Team Bede Gets to Know Each Other

[Ghostwind]

Thanks for answering my questions, Bede. I'm trying to make the jump to emperor and I need all the help I can get.

How many of you play emperor or above on a regular basis?

~Ghostwind

 

[SpikeIt]

How many of you play emperor or above on a regular basis?

I play my games on Emperor when I get the chance to play - which is too darn infrequent.

 

[SpikeIt]

Notes:Lux is at 30% right now. I'm unsure what direction that warrior just south of New York was headed. Since we are building workers as escorts elsewhere, I decide to send him back to NY to lower lux. Then the touch mouse on my laptop goes haywire and that warrior crosses the river instead. sigh.

[1] 1750BC
Settler west moves off iron to jungle at tip of water. Its still jungle bound, but gets the bananas and culturally joins more of our empire.

[2] 1725BC
Orlando is founded in the jungle, starts a worker.
Stupid warrior I accidently automoved last turn continues past New York. I have to try to catch him next turn. I as hoping to drop lux rate for a turn or two, but by the time I get there, NY will pop the worker.

IBT
Barbs run from the Mayan warrior
Washington warrior -> settler.

[3] 1700BC
Purple borders spotted north of Mayans. Presumably the Iroquois.
With Philly connected, I send worker toward Wash. to improve south and east. Worker from NY heads south as well as NY is improved as much as needed at the moment and will pop worker.
I catch the warrior at NY and send him home. Lux rate dropped to 10%, Repub. in 22

IBT
NY pops worker, starts another warrior.

[4] 1675BC
Adjust Wash to grow and pop settler in 3.
Move settler pair to gem spot and... spot this!

Well that's not nice. I think Spain needs to meet an archer or two.

IBT
Predictably, Spain settles where they stand, and we lose our spot!

[5] 1650BC
I'll send the settler pair south toward the wheat

IBT
Philly worker->worker
Volcano goes active south of dyes.

[6] 1625BC
Not much. Moving settler pair south.

IBT
Washington settler->settler - MM so due in 4.

[7] 1600BC
Moving... We need to think about the horse spot soon. I think I'll send our next settler on a journey as that's the only horse around although we really lack info about the area NW of Orlando.

[8] 1575BC
Nada

[9] 1550BC
Miami found on southern tip of jungle. That and next city should at least seal our borders stopping Spain from settling our valuable marshland.
MM Washington again for settler in 2. Be sure to watch Washington, but it can spit out settlers every 4 turns. But on growth, it has to be MM'd. Lux is back at 30%

Another light blue border is spotted. Could Spain be way out here? Doubtful.

IBT
Residueville pops scout, starts warrior.

[10] 1525BC
Settler is on banana spot. Settle here. Gold situation changed, maybe I missed it, but Lux dropped back to 20% and science upped.

We meet India, way out west. Ghandi is behind in tech, like the rest. Horseback, CoL, and Philo. And he's broke. Aah well. No one pick up anything really during my turns to make a trade worth while.

Scout from Residueville heading NW to try and find another horsy.

Well, we are popping another settler next turn. We can either wrap around the Spanish gem town or send this all the way down to grab the horses from the Koreans before they get there. We'll just have lots of jungle to backfill to bring them on-line. I'm beginning to thing a minimal war vs Spain may be in the cards to help us expand into some better land. Get our iron connected, and a rax up in NY and we can build a small force to take a couple cities. Just a thought.

Here's the lay of the land.

 

[Bede]

Well, I knew this would be a learning experience!!

The diamond city spot looks good, those diamonds will be good for trading and making our people happy, that's always a good thing.

Bede, i hope you're not upset with us?

Not upset. Just need to maintain my rep as The Grumpy Old Monk.

Could you be a little more specific on what we could have done better on our trades?

Somewhere you can find a detailed explanantion of Bede's Three Tenets of Technology Trading:

1) Can we afford it?
2) Do we need it?
3) Can we make a profit on it?

If the answer is "Yes" to one question, pass, unless the answer to #2 is for survival or victory. If the answer to two questions is "yes", it's okay. If the answer is "yes" to all three, it's a winner.

