Welcome to your SGOTM 13 Team thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game here, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest. I hope you enjoy the game.

The starting saves will become available on the SGOTM Progress and Results (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm_submission_list.php) page on December 14th, at midnight, server local time.

Rik Meleet has prepared a Huge map with 29 rivals, at Demigod level. You play as Japan, you start on a small island, and the only way anyone can win - before 2050 - is to build a spaceship. Thanks, Rik, and best wishes to both of you in your future as a married couple.

Here's the start.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/images/sgotm13-start.jpg
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/images/sgotm13-mini.jpg

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Japan
Difficulty - Demi-god
Opponents - 29
World - Huge (250 x 125), Continents, 70% water
Barbarians - Roaming

The map is handbuilt, and therefore may not have a standard configuration. Rik isn't saying anything, as he's far too busy on his honeymoon, but we can assume the map has been "adapted"

Game mods:
We shall use the default rules as defined in the SGOTM Reference Thread.

Following recent discussions about exploits for extracting large amounts of "free" gpt from the AI, so-called "Emsworth Agreements", we shall operate the following rule as proposed by Lanzelot:

In a deal which includes a resource, a millitary alliance or a trade embargo, the human player is not allowed to pay the AI more gpt to AI than the AI demands.

Detailed discussions of the reasoning surrounding this are available starting here in the Sign-up thread for this game, as well as in a number of other HoF and GOTM-related forums.

The SGOTM Mediterranean resources are included. If you have played previous C3C SGOTMs then you will be ready. Other players will need to download and unzip this small graphics mod pack (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/saves/SGOTM-C3C.zip). Details are provided in the SGOTM Reference Thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t= 112722).

Please ensure that you have included the line: NoAIPatrol=0 in your conquests.ini text file:


A 'fix' for the Barbarians!:
As many of you know, the barbarians in C3C are 'broken'. This can be fixed by going to your \Conquest\ folder, and opening your Conquests.ini file, and adding a line noaipatrol=0 to the file. Whilst we cannot force people to do this, it will make the game a bit more interesting if you do. If you are not comfortable editing your .ini file, you can download a utility here ( http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civassist/BarbFixer.zip) to do it automatically.


Players running Civ3 Complete for Macintosh should contact me if they have any problems with the mod. If they are not running a patched version they will need to use FileValet to compress their saves for upload, and they may also need to use it to 'clean' downloaded saves before playing.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared, skipping references to PtW or Vanilla versions of Civ3.

The GOTM Reference Thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=71788)
The SGOTM Reference Thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=112722)

Notes:

A. ONLY Conquests version 1.22 (C3C) is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for a single award set.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - the laurels will be awarded for the fastest Spaceship victory. The wooden spoons will go to the team with the lowest final Jason score, having completed the game one way or another.

C. All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.

D. Good luck, and enjoy the game :)

Current Roster and Schedule
Othniel - UP! (Feb 9)
zyxy - On Deck! (Feb 12)
eldar - Warming Up (Feb 15)
CommandoBob (Feb 18)
Niklas (Feb 21)
donsig (Feb 24)


Turnlogs
Turn 0 (4000 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6262735&postcount=41)
Turn 0-10 (4000 BC - 3500 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6267189&postcount=45)
Turn 10-20 (3500 BC - 3000 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6283421&postcount=72)
Turn 20-30 (3000 BC - 2550 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6286100&postcount=81)
Turn 30-38 (2550 BC - 2230 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6296759&postcount=92)
Turn 38-50 (2230 BC - 1750 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6302391&postcount=102)
Turn 50-60 (1750 BC - 1500 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6310922&postcount=114)
Turn 60-70 (1500 BC - 1250 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6327569&postcount=124)
Turn 70-76 (1250 BC - 1100 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6351318&postcount=139)
Turn 76-85 (1100 BC - 875 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6375573&postcount=167)
Turn 86-97 (875 BC - 610 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6380014&postcount=185)
Turn 97-111 (610 BC - 330 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6387109&postcount=194)
Turn 111-120 (330 BC - 150 BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6404295&postcount=235)
Turn 120-130 (150 BC - 50 AD) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6417083&postcount=247)
Turn 130-140 (50 AD - 250 AD) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6433176&postcount=260)
Turn 140-150 (250 AD - 350 AD) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6462928&postcount=279)

Wee, here we go again! :salute: :D

I'll think of something more useful to say soon, just wanted to get a post up. ;)
:p
show off

You just wanted to play the first 20 turns, that's all. :D

And once again, it is Christmas with the Smurkz! :xmascheers:

SmurkzerLurker post (so second play slot is still open CB. Looks like Niklas beat you in for a change EDIT: beat me while I'm posting. Guess 3rd spot is open then.).

Settler: Definitely settle in place. Moving either looses the oysters or the cow and a valuable turn towards curaughs.

Research: Alphabet for boats.

Short term goals: Get boats scouting. Get a second town on the grass 2SE.

We are going to be very far behind the AI when we meet them that we're going to have to trade our way up. I've never played DemiGod, but my guess is it will be faster to rely on the AI to research for us and use our money for enough military support to acquire much needed land as well as create have and have nots for trading potentials.

Good luck Smurkz!

Hi CF! :wavey: Glad to have you here, feel free to comment on anything at any time. But you know that. :)

Settler: Definitely settle in place. Moving either looses the oysters or the cow and a valuable turn towards curaughs.
I don't see how we could lose the cow by moving. I'm actually wondering if it could possibly be worth our while to move to settle on the hill 1E. We can't irrigate obviously, so a plains tile will always be less worth than a hill, which would speak in favor of not moving. The difference could be if there's something offshore on the other coast that we'd be missing out on, since the closest sure looks pretty bleak. Worker should of course go to the cow first, which should give us a better view.

Research: Alphabet for boats.
No argument there.

Short term goals: Get boats scouting. Get a second town on the grass 2SE.
That's another thing speaking in favor of settling in place, unless 2SE is also a BG, in which case it wouldn't really matter on which BG the second town goes.

We are going to be very far behind the AI when we meet them that we're going to have to trade our way up. I've never played DemiGod, but my guess is it will be faster to rely on the AI to research for us and use our money for enough military support to acquire much needed land as well as create have and have nots for trading potentials.
Indeed, on this level we won't be doing much research on our own, until way into the MA anyway. But so very much depends on when we find the AIs.

Good luck Smurkz!
Thanks, and drop by soon and often! :)

29 rivals? Demi-god? Are we starting on a seven tile island? What have I gotten into?

If we do live on a seven-tile island and are planning on squeezing two cities here then why wouldn't we settle where we are? If we're planning on one city here then why not the hill? If we're not on Gilligan's Island then never mind. :D

Hey Smurzkians, Othniel reporting in and excited to be on board! :salute:

*Stream of consciousness*

I'm a liken' just settling in place. Even if we're on a peninsula (unlikely), I suspect the best resources are what we see now.

For research path, Alpha's the logical choice. On the other hand...what about the Colossus?? Assuming we're on a tiny island, we'll have a lot of extra shield capacity that would normally be invested in settlers. Of course, this could be similar to the last SG where the other civs' islands are very close by and we'd probably want an early military strike. That possibility aside, an early Colossus shooting our research faster toward Map Making and beyond could be huge.

Now, trading for Bronze Working will be tough without boats. ;) Getting the Colossus first, though, would probably mean we need BW right away because we have nothing for a big pre-build. Some AI's will start with BW and be on the coast (Byzantine, etc). But giving up early boats, that's really rough.

What does an oyster give? The screenshot seems to suggest an oyster gives +1 shields and +1 ?commerce? to a coastal tile. If you hadn't guessed, this is my first time using the Mediterranean graphics pack. :mischief:

Mine the cow first or road it first for extra commerce to get research sped up?

Also, what about not building a settler until we get *Alpha* so our capital can stay big and churn commerce. Probably need to see the rest of the "island" tiles before we decide.

Excel time soon...

*end stream of consciousness*

Signing in...

Loose thoughts:

I agree with settling in place.

If the AI's are isolated, then we can hopefully dominate the trading game with relative ease.

The cost of alphabet is 285. We should be able to do 6-7 bpt when we reach size 3 (3 bpt from the capital, 2 from fish, and 1 from cow or 2 from the rocks - no, that's not an oyster). Probably a max run will pay off, but we need to calculate.

Commerce seems more needed than shields in this stage. So I would road before mine.

Intriguing idea about the Colossus. Is it feasible to get it first? BW costs 171, so that's about 30-35 turns. The best prebuild we have is a 30 shield temple. With the visible tiles, we can do 6 spt at size 3, so that makes ETA of the Colossus at turn (200-30)/6 + 30, that is, around turn 60.

Our starting techs are wheel and cb. They are pretty useless IMO. Well, at least we know that we have no horses on the visible tiles.

If we all agree about settling in place, then we could do that and discuss from there with more complete map knowledge.

Good day everyone. I'll mull over strategy once I'm home from work.

Thinking cap on.

I agree with:
- Settling in place. No point going anywhere.
- Research Alpha @ Max for Curragh spam. I hope there is at least a trail of coastal tile to follow, otherwise it's going to be down to random chance who gets contacts first.

Some random thoughts:
- With 29 rival DG civs I don't see the Philo slingshot going anywhere.
- Don't waste shields on the Colossus, because we'll no doubt be Palace-jumping at some point leaving the Colossus city hopelessly corrupt.
- What about the GLib? Build it, give it away, then re-capture at the "opportune moment"? Amazing what a vast stack of Trebs+LBs can kill....

Everyone is here and accounted for! :salute:

Judging by the Predator Galley Challenge in GOTM 72, a colossus is a waste of time. And in that game we even started with BW, and the difficulty was Warlord. I don't see any way the Colossus will be built later than turn 40 in this game.

eldar's GLib idea is very interesting though, if we can pull something like that off it could really help us. Though I find it much more likely that we will be capturing the GLib from someone who built it for us. :evil:

Here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56874) is the discussion on the mediterranean resource pack. Rocks indeed give +1 shield and +1 commerce.

First thoughts in Random Order:

Settling in place is fine, unless the Vikings are in play. Only for them would I consider moving onto the hill. Well, maybe if the Bzyantines are in play, too.
Bezerks or Dromonds; I just hope they are not nearby.

I can almost convince myself that there are more coastal tiles to the SW, but not quite. :(

Hadn't considered a palace jump, but, boy-o-boy, it sure makes sense.

Not sure about trying for the Great Library, but if we can build it, use it or take it I'm all for it.

The map size is odd: 250 x 125. This is a much larger map than we have played on before (SGOTM 12, 11, 10 and 9 were standard; SGOTM 8 was small; didn't go back any further). This gives us 31,250 tiles; a Huge map (160 x 160) has only 25,600 tiles. Just running the numbers, we have 9,375 non-water tiles for 30 civs, or about 300 tiles per civ on average. We, of course, are above average. :smug:

What is of concern is running out of cities, since only 512 are allowed in the game. I've seen that happen in some AW games here, but I don't recall how early that becomes an issue. I don't expect this to be a factor, but sometimes I do chase rabbits. :run:

Since this is a Meleet Made Map, I expect to find only one source of Aluminum, on a small island, halfway around the world. :D

Since this is a Meleet Made Map, I expect to find only one source of Aluminum, on a small island, halfway around the world. :D

QFT! Hopefully by the time we need Aluminum, we'll have 65% of the land and 99% of the pop. ;)

Yeah, the Colossus would not be a long-term benefit, that's for sure. Definitely a palace jump will need to happen unless this special Meelet map has the other 29 civs on tiny islands...and the rest of the world is all ocean. :eek: I don't think anyone will make space by 2050 if that were the case. :lol:

Seriously though, my thought on the Colossus was just to boost us to Galleys and Republic. Based on the figures that zyxy threw out and Niklas' link, it wouldn't be enough of a boost. So, scratch that thought out.

Okay, GLib elevator is a good thought, but I think we need to see the rest of how the AI are set up. If the AI is isolated on fairly small landmasses, I really wonder if the tech pace will be fast enough to warrant the elevator. If we capture the GLib in the normal course of "business", well then...

Another wonder shout-out...The Lighthouse?

I really, really want to see the rest of our island, especially if there are other landmasses visible from that mountain lookout point. Probably wishful thinking, but that water to the S-SE could be a tiny fresh water lake...

Would we consider wasting a worker move to climb the hill and get a better look?

Another watchout for colosus is that the extra commerce is wasted in despotism from coastal tiles
(2+1colosus=3-1despotism=2 :crazyeye: )

On diety, it's tough to build colosus or great library. Demigod, isolated would be nearly impossible. Another risk to the Library would be if our first contact was with two civs that know Education already, a distinct possibility at this level and isolation. That would kill the potential for later GLE (Great Library Elevator, copyright SirPleb). We may want to fight with a giant stack of cats and LBs long into the Industrial Age and take the AI built GLib later. I wouldn't waste sheilds on it now.

If my guess is right, we'll have no surplus of sheilds. They will all be used for suicide boats and archers for upgrade.

I don't think the hill will show much beyond the coastal view from the cow, so I wouldn't waste the worker move.

Would we consider wasting a worker move to climb the hill and get a better look?

Unless we see something on the hill to cause us to want to not settle in place I don't think it's worth it. Why not just settle in place and see what we see then?

Unless we see something on the hill to cause us to want to not settle in place I don't think it's worth it. Why not just settle in place and see what we see then?

I agree. I don't think the worker will see anything to change our minds on our opening moves.

The only thing I can see changing my mind on settling in place would be a cow or wheat on the tile SE-SE or a plethora of whales in the 2NE area of the hill. Then I think we might want to settle our two cities on the hill and on the BG south of our start. But my limited fog-gazing skills don't seem to suggest a wheat or cow on that SE-SE tile. No dice on fog-gazing the sea tiles either.

I think we've agreed on Alpha at max no matter what.

I assume also that our first build is a warrior. Sending him to the mountain ASAP should let us know if any neighbors are nearby or if more land is available than we think, and we can then adjust accordingly.

Hmm. It's still not clear that we're on such a small island. E of the mountain, S of the Grass, could still be narrow necks of land. I guess we'll find out once the first Warrior is out and roaming.

Meanwhile F10 says the only opponent we don't have is Greece.

(Edited this post after I discovered the cow is standing on a bg)

Indeed, there could be more land. If so, I would rather research pottery than Alpha.

If we want to maximize commerce, this is what the start could look like.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC4000_spreadsheet-1.png

The commerce total takes into account that we have to spend 1 gpt on lux tax for the 4th citizen.

I joined the worker to the town to generate extra coins. Also, there is nothing worthwhile left to improve. Note that the cow already has 2 spt (must be a bg underneath), so mining the cow is useless. Mining the bg is of course of some use, but we seem to generate enough shields already.

If we don't build a settler, then we'll get Alpha on turn 35. But building a settler will probably speed this up.

If we want we could send the worker to the hill on the first turn, as he has an idle turn anyway. It will cost us 1 gold.

Interesting that there isn't much for the worker to do. I think we're on a small island but others are close by. Moving the worker to the hill looks more appealing now.

(Edited this post after I discovered the cow is standing on a bg)

Indeed, there could be more land. If so, I would rather research pottery than Alpha.


Thanks for putting together a spreadsheet. :thumbsup:

Interesting that the cow has a BG under it. The starting screenie only shows 1 shield.

Even if there is more land--and eldar's right, we don't know conclusively--I think getting alpha first will be more beneficial than an ultra-early granary. Any more land won't be immediately accessible and our capital can't grow above 6 pop anyway. Getting contacts should result in immediate benefits.

If this isn't an island, I would probably vote to not join the worker. I know zyxy did that to demonstrate a max commerce start. With more land, getting a road to new city sites will be valuable.

Even if this is a two-city island, I'm not sure that the benefit of more commerce will be worth joining the worker. We gain +2 commerce/turn, although that is partially offset by paying +1 lux tax sooner through having more pop early. Also, getting the hill and the BG mined and preparing city site #2 would be decent projects to accomplish once the worker is idle. You can really never have too much shield potential, IMO. Can anyone calculate how many turns we'd shave off alpha by joining the worker?

Trying to read the team progress graphs...

It looks like team Klarius built an early temple. Teams Ivan and Spooks look to have gone for an early settler.

We're one of three teams not started yet. That's ok, haste makes waste. :D

Alright, some administrative stuff. I'll be using the :whipped: a lot more than you may be used to, since our last games have really dragged out far longer than necessary (and huge :thanx: to CF for steering us right). I will expect a "got it" within 24 hours of the handoff, a turn strategy plan within 48 and a handoff within 72 hours. This can of course be extended on a per-need basis, if there's lots of discussion about something, but if you know in advance you'll be away or busy then please ask for a swap in advance. I'll try to keep an updated roster and tentative schedule in my first sign-in post (which is why I wanted that post, not to steal the first 20 from CB ;)).

Smurkz tradition dictates that the initial roster be created in sign-in order, but as I know how badly CB wants to play the start (and since I will (likely) be up in the CIV SGOTM), I'll defer that pleasure to him. So I propose the following tentative roster, yell if you want up or down:
CommandoBob
Niklas
donsig
Othniel
zyxy
eldar

I can't for the world understand why team klarius would build an early temple. Except possibly the fact that there's nothing else to build, but two MP warriors ought to pay off better, no? The +1 :) is offset by -1 gpt for maintenance. :confused:

I can't for the world understand why team klarius would build an early temple. Except possibly the fact that there's nothing else to build, but two MP warriors ought to pay off better, no? The +1 :) is offset by -1 gpt for maintenance. :confused:

20k? :crazyeye: :rolleyes:

No, probably nothing better to build and they free up unit support for curragh spamming or something. According to my tea-leaf reading skills and ESP connection, I guess that means they didn't want a second city right away, which suggest to me limited space and resources in the foggy part to the south-east. I could be very wrong. :)

Administratively, please be aware that I'll be away for the holiday season from around the 18th until the 4th of January. I might have my laptop with me and possibly an internet connection, but I may or may not be able to play a set.

20 turns for CBob and 10 turns the rest of the way?

Ok, actually it's not so mysterious when looking at the number of turns they played. At turn 35 they have 64 culture, the palace accounts for 50 of those, which means they built their temple on the IBT of turn 28/29. The two first warriors are built in ~8 turns leaving plenty of time for a temple after that. Actually it's more of a mystery what they built between the warriors and the temple. :crazyeye:

And yes, 20 turns for CB and 10 the rest, it's worked well before! :)

Even if this is a two-city island, I'm not sure that the benefit of more commerce will be worth joining the worker. We gain +2 commerce/turn, although that is partially offset by paying +1 lux tax sooner through having more pop early. Also, getting the hill and the BG mined and preparing city site #2 would be decent projects to accomplish once the worker is idle. You can really never have too much shield potential, IMO. Can anyone calculate how many turns we'd shave off alpha by joining the worker?

Even then, the better option would be to first join the worker and later build a new one. We have plenty of shields and nothing to do with it except build a settler - note that my scheme stops building anything after the first two warriors. The bottleneck seems to be how fast we can get to Alpha and MapMaking.
So perhaps the build queue should be: warrior - warrior - settler - some warriors and a new worker - curragh. Joining the initial worker will help to keep the capital large enough.

I think the first thing to do is to decide our opening moves - worker to cow or hill? Settle in place? Once we've done that, we can calculate the commerce output from a second town.

AdminStuff first: I'll be away from the 22nd to the 29th inclusive, I will have 'net access and as long as the med resources and save work on a Mac version of C3C I could play a set, but don't count on me being able to do so during that period.

Temple: Depends how isolated we really are. Eventually we'll want to build an aqueduct (indeed is it worth bee-lining Constr right after Maps?) and we will have happiness issues if we're very alone. Temple+Cathedral then will be worthwhile.

A temple could have resulted in a failed prebuild for a wonder?

Or a temple could be used to offset a difference in size between the two towns.

With the fish, cow and two grass the max size is 7 (those four tiles plus three of {coast/hill/plains}). Of course we're limited to size 6 until construction unless there's an underground river.

