SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

^^^^

Updated my plan.

If I get enough ok's on it, I can play in a few hours.

I'll try to provide screenshots of whatever is interesting, but it's only 9 turns, so probably and hopefully not much

Bugg123 said:

EDIT: Oh yeah.. I got the file allright

Plan for next 9 turns:

Wa = Warrior, Wo=worker

T36: Start TW, Wa1 NE, Wo1 S+Chop+Cancel. Focus EP on Zara.
T37: Wa1 NW+W, Wa2 SE, Wo1 SW+SE+Farm+Cancel, Delhi Works Corn*2+Silver (TW in 9)
T38: (Exploring warriors: Try to keep them alive while exploring as much as possible - along the coast when possible), Wo1 S+Mine, Wa3 Try to get him E of Stone, Delhi Starts Settler. (4th citizen on 1f2h (governor))
T39-42: Nothing much
T43: Mine done
T44: Wo1 N, NW, NE
T45: TW in, upload save - Not moving anything.


EDIT: Still not sure if you want me to stop for anything during the 9 turns. Not much we can do regardless of what happens, I think.

Click to expand...

Plan looks good. Some micros:

T36 -- 3rd citizen to silver
T37 -- wa1 SW back to Forest, it's safer to keep it in the forest. It's all right to fight with >90% odd even it's wounded. It's same for Wa2, no need to avoid in forest unless a bear is approaching.

If you put 3rd citizen on silver T36, you delay growth by 1 turn (at least in the testgame.. if that is not the case in the proper save, then no problem)

Duckweed is right, looks like I missed 1 food when I created the test game.

t36 -- assign 3rd worker to silver

t37 --during test games at least 1 Lion kept going into the forest so obviously dodge/move further N into the other forest

T37: so you'd rather I fortify in the northern forest and wait for action from at least 1 lion, then explore?

With 3 lions nearby, It's very possible to meet them on plain tile if you keep exploring. Woodman II warrior is more valuable. If lion does not move into the forest wa1 stand by, let him go back, other wise, as you planned. You can let wa2 do the exploring west.

^^Exactly (move in between the 2 forests as needed)

Allright. Plan corrected. Final draft :

Wa = Warrior, Wo=worker

T36: Start TW, Wa1 NE, Wo1 S+Chop+Cancel. Focus EP on Zara. Delhi Works Corn*2+Silver
T37: Wa1 NW (dances between forests, picking fights 1 at a time), Wa2 SE, Wo1 SW+SE+Farm+Cancel.
T38: (Exploring warriors: Try to keep them alive while exploring as much as possible - along the coast when possible. Use primarily Wa2 for exploring), Wo1 S+Mine, Wa3 Try to get him E of Stone, Delhi Starts Settler. (4th citizen on 1f2h (governor))
T39-42: Nothing much
T43: Mine done
T44: Wo1 N, NW, NE
T45: TW in, upload save - Not moving anything.

Go on

In fact, internet in my place is out of order.

I'm waiting in a train station for the save tonight - hope I can get it but I can't find it in the download page?

Sorry!

New save will not be up tonight. Was waiting for the last "ok". Now I don't want to rush it, so I'll get to it first thing tomorrow. (I'm in Europe as well)

Turns played.

Everything as planned.

Fortunately nothing exciting happened. Killed 4 lions and explored. Not quite covered all the coast north due to killing and healing.

No other known barbs at this point. Woody is in the open to reveal a few tiles last turn (and I didn't think there could be animals close to the tile due to warrior placement the previous turn).

Battles:
While defending in the wild, Warrior (1.48/2) defeats Barbarian Lion (Prob Victory: 99.3%)
While defending in the wild, Warrior (1.48/2) defeats Barbarian Lion (Prob Victory: 93.4%)
While attacking, Warrior 1 (Delhi) decimates Barbarian Lion (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
While defending in the wild, Warrior (1.62/2) defeats Barbarian Lion (Prob Victory: 99.4%)

No reason not to pursue copper first, I think. Western location of second city also strengthened. Don't know exactly where you'd want it.. maybe a few options.

So there is another island to the west...

This is a really generous map we were given. The land is top notch !
I'm thinking more and more how good the Great Lighthouse would look in this game... We probably couldn't get the hammers in time, though. And maybe it's not so great an idea, given that we have plenty of multipliers for other wonders. Copper serves the Colossus btw...

We should have a productive coastal city. 1-2-3W1N of the stone looks fine for that purpose (Cows+marble+stone+grassland hill+2 floodplains to be cottaged). Also SE of Delhi.
We will probably want to dotmap the whole thing, though, right ?

What do you think ? The more wonders we want, the faster we need to settle, is that right ?


To more pressing concerns :
2 islands may mean we'll need to send more than 1 exploring workboat. I'd favour starting a WB straight away in the 3rd (coastal !) city. We'll still need to explore east of Zara, maybe there are more islands. Are there some "Archipelago" kinds of fractal maps ? It didn't strike me there were...

Thinking a bit more about it.. with all this good land available, do we want to have city 2 not really doing all that much?

With commerce the limiting factor on this map, GLH would certainly help. Colossus would net some cash as well.. but we're not really going after MC, I think? Plus if we want specs, we're not working all available seatiles, I suppose. If we want GLH, the best place could very well be the cow+marble+stone+fp site. At the same time, since we have so much food around, we do want pyramids as well .. and I'd still like oracle for CoL.

So.. is there any chance to land all 3? We'd get more info on AIs wonder tendencies as soon as GW or SH is complete, I suppose.

