SGOTM 20 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

Just to be clear, city is going here,
If we road both tiles, we can save a turn settling in travel time. Does the sheep pasture a turn earlier shave a turn or more off of growth or settler time to whip? If it only saves one turn, but costs us the roads not being complete it is a wash. If it saves us 2 turns, then it is better to go sheep first with Charlie, else start roading to C3 site.

I prefer to revolt after worker Billy, while HF is still size 1. I just don't see a reason to wait any longer. It allows emergency whipping now if we need it. I think it may allow more of the chop to go to worker Charlie also, or at least not have any overflow get reduced.

First build in "Copper xxxxx" will be?

I kind of like warrior 2 exploring NW and around Russia. What about another warrior in SL after Charlie for MP duty?

adrianj said:

If we can pop borders in Horse Farm to claim ivory, the extra +1 can be translated into an extra HA per city via the whip. We won't be able to chop the jungle until IW though, so the ivory tile isn't particularly great.

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The ivory tile is pretty meh until IW. But Horse Farm can add a cottage or two along the river to support our economy as it grows beyond the wheat, horses, and mine.

adrianj said:

Another benefit of popping borders in Silver Sheep is it will gain an extra 6 forests that can be chopped.

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I would hope we could avoid chopping too much until we have Math. We need to chop the copper and silver tiles of course.

adrianj said:

Continuing on past HBR/Archery... two techs that would be great to have ASAP are Alphabet for tech trading and Maths for better chopping. With a bit of luck, the AI will tech both of these for us, and we can pick them up by sharing HBR. Maybe a little investment into Alpha required.

One other option to consider: Mysticism from trade? *If* we pick up Alphabet by trading out HBR, we could get Mysticism "for free" in a subsequent deal. Main issues with this approach are the big *If* and that it won't be available until after we learn HBR.

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Note that due to the pre-set relations, tech trading is going to stack up the "you traded with our worst enemy" diplo negatives. So we do need to decide which AIs we want to (hopefully) be friends with and which ones we don't care how much they hate us. But with this many AIs already met, getting Alphabet pretty quickly will definitely benefit us.

Also, do we really want to spend a WFYABTA point on Mysticism?

adrianj said:

Second option to consider: Mysticism through begging a pleased AI to give it to us literally for free. Recall the begging value formula is (50+turns)*2 'begging points'. A 'begging point' is about 0.5 , or ~0.5. At a cost of 81, we might be able to beg for it after knowing an AI for 32 turns. Obviously AI or us must have knowledge of Alphabet, and they must be pleased with us. Keep in mind it also uses up one of our WFYABTA points.

We might also consider begging Hunting or Archery from a different AI. Same conditions apply.

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How are we going to get any AIs to Pleased? Does this also count as a trade for diplomatic negatives with worst enemies?

Ronnie1 said:

Just to be clear, city is going here

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Yes, that is the spot.

Ronnie1 said:

If we road both tiles, we can save a turn settling in travel time. Does the sheep pasture a turn earlier shave a turn or more off of growth or settler time to whip? If it only saves one turn, but costs us the roads not being complete it is a wash. If it saves us 2 turns, then it is better to go sheep first with Charlie, else start roading to C3 site.

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I believe we would save a settler movement turn for each tile that is roaded. Due to the river the settler will end its first turn NW of the horses. Without any roads it then moves into the forest N of the sheep (1 turn), onto the planned tile (1 turn), then settles. So each road segment will end up saving 1 turn, for 2 turns maximum savings. So I need to check the timing to see if Charlie should help improve the sheep or not.

Alternate idea: Could Alex put in a road segment after pasturing and roading the horses? If we are going to whip the granary in Horse Farm, it is not likely to need the grass hill mine until a bit later. Will need to check the timing.

Ronnie1 said:

I prefer to revolt after worker Billy, while HF is still size 1. I just don't see a reason to wait any longer. It allows emergency whipping now if we need it. I think it may allow more of the chop to go to worker Charlie also, or at least not have any overflow get reduced.

