SGOTM8 - Xteam

[Capt Buttkick]

Sorry for rushing this. I didn't mean to reduce our spam count
It's just that I expect I'll have a stressful work week ahead of me and this was a good time to play.
I thought I knew where we were going, but as you can see, we're so far off the plan, I think we need to redraw another plan. Again, sorry.

Turn 80 - 1000 BC Looking good

IBT: Alex wants us to move. CoL is researched.
Wash Settler --> Rax With our semi-loose city fit, we've got a lot of lands that are worked up, but not used. We can always revert back to the settler factory once we get some military.

Turn 81 – 975 BC One warrior is through Greek lands. Our worker count is very good, espescially considering we're industrial
CoL, map and 20 gold to Alex for Philo and Myst
We've got no upgrade schemes that I'm aware of so Republic at 80% with a 1 gold deficit is my choice, due in 25.

Turn 82 - 950 BC Not much.

IBT: Philly Archer -> archer

Turn 83 - 925 BC Founded St. Louis as a channel city (not that it will help our ships much...). Civ Assist says 76% corruption so we should be able to squeeze a few shields out of it. I propose a courthouse aided by some chops to get it moving. Also, building this city puts another FP and a few forests within our borders, possibly for use by other cities.
Workers start on the final bit of road to the Chinese.

IBT: Seattle Archer --> Archer

Turn 84 - 900 BC Greek and Chinese have maths.

IBT: Chinese build Pyramids

Turn 85 – 875 BC Not much.

IBT: Wash Rax --> Archer. Boston Archer --> Archer. Atlanta Archer --> Archer. Houston Warrior --> Walls. Kyoto finishes Oracle.

Turn 86 – 850 BC Spear in Wash is substituted by an archer and starts moving N to cover our archers.

IBT: Buffalo Warrior --> Archer.

Turn 87 - 825 BC We can buy contacts with Japan, England and Rome.
China: Buy contact with Japan for Gems and 11 gold.
Japan: Buy contact with the English for WMap and 6 gold.
Greece: Get HBR and 489 gold for 35 gpt.
England: Get contact with Rome and WMap for Literature, WMap and 6 gpt. The Chinese have a city on another island and it looks like there's a lot of islands here...
Rome: Get maths, Wmap and 3 gold for 8gpt and Wmap.
England: Sell WMap for 25 gold.

Rush walls in Houston. Declare on Greece, throw in Rome and England for good measure
We're not ready to take on China yet so establish embassy and ally them against Greece for WMap and 149 gold.
Research adjusted back up again.

IBT: Chinese reg warrior defends without loss against Greek elite warrior
Philly Archer --> Worker (we should hook the other source of gems up.
Miami Warrior --> Walls.
Houston Walls --> Archer.

Turn 88 - 800 BC Rush Archer in Buffalo. I've never 'ed so much in my life

IBT: Washington Archer --> Archer. Buffalo Archer --> Archer.

Turn 89 - 775 BC Not much.

IBT: Seattle Archer --> Archer. San Fransisco Rax --> Archer.

Turn 90 - 750 BC Not much.


Notes: Sorry for throwing us so completely off the course, but I thought the deals I got were too good to pass up. And I guess one thing I've learnt from civing is you need to plan ahead, but you also need to be able to let those plans go if you're presented with a better alternative. I'm a little in doubt whether I did the right thing here though, I was gambling that the other continent weren't on tech level with China and Greece. As it turned out, the only way out of the quagmire I had traded myself into was to shoot our rep

The worker SE of Philly is on its way to set up another gems colony.

Firaxis 319. Jason 205.

 

[leif erikson]

Good work Capt.!!

What a surprise, we certainly have something to talk about now!

We *could* trade for horses with China for all our Gold plus 2 GPT and build an army of horses. I don't see how we're going to touch Greece with Archers versus Hoppies.

We prolly need to get a worker down south to claim another gem hill pretty quickly.

Ideas?
EDIT - BTW, our rep is gone, so don't think too nicely!

Roster:
Nemesis - UP
Gator - On Deck
Bluebox
Leif
Willow
Capt. - Just played!

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I'm not suggesting we should take on Greece before we get knights. What we need to do now, I think, is build a sufficient force to wipe out most (all but one?) of the on-island Chinese cities, get the off-island ones in a peace deal and then jump palace North. We can then obliterate China at will and go for Greece with knights once we get to the iron in the north, which could still be possible.

The one and only reason I declared on Greece was that I took a gamble that didn't pay off w/r to tech trading. I couldn't picture us running a deficit of 10-15 gpt at 0% research...

I considered the horse deal but thought better of it cause at the time we looked to be a long way off HBR. As of now, I don't think we can afford it. I'd rather see the Republic under our belt asap.

Screenie of NE China with the off-island Tientsin.