I have no idea what we should or shouldn't do at this level right now.

I checked a few old saves (5-6) and the GLH was mostly built between 600 and 400B.C. The TOA you mentionned in other posts was built around the same time
You're absolutely right about the Colossus being inappropriate (tech path + use of citizens).

2nd city :
The great advantage of the current location is that it is very close and doesn't require any additionnal worker tech. This saves us some time on our way to the Oracle...


Yep ! If you play only on deity level, I can guess you have trouble to scale what emperor allows/requires ! The best thing to do would be to quickly play through a few games, just to get a feel of the difference. No need to run parallel test games for this (don't even bother with Epic speed, go normal or "Fast" dunno how it's called...) Mostly it is the tech rate (hence my emphasis on Alphabet) and the AI's agressivity/unit spam that change the game. I always consider AIs as allies rather than opponents. On Emperor, they're much less useful allies ^^ (much less troublesome opponents as well, of course).
My point is that game breaking strategies are just the same on Deity and Emperor (you should have a better knowledge of them than me). What changes is how accessible they are (like founding a religion and building a shrine). Also : on Deity, the AI will monopolize some of those strategies (see religions) and the player has to adapt to benefit them (see diplomacy). I.e. we can get on the side you're used the AI is. The issue is that we actually have access to a LOT more viable strategies than on higher levels. And with limited information, we can only make moderately enlightened decisions as to what the best choice is. But... that's what the game is about
On that train of thought, once we've founded Confucianism and made friends with Zara, it may be (or may not) a good idea to build the AP. We'd get hammers for our specialist cities and could force Tokugawa to open borders. He then may agree (or may not) to trade us his fur.

Did one final test-run on our testgame.

Basically.. from our position as per the submission:

We can:

Get writing/Oracle ~2150BC (T74)
Beeline PH
Then assigning 3 Scientists in Delhi to speed up research Masonry-Fishing-Sailing-AH-Pottery (This will delay any plans of cottages)

Settle 2nd city out of Bombay 2125BC (By cow+stone+marble+fp). Start it on a wb asap, farm floodplains, chop+mine hill (into WB). Then Lighthouse-GLH (chop and whip (into temple and alone, back down to 1pop).

Finish Pyramids T103 (if we want to, or slowbuild T106).

Settle 4th city (at least, f.eks by all the food to the west).

Finish GLH ~775BC (T129) out of Vijay.

I'm sure there's optimizations to do to that, but roughly it could be possible, and could be early enough as per BICs referencegames. (EDIT: But not allways in kossin's tests)

Leaving us 3-4 workers and 4 cities + 3 wonders by 775BC. EDIT: We're also just a few turns from Aesthetics.

@BIC:

On that train of thought, once we've founded Confucianism and made friends with Zara, it may be (or may not) a good idea to build the AP. We'd get hammers for our specialist cities and could force Tokugawa to open borders. He then may agree (or may not) to trade us his fur.

Click to expand...

It could be possible, and we'll probably get a prophet out of delhi second if we want to, say bulb theo. Not saying it's optimal use of the GP, but possible.

Oh... and I realize I've gone into Mr. wonderbuilder right now.. just thinking out loud

Updated test game.

Nice job Bugg123, hopefully you can get in another 5/6 turns that will be more interesting

I'd just like to point out there's at least a 3rd island here (screenshot from test game):


There wouldn't be food/commerce without land in the vicinity. A city where the warrior is standing will give us access to it after first border pop. Perhaps that is where the main landmass is? (Or even the fur location but that'd be hoping for too much!)

I think going for GLH+Oracle+Pyramids is pretty heavy on hammers, given we'll probably want Parthenon+TGL additionally.

Let's dotmap and see what looks to be best.

I got it.

Good job, bug and kossin! We have a clearer idea of the map.

I hate it when there are too many choices. Clearly the Oracle, the GLH and mids are some real tentations. If their priority should be evaluated, the Oracle> the GLH > the mids as I see it. (we'll have 7-9 coastal cities in this map, so the GLH = 30-50+ free commerces. Briefly, much more powerful than the 3+ beakers of spe under representation.)

All this is based on the assumption that there are AI on the other "continents".

I'll give a few tries to optimize the micro and prioticize the GLH.

The mapmaker seem to be leading us to a bloody continental warfare to get access to the only fur of the map.

@ kossin:

I don't see the necessity of the GL, even the Pantheon. The early wonders are powerful enough. And the land is really abundant on food, which already allow us to support a decent number of GP.

Keen observation on the sea tile! I guess to the west it's kinda islands which may link to another continent.

Given the exploration we've done so far, it's not surprising to find another mapmaker's "island shenanigan" to the east of Zara.

My take :
Assuming no seafood NW of the rice and Zara settles east of Delhi, 9 cities :
- 4 strong ones, including the capital ;
- 2 utility (blocker and 1st city for territorial purpose)
- 3 fillers.

Hybrid settled 1st, then +14food farm, then +9-10 food farm (transformable in Moai production city later on), then cottage paradise. Then blocker (location may vary). Then fillers 1,2&3 (number 3 is at the very south, claiming the deer).




ps : I'm assuming that the 2 landmasses to the west are either :
- connected ;
- a single and one landmass.
Hence the "strange" location of "filler 2". Exploration will tell where is best.
Also assumed : no supersite on those islands/continents. We could very well settle only 5-6 cities on our continent if overseas is attractive.

EDIT : farm +9-10 food is in fact +10. I thought I would share the cows when making the sign... It appears they're not shared...