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A good point on avoiding overflow reduction. The extra turn for Billy to move and chop will help.

Ronnie1 said:

First build in "Copper xxxxx" will be?

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Granary seems best. With a chop of the sheep tile it should finish very fast, before the city reaches half full on the food box.

Ronnie1 said:

I kind of like warrior 2 exploring NW and around Russia. What about another warrior in SL after Charlie for MP duty?

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Another warrior for MP, rather than starting the barracks? The timing should work, probably can still put a turn or two into the barracks afterwards to finish growth to size 4.

Pretty quiet around here. Might be time to play out your turnset haphazard

Yes, looks like I have all the feedback I am going to get. Many people on vacation or having computer issues. Sorry for all the delay, but there were many possibilities to discuss.

I will go with the third plan, with revisions as per the comments from you and Ronnie1. I will try to play in the next couple hours and report back.

Played 14 turns, things went smoothly.

Turn 38 (inherited)

- Switched tech to Pottery
- Switched EP spending to Catherine
- Renamed some things.

Turn 39

- SL completes worker Billy, who moves to the forested sheep. Start another worker.
- Revolt to slavery

Turn 40

- Peter founds Rostov to our north, claiming the rice and two horses. Apparently he was not building us Stonehenge after all. Not sure what took him so long? Peter does have copper in his capital's control, something to be aware of for later.

Turn 41

- Julius founds his second city. Apparently also not building a wonder, and curiously late. Hmmm.
- Horse Farm grows to size 2, works the fish for more commerce while waiting for Alex to finish pasturing the horses.
- Warrior 2 exploring west of the mountains finds Catherine's Novgorod south of her capital. Two archers defending.

Turn 42

- Not much. Suleiman built a military unit, as our power ratio with him fell from 0.90 to 0.82.
- Billy chops the sheep forest, which will complete the third worker.

Turn 43

- Stonehenge is built by Louis of France, that big wonder whore. Guy is already creative, so he does not really need it. But he will get some prophet points...not that he can found a religion with one in this game.
- Barb trireme violates our borders for the first time. Apparently the city count has climbed enough for barbs to enter borders, so be aware. Since the trireme was oscillating next to our borders the previous couple of turns, I am guessing one of the unknowns just founded a city last turn.
- SL completes worker Charlie, who moves to assist Billy with the sheep pasture. SL starts a warrior to garrison the city.

Turn 44

- Warrior 0 has spent the past few turns dancing with a bear to his southeast. But this turn he spots a wounded French scout there. Time to explore. (Let's not mention how an AI scout, standing in flat ground, killed a bear and ended up at 0.9/1.0. The AIs get ridiculous bonuses against barbs at Immortal.)

Turn 45

- Pottery completes, start Mysticism.
- Our scout has been circling Louis' borders. He finds a horse tile -- with a hamlet on it. Louis does not have AH yet, apparently. But he will have horse units soon enough.
- SL finishes warrior 3 to garrison the city, and starts on a barracks. I did not start a granary because we are going to overflow into it from the settler whip, and having more hammers in the granary would just mean more overflow getting reduced later.
- Horse Farm starts a granary. Alex has finished roading the horses, so we have our first military resource hooked up.
- Unit maintenance costs start to bite. We have a lot of units and not much population.

Turn 46

- We meet Victoria, courtesy of a wandering English workboat passing warrior 2 in the west. We only need to find the last AI and we can learn the hidden requirement. That may be tricky, as Victoria apparently does not know another English leader -- her worst enemy is Napoleon.
- Horse Farm whips its granary, with the food bar at 11/24. Near perfect timing.
- Suleiman is the first AI (that we know of, anyway) to found a third city. He also has elephants hooked up according to the trade screen. (Unwilling to trade them of course.) He definitely needs to die before he can reach Construction.

