SGOTM1-Persia Team Shevek

[tao]

Originally posted by Northern Pike
I agree with Tao that there's a lot we can do with workers in this situation--but also with Pindicator that we don't want to waste many Immortals on garrison duty. In addition to the warrior from Tlatelolco, I'd like to get at least one out of Babylon before that city is hooked up to our road net.

I don't agree. Babylon is on top of ivory and thus connecting it asap means more happiness means higher score. Thus the worker now IMHO is the best. And since Babylon is the at the southwestern edge of the continent, future galleys might arrive here. Thus I would very much prefer to have an immortal, not for MP, but for defense. IMHO the question is: another worker next or a settler. This depends on how many slaves we get from the Zulus.

Tlatelolco can do the warrior/worker cycle.

Our northern cities should be able to produce all the immortals we need, since (at least up to now) we have extremely small losses.

At least 2 new settlements are necessary:
1. on the NE dyes to give another workable tile to Pasargadae
2. to access the 2 deers/forests which are just great

Once we are monarchy, I would very very much like to have all northern cities at stable pop 6 with maximum production and commerce. It should also be possible to bring Persepolis and maybe also Susa to 10 shields per turn. Then we can disconnect the iron and produce 2 vet warriors per turn, to be upgraded to immortals. Do this e.g. for 5 turns and we have 10 immortals to squash the Americans and Iroquois. Once we have learned map making, we probably can stop researching and have all the money we need.

 

[grs]

Sorry for wide screenshots, I normally avoid them as I hate to scroll text sideways myself, but it was late yesterday and I knew I would not have time till the weekend again.

Working wrong tile - sorry my mistake (though I can't check it atm). About building the worker in a size 1 town: sorry again, but I tend to be a bit careless about that, as when I play on my own, I check these (and all other production) 1-2 turns before finishing and adjust then, but this does not seem to be such a good idea in a succession game, i have to admit.

Edit (added):

I'd first build the deer city to the south as we can at least farm the barb camp north 2 more times before building a city.

 

[smackster]

I'm having internal CD drive problems, so was not able to play last night. Strangely enough I can get PTW to work from a USB CD drive, but CivIII will not work from that, maybe I would need to reinstall from that drive for CivIII.

Anyway, I'll try to resolve this today, if not I'll skip.

This is already the third CD drive in this laptop if you can believe it.

Smackster

 

[smackster]

The CD ROM drive is broken for sure, there is a good chance I'll get another one tomorrow, and if so I can play tomorrow night. If I don't get it by the end of my work day I'll skip, so give me another 24 hours and I'll let you know then.

Smackster

 

[pindicator]

I hate to sound paranoid, but we seem to be moving south through our landmass--is it an island or a lanky, weird-shaped continent?--fairly quickly. So I'm going to bring up the old question of Map Making vs. Monarchy again. And this time I've changed my mind.

After our 16 turns to finish Monarchy, we will probably have 7 turns to research writing and then perhaps 10 or so on map making as well. That's 33 turns. If we get Writing from the Zulu (which I would say is a necessity) then that's only 26 turns. So with that in mind:

Best case scenerio-- All civs are connected on the same continent that snakes around the map.

Worst case scenerio-- The zulu are it on our island and unless we get map making soon we may find ourself with nobody to attack for twenty or more turns while we research map making and then find the enemy.

So far all the talk on our team has been about winning as quickly as possible -- which would probably be a conquest victory as there is not much as far as settled territory out there to trigger a domination win. With this goal in mind, can we risk finishing off the Zulu and then finding ourselves alone on an island?

If we can trade with Zulu for Writing, then I would advise we stop Monarchy and go to Map Making immediately -- I know, even at the amount we've put into it, I believe it still too risky to continue research on considering how long it will take.

If the Zulu do not have Writing to trade for, then I say we do not have a choice: we have to start researching Writing immediately.

Unless, however, we decide to change our victory goal.

I really think this is an important issue that we should bring up for debate again: just look at our mini-map; there can't be much more land there. And according to F10 we have the Iroquois and the Americans to go, still.

 

[grs]

I see no reason to change. We will have monarchy in 16 turns and we will need some turns to remove the Zulu. After trading with them we will need the 2 techs as described and we will probably need the Great Lighthouse too, as it seems improbable that we can reach the other civs just via coastal squares.

Unless we are really all on one island - which I doubt - we will for sure need many more turns before finishing the game and we will need monarchy too, as the productivity loss in despotism will be too high.

