Sirp's Training Day Game for Aspiring Monarchs
- Thread starter Sirp
- Start date
[delurking]UU stands for Unique Unit...[lurking on]
Stormrider: I hope that you've learnt some things that'll help you start off much stronger in your future games.
The Aztec military is weak compared to ours, according to our military advisor. I suggest that in the near future, we prosecute a limited war against them, in which we take a couple of their cities. We don't want to pour everything into a war right now, since we're happily building, but a limited war which snares us two cities would be great. During this war we'd also hope to start our Golden Age.
So uhh....any time you're ready guys, although make sure you execute it right. (and you'll get to know a little more about executing a war 'right' when someone does it wrong!
)
-Sirp.
The Aztec military is weak compared to ours, according to our military advisor. I suggest that in the near future, we prosecute a limited war against them, in which we take a couple of their cities. We don't want to pour everything into a war right now, since we're happily building, but a limited war which snares us two cities would be great. During this war we'd also hope to start our Golden Age.
So uhh....any time you're ready guys, although make sure you execute it right. (and you'll get to know a little more about executing a war 'right' when someone does it wrong!
)-Sirp.
Hmm...that gives me plenty of time to line up something real good for you Renata
Two caravels, a settler, three hoplites, and two swordsmen, with em you'll be expected to set us up to take out an entire civilization on another continent
-Sirp.
Two caravels, a settler, three hoplites, and two swordsmen, with em you'll be expected to set us up to take out an entire civilization on another continent
-Sirp.
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
CivGeneral's 10 Turns
130AD - Preturn
I have observed my suroundings an anylized the situation
150AD - Turn 1
Sparta: Worker -> Horsemen
Corinth: Continues Swordsmen
Thessalonica: Worker -> Library
Rhodes: Worker -> Hoplite
News Flash: The Babylons are Building The Great Wall
Moving the Galley away from Hispalis, we dont have a RoP with the Romans, so I do not want to create any Entanglements with them
Giving workers orders to build a road by Rhodes
Was thinking about mining the Wines by Thessalonica, but I mined the hill insted ( I dont want an old habit comming back
)
Carefully manuvered the Gally safely away from the barb Galley
170AD - Turn 2
Continued to give Workers there orders ( Sirp, Please also Give me a lesson of Settlers and land tiles, I beleve I may need an in depth guide on what to do what :-/, plus I am trying to pick up any Worker skill sthat I may need )
190AD - Turn 3
Continued giving workers there orders
Manuvering the Galley to a good spot to settle
210 - Turn 4
Sparta: Horsemen -> SC (Sistine Chapel)
Eretria went into a civil Disorder ( Srip, I wish to order the book entitled "How to keep cities Happy and preventing Riots" )
Assigned one citizen as a Entertainer
My Fear is catching up to me, we are starting to go into Debit (Srip, I would also like a book entiled "Civ3 Economics - How to balace Income with Science" )
I lowered the sci rate a bit to lesson the Debit while reaching to Education
Gave workers there orders
Vet Horsemen 3/4 Vs. Barb Warrior 2/2: Result Unit promoted to an Elite
230AD - Turn 5
Thermopylae: FP (Forbiden Palace) -> Hoplite
Herakleia: Horsemen -> Hoplite
Somehow Chieftess in the Demogame always does a Trade check, so I should do the same.
