SGOTM4 - Team Smackster

[dmanakho]

I paged Scout when i did everybody else and here is what he said:

1) I pinched a neve in my neck doing some roof repair after Frances, and took a forced 2-week± haitus from Civ because I couldn't feel my right hand... (long story)

2) I am having a hard time catching up to some games I was in before joining Team Smackter

3) Smackster PM'd me, saying the team needed a new player... I thought I wrote 'give me a few days to think about it'... but Smackster took it as 'give me a few days to get into it'.... but I signed on anyway because Smackster is a Strong Player, and I'm hoping to learn a bit from him....

.... Sooo... please don't be offended if I don't immediately offer comment on your proposed strat. It's going to be a couple of days or so before I can pull my weight on the team. Just give me a bit of time...

I assume he won't play his turn and DH should go ahead and play his turns after discussion on what to do


Here are my thoughts on strategy....
I am still not convinced it's a good idea to have a city with 30% corruption.
I'd rather suggest we ged rid of Rome and establish colonies in southern part of the island. Then we road all shorelines and keep our island from inviders, declaring wars if we need... (we need those wars for leader hunting anyways). It is nice to have horses but we can always buy them, we will have extra luxuries for trading purposes...
We are not doing conquest so not having horses is really not a big deal, i played test 5CC games and it was just fine not having horses...
Resourses like Rubber, Coal and Alluminum will be much more important as the time goes by and if we ever decide to jump cities I'd rather do it much later...
So if you ask me, I'd say keep RCP5 ring for now and research at maximum rate possible. At the same time kicking AIs out of our island using armed forces. (on down side with this strategy we are likely to ruin our reputation sooner than later)

 

[DeceasedHorse]

I will be playing tonight (PST), so get your messages in.

 

[Wotan]

Please check my post#135 for comments on next set of turns.

Re. MMing, with only 5 cities, the number of checks needed by each player is 50 in a 10 turn stint. Not that many really, or?

Settling in new locations: Settling in new areas will not only add to our score (when culturally expanded) but will ultimately add new units to our forces. Especially horses and iron are in my opinion essential to our success. Trading for them will probably be next to impossible in the long run. We will need horses for successful leader farming and without leaders I see our chances of success with the 20K VC approaching 0. So if we can find two equidistant locations for Iron/Horses coupled with lux, I say we go for them and scrap two of our current locations.

 

[smackster]

Please check my post#135 for comments on next set of turns.

Re. MMing, with only 5 cities, the number of checks needed by each player is 50 in a 10 turn stint. Not that many really, or?

Settling in new locations: Settling in new areas will not only add to our score (when culturally expanded) but will ultimately add new units to our forces. Especially horses and iron are in my opinion essential to our success. Trading for them will probably be next to impossible in the long run. We will need horses for successful leader farming and without leaders I see our chances of success with the 20K VC approaching 0. So if we can find two equidistant locations for Iron/Horses coupled with lux, I say we go for them and scrap two of our current locations.

Yes 50 cities were checked on my turns, but who's to say I got all the manipulations. I agree however, that the minimum we should do is look at each city each turn, especially those that are close to growth or unit production to see what can be done. However, nobody can be expected to see every item of manipulation.

I'm not sure about moving cities either. However, we can rebuild the palace in one location, if we have a spare leader. We need to address this again as the game progresses.

Agreed that DH is up and Scout is skipped. Good luck tonight

Roster

Wotan (on deck)
Dman
Tarkeel
smackster
Scoutsout (skipped)
DH (playing)

 

[Wotan]

OK agree to postpone decisions re. relocations.

Tech is an immediate decision though. Literature in 1 turn. Do we go for tradeable tech or most useful? Currency, Construction or CoL? I'm OK with all of them if there are any strong opinions re. choice.

 

[dmanakho]

At this point we can go after any tech in the proposed list
Currency is good if we plan to build marketplaces anytime soon, if not then CoL of philosophy.
Again at this point we are free to research practically anything from the list.
Next possible wonder technology - Monarchy with hanging gardens, but i'd rather buy that tech from AI than research it ourselves and we still have quite may turns to go before HG.

Philosophy is cheap to research so we can use it for bargaining with other AIs.
I hope our galley will meet other civ during DH turns.

