SGOTM 15 - One Short Straw

No, baby lentils haven't developed enough to get feelings.

I eat them by the box :popcorn:
 
LowtherCastle said:
The Mahabodhi must be spiritual to have switched religions and expanded borders.

There's some potentially valuable defog info to the SE revealed by settling Delhi, telling us:

1) how much terrain will get defogged by Delhi's 3rd border expansion on T24 and
2) what sort of protection our warrior can expect to the E/SE.

Bbp's screenshot doesn't give me that info, but I'm not sure that tells us enough to resolve the Dhoom Debate on warrior SE or SW. I'm thinking we just want to know about the Marble BFC rather than assume about it.

If ZPV's right about Highlands and it's a 64x40 cylindrical map, then our second city at distance = 4 tiles will immediately incur a 3gpt maintenance cost, and that maintenance will stay at 3gpt up to pop5/pop5 or pop6/pop4 for those two cities. That's a pretty expensive initial cost and Stone and Marbler not going to grow very fast at the same time. So that's an additional argument for worker first. It's also an argument for Pottery+granaries asap though that requires testing to confirm it's workable. (It's also another argument against Domination, since the cylindrical wrap doubles distance costs, as ZPV pointed out last SG.)

The basic difference between worker or settler first is food versus hammers, although the highland map adds 1gpt cost to the tests we've been running. From the looks of our land, that may boil down to how soon do we want to get 5 fogbusters out. Barbs are an argument for settler first. The mountains to the NE and E of Delhi might help fogbust some after T24. Otherwise, our land is still looking to be extensive and it won't be easy to fogbust adequately in a timely manner.

EDIT: ZPV, can you tell what the most powerful unit on the map is? Looking at the warrior's health bar, I'm thinking it might be 4 str, possibly meaning Mansa is in the game with skirmishers.

.
Click to expand...

I said Global Highlands, which is a 80x52 cylindrical map at standard size. I haven't tested a regular highlands map yet - I'll take a look to see if that produces sensible land and food counts.
edit: a regular Highlands map has more land than this (although neil could have edited this), and more importantly, has the south pole as the equator (with desert, jungle, and deciduous trees (especially when you force a Tropical climate on it)), and the north pole as the arctic (with snow, tundra, icy trees, etc.).

I'll take a look to see about the most powerful unit.
edit: yes, it's strength 4, making Mali a good bet.

We don't know for sure that the shrine player is SPI - they could have started the game already Buddhist.

Without extra food, I have my doubts about settler first, but I'll be happy to test it out after moving SE.
 
Mali's in the game because of 24k soldiers, yes.

I doubt we'll go settler first now, as well.

I'd go SE and try to explore the marble area quickly. In any case, we should make the warrior move today, so we can start testing the opening.
 
LowtherCastle said:
Bbp's screenshot doesn't give me that info
Click to expand...
Took another one:
Spoiler :



Totally missed the deer before. :mischief: I guess I should really play with resource bubbles.
 
bbp: in the first screenshot, I see two unexplained bits of water/blue.
a) The tile 3W1N of Delhi. Does it have fresh water?
b) The mountain 3N2E of Delhi. Same question.
 
Bbp, after you make the warrior's move, please upload the save, before hitting enter.

.

.

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Mess with other teams' minds about where to settle, since a couple teams have already posted saves settling on T0 and T0 looks like a stronger start...
 
Dhoomstriker said:
Player A: "Well, OSS moved their Settler and they must know what they're doing, so let's do the same!"
Player B: "Great thinking!"
:lol:
Click to expand...
More like, they moved their settler, so at worst we're in the same position. But actually, I was thinking we start with Hunting, but we don't. Now I'm not so sure how much better S1E is.

EDIT: Depends on what else S1E has in its BFC. COuld be cornucopic, the way this is going...

BUt actually, settling on stone does have the advantage of expanding onto the deer on T24, so if we settle on the grass to get the deer and the marble, we can already start working the deer. Marble doesn't have that advantage, so maybe Marble also has another resource...
 
LowtherCastle said:
Bbp, after you make the warrior's move, please upload the save, before hitting enter.
Click to expand...
Just to clarify, he's actually not hitting Enter now, right? I mean, we still want to do smoe more Settler-first versus Fast-Worker-first testing before he ends the turn, right?

While normally I wouldn't suggest Pausing the game before uploading, since we won't expect the game to be paused and thus it might throw us off to find the game already paused, but in this particular instance, it is probably worth Pausing the game before uploading it, since we won't have a unit with any movement points remaining to it to prevent the turn from be auto-ended with an Enter or Spacebar keypress.

Simply stating that the game is Paused after uploading it (stated in the thread) should be good enough warning for the rare instances like this one where we actually want to upload a Paused saved game; sound fair?
 
LowtherCastle said:
More like, they moved their settler, so at worst we're in the same position. But actually, I was thinking we start with Hunting, but we don't. Now I'm not so sure how much better S1E is.
Click to expand...
Deer generally isn't a strong square because it is typically found on Tundra. Here, it's at least on Grassland... but then again it's on a Hills square... it's still not a powerhouse of a Food square like a Grassland Pig, but it will give us:
4 Food + 2 Hammers with a Camp

If we Chop its Forest later, it will give us:
4 Food + 1 Hammer + 1 Commerce, due to being on a River, plus whatever we can build with said Forest's Hammers.


I'm still thinking that we're more likely to find something interesting to the SW to pair-up with the Marble, particularly now that we've revealed what might be the only Food Resource to the east, but that's all speculation on my part based on how barren our land appears.
 
