SGOTM 14 - Fifth Element

Looks like our two assigned members are still MIA.

El Capitan, you gonna PM them to be sure they are planning to play?

unclethrill said:

Looks like our two assigned members are still MIA.

El Capitan, you gonna PM them to be sure they are planning to play?

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No.
I will ask to Alan (PM just sent) to contact our unknown member and to Beestar to contact WithTea (he was in WhoDat, so he knows him).

Hi Alan,
just to ask yhou if you can contact vanatteveldt to ask hin if he likes to actuallly play.

He's new, so maybe he doesn't know what to do.

Thank you in advance, ciao
Blub

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I had a bit of time so I PM'ed Vanatteveldt and WithTea on the weekend. Hope they check in soon!

Checking in but can't make a full read/analysis till tomorrow.

beestar said:

I had a bit of time so I PM'ed Vanatteveldt and WithTea on the weekend. Hope they check in soon!

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Alan already PMed to van... and WT has just check.

Welcome aboard, WithTea!

@unclethrill Out of curiosity how do you make the test games? Worldbuilder to make the start the exact same as the screenie and let the generator do the rest? And I think in the test game there's a desert hill 1e where there should be a plains hill. I could be wrong though, it was yesterday that I noticed it and the passage of time may have me confused.

I want to run a few things through initially on the test, before setting anything down for the big early decisions. Thanks Unclethrill for setting it up, and nice to meet you. Ditto for Meowzedung (great nick) and BLubmuz.

On the personal side, single stay at home Dad here too. Except I have six. It didn't seem so insane when I was married with a good stable career. Got sick and lost the career and wife, but got to keep the kids : ) Now I'm a moderately successful writer, go figure people actually pay for the drivel that I write :0

On to the game, and no more boring bio. I play the Americans a lot. At least 80% of my games. The major thing to remember is that the Americans have no bonuses till late game and any strategy has to take into account that until that time everyone else does. Either in units or buildings.

Also as Dorothy is is essentially Lincoln I would propose that two wonders are going to be inordinately beneficial, depending on resources of course, The Pyramids and MoM. As micromanaged philosophical we're going to want to be running a lot of specialists. The Pyramids will let us run Representation early, doubling our scientists, and turning any other specialist into a half scientist. MoM properly run could easily let us run 1/5 to 1/4 of the game in golden ages. (84 turn GA in a 291 turn game.) edit : clarification - 72 turns is the highest number of GA turns without one of th three semi-random ways of getting a GA.

Sorry to double post.

Ran a few things through the test game. My big, big question now is the coast. I want to know if the real game is going to have a second seafood source as the test game does. For that I propose the warrior move SE first turn. Two seafoods and an oasis could really be useful.

I think we could use a show of hands on moving the warrior, as everything else seems dependent on what he reveals. I'm strongly in favor of 1 SE.

p.s. Though wondermania may not be the fastest way I think we need to weigh the actual hammer/beaker of wonders individually.

Wouldn't warrior NE reveal more sea tiles than SE? Either way I agree that the first move is warrior either NE or SE. Dual seafood, wet corn, oasis and at least one plains hill is tough to pass up, even if we have to move the palace later and leave this a GP farm.

Phi leader makes mids so very tempting I agree. However, the consensus thus far has been we should carefully weigh the cost/benefit of a wonder and avoid centering our game on wonders. To get as much of an advantage as possible I don't see how we can avoid The Oracle. However, as I consider it I really don't think SE is going to be the best for this game. If we are going to pursue a military vc, maybe involving a quick kill as unclethrill suggests the majority of our research will be from plunder/deficit slider and we won't want to run specialists anywhere but the GP farm.

Besides, the mids without stone (who knows, might find some nearby) on emperor seems a bit of a reach. Doable, yes, but it would use up a lot of chops/queue time early on.

MeowZeDung said:

@unclethrill Out of curiosity how do you make the test games? Worldbuilder to make the start the exact same as the screenie and let the generator do the rest? And I think in the test game there's a desert hill 1e where there should be a plains hill. I could be wrong though, it was yesterday that I noticed it and the passage of time may have me confused.

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Yes, WB to get the start and then i used the settings described and a fractal map and let the generator do the rest. As far as the exactness of the map, if you find a difference feel free to fix it and repost the new save.

MeowZeDung said:

Wouldn't warrior NE reveal more sea tiles than SE? Either way I agree that the first move is warrior either NE or SE. Dual seafood, wet corn, oasis and at least one plains hill is tough to pass up, even if we have to move the palace later and leave this a GP farm.

Phi leader makes mids so very tempting I agree. However, the consensus thus far has been we should carefully weigh the cost/benefit of a wonder and avoid centering our game on wonders. To get as much of an advantage as possible I don't see how we can avoid The Oracle. However, as I consider it I really don't think SE is going to be the best for this game. If we are going to pursue a military vc, maybe involving a quick kill as unclethrill suggests the majority of our research will be from plunder/deficit slider and we won't want to run specialists anywhere but the GP farm.

Besides, the mids without stone (who knows, might find some nearby) on emperor seems a bit of a reach. Doable, yes, but it would use up a lot of chops/queue time early on.

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We have to try for the oracle CS slingshot for sure. As far as mids go, i see the argument but even with stone, they take a lot of hammers; without stone we may be better to take them by force.

WithTea said:

Sorry to double post.

Ran a few things through the test game. My big, big question now is the coast. I want to know if the real game is going to have a second seafood source as the test game does. For that I propose the warrior move SE first turn. Two seafoods and an oasis could really be useful.

I think we could use a show of hands on moving the warrior, as everything else seems dependent on what he reveals. I'm strongly in favor of 1 SE.

p.s. Though wondermania may not be the fastest way I think we need to weigh the actual hammer/beaker of wonders individually.

