SGOTM6 - Xteam

[AlanH]

Summary
The good news is that WillowBrook's script worked to perfection and our Granary turned up on time and full of food. The bad news is I should have paid closer attention to the financial situation. Probably turned science off sooner and/or moved the archer back to Entremont earlier to help with happiness. It will work out, but it will need careful management.

Other news: There's a Chinese archer taking a look at Entremont. Probably not a problem, but you never know! We have neighbours. An unknown dark red civ - Japan? - has set up shop near the cow across the water, at distance 6 from Entremont.

Turn 20 3000 BC Preflight
Turn off that darned Book Cursor!

Entremont: WillowBrook's plan looks good, and we are already set to do it.

F4: We know Mongols and China. Both have onee extra city and BW, Masonry, Mysticism. Mongols have 325 gold in their vaults! No deals available.

No changes, let's do it. Next turn

Turn 21 2950 BC
Archer fortifies to recover hit point. Warrior NW on mountains, sees Chinese reg.archer and reg.warrior and a river bend. Worker to silks.

IBT
Mongol vet warrior appears on mountain NW of our warrior.
A Chinese vet warrior appears near archer. Chinese units move east.
Archer recovers.

Turn 22 2900 BC
Archer NE, sees river delta to north. Warrior W. Sees incense and a Mongol archer.
Worker starts chop. Will complete IBT after turn 31. F4 no change.

IBT
Chinese units head east and north. Mongol heads east.

Turn 23 2850 BC
Archer N, Warrior W. F4 no change.

IBT
Chinese N, Mongol E.

Turn 24 2800 BC
Archer N, sees coastal inlet to N, salty, and spices. Warrior W, sees river and coastline NW.
Switch citizen from silks to BG/river for 4 fpt, 3 spt to grow in 2 and win 2 bonus shields.
Running deficit at -1gpt. F4 no change.

IBT
Another Mongol warrior appears from west haading east. Chinese warrior heads NE.
Domestic adviser warns about negative cash flow.

Turn 25 2750 BC
Archer east to forest, sees possible land bridges, another salt sea inlet.
Warrior W. Sees more river, mountains. Coast to N is salt.
Confirm governor settings for growth bonus next turn.

IBT
Pop 4. More Mongol units w of warrior, heading N.

Turn 26 2710 BC
Archer SE. Decide not to explore the peninsula as it's likely to be a dead end and wasted turns. Warrior S, sees Mongol border. It looks like their capital, as it's expanded.
Entremont has read WillowBrook's script and is performing to plan. Granary will complete in 3. The bad news is that we are still at -1gpt because the lux slider has to go to 30%. We have 7 gold in the kitty, so I'll run at that to keep the research turns ticking.

IBT Moaning minnie complains about our treasury again.

Turn 27 2670 BC
Archer SE round coast of sea inlet. Warrior W. Mongols have a grassy capital on a river, on the edge of tundra. F4 still no change.

IBT Mongols found Kazan in hills and mountains 4 tiles north of the capital.
Chinese warrior appears north of Entremont.
Treasury drops another notch to 5 gold

Turn 28 2630 BC
Archer E. Warrior W. F4 shows Mongols third city, no other changes. China still two cities.

IBT
Chinese warrior E. Entremont granary complete, starts settler. Treasury 4, -2gpt.

Turn 29 2590 BC
A dark red border has appeared to the east. I think we found our first victim No contact.
Archer E. Warrior W - he's walking off the western edge of the map.
Turn science off to reduce -2gpt deficit with granary cost. We have 4 gold. A citizen will complete in 2 turns, and will probably have to work the silks for a turn or two. I doubt if the silk will be on BG, so the shield count may fail Do we need to bring the archer back for MP duty? I guess so. Perhaps I should have done so before. We could keep exploring and hope to find a barb camp, but it's very risky. We would lose the granary if we run out of gold.

IBT
Chinese archer appears West of Entremont. Treasury down to 3.

Turn 30 2550 BC
Archer south towards Entremont. Warrior West.

After action
The major issue right now is our treasury. We mustn't let it go negative or we'll lose the only improvement we have - our granary!

When the next citizen pops I think we'll get 3 extra gold in the treasury as we work the silks. We'll then have 5 gold. The current lux spend of 2gpt will support the extra pop point. We have 2 happiness points from the lux slider and 1 from the MP. With pop 5 these should give us 2 happy, 1 content, 2 unhappy.

If we follow the script the extra citizen will work a BG, no river, so no extra gold, and we'll continue at -1gpt. We can keep that up until the settler pops in 3 more turns. Then we'll have pop 3 and can turn lux back to 1gpt, but only for 1 turn nd then we grow again. Once the settler builds we'll be in better shape, but for the next few turns I think the archer should return to Entremont to help with happiness. There's also the small chance that the Chinese archer approaching is up to no good. Our game could end rather fast if he decides to take on our sole warrior.

We also stop paying the Chinese 4gpt in 6 more turns. The archer should be able to get back in business and go to meet our neighbours after a few turns interruption.

Here's a piccie:

 

[Gyathaar]

Where do we want to found first city? 2 north for the wheat, or 2 south to work forest game and build units for mp?

 

[AlanH]

My 2¢: I'd go for 2 north to get some food so that we can create a worker or two. With 2 chops in our first 40 turns we're very short of roads and mines. We can manage happiness if we can get the silks on line and some cash to pay for happy pills. We aren't going to grow cities big while we're building settlers and workers in them.

 

[DJMGator13]

I think I'd go north also especially since we've seen the red border. May need to place a blocking city up there to force Japan to expand the other direction.

