SGOTM 11 - Wotan

[Wotan]

Finally!

Turn log

0 – 1500BC
Attack the Barb camp next to mountain, Archer promote to Elite!
Return Archer to Zimbabwe and move rest of the units according to plan.

IBT: Barb.HM attack Z. Warrior promote to Elite.

1 – 1475BC
Ulundi Archer -> Worker

Barb.Camp dispersed.

IBT: Koreans start building Temple of Artemis

2 – 1450BC
Disband Warrior in Zimbabwe.

IBT: Egyptians start building Temple of Artemis. Arabs start building Oracle.

3 – 1425BC
Zimbabwe Settler -> Settler
Ulundi Worker -> Archer

We finish researching Philosophy and get a free tech, Monarchy. Start on Literacy.
Revolt and 5 turns of Anarchy.

4 – 1400BC
Archer attack Barb. HM. Warrior kill Barb.HM.

5 – 1375BC
Archer disperse Barb.Camp. Archer and Warrior kill 2 Barbs on land bridge.

IBT: Russians and Indians both start building Temple of Artemis. Barb. Galley end up next to our Curragh, time for him to become a suicide Curragh.

7 – 1325BC
Archer disperse a Barb.Camp.
Mpondo founded, Worker started.

8 – 1300BC
We are in Monarchy!
Curragh makes it across to the “other” side.
Japan and Korea has MM and Currency.

9 – 1275BC
Bapedi Archer -> HM
Hlobane Barracks -> HM
We meet the Germans, they are very backwards and with no gold

10 – 1250BC
Intombe Barracks -> Warrior
Japan is probably researching Philo

11 – 1225BC
Archer attack Barb.Camp, kill Warrior, HM remaining.
IBT: Chinese start building Pyramids.

12 – 1200BC
Zimbabwe Settler -> Warrior
Barb.Camp dispersed.

Russia too have MM now. Japan is researching Philo but still a few turns from getting it since they are willing to trade for it but not as generously as eg. Korea.

IBT: Japanese start building temple of Artemis. Japanese finish building Statue of Zeus in Kyoto.

14 – 1150BC
Zimbabwe Warrior -> Settler
Bapedi HM -> HM

Japan is demanding almost as much for MM with or without Philo added to the trade so they are almost finished. Even if there is no additional techs available now is the time to trade for Currency and MM. Russia is also closing in on getting it and is only offering about 40 gold for it.
Trading: Philosophy, 5gpt and 12 gold for Currency from Korea. Currency and Philosophy for MM and 48 gold from Russia. Sell Philosophy to Egypt for 50 gold, to India for 50 gold and to China for 35 gold.

15 – 1125BC
Ulundi HM -> HM
Horsetown Barracks -> Galley
Intombe Warrior -> Warrior

16 – 1100BC
Meet England, they are down Currency and Monarchy. Considering they are neighbour to Germany and the Germans are so backwards we should be able to wait for a while to sell Currency and hopefully get something out of it apart from gold.

IBT: Ottomans and Egyptians start building Oracle.

17 – 1075BC
Ngome founded, Worker started.

Korea have CoL.

18 – 1050BC
Zimbabwe Settler -> HM
Hlobane HM -> HM
Intombe Warrior -> HM
Mpondo Worker -> Barracks

Meet Vikings, they too lack knowledge of Currency and Monarchy. And are willing to part with 100 gold for either so they probably researching Construction, Republic or CoL too as are England.

19 – 1025BC
Bapedi HM -> HM

Sell Maths to Germany for 90 gold.
Trade MM and Currency for Construction from India.

20 – 1000BC
HM attack Barb.Camp , kill Warrior, Horseman remaining.
Swazi founded, Barracks started. (Worker helps with a forest cut.)

After action report.
Trading. We just lack CoL to make it into the MA. We can sell Currency to England for all their gold, 204, the question is if we do so now or wait for CoL to be acquired by more than Korea? We also may want to spread out a few of the military units I am slowly sending towards the desert area north of us. We sure want to have every tile covered by line of sights so we avoid the barbarian hordes soon to come down on the world. In the south every tile in danger of attracting barb camps are covered but the north and north east are a different story so we will hopefully fix this before trading construction for CoL. Can be done right now for construction and most of our gold but that would spawn loads of barbs in camps so I suggest we first remove the northern known barb camp and then make sure the units can view all tiles before trading for it.

We get Literature next turn and we should be able to get a lot from it and Monarchy when we help Otto, Russia, Korea and maybe Germany into MA. With some luck we could end up with all first tier techs in MA by trading wisely. Maybe in conjuction with some "evil" trading at the same time and ending up DOWing one ally of someone we give high gpt to for MA techs. That turn of tech trading will be fun with lots of diplomatic actions going on and hopefully ending up with one group set against the other on our own continent. We having all available techs and all gold and everyone fighting each other on our continent.

