SGOTM 9 - Wacken

[gozpel]

I tried to give away a FP-city in an old game and could immediately build it again in another town. Could Birka be our FP-location? It has a load of shields there at least.

Hmm, isn't Writing/contacts only PTW?

We need to block those 3 hills in the mountain range around India, or the AI will come sailing and drop off settlers there.

We also need to know where the resources are.

 

[Xevious]

We could settle those three hills too. Maybe if we do that and don't build any culture we could get one or two to flip?

 

[gozpel]

We don't want the other AI's to plop down towns there or they will meet India. The same reason to not let Gandhi get any towns there, he would escape

This containing business is really difficult.

 

[Offa]

1250bc look at save.
MM capital etc. Aarhus swapped to worker.

1225bc philosophy -> republic ->lit
revolt by big picture 5 turns, then again 4 turns (this always seems to happen, is it fixed in C3C)
Scientists needed in Trondheim and Copenhagen.

we are up philo and COL on everyone, and India doesn't have writing either.

Trades:
Mongol: sell COL for MM, wheel
Ottoman: sell MM for masonry, bronze, 30g (horses near Oslo)
Ottoman: sell wheel for CB + 6g
Carthage: sell COL and philo for horseback riding, iron working, myst and 120g (iron is around but not hooked up)

Ottoman have polytheism.
The price is high, but they will only get techs for it if I don't trade first, so I buy it for the extortionate price of
philo COL horseback riding and 125g.

Unfortunately nobody has mathematics yet.

ibt India wants to talk. No dice.

1200 bc
With half speed workers and no production there is little to do.

ibt, Gandhi of all people is the first to mathematics.

1125 bc republic at last.
A lot of MM. The capital has 2 food in the box so can make a worker from scratch next turn, but unfortunately can't carry on like that.
Try a suicide curragh out west.

Unit costs are 28gpt. But we have only 8 warriors, so I don't feel like disbanding just yet.

ibt Mongols dispere a barb camp in the north, just beating me( I had killed one of the 2 defenders the previous turn).

1075bc
curragh reaches Spain: they are down several techs.

Alesund founded in jungle way in north.
Bodo founded south of this, but at least claims a deer.

Lots of MM has let the capital produce 1 worker per turn so far, but it is going to lose pop as a result.

1050bc
Karasjok founded near Hippo.

1025bc
Mongols have lots of cash, so I sell them philo for 123g
Sell writing to Spain for 65g.


ibt Celts finish Oracle

We learn literature.
Unfortunately no one but India has maths, which is bad, so we have to research it ourselves.

I haven't traded.
I put the capital up to 10fpt, and switched a number of builds to library, but all this can get changed again.
We have a fairly respectable 19 workers at the qsc cutoff, but I haven't managed to connect either dyes or ivory.

Our military is meagre: 9 warriors, at present I haven't hooked horses up (just out of Oslo's range).

I haven't started FP, Great library or SOZ builds all of which need consideration.
I haven't built embassies either.

The AI all appear weak: we will probably have to do our own research.

 

[dmanakho]

Looks nice, but i am so tired this evening can't put two thoughts together...
so you guys go ahead and start discussion and i will join you later.

 

[gozpel]

Our three neighbours Carthage, Mongols and Ottomans have 5 cities each. They won't get many more, but they will certainly go for these 3 spots. Can we do anything about it now, when they all have MapMaking?

If they plant any towns there, India's existance will be known. But that can happen too, if any of them send an archer or something by galley, to get rid of that barbcamp. Not sure if they chase barbs that hard, but it wouldn't surprise me.

So somehow we have to close off this area or start to work on a plan B

 

[gozpel]

Also, Ottomans are the only SCI-civ and we don't want to kill them off. So what about preparing some accomodations for them on this island, so we can gift them a town there before we take over the northern part of the continent?

That is, if the AI doesn't get there first. We would need a galley pretty quick and a settler, probably with escort. Since the island is "scouted" the possibility of a barbcamp there is quite big.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Ok, lets pause the game for a second. We need to make the right decisions now.
Remember, no hurry.

