SGOTM 22 - TTfkapr

[shulec]

Well done so far!

Am I correct to assume we are three turns away from producing Mids if we keep the stone bonus? And each turn we gift stone city early will add another turn, right? So if we gift it this turn, it will be six turn until we produce the Mids. I'll wait for the test game to better visualise our current situation.

Six turns without stone is correct.

Hmmmm so Sal has horse and iron. He also has fish. He is on our land mass too. So maybe Preats would of worked? Big downside is he is 20 tiles away. We would need WM2 praets to reach him quickly. Would of needed a lot of luck to worker steal here.

Three Ai seem to have gone straight for Monarchy. So early fued is not impossible.

Mecca is S9. Probably too busy spamming mish to expand. Hmmm. That and fighting off the barbs. That archer of his has been in the wars. The reality is we could drop off a spy if we really wanted but it is a 10 turn journey by sea to mecca.

I would suggest astronomy is probably not needed here. I think we just have a spread out land mass. Although Astronomy might speed up troop movement. There is no way we will settle all the land here.

I see the Persians are in war mode?? Maybe aganst us?? Most likely the Celts.

Expect the AI to eat up the barb cities here. Could be why Celts have so many cities.

Zara to the east of us too.

I believe all of the cities were settled, and none were captured, based on notifications in game. The Persians have been in war mode for about 7 turns. I did not think it was significant enough to mention.

So do we wait 1-2 more turns or risk Arabia building a 4th city? Would it matter?

Risk vs reward on mids. Risk that Mecca settles a 4th city. Risk that we lose mids. We know Arabia lacks stone. Should we gamble 1 more turn in hope he is spamming mish? We know we can drop off spies by sea now. Very long journey. 6 turns from mids is a long wait.

Small note on Wb exploration. Can we make sure we fully hug the outter coastline. Just in case we miss any islands.

Let's remove some of these unwanted signs. Shame we lost circ bonus. Looks like we had no chance on this.

Map thoughts. Maybe there is no gap on this pangea. A ring of land around whole map. Meaning the other Ai are on a upper ring? We have only seen units from 2 Ai so far.

Land mass so far is 40 long. I suspect closer to 45-50 long. Meaning our land mass can only be 15-22 tiles North to south. So I predict it's unlikely An AI is north of us.

I don't know what you are referring to with the workboats. I have exposed the maximum number of tiles without straying too far from land.

What unwanted signs are you referring to. I need to add more real game signs if anything.

 

[shulec]

This is a tough choice indeed. At least Saladin isn't anyone's worst enemy at the moment, which makes him a decent target to gift the city to. He could possibly become Brennus' worst enemy in the next couple of turns..

So the question is, how screwed are we if we can't gift Trojan stone? How screwed are we if we don't get the mids? I think missing the mids is worse than not being able to gift stone. But I also think it's less likely that happens. Saladin is quite likely to found a 4th city in the next few turns, he has lots of free land around him. But on the other hand, he's also taking all barbs TGW is sending to him, so he should be busy fighting off those.

Not a single ocean tile spotted yet, means our workboats can go everywhere. Lots of "coast" to explore. If we could keep stone until mids, we'd also get another exploring WB.

We have to deal with that barb archer too. Thus far in the game, there was a turn where there were two barb archers on the tile that currently has a barb archer. I moved John 1S1W and the barb went NW. The barbs seem to be migrating northwest around our land toward Saladin. However, his missionary made it through.

Here is the test game:

 

[Gumbolt]

Signs - george needs healing, panther and warrior T46.

By exploring I mean hugging the outside coast line. Of course this may mean we miss some land details. BSP loves adding islands with resources.

 

[shulec]

If we get stuck with stone city, that means we need another building in Rome and two more population before we can settle the horses.

Signs - george needs healing, panther and warrior T46.

By exploring I mean hugging the outside coast line. Of course this may mean we miss some land details. BSP loves adding islands with resources.

Got it on the signs.

Look at the coastal pattern of tiles revealed, there are four coastal tiles exposed on all of the western coast. On the eastern coast, there are not four tiles exposed because fog busting was required.

 

[Gumbolt]

Ermm mids is the 4th building. I do agree ideally we want to gift stone city. Then use horse as 3rd city and maybe cows as 4th. That or deer/fish city.

Would be a shame to lose WB in trojan city. Overall horse is much stronger than stone city?

All down to risk really. Hmmm.

Off to shops and i can test a bit on test game.

For 6 warriors in cap we will need to move back 1 of the 2 warriors ASAP. Plus pull back the fogbuster down south. I would agree the archers will likely head NW if you fall back.

 

[yyeah]

Does ais have how high amount of investment in to something ?, in espionage window.

 

[Gumbolt]

Also when did Arabians go to 3 cities???

Skipping BW assuming we keep stone till mids complete looking at 450bc for 4th city. An extra worker/farm would of really helped here. Not much we can do.

If we build 3rd city and go slavery we can whip a worker in fish city asap. Then start chopping into a settler. We would need archery or chariots. 240H for 8 chariots. Ouch!!! Would take a while. 2-3 turns for chariot in capital. About 15 turns without chops.

