Caesar Sxn game - MGE Team Spoiler

[Scouse Gits]

[-Jrabbit]

Checking in.

[Scouse Gits]

Are you joining us -Jrabbit??

Spoiler:

After a brief, but successful war with the Mongrels - they chose to immolate a couple of Warriors against my rivered capital, we have Magnetism! The English kindly donated Navigation, whilst our eggheads beavered away and get Trade next turn the hard way. We have eight cities (2 at size 3) a Settler and on the turn a second Settler and a Frigate.
On the down-side - the Mongrels started the Gardens in 2700 - but I reckon we are well favourite to win that race now that a couple of Caravans can be rushed.
A fun turnset -- how did you guys fare?

Stu

[-Jrabbit]

Have downloaded. Will try to grab some time tonight.

Time limit for our group's next submitted .sav, please?

[Scouse Gits]

Rabbitman - just running scared here - my 2000 save has been downloaded by someone, but so has the 3000 zip I left in the other thread - you do have the correct (3000) start?

Stu

[debeest]

I played it out tonight and felt that I'd done a passable job, until I looked at your spoiler, Stu. My log follows below. (How do you do the spoiler text?)

















3000 BC, starting from SG’s game:
2950 Chinese are about to complete Pyramids; we get monarchy (choose horseback next, for three main reasons: for immediate defense, and because I think it won’t be available next time but mapmaking will, and for a second rush-building row; we shouldn’t need bronzeworking at all if we can trade for currency)
2900 Beijing builds Pyramids; Neapolis grows to size 2 and our population reaches 100K; revolution
2850 Mr. Caesar is crowned King
2750 barracks in Caesarea, settlers in Cumae (head south toward whales)
2700 settlers in Neapolis
On further reflection, I realize that once we get horseback riding and then trade for currency (I want to study one tech before trading), trade will come up in the rotation – so we won’t want to choose mapmaking that turn. Oh well.
Also, on further reflection, I conclude that we’re missing too many specials for it to be chance – so I use Hutfinder and verify that in most of the land spots where there should be specials, there is grassland instead. Interesting.
2650 Pompeii size 2
2500 horseback riding (choose mapmaking next – and on further further reflection, I realize that if I had traded for currency BEFORE horseback, then trade WOULD have been available! D-oh!!!); so now I contact the Mongols, and they demand 50 gp, so I pay off almost all our cash, and they won’t trade or ally, so all our planning for currency vs. magnetism is for naught; plus, I determine that we are indeed alone on an island
2400 build Pisae
2350 settlers in Caesarea build Ravenna
2300 settlers in Pompeii; build Hispalis
2200 settlers in Cumae
2150 Mongols begin Hanging Gardens; build Viroconium
2100 just realized we’re not getting any science bonus, and our free techs are counting as learned techs
2050 mapmaking (choose polytheism next rather than bronzeworking – either we’ll get currency elsewhere, or we’ll be a long time getting to trade whether I start on it now or not, but this way we’ll have elephants)

[Scouse Gits]

(spoiler)
text
(\spoiler)
but with square brackets of course.

I seem to be having a lot of ?luck? with meeting people - we have yet to see whether this is good luck or bad joss!

Given that you have yet to meet the benificent English - by the way they are my bogey Civ - they always seem to screw me up right thoroughly in my ordinary games - this looks like a pretty good turnset - although I would not have made the tech choices that you did.
I guess you made another Settler from Caesarea - I kept the Temple with a view to growing Caesarea to size 8 asap - probably by b-ing in a couple of Settlers in the next turnset ... for me, money is not the key problem, it's getting sufficient shields together for all the building we need - but each to their own.

Stu

[Grigor]

I considered this turnset a disastrous failure. I got Writing, HB, and Poly but failed to find the frigate. I did manage to sleaze a few more cities in.

--Spoiler Log--

Plan: Tech path: Mon, Wri, HB, Poly. ICS settlers. Temple in capital, then HG. Bribe Frigate.

3000
2950 Mon=>Wri (9)
2900* Revolution
2850 Gov: Monarchy
2750 Cumae: Settlers. Caesarea: Temple =>HG
2650 Pisae founded
2600 Ravenna founded. Writing soon.
2550 Wri=>HB
2500* Pompeii: Dip
2400 Hey, no frigate!
2300* Mongols: demand 100g - WAR.
2250 HB=>Poly
2200 Frigate reappears and kills Dip. Mongol warrior attacks Caesarea and dies.
2050 Barbs land near Caesarea, 1 square too far for Dip. Horse kills both.
2000 Poly=>Maps. Hispalis founded

[Scouse Gits]

Sounds more like poor luck than poor management to me, Grigor.
Hopefully the rabbitman will post soon and then we can start the RCC...

