SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

VoiceofUnreason describes religion spread mechanics:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237869

Spontaneous Conversion
At the end of each player's turn, each of his cities is checked against each religion to see if the city will spontaneously convert to that religion. To be eligible, the city must be free of religions, and must be Trade Network Connected to the holy city.

Very rarely, you will see the announcement that you have founded a religion, and immediately find that it has spread to other cities. This demonstrates the timing of the game mechanics; after you hit end turn, your research occurs, followed shortly thereafter by CvCity::doReligion. The technology splash screen appears after all of this, at the beginning of your subsequent turn. With truly unfortunate timing (and rather dubious prioritization), you could theoretically find that - having founded a religion - you have a converted city (immediate spread from the holy city) but ruins where your holy city may have briefly stood (were it razed by one of the opposing players.
Trade Network connected means almost what it sounds like; there must be a connection between the converted city and the holy city - that is, the cities must be part of the same plot group. Plot groups are determined by explicit routes (roads, railroads), and terrain routes (oceans, rivers, coastline). These latter types depend on which technologies have been discovered by the owner(s) of the cities. Why almost? Because cities can connect through a closed border.

Two factors determine the probability that the city will convert, given that it is connected to the holy city.

The first factor is plot distance, expressed as a percentage of the maximum possible plot distance on the map.

Two different distance terms are used in CIV. Step distance treats diagonals as one unit of distance. Plot distance treats them as roughly 1.5. When you watch a city expand its cultural borders, you are seeing it expand using plot distance
In an unmodded game, you'll observe about 10% per turn if you are in the immediate neighborhood of the holy city, falling off to 0.1% at the furthest corners of the map.

The second factor is the amount of influence the holy city has - the only building which affects the influence is the shrine, which doubles the probability that the religion will spread.

Although all of the religions are checked each turn, the test is interrupted if the city converts, so you will only see one spontaneous conversion in a city. The religions are checked in order, so there's a probably-not-perceptible bias in favor of Judaism.

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So if we're connected to the capitol, its about 10% chance each turn to get spontaneous spread. Unconnected, its 0%.

I used to think adjacent (touching) culture borders was enough if you are in the same civ. But now I tend to think VoU is correct. Need a road(wheel), river, or coast (sailing), or ocean connection (astro) to the holy city for spontaneous spread.

Still, I may think twice before playing another SGOTM, I can't be bothered to spreadsheet or test-game everything. for those who do, I guess I'm just more reckless for wanting to plan a little less.

I vote:
-finish the mine first
-tech AH, hunting+AH or BW. Whatever. Get some resource visible.
-we actually play a few turns soon
-I get some (more)

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Test games are only practical in the game start when the map-building is easy. I've never used a spreadsheet either. Different playstyles complement each other and more diversity is good. The SGOTM does not need to take up a lot of anyones time, even though the game will not be done for about 4 months from now.

This is the highest number of (actively participating) players we've ever had, so it doesn't suprise me that it takes a while to get a consensus on anything. I don't think we should expect that we will all agree on anything, ever, in this game. But that's ok, as long as we don't let it distract us from discussing the important stuff. At some point we'll leave a lot of these kinds of decisions (mine vs FP) up to the active player.

FP versus mine is a meaningless decision. Same could probably be said for BW vs. AH. But it's standard practice in diplomacy to build up a working relationship starting with very small decisions (like shape of the negotiating table). So from a team perspective I think its useful that we are learning how to work together with these kinds of decisions first before we tackle the big one, the only one that will probably matter:

Which victory condition will win this game? Micro won't matter if we pick the wrong one.

We're not ready to answer the question. We don't know enough yet. So I think we should prioritize finding out more about the map while we block off our land. The sooner we know our VC the sooner we'll get started on it and the sooner we'll win. But some steps like blocking Toku, stealing workers, REX etc are good no matter which VC we try.

Green from me fwiw.

I agree - as long as everyone is willing to meet some fairly easy minimum standards for presenting a plan, taking input, playing, and reporting back on their turnsets, we will be fine. Note that this means the only real burden for participants is during their actual turnsets. And minimum standards don't require test games and spreadsheets. On other player's turnsets, you can decide your own level and type of participation.

