TH3 archipelago high seas tropics immortal

Ah, bummer we didn't get Taoism, a religion would have been nice, but then again, this is the high seas on Immortal, so it's not like I expected us to grab every wonder we laid our eyes on. :lol: This game may provide me with a good lesson on digging myself out of technological holes.

Glad to see that you found some more land for us. And, hey, it's not even covered in ice! How about that? Strategic resource, happy resource, maybe more hidden in the fog?

I'll put my trust in Loki's predictions, as well.
 
See it and got it.

I guess plan is still rather straightforward, heading for lib and settling what we can. First obviously around the newly found islands but will do proper scouting around them for optimal placement.
If something major comes up I'll stop for discussion, otherwise may go until edu comes in. Well, we'll see. Next GS for academy sounds like the proper plan.

Any comments welcome of course!
 
Only thing I can think to add is to settle new the new sites while keeping in mind future possible expansion. I believe we were delayed by taking so long to settle the plains east of the cap.
 
It's a shame about Taosim, but it is acceptable, the GS that is coming should be used for an academy in the capital. Continue the lib beeline, when we meet AI's we should wait a bit before trading (lets not piss anyone off), Astronomy with lib seems a good play again

We should settle those two eastern islands IMMEDIATELY, hopefully we can keep island hopping, as always, we need MOAR CITIES

Our iceburg(heh) city needs a couple more fishing boats, and our plains city by the capital needs one for its fish.

I would probably keep growing the capital and avoid whipping it whenever possible, I noticed it is still at size 10 and building a settler.

Generally our two mantras for these games (and civ in general TBH) are GROW THE CAPITAL and MOAR CITIES

on our island cities, pay no attention to whip anger, but just make sure we are always working resource tiles, and try to avoid whipping off cottages

In our capital, we are running bureau, so use warriors for happiness and grow the damn thing irregardless of green faces. It will be unhealthy now, but we will have compass shortly after meeting the other AI's which will give us harbors and solve health issues for awhile.
 
The main thing about missing out on Tao is that we can't run pacifism. Well, we can, but we won't have the 100% GPP increase as that requires a state religion. So I won't revolt to it.

I had a quick look at the save and saw that we are still without AH and IW. Do you think it could be worth it to make a small detour to them? IIRC it only takes some 4 turns to research both. It would be too bad if we accidentally settle on top of iron or horse if it would pop. If we haven't already done so, somewhere of course! :lol: Also we can make some more decent units than warriors should we meet an AI, although probably pre-astro nobody can bother us. And we have bronze now of course.

I was also thinking to hire some scientists in places where we have libraries. Any addition to research seems to be welcome.
 
Would suggest keep going for Lib and forget IW and AH for the time being. If we settle on the resources, so be it, we're mostly after expansion IMO. And whip the heck out of the ice cities, they have a lot of food and we'll be wanting settlers if anger gets out of hand.
 
I played a longish set until education came in. I didn't divert to IW or AH.

No AIs sailed past our shores so we're still in Lonely Hearts Club status. More optimistic souls may think otherwise but I'm afraid things look rather bleak. More on that later.

The set was about exploring and then settling the new lands while heavily whipping infra in existing cities. Some cities like the two most northern ones are food paradise but still so hammer poor that they easily grow beyond the happy cap but without being able to whip. That's why I hired some scientists there after a library was whipped to help with research.

Otherwise got some sucky events like this one that cost some gold:
Spoiler :

and also a tornado that destroyed the granary in Sigtuna of which I forgot to take a shot.

At turn 226 a great person was born, but unfortunately we got a great merchant. :gripe::mad::wallbash: Ok, a scientist was only 60%, but we really could have used an academy. The next GP is still lightyears away, not having any religion we can't effectively run pacifism which is really hurting. Anyway, I merged the guy in Nidaros.
Spoiler :

While I already had scouted out the new islands the barbs decided to settle a city with 4 archers defending it. I ordered axemen from Nidaros to take out that settlement which was autorazed for the loss of 1 axeman.
Spoiler :

In the end I managed to settle all three islands, which unfortunately are rather resourceless, unless maybe horse or iron would pop. There even is no seafood available :sad:. Theoretically there is space for one more city on the northern tip of SE island, but maintenance is already hurting us quite a bit, with research down to 40%. I could have settled differently but the way I did it was to maximize the number of (grass) tiles available to the new dwellings and thinking we wouldn't want to overcrowd this mediocre land.

