SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

Just opened the save. I think it's too early to spend time on dot maps--we need to see farther east. In the Demographics screen I noticed that one opponent, presumably the 2-AI team, has 43 land tiles. An all-land BFC has 21, so 43 might imply 2 such cities plus a 1-tile island. We know how Neil loves his 1-tile isolated islands. I also saw that on the Religion screen that Hinduism has 9% influence with 80% Buddhism. What's the other religionless 11%? Perhaps an isolated 1-tile island?

Also, don't know if it was mentioned yet, but north of that long mountain range is all ocean until near the ends where there's more land. Tricky to see because the mountains get in the way when you zoom in--maybe somebody has the proper settings to change perspective? Eh, doesn't matter much.

Hello All,

I've read all the posts, and hopefully I'm up to speed now.

The plan is as outlined above:
send one Warrior to the NW
send two warriors SE to check out Toku, with one hanging back some what to protect and mollify citizens.
continue with worker until finished
have worker farm corn then flood plain
build two more warriors
then build settler,

or would we build the settler first (my choice would be the settler first)

in terms of tech, my preference would be for the wheel then bronze

ChrisShaffer posted logs and other material as he went, (some of which I'm not sure I know where to get them from and how to put them where they belong) is there a protocol I should follow?

On a broader existential note I suspect that my role in the game will be that of a contrarian, as I virtually never use slavery and so have only a limited feel on how to get the rhythm right - but this is going to be a whipping game.

My guess on the game so far is that Domination will the quickest route (Galleons Maces and Trebs) and that war with Toku is a certainty and that we would be best to catch him in his early expansion mode.

Oh yes, one question. Do we want to chase animals to get the warrior to woodsman 2?

The worker plan needs work. What are you going to do for the two turns when the worker is available before we have Agriculture researched?

Can you be more specific about the moves for the SE warriors?

If we build two warriors before the settler, how does the timing work? Does that allow us to grow to pop 3 before starting the settler? If yes, what tile will the third citizen work?

AAA, looks good
Not good enough for a green yet though, here are my thoughts:

AAA said:

Hello All,

I've read all the posts, and hopefully I'm up to speed now.

The plan is as outlined above:
send one Warrior to the NW
send two warriors SE to check out Toku, I would like to have Guru go 2S to see the water and mtns before going east with one hanging back some what to protect and mollify citizens. no, I think they both keep an eye on Toku and future warriors calm the citizenry and bust the fog(edit) also, some stuff goes without saying but some of us are anal/compulsive: note that warriors finish healing before moving
continue with worker until finished agreed
have worker farm corn then flood plain [start mining the hill first, (remember our workers are fast) go to corn when we learn agriculture, then finish the hill, then TBD (do we really want to farm the FP?)] build two more warriors perhaps one, start 2nd, then switch to settler when city size 3
then build settler,

or would we build the settler first (my choice would be the settler first) needs to be discussed, my recco is above

in terms of tech, my preference would be for the wheel then bronze also needs to be discussed, I think: bronze, wheel, pottery, priesthood

ChrisShaffer posted logs and other material as he went, (some of which I'm not sure I know where to get them from and how to put them where they belong) is there a protocol I should follow? Chris is awesome. You should ensure logging is enabled. Note that if you put notes in chat they will show up in the log. Take screen shots when things happen. e.g. recommending pausing when you see Toku's city. Look for more guidance here from others.

On a broader existential note I suspect that my role in the game will be that of a contrarian, as I virtually never use slavery and so have only a limited feel on how to get the rhythm right - but this is going to be a whipping game. Contrarian is good. We need someone to shout No! when they disagree with the plan. That's why we wait for consensus and green light before playing.
Last game we discussed much about when to switch to slavery. Since we are spiritual and events are off, this isn't an issue. Using the whip? - see our SGOTM13

My guess on the game so far is that Domination will the quickest route (Galleons Maces and Trebs) and that war with Toku is a certainty and that we would be best to catch him in his early expansion mode. Agree, I think we will need Galleons. Probably some civs we can get with Galleys.

Other things to put in your Pre Play Plan (PPP) are stopping and pausing points. AlanH would like this competition to be a Succession Game where we pass the game from player to player; our actual style (and also other teams AFAIK) is that it is a commitee game where we plan together and one player executes the plan.

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Hope this helps.

