SGOTM 13 - TNT thread

[dima42]

Also of note: Willem is worst enemy of Ragnar. The reverse isn't true. Ragnar will be gone soon enough, so I think we don't care.

 

[justjohn]

Also of note: Willem is worst enemy of Ragnar. The reverse isn't true. Ragnar will be gone soon enough, so I think we don't care.

But it does mean that if we want to try to get something from Ragnar, then we better try it before we make any trade with Willem.

Also, I notice we have a spare Fish we can give away. This we should do immediately.

 

[dima42]

But it does mean that if we want to try to get something from Ragnar, then we better try it before we make any trade with Willem.

Also, I notice we have a spare Fish we can give away. This we should do immediately.

Yeah, I did this not long after I uploaded the save, when I realized it. Thanks though.

 

[dima42]

Turn 109: gifted Agri to Ragnar. We have known him for <50 turns, so it should be sufficient to get some response if there's going to be any response. He does in fact get a +1 to attitude. It's not enough to get him to pleased, so we grant him pottery.

This does not improve the bonus at all. Perhaps he is largely researched through it?

I grant him writing, and now he is pleased. He will trade all but iron working (including mysticism!)

I ask for mysticism as a gift, and refuses. I note that now Vicky/Willem/Ragnar have identical techs except for Willem has polytheism. This means that trading Alphabet to Willem is safe. Also, I don't think there will be a trade of Alpha for polytheism, so we can trade Alpha this turn rather than waiting for next turn.

We trade Alpha to Vicky for Iron working and Masonry. There is iron on the northern tip of Ragnar's peninsula in addition to where he has the mine. We could conceivably get that spot, but not certainly.

Switch back to galley in Elba, but don't whip it (I was almost positive clams are not in danger next turn because barb was going to to chase Vicky unless Willem's WB did something stupid like get captured).

I am dumb and forget to turn research to 0%. (this would have been a good thing to do since we were trading for mysticism the turn after)


Turn 110:

Library in Orleans done --> Lighthouse

Willem will trade mysticism (he just finished Henge), and needs IW. We trade IW for Mysticism/AH/Hunting to him.

Turning off research for a turn in case Willem will trade Polytheism; we are short on gold anyhow.

Monument in Rheims, working 2f. (We will probably need to whip it in 17 turns when we grow to size 2, and as depressing as that is, it's faster than working 1-hammer tiles. I'm also gonna think about chopping it, even with the penalty.)

There are horses on the northern tip of the Rheims island.

In another bout of depression, we are working coast instead of corn in Elba because growth wouldn't do us any good while building the galley.

Gifting fish to Willem, since he will accept it. As a quick heads up to newer players: it's almost always better to gift rather than trade plentiful resources. AI will not cancel the deal when they get their own, and thus you will continue receiving the resources attitude modifier.

Turn 111:

Traded Alphabet to Willem for Archery and Polytheism. Started researching Priesthood @ 100% research; will take us 3 turns. Oracle is currently still unbuilt.

Sending worker to Rheims by foot rather than boat so that galleys get back to guard various seafood.

Back to worker in Elba because the galley threat appears to have subsided briefly. This is immense indecision on my part .

Turn 112:

Ask Willem for Priesthood as gift. He says no. Apparently a bunch of techs know Priesthood; bad news for us.

More galley moving around and trying to avoid both fights and loss of workboats/clams .

Turn 113:

Meet Isabella.

Turn 114: Meet Catherine. She's worst enemy of Isabella. Finish Priesthood. Long deliberations on whether to build oracle in Elba or Corsica. The winner is Elba, building the Oracle with allowing pop growth this turn (20*2 = 40 hammers), switching to Galley next, whipping galley, getting 36*2 = 72 shields of galley overflow from whipping, organic build, and a whip. (whipping the worker the turn before was possibly slightly more correct, unfortunately I didn't realize this.) I considered building warriors for a turn and then 1-pop whipping them but it's only a one turn improvement and harsher on Elba with unhappiness after the Oracle is done.

