suomipeli

[OtsoMaki]

Some thoughts and questions about the game.

Scouting
Even though our start isn't that good, the AI is also suffering from fairly craptastic land. Mansa has too much forest can settle about four cities at best.

Hatty has a triple marble capitol and few nice spots, but then it is just jungle and desert.

Tech path and trading:
We have only two trade partners so we should play our cards right to maximize trades.

From the screenshot we know that theAIs have the following techs.

Mansa: Mining/Bronze/Hunting/Pottery/Mysticism/Meditation/----/----/--------

Hatty: -------/-----/Hunting/--------/Mysticism/Meditation/Poly/Mono/Masonry

Hatty is also researching pottery because she is giving anything for it. She has monopoly for Poly, Mono and Masonry so these are off the table. With her marble she can be dangerous in the Oracle race if we waste time.

I can trade Writing for Mining and Mysticism with Mansa. Mansa is willing to trade any two of Mining/Hunting/Myst for Writing, but I think these two are the most important
Then we can trade Writing to Hatty to get Meditation. During the trades we should tech fishing so that our third city can start a fishing boat immidiately when it's found. After fishing it's priesthood and whip/chop Oracle.

But we have small problem here. We need BW, but the only thing we can trade to Mansa at this point is Alpha, which is worth much more than BW I would hate to make this trade but it seems to be a must. Any ideas here? Are we going to give sell alpha for cheap?

City builds

Uruk will finish the settler still in 4 turns even if I change the forest to wine which has 2 .

I would change Eridu to a worker from Granary. It is currently at happiness cap (is the warrior near the city meant for fogbusting or city garrison) and we need the workers when chopping the Oracle and improving the third city in near future. There are also no good tiles for it to work.

Third city.

I also changed the dotmap a bit so we don't miss the fish in north.

You probably meant to mark the original fish/jumbos/gold on jumbos one west of its current location, because now it would miss the original fish and have no food.

With this city placement, our third city should probably be north next to the gold. It can work gold while building a workboat. Gold is also much more valuable than Elephants at this point.

 

[Robert FIN]

Hey guys, looks like I'm a little late to the party. I'd like to participate but maybe I shouldn't jump in just yet. It seems that the next turnsets are going to be kind of critical. How about if after sinimusta's turnset, you go through one more cycle and then I come up to bat?

I'm warning you, though; I'm still pretty noobish. I usually play on Monarch so this is one level above my "standard".

Welcome !

 

[sampsa]

From the screenshot we know that theAIs have the following techs.

Mansa: Mining/Bronze/Hunting/Pottery/Mysticism/Meditation/----/----/--------

Hatty: -------/-----/Hunting/--------/Mysticism/Meditation/Poly/Mono/Masonry

Hatty is also researching pottery because she is giving anything for it. She has monopoly for Poly, Mono and Masonry so these are off the table. With her marble she can be dangerous in the Oracle race if we waste time.

I can trade Writing for Mining and Mysticism with Mansa. Mansa is willing to trade any two of Mining/Hunting/Myst for Writing, but I think these two are the most important
Then we can trade Writing to Hatty to get Meditation. During the trades we should tech fishing so that our third city can start a fishing boat immidiately when it's found. After fishing it's priesthood and whip/chop Oracle.

But we have small problem here. We need BW, but the only thing we can trade to Mansa at this point is Alpha, which is worth much more than BW I would hate to make this trade but it seems to be a must. Any ideas here? Are we going to give sell alpha for cheap?

Imo trying to keep monopoly for alpha is against our strategy. Trade aggressively, even gifting it to Hatty if she won't give anything for it. We want BW asap.

I'm kinda against fishing btw. If 3rd city is by the gold, I'm for stagnating at size 1 working the gold for immediate commerce boost. Stonehenge isn't gone, Hatty might go for ToA (watch the trade screen every turn to see if she goes for priesthood), so getting Oracle seems very possible, if we focus on it.

What I'm suggesting is something like 0% fishing for 1-2 turns and when we can start priesthood (after trades) 100% it.

