SGOTM 11 - Smurkz

Yes, I can play next, perhaps on Monday which is a holiday in the US.

I don't know how much turnset planning I can do before the weekend, since my flight back to Portland was delayed and I only got 3 hours sleep last night.

Any chance that somebody could post an updated save? I should have some time this weekend to play around with things. On the other hand, I think we can probably play through the Pyramids completion without agonizing over details.

We have 3 cities undefended and only 3 warriors in total, so another 3 seem like a really good idea to me. Do we want more consolation gold from the Wall in Oraclia, or shall we switch to a warrior right away? Also should we switch from the river plains to river grass so it can grow (slowly)? Estonia's building a warrior--fine.

Argentina will finish the Henge in about 12 turns, but could do it in 4 if we chopped a forest. That would leave it with only one forest and the silver tile, though--rather hammer-poor. It'll have plenty of food, though, and could whip a lot--maybe even whip to finish the Henge instead of chopping? Given all the room we have for expansion, and Henge's hammer cost being only the equivalent of 2 monuments, and getting culture in new cities immediately, it would be really sweet to get it--I worry we'll lose it if we don't hurry.

I'm with those who want to seal in Zara, but I'm not sure where's the best city site to the NE--we need to study that (with a test game? ). None of the sites around there will have much food so I don't think having incense in the BFC is a particular advantage--we won't have the food to work it. Whichever tile we pick, should we send the missionary there to speed the culture pop and block in Zara for good? Maybe at least wait until we know if we get the Henge?

2 warriors actually; I lost one.

I am not convinced about the usefulness of Henge. Or rather, I'm definitely convinced that it would be good for the sake of expanding borders. I'm just not convinced that the consolation gold wouldn't be even more beneficial. REXing as heavily as we probably want to do will crash our economy, and having a gold buffer will let us expand more aggressively than if we didn't have that gold.

That said, I could probably be convinced. There are several locations out there that could benefit greatly from expanded borders. But I'd like to consider other alternatives as well.

We currently have a Confusian waiting in Oraclia. He is an asset that should be used with great care, and I think the best use we could have of him is to make him expand some borders. With the Holy city in Oraclia, both Aksum and Deli are close enough that I would be really surprised if we don't see auto-spread within 10 turns. This happened in all my test plays, sometimes even both cities on the first IBT. We don't don't really need the happiness boost anywhere, what with Representation soon giving us +3 in all large cities. And we don't have access to any religious civics to run that would affect our use of the Confusian. So, border expansion. Argentina doesn't really need a border expansion any time soon, nor does Estonia. This means we have the option to put this guy to use in one of our upcoming cities.

Still, that's one city down, but we're looking at probably 4 cities that will need to expand borders fast. The downside of having the Holy city in Oraclia is obviously that auto-spread chances will be rather low in the west. I should look up the chances more exactly. Missionaries are 60 each, building three of them (180 ) is thus way more costly than Henge (90 base , 52 remaining). Spreading the religion will obviously give us other benefits than just border expansion down the road, but "down the road" is down the road and early hammers are way more important than late hammers.

So.... I think I just convinced myself that completing Henge is a good idea after all!

Renata said:

2 warriors actually; I lost one.

Click to expand...

No, we have 3, there's the MP in Deli as well.

Durr. Sorry.

Yeah, REXing's effect on our economy gave me some pause, too. We need to build some more workers along with settlers (maybe 1 worker and then 3 settlers in the near term?) so the workers can pre-road to the new sites (for trade connections) and then improve tiles right away. And we need to get cottages up ASAP once we get Pottery. Lots to do, since our population will start to grow quickly after we get happiness from Rep (and connecting the silver) and get some key tiles under control/improved. One worker is probably sufficient for Oraclia, one for Estonia, one for Argentina, two for Deli (which needs cottages), which accounts for all of our existing 5. Say we'll need one more for the NE city, and one more to road out west, aided by the ones in Estonia and Argentina? So that might argue for 2 workers and 3 settlers (in order WSWSS?).

So, if we decide we really do want Henge, are we willing to sacrifice a forest by Argentina (or whip 1 pop) to greatly improve the odds by shaving ~8 turns? I'd say yes. It'll grow quickly once we get Fishing, and we should be able to whip stuff although we may have to work around Slavery/Caste System revolts.

Longer term, how do we feel about the Apostolic Palace? I'd like to get it just to keep #&%$! religious victory out of the picture, but we'd also get the 2-hammer bonus for religious buildings. A quick monastery and temple in Argentina would probably give it enough hammers to sustain it over the long haul, and other cities would certainly benefit from it, too, especially since several will be rather light on hammers.

BTW, I really worry about Zara marching a unit up to Oraclia and saying "Hey, nice city! Mine now!" Can we please get a unit in there ASAP?

This is my official "got it." I have successfully opened the save.

If we are going to build Stonehenge (and at this point my vote is in favor) I can't imagine why we wouldn't chop the riverside forest in Argentina and then build a cottage on that space.

We'll need some cottages, yes, but don't forget the power of food we'll have in the not-so-long term. A pig/rice/four floodplain city could run seven scientists in caste at size 13, if I'm counting right -- that's massive. The other two western sites are big producers also. Who needs a cash economy with that kind of specialist production?

Also, given those sites, is Rep ever ever ever the absolutely correct choice for this map. I have a hard time believing anyone who doesn't go for Pyramids will finish near the top.

