SGOTM 15 - One Short Straw

Ok, sorry for the delay in answers - there was a power failure here and I haven't been able to post.

We can work out whether Toku is spending EP on someone else, or just generating fewer of them, from the espionage screen - the cost multiplier is based on total spending from the beginning of time (so we add 20 to our 48 to get 68, for example). Doing this from the time we met Toku confirms he was doing 5ept before we met him. Was he in Police State, and then revolted to Tribalism?
My mistake about the arithmetic. Considering the degree I'm doing, I really ought to be able to get that right.

LC: 2f seems fine to me.

I believe 130 is right for Toku's AH cost.

Well, if he's been at 5ept every turn, then he must have allotted some to someone else the last two turns. Anyway, it doesn't matter for the next two turns and then we'll know if his power just went up by 2k and whatnot.

Our warrior will hang out around the sheep for the next 7 turns anyway, probably. We'll also watch to see if he gets horses. Does his bragging about his best unit depend on his being connected to a resource or only knowing the tech?

LowtherCastle said:

Well, if he's been at 5ept every turn, then he must have allotted some to someone else the last two turns. Anyway, it doesn't matter for the next two turns and then we'll know if his power just went up by 2k and whatnot.

Our warrior will hang out around the sheep for the next 7 turns anyway, probably. We'll also watch to see if he gets horses. Does his bragging about his best unit depend on his being connected to a resource or only knowing the tech?

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I believe he has to actually be able to build the unit - which is why resourceless AI continue to brag about archers.

Go ahead, LC.

Turnset: T18-T20 3280BC-3200BC

I played two turns and uploaded. Haven't moved the other warriors so be careful. There are piglets on the hill to the N-NW of Gems, meaning that we'll want to settle appropriately.

We finally see Toku's graphs and they're interesting. He grew to pop2 T19 and his fpt went from 5 to 8 to 11 T18/19/20. So he has two 3f tiles and he just improved one of them this turn. If he just completed agriculture 4t ago, then he wouldn't have finished the farm yet. He gained 2k when he finished that tech any, so I'm assuming it was AH and he just finished a pig pasture. Problem is, he seems to have another tile to improve before he'll be interested in the sheep. Looks like we might just miss it, because his borders pop in 6t.


Plus, there's land two coastal tiles to the west. We have room for expansion. That may be Ragnar, since according to the story, he hastled us before we landed at this river mouth.

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But the basic problem is that we're either a beaker (for TW on T28) or a hammer short (for the settler on T30) if we go for the faster growth option. It's quite annoying.

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Is it possible for us to make up that missing Flask if we manage to meet another AI within the timeframe of researching The Wheel? Like, we can't gain an extra Hammer but could luck play a role in getting us an extra Flask?

We can't stone-age Toku because of the safe area behind the mountains.

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Yeah, that is a problem: BtS AIs are more than happy to send out Workers to areas that are "safe" (with "safe" working quite well as long as you don't have a Woodsman II Warrior/Axeman or a Guerrila II Archer or as long as you don't capture a City mid-turn and remove Cultural Borders on Roads that would have otherwise protected Workers), unlike previous versions where the Workers would just hide out in a City if there was a threatening unit near to the City.

To the contrary, in the last two turns Toku has gone from 55/40 to 59/44 to 63/48. So much for the castle theory. 55/40 makes total sense. He started at 5/0, then add 5*10t = 55 to our 4*10t = 40. He can't possibly get only 4eppt and have a castle, right?

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Why not? One possibility: another AI started spending a sufficient number of EPs on him that he decided to change his EP Weighting to spend 1 EP per turn on the other AI. Do not underestimate the fractional power of AIs' EP-spending. In multiplayer games where your connection gets disconnected, the AI will take over for you... when rejoining a game, I have seen that within 1 turn, the AI has set my Espionage Weighting to numbers like 98, 47, 12, etc. The AIs really have a high level of granularity on how they allocate their EP spending.

Another possibility is that he just met yet another AI and decided to spend a bit of EPs on that new AI.

EDIT: This does not include any 20% pre-req bonus. AH has two: Hunting and Agriculture, neither of which Toku starts with...

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Don't forget that every AI on Emperor difficulty level will start with Hunting.

Further Toku graph study confirms AH. His GNP rose 4, corresponding to a 40% bonus tech, when he completed a tech on T7 and dropped again after completing this tech. Having grown to pop2 on T19, he completed his worker T12. That worker farmed a fp for 5t, then switched to pigs for 4t, completing it T20. IF that's true, and he decides to complete the fp before going to the sheep, he'll farm 2t, then move 3t, landing on the sheep the same turn his borders pop. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

This game is starting to get boring...

There's still a chance we can steal his worker. We'll know in the next turn or two.

So what has to be decided before you can play? Research Animal Husbandry or The Wheel? Where to send Warrior 3?

It would be really dissapointing if we cant snag a free worker.

So what's Toku's production been?
The first two-three worker turns might never have happened at all, if he started the worker a little later. They can also involve walking over forests.

LowtherCastle said:

Well, if he's been at 5ept every turn, then he must have allotted some to someone else the last two turns. Anyway, it doesn't matter for the next two turns and then we'll know if his power just went up by 2k and whatnot.

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Well, the graphs suggest he's still doing 5ept.

Given that either city location will have a pasture resource in it, I think we'll probably want AH for the production rather than TW for the chance of spread and trade route commerce - we can always work a gold/gem mine if we need the extra coins.

