SGOTM 9 - Wacken

[dmanakho]

Perfect start Offa... You are the MM King

And i am biting my hand.... I can't believe Ghandi has built a curragh... With all my Civ3 experience i never saw a single AI curragh... I suspect it was modded by AlanH .
Therefore it will be probably not possible to contain India, unless we run full speed for MM and surround Indian island with galleys somehow.

What do we do with GL plan??? I recon we still can use it, but the problem now is how to synch India williness to capture the GL city just in time before they learn Education. This will be a hit and miss plan.
Good news is that all the other teams are having the same puzzle to solve.

I also don't like the shape of our land... Looks like water and mountains are all over and not much space to build a core


It's about time for you to switch to cottages and plantations. I really need your Civ4 version of excel spreadsheet. I played until 3 am last night woke up with majore headache and played again all morning and almost convinced that unlike Civ3 there is no single winning strategy in Civ4. It is indeed almost as complex as a game of chess. I would suggest to start a succession game as team Wacken . 3 of us already have Civ4 plus we can recruit Gman, who i am sure bailed out of this SGOTM because of the Civ4.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

While we will probably not be able to prevent Indian contacts with other nations, we should very well be able to prevent them from building their own cities.

I think that makes them slow enough to fall back in technology. Soon they will have nothing to offer, and the other AI are not gonna sell them technology.
So, i think we should proceed with the GL plan.

Indeed, the area doesn't look very promising. We should go and explore soon.
Maybe it is possible to build a curragh between the settlers, using a forrest cut or even 2 to prevent the settlers from being delayed.
Our second city can start with a warrior for exploration, then a worker.

I think we can play some civ4 sgotm in the future, but don't like to do it as of yet now. I have some other stuff to do in real life, i have 2 sg's in civ3, i have to read the civ4 manual. And, i am not planning to excel at civ4. I am gonna play it casually, and in reallity, i almost hope that i really won't like it so that i can spend my time more productively

 

[Offa]

One downer about our opening is that the granary is timed to complete when the food basket is almost empty. I couldn't find an easy way to improve on this though. I could have got the granary out a turn earlier and held up growth by two turns, but it seemed to lead to the same position.

EDIT: I was a bit perplexed by this observation, the exact timing of the granary not being something I worry about too much normally. Anyway, I went back and worked out that I could have afforded to road the cow square, delaying the deer forest chop by 2, and emerge in the same position, but with an extra road and extra science: Nuts. I was just too keen to irrigate the deer.

Since I know you all like graphs, I see from the culture chart that klarius must have settled earlier than us, and then had tiles pinched by India: presumably settling on the plains by the lake.

 

[gozpel]

Since we don't want to delay the granary further, we can just go with it as it is. I don't know if a chop will get a settler out earlier.

But I did look at the save to figure out town placement and this is a nightmare.

Red-blue dots can alternate sharing the foods, which is good for workers and such.

Yellow dots are made for a looser placement, but they won't have the excess foods. So I think we should try to find a middle way here.

If we use only N red-blue, we can let only that city share the cow and then we use the yellows. I'm pretty stumped here...

 

[gozpel]

Hey peeps, I can't really do anything without your blessings.

 

[Offa]

Sorry, Gozpel, I was still ruminating over the cow road.

Our capital can follow the plan in my spreadsheet which will turn it into a 4 turn settler factory.

Planning towns isn't easy as I haven't managed to explore much.

Second town on your red spot to the south looks good to me as it could share the deer.

I think our next town might as well be on the plains in the north, on the spot we had originally selected. Clearly we then need the usual combination of lots of workers, and enough defence to deal with barbs. We want to push on with science ASAP so need roads as soon as the essential work for the factory is done.

 

[dmanakho]

I would use yellow dot cities rather than red. It's hard to say at the moment though what the best locaitons are. We need to explore a little more.

I also suggest to build coastal cities rather than fresh water cities one tile of water. We lose sea tiles that way and in a long run i'd rather build an aquaduct than losing access to the sea.
so may be you settle on top of luxury NW for the 1st city, the build warrior to explore and send second settler to the yellow location down south.

 

[dmanakho]

I don't like tight city placement in this game. It is nice for fast military conquest to boost early growth, but in a situation when we will need lots of tiles and shields for each city for those factories i'd rather go with yellow dots.

Clearly we then need the usual combination of lots of workers, and enough defence to deal with barbs.
.

