Very quick noob SG

[bpierfy]

Can you whipped a size 2 city? I thought the minimum was 3.

It let me whip the size two city. If there is a food resource, it grows back very quickly - especially with a granary. That city wasn't going anywhere without a worker though.

One other thing - I stopped the worker from building a road because I wanted to chop for the oracle. If we get the oracle, we may want to skip the pyramids and build some infrastructure - and workers. Connecting the cities would have been nice for the trade route, but I thought finishing the oracle was more important. We will need several workers to connect cities because they are far apart.

One thing I am finding poeculiar is we have only met 2 civs.

They are closer together than to us as well which should help us. We seem to have a tech advantage - so we could probably get optics faster than the others, but remember - its continents so there may not be that many islands. We have enough land to cover on our own turf.

This is really fun!

 

[bobrath]

I just want to be sure... which pink dot are you talking about Bpierfy? There have been a couple, so I want to make sure we're all looking at the same Dot on the same Dot Map.

You typically don't want to a city down to 1 because its hard to regrow UNLESS you've got food resources that make for real fast regrowth.

The road to Barcelona would just make sure that copper is available in our capital. It wouuld also give us a trade route for some more income. and yes from what I've read of SG behavior having a Road To command is bad form... I've seen some SGs where they say "I'm doing this cause its so important, but I know its not normally done". As long as its communicated, I don't really care .

I'd definitly suggest researching IW next AND trying to do everything we can to complete IW research before the Oracle completes. That way we should be able to take Compass as our free tech. Its 50 beakers cheaper then Metal Casting, but will bring us a lot more benefit given our civ (expansive) and the location we're in. Plus it helps us get to Optics! I know the standard tech taken with The Oracle is Metal Casting (mostly due to its cost and enabling forges and the colosuss).

(About the colosuss, its double build speed with copper... and look at what Barcelona has....) Its not huge for us to have, but the extra gold could be nice. I think it ranks as a "Nice to Have", but not "Essential for Success" for us.


Oh yeah, and great turns there! Looking forward to the next set

 

[bpierfy]

You typically don't want to a city down to 1 because its hard to regrow UNLESS you've got food resources that make for real fast regrowth.

Yea, I agree - I usually don't whip any city under normal circumstances unless it has food bonuses -this would have corn within 5 turns - but I'm still not sure it was a good idea...

I just want to be sure... which pink dot are you talking about Bpierfy? There have been a couple, so I want to make sure we're all looking at the same Dot on the same Dot Map.

One tile west of the stone, on the eastern bank of the river. Defense wise it worse than the other options, but it will have like 7 hills for production and pigs for food - not to mention plenty of grassland for 3food tiles. I wouldn't recommmend any cottages here as we'll need all of grassland farms to support the hills = mad production (and ironworks).

Iron working sounds like a plan to me, but what does compass get us? i can't think of what it gives off the top of my head (other than explorers). Harbors? I still don't see enough of a clear strategy to make picking techs a given right now.

 

[nitroduckie]

Consider this a "got it" post. I'll almost surely have time to play and post this later tonight, so look forward to it.

Right now I suppose the immediate goals are research IW, chop-rush the Oracle, connect the cities and found pink dot.

Lemme know if I left anything out.

 

[bobrath]

Cool beans, that's the pink dot I was thinking about too. Good to see the mind meld is going so well!

Absolutly go with research on IW. My point on Compass as an alternative to Metal Casting was just that... its an alternative. I wanted to point it out only because if we complete the Oracle before IW research is complete... then it wouldn't even be an available choice!

I think you've got it all right Nitroduckie.

 

[nitroduckie]

Preturn- everything looks good. I hit enter.

Turn 1 (1240 BC)

Sailing researched. I start IW. Also, I will likely decrease the science rate soon because we won't be able to keep up the 100% for long at -2/turn with only 47 gold.

The AI likes two other spots to settle in, but I trust in the team and continue to move the settler on over to the pink dot location. I also upgrade the archer to City Garrison 1. Looks like we're none too soon, (Louis is moving in with an archer and settler).

Our northern war has two barb wars in sight, so I move him over to a more defensible location (hills + forest), and the southern warrior continues to explore.

Turn 2 (1200 BC)

Seville is founded in the chosen location and starts a warrior (15 turns).

Barcelona finishes its Granary and I start a worker (we'll need it for sure).

