SUL3: Sullla's Training Day Game

[Erik Mesoy]

Regarding my settler in Kiev mistake- It wasnt really a mistake. If it worked the forest, we would have a settler ready while the city was at size 2.
I know that this would have been valid criticism, but I hate seeing a ready settler in a city at size 2.

 

[Sullla]

Erik: I wasn't aware that you had built or were building a settler in Kiev. If running a forest tile would cause it to be built too fast, the solution would be to switch it to something that provided more food and fewer shields, like a grassland. I can't really comment on this because I was unaware of the situation going on at the time.

Zed's comments are definitely valid on how sometimes running max food will cause a project to be completed faster than max shields. In the particular case of Smolensk, I didn't do this because 1) I wanted to demonstrate how tile swapping can split two extremes of food vs. growth and 2) Smolensk had no 2shield tiles in its radius to be gained from growing to size 3; putting it on max food would indeed have slowed it down slightly in producing a settler. With that said, I should also mention that I sometimes work too much for the short term and, to be perfectly honest, am not as experienced or capable a player as Zed is. I am trying to improve just as much as everyone else playing these games, so my comments are not infallible by any means.

 

[LKendter]

Another consideration in the mm scheme - since it was for a settler.

The faster the NEW city starts, the sooner you -
1) Claim the new land - very important if a potential for 2 civs to get it.
2) The sooner the new city may build a settler.
3) The sooner the new city is productive in anyway.
4) If the new city claims a luxury / resource- the overall benefit to the civ.
5) If the city is strategic - land mass choke point - lower risks of the unexpected.
6) The sooner you place early cities - the sooner you lift the fog and prevent barb camps.

When it comes to settlers, there are a lot of things to think about.

Me, I would have went with Sullla game plan.

By the time I hit reply - 2 more comments

 

[Erik Mesoy]

1hour since I got the game. 2 replies already.
I, Erik Mesoy, come to power in Russia again.
Inherited turn: Switch St. Petersburg to work the forest, getting the settle one turn earlier. I establish embassy with China.
turn 1: Swap minsk to a library. 10 shields less, 1 culture more. We are Scientific, not religious. I disband a regular warrior in Kiev.
turn 2: 1175 BC: Very little happens.
turn 3: 1150 BC. I found sevastopol near the silks.
1125 bc: Moscow builds a temple, starts the PYRAMIDS. 50 turns ETA.
turn 5: 1100 BC. Very little happens.
Between the turns: THE INDIANS ARE BUILDING THE PYRAMIDS!! This is regent, so watch out for CASCADE.
1075 bc: St. petersburg builds settler, I start a library.
turn 7: Mao The-Dumb asks us to move out of his terrotory. Whatever. I found Tblisi near a river. It has 2 bonus grasslands to call its own.
Between turns: Mao forces us out of his territory.
turn 8: 1025 bc. Our people wish to build the forbidden palace! The ideal place to build it would be paris, so I declare WAR.

(See note from my last report.)

1000 BC: A scout discovers more iron. Moron.
Turn 10. 975 BC. I, Erik Mesoy, abdicate from the throne of Russia, in favor of a man named Imhotep. All my notes to him are here.

In less than 900 years, we will have built the Pyramids. The indians are also attempting to build them, but they had an estimated completion time of well over 1500 years. Our settler in the west is to found a city there- it may build the Colossus if you so favor. I do not know any good sites for our Winter Palace, in fact I do not even know if Winter ever visits this land. However, it might be built in Sevastopol. Three and a half days (tiles) west and half a day south of Kiev, there lies a forest. It is a good spot to found a city.
Also, I am now confident that our world is only a large continent, so there is no need to build the great building called lighthouse.

 

[Ihmotep]

Ack..so I'm stuck with a war

I never do good in wars

I have it..don't know when I'll get to it though

 

[Sullla]

Imhotep - I believe Erik was joking in his report with the declaration of war; make sure to check that before doing anything silly. As for completion of Pyramids... do we KNOW that we'll beat the Indians (via a diplomatic "investigate city") or are you ESTIMATING we'll win based on looking at the city on the world map? If it's the latter, I would definitely investigate the city building the Pyramids to make sure we are ahead of the pace.

 

[Ihmotep]

heh I just realized that it was a joke

(gullible me)

 

[Sullla]

I took a look at the game and here are my comments:



Why is there an unescorted settler out in the middle of the jungle? That French warrior can easily capture it, costing us a waste of shields and population.

I also circled a worker who is roading a forest to no apparent purpose. That worker should be connecting our iron city with roads. Why is it roading a tile that's not being worked and is not needed to connect cities?

Why is St. Petersbug on Library? Didn't I say it should be a settler factory? Just look at its growth!!!

Why is Sevastopol building a warrior? Is there any need for a regular warrior at the moment?

Kiev badly needs a cultural building after it finishes barracks; that will bring much more land under our control. Kudos to Erik for pointing out that libraries cost fewer shields than temples for a scientific civ; I must have been on the for not thinking of that.

Smolensk is not intended to be a settler city since it doesn't have high growth; they can be built there but it is not an ideal site to produce them.

