shyuhe-5 - re-learning civ

[PaulusIII]

Okay, got the save. I'll play it tomorrow.

It indeed looks as if we've got only 1 decent site before we have to head for the jungle.

Early Writing might be an idea as well, so we can use the food surplus on specialists to get the research rate up a bit.

 

[silverbullet]

I don't think the map is that bad.
I think Archery can wait. Warriors should be fine with fogbusting, just send them in groups of 2. with all the jungle fortified warriors should defend well.

An option to seriously consider: great lighthouse. This means that after bronze working you research sailing and then masonry.
The extra trade routes will give you +4~6 commerce in every city.
IF there is NO iron and NO bronze on this map, you will need it to get construction soon and go to war with boudica.

I am not sure if you should first try to settle the excellent riverside corn/wine city or go directly to the great lighthouse.
I tend to go with GLH, since losing the GLH will cost more than losing that spot. GLH will guarantee you a decent tech rate, especially if there is another AI on the island (+3 per trade route with a foreign intercontinental civ).
Building a scouting workboat will be a priority after that.


EDIT: I just noticed that Boudica never declares war at pleased. That is good, because she founded a religion and it is likely to spread to you. I would switch ASAP and give in to any demand she makes. Once she is pleased you are safe and can your time to attack her when you are ready.

 

[shyuhe]

Indeed Boudica is not the backstabbing type at pleased, thankfully. So if she asks us for anything, we should acquiesce unless it's utterly outrageous.

silverbullet's GLH idea is good, but I don't know if it's worth sacrificing the one non-jungle infested city site. There are lots of trees that can be chopped in the capital so chopping out the GLH isn't entirely out of the question here. I would like to try making a run at the corn/wine site before starting construction of the GLH.

Writing is a tough call. If we go writing, it'll slow down any attempt at the GLH (especially since we'd have to build a library first). I think prioritizing the GLH over writing is better here since production will be more limiting than research until we can finish the GLH.

 

[Corneh]

i agree the map isn't too bad, but we will need alot of workers and iron working fast if we want to get those jungle cities up and running. I see a nice sugar rice city and a sugar cow city. and with the GLH every coastal city is gonna pay itself back quite fast

 

[PaulusIII]

All right, let's get a move on!

Inherited turn: Nothing happens.

Turn 21: The WB finished and I sent it to scout west of us. This might sound odd, but I want to know whether there's seafood near those hills. If so, another city on this side of the jungle might be an option.

Turn 23: Warrior finishes and I start another WB. Size 4 before the settler. NO seafood west of us, grrr.

Turn 29:
-BW is in, and of course there is no copper nearby. Start on Sailing.
-Settler is started after second WB. Second WB is used on another of the seafood north of us.

Turn 30: I check with the Warrior... just outside the city. And of COURSE HE GETS EATEN BY A PANTHER ON A HILL. AT 11,1% ODDS. GRRRRR.

Turn 31: Revolt to Slavery. With plenty of food I want to abuse slavery ASAP.

Turn 33: Settler is 2-pop whipped.

Turn 34: Whip overflow goes into a Warrior. The forest SW of Ulundi is prechopped for the GLH.

Turn 35: More whip overflow into a second warrior. I think sending two warriors to that site is best, seeing as the RNG has already screwed me once. And this is where I stop.

The lands as we know them:



By the looks of it, we're alone with Boudica, or at least on this landmass. This makes playing nice with her even more important, because I doubt we want isolation.

I'm not happy with this turnset. Of course that's just the RNG screwing me over, but still. If I did not think I could take a look outside the city, that warrior would have lived and the settler would have been on the road.

 

[Corneh]

got it! I will play in a couple of hours.

pregame plan:
tech: sailing --> masonry
cities: corn, wine
workers: pre chopping forests near capital for the GLH

 

[Diamondeye]

LURKER COMMENT:

An AI that thinks it has monopoly on a tech will not trade it away (I believe this can be overridden by Friendly, not sure though), so if you are alone with Boudica, she will not trade techs she believes she has monopoly on (meaning any techs you don't have ). Hence you can't use her for anything pre-Optics if you are isolated with her. If this is the situation I would either do as you plan and keep on her good side or make sure she's dead before Optics so she cannot influence your relations with the other civs.

 

[silverbullet]

LURKER COMMENT:

An AI that thinks it has monopoly on a tech will not trade it away (I believe this can be overridden by Friendly, not sure though), so if you are alone with Boudica, she will not trade techs she believes she has monopoly on (meaning any techs you don't have ). Hence you can't use her for anything pre-Optics if you are isolated with her. If this is the situation I would either do as you plan and keep on her good side or make sure she's dead before Optics so she cannot influence your relations with the other civs.

They will trade when friendly, but I think there is a high premium on that, because they are the only ones who know the tech. For some reason they agree to trade monarchy.

For this reason, it is very important to send an early workboat to scout. There is a small island north of capital, but it could be the start of a big landmass with a neighbour. (The area is very green, so we are definitely not in the far north).
This is a fractal map, so it is very likely to have more AIs accessible without optics. After writing you should also send workboat to boudica's land to meet more AIs.
Another thing which can help - look at the espionage screen. If you have more points on boudica than she has on you, this means that she knows someone else and spends some EP on them.

 

[shyuhe]

Tough break on the warrior there. Not much you can really do about it with 11% odds though. I agree that 2 warriors may be a safer plan, even if it will take longer to get the settler across the jungle. If we lose that settler, then we will have just wasted a good 30 turns or so that we could have spent on the GL

Sailing-masonry to get started on the GLH sounds like a good plan. After that, we should probably pick up archery to make sure we don't get eaten up by barbs. Also, could somebody flag the prechopped forests so that we don't accidentally chop them early?

