UNGY6 The health nuts

[mystyfly]

We currently have no units but a worker and a warrior. I wrote in my report that we should whip a chariot in two turns (when the road to the horses is built). We'll probabely also want a second chariot before we build our next settler.

That with the WB was meant more as a reminder. After the mids, we'll be constantly whipping settlers and regrow while building units. I just wanted to note that we should switch in a WB instead of a unit at some point. If we don't get another contact (via WB) we probabely have a nice island for us (-> great trade routes!).

 

[ungy]

I think you might not like the GW. But St Pete didn't have anything useful to build (only warriors, and our (woody-1) warrior does a good job fogbusting) and couldn't start on a settler as it needs to grow first.

the GW is fine. Starting it (and the 'mids) before stone and not building any warriors.....

INSANITY

Is there some reason why no barbs can spawn in the NW corner of the island?

Teching AH instead of archery was reasonable IMHO--but we needed extra units instead--not none!.

Despite popping horse we could still conceivably lose St. Pete if a barb shows up next turn. We probably need to do the whip chariot plan for defense I think--although we lose a turn revolting to slavery here.


Anyway most likely we've gotten away with it.

 

[mystyfly]

We had one warrior who has had no problem at all - fogbusting 3-4 tiles in nearly all directions from our borders. There was just no need for additional units.

Oh, and when I say we have 1 warrior I mean 1 plus another fortified in the capital...

Is there some reason why no barbs can spawn in the NW corner of the island?

I don't see what corner you mean...

 

[Dirk1302]

@Mystyfly,

I'm intrigued by the 6-4 whipping cycle we're going into now. Hadn't considered this but strictly speaking it has some definite advantages to a 5-3 whipping cycle, let's see (some estimations about regrow time not in the mood to calculate it exactly right now):

after whip regrow 3-4 = 5 turns, 4-5 = also 5 (well maybe 6 turns).

So in the 6-4 cycle we win 5 *3 = 15 hammers because we stay at 4 instead falling of back to 3 always working 2 mines instead of one.

We win 5*2 hammers = 10 hammers (assumed working the plain forest, maybe grass forest is better to shorten grow to 6 time) if we compare growing 4-5 in 5-3 cycle to 5-6 in 6-4 cycle. But growing 5-6 needs 8 turns i believe, so we now put on settler every 13 turns instead of every 10. This means we get 60 hammers from whip every 18 turns instead of every 15. So hammer wise this is indeed better. It clearly favors the mids and disfavors the building of settlers btw.

There's a trade off of course,it took quite some time to get to 6 in the first place, i had calculated that by this time we should have had a 3th settler out (in 5-3 whip cycle).

I don't understand why you haven't switched slavery yet. You could have put on a settler at 4, whip after 5 turns and you'd have had one warrior immediately and the other in a few turns. But it may turn out well as we'll get more hammers in now we've grown to 6.

Imo we definitely need slavery this turn. Joao is a good expander, keyspot is the dye spot, it more or less blocks off the rest of the west coast. I'd probably rather lose mids (and just take the money) than this dye spot. Whipping settlers after Mids is much too late, we need 2 settlers very soon.

It's a bit of a pity you lost the scout. i'd have moved the warrior to the edge of the jungle, plenty of warning to react in time in st Peter and the scout to the north eastern corner Ungy mentions. It's indeed risky to have some 4 tiles not fogbusted there, if a barb comes out we'll have no time to react. But once we've got slavery and st Peter's grown to 2 (3 turns) we're out of danger as we'll be able to put on a chariot and whip it in time. I'd put on a chariot for 1 turn in this city because a barb has time to pillage stone if we have to begin the chariot once the barbs comes out of fog.

Mids is always a bit out of our hands, can be built next turn by an ai but it's also possible it won't be built until 1 ad. I'm not a wonderhog so i don't have perfect feeling for the wonder timeline. Seems to me though there isn't a real wonder hog around.

Few questions for the next set:

- I think i certainly go slavery unless there are very good reasons not too.

