SGOTM 21 - Jag älskar er

I like the idea of archery, putting archers in the queue, and only actually building warriors. Fog busting wouldn't be too hard on the setup.

The more I think about horse city, the more it sucks. The workboat can go two more spaces before it has to return for Sötnos. If it finds fish that might change thinking. It hasn't moved yet so I could do that and upload again. OK?

I like moving the workboat then reupload.

You made a test game earlier, did you include the explored land in the west?

My test game would need to be updated with the western land. More importantly, I wasn't able to play it to the start of my turnset accurately.

I didn't bother uploading. It's just a whale. And more lousy tundra.



p.s. ignore the random "move to" stuff in my screenshots. It has to do with the way the Mac takes screenshots of the Windows desktop. I'm always very careful not to click the words "move to" to accidentally send a unit on an across the world trip.

so, the healthbar thing is just eyeballing. Makes sense, I can do that.

Ugh, the horses are in a bad place. Please move them before the next turnset. I prefer 2E of the cow, but I can be flexible here.

Seriously though, we need horses for scouting. I generally don't like using horses for military purposes (poor defense), but I know at least one of you has experience doing it and I will lean on you. And I don't see a better (defensible) city right now, and probably won't until iron working. I do like the defensibly and commerce from putting a city on an island, but we don't have sailing yet, and I think we have the economy to build another city before sailing. So, I say go with a horse city. Good arguments against, though, so maybe no city? I mean, yes, that is a horrible city, but are we really better off with no city?

I agree with keeping EP on Willem.

I had been thinking no need to find more on the peninsula, go find another civ, because we will settle near there anyway at some point, and it doesn't matter what else we find... but if we find another resource we may want to settle something there first, as it would be easily defensible. Maybe 'wasting' the 4 or 5 turns to be sure might be worth it.

Whales! Let's beeline Optics and spam Markets!!!

That horse really is in a bad location. Probably on purpose, because last two SGOTMs have been all about HA rushing. All forests are tundra for 4 turn chops...

2E1N of horse is not that bad. Can borrow cow for growth and do 16 base hammers at pop 7 with horse, 2 farms and 4 mines. It won't ever get much better than that, though. And it competes with Cow city for the hills. But Cow city could run scientists instead...

We should be able to fogbust the northern part of our peninsula with 3 warriors, which is good. Just have to kill the archers there first. I'd fortify Warrior 3W of current location for now and hope the archer attacks us in the forest across the river. I don't see much use in unfogging that last tile SE of warrior. We won't be putting a city there soon no matter what he could find there.

Warrior 4 could be heading NW along the forest hills, to give the archer another chance to commit suicide.

Since the land would be so easy to keep barb free, I almost prefer another warrior over Workboat. Would be nice to know that there won't be coming any barbs at us from that direction. With this land layout, the workboat would have to move very far before it can find something new.

Here is where I have no experience: *How* evil is the mapmaker? As in, if we have no copper, Horse is 'almost' inaccessible, is there hidden iron close by? That would solve all our problems... but it is high investment. In a regular game, I would be sure there would be some iron, because the game won't put me in a spot without easy access to at least one strategic resource. Especially with a unique unit that requires it, but even without.

No strategic resource close by adds a whole additional layer to the complexity of an already mysteriously complex game. It seems frivolous. So, anyone here bold enough to try to channel the mind and heart of our game designers? Or would we need to send an exorcist to their home afterward?

BSP said something earlier about "having fun watching us try to avoid the unavoidable". Maybe that was about teching archery?

I don't really mind teching archery in this spot. If we take horses with city 4, we are one tech closer to HAs.

The tundra land is probably barb haven, so we can expect a bunch of them coming from there in a while.

The north I'd like to see fully fog busted before barb axes appear, which is not very long from now.

But yes, the mapmaker is evil. Think something like, if Shaka and Sauron mated, then their kid would have his lunch money stolen by the mapmaker in school.

I haven't heard any plan for horse city that leads me to believe archery shouldn't be our next tech. If we don't settle on horse river, we have to have the wheel to connect the horses. That's a non-starter - the time it would take to tech the wheel and found the city is just too long. And that city would be a huge drain on our economy - no commerce producing tiles, and without sailing it's forever and a day from our capital.

So, I'm leaning toward producing a PPP that includes the following features:

1) Fogbust the north. Bring back the exploring warrior. Build another warrior in Hjärtet.

2) Defend ourselves. Research archery. Queue up archers in our border cities and put one turn of hammers into them so they are available to whip.

3) Research sailing. This map is crying out for The Great Lighthouse. Let's build it sooner rather than later. A lighthouse in our capital is a good thing. All our cities will benefit from the trade routes. The plains hill island could be a monster with a lighthouse and the Moai Statues. With three gem mines and seafood and lakes, we'll be researching the wheel and pottery and writing before you know it.

4) Prepare to build city 4 on an island. Set up for a settler and a boat as soon as sailing is researched. Forget those horses. They aren't worth it. They're a trap.

5) Build another worker in the capital. This land is going to take a lot of developing. There are trees to chop, hills to mine, and eventually roads and cottages to build.

