SGOTM 16 - Fifth Element

[ZPV]

I've drawn up some dotmaps. First the north:

Spoiler :

I've only put two cities in, because I think the rest should wait a long time, so we don't have to decide now. This configuration gives us the cheap science/helper city, a production city, and leaves forests to be chopped into Paris rather than elsewhere.

Now the south:
If we raze/resettle the barb city we get this:

Spoiler :

Or if we keep it, we can go for something like this:

Spoiler :

Purple dot is a bit fanciful - Brennus will probably settle somewhere to force us off the corn.
These all will come too late for us to want to cottage them - farms, mines and workshops will be the order of the day, with a possible exception of the black dot by the clams.

 

[BSPollux]

Why is it too late to build cottages there? are you planning for a bc finish?

 

[ZPV]

My overall plan:
-build more cottages for Paris and work them
-make a settling plan, and settle cities depending on research power

We need a research base, and a production base. So long as you remember that, we won't go too far off track. Paris and the east coast take care of the former; Orleans and the west cost the latter.

-backfill techs by trading PH
-hook up horses, build a chariot
-build 2 spies and steal IW from Brennus
-adopt Hinduism, and when available, switch to OrgReligion

There are no techs to backfill atm - just give PH to Brennus. Don't take Hunting until absolutely necessary - we only get 7 or 8 trades before he goes into WFYABTA mode.
Hinduism should come as soon as we want the extra happiness.
I'd be surprised if you can get to Organised Religion in your turnset - and we might want to delay that revolt so we can switch two civics at once.

I need advice on tech path. What are the objectives? If we want treb/mace or knights war, we need to plan for that now. Or we could start running for lib on economy techs, while backfilling. Do we want a detour? (anything from Aesth line? Music perhaps? How will we get those legendary cities?)

Is there a wonder that we should build?

Tech path:
Our first priority should be increasing the happy cap, so that we can work more improved tiles. Currency is also important, and will allow us to pay for more cities.
Something like Fishing->Mathematics->Calendar->Currency meets those needs.

Wonders to consider:
Hanging Gardens in Rheims - to speed up GE generation and also give us a population boost.
MoM in Orleans - the extra golden age length is valuable enough that I'd think about this one even without Marble. It's also a heavy culture wonder.
Obviously these have to fit into our settler timetable.

Sushi, convenient wonders and cathedrals, plus a small Great Artist boost, should be enough to push Orleans to Legendary. I'd consider the espionage route for the second one if we can't starve out enough GAs - the entire empire can easily build the main espionage buildings, so we can rack up enough EPs to spread close to 50000 culture in a rival city, and then capture it (or even just wait for them to liberate it ).
We'll want the Sistine Chapel, but I don't think it's such a priority as in real culture games, so we can afford to capture it if someone else builds it, so I wouldn't advocate beelining Music. Maybe after CS if it's still open.

 

[BLubmuz]

ZPV, i've seen your maps.

Can we consider to put the fish city N instead of E? We planned it in the red spot because we lacked knowledge of the map, but now i can see it better 3N of the corn: 3 food sources and 2 hills (1 shared with Paris) make it very interesting.

But i think that we must prioritize the south to steal good spots from Brennus.

Then, the barb city area: we can keep it as is, it's not bad. And we can also resettle it, but on the wine. It's a poor resource to work and i change anytime a coastal city with an inland one.

Bout research, i noticed that both our neighbours lack fishing. This makes me think that their Capitals are not on water and that maybe is better start researching it immediately.

Then, about the low WFYABTA of Brennus, do you really think he will have 6-7 tech to trade with us? I doubt he can manage it in the few years he will survive. Better take hunting now and give him a tech we like he has.

Then, can you explain us how Ramesses can build 2 Shrines for us if he's got 1 religion ATM?

 

[ZPV]

ZPV, i've seen your maps.