It's great to see all the new players. Don't be discouraged because your style is different than some of the other players. We all bring our own unique perspectives to the game, and together we are a team

Early in the game, FP vs. mine actually does matter, because early decisions magnify. By the time we get to 2 or 3 cities, FP vs mine won't be as important. By the time we get to 5 or 6 cities, we definitely shouldn't be having that kind of discussion.

At any rate, I think we're ready to play. Xc has heard all the arguments and testing, and we have consensus on the primary goal (REX and block the Tokus) so it's up to him as the active player to make the final decision for FP vs. mine and AH vs BW. (Of course, if anyone had said "Red light! I think the AH vs BW decision is critical!" we would have stopped and discussed it more.)

OK, I'll play tonight. Trys, my steps follow what I had way back in my prelim PPP. That was awhile ago, so here it is again. I have a couple questions about stopping conditions and if we want to lure the SE lion.

PPP through completion of Animal Husbandry

21 Start AH, continue building settler. Keeping in mind the lion which is due east of the eastern corn, move the woody warrior toward the hill NW of the sheep. He'll watch for careless workers. The other warrior will heal and then start moving westish to reveal more coast and then fogbust the way for the settler. (We're still pretty early in the game so I don't expect any barb trouble--maybe an animal at worst.)
24 Borders pop.
25 Corn farm complete.
26 Worker moves 1E, starts farming FP (1/7).
31 Settler complete with 10 overflow into fast worker. 4 turns to reach 1E of gold via a roughly diagonal route SE, then NE.
32 FP farm complete.
33 AH done. Stop here. Where are the horses? If settling plans do not change then FW would start moving toward sheep (or the gold if we decide the mine is better first).

[Beyond this turnset, this MM works well:
34 Found city#2 1E of gold, start monument. Not sure if working unpastured sheep or the unmined gold is better--I suspect the gold to speed the monument.
35 Start sheep pasture (1/4).
36 Bollywood FW complete (1 overflow) -> warrior. FW restarts mine build (3/4).
37 Mine complete.
39 Pasture complete. Bollywood to pop 3 just as the warrior completes.]

Units:
Post Woody warrior on the hill next to Japan's sheep. Stop the game if a worker appears.
NW warrior continues exploring if he survives the lion.

Should I have our Woody warrior (3 XPs, I think) taunt the lion to attack while defending in forest? Pro: Odds are good to win, giving us more XPs. Con: We might lose. And maybe having a lion near Japan's borders will be more of a nuisance for them than us.

Stopping conditions:

• Japan worker appears within striking distance.
• Someone DoWs us.
• We meet a new civ (???)

I will not stop if we lose the NW warrior (the one waiting to be attacked by a lion), nor if we lose one of the SE warriors unless it means we can't safely escort our settler. OK?

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As for the slow early pace, there's only one team ahead of us, and we're going to leap back into the lead tonight! We're moving at a positively reckless rate!

Thanks Xc. I played around with BW first last night, and I still think AH is slightly better, but I was quite tired so I didn't try a lot of different approaches. Your PPP looks good to me. I don't know if we need to stop if you meet a new civ, since at this point they'd be quite distant from us. Otherwise, green light from me.

FWIW, I never really micro my offline games very much (and certainly never use a spreadsheet). I like trying it for SGOTM because I'm not very good at it and I'm trying to get better, and it forces me to think more carefuly about the game. As you can tell, I still have a lot to learn.

Good luck Xcal - find more gold, and sorry about the lion

In our planning for the game I think we need to prepare for the possibility of a few Elizatokus of Japan thrown in to make teching competitive.

What's the healing plan for the NW warrior if it survives the lion? Heal if it's only a few turns, explore wounded if healing would take more than 3 turns is my suggestion.

Good luck, looking forward to seeing more turns played!

Looking good as long as you stop turn 33 (AH in).
Green light from me too.

Disagree with some of what's written after that, but we can have that discussion later.

