SUL5a - Competing Succession Game Teams

[Zarth]

Hi, I'm following the game and I think we should.....

I think we should build our second city on the red dot, west of London. We need to check out the area NW of London, before deciding where to build the third city.
I also think we should first grab all the land we can grab peacefully before going to war with anyone.
We have to keep good relations with the Romans if we are going to put a warrior on the mountain choke point. We might want to put more than one warrior there or even a spearman in case the decide Romans attack us.

 

[Wetterlind]

I agree with Zarth. On all accounts.

The Romans have very fertile land down there and will probably expand that choke point real fast if we don't put up some kind of obstacles, like a couple of warriors or spearmen. On the other hand, those units are wasted production and can const gold at an early stage (very small free unit support). Another thing: I don't think we should let London shrink beyond size 3. That would be a waste of shields! If production is too rapid for a settlers-only production (which isn't a bad thing), then we can surely build a spearman or two or even a barrack in-between settlers. This might even be a goal.

 

[Sullla]

Hi Zarth. Sorry if I sounded a bit pushy at times, but I wanted to make sure we have everyone here or else I will have to recruit more players. As it is, looks like everyone is aware of this game and eager to play, except that we haven't heard from archer_007 as yet. This post is also a reminder to archer that he has until tonight to post a "got it" message for the game or he will be skipped. Please check in with us so we know your situation.

 

[Archer 007]

Got It!

 

[Sullla]

Excellent!

 

[Archer 007]

Preturn-3000 BC-Checked Science Rate to see if it could be made more effiecent. A drop to 90% would net 1 gpt and drop Writing back 6 turns (currently 32 turns). Choose to retain current rate.
Turn 1-2950 BC- Contiuned exploration w/ Warrior and Scouts.
Turn 2-2900 BC- Granary complete. Started Settler production (finished in 5 turns, London currently is size 3).
Turn 3-2850 BC- Dropped science rate to 90 % to balance budget (currently at 9 gold). Writing now in 34 turns.
Turn 4-2800 BC- Road bringing Incense into London completed.
Turn 5-2750 BC- Worker starts road on mined tile near London.
Turn 6-2710 BC- Makes first contact w/ Persia. Checked diplomacy w/ Rome and Zululand.
Turn 7-2670 BC- Settler completed. Work started on Spearman (7 turns). Science rate dropped to 60% to rebalance budget. Settler starts trip to Blood Red dot on the dotmap.
Turn 8-2630 BC- Road toward new city started.
Turn 9-2590 BC- Nothing happened.
Turn 10- 2550 BC- Ditto.

 

[D-Tox]

Should we wait on creating a spearman? I know some people (me included) are against creating non-veteran units. We could always change production over to a Barracks, or even get another Settler out of the town when it grows to 3.

Nice turn, though! Does anyone know of any way to stop us from having to lower the science rate? It seems every couple of turns we have to keep dropping it. What brings this about?

 

[Archer 007]

The Settler would have to wait a few turns after completion before we get to size 3. Barracks are a better idea though.

 

[Sullla]

Looks like a decent turn there archer_007. Couple of things I'll address:

1) Next build in London. I'm not going to tell you what to build, since there is no right answer. There are plenty of options avaiable to choose from at this point. One of them is military, like the current spear. At this point, our military is just there for show; we haven't committed to fighting anyone yet and the AI civs are too far away to come after us for awhile. In other words, at this point it doesn't really matter if the units we build are veteran or not; they're just for show anyone. LKendter is a big fan of barracks, but then again LK doesn't play Deity where you don't have the luxury of building barracks first and then units. On Deity you need units NOW, anything to stick in your cities or use to run bloackades of foreign settlers, and regular warriors are cheap and do the job.

Where was I? OK, this isn't a Deity game. God save us all if it were. But the same principles apply; building barracks is never a bad idea, but don't think that we HAVE to have a barracks to build defensive units. We don't, especially not this early in the game. All we need is a unit in London before an AI unit wanders into it. On the same subject, we also can consider a temple to get an early cultural jump on our neighbors. I see the options as spearman, barracks, or temple to be built next, followed by another settler.


