SGOTM 16 - Fifth Element

[Shaandore]

Well played, ZPV !

Now we need to make a plan for the next turns. I think that overall plan is pretty clear, we need to expand. Research is clearly Alpha first.

The most important thing now is city placement and timing. Where and when do we settle the next cities? City #3 has been decided. Do we need to wait for city #4? Is there a city site that could help us in the short run before IW? Or do we just grow now on farms/cottages, and as soon as IW is in, we just settle multiple cities?

We need to explore south to see if we have a chance of blocking Brennus, and also to meet other AI for the research bonus. Settling the north can wait IMO, nobody threatens our position there, and the culture does a good fogbusting. (the rest can be fogbusted with 1 unit)

The barb city is in a good position, at least Brennus won't settle in our face for a while, and we have some time to expand SW.

The thing that is really bugging me is the other side of the jungle. I wonder what could be there.

 

[BLubmuz]

Not having seen the Oracle in the game log, surprised me. So i wish to DL the save and look at it before to post. So i'm here a bit late.

Well, the Oracle is in the bag 100%, thus ZPV's plan worked. Good

I noticed a complete lack of roads, which is good for now, but which needs to be addressed. I know i build too many roads usually, but a bare minimum to quick connect cities and to hook resources is surely needed.

I've seen we're 7 turns away from a GS in Paris, are we sure to build the Academy there?
I think that the city we're goin' to settle will have much more commerce.

I suppose MC from Oracle is already decided.

Now we need to play next one pretty quick. Later i'll update the roster, but i think it's between me and UT, seen Mastiff's bad news and the disappearing of Meow.

 

[BLubmuz]

Updated the turn tracking post and the roster.

BTW i noticed that Pollux played only 10 turns. Pollux, do you like to take those 5 turns back right now?

I've set myself up, unless UT does not prefer play first. In any case, before to make a plan i need:
1) to see if the roster is confirmed
2) to have answers to the questions i made in the post above this one.

 

[BSPollux]

No we need to play fast and I'm too slow with many questions and all that, just you two each play 20 and do so quickly. dont costs us one victory condition because you waste time on formalities!

 

[Shaandore]

Roster is fine!

Roads: We don't need roads for now, since the river gives us trade routes for the first 3 cities. We don't have a strong military unit to transport around either. So building cottages and farms is a priority IMO. Maybe a road or two in key locations to speed up worker movement could be squeezed in though.

Paris and academy: We really need to decide now if we want to move the capital. Paris is not that bad, but it is low on food, so slow growth rate. We would have to stop whipping there. IMO we should stick to Paris, it has the most cottageable tiles. And it means that my vote for the academy is Paris.

I'm okay with Oracle->MC.

 

[unclethrill]

Go ahead and play BLubmuz. RL has been kickin' my butt lately but I'm still hoping to get to play the next TS

 

[BLubmuz]

OK, so Pollux's idea to arrive to turn 100 to complete the first objective seems viable.

If the rest of the Team agrees i can play to turn 80 and next player (hope is UT) to 100.

Here the main lines of my plan. Once approved I'll draft a real PPP.

1) Finish Oracle next turn and take MC.
2) Move the settler 1 and found Tours (IIRC) next turn
3) Keep the 2 Sci hired in Paris and Academy there (even if i'm not fully convinced)
4) Forge in Paris, hire 1 Eng, build settler for pig/gems
5) keep fogbusting
6) later i will post a map with a road plan and with an improvements plan. I will also post a new dotmap for the new cities.
7) I need to know if privilege forges or libraries (both cheap for us). I'm more in favour of forges, because they will speed anything.

 

[ZPV]

OK, so Pollux's idea to arrive to turn 100 to complete the first objective seems viable.

If the rest of the Team agrees i can play to turn 80 and next player (hope is UT) to 100.

Here the main lines of my plan. Once approved I'll draft a real PPP.

1) Finish Oracle next turn and take MC.
2) Move the settler 1 and found Tours (IIRC) next turn
3) Keep the 2 Sci hired in Paris and Academy there (even if i'm not fully convinced)
4) Forge in Paris, hire 1 Eng, build settler for pig/gems
5) keep fogbusting
6) later i will post a map with a road plan and with an improvements plan. I will also post a new dotmap for the new cities.
7) I need to know if privilege forges or libraries (both cheap for us). I'm more in favour of forges, because they will speed anything.

