Try-04: Lonely Civs and Bismarck the Builder

Hey all, back alive and online and such! I'll try to take a look at the save and get caught up enough to throw my ideas and opinions in, in fairly short order here.

Ralph is up next :goodjob:
 
I am away until Sunday so can I take a swap and pick up the game then please.

ralph
 
I think we need to focus on getting the cities we have up and running (granaries!!!) - use the whip to continue cranking stuff out. I don't think we need to settle another city just yet, and we need to get some :) resources or buildings up so that we can grow our cities more and make use of early Representation to run a SE - and obviously CoL will help with that as well.
 
Got it, played up to 1AD. 20t

Tech path Med>Priest>CoL(founded Toaism)
Spoiler :
Civ4ScreenShot0002-1.jpg


Build were granaries, libraries, few units(archers, axes, chariots), started courthouses in the other 3 cities. Hired 2 egghead in capital to speed up CoL, switch civics to Rep for :) cap & 3:science:. Hooked up iron, horse
 
I'm back from my trip. Unfortunately I am leaving again on Sunday for Vegas (to catch the tail end of CES). However, I should have an internet connection there, so I might be able to play a set and continue to comment. Seeing that cripp is playing today, I might even be able to play before I leave.

Since it appears that people are either still away, or staying quiet, it looks like I'll have to be the obligatory critical antagonist again :satan:

1) Ok, well I outlined my personal layout of wonder ages in a previous post. I still don't know what we're shooting for, and we have yet to agree on an official list of wonders in each age, but according to my calculations, we doubled up by getting both the Mids and the GW. Not necessarily a bad thing, because GW keeps out the barbs, reducing military need, and Mids gives us all government civics...

however, how come we are still running despotism???

I'm not going to elaborate any further, and I'll assume it was just a huge :smoke: that we all didn't notice that, but I think we should be in Rep right now, considering our military-lite status and the free 3 :) it would give all cities... Considering we have :mad: people in half of our cities, this would make a great investment.

2) Other methods of getting rid of :mad: people include... well... the whip. Usually I am not the biggest proponent of the whip in any given game (I've always played with bigger whippers), but with such a huge abundance of food and a low happy cap, we should be whipping anything that will eat two citizens for us.

3) Tying into the previous point... we have to think very long term wise about our happy cap shortage. I am not sold on the whole SE idea at all, because we a stunning total of 3 happiness resources on our landmass (gems, dyes, and spices), as well as whales, which are in a depressingly bad location. Now... IW was necessary to dig the dyes and the gems out of the jungle, but it will be a long time before we have either of them hooked up. Cologne will also take a while to be dug out and productive.

Considering that we are isolated with a lack of happiness resources, I think it would have been a bit more valuable to settle the red dot (site 3) first, seeing as it needs no jungle removal, and has a lot of flood plains that we can use for cottages to get our tech rate up. That would have allowed us to ignore IW for a bit and head straight for CoL, which is valuable to us because of the religion, which we will badly need to expand beyond pop 10 (short of using Hereditary and a mountain of units...).

4) Munich building a barracks. I believe I already covered the fact that this city has only one hammer as it stands, and could better use a granary.

5) Hamburg building a library. Two base commerce does not scream for a library, nor does only having just enough food to run all the high hammer tiles in this city. If we wanted a border pop (which is not terribly important here), a monument is cheaper, and allows Hamburg to get back to doing other things faster, like building archers since it already has a barracks.


We need to choose a path forward. Rep gives us a bit of extra breathing space for the happy cap, but nowhere near enough to begin abusing an SE, considering our chronic lack of happiness. Hereditary Rule will force us to blow gobs of cash on military units, but would gimp an SE attempt, making our best bet a NW expansion while laying down masses of cottages.

EDIT: And I got ninja'd :p. Ignore me.
 
heh, good points all around Silver. Some of them seem to have been addressed, but I don't think all (have yet to look at the save)

Grabbing a religion (which we did) will help us with the happy issue - and I don't think we intended to make real use of the SE long term, it was a short(er) term plan to allow us to maintain a good science rate while we expanded to fill our lands and had to drop the research slider. At least that's what I was thinking. Longer term, I think a cottage economy is the way to go, and we have nice lands for it...longer term.

Wonder-wise...I think we'll use your list, which means we have 2 ancient wonders, but no classical yet. Thoughts on which one we'd like to grab?
 
I grabbed the save, and I have to say that cripp did a masterful job in his 20 turns. A tech turnaround from 15bpt, to 51bpt, and we're researching Maths. I assume we are eying Calendar, so probably going to stop by Sailing so we can get some luxuries hooked up!

