SGOTM8 - klarius

[Ronald]

Two things I forgot:

First: I have a worker chopping forest. The shields should go to Atlanta (distance 1) or Boston (distance 1.5).I never know exactly where to.

Second: Finally I read the complete announcement and it says that also for C3C communications can be traded with writing and maps with mapmaking. So some major trading opportunities might come up very soon. Please check every turn.

Ronald

 

[Ronald]

I was just looking at the score graph: Wacken has an icredible lead over everybody else. Does anybody have an idea what they could have done differently?
We are not doing badly either, the 4 turn settler factory is showing improved results compared to most of the other teams

Ronald

 

[Ciceronian]

That was pretty well done, Ronald, our 4-turn settler factory has really got going! But in turns 1, 5, and 9 of your write-up you mention founding Atlanta, which is obviously a typo. We're doing quite while and already have a stable little empire, our next priorities should be heading north and clearing out the SE corner to link up the gems with a colony.

I've regularly been checking the progress graphs, and I've sure noticed Wacken's mad score! No idea why they're doing so well, they've probably tampered their game to get such incredible scores! But remember the score isn't important in this game, it's all about being the fastest to win.

Next up is Northern Pike, but he said he would be away 'til August 15th, hence klarius would be up. Confirm?

 

[Megalou]

I've sure noticed Wacken's mad score!

Let's hope they popped an early town (3000 BC) or we are all morons. There is a spot in their graph where they could have done it & then built a settler in that town in 2550 BC.

Ronald, very well played! The warriors are well placed with regards to barbs and it was a feat to keep the factory intact and not lose a worker or settler.

The gems can't help us with the sling-shot. There are too many worker moves needed. But of course they should be hooked up eventually.

 

[Megalou]

Re: chop. I'm pretty sure the shields will go to Boston. Check cracker's chop thread if you want to know 100%.

 

[Ciceronian]

Let's hope they popped an early town (3000 BC) or we are all morons. There is a spot in their graph where they could have done it & then built a settler in that town in 2550 BC.

As far as I know you can't pop settlers from goody huts in SGotM, same ruleset as GotM in that regard. You can only pop workers. But even a set of workers or good techs from goody huts can't accelerate thier score in such a way!

 

[Evil_Kanevil]

Glad to see that them barbarians are being dealt with.

I was just looking at the score graph: Wacken has an icredible lead over everybody else. Does anybody have an idea what they could have done differently?

It doesn't feel like they could've gotten that far ahead of us in score without something out of the ordinary happening. Maybe they popped tech and got a SGL to rush pyramids if that is possible?

Or maybe they've just got mad skillz

Anyway I looked at the save, just wanted to say that we can get CoL in one turn by assigning one scientist in seattle and no other changes.

 

[Ciceronian]

I think SGLs are turned off. However it is possible that Megalou's guess was correct, as it is still possible to pop cities straight from the goody huts, instead of a settler. Maybe they were really lucky and got a city.

 

[tomasjj]

lurkers comment: I am pretty sure you cant pop settlers, only workers. Ask the mods.

 

[Padma]

lurker's comment: You *can* possibly pop a city from a Goody Hut. You cannot pop Settlers. But, as AlanH has said in the Maintenance thread, no one has popped any cities.

It is theoretically possible to pop a city from a hut.
The hut must not be on a mountain.
No one to my knowledge has yet popped a city in this game.
It is not possible to pop a settler from a hut.

When the game is over you'll be able to look at the team threads and see how the different results were achieved.

 

[klarius]

Well, I got it, but am too tired to play tonight (I just moved and now running around to buy some furniture). I will play tomorrow.
The chop would go to Atlanta, if I remember the sequence correctly (clockwise around the chopper starting with the right tile). But it's still two turns and no problem to steer it to any of the two cities via a wonder build after I thought about where it is needed more.

For team Wacken, I think they will just have expanded with high risk again and maybe an early worker from a hut. This early a few turns earlier expansion make a big difference. Running higher risk can give the granary 2 turns earlier and a hut worker can probably give another 2-3 turns. I just never run the highest risk and my RNG luck is also limited .

BTW we all thought about a wonder driven golden age. We should think about where to build hanging gardens. Pyramids is too late and we need an industrous wonder.
Also the next city should trigger the FP. We also should think about where to build this.

 

[Ronald]

We should build it to the North obviously since I don't think a palace jump makes too much sense in C3C. We can either build it in our NC8 or more North. NC8 it can be easily hand build. Further North we might need a GL.
Personally I would build it further North, but I was very often wrong with FP sites.
For Hanging Gardens I would suggest Chicago. It has some production potential with 2BG, 3mined grass, and a mined mountain. We don't need military at the moment, so we can divert the shields easily now.
Any idea about the expansionist wonder you want to build?
Collossus we will miss, light house is useless for us and also pretty useless to prevent anybody from having it. Copernicus would be nice, but might already be a bit late. So maybe lighthouse.

Any more ideas?

 

[klarius]

If we really have to go to advanced flight, Cops isn't bad for a golden age (even a bit early).
Greeks are building Colossus in Athens so there is still hope to get it from them (though it will also still take quite some time until we can think of attacking a hoplite capital).
Generally we have a bit of a problem, we don't have high production cities, but the cities need a lot infrastructure ( aqueducts, libraries, harbors). At the same time we would like to build some wonders.

 

[klarius]

Ok played. Save

Turn log:

Preflight:
Preferences are set quite strangely. Especially autosave is off
Set the preferences to what I like.
Get us a scientist in Seattle for 1 turn to complete CoL.
I told you my city planning is bad and now I see it.
I change philadelphia to a warrior so it can grow a bit.
Boston to archer - I want at least one hunter.
Hit return..