At turn 248 education finally came in and I set research to liberalism as I hand this over, due in 20. We may win the lib race and I suppose we'd take nationalism as there are not many other worthy techs to take. Then we could draft axemen, o joy! :rolleyes:

I guess the only hope is that the AIs find us quickly and that we can do some decent trading. Otherwise, the demographics look rather bad.

Our GNP which was the only shimmering light in the darkness is fading. Now we're nearly last, with number 1 having exactly double on us :eek:.

I think we should concentrate now on getting more city garrison units, especially for the northern cities so they can grow bigger. Build them where we can and ship them over. And get universities out asap somehow.
The city count by itself is not bad and with current maintenance wouldn't be too keen on expanding much more, even if we could. Let's make the current cities work optimally.

On a side note, I'll be away from Thursday till Monday, both included. I hope that by then the outlook has cleared up a bit. :) If not, of course I wouldn't mind trying TH3.1...
 

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A commendable set, nocho. Even if the land kind of sucks, at least it's ours now. I've got the save, but I'm rather busy, so I don't think I'll be able to play until tomorrow afternoon. I want to wait and hear what the plan is, anyway. What to pick with liberalism? If we're lucky, we might meet someone before it comes in so we have an idea of what the AI already has?

I figure that I'll want to do my best to improve our economy, boost garrisons to increase our happy caps. Since we have education, I take it that I should put some universities in high-commerce locations? (Edit: nocho already said that. D'oh.) (I'll also remove some of the old signs that're still around.) I suppose I'll use our workers to lay down cottages wherever we don't have them already. If I can think of any clever way to increase our chances of getting a Great Scientist, I'll look into that.
 
This looks winnable, but we will definitely need to blow out some backwards AI's in order to get enough land to have an easy win

RANT TIME

Okay copper city is really poorly placed, there is clearly land west of it as was marked, and we settled in such a way that we cannot now reach that land till astronomy, we should have settled on the southernmost grassland tile so that with a border pop we could reach the new island.

Next island, probably would have settled on plains hill, hammer boost + riverside that way, I would definitely stick another city on there, cities are power, maintenance bah, we just need courthouses

third island is okay


THE CAPITAL ISN'T WORKING COTTAGES.

Cottage over the farm there, I put it there temporarily to help run specs while still growing, it should be a cottage now, no reason to keep getting GP out of there...

Our capital should not be generating GP anymore, it generated few largely as stop gap, a bureaucracy capital should generally have all its citizens working cottages or mines to experience the boost.
The intention of the quadruple sea food place should have been to put out all our GP till the end of time (sorry for not making that clear)

We are so behind largely because we have not been abusing Bureaucracy to its fullest

Other than that, all the whipping looks good, however courthouses should have definite priority as our maintenance is quite high.
 
Loki, admittedly after settling it I doubted whether copper city was rightly placed or not. I discarded the possibility of being able to reach land because the tile 2S2W of the southern tip obviously doesn't have tile yield and that therefore the closest land to it is 3W from that tile. In that case it wouldn't be reachable anyways and that's why I preferred to have maximum grass tiles. That land there must be some vertical sliver, I think, which would be unreachable in any case.

The other island I didn't settle on the hill basically to mine it and have another hill. Since there's fresh water, the grass could be irrigated and it'd have two mined hills to work which makes it better production wise. That at least was my reasoning.
 
its possible that 3W of the grass tile is coast, with a second border pop we would have been able to land

3W is reachable with a border pop if it is coast, we can travel on oceans with a border pop, we would go land - coast - ocean(in cultural borders) - coast - land

A workshop is the equivalent of a mine, a plains hill city tile is superior because it gives free hammers.

a plains hill mine is equivalent to a plains workshop, however a plains hill city tile beats all

Hills and flat land have the exact same production potential, however flat land is more flexible.