1,2 sound good.
3 - we need to decide on city specialisation. That should inform decisions like this now and later.
4 - whatever happens, we need Paris as our capital to grow (so yes, we also need to raise its happiness cap, whether through resources or HeredRule or whatever). Once the GS pops it should not run specialists if possible. Building settlers is ok, but while we do it should be in a high production configuration so we don't hold growth up for too long.
5 - yes
7 - the first improvement in most cities is a granary, even though those others are cheap and the granary isn't. It's just that powerful. After that, forges in most cities, but libraries in science cities.

Where should our capital be?:
There are two research phases where the capital really matters:

> now->early medieval
> late medieval->early industrial

These are the slowest bits of the game.
Once we hit Mining Inc (or Sushi first if we don't have a GE in which case we run 4 Engineers in our Ironworks city, increasing to 6 with a Factory, and pop it the hard way), every city explodes in its research power, and the capital doesn't matter so much.

For the first phase, Paris really shines - it's so much faster to get off the ground than any of our other sites because it already has population and the Palace.
For the second, Orleans might be a little better if we can find a way to give it a dozen villages in time (since it has more food and will have an easier time growing in the size10-15 range), but the difference is not that great - we can realistically get Paris to size 12 or 13 (since there's 8 food surplus on the first 7 citizens post-CS and growing does not cost too much).

City specialisation:
Paris: commerce + a bit of production since it's the capital and will need it to build infrastructure.
Orleans: Production. If we have a lot of production sites further out we might convert it to commerce, but I highly doubt we'll have enough that we'd want to.
Tours: There's so much food here I'm tempted to make it a GP Farm. There are hills to build the NE and units if we need them more than GPP. It could also try to build the Hanging Gardens with those forests and run an Engineer to pop us a GE. If we do this aggressively then other cities can run scientists as needed without worrying about overtaking Tours.
Gems: Science. I'd probably run scientists before unrivered cottages, but it can grow onto them too.
Paris-W: Science + cottage helper.

Looking at that list, we need more production cities. I guess those are the further sites we should prioritise. Wine-south could be a good one if it has food.

 

[BLubmuz]

Here is the map with the city sites and the roads.

Spoiler :

City 3 is already decided and i think pig/gem too. Fish city has to be in that position, but it could wait, becoming city 6 or even 7, dpends on the sites we can see after the map is more revealed.

Then, i drew in red the roads which i consider important to have now and in light blue the ones which are in future.

About the imptovements, i noticed that the FP W of Orleans is already farmed, thus i think it's pretty simple: cottage all the remaining FPs, mine the hills. Maybe another farm in a plains for Paris, but later.

I also drew a blue spot, it doesn't have much food, but it's riverside and in the late game can be a very good city.

My plan for Paris is simple: keep the 2 Scis hired until the GS pops, start a forge next turn when MC comes and chop the plains right S. Then hire an engineer, so we can probably beat Orleans for the GPro.

ZPV, i see also pig/gem as a potential GP farm, maybe better than Tours, which can be a science and production city. Or maybe both, specially if we can squeeze some wonder in Tours.

 

[ZPV]

@Blubmuz:
Fish city is a very good city. If IW isn't close I'd be tempted to settle it before Pigs/Gems.
Why do we need those roads now? The ones to connect up the gems city (and the fish city when we settle it) I understand, but how are we actually going to use the others?
Cottages in Orleans: we build/work these if we have nothing better to do. They are better than nothing but I really hope we will have something better to do. Otherwise just work farms and mines. The tile shared between Orleans and Tours is already part-farmed, since it'll be a while before Tours has a food resource connected.

What to do with Tours: we we can't do is make it a science city and a production city. It can be good at one or the other, or crappy at both. I'm happy enough for either one - probably a production city is the better use, in which case cottages have the same caveat as in Orleans.

Gems City as GP Farm is fine by me. It can't run as many specialists as Tours but it'll do a decent enough job.

Paris: are you willing to commit to Paris as a cottage capital or not? There's no point building the academy there if you're not.
If so, then we need to start planning to build and work a lot of cottages within its city radius (note - it doesn't have to be Paris working all of them). That starts as soon as the scientists are done, so that they can go right onto cottages.
If not, we need to do that somewhere else right away - presumably making Orleans a pure commerce city and Paris a minor production city.
It's urgent in either case.

As a cottage city, Paris has no business running an Engineer for 67 turns or 50ish if we also add in a wonder (it'll be 100 before Orleans pops a GPro so there's plenty of time in that regard). As a throwaway production city it can afford to do that. We can always find another city to run that engineer if Paris is unsuitable.

Blue dot? If we have to. I really hope there's a better spot than that. We don't need a super-workshop city quite so badly because Space Race is off the table.

