ok, played one more turn. The spearman has moved away and is no longer visible. The archer from deer gems is on his way towards our copper city, and copper is being hooked up at the moment. Another team got alpha, leaving 2 with and 2 without. We are 2 turns from alpha so I think we should finish it and try to flip it for whatever we can get, hopefully getting polytheism and hence lit.
SGOTM 14 - Phoenix Rising
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
You would of got alphabet and another tech cheaply for aesth. Did you check to see what we could of got??? Hmmmm not sure waiting a turn has really helped.
Okay going forward!
We need to get sailing and open borders so our scouting workboats can progress. We need a scouting workboat to find the Ai to the NW.
Okay alphabet. I can see a logic to complete it so we don't give away aesth too cheaply. I can also see a danger of the Ai teching it before we trade it. We do need lit!! If we can trade alphabet that could be useful I guess.
If we trade for sailing we could consider TGL. Risky as it needs a light house too. Could go at any point.
In terms of cities. NY badly needs a granary after the archer. Washington can build a archer before lit.
I am not sure about the cottage above Topeka.
So Kadazzle or Lymond are next but where are they???
We need to get sailing and open borders so our scouting workboats can progress. We need a scouting workboat to find the Ai to the NW.
Okay alphabet. I can see a logic to complete it so we don't give away aesth too cheaply. I can also see a danger of the Ai teching it before we trade it. We do need lit!! If we can trade alphabet that could be useful I guess.
If we trade for sailing we could consider TGL. Risky as it needs a light house too. Could go at any point.
In terms of cities. NY badly needs a granary after the archer. Washington can build a archer before lit.
I am not sure about the cottage above Topeka.
So Kadazzle or Lymond are next but where are they???
bobbyboy29
I was saying boo-urns...
We're still in a very strong position to win this game. 6 cities at 725 BC and a booming tech rate is very strong.
Here's my thoughts:
1. First thing we need to do is unpause and check our trading options. Alpha, poly, sailing are the main ones we want, we could also do with IW if we really want, maths would be nice as well. We've already put too many beakers into alpha so we should trade straight away. We can then go straight for lit.
2. Lack of trade routes from no sailing is really hurting. We have a GE sitting around as well. I think we should get sailing ASAP, make sure we get TR's with the AI's who will OB with us and if we do, whip a LH in stone city ASAP and rush the wonder with the GE. No other wonder merits rushing (we can manual build the marble wonders easily). I think this outweighs settling him.
3. We probably need a couple more units out exploring, we need an extra fogbuster out north to fully fogbust that part and I'd like to see what's there as well. Also, I think it may help to have another unit out exploring the centre of the map, searching for the wiz possibly or clues to find him and checking AI territories. We don't know what neil might have hidden on this map and I'd like to see.
4. Domestically, I think the only city which really needs to be settled atm is pigs/fish/silver in the north. I think it will contribute greatly at this stage. We also could do with another worker in the south near the copper spot, still have 2 pastures to finish there.
Here's my thoughts:
1. First thing we need to do is unpause and check our trading options. Alpha, poly, sailing are the main ones we want, we could also do with IW if we really want, maths would be nice as well. We've already put too many beakers into alpha so we should trade straight away. We can then go straight for lit.
2. Lack of trade routes from no sailing is really hurting. We have a GE sitting around as well. I think we should get sailing ASAP, make sure we get TR's with the AI's who will OB with us and if we do, whip a LH in stone city ASAP and rush the wonder with the GE. No other wonder merits rushing (we can manual build the marble wonders easily). I think this outweighs settling him.
3. We probably need a couple more units out exploring, we need an extra fogbuster out north to fully fogbust that part and I'd like to see what's there as well. Also, I think it may help to have another unit out exploring the centre of the map, searching for the wiz possibly or clues to find him and checking AI territories. We don't know what neil might have hidden on this map and I'd like to see.
4. Domestically, I think the only city which really needs to be settled atm is pigs/fish/silver in the north. I think it will contribute greatly at this stage. We also could do with another worker in the south near the copper spot, still have 2 pastures to finish there.
