ST3- Sirian's Followers

[Rubberjello]

Eeekk! Look at all that desert! Double Eeeek! Look at all that Jungle! Sirian sure likes to handicap the starts, eh?

As mentioned before, no trades possible. We are behind Masonry, Alphabet, Wheel and Iron Working on Germany and India. This is no surprise on Diety level, but kind of suprising when we are playing and expansionist civ.

2110 (1) Indians building the Colossus. St. Pete Warrior->Worker. Settler heading for Furs (hollow dot).

2070 (2) Scouting. Notice Spain warrior fighting some Barbs. Slider bar to 20% to keep Moscow happy.

2030 (3) Germany starts Pyramids. Scout encounters main German army in the far east (They must have been barb-hunting.) Moscow Warrior->Settler. We meet a warrior from France (to the east). France is up the same four techs as everyone else, and is also unwilling to deal.

1990 (4) Germans start the Oracle. Build Kiev on Furs. More scouting...not a goodie hut in sight!

1950 (5) Indians building Pyramids. A couple of scouts are running away from Barbs. Slider to 20% (Moscow to size 5). Worker starts road to Kiev. People are finally willing to sell techs. I check for possible 2-fers, and Spain gained 4 techs in one turn!!! Vikings are the only ones we could trade to.

1950 (6) St. Pete. Worker->Warrior. Contact Celts. They are also up the same 5 techs as everyone else.

1910 (7) The Indians are building the Oracle. Mysticism has been discovered by most Civs. I spot a trading opportunity, and I hope it isn't that bad for us. (Its the only one available). India gets 85 gold and 4gpt for Masonry. Trade Masonry +17 gold to Vikings for Mysticism. Trade Mysticism +25 gold To France for Alphabet. We are now down only IW and Wheel on everyone.


1870 (8) MM Moscow to grow and get settler next turn.

1830 (9) Moscow Settler->Warrior. Warrior/settler pair sent on to Yellow dot.

1790 (10) Spanish finish Colossus. Babylonia finishes Pyramids. There is a major cascade. Kiev Warrior->Worker.

Sorry I didn't get this completed sooner. I hope the trades were OK as I blew most of our bankroll.

The Save (1790BC)

 

[Sirian]

Actually, that was a great trade in 1910. We're looking good.

PRHH? Hey now, it isn't THAT bad.

 

[Sirian]

ROSTER:

Sirian
Skyfish
Rubberjello
6thGenTexan <<< UP NOW
Mazarin <<<<< On Deck

 

[6thGenTexan]

I've got it. I should be able to get to it tonight.
Plans w/o looking at game:
Settle yellow and white dots. 3rd settler if posible to desert lake as Barb Buffer.
Build a barracks in Kiev and start cranking out vets for our civ With a city going in NW and the next settler going W of St. Petersburg, I'll start the temple to bring in the cow & fish.
Explore more.
If Writing shows up, parley our contacts into techs to catch up.

6gntxn

 

[Mazarin]

good trading on your turn, Rubberjello. looks like we got a rather food-poor start here, however, I'm wondering about the two mined plains near Moscow: both wheat are on olains, right? so why do we put our only food-rich city below 5fpt?

I'd also like to have a clarification on the use of worker factories here: I do agree that they are inbalancing when used to join citizens that have been produced at the cost 10f+10s into cities than would require 40f or 60f otherwise. Using food rich cities to provide the workers for the whole civilisation while allowing shield rich cities to build up the military for the empire seems like intelligent management, however.

 

[Sirian]

In order to run 5fpt and produce settlers in four turns, a city needs 7 shields at size 5 and 8 shields at size 6. Then the city can cycle through on a four-turn settler production equilibrium, with careful attention.

To get seven shields at size 5, you would need at least 1spt from every tile and 2spt from at least two tiles. For THAT, you need bonus grassland. We have none.

There is no use running higher food if multiple turns are spent at size 7, where ALL the food gathered is wasted. See?


As for workers, nothing wrong with the food rich sites producing more of them than food poor sites, but every city needs to be built up, to get improvements, to keep growing, so worker production will shift around.

The needs-less-food workers produced out of smaller towns, merging into larger towns, is only half of the issue. The rest comes from playing off a script, canning the game down to a repetitive formula. The worker farm is possible within the rules, but there is no correspending historical example in which ALL of a civ's workers came out of one or two cities.

Ripping the soul out of the game and exploiting loopholes in the rules is a bad idea in general. Wander too far down that road, and you end up with a twisted result in which suspension of disbelief is no longer possible. The experience is shrunk down to mechanics, with the inner workings of the machine laid threadbare and the activity no longer resembling what it started out to be.

Think of it as the difference between a relaxed game of cards with friends or family, vs concocting a "system" to gain an edge at Blackjack and spending all your time and focus on counting cards and calculating how to maximize every shred of possible advantage toward winning more hands. The goal has ceased to be to play, taken over by an obsession with winning.

There is a place for that. But here... I would rather play. I get more fun out of adapting to the ebb and flow of the terrain and opponents of each map, than I do out of canning the strategy. If the game has a single "best way" to do certain things, that is a flaw in the design, not a strength. A good game offers choices with pros and cons for different moves. Civ3 is largely a good game, but it does still have some cracks and flaws that need compensation in the form of additional boundaries.


- Sirian

 

[Mazarin]

I was thinking of a "2 settlers every 9 turns" factory. this does require more improved tiles, but I think it might be worth the worker turns we would have to put in it.

thanks for the explanation of your pov on worker farms, Sirian. It's fine with me if we want to avoid strongly specialized cities.

 

[6thGenTexan]

look around or PRHH. We sure do see a lot of the map but we control very little!!

IBT Celts,Germans,French,Indians start Oracle
1750BC Moscow: Warrior-->Settler Warrior stays in Moscow allowing lux to drop gaining 1gpt
1725BC St.Petersburg: Warrior-->Worker due in 5 with growth, warrior heads to hills west pushing back fog. See barb galley off of coast of Germany.
Elizabeth shows up on Diplo screen. She has yet to meet the French or the Celts and is up Writing.
Ghandi, Biz and Izy have writing and all contacts. Liz does not want contact with Joan or Celts for tech and she must be near Spain because it looks like they got the biggest new deposit in their bank.
IBT French complete Oracle
1700BC Minsk Founded, starts worker in 10. Move lux back up for Moscow and MM to get growth in 3 and Settler in 4.
1675BC France gets writing and does not know Liz or Ragnar. 1GPT+33g+contacts will get wheel from her but will wait to see if writing gets cheaper.
1650BC Kiev: Worker-->Barracks, worker starts chopping. Celts get writing and have yet to meet Liz or Rangnar like France.
1625BC Moscow: Settler-->Settler, heading to location west of St.Pete. Miss clicked somewhere and St.Pete built a Warior instead of worker, starting Temple. France will now sell writing for Vikes+England+7GPT+62g.
1600BC The one square of fog to the west was hiding Ivory. Get the Wheel from Rangar for Writing+Celts+1GPT+3g. Only visible horses are outside of Germany and between India and Spain. France Germany and Spain have HBR.
1575BC Warrior scout gets booted out of Spain. Find English warriors on peninsula North of France bu tnot one of their cities. Rangar picks up HBR.
1550BC Build Smolensk, start warrior. Ghandi is now riding horses. Kick up lux for Moscow.
1525BC Nothing New...

Settler due next turn in Moscow. All 3 workers finish their tasks next turn. Warrior to the west is heading for the last bit of uncovered territory on coast. Keeping up on techs is keeping us broke. Celts may be at war since there are 2 workers in the capital now. Thats all for now.

SAVE

 

[Sirian]

1525BC? Hey, careful with that turn count. Everyone else stick with ten, and we'll give Tex nine on his next round to even that back out.

Progress seems on track. Mazarin up now.

- Sirian

 

[T-hawk]

Actually, Texan went one too few - 10-turn intervals go 2150-1750-1500-1250-1000-750. You don't get on the x50 sequence for good until 750 BC. Somebody will have to go 11 turns.

