TR04 - Losers vs 5CC deity

[Mach]

Tell you what, shall I open the save and move the Settler to the hill and see what I see?

Sure, that sounds like a good idea.

 

[Tubby Rower]

If you're home eldar open the save, and play it. If nothing special comes out of the move then settle on the hill and just play the first 20. I trust you. Mach could play 20-30 tonight if we get it in enough time to discuss. I'll be @ work for a couple more hours and will be keeping an eye on things.

 

[eldar]

Okay, well I'll give it a go before diving back into the MM nightmare that COTM11 has become (same happened with COTM10... oh for an 80% archi game!)

 

[Tubby Rower]

Roster (If changes need to be made let me know. I think that we'll stick wit this one unless someone doesn't want to be burdened by cleaning up after my turns )
eldar <-playing now
Mach <- play tonight?
dman <-still available??
Minute Man
Bede
Tubby Rower
A-K <- just added

 

[eldar]

Here we go. As they say, the best laid plans often don't survive contact with the enemy. Well, mine fell down as soon as I realised i'd miscalculated the border expansion turn Still, I found our 2nd city site, we have Furs close at hand, and there's a very ugly/beautiful peninsula to the north!!

Turn Log:

0 4000 Move the Settler W. Remember I did the spreadsheet at work and didn't send it home…. Nothing exciting. A second BG on expansion. Find the post I made with the spreadsheet and follow my own instructions, let's see if they actually survive contact with reality. Start the Worker (re-named Justinian) irrigating. Oh, F10. Some good news, some bad... 4 Commercial or Seafaring Civs - bad. No other Scientific Civs. Also bad. 4 Agr or Exp, so Pottery is around. A few Rels, wasted on a map like this, good. 2 Exps, again, wasted on this map. If we could've picked opponents, we might've come up with this lot, or close to it: India, Egypt, Inca, Spain, Arabia, Iros, Hittites.

1 3950 Constantinople founded, start Writing @ 100% Sci.

6 3700 Zzzz until now, remember to move to the lake for a turn to get extra commerce

7 3650 City growth, but didn't get the hill (of course, only at 2fpt from the Lake - so went to the Wheat). 10% Lux does the trick. Keep working the Lake+Wheat for now. Justinian moves SE, and we have Furs close by Realise I made a mistake in my spreadsheet, and got the boundary increase 1 turn early . Throw it out of the window in disgust.

11 3450 After the border expansion… the darned AI turned a citizen into a Clown! I hate when it does that. It probably moved from the Lake to the Forest, then decided there'd be unhappiness, so made the Clown I guess the solution is to up Lux to 20% the turn before growth to prevent this. Working the BG allows us to remain at 10% though.

12 3400 More pop growth. Work Lake & a Sea tile for max gold, 3 food, and just the 1 shield needed for the Curragh. Lux to 20%.

IT: Curragh->Warrior.

13 3350 Switch to BG and Forest, rename Curragh "Lollipop" and set sail in search of friends. There's a choke point to the NW. Not ideal for a city on the choke itself for 5CC. Lux to 30%.

14 3300 Yuck. Swamp.

IT: Warrior->Settler.

15 3250 The Warrior (Nobby) heads off, in search of the river mouth.

17 3150 River mouth will have a Cow! Yay! Lollipop finds more Swamp. And a Volcano. And 3 Gold Hills!

18 3100 Bit of MM before growth lets me drop Lux to 20% for a turn.

19 3050 Rough with smooth, 2nd City will have a Cow and 3 BGs, but will get some tundra in its 21. Lux back up to 30% as we're size 4.

Okay, at 3000BC the Settler's due in 2 with just the BG and city tile, so max out the gold by working the Lake and a sea tile for those 2. I'm mining the 2nd Wheat as suggested. I'd go for another Curragh after the Settler, then maybe another Warrior, then another Settler. Actually that's a fairly good sequence 'til we can get our 5 cities.

2nd City fairly obviously at the Yellow dot.

Now it's dinner time and my wife is going to be annoyed with me for not posting quickly enough

Neil.

 

[Tubby Rower]

Thanks eldar, good luck with the wife thing. I understand where you are coming from ...

