[BTS] SGOTM 24 Xteam

[Cactus Pete]

RL intervened and did not have time to play many turns. There are indeed decisions that have to be made quickly, some immediate and others (like those ZB mentions) more longer term. I will post notes tomorrow morning.

In the interim, here is the save and log: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG024_AD0680_01.CivBeyondSwordSave



Here is your Session Turn Log from 620 AD to 680 AD:

Turn 141, 620 AD: You have discovered Horseback Riding!
Turn 141, 620 AD: You have discovered Construction!
Turn 141, 620 AD: You have discovered Engineering!
Turn 141, 620 AD: Carl Friedrich Gauss (Great Scientist) has been born in Oak (Sitting Bull)!
Turn 141, 620 AD: Asoka adopts Bureaucracy!
Turn 141, 620 AD: Your maps have proven that the world is round! Your ships receive a +1 Movement bonus.

Turn 142, 640 AD: Bismarck has 90 gold available for trade.
Turn 142, 640 AD: Asoka has 5 gold per turn available for trade.
Turn 142, 640 AD: Bismarck is the worst enemy of Stalin.
Turn 142, 640 AD: Gandhi is the worst enemy of Tokugawa.
Turn 142, 640 AD: Asoka will trade Silk Get silk for clams
Turn 142, 640 AD: You have discovered Guilds!
Turn 142, 640 AD: Taoism has spread in Aspen.
Turn 142, 640 AD: Stalin has declared war on Darius I!
Turn 142, 640 AD: Stalin has completed Shwedagon Paya!

Turn 143, 660 AD: Darius I has 50 gold available for trade.
Turn 143, 660 AD: Darius I is the worst enemy of Stalin.
Turn 143, 660 AD: You have discovered Gunpowder!
Turn 143, 660 AD: You have trained a Galleon in West Palm Beech. Work has now begun on a Crossbowman.
Turn 143, 660 AD: Taoism has spread in Ironwood.
Turn 143, 660 AD: Bismarck has completed The Great Library!
Turn 143, 660 AD: St. Patrick (Great Prophet) has been born in a far away land!

Turn 144, 680 AD: Bismarck has 90 gold available for trade. Get 90 gold for Machinery, which he was 1 turn from completing
Turn 144, 680 AD: Darius I has 240 gold available for trade.
Turn 144, 680 AD: Stalin is the worst enemy of Darius I.
Turn 144, 680 AD: Darius I has 240 gold available for trade.
Turn 144, 680 AD: Asoka has 5 gold per turn available for trade.
Turn 144, 680 AD: Darius I is the worst enemy of Stalin.
Turn 144, 680 AD: Stalin is the worst enemy of Darius I.
Turn 144, 680 AD: Gandhi is the worst enemy of Tokugawa.
Turn 144, 680 AD: Darius I will trade Horse
Turn 144, 680 AD: Stalin will trade Copper

 

[Noble Zarkon]

So that's all the civs, right?

Yes that's it.

Nice to get the Circumnavigation bonus as we're going to be ferrying a lot of troops about

 

[Cactus Pete]

Notes for NZ on proposed play

A GS in Ombu is just 3 turns away if 8 scientists are run for 1 turn (with food loss) and 7 scientists for 2 turns.

Suggest worker#4 move next turn to forest 2N of Ergili to road

Regarding western island:
Galley#1 deposits settler and chariot next turn 1N of proposed city site (call it Mangrove or whatever you prefer) and then sails back 3E to pick up cat from WPB and crossbow from Oak the following turn, then meets returning Galleon to chain those two units to 1E of Yayoi
Galleon deposits two swords 2E of Yayoi and returns to meet galley#1 and chain crossbow and cat to 1E of Yayoi to attack and raze it the following turn, joined by two swords, DS now on hill (which needs to be moved toward Yayoi), and chariot
Galley#1 can sail back east once again to pick up crossbow for WPB if needed and one of the workers (definitely needed to mine hill) now roading workshop south of WPB. It can then hang around to protect Mangrove's fishing nets (2 wkbts have already been built -- one near Yayoi and the other near WPB -- and another will be needed in time).
However, a trireme will be better eventually than the galley, which can be better used to transport units, starting with the worker once he completes mining Mangrove's hill.
City can be founded in 2 turns and should immediately run an artist to expand, freeing us in 3 more turns to get out of Caste and into Slavery, if we chose that route.

