Sandkasten

If we get Hindu in capital, chances are good that it will spread to Midstown before we get Judaism there. It's some 15 turns, which means an amortized chance of ~77% to get Hindu spread.

EDIT: Chances for spread are ~10% on any given turn, which means ~40% during the first 5, ~65% during the first 10, and ~77% during the first 15. So pretty good overall.

Niklas said:

If we get Hindu in capital, chances are that it will spread to Midstown before we get Judaism there. It's some 15 turns, which means an amortized chance of ~77% to get Hindu spread.

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right, but it doesent matter WHAT reli we have in our second city. as long as we can switch to org.reli and have SOME reli in said city we are fine. besides, getting our capital as a double holy city... ...would be also something (mainly a big red marker saying: raze here, best is to use beserkers and navi2 ships)

following that thought, it makes building city 2 inland more and more interesting, cause IF we get the mids, i would prefere to build them in a city save from naval raids (there also exists the ugly trick to use a GG on a galley to give said galley 5 move for sneak attacks)

Aye, that's what I meant with my post. That even if we do found Hinduism we'll still have a better than average chance to end up with both cities having the same religion that we can use, and not have to switch back and forth (which of course works as well).

I know the capital will always be at risk, but I was thinking to stack GOOD wonders in the capital with the Oracle. The other city we can stick in Parthenon to avoid artist pollution.

Well before Berserkers get online, we will have a wide security net around the capital. It won't be so easy for the vikings. I so hate losing the extra GPPs from Oracle(and other things) that should be stacked with the NE for best effect.

I was speculating how long a diversion to hunting and a spear or two would set us back, if the worst case neighbour scenario is realised?

BobRoberts said:

I was speculating how long a diversion to hunting and a spear or two would set us back, if the worst case neighbour scenario is realised?

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i will check that, give me a sec (but it wont be much)

IF there is bronze in the hill where we speculate to plant city 2 or in the hill 89 from capital:

delays oracle 1 turn-> 47, like first plan
delays forge 1 turn -> mids 70, like first plan (cause we get mono 2 turns later)
we have 2 warriors less, but 1 spear

wont kill us I guess...

...

if we have to go and find bronze somewhere... ...indefinitely, cause we then need to find, road and settle bronze... ...right now its too early to make such a prognosis

1 spear won't be enough if we have the Persians next door and they decide to come after us, though.

in turn 37 we could have our first spear ready, and i assume it will be enough (we have 3 warriors arround that point)... ...and if not, we can build them "en masse" in our second city from turn 36 on... ...and if they manage to take us out before turn 37 with 2-3 immortals... ...they are so incredible good players that we wouldnt have had a chance anyways

just do the math: worker with plainshillstart: 12 turns + 5 turns foodstuff (you need to grow to have production to get immortals out at a decent speed) + 4 turn pasture + 4 turns roads (given horses are 2 tiles away from capital)=25 turns, without loosing any worker turns to walk to destination, immortal 30 hammers (I think), lets assume a production of 5 for the first immortal, we have the first immortal ready to go in turn 31+/-... ...getting to us then takes maybe 5 turns more = turn 36+/- first immortal at the gates... ...and i still dont see an easy win of an unpromoted immortal against 3 warriors fortified on a hill, in a city, even without culture...

4 vs 2+25%+25%+25%=3,5 with culture of 20%: 3,9

if we dont suffer terrible bad luck, we would loose the first warrior but the immortal should be wounded enough to be cleaned up with our second (or third) warrior.

once we have 2-3 spears ready (which we can have around turn 40, if we delay oracle a bit, what we would do in an emergency situation like this for sure), the window of opportunity of the immortals is over (you need soooooo many of them to still do real damage, that you cripple your own buildup totally)

Thanks Snaaty - thought it was worth thinking about a little!

Like you say, the copper location is the nub.

I kinda like that plains hill for it, but it is really packed with surrounding resources, so perhaps less likely. Not *too* long until we know for sure!

I also wasn't sure if hunting was part of our core plan - not a big tech, but it is a diversion.

OK, cool - I thought you were talking about 1 spear at T70, which would definitely be too little, too late.

Hunting will cost us about 2 tech turns to get, but saves us almost a whole turn on AH. So, even if we don't need it early, I think it's best to get it even still, after we are done with pottery & mono.