 

[Shaandore]

Out of those roads, I would say that the Paris-Orleans is a priority, and the 'blue' road for me is the Orleans-Tours one, but with a little modification: instead of the road 1N of Orleans I would put it 1NW. It makes faster movement (Orleans-Tours in 2 turns), and the Paris-Tours road would still be 3 turns.

But all these can wait until Paris (or our soon-to be capital) has enough cottages. (Happy cap size - food special tiles in BFC would be enough.)

Blue dot: My gut tells me that the barb city is better, and the jungle has some nice sites if we will have the worker force.

I agree with ZPV that we shouldn't run the engineer in our cottage capital. That is a great job for our production city: we will need a forge there soon anyway.

City order: I agree that fish/pig is a strong city, so if IW is more than ~10 turns away when the settler is ready, then we should go for it first. (We could start with mining the grassland in the meantime, but to build a city that can work almost nothing for >10 turns is a bad idea.)

 

[Folket]

I would not want us to put time into a road between Orleans and city 3.

City 4 is next city if we plan on getting IW soon. Otherwise I think we should get City 5. We should be able to whip a library there.

Just remembered we are going to steal IW. We might get around turn 90-100. We could gift him clams/gems city to make steal cheaper and faster. When will Brennus have IW. He has spent time getting two religions early, it ought to have slowed him down. In conclussion I suggest to settle pig/fish before clam/gems.

Shall we get AH to improve sheep and perhaps give us chariots?

Blue dot look ok to me. It is a good thing it has overlap with the barbarian city so they can share some cottages. Could work if barbarian city has a good food source.

 

[BSPollux]

Two things:

1) Brennus might be pissed off when we try to steal IW. A pissed off AI with IW and nicely developed city. So we should have some defence ready when we do that.

2) We have wasted way too much time allready, we dont have much time left. Allways remember that we have 40 turns to go and only a few days left! This is not the last turnset! There is no way you are getting back that lost 'Point' once the deadline is over. You are great players but you just dont play! Please, dont talk while we are losing to the clock! You are good enough to play your turns now, so do it! Noone can blame you if you are not perfect because everyone else wasted time as well! Play, now!

 

[BLubmuz]

I think roads are important to speed the troops movement. Even for workers movements or settlers travel. It's a thing which always scared me to do anything to train a settler quickly and lose turns by moving him to destination. Same for the workers actions: those are aimed to better improve the potential of a city, but what best improvement that having the city founded faster?

Then, about farms for Paris: Paris has 3 hills in BFC, corn and a farmed FP. Without at least one farm on a plains it can't work anything and grow quickly. It the matter is priorities, that's another thing.

About the pissed off AI: we do not have many choices if not research archery or trade for it. No copper and no iron means we're defenceless otherwise. Chariots won't help a bit against Gallic warriors or spears. Provided we have horses, BTW.

Then, the time question (Pollux). Yeah, right. I'll post a quick plan later today and play tomorrow if not major complaints.

About the fish/pig city... the problem is that we have no Fishing and no AH... not much better than pig/gems about the techs needed to develop it. With the difference that Pig/gems is blocking the SE, while fish/pig is in our lands.

But i won't make it a question of life and death.

 

[ZPV]

I think roads are important to speed the troops movement. Even for workers movements or settlers travel. It's a thing which always scared me to do anything to train a settler quickly and lose turns by moving him to destination. Same for the workers actions: those are aimed to better improve the potential of a city, but what best improvement that having the city founded faster?

Then, about farms for Paris: Paris has 3 hills in BFC, corn and a farmed FP. Without at least one farm on a plains it can't work anything and grow quickly. It the matter is priorities, that's another thing.

What troops? We don't have any of those, and won't for quite some time.
Building an improvement to speed up the building of a settler, vs building a road to make it walk faster - the improvement usually wins because you get more total hammers/whatever from the city. This needs to be justified on a case-by-case basis.
It usually has to be something very time-critical, or the road has to have an additional benefit like trade routes for the road to be better.
It takes a lot of roads to save a turn on Gems City or Fish-Pig (three each, or four for Gems if you're not willing to road the city tile).


Hills in Paris: very simple. Don't work them, except when there's something we reallllllllly nead to build. A Worker, Settler, University, or happiness infrastructure, ok. Just about anything else, ignore the hills. It's the same cottage capital question as before - doing it half-baked is useless.
If we need another farm, it should go on a grassland tile (but ideally post-CS so it's not one of the river ones). The food should be accumulated on as few tiles as possible, for fastest growth - the same reason the floodplain gets farmed.