- I'd be tempted to do a three pop whip on the next settler stationing it near dyes (not settling immediately of course). I'll move the warrior to the dyes, if it dies there we need to build some units in the GW city if not we need an extra unit there too. A three pop whip is not particularly efficient though , it'll take 18 turns to grow back to 6 which is probably too long. So we might risk delaying the settler a bit longer but i feel the risk of Joao settling some key spots soon is very real.

 

[mystyfly]

I agree that the thing with the eastern tiles was indeed a bit risky...

I'm afraid I don't exactly understand your last post dirk.

I tought we were persuing the mids primarily. Even if joao beats us to several spots, we have the coast with lots of seafood and lots of specs. I believe that is what we laid down as midterm strategy.

You consider it risky building nothing more than 2 warriors but you'd have built more warriors and a settler to ensure we get a blocking city? That kinda contradicts what I tought we had planned. Also I consider it definitely not safe if we found cities or have units far away from the capital. Seriously, a reason why st pete is so close to the cap is that it's easy to defend > we don't need many units > have a bigger chance of getting the mids.
I say warriors only is risky. On Immortal or Deity I always use at least archers. As we need AH for the cows anyway (you also agreed to teching masonry > ah) we have a chance for horse. If we get horses, we don't have to bother with warriors and won't lose that many hammers as chariots usually win vs barbs (unless attacking barb cities).
So, since we don't go after archery, I waited for horses to show up so we have decent defenders and I don't waste hammers on warriors. Now that horses have popped up, we're fine. If it hadn't, we'd have to build/whip warriors, but that is not the case.

As we're building the mids now, we're in no real whipping cycle yet. I agree however with revolting right now. But then, I'd 2-pop-whip the chariot, wait until moscow regrows (and work the grass forest indeed) while working on the mids, and THEN whip the first settler.
With a chariot escort, our settler should be safe and we can go wherever we like. You talk about not settling now so we don't need a worker either.

Actually I don't see why we should settle near the dyes. What spot exactly do you have in mind? There are no holes in the jungle where iron could be (so we have a tile that is better than 1F). There is nothing we can do there until we get IW (which is an obvious priority), and, since it's covered in jungle, will also be low priority for joao. I would settle along the coast. With the GW and sailing, those cities barely need ANYTHING to pay for themselves, with trade routes, commerce from working seafood, and specs.

 

[ungy]

I say warriors only is risky. On Immortal or Deity I always use at least archers.

actually is more map dependent than level.
there isn't much land here--so warriors OK.
there is synergy to using warriors if you go for the GW--you don't have to defend tiles or cities--just fogbust


Anyway moving on I think we need to 2 pop whip a chariot for defense. Then back to 'mids and grow back to 6--then 3 pop whip a settler. If all is well we'll have the GW by then and can use the single chariot to escort the settler.

As for the wonders, I think we stand well. SH has not been built in 1720--that's a bit late so it's unlikely anyone's got early stone. If all goes well there I'd say we can spy bomb Joao and steal some techs.

Mystyfly--the settler is very important as if we lose the fish/dyes spot we are in trouble. If we get it we'll be able to work our way down the coast as Joao will likely be slowed down by the jungle.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Mystyfly,

But you realize we need some cities don't you? Mids + 4 cities won't get us very far, well maybe we strike lucky with that western island but maybe it's just a rock with place for 0-1 city. The plan i had was to do both: whip settler optimizing for overflow grow back to 5 (or 6 not so clear what's best) whip settler , rinse and repeat. I think i outlined this in 2 posts. Maybe it's not best but it would certainly have been the way i would have played it.
I outlined the plan i had on the position in this post:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7801372&postcount=58 and on the post just before your writeup but i suspect you were playing already when i wrote that.

As for the dye spot, it's worthless now sure, but it's blocking value is huge. After calender it's a great city too. I would post the 4th settler near the great southern spot, west coast is blocked in this case granting us at least 6 good cities. The idea is not to settle immed but post a settler, settle if Joao's really coming with his own settlers. You dotmapped the island, how can there be any chance on getting that spots if you start whipping settlers after Mids, it's impossible imo.