A grass tile can be a 1F 4H tile just like a grassland hill with a workshop, with SP it gains food
A plains tile can be 0F 5H just like a plains hill, with SP it gains food

While workshops are suboptimal if you don't have 2 of the 3 boosters, once you get them, they make hills an average tile at best.

The ideal production city would be a late game city with nothing but grassland workshops.

While we don't have chemistry/guilds yet, we will likely pick up guilds in a trade when we meet AI's, and Steel has been our traditional military break point tech, which requires chemistry.
 
its possible that 3W of the grass tile is coast, with a second border pop we would have been able to land

3W is reachable with a border pop if it is coast, we can travel on oceans with a border pop, we would go land - coast - ocean(in cultural borders) - coast - land
Ok, I don't have that dire a need to prove my case, but now that we got into it I can assure you that 3W of the grass is no coast. :p:)

From any ocean tile without tile yield you can actually draw a BFC around it which must all have water tiles in it. If any tile in that BFC would be land, the first tile would have had a tile yield.
So with my rather limited drawing skills I present to you exhibit A (only exhibit I have :D)


The two tile without yield only can have water around them, which is everything included in the lighter and darker blue rectangles. The closest land can be in the tile in red. Actually, by deduction it must be land, given other tile yields around.
However, this red tile would not have been reachable from the southern tip of copper island, since you'd have to cross 2 ocean squares.

On the other island, well, in general I also prefer to settle on plain hills of course. But as it was in the corner it had fewer land tiles in the BFC and hence I chose another site on the south coast to have more tiles and both hills available. It's true that a second city on that island could have used the other tiles, but at the time with maintenance crashing in, I was not entirely sure whether to settle a second city. Anyhow, we can still settle a second city if we wish and imo in this case there's not that much harm done. More a question of styles, I suppose.
 
As our most learned mystics debate whether the location of Odense should have been chosen by the dictates of the moon or the guidance of the stars, I take hold of the rudder. I begin to examine the state of the empire.

Bjorgvin is at 6 population with an unhappy. Working on a courthouse but I can't whip it. It will grow in two turns which seems BAD. Can't work more scientists because, uh, only a library. (Wait, Universities don't allow scientists?!) I switch tiles to, um, starve 'em a bit.

Tonsberg has two unhappies and is working a courthouse. Make a note to whip for 3? It won't grow for 17 turns, so I'll leave it. Let it work up a store of food before I stagnate/whip it.

I fire the two scientists in Nidaros to get our Bureaucracy bonuses. We are making a lot more cash now. But, uh, not enough to boost the slider for any reasonable amount of time. I guess we're stuck making about 19 gpt for the time being.

I don't really see anything else to micromanage for now.

This ends the inherited Turn 248, 1030 AD

Turn 249, 1040 AD

It just occured to me that the last mention I heard of what to do with Liberalism was to take Astronomy, but we do not have the prerequisites for Astronomy. Hrm.

Nidaros: Axe < Axe (Need another happy cap boost)

Great General born far away. Any thoughts of taking DR dashed as Islam was just founded, too.

As much as I'd like to go back and pick up the requirements for Astronomy, I fear that doing so will kill our chance at Liberalism.

Start shipping some workers back to the capital to cottage over some farms.

Dunno what to do with all the Galleys, so I park some of them.

Turn 250, 1050 AD

I make a quick diversion to IW so that workers can chop the jungles near Ribe and build cottages. I can have it done in two turns and spend nearly the whole treasury, but it's not like that money's doing us much good, anyway. Hopefully not too much :smoke:

If this costs us Liberalism, you have permission to shoot me.

Turn 251, 1060

OK, interesting: We are not the least cultured, and we now know Hammurabi?




I, um, I make peace.

