Strategy Objectives - Mid Term

[Provolution]

I definitely think that Oracle is a no-go for us. We are in a resource-poor corner and we need to expand into the resource-rich centre as quickly as we can.

I agree, we need to end the Oracle gambit discussion, permanently. Its an autopilot strategy that does not serve our present interests.

 

[Provolution]

You're right, that's why we should build the next city near the horse. The barbs will prob arrive between turn 50 and 60 (or around 1800 BC). The sheep/deer city is obviously the better overall location for the third city, but we honestly have to get a better equipped army or "El Cucuy" is gonna eat us.

I support building 3rd city there (horse) a chariot will cover good ground in mopping up incoming barbarian warriors, and we need it now, not 25 turns down the road.

 

[damnrunner]

Just a thought on Great people. Our 1st one should obviously be a GS for an academy. But what do we want for our second one?

I think a GE for a wonder or GS for a free tech makes the most sense. Anyhow we will want to think this through at some point.

Also how do great spys work - I don't have BTS only vanilla civ4.

 

[Provolution]

Great spies can add a massive chunk of EP for a targeted civ, enabling us to do all kinds of special operations there, very fun. It is the espionage equivalent of a cultural bomb. The Scotland Yard is a small wonder that generates espionage points per turn, lotsa them and then there is a spy specialist for a city, that adds a lot of counterespionage points for that city.

We may consider a Great Engineer for nr 2, as we may need a wonder or two in Pavlodar.

 

[Kaleb]

Great spies can add a massive chunk of EP for a targeted civ, enabling us to do all kinds of special operations there, very fun. It is the espionage equivalent of a cultural bomb. The Scotland Yard is a small wonder that generates espionage points per turn, lotsa them and then there is a spy specialist for a city, that adds a lot of counterespionage points for that city.

The only way to get a GSpy early is with the Great Wall. After that the only way is running a Spy specialist with a Courthouse, and then you can only get 1. A GSpy along with some spies can get you 2 or 3 techs from a rival, so early one it is easily the best Great Person to get.

Scotland Yard gives 100% espionage bonus. Like Oxford Uni for espionage

 

[Indiansmoke]

Great spies are OK but you need Alphabet, invest hammers in spies, hope missions will not fail and of course to have a rival close.

Great scientists are by far the best great people, although early prophets are equally good settled, to give you hammers and allow you to run 100% research.

Great engineer is not easy (we need eng wonders or metal casting) to get although it would be great to have one for the great library.


Since it seems we are getting Library after settler, I feel it would be best to get 2 scientists in a row from capital...first academy, second settle...this will help our tech pace a lot..

At the same time if we go for great library and get it, it will pretty much guarandee Liberialism, since we will have the scientists quick enough to bulb both philosophy and education.

So after writting I would shoot for monarchy, via polytheism, then literature and then civil service.

Of course if we find no copper SW with our scout, we will need Iron working before all that...

 

[Kaleb]

The Sheep city looks like the perfect place for a GP farm with 3 good food resources. Production is weak there though other than what we get from chopping. They will need that plains hill that overlaps with Hazrat-e. We definitely want the HE in the sheep city IMO. Between a Library, Temple, Forge and Courthouse we can run up to 5 GPs there. With the corn, sheep and deer we can have 15 with 3 tiles worked. This can support a population of 7, meaning we can run 4 specialists! With Philo trait and HE we can be spitting out GPs at a phenomenal rate!

 

[Indiansmoke]

The Sheep city looks like the perfect place for a GP farm with 3 good food resources. Production is weak there though other than what we get from chopping. They will need that plains hill that overlaps with Hazrat-e. We definitely want the HE in the sheep city IMO. Between a Library, Temple, Forge and Courthouse we can run up to 5 GPs there. With the corn, sheep and deer we can have 15 with 3 tiles worked. This can support a population of 7, meaning we can run 4 specialists! With Philo trait and HE we can be spitting out GPs at a phenomenal rate!

More importantly the sheep city has great short term whipping potential....we could get workers units and whip all necessary buildings there...

HE? You propably mean NE..

Courthouse there will not be so necessary as it is close to capital and city costs will be low. We can build market thought which will allow to run 2 merchants.

farming the grass river also will allow us to run 5 specialists..2 scientists 2 merchants and 1 eng. We can use HR to overflow whip NE as without marble it will be somewhat expensive for this city.

So with national epic and 5 specialists this city can produce 48 GPP per turn...not bad.

 

[damnrunner]

Sheep city - I agree it would make a good gp farm. I think the court house if for GSpy production. Post CS we can farming the grasslands near the corn and can get a few more Great People.

Our 2nd Great person will be a GS - or if we are very lucky a GE. We should shoot to build a forge and run an engineer in time so that we have the chance of getting a GE even though the odds are slim.

With a GS - settling in the capitol is one option. We also could use him to rush a tech. What techs would be possible and would it be worth it?

 

[Kaleb]

yes, sorry. of course I meant NE

I was just mentioning the courthouse because we'll have CoL before any other GP enabling buildings (and a GSpy is a better than a GM anyway!)

