TR04 - Losers vs 5CC deity

[Bede]

How many boats you got in the water? Locating the other guys and finding the sea lanes is Job 1.

First build in the new town should be a boat, then a worker, then start the Colussus. We are going to want to devote at least two workers full time to that second city if we want it to be the "Wonder City" or at least until all 12 fields are improved and worked. Mine everything in sight including the cow as we can use add-in workers to get population growing though it doesn't make sense to grow the town any faster than the fields can be improved.

Road then moine the fields along the river first. The commerce bonus from roaded riversides is even more important than the shields.

I would put the third city right on the neck 4NW of the capitol. With the forest chopped off the furs you have 2f2s grasslands, no freshwater but a food bonus in the fishery and extra commerce from the tobacco.

The next two towns should be inland along the rivers. The coastal bonus only applies to the city center, riverside commercial bonuses apply to every workable riverine field.

We have a really nice start here.

On the issue of troops, we need very few, but lots of boats. If they can't get to us we don't need defenders, so finding and controlling the sea lanes is really important and you don't do that with swordsmen...

 

[Mach]

Okie dokie, then I'll continue with the settlers out of the capital.

Question: Why put city #3 on the neck? I would put it on the furs 1 NW of that -- it will still be a canal city, and it will lose some ocean and pick up some production, and it won't overlap with our capital.

Either way, that doesn't affect the next 10, so I'll play soon.

 

[Bede]

Question: Why put city #3 on the neck? I would put it on the furs 1 NW of that -- it will still be a canal city, and it will lose some ocean and pick up some production, and it won't overlap with our capital.

Right you are, these old eyes have a hard time making sharp left turns.

 

[Mach]

Preturn -- Yeah, right. Nothing to do.

T1 (2950BC) -- zzz
(I) Const settler --> curragh

T2 (2900BC) -- Lux to 10%
(I) zzz

T3 (2850BC) -- zzz
(I) zzz

T4 (2800BC) -- curragh hits another landmass
(I) zzz

T5 (2750BC) -- lux to 20%
(I) Const curragh --> settler

T6 (2710BC) -- Meet the Iroquois! Hello! They are up Pottery & TheWheel, we got nuttin'.
(I) zzz

T7 (2670BC) -- found Adrianople, start on curragh
(I) zzz

T8 (2630BC) -- zzz
(I) zzz

T9 (2590BC) -- lux to 30%
(I) zzz

T10 (2550BC) -- zzz

Teh Save

I took a stab at a dotmap here, now that we have a better idea of our landmass. Red dot was Bede's suggestion. Blue dot brings in most of our river; unfortunately, because of those mountains, we can't bring in any more river tiles without overlapping cities. Purple dot is the consolation prize -- it's first ring, it's on the lake, and it's coastal.

 

[Minute Man]

I like the red dot - I had also missed the fact we could get a canal city there. Purple dot looks pretty good too, though I'd like to see the rest of the unexplored territory over there before deciding. I'm not sure about the blue dot, though - I suspect it's not on the river, and it has way too many mountains for my taste (and even a volcano). I'm not sure where else to put it, though.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

my two cents - in no particular order - red is good where it is. As is purple/pink. Don't like blue cause it's inland. we can wait a little for city 4 and see what appears after wheel and IW

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

igor wants to know when we are going to hook up the furs. something about maryann and impending marraige...

 

[eldar]

I concur, I don't like blue where it is at all. We don't have to worry about the AI settling N of Red; it's all swamp and they don't know how to land a worker, clear the swamp, then settle.

 

[Tubby Rower]

Good job Mach!! what is the priority between red & purplish pink? I'd think that purple over red, but OTOH settling red will preven the AI from plopping a city in the pennisula.

Furs getting hooked up is almost secondary compared to getting out wonder city up and productive. I realize the lux will help in that we don't need the lux slider as much but getting that Adrainople started on a wonder for our 20k goal is pretty important. The longer we delay the more chance that we'll miss it.

Roster:
eldar
Mach - just played
dman - need a skip or has work not encroached yet???, will wait til tomorrow before skipping
Minute Man - on deck
Bede
Tubby Rower
A-K

 

[Mach]

I also agree with you guys, I don't really like where blue is (notice it has a volcano in it's 21)...except I don't see any better options. My motivation for it was Bede's "commerce above all" advice...

The next two towns should be inland along the rivers. The coastal bonus only applies to the city center, riverside commercial bonuses apply to every workable riverine field.

The blue dot is the spot that will bring in the most river tiles without overlap. If we move it SE to the coast, it'll gain that one commerce, but lose the river commerce. If we move it to any spot on the river, it'll have overlap with other cities. So I don't really like where it is, however I think it is the highest commerce spot around...

Priority of cities: I'd do Red, Blue, Purple. Red can work the fish and build a worker first, to help connect the furs and bring irrigation up there.

 

[Tubby Rower]

Mach, Is that picture pretty much sum up our island? or is there a bridge of land on the eastern part of it? We might want to go ahead and plant that blue city the abandon it later for another more resource filled plot of land on another island. We just have to abandon this city before the other is built.

I realize that this looking a tad bit further ahead but can you transfer troops over an airfield?