Turn 47

- SL reaches size 4, starts a settler.
- HF finishes the granary, starts a chariot.

Turn 48

- Not much. Charlie chops the silver forest into the settler.
- Catherine's Novgorod is size 4 already.

Turn 49

- Augustus plants his third city, the second AI to do so.
- HF grows to size 3. It will be unhappy soon (it is growing very fast now with the granary), but the silver will come online shortly after so I just let it grow.
- Suleiman no longer has elephants on the trade screen. Barb pillaging? Farmed or cottaged over them? Something else?

Turn 50

- Mysticism finishes, start HBR.
- The Great Wall is built by Napoleon. Looks like the French civs will be competing for wonders.
- SL 2-pop whips the settler at 65/100, just about perfect for max overflow. Whip timing has worked out very well this turnset, the discussions really helped plan things out.

Turn 51

- Wealthiest civs list: Victoria, Julius, Napoleon, the unknown civ, Suleiman, Louis, Augustus, Peter. Catherine and of course us (10 gold currently) are too broke to mention.
- SL borders expand again.
- HF grows to size 4 and is unhappy, but silver will be connected next turn.
- The settler is walking, and worker Alex finishes the last road segment exactly on schedule. I used Charlie to help with SL's sheep, then Billy moved to HF to mine the grass hill.

Turn 52

- SL completes its granary from the whip overflow, and resumes building the barracks.
- HF completes our first chariot -- an actual military unit. I have set a monument as the next build, but see more below.
- Copper Summit is founded, and starts a granary while working the forested copper (1F3H). We might want to work the sheep instead and whip at size 2, not sure. I think either would finish the granary in 8 turns, but working the copper would mean no whip unhappiness and some food in the box. Maybe copper until the sheep is pastured then sheep? Oh well, next player can figure that one out.
- Charlie finishes mining the silver, which makes HF happy again. Temporarily, anyway.

Current demographics:



We are back in the lead on land, but are dead last in GNP. Of course SL was just whipped down to size 2 and our total pop is just barely out of last place, so this will improve as pop grows.

The world as we know it. Northeast:



Tons of calendar resources near Louis of France. He will have duplicates to trade, so maybe we want him as our French friend?

Look at all the seafood in this inland (??) sea. Still not sure if all that barb territory is an island.

Northwest:



Warrior 2 has found both Romans' borders, as well as revealing more of Catherine's region. Looks like competition for land in the west will be pretty intense. Victoria's work boat was in that little inlet. Maybe she is southwest somewhere?

South:



Not too much new here, other than our shiny new city. Suleiman's borders have expanded a bit.

Overall I think we are doing OK. Happiness is going to be an issue now that our granaries are finishing. HF will grow again and be unhappy in 2 turns, although whip anger will wear off in 4. Maybe we should consider building another settler there and trying to grab the marble site? (Yes, I am being greedy again. ) Only a 9 turn build, and with Mysticism and monuments available we could plant on the marble for a very nice hammer city. And once we clear out the triremes and the seafood becomes available...what a city.

HBR is a pretty good ways away, still. 24 turns at current rates (we can research 2 out of 3 turns, wtih the other turn at 0% exactly paying for the 2 research turns), although this should improve a bit as SL grows enough to work the silver. HF should add a cottage ASAP, as it will yield the same as the fish tile but will grow with time. Silver at Copper Summit is a bit further off, but will also help.

On the EP front, Suleiman has been putting more points against us and we are near to losing visibility on him. We are getting close to visibility on Catherine. So keep a close eye on this, we will probably need to adjust spending to try to get visibility on both.

Some units are unmoved --the chariot, worker Billy, the scout. But some have already moved. Sorry if this is confusing, but I wanted to complete obvious moves like finishing mining of the silver, etc.

BUFFY log:



Upload log:

Nicely done Haphazard

Sleepless said he is away for a 'couple of weeks' from 28/7 and McArine won't be able to play until 17/8... by my deductions it looks like da Vinci is up again!

