SGOTM 19 - Also Sprach Sid

Good opening!

If we can wait some hours today, I'll get a few runs later in the day to be able to voice opinions.

soundjata said:

Good first set, we'll get a worker soon unless he's protected by an archer.

How many turns are expected until Alpha?

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http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13047096&postcount=38, with careful micro and the potential free worker, ~T33 with sugar site as 2nd city.

Where we at y'all?


To decide

Oracle: go/no-go? We need to know now because it might influence our tech choice. Should we estimate roughly our chance of landing it and decide from there? (quick test by kossin)

Tech: candidates that have been brought up are Alpha and Aesthetics or Poly>PH. This may or may not depend on wether we decide to go for Oracle (going for Oracle means Alpha, but not going for Oracle doesn't mean no Alpha if you follow my drift)


To validate

Duckweed's micro to Turn 17 (+1 from me)

Oracle is almost a guarantee if we research PH by ourselves, we could get it before T30. The question is that we are looking for the biggest return possible, with an acceptable success chance. Currency is best, Aes is an alternative. Aes is not the candidate of the opening tech choice, but Poly->PH is.

Edit: @all I hope to hear your voices in 24 hours after I posted my PPP (tonight). I am expecting your feed back about the PPP, but there's no sense of wasting time for air.

Self-teching Poly (162 B) + PH (97 B) and investing 150H (75 with Marble?) for Aesth (487 B) doesn't sound very profitable. We do get a return, but neither very big nor decisive.

Going for Alpha won't be a waste in any case. And if we do land the Oracle, we'll get Currency. The risk is higher but the loss severity is lower and the potential return higher. I'm 75% enclined to think Alpha > self-teching PH

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I did a bit more testing RE tech Alpha ~T33 and AI Oracle dates. (make contact with every AI, dump EP, press end turn button x times)


1st set of AIs/1st map



2nd set of AIs/2nd map



3rd set of AIs/3rd map


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Aiming for a T38 Oracle gives us a very good risk/investment/return balance IMO

Is it possible reasonable?

If we get Alpha on T33, then we could get Oracle on T34.

Trade Med/Poly on T33, Whip something in 2nd city with enough OF
T34, Trade PH, starts Oracle, chop 3 forests

I'm off to bed

BTW what's your time zones y'all? I get confused.

Doshin: American?
Duckweed: (?)
Folket: Europe (Sweden)
kossin: American (Canada)
pomthom: Europe (France/UK)
The jata: Asian (Singapore)

Canada/ON
Kossin is in Quebec if he has not moved.

Duckweed said:

Canada/ON
Kossin is in Quebec if he has not moved.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Duckweed said:

If we get Alpha on T33, then we could get Oracle on T34.

Trade Med/Poly on T33, Whip something in 2nd city with enough OF
T34, Trade PH, starts Oracle, chop 3 forests

Click to expand...

If the Worker micro works, I like the idea (even T35/36 is reasonable I think)

Night!

Sure let's gamble on Alphabet. Even if we miss Oracle, then we still get a decent return with Alphabet.

I'll review micro a bit later...

pomthom said:

I'm off to bed

BTW what's your time zones y'all? I get confused.

Doshin: American?
Duckweed: (?)
Folket: Europe (Sweden)
kossin: American (Canada)
pomthom: Europe (France/UK)
The jata: Asian (Singapore)

Click to expand...

Greater China atm.
Vietnam normally.
France soonish.

Ran a quick test and got T32 Alphabet with 3 cities settled and 4th settler available (or w/e else).

I don't think we can improve micro suggested either.

Fire away Duckweed

Treat Asoka right

Played another 5 turns and paused

T7 Capture a worker on Rice.



T8 Asoka got Buddhism

T10 Pause since Oracle is gone. Tired of comment, some teams beeline PH are going to be mad.



Updated map, Asoka's capital is a great GP farm.



The question now is "Do we want to continue on Alpha or switch to another tech".

Edit: A little update of the micro since we have an extra free worker now. If everything goes smoothly, that worker will arrive the forest south of the Sugar 2 turns later, I'd suggest to road that tile immediately->cottage the FP for a turn->improve the Corn together with the original worker.

So there are some strange things going in the fog. Perhaps an AI got a few free GPs.

Alphabet makes most sense I think, it's pretty much the same as SGOTM17 now.

I don't think Axe-rush Asoka is good idea, with Agg. AI, current war and holy religion, that capital will be bloody to take. Unless we can lure out Archers... ?

Not exactly the same, we wanted to trade for IW badly in SGOTM17, here we are looking for TGL powered GP farm.

As I planned from beginning, we want to farm his workers and weaken him 1st. If we could bribe someone to DOW him, we could take his great capital with little cost (less than 5 axes for sure).

I'll continue on tomorrow night to allow others to react.

Good night.

G'night... wish I could sleep this early

It would be nice if you uploaded the save every time you play so that we may have a look. The photobucket pictures have so low resolution I have a hard time reading details.

I think we should be able to keep Asoka from getting copper or horses. So we may expand safely and attack him when we are ready.

Nice start. Losing the Oracle is not the worst thing, provided that it affects all the teams. I spy a Horse near Asoka. That's the only risk to our Woodsman II Axe adventures.

The tech issue is difficult because I assume that, unlike SGOTM 17, we are not playing in semi-isolation. This means that another AI will soon research Alphabet on our behalf. Moreover, Alphabet will (likely) only open up Meditation/Polytheism, Priesthood, and Iron Working, none of which we need. The main advantage is that it will enable a bribe on Asoka.

Was a religious tech taken with The Oracle? The AI can get confused by strange settings. In SGOTM 18, Mansa bulbed Monotheism with a Great Prophet.

If we research Aesthetics, we will most likely need to self-tech Polytheism. It is unlikely that the AI will go to Alphabet before IW (Willem, Darius, and Elizabeth do, in my experience). However, beelining Aesthetics will greatly increase the likelihood that we will be the first to Music, even if we need to self-tech Polytheism.

At the moment I am inclined to switch to Aesthetics, but I'll think it over tonight. Alpha offers limited backfilling and the potential for bribes. Mathematics is another possibility, but the boost of +50% chops is lessened thanks to our Worker farm (Asoka) and the Imperialistic trait (easy Settler whips).

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pomthom said:

I'm off to bed

BTW what's your time zones y'all? I get confused.

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Canada now, US (EST) normally, UK sometimes.

I like Math first for the better chops.
Chopping a library and assigning a couple of scientists seems like a good source of early beakers.
We could maybe go Math>Aesthetics and be on-time for the alpha trade?

What is the best AI BPT currently?
Is beelining The Great Library better than beelining Calendar?