We need to expand though. 4 cities at 1AD is not where I'd like to be, especially since we are isolated and don't need much more than a token military.

Lemme open up a WB game and get a full listing of the wonders, and I'll do a rundown of them. We get one on the house, because altonhare popped a GE. We probably want to save it for the more hammer intensive wonders though (as we are Bismarck the Builder).
 
For simplicity, only world wonders that have a hammer cost have been included in the list (technically, the religious shrines and corporation HQs are "world wonders", but since they are not built by hammers, Bismarck would not approve! :p)

Ancient Wonders

The Great Lighthouse
Stonehenge (built by someone else)
The Oracle (built by someone else)
The Pyramids (built)
The Great Wall (built)
The Temple of Artemis

No real further discussion needed for ancient wonders, as we have already hit our requisite number for this age, and surpassed it. GLH would possibly be interesting, but we have many great interior city sites, and having no foriegn trade routes doesn't help (ditto for ToA).

Classical Wonders

The Colossus
The Hanging Gardens
The Parthenon
The Statue of Zeus
Shwedagon Paya
The Great Library
Mausoleum of Maussollos
Chichen Itza

Lots to choose from here. Colossus, HG, Parth, and Chichen Itza are of limited utility for us, considering our demographics.

SoZ is a purely denial wonder, which could be important if we end up fighting the owner.

Shwedagon Paya is like a watered-down Mids, since most of the religious civics are available early on. However, I personally value Free Religion quite a bit, especially since we are isolated, and will be making first contact with developed civilizations that will not have a matching religion. It is nice to not immediately be someone's worst enemy. The tech boost is nice, but just flavour. A situational wonder at best.

Great Library for the usual cheese of the free scientists getting the rep boost. Always good. Maussollos is also usually solid for extending golden ages, depending on if we're able to control our Great Person output to any extent. These two are probably the highest priority of the list.

Medieval Wonders

The Sistine Chapel
Angkor Wat
Notre Dame
The Hagia Sophia
The Apostolic Palace
University of Sankore
Versailles
The Spiral Minaret

Versailles: I suggest not building it and letting someone else do it. That way, we'll have reduced maintenance from colonies if we ever go and squish them.

Hagia Sophia does not strike me as particularly pressing. We have more tile improvements than we can use at this moment, and that is not likely to change considering we don't have a huge happy cap. Obsolete and duplicated by Steam anyways, so not a huge deal if we don't go for this at all.

Angkor Wat is very empowering to priests, but the downside is that we will likely be popping lots of Great Prophets. I don't know if we want to do this.

Sistine, AP, UoS and the SM are all religious based wonders. If we manage to nail them all, we can run a pretty solid religious economy. Sistine is also probably a must if we want a culture victory.

Considering our demographics... we want Notre Dame! +2 happiness to all of our continental cities is too much to pass up.

Renaissance Wonders

The Taj Mahal
The Statue of Liberty

Not much to choose from here. Both are awesome and worth getting. Taj's value is increased if we get MoM, and SoL is a flexible GL on steroids. We definitely should try for both.

Industrial Wonders

The Pentagon
The Kremlin
Broadway

I've never found use for the Kremlin, so for me it's down to Pentagon or Broadway. I don't know what our happiness situation will be when we hit Industrial, but Broadway looks good. Pentagon is of course the quintessential warmonger wonder, which we want if we're going to go bash some heads.

Modern Wonders

The Eiffel Tower
Rock N Roll
Cristo Redentor
Hollywood
The United Nations
The Three Gorges Dam
The Space Elevator

Firstly, just scratch Space Elevator off the list, unless of course we are going for a space victory. That being said, we don't even know if we meet the latitude requirement for it.

UN is denial, since we won't be winning by diplo victory. Also could help to ban nukes.

RE: Rock N Roll and Hollywood... see above on Broadway. Carbon copies here.

The Eiffel Eysore (as the French know it as), is likely essential for a culture victory if we're not already there (and judging by the rules, I don't think we are "allowed" to win before the Modern era, as there are still wonders to build). It is otherwise useful, and saves the pain of building broadcast towers, which may be critical for us to amplify the effects of the trio of carbon copy wonders.

3GD is massive for production, and we have the perfect site to build it at Red Dot. Not sure if I have ever NOT built 3GD, as it is risk free power all around.

Cristo should be built because it's just plain broken. Swap civics every turn and laugh. To top it off, it doesn't even generate Great Prophet Points, it makes Great Engineer Points! Broken I tell you...