Whipping settlers overflowing to Mids is a bit slower than just building Mids with the mines but you do get ~3-4 settlers in the process which are invaluable in this situation.It's pretty simple, there are some 12 good city spots on the island, if we don't build settlers in time we get 4, Joao gets 8 if we do we might even get 7-8 ourselves leaving Joao with 4-5. A huge difference, if we lose Mids, not a big deal we get so much money from Mids and GW if we choose to take it of queue that we won't be in any trouble, we can reach the critical techs like currency, calender (via alpha / production -> research conversion if necessary). And if we get mids, libraries in all those cities guarantee us a healthy life. If we can settle the west coast + dyes we'll be fine unless Joao dows us. Not too likely and well it's another problem all together.

It's actually not too late to do this, if we three pop the settler now there hardly isn't any delay at all in executing this plan. I don't want to criticize your play btw, position is fine. We need to get a consensus though on how to continue. I think settlers are highest priority and i still think mixing it with overflow to mids is best. This capital is great for whipping.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Ungy, i basically agree we will need a chariot maybe 2. But it isn't possible to 2 pop a chariot as far as i know, i think the stone/horse city has to build them. I'd move the warrior into the jungle now to fogbust some more. It's possible that there comes a barb from the northern corner but not extremely likely. If we're not prepared we'll have to whip in st Peter which is a shame but well. I think most of the barbs will come out of the jungle and i doubt it will be very many. It's likely Joao is fooling around there now.

I'd 3 pop the settler immediately, see how the warrior does in the jungle, build a chariot, maybe 2 depending on circumstances in st Peter, a city only defended by one warrior is just too risky and we may be forced into settling if Joao's coming. Warriors would have been good units since they're dirt cheap and have fair chances in the jungle even against archers. I think we get both wonders anyway since there doesn't seem to be a wonderhog about. But if the whole island is fogbusted i'd take GW off queue before completion. As i said before losing Mids is not dramatic but i prefer to get that one in this case.

 

[mystyfly]

I agree with ungy regarding moscow; 2popwhipping the char, then 3popwhipping the settler. I consider whipping the settler first too risky.

You can 2pop whip the char if you don't have any hammers invested. Whipping in st pete isn't that good either as it has many strong production tiles but next to no food. Better build there the old way. And I really would finish the GW. We'll most likely be very glad sometime we built them... just keep in mind it won't work on the other island

Come to think of it, getting a GSpy out of it is tricky. We can only get a GSpy if we don't run any scientists in moscow. I think this is doable as we'll be building settlers primarily. If we want a GSpy that is. I see ungy welcomes that, and I do as well. If we're stuck with Joao on this island until optics, there won't be any trading most likely and we can really use any techs we get (bulbing philo and similar catch-up strategies don't work).




BTW I really appreciate the discussion. That's why I play SGs

 

[Dirk1302]

If you don't invest any hammers in the chariot you can 2 pop it but you'll get severely penalized on the overflow. I think it's 50% so instead of getting 30 hammers overflow, you get 15. Very expensive. st Peter can build a char in 4 turns when it's grown to 2. I only whip in st Peter if a barb does come out of the northern fog in the meantime. We probably have time enough to slow build when some barb comes out of the south.

Risking great city spots is a bigger risk imo. 2 pop char, then 3 pop settler is another 14 turns. It's 1160 bc then, settler needs to get on spot, not before 1000 bc. I think Joao may well have expanded to the west by then. There's no way he'll have less than 4-5 cities 1000 bc and there's not that much room. One settler is not enough, the next settler from capital will come out 15 turns later = 625 bc. Fair chance Joao has settled everything he can settle by then.

GSpy from GW is ok but it's not necessarily better than an early GS. You can only steal so much with it. Unless we get hammered with barbs later GW is almost useless otherwise.I don't expect we'll see lots of battles fought within our borders.

