SGOTM 12 - T'dr'duzk b'hazg t't

2320 - 1600 BC (turns 42-60)

We started with a tech trade to Gandhi. I tried offers of one or two techs, but this is the only deal he would actually agree to:



Highlights:

turn 45: Fishing complete, start Pottery



turn 47: Mao founds Shanghai.

turn 50: Pottery done, start Writing. I checked every turn for trades with Gandhi, but we remain his worst enemy.



The report shows the benefits of being Creative:



turn 51: Appropriately, the English complete Stonehenge:



turn 53: Sto-Lat is founded:



turn 56: Gandhi settles his 2nd city.

turn 58: Sto-Lat border pop:



turn 60: Writing is complete, and we pause to consider our options:



Note that Archery was chosen as a placeholder, no beakers have been put into researching it yet.

Asking the AI every turn for peace can yield some useful information. Stalin scares me:


BUFFY Log:




Uploader Log:

I think there are probably enough open questions that you should end your turnset. It's time to work on the scenarios again.

ChrisShaffer said:

I think there are probably enough open questions that you should end your turnset. It's time to work on the scenarios again.

Click to expand...

That's OK by me. I've uploaded the save and updated my post above with the uploader log. I didn't open the save again to take summary screenshots, but the state of the world should be pretty clear. Gandhi won't even open borders with us yet.

Edit; BTW Chris your spreadsheet format was incredibly helpful and easy to follow. I printed up a copy and checked things off as I went.

Trystero said:

That's OK by me. I've uploaded the save and updated my post above with the uploader log. I didn't open the save again to take summary screenshots, but the state of the world should be pretty clear. Gandhi won't even open borders with us yet.

Edit; BTW Chris your spreadsheet format was incredibly helpful and easy to follow. I printed up a copy and checked things off as I went.

Click to expand...

Credit where credit is due - the original turn plan was Neil's and the original spreadsheet was yours. I just improved on excellence

If the AI never meet each other until optics, we will always be everyone's worst enemy. Sigh.

This is my official "got it." I believe Neil is "on deck."

A few notes from the save: the deer, deer, silver and tile between are tundra. The lonesome hill to their east is grass. All of De Gaulle's land that we can see is free of fallout.

Mao and Gandhi know each other.

Gandhi can research monarchy and code of laws, thus has priesthood. There are zero techs he will trade and he will not trade mysticism, alphabet, archery or masonry. I'm starting to wonder if WFYABTA is an issue at all if the AI never trade with us anyway.

The demographics screen shows we are #1 in gold and land area. We are also #3 in production and #5 in food. Our life expectancy has increased to #4, so someone else must be unhealthy. However, our population remains #6, probably because we built two workers and a settler. Hopefully that will go up soon.



We have a serious problem and no easy solution in sight. Take a look at the espionage screen.



Our ratio, from the diplomacy screens:

Churchill 260/3
De Gaulle 386/3
Roosevelt 249/3
Gandhi 291/227
Mao 314/0
Stalin 375/0

Even Gandhi is beating our pants at espionage - it takes 278 to see his research, and we only have 227. This is only going to get worse, and I have no idea how to solve it.

Edit - note that the espionage totals are significantly higher than the test game. The AI must have started with courthouses or something like that.

@ HA
HA's turned out to be fairly useless. To conquer DeG, it was an all out axe rush or wiating for Cats and/or Maces. One of our rivals is stuck on pop 3. I wonder if this is DeGaulle?

@ Tech,
Me three/four for Alpha->HBR. It will get us peace in the same turn, but gives us options.

@ Next City
All that tundra settles it for me, Sto-Helit is next. In my tests games, Sto-Helit had no other resources, and always turned into a kicking city. I prefer to put it where we said we would, tight against A-M. It worked the riverside cottages for A-M. With no other food resources, Sto-Helit will really struggle to ever grow past about 10, so the overlap should never be a problem.

@ Spreadsheet,
I like this version, it was good on the eye. In the early versions I managed to forget to revolt most of the time.

@ Espionage
Man, thats a bummer. This means that we will have to run high Esp. ourselves, just to protect our tech lead later.

@ WFYABTA
Religion is going to be what decides this. If we share Gandhi's religion, he will no doubt end up trading us a lot of techs. The others will really hate us, and will DoW us if our power drops to low. In my tests, it was only Gandhi & Roosevelt that would trade techs, what are there limits?

@ The Future
I am going to test variants of Alpha-HBR->Maths->Currency->CoL->CS. With our Cap, Beauracracy is a no brainer, but the matter of when is still up for debate. Detouring via Sailing, as Brian? suggested is prudent. We will need it for Calender, which was usually the first tech I could trade with Gandhi. he lighthouse in S-L is a bonus.