I will look into things tomorrow.

 

[Xevious]

Our three neighbours Carthage, Mongols and Ottomans have 5 cities each. They won't get many more, but they will certainly go for these 3 spots. Can we do anything about it now, when they all have MapMaking?

If they plant any towns there, India's existance will be known. But that can happen too, if any of them send an archer or something by galley, to get rid of that barbcamp. Not sure if they chase barbs that hard, but it wouldn't surprise me.

So somehow we have to close off this area or start to work on a plan B

The only way to really guarantee them not getting down there is to line up 2 curraghs or galleys on each side, in the spots marked with white dots below to prevent them from going around (assuming none of them have lighthouse). Those spots mean their boats would need to travel 4 spots to get back on coast. In addition we need to keep any land units from wandering down there as well.

 

[Offa]

Differential naval movement is on (how else did both curraghs make it over to Spain): will this affect how easy it is to prevent AI galleys getting past any blockade?

Settling on the hill squares near India seems sensible. We could also try to almost elimininate the AI fairly early on, leaving them no coastal towns. Their research to education could be very slow anyway.

We have a lot to build now, so I suspect an outright conquest spell doesn't make sense. Priorities are FP, Great Library, ordinary libraries, research, Statute of Zeus.

 

[gozpel]

Xevious: Did zooming out give you the size of Delhi? Incredible, never even though of that. At size 6 they can stay backwards for quite a while, if we can keep them as our secret. (edit: tried it myself and I learn't a new exploit)

Your galley theory seems solid, but do we even have time to build 4 galleys that quickly. Because they have to be on the shipyards now, or I feel we lost that race.

We could send a bunch of warriors to sit-an-potty on those 3 tiles, but we still have that annoying barbcamp to get rid of. Barbcamps on mountains aren't easy, so expect losses. My thoughts for this, is the AI won't be interested to get to those spots if occupied and when there's only mountains around them. They probably go for the island instead.

Hey, you should stop me from thinking so much, you know it gives me headaches

And I'm not in a hurry, we really need to sort this out.

Plus, I hate that oyster - 3 food, 4 gold. (I'm not mentioning my first dotmap)

 

[gozpel]

Differential naval movement is on

Drats, they didn't make it easy for us, did they?

Ok, I think we need to sit on those spots, towns, warriors or whatever. But how can we stop the AI from checking out those mountains? Will they go there if there is no city-sites or barbcamps?

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Isn't it so that the AI simply doesn't move out of the safe coastal tiles? Even if they can get back to it.

 

[dmanakho]

I think we should settle those hills as Gozpel suggested. However we will need military there for protection. We don't want Ghandi land one lousy archer and kick our bottoms. Having extra cities will benefit to pay for unit support. Having galleys will benefit in a long run, since we will need them anyway to conquer lands across the ocean, but at the moment i'd rather use shields on building foot soldiers and libraries instead of galleys.

We also have very little military. we have to build it up fast, very fast. AIs are running out of space and they can DoW anytime now on our not protected republic.
We need to start warfare soon and keep expanding.
I don't think we need to waste time on SoZ. We don't really need Anc.Cavs. in this game. But lest decide on FP location and Gr.Lib location.
Actually we probably can start building Gr.Lib in our capital.

It also looks like we will have to do entire research in this game on our own.

 

[Wotan]

An alternative would be to keep two Archers next to each hill and if the Indians land a settler/soldier combo, kill them.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Even in a research game, Ancient age units should be build before libraries.
Of course there are good reasons for the libraries we are building now.

Oslo needs culture to get those horses. This is top priority for sure. I'd even consider paying a bit of gold to speed up that build.

Copenhagen and Bergen need culture to get those fish. If we had a unit build available, i would prefer to build units first, but since we haven't, it is good.

Reykjavik i guess is battling India's culture. I don't really remember exactly how it works in civ3 when deciding who gets those tiles next to Reykjavik, and i don't know if it is of any use to do this.

So, the libs that are building now are good, but please do not build any more for the comming while.