When we build the second town, we lose one citizen because we're consuming the grassland, but we gain two because of the free food in the city center. So with two towns our maximum population becomes:
capitol: cow + 3 coasts/plains/hill + fish + BG=6
town 2: 2 coasts = 2

We could balance that out eventually by building workers to transfer pop to the other town and letting the fish and bg be worked by town 2, but a temple would be cheaper, faster and easier. So the temple makes sense if you're fight a lopsided population.

I think we should join the worker after roads are on the cow, BG and grass and the BG is mined (in that order). The capitol grows every 7 turns at size 4, but slows to every 10 at size 5 and to 20 at size 6. On a giligan start it seems to keep the growth potential as long as possible is best so ideally, planning to build the settler the turn we would have grown from size 4 to size 5 is best. Adding the worker after turn six of being at size 4, the food bin would have 6turns*3fpt=18. Adding the worker drops the city to 2fpt at size 5 so it would still grow to size 6, build the settle and drop to size 4 which keeps the town as large as it can be while still making 3fpt. Using the same growth is power philosophy, we build three workers when we would grow from 4 to 5. Then add 1 to town 2 and 2 to the cap to get to 6 and 2 (or we build 2, add them both to town 2 and let the capitol grow to it's max size of 5 letting town 2 have the BG)

I think the first thing to do is to decide our opening moves - worker to cow or hill? Settle in place? Once we've done that, we can calculate the commerce output from a second town.

I think we should move to the hill first, assuming we can do that, post a screenie and discuss it more. The view from the hill would help us decide where to settle initially and get a plan together. Since there seems little for the worker to do the benefit of the move outweighs the cost of not moving directly to the cow.

I think CF's suggested worker moves is the way to go, but I also agree with donsig that climbing the hill is probably worthwhile. We would hate ourselves forever (or the rest of the game at any rate) if we missed something due to greed, wanting that extra 1 gp.

I also think a temple should go into the build queue, probably after the settler. At some point we will have a population skew, and even with the much higher commerce output it's likely that a temple will pay off.

I agree to let the worker climb the hill.

I am not so sure about CF's worker plan, but we can work out the alternatives once we have had a look around.

CB, are you still around?

Worker to the hill. Better get us going CB.

My thoughts on the worker actions are:
If we join the worker on turn 2 (scout hill on 0 , move back on 1, join on 2)) because we're going to loose the 1gpt from the cow for a long time in favor of getting the fish 2gpt for an extra 5 turns. In other words, it only pays to join the worker right away if the 10gpt up front will get us alphabet. If it doesn't, then we start loosing (from where we'd be if worker not joined) 1gpt from the cow on turn 4 (scout hill on 0, move cow on 1, road 2, road 3, road 4) and then we start loosing 1gpt from not having the BG roaded on turn 14 (what it will take to get to size 3) and another 1gpt from not having the grass roaded on turn 21 (what it takes to get to size 4).

I don't have time to spread sheet the two scenarios, but my belief is it takes alphabet longer by joining the worker before roading the cow/bg and grass. I don't care about mines because, unless there's more land, there's nothing to build but the settler until size 5 or boats at alphabet. It's probably worth spread sheeting the commerce for joining at turn 2 versus joining at turn 9 (road cow and BG, then join) and not joining until needed for the settler.

But I agree that we should move the worker to the hill and post screenie.

Yeah, we need to get moving. Worker to hill, CB can recreate the move:

http://xs222.xs.to/xs222/07500/001hillclimb.png

Interesting. It looks like the land does continue south. Isolated, maybe, but not necessarily by sea.

At least we have something to do with the warrior we'll build.

I still think worker roads all the way to the grass and may continue south from there if the land does indeed expand.

The oyster offsets the food bias a little so the temple is less important and the settler more important.

Settle in place IMO.

My immediate thought is that if the land indeed continues, we should settle 1SE. That means we lose the rocks for any town, but get a stronger capitol, and the oysters will speed up research. But if the land ends beyond the BG, we should settle in place and a second town on the grass. And there's no way of knowing. :crazyeye:

Even if the land continues, the advertisement says we'll "eventually" meet the world, and if it's a long walk then curraghs may still be the best option to get contacts.

Here's a new spreadsheet, based on settling in place. I'm still joining the worker to prevent the capital from dropping in size too much, but a little later than before. I think this is the best move, unless there's more land to the south. I also added in the commerce effect of a second town on the grass N of the oysters. As you can see we'll get Alpha on turn 35 according to this scheme.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC4000_spreadsheet2.png

EDIT: on turn 20, the town is really size 2. This is shown correctly in the original sheet, but not in this pic, apparently. Sorry for that.

EDIT2: the second warrior is free to scout.

Since there's no way of knowing how much (if any) lands lay to the south we should just settle in place.

Been busy with church choir productions for Christmas; last one begins in 30 minutes. Then RL stuff for a while, but I will be able to get the one move done and posted before bed time.

Just the one move, correct?

Niklas already did it. See post #32

I agree with donsig and zyxy. Settle in place, road the tiles we need and then join the worker.

If warrior finds more land, we may want granary instead of warriors?

We have enough for CB to play until the fog is pushed back more.

Preflight discussion.

00 4000 BC

Move Worker01 E onto hilltop.

And the save is >>HERE<< (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/58993/Smurkz_SG013_BC4000_01.sav).
Did not upload through the SGOTM server; based on SGOTM 12's experience in this same situation, figured the server would still see this as a second start file.

The World as We Know It 4000 BC
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM13-Smurkz/TS01/4000BC_Worker01Tweaked.jpg

This is almost a redo of Niklas' Post #32, but it is our offical turn, and has the save attached.

I will play to Turn 10 tomorrow, post for discussion, and then continue on to Turn 20.

I am also Turnplayer for Team FREE in the Multi-Team Demo Game 2, and we are over 12 hours behind in getting our turn played. I would rather play that one turn badly than forge ahead here and play 10 turns badly.

My thoughts...

I'm not really in favour of joining the worker, especially if there is a narrow neck of land leading south - a road towards our neighbours will be more helpful in the long run. We'll lose 2g by moving the worker up the mountain to see if the land does, indeed, go on - will that break our schedule?

I don't think we need to move onto the mountain. The plan is not to join the worker until way after the first warrior is built anyway, so if we're decided to settle in place anyway then it only means a slight delay in knowing whether the land goes on or not. We can decide if we want to join the worker or not after we know if there's more land.

I'm still tempted to move the settler SE but I guess that's just my want to do things differently :crazyeye:. I have no problem with settling in place, and that's probably the wisest move. zyxy's turnplan looks good to me. :thumbsup:

I think zyxy's plan looks good for at least the first 10 turns, so how 'bout CB play those and then when he does his scheduled 10-turn break, we can revise as needed.

A little pre-revising brainstorm session... ;)

If there isn't anymore land, I think we should consider putting the 2nd city on the BG in the southeast. We lose 1 turn in moving the settler and also lose +1spt (until the city gets to size 7, right??), but we gain more coastal tiles for the 2nd city. I'm guessing that if we are indeed isolated, we'll probably get aqueducts and harbors in our starting cities before we're able to jump to another landmass. Perhaps we won't be able to spare the shields, but the ducts and harbors--together with plenty of coastal tiles--should gives us a fair bit of commerce. I'm hoping for whales or fishies in the fog to the south. :please:

Also, if we place the 2nd city on the BG, we save our worker from having to build one more road. Truth be told, I'm still a little hesitant about joining the worker. I know joining will keep our capital above size 1 always and speeds the research at first glance.

If we join the worker: According to zyxy's sheet...

We'll have 73 spare shields post-building the settler until we get alpha. Those 73 shields could be:

Seven warriors- Dubious. No $$ for upgrades, only possible iron nearby, unit support issues
A temple plus "other stuff"- Maybe decent
Granary- good if more land, but we need Pottery.
Wealth- Possibly. :dunno:

Wealth intrigues me. Pre-Economics, I think C3C gives 1gpt for every 4spt. That means we'd make 18gp extra with those 73 shields. That would speed Alpha at least 1 turn, maybe two.

IF we didn't join the worker, but instead had him mine like a fiend, we could have him mine the cow, the capital's BG, and one other flatland tile after doing his roading work (assuming we settled the second city on the other BG). That would translate into +2 or 3spt and if we built wealth, more gpt.

My calcs are very rough, admittedly. I don't generally like the idea of building wealth in the capital :p, but in this case it might payoff the most, better than a temple.

Basically, I'm thinking IF we settled our second city of the BG and IF we didn't join the worker but had him mine instead, we might make up the gpt we lose by NOT joining the worker. I think we still lose a bit, but it's pretty close. Plus, we'll be in much better shape improvement-wise when the time comes for us to pump units. We do lose out on a temple build, but we'd still have a worker around, saving us 10 shields in the future.

Of course, if there's more land we could have the worker build a big road to somewhere. That would kinda negate some of the "don't join / mine instead and build wealth" argument. ;)

If we do join the worker, I think the second city needs to make a worker as the first build.

00 4000 BC (continued)

We found the city of Sensei Smurkz ('Sensei' is Japanese for 'Teacher').
We start a warrior and work the fish.
We begin to learn Alphabet at 100%, 50 turns.



[I] 01 3950 BC

Work the CowBG, not the fish.
Worker01 NE onto CowBG.



[I] 02 3900 BC

Worker01 roads the CowBG, finish in 3.



[I] 03 3850 BC

Worker01: road in 2.



Sensei Smurkz rWarrior (01) -> rWarrior in 4.

[I] 04 3800 BC

Worker01: road in 1.
Warrior01: fortify in place.



[I] 05 3750 BC

Worker01: road completed on CowBG, moves SW into Sensei Smurkz and then S onto BG.
We see a little bit more of the south, but just coastal and sea tiles.



[I] 06 3700 BC

Worker01 roads the BG, finish in 3.


Sensei Smurkz rWarrior (02) -> rWarrior in 4.

[I] 07 3650 BC

New citizen in Sensei Smurkz works the fish, not the BG.
Worker01 roads the BG, finish in 2.
Warrior02 moves E onto hill.



[I] 08 3600 BC

Worker01 roads the BG, finish in 1.
Warrior02 moves SE onto mountain.
We are on an island.



[I] 09 3550 BC

Worker01 finishes the road to the BG, moves E onto grassland.
Warrior02: moves S from mountian.
Work the grassland and complete Warrior03 this IBT.


Sensei Smurkz rWarrior (03) -> rWarrior in 3.
Border expansion.

[I] 10 3500 BC

Worker01: road the grassland in 3.
Warrior02: S to the end of land; sees only more water.
Warrior03: fortifies in Sensei Smurkz for lack of any other task.
We work the fish and not the grass.

[IBT]

Our World at 3500 BC
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM13-Smurkz/TS01/3500BC_OurWorldTweaked.jpg


And the save is >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC3500_01.SAV).

Current plan is to build a fourth warrior (due on Turn 12), followed by a settler (due on Turn 20) and joining the worker back into Sensei Smurkz on Turn 18.

So an island it is, sigh. Let's just hope we have coastal access to the SW, otherwise this game will be a game of chance.

Anyway, well played so far CB :goodjob:. But don't we have enough warriors by now? Another unit and we'll start paying upkeep, not good.

I think we do have enough, but I was following the spreadsheet. It shows warriors being produced on Turn 4 and 10 but the reality was Turn 4, 7 and 10.

If we start the settler now it looks like it will finish on Turn 17 or so (based on eyeball calculations, not pen and paper).

Build our second city on the BG 3SE of Sensei Smurkz or the coastal pennisula?

Or should we start a curragh before we expand?

I'd be willing to bet there is accessable land nearby. The real Japan consists of more than one island close together and this map probably has the same flavor.

Shouldn't we make a settler before the curragh? With 4 warriors, a worker and a curragh wouldn't we pay 2gpt upkeep while we build our settler?

In particular we want Alphabet before we build a curragh. :p

Well done CB!

There seems to be a problem with the spreadsheet - somehow shields are lost on turn 6 in the sheet.

We could start training the settler now, or switch to wealth for a few turns. The first case goes like this:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC4000_spreadsheet3.png

Where do we settle the second town? Where the warrior is right now?

Do we want one or two more towns on our landmass? I don't think two is unreasonable, one on each grassland tile.

In particular we want Alphabet before we build a curragh. :p
Oh, my goodness. :blush: I have a terrible time rating/remembering the Ancient Age Techs!


Where do we settle the second town? Where the warrior is right now?
I favor where our warrior stands right now. I don't recall the land type. But building here allows the grassland-only tile to be swapped by both cities.

If I read the spreadsheet right, the settler will complete on Turn 17 and be born on Turn 18. Also on Turn 18 we will join Worker01 to Sensei Smurkz.

On Turn 18 our settler would move S, E and SE onto the 2nd BG. On Turn 19 it would move S and join Warrior02. On Turn 20 it would become a city, and start a warrior as a prebuild to something better.

After the settler, what do we build in Sensei Smurkz (SS)?

I second settling where the warrior is right now.

I think we can make one more warrior there for MP duty, which will take 5 turns. We'd still be 15? turns away from Alphabet though. We could then join the worker to SS, and start a worker from the second city.

As for what to do with SS: I think we can work out what Klarius decided to do (Temple). So it's either Temple, or Wealth. I think we need to work out how a Temple will benefit us (in the long run, I reckon it will), and when it will start benefiting us.

I second settling where the warrior is right now.

I think we can make one more warrior there for MP duty, which will take 5 turns. We'd still be 15? turns away from Alphabet though. We could then join the worker to SS, and start a worker from the second city.

As for what to do with SS: I think we can work out what Klarius decided to do (Temple). So it's either Temple, or Wealth. I think we need to work out how a Temple will benefit us (in the long run, I reckon it will), and when it will start benefiting us.

If we settle the second city where the warrior is now, that city will be very shield-poor. It could work a mined grass tile and a mined BG tile for 3spt. Add in the city center and it would have a permanent max of 4spt.

If we just go with two cities total, I favor settling on the BG. It costs us 1spt for now, but that way we can swap around the hill and mountain tiles for extra shields when needed. More flexible MM that way.

I also like the idea of doing three cities. More cramped, but we'll have better unit support and maybe we wouldn't need to build aqueducts to fully utilize all our tiles. It will be critical to maximize our use of every tile since we have so few to begin with.

I like the idea to build three cities. They will certainly provide more commerce - and free support - than 2. Hence, we can train a second settler right after the first.

We're stuck on this island until we get MapMaking, which is a long ways off. We'll need commerce much more than shields.

With three cities, we'll have to MM our food bonuses closely, especially that wonderful oyster. A city on the peninsula could be commerce-rich, but especially before harbors it will grow slowly.

I whole-heartedly agree that for now our bottleneck is getting enough commerce to speed to Map Making. Once we get galleys, though, I think the big issue will be getting enough shields to make the necessary units for taking over better lands. IMO that's why we need to be extra-conscious of how we're setting ourselves up for shield production.

P.S. It's getting harder to express anger on the forum. Adding a Santa cap to the :mad: smiley just makes it hard to be taken seriously. :p

Good thing the left the :gripe: free then. ;)

I think the case for two towns is strong. Do we have a spreadsheet incorporating that?

Good thing the left the :gripe: free then. ;)

:lol: True that.

Ok, so we have three votes (unofficially) for making three towns. I'd work up a spreadsheet right now, but I'm not sure my boss would be appreciative. :mischief:

I'm still some hours away from playing the next 10 turns and my biggest concern is where to plant the next city. I don't want to stifle discussion, so if we need to take some time to resolve 2 cities vs. 3 cities or where to place our second city, that's okay with me. I can play tomorrow also.

With three cities, we have only two locations: 2SE of SS (grass) and 3SE-S of SS (probably plains).
With two cities, we have only three locations: 2SE of SS (grass), 3SE of SS (BG) and 3SE-S of SS (probably plains).

3 cities is tempting but has limited growth potential. It's too late for me to start putting together possible scenarios of population, growth, etc.

Certainly the 3rd city on the tip of the island would have to use the bg and clams to get to size 3 and would then support a single specialist, then that would be it 'til maps.

2 is probably better, with 2nd on the bg for better shields.

Okay, I take back what I said earlier: 3 looks better than 2. I did a spreadsheet with some pretty colours.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/45827/SGOTM13_tiles.JPG

(I just reformatted eldar's work so I could understand it better. :D)

With two or three cities, we still have only 10 citizens.

Two Cities
SS (6): 10 shields, 10 commerce.
#2 (4): 04 shields, 07 commerce.
Totals: 14 shields, 17 commerce.

Three Cities
SS (6): 10 shields, 10 commerce.
#2 (2): 05 shields, 04 commerce.
#3 (2): 02 shields, 03 commerce.
Totals: 17 shields, 17 commerce.

Three cities sure seems to beat two cities; more shields for sure, though the commerce is the same. If we use eldar's alternate citizen placement on City #3,the shields drops by one to 16, but commerce increases to 21.

When I first looked at eldar's "charts", I was trying to read them by rows and columns. I was very confused. Finally, like one of those magic pictures that you have to stare at for a while, I realized I was looking at a map of our little isle... :hammer2: :p

Anyhow, good work, eldar, on mathematically showing the best scenario. :goodjob: The only thing is that it will take longer to get to 3 cities and costs us some commerce in SS as we build the second settler. Oh well, I still vote for 3 cities.

It takes SS 14 turns to grow the 2 pop for a settler. Any new city will of course only grow at +2fpt, unless we allow 'City2' out of 3 to share the cow with SS.

Now it's late again, but I have "work" again tomorrow so I could always work out the amount of commerce (approx) gained along the way to getting 2 vs. 3 cities.

I have a feeling though that long-term those 4 extra units supported will be crucial.

Hmm, of course, one other thing we can work out, is what our Lux tax will need to be. SS will be size 6 with 10 commerce. 2 MPs give 3 content, 3 unhappy. We will need 3 gold from Lux to make it happy (3 happy, 3 unhappy) which, since it's a nice round number, means we need Lux @ 30%.

Building a Temple gives us 4 content, 2 unhappy. We'd still need 2 gold from Lux for parity, 20%. But there is 1gpt disappearing into the ether every turn due to the Temple. So no Temple.

It would be nice if that 30% lux could mean we get away with no MPs in the other cities (which I think it would).

If we go with three cities on the Isle of Smurkz (still a debatable issue to me, lacking input from Niklas, zyxy or ControlFreak), I think we should settle on the pennisula first, so that we can use the grassland for growth. But this is just a gut feel; the actual facts may be very different.

I vote three towns, definitely. But we can decide that after your turnset concludes, no? What we need to decide now is when to build that first settler, and what to build before it.

It takes SS 14 turns to grow the 2 pop for a settler.
If SS dropped from size 3 to 1 it could take that long. But according to zyxy's last spreadsheet (Post #50), the settler would be born on the IBT of Turn 17 and on Turn 18 we add the worker to SS, bringing it up to size 2. On Turn 21 SS would be at size 3; size 4 on Turn 28. On Turn 25 we could have 30 shields in the bank towards something; on Turn 28 the total would be 44 shields.

Popping a settler on Turn 28 would drop SS back to size 2; on Turn 25 a settler would bring it down to size 1.

We don't need any more units. Temple doesn't sound worthwhile. Barracks or granary would take too long and not give much benefit. Why not start the settler according to the post #50 spreadsheet?

Alright, I'm sorry that I've already broken the promise I made about speeding the game up. I've been so caught up in the CIV SGOTM debacle that everything else has been falling behind. Speaking of which, since I believe none of you are involved in that game, feel free to head over to the Team Smurkz thread over in CIV land and cheer us on/lament our woes. :)

For this game, we need to get moving. :whipped: CB, will you play the remainder of your turns today? I think we are all implicitly agreed with the plan you outline in post #68, referring to zyxy's sheet in #50. We should get two towns up, and the first settler should be out by turn 17. We can regroup for discussion after that.

For this game, we need to get moving. :whipped: CB, will you play the remainder of your turns today? I think we are all implicitly agreed with the plan you outline in post #68, referring to zyxy's sheet in #50. We should get two towns up, and the first settler should be out by turn 17. We can regroup for discussion after that.

Just waiting on some feedback. I'll play those turns later today.

[Preflight]
Sensei Smurkz rWarrior -> Settler in 10.
We have 4 units and cannot freely support any more units until we build our second city.


