SGOTM 11 - Who Dat?

Here's a list of wonders which I thought we can consider.

U. Sankore, Spiral Minaret and Sistine Chapel are in there in case we want to run a temple-based economy. (We have to have religion in each of our cities, and we're SPI for half price temples, so it's a good deal). Divine Right is off our tech path, but could be worth teching as it makes great trade bait (once we get it, no one goes for it). Sistine Chapel I doubt we would want to get. Note that these three wonders become useless under Free Religion, while AP hammers still work.

Stone and marble would be really useful

Note that UN and Apostolic Palace have no accelerators.

I've done some calculations assuming we only use our GP Farm and the free scientist from Great Physics, to see if we can pump out enough Great People to meet the requirements.

Needed

GeneratedConclusions

Interesting. I certainly think we should grab Pyramids, but it will be hard to guarantee that we get them. On the flip side, if we miss them, we will have generated gold at a favourable rate (with stone).

Oracle is almost certainly worth it, only a serious landgrab pressure should take priority.

Hanging Gardens is also easily worth the hammers with stone available, but I somehow doubt that anything else is worth it unless we have marble too.

If we do have marble, then GLib and Parthenon look good, but that requires that we start on the Music path, which is not neccesarily a good detour to take. And even if the GPP bonusses from GLib/Parth are very good, we must remember that we are planning to obsolete them quickly.

We should also consider generating a GE by building Mids+HG+forge in one city. Otherwise, we really need to have a city with a huge amount of forests and/or great production to build the UN quickly.

A typical MM beeline makes use of as many bulbs as possible, and Radio from Liberalism. The game will dictate whether that would be possible, but getting Lib is almost certainly worth it for the implied Oxford boost (especially since we will be running a SSC capital).

The "temple economy" wonders are much more attractive in domination/space games, and are unlikely to be worth any particular effort to acquire (except the AP, but we can hope someone in our religious block gets it).

Great people could as a rule be treated like normal, as long as we generate 2 GG's from wars (seems reasonable..) and the other two from a combination of Music/Communism and a late "normally" generated GP (after Electricity).
If communism can be won after MM, then that would be nice, but if we have a GE and can build the UN fast, there may not be time. We should know this a long time in advance though.

Almost sure we do not want to run golden ages, unless we fluke a GA in our GPfarm (and do not need it for Eldine).

I will not be able to play from some hours from now, and then for the next 3-5 days. (Will have access to posting though).

Since nobody has protested going BW next, I'll play the turns up to finishing the first farm in an hour or so. Still time to chime in.

I believe we need to go toward Aesthetics and Literature anyway for National Epic, and Heroic Epic is good for making military builds hammer-efficient. There should be a decent window to use GLib and Parthenon while we tech toward Liberalism and bulb toward Sci Meth.

Radio from Liberalism would be very impressive and incredibly beaker-efficient. That's deep in the tech tree ... can we really get there by the time Liberalism is up?

I like the idea of planning to get some GP after teching Mass Media. During that time we're just building the UN and manipulating diplo, so don't really need any more techs. Like you say, we could either aim for some tech that gives us a free person (like Communism), or just focus on the GP Farm.

The "temple economy" wonders are much more attractive in domination/space games, and are unlikely to be worth any particular effort to acquire (except the AP, but we can hope someone in our religious block gets it).

Click to expand...

We have cheap temples, so we'd have to do some cost-benefit calculation to confirm this.

For the AP, one idea is to get Theology and then trade away the tech to a friend in the same religion. Get them to build AP instead of us - we reap the same benefits. Make sure it's somebody we think can build it fairly quickly. Note we don't want Zara to tech Theology himself and then switch to Christianity, for example. This would make him leave an existing Buddhist/Hindu bloc, or leave our Confucianist alliance. So another reason to get Theology ourselves. (Theology is actually on the beeline tech path, but Code of Laws / Civil Service is otherwise better)

I say go for it with BW. Don't get our Warriors eaten, they need to explore! I still want to know if Zara has land to his east. If he does then blocking NE is less of a priority ...