Does A-M have any war-weariness modifiers ? This will affect if we grow to pop 7 straight away. I'm thinking we need 2 more workers before the next settler. What made S-L so good was it hit the ground running. Testing, testing.......

neilmeister said:

@ HA
HA's turned out to be fairly useless. To conquer DeG, it was an all out axe rush or wiating for Cats and/or Maces. One of our rivals is stuck on pop 3. I wonder if this is DeGaulle?

Click to expand...

Should have realised that myself, and did before the weekend IIRC!

@ Tech,
Me three/four for Alpha->HBR. It will get us peace in the same turn, but gives us options.

Click to expand...

And Alpha will give us extra information, which is always good. Knowledge=power=energy=matter=mass, and you know what that means!

@ Next City
All that tundra settles it for me, Sto-Helit is next. In my tests games, Sto-Helit had no other resources, and always turned into a kicking city. I prefer to put it where we said we would, tight against A-M. It worked the riverside cottages for A-M. With no other food resources, Sto-Helit will really struggle to ever grow past about 10, so the overlap should never be a problem.

Click to expand...

I think a bit of scouting here may be in order in the main game, but for testing definitely where it is now.

@ Spreadsheet,
I like this version, it was good on the eye. In the early versions I managed to forget to revolt most of the time.

Click to expand...

Next set I'm copying Try and printing off the relevant turns.

@ Espionage
Man, thats a bummer. This means that we will have to run high Esp. ourselves, just to protect our tech lead later.

Click to expand...

Especially with all the espionage buildings being late an off our tech paths.

@ WFYABTA
Religion is going to be what decides this. If we share Gandhi's religion, he will no doubt end up trading us a lot of techs. The others will really hate us, and will DoW us if our power drops to low. In my tests, it was only Gandhi & Roosevelt that would trade techs, what are there limits?

Click to expand...

Gandhi's at 15, forget exactly the rest, but check my posts here and I have referenced the right thread.

@ The Future
I am going to test variants of Alpha-HBR->Maths->Currency->CoL->CS. With our Cap, Beauracracy is a no brainer, but the matter of when is still up for debate. Detouring via Sailing, as Brian? suggested is prudent. We will need it for Calender, which was usually the first tech I could trade with Gandhi. he lighthouse in S-L is a bonus.

Does A-M have any war-weariness modifiers ? This will affect if we grow to pop 7 straight away. I'm thinking we need 2 more workers before the next settler. What made S-L so good was it hit the ground running. Testing, testing.......

Click to expand...

I agree here, I'm still too tired to play (sorry after my initial work on the tests I'm slacking off) but tomorrow should be fine for getting in a few.

Also I've a few report summaries to write. Am not in the right (saga-declaiming) mood now but will do tomorrow.

No worries Brian, I'm enjoying these tests more than I thought I would. Squeezing every last thing out is quite an exercise.

Our team has played the most turns, so there is no mad rush.

EDIT. besides, you are the Glorious Leader, no testing for you.

neilmeister said:

@ Espionage
Man, thats a bummer. This means that we will have to run high Esp. ourselves, just to protect our tech lead later.

Click to expand...

Brian Shanahan said:

Especially with all the espionage buildings being late an off our tech paths.

Click to expand...

Actually I'd say this isn't really bad news, we won't have to worry very much. Espionage is mostly worthless for the AI to try to use against us and there's little concern about building the buildings as we won't have much of a need to use it in return - you do want to watch out that an AI can't sabotage a SpaceShip part but otherwise it's a non issue, and for that you just focus on the top/nearest AI. If we were close on land to all of the AI then maybe we'd worry about stray spies but it'll never happen overseas (even though I recognize we have the problem of the AI not putting espionage on each other. By the way, that might also explain discrepancies to the test game - if the AI made contact with each other they might have started putting espionage on each other earlier. The total spending is in no way out of line - an AI would do this without courthouses.

But otherwise a lot to discuss, on settling and resources and more. It looks like DeGaulle is partway overseas and if connected by land must be at least a long way around... Maybe we could explore South at least with a warrior.

I spent far too long creating these, but at least they are done. This is a new version of the save, making liberal use of text editing the WorldBuilder file. It's not perfect - Gandhi keeps demanding techs and offering trades, Stalin is Hindu, etc. but it's much closer to the real save. In particular, the only AI who know each other are Mao and Gandhi.