11 3450 BC

Worker01: road the grassland in 2.
Warrior02: fortifies.



[I] 12 3400 BC

Worker01: road the grassland in 1.



[I] 13 3350 BC

Worker01: road complete, SE onto 2nd BG.



[I] 14 3300 BC

Worker01: road the BG in 3.
New citizen works the BG.
Shows settler in 5, not 4.
Check the spreadsheet, my bad.
On the Preflight I should have worked the rock, not the fish.
So I'm one short on the shields.
For this turn I'll work the plains, not the fish, to get that 1 shield back.



[I] 15 3250 BC

Worker01: road the BG in 2.
Work the fish, not the plains; settler in 3.



[I] 16 3200 BC

Worker01: road the BG in 1.



[I] 17 3150 BC

Worker01: road complete, moves back into Sensei Smurkz.


Sensei Smurkz settler -> rWarrior in 4.
We get a message about our Treasury being low (-1 gpt).

[I] 18 3100 BC

Worker01 joins Sensei Smurkz, rWarrior in 3, not 4.
Settler moves to 2nd BG.
We are back to +0 gpt.



[I] 19 3050 BC

Settler moves south where Warrior02 is fortified.



[I] 20 3000 BC

Nibanme Smurkz (roughly translated [I]Second Smurkz) is founded.
Nibanme Smurkz starts a placeholder warrior, due in 10.
We work the oyster for more commerce and faster learning of Alphabet.

[IBT]

And the save is >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC3000_01.SAV).

Our World at 3000 BC
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM13-Smurkz/TS01/3000BC_OurWorldTweaked.jpg




Alphabet in 23; 100% science, +0 gpt, 10 gold in the bank.

Sensei Smurkz is ready to pop a warrior on this IBT. I had planned to use him as a second MP in Nibanme Smurkz.

Nibanme Smurkz's warrior build is just a placeholder. We shouldn't need five warriors anytime soon, since we need galleys to leave this land, which is at least three techs away (Alphabet, Pottery and Map Making).

Seeing as we won't get Alpha in 10 turns, what is the Warrior a placeholder for? I would suggest now building a worker from NS.

Seeing as we won't get Alpha in 10 turns, what is the Warrior a placeholder for? I would suggest now building a worker from NS.
Duh, I dunnaknow.

Actually, though, I knew we would have a good discussion of what to do next, so I just took the easy way out and started a warrior instead of trying to think it through. :D

Another worker makes some sense; we could road and mine the island over the next few turns. We can't irrigate since we have no source of fresh water; something I just realized.

But we'll need crowd control in the third city, too.

Good playing CB! :)

I've got it and will post a plan tonight. The only thing we need to discuss really is what to build.


CommandoBob - Just Played
Niklas - UP!
donsig - On Deck!
Othniel - Warming Up
zyxy
eldar

Just to state some obvious things:

We have 2 cities and can support 8 units.
We have 3 units (3 rWarriors) right now, with a 4th rWarrior ready to build in Sensei Smurkz.
We want a 3rd city and need a settler to do that.

Two Settler Plans
Sensei Smurkz is also ready to grow to size 3. Looking back at zyxy's spreadsheet on Post #50, Sensei Smurkz will grow to size 4 in 4 turns, taking about 10 turns to reach size 5. At size 3, Sensei Smurkz generates 4 spt for 4 turns or 16 shields towards a settler. At size 4, Sensei Smurkz generates 5 spt, so another three turns and we have a new settler. We have a one shield surplus on the settler, but if we swap the BG with an ocean tile we should build it with an even 30 shields.

Going this route, the latest warrior is built and stays in SS for crowd control at size 4.

If we switch to a settler now, we have 10 shields towards it, we still grow to size 3 and complete it in 5 turns, with one turn at size 4 (10 sheilds now, 16 from 4 turns at size 3 and one 4 shield turn at size 4). We could adjust the happy slider on that last turn to keep SS happy or maybe hire a geek. Once it is built, SS drops down to size 2 and all is well.

Of the two, I like the second one better. It gives us a settler sooner and we can then build the Warriors we need for crowd control without much regard for unit support. And gives us an earlier boost in our research of Alphabet and the much needed curraghs.

Nibanme Smurkz
For now, I think we should build another worker in Nibanme Smurkz. It can mine our four roaded tiles in 24 turns, road and mine the plains in another 9 turns and road and mine the hill in 18 more turns, so we have tasks for that worker for another 51 turns or so, not counting movement. Maybe more if we road the mountain, which I think we should, in case Meleet has carelessly left a strategic resource there. By that time we should have galleys and we can ship this worker off to new lands to improve.

Best Guess
So, my best guess on how to procede is, in the end, fairly simple.

Sensei makes a settler in 4, followed by warrior in 3 and a second warrior in 3.
Nibanme makes a worker in 10, maybe followed by a second worker?
New City Smurkz, well, here I'm clueless. Maybe a warrior prebuild for a curragh?

Excellent analysis CB, I agree on all accounts. I think we should definitely get the settler out before another warrior, using the lux slider is not a big deal. Not sure we need to build more than one worker, it might actually be a good idea to build wealth in our secondary towns until we're close enough to start pre-building curraghs.

Anyone else of a different opinion? Otherwise I may well play in a few hours from now.

Oh, btw, I need a name for that town, my Japanese isn't what it should be. :blush:

San ban-me would be third in Japanese.

This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language) is a link to the Japanese Language page at Wikipedia.

Actually, SS only has 8 shields, and grows in 7 not 4, so the plan is a bit off :crazyeye:. I'll adjust to it while playing though, the plan will still be to get the settler our as fast as possible.

Playing now.

>>The Save<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC2550_01.SAV)

Turn 0 (3000 BC):
Switch SS to settler (8/30), NS to worker (0/10)

Turn 1 (2950 BC):
SS grows to size 3, works cow, BG and fish. 4 spt for settler in 5, 3 fpt for growth in 7.

Turn 2 (2900 BC):


Turn 3 (2850 BC):

Turn 4 (2800 BC):

Turn 5 (2750 BC):
Let SS work coast instead of BG for one turn.

Turn 6 (2710 BC):
SS settler -> warrior, drops to size 1 and works cow.

Settle Sushi Smurkz (access to both clams and fish). Three pop 1 towns now.

Turn 7 (2670 BC):
SS grows to size 2, works cow and fish, Sushi gets the BG.

Turn 8 (2630 BC):

Turn 9 (2590 BC):
SS warrior->warrior. New warrior named to 02, sent down the peninsula.

Turn 10 (2550 BC):
NS worker->worker (placeholder for discussion).

Save and exit.

Roster and Schedule
donsig - UP! (Dec 26)
Othniel - On Deck! (Dec 29)
zyxy - Warming Up (Jan 1)
eldar (Jan 4)
CommandoBob - Just Played (Jan 7)
Niklas (Jan 10)

... donsig? Or anyone else for that matter?

I'll be off for a few days now, probably back on the 26th. Merry X-mas to all of you! :xmas: :salute:

Sorry, for my slow start guys. I've downloaded the save but haven't looked at it yet. Had to install the modpack and add the line to the .ini file - I'm not very good at this stuff so I'm crossing my fingers. Need to look over the SGOTM rules.

So please bring me up to speed here. Is it okay for me tp open the save to make sure I've got everything working, look around and come back to the forums for discussion without making any moves? Or must I play my set of turns once I open the save?

Yes, that's ok: you can open the save without playing. As long as you don't make any irreversible moves, it does not count as reloading.

I tend to open the save and take a look around before I do anything else. Which is fine by the rules.

If, on the preflight I make some changes (move a unit, change a build order, make a trade, etc..), I will upload that save to the server and post that link in my notes. And then I download that save and play from it for the rest of the turn.

We can upload multiple saves for one turn. Way back in SGOTM 9 I think we had 4 saves for one turn, but I can't remember why.

The server will add a number to the end of the save, which keeps the saves separate. But it won't do that at 4000 BC; we've tried before and server rejects that save; the server sees it as a another start up and throws a fit.

So to answer the question you asked, you can play all your turns at one time or only one turn at a time. If something comes up that needs to be discussed, then save the game, post the notes you have and let the issue be discussed.

I'll be away for christmas on the 25th and 26th. Merry Christmas everyone, and see you again afterwards!

OK, guys, here's what I see. We can get alphabet in 7 turns. We should be able to build a curragh in all three of our cities the turn after that:

Nibanme works the bg and using barracks for prebuild (2 bpt for 14 in 7)
Sushi works the clams with a barracks prebuild (3bpt for 21 in 7)

That's 35b towards the 81 that we need, so Sensei must come up with 46b in 7 turns. I build the warrior there in 2 turns netting 5f and 12b. That leaves 34b to go. Barracks brebuild after that. Three turns @+3fpt (cow and fish) grows Sensei. That's 10 shields (with one from growth) and 18b. (I'm not sure if we get extra beakers the turn we grow.) Still need 16b in two turns. Working fish, rocks and anything else with 1c gets us that. We'd only be doing 2spt but 10+6 is enough for a curragh.

I'm not a micro-manager so I'm not sure if I've figured this all correctly or not. Also, not sure if we want three curraghs (and a fifth warrior) during the next ten turns but to me that seems the best for us.

I'd send the warrior back to Sushi for fortify and I'd send the worker to mine the bg south of Sensei.

What do we research after alphabet? Would we do writing or pottery next to get closer to map making?

Looks like a good plan to me, and your numbers are correct as far as I can see. In fact, Sushi will grow in 6 turns, so we'll probably get slightly more gold. I think we definitely want three curraghs. I think it is not possible to get Alpha in 6 turns, except by hiring scientists, but that would significantly slow down our curragh builds.

Sensei can work cow + fish + rocks at size 3. I suppose it's not allowed to use the big picture to change builds, otherwise the curragh from Sensei could be produced on the same turn as Alpha. Now we are wasting some shields, so Sensei could do wealth for 2 turns (if I calculated correctly) after the warrior.

You are correct: we do not get extra beakers on the growth turn.

I would probably let the worker improve the southern bg - Sensei can already get to 5 spt at size 3.

Agree with zyxy on all accounts, except in fact it is allowed to change builds using big picture, only the MTDG has outlawed that. So yes, we should definitely make sure to have a curragh out on the same turn Alphabet comes in.

I definitely think Writing next, without Map Making we won't get anywhere and we have little use for earthenware at this point.

I plan to play my turns this evening (in about six hours) so if there's any more input please speak up before then.

We'll need pottery for Map Making. Question is: does it make sense to run at max? Writing costs 457 beakers, so a max run on writing will be faster than a min run if we can make at least 457/50 = 9-10 beakers per turn. We currently do 11, so this might work. On the other hand, we may need gpt to buy techs.

If we want to postpone the decision, then a max run on pottery is not so bad.

Preflight: Nibanme works bg (switched to barracks); Sushi works clams (switched to barracks); Sensei works rocks and cow. Worker moves N and mines. Warrior moves to Sushi and fortifies.

2510 BC: Sensei switched from rocks to fish.

2470 BC: Warrior built, barracks queued. Warrior moved to Sushi and fortified. Other warrior in Sushi moved to Nibanme and fortified.

2430 BC:

2390 BC:

2350 BC: Sensei grows to size 3, works rocks, fish and cow.

2310 BC: Sushi grows to size 2, works clams and bg S of Sensei. Worker finishes mine, moves to bg S of Sensei and starts mine. Alphabet and 3 curraghs next turn. Science down to 90%.

2270 BC: Learned alphabet, used big picture to choose writing then went into domestic advisor and changed production in all three cities to curraghs. Moved Nibanme curragh S-W. Moved Sushi curragh SW-SW. Moved Sensei curragh to rocks. (Curraghs queued in all cities as place holders.) Science @ 100% gives writing in 33 turns. Sensei works rocks, cow & bg; Sushi works clams and fish.

2230 BC: Nibanme curragh moves S-NW, Sushi curragh moves SW-S, Sensei curragh moves E-S.

Stopping here since I'm not sure which way to sail.

Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC2230_01.SAV)

Yikes! I didn't take a screenshot. :blush: Well, I guess it's ok to open the save for that. Will be back.

EDIT: Our island:

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1001/2230bccw0.th.jpg (http://img178.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2230bccw0.jpg)

From your screenshot I think I see coastal tiles under the fog in the Southwest, which is three tiles away. :cry:

I think the northern curragh should go 2 W and the southern curragh go 2S. This will do some fogbusting, and, if they survive the IBT, they can make landfall next turn.

I'm not much of a fog gazer and that fish in the deep water is weird. I had no idea what we should build next so I left curraghs as place holders.

So, is it ok that I didn't play a full ten turns?

It's definitely ok, the 10 turns should be seen as a guideline.

Current Roster and Schedule
Othniel - UP! (Dec 29)
zyxy - On Deck! (Jan 1)
eldar - Warming Up (Jan 4)
CommandoBob - Just Played (Jan 7)
Niklas (Jan 10)
donsig (Jan 13)

Othniel, time for the big debut! [party]

There's definitely coast where CB indicates, and I agree that moving 2S and 2W are the best moves we can do. A bit frustrating that there's no safe passage, it means randomness will play a big role in when all teams make contact (too big IMO). But we'll just have to do the best of it.

Well done, donsig! :)

I agree with the curragh directions. With a new curragh every three and every five turns randomness isn't a big issue.

Our third curragh could go E-S and then move east, hoping for a lucky break.

Perhaps Sushi should train a worker, with the idea that joining workers will be the quickest way to grow our towns and generate the highest science output. I'm not sure about this, but it can be computed of course.

I'd like to make my big debut, but I'm a bit strapped for time right now.

It'd probably be best to swap zyxy with me and perhaps just skip me for this whole round. I'll try and let you all know on my skipping status once zyxy plays.

Alright, go zyxy!

Current Roster and Schedule
zyxy - UP! (Dec 29)
Othniel - On Deck! (Jan 1)
eldar - Warming Up (Jan 4)
CommandoBob - Just Played (Jan 7)
Niklas (Jan 10)
donsig (Jan 13)

OK, got it.

Preliminary plan:

Long term

Get to space as quick as possible. [Leave Ghandi behind, this time.]

Mid term

Meet the world, trade/buy techs, and get off this island. Possibly knock down a few AI's, but rather use the better ones to speed research.

This turnset

Curraghs explore mostly towards the coastal region we can see in the west, but occasionally also into the blue. Primary goal is to meet other civs, not (yet) to map the world. (We can do that once we get close to Map Making.)

Production: curraghs. We can sustain 3 more without support cost, they'll be built easily during this set: Sensei alone can do 3 curraghs in 8 turns. If we join the worker back in, we can get one more. Also, we could set town(s) to wealth to support more curraghs. I will not lower the science rate to fund more ships.

Worker can improve the bg, and possibly road the plains and hill even though that will be useless for a long time to come. A better option could be to join it to Nibanme to bring the town to size 3. I prpose to do this after the current mine finishes.

In the meantime, we want to research asap. First I note that the maximum town size that we can sustain without lux tax or specialists is size 3; size 4 can be sustained with a scientist.
Alternative 1: We have just enough food to stabilize each town at size 3, each running one scientist. We work the cow, the 2 bg's, the rock, the fish and the oysters. Then we make 14 bpt from tiles and 9 bpt from scientists.
Alternative 2: get Sensei to size 4, working cow, fish/bg, rock and a scientist, Sushi to size 3 working oysters, fish/bg and scientist, and Nibanme to size 3 with bg and 2 coastal workers - or the other way around, of course. Then we make 18 bpt from tiles and 6 bpt from scientists, so this is slightly better (assuming nothing is lost to corruption). We'll need 5 MP's, which we have.
I don't see a better alternative and will go for alternative 2 unless someone has a better idea.

Looks good to me. I think we should probably assume that we'll have some corruption in Nibanme though, so I'm not sure 2 is actually better.

Hmm, an alternative if corruption is felt even in Sushi would be to let Sensei (0%) work fish, rocks and coast at size 3; Sushi works cow, bg, coast and scientist at size 4; Nibanme works fish, bg and scientist.

Bah, why wonder, I'll go check the save for corruption values. EDIT: CAII reports 4% in Sushi and 9% in Nibanme. Most likely we will feel some then, but I guess it will be 1 lost in both towns in both of zyxy's scenarios, so 2 would still be better. I'm not sure how the values are rounded, does anyone know?

Bah, why wonder, I'll go check the save for corruption values. EDIT: CAII reports 4% in Sushi and 9% in Nibanme. Most likely we will feel some then, but I guess it will be 1 lost in both towns in both of zyxy's scenarios, so 2 would still be better. I'm not sure how the values are rounded, does anyone know?

Thanks for checking! It's rounded to nearest integer, and specialist income is never corrupted. Meaning that the 13-th gold in Sushi will be corrupted, and the 6-th in Nibanme. So we are corruption free if Sushi works fish/bg and 2 coast (6 or 7 gold), and Nibanme works oysters, bg and scientist (4 gold from tiles).

I'll play this evening, unless discussion starts to rage. :)

Turn 0, 2230BC: All is well. Hit enter.

Turn 1, 2190BC: Our curraghs move into the void and see new land. It looks rather fishy:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC2190.png
Let's hope they survive! Differential naval movement is on, btw.

Turn 2, 2150BC: Sensei curragh -> curragh. Our southern curragh is lost, but the other one survived! He sails on. I'm sending our new curragh straight west - there seems to be a passage to somewhere...
Nibanme has grown. I'll join the worker in a few turns to bring it to size 3, and hire a scientist for now.

Turn 3, 2110BC: our curraghs survived! Sailing on, further into the void:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC2110.png
As you can see, two of our curraghs are at risk. And that northern passage seems to be going nowhere...

Turn 4, 2070BC: Nibanme curragh -> curragh. Everyone survived again! We press on:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC2070.png
The northern passage really seems to lead nowhere, and I also see nothing to the east. But we do see a lux on the new continent. Too bad it will be of no use to our homeland until Astro... or the GLight? Our new curragh will try to cross to this continent, to sail down the east coast.

Turn 5, 2030BC: Sensei curragh -> curragh. And again everyone survived! I don't think I've ever been so lucky. Now if we would just find some more land...

Turn 6, 1990BC: end of the good luck - three curraghs sank this turn. Well, can't have everything, I guess. Our island explorer bravely continues - I hope he doesn't drink too much...
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC1990.png

Turn 7, 1950BC: Sensei has grown to size 4 and gets a scientist. A new curragh tries to cross to Wine Island.

Turn 8, 1910BC: Sensei curragh -> curragh. Sushi curragh -> curragh. Sushi has grown and is stabilized at size 3. Our curragh survived the sea passage. We have discovered horses on Wine Island, and it seems that we have reached the southern tip:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC1910.png

Turn 9, 1870BC: Nibanme curragh -> curragh. Worker joins Nibanme. Now all our towns are stabilized, and we make 24 bpt.

Turn 10, 1830BC: I send our island explorer south in the hope of finding the next island. I'll play two more turns to get back to a nice turn number.

Turn 11, 1790BC: Sensei curragh -> curragh. We lose one.

Turn 12, 1750BC: All curraghs survived.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC1750.png

notes:

The Glight seems highly useful on this map, although it's quite possible that the sealanes we see are all red herrings. However, we lack a decent prebuild. Perhaps research Masonry next?
We are getting close to the free support limit. But we are also getting to the point where our curraghs have nothing to do but to risk the seas and oceans in an attempt to find new lands. So perhaps it will work out.
Sensei and Sushi can share the fish and the bg: Sensei needs the bg 2 out of 3 turns, Sushi can have it the third turn, in exchange for the fish.
Differential naval movement is on. Meaning that our curraghs can do 2 moves in sea or coast, but 4 in ocean.


The save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC1750_01.SAV).

Roster:
Othniel - Up! (Jan 1)
eldar - On Deck! (Jan 4)
CommandoBob - Warming Up (Jan 7)
Niklas (Jan 10)
donsig (Jan 13)
zyxy - just played (Jan 16)

Wow! An island that big, this early in the game and uninhabited. I sure thought the first land we found would have a somebody on it, so we could trade with them.

With Differential naval movement turned on, galleys be able to cross the two sea tiles to the Wine Island in one turn, so that helps (some).

