SGOTM 22 - Xteam

[Cactus Pete]

GLH play is more about getting another wonder down, one of the few that does not require resources we don't have. With 7 required its a lot, both Stonehenge & Oracle went early to non-industrious leaders, so it would seem Stone & Marble may already be available to some leaders. Makes sense that this requirement would require some effort. Concur that wonders may be the limiting factor, but also agree that investment in one that has little initial payoff this early is questionable. We do have 30 hammers invested, however. If we're going to build it, lets whip into it ASAP and again near the end, so we end up with more than the GLH. Like 2 pop-whipping a worker as Ronnie suggests. A granary is also worth considering, especially if ceding the pigs to City #2 is going to continue. Chopping and mining the riverine grass hill to the SE is a priority. Would be in favor of putting that chop into a wkbt.

I agree we need to test it out however, I would also like a WB to explore and get TR's, but it would seem they are all some distance... through jungle... so quick conquest would seem difficult, and barb cities may/will disrupt TR's, so maybe the WB is not worth it for now. True that barb cities may block TR's, but we can't we raze (or capture, if valuable and benefit from GLH) barb cities. Knowledge of the map is likely to be extremely valuable.

Capital needs to grow to 6, so suggest utilizing cottages and farm.

Soon as archer is built in Rome, let's revolt to Slavery.

Like to 1-pop-whip a granary in city 2 when it grows to size three and granary about half full.

Tech path is really problematic: IW, Lit, Math, and Monarchy are all valid goals, but almost mutually exclusive. Hope some have time to test several of those alternatives. (I'm on the road again soon.)

 

[BSPollux]

I am bad at My German geografi. But I Will arrive in Essen next thursday.

It's roughly twice as far away from my place of work as my place of work is away from my home.

Spoiler :

Edit: Folket you got 3333 Total Posts right now, grats

 

[Jersey Joe]

This turn I plan to have the Caput worker move onto the river hill.
The Rome worker moves to 1SW of Rome and finish the farm (1 turn to build).
Revolt into slavery.

Next turn the Caput worker starts chop.
The Rome worker moves into the forest SE of Caput.
Also this turn (being tested) I might have Rome whip archer into granary (24 overflow), or let archer finish and start granary to be whipped later. If I whip the archer, granary slow builds and is finished around 1000bc when the GLH is done. I can then do 1 chop and 2 pop whip a settler in Rome (might do this before granary is done so overflow goes into granary).


Here is a test game as of 1480bc. Note: It is adjusted to reflect actual game including movement left on workers and warriors. Obviously, in the test game, Hannibal has settled in the wrong spot. His relocation will have to wait.

 

[Folket]

It's roughly twice as far away from my place of work as my place of work is away from my home.

Spoiler :

Edit: Folket you got 3333 Total Posts right now, grats

Thanks, I so proud that I almost stopped posting to not ruin the first thing of value I have created.

I have no idea how that sentence is going to be received I hope it is more funny then assholy.

Either way I'll be at Spiel in Essen Thursday to Sunday. If you can get there we can either play a boardgame or have a drink closeby if you prefer that.

 

[BSPollux]

This is very relevant to your interests:

Important post

 

[neilmeister]

With lots of chopping about to occur and continuing, Mathematics first might be the best path, followed by IW.
We are many archers away from building city 3.

More than happy to whip things into the GLH, sounds like a plan.

Prefer to whip the granary in Rome as opposed to the archer, then go straight back to archers until we get close to having the 6 we need.

I will probably be in Bochum again before the end of the year.... drinking Fiege of course.


edit: I will be able to put in some good hours testing over the next 2 days.... just been a very busy week at work (with my colleagues from Bochum here in Australia)

 

[neilmeister]

This is very relevant to your interests:

Important post

Culture flipping I assume, probably assisted by spies

 

[Jersey Joe]

What about learning IW next to give us more information about where to settle the third city. Especially if we find iron is closer than copper.
I think maybe we should go IW->Writing->Math instead of Writing->Math->IW.

