Caesar Sxn game - MGE Team Spoiler

[Grigor]

OK, our team is complete. I think we will need this thread so that we are not tempted to read the other team's posts.

I suppose the first thing to do now is to pick which continuation to use.

SG(1) has a great start with 4 cities, (including the capital at size 2 because he intelligently built the size 1 settler before popping the hut for a tribe), 34g, a roaded silk, and an extra tech. But the downside is that the mongols have already discovered us (with a frigate!?) and are hostile already. And also, pottery is not on the way to Trade.

Grigor has 4 weaker cities all on rivers, less gold, a roaded silk, and a straight shot to trade. It looks possible to get Monarchy by 2850 for an instant revolution. That neds to be checked.

Debeest has 2 cities, with a settler and another in the oven. Howver, his start won't get us to Monarchy by 2850bc.

Does this look to anybody else like that succession game a couple years ago where the AI wiped out the Apolytoners in about 2500BC the first time? Maybe we should be a little more afraid.

[Scouse Gits]

You are absolutely right Grigor - I followed my Civ instincts when I chose Pot - reckoning that it would take two techs Iwhich we have next turn] to extract Curr from the Mongrels - then a dash for Trade whilst the Flowers are building --- but overnight when I thought on it, I should have taken Magnetism - at this stage of the game a Frigate with a Warrior inside could probably capture every spare tech on the board.
Things are'n't as bad as they might seem - the Mongrels 'only' have Bronze, Currency, Mysticism & Magnetism - so Peaster has been playing games with the starting techs.

With many apologies for the hindsight suggests cretinous decision to take Pottery - I still nominate my game for continuation, I think it offers more possibilities.

Stu

[Grigor]

I am OK with using the SG save. It does indeed maximize our possibilities.

Does anybody think the frigate will stick around long enough to bribe? How much might it cost? If it is possible, one suggestion is to try for Writing after Monarchy and save pennies to try to bribe the frigate. If that is possible it must be the best play.

Otherwise, build the Gardens after the temple in the capital and run to Trade. The Mongols will attack us though, sooner or later.

Perhaps we should try to come up with three totally different strategies and each try one, just in case one of the more dsperate ones is successful?

[Scouse Gits]

Yup I'm fairly certain that the Frigate is stuck there for the duration - so going for witing & bribing the little b*ggar seems favouite for me...

Stu - pissed as a fart on this Friday night

[Peaster]

I hope you don't mind if I lurk a bit and pop in from time to time.

Originally posted by Grigor

Perhaps we should try to come up with three totally different strategies and each try one, just in case one of the more dsperate ones is successful?

I was wondering if this might come up. IMHO it could help your team's chances, and trying different ideas will make the game more interesting. But taking unusual risks isn't good practice, is it?

pissed as a fart

Drinking? (my redneck friends use "pissed" for "angry") And, could I ask what "Scouse Gits" means?

[debeest]

I've just had a moment to look at my teammates' saves, and it's clear that SG's is the best of the three. The cost of my failure to buy a size-1 settler is starkly revealed. I will post about future considerations once I go participate in our Christmas double feature, It's a Wonderful Life/Life of Brian. You should consider it too.

[Grigor]

Peaster - your ignorance of ancient slang betrays your callow youth. In us oldsters' time, we all knew what "pissed" meant...

[Scouse Gits]

Scouse (adj) of or pertaining to the city of Liverpool
Git (n) disreputable person

Stu

[Peaster]

Originally posted by Grigor
Peaster - your ignorance of ancient slang betrays your callow youth. In us oldsters' time, we all knew what "pissed" meant...

[Peaster consults his dictionary to see if he's been insulted...and likes the "youth" part, even if not quite accurate ].

I was thinking the two teams would proceed at the same pace, but maybe there's no good reason. After debeest has a chance to post, your team can play the next turn. You can play as fast/slow as you like, as long as you are ahead of team 2.42.

[debeest]

OK, here are my thoughts about the next 1000 years.

We're one beaker short of monarchy, so we can't have an instant revolution. We must remember to revolt in 2900.

The key question is our tech path. If we are alone on an island, as it looks as if we could be, then early wide contact is even more important than I had thought earlier. We must have trade, for Marco Polo, or else mapmaking. I vote for trade because we'll need it ASAP anyway for building Wonders.

The other critical question is survival. Most likely we could easily be wiped out by any other civ, and even a barb invasion could be critically damaging. Other than maintaining friendly relations, the best defense is a good offensive unit, so horseback riding is a high priority. Also, we should try to keep 50-75g on hand at all times in order to be able to keep barbs from sacking our size-1 and size-2 cities.

What to do when we meet other civs? Submit! Give them anything they want. But what if they want us to declare war against civs we're at peace with? Better to refuse, in spite of the risk.

What to build? Settlers and cities. Until we can build offensive units, or Wonder caravans, there's nothing else worth bothering with. Just enough warriors for martial law. Boats would probably have to wait even if we had mapmaking. With monarchy we can go to eight cities without affecting happiness, and more with martial law. For now, while we're still largely isolated, use the time to prepare a strong base. Roads will be particularly important, both for defensive mobility and because our terrain provides for little but food -- and there's a striking lack of specials. (Without Hutfinder, can we locate hidden specials?)