The temple in Kasasjok i do not like at all. Sure, it has culture from Carthage right next to it, but that doesnt matter. By the time that temple could be ready, Hippo will be a Viking city. I suggest changing this build to warrio/worker or barracks.

Workers are good, workers are important, but i think the granary cities can build plenty of them, i think it is now time to build barracks in the other cities instead of workers. We want to go and conquer soon. I suggest changing a bunch of worker builds to barracks. Odense itself should keep building workers since it will have little good tiles and little production anyway. If a bunch of jungles are cut by the time that FP is ready, it is early enough.

The FP should be build. In fact, it should have been started about 10 turns ago. Oslo, Birka, Aarhus, Stockholm. Not sure yet, Any of those should build it right way. In this choise we must keep in mind that one of them, most likely Oslo as it is building that library, must make culture to get the horses.

I see a bunch of workers being stacked on cutting a jungle. I know this is needed for Odense. Odense is a very corrupt city though. It is more important to use the workers where needed for the good cities than using them in large numbers for very corrupt cities. Don't keep stacking them on those jungles as long as there are other tasks to be done.(stacking multiple workers on one tile reduces efficiency)
The fact that this city is very corrupt is also the reason we should build barracks rather than workers from our non granary cities. We better use that production for conquering ground than to make workers and make tiles for a corrupt village.

I see some already have map making. I do not really fancy settling on those 3 spots since it will increase corruption for our productive towns. I prefer block the coastal route there and maybe put units on those spots for as long as needed.

 

[Offa]

The temple in Kasasjok i do not like at all.

really just a placeholder, the town was founded 2 turns ago.

The FP should be build. In fact, it should have been started about 10 turns ago. Oslo, Birka, Aarhus, Stockholm. Not sure yet, Any of those should build it right way. In this choise we must keep in mind that one of them, most likely Oslo as it is building that library, must make culture to get the horses.

Pretty grim production in many of these, until they are more improved though.

I see a bunch of workers being stacked on cutting a jungle. I know this is needed for Odense. Odense is a very corrupt city though. It is more important to use the workers where needed for the good cities than using them in large numbers for very corrupt cities. Don't keep stacking them on those jungles as long as there are other tasks to be done.(stacking multiple workers on one tile reduces efficiency)

I really sent those workers up there to connect up the luxury, a big priority , but they got waylaid cutting down the jungle first.

Our little empire does have an unfortunate shape at the moment, with the capital right at the edge.

 

[Xevious]

I still have a lot of reading to catch up on, but a couple points on the galleys:

1) Dif movement is 3-coast, 2-sea, 1-ocean, with double movement. So a galley can move at most 4 tiles from the coast to coast (sea, ocean, sea, coast). There's no way for them to do that in either of those spots. In both of those spots they have to go 3 sea tiles and then back to coast, which would take seven movement points. If they have the lighthouse though, they could do it.

2) AI will definately go into the sea to go around a coastal galley. I've seen it happen a LOT.

 

[Xevious]

Xevious: Did zooming out give you the size of Delhi? Incredible, never even though of that. At size 6 they can stay backwards for quite a while, if we can keep them as our secret. (edit: tried it myself and I learn't a new exploit)

Actually, I just cropped a piece of Offa's picture. Delhi needs an aqueducet to grow since none of that water is fresh. Since they just got math recently they can't build one yet. Come to think of it, modding this game to give India an aqueduct at the start would have made it VERY interesting.

 

[Xevious]

Reykjavik i guess is battling India's culture. I don't really remember exactly how it works in civ3 when deciding who gets those tiles next to Reykjavik, and i don't know if it is of any use to do this.

In civ3 you can't lose the 8 spots around the city from encroaching culture. Even if you settle 3 spots away from a city with 5 expansions, you'll still get your 8 squares around the city.

This was changed in civ4. You can steal tiles all the way around an oppontent city if you put enough culture there. This is why the great artist is so useful. Pop a city near your oppent and build a great work for the 4000 point "culture bomb". This is especially nice if you wait for you opponent to improve the tiles for you first, and a great way to steal a resource or two.