ST1 - Heart and Seoul

[Sirian]

This SG uses the ST Mod.

Civilization: Korea
Difficulty: Deity
Map Size: Huge
Opponents: Fifteen
Land: Archipelago 40%
Climate: Hot, Arid, Rugged
Barbarians: Restless
Victory: Cultural and Diplomatic disabled.

Turns per Player: Ten
Turnaround Times: 24/72
Protocol: RBCiv exploits are off limits.



ROSTER:
Sirian
Griselda
Speaker
Jabah

 

[Sirian]

4000BC: River start with one food bonus, but the start tile is not on the coast. For a Pelago map, that is not good. I opt to move one tile SE. The worker is moved onto the game.

3950BC: Seoul founded. Start Pottery at max sci. A hut is revealed on a BG tile pulled into range by my move! This alters my plan. I concoct an opening I have never tried before. Pulling 3spt from the game tile, but with huge-map slow paced research, no way to get to a granary right away, and no way to build a temple. I want to activate that food bonus, so the forest needs to come down. I will build a barracks! I've never built barracks first with a nonmilitaristic civ, but I want that hut to pop without any military units, to ensure it pops peacefully.

Click next turn, next turn, next turn, next-next-next-next-next turn.

The forest chop times in to build the last ten shields. Wallah!



Now to produce a few veteran warriors for MP and exploration. OK, here goes the hut.



JACKPOT!

Sometimes it's better to break out of one's habits to play upon an unusual opportunity.

3450BC: Start training warriors. Irrigate the game tile. Settler moves east.

3350BC: Pyongyang founded on a river. On a BG tile, but that was the best position, so oh well.

3100BC: Pyongyang trains regular warrior, starts worker. Warrior goes east exploring. A vet warrior from Seoul is exploring north along the west coast. Two others are parked for MP.

2710BC: Pottery discovered, start Ceremonial. I would LIKE to run minsci on writing, but at 60 turns and with barbarians set to restless on Deity... Chances are, we are GOING TO get pillaged a bunch of times here, so might as well keep the treasury lowish for now. Huge map pelago is just not the same. There's more time to get to mapmaking, because it will take a while to fill in the starting landmass. It's more like "lots of continents".

2630BC: Pyongyang trains its second warrior, starts another worker. A barb camp has been found already! Sheesh. On the other side of town, I take a chance and pop a hut.



2590BC: Welp. Got a shot at that barb camp. What the hey.



Whee! Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

That camp popped one barb roamer, though. The second warrior from Pyongyang spots him closing on the city.

2550BC: I wake a warrior from the capital and move him toward the barb intruder. This requires lux to increase from 20% to 40%, for the moment. I retreat the Pyong war back into the town. The explorers march onward.


* Our granary is due to finish soon. Remembering my Epic Four strategy, fighting barbs offers limited value but lots of pain. These PTW barbs are both smarter and can destroy city improvements, which means they will be more of a pain. We'll be glad for that barracks, I am thinking! Our top priority needs to be to shield the capital and our workers, second priority, protect roads so we can move around better to answer pests and intruders who opt to rush our core.

* You MUST pay close attention to MM-ing the lux tax vis-a-vis the capital.

* No sign of AI's yet. If we are alone on this rock, we have a long haul ahead of us in dealing with barbs. While barb threats remain high, keep science going. Be careful of pillaging that could drop the treasury to zero -- cannot be running deficit research at such an occurrence.

* I have a worker on road duty on the mountain. This will help us get around that river. I opted to have the second city train scouts and workers rather than bulk up. There's one BG tile to mine over there, then bring the new workers coreward to improve the capital and the core road network.

* Pink dot (below) will be the highest priority, followed by orange. This to shield the capital from barbs.

* Huge maps can support four rings of cities! Second ring won't even be that corrupt. Yellow dot looks like the third priority, and perhaps white dot after that, depending on barb activity. We need SIXTEEN cities just to qualify for FP! No sign yet of any likely FP sites, either.