Reactions?

We'd need the wheel anyway to do anything with the horses.

I don't think we should forget the horses, but maybe we don't need them just yet.. To know we really would need to know how close our closest neighbors are. There might still be copper or something in the north also. But if horse is our only strategic resource we really need it. We don't want to archerpult our way out of here.

Otherwise plan sounds good. Let's just say: forget horses for now.

Try not to chop all forests, save some for when we have Maths and need units.

Are we planning to put TGL in capital?

Heh, archerpult. That's a new one for me. Agreed, archerpults are bad. Yes, I would like to put The Great Lighthouse in the capital. It will be in a position to build it before any other city, and if we plant an island city fast, it will be a wonderful thing.

I'm not interested in encouraging a culture of keeping up with the Jones's here, but I wonder about PR and TSR (or anyone) not having as high power numbers, and obviously having more cities... Are we overemphasizing the barb threat? Or maybe they are not paying close enough attention? Pretend they never lost their scout, and pretend that their strategy is correct: what could their scout have possibly uncovered that would lower our need for fogbusting? Is there anything?

If waiting for a galley before we settle city 4 would bring faster research and faster expansion in the long run, then I obviously approve, but that seems like along time. How many beakers is sailing now? Do we really have enough productive things to do in the meantime to not be 'wasting' time waiting for sailing?

I agree that there is a lot of worker tasks to be done here, and the mission tells me that workers are even more valuable than usual, especially with Willem being close (need to check the EP spending from earlier saves now, to be 100% on that), so I agree that workers are going to be a good investment for a while.

On turn 9, Willem had spent every EP thus far (36) on us. As earlier noted, on turn 28, he had spent 80 on us and 32 on Shaka. Shaka had spent 6 on us.

The columns headings are: Willem spent on us, Shaka spent on Willem, Willem spent on Shaka, Shaka spent on us
82 42 33 7
84 42 34 8
88 42 34 9
92 42 34 10
96 42 34 11
100 42 34 12
- - - -
108 42 34 14
112 42 34 15

Tried to make a table, but I can't figure out columns. Doesn't seem to like the html tag [td], anyone know what the right tag is?

Anyway, with the missing 18 turns, we don't know much. Here's what we do know:
Willem knows at least 1 other civ, and spent 1 EP on them on turn 29. Shaka knows at least one other civ, and has been spending 3 EP on them since turn 28.

Without more data, we can't be sure, but I will guess that Willem finds himself in the middle of [at least] three civs on peninsulas, that the other civ (could be two separate civs, but assuming only one is easier for my little mind right now) is on another peninsula like us, met Willem first, and then went down Shaka's peninsula before ours 'accidentally', just as Shaka 'accidentally' scouted toward us. Could be a more round landmass, but same principle. Somebody is in the middle of at least 3 other civs. And putting Shaka in the middle doesn't make the game any more interesting, and would mean that some teams he attacks early, others he leaves alone for a long time while he goes after other civs. Not a scenario desired in SGOTM, as I understand it. The last possibility is that separate units made Willem/Shaka contact than the scout that we saw. Can't plan for that, so I won't.

Whatever the case, does this mean that we are in fact over-emphasizing fog busting and the barbarian threat? We do know that there are at least 4 civs on our continent, and while we don't know the size of it, those 4 are coming together before turn 30. Sounds pretty small to me.

I don't have the experience with Immortal barbarians you four have, so I really do want to defer to you on this, I just want to make sure we aren't wasting time and production on a threat blown out of proportion by a bear and bad luck.

No way of knowing what the north shore looks like at this point, but I 'feel' like it goes straight west and then south to connect with the coast we can already see. If that is the case, then those 2 lakes can become our first choke point, and 3 warriors can fog bust the rest of our area perfectly. Anyone else seeing flood plains hidden at the mouth of the river that heads north from H?

The religion screen tells us that the 2 religions were indeed founded in separate cities. The resolutions screen tells us that there are now 60 population points in the world.

I didn't realize that Sailing was only 162 beakers (6 turns), and Archery only 97 beakers (3 turns). Too much marathon speed for me.

Is it poor etiquette to post multiple times in a row, without anyone else posting in between? I am not good enough yet to have a system of what to examine first, and always know what I am going to post, but if I am being rude I will just edit my posts to add on. I seem to recall a few years back hearing that 'double posting' was frowned upon somewhere, but I don't remember where, why, or who told me that.

ecawilson said:

Is it poor etiquette to post multiple times in a row, without anyone else posting in between? I am not good enough yet to have a system of what to examine first, and always know what I am going to post, but if I am being rude I will just edit my posts to add on. I seem to recall a few years back hearing that 'double posting' was frowned upon somewhere, but I don't remember where, why, or who told me that.

Click to expand...

Don't worry about it. Of course it is easier to address all your points if they are in a single thread, but don't hesitate to post again if you thought of something else. Some people use the "edit" function to add something they think of later... but sometimes if we already read the post we won't notice the edit.

Forum forces 30 seconds between posts, so if your mind is scurrying, the edit function might be the only way to keep up.