Future Wonders

(none)

We can't build wonders if there are none available, so I contend we should be allowed to win without ever entering this era.


Anyways, we have time to debate this. I am going to play the turns now, and see if I can get us Calendar in a reasonable amount of time.
 
1AD (115):

Preflight check... Ok, so we have 4 cities and 9 military units sitting around. Not that military is ever a bad thing, but I thought the point of the giant stone wall we built was to cut down on military. We are not paying upkeep yet, so whatever, but the extra military can now be used to expand...

Berlin grows in 4 to maximum size and is on a minimum hammer diet in order to grow the cottages. This is good for our economy. It is working on a workboat, which will take 18 turns. Not sure that this is too useful. Our only seafood that is not netted is the fish, and that is by Munich and the boat would have to sail around the peninsula. I switch Berlin to a Temple, with the intention of going to a Settler in 4 turns, when we have more incoming hammers.

Hamburg takes over the shared hill from Berlin, since Berlin is not using it anyways, for an extra food over the desert hill. Again, going to try a whip here.

Munich has 2 scientists, massive growth, and is trying to build a courthouse. Going to use a 3 pop whip to try and get this done when able.

Cologne is still developing, working on a courthouse, but all relavent improvements in the initial 8 are done. Again, will try a whip here when possible, as we have an abundance of food. I note we are about to get a forest chop here.

I wake up an archer and a chariot and send them towards Red Dot.

25AD (116):

set2GLH-BIAFL.jpg


Chop goes into Cologne for some more hammers. I also start a cottage on that square, as the irrigation will go over the forests instead.

50AD (117):

Cologne gets a border pop, yay. Need the workers back there to clear out jungle later, but as we cannot plantation yet, we'll leave it for now.

The chariot punks off a barb that was lurking around the Red Dot area. Archer is in position right now.

Munich grows, but no whip to be had yet.

75AD (118):

set2maths-1.jpg


I dial for Calendar, which entails going through sailing first in 2 turns.

Munich still cannot whip, but Cologne can do a 2 pop whip now, which I take.

100AD (119):

Cologne is done the courthouse, and best to let it grow before starting a settler, so I dial a barracks.

Berlin grew, so I switch to a settler in 15 turns. Full intention of whipping it. Note that a GP arrives in 2 turns here.

Munich can finally 3 pop whip, so go for it! This does delay Sailing by 1 turn, but hey, there will be overflow! :p

125AD (120):

Courthouse whipped in Munich. A fishing boat is 6 turns, so dial it, with an eye on a temple later.

Berlin can lose 4 pop to finish the settler, but that's a bit extreme...

Hamburg can now whip the courts, but food is scarce here, so better just to build it in 7 turns rather than burning 3 pop on it, which would take forever to regrow.

150AD (121):

set2sailing.jpg


And against sane odds...

set2GEs.jpg


Now we have 2!

Ok, well I can never say no to two GEs, as those can eat through even the toughest industrial era wonders, but now we can pick and choose what we want.

Berlin is down to a 3 pop whip for the settler. That's reasonable with all the food flooding in, so I say sure!

175AD (122):

The Settler finishes and we switch back to the temple. Fine with me. The settler dashes for the Red Dot site.

Cologne maxes on current pop in 2. Time to roll out the settler afterward.

200AD (123):

Workers working on roads near Red Dot, which will be up next turn, and we find a barb city.

set2barbcity-2.jpg


225AD (124):

Found Frankfurt. Maintenance goes through the roof.

set2frankfurt.jpg


Granary first please.

Cologne grows, and we switch to a 10 turn settler. Whip anger from the courthouse is gone in 6.

250AD (125):

Munich gains another pop. I would hire a spy, except that spy points are largely useless to us right now. Would basically be a watered down scientist.

275AD (126):

The workboat finishes at Munich, and I send it to the fish. Next on the list is a temple. It was a toss up between this and a lighthouse, but we are hitting the cap soon, and a lighthouse would make that problem worse.

300AD (127):

The Courts in Hamburg finish, helping out our flagging finances. Not much to build here that would be of any use. I note that Chicken Pizza would take a mere 17 turns coming from here; pretty good for a dumping ground city. In the end, I dial an archer as we will need garrison as we REX.

325AD (128):

Uneventful. Just building improvements around Frankfurt.

Cologne is now a 2 pop whip for the settler, and that is acceptable in the grand scheme of things.

Berlin is also a 2 pop whip to finish the temple, and this is the last turn we can do the 2 pop, so do so as well.

350AD (129):

set2ToA-BIAFL.jpg


So all ancient wonders are now done.

