The Escapist Plays: Civilization V (MOAR PLAYERS PLS)

[Eumersian]

Man, this gets WAY more interesting when more people enter the think-tank!

Although, people should keep their posts simple, so as not to make the thread a mess. ;D

 

[Eumersian]

-Keep Stonehenge on! It's got to be close to done, right?

Four turns.

If someone beats us to it, I will s**t bricks. >.<

 

[lacktheknack]

Man, this gets WAY more interesting when more people enter the think-tank!

Although, people should keep their posts simple, so as not to make the thread a mess. ;D

Messy threads are fun! Personally, I like people giving me a tactical idea-dump, it helps me figure out what to do.

-Keep Stonehenge on! It's got to be close to done, right?

Four turns.

If someone beats us to it, I will s**t bricks. >.<

So will I.

 

[Eumersian]

Also, after settling the next city, explore northwest of Onondaga. I'll bet there's all kinds of fun stuff there.

Edit: Oh yes, repair the gold too.

 

[Bohemian Waltz]

Your input will be used towards the next turn. Good insight.

Man, this gets WAY more interesting when more people enter the think-tank!

Also if you're about to lose a luxury via barbarian raiding, immediately sell it off to the civ you dislike the most. (This might become the case at some point for the gold we have mined, it's attracting barbs like a bug zapper).

The extra happiness from the gold/spices/(eventually pearls) is nice as it allows you to grow and expand, but in-between what's needed for expansion fleece everything for the extra gold and put it toward quick-buying things or bribing city-states as needed.

Although, people should keep their posts simple, so as not to make the thread a mess. ;D

Sorry about that.....[small]I had a lot to say <.<[/small]

 

[Mr Thin]

1. No objections. Hurray for hilltop cities!
2. How the hell did Osininka go from having 7 happiness to having 3? Surely our people don't love gold THAT much. That happiness needs to go up, so I say circus.
3. Yes indeed, fix that gold mine. We cannot let barbarians dictate our business practices.
4. It's road building time! They shall become yellow brick roads, with all the money flowing our way. Scratch that, this is apparently a bad idea. I welcome advice from anyone if I make an obviously flawed decision.

I suppose I will go for option C then, get rid of those roads, filthy money traps that they are.

Although, people should keep their posts simple, so as not to make the thread a mess. ;D

Sorry about that.....[small]I had a lot to say <.<[/small]

Doesn't bother me. Maybe put it in spoiler tags next time. The thread already stretches really long due to the images.

PS: I hope you don't plan on putting that much thought into all your advice, or I'll become totally outclassed.

 

[lacktheknack]

PS: I hope you don't plan on putting that much thought into all your advice, or I'll become totally outclassed.

It's fine. We need big picture people anyways!

 

[Bohemian Waltz]

Doesn't bother me. Maybe put it in spoiler tags next time. The thread already stretches really long due to the images.

PS: I hope you don't plan on putting that much thought into all your advice, or I'll become totally outclassed.

Noted. I probably won't write to that level of depth into my future advice, but likely that level of thought. With the exception being this post particularly because of the motion to build a mostly pointless trade route.

I like this forum-game. It's like we're all senators in a fledgling republic sans the corruption and togas.

As for next update I'll revise my vote and charm in on one more bit and also explain why your proposed trade route even when you complete it is going to end up losing you money for a good portion of the game.

Spoiler: Proposal to invade Geneva

City-states you're allied with share resources and luxuries. If you're going to go through with Iron Working it might be worth while to go to war with Geneva whenever possible it nets you another city with culture in woods that can connect to your other two cities in the north east through the forest in your territory count as roads trait with a few tile buys and will likely give you an alliance with Genoa which will net you their maritime bonus of a food bonus to all your cities plus an extra source of incense along with the one you get from conquering Geneva.

Alexanders civ trait makes him exceptionally good at befriending and keeping city-states as allies so narrowing the amount available to him and locking one down as an ally is a great method to marginalize him, it's even more important since the empire is divided by them throwing up the possibility of a three front war if he wants to pick a fight. Plus if I'm not mistaken Geneva's military seems to consist of only one archer. You need no iron so cranking out your swordsman special unit shouldn't be too difficult I'm guessing 2 archers and 1-2 Mohawk Warriors would do the trick if you wanted to be very safe about it. Building a warrior after Stonehenge and upgrading to MW for a small gold price would my choice. Then it's all a matter of getting into position declaring war and launching volleys of arrows until you can get a victory with swordsmen. (1-6 turns max averaging about 1-3 if they're not militaristic.)

Once conquest is over pop that ruin/barb camp and then settle your remaining military along the border of Osinka on the off chance Alexander gets testy.