 

[BSPollux]

btw i realized that the deadline is 21st not 11th of November. Ooops, my bad, no panic needed, yet

 

[BLubmuz]

Here is my PPP:

Research: Alpha

Cities:
Paris: continue granary, once MC is in forge (chop the forest plains) then settler.
Alternatively i can finish the granary and whip the settler for 1 pop.
Orleans: finish Oracle, take MC then warrior, warrior, worker, forge
Tours: move the settler on the safe desert hill, found next turn, start forge
If you prefer i can start granaries instead of forges. IMO libraries can wait after those.

Improvements:
the worker now free will road (yes, road ) the desert hill, which is important for movement to/from Tours. then will jump in a forest hill and chop/mine for Tours.
I still see cottages in the FPs near Orleans and Tours. I can see 4 turns left for a farm and a cottage on the FPs in Orleans BFC. Why Orleans should need another farm? But np, i will skip that tile in my set.
The worker free next turn will chop the forge for Paris (grassland N), then road the corn, then finish the mine on the hill. Alternatively, cottage in the just chopped gl.

About the GE, i think that the better thing to do is to grow it in Tours. It's why i propose forge first.

I'll wait the usual 24 hours, then i'll make the eventual adjustements and play.
UT, start think to play

 

[ZPV]

The farm is for Tours (which won't have a proper food resource for quite a while), not Orleans. It can't run an engineer on FP-cottages, and that is the only tile we can improve before settling it.

Granary first vs Forge first in Tours is a MM exercise - if you're unwilling to stall at size 2 with an engineer and a farm (I am) - but I think Forge first should be fine, slowly building the Granary afterwards in time for the food to be available.
Elsewhere the comparison is a 100% boost to growth (and hence whip hammers) vs a 25% boost to hammers. If we plan to grow or whip soon (which we do), the granary is more powerful.

I'm sorry to ask again, but when will we use the road on the desert hill? If not often in your turnset or soon after, then it's better to do something else with the worker, and fill in the road when we need it.

I'll assume you saw the notes at the end of my report about spawnbusting/unit moves, and have considered or rejected them, as appropriate.

I still don't quite know what your vision for Paris is (mine is of 10 villages and CS at ~1AD). That determines whether forge+mines or granary+cottages is best.
edit: Having said that, if the latter, then Settler->Granary would be better.

What are your plans to build a spy?
Tech trading? Research after Alphabet?
Presumably it's 0% until the academy is in, then 100% research.

 

[Shaandore]

Here is my PPP:

Research: Alpha

Cities:
Paris: continue granary, once MC is in forge (chop the forest plains) then settler.
Alternatively i can finish the granary and whip the settler for 1 pop.
I vote on slowbuilding the settler: We should keep on working those cottages.
Orleans: finish Oracle, take MC then warrior, warrior, worker, forge
Why not build a worker at size 3? That second warrior could wait. It is always a good idea to build a worker if the next pop would have no improved tile to work on.
Tours: move the settler on the safe desert hill, found next turn, start forge
If you prefer i can start granaries instead of forges. IMO libraries can wait after those.
My vote is on Granary before forge for faster growth.


Improvements:
the worker now free will road (yes, road ) the desert hill, which is important for movement to/from Tours.
I'm sorry, but I don't see the urgency of that road. Food for Tours is much more important for growth. If you start with a forge, nothing will come out of there for a while, and the desert hill road won't help anything to get there faster. Building a farm is much better because it increases growth rate.
then will jump in a forest hill and chop/mine for Tours.
I still see cottages in the FPs near Orleans and Tours. I can see 4 turns left for a farm and a cottage on the FPs in Orleans BFC. Why Orleans should need another farm? But np, i will skip that tile in my set.
Me too, I thought that what a nice cottage area! But we didn'T settle in a way to make it happen. Each city have 4 cottage tiles (5 in Orleans if we force it), one of which is overlapping. That is not enough for a decent commerce city. We will be better off making that commerce city elsewhere. The biggest chunk of commerce comes from capital in the first half of the game anyway. Why not make some prod cities, and go conquer some better sites with our troops?
The worker free next turn will chop the forge for Paris (grassland N), then road the corn, then finish the mine on the hill. Alternatively, cottage in the just chopped gl.
My vote is for cottage to start working it ASAP. I would stall the road building until it will be used in the next ~4turns
About the GE, i think that the better thing to do is to grow it in Tours. It's why i propose forge first.

I'll wait the usual 24 hours, then i'll make the eventual adjustements and play.
UT, start think to play

Good plan, what do you plan on researching after Alpha?
Answers in red.

Edit: Xpost with ZPV

 

[Shaandore]

vision for Paris is (mine is of 10 villages and CS at ~1AD).

That is the way to go!