TGOM 02 - The Grumpy Old Monk and the Ancient Crone go to Alpha Centauri

SpikeIt said:
I think the problem is gmharriet used the manage attachments feature instead of the file upload for the save and image. If you use the upload file link at the bottom of the page, you can follow General Mayhems instructions for incorporating the image as well as the save (with attachment or upoaded).
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Yep! I used the manage attachments. Next time I'll try the other way. Thanks, General Mayhem (love your screen name BTW). :D
 
Bede
I thank you and Whomp for the invitation to join your game, however, I think I should just view and lurk. I do not understand most of what you are talking about. I'm sure that I would slow your game down to a STOP. I will lurk to learn. Thanks again.
BB (Butterball)
 
Greebley said:
lurker's comment:
I use the managed attachments for the save. They don't need to exist forever so I can delete them as I run out of space.

For images, I used to use the upload, but tried the photobucket as suggested and ended up liking it best.
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I have a large Village Photos account, similar to photobucket, that I use to support the graphics on two bulletin boards I co-own with a friend. Maybe I'll try using that. Thanks for the idea.
 
lurker's comment:
I am not a big fan of the overly detailed turnlog and prefer a narrative style that tells a story rather than simply notes that Scoutslair built a library and started a rax. I mean really, who cares? What is important are reports of diplomatic meetings with the oppo, what new knowledge was discovered and by whom, what sort of tactics are being employed in any wars and what the battle results were, what new information about resources and luxuries has been uncovered, what is the general state of the empire and what actions were taken to address areas of concern or suboptimal conditions.
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well said. BTW, bede really likes picture books ;)

please the temple rant? one more time? please? :bounce: :bounce:

BTW - a co-worker told me today "you're not right" (keep in mind I've been there less than 2 months) :)
 
I'm with eotinb on the start. The only other interesting looking site would be 1 SE, and that only if there's a particularly useful tile 2 SE of the current spot. Moving the worker to the BG will reveal that 2 SE tile and put the worker in position to start improving next turn.

Once the city is settled, I'd go Warrior, Warrior, Granary, Settler (assuming that no big food bonuses show up) and maybe look for a chop or two to hurry that up a bit. It appears that we'll have at least 5, maybe 6 forest tiles in Salamanca's 21 tiles, so losing a couple to chops wouldn't be harmful. Get started on Writing and head towards Philosophy.
 
Looks like clever has the handle and eotinb the tools, so let's get rolling gm.

Here's my nickel's worth:

In any other set up I would road first before irrigating but we are food poor at the start location, so the worker sequence should be irrigate, road, irrigate, road on the plains alongside the river (we work the river banks for gold to finance the research burn). Shields can come later when we want to build something other than 10sp warriors.

The warriors want to explore the river system first as we will probably want to locate the first two towns right on the river. After scoping the river the scouting should follow the cardinal compass points, using high ground when appropriate. Using NSEW scouting reveals more terrain than the diagonal approach. I always tend to drive my explorers to the sea in a straight line, then travel up or down the coast lines about two tiles away. Personal preference is what that is.

Research path is the Writing->CoL->Philo->Republic gambit just as fast as our little shamans can do it. Since we are an AGRI nation and will be using the banks of rivers and lakes as city sites as often as possible you can speed research at the cost of a little growth by making the second or third citizen of towns other than the capitol a scientist if the alternative requires an increase in entertainment. Also if a citizen happens to be working an unroaded field, it may be better to use her as a scientist to keep the beakers coming. This is a technique I use in the early game with an AGRI tribe when the fields are undeveloped and we are aiming for the Republic gambit. It hampers growth only a little but really pushes the research along.
 
Bede said:
In any other set up I would road first before irrigating but we are food poor at the start location, so the worker sequence should be irrigate, road, irrigate, road on the plains alongside the river (we work the river banks for gold to finance the research burn). Shields can come later when we want to build something other than 10sp warriors.
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Hmm... that's actually different than what I was thinking, but makes sense. I would have mined the BG to start with, but that's only going to be the difference between a 5-turn warrior and a 4-turn warrior. Since we're shooting for the Philo slingshot, the early commerce bonus could be more valuable. Interesting. Two questions...