Okay, we did not get eaten, but the animals did prevent much further exploration.

Things of interest (actually, this would be everything that happened):

T15 - Aksum is on a hill (not that we were planning on rushing).
T15 - Hinduism founded somewhere (at least one civ starting with Myst)
T17 - Lion encountered on forest next to Zara's borders. Forest+river bonus - result 7T healing
T23 - Aksum grows to size 3, additional archer spotted. Looks like he will push a settler soon. Ethiopian scout returns from the west, seems that there may not be much more land W/NW.
T24 - Wolf attacks before warrior is fully healed. C1 chosen as promo, as the north seems forest poor.

A largeish desert seen NW of Zara, and another lion making us miserable with no room to move forward without battle...
Edit: also, seems like this area can be used to block Zara from northwest expansion.
Feel free to grab the save and pull screenies of the landscape/demographics. I am out of time for now.

Combat detail:

I downloaded the file just to take some screenshots as per Fluro's suggestion. orb's next.

The Known World
Demographics
Victory Conditions
Aksum Foggazing

I can see the point of pyramids. With stone definitely doable and for how we're running our economy fairly necessary. I don't see the need for hanging gardens, but would add them if possible to city that builds pyramids. A great engineer or two could help with certain wonders (Sistine Chapel) that we're not going to have the marble for. In addition to the University of Sankore, I'd add the spiral Minaret if we are already running UoS and AP and hopefully Sistine. Nice cash bonus to what we are already using, but I would point out that UoS is one of those wonders that everyone seems to go after.

Bonus thought Oracle, if possible should go for Theology rather CoL. CoL is great but with stone being available Christianity is a better choice. Still a free missionary, but Theology is just under paper and significantly more expensive beaker wise.

Random thoughts:

May as well send that warrior NE along to hills. The warrior from Delhi should head towards the stone. We need more exploration asap. We're proposing to basically run a specialist economy, and we need to know whether there's enough food.

Zara's going to have explosive expansion. We should seriously consider first settler ASAP and to the NE, or we will be boxed in by Zara, not the other way round.

In the short-medium term we'll need to weigh up the advantages of currency vs aesthetics. If we have a pile of cities then the gold boost from extra trade routes are significant. But for a specialist economy Parth/NE are strong. I'm not sure that GLib should be prioritised too highly.

If we want oracle + 'mids we'll have to sacrifice on settler production. Delhi will be a strong settler pump under slavery, and perhaps can just focus on that. One way to look at it is: second city is oracle/blocking city, third city is stone/mids city?

WT, not sure why we would want to pursue Sistine. Especially sacrificing ~10 endturns by burning
a GE on it!
Not sold on any of the temple wonders. Our tech path is relatively short, and if we do well enough, the payoff period is going to be quite short indeed. Remember, the monastaries are quickly obsolete+we probably cannot spare time to build cathedrals. Thus we are looking at mostly 2 / per city from expensive and (for SM) off path wonders. I am sure that we can find more valuable builds in any stage of this game.

Also, it is true that Theology is better than CoL in a vacuum, but since we will want Civil Service ASAP with this capital, CoL is clearly the superior choice.

Concur on moving warrior to the NE hill, but I'd wait a turn to give the lion a chance to move away.
Our highest exploration priority is to map out how to block off Zara. From what we see, the tile 1N of the cows/1W of oasis seems like the best option. We need to see if it can cut off the north passage with 1-2 border pops. Oracle there would be fine, since we avoid GP contamination, but I worry that it has too few forests.
Mids/HG could go in the capital, which could take advantage of the loads of forests, and it can spare a spot for an engineer, but will otherwise work cottages rather than scientists.
Then we just need to find all the food and settle as many profitable cities as possible.

I've been lurking and reading with interest.

