SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

TURNSET REPORT T72-T104 2200-1400BC

T72 2200BC
set research to myst

IT
Cathy's wb meets our westernmost wb! She has AH, but not masonry, wtg. Only 1 city but a high score (147). Without checking, I assume she's the one with lots of land. Cathy is the buillder of the Great Lighthouse!!!

T73 2175BC

T74 2150BC

T75 2125BC
eastern wb sees marble and a barb archer on a N-S snakey island which will slow down our eastward exploration
settle Gold (Note that Orleans was generated as the city name, so Louis hasn't settled a city or isn't playing)
Vicky has corn+clams+fish!!!

T76 2100BC
I realize autosave is not set to 1 and I set it to 1

T77 2075BC
Paris culture expands
we spot incense to the far west northwest

T78 2050BC
we have sighted the first tile of Cathy's culture:



We spot sheep to the east
Lh done in Paris

T79 2025BC
Oops, my bad. That's orange culture, not red, and we meet Willem van Oranje. He knows Cathy, has two cities, the most land and bronze working. OBs about now would do us well. I'm stopping and uploading to see if anyone has any feedback.

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T79 2025BC
set research slider to 70%
set build to wb(1t)

T80 2000BC
None of the AIs know:
masonry
meditation
polytheism
writing
iron working
metal casting

We can see the edges of VIcky's culture now and we may be able to skirt it down the east side of the snakey island.

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Continiuing after discussion through post #1058
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T80 2000BC
Set research to meditation
3pop settler3

IT
Vicky completes some tech (+6), probably BW with a massive power increase
Cathy's score increases 22, not sure why, land maybe.

T81 1975BC
VIcky's culture will block our progress
Set epps to Willem 100%

IT
VIcky revolts to slavery
World population jumps from 45 to 50!

T82 1950BC
Willem has spearmen, the others, archers

IT
VIcky 2pops something (-8)
Willem has +14?

T83 1925BC
Settle Marble
VIcky is willing to trade for our gold
No one knows masonry, medit, PH or poly yet
We might get past VIcky to the north and we spot 2silver+crabs in the northern ice/tundra



IT
Cathy's exploring wb appears to the S of Marble

T84 1900BC
VIcky has 2silver+crabs+magicalfish
The island at GOld-West has fish+clams

T85 1875BC
2silver+crabs+magicalfish+fish!!!



IT
Cathy's wb sees Paris culture and we are connected to her trade network.
Cathy has fish+clams+cows. Will trade cows for corn or gold.
Cathy researches BW. Revolts to slavery.

T86 1850BC

IT
VIcky builds City #2 somewhere

T87 1825BC
Our exploring wb seems to have gotten past Vicky!

T88 1800BC
Our SW explorer spies 2 more dyes tiles

IT
VIcky +6 but don't know what tech she got

T89 1775BC
SW scout spies lavender culture but we don't meet the AI and also meets a Willem scout/wb

T90 1750BC
Meditation complete
SW gems spotted!

IT
Cathy has axemen now

T91 1725BC
SW ivory spotted

T92 1700BC
+1 ivory and bananas sited SW

IT
Willem researches Iron Working!

T93 1675BC
Willem's second city, Utrecht, sited at pop5 and 1 archer defender
We establish a trade network with Willem. He wants our fish but has nothing in return.

IT
Cathy researches masonry, giving us +1bpt for 2t

T94 1650BC
Priesthood done
We have about 17 tiles to circumnavigation

IT
Willem builds his 3rd city somewhere

T95 1625BC

T96 1600BC
Masonry done
~9 tiles to circumnavigation, I think

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Uploaded
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Here is your Session Turn Log from 2025 BC to 1600 BC:

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COntinuing after Post #1082
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T96 1600BC
Research writing at 0%

IT
Cathy settles CIty#2 finally

T97 1575BC
We can see Izzy's(?) orange culture in the fog to the SW!!!



More gems on a nice hunk of land to the far east. Looks like Willem has been given some valuable turf. We may need to stone-age him as soon as he trades us Alpha+Math+IW+???

IT
Willem researches a tech (+6).

T98 1550BC
We meet Izzy the Buddhist. Has 3 cities. Not in slavery. Knows no one that we know.
1 known AI knows Polytheism, could be Izzy or Willem, probably Izzy.

T99 1525BC
T100 1500BC

T101 1475BC
Find Cathy (St. Pete) to the west of Willem

IT
VIcky reearches polytheism
2 AIs have IW (not sure when this happened)

T102 1450BC
We circumnavigate
Trade Willem fish for pigs

T103 1425BC
COMplete library
SIgn OBs with Izzy and VIckie which gets us +3cpt in each city.
Hold off on Willem, because I'm not sure if we want him researching any faster. He might beat us to CoL...