 

[Sirian]

Dotmap 2550BC:



Red dots are fishing villages (low priority).

Light Blue looks to be mostly desert but pulls in two flood plains.

Pink and Orange the top priorities, yellow and white medium.

Green might be good as a safe place to go if barbs give fits.


ROSTER:

Sirian
Griselda << UP NOW
Speaker << On Deck
Jabah

I played thirty turns to start. Ten per player from here out.



ST1 - 2550BC


- Sirian

 

[Speaker]

Good start Sirian. If we can park some warriors on hills and increase our line of sight, we can push back the barb camps. A few well-placed archers should be able to handle the threat as I found out in a recent game. Using that strategy, we may even be able to *gasp* use the barbs to our advantage to fund research.

 

[Griselda]

Shoot, I was expecting a couple of days of deliberation, allowing my busy weekend to slide by unnoticed.

Oh well, these rounds go by quickly early on, right?

(0) 2550 BC - Pyongyang warrior isn't actually in the city. Did I misread that? I consider moving him into the city, but decide that fortified on the hill is probably the best spot for him. Otherwise, either the worker or the city could be put in danger next turn. If he actually attacks while I'm fortified, that would be most helpful. The Seoul war is on his way, but too far!

BT- Barb moves N.

(1) 2510 BC - Hmm, what to do? I could move the Pyong war to Pyong, and use the second Seoul war for the bar, but that would give the bar either a mountain or a hill for high ground, and in the mean time I can't cover the worker and the city. Attack! We win, 1 hp left. Whew!

Seoul war back to Seoul. North scout sees water to the N. S scout sees water to the S. Pyong worker to bg. Lux to 20%.

BT- Seoul granary

(2) 2470 BC - Seoul needs a settler; it's getting big. It's size 5, due to grow in 4, and I don't want it to be over 7 before we can crank settlers. So, start settler.

OK, here's a question I've always wondered about. I notice that if I have Seoul's laborer on the forest, I have one more happy citizen (subject?) than if I move him to the grassland. I've noticed that in lots of other games, and I think I've even asked, but I don't remember ever hearing the answer. In any case, I work the grassland this turn, then I'll be able to move to the forest again without sacrificing growth. Lux goes to 30% for this turn.

Pyong warrior home, worker mines bg there. N scout confirms that we've found the northern edge of the island. Shoot, maybe we can just settle these bars out! :love2: It's hard to tell in the south, but we may have found the southern coast also.

BT- Pyongyang worker- worker

(3) 2430 BC - New worker to bg. NW scout sees a hut and a cow. Seoul works forest, goes to 2/4 from 2/5. Lux can also go to 20%.

(4) 2390 BC -

(5) 2350 BC - Well, this hut is about as far away from home as we can get- pop! 3 Kushian warriors appear. Oh well, we probably were due for some, right?

I don't want to send a warrior from Seoul, because the settler's due in 2 and will need cover. So, I send Pyongyang's warrior, figuring it can build another before it's in danger (though it will have to take a quick break off the workers). Seoul is size 6, with a settler due in 2. Lux needs to go to 30%.

BT- Our valiant warrior kills 2 of the attacking Kushians, and, with 1 hp left, promotes! [dance] The last remaining bar goes S.

(6) 2310 BC - Our elite war has 2 hitpoints, so he fortifies for now. Pyongyang's warrior continues west.

Seoul's worker moves to the grassland that will help get the road done faster. even if it is away from the river.

BT- Seoul settler - warrior. It allows more growth than I'd prefer there, but I think we need it.

(7) 2270 BC - I want to settle pink dot, and we can even kinda sorta risk it with the Pyong war and a war from Seoul, but I don't know where the bar is, and would be moving our settler into hostile territory with only one cover for a couple turns. So, I decide to head for orange, which seems like a safe bet. I send the one war from Seoul, and the Pyong one keeps going towards bar.