Rough with smooth, 2nd City will have a Cow and 3 BGs, but will get some tundra in its 21

But one is a forest. we should be able to plant a forest in the other one to get maximum effect out of those two tiles.

OTOH, What if we move yellow dot 1 NE. still cow and 3 BGs. but now no tundra and more grasslands.

Is it correct to assume that since we are seafaring we want 5 coastal cities? or not? What is the seafaring coastal city bonus?

 

[Minute Man]

Good turns, eldar. Looks like a great spot for our second city. Two spaces of tundra isn't that bad - we only have one hill there, so we'll probably want a couple of forests for the shields anyway.

Those lakes to our east look promising, too - it'd be nice if we can get a city over there with fresh water.

Do we want to put a city on that peninsula, or just let the AI have it? A space or two NW of the furs might not be too bad, though it won't be very good until we can get some irrigation up there. I guess it probably depends on what we find to our southeast.

OTOH, What if we move yellow dot 1 NE. still cow and 3 BGs. but now no tundra and more grasslands.

Then we're not coastal, which is a problem if we want to build the Colossus. And the seafaring bonus is, I believe, +1 commerce for each city on the coast. I think we definitely want to get all five cities on the coast if we can.

 

[Mach]

Lookin' good, eldar. Yellow dot is good with me. Shall I start 2nd city on colossus right away? Also, hows about curragh --> worker --> settler? One worker to road to 2nd city, the other to work the capital some more.

Also I'll send our warrior east to look for more city spots. We'll probably want furs next, somehow...

Does anyone know a way we can keep it from making a clown on growth like that? Some governor setting or something?

Got it, play tonight.

 

[Tubby Rower]

I have another question, do we go for Republic? Large militaries aren't a benefit in 5CC's are they? no unit support = lots of money being eaten by our troops

 

[Tubby Rower]

I'd say worker then collossus. (irrigated cow will help recover the lost pop sooner) But I've never played a variant like this (20k or 5CC) so I might be off.

 

[Mach]

2nd city working cow will get +3fpt and 2spt, so it'll grow in 7 but get a worker in 5. Shall I do warrior --> worker --> colossus? Or delay growth and do worker --> colossus? I'm not sure, but I figure waiting 12 turns to start the wonder, plus losing a pop point, might mean no colossus for us. It may already be a lost cause, with so many other seafaring civs out there, guaranteed to have their capitals on the coast. But that's a judgement call, beyond my experience...

 

[Tubby Rower]

I didn't think about that.... do collosus right away. We can pull a worker from another city

EDIT::: MAch, you won't even found our 2nd city until your 8th turn. So we have some time to think about it. Don't fret too much about it.

DOUBLE EDIT:::: I'm assuming that we will be using colonies quite a bit to secure resources and luxuries. Is that correct?

 

[Minute Man]

I'm not an expert either, but I'd be inclined to build the Colossus right away. But popping another worker out of Constantinople before the next settler might be a good idea.

I've been wondering about the government myself. On the one hand, we won't have much unit support, but on the other hand, each of our five cities will be very productive, so we can afford to pay more for our military. And I think the commerce bonus will be very, very helpful (again, because our cities will be so productive).

It may already be a lost cause, with so many other seafaring civs out there, guaranteed to have their capitals on the coast.

Yeah, but how many of them have Bronze Working? There aren't any other scientific civs, and there aren't any goody huts to pop it from. So I think we have a decent chance of building the Colossus first, but we probably do need to hurry.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

good luck with the wife thing. I understand where you are coming from ...

Obviously you haven't been married long enough to discover the power of "Here's cash, go shop"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tubby Rower
OTOH, What if we move yellow dot 1 NE. still cow and 3 BGs. but now no tundra and more grasslands.


Then we're not coastal, which is a problem if we want to build the Colossus. And the seafaring bonus is, I believe, +1 commerce for each city on the coast. I think we definitely want to get all five cities on the coast if we can.

good call

here's a maybe for city three - 2 E of the NE most wheat. we only need one warrior to scout. boats are more impo'tant for the contacts.

On 5CC, we need to be a rep for the money, unless we're going AW.