Cheers, Stu

[-Jrabbit]

Go ahead and RCC, folks. I was unable to play last night. Right now, I have holiday honey-do's looming heavily. I will join when I can, but it won't be this round.

Will lurk and read for now.

[Grigor]

I thought my plan was a bust because it leaves the civ long on the wrong techs and is way too far from Trade. In my defence, I will get Maps in 5 turns and can then go out and get techs from the mongols, whom I think are on the island directly north of us. And the existence of 2 dips does give some play.

Debeest's save allows us to build a trireme right away, but I don't know what to load on it.

I like Stu's save again, as there are more possibilities with Magnetism, Navigation, and Trade than my save with Writing and Poly. or Debeests with Map Making. Unless somebody thinks that Magnetism and/or Currency can be extorted from the Mongols. I do have some gold in the coffers, thinking that I needed to save up to buy a frigate... OTOH, we all seem to have done a good job on settlers.

[Scouse Gits]

Well, I guess I have to vote for my own game ...
Albeit may be not to everyone's taste

Stu

[debeest]

I've been comparing the games, based on:

number of techs
number of cities
number of citizens
net shields per turn
net gold and science per turn
excess food per turn
accumulated shields
accumulated beakers and gold
accumulated food
existing units
city improvements
Wonders
AI civs contacted
science bonus/penalty

I realize there are some automatic correlations (e.g., between number of citizens and per-turn accruals). But I'm struck by how similar our current three games are to one another. The real differences are in AI contacts (Stu's game is best), acquired techs (Stu's is best), accumulated shields (I'm very puzzled why Stu's is so much better than Grigor's and mine), and science cost (I'm paying a lot more than you two, apparently because my power rating is lower -- although I'm not sure that's because of a significantly weaker position). Finally, the differences among our techs are important, with Stu apparently having managed somehow to get good techs from the Mongols.

Obviously Stu's game is best again.

[Scouse Gits]

For what it's worth - I am very conservative with shields - I feel that at this early stage of the game their management is crucial - therefore I follow this strategy:
Once a city reaches size 2 I max out its shields - with arrows a secondary and food a tertiary consideration & I carefully consider all opportunities to rush a row of shields and generally do so.

I'm interested in your maths - can you post some figures.

As far as the Mongrels are concerned - they declared war at my first contact (this turnset) and the Warrior from the Frigate promptly destroyed itself at Caesarea - they robustly refused further contact until they landed a single Warrior from a Galleon - which did the same thing. After that they were pussycats and begged me for Navigation, which I gave them in exchange for Magnetism - just in time to swap my nearly finished Caravel for a Frigate.

The obvious downside of my game is that bloody English Chariot - which landed with an Explorer from a Caravel - I'm seriously tempted to use my Frigate to blow it away.

As far as Geography is concerned - the English came from the East & the Mongrels from the West - I have no evidence that they are to our North as one of you has suggested.

The Zulus appear to be the most advanced civ - they started with Invention after all - and must therefore be our first target - with luck we can take a coastal city without actually declaring war and grab a good defensive tech (they may well have Gunpowder by now) unfortunately we have no clue as to where they may lie. Also, a Frigate is not certain of victory against a Musk, but with luck they may be relying on City Walls.

Any other ideas or insights most welcome

Stu

[Grigor]

I usually follow the same shield strategy, but this turnset I saved my pennies and did no pre-rush-buying. It will be a long winter in a hot place before I get snookered into that strategy again.

I am interested in our Wonder strategy. By 1000 BC we should expect to have 2 wonders at least. We have HG a-building, and a couple of vans should finish it off. MPE is also useful, especially if restarts are on, which I think they are. LH is already expired (!) but Magellan is always fun to have. With luck the Zulus will build LW for us.
Should we go for MPE before trying to wipe out the Zulus and build up the home front?

Some other questions in no particular order: If the Zulus indeed have guns, what can we whomp them with? Will we need vet dragoons? Or will crooks be enough, perhaps with Clads? Perhaps we need about 1500 years of science and trade to get through the tech tree. Or should we aggressively explore and enlarge our civ, improving science that way? Do we send out settlers on our frigates or just war units? Or can we do both guns and butter? This is the part of the game in which I tend to have trouble formulating a cogent plan, so RCC is more than welcome.