Spoiler: Yellow-brick-road=money pit

According to my knowledge:

Trade routes are Domestic so you gain nothing from networking to city states aside from better influence. The formula for trade route pay off is something along the lines of [(city population * 1.1) + (capital population * .15) - 1] for each city connected to the capital, not including the capital.

Roads cost 1 gold per tile/per turn in maintenance once you build them. A trade route to Osinnka is only profitable (currently) if you build less than 3 roads. Without invading Geneva you'll need at least 7 to 11+ roads built. Meaning that the trade route to Osinnka is going to cost you money until the city hits above population 6 and your capital is at or above population 8 and it will take many more turns to offset the cost of investment(approx100-200) turns). This can probably be mitigated by connecting your next city as well, but frankly that costs road maintenance and the whole bit starts over again.

The Iroquois forest/jungle as roads ability only counts towards forests in their territory or 'friendly' territory (ie city states that are your ally/friends I forget which or civs friendly enough to have open borders.)

Keep in mind that as the Iroquois functionally buying a tile that contains forest or jungle counts as a road, so practically if a tile costs 50gold then after 50 turns it's paid for it's cost in road maintenance and each turn there-after allocates one less gold that you'd need to pay for creating giant bonus in gold per turn down the line. The best strategy being to let your borders naturally expand via culture and buy up a lot of tiles all at once to complete the trade route.

Since you're already not too invested I'd cut my losses and use my workers for something more productive. Building trading posts to offset the gold lost from the roads would be a better use of their time. And plan to take Geneva at the earliest opportunity as you can with a minimum of 5 roads plus buying tiles in forest complete a trade route for 3 cities in that area at a minimal cost that will actually start earning you income rather than depleting it. With the right tile buys and calculating for growth of cities, road maintenance, and taking Geneva will net you a around 6+ gold per turn initially and more after city growth with the investment on the trade route paid off in under 25-30 turns. Not bad; otherwise your trade route is going to cost you tons of gold and won't even pay for itself until well after the medieval era if at all.

How the hell did Osininka go from having 7 happiness to having 3? Surely our people don't love gold THAT much.

I'm pretty sure happiness is empire wide in Civ 5 in contrast to the previous installments. I expected it to drop to 2 happiness once gold got plundered, but I guess I missed something.

Current vote:
-Finish Stonehenge then queue up Warrior.
-Befriend all other civs and sell unneeded resources and luxuries that wont net you unhappiness.
-Research Writing after Iron Working.
-Scout (North/South)-West if/whenever possible.
-Send workers to build trading posts instead of finishing the road, so option B, but C is just as good if not better.
-(to placate my vanity)Name the new city that's about to be founded 'Waltzburg' ;D.

 

[Mr Thin]

Spoiler: Yellow-brick-road=money pit

According to my knowledge:

Trade routes are Domestic so you gain nothing from networking to city states aside from better influence. The formula for trade route pay off is something along the lines of [(city population * 1.1) + (capital population * .15) - 1] for each city connected to the capital, not including the capital.

Roads cost 1 gold per tile/per turn in maintenance once you build them. A trade route to Osinnka is only profitable (currently) if you build less than 3 roads. Without invading Geneva you'll need at least 7 to 11+ roads built. Meaning that the trade route to Osinnka is going to cost you money until the city hits above population 6 and your capital is at or above population 8 and it will take many more turns to offset the cost of investment(approx100-200) turns). This can probably be mitigated by connecting your next city as well, but frankly that costs road maintenance and the whole bit starts over again.

The Iroquois forest/jungle as roads ability only counts towards forests in their territory or 'friendly' territory (ie city states that are your ally/friends I forget which or civs friendly enough to have open borders.)

Keep in mind that as the Iroquois functionally buying a tile that contains forest or jungle counts as a road, so practically if a tile costs 50gold then after 50 turns it's paid for it's cost in road maintenance and each turn there-after allocates one less gold that you'd need to pay for creating giant bonus in gold per turn down the line. The best strategy being to let your borders naturally expand via culture and buy up a lot of tiles all at once to complete the trade route.

Since you're already not too invested I'd cut my losses and use my workers for something more productive. Building trading posts to offset the gold lost from the roads would be a better use of their time. And plan to take Geneva at the earliest opportunity as you can with a minimum of 5 roads plus buying tiles in forest complete a trade route for 3 cities in that area at a minimal cost that will actually start earning you income rather than depleting it. With the right tile buys and calculating for growth of cities, road maintenance, and taking Geneva will net you a around 6+ gold per turn initially and more after city growth with the investment on the trade route paid off in under 25-30 turns. Not bad; otherwise your trade route is going to cost you tons of gold and won't even pay for itself until well after the medieval era if at all.