IBT:
CoL comes in -> philosophy. Trade via big picture. Math+33g from China for CoL.
Myst+TW + 89g from Greece for math and CoL.

Turn 1 1475:
Check our land - no horses. China has horses hooked, Greece not.
Move scout and see the chinese horses.
Build San Francisco.
MM little.

Turn 2 1450:
Workers work.MM a little.

Turn 3 1425:
Same as before.

Turn 4 1400:
Same as before.

Turn 5 1375:
A barb horse has killed our northern warrior. Warrior kills redlined horse and settler moves in.
MM for philo in 2 with a few scientists.

IBT:
Mao demands 25g and gets it.

Turn 6 1350:
Greece and China have map making.

IBT:
Philosophy comes in. Trade to tech parity using philosophy, maps, gold and gpt. Slingshot to republic.
Revolt, 6-turn anarchy. I'm not selling republic currently. Hope for a better offer later.

Turn 7 1325:
Not much to do in anarchy . Workers work a little slower.
Iron is also a slight problem. Greece has one.
There is a free one in the very north, but that needs a city there and double culture expansion.

Turn 8 1300:
Not much. Trading maps, which I will do every turn.

Turn 9 1275:
The same.

Turn 10 1250:
Well still 2 turns anarchy. Nothing much to do.

When we come out of anarchy we should quickly finish literature, to get some libraries (courthouse builds are prebuilds) up.
We still need settlers, to grab every free chunk of land. And lots of workers. We need to mine mountains (and irrigate grass) and soon probably also chop jungle.
Maybe one settler should really go for the long march to the north.
We have neither horses nor iron available. I'm not quite sure what to do.
With our need for infra a big archer rush isn't really possible.
I would probably expand some more peacefully. By the time we really run out of land we probably can then go with longbows.
Still no other contacts. So no really good deals.

I'm on dial-up currently (DSL coming tuesday hopefully in new home) so I leave out the screenie.

 

[Ronald]

Hi Klarius,

Looks good to me. Nice play as always .
The most important goal so far was republic and we made it. That's great. 6 turns anarchy was not lucky. It will be a difficult game, but I don't see any big problems in the near future.
The next city in my opinion should be NW of the current scout position to get hold on dyes, and then after finishing the 2 remaining cities in our core ICS style north as close as posssible towards shangai. (BTW I would build the city planned NNE of San Francisco one tile further NE on the desert).
China has no iron either, so we will face only spearman, so even with archers it can be done, but we will have longbows available at that time, so no problem.
Greece will be much more of a problem since they will get horses soon from the island next to them.
The horses on the island SW of us are a nice teaser!
China should settle on the island SW of us. We could then by peace talks get a foothold on that island. Since nobody showed up there so far it is probably and empty island, if another civ shows up the the better.

With MM around for some turns now, I am expecting new contacts fairly soon.
We should check every turn and maybe we get lucky and can secure horses and/or iron from other civs.
I checked our cities and I think it is possible to switch the entertainer inphiladelphia to scientist without getting the city to riot.

Some more longterm thoughts:
Our core land has little production possibilities, but I don't see any way out (by the way if we come towards advanced flight we can substitute food for production with civil engineers).
The only cure would be to completely abandon our current core and move it in the middle of the continent, somewhere near Corinth. This would give us in the long run the best core on this continent.
It would require a massive archer rush right away and no improvements in our current core.
The negative part on this scenario is, that we will loose China and Greece as trading partners and hoplites against archers are tough.
The positive would be the long term effect of the best core available.
We should have some discussion about these two options right away, since it will influence our planning from now onwards.

Who is up? Northern Pike or Ciceronian?

 

[Ciceronian]

I'm up next. It was Northern Pike's turn after you, Ronald, but since he isn't ready yet klarius played.

Lots of things to discuss. I'm in favour of triggering our GA with Copernicus, using the Lighthouse would be an aweful waste, espicially as it is as expensive to build as the Pyramids. And as klarius rightly pointed out, Copernicus is still relatively early compared to Advanced Flight.

I'm a bit sceptical about an archer rush. That would be suicide against hoplites. I can't see where iron and horses are at the moment, so I can't judge too well on that. I think we should definitely wait for longbows. What about Knights' Templar, is that a viable alternative?

 

[Megalou]

We should have some discussion about these two options right away, since it will influence our planning from now onwards.

Sooner or later the capital change should be made like you describe it (~Corinth). But with archers in republic? The unit cost would stop our research completely. I suppose we could prebuild a few archers for upgrade to longbowman, but I think we should go ahead with those libraries.

1. Research heavily towards invention, keep roading the jungle.
2. Use longbows to take horses from China.
3. Use cavalry or knights to take over the continent and set up a new core.

 

[Ciceronian]

Yes, that sounds like a sensible long-term plan. I take it with roading the jungle you mean chopping first, then roading?

 

[Megalou]

Yes unless there is an urgent need to connect a resource, I don't road jungles directly either.

 

[Megalou]

I've been thinking about our possible military plans. At the moment, the Chinese horses are at the edge of their empire. So rather than building up a costly army of archers/longbows we could perhaps expand our way to those horses. If the below setup works or almost works, we won't need a very big army and hence can keep unit support down.

Edit: our dyes town should surely be one more step NE so we can road a hill instead of a jungle. Denser build is also an alternative but we are racing against time. Remember that the AI never bulid towns two tiles from any other town, because it's largely a matter of blocking the Chinese expansion.