I think the two curraghs alongside Wine Island need to get to the southtern tip of the island and then start heading east and west.

Nice going zyxy, very lucky with those curraghs! :D :thumbsup:

GLight indeed seems almost like a must-have, but like zyxy noted a prebuild is a bit problematic. I'm not sure Pyramids is the right choice for that though, I expect it to be built by someone quite a lot earlier than we get MM. :hmm:

At any rate I think we should keep spamming out curraghs in all directions, we desperately need to meet some others. Though it seems as if we're not supposed to...

GLight indeed seems almost like a must-have, but like zyxy noted a prebuild is a bit problematic. I'm not sure Pyramids is the right choice for that though, I expect it to be built by someone quite a lot earlier than we get MM. :hmm:

How many shields is the palace? Sushi could do 7 spt (cows, plains, bg).

With three towns I think the palace is still at the base 200 shields. That's 2/3 of a Torch. Is it worth the risk? Hmm, I'm leaning towards yes, but you know I'm a risktaker. But we should be doing pretty good research, so Masonry shouldn't be too many turns. I say go for it.

24 hours and counting. Othniel is hereby skipped (he did warn it could happen so no harm done).

Current Roster and Schedule
eldar - UP! (Jan 1)
CommandoBob - On Deck! (Jan 4)
Niklas - Warming Up (Jan 7)
donsig (Jan 10)
zyxy (Jan 13)
Othniel (Jan 16)

eldar, your go!

With three towns I think the palace is still at the base 200 shields. That's 2/3 of a Torch. Is it worth the risk? Hmm, I'm leaning towards yes, but you know I'm a risktaker. But we should be doing pretty good research, so Masonry shouldn't be too many turns. I say go for it.

I don't see this as a risk, rather as our only chance to do more than colonize that nearby island before Astronomy. :D

Tech cost modifier is apparently 57. Ignoring all possible rounding effects, Masonry is 57*4 = 228 beakers, so it takes 10 turns. Pottery is 114 beakers (5 turns), Map Making is 684 (29 turns). 34 turns should be enough to collect 200 shields, and we could even start a bit sooner, using temple as prebuild. Then we only need to do 5 spt!

Current Roster and Schedule
eldar - UP! (Jan 1)
CommandoBob - On Deck! (Jan 4)
Niklas - Warming Up (Jan 7)
donsig (Jan 10)
zyxy (Jan 13)
Othniel (Jan 16)


I like the idea of roster and schedule. It is a good heads-up.

Got it. I'm still catching up on "stuff" since getting back online (as usual I've avoided all things internetty whilst at my parents). I like zyxy's plan for Masonry-Pots-Maps.

Base Palace cost is always 300 shields that's a whole Lighthouse which is rather handy.

I'll open up the save a bit later today.

Edit: looking at save and CA2:
We have 9 turns on Writing, then 5 for Pots (only need 23 gpt for that so we should've mined the plain for an extra shield?), then 10 for Masonry (again only need 23 gpt for that too), CA2 says either 685 or 1014 for MM... not sure what's going on there. It lists the tech cost as 685 on the right of the grid, but 1014 at the bottom. Something in the tech cost calculation I'm missing obviously!

Still 685 @ 24 is a manageable 29 turns. 1014 @ 24 is a painful 43.

I'm an optimist so reckon 685 will be the number giving us 9+10+5+29 = 53 turns to MM. And as stated 34+ turns of pre-build, at somewhat less than 10 spt.

SS cannot use the Palace to pre-build (agree Pyramids is risky). So we'd go with Sushi instead. Pop a worker from SS to bring it down to 3 pop (it'll have to lose the Cow so can only maintain 3 pop using fish, rocks, coast), mine plain & hill, join to Sushi. We should start the pre-build in Sushi ASAP we can always swap tiles round if it's going too fast.

Got it. I'm still catching up on "stuff" since getting back online (as usual I've avoided all things internetty whilst at my parents). I like zyxy's plan for Masonry-Pots-Maps.

Welcome back! :wavey:

Base Palace cost is always 300 shields that's a whole Lighthouse which is rather handy. Good to know. Just to make sure I checked in another game and indeed it was 300 shields at three cities.

I'm an optimist so reckon 685 will be the number giving us 9+10+5+29 = 53 turns to MM. 685 coincides with my independent estimate, so that is the correct number.

SS cannot use the Palace to pre-build (agree Pyramids is risky). So we'd go with Sushi instead. Pop a worker from SS to bring it down to 3 pop (it'll have to lose the Cow so can only maintain 3 pop using fish, rocks, coast), mine plain & hill, join to Sushi.

So you are planning to work cows + bg + hills + plains, for 9 spt? (This leaves a surplus food, btw). Then, with a 30 shield prebuild pre-Masonry, it will take 30 turns after discovery of Masonry to finish GLighthouse.

A downside is that this will force us to run the lux tax to create one happy face. Sushi makes 5 gold per turn, so a 10% tax might just be enough (this needs to be checked, I am not certain of the rounding). Unfortunately we lack the food to grow Sensei to size 4, so it will be at size 3 working fish, rocks and coast for 8 bpt and 1 useless happy face. Nibanme can stay at size 3 working oysters, bg and scientist, for 7 bpt.

This means our research rate will go down from 24 bpt to 19 bpt: first, because we are retooling from beakers to shields in Sushi, and second because we spend 2 gold on lux tax.

Building the worker will also cost some beakers.

Hence our prebuild would finish much sooner than the discovery of Map Making! Probably it is better to run a scheme where we produce more beakers and fewer shields.

We should start the pre-build in Sushi ASAP we can always swap tiles round if it's going too fast.

This looks suboptimal to me: we should retool as late as possible, so we can keep our research up as long as possible. The whole thing is deterministic, assuming we do not stumble on any AI, so we can just calculate what to do.

CA2 says either 685 or 1014 for MM... not sure what's going on there. It lists the tech cost as 685 on the right of the grid, but 1014 at the bottom. Something in the tech cost calculation I'm missing obviously!
685 is the cost for MM. 1014 is the beakers we have left until we finish MM, i.e. MM + Pottery + what's left of Writing.

I agree with zyxy, it's much better to run at as high commerce as possible. We could even go for Masonry before Pottery to get that prebuild sooner, so we can run at the lowest spt (and thus the highest bpt) possible.

Long Term Goal

Blast off to the stars, thumbing our noses at those left behind.

Short Term

Max out cash to get Maps ASAP. Keep exploring and hope our brave little boats don't sink.

Next 10

Very little! Keep pushing the Curraghs around, remember to swap tiles every three turns, finish Writing, start Masonry to get a pre-build going.

>> The Save << (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC1500_01.SAV)

Apart from a bit of luck at first, this has been a frustrating set.

0 1750BC Quick check reveals nothing to do. Press space.

1 1725BC All boats survive. Western curragh spots coast, in range next turn if it survives. Southern curragh gets in range of coast and spots some borders. If it survives it will make landfall & contact next turn. There is a sea lane all the way south.

Southern Corridor
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/45827/SGOTM13_Smurkz_1700BC_01.jpg

Western Corridor
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/45827/SGOTM13_Smurkz_1700BC_02.jpg

2 1700BC All boats in sea/ocean sink :cry: . But we have target directions: the west corridor and the south corridor.

3 1675BC All boats survive. IT: Hittites build Oracle.

4 1650BC All boats in sea/ocean sink.

5 1625BC Move boats.

6 1600BC All boats survive.

7 1575BC Move boats. IT: Inca build Colossus.

8 1550BC All boats in sea/ocean sink. Work plains for extra shield towards Curragh in Sushi, Writing still in 1.

9 1525BC Writing->Masonry (due in 10 turns). All boats in sea/ocean sink.

10 1500BC Move boats.

End-of-set report: all quiet. Push boats West and South. Going South I'd recommend heading down the ocean route as it's quicker. Masonry in 10, Pots next then Maps, unless something dramatic happens.

It's too bad our luck didn't hold one more turn but at least we're now close to meeting someone!

Good going eldar! :goodjob:

That's very frustrating, but quite amazing that they could go that far. I really doubt any of our pre-Torch ships will make it all the way. And I fear that we'll see maybe one or two teams at most who will luck out, and get a very different game than everyone else. Did I mention I dislike gilligan starts? :mad:

Current Roster and Schedule
CommandoBob - UP! (Jan 4)
Niklas - On Deck! (Jan 7)
donsig - Warming Up (Jan 10)
zyxy (Jan 13)
Othniel (Jan 16)
eldar (Jan 9)
CommandoBob, time for second run! I don't see our strategy changing much, it's masonry for prebuild, then MM to get the torch, all the while keep sending out curraghs. Anyone of a different opinion?

Ah.. just popped in here for a looksie.

Good luck, Smurkzes. ;)

What do people reckon our chances are for getting Philo first and MM as a freebie? Just a thought before the chance goes begging....

Indeed, nice we got this far, too bad our luck didn't last one more turn. Both crossing seem to require 4 or 5 turns in ocean or sea, so indeed the probability of getting across without the GLight is low.
CommandoBob, time for second run! I don't see our strategy changing much, it's masonry for prebuild, then MM to get the torch, all the while keep sending out curraghs. Anyone of a different opinion?
I would like to see a plan for the GLight. Should we sacrifice some beakers for shields to optimize?

Philo is an option but risky...

Sorry for the delay; cold/flu/hacking cough has pestered me the last few days.

I'll download the save once I get home and post my strategy.

What do people reckon our chances are for getting Philo first and MM as a freebie? Just a thought before the chance goes begging....
Don't forget you'd need to research Pottery first before Philosophy or Map Making won't be an option for a free tech.

At this point, Colosus and Oracle are built. We don't know if the AI have Map Making yet, but I would think they are close. The Pyramids still provide a cascade option to the Great Lighthouse. The odds are looking very bad for our G.Lighthouse attempt. Our only hope is if the Pyramids finish really soon and the cascade dies. Even if the cascade dies, the AI can probably research and build the G Lighthouse from scratch before we get Masonry, Pottery and Map Making.

An alternative plan (safer, but with much lower gains) would be to use our sheilds to make workers and boats that would eventually be converted to settlers (join workers after settler is built, galleys via prebuilds or upgraded curaghs) to give us the most opportunity to colonize the nearby island. Then we've at least got a decent base for building a small army on the way towards Astronomy. Putting all our eggs in the the G.Lighthouse plan puts us way behind developmentally if we fail. (I guess I should have asked this question before we invested all these turns in Masonry.)

The State of Smurkz 1500 BC
Sensei Smurkz (4) curragh in 1, zero growth; +6spt, one geek.
Nibanme Smurzk (3) curragh in 2, zero growth, +3 spt, one geek.
Sushi Smurkz (3) curragh in 5, zero growth.

2 Curraghs at sea.

Masonry in 9 turns; 100% science, +0 gpt.

Long Range Goals
Space...the Final Frontier...

Mid Range Goals
Meet friends and influence people.

These 10 Turns
1) Explore South and West.
2) If lucky, meet the Light Blue People south of Wine Island.
2a) Discuss any trade deals.
3) Make more curraghs.
4) After Masonry, learn Pottery.
5) Sushi then starts a palace prebuild for the Great Lighthouse.


(I guess I should have asked this question before we invested all these turns in Masonry.)
We have only two turns invested in Masonry.

I definitely think we should shoot for the Torch. If we lose the race for it, we'll have lost a lot of investment that could have gone to expansion. But if we win the race for it, we have a golden opportunity in the SGOTM. I'd rather try to soar than stay bound on the ground.

Hit Enter.
Sensei rCurragh -> rCurragh in 3.

Northern Curragh sinks (1).


[I] 01 1475 BC

In an attempt to minimize the number of turns that Curraghs are at risk of sinking, I will try to use ocean tiles. Our suicide risk does not increase any and we can go further.

CurraghA (new in Sensei) W and stops in coastal waters.
Curragh for Light Blue (south side of Wine Island) SW and W.
This curragh will circle around the south tip of Wine Island and aim for ocean tiles for maximum movement.

With all the cities at zero growth, happiness is not a problem. Very nice.


Nibanme rCurragh (B) -> rCurragh in 5.

[I] 02 1450 BC

Curragh for Light Blue: W (2MP, sea), W (3MP, ocean), S (4MP, ocean).
CurraghA: W (2MP, sea), W (3MP, ocean) and W (4MP ocean).
CurraghB (new in Nibanme): S (3MP, coastal) and stops.

We are allowed 12 units; we have 8 at this time.


CurraghA was lost at sea (2).

[I] 03 1425 BC

Curragh for Light Blue: S (1MP, ocean, S (2MP, ocean), S (3MP, ocean) and S again (4MP, ocean).
CurraghB: SE (2MP, sea), E (3MP, ocean) and E (4MP, ocean).

Sensei and Sushi swap tiles, both complete new boats this IBT.


Sensei rCurragh (C) -> rCurragh in 4.
Sushi rCurragh (D) -> rCurragh in 5.

Curragh for Light Blue and CurraghB are both lost at sea (4).

[I] 04 1400 BC

We are back to 7 units.

CurraghC (new in Sensei): W (3MP, coastal) and stops.
CurraghD (new in Sushi): S (3MP, coastal), S (4+MP, coastal).



[I] 05 1375 BC

CurraghC: W (2MP, sea), W (3MP, ocean) and W (4MP ocean).
CurraghD: SW (3MP, coastal) and SW (4+MP, coastal).

Sensei and Sushi reswap tiles.

Masonry in 4.


CurraghC sinks in the same place that CurraghA sank (5).

[I] 06 1350 BC

CurraghD: SW (2MP, sea) and SW again (4MP, sea), heading for Wine Island.


Sensei rCurragh (E) -> rCurragh in 3.
Nibanme rCurragh (F) -> rCurragh in 5.

CurraghD survives the IBT.

[I] 07 1325 BC

CurraghD: S (2MP, sea) and S again (4+MP, coastal).
CurraghE (new in Sensei): SW (3MP, coastal) and SW (4+MP, coastal).
CurraghF (new in Nibanme): E (3MP, coastal) and stops.

Sensei and Sushi swap the fish and mined BG tiles for a turn.

We are at 8 units again.

Masonry in 2.

Curraghs D and E will both head for Light Blue.


Wonder Alert
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM13-Smurkz/TS07/1325_IBT_PyramidsTrimmed.jpg

Persians build The Pyramids in Persepolis.

Wonder Alert, Part II
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM13-Smurkz/TS07/1325_IBT_SoZTrimmed.jpg

Egypt builds the Statue of Zeus in Thebes.

[I] 08 1300 BC

CurraghD: S (3MP, coastal) and S (4+MP, coastal).
CurraghE: SE (3MP, coastal) and SE (4+MP, coastal).
CurraghF: SW (3MP, coastal) and W (4+MP, coastal), heading to Light Blue (should have done this last turn).

Leave Sensei and Sushi with swaped tiles.

Masonry in 1.


We learn Masonry, begin to learn Pottery, due in 5.

[I] 09 1275 BC

CurraghD: SE (3MP, coastal) and S (4+MP, coastal).
CurraghE: S (3MP, coastal) and S (4+MP, coastal).
CurraghF: SW (3MP, coastal) and SW (4+MP, coastal).

Sushi rCurragh -> Palace in 97.



[I] 10 1250 BC

CurraghD: S (2MP, sea) and SW (4+MP, coastal).
CurraghE: SE (2MP, sea) and S (4MP, sea).
CurraghF: SE (2MP, sea) and S (4MP, sea).


[IBT]


And the save is >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC1250_01.SAV).

Started with 2 Curraghs; ended with 3 Curraghs. Two more will be built soon.

We lost 5 curraghs in these turns, and we gained nothing, except we uncovered more water tiles.

Curraghs E and F are in sea tiles and in danger of sinking on the IBT.

I have sent all our boats towards Light Blue. I think we need to make contact with whoever Light Blue is (Yanks or Sumeria, most likely) and then worry about exploring. If we have a boat that can survive 4 or 5 turns of non-coastal waters, I think that boat should go meet our neighbors first. This is a larger map than normal and we seem to be rather isolated.

(I know that bunching the ships together doesn't increase their survival rate. But at least they can die with their countrymen.)

Pottery is due in 4.

Wild World of Wonders 1250 BC
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM13-Smurkz/TS07/1250_WondersTrimmed.jpg

Only four built so far and no wonders currently under construction. That helps our Great Lighthouse efforts.

Good news that 'mids and Zeus are out of the way!

But bad news that they appear this early. That doesn't bode well for our GLight efforts. The one thing that might help us is that it has to be in a coastal town, and they tend to be lower on shields.

Tiwanku will have to be coastal to have built the Colossus. It clearly has plenty of shields and the Inca will now have a research boost.

Edit: Everyone wish a happy 1st birthday to my daughter! (Her party's next week - a joint one with friends whose kids are all also about a year old!)

:bday: eldar's daughter!

Despite the competition I think we should try for the Great Lighthouse.

All the early cascades have gone with Pyramids and SoZ toppling, so they will be starting from scratch. What we don't know is if someone's started it already.

Okay, so what's the pre-build situation? How quickly can we get 300 shields with what's currently there? Do we research after MM? Or do we stockpile gold for trading?

Okay, so what's the pre-build situation? How quickly can we get 300 shields with what's currently there? Do we research after MM? Or do we stockpile gold for trading?
Sushi is 96 turns away from building a palace. We have about 12 shields in that city.

:bday: Aliza! And well played CB! :goodjob:

Current Roster and Schedule
Niklas - UP! (Jan 7)
donsig - On Deck! (Jan 10)
zyxy - Warming Up (Jan 13)
Othniel (Jan 16)
eldar (Jan 19)
CommandoBob (Jan 22)

Got it! Will have a look at the game later tonight or tomorrow morning. I see no reason not to continue for the Torch, even if the chances are slim of us getting it.

Ok, I've had a look at the save, and it seems to me we need more production, fast. We have 286 shields until Palace/Torch, and estimated 33 turns to MM. That's just below 9 spt, an unattainable number currently. It seems obvious we will need to emphasize spt in Sushi from now on anyway. At 7 spt we'll get the Torch in 41 turns, at 8 spt in 36 turns. I'll have a closer look and see what can be done. Comments appreciated.

I had a very quick look.

We can switch Nibanme to worker now. Worker mines plains of course.

Perhaps transfer 1 warrior from Sushi to Nibanme this turn (and go back the next one), let Nibanme work oysters + 2 coast, Sushi 2 bg + scientist. Next turn, Nibanme works oysters + scientist, Sushi 2 bg + plains, for 6 spt, later 7 spt. It will grow in 20, not sure what to do with that yet. We could aim to work the hills as well for another 2 spt, at the cost of 10% (?) lux.

This loses some beakers of course, so MapMaking would be delayed.

Sorry I'm not more active, I haven't been well these past days, still aren't. I won't be able to play tonight as was the plan, I hope to do it tomorrow.

zyxy, thanks for the comments, my thoughts were very much in the same direction. I definitely think we should switch to worker in Nibanme, and possibly it could be joined with Sushi after completing the mine, or go on to mine/road the hills and let Sushi grow of its own accord.

I fully back from vacation now. Things seem to be going very well. :goodjob: I'll try to start contributing a little more from now on... :p

Here's the fastest plan for the Torch that I've been able to come up with sofar:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC1250_Torch.png
I'm not certain that it is completely right, please check! Perhaps it can also be improved, it seems suboptimal here and there.

I'll be away until Friday night.

The biggest problem is that on turn 107 we get to 302 shields and complete the Palace a turn before we get Maps!

So we can almost certainly run with coast tiles in Sushi for a few turns to bring that total down. Ideally we want 291 shields in Sushi with 1 turn left on Maps so we get zero overrun and max cash.

No, we get Map Making on turn 107 too, he just included one more turn since we will not have them until after turn 107.

I've looked over the plan and I can find no faults in it. I'd rather go with the plan than run coast in the beginning though, since I'm not 100% sure. Better 2 shields overflow than missing by 1.

I'll play shortly according to zyxy's plan. Sorry all for the delay. I might play 20 turns since nothing is bound to happen anyway (unless some curragh miraculously survives and makes contact, in which case I will of course stop immediately).

