SGOTM 13 - Spooks

[killercane]

The dot map looks good but I would like us to pack the island more, in order to do a gift and retake deal once we find a couple people. I think the team who finds and is able to establish a good core first will finish with the best time. Really there is only one good spot down there so we still have to find fertile land.

 

[Paul#42]

Well, according to the QSC stats this game is already lost.

Klarius and tao have done successfull suicide runs and met other civs.

This is the problem with Gilligan starts (Somebody said this when we discussed the possible settings for SGotm.).

This kills the last fun in this game for me.

 

[Abegweit]

I don't think that it's lost already. It's easy enough to catch up once we finally get contacts. This being said, I agree that it is a huge crap shoot (how many sailors have died to date?). Skill and (especially) strategy have almost nothing to do with this game.

 

[killercane]

Yeah not lost. The longer it takes for us to find someone the worse it will be though. The fact that Klarius has 4 contacts but no tech lead indicates the AIs are somewhat ********. Also they have a prebuild for TGL I reckon with 150 accumulated shields.

Really our fate depends a lot on the curraghs. One of the teams has 7! curraghs out. WTH. Did they take our luck?

If no one else jumps forward, I will play tonight or tomorrow. Another problem is the lack of anything happening. Once we find someone we can discuss things in much more detail.

 

[killercane]

Yeah I suck. Will try to get to it soon.

Edit: Playing now.

 

[killercane]

Turns
1- Curragh sinks. Switch size 3 Kyoto to cow.
2- Curragh sinks. Sending the new curraghs North and SE.
3- Curragh sink... er, sights land west, he just needs to survive! No AI culture looks like though.
4- Our curragh survives to find a small, desolate landmass. Some fish and rocks.
5- On the interturn a Portuguese galley shows up! They are up all available techs and wont sell MM. We dont have a prebuild ready for the harbor/galley ready yet though. They do have 249 gold.
6- Kyoto grows, lux to 10%. Southern curragh sinks. Im sending the newest curragh SW of the big island.
7- Settler produced. Recall the curragh to upgrade it to a galley in the middle town once the prebuild is set. MM in 9. Northeastern curragh sinks.
8- Osaka curragh-warrior (MM in 8, so harbor should be ready and with a curragh so we can upgrade 2 galleys if we borrow money from portugal).
9- Nothing.
10- We have a crossing in Port territory. For some reason i thought we had half price harbors but of course we dont. Osaka is set to build a galley then when we reach MM. We wouldnt have had the curraghs to upgrade if we had started the prebuild sooner so not a big deal.

 

[killercane]

Hmm GOTM server might be down. Will upload in a bit.

 

[Paul#42]

Good news.
Finally we seem to have a ballgame!

We would not have any money to upgrade curraghs also.

If the server stays down, please attach the save here (upload with altered extension).

But no need to hurry.

 

[killercane]

Well we would borrow it from Portugal. They have 315+ last I checked.

Figured out the problem. The save is too big for attaching but it uploaded.

 

[Andronicus]

Hi guys, I'm back.

Unfortunately my modem has packed it in (I'm typing this from work), but supposedly its being replaced at the moment so hopefully I can finally have a good look at this game tonight.

might I have next turn? - after due discussion, of course

I take it we are using the 24 days for got it and 48 to play rule, arn't we?

 

[Paul#42]

Welcome back!!

You may play next .
As you can read, we are in a sort of motivation hole...
Glad that you make a very motivated impression
Maybe you can take the save home by USB-stick?
I hope you had a good journey. No broken legs in Japan?

A look at the save (with CA2) suggests the following to me:

1. complete MM (Purchasing it from Portugal seems not usefull because of our prebuild timing)
2. (Pre-)build min 2 galleys
3. send two settlers, 2 warriors to Iota(?)-continent asap (ours is Kappa).
4. Chose good spots to settle...

So that's what's open:

We have to discuss the dot map.

It looks like we will keep two of our three current towns for some more time.
Palace Jump is ruled out imo, it would take too many units unless we disband all three current towns.

Research I'd set on literature - or rather gold to trade out of the AT?
Maybe we should decide the turn we got MM based on our contacts then.

Another point to discuss:
Should we borrow money from Portugal?

 

[Andronicus]

OK, have downloaded save, examined map and civ assist and here are my thoughts

Tech
1) MM will finish in 6, can reduce science to 90% so make 1gpt (or not, see Tokyo below)
I think our next priority should be republic ASAP. Quickest way is likely to be via lit; therefore I recomend ...
2) literature
3) CoL
4) philosophy
5) republic
- if we can trade all the better, but until we are in rep we will have little gpt to offer

Builds
Kyoto - likely to remain our capital for some while yet
? settler completes in 5 ready to ship with 2 already waiting in Osaka to western isle once MM known -> becomes size 2
? harbour first as this would give fish 3fpt allowing an extra food bonus tile in despo and more quickly allow us to increase population
I think the goal should be to get settlers and workers to new isle ASAP

