SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

Deckhand said:

Or we could build another warrior while growing the city if we want to commit to a worker/settler steal (and delay 2nd city).

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I don't think we should delay the settler to (possibly) steal a settler. I was mostly concerned about preventing Tokugawa from grabbing our city site. I agree that Protective archers would make it hard for us to stop a settler, so it's probably best to eliminate that as an option.

AAA, could you upload the save to the submissions page?

Hello All,

Here is the Buffy log



I've uploaded the final save. Does it take awhile for the save to be reposted?
Certainly is good land for teching, hmm I wonder what Neil is up to?

When you uploaded it, there should have been a log on the web page after you uploaded. Did you manage to copy that?

The save is posted immediately, and can be found on the status page.

Hm, Lotus defeated a wolf? Getting closer to Woodsman II!

ChrisShaffer said:

Screen shot requests:

* zoom out for entire map, with resource bubbles turned on
* Bollywood city screen
* Top 5 Cities/Wonders screen

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If anyone downloads the save, these screenshots would be appreciated.

I'm not seeing the latest save. The server has a save for 3440bc not 3200bc.

Did you upload it to here?

I didn't check to see that the save was uploaded, since I don't have a copy of Civ available. Maybe he didn't actually do it yet?

It's not listed on the progress page yet. I think he is offline at the moment.

AAA: you should get a confirmation page with a turn log when you upload.

Rusten said:

Seems Neil has done his utmost to make culture VC something to consider, but I find it hard to believe that it can beat a well done domination/conquest. To me this start suggests early REX and develop great lands. If we are to attack it would be after wonders like the Oracle and with some higher tech units. Horse Archers could be one way, they are excellent for normal speed. [This would not be for non-stop war (yet) -- just to take out 1 AI for more land]

With all the good land (rivers and resources) it should be possible to research very, very fast meaning quick cuirassiers/cavalry.

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Religious is still possible, but it will not be as cheesy/easy as usual assuming everybody's Toku. One would have to conquer a bit to make good enough friends, can't simply spread the religion to everyone and start the vote.

I never play with AGG AI, but in the back of my mind there's a memory of the player starting at -1 relations towards AI compared to usual. Is this the case? Might've been changed in BtS (or not been the case at all).

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Clearly we want a city 1SW of the new gold. Goes well with the capital BFC.

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Good points in the strategic discussion. I'm looking at the map and thinking that the Toku/Jap and Toku/Babs are looking like bookends. There probably there to hold us in place a while. I would not asume everyone is Toku, though. Neil likely put them there to make it harder for us to get at the fast techers or wonder whores.

Also, I would point out that in the SGOTM14, a lot of teams went for Cuir/Cav domination... but all of us were centuries behind those who went for Knights dom/conq. So if we go military, I like HA's to start with and knights to finish if we can, rather than having to go all the way to Cavs. But we'll have to see what's out there.

AGG AI gives a -2 (hidden) modifier against the human player only, afaik.

PRO gives first strike to archery units and chariots ignore first strikes. Chariots against Babylon (who gets further bonus on melee) is a clear advantage over axes. Axes can defend the captures better, though... but by the time we need them we'd have BW. Of course, we don't know where/if there are horses... or metals.

Since we have mountain barrier to force land units to go through Toku lands, I would not be suprised to find ice barrier at sea which does the same for galleys.

Good job AAA... its really nice with all the screenshots!

Its not always required to upload when at a pause in the middle of the turnset. But might be good here. AAA can continue the turnset from the save on his own computer which would be identical to the upload save, btw. Once we figure out what to do.

I notice one AI is still at pop1. What's with that???

Trystero said:

It's not listed on the progress page yet. I think he is offline at the moment.

AAA: you should get a confirmation page with a turn log when you upload.

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I know I sometimes accidently upload to one of the GOTM's instead of the SGOTM... maybe something like that happened?

kcd_swede said:

Also, I would point out that in the SGOTM14, a lot of teams went for Cuir/Cav domination... but all of us were centuries behind those who went for Knights dom/conq. So if we go military, I like HA's to start with and knights to finish if we can, rather than having to go all the way to Cavs. But we'll have to see what's out there.

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Yeah, knights are better. Even more so as there's no trading to be done with emperor (agg) AIs. We'd need to self-tech anyway (which is the problem with knight line compared to cuirassiers usually).

As with the last SGOTM, it looks like neilmeister is offering multiple victory conditions.

Dom is option, but without vassals, tech brokering and city flipping after conquest, this will take longer than normal.

AP requires that we get 1 to Friendly for a vote. May be tough, but if we gift some Hindu infested junk cities and can get them to flip religions might be possible. Also requires at least one hindu city for each AI.

Cultural is also a consideration. Map also appears to lend itself with nice area and few borders to protect. We also have marble and clear religious path to pick up 3 religions.

I think we need to decide early, as the paths may diverge early on from a diplo and teching perspective.