Agree with many workers, but we shouldn't worry much about barbarians. Again, this is only monarch game and roaming barbarians aren't much of a thread. Few warriors would be all we need to deal with those. and with that ultimate settler factory of yours we will spread our towns so fast we won't even notice those barbarians.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

We need a city on the coast. We need to get a boat in those waters. We could make this from the capital, but that would require us to use 2 forest cuts in order to make one without slowing down the settler production. A bit expensive since we have many other jobs for our workers. (Though i do not rule out that option yet)

We could also build another city on one of the incense hills. This will allow for a boat to be made there, and in the future, it provides us with at least 2 strong coastal cities to make a naval force if needed. It could probably also build the collosus, nice for a fast research game.

A city there would be too close to the plains red dot. So if we want to do that, our next city should be the red dot in the south for food sharing.

 

[gozpel]

so may be you settle on top of luxury NW for the 1st city

Hey, that's next to Gandhi's capitol, how are we supposed to steal any seatiles there?

The red dots are mainly for science, as lakes give us 2 gold and the N town can use the cow.

It's now a second city would've been useful, especially for scouting. The granary would've taken another 5 turns from now, but how good is it if we don't have land?

Since we are late already, do we want that curragh first or are we going straight to settler?

 

[Offa]

Hey, that's next to Gandhi's capitol, how are we supposed to steal any seatiles there?

In this game, unlike its dubious sucessor, tile allocation is first by proximity, therefore a town on the hill will definitely take the adjacent seatiles from Gandhi. Just hope/make sure it doesn't flip though.

Since we don't need ring placement, we can plan one town at a time to an extent. I really think we ought to build the next town in the SW to share the deer. It can use the deer half the time, and therefore, with all the BG tiles could build its own granary and contribute a lot of production.

I mainly hope there is no bonus food elsewhere, because it would be a pity if Klarius et al also have a settler factory .

 

[gozpel]

Ok. I'll want a settler out ASAP and will send him S. That will give us a coastal town, for curragh and maybe Colossos as the ever positive Wacken suggests. It's a good plan, as we don't really have any plans yet

India building curraghs is a bit surprising, but due to their techs, maybe not so after all.

I have to check the save, I would like to try to get a warrior before the settler. But no promises. A dingy can be built in the second town, the capitol should do what it does best, by building settlers.

Got it and playing.

 

[gozpel]

I really think we ought to build the next town in the SW to share the deer.

Ok, that's my fault, not refreshing

SW is the best place, as you said, it will use the deer a lot and with a couple of BG's it will be a good city.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Please no warrior before settler, or i am gonna cry !

By the way, i was thinking boats that sail around ghandi's island. Who knows, if we make on in the southern coast, maybe we got to go around half the world to get there. Therefore i suggested a city on an incense hill. Of course, the city sharing the deer comes first.

 

[gozpel]

Not much to say here, we built a granary, followed by 2 warriors...

Just kidding Wacken

Settler of course. Factory is almost ready, I decided to follow the plan and not roading so we could get those shields first. Geez, I sacrifice all my experience here to be a good team-player.

But I did start roads with the second worker though, I hope you can live with that?

 

[gozpel]

I can't reach the submission page and an attachment didn't attach. What the heck is going on here!

I try again to upload a revised dotmap.

...........No, upload server gives the same message. I try later.

edit: almost an hr later and I can't still get to the submission page or upload a file. I'm going away for the afternoon, so unfortunately you have to wait for the save and the dots. Sorry guys, not much I can do...

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Not much to say here, we built a granary, followed by 2 warriors...

Just kidding Wacken

Settler of course. Factory is almost ready, I decided to follow the plan and not roading so we could get those shields first. Geez, I sacrifice all my experience here to be a good team-player.

But I did start roads with the second worker though, I hope you can live with that?

I have no problem with roads at all. Roads rule !
As long as it does not delay the settler factory.

 

[gozpel]

AlanH said this in the maintenance thread:

"The GOTM site server is down right now. I've notified Thunderfall, and I hope it will be restored shortly. If you need to keep your game moving then pass the saves on via a post attachment.

Don't try to use the forum Upload Files option, as Uploads10 is probably down as well. It's on the same physical server.

When the server is restored please upload your saves."

I try again later tonight.

 

[gozpel]

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm9/Wacken_SG009_BC2550_01.SAV

 

[dmanakho]

Well Wacken, You are up...

anything we need to discuss?
Goz, could you post fresh screenie please? if you can't i'll try to do it tonight when i get home.