Lux to 20%. See a hut to the S.

(8) 2230 BC - I realize I wasted a worker turn on that bg road by letting them both complete the build. Move both to hill W of Pyongyang.

Our Pyong war and Seoul war change places for an extra movement, and I see our Kushian friend on the hill N of Seoul.

Meanwhile, the S hut is even farther from us! I pop it, and there's an angry Aryan there. Oh, and that's definitely the southern coast I'm on.

Seoul is now size 5, and goes back to the grass tile, 30% lux.

BT- Seoul completes warrior, and we kill that mean Aryan. The Kush bar moves E, out of sight again.

(9) 2190 BC - Seoul starts a settler. Our warrior east, but doesn't spot bar. Our elite warrior is healed, and starts heading south (or at least to pink dot patrol). Our S warrior fortifies to heal. Lux to 20%. Pyongyang works bg, grow in 1, war in 2.

BT- Our Kushan buddy moved back into sight on that wheat by Seoul.

(10) 2150 BC - Our vet can move 1S of bar this turn, so at least now we'll know where he is. Settler arrives on orange dot, but sees a hut right next door. Shoot! IIRC, huts can pop barbs if we have military, even if we settle-pop them? I'm not sure what the best course of action there would be.

Speaker, looks like you're in for a roarin' good barbarian action round! Good luck!

-Griselda

Heart and soul, I fell in love with you

 

[Sirian]

Sounds like a lively round for the 2000 BC's. Barb this, barb that, survives with 1hp this, survives with 1hp that, etc.

Hut immediately next to orange dot? Not a problem. Hostiles cannot pop adjacent to a new city. Expanding borders can anger the yokels, though, which is why I had to go with no scouts to be sure to be safe on that very first hut. The only down side to popping a hut with a settling settler is no chance for an additional settler or city, but on Deity, we'll take it. Heck, even if hostiles could pop, with our treasury low, letting them all run into the new city for a party wouldn't be the worst thing. But... that won't happen. Sure would be nice to get Writing out of a hut! (Yeah, dream on).

We actually beat off one hut's worth of nasties and got promoted to elite? Gris the Conqueror! Our luck so far has been above average. The only bad news seems to be that our island sounds big enough for what? Maybe about sixteen cities? Give or take.

And still no sign of an AI? Could... get... ugly...


- Sirian

 

[Speaker]

Got it.

 

[Speaker]

Gris, I probably would have settled pink dot way before orange dot which will have no two-food tiles in range for quite some time now. I understand your rationale about the missing barb, but orange will not be worthwhile until we have more workers.

Sirian, maybe I'm missing something here, but why research Ceremonial Burial over Warrior Code? Yes CB is 50% cheaper, but for all intents and purposes, it is a worthless tech right now. We will not be building 60-shield temples any time soon, while we could desperately use a few archers to whip the barbs. Was it purely the cost that made your decision?

Other than that, all looks great.

2110BC (1): Found Wonsan and the hut is deserted. Start work on warrior. Pyongyang Warrior => Warrior. Up lux to 30%. Shadow a barb warrior with a vet warrior across the river.

2070BC (2): Pushing back the fog.

IT- Spain builds Colossus.

2030BC (3): Why are those two workers mining a hill? Since it's nearly completed, I'll let it finish, but I think we could better spend our precious worker turns at this point.

1990BC (4): Seoul builds settler who heads toward pink dot and starts another. Lux dropped to 20%. Science dropped with CB due next turn. Vet warrior cleans up barb, attacking from mountain, not across river, onto grassland, losing only 1 hp. Zone defense looks pretty good to keep the barbs back.

IT- Barb attacks our full vet warrior fortified on a hill and redlines him before losing 2 straight.

