SGOTM 13 - Phoenix Rising

[vranasm]

if we delay forge in cap too long we won't beat GP from Orleans without running GS along GE.

Everyone is blinded by opening Trade routes with early writing. It's questionable (at least) how much value it really has...
We have to find the cities first and actually I am surprised Vicky didn't offer OB already since in all tests i did she had writing around T80.

 

[Gumbolt]

Vicawoo.

Entirely agree on caste. it does not work on this map. Food and whipping seem like way to go. Granaries are a big issue. You would need to use a worker/settler and use the overflow from that to whip the granary.

Building granaries was painful! Agreed.

Your numbers on the cities are interesting.

The gold city:

Fish/clams and gold in inner circle.
Can work fish from turn settled with WB.
+1 happiness from gold.
Commerce boost from gold.
Long term Moia Statute site?
8 turns to work gold.
Second resource needs a workboat

Pigs site
Can work fish from turn settled with WB.
Needs AH for pigs
+1 health from pigs.
Take 15-20 turns to bring pigs online.
Pigs provide more food than clams.
Pigs can't be pillaged by barb galleys.

We do have a trade off of health vs happiness in terms of pigs vs gold. What is more important? The gold site may provide more science to reach our military tech goals.


As for tech order.

You may be right on writing but don't just assume the academy. Writing does open up trade routes with Ai. That is a trade route of 3 vs 2 once we find an Ai city! Extra 3-4 commerce a turn. Once we build more cities that number grows.How important is this?

AH could be useful for finding horse and for pig but I suspect we want to beeline machinery/maths/construction. Could we be trading for writing/AH??

Next issue is war. I like your numbers on units for LB and catapults. Do note we would also need 7 galleys too. Question is can we get out all these units before the AI has longbows. Our main objective perhaps should be to take Moscow and grab the GLH. 14 units may be an over kill pending what defences the Ai has.


Would this strategy mean no TC??? I think TC will be huge with so many food resources. Do you think this is a good idea?

I would love to see you try a test game with a rush.

One last thing. Don't assume the 4th city will be pigs or gold. We may find another site. We may well find iron or horse somewhere.

We do need to decide on how to best use Paris/ orleans now so we can test city builds best.

I have attached my second attempt. Here I essentially went gold city first. I avoided a monument in gold city. I built a settler in capital and got pigs city up much earlier. I was late teching AH. Do note Ah will give a discount on writing. So 9 turns for AH. 7 for writing? Got about 5 cities up on 350bc save could of had 1-2 settlers more. Needed a second galley. This is with very little micro and many happiness issues.

 

[vicawoo]

I'm not sold on warring with the land we have. If we're going to war, the colossus isn't worth it. If we're not, it might be worth it. People shouldn't assume we're going to go to war.

 

[lymond]

I may be reading things wrong, but just so we are clear, the Gold city has both clams and fish in the "inner ring". Therefore, a monument is not need to work 2 seafood. That's a lot of food first thing in this city and makes it more than worthwhile. I think it's a no-brainer to settle this city next.

I do think we will need another galley in the near future.

I don't think we trade for writing. It should be the next tech really. It's time for libraries. AH must be delayed.

 

[cripp7]

We have to find Cathy first, then decide weather we want TC or units. I don't think we can get both.

 

[bobbyboy29]

OK so I tested both sites out and here's what I found:

Gold city:

I went WB-Lighthouse here and on turn 121 it was size 4 and ready to start spitting out settlers or infra (library probably). Here's some pros and cons:

Pros:
1) This is a stronger site overall, no question about it, 3 food and the gold which serves well for both production and commerce. Once it's up and running this city is a big boost for a long while.

2) The happiness boost was noticeable. The cap and rheims still need to be whipped/ recover from whip extensively and that extra gold makes a big difference. It saves hammers as well as you don't need to build, say, city defense in Rheims etc...

3) It doesn't need the worker straight away. I'm convinced that the best move atm is to get rheims to build a 2nd worker at pop 2 (it has to stagnate a bit otherwise it gets unhappy too quick). This worked out super well as we seriously need to get worker turns into the cap (hills mined, corn roaded etc...). As a result, the cap ended up well improved and the 2nd worker from rheims came out just in time to improve the gold. I felt that I wasted far fewer worker turns going this route.

