SGOTM3 Rome - Team Bugsy

[Bede]

Civs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750BC
2) England 2270BC
3) France - 2230BC
4) Russia - 2150
5) America 2110


0-2150
Russia pays an unwelcome call and offers to sell Masonry for Writing. She has no money to add to the deal. Table the deal for now as I see she also has IW

Veii grows and I have to hire a tax collector as there is not enough cash flow or in the treasury to support an increase in the luxury tax or a scientist (both are zero).

Start settler and archer escorts to spot #1

1-2110
Call up Abe to see if there any brokering opportunities and there are none. He has everything we have or can acquire as does France. Call back Catherine and make the deal for Iron. And there is the glint of iron in the hills SE of the Wine.

The Russians start the Oracle.

2-2070 With 1g in the treasury fire the tax guy and hire a scientist. Build Antium at 1 with wounded archer in the garrison and send the healthy archer north. With +3gpt fire the scientist and put the citizen to work on the game tile. Raise the lux to cover the unhappiness and cash flow drops to zero again. The worker moves to road the game. Swap some terrain around between Rome and Veii and raise income to +1gpt.

3-2030 the archer moving north finds another game filled forest and anoher iron hill. With 2g in the treasury, turn science up to 10% with Literature due in 40,

4-1990
English scout comes scooting into view in the north. The new archer in Veii allows reducing lux to zero. Income is now +3gpt. Archer continues north and finds a French warrior.

The French start the Oracle.

5-1950
It is now 1950 so call up the neighbors and complete the trashing of our rep by taking 30g from France for 2gpt, and in a gut wrenching move take 10g from ELizabeth for 1gpt. Then call Abe who doens't trust us at all and won't loan anything. Call Elizabeth back and declare war. Then scurry for the archbishop's palace to beg absolution. He counsels me "Sin bravely" and says no more.

6-1910
Find the French borders to the north and Greece founds Thermopylae SE of Rome.

7-1870
Greek archer scoots into view and lands on the forest east of our archer sentries. He attacks our fortified sentries and dies

8-1830

9-1790

10-1750
Russia is doubtful for Masonry at 60g
Abe is doubtful at 65g
France will entertain a deal for Masonry for 70g.

At +5gpt by the time we road the iron we can afford to upgrade one warrior to a Legion, so start a warrior in Rome due in 4 and a Spear in Veii, both due in 4. There is a worker building in Antium.

Our first worker is mining a BG at Veii. Somewhere in there I produced a worker at Rome who is on the wine hill on his way to the iron. At some point I expect the Greeks to start troops out of Thermopylae, so the archer sentries should move south to the iron, then onto the mountain above the wheat.

Greece still doesn't know Iron Working so Hoplites and Spears are all we need fear from that direction.

The northbound warrior is heading north across French territory shadowing the English scout.

 

[alerum68]

Great turns Bede! Awesome job of recovering our economy after my turns... this varient is much more difficult then I thought... not being able ot negotiate is a pain.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

R&L - Up
Bugs - On deck

 

[RowAndLive]

I'll save my 'got it' for some time tomorrow, as I'll need both Sunday & Monday nights to play this one.

@Bede - The France trade shouldn't be a problem, since we'll be declaring the turn that the trade expires - 20 turns after declaring on England, unless we defeat England first. I'm guessing that isn't going to happen, especially with France in between us, and a much closer Greece already at war.

Does anyone want to give input for goals here? Otherwise, I'll run with it using the previous posts as indicators.

 

[RowAndLive]

1750 – 0
reset prefs
America – 4 cities, 47g, have 2 gemma to trade?, up masonry, wheel, myst, know Germans & Babs
Russia – 5 cities, 0g, have 0 valieris to trade, up same, know same
France – 5 cities, 22g, have 0 condimentum to trade, up same, know same
Greece – 3 cities, 15g, have 1 suffimentum to trade, up masonry & wheel
English refuse contact
Rankings: Eng 222, Fra 176, Rus 174, Ame 163, Gre 146, Rom 131
No sign of English scout to shadow.

IBT: Joan asks us to leave, we agree.

1725 – 1
Worker roads wine, Artemis to iron, others rest, Pea Shooter (vet) out of France.

IBT:

1700 – 2
Pea Shooter NW, Artemis SE to mountain.

IBT: Veii goes into unrest , Russian scout shows 2E of Antium.
Antium worker (Cora) > spear in 7.

1675 – 3
Rus up masonry, lit, wheel, myst. Wants 90g for masonry, 90g for myst, won’t trade other 2. France wants 80g for masonry, 80g for myst, 90g for wheel, won’t trade lit.
America wants 90g for masonry, 90g for myst, won’t trade other 2.
We’ve got 30 turns left on lit – save gold to hopefully trade for lit sooner (through the nose). We should start pre-build now, but only 3 cities, and not building a settler yet…

Hire tax collector in Veii – stay at +6gpt but lose growth. Alternative is to push lux to 20%, drop income to +3gpt. Need team input.