0:
Switch Nibanme to fish+2 coast, Sushi to 2 BG + sci. Move warrior from Sushi to Nibanme.

23 bpt, Pottery in 4. We're lucky that we'll cutting it so close on that one.

IBT: Sensei curragh(G), Nibanme worker. CurraghE was lost just off our own shore.

1:
Worker to plains. Hire geek in Nibanme. 23 bpt, Pottery in 3.

2:
Worker starts mining. 23 bpt, Pottery in 2.

3:
Sushi starts working plains. Move a warrior back from Nibanme. 21 bpt, Pottery in 1.

IBT: Pottery -> Map Making
CurraghG litw west of Sensei.

4:
MM 0/685

IBT: Sensei curragh (H)
CurraghD litw SW of second continent.

5:
MM 21/685

6:
http://xs123.xs.to/xs123/08024/076disaster276.png
Why is she looking so #¤%& happy about that?? :mad:

>>The Save<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC1100_01.SAV)

I guess better to fail early than with one turn left, but... :sad:

Yes, better to know now. So I guess we just send our curragh after curragh until we can send galley after galley...

Are we missing something? We're not supposed to met everyone for a long time. Is there something productive we can do besides sacrifice curraghs?

I don't see anything, no. Back to emphasizing research and spamming curraghs I guess. I'll probably let the worker finish the mine before joining back to Nibanme though. I'll play the rest of my turns tomorrow to give everyone a chance to chime in.

Such a bummer about the Great Torch-shack. If another team manages to build it...:ack: The advantage for that team would make the potential unbalancing luck factors involved with suicide curraghs seem like peanuts in comparison. I really feel like we sped toward the Lighthouse about as fast as possible, too.

Well, I suppose we now continue toward Maps asap, get that big island near by settled in a hurry, and blitz to Astronomy.

What's more optimal: race to Maps and then build settlers for the big island, or build settlers now, slowing down our progress toward Maps but improving our use of existing shield and food resources (currently we've stagnated our settler potential in exchange for max beaker output).

If getting galleys will significantly improve our suicide run success %, then I think we should continue the blitz toward Maps. If galleys won't help that much sans a Great Lighthouse to grease the way, we might consider building up a supply of settlers in the near term. That would undoubtedly slow down getting Maps but might, might improve our rate of settling the Big Island.

Hey, also what about turning that GLH pre-build into a Great Library pre-build? That would make staying atop the tech trader ladder quite a bit less important for now. We could slow our suicide run efforts and put more resources into settling the nearby island asap.

Lighthouse? We don't need no stinking Lighthouse!

If we didn't get it, no one else got it either. Even if a team made contact with another civ, they will still only have three cities maximum. We knew we were taking a gamble trying for that wonder with our current city setup. I really don't see anyone else having a better way to get to the Great Lighthouse.

Contacts other teams might get, if they got lucky on with their curraghs. Galleys have the same suicide risk that curraghs do but they can move farther (5 MP vs 4 MP for curraghs) and they do hold units. Which means we can safely sail to Wine Island with settlers for expansion.

Getting down to visit our Light Blue neighbors will still require luck. They can also come visit us (doubtful), though I would rather we visit them first. But I do get tired of wasting curraghs.

Can we afford to build two settlers to have ready to go to Wine Island when the time is right? I favor slowing down research a bit now to do that, if it doesn't greatly increase the time to get galleys. Unit costs are not at issue; we just stop making as many units (or wait until the latest curragh goes to visit Davy Jones' Locker at the bottom of the sea).

I think that once we can settle on Wine Island we need to do it quick and fast. Maybe one city on the north end and a second city on the south end and then build towards each other.

Serious bummer not getting the GLight, but as has been pointed out, it came so early that I suspect there are plenty of AIs in contact with each other and trading like crazy. So it's no surprise that they got Maps so early and the Torch fell in the Pyramids cascade.

I agree with getting two settlers ready, one for each lux on the south island.

I also like the idea of converting to a GLib pre-build. The AI don't research Lit so it's often fairly safe to go for. There is still ToA/HG around for cascades but not for a while I'm guessing. At the rate they're going, ToA could well be done before 1000BC!

Well, that's a bummer. But I think CB is right, no team should have been able to build it at this early date.

I think we should calculate a few scenarios to decide what to do. Some options are:

return to max speed research asap.
train 1-2 settlers and a galley, aiming for completion on the turn MapMaking is discovered.
Train as many settlers as possible.

Each could be combined with the GLib, and the last one could involve granaries, so there are some variants.

If we want the GLib, then the current prebuild is probably too early. Indeed, we only have a 300 shield prebuild and Literature is a big research project. So we can probably cancel the current prebuild (for a settler? A granary?) and start a GLib prebuild later.

I can probably do some calculations later this evening, or else tomorrow.

Btw, the luxes are nice but not really urgent as we will not have sea trading for a while. But wines and incense bring extra commerce IIRC so that will be useful.

Does anyone know the number of cities where the palace increases in cost? And to what cost will it rise?

Huge Map
up to 23: 300
24-29: 400
30-35: 500
36-41: 600
42-47: 700
48-53: 800
54-59: 900
60 or more: 1000

We're 'safe' for a while longer (though I realize we would actually have wanted an increase).

I too think we should try for the GLib now, there's very little chance we could ever catch up otherwise. But like zyxy says we can put that off for now.

Btw, we probably want to do a FPJ some time in a not too distant future. GLib before or after that? Most likely before, but I think we should think about it.

I just looked at the graph on the progress page and klarius's score started climbing after 350BC. I assume that means that is when they colonized the southern island. I wonder if the team that built the temple did so because they also lost out on the Great Lighthouse?

If we're going to try for the Great Library why is our current pre-build too early? At our current research rate we're 31 turns from map making and then 28 from literature, or 59 turns to lit. We have 47 shields in Sushi and have a 300 shield max pre-build. If we tone Sushi down to 4 spt we'll have less than 300 stockpiled when we get literature and can then switch to the Great Library for the last 100 shields. (We could also put Sushi back to max shields then.)

If Sushi alternates the two bgs one turn and then a bg and either fish or clams then next it will generate 8 shields and 13 beakers every two turns (with the third citizen acting as a scientist).

Nibanme gets the bg one of four turns and works the clams the other three with a scientist. That's 6 shields and 11 beakers every four turns.

Sensei has a scientist and works the rocks and cow. Three turns it works the fish and the fourth the bg. That's 17 shields and 43 beakers every four turns.

Total every four turns is 39 shields and 80 beakers every four turns or 20bpt. We're currently doing 21 bpt so we'd have to make that up or not get map making for 33 turns and lit for 29 more (62 turns total). Sushi would have (8)(31)+47=295 shields so we'd still be under our 300 shield limit.

We also want to build two(?) settlers by the time we have map making. The trick here is replacing the population since the suggested scheme has nary an extra grain of wheat for growth. I don't see how to get the growth without sacrificing beakers which in turn risks the pre-build becoming a new palace.

I am too tired to try thinking through the details any more. Details aren't my strong point anyway. Stepping back a bit the questions seems to be would we be better off if the 300 pre-build shields were invested in curraghs and galleys? I'm not familiar with the naval diferential so I'm not sure how to calculate the odds of a ship surviving a variable amount of turns at sea.

I have been playing with spreadsheets a bit. My first try was to maximize research, until Map Making, then balance it with production in Sushi until Lit. I joined the worker back in to Nibanme after the plains mine is done, and kept the prebuild in Sushi going. This gives:

Map Making on turn 103, together with 1 settler and 1 galley;
Lit on or before turn 131 (depending on the new town - on turn 131, the prebuild has reached 278 shields);
GLib on turn 156.


Conclusions:

donsig is right that we can easily slow down our prebuild sufficiently. In fact, the above plan slows it too much.
I think joining the worker back in might be suboptimal. It only brings in 1 extra bpt, but it severely slows down our prebuild, especially because we do not get a hill mine, and because Nibanme will need a bg.

A better idea could be to let the worker improve the hill, while Sensei trains a settler. Then join the worker into Sensei to help it grow and train another settler.
We could also consider a granary (60 shields, 1 gpt) and/or harbor (30 shields, 1 gpt, will bring the fish to 3 fpt) in Sensei, to make it a 6 turn settler factory or 3 turn worker factory.

I'll play around some more.

Harbour +Granary in Sensei seems particularly sensible to me.

I think using the worker to help replace growth after building the settler is a good idea. I gave no thought to what to build after map making but the harbor and granary are appealing given our lack of surplus food when we try to maximize beakers or shields. It still seems to me the next piece we need is an idea of how many curraghs or galleys we need to reach other lands. Then we could decide how much effort to put into building those versus the granary and harbor.

I haven't had time to try more scenarios yet, and probably won't get to it today. Hopefully tomorrow.

How many curraghs or galleys do we need?
A curragh or galley that ends a turn in sea or ocean has 50% chance to survive. A curragh has 4 movement points, a galley 6. A coastal tile costs 3 movement points, a sea tile 2, ocean 1.

It takes a curragh 4 risk turns to reach the western land, and a galley 2 risk turns:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC1100_shipping_west.png
Note that I started counting the pink curragh route at 1, because it has to risk 1 turn at sea to reach the nearby island. I assumed that the yellow tile is coast. If not, the red route is still as good, but the pink is riskier (for curraghs). So I would suggest using the red route for curraghs.
We can expect 1 in 16 curraghs to get across, and 1 in 4 galleys. Not too bad. Even though galleys are twice the price of curraghs, they are a better deal.

It takes a curragh 5 risk turns to reach the southern island, and a galley 3:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC1100_shipping_south.png
The yellow route is not good for curraghs, but just as good as the red ones for galleys.
We can expect 1 in 32 curraghs to get across, and 1 in 8 galleys. This should be doable. Again galleys are the better deal.

Thank you zyxy. So we shouldn't worry too much about making curraghs - if we have something else productive to make. Unless we want to upgrade curraghs. (We can do that can't we?)

My apologies yet again for not pushing this forward. I'm still not well (those who know me from before know I have shoulder problems ranging from recurring to perpetual). I can't do much time at the computer, and it doesn't look like they will recede fast this time. That means I'm going to have to take a few days away at best, only checking in briefly.

Current Roster and Schedule
Othniel - UP! (Jan 16)
donsig - On Deck! (Jan 19)
zyxy - Warming Up (Jan 22)
eldar (Jan 25)
CommandoBob (Jan 28)
Niklas (Jan 31)

Putting Othniel at the top since he hasn't played a turnset yet.

Cool, so I'm up. I'll wait at least a day before playing since we're still knocking around some scenarios.

After a lot of work, here is the fastest scheme I have been able to come up with so far. It gets

MapMaking, a galley and 2 settlers by turn 105
Two more settlers on turn 119 and turn 128
A granary and a harbor in Sensei
Literature on turn 127
The GLib on turn 139.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/57158/SGOTM13_BC1100_GLib.PNG

This scheme is extremely tight. It has hardly any spare beakers and no spare shields. It is also rather complicated, and requires player intervention at many points in time. It would be very helpful if someone could check it for mistakes before we try this.

Remarks:

All builds and discoveries are listed on the turn after the interturn where they occur.
Happiness limits us to 3 nonspecialist citizens per town. (This is the reason that the worker has to wait for two turns before joining Sensei). From turn 126 onwards I set lux tax to 10% to support a 4-th citizen in Sushi.
Nibanme finishes the galley on the same turn that we discover Map Making. This means that we need to use a prebuild, e.g. a granary, and switch to galley through the Big Picture.
The same happens in Sushi: the prebuild crosses 300 shields on the turn that we discover Literature. We need to change it to the GLib through the Big Picture.
Nibanme produces wealth for a few turns to pay for the upkeep of the granary. I don't know what to do here from turn 110 on, perhaps another galley, or continue on wealth.
The second settler is trained 1 turn before the galley is built, so that both settlers have time to walk to Nibanme and board the galley as soon as we have it.
I assumed that we need 5 turns to settle the two new towns. This can easily be done, e.g. 2 turns to cross the sea and unload, then 3 turns to walk. There are several decent places in reach.
The first two towns on the new island are supposed to produce 4 bpt and 1 gpt each. This can be achieved by hiring a scientist and producing wealth. The beakers are recorded in the "other" column on the right hand side of the sheet.

I don't have time to comment more extensively right now, but just letting ya'll know I'm planning on playing tomorrow night. Hopefully we'll have a consensus plan of attack in place by then.

I'll put up my own pre-set thoughts tomorrow.

After spending close to an hour perusing your numbers, zyxy, I have not found any mathematical errors. Great work! :goodjob: Now, I haven't put any effort in to coming up with a faster scenario, but frankly your work looks excellent and I think the results--two settlers, a perfectly timed GLib, no beaker waste, etc--are just about as good as we can hope for.

One question I did have was about corruption in Sushi. In order to build the GLib in time, we're having to run 9spt on occasion. I don't have an opportunity to look at CA2 at the moment, but I'm guessing Sushi has around 8-10% corruption in despotism. Depending on how the rounding works, are we at risk of losing one of those 9spt to corruption?

Also, we're building 3+ more curraghs according to the sheet. If curraghs only have a 1/16 or a 1/32 chance of finding more land, are they really worth building? If one does get through, the payoff could be huge. We could build more wealth instead of curraghs, but on the other hand I suppose the marginal benefits of wealth, say 15 more gp, is very little to risk. A bird in the hand or two (thousand) in the bush...

My main worry is that we'll be building the GLib too late in the BC era and get beat by some civ that pops Lit from a hut or freakishly researches Lit themselves. Nothing we can really do about that besides hope, I suppose. :please:

Ok, my pre-set thoughts:

Long-term: Plant the Rising Sun on the moon ASAP

Short-term: MM our little empire according to zyxy's sheet; send newly built curraghs due westward along the lower-risk suicide path

I'm a few hours from playing so there's still time to chip in with thoughts.

The only question I have is should we hold any curraghs for upgrading them to galleys? Would take alot of gold to upgrade though (if they upgrade that is).

Sushi has 4% waste so no worry there.

I think we should send those curraghs out the 1/16 route. They do upgrade to galleys, but we don't have the cash, and if we do get that early contact it would be huge...

After spending close to an hour perusing your numbers, zyxy, I have not found any mathematical errors. Great work! :goodjob: Now, I haven't put any effort in to coming up with a faster scenario, but frankly your work looks excellent and I think the results--two settlers, a perfectly timed GLib, no beaker waste, etc--are just about as good as we can hope for. Thanks for checking! Glad you liked it :).

One question I did have was about corruption in Sushi. In order to build the GLib in time, we're having to run 9spt on occasion. I don't have an opportunity to look at CA2 at the moment, but I'm guessing Sushi has around 8-10% corruption in despotism. Depending on how the rounding works, are we at risk of losing one of those 9spt to corruption? It's 4% IIRC, and rounded to nearest integer. It would be good to doublecheck this.

Also, we're building 3+ more curraghs according to the sheet. If curraghs only have a 1/16 or a 1/32 chance of finding more land, are they really worth building? If one does get through, the payoff could be huge. We could build more wealth instead of curraghs, but on the other hand I suppose the marginal benefits of wealth, say 15 more gp, is very little to risk. A bird in the hand or two (thousand) in the bush... I don't know. They are probably not really worth it, but what else is there? Waiting for galley upgrades doesn't look very attractive and might push us over the free support limit. So I would send them off, and hope for the best.

Good luck!

Sushi has 4% waste so no worry there.
Great. I didn't expect it to be that low in despotism. It is real close to the capital. ;)
I think we should send those curraghs out the 1/16 route. They do upgrade to galleys, but we don't have the cash, and if we do get that early contact it would be huge...

Agreed.

Upgrading a curragh to a galley costs 3(shield difference) or 3(30-15) = 45gp each. No way we'll have the gold for that.

All right then, I'm all for sending those boats onto the deep blue sea. Hopefully they will stay on the sea. :)

Last night we had unexpected company show up for the evening, so I was unable to play my set. Tonight should work fine though (hopefully no more surprises!). I'm still planning on following zyxy's sheet.

hey guys, I see you people seem more lively in this one than even in 12 (which I thought was lively anyway :eek:)

Well, good luck! Go Smurkz!

Hey sercer, good to see you again! Care to join us for the next one?

Othniel, any luck sofar?

Turnset is done. Not a particularly auspicious set either...

Summary:
Lost every curragh on suicide runs :sad:
Other civs built the ToA, the Great Wall, and the Mausoleum; that's good for our GLib run, me thinks
Followed the spreadsheet for all micro-managing

I played only 10 turns, although I was intending to play 15 to make up for Niklas' partial set. However, I stopped because I got a bit worried about the tech cost for Map Making that CA2 was putting out.

CA2 was saying Map Making costs 685 beakers, but our spreadsheet accounted for Map Making costing only 643 beakers. I have this feeling that CA2 is known to reflect inaccurate beaker costs, but I cannot remember the details for the life of me, and I don't know the formula for manually calculating tech costs.

Is 643 beakers the correct cost? If it's not correct, then our sheet is totally messed up.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/98133/map_making_time.jpg

The 19 turns here is based on 23bpt, but we're anticipating dropping the bpt down as we approach Map Making

Here's the turnlog:
Pre-flight:
I take a long look around the Smurzian empire. Small beginnings but it has big plans in its future.
I’m getting myself psyched up for my first SGOTM set ever. :D

Things look to be in good order. Niklas' didn't move any units around, so I'll consider this to be my first turn.

Turn 76 --> 1100 BC
MM the empire to reflect zyxy's sheet. I'm paying close attention to the micro-ing because I know how tight we need to follow that sheet for things to work out, and I don't want to ruin zyxy's excellent work.

Curragh "California Roll" moves W-W-W into the ocean west of SS
Curragh "Dragon Roll" moves SW-SW along coast of Big Island, getting in position for a suicide run. It's not worth bringing it all the way back north for run at the higher probability channel.

IBT
California Roll survives Round 1

Turn 77 --> 1075
California Roll moves W-W-W-W
Dragon Roll moves 1W and into the jumping off spot

IBT
"Our California Roll was lost in treacherous water" :( Not that it was really good eating, anyway.
Worker finishes plains mine

Turn 78 --> 1050
Worker to hill
Dragon Roll heads due S-S

We're doing 23bpt, right on schedule

IBT
Spain finishes Temple of Artemis. Rome finishes the MoM after wonder cascade, probably. Good news for our GLib effort!
Dragon Roll survives

Turn 79 --> 1025
Sensei Smurkz Curragh --> Curragh

New curragh, "Eel Roll" moves into suicide run position near SS
Dragon Roll keeps moving south

Worker starts mining the hill

Re-micro empire to reflect the sheet

IBT
Mongols finish the Great Wall. Lots of wonders are falling in a hurry.
Dragon Roll survives again


Turn 80 --> 1000
Nibanme Curragh --> Wealth

Dragon Roll keeps going S
Eel Roll moves out into the ocean W of Sensei
New curragh, "Rock N Roll" moves long coast toward jumping off spot near Sensei

I made a save here so we can look at our QSC stats if we want

IBT
Both Dragon Roll and Eel Roll were lost at sea. :cry:

Turn 81 --> 975
Move Rock N Roll along coast

IBT
zzz

Turn 82 --> 950
Move Rock N Roll due W-W into the sea. It started one space south of the jumping off spot for the northern route that zyxy diagrammed out, but the path works out to the same number of turns


IBT
Rock N Roll was lost at sea. Not too much luck here.


Turn 83 --> 925
Sensei Curragh --> Granary

Switch Nibanme over to a granary as a pre-build for a galley

New curragh. "Good Roll(s) Please" moves into jumping off spot W of Sensei

Progress on Map Making: 203/685 and holding steady at 23bpt. According to zyxy's sheet, Map Making should cost 643 beakers. CA2 does have an error in tech calculations, right? I'm having a brain spasm and can't remember how accurate CA2 is with tech costs.