1950BC (5): CB finishes and I begrudgingly skip Warrior Code and start on Writing, which at full rate will still only be done in 60 turns (but this will drop). I don't think we can afford to wait another 20 or so turns before starting Writing. I see a barb horseman. That's bad. Workers finish mine near Pyongang and now must road it. We cannot work the tile at this point.

1910BC (6): MM Seoul for growth this turn.

IT- Reg warrior on forest fends off barb horseman, losing 1hp.

1870BC (7): Pyongyang grows and requires 40% lux without MP. Found Pusan on pink dot and start granary (to become a worker factory). Pinkish borders spotted up north and I'll try to check it out. Wounded warrior moves onto hills for protection. Pyongyang loses the extra shield from the mined forest to corruption anyways.

IT- Second barb horseman takes no damage defeating our wounded warrior.

1830BC (8): Seoul Settler => Settler. Pyongyang Warrior => Warrior. Lux drop to 10%.

1790BC (9): MM Seoul for growth.

1750BC (10): Lux up to 20%. T-Hawk's ctrl-r trick gives me an extra worker turn at Pyongyang. I'll leave Seoul's MM to Jabah. The settler can be held off one turn to grow to size 6 or not. Your call. I was going 3-food, 3-food, 4-food for growth in 3 turns.

Conclusion- The barbs have been pretty much fended off with a sort of "zone" defense. Zone because the warriors are each covering an area. I would probably recommend the continued production of regular warriors from Pyonyang and Wonsan to a) replenish the zones that will be left open when we lose a warrior here and there to barb horsemen and b) continue to push the fog back farther. In any event, our capital is very well shielded now and is pretty safe. Pusan could use a little more protection to make sure we don't lose progress on the granary. Longterm, let's try to have a galley prebuild in Wonsan and a settler ready in Seoul when we get MapMaking so we can grab those firs across the straits. We have no luxuries on our starting island. This is shaping up to be a fun one.

PS- We could use a few more workers, whether from Seoul, Pyongyang, Wonsan, or all of the above.

ST1-1750BC

 

[Speaker]

And here is an updated map. You can see how I have spaced the warriors to keep as much map as possible fog free.



Notice the Pink (Chinese, I think) borders in the northwest.

Green dot will be founded in two turns.
I would suggest Blue followed by Yellow, Red, and Teal for our next 4 cities.

 

[Griselda]

You're right about the mined hill, of course. I sent them onto hill to work on the road, and asked them to mine because it's habit.

I agree that pink dot was the preferable location, but I figured getting the settler killed wouldn't be helping us settle either dot, and pink seemed too risky. Actually, I send the settler to orange dot blind, since I hadn't busted the fog from that spot (of course, because of that I could confirm that there weren't any camps just yet. )

-Griselda

 

[Speaker]

No big deal. Something tells me that this game isn't going to be decided by a handful of worker turns. I'm in for an Epic battle against 15 Evil AI Civs. I expect this game to be one I remember for a long time.

PS- I know my dotmap is not entirely clear because I didn't turn on the gridlines. See Sirian's previous dotmap if you require further clarity. The cities are all the same (I used the same color dots too) except for the blue dot which I added with increased map information.

 

[Sirian]

I hope Jabah is tuned in and aware that he's up now.

why research Ceremonial Burial over Warrior Code? Yes CB is 50% cheaper, but for all intents and purposes, it is a worthless tech right now.

Not worthless. We're alone on this rock. No use gearing up for a massive upgrade early war rush. We have had extraordinary luck in combat vs barbs. I expected to have at least one frontier out of control for a while. Clearing camps won't do a lick of good when more will appear anyway. Expanding our borders pushes barbs back. As soon as we have expanded the frontier, everything behind it can afford to build a temple. I had no idea at the time what size our land mass is or what neighbors we might have. Imagine if Gris loses the combats with barbs that she won. Could have gone that way very easily.

I have every intention to build temples as the situation allows. Early and often. The only thing we don't want to do is make that move too soon and see a temple burnt down or an almost-built temple leveled.