Not super optimistic on the Oracle though. It's already turn 114 and lots of people know Priesthood.

Not chopping monument in Rheims because it will not get done any faster than the whip. Clearing the jungle so the whip is slightly faster.

Tech turned to 0%. Isabella will trade Monotheism. But no one has Monarchy (let alone is willing to trade it), so I don't see a reason to make this trade.

Corsica builds barracks while growing to pop 5 for the upcoming war with Ragnar. I think we need Barracks in Corsica and Elba and then probably support troup/galley production elsewhere.

Not gifting fish to Catherine because Elba will hit the healthcap next turn and Lyons isn't far either.

Turn 115:

Isabella asks for Bronze Working. She is at least close to be able to trade for it, so I grant it.

Whip galley in Elba as per plan.

Turn 116:

Corsica switches to settler. We won't get to start Axe production for a bit of time, and there are nice spots by gold, or we could grab horse/dyes, or we could grab fur.

Turn 117: quiet turn. My heart is beating for the Oracle.

Turn 118: Elba 2-pop whips Oracle, avoiding growth since next build is not a worker/settler (or maybe it should be a settler? who knows...)

Lyons 2-pop whips granary. Worker there chops jungle first (next is mine, final is road)


Turn 119: I have confirmed that we get the Oracle, chosen Metal Casting from Oracle, and am leaving galley movement for John.

Upload/pics coming.

 

[justjohn]

Plenty of good news there!

And I think our early Alphabet decision has already paid off. Now we can build some Triremes for protection, and then get our Axemen out. I see that you've set Compass as our next research tech. Other options include Mathematics and/or Currency. That extra trade route would help our income a lot.

I just loaded the save, and I notice we can trade open borders with more people, and there are plenty of possibilities to gift techs. We need to think about that. Gifting early techs is usually a good idea, but we might want to avoid those AIs that are worst enemies of others.

I also see a fantastic city site by the Gold. And don't forget the WB in Uppsala. Has it been parked there for several turns?

 

[dima42]

Plenty of good news there!

And I think our early Alphabet decision has already paid off. Now we can build some Triremes for protection, and then get our Axemen out. I see that you've set Compass as our next research tech. Other options include Mathematics and/or Currency. That extra trade route would help our income a lot.

I just loaded the save, and I notice we can trade open borders with more people, and there are plenty of possibilities to gift techs. We need to think about that. Gifting early techs is usually a good idea, but we might want to avoid those AIs that are worst enemies of others.

I also see a fantastic city site by the Gold. And don't forget the WB in Uppsala. Has it been parked there for several turns?

I don't have strong preference for next tech, just set Compass as a placeholder. I think Compass may be slightly sharper than Math because we'll be able to trade for Math, but Currency is worth considering.

Yeah, the gold was part of why I switched over to settler in Corsica.

There was a barb galley within 1 turn of Uppsala as of 2 turns ago. The Uppsala workboat should head toward Rheims when the borders of Rheims are scheduled to expand, but I don't think there is any reason to get there before then.

 

[dima42]

I thought about some tech gifts and held off. The primary reason really only being that no one is at any real risk of attacking us, so it wasn't urgent, and those bonuses don't take time to build up.

The world diplomatic situation as a whole is definitely worth thinking about, and now is the time to do it.

 

[dima42]

By the way, for those of you who haven't done this before,this game will be classically setup for building a wonder (in this case, Colossus) through Axeman overflow. The basic idea is as follows: (once we have copper)

build barracks, 2-pop whip barracks with max possible overflow, overflow into Colossus, build Colossus for one turn.
build axeman, 2-pop whip axeman with possible overflow, overflow into Colossus, build Colossus for one turn
repeat until Colossus is completed. Micromanage carefully so that the whips are all 2-pop whips and with the most overflow possible.

The reason to do this is so that we get the bonus modifiers on the whip and no whipping penalty on Colossus.

