SGOTM3 Rome - Team microbe

[scoutsout]

So the "Order of Gone" looks something like this?

England <-VERY soon (scoutsout)
France <-20 turns after declaration on England (Barbslinger)
America <- 20 turns after declaration on France (Gozpel)

Order not yet set: Russia, Babylon, Germany

 

[scoutsout]

Okay - per Mad Bax, we don't have to declare on England until 20 turns after the turn that followed the IBT declaration on Greece, which was 2470 BC. There are just a couple of things in with our timeline that are messing me up.

Gozpel played 9, because he noted an "extra". At first I thought it was Ted, because he counted to 20 from 0, but then I looked at Microbe's turnlog, and picked this up:

(5)2350BC: Ugly, two Greek warriors approach from the east and can reach us in 2 turns. I have to whip a spear out of Veii.

IBT another Greek warrior appears from the east, and a hoplite appears from the north and can reach our undefended capital in 3 turns. We'll have to whip the capital.

IBT vet spear defends off a reg warrior and promotes, without a scratch!

(6)2270BC: Whip spear....

So there's the only "extra" that matters.

Since Microbe declared war between his first and second turn (and he played 11), it looks to me like I need to declare on England before the end of my first turn.

Does this sound right to you guys?

 

[microbe]

I think you can declare on your second turn.

I declared between turn 1&2, and according to mad-bax it starts at turn 2.

 

[scoutsout]

...okay - and Gozpel played 9... so I can still wait until turn 2 to declare... it's slowly sinking in.

I'll get this played tomorrow. If I play tonight, I'm liable to fall victim to "Barblsinger's beer-swillin', sword-swingin' rules of Civ"....

 

[barbslinger]

It's now 3 am And the beer warrior I am says Sling HO! Pay no attention this post, It looks alike a defensive war for a while with spears and somday legions taking care of business. This is shaping up as AW. Let's get it on. We have iron and a granary. We could could go OCC and take out the oposition from here.

 

[scoutsout]

Pre-flight check (1750): We need more of just about everything.

Joan will trade us HBR for 6g+6gpt, I take the deal. Abe won't trade Masonry... which we need for Math (and catapults)

IBT - strangely quiet....

Turn 1 (1725) Not much to do yet...

IBT - Rome Settler>Worker, Treasury warning

Turn 2 (1700) Drop lux to 10%, +1gpt
Wake a spear in Rome and send it with the settler towards the horses.
Dial up Lizzy, tell her that she reminds me of my 7th grade math teacher that I never liked, stick my virtual tongue out at her and declare war.

Just before hitting enter, I hit F1, and note that Rome will riot because I moved a spear out. I have to hire a dadgum tax collector to keep our treasury at breakeven...

IBT - We learn writing, Set queue to Math through Masonry

Turn 3 (1675)

Diplo Check
France: Up Masonry and Myst, has contact with Babylon, Russia, Germany
America: Same contacts, up same techs, down HBR and Writing. Will take contact w/ Greeks, HBR, and Writing for Masonry and Myst. I take that deal, because it's the last one we'll get for a while.

Move settler pair to horse tile

Wake Alf in Veii and send him to Rome for MP duty

I am forced to convert the tax collector in Rome to a clown, because we can't afford lux tax until that settler founds a town.

IBT - Rome Worker>Spear, another treasury warning

Turn 4 (1650)
We are at tech parity with known civs.
New worker to wines
Alice starts roading
Antium founded on horses, starts a rax
Zoom to Rome, fire the clown, take lux to 20%, +1gpt, Math in 39.

IBT - nada

Turn 5 (1625)
Start roading wines, move Alf towards Rome

IBT - Two Greek Warriors pop out of the fog, 1 is 2N of Veii, 1 is 2 E.
Veii Archer>Warrior, Zoom to Veii (it has grown) put citizen on forest to go from 2spt to 4spt, next archer in 5t (Fingers crossed)

Turn 6 (1600)
2 Archers in Veii await the arrival of Greek Warriors
Alf arrives in Rome in time to do us some good.