Odessa and Sevastopol need to be hooked up to the other cities soon. I applaud the choice of worker in Odessa, and suggest moving that circled worker down there to help out.

Sulla - out of game
Architect <<< on deck
Erik Mesoy
Imotep <<< UP NOW

 

[LKendter]

Looking at the map

1) It appears Russia has no horses - why has a city been build there yet?

2) OK - let land above Moscow will need work - but, this is the lowest corruption area. That last thing to want is for the AI to build cities there - Hopeing for a culture flip could take a long time.
I have had cities hold out forever with culture flips.

3) What is the jungle settler after???? No luxries / resources and far distance from our other cities.

 

[Ihmotep]

even when smolensk expands, It doesn't look like it will include the horses so my first task will be getting the jungle-settler to make a city for the horses

 

[Ihmotep]

ok here we go

Pre turn: Stopped the Jungle-Roading worker. Changed Smolensk to temple and Micromanged so we get it 24 turns quicker. lose 4 turns on growth though.

1) 950BC More French around our borders. Move all our units around the un-known territory. Minsk starts Barracks

2) 925BC I check the mail and find another cool Drink Coaster from AOL. What nice people

3) 900BC - Sevastopol starts Barracks. Persia offers Math for Map-making. I agree since the AI hardly ever offers a straight up tech deal (usually they want gold too)

4) 875BC - *yawn*

5) 850BC - French are building the Pyramids and Persia is building the Great Library

6) 825BC - Ghandi says give us Contact with the Japanese or we will destroy you! I tell him to go lay down in front of marching elephants and he declines noting that if he wasn't so peaceful, he would grind us to dust.

7) 800BC - Hey Who's Line is it Anyway is on!!

8) 775BC - I get a soda and put it on my brand new AOL Drink Coaster.

9) 750BC - St. Petersburg finishes a Library and some guys decide that this city is getting to boring for them so they make plans to pack up and leave ( I built a settler just in case your wondering what thats about). passing traveller tells us of the French trying to build a Great Library

10) 730BC - Latte anyone?

Notes:

I was near moving our settler to a good place to catch the horses when I saw a Red Warrior RIGHT ON TOP of the horses (no settler). So I moved a spear to the settler to escort him to a spot. Architect you should get that city built ASAP then build an Iron city with the St. Petersburg Settler. Still lots of jungle to clear but it will take FOREVER to do that in Depotism so I reccomend we get a G'ment change sometime soon so we can have better worker efficiency.

 

[Architect]

Got It, I'll have it back Monday evening sometime.

 

[Architect]

730BC (0) - The reign of Architect III began by making a few changes to what was going on. First, I changed Kiev and Smolensk to produce libraries and to counter the loss of happiness I change Sevastpol from barracks to worker so we can road up the silks luxury which will provide an additional happy face for our entire empire. Switching to Library in Smolensk WILL get the horse in our range without an additional city. I also move the citizens to work the two forest squares to complete the library in 3 turns which will get the more productive squares and the horses into the city range 2 turns earlier. Sacificing 4 food for this is worth it IMO. I move a worker to the road going to Odessa for an additional commerce. Babylon wants our territory map and I concede it not wanting to start a war yet with him. The indians start the great library.

710BC (1) - Our new worker in Odessa moves to irrigate the flood plain. I send our worker near St. Petersburg to build the road to the next city site to the west of St. Petersburg. I send our settler to the north of Moscow to take this valuable land before the babs. We spot another goody hut! The chinese start building the pyramids.

690BC (2) - Our workers proceed as planned.

670BC (3) - We learn the secrets of construction and begin researching the use of coins for trade. I choose this technology because it is the only one I haven't seen other civs posses. Architect wonders how other civs caught up so quickly. We complete our library in Smolensk and I begin to produce a barracks here. We produce a worker in svetaspol and I switch it back to barracks. I begin production of a library in odessa. We got 50 gold from a goody hut. We have 743gold and currency is currently set to finish in 40 turns. We currently need Polythesim, Code of Laws and Philosophy which are all available and we can get them from construction. I'm going to bump up currency research to where we complete it in 11 turns and watch the AI very closely. If we offer construction every turn and then note when the value drops way down WITHOUT another CIV getting it we can determine the exact moment to trade it for maximum results. This will spearhead us into the middle ages and keep everyone behind us. I upgrade our warrior to swordsman in Moscow.

650BC (4) - Everything proceeds as planned.

630BC (5) - As planned. Our settler will found a new city north of Moscow next turn. Everyone still offers bunches for construction so we are safe to not trade it yet.

610BC (6) - We now have horses in our cultural boundaries! We must get a road to this resource soon. We found Sverdlovsk on the Great Lake of Eridu. We will have to "change" this name in the future. I begin a barracks there. No one is near construction and we are 8 turns from currency.

590BC (7) - Kiev completes the Library and begins work on a spearman. Tiblisi completes library and begins work on a settler. Currency drops to six turns due to the new libraries but we are running -2 now, but for 12 gold it is worth it. No one is near completing construction. We send a worker to start the road through the mountains of odessa to connect up with the spice resource.