After western island operation, consider sailing galleon, loaded with survivors, (but probably need to leave 2 units to protect and fogbust) east along our southern coast, where it should prove quite useful ferrying units -- to pillage iron at Tarsus, if we attack Persia, or to attack western Russian cities.

Suggest we hold off on DOWing anyone until our scout has a chance to scout for a few turns.

Drama and Music will have value, so look to trade for them.

Darius has 240 gold to trade, which we can get for either HBR or, as ZB suggests, for Optics.

If we cancel our trade of deer for 3gpt with Darius, we should then be able to trade him deer, corn, and dye for horses.

Note that workshops, once we have Chemistry, will be as productive as mined hills, more so if we continue in Caste, and we are short on production.

We have two workers improving around Bloodwood. One is probably all we should keep there much longer, so, after galley moves crossbow out of ironwood, suggest it sail to Bloodwood to pick up Worker.

We do not have a trade network with Japan, which is of potential use, so bear that in mind while exploring in that region.

Even if we stay in Caste, we should consider getting out of Pacifism, which isn't hurting us much now but will become more expensive with each unit we produce.

 

[fractals]

Notes for NZ on proposed play

A GS in Ombu is just 3 turns away if 8 scientists are run for 1 turn (with food loss) and 7 scientists for 2 turns.

Suggest worker#4 move next turn to forest 2N of Ergili to road

Regarding western island:
Galley#1 deposits settler and chariot next turn 1N of proposed city site (call it Mangrove or whatever you prefer) and then sails back 3E to pick up cat from WPB and crossbow from Oak the following turn, then meets returning Galleon to chain those two units to 1E of Yayoi
Galleon deposits two swords 2E of Yayoi and returns to meet galley#1 and chain crossbow and cat to 1E of Yayoi to attack and raze it the following turn, joined by two swords, DS now on hill (which needs to be moved toward Yayoi), and chariot
Galley#1 can sail back east once again to pick up crossbow for WPB if needed and one of the workers (definitely needed to mine hill) now roading workshop south of WPB. It can then hang around to protect Mangrove's fishing nets (2 wkbts have already been built -- one near Yayoi and the other near WPB -- and another will be needed in time).
However, a trireme will be better eventually than the galley, which can be better used to transport units, starting with the worker once he completes mining Mangrove's hill.
City can be founded in 2 turns and should immediately run an artist to expand, freeing us in 3 more turns to get out of Caste and into Slavery, if we chose that route.

After western island operation, consider sailing galleon, loaded with survivors, (but probably need to leave 2 units to protect and fogbust) east along our southern coast, where it should prove quite useful ferrying units -- to pillage iron at Tarsus, if we attack Persia, or to attack western Russian cities.

Suggest we hold off on DOWing anyone until our scout has a chance to scout for a few turns.

Drama and Music will have value, so look to trade for them.

Darius has 240 gold to trade, which we can get for either HBR or, as ZB suggests, for Optics.

If we cancel our trade of deer for 3gpt with Darius, we should then be able to trade him deer, corn, and dye for horses.

Note that workshops, once we have Chemistry, will be as productive as mined hills, more so if we continue in Caste, and we are short on production.

We have two workers improving around Bloodwood. One is probably all we should keep there much longer, so, after galley moves crossbow out of ironwood, suggest it sail to Bloodwood to pick up Worker.

We do not have a trade network with Japan, which is of potential use, so bear that in mind while exploring in that region.

Even if we stay in Caste, we should consider getting out of Pacifism, which isn't hurting us much now but will become more expensive with each unit we produce.

Concur.

I'm completely inclined to attack darius only once we get to cannons.

Also monitoring the war between persia and russia would be quite useful for finding their respective units and casualties, plus the occasional opportunities we may find

getting out of Pacifism is no brainer once we get to chemistry, and we will have to move from CS to slavery due to our lack of production+ our abbundance of food, so every scientist needed to bulb our way to medicine and SCI method should we there, OR, after conquering through blitz and total war our initial Island we may then move totally from being absolute warmonggers to absolute pacifists who run several scientist in a couple of cities to get the remaining scientists required for bulbing our technological goals

Also maybe enhanced research from conquered cities should be taken into account once it's the time to calculate our needs

Sadly I'm still lacking a fairly useful PC, so i'm unavailable to play the next turnset:C

 

[zbgayumn]

Ok, I took a look at what would happen to research if we dropped Caste for Slavery. It's only about a 10% reduction, so not really that big of a factor. (That's not counting reductions in city size from whipping. That might hit us for another 10% or so.) Another factor is which religious civic to switch to. If we go to Org Rel, it boosts our maintenance cost by 10 . I would really, really like to have Theocracy so that we get extra experience when whip out all these units. However, there's not much sign that's going to be on the trading block soon.