I said I won't comment on the micro anymore and this suggestion probably gets ignored too , but switching the capital to research and whipping settler at size 6 is lucrative. Overflow to Oracle obv (note that if we don't have priesthood yet, overflow is saved if you build research).

 

[OtsoMaki]

Imo trying to keep monopoly for alpha is against our strategy. Trade aggressively, even gifting it to Hatty if she won't give anything for it. We want BW asap.

I'm kinda against fishing btw. If 3rd city is by the gold, I'm for stagnating at size 1 working the gold for immediate commerce boost. Stonehenge isn't gone, Hatty might go for ToA (watch the trade screen every turn to see if she goes for priesthood), so getting Oracle seems very possible, if we focus on it.

What I'm suggesting is something like 0% fishing for 1-2 turns and when we can start priesthood (after trades) 100% it.

I said I won't comment on the micro anymore and this suggestion probably gets ignored too , but switching the capital to research and whipping settler at size 6 is lucrative. Overflow to Oracle obv (note that if we don't have priesthood yet, overflow is saved if you build research).

Now that I think about the fishing, it might not be that good choice The site next to the gold has only 2 good tiles (gold and fish) and a single PH, so working the gold is important. Aggressive trading with fairly low gains seems to be the way to go, because we cannot get BW any other way.

With this, the revised tech path would be 0% to fishing and then Priesthood at 100% after the trades. After that I maybe back to fishing.

I made a note about microing the Settler and Oracle now that you mentioned it. Settler is currently at 56/100 hammers. If I change the forest to wine for one turn, we can get more 13 and the settler would be at 69/100. So a 2 pop whip would give the maximum 29 overflow.

 

[sampsa]

If I change the forest to wine for one turn, we can get more 13 and the settler would be at 69/100. So a 2 pop whip would give the maximum 29 overflow.

Workers are an issue. In the 2nd city, growing to size 4 and whipping worker is better than slow building at size 3.

 

[OtsoMaki]

Played to turn 71. Oracled Currency 1440 BC I think. Had to trade quite heavily with the AIs, but we are currently in a good position.

State of the empire

Spoiler :

Settled the third city next to the gold and built a workboat. This city shold probably stay size 2 and build workers.

Eridu is growing to size 4 with only 3 improved tiles so it should borrow a cottage from the Uruk. Uruk can then work the Marble. Note that there is 1 turn of road build on the marble so it can be instantly connected.

Our glorious capitol

Spoiler :

Working 2 scientists because I do not want first great person to be a prophet. I know it is stupid to work specialists while building a Settler, but I felt this sort of compromise was necessary for expansion.
Tech

Spoiler :

Teched Mat after Priesthood and Fishing because it is required for Elepult. We are now missing Construction and HBR.

Hatty gave us Judaism, but I did not convert. Should probably do that soon. Also foreign trade routes to Mansa.

Edit: Math was a stupid tech choice. It can be bulbed while Construction and HBR cannot.

 

[sampsa]

I have very mixed feelings towards this game. Everyone keeps doing stuff we haven't discussed. This is not a team, it's a bunch of individuals playing consecutively.

I didn't realize you were going to play 17 turns, otherwise we could have discussed the next tech choice. I don't know if math was a poor choice, but after we got currency we should immediately expand extra hard. Running scientists feels contradictory to this.

Congrats on getting the Oracle

 

[sampsa]

Btw, I was thinking of joining to SGOTM with this team if they're interested. We'll play this first so we could be ready for #19.

I hope my last post answers to this.

 

[OtsoMaki]

I have very mixed feelings towards this game. Everyone keeps doing stuff we haven't discussed. This is not a team, it's a bunch of individuals playing consecutively.

I didn't realize you were going to play 17 turns, otherwise we could have discussed the next tech choice. I don't know if math was a poor choice, but after we got currency we should immediately expand extra hard. Running scientists feels contradictory to this.

Congrats on getting the Oracle

Sorry. I should have stopped when I finished the Oracle because it was the perfect time to change players. I promise to be more careful after this and determine in advance roughly how many turns I am going to play. 17 turns was way too much at this stage of the game.

 

[sampsa]

The nice part is that our position is still very good. I guess I'm up next, so I'll look into it and try to post a plan in the next 12 hours.

