SGOTM 15 - Plastic Ducks

1E of Gold allows a deer+stone/shared fp city which wouldn't be too bad either.

1N: we'll be hard-pressed to grow to size 9 after waiting 20 turns for a border pop.

@score
Without trying, my guess is the simple found Hinduism on a worker...

@Bebe
Any chance you can check the upkeep of cities? It might hint at the original map script used (like last time). Not that it'd be much use anyway but it could be relevant.

kossin said:

Yikes!
Did you take chopping a monument into account?

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Yes, hence the T0+18 border pop.
I estimated that after AH, BW would take at least 7 turns, so completed on T49, meaning that the chop could be completed on T51. The city would be settled on T0=T44, so the monument would be up and running by T52=T0+8, plus 10 turns of culture growth.
I neglected the possibility of religion spread, but otoh 7 turns for BW is optimistic given that Viyaj will be a drag to our research until the gold is up (T47)
Besides, slow building the monument would have it completed on T0+9=T53, so the difference with chopping is not particularly significant.

kossin said:

1E of Gold allows a deer+stone/shared fp city which wouldn't be too bad either.

1N: we'll be hard-pressed to grow to size 9 after waiting 20 turns for a border pop.

@score
Without trying, my guess is the simple found Hinduism on a worker...

@Bebe
Any chance you can check the upkeep of cities? It might hint at the original map script used (like last time). Not that it'd be much use anyway but it could be relevant.

Click to expand...

In the same order :
- 1N of Gold still allows a shared deer+stone+shared FP city that will make a reasonable "resource-city" (Remember Marble City in the previous game...)

- What we did only got us 31 points by T11.
A score of 37 means an extra ancient tech researched (since more land tiles or more wonders is not possible, and an extra pop would only bring 4 extra points).
So I don't know who we're talking about, but they either gambled and researched Agri first (highly unlikely) , or managed to found Hindu on T11, which means settling on T0 then working a riverside tile all the way.

- Upkeep : Delhi's was 0.27Gpt until Bombay was founded. Now (T37) it is 0.58Gpt for Delhi and (0.54+1.42) Gpt for Bombay.

@Score
Looking at culture graph shows everyone went Poly first (US getting it later than others).

@Upkeep
Thanks, I'll look into that tonight maybe (I get home so late )

From culture graph

OSS settled on T1 (0)

T11 score 37 (this can only come from a tech), 20

Poly will takes 12 turns to complete even working on 1C tile from beginning. Initially I thought they went for Agri 1st. However, their culture increase to T20 (83-20=63) indicated that they got Poly for 9 turns.

So the question is how to complete Poly in 10 turns? capital includes Gem?

Interesting...
I didn't check the graphs, but I trust you that they indeed settled on T1.

So let's see :
- Polytheism is 156/1.2 = 130 beakers
- Until T11, there is no worker, no pop growth (as indicated by their score), so the beakers come only from : 1 free beaker + 8C from Palace + 1C from city center + xC from tile worked
- 130/10 = 13bpt = 1 +8 +1 + 3

Meaning that they would have to work a 3C tile from the turn they settle.
Problem : there is no such tile in the area. Even riverside Gold and Gems are only 2C if unimproved.



EDIT: ok now I've looked at the graphs and I'm even more confused.
1/ It's not just OSS, Maple Sporks did the same thing, and it looks like Kakumeika is going the same way.
So it must be something really obvious we're missing
2/ With that being said, I still don't get it.
I took a look at the power graph and it tells us quite a few things :
- +2000 soldiers between T11 and T18 : this can be either a warrior, Hunting, Sailing or AH. The latter two are impossible due to tech requirement, Hunting makes no sense, so it must be a warrior.
- +3000 soldiers between T18 and T20 : this means Pop 2, and either another Warrior or Hunting (which still makes no sense), or Sailing/AH (which still should not be possible). So again, I would say a warrior.
- A score of 47 by T20, if they settled on T1, means Pop 2 and 2 Ancient techs researched (Poly + ?)

So what all this means is that by T20, they were able to grow to P2 and build two warriors, while researching Poly in 10 turns and another tech, probably Agri.

If we assume that they started with a worker, and that they didn't settle on the corn, then they must have worked a 3F tile to grow this fast after the worker, but then not enough hammers to build those warriors *unless* they settled on either the stone or the marble, but then how did they manage early Poly? ......

So I'm inclined to believe that at least one of the above hypothesis is wrong. Either they settled on the corn or didn't start with a worker. Or something else....I don't know anymore...

EDIT 2 : came back home and tested this, and I'm absolutely clueless about what they did.
I can grow to Pop 2 but not get 2 warriors out by T20 at the same time. Even working the gems from turn 1, Poly takes 11 turns to complete...but then the worker takes 20 turns. How they managed it in 10 turns is beyond me.