 

[Mach]

Mach, Is that picture pretty much sum up our island?

Yep, pretty much. There's a plains wheat to the NE, surrounded by hills & mountains. Here's a better picture for everyone...

 

[dmanakho]

With all this work i didn't realise i was up...
I can play this weekend, so i got it..
Need to study thread first though... never had a chance to read it all.

 

[dmanakho]

Frankly, i don't think it was my best play so feel free to beat me up.

Here is the turn log:

pre-turn:

Adrianople is building curragh but since we have 2 already, we really need to get a worker out of there... One worker we have in 2550BC isn't such a good idea, IMHO. Switch Adrianople to worker.
Was there a special reason for worker roading regular grassland near our capital???? I don't see a reason, but may be i am missing something.

T1. 2470BC Worker finishes road sending towards BG and connection with Adrianople. We meet Hittites. They have Pottery, Wheel, CB and WC. I see we are researching writing at max. On diety level i usually play 0 research, but on this map we might be lucky to get writing 1st.... But chances for republic slingshot are low, there are still some depending on how many AIs will know each other in AA.

IBT: Hittites are building Collosus - that pretty much means we won't get it for ourselves.

T2. 2430BC. Constantinople settler->settler. 3 turns to purple dot and 5 turns to red dot. I choose purple dot for now

T3. 2390BC. zzz

T4. 2340BC. Adrianople worker-collosus, oh well... lets see how it goes... if we aren't lucky collossus doesn't cost that many shiels to lose after all.

T5. 2310BC. Caesarea is founded on purple dot->curragh

T6. 2270BC scouting

T7. 2230BC. more scouting

T8. 2190BC. and again scouting

T9. 2150BC. Constantinople settler->settler. Curragh spotted blue border. Sending settler towards red dot.

T10. 2110BC. Blue border - Spain. They are bunch of techs in front of us.

Post-turn:
Nobody has writing yet and our writing will come in 7 turns... I suggest to trade it around and go directly for philosophy->literature->Gr.Lib.
or philosophy-Map Making->Gr.Lighthouse.
If we fail to build collosus in adrianople we can use it as a pre-build for above mentioned wonders.

Send warrior back to Constantinople for MP purposes.

Here is my proposed location for blue dot. It is on top of Bonus Grassland. It is not ideal, but that way we will claim maximum land coverage and all sources of furs to have trade monopoly.

save

 

[Bede]

Now that I have a better lay of the land look I would follow d-man's suggestion and push right on out the the coast in the SE.

The research pace is just right. Keep the slider up there as we can only use the cash flow for science and entertainment. I really don't like paying money into the other nations at this level and at this stage (later, it's different).

The Republic manuever is not worth the candle, though. I have had some success though using Writing and Philosphy to get to Masonry, Mathematics then Currency as the bonus, or if you can't make the deals necessary for Currency then Map Making.

Maybe move the blue circle one north. Stays on the coast, preserves the BG, will overlap a little with Caeserea but not too badly.

 

[dmanakho]

I agree with Bede... we shouldn't be even trying to go for republic slingshot...

But... We should revolt into republic from Despotism. Monarchy simply isn't good in this type of game... We need maximum gold only republic can bring us.

 

[eldar]

Okay...
The good: we have a large island. Research is going well, nobody has Writing yet. Believe me I wasn't dreaming of a Republic slingshot anyway. Lit over Map Making would be preferable. The AI will always research it for us, and the G Lib will be more useful to us than the Lighthouse. If we really are lucky, we can keep Lit out of their hands long enough so that the Pyramids/Orcale cascade breaks the chain before the GL is available to them.

The bad: I'd have liked a smaller island where 5 cities could potentially block all AI access. We'll get neighbours, unless we want to go into AW mode and beat off intruders with Dromons.

 

[Bede]

Near as I can tell from what we know right now, AI neighbors on the island are a non-starter with three or four properly positioned Dromons, at least until Astronomy, or even curraghs, even if somebody builds the Big Lightbulb.

Got to disagree on the bonus tech being Literature though. Both Currency and Map Making have higher trade values and even if the AI doesn't research Literature for us we can self research PDQ when we are ready for the Library, which if we get the Colussus should come after the revolt to Republic, anyway.

 

[Minute Man]

I believe that makes me up next. So, got it.

I kind of like the blue dot where it is, just because I'm not a big fan of overlapping cities in a 5CC. But that does give it a lot of mountains, so I'm not too sure.

So the plan is: found the red dot, trade Writing around when it comes in, start researching Philo. Map Making seems like the best bonus tech to me (not that it'll be happening on my turns). And keep exploring, of course. Am I missing anything?

 

[Tubby Rower]

After the curraph in Caesarea is built squeeze a couple more workers out of there.

Re: Blue dot: Why not move it 1 W. This would prevent overlap, capture a few river tiles, but it would also not be coastal anymore. I don't think that we need all of our cities coastal.

I don't think that anyone expected to try for the republic slingshot.

Good job dman!

Here is the roster and I think that MM was correct::
eldar
Mach
dman - just played
Minute Man - up
Bede - up
Tubby Rower
A-K