@fractals - It would still be nice to use GS's for Education, PP, and Sci Meth, (we would have to get Physics to then bulb Biology and Medicine and that's kind of a waste) but we're only going to have enough of them to partial-bulb one of those. If we stayed in Caste, it would take somewhere around 20 turns to get 2 more GS's. I'm tempted to say we should stay and wait for them, but it's getting late in the game and conquering is going to be slow. I could still go either way.

 

[zbgayumn]

Thoughts on Domination:
Right now, Persia has 13% of the land and we are second at 11.26% (soon to be a little more)
The other civs have a fairly even distribution between about 11% and 8.6%.

13+11.3+5*(9.8) = 73.3%, which means there's still a lot of unclaimed land as well. We've seen that with the number of barb cities still surviving.

If we can take out both Stalin and Darius, our continent should account for roughly 35-40% of the land area.

We would then still be looking at completely conquering 2 of the remaining 4 civs, and probably partially conquering a 3rd.

Thoughts on Conquest:
Given the nearly 27% of empty land, conquest is probably no more difficult than domination. Should be faster since we don't have to leave defenders behind.

Thoughts on Religious:
I wish Bismarck would hurry up and build the Apostolic Palace. I honestly think this is the fastest victory with proper planning. Without vassals we have to get someone to actually vote for us though, that's a bummer. We would have to target someone and figure out how to pour on the charm.

NZ - you're pretty much the resident expert on the AP. If Bismarck builds it in Buddhism, what would we have to do to switch the AP religion? Does it have to be in the city where the AP is located?

 

[fractals]

Ok, I took a look at what would happen to research if we dropped Caste for Slavery. It's only about a 10% reduction, so not really that big of a factor. (That's not counting reductions in city size from whipping. That might hit us for another 10% or so.) Another factor is which religious civic to switch to. If we go to Org Rel, it boosts our maintenance cost by 10 . I would really, really like to have Theocracy so that we get extra experience when whip out all these units. However, there's not much sign that's going to be on the trading block soon.

@fractals - It would still be nice to use GS's for Education, PP, and Sci Meth, (we would have to get Physics to then bulb Biology and Medicine and that's kind of a waste) but we're only going to have enough of them to partial-bulb one of those. If we stayed in Caste, it would take somewhere around 20 turns to get 2 more GS's. I'm tempted to say we should stay and wait for them, but it's getting late in the game and conquering is going to be slow. I could still go either way.

Sorry ZB

I must abstain from voting due to not having been able to see this or any other game in about 7-10 days.


How could we gain teocracy once it's time for full war mode???

 

[zbgayumn]

City can be founded in 2 turns and should immediately run an artist to expand, freeing us in 3 more turns to get out of Caste and into Slavery, if we chose that route.

Darius has 240 gold to trade, which we can get for either HBR or, as ZB suggests, for Optics.

If we cancel our trade of deer for 3gpt with Darius, we should then be able to trade him deer, corn, and dye for horses.

Even if we stay in Caste, we should consider getting out of Pacifism, which isn't hurting us much now but will become more expensive with each unit we produce.

Let's get that 240 gold. I still like the idea of giving Darius Optics to get him in touch with the other continent.

The trade for horse seems worthwhile. A mix of Knights and muskets along with siege is pretty strong.

As I mentioned above, it's hard to justify the anarchy if we don't have something good to switch to. How long can we hold out for a Theology trade? It sounds like we've got 5 turns to go in Caste anyway. Maybe 5 more after that?

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Thoughts on Conquest:
Given the nearly 27% of empty land, conquest is probably no more difficult than domination. Should be faster since we don't have to leave defenders behind." Conquest means taking every city (including ones on a hill on an island) and maximum war weariness, plus generally no extortion for peace. Also, with Domination, we can settle unclaimed land (and expand cities) with a handful of settlers at the end, which is usually easier than taking cities, making the amount of still empty land an advantage. Thus, prefer Dom'n, though certainly open to Religious victory (just know nothing about it).

