The Devil is Six

[nocho]

1. I think we desperately need two more cities. One on the western coast for the triple split, and the other to the east as a blocker. I think these land-grabbing Settlers would have to take priority over Workers.

2. We can run binary for a bit while we get our Library up, which means that I don't have to worry about tech' paths, as I probably won't get past Alphabet.​

1) We're desperate for a lot of things, haha. You may have a point with getting settlers out generally speaking. Possibly we should switch to settler now in Carthage and whip it with the overflow going into library, regrow on library and repeat (if lib is finished, substitute for granary or units). However, I'm not sure on the "western coast triple split", probably mainly because I'm not sure where you mean exactly. Anyhow, it looks awfully food-less over there. I do fancy going east, but we need some more scouting there. I'm not sure if we can afford to move one of the archers in the capital there. Well, maybe we just should.

2) Alpha would be a good stop point anyway to see what we can trade with the AI and discuss about it. So I'd suggest you play up until that point (can't remember how many turns that is though).

 

[Sengir]

Alpha is 14t at this pace IIRC. I wouldn't whip Utica either, but mentioned it as an option. That city has a hard time growing as it is.

Both archers are in Carthage as I had to repel some barbs there. I'd sent one of them over to Hadre-something, then the warrior (W2) can do some scouting/fogbusting.
Whipping settlers out of the cap is fine, but we need some units to go along with that as well.

 

[Cam_H]

Immediate settling plan are these two sites;

... that look a bit like ...

The Gold's a blocker for Willem ... sure, just the one Floodplain and a few choppable Grasslands should sustain this city for a while - never going to be great, but a handy hybrid I'd suggest. For a flatland city, easy to defend too.

The Rice is a blocker for Isabella who's got to be looking north you'd think. I'd take the site north of the Lake to allow the city currently named; Utica to expand unencroached and keep a respectful distance from Spain. There's a case for settling west-south - encroaches on Utica but doesn't require a pop.

 

[nocho]

We'll have to scout a bit more in the east for the exact location, but in itself a city around where you indicate sounds good. If we'd have an infinite amount of settlers I'd be okay with the western site immediately as indeed it blocks nicely and will be self-supportiing at least. However, we only have 6 settlers and if we want to settle cows and around the northern pigs as well, we've used them all already. We might miss an iron spot or something.

Of course we could try and hope for the barbs to settle us some cities in the north. I don't discard that at all, but of course the trustworthiness of this approach is doubtfull. Will they settle and will they do so in decent enough locations? That's why I'd like to have some liberty with the last settler and if I look at the possible locations, I think the western spot is the one that'd contribute least long-term. Hence my doubts about it, though it's surely not a definite "no" yet.

 

[shyuhe]

Given our limit on settlers, I'm inclined to give up the NW gold and grab the northern gold only. This will let us plant another city up north for the pigs (#4) and two to the east for the green jungle land.

Unless there's something else near the stone/rice to the SE, I don't know that it's worth our trouble to settle it.

 

[Ororo]

I agree with nocho. Wet rice/Stone spot is a nice, whereas the western Gold I'm willing to give up.
Imo there will definitely be a nice spot hidden in the eastern fog so let's not "waste" all of our settlers on subtoptimal spots before we have a little more map knowledge.

 

[Cam_H]

OK ... the tribe has spoken!

Generally I would like to get one more city out during my turnset, and as such, this means one to the east. I'm OK to do some more reconnaissance around the Rice-Lake area in case there's a stand-out spot.

I am fine with the idea of our western Corn city after the Monument building a Library and running Scientists in time for our inaugural Academy in the capital.

In light of need for more Workers and units, that leaves our southern city for that.

Therefore;

The chop going into the capital's Library could instead go into an Archer for recon' and eventually garrison our fourth city. I see the appeal of a Library there - no doubt - but as proposed, it might need to be built with the aid of whips and chops. After the Archer, a Settler whipped into the Library.

I'd whip the western city's Monument as Sengir proposed, overflow to an Archer, and then on to the Library.

The southern city will just alternate between units and Workers depending upon the level of development within the city's BFC.

As proposed, we can run 0% until our first Library's up.

I see value in getting some action happening, but I think that this might have to take a backseat to basic tile improvement and forest chops.

Please approve or amend as you see fit.