I will be busy with work Wednesday-Friday. I expect to have time to check in, but won't have a Windows computer for most of the time, which includes a day trip to Seattle. I'll be back in business early Saturday morning or Saturday evening. Looking forward to seeing lots of proposed plans from everyone.

My inclination now - for the next 20 turns, is Alphabet -> beeline Literature -> Great Library, building two settlers and two axes along the way. I also would like to build a warrior right away and have that unit do the exploring, leaving the fortified warrior in the forest for emergency protection.

Edit - here's the worldbuilder save

ChrisShaffer said:

I spent far too long creating these, but at least they are done. This is a new version of the save, making liberal use of text editing the WorldBuilder file. It's not perfect - Gandhi keeps demanding techs and offering trades, Stalin is Hindu, etc. but it's much closer to the real save. In particular, the only AI who know each other are Mao and Gandhi.

I will be busy with work Wednesday-Friday. I expect to have time to check in, but won't have a Windows computer for most of the time, which includes a day trip to Seattle. I'll be back in business early Saturday morning or Saturday evening. Looking forward to seeing lots of proposed plans from everyone.

My inclination now - for the next 20 turns, is Alphabet -> beeline Literature -> Great Library, building two settlers and two axes along the way. I also would like to build a warrior right away and have that unit do the exploring, leaving the fortified warrior in the forest for emergency protection.

Edit - here's the worldbuilder save

Click to expand...

OK, thanks for all the work putting this together. I've got my mother-in-law coming for a visit starting tomorrow and today is packed, but given the time I'll see what I can come up with.

That tech path sounds reasonable, since it'll also give us Aes for trade bait. Sure wish there was Marble around, though...

That build order also sounds reasonable, though the need for troops is subject to change.

What do people think of me playing until alphabet, then stopping mid-set to discuss? I've posted two tests on the spreadsheet:

Test 1: warrior -> warrior -> axe -> axe -> settler; A-M pop 7 turn 71, Alphabet turn 72, Sto-Helit founded turn 76

Test 2: worker -> axe -> axe -> setter; A-M pop 7 turn 72, Alphabet turn 72, Sto-Helit founded turn 77

Save files for both attached.

Note that everything is the same as our previous plan, except the build order in A-M and some tile micro changes in Test 2 to ensure population increase by turn 72. (edit - and, of course, skipping Archery)

I propose to play through Alphabet TONIGHT, about 9:00 PST, in about 13 hours.

1. Does anyone veto this proposal? If it is vetoed, I will play on Saturday.

2. If you agree with moving forward, do you prefer Test 1 or Test 2?

I'd say move forward, personally I'd go with plan 1, due to speed mostly. There isn't really much difference as you say, so if an extra worker is stronger then do it.

The report summaries will be tonight. I've a Man Utd game to watch (on my birthday! Yay me!) and a 4 page 15 turn report to write in cripp7's game.

Happy birthday!

Test 1 is safer and a bit faster. I'm leaning toward that as well.

It seems like plan 1 puts the focus on short-term security, while plan 2 puts the focus on long-term growth. With 2 you get a worker instead of two warriors, and the axes and settler are delayed one turn. I don't have a strong preference either way, but I lean towards plan 2 as the better long term approach unless we get attacked in the next 20 or so turns.

Without looking at the details, I'm in favor of plan 2. I agree with drlake, in that it's the better long term approach. I'm not sure how much security warriors, as opposed to axes, really offer us at this point, so we might as well build a worker. Especially since we have plenty for a worker to do.

And I agree with you playing to Alphabet tonight.

PS -- Happy birthday Brian!

My thought was that the warriors would serve as explorers, but I am always eager to be swayed to the "builder point of view" -- I'm a builder at heart.

At this point, the plan is for me to play through Alphabet tonight and go with option 2, the extra worker.

Well, I would ask why we want to explore at this point? Since we've already met our opponents, I would see the primary motivation for exploration as finding locations to settle. I thought we had already settled on the Sto-Helit location (although I think investigating that area prior to settlement is a good idea). If so, we can send our existing warriors after we build axes, since we'd be scouting the location of our 4th city.

In contrast, finishing the game depends on scrubbing fallout tiles. Scrubbing one tile requires 6 worker turns (unless we build Hagia Sophia or run Serfdom), and there could be quite a few fallout tiles on this map, so a worker will always have something to do.

I am not strongly committed to this position however, and could be persuaded by counterarguments.

Also, we should consider building spearmen if our opponents have horses/chariots and we aren't building archers. Determining who our neighbors are and what we are up against is an argument in favor of exploring sooner actually... but I still prefer worker next.