T21--Doublecheck, change research to AH, hit enter.
IBT--Lion attacks. Drona lives! 0.5/2.0.
T22--8 turns to heal Drona. Move W to hill.
Eastern lion is now S of corn, next to both our warriors. I move Lotus (3XP Woody1) W into forest, move Guru S to reveal more coast. Hmm, looks like the land south of us is also ringed by mountains. Babylon scout south of our forest is at 0.9/1--was he that way before?
IBT--Aha! There's a lion now south of the Babs scout. The eastern lion has moved W and not attacked.
T23--Lotus stays put in the forest. Guru moves E. Drona moves NW onto forest hill. Japan scout is NW of there, 0.9/1, in a forest.
IBT--Bollywood borders pop. Eastern lion attacks Lotus. Lotus is unscathed and now has 4 XPs.
T24--Lotus moves SE onto hill next to Japan sheep--sees another tile but no units. Guru moves NW. Drona moves NW into forest. Japan scout now 2W1S.
T25--Bah. Japan borders pop. That probably means that's the Buddhist holy city, eh? (Nah.) Lotus is pushed W. I move him N, thinking I'll move him into the corner notch. Probably won't be able to see or catch a worker, but it'll fogbust more for us and maybe we'll kill another barb animal to get Woody2. Guru moves NW. I'm worried about poor Drona (0.5 strength, but 8 turns to heal) so he follows in the direction of the Japan scout on the theory that it's safer. Move SW. Corn farm is complete.
T26--FW moves E, starts farm on FP. Warriors move safely. Oooh, NW warrior (Drona) sees Japan scout again--he's now at 0.3/1! There be animals about. Drona is on a forest hill--might just be a good idea to let him heal a bit.
T27--Sweet. A forest has grown N of Bollywood! Drona heals (1/8). Guru now NE of fish. Lotus sits.
T28--Guru NW.
T29--Guru NE
T30--Guru sits. Lotus is bored and moves SW, on his way to 1S where he should be able to see the sheep hill.
T31--Settler done. 10 overflow toward FW. Settler moves 2S1E. Guru NW to gold hill. Lotus moves S. Aha! A worker is on the sheep! But he's 2 tiles away and we can't get him.
T32--Settler moves 2S2E. Guru sits. Lotus 1N. FP farm is complete.
T33--AH is complete! Start BW (tentative). Crap--no horses! Crap--Japan founds Osaka due E of our eastern corn. Lotus 1N--1 more N will put him on hill to see into Osaka. Other units left unmoved. Save at T33, 2680 BC.

Drona (NW warrior) is up to 1.7/2. FW unmoved on FP. Settler unmoved 2W1S of gold. Guru unmoved on gold. Bolly FW done in 3 turns.

Will post pix soon.

Good job Xcal.

Do I see that right that Babylon has moved into WHEOOHRN. What have you done to make him so angry? And we are the worst enemy of both AI? Yikes - that was quick!

Do we detour to archery or pray for copper? This looks like a fun one.

WHEOOHRN? I'll load up the autosaves and see when that happened. Sorry, no BUFFY log--forgot to set that up, but I'll look through the in-game log and note anything interesting. [Edit: Double sorry: I forgot that I haven't played SGOTM on this computer before and hadn't set the autosave to every turn. But the event log says "You are the worst enemy of" Babylon in 2720 (T32). The T32 save also shows the red fist so I'd assume that's when it happened. T28 (the latest autosave before that) does not show the red fist.]

Things I may have goofed on:
(1) If Lotus (the 4XP warrior in the SE) hadn't gotten bored and moved S to look for the sheep worker he would have seen the Japan settler coming. With only the one warrior, though, we wouldn't have dared attack the (presumed) archer escort. I suppose we could have stopped the settler from settling by DoWing, but, well, Lotus wasn't in the right place.
(2) Way up in the NW we can just see somebody's borders. I assumed it was Babylon and didn't confirm. Perhaps I'm wrong and it's somebody else. And maybe that city's borders will pop soon so we can't see as far inside. The next player might want to move NW before Drona is fully healed just to be sure.

I don't think you goofed up on anything (nothing I saw wrong) - I just think that it is the game set up. Looks like Babylon up north. It may not be long before the real Toku goes into war mode as well.

Xcal!

Well, this is getting interesting. It's unfortunate, but not surprising, that Tokugawa settled a city there. I really don't think he has anywhere else to go. I still think we should found the gold/sheep city where we planned. This will anger Tokugawa, but that is going to happen anyway. That is still the best blocking site:



We need to watch for him mining grassland tiles (he revolted to Slavery, so he's researched BW), or if he moves a worker to the corn we can grab.

Kyoto is not the Buddhist holy city. His borders popped later than ours because we have the Hindu holy city. You can tell from the Buddhism icon in the score box that Toku didn't found Buddhism.



I am inclined to say we continue researching BW (no horses definitely rules out The Wheel). We need slavery and chops, and maybe we'll get lucky with the copper. We definitely need more warriors after the Fast Worker (for garrison duty and to let Bollywood grow).