"As I mentioned above, it's hard to justify the anarchy if we don't have something good to switch to. How long can we hold out for a Theology trade? It sounds like we've got 5 turns to go in Caste anyway. Maybe 5 more after that?" Anarchy for both Caste to Slavery and Pacifism to Paganism is just one turn.

NZ, where are you?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

NZ, where are you?

Sorry I'm in the UK, was out last night and then most of the discussion took place in the middle of the night for me.

NZ - you're pretty much the resident expert on the AP. If Bismarck builds it in Buddhism, what would we have to do to switch the AP religion? Does it have to be in the city where the AP is located?

You can't switch the AP religion, if he builds it in Buddhism then that's it for the rest of the game - we'd probably have to capture the city it's in so that we could manipulate the vote.

I'm working now so have to go - will look probably this evening after I'm finished.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Some initial thoughts, input welcome

1. Technologies
Pine will pop a GS next turn, Ombu the turn after

I’m a bit unclear at our tech path but basically we need Steel and Medicine, right?

2. Dealing with AIs
Trade Optics to Darius for 240g (funds deficict for 2.5 turns)

Cancel our trade of deer for 3gpt with Darius, we should then be able to trade him deer, corn, and dye for horses.

Once we can see Stalin’s demographics next turn drop Esp slider to 0 but keep assignment on him

3. City placement and builds
Regarding western island:
Galley#1 deposits settler and chariot next turn 1N of proposed city site (call it Mangrove or whatever you prefer) and then sails back 3E to pick up cat from WPB and crossbow from Oak the following turn, then meets returning Galleon to chain those two units to 1E of Yayoi
Galleon deposits two swords 2E of Yayoi and returns to meet galley#1 and chain crossbow and cat to 1E of Yayoi to attack and raze it the following turn, joined by two swords, DS now on hill (which needs to be moved toward Yayoi), and chariot
Galley#1 can sail back east once again to pick up crossbow for WPB if needed and one of the workers (definitely needed to mine hill) now roading workshop south of WPB. It can then hang around to protect Mangrove's fishing nets (2 wkbts have already been built -- one near Yayoi and the other near WPB -- and another will be needed in time).
However, a trireme will be better eventually than the galley, which can be better used to transport units, starting with the worker once he completes mining Mangrove's hill.
City can be founded in 2 turns and should immediately run an artist to expand, freeing us in 3 more turns to get out of Caste and into Slavery, if we chose that route.

After western island operation, consider sailing galleon, loaded with survivors, (but probably need to leave 2 units to protect and fogbust) east along our southern coast, where it should prove quite useful ferrying units -- to pillage iron at Tarsus, if we attack Persia, or to attack western Russian cities.

4. General micro
We have two workers improving around Bloodwood. One is probably all we should keep there much longer, so, after galley moves crossbow out of ironwood, suggest it sail to Bloodwood to pick up Worker.

5. Civics and religion
We need to get out of Pacifism before our troop buildup, not sure of exact timing

6.War - if applicable
Toku needs to die, probably Stalin as well

If we fight Darius we need to target Pasargadae early as removing Chitchen Itza would make a huge difference, it has walls but isn’t on a hill. Do we know what troops he has there? If not we should move the scout back and take note,

7. Bigger picture
If we’re going for an AP win then we should seriously consider leaving Darius alive and even joining his war against Stalin (maybe waiting a few turns for him to ask), we have a long stable relation with him, share the same religion and are at +10 with him (including the hidden value). He’s the biggest civ in the game so his votes would be enough to win the game more than likely.

Presumably the idea is people will be happy to switch to Environmentalism because we will have to gift them a load of techs to make that available to them?

 

[Cactus Pete]

Some initial thoughts, input welcome

1. Technologies
Pine will pop a GS next turn, Ombu the turn after No, it will re-set to 1000, so will be 2 turns after Pine GS, if willing to lose food in Ombu for one of those turns. There would be no rush if we don't want to change civics (and we do want to wait until Mangrove has expanded).

I’m a bit unclear at our tech path but basically we need Steel and Medicine, right? Steel is optional, as it is not on the path to Medicine, but probably the best route to Domination (if that's our strategy). ZB has been hoping to get Steel through Liberalism, which will require CS, Paper, and ED (mostly bulbed) first. Once we have Chemistry, we might want to put research at 0% until we can either trade for CS or we have close to enough cash to just tech Steel the hard way

2. Dealing with AIs
Once we can see Stalin’s demographics next turn drop Esp slider to 0 but keep assignment on him What about putting all our EP points on Asoka or Ghandi after we get a look at Stalin's demograpjics, plus burning some gold on Espionage, to get to see what one of them is researching?