IBT
zzz


Turn 84 --> 900
Send Good Roll(s) Please due W on a suicide run, perhaps our last such curragh suicide run for this game


IBT
So much for that! Good Roll(s) Please succumbs to the first little ocean wave that hits her

Our mysterious blue-bordered neighbor to the south must have built another coastal town

Turn 85 --> 875
zzzz Nothing much happening

I'm going to stop here. I was planning on going until turn 90 to even things out, but I'm a little worried about the Map Making cost thing. I don't remember how to manually calcualate tech costs, but I want to make sure that Map Making really costs only 643 beakers; otherwise our spreadsheet is royally messed up. Just a shot from the hip: when we calculated the tech cost, we did factor in that as far as our civ is concerned, no one else knows MM and so we don't get a tech discount, right? Even though Russia obviously has Map Making (they built the Lighthouse), we don't get a discount because we haven't contacted them yet. Just a thought there...


Screenshot of our island:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/98133/SGOTM_13__435.jpg

Ouch! Losing every single curragh. Maybe we should inspect our shipyards. It sounds like someone is drilling holes in the hull. Probably someone named 'Meleet'. :D

It is possible to fiddle with the overall tech rate of a game, so what CAII shows could be true. I've seen where some of the Always War 31 civ games will adjust the tech rate, but I don't remember the details.

The scheme does not account for beakers already invested. So hopefully that explains the difference... I'll check. EDIT: well, I would if I had the latest save :D

Is this a handoff? Then donsig is up!

Sorry! Here's the >>Save<< (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/98133/Smurkz_SG013_BC875_01.SAV). Also uploaded to the SGOTM server.

I think you're right, zyxy. We had two turns of 21bpt invested before my set. So, 685- 2(21) = 643. Exactly right! :) If there was only a forehead-slapping smilie...

By the way, does anyone have a link to a page showing the formula for manually calculating tech costs? I've been searching the forum but I've come up empty so far. I really want it for future reference.

EDIT: Yes, this is a hand-off to donsig

Hey sercer, good to see you again! Care to join us for the next one?

Othniel, any luck sofar?

Heh...MAYBE (yes, that's a "big maybe!")

If I have enough time...hopefully...

By the way, does anyone have a link to a page showing the formula for manually calculating tech costs? I've been searching the forum but I've come up empty so far. I really want it for future reference.


Here you go! (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29485)

Here you go! (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29485)

Thanks zyxy! Is this all still valid for C3C? I'm assuming so since you must have used it for calculating our tech costs...

EDIT: Also, what are the cost factors for Demigod and Sid?

Do we have a save for 1000BC?

Do we have a save for 1000BC?

Yes. Would you like me to upload it?

I just took a peek on the Results page.

As of roughly 1000 BC, the Firaxis score is about the same, from around 180 points to 200 points (Ivan). In culture Ivan has about 400 cp, Klarius 330 and everyone else is clustered around 150. Looking at territory, it appears that everyone has three cities. Ivan has the most tiles (58) which surely means they have a temple up and running. Klarius has 43 tiles and the rest of us are dead even at 41 tiles.

One temple will not win the game for Ivan, so if we factor that out of the culture and territory results, we have a dead even game at 1000 BC.

Which also means, no other team has The Great Lighthouse or any other wonder at this point.

It's a rough start, but it's a rough start for everybody.

We should definitely upload the 1000 BC save, so we can compare the QSC details with the other teams after everyone passes. Not that they are likely to be very interesting in this game... :rolleyes:

Well played Othniel! Not your fault the curraghs sank...

Current Roster and Schedule
donsig - UP! (Jan 19)
zyxy - On Deck! (Jan 22)
eldar - Warming Up (Jan 25)
CommandoBob (Jan 28)
Niklas (Jan 31)
Othniel (Feb 3)

I got it. This coming set is perfect for someone with my micromanaging prowess.

Long term goal: Launch the spaceship

Medium goal: Meet someone, anyone

Short term goal: Colonize island to the south

Turn set goal: Set cruise control

PLAN:

Press enter.
Change Sensei and Sushi per spreadsheet (trade fish for bg).
Keep pressing enter until worker finishes mine then have him start building a road.
Press enter some more. (How about I play till the worker finishes the road?)
Upload save.
Relax, enjoy life.

Can probably squeeze this in tomorrow. :)

We should definitely upload the 1000 BC save, so we can compare the QSC details with the other teams after everyone passes.
Should I upload the 1000 BC save to the SGOTM server, here on the team thread, or some other special place I am unaware of?

To the SGOTM server. Ahh.. except we're beyond 1000BC already. So it will probably have a fit if you try to do that. Post a question in the maintenance thread.

Yes to the server, and I'm pretty sure you can upload that save even if we're past the date. No harm in trying at any rate. :)

donsig, plan looks good to me. :)

To the SGOTM server. Ahh.. except we're beyond 1000BC already. So it will probably have a fit if you try to do that. Post a question in the maintenance thread.
Some people have no faith in my scripting abilities, obviously! I may be useless at game testing, but I do try quite hard at making the site work technically :p

I got it. This coming set is perfect for someone with my micromanaging prowess.

:D

There are very few things to do, but they are very, very important :).

Long term goal: Launch the spaceship

Medium goal: Meet someone, anyone

Short term goal: Colonize island to the south

Turn set goal: Set cruise control

PLAN:

Press enter.
Change Sensei and Sushi per spreadsheet (trade fish for bg).
Keep pressing enter until worker finishes mine then have him start building a road.
Press enter some more. (How about I play till the worker finishes the road?)
Upload save.
Relax, enjoy life. Looks good. I'm fine with playing more than 10 turns at this stage.

Some people have no faith in my scripting abilities, obviously! I may be useless at game testing, but I do try quite hard at making the site work technically :p

Bravo AlanH! I uploaded the 1000 BC save and it worked like a charm. The server didn't pitch a fit. :)

Save (610 BC) (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC0610_01.SAV)

Pre-flight: Quick check to ensure things haven't changed. They haven't.

IBT:

Turn 86 (850 BC): Give fish to Sushi and bg to Sensei.

IBT:

Turn 87 (825 BC): I noticed tobacco floating in the sea and realized I did not install the graphics pack on this computer.

Saved game and exited to do that. I did have the NoAIPatrol=0 in the ini file. Downloaded and installed the graphics mod and uploaded the save to ensure no problems. Continuing from the newly uploaded save. Now I see rocks and clams :) Quick look around and all seems well.

IBT:

Turn 88 (800 BC):

IBT:

Turn 89 (775 BC):

IBT:

Turn 90 (750 BC):

IBT:

Turn 91 (730 BC): We have a mine on a hill in despotism. TNT did that and was ridiculed. Worker begins a road.

IBT:

Turn 92 (710 BC):

IBT:

Turn 93 (690 BC):

IBT:

Turn 94 (670 BC): Granary built in Sensei. Settler queued up. We now have a 1gpt deficit. Were we expecting this? We

have 14g and ten turns till map making.

IBT:

Turn 95 (650 BC):

IBT:

Turn 96 (630 BC):

IBT:

Turn 97 (610 BC):

Things are on schedule as far as I can tell. Played to turn 97. The worker has just finished the road on the hill. Granary done in Sensei, settler in a couple turns. We are running a 1gpt deficit since the granary was built.

Will post screenie later though it's not much different than the last one.

EDIT: Our island paradise: http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3038/smurkz97kl4.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/my.php?image=smurkz97kl4.jpg)

Well played donsig! :goodjob: I'll let zyxy answer that -1 gpt question... :shifty:

Current Roster and Schedule
zyxy - UP! (Jan 20)
eldar - On Deck! (Jan 23)
CommandoBob - Warming Up (Jan 26)
Niklas (Jan 29)
Othniel (Feb 1)
donsig (Feb 4)

:mad: So both klarius and tao have made off-island contacts. Did I mention I hate unfair gilligan starts? :gripe:

Seems klarius is also prebuilding a GLib (most likely), but none of the others. Interesting.

I was surprised by those contacts as well. But the contacts do not seem to have helped them much since they haven't managed any techs we don't have.

I was surprised by those contacts as well. But the contacts do not seem to have helped them much since they haven't managed any techs we don't have.

That doesn't surprise me. They probably don't have anything worth trading. It looks very much like everyone's going full-tilt for Maps. Us & Klarius will probably get there at the same time, the rest 10 or so turns ahead because they didn't go for Masonry.

However, what's Spooks doing with all that food? When Spooks have lots of food and the rest don't... you gotta suspect something!

The contacts will lower tech prices quite significantly.

Yes, -1 gpt was accounted for. Our accumulated gold will last until the galley is built in Nibanme, and then Nibanme can do wealth for a while.

The thing to decide for the next turn is where to settle, and what to start building there. I suggest these two locations:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC0610_dotmap.png
The northern one will be very nice after culture expansion (temple?) and harbor. I suggest to start a prebuild for something here, it will take very long, so no need to decide what we build now. The southern one will then have to build wealth to support our granary and harbor (together with Nibanme). This can end probably some five turns before we get Lit.

The barbs are roaming, so probably we can gamble that they won't be a problem.

Not much discussion sofar... I'll play up to the decision point later this afternoon, and then wait a bit more.

Not much to discuss really. I agree with your choices for town placements.

They look good to me, too. Is our next focus gallies or settlers or a balance between the two?

Turnlog

Turn 97, 610BC: zzz.

Turn 98, 590BC: interturn takes a few minutes, apart from that: zzz

Turn 99, 570BC: Sensei settler -> settler. Send settler to Nibanme. Join worker to Sensei.

Turn 100, 550BC: zzz.

Turn 101, 530BC: Switch oysters to Sushi, bg to Nibanme.

Turn 102, 510BC: zzz.

Turn 103, 490BC: Switch Sushi from scientist to coast.

Turn 104, 470BC: Sensei settler -> settler (prebuild). Send settler to Nibanme. Sensei works fish, Sushi works Cow, Oysters, bg. Nibanme unchanged.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC0470_Map_Making.png
MapMaking exactly in 1 turn, this part of the calculation worked!

Turn 105, 450BC: MapMaking -> switch Nibanme to galley and Sensei to harbor through the Big Picture -> Literature. Nibanme galley -> wealth. Switch Oysters to Nibanme, bg to Sushi. Both settlers board the galley and set course for the big island.

Turn 106, 430BC: Cow switches to Sensei, fish to Sushi. The galley moves and disembarks 1 settler.

Turn 107, 410BC: found Akichi (vacant land). It starts a temple and hires a scientist.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC0410_Akichi.png
Disembark the other settler. We settle the towns sooner than planned, and this means we get a lot of extra beakers. Not enough to speed the GLib by a turn, but we can use the money to fire the scientist from Akichi a bit sooner (not yet, however).

Turn 108, 390BC: found Ao (green). It starts wealth and hires a scientist.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC0390_Ao.png
Sensei works cow and plains. The ship returns to pick up a warrior.

Turn 109, 370BC: zzz.

Turn 110, 350BC: Almost got a heart attack here:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC0370_HG.png
To quote King Richard IV: "I don't like this news! Bring me some better news!"
Sensei gets bg, Sushi plains.

Turn 111, 330BC:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC0350_GLib.png
Well, we gave it our best shot. Sensei gets fish, Sushi hills. But it's back to the drawing table now, and this is a good point to stop.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC0330.png

notes:

Best strategy now is probably to spam galleys and settlers, hoping for a few contacts.
There is little point in continuing at a max science run. We should probably finish literature, so that we can build libs. But there is less hurry now, and Akichi and Ao should fire their scientists to grow and produce something useful.
Our prebuild is at 176 shields. The best option seems an ultra expensive granary. Then it can be an 8-turnsettler factory, sharing the cow with Sensei.


The save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC0330_01.SAV).

Roster:
eldar - UP! (Jan 23)
CommandoBob - On deck! (Jan 26)
Niklas - Warming up (Jan 29)
Othniel (Feb 1)
donsig (Feb 4)
zyxy - just played

Ouch! This is why I don't play on these high levels. :D I think you're right about the settlers (enough to fill the island) and galleys to make contacts. Not sure what to do with the pre-build. Can we build temples yet? That's the only alternative I can think of to a granary (not that a granary is a bad idea).

:bump:

Eldar, are you here?

@donsig: another alternative is a harbor, but that's only 30 shields. With a harbor and a granary, Sushi could perhaps be another 6 turner (if we have enough shields). Would a temple be useful?

I'm not sure if a temple would be useful. I guess I don't see the big rush for a settler factory though. It won't take long to fill the big island and we're not sure there is much more land out there to settle peacefully. I switch to granary before a harbor - we could build the harbor from scratch easier. I can't think of a good argument for a temple while the granary does give us a boost for making settlers. Of the alternatives a granary sounds best.

I'm here, I was at a wedding yesterday... got it. Looks like a looooooooooong haul from here on in :(

Sigh. This game is going to take loooooooooots of stamina...

Next goals IMO: Settle big island, FPJ in not too long, the faster the better. Not that that island is all that much better - only larger!

I'm beginning to agree with AlanH - this map is too hard even for a SGOTM.

Indeed, the AI will be at the end of the MA before we reach them, even with suicide boats. They are teching so fast, they must know each other...

Dotmap?

Will we get enough towns for an FP?

Sensei as 6 turner, Sushi as 8 turner?

Research after Lit to CoL/Philo/Rep?

Those are the issues for now, I think.

Will we get enough towns for an FP?
How many are needed on this map size?

Sensei as 6 turner, Sushi as 8 turner?
I don't see why not.

Research after Lit to CoL/Philo/Rep?
Again, I don't see why not. There's nothing else we need.

Prior to me playing this, probably tonight:

Long Term
Head off into space.

Short Term
1. Populate the nearby island.
2. Keep trying suicide galleys? (West? South?)

Next 10
Build settlers, transport & found cities. If nobody's done a dotmap by the time I get back I'll throw one together.

I presume any new cities will be set to Wealth+Sci?

I think Galleys Go South would be the best plan, to meet the Light Blue People.

How many are needed on this map size? Yes, that was my question :D.

On standard it is 8 10 or half of OCN. Our map is huge, then half of OCN = 36/2 = 18. But I have no idea whether this formula is valid. I suppose it could be checked with the editor, I will try. EDIT: misremembered the number for standard, now corrected. Indeed, for a huge map it is 18.

I don't see why not.
One alternative is two 6 turners. It depends on how many shields are available, and on how many settlers/workers we need. Yet another option is to focus on galleys. Probably that is worse.

Again, I don't see why not. There's nothing else we need.
Another choice is to save up cash after Lit. But probably it is better to at least research CoL and Philo first.

Eldar, I realize that the game has lost some of its appeal and the strategy seems clear. But I think your plan is a bit minimalistic, I would like to see more details. What are our towns going to do, for example? Now that we have so little to work with, squeezing every last drop out of it will pay off.

I don't think wealth + scientists is a good idea. The two that I founded are not very corrupted and will be far more helpful if we grow them and build some improvements. We can afford to drop the science rate a bit.

I would go for the western passage, as it is considerably shorter than the southern one. Please see the map I posted a while ago.

Losing the GLib is a bitter blow. :sad:

It burns to turn that pre-build into just a granary, but nothing else seems better. We don't need too many settlers, but we need them asap.

I'm going to summarize where I see us at. It helps me to be more creative in my problem-solving when I step back and see the greater situation, and perhaps my summary might help the rest of you too. You're all probably already way ahead of me on this, though. :)

Summary:
We're trying to climb the tech ladder as fast as possible. All other goals are secondary to this one.

Now, there are a few ways to get techs
1. Self-research, which can be broken down to:
Play peaceful, build lots of science improvements
Play militarily, capture lots of land, spam science farms, fewer science improvements


2. Great Library tricks
Build/capture and steal up to Education
And/Or use "GLib Elevator" to get us far along the tech tree


3. Buy Techs by building money improvements, going zero research, stockpiling cash

4. Trade tech

At this point in our tech outlook, this is my opinion:
Option #1a won't work due to too little land; usually a bad option anyway
Option #1b is good, but we have a problem: we need Astronomy first

Option 2a is out.
Option 2b, using the Elevator, is not really possible either. We have to get at least Astronomy to be able to capture the GLib, but that means we'd have Education already.

Option 3 is, IMO, a very good one

Option 4 won't work for a very long time because we're behind the tech trading curve

So...
Let's stop research in the near future, stockpile gold, and buy techs until we capture enough land to spam science farms

I think self-researching up to Republic is important, but after that, buying techs will likely be cheaper. We, of course, need to get contacts, the faster the better.

Doing this means setting up our new island with markets, aqueducts, perhaps courts, etc. A hybrid of using the more-efficient scientists (as opposed to taxmen) to lower tech costs, and then buying the techs might be an optimal strategy. Getting Currency would be a priority.

After we build money improvements, we'll need barracks for a military push. But the money improvements should come first.

I think we should consider what city spacing pattern we want. Cxxc is the standard I prefer, but we should at least look at an ICS scenario. We might be able to get an FP if we do an ICS. Off-hand I think that getting an FP sooner on our big island will be more beneficial than saving the FP for a new landmass.

I agree with doing a palace jump to the Big Island, but we're a ways off from accomplishing that. We'll lose our granary and harbor in Sensei when we do the jump, too.

Edit: X-Post with the above....

Apologies for the brevity of plan - I was at work, no access to the save.

First a dotmap, effort #1. I reckon we can get in another 6 towns on the island.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/45827/smurkz_dotmap_01.jpg


Now for some ideas on builds. We don't want to waste some good site, particularly the two we've already settled. FP I would put at the tip of the island, as I think it will benefit more cities that way. We can always check the figures with CA2 when the time comes.

Both Akichi and Ao will get 2spt if we take off the scientists.

As Akichi isn't contributing Wealth, and has the most to gain from cultural expansion, I think we should re-deploy Akichi's citizen to get some growth and finish its temple. If we delay that another 6 turns, then the Temple will complete as it grows to size 2, negating the need for an MP or Lux tax.

Doing that drops Lit from 19 turns to 22.

Ao I would leave for now. I think the loss of beakers would delay us too long. However we might think about moving it from Wealth to a harbour eventually.

From my dotmap I like the look of Yellow then Pink. Red is where I think the FP could be built.

Swap the Palace for a Granary in Sushi and then get a Harbor built.

From my dotmap I like the look of Yellow then Pink. Red is where I think the FP could be built.


Referencing zyxy's post above, we need 18 cities for an FP. Based on a quick eyeball count I just did, we won't have 18 cities even if we ICS the big island; we'll have like 13-14 at most.

If we ICS, we won't need aqueducts. On the other hand, if we do cxxc, we'll have much better unit support in Republic. I think cxxc is better since we won't get an FP either way.

Othniel, very good analysis. :thumbsup: I also agree with your conclusion - going for a strategy that lets us make gold to buy techs will likely be the best we can hope for at this point. And I think we should persue that goal without deviations.

Do we really want to continue on Literature in that scenario? 19+ turns is a lot, and we won't have any use for libraries at all if we run 0% research. The only use I could see for it is if we manage to meet an AI that doesn't have it yet. Seems unlikely, but not totally out of the question. But is it worth the investment? I think not. Better chalk up the invested beakers as a loss and go on to more important things, rather than losing even more to something we don't need.

Researching to Republic and then Currency seems to me the only important goals. Republic might be tradeable to some of the more backwards AIs.

An FPJ is a given IMO, especially considering that we can't get an FP. The loss of buildings in Sensei is nothing to worry about, if we can get the production up on the larger island. Our start-island towns will never be better than they are, which isn't good.

ICS vs eldar's dotmap? Looking at his town placements, I agree that's the best positions we could choose for our towns, good work :thumbsup:. With only one luxury, how large could we hope to grow those towns with a reasonable investment in luxury? Will 8 good towns be better than 12 somewhat good towns? My gut feeling is no, in particular since we don't have fresh water, and that makes a CC as good as a mined grass, so we can just as well settle. I think we should do a more thorough analysis here.

We have 2 luxes (Wine + Incense). Markets no good, except in a zero-research strat. I like Othniel's plan. Time for bed here, play tomorrow!

Right, I didn't see the Incence :crazyeye:, that makes larger towns more viable. I still think we need an analysis though (and I might do one tomorrow). And yes, the markets would be for the +50% cash alone.

Very good post, Othniel! I cannot see any flaws.

Eldar, the dotmap looks nice! Unfortunate that we have to settle most of the forests, but it seems unavoidable in most cases.

