SGOTM7 - Team tao

[Furiey]

Worker>Warrior>Settler sounds good, we'll then have one to join to Iznik without stopping our current ones. And i had forgotten about the oysters....

Daily Tao - hmmm - reminds me of my days in college, the computer system there gave us one everyday when we logged in...

edit: the 3 sites mentioned sound about right, not sure about the order though. The spices would be useful, particularly as we're growing Iznik. The Eastern RCP 4 site would give more tiles to Iznik as well by expanding our culture. The cows are tempting though...

 

[Renata]

Ok, I cracked some numbers. If we leave Iznik to grow without joining workers, we won't build the library until the 600s BC or so. That may well beat the AIs, but I wouldn't call it ideal -- we'd certainly be forced to do a lot of additional research ourselves in order to have good units to take care of AI landings.

We should be able to get lit in 40-45 turns -- by 1000-900 BC if we can get our science output up to about 20 beakers per turn by the time writing comes in. (There's no point in turning up research now by the way; with half the min-research time done already, we won't get to enough beakers to make a difference by the time it'd be done anyway.) So I won't argue with maybe one or two worker joins to try to get the Library built faster.

As far as timing goes. Iznik has about 1/3 corruption, but if its citizens are rearranged, it can get to 5/6 commerce uncorrupted. Right now Iznik is making 4/5 shields. On growth or worker join, it'd go to either 5/6 or 5/7 I think, so it should make no difference whether its next tile is a mined bonus grass or an irrigated plains. The roaded plains tile by Sogut could be irrigated faster than mining the Iznik bg, so I'd do that next.

I checked up on foreign affairs, which I believe we're allowed to do. Both civs have the wheel, mysticism and iron-working (and possibly HBR or polytheism), but no writing yet, which is good. I'm still undecided about contacting the Arabs, but if we do, it should be within the next ten turns to allow time for them to build up cruddy land units before they can build galleys.

We need some military units very soon now, of whatever type.

Renata

 

[tao]

Excuse me, but IMHO you (you all?) are not at all on the correct strategy wrt the Great Library.

Let's assume we need 40-45 turns to learn literature.

We still have to produce 374 shields for GLib. This are 8.3 shields per turn after corruption for 45 turns,. i.e. 10-11 gross shields per turn. On average.

Taking into account the tiles available - if we don't want to impede out settler factory in Sogut - we need 6 more citizens: 1 mined bg(2), 3 irrigated plains(1), 2 mined hills (4).

And that is on average starting now! Thus "joining maybe 1 or 2 workers" is totally inadequate. We have to improve Iznik tiles, settle east to make the gras available, and very very aggressively increase population.

 

[Renata]

I understand what you're saying, Tao, but I don't think we can afford to be that aggressive. If we were wholly isolated, sure, but we're not. We'll be having visitors by shortly after 1000 BC at best -- if we bend all efforts towards Iznik, the rest of our empire will be in bad shape. We need at least a half-dozen or so archers, lots of warriors for emergency back-up, *and* a properly prepared bait city by the time the AIs get mapmaking if we want to be really safe. We still don't even have a single barracks. We haven't even started a single barracks!

A couple of worker joins, timed so as to use 2f/2s tiles as they come available (if we like, we could use forests, too -- mined hills are useless in despotism with forests around), should allow us to save a few centuries on the Great Library build without wholly crippling the rest of our empire. That's my instinct, anyway. As to yours -- if we do bend all efforts to improving Iznik, what do you think we'd have by 1000 BC elsewhere (military, workers, cities)? How would you plan on fighting off the first invasions?

I'm willing to be persuaded, of course, but my instinct is so opposite yours that I need some sort of assurance we wouldn't be getting ourselves into an impossible military situation.

Renata

 

[tao]

What I want to assure is that we have "powerful" units like swords, horsemen, catapults available once the AI starts invading us. And for these we need the Great Library.