 

[mystyfly]

I still believe that joao won't be expanding that fast given the jungle. I might be mistaken tough. I agree that settlers are quite high priority but so are the mids.

Even tough a GSpy would be nice, a GS is better. We're just not likely to get one, if the first GP is no GSpy it will likely be a GE.

In the next set we'll see how much land we get and how many wonders. I'm quite curious how it goes. Once again, friday can't come soon enought

 

[Dirk1302]

Well a GE is ok with me. just rush GL with it. No way we can build it without chopping/marble (if we can it'll take us forever). It is hard to say how fast Joao'll expand, the jungle will indeed hold him back. I just don't like to take any risks losing those spots, long term the jungle + west coast is by far the best region here, more so because we're allowed to chop there.

Looking a bit further ahead, seems to me CS is not as important as usual. Our capital is so marginal (it needs to be moved later for sure) that we don't profit so much from this tech. If we're really alone with Joao on this island we might go optics bulb astro route (possible without CS). Astro would be a huge tech to have early in this case.

I also look forward to the next set, i'd value some input from the other participants.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

double post

 

[SnowlyWhite]

gspy will save us a ton of trouble; we're philo, so it pops fast. Also, Joao will trade us alpha(if he bothers to research it - pretty unlikely, but still) for spies.

for astro bulb:

"But if you can get 2 GS and avoid theology and Civil service, you can bulb Astro if you have calendar and Optics… This is a strong move, because you’ll have Astronomy in very early dates and lots of money from intercontinental trade routes pretty early."

from http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=268883

and here we'll have a good synergy with the gspy, allowing us to cherry pick stealing from joao what else we need. Yes, building gwall and mids without any defence sure is dubious, but... our position is dubious too(if Joao goes for that foodless incense spot, we'll be able to block him - hopefully he'll be that dumb).

on the other hand, the spot 2s from the cows - we'll never get that spot in time knowing joao.

we need a settler and eventually build a chariot in petersburg but I'd go light on defense(eventually put 1 turn in chariot in petersburg for extreme case whipping).

also, astro bulb goes well with cheap harbors.

 

[Dirk1302]

Joao is welcome to all the land directly north of his empire. I'd like to try for the fish spot, the dye spot and a spot to the extreme south, somewhat east of the cows, this 'll block off 7-8 cities. Rice and the great spots in the extreme south west will be settled later. If this succeeds i don't think we'd be in a dubious position, we'd be doing great actually.

Don't have to decide on the astro move yet. I played lots of rolo's isolation games in the past, bulbing astro is very strong netting more techs eventually than winning lib. You can often do both especially when philosophical. In this case it's even more attractive because we won't have a strong capital for some time.

 

[Dirk1302]

1720 BC:
Put on settler and switch slavery

As Snow predicted Joao builds a city somewhat north of his empire, i need to watch the fish spot now, losing it would split our empire or worse.

1640 BC:
a warrior comes out of the southern fog, i have to whip a char now or sacrifice a warrior, chose the latter. This one loses but i slow build the chariot now.

1520 BC:
Joao finishes GW, we get 66 gold, oh well. we'll have 3 chariots soon, we'll live.

We build 3 chariots, i lose one with combat 1 to an archer. Annoying, it'll be hard to unlock HE in this way. After this i start a settler in st Peter.

1080BC:
Writing in, set science to 0% immed, waiting for libraries and maybe academy(?) to raise the slider again. Build road towards Joao to connect our empires.

975 BC:
Meet Izzy and Liz, this means i want to have sailing soon so i set research to 100%. Hadn't expected this of course, otherwise i would have researched to sailing directly.

Quite a few adventures in the jungle, there are some archers there. I'm saved by Joao's axe one time:

There was an archer on the spot where Joao's axe is now, there's also one 2s,1w of this axe. I might have lost the chariot otherwise forcing me to retreat the settler, it was slightly wounded retreating for the other archer. The settlers were never in danger of course.

