SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

Xcalibrator said:

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?

Click to expand...

Another possibility is that this extra culture is to make very difficult to take Tokugawa's second city, since City Flip After Conquest is enabled. I've never played with that option, but I am guessing it will be hard to keep Osaka without also capturing Kyoto. This is another argument in favor of putting our city near Osaka. Our culture may help prevent it flipping after capture.

Not to change the subject, but I'm confused about the unrestricted leaders business. What traits (Agg, Org, etc.), attitudes (courage, peace probability, etc.), UU, and UB does Toku of Babylon have? Is it Toku's traits and attitudes and Babylon's unique unit and building? Or...

AAA said:

Is that something to do with whipping?

Click to expand...

Yes, one reason.

Also you're tied to health/happy cap and there are so many tiles we want to work here that if we had perfect spacing we'd be leaving valuable tiles idle.

Xcalibrator said:

Not to change the subject, but I'm confused about the unrestricted leaders business. What traits (Agg, Org, etc.), attitudes (courage, peace probability, etc.), UU, and UB does Toku of Babylon have? Is it Toku's traits and attitudes and Babylon's unique unit and building? Or...

Click to expand...

Everything is tied to leader. Forget the civ other than UU/UB.

Rusten said:

Everything is tied to leader. Forget the civ other than UU/UB.

Click to expand...

Starting techs are also tied to the Civ, not leader, right? If so, then both the Reference and Game Report posts are finally up to date again! If there are any additional screenshots, etc. you'd like to have links, please let me know.

So, who wants to take the lead for the next round? The main things we need to decide are:

• Next tech
• Where to settle City#2
• (When) do we want to build more units to defend against or harass the Tokus?
• Where should our NW warrior, Drona, go and (when) should he finish healing?
• Where will City#3 go?

Testing and/or spreadsheets to optimize builds and worker actions would be great. Without doing any more tests (which I hope to do, but it may be a couple days), I'd vote for BW next and sticking to our plan for City#2 east of the gold. Drona should move NW, move a little more if he can get a better view of the Babylon city, then heal fully and continue exploring. It might be safest to follow in the Japan scout's footsteps. City#3 should probably go either west by the gems or NW to get the deer and gold. We'd probably like a warrior to defend/fogbust the NW chokepoint before long, but we should definitely finish the Bollywood FW first so he can finish the grass hill mine. We won't need a unit to defend/pacify Bolly for quite awhile.

Yes, the starting techs, UU, and UB and all civ-dependent. The Game reports and Refrerence posts look good. I might suggest adding VoU's religion article kcd cited for the reference list.

I'd be happy to play the next round (unless someone else really wants it). I agree we need some testing (or at least discussion ) on where we are going. Not only for the next set, but more long term. Are we going for the Oracle? Probably. If so, what tech do we want it for? Theology for AP? Is that going to be the source of our GPP? Etc. Edit: Tokugawa doesn't prioritize wonders very much, in my experience, so we might have more leeway on wonders if everybody is Tokugawa (need to check this).

The major problem I see is that, if Harruragawa blocks us with coastal cities, we may not be able to expand past the area we have currently explored until Optics (assuming he won't open borders with us, and we can get around him via ocean tiles), unless we go to war.
Edit: We probably will go to war anyway, but I was thinking more about the consequences of the City Flipping and No City Razing combination. On the other hand, it's possible that I am over-thinking the ramifications of this, and that it might not be much of a hindrance at all.

In the short term, my current responses to your decision points are: 1. tech BW as planned, 2. settle gold/sheep as planned, 3. build some warriors for defense/spawnbusting, and to let Bollywood grow, after the current FW build, 4. I would try to follow the forest tiles and get Drona around Hammuragawa, so we can meet more Tokugawa clones, and 5. city #3 will depend on our longer term plan. (maybe block off the North?)

Trystero said:

Edit: Tokugawa doesn't prioritize wonders very much, in my experience, so we might have more leeway on wonders if everybody is Tokugawa (need to check this).

Click to expand...

In my experience he does. I've played some games where I was surprised that he was the wonder hog guy. Maybe it happens if he has stone.
kcd also pointed out that the Toku twins could be bookends to hamper our early wars/expansions and we shuoldn't assume all the AIs are Toku.

I checked DanF's XML variables chart when I got home. Toku's value for wonder-building (iWonderConstructRand) is 20. It's a 0 to 50 range, and 24 is the average. Sitting Bull scores 0 and Ramesses is a 50. So, it's not as low as I thought.

gOOD that Trystero brings up the Oracle. By going AH+BW (and wheel, probably)the CS-sling (needing PH, writing, CoL, and Math) doesn't seem feasible. And if we not have metals its less useful. We should watch what turn the Stonehenge is built to see how fast the ai are prioritizing wonders.

