SGOTM 11 - One Short Straw

Okay, played 3 turns... And there's something. Aksum is on coast (not a lake), the landmass only extends 1 tile east of Aksum, and there's only tundra and ice south of it.



IMO this means:

1) We can turn that scout back west along the coast, scout the river between us and send the other warrior (due next turn) directly to fogbust/scout NW (to fortify on the forest NWNW of our first Corn for example)
2) We are in a real rush to settle the area between him and us if we want it. So we could reconsider the options that lead to the slightly earlier first Settler (built at size3 if I understood correctly).

Unless the next warrior move to SW reveals seafood, I see no point in a double-city block towards ZY. He started on a PH and I didn't see a worker improving those flood plains, it's very possible he's building a Settler. If that's the case we are very unlikely to beat him to the river area, in which case a fast double settler might be more valuable after all.

What do you think?
 
I think warrior1 should continue east and scout thoroughly. We don't want to have to send another unit here if there's only ocean beyond. Let's find out if we even need to scout with a wb. Maybe not.

Zara is building a workboat, I'm pretty sure. I doubt he'll build a settler before wb(s)/worker.
 
I think warrior1 should continue east and scout thoroughly. We don't want to have to send another unit here if there's only ocean beyond. Let's find out if we even need to scout with a wb. Maybe not.

Zara is building a workboat, I'm pretty sure. I doubt he'll build a settler before wb(s)/worker.

Agreed.

If I remember the AI code correctly, they will ALWAYS build workboats in a city before building a settler. I forgot who it was but someone demonstrated in a map that if you surround the AI capital with 17 fishing resources, it'll build nets on all of them before its first settler.
 
Yeah AIs are forced to build WBs before ANYTHING if they have Fishing, which can even lead to successful warrior rushes on Monarch... Didn't think of mass seafood for some reason. Good thing I asked anyhow. Staying on original plan...
 
Played according to plan. The continent seems to really end behind ZY with no surprises. Also, no seafood between us and him. The spot between us isn't really a die-for but still nice with tons of river even though it doesn't really have any resources.

Only decision I had to make was what to start chopping... The options were a lost turn by chopping a future river grass mine or chopping a river grass. I opted for the faster chop.



Speaking of surprises, guess what we lost by moving on turn0. I guess it was kind of obvious, but still hurts :p



Growth and 3rd warrior due in 2. I don't see anything fancy that would affect our plan for now, I set TW next but there was of course no investment yet if we want to change it.

So I guess I'll pass on the torch now - the saves are always handled simply by uploading through the website I guess? No login hassle or anything?

EDIT: Uploaded... Download link
 
Looks like for whatever reason the save is not up yet... did you have any problems submitting?

1s of stone might be a nice city spot...
 
Do we really want to settle resourceless river near Zara?

Darn we lost a huge opportunity from bad scouting. If instead of BW we researched well masonry we had good shot for very cheap stonehenge and other stone goodness.

We still can go this way now, but we probably lost SH, we still could try we can use fail gold.

GW could be very useful for as, there are so mach land around, not have to worry about city protection free a lot of hammers.

On other hand still want to see what is near silver. If there is any other sea food we can stick city here to help our research.

WE need to decide where to settle now, so we have time to move warrior into position.

Right now I am in favor of stone ( diagonally of stone so it can share corn with capital straight away), have cooper in fat cross and stone available immediately.

Well-masonry become our research plan. Well first if we change our opinion it give as additional flexibility.

In that case there no need to chop/whip settler, we can build in naturally and send worker mine silver.

I think it is best plan for now, unless scouting north of zara discover something interesting.
 
Yeah, the reason was I hadn't done it yet. :lol: It's up now.

I'll try to noob around less as the game goes on...

lol, didn't mean to be pushy... just sounded like you had submitted from your post!

I like Mutineer's idea of settling 1SE of stone. The river area between us and Zara really is not that attractive after all.

Any chance we can get one of our warriors up to the hill 2NW of Zara before his borders pop? It would be nice to see what is there before we don't have the option anymore.
 
