Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 8 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, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

The Game
This will be the first Beyond the Sword SGOTM. Thanks, Gyathaar :thumbsup:

Following his recent honeymoon in the Far East, Gyathaar, aka Suryavarman II of the Khmer Empire, is just Crazy About Wonders. He has decreed that he will win a glorious victory and that his total Wonder points per turn played will then be the envy of the world.

Suryavarman II is Expansive and Creative, with the Ballista Elephant to assist in acquiring Wonders he can't build himself, and the Baray to allow him to build the Hanging Gardens.

It is a Normal speed, Monarch difficulty game on a Standard map. All victory conditions are enabled.

The Objective
The winners will be the teams who achieve a Victory by any means, and who score the highest Wonder Points per Turn Played.

Five Wonder Points are awarded for each Wonder controlled by the Team, and are displayed as the 'xx' in "yy from Wonders (xx/310)" when you hover your mouse over your score in the game screen. 310 is the maximum Wonder Points score you can achieve if you control all Wonders and National Wonders.

Versions
This game will be played in Civilization IV Beyond the Sword, version 3.17, using HoF Mod 3.17.001 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php#bts_download).

If a later BtS patch is released during this game you will NOT be able to use it to play. You will need to complete this game in version 3.17 before updating your copy of BtS, or create and update a separate copy.

As there is no Mac version of BtS, Mac players can only join in if they are able to run the Windows version on their system.

Schedule

The Team threads will open shortly.
The start files will be published on Friday, September 12.
Please try to complete the game within three months of the start date.

Starting Position
Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm08_start_small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm08_start.jpg)

Map Parameters

Playable Leader/Civ - Suryavarman II of the Khmer Empire.
Characteristics - Expansive and Creative, starts with Hunting and Mining
Unique Unit - Ballista Elephant (War elephant)
Unique Building - Baray (Aqueduct)
Rivals - 7 AI civs
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Big and Small
Environment - Temperate climate, medium sea level
Game Speed - Normal
Everything else - Default

Notes

Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439) to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.

Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the highest Wonder Score per Turn Played, and the Wooden Spoons for the finishing team with the lowest final score.

You can capture wonders, or build them yourself. Remember you cannot capture national wonders.
A victory in turn 100 with 10 wonders controlled gets the same score as winning in turn 200 with 20 wonders..
In BtS the max number of wonders is 62, including corp headquarters and holy city buildings, national wonders, palace and world wonders.

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.

Do NOT view any other team threads until you have submitted your last save - win, lose or retire.

Do NOT download any other team's save.

Enjoy your game, and please be nice to each other :D

Roster

Sam
Erik
Harbourboy
The Hawk
Thrallia (Skipped until further notice)
AgedOne
Misotu
Mark

Turn 1: 4000 BC - 3000 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=8#157) - Yaso founded. Scout killed by panther. :sad:
Turn 2a: 3000 BC - 2720 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=12#231) - Meet Shaka.
Turn 2b: 2720 BC - 2440 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=16#319) - Steal Shaka worker, Henge BIDL. :sad:
Turn 3a: 2440 BC - 1600 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=18#356) - CoL in sight.
Turn 3b: 1600 BC - 1320 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=19#376) - Oracle built and CS slingshot achieved. :)
Turn 4: 1320 BC - 950 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=23#452) - Revolt to Bureaucracy & Caste. Convert to Confucianism.
Turn 5: 950 BC - 475 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=26#517) - Army growing nicely. Shaka resources pillaged. Meet Joao.
Turn 6a: 475 BC - 350 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=29#568) - Capture Nobamba.
Turn 6b: 350 BC - 200 BC (http://http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=30#593) - Capture Ulundi.
Turn 7: 200 BC - 50 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=33#659) - Raze Bulawayo. Make peace with Shaka for all his techs. Discover iron.
Turn 8: 50 AD - 275 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=35#682) - Shwedagon Paya built. Resume war on Shaka but should have brought more cats. :sad:
Turn 9a: 275 AD - 475 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=35#700) - Parthenon built. The war with Shaka continues.
Turn 9b: 475 AD - 580 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=36#707) - Great Library built. The war with Shaka is dragging on. :(
Turn 10: 580 AD - 760 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=38#756) - Kong Miao built.More military units built.
Turn 11: 760 AD - 860 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=40#792) - uMgung is finally liberated from Shaka's tryanny. :D
Turn 12: 860 AD - 1000 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=41#807) - Miss out on MoM & HG :(
Turn 13: 1000 AD 1150 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=42#828) - Meet Augustus and build Sistine
Turn 14: 1150 AD - 1280 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=43#855) - Miss out on Angkor Wat. :( Discover rest of AI civs.
Turn 15a: 1280 AD - 1330 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=45#890) - Miss out on Taj, meet the rest of the AIs.
Turn 15b: 1330 AD - 1420 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=46#906) - Democracy in and Oxford completed.
Turn 16: 1420 AD - 1550 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=49#961) - Build SoL and learn Rifling.
Turn 17: 1550 AD - 1605 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=50#985) - Teching towards Assembly Line and building military.
Turn 18: 1605 AD - 1715 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=51#1016) - IW built. Lots of military trained, nearly ready to DoW Joao.
Turn 19: 1715 AD - 1780 AD (http://http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=53#1050) - DoW Joao, war going well so far.
Turn 20: 1780 AD - 1824 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=55#1096) - Bulk of Joao's cities captured.
Turn 21: 1824 AD - 1844 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=56#1117) - Joao no more. Charlie DoWs us but we persuade him to make peace..
Turn 22: 1844 AD - 1864 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=57#1138) - Building up forces for war with Ghandhi.
Turn 23: 1864 AD - 1900 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=58#1149) - DoW Ghandhi, making good progress.
Turn 24: 1900 AD - 1910 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=59#1177) - All of Ghandhi's cities in SE taken.
Turn 25a: 1910 AD - 1913 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=61#1207) - Upgrade forces, DoW Augustus.
Turn 25b: 1913 AD - 1921 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=61#1217) - Augustus is rapidly ceasing to be a factor in the game.
Turn 26: 1921 AD - 1933 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=63#1241) - Peace with Augustus & Ghandhi. DoW rest of the world.
Turn 27a: 1933 AD - 1943 AD (http://http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=63#1253) - Take last remaining wonder cities. :D Just waiting for Dom victory.
Turn 27b: 1943 AD - 1945 AD (http://http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=290527&page=64#1263) - Dom victory. :D Wonder points ratio = 0.83561643835616438356164383561644

Updated post.


================================================== =====

Overall strategy:


The long term strategy is to build as many available wonders as possible and then with surgical strikes, capture all cities with wonders/shrines/corporate HQ. Our overall emphasis will be to maintain a rapid tech pace. While doing so, we will provide techs to 1 or 2 select AI's so they can help build wonders for us.

Long term plans for cities:

Yas: Wonder building, Prophet farm
Hari: Commerce from Shrine, Workers
Ulundi: GP farm, Wonder building
Nobamba: Commerce, production
Angkor Thom: GP farm, naval units
Angkor Wat: Commerce
Nagara: ?
uMgung: Military


Diplomacy:

Shaka: To be eliminated at some point. :rolleyes:
Joao: Gone.
Augustus: Rapidly losing his mainland cities.
Charlemagne:
Boudicca:
Pericles:
Ghandhi: A shadow of his former self.
AI x: Tech Partner ?


Long term civics of choice:

Representation [Current: Police State]
Bureacracy [Current: Bureaucracy]
Caste [Current: Emancipation]
Free Market [Current: State Property]
Pacifism [Current: Free Religion]


Tech Path:

Artillery

City Builds:

Yas: Military
Hari: Military
Nobamba: Military
Ulundi: Military
Angkor Thom: Military
Angkor Wat: Military
Nagara: Military
uMgung: Military
Teo: Military

Current plans for wonders and GPs:




Wonders_14-Dec-2008.rar (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=197271&d=1229313966)

Checking in. :)

My preliminary thoughts suggest that we should be looking at a hybrid domination/conquest type of victory. Whilst we should be looking to build some of the early wonders e.g Great Wall (for spies), Mids and GLib I would see us concentrating on judicious rexing and building up our forces. Wonders built by the AI count just as well as our home built ones as long as we control them by the end of the game. :evil:

This post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7227432&postcount=1521) from Fifth Element's SGOTM07 thread sums up my views nicely.

An early rush is not necessarily a priority but may be appropriate if the cards fall right. I haven't had a chance to finish the test game yet but I'll try to do that before the game starts.

Are we going for early victory or lots of wonders?

Team member reporting for duty. :thumbsup:

BTS installation - checked!
Supplies - laid on!
Son who wants to play Spore - deflected (not sure about that one)

Do we try and build the wonders, or take them off other civs?

Do we try and build the wonders, or take them off other civs?

Realistically we'll need to do both. As I posted earlier I can see merit in getting the GW, maybe Mids, and the GLIb. Colossus and GLH might be useful if we are predominantly coastal based but I don't think they are priorities. Once we subdue/eliminate the AI (he says glibly :mischief:) and take their wonders we then do our best to build the remaining wonders. We also need to aim to finish by turn 310 at the latest to maximise our score.

Hi guys and a special welcome to our new member Misotu ! :wavey: On to a new one.

As our team play improved very much in our last game I like to see us keeping this level at least. Reports are done as before. The turnplayer should post a rough plan what to achieve in the coming turnset and posts this plan for discussions. Taking this into consideration we should adjust our rules a little bit. 24 hours for posting a "got it" and 48 hours for playing after there is a consensus on the game plan for the next set.

I played a bit with the test save especially on the beginning. I made some notes when which wonders were built by the AI, but I have these notes at home. I will post them later on. However this will be a rough indication only as the opponents in the test save will be different to those we will find in the actual game.

In another attempt I tried to build as many wonders as possible. The walkthroughs of the member "obsolete" are quite educational. They can be found in the strategy forums and are a little bit older. In my last try yesterday I was able to build 8 of the early wonders. With 4 cities + the monster capital this resulted in a comfortable tech lead.

Regarding the victory condition I am not sure. I have no clue how a domination/conquest attempt will work out on a big and small map. I have not played such a map in a single player game IIRC.

I guess letting the AI build wonders for us is a little bit risky. If there is a wonder crazy guy far from us we are screwed. At this level we should have control which wonders we can get.

Anyway the usual first questions :rolleyes:

Settle in place ? Where do we move the scout to ? What tech first ? First build ?

My suggestions : Settling depends a bit on what the scout reveals. However I think it is a decent site. A lot of food, gold and much wood for chopping. I would move the scout 1NW, 1SW to reveal the last tiles for the BFC if we settle in place. Bronze Working I would research first while building a worker.

Plus what will the play order be? And who is ordering the first round of drinks?

The first round of drinks is captains privilege. ;) Cheers. :beer:

I will come up with a roster later. Any volunteers for the first set ? :huh:

I played a bit with the test save...
You say 'the' test save..? I haven't seen one posted anywhere. Or was this your own map created?

I haven't tried any practice yet. Do you think it best we all have a try (time permitting) before we start for real?

The walkthroughs of the member "obsolete" are quite educational. They can be found in the strategy forums and are a little bit older.
Good find! I'm reading some of them now.

Regarding the victory condition I am not sure. I have no clue how a domination/conquest attempt will work out on a big and small map. I have not played such a map in a single player game IIRC.
I have played a few times on big & small, but (a) I wasn't trying to hoard wonders and (b) I didn't keep any notes :blush:.
Iirc it's quite varied where you start. Sometimes sharing a large mass. Sometimes isolated. Rather like continents from the domination or conquest point of view.

I would promote the general strategy of
(1) getting a decisive tech lead (while building some early wonders), then
(2) going military to take one or two of our nearest rivals.
(3) At that point, we may have gained a wonder or two, but that wasn't the point.
(4) Now we are strong and powerful, and can either push for domination, or go for some other victory, but meanwhile building more wonders.

You say 'the' test save..? I haven't seen one posted anywhere. Or was this your own map created?


See what you miss when you don't follow Geezers practice threads. :p See this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7207676&postcount=92).


I would promote the general strategy of
(1) getting a decisive tech lead (while building some early wonders), then
(2) going military to take one or two of our nearest rivals.
(3) At that point, we may have gained a wonder or two, but that wasn't the point.
(4) Now we are strong and powerful, and can either push for domination, or go for some other victory, but meanwhile building more wonders.


Laurels go to those teams with the highest Wonder Score per Turn Played. I believe that the best way to achieve this is to own all the wonders built by the end of the game which makes conquest highly desirable. Since I'm sure that Gyathaar hasn't filled the map with weak AIs we may have to settle for domination.

See what you miss when you don't follow Geezers practice threads. :p See this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7207676&postcount=92).

<wracked by feelings of guilt> Oops. Thanks. I'll have a look at it, when I can get the Spore-players off the good PC.

I vote for us doing well in this game, please.

Hi, Misotu checking in & thanks for having me on the team :)

I haven't played a succession game like this before - and I'm afraid I've only played a handful of games in BtS, all aiming for religious victories for the current Immortal gauntlet. So - I have absolutely no idea how the spying works, corporations are a mystery & I am very vague on the new wonders and civs available. :shifty: Because of this, I'm not sure how much value I'll be able to add on the strategy side this time round :( (That's the bad news).

The good news is that I have played a lot of Civ, sometimes with quite good results, and I will do my absolute best to achieve the goals set for my turn. I'm a bit of a micro-manager, so I automate nothing and tend to check most of my cities most turns, which means that hopefully no-one will be left with a nasty surprise.

I'm hoping to learn a lot from playing with you guys - in the meantime, I'll have a look at the practice thread.

I guess the new member orders the second round? :cheers::beer:

I haven't played a succession game like this before

You might know the basics, but I summarize some things :

1. and most important : Have fun ! :)
2. we never flame anybody here. Try to be nice to your teammates. :pat:
3. we never ever reload the save, play ahead or check the other teamthreads. :nono:
4. do not put units on automove :please:
5. if you get into a situation during your set which puts you in doubt, save the game and come here to ask. You are not bound to play your set through once you have started.
6. play as careful as you can. It is just ten turns per set, so you do not need to rush through your set.
7. ask for skips/swaps well ahead if you know you will not be able to play

I think there is not much more to say.

We are definitely not a team of experts, but we have a lot of fun being non-experts. Hopefully we can win this game as I haven't seen a victory screen for the Geezers for quite some time now. :blush:

I haven't tried any practice yet. Do you think it best we all have a try (time permitting) before we start for real?

We do not have to hurry and you do not have to play a complete game, so I think you will have some time. Especially with this gamesetup the beginning will be crucial. We will have to build wonders to get points for the victory condition and I do not see any alternative to building wonders ourselves, yet. Maybe someone else sees something I don't. :crazyeye:

The trick will be to match expansion, military power and wonder building. We will be a juicy target once we are wonder heavy, so we will have to have a decent power rating.

Thanks for the extra info - this sounds good.

No worries about flaming - I'm *very* laid back :smoke: (at my age I have to be :old:) and have played a lot of team games over the years. I take my turns seriously and do my best, but I don't get frustrated by what my team-mates do :)

Now the save thing, this is what interests me ... if I am playing 10 turns, how does that work exactly? How many times can I play a turn, save and quit, check with my team-mates and then load to play the next turn? I'm used to HoF where you have to play for around half an hour, but obviously that's not sensible in this situation. What are the limits, if any? I'm thinking that there are a number of things that could happen ... the scout pops a tech which is the one I'm targeted to research so I have to choose the next & it hasn't been agreed. Or I encounter a new civ that offers me a trade ... or whatever. Sorry to sound stupid, but I don't want to do something that causes the team problems ...

Do you use notes on the map to communicate at all? For example, if a hut becomes visible as a consequence of a map being revealed just as my turns are ending ... I could put a little note on the map.

Now the save thing, this is what interests me ... if I am playing 10 turns, how does that work exactly? How many times can I play a turn, save and quit, check with my team-mates and then load to play the next turn? I'm used to HoF where you have to play for around half an hour, but obviously that's not sensible in this situation. What are the limits, if any? I'm thinking that there are a number of things that could happen ... the scout pops a tech which is the one I'm targeted to research so I have to choose the next & it hasn't been agreed. Or I encounter a new civ that offers me a trade ... or whatever. Sorry to sound stupid, but I don't want to do something that causes the team problems ...

Do you use notes on the map to communicate at all? For example, if a hut becomes visible as a consequence of a map being revealed just as my turns are ending ... I could put a little note on the map.

If you are the turnplayer you can play a turn only once. Once you have opened the save and changed something (moved a unit, traded something, etc.) you have to save the game if you do not want to go on. For example you are the turnplayer and you open the save and move a unit that reveals a massive stack of an AI at our borders and you are not sure what to do you save the game and go on from there after the team agreed how to go on. There is no time limitation, so you can save and leave the game after 30 seconds if something is revealed you do not want to deal with on your own. In no way it is allowed to change something and not save the game. Replaying is not allowed. The only exception is if your computer crashes. Then you are allowed to reload, but you have to replay the turn as best as you can. If something like this happens it is always good to mention this in your report and inform the staff. As you play HOF games I guess you have changed your config file to autosaves each turn. If not please do so.

Yes, we use notes sometimes. You are welcome to do so.:yup:

Yup, autosaves is set to every turn in my config.

OK, this makes it a lot clearer. Totally understand about reloads etc etc, I just wasn't sure how often I could save progress and then reload - but from what you are saying, there are no restrictions in that respect as long as there is no replaying element.

Crystal clear :)

Excellent.