Will we build Oracle at 3 cities or? What tech to get? MetalCasting perhaPS? Construction? If we want to secure the AP early, we could take anything and then use the Gpro for bulbing Theo, or we could Oracle Theo itself. In a religion game earlier AP is preferred. But I don't think were going for religion VC, so using a gpro to bulb theo is enough. If we are going culture, taking CoL is OK... otherwise I'd rather have the ai found more religions.

We'd like to meet more neighbors for trading techs... so getting past the Tokus with explorers is a good idea ifstill possible without war.

Make sure dotmap has at least one coastal city or we could be in trouble... but no hurry. Block the north quickly instead.

IIRC, the AI first cities were pre-settled by gamemaker, so could have any number of culture buildings. As for city2 placement, we should design it to be as good as it can be without the corn. We will have few cities to build an army from. The early stages of city2 are therefore more useful to me than its longterm prospects. I think that's what AAA is advocating with gold/dear/sheep. The optimal city as Rusten advocates will not be optimal until we kill something.

I'll abide by whatever you guys judge best, though. How much longterm invest versus short term gains are we working for? Are we planning a spaced race or something?

I tend to agree that working unimproved gold is sub-optimal. My own rule of thumb is food first.

Watch that we remain Babylon Toku's worst enemy. He could theoretically be at war with an unmet player (the fist) and we drop out of WE status. I expect that he is preparing war against us, though. Neil is trying to make this difficult for us.

Has anyone checked the espiuonage spending against us to see if he know anyone beside us and toku? Is that even possible?

I'm back for one day, then gone until Sunday evening. Will try to update the test game tonight.

I think cities 2 and 3 should be placed to optimize territory blocking. I support Bronze Working as the next technology. Drone should explore, not bother with healing. Need to find as much territory as possible quckly.

Trystero said:

I might suggest adding VoU's religion article kcd cited for the reference list.

Click to expand...

Yup, I pointed it out under "OSS/RRRaskolnikov SGOTM13 Ref list (Includes VOU's Religion spread)."

That would be great if you can play next, Trys. I'll update the test game tonight. [Xpost with Chris. I'll definitely do an update, but Chris's would be better so please try.]

I can't think ahead to Oracle yet--gotta see if we have copper (and how nasty our neighbors are). Agreed on blocking Japan, and then settling somewhere in the NW to block/defend against Babylon. And on exploring in the NW while we can.

kcd said:

As for city2 placement, we should design it to be as good as it can be without the corn. We will have few cities to build an army from. The early stages of city2 are therefore more useful to me than its longterm prospects. I think that's what AAA is advocating with gold/dear/sheep. The optimal city as Rusten advocates will not be optimal until we kill something...I tend to agree that working unimproved gold is sub-optimal. My own rule of thumb is food first.

Click to expand...

Osaka is not connected by river or road so it won't (?) get religion yet. Can we assume it'll build a monument first? (Gotta get that test game ready.) kcd, are you saying we should settle to get the deer in our BFC? I think I'd rather settle as planned and farm some river grass tiles when we need more food. Losing the corn would/will hurt, but this can still be a very good production city.

Regarding the corn, should we culturally fight for it? Even being able to use it (when farmed) for 10 turns would give us a big leg up. I'd bet we can pop our borders before Osaka, especially if we chop or mine the gold before doing the pasture, but then that delays our growth, which is self-defeating. Needs testing...

Espionage: I don't know how to interpret the numbers for clever insights.

Also, could you add a link to the post with the discovery of pre-settling and all-Buddhist? It was this one:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11205363&postcount=97

I support settling 1E of gold to overlap the corn. It would be nice if Tokugawa would farm it for us, before we culture flip it.

Chris, I've added that link in the Game Report.

I've updated the test game through our status at T33. I haven't added the presumed Babylonian city. The rivers are ... not horrible now, but need some fixin'. And the test game shows 13 turns to BW vs 12 in the real game. Have at it:

Sorry, I don't think I can update the test game today. I'll be back on Monday, in town for 5 days, should have time to do it then. Until that, thanks to Xc for the updates.

Xcalibrator said:

Chris, I've added that link in the Game Report.

I've updated the test game through our status at T33. I haven't added the presumed Babylonian city. The rivers are ... not horrible now, but need some fixin'. And the test game shows 13 turns to BW vs 12 in the real game. Have at it:

Click to expand...

Thanks Xcal, I love playing around with the test game.