Archer is done at Hamburg; start moving for the Moai site and dial for an axe.

Berlin defaulted to a workboat after the Temple, but that doesn't help us at all, as we don't NEED a workboat anymore... A variety of buildings is available, but nothing is pressing. Seeing as I caused happy problems with the whip, I dial a worker, as we'll need it to build a plantation at Cologne. The WB is useless BTW, so I remove it from the queue.

Settler done at Cologne, and it runs towards the Moai site, for the least maintenance effect. We are back to burning hammers on the barracks.

375AD (130):

set2calendar.jpg


Yay. And we get a spread of Tao into Hamburg as well.

Munich whip anger is gone, and it can 3 pop whip the temple. Strongly suggest doing this, as Munich can grow like a weed with 3 food resources to quickly regain the lost pop.



Tentatively set the tech to Aesthetics, for a GL run (not much of a run when we are sitting on 2 GEs). A plan would be to run for Lit, buyout the GL, and with the extra specs, hard tech to Engineering & Optics. That gives us Caravels to go find the other pesky AI, and unlocks Notre Dame, which we want (we can hard build it as we have stone and are likely going to be first to it).

Don't know if it is wise to ignore Alpha and Currency until after Optics (get Engineering first to raise our caps). We cannot trade anything until we know people, and the extra trade routes amount to an extra commerce in each city, which is not that great compared to being able to run 2 more pop in each city to do whatever we want.

Probably best to go Aesthetics->Lit for the GL, then MC (for our double speed forges)-> Machinery-> Construction-> Engineering to grab Notre Dame (downside being most of that stuff has military application that isn't pressing), then finally Compass-> Optics (Caravels)-> Alpha-> Currency for when we find the scumbag AI.

I still think we should try for Shwedagon Paya, as it will make a big difference in helping our rep with AI if we can be in Free Religion. That will hopefully stop nonsensical demands. Since we have no gold, it should be 25 turns in Hamburg, and since Hamburg has nothing better to do anyways, why not? :p

A quick look at our demographics.

set2demographics.jpg


We look to be in good shape. Our production is a bit low, but we've been leveraging our enormous food clout into a production clout. Good times. The #1 GNP is very reassuring.
 

Attachments

Silver,

I can't believe we overlooked switching out of Despotism! What n00bs.

I understand what you're saying about spot #3, but I disagree. #3 only has 1 FP initially and a lot of just P. Getting all those rich FP involves building a library then waiting for a culture pop. All the while #3 is a decent bit further from the palace so we'd be dumping maintenance costs in there too.

On the other hand the spot I settled was closer by and had immediate access to good cottage sites. This means less maintenance and quicker cottages = more $.

On the "other other" hand I had to go after IW, which put off CoL for a bit. There is a cost involved in this and it may have been quantitatively favorable. I didn't crunch the numbers, I don't do work as a general rule when I play a game ;). The IW bit just seemed right, maybe it wasn't. If someone had done what you described I wouldn't be mad, and I don't think you are, so w/e.

Munich: I don't see the value in building granaries in such small cities. They usually grow to max before the :mad: wears off without a granary. Even places with few hammers are great for whipping out units, and an unpromoted whipped unit sucks.

Hamburg: I don't build monuments on general principle, they're awful. We also don't need this place churning out unit after unit after unit forever. At some point we'll want to assign some geeks. Again, I didn't crunch any #'s though.

Good set of turns :).
 
altonhare,

I'm not mad at all. Not everyone plays the same way. In fact, that's the reason I play SGs. I would get bored very quickly if we all agreed with each other all the time. What makes these games interesting is learning other styles and arguing your own points. So I'm not mad at all.

In regards to the commerce spot vs Red Dot, I continue to stand by my reasoning. Yes, your points about not needing to build a library do make sense. But we ended up building a Library in Cologne anyways! Red Dot only needed the library to start being productive; Cologne required almost twice as many worker turns to dig us out of the jungle, along with researching IW first, which is not critically necessary due to our isolation variant.

Now, that wasn't necessarily a bad move, as it revealed Iron, which we need as we don't appear to have any copper in the immediate area. It is also along the way to unlocking all the techs we'll need to get off this rock, so we would need it anyways. What I'm trying to say though, is that going straight for CoL would have given us more benefit, regarding our actual situation; isolated, with the Great Wall, so not needing military techs too urgently. Meanwhile CoL gave us religion, which was badly needed in light of our lack of happiness resources, and Courthouses which would give us more REXing power faster.

