SGOTM 9 - jeffelammar

It looks like we've got some nice land.

I like the red dot below the lambs for our next city. The other two red dots are okay, but they seem to be primarily chosen to give us cities on desert tiles. I actually like the yellow dots better. If we moved the red dot north of Channel City one tile east, we'd get the coast and the olives immediately. This would help the yellow dot, because it would get immediate access to sharing the olives, too. We're still on desert, but not on fresh water anymore. We could then put a city north of the lake to take advantage of it.

The hill south of India sounds like a good choice to settle soon, too.

It is a little late to be bringing this up, but maybe we should revisit the Republic/Monarchy decision. Because we can surround India with our territory, we don't need troops in their territory to blockade them. As they would have to land to attack us, we could ensure that we were never attacked by them (by killing them first). If we had some catapults we could ensure that we almost never lost an attacker killing any invading units. In this way, we could have no war weariness until it was time to let India take some cities. At that point we could revolt to some other government as we wouldn't need fast research anyway. I'm okay with sticking with monarchy, but I did want to point out that the WW factor is different since we know we can blockade them without entering their territory.
 
I like what we've got so far. We're starting to get some traction on our science rate, that big 7 on Poly looks good :goodjob:

City placement, still debatable. Personally, I like settling where the red dots are now. We give up the coast, but we won't need an aquaduct, and in the long run we get an extra +2 food in our core by settling the deserts. We'll have plenty of cities on the coast, growing a large inland city will provide all kinds of benefits. But CKS's idea has it's advantages too... what does everyone else think? We don't exactly get hurt either way.

I prefer keeping Trondheim on population duty for now.. Another worker might really be best to keep our citizens working roaded tiles, to irrigate that cow, and to get some incense hooked. Maybe channel city can provide the warrior if we really need one?

After that game is irrigated, I'd like to road the bg's before mining them, unless there won't be the citizens to work those roads. Sacrifice a little short-term production, but we keep the science rate growing.

I think one of the next few cities should start a Colossus prebuild.

I don't mind bringing up the Monarchy/Republic debate again (or anything else really). One of my favorite strategies to drag down a powerful AI that's a Republic is to declare war and never give them peace. In time, their production just bombs as war weariness takes over. Eventually they're often driven into Anarchy, it really kill's 'em. We don't want the same thing happening to us... AFAIK war wearniess steadily increases as long as we're at war, units in territory just makes it worse is all.
So the question is, if we go into Republic, will we gain enough of an advantage in science before we're forced into anarchy that we'll come out ahead of where we'll be if we just stick with Monarchy. Considering the lost production, the ramped up lux support, plus unit support, it seems we won't really get an advantage. As far as I can see, anyway...
 
Jove said:
I like what we've got so far. We're starting to get some traction on our science rate, that big 7 on Poly looks good :goodjob:

City placement, still debatable. Personally, I like settling where the red dots are now. We give up the coast, but we won't need an aquaduct, and in the long run we get an extra +2 food in our core by settling the deserts. We'll have plenty of cities on the coast, growing a large inland city will provide all kinds of benefits. But CKS's idea has it's advantages too... what does everyone else think? We don't exactly get hurt either way.

I also think, coastal city is another city where India could try to build battle ships instead of space ship parts...

Jove said:
I think one of the next few cities should start a Colossus prebuild.

I thought we could do this in Channel City, it would grow to size 12 fast and we could get Colossus and TGL there. With the Indian Ocean being a capsulated sea we don't need the Lighthouse anymore (for the reason we wnted it).

Jove said:
I don't mind bringing up the Monarchy/Republic debate again (or anything else really). One of my favorite strategies to drag down a powerful AI that's a Republic is to declare war and never give them peace. In time, their production just bombs as war weariness takes over. Eventually they're often driven into Anarchy, it really kill's 'em. We don't want the same thing happening to us... AFAIK war wearniess steadily increases as long as we're at war, units in territory just makes it worse is all.
So the question is, if we go into Republic, will we gain enough of an advantage in science before we're forced into anarchy that we'll come out ahead of where we'll be if we just stick with Monarchy. Considering the lost production, the ramped up lux support, plus unit support, it seems we won't really get an advantage. As far as I can see, anyway...

I think we already went too far to turn around. Republic slingshot would be impossible, researching Republic takes us much too long. Imo we have to stay to our decision now although I would have liked Republic more. But now I say: God save the Queen!
I'm already a little disappointed to see how long it takes us to get to Monarchy... :mad:
 
I'll play this afternoon. I'll be exploring, building cities to settle the sites we've discussed, continuing on our Monarchy slingshot quest, and starting on the Colossus. I'll also keep in mind that we want to eliminate the Mongols fairly soon.