You said you wanted a contrarian, so here goes. In terms of the placement of the city, I still disagree with the idea of going after the corn and trying to block Toku in. There is only going to be war with Toku (maybe if we could bribe him, but we can't for quite awhile - he'll attack long before that). It is better for us if he puts his efforts into spreading for awhile and not on military build up. We want to pick the time of the war and we want him spread out when we attack. And if we think neil is going stiffed us in terms of all military resources maybe we should testing for feudalism with the oracle.

Nice outside-the-boxed-in thinking!

What's the alternative? We want the gold and sheep. We can win a defensive war until we have catapults. - right?
We want him kept small. We do not want to fight both 'gawas simultaneously!

Something to think about.

Deckhand said:

Nice outside-the-boxed-in thinking!

What's the alternative? We want the gold and sheep. We can win a defensive war until we have catapults. - right?
We want him kept small. We do not want to fight both 'gawas simultaneously!

Something to think about.

Click to expand...

Deckhand said:

Nice outside-the-boxed-in thinking!

What's the alternative? We want the gold and sheep. We can win a defensive war until we have catapults. - right?
We want him kept small. We do not want to fight both 'gawas simultaneously!

Something to think about.

Click to expand...

We can hold our cities against Japan in a war before catapults (unless he has horse/metals), but we would get choked until we have something that can kill pro-archers. Babylonian bowmen would eat us up right now... we'd need to get archery to hold (but probably be choked).

War is bad for us until we have metal units or catapults.

Not much we can do about the WHEEORN yet... I hope Neil arranged that every team faces this so early, but frankly I think its a random thing and we are royally reamed. If BW reveals no copper, perhaps IW next to reveal no iron? Maybe then we could Oracle Machinery. But without iron that's not much fun either. With Iron, XBows make very good Bowmen-killers.


Perhaps it is time to link to Attacko's Treatise of Unconventional Civ4 Mechanics... a Fast Worker swarm should do the trick in the coming war.

But blocking is necessary, though the locations should be chosen with other purposes taking priority. If we do not block the Toku's, we risk not being able to get a metal that is revealed. Make sure BW is finished in time to settle and settler is finished in time when copper revealed. Strat resource top prio, I think.
And we do not really want to let the AI decide where all the cities on our continent will be placed forevermore.

If we settle for the corn, yes, I think monument first is a good idea.

In any case... our strategic thinking should definitely be along military lines. Think Dom victory, because that WHEEOHRN means we are going to be fighting soon. Might as well win the fight - I think that would be optimal compared to alternatives.

Religious VC possibility: capture Bhudist AP, make a friend, spread Bhudism to us and friend, grow pop, and win vote. Somehow I think that won't be easy. And the killing comes first.

I notice no other team has begun powering up yet. But nobody else has gotten farther than us in the game, so it doesn't mean anything.

Sorry - work has been crazy, so I haven't had time to run through na test game and put together a PPP yet. I think the next set seems fairly straightword, but I will put together a proposal for you all to look over.

kcd_swede said:

But blocking is necessary, though the locations should be chosen with other purposes taking priority. If we do not block the Toku's, we risk not being able to get a metal that is revealed. Make sure BW is finished in time to settle and settler is finished in time when copper revealed. Strat resource top prio, I think.
And we do not really want to let the AI decide where all the cities on our continent will be placed forevermore.

Click to expand...

I think we decided the sheep/gold spot was a good place for a city even before we knew about the corn, and it has nice production potential, so I still favor that spot.

If we settle for the corn, yes, I think monument first is a good idea.

Click to expand...

I think this is true if we settle to block as well. We need the quick border pop.

I agree that the plan should be to have the next settler time with the completion of BW, so we can settle accordingly. I will make that my primary objective in planning.

Sorry that my test game won't be able to tell you exactly when we get BW--I think the problem is the lack of contact with a 2nd civ, Japan not having the proper techs, etc. The test game production rates are correct, however. For now, a spreadsheet is the only way to get the right beakerage. I hope to figure out the WB business this weekend so I can replay from T0 and get everything correct but you shouldn't hold your breath since I'm a raw novice at this.

I'm sorta getting the hang of this WB stuff but ... Somewhere along the line you have to edit the WB file manually, right? To reset the turn, change the civs and leaders, reset the espionage, etc., right? Gah!! In my new and improved test game the Babylonians look like Arabs, and I think I should have deleted Japan's worker (he may have an extra) but at least our beakers and hammers are correct now, so it's a good test game from the point of view of seeing how long it takes us to build, improve, and research stuff.

Edit: D'oh. The eastern warrior is in the wrong place (no big deal) and I forgot to add Japan's new city. Eh, just add it yerself. ^W, Player something (choose Japan), Buildings/city, click, the exit WB (uppermost right).