One more thing, if you are not the turnplayer you can also download the save and check everything. You can check on possible trades, unit moves, etc. You just aren't allowed to execute a move, trade, etc.

Oh, ok. So other people can look at the starting position and then discuss strategy on that basis. That makes it a lot easier, especially since I've never done a screen shot & don't know how to do it (although I'm sure it's pretty simple with a bit of guidance :) .)

So basically, when it's my turn, I open the save, work out what I think I might do, close the save again and then post my thoughts for discussion?

Yeah - it's all pretty simple. Even I can understand it.

Except how to win, that is.

My suggestions : Settling depends a bit on what the scout reveals. However I think it is a decent site. A lot of food, gold and much wood for chopping. I would move the scout 1NW, 1SW to reveal the last tiles for the BFC if we settle in place. Bronze Working I would research first while building a worker.


Thoroughly agree with doing some scouting before deciding where to settle. I don't mind going first and putting up with a stop/go turnset. One point that we will need to bear in mind is whether we will want to build any wonders where marble helps (Oracle?) as it may be a long way round for a galley.

Perhaps we should consider whether we are beelining any particular wonder before choosing our first tech. The Great Wall might be advantageous as gets rid of the barb worry, raises our power rating and is good for spy points. Mind you Fishing might be a good first tech as it gets us early food together with some :gold: and WBs can be used for exploring as well.

So basically, when it's my turn, I open the save, work out what I think I might do, close the save again and then post my thoughts for discussion?
Hi Misotu, and welcome to this prestigious :D team (This is going to be our SGOTM. I can feel it in my bones)

I guess the way it works out in practice is something like this (assuming you were following me):

AgedOne: finishes his turnset, uploads save and posts turnset notes.
Various Geezers (including Misotu): download the save and look at the current position. They all post comments about what's going on, how AgedOne got us into this position, suggest plans etc.
Misotu: posts stating officially that you've 'got it', and when you intend to play.
Misotu: Having taken into account any wishes of the various Geezers who posted, posts a brief plan for the turnset. Probably gives the team a bit of time for any final comments.
Misotu: Plays the turnset, eradicates Alexander, builds a wonder or two.
Misotu: Finishes the turnset, uploads the save to the server. Posts turnset notes.
And round we go again...

It has been known for the person playing the turnset to ask for advice without even saving and coming out of the game . . . though I must confess the last time I tried that I found no other Geezers on line :(


I've never done a screen shot & don't know how to do it (although I'm sure it's pretty simple with a bit of guidance :) .)
You can take a screenshot just by pressing the Print Screen key. BTS understands that and places a (full screen) jpeg into the My Games\Beyond The Sword\ScreenShots folder. It names them something inscrutable like Civ4ScreenShot0005, so you have to decide which one is which.

Then there's a couple of ways of including the jpeg with your post. The one I normally use is as an attachment (the paperclip icon above the post you're writing). There's also Insert Image, but be warned that it will include the image full-size in your post. Not always what you wanted!

I don't mind going first and putting up with a stop/go turnset. One point that we will need to bear in mind is whether we will want to build any wonders where marble helps (Oracle?) as it may be a long way round for a galley.

We still have three late risers to check in. :) I've pmed them now.

Basically we would need a city at the marble to get it online. This takes too long. We have enough trees for chopping + :whipped: we can build any wonder we want. I guess this is one of Gyathaars evil resource playcements. :devil:

Back from the West Coast and checking in.

Let's move the scout to the either the gold hill or 1 sw of the settler.

I agree with the comments about conquest/dom style of victory. The challenges in this game will be:
1. Encouraging AI to build wonders for us.
2. The order in which we remove AI from the builders queue.
3. Calculating when to end the game.

On early wonders, I favour Great Lighthouse, Oracle, Colosus.

Welcome to the team Misotu. I'm very glad you accepted the invite.

Basically we would need a city at the marble to get it online.

Are you sure about this? Wouldn't quarrying it and having Sailing be enough to bring it online?

EDIT: I experimented with the test save and it looks like you're right. :( Scratch that idea then.

I am in favour of going for the Oracle, given that it is the wonder that is of no practical use once captured. So we might as well build that one, so we get the double whammy of the free tech and the wonder points. This might mean going for Great Wall as well, if our power might be a bit lacking from following the less military route to Oracle.

Are you sure about this? Wouldn't quarrying it and having Sailing be enough to bring it online?

EDIT: I experimented with the test save and it looks like you're right. :( Scratch that idea then.


You must have a city on the island with a road or a city right on top.

I am in favour of going for the Oracle, given that it is the wonder that is of no practical use once captured. So we might as well build that one, so we get the double whammy of the free tech and the wonder points. This might mean going for Great Wall as well, if our power might be a bit lacking from following the less military route to Oracle.

We will have lots of power, that should not be an issue.

The tech path for Sury is tricky. If we go fishing, BW, masonry, sailing, myst, poly, priest, writing, alpha we do not benefit from the cows. If we want to use the cows we need to insert AH into the mix somewhere.

Strategy wise, do we want to make the best use of available squares and forget the wonder path?

Sorry, just checking in. I'm getting hammered at work a bit, probably won't get my head into this until the weekend. This does look like a pretty cool challenge, lots of major strategic decisions to be made.

I guess the new member orders the second round? :cheers::beer:

Looks like Misotu is gonna fit right in! :goodjob: Welcome, nice to add a player of your quality to the Geezers.

sorry for checking in so late...tons of schoolwork...I didn't even realize what day of the month it was :eek:

As far as where we settle...I'd actually prefer to settle in place. It looks like we are on one of the smalls in the big & small, and we're in a good location to have lots of production, good commerce, and good food(gold, 2 food resources, 6 hills, tons of forests) Not to mention the ability to build the Moai Statues.

I think we want to go for a domination/conquest hybrid, just as Sam does...but I think we want/need to cap it off in the late middle ages. By that point, the wonders available are quick to build if we have a great production city, but industrial and later age wonders take way too long to be worth hanging around for.

So we want to focus on quick research and lots of production, I don't think GP will be as important as in past games, because the majority of wonders are not accessible via GS lightbulbing(although there are a good number of them through GE and GA bulbing...)

The save is available.

Let's start talking scout move - East or West?

I think east to the gold hill.

Let's start talking scout move - East or West?

I think east to the gold hill.

Why? We have a blue circle to the west in the preview pic. Mind you, I notice it seems to be absent if I select the settler from the initial save. Misleading preview pic? :confused: Surely not. :nono:

That aside I would be interested in hearing your reasoning. It looks like we would have access to both bodies of water if we settled the gold but we would forego the initial food bonus form the clams.

I would also prefer the scout move to the gold hill.
As well as showing us more of our surroundings generally, it might give some indication as to whether we are connected to the bit of land with the marble on.

It will actually take something quite special to make us settle anywhere except the spot we are already on.

Why?

That aside I would be interested in hearing your reasoning. It looks like we would have access to both bodies of water if we settled the gold but we would forego the initial food bonus form the clams.

Settling the cows would give access to both clams and fish, settling the gold would put the fish outside the BFC.

I am more curious about the east, the west looks like trees, meaning no extra resources, the east looks like plains, therefore it's possible resources. From the hill we a couple of extra squares, I would move the settler 2W if we find stone would fall into the BFC along with the fish and gold.

@Aged-One - the marble looks like a 2 square island.

How much scouting before settling?

Settling the cows would give access to both clams and fish, settling the gold would put the fish outside the BFC.


:hmm: Good point about settling the cows. We keep the food from fish and clams and forego the quarry on marble island. Seems like a reasonable tradeoff.


I am more curious about the east, the west looks like trees, meaning no extra resources, the east looks like plains, therefore it's possible resources. From the hill we a couple of extra squares, I would move the settler 2W if we find stone would fall into the BFC along with the fish and gold.


Thanks for the explanation of your reasoning. Exploring E initially certainly makes more sense. I presume 2W is a typo?

Why not scout to gold hill first then?

Exploring E initially certainly makes more sense. I presume 2W is a typo?

yes it's a typo. Been out west for a week :lol:

Why not scout to gold hill first then?

That's what erik & AgedOne suggested. Now that I understand erik's reasoning I agree with sending the scout tothe gold hill initially.

EDIT: 2000 posts [party] :)

Is that an agreed first move for now then?

Hi, just checking in again. I have had a chance to play a couple of times on the test game so I just wanted to post some initial, maybe not helpful thoughts. I played two games, neither to conclusion, taking two different strategies.

On the first game, I went for wonders and managed to build a whole load pretty easily, including the Pyramids, the Oracle which gave me bureaucracy and the Parthenon plus six others and a couple of national items, all before around 100BC. I was playing casually just to get a feel, so it could have been done much better, but the indication is that wonders are easy to build at this level. GPs are significant in this game, and you get lots of them if you build loads of wonders in the capital - engineers are great for obvious reasons and then priests for the shrines, extra techs and income. But on the Wonder route I had no clear victory option other than diplomatic, religious or space. To achieve space would require a short war to gain extra cities simply to build space-ship parts, since the wonder path penalised expansion. I don't know whether the diplomatic victory would be possible, as we don't know the opponents and their civic preferences, but a diplo victory can be achieved relatively early, with relatively few cities which means that the capital and maybe one or two others could be devoted to wonders while researching as long as the power graph and good relations were maintained. The AI researches slowly. I'm just, er, Wondering about that. Conquest/dom as an approach has many advantages but I'm not good enough at it to maintain research and alternative production eg wonders if they are not capturable, so I can't comment on that.

On the second game, I went for conquest. This went well, but I built no wonders and the AI was *very* slow to build any wonders, so no wonders captured. Those that were built were far away and the dates were rubbish ... by 1AD the AIs between them had built only 4 wonders, despite having the necessary techs well in advance. It wasn't obvious to me how to encourage them to build more wonders, but maybe other people with more experience of BtS might have suggestions?

Almost every AI city was built on a hill, which was very expensive in terms of units - pretty much 2 for 1 on every conquest, averaged out, and some were much worse. I had iron, copper and horse and a good range of units. Nevertheless, the result was that all production was required for units, nothing left to sneak in a few wonders. And then, of course, my research was so slow because of the unit support costs. Aaargh. Catapults, for starters, and preferably trebuchet, seemed to me to be a requirement for this game. On the other hand, I'm a rubbish militarist so take that with a pinch of salt :blush:

I would recommend against settling on the gold, because my very early experiments indicate, I think, that working the gold is a requirement for this game, no matter which route is chosen. But I might be totally wrong about that :crazyeye:

The initial scout move is important but I think, before playing a single turn, we should consider the long-term strategy and play a few more practice games. Strategically, this is a very complicated game and the first 30 turns are critical. We shouldn't start before we know where we're going! Building wonders and conquest are diametrically opposed in terms of resource, so it's a real challenge to work out how to tackle this. Frankly, I have no idea at all, at the moment, as to how I would tackle this most effectively as a single player. I think I need to play a few more practice games to see how things pan out - it's a really knotty problem!

Anyway, you know, this is just my first succession game so I don't have your experience. :humble:

Is that an agreed first move for now then?

Only of some of the team. I think we really want agreement from the entire team before we start moving units. It's interesting to note that no other team has posted a save to the progress website so we don't need to hurry for the sake of it.


Anyway, you know, this is just my first succession game so I don't have your experience. :humble:

Don't worry about that, your suggestions are as valid as the rest of ours. :)

All very good points Misotu :goodjob:, I have been having second thoughts about the victory condition as well. Religious does seem to be a good choice for VC in this set up. I have also noted the slow build of wonders by the AI in BTS compared to prior versions. The opponents will make a difference though, there are some keen builders with IND. Scouting early will help make the decision for us on the VC a little easier. I expect a mix of PROT and IND leaders to keep things interesting.

The early game for me is all about developing the capital and getting out a couple of cities. I generally don't worry about the VC until I've settled and know a little about what I'm up against. We also tend to take longer on a game so we can't afford too many delays, the Geezers can only move slowly, what with our collective age and all ;). We also don't generally play a lot of practise games which may be why we our results aren't the best :blush:

I am thinking that an early religious path generating a G. Prophet or two will probably be the leading strategy (except for Murky who just love to war :cool:).

We need to hear from The-Hawk and markh on this topic :scan:.

OK, had some network problems today, but I’m back in the saddle. I’ve been thinking about this a bit, here is a list of some decisions we will need to make:

1) The laurels go to the team with the best wonder-to-turns ratio. I’m not sure if we should focus on increasing the numerator or decreasing the denominator. We need to do some analysis of availability and potential timing of wonders to find the optimum target end date. For example, a very fast win (say conquest) with a decent number of early wonders might beat a slow win with a large number of wonders. We need to see if there a natural gap in the timeline of wonder building where the next available wonder is not worth the turns to research and build it.

2) Which victory condition? My initial reaction was “definitely dom or conquest”. Two reasons: they are the fastest victories and we can steal wonders. However, based on Misotu’s test and the fact this is big-and-small, maybe this is not so definite. Actually finishing a military conquest might take a long time (AI’s building cities on small islands). I suspect the answer to this question will depend on the answer to the first question. Our ultimate victory condition may depend on our target end date.

3) Do we build wonders, or let AI’s build them. My first reaction was the latter, but again based on Misotu’s test, maybe this is wrong. It may be that Monarch is too low level to get enough help from the AI’s. If we want AI’s to build them, we should be gifting techs to get them started sooner.

4) Do we go for early religions? I’m not sure about this one. If we found the religions, we will need to spawn enough GP’s to build the shrines. We might be better off letting the AI’s build the religions and shrines. This would let us go for GSs for faster tech. If we go for early religions, will that stifle our tech pace?

Nice analysis, Misotu.

We probably need to get some views from Thrallia if we are choosing diplomacy, as that is an area he has done a lot of work on in the past.

Religious is an option, but it does require some precision and early focus, given the earliness of this victory condition. You really need to decide which religion you're going to target because this condition is impossibly difficult if you choose the wrong religion and time its spread incorrectly. So if we're going to go for that, we need to decide early.

We probably need to do some simple maths on wonder points divided by finishing time to assess the likely outcomes of various approaches generally.

Sample Table (I am working on this now - any comments on other info to include?)

Wonder Tech :hammers: resource
Stonehenge Myst 120 stone
GreatLighthouse Sailing 200
Moai Statues Sailing 250 stone
Temple of Artemis Poly 350 marble


Did a little test - settling on the cows produces a WB and worker by turn 17 vs turn 25 settling in place or on the other side of the cows. It also allows quick access to both clams and fish.

A bit more research to add to the pot.

I played a few test games (all on the same map, so some things may be skewed)
Here's when the wonders tended to go if I let the AI build them:

Stonehenge: T40, T65
Gt Wall: T66, T77
Gt Lighthouse: T80, T113
Pyramids: No-one else built it by 0AD!! I managed it comfortably on T85.
Oracle: T77, T87
Temple of Artemis: T101

All confirms what Misotu has reported from her tests: the AI are very sluggish at getting those Wonders built.
We're just going to have to build a lot of the things ourselves, it seems, and then get the game finished as early as possible, to improve our wonder-to-turns ratio, as The-Hawk was saying.


A couple of other timings I noted:
First animals appeared: T10
First barbarians spotted: T54

Buddhism went T16, T17
Hinduism went T19, T23
Judaism went T56, T73

Here is the spreadsheet with the Wonders.

188520

OK, so if we build lots of wonders, won't that give us lots of:
- wonder benefits;
- GP points; and
- culture?

Does any of that point us toward likely victory conditions?

Here is the spreadsheet with the Wonders.


Thanks for this erik. However the spreadsheet does not include National Wonders. :sad:


Five Wonder Points are awarded for each Wonder controlled by the Team, and are displayed as the 'xx' in "yy from Wonders (xx/310)" when you hover your mouse over your score in the game screen. 310 is the maximum Wonder Points score you can achieve if you control all Wonders and National Wonders.


Your spreadsheet has 55 wonders (275 points) whereas 62 wonders are required for 310 points.

I think it is a given that we'll need astro for any victory condition.

I forgot this is BtS as well, I think that Religious Victories might be the best shot for an early victory condition.

@Hawk: The best gap I can think of is the gap between Medieval and Industrial wonders...Medieval wonders still use marble/stone/gold/copper and rarely cost more than 400-600 hammers, while Industrial ones often do not have resources for double speed, and usually cost 800+.

Conveniently enough, that gap is right around the point we'll likely be when we are able to get Astro and start working on winning the game, rather than just wonder-building.

Stonehenge__________Myst ______120__stone
Great Lighthouse _____Sailing_____200
Moai Statues_________Sailing_____250__stone
Temple of Artemis ____Poly ______350__marble
Pyramids ____________Masonry ___500__stone
Great Wall ___________Masonry ___250__stone
Oracle ______________Priesthood _150__marble
Colossus ____________MetalC ____250__copper
Pathenon ____________Aesthetics _400__marble
Statue of Zeus _______Aesthetics _300__ivory
Swedagon Paya _______Aesthetics _450__gold
Hanging Gardens ______Math _____300__stone
Heroic Epic __________Literature __200__marble
National Epic _________Literature __250__marble
Great Library _________Literature __350__marble
Mausoleum of Massolos Calendar ___450__marble
Globe Theatre ________Drama _____300
Notre Dame __________Engineering 550__stone
Chichen Itza _________CoL _______500__stone
Sistine Chapel ________Music _____600__marble
Angkor Wat __________Philosophy__500__stone
Hagia Sophia _________Theology___500__marble
Apostolic Palace ______Theology___400
Spiral Minaret ________Divine Right 500__stone
U of Sankore _________Paper_____ 550__stone
Hermitage ___________Nationalism_300__marble
Oxford ______________Education__400__stone

that list right there gives us 27 easy ones, I think going any farther in the tech tree, while helpful for winning the game, should be done as quickly as possible, as the wonders past these all take more than 2x as long to build.