(Sleepless/McArine - if your situation changes please mention it)

The roster order is:

1. nocho
2. Ronnie1
3. Haphazard1 Just Played
4. da_Vinci Up Now!
5. Sleepless On Deck
6. McArine

Advising:
Ororo, adrianj

I like your turnset reports.
Thanks for that!

Did you see the 2 barb archers on our southern border? I'd feel better if our CG warrior was in Copper Summit, but he's not, so we'll have to make do.

Everything else looks great!

Sounds good, haph! Hope to have a look later today.

Ronnie1 said:

Did you see the 2 barb archers on our southern border? I'd feel better if our CG warrior was in Copper Summit, but he's not, so we'll have to make do.

Everything else looks great!

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I knew these starting units would be usefull somewhen, somewhere, somehow.

Had a look already. Indeed look out for the barb archers down south. I think our archer should move this turn WNW and then depending on next moves of barb archers move to Copper Summit or back to Horse Farm.

I'm inclined to build a settler at Horse Farm. It'll grow too fast otherwise anyway. 2 pop whip it into monument and then finish barracks.

Not meant as major criticism, but I think the current situation in SL shows the downside of getting a bit lost in fancy whipping schemes... We have no less than 5 improved tiles and only working 2. That's a lot of yield we'll be missing out on until we grow back to at least size 4. That's also why I preferred settler at size 3. There's more to the picture of whipping than just looking for max overflow. A 2 pop whip in HF now on the other hand will not make us lose a lot of missed good tiles to work.

BSPollux said:

I like your turnset reports.
Thanks for that!

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Thanks, Pollux! I have enjoyed your memes, hopefully we will see more of them at some point.

Ronnie1 said:

Did you see the 2 barb archers on our southern border? I'd feel better if our CG warrior was in Copper Summit, but he's not, so we'll have to make do.

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Did not see them, partially because of that sign. (I cleaned up a bunch of out of date signs, but mostly in the north.) They were not visible from HF, so there was no warning at the start of the turn. Interesting hole in the warning process, founding a city and gaining more visibility.

The CG warrior was sent off scouting and no one said anything. He is still alive at least, so we could move him around if desired. Note that unit maintenance is hitting us hard right now, we need more pop to reduce that a bit.

nocho said:

Had a look already. Indeed look out for the barb archers down south. I think our archer should move this turn WNW and then depending on next moves of barb archers move to Copper Summit or back to Horse Farm.

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We do have the new chariot available. No defense bonus but strength 4. And the warrior in CS is on a hill, in a city, fully fortified -- +75% defense total. So I do not think we are in any danger of losing the city.

We are almost certainly going to have to move the worker, though, losing turns. I did completely miss the barbs, so the lost turns are my fault.

nocho said:

I'm inclined to build a settler at Horse Farm. It'll grow too fast otherwise anyway. 2 pop whip it into monument and then finish barracks.

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That would be a penalized whip since there are no hammers invested, and the city already has 4 turns of whip anger. It would be better to 2-pop the barracks this turn -- it is at 17/50 hammers, so we get max overflow and would finish the monument the following turn. Avoids whip penalty and delays the monument only a single turn.

Wait...you were saying to 2-pop the settler? Misunderstood, sorry. Still probably better to 2-pop the barracks, overflow to finish the monument, then grow back to size 3 (should probably happen by the time you finish the monument), then start the settler. We should spend time working on settlers and workers to kill whip anger, rather than generating more whip anger from them.

nocho said:

Not meant as major criticism, but I think the current situation in SL shows the downside of getting a bit lost in fancy whipping schemes... We have no less than 5 improved tiles and only working 2. That's a lot of yield we'll be missing out on until we grow back to at least size 4. That's also why I preferred settler at size 3. There's more to the picture of whipping than just looking for max overflow. A 2 pop whip in HF now on the other hand will not make us lose a lot of missed good tiles to work.