For now, we "only" have to fight the barbarians - IMHO we should do it mostly defensive. Let them attack our fortified units and hope for promotions. This we can do with regular warriors.

While we have the time, I strongly advocate to build-up our infrastructure. And for this we need lots of workers and settlers.

Sogut should be switched to worker, warrior. Izmit should build a worker after the warrior. The new eastern town should build warrior-worker. Uskudar should get a granary after the worker and become a woker/settler pump. etc.

If we build workers "everywhere", we don't need to improve lots of tiles for the other cities asap.

And all the time we should invest resources not urgently(!) needed elsewhere into the Great Library.

 

[Renata]

When do you think the AIs will get mapmaking? My guess is before 1000 BC, which is why I'm so antsy about having good cities other than Iznik.

Renata

 

[tao]

When do you think the AIs will get mapmaking? My guess is before 1000 BC, which is why I'm so antsy about having good cities other than Iznik.

We will learn it because

• the AIs will start the GLight
• barb galleys will show up

and the initial AI invasions will be easy to deal with. I prefer very much to have swords and horsemen over archers. Thus the strive for GLib.

 

[Tone]

"antsy"? What's that?

(forgive me if this is an obvious typo that I cannot see)

BTW my view is that we need a more balanced build up than to put all our efforts into one town and risk being rolled over. I can live with a few archers before the GLib. I'm holding back my turns until this discussion leads to an agreement if that's OK with you all. If not give me a nudge and I'll get my turns underway.

 

[tao]

"antsy"? What's that?

If not give me a nudge and I'll get my turns underway.

My dict client knows it all:

antsy: adjective: agitated, impatient, or restless : he was too antsy to stay in one place for long. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: probably from the phrase have ants in one's pants (see ant ).

"nudge" This is not a decision to implement in 10 turns. IMHO you should play and maybe we learn something from the events.

PS: You windows people don't have dict clients installed? Unbelievable!

 

[Renata]

"antsy" = jumpy, anxious, nervous. Common and venerable slang, at least where I live.

@ Tao: you didn't really answer my question. I was asking for an estimate on AI mapmaking date. I know we'll find out as soon as they do get it. It's my own estimate of about 1200-1100 BC that's making me so nervous. Do you really think it'll be later? All the AIs need is writing and maps to get there, although they'll probably go for HBR first (no barb horses yet, right?) and maybe math. Diety AIs can get four techs in 30 turns even alone unless their territory really stinks.

Renata

 

[Tone]

Quick replies. Well you live and learn. I can't recall ever hearing it before. Maybe I have a calming influence that stops people from getting nervous around me

One worker or two from our capital after the next settler? I'll play tomorrow if that's OK but I'll take a look at the save later this evening-it's just that I now have my C3C disk in and the game is not at a good place to stop.

 

[Sabre]

I guess it comes down to two options.

First, we could research Lit at max. I estimate we could get Lit in 17t with a 333 beaker cost and an estimated 19bpt from our 4 towns and 4 more built in the meantime. This would get us Lit at around 1050bc. We would need an average of 10spt - 12 before corruption I think. This would require us to get to pop 6 quickly to get the Library shortly after 1000bc. This wouldn't leave us much gold for upgrades so it would still be a short time before we would have a servicable force of Swords/Horses for defense.

Second, we could research Lit at min. This would get us Lit at 530bc. Iznik would only need an average of 7spt to reach that date or pop 4. Even growing naturally, Iznik should be able to beat that rate. Adding 1-2 Workers could push our build date up 10-15 turns (850-730bc). This would leave us with @600-700g for immediate upgrades with the extra land improvements the 2-3 Workers saved.

Either way, we would need to rely on Warriors and Archers to fend off any early attacks. I agree that the early attacks will be pretty weak. Galleys can only be built in a handful of AI towns so it'll take a bit for them to be able to do more than drop off 1-2 units occasionally and until the AI starts exploring and making contacts we'll only be at war with 2-3 civs.