 

[sampsa]

@OtsoMaki: I understand that you chose math because we discussed elepult earlier. However, we should first build a strong economy and only then plan the attack. There is no hurry really as long as we attack before Mansa has Feudalism (and even then it's doable).

Random thoughts before PPP:

Currently we are not really taking advantage of having currency. We are missing 6 because we haven't opened foreign trade routes. Sailing would fix that, and therefore should be the next tech. We should also clear the fog in this area to open routes to Hatty.

Opening routes also allows us to sell resources for per turn (=gpt).

Nomnom, those workers would be so tasty... hope they are roading towards us so we get a chance to steal em. How do people feel about possibly declaring on Mansa if we can get two workers for it? We do lose some trading opportunities and trade routes, but still I think stealing them is a good play.

Then there is this issue:

The chance of losing our capital is certainly less than 1% (barb archer is wounded too), but still. It's likely that our sheep will be pillaged.

If we keep running scientists in cap it will be 66% scientist 33% prophet in 10 turns. I guess we keep running them and in case of scientist, use him on academy in Eridu, where we should move our Palace later. Or if people are against moving the capital, then academy in Uruk. In case of a prophet, settle in Uruk.

Mansa's progress seems pretty pathetic. His land is not great and the AI is incompetent at chopping forest. It seems clear to me that we will squash him like a bug whenever we please.

Before last turn-set I proposed that we gift alpha to Hatty. The reason is that it's a disaster if Hatty can get it via trade from Mansa. They both get a tech while we get nothing. Now we have the chance to give alpha to Hatty for 10 and make her stop trading with Mansa. I think we should do it, we might even get a diplo bonus. Getting Hatty to friendly (for trades!) looks really simple - switch to Judaism now and to Organized Religion (her favorite civic) when available. This btw means that we can kill Mansa off completely.

 

[sampsa]

PPP (pre-play plan) for T71-82: (until first GP is born!)

I'm trying to set an example here and use excessive detail in this plan.

T71 (=this turn) revolt to Judaism. Alpha to Hatty for stop trading with mansa +10g.


Tech:

T71 Anarchy
T72-74 Sailing @100%
T75-82 Construction first @0% then @100% when enough gold to finish.

I think we can war without elephants, as Mansa looks so pathetic right now that he doesn't stand a chance vs 8 cats + 8 vultures for example. I'm hoping we can attack him before he chops those forests so we can use them for wonders. Besides, going construction first doesn't rule out elephants. Right now I think we should attack @4 cities, any more will just slow us down.

Watch out for trading opportunities, but I'm afraid there won't be plenty. Will stop if some big opportunity arises (like trading for Monarchy). Keep an eye for resource trades (mostly for gpt).


Builds:

Uruk: settler (in 8) while running scientists then barracks (2-pop whip if otherwise working unimproved tiles)

Eridu: switch to vulture, 2-pop whip it T73, overflow into library, start worker when at happy cap (wealth in between if needed).
It's annoying to whip this city again, but I think this is mandatory to stop the possible barb threat.

Kish: I think we should grow this city to size 4, then 2-pop whip catapult/vulture, then repeat the cycle. Worked tiles would be fish, gold, coast. So finish granary, then lighthouse, then barracks.


Unit movement:

I took the liberty to rename our woodsman warriors (whoever promoted them, good choice of promotion!) and numbered the workers

Korpraali Karhu (near Hatty's borders): towards Mansa's workers afterwards move towards home for MP (=fortify into a city) duties

Sotamarsalkka Sandels: to clear the coast and open trade routes to Hatty then home for MP.

Kersantti Koff (west of our capital): has already moved this turn, next turn 1SE and hope barb archer attacks across river (unlikely) then fortify.

Warrior 3 (in Eridu): 1SW next turn to Uruk to make it 0% that we lose our capital. Then return to Eridu.

Unborn vulture: towards SW to kill barbarians / help setting up a decent fogbust

workers: we have to chop asap to get stuff done asap! "Mitä nopeammin, sitä nopeammin." Building a quarry on the marble was an unnecessary delay.

worker 1 (southernmost): move towards Hatty's archer to chop 3S of capital, then chop, unless barb archer molests us. Then run to safety.

workers 2,3: chop forests to Kish and to capital when safe from barbs. Then move towards chopping/improving phant in the 4th city.

