SGOTM6 - Xteam

[Tomoyo]

It's 2 per shield in vanilla.

 

[AlanH]

Good stuff, leif.

Gyathaar
AlanH
Tomoyo
leif erikson just played
WillowBrook UP and Got It
DJMGator13 On deck

@leif: I note that you traded for more than one contact at a time. I don't know how relevant it was in this situation without replaying it myself, and you prolly did as well as was possible. But in case it's of interest, I have evolved some generalised rules that I try to follow when I meet someone with more than one new contact:

- Try to buy one contact at a time, starting at the cheapest, and buy them with maps if either of us have MM, then cash. This is because each extra contact you buy is likely to reduce the cost of the next one, it may also reduce the cost of their techs and/or open more 2-fer opportunities, and gold and maps don't reduce in value as you trade them away.

- After I've bought all their contacts, and before I've sold any, I start tech trading around all my old and new contacts, as my techs will now be as high in value as they can be and theirs are as low as they can be.

- Finally, depending on the map and the likelihood of the civs meeting each other, I try to grab as much gold as possible by selling contacts and/or techs.

@WillowBrook: My 2¢ on some of your questions:

1. A radius 3 city next to the iron can't be disconnected without also disconnecting the silks, so I think we should accept that reconnecting the iron will take 9 worker turns on the mountain. I think we should build next to the iron, but not connect it until we've built all the warriors we want to upgrade. If we later want to disconnect to build horses for upgrade to cavalry, a stack of three workers can be used for reconnecting it when that time comes.

4. Generally if you are a warrior it's better to fortify and let the barbs attack you. At emperor we have little attack advantage over a barb. Archers can generally attack barbs OK as long as the barb is not on a mountain or fortified on a hill. The combat calculators give an idea on this. Look at the odds in attack and defence and pick the option that gives the highest chance of survival. I use http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3combatcalc.html

6. We need Writing asap so that we are in a position to see MM when it comes along. It may even be possible to grab MM during the first map trading turn.

I'll leave the other questions to better MM'ers than me.

@Gyathaar: Looking at the ones I know best:

horse to knight costs 80 gold for a 40 shield difference.
knight to cavalry costs 20 gold for a 10 shield difference.

These stack up with Tomoyo's figure of 2 gold per shield

 

[leif erikson]

I'm not sure I have the best answers, but I'll tell you what I think??

1. Should the next settler settle next to the iron? (Tomoyo's #8) Connecting/disconnecting will require roading/unroading the mountain itself, which would require more workers than if we didn't have a town at #8. But I'll let the military experts give their opinions here. If we don't settler dot #8, where should we go next?

I thought I heard Gyathaar say that we wanted an Ancient Age Golden Era. If that is so, then we should get the city built and road the Iron fairly quickly. I can't see us cutting the Iron unless we are trying to rush Knights or Cavalry, and that will be a while and we should have plenty of workers (I hope) by then. Besides, if we want to start conquest sooner rather than later, our UU is necessary. So, I would vote to build site 8 next.

2. Entremont: I'll see what I can work out as a food/production schedule to keep us getting a settler every six turns. I expect we'll have to go up to size six for a few turns every cycle, which will likely require the lux slider at 20%. But we will need MP in Mohacs soon anyway as it will grow past size 2 soon (but it will also be hooked to silks soon, too)

I realized just now that what I forgot was that during the inter-turn when a city grows, we get extra shields. For the last warrior, I MM for shields instead of food and that was an error on my part. I think it will be easy to do a 6 turn cycle once we have a few more mines done. I think there is a bigger question, and that is the production Regular units instead of Veterans, which means building a Barracks somewhere in there. But then, we won't be building Warriors much longer if we hook up the Iron, so what else can we build in conjunction with Settlers?

3. Camulodunum: What should we build here? I don't think we need a barracks immediately; I'm thinking another granary would be good; once the deer is chopped and watered, that's another 6-turn settler or 3-turn worker factory (probably workers to start, until the land is improved)

The reason I started a Barracks is that, given our current worker situation, I didn't think we would be chopping anytime soon. Camulodunum is faily shield rich and could pump some vet units and build a Granary while it waits for a worker to get there. That is why I did it, but feel free to change it.

4. barbs: when is it best to attack, when should we let them attack, and when should we run away? I know about the defensive bonuses on different terrains, but I haven't calculated or gained a feel for how to best handle different situations.

I decided not to risk losing our Warrior when he was that far from home because the contacts he will make are far more valuable than the 25 Gold he'll earn if he defeats the Barb Camp.

5. The worker stuation: If I have things calculated correctly, Mohacs can finish its granary in 14 turns (without a forest chop), and then start pumping out 3-turn workers (some may be four turns at the beginning due to lack of sheilds). Until then, we'll have to make due. The sourthern worker is mining, and then I'll road to Camu (not sure which tile) - this won't leave enough time for a forest chop to benefit a granary, if we decide to go for that in Camu, but we'll still want to chop the deer down there fairly soon.

