SGOTM 17 - Fifth Element

[Shaandore]

Played more than planned because research was much slower due to new cities. We might want to research alpha now to trade for CoL. Mansa just researched monarchy, which is bad news considering that he is now 1 tech away from lbs. The galley is ready is on route to island city, and I queued a worker in Aachen to be transported there later. New cities are built and recive a lot of worker attention. Aachen is crazy strong, those swords came out in 5 turns!

With all these cities our economy is in a bad shape. We need to start getting conquer money and Mansa's capital, and CoL in the meantime. We have enough production power to just overrun him with cats&swords&axes. I would go for CoL now instead of HBR, and trade currency <-> alpha with Mnasa. This way we make sure we get CoL in some turns.

I really would like to resettle the barb city, partly because we don't have the money to pay for it now. I'd prefer to build a settler for the filler red dot. Growing our cottages is the most urgent thing. We won't get any returns if we don't do it now.

I have played 18 turns so I hand over the save to the next palyer (unclethrill?).

Spoiler :

Turn 128, 325 AD: Confucianism has spread in Prague.
Turn 128, 325 AD: Alhazen (Great Scientist) has been born in a far away land!

Turn 129, 350 AD: The borders of Vienna have expanded!

Turn 130, 375 AD: The revolution has begun!!!
Turn 130, 375 AD: Quartermaster converts to Confucianism!
Turn 130, 375 AD: The anarchy is over! Your government is re-established.

Turn 131, 400 AD: Mainz has been founded.
Turn 131, 400 AD: You have trained a Settler in Nuremberg. Work has now begun on a Library.

Turn 133, 450 AD: Ulm has been founded.
Turn 133, 450 AD: Mansa Musa adopts Hereditary Rule!
Turn 133, 450 AD: James Clerk Maxwell (Great Scientist) has been born in a far away land!

Turn 134, 475 AD: You have trained a Swordsman in Aachen. Work has now begun on a Swordsman.

Turn 135, 500 AD: You have trained a Galley in Vienna. Work has now begun on a Market.
Turn 135, 500 AD: Hypatia (Great Scientist) has been born in a far away land!
Turn 135, 500 AD: The Hanging Gardens has been built in a far away land!

Turn 136, 520 AD: Aachen will grow to size 7 on the next turn.
Turn 136, 520 AD: Mainz will grow to size 2 on the next turn.
Turn 136, 520 AD: Mansa Musa has founded Walata.

Turn 137, 540 AD: Aachen has grown to size 7.
Turn 137, 540 AD: Aachen can hurry Swordsman for 2&#8692; with 36&#8484; overflow and +1&#8676; for 17 turns.
Turn 137, 540 AD: Mainz has grown to size 2.
Turn 137, 540 AD: Nuremberg will grow to size 3 on the next turn.
Turn 137, 540 AD: Augsburg will grow to size 4 on the next turn.
Turn 137, 540 AD: You have discovered Construction!
Turn 137, 540 AD: You have trained a Swordsman in Aachen. Work has now begun on a Worker.
Turn 137, 540 AD: Confucianism has spread in Nuremberg.

Turn 138, 560 AD: Nuremberg has grown to size 3.
Turn 138, 560 AD: Augsburg has grown to size 4.
Turn 138, 560 AD: The borders of Augsburg are about to expand.
Turn 138, 560 AD: Prague will grow to size 5 on the next turn.

 

[BLubmuz]

Well played Shaan
Yes, Unckethrill is up unless he's got problems. I'm after him in any case.

Things to decide for next TS:

1. Research: i propose Alpha, so we can trade. Not only with Mansa, because we can make contact with the south side hopefully. Obviously CoL is a priority and we need some CH before starting the war or we're ruined.

2. Barb city: keep or raze and resettle on furs to gain the fish?

3. New cities: if we agree to sacrifice a city to have access to the South quickly, i think that the priorities are the crab/ivory area cities (old dotmap). But after we have some CH in place, so calm down. The red filler city can wait, see above.

4. We need a chariot ASAP to send on the south side to explore. Possibly C1.

5. If the south coast is reachable and we can settle there, we need a settler and an archer to send there quickly, soon followed by an axe and a worker.

Just a reminder that Domination is at 64%, so we can settle without much problems all the East, or at least keep the good cities there and save some for the West.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

Looking good team. I'm here reading, just not much to add!

 

[unclethrill]

I'll DL the save in about 16 hours and hopefully throw together a proposed PPP soon after.