 

[nocho]

I approve generally speaking. I'm only not sure whether it wouldn't be better to go granary first in the western city before library, but I'm too lazy to do the maths now... Especially if the lib needs to be 2-pop whipped anyway to get it out, as then we'll have to regrow anyway before being able to hire the scientists.

And please scout the east well before actually settling. If stone/rice doesn't have anything else going for it I'm with shyuhe that we might have to reconsider the spot. In doubt just post a screenie and we discuss.

 

[Cam_H]

Turnset Summary:

A somewhat nervous turnset with quite a few roaming Barbarians stalling our progress, and I'm afraid to report we lost a 90% battle, down one Archer against a Barbarian Archer. We have a Settler-Archer pair in the East, but the AI's moving toward our turf. Isabella settled near that eastern Lake, while Willem has a settling party along the western coast. One of our Corn Farms was pillaged by the Barb's in preference to attacking one of our decoy units. The Barbarians have set up a nice spot with Cows-Gold to our north. Napoleon is WHEOORN. Unfortunately that Library isn't up yet in capital but is whippable.

Overall, I don't have any great regrets in terms of my decisions (although you guys might!), but really didn't have a lot of luck courtesy of Barbarian harassment.

Report:

Spoiler :

Opening Turn | Turn 59 | 1640BC

Renamed cities in light of the themed songs:

"an under water guy who controlled the sea, got killed by ten million pounds of sludge from new york and new jersey" and

"I stuck around st. petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change"​

Carthage > New York
Utica > New Jersey
Hadrumetum > St. Petersburg

Direct on Saladin

Open Borders with Saladin (note that Churchill and Napoleon seemed to have or be 'worst enemies' so I avoided both)

New York: Library (interrupt) > Archer
St. Petersburg: Monument whip

0%

(Lots of 'chess like' movements through the turnset versus Barbarians and a few victories {4 or 5?} that won't be documented).

Turn 1 | Turn 60 | 1600BC

ibt: Judaism fidl

New York: Archer > Settler
St. Petersburg: Monument > Library

Turn 2 | Turn 61 | 1560BC

Willem converts to Judaism.

Turn 3 | Turn 62 | 1520BC

New Jersey: Worker > Barracks (growth)

Turn 4 | Turn 63 | 1480BC

New Jersey: Borders pop
New York: Forest chop into Settler

Turn 5 | Turn 64 | 1440BC

New York: Settler whip

Garrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

Turn 6 | Turn 65 | 1400BC

A badly injured Archer is forced to use its 5XPs in light of more Barbarians on the horizon, and opts for Drill I and II.

New York: Settler > Library

Turn 7 | Turn 66 | 1320BC

-

Turn 8 | Turn 67 | 1280BC

A Barbarian Archer makes an unexpected turn away from New York and toward St. Petersburg. Desperate times;

St. Petersburg: Library (interrupt) > Archer whip

New Jersey: Barracks (interrupt) > Worker (due to growth)
New York: Library (interrupt) > Chariot

Barbarians set up a nice city to our north (see last screenshot below).

Turn 9 | Turn 68 | 1280BC

ibt: St. Petersburg's Corn farm is pillaged (rather than attacking Woody Warrior).

New York: Chariot (interrupt) > Library (resume) ... just in case we need to whip a Chariot, at least we don't get the -33% whip penalty for 0 in the build.

Turn 10 | Turn 69 | 1240BC

-

Turn 11 | Turn 70 | 1200BC

ibt: Napoleon goes WHEOOHRN

Left it here, there are a couple of units with movement points.
___

Points of note ...

New York Library and New Jersey Worker are both whippable.

As noted in the summary, Dutch Settlers to the west.

Gems-Rice-Stone might be an option for eastern city in light of Spanish city near the Lake and lack of extra resources.

stockpile for max post-Library build.​

___

 

[nocho]

And now what about more city names? Jagger mentions Bombay and then Jerusalem and Dallas by implicit reference?

Bad luck about the archer. Kind of nice the barb city is on our exact spot, now let's see if we can get it. Time for IW and swords maybe. Now your western spot might have been good. :/

Will look at the save later.

 

[Ororo]

Ouch, some really bad luck you had there Nevermind, RNG usually shows his dark side in most of my games

Looking at the save, I agree with settling the rice/gems/stone site. It's not going to contribute too much in a short term, but in a long term it's likely going be one of our best production cities.

