Training game emphasizing trading - Emperor

[Rik Meleet]

On the timing of the trade -- what's the magic in "3 more turns"? I get the general logic of waiting, but how do you decide how long to wait? Was 3 based on the fact that we saw German border 3 turns later and at that point could consider another viable partner?

I assumed the nations got the techs the turn 1750BC. That means that no-one can research a tech for at least 4 turns. We have to trade before that, so 3 turns. If you wait longer than 3 turns the danger is bigger that Japan self-researches Myst. Again, if Spain and Russia Already have had IW and Myst for some turns and Japan alreaady had IW for some turns, it is dangerous to wait. If Japan gets Myst, our 2fer1 is gone.

I didn't look at the 1475 BC save at that moment yet (I added the 1475 BC scores later).

 

[trikos]

In general, I think we should, when the trading situation changes in the game, do either:
1: Do the trade and explain why we did, which can be followed by a discussion in the team
- OR -
2: If we are not sure what to do, post a save and discuss the trade.

I prefer #2, but I think it is ok to do #1 to have some progression in the game, but "I just did" is not a sufficient explanation in my mind to do #1.

A few (hopefully constructive comments) on the game (plarq's save)

War: First target: Japan. Doesn't seem like they have neither iron nor horses When they are out of the game we own the island.
Second target: Russia(?). This will give us an exstra lux. Lux = money = research

We could build warriors and later upgrade them swords (? EDIT: We might not have the money for that.).

Empire expansion: We need the lux to the north. One settler and some defends will do it, if we want to settle to the east as well. Here is dotmap:

MM - stuff:
Carthage: Should have +5 food. This is our settler factory and sets the pace for our expansion.
Utica: Why barracks? This is our worker factory. Suggestion: Build settler instead and then workers. Workers should work terrain to make a 2 turn settler factory.
Leptis magna: Won't grow above 6 pops. Build worker at some point.
Theveste: Build barraks. We don't want regular mili.
Leptis minor: Put in barracks. I would have preferred it settled one tile to the north (haven't checked our dotmap)
Ruscade: Build temple to get whales?

We should make a dotmap for the eastern expansion.

Trading: Honestly. I am not sure what to do. Hope that Netherlands get horseback riding and trade it for myst?

 

[oopsy poopsy]

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but plarq I think you played your turns a little too fast. If you run mapstat you won't have the rioting problems and keeping a log should avoid running over in turns. Mistakes are fine, I'm just saying to correct these in the future slowing down is your best answer. You only get ten turns right so make the most of them. I've found so many things I already do better just by playing turns that other people are going to rely on me for.

 

[Bede]

Couple of things need to be taken care of immediately.

Leptis Minor is really badly placed, set it to build a worker and make the citizen a tax collector. The town will self destruct in 5 turns, then put a new settlement 1N as trikos suggests and as the dotmap called for.

Change utica to a settler to rebuild Leptis Minor then set it up as a worker farm.

Carthage needs to go high food and set a placeholder build until it grows to six then produce the next settler.

Rusicade is equally badly placed as one NW would have preserved a sugar for Leptis Magna while getting a sugar for Rusicade. Even better might have been 1S1E. We can do the same worker abandon and resettle on a spot that better fits our growth plan.

It is also a little early to be settling coastal spots without fishing bonuses, as we don't know how to build harbors yet.

There is a continent sized chunk of island still left to be claimed by us if we can keep the settler farm running while Japan is trapped behind the jungles and mountains to the north.

In general I think expanding up the center of the spines on either side of the Inland Sea will be the most effective for us.

I would like to add an item #3 to trikos's list above....

3) If you deviate from plan as laid out in previous logs, please lay out the reasoning.

Mechanical note:
I keep a text copy of the thread open in Notepad while playing and add my log at the end. Makes it easy to refer to previous logs. Also I keep the agreed upon dot map open in a picture viewer for equally easy reference.

This way if I should deviate from plan it is easier to write a quick explanation.

Don't see any real reason to buy HBR unless we want to do some hard core ethnic cleansing.

 

[Rik Meleet]

(..) Trading: Honestly. I am not sure what to do. Hope that Netherlands get horseback riding and trade it for myst?

If you email the save to me ( deleted ) I can check and advise. Better still: upload the save so all can see and check. In that case send me a PM, so I know you have uploaded it.

1 thing to notice; HBR is a dead-end tech; meaning that if the AI only shows HBR they have no techs "beyond that". Compare it with bronze working; if an AI has that tech it might also have Iron Working. We don't know then as we cannot see it.
Dead End techs are not so very useful and urgent to buy, unless we can do a 2fer1 or we need the units / buildings / Government the tech gives us.

Do we need HBR right now ?

 

[Jurimax]

I don't think we need it right now, as we already know the Wheel to spot the Horses and I don't think we should go to war with Japan just yet. Our number one priority right now is expanding and getting some nice land in our borders.