6.War - if applicable
If we fight Darius we need to target Pasargadae early as removing Chitchen Itza would make a huge difference, it has walls but isn’t on a hill. Do we know what troops he has there? Sorry, I don't recall, but I am sure that if I saw he had more than three defenders, I would have made a note of it. If not we should move the scout back and take note,

7. Bigger picture
If we’re going for an AP win then we should seriously consider leaving Darius alive and even joining his war against Stalin (maybe waiting a few turns for him to ask Concur, depending on what our scout finds the state of the hostilities to be.), we have a long stable relation with him, share the same religion and are at +10 with him (including the hidden value). He’s the biggest civ in the game so his votes would be enough to win the game more than likely.

Presumably the idea is people will be happy to switch to Environmentalism because we will have to gift them a load of techs to make that available to them?

No experience, so no clue on that.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

No, it will re-set to 1000, so will be 2 turns after Pine GS, if willing to lose food in Ombu for one of those turns.

Ah, of course - thanks for the correction.

 

[zbgayumn]

Some initial thoughts, input welcome

1. Technologies
Pine will pop a GS next turn, Ombu the turn after

I’m a bit unclear at our tech path but basically we need Steel and Medicine, right?

All mandatory Techs: CS, Paper, PP, Sci Meth, Biology, Medicine
Optional: Education, Liberalism
Military: Steel, Mil Sci, (maybe Nationalism, Mil Trad, Rifling)

I think I can agree with Pete that we wait a bit for CS to come up in trade. Keep research on CS though, so our spare beakers go into reducing the trade cost.

2. Dealing with AIs
Trade Optics to Darius for 240g (funds deficict for 2.5 turns)

Cancel our trade of deer for 3gpt with Darius, we should then be able to trade him deer, corn, and dye for horses.

Once we can see Stalin’s demographics next turn drop Esp slider to 0 but keep assignment on him

Seeing Gandhi's and/or Asoka's research is actually pretty cheap right now. 75 EP or 85 EP. We couldn't necessarily maintain the visibility, but getting a peek would be worth it I think.

5. Civics and religion
We need to get out of Pacifism before our troop buildup, not sure of exact timing

6.War - if applicable
Toku needs to die, probably Stalin as well

If we fight Darius we need to target Pasargadae early as removing Chitchen Itza would make a huge difference, it has walls but isn’t on a hill. Do we know what troops he has there? If not we should move the scout back and take note,

7. Bigger picture
If we’re going for an AP win then we should seriously consider leaving Darius alive and even joining his war against Stalin (maybe waiting a few turns for him to ask), we have a long stable relation with him, share the same religion and are at +10 with him (including the hidden value). He’s the biggest civ in the game so his votes would be enough to win the game more than likely.

Presumably the idea is people will be happy to switch to Environmentalism because we will have to gift them a load of techs to make that available to them?

Would be best to transition directly from Pacifism to Theocracy, so look to get Theology via trade. We would also have to spread Confu to take better advantage of the +2 experience. Minimum 5 turns before we can switch, I think.

Die Toku Die!

Attacking Stalin first makes more and more sense. By the time we kill him, we should have a good idea whether we can capture AP and pull off a religious victory.

Re: Environmentalism - yes, we have to give away a crapload of techs in order to get them to Medicine so that it is available. Then, we still need another tech to bribe them with. Hopefully, Astro will still work for many of them. Liberalism would also be a good one for that purpose. Chemistry might work too.

 

[fractals]

All mandatory Techs: CS, Paper, PP, Sci Meth, Biology, Medicine
Optional: Education, Liberalism
Military: Steel, Mil Sci, (maybe Nationalism, Mil Trad, Rifling)

I think I can agree with Pete that we wait a bit for CS to come up in trade. Keep research on CS though, so our spare beakers go into reducing the trade cost.



Seeing Gandhi's and/or Asoka's research is actually pretty cheap right now. 75 EP or 85 EP. We couldn't necessarily maintain the visibility, but getting a peek would be worth it I think.