Regarding Hamburg and the Library, you're right, that's my :smoke: there. It did need the culture, and the library is inherently more useful. However, I disagree about running scientists there as opposed to using the high hammer tiles to push out units. We need units to act as basic garrison for our REXing, and to clean out the barbarian cities that will undoubtedly spawn (and already have) as we are leaving large portions of the continent empty. As well, Hamburg has enough hammers to push out some of the cheaper wonders by itself.

Regarding Munich and the Barracks vs the Granary... well... a barracks doesn't hurt. But again, there are better things we could be building there. I thought we had designated that place as our GP farm, so we should as many specialists as possible. As for the granary, I personally never avoid the granary in any city, and it is almost always the first building I build. Food is the primary thing that we plan around in this game. The extra growth or saved time can be leveraged into something else. And if we wanted to whip units, then yes a barracks is necessary, but a granary is even more useful.
 
I'd say SP, and maybe the GL if we have the spare time/hammers in between our expansion efforts (which should be priority atm, I think).

Looks like I'm up now, I'll try to get this tonight, but it may be one more day.
 
I am back so slot me in to the roster wherever suits Trynthlas

Ralph
 
I am back so slot me in to the roster wherever suits Trynthlas

Ralph

I have two other games on my plate tonight, if you can grab this one now go ahead and jump in before me. :goodjob:
 
Preflight:
checked out all the cities, everything was left in tip-top shape :goodjob:
Sent the Axe from Hamburg over towards Frankfurt with the intent of sending our 2 chariots and (soon to be) 2 axes after the barb city.

Turn 131:
- Worker done in Berlin, start a Lighthouse. Worker goes to cottage over the farms that was built on the plains...not sure why
- Found Essen on the Moai statues spot.
Spoiler :
t131_essen.jpg


Turn 132:
- Next Axe done in Hamburg, he starts off towards Frankfurt as well

Turn 133:
- 2 pop whip the temple in Munich (it grew at the beginning of this turn). Probably a bit early, didn't get max overflow...but I can still run 2 scientists, so it works.

Turn 134:
- use one of our GE's to rush the Moai statues in Essen
Spoiler :
t134_moai.jpg


Turn 135:
- whip barracks with 1 turn left to build in Cologne
- 2 pop whip lighthouse in Munich (still running 2 scientists)

Turn 138:
- chop finishes the granary in Frankfurt. Start a library (plan to whip it later)
- capture and raze Cimmerian (barb city)...lose 1 axe
Spoiler :
t138_raze_cimm.jpg


Turn 139:
- Aesthetics comes in. Set to Lit (have to get Polytheism first tho)
- Cologne is at max happy (for the moment, due to whip anger) so I stagnate it and queue a worker
Spoiler :
t139_aesthetics.jpg


Turn 140:
- GSci pops in Munich, I build an academy there.
Spoiler :
t140_gs_academy.jpg


Turn 141:
- Polytheism comes in
- SoZ and Colossus BIAFL
- Islam FIADL
Spoiler :
t141_poly.jpg



t141_fl.jpg


Turn 142:
- chop (to build spice plantation) finishes granary in Essen, start a Lighthouse (plan to whip)

Turn 143:
- Berlin finishes growing to happy cap, so I MM for production and stagnation (plus run 2 scientists for good beakers) and queue SP (22 turns)

Turn 144:
- Lit comes in, queue Alphabet (so our next GS can bulb something else) - 4 turns
Spoiler :
t144_lit.jpg


Turn 145:
Stop here. Status...
- 20 turns to SP in Berlin
- Munich is 2 turns from growth, running all the specialists it can, and will have :mad: citizens due to whip anger. It builds a monastery in 1 turn...also, will be unhealthy. We should probably queue an Aqueduct and whip it for 2 or 3 pop when we can.
- May want to consider civic switch to Caste so that Munich can run all scientists
- Hamburg is just kind of building whatever we feel like, I used it to build Axemen and a Settler, who is heading to the NW to settle the commerce location up there once we kill the barbarian city.
- Cologne should lose its last 1:mad: from whipping soon, we then need to grow it and until we spread Taoism to it should probably use it to build workers/settlers for the moment (good site for it with lots of food)
- Essen and Frankfurt can't whip their buildings yet, just keep an eye on them and do so when they can.
- Frankfurt will need to build farms on some of its floodplains (or farm over the cottages we built on the grasslands) or else it won't be able to work all the juicy hammer rich plains hills due to food constraints. And yes, that's after the corn is hooked up.
- Tech wise, I think it's time we went for Optics. Team's thoughts here?


Roster:
=======
cripp7
S.ilver
Trynthlas - just played
Ralph_Jackson - UP now
altonhare - on deck
 
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