4) We get to tech writing before AH, which seems like a good move given the importance of trade routes.

Cons:
1) As you will see, it takes a decent amount longer to set up than the Pigs fish city, but I feel it will make up that difference pretty quickly by weight of productive tiles.

2) Not as big a health boost as pigs fish city

3) it probably needs a monument and another wb as well not far down the track.

I then tried out the pigs fish city. It got set up super quick compared to gold (T107) but I felt that were a lot of sacrifices made as well.



Pros:
1) Gets set up super quick. WB comes from cap, worker improves pigs and hey, presto you're done.

2) No need for monument, lighthouse can help but isn't strictly necessary.

3)Extra health from pigs helps a bit

4) Possibly the best route to get a quick GS.

5) Has possibility of building exploratory WB instead of cap, freeing up some cap hammers.

Cons:
1) I actually struggled to find anything to build here when the city is founded. It has to grow so I really only saw the possibility of an exploratory workboat or a lighthouse for plus 1 food. Neither give huge benefits.

2) Once the city did get set up, I had a feeling of, alright, now what? It's pop 2 and only really has the choice between building a worker or settler at 2 pop. Or growing up to pop 4 on coast tiles and then whipping something out. Neither of these felt all too powerful. This is a low investment city, but it's not very strong...

3) Worker turns here feel a bit wasteful. To begin with we have the option of delaying the settler by 4 turns to pick up the worker then go back. In which case we delay the settler (obviously ) and we lose hammers to decay. Or we can whip the settler and leave the worker stranded on the island, forcing us to make a 8 turn round trip with the galley and severely delaying improving the pigs. Neither of these choices are pleasant. Furthermore, the worker gets tied up with improving the pigs (and possibly desert hill if we choose) which leaves the cap way behind in development.

4) I really missed the gold happiness in both orleans and paris here. It was very noticeable.

I think the biggest plus of the pigs/fish site is the possibility of getting the 4th city settled far earlier or having an early GS coming from here and freeing up the cap to build and whip units/wonders. The downside of the GS plan is that it means that this city will have basically nothing else to contribute to the empire. The gold city could also get our first GS, slightly later but it would have more hammers and food surplus to contribute in other ways as well.

Between the two sites, I think we need to decide on an overall strategy and that will dictate which site we should go for.

If we want to set up the empire economically, with a strong foundation by simply settling the strongest sites first, then we go with the gold site.

If we feel that we either need the next settler out super quick, or the 1st GS out as quickly as possible and are prepared to make sacrifices for this, then pigs fish it is.



My personal opinion:
With no real AI pressure on us to settle cities as quickly as possible, and no great use for an early GS. (Nothing to bulb, he could build an academy but if we want extra early research so bad we can just settle the gold site ) I feel that the gold site is the way to go.

 

[Kadazzle]

I've been saying this, we're not lacking commerce, we're lacking production. Simply put, settling the Pigs site will get everything else up quicker. There's no reason why we can't settle the Gold 4th, we'll be able to get the Gold site up quicker if we have the Pigs site settled already. Whip Workboats/Galleys and build Workers.

 

[Gumbolt]

BB - The pigs city could be used to whip workers/settler at size 4. This allows us to rex fast. Turning food into hammers will be key on this game and worker/settlers allow this. I think we should be expanding and grabbing land as much as possible! An early war will require many hammers we don't have right now. A whipped settler from pigs site can go direct to the stone site!

I found I was quite quickly able to get from 4 cities to 5 cities. I used overflow from builds to get granaries. My biggest issue was happiness. I was able to get fourth city by 1250bc or so.

Don't forget Ah gives a discount on writing of 25%?? Also horses may provide vital hammers on an island site. Writing will only help if we find an Ai border.

Again we should not assume the 4th city would be pigs or gold site! if the workboat finds a better site we may well settle elsewhere. Especially if we find copper. So going pigs first may be a mistake. Hard to tell. We faced same dilema of building 2 cities on our starting island.