On City relocation. I am not opposing Wotan's ideas. What i would love we had - some test games played with and without city relocations.
Again, In my test game i was always able to trade horses (see my post #2), and we don't need horses all the time, we just need to build up cavalry during those 20 trade turns and then use upgrade ladder. We won't need and won't be able to afford big army. Let's say, if we have traded horses and build 30-40 horsemen, that would probably enough until the time we have cavalry. The only problem here - Mad Bax didn't give AIs more than sources of horse and they won't be able to trade period. Therefore we have to explore our world ASAP.

I am concerned that we will have much more difficult times hunting leaders without horses, but I am afraid by the time we will get to the horses it will be too late anyways...

The fate of any 20K game is usually decided in AA. The team who builds most AA wonders will win, and there is no doubt about that... Simply because every wonder doubles it's cultural points every 1000 years, and AA wonders built in BCs will accumulate huge culture.... In this retrospective Mad Bax's idea of having 5CC competition game is not really fair to play in PTW.
Everything, 100% depends on pure luck. It would be much better choice in Conquest with Scientific Leaders turned off.

Even if team decided to choose conquest, the fate of that team will depend on that lucky single team who manages to get few extra leaders in AA times and build maximum amount of wonders, the rest of the game is just a series of pushing "next turn" button.

Oh, well, I am just whining, but i think there is some truth in my words.

 

[Tarkeel]

Actually, I think M-B managed to cut down on the early luck quite a bit by putting us as carthage and Rome next door. The only "better" civ would have been Greece, again. It will be very tough to fight an early war against legions, especially as we can't use our expensive spears without triggering a golden-age.

Have had quite a busy weekend, but back to the game again now

 

[DeceasedHorse]

Preturn: MM Leptis Magna as specified, shaving off a turn on the archer.

Turn 1: Literature comes in. Here are the tech times:
Currency: 14 Turns
Philosophy: 5 Turns
Code of Laws: 9 Turns
Horseback Riding: 4 Turns
Polytheism: 10 Turns

I decide to go for Philosophy. We can get it quickly and trade it around without a long-term time investment. Utica swapped to Library, due in 7. I shave a turn off of that by putting the city on a starvation diet. This will mostly empty the food box but the library will be finished before starvation is a factor.
Turn 2: Worker produced. Minor MM’ing done. Keep up the running blockade; I hope that the Romans don’t just spit out another.

Turn 3: Continue mobilization, with the first set of catapults ordered up.
IBT: Roman settle pair turns around and heads into the interior.
Turn 4: Continue mobilization.
Turn 5: Usual. Still no new contacts
Turn 6: Philo comes in, start on…Code of Laws. Scale research back to 70%. Rome finally has Horseback Riding; both Xerxes and Caesar are broke still.
Turn 7: Finish Library in Utica, start a Great one, due in 37. Brown border spotted by galley!
Turn 8: Keep up the blockade while military engineers cut roads across the, um, lets call them the Alps. Conact with the Indians (Brown) is made up in the north. They are up HB, behind a few more techs than the rest. Decide to sell Philo for to Ghandi for 36 gold and HB (best price).
Turn 9:
Turn 10: Sack a barb camp, netting 25 gold and an elite archer. We are up to 17 archers and 5 catapults.

 

[Wotan]

@DH good turns. Also good of you to spot the 7 turn Library option with 3 turns on starvation =12 shields and the last on 11 shields wo starvation.

Will have a quick look at it before work now and play it out tonight. 7.30AM here.

EDIT: The Galley on patrol with 2 Warriors have moved to the west coast!!! We all need to follow the thread so this does not happen again. That Galley was supposed to wait until the War against Rome and then land the two Warriors next to the Romans Iron. I will move them back again... I will have a really good look on the situation but it seems a war is out during my turns now...

 

[Wotan]

Hi guys, I couldn't help it but I just had to play a few turns before going to work. Rome is no more, the Romans are still alive though. Shall we allow them to remain in the game or take them out completely? I will connect Iron next turn and Wool the turn after. I only lost 2 Archers to Legions in Rome so Army is more or less intact, they are in their GA though. Two Archers have promoted. Map:

 

[Tarkeel]

Defend the iron, and leaderfarm on archers/spearmen? Very good work btw

 

[dmanakho]

WOW!!! Much have changed
And i was trying to convince you guys we need more archers, actually thinking that will give myself an opportunity to raze Rome... Selfish I am

Good job!...