1) Would you then start the worker by moving SE to the plains instead of E to the BG?

2) Would you let the first citizen work the BG until the irrigation on the plain is complete?
 
1) Yes

2) Interesting question. We will be trading a growth turn for a beaker....I have not formally done the math so this is only prejudice, but I would stay on the river for the gold. If this were not a AGRI nation, I would probably work the BG, but with the +1 food in the city center, we will get the same growth curve as a non-AGRI, but will have the extra gold....which is often the difference between making the Republic gambit and not.
 
OK, this is a "got it". I'm assuming warrior, warrior, barracks, settler as someone else mentioned. Do we want a forest chop for the barracks, using a riverbank forest for subseqent development? I'll stop and check back here when I get to that point.

Sorry I'm starting so late at night, but I'm on vacation this week, so on strange hours. Just beginning my "day". ;)
 
Need advice from the the team. Our 2 warriors have each spotted goody huts. In my attempts at Emperor level, I almost always get barbs and they slaughter my warriors. So, do I pop them or wait for something better like archers?

Also, the general guideline of exploring in cardinal directions, but along rivers is confusing, since the rivers run NW/SE. I planned to send the northern warrior (Red Feather) up the southern river and then return via the northern river. Started 2nd warrior (Blue Feather) south with a SE detour to the mountain.

I plan a forest chop north of river to speed granary when worker finishes current tile, using that side of the river to head for BG's on northern river and/or lux, but I'm open to suggestions. Here is my turnlog to date, a screenie and the save.

Preturn 4000 bc - Set research to writing. Relying on Bede's comment, "fast as our shamans can do it" and will set max science.

Settle Salamanca in place, and...WOW!!! Got 2 parts of my wish with silks and 2 more BG's in City radius upon expansion. Warrior in 4. Send worker S to work river plains tile.

1. 3950 - Worker begins irrigation.

2. 3900 - zzz

3. 3850 - zzz

4. 3800 - warrior > warrior. Name him Red Feather and send W across river. Am a bit confused about using EWNS to explore along river, since rivers don't run in cardinal directions.

5. 3750 - worker roads. Send Red Feather NW as he seems to have reached the coast.

6. 3700 - Red goes NW.

7. 3650 - Red NW, sees mountains and hill and looks like coast in view.

8. 3600 - Warrior > granary. New warrior named Blue Feather moves S. Worker moves NE. Red N to hill and sees coast.

9. 3550 - worker irrigates. Red N and sees more of northern river and goody hut. Blue SE onto mountain and sees another goody hut.

I hope it's ok to stop for input at this point. It's VERY different playing for team mates than just living with my own mistakes.

 
Nice layout. Lots of rivers in the core.

I ignore "goody huts" unless I can disperse them with a settlement as that will not spawn yokels. Here is the reasoning: There are only eight things that can happen

1) new knowlege
2) warrior
3) settler
4) village
5) maps
6) gold
7) nothing
8) yokels

Although it looks like most of the outcomes are favorable, at Emperor the odds of getting yokels instead of something useful are like 65%, or better than 1 in 2. That's bad betting in my mind. I'd rather keep the warriors healthy to make more friends. We just need to make sure we clear all the camps before the change of age.

Good call on exploration direction. Judging from the map I'd start Red Feather east once he climbs that mountain, especially oif he finds tundra.

I like the start gm, lots of rivers in the core and lots of bonus grass to the east for our troop training facility.

This has a good feel to it.
 
Lots of nice riverside future city locations. What's our city placement strategy going to be? I'm thinking we don't want them too crowded, maybe CxxxC. I've taken a first stab at a dot map. Assuming the river to the NW of Salamanca turns NE as it appears to do, the yellow dot would be on its banks. Given our position on the minimap, it makes more sense to push south, but I'd rather stay along rivers and get the most out of our Agricultural knowledge.