SteelHorse said:

As with the last SGOTM, it looks like neilmeister is offering multiple victory conditions.

Dom is option, but without vassals, tech brokering and city flipping after conquest, this will take longer than normal.

AP requires that we get 1 to Friendly for a vote. May be tough, but if we gift some Hindu infested junk cities and can get them to flip religions might be possible. Also requires at least one hindu city for each AI.

Cultural is also a consideration. Map also appears to lend itself with nice area and few borders to protect. We also have marble and clear religious path to pick up 3 religions.

I think we need to decide early, as the paths may diverge early on from a diplo and teching perspective.

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You didn't mention Space or UN. I assume the game will be over long before we could get either.

Conquest will be tough with no city razing. Is there any difference in strategy between Conquest and Domination?

Culture is certainly possible.
We need to know more about the map to decide.
Will Galleons be needed for Dom? Does that matter?
Who are our opponents? Does that matter?

Space is too long. We could nuke a win faster.
UN has same difficulties as Religious VC, just comes later (need less votes but must make more friends, or kill non-friends - see domination VC).

Personally, I'm not very good at culture VC. If I crack 1800AD I feel really pleased. The best culture game Jesusin could manage might be around 1200AD (for time-optimists). The map could make it the fastest, but only if AI are put inside mountain rings/ice and land area that is reachable does not suffice for dom -I'm looking at that one AI stuck at pop1 and thinking its conceivable... but not likely. And if we can't get to him for killing, we can't get to him for religion spread either. I think even with teams you need to infect both civs... but would have to check that.

Religion without OB means gifting cities or having them "taken" in war. That means we need a lot of extra cities to gift. That means we need to go on a killing spree anyhow, I think.

If any of you guys know how to pull down a 1200AD culture vc I'm open to it. My best ever is 1750AD or so... and I can win nuke-fests faster than that if motivated.

Does anyone know how to place rivers in WorldBuilder? Gah!!! kcd must.

Test21@60#1: I started with the T14 test save and played to where we are at T21. From there I did Hunting (27), Wheel (35), AH (45), BW (52), and Writing (60). I settled City#2 1N of the gold (to get the deer) and have pop3 with a monument. City#3 went 1W of the gems and has pop1 with a monument, and Bollywood just finished a settler for city#4. Bollywood has barracks. We have 3 workers, 6 warriors, and all cities are connected by roads with gold, sheep, deer, and gems improved. 35 bpt, -8 gpt @100%, +25gpt @0%. Another FW 1/2 done (3 more turns) in City#2.

Test21@59#2: AH(33), Wheel(42), BW(50), Writing(56), Hunting(60--not that I would, but for comparison). City#2 went 1E of gold (to get corn in BFC). Almost as much infra and units built (barracks by T61 and only have 4 warriors vs 6 in Test#1). Pops and bpt,gpt are the same. The benefit with this placement is that it leaves room for another city to work the deer and cows. I'd probably favor this scheme all things being equal. City placement will be affected somehat by what else we see in the east, though.

I did not do any whipping for the above tests but probably should have--would speed things up a bit. In both cases I did Wheel before BW but that may not be best

In the terrain menu of worldbuilder, choose the river tool. If you click two spaces horizontally, it will build a river below both spaces. If you click two spaces vertically, it will build a river to the right of both spaces. To delete a river, right click on both sides of it (top/bottom or left/right). If this accidentally deletes a desired river, keep trying again.

If you're very careful, you can build a river from scratch starting at one end and keeping on moving to the other end. I only manage to do this about 1 in 10 tries.

It's frustrating, but just keep going and don't worry about making it look pretty.

AAA uploaded the save. Here are Chris' image requests:

Our land in the South:


Our land in the North:


Bollywood:


Top 5 cities:


Also, we are Tokugawa and Hammuragawa's worst enemy.

Bollywood culture expands in 3 turns. Settler in 12 without the corn farm. Can anyone test how long the settler will actually take? What is the latest the escorting warrior can return? Should we send it back earlier to fogbust the gold city site?

Hello All,

I've contacted neilmeister and sorted it out. I uploaded it again and this time it worked.

Here is the other log


Here's the link for renamed file


In terms of winning my thoughts would be, however we do it, how fast we do it, will mostly depend on tech speed.

ChrisShaffer said:

Bollywood culture expands in 3 turns. Settler in 12 without the corn farm. Can anyone test how long the settler will actually take? What is the latest the escorting warrior can return? Should we send it back earlier to fogbust the gold city site?

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I did a back of the envelope calculation with the spreadsheet, and it looks like the settler will be done on turn 31 with the corn improved in 4 turns (+2f, so 3h+6f into the settler on turn 25).

It would take 4 turns for Guru to get to the 2nd city site.

Isn't wet corn +3f?

Is Guru on the gold city site sufficient for escort, or will the settler be in danger while in transit?