Osaka - ? for disband
current granary is prebuild timed perfectly for MM for galley
? follow with setters / workers -> abandon
? alt if wish to keep -> galley,harbour, setters / workers (I prefer former)

Tokyo - no production, small pop - needs harbour, some production if could use Osaka's tiles
- currently on wealth
I suggest this needs a harbour ASAP, so should switch immed, prob should then build a lib (perhaps squeezing in a worker if pop needs containing, otherwise can support scientist to keep happy)

Current units
6 warriors - required for mil police, new cities will probably build their own (? can we deal with barbs on western island)
3 curraghs - only 1 exploring. We cant upgrade the 2 in Tokyo until we build a harbour. By this time we will have transported our units to western isle with the 1 galley Osaka builds in 6 turns. I suggest they would be better employed on suicide exploratory missions - who knows we may get lucky
2 settlers - need 4 more as per Paul's dot map, one in production. I suggest another town could be placed 1NE of incense, so perhaps we need 5 more.


So points for discussion
1) What research after MM - lit gets my vote
2) ? harbour first, second (after current setter) or not at all (if abandoning in palace jump) in Kyoto
3) ? switch Tokyo from wealth to harbour
4) ? plan abandon Osaka building just settlers / workers after current galley
5) ? keep, disband (for shields for Tokyo) or send on suicide explore the curraghs
6) ? use Paul's dot map +/- extra town 1NE of incense (? order of settling - least corrupt first, ie red dot, or most productive first ? yellow or blue)
7) Do we buy other civ's gold with gpt (I dont advocate this unless we have a definite use for the gold)?

Consider this a got it, but I will wait at least 36 hours for comments

PS I seem to have problem with the Mediterranean mod - I have unzipped it in the following folder C:\Program Files\Atari\Civilization III Complete\Conquests\Scenarios\SGOTM-C3C, but they are not appearing when I open the game ( I have had it in previous games but had completely removed C3C some months ago then re-installed)

 

[Paul#42]

I'd favor galleys now in both Osaka and Kyoto.
We already have two settlers that need to be shipped (3 settlers + 1 galley = delay).
Harbor is too expensive for now.
No harbor in Tokyo either - I think we should start a settler now to abandon the town to lower corruption for our new towns.

Foundation of our new towns in order of distance. Every turn our settlers spend walking is not productive.

Not sure if my dot map makes much sense. It was a quick shot and I'm sure there are lots of mistakes in there. The absence of rivers however make sites kind of arbitrary to me... Please revise it.

I think I would settle blue and yellow dots first.
We will need a granary over there, too. And a harbor...
Blue will be just 34% corrupt, Yellow 27%. Not too bad.

The curraghs should go on suicide exploration trips imo.

 

[Andronicus]

I'd favour galleys now in both Osaka and Kyoto.
We already have two settlers that need to be shipped (3 settlers + 1 galley = delay).

Agree, I think we need more for exploration to gain quicker contacts

Harbor is too expensive for now.
No harbor in Tokyo either - I think we should start a settler now to abandon the town to lower corruption for our new towns.

I think we need a consensus on which towns to abandon
If Osaka is abandoned, Tokyo can use all its useful tiles without competing with Kyoto, if Tokyo is abandoned Osaka can use similar tiles but has access also to cows. The 2 downsides to abandoning Osaka are cant use Tokyo's base tile until cultural expansion and long term wont have access to as many coastal tiles. If in long term our plan is to shift capital then 3 towns may indeed be best setup for our starting isle, but at cost of more corruption on new western isle towns in the interim.
PS red dot will be similarly useless as Tokyo until has harbour and culture

Not sure if my dot map makes much sense. It was a quick shot and I'm sure there are lots of mistakes in there. The absence of rivers however make sites kind of arbitrary to me... Please revise it.

I think the northern towns on your dot map are self evident, much depends on whether we try cramming more into the southern part.
Green dot is a must before other civs arrive as we could not prise them from a 1 tile island (and an AI building culture there would be painful for our towns on the western island)
Moving red dot throws away 2 fish, orange dot is necessary for 1 fish, yellow is ideally placed and shifting blue would involve settling wine or BG.
Southern brown dot loses whale if moved, extra towns could be crammed in 1NE of incense or 2NE of blue dot, or even 2NW or 2SW of green dot, but these latter 2 take away useful tiles from green dot (note they would prevent AI settling on green dot though). So I suggest going with your dot map, at least to start with.

Foundation of our new towns in order of distance. Every turn our settlers spend walking is not productive.

I think I would settle blue and yellow dots first.

Well which? I think red and orange will not be terribly useful early, so would agree with the yellow and blue first strategy

We will need a granary over there, too. And a harbor...
Blue will be just 34% corrupt, Yellow 27%. Not too bad.

I'm surprised at so little corruption - is this without Tokyo and red, orange and green dot?
Blue dot is the only one I would agree with harbour, as other towns will need culture expansion to use food boni fish or clams (except orange, but I dont see this as a major population producer)


Any advise re med mod?