In general I never make a trade for technology unless I can offer it on to another nation.

And as for the spears, I guess I'm just defence oriented, but is it just because they won't get promoted that we don't build them, or are they that much more expensive than Warriors?

Warriors cost ten shields, spears twenty so you can build 2 warriors for the price of a single spear. And keep in mind that a stack of 2 attackers will never take a city from 3 defenders, and yes regular spears do promote so they are useful in Always War games, but less so in this game.

Sorry for asking so many questions, but you said you wanted discussion, and here it is folks!!!

Questions are good, 'cause they force me to think about some of my received wisdom. Keep it up.

And here is the roster

azzaman333 - up get us ready for war
Ghostwind - on deck put a spoke in Izzy's wheels please
residuetiger - made his debut and held his own
Bede - got his knickers knotted
SpikeIt - got us out of the jungle.

 

[azzaman333]

Sorry guys, but i forgot to take a turn log this time.

We built San Fran next to furs to the south, building a barracks in new york, seattle and philly. IIRC, there is a settler moving down towards the gold SE of San Fran. Im not experienced with these, so i forget to note what happens in my turns.

 

[residuetiger]

Hello team,

Somebody mentioned rattling our sabers at Spain, and I'm thinking it may be about time. I think they're crimping our style and definately hindering our expansion. What do you guys think about hitting them soon?

Perhaps in preparation for military actions against Spain, if we decide to take that route, we should try to swing around the Spanish city of Toledo, planting a city to it's east. Even if we don't hit them, we might get a flip and further seal them off even further.

Just some thoughts, let me know what you think?

Also, a question about the proposed city location SE of San Francisco; is it maybe too close?

residue

 

[SpikeIt]

Sorry guys, but i forgot to take a turn log this time.

We built San Fran next to furs to the south, building a barracks in new york, seattle and philly. IIRC, there is a settler moving down towards the gold SE of San Fran. Im not experienced with these, so i forget to note what happens in my turns.

Thats okay, azzaman, but please next time take a turn log. Just pop open notepad and scribble notes. Turn logs are pretty important in SGs as we are all playing together. Without them its tough to figure out what just happened. Additionally they are great learning tools. Relaying your decisions in a turn log allow everyone to help each other by pointing out strengths and weaknesses in your play.

I think we are building a few too many rax. We're building them everywhere! Cities like Philly and Miami have so little productivity, they are not going to be producing swordmen very soon.

Also, San Fran could probably have waited before being settled. We're not going to get those furs connected anytime soon with all that marshland in the way; that spot wasn't exactly in danger of being settled by anyone else. We should be pushing toward the horses and Korea. There are two horse sources down there that have yet to be claimed. And we definitely don't need another city south of San Fran anytime soon. That would be a fishing village at best. Send that settler west! We can also settle around Toledo to stage our attacks from the east to to take advantage of the grass.

Furthermore, what happened to using the scout to explore NW of Orlando? We still don't know what is there just beyond the barb. As it stands, Orlando is undefended. It looks like the warrior went out to barb hunt?

We have workers roading and chopping jungle, and roading desert. Why? Seattle and Residueville are cities with growth potential but minimal tile improvement. Heck, we are mining a grass just wet of Seattle before mining the bonus grass one tile north. Its not so important to connect all cities asap. Cities like Miami can survive unconnected for quite a while. Our workers are better served elsewhere. At a mimimum, instead of the jungle banana road, we could be mining or irrigating the wheat.

There are two regular warriors hanging out north-east of NY. I know I left one there to scout the Spanish a little, but the 2nd one could be defending one of our cities or scouting Spanish movement in the east.

Lastly, we have an entertainer in NY where one is unnecessary. In fact, with two luxuries connected, we can even drop our luxury rate by 1 and cut the research rate on Republic by a turn. Luxury rates and city happiness need to be watched every turn. Every spare gold coin helps.

Oh. Did any trading occur? Both Map Making and Math are available. We should easily be able to pick both up.