The forest is chopped putting some hammers into our oracle. Louis hasn't used his settler yet, so we're looking good for now in our plan to grab territory from them.

Turn 3(1160 BC)

Worker moves to chop another forest. Seville is connected to Madrid via river , and the southern warrior reaches the bottom tip of the peninsula (not even worth a scrnpic here).

Also we're now at -5 per turn and 40 gold left. Switching to 90% slows it to 15 turns which is one behind the oracle, if we don't chop anymore (which we will). I keep it at 100% for now, but we might not be able to finish IW before we get the Oracle.

Turn 4 (1120 BC)

Worker 1 starts chopping, Worker 2 moves over to start a mine at the copper.

Nothing else eventful.

Turn 5 (1080 BC)


Turn 6(1040 BC)

Northern barbs attack our warrior, I promote to Combat 1.


Turn 7 (1020 BC)
Another forest is cleared for Madrid.
Turn 8 (1000 BC)

Warriors continue exploring.

Oracle is due in 2 so I ease up on the research (20 gold left).

I use the worker to continue building the road to Barcelona.

Turn 9 (975 BC)


Turn 10 (950 BC)

We complete the Oracle! I choose Metal Casting, and we enter the Classical Era.

I switch Madrid to the production of a Settler, though that can be changed.

Also, as a side note, I accidentally screwed up and wasted a couple of turns building a road with the worker I meant to move to copper (hit route to accidentally). He is constructing the mine now however, and the other worker is standing above Madrid waiting for a job (perhaps a road to Seville and then start mining the stone).

Apparently Louis used his other settler as our southern warrior is now trapped:

Post turn notes: Let's hurry the settler in Madrid and seal off our peninsula, which is apparently unaccessible except through our territory (after 1 more city). We got the Oracle which is good, but I spent too much of our gold chasing Bobrath's idea of IW -> Compass (my fault).

 

[nitroduckie]

And here's the save.

 

[GreyFox]

Is it my turn again? That's fast ! (Fortunately, we have bobrath from this round on, this will set the pace of the SG turn-aroound a bit more comfortably).

Nice job on getting the Oracle. If you indeed wanted to get Compass, you could have save the trees and delay the completion of the Oracle to 1 turn after IW. But this has the risk of losing the Oracle to someone else, we don't want that to happen, do we?

You can treat this as my Got-It post, although I won't get around to playing it until I reach home, that is 10 hours later. Meanwhile, you guys can contribute as to what I should achieve in my turnsets . ... oaky, call it a discussion of our plans

Reading nitroduckie's report (sorry, no Civ at work, can't view the save), I gather that we are losing gold. So my priority would be to set up some cottages (that's why we learn Pottery, eh?), build a galley or so for coastal navigation, and settle the yellow dot.

Speaking of which, as we are losing gold at the moment, is it wise to sprang another city, thereby draining our coffers even more?

One other thing is "Open Borders". What is the collective thinking? Is it worthwhile to risk having French/Roman cities settled in between our cities to save the poor warrior ? On the other hand, we could start spreading our religion to them. Plus, if they do indeed "invade" our terrirtories with settlers, it means they are going to pay more on distance upkeep-wise. What's the group's take?

 

[bpierfy]

Yes, great job on the Oracle. Hopefully we can claim the proper land and keep our economy afloat as to be able to enjoy our two wonders.

Either way, is it me or is the AI from both expanding very rapidly for 950BC? Maybe the continent is smaller than I think but they seem to have at least 4 cities each...

I usually wrestle with that choice of founding and going into deficit mode our waiting and losing land. The type of player I am means I usually go for the extra city - thinking that long term it will be better. Of course its risky because you can get in a war and find yourself behind on tech...

The AI expanding is good and bad. The good here is that they are expanding into each other, with Louis founding that city right in between JC's cities. Hopefully they fight each other - can we facilitate that? If not, we need to be careful not to get boxed in, as there is no guaruntee we can reach the other continents with settlers until galleons and then the land will be gone.

But there are two ways to take land, by settler, or by

 

[bpierfy]

Oh, and about open borders - mirroring my play style of greedy land grab, I usually hate to sign open borders with neighboring civs when my land is all thats left to settle. I will do it if I need the relations boost though - like when 6 praets are sitting next to your borders...