If we're seriously thinking of going religious, then we need a very precise plan. Religious can be fast, but it can take FOREVER if you stuff up the spread of the apostolic faith and some other AI spreads it too far within itself and you lose your voting power.

Erik, are you sure about your building times ? This is normal speed. You can build a worker in 15 when settling in place and work the cows. This would match with researching BW in 15 turns. You will get the worker in 12 if settling on the cows, although I would hate to give up the cows.

It is also my experience that the AIs were slow in building wonders, but this might change if there are industrial AIs in the game. In the test save I think there were none. However we should not gamble on that. I find it difficult to set a victory condition right now. If we are on the big continent dom/conquest should be possible quite fast. If we need ships to get to it I doubt that this condition is a good choice. I have no experience in religious victories, so I will not be of much help in that department. :(

Playing the test save I had no problems building a lot of wonders while expanding and building up military.

Religions were not an issue in my tests and I would not focus on getting one. If we go for a religious victory this might be different. I do not know.

@Sam - the spreadsheet contains the National wonders, but not the religious shrines which also count. I will update the sheet later.

@markh - I did a worker / wb / resume worker build using each of the 3 start positions. The cow location means being able to put a WB on the fish for +1 :food: instead of the clams.

The tech path was fishing/BW/ although BW can be deferred for Myst as we have no immediate need for either BW or AH if we settle the cows. Tech path then goes Fish/Sail/Myst/Poly/Priest for optimum path to wonders. Wheel is a possible insert into the path to keep the worker productive.

I'm guessing Thrallia is correct about Astro. Remember, this is a SG map by Gyathaar :eek:. I'll bet we are isolated on a small island, probably every tile in the FOW is a desert with a lion on it. No way it is a simple Monarch level walk in the park.

If we need Astro, then isn't religion victory a very difficult task? If AI's start taking Theology, then we might not be able to spread the religion. Also, religion and diplo might be hard given we want to capture any AI built wonders. We might make war with several AIs.

Erik, this spreadsheet is a great start, thanks for pulling it together :goodjob:. I'm planning to spend some time looking at it today.

RE: Location for city one. Why would we move from the spot we are on? Settling on a resource wastes the hammer/gold/food bonus of the resource (e.g. lose the hammers from the cows). We are on fresh water for health. All visible resources are in our BFC.

I'm for moving the scout to gold to take a look, but we will need to find something pretty spectacular to warrant a move.

By the way, whenever we get around to sending a boat to the fish, I'd like to divert it to scout the south of the marble island before it builds nets on the fish. If there is seafood to the south of the marble, then I'd vote for settling a second (or third) city on Marble island. With the fish S of the capital and another south of the marble island, it might make for a decent GP farm and give us the marble for wonders.

I am totally fine with the scout moving to the gold hill. Then we can see whether we still want to settle in place or take another spot.

Do we have any volunteers for the first set ? Sam indicated he is fine with a stop and go set. If no one objects I would suggest that Sam moves the scout to the gold hill and comes back for discussions.

According to my calculations Turn 310 equates to 1880 AD in BTS at normal speed (Turn 100 is 375 BC and turn 200 is 1400 AD). Since the maximum points available for wonders is 310 I think we need to work in terms of finishing on or before that date. Given that it's pretty unlikely that we will get maximum wonder points we should really be aiming to finish even earlier. My guesstimate is between turn 200 to turn 250 (1400 AD - 1700 AD) if we want to have any chance of the laurels.

Of all the potential VCs I think that rules out time, space and culture. [I'm just waiting for CRC to get gold with a culture victory now. :rolleyes:] That leaves Dom/Conq, Diplo & Religious as possible VCs. Formerly I would have ruled out the last two as options since we expected the AI to build the majority of the wonders. However various posts seem to indicate that we will need to build most of the wonders ourselves.

If that's the case it will be a real struggle to build loads of wonders and eliminate the AI. As far as Civ4 SGOTMs as concerned the earliest conquest wins I can find are 530 AD (T200 Epic) & 575 AD (T205 Epic). Both dates are in the region of turn 140 at normal speed which I think is just a bit too quick for us to achieve. :mischief: Mind you, those other teams weren't building lots of wonders.

We also need to bear in mind that it is only the ratio that matters. Twenty wonders (100 points) at turn 100 is just as good as forty wonders (200 points) at turn 200.

The advantage of a diplo/religious victory is that they only require optics rather than astro. OTOH Dom/Conq does not depend so much on capricious AI.

*************

I'll wait about an hour from the time of this post in case there are objections before I move the scout.

@mark - Any word on a roster? :p

Provisional roster :

Sam gets us started
Erik
Harbourboy
The Hawk
Thrallia
AgedOne
Misotu
Mark

I had a look at some of the HOF Big and Small maps. All of them look as though Astro is not needed to get to all of the islands. That's been my experience with this map type. I think we can assume that astro is not mandatory for any type of win.

A quick AP win will probably be the fastest finish.

Until we have more facts, I don't see how we can decide that it's not possible.

Let's focus on optimum development and leave the VC until we know the general shape of what we are up against and the 7 leaders.

Ouch… somehow it never registered in my brain that this was normal speed. Even on Monarch, warmongering across a big and small map at normal speed will not be a cakewalk. Maybe the best way to manage a warmongering approach would be to completely concentrate on war at first. Try to kill most AI’s, then switch to wonder building when we control the world. However, this feels like it will be a long road. Early warmongering and wonder building are normally mutually exclusive.

Actually, I’m starting to think culture might be a good option. As Harbourboy pointed out, if we are going to build lots of wonders, we will be getting lots of culture and GPPs. Feels to me like a natural synergy. Also, a culture attempt will not be dependent on being nice to AIs. We could build a relatively small late era army and backstab wonder-holding AI’s just before we pop our artists.

Of course, if we are on a pissant, desert-filled Gyathaar island, maybe culture will not be possible. :p

Cross-post

Let's focus on optimum development and leave the VC until we know the general shape of what we are up against and the 7 leaders.

Yes, for sure. Early game is scout and REX. We should spend some time discussing first tech and first builds as well.

First tech is fishing - after that, I want to see what we have found with our scouting.

I'm leaning towards AH as 1st tech and worker as first build. I think the cows are the most important early tile... will give us 6 production for building settlers vs. 4 from the clams. Worker is followed by warriors while we research fishing. Then we build a couple of boats. Food is not an early priority unless we detour for BW and whipping. Once we are working the gold hill, we don't need lots of additional early pop.

In fact, I could be talked out of fishing until later. Depends if we want to try for Henge or Artemis. Maybe we go AH -> Myst -> Poly (to open Artemis) -> writing -> run for CS slingshot.

Of course, if we want the marble, we will need a galley... :crazyeye:

I would build a worker first while researching bw. Then warriors until gold is mined. Chop another worker and a settler to quickly build a second city.

Research : BW, AH, Myst

Well now we know why hardly anyone has posted a save. :lol: Enjoy!


http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k182/mrprab/SGOTM08/ViewfromGold-4000BC.jpg

:vomit: How ugly !

I am torn whether to settle in place or move the settler. :dunno:

I think I would settle in place. We can build a second city 1E of the scout later on. Hopefully the West looks better. :mischief:

I'm leaning towards AH as 1st tech and worker as first build. I think the cows are the most important early tile... will give us 6 production for building settlers vs. 4 from the clams. Worker is followed by warriors while we research fishing. Then we build a couple of boats. Food is not an early priority unless we detour for BW and whipping. Once we are working the gold hill, we don't need lots of additional early pop.

In fact, I could be talked out of fishing until later. Depends if we want to try for Henge or Artemis. Maybe we go AH -> Myst -> Poly (to open Artemis) -> writing -> run for CS slingshot.


I would build a worker first while researching bw. Then warriors until gold is mined. Chop another worker and a settler to quickly build a second city.


The problem with settling in place is that we cannot access the water on both sides of the peninsula (if that's what it is) whereas we can if we settle the cows. Exploring with one or two WBs might be faster than scouts/warriors.

:vomit:How ugly !

Yep, I vote we send the scout the other way now. :rolleyes:

The problem with settling in place is that we cannot access the water on both sides of the peninsula (if that's what it is) whereas we can if we settle the cows. Exploring with one or two WBs might be faster than scouts/warriors.

From your pic, it sure looks like a peninsula... a WB can get to the fish in 5 turns. If it is not, we can always build a fort on the grass 1SE of the current settler location to make a channel. We will be getting Math soon enough if we are going for CS slingshot.

@Hawk : Does this mean you want to settle in place and send the worker West or waiting with settling until the scout revealed what is West ?

Even more now I would not settle on the cows.

I would settle in place immediately. Nothing would pull me west away from the gold, except maybe two gems. Besides, as Erik noted, it looks like forest to the west, so we are a couple of turns away from revealing anything beyond our current BFC. I can't see waiting.

/edit: If we do ultimately find some nice stuff to the west... all the better. It will make for a strong second city.

/edit again: btw, the 2nd fish NE of marble means a city settled on the marble would be a decent GP farm.

If it is not, we can always build a fort on the grass 1SE of the current settler location to make a channel.


I forgot about forts. :blush:


We will be getting Math soon enough if we are going for CS slingshot.

:confused: I didn't such things were feasible nowadays. :scan:

I would like to have some agreement from the team about what we're intending to do in terms of builds and tech paths before I continue playing.

My vote :

Settle in place
Build a worker
Research bronze.

My vote :

Settle in place
Build a worker
Research bronze.

I'm starting to think earlier BW might be appropriate if we decide to go for early wonders. However, I don't think it should be first. We will have a worker pop out with nothing to improve. If we immediately start another worker or settler (so he can chop them), our pop will not grow and we will be delayed working the gold. I don't think we should build a worker until we've researched AH so he can pasture the cows.

I'm starting to think earlier BW might be appropriate if we decide to go for early wonders. However, I don't think it should be first. We will have a worker pop out with nothing to improve. If we immediately start another worker or settler (so he can chop them), our pop will not grow and we will be delayed working the gold. I don't think we should build a worker until we've researched AH so he can pasture the cows.

We are creative, so our borders will pop even earlier. Once the worker is finished he can mine the gold immediately. This worked very well in my test games.

Can someone explain what they are talking about with the fort as a channel?

And why they think that starting position is ugly?

And why we would rule out culture as a victory type?

Can someone explain what they are talking about with the fort as a channel?

In BtS, forts act like cities with respect to boats. Basically it makes a channel across the peninsula. A WB from the capital could pass down the channel (through the fort) to the other side.

And why they think that starting position is ugly?

Start is OK, what sucks is the land to the east. I would have preferred some gems... or food... even a calendar resource. What we found was two jungles.

And why we would rule out culture as a victory type?

We haven't.;)

Can someone explain what they are talking about with the fort as a channel?

And why they think that starting position is ugly?

And why we would rule out culture as a victory type?

The starting position is ugly as a city in the West is more or less useless in the beginning. It will just cost maintenance. We can just hope that the land to the West is better, otherwise it will be almost an OCC.:rolleyes:

:hmm: mark wants BW as initial tech and worker as first build. The-Hawk thinks AH as initial tech and worker might be better. I think Fishing as initial tech (to be followed by AH or BW) and scout as first build has advantages.

Any more for any more? :crazyeye:

Phew! Things are starting to happen.
From the look of things, I would agree that we stay where we are, or (maybe) move west. We don't want to go any further east - like the cattle square. Worse land after expansion, and too many sea squares.

Excellent spot about the use of a fort as cut-thru, The-Hawk!! That hadn't occurred to me, but is the perfect solution.

I certainly wouldn't rule out culture as a victory to aim for. Maybe we can build some early wonders (just those that get us ahead of the crowd, like 'Mids, Oracle, Gt Lib), followed by a militaristic stage as we wreck the others and expand. Finally a second wonder stage where we build for culture. Does that sound a possible route?

:hmm: mark wants BW as initial tech and worker as first build. The-Hawk thinks AH as initial tech and worker might be better. I think Fishing as initial tech (to be followed by AH or BW) and scout as first build has advantages.

Any more for any more? :crazyeye:

Whoops! Missed this one - crossed with my post.

I think we go for a worker first up regardless. Our first research should be AH if we are aiming to strengthen our position and build first. If we want to go military right from the off, I would get BW, but that may not even be possible (i.e. we may be alone). AH gives us growth and helps our building potential. We must continue revealing the map, of course.

Harbourboy's Guide to Victory Conditions:

TIME: Pros - we get our money's worth; plenty of time to get all wonders; easy condition to achieve(?)
Cons: - we'd get bored by the end; wonder to time ratio in end game not good

SPACE: Pros - plenty of time to get all wonders
Cons - might take too long to get good finishing time

DIPLOMACY: Pros - doesn't require massive army or huge empire; can finish before space or time; Thrallia is expert
Cons - depends on unpredictable AI actions; might need to attack friends to get wonders

CULTURE: Pros - compatible with lots of wonders; doesn't require large army or AI helpfulness; time to get wonders
Cons - hard to get lots of Artists, might take too long

DOMINATION: Pros - can get everyone's wonders, can be quick, will be powerful, units are the wonder that keeps on giving
Cons - normal speed, non-pangaea, hard to build wonders and units

CONQUEST: Pros - can get everyone's wonders, will be powerful, units are the wonder that keeps on giving
Cons - normal speed, non-pangaea, hard to build wonders and units, hard to get last isolated AI

RELIGIOUS: Pros - can be fastest condition of all, don't need big army
Cons - quite tricky to get religious spread right, might not get many wonders.

I think worker first and AH is the best build, I'd follow that with fishing and then either BW or Sailing(depends on what else we find in our neighborhood...might want sailing early to get the marble city up early).

As for victory conditions, I still think that with a Gyathaar map we'll either need astro, or need very creative culture bridges to get to every other AI. Because of that, I think that a religious victory would be fastest.

Pros:
Only need to tech to Optics, not Astro
Theo is an easy reach for a Oracle slingshot, or for just researching
If we found Christianity with Theo and then build the AP, then we will then control all religious spread
If we don't convert to Christianity until the turn of the winning vote, we'll be able to self-vote(unless they changed that in the newest patch?)
If we only found 1-2 religions, so much the better for us in terms of the AI not spreading the religion on their own

Cons:
AI might adopt and spread our religion making it harder to get enough votes to win
Ind/Spi leader might bulb Theo and build AP before we can


That's how I see a Religious victory as being...even if we don't need astro to finish a dom/conq victory, the amount of effort required in shuttling around troops in galleys among what would basically be an archipelago type of map is daunting...especially given the normal game speed(and the fact that in order to go war, we'll have to forgo wonder building)

oh yeah, and I vote settle in place as well :)

I'm getting very interested in this talk about a religious victory. I have to confess that I have never been anywhere near this area of BTS. To me it's a darkened room at the end of a long dark corridor!

So can anyone start my education off, please? I will head over to the strategy guides and see if there's some useful threads, but in the meantime...

I guess it's like the UN, in that we have to get a few friendly AI on side to vote for us, but they will all have to have the same religion? I will get a vote, because I built the AP, but my rival will be ?? the civ with the right religion and the largest population?
Which religion is the one used for the AP? Is it the one run by the civ that builds it, or the one in the city that builds it, or what?

@Thrallia
What's the thing about self-voting. I don't understand that at all (yet).

Help!

The AP religion is the state religion of the civ that builds it(at the time it is built)

If a civ has that religion inside one of its cities, it is a 'member' of the AP.
If it does not have the AP religion as its state religion, it is called a voting member, and it gets one vote for every population point in each city with the AP religion in it.
If it does have the AP religion as its state religion, it is called a full member, and it gets 2 votes for every population point in each city with the AP religion in it.

The part about self-voting I put in because when the second patch for BtS came out, it disabled diplo/religious victory votes if you had more than 3/4 of all possible votes. You could get around this by being a 'voting member' until the turn of the actual vote, then vote for yourself and change your state religion to the AP religion, thus doubling your votes at that point.

I haven't played BtS in ages however, so I don't know what is in this new patch, or if it fixed/changed that aspect of it or not.

As for your opponent, it will be however has the most number of votes and is a full member of the AP...if no one else is a full member, then you have no opponent but you don't necessarily win because they can still abstain their votes.

Self voting bug was corrected in the last patch. You must have at least one AI vote for you to win, you may not have enough votes to win yourself or the option does not come up.

2 possible city sites. #2 (yellow) is a good gp farm and has 2 fish, clams, cows, gold and and marble. I think the marble island is bigger than 2 squares and we could build a fort to get the marble bonus. If we are on an island, a second city to the west is possible.

188611

for tech, I prefer fishing but AH is acceptable. To keep the worker occupied AH should be followed by BW and wheel. I prefer food to hammers for starting REX although hammer bonus for workers is helpful after we have built the first settler.

The yellow city would be a pretty awesome GP farm (run 7 specialists assuming we can keep them happy). On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of using the capital as a GP farm. Allocating citizens to specialist roles really detracts from the power of Bureaucracy. I think I still like the original spot better, maybe with a later city sitting right on the marble as a GP farm.

I am almost certain that the new patch removed the self-voting loophole (which was a complete sham anyway).

So you do need to:
a) be a reasonable size so we get a big chunk of votes to start off with
b) have some friends vote for us as well.