Good comments BB. The main reason to fully tech alpha is to trade it to the other 2 Ai preserving aesth to trade for bigger techs. At present we can only trade aesth for alphabet and no bigger techs like theology for a paper route.
Okay lets give Lymond Or kadazzle time to post if not I will pick this up next.
Okay lets give Lymond Or kadazzle time to post if not I will pick this up next.
vranasm
Deity
I was lately a bit quiet since i didn't felt to continue flame wars I led hear lately.
checking the save now. So I will post mixture of feelings about the state of the game.
- I agree with bobby we should look into tech trades. It's completely possible we could get from aesth nice package having alpha, iw, sailing, myst, hunting or any combination of this. We should have probably done this long ago.
- I checked all cities. I am not content with the state of some of them.
-- Topeca should work farm instead of grassland hill. Really not sure why we work scientists before growing to happy cap.
-- Sheep needs border pop and another work boat (we should build there Monument asap once we acquire myst)
-- Marble shouldn't build library, it should be granary
-- for such important spot (Copper junction) there is too few workers, only 1 won't cut it
- 6 cities - 5 workers, that has to be fixed.
I would probably think about stone city worker OF into granary now from size 4, it would mean whipping of gold, but imo the workers are needed more.
The same probably with Sheep in 3T
With coming hunting, the deer has to be improved, we lose there 2F each turn and potential in great city spot.
It's questionable if we shouldn't do 2-pop worker whip in deer gems too.
We will need even workers for some chops into TGL (more on this later)
After we fix a bit the workers issue, I would (after regrowth) do some 2-pop settler whips and probably even some more workers.
I wouldn't whip capital from this point though. Another cities could serve as s-w pumps for a bit.
- I checked GE or better said thought about him last few days. I don't really think we should build TGL with him since we have the marble. Feels like waste, we would burn him on 175! hammers build...
We could pop with him MC (which isn't bad since forges are great hammer multipliers and bring yet another awesome amount of hapiness which we don't need since we lack ability to grow into the happy cap)
We could settle him for 3H+6bpt (7.5 thanks to library), which isn't probably THAT bad an option imo.
We could after getting sailing try for GLH in one cities, probably deer gems with the help of whip (60H should be 2 pop whip)
We could start golden age.
Out of all those options I have to say I like most anything better then to invest the GE into TGL.
GLH would be probably strongest for me, but we have to closely watch the AI's. I think we should aim for it like in 2-3 turns latest!
Then I would like settling as another option, because AI's already start to know alphabet and we should get access for MC, even maybe with Aesth+Alpha combination
Bulbing MC wouldn't be normally bad, but in tech trading game, with AI's with alpha isn't the strongest imo.
Oracle was built by Shaka, from the look I would put my bet he took Theology as free tech. so not sure if MC is even known by some AI though.
I think the driver after aquiring Alpha has to check this and we should reevaluate importance of GE.
The GE is something that can fix not building GLH ourselfs in a sense.
So thats my thoughts.
checking the save now. So I will post mixture of feelings about the state of the game.
- I agree with bobby we should look into tech trades. It's completely possible we could get from aesth nice package having alpha, iw, sailing, myst, hunting or any combination of this. We should have probably done this long ago.
- I checked all cities. I am not content with the state of some of them.
-- Topeca should work farm instead of grassland hill. Really not sure why we work scientists before growing to happy cap.
-- Sheep needs border pop and another work boat (we should build there Monument asap once we acquire myst)
-- Marble shouldn't build library, it should be granary
-- for such important spot (Copper junction) there is too few workers, only 1 won't cut it
- 6 cities - 5 workers, that has to be fixed.
I would probably think about stone city worker OF into granary now from size 4, it would mean whipping of gold, but imo the workers are needed more.
The same probably with Sheep in 3T
With coming hunting, the deer has to be improved, we lose there 2F each turn and potential in great city spot.
It's questionable if we shouldn't do 2-pop worker whip in deer gems too.
We will need even workers for some chops into TGL (more on this later)
After we fix a bit the workers issue, I would (after regrowth) do some 2-pop settler whips and probably even some more workers.