More thoughts: agree w Xcal - too soon to decide city locations. Agree 2nd city needs to get gold and block Toku, but need to see more east before deciding any locations.
Good inputs from all above..



edit:

Oh yes, one question. Do we want to chase animals to get the warrior to woodsman 2?

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I would think only in woods, else avoid them.

Deckhand said:

AAA, looks good
Not good enough for a green yet though, here are my thoughts:
Hope this helps.[/COLOR]

More thoughts: agree w Xcal - too soon to decide city locations. Agree 2nd city needs to get gold and block Toku, but need to see more east before deciding any locations.
Good inputs from all above.

edit: I would think only in woods, else avoid them.

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Oh no not to worry. To quote Xcal (or an approximation) much mulling before green

@AAA, aren't you a timezone east of Eastern Time?
I did some editing of my post after posting (mostly colors I think) - I thought you'd be sleeping.


EDIT: expanding this post instead of adding another

AAA: My guess on the game so far is that Domination will the quickest route (Galleons Maces and Trebs) and that war with Toku is a certainty and that we would be best to catch him in his early expansion mode. Dh: Agree, I think we will need Galleons. Probably some civs we can get with Galleys.

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Looks like we can reach all three land areas with galleys but they will have a long trip along the mtn walls.

ChrisShaffer said:

you should already know the answers to these questions
...

If you don't know which direction the scout came from, or that everyone was Buddhist, you MUST go back and read the discussions. I stopped and we discussed when each of those happened.You simply must read the messages from post 97 through post 159.

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I didn't know what direction the scout came from either, actually. Forgetting is allowed. Sometimes if someone has been away a while its much quicker to get up to speed by asking than by skimming through a whole lot of posts, many of which are just kcd_swedes really lame jokes.

So go ahead and ask all you want AAA. We keep the game moving better by asking than by reading and trying to figure out context anyhow. (I say this partly because I will be in the same situation soon).

Its always best to ask if you are unsure. We're pretty casual about the formalities... at some point pre-play plans get less and less detailed as the number of micromanagement decisions multiply and individual micro moves become less significant. Then the player uses own judgement a lot more.

Right now, the decisions are few... so improvisation would be uncool. But if you get an idea for something outside the plan we agreed on, save and discuss with the team. We're pretty reasonable.

@Xcal: if you do something significant like edit in a player roster, please also put a new post in the thread. We're subscribed to the thread but I don't get a notification about edits, only about new posts. I had no idea there even was a roster yet. I still haven't looked at it. I'll go do that now.

Agree, I'd rather answer questions than have someone confused or unsure. Apologies if my tone was too strong.

My questions and comments:

1. After we build the Fast Worker, how many turns will it take to grow to pop 3? How many warriors or partial warriors can we build during that time?

2. I argue for mine -> farm corn -> farm floodplain. Two issues here. First, we have to mine the hill for two turns before we get Agriculture. I think we should spend one extra turn finishing the mine, rather than returning later. Yes, we have a fast worker, but he won't be adjacent to the hill anytime soon, so it will take us two turns to finish the mine in the future. Better to have it done so our third citizen has a good tile to work. Second issue is whether we farm the floodplain. Since we only have one food resource, we have plenty of riverside grass, and it will be a while before we get pottery, I think we should treat the floodplain as a food resource.

3. There are two logs.

The BUFFY log is enabled by using CTRL-ALT-O (that's an oh, not a zero) and then go to the Logging screen. You can specify the log folder path. If you don't specify, you will find it at C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\Beyond the Sword\Autolog\Gandhi.txt. Please test this using a different game with the BUFFY Mod enabled. Make sure it works before you play the real game. The file created is plain text and you can just copy/paste it into the forums.

The CivFanatics log is created on the web site when you upload your file. You just copy the text and paste it into the forum. It does have some good information, including detailed combat logs, but it's nowhere near as useful as the BUFFY Mod.

4. Remember to set Autosave to every turn. Open C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\Beyond the Sword\CivlizationIV.ini and set AutoSaveInterval=1 and MaxAutoSaves=99.

edit - on Windows 7, it's C:\Users\[username]... etc.

RE: #2

nonononono! veto!

Do not delay farming the corn, not by a single turn. Huuuuuuge tile and food is worth much more than hammers.

1: if we finish mine the worker is idle the turn after, so this slows down corn by 2 turns (not that it matters, slowing down 1 turn would still not be worth it).
2: We only lose 1 worker turn by not finishing as we have 3 moves on worker.
3: Mined hill is not *that* much better than grass forest. Certainly not worth losing 6 food (corn).