The major difference between Diplo and Religious is that we can, to a certain extent, impact the voting power of the other AIs by controlling the spread of the apostolic faith. This is why Christianity is a good target faith as:
a) it comes late so nobody will have it yet
b) it coincides with the ability to build Apostolic Palace
c) you get a free missionary to kick start the process

The main problem comes if you spread the religion to one AI too early and they go nuts spreading it around themselves and get too many votes.

Thanks, everyone, for your points on religious victories. I feel better educated and more able to think about this one strategically now. :goodjob:

I suppose there is a big part of the strategy that is identical to getting a UN victory - building up your 'allies' attitudes towards you to something like +10, by trading, having common enemies, religions. The common religion should be a given, except for voting members who haven't adopted the AP religion.

The big difference will be this thing about controlling the spread of your chosen religion. As Harbourboy points out, the problem is uncontrolled spreading by someone who uses it for their own purposes rather than ours. (swines!) Does anyone have any background info on who is most likely to do this, or who we can trust to not spread it like wildfire?

The key is trying to spread your religion to one city per AI as simultaneously as possible. This is made difficult by the limitation on the number of missionaries and the long distances they may have to travel to reach the most distant AI.

The key is trying to spread your religion to one city per AI as simultaneously as possible. This is made difficult by the limitation on the number of missionaries and the long distances they may have to travel to reach the most distant AI.

Oh wow. Do you mean the tactical approach goes something like this:

Reach Theology and found christianity
Build 7 missionaries and send them to wait outside of a different AI small city each
Build the 99% of the AP
Just before completion, walk the 7 missionaries into the cities and convert.
Same turn, finish the AP

There is a 3 missionary limit. #2 does not exist.

There is a 3 missionary limit. #2 does not exist.

Ohh. So there really isn't a way to arrange simultaneous spread to more than 3 AI.
I suppose the closest arrangement is to spread to 3 of those furthest travel-time away first, and 3 closer ones as soon as missionaries can be built again. If you timed that right, you could do it with a delay of only about 10-15 turns (depending how close nearest civs are).
That means 10-15 turns where they can be spreading your religion unscrupulously!

Reading the runes it looks as though there is general agreement to settle in place, build a worker first and tech AH & BW in that order. Worker to pasture cows and then mine the gold. Scout to confirm that we are on a peninsula and if any land nearby and then scout towards the east. Capital to build warrior/scout after worker?

If there is general agreement (posts rather than silence please) on the above then I'll play 20 turns this evening otherwise I'll wait until tomorrow evening.

Reading the runes it looks as though there is general agreement to settle in place, build a worker first and tech AH & BW in that order. Worker to pasture cows and then mine the gold. Scout to confirm that we are on a peninsula and if any land nearby and then scout towards the east. Capital to build warrior/scout after worker?

Sounds good.

I would not build a scout after the worker. I would just build warrior(s). Scouts die too easily against barbs.

Reading the runes it looks as though there is general agreement to settle in place, build a worker first and tech AH & BW in that order. Worker to pasture cows and then mine the gold. Scout to confirm that we are on a peninsula and if any land nearby and then scout towards the east. Capital to build warrior/scout after worker?

I think that sounds like a fair plan for session 1.

I would also agree with markh that warrior rather than scout for the next build. Not necessarily because they die against barbs (no barbs for 50 turns) but because our original scout may well be able to explore quite comfortably on his own.

(interestingly, in practice games, my original scout popped scouts from huts about 50% of the time! Of course, in the real game, many huts may have been removed...)

(interestingly, in practice games, my original scout popped scouts from huts about 50% of the time! Of course, in the real game, many huts may have been removed...)

IIRC Gyathaar removes all the goody huts near the human player to remove the element of luck. Of course CRC (CFR?) managed to pop one for Mining (?) in SGOTM02. :rolleyes:

Reading the runes it looks as though there is general agreement to settle in place, build a worker first and tech AH & BW in that order. Worker to pasture cows and then mine the gold. Scout to confirm that we are on a peninsula and if any land nearby and then scout towards the east. Capital to build warrior/scout after worker?

If there is general agreement (posts rather than silence please) on the above then I'll play 20 turns this evening otherwise I'll wait until tomorrow evening.

I think waiting for Misotu to comment before proceeding would be appropriate. I would like to run some comparisons on the fishing vs AH start as I do not see what the worker will contribute after mining the gold. I also think we are probably on an island and we will need boats to scout not warriors.
CRC and 5th element have both stopped at turn 13. Read the entrails :mischief:

CRC and 5th element have both stopped at turn 13. Read the entrails :mischief:

Yes I noticed that. Could just be coincidence......

I take your point about Misotu.

I agree, but scouting may reveal that we want fishing ASAP to build a WB.

I would like to run some comparisons on the fishing vs AH start as I do not see what the worker will contribute after mining the gold. I also think we are probably on an island and we will need boats to scout not warriors.
Good point. I was playing another practice, starting with a worker, and it was evidently one of those situations where you are always close to having an idle worker. Even when I found a bit of road-building for them to do, it was hardly a profitable use. A couple of workboats would have been useful - one for food and one to explore.

CRC and 5th element have both stopped at turn 13. Read the entrails :mischief: Hmm. Big surprise coming up at the limit of our scout's exploration?


Practice Game
I thought I'd try out the aim of building a few early wonders - Henge, Oracle, Mids - and using the Gt Prophet to bulb Theology. This whole sequence worked a treat. I also got the Gt Lib, and a useful tech lead.
I took CoL from the Oracle, but maybe I shouldn't have, as of course that founded Confucianism, and perhaps I could have been keeping to just Christianity.
The other major problem I made for myself was failing to expand adequately, which resulted in a little boxed-in empire. I'm sure I could have avoided that with just a little forethought.
So I got the AP, having spread my religion to 5 other civs just before. I was the only full member, and it didn't seem to offer me a victory vote, as folk have been telling me that has been fixed in a patch. In any case, I needed one or two of the others to side with me, and I still needed to get their attitude up high enough for that.

By the way, I used the fort-as-cut-thru technique, and it was fine. :)

Start optimization

In order to evaluate the different possible tech path/build scenarios (similar to what we did for Mids/G. Lib in the last game). i would like to know what early techs/builds I should be looking at.

Obviously we have path 1 - AH/BW with worker/warrior/warrior/settler and path 2 with fishing/AH with worker(partial)/WB/worker(finish)/warrior/warrior/settler.

Other techs to include are masonary,wheel,sailing. Does anyone have any other ideas on what should be included in the tech/build mix. I will compare turns to complete settler, #hammers and beakers. Anything else?

In order to evaluate the different possible tech path/build scenarios (similar to what we did for Mids/G. Lib in the last game). i would like to know what early techs/builds I should be looking at.


What about looking at an Oracle slingshot? The other question is what free tech we might want. MC or maybe CoL? Another option would be to look at going for the Great Wall. It's good for spy points, an early Great Spy and enhanced power rating.

What about looking at an Oracle slingshot? The other question is what free tech we might want. MC or maybe CoL?

See my post just a few back. In my latest practice, I pulled off a slingshot to CoL, followed by a Gt Prof bulbing Theology, and I wasn't particularly skillful in my approach.

My tech path was:
AH - (popped Masonry) - Myst - Fishing - Wheel - Medi - Priest - Poly - Writing - (CoL from Oracle) - BW - Mono - (Theo from GP)



Re. Great Wall. Yes, the whole espionage thing must not be forgotten in BTS. Ignore it and everyone starts turning their spies against you. Get a Gt Spy and infiltrate an enemy for a few thousand spy points to use, and instant visibility of their cities :D. Very useful if we're about to take them out.

I think you are trying to look to far ahead. Please think about 4/5 techs and ready for 2nd city.

Test 1

T14 AH
T16 worker
T20 cow pasture
T23 warrior,size2
T25 gold
T27 warrior, BW
T31 fishing
T35 forest chop
T37 settler,fishing

I think you are trying to look to far ahead. Please think about 4/5 techs and ready for 2nd city.



I think these are two separate conversations, erikthecelt.
I'm aware of what you are looking at, but Sam_Yeager raised a more long-term strategic point - of the sort we have been considering - and this was my comment back to him.
I don't think there's anything wrong with looking closely at the short term, whilst also thinking about the longer term more generally.

@AgedOne - sorry, Sam quoted my remarks, so I assumed the chat was directed towards the testing I am doing.

I think we do need to be mindful of the longer term and I would have thought that setting up for something strategic from the Oracle should be a part of our direction.

Happy to see the results of erikthecelt's testing for a clear idea of what the optimal ealry game path is.

Test results: Table 3 yields the best result IMO we are size 3 and we are are working cows, gold and clams to build the settler. There is one chop and 2 hills are mined prior to completing the setller. Tech AH,Fish,BW - Build Worker, part warrior, WB, finish warrior, settler. Note T13 is when AH has been researched. The second tech is probably what is being discussed by the other team.

AH/Worker

T6
T14 AH
T16 worker
T19
T20 cow pasture
T23 warrior,size2
T25 gold
T27 warrior,BW
T28
T29
T30
T31 fishing
T32
T35 forest chop
T37 settler, masonary
T40

Fishing

T6 Fishing
T14
T16 WB/clams
T19 AH
T20
T23
T25 worker
T27
T28 BW,size2,cows
T29
T30
T31 warrior
T32 BW , size 3
T35
T37
T40 settler,sailing

AH/Fishing

T6
T14 AH
T16 worker
T19
T20 fishing
T23 size 2
T25
T27
T28 WB
T29 size 3
T30 warrior
T31 BW
T32
T35
T37 settler,sailing
T40

Does the workboat put down nets or go exploring in scenario 3?

Does the workboat put down nets or go exploring in scenario 3? It works the clams.

Does the worker ever run out of things to do in any of those scenarios? Does that matter?

I had a swift play this morning with the test save up to T41. I went AH - Myst - Med - Priesthood - Wheel - BW (part) and built worker - warrior - barracks (part) - settler - warrior. By T42 I would have been ready to start the Oracle.

By no means am I saying we should go down this route. However if we decided to beeline the Oracle then it might be a possible tech path. :dunno:

Whilst it would be nice to play my turnset this evening it looks like we may need some more discussion first. Better to delay playing until we are all clear in our minds what we are trying to accomplish.

@AgedOne - sorry, Sam quoted my remarks, so I assumed the chat was directed towards the testing I am doing.
That's OK, erikthecelt. It's all useful work.

Re your scenarios. Yes, option 3 is looking the most productive. As Harbourboy says, though:
Does the worker ever run out of things to do in any of those scenarios? Does that matter?

As long as the worker doesn't stand completely idle, then I think it has been a worthwhile build. As soon as we get BW, there are forested hills to be chopped and mined.

Do we need to road the gold, or is it connected via the coast? If we need roads, then I would recommend early Wheel.

If we are going to try some sort of Oracle sling, we should lay down some of the required tech fairly early. Maybe Myst before sailing?

Sam - your test forgoes fishing? Can we afford to wait that long to do fishing?

Nice work, Erik. :goodjob:

I guess we are not intending to build Stonhenge, then.

Are we agreed that we have to build wonders ourselves ? I have not been able to find a way to encourage an AI to build wonders for us, so I think this will not get us anywhere.

Looking at the victory condition we really should set a path now which wonders we are aiming for and focus on that. We will get the most points the earlier we control wonders.

Sam - your test forgoes fishing? Can we afford to wait that long to do fishing?

Well it was only a quick test. It was really to highlight that going for Oracle could be done early without significatly slowing down settling. I think it's worth pointing out that the capital grew to 3 pop without the seafood. However I admit that it's possible that we might want a WB for exploring once we've scouted a bit more.

I think we can still build both Henge and Oracle after a tech path of AH,Fish,BW,Sail,Mason,Myst,Poly,Priest. With this path the option og G.Lighthouse is available which is a lot more valuable to us than the Henge. I like MC from Oracle and Colosus.

I think we are in the Little part or Big & Little. Exploring more will give us a better idea. I am OK with Sam playing until we get AH and finding out if we really are on an island or an isthmus. That would be turn 13 like CRC and 5th.

I want to build a second city and get out some scout ships before we start on the 1st wonder.

Does the worker ever run out of things to do in any of those scenarios? Does that matter? The worker always has something to do. He mines a hill that is not worked until later but after BW he can pre-chop a lot of forest for the 1st wonder.

I think we can still build both Henge and Oracle after a tech path of AH,Fish,BW,Sail,Mason,Myst,Poly,Priest. With this path the option og G.Lighthouse is available which is a lot more valuable to us than the Henge. I like MC from Oracle and Colosus.

I want to build a second city and get out some scout ships before we start on the 1st wonder.

I have my doubts whether we will get stonehenge with that tech order. IIRC the AI builds it around turn 60-65, speaking of non-industrial AIs. This would be a close race and I am sure Gyathaar will have put some industrial AIs in the game with access to the necessary resources to make it harder for the teams.

I agree on your point on The Great Lighthouse. As much as we can see yet our cities will be coastal, so this wonder would be quite high on my list. However we can get both if we want. ;)

I have my doubts whether we will get stonehenge with that tech order.

Why do we want the 'henge anyway? We're creative after all. :crazyeye:

It's the earliest wonder you can get, so the earliest points we can gather for the victory condition. ;) Given the set victory condition by Gyathaar I do not see why we would not want as many wonders as possible.

I am not that interested in the momuments, but in the GP points for a Great Prophet. Settled they give +1 hammer and +5 gold which pays maintenance for one additional city.

It's the earliest wonder you can get, so the earliest points we can gather for the victory condition. ;) Given the set victory condition by Gyathaar I do not see why we would not want as many wonders as possible.

I am not that interested in the momuments, but in the GP points for a Great Prophet. Settled they give +1 hammer and +5 gold which pays maintenance for one additional city.

Shrines count as wonders, that's a better use for GP, we can get the hammers and gold elsewhere. GW is earlier. We could sub masonary + myst for sailing but i think we should be careful about going for too many.

It's the earliest wonder you can get, so the earliest points we can gather for the victory condition. ;) Given the set victory condition by Gyathaar I do not see why we would not want as many wonders as possible.

Well, yes..., but if we go for 'henge then will we lose other wonders that might be more useful to us? We don't need 'henge as we're creative so it doesn't matter if we capture it later. I would argue however that building Oracle & GW would be more useful to us as well as getting the wonder points.

It seems as though we need to come up with an agreed priority for building wonders. Given that our capital will be the main building city for quite a while we need to be realistic about what we can build.

Btw the amount of posts so far must be a record for us given that we haven't even finished the first turn. :lol:

Btw the amount of posts so far must be a record for us given that we haven't even finished the first turn. :lol:


Post 136 before Hawk settled last time. Are you waiting to beat that count Sam :mischief:

Post 136 before Hawk settled last time. Are you waiting to beat that count Sam :mischief:

:eek: Wow, I hadn't realised it was that late! Mind you I think I may well be quite close to that figure by the time we agree on our provisional path for the first 40 or so turns.

:eek: Wow, I hadn't realised it was that late! Mind you I think I may well be quite close to that figure by the time we agree on our provisional path for the first 40 or so turns.
I think you should research AH and build the worker, then stop. Forget the 40 turns. Seeing if we are on an island or not will help to focus the discussion. :D

I think you should research AH and build the worker, then stop. Forget the 40 turns. Seeing if we are on an island or not will help to focus the discussion. :D

I think that makes sense. I'll try and post the result later on tonight.

I think that makes sense. I'll try and post the result later on tonight.

Good Luck - Find STONE :king:

Yes, I want the results of recon before deciding what we do in the longer term.

This really is a fantastic SGOTM setup as it is forcing us to think about some quite different ideas from normal games.

Humph! Well that was super quick since the scout came to a nasty end. :(


http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k182/mrprab/SGOTM08/KnownLand-3720BC.jpg


I'll upload the save shortly so that the team can look more in detail.

EDIT: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm8/Geezers_SG008_BC3720_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

deleted as obsolete now.

Humph! Well that was super quick since the scout came to a nasty end. :(

Ohhhhhh! I hate panthers!
Well, weren't you saying just a few hundred posts back how scouts are far too vulnerable against barbs?
(Also, was turn 13 the fateful one for CRC and 5th's scouts?)


Well, I guess we just carry on with the plan, but without any early exploration.
Do you think we should pop a scout into the build queue? And, if so, at what point?

I think we do need to explore this land in order to make good plans, but I would recommend a second WB to do that for us - and more.

Well, weren't you saying just a few hundred posts back how scouts are far too vulnerable against barbs?


I believe mark made that comment.


(Also, was turn 13 the fateful one for CRC and 5th's scouts?)


An interesting question. I notice that some of the other teams have saves around about that date.


Well, I guess we just carry on with the plan, but without any early exploration.


Well first we need to decide which early wonders we are targeting so that we can agree what the plan is. Regrettably it's still not totally clear whether or not we're on a an island or not.

Well first we need to decide which early wonders we are targeting so that we can agree what the plan is. Regrettably it's still not totally clear whether or not we're on a an island or not.

I feel that, if we are really going to give a religious victory a shot, we should be trying to build both Stonehenge and Oracle in the same city, which pops an early Great Prophet, who can be used to lightbulb Theology.

Of course, that's only if we decide that's the way to go.

But if we do, we don't want to be polluting the Gt Prophet points by building other wonders first - e.g. Gt Lighthouse or Gt Wall.

I just tried a practice, went along the lines of AH - Fishing - BW - Sailing - Masonry - Myst - Poly - Priest and I hit a few problems. One was the lack of wheel early on. I also missed out on Gt Wall. But having got Gt Lighthouse followed by Oracle in the capital, I was going to pop a Gt Merchant 70% or more. The exploring WBs were good though.