None currently (Ive joined late so I am not sure on our trade objectives :-/)
250AD - Turn 6
Barb 2/2 Horsemen vs Horsemen 3/5: Defeated out Horsemen
Unloaded the Galley Load near the Cow and Game
260AD - Turn 7
Athens: Cathedral -> Hoplite
Thermopylae: Hoplite -> Catherdral
Mycenae: Hoplite -> Temple
Herakleia: Hoplite -> Cathedral
Marathon has been founded
Moved some units
270AD - Turn 8
Delphi: Harbor -> Hoplite
Moved some units
280AD - Turn 9
Athens: Hoplite -> Catapult
Barb Horsemen is within striking distance of our workers. I imedialy moved them to the nearest cities
290AD - Turn 10
The romans would like to have a word with us
Ceaser offers us Territory Map in exchange for Our Territory map
I declined and made a counter offer
Science: We have discovered Education
Education -> Monarchy (as I said before I joined in late so I dont know what objectives you have planed so I temporarly have it on Monarchy)
Here is the save
130AD - Preturn
I have observed my suroundings an anylized the situation
150AD - Turn 1
Sparta: Worker -> Horsemen
Corinth: Continues Swordsmen
Thessalonica: Worker -> Library
Rhodes: Worker -> Hoplite
News Flash: The Babylons are Building The Great Wall
Moving the Galley away from Hispalis, we dont have a RoP with the Romans, so I do not want to create any Entanglements with them
Giving workers orders to build a road by Rhodes
Was thinking about mining the Wines by Thessalonica, but I mined the hill insted ( I dont want an old habit comming back
)Carefully manuvered the Gally safely away from the barb Galley
170AD - Turn 2
Continued to give Workers there orders ( Sirp, Please also Give me a lesson of Settlers and land tiles, I beleve I may need an in depth guide on what to do what :-/, plus I am trying to pick up any Worker skill sthat I may need )
190AD - Turn 3
Continued giving workers there orders
Manuvering the Galley to a good spot to settle
210 - Turn 4
Sparta: Horsemen -> SC (Sistine Chapel)
Eretria went into a civil Disorder ( Srip, I wish to order the book entitled "How to keep cities Happy and preventing Riots" )
Assigned one citizen as a Entertainer
My Fear is catching up to me, we are starting to go into Debit (Srip, I would also like a book entiled "Civ3 Economics - How to balace Income with Science" )
I lowered the sci rate a bit to lesson the Debit while reaching to Education
Gave workers there orders
Vet Horsemen 3/4 Vs. Barb Warrior 2/2: Result Unit promoted to an Elite
230AD - Turn 5
Thermopylae: FP (Forbiden Palace) -> Hoplite
Herakleia: Horsemen -> Hoplite
Somehow Chieftess in the Demogame always does a Trade check, so I should do the same
.None currently (Ive joined late so I am not sure on our trade objectives :-/)
250AD - Turn 6
Barb 2/2 Horsemen vs Horsemen 3/5: Defeated out Horsemen
Unloaded the Galley Load near the Cow and Game
260AD - Turn 7
Athens: Cathedral -> Hoplite
Thermopylae: Hoplite -> Catherdral
Mycenae: Hoplite -> Temple
Herakleia: Hoplite -> Cathedral
Marathon has been founded
Moved some units
270AD - Turn 8
Delphi: Harbor -> Hoplite
Moved some units
280AD - Turn 9
Athens: Hoplite -> Catapult
Barb Horsemen is within striking distance of our workers. I imedialy moved them to the nearest cities
290AD - Turn 10
The romans would like to have a word with us
Ceaser offers us Territory Map in exchange for Our Territory map
I declined and made a counter offer
Science: We have discovered Education
Education -> Monarchy (as I said before I joined in late so I dont know what objectives you have planed so I temporarly have it on Monarchy)
Here is the save
CivGeneral,
You played from the wrong save.
You were meant to play from the save here that I posted at the end of my last turn (perhaps too subtley entitled 'The Key to Athens'?)
I will comment on the turns you did play as a shadow, however since you have already used up your 48 hours playing time, you will be skipped this round. This means that Matt_g is up now, playing from the end of the turn I played.
-Sirp.
You played from the wrong save.
You were meant to play from the save here that I posted at the end of my last turn (perhaps too subtley entitled 'The Key to Athens'?)
I will comment on the turns you did play as a shadow, however since you have already used up your 48 hours playing time, you will be skipped this round. This means that Matt_g is up now, playing from the end of the turn I played.
-Sirp.
CivGeneral,
Some comments on your turn...
Firstly, that ship with the settler onboard was headed for the furs in the north, something which Shaesha stated in her log. Admittedly, it required a great deal of tactical maneuvering to get it there, and I only just managed it on my turn. If it was just headed to where you put it, we'd have probably sent the settler on foot guarded by a hoplite or two.
Good choice to build the road to Rhodes, although that should be a high priority task: getting the wines hooked up. I had three or four workers doing it on my turn, and had it hooked up within a couple of turns in. Your biggest problems with happiness were derived from not having our trade network hooked up fully.
Now, about worker management, the things workers do come in terms of priority. Things with a high priority are those which have the highest time-taken-to-benefit ratios, those with a low priority have a low time-taken-to-benefit ratio, and should only be done once the higher priority things are. Determining how high priority a certain task is is a difficult to master skill, but there are some basic rules:
- anything which gets a city that can grow more food has great benefit
- anything which gets a city more trade or shields has good benefit.