I think we need to discuss our future plan a little more to determine what needs to be produced. Looking at Gyathaar's 100K game, the graph shows that he started conquest fairly early and that requires military. With our UU nearly available, we prolly should think about where we want to produce them and start setting it up so we can begin that phase of the game.

6. Techs: do we want to buy writing as soon as we can afford it? I agree there's no point in getting HBR with no horses in sight. Any reason to buy it from one civ over another? (Besides the price)

I usually go up the tech tree through Writing, so I am in unfamiliar ground. I did try this route once and it was marginally successful. imho, there is no real rush to get Writing as once we know the other civs, it should be cheaper.

EDIT2 - Just read Alan's post (we crossed) and he is right, forgot about Map Making!! We will need Writing soon. (So original edit reason still stands)

Perhaps it is time to think about getting an Army of EuroSwords built and do what we do best, extort and steal through pointy stick and other methods.

Edit: and what is the elite archer doing?

The eArcher was shadowing some Chinese and Mongol units that kept popping into view near Mohacs. I prolly should have moved him into Mohacs to reduce the lux rate and give us more gpt.

Hope that helps.

EDIT - Stupidity!!

 

[leif erikson]

@leif: I note that you traded for more than one contact at a time. I don't know how relevant it was in this situation without replaying it myself, and you prolly did as well as was possible. But in case it's of interest, I have evolved some generalised rules that I try to follow when I meet someone with more than one new contact:

- Try to buy one contact at a time, starting at the cheapest, and buy them with maps if either of us have MM, then cash. This is because each extra contact you buy is likely to reduce the cost of the next one, it may also reduce the cost of their techs and/or open more 2-fer opportunities, and gold and maps don't reduce in value as you trade them away.

- After I've bought all their contacts, and before I've sold any, I start tech trading around all my old and new contacts, as my techs will now be as high in value as they can be and theirs are as low as they can be.

- Finally, depending on the map and the likelihood of the civs meeting each other, I try to grab as much gold as possible by selling contacts and/or techs.

Thank you for these, they are interesting and helpful. In this turn set, I didn't get any contacts from them as I was more interested in trying to catch us up in tech. The only way I could get some of the techs was to offer both contacts because they wanted so much GPT for the techs (we didn't have) and, iirc, they wanted both contacts to trade for one contact. Perhaps I could have done better, but I was trying to leave us as much GPT as possible so we could look at buying more techs ahead rather than playing catch up. This is also one of the reasons I didn't go after the Barb Camp, I wanted to keep that Warrior exploring to make contact so we wouldn't have to trade for them.

I couldn't believe how much Gold the 4 civs we know have, never seen them that high this early in the game. Perhaps that is why they didn't trade our contact, they already had the other AI civs gold???

 

[Gyathaar]

I think we need to discuss our future plan a little more to determine what needs to be produced. Looking at Gyathaar's 100K game, the graph shows that he started conquest fairly early and that requires military. With our UU nearly available, we prolly should think about where we want to produce them and start setting it up so we can begin that phase of the game.

My game was in chieftain, so I didnt have to do any conquest at all.. I just has to build settlers and workers to make roads as fast as I could in that game

 

[Gyathaar]

I couldn't believe how much Gold the 4 civs we know have, never seen them that high this early in the game. Perhaps that is why they didn't trade our contact, they already had the other AI civs gold???

I am guessing them have been quite busy popping barb huts for gold

 

[AlanH]

The Mongols had over 300 gold during my turn set. That's 12 barb huts. I can't believe they did that. More likely M-B gave them a chunk of change to get them started.

 

[AlanH]

In this turn set, I didn't get any contacts from them as I was more interested in trying to catch us up in tech. The only way I could get some of the techs was to offer both contacts because they wanted so much GPT for the techs (we didn't have) and, iirc, they wanted both contacts to trade for one contact.

Ahah! You have to speculate to accumulate. If they would have sold you a contact for gpt you might have reduced the price of techs by knowing more civs with them, or found a 2-fer. Contacts are key to getting tech prices down.

 

[leif erikson]

My game was in chieftain, so I didnt have to do any conquest at all.. I just has to build settlers and workers to make roads as fast as I could in that game

I don't think we're going to get away with that in this game???

How long do you think we should wait to begin conquests? If we are going to build some warriors for upgrade, they should be Vets. We need some Barracks towns and some gold set aside to accomplish this in addition to expanding peacfully for now.

EDIT -

Ahah! You have to speculate to accumulate. If they would have sold you a contact for gpt you might have reduced the price of techs by knowing more civs with them, or found a 2-fer. Contacts are key to getting tech prices down.

OK, I'm a knucklehead. By the time I had gotten the contacts, I'm not sure there would been any gold left to try for techs. I think I will go back and see if the autosave is available and try it again.

 

[AlanH]

I think we should build warriors and hold off connecting iron for a while. 50 shields per unit will be slow going. 10 shields each is much more like it.

 

[WillowBrook]

How long do you think we should wait to begin conquests? If we are going to build some warriors for upgrade, they should be Vets. We need some Barracks towns and some gold set aside to accomplish this in addition to expanding peacfully for now.

