SGOTM7 - Team Chunky

[Mach]

Oh I haven't forgotten. It's just that I think the game's gonna be won or lost at mil.trad, and that means a lot of research for us, and not much cash. Warrior --> MI is expensive. Also, warriors aren't useful to us right now. Agreed on worker and rax soon.

Edit: I see your dotmap, it looks good.

 

[Baalzebul]

Am I allowed to download the save and examine the game while it's not my turn to play?

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

I guess so, I see nothing that can be abusive, as long as this is your team's save...

 

[Mach]

CM, if it helps you with the roster any, I'm in Chicago USA.

 

[chunkymonkey]

Well done Khan that's a great start. I think I agree with your dotmap, i'll have to get into the save to look a bit closer.

In response to baalzebul, i would absolutely recommend that we all have a look at the last player's save if we have time. It is definitely allowed, and will help us keep up with what's going on in the discussion.

I can't really play today so if you want to take later on Mach be my guest. Told you this roster would get a bit mashed up!

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Another word pro warriors - really really cheap MP. 4 or 5 words actually. What does the team think on that question?

 

[chunkymonkey]

Yep, warriors are excellent police. In this game I would tend to use them as inner city police, and leave the defensive units for coastal city police.

 

[Baalzebul]

I think we must settle at red dot first and build a few warriors or spearmen, a worker and then a granary.

The northern blue dot might be used as unit production city with a barrack.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Well I meant the read dot as a GLibrary prebuilder... It's essential.

 

[Mach]

Ok, I got it, can play tonight.

I was thinking settle Western Blue Dot first (since it's between us and the barbs we know) and build rax, helped by a forest chop. In Istanbul we need a few more units straightaway, a worker or two, and a rax before we can settle into a cycle. Our first Cycle Settler can go to red dot, but that's past my turns.

Alternatively, I can forgo the blue dot rax, and instead start right on units. Barbs can upgrade those units. In that case I'd have to build fewer units out of Istanbul. This may be a better plan.

I'm typing this all off the top of my head, since I can't see the save. Later I was going to spreadsheet out some builds, to time things right.

 

[Baalzebul]

This seems fair to me. We need some units as soon as possible because the barbs can be a real threat at deity level.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Don't delay the prebuilding city too much, we need it. We have much to gain.

 

[chunkymonkey]

I agree with Khan on this one. I think we should settle the red dot now, get our TGL prebuild going, and just keep the barbs at bay with the warriors we produce from our combos in Istanbul. Then once we get the western blue dot settled we can start pumping out offensive and defensive units.

If we do go for the blue dot first i'd be inclined to just go straight for another settler without building the granary. We need to get a headstart on the Library and hope the AI don't cascade to it.

 

[Mach]

Teh Save

Ok guys, here you go. I tried to follow the team's advice: Red Dot City, and warriors.

Preflight (3000BC)
Nuttin'.
(I) zzz

T1 (2950BC)
We're wasting shields on this settler. I stare and stare, and there's no way we're not wasting a bunch of shields on the next build. I move the worker north to mine the bg; that'll prevent a bit of loss in the future.
(I) Istanbul settler --> warrior

T2 (2900BC)
Settler/warrior pair head towards Red Dot
(I) zzz

T3 (2850BC)
Settler/warrior pair land on Red Dot...and uncover a barb warrior to the east. At least he's across the river from us...
Here's where we waste more shields. We've wasted a warrior (11 shields) so far on my turns, and there was nothing I could do about it.
(I) Silly barb fortifies.
Istanbul warrior --> warrior

T4 (2800BC)
Found Edrine, start on pyramids.
(I) Barb is heading away from us, on to mountain.
Istanbul warrior --> worker

T5 (2750BC)
(I) Barb warrior heads back toward Edrine
Istanbul worker --> warrior

T6 (2710BC)
Both workers and a warrior head south.
(I) Here come the barbs! First barb warrior heads toward exposed workers, a 2nd appears from the east.
Istanbul warrior --> warrior

T7 (2670BC)
De-fense! De-fense! Hold breath...
(I) Barb warrior attacks our fortified warrior, and we win flawlessly. 2nd barb heads toward our worker.
Istanbul warrior --> settler

T8 (2630BC)
More defense.
(I) Barb attacks Edrine, we win flawlessly.
Alpha --> writing. No one else has writing yet.

T9 (2590BC)
Ok, the straight road between Edrine and Istanbul is done.
(I) Now a barb warrior comes from the west.

T10 (2550BC)
Cover the western worker.


Ok, that's it. No new ai civs, and no sign of the ones we're at war with. I've built our force up to five regular warriors.

Istanbul is in the cycle now, albeit without a rax. If we can get a plains irrigated (for instance the river plains that we already have roaded), then we can give the sw bg to Western Blue Dot.