 

[dima42]

Sorry for the quad post. After thinking this over for a while, I think Currency-->CoL-->Compass is the path to take here. Our only super-early math trade hope is Willem, and we should be ~first to Currency if we start it now. And we will in fact have a lot of early cities on a water map (somewhat unusual for me), so the trade route is huge. (This is also why I advocate forsaking Math's prereq for currency bonus; I just think the earlier trade routes (not to mention potential to trade for Math along the way) are more beakers, although I haven't calculated this out).

Other priorities: gold, fur, calendar (probably for trade). This lets us whip one heck of an army. Oh, and probably we should whip a bunch of monuments since we're charismatic.

Not a priority: running scientists. Again, this is unusual for me in seafood-rich starts, but short of containing population growth I'm not actually sure of good uses of scientists here. Don't think we'll be running much pacifism, so popping philosophy isn't really sensible... no academy-wanting cities. Maybe settling scientists into a GP Farm and then doing Oxford there? But this can probably wait.

Questionable priority: trying to circumnavigate. This would be huge in this circumstances, but I'm just not sure whether it is at all likely. In any case, you've got two "spare" galleys ready to try to take it on if you feel like it's worth a shot.

Okay, I'm going away from Civ for a few days to get some work done . Might check in sometime but not really think much.

 

[justjohn]

Sorry for the quad post. After thinking this over for a while, I think Currency-->CoL-->Compass is the path to take here. Our only super-early math trade hope is Willem, and we should be ~first to Currency if we start it now. And we will in fact have a lot of early cities on a water map (somewhat unusual for me), so the trade route is huge. (This is also why I advocate forsaking Math's prereq for currency bonus; I just think the earlier trade routes (not to mention potential to trade for Math along the way) are more beakers, although I haven't calculated this out).

I just mensioned Math as a possibility, but also I would prefer Currency over Math. Currency is usually a safe tech to get for trade (much lower on AIs priotity list than Math), and the self-bonus often more than outweights the 20% bonus we forego. Not to mension that Currency also will allow us to get some gold in trades, which we already need.

 

[Keath]

Nice turnset, dima! We have the Oracle, MC for triremes and things are looking good!

Still playing shadow tag with the barb, I see. Is he just chasing Willem's work boat? Lots of good advice for new players. Good trades. And our score and power have taken off.

Currency sounds like the right tech for research. More comments later.

***ROSTER

bjartur (up)
justjohn (on deck)
enKage
keath
Windfury
fizbankovi
2metraninja
The Dude Esq
dima42 (just played)

cottage chris - assumed not playing....

 

[justjohn]

It has been some time since we heard from bjartur, but I hope you're still with us. There are quite a lot of things to discuss for the upcomming turnset. Hence after you have downloaded the save and had a thorough look at it, you should post a plan for your turnset that we all can discuss and agree on before you actually play. In fact, since I usually play quite diplomatic games, these turns right after Alphabet are one of my favourite turns (in addition to the beginning / planning of the game).

 

[Keath]

It has been some time since we heard from bjartur, but I hope you're still with us. There are quite a lot of things to discuss for the upcomming turnset. Hence after you have downloaded the save and had a thorough look at it, you should post a plan for your turnset that we all can discuss and agree on before you actually play. In fact, since I usually play quite diplomatic games, these turns right after Alphabet are one of my favourite turns (in addition to the beginning / planning of the game).

If bjartur doesn't respond in 24 hours we'll have to assume he isn't playing but we'll have to give him a chance. I'll pm him.

 

[Keath]

To speed things up and take advantage of the opportunity for justjohn to play now, let's switch bjartur now and you, jj, play this set. If bjartur responds, we'll put him in after your turnset.

I hope that works with everyone. If not, post a reply.

***ADJUSTED ROSTER***

justjohn (up)
bjartur (up next if available)
enKage (on deck if bjartur doesn't respond)
keath
Windfury
fizbankovi
2metraninja
The Dude Esq
dima42 (just played)

 

[justjohn]

To speed things up and take advantage of the opportunity for justjohn to play now, let's switch bjartur now and you, jj, play this set. If bjartur responds, we'll put him in after your turnset.

