SGOTM 16 - Fifth Element

[Folket]

I think we were fine at declaring war a little later. It looked like PD had a slow and expensive war. But their economy just crushed us. In a golden age on turn 165 they make 327 gpt at 0% research while we make 194 on turn 162. At 100% research they are over 800 and we are below 600.

This is before Brennus cities are contributing and they had captured some that is costing them maintenance. If they had not wared thier economy would be even better. But they could afford the earlier war since their economy was so strong.

I guess overseas trade and GLH was what really propelled their economy. They got a lot of island cities early.

How am I able to get other saves then the last one?

 

[neilmeister]

How am I able to get other saves then the last one?

Go to the progress page, and instead of selecting a graph, there is an option to look at all of the saves for all teams. Linked here

 

[Shaandore]

I think we were fine at declaring war a little later. It looked like PD had a slow and expensive war. But their economy just crushed us. In a golden age on turn 165 they make 327 gpt at 0% research while we make 194 on turn 162. At 100% research they are over 800 and we are below 600.

This is before Brennus cities are contributing and they had captured some that is costing them maintenance. If they had not wared thier economy would be even better. But they could afford the earlier war since their economy was so strong.

I guess overseas trade and GLH was what really propelled their economy. They got a lot of island cities early.

How am I able to get other saves then the last one?

Yes, probably we were right to wait with DoW until our econ was in a better shape. Looks like GLH was the key wonder that we missed. Maybe even better than Oracle.

And I think that choosing Orleans as capital (yes, moving the capital) would have been better. Orleans had more riverside cottage tiles, and with all the FPs and production would have made a much better capital even if we factor in the palace moving hammers. It could have worked the cottages much sooner. Paris always struggled to work all of them, I think the first time it could work all was after Biology! Moving the cap can be done just before CS, so it shouldn't hurt our early expansion much. In the meantime Paris could have been a nice early settler/worker pump with farms/mines instead of cottages. At least that is what PR did, and it worked for them very well.

I agree though that the setbacks of our capital choice was negligible compared to not building GLH

 

[Folket]

But how would we be able to know there would be so many islands? Should be have gotten a workboat out scouting earlier?

With GLH an island city will generate 8 commerce from trade routes (if we have 4 cities elsewhere). 1 from city square, 1-2 from sea resource or coast and up to 4 extra trade from overseas trade on mainland cities (if we have less island cities then mainland). 14-15 commerce. A good return of 100 hammers. It will also improve over time. Numbers are with currency. Before currency it is 3 commerce less.

To me the number are so good that island without seafood should also be considered. Only problem with them is that they will have a hard time finishing/whiping a courthouse, so once number of cities maintenance goes up they might become a net drain, but I doubt they will, if they are a good investement once searesources are taken they will probably be worth it in the long run.

I think we managed very well with our fog busting.

 

[Shaandore]

Actually we were quite lucky with those barb cities, they did the spawnbusting for us, and Brennus expanded towards us earlier. PR had much more barb troubles.

 

[Folket]

How does animals and barb cities affect spawning?

 

[Gumbolt]

Actually we were quite lucky with those barb cities, they did the spawnbusting for us, and Brennus expanded towards us earlier. PR had much more barb troubles.

Which we managed. Rule no 1 of barb spawning. Units sat in your city should probably be barb spawning. We had very few barb cities spawn on the main land.

GLH is a great wonder but you still need the right game plan to make it work.

 

[Shaandore]

Yes, you managed, but there was a time when a city was in danger, and you were planning to lure the barb with a worker if a combat goes wrong.

We could get away with one guy in the south

 

[Folket]

Units sat in your city should probably be barb spawning.

Do you think we wasted our units?

GLH is a great wonder but you still need the right game plan to make it work.

Yes, I'm of that opinion as well. I think the great light house was a key here was because of all the islands.

 

[Folket]

Go to the progress page, and instead of selecting a graph, there is an option to look at all of the saves for all teams. Linked here

Thanks for the link. I was looking at the progress page but not finding it. I guess I was not thinking it would be part of the graph.

 

[Gumbolt]

Do you think we wasted our units?

No that is what I do. No idea what your team did on that front. Still good advice.

 

[ZPV]

Yes, probably we were right to wait with DoW until our econ was in a better shape. Looks like GLH was the key wonder that we missed. Maybe even better than Oracle.

