SGOTM3 Rome - Team Ankka

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Ankka_SG003_BC2550_01.SAV

3000BC Turn 0: survey complete

2950BC Turn 1: forest chopped -> start Irrigation: move warriors

2900BC Turn 2: Move warriors: trades still overpriced

2850BC Turn 3: Grainery -> Armory: Move Warriors

2800BC Turn 4: Move Warriors: spot dark blue border to the west of Northern warrior

2750BC Turn 5: Irrigation complete start Road: Move warriors. Hope trading gets better when we contact the mystery civ

2710BC Turn 6: Move still no contact with new civ.

2670BC Turn 7: Move, contact Babylon; Check trades; buy Cerimonial burial from Joan for 39Gold, sell to Alex for 34 gold.

2630BC Turn 8: Armory -> Settler: Lux to 20% : Road move worker to wines

2590BC Turn 9: Move; check trades decide not to at this time.

2550BC Turn10: Move; check trades they still want too much for my taste.

Score: 98

Not much else to tell. Went with irrigation before road to increase growth rate; started road on wines to increase happiness, and allow us to lower the Lux slider.

I am glad that I got to play this quickly. I will be absent until next Friday, July 16, 2004. If my turn comes around before this please just skip me I will catch up on the team thread and let you all know when I get back.

 

Ok, I got the save. It looks like I'm next in the turn order so I'll try not to screw anything up. I'll look at it first and see if I have any questions and will post here for suggestions.

 

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Ankka_SG003_BC2070_01.SAV


Turn log:

2250 BC: Turn received. Reviewed the situation. I noted that there were more unhappy people in our capital than happy so I had to move the luxury slider up to 30% to prevent a riot.

2510 BC: Moved warriors. Checked trades. 2gpt + 82gp for either masonry or the wheel. Too high right now.

2470 BC: Moved Warriors. Bringing one back to defend the settler. mysticism is now available through Babylon but they don't want to trade. The price for techs goes up with our available gold...

2430 BC: Moved warrors. Detect another civ to the west of Babylon. I'm guessing its the Americans by the color and the F10 space race preview. Settler popped out. Started to build a Spear. No one here mentioned how tight or loose of a build we are going for. From what I've read, a tight build is better in the higher level games. I've decided that the best spot from what I can see is 3 squares southeast of Rome. That will put it within two squares of the capital, on a river. It was either that or 4 squares away to get the wheat in the borders. Rivers are power bases and we need a second city ASAP. Checked trades, and made sure the capital squares were being optimized. Trades are still too high. Writing will soon change that (hopefully).


2350 BC: Moved warriors, settler, worker finished road to wines, moved to start a mine, then a road to eventually connect our first two cities. Moved lux slider down to 10%. Checked trades, still too much gold IMO.

2310 BC: Founded Veil. First build set to warrior. Moved warriors. Decided to change production in Rome to a settler since it is growing too fast. Trades are still too high, 4 turns until writing.

2270 BC: Moved Warriors, checked trades.

2230 BC: Moved warriors, checked trades.

2190 BC: Rome produced a settler. Moving to close in on the wheat and here come the greeks with a town close to our borders. Production set to another settler. Moved warriors. Checked trades, still too much. Writing next turn.

2150 BC: Moved settler. The warrior that came back fortified on the spot where town will be founded. Moved other warrior further northwest. Traded all over the place for techs (Masonry, the Wheel, & Mysticism) and communications with the Russians and the English. Sold Mysticism to the French for 50 gp. Sold masonry to the greeks for 50 gp.

2110 BC: Founded Antium. Set production for worker. Veil produced a warrior, set production for worker. Got contact with the the Germans from the Russians in exchange for contact with the English and 4 gp. English gave us Iron working for writing.

Score is: 113

Note: Rome just grew to 5 citizens and the lux slider will have to be adjusted up 10%.

I would also recommend the next player secure the horses with the next settler just to the west of Rome. There is iron nearby in our borders and should be worked as well.

 

Nice job both.