EDIT: start city 2 on settler as appropriate. keep the wonder builds to the capital (no corruption). settlers and other stuff should be skimmed off the other cities. 5CC is not my forte, so Bede and D-man need to chime in before you go with my ideas.

 

[Tubby Rower]

nevermind again. I really have to read ALL of the posts before I respond!!

 

[Mach]

Much to comment on!

EDIT::: MAch, you won't even found our 2nd city until your 8th turn. So we have some time to think about it. Don't fret too much about it.

Oh sorry, I wasn't quite fretting. My posts are often blunt and, well, blunt...mostly because I'm in deep thought when I write them, and because I'm new to internet posting thingies so I have no style. I'm usually wearin' a dumb grin when I play/post, trust me...

Yeah, but how many of them have Bronze Working?

Good point, I hadn't thought of that.

DOUBLE EDIT:::: I'm assuming that we will be using colonies quite a bit to secure resources and luxuries. Is that correct?

Probably a good assumption. However, I hope (hope) we shouldn't need one for furs...

Do we want to put a city on that peninsula, or just let the AI have it?

I think we'll want our cities close to our capital, for corruption reduction reasons, so if there isn't enough room elsewhere in our first ring (and I feel like that'll happen), then I guess we'll put a city up there. We'll find out soon enough.

EDIT: start city 2 on settler as appropriate. keep the wonder builds to the capital (no corruption). settlers and other stuff should be skimmed off the other cities.

Hm, this goes against my instinct -- if we only get 5 cities, my gut says to get them all up and growing asap, which means settlers out of the capital. I'll certainly wait to play until we hear from Bede and/or dman, as you suggest.
Sorry for the long post...

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

Hm, this goes against my instinct -- if we only get 5 cities, my gut says to get them all up and growing asap, which means settlers out of the capital. I'll certainly wait to play until we hear from Bede and/or dman, as you suggest.
Sorry for the long post...

Here's igor's reasons. We only get 5. No matter where we put them, corruption isn't gonna kill us. The cap. should be able to pump shields like we can't believe. Settlers are not a high investment (30shields) so skimming 1-2 off cities 2 or 3 isn't a big deal. We can put a second wonder prebuild in city 2 to grow the borders after we get city 3 up. Likewise for city 3 and 4 for a 3rd wonder prebuild. Like I said, this isn't my forte, so let's wait for Bede and D-man.

OT - is anyone else into the 1800's on COTM or am i just an idiot?

 

[Minute Man]

I think we should build the Colossus in the second city (and make that our potential 20K city) so we can make better use of the food bonuses at Constantinople. That also has the advantage of giving us the palace to use as a prebuild (though admittedly it won't be a very big prebuild with only five cities).

Also, I think city #2 will have more commerce in the long run - it has several more river and sea spaces, which should make up for the little bit of corruption. So that would be the best place to build things like Copernicus and Newton (assuming we can find a way to build them).

DOUBLE EDIT:::: I'm assuming that we will be using colonies quite a bit to secure resources and luxuries. Is that correct?

Quite possibly, but the problem there is keeping the AI from settling nearby. I had a lot of trouble with that in the one 5CC I've played, though I was more peaceful than it sounds like we're planning on being. But I suspect we'll be depending on trade for a lot of our resources and luxuries.

 

[eldar]

OT - is anyone else into the 1800's on COTM or am i just an idiot?

Late 1300s, just (as in, this turn) entered Modern Era. Spent an entire turn scrolling through dozens of cities hiring tons of Beakerheads. My wife just doesn't understand the level of concentration needed to co-ordinate the machinations of hordes of workers in their road/irrigate/rail sequence either.

 

[Tubby Rower]

I think that I've got to 2100 ...BC. I hadn't had a lot of time to even get to 1000BC. I'm hoping to have some time to get there this weekend.

Back on topic, I've never done a 20k game but in reading some of the spoilers for xOTM over the past few month, I think that the vast majority build the 20K city in the second city. I'd even suggest building a worker or two and adding them to that city to get it to size 12 ASAP. That is the dirty little trick that most nooB's to 20k don't realize. The only way that I know about it is the aforementioned spoiler posts....