SGOTM5 - Team MOTH

[MOTH]

turn 1-4: move warrior home, road some tundra
turn 5: warrior is now home and borders have expanded to include furs - reduce lux again.

IBT - a barb is heading towards our fur

turn 6: dispatch spear to defend furs - see another barb warrior 1 turn out.

IBT - barb attacks spear - we win with no damage or promotion. Moscow grows to size 6.

turn 7: increase lux again. Spear heads toward second warrior.

IBT - Warrior attacks spear - we win an promote to vet.

turn 8: mine a tundra (we won't need it until gov't change.) MM for +1 gold with Colossus due in 3. Spear looks for and finds barb base.

IBT - barb warrior in the North a few turns out from our workers.

turn 9: Spear attacks barb base and wins with 1 damage.

IBT - The people love me and build a nice paved entrance to our cave (castle). Barb in the north stays put.

turn 10: spear heads home. MM Moscow for +1 gold again.

Status: Colossus is due IBT and Writing is due in 7 turns.

Save: save file for 1750 BC

Firaxis: 66
Jason: 43

Rotation: When someone needs a skip, we will just keep them in the on-deck spot until they are back. This should keep things moving. If M60 gets a turn in today/tonight then Tim should take a turn since he will get skipped a few times. If M60 doesn't get a turn in then stagnate should be on deck.

Up: M60
On Deck 1: TimBentley - skip Wed through Sunday
On Deck 2: stagnate - skip until Tuesday
Chamnix
Just played: MOTH

Look for a strategy post next.

 

[MOTH]

Strategy - Please discuss what you think is best. All of my games end up as Diplomacy wins, so conquest is something new for me. Early game planning is usually my strength.

Effect of Colossus: This is going to give up +1 GPT in moscow tile, and +1 GPT in the non-river tiles that have been roaded. Once we get out of Despotism it will pay even more.

Location Analysis: Under Despotism with a harbor and choping the grass/forest we can work: Cow, Game, Bonus Grass, Grass+?, 4x Forest, 4x Coast for 24 food, 15 shields, and 28 commerce.
Under Monarchy the commerce goes up big, and sheilds can go up a few if we stay at 24 food.

Key city sizes are:
5 - spt of 10 with +2 food.
8 - spt of 15 with no extra food.
Everything else is more commerce than one of the above sizes.

Tech: once we have Writing go maximum science (negative GPT) for MM. I think this will come take about 25 turns (32 from now). Then go max on Literature. Everything else will likely have been researched by the AI's by the time we meet them.

City Improvements: I still don't think we need a granary, but it could make a partial pre-build for a harbor. See units for ideas on growth with harbor.

Barracks: Don't build it yet. It would be good as we need to start training some Elite units, but these will be crap warriors or spears. Instead we could train Regulars up to Vet using barbs if we plan on eventual upgrades.

Harbor: Top priority once we have researched MM.

The Great Lighthouse: This would be a key wonder given that differential naval move is on. This extra MP will be key in crossing seas/ocean and trading over sea to get our conquest done as soon as possible. Consider starting this once 3 galleys have been built.

Capital District Land Improvements: Chop the forest over grass and then mine it. Eventually we will irrigate this tile for surplus food. This is the only other tile that improves our food situation and will let us get to size 8+. Use a galley to transfer a worker and defense across the straights to build roads on the game and other forests.

Units: Workers: Size 5 is a good size for Moscow right now. Build a worker each time we are about to reach size 6 (including as soon as we build colossus.) These will be joined back in once we have enough surplus workers to push us up to size 12.
Warriors: don't build warriors until we are close to getting Iron Working. The upkeep is too expensive on warriors.
Spearmen: These are efficient 2 turn builds at 10 spt and disband for 5 sheilds. We should build these (with occassional workers) until we are close to researching MM and then disband some to help build a harbor. Send some out barb hunting.
Galleys: Build 3 (with 1 spear each) for exploring and suicide runs. Replace them as they are lost.

 

[stagnate]

I'll grab this tomorrow night if it hasn't been taken. No comments yet because I haven't seen the map.

 

[M60A3TTS]

A lot of good points, MOTH. Good location analysis and we certainly need a harbor. My conquest strategy would be substantially different. We have land. The AI wants land. We can't build towns on our land. The AI can. We are alone on our land mass. That will change as we'll in time have more boats in our waters than Cape Cod in July. What we employ is the "2 and gone" strategy. Something like the spider and the fly. Essentially it means we want the AI to come onto our land and build a town. "Cheap and plentiful beachfront property still available! Call now before it's too late!" Then we want that town to grow to size 2. Then we want that town for ourselves. By capturing towns on our own landmass, we build a faster base for our eventual overseas conquest.