Once we build the third workboat, we should definitely send it north before working the clams to see if there's any decent land to the north as well. Sounds like a sound plan for the meantime.

Roster
GreyFox
Paulus III just played
Corneh - UP for 15
Ralph_Jackson (on deck)
shyuhe

 

[shyuhe]

You still going to play your set Corneh?

 

[shyuhe]

Seeing as how there's no response, I'm going to skip Corneh.

Roster
GreyFox
Paulus III just played
Corneh skipped
Ralph_Jackson - UP for 15
shyuhe (on deck)

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Ok Got it for 15.

Ralph

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Well a very quiet 15 turns...Note I couldn’t play with the BUG Mod as I get the old “requires no mods message”

In summary

Our Warrior Settler pair headed southwest and gained revenge by polishing off the Panther on the way.

Capital Build Went Warrior, Workboat, Light House and started on the Great Lighthouse

T40 Sailing in Start on Masonry


By Turn 41 we had finished exploring Boudica’s western lands. She researched BW later but hasn’t yet got a city to hook up her Copper.



T45 Umug.... founded. Its building its own worker.



On Turn 47 with Masonry in we


We 2 pop whipped our lighthouse and started on TGL (city will grow unhappy before the Whip wears off.
Set research to Archery as we need something better than Warriors to defend with

EOT

Some exploring done to the N

2 Pre Chops Marked if we want to accelerate TGLH


2nd city is connected to Capital so will gain extra trade routes straight away and will finish its worker in 9 turns.
Archery in 2 then I guess AH -> Writing ready to whip it in and run 2 scientists in the capital?

 

[shyuhe]

Got it. I will work on getting Umug up to speed and chopping out the GLH. After that, we can try spamming some cities in earnest to catch up.


Roster
GreyFox (on deck)
Paulus III
Corneh
Ralph_Jackson just played
shyuhe - UP

 

[PaulusIII]

RJ, good set and thanks for finishing that panther.

I don't think we want AH yet. It's highly unlikely we have horses, and to be honest I like those pigs better mined. Ulundi does not need more food than it already has. So I prefer Writing first, and leave AH be. After Writing, I'd go for IW to get metal (hope we get iron) and chop jungles, then maybe head for Monarchy to get wine and HR.

It's good that landmass to the north seems to have some room for halfway decent cities. Once we have the cities on your landmass we really want, we can settle offshore for the extra commerce.

 

[GreyFox]

Good job with the exploration and settling uMung. Let's hope (1) the north is not already inhabited, and (2) uMung will persuade Boudica to not settle too aggressive towards us.

Agreed with us having more than enough food .... but whipping is probably more efficient than chopping pre-Maths. Just need to be sure we whip only after 10 turns (to avoid red faces).

--

 

[silverbullet]

Lurker's comments:
Does anyone know why Boudica is not connected to your trade network? Does she have to have sailing as well? That sounds strange to me. I remember games where I didn't have sailing but the AI did and we were connected.

In any case, you might want to tech wheel next, so you can build a road to her land and get those precious foreign trade routes. Mysticism is also a priority so you can pop some borders

It is a bit unfortunate that you pre-chopped the forested plain hill. There are many other forests to chop and this one actually has good production that you desperately need.

I agree about whipping being good. The best is to whip workers/settlers for 2-pop when there are 31 hammers left - this way you get a free archer the next turn from overflow (or a free granary if you tech pottery).

 

[shyuhe]

@silverbullet - Boudica is probably not connected to our trade network because we don't have a connection to her capital. I think her coastal city isn't connected to Bibracte yet so that's why we don't have a connection. We don't have writing yet anyways so it doesn't matter.

My report is brief (even more so since I misplaced my notes ).

I finished teching archery and then finished the wheel after that. I was thinking pottery -- writing after that. I stopped after we completed the wheel so that we can discuss the next few techs. We are also the proud owners of the GLH. Too bad we don't even have 4 cities to make 3 trade route per city yet

Also, the reason why I stopped early was because we have a settler coming up soon and I think we need to discuss where we're going to place cities. I've finished scouting the northern island - it has some seafood and a sheep but not much more. I think we should try to settle at least one city on the southern fringe of the border to discourage Boudica from settling in our direction.

This is the northern island:


And the southern jungle:


The one reason why we would want to settle on the island first is that inter-continental trading is worth more than intra-continental. However I think it's more important that we stake out a good southern border before we start peppering the north with cities. Any thoughts?

Also, you can't see it on the screenshot but Boudica has settled her third city to the SE of Umug.

Roster
GreyFox - UP
Paulus III (on deck)
Corneh
Ralph_Jackson
shyuhe just played

Also, let's play 10-15 turns per set. Just pick a good stopping point somewhere in that range.

 

[GreyFox]

I don't think the funny-shaped island to the north (although it is isolated, but it is also plain looking with more deserts than hills and forests) is counted as inter-continental ... since it is linked to our landmass via non-ocean tiles.

Our next city site should probably be on the east coast grabbing the cow and one sugar, leaving another city site in between the third city and the capitol to grab another sugar and rice.

And in order to discourage Boudica, we need culture. We could get it through the hard route of libraries, hope that Buddhism is spread to us, or learn mysticism.

Got it, playing in 6 hrs.

--

 

[silverbullet]

GreyFox - it is indeed counted as intercontinental for the purpose of getting +100% for trade routes. A city you settle there will give you a +2 trade route to each other city.

Regardless, I agree that this should not be your first settling priority.

Be careful not to settle too much too early. You are already at 60% science because of the corn city. Ideally I would not settle the new city until after writing is in. After writing if you open borders and build a road to boudica your commerce will go up significantly, and library scientists will help too.