Lizzy's rise to greatness

[mzprox]

just the land between us and the inca. Remember that their western border belongs to their Capital, so we are quite close already, but it would be nice if we could get the stone too.
The incan army is mighty, we are weak.. and we are pushing science as much as we can.
If there wasn't team RB I wouldn1t care about science that much, but it really seems now that it's our "duty" is to not let them become the sole most advaned civ. If one civ get ahead that much they can get every extra bonus, (free techs, great persons, first pick on wonders etc and all that just make them stronger.)
My point is that we should handle the inca diplomaticaly rather than raising an army which would cost us a lot (both in raising and upkeeping)

[Dinner]

My point is, no, we need a damn army. Our army is essentially worthless with a bunch of warriors and a few out of date chariots. We're sitting next to a guy with a huge army and yet you don't think we should see to our defenses at all? After we've bulbed philo, assuming we haven't dilly dallied for so long someone else doesn't get it first, we need to spend some time at least upgrading our units so that we don't look like such an inviting and easy target. Anything else is frankly stupid and just amounts to hoping the Inca won't do the obvious thing which is step on us simply because they can.

You've gotten your way on a lot things so far in the game so it's time for you to give a little. We need all of the warriors upgraded to at least axemen or at least the ones inside our borders. So at least our graph doesn't look pathetic thus inviting the Inca to walk in. I'm not asking for new units to be built just upgrading of existing units so we can insure peace through strength.

Also we'll probably want 2-3 units in our border city next to the Inca just in case.

[mzprox]

we need to spend some time at least upgrading our units so that we don't look like such an inviting and easy target. Anything else is frankly stupid

Upgrading our warriors to axemen would cost 400 gold, we would spend 8 turns full revenue to do that, and then we would have axemen which still have to stay deep inside the border because they are police force.. they cant leave the cities.. so frankly this is ..not a very good idea.
We are building axemen and I reinforce that city plus sent the chariot east to scout the land between us.
My point was: we can not and should not even try to match a broken civ's army if we could find an other way (diplomacy).
The zulu and the aztecs are ven weaker than us, hre probably also weak and have mch more cities to defend.

[Dinner]

So you are proposing not upgrading the warriors but building how many new axemen?

[mzprox]

screenshots from current tun:


It seems that the HRE city we found is not connected so we won't get increased trade even if they open their borders unfortunately... It's a pity becaue I was expecting it and rushed out a settlrs to build a new coastal city in the west. It will be a nice cottage city anyway.
right now we have 4 chariots and two axemen, two more axemen in the making and 2-3 more should be ready soon to protect our border cities.
I posted a picture from demographics (the reason of our big GNp partly the science bonus we get fo CoL and that I switched almost every production to gold to see how soon we can get CoL).
I find it strange that our land area is 7th while population is 2nd. (ok, we will lose a lot soon for slavery.)
I consdered the possibility to go for metal casting first, so we could get forges which would make the slavijng of courthouses cheaper. This has no effect when we get the religion 8if we get in 8 turns), but I will try to calculate which would be the best for us production and money wise.
Aztec has discovered horseback riding.. an odd choice in current economic settings.. they must be planning something. Thei military strength is low for now (about he same as ours), but we must watch them.

[mzprox]

Hre accepted the open border. we took a look at their border city, no wonder they wanted nap with us, we could had destroyed their city and stole their worker. While it would be a blow for them we will gain much more with the trade routes (like 10 extra commerce/turn) The previous screenshot was misleading, now it seem that the city is connected

[Dinner]

OK, so we have 2 axemen now, we're building two more, and you would like to build 2-3 in the future. What's the time frame we're looking at when we'll have the proposed three axemen on the eastern frontier? Also how many warriors do we currently have to act as garrison units? Next, with the slaved settler where are we thinking about planting the city? We should discuss that as a group. I noticed we're researching metal casting, which is a good tech, but our previously agreed upon tech path was Currency - Code of Law - Philo. Why did you make this change in the tech path without consulting anyone? It just adds yet another delay when we agreed CoL and Philo would be our next goals.

I'm concerned about how you keep changing things without consulting the group and seem to be ignoring what the group has agreed upon though maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Examples: changing the tech path and slaving a settler without mentioning it to the group. This is supposed to be a group democracy game, remember?

[Dinner]

Personally, I'd put the city on the black X as that would give us a port on the western ocean plus pick up the wheat (eventually). If we intend to build a different port on the western ocean then one square east on the grassland hill would pick up the entire river system but would not give the city access to the sea.

[Dinner]

BTW I'm still waiting for a discussion on build ques. What are you intending to build in what order?