Spoiler :


Well, we are open for trade . . . . We actually have some techs that Babylon does not have. Seems this is my chance to shine or, um, not. I decide to wait one more turn before starting trades in order to get Iron Working out of the way. We can get a lot of stuff for Education, though. I don't think it's wise to wait long enough for another Civ to show up, or we may no longer have techs to trade.

After I say goodbye, he comes back with an insulting trade: We give Civil Service for Feudalism and pocket change. No thanks.

Nidaros: Axeman < University (15 turns)

Turn 252, 1070 AD

Iron Working < Liberalism again (now due in 12 turns). Nevermind, that's a mistake. It's cuz I was still researching at unsustainable levels.



News: Iron is under a mine that just finished near Oslo. I move workers back to build a road. The Apostalistic Palace has been completed, and it is Buddhist. Hammurabi is the founder of Judaism, by the way. (I note that we are going to surpass him in score soon.)

Yikes, he's already got one of the techs we had on him last turn. Better trade.

I offer Education and he will give us a bunch of techs plus his world map and 10 gold. He wanted to give us Feudalism, but I substituted Calendar and Compass because they are required for Astronomy.

We get: Monotheism, Aesthetics, Alphabet, Archery, Animal Husbandry, Compass, and Calendar. It just occured to me that maybe I should have paid more attention to what I was getting, but . . . oops. We have horses near Ribe. Will start a pasture next turn.

Anyway, the Babylonians are to our east, and they are pretty small. Main island has only two cities, and they have a couple other cities on a 1 and a 2 plot island. Portugese are just south of them and are bigger. I can see the Aztecs (Yay, Monty) and some of Byzantine. and I can just make out the edge of China to the far east (or, rather, close west).

There's also a small, crescent shaped island to our northeast that has iron, crabs, and whales.

Oh, I AM an idiot! I should have gotten metal casting, because Optics needs Machinery (which needs Metal Casting!)

Just to see, I go back, and I could have reworked the deal to get it (would have given up monotheism and aesthetics, which we really didn't need . . . sorry). But for some reason, machinery didn't show up. Advisor said that it "couldn't" be traded. Does that mean we would have had to wait a turn? Well, I load up the actual save because going back and fixing goofs is cheating.

*sigh* And now we don't have anything to make a fair trade for Metal Casting. Maybe someone else will sail by soon.

Turn 253, 1080 AD

Oslo: Granary < Courthouse

Yeah, I see, I would have had to have waited a turn. Well, in an attempt to salvage things (and hopefully not make it worse) I offer Civil Service (1950) for MC and HBR (1095 and 607 respectively). He takes it. I figure worst case scenario, now, is that we research until 1 turn on Liberalism and get Optics ourselves and pray.

Turn 254, 1090 AD



Meet Joao! And perhaps our salvation for my trade blunders? Or maybe not. He is Friendly with Hammy. Hmm, he lacks Civil Service and Paper. I'll see if I can get Machinery for Civil Service. Um, he says NO. He wants Paper, too. Gonna try and balance the deal as best I can . . . . I ask him to throw in Drama and Literature just to balance things out . . . . Urgh, he won't. I leave for the time being.

Now he comes asking for Paper! No! I don't care if you get mad.

*sigh* I go ahead and make the CS and Paper trade for Machinery (urgh!!!). At least we can leverage Education to get Optics . . . . *sigh* Yeah, I should have done that trade with Hammy better in the first place.

Well, Joao is Pleased now because he made off like a friggin' bandit.

I glumly hit enter.

Odense: Library < Courthouse.

Joao gets a Great Prophet. We can get Optics now, probably. SCREW YOU, JOAO!! He WON'T trade away Optics. Hammy will, but we don't have anything to give him for it. I'm not sure if I should give Joao Education yet. Um, both our new "Friends" have those fists by their names now. That means they are going to smack someone down? Probably not us, they can't reach us with boats yet. Hopefully Monty.

Well, I'm going to hold onto Education and pray that Hammy doesn't give it to Joao for free.

Setting all EPs on Hammy to see if he's going for Lib since I gave him Education. I don't want to divert for Optics if it will cost us the race.

Turn 256, 1110 AD

Joao wants Open Borders, but since we'll get no financial benefit (no Astronomy) I say "no."

