SGOTM 22 - Fifth Element

[zbgayumn]

The immediate question is where to settle third city. I'm aware that the rest of the team have expressed a preference for one tile from horses. However I still think that this gives a weak city at the cost of 13-15 turn earlier chariots.

I'm not completely decided and will elaborate in another post.

Note on chariots: great vs axes in open terrain, not so great attacking axes in the jungle, hopeless against spears.

Open ground is precisely where we need chariots. Archers can defend forested hills, but they can't do anything if the axe bypasses them and starts pillaging improvements. Spears are still problematic, but an archer with Shock promotion might be able to handle them.

That being said, I've found that axes and spears are more likely to attack fortified archers than bypass them. The opposite seems to be true of barb archers. This aspect is kind of a split decision for me. Chariots would be useful, but I believe it's possible to get by without them (for a while).

Regardless of where we settle we need agriculture before monarchy.

I've been putting Ag into the queue after Priesthood. However, if you go with the hill city, you'll probably need it before Priesthood.

 

[zbgayumn]

Thanks to be wonders of Worldbuilder, I was able to make a comparison of the long-term potential of the two city sites.

1N1W of Horse:

Tops out at Size 12
14 Hammers, 20 Commerce


2N1W of Horse:

Tops out at Size 14
23 Hammers, 16 Commerce

Other considerations

1N1W
Coastal - don't need road in order to supply other cities with horses
Chariots come around T80

2N1W
Extra hammer in city tile
More defensible, especially w/ Guerrilla II Archer
Chariots come around T95

Now if only I knew how to weight of all of these factors. Overall, I think I lean toward the hill city, but I'd like to hear from others who have run the test game out to T100 and beyond.

BTW, on 3 trials so far, barb axes show up between T81 and T85.

 

[pigswill]

Had some test runs from test save. Not promising. My latest attempt I settled Horse City next to horses T75, it was razed by barbs T79 . Tried horse city on hill, road pillaged by barbs. Once we recall archers to Rome to build third city barbs pillage a couple of mines.

I'm a bit stuck here. RNG always hates me in sgotm.

 

[zbgayumn]

I think barbs in the test game have been consistently worse than in the real game. Still, some caution is probably needed. There should be two spare archers, one to protect the new city and one to patrol the road.

2 turns after the city is founded we should have 2-3 more archers on the east side of Porcy, moving in to help the first 2.

 

[pigswill]

Another test run, another failure. Mine pillaged, new city razed. Maybe real game will be less barb infested than the test. No way to find out except for playing. Still don't know which is better site for horse city, it hasn't lasted long enough to find out!

Has anyone else played from the latest test save? Maybe I'm missing something but moving 6 archers back into Rome leaves borders undefended and barbs still pouring in.

2-3 turns after new city is founded then we do indeed have some spare archers to defend new city, the problem is that the new city hasn't survived 2-3 turns.

 

[enKage]

I wouldnt go for monument in Porcy. Granary instead.

BTW sorry for being out for the moment, will probably be out for 2 more days and later for the weekend.

And lets go

Sorry guys for longer abscence, but still out for more 1-2 days

 

[enKage]

Just from the last screenshot attached: Archer should be fortified 3E from where is it fortifird now (talking about the archer 2E1s from porcy).

 

[pigswill]

Problm with moving that archer is its currently protecting a worker. We have to recall 6 archers to Rome to found horse city as well as protect workers/settler outside our borders. We can move warriors out for barb defence while archers are in Rome but whatever we do is risky unless we delay city#3 and build more archers (which add to unit cost which slows research).

 

[pigswill]

Provisionl plan for 3 turns.

T73 (current) :
water 2W
earth 1NW
change research to agric. gold 27-5.

T74
Rome archer>library
Porcy archer>archer
research agric gold 22-7
water fortify
earth NE fortify
warrior2 1SE
worker1 to GH n of Rome.
worker2 2E to archer
worker3 finish road
settler1E to archer.

T75
warrior2 1SE.
worker1 start road
worker2&3 1E
settler joins worker2&3+archer escort.
recall 2turn archers to Rome
research agric gold 15-8

Then final decision on location of city#3. It will take an extra turn if we settle on hill.

Maybe play 2 turns then review.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Green from me.

 

[zbgayumn]

I think we probably have to decide on city site now. If we go with the plain tile, we settle on T75, which means some archers have to move toward Rome on T74.

Having played tests with both sites, I think I actually like the hill better. Here's my reasoning:

1. A Guerilla II archer in a hill city is virtually untouchable for barbs, so we pretty much eliminate the chance that the city is razed.

2. An inland city means we have to protect the road to the city, but that really only takes one archer. I don't think it's difficult at all.