2) Worker actions: Why is the worker roading the moutain tile next to London? Mountain tiles take forever to work this early in the game and can produce, at a maximum in Despotism, 0 food and 2 shields. That's worse than an unimproved forest tile! And, if we run the road to the new city over that mountain, units will lose a turn of movement on it since it runs across a river until we discover Engineering. This is not a good use of our starting worker. I highly recommend imroving another bonus grassland for use when London grows to size 3 rather than roading a useless tile. I've outlined a much better route to our second city on the map below as well.


3) Tech Research: Well you asked why we are losing money, and here's the answer: we have 5 units and we only get free support for 4 units per city. That means we pay 1gpt to maintain our units. Similarly, our granary costs us 1gpt to maintain. We thus have to pay out 2gpt at the moment and cannot run 100% science without losing money. When we found our second city, we will get back some of this money. We can get a tech lead easily on Warlord difficulty, so I suggest keeping the science slider as high as possible and jumping far ahead of the AI civs. Also, at least at the moment, we get the same benefit from 10% science as we do from 70% science - only we get +3gpt at 10% science. That will change when we found the next city though, so the slider will have to be adjusted again at that time.

Map: I'm posting this here so everyone doesn't have to open up the save to see the area. The red line shows a much more efficient path to run a road to the second city which will also avoid crossing the river.

Also, please try to compress your save files in some format when you post them here; I suggest using WinZip. When the .SAV files themselves are attached to the threads, they often become corrupted for no apparent reason.

D-Tox
ZeekLTK
archer_007
Wetterlind <<< UP NOW
Zarth <<< on deck

 

[Wetterlind]

I'll get it soonish. I'll probably play in 7 hours (as soon as I get home from work).

 

[Wetterlind]

Got it. Play now. Have fun. Report later.

 

[Wetterlind]

Report 2550 BC - 2150 BC

These are the results of the Swedish jury:

Preturn (2550 BC)
Lowered science to 10% to gain a lot of cash (3 gold per turn, gpt) and not lose any turns to Writing (29 to go). At first I wanted to change the production form a spear to a warrior but that would result in a massive loss of 1 shield. But now I think we can wait those two remaining turns to have a better quality defense.

The mountain road is due in 8 turns thus it will be faster to can that project and build the road over the hills instead. There are actually three possible roads: shortest road (as suggested by Sullla, 21 turns), fastest road to build (18 turns) or the road connecting another incense (22 turns). I opted for the shortest (Sulllas) road. If it is used 9 times, then the 18-turn road isn't fastest anymore (lose 1/3 turns each time) and we can't trade anything for some time. I.e. worker moved SE. Building a road to our new town means that our only worker is occupied for a while and I want to have those remaining bonus tiles mined to get the benefit of all that production. Thus I plan to build a worker quite soon.

Turn 1: 2510 BC
Zulu scout sighted W of London. What is the scout close to London doing that far E? There isn't much left of that jungle to explore. I'd assume that there are only 6 tiles, most likely jungle, left over there and we have found luxuries. There shouldn't be anything left of good use to us there. That scout sent W. The worker is starting on our new road. The explorer and warrior keep on moving into uncharted lands. Before the turn ends I set Mysticism as our secondary research target. Is is cheap and brings us closer to Monarchy and I couldn't care less for the Wheel right now. I'd like to have Literature to build libraries for our glorious people but it would take forever to discover.

Turn 2: 2470 BC
Spears completed. It is patrolling the streets of London. We are now producing our first unit in our carbon board army: a warrior. York founded! Production set to worker (growth in 7 and worker due in 10). This way we don't need to build a worker in London. If anything hostile shows up I can switch to warrior.