- improving tiles which are already being worked on by citizens has a higher benefit than those of tiles that are not yet worked on. Not yet worked on tiles may still have a fairly high benefit if it is likely they will be worked on in the near future.
- hooking up luxuries has a benefit proportional to the number of cities on your trade network. It is worth perhaps 1 commerce/turn for every city on your trade network
- making a trade network or military road network is of value dependent on the goods that can be traded along the trade network, and the military units you intend to send across the road network.
And on the time taken side of things:
- improving a tile which already has road on it is cheaper than otherwise doing so, by one worker turn for every worker you assign to the task
- working on grassland and plains is cheaper than mountains or hills
- chopping jungle takes a very long time
Now although you have some workers doing sensible things, you also have some workers that are doing high-cost, low-benefit tasks. Most criminal of all, you have a worker two tiles north of Sparta mining, on a tile that is not in the radius of ANY of our cities. You also have workers building a road over mountains between Corinth and Athens. Meanwhile, there are perfectly good grassland tiles that are sitting unirrigated between Pharsalos and Mycenae, while those cities grow at a horrible pace.
Why are you improving mountain tiles? Do you think our cities are going to be working on them anytime soon? They take ages to improve and can never produce any food, while we're trying to grow our cities nice and big here, there's no way we'll be working on any mountains in the near future.
Chopping some jungle near Athens at the moment is fine, since Athens is a big city with high priority. But chopping jungle tiles elsewhere isn't, especially when those cities still have unimproved tiles that could more cheaply be improved with higher benefit.
You also have workers sitting in Troy, apparently holed up afraid of the barbarians. In my turn, I just sent them south to help out with our core. I also sent a horseman up to help kill the barbarians. Having workers languishing in your cities is not a good way to build a great empire.
Now, happiness....I'm not so much concerned about the civil disorder you had (because it didn't happen in important cities as far as I can see), but I am greatly concerned about the number of entertainers you used. Entertainers are bad, very bad. They are essentially one of our citizens sitting around doing nothing productive. The citizen still eats food, but doesn't produce anything at all, other than keeping a fellow citizen happy!
You have one in Athens which is unnecessary. A citizen in our core city, sitting around doing absolutely nothing! Meanwhile, many of our other cities have to have entertainers to keep people happy.
I used a simple solution on my turn: I increased the luxury slider from 10% to 20%. As soon as around 5% of your citizens are sitting around as entertainers, it's time to increase the luxury slider. The only time entertainers are really ok is if they are in hopelessly corrupt cities, far from the capital.
Build options: You didn't build enough workers. I had 28 workers by the end of my turn, you had 23. Not enough. You also don't seem to have a plan for the rest of that unclaimed land. I produced 2 settlers in my turn, you produced none. Meanwhile, you chose to go for the Sistine Chapel in Sparta, of all cities. Athens is the city which doesn't have happiness problems, and is nice and big. If we want to build a Wonder it'll be there. Sparta on the other hand, has happiness problems, isn't as big or powerful as Athens, and still has several other improvements that it can build.
You chose to build a catapult in Athens. Catapults cost 20, while Athens produces 14 shields (which could be more than 15 if you didn't have the entertainer), so it's an awkward number to start with, but uhh...why? Is there a reason or a plan for the catapult? Meanwhile we could be pre-building for a university which will greatly increase our science output, considering Athens is our highest-science city.
Meanwhile, Pharsalos was building a Colosseum. Rarely build Colosseums: they are relatively expensive, have high maintenance, and are generally not needed once you have a marketplace, temple, and cathedral. You should have been building a marketplace, or at least a cathedral there. A marketplace improves happiness as long as you have 3+ luxuries AND it improves income.
Meanwhile, Corinth is building a swordsman. We're just in the super-growth-spurt of the game, and you're building military units in a core city that has plenty of improvements possible? Does war look imminent to you? Is our military advisor telling us we have a weak military compared to those around us? (On the contrary, he'll tell us we're strong militarily compared to each of our known rivals).
You mentioned that you didn't know what our general 'strategy' is. Well, we haven't talked about that a great deal, but I do recommend you look over the thread in detail. Basically we're just building the best civilization we can, with vague talk of a possible war with Azteca.
Oh and finally, I can appreciate that you weren't sure exactly what to research, but......Monarchy? Monarchy??? That is one tech we don't want to research, ever. I don't care if the demogame uses it, we will never be using Monarchy in this game
I suggest you look over my game, since it goes over the same turns as yours, and see what I did differently.