 

[AlanH]

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

All yours Tomoyo. Let's keep the gold coming, but try to keep to WillowBrook's script as well.

 

[Tomoyo]

Got it... I hope to play tonight, but that might not happen.

 

[WillowBrook]

This thread is way too quiet! (I know, SGOTM5 is still taking time...)

I have no objections to settling north - more food is good.

As for slightly longer-term plans, what do we build in our new cities and in what order? Our settler and worker factories will need granaries. Is Entremont's ability to pump out a military unit with every settler enough military to start with? Should any of our new towns start with a worker before a granary (assuming Entremont's military is enough)? In general, I feel like I can do a decent job planning the first town, but once there are several towns, I have trouble figuring out the best use for each in any sort of coherent fashion (enough workers, military, etc).

 

[Tomoyo]

Here's my propositiong for the order of settling, only considering what we see. I think we want to settle northeast too.

 

[AlanH]

I'd swap 3 and 4, given the fact that we have company across the water now.

 

[leif erikson]

I'd swap 3 and 4, given the fact that we have company across the water now.

I agree with this but have a question. Should we build something producing culture in order to get the expansion before whoever is there already to claim the cow? It will be interesting to see how far away whoever's capital is.

We may want to send a scout around to the east when we get a chance and see what the lay of the land is over thar.

 

[AlanH]

I'm not sure we should divert effort into a cultural building yet, but I'll bow to the experts. I imagine that city is not too far from home and doubt it will flip to us any time soon. Yes, I figured once the archer has helped out with our current little financial/military difficulty he could head on round there.

 

[Gyathaar]

Building culture to get the cow before that other city will be worth it unless we can settle next to the cow soon.

We do want to get early culture buildings in the core when we spare the time.

 

[WillowBrook]

Should we build something producing culture in order to get the expansion before whoever is there already to claim the cow? It will be interesting to see how far away whoever's capital is.

I'm not sure if I completely understand pop-rushing; I haven't used it much. But IIRC, one citizen is up to 20 sheilds, so a city at #4 working regular grassland could pop a temple 10 turns after founding (since temple only cost 30), and 5 turns later, with the expansion, it could work the cow. Assuming the unknown civ's borders don't expand around it. Hmm - between several granaries and an early temple or two, we need to build lots of roads or we'll continue to flirt with an empty treasury.

On a sort of related topic, do we push the tech pace or not? We certainly want to get to Communism ASAP and will need to strategically trade, but do we do things like gift techs to civs to speed the pace? I'd be afraid that, once other civs have better governments, we could get left behind if we push things too much.

 

[Gyathaar]

I dont think we want to make the tech pace faster than nessesary.. after we have killed off a few civs perhaps

 

[AlanH]

Apologies for my stoopid response. Of course we want to grab the cow if we can. My brain cell went awol as I posted that Shows what too much culture can do for a guy.

 

[Tomoyo]

Pre-turn: Financial and tech situation looks bleak. Else fine.

2510BC (1): 2 gold, -2 per turn.

IT: Our treasury is running low. No duh.

Chop finishes.

2470BC (2): Make an edit to Willow's sheet and keep the game, but give up a BG.

2430BC (3): Settler completes. Start another. Our tresure is running low. Meet Carthage. They are up all visible techs. Continue revising Willow's sheet and get a free shield.

2390BC (4): Meet the Iroquois. They are up all visible techs too. Follow the sheet.

2350BC (5): Mohacs founded. Starts warrior. Meet Japan. They, too, are up all visible techs. Might as well turn the min sci run back on now that we have another city.

2310BC (6): Oh yeah, now we're talkin'. We got 6gpt. Oh, and I watch Utica build a worker.

2270BC (7): Absolutely nothing.

2230BC (8): Get ready to MM next turn.

2190BC (9): Not work the game.

2150BC (10): Settler --> Warrior

Notes:
- I strayed away from Willow's script a bit, not getting the other archer.
- After the warrior completes in Entremont, move the forest guy back onto a rBG.
- Warrior build in Mohacs can and probably should be changed.
- Settler is unmoved.

I'm kinda disappointed. There was an extra gold piece that I could have gotten.

 

[leif erikson]

Good work Tomoyo!! Didn't sound too exciting though??

I've got it.

Looks like we need some workers! That could be Mohacs primary job once a warrior pops?

eqWorker will have the road finished in 1, so then we need to get the silks to Entremont via the watered game?

I thought I understood that this settler was to go 2 south. It sounds as though I'm hearing that, because of the cow, we head NE, NE and E, settle and start on a Temple? Which way do we wish to go?

I'll check in again when I'm really awake!!

 

[AlanH]

Good work Tomoyo, keeping us out of the bankrupcy courts

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

Have a peaceful turnset leif. Save your aggression for SGOTM5.

 

[Tomoyo]

You can change the warrior build in Mohacs to a worker if you really want one earlier. (I almost did that)

 

[AlanH]

Looks like we need some workers! That could be Mohacs primary job once a warrior pops?

If not before. Workers are critical. We've used 50% of our worker turns so far to produce 20 shields. That's fine to jump start the granary and first settler, but it means we haven't improved many tiles yet. We need workers!

eqWorker will have the road finished in 1, so then we need to get the silks to Entremont via the watered game?

Definitely.

I thought I understood that this settler was to go 2 south. It sounds as though I'm hearing that, because of the cow, we head NE, NE and E, settle and start on a Temple? Which way do we wish to go?

My suggestion was to swap 3 and 4 on Tomoyo's map, not 2 and 4, so south next, then NE, then the northern outer ring. But you may be right that we should do NE first, to try to secure the cow asap, then the outer north, then S.