Cora SW to BG, Su Batai N, Bill Tell rests, Artemis rests, Pea Shooter N – almost completely surrounded by pink border.

IBT: Russian scout moves E – mountains may be thin there. Rome warrior > warrior in 4.

1650 – 4
Cora mines BG. Su Batai E, sees valley, but mts on other side, Rus scout to N on gold Mtn. BT rests. Romulus S. Artemis rests. PS NE, sees iron in French border unhooked.

IBT: Rus scout continues E. Veii spear > settler in 8 (or granary in 15?). Americans begin GLib.

1625 – 5
R.Hood (Veii) WNW spots river delta 2SW, fish 3SW, more hills & trees. Cu (spear) to Rome. Julius to Veii. Romulus S spots delta in narrow bay, cow 2S. Su Batai NE spots Rus scout NE & “the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain…”. PS N to mountain, sees gap in Fr border in wide. Artemis SE can now see Thermopylae – no units outside city. BT E. (just exploring, will pull back to cover killing fields.)

Holding for Team input:
- granary or settler (to found on river to S, or river hill NNW of Antium @6.5 to grab control of second iron.
- plan to build warrior > settler in Rome
- change Antium spear build to warrior for conversion? Or 1 spear per, first?
- what to do about lit in 28. Switch to math? Or what else? Still no trade available.

 

[alerum68]

Go for Settler. We can't afford another granary ATM.

How many turns for each to build, and how many to grow to size 2? Will determine my answer.

I think we should keep the Spear build, especially in cities who are on hills.. will be hard to take them.

No idea what to do about the tech trade... I think the AI will go for some other wonders before The GL. I say switch something over to a Palace, our highest shield producer, and do some more turns on Lit until we can get it for cheaper because of our research, and we have some more gold to barter with. Don't loose the turns we already have in Lit... buy our way out if you can, but never ever switch half way through a tech.

 

[RowAndLive]

settler in 8
granary in 15
don't know growth from 1 to 2, but Veii has 2 game tiles, so it'll be fast.
I didn't register that we already had a granary. If I did, I woujldn't have bothered. Wasn't Veii to be our SF? Antium was to be our unit / wonder factory for now, as is Rome.

The Americans just started building the GLib, prompting th question.

Also, I wouldn't normally abandon a tech, but 30 turns back is a lot. I'll have to check F7 and F11 to see if we can come close to pulling it off with a palace build.

 

[Bede]

Don't we have to close the deal for Masonry for the Palace pre-build?

If we do we won't have much cash to trade for Lit.

Without a save to look at I'm working in the dark here.

 

[alerum68]

I aggree we really need to look at the save, especially now that England is building TGL... once an AI starts a wonder, it's normally over. We're at war with them, so we can try and capture it if it builds, but I'd rather build *THAT* one. Can we trade to get Lit at all?

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Can't capture a city with ANY foreigners in it. We're Xenophobic remember.

I'd say pop a settler without a granary just to get another city on line. I'd also go for the masonry trade, since we need the pre-build. If the English are building the Library, we will just have to go raze some havoc in England.

I'd start a pre-build in Antium (blue dot city?) with whatever we have available.

 

[alerum68]

Do we have a civ who we have more then 20 turns before we have to declare war? Maybe we can ally with them against England? America maybe?

Forgot about not capturing a city with foreign workers in it.:|

 

[RowAndLive]

I've made no trades since I started, and 90g would have been our whole treasury at the time, so only France was leaning our way. I did note that the price rose accordingly, each turn, as our treasury grew. So, we still lack masonry, thus no palace pre-build (use granary instead). It would take all of our cash to get it (except for France), leaving nothing with which to get lit. In any case, no one would trade lit to me, and only France would trade wheel. As noted, I've been conserving cash to try & get the funds to buy lit at some point. If successful, then a granary prebuild now would be OK. I could switch the spear build in Veii, thus begining the same turn as the Americans, or switch the spear build in Antium, thus starting 3 turns BEFORE the Americans. If their build is in Washington, then we won't beat the anyway. Let me look at that tonight.

Also, I forgot to note that I had to scrap growth in Veii in order to keep up the gpt treasury growth. I'm thinking to keep it stagnant until we do buy lit, and then push the lux to get pop growth back & help the build. I'm guessing that Antium @1 will have less spt than Veii @3, even if it did start earlier.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

For those who are rusty on their Latin (like me):

gemma = gems
valieris - not sure here
condimentum = spices
suffimentum = incense

 

[RowAndLive]

valieris doesn't com up in any on-line latin-english dictionary that I looked in.
http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Latin/

I'm also not latin proficient.