I would wait a bit longer if we can before we sign open borders. Neither JC nor Louis are aggressive, correct? In that case, I don't see why a -1 from not signing (if we even get that) would hurt us.

That game I was playing on nobel with 3 aggressives (not by choice) that I mentioned before - so far only Toku has yet to declare. I didn't switch to a religion (even though I found several) because I didn't want an early war. I was positive with each civ...

 

[Maquis]

Great job on the turns guys! Like to see another religeous wonder.

I have to chime in one thing about open borders though... I wonder if we should open them at least long enough to spread our religon? I'd have to double-check, but I don't think Ceasar or Loius have a religon yet... and since we seem to be the only ones on this continent, we can get them convertied very easily. As soon as we get a Great Prophet, build the shrine, and that could really improve our cash situation!

Once we can spread our BUD to each nation, I am all for cancelling OB to make sure we seal them off...

 

[GreyFox]

A quiet set of turns ... ending with a BIG surprise!

IT (950 BC):
Some info:

We are doing pretty badly in GNP, Mfg, Food, and Pop!

Objectives:
- strengthen economy, mfg, military
- settle yellow dot if necessary

T1 (925 BC):


T2 (900 BC):


T3 (875 BC):
Worker start chopping for Madrid's settler

T4 (850 BC):
Barcelona: Worker -> Barracks

T5 (825 BC):

I selected Polythesim next, since we want to spread BUD out.

Oh, by the way, sometime round here JC wanted us to open our border,
I told him where to shove his salad
(Sorry, Maquis, by the way I read your mail, I have finished playing).

T6 (800 BC):
Madrid: Settler -> Archer
Seville: Warrior -> Granary
The worker who is chopping head straight towards Serville to connect the stone.
Once that is connected, Madrid can start the Pyramid if someones wants to.

T7 (775 BC):


T8 (750 BC):


T9 (725 BC):


T10 (700 BC):

I chose Writing,
next player is welcomed to to overwrite with whatever he wants.

 

[bobrath]

This was written before the above turnset got done! So some of it is moot.

However I'm up next I believe so this serves as my GOT IT. Will play tonight so I appreciate thougts and planning

(BTW love that pink dot is on a river to the capital... longest river route I've ever seen!)

OB to spread religion is a good idea, but lets have some missionarys ready to we can spread it to one city for each civ and then close down the borders again. To do that.. we need to get to Organized Religion or a monastery. We haven't researched monotheism yet (or even poly fully!) so building a monastery would be faster (and side affect of improving research for a bit).

We've got a ton of land (after we found yellow) to digest and I'd rather not add French Onion Soup or Caesar Salads to the mix.

I think founding yellow dot is important in locking off the land and those two ivory will help add to our coffers. Of course we need to road Madrid to Yellow for maximum effect. Towards that line, if we have a worker that's not improving our finances... we might want to consider having him start a road. Re: yellow. Do you folks like yellow solid or yellow hollow? (might be affected once we reveal iron)
View attachment 112994


Technology tree...
I guess it depends on if you folks want to go warpathing or infrastructing. Machinery gets us Macemen and that can really make life safe (but we wouldn't be researching anything else for quite a while!). For real offense we'd probably want to head for construction for the elephants and cats.

Option A) knock out Writing as that would let us Negotiate open borders and leads to both Alphabet (for tech trading to patch our religion holes) and Mathematics which is the doorway to a good chunk of techs. Note that if we hold off on tech trading until we get currency... we can make some good income off our tech lead! That's a bit far off tho too (770 beakers away).
Option B) knock out Poly and Mono at the same time we make sure we've got Bud spread to all our cities. Then revolt to OR for the production boost and get our cities cranking on improvements. It does take us a step back but OR might help with our infrastructure tasks.

I prefer A, as it will end up netting us some of the more "backwards" techs. However, I'm open to discussion (and better options too!)

 

[GreyFox]

Surprise! Surprise!

If we know this, we don't even need to build the settler

The archer and the settler were suppose to be in sync, but once I saw the barb warrior, I moved the settler back towards madrid, and the archer forward to meet the barb.

After-Turn Notes

I failed to meet all my objectives!

I left a worker roading, I must be or ,
I wanted to connect servellie, but failed to realize it is connected by river!