 

[Pangaea]

I'm still around too, trying to keep up with reading. Been busy with other things lately so not had a chance to play this game for some weeks (feeling rusty now).

Agree we should resettle the barb city. Don't like killing the fish, so we can settle on furs instead (we can still get fish, but it's kind of yucky).

If there is passage south, and it looks like there might well be, then we should settle on stone. won't be a great city no matter what, so we may as well.

 

[BLubmuz]

With the return of Panagea i think that settling on stone is decided.
1N would have been a better city, but i think this is a good price to pay.

I updated page 1 and according to our plans it seems that i will have the fun to wipe Mansa this time. Not an annoying war with modern units against medieval units like the past game .

I think that settle on furs will give to the city center +1c, thus it's not a complete waste, considering that we gain a soon much needed health resource, so i can be on that side. But better plan a settler in that case, 1 more happy resource is welcome.
All the other new cities MUST wait for some CH in place. We can build the settlers in advance, but not settle them. In any case, we need 2 more settlers: 1 for the replacementr of the barb city and 1 for the possible spot on the South coast.
The Stone city, which i propose to call "The Bridge", will give us a good boost in commerce in 2 turns.

There's what to research to be decided before UT post a definitive plan.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

The Stone city, which i propose to call "The Bridge", will give us a good boost in commerce in 2 turns.

"Where's that confounded bridge?"

 

[unclethrill]

"Where's that confounded bridge?"

Lower right corner island

 

[unclethrill]

Okay so here is a start:

1. Settle the stone city (Da Bridge)
2. Research: CoL ( I think we will be hard pressed to get much of anything in trade if we research Alpha first)
3. Workers: Chop jungles; connect resources; ferry one over to Da Bridge to hook up the iron. (open to specifics here for all workers)
4. Build libs and grans in small cities (monument in Da Bridge), Swords and/or Caps in other cities.

Open to specifics and suggestions.

Will refine after input!

 

[Shaandore]

Okay so here is a start:

1. Settle the stone city (Da Bridge)
Great!
2. Research: CoL ( I think we will be hard pressed to get much of anything in trade if we research Alpha first)
How many turns do you estimate before attack? How many turns until we research our next tech? (we will have some barb city conquer money) If we can get Alpha before attack then it's better cause we can get CoL off Mansa for sure, and maybe some other goodies too. (plus we will have Alpha of course)
3. Workers: Chop jungles; connect resources; ferry one over to Da Bridge to hook up the iron. (open to specifics here for all workers)
There is one worker queued in Aachen to be ferried there once stone is settled.
4. Build libs and grans in small cities (monument in Da Bridge), Swords and/or Caps in other cities.
Looks good, but I will just wait for city-by-city specifics.

Open to specifics and suggestions.

Will refine after input!

There is one more city that we need NOW: the (now) red cottage grower near Vienna. We won't be able to grow enough cottages for midgame if we don't settle that ASAP. On the other hand, it will easily pay for itself at size 2-3 by working some new and some semi-mature cottages.

Vienna is a cottage city, and it's happy cap is still a limiting factor. We won't be whipping there for this war, so maybe we should concentrate on infra, eg a Market would be very useful there. Try to save its forests for later palace building.

I would like to see some whipping cycle plans (Eg. Aachen: 6->4 is very good, Prague should be good for occasional 5->3s with immediate growback to size 4.)

 

[BLubmuz]

I see that HBR is just a placeholder.
I also see that we're confucian, freely converted with 5/7 cities.
There's still the mistery of the not founded Judaism and Mansa which is running OR

About research, which is the main reason of this post: if Mansa did not researched Alpha itself is because he's going straight to Feud. I think that Alpha has to be our immediate tech, because it's a bit cheaper than CoL and it means CoL in the pocket in any case.

We have researched IW, Math, Currency and Construction. 292+364+585+511=1752
Mansa with his few cities, that monster capital and his Financial+Immortal (25%) bonus can have researched: Poly, Mono, CoL, Monarchy Math and IW 145+175+292+511+364+438=1925/1.25=1540 maybe also Medi. And now he can be some 12/15 turns from Feud.

I think we need no less than 12 cats and roughly the same number of swords/axes/archers to complete the stacks. I see 3 stacks:
1 Walata>Kumbi starting from Mainz
2 for Djenne > Timbu starting from Augsburg, mainly swords
3 same targets as 2 but starting from Prague, mainly cats

In this way we can block almost all the roads and not waste too many units to defend our cities from possible counterattacks. I see we have only 2 cities with barracks. We need to do something or before 12 cats are ready we need some 20 turns considering some whip and not counting te other units we need, the settler/archer and the chariot for the South coast and some CH.