ZPV said:

Given that either city location will have a pasture resource in it, I think we'll probably want AH for the production rather than TW for the chance of spread and trade route commerce - we can always work a gold/gem mine if we need the extra coins.

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Not sure I understand this.

1. Does being connected increase the chance of religion auto-spread?
2. Are you suggesting AH before hunting?

Mitchum said:

So what has to be decided before you can play? Research Animal Husbandry or The Wheel? Where to send Warrior 3?

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Or hunting. And where to settle first.

LowtherCastle said:

Not sure I understand this.

1. Does being connected increase the chance of religion auto-spread?
2. Are you suggesting AH before hunting?

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1. I don't quite know what makes plotgroups happen, codewise - it might be that a river+coast connection without sailing is enough, in which case a road won't affect the connection, but I *think* that we need that connection for religion to spread.
2. I'm considering it. That way we reveal horses (and can divert to BW if need be) which is a pretty strong tile a little earlier.

LowtherCastle said:

And where to settle first.

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We don't have to decide where to settle first until the settler is done, right? Maybe a turn or two before-hand would be nice to get the worker into position, but I don't think we have to decide that before you play. The border expansion in 3 turns should give us more info on the gold site. Plus it's possible that Warrior 1 will have a few moves after Toku's border pop to explore a bit.

Unless we settle gold city first AND have the deer resource in the inner ring, we won't need Hunting for some time. It sucks to lose the 20% bonus on AH, but so be it...

1. Does being connected increase the chance of religion auto-spread?

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I am pretty certain that Religion will NOT (automatically) spread at all unless there is a Trade Network connection (different from a Trade Route) between the City receiving the Religion and said Religion's Holy City.

Trade Network connection = the icon with three arrows in the shape of a triangle


In other words, if the Buddhist Holy City is blocked off from us getting a Trade Network connection with it, we won't be able to get Buddhism via auto-spread.

For example, if the Buddhist Holy City is surrounded by Peaks without a River (or possibly World-Built Roads) running through said Peaks, then no Buddhism can auto-spread to any player on the map.


Err... maybe ZPV's terminology of "plot groups" is slightly more accurate than Trade Network connections, since there is such a concept as a one-way plot group connection, but probably in most cases the two are synonymous with each other.

Note that the requirement for knowing Sailing for a Roadless Trade Network connection to occur is waived if the River connection is within your Cultural Borders.

2. Are you suggesting AH before hunting?

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You only really "save" Flasks if you plan to research Hunting before you can receive Hunting in trade.

You might also make more in Food (which often cascades into getting more Hammers or Commerce) if you beeline Animal Husbandry and are able to use the tech after learning it.

Having a Horse Resource a bit earlier (if there is one) could help versus Barbs... I'd rather have 1 Chariot than 2 Warriors as long as each of the Warriors won't be doing a full spawn-busting effort anyway.

If, of course, the Warriors were really doing a 5-square diameter spawn-busting (due to no nearby Cultural Borders or other units to reduce the amount of spawn-busting coverage), I'd probably take the Warrior, but if one additional Warrior will only contribute a few squares' worth of spawn-busting, then having the Chariot in place of 2 Warriors is likely going to work out better for us.

We'd need The Wheel to get Chariots, though, even if we were to settle on top of a Horse Resource, since Chariots require The Wheel as a pre-requisite tech.


If we had a Hunting-based Happiness Resource like Fur or Ivory, I'd be more tempted to go after Hunting, but I don't recall seeing one. If we wanted to Archer Choke (which probably doesn't make too much sense with an AI's big fat cross being unreachable for pillaging purposes), then Hunting could also make sense. Lacking those two things, though, then I'd be okay with missing out on the bonus Flasks to Animal Husbandry in favour of getting Animal Husbandry's benefits a bit sooner.

EDIT: Oops, I forgot about the Deer Resource. Okay, if we need Hunting for the Deer, we can get it next, but if we're okay to wait on improving the Deer, then Animal Husbandry is probably better than going for The Wheel next, in my opinion.

Dhoomstriker said:

I am pretty certain that Religion will NOT (automatically) spread at all unless there is a Trade Network connection (different from a Trade Route) between the City receiving the Religion and said Religion's Holy City.

Trade Network connection = the icon with three arrows in the shape of a triangle


In other words, if the Buddhist Holy City is blocked off from us getting a Trade Network connection with it, we won't be able to get Buddhism via auto-spread.

For example, if the Buddhist Holy City is surrounded by Peaks without a River (or possibly World-Built Roads) running through said Peaks, then no Buddhism can auto-spread to any player on the map.


Err... maybe ZPV's terminology of "plot groups" is slightly more accurate than Trade Network connections, since there is such a concept as a one-way plot group connection, but probably in most cases the two are synonymous with each other.

Note that the requirement for knowing Sailing for a Roadless Trade Network connection to occur is waived if the River connection is within your Cultural Borders.

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I've done some more digging. It is trade networks - for spread to happen, the target city must have trade network links with the holy city, or the other way around (these can be different if they are owned by different teams).
plotgroups (as stated in code) do match up to the trade layer on the globe view map, so we'll need a road or river/coast+sailing/culture connection to get autospread.

Haven't looked at the save yet...

I still much prefer gold first. It's strategically much better positioned, though it's obviously sucky for needing a border pop. Hunting first makes sense then. It's a shame we have to wait so long on AH, but the deer is a great tile, we get a 20% bonus and we open up archery for the case that horses are not easily available.