo, and agree to pay her 11 gpt. for HBR.
A quick check around shows that HBR is not valued very highly – Bronze + 4g is the highest offer, and I don’t want to sell it to the Oriental bloc, preferring to try and use it as a bargaining chip for a MA.
So I swap HBR for Bronze with Abu.
Sure enough, HBR is now worth less than IW. I can get IW for HBR + 40g from Ottomans or the Orientals; I imagine that it will be traded between them before we dow Russia, but I stick with Paperbeetle’s plan, and trade with Osman.
Wow, we’ve got more iron than a boatload of spinach! Of course, none of it hooked-up, but with four sources, three in the mountains around the core, we’ve got a fair shot at the Ironworks.

Okay, 2 turns to war……….and, Enter:

IBT: Barb impales himself on an arrow.

1725 BC:

Zimbabwe completes barracks; begins archer.
@ Isandlwana, warrior defeats barb.
Scouts, scout, while ‘Johnny Cash’ takes a step back from the ‘ring of fire’.
HBR not traded to the Orientals.

IBT: And then our plans come a little unstuck…….

1700 BC:
Amazingly, they don’t trade it to their allies.
@ Isandlwana, warrior defeats barb, second warrior defeated.
@ Hloblane, worker completed, begin another.
@ Zimbabwe, workers complete road in mountains; assign to grassland.
@ Ulundi, archer moves N to look for barbs.

DOW Russia; scout moves close to St. Petersburg and pillages tile.
Ottomans, Egyptians & Arabs all declare war.
I need 25g more to establish an Embassy with India – the cheapest of the Orientals, so science remains 0% for a couple of turns. Just so long as Korea doesn’t trade HBR…..

IBT: Nada.

1675 BC:
@ Zimbabwe, workers begin to road and mine grassland.
Our scout in Arabia evades capture, ditto Russia.

IBT: Nada.

1650 BC:
@ Zimbabwe, archer finished, sets off to the ‘choke’.
@ Isandlwana, warrior razes barb camp.
Establish embassy with India; Sign MA against Arabs.
Science slider back to 80%, Phil. In 10.

IBT: Nada.

1625:
@ Ulundi, completes worker, begins worker.
@ Zimbabwe, city grows to size 5; hire geek, Phil now in 7.

IBT: Nada.

1600 BC:
@ Zimbabwe, workers complete roading and mining, begin to road over mountain to Horse/Iron city site ; worker completes mine, begins to road to Isandlwana.
@ Novgorod, Johnny Cash pillages irrigation.

IBT: Nada.

1575 BC:
@ Zimbabwe, complete archer, begin settler (4)

IBT: 2 Indian warriors look to be on a collision course with an Arab settler/warrior pair.

1550: Barb fighting, archer now elite.

IBT: Arab settler veers away, could be looking to settle the dyes. Indian warriors nearby.

1525 BC: Archer scatters barb camp, in the North. Archer 2 goes barb hunting in the South.

IBT: Arabs found Nairjan, 2 Indian warriors nearby.

1500 BC: Workers complete road through mountains toward iron & horse.

To summarize: The war has so far been of the phoney variety; India – with whom we are allied against Arabia – has 2 warriors close to a newly founded Arab city, so real war looks still to be on the cards. The trading round didn’t go as we hoped, but we still got three techs for 51g.
Philosophy is due in three but it might be wise to pause it at one turn. Arabia has Polytheism, so a Monarch slingshot could be available eventually, should we want it; it’s highly tradable even if we don’t want the Govt., and since I couldn’t get Maths, there are not a lot of useful techs available as a ‘freebee’.
I’ve sent 3 workers down from the mountain to begin to road the iron & horses (I’m sure you’ll agree, it should be our next city site.) I didn’t give them ‘road-to’ orders as we need to discuss city placement, and we don’t want them roading where we may plant a city. Zimbabwe will have a settler next turn.

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/38078/SGOTM_Team_Newbie_1500_BC.SAV

 

[socralynnek]

You forgot to upload the save here: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm.php

As this is a competition, Alan does those beautiful graphs for which he needs the save and probably does some anti-cheating tests.
So, please do so.

I loaded your save in CAII:
I also vote for Settling in between horse and iron. I'd settle it NW of horses s.t. we still can fit two more cities down there.
I attach a screenie with the planned towns down there.
I don't know whether Arabia trades Poly around and otherwise no Monarchy slingshot cause we can't make peace with Arabia. And I wouldn't delay Philo until we get Poly cause then the slingshot might be gone.
Which tech should I take then?
Lit? CoL? MM? For trading purposes MM, would be nice. OTOH it could be possible by saving 1 or 2 turns of money to get Math from China or Japan for HBR+some money. Then we could get a Construction slingshot which would take away the most expensive mandatory tech. If we indeed think about Feud as a Gov then we might ignore Rep and Monarchy altogether.

What do you think?

I am waiting before I play for some comments.

 

[Bucephalus]

Okay, the save is uploaded correctly:http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm11/Team_Newbie_SG011_BC2150_02.SAV