Builds: HM’s galore! Zimbabwe is currently gearing up to run at 10 spt but that is still some turns away. Right now it can go to an “surplusproducing”, 7-9-7-9= 32 shields at size 4-5. First finish the HM them switch to the settler factory always with 5fpt. It should be possible to get it to a size 5-6 10 spt producing Warrior/Settlers every four turns but maybe that is too high an investment in worker actions, mining the goats and mining a standard grassland or irrigating the plains forest after having cut it.

Worker actions: Most is self explanatory, a couple of warnings. First, a Slave is cutting the forest on the western most tile around Swazi. Land bridge Worker now under the Archer. Will need additional sentries/guards when that tile is cut so next HM should probably go there.

A Galley is needed to start moving south along the coast near Germany. It will be ready in 4 turns in Horsetown. Due to differential movement at sea we can move safely with Galleys at the northern end of our subcontinent.

Northern HM could retreat one tile if we want to avoid him being vulnerable for a barbarian attack. He could still attack the camp next turn if he moves.


EDIT: Massive loss of brain capacity... I just noticed I played 20 turns, sorry. Never even crossed my mind. I used the template I used for my latest turn set and that was the starting 20 turn set. OTOH, we did make up some time from the recent confusion...

 

[dmanakho]

Massive loss of brain capacity

- I don't think so You must have enjoyed game too much... I am too tired now to comment bu it looks good... will follow up on this tomorrow morning from work.

 

[Wotan]

I was actually totally worn out yesterday but felt I really needed to play the turns. So trying to concentrate fully on the game situation while less than clearheaded was a major struggle. I was so happy nothing went wrong in the game, until I finally realized I had played too many turns. Brain must have been shorted out.

Roster:
TimBentley up
Kulko on deck
Dmanakho
Schmiddi
Wotan just played

I have removed Killer from the roster as he asked us to do. The invitation to remain on the roster but autoskipped until he has the time to play again was left without comment so I guess he have no inclination to stay on the team

 

[Kulko]

Short question.

Why did you move away from the agreed build plan. EDIT: deleted because it had been answered. No problem with massive loss of brain capacity here. Hope you can restock soon.


Will look at the save later.

 

[Wotan]

I did feel pretty stupid about the number of turns played when I realized it. One of those times when you are so sure about something you don't even start to think about it until it is too late. Too long a pause between actions in the game combined with a full day of intense meetings. That and using the 20 turn template from my last turn set sure made a mess of things.

I checked the "letter" maps you posted and went for two locations that would help us limit the risks of Barbarian uprisings. We are pretty close to entering the MA. Now we are completely safe from uprisings in the south and almost safe in the north.

 

[schmiddi]

Looks like a perfect (double) set.

What I don't get: What do you mean by avoiding barbs? Are the green arrows supposed to be routes for future settlers?

 

[Wotan]

What I don't get: What do you mean by avoiding barbs? Are the green arrows supposed to be routes for future settlers?

When the second tribe enters MA barbarian camps spawn huge numbers of units. Any unit we or another tribe have that has a line of sight to a tile will avoid any Barbarians from being spawned in that tile, new camps that is... So by having units "lighting up" tiles we limit the possibilities of barbs appearing there. When the MA spawning has occured we can move back again and Barb.camp farm the area for 25 gold per new camp. But having camps spawn huge numbers of units when MA spawning occurs is less appealing. Thus I suggest we move units into mountains etc. to cover as many tiles as possible with "seen" tiles so to avoid barbs to appear there.

EDIT: and thanks for the comments on the turn set.

 

[schmiddi]

So "seeing" the barb masses away.

Understood.

 

[TimBentley]

Scandinavia and Germany are allied; I would guess that continent has two allied groups as well.

If we wait too long, India and Korea could trade to get to the MA, so we should trade as soon as possible. I'll see (checking how close a barb camp has to be to a city for F3 to mention it, and how close two camps can be) if it's possible to be certain that a camp is not hiding in the fog (if so, trade could be done once the one camp is dispersed); otherwise I'll take the three turns to eliminate the fog.

 

[Wotan]

Yes, I did a stupid mistake trading construction to India. My first idea was to get them to trade with Korea to spread CoL so as to lower the value of it. But now we risk barbs spawning early since that would put them both in MA. As it is right now I guess I would prefer waiting until we can trade for CoL with Currency/construction or whatever from another tribe. Rather than paying too much for it right now.

If we do not trade now, maybe we should go 0% science until we have traded for CoL?

 

[TimBentley]

I think 0% science would be better than CoL research (to reduce the cost to buy it).

 

[Kulko]

ok my two cents

Cities:
I think your new builds are well placed, Although since we don't ue the goats again, and would have been nice to get the city 3 ne of Z in place earlier. Now that Z is slated to grow, that won't bring much gain. But wasn't Bapedi meant to become a settler Factory too? Would have been helpful I think.

Workers
Thats the only thing we are missing right now. We have onle 8,5 workers and one of them is away on Highway building Duty. But nice to see, that z finally got drinking water.