Can we consider to put the fish city N instead of E? We planned it in the red spot because we lacked knowledge of the map, but now i can see it better 3N of the corn: 3 food sources and 2 hills (1 shared with Paris) make it very interesting.

But i think that we must prioritize the south to steal good spots from Brennus.

Then, the barb city area: we can keep it as is, it's not bad. And we can also resettle it, but on the wine. It's a poor resource to work and i change anytime a coastal city with an inland one.

Bout research, i noticed that both our neighbours lack fishing. This makes me think that their Capitals are not on water and that maybe is better start researching it immediately.

Then, about the low WFYABTA of Brennus, do you really think he will have 6-7 tech to trade with us? I doubt he can manage it in the few years he will survive. Better take hunting now and give him a tech we like he has.

Then, can you explain us how Ramesses can build 2 Shrines for us if he's got 1 religion ATM?

Fish city? We'll settle both eventually. I should put the northern one in the dotmap too. There's still the fish resource to the south which is not highlighted. The very close one is important to help with Paris.

It's 8 techs from anyone - I count AH, Sailing, Monarchy, (hopefully) Masonry, Monotheism before the late Classical techs we'll need to get him to Friendly for anyway, so you're probably right.
There is another reason I didn't mention - not taking Hunting means we can build cheap military police until Engineering, but when it's time to improve the deer getting Hunting is more important.

Personally I think the coastal thing is something the AI gets right more often than humans - if 1 square from the coast has better tiles then that's where the city should go, except in Great Lighthouse situations or where there's seafood. Having said that, I don't see either site as worth the extra cost of razing+resettling. We should just keep the city and build around it.

Settling jungle cities to secure them from Brennus? They have to be good cities for us to want to rush to settle them for denial purposes. There really aren't many of those.
Brennus is not an impediment to victory, but rather a springboard, and we want to get as big a boost from him as we can.

The sugar one I'd go for, but not yet. He's not close to settling that one. Maybe the corn city SW of Orleans, but even that is dubious. The rest I'd be just as happy letting him settle them where he likes and build a lot of workers, and then taking them from him later when they have some population and improved tiles.

Yes, Ramesses only has one religion so far. However, he built Stonehenge and the Temple of Artemis, and has Obelisks anyway, so he'll generate a lot of great prophets, and likely lightbulb either Theology or Divine Right.

 

[Shaandore]

I vote on keeping the barb city. The initial population and the settler cost make it a better choice than resettling 1 SE.


I prefer to play in parts, so I only wrote the PPP for ~7 turns:

PPP

Warrior 1 (Orleans) will move SE, NE, then 1N and stay there to spawnbust.
The Warrior at the Egyptian borders will scout Egyptian land.

We have a military problem, our southern borders are undefended. We might need emergency warrior whipping if barbas start coming.

With this research plan, we should start saving up forests for the AfterMath and use that whip while our happy cap is so low. We need granaries in cities to make whipping our food rich cities effective.

t80:
Switch research to fishing
Gift PH to Brennus

Paris switch tiles to work the grass cottage and grass forest instead of plains forests
Orleans: switch to worker
Lyons: switch to settler for the northern deer/horse spot, we don't have worker or IW for the jungle spots yet, but we need stronger military. (We won't be able to spawnbust that huge jungle) Alternatively we trade for hunting and Archery with Brennus.

disband southernmost warrior (we pay 1 gold for it, and it won't do us any good)

t81
Paris switch to riverside tiles, and switch to Hindu temple
move Lyons worker to sheep and start improving
move Rheims worker to grass hill SW of Rheims

t82
Change slider to 100% science
Paris: 3 pop whip the temple into spy (after that spy is ready, start a second spy)
Orleans worker built, whip forge into granary. When the granary is ready and we grew back to size 4, switch to settler
move this new worker to farmed FP and build road for 1 turn
Rheims worker starts building a mine, and when ready it will build a road there