I'm wondering the same thing. My gut feeling (which could be entirely wrong) is that we need to maximize food to produce many workers and settlers for a little longer, but a barracks in Entremont at least would be good. I'll see what I can work out. For Camu, it's cheaper support-wise to first build the granary and then the barracks if we want both, and I think that town will be good for both settler/workers and warrior. I'll take a closer look.

 

[Gyathaar]

How long we should wait.. we want to get our core fully buildt,and then expand west while building military in towns with no food bonus.
When our expansion bits chinese or mongol borders, we attack them and capture the cities they have had time to build in meantime.

Exception would be if japan or another civ nearby complete pyramids.. then I think it would be worthwhile to go after that civ first to increase our growth.

Only annoying thing is all nearby civs has UUs with chivalry, so going after them before we have to face riders and samurais would be nice (keshniks are not that bad as long as we can attack them before they attack us since they are just 2 defense (assume same numbers in vanilla as in C3C) )

 

[leif erikson]

@Alan - I owe you a report of the trading round. I just finished trying it a second time and I learned that your point has merit, as always!! I managed to trade for all contacts plus all the techs gained during the turnset plus Writing. The only difference is that it cost 7 GPT to do so, which would have left WillowBrook trying to balance lux with 1 GPT to spare. The question I had was once the contacts are traded around, the tech cost didn't seem to go down at all. I wonder if there has to be a change in turn for the tech costs to adjust?

Producing Warriors and upgrading them is going to get expensive at 100 Gold per EuroSword! So for 20, that's 2,000 Gold!! That's worse than horsies to knights. Do we have any other options?

 

[Gyathaar]

euroswords are 50 shields, warriors 10 shields.. 40 shield difference at 2 gold per shield is 80gold per upgrade, not 100

 

[leif erikson]

Ooops, thanks. So it is the same as upgrading Horses to Knights, except it happens earlier when Gold is a little more scarce.

So it is 1,600 Gold to upgrade 20 Warriors instead of 2,000. I think that is better, if we can find it....

Perhaps we can start a traveling minstrel show??

 

[AlanH]

Apologies for the delay. Mt ISP has just upgraded me to 1 Mbps service, and in the process they've screwed up my IP address assignment, so my shiny new broadband connection goes at zero bps until their dozy configuration staff get in on Monday morning. I've now reconfigured onto dial-up.

As Gyathaar says, the upgrade will be 80 gold per Eurosword, and I don't think we need 20 of them to go out and kill a civ or two. Those puppies are going to be lethal if we get them out there while everyone has spears. A stack of three or four will take down capitals, and two will be enough for outlying towns. Think Legions attacking at speed! It's down to what we can produce most of fastest - gpt or spt.

There are several ways to produce a Eurosword:

A Eurosword costs 50 shields, or 10 shields + 80 gold, or 10 shields plus 2 citizens, or 30 shields + 1 citizen (and some happy pills to counter the whipping). Depending on whether we have a granary the citizens cost 10 food or 20 food.

So to put it simply, we can produce a Eurosword in 5 turns with:
10spt or (2spt + 16gpt) or (2spt + 4fpt) or (6spt + 2fpt)

Using a lot of gold looks a good bet because we have lots of river tiles, all of which will produce 2gpt with roads, and we produce gold as a by-product in cities that are building workers or settlers or barracks or whatever. Using lots of shields means mining a lot of tiles, and that takes time and workers, and we can only build them in cities that aren't doing anything else and have barracks.

 

[WillowBrook]

So here's what I'm thinking based on the discussion:

- get writing ASAP
- pop the temple to snag the cow
- try to get a barracks in Entremont and keep pumping out settlers (I'll play with possibilities to determine the best build order)
- don't let barbs get the exploring warrior
- continue with minimum research; adjust lux as necessary
- next town is by the iron
- MM mohacs to get granary in 14
- change Camu to granary
- connect towns with roads; road worked tiles

If there are serious objections, let me know. I'll check here tomorrow morning before playing.

 

[DJMGator13]

Wow, I just logged on after 9 intense turns of SGOTM05 and find a new page of discussion. Too tired to read it now I'll catch up in the AM. Glad to see the high quality of Xteam cooperation is alive and well with this team also.

 

[leif erikson]

If there are serious objections, let me know. I'll check here tomorrow morning before playing.

Sounds good to me. Good luck!

 

[DJMGator13]

OK, I caught up on the discussion.

According to Nethog's Civ3 PTW upgrade chart - galleic swords upgrade for 40 gold (same as regular warrior to sword upgrade). It might be worth loading a test game and verifying the upgrade cost.

Contact trading - I can only add that you need to check out the original results of Moonsingers trading exercise that I reused in TDG as our 2nd exercise. There is value in renegotiating peace deals. I'll locate the link and post it.

Here is the link. SirPleb posted the best results in Moonsingers original posting. Check it out. BTW, this is when I first contact Alan to see if he could locate an old save file.