Not everything is against us. Note that we're already "weak," so we've passed one civ already. Tech will be easy to acquire, because we're getting the bonus for being behind. We should be able to catch up fairly fast, especially since the AI usually doesn't build a lot of cities. And it's not necessarily bad that the Mongols have found us -- assuming that we go to Supreme, that's who we'll want to be gifting techs to eventually.

However, I think it would be extremely dangerous to bribe the frigate. Sure, it would get us a powerful unit that we couldn't otherwise build -- but I strongly advise against irritating the already-aggressive hostile power that already knows where we live. And we can only bribe that one, but they can build lots more......

The idea of deliberately pursuing a variety of courses does seem good. If you've only got one shot at a game, you want to follow what seems like the "best" course. But with three different attempts, it's a terrific opportunity to explore new ideas and have a chance to compare different methods over a short but meaningful period. Since it doesn't matter if one or two methods fail, let's go for it. I think if we all pursue roughly the same course, our "best" game won't be that much different from the others anyway; but if we go wild, we could find something that's really good.

Shall we identify three broad paths for the three of us to take in the next turnset?

[Grigor]

Great analysis debeest!

I think you should go for the safety first version, because you believe in it, and because we may be wiped out by our bribe-the-frigate strategy. But I would counsel against too many (any!) roads, unless you have excess settlers, which I don't anticipate by 2000BC. We already are connected by the river systm and the roads just slow down city placement. This doesn't seem to be Deity level, so maybe the temple in the capital is unnecessary and should be either a barracks or a granary??

SG and I are going to duke it out for who gets to try the bribe-the-frigate strategy. I have no idea if it is even financially possible. If it is, the decision to go north or south will lead to very different outcomes. Perhaps we can both try and agree to go different directions.

My bribe strategy would have th following tech path:
Writing, HB, Poly, then the trade techs.

Meanwhile, the capital would start on HG after the temple. Hmm, maybe switch production now... Gold is a serious priority, so maximizing arrows and turning down science after Writing is a possibility. I am a little worried about the warlike mongol attitude, but maybe we can buy them off with Monarchy if we avoid unnecessary contact with them (one necessary time will be with the Dip...) Once we have the frigate, we can load it with dips and steal techs from the AI until we get some extra tribes from huts.

As you can see, I am having difficulty forming a cogent and complete plan.

Help will be much appreciated.

[Scouse Gits]

Hey guys ...
You both seem to have missed the tech list that I got from the Mongrels - they have (that we don't) Bronze, Currency, Myst & Mag - we will next turn have two techs that they don't Code or CB - I forget which I traded - it's in the log & Monarchy - with a following wind we can trade both of those for one of theirs - so we can shortcut Trade by getting Currency or go for broke & get Mag.

With Magnetism we don't need Writing - it looks as if each of the Civs has got just one or two higher level techs - someone has Invention for example since they started the Shop on my watch. A Frigate can easily take out any pre-gunpowder defenders in coastal cities and a Warrior can then take the city and a tech - even if we don't hold the city we can sell something and abandon without real loss -- this seems to me to be a seriously viable strategy either with Magnetism & our own Frigates or with the one ex-Mongrel addition to our seapower.

My abject apologies if you have considered the above and already rejected it in favour of your posted plans -- but it seems a damn good way forward to me...

Stu

[Grigor]

Yes, I didn't consider the Mongol tech list. It does seem that BW is not necessary if we can trade with the currently hostile Mongols. I considered getting techs by stealing them with dips since a hostile AI will often take 2 techs just to get to uncooperative and we cannot afford war until we have the frigate bribed, right?

But it seems we now have three incipient plans: debeest's safety first plan, my writing-and-bribing plan (with updated tech tree), and Stu's daring diplomacy and rule the seas with magnetism plan. Are we rady to play yet?

[debeest]

I like it. It's three different plans, and that will be fun. (Although it sounds as if both of you are on a writing-and-bribing course, I'm sure it will diverge substantially after that.)

Those who bribe the frigate should be sure to trade with the Mongrels beforehand. And since Peaster indicated that he thinks it's OK to use knowledge from discarded games, the two of you should agree on two different directions to explore.

You're right, Grigor; I want roads, but I probably won't get to them in this turnset.

I'm inclined to convert from temple-building to a barracks. I have a feeling we're going to need to buff up our defenses soon.

One last thought: you guys should prepare ahead of time for the possibility that the frigate wanders off before you can learn how to write and commission a diplomat. Whole new gameplan at that point (I think Stu gets first dibs on trading for magnetism and following the similar path, though).

I'll start on my inoffensive course soon. Advice welcome.

[Grigor]

I think from my remembrance of Stu's games that the temple is merely for selling off and providing bribing funds. That's what I will use it for, in any case. Should you wish to continue a civic build, Barracks is a good call, but perhaps a granary even better. Or possibly a typo raised to a new level: grabnary...