I'm not very good with diplo victories, but I think we should divert as little as possible off the tech path to quick MM. Zara will eventually research some of those techs like Aesthetics for NEpic...although not soon. I'm not a believer in the temple-based eco with religious wonders for this game.

Oracle should bulb CoL for faster CS.

Agree first priority is more exploration...especially around the cow/oasis location and stone location. As for blocking Zara, I don't think we want him to be too small and weak. Very difficult to say where to block without more exploration. If there is a large patch of desert to Zara's N/NW then maybe we settle city2 toward the east cow and city3 near the stone for pyramids...and let Zara have the cow/oasis location? I wonder how much land is to Zara's east (if any). My guess is that he will plant his 2nd city quick and decide for us...before we can block him one way or the other.

I like city2 going Oralce chop and city3 going pyramids chop with stone (then HGarden)...while Dehli pumps/chops/whips out workers/settlers.

Whatever city builds Pyramids should also try for HGarden and generate at least one GE during the game. We need to save it for UN rush...not spend it on a marble wonder.

cas

We have to be a bit careful with our wonder selection. We can't build everything, and everything we do build will directly limit our expansion. Delaying critical infrastructure like granaries and libraries will also slightly slow early tech rates. Everything is a tradeoff and we need to be sure that the big strategic choices we make are the correct ones.

For early wonders (i.e. pre-Oxford), how about the following:

must-have:
oracle (converts 225 hammers to ~800 beakers and gets us COL(?) much earlier than otherwise)
pyramids (costs 375 hammers with stone. Representation is a huge boost to tech rate (x25%? under a SE), provides engineer points)
national epic (costs 375 hammers, returns ~3000 great people points (150 turns * 19 points/turn))
apostolic palace (costs 600 hammers. This is very expensive and doesn't return alot, but does completely remove the possibility of a religious victory) [this one could be moved down to the other list?]

would-be-nice:
hanging gardens (costs 225 hammers. mainly for the GE points, perhaps allowing 2 GEs? [need to work this out])
parthenon (costs 600 hammers without marble. Relativally expensive but producing GP is vital in this game)
great library (costs 525 hammers without marble. Again expensive and obsolete early. always nice to have, particularly nice with Representation, National Epic and Parthernon)

NB: Beestar's spreadsheet suggests that a GP point is worth ~1.5 beakers from bulbing by the end of the game! This makes Parthenon quite desirable. This number seems high to me. Of course these beakers are significantly delayed.

anything else to add to those lists?

Other pre-Oxford wonders:
Heroic Epic (should build this at some stage, but can be much later unless we're planning on an early war)
Moai (can build this anytime but only if there's a great site)
Collosus
Great lighthouse
Great Wall
Stonehenge
Schwegadon Paya
Statue of Zeus
Angkor Wat
Chichen Itza
Sistine
Hagia Sophia
Mausoleum
Sankore (at ~400 hammers, this may be worth it. requires paper, can re-evaluate at that stage)
Spiral Minaret (requires Divine Right, unlikely to get this pre-Oxford)

ps. beestar, that spreadsheet rocks.

more random thoughts:

Are we beelining towards an Oxford-super-science-beurocracy-capital? If so, then Monarchy is a useful early tech. We need to work cottages to get them to develop, and Hereditary Rule (Monarchy) allows a much greater happy-cap than anything else. We'll clearly want Delhi to pump settlers out for a few thousand years but should we prioritise HR relativally early?

Tech trading could win this game. It's going to be a great way to shave turns off the victory date. To this end, is anyone great at predicting what Zara will tech? Are there things that we can do that will force him into certain tech options? Can we encourage him to build and work cottages early on?

My thoughts on the wonders mentioned:

Oracle - I think this should be chopped in our second city. Very strong in favor of this one. Would prefer CoL as free tech most likely...because I'm in favor of getting CS asap.

Parthenon - not worth the hammers without marble...for something we will be trying to obsolete asap bulbing as much as possible to SciMeth.

GLibrary - Same thing as Parth since it is also off our tech path and same obsolete problem at SciMeth.

