SGOTM 9 - Hagar

[Andronicus]

1. Get Ghandi off of that rock as fast as possible. Help clear out whatever area is convenient, so that he can immediately start to colonize the whole thing.

This doesnt become an issue until he learns MM.
We then have to decide when to give him the continent.
Thoughts that may require consideration
- are there other civs on landmass that may threaten Ghandi? ( I think we should consider whether we can empty the continent first - lets see, whats the odds of sharing starting continent with Carthaginians and perhaps Celts sitting on an iron hill? )
- do we have somewhere to go to? (if we go down republic road for its faster research speed then we need to obey all the rules for preventing WW - this means not allowing Ghandi to take any city, pillage tiles, defeat our attackers nor attack our defenders, and we must avoid having units on his territory. This can best be done if we delay letting him on starting landmass until we are ready to give him the whole area - and obviously we would need to shift our core to another continent)

This way he'll have a productive empire throughout much of the game. He'll not be a threat, since he is only monarch. Then when the time comes we try to demilitarize as much as possible, possibly even abandoning all cities on the same continent as ghandi, so that he doesn't feel threatened.

If we co-exist on same continent he will be a threat as he will attack and attacking our units will result in WW, also he will pillage which also produces WW. We must be prepared to leave continent when we start gifting.
If we elect to go republic pathway we take a risk - all of us need to be familiar with contributants to WW (I recommend article in war academy). We must keep to no more than 30 WW points. We do not have the option of peace with Ghandi to recover from WW then attack later as we can with other civs. The plus side of Rep is approx 15-20% science boost through increased commerce. If WW hits we will have no choice but to leave rep and switch to monarchy or commie if avail. The longer we are able to remain in rep the greater the bonus - I just think we need to be on different continents.

2. Keep most other computers alive. If we gift every other AI techs periodically, then they'll be relatively cheap for India to purchase. Because of his large empire from (1), he'll have the money to buy them. This also means that when he hits MA he'll already have a decent army , and won't waste a ton of time.

Agree, unless AI useless for research (? Monguls)
We should also trade lux AMAP even gifting if needed.
Ottomen are only scientific civ - we should aim to keep them .

3. In very early game explore as quickly as possible, even if it costs us some in terms of expansion speed. This is monarch, we shouldn't have a problem getting land. But we do want to meet (and have india meet) all the other AIs as quickly as possible, so they can start buying techs.

Yes explore and expand early so we know what we are dealing with - again have to wait for MM for India to meet anyone

I don't feel the GL is really necessary, though giving him the pyramids early enough in the game would be a boon.

If Ghandi doesnt meet any one until we are in late MA / early IA then GLib may be of moderate benefit.

 

[Abegweit]

I'll open the save at noon to take a look (about two hours from now) If there's no objections, I'll move the worker east and post a screenshot so we can discuss the position. I'll be playing my turns tomorrow morning (in about 24 hours). Comments/suggestions welcome in the interim.

I assume that everyone agrees that the research plan is Writing-CoL-Philo full steam. Starting with Alpha at Monarch, we should be able to snatch the slingshot with ease.

 

[Abegweit]

Here's the promised screenie. There's not much additional stuff revealed. I'm leaning to settling se-se-se in which case the worker should move to the cow at which point we can think about it again. The alternative, I guess, is ne-ne, but that puts the town one square away from the sea. I'm against settling on the BG. It doesn't look like we have much in the area.

 

[markh]

I would go se,se,se for the first city and the second ne, ne of the starting position if there is nothing better revealed.

 

[Abegweit]

OK. My inclination too. I'll move the settler and the worker once more and if nothing interesting appears, se-se-se it is.

 

[Abegweit]

Wow! As agreed beforehand, I settled se-se-se. Talk about striking gold! I found six BGs, three forests and… a deer! Can you spell settler factory I notice that klarius has a higher score than us at 3000BC. Does this mean that they settled sooner?

The granary is built but there still is a fair amount of work to do before the factory is functional. We are badly in need of at least one more worker, perhaps two. Despite this, I am building a settler in order to take of advantage of the forest chop.

Once we have a decent number of workers, Trondheim should build warriors to get up to size. We need MPs there anyway. We should aim for a 4-6 factory which will require a mined deer and 2 mined BGs.

4: cattle+deer+center+mined BG+BG = 6
4.5: cattle+deer+center+mined BG+BG+forest = 8
5: cattle+deer+center+mined BG+mined BG = 7
5.5: cattle+deer+center+mined BG+mined BG+forest = 9

Alternately, and perhaps better, if we don't mine the deer then:

4.5: cattle+deer+center+mBG+mBG+forest = 8
5: cattle+deer+center+mBG+mBG+mBG = 8
5.5: cattle+deer+center+mBG+mBG+mBG+forest = 10
6: cattle+deer+center+mBG+mBG+mBG+grass=8

This factory can easily be modified to irrigate the deer and share the cattle with another city (this is high priority). This leads to:

4.5: cattle+deer+center+mBG+mBG +forest = 8
5: deer+center+mBG+mBG+mBG = 8
5.5: cattle+deer+center+mBG+mBG+mBG+forest = 10
6: deer+center+mBG+mBG+mBG+mBG+mBG=12

This is way too much production but the important point is that the cattle are only used half the time.

In 3450BC, Mr. Deity-Level Unit Support produced a curragh! In 3000BC, it re-appeared. This lead me to believe that Gandhi's island is in an inland sea. We need to think about the consequences of that.

I suggest that the next city should go north of the lambs. That is a great spot.