WackenOpenAir
shoe35
EL OSO
Jeff1787 - UP!
waitingtoderail - on deck
Ankka

 

I would have given some more ideas on things like city spacing, but i thought i'll wait until the moment is there and we can discus this together. Well i was gone for 2 days, didn't expect it to go this fast

For city spacing, we should have at least 12 workable squares for each city. That is excluding mountains. More then 12 is debatable since it will take long before our cities will be able to grow past 12 anyway. Normally i give inland cities 12 squares and let the coastal cities have some more when all the water they can reach is included. That way the coastal cities do have enough good land tiles for early game (8-10) and later on they can start using the sea.

For the production in Rome, keep building settlers every 6 turns, that is the goal of a settler factory, constant settlers. Only when the amount of shields produced in 6 turns is larger than 30, something else should be produced. It looks like rome produces not enough shields to warrant other productions. Lets just make settlers continuously.

2070BC:

The spacing as it is now, is a little too tight to my liking. I would have placed Veii on the forest a little more southwest of where it is now. I would have placed Antium one tile east so the spacing is better and it would be on a river.

Rome needs to be micro managed every turn so that it will have one turn of 4 food and 2 turns of 3 food (by using the iron hills). In 3 turn cycles for growth and maxed production.

The 2 new cities cannot start with a worker because they dont grow as fast as they produce the worker, so they need to start with a warrior, then a worker. (after the worker, i suggest barracks). Even in veii, i suggest making another warrior first (1 spear would have been nice instead of 2 worriors)

Always try to calculate into the future to decide what to produce.

I do like the direction you started building your cities, first claiming the ground that the AI threatens to take.
I would not yet go for the horses with the following city, there is no risk of an AI taking it, and we dont need the horses yet.
I suggest first making a city on the forest tile east of the most westen game resource so we can have another city with 4 food surrplus after cutting that tile. I am unsure if we should make a granary there since it looks like we will have so little space for expansion that by the time a factory would be running there, the space would be full.
after that, i'd make a city south of rome, it is not completely explored yet, but very likely we can make a coastal city if we go 3 squares south from Rome. There we could build a curragh for scouting purposes. Placing it more to the east might also be good but we need to scout that a bit first. (move the warrior from Veii up the mountains for scouting). the tile southeast of that little lake looks like an option. Placing a city there would stop the AI from expanding in our direction. After that, we can occupy the north and west, placing every as many cities as possible next to the rivers there.

We could think about occupying the 3 silks in the east, but most likely we wont have much time before the AI takes it and i would not like to do that with one of the next 2/3 settlers we will make. If the AI didnt take it yet by then, we need to consider that option.

For research i am in doubt because i don't know emperor level very well. On deity/sid, i would go literature without a doubt because the AI is very unlikely to go for it, on monarch i would go for code of laws without a doubt because the AI is slow enough not to beat me to it. I don't know what our chances would be to get Code before the AI gets it. Code would be better since it helps us reaching republic, but researching a tech we cannot trade would be wastefull. Maybe someone else has more emperor experience?

I still don't know if we go for GL. This also depends on emperor experience. On deity/sid, it is a godsend. On monarch it is absolutely not needed since you outresearch the AI by far and with ease. (my only monarch experience is the GOTM of this month)

The warrior that should be produced in Veii before the worker should be sent to Rome in order to serve as MP so that we can save money on the tax slider.

Thats my rambling for now. I know i write a lot and give a lot of advise. I hope you guys don't think i am trying to dictate the game, it is just advise and my ideas. I only hope to start discussions with it and maybe some less experienced players can learn a bit from it (and maybe i can learn from the discussions if you guys give your ideas)

 

Rome is building a settler every 5 turns without micromanagement. I double checked the city screen every turn and it wasn't needed here (yet). That doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to it. I would also like to note that the iron wasn't visibile until the to the end of my turn sequences. Also is there a way to get a settler in 4 turns through micromanagement? If that is the case, then we definitely need to pay attention to the city screen.

I would agree with you on lower difficulty levels. On Chieftan, I would always ensure that I had 21 workable squares. We'll be building a lot of temples or libraries to get more than 9 in the beginning. Most of the articles I've read in the War Academy indicate to space the cities with 2 open spaces between them and there are some that use the ICS strategy and have only 1 space. If we all want 3 spaces between cities, everyone should speak up and say so now. Either way, it doesn't make a difference to me. Eventually Greece will have to be eliminated and more cities in despotism means a bigger army. Just a note: On monarch level I would have moved the settlers that one additional square.