Pyramids - Undecided. We need more food to make it worthwhile. If there isn't a lot of food around, it may be more efficient to trade for Monarchy/run HR which should happen pretty fast on emporer. Rep from Pyramids is nice, but only if you have enough food to run specs everywhere.

Nat Epic - yes, this is a given, but I'm not convinced it is worth diverting from our tech path to MM to build it sooner rather than later. Depends how fast we can trade for Aesthetics...maybe research Lit after. I know the AI doesn't put high priority on Aesthetics...anyone know approx when they research it on emp ?

Hanging Gardens - If we have low food, I think we should build this instead of Pyramids. It is less hammers and produces the same GE points. Combined with a forge in that city, we would be nearly guaranteed a GE...which is needed to rush-build UN later. If we have a lot of food, then I prefer Pyramids, then HG as a secondary build.

AP - someone convince me why we absolutely need this ? I know it can be very powerful to control the AI (sometimes) and the bonus hammers are nice. Is it 100% necessary for our diplo VC goal ? Maybe I missed that discussion somewhere.

cas

ps...100% necessary wonder is UN. You missed that one.

Mostly agree with cas on wonders.

I am also unconvinced that teching Literature is worth the beakers compared to getting it later by trading for it. Especially with the heavy focus on the capital (Which seems like the only option given the quality of the surrounding land). We definitely should go CS first, and then we can discuss Literature or Education.

Mids are definitely nice, but I do not think they are a top build, unless there is a great amount of food sites around. The combination of GE points, extra science from specialists and instant happy cap boost make it a good build, but none of those things are indispensable. The option to run HR instead may actually be better if the capital needs more than the +3 from rep (Basically, if happy resources are scarce).

HG is generally underrated. The pop boost in itself is usually a powerful to conversion, and add the GE points+health bonus+its cheapness with stone and it is something we should definitely build.

Getting both would be great, but I doubt it will be possible in a 3rd city. I like using the capital for the GE points better. It has enough forests around it to guarantee at least one of the wonders.

Re: what Zara will tech. We should focus our EPs on him, which should be enough to see research for most of the game (esp with some courthouses early). I usually do this with one friendly/Mansa civ and it works like a charm. Information is power.

Value of Parthenon

Okay, I figure Parthenon will be active for about 30,000 beakers from Machinery through Liberalism until we tech SciMeth. This is about 40% of the game, in beaker terms. We're not actually rushing to obsolete SciMeth as soon as possible, we're rushing to get to Physics as fast as possible, and that might involve stockpiling Great Scientists. So I would actually self-tech SciMeth and save up our bulbs for Physics - this would delay obsoleting those marble wonders, while still getting us to the finish line of Physics (for the Great Scientist) at the same time if not faster.

I estimate we could generate 10 more GPP/turn with Parthenon over that time. That's about 30 more beakers per turn (assuming it's our 5th GP), over perhaps 120 turns of teching at 250 bpt. Maybe it's not worth the upfront investment of 600 hammers that could go into something else.

Here's a challenge for the anti-Parthenonians Given 600 hammers at the time Parthenon would be completed, produce 30 bpt for the next 120 turns.

(BTW, based on all this GLib is better than Parthenon as it gives GPP and science, for fewer hammers)

Apostolic Palace

I personally don't see a need to build it ourselves to control voting, as it's a lot of hammers and hopefully it will be in our religion. We need to spread our religion to each of our cities anyway, so we will have lots of votes (and hammers!). Basically this is a way of making full use of our cheap temples, and the SGOTM's requirement that we have religion everywhere. But to do this we really need do need to ensure it is in our spread religion, even if we get someone else to build it.


Spreadsheet

Hey, thanks for the kind words pnp_dredd. Everyone, please feel free to edit the spreadsheet, it's there for sharing ...

I forget how the diplo manipulation works - do we want to build the UN or have an ally build it? If the latter, I suppose we may conceivably want to gift them the GE as well.