570BC (8) - Minsk completes a barracks and begins building a spearman. Everything pretty much the same. Japan demands construction I decline, they DO NOT declare war.

550BC (9) - Moscow goes into unrest! Dammit I suck. I increase luxuries 10% to keep all citizen's busy. Must remember to look for cities about to grow and evaluate happiness. I found Yakutsk near St. Petersburg and start building a library. This is only a placeholder for the next leader. This will one day be a great city. Same every thing else.

530BC (10) - We experience great cultural expansion this turn expanding the radius of 3 cities. I feel that I will be recognized as one of the great cultural leaders of all time. Construction still fetches a premium. I hope the next leader is diligent about checking our "allies" every turn to see when they are about to complete and get's the most our of construction. Currency will complete in 3 turns and then with the proper use of construction we will be in the middle ages holding currency as our start to the tech lead. Also, our wandering warrior is returning to Tiblsi to fortify and protect it as it grows.

 

[ChrTh]

"550BC (9) - Moscow goes into unrest! Dammit I suck. I increase luxuries 10% to keep all citizen's busy. Must remember to look for cities about to grow and evaluate happiness. I found Yakutsk near St. Petersburg and start building a library. This is only a placeholder for the next leader. This will one day be a great city. Same every thing else"

Here's a good question: how does one know if a city is about to go into unrest? Is there a way to tell that the next citizen will be Unhappy?

 

[Zed-F]

Yes. Sirian suggested that one trick he uses to micromanage happiness is to bump the lux tax down/up by 10% at the end of his turn, and check out the happy/content/unhappy faces in the domestic advisor (changing the lux tax re-evaluates the happy faces in the domestic window to take into account any changes that have taken place during your turn, such as gaining/losing lux in trade.) If you notice any cities with too many unhappy faces, take corrective action.

That said, you usually get one turn's grace before unhappiness becomes revolt. That is, if you're at size 4 on turn N and are about to grow, and you have just enough happy factors, when you hit next turn and and grow to size 5 between turn N and turn N+1, you won't go into revolt unless you fail to take corrective action on turn N+1 before you hit end of turn.

 

[ChrTh]

Originally posted by Zed-F

That said, you usually get one turn's grace before unhappiness becomes revolt. That is, if you're at size 4 on turn N and are about to grow, and you have just enough happy factors, when you hit next turn and and grow to size 5 between turn N and turn N+1, you won't go into revolt unless you fail to take corrective action on turn N+1 before you hit end of turn.

See, that's what throws me. A city grows, nothing happens, so I think it's ok...then another turn goes by, and then they're unhappy. It's like they had to stop and think about it..."Hmmm, do I think there's enough people here to be unhappy yet...yeah, I guess so...I think I'll riot in ten years"

So I guess the trick is, once the city grows by 1, check the Domestic Advisor screen...it'll show the unhappiness even if they're not rioting til next turn, I'm guessing? (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

 

[Sullla]

Originally posted by ChrTh

So I guess the trick is, once the city grows by 1, check the Domestic Advisor screen...it'll show the unhappiness even if they're not rioting til next turn, I'm guessing? (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

Yes, that would be the correct procedure. However, if I'm paying careful attention to the game I find that I rarely need to go into the Domestic Advisor to check unhappiness; it's more useful later in the game when you have 10+ cities. In the early game with only a few cities, it's pretty easy to pay attention to when citites grow in order to keep track of happiness. Of course I would be checking the new worker anyway after growth to make sure it was working the tile I wanted.

On the topic of our game, I'm downloading the current version to provide my 2 cents (and put up a new screenie)

 

[Sullla]

The game itself looks good. Everything seems to be running OK at the moment. But it also looks like we aren't headed in any particular direction at the moment. When playing Civ3, or any strategy game, you want to have an idea of exactly what you want to achieve, and how best to achieve it. Therefore I put the question to the three of you: what is the goal (or goals) of this game? Do you want to be a peaceful builder, a bloodthirsty conquerer, etc. It might sound strange, but I normally have my goal for the game (including victory type) picked out by this point in the game. I think the next step for this game is to choose a path to take, then work towards achieving it. So each of you should post with your opinions on where the mighty Russian people should be heading.



Sulla - out of game
Architect
Erik Mesoy <<< UP NOW
Imhotep <<< on deck

 

[Architect]

I think we should go full bore science to get way ahead and then crush the rest of the world with our modern tanks while they have calvary. In my regent games I can easily get a 5 tech lead on them and then by knowing the locations of strategic resources well before they do and then plan our attacks to deny oil and even rubber to everyone.

If no other Civ builds a tank in this game then I will consider it a great victory.

What do you guys think about that idea?

 

[Ihmotep]

Develop Develop Develop.

Get out of Depotism, get rid of that jungle and develop the land. That will get us into a lead science-wise cause we will have more money to spend on it. I have had the following victories:

Cultural
Diplomatic

I would like to try to Destroy all the Civs after we are developed enough. shouldn't be that hard.