3. Even though axes and spears start coming in about 10 turns, they almost always attack hill-fortified archers and die.

4. The ability to survive without chariots for another 15 turns means that we can afford to pick the site with better long term potential. In my previous post, I think it was pretty clear that the hill city is better long term.

 

[pigswill]

I agree on hill site. I'm mindful that coastal trade routes are vulnerable to disruption by barb coastal cities.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of dynamism at the moment so still wiating for a consensus (or at least a majority).

 

[pigswill]

In view of lack of response so far I'll play tomorrow with the intention of settling city#3 on plains hill.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I'm happy to go with the hill city as you guys have had more time to test then me, the added defensive bonus is a good point.

 

[enKage]

I am back to annoy you and disagree with everything
:
1) Neglected diplomacy. Sal and Zara are not worst enemies of anyone and we may need diplo bonus for warbribe one day. We should work on relation improvement and that means pig/dear deal with Zara. He can declare on pleased, so better have him friendly as soon as possible.
There is also possible trade with Darius (gift fish), but it will bring diplo hit from Brennus (but we can leverage it later by OrgReligion)
2) Archer covering the worker should move east to fogbust new city location even now, worker is safe anyway. And I agree on plain hill

 

[pigswill]

Worker is not safe. Barbs may not spawn near barb city but can walk through it easily enough.

 

[enKage]

We have possible options of coastal city t75 or inland but still trade connected city t76.

We can easily force t75 6 archers in Rome and size6 of Rome t75

Eastern area
Archer moves to unforested hill this turn (1NE). Putting a worker on forest hill is a mistake because delays connecting new city. t73 settler joins the worker
t74 worker and settler to grasshill. T75 roads, t76 finishes road. We can settle t75 or 76 depending if we want instant trade connection

ROME
foresthill --> pig, it allows growing in 2 turns (we need 1 turn of working pig instead of forest hill). Archer still in 1 turn.

PORCY
works 2xmine for one turn because: t73 39/25 archer, t75 next archer (important to have it earlier! it is a replacement archer).

The key is at least 1 turn of 73/74 Rome works pig, Porcy works doublehill t75 and at least 1of turns 73/75.

Worker menagement
Forget about mine now. Both workers move to the grass 1SE from Rome and both put a road BECAUSE we want that archer southeast to reach Rome in 1 turn only

Archer manegement.
We need 6 right?
1 will be ready from Rome. 2 will reach Rome (2NW and 2SE) in the turn of settling a city.
4th archer:
that one built in Porcy, t74 on pigs, t75 in Rome
5th archer: those fortified 2N from Porcy. Temporarly replace it with Porcy warrior (archer can start moving t74 to wine and t75 to Rome
6th archer: that one east from Porcy - there is no danger ATM there, so it should move now (so reach Rome at t75 and still has enough movemnt to take defensive position on forest hill in Rome)


So we can settlle t76 on plainhill (with instant trade connection) or t75 coastal. In t75 coastal scenario we need eastern worker to rad horses instead hills. In t76 scenario we can move only 1 worker to 1SE from Rome for roading and let the 2nd mining near Rome

 

[enKage]

Worker is not safe. Barbs may not spawn near barb city but can walk through it easily enough.

But there are no 2move barbs. Worker should not stay there on that hill road there is not needed now, the one on grass hill is more important, because it connects a city to trade route and allows not wasting a turn after farming corn when going to mine it.

Anyway, moving that archer 1 turn later doesnt change a lot. It can be wolf there ? (doubtful)

 

[pigswill]

Anyway played up to end T75, ready to settle hill city next turn. Barb archer north of archer/settler, hopefully geurilla2 will save the settler. Moved workers out of the way.



I decided somewhat unilaterally to backtrack and explore Arabia a bit further. It looks a bit peninsular:



As there's no other barbs around at the moment I moved archers into Rome a turn earlier so they can move out next turn as soon as city is settled. Rome has 6 archers and will hit pop 6 next turn

I traded pig to Zara for deer T73.

Unless we close borders this turn we're going to be converted to Judaism (Jewish missionary 2n of Rome).

At the moment Brenuus w/e Darius and Saladin, Darius w/e of Gilgamesh, Zara w/e of Brennus. We're almost certainly w/e of Hannibal.

Porcy had an extra turn of growth instead of earlier archer but it needs to grow anyway.

Swopped from Ph to agriculture. We're 2 turns from agriculture, 15g in bank, -7gpt.

save:http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Fifth_Element_SG022_BC1000_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[zbgayumn]

Nice job!

I think we should probably welcome Judaism. It will provide much needed happiness prior to Monarchy.