I think you are right the border to the North looks like Babylon. It must be Hammuragawa.

I agree with Trystero and SH. Put city on dot and start building a monument. Research BW. Build warriors [edit,after worker] while growing.
Pasture sheep, then mine gold. Work gold until sheep ready.
What needs to be decided before continuing?
What does Rusten advise?

I won't be too surprised if we don't have copper either.

Deckhand said:

I agree with Trystero and SH. Put city on dot and start building a monument. Research BW. Build warriors [edit,after worker] while growing.
Pasture sheep, then mine gold. Work gold until sheep ready.
What needs to be decided before continuing?
What does Rusten advise?

I won't be too surprised if we don't have copper either.

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I agree with the copper guessing. And perhaps iron is missing as well. No elephants either. Still think we need to go BW next. Then backtrack to archery if we find ourselves at war with no strategic resources. That would mean what... cats and LBs for breaking out?

Good job Xcal, that was well-played.

Good job.

I was going to suggest waiting for library before investing in a culture building, but that's no good now I think with Toku settling there. We need to reach 100 culture quickly to start pumping 20 (hidden) CPT into that corn, else we won't win it back without war. Could be lost anyway if Toku goes culture quickly. Once he reaches 10 culture he gets 20 extra CPT into corn.
If Toku gets a religion or monument in city #2 it would be better to skip the monument, but given the settings and Toku not being high on culture the 30 monument hammers are probably worth it.

OK with settling 1E of sheep and working sheep while building monument (do not work unimproved gold, it's a terrible tile).

We can get BW first, that's np. The AI will need time to build up a SoD. We can see the attack coming with a scouting warrior.

Also, we should no longer worker steal (southern) Toku. Too many downsides now and less profit.

Remember to use binary research now that we settle our first city!

We still have high priority cities so I'm assuming the plan is to grow capital with warriors and then whip settler once BW is in. Can't afford to delay gems and gold much.

I disagree, I think the settler should go 1N of the gold to work the gold deer and sheep. If we design the city to compete for the corn we are merely hobbling a city that soon will be our city. Also if we get the wheel soon we increase our research and our religion spread (making monuments unnecessary) and improve our defenses by allowing us to concentrate what ever forces we have quickly. If we have no resources I think we should consider archers and cats.

If we design the city to compete for the corn we are merely hobbling a city that soon will be our city

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It's optimal to have overlap.

Yup, Kyoto isn't the Buddhist holy city. Something fishy's going on, though. Its borders popped at T25. Figure 2cpt from the capital and 1 from religion, so that's 3*25=75 culture. It needs another 25 for the border pop. I'd guess Neil stuck in a monument at the start. Why? To make sure we couldn't do a worker steal when he came to work on the sheep? Is he that evi...er, smart?

Nice that we have that extra forest N of Bolly--that might change the optimal micro a bit. Speaking of test games, Chris, are you back? Any chance you can put the dang rivers where they're supposed to be? I declare defeat.

I don't think the purplish (assumed Babylon) borders have popped yet but they might very well pop next turn: Figure 3 cpt from capital and religion so it'll take 34 turns to get to 100 culture--if we want to see a few inner Babylon tiles we need to move Drona NW this turn. As for Babylon getting all WHEOOHRN on us, there's a nice forested choke point 1W of the NW deer--stick a warrior there? It's also a good spot to prevent barb spawn (though it doesn't quite cover the gold tile).

@AAA: Settling W of the sheep to get the deer is interesting; it was my first thought before we discovered the corn. But if we do that we can't squeeze in a high-food city that uses the cows--decent production and it would also be good for running specs. We should think about this but my gut says we should settle as planned, otherwise Japan may try to squeeze in another poorly placed city. Remember, no city razing. The NW deer/gold site is really nice for a 3rd city (maybe ahead of the western gems?), but we might want to settle 2N1W of our southern fish before that to really block Japan. Not necessary--we'll block him with our BFC if we settle as planned. I think we should let Japan settle the coast 3S (or 3S1W) of his corn--it has low production, is easy to attack, and since we couldn't claim the fish from his borders it would have low food for us. Let him develop it and then we'll take it. Hopefully having that site available will keep him from settling in stupid places.

Rusten said:

It's optimal to have overlap.

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Is that something to do with whipping?