Turnset 2 report :

The rise and fall of Warrior 1 :
- We had left Warrior 1 on the gems, escorting our precious settler. A bear was dangerously hanging around, and on T27 it moved towards our warrior! I took a little detour with the settler in case things went wrong with the bear, but fortunately the bear finally decided to move away, so I was able to settle Bombay as planned. :

- Our warrior 1 then started moving North to reach the forested hill. But soon he realized that the place was a bit crowded...

But our brave warrior managed to defeat both Lions and gain the Woodsman I promotion, only to be ambushed by a Bear!

Thanks to all the defense bonus, I still had > 85% survival odds, but our Warrior lost anyway .
Now, losing such a battle happens, but seeing the bear survive with full health is a tad bit irritating....


Scouting (continued) :
Aside from all the action happening in the northern part of our land, Warrior 2 was still exploring Eastwards. Here are a couple of shots of the land revealed :

Meanwhile, Warrior 3 had started moving North to replace Warrior 1, but soon our good friend the Bear reared its ugly head again. I chose to fight him in a forest behind a river (~75% odds) and this time our warrior was succesful. You can see him healing on one of the shots below.


T42-2320BC :
In Delhi and Bombay, everything is going according to plan :

Diplomatically, everything is also going according to the plan, i.e. it's pretty bad... :

And finally, a general view of the situation when I stopped :



Remarks :
- Maintenance has not changed since the numbers I gave to kossin above.
- I got carried away with Warrior 2 : I think he moved too much east, now the worker/settler for city 3 may be in danger next turn. Otoh, Hammy's scout just spent the last 2 turns in the fog North of the Gold so he was spawnbusting for us. There's always the possibility to take Warior 3 down if worse comes to worst.
- I don't think I'll have any more time to test/prepare a PPP/play in the next days/weeks, so....next player, please !!!

Well done, Bebekija. Do you have time to update the test game?

On the score, it's a shame that I can't figure out a reasonable explanation.

If anyone want to take the next set, please say so.

Well done

According to the roster, you're up next Duckweed, are you in need of a swap? (not that I'm volunteering )

Looking good so far. I take it we're planning on settling 1NW of the Gold?

EDIT 2 : came back home and tested this, and I'm absolutely clueless about what they did.
I can grow to Pop 2 but not get 2 warriors out by T20 at the same time. Even working the gems from turn 1, Poly takes 11 turns to complete...but then the worker takes 20 turns. How they managed it in 10 turns is beyond me.

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Did not test or anything but what if they settled on the corn ?

Edit: (throwing stupid ideas out of my @$$ as I am unfamiliar with the numbers / scores)
It is very possible that some teams saw the deer on T1 (move warrior 1NE) and decided to settle 1NW to grab the Deer, The corn and the Stone. No idea what kind of consequence it can have on those graphs though

On settling city 3, I'd go with 1W of gold.
It's going to be fun to culture crush Osaka

I can take the next set if Duckweed is too lazy for it

1N of the Gold would be far better than 1W if we're going for a long-term plant, I think.

Bebekija said:

So what all this means is that by T20, they were able to grow to P2 and build two warriors, while researching Poly in 10 turns and another tech, probably Agri.

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This is very perplexing. Polytheism should not be researchable in 10 turns right out of the gate in this game, that's for sure. Perhaps there was a mistake with different difficulty levels accidentally being set for the different saves? That's the only way I can see that they could have researched the same tech faster than us on the same map. Surely such a basic mistake wouldn't have happened though... right?!

AFAIK they're all the same save. [each start save]

As with always, it's interesting to try to guess what's happening from the graph but we only have to play our own game

^^ Sure, but this is really puzzling, I'd almost retire from this game just to go check at their thread instead of waiting for 4 months...(kiddin' ).

@Duckweed : I can make the test game but not before this weekend I'm afraid. So if you guys are not in too much of a hurry I will gladly do it. Otherwise, feel free to do it and ask me whatever you need to make it accurate.

@soundjata : I assume you meant 1East of the Gold, didn't you? Cause 1W seems really bad...As for culture push on Toku, I'm not sure. He's going to DOW us eventually but we don't want that to happen too early so we probably should try to be nice to him at first.

Regarding city 3 : I'll reserve my final vote until I've been able to test the different options with the test game, but for now I'd probably settle 1N of the Gold. The long-term benefits are huge compared to the other sites.

kossin said:

AFAIK they're all the same save. [each start save]

As with always, it's interesting to try to guess what's happening from the graph but we only have to play our own game

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Sure, but this is a competition isn't it? And if it seems that some teams are doing a thing which appears to be impossible judging from our version of the save, then you have to wonder if we're playing on even ground here.

I can assure everyone that they are playing within the rules.

neilmeister said:

I can assure everyone that they are playing within the rules.

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And their saves were identical to ours?

If so, there must be some sneaky trick somewhere, because there's definitely no way to get 156 beakers in 10 turns with this land right out of the gate.

Lord Parkin said:

And their saves were identical to ours?

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@ Bebe:
Yes, I meant 1E of Gold.