*Hits google*
*looks up roads in Civ V*
Oooooh, this is totally different to Civ IV. Awesome! I am so tired of seeing roads everywhere in my games.

OK then, I shall amend my yellow brick road suggestion to something less fiscally pitiable.

How the hell did Osininka go from having 7 happiness to having 3? Surely our people don't love gold THAT much.

I'm pretty sure happiness is empire wide in Civ 5 in contrast to the previous installments. I expected it to drop to 2 happiness once gold got plundered, but I guess I missed something.

Another strange thingy explained! I feel my brain fizzing and expanding, like a dry sponge dropped in a pool of Pepsi.

 

[Bohemian Waltz]

Spoiler: Yellow-brick-road=money pit

According to my knowledge:

Trade routes are Domestic so you gain nothing from networking to city states aside from better influence. The formula for trade route pay off is something along the lines of [(city population * 1.1) + (capital population * .15) - 1] for each city connected to the capital, not including the capital.

Roads cost 1 gold per tile/per turn in maintenance once you build them. A trade route to Osinnka is only profitable (currently) if you build less than 3 roads. Without invading Geneva you'll need at least 7 to 11+ roads built. Meaning that the trade route to Osinnka is going to cost you money until the city hits above population 6 and your capital is at or above population 8 and it will take many more turns to offset the cost of investment(approx100-200) turns). This can probably be mitigated by connecting your next city as well, but frankly that costs road maintenance and the whole bit starts over again.

The Iroquois forest/jungle as roads ability only counts towards forests in their territory or 'friendly' territory (ie city states that are your ally/friends I forget which or civs friendly enough to have open borders.)

Keep in mind that as the Iroquois functionally buying a tile that contains forest or jungle counts as a road, so practically if a tile costs 50gold then after 50 turns it's paid for it's cost in road maintenance and each turn there-after allocates one less gold that you'd need to pay for creating giant bonus in gold per turn down the line. The best strategy being to let your borders naturally expand via culture and buy up a lot of tiles all at once to complete the trade route.

Since you're already not too invested I'd cut my losses and use my workers for something more productive. Building trading posts to offset the gold lost from the roads would be a better use of their time. And plan to take Geneva at the earliest opportunity as you can with a minimum of 5 roads plus buying tiles in forest complete a trade route for 3 cities in that area at a minimal cost that will actually start earning you income rather than depleting it. With the right tile buys and calculating for growth of cities, road maintenance, and taking Geneva will net you a around 6+ gold per turn initially and more after city growth with the investment on the trade route paid off in under 25-30 turns. Not bad; otherwise your trade route is going to cost you tons of gold and won't even pay for itself until well after the medieval era if at all.

*Hits google*
*looks up roads in Civ V*
Oooooh, this is totally different to Civ IV. Awesome! I am so tired of seeing roads everywhere in my games.

OK then, I shall amend my yellow brick road suggestion to something less fiscally pitiable.

It's actually a lot of fun when you raze a bunch of cities and the AI still has to pay the gold upkeep for all the roads built.

The trade network is still a good idea, but it's going to require much more effort and precision to make it work properly. It becomes a fantastic idea when combined with the Meritocracy policy in the Liberty social policy tree for +1 happiness for each city with trade route and -5% unhappiness. (which I think we've been working towards already)

 

[Eumersian]

I still think everything would have gone smoother if we had explored northwest first, which I suggested. >.<'

But I'm not bitter.

 

[lacktheknack]

Sorry about being late for today's update (GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH MATHEMATICS GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH).

Anyhow, get the little kid outside and cheering! Get your wallets out and prepare to pay through the nose! Osininka is building a circus!

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800540191104/43949D796926895EB1DB3A32BF195B4E2C3D90AE/

Now, let's just go visit the other Civs and -

WAT.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800540189651/ECF082FAECAAB9F133F85B72457A399D163F96C8/

WAT.

WAT WAT WAT.

GREECE IS NOW OUR FRIENDLIEST NEIGHBOR?!

...

SCREW YOU, ALEXANDER. SCREW. YOU.

Fine... let's go talk to the Incas.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800540188276/84C4FB86B24623DD034346164DD86537EDD9E87E/

I'll leave out the gory details (and trust me, they were gory), and leave you with the most generous offer he was willing to give me.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800540199804/B2A985A5E78587C798BF544AAA262D2D86C1FB5C/

Maybe Elizabeth will be less ridiculous in her dealings.