Would be best to transition directly from Pacifism to Theocracy, so look to get Theology via trade. We would also have to spread Confu to take better advantage of the +2 experience. Minimum 5 turns before we can switch, I think.

Die Toku Die!

Attacking Stalin first makes more and more sense. By the time we kill him, we should have a good idea whether we can capture AP and pull off a religious victory.

Re: Environmentalism - yes, we have to give away a crapload of techs in order to get them to Medicine so that it is available. Then, we still need another tech to bribe them with. Hopefully, Astro will still work for many of them. Liberalism would also be a good one for that purpose. Chemistry might work too.

Great!!!!!

 

[Cactus Pete]

I think I can agree with Pete that we wait a bit for CS to come up in trade. Keep research on CS though, so our spare beakers go into reducing the trade cost. Certainly makes sense for a couple of turns, but we have (at least at the moment) good techs to trade for CS. Suggest that we put research (at 0%) on Drama, as it would be useful to have when war weariness gets bad and would be good to trade for gold.

Seeing Gandhi's and/or Asoka's research is actually pretty cheap right now. 75 EP or 85 EP. We couldn't necessarily maintain the visibility, but getting a peek would be worth it I think. Concur.

Attacking Stalin first makes more and more sense. By the time we kill him, we should have a good idea whether we can capture AP and pull off a religious victory.

Look to piggy back on Persian forces, ideally letting them do some of the heavy lifting until our army enlarges and gets in place.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I think I can agree with Pete that we wait a bit for CS to come up in trade. Keep research on CS though, so our spare beakers go into reducing the trade cost.

At the moment our research is set to Chemistry (with no beakers into it though), should I change this to CS?

Look to piggy back on Persian forces, ideally letting them do some of the heavy lifting until our army enlarges and gets in place.

Agreed but if Darius asks we should join in regardless of how ready we are, agreed?

What should we be looking to build in our cities - what was your general aim CP?

• Oak will finish a Crossbowman in 1 turn.
• West Palm Beech a Catapult in 2.
• Elm a Galleon in 7.
• Ironwood a Crossbowman in 1.
• Bloodwood a Granary in 9.

EDIT: If we're looking to run Theocracy we need missionaries from Pine for Elm and West Palm Beech to make the most of it.

Sorry I don't quite feel I've grasped our plan thoroughly yet - I'd really like to get the game moving but am not confident yet.

 

[Cactus Pete]

At the moment our research is set to Chemistry (with no beakers into it though), should I change this to CS? Absolutely not. We can't bulb Chem if we have CS, then we would have to bulb Paper. The talk of 0% research in CS is premised on already having Chem with a bulb from the coming Pine GS plus research.

Agreed but if Darius asks we should join in regardless of how ready we are, agreed? Agreed.

What should we be looking to build in our cities - what was your general aim CP? Aim was to start building an army and prepare for war, but many of the present city builds were begun before I had all the options for units that are available now (or will be available after a horse trade). Knights are a priority, too, but they can get to the front twice as quickly so generally need to be built last, though one early to strengthen our force and perhaps pick off a worker might be wise.
Oak will finish a Crossbowman in 1 turn. Given the nature of Stalin's army, crossbows are valuable, but, after ones in queue are completed, greater priority would be siege units (that benefit greatly from double promotion) -- both cats (for non-city attacks) and trebs (for city attacks).

• West Palm Beech a Catapult in 2. More expensive units logically built here and ones that benefit most from double promotion, so probably treb next after crossbow
• Elm a Galleon in 7. Going to want naval transport, and there are no barracks here, so stay with the galleon, probably planning to whip it into a musket (as this is city closest to front, so knight not appropriate here).
• Ironwood a Crossbowman in 1. Not a lot of production here or food for repeated whipping, so perhaps a pike next.
• Bloodwood a Granary in 9. Lighthouse next.

Sorry I don't quite feel I've grasped our plan thoroughly yet - I'd really like to get the game moving but am not confident yet.

We certainly do need to get moving, but understand your needing to get back into the game.

 

[zbgayumn]

What should we be looking to build in our cities - what was your general aim CP? Aim was to start building an army and prepare for war, but many of the present city builds were begun before I had all the options for units that are available now (or will be available after a horse trade). Knights are a priority, too, but they can get to the front twice as quickly so generally need to be built last, though one early to strengthen our force and perhaps pick off a worker might be wise.

Generally agree.

