SGOTM 11 - Wotan

[dmanakho]

lets think again. Horsetown should have less corruption and also has forests to rush barracks. it will develop faster than any additional town we settle SE.
as for the horses, i didn't know we would have any when i started moving settler SW.
i might be wrong i guess i am not smart enough either and won't understand untill I am explained using simple math why SE locations are preferred to those that are closer to capital and good tiles.

 

[Kulko]

Well as far as connecting the horses is concerned, I agree, that a southeastern town would have been faster.

But I agree, that settling in the SW now brings a town online, which will have much lower corruption and therefore be earlier productive.

In general I must say, that it probably would have been helpful to take more time between the turnsets to discuss things. I am also not sure, if researching Philo now is a good course of action.

Will also look at tha save to discuss next moves.

 

[dmanakho]

My fault, i should have waited longer of course to hear from rest of you on city placements. Nobody objected my red dot location and i moved that direction. But seriously, i couldn't predict horses locations
As for research.I am absolutely certain that philosophy is the way to go.This
has been discussed before and again nobody objected at that time. It is late to do anything else at the moment we've already spend two turns researching it.
Very few if at all AIs go that road after writing. We have a great chance to get philo with free tech and get everything else in trading. I suggest to get Code of Laws or construction as free tech. Code of Laws although less expensive can be better. Chances are AIs would go for construction before CoL at this point of the game in their own research.

 

[Wotan]

Roading to the SW town will cost 12 worker actions. It is without connection to freshwater and have a single bg tile so I am not convinced it is better than going where we had planned to go. I do however agree we could not have known where horses where before this happened but the output from the SE would have been higher nevertheless. I guess it will have little impact in the long run but it annoyed me, sorry about that Dman. You know me from the past, temper, temper... But quick to calm down again.

I too feel we are doing the right thing, pursuing philo now.

When I am still thinking about it; Remember to shift the bg working citizen in Z. to the roaded mountain before hitting return.

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

EDIT: Dman, I think there is a misunderstanding regarding what red dot to settle on. When Kulko posted about going for red dot I thought he refered to the red dot (number 4 in the white ring map), next in line on the map we had agreed on in the past. I failed to connect his mentioning of it to your red dot. That was also why I posted an objection to your SW dots in that I would have liked us to place another two there, your red on the hill SE instead for example to give us an extra grassland to work. Had I connected Kulko's OK to red dot to your dot I would have asked for a change to found it on the hill instead. This was what I asked us to do as a reply to your suggestion: Let's put up a new map after your turn set with dots in BW and SW added.

Some good news: We seem to have been the fastest team to get a settler factory up and running. We are in a good lead in territory.

 

[dmanakho]

@Kulko or Wotan: Could you put together new dot map? to make sure we don't have issues with city placements in future.

Ulindi will have barracks built next turn and can spit few archers.
I am thinking we don't want to build too many warriors. Distances are too larghe for swordmen to cover and we won't have much money for upgrades.
Therefore need to connect horses soon.
Worker mining near Ulundi should probably go back to help connect road to the Horsetown. Two workers will do this faster than one. Hlobane will complete a worker in 4 turns and we still will have 3 workers SE which should be enough.
We need to start thinking about roading trough the desert after next couple of turnsets. Beware of barbarian horsemen. They will appear anytime now.

 

[Kulko]

will do so tomorrow.

 

[Wotan]

Elections today in Sweden, just back from celebrations so a bit intoxicated and will sleep before making any suggestions. ZZZZZZ...

 

[dmanakho]

so opposition won? and i reckon you are part of it

 

[schmiddi]

I picked up the save yesterday and had a quick look at it.

Z. is finishing a warrior next turn and growing in the same. I hope that deals with the happiness issue? (one happy and one unhappy citizen)
Research: I'd say we go for Philo.
Worker: that would keep both of them busy for 6 turns (not to metion the moving to and fro) and i don't feel comfortable that way. Your Ideas about this?

 

[Kulko]

I tried to name the areas a little bit, as I find all this S/N/E/W very boring and unclear,once we grow a bit more. feel free to use, or ignore, whatever fits your style.