As to whether or not to pop the goody huts, tough call. I'd say go ahead and pop the one in the north, since in the worst case scenario, we'd have time to pull back and protect Salamanca if the warrior is overwhelmed by barbs. For the one in the south, we might wait for reinforcements or even pop it with a future city (if it is true that popping it that way would prevent barbs from coming out -- I read that somewhere but don't know fur sure if that is correct). I do appreciate your extra concern, gmaharriet -- I'm feeling the extra presure of playing for a team and not just my own forgiving (i.e. restarting) self and I haven't even had a turn yet.
 
I would take the warrior on the mountain by Salamanca to the hills by the silks ASAP, since I personally would make the silks our second city. I would agree with Bede in leaving the huts alone, I've had VERY bad experiences with poping barbs without spearmen.
 
lurker's comment:
1st, have fun everyone that's what you're here for.

2nd, I'd leave the camps alone. The way I see it you have a 65% chance of having to change your strategy if you pop the hut. No longer will you be exploring, clearing fog and making contacts but more trying to avoid barbs. I am pretty confident you will get no barbs if you plant a city near it.
 
Bede said:
Although it looks like most of the outcomes are favorable, at Emperor the odds of getting yokels instead of something useful are like 65%, or better than 1 in 2. That's bad betting in my mind. I'd rather keep the warriors healthy to make more friends. We just need to make sure we clear all the camps before the change of age.
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That agrees with my thinking and it's primarily why I stopped for guidance.

As for change of age, the roll was for random barbs, so we shall see whether they are only sedentary or not. I've not come across any active ones yet.

Thanks for the input. I'll finish my turns now. :)
 
Comments on the map:

Good you are thinking on this one but I'm thinking the proposed layout is a little wide. You do not need more than 12 tiles per town for a long time and you want those to be the most productive you can find. Also we will want to delay the building of MW for a while yet, so having no more than a single move on roads for foot soldiers between towns is really handy when you need to shift MP's around. Nothing I mislike more than having to run extra entertainment when a town grows and the closest MP stalls one tile away from covering the malcontents.

This is Emperor with an AGRI nation and lots of river banks so growth will come quickly and happiness will start to be an issue really quickly. The close by silks will help.

My preferred build pattern is the "knight's move", three out one sideways. You get a very productive set of core towns quickly with minimal overlap.
 
Turnlog continued:

10. 3500 - Red N sees more mountains. Blue SW to avoid GH.

11. 3450 - Red N and sees still more mountans, hills and some tundra. Blue SW to hill and sees more coast.

12. 3400 - Red E to river next to tundra...can barely view northern coast beyond mountains. Blue S to mountain and spots 3 forest tiles with 1 jungle tile beyond.

13. 3350 - Worker begins road. Red E across river to southern edge of tunda sees more grassland. Blue S but loses mountain view advantage.

14. 3300 - Red E sees more tundra, hills and mountains. Blue E sees more grass and continuing southern forest.

15. 3250 - Red S to more grass. Blue E and meets a Greek hoplite. I was thinking I'd read of some way to get trading info upon sight, but tried F4, MapStat and CAII and get nada.

16. 3200 - Move worker N to forest. Red S sees more grass. Blue S (since E would bump into the hoplite) sees river and jungle. Mapstat shows we're up Pottery and Greece is up BW, Masonry and CB. CAII shows CB and Pots are of equal value, but we don't need CB right now and can't afford the others with only 10 gold, so I make no contact.

17. 3150 - Worker begins chop. Red E to hill, seeing forests and yet another river. Blue NE sees forest, hill & grass, and is following the hoplite. Salamanca has grown and we hire a scientist.

18. 3100 - Red E, more forest. Blue E sees coastline.

19. 3050 - Red S sees plains forest with game. Blue NE to hill sees plains, desert and yet another river.

20. 3000 - Red E loses mountain view. Blue NE sees more plains.

Granary is due in 17 pre-chop, Writing due in 18. We have fertile land and lots of rivers nearby, but mountains north and jungle south. Hoplite is still in view headed east. We have only the 10 gold we started with, since our total income of 5gpt is going to science. Our Military Advisor says we are weak. X-man is annoyed.

Edit: Just occurred to me that I should have lowered our research and used the lux slider to keep the 2nd citizen happy. Next player might want to fix that. Sorry! :blush:

Here's our empire.
 
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