Sorry Azzaman. I'm not meaning to sound harsh. We're all learning to some degree. Just try and think moves through. You may have valid reasons for some of your decisions, which is why the turn log is so important!

As far as Spain, we do need a rax or two and then we should build swords or even archers (cheaper) for a strategic attack on Spain. Seville and Toledo are too close to our core.

 

[azzaman333]

Next time i'll make sure i take a log. I downloaded and played at about 9am this morning and was a little sleepy still. I think that next time my turn comes along i will play at about 8 pm rather than 8 am.

 

[Bede]

Roster check:


Ghostwind - up get those horses in the corral!
residuetiger - made his debut and held his own
Bede - got his knickers knotted
SpikeIt - got us out of the jungle.
azzaman333 - read the preceding player's log and any comments more carefully

 

[Ghostwind]

Ok, I'm going to grab the save and have a look before doing anything. I'd like to take a crack at Spain, but from reading the turn logs, I am not sure if the military is up to it at this point.

I'll post again in a bit with my thoughts.

~Ghostwind

 

[Ghostwind]

Hmmm. I could have sworn I mined and roaded that tile east of WA, but now it looks unworked. Bizarre.

Unfortunately I don't see a good chance for me to take a whack at Spain, but I'll try to get us ready for the next person.

I am going to change production in Philly to workers. Seattle is already half way to be doing done with it's barracks, so it's probably not wise to change that right now. Besides, we will probably need to be pumping swords or archers real soon. I'll prioritize workers to Seattle to get them swordsmen ASAP.

I'll finish the barracks in NY and begin pumping out swordsmen there.

I'll send WA's settler down to them horses. I'd like to settle with the horses in the outer circle of the city if we will not need them anytime soon. If we'll be needing them, I'll settle inner circle. Let me know what ya all think.
(More on this in a later post)

Miami will change to workers until their city tiles are worked enough to be efficient.

The second settler out of Washington will head east to settle behind Toledo. Perhaps the first settler should do this and the second settle near horses. Any thoughts?
(More on this in a later post, too)

I would like to hit Spain before they hook up to iron, but that doesn't look possible. We can probably nail them before they produce many swords though.

I'm tempted to switch that worker to warrior in Orlando. That barb nearby may mean more to come, and I hate getting my cities sacked. I'll move that wounded warrior nearby back through the gates and send our newly built one out to have a look west. Depending on what I see, the next build would be worker or another warrior.

The two warriors near NY....I'll send one east to have a look at Spain and the other south toward Orlando in case there is going to be trouble down there. If it looks safe, he'll move to Seattle instead.

I would like to discuss these ideas as well as trading possibilities before moving forward. It appears I agree with SpikeIt on his suggestions in general.

Anyone have any suggestions he or I are missing?

~Ghostwind

 

[Ghostwind]

We will have republic in three turns. If we trade code of laws out for map making and math, we may have the opportunity to trade republic around if we so wish.

However, no civ looks particularly rich, and I'd prefer to hold on to republic and keep those civs in despotism as long as possible.

I'd like to trade for math at least and head for construction or Currency after we get republic. All in all though, it doesn't look like we will have a real efficient trading round.

The one tech we have that we could sell to every civ is Code of Laws. Spain is the only civ that has Horseback Riding, and it's a dead end tech. Maybe we'd be better off trading it. However, I find CoL is usually easier to trade.

What do you guys think?

~Ghostwind

 

[Ghostwind]

Looking at the position of that horse, I'd probably settle in the desert SW of it. Another settler could build in the northern end of the hills to the north of the horse. I'd like to have the cities with a nice mix of plains/desert and hills.

Depending on what we do concerning our FP, those cities may or may not ever see real efficient production though.

~Ghostwind

 

[Ghostwind]

Should we settle behind Toledo to the N or the E? If north, I should probably send a lot of MP with the settler. When the war starts, Spain will no doubt target it.