@ lymond - Please do test out both locations. I would love to see what you can do by 350bc and how you would do it.

 

[lymond]

I'm still waiting on hearing from AW so I can modify the test game. The current one is a little jacked because of Oracle.

Of course we need to test things, but we also have to ask "what does AH do for us now". I see one AH resource and, yes, it is a good one, but a slight bonus does not seem to outweigh getting to Writing sooner and pushing forward in tech. In my view, you get Pottery OR AH when you are trying to win the game - not both. We have pottery. We can't delay libraries much longer.

And if we decide that AH can be delayed, which I thought we already had, then the pigs/fish site becomes far less important.

We can't tech the entire bottom of the tech tree like a newb. Oracle>MC is great but it does kinda nerf your early tech path. We have to get to writing NOW!

 

[bobbyboy29]

I've been saying this, we're not lacking commerce, we're lacking production. Simply put, settling the Pigs site will get everything else up quicker. There's no reason why we can't settle the Gold 4th, we'll be able to get the Gold site up quicker if we have the Pigs site settled already. Whip Workboats/Galleys and build Workers.

Kadazzle, people who are arguing gold first aren't doing it for the commerce bonus. I didn't even start working it until right at the end.

The reason that I feel that gold first is stronger is because it simply has more than 2 productive tiles to work. The pigs fish site has serious limitations in that although you get to size 2 super quickly, the spot is very limited potential after that point (and the lack of happiness limits our other 2 cities from then on). Whipping a worker or a settler from that spot either requires "slow" building it at pop 2, or growing to size 4 on sub-par tiles in order to whip it back out. Building anything else, galley, lib etc... is even more of a nightmare because you have the choice between spending worker turns mining the hill (10 turns total) and then working a desert hill so that you get enough hammers to make it a 2 pop whip. Or you need to grow to size 6 (which requires a granary to be efficient, and a monument or warrior for unhapiness) to do a 3 pop whip. Will the Pigs fish spot get it's first settler out quicker? yes. Will it get anything else out quicker? No.

The argument that setting up the fish/pigs city first gets the gold city up quicker works exactly in reverse as well. By setting up the gold city first, we have a better city set up earlier which means that after say the first settler or worker, all subsequent settlers/workers will come out more quickly.

In my test playthroughs I definately felt that the ability to set up the pigs/fish city so quickly was nice. But i really felt that we were making way too many trade-offs for a short term boost which was going to get overtaken very soon. Notably, the lack of happiness in the capital/orleans, the fact that the worker couldn't start improving the cap straight away and the overall mediocrity of the pigs/fish site compared to the gold spot were the deciding factors.

 

[Gumbolt]

We need to move on beyond the pigs vs gold debate.

It seems war is not a current option so it seems rexxing and exploring is the order of the day at least for now.

So where do we go with our capital?

What should we do with orleans?

Have we given up on the stone site completely??

Are we still going for TC and mids??

What great people should we be heading for?? GE?? GS? GM?

I don't mind debate but it has to be productive.

We seriously need more people posting test saves to show what you might do. We can't spend a whole week doing nothing.

 

[Gumbolt]

We have to find Cathy first, then decide weather we want TC or units. I don't think we can get both.

I think we need to decide now on TC. I don't see that finding cathy will change our TC strategy. Why change it when we are not ready for war.

What do you expect to happen when we do find her??

 

[vranasm]

well i did right now some "innovative" test, but as it seems it was too innovative :-D.
I wonder how you managed TC at the 350BC save... I had to bog down the capital somehow... (maybe too many whips?)

will post it anyway...but nothing spectacular really. 6 cities, some infra, I didn't trade techs around, but have Currency after Alpha and some beakers into CoL

 

[vicawoo]

I didn't realize the fish was in the first border. If we immediately set up fishing boats (so lighthouse first), skipped the monument, and possibly stalled at size 2, it's equal until we get AH.

What is Orleans making?

 

[Kadazzle]

Well, if we're going Gold I think we shouldn't expand past 5 cities. Just hunker down and tech up as quickly as possible to some key military techs (Rifling, Steel).