@OtsoMaki: there are two peace treaties with Hatty. Have we begged something (gold? fishing?) from her and was it this turn or 6 turns ago?

I can play 18:00-20:00 on Wednesday, so please comment/give a thumbs up today.

 

[Robert FIN]

Thumbs up to everything! Thanks for being patient ! Good job with naming the other woodsmans! I want to see them as great general marines in the late game, w/ all the promotions, as Malinese-war veterans!

 

[OtsoMaki]

T71 (=this turn) revolt to Judaism. Alpha to Hatty for stop trading with mansa +10g.

Judaism seems to be the way to go since Mansa is going down soon. I usually don't bother with the stop trading stuff, because it doesn't work as you would except if I recall correct. It is not the same as when AI asks you to stop trading with someone. AIs only cancel open borders with each other, but still keep all the resource trades going and keep selling each other techs. But there is no real loss, since Alpha is not worth that much anyway at this point.

I think we can war without elephants, as Mansa looks so pathetic right now that he doesn't stand a chance vs 8 cats + 8 vultures for example. I'm hoping we can attack him before he chops those forests so we can use them for wonders. Besides, going construction first doesn't rule out elephants. Right now I think we should attack @4 cities, any more will just slow us down.

Phants might be overkill in this case, because the amount of forests has slowed the AI down a lot. Good idea to chop wonders in Mansas cities, because his land is crap otherwise and we have marble (here we go Great Library). Where are you going to settle the 4th city? Elephants to the east or the sheep horse to the south.

Builds:

Uruk: settler (in 8) while running scientists then barracks (2-pop whip if otherwise working unimproved tiles)

Eridu: switch to vulture, 2-pop whip it T73, overflow into library, start worker when at happy cap (wealth in between if needed).
It's annoying to whip this city again, but I think this is mandatory to stop the possible barb threat.

Kish: I think we should grow this city to size 4, then 2-pop whip catapult/vulture, then repeat the cycle. Worked tiles would be fish, gold, coast. So finish granary, then lighthouse, then barracks.

Agree with the builds. I should have built more workers.

@OtsoMaki: there are two peace treaties with Hatty. Have we begged something (gold? fishing?) from her and was it this turn or 6 turns ago?

I can play 18:00-20:00 on Wednesday, so please comment/give a thumbs up today.

I think I begged 40 gold from Hatty. Can't remember which turn it was, but I will check my other saves later today and try to determine the exact date.

If we keep running scientists in cap it will be 66% scientist 33% prophet in 10 turns. I guess we keep running them and in case of scientist, use him on academy in Eridu, where we should move our Palace later. Or if people are against moving the capital, then academy in Uruk. In case of a prophet, settle in Uruk.

I don't there is much to gain in moving the palace to Eridu. It has only 5 riverside tiles although 4 of them are flood plains. But if we assign all the Flood Plains to Eridu, Uruk will stagnate really fast with a maximum surplus of 6.

 

[sinimusta]

Sounds good, but I'm also interested where are you planning to settle.

 

[sampsa]

Judaism seems to be the way to go since Mansa is going down soon. I usually don't bother with the stop trading stuff, because it doesn't work as you would except if I recall correct. It is not the same as when AI asks you to stop trading with someone. AIs only cancel open borders with each other, but still keep all the resource trades going and keep selling each other techs. But there is no real loss, since Alpha is not worth that much anyway at this point.

OK, in this case stop trading is moot and I give her alpha for 10. Anyway, it get's us more "fair trade" towards diplo and she might be friendly even without organized religion.

Phants might be overkill in this case, because the amount of forests has slowed the AI down a lot. Good idea to chop wonders in Mansas cities, because his land is crap otherwise and we have marble (here we go Great Library). Where are you going to settle the 4th city? Elephants to the east or the sheep horse to the south.

Yes, forgot to mention it. I think western phant is better now than horse+sheep because we need happiness to get more whips. Thoughts? Attack date might be as soon as 7-8 turns after construction.