 

[Sirian]

Oops! Thanks for the correction. Tex must have counted the inherited turn. We'll make him go long next round to catch back up!

- Sirian

 

[6thGenTexan]

Mazarin can have the extra turn. I would have left the settler and the workers to him anyway. It will be an extra turn of scout movement.

-6gntxn

 

[Rubberjello]

Just a quick reminder here. I'm on vacation from August 3'rd through the 9'th. I hope you guys don't play TOO fast.

I fully expect to for us to graduate from "puny" to "pitifiable" by the time I get back!

 

[Mazarin]

I got it, will be able to play a bit later today.

 

[Mazarin]

(1525bc-0) nothing to change...this is not going to be easy

(1500bc-1) Moscow: settler>warrior
Smolensk: warrior>warrior

Moscows borders expand putting St.Pete's cow into our cultural borders; I switch St.Pete's temple to granary: early culture is important, but early growth is essential -and with so few cities with food potential, we should use every ASAP.

(1450bc-3) moscow: warrior>settler
(1425bc-4) smolensk: warrior>worker
(1400bc-5) switch Kiev from barracks to granary: we can handle the barbs with regular warriors...I know, we'll manage to

(1350bc-7) moscow: settler>warrior, Odessa founded north of moscow: it is not the closest of our potential city sites -but we better walk five turns longer than being stuck with cities that only have one food tiles.
the AIs have traded around quite a lot, before only few of them had phil or map making -no chance for twofers, however: I would have had to cripple our growth with tax collectors to be able to afford any of the techs.

Spain: wm <-> tm+105g
france: wm <-> tm+35g
celts: wm+14g <-> tm+philosophy
India: wm <->tm+90g
England: wm +40g<-> IW+tm
Germany: WM+5g<-> HR
total: wm<->Phil, HR, IW, some tms, 171g

(1300bc-9)smolensk: worker>warrior
sell wm for change

we can get a discount of 70g for our wm, so I buy MapMaking from the Vikes for wm, 217g, 9gpt
set research to poly@max. sustainable...10%
(1275bc-10) moscow: warrior>settler
(1250bc-11) not much. there is a warrior/settler pair heading north to get us some more fertile lands than deserts, St.Pete's granary finishes next turn, the city should be able to support moscow with settlers then. We do have two sources of iron and one third that we should be able to claim: trading iron for techs could become a viable strategy for us. We also should try not to fall behind to far at the beginning of middle ages: only germany is scientific on our continent, so brokering our free tech could become extremely valuable.

the turn...I just realize that Sirian is up after me ...looking forward to the

 

[Sirian]

PLEASE ZIP ALL SAVE FILES

There. Now that we've got that out of the way, I can praise your efforts. Very nice effort on the map trading. We won't regret the granaries, either. Oh, and our workers are improving the core, not wandering out in the hinterlands. BLESS YOU! Bless you, comrade Mazarin, patron saint of mother Russia's working class.

IT 1250BC: Swap Moscow to higher food.

1225BC: After granary completion, train a worker out of St. Pete.

1175BC: St. Pete starts on settler.

1150BC: Broker tidbits of map information, scrape together enough dough to found embassy with Vikings.

1125BC: Joanie threatens us. Wants all our 9g and terr map. Uh, oops, was running 1gpt deficit. As T-hawk warned against, something is scrapped to pay for the shortfall! One of our scouts bites the bullet. Sevastopol founded.

1100BC: Izzy and Otto both place demands. We lick their boots.

1075BC: More boot licking.

1050BC: LOTS of polished boots around now!

1025BC: We are contacted by the Greeks! We sell them Philosophy for their world map and all their 34g. Tbilisi founded. One of our barb pickets loses 0-3 despite being fortified on a mountain.

1000BC: Vikings offer to sell us their world map for ours plus 40g. I accept! I then sell that around to some AI's, then BUY Joanie's WM for 1gpt plus all our 38g. More brokering ensues, leading to us having all known map info in the world. Scandinavia is the last civ to sell back to, and their 60g will not pay for all that we know! I check for Literature @8th, and we can afford it with the map sale. Buy Lit from Vikes for Map, 8gpt and 43g cash. Start libraries in pretty much every city. 1000yr bonus, here we come!