Might be better to have 3rd city focus on chariots once built and skip BW till size 8. The lack of workers would be the real cripple.

Once at size 8 we can whip some workers once 4th city is built. On test game a barb city appeared near cow site. We can use G spy to scout out cow site. Note also how the religions have spread. If Zara is near us it Suggest Persians are too.

 

[shulec]

Does ais have how high amount of investment in to something ?, in espionage window.

I don't think we have the sabotage production numbers since we have not seen any cities.

 

[shulec]

Also when did Arabians go to 3 cities???

Skipping BW assuming we keep stone till mids complete looking at 450bc for 4th city. An extra worker/farm would of really helped here. Not much we can do.

If we build 3rd city and go slavery we can whip a worker in fish city asap. Then start chopping into a settler. We would need archery or chariots. 240H for 8 chariots. Ouch!!! Would take a while. 2-3 turns for chariot in capital. About 15 turns without chops.

Might be better to have 3rd city focus on chariots once built and skip BW till size 8. The lack of workers would be the real cripple.

Once at size 8 we can whip some workers once 4th city is built. On test game a barb city appeared near cow site. We can use G spy to scout out cow site. Note also how the religions have spread. If Zara is near us it Suggest Persians are too.

A screenshot from 2280 BC shows Saladin was the first to three cities. I don't know how many turns before this it was founded.

 

[Gumbolt]

Should we now switch EP to Sal?? I can't see Ep costs for sabotage either.

If Sal is slow on expansion it could suggest he is building a wonder? If it is mids we would be foolish to give him stone. Of course we could always capture it too? Hmmm.

So more testing or try turn by turn risking it? Unless our workboat spots a settler? Can we finish moving that workboat???

 

[justjohn]

Once at size 8 we can whip some workers once 4th city is built. On test game a barb city appeared near cow site. We can use G spy to scout out cow site. Note also how the religions have spread. If Zara is near us it Suggest Persians are too.

You're assuming we're getting a great spy. Once Mids are done, we might be getting a GE instead.

 

[shulec]

If everything works out well, we should consider settling the GSpy for rep beakers, especially since we do not have a holy city yet.

Speaking of holy cities, we could consider Theology {groan!} if Philosophy goes soon.

 

[Gumbolt]

Why settle it if we want a trojan city?? 3000 Gspy points could steal monarchy, IW and other techs. Remember we can't trade techs here. Also Scotland yard would be counted as a building too. As JJ rightly points out we may not get a Gspy anyway. Decide later anyway.


Theology might have to be self teched. How many techs will we really be able to steal?? Would we be better off getting techs free via peace deals? Graph gazing Anti TSr are building units now?

So what is best for now?
1. Gift trojan city now and delay mids 3 turns.
2. Hold off on gifting Trojan city for up to 1-3 turns? How risk averse are we?
3. Move workboat first and see if we see any city/settler. He does have fish!! Certainly do that anyway.

We will need to move warrior back anyway to settle horse city soon.

 

[shulec]

My gut tells me to give away Trojan now. My heart says wait. I'd rather not get stuck with Trojan.

 

[yyeah]

I dont know to be honest... i got feeling that mids are late allrdy in other hand ( i dont know how to say it) we are involved with this trojan so it would be rly bad if we couldnt give it away.

 

[Gumbolt]

My gut tells me to give away Trojan now. My heart says wait. I'd rather not get stuck with Trojan.

You have it in a nutshell.

3 extra turns of mids really delays us growth wise. 3 extra turns with 1 unhappy face. Delay on rep too. Delay on 4th city too as Rome has to grow to S8. I pretty much had fish city go for 2nd settler. Takes 10 turns. What is the plan for fish city now?? We would also need an 8th warrior in Rome.

We would all be gutted if we got lumbered with stone.

I guess see what team thinks.

 

[elitetroops]

It's not like the game is ruined if we fail to give away stone now. When we made the plans to settle it, gifting it away wasn't part of the plan, and we still thought it's a good idea to settle it. Of course it is better if we can give it away, but if we fail I think we can live with it. Just have to adjust a bit. Chop a library there and run 2 scientists with fish, then at least it does something for us. And of course cheaper HG is nice if we want it. Best case scenario we might later be able to trade stone for marble with someone. Horse city would have to wait until cap is pop 8 though, which kind of sucks.

I think losing mids would be worse, so my vote goes to wait with the gift.

 

[Gumbolt]

Do or die!! That is the spirit. We can easily grow to s8 soon enough if we can't gift stone. As the Arabs expand it may be possible to gift it anyway later.

Another option is to give stone away in a peace deal? Hmmm I think 8-9 tule rule still applies.

 

[justjohn]

I, too, feel that loosing mids is worse than not being able to gift away stone city. But to make a "scientific correct" decision we would have to estimate the probabilities of either loss, and I find that to be near impossible in this game. In other words, I don't think there is much more we can say about our problem, and we just have to make a decision, even if it feels like a blind one. (The work boat move can of course be done first.)

 

[shulec]

It sounds like we are in favor of "going for it" and waiting on the gift. I support this.