t83
revolt to Hinduism (unless we are asked earlier)
Move new worker to W of Paris and start building cottage. When ready, this worker will chop that roaded grass into a spy.
Mine SW of Orleans ready, move worker 1N and partial build road there, later finish the cottage 1NW of Orleans and help to develop that FP area with mostly farms/mines while the northern worker (After completing sheep pasture) will make roads to our new city site

t84
First spy is ready in Paris, move it on the roads towards Brennus

t85
Fishing is in, switch to Maths and 0% science
Lyons 2 pop whip Settler with 26 overflow into workboat (or Granary)
Rheims switch to workboat

t86
Lyons Settler ready, move into position

t87
Settle our horse/deer dream city. Look at those green hills and the nice-ish food there!

 

[ZPV]

Don't forget Lyons has to run an Engineer. We need to start racking up GPP. I probably prefer a Worker to a Settler, because we don't have enough Workers anyway.
We can't afford many more cities. Paris-W is important to develop Paris, but I'd be tempted to delay the northern production city until we actually have an economy.
Yes, trade for Hunting. Then in an emergency we can trade for Archery right away.

In Orleans if you plan to whip a settler, it's probably better to grow up to size 6, through unhappiness, and whip it for 3 pop. With a granary, it's not worth putting in the food-hammers in the slow way. A Barracks is a good building to grow on, since it's a production centre and will build units later.

 

[Shaandore]

Don't forget Lyons has to run an Engineer. We need to start racking up GPP.
Good catch!
I probably prefer a Worker to a Settler, because we don't have enough Workers anyway.
Okay, but then I will slowbuild that because we will get a worker from Orleans in 2 turns
We can't afford many more cities. Paris-W is important to develop Paris, but I'd be tempted to delay the northern production city until we actually have an economy.
Yes, trade for Hunting. Then in an emergency we can trade for Archery right away.
In that case hooking up the horses can wait for the border pop 20 turns away, so no need to rush the horse city. Changed Lyons production to worker while running an engineer. With the extra worker power we could start planning a jungle science city, preferably the corn city SW of Orleans. Properly cottaged up it would pay for itself (and some others) soon.

In Orleans if you plan to whip a settler, it's probably better to grow up to size 6, through unhappiness, and whip it for 3 pop. With a granary, it's not worth putting in the food-hammers in the slow way. A Barracks is a good building to grow on, since it's a production centre and will build units later.
Maybe later, for now we need to put in 2 turns to get a Worker out (not a good idea to whip that) Then whip the forge into the granary and grow with that. After that we build next settler (Growing to size 6 for a 3 pop whip is a good idea).

Answers in red, new PPP:

Spoiler :

I vote on keeping the barb city. The initial population and the settler cost make it a better choice than resettling 1 SE.


I prefer to play in parts, so I only wrote the PPP for ~7 turns:

PPP

Warrior 1 (Orleans) will move SE, NE, then 1N and stay there to spawnbust.
The Warrior at the Egyptian borders will scout Egyptian land.

We have a military problem, our southern borders are undefended. We might need emergency warrior whipping if barbas start coming.

With this research plan, we should start saving up forests for the AfterMath and use that whip while our happy cap is so low. We need granaries in cities to make whipping our food rich cities effective.

t80:
Switch research to fishing
Gift PH to Brennus Trade PH<->Huntung with Brennus

Paris switch tiles to work the grass cottage and grass forest instead of plains forests
Orleans: switch to worker
Lyons: switch to worker, and hire an engineer settler for the northern deer/horse spot, we don't have worker or IW for the jungle spots yet, but we need stronger military. (We won't be able to spawnbust that huge jungle) Alternatively we trade for hunting (and later maybe Archery) with Brennus.