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As far as the double seafood, i dont have the test game open so i'm not sure where the extra seafood is but anything not visible in Alanh's screenshot is randomly generate and probably not correct in the real game.

As far as the double seafood, i dont have the test game open so i'm not sure where the extra seafood is but anything not visible in Alanh's screenshot is randomly generate and probably not correct in the real game.

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Didn't think that it was there, but I do hold out some hope. Coastal contour is suggestive of a corner as we see in the test game. SE I think will open up to grassland, possibly a much needed grassland hill, and hopefully another seafood. Whereas NE seems to me to be just a couple of plains hills.

Experience tells me that the idea of 1W being a resource, copper or iron, is correct, probably copper. Horses seems like something the scenario builder would've pulled out manually.

With the consensus being that there is a resource 1W it is something we're going to have to take into consideration on where we settle.

I'd like to confirm whether 1NE will reveal all of our potential coastal tiles from a coastal capital (or whether 1SE will either). Also, while it's useful to pore over the screenshot, zooming in on the starting save is invaluable for trying to peer into the Fog.

pnp_dredd said:

I'd like to confirm whether 1NE will reveal all of our potential coastal tiles from a coastal capital (or whether 1SE will either). Also, while it's useful to pore over the screenshot, zooming in on the starting save is invaluable for trying to peer into the Fog.

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We get it tomorrow, right? We can zoom to our hearts content and then take a vote on the warrior move.

If the decision is between NE and SE I think NE is the clear winner. Reason being that 1NE revealed 4 sea tiles in the test save while SE only revealed 2.

True more sea tiles NE, but more tiles in total SE.

WithTea said:

True more sea tiles NE, but more tiles in total SE.

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Our target is to find a site for the Capital. A few more tiles not useful on this aspect won't help our decision.
On a pure sensation basis, i think that SiP can be the wrong choice. But i got the save now, so i can try some fogbusting.

We have to decide where to move the warrior, but also who will do it, since he will be in charge of the first TS, to avoid annoying uploads.

I think 30 turns for the first can be OK or some target research. Then 15, then maybe 10 once we have 2-3 cities and some worker.

I will update soon all the "maintenance" posts.

I can say that N of the sheeps and spices is GL. E of that in the fog is plains. 2 coastal plains hills.

I openeded F6 to verify the starting techs (agri and fishing) and discovered we have archery too. can there be a reason for this? It's not mentioned in the game description. I'll PM Alan to be sure it's not a mistake.

BLubmuz said:

I openeded F6 to verify the starting techs (agri and fishing) and discovered we have archery too. can there be a reason for this? It's not mentioned in the game description. I'll PM Alan to be sure it's not a mistake.

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Alan posted in the maintenance thread about this. Not a mistake. This leads me to believe that there are going to be early barb issues. Early military is going to be a priority it seems. Hopefully it won't interfere with our plans for the Oracle.

Regarding the first turnset, I personally don't trust myself (the sg newb) with what may be the most important turns in the game.

Edit: BLubmuz, it looks like you forgot to put me on the roster. I'll go cry in a corner now.

MeowZeDung said:

Alan posted in the maintenance thread about this. Not a mistake. This leads me to believe that there are going to be early barb issues. Early military is going to be a priority it seems. Hopefully it won't interfere with our plans for the Oracle.

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After my PM. He doesn't actually know if it's intentional, but you need to open a screen and to choose the tech. Thus it's surely intentional. I guess i agree with the need to have a military set up soon (wicked witches...)

Regarding the first turnset, I personally don't trust myself (the sg newb) with what may be the most important turns in the game.

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I'm thinking to WithTea: he's not exactly a new member, since FE merged with Who Dat in SG11, so he can be a good choice.

Edit: BLubmuz, it looks like you forgot to put me on the roster. I'll go cry in a corner now.

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sorry, i was in a copy/paste hurry, so i left many things as they were. Updated now, still just a list.

Don't you, don't you cryyyy (sing it on the Summertime bridge).

I agree: Early military seems like it will be necessary if there giving us archery out of the kindness of their hearts. We can probably get away with a worker first, but we're going to need to figure out how much military after that.

Edit: Went and ran Dredd's question on the test game. Number of tiles revealed NE vs SE are equal at 5. Though I'm willing to concede to the NE now, as the major question of more food, in particular seafood, looks like it has the best chance of being answered NE instead. And sorry for being such a blowhard.

Valid point on scouting for the capitol, but SE is the direction to give us the most information for that. I'm leaning toward the forest due East of the warrior if we go coastal. It maintains the oasis (No worker turns. I likeee.), corn, and crab, plus possible other benefits. Though if things don't pan out after first warrior move, original start looks good, especially considering the strong copper possibility.

I'm fine with going first, but beestar's been around just as long (as has dredd but if I remember right he hates doing the opening), and hasn't missed any SGOTM's since we started. So I'd waive off to him if he wants.

nah, you go ahead. got 3 trips coming up in the next 7 days(!)

This thread is a desert

Let's decide the roster. Please post your commitments for the next 2-3 weeks.
I alredy can see that Beestar is out for one week.

Vansomething is still MIA, so we stick on us 6.

let's try this:

WithTea: move warrior NE (?), save, post 08/12. How many turns? 20? Discussion, plan, post save 08/16
Unclethrill 15 turns (?) 08/20
MeowZeDong 08/24 10 turns from now on?
Beestar 08/30
PnpDredd 09/03
Blubmuz 09/08

This can be a schedule to avoid to be in a hurry in the end game. I think we can/must delay any decision on the VC until this round is finished.
Please note that if we attain to this schedule, we arrive 1 month in the game with 75 turns played.

Now the focus is: where to settle the Capital? what to build first?
so please let's limit the discussion to this until WithTea finishes play.