Next player: get our Blue Dots up, build military to take care of those barb camps, and keep expanding.

Question: Do we want a rax in Istanbul?

 

[Baalzebul]

Good work done Mach.

So it's good that our neighbors don't have writing so we will be safe for quite sometime. At this time we need to expand and build our defenses as quickly as possible, especially at the coastal cities.

I think we don't need barracks at Istanbul for now but we can build it later. We must pump a few settlers and workers there. By chopping forests we can build barracks at blue dot city.

 

[chunkymonkey]

Good going Mach.

I agree with baalzebul, lets make Istanbul our settler/worker/police pump for now, and have our blue dots fitted with rax (courtesy of chopping), and pumping out a decent military. Red dot sticks with prebuild.

I've got it and will play tonight.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Nice turns Mach. A few notes. I didn't wanted to mine the river BG with the first worker to avoid wasting his turn, and send him on the second BG where the Warrior/Settler pairs are right now. Anyways, 1 worker turn isn't that much.
What worries me more is that Istanbul isn't fully improved yet. Can we go Settler-Settler-Barracks-Worker-Worker-Settler? I think so, if we manage to get it to 10spt and 5 fpt.

 

[Mach]

Thanks guys. Agree on the rax in Istanbul. When I first got my turns, it really looked to me like our opponent civs were on the same island as us. But they haven't showed up yet, so I guess they aren't.

Some advice: double up warriors in the face of barbs, and have workers build roads first. I think it's more important that the workers be able to retreat if they have to...

Edrine is currently working the olive hill. Take a look at our mining worker there, and move Edrine's citizen when he has one turn left to mine. (I forget how much he has left to go...)

Edit: And now that I'm at work I can answer Khan's post. Istanbul is fully developed, almost. It can do 10spt and 5fpt at size 5 by working the 3 sheep and the 2 bgs (one developed, one not), and the city center. It could use an irrigated plains instead (as I wrote on the screenie), both to give the other bg to Western Blue Dot, and for more gold. Anyways, Istanbul is in the 4-turn warrior/settler cycle. Please don't mistake this.

I sent that worker back to the bg to mine because it got Istanbul to 10spt a turn earlier. If I hadn't done that, we would have wasted a bunch of shields, and have one less warrior right now. I'm pretty sure I played it right... (I think you guys are going to learn, I hate waste. Despise it. Don't like it. Also I feel like on deity we're gonna need every shield we can muster.)

I wondered for awhile what would have happened if you hadn't paused to road that bg, but I came to the conclusion that it wouldn't have helped, we were gonna waste a bunch of shields no matter what. So you played it absolutely right. Obviously I spent a long time thinking about this stuff -- I printed out the dotmap and scribbled all over it on my way home from work...

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Sure do Mach, setting Istanbul to 10 spt was crucial, I had miscounted the shields and I thought we need the mined bg to get it going. Now I agree on irrigating the plains and giving them to the capital.
But I reiterate my build order that would allow us to build veteran units later:

(1) Settler due in 1 turn, Istanbul pop 5 10 spt 5fpt.
(2) Settler in 3, Istanbul pop 4 growing next turn so 10 spt
(3) Baracks in 4, Istanbul pop 6 growing next turn
(4) Worker in 1, Istanbul pop 6 growing in 2
(5) Worker in 1, Istanbul pop 5 growing next turn
(6) Settler in 3, Istanbul pop 5 ready for combo cycle

This will allow us to build 2 more fast cities for military, a settler, barracks, 2 workers to improve the wonder city. I think that those 13 turns are good as build order, then we go back on the combo. We must watch out for the city to always have 5 fpt, the 10 spt should not be a problem.
What does the team think of this?
EDIT: This cycle, assuming that I'm not wrong about the numbers, can give us later 2 settlers, 2 spears/archers and 2 workers in 12 turns compared to 3 settlers and 3 warriors for 12 turns at regular 4 turn cycle. I think it's worth more.

 

[Mach]

Khan, I like your rax plan there, nice job, with one reservation that I'll get to in a sec. Your plan for settlers/spears/workers is functionally identical to the spear --> worker --> settler cycle (in 6 turns from size 5 -> 7) I suggested earlier, so I like that too.

My reservation is the rax plan sticks us with little military for the next ~15 turns. That rax could be 4 warriors, or 2 spear/archers. I'm just pointing out that your plan will leave us with 5 warriors (plus what units we can squeeze out of blue dots, maybe 2 warriors?) to cover 4 cities and 2+ workers for 15 turns. Chunky, you think you're up to this? We can't expect to win all barb battles...and I guess we're assuming that we only have barbs to deal with, I hope that's a reasonable assumption at this point...