We are Celts!

[Whomp]

I like it.
The settings for the game are in.
Small map.
70% water on continents.
4 billion, normal and temperate.
Level is Emperor,
Barbs are roaming,
SoZ is on but does not require anything but cost 300 shields.
SGL's are on. I don't like this and we should discuss how we can benefit from this.
Team Donut is Iroquois ag and commerical alpha and pot, UU is MW (3-1-2) 30 shields
Team TNT is Persia scientific and industrious BW and Mas, UU is Immortal(4-2-1) 30 shields
Team MIA is Greece scientific and commerical BW and alpha UU is hoplite (1-3-1) 20 shields


We are Celtic Religious and agricultural, CB and pottery
Gallic Swords are 3-2-2. 40 shields.

We should use the religious trait to our full advantage. While other teams will stay in Monarchy we can switch between republic and monarchy. I think this is big.

If we can build cash the warrior to gallic sword cash upgrade was huge for our team in SGOTM6.

We have a monopoly on CB.
We should discuss our first research task.
Warrior Code seems to be pretty important in this type of game.
Can we beeline to Monarchy for a SGL?

 

[IroquoisPlisken]

Well it looks like we won't be attacking Team MIA for a while...

Beelining to Monarchy sounds good, we have a head start on it. Once we get Monarchy we can trade it around for some high prices, since all the teams will want it. I suspect this to be a war heavy game, so Republic may not be the best government, except maybe for Team MIA (no one's going to want to attack them, except maybe Team TNT, so they can probably get away with going for Republic instead).

I am surprised by the Barbs and SGLs being on. I thought most people didn't want these since they added too much luck to the game.

 

[Crakie]

The Celts! Not bad!

My thoughts:
1) We will want to make full use of our UU and plan for a late AA war. We can assume our opponent will want to do the same though... perhaps a phoney war at the start to throw their expansion off? (Expansion is our strong point being agri)

2) Are we allowed to connect/disconnect our iron? Below I am assuming we are not

3) Our UU is expensive compared to the others. It should be doable to get a few cities up to 10 shields/turn, producing one GW in 4 turns, or preferably 13-13-14 shields, producing a GW in 3 turns . We should position our core cities with this in mind.

4) Since we will not be able to make alot of shields early, the initial stack of GW will HAVE to come from an warrior -> GW (mass) upgrade.

5) I like the idea of beelining to Monarchy, and not just for the SGL. Question is, will we be able to trade easily? If we lack IW and haven't reached the other continent, our opponent might be reluctant to trade it to us.

 

[IroquoisPlisken]

5) I like the idea of beelining to Monarchy, and not just for the SGL. Question is, will we be able to trade easily? If we lack IW and haven't reached the other continent, our opponent might be reluctant to trade it to us.

Has there been a confirmation on whether or not there's a safe passage between the two continents? If there is one, I don't see why we wouldn't have made contact by the time we get Monarchy (maybe even IW).

 

[RegentMan]

I have asked for a safe ancient age passage between all continents.

 

[Daghdha]

C3LTS, Great! Good points made. We'll see about city placement when map arrives. Lots of shields is good, lots of bread could be even better. I think we have some skilled moneymakers on team that could do the tedious art of "tight" MM'ing, as said before mass upgrade is probably the way to go.

 

[Pentium]

I've never done mas upgrade before, so I'll see how ti goes.

I agree with beelining to Monarchy. So WC -> Myst -> Poly -> Mon.

Let's hope for at least one team without needed resources. MIA don't need them, so they shouldn't be first priority.

BTW: Is team Donut the one with Tomoyo in?

 

[Whomp]

RegentMan is fully aware how we feel about SGL's. I posted a comment in that thread since it was 2 yes and 2 no. SoZ cost a ton so I think that's ok.

Tomoyo and Kuningas are on Donut. A team to watch IMO.