According to my screen they do grow as fast. It takes ten turns for Antium to produce a worker. Incidentally, that's the same amount of time it takes to grow to size 2. To further justify this decision, we will soon have 4 cities and only 1 worker. We're not industrious and should have at least 1 worker per city. If I'm not mistaken, I also recall you stating earlier that your first build in new cities was almost always a worker (with no barbs). Currently, both towns are defended but if the next guy feels we need a spear, then by all means make one.

I disagree. Every time I think like that, the AI takes it. If not the next city, it should be with in the next 3 built IMO. Horses and Iron are the two most important resources until the late industrial age.

All of those squares are excellent choices. Would you guys like me to prepare a screenshot for us to peruse and discuss future city placement? It's not a problem on my end. Everyone from here on out will have at least one settler to move and I think it might be a good idea to have a game plan.

I'm not an emperor level player yet. I just assumed that the possibility of building the GL would be a good option which is why I set it to research Literature. A library will also expand the borders of newly founded towns. We can't trade Code of Laws in PTW? Its been a while since I've played it and don't remember.

Your advise is appreciated. I welcome this discussion and hope others have things to say as well. The only reason (besides entertainment) for me playing a SGOTM is to learn strategy from other players to improve my game. The only part of your advise that I found confusing is the priorty of building a town defender over a worker since it contradicts an earlier post.

Also we need to discuss the course of action when the AI demands tribute. On regent and below you can tell them to shove it and get away with it most of the time. On monarch and above it generally will require a war if you do that.

 

I think that a screenshot would be nice, and more advice on city placement. When you say two or three open squares, do you mean from the border? I assume that's what you mean. I also think that horses are important in the early going, and if we're going for a conquest victory, we will need every military advantage we can get.

I'm looking at this as a learning opportunity, so all the advice I can get will be appreciated.

 

Rome has growth every 3 turns, a settler takes 2 citizens. Yes we might occasionally be able to produce a settler in 5, but on the long term it will take 6 turns per settler since it is needed for growth. If you just keep building settlers, the city will get smaller until the size needed to produce settlers in 6 turns. The other option would be to let the city grow large enough to produce a settler in 4 and have the other 2 turns between city growth to produce a warrior.

No problems here, i know oppinions differ a lot on this, also on higher levels. Personally i like 12 tiles per city, but other oppinions might be as good or better.

You see the numbers below the city names? they give a greater number for city growth than for production turns remaining. That means the worker would be ready before the city gets to size 2.

I still stand by my oppinion, the AI is far away from those horses and we can take them any moment, i suggest stopping the AI's expansion in our direction as described, and the city i talk about with the game resource is close enough to the horses to have some control by providing early vision if the AI would move a settler close and by obstructing such settlers.

Yes i would like that.

We can trade it, but if the AI beats us to it, the trade options will be less. I think it is too early to think about libraries, if we need not to build militairy, i prefer building granaries first. I am still not sure about the GL, my personal feeling tells me we wont need it but i am not sure.

I want to build the defender first because growth is not fast enough, this is usually the case in the first cities since they have little or no corruption and therefore 2 or more production. with 2 production the worker would be ready in 5 while growth will take 7 or 10 turns depending on river or not. Veii even has 3 production and thus will make the worker so fast that 1 warrior is not enough.

On deity/sid i always pay in ancient age unless i actually WANT war with that civ or if he is on an island from where he wont reach me. I suggest doing this on emperor as well. Certainly in greece does so. We cannot have war with greece and if we get war, we have nothing to win, only to lose. We cannot beat their defence 3 units and thus cannot conquer any of their cities (also making it harder to regain peace)

More about the city placement thingy and horses: at this moment, growth and defence are very important. Also if we go to war, i suggest starting out with swordsmen only since horses die too much, the many mountains negate its movement advantage and the enemy is close enough to use movement one units. retreat only works 50%, i rather have the much better chances of winning from the swords. Most of all though, i prefer to delay war until we settled all the ground that is available to us and possibly got to republic.
The AI taking the horses really is no risk in here.
It is best to first build those cities that provide us most benefit in growth, production and commerce. Horses do not provide us benefit for the near future because we dont need horsemen yet. This all is assuming in PTW retreat actually is 50%, i know it used to be 100% someday long ago, am i right that in this version it is 50% like in c3c ?