 

[Paul#42]

I think we need a consensus on which towns to abandon

I wanted to wait till we got a town settled on Iota to see the necessary units for a palace jump... However the chance is almost zero that we need less than 20 units as long as we have another town on Kappa.
Good catch on the value of Tokyo. I underrated that.

Well which? I think red and orange will not be terribly useful early, so would agree with the yellow and blue first strategy

You got me, I changed my mind while I drafted the post.
I now favor the distant quality sites first, they take just two turns longer to settle, those will be made up for easily by quicker granaries / harbors.

I'm surprised at so little corruption - is this without Tokyo and red, orange and green dot?

It's with our current setting and for each town if it was settled lonely. CA2 does not take into account founded or disbanded towns when calculating corruption. I hope it does not presume connection by harbors...

Blue dot is the only one I would agree with harbour, as other towns will need culture expansion to use food boni fish or clams (except orange, but I dont see this as a major population producer)

right. The others need libs first.

Any advise re med mod?

Sorry, I'm not that skilled technically. If you followed the instructions from the Reference Thread and failed, ask the staff rather than me...

 

[killercane]

I dont think we want to talk about abandonment until the island is full. Tokyo needs lux tax if it grows, wont be growing for a while due to settlers/workers, and will take forever to grow when and if it does.

I think we should concentrate more on growth, and gift/retake with Portugal to get a foothold there. If we play it right we can get one of their island cities, and start rushing things there like archers/longbows. If they are isolated we can seriously abuse them and if not, we have a better leg up in trading.

 

[Andronicus]

I dont think we want to talk about abandonment until the island is full. Tokyo needs lux tax if it grows, wont be growing for a while due to settlers/workers, and will take forever to grow when and if it does.

Might be more a matter of war happies rather than lux tax - no luxuries on starting island till astronomy

edit
Tokyo wont be much of a settler / worker producer with only 1fpt coast to work
It needs a harbour to be useful for anything. Because it has such poor production, we need to plan ahead (to when we become a republic), hence my suggestion to start a harbour now. With a harbour it can grow quite quickly, esp if it shares Osaka's clams. If it outgrows happy's, it could then support a scientist

 

[Andronicus]

1) What research after MM - lit gets my vote
2) ? harbour first, second (after current setter) or not at all (if abandoning in palace jump) in Kyoto
3) ? switch Tokyo from wealth to harbour
4) ? plan abandon Osaka building just settlers / workers after current galley
5) ? keep, disband (for shields for Tokyo) or send on suicide explore the curraghs
6) ? use Paul's dot map +/- extra town 1NE of incense (? order of settling - least corrupt first, ie red dot, or most productive first ? yellow or blue)
7) Do we buy other civ's gold with gpt (I dont advocate this unless we have a definite use for the gold)?

Playing after work this afternoon hopefully
Unless strong thoughts otherwise my plan on above is
1) complete MM -> lit
2) keep Osaka, build galleys / settler or workers
3) would like to switch this to harbour, KCs thoughts otherwise noted, anyone else against this?
4) Paul suggests galley next in Kyoto, I tend to agree (we only need 2 I think) - therefore galley then settlers in Kyoto
5) send curraghs on suicide missions
6) settle yellow, blue with current settlers (next choice will probably be up for next player)
7) no purchasing gold at present - look for any opportunities to speed progress to rep (I think it unlikely we will find a backwards AI - I think the gift retake policy may give us our best shot of extorting techs, but this wont be until after fully settling our western isle)

 

[killercane]

I might have been confusing Tokyo and Kyoto. Whichever it is, city 2 I dont think should be abandoned until we get considerable use out of it via science and production, and are able to immediately grow the capital (or city 3) to maximum size via worker adds to replace the lost tiles.

 

[Andronicus]

I might have been confusing Tokyo and Kyoto. Whichever it is, city 2 I dont think should be abandoned until we get considerable use out of it via science and production, and are able to immediately grow the capital (or city 3) to maximum size via worker adds to replace the lost tiles.

Yes, Paul also against any abandonment in near future

I was just trying to think ahead to if / when we do abandon / ? gift one, I think it should be Osaka (the second city) so any improvements there will be wasted

It may even be optimal to keep all 3 towns after capital moved to bigger island

At this stage I dont think any of us are arguing for improvements in Osaka.
Kyoto (the capital) already has granary, I think we should consider harbour there.
Tokyo is main debate as harbour would take a very long time, so if we are going to do it I think we should start soon - it cant produce galleys in time and doesnt have the food for settlers / workers


Cost benefit analysis of harbour in Tokyo

cost
1gpt (no wealth) whilst building harbour + 1gpt once harbour built

benefit
allows it to grow -> support more pop = more commerce (can be size 3 with another mp) or support a scientist
bigger commerce benefit once we are in rep / have commerce multipliers (again the sooner we start these the sooner we can reap the benefit)