I also think that Channel City looks good for the Colossus and the Great Library. I also agree that we don't need the lighthouse anymore, although if the AI builds in in a convenient location, I think we should snatch it up quickly.
 
Here is the save:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm9/Jeffelammar_SG009_BC1525_01.SAV

Here is the turn log:

1750 BC Give Bergen the cow for a turn. Worker roads, Warrior2 goes north, Curragh2 goes NE,N,NW; Curragh1 goes W,NW,N; Warrior1 goes SW.

IBT: Trondheim grows, Warrior to settler. Mongols are most advanced, we are least advanced.

1725: Cow to Trondheim, lux to 10%. Wr3 N; Wr2 N; C1 NW,N,E; Wr1 S; C2 E,N,E. Switch Channel City to Oracle as a Colossus prebuild. Notice all three city sites in the mountain ring around India are very nice. We need to settle them before someone else gets map making. There is a barb camp on the west side.

IBT: Channel City grows

1700: Wr3 NW; Wr2 N; C1 NW,N,E; Wr1 N; C2 S,SE,SE.

1675: C1 N,N,NE - find ivory; Wr3 NW; Worker2 N to cow; Wr2 to Channel City; Wk roads game; Wr1 N; C2 S,SE,NE. Science to 80%, poly in 3.

IBT: Bergen Granary to warrior.

1650: Wr3 NW, Wk2 irrigates, Wr2 fort; Wr1 N - meet Ottomans just SE of dyes. They have bronze working, masonry, the wheel. C2 E,NE,N; C1 NW,N,NE; lux to 20% to keep Trondheim happy (-2 gpt).

1625: Wr1 N; Wr3 NW; C1 3xNW; C2 NW,N,NW.
IBT: Poly to writing, Trondheim settler to worker.

1600: Settler to south of lambs; Wr3 NW; C2 NE,N,W; Wk to lambs; Wr1 N - see barbs; C1 W,NW,NE; Wr4 to Bergen. Lux to 10%. Writing in 17.

Trade Poly to Ottomans for all techs and gold. Mongols will do the same, but Mongols have more money so I guess they are more likely to have other techs, and if not we can still get all their gold. Trade poly to Mongols for iron working and 70 g. They also have horseback riding but won't trade it. Ottomans don't have IW or HBR. Mongols don't have horses or iron, but Ottomans have horses hooked up. We have horses 2 tiles north of the lake by Channel City and iron north of Reykjavik. There is a second source of iron to the northwest by the ivory.
IBT: Barb dies to Ottoman warrior, Bergen warrior to worker.

1575: Wr to Trondheim, Wr3 N; Wr1 N; C2 N,NW,W; C1 NW,NW,NE - see brown border - Carthage. Science to 90%, writing in 12, -2 gpt.
IBT: Trondheim worker to settler

1550: Wr to Bergen; Wk3 N; Wk2 roads; Wk1 roads; Build Oslo - barracks; Wr3 NW; Wr1 N; C2 W,W,NW - found Mongol lands; C1 N,N to ensure will meet Carthage on IBT.
IBT: Reykjavik worker to worker?

1525: Wk4 W (headed to Bergen's tiles); Wk3 roads; Wr3 N, Wr2 N, C2 NE,NE,NW; C1 W,N,NE. Meet Carthage - they have writing. :) Trade Mysticism, iron working, 50 g for writing. Philosophy in 10.

Some thoughts:

We need to grab ivory, horses, dyes, and the second iron. We need to put a line of cities across from east to west to block other civs from seeing India if they haven't already. Two cities should do this, and one of these will grab the second iron. I don't know if the Ottomans have met India. It is likely they haven't met, but not certain. We should prevent them from making contact if they haven't already.

We need to fill in the three hill spots in the mountains before anyone else gets map making and could get down there. All three have at least 4 bonus tiles in the water.

We can get ivory. Do we want to try for the statue of Zeus?

Here is a picture of our world:
 
We're getitng somewhere now.

MM ideas: We can work the incense instead of a bg in Trondheim and still grow in 1, freeing up a mined bg instead of forest for Channel City, improving it's growth. Increases Philosophy by 1 turn too... Moving a citizen from the forest to grass in Bergen will still give us the worker in 1, improving growth there too. Just ideas for the next turn...

