SGOTM 16 - Fifth Element

[ZPV]

The Spread Culture espionage mission is available in any foreign city where we have some culture on the city tile.

It adds city culture worth 5% of the total from all players in that city (so that the total goes up exponentially), at a base cost of 3EP per culture point added (as well as a little bit of tile culture). Of course, that will be drastically reduced by the various discounts we can get - trade routes, holy city, stationary spy, etc.

This is only really effective in cities where there's already significant native culture - if there's 500 native culture it'll take 95 spy missions, compared with 36 if there's 10000 native culture.

Of course, we then have to capture the city afterwards for it to count as Legendary.

edit: The only reason to consider this is because in a large empire we can generate espionage faster than we can generate raw culture in one city and great artists.

 

[Shaandore]

I'm playing in 5 minutes, I suppose everybody agrees with the plan.

 

[Shaandore]

Turnset played. 1 warrior lost to random barb archer (stepped next to it), one spy in position, other just built. No settler yet. 8 turns left to t100. 4 turns until maths is in. We are at ~20 gpt at 0% and 53 beaker per turn at 100% science.

Brennus has a new city. Screenshots, save in next post.

 

[Shaandore]

screenshots are:
1. new city of Brennus
2. how we lost a warrior (scumbag archer was wounded and attacked acrooss river, we had 50% def bonus from forest, and still lost...) I just realized that I forgot to promote him.

 

[ZPV]

Well played so far!
Some things:
In 3 turns we should get +1 Open Borders from Ramesses and he'll go back to Cautious.
We should give Fishing to Brennus now.
Ramesses is almost certainly building The Pyramids in Thebes. That means Masonry will be available for trade soon.

 

[Shaandore]

Thoughts:

We really need to settle the corn city soon or Brennus will get it. My PPP starts one more settler to make it possible. Economy started to get back in shape, and we can get some foreign trade routes soon. In 3 turns we get our settler, so decision time has come.

In my PPP I decided to try and road into Brennus. We need 3 roads for that, and IMO it is better than waiting for sailing which he might postpone. (Sailing won't give us TRs with Ramesses for a while.) Maybe we shouldn't even gift fishing to Brennus, so we don't make Ramesses even angrier.


PPP

Every turn: make sure Lyons has the Engineer hired.

Millitary: continue exploring with warrior. Other spy heads to Tolosa.

Research and Diplo: gift fishing to Brennus this turn? after maths is in, switch to Currency at 0%. Try to steal IW as soon as we have -50% from stationary spy. Sadly Ramesses is already annoyed! (we have +1 for peace and -3 for heathen religion)

Cities:
Lyons builds Hindu temple? so it can grow and to get a bigger happy cap so later we can work those nice tiles.
Orelans builds barracks until it grows, then 3 pop whips settler (for fishing village if we go by my vote) with the overflow in the barracks, then builds a warrior for military police.
Paris grows while building research until it is 1 turn from growing to size 8, starts next settler to stall growth until happy cap rises.
Rheims builds granary and whips it as soon as it is possible.

Workers: Lyons worker starts going south to road to our jungle spot
2 workers at Paris build the road, so the third can start prechopping the green forest SE of Paris this turn. It builds a mine on the roaded green hill until Paris starts on settler, then chops into settler with the math bonus.
One of the two other workers go to whichever city we choose to settle first, the other continues south to road to Tolosa and later help Rheims worker clear the jungles.
Rheims worker starts roading to Tolosa, but goes back to Rheims once IW is in to improve gems.

Questions that need to be adressed are underlined.

 

[BLubmuz]

screenshots are:
1. new city of Brennus
2. how we lost a warrior (*scumbag archer was wounded and attacked acrooss river, we had 50% def bonus from forest, and still lost...) I just realized that I forgot to promote him.

That even my 0 XP warrior caught in the ice and winning . It's the difference between a great general and a general

On the serious side, how should be the timing for new settler and IW? I ask this because we can need to change our plans for settling if Iron isn't in our borders.

*scumbag? is a typo or is swedish?

 

[Shaandore]

From urban dictionary:

"scumbag: A person of poor judgement and no class."

So what I meant is I don't like archers that get lucky like this. "Stupid archer" would be soemthing similar. It is possible that I misused the term, I'm not a native speaker after all.