disband southernmost warrior (we pay 1 gold for it, and it won't do us any good)

t81
Paris switch to riverside tiles, and switch to Hindu temple
move Lyons worker to sheep and start improving
move Rheims worker to grass hill SW of Rheims

t82
Change slider to 100% science
Paris: 3 pop whip the temple into spy (after that spy is ready, start a second spy)
Orleans worker built, whip forge into granary. When the granary is ready and we grew back to size 4, switch to settler
move this new worker to farmed FP and build road for 1 turn
Rheims worker starts building a mine, and when ready it will build a road there

t83
revolt to Hinduism (unless we are asked earlier)
Move new worker to W of Paris and start building cottage. When ready, this worker will chop that roaded grass into a spy.
Mine SW of Orleans ready, move worker 1N and partial build road there, later finish the cottage 1NW of Orleans and help to develop that FP area with mostly farms/mines while the northern worker (After completing sheep pasture) will make roads to our new city site

t84
First spy is ready in Paris, move it on the roads towards Brennus

t85
Fishing is in, switch to Maths and 0% science
Rheims switch to workboat

t86
Lyons Settler ready, move into position

t87
Settle our horse/deer dream city. Look at those green hills and the nice-ish food there!

 

[ZPV]

Answers in red, new PPP:

Don't forget Lyons has to run an Engineer. We need to start racking up GPP.
Good catch!
I probably prefer a Worker to a Settler, because we don't have enough Workers anyway.
Okay, but then I will slowbuild that because we will get a worker from Orleans in 2 turns
We can't afford many more cities. Paris-W is important to develop Paris, but I'd be tempted to delay the northern production city until we actually have an economy.
Yes, trade for Hunting. Then in an emergency we can trade for Archery right away.
In that case hooking up the horses can wait for the border pop 20 turns away, so no need to rush the horse city. Changed Lyons production to worker while running an engineer. With the extra worker power we could start planning a jungle science city, preferably the corn city SW of Orleans. Properly cottaged up it would pay for itself (and some others) soon.

In Orleans if you plan to whip a settler, it's probably better to grow up to size 6, through unhappiness, and whip it for 3 pop. With a granary, it's not worth putting in the food-hammers in the slow way. A Barracks is a good building to grow on, since it's a production centre and will build units later.
Maybe later, for now we need to put in 2 turns to get a Worker out (not a good idea to whip that) Then whip the forge into the granary and grow with that. After that we build next settler (Growing to size 6 for a 3 pop whip is a good idea).

Yes, that's what I meant for the settler whip.

 

[BLubmuz]

As you probably know, i'm more in favour to settle anywhere South than North. I consider the North already taken, while the South is contended with Brennus. If you consider the costs of take a city at this stage (build troops, maintenance and away costs etc) even a - for now - crappy city is better.
Problem is that we need decent troops (in numbers if not in quality) to keep any city South.

In any case, we need workers, the rule is 1 to 1.2 per city, but with jungles we can arrive to 1.5 per city and they will be busy for a long while.

I'd say trade PH for Hunting with Brennus, we can discuss if give him AH for archery later. He will surely accept.

I don't like to whip for 3 pop our Academy Capital. 2 maybe. the spy is not that urgent with Brennus 12 turns away from IW.

Sure, run an eng in Lyons ASAP, we also need to win the race with Orleans, which goes with its slow but unavoidable 2 GPP/turn for a GPro.

Do NOT disband units. Never! That warrior is good for scouting/fogbusting and can be used as MP later. We spent hammers in it and we can consider to disband warriors once we have rifling, at least.

 

[ZPV]

As you probably know, i'm more in favour to settle anywhere South than North. I consider the North already taken, while the South is contended with Brennus. If you consider the costs of take a city at this stage (build troops, maintenance and away costs etc) even a - for now - crappy city is better.
Problem is that we need decent troops (in numbers if not in quality) to keep any city South.

If we really wanted a city there right now, yes, settling it is cheaper. However, we really don't. How long will it take to break even, researchwise? (Not counting the cost of delaying key technologies during the interim.) Close to 40 turns? That's far too long, for our weak economy.
If we couldn't justify settling it without Brennus, we shouldn't settle a city because of him - we will crush him easily later.