*image missing*

The best I could get out of Elizabeth was handing over our horses for 150 gold. Hopefully we won't need horses for thirty turns.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800540195267/205CAED7F90B747B43468DCA225B50B09699CA07/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800540196725/06F978477F76F49C7919D4248BBEC34786116786/

Fantastic, now GENEVA wants our help as well. Help them or burn them down? Or both?

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800540197730/0162CDC631AD251AF59050A0114F0A02FE0DD45F/

Grand River has been founded! (The motion to rename it "Waltzburg" has been put forward. Yea or nay?) What to build in it?

 

[Doc Gnosis]

In truth, I don't rightly care what name you want for the third settlement; personally, I don't think it is possible to rename a city. As for construction efforts, I'd recommend building a work boat and buying the water tile containing the pearls. Building a monument by itself would be good too.

Preparing warriors in the third settlement wouldn't be as important on account of it being sandwiched between a city state and Osininka. Unless you're all set to meet both Genoa's and Geneva's requests, this city may just be a long term investment when you finally have the means to build wealth, science, or culture. In case you are wanting to erase the encampment, archers would be better suited instead of warriors; they're just as powerful pound for pound, and can have an increased range one can work with. Besides, that place may be where the gold mine raider came from.

I'd have to agree with Eumersian and send a scout or spare unit to explore the west. The Greeks have effectively closed us off with no way to expand in that direction; so the next direction is opposite of Alexander. My recommendation: as soon as your Stonehenge project ends, invest in constructing units in Onondaga and send them westward. There's nothing for the Iroquois here but the looming glare of war on the horizon, despite our relations with our peers.

One final thing to note: If you're not going to construct roads to connect your two settlements to your capital, you'll need to discover the Compass; start with Optics, and the technology should reveal itself. Increasing the population could also help with boosting the science rate.

 

[Mr Thin]

Build a work boat! Fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy!

Yeah, sure, rename it.

How about we destroy the barbarian camp for Geneva, getting their reward (whatever that is), and then destroy them? Best of both worlds!

 

[Bohemian Waltz]

Preparing warriors in the third settlement wouldn't be as important on account of it being sandwiched between a city state and Osininka......In case you are wanting to erase the encampment, archers would be better suited instead of warriors; they're just as powerful pound for pound, and can have an increased range one can work with.

The benefit to warriors would be that once iron working is done the Iroquois can upgrade it for their special unit the Mohawk Warrior. A swordsman who doesn't need a source of iron and gets a 25%+ bonus for fighting in forests(which there are a lot of). The production time is smaller and for an investment in gold(which we have a lot of) you can get a strength 11 unit or strength 13.75 unit while fighting in forests. Compared to the Archers strength 6 at range 4 in melee.

How about we destroy the barbarian camp for Geneva, getting their reward (whatever that is), and then destroy them? Best of both worlds!

They're probably talking about the barb camp to the south that's blocking the ruins, you also get their city-state bonus/gold from the barb camp/random bonus from discovering the ruins. Cultural city-states give out a significantly awesome extra per culture bonus if you're above friendly with them; they're influence degrades over time though so it will only last for about 20-30 turns.

The best I could get out of Elizabeth was handing over our horses for 150 gold. Hopefully we won't need horses for thirty turns.

We could use them to make chariot archers, but with all the rough terrain their major benefit is pretty much wasted. Otherwise horsemen would be the choice to use you horses resource, but the tech required costs the same in science as iron working so even if we we researched horseback riding as soon as iron working is done it would still eat up 15-20 turns of that deal.

My votes:
-Build a fishy boat for the pearls. (Once it's done buy the tile so the boat can work them if <60gp)
-Workers re-build mine in Osininka then make a camp for deer then stable for sheep.
-Workers build a both plantations on your spices at the capital if that hasn't already been done otherwise build farms/trading posts as needed.
-If you have 2 archers or at least 1 warrior send them to sack that barb camp for the ruin and city-state benefit from Geneva. (Once their friendship runs out you should have the military to complete Genoa's offer *villain laugh*) Otherwise wait till you've built 1 archer 1 warrior (bombard till weak then mop up with warrior).

 

[Eumersian]

Alright, here goes:

-If we got the troops for it (which we probably don't) we should help Geneva. I like to keep city states as happy as possible all the time. We need all the help we can get, and taking out a barbarian camp will

• 1. Give us money
  2. Get us influence with Geneva, so we can then buy them up more easily

-Set Grand River to build a work boat.
-Go into Grand River and buy the tile with the pearls, so we can get them immediately.

That's it, right? I didn't miss anything?

 

[lacktheknack]

Work boat in Grand River it shall be!