 

[Ronnie1]

I like Writing->Math->IW.

 

[Htadus]

I am placing my lot with GLH for the following reasons.

• It is a cheap Wonder.
• It gives GM GPP.
• GM's are perfect for this kind of game because we can upgrade a whole bunch of mounted units by using trade missions.

Since this game seem to force us to keep a small empire, most wonders are less useful, the argument for GLH being less useful because we may not have enough coastal cities is not very good.

BTW, I think BSP is talking about city gifting and re capturing them or letting an AI take one of our cities in order to keep one of their capital and then later capturing our own city back. I recently did that in a game, the capture back part, and I did not get the option to raze it. I could be wrong.

BTW, Our second city site is very weak. We are only going to have a few cities compared to a normal game and each city site should be for a purpose like acquiring a resource. I am in favor of claiming that coastal horse, clam, corn and wine site. We get ever important horses. Unless we find another horse. I guess we do not have copper nearby. So I am in favor of learning IW sooner. That way we can secure the elephants sooner than later.

We should only play short sets from this point on with some discussion about goals and stuff.

 

[leif erikson]

It is 9 more turns to Writing and then, until Libraries are built, 20+ turns to Math. Great Lighthouse should be long done by the time Math rolls around, I hope.

IW gives us potential city sites and allows us to chop them free of jungles. So for me I would say Writing => IW => Math.

I understand the logic of Great Lighthouse, just want to think of all the things we could build with those hammers? Archers, Workers, Work Boat (recon) and a Settler for a start?

If we are delaying Math, need to prioritize what we are going to chop for Great Lighthouse. Think one grass hill (SE) and mine it?

Also, we can build a Camp on an Ivory tile while it has jungle on it, done it many times. That gives us the luxury at least, if we want to do that?

 

[Htadus]

The capital's priority is to build buildings, wonders and grow. Not to get whipped to death. I do agree that we should use whip OF into the wonders when possible. The second city should be building things like units and whip workers and settlers. I am also ok with the capital growing to say 2-3 red faces and whipping a worker or settler. But the priority is building wonders and buildings to allow us to expand.

We all know large empires see the finish line sooner but we are being limited. So our priority should be getting to 6 cities asap. That mean 12 pop in the capital and not many cottages. So we need to have our 3rd or 4th city specialize in economy so we can progress along the tech chart faster.

BTW, does anyone know if the AI accept a gift city if they are in another continent. I do not think they will accept a city located in another continent. We can see if each AI is willing to take our second city.

Wait a minute, what about gifting our current second city to an AI, if they are willing to accept it and put all our Espy on to that AI and do tech stealing? Any takers?

 

[leif erikson]

Wait a minute, what about gifting our current second city to an AI, if they are willing to accept it and put all our Espy on to that AI and do tech stealing? Any takers?

Yes, that worked very well in another game. If I recall correctly, if we can gift it to them before they have three cities, they automatically take it? Or is ti before they have 2 cities? Can't remember...

 

[Folket]

I think the AI will accept cities if they have less then 3 cities or the city is close enough to other cities they own.

I think it is a very good idea and we should also get a religion to make stealing cheaper.

Getting religions is also good to give us access to wonders noone else can build. By gifting our second city and getting CoL/Philosophy we secure two more wonders.

 

[Cactus Pete]

BTW, I think BSP is talking about city gifting and re capturing them or letting an AI take one of our cities in order to keep one of their capital and then later capturing our own city back. I recently did that in a game, the capture back part, and I did not get the option to raze it. I could be wrong. No, you are correct.

We should only play short sets from this point on with some discussion about goals and stuff.

Concur.

"what about gifting our current second city to an AI, if they are willing to accept it and put all our Espy on to that AI and do tech stealing? " Don't we want to whip it first (perhaps more than once), and do we need to rush the gifting, as we can wait until just one AI has only two(?) cities? Possibly BSP's warning was a consequence of other teams discussing this scenario, including capturing back and razing the gifted city, which they wouldn't be able to do and the recaptured city might unexpectedly disqualify them. We would have to capture it back for Conquest, right?