Some ideas:

No fresh water or aqueducts (for a long time), means we'll be stuck at size 6. Coastal tiles count (our harbors are cheap) and are in fact very good, as they bring lots of commerce. This determines the density of the placement. Probably we can place a few more towns.
Size 6 can be kept happy with 2 lux, 2 MP, 1 for free and 1 scientist. Even short term, happiness is not really a problem - run a scientist whenever a town grows unhappy or cannot work a 2fpt tile.
18 towns needed for an FP. I cannot fit enough on this island (I get to 15 for our whole empire, at most).
Move the capital to Pink Dot? Not very urgent maybe, and we can build it by hand (300 shields up to 23 towns). A free palace jump might cost more than it brings (EDIT: because of loss of a good town with improvements).
I think developing our fledgling towns will be better than hiring scientists and/or producing wealth. The latter is more efficient in the short run, but the main concern IMO is to get contacts or get to Astro. For that, we need to look at long term research and short term production (suicide galleys).
Fastest way out of the hole is to find the AI, quickly. So we need plenty of galleys. STill, each contact lowers research cost by about 2%. Even if we meet all civs, and they all know the tech, then we still pay 44% of monopoly cost. If we are lucky, some of them are isolated and we can broker tech.
Republic is 1400 beakers :eek:! EDIT: worse, it is 1600! Still, max research will be faster than min.
In total we have to produce 6 settlers and probably 8 workers until Astro. With a 6-turner and an 8-turner this takes roughly 35 turns. With two 6 turners it takes 30 turns + some turns to build a harbor in Sushi. Little difference, unless we want to train more workers for population transfer. Btw, do we have enough shields to run two 6-turners?
Will we build libs? Does it pay to keep researching Lit? I guess yes, but I am not sure.


I agree with Niklas that we need to analyze this more.

Lots of good ideas being thrown around, this is excellent! I'm going to limit my response, though, to just a couple of points so that I don't write a book. Not toooo big of a book. :p

Research:
Do we really want to continue on Literature in that scenario? 19+ turns is a lot, and we won't have any use for libraries at all if we run 0% research. The only use I could see for it is if we manage to meet an AI that doesn't have it yet. Seems unlikely, but not totally out of the question. But is it worth the investment? I think not. Better chalk up the invested beakers as a loss and go on to more important things, rather than losing even more to something we don't need.
Will we build libs? Does it pay to keep researching Lit? I guess yes, but I am not sure.

I agree with both of you. :crazyeye:

I see Lit being valuable as a trade tool only. The exception to this would be if we short-term built a few Libraries to speed Republic, but I think a prohibitive 80 shields each makes that a totally unfeasible strategy.

In the distant future, we'll probably want Libs and Unis in our main cities, but we know that the AI already knows Literature, so we could just acquire Lit when we need it. I don't think we should mass-build Libs for a long time though.

No, the only reason to keep researching Lit is, as Niklas speculated, if we can trade with some isolated AI. I'm torn on this question. I think it likely that we'll find a few Meleet-ordained backwards trading partners designed to give us a boost. But will it be worthwhile enough to delay Republic for 19 turns while we finish Lit??

Well, if we finally get contacts, I expect that most other civs will have Philo and probably CoL. If we finish Lit off now, we won't have to research Philo and CoL at monopoly cost. We might even be able to purchase one or both of them.

As zyxy pointed out, getting contacts will only lower tech cost by 2% each (thanks zyxy, did not know that!). Still, we might be able to recover the 19 more turns worth of time invested in Lit. So, I think the call on this one is very marginal, and because I expect us to finally breakthrough and get contacts :rolleyes:, I say let's just finish Lit off. But, again, very marginal.

Town Placement:
Will 8 good towns be better than 12 somewhat good towns? My gut feeling is no, in particular since we don't have fresh water, and that makes a CC as good as a mined grass, so we can just as well settle.

No fresh water or aqueducts (for a long time), means we'll be stuck at size 6. Coastal tiles count (our harbors are cheap) and are in fact very good, as they bring lots of commerce. This determines the density of the placement. Probably we can place a few more towns.

Yeah, I agree with you guys again. :) I think a strict cxxc build pattern won't make a good enough use of our tiles for a long time to come.

Still, I think it very important for us to plan on size 7 cities. We get like 3x as much free unit support in Republic that way, and unit costs will be important to manage carefully. The extra lux tax cost will pay for itself.

I like the idea to build more cities to take advantage of harbors and the high commerce values of coastal tiles.

I'm thinking like 10-ish towns on the Big Island. Enough so that until we get Aquaducts, we can maximize our tile use, but few enough so that we can get to size 7. I haven't worked out a dot map or food calcs to see if this works out.

Remember that we'll get aquaducts long before we'll get Astronomy.

Move the capital to Pink Dot? Not very urgent maybe, and we can build it by hand (300 shields up to 23 towns). A free palace jump might cost more than it brings (EDIT: because of loss of a good town with improvements).

Yeah, I think capital at the Pink Dot too. But I would do a free jump instead of a handbuild. We would lose a granary + harbor + 3 citizens (90 shields and 3 pop) vs 300 shields. I think 210 shields is more valuable than the 3 pop, so the free jump looks better. This is provided we have a settler on hand in Sensei to rebuild that site immediately after the jump.

Republic is 1400 beakers :eek:! Still, max research will be faster than min.

Dang. :cringe:

Little difference, unless we want to train more workers for population transfer.

Yes, I think this might be important to look at. Also building some workers in the Ao or Akichi to improve the land, especially roads.

I lurked the Spooks thread a lot on SGOTM 12. One thing they did that was huge was to build tons and tons of workers in cycles to quickly improve the land, then add back in those workers post-hospitals (or aqueducts) for a massive beaker boost.

Using the greater growth efficiency for size 1-6, and then using worker joins for size 7 and above would be worth planning for.

Yeah, I think capital at the Pink Dot too. But I would do a free jump instead of a handbuild. We would lose a granary + harbor + 3 citizens (90 shields and 3 pop) vs 300 shields. I think 210 shields is more valuable than the 3 pop, so the free jump looks better. This is provided we have a settler on hand in Sensei to rebuild that site immediately after the jump.

I agree with the notion of an FPJ here. Sensei can be abandoned by building a settler there and capping it at size 2, so when it completes we get the option to abandon Sensei and get the settler already in place to re-found Sensei.

We need 29 bpt to go max on Republic at better than 50 turns. So we can certainly do that, and it's only going to be quicker once we have Philo and CoL.

The danger in keeping on with Lit - which is now useless to us as I don't see us building Libs even to speed up Republic, 80 shields is a bit steep IMO - is that we won't meet anyone and we won't be able to trade.

We should switch to CoL/Philo/Republic right away and abandon Lit.

Anyone know if the AI sends out suicide ships? We know from the 1000BC results that two teams had more than one contact. I doubt either team got lucky in more than one direction of their explorations. That means the team with four contacts probably found a mainland where the contacts all know each other. I can't imagine getting much for literature even if we manage to stumble upon an isolated civ someday. Our beakers invested in literature are as useless as the shields in our pre-build. Let's switch over to the republic path.

The AI never send out suicide ships. They won't even risk ending a turn at sea or ocean to kill an enemy ship.

The AI never send out suicide ships. They won't even risk ending a turn at sea or ocean to kill an enemy ship.

That's what I thought. I wonder if that puts us in a position to be a tech broker? Could the map be designed so that there are different groups of other civs that won't meet each other till astronomy? Or are we facing an even tougher map? It's difficult to say but right now galleys seem as important as settlers.

What to do with the cities - next turn set:

Sensei Will finish its harbor & grow to size 3 next turn. Move it on to 6-turn Settlers first, will produce 1 + be part done with another by close.

Sushi Switch Palace to World's Most Expensive Granary. Build Galley (exploration), then Harbor, then Settlers on a 6/8 turn cycle.

Nibanme Switch from Wealth to Galley, slow burn but what else can it really do? If we keep it on Wealth we are negating the cost of 1 building, but next turn there will be 3 (2 Granaries, 1 Harbor). That needs 3 cities on Wealth and at best we can have 2. We will have to be resigned to negative income and the need to lower Sci at some point, but how long can we really hold on just building Wealth?

Akichi Work BG for a quicker Temple.

Ao Switch from Wealth to Temple. Work BG for a quicker Temple.

Other things that will happen:
There is currently a Warrior in a boat. Going to the island I presume for MP/barb duty. The boat will head back to Sensei to pick up the first Settler. The next town will go on Yellow Dot, it will start building anything, will be set to grow, and will only have a few shields at most by the end of the set.

Research:
Cut off Lit right away and switch to Phil for CoL->Republic later. With the immediate changes I've proposed, Phil is 19 turns. This will obviously come down in time.

Sounds like a good plan, eldar.

The switch to Philo sounds fine.

I would like to see us prioritize in a worker build. Building roads on the big island would be very helpful for beaker production.

Actually, though, if Ao and Akichi work just fish and whale tiles once they get their temples, the worker can probably wait a little longer. Perhaps the third city on the big island can start a worker as its first build...

How about Warrior->Worker in Ao then? It's Temple isn't as useful straight away as Akichi's.

How about Warrior->Worker in Ao then? It's Temple isn't as useful straight away as Akichi's.

Sounds good.

Dotmapping:
I put some efforts into refining eldar's excellent dotmap. My goal was to see how many size 7+ cities we can squeeze on the big island.

The benefits of squeezing in more size 7 cities:
- +3 unit support per city in Republic
- greater utilization of tiles

Downsides of (more) size 7 cities:
- aqueduct cost/maintenance
- possible lux tax increase
- more settlers needed

I think the long-term benefits of size 7 cities will greatly outweigh the cons.

Here is a modification of eldar's original dotmap.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/98133/smurkz_dotmap_01_more_dots.JPGThe light blue, sea green, and black dots are new. The white dot has been moved.


Here is that same modified dotmap, only with numbers to represent food potential. It's a little busy. :D
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/98133/smurkz_dotmap_01b.jpg
The numbers represent food potential only. This is based on a Republic government and harbors in each city. I gave each city enough tiles to be worth a total of at least 14 food = 7 pop. Note that several cities can grow much larger.

Note also that quite a number of tiles can be swapped around for greater shield or commerce, depending on our wishes.

I like that last dotmap, very good work Othniel! I don't see how we could improve on that, is it even possile to settle tighter? No reason though, I think Othniel's map will give the best long-term potential.

eldar's plan looks good to me. :)

I'm not too familiar with the SGOTM resource pack...but the blips on the clams show 2 extra food. Wouldn't that mean that the clams on the coast would give 4 food each, and the fish in the sea would only give 3?

You're right about the clams, they are the same as fish, 4 food. The fish in the sea would give the same fpt as a fish on coast, but one less commerce.

oh yeah, sea is 1 less commerce, not one less food :blush:

Sorry, no time to read everything, hopefully tomorrow. Just some quick comments:

I like the new dotmap. Lightblue is lowest priority IMO, Pink highest. One of our settler pumps can do a worker, Ao and Akichi should grow IMO.

I am not sure it is good to cut research on Lit. Libs will help to shorten research times, and researching is cheaper than buying until we get near the front of the science race. Republic + CoL + Philo is about 2400 beakers, remainder on Lit is 450. Even with modest assumptions we can expect to get to Republic around the same time through Lit or without.

Is Republic worth it anyway? Republic costs 1600 beakers (and 1 turn anarchy), and it will take some time to make up for that cost. Probably it will: an additional 1 gpt per citizen and 1 gpt per town, plus lifting of the despotism penalty probably outweighs the additional lux tax. Especially if we have multiplier buildings...

Unit support matters little I think. We won't have much military until Astro.

Regarding FPJ: I am mostly concerned with commerce, not shields. FPJ will cost commerce from Sensei (low pop before and after palace jump, loss of buildings after jump) and possibly other towns (pop restrictions). A hand built palace will cost commerce through corruption. I don't know which is best.

I don't see how we could improve on that, is it even possile to settle tighter?

I was trying to work out an even tighter pattern because quite a number of tiles are still unworked, but with Ao and Akichi fixed in place, this was the best I could do. Anyone else see a tighter pattern?

Wouldn't that mean that the clams on the coast would give 4 food each...

Good catch! I'm still getting used to the Med resource pack. :p This is good news on the clams. That means we can support even more pop if we want to.

I am not sure it is good to cut research on Lit. Libs will help to shorten research times, and researching is cheaper than buying until we get near the front of the science race

Is it cheaper? If so, we might need to reconsider the plan to build money improvements. My understanding was that almost always it's cheaper to buy techs than to self-research when you've fallen way behind the AI.

Buying is also quite flexible in that you can use gpt, luxes, agreements, etc. to buy techs, plus perhaps legally get some of those deals cut prematurely, giving you a low-cost or free tech (I know that gets into exploit territory ;)). Basically, I'm looking for the math on this one because I'm quite curious.

My experience is that it is definitely easier to catch up by buying techs with gpt than to research them yourself. And another nice corollary is that you get the tech right away, which opens possibilities for twofers, assuming any such will be presented to us. And like Othniel says, there's luxes, agreements, maps(!), etc that will help us bring down the prices.

I think it would be a mistake to complete literature. I would argue against the use of libraries anywhere.

If we wait with the FPJ the point where we would make more money having jumped the capitol, which will happen sooner rather than later, then I don't see how that could be more costly than to build it manually. 300 shields is bound to take >50 turns, and I would definitely expect us to jump the palace in that time frame.

Btw, we don't need to let Sensei drop in size before the jump. We can build a settler as the last thing before the jump just to be able to replace it, but we don't need it capped at size 2, we can abandon it manually (Rightclick -> Abandon city) regardless of size.

I accept Othniel's revised dotmap :)

I'm not convinced Pink should be settled first, Yellow will be less corrupt has better shield potential and also opens up additional BGs for Akichi and Ao. Pink is #2 on my list.

If we let Ao grow then we ought to get a worker down to the island ASAP, so the first build from Sensei post-harbor can be a worker not a settler.

So a slightly revised plan for the current cities:
Sensei: Harbor->Worker(for island)->Settlers
Ao: Wealth->Harbor and Sci->BG (Harbor won't complete this turnset so it can be changed later if desired)

We need consensus on whether or not to settle Pink or Yellow first but again that won't come up in this turnset as the settler will be only 1 turn out of Sensei by then.

I will (finally) play my set this evening!

My experience is that it is definitely easier to catch up by buying techs with gpt than to research them yourself. And another nice corollary is that you get the tech right away, which opens possibilities for twofers, assuming any such will be presented to us. And like Othniel says, there's luxes, agreements, maps(!), etc that will help us bring down the prices.

I think it would be a mistake to complete literature. I would argue against the use of libraries anywhere. My experience is that the AI always charges more than what a tech is worth at the higher difficulty levels. Is your experience different?
You are of course right that trading becomes more attractive than research when brokering is possible. But will it be? Unlikely, just look at the wonder races. Many AIs must be near the end of the age already.

Selling resources (except perhaps with the Torch civ) or maps is impossible until Astronomy and Navigation. That's tens of thousands of beakers into the future. To me, libs are clearly the way to go. Well, I guess eldar will just have to choose what he thinks best.

If we wait with the FPJ the point where we would make more money having jumped the capitol, which will happen sooner rather than later, then I don't see how that could be more costly than to build it manually. 300 shields is bound to take >50 turns, and I would definitely expect us to jump the palace in that time frame. Ok, this sounds good.

Lit vs. No Lit.

Lit definitely delays us 19 turns in getting to Republic. What if we pre-build a couple of Libraries though? Will that help shave time off? Remember Libs cost 2gpt maintenance so there is that to call into consideration. We won't be able to run at 100% Sci.

No Lit means no Libs for a long time. I'd rather have them than not.... so I'm going to keep on with Lit. This turnset has taken too long in the prevarication stages, I just want to get it played now!

Going for Lit won't delay us a full 19 turns to Republic, but it will definitely delay us in getting there. Do libs really cost 2 gpt? :hmm: If Lit is what the team wants then I will agree too, but I definitely think it's a waste of time. The only value I can see for Lit is if we can trade it somewhere.

Lit vs. No Lit.

Lit definitely delays us 19 turns in getting to Republic. What if we pre-build a couple of Libraries though? Will that help shave time off? Remember Libs cost 2gpt maintenance so there is that to call into consideration. We won't be able to run at 100% Sci.

No Lit means no Libs for a long time. I'd rather have them than not.... so I'm going to keep on with Lit. This turnset has taken too long in the prevarication stages, I just want to get it played now!

I'm pretty sure Libs cost 1 gpt maintenance.

I really like this discussion, though...it's opening up my mind. I sort of have this sort of discussion with myself for every single building I can build....except not as thorough, they're usually one-argument discussions :D

Lit definitely delays us 19 turns in getting to Republic. What if we pre-build a couple of Libraries though? Will that help shave time off? Remember Libs cost 2gpt maintenance so there is that to call into consideration. We won't be able to run at 100% Sci.

[...]No Lit means no Libs for a long time. I'd rather have them than not.... so I'm going to keep on with Lit.

This Lit question has been dragging out a little. So has the question with self-research vs. buy techs

The more I think about it, the more I think that completing Lit is a bit of a waste. I also really believe that buying techs will be more effective that research so Libraries are not effective for a while to come.

My experience has also been that going 0% sci, perhaps coupled with a lone scientist going after an obscure optional tech, and generating lots of cash to buy techs is the best way to catch up. Researching a tech more or less locks all your cash into that tech until you finish it off. Buying a tech, if done creatively :mischief:, will often let you get techs in just a fraction of the time needed to research. Plus it can open up two-fers more quickly and gives diplomatic leverage.

Even though Republic is quite a few turns off, building Libraries specifically to speed it up doesn't seem like a good move the more I look at it. We have all these things to spend shields on:

- Galleys
- Temples for certain cities
- Settlers from our pumps
- Workers
- Warriors (a couple) for barbs and mp
- Courthouses possibly

Libraries could be used instead of temples for culture expansion but the cost difference (80 vs 20 for our cheap temples) seems too steep. Plus, if we do build Libs, it'll likely be just short-term because we'll want to sell them off once we go 0% research. Also, where would we build the Libs? Anywhere on the big island would probably be too corrupt pre-Republic to help much. We need our non-corrupt cities as settler pumps.

Now, all that said, I'm fine with the turnplayer, eldar, making the final choice. The team seems a little dead-locking in this decision, and if eldar wants to go for Lit, then I'm ok with gambling that we can get some trade value out of it. I still believe the Lit vs no Lit decision to be very marginal in its effects.

So, eldar, IMO just make the decision you feel is best. (just don't screw it up! ;):p) No, I trust your judgment. :)

Multiple x-post... unfortunately I'd made the decision (to continue with Lit) before I saw the above posts. I think Akichi will be un-corrupt enough (19%?) to benefit from a Library. It has plenty of commerce potential so it may not be a total waste. Even 1 Library, there, would help. It's Temple still isn't done so there's time to switch it to a Granary as a Lib pre-build if we want.

>> Save << (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_BC0150_01.SAV)

T0 330BC Akichi Sci->BG, Ao Sci->BG, Wealth->Harbor, Sushi Palace->Granary - wasting 116 shields :cry: Moved the boat to 1NE of Akichi and unloaded the Warrior into Akichi. Lit now in 25.
T1 310BC Sensei Harbor->Worker, Sushi Granary->Harbor. Sensei grows to size 3. Re-assign Sensei & Sushi Citizens for more cash, timing Worker with growth and getting Harbor still in 5 (after a swap back after 2 turns). Move boat (now named Gojira) back towards Sensei. Move warrior (Akira) down south. Lit now in 21 @ -2gpt (6 in treasury).
T2 290BC Another slight tile re-adjust in Sensei for a bit more cash. Lit now in 19 @ -2gpt (4 in treasury).
T3 270BC Decide to keep Sushi on its higher-cash setting and get a slightly slower Harbor. Swapping Sensei back to the cow for growth this turn means Lit still in 19 @ -2gpt (2 in treasury).
T4 250BC Sensei Worker->Settler. Worker loaded onto Gojira, sail it down towards the island. Sensei settler factory (6 turn cycle): 1: BG+Cow+Rocks (3f6s) 2: Fish+Cow+Rocks (7f10s) 3: Fish+Coast+Rocks(+Cow) (0f14s) 4: Fish+Coast+Cow+Rocks (4f18s) 5: Fish+Plains+Cow+Rocks (3f24s) 6: Fish+BG+Coast+Rocks(+Cow) (0f30s) Sci down to 80%. Lit in 22 @ +1gpt (0 in treasury).
T5 230BC Worker unloaded onto BG. Sci @ 90%. Lit in 18 @ -1gpt (1 in treasury).
T6 210BC Worker roads. Sci @ 80%. Lit in 19 @ +2gpt (0 in treasury).
T7 190BC Sushi Harbor->Galley. Lux @ 10%. Lit in 17 @ -1gpt (2 in treasury).
T8 170BC Sushi grows to size 4. Swaps Clams and BG with Nibanme. Lit in 15 @ -1gpt (1 in treasury).
T9 150BC Sci @ 70%. Lit in 15 @ +2gpt (0 in treasury). Leave it there - it's getting late, this rectifies the turn numbers.