We will also need some turns to settle the land we just conquered to get a forbidden palace (if we can't rush it) and to work our land. I see no need to panic here.

--
grs

 

[Northern Pike]

Originally posted by tao
I don't agree. Babylon is on top of ivory and thus connecting it asap means more happiness means higher score. Thus the worker now IMHO is the best. And since Babylon is the at the southwestern edge of the continent, future galleys might arrive here. Thus I would very much prefer to have an immortal, not for MP, but for defense.

This is becoming a long debate over a minor point , but:

1. Hooking Babylon up to our road network should be a job for our workers presently around Teotihuacan, not for a presumptive worker out of Babylon which wouldn't appear for another eight turns, and

2. A warrior built in Babylon could perfectly well relieve an Immortal of garrison duty in some other city. Right now we have three Immortals occupying cities, and the conquest of Zululand will produce at least one more instance. One warrior out of Tlateloloco and one out of Babylon, before both are linked up and lose their ability to produce them, is hardly excessive in this context.

I agree that we should found as many new cities as seems feasible before the end.

I think Pindicator raises an important point about Map Making and Monarchy, and I agree with much of what he says. To deal with the area of disagreement first, if we can't get Writing from the Zulus (whom we should contact ASAP), I think we should just stay with Monarchy. But if the Zulus do have Writing, then I think it's very likely that a switch to Map Making would shorten the game. So I assume that this would be the best policy--although, since I've never played a GOTM before, I don't absolutely know whether X turns off the date of conquest or an extra X turns in monarchy would add more to our final score.

On a point mentioned by Grs, given a) the land mass we know of in the northwest, b) the coastal tiles visible southeast of Persepolis, and c) our incomplete exploration of the peninsula north of Teotituacan and the one Babylon's on, it seems pessimistic to assume that we'll need the Great Lighthouse to make real progress.

I'll mention, too, that since we'd obviously revolt as soon as we got Monarchy, the turns of anarchy have to be added to the time we'll be losing on Map Making if we research Monarchy first.

 

[tao]

Originally posted by Northern Pike
if we can't get Writing from the Zulus (whom we should contact ASAP), I think we should just stay with Monarchy. But if the Zulus do have Writing, then I think it's very likely that a switch to Map Making would shorten the game.

I regret (because we invested so much in monarchy), but I have to agree. Assuming that our goal is to win by conquest, but IMHO that is evident because it will be no fun to go spaceship.

I would stick with the Great Lighthouse build, because we have/can build all the immortals we probably need, and having the extra movement point and save seawater should shorten sea-voyages significantly.

In the other coastal towns, we can pre-build with temples for galleys.

 

[Northern Pike]

Originally posted by tao
I would stick with the Great Lighthouse build, because we have/can build all the immortals we probably need, and having the extra movement point and save seawater should shorten sea-voyages significantly.

Certainly. I wasn't arguing against the Great Lighthouse pre-build, just questioning the implication that we can't achieve anything useful overseas until we have the GL.

 

[pindicator]

I also have to question just how much Monarchy will help us. I believe the unit support for Monarchy goes 2/4/8 and Despotism is 4/4/4 -- and since all of our towns fall under the first category, we may even find ourselves losing commerce due to troop costs, as we have very few rivers, and also have no aqueducts, most likely for the entire game.

 

[grs]

Switching from Despotism to Monarchy was the obvious choice for a warmongering game I think, not so much in troop support, but loosing the labourer depotism penalty.
Now that it seems to be a very short game, I regret going monarchy myself, but at the time I had to select a next research, it seemed to be the right choice - at least to me

 

[Northern Pike]

It's nothing to worry about, Grs. In the middle of your round, I'm fairly sure, the situation hadn't developed enough for the choice between Monarchy and Map Making to be more than a guess.

 

[smackster]

I got a new Cd drive so I'm back in business. Will play tonight.

Smackster

 

[smackster]

1000BC

I change Susa to produce settler. I think we have enough Immortals based on what I see, I'm still going to keep producing them but to get more score we need more cities and I see plenty of free land. We really need the FP also. I'm not sure about that GL pre-build as its only getting 4 shields per turn with not much chance of getting any more. I'll leave it for now. In say a Diety game I think that GL would never finish.

IBT Arbela Barracks->Immortal

T1 975BC

Meet Zulu's and trade Poly for Writing and 26 Gold.
Establish embassy which was a waste of 33 Gold as it didn't tell me much, only that they had two impy and two archers in their capital.

Move 4 Immortals onto hill above Ulundi, one archer is outside.