-Sirp.
Some comments on your turn...
Firstly, that ship with the settler onboard was headed for the furs in the north, something which Shaesha stated in her log. Admittedly, it required a great deal of tactical maneuvering to get it there, and I only just managed it on my turn. If it was just headed to where you put it, we'd have probably sent the settler on foot guarded by a hoplite or two.
Good choice to build the road to Rhodes, although that should be a high priority task: getting the wines hooked up. I had three or four workers doing it on my turn, and had it hooked up within a couple of turns in. Your biggest problems with happiness were derived from not having our trade network hooked up fully.
Now, about worker management, the things workers do come in terms of priority. Things with a high priority are those which have the highest time-taken-to-benefit ratios, those with a low priority have a low time-taken-to-benefit ratio, and should only be done once the higher priority things are. Determining how high priority a certain task is is a difficult to master skill, but there are some basic rules:
- anything which gets a city that can grow more food has great benefit
- anything which gets a city more trade or shields has good benefit.
- improving tiles which are already being worked on by citizens has a higher benefit than those of tiles that are not yet worked on. Not yet worked on tiles may still have a fairly high benefit if it is likely they will be worked on in the near future.
- hooking up luxuries has a benefit proportional to the number of cities on your trade network. It is worth perhaps 1 commerce/turn for every city on your trade network
- making a trade network or military road network is of value dependent on the goods that can be traded along the trade network, and the military units you intend to send across the road network.
And on the time taken side of things:
- improving a tile which already has road on it is cheaper than otherwise doing so, by one worker turn for every worker you assign to the task
- working on grassland and plains is cheaper than mountains or hills
- chopping jungle takes a very long time
Now although you have some workers doing sensible things, you also have some workers that are doing high-cost, low-benefit tasks. Most criminal of all, you have a worker two tiles north of Sparta mining, on a tile that is not in the radius of ANY of our cities. You also have workers building a road over mountains between Corinth and Athens. Meanwhile, there are perfectly good grassland tiles that are sitting unirrigated between Pharsalos and Mycenae, while those cities grow at a horrible pace.
Why are you improving mountain tiles? Do you think our cities are going to be working on them anytime soon? They take ages to improve and can never produce any food, while we're trying to grow our cities nice and big here, there's no way we'll be working on any mountains in the near future.
Chopping some jungle near Athens at the moment is fine, since Athens is a big city with high priority. But chopping jungle tiles elsewhere isn't, especially when those cities still have unimproved tiles that could more cheaply be improved with higher benefit.
You also have workers sitting in Troy, apparently holed up afraid of the barbarians. In my turn, I just sent them south to help out with our core. I also sent a horseman up to help kill the barbarians. Having workers languishing in your cities is not a good way to build a great empire.
Now, happiness....I'm not so much concerned about the civil disorder you had (because it didn't happen in important cities as far as I can see), but I am greatly concerned about the number of entertainers you used. Entertainers are bad, very bad. They are essentially one of our citizens sitting around doing nothing productive. The citizen still eats food, but doesn't produce anything at all, other than keeping a fellow citizen happy!
You have one in Athens which is unnecessary. A citizen in our core city, sitting around doing absolutely nothing! Meanwhile, many of our other cities have to have entertainers to keep people happy.
I used a simple solution on my turn: I increased the luxury slider from 10% to 20%. As soon as around 5% of your citizens are sitting around as entertainers, it's time to increase the luxury slider. The only time entertainers are really ok is if they are in hopelessly corrupt cities, far from the capital.
Build options: You didn't build enough workers. I had 28 workers by the end of my turn, you had 23. Not enough. You also don't seem to have a plan for the rest of that unclaimed land. I produced 2 settlers in my turn, you produced none. Meanwhile, you chose to go for the Sistine Chapel in Sparta, of all cities. Athens is the city which doesn't have happiness problems, and is nice and big. If we want to build a Wonder it'll be there. Sparta on the other hand, has happiness problems, isn't as big or powerful as Athens, and still has several other improvements that it can build.
You chose to build a catapult in Athens. Catapults cost 20, while Athens produces 14 shields (which could be more than 15 if you didn't have the entertainer), so it's an awkward number to start with, but uhh...why? Is there a reason or a plan for the catapult? Meanwhile we could be pre-building for a university which will greatly increase our science output, considering Athens is our highest-science city.