 

[Grille]

Wow!
We are agri *and* have fast UU.

thoughts & comments:
Mapmaker Rik is a guy who knows well how to produce a neat multi-player map.
One team not having a key resource like horses and/or iron while we have them is a rather unlikely scenario, if not even lame on top of that.
A GS is pretty expensive to build from scratch. We cannot expect to have a considerable "bunch" of cities @10spt or (even) more in adequate time. Furthermore, if we would beeline to monarchy *and* plan to build GS from scratch, we would depend on someone selling us BW/IW at the same time. And we don't deal with an AI that would ever happily agree on any tech deal for the respective return-value in gold, mind.
Dunno, if my neighbour was Celts in monarchy (or researching that bottom path) and I had IW, that'd come at a price or with further agreements. If it wasn't for the era change or monarchy gov (republic might be my choice in first place), I might not even have that slightest interest in bottom path techs; furthermore, if I had an evil exploring warrior near the Celts border and knew the Celts have warriors at the most, I might just ask for CB and offer not to pillage in return...
IMO monarchy-beeline could be feasible in case of early contact with kind of win-win-alliance like "we're both small, there's enough room to expand for 2, let's ally for 100 turns", plus agreeing on future tech deals. Or it may be feasible in case of isolated starting continents, which would be hard to determine quickly (alpha/curragh not available), respectively, faces risk that others know where we live while we have no idea if the world is flat or not.
So much for the doom-mongering.

Obviously, I'd be in favour of mass-upgrading.
Cost is 90 gold per unit and thus I'd rather be a republic; would of course depend on the lux situation and very basically on the starting location. First advance WC or wheel, if not even alphabet. WC and wheel are definitely trade-able techs.

Let's look at the other teams. Iros have the best position for a philo gambit and will likely decide between writing and wheel for the first pick. IF they go for writing and we meet them at their border, we would have certainly a good basis for negotiations. [somehow I have a vision for shared resesearch deal towards rep. Plus, us and Iros would indeed like to fight slow moving units, hoping for retreat in case of failed attempt. Maybe we could even palm of this pesky CB on them; however, I'm naive..]
Greece might not try an all-out philo-gambit since they don't have pottery. Them aiming at a pottery trade might be a shot in the foot, but they could at least 'hope' for curragh contact.
Persia might show off muscles and start with IW, but could do pottery as well if they'd want to emphasize growth.
Well, in case my speculation was right, WC or wheel should get us into some business, assuming contact and the other side is open to negotiations.
If we get an El-Dorado coastal start with lux in sight, I'd even say aplhabet...

Let's see what the start looks like and pray Rik was in the mood for a 1/3-turn warrior/settler pump capital!

edit: fixed most obvious typos? me stoopid idiot not know alphabet

 

[MeteorPunch]

Idiot Lurker's Comment: Interesting...the 4 best AA units. Scientifically, It will probably be a mad dash by each team to secure the needed resource, besides team MIA, of course.

Probably 2 civs per continent too.

Gallics are the best of the UU's, but highest cost. City planning needs to allow for certain shield rates for Gallics if possible.

20=2
10=4
8=5
etc...

 

[Crakie]

I like Grille's analysis, very insightful! I do think it should be possible to have 3-4 cities produce a GS in 3 or 4 turns by the end of the AA. The mass upgrade is obviously still a must-do of course. The question remains whether disconnecting iron in order to build warriors (then upgrade) is allowed, in which case money (population) and not shields is the most important factor. Which in turn might affect our government choice, as Grille pointed out.

All in all, we should AT LEAST have a starting position to look at before we can make an appropiate strategy.

 

[Whomp]

I see nothing in the ruleset about disconnecting resources. We can also ship chain.

 

[Crakie]

I see nothing in the ruleset about disconnecting resources. We can also ship chain.

In that case, I really favour building a stack of warriors and upgrade them when iron is connected, then disconnect the iron until another batch of warriors is finished for upgrading. With a solid cash flow, we should we able to generate enough GS to whipe out our nearest opponent.

 

[Bede]

After taking a long look at Grille's think piece I realized there are possibilities in PBEM I would never have een considered.