Then there were the huts. If we pop a tech out of a hut, I'd rather have it give us Warrior Code than Ceremonial Burial. This is not a small map, and I did not want to come around to 1000BC and find out we still don't have a lick of culture or any cultural buildings available. That HAS happened to me in SG's. This way I played it safe. I'm clearly more willing to eat a few barbarian pillagings than you are. Two pillagings with the treasury at 20g costs less than losing one unit of 10 or 20 shields. The military approach to barbs can work, but it can also fail. All you need is three bad breaks in a row to collapse a whole frontier. I tend to go for the more conservative game plans, where possible, sending settlers to the cool spots, behind scout pickets instead of with escorts, then letting undefended frontier towns soak up the roamers, until borders push back and the barbs are all gone.

So there were four reasons to research Ceremonial Burial:

1) To MAKE SURE we had a cultural option in the bag.
2) To try to make the most of huts.
3) Because Pelago maps are more likely to put us in a builder situation early.
4) Because I actually intend for us to build some temples soon.

As soon as all three BG tiles at the capital are improved, that would be the time to sneak in the temple there. (We have no workers at the capital now? How did that happen?) If we can get light blue dot founded, that would be a good time to build the Pyong temple.


I would have preferred if you had gone for the wheel next. The one thing chariots are good for is fighting barbs. Lots of retreats vs the conscripts, especially on defense, plus units ready for later upgrade, plus faster movement for better tactics.

Archers are good for clearing camps but vulnerable to swarming barb horses. Too easy to blow 20 shields. A little bad luck, and you can waste 1000 years spinning your wheels.

Oh, and Gris... don't believe the "won't appear in the fog" myth. Check my report again. The first camp I cleared appeared in the fog.


I'm leery of reaching across to grab the furs. With an AI that close, I see no way those furs are still free by the time we get a ship built. Guess we'll see.

That's not a friendly layout up north. We either waste a lot of water tiles, as your current dots would do, or go with some hefty overlap and a half-city or two. Here's hoping there are more tiles past the fog at yellow dot.


Speaking of Yellow Dot, I'd like to found there next, not dark blue. Looks like if we can found at yellow and keep a unit parked where that wounded warrior sits, we might just shut down barbs in the north entirely, whereupon everything north of Pyong could swap to farmer gameplay - build temples, granaries, settlers and workers and go light on military.

The one good thing about having less land is that we should have the barbs closed out before the massive uprising time.


- Sirian

 

[Jabah]

Originally posted by Sirian
I hope Jabah is tuned in and aware that he's up now.




- Sirian

Yes, I just had a quick peak at civfanatics and discovered it already my turn.
Won't be able to play this afternoon (maybe tonight or tomorrow).

I haven't even finish reading Griselda and Speaker turns and have to go already.

Jabah

Got it btw

 

[Speaker]

Thanks for the thorough explanation Sirian. There are no workers at Seoul because a) we only have 3 of them total and 4 (soon to be 5) cities and b) it has all the tiles it needs to produce settlers and workers and with such a huge landmass to fill in, I didn't forsee it doing much else for a while.

 

[Sirian]

I'm looking at the capital. I see a city size 5, but only three improved tiles. Connecting the road to Pusan is a good idea, but once that's done, let's get SEVEN fully improved tiles at the capital, please. In fact, we want to chop down that forest, see if there's a BG tile under there, and mine a couple of the plains tiles to simulate what the forest is now offering us.

The biggest mistake I run across in SG's is failure to prioritize enough good tiles in the core. Gris's Habitual Mining Expedition could have been two more improved tiles at the capital, but we'll live with it. At least it was improvement at the second city, which in combo with the flood plains can use the shields. Once there is enough safety, we also want to get irrigation to Wonsan. Looks like that will have to go through the desert.

Definitely need more workers by the end of my round.