@leif: there's a worker en route to the gems. ETA is 2-3 turns

GL Nemesis, keep building military to prepare for removing the pimple on history's bottom that is China

Edit: thanks for the , leif. You know I love that one

 

[leif erikson]

@leif: there's a worker en route to the gems. ETA is 2-3 turns

Edit: thanks for the , leif. You know I love that one

Your welcome! And good thinking on sending the worker.

What do you think of the idea of trading away our Gold for Horses and spending the time building an Army of Horsies?

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I considered the horse deal but thought better of it cause at the time we looked to be a long way off HBR. As of now, I don't think we can afford it. I'd rather see the Republic under our belt asap.
Anyway, I think archers will work well in this situation:
1) We're pretty close to China with roads all the way there.
2) They're cheaper and you still get attack strength 2.

 

[DJMGator13]

I think the horse deal could be good. Get some horses into our army and then declare on China.

Is China still building the Great Library?

If we get Republic first should we start some off-island wars with some MA to try to get a free city on their island?

 

[bluebox]

Maybe we can get Delphi in peace deal and create an iron colony. Archers would be sufficient to attack China. As long a Greece has no oversea settlements we can wait for Knights to finish them off. Hoplites are difficult even with swords.

 

[leif erikson]

What I was thinking about with the horse deal was to build something we could upgrade later. An Archer Army is fine until we get to the MA.

@Bluebox - We have 7 Archers, we could use a few more, and they could begin the battles against China. I agree that they'll be fine until we break out of the Jungle. So Horses could advance north of the jungle area and fight it out around Canton and Beijing.

@Gator - Rome, Greece, China, England and Japan are all building The Great Library.

There are 17 turns left in our alliance with China against Greece. We are losing 7 GPT with 11 turns left until Republic.

What is the advantage to going to Republic now? We suffer war weariness, we have to pay maintenance on all units as we lose town support and we lose the ability to use MP to keep cities happy. Unless we need Republic to trade? I'm not sure I see a huge advantage in moving to Republic right away while I do see quite an advantage in getting Horses and wiping out China and, hopefully, Greece soon after.

The race is to fastest finish. What will get us there faster, Republic or conquering China and Greece? Or will Republic help us to more quickly do in our adversaries.

BTW - China has a colony on the island with Rome.

 

[WillowBrook]

Wow! Much excitement! I'm glad I'm not up next.

Currently, I'm not so sure Republic is a great idea for us now. We can use pointly-stick research to catch up. Note: opinion on this topic subject to complete change without notice.

China's the obvious victim, but the question is how long we should wait. Should we totally trash our rep?

(I haven't looked at the game; this is all based on a skim of the above posts....)

 

[TheNemesis666]

woah, bit of catching up there. Nice stuff guys (edit: argh! and girl, sorry willow, i was using 'guys' in a non gender specific manner . I don't think we want to completely trash our rep by declaring on china too soon. But having said that i've got nothing against doing it.
I think i'll look at getting some off shore war's going, who's the best target? We want them to have some crappy little cities that won't get crushed in the war and will make nice gifts to us. I'll try get to this tonight but if I don't I won't make it till wednesday. (monday arvo at the time of this post)

 

[Capt Buttkick]

We won't suffer WW if we're not attacked. China will shield us from anything but a few feeble naval invasions so I'm not too worried about that.

I really don't mind if we break the MA or not, but we should make sure we get the horses city as we do. What I propose is that we block off China's access to our cities in the south, RoP with them and then trash what's left of our rep in an RoP rape of the horses city. We won't need many more archers than we've already got if we do it that way.

My main reason for continuing research on the Republic is that we've got loads of river and coast tiles in our productive core. With our limited military, we're probably around even w/r to gold once we get to the Republic.
So you're asking what we're gaining by going for the Republic now? A huge increase in food and shields + reduced corruption (admittedly of limited effect with the way our empire looks atm).

 

[leif erikson]

We won't suffer WW if we're not attacked. China will shield us from anything but a few feeble naval invasions so I'm not too worried about that.

You're right about this. But my concern is more for when we do turn on China, more below, as there is a relatively good chance we may lose a city or 2 before we can come out on top.

I really don't mind if we break the MA or not, but we should make sure we get the horses city as we do. What I propose is that we block off China's access to our cities in the south, RoP with them and then trash what's left of our rep in an RoP rape of the horses city. We won't need many more archers than we've already got if we do it that way.

To turn on China and ROP rape them with 7 to 10 Archers is not going to impress them very much, imho. That is why I am thinking that we take advantage of the situation you've set up by letting China and Greece fight it out, consuming units, I hope, while we build a force to take them both down. China is shielding us from Greece, as you've said. That means we have 17 turns to take advantage of the situation while they have 17 turns of losing units to one another. By building Horses, we take maximun advantage of the time. Instead of Republic in 11 turns, We can still do it in 15, with the deal for horses and be making 3 GPT.