Meanwhile, Pharsalos was building a Colosseum. Rarely build Colosseums: they are relatively expensive, have high maintenance, and are generally not needed once you have a marketplace, temple, and cathedral. You should have been building a marketplace, or at least a cathedral there. A marketplace improves happiness as long as you have 3+ luxuries AND it improves income.
Meanwhile, Corinth is building a swordsman. We're just in the super-growth-spurt of the game, and you're building military units in a core city that has plenty of improvements possible? Does war look imminent to you? Is our military advisor telling us we have a weak military compared to those around us? (On the contrary, he'll tell us we're strong militarily compared to each of our known rivals).
You mentioned that you didn't know what our general 'strategy' is. Well, we haven't talked about that a great deal, but I do recommend you look over the thread in detail. Basically we're just building the best civilization we can, with vague talk of a possible war with Azteca.
Oh and finally, I can appreciate that you weren't sure exactly what to research, but......Monarchy? Monarchy??? That is one tech we don't want to research, ever. I don't care if the demogame uses it, we will never be using Monarchy in this game
I suggest you look over my game, since it goes over the same turns as yours, and see what I did differently.
-Sirp.
Octavian X
is not a pipe.
CG, I recommend you print this out or something, and keep it in hand the next time you're the DP...
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
Thanks, Ill copy and paste it in my notepad so that I can print it out tomorrow.
Hopefully I get to the right save next time
.Preturn: Surprise, surprise. Everything looks peachy.
I just change 1 thing. If we are going to settler abandon Xochicalco, now is the time to do it. It has 27 shields towards a library and is at size 2 and there isnt any infrastructure there yet. I set it to a settler and hire a taxman to get it to zero food surplus. Due in 2.
IT: Two of the three barb horsemen attack our settler/hoplite pair by the furs. Kill them both and only lose 1 hp. The third one is still sitting on the tile I want though, so I will wait 1 turn.
Turn 1-300 AD: Rhodes, worker>library. Sparta, worker>hoplite. Education comes in. Swap Athens to a Uni. Research set to Feudalism, due in 8. My thinking is to get Chivalry, build knights while researching engineering and get ready to smack Monty. We will want Engineering so the rivers arent slowing us down.
IT: Barb up north impales himself on our hoplite.
Turn 2-310 AD: Corinth, market>Uni. Thessa, worker>library. Xochi, settler. Its abandoned. Moved 1 tile SW (on the horses). Its now called Marathon. Set to a library. Settler up north moved onto the furs. Will found next turn. Just in time too. The Babs turned back because of our horse blocking them and got into a galley. They will unload next turn, but since you cant found on the same turn as you unload, we will have it.
IT: Barbs attack Troy and our hoplite wins.
Turn 3-320 AD: Thermo, market>Uni. Herakleia, market>Uni. Halicarnassus founded on the furs and racking in 25 gold from the barb camp. Set to a harbor. Will rush next turn, after a shield is in the box.
IT: nada
Turn 4-330 AD: Athens, Uni>hoplite. Its getting 20 spt and can build a hoplite every turn. I am going to do this for a few turns. A couple anyways. Sparta, hoplite>Uni. It will make use of that shortly. Just noticed that Hammi went to annoyed and Monty is furious! Hammi I understand because we settled those furs from right under his nose. Monty didnt like seeing his city settler abandoned I guess. All the more reason to get some troops out to the border cities.
BTW, we dont have enough cash to rush a harbor yet. I turn science down to get it next turn. It will save us almost 30gpt in lux and will pay for itself ASAP.
IT: Rome built the Great Wall. Aztecs switch to Great Lighthouse.
Turn 5-340 AD: Athens hopi>hopi. Rush harbor in fur city. We are damn near broke. Turn science back up, Feud in 4. Making 33gpt to get some money back in the bank. (down to 28 in the treasury right now.)
IT: nada
Turn 6-350 AD: Argos, market>Uni. Furs online, lux dropped to zero. Have to hire a clown in Delphi and a taxman in Thermo. Market not due for 9 in Delphi. Id rush it if we had the cash. <shrug> So, with a temple, market and cathedral, (with 4 luxurys) we can go to size 12 without lux tax. Without a cathedral they will riot at size 10. Up science to 50%. Feud in 2 at +35gpt.
IT: nada
Turn 7-360 AD: Athens, hopi>hopi. Ephesus, temple>market. Torn between this and a courthouse. Its about to grow to 7 so market it is.