We really need to research Alphabet asap so that we can trade for IW, Monarchy and other stuff...

Workers should stop improving tiles near New Jersey and focus more on chops/roads/cottages in capital's BFC. The corn near St. Petersburg needs to be farmed once again because the more the city grows, the earlier we can get our 1st GS.

After the cottages are built near NY, we should definitely stop whipping it. Not sure I'd whip the Library but if we do, please let it be our last whip for some time...


As for city names, Jagger mentions Kennedys iirc. Los Angeles might therefore be another candidate too. After all Lucifer is a fallen angel so it kind of makes sense to have a city of angels Which reminds me...you should definitely read "Murder Mysteries" by Neil Gaiman. It's a story published in his book "Smoke and Mirrors" and describes Lucifer's fall from Raguel's perspective. Amazing read!
Not to mention Lucifer comic series... There is just sooo much great stuff with Lucifer as a main protagonist and I always seem to find a bit of Sympathy for the Devil

 

[Cam_H]

Thanks for your feedback. It just seemed to be quite a difficult bunch of turns where there were always Barb's wandering around some BFC, typically New York's.

One of the Barb' fights was 56% our way, and we won that, so it wasn't entirely bad luck, but if you can't win the 90%ers, then what more can you realistically do?

There's a Worker over near St. Petersburg who I let finish the Mine in preference to stopping him one turn early to head off to the Corn.

Personally, I'd whip the Library in the Capital - it's just a one pop whip, but I'd like to get our research back underway.

I suppose during my turnset there were a few points that I wasn't 100% sure on;

Which promotions to give units? As noted in the report, I opted to give one Archer Drill I and II, but wasn't sure what strategy we had there. As mentioned earlier in this thread, we may need to take a slightly different approach to issuing promotions in light of the variant.

That "pre-farm" sign? Cottaging the Capital was difficult. I put just the one down, which can be nurtured by New Jersey if we want at any point, but there's the "pre-farm" sign over a riverside Grassland that looks like a natural Cottage spot, and I wasn't sure if I could start working on a Cottage there. (Cottaging to the north of New York was not possible give the Barbarians there).​

Also, just for our reference, WFYABTA thresholds;

Spoiler :

Known rivals:

Low (5):

Isabella​

Medium (10):

Saladin
Napoleon​

High (15):

Churchill
Willem​

The 'seventh' leader (leaders starting with Mysticism):

Low (5):

Brennus
Huayna Capac
Montezuma
Pacal​

Medium (10):

Asoka
Boudica
Wang Kon​

High (15):

Charlemagne
Gandhi
Justinian​

Roster:

nocho <<< On Deck
Ororo
FlyingSwan
shyuhe
Sengir
Cam_H
r_rolo1 <<< Up​

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, got it ...

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, I looked at the save and ...

#1 - I don't understand why our settler is where it is. The eastern spot that was dotmapped is taken ( and it looks to hae been taken for a while ), the spot where the settler is is completely subpar compared with, for a example 1 W.... and worse, willem will take the stone/horses spot in the west. What the hell happened during the last set ?

#2 - Why are we gathering cash with the science slider @ 0%? Ok, you might think dual research, but the fact is that no one has alpha so far ... and being the broker between the AI can give us a good leverage

My idea would be to settle 1W of where it is now, that atleast is a good city after the border pop ... and whip those libraries ASAP and get the tech running.

We also need a new dotmap reflecting the new reality around. We will lose the western horses area ( I would had settle this spot instead of the jungled east :/ ), the barb city to the north also hampers our settling around ( OTOH, it saves us a settler ). Any ideas ?

 

[Sengir]

I agree with settling 1W of the current settler location. The city should get some culture up asap though, both to be able to get the good tiles and to battle spanish culture.

I'd go 100% to alpha now. As said, we should be able to broker some techs between the AIs which will hopefully net us some extras, more than if we wait until the libs are up. Getting IW from the AI is priority I think, to be able to cut the jungle down and we could use the swords to capture that Barb city, otherwise I fear Willem will be going for it relatively soon.

 

[Cam_H]

Rolo,

Please engage in pre-turn discussion if you have views. You are not the only CivFanatic to not contribute to pre-turnset discussion only to complain about the choices made afterwards once the 'milk has been spilt', but as a player it's a bit frustrating to read; "What the hell happened during the last set ? ", even if it was meant jovially (I hope).