At this point I suggest we research straight to the Republic on max speed and revolt ASAP.
That will give us huge benefits plus we can invoke our own GA

 

[Wotan]

I took the afternoon off (a cancelled meeting and a lovely day) So I just played the remaining five turns: And much have changed! You do not know how right you are Dman!!! Re Republic: Max research into Republic was 34 turns so I went for it in 40 turns to gain us some gold. Map is not that interesting at the moment, We have our five cities and a few Roman cities are razed.

Turn log

0 – 750BC
Shield wastage reduced in a couple of cities.

1 – 730BC
Moving Archers towards Rome. Started trek back to east coast with Galley.

2 - 710BC
Two Archers

3 – 690BC
DoW Rome. CoL researched, started Republic in 40 turns. 1 Roman Settler killed.

4 – 670BC
Cumae razed. 1 Roman Settler killed.

5 – 650BC
Rome Razed

6 - 630BC
Consolidation.

IBT: Roman Legion kills an Archer.

7 – 610BC
Legion killed but 3 Archers perished. Iron connected, switching production to Swordsmen.

IBT: Greece finish building The Pyramids in Athens.

8 – 590BC
Attack “west coast” Roman city, Hamilcar appears!!! City razed. Utica switch to Harbour, lose 41(+11) shields but will rush Lighthouse next turn. We will have a safer situation on the high seas and will be able to trade with Persia/India.

9 – 570BC
Utica rush the Lighthouse. Roman Archer killed, No leader.

10 – 550BC
Utica starts building the Great Library. Ravenna razed, Mago appears, sending him towards Utica to rush GL.

After action report:
Rome will give us their two size 1 cities for peace. I guess we could continue to leader farm on them for a while but two of our three elites have generated leaders now so only one left. They have one galley heading north, probably with a settler onboard. I would wait with peace until it has landed and kill it before giving them peace (if at all?).

Persia will give us Horses in exchange for Literature or CoL and their 8 gold. I guess it is safe to give them both since we have a leader that will rush the GL in two turns.

Next up for Dmanakho to consider: more Galleys to discover the remaining tribes. We are safe traversing sea now. Trade for horses. Track and kill possible Roman settler onboard Galley. Peace/extinction vs. Rome. Safely guide Mago to Utica and rush the Great Library. Remember to keep a few Archers in the area between us and Rome to avoid Barbs. in the mountains and near our Iron/Wool. I have sent two Warriors towards Hippo to upgrade to Swordsmen.

I return to the discussion on “satellite” cities. We should think really hard about settling near Pasargadae/former Rome (at equidistant locations to Carthage).

No MMing needed at Theveste, 24 shields remaining forest clears in 1 turn and it generates 7 spt. I have built the Library in Theveste since we will at least keep that city for the duration of the game and the culture will add some workable tiles (and score) Utica is generating max food until GL is finished.

Republic in 33 turns, find the other civs and it should kick in sooner.

Firaxis: 283

EDIT: 8 elite attacks and 2 leaders, I hope we have the same ratio during the whole game

 

[dmanakho]

So we have a leader to rush GL, FP should be next right???
I will start building settlers in Carthage and prebuilding FP in Utica...

Team, any thoughts on my turns???? I will play tonight

@Wotan: Superb turns..... Better than i could imagine

 

[Wotan]

If the roman "galley settler" lands within a couple of turns. Kill it, there are a couple of Swordsmen in the north and you will probably start building Horsemen soon. Then sue for peace and have a settler ready to settle on the same turn. The romans will give you their size 1 cities for peace, with them we should be at 8 cities, switch Utica to FP and raize them all. Maybe the Roman settler (galley) can be allowed to settle if it does not cut our colony on the ivory and take that too in the peace agreement.

EDIT: You shouldn't have to build more than one Settler if we opt to take cities in a peace agreement. Also when/if taking Settlers, take them from Theveste, Leptis Magna and Hippo, they are near size 6 and cannot grow past 6 wo. aqueducts anyway. Let Carthage grow... You could switch Leptis Magna right now to finish a settler in 2 turns.