I wouldn't whip capital from this point though. Another cities could serve as s-w pumps for a bit.
- I checked GE or better said thought about him last few days. I don't really think we should build TGL with him since we have the marble. Feels like waste, we would burn him on 175! hammers build...
We could pop with him MC (which isn't bad since forges are great hammer multipliers and bring yet another awesome amount of hapiness which we don't need since we lack ability to grow into the happy cap)
We could settle him for 3H+6bpt (7.5 thanks to library), which isn't probably THAT bad an option imo.
We could after getting sailing try for GLH in one cities, probably deer gems with the help of whip (60H should be 2 pop whip)
We could start golden age.
Out of all those options I have to say I like most anything better then to invest the GE into TGL.
GLH would be probably strongest for me, but we have to closely watch the AI's. I think we should aim for it like in 2-3 turns latest!
Then I would like settling as another option, because AI's already start to know alphabet and we should get access for MC, even maybe with Aesth+Alpha combination
Bulbing MC wouldn't be normally bad, but in tech trading game, with AI's with alpha isn't the strongest imo.
Oracle was built by Shaka, from the look I would put my bet he took Theology as free tech. so not sure if MC is even known by some AI though.
I think the driver after aquiring Alpha has to check this and we should reevaluate importance of GE.
The GE is something that can fix not building GLH ourselfs in a sense.
So thats my thoughts.
Okay a few things.
GE- Lets ditch this Great light house idea. We need to focus on bulbing to curs or another war tech. Whipping a light house and hoping the Ai does not build the wonder seems crazy. We don't even have foreign trade routes yet! Big no! As bad as our late Oracle a few games back.
I don't see point on using it on a golden age. We will have lots of GS/Gart to use for that.
Same for settling. We need a big impact now! Long term it may prove useful but we want an impact now.
Bulbing - MC We will get other great people. I don't see it as a key early tech. We need great people and more specialists now.
Building Glib with a GE will save over 14 turns in the capital and give it a huge GS boost. We need to bulb our way to a key tech and this will help free up our capital and free up worker chopping turns. You can bet PD will do this.
Whipping cities
This is a bad idea. We need to grow cities to run specialist! We can chop an extra worker if need be. We need 6-7 large strong cities to run specialists and for whipping units. Till then whipping is a bad idea. For instance the gold city has 4-5 strong tiles to run. Why whip away these???
Tech trades
We need to reach lit asap. Is it worth waiting 2 turns to get alphabet? Maybe a risky strategy as the Ai may trade or tech it in next 2 turns. I think lets trade techs now and get teching Lit.
City micro
Yeah next player needs to look at this and worker micro.
Will think more about other things tomorrow. We really do need to have a focused direction here on in.
GE- Lets ditch this Great light house idea. We need to focus on bulbing to curs or another war tech. Whipping a light house and hoping the Ai does not build the wonder seems crazy. We don't even have foreign trade routes yet! Big no! As bad as our late Oracle a few games back.
I don't see point on using it on a golden age. We will have lots of GS/Gart to use for that.
Same for settling. We need a big impact now! Long term it may prove useful but we want an impact now.
Bulbing - MC We will get other great people. I don't see it as a key early tech. We need great people and more specialists now.
Building Glib with a GE will save over 14 turns in the capital and give it a huge GS boost. We need to bulb our way to a key tech and this will help free up our capital and free up worker chopping turns. You can bet PD will do this.
Whipping cities
This is a bad idea. We need to grow cities to run specialist! We can chop an extra worker if need be. We need 6-7 large strong cities to run specialists and for whipping units. Till then whipping is a bad idea. For instance the gold city has 4-5 strong tiles to run. Why whip away these???
Tech trades
We need to reach lit asap. Is it worth waiting 2 turns to get alphabet? Maybe a risky strategy as the Ai may trade or tech it in next 2 turns. I think lets trade techs now and get teching Lit.
City micro
Yeah next player needs to look at this and worker micro.
Will think more about other things tomorrow. We really do need to have a focused direction here on in.
bobbyboy29
I was saying boo-urns...