Turn 3: 2430 BC
Explored some more... On the science front: now that we got two cities having 90% science balances our budget and Writing will be known in 23 but 10% science is +5gpt and Writing due in 26. That is 3 turns or approx. 12% faster knowledge for 115g. Sounds expensive to me this early. Warrior completed. Sent it to York. Temple up next. I don't want to build a settler yet. I'd like London to be bigger (3-5 or 4-6) so that we can utilise all those bonus tiles and get more gold/science than an average sized 2 London. This way we'll have a lead in the culture race.

Turn 4: 2390 BC
Explored some more and popped a goody hut. We are now 25g richer. Woho . But then again, a warrior would be worse. I didn’t see where that Zulu scout went. My guess is that is slipped by London by the W coast.

Turn 5: 2350 BC
London is now a size 3.

Turn 6: 2310 BC
Nothing much. Sent N scout W and the scouting warrior to peek into Persian territory.

Turn 7: 2270 BC
Road over the hills is done. I sent the worker to mine the bonus tile N of London. The worker form York can complete it later. London is a bigger priority.

Turn 8: 2230 BC
Mining started. Warrior reached York.

Turn 9: 2190 BC
More scouting. It seems to be Cow Country in the NW of our continent! The only problem is: the AI is gonna' get 'em cows first!

Turn 10: 2150 BC
Even more scouting. What a surprise there! Sent our newly produced worker in York to the wheat tile on a mining mission. Started to build a granary there.

Conclusion
I'm not sure I'm making the correct call here, choosing infrastructure and city growth over immediate expansion. My reason for doing so is: a city zigzagging between 1 and 3 in size is less useful than one zigzagging between 3 and 5 or even 4 and 6. The price I’m paying is 1 settler. Once York has a granary and possibly a temple it can probably produce one settler every 6 turns or so.

I don't think we can stop the Romans by putting a warrior or two on that choke point. They'll just settle close to it and we'll be forced to withdraw. It won't be worth the price! (And we’ll act nice, too )

We need to expand rapidly to the E or else the Zulu will grab all that land.

Savefile: SUL5a-2150BC.zip

 

[Sullla]

Well, with the shields you put into a temple build in London, we need to finish that, but afterwards I really recommend building some settlers. There's a lot of land out there and you will want to grab a bunch of it. Remember this too Wetterlind: do NOT queue up the tech tree or set building queues! You must leave the option open for others to decide what to build next. That's part of the nature of succession games. Zarth, to de-queue production in London (should you not agree with Wetterlind's choices), click on what is set up to be produced next and hit the "Delete" key.

The worker out of York should irrigate that grasslands wheat, NOT mine it. Then we will get 4 food out of it and York will be a veritable settler factory. For that reason, a granary is not a bad call there (irrigation has to be brought from the river, of course.) The infrastructure push hasn't been a bad move, but we need to capitalize on it now with more settlers, or even these slow Warlord AI civs will out-expand us.

 

[Zarth]

got the game

 

[Zarth]

0. 2150BC
We really need to expand now! So I switch London to a settler. We waste 7 shields. I switch York to a worker. I send the spear to the Roman choke point.

1. 2110BC
The settler is finishes in London, I start another one.

2.2070BC
moving the setller

3. 2030BC
The settler arrives at the city location

4. 1990BC
Nottingham founded, start building warrior.

5. 1950BC
nothing

6.1910BC
nothing

7. 1870BC
London finishes settler, start spear. I am moving the settler towards the hill on the coast SW of London. Building a city there will mean wasting a hill. But I think there are enough hills around. We can miss one.

8. 1830BC
York finishes worker, start granary.

9. 1790BC
Nottingham finishes warrior, start worker

10. 1750BC
settler reaches city location, there is a whale in the city radius! Spear is one square from the chokepoint.


I think we should expand more. London can build settler,spear,settler,spear,etc or it could build settler,warrior,settler,warrior,etc.
We could send the spear which will be completed in London in two turns to the Roman chokepoint to help the other spear in case the Romans build a city on the forest- or the hill-square adjacent to the mountainchokepointsquare.
The granary in York can be switched to settler or a worker.
I also think we could grab the dyes by building a city at the lake there.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Hint: post one unit on the choke, and a scout or two in front of it. Then the uncultured romans will have a really hard time asking you to withdraw.

