SGOTM3 Rome - Team Smackster

[smackster]

How about we build archer, warrior, archer, warrior in Rome, once we complete that setter. But don't overestimate the ability of the AI to wage war, they are not too good at it really.

I think they will only contact us when there is something to trade. There is a chance that they have met others and have all the techs we have, and as we have no cash they wont come offering us anything. Maybe we wont get that contact.

Once Writing is in play we may want to get as many contacts as we can. Then we can chose to fight battles a long way off and get the AI fighting each other, although we have to fight them in order that we meet them, so selecting the right contact will be an interesting choice. That way we can maximise our trading situation, up until we selectively declare war on each civ.

 

[smackster]

Another MB comment

"Correct. Though there are 12 opponents and it will take some time to meet the first civ, and you don't have to open diplomatic relations immediately. So if you do the maths...."

So again we just wait, until we are contacted, and then the clock starts ticking. Ideally we would have 7 contacts before we go to dip and then we can chose our battles a little better.

We are 20 turns in and there are 540 turns in the game. If we get contact next turn, then we will be at war with all by turn 260, which is actually a long time.

 

[Wotan]

I have been looking at the map for possible city placements yet again. RCP 4 is not as good as if we can stick to the plan with RCP3. Together with a second ring at RCP6 it will give us two 5+fpt cities. one at RCP3 (with either support from a RCP6 city as indicated or after cultural growth) and on in N at RCP6. All three cities built on hills BTW and on rivers!

 

[Wotan]

The concept of "meeting" a tribe is what might need some clarification by MB. As far as I have understood it it is linked with using the F4 screen/being contacted by the tribe in question. If so the "20 turns" start ticking the turn we open F4 for the first time with more than one tribe in it. Since all spotted trribes will be available in the F4 screen that could in theory mean that we have located all tribes but not a single exchange of contact have happened until one of the tribes contact us. At that point when we go to the F4 all tribes will be avaiable for contact and thus the clock startes ticking. Do we have a choice re. the order in which to DoW on the tribes?

In another case we have "seen" a tribe on the map for quite some time (as we have with the greeks in our current game) we spot a second and third tribe but avoid contacting them. Eventually the third tribe we spotted contact us. We DoW them and when on the F4 the two other tribes are now available. Are the first and second tribes concidered "met" on this turn and do we get to choose the order of DoWs? So the greeks could end up being our third DoW?

And before you put the question to me: No I am not a Lawyer! I am just an MBA, normally kneedeep in contracts and trying to avoid loopholes in them while fending off smart ideas from corporate lawyers... I just wonder what happened to common sense interpretations when doing deals nowadays? Ah well, a few weeks until I have to be back in that quagmire.

 

[mad-bax]

Contact for the purposes of this game is made when you enter the diplomatic trade screen for the first time with a particular Civ. You may see units and borders on your travels, but "contact" is only established when either you or they ask for an audience.

 

[Wotan]

Good. So contact is not a factor of opening F4 but of actually "clicking" the leaderhead?

 

[Tarkeel]

I've had a look at it, and made a suggestion of a dotmap, using ring 3 and 6 RCP. I've left some room in the first ring, but filled up the second. Note that the borders are drawn unexpanded.

Worst case scenario now: Greeks contact us, we declare war, and Hoplite attacks our warrior defender. More likely that it will just pillage us to death and wait for reinforcements, which is almost as bad.

Edit: Removed dotmap, new updated available further down.

 

[smackster]

My only concern is having to get the cultural growth to get our settler factory running. We can in fact break RCP by one city (to get the western game without growth, put that city at RCP 4) and it wont kill us, just means our RCP 6 ring will be rank 3 instead of 2. I think the speed to get the settler factory running outweighs the long term loss in corruption experienced by the RCP6 ring.

 

[smackster]

Tarkeel,

Can you indicate that you have the save, I'll be looking for "I got it" after each set of turns, from the next player. 24 hours to "I got it" and then 72 hours from that time to play. My last SGOTM2, was a skipping disaster, with only 2 players out of 5 on-time throughout the game.

Cheers

Smackster

 

[Wotan]

@Tarkeel, the RCP3 city at 3NE Rome will not include both gameforests. It need to be moved 1 tile SW from your positioning. See my last map with dots. Also lets go after clean RCP3/6, all it need is a second city at the location of our W Warrior as indicated in my map. Those two placements will give us both gameforests within the RCP3 city's area. Also future RCP6 city in NW on gameforest should go on hills to avoid wasting the gameforest.

Suggest first Settler goes to NW/NW/W hills and second settler to RCP6 location to give access to 2nd gameforest.

 

[smackster]

@Tarkeel, the RCP3 city at 3NE Rome will not include both gameforests. It need to be moved 1 tile SW from your positioning. See my last map with dots. Also lets go after clean RCP3/6, all it need is a second city at the location of our W Warrior as indicated in my map. Those two placements will give us both gameforests within the RCP3 city's area. Also future RCP6 city in NW on gameforest should go on hills to avoid wasting the gameforest.

The problem again will be the time to get that RCP 6 city to the west. We would really need to put our third settler out there, which is a long way out.

What do the others think?

 

[Tarkeel]

Sorry if it wasn't clear from my last post, but yes I got it Just holding off playing till we sort this dotmap.

@Smackster: We can surely move one city away outwards to RCP4, but then that would be rank 6 (if we have 5 other cities in RCP3), but it won't affect RCP6 cities which would still be rank 7 (if 6 others are closer).