In any case, we need workers, the rule is 1 to 1.2 per city, but with jungles we can arrive to 1.5 per city and they will be busy for a long while.

I'd say trade PH for Hunting with Brennus, we can discuss if give him AH for archery later. He will surely accept.

I don't like to whip for 3 pop our Academy Capital. 2 maybe. the spy is not that urgent with Brennus 12 turns away from IW.

If we had more workable improved tiles, I'd agree with you. We don't - you don't work plains hills when you're whipping for production, and it takes ~10 turns for the spy to walk plus five more stationary for the discount. The spy is definitely urgent.

Sure, run an eng in Lyons ASAP, we also need to win the race with Orleans, which goes with its slow but unavoidable 2 GPP/turn for a GPro.

We're not just racing Orleans, but also delaying any GS we want to speed up the renaissance, when lightbulbing is most valuable.

Do NOT disband units. Never! That warrior is good for scouting/fogbusting and can be used as MP later. We spent hammers in it and we can consider to disband warriors once we have rifling, at least.

I missed that note in the plan. You're quite right. No disbanding.

 

[Shaandore]

As you probably know, i'm more in favour to settle anywhere South than North. I consider the North already taken, while the South is contended with Brennus. If you consider the costs of take a city at this stage (build troops, maintenance and away costs etc) even a - for now - crappy city is better.
Problem is that we need decent troops (in numbers if not in quality) to keep any city South.

I agree, I have updated that in my PPP before your post (the updated PPP was in spoilers) The original plan was just to get horses ASAP, while avoiding Hunting trade. With hunting, it is much safer, so no need to rush that city, and as next city I prefer the corn jungle city SW of Orleans.

In any case, we need workers, the rule is 1 to 1.2 per city, but with jungles we can arrive to 1.5 per city and they will be busy for a long while.

I'd say trade PH for Hunting with Brennus, we can discuss if give him AH for archery later. He will surely accept.

I guess you forgot to open those spoilers

I don't like to whip for 3 pop our Academy Capital. 2 maybe. the spy is not that urgent with Brennus 12 turns away from IW.

ZPV have said it pretty much, but we need to catch up on improved tiles. There is no benefit to working two plains forests in academy capital. (No commerce, just maintenance) The 3 pop-whip is not that hard, we will grow back one immediately, and work all tiles that we want to.

Sure, run an eng in Lyons ASAP, we also need to win the race with Orleans, which goes with its slow but unavoidable 2 GPP/turn for a GPro.

Do NOT disband units. Never! That warrior is good for scouting/fogbusting and can be used as MP later. We spent hammers in it and we can consider to disband warriors once we have rifling, at least.
I see what you mean here. But the way I see it, that warrior won't be useful (no defense for us, no fogbusting, no scouting (maybe a couple tiles) in the next 15-20 turns, so we will pay at least 15 gold for it. Which equals its hammer cost. But ZPV agreed, so I changed PPP according to this. We can either send him to scout Egypt or let him return home. My vote is on going home, to scout Brennus (and possibly his new city), and later put him in a city as military police. The other scouting warrior will have enough time to check out Ramesses' land and the surroundings.

Answers in red, updated PPP in this spoiler:

Spoiler :

Warrior 1 (Orleans) will move SE, NE, then 1N and stay there to spawnbust.
The Warrior at the Egyptian borders will scout Egyptian land.

We have a military problem, our southern borders are undefended. We might need emergency warrior whipping if barbs start coming.

