SGOTM 22 - Fifth Element

[Noble Zarkon]

Unfortunately the Barb Warrior moved to the hill anyway. However our new Archer in Rome has a 78% chance of killing him, the other Archer is at 5% but that will improve if we promote him. Between the two we should be able to kill him and hopefully the two warriors in Porxy can fend off their Barb warrior.



http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Fifth_Element_SG022_BC1760_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

I'm off to London in the morning for 12 days - no access to the game but will be on here, will also get the opening posts up to date. zbg - think you are up?

 

[pigswill]

Kill the barb (if first archer wins promote oher archer to geurilla and move to protect hill.

Whip Porcy, overflow will get us another archer.

We need to secure perimeter (more archers) before launching another galley (imo).

 

[zbgayumn]

zbg - think you are up?

Yeah, I suppose I should jump in.

At 78%, I think I can assume that we attack.

We're done with Pottery next turn - what's next on the list?

I suppose first we have to back up and answer this question: Are we satisfied with the 3rd city being next to the horses? (Orange spot) I would really prefer to put a city on the blue spot in order to have a stronger long term city. However, I realize that causes problems in the short term.

If the rest of you are OK with the orange, I'll just give it up, but one thought I had is to research IW now. We should be able to finish it around the same time we build a settler and meet the other requirements in Rome. In that case, we might be able to settle for Iron. Or there could be none, or we could have it in our borders already.

Getting back to the original question - if not IW, what do we research? Start the path to Monarchy?

 

[enKage]

IW before writiing? I never do it as I rarely play Romans. I will force Writing for open borders and galley soon to find AIs. We nned those international trades!

What time can we finish 2nd galley and granary? (I suppose 2pop granary whip to galley is in everyones mind?)

I tend more into gems first as we need a lot of commerce. I played BOTM with no tech trading on Noble and this is ridicously tough!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I quite like the idea of IW next given the influence it might have on settling. Don't particularly like blue dot but that's guy feel not analysis.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Gut feel lol

 

[pigswill]

We can get open borders if the AI have writing (very easy to check). We haven't found any AIs yet apart from Hannibal who we've already upset so I don't see any big rush for writing. IW on the other hand can influence our choice of sites. We're going to be pretty limited to the number of cities we build over the next couple of thousand years so we need to pick sites carefully.

 

[enKage]

what if we have no iron nearby? We go for HBR then? Are we really so affraid of barb warriors/archers?

How do we want to get 6 archers and settle 3rd city maybe far away with lack of commerce?

 

[pigswill]

Cottages?

 

[enKage]

With5 happy cap? This would be abundant number

 

[pigswill]

Trade routes ain't going to get much either, a library only 6bpt (+25T GS). To raise happy cap we of course need monarchy (or pyramids). Porcy can work 4 cottages while Rome concentrates on hammers. We can get city#3 pre-monarchy but 4+ need HR. Going for horse city next will give us chariots to explore inland, because we're limited to a small number of cities each city needs long term potential which determines where we place the city.

 

[enKage]

Trade routes ain't going to get much either, a library only 6bpt (+25T GS). To raise happy cap we of course need monarchy (or pyramids). Porcy can work 4 cottages while Rome concentrates on hammers. We can get city#3 pre-monarchy but 4+ need HR. Going for horse city next will give us chariots to explore inland, because we're limited to a small number of cities each city needs long term potential which determines where we place the city.

Actually we have 5 strong sites in sight, but 1 is in jungle. If we takje horse as 3rd, we should then quickly go for #4 and #5 (#4 silver/corn or wheat, #5 filling city for cow). This mean we need 5 builds in Rome, and the question is if we would have enough time to research to "building" techs and not to build useless some like monument fe.

Build for #3 is Granary, for #4 shuld be Library and what for #5?

OTOH Iron Working means we can just discover iron by odds on our hills only by working mines.

I still prefer going standard writing - math path (aqueduct, currency - forum - we need to grow into unhappines so few pop whip builds are obvious) or CoL for own religion, so we can use temples, monasteries, IW delays it all including CS.

As mentioned before I never play Romans so maybe I am wrong and IW is the right way to go. BUT our "neighbours" are far away.

I wont object too much if we accept IW in voting.