Somehow I expected to get more done.

Sensei will finish its settler next turn. Sushi is on slow growth for its galley, at size 5 we would need 20% Lux. I think we may want to stifle its growth to produce a settler unless we think 20% Lux is okay for a bit. It should run at 2-4 in 8 turns for a settler.

Both Akichi and Ao will grow next turn. Akichi will get an MP, Ao a Sci, unless it's not too corrupt to benefit from the 10% Lux.


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/45827/SGOTM13_Smurkz_150BC_01.jpg

The galley is parked on the coastal tile. Dark blue turn 1 (load), cyan turn 2, then red or yellow to cross depending on where the settler's going.

Got the save; plan to have a strategy post later tonight or tomorrow.

Looks like I'll be doing a lot of juggling with Gold and Beakers.

Things sound like they are going pretty well. Good work, eldar. :thumbsup:
unfortunately I'd made the decision (to continue with Lit) before I saw the above posts.

Hey, it works. We'll just have to hope that we can find some poor, illiterate AI wanting to get on the road to higher learning. :)

At the same time, I don't support us educating our people by building Libraries. For the reasons I mentioned in my long post above, I think we have more important uses for our shields than building Libs right now.

It is a little bit of a bummer how much we're needing to slow research just to stay solvent.

State of Smurkz 150 BC
Literature in 15 turns: 20% Tax, 70% Science, 10% Luxuries

We are broke (0 gold) but are making 2gpt.

City Report:
Sensei (4): grows in 1, settler in 2 (completes this IBT due to growth).
Nibanme (2): zero growth, wealth.
Sushi (4): grows in 8, vGalley in 4.
Akichi (1): grows in 1, temple in 4.
Ao (1): grows in 1, harbor in 6.

Next Builds:
Sensei settler -> settler
Sushi vGalley -> vGalley
Akichi temple -> wealth
Ao harbor -> wealth

Next Citizens:
Ninbame: no growth
Sushi: 5th citizen becomes a scientist.
Akichi: upon growth, both citizens become fishermen for more commerce (and no growth).
Ao: 2nd citizen becomes a scientist.


Sensei Settler Factory (6 turns):
1: BG+Cow+Rocks (3f6s)
2: Fish+Cow+Rocks (7f10s)
3: Fish+Coast+Rocks(+Cow) (0f14s)
4: Fish+Coast+Cow+Rocks (4f18s)
5: Fish+Plains+Cow+Rocks (3f24s)
6: Fish+BG+Coast+Rocks(+Cow) (0f30s)

Smurkz Military:
01 Worker
05 Warrior
01 Galley

Allowed units: 20
Total units: 07
Unit support: 00 gold per turn

International Affairs:
We know no one.
No one knows us.

Strategy of Smurkz:

Long Term Goals: Lead Japan on a mission to the stars.

Mid Term Goals: Make friends and swap knowledge. Mildly debate the wisdom of having Rik Meleet create another SGOTM map.(:D)

Short Term Goals/Tasks:

Settler in Sensei sails south to set up a city on the smallest section of South Smurkz. (Pink Dot on the chokepoint).
Sailing all the way to Pink Dot gets us there two turns faster than unloading into Ao and walking to Pink Dot.
Warrior Akira moves into Akichi for guard duty.
Worker roads to Ao (commerce first) and then roads to Pink Dot (from Ao: SW, SW (connects to Yellow Dot) and S).
Sensei a 6 turn settler pump.
Sail west looking for coastal tiles.
New city starts a worker.
Next settler sails to Yellow Dot in the vGalley from Sushi.


Should be able to play Friday night/Saturday morning.

I wasn't exactly happy with the sequence for Sensei - it's one of those where if you feel the need to swap things round for any reason, do so, because in the end there's potential for plenty of shields in those 6 turns. I kept looking at it every turn and pretty much changed my mind every turn. What I logged, is what I ended up doing.

But I think the key thing is that the turn before growth, it works as many high-commerce tiles as it can, seeing as we get the shields but not the cash when it grows.

If we can spare the cash, I'd like to see Akichi and Ao make galleys instead of wealth once they finish their current builds. Building galleys might force us to drop science another notch, but we need contacts ASAP. Contacts will (should) drop our tech prices.

Sailing all the way to Pink Dot gets us there two turns faster than unloading into Ao and walking to Pink Dot.

But will that get our galley too far out of position to ferry the next settler we build? :hmm:

Also, let's make sure there is a warrior escort for the settler going to the Pink Dot.

If we can spare the cash, I'd like to see Akichi and Ao make galleys instead of wealth once they finish their current builds. Building galleys might force us to drop science another notch, but we need contacts ASAP. Contacts will (should) drop our tech prices.

Unit support is not a problem, so we'll make galleys.

But will that get our galley too far out of position to ferry the next settler we build? :hmm:

The galley in Sushi (4 turns away) will get the second settler in Sensei (7 turns away).

Also, let's make sure there is a warrior escort for the settler going to the Pink Dot.
Warrior Akira can escort the Pink Dot Settler, but it means hiring a specialist in Akichi while he is gone.

After we deliver Pink Dot Settler, that galley will head back towards Sensei. We'll need to have one galley hanging around (or able to hang around) Sensei as our settler ferry. Any others can go exploring; Westwards first and then South, towards the Light Blue People.

Sorry for not providing any input for a few days.

It seems our cities are getting too large. I think it is very unwise to try to play this turn by turn. I'll try to whip up another plan later today.

Here is the best scheme I have been able to come up with sofar:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM13_BC0150_micromanagement.png

Notes:

In order to run Sensei and Sushi as 6-turn settler factories or 3-turn worker factories, they each need to produce 20 surplus food per 6 turns. That means they need the cow and the fish permanently, and the oysters 4 out of 6 turns.
Nibanme needs either the oysters or the bg. In view of the previous point, I permanently assigned the bg to Nibanme (after the first few turns).
How many shields can Sensei and Sushi produce per 6 turn cycle? The cow, the bg, the rock and the 2 city centres produce 7 spt, for 42 shields. On 4 turns we get a hills (or plains) on growth, for another 8 shields. We get the oysters permanently, so the surplus food can be used to work the hills for 2 more turns. In total this results in 54 shields per 6 turns. Even if we somehow manage to actually produce this, it is not enough for two settlers, and one settler plus two workers is the best we can hope for.
The scheme above accomplishes this. Indeed, the green colored cycle can be repeated as often as possible. When we don't need settlers anymore, we can easily switch to 3-turn workers from Sensei.
Workers will be useful! Even if there is nothing left to improve, it is way more efficient to produce workers from Sensei and Sushi and join them to other towns than to let those towns grow by themselves!
This scheme produces 3 units per 6 turns, on average this amounts to one galley load per 4 turns. Hence, if we are prepared to let the units wait a few turns, one galley will be just enough to ferry them across.
I think it is better to let Nibanme produce galleys than wealth.
In the scheme I scrapped the current galley build in Sushi in favor of a settler, which seems way more useful to me.


Something else: the settling order should be chose such that we can chop the forests for something useful. iT makes little sense to delay yellow dot until after lightblue, but white and blue should be delayed until after pink and black, respectively.

Wow, that is one busy spreadsheet!

I had to download the image in order to examine the turn-by-turn citizen details. And for me, given the MMing involved, this is far better than trying to describe what to do in words.

I do have only two anti- notes.

The Anti- Notes
First, and most important of the two, with only one galley, we stop exploration while we build cities. That deserves some discussion.

Second, we are going to work Gojira to death ferrrying settlers and workers across to South Smurkz (which is a good problem to have!). Gojira will have to ferry settlers across to Ao and let them walk to their new homes, and then sail back to get the next load. I had hoped to sail settlers down the coast and unload them close to their new city site, and thus get the cities built sooner. With two galleys this was rather easy. With only one it is not possible. They will have to get to there under their own power, which will take longer. However, since this plan gets us more settlers, I think it is a good trade-off.

Glad you liked the sheet! And sorry for the small size, the site that hosts my images decreases the size auto-magically. (But fortunately it is readable with zoom).

It would be nice indeed to have two galleys for ferrying. You could switch the harbor in Ao to galley. It doesn't really need a harbor yet, IMO.

Akichi will certainly profit from temple + harbor. But you could also choose to train a galley first. That will give one galley for a suicide run. I think in general that suicide runs will not be extremely beneficial. But we can certainly devote some new towns to galleys.

Hmm.

If Ao changes from harbor to galley we do get an extra boat, which will help move settlers around. But we lose the harbor, and starting the harbor again after the galley puts the completion date on that harbor at least 20 turns from now.

In that time we should have Wines connected. A harbor at Ao connects the Wines to Sensei, which means less MPs needed. Sure, unit support is not an issue right now, but we could use some muscle on the south island, in case barbarians spring up.

Ao: harbor in 6, then vGalley.

If we switch Akichi to galley, we lose a temple, and delay getting the fish to the NW of Akichi, since we need a culture expansion in order to claim those fish. The harbor then makes that fish more productive.

Akichi: temple in 4, then harbor.

Gojira is just going to be very busy the next 20 turns!

Spreadsheet by zyxy and discussion.

Ao: harbor, then vGalley.
Akichi: temple then harbor.


0/120 (Preflight)
Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): fish, rock, coast, bg (plains)
Nibanme (galley): oysters, geek
Sushi (settler): cow, coast, bg, hills
Luxuries: 10%

Need to add Med Mod Pack (changed PCs). I did not see the Oysters!

Exit with no changes made.

Download, install, and start over.

Sushi: galley -> settler in 3; works the cow
Nibanme: wealth -> galley in 30.

Changes made; hit Enter.


Sensei settler -> settler in 8.


01/121 0130 BC

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, rock, bg
Nibanme (galley): oysters, geek
Sushi (settler): fish, hills, bg, plains
Luxuries: 10%

SettlerToPinkDot (new in Sensei) boards [I]Gojira.
Worker, NW of Ao, makes road.

Akichi hires a geek.
Ao hires a geek.

Warrior Akira, south of Akichi, moves S.

Literature in 12; 1 gold, 0 gpt.



02/122 0110 BC

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, rock, bg
Nibanme (galley): oysters, geek
Sushi (settler): fish, hills, bg, plains
Luxuries: 10%

Warrior Akira, now west of Ao, moves S.

Literature in 11; 1 gold, 0 gpt.


Sushi settler -> worker in 4.

[I] 03/123 0090 BC

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, fish, rock (plains)
Nibanme (galley): bg, geek
Sushi (worker): hills, bg,
Luxuries: 0%

SettlerToYellowDot (new in Sushi) boards [I]Gojira.

Gojira, loaded with two settlers, sails S (sea 2, MPs), S (sea, 4 MPs) and SE (coastal, 6+ MPs).

Warrior Akira, 2SW of Ao, moves S.

Literature in 11 (still); 1 gold, +1 gpt.


Akichi temple -> harbor in 15

[I] 04/124 0070 BC

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, fish, rock, plains
Nibanme (galley): bg, geek
Sushi (worker): oysters, bg (hills)
Luxuries: 10%

Forgot to decrease the Luxuries last turn! :wallbash:

Akichi and Ao are now connected. Worker moves S.

Warrior Akira, 2SW-S of Ao, moves S again.

Gojira, 3S-SW of Sensei, sails SW (sea, 2 MPs), SW (sea, 4 MPs) and S (coastal, 6+ MPs).

Literature in 10; 2 gold, +1 gpt.


Sushi worker -> worker in 4.

[I] 05/125 0050 BC

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, fish, rock, bg
Nibanme (galley): bg, geek
Sushi (worker): oysters, hills
Luxuries: 10%

Gojira, N-NE of Ao, sails S (coastal, 3 MPs), SW (into Ao, 4 MPs (!)), unloads, and then NW (coastal, 6+ MPs).

SettlerToYellowDot, aboard Gojira, wakens in Ao, SW.
SettlerToPinkDot, aboard Gojira, wakens in Ao, SW.

WorkerA, SW of Ao, makes road, finish in 3.
WorkerB, new in Sushi, does nothing.

Warroir Akira fortifies on Pink Dot.

Literature in 9; 3 gold, +1 gpt.


Sensei settler -> settler in 6.
Ao harbor -> vGalley in 15.

Low cash warning. 4 gold in bank, -2 gpt.

[I] 06/126 0030 BC

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, rock (plains)
Nibanme (galley): bg, geek
Sushi (worker): oysters, fish
Luxuries: 0%

Decrease luxuries to 0%; we are now at 0 gpt.
Increasing science to 80%, -4gpt. One turn and we are broke. And it reduces Lit by only one turn.
Drop science back down to 70%.

SettlerToYellowDot, SW of Ao, SW.
SettlerToPinkDot, SW of Ao, SW.

Gojira NE of Ao, N (Coastal, 3 MPs) and stops. Not enough movement remaining to cross two sea tiles.

WorkerB, in Sushi, does nothing.

SettlerToSomeDot, new in Sensei, does nothing.

Literature in 8; 4 gold, +0 gpt.


Wonderful News
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM13-Smurkz/TS11/30BC_SunTzuTweaked.jpg


Persia builds Sun Tzu's Art of War in Persepolis.

More Wonderful News
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM13-Smurkz/TS11/30BC_KTTweaked.jpg


Russia builds Knights Templar in Moscow.


[I] 07/127 0010 BC

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, rock, bg
Nibanme (galley): bg, geek
Sushi (worker): oysters, fish (hill)
Luxuries: 0%

SettlerToYellowDot, 2SW of Ao, W, onto Yellow Dot.
SettlerToPinkDot, 2SW of Ao, S.

Gojira N-NE of Ao, NE (sea, 2 MPs), NE (sea, 4 MPs) and N (coastal, 6+ MPs).

WorkerB, in Sushi, does nothing.
SettlerToSomeDot, in Sensei, does nothing.

Literature in 7; 4 gold, +0 gpt.


Akichi's cultural borders expand and it now owns 2 fish and 1 whale tile.

[I] 08/128 0010 AD

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, fish, rock
Nibanme (galley): bg, geek
Sushi (worker): oysters, bg, coast
Luxuries: 0%

WorkerA, SW of Ao, moves SW.

SettlerToYellowDot founds Kiiro.
Kiiro grows in 10, harbor in 30.

SettlerToPinkDot, 2SW-S of Ao, moves S, onto Pink Dot.

Gojira 3s-SW of Sensei, sails N (sea, 2 MPs) and NE (coastal, 5 MPs).
WorkerB, in Sushi, W, S and loads into Gojira.
SettlerToSomeDot, in Sensei, 2S and loads into Gojira.
Gojira, 2S of Sensei, sails S (coastal, 6+ MPs).


Literature in 6; 4 gold, +1 gpt.
Increase science to 80%.
Literature in 5; 4 gold, -2 gpt.

Hire a geek in Akichi.
Literature in 4; 4 gold, -3 gpt.


Sushi worker -> worker in 4.
Cash flow warning.

[I] 09/129 0030 AD

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, rock, bg (plains)
Nibanme (galley): bg, geek
Sushi (worker): oysters, fish
Luxuries: 0%

Akichi's geek becomes a whaler.

WorkerA, 2SW of Ao, starts road, finish in 3.
WorkerC, new in Sushi, does nothing.

Gojira, with WorkerB and SettlerToSomeDot aboard, 3S of Sensei, SW (coastal, 3 MPs) and stops.

SettlerToPinkDot founds Saki City on Pink Dot.
Saki City grows in 10, temple in 30.

Drop science down to 70%.
Literature in 4 (still), 1 gold, +0 gpt.

Raising the science slider last turn was a waste of gold.
Rehire the geek in Akichi, but it doesn't change the numbers. Since nothing changed for the worse (we aren't losing any money) I'll leave him hired.



[I] 10/130 0050 AD

Tiles to work:
Sensei (settler): cow, fish, rock, bg
Nibanme (galley): bg, geek
Sushi (worker): oysters, coast (hill)
Luxuries: 10%

Increase the luxuries to 10%. Otherwise someone riots. We go from +0 gpt to -2 gpt, with only 1 gold in the bank.
Geek in Ao becomes a taxman. We go from -2 gpt to +1 gpt.

Gojira, 3S-SW of Sensei, sails SW (sea, 2 MPs), SW (sea, 4 MPs) and S (coastal, 6+ MPs).

WorkerC, in Sushi, does nothing.

Rehire the geek in Akichi.

Literature in 3, 1 gold, +1 gpt.

[IBT]


And the save is >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm13/Smurkz_SG013_AD0050_01.SAV).

A fairly quiet set of turns.

Two cites added, thanks to zyxy's spreadsheet. A third settler is at sea, due to make landfall soon. A fourth settler will be born next turn.

Wines will be connected next turnset. WorkerA just started the road to connect Kiiro. Turns 1 and 2 complete the road. Once completed, I favor moving S (Turn 3), roading to connect Saki City (Turns 4, 5 and 6), moving 2S onto Wines (Turn 7), build a road (Turns 8, 9 and 10) and connecting wines on the following IBT. Connecting to the Wines south of Kiiro is faster (one less tile to road) but Saki City will be unconnected longer.

Nibanme will build an rGalley in two turns. I think it should pick up WorkerC and the new settler and carry them to the south lands. Gojira will take four turns to unload and sail back. Using the new galley is quicker.

Instead of unloading, Gojira can carry WorkerB and SettlerToSomeDot down the coast to claim the incense. WorkerB could road north to Saki City to get the Incense connected to Sensei.

The harbor in Kiiro and temple in Saki City are changeable. We don't need warriors yet, but we do need to consider having a barracks somewhere.

Map of South Smurkz 50 AD
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM13-Smurkz/TS11/50AD_SouthDotted2.jpg


The City Dots are the same as before.

I've mapped out a route for Gojira to take to reach the Incense on the south end of South Smurkz. That route will take four turns, unloading WorkerB onto the Incense and SettlerToSomeDot on the Light Green Dot on the fourth turn.

Alright, well played!

The AIs are running away fast... How can we ever catch up?

A few comments:

Unfortunately, the luxes will not reach the starting island until Astronomy, as there is no coastal passage.
The harbor in Ao is only costing us money at the moment :(.
Taxmen are suboptimal: a scientist brings in 3 beakers, a taxman only 2 gold. But the slider does not discriminate between beakers and gold: 1 commerce spent on science brings 1 beaker, 1 commerce spent on taxes brings 1 gold (until markets/libs). Hence, when we are short on money, it is better to lower the science slider and hire scientists, rather than keep the science slider high and hire taxmen. The only exception is when we are close to discovering a tech, then overflow can make a difference.
The citizens of Kiiro and Saki only produce food at the moment. I would hire scientists instead. Growing the town can be done more efficiently by adding workers, or once the citizens will also produce shields or commerce (this requires tile improvements). I would build galleys in these towns.
The worker on board the galley can land on the forest SE-SE of Saki and chop.
EDIT for some more things: I would let the other worker first road the wines S of Kiiro. This will give Kiiro a tile that brings 1 commerce, and help Akichi and Ao to grow. After that, the worker can connect Saki and start mining some tiles.
Akichi can work whales + fish.
Maybe the new worker from the island can start some bg mines in the Akichi - Ao area?

Looks alright, well played CB! Those wonder builds aren't exactly comforting...

I've got it, but I won't have the time to look it over until tomorrow night.