 

[dmanakho]

I'd like to build libraries in other cities too.... just to jump start research.
I'd like to build libriaries even if we decide jump cities to different place in future.

After FP is built and that won't take long, we need to build Colliseum or HG in Utica depending on what technology is available at the time.

I will wait for Roman settler to land on Ivory coast, kill it and sue for peace in exchange for towns...

I am only afraid Romans will try to settle during 20 peace turns on the Iron again... i guess we will have to herd roman settlers not allowing them near iron and when 20 turns expire get rid of them completely.
It superb we have LightHouse, that means until navigation nobody will be able to settle on our island so Carthage land is safe for a long time.

 

[smackster]

Great turns, 3 AA wonders now, this is going to be a good date. Although we will have to continue our leader farming throughout the game.

I was going to suggest we just keep fighting Rome, but don't raze anymore of their cities, but I think the FP plan is good, and take those cities for peace. We have more than enough troops in the Roman regions to keep them away from our Iron.

I think we should build a library now in Carthage as we seem to have enough military for now. Actually we should probably just continue the fight overseas, there is a nice horses/furs location between India and Persia. Also we can trade for horses now from Persia if we wanted to build some of them. However I'm leaning towards just taking Pasargadae (razing it). We should get India/Persia to fight each other before we arrive.
There will be a fine balance between keep the AI researching tech for us and not allowing them to get head starts on wonders. In general I'd like to keep them fighting each other as much as possible.

We have to think about the best time for a GA. Thinking of wonders, both JS bach and Sistine produce 6 culture so think we should time the GA around the time we start researching those techs, or after we research them to get a boost on building those wonders.

It superb we have LightHouse, that means until navigation nobody will be able to settle on our island so Carthage land is safe for a long time.

Even better with the differenctial sea movement, our galleys can skirt the ocean and essentially move 7 tiles per turn, we'll have full contact in no time.

 

[dmanakho]

....Thinking of wonders, both JS bach and Sistine produce 6 culture so think we should time the GA around the time we start researching those techs, or after we research them to get a boost on building those wonders.

Bach's produces 5 cultural points i think. (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3wonders.shtml)
And indeed it should be in the list of must have wonders to build, Sheakespeare is another must have wonder with 6 cultural points... Add to that list coppernicus (4 points) and Newton's (6 points) and we have the full list of MA wonders we must have to have.

There will be a fine balance between keep the AI researching tech for us and not allowing them to get head starts on wonders. In general I'd like to keep them fighting each other as much as possible.

It's not going to work really, on Monarch level AIs won't research for us much... We will be the ones researching and then trading them technologies for GPT... That what happened in my 5CC test games, If i remember correctly AIs only researched very few technologies ahead of me. (Nationalism, Communism etc...) But with trading we will be able to keep our tech slider at 100% and still have huge amount of gold flowing in.

i do agree on the fighting part, but we have to make sure we still can trade, fight one AI at a time and make sure our reputation is good for GPT trades

 

[smackster]

Just a thought, that we can break the peace with Rome, and as long as we wipe them out nobody else will ever know. And they will not get a contact for a long long time as we have the GL.

So back to my suggestion that we try to leader farm off them up until close to Astronomy, or if we get some WW in republic. The cost of keeping those troops in that area does seem worth it. In fact if we leave them a nice channel, they will give us a constant supply of slave workers in the form of settlers.

So after getting some cities for the FP trick, lets not raze anymore Roman cities.

 

[dmanakho]

Just a thought, that we can break the peace with Rome, and as long as we wipe them out nobody else will ever know. And they will not get a contact for a long long time as we have the GL.

So back to my suggestion that we try to leader farm off them up until close to Astronomy, or if we get some WW in republic. The cost of keeping those troops in that area does seem worth it. In fact if we leave them a nice channel, they will give us a constant supply of slave workers in the form of settlers.

So after getting some cities for the FP trick, lets not raze anymore Roman cities.

Nice thought, but i am afraid it won't work... There is an article i read somewhere on this web site. You can use this trick only if both sides don't know nothing aand haven't contacted other civilizations.... Because we have already contacted Persia and India it is too late....
Although it will ruin our peace deal reputation, i don't think it will have anything to do with our trade reputation. Am i correct here?