What's required:

1. The AI needs to find us, or we find them and sell them our map. Will happen hopefully when galleys start to sail in one direction or another.

2. Basic road network across our land. Nothing fancy, but we need to commit some workers to build roads in the directions from our capital that the AI will settle.

3. Simple Pop 2 town conquering force. About 6 vet horsemen should do it at the start. The AI isn't going to be able to land substantial troops on our land until galleons. It will probably be your standard spear/pike settle pair in the initial galley wave.

4. Techs of Wheel and HBR. Needed for horsemen. If we continue to conserve cash after MM, we should be able to buy those from the AI.

5. Rax in Moskva so we have vet horsemen.

6. Short wars. Once we take towns, we'll be at war for a short time. Make peace as soon as possible, since it was all a big misunderstanding, the fault of a renegade warlord, full moon, etc. Then after 20, strike again where applicable.

With the basic road net, our horsemen could cover our landmass to get to most settled sites, then wait for them to reach size 2. The roads also serve to connect up towns we capture. We would have to be active in our patrols of the area so we know when new opportunities arise. In the meantime, any barbs that show up provide our horsemen extra experience.

Potential roadblock: The AI can't reach us due to sea/ocean tiles. We should know the answer to that one before too long. Then reevaluate the strategy.

Think of it as the indians having the pilgrims over for Thanksgiving dinner. The pilgrims just don't know they're the main course. :devil2:

 

[MOTH]

M60, Can you do one set of turns before tomorrow or should we just let stagnate have it?

The road net is a great idea. It gives us something to do with all the workers I want us to build... It will also help us to hook up horses or iron if they are not close by. I think we should work on a road up and around to our Cape Cod - either of the mountains to our west could have iron and we would need the road to get it back home.

I like the horsemen stacks. A long time from now they will upgrade to our UU.

The potential roadblock is not that big with differential sea movement the straights that can be crossed are big. As learned in SGOTM4, The AI will cross coast-sea-ocean-sea-coast gaps with no problem (once they know about them).

 

[Chamnix]

Some great ideas and analyses – this is what I hoped to learn to do when I joined this SG!

I agree with both of you. A few workers to build a road net are certainly useful while we are sitting around waiting for a harbor. We also may need a few for colonies.

Another potential roadblock – we may not have horses. Hopefully we will have at least horses or iron.

I think we are likely to find the AI long before they are ready to settle our continent for us. If we go with M60’s attack strategy (we can also try to get pop 1 cities in peace deals), then I don’t think there is any hurry to build barracks or horsemen yet. I think we should go for literature and try to trade for the first and second tier techs.

We have no idea how much AI-AI contact there has been early this game. If there are only 1-2 civs per island, then the tech pace on regent is going to be pathetic. It would not completely surprise me to find that we have to teach several civs map making, then wait at least 10-15 turns for them to build their first galley and sail over to us – their first galley might not even head in our direction.

We have 2 clear possibilities – taking the war right to the AI or waiting for them to start to settle our island.

If we are going to wait, we can use the time between our contact and their arrival to prepare the welcoming committee – building it earlier just wastes money. Under this approach, we may want to “waste” a few turns just building wealth. If we have say 30 total turns to map making – the last 5 of them will be used at 10 spt building a granary as a prebuild for a harbor. Disbanding 4 spearmen will mean we get the harbor in 1 turn. 4 spearmen take 8 turns to build. We will build 3 workers in 1 turn each. We still have 14 turns of building. If we get another 4 spearmen to disband so we get our first galley in 1 turn, we still have 6 extra turns. If we are going to produce wealth, we should do it first so we are not spending the money on military upkeep for any longer than necessary.

If we are going to attack instead of wait, then we I think we should build barracks and warriors with our extra turns and upgrade them to swordsmen as soon as we trade for iron working and connect the iron that we better have. I would prefer this approach – sitting and waiting would take too long for me. A handful of cities every 20 years doesn’t make a large empire all that fast. Of course, we will be in terrible shape if we don’t have iron, and we will have to be very careful with money using this approach, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Stagnate can take his turn when ready. No rush here.

 

[MOTH]

Good analysis chamnix. We will need a few more spears for barb protection/hunting for our road crews and long term MP. I think that will account for the remaining 6 turns of builds.
Maybe our build order for 25+ turns should be (not being sure when pop hits size 6 again):
Worker - 3x Spear - Worker - 5x Spear - Worker - 3x Spear - Granary pre-build

Note that we will hit size six during the Granary pre-build, so we will need to be very careful to not accidentally build the granary. Proper use of the 'Big Picture' could let us switch over to harbor and build it via disbands on the same turn we research MM.

 

[MOTH]

Stagnate can take his turn when ready. No rush here.