 

[Shaandore]

On the serious side, how should be the timing for new settler and IW? I ask this because we can need to change our plans for settling if Iron isn't in our borders.

We will get IW hopefully in 6 turns, and a settler will be ready in 3 turns. If we can afford to waste esp. points by not waiting for stationary bonus, we could try stealing it 3 turns from now.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

Scumbag was an accurate description.

 

[ZPV]

We will get IW hopefully in 6 turns, and a settler will be ready in 3 turns. If we can afford to waste esp. points by not waiting for stationary bonus, we could try stealing it 3 turns from now.

I think it should be cheaper in Tolosa than Bibracte, with the same odds of success.
We'll need the stationary discount, I think - it's 468 base cost. Once it's within our budget though, we should steal it immediately.

 

[Shaandore]

I think it should be cheaper in Tolosa than Bibracte, with the same odds of success.
We'll need the stationary discount, I think - it's 468 base cost. Once it's within our budget though, we should steal it immediately.

I did check the espionage screen, and Tolosa is indeed the cheapest. Waiting for the discount would be nice because maybe we can steal one smaller tech (eg. Masonry) later with one of our spies.

Edit: so the 6 turn thing refered to moving to Tolosa and waiting 5 turns for max discount

 

[BLubmuz]

Scumbag was an accurate description.

I've never heard that word, to the point i asked if it was Swedish. The sound is a bit scandinavian, tho.

But Mastiff, may i insert you back in the roster? Are you ready to play and contribute?

If not, np, just tell us when you are

 

[BLubmuz]

I did check the espionage screen, and Tolosa is indeed the cheapest. Waiting for the discount would be nice because maybe we can steal one smaller tech (eg. Masonry) later with one of our spies.

Edit: so the 6 turn thing refered to moving to Tolosa and waiting 5 turns for max discount

What can be best, to keep the settler idle or start build another one?

With idle, i mean that we can let it to 1 turn to complete or simply have it ready with escort and such.

 

[Shaandore]

What can be best, to keep the settler idle or start build another one?

With idle, i mean that we can let it to 1 turn to complete or simply have it ready with escort and such.

The first settler out will be the one that we 3-whip from Orleans. Since Orelans will be over its happy cap (size 6) we wouldn't want to stagnate at that stage. We could stagnate at size 5 by building a worker for 3 turns, and later let the overflow from the settler whip go into that.

For the fishing village, we don't need an escort.

Where do we stand with the vote? If I understand correctly the current situation is:
Fishing village: Folket, ZPV and myself
Jungle corn city: Blubmuz

I guess everybody agrees that in case of popping iron our settling pattern should be reconsidered. Question is do we wait with settling the first city just for that, or we decide to go for it with a second settler (that I plan to build in Paris with chop(s))

 

[BSPollux]

"ZPV - 1536 AD, Small, Marathon, Deity, Space Colony game for 319614 points"

gz

 

[ZPV]

I think we should be prepared to build another settler quickly for Iron.

I'm lukewarm about the jungle corn site, but when we can afford it and have enough workers I guess it'll be useful.

 

[BSPollux]

two questions:

1) Didnt we plan to conquer Brennus shortly after we get Iron? If so, shouldnt we prepare and isnt it bad to be so close to our financial limit?

2) About spread ulture OPs: didnt citys lose culture when they were conquered?

 

[Shaandore]

1) You have pretty much answered your question. We just don't have the economy for that yet. Hopefully we will get a big boost soon from cottages, sailing and currency, and then we can whip/chop an army for that purpose, but not before trebs/maces or knights are available.

2) The enemy cultere is lost, but if we have our own culture in that city, then it is not lost.

 

[ZPV]

two questions:

1) Didnt we plan to conquer Brennus shortly after we get Iron? If so, shouldnt we prepare and isnt it bad to be so close to our financial limit?

2) About spread ulture OPs: didnt citys lose culture when they were conquered?

1) Being close to our financial limit means we won't be conquering Brennus soon. It'll be better to wait until we have more tech, so the cities become productive faster and the lag time while they're unproductive doesn't hurt so much.

2) No. Culture is kind of complicated.
City culture remains, waiting for you to recapture the city.
So does tile culture, (e.g. when you capture a city, the tiles around it might say 9% French 90% Celtic)
However, to be within a civ's borders, a tile must be within the cultural influence of a city that civ owns. When a city is captured, the borders change because of this.