 

[denyd]

After reading over the last couple of pages, I am a llittle worried about our chances in this one. The parameters for this one are not condusive to a big comeback.

Since the Great Library might be out of reach, I think our best bet might be to shut off all research, try to get 15-20 veteran warriors asap then hook up the iron and upgrade them to Legions and start stomping people. The next military city probably shouldn't be connected so it can keep building veteran warriors for upgrade in Rome. If we can get a SOD of Legions put together, we can probably walk over England & France. That could buy us some time to squash Greece.

I am concerned about the off island AI getting far ahead on tech. Not being able to build embassies makes tech stealing impossible until the IA.

Any thoughts on my grand scheme (also known as plan B)?

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I think maybe lone scientist should be as much science as we can afford. I like the legion rush idea. I think if we can start disrupting some AIs, the GL might still be ours. Let's have a pre-build going just in case.

 

[RowAndLive]

Just wondering if that should have been plan A from the outset. Now which one of us on the team is gifted with clairvoyance?

Just a note from Pea Shooter who is headed N to find England, there's a whole lot of France in the way before we get to Liz. Also, Liz and Joan are leading th pack in points and military. We're currently about 1/3 of Liz's power score, with only 1 city difference. Greece, on the other hand is only just ahead of us, equal in power, and close. Maybe Greece was put close by to blunt our early attacks, and use up units, allowing the "soft skins" like England and France to grow.

You know, we have to be AT war, but nothing is forcing us to conclude any wars. It'd be a shame to not make full use of a UU as good as the legion, but perhaps we should focus a little more on the commercial character of our civ. Start to go for growth like rabbits, keeping just enough legions in place for good DEfensive use, with some limited crushing, like Thermopylae, and try to max the advantage of the reduced corruption. The militaristic trait will still help later on in the game. There's bunches of iron close by to help propel us toward mil, and I'm sure that it's no accident that France and England were given room to roam (pun intended) .
America and Russia in the mix to map out AI maps, making them always more expensive for us, and worse so later; Russia and Greece to feed off of each others tech growth; America and France to consume huge tracts of land.

I would like to suggest a more limited extermination or at least a good pounding of Greece to slow the tech pace perhaps a little, and give us more room for our commercial empire. Given their points, Legions are walking (slow, but walking) pillage machines. Great defense, but still a threat, allowing us to force the AI to react to wandering mini-stacks / pairs. They don't need spears for escort, or at least, spears are worth little as escorts. Perhaps a legion with 2 horse. (legion doesn't pillage, he moves and threatens. Horse A pillages the square that the legion just left, and then catches up for defense. Horse B moves 1 ahead of the legion adjacent to the intended move tile, and pillages. They then reverse roles. or something similar.) The AI will still be concentrating on the threat, and build mil units. The horse should be able to kill many attackers before they reach the legion and cause a GA. Mean while, we are expanding while our 3-4 stacks create havoc.

Just an attempt to think outside the box. This is defeinitely a scenario meant to make it difficult for the most hardened horse/archer-rush player who is used to an early conquest expansion.

 

[RowAndLive]

I think maybe lone scientist should be as much science as we can afford. I like the legion rush idea. I think if we can start disrupting some AIs, the GL might still be ours. Let's have a pre-build going just in case.

Certainly, I can change the taxman in Veii to a scientist easily enough, and push research to 0%. That might even get our gpt above 6, although it won't resume growth in Veii, which I thought was to be our settler factory.

The more I think about it, I'm liking my ideas above. Hurt the growth, research, etc., of the AI by mass pillaging. We have open season once we're at war. They'll be building workers, since we should be able to capture them easily enough, and they'll need many of them. Since we'll be pillaging so much, they'll be building workers and mil units to try and make up for it, so as to allow city growth. The only bad part is that we can't keep the workers that we capture.

The American GL is a problem, given that we don't know where they are yet. We'll just have to look for them. Time to build horses, since we won't be trading many maps. We'll need to get our growth going, and get some luxes hooked up.

 

[Bede]

@R&L,
Flexibility is the key here, and I think the punish but not exterminate while we grow is a sound approach. Horses and legions in stacks would certinly create havoc which is what we need while we get the realm in order.

 

[alerum68]

I aggree with Bede on this one. Take it slow, cripple them, and pillage until they are as back asswards as us. .. R&L has a great tatic to take advantage of there... horseman with legions...the main problem is going to be killing them off before they can repopulate the area we just cleared, since we won't be able to keep cities.

I've never had a game at this difficulty with this much of a bind this early on. I won'der how the other teams are doing...