The road to Minsk has been connected, so we have roads out of the core in two of the three expansion directions now. I have had to redo the dotmap, which follows. We have two active settlers, one in Moscow UNMOVED, one just moved to Minsk.

Please note, libraries built by 750BC will get 1000yr bonus for the entire date slowdown to 10yrs per turn starting in 250AD! And we could use the border help, too. Our only source of horses is exposed in an awful spot and likely to be poached from under our noses because of where the Vikes settled. We may have to stick a defensive-border half-city up there.

I barely got to the rest of the furs at Tblisi. The Germans plopped down in overlap range the following turn. If we don't get up to the spices soon, we will never get them. Sadly, that area is infected with barbs, as the camps are squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces. There are a pack of Vikes about to clear that camp and would help with any barbs in the area, though, so up to others as to which dots to go for in which order.

Oh, and expect the massive uprising within 20 turns. The tech pace is moving along fairly rapidly now, and the AI's now have access to libraries.

 

[Sirian]

The AI's are running out of room and some are already pushing at us.
Orange and Green would make an ideal grab.
Orange and Yellow would be a good second best.
Or the settler in Moscow could head east.


ST3 - 1000BC


- Sirian

 

[Skyfish]

Got it

 

[Skyfish]

Decide to send both settlers West to Orange/Green locations

975bc : Rush Library in Kiev for exactlty 20 shields We lose a scout to a Barb

950 : Kiev starts on Walls, making temporary use of that double money tax collector in Kiev as well.

925 : TGL completes in India, Rush Library in St Pete for 16 shields again. Tax collector becomes Scientist.

900 : Everyone and their uncle starts Great Library.
St Pete starts Rax : we need Spears
Rush Library in Smolensk for 19 shields

875 : Approaching Green dots and Settler one tile from Orange. Go out on a limb and decide to send next settler towards Yellow as well

850 : Persians (?) finish the Great Wall
SoD of 4 vike archers is protecting our settlers in the NorhtWest, thx guys

825 : lone barb converges towards Odessa, Sverdlosk founded on Orange, Lib rushed in Minsk,
Lib rushed in Odessa.

800 : Wow! there is an indian settler pair right on our spices I can not settle Green spot but I can still get 2 spices in natural 9, settle on Jungle and get loads of bgs.
Kiev completes Walls and starts Temple, vetoable.

A deal finally finished and we now might have some possible trades, all of my turns found no opportunity for a deal, except a few map 1gp ones...

There is a settler right next to a fortified healing Vike warrior whom I hope will move next turn so we can settle Yellow spot

Maybe I deserted a little buit our East front but they were 3 good sites instead of 1 desert one which we can grab in just a few turns as there is a settler ready in 1 turn in Moscow.
Library can be rushed in 2 turns in Sevastopol and we'll have 6 libraries completed in 750bc

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/ST3_of_the_Russians,_800_BC.zip

 

[Sirian]

Beat an Indian settler to the spices by one turn?

We'll take that result!

:jump: [dance] :jump:

This kind of thing is why I didn't bother to dotmap more in that area. A lot now depends on where the Indians go, but looks like they are headed for a different spice deposit rather than poach off that one.

Perhaps if we get another settler up there, five tiles NW of Yakutsk might be ideal, or four tiles NW, or something in that area to ensure no legal "steal some spices" locations for the AI...

One nit. Whipped the library in St. Pete? With 5spt available? That was not worth three turns sooner on the library. Rest of that sounded good, though.

Hey, if Moscow library hasn't been slipped in there, maybe grab it now? Then peel a worker or two and get some roads going to the north and east? We have granaries in Kiev and St. Pete, so all three should be producing settlers, and the others can take up slack while Moscow gets its library.


ROSTER:

Sirian
Skyfish
Rubberjello <<< UP NOW
6thGenTexan << On Deck
Mazarin


- Sirian