SGOTM 07 - Murky Waters

Also, am I correct that the AI will never demand a resource you only have one of, so we don't have to worry about giving our strategic marble/stone (which presumably count >100) unless we conciously decide to do that?
Yes. And strategic resources do count more, but it's a complicated calculation (depending on all buildings and units made possible or sped up, minus obsolete ones and modified by how many eras they are in the future).

Finally on the PA - does the mechanics mean that if we decide we want to self-research econ for the GM, that it is better from a beaker perspective to delay the PA until we finish it, assuming that the eventual partner is researching something useful?
Delaying PA is better if researching different techs, but how do you know before PA :crazyeye:?
 
@Mîtiu
Cultural victories are feasible. The worst thing about them is watching how your partner does every possible effort to avoid victory. Given the domination dates that have been achieved in the test games, I don't think a cultural victory will be faster.

Erkon, in the PA rules you might want to add that you can get a PA with 40 turns of DP too. And that 10 turns of common war and 30 turns of DP won't do, it is 40 turns of one or the other.
Not quite true. Shared war and DP count together.
But DP counter is decremented while you are at war.
So you can top of shared war by a DP, but not the other way around.
 
Mîtiu Ioan;6741263 said:
Which is the best "test-game" for some practice ?

I didn't see yet the explicit answer to my question about Cultural Victory ... :(

Regards
klarius' test game has received the most of our attention, so I would recommend it. Erkon's is also quite interesting and is getting more attention. ShannonCt's is also good if you have time. Each is a bit different.

The short answer is yes, Cultural victory is possible, using a permanent alliance. jesusin's post gives a link to a HOF thread. jesusin also took one of the saves to a Cultural VC. That post is also in one of the spoilers Erkon collected on page 1.

oops--crossposted with klarius
 
EDIT: NOT. I just realized the BonusTradeDivisor is 50 turns. I was thinking it was much less. So OBs willl help sooner than trading or gifting the crabs.
Resources can help. It's not just turns that count, but turns*number_of_resources. Swapping resources is already 2 resources involved. So it's better for the counter to receive a useless (e.g. health early) resource than gifting. But gifting would count towards the peaceTimeGrantCounter for fair trade.
 
Resources can help. It's not just turns that count, but turns*number_of_resources. Swapping resources is already 2 resources involved. So it's better for the counter to receive a useless (e.g. health early) resource than gifting. But gifting would count towards the peaceTimeGrantCounter for fair trade.

That counter maxes at 4 though, right? So since we can get +4 instantly by gifting tech, we should swap rather than gift, since then we can then also eventually get +1 for sharing resources (I'm assuming we don't get this if we gift, since you said "would count" instead of "would also count" please correct me if I'm interpreting this wrong.

EDIT: while we're on this subject, what determines if you get a +1 for sharing knowledge when you agree to an AI proposed trade?

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They key thing against cultural IMO is that while it is certainly possible, I think space can be achieved faster. Thus IMO space should be our fallback VC if we can't get dom for some reason. It also means we don't have to worry about popping GA's for culture.

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Delaying PA is better if researching different techs, but how do you know before PA ? :crazyeye:

You can't know for sure, but if one of the techs they can research has a very high AI research priority, like say replaceable parts, it's a good bet they're working on that one. Depends on the AI though - Mansa would probably go for econ asap since it enables his favorite civic.

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That's a great klarification on what counts towards the 40 turns - it means if we end up a few turns short before comm and for some reason our prime target won't agree to be bribed into another, we can top it off with a DP (though we or they will need MilTrad for that) if we don't want to use a different AI for the PA.
 
We get the counter for 1 resource if we gift. But with the divisor 50 this means 50 turns until we see a result.
I'm here mainly concerned about the early phase. We will not have many techs to gift (we cannot gift alphabet to everybody, just for relations), so the value of the resource could get us a point more together with some minor tech gifts. It's a trade off, but for sure the swap, if possible, would be better in the long run.

You shared knowledge is related to MEMORY_TRADED_TECH_TO_US in the MemoryAttitudePercents category. That ranges from 5 to 20 for the different leaders meaning 20 to 5 techs (they remember) given or traded to them per point. Value (or monopoly what some people think) doesn't play a role, just number of techs.
There is a memory decay of 1/100 per turn associated with this memory value.
 
In the games I've been playing, swapping resources wasn't an option at first. Since, we can re-do the gift after 10 turns, clearly it'd be beneficial to upgrade to a swap, when possible.
 