 

[Provolution]

Yes, my aggressive argumentation for writing, is part of a motion to get faster to CoL. And in that strategy, we need writing, libraries and academy. Even marketplace may be interesting in this, with all of the gold, river and coast around.

 

[Provolution]

I would hope someone considered this citygrid. It protects our horses much better in the read, as we should use mysticism and monument as our first build in the horse city. This will make this a more viable city, adding gold, 3 foodplains, 2 hills as well as saving the forest. We can protect the area and the coast with only 2 sentries, which is a real good economy in this. I hope this is at least considered. This also leaves room for a small doable utility city in the middle.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I like that city grid, except that I would like to have one large granary city that takes up the majority of the floodplains squares and is a segeway to the copper in the "hub" of the wheel. We need to be building cities North and West... Not South, says I... Also, I would like to have space for another city that captures the gold but doesen't have too many ocean squares (We can only build Moais in one city). Lastly, I don't want to wait for the city to: First, build a monument, then pop borders in order to get horse. I can remember there being calls to actually build the city ON TOP OF THE HORSE, because waiting for the pasture was too long of a wait!!! Now we want to wait for Mysticism, Monument, Border Pop, Road that is 2 squares longer, and then a Pasture on top of everything else?!? That's like 20 extra turns

 

[Indiansmoke]

yes, sorry. of course I meant NE

I was just mentioning the courthouse because we'll have CoL before any other GP enabling buildings (and a GSpy is a better than a GM anyway!)

A great spy is definatelly not better than a great merchant...how did you get that idea?

Again I emphasize that this is not single player where same religion and close open borders reduce the cost of stealing techs....

A great merchant or a couple of great merchants can turn a mediocre city like the horse city into a great city providing 2 extra food and 12 gold....

 

[Kaleb]

Settling a GS get +14 - as long as we have contact with other civ, we'll easily be producing more espionage than them and get good visibility on their graphs. I think it's useful precisely because this is a long-term multiplayer game. I wasn't thinking of the spy for infiltration

 

[Jimmy369]

Right now I think that Horse first is grudgingly giving way to sheep first(or at least those are my impressions). Provolution, I do think your city sight is better, but... I think that our commerce city around that corn tile is more important than the horses. With your horse placement, I think that we have too much overlap between those two cities. If the commerce city wasn't far better potentially than your horse city, then your plan is better. As it is though,!

 

[Sommerswerd]

I for one, am not giving up the idea that we need Horse first!!! But since this is a more long term thread, I wanted to put in my two cents about what we will get after:
Pottery, Mysticism, Meditation/Polytheism, Writing, (Code of Laws if no religion), Iron Working...

I would like to metion that we need Sailing after these other vital techs. We need to be able to invade/show force to our neighbors, including the (presumably) peaceful and co-operative Cavalieros, as well as stepping up our contacts with other neighbors. The mapmaker said that all Civs would be reachable without Caravels, so we should not limit ourselves to one ally/tech trading partner if we dont have to. I think once we get to it, we should try to get Sailing right before Alphabet... if possible.

 

[Indiansmoke]

If after teching mystisism we see that there is still no religion taken...then we can go for one...and obviously the Oracle will be up for grabs as well...we need to reconsider that...also stonehedge is still available....

As we will have 3 cities I am very tempted to go for both...having early prophets settled will be huge for our tech and our capital production.

 

[Provolution]

If we are to make two settlers in a row, I think it is much wiser to go for mysticism, then we can go for either meditation or polytheism, if none of these are taken. If any religion has been taken, we go for writing instead.

 

[Sommerswerd]

This recent incident with Cavalieros brings up a mid-term flavor issue. Do we need a galley to protect our sea border in general? Prior to this incident, I would have said sea power was irrelevant and we could put it off for a long time. Oh, how wrong I was... Just one galley would have made our position so much better. I know this disrupts our current tech plans, so I just want to hear people's thoughts... if any.

Also, when neighbors sail past our capital, they will see that we have no defense/poor defense in Hazrate... I remember someone saying that "If we find an un-defended city we will burn it." Do we think it is possible that this could happen to us?

Obviously, if you just focus on city development and only build the minimum amount of military that you need to keep cities peaceful/ keep barbarians away, you will always be ahead in score, and eventually win the game.... As long as no one attacks you... As I am sure we have all learned from playing the AI, building all the wonders but no military gets you alot of points, but then your beautiful nation is razed in the end by hordes of axes and chariots.

If Cavalieros knew for sure that we already had a workboat way ahead of them, does anyone think they would be less likely to want to race to the next civ east? Maybe the reason they are in a rush to get to our eastern neighbor is because they think, if they hurry, they can beat us there???... (BTW this is NOT an attack on ANYONE just an honest question).

Lastly, if Cavalieros does blow through our border, we are still ahead of them... so we can get to eastern neighbor and set up a quick deal that trades for all the techs that Cavalieros could potentially offer, but we need to have that proposal ready ahead of time so we can offer it quickly... Our Eastern neighbor may have sent a scout (or scoutboat) west afterall.

I am beginning to think that maybe the map is "5-leaf clover shaped." Anyone else see this?