Let us give ourselves 24 hours from my post to vote. In case of draw active player's vote is decisive. In the meantime hoping to find some micro plan for incoming turns (archers to 6, granary, galley, settler)

 

[zbgayumn]

Actually we have 5 strong sites in sight, but 1 is in jungle. If we takje horse as 3rd, we should then quickly go for #4 and #5 (#4 silver/corn or wheat, #5 filling city for cow). This mean we need 5 builds in Rome, and the question is if we would have enough time to research to "building" techs and not to build useless some like monument fe.

Build for #3 is Granary, for #4 shuld be Library and what for #5?

Monuments are cheap. It makes an ideal 5th building.

OTOH Iron Working means we can just discover iron by odds on our hills only by working mines.

I still prefer going standard writing - math path (aqueduct, currency - forum - we need to grow into unhappines so few pop whip builds are obvious) or CoL for own religion, so we can use temples, monasteries, IW delays it all including CS.

We'll never get to a 4th city if we ignore Monarchy.

Much as I would like to have a better long term city, I think it might be more important to stay on the right tech path. Writing will help speed all the following techs, and those need to be Myst -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> Monarchy.


I didn't get any kind of micro put together tonight, so it will have to wait until tomorrow night.

 

[enKage]

Writing will help speed all the following techs, and those need to be Myst -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> Monarchy.

In this case, with extremely cheap Mist and Priesthood we should put Writing after Priesthood. And Polytheism instead, for Literature unlock

 

[zbgayumn]

Well, I tried to update the test game, but I did a relatively poor job. As such, this is not a super-detailed plan. These are the highlights:

T56
Attack with Archer #2, Rome build Archer, 2 workers cottage next to Rome

T57
Porcy whip Archer #3, start teching Writing

T58
Rome to Pop 3

T60
Porcy finishes Archer #4

T62
Rome to Pop 4, finishes Archer #5, starts Granary

T64
Whip Archer #6 in Porcy, finish Writing, start Myst

T65
Rome whip Granary, resume galley

T66
Porcy finishes Archer #7, start Monument

T67
Finish Myst, start Polytheism

T69
Rome finishes galley, OF to Settler

T70
Switch from Settler to Archer

T71
Chop near Rome

T72
Archer #8 done, Rome to Pop 4, resume Settler

T73
Finish Polytheism, start Priesthood

T76
Settler finished, start Library

T78
Rome to Pop 5

T79
Finish Priesthood, start Monarchy

T80
Rome to Pop 6, Settle next to horses, whip Lib in Rome


I'm pretty sure we need to do better. It's tough to grow to Pop 6 and build a Settler at the same time, though. Barbs weren't terrible once I got 3 archers out to the perimeter.

I actually played all the way to a fourth city at T99, but that's just for reference.

 

[pigswill]

The problem isn't getting buildings in Rome, units in Rome ain't a problem either. The problem is growing population in Rome, obviously HR for happiness but then we have to think about health cap which is fairly low at the moment.
There's also the not minor issue to building 7WW in Rome, something we haven't debated so far.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

There's also the not minor issue to building 7WW in Rome, something we haven't debated so far.

Very true, I guess no wonders are in immediate scope given where we are. does again make me ponder IW - if Iron was near Stone for example we might want to reconsider.

@zbg - I don't think we need super detailed plans 10/15 turns in the future anyway, we need to know our goals for these turns but if, for instance, the barb was to kill our two archers things would change so quickly! Medium term plan and short turnsets is the order of the day I reckon. Good to hear barbs settled down once we got our perimeter up, hopefully enKage will be right!

 

[unclethrill]

Just an update. We are still in travel for at least another week. I've been trying to keep up with the thread on my phone in between.

 

[zbgayumn]

The problem isn't getting buildings in Rome, units in Rome ain't a problem either. The problem is growing population in Rome, obviously HR for happiness but then we have to think about health cap which is fairly low at the moment.
There's also the not minor issue to building 7WW in Rome, something we haven't debated so far.

I came to the same conclusion about growth, so I think I am going to try again and have Porcy build the Settler. Then it really is possible to grow to 6 while building a Settler at the same time.

At least up to size 8, I didn't see any problem with health. It will probably show up by the time we get to size 10, though.

 

[pigswill]

We need monarchy befoe anything else (including writing and IW). Until such time as we find an AI who might open borders (and doesn't have writing themselves) writing is pointless.