Roster (proposal)

Gnejs - 15 turns
LC - 12 turns
FiveAces - 10 turns
jesusin - 10 turns
klarius - 10 turns
Mitiu - 10 turns
Erkon - 100 turns

We will use mid-turnset uploads during intense turn sets. In addition/complement to that, a player shall break after move of starting warrior, initial city settlement, writing discovered, alpha discovered, or something really exciting/unexpected happens, such as anyone declares on us. I don't want us to be too strict and pause for minor stuff, because that will have a negative impact on the flow of play for the player. It is important that everyone in the team feels they have the mandate to take decisions when we encounter opportunities without having to ask for advice. One example would be tech trade with AIs that we have agreed on to trade with.

Once we know more about our neighbor and we're close to Writing, we'll discuss whom we shall trade with and open borders with etc.

Unless anyone oppose my roster proposal, Gnejs, please prepare a PPP i.e. suggest where to move the warrior :lol:. Please include ideas on how your PPP fits into the overall strategy (as we know it). I suggest that you download, move, and post screen shot. If no-one suggests otherwise within an hour, you can settle and upload.
 
But the difficulty level factor changes to the value of the average of difficulties of the 2 partners :
floor((deity+noble)/2) = monarch.
So in the end we have 1.15*1.5 instead of 1.3 factor.

I have very basic question about this. In this game are there multiple difficulties, or is it standard for the human player to be considered "noble" in this calculation?

And if the game is set up with only the AI at deity difficulty does that mean that you get the bonuses that are awarded to "noble"?
 
klarius' test game has received the most of our attention, so I would recommend it. Erkon's is also quite interesting and is getting more attention. ShannonCt's is also good if you have time. Each is a bit different.

Hey, what about my test game? :gripe:
 
I have very basic question about this. In this game are there multiple difficulties, or is it standard for the human player to be considered "noble" in this calculation?

And if the game is set up with only the AI at deity difficulty does that mean that you get the bonuses that are awarded to "noble"?
Tech cost is a penalty for the human player on difficulty level above noble (1.3 times standard at deity).
AI always has the standard noble tech cost.
 
Hey, what about my test game? :gripe:
I know it's tough to be ignored and forgotten. Just consider it a motivation to make intelligent posts like Captain Erkon. :p (I didn't mention my save either.)

I got a 780ad PA with Cathy using Erkon's save. I followed klarius' research path, inlcuding Drama, but built neither the Globe nor NE, because everyone was researching Monarchy and I wanted a pure gene pool. Probably could have skipped Drama. Made 4 GSes which I used for Academy, Education, PP, and SciMeth. Had no problem getting the HE built. I chopped only 1 forest in the FC on the grass river where I built the only cottage, so I have +5:health: and plenty of forest to build lumbermills.

The funny thing is, the faster you go, the more likely you are to have to slow down to build CoL or Philosophy.
 
I have very basic question about this. In this game are there multiple difficulties, or is it standard for the human player to be considered "noble" in this calculation?

And if the game is set up with only the AI at deity difficulty does that mean that you get the bonuses that are awarded to "noble"?

The player in this game (i.e. us) play at Deity difficulty level while the AI plays at Noble.

It's not very common that the AI difficulty is changed in (S)GOTMs. Running against AI that play Deity is not very challenging, but once there was a "challenger setting" in a GOTM where the AI played Settler level and crushed even the most skilled players. :cry:
 
I just had a go at Erkons map, doing the Alpha beeline. Cathy founded a city next to the Fur and we lost the culture battle soon after. Something to keep in mind, that tile is riskier to rely on. I got Alpha a little late, PA with Cathy very late (960 AD) and a much slower progress towards domination than in my other games.

I did set Cathy up for some common wars but at first she was very unsuccessful in these. When I enrolled some allies they grabbed the cities that Cathy had been wasting all her units against. Very frustrating... :mad:

I got a 780ad PA with Cathy using Erkon's save. I followed klarius' research path, inlcuding Drama, but built neither the Globe nor NE, because everyone was researching Monarchy and I wanted a pure gene pool. Probably could have skipped Drama. Made 4 GSes which I used for Academy, Education, PP, and SciMeth. Had no problem getting the HE built. I chopped only 1 forest in the FC on the grass river where I built the only cottage, so I have +5:health: and plenty of forest to build lumbermills.

The funny thing is, the faster you go, the more likely you are to have to slow down to build CoL or Philosophy.

Ok, you beat me by 10 turns. How powerful was Cathy when you got the PA? How many cities? I think she had only four in my game, which was at least 2 cities too few.

Btw, I tried to use the same tech path, but this resulted in my worker being idle for 10 turns or so before the discovery of Alphabet. I must have the timing wrong, it seems.
 