Pergamon founded. Another 25 gold from settling next to a barb camp. Turn science dows as far as I can and still get Feud next turn.
Athens hit size 12 and is set to zero food, max shields. Still needs a little work to get the most out of it. It will hit 25 net spt after a couple of mines finish.
IT: nada
Turn 8-370 AD: Feud comes in. Research set to Chivalry, due in 4 at +11gpt. I thought about going for banking but we need to smack Monty IMHO. Hes really pissed. Just doing a diplo check damn near sparks a war.
Are you deliberately testing my patience etc.
Athens, hopi>hopi. Eretria, library>worker.
IT:
Turn 9-380 AD: Athens, hopi>colosseum. I intend for this to become a Knight in 3 turns.
IT: nada
Turn 10-390 AD: Miletos founded. Set to library.
Notes for Stormrider: There is a chain of workers along the coast between Knossos and Delphi working on getting that jungle clear so we can get irrigation up to the choke and beyond. There are 3 workers on a mountain by Athens. I was going to have them mine and road it so Athens could get more shields. We still have our monopoly on Monotheism. Hammi is still in the Ancient Age. Treasury is back up to 215 gold. Chivalry is due in 2.
Delphi is going to grow again before its market is done. You might want to slow that down 1 turn.
Dont forget to change my colosseum in Athens to a Knight, (or something else). 5 more Universities will finish in the next 8 turns. Research ought to start rocking!
Good Luck!
Matt
Edit: Most of those hoplites I built are heading up north for defense in those new cities.
I just change 1 thing. If we are going to settler abandon Xochicalco, now is the time to do it. It has 27 shields towards a library and is at size 2 and there isnt any infrastructure there yet. I set it to a settler and hire a taxman to get it to zero food surplus. Due in 2.
IT: Two of the three barb horsemen attack our settler/hoplite pair by the furs. Kill them both and only lose 1 hp. The third one is still sitting on the tile I want though, so I will wait 1 turn.
Turn 1-300 AD: Rhodes, worker>library. Sparta, worker>hoplite. Education comes in. Swap Athens to a Uni. Research set to Feudalism, due in 8. My thinking is to get Chivalry, build knights while researching engineering and get ready to smack Monty. We will want Engineering so the rivers arent slowing us down.
IT: Barb up north impales himself on our hoplite.
Turn 2-310 AD: Corinth, market>Uni. Thessa, worker>library. Xochi, settler. Its abandoned. Moved 1 tile SW (on the horses). Its now called Marathon.
Set to a library. Settler up north moved onto the furs. Will found next turn. Just in time too. The Babs turned back because of our horse blocking them and got into a galley. They will unload next turn, but since you cant found on the same turn as you unload, we will have it.IT: Barbs attack Troy and our hoplite wins.
Turn 3-320 AD: Thermo, market>Uni. Herakleia, market>Uni. Halicarnassus founded on the furs and racking in 25 gold from the barb camp. Set to a harbor. Will rush next turn, after a shield is in the box.
IT: nada
Turn 4-330 AD: Athens, Uni>hoplite. Its getting 20 spt and can build a hoplite every turn. I am going to do this for a few turns. A couple anyways. Sparta, hoplite>Uni. It will make use of that shortly. Just noticed that Hammi went to annoyed and Monty is furious! Hammi I understand because we settled those furs from right under his nose. Monty didnt like seeing his city settler abandoned I guess. All the more reason to get some troops out to the border cities.
BTW, we dont have enough cash to rush a harbor yet. I turn science down to get it next turn. It will save us almost 30gpt in lux and will pay for itself ASAP.
IT: Rome built the Great Wall. Aztecs switch to Great Lighthouse.
Turn 5-340 AD: Athens hopi>hopi. Rush harbor in fur city. We are damn near broke. Turn science back up, Feud in 4. Making 33gpt to get some money back in the bank. (down to 28 in the treasury right now.)
IT: nada
Turn 6-350 AD: Argos, market>Uni. Furs online, lux dropped to zero. Have to hire a clown in Delphi and a taxman in Thermo. Market not due for 9 in Delphi. Id rush it if we had the cash. <shrug> So, with a temple, market and cathedral, (with 4 luxurys) we can go to size 12 without lux tax. Without a cathedral they will riot at size 10. Up science to 50%. Feud in 2 at +35gpt.
IT: nada
Turn 7-360 AD: Athens, hopi>hopi. Ephesus, temple>market. Torn between this and a courthouse. Its about to grow to 7 so market it is.