And I think that choosing Orleans as capital (yes, moving the capital) would have been better. Orleans had more riverside cottage tiles, and with all the FPs and production would have made a much better capital even if we factor in the palace moving hammers. It could have worked the cottages much sooner. Paris always struggled to work all of them, I think the first time it could work all was after Biology! Moving the cap can be done just before CS, so it shouldn't hurt our early expansion much. In the meantime Paris could have been a nice early settler/worker pump with farms/mines instead of cottages. At least that is what PR did, and it worked for them very well.

I agree though that the setbacks of our capital choice was negligible compared to not building GLH

Comparing PR's 1000AD save and our 1020AD one:
Both capitals are size 12.
Theirs is working 4 towns, 4 villages, a hamlet and the silk.
Ours really should be working 3 towns, 6 villages and a hamlet, with 3 fewer river tiles. (Never mind that we chose to work plains farms for some reason. Maybe that paid off by letting us work extra villages from Tours, maybe not).

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

When one has The Great Lighthouse, one can add overseas cities that aren't far from the capital without affecting the Wpt deficit much. Often the extra great trade routes of the just founded city will add more commerce that the city maintenance costs. This also greatly increases the Bpt at 100% Research slider and by building enough Wealth it should even be possible to approach 100% Research or maintain it long enough to quickly research some of the Classical/Mediaeval Eras technologies.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Shaandore]

Comparing PR's 1000AD save and our 1020AD one:
Both capitals are size 12.
Theirs is working 4 towns, 4 villages, a hamlet and the silk.
Ours really should be working 3 towns, 6 villages and a hamlet, with 3 fewer river tiles. (Never mind that we chose to work plains farms for some reason. Maybe that paid off by letting us work extra villages from Tours, maybe not).

Okay. Maybe it didn't matter after all.

ZPV, what do you think that we missed/didn't do optimally besides early wonders, GP production and sushi/mining order?

 

[ZPV]

The biggest thing is we were never quite sure what our priorities were, and what each city's purpose was. We bled turns because of that.

You're right that 940AD Oxford isn't the end of the world, but it wasn't a good 940AD. It was a madcap rush just to get there so our cities weren't brimming with stored up potential, and if we'd been earlier we could have taken a better Lib slingshot, built Taj, had a cheaper war, etc.

 

[Gumbolt]

The biggest thing is we were never quite sure what our priorities were, and what each city's purpose was. We bled turns because of that.

You're right that 940AD Oxford isn't the end of the world, but it wasn't a good 940AD. It was a madcap rush just to get there so our cities weren't brimming with stored up potential, and if we'd been earlier we could have taken a better Lib slingshot, built Taj, had a cheaper war, etc.

I don't think the capital and oxford is a good comparison. We both had similar things there at 1000ad.

At 1020ad You were 4 turns ahead on Oxford and had gunpowder. You had a GE spare. You were much quicker on the island cities.

At 1000ad we had pretty much conquered the Celts. We had Aesth/lit/compass/Optics/machinery and were 5 turns off Astronomy. We had built NE/HE too. We had met all Ai by this date. We got a lot of gold from trade missions/selling maps/capturing cities. We held back gold for Ox uni. (1000 or so in bank).

We took Med from lib, GM from Economics and built TM too. We lacked MM. Our first Golden age was really late.

It looks like GLH and early astronomy would of really helped your game. You clearly caught up with us late game. 7 coastal cities is about 40-50 commerce a turn with GLH. Add astronomy and boom times.

 

[Gumbolt]

Your 1190ad save is looking much better than ours. 2 shrines built for you in Bibracte. Wow. 24 cities and a UU did a smashing job it seems. You had pretty much caught up all techs.

We had just moved onto SM. But were pulling in nearly 900 beakers a turn. We were 1-2 turns from an ambitious DOW assault on Hammy for the Great lighthouse. He was a lot stronger than we had predicted. We perhaps slowed him down. We lost Babylon once after taking it. At this point we started to race for lib and med. Also Economics. Hammy was our main rival here. He had nationalism too.

 

[unclethrill]

Another good game guys!

 

[Folket]

Who iwll be returning for the next SGOTM. Seems like it is only me and unclethrill so far and that feels a little lonely. I notice ZPV did make a post in the discussion thread but has not commited to playing.

 

[Shaandore]

I will sign up most likely - depends on how busy I will be in RL (hopefully I can decide in mid-february). But will we have a team? I don't see Pollux or Meow participating. Let's hope we can convince ZPV for another go.