I think I begged 40 gold from Hatty. Can't remember which turn it was, but I will check my other saves later today and try to determine the exact date.

It must have been T65. According to Seraiel you can/should beg every 25 turns iirc.

I don't there is much to gain in moving the palace to Eridu. It has only 5 riverside tiles although 4 of them are flood plains. But if we assign all the Flood Plains to Eridu, Uruk will stagnate really fast with a maximum surplus of 6.

Yeh, probably not worth the trouble. Anyway, we can think about it when we see what type of GP it is.

 

[sampsa]

This:

Attack date might be as soon as 7-8 turns after construction.

made me re-think this:

Builds:

Kish: I think we should grow this city to size 4, then 2-pop whip catapult/vulture, then repeat the cycle. Worked tiles would be fish, gold, coast. So finish granary, then lighthouse, then barracks.

We are some 20-25T away from attacking. We lack workers. Granary+lighthouse is 120 which is a pretty big investment. How about switch Kish to barracks and setup it to size 3 working fish, gold, mined plains hill. It's not as strong as whipping but it's much faster to set up. If worker steal is not possible, chop a worker out of Kish. OK? I also think that Eridu and 4th should go without barracks and build 0xp vultures. They are used as a mop-up crew anyway.

I can play now btw, just waiting for comments.

edit: haven't played. Will play tonight.

 

[sinimusta]

About the coming war:
-promotions: I promote my cats usually to cr, then get 2-3 of bomb cats amongst the survivors, and the rest go on with cr line. We can also promote vultures to cr, which I think we should do, if we get some elephants they're good stack defense with combat promotions. Also I don't think we need to worry about stack defense and counterattacks much, so let's use cr promos as much as possible.
-march route: if we wait until we have about 8 cats and 8 vult/ele we could split the stack and attack djenne and kumbi saleh simultaneously. Kumbi is 4 tiles from cap and djenne 2 but 3 if we cross the river. Or we could attack earlier with less force since to me it seems mansa has almost nothing. I think we should have one of our scouts checking his defenses.
-first gg: I nowadays like to make supermedic scouts, so they don't get attacked and are quite mobile, if we later choose to make a large mounted stack.

 

[sampsa]

About the coming war:
-promotions: I promote my cats usually to cr, then get 2-3 of bomb cats amongst the survivors, and the rest go on with cr line. We can also promote vultures to cr, which I think we should do, if we get some elephants they're good stack defense with combat promotions. Also I don't think we need to worry about stack defense and counterattacks much, so let's use cr promos as much as possible.

Agree. But also not all our troops need xp, if they are producing only 2-3 units 50 on barracks is too much.

-march route: if we wait until we have about 8 cats and 8 vult/ele we could split the stack and attack djenne and kumbi saleh simultaneously. Kumbi is 4 tiles from cap and djenne 2 but 3 if we cross the river. Or we could attack earlier with less force since to me it seems mansa has almost nothing. I think we should have one of our scouts checking his defenses.

I look into the chance of leaving one of our warriors to spy on Mansa.

-first gg: I nowadays like to make supermedic scouts, so they don't get attacked and are quite mobile, if we later choose to make a large mounted stack.

If war against Mansa is as swift as I hope, settling would be my prefferred choice. XP might not be enough for a GG even.

Playing now.

 

[sampsa]

Everything went as expected = we got the stinking prophet. Construction in 1, a bit faster than I had assumed.

I skipped the plan of whipping barb-defending vulture in Kish, as barb archer foolishly tried to kill Kersantti Koff @30% odds. Kish slow-built a worker instead and now has no happiness issues.

Hatty's west coast city was not connected to her empire, so we didn't get all the trade routes or possibility to sell resources for gpt. I had to clear the fog on the eastern coast for full routes. This is why you should scout the coast (especially between you and the AI) asap, scouting AI inland is of less importance. I sold fish to Hatty for 1, nothing great but it's free 1 gpt. Re-negotiate a better deal when possible. No good tech trading opportunities during the entire turn-set, as expected.

Barb issue on the final turn - I suggest we play russian roulette with Sandels. Winning gives us woodsman II which can steal workers during early turns of war.