It's worth it going back to mine before farming the FP, so:
Mine -> cancel mine the turn before agriculture -> farm corn -> finish mine.
After that I believe we should mine a 2nd and 3rd hill before farming the FP. Farming a FP takes a lot of worker turns and we'll be size 5 quickly.

And to be clear, we want to work unimproved FP over a grass mine while growing, there's no contest. There's simply no reason to finish the mine first.

Rusten said:

1: if we finish mine the worker is idle the turn after, so this slows down corn by 2 turns (not that it matters, slowing down 1 turn would still not be worth it).
2: We only lose 1 worker turn by not finishing as we have 3 moves on worker.
3: Mined hill is not *that* much better than grass forest. Certainly not worth losing 6 food (corn).

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I can believe it would be better to farm the corn than finish the mine (but really, only 1 turn delay on the corn farm is worth 2 worker turns???). However, I don't believe the above statements are true. Responding to your points above by number.

1. We would only lose one turn. The worker does not sit idle for a full extra turn.
2. I never said we would lose 2 worker turns. I said it would take 2 worker turns to finish the mine later, compared to 1 worker turn to finish it now.
3. I can agree that mined hill is not that much better than grass forest. However, the trade off is only 3 food for 1 turn, not 6 food for 2 turns.

I misspoke a little regarding sitting idle and misunderstood one of your points, but it takes 4 turns to mine a hill so my point stands.

Worker finishes in 5, agri in 7, that means we miss 2 turns on corn if we finish mine, which means 6 food lost.

It only takes 3 turns to mine a hill.

False and confusing calculations edited out.

Our fast worker can move onto the hill (2 movement points of 3) and start mining it the same turn (3rd of 3). So it's only a 1 turn difference. No time to make the version4 test game, Chris? And no spreadsheet either? What will we do while you're away?!

In my test game (which did settle on the stone) I started the mine but left it to start on the corn farm to coincide with getting Agri (i.e., Rusten's recommendation). From what I recall, this worked out well in terms of getting tiles improved in time for population growth. AAA, kcd obviously thinks highly of you to invite you to our august team, so I assume you're good at optimizing pop growth/tile improvement timing, and am willing to trust your play without our usual spreadsheet micromanaging and testing as long as you are always planning ahead. After your 10ish turns, though, I think we'll need to get more formal---we'll have seen all the local land and will want to stop and play lots of test games to optimize REXing anyway.

And what Deckhand said.

@Xcal: if you do something significant like edit in a player roster, please also put a new post in the thread. We're subscribed to the thread but I don't get a notification about edits, only about new posts. I had no idea there even was a roster yet. I still haven't looked at it. I'll go do that now.

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You mean you all don't check Posts 2 and 3 every day? Well then, be aware that I will shortly edit the Ref post to include Chris's excellent description of how to set up logging, etc., and will also add links to PPP guidelines and examples--check back in an hour or so.

You are right, my mistake, I miscounted. Need some sleep apparently. Doing maths in ones head is hard.

Anyway, it's still not worth it to finish mine, even if the difference is 3 food instead of 6.

Xcalibrator said:

Our fast worker can move onto the hill (2 movement points of 3) and start mining it the same turn (3rd of 3). So it's only a 1 turn difference. No time to make the version4 test game, Chris? And no spreadsheet either? What will we do while you're away?!

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I hosted a Google Docs spreadsheet for T'dr'duzk b'hazg t't, and I am willing to do the same for US. I would need an email/gmail address from team members to allow editing permissions (PM your email address to me, I have Chris' already). If interested, let me know. I am in a meeting most of the day today, but could set it up in 8 hours or so.

I might be able to put a test game together as well later tonight.

A [edit: spreadsheet and] test game would be great, Trys!

I've updated the Ref post with examples of PPPs and reports--please take a look, AAA.

I'm with Deckhand on researching Bronze Working after Agri. With FWs, roads aren't as important, although we'll want The Wheel in time to connect our second city and reduce maintenance costs.

Here is an updated worldbuilder files and an updated test game save file.

Have fun!

p.s. I did these in a hurry. If there are any terrain mistakes, someone else will have to fix them. Note that the two warriors in the SE are not damaged enough. Pretend like they each need two turns of healing. Toku's scout is also not in exactly the right space.

Trystero, a Google Docs spreadsheet would be great. PM sent with email.

I think we need AAA to test/optimize the builds to make sure we can start the settler as soon as we reach population 3. Right?