I'm not so sold on this yet. And it seems vranasm is in agreement with me. Firstly, once we get sailing we should get foreign trade routes. Secondly, it's not a detour at all, we need sailing anyway. A few cities need lighthouses anyway, if we have both and the wonder is still available then why not rush it? We could have it in under 3 turns. There's a good chance it'll still be availiable then.
I don't think we should rush TGLib. My general rule of thumb with rushing is that if you don't have a resource to speed the build up, and you're not guaranteed finishing it first that is when you use the GE. I see no reason to rush TGL, something we can get with little effort anyway. Like vranasm said, it's an incredibly small amount of hammers to burn a GE on for very little benefit.
Looking forward to the plan lymond!
bobbyboy29
I was saying boo-urns...
Also, we should start thinking about deciphering who has which personality. Lymond, do you maybe want to give that a go or see what information you can glean from the diplo map?
vranasm
Deity
@Gum
if you want to talk about what other teams do, check power graphs. Almost every team is preparing classical era warfare.
If you check our graph we "lag" behind big time on army.
if you want to talk about what other teams do, check power graphs. Almost every team is preparing classical era warfare.
If you check our graph we "lag" behind big time on army.
I don't think they are. 100 power by 1ad could just mean they didn't fog bust greatly. Or are fighting off barbs.
On SGOTM 13 they needed a power rating of 200 or so to reach a point where they could declare. A power rating of sub 100 is not enough. Even then they would of had to rex for copper city and send a stack of a 10-12 units on a long journey to an AI. Even with HA this would be tough. Unless they built the bridging city.
In terms of attacking an Ai who? If they are whipping an army now they will not be expanding or reaching a good tech. They could be building barracks. They could also have techs like IW etc which have increased their power. The only way forward here is with a 2mp unit.
The other reason i doubt this is X team rushed from 1400bc to 700bc. They clearly had some sort of plan.
V if you can show in a test game you can do an early rush and still keep the tech rate up by all means show how. I know you tried it before albeit with a stronger Ai below us.
Remember the Indians are refusing to open borders. Trade routes may not be as simple as you think due to nature of map stopping us getting foreign trade routes. Do we gift indians techs to open borders??
Whipping a light house seems a waste. We need to grow the cities. Whipping for WB or light houses is not going to help here on the size 3-4 cities.
As for Glib. Yes but you are freeing up over 14 turns of the capital and that allows it to grow instead of running 3-4 mines. In those 14 turns it can build the NE and grow 2 sizes. Every turn counts!!!
We need specialists and a decent bulbing strategy. I am against risking GLHouse. Far too risky and we are at least 8-9 turns from even getting any foreign trade routes.
Looking at game trading techs will up our score by 60 or so points. If we could trade for theology we have a route to paper. Let's await the plan from Lymond. I would love to know his view on this game. He has been quiet far too long.
vranasm
Deity
not possible from this point imo. If you want early rush, you have to have around 900 BC latest your military tech to have around 400 BC attack date from my experience.
Or you asking in completely different game with completely different map?
not sure what you want to hear now.
We have to stick with our strategy now, TGL, cuirs. Backfill techs now.
We differentiate only in some minor points (yeah whipping workers is minor point even if I was pretty angry at you first when I read your post)
Use good way GE. I wanted to provide some more arguments, but I think since bb means the same, we are already 2 ;-).
Just think about it... you want to invest GE for 175 hammers build! Even if i would settle the GE I would get those hammers in 50 turns back. No way we would end the game sooner.
There are still some trees around cap which should be 30 hammers (or 60 based on the way you calculate the cost of TGL). If we would have bigger capital (at happy cap) I would talk about 2 pop worker whip, but not saying now ;-).
edit: the remark about other teams was meant that we can't compare with them, since they follow other strategy probably.
V whipping a worker is not a good idea as we can build one in 4 turns. It would take 6-8+ turns to regrow the city. Whipping without a granary is not efficient anyway on normal speed. Remember this is a team game and I doubt every player will always agree on every idea.
Even Mylene only wanted 4-5 workers at this point. That was on a minimalist approach on worker turns. Like building on marble instead of working it focusing on 3-4 strong cities.