Not much else is happening. I hope to rush some Courthouses soon to control maintenanec and add to our EPs.

Turn 257, 1120 AD

Rush Granary in Sigtuna 'cuz I can.

Turn 258, 1130 AD

Sigtuna: Granary < Library

Well, well, Joao will actually trade Optics now. I will attempt to get something approaching a fair deal. Education for Optics, Feudalism, and Theology? Ok, replace Theology with Drama? He bites. Best I could do.

Note that BUG says our power with Hammy is about equal.

Oh, and land is revealed to the south.



Shift our EPs to Joao 'cuz I hate him.

I bump up research to 50%, losing some cash but it cuts 2 turns from Liberalism. Probably should have done that sooner, sorry. I'm really off my game today. I've made some minor worker errors, too.

I'll play to Astronomy and finish there.

Turn 259, 1140

Nothing, 'cept I think my blood pressure is lowering.

Turn 260, 1150 AD

No, you can't have Open Borders, Hammy.

Turn 261, 1160 AD

Send worker to start a plantation on silk to get more happy.

Turn 262, 1170 AD

Uppsala: Market < Work Boat (6 turns). Plan to send it to hook up whales for more happy.

Oh, I can whip Tonsberg's courthouse for 3. I missed that. BAM!

We are half of Joaos power. Erm.

Turn 263, 1180 AD

Tonsberg: Courthouse < Market (eventual happy boost)

W'ere now gaining money at 50% science!

Turn 265, 1200 AD

Liberalism in 2

Nidaros: University < Longbowman (I've noticed that a couple of cities still need garrison . . . .

I can whip Bjorgvin's Courthouse for 3 population. Sure, why not?

Turn 267, 1220 AD

Liberalism!!!



I choose Astronomy as our free Tech. Oh, sweet, sweet justice.


I choose Printing Press as a placeholder.

Bjorgvin: Courthouse < Market

Unfortunately, all our Stonehenge Monuments go POOF!

So, we can start building Galleons and settle the bits of land that can be see on all our horizons.

As an experiment, I get Open Borders with Joao. Our income at 50% goes from +6 to +17, and a turn is shaved off of PP. Sign it with Hammy, too, just adds 2 more gold. So, Open Borders may be worth considering, at least until they get Astronomy, too.

Joao Has Nationalism, by the way, but won't trade it (obviously).

I'm not entirely sure how to manage our cities, since right now the Capital is the only one that can really produce anything.

And some pictures of stuff:
Spoiler :
The Northeast:


The South:


The West:


Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum:

 

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Nice writeup, Whosit, and very nice landing us Astronomy wtih Liberalism. I for one didn't expect that anymore, but you got the whole lower halve of the tech tree in trade.

I must admit my blood pressure was also rising while reading through the trades you did, but in the end the result is good! Especially got a bit nervous about trading edu away, but it must have been worth it. Could you maybe post a pic of the tech screen? I can't access the save right now and won't be able either till next Tuesday...

Most definitely OB with anybody, that's one of the main points of Astronomy with TGLH! Let's hope jewism or any other religion spreads to us. We can also upgrade the galleys you parked somewhere. And let's go out and meet the other civs ASAP, we just need to sail west a bit for circumnavigation. And settle MOAR cities! :)

Looks brighter now, I think, so well done again. If there would be ranting to do I'd leave that to others... :p:lol:

EDIT: Well, the others could access the save, only if, well, there would be one! :)
 
*Long, exasperated sigh* Ohhh, the save. If there's one thing that I forget . . . . Well, it's up now. I'll throw up a couple pictures of our tech tree in a little bit.

Edit: Ok, a few notes. If we want to gun for circumnavigation, we'll have to go IMMEDIATELY, but we still may not get it. I didn't mention it, but Joao's carrack came from the west, so he's probably almost done. We don't have quite enough gold to upgrade a galley, so the next player will have to make sure to cut research for a turn to make sure we earn enough.