Anyway;

I also agree that 1W of the Settler is the spot to go. I was specifically asked to check out the east before settling, which is why they're further east than the settling spot. The Archer was being hassled by Barbarians, which is why there wasn't a lot of recon' done unfortunately.

It was agreed that we should forgo the western spot due to the limited number of Settlers we can build. In hindsight it would have been difficult to get both the western and eastern spots in this turnset anyway.

If the idea was solely to get Alphabet as quickly as possible, then 5 or 6 turns of binary (0%) would have been ideal, however I looked to leverage our overall technology position, meaning that we can run a higher tech' rate for a few turns on whatever follows Alphabet. Again, I noted this in pre-turn discussions and did not get a cue that our tech' objective was solely to get Alpha' as quickly as possible, but instead I leveraged binary to improve our commerce predicament for Alpha' + whatever is next. I appreciate the point you're making, but I took the position of improving our commerce management generally rather than racing to Alphabet specifically.

 

[shyuhe]

We will need another worker or two, maybe even three because of the jungle. 1W sounds good for the settler.

No idea why the AI is so backwards, as it's 1200 BC and no one has alpha yet...

 

[nocho]

Basically agree with all previous posts.

Let's take alpha asap and barter it around. I'd definitely want IW asap. If we have Iron available I'd try to spit out some swords to take the barb city, we can't have WvO take it. I still see New Jersey as the prime candidate for military output (rax first). Meanwhile agree with the need for more workers (not more than 6 total though! Maybe the barbs can provide us with some more? ). We have pressing needs of all sorts (another settler for example), but we'd also need to get to 6 warriors relatively soon. Connecting/disconnecting metals is a bit of a waste of precious worker turns.

@Cam, rolo is usually pretty jovial for a Lisboan so don't take it too harshly... You indeed seemed to have played the set according to what we had discussed, though unfortunately there were some unexpected setbacks. In retrospect with the barb city where it appeared the western spot would have been a good option, but who was to know. I would have preferred to have gotten to alpha asap, with the settling discussion kind of ignored the binary thing you did mention, so my bad. Anyway, from the screenshots, alpha was due in 14 turns @+1gpt previous to your set anyway, so in the end the way you played it doesn't delay it much, if at all.

 

[r_rolo1]

Cam, I was definitely being not serious It is obvious that in hindsight things got a little off track during your set ( not by your fault ) ... I was just pointing that Ask nocho how I am when I'm really pissed

My only doubt now is if we start on alpha now of if we wait for the libs ... to be honest I'm for starting it now . BTW sorry for taking so long to play, but yesterday I took my fair share of alchool and that does not mix with good play So hopefully I'll play tonight ( 33ºC out there ATM ... besides the danger of overheating the comp, it is not a good temp for concentration )

P.S @ nocho, how may people of Lisbon you know for making that statement ?

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, first thing i did was to move the settler 1 W:

Spoiler :

In case you are wondering why I putted the pic before the settling, I must add that the archer east of our position is actually a settler team from Spain. I guess this ended being a decision if we wanted to save the west or the east, since we didn't had the means to save both...

Speaking on the west...

Spoiler :

Heavens, the AI can be really ******** ...

On eastern news:

Spoiler :

In case you are wondering, those archers are actually 2 settler teams. Izzy was really planning to REX our border, by the looks of it. Anyway, expect new cities of her ....

We met a new AI:

Spoiler :

And we ended the set with Alpha... so trade ensued, as our not so fearless leader ordered:

Spoiler :

In case you are wondering why I chose to trade with Willy , it is because he has masonry ( that we need for our newly founded city , that has stone in the BFC ). Here is the tech situation after trade:

Spoiler :

Nothing much to trade, except maybe Sailing from the bulldog

Oh, and in case our fearless leader is starting to have a heart attack for the lack of a map showing where the iron is:

Spoiler :

Problematic spots ... even then, I think the northern one is a better spot. I would send the scout north to check.

Some issues:

As was noted below, Izzy got hands full and I would not be surprised that we are the target. How to deal with that ?

I haven't whipped this set: some of the cities had too little pop for that and the others still had whipping unhappiness. I suggest to think on doing that now or soon.

What to tech next? I let Maths in queue, but i wonder if Currency would not be better...

>>Save here<<​

Nº 7 has spoken