Agreed switching strategies now would be tough but if another team really wanted to build an army they would of been whipping units instead of a slow gradual build up as we well know would of killed their science. At 6 cities we are struggling to keep above 30% science.
On my test game our score was around 600 come 1ad. We were well placed to bulb techs for curs. This is very similar to xteam score. We may start slow but we will rise quickly due to our bulbing strategy.
The GE debate needs to be had. I can see how easy it looks to get the GLighouse I just don't see it working on this map without a 2 pop whip on a lighthouse. NY does not have a granary yet. Same for many of the other coastal cities too. How close are the Ai to Great Light House??
The settling of the GE is interesting. I am not against this. 50 turns takes us to what date? I do want to get up as many specialists and grow all cities as soon as possible.
The GE on Great lib just offers instant impact. You really need to test this. An early scientist could mean we are able to trade for more techs with the Ai sooner. We need to get an advantage somewhere over other teams. I think this is it.
Even Mylene only wanted 4-5 workers at this point. That was on a minimalist approach on worker turns. Like building on marble instead of working it focusing on 3-4 strong cities.
Agreed switching strategies now would be tough but if another team really wanted to build an army they would of been whipping units instead of a slow gradual build up as we well know would of killed their science. At 6 cities we are struggling to keep above 30% science.
On my test game our score was around 600 come 1ad. We were well placed to bulb techs for curs. This is very similar to xteam score. We may start slow but we will rise quickly due to our bulbing strategy.
The GE debate needs to be had. I can see how easy it looks to get the GLighouse I just don't see it working on this map without a 2 pop whip on a lighthouse. NY does not have a granary yet. Same for many of the other coastal cities too. How close are the Ai to Great Light House??
The settling of the GE is interesting. I am not against this. 50 turns takes us to what date? I do want to get up as many specialists and grow all cities as soon as possible.
The GE on Great lib just offers instant impact. You really need to test this. An early scientist could mean we are able to trade for more techs with the Ai sooner. We need to get an advantage somewhere over other teams. I think this is it.
vranasm
Deity
the idea whipping in gold city was probably pretty dumb, I give this to you.
max OF worker whip i use to go into granary.
Sheep city is though completely other thing (imo), it has only 3 improved tiles, sheep, clams and GH, so there whipping from 4->2 wouldn't be imo bad.
Deer+gems city is very interesting situation. it's the only place where i can imagine doing the GLH gambit, thus we would need to whip there the LH, it is size 5 so we would whip scientists which eat food. There is that lake for regrowth.
The deer has to be finally improved asap., then the city will have very good growth potential.
Don't forget that settling gives us (except for hammers) science too... 7.5 bpt. Overall output of settled GE is 9 of something.
But I think settling should be our last thinking, well last before rushing TGL.
How many turns we will sit on GE if we want to rush TGL anyway? is it 9-10 turns? that's 30 hammers (1/6 of TGL cost) and 75 beakers if we settle right away (being in rep is probably one of sittuations where settling specs and running SSE is worthwhile).
I am most sold on the GLH idea with whipping deers.
There is 2 directions for trade routes, the south seems locked with bad diplo, we should open the west one.
Even if we don't open foreign soon, the GLH will net us city number x 2 commerce at least anyway.
max OF worker whip i use to go into granary.
Sheep city is though completely other thing (imo), it has only 3 improved tiles, sheep, clams and GH, so there whipping from 4->2 wouldn't be imo bad.
Deer+gems city is very interesting situation. it's the only place where i can imagine doing the GLH gambit, thus we would need to whip there the LH, it is size 5 so we would whip scientists which eat food. There is that lake for regrowth.
The deer has to be finally improved asap., then the city will have very good growth potential.
Don't forget that settling gives us (except for hammers) science too... 7.5 bpt. Overall output of settled GE is 9 of something.
But I think settling should be our last thinking, well last before rushing TGL.
How many turns we will sit on GE if we want to rush TGL anyway? is it 9-10 turns? that's 30 hammers (1/6 of TGL cost) and 75 beakers if we settle right away (being in rep is probably one of sittuations where settling specs and running SSE is worthwhile).