My main reason for continuing research on the Republic is that we've got loads of river and coast tiles in our productive core. With our limited military, we're probably around even w/r to gold once we get to the Republic.
So you're asking what we're gaining by going for the Republic now? A huge increase in food and shields + reduced corruption (admittedly of limited effect with the way our empire looks atm).

The other problem will be being at war while we suffer through whatever period of anarchy we earn. Given our RNG luck, we'd get 8 turns. Seriously, I think you've made a case for changing to Republic, but I'd wait until we have the situation with China more or less resolved and we have some horses around.

@Nemesis - Over seas wars, looks like Rome is the most powerful so Japan and England against Rome is a good bet. However, Japan doesn't have their Iron hooked up so you'd be setting them up far a fall, imho. Besdies, if we do the horse deal, there wouldn't be enough gold for adventurism, atm.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I didn't realize we were so close to doing both.
I think we should do the gpt deal and continue research on the Republic.
That way we can do a deal with China towards the end of the MA, buying all their tech and gold for the Republic and still be ready to take them on when the MA is over.

And that way they will be in anarchy when we attack

I don't think we need more wars atm, no

 

[WillowBrook]

Good discussion, guys! (BTW, I consider "guys" to be gender-neutral unless clearly intended to be exclusive. )

I wish I had something intelligent to add to the discussion....

 

[leif erikson]

And that way they will be in anarchy when we attack

I don't think we need more wars atm, no

Now that is a truely delicious thought!

We should have time to build a small army of horsies while China exhausts itself on Greek Hoplites. Greece's Golden Age should be waning and we should be ready to do some serious

In less productive cities that have Barracks, archers and spears are in order I think. Washington should pump settlers to fill. Gator should have one hell of a time!

Thanks for the discussion Capt!

 

[leif erikson]

Thanks for the discussion Capt!

Well, sorry, I didn't mean that this should end the discussion.

I was just thanking the Capt for having such a good one!

EDIT - Anyone had any more thoughts about a FP? I was also wondering. Once we build a FP, if the city it is in gets captured or destroyed, do we get to build another or is it gone forever? I've never tried this out

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I said I'd be busy.

I'm thinking: instead of setting up for the palace jump with all the hassle involed, perhaps we hould rely on a GL to build the FP in Beijing? We need to watch out for flips of course, but possibly we could wait until China has been eliminated if it's quick work.

Don't know about the rebuild issue.

 

[leif erikson]

I said I'd be busy.

I'm thinking: instead of setting up for the palace jump with all the hassle involed, perhaps we hould rely on a GL to build the FP in Beijing? We need to watch out for flips of course, but possibly we could wait until China has been eliminated if it's quick work.

Don't know about the rebuild issue.

Yes, you did! Hope you're not too busy however.....

I'm going to get cited for excessive posting before too much longer.
I don't think I've ever said so much in the almost 2 years on this site...

On to the game, I'd prefer not to use Beijing as it is too close to the ocean, I'd like to be able to build cities all around it, if possible. I do agree that up norht looks to be the best.

 

[leif erikson]

In case anyone is interested, the SGOTM08 QSC results have been posted here.

All teams have completed thru 1000 BC and have posted their saves. Thanks Alan!!

We placed 11th of the 15 teams in score. We were tied for highest number of cities (11) but our pop was 24 versus Team Wacken's 38, the highest. We were last in the number of techs known with 11, the highest was 17 (Team Klarius). Reading through the details, I thought we were right up there in most important stats, except population and number of shields produced.

Maybe we should think a little bit about how we could have done better, or, if it matters? What is the most important thing we should try to achieve in the QSC and did we do it?

 

[DJMGator13]

OK, I've briefly caught up on the discussion. Let me start by saying that these ideas are coming after working both days of the weekend and putting in back to back 11+ hour days at work.

I like the combined idea of doing the horse deal and continuing to research Republic. That one tech could help gets us out of the AA if we can be the first one with it. Someone said we could drop research from 11 turns to 15 turns and still do the horse deal, that sounds like a good plan.

Once the horse deal is done switch any archer builds to horses and let's start building an army. Target should still be China. I'd let China and Greece continue to fight it out while we russle up some ponies and watch from the sidelines.

If Greece actually manages to build an off-island city we might be able to steal it in a peace deal while they are at war with China.

Do we have a current ROP with China? If not we just want to make sure we have no troops in their land when we declare that way we protect our ability to do ROP later in the game.

Longer range plan:
Our goal for the war with China is to get that off-island city in a peace deal. We should also declare on Rome about the same time we declare on China. Then we need to bring in Japan (dark green) against Rome. Hopefully Rome will capture some of Japan's smaller cities which might allow us to sue for peace with Rome and gain a foothold on their big island.

On the QSC stats:
As leif said it's a race to the fastest finish not the highest score.

That's it.Time for Gator to say "brain hurts" and go to bed.