I'll also try to produce a dotmap some time this evening.

Greetz Jurimax

 

[trikos]

I agree. We don't need HBR right now. If my observation of Japan lacking both horses and iron we should be able to overrun them later. Furthermore, if we meet one of the two last opponents we might be able to trade HBR in a 2fer1 deal.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

i agree as well. HBR can only get cheaper. If we see an opportunity for tech broker then we can get it then as well, but we're not ready to gear up our war machine yet. I think we should kill both the cities bede mentioned. Growing according to agreed upon dotmap is essential. If you think you know a better city placement stop save and let everybody choose. You know that feeling where you think you understand something and then someone asks you to explain it and it's really hard? That's why this is so important. You'll really understand what and why you're doing something and discover faulty logic if you try to explain yourself and on the flip side the rest of the team can see why your right if you it is a good plan.
I know we need settlers but we need workers even more. when I get home from work I"ll start on a dotmap and we can all compare and discuss this evening or tommorrow (I know it's hard with time differences and all, but we're at a stage where I wouldn't worry about the 48hr time thing, let's all get on the same page first).

 

[Jurimax]

Okay, here goes my version of the 1475BC dotmap:

 

[Bede]

The only reasons for HBR right now is fast units to clean up barbarian infestation or trade bait. It is not the best trade bait as its beaker cost is low and I don't think anybody out there has anything we need.

J-max's dot map is good, though I am going to propose a few changes for discussion. Pictures follow tonight.

 

[Jurimax]

I mostly focused on coastal cities to get the most advantage from our Seafaring trait.

Greetz Jurimax

 

[trikos]

Do we have to move Rusicade? Sorry, it is too late for me to figure it by myself - wrong time zone

 

[Bede]

Here is Bede's map for discussion, focusing on the eastern spine:

Reasoning:

First dot east of Theveste is on the river and it closes the borders nicely. It will also pop the hut with a high chance of pulling a tech (IIRC, HBR, as it is known by at least four other nations). It pulls in the wheat and gives an irrigation path to it and matches upnicley with J-max's move of Rusicade.

The second eastern dot is also on the river, has access to forests and a game preserve.

The northeasternmost is a hill at a choke point and a canal to the Inland Sea.

They all leave room for fishing villes on the coasts.

@trikos, Rusicade is stealing too much productive terrain from Leptis Magna.

As for the western side I would incline to building up the spine on the hills. I don't think it will give away much of the coastal bonus as we can fill in with fishing towns once we have Map Making. Those hill towns will be fortresses against any invader from the north, great spots to plant troops and kill invaders in the plains around.

 

[Jurimax]

@Bede
since I only worked from the provided screenie by plarq I didn't have a very clear view of things. I should have noticed the canal city nevertheless.
As to the GH being popped, even with my dotmap it would've been popped (the cultural borders would have joined and embraced the hut), you do have a point about the wheat though.

Greetz Jurimax

 

[dl123654]

Sorry team, haven't been around lately, finals week, its over Wednesday. I've looked over the latest save and .

The dot map looks good, I wouldn't move the city spots until later when the expansion phase is over (requires two more settlers that could have been founding cities elsewhere).

Looking forward to play my turn.

 

[trikos]

The dotmap is more spread out than I probably would have made it, but I am here to learn

I am too tired right now to look seriously into the dotmap, so whatever you gyes come up with is fine (sorry for that attitude). I might look at it tomorrow though

 

[oopsy poopsy]

Alright. I spent a bunch of time trying to come up with something and I wouldn't say it's better than what's been offered, just different.

I think we need to focus on growing to the choke point on the eastern side and filling in after and growing either to my northenmost yellow square on the centre wing or somewhere nicely defensible around there. If you look at the world map japan has a city just on the other side of the eastern jungle and they will probably come straight down to try and grab land away from us. I think anything north of those two spots can be settled by them or us and taken away later since they won't be hugely productive spots. The other question is the FP. Does that get saved for a different island on arch maps or since this is a big island should we be trying to find a good spot for it here. Unfortunately, If I could place the FP anywhere it would be in the middle of the lake so that's out. My version of the dotmap also calls for just leaving leptis minor and russicade there until they start interfering with the cities around them and then abandoning them.

BTW, nice advisor bede, maybe she'll come standard for civ 4.

 

[Rik Meleet]

(..)BTW, nice advisor bede, maybe she'll come standard for civ 4.

Bede was inspired by my advisors ?

 

[Bede]

Might as well stir the pot a little more:

Who wants to make sense of this?

 

[oopsy poopsy]

I saw that too, but when I tried to work around it I just got confused. I have like 5 different layer sets in ps for different placement and when I went back to look at them, none of them made sense. The other one is that we're leaving an ivory unused right near the capital and that seems stupid. It's in the borders but only 'cause carthage is culture 3. With no FP what kind of corruption are we looking at for the orange dot. I never know how to plan for corruption.