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I am not really worried about SL. The 2-pop whip of the settler got us the settler plus the granary, converting a lot of food into hammers, and the city will grow back fast. Size 3 in 3 turns, size 4 2 turns after that, size 5 2 turns after that. The city will be size 6 and at the happy cap by the time the whip anger wears off, if we don't stop it growing by building workers or settlers.

As for HF, what do you consider good tiles? The riverside grass hill mine is 1/3/1 -- I consider that a pretty strong tile. A couple riverside grass cottages would also be nice tiles -- not great now at 2/0/2 but they will grow, and we need them to grow to support our economy.

Things looks a bit bad right now due to the recent whips and CS being brand new. Our position is going to look a lot better 10 turns from now. (Assuming we do not get disastrous RNG against the barbs, of course.)

Not meant as major criticism, but I think the current situation in SL shows the downside of getting a bit lost in fancy whipping schemes... We have no less than 5 improved tiles and only working 2. That's a lot of yield we'll be missing out on until we grow back to at least size 4.

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I see your point, but we were/are going to whip it sooner or later. Whipping to size 2 and getting the Granary in place was a 1 time thing. It will grow very quickly now as h1 noted.

I also am not sure we need to move the CG archer from HF. The warrior will be 3.5 and fighting 2nd to the chariot at 4.0 assuming the chariot takes damage or dies.

There are a few build options available in HF. @nocho, are you saying that 4th city will speed us to our HA rush? or are you just in favor of a more REX type expansion while land is still available? Whip anger wears off in 4 turns, we could build another worker in 5 turns or whip a settler in 5 also. We could play safe and 2 pop whip the barracks now and have options including another chariot the following turn.

SL is barracks > ??? Monument or troops

CS obviously is in need of all infrastructure asap.

I also think things will look much better very quickly. I think once we grow SL back, HBR should come in about 15-16 turns.

Ronnie1 said:

I also am not sure we need to move the CG archer from HF. The warrior will be 3.5 and fighting 2nd to the chariot at 4.0 assuming the chariot takes damage or dies.

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We need to keep a garrison unit in HF to avoid even more unhappiness. Even if we do 2-pop whip it, it will be back to size 3 very quickly and will need an MP.

That said, moving the archer and keeping the chariot in HF gives us an emergency option to move the chariot over in a single turn. If we get bad luck and the archer is in HF, it can not reach CS in time.

On future builds, especially units, be aware that we are already paying unit maintenance. That will drop a bit soon, as we currently have only 7 pop. IIRC, chunks of 4 pop provide increased unit support. Of course if we 2-pop whip HF we will be down to only 5 pop (!!). But more units are going to cost us more money every turn, slowing our research even further. Not to say we should not build units if we need them, just that we should keep costs in mind.

Ok, short term goals from here.

Two competing options:

1. Expand peacefully until we run out of room, then continue to expand by attacking a neighbour.
2. Skip the first step and expand by attacking a neighbour.

Personally I like the second option. Kill Suleiman because he hates us, then kill Peter because he dares to share our colour scheme. Oh, you wanted rational arguments? AI capitals are shiny.

*IF* we aim to maximise our HA rush option there are two things we can do:
First: Prioritise . Build cottages and work them. Grow our cities to work more tiles. Don't whip too much.
Second: Grow our cities beyond the happiness cap. Unhappy population can be 'banked' to be whipped into Horse Archers.

adrianj, I am sort-of in favor of the #1 option. But more in the sense of wanting to grab the marble site, then focusing on the rush. Part of this is because it is a very strong site, even before we can use the seafood, and part is because we need to do something with HF to avoid unhappiness. A settler would work well for this.

But another city will increase our costs, and the marble city would contribute hammers without much (or any) commerce. So delaying it until after we have destroyed Suleiman (and possibly Peter as well) is also OK with me.

I agree with emphasizing commerce where we can. The silver mines need to be grown onto, and we need to add some cottages at SL and HF. We can also let some unhappy pop accumulate, waiting to be whipping into stables once HBR completes.