I would recommend AH - Fishing - Myst - BW - Wheel - Poly - Priest - Sailing - Masonry.

Too bad Sam.

Now that we can see we have enough room for at least two cities and we will need early IW I am inclined to go with The-Hawk's original suggestion of BW after AH and defer the fishing. Copper would be nice to find if we don't get horses and being able to get a settler out early for a second city doesn't hurt.

A build of warrior/warrior/warrior/settler/worker looks attractive. A tech path of AH - BW - Myst - Fish will be fairly quick once we are working the gold. The third warrior is for the MP so the first 2 can scout SW and NW.

Sam - did you want to continue the turn to complete AH and the worker?

Sam - did you want to continue the turn to complete AH and the worker?

Erm yes but what do I when AH is in? I suggest Myst next and two warriors. That would enable us to start 'henge if we want to whilst providing MP for the capital and an explorer. The next player up can research BW whilst building either the 'henge or a settler next.

How does that sound?

Hello! :)

Hoping a couple of you remember me from SGOTM4 when Ghandi decided he'd rather war then tech. That still boggles my mind. :lol:

I haven't played in over a year but finally moved again, got settled and dug out my Civ disks and am installing on my new computer. Upon coming back here to the board, first place I went was to our old thread. I just reread the past 20ish pages. Was a great time and hopefully if I can remember how to play, I can join you guys again in some future game. In the meantime just wanted to say hi and will be following and cheering you on in your new adventures.

Haven't even read the thread yet but I will definitely soon - very much looking forward to seeing what you are all up to this time around! :)

Upon coming back here to the board, first place I went was to our old thread. I just reread the past 20ish pages. Was a great time and hopefully if I can remember how to play, I can join you guys again in some future game. In the meantime just wanted to say hi and will be following and cheering you on in your new adventures.

Haven't even read the thread yet but I will definitely soon - very much looking forward to seeing what you are all up to this time around! :)

:wavey: Nice to hear from you again Jenarie. :) I wondered where you had got to. Hopefully you won't be too disappointed at our progress in your absence. :cry:

I am a little irritated that the set was played already. I thought we wanted to avoid just this. No real consensus was there. No plan for the set was posted. We are beginning to fall back into our old habits. :mischief:

Pity about the scout. It seems our bad luck in these games continues. I thought I read somewhere that the initial two battles against animals are safe to be won. Another thing we can correct. :rolleyes:

Before we go on I really want to set a goal for this SGOTM. Especially with this victory condition the start is crucial. Wonders we miss mean no points for the victory condition. I want to know from each of us what wonders we want. This will set the path for our research.

Myst -> Stonehenge
Fishing, Sailing -> The Great Lighthouse
Masonry -> Pyramids, The Great Wall

We can have all if we want, but timing will be a big factor if we want to get the optimum out of it.

If we go on like this it will be just hopping through the techtree and we will not achieve anything. This will just lead to results we had in the previous games. ;)

Hello! :)

Hoping a couple of you remember me from SGOTM4 when Ghandi decided he'd rather war then tech. That still boggles my mind. :lol:

Hi Jenarie :wavey:,

good to hear that you are well. Have fun getting back into civ. :)

Hi Jenarie!

Hi, really sorry for the long silence. I had some unexpected family stuff come up that took me away from home and haven't booted the computer in 3 days :( I usually check in at least daily.

Happy with the suggested roster - gives me a chance to get a good feel for how it works before my turn.

I've read through the thread (several times - loads of good stuff to catch up on :goodjob: ). You can use a fort as a channel?? :wow: Amazing - I had no idea that forts work that way.

After reading the thoughts here, I'm starting to feel quite positive about a cultural victory approach. My original thought, when I played those 2 test games, was that it would be difficult to get an earlyish date and would require quite a few cities/temples/religions so I liked the idea of space or diplo/religious better, but I'm starting to wonder if culture may actually be the best option. My military efforts certainly didn't look like producing a good result - I just couldn't reach the other AIs quickly enough on normal speed and my losses were so high.

If we did go culture, we'd need to rely heavily on cathedrals - and several religions - because we can't expect to produce many artists even with a good GP farm containing carefully-chosen wonders. On the other hand, it doesn't rely on unpredictable religion spread, unpredictable relations with the AI or on an ability to travel easily around the map. It would be more straightforward from a strategy point of view.

Whatever happens, the capital will be building most of the wonders and because of that I would be strongly inclined to try for the Oracle-Bureaucracy slingshot. I managed it easily in my test game, but of course this game is probably going to be tougher :rolleyes:

Real shame about the scout :cry:

I think now I'm back I might try a quick test with a cultural victory in mind and see how that goes, especially since I understand that some wonder properties have changed in BtS and I'm not familiar with the new wonders at all.

I am a little irritated that the set was played already. I thought we wanted to avoid just this. No real consensus was there. No plan for the set was posted. We are beginning to fall back into our old habits. :mischief:


Well actually I did post a plan here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7246592&postcount=98) to which both yourself & AgedOne agreed. The reason why I didn't play at that time was because of this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7246799&postcount=102). When erik suggested playing part of the turnset I didn't think it was a problem since settling in place and AH first was generally agreed.

I
Before we go on I really want to set a goal for this SGOTM. Especially with this victory condition the start is crucial. Wonders we miss mean no points for the victory condition. I want to know from each of us what wonders we want. This will set the path for our research.

Myst -> Stonehenge
Fishing, Sailing -> The Great Lighthouse
Masonry -> Pyramids, The Great Wall

We can have all if we want, but timing will be a big factor if we want to get the optimum out of it.

If we go on like this it will be just hopping through the techtree and we will not achieve anything. This will just lead to results we had in the previous games. ;)

It is also worth thinking where we want wonders built although we will probably have to put up with GP pollution in the capital.

After your post with your plan there was still a lot of discussions going on on the start, so I thought it was not all agreed. :mischief: A misunderstanding on my side. :sad:

I think you can go on with BW. After BW comes in it will be a good point to stop. After the worker is finished go on with warriors until size 2. Then we should build a settler and chop it if appropriate once the worker is done with pasturing the cows and mining the gold hill, but this will be the task for the next set. :)

The capital should mainly build the wonders. The second city will have to take over all the other stuff. I would not mind too much building wonders that give GAs in the capital. There are only a few in the beginning. If it can be avoided we can try it in our second or third city given they have the necessary production capacities.

Sorry for getting you into trouble with the boss Sam. I thought we had general agreement on the opening moves as well :blush:

What boss are you referring to ? There is none ;)

Erik, you posted your detailed opening plans after Sam posted his plan, so I was confused why we started to play the set. That's all. :)

What boss are you referring to ? There is none ;)

Erik, you posted your detailed opening plans after Sam posted his plan, so I was confused why we started to play the set. That's all. :)


Oh Captain, My Captain :king:

We chatted a lot then I told Sam to go ahead and play until AH came in.

I think you can go on with BW. After BW comes in it will be a good point to stop. After the worker is finished go on with warriors until size 2. Then we should build a settler and chop it if appropriate once the worker is done with pasturing the cows and mining the gold hill, but this will be the task for the next set. :)

I would prefer to start Myst after AH rather than BW. It gets us started on the Oracle path and we'll have time to research BW whilst the next player is building the settler. Given that Misotu has mentioned the possibility of a culture victory I think it would be helpful to leave all our options open.

I think BW is better after AH, otherwise the worker has nothing to do and can not speed up the settler by chopping.

I have updated the spreadsheet to indicate wonders that produce GA points and sorted it to show the use of marble.

188858

Given marble, the cultural VC is attractive. If we build GA wonders in one city and none GA wonders in another we might be able to bulb enough artists to get a decent finish time. The CS sling is worth going for.

I think it was Margaret Thatcher who may have said that success was about having a constancy of purpose. I would really like us to decide what our long term direction is so that we stay on that track all the way, even if it turns out that it wasn't the best overall purpose to win.

I would prefer to start Myst after AH rather than BW. It gets us started on the Oracle path and we'll have time to research BW whilst the next player is building the settler. Given that Misotu has mentioned the possibility of a culture victory I think it would be helpful to leave all our options open.

I would go on with BW. Myst will be just 3 - 4 turns with the gold mined and as Erik said the worker will not have anything to do otherwise. BW is most important now to be able to chop and speed up the settler. ;)

4000 BC - 3000 BC

Summary
Confirmed we are on a peninsula. Setled in place. Initial tech AH and initial build worker. Exploration cut short by demise of scout. We now know AH & BW. We have not revolted to slavery yet. It looks suspiciously as though we're on a large island by ourselves.

Turn 0 - 4000 BC
Move scout to gold hill, take pic and save game. After consulting with team I settle in place, start worker and tech Animal Husbandry for the cows.

Turn 1 - 3960 BC
Scout moves to end of peninsula and spies what looks like a small island to NW.

Turn 2 - 3920 BC
Scout moves back towards the east. Capital's borders expand. Looks like there is land to the north and south.

Turn 6 - 3760 BC
Scout ends turn on hll next to a panther.

IBT: Panther kills scout. :mad:

Turn 7 - 3720 BC
Decide to suspend turnset, upload save and consult with team.


http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k182/mrprab/SGOTM08/KnownLand-3720BC.jpg


Turn 8 - 3680 BC
Buddhism FIDL.

Turn 13 - 3480 BC
AH -> BW, worker -> warrior. Worker starts pasturing cows.

Turn 16 - 3360 BC
Hinduism FIDL. Cows pastured.

Turn 18 - 3280 BC
Worker starts mining gold.

Turn 19 - 3240 BC
Warrior -> warrior. Send first warrior to scout.

Turn 20 - 3200 BC
Yaso grows to 2 pop.

Turn 21 - 3160 BC
Gold mined.

Turn 22 - 3120 BC
Warrior -> settler. Move worker towards hill south of Yaso.

Turn 25 - 3000 BC
BW learnt. Copper nice and near. :) By a convenient fluke the worker can start mining it immediately if we so desire. Set research to Myst as placeholder. Overview pic below.


http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k182/mrprab/SGOTM08/Overview-3000BC.jpg



Turn 0, 4000 BC: Logging Game to File: Geezers.txt
Turn 0, 4000 BC: Moved scout, took SS and saced game.
Turn 0, 4000 BC: Yasodharapura has been founded.

Turn 2, 3920 BC: The borders of Yasodharapura have expanded!

Turn 6, 3760 BC: Barbarian's Panther (2.00) vs Suryavarman II'sScout (2.45)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Combat Odds: 26.2%
Turn 6, 3760 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: (Class Animal Combat: +100%)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Suryavarman II's Scout is hit for 18 (82/100HP)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 22 (78/100HP)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Suryavarman II's Scout is hit for 18 (64/100HP)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Suryavarman II's Scout is hit for 18 (46/100HP)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 22 (56/100HP)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Suryavarman II's Scout is hit for 18 (28/100HP)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 22 (34/100HP)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Suryavarman II's Scout is hit for 18 (10/100HP)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Suryavarman II's Scout is hit for 18 (0/100HP)
Turn 6, 3760 BC: Barbarian's Panther has defeated Suryavarman II's Scout!
Turn 6, 3760 BC: While defending, your Scout was destroyed by a Barbarian Panther!
Turn 7, 3720 BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 12, 3520 BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!

Turn 15, 3400 BC: Hinduism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 23, 3080 BC: Yasodharapura's cultural boundary is about to expand.

Turn 24, 3040 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!
Turn 24, 3040 BC: You have discovered a source of Copper near Yasodharapura!
Turn 24, 3040 BC: The borders of Yasodharapura have expanded!




Yasodharapura founded
Yasodharapura begins: Worker (15 turns)
Research begun: Animal Husbandry (13 Turns)

Turn 1/500 (3960 BC) [16-Sep-2008 19:28:51]

Turn 2/500 (3920 BC) [16-Sep-2008 19:29:12]
Yasodharapura's borders expand

Turn 3/500 (3880 BC) [16-Sep-2008 19:30:48]

Turn 4/500 (3840 BC) [16-Sep-2008 19:31:34]

Turn 5/500 (3800 BC) [16-Sep-2008 19:32:02]

Turn 6/500 (3760 BC) [16-Sep-2008 19:32:39]
While defending in the wild near Yasodharapura, Scout loses to: Barbarian Panther

(0.68/2) (Prob Victory: 73.8%)

Turn 7/500 (3720 BC) [16-Sep-2008 19:34:24]

Turn 8/500 (3680 BC) [17-Sep-2008 18:54:28]

Turn 9/500 (3640 BC) [17-Sep-2008 18:55:16]

Turn 10/500 (3600 BC) [17-Sep-2008 18:55:35]

Turn 11/500 (3560 BC) [17-Sep-2008 18:55:55]

Turn 12/500 (3520 BC) [17-Sep-2008 18:56:12]
Tech learned: Animal Husbandry
Yasodharapura finishes: Worker

Turn 13/500 (3480 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:12:36]
Research begun: Bronze Working (15 Turns)
Yasodharapura begins: Warrior (4 turns)

Turn 14/500 (3440 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:14:13]

Turn 15/500 (3400 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:15:45]
Hinduism founded in a distant land

Turn 16/500 (3360 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:16:03]
A Pasture was built near Yasodharapura

Turn 17/500 (3320 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:17:10]

Turn 18/500 (3280 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:17:45]
Yasodharapura finishes: Warrior

Turn 19/500 (3240 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:17:57]
Yasodharapura begins: Warrior (5 turns)
Yasodharapura grows: 2

Turn 20/500 (3200 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:19:25]

Turn 21/500 (3160 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:20:35]
A Mine was built near Yasodharapura
Yasodharapura finishes: Warrior

Turn 22/500 (3120 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:21:37]
Yasodharapura begins: Settler (13 turns)

Turn 23/500 (3080 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:23:40]

Turn 24/500 (3040 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:23:59]
Tech learned: Bronze Working
Yasodharapura's borders expand

Turn 25/500 (3000 BC) [17-Sep-2008 19:24:52]
[color="Green"]Research begun: Mysticism (5 Turns)[/color


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm8/Geezers_SG008_BC3000_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

Where does the second city go?

What victory condition are we aiming for?

Good job Sam, just a point for the future, you can send the warrior scouting and leave the capital open, you don't have to wait for the second warrior to start scouting. That way you get a little more scouting done. That's funny about the copper - looks just like the test game start.

Thanks Sam_Yeager. The Geezerwagon is rolling :D

OK. Long-term objectives - culture or religion? Well, culture seems to be more under our control than religion, though they both look interesting. So I would be happy aiming for culture.

To achieve that, we need wonders, multiple religions and shrines, temples and cathedrals, much popping of Gt Artists.

We can start both types in basically the same way, by researching some religious tech towards priesthood (and building the Oracle, slinging us towards ... whatever we decide is most useful)

I've had some very successful starts in practice games (And btw, who would have guessed that the copper was going to be in the identical place in the real game!!?). Generally, tech paths like AH - Myst - BW - Wheel - Poly - Priest - fish - sail - pottery with builds like worker - warrior - Stonehenge - Settler - Axe - Axe - WB - Oracle got me moving very nicely. However, I was aiming more for a religious approach, popping lots of Gt Prophets etc.

Hallo, back again after doing a very swift but not very good test of the cultural approach. The good news is that a cultural victory in a reasonable time-frame is possible (my finishing date was *rubbish*, but I haven't played for a cultural victory in so long that I was making a load of very basic, very stupid mistakes. Nevertheless, it was enough to get the general idea :) )

The bad news - well, depending on your point of view - is that we have to talk a lot more right now (yeah, I know, we're already pretty much the longest thread and not many turns played :blush: :lol:) but I think that, if we are even considering going for a cultural victory, we must include it in our plans pretty much right from the start. Focus is critical - otherwise we will get into the situation where we can't build any more wonders because we have to divert gold from research to culture in order to break legendary status in our three best cities - so we're just clocking up the years with no real return in score improvement. I think it can be done - I'm not saying it's necessarily the best method - but I think it could be made to work if we think pretty hard from the outset.

The caveat is that we absolutely must have three workable sites for the legendary cities - and of course, we don't know if that's available yet :( Desert won't do the trick :wry grin: So I think that the real challenge is to play these first few turns without closing down too many options - if we think we might try cultural but find it's a no-goer, we have to consider what our back-up plan is!

Culture panned out well in terms of strategy. I wasn't at all happy with my time - I think my pet cat could have turned in a better result than I did :rolleyes: :cry: BUT ... what I can also say is that this is the first of the three games I played so far where a) I knew from early on that I would win and b) the game played kind of smoothly and pleasingly. Things weren't ideal, but culture/wonders did start to dovetail along the way. The game objectives don't make for an ideal cultural victory scenario, of course, but there is a synergy between building wonders and building culture (I think The-Hawk was saying that he had a good feeling about it and I can confirm that it was much better to play this way than trying to do the conquest/wonder-building combo).

Oracle-bureaucracy slingshot is definitely doable. I have achieved 2 out of 2 in my games so far - obviously we have to really target it to make sure, but if we decide on a plan that involves building wonders in the capital (whether cultural or other victory type) then I really think the rewards of early bureaucracy outweigh many - maybe all - other considerations.