Turn log follows:

4000 worker e, settler e
3950 worker se, settler se
3900 worker i, settler s;
3850 Trondheim founded, Start 100% research on pottery and training a warrior.
3700 Start road
3600 T builds warrior, starts settler (pre-build), move e
3550 war n, spots lamb; worker s-sw; move cit @ T from forest to grass
3500 borders of Delhi expand; worker chop; warrior n
3450 warrior e
[it] Indian curragh appears! So much for preventing Gandhi from getting contacts.
3400 warrior north
3350 warrior n
3300 worker road; warrior w; 4.5.1
[it] Learn pottery, enter Big Picture and switch T to a granary just as the settler is about to complete.
3250 warrior n; switch T from grass to forest; start research writing; 0.8.2; it’s still 50 turns away but that should change
3200 warrior w;
3150 warrior w, spots GH; worker s;
3100 worker start chop; warrior w;
3050 warrior n, opening GH and getting a warrior; conscript w;
3000 T completes granary, starts settler

 

[Abegweit]

Posted in error. Delete.

 

[juballs2001]

well, the good news is we have a river and an early luxury.

what i dont like is the mountains to the south.
this is a created map, so a lot of mountains could mean a lot of work and trouble

 

[Abegweit]

Mountains to the south are good news. If there are mountains to the north as well, Gandhi can settle west and the mountains will separate his lands from ours.

 

[Andronicus]

I notice that klarius has a higher score than us at 3000BC. Does this mean that they settled sooner?

I dont think the graphs will be particuarly helpful this game. I note however that Klarius has more culture (read settled sooner) and less territory (interpret as more overlap with India) ? settled BG.

Nice start - we may have to readjust strats dependent upon exploratory findings.
I think our second city should be Pyramids +/- GL city. It should be on lake to allow grow without duct. I suggest 2NE of first cow - uses lambs, 2nd cow and can share first cow.
Agree strongly we need workers.

 

[IstariAsuka]

Got the save, will play it out tomorrow (Saturday).

Looking pretty good so far.

 

[Abegweit]

I agree that our second city should be Wonderville.

 

[Abegweit]

I am not especially good at this but here's my attempt at a dot map. There are flood plains to the north. Plenty space for more cities.

Edit: our third city should be by the green crabby thing (olives?) and the fourth south of the lambs. Both should start by building curraghs for exploration.

 

[Andronicus]

I'm in agreement that next city should be N,NE,NE of Trondheim
I'm not convinced about one 2E though - realise you are trying to use fish
Perhaps SE city could go 1NE and drop 2E
I suggest our 3rd city NE of 2nd city allowing use of 2nd cow, follow with SE one, northern one then W one (perhaps even 1 tile further W)
I think we should remain flexible until more territory has been revealed

Roster
Abegweit - got us up and running
Istari Asuka - up - playing Saturday
Khan Asparuh - on deck
markh
Andronicus
juballs 2001

 

[Abegweit]

The main reason for building the city to the east is to bring the lambs into play, not the fish. I agree with the idea of exploring before making any final decisions. In short, we build the N-NE-NE city, then the one by the olives and re-assess when we know more.

 

[Andronicus]

The main reason for building the city to the east is to bring the lambs into play, not the fish. I agree with the idea of exploring before making any final decisions. In short, we build the N-NE-NE city, then the one by the olives and re-assess when we know more.

Good point.
I'm using an old computer to load save onto as I was getting lots of crashes on my newer one. Unfortunately this one doesnt have the med mods so I didnt see the lambs . Will download them before my turn to play.

 

[Abegweit]

I played through our entire last game w/o the Med mods. So long as you are aware that the resources are there, it works fine. In fact, I only downloaded the Mods to post the screenies on this thread.

E-E will one day be a fine fishing village. For the moment, it helps Wonderville get up to speed.

Speaking of E-E and Wonderville, can we please use real city names this time around? I don't care much what they are but I found the Ox thingeys to be really difficult to sort out. IMO, that confusion is part of the reason why we blew the ToE-Hoover's leap last time. I forget who switched the builds (and I really don't want to point fingers). All I want to say is that anything which can reduce the likelihood of mistakes is a Good Thing. Giving cities real names helps people to remember what their purpose is. Our minds work that way. Stockholm is better than O4 and HooverDam is better still.

I seem to recall that the name issue revolved around sorting good cities to the top of the list. One solution would be to give the dumbass names to garbage cities. ZZ1 and ZZ2 will come at the end of an alphabetical list.

 

[IstariAsuka]

Save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm9/Hagar_SG009_BC2550_01.SAV

Turns played out pretty routinely.

I met Ottomans and Mongols, and apparently Carthage? I didn't see them, but somehow they appeared on my diplomacy screen the last couple turns.

Carthage had apparently already distributed alphabet to the other two.

There are lots of luxs, 3 total so far.

We have 3 workers, we finish a warrior next turn, and should be good to go for our settler factory as per Abegweit's earlier plan.

 

[Abegweit]

Looks good. I hadn't worked out the whether best way forward was one additional worker or two. Since we have two, we should definitely concentrate on getting to the third settler factory I listed (the one which gives Wonderville half the cow) ASAP. Irrigate that deer. Mine those BGs. Grow Trondheim.

 

[IstariAsuka]

Looks good. I hadn't worked out the whether best way forward was one additional worker or two. Since we have two, we should definitely concentrate on getting to the third settler factory I listed (the one which gives Wonderville half the cow) ASAP. Irrigate that deer. Mine those BGs. Grow Trondheim.

Yeah, I judged that we needed two additional workers, since there was a lot of work to be done, and we're also going to need extensive roading for our settler factory.

Right now the deer is being mined because that way we'll not waste any time. We have to bring water to the deer, which will take several turns longer than this course of action. Of course, we can irrigate the deer next--mining it will just let us produce a settler in the meantime without disturbing our 4-6 city size, saving a bit of time.