 

[Pangaea]

Since the war is a fair bit off, I'm basically assuming we will be up against longbows (is this too pessimistic, or realistic?). Therefore, we need lots of catas.

 

[unclethrill]

That was my take on it too. We need lots of capts so give me anther day to refine build plans

 

[Shaandore]

I think we have 2 strong cities for military production (Aachen+Prague), and soon one more strong city (Augsburg) and one more weak (Nuremberg). We can start building the army, and in ~15-20 turns we will be ready for an attack.

 

[BLubmuz]

The land we have does not allow strong production cities but a few.
Surely food can turned in production, but it's not the same.

It's fine that you approve my analysis, so we can be on the same page.

In any case LBs or skirmishers are not a big difference. The good thing is that Mansa rarely builds barracks and often he keeps a small military in the early game. Then, 5 cities are not much.
In 20 turns we can have Alpha to start some tech trades, then research HBR so we can add some WE to our striking force.

Now, some comment on the competition. (BTW is it corrrect or is better some comments)?
We're 2nd in terms of game progress, so we're pretty much on schedule at least compared with the others.
What surpreises me is that MS are far higher than us in score and culture, but lower in power, so they have not expanded by war. BTW, we're on top of power, but PR and the Ducks seem to be moving quickly on that side.

The answer to how MS can have such a high score and culture can be in some wonder, but it also can be in a quickier expansion with monuments. I think that we REXed well and surely i won't regret the decision to not build monuments but libraries. Maybe they researched Alpha first and are trading techs already? Maybe they discovered the passage to South East (just to have the opposite ) sooner than us and are acting accordingly?

 

[Shaandore]

Alpha now for sure. I would attack without phants if our strike force is ready. Especially if Mansa is not going for Feud at this moment. If we feel weak compared to him 20 turns from now, then HBR and phants are still an option, but that would drag out this war for quite a while. I'd rather have his capital and hill holy city before he reaches something huge like engineering and walls.

 

[BLubmuz]

Alpha now for sure. I would attack without phants if our strike force is ready. Especially if Mansa is not going for Feud at this moment. If we feel weak compared to him 20 turns from now, then HBR and phants are still an option, but that would drag out this war for quite a while. I'd rather have his capital and hill holy city before he reaches something huge like engineering and walls.

I agree.
As i said, Mansa usually does not build a big army in the early game, but he does later (when Maces and LBs arrive). If we can field some WE at the beginning, the better, if we can only field them as reinforcementes, good, otherwise we need to strike quickly and fight the war like all the good generals do: with the army they have.

 

[unclethrill]

Still here and still figuring. Sorry for delay but RL as usual gets in the way. I'll have a definite plan by tomorrow night and can then play at least some turns on Thursday hopefully

 

[unclethrill]

PPP:

1. Switch Research to Alpha. Run zero for several turns. That plus barb gold should allow for research in about 8 to 10 turns total.
2. Take Barb City and Burn it. Relocate Swords to Rice North of Augsburg
3. Settle Stone city. Pick up worker from main land being built and an MP to place in new city.
4. Finish builds in all cities:
Aachen -> Finish worker-> build archer for stone MP. Grow to 6 then whip 2 for a settler for Red Cottage helper. Then alternate SW and Cats
Vienna -> Slow build Market
Mainz-> Slow build Granary until can 1 whip it
Augsberg -> Whip lib-> overflow and build Granary -> then SW and Cats
Prague -> Military -> Occasional whipping of units
Nurenburg-> Finish Lib -> Military
Ulm -> Finish Gran

Workers:

Mainz workers continue to chop jungles
Augsburg worker - finish chopping jungle then farm rice
Vienna worker - over to chop Augsberg jungle
Ulm worker - chop jungles between Ulm and Nurenburg

Stop when Alpha is in.

If all good I can play in 18 to 20 hours.

 

[Folket]

Mainz has pigs. I'm certain it is better to do a 2 whip as soon as possible. Either chop into a catapult and 2 whip granary or chop into granary and 2 whip a catapult with overflow to granary. that will plot a course to a 6->4 whip schedule working banana, hill, pigs and silver all the time. I'm ok with a 1 whip into granary but I think a 2 whip would be better. I guess this city needs culture more then a catapult. Perhaps chop whip into library would be preferable.

Be careful when attacking the barb city. It would be unwise to let Mansa capture it.