Other thoughts: We really want more settlers quick. Perhaps Bergen should switch (keeping growth timed of course) and build workers in less productive towns. At this point, I'd vote for pushing toward the floodplains. We'll be in Monarchy by the next turnset, FP's will provide +4fpt each when irrigated :eek: Towns there could produce their own workers pretty quickly. More, the other civs are still quite far away, they won't steal our resources too soon. We can grab 'em after we've grabbed the food. I think whatever policy leads to the fastest pop growth and fastest improvement of workable tiles will serve us best. So, developing and working food tiles first seems best. It's hard to come up with a strict policy on tile development this game, we have many competing interests!

I'd feel more secure building the Colossus and Great Library concurrently. To the NW there's really a lot of shield/food potential, should be able to get it done there.

Monarchy too slow? Maybe, but 1300's isn't all that bad.

SoZ? Maybe... that's 3 wonders, 800 shields if we go for them all. And SoZ will trigger a golden age along with the Colossus. AC are nice to have, but we can get iron and horses easily, Berserks on boats are more dangerous than AC (by far :viking:) and will themselves trigger an easy GA. My impression is that we'll serve our science goals better if we invest the 200 shields SoZ would cost into ordinary production, more workers, etc. For example: a barracks and 9 archers cost 200 shields. If we can somehow get the money to upgrade all those, we can pretty much take out civs with just that. We can have suplus ivory, if there isn't more around, we can choose who to trade it to, who builds the SoZ, and who we steal it from!
 
I had to do a lot of MM between Trondheim, Bergen, and Channel City. I think at least one tile changed cities each turn. This was the last thing I did each turn, though, and I didn't do it before the save, so please move people around, denyd.

I did think about switching Bergen to a settler. We need to get more quickly. The reason I left it as a worker is that 1) we are working way to many tiles that aren't improved at all and 2) we have happiness issues there. I had to do a lot of moving of warriors back and forth between Bergen and Trondheim to keep the lux rate as low as possible. To get a settler out, our population will creep a little higher. I thought getting another worker out first would be worth it. However, I'm not opposed to changing it if that is our consensus.

If we have somewhere else to build the great library before Channel City finishes the Colossus, I'd like to build them concurrently. However, it might be faster to join a couple of workers once CC gets its tiles improved and build the GL there.
 
I hope I didn't sound critical of your MM. I'm just floating ideas, sounds like you're running a tight ship for us.

I didn't consider the happiness problems in Bergen. We do need settlers and workers, let's think about this one and see what the others want to do.
 
Nice work CKS

There is a lot of work ahead of us based on what I see on that map we need settlers for at least 6 spots right now and that's not counting fishing villages & the flood plains. 2 (red) to fill the choke points, 2 (blue) to claim the India contact points and 2 (green) to claim resources. The red ones also claim a pair of luxuries. I'm thinking the red spots are the most important at this time. I agree with keeping Bergen & Trondheim on settler duty for my full turn set and popping a couple workers from the newer cities.

Oslo is going to complete the barracks soon, so archers or spearmen?

I'll agree with passing on SoZ. Getting the GLib & Colossus is going to cost a lot of AA shields.

I take it Monarchy is the Philosophy bonus choice and that I should revolt ASAP.

Has anyone checked how far India is on research lately? We'll need to beef up the defenses once he gets close to Map Making.

I've got a couple of hours to play tonight, so I should be able to get this to Jeff tomorrow.

Edit to add map attachment
Note to self: Next time you reference a map include it :blush:
 

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Personally, I'd rather bee-line the floodplains than take the time to hike up to those chokepoints. Those are important too, but we're so small right now that we could really use more productive cities. The FP's will be productive at +3food right away once we're a Monarchy, not bad.

I'd vote archers in Oslo. We can upgrade them later, or fight soon!

Yes, Monarchy please as the free tech.

Go denyd!
 
Anybody want to post an updated dot map, please do. I won't get a chance to look at this closely until later today.
 
I'm also not really in favor of walking all the way up to the choke points right away, as we are still just starting to get our empire running. It is a good 10 turn walk to each one. On the other hand, the benefits of doing it are we can keep all the land south of them to ourselves. On the first hand, again, if the Mongols settle it for us, that would save us some settlers.

I should have some time this afternoon, so I'll work on a dot map if nobody else gets one up before I can.

I also vote for archers. We can also build some swords if we want, by hooking up the iron between Reykjavik and Oslo.

Last I checked, India was way behind in tech. It'll be a while before they get map making, especially if they don't bee-line for it.

@Jove: I didn't take offense. It did remind me that I needed to let denyd know that he needed to check everything though, and that I should mention the MP swapping. By next time around, though, we'll have reached the point where my feeble MM skills won't be enough, and I'll need serious supervision. ;)
 
Hooking the iron for swords will come in handy, but I think we ought to road the bg's and hook incense first.