Lake Shangia (The Southeastern Peninsula)
I still feel there is not much room for discussion here, each placements has its drawbacks and the one suggested by Wotan seems to fit our medium term goals best.

Cape of Good Hope (The Southwestern Peninsula)
I tried to fit in four cities here, but it always looks crowded. I think this is less a problem with horse towns placement, but a general shortage of space.
Yellow B has the advamtage of making use of the forest chops, as the downside we need culture too reach the Oysters.

Kalahari Desert (The Northern Plains/Hills/Deserts)
I put in some town here to, but I believe them to be rather low priority. ALthough it would be good to settle these spots before the AI gets into Settler Frenzy, and puts small unsurportable size 1 towns ebverywhere which needs to be conquered for no gain.

Settling the desert itself is not covered, as I assume, once it comes to that we will have a completely new core to settle.

The Bridge of Dreams (I guess you which one this is)
Just a placement for later, to setlle all the available area and have some breakthroughs for our ships. Apart from maybe the first and last town, none of these has any priority until the MA probably.

 

[Kulko]

My prefered order of settlement:

Green M
Red M
Red Z (Using the mountain Goats half time in a low corruption region should be worth it.)
Blue M
Red A (For Iron, if we have roaded the mountain for the horses already)

We definitely needs some second source of settlers here, or we will be unable to fill this area anytime soon.

 

[Wotan]

Yes, like your plan.

@Schmiddi, agree with you about worker actions, lets stay with the single worker roading through to HorseTown. The worker SE of Ulundi now mining the BG should start roading towards the horse so we have that connected ASAP. It will be up and running at about the same time as HorseTown and we have the benefit of the worker in action near the centre of action. Worker north of Hlobane should go and road the land bridge. Send an Archer for protection against Barbs though.

Added a reminder, the 8 turn cycle Z runs under. (rememer to change to mountain gems when it says coast, this turn BTW)

 

[Kulko]

Why don't you post a screenshot where it says gems? Shouldn't be a big issue when you have the master excel sheet.

 

[Wotan]

Why don't you post a screenshot where it says gems? Shouldn't be a big issue when you have the master excel sheet.

Problem is, the spreadsheet is on a different computer and I cannot access it now. So I did the next best thing, downloaded the picture from CFC and cut and pasted in that.

 

[Kulko]

Military
I think we should also discuss how to spend our still meagre military ressources.
The southern archer should be drawn back to avoid a new camp appearing in his back, killing our workers.
The Brigetroll can be the first Archer build by Ulundi or Bapedi.
The forces which Zimbabwe builds should be sent north, if the situation in HorseTown allows, to protect our rather expensive Diamond road. Wouldn't want that one to be pillaged.

Builds
I think Bapedi should shuffle in a Curragh before Baracks, also HT. We need to get naval exloration up and going, there are still half the bad guys missing.

 

[Wotan]

Yes, agree on the idea of starting to build naval units (agree on the rest too). What do we take as free tech? MM? One plan would be to go to big picture when we get get Philo and before chosing a free tech, check what techs are available and trade. Has been done in the past to get CoL in this fashion and then open up Republic as the free tech.

 

[Kulko]

Hmm when do we have to decide. What government do we want anyway?
I would think for a fast dom victory Monarchy would be the better route.

trade Poly for Philo from the bid picture if available and then select Monarchy. If thats not possible, choose MM.

 

[TimBentley]

Korea is researching MM, and probably everybody else too (somebody could be researching polytheism, I guess).

We'll want to build chariots when horses are connected.

We definitely needs some second source of settlers here, or we will be unable to fill this area anytime soon.

Hlobane using irrigated sheep, perhaps?

 

[Wotan]

We shouldn't rule out Monarchy, nor should we immediately rule out Feudalism. It could be interesting to be able to whip culture to expand culture borders in Feudalism.

And yes, another Settler pump would be great.

 

[schmiddi]

Another thing that got adressed but not answered yet, do we build warrios or archers before we get mounted units?

I'll drop in the first two turns of my set (unless something unexpected happens).