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558951941/FA08053E062C711369461CE45A291F63F1C3EDC1/

Also, let's buy that tile with the pearls.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558946434/9B14B1801AF7A40D54AD4A72012C708B103D52ED/

Let's get those ex-roadworkers doing plantations.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558944428/B7FCAB65B6F7073F03ADAD44201A6111E9FE6ECF/

Let's bring our scouts down through Geneva, so they can explore west.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558940602/02569DBE61C75EDCD78B7E791D1C8F45D7A82145/

The goldmine is fixed, so off the workers go to set up a deer-hunting camp.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558942602/39967E7AB5D67DBCCD3331CE15D910CDB72E085E/

(Busy busy busy!)

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558947931/0030B0BBC6076ECEB420E7D17A20AF7F4D0604BB/

BIG culture bonus in Onondaga! Champagne all around!

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558955898/207107C1F43321A54712B89D15E71FC7CA45E124/

I don't we found any iron, though.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558957044/9544F19B9726443C6CBC0FFB9AB7F93D592D4AB0/

Excellent! We're moving along!

Oh, and because no one objected...

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558958466/296313B35BC5D98A3852F86DE9BA3C70297CAB42/

You owe me, Waltz!

Now just to make sure we all agree...

What do we build next in Onondaga? It seems split between an archer, warrior, or Mohawk warrior.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558953851/7BF1B4DF31B4FD997DC48FF6B539D7B8B094D1CF/

Also, we all wanted Writing, right?

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540649800558949161/0F03033E95CE6CE3BB06B9AEE26FEE6B58597DEE/

 

[Mr Thin]

Writing! Give our fine citizens the gift of literature. I'm sure they have many wonderful things to say.

As for what to build, I say barracks. Now that the Greeks have become huggable and are no longer an immediate threat, we can afford to wait a few turns and give our units a lovely boost when we start making them.

 

[Bohemian Waltz]

Sweet, I now have a serious preferential bias towards that city. You've made me a very happy senator of the Iroquois Empire.

I'm up for writing as well. Meeting as many civs as possible and combining that with 50gold for one way open borders with each of them every 30 turns is diplomacy abuse that and the free tech that the great library gives you for sling-shoting your way through the tech tree is always fantastic.

Spoiler: My Military/Growth Strategy

As for what to build in Onondaga, we have a decent amount of gold I say build a warrior then simply upgrade him with gold to a Mohawk Warrior as it will cut the production time in half. If gold permits then we can do this a 2nd time giving us 2 Mohawk warriors for the time that it takes to build 1. Plus it's the fastest unit we can build so we can use it for a short scouting trip in whatever direction we don't send our scouts while the next one builds just to get the lay of the land and get a better idea of where the next settlement should go. The 2nd we can upgrade send to take out the barbarian camp with our archer in osininka throwing up support.

A barracks is nice, but the maintenance of 1 gold per turn is a pain in the ass and I'm not that committed to having a giant military that would justify its use/production. No more than 2 Mohawks and 2 Archers should suffice for safety/barb issues.

We can also use them to eventually take Geneva later on (they only have 1 archer) as it's incense and value as a trade route to our north-eastern settlements is invaluable. The added bonus is that Alexanders trait makes him good at having a lot of city-states in his pocket and his AI is programmed to take advantage of that and he starts buying up their friendship quickly once he has the money to do so. Clearing one off the list of two that split our empire in two is of the utmost tactical importance in the long term as you can't out-compete his ability to buy their influence.

I'd argue that if we can't find anyone to take the pearls off us (ie a civ with 200-300 gold to spend) and we have enough luxuries to keep ourselves above 0 in happiness the fish at Waltzburg are more valuable than the pearls. We gain very little benefit from having happiness over 0 so working the pearls nets us simply a little extra gold per turn. However the fish nets us more food per turn which will allow Waltzburg to grow faster which is much more valuable since we can always work both tiles once we break population 2 in the city.

So unless we can find a civ that will buy up the luxury or we suddenly need it for some strange reason in my opinion fish should have priority once that work boat is done.

My votes:
-Build Warrior (then upgrade), or Mohawk warrior if you want to be miserly with your gold.
-Research Writing.

 

[Doc Gnosis]

Regarding the new construction project, the sensible choices are either a settler, a scout, or Barracks; the first two for exploring the west in better detail - and expansion before the other nations arrive here first, while the other's a long term investment in a future war. My recommendation: Build a settler. By the time your scouts have the west better mapped out, the timing would be great for finding the ideal spot for a new city.

Discovery-wise, Writing is my first choice with Masonry coming second; we'd have better opportunities to construct additional wonders. Mathematics would be third, while Optics and Horseback Riding duke it out for last.