IT
Barb Galley enters GOld CIty culture!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



T104 1400BC
Oracle is done next turn. Stopping to discuss barb galley.

END OF TURNSET

Here is your Session Turn Log from 1600 BC to 1400 BC:

Willem + either Vicky or Cathy has mysticism.
All three have AH.

Who do we put espionage on now? We can currently see Vicky's demographics for 56 and have 84. She hasn't met anyone else, so she'll keep pounding us.

We see 43 tiles wide now. Doesn't seem like either land mass is very substantial. They're only 1 tile wide in places. Looks like Archipelago more than Big&Small based on that?

Cathy with GLH sounds scary. Strange that she doesn't have her second city yet, though. That should be a small island start.

Louis isn't in the game. IIRC, we figured only 2 CRE.

Hmm... it's unfortunate that Cathy is (presumably)far. No axe rush I'll take a look tonight but I don't think any of this changes our immediate plans. I think long term, we want to push for an earlier astro date with maces to start warring quickly. Circumnavigation + astro = almost double speed boats. And boats will likely be the limiting conquest factor here.

LowtherCastle said:

They can afford to do this because their capital (SIP on T2 I think) gives them more commerce in general.

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My thinking was that BBP might have guessed correctly: they settled on the Plains Hills square but revolted into Slavery before uploading their saved game, which would have shifted the Cultural graph due to the turn of Anarchy.

LowtherCastle said:

Dhoom, I have been 1popping the granary at pop2 (32/36f) to pop1 (32/33f) working the gold that turn to prevent growth and the fish the next turn to get +10f (2*+5f) from the completed granary, growing to pop2 at 9/36f.

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I slept on the Gold City stuff and I was thinking that we might be best off with a hybrid approach of our two approaches: get a Warrior from Paris, manually grow to Size 3, whip the Granary at the perfect time (when we're somewhere close to around halfway to Food growth at Size 3, a couple of turns before I was manually building the Granary), grow back to Size 3 working the Fish + the Gold, and take advantage of the 3rd whipping action to get the Library sooner. We get longer Whipping Unhappiness, but we also:
a) Work the Gold as much as I did
AND
b) Get to whip the Library sooner
AND
c) Get the Warrior to help deal with Unhappiness
BUT
d) I'm not sure how the Whipping Unhappiness plays out

We'd have some extra Hammers since the Lighthouse would be almost complete right away and we'd need to build a different build item while we waited on Writing to come in so that we could whip the Lighthouse. Your idea of starting to build a Work Boat fits in here.

LowtherCastle said:

OBs about now would do us well. I'm stopping and uploading to see if anyone has any feedback.

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I don't know about you guys, but I would tend to avoid getting Open Borders with the owner of The Great Lighthouse.

Giving Open Borders to other AIs probably will be no different from them having Open Borders with a different AI.

Giving Open Borders to the owner of The Great Lighthouse may sky-rocket their tech pace, particularly if we're REXing and if the owner of The Great Lighthouse doesn't Open Borders with too many of the AIs.

It wouldn't HURT to look at the F4 -> GLANCE screen to see if anyone is a Worst Enemy of another AI before Opening Borders, unless:
a) We don't yet have enough Foreign Trade Routes to saturate our Cities, in which case, open away anyway--we can always cancel some Open Borders agreements later, if necessary
OR
b) You need to have Open Borders in order to get through someone's land in order to meet another AI or to keep travelling west

Willem + either Vicky or Cathy has mysticism.

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Does that mean that we're going to be eligible to get a bonus Flask? If so, depending upon when you met them, the Science Slider calcs might get thrown off.


I think that I'll try out my hybrid Gold City approach just to see how Whipping Unhappiness pans out. If it doesn't look to be too bad, then I can give a suggested date for whipping the Granary.

LowtherCastle said:

Dhoom, I have been 1popping the granary at pop2 (32/36f) to pop1 (32/33f) working the gold that turn to prevent growth and the fish the next turn to get +10f (2*+5f) from the completed granary, growing to pop2 at 9/36f.

Click to expand...

Strictly speaking about efficiency of granary whipping, I agree with Dhoomstriker. It's better to whip the granary such that it is completed (i.e. the turn after whipping) when the storage is a little more than half full. That way, with good overflow, you'd end up with ~ 23/39 food in it when re-growing to 3 pops. If both the fish and crab are netted, you can have massive overflow and end up with with even more food.