The barbarian warrior protecting yellow dot is not the only barbie,
there is another one at the north:

I left the worker in circle unmoved,
so the next player can decide if you still want to road the sheep
or move him somewhere else safe.

 

[GreyFox]

I left the trapped warrior near the two borders,
so that should anyone expand,
hopefully we get a free teleportation back to our territory

The explored world, note a nnew source of copper in the north-eastern desert

Finally, the save:

 

[GreyFox]

This was written before the above turnset got done! So some of it is moot.

However I'm up next I believe so this serves as my GOT IT. Will play tonight so I appreciate thougts and planning

Sorry about that!

Agreed about the missionary, which was why I rejected JC. I have also learnt Poly, though I set it to Writing, you can override it and change to Mono.

We've got a ton of land (after we found yellow) to digest and I'd rather not add French Onion Soup or Caesar Salads to the mix.

Hear, hear!

I think founding yellow dot is important in locking off the land and those two ivory will help add to our coffers. Of course we need to road Madrid to Yellow for maximum effect. Towards that line, if we have a worker that's not improving our finances... we might want to consider having him start a road. Re: yellow. Do you folks like yellow solid or yellow hollow? (might be affected once we reveal iron)
View attachment 112994

Sorry, change of objective: you need to handle the barb city first!!!

Why do I always miss the more interesting turnset?

I prefer A, as it will end up netting us some of the more "backwards" techs. However, I'm open to discussion (and better options too!)

I kind of like A too, buit sorry, I have already set us on path B I guess. (Hmmm... I must really learn to focus my research)

However, I think we must really buck up on our infrastructure, we are currently trailing in the 3 main demographs: Gold, Food, Hammer!

 

[bobrath]

I was wondering what the suprise was!

ok so more thoughts:
Notice the two sources of Iron on the map? One at our Whipping City of Goodness (To Be) in the west and another just outside the borders of Seville... So we'll have iron for sure when we want it. And if we can expand Seville's culture at a reasonable rate we can secure a source away from Louis.

Roading to Seville is necessary from a military standpoint, gives our units a faster path to the front when needed.

Roading to sheep would be nice, but depends on the existence of a northern barb city. Hate to give up free pillage...

No idea when our first GP will pop... but if its not soon, then getting missionaries to our own cities will be important soon. Religion = goodness.

We've got a spare settler then... So would folks like to see a city go up on the Whipping City of Goodness (To Be) (orange dot) or blue dot of wealth in the southwest? Orange gets us Iron for swordsmen (and could crank swordsmen with but won't help the economy. Blue dot would provide a good boost to our economy once we improve the gems.

That copper in the far northeast is just horrible. There's no real city spot near it and the distance would kill our economy. Guess France will get some more copper.

So talking points:
Take the Barb city NOW or wait a bit and get our own cards in order?
Where to (if we do) found our next city? Iron/Food or Wealth?
JC has Writing, so I'd like to beeline for Alphabet so we can use him and Louis to fill in our tech tree (without giving away the barn). Or would it be better to go for Math > Construction to improve our military standing?

 

[Maquis]

I think one of the reasons we're so far behind in GNP, food, etc is because we have been 1) expanding and 2) like madmen!

I think that just letting our cities grow will do wonders for our GNP. We're getting our resources hooked up, and once our towns start to grow we'll be in good shape.

I see from the screens that we've got Iron not too far from Seville, which should be in our borders soon (if not already) Otherwise there is some to the far W of Madrid, that makes a future city look better there.

As for resaerch, I agree that we should go with B). Getting OR and spreading our religon will be huge, especially if we want to get good relations with our neighbors.

Hopefully bobrath can put the down on the barbs that took our spot!

 

[bpierfy]

My thoughts:

Of course the barbs would put a city there. It may help us out if its in a good location.

I didn't think of religion aspect, but that might be a good route to go. If we can get them on our side, we can build a shrine and make $$$.

I would spend some time getting a few axemen/swords together. Not many, maybe 2 axes and a sword plus one archer. We don't need this much to take that barb city, but it will help with future endeavors. We still need a city by yellow dot or we may get boxed in. The AI doesn't have a problem settling between us.

I also agree that we should stop whipping for a while. We really don't have the food to do that to a large degree. We may want to use the settler to found that whipping city and relegate almost all whipping to there - including our next settler.

 

[bobrath]

If ya want swords... I'll have to found the Whipping City.