I am most sold on the GLH idea with whipping deers.
There is 2 directions for trade routes, the south seems locked with bad diplo, we should open the west one.
Even if we don't open foreign soon, the GLH will net us city number x 2 commerce at least anyway.
My gut feeling is it will be the same team to the west. So trade routes would be shut. I assume both parts of the team are refusing open borders?
Let's wait and see what lymonds take is on the GE.
The gain of 2 scientists and the TGLib wonder points is about 14+ great people points a turn. making capital double from 14-28?? up to around 42 with NE sooner?
So that is nearly 1 great person over 14 turns? Then another gain over 8-10 turns to build NE.
Let's wait and see what lymonds take is on the GE.
The gain of 2 scientists and the TGLib wonder points is about 14+ great people points a turn. making capital double from 14-28?? up to around 42 with NE sooner?
So that is nearly 1 great person over 14 turns? Then another gain over 8-10 turns to build NE.
Don't trade aesthetics until alpha is complete. You can probably get the same techs from alpha that you can from aesthetics, and the ai isn't going to tech aest in the next 2 turns since it only got alpha 2-3 turns ago. You want to trade aesthetics for currency, math, calendar, not must and iw
New test save.
Had a few issues. GLH built in 775bc by an Ai. Removed it. I checked back to my 850bc save and 2 Ai were building it. One 10 turns off . Another 6. The one 10 turns off built it with 2 chops.
Had to take away alphabet from one Ai so this may make trades a bit uneven. ( On this test game at 675bc both other Ai have traded for alphabet)
Time to test GLH vs GE on Glib or settling GE.
NY is 5 turns slow on a GS. 15-10.
Had a few issues. GLH built in 775bc by an Ai. Removed it. I checked back to my 850bc save and 2 Ai were building it. One 10 turns off . Another 6. The one 10 turns off built it with 2 chops.
Had to take away alphabet from one Ai so this may make trades a bit uneven. ( On this test game at 675bc both other Ai have traded for alphabet)
Time to test GLH vs GE on Glib or settling GE.
NY is 5 turns slow on a GS. 15-10.
Okay if we trade aesth asap.
We can tech myst in 1 turn but I traded for it. We can trade for poly turn after. Then tech lit.
GE on MOM and parth seems wasteful really. Gain is too late for MoM to invest all those hammers. As for Parth on philosophical leaders the gains are small really. We seem to be gambling on the AI not doing a lot of things at present. The big question is how far into GLH are they if at all??
On test save lit was about 5 turns with tech trades.
GE on Glib.
Great light house approach.
Capital is at size 8 compared to 10. Gems city was without the scientists for a while. I was doing 79 beakers a turn compared to about 70 or so on GLib save. I probably should of worked the deer near NY on both saves. My worker management was a bit poor really. Glight House save is slightly ahead on techs but I could of been running more specialists in cities. Overall when we hit COL washington on Glib save will be 2-3 pop bigger and running 2-3 more specialists during the golden age.
The main question is where would we really want the NE. Without a golden age the Gem city is fine but with a Golden age Washington will be able to run so many more specialists.
We can tech myst in 1 turn but I traded for it. We can trade for poly turn after. Then tech lit.
GE on MOM and parth seems wasteful really. Gain is too late for MoM to invest all those hammers. As for Parth on philosophical leaders the gains are small really. We seem to be gambling on the AI not doing a lot of things at present. The big question is how far into GLH are they if at all??
On test save lit was about 5 turns with tech trades.
GE on Glib.
Spoiler :
Great light house approach.
Spoiler :
Capital is at size 8 compared to 10. Gems city was without the scientists for a while. I was doing 79 beakers a turn compared to about 70 or so on GLib save. I probably should of worked the deer near NY on both saves. My worker management was a bit poor really. Glight House save is slightly ahead on techs but I could of been running more specialists in cities. Overall when we hit COL washington on Glib save will be 2-3 pop bigger and running 2-3 more specialists during the golden age.
The main question is where would we really want the NE. Without a golden age the Gem city is fine but with a Golden age Washington will be able to run so many more specialists.