IBT - Greek Warriors advance

Turn 7 (1575)
Vet Archer kills Greek Warrior E 3/4
Vet Archer flawlessly kills Greek Warrior N in forest
We lost our MP power in Veii, lux to 30%
MM Veii for +5spt (halts growth) I don't like killing growth, put it back... but if we can squeeze one more shield out of Veii, we can make a Warrior every other turn...
Move Alice to connect Antium to Empire

IBT - Rome Spearman>Archer
English complet Oracle
America cascades to Pyramids

Turn 8 (1550) Archers back to Veii, Alice roads, lux to 10%
France is now up Map Making

IBT - Veii Warrior>Archer (we can use the warrior for MP when Archers are out)
French cascade to Pyramids

Turn 9 (1525)
Fortify the Warrior in Veii, give archers a rest
Rome's not happy, lux to 20%
Wines will be roaded in 2 turns.

IBT - Border expansion, a Greek Archer shows up East of Veii

Turn 10 (1500)
France is now up Literature
Rest the units, time for the next better player...

 

[scoutsout]

After action review:

The good: We've got horses and Horseback riding, which gives us another tactical option. I hope you guys don't mind researching Math, but it was the only tech we didn't have that would give us another military option.

The bad: I would like to use catapults to soften up those Hoplites...but the terrain over there looks a little rough. Perhaps we could use a few horses to knock a few hit points off before sending move1 units in...

The ugly: Our economy sucks. I know the gpt deal I cut with France is part of that problem, but we're going to need to really watch the sliders for the next 2-3 turnsets until we get some more cities down.

Notes: Rome could be swapped to a settler. We've got 18 shields in the bin towards its archer. I thought we might need an archer over in Antium, but it looks like coast over there...

I'm off to upload the save.

 

[gozpel]

Nice turns and good choices. I would like to have another settler out fast and put him on the hill SSE of Rome, next to the other horse. This to give us another town to build units and building towns N right now might be dangerous. Alternative spot N of the cow.

Every city counts and we surely need them. We also need some offensive units to to give the Greeks a whack on the head before they start assembling stacks.

Half a dozen archers or a few archers and horses "should" be able to do that.

The safer alterantive is to build warriors and upgrade, but where's the economy to do that?

 

[microbe]

Our cities are too far away. For example, Antium should be built on the hill for defensive bonus and within 3-tiles with the capital. Now even with road we cannot reinforce the two cities in one turn. This could cause serious problems.

I did see gozpel had the original dotmap, but I didn't have time to comment on it..

I think we have to play this as an AW game.

 

[scoutsout]

@Microbe: Sorry you don't like the Antium spot... I follow your logic. Here's a stab at a dotmap given what we've got to work with from this point.

I should have numbered these... consider the 3 cites to the northwest as a group. Any unit in the center city could make it to either flanking city in a turn. (Or from a flank to the center). Additionally, any unit in Antium could reinforce the western flank.

On the 2 cities to the northeast: These could grow to size 4, and be held there, each getting an irrigated plain or two (or a mined grass or two), and 2 mined hills. Hopefully these would produce 5-6 uncorrupted spt, and be 5-6 turn Legion factories.. The northerly one could put a unit in "NW Central" in one turn.

On the southerly cities: The western one is 3 tiles from Antium. The central one (1SW of slinger's spot) claims the cow and a BG. The eastern one is a bit of a reach, but won't cramp Rome... borders should extend to let this city work the BG 3 SW of Veii.

While no units could make it from Rome to the outer cities in a single turn, there is a little flexibility in this I think...

I don't know if this is helpful or not... but those are my thoughts.

 

[gozpel]

I still like my dotmap, but see the logic behind scout's thoughts. As long as we put more cities on the map, I'm happy.

Territory counts against score, so to spread out our ring won't hurt, even if it will be harder to defend or transfer units between towns.

 

[scoutsout]

Here's another dotmap for discussion purposes. I've numbered the squares, and plotted Gozpel's suggested sites in blue (his dotmap is on the previous page). Ted's suggestion for "Square 3" is the red dot.

It appears Gozpel and I like the same placements for 4, 5, and 8. We differ slightly on squares 2 and 7. I can't recall if Barbslinger liked Gozpel's placement for the cow town, or if he just wanted to claim the cow. Gozpel and I differ most on 6 (which we probably won't settle in the next 10 anyway). We've got 3 different proposals for a site in Square 3.

So... Microbe, Ted, 'slinger: You've got input from Gozpel and me. The map is offered for reference on what's been discussed to this point.

 

[microbe]

We need a coastal city (unless we know it's pangea?), and the best spot seems to be SW to yellow dot 1? Could we send a warrior to explore around that area?