- Sirian

 

[Speaker]

If anything, Seoul is producing too many shields. The two mined BG and the center tile equal 5 shields by themselves. With two growths taking 6 turns, there is your settler, not counting the shields that are added by the growth. We will have to start sneaking in military between settlers if we want to maintain the population. With non-Industrious workers taking forever to clear forests and build mines, I think further improvement of Seoul can wait a while.

 

[Sirian]

If anything, Seoul is producing too many shields. The two mined BG and the center tile equal 5 shields by themselves. With two growths taking 6 turns, there is your settler, not counting the shields that are added by the growth. We will have to start sneaking in military between settlers if we want to maintain the population. With non-Industrious workers taking forever to clear forests and build mines, I think further improvement of Seoul can wait a while.

No!

While building the temple, the pop grows toward size 7, then we churn out the settlers rapid fashion until pop drops back to the size you would have had it at anyway. Nearly free temple, vs your "content with the low level equilibrium" method. Or if we build military instead of the temple, free units. And you advise we pass that up?

Why would we NOT want to "sneak in some military"? The settlers cannot come any faster than the food supply allows. Why throw away shields for the sake of less micromanagement tasks?

We should have seven fully improved good tiles at the capital as soon as reasonably possible.


- Sirian

 

[Speaker]

You are absolutely right if Seoul was our only city, but since we have Pyongyang, Wonsan, and Pusan (two of which have 0 developed tiles) and will soon have a couple other cities, it becomes a grey area. Do we want to develop Seoul at the expense of our other cities, letting them sit at 1 or 2 spt? That's the question.

 

[Sirian]

Seoul is the shielded city, the city with the granary, the barracks. Seoul is ready NOW to use those tiles and is no longer exposed to attack. Pyong has more improved tiles than the capital, yet is not even working them all and is stuck building regular warriors while you pass up the chance to build vet spears at Seoul because you are keeping the shields there low by design.

Why is Pusan building a granary instead of more workers? That frontier is not even secure yet! You have diverted the capital's workers to Pusan. That is fine, for connecting the city. The road will speed settlers and any military support, but improvements at Pusan can wait compared to the capital.


- Sirian

 

[Speaker]

I don't want to argue here, but you should at least be consistent with your criticism. Pusan building a granary is bad, but Pyongyang not building a barracks is also bad? Both borders are equally un-secure. I was thinking of the longterm with Pusan. It can be a every-other-turn worker factory for all of time (until it becomes an every turn worker factory with railroads), which I thought was more worthwhile than getting out a few now. The regular warriors that you so malign are doing an impeccable job protecting us from the barbs and are so cheap that any losses can easily replenished. Vet spears would be a waste because barbs will not attack them and we wouldn't want to risk the shields doing the attacking ourselves. Vet archers, on the other hand, would be quite handy, but some basic culture from temples will also be handy, as you earlier said. I didn't push you on that one because although I don't see us building temples, with the possible exception of Seoul, in the next thousand or so years, having the option to is good.

There is no doubt that you are a great player Sirian, and I do appreciate the "discussion" because I do want to improve. But I have a lot of experience playing Huge maps and I know it is crucial to have more than just your capital capable of pumping out workers and settlers, especially using a non-industrious Civ. In the last Huge map game I played a month or two ago, in addition to my capital, which never grew beyond size 7 and built nothing but settlers and workers after the initial scouts and granary, I had two worker farms for the first half of the game.

But this is an SG and to quote a really bad Matrix line, it's not my way or the highway. Since I won't be seeing the game for 30 turns, I fully expect to see Seoul as you describe it, when I pick up the game next, and I don't doubt that we will be in great shape.

With that said, the last time we played together in LK38, I was content to go along with whatever you said, because being new to Deity, I was still stumbling along. But 7 months later, and over a dozen Deity victories to my name, I feel secure enough to give my $.02, or $2.00 as it has become here. I hope you don't begrudge me that.