With this research plan, we should start saving up forests for the AfterMath and use that whip while our happy cap is so low. We need granaries in cities to make whipping our food rich cities effective.

t80:
Switch research to fishing
Gift PH to Brennus Trade PH<->Huntung with Brennus

Paris switch tiles to work the grass cottage and grass forest instead of plains forests
Orleans: switch to worker
Lyons: switch to worker, and hire an engineer settler for the northern deer/horse spot, we don't have worker or IW for the jungle spots yet, but we need stronger military. (We won't be able to spawnbust that huge jungle) Alternatively we trade for hunting (and later maybe Archery) with Brennus.

disband southernmost warrior uncovers south coast to ramesses and later returns home following the east coast (we pay 1 gold for it, and it won't do us any good)

t81
Paris switch to riverside tiles, and switch to Hindu temple
move Lyons worker to sheep and start improving
move Rheims worker to grass hill SW of Rheims

t82
Change slider to 100% science
Paris: 3 pop whip the temple into spy (after that spy is ready, start a second spy)
Orleans worker built, whip forge into granary. When the granary is ready and we grew back to size 4, switch to settler
move this new worker to farmed FP and build road for 1 turn
Rheims worker starts building a mine, and when ready it will build a road there

t83
revolt to Hinduism (unless we are asked earlier)
Move new worker to W of Paris and start building cottage. When ready, this worker will chop that roaded grass into a spy.
Mine SW of Orleans ready, move worker 1N and partial build road there, later finish the cottage 1NW of Orleans and help to develop that FP area with mostly farms/mines while the northern worker (After completing sheep pasture) will make roads to our new city site

t84
First spy is ready in Paris, move it on the roads towards Brennus

t85
Fishing is in, switch to Maths and 0% science
Rheims switch to workboat

t86
Lyons Settler ready, move into position

t87
Settle our horse/deer dream city. Look at those green hills and the nice-ish food there!

edit: Please give green lights (if you agree with the plan) so I can play these turns and continue with new PPP today.

 

[BLubmuz]

If the decision to settle North is taken, i must agree. In any case we'll save spawnbusting units there, at least in the NW, so probably a single warrior in the NE can spawnbust all we need in the North.

That city is not bad. Library first, i think.

For the rest you seem to got it, so go on.

 

[ZPV]

Looks good to me.
The southern warrior should uncover the coast around its current peninsula before moving somewhere more useful - we'll need to see that to have trade routes with Ramesses after Sailing, if we haven't already captured the barb city.

 

[Shaandore]

Looks good to me.
The southern warrior should uncover the coast around its current peninsula before moving somewhere more useful - we'll need to see that to have trade routes with Ramesses after Sailing, if we haven't already captured the barb city.

Okay. Edited the last PPP in my latest post.
I would like at least one more green light, but I will start playing in two hours regardless.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

Green light from me. I'm here reading along...

MF

 

[BSPollux]

 

[Shaandore]

short report:
5 turns played.
Revolted to hinduism, and Brennus was kind enough to spread it to all our cities.
Ramesses switched to OR, and got a great prophet. (In the Buddhist holy city Thebes, so we have one shrine, yay! )

More info and detailed PPP for the following ~10 turns in ~3 hours.
(I will go on a walk with my GF, sorry guys.)

In the meantime I have two relevant questions:
how will we get our spies safely to Brennus?
Do we agree on settling that corn jungle city? (So I can start roading there)

 

[ZPV]

short report:
5 turns played.
Revolted to hinduism, and Brennus was kind enough to spread it to all our cities.
Ramesses switched to OR, and got a great prophet. (In the Buddhist holy city Thebes, so we have one shrine, yay! )

More info and detailed PPP for the following ~10 turns in ~3 hours.
(I will go on a walk with my GF, sorry guys.)

In the meantime I have two relevant questions:
how will we get our spies safely to Brennus?
Do we agree on settling that corn jungle city? (So I can start roading there)

Barbs can't attack spies. So they will walk to Brennus.
Can you give a plan for that city and estimate its cost and when it'll start contributing? It just looks like a gold drain to me, but something concrete could change my mind.
My preference is for Paris-W to start working some food and developing the plains cottages Paris will need when our happiness cap rises.

 

[Folket]

I would rather not settle in the middle of the jungle right now.