My game seemed to indicate (but I want to check this by playing another game or two) that 6 cities will do the trick. With these settings, we need 3 temples per cathedral. Frankly, given the number of wonders in the capital and given reasonable food, the capital will sail home with one, or even no, cathedrals, assuming we run a few artists (which we should, to try to "pollute" the very priest-heavy GP pool!). The concern is the other two cities. What I found in the game I just played was that making the capital the big production/wonder city and having two other cities with good food and some production works ok. Of the two secondary cities, the best one gets the Parthenon (because it's early. The AI just doesn't get round to it for ages so we have an excellent chance of getting it) and hopefully at least one other artist-generating wonder (depending on chopping), plus maybe the Nat Epic and the Globe. Even with the competition from the capital, that city will generate a few artists. The third city must have food (plus some production) so it can run a load of artists, primarily to generate its own culture but also hopefully to generate an artist at some point.

I could easily have founded 3 maybe 4 religions. I founded Confucianism & Christianity and then stopped, because other religions were spreading very early and well. We might want to reconsider that decision, if we're isolated on an island. And again, we might want to reconsider given the points for shrines.

The AI speeded up in wonder production as the game progressed. I missed a few later on, like the Spiral Minaret and the Taj. Missed the Statue of Zeus by one turn, which was a bummer. Otherwise, I was able to take most of them - the ones I missed were simply due to bad planning.

I know I'm long-winded so sorry to go on. In bald summary I think:

1. Cultural victory is doable - maybe not the best but definitely doable.
2. 2 further good sites are required. Food is a priority, but some production (a hill or two plus forests) is indispensible.
3. We should aim for six cities. That's enough - unless we're isolated on an island, in which case we may need an emergency strategy to gain extra religions.
4. We have to hit the cultural victory early. I only got 120 points out of 310 from wonders. Not impressive :( given a post-1500 AD finish date. Finish date could have been much improved but until I go back and look again, I'm not sure by how much. Someone here must have a better grip on cultural victories than I do :D Even so, it's food for thought. For a cultural victory you have to divert resources away from research and into culture at some point ... which means that, unless we do something very canny, more wonders are just not going to come into view.

I'll play another game tomorrow. Now I've half-remembered how to get a cultural victory, I will get a much better (and more indicative result). It would be good if other people have time to try out the culture route - I'm no expert but I do get the feeling that, if someone really knew what they were doing and if the map just turned out reasonable - this could be the answer.

Good job Sam, just a point for the future, you can send the warrior scouting and leave the capital open, you don't have to wait for the second warrior to start scouting. That way you get a little more scouting done. That's funny about the copper - looks just like the test game start.

That's what I did. :confused: I find the location of the copper quite hilarious. :lol:

Cultural victory is doable - maybe not the best but definitely doable.


:D Sounds very promising. Now that we've had the marathon first turnset we've got plenty of time to decide what to do next and how to do it.

That's what I did. :confused: Oops, misread your notes. :blush:

I am in accord with the culturalal trend. I think the capital will do fine as a wonder city, production is looking good with plenty of food. A site by the Lake of the Cows would work as a cottage city but we need very early IW. I have not seen that in any proposed tech path. That leaves a GP Farm to find. The-Hawk suggested marble city as a GP farm, it's ok for a secondary one.

Looks good ! :goodjob:

Haven't played a cultural game for some time. I guess I have to refresh my memory on this. :D Creative helps and Stonehenge might also be a good choice adding +1 culture to each city.

Yeesh, I'm still having trouble freeing up time for this, sorry. A couple of thoughts:

- I think religious win is a big risk with an islands map. All we need is one AI to go theocracy before we can get to him with a missionary and we are screwed.

- I think we already see three decent sites for a potential culture try. The pigs may be another. Biggest challenge with culture will be getting enough religions (because of islands). However, remember we don't necessarily need a fast culture finish. If slower culture win allows more wonders, it might be ok.

- If we are going for a CS slingshot, we need to get on with it. One of the AI's already founded buddhism, so they might we working PH already. On monarch CS-slingshot should be easy, but you never know. Personally, I think it is worth the risk (for the reason Misotu mentioned).

I think I will spend some more time on this issue of target win date. If we have an idea of when we want to finish, then I think decision on victory condition is easier. E.g. if we really decide an early win is best (e.g. less than 150 turns), then we might go religion. If we think a later win is best, then maybe we go culture.

Cultural is my favoured objective for this game because:
a) it allows us flexibility to face into different circumstances. For example, if we need more cash, or more science, or more armies, we can turn off culture for a while and turn it back on later, with no impact other than delaying the finish time a bit.
b) Wonders bring in culture so they directly support the objective
c) We don't need a massive expensive army, just one good enough to defend ourselves with, or at worst, wage small tactical wars to gain land or nearby wonders.

... remember we don't necessarily need a fast culture finish. If slower culture win allows more wonders, it might be ok.

I think I will spend some more time on this issue of target win date. If we have an idea of when we want to finish, then I think decision on victory condition is easier. E.g. if we really decide an early win is best (e.g. less than 150 turns), then we might go religion. If we think a later win is best, then maybe we go culture.

I think it's right to look at target win date, with particular reference to how the wonders pan out in terms of a research path. I know people are already thinking and posting about this but I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here because I don't have a spreadsheet so I can't read the spreadsheet info on wonders that has been posted - I have a bare-bones Civ/email/internet machine so no office programs :(

On the cultural tech route, there are a lot of early wonders, then they start to thin out very badly. If we went cultural, I think it would be sensible to decide how far we'll research before really turning on the culture - or maybe there's a better research path (I hope so!) so that we can keep churning out the wonders while heading for a slower, but better-scoring victory.

Stonehenge might also be a good choice adding +1 culture to each city.

Plus the early priests when combined with the Oracle. I took that route & it worked well - Stonehenge is quick to build & you can chop a settler while building it and still grow. I built two shrines and took Theology from early priests. Course, the trouble is that you can have too many priests in the later game :crazyeye:

The spreadsheet repackaged. Let me know if this works for you.
188896

OK, I just went through an exercise that surprised me. I went into HOF and analyzed a Monarch, Normal, Standard space colony win. Not a particularly fast one (1925 AD), but I couldn't read the fastest for these conditions. I went through the player log, and built a timeline when all wonders were built (AI or player). For national wonders and those few world wonders that weren't built, I added them to the timeline on the date the could have been build (required techs were learned). I then calculated the ratio of wonders per turn. I was looking for a peak where the ratio is highest, then drops off. This would be the target date. However, what I found... the ratio increased almost until the last wonder was built. Here is a graph:

188902

Obviously, actual performance can vary (this player was not trying to build all the wonders). But I'm starting to think the laurel winner will be the team that builds or captures all the wonders the fastest.

Here is the spreadsheet with the raw data. I'm planning to play some "what-if" (move wonders around on the timeline) to see if peaks are created.

188904

Very interesting Hawk :goodjob:

Space race vs slow Cultural based on wonders and not religious buildings. Man this is really a brain crunching gambit.

I made a new version of the spreadsheet that is easier to play what-if. Just enter the number of wonders created in a given year in column E (highlighted yellow). I list the names of the wonders in columes C and D, but they aren't used in the calculation.

188908

A couple of more thoughts.

- If you look at the graph, you can see the reason the ratio grows. Basically the large number of turns REX'ing in the beginning make the denominator (# of turns) too large. You spend the whole game coming out of the hole. It's not until very late that there might be an optimal peak (in this game, it was turn 318, not the victory turn of 341).

- If this theory (build/capture all) is really correct, then the victory condition becomes almost moot. All that matters is being ready to finish the victory (for example, kill the last AI or pop all the GA's in a culture win) when the last wonder is built or captured. Of course, with a longer game like this, we need to be careful an AI doesn't launch or finish culture. We might need to go military just to control them.

- Given there is a glut of late wonders, it would appear Corporations will matter. If we can build them fast enough, they most likely will improve the ratio. This means we need to stockpile the proper Great Peeps. This is certainly true for Prophets who are needed for the shrines.

I think we need to test this theory. Can a couple of you think through the logic of my spreadsheet and see if it is sound? I may pick another couple of games on HOF and see if the same general timeline holds.

Hawk - your analysis is exactly what we were all asking for at the start (and what every good team must surely have done). The numbers don't lie.

I really do think this point us toward Culture or Space. It even means that we don't really care about fast culture because we want to hang around and get more wonders.

What it does mean is that we need a path that allows us to maintain a tech and production lead on other AIs so we can control the build of wonders. My gut feel is that this does lead us away from Domination and Conquest, where the weight of your army slows tech to crawl, but you don't care because 1,000 horse archers beats 2 musketmen and you're going to win in 1300AD anyway.

It does probably mean that we need a decent sized empire, not a lean mean fast culture one. It also means we could forget all about Great Artists and be happy to take the Scientists, Prophets, and Engineers for the benefits they provide in getting you more wonders.

If you look at the graph, you can see the reason the ratio grows. Basically the large number of turns REX'ing in the beginning make the denominator (# of turns) too large. You spend the whole game coming out of the hole. It's not until very late that there might be an optimal peak (in this game, it was turn 318, not the victory turn of 341).


Congratulations for the hard work in researching win conditions & ratio numbers to all who contributed. :goodjob: It's going to take a while to absorb this data.

@The-Hawk - In your second spreadsheet there are a few times in the 1800's when the ration rises to 0.95. Obviously we want to finish when the ratio is at a maximum. The other point as I mentioned in an earlier post is that we need to finish by turn 310 as we can only get 310 wonder points.


I think we need to test this theory. Can a couple of you think through the logic of my spreadsheet and see if it is sound? I may pick another couple of games on HOF and see if the same general timeline holds.

Will do.

Thanks for the work you put into this, The-Hawk. :goodjob:

Everything points to a cultural game. Maybe a combined approach with a strong military in case the AIs ask for trouble building some wonders. :trouble:

You're the man, Hawk.

The spreadsheet repackaged. Let me know if this works for you.
188896

It works *perfectly* :thanx:

I can't see The-Hawk's spreadsheet unfortunately (I will fix this & get Excel installed as soon as I can), but what he is saying about the impact of the early REX period on the way the game scores sounds very plausible and feels like very good news in terms of working out a strategy :) :thumbsup:

In my test game I did not have many problems expanding while building the wonders in the capital. At this level you can overcome the later start more easily. If we are on an island we have even more time. Maybe we are lucky and we are just at the very far East part of the map. :mischief:

Nice discussion, I think we have an approach and 2 important goals, CS Sling and Build Henge, so:

Turn Set Plan

Techs Known
Hunting, Mining, AH, BW

Techs Required for CS Sling
Myst, Masonry, Poly, Priest, Writing, Math, CoL.

I plan to include fishing after Myst for growth & exploration.
Build – settler then stop for discussion of city site.
Explore as much as possible – I am going to send the MP to the pig hill for a look around.
Worker will mine copper, then chop for settler.

Given that we are looking at a lot of turns in three months (Alan’s target for completion) I plan to play tomorrow night.

Techs Required for CS Sling
Myst, Masonry, Priest, Writing, Math, CoL.

Just one word "Plas....", ah no, I meant "Meditation". :D

Plan sounds good to me.

What about our second city 1N of the NW cows ? It would get the seafood 2N, so we have two food resources in that city.

Just one word "Plas....", ah no, I meant "Meditation". :D

Plan sounds good to me.

What about our second city 1N of the NW cows ? It would get the seafood 2N, so we have two food resources in that city.

:confused: Are you asking for meditation instead of Poly? I chose Poly because it opens up ToA.

I don't want to think about the city site until after the settler is ready ;)

:confused: Are you asking for meditation instead of Poly? I chose Poly because it opens up ToA.

I don't want to think about the city site until after the settler is ready ;)

Well, I had a 50-50 chance as both Poly and Med are missing in your order ;) and lost again. :crazyeye: Damn. :blush:

Thanks, it's updated.

Here's the list of GP required for shrines and corporations. We need to keep this in mind so that we can plan the GP we are going to get.

Civilized Jewelers Mass Media GA
Creative Construction Combustion GE
Sid's Sushi Medicine GM
Cereal Mills Refrigeration GM
Aluminum Co Rocketry GS
Standard Ethanol Plastics GS
Mahabodhi Meditation GP
Church of the Nativity Theology GP
Kong Miao CoL GP
Kashi Vishwanath Poly GP
Masjid al-Haram Divine Right GP
Temple of Solomen Montheism GP
Di Miao Philosphy GP

Turn Set Plan

Techs Known
Hunting, Mining, AH, BW

Techs Required for CS Sling
Myst, Masonry, Poly, Priest, Writing, Math, CoL.

I plan to include fishing after Myst for growth & exploration.
Build – settler then stop for discussion of city site.
Explore as much as possible – I am going to send the MP to the pig hill for a look around.
Worker will mine copper, then chop for settler.


So you're proposing a tech order of Myst, Fishing, Masonry, Poly, Priest, Writing, Math, CoL? We're not going to need Wheel to connect resources such gold & copper for quite a while then?

What about our second city 1N of the NW cows ? It would get the seafood 2N, so we have two food resources in that city.

I am not keen on that location for the following reasons:

It's surrounded by jungle and we won't have IW for ages.
It's got hardly any production capability and we're going to want lots of production early on to build wonders.
1N of the pigs in the SW is nearer and has better production.
That site would be better as a GP farm post IW.


EDIT: 1E of the gold might be a possible location as well but I know city overlaps aren't popular.

So you're proposing a tech order of Myst, Fishing, Masonry, Poly, Priest, Writing, Math, CoL? We're not going to need Wheel to connect resources such gold & copper for quite a while then?


No, I expect to learn only Myst,Fishing and part of Poly before the settler arrives. What happens after that will depend on the next turn set. That looks like the must have techs for the CS sling plus the fishing that I have chosen to insert into the list

I also plan to explore more in the hope of finding a better city site, which I think should include the pigs and hills to the east of Yas...

We are almost the team with the most posts in this game. Go the Geezers!

No, I expect to learn only Myst,Fishing and part of Poly before the settler arrives. What happens after that will depend on the next turn set. That looks like the must have techs for the CS sling plus the fishing that I have chosen to insert into the list


Ah I see, that makes more sense. You haven't mentioned revolting to slavery but I presume we don't really need it yet. Watch out for that panther!

We are almost the team with the most posts in this game. Go the Geezers!

I can't believe that we've got more posts than MW. :crazyeye: Most of their team must be absent at the moment. Or maybe they've agreed their way forward..... Nah, MW post continuously regardless of the subject ..........

Slavery is BAD in BTS.

So you're proposing a tech order of Myst, Fishing, Masonry, Poly, Priest, Writing, Math, CoL? We're not going to need Wheel to connect resources such gold & copper for quite a while then?


No, I expect to learn only Myst,Fishing and part of Poly before the settler arrives. What happens after that will depend on the next turn set. That looks like the must have techs for the CS sling plus the fishing that I have chosen to insert into the list

I just had a play with that tech sequence on the test map. It's a desperately close-run thing to get the Oracle built before someone else builds it, but giving us time to have researched CoL so we get CS. Desperately close! It all happens about turn 85.

So I'm glad we're still giving ourselves the option of revising the list as we proceed.

I would have liked to see wheel in there, too, especially for connecting the copper. We will want axes to keep the barb archers out from around turn 70-80. However, I don't think we can insert wheel into the sequence without paying the price in terms of the CS slingshot.

I just had a play with that tech sequence on the test map. It's a desperately close-run thing to get the Oracle built before someone else builds it, but giving us time to have researched CoL so we get CS. Desperately close! It all happens about turn 85.


Perhaps it's worth reconsidering whether we absolutely must have Fishing so that we have some leeway for the slingshot?

Fishing does many things:
it increases the food supply, so we grow faster
it increases the commerce, so we tech a little faster
it allows us to allocate scientists (after the library)
it lets us whip the Oracle at the end if we need too

Surely we must need Fishing....

Fishing does many things:
it increases the food supply, so we grow faster
it increases the commerce, so we tech a little faster
it allows us to allocate scientists (after the library)
it lets us whip the Oracle at the end if we need too

Surely we must need Fishing....

I'll rephrase that. Perhaps it's worth reconsidering whether we absolutely must have Fishing before CoL so that we have some leeway to build the Oracle and achieve the CS slingshot? If we just want to get CoL or MC from the Oracle then there's no problem slotting in Fishing.

Let me be clear, Fishing makes the slingshot easier to achieve.

Let me be clear, Fishing makes the slingshot easier to achieve.

OK. AgedOne reported that the timescale for getting the CS slingshot is quite tight. I seem to recall that when I tried it a little while ago on the test save I missed out on the Oracle because I was waiting for the required techs to complete before I finished the Oracle.

Is there any other way we can build in some leeway if we keep Fishing or are you saying that keeping in Fishing will actually build in the leeway? Have we decided which of the (very early) wonders we will build ourselves and in what order? For instance may be we could build Stonehenge, GW and then Oracle or perhaps we need to build Stonehenge, Oracle and then GW? :dunno:

Frankly it seems to me that we need to start firming up on our tech order and city build order. We're already expecting Yaso to build a settler and a WB as well as various wonders. As an aside what will be the impact of our (non connected) second city on our research speed?

My gut feel is that the slingshot comes in faster if you have Fishing because of the extra food and commerce. So we're not 'slipping fishing in' - Fishing is a crucial element of hitting the slingshot date.

My gut feel is that the slingshot comes in faster if you have Fishing because of the extra food and commerce. So we're not 'slipping fishing in' - Fishing is a crucial element of hitting the slingshot date.

Perhaps it's just something about the test save (or my playing ability :dunno:). Every time I try a CS slingshot researching techs in the same order as is being suggested here I end up delaying completion of the Oracle waiting for CoL to be finished. Another AI then completes the Oracle when I'm about 5 turns away from getting CoL. :mad:

EDIT: Maybe I shouldn't be founding that second city until after the slingshot?

Perhaps it's just something about the test save (or my playing ability :dunno:). Every time I try a CS slingshot researching techs in the same order as is being suggested here I end up delaying completion of the Oracle waiting for CoL to be finished. Another AI then completes the Oracle when I'm about 5 turns away from getting CoL. :mad:

This is exactly my experience.
The problem is with the tech speed. This needs to be as high as possible, which is why I would not miss out Fishing, and probably wouldn't miss out the second city (2 cities tech faster than 1, normally).

I would say that we need to emphasise growth and commerce, rather than hammers, during this slingshot, and we need to remain alert and flexible about what we go for - finishing the Oracle before CoL if needs be, as (I assume) getting it is better than missing it.

Such dilemmas and dramas! The beauty of SGOTMs!

I have now played through the early turns in the test game around half-a-dozen times (trying different wonder build choices). I have missed the Oracle only once in all of those attempts but in that game it was built on turn 78, which came as a bit of a shock! I agree that going for Bureaucracy is more of a gamble than my initial tests seemed to indicate :( I still think it's worth the risk though.

I agree that max growth/commerce is the thing - I always have to delay the Oracle, sometimes by over 20 turns. My suggestions for ways to get maths & CoL done faster:


Definitely research fishing NEXT & get that workboat out there!
Max out capital population to the happiness cap as soon as possible
Research writing as early as possible - it's too late in the list at the moment - and chop that library
Run at least one scientist (2 is possible and perhaps should be done) as soon as the library is up (we'll want an academy in the capital as early as poss anyhow)
I have always researched poly rather than meditation, for the reasons already stated, but if we do meditation instead it saves a couple of turns.


Of course, if we want to be much safer, we could do as AgedOne mentions and take the Oracle early, going for Code of Laws instead of Bureaucracy?

Researching the wheel is a tricky one. If we do, we eventually get an extra pop in the capital from the gold happiness, plus commerce between the first and second cities. The question is whether the initial delay is worth the later benefit in slingshot research terms - haven't tested this but I suspect it is faster to delay researching wheel.

Definitely research fishing NEXT & get that workboat out there!
Max out capital population to the happiness cap as soon as possible
Research writing as early as possible - it's too late in the list at the moment - and chop that library
Run at least one scientist (2 is possible and perhaps should be done) as soon as the library is up (we'll want an academy in the capital as early as poss anyhow)
I have always researched poly rather than meditation, for the reasons already stated, but if we do meditation instead it saves a couple of turns.



Ah now this is very helpful Misotu. :thanx: Because I've been trying to grab Henge, GW and work towards the Mids I've kept Yaso fairly :hammers: heavy rather than emphasising growth/commerce.

If this is the only real way to be certain of the slingshot then we need to decide which wonders we are willing to miss to ensure the slingshot. Personally I think we should skip the Henge in favour of the GW.

Sam, the problem with GW is it produces spies not prophets. The GW should only be built in a city where you do not want to produce GP ever. In this game, we need a more prophets.

@Misotu - good point about researching writing earlier, I forgot we already had AH - I usually have to don't have that when I'm trying for the sling.

The tech path now looks like fishing, writing, myst, med, priest.

Mark seemed keen on getting the Henge early, can we do it with this tech order? I'm leaning towards another test game rather than playing the turn set tonight.

Such dilemmas and dramas! The beauty of SGOTMs!

We ain't seen nothing yet :groucho:

I've played a few games on to around 1200 AD taking the build as many Wonders as possible route while keeping half an eye on culture in 3 cities.

There are so many ways to end up in a mess with this one, it's just not funny. :wallbash:

Try looking at the objective of dominating without going over the domination limit. I think we will be best off if we cripple the AI first, build a large empire and then build the wonders. It's my usual style of play when I'm going for a time victory. I keep one AI hanging around in a lousy city while I spend the rest of my time building wonders. The CS sling will get us early maces to use for the first one or two conquests. I would not worry about the early wonders so much, the REX and control of game is more important. The wonders will get built in cities we can keep.

RE: City 2. I agree with Erik that we can’t decide on city 2 location yet. I think we need to open up fog to the west of the cows and near the pigs before we decide. At the moment, I like 1W of the cows. If we are going for culture, we want lots of grassland for cottages. On the other hand, if we are going for “slow culture”, then maybe Sam’s idea of 1 NW is better (so we can run more GPs). However, we need more info.

RE: GP’s. Erik thanks for the list. One thing is obvious, we probably won’t be bulbing many techs.

RE: Slavery, Erik why is it bad in BtS? I didn’t know anything had changed from vanilla/warlords?

RE: Tech path. I going to visit my older daughter at school this weekend :D. I'll have my laptop from work, so I can post, but not play with the save. So I can’t test tech paths. I’m not so sure about fishing, seems likely the value of the extra commerce will be offset by the turns to research it. However, as some of you have looked closer at this, I’m OK if that is the choice. I would not do wheel. Generally when I slingshot (I do it routinely on Immortal), I research no techs except those on the direct path.

RE: Early wonders. This is worth more discussion. If our second city is high hammers, then we should try for one or two. I would make a vote for Mids… if we are going for all the corporations, we will need a GE at some point. Early Mids might be the only way to get one. Also, if we are running lots of specialists to pop GP's, then Representation would be great.

BTS has created slave revolts, the longer you are in slavery, the more frequently they seem to occur. A slave revolt can last for several turns which would derail our slingshot. The best way to make use of slavery in BTS is to start a Golden Age and switch to slavery (no anarchy), whip everything you want to and then switch out of slavery before the end of the GA.
I avoid revolting to slavery as routine which is the vanilla/warlords approach. Even if you have cash on hand to pay for the end of the revolt, you've lost one full turn of production.

Edit: Given the debate I will run a simulation and crunch the numbers on fishing tonight. I am with Misotu, it's generally faster if you have the food to build up the citizens. The second city can be used to build WB for the capital while it builds the Henge.

Ahhh... slave revolts. Didn't know there was a connection. I hate random events, turn them off in my HOF games. So for me, slavery is still often a BtS option.

The tech path now looks like fishing, writing, myst, med, priest.

Mark seemed keen on getting the Henge early, can we do it with this tech order? I'm leaning towards another test game rather than playing the turn set tonight.

I had a try at this tech order, chopping WB and lost Henge. :rolleyes: I tried a different tech order & found that Yaso was waiting on tech to finish. Going for one or more test games to sort out the correct tech & production order strikes me as an excellent idea.

Re. slave revolts and the like it seems the key is to keep some spare gold around, say 100 :gold: or so. That way we only lose a turn of production. Of course this is where the lack of goody huts near to our start hits us. :sad:

What did you whip and when?
That spare gold has to come out of the critical path - tech research.
If the choice is Henge or CS sling, which do you want?

Beaker Costs
CoL 350
Mason 80
Myst 50
Priest 60
Math 250
Med 80
Writing 120
Total 990

Current Beaker Rate: 16 turns to research at current rate is 62.
The second city will cut the beaker rate because there will be no trade route (no roads and no sailing).
Fishing will add 4 bpt (beakers per turn), straight up it takes 3 turns to research, so the cost is 80 beakers (real cost plus opportunity cost) so we need 65 turns of research instead of 62 at the rate of 16 bpt.
Assuming we get the first wb at turn 15 (time to complete settler and build WB) we have 50 turns to recover the cost. 2 bpt for 50 turns is 100 b. Assuming the second WB is available on turn 30 we have a further return of 60 b. That's 160 b or slightly less than half the cost of CoL just for working the seafood.
15 * 16 = 240 (1st wb)
15 * 18 = 270 (2nd wb)
520/20 = 26

Edit - fixed the calculation
15 + 15 +26 = 56 a saving of 7 turns without running any scientists or any MM of coastal squares to increase the research rate.

It is great to see us actually testing and analysing options this time. We've never been good at that in previous games.

What did you whip and when?
That spare gold has to come out of the critical path - tech research.


I haven't whipped anything. My comment about slave revolts was talking generally about BTS. In this game we haven't got any gold anyway. We lose 1 :gold: once we found our second city which means research goes down to 90%.

I've just tried Fishing, Myst, Writing, Masonry, Poly, Priesthood, Maths, CoL. I chopped the settler, built the WB normally, built the Henge,chopped the library, part built the Mids whilst waiting for priesthood and then started the Oracle. The AI built the Oracle on T78. From what Misotu says it looks as though I was unlucky. At that point Oracle had 4 turns to go & CoL 11 turns. Hari whatever was building the GW with 7 turns to go.

The timings are a bit misleading as the test save techs a bit slower that the actual game and production is slightly slower in Yaso.


If the choice is Henge or CS sling, which do you want?


I think it's more a case of do we chance the CS slingshot or go for the safe CoL option?

CS is 800 beakers and boosts our productivity enormously. I wouls say the risk is well worth it.

I bet the good teams manage the Civil Service slingshot easily, so why shouldn't we be able to do it? There are only a handful of genuinely important decisions to be made to get there.

@erikthecelt: Have just run a test on fishing, but I hope you'll do yours too - I had a few problems with random events so it was difficult to keep things consistent. I prioritised research/growth over hammers and got extra production when needed from chopping.

With Fishing: Ran 2 scientists and micro-managed hammers/sea tiles to optimise as far as possible. City grew to size 5. Three possible outcomes:
1 Great scientist generated - built academy. Bureaucracy on turn 73
2 Great scientist generated - bulbed mathematics. Bureaucracy on turn 70 (but could have been quite a few turns earlier if I had pre-chopped a couple of forests).
3 Great prophet generated - built the shrine. Bureaucracy on turn 77.

Without Fishing: Ran 2 scientists. City grew to size 4. Three possible outcomes, but I've only managed to produce one of them because of a repetitive random event :( :
1 Great prophet generated - built the shrine. Bureaucracy on turn 79.

So fishing is probably better than no fishing, although the end time difference is not dramatic, only 2-3 turns. However, with the fishing option, our capital ends up 1 pop larger, we have an extra tech and another build option. If we are looking for something to build for a few turns, a scouting work boat is a good option.

The best time I can get from this point seems to be turn 70, and that was *very* fiddly, requiring timed chops to coincide with finishing eg the workboat the turn before the library is available, finishing the library the turn before the Henge is available and using the overflow for each new item rather than ending up with a load of chopped hammers before the next item on the build list is available to build.

I have a horrible feeling that turn 70 may not be early enough. In one of my tests I was beaten to the Oracle on turn 74. Do we want to consider building the Oracle earlier and taking a different tech? If this were a Gauntlet, I'd definitely go for CS but we only have one shot here. I suppose we can gamble on a scientist & pre-chop forests ready to bulb maths - that might get it down to around turn 64.

Edited to add: Of course, I'm basing these turns on the test game where you can't get to the fish. I don't think I'd build a second workboat right away though - I'd build the library and Henge first and then consider it because the library is a better research boost and Henge means if we run 2 scientists we get a GP in a time frame that makes a difference. Course, if we *didn't* build Henge & just ran 2 scientists, we could guarantee a scientist rather than gambling. Would it arrive in time though ? (I don't think I can face another test on that same map tonight!!)

CS is 800 beakers and boosts our productivity enormously. I wouls say the risk is well worth it.

I agree with this. The main penalty for missing CS-slingshot is the beakers we put into CoL (versus taking CoL for free). This is not a bad penalty. We also will get gold back from the missed Oracle, also not a bad thing. Of course, it means we will need to capture Oracle from whichever AI was brazen enough to steal it from us. :)

Oops... crossed posts with Misotu.

Between Misotu's and Erik's analysis, sounds like fishing is a winner. I would not bulb math, seems like a waste of a GS.

I agree with this. The main penalty for missing CS-slingshot is the beakers we put into CoL (versus taking CoL for free). This is not a bad penalty. We also will get gold back from the missed Oracle, also not a bad thing. Of course, it means we will need to capture Oracle from whichever AI was brazen enough to steal it from us. :)

Loving the positive waves :smoke:

OK, OK I know, you're right. I can hardly believe I'm thinking along these lines. Bulbing maths is horrible. I would never consider it. This is a sign of too-many-test-games desperation :hammer2:

But ... you know ... if we did it right at the last moment, one turn to go to build the Oracle, bulb maths, press turn end and ... :woohoo:

Don't you just hate that message "The Oracle has been built in a distant land"

Followed by "Gandhi adopts hereditary rule" :mischief:

With Fishing[/B]: Ran 2 scientists and micro-managed hammers/sea tiles to optimise as far as possible. City grew to size 5. Three possible outcomes:
1 Great scientist generated - built academy. Bureaucracy on turn 73
2 Great scientist generated - bulbed mathematics. Bureaucracy on turn 70 (but could have been quite a few turns earlier if I had pre-chopped a couple of forests).
3 Great prophet generated - built the shrine. Bureaucracy on turn 77.

Without Fishing: Ran 2 scientists. City grew to size 4. Three possible outcomes, but I've only managed to produce one of them because of a repetitive random event :( :
1 Great prophet generated - built the shrine. Bureaucracy on turn 79.


:eek: What's your tech path Misotu and what are you building in Yaso? Are you founding a second city or just sticking with Yaso? I just can't understand how you're finishing so early. :confused:

I bet the good teams manage the Civil Service slingshot easily, so why shouldn't we be able to do it? There are only a handful of genuinely important decisions to be made to get there.

We are one of the good teams :cooool:

Probably.

:hide:

:eek: What's your tech path Misotu and what are you building in Yaso? Are you founding a second city or just sticking with Yaso? I just can't understand how you're finishing so early. :confused:

I didn't build a second city because I just wanted to assess the net effect of fishing/no fishing so I played a very simple game, copying our builds and initial tech path but not moving the units or founding a further city (although I did build the settler).

Tech path is fish, writing, myst, med, priest, CoL, maths. If you go for Henge, you don't need masonry, so that may be where you are racking up a few extra turns.

Builds are: finish settler, workboat, library, Henge, Oracle. I do only just enough hammers to finish the Oracle on the turn I discover maths even if this means putting a worker on a sea tile for 1food/2 gold* rather than on our copper mine!

* Edited to add that I'd only do this if it actually made a difference to research turns/tech. Otherwise, obviously, I'd work the mine :)

The second city will cut the beaker rate because there will be no trade route (no roads and no sailing).


I read this & thought yeah, that's right. And then I remembered seeing my cities connected up pre-roads and pre-sailing. So I just went and checked and that's right - I have built another city up the coast from my HQ. As soon as the cultural boundaries join, they start to trade without the benefit of roads or sailing. And since we are cultural, as long as our second city's BFC will meet the edge of the capital's cultural area, we will be trading within just a few turns. I think they both have to be on the coast for this to work.

Tech path is fish, writing, myst, med, priest, CoL, maths. If you go for Henge, you don't need masonry, so that may be where you are racking up a few extra turns.

Builds are: finish settler, workboat, library, Henge, Oracle. I do only just enough hammers to finish the Oracle on the turn I discover maths even if this means putting a worker on a sea tile for 1food/2 gold* rather than on our copper mine!

* Edited to add that I'd only do this if it actually made a difference to research turns/tech. Otherwise, obviously, I'd work the mine :)

:goodjob: Thanks for this Misotu. I'll have (yet) another try at the test game.

Really excellent to see all this planning, testing and discussion, everyone !
By the way, congratulations are due: We are currently the 'chattiest' team, having sneaked into the lead on posts, just ahead of Smurkz. :goodjob:

I predict we will make our slingshot, and won't lose any sleep over it (well, no more than dedicated Civ-players normally lose). I really like the way the max-commerce plan is coming together. Writing plus an early chopped library feels like the right way.

I would like to think that we can settle a second city, and it might even be worth chopping the settler to get that out quicker. Without the wheel, our workers are often looking for something to do, and I chopped far too many things in my trial games, just to keep them active, but I think we could target our chopping to (a) Library (b) Settler and then save the trees for chopping wonders.

[Aside note: We did put quite a bit of this kind of effort into the start of the last SGOTM, when we were trying to ensure we got Pyramids and Gt Lib in our OCC ahead of the deity AI. It's just that we didn't do much more of it after that, and perhaps that's clouding our memories]

Lots of terrific input everyone. I just ran a test where I had both Henge and Oracle by turn 75.
I finished the settler before having writing in so I built a second worker after the WB.
I built the second city. It built a second WB for the fish and then a library.
I chop rushed the library in YAS then I built the Henge slowly, focusing on maxing the commerce, chopping and mining.
After the library was ready in the second city, I ran two scientists there starving the city.
After Yas reached size 5 I ran 2 scientists there with MM to time Oracle to complete in the same turn as CoL.
Tech was Fish,Writing,Myst,Med,Priest,Math,CoL.
A scientist was born and used for an academy.

Note: There is plains hill in the real game that is not present in the test game. This allowed the worker to finish on the same turn as AH was completed and so the real game already has a number of hammers in the settler. This will probably have thrown off your test games.

Comment please :run:

I don't care about the post count, LC can blow us away in a day :crazyeye: but it's nice to have so much quality input.

Aged-one - I think the earlier turns are easier to micro plan, after we get the CS sling it will be a lot harder to produce such detailed planing but we are off to a great start.

Misotu - thanks for picking up on Masonry not being needed, must have been thinking about the Mids :blush: Also, the trade route looks like it needs a clear coastline, in my test game I didn't get any trade but I starved it into helping :mischief:

I'll play the real turn set tomorrow. I'll probably stop at the completion of the library unless something happens.

@Sam - could you post the roster in post 2 or 3 so it's easy to find :)

This has been the highest quality discussion that I can remember from the Geezers. It does look like we have done all the analysis we could possibly do, short of rebuilding a new test game that more closely matches what we now know about the real one.

Look forward to what you manage to get through, erikthecelt.

Lots of terrific input everyone. I just ran a test where I had both Henge and Oracle by turn 75.


:hmm: Much better than my last attempt where I got the slingshot in T77 but didn't build Henge fast enough. :cry: Since there will be at least two, if not three players, involved in achieving the slingshot I think we need some really detailed notes of the action needed to get the slingshot. It probably needs to include things like tech order, build order and which tiles to work and when.


I finished the settler before having writing in so I built a second worker after the WB.
I built the second city. It built a second WB for the fish and then a library.
I chop rushed the library in YAS then I built the Henge slowly, focusing on maxing the commerce, chopping and mining.
After the library was ready in the second city, I ran two scientists there starving the city.


The second city grew that fast. :eek: Is this really likely to be possible in the real game? Btw have we decided on the location of the second city yet?


Misotu - thanks for picking up on Masonry not being needed, must have been thinking about the Mids :blush:


We were talking about the GW earlier so I would imagine that's why it was included. The CS slingshot is certainly important but I do wonder if the usefulness of the GW is being overlooked?


@Sam - could you post the roster in post 2 or 3 so it's easy to find :)

:hmm: So I have to find the roster first? :p Done.

The second city grew that fast. Is this really likely to be possible in the real game? Btw have we decided on the location of the second city yet?

Working the pigs or cows should do it. In the test game I did not even do that, I let it slow build the WB and Lib (chopped) using 2F1H tiles.

:eek: I am off two days and I have to read 2.5 pages. Excellent discussion.

Unfortunately I have to go in 30 minutes for much more of :beer: although I had a lot already, so I cannot really take part in the discussion and give any disturbing comments. What I read makes me confident that we are about to make a great start. Go Erik. :thumbsup:

Here is the world as we know it.

189232

The settler is ready to move, we need to pick a city site. 1 N of the cows has a blue circle (for what that is worth).

Here is the trun set so far:

T26 – 3000 BC
Start copper mine, switch to fishing
IBT – Warrior kills panther

T27 – T29
Explore

T30 – 2840 BC
Meet Shaka (of all the lousy, no good, rotten, miserable AI – on the plus side we have a good reason for an early rush ;))
Fishing --- Writing

T32 – 2760 BC
Judaism has been founded in a distant land


Let the great second city debate begin.

I have started a warrior, with Shaka so close I'm thinking a couple of warriors instead of a worker might be a safer investment. OTH we might want to go for The Wheel and have ourselves an early axe rush :crazyeye:

I would like to think that we can settle a second city, and it might even be worth chopping the settler to get that out quicker. Without the wheel, our workers are often looking for something to do, and I chopped far too many things in my trial games, just to keep them active, but I think we could target our chopping to (a) Library (b) Settler and then save the trees for chopping wonders.

Agree about chopping the settler - in fact we need to do a chop to start building the work boat immediately on the turn that fishing is researched. On keeping the worker busy, I think pre-chopping and pre-mining forested hills is the way to go, thus keeping the forests for later, as you suggest. I usually work this by annotating the map. The system I use is C indicates forest will chop in 1 turn, M indicates that the mine will be built on a forested hill in one turn. If I need to move a worker to a resource 2 spaces away, I might do one turn of farming or one turn of a road and then move the worker onto the resource on the following turn. In this case R indicates I've started a road, F indicates I've started a farm and so on. Do you guys already have an agreed system for this sort of communication?

I finished the settler before having writing in so I built a second worker after the WB.

That's very different to my game - I couldn't have fitted in an extra build between the workboat and the library :confused: Did you finish the workboat way before writing because you chopped really hard, or was it because you took a bit longer to research writing than I did in my test game I wonder?

After the library was ready in the second city, I ran two scientists there starving the city.

This sounds like a *very* good plan :thumbsup:

Also, the trade route looks like it needs a clear coastline

Oh yes, it does. I didn't make that clear, sorry :blush: I think we can get this with our proposed second city sites in the real game?

Anyway, after reading your comments about the second city and the extra build etc I have gone back and played what I hope is the closest to a real run that I can get on the test map. I didn't scout, so I had no gold reserves and I built the second city. I got turn 72, which seems all right. Probably. I will post turn by turn notes for you to look at and comment on, I'll try to type it up now & post as soon as.

Did you finish the workboat way before writing because you chopped really hard, or was it because you took a bit longer to research writing than I did in my test game I wonder?


I worked the gold mine every turn - I chopped the WB and switched from the copper to the clams for the extra commerce. I did no pre-chops just chop, then mine (if on a hill) then move.

OK, here is the turn-by-turn guide to my last test game. I'm sure it could be improved, so fire away
:ar15: :sniper: :ar15: :help:

Turn 27: Worker1 starts copper mine, start to research fishing. Settler is building.
Turn 30: Mine completes BUT city works gold & cows - governor will try to switch away from gold so manually adjust.
Turn 31: Fishing completes, writing starts. Move worker1 to forest/river tile by capital (good chance of forest growing back again so first choice). Second warrior is waiting to escort settler.
Turn 32: Worker1 starts to chop.
Turn 34: Forest chopped.
Turn 35: Worker1 moves to forest/river/hill square.
Turn 36: Worker1 chops.
Turn 37: Settler built and moves off towards military escort & chosen site. Work boat started. STOP WORKER before ending turn - we don't want the forest next turn.
Turn 38: Worker1 mines for 1 turn. STOP WORKER before ending turn, we do want the forest next turn :).
Turn 39: Worker1 chops forest.
Turn 40: Work boat builds and works clam. Writing researched, Mysticism started. Library started. City works clam, gold and cow, NOT copper. Worker moves to forest/hill/river square.
Turn 41: Worker 1 starts chop. Second city founded, starts to build worker2. Research rate drops to 80%. Note to self: We are producing +1 at 80%, perhaps later in the slingshot process we can use this to boost research at a critical point.
Turn 43: Forest chopped.
Turn 44: Mysticism researched, Meditation started. Library builds, Henge starts.Worker moves to nearest forest square in second city big fat cross (remember, borders are about to expand).
Turn 46: Second city borders expand. Cities start to trade. Increase research rate to 90%.
Turn 45: Capital grows to size 4. First scientist specialist. Continue to work clam/cows/gold.
Turn 48: Meditation researched. Priesthood started.
Turn 49: Worker1 chops forest at second city.
Turn 50: Worker2 built, starts pasturing horse (or cows, or whatever). City2 starts library. Worker1 moves back to nearest forest square at capital.
Turn 51: Priesthood researched. Maths started.
Turn 53: Horse/whatever pastured at city2. Make sure governor switches.
Turn 54: Worker2 moves to best choice of forest square at city2. Worker1 chops forest in capital.
Turn 55: Worker2 starts chopping. Worker1 moves to next best choice of forest square. Capital grows to size 5. Second scientist specialist. Continue to work clam/cows/gold.
Turn 56: Worker1 starts to chop.
Turn 57: Worker2 completes chop.
Turn 58: Worker2 moves to pig (or whatever is the next best resource food-wise). Worker1 finishes chop.
Turn 59: City2 builds library, starts workboat or whatever. Worker1 moves to new forest square.
Turn 60: Henge completes, Oracle starts. City2 grows to size 2, 1 pop transferred to science specialist but city not starving. Worker1 starts to chop.
Turn 62: Maths done, Code of Laws starts. Worker2 finishes pasturing pig or whatever and city2 is growing like the clappers. Worker1 finishes chop.
Turn 63: Worker1 moves to new forest. Worker2 does something useful :)
Turn 64: Worker1 starts to chop.
Turn 65: Great Scientist born, academy founded.
Turn 66: City2 now has loads of food stocks so run second scientist and starve city. Research now so jolly brilliant that we move from clams to copper in the capital as we need that Oracle! Worker1 completes chop.
Turn 67: Worker1 moves to a new forest.
Turn 68: Worker1 starts chop.
Turn 69: BEFORE ENDING TURN, STOP WORKER1 FROM CHOPPING!!
Turn 70: Worker1 does nothing. Or starts building a mine, depending on the square but in either case all worker1 actions must be cancelled before the end of the turn or we will be in deep trouble
Turn 71: Worker1 finishes the chop.
Turn 72: Code of Laws is done, probably start Masonry with an eye on the Mids. Confucianism is founded, the Oracle is built, Civil Service is discovered for free, Bureaucracy (and maybe one other civic of our choice) is adopted, we adjust all cities to avoid the pointless loss of thousands of lives and there is General Rejoicing All Round. The Geezers appoint someone to buy The Third Round of Beer.

I ended up with about 5 gold in the bank and could have run 100% research for 2 turns towards the end, but in the test game it wouldn't have made any difference to the date. In the real game, it might be different so we should at least check this.

I try to choose forests in a way that (I think) gives the greatest chance that they will grow back, or by clearing hills (esp on rivers) where we will want early mines. I don't know whether there is any secret to chopping in order to get the greatest chance of new growth, apart from the obvious not devastating complete areas?

Anyway, there it is. Turn 72. The best I've seen the AI do in the test game is turn 74, but in the real game they are researching faster (Hinduism came up 2 turns earlier) and then we may of course be up against a load of industrious civs. Look away now if you don't like :deadhorse:

I am absolutely not going to point out that, if we were to research Code of Laws before maths then, with heavy pre-chopping and a somewhat different game plan, we could build the Oracle on turn 65 or so. Which, totally coincidentally, is when the Great Scientist appears and can :shudder: bulb maths. I'm not going to mention this because, obviously, we wouldn't sacrifice a *very* early academy for bureaucracy, not even if we could get another Great Scientist really rather quickly in city2 if we put our minds to it and get a *reasonably* early academy. The reason why I am not going to mention this is because only a craven coward with no sense of fun would reject the opportunity of playing the Grand Gamble in favour of an Almost Sure Thing.

So that's why I am totally silent on the subject :mischief:

Oh sorry, I didn't see your posts showing you'd already started playing the turns before I posted all this. Your post saying you would play the turns tomorrow was showing up as 20 September here - so I thought you'd be playing on the 21st. I didn't notice that it was timed at 1.30 am, I suppose that might have been a bit of a clue :( :blush:

Shaka absolutely has to go. Non-aggressive victories like Culture are impossible with him around. How does this tie up with our Oracle objectives? Do we hoe into Shaka once Oracle is done?

Let the great second city debate begin.


Fascinating! Shaka (on our land, I assume). I would agree with fitting Wheel into our plans soon in order to hook the copper and allow us to annoy him with axemen. We don't want to miss our slingshot or wonders though.

Second city. We don't have IW yet, so the northern site by the cattle & clams that would have been so good will instead be covered in jungle. The second site that interests me is the blue circle by the pigs. However, does this fail to connect to the capital for lack of a coastline under our control? Or does the uncontrolled eastern tip allow trade? If it does, then I'm in favour of the pigs for city 2.


Do you guys already have an agreed system for this sort of communication?
I think we may have now! :D
We have passed on this kind of info in our turnset posts.
I'm beginning to see what a micro-manager you are. It's good to have some of the team with that kind of a mind. For my own part, I really have to be in the right mood to concentrate on details that deeply. (Probably stems from an inherent laziness...)

OK, here is the turn-by-turn guide to my last test game.

. . . . . .

So that's why I am totally silent on the subject :mischief:
As if! ;)

I'm beginning to feel very confident of reaching a position where we have Oracle and run bureaucracy. I see no reason to deviate from this plan, at least until we find out something that affects it (like Shaka DoW?)

:) Yeah. My name is Misotu and I am a Micro-Manager.

I'm getting treatment, don't worry.

Shaka will have to go, no question. But I'm not sure we need to worry immediately do we? I'm in favour of sticking to the plan and then looking to turn him over.

I think only the cows can be made to trade from what I can see of the map. Regardless, I would prefer to go for the cow site, because of the 2 food resources and 3 forests, which gives us early hammers for the library, then food for 2 quick scientists (just for the early bureaucracy objective, I know the jungle is horrible). In which case, I'd probably argue that we should build a work boat, not a warrior, in the capital, to send to the clams at the second city site. The second worker, built in the second city, can pasture the cow and chop the library.

After we make, or miss, the Oracle, we can research wheel. Most importantly though, this is a bit of a crisis so I guess we're delaying playing on for a little bit?

Edited to add: @Erikthecelt I thought because you said you were substituting warrior for worker we had already built one work boat, but if we haven't, then I would still want to build the first work boat, rather than a warrior, to work the clams at the capital ... and possibly even consider chopping a second work boat for the second city.

Edited to add: @Erikthecelt I thought because you said you were substituting warrior for worker we had already built one work boat, but if we haven't, then I would still want to build the first work boat, rather than a warrior, to work the clams at the capital ... and possibly even consider chopping a second work boat for the second city.

The warrior is a place holder BUT the capital is empty and Shaka can see that. One warrior is too far away from the city to help as an escort.

PS - I am liking the math bulb - very tempting.

Shaka must go, but it's just a question of when. Plus I don't want us to do what we have done in the past and try and do all things at once, and do none of them properly.

Let the great second city debate begin.


A few comments/queries:


Do we actually want a second city at this point? Since Misotu's lovely detailed plan shows one I suspect the answer is yes but it's worth asking the question.
What do we want this city to do in the short and long term? 1N of the pigs which seems popular with several team members may well be fine for a science city in the short term and an eventual commerce/science city in the longer term. However production will definitely be limited.
If we 're thinking about war with Shaka then Yaso will pretty much be our only option for military production if we go for the northern city. Should we be looking build a more production oriented city such a 1N of the pigs in the SW?
The game's suggestion of 2N of the pigs is a non starter since there is far too much overlap with Yaso's BFC not to mention the loss of the forest.


EDIT: It's just occurred to me that we'll need Wheel before we can build any military units other than warriors in any case.

The warrior is a place holder BUT the capital is empty and Shaka can see that. One warrior is too far away from the city to help as an escort.

Of course - for some reason I thought we already had 3 warriors, sorry. Looks like warrior next then :)

PS - I am liking the math bulb - very tempting.

:cool: Well, rather than thinking of it as bulbing maths we could think of it as a double-bulb - maths and civil service :deal:

Seriously though, with Shaka just over the way early military action is looking necessary. And there's nothing like a serious production capital running bureaucracy for an early-ish rush. So I think we should give it our best shot, and consider the bulb. The probability of a scientist is over 90% - if we get the priest we switch from CoL to maths for the enhanced chop value, then back to CoL and carry on, hoping for the best. We lose nothing.

I think, with the settler built, we must go for a second city. The pigs site would do it - 1 good food resource, 1 forest to chop the library, no health problems from jungle and then a second worker to help chop the Oracle if we decide to do the bulb & need extra chopping power. If we planted it on the desert square to the west of the pig, from what I can see of the map, the first cultural expansion would mean we controlled the coast line all the way round from the capital and the borders would join up. But do we need to control the sea round the coast too, or is the land enough, for the cities to trade?

Who is doing the next turns?

I think, with the settler built, we must go for a second city. The pigs site would do it - 1 good food resource, 1 forest to chop the library, no health problems from jungle and then a second worker to help chop the Oracle if we decide to do the bulb & need extra chopping power. If we planted it on the desert square to the west of the pig, from what I can see of the map, the first cultural expansion would mean we controlled the coast line all the way round from the capital and the borders would join up. But do we need to control the sea round the coast too, or is the land enough, for the cities to trade?

:hmm: I was thinking of 1N of the pigs. However 1W of the pigs does convert the desert square into a 2F square meaning that our BFC would only have one totally useless square. Equally it would avoid the BFC overlap that many dislike. Presumably the chopped library is to help the slingshot?

@erik - We might as well keep our warrior near Shaka's lands. Once Writing is in we can probably get an OB to scout his lands. It would be good to know if he can build Impis. :scan:

Who is doing the next turns?

I assume erik will play some more turns as he's only played 12 turns so far. However perhaps he's willing to pass the baton over to you HB. :mischief:

:hmm: I was thinking of 1N of the pigs. However 1W of the pigs does convert the desert square into a 2F square meaning that our BFC would only have one totally useless square. Equally it would avoid the BFC overlap that many dislike. Presumably the chopped library is to help the slingshot?

Yes, Yes, and Yes. :)

We need to wait for The-Hawk, MarkH and Thrallia I think. This point in the game is a bit pivotal (Serious British Understatement Warning - I add that note just for clarity :D )

We need to wait for The-Hawk, MarkH and Thrallia I think. This point in the game is a bit pivotal (Serious British Understatement Warning - I add that note just for clarity :D )

:yup: It's a shame that it needs to be spelled out nowadays. :sad: :mischief:

Hmm, not so much debate today. Keen to see the rest of the input on that next city. I like the 1W spot as well, but I am not usually good at making these optimum decisions.

I am not sure which site to claim first for our second city. :( I think I would start with 1N of the cows. The cows are junglefree aren't they, so we can pasture the cows ? A southern city would be better for chopping, though. :dunno: For the southern city I would go with 1W of the cows to get rid of one desert tile.

I would like 1N of the cows too, just from the point of view of getting to 2 scientists & a library. There are more than enough forests there for chopping. But then I wondered whether the unhealthiness from the jungle might negate the advantage of the food resources? And if we chop any of those forests, the jungle will expand into the empty grassland.

So although I initially thought cow, I think I'm coming round to the idea of the pig - I'd just like to know whether the cities will trade ...