[mzprox]

I did not change the tech order, the state you see on the screenshots is not always representing the final settings. I haven't finished the turn yet and in the meanwhile I try to conceal our gnp capability from the other teams to see on the demographic screen. at the moment our gnp shows to be 160 or something, at the very end of the turn it will be above 300. small thing, but why not. (RB logins after anytime we log in, they are fanatics, but that's what they are)
On the other hand I said I considered metal casting first, but in pure micro view. the benefit of CoL first is that we can start working courthouses sooner, while with metal casting we have forges first. It has NO effect on when we get RELIGION, because by the time the gs is born we would have CoL anyway. It's pure micro option which is more benficial in the long term.(forges would make the slving of courthouses cheaper, they give an extra happyness and 25% production after they are built)
In the end I found it is still better to go for CoL first so there won't be change from the set path that's why i didn't say that.
You must understand that I spend several hours in each turn calculating, planning, testgaming and making reports. this option is open for everyone who wants to do the same. Without that it must be accepted that I make every micro decision.
The "macro" things: the focus of our research, our diplomatic view, the expansion focus and place etc are always offered for discussion when appropriate.
I wish that our skilled players hadn't been gone, it was supposed that we change turn players time to time.. actually it doesn't feel to good that i'm doing all this efforts and all i get everytime is critics.. that our stats are bad, but when i don't follow some bad advice (which would make our situation worse than it is ) then it also bad because it should be a democracy game... so let us be competitve, but on he other hand sometimes ignore my microing and just do whatever idea anyone has. (mostly thinking on Dinner's advices as He is the only one who at least tries.. shame on those who are not here anymore )


btw what is the benefit of the mark x position compared to the settler's current place for the new city? (btw the settlers was not slaved) Because if we would settle on place:
we would have more usable land, more cottage place instead of desert)
bigger defense (hill and river)
less maintenance (closer to the capital)
imediate access to the wheat (faster growth)

[Calanthian]

The current position seems ok to me.

[mzprox]

BTW I'm still waiting for a discussion on build ques. What are you intending to build in what order?

so let's talk about this(note: I write it by heart as I don't have access to the game now):

as you know maintenance is cripplingly high so we need to prepare our cities to build courthouses as fast as possible. After testing it shows we can't squeese out CoL in two turns, but it's actually not bad because it's nice to have overflow from a tech which have more than 40% research bonus. (40% because we have more than one prerequisite and some more because we met the Aztec who has this tech already). And the overflow is nice because it carries all this bonus towards the next tech. ( so if the next tech would have only 20% bonus we still get the 40+% for the overflown part). I try to get every bit of gold/research point.. sooner or later they ad up nicely.

Anyway: most of our cities are in their happynes cap right now, I carefully divided our police force so there was not a single unhappy/unproductive citizen in the game yet and we keep this police force at minimum because they still cost extra gold/turn.
We need some basic technologies to get fast so we can start developing really fast (CoL, ironworking, religious techs, calendar for the incense luxury etc) so we are pushing commerce instead of growth for now. (we are mostly at happyness cap anyway)

The cost of corthouses is 120 hammer, we get 30 for every pop slaved so we need to slave 4 population to get them (and only if we don't get slaving penalty so we work on courthouses for at least one turn.
For optimization purposes we must do the slaving when we can slave the most population ( so we get the most hammer for 1 unhappy people), We must do it when our population is about to grow (because if we are lowering our population the required food to grow is also gets lower so we actually getting a growth bonus) so we must watch out and if necessary reconfigure the tiles we are working to be sure we are maximizing our output.

Now let's see our cities in the light of the above:

Apolyton:
pop 10, at happy cap, two police force, one unhappyness is wearing out soon.

two possible plan(not yet decided)
A, let it grow to pop 11 and slave from there, in this case we focus on food, after slaving we would be on pop 7 meanwhile we are producing axemen

B, (this is the preferred path for now) we stay at pop 10 and maximize our commerce output in this academy city. CoL comes in 3 turns, in the 4th we start producing the courthouse so we must make it so that the city is not grown for 4 turns but will get close. In the meanwhile it is perfect opportunity to spend one turn on settler produvtion which we can slave later (it is better to not do this while we are in a fast growing stage like we will be after slaving the courthouse (then we could grow like in 3 consecutive turns). This new settler should get the stone for us, our workers in the east will prepare the land by the time it's ready.
((options like this are not offered to vote, because one of them is simply better than the other, someone should decide it either by a test game or by calculations-what would be the point choosing the less good option?))

We started to work on the Hanging gardens here, but most of the work will be done after we connected the stone (and after the forge and possible we revolted to org religion)

Aurora

pop 9, at happyness cap, 2 policeforce, unhappyness is wearing out soon.
In very similar state as the capital, but more stronger decided on a path like the "B" there because we would like to send out the axeman currently doing the police work to the border cities. otherwise this city is going for maximized commerce and in the meanwhile producing axemen (this city has barracks, so the perfect training base).
Note that eventually we want a palace built here, cince this city has better potential to become our oxford city then it should have the palace commerce aswell (also it is in more central position, so less maintenance)

port Boreas:

pop7 at happy cap, 2 police force, still long time until slaving effect is wearing out.

This city can not grow to 8 without unhappyness so that means that to get the perfect result it must grow to pop8 exactly when we worked on the courthouse for a single turn. so we can slave the unhappy population imediately. In the meanwhile it acts as a strong commerce city, building money so we can keep the research up. This city might build the Moai statues national wonder in the future so it van have bigger production (either this city or Ankara should build it)

Istanbul (horse city)

pop 6, at happyness cap, but without police force, so it can grow because from aurora we will send soldiers soon. this city is slow growing because it has two scientist specialist (GS eta 8 turns). since it had low extra food, but not so bad production it was a perfect place to build a settlers. This city will not grow to pop 8 to be able to slave the courthouse completely, but put in at least 3 turns of work with big production tiles so 3 slaved pop would be enough. In the meanwhile it produces gold to help us keep our research high. After the GS is born this city will build a barrack and be a military base too.