And- what if we burn a little long-term to get a boost in the short term? With 2 settlers, one by the iron, one on the NE grass by the floodplains river, we could claim all the floodplains in the next 10 turns or so, and really boost our territory to boot. AND, the spot by the iron might be good for the GLb if it isn't too corrupt, maybe an FP if it is. I wouldn't mind losing a turn on science with the lux slider if it speeds up these early settlers...
 
Jove said:
Hooking the iron for swords will come in handy, but I think we ought to road the bg's and hook incense first.
I agree with this. Notice that Reykjavik's worker is not on the mountain. I don't think we want many swords, as we should spend our money upgrading archers. We do have the iron when we need it, though.

Here is a dot map.
The light blue dots: These must be settled before the AI learn map making. They will be very good for commerce once we have harbors and libraries. There is not need to hurry.

Red 1 and 2 block off India from anyone on our continent. Red 1 gets fish from India; 2 is desert on the coast with iron and possibly ivory.

Blue 1 and 2 are, I think, Jove's suggested cities. Please let us know if they aren't. Blue 2 is the yellow dot from before.

The yellow dots are fill ins. 2 gives us horses. 3 gives us dyes. 4 gives ivory. 1&2 share olives. 1&6 share game. 5 gives us a channel through the eastern land. 4 blocks off the west. If there is a 1 tile patch on the west, 4 won't block us from putting a channel there, too.

Of these dots, I'd settle yellow 2, blue 2, blue 1, and then yellow 4 first, I think. Then stop and reassess.

I don't feel confident about these, though, but I can propose a first draft to be amended.
 
Nice! :cool:
I had in mind blue2 being 1 south of where it is. My thinking is that it'd be on the river, but I'd have to verify that to be sure. If it isn't, or if the spot you marked blue2 is on the river, there isn't much difference.

So, for a big productive core, we'll need 13 more settlers, following this plan. I'll look at it harder, so far I can't find anything to complain about it.

CKS said:
Of these dots, I'd settle yellow 2, blue 2, blue 1, and then yellow 4 first, I think. Then stop and reassess.

I'm inclined to settle blue1 first, then the blue2 or yellow2, but I must admit yellow2 is quicker and will be less corrupt...

edit: I've imagined the city at red1 1 SE of where it's marked. Looking at that spot as another potential wonder city, although growth isn't easy there. The advantage is it'll be a bit less corrupt, the disadvantage is that it crowds Trondheim slightly if it's closer.
 
Does everyone else want to research Literature after Monarchy? With those 2 techs we can probably trade for whatever else becomes available.
 
A couple of things to take into account in our plans.

1. The AI is more likely to raze a city (regardless of size or wonders) if the taken city was owned by a superior culture opponent.

2. We could line the Indian lake with units and Gandhi would be trapped until Marines (like he'll ever get that far on his own).

3. Snagging the ivory, dyes & incense added to a pair of MP units will allow for size 6 cities (adding markets make that 7), so unless we acquire other luxuries we'll be limited in city size anway unless we want to spend research money on happiness. (though we can see silks to the NW)

I'll probably be able to get 3-4 settlers out during my set so I'll go for yellow2, blue1 & blue2. I'll have the 4th on the way to yellow4 (chokepoint & ivory).
 
Jove said:
Nice! :cool:
I had in mind blue2 being 1 south of where it is. My thinking is that it'd be on the river, but I'd have to verify that to be sure. If it isn't, or if the spot you marked blue2 is on the river, there isn't much difference.

Both Blue 2 and 1 tile south are on the river. 1 tile south will fill in the space between blue 2 and blue 1 without a cultural expansion (I think), but blue 2 is on the coast, while 1 tile south is not.

I've imagined the city at red1 1 SE of where it's marked. Looking at that spot as another potential wonder city, although growth isn't easy there. The advantage is it'll be a bit less corrupt, the disadvantage is that it crowds Trondheim slightly if it's closer.

I went back and forth here between the two sites. The SE one is awfully close to Delhi, and flipping might be an issue, as they'd have a lot of our tiles. While the distances aren't big, we'd be twice as close to Delhi as to Trondheim.
 
2 is an interesting point, denyd. If I counted correctly, we'd only need 39 units, minus however many cities we put around the sea (probably 6 in the end).

About point 3: I'm interested to know whether the silks and Carthage are on our land mass or on a separate island.

I do like literature after monarchy. Then I think we want map making, to give us harbors and access to the silks if Carthage is on a separate island.
 
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