Maybe it's not a problem but yellow dot 6 is a little spreaded thin to me.

But almost all scout's cities are on hills, which I love.

Hard to decide.

 

[scoutsout]

Site 6 is admittedly thin. Moving it west to the hill would still avoid settling on the BG... but would leave it cramped for other useful tiles. If we put 6 on Gozpel's site (blue dot) then Gozpel's site for 7 (cow) makes more sense than my placement...

If we put 6 on Gozpel's site, I think we'd get the extra shield from the BG/city center when the town hits size 7...and Rome probably wont need all of those regular grass tiles between Rome and site 6... The south is vexing, for sure. I'm starting to lean a little more towards Gozpel's sites in the south. I believe the pattern in the north will hinge on whatever we decide to do in Square 3 (where we have 3 proposed placements).

There is a spice on the coast 2 SW of Antium. In retrospect, Antium on the hill would have left room for a coastal city ON the spice, but I did not know that until after Antium was founded. (That fog was rolled back by Antium's borders.) At that time I was running on the ragged edge of cash flow and riots, and didn't have a lot of time to let a settler pair wander around looking for a home...

I suspect there is room for a town 2W of "Site 8". That would be a coastal site... depending on which way the coast goes, we might be able to loosen that up to a city-tile-tile-city spacing from Site 8, depending on the shape of the coast.

Once we get a couple more cities down we might be able to afford some archer/spear pairs to do a little reconnaisace.

 

[microbe]

TedJackson - up
Barbslinger - on deck
microbe
gozpel
scout

 

[TedJackson]

There's a problem with the submissions database this morning so I'll catch up on the thread today & try to pick up the save later.


Ted

 

[TedJackson]

Got it,

but probably won't be able to play until tomorrow


Ted

 

[TedJackson]

SGM03-Mic-1500BC

Pre-flight checks... OK
As far as I can tell I need to declare on America and/or France by turn 10.
Press button...

IBT
Greek Archer arrives E Veii
Rome Archer - Settler

1 - 1475BC
Vet Archer kills Archer & promotes
Workers head for Iron hill
Lux 0%

IBT
England starts Great Lib

2 - 1450BC
2nd Worker starts roading Iron

IBT
NTR

3 - 1425BC
Lux 20%

IBT
Russia offers contact with Germany for 30gp - I decline
Babylon offers contact with Germany for 30gp - I decline
Veii Archer - Spear
Antium Barracks - Spear

4 - 1400BC
Archer fort Veii

IBT
Rome Settler - Horse
Russia starts Great Lib

5 - 1375BC
Settler (& Spear + Archer escort) heads North to Scout's site 3
Iron is hooked up!
Lux 0%

IBT
Greeks want Writing for Peace - Ha!
France starts Great Lib

6 - 1350BC
Settler continues toward Iron
Lux 20%

Greek Archer appears 2E of Veii
Babylon starts Great Lib

7 - 1325BC
Settler continues onward
Rome switches to Legion

IBT
NTR

8 - 1300BC
Settler continues

IBT
Rome Legion - Settler
Veii Spear - Legion

9 - 1275BC
Upgrade vet Warrior at Veii
Settler arrives on-site
Legion (Rome) heads for Veii

IBT
NTR

10 - 1250BC
Lux 20%
Cumae founded

The Neighbourhood

Notes
By the rules we have to declare on France or America this turn. I leave the choice to the next player.

I founded Cumae to (hopefully) deny Iron to one of the AI. If the Iron weren't visible I would have gone South to NE of the Cattle as this site is coastal (1 food).

The Archer & Spear (W & N of Cumae) are just taking a peek and should be moved back into Cumae next turn.

There are a couple of Greek Archers to the East of Veii. Theyy've been loitering there for a few turns now.

The save is > here <



Ted

 

[barbslinger]

Looks pretty good. Another couple of settlers and we should be able to hold off any invasion. Gotta get something over towards our left flank it looks like. I would really hate to lose a city. I think we need to play a bit on the defensive side still, especially with the Greeks. I'll take a look at the save and post my thoughts.

 

[scoutsout]

Post deleted. I suffered a brain cramp. I need more

I like the look of the neighborhood now. I guess we're not going to bother with a warriors-to-legions upgrade... and it looks like a despotic GA while we're a 5cc is in the offing. We need some workers...