Pergamon founded. Another 25 gold from settling next to a barb camp. Turn science dows as far as I can and still get Feud next turn.
Athens hit size 12 and is set to zero food, max shields. Still needs a little work to get the most out of it. It will hit 25 net spt after a couple of mines finish.
IT: nada
Turn 8-370 AD: Feud comes in. Research set to Chivalry, due in 4 at +11gpt. I thought about going for banking but we need to smack Monty IMHO. Hes really pissed. Just doing a diplo check damn near sparks a war.
Are you deliberately testing my patience etc.Athens, hopi>hopi. Eretria, library>worker.
IT:
Turn 9-380 AD: Athens, hopi>colosseum. I intend for this to become a Knight in 3 turns.
IT: nada
Turn 10-390 AD: Miletos founded. Set to library.
Notes for Stormrider: There is a chain of workers along the coast between Knossos and Delphi working on getting that jungle clear so we can get irrigation up to the choke and beyond. There are 3 workers on a mountain by Athens. I was going to have them mine and road it so Athens could get more shields. We still have our monopoly on Monotheism. Hammi is still in the Ancient Age. Treasury is back up to 215 gold. Chivalry is due in 2.
Delphi is going to grow again before its market is done. You might want to slow that down 1 turn.
Dont forget to change my colosseum in Athens to a Knight, (or something else). 5 more Universities will finish in the next 8 turns. Research ought to start rocking!
Good Luck!
Matt
Edit: Most of those hoplites I built are heading up north for defense in those new cities.
Yeah I must admit I am always a little dubious about abandoning cities, so I didn't make any moves toward it. Not a move I'd fault though. The time was certainly right.
Being a compulsive builder, I really did like how deeply we were penetrating the top, 'peaceful' side of the tech tree. I would have *really* liked to get Banking and Astronomy. Banking because banks would get our economy going even better than it already is. Astronomy because it would probably give us the opportunity to make contact with civilizations on other continents, and become a broker (not that there's much to broker with the backward civilizations on our continent!)
If we didn't make a positive decision for war, I'd fault your decision here, but since we did, I can't really.
Although, we didn't need Feudalism or Chivalry to make war. Our opponents only have ancient age units, so we could certainly fight them effectively with our ancient age units. But, if we can make it into a shooting gallery, I guess we should
I think we should have extracted a few more workers from this city before improving it. Not a bad move but uhh...I really like workers.
a military unit from Sparta? It's one of our less improved cities that needs several civic buildings before it gets onto building military.
good thinking here.
This is where the luxury slider gets really hard to decide on. You ended the turn with a few more entertainers than I'd like, but a luxury slider increment at this stage makes a big difference.
However, if you have cities that have entertainers/taxmen, you should almost always be doing something about it. You ended your turn with Thermopylae about to complete a university when a cathedral is an available building. It is a still-growing city, and will probably need two entertainers/taxmen as soon as it grows. A cathedral is what this city really needs. (big hint to the next player
)The other cities that have happiness problems are building things to fix it, so good job with the rest.
good teamwork with this one guys, Shaesha setting it up, me getting it within our grasp, and you finishing it off.
*muttering something about how nice banking would be*.
A war with Medieval Infantry combined with hoplites would be fine
MDIs are *good* units. We could produce almost two for every knight, and they attack just as well as knights, without the retreat. I like them alot.
However, Chivalry it is!
We do NOT want Engineering after that though. Banking and Astronomy are far better choices, especially since the war is meant to trigger our golden age. It'd be really nice if the Romans or Aztecs researched Engineering for us as well
Also, our military advisor is telling us we're strong compared to the Aztecs. Uhh...if they declared on us at this point, they'd have precisely no hope of prosecuting any kind of effective attack against us. I'm not one bit scared of them.
You did a good job with moving our troops to the front with them. I see that every frontier city is defended by at least two hoplites.
Good move here.
You did good work with this, however I would have used even more workers. Those workers mining above the choke should probably be either (1) building roads up to our new cities, or (2) helping out with the irrigation plan.
Why are they on that mountain and not on the mountain with iron on it? Athens isn't even working on that mountain at the moment, and it wouldn't be profitable for it to. We want to mine/road the iron mountain, and the hill, but not that mountain! Not for a long time.