IBT

T2 950BC

Tlatlelolco build warrior->worker

Elite Immortal attacks lone archer from hill, and..............Darius is our leader

Yes that is what we needed, now we can buld the FP, sorry that is what its going for.

Immortal kills barb to the south

IBT Zulu archer kills a vet Immortal

T3 925BC

Immortal kills the archer
We decide to hold Darius, want to see the full extent of the Zulu lands before I decide on the position for the FP.

Incense is hooked up so our people are very happy

T4 900BC

Persepolis Immortal->Immortal
Susa Settler->Immortal

The land does appear to end with Zulu, who have three cities left, one of which they just built.

Barb camp dispersed near Tenoctitlan

Decision point to build the FP either at Tenochtitlan, or Tlatlelolco. I guess I like Tenochtitlan.

I'm going to move it that way, wont get there in time, so could be changed.

T4 875BC

Susa Settler->Immortal

We don't really need any more Immortals. Just got to get MM, and find the rest of them. Suggest a little more infrastructure, settlers and workers, yes more than we are already doing

Ulundi grows to size 2 and is taken without loss. Decide that we should capture all their cities as they can do nothing to hurt us. and it will save getting the settlers.

That's all for tonight, will finish tomorrow

 

[pindicator]

Wow, good fortune smiles on us with the GL!
I think I agree on your choice of FP-placement; an army would probably not be as beneficial, especially since we are going to be looking to milking our score.

I didn't see it in your post, but you hinted that you changed research to Map Making? Or are you staying with Monarchy? Not going to try to persuade anymore; the turn's already in your hands. But if you have switched over to Map Making, you might want to check out tao's idea of using temples as galley pre-builds. Seeing which towns this is feasible in is probably a good idea (which of course depends on how many turns left to research MMing vs. how many turns the city needs to produce 30 shields).

That's probably a good call on the infrastructure idea. Let's use our down town to milk our score as much as possible. The question then is, at what point should we stop building new towns and start maximizing growth / stop settler and worker production / even joining workers to towns.

Man, there's no way I'd ever think this far ahead in a game on my own. I'm always full of moves.

 

[tao]

The Great Leader is Great News. FP is the way to go. We don't need an army .

To speed the Great Lighthouse, may I suggest to found the new city on the northern dyes. The NE ones. This gives Pasargadae an extra tile to work. Mine these tile, as well as the other ones. Join 2 foreign workers to Pasargadae to reach size 6 asap. Cut forest at Persepolis and give another mined tile to Pasargadae.

Pre-build for galleys with temples.

 

[smackster]

OK, about to play the next 5 turns. I am still working on Monarchy, getting closer to it, I imagine when we build the FP we'll get a little boost that will get us closer.

After the FP is built plan on building cities exactly 3 squares it as that will minimise corruption there. I will do as Tao suggested and get some help to Pasargadae.

Smackster

 

[smackster]

T6 850BC

Vet Immortal kills Zulu archer.

Our leader reaches Tenoctitlan but can't rush it until next turn

IBT a barb horse appears to the north

T7 825BC

Arbela Immortal->Settler

Forest cleared south of Arbela and now we'll be able to take the irrigation all the way up to Perseopolis

IBT Barb Camp appears right next to our settler near Tenoctitlan

T8 800BC

FP is built. 7 turns to Monarchy.

Tarsus is built near Tenoctitlan in a great spot with two dear. Barb camp is dispersed, but a barb remains, spear comes to defend.

I set Tenoctitlan and Tarsus to build Barracks but I'm not convinced that is what we want. It can be changed by the next player.

2 Barbs attack our spearman he survives and promotes to vet.

Immortal kills spear near Teohituacan

T9 775BC

You might be wondering what is happening with the Zulu's, our troops are now at the gates of Zimbabwe. Just to reiterate this plan is to only take cities we can capture, no need to auto raze any, we have plenty of time.

T10 750BC

Teotihuican Settler->Settler

3 Immortals attack Zimbabwe, 3 wins but an archer remains.

There are two settlers that have just got the place where I was going to settler them.

Score 204

 

[smackster]

750BC .SAV

 

[grs]

Nice, the Zulu should be done soon.

Just some remarks/questions:

1. Ulundi should work the mine on the bonus grassland.
2. We should start pre-building for galleys asap.
3. Knowing all the landmass I really see no reason to build any more charriots! We don't even have horseback to upgrade them, but even if we had it, do we really prefer to fill our galleys with horseman instead of immortals? This is no pangea map.

I guess we finish monarchy now and then research map making?

--
grs