The slow path to Lit will allow for better producing tiles, but we will still only be building Archers, Warriors and Spears. Will the Library come before the attacks start heating up? If the AI's do get Map Making around 1000bc - and that sounds reasonable, if we can get Lit in that time, the advanced AI could be able to get the slightly more expensive MM - things should be getting hot around 800bc.

I think I would prefer the fast path to Lit. If we can get the Library around 1000bc we should be able to get a small group of Swords built in time to handle the attacks and then use connecting/disconnecting of iron to quickly build up an attack force of Swords to hit our weakest neighbor. The quicker we can hurt the civs closest to us, the quicker we reign in the attacks on our core and get our second core set up. If we build constant workers out of Uskudar and start each other town with warrior/worker/barracks I don't think the pumping up of Iznik (should we rename one of these towns? I need to look every time I mention one) will hurt our development too much. We are industrious and will be improving tiles quickly.

 

[tao]

Good grieve no! Don't even think about a min research on literature. We need to research it full speed. Or at the necessary speed to learn it once our GLib pre-build is ready. But delaying and loosing it would be nearly fatal. We will earn all the money we need for upgrades from 0% science once we have GLib.

 

[tao]

There is a Daily Tao available on the net; as widget (for ), email, or RSS.

And today it says
Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter's place.
When you handle the master carpenter's tools,
chances are that you'll cut your hand.

 

[Renata]

Thanks, Sabre. That's the sort of analysis I needed to see to convince me the fast path is worth a shot. Ok, I'm in agreement. We're just going to have to be really really proactive once the AI do get mapmaking to make sure we have a nicely prepared spot for them to land (a spear in Izmit to keep them away from those nasty forests would be very nice) and enough archers and warriors to keep them from razing anything.

Renata

 

[Furiey]

Not a lot I can add other than ditto to max on Literature. The last thing we need is to slow things up and miss the Great Library. So Settle in the East first and join those Workers! We won't find out now where the Iron is (if we have any that is) until we get the GL We know it won't be on the hills with the Olives or the Incense, that leaves mostly mountains. Hopefully it won't be on the hill in the far N, we might have some fun trying to defend that - it would be a prime landing spot for the AI if that was the case.

Oh, and yes please DO rename one of those cities, it drove me absolutely mad in my turns and I founded one of them!

 

[Tone]

Oh, and yes please DO rename one of those cities, it drove me absolutely mad in my turns and I founded one of them!

Any suggestions?

 

[Keath]

Sorry everyone, it's been a long weekend here and we've had company.

This might be true on lower levels. This is deity. And always war. We will have galleys, the AIs frigates. Our galleys will loose - it is as easy as this.

The AI won't have frigates for awhile yet. But this is even more reason to have plenty of galleys. A frigate can only take out one boat at a time. I maintain that control of the seas will be an important goal. I hate to lose 100s of shields for lack of escorts.

How do we guarantee getting our troops to enemy shores without transporting them by sea? Differential ship movement is on so we can only move 2 coastal tiles per turn. With the GLH we will be able to move 3 coastal tiles. I won't labour this point but anyway that we can gain naval superiority is good stuff and there seems to be several ideas that might work.

I'll have more comments when I've caught up on all the posts.

 

[Renata]

Any suggestions?

How about rename Izmit to NotIznik?

Renata

 

[tao]

How do we guarantee getting our troops to enemy shores without transporting them by sea?

We already know that our galleys can reach India, Zulus, and Arabs within 1 turn plus return to harbor. No risk of loosing any ships. I suggest we postpone the naval discussion until we know more about the world.

Regarding the Great Lighthouse: I see no chance at all for a manual build on deity. And we won't probably know map making until after the Great Library is finished.

The IMHO only valid point of discussion will be whether we use our first Great Leader for the Great Lighthouse.

I would probably use him for an army to enable Heroic Epic and more Leaders.

Note: If we use him for Hanging Gardens, our Golden Age will be triggered. And we at least want to be monarchy before that happens.

Always assuming we get the Great Library.