I won't have time to do anything today (until tonight), so if he shows up and want to play before me, he can just post here today. Otherwise I will start making a plan for this turnset tonight.

-jj-

 

[The Dude Esq]

Hey nice going Dima. Great work to get the Oracle. Looks like things should really be looking up for us now.

From my brief scan of the pages, interested to hear about your ploy with gifting rather than trading resources. Well, for fish, which must be pretty common. On the other hand, in the later game, when most of the land is gobbled up, surely then it must be worthwhile getting a little gold for the trades, ie, if you know the AI wont hook them up?

 

[justjohn]

From my brief scan of the pages, interested to hear about your ploy with gifting rather than trading resources. Well, for fish, which must be pretty common. On the other hand, in the later game, when most of the land is gobbled up, surely then it must be worthwhile getting a little gold for the trades, ie, if you know the AI wont hook them up?

This is a common trick to get better diplo standings, and you're right, it is usually not something you do with all your resources. In general you should always try to gift resources that you know you will have excess of yourself and that the AI eventually will get themselves. If you trade it for another resource, then the AI will cancel the deal later, but if you gift it, then the AI will keep the deal even if he gets the resource himselves, allowing you to maintain the diplo bonuses from "Fair trade" and "Years of providing resources" for free. Resources that are not so commonplace should be used for trading with other resources or gpt. But you should always look at for the possibility to gift such resources in the short run. If you don't need that extra corn for the next 10 turns (i.e. no health issues for 10 turns), then you might as well gift it away and cancel the deal when you need it. If you pay careful attention to all such possibilities (including some tech gifting), you should normally be able to build up the +4 bonus for Fair trade and the +2 bonus from Providing resources. Even if you're not planning a peaceful victory, you want to take out one AI at a time, thus keeping up relasions with the other AIs are important.

-jj-

 

[fizbankovi]

wow, nice turnset! Im a bit passive as my turnset is soo far away. You all seem a little bit better players then me, so all my ideas have been pretty much been put to work, or replaced with bette ones. none the less, im here and reading regulalrly.

i think the best option to set up the win, is to develop a concrete basis for our conquest. getting more cities, and developing infrastructure seems the best way to go.

i think this game should be won with galleon, rifle at the latest. Maybie even galleon mace, trebuchet.

 

[Keath]

So far we have Vicki(GW), Ragnar, Willem(SH), Isabella, Catherine(GLH), in that order; with one more AI to meet (likely Germany -- Fredrick??). Vicki is to the east, Ragnar and Willem to the west. Which direction did Isabella and Catherine appear to come from?

I remember about -- 'a difficult map for warring'. Is anything ringing clear about what might make it even more difficult than small island warfare?

The gold site looks like a must have! There are choices of:
1. gold/crab/fish
2. fur and crab
3. horse and dye
4. pig and fish
5. iron site north of Ragnar
6. the seven tile island to the east still fogged could be a good strategic site, too.

We have more cities than most of the AI at this time.

@jj -- it looks like bjartur is not responding so we'll do as planned. Take it away, jj!!

 

[Keath]

***To The Team***​

It is really excellent when players add a few comments. It lets the rest of the team know that you are engaged in reading the posts and it supports the plans even if all you comment on is agreement or positive encouragement.

I think commenting, asking questions and debating is all part of the fun. BUT, it can't be a lot of fun if your turn is approaching and you have pages and pages of posts to read. Then it can be a chore. I hope, like The Dude and fizbankovi, that other players would post a comment even if it's just so we know we're all on board.

If someone would like a little more commitment, we could edit a post from the first page and keep an ongoing summary of the game - a place where all the details of our game would be easily accessible. I started a summary in post #351 but it would be better on a post from the first page for easy access.

***So if you are going to be away from the game for a while, post a note and if you are following along, post a comment. Your participation is what these SGOTM are all about.