ZPV said:
I said Global Highlands, which is a 80x52 cylindrical map at standard size.
Click to expand...
That gives the maintenance w'eve been testing:
Code: 
City1/city2   cost(gpt)
-----------
pop1/pop1     2
pop4/pop1     2

pop1/pop2     3
pop5/pop1     3
pop6/pop5     3
So it would behoove us to grow Delhi as much as to pop4 before growing Bombay, if they have to share food.
 
LowtherCastle said:
More like, they moved their settler, so at worst we're in the same position. But actually, I was thinking we start with Hunting, but we don't. Now I'm not so sure how much better S1E is.

EDIT: Depends on what else S1E has in its BFC. COuld be cornucopic, the way this is going...

BUt actually, settling on stone does have the advantage of expanding onto the deer on T24, so if we settle on the grass to get the deer and the marble, we can already start working the deer. Marble doesn't have that advantage, so maybe Marble also has another resource...
Click to expand...

Dhoomstriker said:
Deer generally isn't a strong square because it is typically found on Tundra. Here, it's at least on Grassland... but then again it's on a Hills square... it's still not a powerhouse of a Food square like a Grassland Pig, but it will give us:
4 Food + 2 Hammers with a Camp

If we Chop its Forest later, it will give us:
4 Food + 1 Hammer + 1 Commerce, due to being on a River, plus whatever we can build with said Forest's Hammers.


I'm still thinking that we're more likely to find something interesting to the SW to pair-up with the Marble, particularly now that we've revealed what might be the only Food Resource to the east, but that's all speculation on my part based on how barren our land appears.
Click to expand...

Deer/forest is a strong starting tile because it has 4 food-hammers unimproved.

We have more short-term production than the turn0 teams, but fewer food and hammers long-term. So our game has to be based on REX if we don't want to just fall behind.

Honestly, I think we should be prepared to build a worker first (or even two! exploring warriors while growing) if we don't like what we see, but also be prepared to change to a settler on turn 2 (or turn 8) if we see something where neil posted a sign saying "settle me". :crazyeye::p
 
Too bad we don't have Quechuas, then it would have been war-based-REX with our "extra" (relative to some other teams) Hammers.

Pumping out a couple of quick Fast Workers could work as long as we have the tech level to support them having useful Worker actions to perform... Bronze Working would give them something useful to do (Chopping Forests). The Wheel could let them start setting up a Road network.


Are we leaning toward playing for a Cultural Victory? If yes, then a Monotheism beeline (for Judaism) should be one of our top considerations for a tech path (with Agriculture snuck in there and POSSIBLY The Wheel but no more than that), which is a fact that would have an impact on what we do.
 
LowtherCastle said:
That gives the maintenance w'eve been testing:
Code: 
City1/city2   cost(gpt)
-----------
pop1/pop1     2
pop4/pop1     2

pop1/pop2     3
pop5/pop1     3
pop6/pop5     3
So it would behoove us to grow Delhi as much as to pop4 before growing Bombay, if they have to share food.
Click to expand...

Well, Bombay growing to pop2 isn't a bad thing - if we really want, we could just put the extra citizen on a river to pay for the 1cpt difference - just Delhi gets the food.
 
Putting an immediate settler build right next to that deer tile is looking tempting. Yes, it's one fewer hammer off the bat, but we can get immediate trade routes for +2cpt.
 
Since we start with Mining, I'm tempted to tech:
Polytheism -> Agriculture -> Bronze Working -> Masonry -> Monotheism


We could skip the Masonry + Monotheism part if we decide at that point not to go for a Cultural Victory.

Delaying Monotheism to sneak in Bronze Working risks missing founding it, but delaying Bronze Working for too long seems to be even worse of an idea, if you ask me.


I'm thinking that a City for the Deer will proably be built NOT sharing the Marble but to the east of the Deer, where it gets a bunch of currently-hidden squares.


If there is Food to the SW of our Warrior, then we could have one Legendary-to-be City be our capital, one be SW Food + Marble, and one be Deer + eastern squares.


Setting up your three Legendary-to-be Cities within the first 4 Cities that you build tends to be a big factor if you want a relatively early finishing date.


Let's say that there is another Food Resource to the east of the Deer--we'll essentially "waste it" (in terms of our Legendary-to-be Cities) if we settle Deer + Marble as a City. It's hard to believe that the area to the east wouldn't have another Food Resource--it looks very Hilly and is likely meant to be our Heroic Epic location (Neilmeister seems to like putting in such a location nearby if his recent XOTM maps are any indication).

So, I really don't think that we'll be partnering-up Deer with Marble.

Besides, there's no room to tech Hunting anytime soon, so I wouldn't really see us settling by the Deer until we build our third City, by which time we would be a lot closer to being able to squeeze in the teching of Hunting.


EDIT: Cross-posted with ZPV.

Where would you have such a City sit? 1E of the Deer? That location could potentially work, depending upon where the Food exists in that area. We might end up wanting to settle SE or E or NE of the "1E of the Deer" location, though, if there is more Food to be found toward the east of there, which would no longer keep us on the River.
 
Dhoom: forget Judaism. The key to a fast cultural victory with this start is good REX, not picking up another early religion.
(And we haven't exactly decided on culture either).

edit: I don't know exactly where yet - it's just a different option to settling on the marble. Possibly east of the deer. It's just another possibility for our second city which would actually work with an immediate settler.
 
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