Techs:
Well I would like to use our Tech advantage and go for MA as soon as possible. Having Mon as almost monopoly Tech should bring us a long way towards gaining all first tier techs from the Scientific AIs, and I would be afraid we loose that advantage, as soon as Egypt finds the trade button. CoL on 0% is fine by me.

Military
Well we are still in Buildup I would tink so one or two turnsets of build HM are ahead of us. By that we should have nicely started that big war in the East and can pik on a convinient target.

Real nice turnset Wotan, I think we come a long way since my last turnset, where I was always running scared of the barbs.

 

[Wotan]

Thanks Kulko. Though I made a couple of really silly mistakes, apart from the obvious turn count. I should not have traded Construction to India. All others with knowledge are on the second landmass so we should have waited a few more turns for CoL to spread. And I should have made sure we had another boat out already to go south along the coast from the Germans to help find the remaining tribes.

Bapedi sure should help with Settlers though the situation si changed for all our towns after having entered Monarchy. So a lot of our build plans really need reworking, like getting Z to a four turn settler factory running 6-8-7-9. The perfect running of these turns require two grasslands being mined. That would also give full access of the goats to your favourite location NE of Z.

Workers,taking workers from the new towns will eventually get us enough to work the lands.

Military: We should be able to set the AI's against each other when we finally go to war. Smart trading with the fixed alliances in place should allow us to buy the MA techs from the AI so we get the AI we pay most gpt to DoW us. We have two(?) Science tribes on our land mass, Otto and Korea. Otto is really backwards but could be used to get a MA to trade for by gifting him into MA. Question is if we want to do the same with Germany? The logical goal probably is to have a war with arabs and their allies and ally with the other group. I do not remamber right now who belong to the arab group? Otto or Korea? But what we should do is buy/trade for the MA tech the arab league tribe have for whatever price in gpt (no cash, set all sliders to 0% to have as high gpt quota as possible). Then DoW arabs and get the other group in on the action as an ally by both trading for the remaining MA techs among the tribes and any other trades possible to get the action going. Will be a fun turn!

How many HMs do we need to go to war? I guess 10-15 should be more than enough.

 

[TimBentley]

The alliances are: India, Japan, Korea, China;
Ottomans, Russia (you forgot this scientific civ, Wotan), Egypt, Arabia

A camp must be less than 10 tiles from a city for the military advisor to mention it, and it seems barb camps must be at least 5 tiles apart: no help in our situation. I also learned there must be more than (2*number of players) cities for a camp to appear.
Selling construction for a monopoly CoL would cost less money than just buying a nonmonopoly CoL, so I'll go ahead and trade into the MA in 3 turns when the fog has been dissipated or earlier if India and Korea trade to enter the MA. Halving the cost of one tech or getting another tech to trade for is worth helping Germany I think, so I'll gift the scientific civs into the MA and let people comment on the situation at that time.

Zimbabwe will finish the horseman then continue as a settler factory as Wotan suggested. Bapedi can build a settler, a granary, then be a settler factory. It is just lacking sufficient shields to be a four-turn factory. The rest will build horses with the occasional worker.

I haven't considered where to settle, but I'll pause for comment before any are produced anyways.

I should play tonight.

I have the feeling I would forget this if I didn't post it here, so go ahead and ignore it if you want: Bapedi has 16% corruption: 0 for <=3, 1 for 4<=x<=9
0f, 14s, 8spt, 3fpt
size 3: 6f, 0s, 5spt, 4fpt (2 at 6spt, 3fpt)
size 4: 0f, 24s, 6spt, 4fpt
size 5: 0f, 56s, 7spt, 4fpt; a little short of 6-8-7-9 at 5fpt

 

[Wotan]

You seem to be on top of things and we are out of the early stages of a game of Civ. So the need to plan in detail is not that important anymore I guess. Your plan is good as far as I can see. Good luck!

 

[Kulko]

On page 7 are the settle locations, just pick your favorite spot. I think its time to develop the north a little bit.

Go ahead and good luck.

 

[TimBentley]

Turn 1 and Ottomans have monotheism, other three scientific have feudalism, India is also in MA, Illuryian camp has eight horsemen. It looks like Korea was researching literature because they were only willing to give 57g in addition to CoL for it. The only possible trade is feudalism from Germany for monarchy and 119g/literature (first would be preferred). Hopefully with that monotheism can be purchased. Probably with gpt, then declaring war on Arabia (their weakest ally), and allying somebody against them.

However we have not discussed the next tech to research. Chivalry would be good.

 

[dmanakho]

i guess chivalry and then full speed to Mil. Trad. after which all research should be shut down.
We also need to exploit resource cutting. Anyone has moral objections against this?

 

[Kulko]

Why do you prefer paying hard cash instead of Lit?

Chiv is fine.

 

[Wotan]

Overall plan for trading looks OK. However, I have the same question as Kulko, why gold over lit? Chiv is the obvious choice.