Pre-Play-Plan template

The turn-set player writes them, and the rest of us comment. The template allows for varying amount of ambition, so you are free to personalize it to your hearts content. :goodjob:

Pre-Play-Plan OVERVIEW
Present the most important goals and actions during the turnset. Also include intent.
Example: Complete Globe Theatre, Declare on Gandhi​
BUILD QUEUE
List planned builds for each city
Example: Murkopolis completes Library, then builds axes​
UNIT MOVES
List general movement for units in each region of map and specific movement for key units.
Example: move one spear to hill next to Cyrus horse & copper​
WORKER ACTIONS
List worker actions for each city region.
Example: Murkopolis worker completes chop, road fur.​
CITY MM
State any changes in city management such as switching from food focus to production focus etc. Only important MM is needed here, such as whipping and key MM for specific goals.
Marble City whip Granary on ~T4​
DIPLOMATIC ACTIONS
State any planned diplomatic actions and present your ideas on response to claims by AI
Trade Civil Service to Alex for Machinery, refuse demands from Napoleon​
SEQUENCE
State the sequence of actions and activities
Trade Drama from Liz, then switch to Conf and trade Construction from Napoleon.​
STOP CRITERIA
State all events that will trigger a mid turn update
HC units visible from our borders​
OTHERS
Research
Civic change
Religion change
Cities settled
 
Hi team,

I've updated post 2 with the welcome message and house rules. Please comment. I have a feeling that it's a bit heavy, but my main intention was to remove uncertainties, not appear as a clown (I expect a witty comment on this...). Happy reading :)
 
Ok, you beat me by 10 turns. How powerful was Cathy when you got the PA? How many cities? I think she had only four in my game, which was at least 2 cities too few.

Btw, I tried to use the same tech path, but this resulted in my worker being idle for 10 turns or so before the discovery of Alphabet. I must have the timing wrong, it seems.
Same. 4 cities. No great shakes, but she's still on top of the score graph and has the most cities. I actually didn't even try to help her in capturing Washington's cities. My only focus was getting my level 4 unit, having the common wars and beeliing Communism. I had about 10 turns where focus on building axes and beat off Washington. Could have easily focused on capturing his two cities. He had lost his copper and was down to 3 defenders. Clearly, though, Kubla would be better for warring. I think Cathy will take some time to capture the continent, but each AI is so small that it will just be dominoes. All the teams will be in the same boat.

I didn't hurry the worker. Built a warrior and one wb, grew to pop2, built the worker while working both crab tiles for extra commerce. I may have had a few idle turns too. So it goes. We're still guessing with this anyway, not knowing the full FC. To me, what I wanted to see with Erkon's map was whether we could get the PA reasonably close to klarius' 450ad date. I think we can reliably say that it's achievable.

My only remaining questions are on the trade-offss of Drama (trading, Globe, alloyed gene pool), how many forests to keep in the FC (balance between fast PA and endgame production).
 
Erkon, your rules look good. I will try not to get in the way too much. :goodjob:

I did notice that you should update your rules for PAs with this little bit from klarius. :D

Shared war and DP count together.
But DP counter is decremented while you are at war.
So you can top of shared war by a DP, but not the other way around.
 
Hi team,

I've updated post 2 with the welcome message and house rules. Please comment. I have a feeling that it's a bit heavy, but my main intention was to remove uncertainties, not appear as a clown (I expect a witty comment on this...). Happy reading :)

There is a paragraph about official lurker, a concept that doesn't exist anymore. :)

I still think first turn = 0 is better to be in line with the progress graph counting.

As diplomacy is pretty important in this game, I would like people reporting when the attitude changes between AIs and at what value this happens. At least switch on autolog with all reporting options and include it in your post.
We might be able to deduce the hidden random value in the attitude value.
 
I'm ok with the proposed roster but want to make a couple of points so everyone is aware of my playing "restrictions". If these are too cumbersome, happy to discuss workarounds, including reduced turnsets.

1) Need to finish an old HoF game before updating .dll (no BTS), should be able to do this by 1st turnset or will swap/skip/abandon the HoF game
2) This is the key one - I don't have internet at home :cry: which is only place I can play. So I can only download/upload/post/read posts from Sun-Thurs and sometimes Sat, 0400-1300ish GMT

Also as this is my 1st SGOTM, I want to be completely sure I understand the technical rules so's that I don't screw anything up for the rest of y'all, namely:

1) Since no BTS I need to update my .dll following the instructions in the maintenance thread before I can open the save
2) I need to use firstturn = 0
3) I need to set the autosave to save every turn
4) I need to save the turnlogs (do I have to do anything special for this?)
5) I can open the save and make as many reversible moves (info screens, moving citizens, changing builds/research etc. as often as I want, but once I make an irreversible move, it counts and I have to save afterwards and upload that file when I upload.

Anything else I'm missing?
 
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