I would still like to settle between us and zara. We could settle 1W or 1NW of cows. Then they're in the first ring and we should be able to hold it and a few FPs imo - it's only emperor AI and shouldn't put up as much cultural pressure as most of us are used to. Plus I expect resources, most likely iron, on one of those non-forested river tiles - and we really want to deny zara any chance of getting any metal, don't we? Also this makes zara start his military buildup earlier and thus makes him DOW us earlier which is good as we can turn our attention quickly on other stuff. IMO the faster the zara DOW the better for us.

Someone said something like "we do not need a scouting WB. OFC we need one! Or is there any doubt?

Our first warrior should go and have a look around the silver, however, we'd need to settle on either of those if we find more seafood. There is already whale... I'm not sure we'll find fish/crabs but that would justify a city - the city that gets out our scouting WB ASAP.

Our second warrior should imo go straight NE all the way up to the coast, then follow the coast while our third warrior can go to whatever city site we pick for settling for fogbusting.

Since we don't want another settler that quickly we're not going for another chop, right? And the wheel takes quite some time so I assume we'll want to mine the silver next.

Do we want to pass up on the oracle now? If we still want to have a go we can't tech wheel > masonry. I'm not sure myself whether it's a good idea to shoot for the oracle but I'm not too used to go for it and to playing emperor... IMO if we take MC/CoL it's not necessarily worth it as we want to REX, to settle our city spots quickly once we're done mapping out our land. And I really don't like CS or machinery gambles... in an offline game it would be different but here...


Having a closer look at aksum, there is one tile where zara might have copper/iron: 1N, where there seems to be a plains tile, manufactured by the mapmakers by the looks of it. We'll know for sure if warrior #2 moves on to that forested PH.

Checking the roster shows mutineer is up and I'm on deck :dance:


edit: I find the culture graph on the progress page quite interesting. Did fifth element build SH? Looks like nobody settled their 2nd city AND built a monument there so far, not even chokomistfits who are on turn 59.
 
I favour settling a copper/stone sight next. Without any resources the river area to the east is pretty poor and is best left to Zara. In order to get barb defenses up quickly I think 1NW of the copper would be best. This could be used to build a couple of axes for barb defence. This would also allow us to expand faster than we otherwise would.

A CS sling, whilst it has some risk attatched to it, would be such a powerful boost that any team that does successfully attempt it will have a massive advantage compared to other teams (This has been proved true in several previous SGOTM's), so I think we have to try it. If we go via a Maths lightbulb the risks should be fairly low.

In order to maximise the chance of a CS sling I back building the silver mine next and whipping the next settler for 2 pop as soon as it becomes possible.
 
Where are we headed, guys?

1. From the looks of it, we're not going to have any trading partners till Optics. To know for sure, we'll now need a wb because of the island to the SW. = coastal city + fishing + wb
2. If not till Optics, how many techs do we want to research till then? We could use Fishing, TW, Pottery, AH, Poly, PH, Masonry, Writing...in short, all of the techs are useful... :crazyeye:
3. Do we want to focus on REX, beakers, both?
4. Do we want The Oracle? If so, what tech do we take?
5. If CS, do we want to cottage Delhi (+50% of 20 commerce = . . . 10 commerce :vomit: )
6. If machinery, how much sooner do we get our post-Optics (if any) trading partners?
7. If we settle stone + share corn + partial SH or GW, how does that affect REX/Oracle?
8. If we settle 2-fish, do we go for AH-FIshing next?
9. How do we leverage our silver versus teams settling in place leveraging their copper?

What's our rationale?
 
Barbs on emperor will not be much of an issue - we can hook up the original copper and it'll still be ready with plenty of time before barbs become an issue for us.

I would prefer to NOT build the great wall even with the stone. We have very little use for spy pollution and barbs will likely not be a problem. I'd rather consider building the pyramids if we're going that route. Even then, I don't think they're worth it because it will stall our early development when our capital is busy preparing for the oracle.