A second point of interest is that the Babylonians have NO METAL AT ALL. They do have horses, but horses don't make terribly good defenders. I think the worst that we might face if we invade in the near future is longbowmen. I'd recommend sending a vessel to scout his cities as soon as we can afford to.

I dunno where to settle on Wiggle Island, though. There's no one spot that grabs all three resources. I guess Fish + Iron is the most valuable. Though we lose a grassland unless we settle ON the iron.

The good news is that we're large. If we can continue to expand while leveraging our financial trait and keeping costs down with courthouses (though, if possible we need at least one more production town), we can probably get ahead in research. At least, that's my theory.

So, yeah, next player make sure to sign Open Borders with the bozos, as nocho said.

Thought: I guess it's a good thing I didn't realize that we'd given up on getting Astronomy! I suppose there is occasionally a benefit to being out of the loop. Though hopefully from now on I will take greater care when making major, game-changing trades.

Edit Again:
Here's those shots of our tech tree. I took the first screen at the point where things stopped being green.

Spoiler :

 
OK, I see it. Looks like Loki's maxim "don't go for Optics, let the AI find you" has held true.

I expect to play an expansion set and so build settlers and boats. I may have to reduce the science rate for a bit to upgrade any existing ships.

I figure we may as well go into free religion if we aren't already. Not much chance of pulling off a good theocracy this game, although it could prove diplomatically wise. For the short term, while we're meeting the neighbors, I'll go with FR.

I hope to play a short set in a few hours and post the diplomatic situation.

Looks like you pulled through, Whosit.
 
Looks like you pulled through, Whosit.

Was there ever any doubt? . . . . Don't answer that. :shifty:

Yeah, I guess Free Religion isn't the best choice. At least we get the science boost even without religion of any kind.

Oh, right! See if you can buy Joao's map. If he's already scouted the west, we just put his map and Hammy's together and we get the Circumnavigation bonus! I don't think we have a good chance of scouting things out ourselves before they finish it, so this may be the best method.
 
Unfortunately I was unable to play last night. Should be able to get some turns in after work (within 10 hours from now), post an update, and finish on Saturday.

Pretty sure Joao is one of those AIs who doesn't sell maps, Whosit.
 
Okay my heart stopped reading when I read the trades for a minute there :mischief:
But you did good Whosit

@ Nocho, I wasn't saying 3W was land, I was saying it was coast, and we could move from ocean to coast to land, it turned out I was right looking


Okay its 3W 1S but still reachable by galley if we had settled grassland


It would have been reachable by galley if we had settled on southern grassland


I really don't think it made much of a difference in the game, I am just pointing out the game mechanic.

It doesn't have to be land, just coast for us to move onto it. You were exactly right about the placement of land, however you just didn't consider Coast. Anyway I digress.

Also I think we should let liberalism out of the bag soon... self research construction, and get what we can for lib

If it says can't trade, wait a turn before trading for it... but we should definitely trade lib, we should hold on to astronomy however

Definitely open borders, and its time to start settler spamming. I think a steel beeline is order (Guilds-Gunpowder-Chemistry Steel)

Also two trades
Copper to Joao for sugar and dye
Crabs to Hammy for wine

I would buy maps off both of them if we really want to win circumnavigation (which we do)

I think we should tech to steel while spamming cities/killing Hammurabi

Also time to be a frank opportunist

1: Hammurabi has 4 cities, two of which are on the top 5 cities screen, the Jewish holy city Akkad is rank one, and Babylon is wonder packed...

2. Berserkers, I really wanna use these guys... lets put some EP on Hammy and spy revolt - Berserkers off galleons pleaseeeeee :lol:

Put 2 spies in each of his 4 cities, build a few Berserkers in our production capital I think we can pull this off, on immortal, with nothing but a paper army we are equal to his power :devil:



WHAT NEEDS TO BE BUILT: Settlers + Galleons + Berserkers + Spies, build courthouses-granaries-theatres-barracks, anything else is really not needed, we need to invest our hammers wisely.

If a city is going to grow into unhappiness, don't starve it, build a settler, land is power, especially on archipelago.
 
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