Oak will finish a Crossbowman in 1 turn. Given the nature of Stalin's army, crossbows are valuable, but, after ones in queue are completed, greater priority would be siege units (that benefit greatly from double promotion) -- both cats (for non-city attacks) and trebs (for city attacks).

Crossbows get the free CG1 and Drill 1 promotions from being protective. With the Totem Pole, we get an extra +3 experience on archery units. Drill 3 crossbows can be a big tactical advantage. Unfortunately, only WPB and Ombu have Totem Poles. Let's stop the Pike in Ombu and focus on Crossbows. Other cities should work on siege like Pete said. I'd recommend a ratio of 3 Trebs to 1 Cat.

Muskets also get the free CG1 and Drill 1 promotions.

• West Palm Beech a Catapult in 2. More expensive units logically built here and ones that benefit most from double promotion, so probably treb next after crossbow

Something like Treb, Musket, Knight

• Elm a Galleon in 7. Going to want naval transport, and there are no barracks here, so stay with the galleon, probably planning to whip it into a musket (as this is city closest to front, so knight not appropriate here).

Works for me. I would also recommend a Musket in Aspen that we can whip into a Galleon, then whip the Galleon to bring the Musket to the front.

• Ironwood a Crossbowman in 1. Not a lot of production here or food for repeated whipping, so perhaps a pike next.

I prefer elephants over pikes. They have good strength against mounted units and are better on offense.

• Bloodwood a Granary in 9. Lighthouse next.

If a worker is staying there to clear jungle, then I don't see Lighthouse as a priority. Library would be probably be my first choice, followed closely by Market.

This is just an approximation, but here's what our production looks like when you factor in whipping (30 H for every pop point gained)

Very surprising to me that Elm is 2nd. Perhaps we need a Barracks there first.

NZ - I hope this helps. I know we don't have total agreement on everything, but you're going to have play as you see fit. We're under two weeks left, so planning is going to have to be fairly minimal.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Oak will finish a Crossbowman in 1 turn. Given the nature of Stalin's army, crossbows are valuable, but, after ones in queue are completed, greater priority would be siege units (that benefit greatly from double promotion) -- both cats (for non-city attacks) and trebs (for city attacks).

Crossbows get the free CG1 and Drill 1 promotions from being protective. With the Totem Pole, we get an extra +3 experience on archery units. Totem was obsoleted when we researched Astronomy, so would seem pretty irrelevant that Drill 3 crossbows can be a big tactical advantage. Unfortunately, only WPB and Ombu have Totem Poles. Let's stop the Pike in Ombu and focus on Crossbows. Would still advocate pike or, as ZB suggests below, WE. Other cities should work on siege like Pete said. I'd recommend a ratio of 3 Trebs to 1 Cat. That may be an ideal ratio, but lower cost of cats usually makes it more practical to have closer to 50/50.

Muskets also get the free CG1 and Drill 1 promotions.

• West Palm Beech a Catapult in 2. More expensive units logically built here and ones that benefit most from double promotion, so probably treb next after crossbow

Something like Treb, Musket, Knight Sounds right.

• Elm a Galleon in 7. Going to want naval transport, and there are no barracks here, so stay with the galleon, probably planning to whip it into a musket (as this is city closest to front, so knight not appropriate here).

Works for me. I would also recommend a Musket in Aspen that we can whip into a Galleon, then whip the Galleon to bring the Musket to the front. That, too, sounds right.

• Ironwood a Crossbowman in 1. Not a lot of production here or food for repeated whipping, so perhaps a pike next.

I prefer elephants over pikes. They have good strength against mounted units and are better on offense.

• Bloodwood a Granary in 9. Lighthouse next.

If a worker is staying there to clear jungle, then I don't see Lighthouse as a priority. Library would be probably be my first choice, followed closely by Market. Follow the logic of limited utility of a lighthouse, but it will be a while before we would reap any benefit from a library. What about building a wkbt (we need a third one for Mangrove) and whip it into a library?

This is just an approximation, but here's what our production looks like when you factor in whipping (30 H for every pop point gained)
View attachment 471290

Very surprising to me that Elm is 2nd. Perhaps we need a Barracks there first. Interesting analysis. I'm good with a barracks next in Elm.

NZ - I hope this helps. I know we don't have total agreement on everything, but you're going to have play as you see fit. We're under two weeks left, so planning is going to have to be fairly minimal.

Well put.