 

[neilmeister]

We have 3 buildings, only thing stopping a 3rd city is units. Maybe we keep Rome working the pigs and whip an Archer every time it hits pop 2. With OF we should get 6 archers in about 10 turns.

Capital can 2 pop whip a settler for max OF into GLH.

I am going to start testing a few alternatives now.... though I still like Deer/Gems first as it is close and already improvable, with decent resources.

 

[neilmeister]

In the tests that I have performed, Rome is a great little city.
It was extremely useful to keep swapping the pigs between the Cap & Rome as that way both could be whipped alternatively and grow faster/slower as necessary. Rome built all the archers and I whipped it every time it got to pop 3 (whipping at pop 2 did not work well). The 2 cottages in the capital were also very useful to work when we were not working Pigs. I don't think we need more than 2 but they are already the difference between 70% and 60% sustainable research rates and are still hamlets, so are very useful in a game with No Tech Trading.

2 pop whipping a worker into GLH worked well.

I put City 3 by the Gems & Deer, City 4 to the north with Phants, 2 Bananas and Sugar. This was built while researching Calendar.

At pop 8 with 2 unhappy & 1 unhealthy faces, we have so much food available we can still get to pop 10 before we hook up Phants and Calendar resources, but Gems & Deer are essential to make this possible.

Hanging Gardens should probably be our next target, its a very cheap wonder, we are going for Mathematics anyway and the cap will actually benefit from an aqueduct because we haven't got enough health resources.

 

[Ronnie1]

Solid test Neil!

Wouldn't the Elephant also allow growth to size 8, then 10 instead of the Gems? That being said, the Gems is a hard tile to go away from, especially given that IW is needed to improve the north.

I hope to have time to run a few tests tomorrow. I will also be gone for work next week, internet access only.

 

[Jersey Joe]

In the tests that I have performed, Rome is a great little city. I agree and have it developed the same why yours is.
It was extremely useful to keep swapping the pigs between the Cap & Rome as that way both could be whipped alternatively and grow faster/slower as necessary. Rome built all the archers and I whipped it every time it got to pop 3 (whipping at pop 2 did not work well). The 2 cottages in the capital were also very useful to work when we were not working Pigs. I don't think we need more than 2 but they are already the difference between 70% and 60% sustainable research rates and are still hamlets, so are very useful in a game with No Tech Trading.

2 pop whipping a worker into GLH worked well.

I put City 3 by the Gems & Deer, City 4 to the north with Phants, 2 Bananas and Sugar. This was built while researching Calendar.

At pop 8 with 2 unhappy & 1 unhealthy faces, we have so much food available we can still get to pop 10 before we hook up Phants and Calendar resources, but Gems & Deer are essential to make this possible.

Hanging Gardens should probably be our next target, its a very cheap wonder, we are going for Mathematics anyway and the cap will actually benefit from an aqueduct because we haven't got enough health resources.

I did not go as far as you did Neil, but my results were similar (I built your city 4 as my #3) I went IW->writing. I stopped when I got a Great Merchant and could bulb Metal Casting. Interesting to see you also got a GM.

 

[neilmeister]

I tried putting city 3 to the north as well, but found it took a long time to get going. It only has 1 banana in its inner ring, and we are a long way from Calendar if we build this city before Gems. With the city restrictions as they are we must build it here though and wait for a border pop before we get the phants.

City 3 by the Gems has both Gems & Deer in its inner ring and gets going much faster. In the t100 save I posted it already has a granary & a lighthouse.

The cap expands borders at a good time as well for a Phants city 4, meaning we can mine a hill in the Phants cities outer ring so at least it can start on a library at some speed while we research Calendar.

I was surprised to see the GM as well, I think I would prefer the Great Spy as this is a super scout and can obviously be used as part of a city gift / espionage strategy.