Since the eastern land isn't hugely important, I'd prefer to slow-build the settler while getting silver online to gear for the oracle (whatever the tech may be).
 
Where are we headed, guys?

1. From the looks of it, we're not going to have any trading partners till Optics. To know for sure, we'll now need a wb because of the island to the SW. = coastal city + fishing + wb
This increases the value of settling a coastal city next, as it increases our scouting opportunities.
2. If not till Optics, how many techs do we want to research till then? We could use Fishing, TW, Pottery, AH, Poly, PH, Masonry, Writing...in short, all of the techs are useful... :crazyeye:
I think we need to come up with a list of techs we will research and those that we will trade for. Zara with religion is relatively easy to hit friendly, although it will take some time.
3. Do we want to focus on REX, beakers, both?
Both in an ideal world, but I think beakers are more important here since optics may be needed sooner than initially expected. Also, Zara won't settle the stone/copper for a while and the stuff between us isn't a big loss if we cede it to him. It may actually make him useful for some tech trading.
4. Do we want The Oracle? If so, what tech do we take?
Yes, I still like philosophy more than civil service as it'll give us earlier pacifism without costing us a scientist.
5. If CS, do we want to cottage Delhi (+50% of 20 commerce = . . . 10 commerce :vomit: )
I initially envisioned Delhi being a commerce capital as it has lots of green river tiles to work. I'm not convinced a CS oracle is best here as it WILL slow down our overall expansion.
6. If machinery, how much sooner do we get our post-Optics (if any) trading partners?
What are we realistically expecting to get in research trades from the AI? I wasn't hoping for much - the big benefit I see from optics is to enable early contact and early map trading to find those resources.
7. If we settle stone + share corn + partial SH or GW, how does that affect REX/Oracle?
We will have to tech wheel-masonry. Wheel is a requisite tech we'd have to research anyways but masonry is iffy. Other than the stone wonders, is it really useful?
8. If we settle 2-fish, do we go for AH-FIshing next?
Yes, and it may reveal horses too. We may have to reconsider settling patterns if we get horses in a good spot (think eastern river).
9. How do we leverage our silver versus teams settling in place leveraging their copper?
I think most teams settled on the hill. The trade is basically production for research. The in place teams can rex harder with copper whereas the hill teams will have stronger research. So to take advantage of our settling choice, we should get the silver online sooner. Anybody want to give consideration to a 2 pop worker whip followed by growth to three then chopping the settler?
 
Silu, could you give us a link to the save from 3275bc, please?

(My apologies if you already know this: Please don't upload it on the SGOTM page. Just use the "Go Advanced" button below and then use the <paper clip> link to upload the file. Then you have to link it into your post, using the address of the uploaded file--found from the properties...)
 
Huh, this thread seems to spontaneously generate a constant stream of posts.

Why are people talking about settling the Silver? An ice Silver is unworkably HORRID, at 0/1/4. Unless there is triple seafood the city would be doomed into suckiness forever. I can see ten better settling spots.

Reason why I spoke about settling the area between us and ZY... It's not that it's that great, but it's free landgrab. If we get it he's forced to settle desert and tundra, and not very likely to shoot for our closer green pastures.

About long-term plans, I'll write more when I can think again... Sorry, but my higher brain functions are still mostly tied up for school reports. Yesterday 8 hours of cepstral analysis, today 8 hours of digital emulation of tube amp distortion... :rolleyes: From where I stand now, I'm for the Oracle - as for what tech, I'm not totally sold on either CS or Philo. Early Bureu isn't that great for us here, and Paci benefit is slightly mitigated by PHI. True though that since we need to very probably be in a heathen religion to use Paci rather do that before Caravel contact than after. I like Machinery since it's a bit easier and scouting is very important.

LC: OK... Why? :) And isn't a normal attachment enough so I have to do this?
 

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Huh, this thread seems to spontaneously generate a constant stream of posts.

Indeed... can't comment before I leave work (about 7 hours)... but please wait for me before next set! tx! :lol:
 
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