A screenshot for some dotmapping would be nice, but we need some more exploration. You can always move the warriors in the cities one or tiles out away from the cities to scout a little. That way they can get back to the city when needed.

Going for a conquest victory indeed needs militairy, but always be carefull not to go to war too early since there are more than 1 opponents.
Building militairy comes at a cost of long term power as you could also be spending on granaries, workers, libraries etc that give long term advantages.
It always is a matter of finding the right moment to go to war. If you have build up so such a powerfull nation before going to war that you run over your enemies with such a power that you have more units than needed and are only slowed down by your units movements, you are too early.
If after fighting your first opponent you notice the other opponents having grown more powerfull than you while your power growth was slowed down during the war, you started too early. (that is only for conquest reasoning of course, there can be other reasons like resources that make you go to war early, but we have both resources we will need in ancient age)

In some strategy games, there are no things like corruption etc and conquering your enemies lands increases your power a lot since you will take the production from there. In civ however, this is not the case. the conquered lands are hardly productive, in civ, the benefit of a war is often not worth the cost of it. Attacking because you want conquest should be done when you can afford those costs, not earlier.

 

No, I mean from the city square. In despotism, you are allowed to support 4 units per town/city/metropolis. 2 or 3 squares from the border will be a very loose city build and will net less cities initially which in turn means a smaller military. The theory behind this is that the city won't grow beyond size 12 until Sanitation is researched and is a waste of worked squares in the early game. A loose build works easily on Warlord/Chieftan without too much harm, but the quicker you have a stronger military on the higher difficulty levels the better. We'll have less citizens born content (if any) on emperor level and will have to pay attention to the luxury slider until we have more luxuries. We don't want to get into a situation where we are paying a tremendous amount of gpt for our military because it will take away from our ability to keep our citizens happy and research technology.

My mistake. When I ordered the build it did say 10 turns to complete. It does need to change to something else since I overlooked it.

Ok here is a screenshot of the immediate vicinity of Rome so we can discuss a dotmap:



Here are my conclusions so far:



WackenOpenAir is correct that the builds need to be changed in Veil and Antium. They should be changed to either a warrior or a spear. I, myself would prefer a spear since we'll have a defensive strategy at first.

From my understanding from his posts, the warrior presently in Veil needs to scout southeast two squares to reveal more of the map to us. Then he can fallback to Veil to serve as a MP. This will allow us to adjust the dot map and expand in a southerly direction to cut off the greeks.

I don't know enough of what is south of us to propose city sites in that direction yet and my dotmap reflects that.

The dot that is to the north of Rome is straddling two squares. I'm not sure which one is best at this point which is why I left it as such.

To the west is the game square and we can also see 3 BG squares just to the east of it. I would propose not settling on a BG unless there isn't any other option.

 

I'll play today, I was gone yesterday.....

 

north of rome, i would place the city a little more southwards since as you made it, we dont use all the hills NE of rome. So i would place it on the hills 2 tiles north+ 1 NE of rome. or on the plains straight north of rome, but there are so many hills and so little food tiles...... so i'd go for the hills.

The one straght NW of rome i agree on for now (further exploration can of course alway change ideas)

The western city there means we have an unused tile between in and rome. That kind of sucks. A solution would be to place a city on the hills there NE of the horses. It doesnt immeadiately benefit from the game, but we'd build another city that covers that ground and then have the city on the hills use the game (since that will be a low corrupt city where the growth is more prefered)

The on in the east i dont really like yet because it doesnt cover the luxeries before growing and still will be pretty corrupt. It wont get the chance to grow cultural borders before the AI stands next to it. I think if we make a city there we need to place it further away. It would then only be there fore providing the lux.

settling on BG we should indeed not do. But having squares we cannot just about as bad .

 

so that would be like this:

 

I like yours better. It's a tighter build which I like.

Which one should be first?

What happens if we find something interesting to the south of Rome after moving the warrior?

I guess we have to wait and see what Jeff does.