Edrine (oasis city)

pop 6, at happyness cap, one police force

This city can not grow further, but it has a great food capacity. The plan is that we collect enough food to almost grow to pop 7 in two turns then we slave in a hammam. we use the overflown production to put into courthouse and slave it too once we regrow from pop4 to pop 6 again (it wil lbe done in two turns thanks to the many food tiles). in the meanwhile this city will work on hammam and produce gold. This city has good potential to be a specialist city. It has not many cottage site, but many food resources.

Ankara

pop2, not close to cap yet.

This is a quite new, high production, low food city, just recently slaved a lighthouse (it was not necessary to do this slaving it, but test showed it will give little bit better result instead of just building it).
After that it will produce gold until it can start working on a courthouse. this city then will build a forge and will become a military training center. (this city is also candidate for the Moai statues national wonder)

Bursa (wine city)

pop 1

granary being copped in a few turns, it will help as this city has no real food source, we can't slave it too often. after granary we will go for library to get culture pop.. then courthouse, but it's in a far future. This will be a good commerce cottage city. In the meanwhile we gather our defense forces here. our chariot will scout the land between us and the inca so we will have about 5-7 turns warning in advance if they are marching against us.

Unfounded city

building order is standard: granary, library, courthouse. Note that this city has agreat chance to become our holy city for our religion (if we get it).
As for its position I take Calanthian is suggesting that we build it in the settler's current position, so with my vote it is 2:1 to settle in current place. (this city must be a port city, because only then we will get ten extra commerce from the HRE trade routes). ( btw it's not that i decide things, this place for the western city was suggested way back, and i've said we must build a port city to get the trade revenue from HRE so i switched to settler production. Settling on the desert hill is clearly the best position, no real competition here. You can check this post about 30 turns ago: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/1...=1#post6175675, we already had our next four city's place marked and since then there was no other opinion offered.)


Ok, these were not the details, but mostly the results of the playtesting. I always calculate the food and production and I change the worked tiles when I see fit. sometimes sacrificing commerce means we can grow sooner so we would get back that commerce later, sometimes it just won't worth it. Bigger city means bigger police force needed, more maintenance etc. Right now we are in good shape, our food production is a bit low, but we are working on cottages instead of farms, and having specialists in our cities as well.
I also take into account that soon we should have forges, they give happyness and 25% extra production, we can't pass this technology too far. Other than metalcasting we need ironworking, I also consider archery so we can build cheap policeforce which are also good general defenders, we will need monotheism for org religion (we might need to go for Theology if we can't get the religion from philo). Calendar is also a good tech to get so we can connect the incense luxury. Connecting the fur would be nice, but it's not easy.. that place is quite bad, no food around so we need to take it from Istanbul.. yet we will have to do it sooner or later.
Whenever there is a chance we will slave in marketplaces aswell. not only it will increase our money income, but we can place two merchant specialist inside them.

After these smaller techs we need to focus on civil service then continue our way all along to education and then liberalism. getting it before RB does is very important, that's the main reason we must push commerce in our cities.. we should not fight with the inca or whoever.. if they decide to attack then we will defend and win, but right now our real enemy is RB.

I don't want to write more for now (and defiantely not in every, or not even every other turn). I could had actually write more in reports.. but when there is no a real dicussion followed then after some time the lenght of the reports gets also shorter (and shorter reports mean less involvement-I know, but I think we started with good energy, the problem was that people left, and if there is a less interest in the game then everyone, including me will lose interest.

It supposed to be intelligence branch, story writing brach, diplomacy staff and changing turn players.. discussion etc. (as I saw btw other teams suffer from the same thing-except RB for sure, they are logging in and out every time someone else does and collecting data about the other civs this way).

So if anyone has more questions, and especially suggestions go ahead. just please be sure that the thing you are suggesting is applicable.

[Hercules]

Thanks for that full explanation.

Btw I didn't comment on your earlier posting re metal casting etc because I understood alright that you were just testing alternatives.

[mzprox]

few shots:



plan slightly changed (after some testings I found that the RP overflow doesn't behave as it should-maybe it was fixed-) So it's better to push out CoL asap even if it means that almost every city produces wealth.

I tried to hide our gnp from RB, but it's impossible.. they are checking the civstats all the time.. whenever i login they follow. I waited till they logged out before increased our gnp, logged out, but they logged in again.. our big gnp really keep them interested

[Hercules]

Yes it does keep them interested but they are watching other teams as well. I wonder who they have met. CFC perhaps ?

I might ask HRE who they (HRE) have met but they'll want some intelligence from us in exchange. What do you think?

Btw I notice RB, after a small bit of slaving 375 to 372, jumped to 399. What was that ? a tech , a wonder?

Good to see CoL researched next turn.