800 BC:
We can whip the Mids now and i think that might be prudent, now we've come this far we'll want it don't we? I whipped 2 settlers in capital, built 1 in st Peter. Settlers are in place now or near. We'll have at least 7 good cities but maybe we can afford to be a bit more aggressive settling near X? or 1e of that. Lisbon culture will be awkward though.

Sailing's in giving us one +3 route in each city. I have put research back to 0 waiting for libraries.Once we have currency we'll need to settle all our cities asap, we can settle a few sooner as our economy is better than expected thx to the routes and we'll get good research and gpp once mids are in and some libs built. We might miss HE this game, was always difficult since you can't attack in the jungle. But maybe we'll get another chance later (on that island maybe?). We'll need a boat now soon for exploration.

Especially the resource screen needs to be watched carefully, we need some happy resources and we can pay for it.

We may need some discussion about the dotmap i made, annoyingly we always lose one fish in the south.

 

[ungy]

nice set Dirk.

As for the dotmap--we will need to rework it substantially in light of our no settle w/o freshwater when one away would be OK.
Maybe the riverside fish/rice/sugar and the hill at the penisula that works the cow/clam/fish (Moai)?
I'd settle the dye site now--I don't think the AI will bypass a barb city to settle the west end of the island. We really need those for trade.

As for the 'mids--I see two options. Work a 2h1f tile instead of a food tile to get it done in 3 instead of 4 or whip it now. At 800BC we're really in danger of losing it and with the extremely favorable development of the other continent we can afford to play safe a bit IMHO. So I'd whip it.

Very surprising that Iz didn't found a religion--chances are good there's some religious strife elsewhere.

If we can get out to 6 cities with the trading we'll have and the 'mids we can play nice for a while and the game should come home fairly easily. We have to hurry to block off the AI from the other continent tho.

 

[Dirk1302]

yes you're right forgot about the freshwater settle. Also forgot the upcoming mids but an extra happy resource won't do harm. Agree with not losing the dye site. we need to watch out there for Joao.

After thinking about it some more, 2 points:

i'd certainly whip Mids now, it'll help more in this situation than the money we'll get, these 2 mine tiles grow back reasonably fast and actually we don't need huge production immediately.

I'd build 2 other settlers just stationing them on the appropriate points, If we found the block cities there'll be holes in our culture. Joao doesn't have much to build, if he does build some settlers he might go through and settle on the coast.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

I'd start discussing based on mystyfly's map; since he took in acct. the variant.

- sugar/triple dye - we're in position there;
- novgorod was already settled;
- we need another settler for the yellow spot(fish/rice) - we'll block the northern acces via dye city, but still we can be taken from the south(and in my experience he settles as bad as the cow - right in your neck);
also, the x should be 1s from where it currently stands, given the rules.
- the only position in which we can claim the clam/fish is in the cyan spot - 1w of the cows, given the rules(damn, that 1 tile from fresh water screwed us up a ton...);
- we can't get the southern fish no matter what we do due to that stupid lake which forces to settle near it;
- the green spot is impossible due to barb. city, same for the blue spot(not that we had a chance at it anyway - if it wasn't the barb city, joao would've beat us to that spot by a mile).
Green spot was mediocre anyway...

bottom line, we need 1 more settler and we'll be at 6. I still think our position is dubious Since we're so limited in where we can settle and the combo of that stupid barb city and the lake killed 3 possible spots(not that we could've got all 3, but that's another story).

and I'd whip the mids.

also, if joao gets bored with us, we're screwed and with my luck... Btw. - I don't have the vaguest clue what to research; suggestions are welcomed - will probably play on sunday(can play tomorrow too, but we should discuss what to do).

 

[ungy]

Snowly-
I think we're OK with Joao.
I don't think he's an early rusher and we'll soon have shared religion.
Also we can gift him a tech--he will not declare at pleased so that should be managable.

Techwise I think we go aesthetics-lit and timing should be about right to get the Glib with the 'mids engineer as we're philo.

Since we're not isolated, I don't think we'll want to do the astro bulb--just the normal lib route.