 

[Wetterlind]

Does all units count towards your free unit limit (or cost gold if your exceeding it), even "civilians" like workers and explorers?

 

[Sullla]

To answer Wetterlind's question, yes all units count towards your unit support number. Workers, settlers, and scouts will all require gold maintenance under a representative government. This should not stop you from building lots of workers however.

Zarth's turn saw some much-needed expansion, with a third city founded and a fourth set to be built on the next turn. I also like the emphasis on early workers too. But I suggest from now on building workers in cities that have granaries if possible, since that will greatly decrease the time those cities need to regrow. Also, I see that in bringing irrigation to the wheat tile next to York, there was no road put on the tile. Barring an unusual situation, NEVER let a worker leave a tile without roading it. Having roads allows us to swap off to a tile that produces more commerce and facilitates easier movement; by not roading the tile and having to move back onto it later to do the same thing, we just lose worker turns. Trust me on this one; when improving tiles, always make sure to road them before leaving.

With one full rotation complete, we are back to the top of the order.
D-Tox <<< UP NOW
ZeekLTK <<< on deck
archer_007
Wetterlind
Zarth

 

[D-Tox]

This will be my "got it". Will play when I get home tonite (round 8 or 9 EST probably)

 

[D-Tox]

0) Inherited Turn - MM York to work a bonus grassland instead of wheat. Will grow
in one turn more, but halves the time to complete granary
- Changed London to produce Barracks instead of Spearman (thought
this to be wise if we're going to use Zarth's recommendation
to build settler/spear combos from here

1) 1725BC - Start worker on a mine where he finished a road.
- Hastings is founded, ordered to produce a Temple
- Workers finish irrigation, one starts road, other moves to bonus grassland
to start a mine/road combo
- Start one of the scouts towards the chokepoint (possibly to follow Erik Mesoy's
hint)
-Spearman reaches chokepoint

2) 1700BC - Worker starts mine, Spearman fortified on chokepoint

3) 1675BC - A Barb appears near Hastings! No way we can get someone there in time to defend or produce
a defender quick enough

4) 1650BC - Nottingham produces worker, starts on Temple
- Worker finishes irrigation near York, move to a bonus grassland for mine next turn

5) 1625BC - The barb ransacks Hastings for 45 gold
- Worker starts mine near Nottingham
- Worker starts mine near York
- Barb appears near Nottingham!

6) 1600BC - London finishes Baracks, start on Spearman

7) 1575BC - Barbs attack and fail. The people admire us and start building us a palace!
- Mine done near London, move worker to create road near Hastings

[The persians request an audience: They would like to trade The Wheel for Alphabet and 3 gold.
I accept]
8) 1550BC - Trade Masonry for Iron Working with the Romans
- Worker starts on road near Nottingham, which will connect it to our capitol
- Worker finishes mine, starts road near York
- MM York to work newly mined square instead of irrigated wheat. York
will grow in an extra turn, but lower turns to complete granary by 7
- Writing finishes, start on Map Making
- I dont establish embassies yet (should we?)
- London finishes Spear and fortifies in London, starts on Settler
- A scout spots another barb...probably headed for Hastings

[The Romans found Cumae RIGHT next to our spearman at the chokepoint]

9) 1500BC - London's cultural influence expands!
- As much as I hate to, production changed to Warrior in Hastings,
which finishes in 1 turn, with no wasted shields. Either this
or it gets sacked by barbs

[Romans demand that our Spearman leave their borders, I oblige]

10) 1475BC - Hastings finishes warrior, starts on Temple
- Start worker on road near Nottingham, where a mine was just finished
- Worker finishes mine near York, starts road
- Worker finishes road near York, moves to irrigated square for a possible road

I need to check science more, JUST realized that we can raise science and get Map Making in 26 turns (I believe) and break even, or stay where we are now and get it in 30 something.

Also...had a chance to buy some techs from civs, but they wanted something like 150 gold, so I declined. Is this ok?

Here's a screenshot:

And the save: