SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

I'll be checking the thread occasionally through the evening, but I think we already have 2 to 1 for S versus SW for Toto in turn 2. I'm inclined to go with S without a consensus, because that was the original plan. However, I will go with SW, if we do have a consensus of say at least 2/3 for that move.

Sun Tzu Wu

The red path everyone was liking doesn't look possible based off the new info with that water tile. I'm also inclined a bit to change course SW to get to that gems area a turn faster. Haha this game is so crazy!

Sun Tzu Wu said:

I'll be checking the thread occasionally through the evening, but I think we already have 2 to 1 for S versus SW for Toto in turn 2. I'm inclined to go with S without a consensus, because that was the original plan. However, I will go with SW, if we do have a consensus of say at least 2/3 for that move.

Sun Tzu Wu

Click to expand...

I vote for SW now. Heading S, will force another S after that making it a 2 turn delay before we go west.
If we go SW now, the extra visibility across the lake will mean that we will still see the tiles we were concerned about (the purple 'missings' from mabraham's screenshot earlier.

I made myself another test game that now has a map edge!

I've been trying to work out what that tile is 3S of the corn. I'm wondering whether it's an extension to that new lake.

Oh, and we should think of another name than Washington

shulec said:

Is the plot south of marble a hill? If so, will we be able to see the plot 2S1E of the marble if we move 1S to the marble?

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Sun Tzu Wu said:

Is the hill S of Marble a Grassland Hill? Maybe I need more powerful (spy) glasses.

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I think south of marble is indeed a hill, and probably grassland. Either way, we would see the tile 2S1E of marble from marble because 1S1E of marble is coast. The graphical glitch on 2S1E of marble is indicative of some kind of WorldBuilder activity.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Yes, I'm certain that the plot 1S of Marble DH is also a Hill, probably also DH.

Yes, moving onto the Marble DH will allow seeing the plot 2S+1E; that is the Shore plot I'm referring to that we would definitely not reveal by moving SW instead of S onto Marble. I'm now convinced that is the only plot that would be revealed by going S now rather than SW, but it will cost us a turn and I'm not sure its worth the cost.

My preference is SW, because I have little hope that the Shore 2S+1E of Marble has seafood, so why bother using up 1t to find out. If there is seafood there, we'd almost have to settle on Marble to work it.

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Agreed - warrior SW now. To use that 2S1E tile we'd have to settle on or south of the marble, and we'd only have a critical decision if that 2S1E had a seafood (and we'd have to have found another resource to make this site worth settling early, anyway). So I think we have better potential from swinging west ASAP. Getting that gems site fully explored can pay dividends in various ways.

It is distantly possible that we would regret not exploring the south part of the hypothetical peninsula, because we'd not have access to a trade route around that peninsula, but that doesn't matter before we get sailing, and it might be an isthmus anyway.

SW sounds better than south to desert marble hill now

I checked over my practice game again, and something odd does appear to be going on with tech trade values. The triple-teamed AI seems willing to take some unbalanced trades. I'm not sure if there is a "friendly" bonus diplo-modifier being applied to trade relations three times instead of one, but see for yourself.



At other times tech trading seemed almost normal, with mathmatics not being able to be traded for alphabet. I will go a bit slower next test game and focus on tech trading instead of espionage.

About the only info we get at the start on this screen is soldiers. Normally I ignore the Demo screen, but since it is for the glorious SGOTM I'll indulge just this once.

Demographic Guide - http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/demographics.php



Emperor AI Starting Soldiers:



Every emporer level AI starts with 2 archers, 2 scouts, and 1 settler.
To get the archers, the AI also receives hunting and archery along with their 2 starting techs.

From the Demo Guide, the following techs and units are relevant at the start:

2000 Soldiers - Hunting
6000 Soldiers - Archery
2000 Soldiers - Mining
4000 Soldiers - Wheel

2000 Soldiers - Warrior
3000 Soldiers - Archer
4000 Soldiers - Bowman, Skirmisher


If the AI does not start with Mining or The Wheel, they will get 8000 soldiers from hunting + archery, plus 6000 soldiers from two archers. The lowest rating emperor AI can have is 14000 soldiers.
16000 means they start with mining.
18000 means they start with the wheel.

The two special cases are Hammurabi and Mansa Musa.
Hammurabi gets 8000 soldiers from bowmen, and has the Wheel. He gets 20000 soldiers.
Mansa Musa gets 8000 soldiers from skirmishers, and has both mining and the wheel, the only civ to get both as starting techs. He gets the maximum of 22000 starting soldiers.

Soldiers are independent of team play, and are seperate for each civ as normal on the demo screen. A 3-civ block will not have 60000 soldiers at the start. However, the team play means all techs are shared at the start, so Hammurabi can start with 22000 soldiers if he pairs up with a Civ that has Mining.


From the starting screenshot of our game, we see that Rival Best is 22000, Rival Worst is 13000, and the average is 17875. This means we can draw two conclusions.

1) Mansa Musa or Hammurabi is in our game.
2) A civ that starts with mining (16000 soldiers) has had one of its two starting archers taken from it on purpose.


Additional Analysis: 3v2v2v1 or 2v2v2v2?

There is no way of telling.
An average of 17875 soldiers can be reached in the 3v2v2v1 case with 22k,20k,20k,20k,20k,14k,14k,13k. An average of 17875 soldiers can also be reached in the 2v2v2v2 case with 22k,20k,18k,18k,18k,18k,16k,13k.

Kaitzilla said:

At other times tech trading seemed almost normal, with mathmatics not being able to be traded for alphabet. I will go a bit slower next test game and focus on tech trading instead of espionage.

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In this case, I'm sure the AI had completed a major portion of Mathematics, thus significantly reducing its trading value. I'm sure that another AI that didn't research any of Mathematics would offer Alphabet and more.

Sun Tzu Wu

I concur with a SW move.

I now count 6 of 7 in favor of SW, so I will proceed with that move. That is more than a 2/3 consensus and we can proceed without the final vote.

I will report back the results and game save file at the end of t2 in a few minutes.

Sun Tzu Wu

We found Shore Crab and more Ocean to the South.

I will give others the option of providing a complete analysis in the next few hours. I may chime in at that time as well.

Sun Tzu Wu

I suggest that Toto be moved W successively for turns 3, 4 and 5. If the Team agrees, I will make it so.

If anyone has further moves to add to that, please let us know them.

If anyone is certain of what is in the plot 2S+1E of Marble, please tell us and explain why.

Future Considerations:

1) Consider founding a city to work the Grassland Gems plot.

2) Consider Mining -> Bronze Working -> Iron Working for military build up.

Sun Tzu Wu

I agree that Toto should move W, W, W

the plot 2S+1E of Marble is ocean that was worldbuilt in a non-ideal manner. You can recreate the effect in worldbuilder by using the 1st rather than the 2nd convert-to-water button. I'm not certain why there are 2 buttons, but that is what you sometimes get by using the first button.

And following up on my question from awhile back...It is possible to have a flat map type with continents or another map type. So I don't think we can conclude it was a lakes map originally before being modified. I suppose the number of land tiles could inform what percentage of the map is non-water. Is the grid size different for different standard size maps though? I suppose it might be...

Nice analysis of the soldier data Kaitzilla (bowman and skirmishers are both difficult to rush so that insight that mansa or hammurabi is in the game might influence a decision). Strange that one AI has been reduced in strength.

Also Seems unlikely from the soldier numbers that the wizard is a non-barbarian unit for one of the enemy AI. (not that that was likely in the first place).

edit: Also in the future, Sun Tzu Wu, can you post screenshots rather than the save? if we have screenshots, it is easier to contribute to the discussion when we can't access the game. Also posting the real save game is something that I think we in general want to avoid. I think if you want to post the save game it is easier now just to upload the game. That way there will be less possible confusion about what is a real game save and a test game save.

Nothing more great to see something instructive after work, Kai! I really like your demographics analysis.

Anyways, Toto going west, west and west seems the only alternative. So be it, then. Moreover, by going SW, we did open a coast trade route, so because of the gems, I don't see the priority to explore onto that grass hill. But, later, we better be careful and know beforehand if there is no more seafood.

bcool said:

edit: Also in the future, Sun Tzu Wu, can you post screenshots rather than the save? if we have screenshots, it is easier to contribute to the discussion when we can't access the game. Also posting the real save game is something that I think we in general want to avoid. I think if you want to post the save game it is easier now just to upload the game. That way there will be less possible confusion about what is a real game save and a test game save.

Click to expand...

OK, I can post the current map instead, but team members will need to request additional screen shots they want to see, since there are large numbers of possible screen shots.

Of course it would be more flexible for team members to load the save file and see any aspect of the game. That's why I posted it. However, I have no issue with uploading it to the server from now on. I will do so with the next pause in my turn set.

Attached is the current map.

Sun Tzu Wu

At least in the beginning a screenshot of the initial map is all we really need to contribute to moving Toto. Obviously in the future more screenshots would be necessary to make more detailed contributions and would make looking at the save more important to make useful contributions.

Also I'm not sure you are saving the game every turn. In the last sgotm there was a ruling we should not use autosave except to recover from a crash. Occasionally it is nice to go back and look at the game from a previous turn. So before you hit the end of the turn, can you save the game? It would be good to get in the habit now.

And are you zooming out and looking at the cultural view tab/button? sometimes you can see AI cultural areas with that view that you can't with the map.

Saving every turn:

bcool said:

Also I'm not sure you are saving the game every turn. In the last sgotm there was a ruling we should not use autosave except to recover from a crash. Occasionally it is nice to go back and look at the game from a previous turn. So before you hit the end of the turn, can you save the game? It would be good to get in the habit now.

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Currently, I'm manually saving at least once a turn. Sometimes at the beginning and always at the end. (Later in the game, when there are many more units to move, I save multiple times per turn.)

Cultural view tab/button:

bcool said:

And are you zooming out and looking at the cultural view tab/button? sometimes you can see AI cultural areas with that view that you can't with the map.

Click to expand...

I've never had a problem seeing the edges of AI cultural boundaries, but I'll readily admit I may be missing something here:

What is the "cultural view tab/button"?

Sun Tzu Wu

So the next two screen shots show where the cultural view button/tab is and why it is useful

normal map view sees greek culture, but doesn't see incan culture.



with culture view button you can see the "hidden" incan culture.

bcool said:

And following up on my question from awhile back...It is possible to have a flat map type with continents or another map type. So I don't think we can conclude it was a lakes map originally before being modified. I suppose the number of land tiles could inform what percentage of the map is non-water. Is the grid size different for different standard size maps though? I suppose it might be...

Click to expand...

You can make maps of any type 'flat/cylindrical/toroidal'. So this could still be any map script.
Also worth noting is that it could be any shape. I'm wondering if this isn't a long & thinnish map, in order to force us to walk a long way to the wizard (thus following the yellow brick road).
The "size" controls things like how many cities you need for certain wonders/things, and is also meant to be an indication at how much land space, but can with worldbuilder, be any actual size/shape you want it to be.