~Ghostwind

 

[Ghostwind]

Bede said:

The AI are very efficient at hunting down barbarians if noAIPatrol=0 is in your conquests.ini file. And as long as there are barbarians around and some open land you never have to worry about AI sneak attacks. When those two things are missing then look out

.

I don't know if I have the noAIPatrol=0 in my .ini file. I am not sure what the procedure would be to check, either. If I have all the current patches, is it set correctly? Or is it something I need to do manually?

Is this a bug fix or a setting? I want to make sure this is set correctly before taking my turn. Thanks for the help in advance.

~Ghostwind

P.S. I'll try to keep from posting 5 or 6 times in a row in the future. I just keep remembering things I forgot. Too much weed in my youth, I guess.

 

[killercane]

lurker's comment:

Here is the thread and utility regarding the No AI patrol. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=103616. Ainwood's utility in post #10 is the easiest thing to do.

 

[Ghostwind]

Ahh, ok, thanks. I ran the utility and it apparently succeeded. All should be well now.

No more barbs just kickin it and gettin drunk? I always thought that was strange.

~Ghostwind

 

[SpikeIt]

I don't know if I have the noAIPatrol=0 in my .ini file. I am not sure what the procedure would be to check, either. If I have all the current patches, is it set correctly? Or is it something I need to do manually?

Is this a bug fix or a setting? I want to make sure this is set correctly before taking my turn. Thanks for the help in advance.

~Ghostwind

P.S. I'll try to keep from posting 5 or 6 times in a row in the future. I just keep remembering things I forgot. Too much weed in my youth, I guess.

Post as many times as you like.

In your Conquests directory there is a file called conquests.ini - depending on your explorer settings it may just be labeled conquests (configuration settings). Just open it up in notepad and add the following: NoAIPatrol=0

As for cities past Toledo, maybe we hold off and settle after our little war. We aren't necessarily going to wipe out Spain, just make their city sites a bit more, um, palatable which should clear a path north. But then again, if they settle down there, its more towns we have to deal with...

Trading wise, I would think we could manage to get both Math and Map Making and bankrupt the AIs at the same time. But we have enough techs on all of them right now, that a trade isn't urgent. Its just likely they'll trade Math (or MM - I forget which one 2 of them lacked).

As for the horsies - we like horsies! Ride 'em cowboy! Good luck Ghostwind.


Oh yeah, I wouldn't move both warriors away from the mountain NE of NY. We'll want some forces their for whenever we fight. We could always upgrade one or two to a sword.

 

[Ghostwind]

Spain offers MM and 1 gold (she has 25) for Mysticism. Just 20 gold for Phil. Or 20 gold and MM for CoL.

Korea offers MM and Math for Col. Or Math for Horseback Riding.

Iroquois offers Math and 1 gold for Col. Same for Horseback Riding.

India offers 20 gold for any of the techs they dont have. Phil, Col, or Horseback Riding. The have no tech to offer.

Maya offers 110 gold for Col. Or MM and 20 gold for Horseback Riding.

Does anyone know a good method for this trade? Is there a tech I should not trade? That I should hold in reserve? Or should I just continue to trade till they are broke, even if they don't offer much.

If we trade CoL to one civ and Horseback to another without bankrupting them, they will just trade amongst each other, will they not? Better to just take what they can give to deny the other civs any gain? Or we can trade just 1 tech to every civ and haggle till we get the best they will give. Most likely that would be CoL.

I really want to bleed Maya dry though. The only way to do that is to trade them both CoL and Horseback. We'd get 125 gold and MM out of the deal. Maybe we'd even get some gpt, but I doubt it.

But then we'd have to trade both CoL and HR to every civ to make sure they stay broke, would we not?

I am going to wait till I hear some of your thoughts on this before proceeding. Maybe I will learn something.

~Ghostwind

 

[Bede]

Start with our monopoly for somebody else's monopoly. Then trade the now duopoly techs for any other knowledge and cash that is out there. That is is most cases the efficient way.

You are hampered on Monarch because the AI is often either broke or ignorant and sometimes both. So look carefully before you leap and remember Bede's Three Tenets. And haggle, haggle, haggle.