Current rotation is therefore:

Up: stagnate - will play Tuesday evening.
On Deck: M60
TimBentley - skip Wed through Sunday
Chamnix
Just played: MOTH

 

[Chamnix]

We will need a few more spears for barb protection/hunting for our road crews and long term MP. I think that will account for the remaining 6 turns of builds.

Of course you are right. I'm not used to leaving land empty for barbs. At least regent barbs die easily.

Anyone know how to calculate exactly how many turns it will take us to research map making so we can determine if we should start spears right away? Our income should be constant so if anyone knows how many beakers things take it should be definitely determinable.

@MOTH - I take it from your projected build that you are now in favor of bringing the AI to our continent first instead of conquering theirs right away. Will that be our approach then? If we are going to their continents we will want some warriors (future swordsmen) instead of spears so we should make a decision before we build too much.

 

[MOTH]

I think the warriors are just too expensive in terms of upkeep to build now. At least the spears disband for 5 shields out of 20 build. The warriors only disband for 2 - they are just not worth keeping around as we will quickly run out of cash. We can't carry a big military for long until we can get more cities.

Barb farming could be a huge part of our economy...

 

[M60A3TTS]

It would not completely surprise me to find that we have to teach several civs map making, then wait at least 10-15 turns for them to build their first galley and sail over to us – their first galley might not even head in our direction.

You say you don't know map-making? Here, it's yours. Don't know how to get to CATHERINE ESTATES? Here's our world map with crossing points marked. So hop in your family galley and come over today! Our friendly horsemen provide 24 hour-a-day barbarian protection, and if you act right now, we're offering FREE INFRASTRUCTURE. That's right, friend, a direct road to our capital. We may even throw in a mine. We're sure as soon as you see the pristine wilderness, you'll fall in love with the place and never leave. Furs await your arrival, and our delicious local caribou make a great treat. But you must ACT NOW!

Note: Not valid in Alaska or Hawaii. Must be a settler in order to take advantage of this offer. Management of CATHERINE ESTATES reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time.

 

[TimBentley]

Anyone know how to calculate exactly how many turns it will take us to research map making so we can determine if we should start spears right away? Our income should be constant so if anyone knows how many beakers things take it should be definitely determinable.

Let's see, MOTH suggested staying at size 5, that should be about 14gpt. So it would take 21 turns to get the 288 beakers needed for map making.

The plan of barb farming while we wait for map making and waiting for cities to capture sounds good, dependent on the unknown future.

 

[Chamnix]

I understand we will "encourage" the AI to settle our continent, but I still think it will take too long - from the time we find someone and teach them map making (assuming they don't have it):

1. They have to build a galley.
2. They have to decide to come to our continent. Based on what we already see, the islands may not be that far apart - even with our map as a guide, the AI may already know about other islands they choose to settle first.
3. They have to travel to their chosen landing point on our island. How does the AI handle differential naval movement? Will they just crawl along our coast the entire time?
4. They have to disembark and settle.
5. We have to wait until the city reaches pop 2.

All of that before we get even our second city. I think with 4-6 swords, we can take the first non-capital city (probably defended with 2 spears) we find instead. The risk of the more aggressive plan is that we may not have iron and then we wasted time and money with warriors, but I think it is a risk worth taking to save 20-25 turns before we get a second city. We can still invite people to our little paradise and hit them with horsemen when they arrive, but I would like to see an attacking crew first so we can gain ground while we wait.

 

[TimBentley]

After doing a test debug game, I tend to agree with Chamnix. In that game (a continents map that I tried to make similar to this game), nobody researched map making until 1250 BC (turn 70). Somebody did research literature about turn 60, which surprised me. As far as I can tell, that civ didn't trade for anything more than the first-level techs and maybe mysticism and iron working. It was also interesting to see the two AIs with one city and two settlers sitting there.

So what's the point of this? It will take a while for the AI to settle our continent. We might be able to conquer cities with less than two spears. Of course the meeting of the first AI would enlighten us more on the situation.

 

[M60A3TTS]

All that's been said to this point may certainly be true. If we want to go out and try to capture a place closer to the AI home, we can certainly do that. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that any captured town is going to be a flip risk being much closer to an AI capital.

 

[mad-bax]

I have added the venerable Bede to your roster

 

[Bede]

reporting for duty.

Hi, y'all. Let me catch up and you 'll be hearing from me.

Looking forward to playing with this distinguished bunch.

 

[MOTH]

Welcome Bede. Look forward to your advice and play skills.

stagnate is next up on the rotation but can't play until this evening. If you can catch up and get a set of turns in today then go ahead, if not then we'll slot you in after stagnate.

The next 30 turns are mostly sitting around barb hunting while we wait for MM.

 

[Bede]

Thanks. MOTH.

Will fit in a set today and post no later than 5PM Cape Cod time.

Looks like we have a bunch o' Bay Staters on this team