Otherwise we are mostly waiting until HBR completes, and doing a little exploring on the side. I had warrior 2 checking out the west, and I think that should continue. He has run into both Romans' borders, so maybe head southwest-ish? Victoria's WB came from the south, so maybe we can find her.

I had started bringing the scout back home, since I think we will want his Medic promotion for the war effort. Also, the wilds are crawling with barb units and he would likely die if we tried to push further into the unknown with him.

No sign of dV.... Is he also on vacation?

We last heard from dV 6 days ago. Prior to that (July 26th) he said:

da_Vinci said:

...
I have a busy next few days ahead with paper grading.

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I know we aren't really in a hurry... but, we know there will be no deadline extension and we are currently trailing the pack.
The roster order is very flexible. Does anyone want to pick up the save now? Ronnie? Nocho? You could continue with some turns haphazard?

In any case, perhaps those of us still around can put together a PPP regardless of who takes it on.

I can look later tonight when I get home and probably have a window to play Sat-Sun.

I pretty much agree with what h1 said from the second paragraph on.

I am very concerned that dropping another city now will kill our tech rate, especially one so far away, not connected and not commerce friendly.

I agree bringing the scout back was the way to go. We can explore with Chariots in the future.

I agree commerce + population needs to be our immediate goal with our sites still set on Suli > Peter etc!

PPP

Length of set
Flexible a bit, maybe to HBR if it goes quick and smooth, else 10 turns or so.

Research
HBR

City Builds
SL - Barracks > Monument > Chariot or worker depending on need.

HF - Monument > Barracks > ???

CS - Granary > Monument

Worker Actions
- Alex cottages riverside 2 tiles in HF then moves to help in CS.
- Billy probably forced to move away from barb archers, will go to copper, return to sheep asap.
- Charlie cottages in SL, prechops some forests.

Unit Actions
- Scout continues home.
- Warrior 0 (our starting warrior) comes back to garrison a city (SL).
- Warrior 1 stays put and alive
- Warrior 2 continues exploring S-SW
- Archer 0 I changed my mind here, I will move the archer so we can try to get him to 10XP.
- Chariot stays HF except in case of emergency, then explores Suli after barbs are managed.

Religion

Don't have any yet.

Civics

No changes

Stopping conditions
- We lose unit(s) to barbs inside our territory.
- Any AI DOWs or goes WHEOOHRN
- Meet remaining two AIs (allows hidden objective to be revealed)
- Religion spreads to us
- Unexpected issues

Espionage

Continue all points on Suleiman.

Questions and Open Issues
???

A few thoughts on the PPP, Ronnie1.

Ronnie1 said:

SL - Barracks > Monument > Chariot or worker depending on need.

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Do we really need a monument in the capital? A bit more culture per turn would not hurt, and units are costing us money, so I guess it is not a bad idea.

Ronnie1 said:

HF - Monument > Barracks > ???

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Do we grow HF into unhappiness for later whipping, or do we whip some of this infra? The barracks is at something like 17/50 right now, perfect for a 2-pop whip, if desired. I am not sure what the best approach is here.

Ronnie1 said:

- Warrior 0 (our starting warrior) comes back to garrison a city (SL).

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SL already has a garrison warrior. But it would be nice to put warrior 0 to use with his CG1 promotion.

Ronnie1 said:

- Meet remaining two AIs (allows hidden objective to be revealed)

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We met Victoria, so there is now only 1 unknown AI. I am guessing they are going to be hard to reach, to make the hidden requirement difficult to reveal.

Ronnie1 said:

Espionage

Continue all points on Suleiman.

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I was putting points on Catherine during my turnset, as suggested by adrianj. We are close to gaining visibility on her demographics, but we are also close to losing visibility on Suleiman. So keep a close eye on the EP, maybe start splitting them between Sulieman and Catherine?

Otherwise the PPP looks good to me.