I've also found that stunting growth just to increase overflow isn't necessarily the best thing to do. For example, you worked the gold 1 turn in an attempt to increase overflow on T2. Had you just worked the fish right away, you would have had about the same amount of food in the granary but would have grown to size 2 a turn sooner.


Regarding the game, I don't think we need to change anything until after we've completed the Oracle and we know exactly where Cathy is. If there is a shot to capture the GLH, it would be better to do so before we've learned Astronomy. Getting it later than that probably won't speed things up too much although it will lessen the pressure on our economy and allow us a few more upgrades. To have a major impact, we'd need to get it sooner rather than later...

OB: we knew there'd be more AI (or, at least I assumed so). The issue with this fast Oracle MC plan was always that it doesn't accommodate Writing. Don't see why we need to change that now. I guess the western WB heads north now and we hopefully find a way further without OB.

We have 2 cities now, will hit 4-5 somewhat soonish. So we really don't need more than 2 OB agreements. To the extent we can avoid OB'ing with the GLH owner, I'd go for it. I don't think it'll stunt Cathy's growth that much though.

Mitchum said:

I've also found that stunting growth just to increase overflow isn't necessarily the best thing to do. For example, you worked the gold 1 turn in an attempt to increase overflow on T2. Had you just worked the fish right away, you would have had about the same amount of food in the granary but would have grown to size 2 a turn sooner.

Click to expand...

My calcs show my way at +1f and your way at +2c. I was taking the food, but I'm not Spanish cool, so I could go either way...

Dhoomstriker said:

I slept on the Gold City stuff

Spoiler :

and I was thinking that we might be best off with a hybrid approach of our two approaches: get a Warrior from Paris, manually grow to Size 3, whip the Granary at the perfect time (when we're somewhere close to around halfway to Food growth at Size 3, a couple of turns before I was manually building the Granary), grow back to Size 3 working the Fish + the Gold, and take advantage of the 3rd whipping action to get the Library sooner. We get longer Whipping Unhappiness, but we also:
a) Work the Gold as much as I did
AND
b) Get to whip the Library sooner
AND
c) Get the Warrior to help deal with Unhappiness
BUT
d) I'm not sure how the Whipping Unhappiness plays out

We'd have some extra Hammers since the Lighthouse would be almost complete right away and we'd need to build a different build item while we waited on Writing to come in so that we could whip the Lighthouse. Your idea of starting to build a Work Boat fits in here.

Click to expand...

Well, I just don't see it, Dhoom. I tried your latest proposal and I'll grant you the +12h, but I have my way moving ahead in beakers on T103 and by the time you grow to pop4, I've already been at pop5 for 2t and I'm ahead 65, 24, and 6t of whip unhapiness. Maybe I'm doing your plan all wrong.

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Btw, on your previous post: If you reserached AH for 3t, then that would explain why I'm ahead 3t on CoL, wouldn't it?

Okay, in regards to whipping the Granary later in Gold City, we can definitely make it work if we:
- Turn 89, 1775 BC: Work the Fish + Clam so that we will grow quickly to Size 3
- Turn 91, 1725 BC: Work the Fish + Clam + Gold (automatically) when we grow to Size 3
- Turn 95, 1626 BC: Whip the Granary and then work the Fish + Gold until we are 1 turn away from to growing to Size 3
- Turn 99, 1525 BC: Work the Fish + Clam on the turn that we are about to grow to Size 3. Doing so starts us off with 20/39 Food in our Foodbox at Size 3. If we forget this step and instead work the Fish + Gold, we would only have 12/39 Food in our Foodbox at Size 3
- Turn 100, 1500 BC: Start building a Monument on this turn or sooner, so that we don't automatically complete the Lighthouse--feel free to switch to the Monument a couple of turns sooner--we don't have to "cut it this close" as we'll be manually-building the Library for a few turns later using the Gold anyway; work the Fish + Clam + Gold (automatically) when we grow to Size 3

I don't think that we will quite have worked the Gold enough extra turns to have gotten Writing on the "1 turn sooner" date, as we did with my approach, but it will be close, so I am not certain. Certainly, if we have met an AI that knows Masonry or an AI that knows Meditation, we might just get Writing 1 turn earlier this way.