What do you guys think if GLH is disabled now, and if like Obs said some people might change their focus now to Oracle > MC gambit, what should be the time frame for those nations to get it. I would hate it if we lose the whole thing for one turn.

I'd be surprised if other teams can reach it as fast as us, considering that our focus was on this gambit from the start and we've got our gems to speed up research.

In addition we're also the only spiritual team here so we can take advantage of having Organized Religion. Other teams will have to revolt to their religion and then revolt to the civic for that extra production boost.

If.. and big "IF" we pull off the old Oracle gambit... I suspect the other teams may not exactly piece together at first what we had done. They will see us with two founded religions, and first try to conclude that we did this to hurt other player's from grabbing a religion of their own.

Also, when they see us going after Masonry, they will most likely figure out (by chance) that we want the Mids, but they will base this from a wrong conclusion. They could also suspect we may be going after the Wall.

In any case we'll be suspect of having stone, which is actually fine with me. The more dis-information they develop, the better.

DMOC said:

I'd be surprised if other teams can reach it as fast as us, considering that our focus was on this gambit from the start and we've got our gems to speed up research.

In addition we're also the only spiritual team here so we can take advantage of having Organized Religion. Other teams will have to revolt to their religion and then revolt to the civic for that extra production boost.

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We have to be in with a good chance! It is an awesome plan, after all!

But I feel we should assume that other teams have comparable starts to ours? Either gems of their own or liklely gold/silver/furs...

Think the time the we can start working our gems and the time the second city goes down and starts developing could have quite a significant impact on the tech racing.

Yeah, what I'm most afraid about the Oracle gambit is, that generally high starts make people to think about it. 4 FIN Civs, and if they have even nearly comparable starts to ours, many will certainly give serious thought to Oracle. Now, something makes me think we might have a better early start than most, since our food is mediocre at best. So maybe we don't have that much to fear after all, plus we don't need the detour to AH for our food like I would imagine many will have to.

I think only irrigated corn would be better. Both AH and Fishing starts are a touch slower to get rolling. Fast workers chopping is also hard to beat. We are constrained by the forge whip timing, ofc. Building the Oracle faster is possible, but not necessarily a good move. They call it a gambit for a reason. Even if we lose out, I like this opening, since we're not sacrificing expansion and development with it (assuming we don't have to make some really tough choice regarding copper).

On top of this, we get a very strong second city up early.

if a team wants to get oracle and is sacrificing everything for it, the WILL beat us (doesnt matter which team). with a start as we have it, by chopping all you have into oracle (3 forests=60 + 12 hammers a turn)=5 turns build. you can have priest 2680 BC = turn 33, 5 turns build finished turn 38 with a start as we have one... ...but you sacrifice everything for it, so no settler, no mc pick, just oracle and monarchy you will have... ...which is, in my opinion, not worth it (getting city 2 up turn 35-38 + decent infra compared to getting city 2 up around turn 45-50 with not much infra makes an big difference, that stacks later on... ...getting oracle turn 38 also means, your workers will be idle for some turns after chopping, cause you haven no wheel, nothing... ...and monarchy as tech isnt really compensating cause its not an important tech and you always will be 1,5 city behind other civs that go directly for expansion)

babybluepants said:

I think only irrigated corn would be better. Both AH and Fishing starts are a touch slower to get rolling.

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Yeah - I meant longer term, as that's probably a big part on how the start locations were "normalized". Then dry Corn beats wet Rice, Pig always beats Rice etc. My point was that if someone is given 2 Corn or Pig+GreenCow or quadruple seafood or similar they probably won't get 2 Gems like this Our start is pretty damn optimal for an Oracle gambit because of river agri food and multiple Gems.

Snaaty said:

if a team wants to get oracle and is sacrificing everything for it, the WILL beat us (doesnt matter which team). with a start as we have it, by chopping all you have into oracle (3 forests=60 + 12 hammers a turn)=5 turns build. you can have priest 2680 BC = turn 33, 5 turns build finished turn 38 with a start as we have one... ...but you sacrifice everything for it, so no settler, no mc pick, just oracle and monarchy you will have

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Yeah. I think we can agree that it's very, very improbable for a team to go for Oracle as an all-in like that