 

I have to install a new hard drive. I will most likely be away for a day or two. Good luck while I'm gone.

 

Whoops, I accidently unsubscribed - back on!

 

Turn 1: 2070 BC Changed production in Veii and Antium to warrior. Moved luxury slider to 20% so Rome wouldn't riot. Moved warrior S/E to explore.

Turn 2: 2030 BC nothing noteworthy.

Turn 3: 1990 BC Rome produced settler.

Turn 4: 1950 BC Veii produced a warrior, now going for worker.

Turn 5: 1910 BC Antium produced a warrior, now going for worker.

Turn 6: 1870 BC Cumae was founded 4 squares west of Rome.

Turn 7: 1830 BC Veii builds a worker.

Turn 8: 1790 BC nothing noteworthy.

Turn 9: 1750 BC Rome builds a settler. He is heading north. Next guy can decide where to settle.

Turn 10: 1725 BC Antium builds a worker.

During my turns there were no trades that I could make. I moved one worker toward the new city because it needs to be connected. Also, two workers can connect Antium and irrigate the wheat..I think that would be best. We now have iron. I put Veii to build a granary and Antium to build barracks, but the next guy can change that. Any comments would be appriciated, I'm still somewhat of a novice player!

 

Ok, comments:

1: Give your save file the correct name

2: About Cumae:
-It is one tile away from the coast (on the coast is a better place for cities)
-The tile exactly in the middle between Rome and Cumae cannot be used by either one of them.

I will now try and explain my idea's for the next cities to be made:

- 4 tiles SW of rome. (it is on the hills, near a river and can acces that one tile between Rome and Cumea)
- 4 tiles NW of Rome. (just because it is on a river and the right distance)
- 1 tile NE of where the settlers stands in the safe game (as explained in previous post)
- somewhere south of Veii. It should not be too close too veii since veii is already so close to those other 2 cities. It should be on one of those lakes. It should have some grassland in its borders for food, only hills wont be good. Still not sure where exactly. 3 south of Veii might be nice.

I see the luxury in the NE are already taken, i suggest not moving in that direction at all since cities there wont be of very much use for us; we dont need the horses there, we cant get the luxury there and the city will be hard to connect across the mountains.
Also do i suggest not building in the hills in the SE. They cant produce enough food to grow.

Placing one city south of Veii should obstruct the AI's expansion in that direction, but we don't know how far away the coast is in there, we shall see.

The road we are gonna build towards Cumea should not go over that hill but rather south of it, that way it will both connect the horses and the next city to be made on the hill as explained above.

I see 2 workers on one tile. For worker movement points it is better not to do that, now just irrigate and road it simultainiously, but please just let every worker do its own job in the future.

I am a bit in doubt if i would like to build a granary in Antium as well. If the greeks are not planning to fight us soon, a granary would be nice there, but if they do get agressive, we need some millitairy power to keep em from attacking us. I think i feel slightly more for a granary now, but you may count me neutral on this.

One warrior should be moved to Rome for MP, i suggest moving one from Antium to rome and scouting the south with one from Veii. For all other cities we make, the worriors made there can always scout a few tiles around until they are needed inside the city.

When literature is discovered, don't trade it until there are 3 or so techs available for trade. If we trade it for only 1 tech, the AI will pass it on and we wont get any more trades from it.

Also would i very much like your votes for GL or no GL: I vote NO. If it turns out yes, a prebuild should be started immeadiately. (Veii i think).

Also would i like to know when you guys think about starting war (assuming no one starts war with us) I vote at least after we gone to republic in order not to have a despotic golden age.

We could also make cumea another worker/settler factory by giving it a granary after the worker. The worker can cut the forests on top of the game to speed up the granary again as well as provide the food. It will take roughly 20 turns after the worker before it gets running, but the city does have the potential. cutting the game forest would be the first worker job.

And keep microing the cities (rome's food most importantly) and lux slider

 

Jeff, you should upload the file to the GOTM server instead of attaching, that way our score and stuff can be seen there and would be better if it was there... you can post a link to it here then.

 

That's the place.

 

The roster:


WackenOpenAir
shoe35
EL OSO
Jeff1787 - just played
waitingtoderail - UP!
Ankka - on deck