@Wotan: Not sure what game forest you are refering to, as there are none 3NE from Veii?

I don't really see any spots here that will give us a despotic settler factory, the sites with enough food will have too much corruption to be able to produce 6/7 shields.

Edit: Yes I do. NW-NW-W should be able to do it, thanks Wotan

Edit2: New dotmap attached. Red is the factory, green is the RCP6 city that grabs the second game for it. This should be able to work 3(4) mined BGs as well as the games, so even with small corruption it should work.

 

[smackster]

Sorry if it wasn't clear from my last post, but yes I got it Just holding off playing till we sort this dotmap.

@Smackster: We can surely move one city away outwards to RCP4, but then that would be rank 6 (if we have 5 other cities in RCP3), but it won't affect RCP6 cities which would still be rank 7 (if 6 others are closer).

Yes you are correct, sorry. If I was playing a solo game I'd just make the first rank RCP4 to match the settler factory.

@Wotan: Not sure what game forest you are refering to, as there are none 3NE from Veii?

I don't really see any spots here that will give us a despotic settler factory, the sites with enough food will have too much corruption to be able to produce 6/7 shields.

There is one, RCP 4 west, which includes using the currently irrigated game forest from Rome. Chop the second forest and mine it and we are golden. Well we have to mine the BG's too, but that site will do us. I believe that getting that up and running is more important than anything. Rome can then concentrate on building our defence, and it even has a barracks

 

[Wotan]

@Smackster: Agree with you on RCP4 but... the mountains in the E is a major obstacle so in this game I would rather stick to RCP3.
On the issue of lost time getting a second settler to RCP6 city. The second gameforest needs clearing before it is fully productive for a settler factory. I believe we could have a second settler in place without loosing too much time.

@Tarkeel: Two minor adjustments to your map. Move green and one blue dot as indicated and we are in business

 

[smackster]

OK, lets do it, RCP 3 all round. Third settler to the far west position. Not only do we have to chop that forest, and mine it, we have to build a granary. Once we have enough defence, then maybe we can sneak another settler out of Rome.

We should also consider giving our settler factory the irrigated game, as soon as its founded to increase its growth, and of course time the chop to help the granary.

Smackster

 

[smackster]

Final post on contacts, as we've beaten this one to death, just like we'll beat the Greeks, etc.

When we make contact with any civ (at the dip screen), we obviously need to note the year that the contact is made. That contact order list then is the order we declare war. The 20 turn clock starts ticking from the time of the first contact. I'll keep a record of all this.

When at war with the first civ, it will actually help us to meet the second civ before the end of 20 turns, so that we can do some multi turn trading at least.

Once Writing is in play, it may be an advantage to buy all contacts, so that we can declare war on the furthest civ and then trade with the others (at better rates). And get some alliances to force some inter civ wars.

 

[dmanakho]

It might be hard to figure out which civ is furthest away unless we also trade maps. We won't be able to do scouting, because as soon as we enter neighboring AI territory he will contact us asking to leave and we don't want to enter diplo screen unless it is nessesary.
Are we going to research writing at 100%? because if we do so we won't be able to trade at all, since we don't have money. i don't believe we will research writing before AI even at max speed... we will waste too many turns researching IW.
So i suggest we research writing at 10%. But then we can be too late researching literature -> Great Library build.
Oh well, we don't have many choices here...

 

[Tarkeel]

(0) 3000 BC
Looking good, not much to do here. Move Veii to work the tile the worker is on.

(1) 2950 BC
Worker: R
Move warrior towards Veii

IBT: Hoplite heads north.

(2) 2900 BC
Move warrior to wines

IBT:
Hoplite heads east again.

(3) 2850 BC
Lux up to 40%, Settler in 1.
Warrior stays put

IBT: Hoplite heads north
(4) 2800 BC
Veii: Settler->Archer
Move warrior into veii for MP. We need another scout, but I don't dare leave our capital completley undefended now.
Lux to 0%, research to 80%. BW due in 9.
Worker: M
Move settler towards red dot.

(5) 2750 BC
NOt much, but:

IBT: Alexander pops by and offers us BW for pottery and 3g. As we can't haggle, I accept it, and declare war. I checked, and he has 38 gold now and no techs on us.

(6) 2710 BC
We are now officially at war.
Found Antium at red spot, start granary.
We can research IW in 20 turns at 90% (9 beakers), or masonry in the same time. Writing takes 27 turns. I think we need IW to start on our legions and atleast know we have iron (most likely, given all the hills and mountains).

(8) 2630 BC
Lux to 10%, research to 80%.

(10) 2550 BC
Worker: N

Status:
We have a hoplite somewhere to our northeast, but he doesn't seem to interested inharassing us. Archer completes in 1 turn, granary in 26. Rome is using the mined BG this turn to complete archer, give it or the game back to antium next turn.

Save

 

[Wotan]

So, we are at war. With Greece... Great! Our favorite neighbour just had to be friendly. So, does this change anything in the short run? Are we still going for a few archers/warriors then another Settler, playing defensively for a while until our settler factory is in position. And then start churning out Archers/Legionaries from Veii? We really need Legionaries to counter the Hoplites. Greece will probably have a GA pretty soon. As will we by the looks of it. It would be nice to have some benefit from it and being in despotism, war weariness will not be an issue so maybe we should play defense for a while.

 

[Tarkeel]

Imho, we better treat this as AW really, which means hold on for dear life for a few thousand years. After IW we should get masonry and math I think, for walls and cats.