ChrisShaffer said:

I haven't heard any plan for horse city that leads me to believe archery shouldn't be our next tech. If we don't settle on horse river, we have to have the wheel to connect the horses. That's a non-starter - the time it would take to tech the wheel and found the city is just too long. And that city would be a huge drain on our economy - no commerce producing tiles, and without sailing it's forever and a day from our capital.

So, I'm leaning toward producing a PPP that includes the following features:

1) Fogbust the north. Bring back the exploring warrior. Build another warrior in Hjärtet.

2) Defend ourselves. Research archery. Queue up archers in our border cities and put one turn of hammers into them so they are available to whip.

3) Research sailing. This map is crying out for The Great Lighthouse. Let's build it sooner rather than later. A lighthouse in our capital is a good thing. All our cities will benefit from the trade routes. The plains hill island could be a monster with a lighthouse and the Moai Statues. With three gem mines and seafood and lakes, we'll be researching the wheel and pottery and writing before you know it.

4) Prepare to build city 4 on an island. Set up for a settler and a boat as soon as sailing is researched. Forget those horses. They aren't worth it. They're a trap.

5) Build another worker in the capital. This land is going to take a lot of developing. There are trees to chop, hills to mine, and eventually roads and cottages to build.

Reactions?

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Moai statues is usually a bad investment in sgotm. It takes too many hammers and you recover the investment quite slowly working a few coastal tiles. If you anticipate a 300t game, then ok, you are anticipating wooden spoons. The availability of stone could change the economics of Moai, but I don't see any about.

We need to explore more to know how much it would cost to fogbust versus defend. Capitol should whip/overflow units or lighthouses into the GLH and build workers and settlers to fade the misery caused.

I don't like making assumptions about locations of other civs. Nothing indicates Willem is on our landmass. Even shaka's scout could have been placed on our continent while his settler is not. Mapmakers are devious but do not try to deceive you from good strategy, so I would say we share landmass with shaka is a good assumption. The rest... we have no idea. Civs can have contact without being on the same land. Civs can have contact by intentional or accidental mapmaker shenanigans.

We will start facing barb axes soon, too, as all ai are likely to get bw in short order. We need archery, as the mapmakers have certainly manipulated strategic resources (always), and we cannot guess where iron might be.

Fogbusting and exploring are synergetic, and that is the best approach. warriors are cheap.

I would not settle an island for its defense capabilities but for its trade routes. If we are having our cities attacked by units, we are probably losing. We are surely not taking the initiative. But without exploring, we do not know much about what good initiatives to take.

GLH would be very useful - but much less so if we do not have sea lanes to foreign cities. Oracle is also very useful, even if we only get metalcasting--barb galleys will come if we don't fogbust the coasts.

Exploring far with workboat is potentially a big advantage. The window of opportunity is not infinite to do so. But if we go sailing-masonry, we can have galleys... which we need to settle an island anyhow.

If I were (as an evil mapmaker) to guess where to put the iron on this map, it would be in the horse area or in another crappy city site area.

Strategy really depends on the land, and we don't see enough of it.

So much for my random thoughts...

I agree with Chris general outline for a PPP, minus any mention of Moai.

kcd_swede said:

Nothing indicates Willem is on our landmass.

Click to expand...

AlanH said:

You are in contact with him from the start and you will be on the same continent.

Click to expand...

@eca: to make a table use the [TABLE][/TABLE] tags. I write the table in excel (actually OpenOffice) and copy/paste the cells from there, then put those tags around. Nothing else is needed. Not sure how to write a table directly in the reply window as the tab button doesn't work in the message field.

ecawilson said:

Whatever the case, does this mean that we are in fact over-emphasizing fog busting and the barbarian threat? We do know that there are at least 4 civs on our continent, and while we don't know the size of it, those 4 are coming together before turn 30. Sounds pretty small to me.

I don't have the experience with Immortal barbarians you four have, so I really do want to defer to you on this, I just want to make sure we aren't wasting time and production on a threat blown out of proportion by a bear and bad luck.

Click to expand...

I think we over-emphasizing barbarian here. Warriors would be enough until axes appear. In my test game i didn't see any and they lasted until turn 100. Even if barb have BW I think they will be rare in the begining. An alternative plan for skipping archery is to fogbust so that an axeman never could get more than 5 turns from our city. If we have an extremely bad luck and he shows up we could switch to archery and have an archer 4turns later.

For economy the alternative as i see it is:

TGL first:Sailing-masony-TW-pottery-writing
Cottage+TGL first:TW-pottery-Sailing-masony-writing
Lib+TGL first:writing-Sailing-masony-TW-pottery
Lib+Cottage first:TW-pottery-writing-Sailing-masony

Where library and TGL should be built is not definite. But library-academy first gives a better economy in the short run. I think we should do carefully testing here. Another note is that I never seen TGL been built before t70 either. AI usually goes for GWall or Mids when they have masony.

I think we should settle horse city at some point 4 good tiles plus TGL trade routes makes it not a economy crasher and horses might be good in the long run, even if not against Shaka.

To deal with Shaka we could bribe him on Will then backstab him, kill him and then hopefully take half of Wills land without loosing our good relation with him.