Why would you want to *slow* its growth? The only time you slow growth is to get better benefits from a granary, which is in effect getting faster growth in a non-intuitive manner. Otherwise, you never want to slow growth of a city. Trade growth for shields or commerce, yes, but never slow it just for the sake of slowing it. The *worst* that could happen is that we would have to set an entertainer, which is uhh...a citizen whose not working yet. But a citizen who can work later is better than not having a citizen at all!However, there is a better option. There is a bonus grassland between Athens and Delphi which Athens is working on. Athens doesn't need it, it has plenty more good tiles to work. Give that tile to Delphi and Delphi will be able to speed production of the marketplace.
yes, except that Thermopylae will have its changed to a cathedral
But yes, we're already researching well. It'll get even better!
---
I notice that Mycenae is starved of decent growth tiles because Pharsalos has most of them taken. However, there is an unworked grassland between Themopylae and Pharsalos which Pharsalos could switch to, leaving a grassland tile for Mycenae to get.
Also, I don't know if you were doing this Matt_g, but Sparta can be micro-managed to produce 8 food one turn, and then 6 food the next two turns, getting more shields, to grow once every 3 turns, and still pull in plenty of shields.
The jungle tiles near Corinth and Delphi should be becoming higher priority, as these are tiles near our capital that we want to start using. Corinth is about to grow, but has no good tile for the new citizen to work on. Knossos also has great potential once we get the jungle chopped down. We want yet more workers, and I think that Miletos should probably be switched to building one.
A good solid turn Matt, a few mistakes, but nothing I'd call
(well ok, maybe the bit about hampering growth, but you only suggested that and didn't do it!)Good luck Stormrider!
-Sirp.
I am a builder at heart as well. I was really torn and wanted to go with banking, but my brain said get the tools to acquire a ring aroung our FP.
A war with Medieval Infantry combined with hoplites would be fine
MDIs are *good* units. We could produce almost two for every knight, and they attack just as well as knights, without the retreat. I like them alot.
This is only my second game with PTW, and to tell the truth I totally forgot about MDI's.
I am too paranoid about resources disappearing. I don't hook them up unless I want to trade them. I obviously need to change my thinking here.
I must admit, I wasn't.
Thanks for the critique!
Matt
It's time for some mid-game discussion and reflection: I assume that the players in this game all have had trouble winning on Monarch, or think you would if you tried. Yet in this game, we are almost certainly the most powerful civilization in the world already, being ranked first in all key metrics: land area, population, gross national product, and (what I generally consider the best metric of power) manufactured goods.
So, I would like each player to list the key points that they feel has led to our success, including things that each of you have learnt, and things that we have done differently to what you might have done in previous games.
Lurkers/non-participants may also make comments if they like.
-Sirp.
So, I would like each player to list the key points that they feel has led to our success, including things that each of you have learnt, and things that we have done differently to what you might have done in previous games.
Lurkers/non-participants may also make comments if they like.
-Sirp.
<--- is half-unconscious and losing her mind with her mid-term and her presentation and is unwinding by browsing cfc so please forgive any incoherency
One thing that I'm sure has helped is that we have excellent land to work with. If, say, our starting position and Babylon's had been reversed, we would be facing a much more difficult game right now. In particular, the sheer number of rivers and freshwater sites is unreal, and probably the main reason our reseach is so far ahead of almost all (possibly all-all by now) of the monarch-level AI opponents.
I honestly don't know how I would perform on Monarch on my own; this is my first attempt at it in any format.
The most important things I've learned so far:
- It won't kill me to go to republic before I have three or four marketplaces (my usual revolution point prior to this game).
- Max research pays off more than it seems like it will at the outset. I'd often done 90% research instead of 100% if the initial turns read the same for both and lost time as a result.
Lots of other little things, too, but I can't name them all now; I'm getting tired.
Renata
One thing that I'm sure has helped is that we have excellent land to work with. If, say, our starting position and Babylon's had been reversed, we would be facing a much more difficult game right now. In particular, the sheer number of rivers and freshwater sites is unreal, and probably the main reason our reseach is so far ahead of almost all (possibly all-all by now) of the monarch-level AI opponents.
I honestly don't know how I would perform on Monarch on my own; this is my first attempt at it in any format.
The most important things I've learned so far:
- It won't kill me to go to republic before I have three or four marketplaces (my usual revolution point prior to this game).
- Max research pays off more than it seems like it will at the outset. I'd often done 90% research instead of 100% if the initial turns read the same for both and lost time as a result.
Lots of other little things, too, but I can't name them all now; I'm getting tired.
Renata