I played the T81 test game up through T94. Confusion was founded in Argentina, the Great Wall was BIAFAL, and our axes/warriors may not be in exactly the same spots as in the real game. FW#2 by Oraclia may not be quite as intended either; I followed Niklas's slightly directionally challenged instructions , then realized the error, but didn't bother to go back and correct--should be pretty close to correct, though.

I'll play around tomorrow, probably focusing on choosing the optimal location for our NE city. It would be great if someone could massage the test game to put in Zara's new city and anything else that needs doing--is his second city still in the wrong place, or were you able to fix that, Niklas?

BTW, I prefaced all city names with "Test" to help avoid confusion over which file is the real game and which is the test.

[Edit: Beakers/gold are not as in the test game, either. Hammers may be a little different here and there, too. But at this point, we don't need to have everything perfect because we'll be comparing higher-level strategies, city locations, etc. right? Just don't bet your life on anything that involves MM, OK? That's what Niklas's spreasheet is for! ]

Here's the test game as close as I could bother to get it. GWall has been bifal, nothing I could do about that. And there's probably a lot of forests wrong here and there, but otherwise it should be on par, including unit positions (our own at least).

Here is Niklas most recent spreadsheet, in no-macros format.

http://gesserit.net/smurkz/SGOTM11-Niklas-plain.xls

So I played around with the test save, but I don't have time to spreadsheet out the details. Niklas, will you have time to do that once we have consensus on a plan?

Research: Pottery -> Fishing -> Animal Husbandry
Delhi: Pyramids -> Settler
Bombay (aka Oracle): Settler
Pata (aka Silver): Stonehenge -> Worker
Vija (aka Stone): Warrior -> Axe

Move incense warrior to Bombay for defence
Move Vija warrior to incense for fogbusting
One axe to clams site to fogbust
One axe SW to explore, but stay close and fogbust too
Two workers to Pata to chop Stonehenge
Worker tasks: roads to new cities, ???

Here is a proposed dotmap for three settlers


By the way, in my test games, Zara founded a new city by cows/incense... so perhaps we won't get to that NE spot after all?

I got Stonehenge in all my tests when I chopped a forest for it.

Everything changes when we get Pyramids.

I'm interested to hear what others have found in the test save games.

I agree with Chris's dotmap. It's where I'd stick cities. Is there any chance we can rush a settler somewhere to beat Zara to the cows site? Chris- what turn was Zara founding a city up there? Is there any chance we can beat him?

It was fairly early - within 10 turns of the save file. Of course, this is on a test map - who knows how fast he would go on the real game.

The more I look at it, the more I don't really care. The cow/oasis/incense/incense site isn't that great. We could put a city up in the NW corner of that area 2S1W of the fish and get the incense if we really need the happy bonus.

I'm working on a test game, too, and agree with going for Fishing after Pottery. Zara founded a city W of the cows on T98. Could it be that Niklas stuck in the wheat city by hand, leaving Zara with an "extra" settler that he could then use to grab the cows/lake site? One could hope, but I'm trying to get out a settler ASAP by whipping in Deli after completing the Pyramids (one turn late, at T101 in order to finish Stonehenge on T99--in my first attempt, the AI got it on T100). The whip will then go toward a granary for fast growth and more whipping. I had most cities building warriors to give them a bit more pop before starting on granaries (once Pottery comes in on T102) and then workers/settlers. I'm planning to play to T120 as Niklas did and compare.

No, the NE sites aren't that fantastic, but more is better, and we need to take them fast to keep them from Zara.

Xcal is spot on: The test save is probably not to be trusted since I WB-added Laibela, which means Zara never needed to use a settler for that city in the test game. When playing the "old" test game without the fixes, it's easy to beat Zara to that sight.

I'm not convinced about the location for Chris' cyan city. Pending exploration in the west of course, but unless we find more seafood out west, I would move it either 1E to share the Pigs with a southern city, or 1NE to not waste tiles and to make room for another city further SW.

I'll see what I can do with the test game and some MMing, getting right to it.

My only reluctance with E/NE for the cyan city is that it wastes a floodplain. I hate wasting floodplains. That said, I think it's the third city so almost certainly won't be built during the upcoming turnset. We have more time for exploration. I'd say cows/incense/incense is city #1, clams for #2.

I'm obviously not in the proper mindset for MMing tonight, doing loads of silly mistakes.

Here are some observations at any rate:

Moving the city NE is no good, the Rice is simply not enough of a power tile to make that a very powerful city. That goes for settling at Chris' Cyan dot as well, unless we find seafood. I'd rather settle the third city down by the Fish/Cows(/Pigs), and leave this city for later.

Zara has a settler already in transit in the test game, en route for Laibela. When I deleted that settler for him I had no trouble beating him to the Cow site, even when settling the Clams/Cow/Marble site first. I settled 1W of the Cows, to gain the fresh water. This led to Zara settling his next city on top of the northern Incense. I certainly expected as much, but now we know. To block him from expansion, we can't have OB with him and we must settle NW of the Cows as per BL's plan. I hate that site though, it's really crappy... I'm almost more of a mind to settle on the coast directly, to at least gain the Fish and the Incense, and let Zara help himself to the culturally contested Cows/Oasis area.

I got Henge on T100 without compromising the T99 Pyramids. It's not ideal though, doing what Xcal did to speed up Henge over Mids is clearly a lot better if we're serious about Henge. We'll get Mids regardless.

My biggest dislike with how the game played out what that the emphasis on REX meant I took a dreadfully long time to start running Scientists in Deli, which meant that the first GP was at ~60/40 GE/GS. I popped a GE, meaning no early Academy. Then again, settling that GE gave the same +6 bpt that the Academy would give (at this stage), and +3 hpt as well...