Regardless of on which turn we obtain Writing, I'm going to suggest that whip when its a good time for whipping, rather than trying to whip 1 turn earlier for the sake of possibly knowing Writing earlier but getting a more inefficient whipping time:
- Turn 102, 1450 BC: Whip the Lighthouse; work the Fish + Clam in order to grow to Size 3 in one turn
- Turn 103, 1425 BC: Size 3 (Fish + Clam + Gold); Start building a Library (which will be available for certain at this time)
- Turn 106, 1350 BC: Size 4 (Fish + Clam + Gold + Coast) (***WE NEED PARIS' Warrior to be here on this turn or sooner in order to avoid Unhappiness***)
- Turn 109, 1275 BC: 2-pop-whip the Library and work the Fish + Gold, at a time when our City is about to grow, on the same turn that LC was doing so. Thus, we will have gotten our Library at an identical time but will have spent more turns working the Gold square. We're working the Fish + Gold now instead of the Fish + Clam since doing so won't change our dates for growing to any of City Sizes 3, 4, 5, or 6 (I didn't compare beyond that point), meaning that the Clam's excess Food would not be helpful and thus we should work the Gold instead of the Clam for this turn
- Turn 110, 1250 BC: Size 3 (Fish + Clam + Gold), growth in 2 turns
- Turn 112, 1200 BC: Size 4 (Fish + Clam + Gold + Scientist)
- Turn 113, 1175 BC: The Monument is built; start work on a Work Boat
- Turn 115, 1125 BC: Still at Size 4: Fire the Scientist (Fish + Clam + Gold + Coast) so that we can grow in 1 turn; we will still grow to Size 6 on the same turn but this way we get to work a Coast square for free
- Turn 116, 1100 BC: Size 5 (Fish + Clam + Gold + 2 Scientists)
- Turn 124, 900 BC: Size 6 *** 1 Unhappiness ***
- Turn 125, 875 BC: The Unhappiness is gone
- Turn 126, 850 BC: Complete the Work Boat


When we grow to Size 7, we will suffer 4 additional turns of Unhappiness relative to LC's approach.


So, what we get is several additional turns of working a Gold square earlier on, since we end up using the additional Food obtained from the Granary in order to "normalize" the Library's whipping date, in that we will whip the Library on the same turn as in LC's approach. In so doing, we end up translating the extra Food saved by a better Granary-whipping timing into several more turns of working the Gold square.

The cost is 1 turn of not being able to work a 3 Food + 2 Commerce Clam and 4 turns of not being able to work a 2 Food + 2 Commerce Coast, but this cost comes at a later date. So, we come out ahead this way compared to LC's approach and do not have to worry about the implications of a later Library.

What's more important is that we "front-load" our gains by getting more Commerce pre-Code-of-Laws. We then putting most of our 4 turns' worth of Unhappiness cost to come after we've researched Code of Laws.

In fact, if we manage to found Confucianism, we can aim to send our Confucian Missionary to Gold City (if Confucianism doesn't get founded in Gold City) and can thus use the +1 Happiness from running a State Religion in order to eliminate those 4 extra turns' worth of Unhappiness.

Similarly, if we connect the Fur, we would avoid trouble with the 4 extra turns worth of Unhappiness.

I can't say for certain when we'd grow to Size 7, because we may or may not net the 2nd Gold Clam by then, but it should happen no earlier than Turn 127, 775 BC with a netted 2nd Clam.

What is important to note is that it actually turns out that netting that 2nd Clam in Gold City hardly changes the date of growth to City Size 7 at all, such that if we can find a better location to send that Work Boat (Marble City, perhaps?) then we should do so.


So... same date for the Library... more early Commerce... barely any ill effects... I think that we have a winner here!

Aside:

What I noticed about Gold City from the get-go was that it grows really slowly while working the gold. That's why 1) I immediately realized that we wanted the granary asap and 2) why I was so excited when mdy gave me the idea to chop that forest into the granary. We all know that Food is King in CIV and Food+Granary is King-on-Steroids. In this scenario, we were blessed with early Pottery. Early Pottery = early King-on-Steroids.

Then Gold City's fast growth ran into a happiness cap from abusing the whip. That's where the warrior comes in. Every King-on-Steroids need a good warrior at his side.

xpost

LowtherCastle said:

Well, I just don't see it, Dhoom. I tried your latest proposal and I'll grant you the +12h, but I have my way moving ahead in beakers on T103 and by the time you grow to pop4, I've already been at pop5 for 2t and I'm ahead 65, 24, and 6t of whip unhapiness. Maybe I'm doing your plan all wrong.

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Nope, you didn't do it wrong: I DID MY PLAN ALL WRONG, hehe. I found that growing quickly to Size 3 in 2 turns (following your approach) by working 2 Seafood rather than trying to work the Gold as much as possible and growing to Size 3 in 5 turns worked out much better. This way, we don't delay the whipping of the Granary by very much (only 4 turns relative to your approach).

We don't end up working the Gold *quite* as much as in my approach, but we can whip the Granary much sooner than if we were to work the Gold as much as possible.

We still end up working the Gold more than in your approach while coming out "Food neutral," i.e. we still end up with an identical timing for whipping the Library.