Furthermore, if we would beeline to monarchy *and* plan to build GS from scratch, we would depend on someone selling us BW/IW at the same time.

And we don't deal with an AI that would ever happily agree on any tech deal for the respective return-value in gold, mind.[/B}

Dunno, if my neighbour was Celts in monarchy (or researching that bottom path) and I had IW, that'd come at a price or with further agreements.

If it wasn't for the era change or monarchy gov (republic might be my choice in first place), I might not even have that slightest interest in bottom path techs;

furthermore, if I had an evil exploring warrior near the Celts border and knew the Celts have warriors at the most, I might just ask for CB and offer not to pillage in return...

Revelations emphasis added.

IMO monarchy-beeline could be feasible in case of early contact with kind of win-win-alliance like "we're both small, there's enough room to expand for 2, let's ally for 100 turns", plus agreeing on future tech deals.

There is so much room to manuever her. <Runs off to find his university texts on game theory and small group dynamics.

Obviously, I'd be in favour of mass-upgrading.
Cost is 90 gold per unit and thus I'd rather be a republic; would of course depend on the lux situation and very basically on the starting location. First advance WC or wheel, if not even alphabet. WC and wheel are definitely trade-able techs.

Concur but would be tempted by alphabet-writing-philosophy if start is commerce rich.

Let's look at the other teams. Iros have the best position for a philo gambit and will likely decide between writing and wheel for the first pick. IF they go for writing and we meet them at their border, we would have certainly a good basis for negotiations. [somehow I have a vision for shared resesearch deal towards rep. Plus, us and Iros would indeed like to fight slow moving units, hoping for retreat in case of failed attempt. Maybe we could even palm of this pesky CB on them; however, I'm naive..]

Keep dreamin' those dreams, you are beautiful, baby!

Let's see what the start looks like and pray Rik was in the mood for a 1/3-turn warrior/settler pump capital!

Not that beautiful, I would wake up and smell the coffee.

Lots of things to think about in here. Nice work.

 

[Darwin420]

I'm all for the run to monarchy, and hoping we can get the warrior upgrades pumping.

 

[Daghdha]

I get the feeling Hoplites makes everyone decide Greece should be left alone for a good while. I wonder if MIA also expects everyone to make that decision and, if so, what impact that might have on their choise of strat?

@Grille
Very interesting line of reasoning and to be honest somwhere above mine .

 

[Whomp]

Great stuff Grille.

In a PBEM it seems pottery, alpha, WC and the wheel are the best early techs.

As far as governments I agree we may want to work towards republic and feign interest in Monarchy. We are the only team that has the flexibility to be a republic or monarchy with our religious trait. I presume the other teams may go to monarchy and stay there which may make CB more valuable to those who plan to warmonger. If they don't go to monarchy the WW could be brutal.

Dagh--I would say just the opposite about being Greece. It almost locks them into a despotic GA. If I were them I would rush to Monarchy ASAP and become a pillaging machine. Worse they're slow and defensive. Bad combo.

I hope we get MIA on our continent. We be able to threaten them with a despotic GA and get something out of them.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

We need to think about where the others won't go. Maybe a beeline to Construction or Math for the wonders.

 

[barbu1977]

From my view, most teams will not even bother to know monarchy, don't forget that there is a rule tha prevents staying at war only for WW.

Our priority should be IW. Especialy if the Iros are close. After that, lets get that bonus republic gold. If greece is our only neibour, we could go for Repuclic straight away.

To make it short, Grille post covers most of my concerns.

 

[IroquoisPlisken]

From my view, most teams will not even bother to know monarchy, don't forget that there is a rule tha prevents staying at war only for WW.

Our priority should be IW. Especialy if the Iros are close. After that, lets get that bonus republic gold. If greece is our only neibour, we could go for Repuclic straight away.

To make it short, Grille post covers most of my concerns.

As long as we continue to attack, we're allowed to stay at war for as long as possible, I thought.

IW will be very important, and if our neighbors realize that, they probably won't trade it to us. Perhaps we should go for that first.