 

[Gumbolt]

Well, if we're going Gold I think we shouldn't expand past 5 cities. Just hunker down and tech up as quickly as possible to some key military techs (Rifling, Steel).

I don't agree. We need to expand and grab resources. With TC the expansion will pay for itself. We are organised! I learned long ago you don't win a game with 5 cities.

We need to expand and look to prepare for war!

We are all agreed we lack hammers.

We have a choice over slower expansion vs grabbing key wonders.

Vranasm. I whipped from 8 pop to 4 pop. To be fair I could of easily had 6 cities but Lymonds save appears to lack land compared to live save. I also used chops and over flows. With copper I would of had it much earlier.

All Should we consider a beeline to civil service and or OR? We could also use a religion to help this.

In terms of military I think we should gradually build up units to keep our power rating high.

Vicawoo Orleans will complete Oracle next turn. I see it as a worker/settler/ workboat city. I used overflow on a build to get a warrior for happiness. What would you build there?

 

[bobbyboy29]

I didn't realize the fish was in the first border. If we immediately set up fishing boats (so lighthouse first), skipped the monument, and possibly stalled at size 2, it's equal until we get AH.

What is Orleans making?

After trying a few builds out I think that Orleans needs to make a worker (when it reaches pop 2). It's got too much whip anger and not enough good tiles to grow just yet so I found that this was the best use. Basically, the capital sacrificed some development to get Orleans up for the oracle so now we need to reverse the trend.

Well, if we're going Gold I think we shouldn't expand past 5 cities. Just hunker down and tech up as quickly as possible to some key military techs (Rifling, Steel).

I definately think that we should put a limit building new settlers at some point, however I think that rather than turtling we'd be better off "expanding" into AI territory. If we want to win this game or at least do very well we're going to want to war early and often. The fact that ragnar and vicky haven't met cathy suggests that she's on the island. It may only take a small investment to take her cap with cats+something else and then choke her with triremes. But this stuff can wait until we get more map info.


I think it's important that we move on from the gold or fish/pigs debate. But we need an agreement. I haven't managed to find a way to make fish/pigs stronger but if someone were to demonstrate how the trade-offs could be accounted for and how to leverage the early boost then of course I'd be swayed. Personally, I don't see it but I've been proven wrong many times already this game and I'm sure many more will come. (Go back a few pages and you'll see me arguing against settling on marble )

 

[Gumbolt]

well i did right now some "innovative" test, but as it seems it was too innovative :-D.
I wonder how you managed TC at the 350BC save... I had to bog down the capital somehow... (maybe too many whips?)

will post it anyway...but nothing spectacular really. 6 cities, some infra, I didn't trade techs around, but have Currency after Alpha and some beakers into CoL

Few thoughts.

Why are you not running a engineer in Paris?? You will soon have an unwanted GP!!! You still have a forest to chop. The workshop was a bad idea as we won't be using caste really. 6 cities is fine.

You went Ah early but did not build pigs site first. Not sure about that!

Chartres was poorly laid. It needed fish and pigs in the inner ring! Waiting for a border pop is a bad idea!!

You have a few granaries up and running but not in Paris.

I wonder if you should of beelined CS. We are short on production and this will boost our capital and allow macemen with machinery. An option.

One thing many people have forgot. A forge gives +1 happiness with gold. Is this a subtle hint by DS?

 

[Gumbolt]

This was a pic of my second attempt.

Spoiler :

This is my third attempt. Note the mids went 305bc and i got a GS about 2 turns later. My religion has spread to 5 cities. Almost makes a shrine a good idea.

I did a 42 hammer over flow on settler. This gave 19 hammer OF on workboat which i put into a granary. I whipped the granary for 2 pop and headed for a forge/settler in the capital. Okay I was short on exploring workboats. Overall my third attempt has capital happy at size 9 albeit since whipped.

I was slower on this attempt to settle my 4th/5th city. I pretty much sent a galley with 2 settlers on board.

I am think a maths gambit would be a good idea.

Spoiler :

 

[stuge]

So, who's playing next? Is vicawoo taking his turn? Testing is good and all, but we need a plan and a turnset to keep the game moving.