Btw, on your previous post: If you reserached AH for 3t, then that would explain why I'm ahead 3t on CoL, wouldn't it?

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Oh, are you saying that you didn't research Animal Husbandry at all? I actually spent several turns at 0% Science, such that Animal Husbandry took 4 turns to complete (although the last turn of it only needed 1 Flask, so yeah, it was pretty much "3 turns").

Regardless, I'm liking the new approach better, since the Whipping Unhappiness from whipping 3 items doesn't seem to hurt us (at least not at a time that matters and even when it does hurt us, it hurts us less than we gain) and we come close to working the Gold as much as in my "work the Gold square as much as possible and manually-complete the Granary" approach... but we also benefit from the earlier Library. Thus, I'm all for using the approach in message #991.

Dhoom, do you have a save around 1150BC?

Btw, my path leaves the gold tile idle only 4t (this may not be what was in the original PPP btw). My count on yours is now 3t, so you're only up 3h on me...

Plus, what are you doing in Paris now? It seems like you're not overflowing into the worker after set3, right? Best if I just see a save, I think.

LowtherCastle said:

Dhoom, do you have a save around 1150BC?

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I didn't have a manual save but I grabbed an autosave... I HOPE that it's the right one... I replayed many approaches in that short period of time to try out different Granary-whipping timings. It SHOULD be the right one, though.

Please note, though, that I ignored everything except for Gold City and thus the other Cities were doing random things, units like the Galley were Fortified, and I "faked" the Warrior by World-building one for Gold City.

Btw, my path leaves the gold tile idle only 4t (this may not be what was in the original PPP btw). My count on yours is not 3t, so you're only up 3h on me...

Click to expand...

Well, all I have to compare against is the original PPP, so I guess that it's up to you to do the comparison.


EDIT: That is the wrong save... let me play forwards again to that date, sorry.

and no faking warriors, pls...

Okay, here you go. The same caveats still apply, in that I ignored other Cities, our Science Rate, etc.


EDIT:

LowtherCastle said:

and no faking warriors, pls...

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Well, you'll just have to follow more of what I wrote in the "updated PPP" if you want to get the Warrior 2 for real... i.e. not working Coast squares in favour of GH Mines, so that we can build Warrior 2 in time to join the Galley when it goes to pick up Worker 1 from after the 2nd Forest Chop in Marble City. Either that or you'll need to see if you can get the Warrior to Gold City at a later date but still arriving in Gold City by Turn 106, 1350 BC.


EDIT 2: I could play the game forwards if you wanted (let me know), such that I did "the right things" in the other Cities, but I'm not 100% certain what approach you followed so far (i.e. did you switch the Corn to the GH Mine on Turn 74, for example?). If you didn't, then my playing forwards while paying attention to the other Cities won't give you an accurate overall picture anyway.

Everything looks good so far, I can't see any reason to deviate from the plan in the immediate future.

I think we shouldn't let the GL stop us from opening borders with Cathy if it helps us with our exploration. Between internal trade routes and open borders with other AI's she probably won't gain a huge amount from open borders with us.

In fact, if we manage to found Confucianism, we can aim to send our Confucian Missionary to Gold City (if Confucianism doesn't get founded in Gold City) and can thus use the +1 Happiness from running a State Religion in order to eliminate those 4 extra turns' worth of Unhappiness.

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I think we should save the free missionary to spread religion to a GP farm where it does not spread naturally.

OB: we knew there'd be more AI (or, at least I assumed so). The issue with this fast Oracle MC plan was always that it doesn't accommodate Writing. Don't see why we need to change that now. I guess the western WB heads north now and we hopefully find a way further without OB.

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It looks to me as though Williams culture blocks the path on both sides of his island. As there probably won't be too much of interest up in the tundra we might want to consider sending the workboat to explore the islands to the south.

Who do we put espionage on now? We can currently see Vicky's demographics for 56 and have 84. She hasn't met anyone else, so she'll keep pounding us.

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As William looks like he will me the most powerful AI we have met so far I think we should put espionage on him. It can't be long before Vicky meets another AI.

Makes me think they are going for the mdy Philo slingshot, except they're focusing on expansion in the process. In other words, they researched AH instead of writing, is my guess.

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Alternatively they could be going for a CS sling, which could be done on the same date as a philosophy sling, now it has become reasonably certain that you can circumnavigate without astronomy.

Yes, I switched the corn to the mine on T74.

My problem with your new plan is understanding how you worked Paris and how you're going to have the wb and the warrior to GOld on time. I stopped planning to rush teh wb to GOld a long time ago. I'm even building the worker a couple extra turns...