SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

shyuhe said:

Also, I'd like to pause here if possible so that we can consider any strategy changes due to the discovery of a galley accessible civ.

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I think we can safely play until Sailing had been learned or WB #3 is done, whichever comes first (too lazy to check on my phone).

Well, one thought is to consider exploring the desert island we aborted earlier to see if we can plant city #2 there as an outpost for a Vicky conquest. A bit of a stretch but I thought it might be worth throwing out there.

Mitchum said:

I think we can safely play until Sailing had been learned or WB #3 is done, whichever comes first (too lazy to check on my phone).

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Turn 63, 2425 BC: That's this turn, but we have already moved our two Work Boat Explorers

Turn 65, 2375 BC: WB Explorer #3 will be built

Turn 67, 2325 BC: We have a scheduled "pause play" action for discussing the tentative location of City 2

Turn 70, 2250 BC: Sailing will be completed and thus we have a scheduled "pause play" action, in order to discuss the next tech to research (Writing and map out a path to Vicky for Foreign Intercontinental Trade Routes? Mysticism and Masonry and go for Stonehenge? Animal Husbandry and settle near the Grassland Pig since we can give our City access to this Resource without needing to pop our City's borders?)

Turn 71, 2225 BC: Settler 2 will board the freshly-built Galley 1 and we'll have to decide (if we haven't decided already) where to send Galley 1


So, at present, I am leaning towards ignoring that Desert Hills square with WB Explorer #2 and simply heading back to the Fish then Fur island, in order to explore the next "inner circle" island.

Similarly, I am leaning towards ignoring the southern 1-square Grassland Forest island with Work Boat Explorer #1 and heading towards the Clam Resource in our "inner circle."

Hopefully, doing so will give us the freedom to send Work Boat Explorer #3 immediately to the east, where we know that at least 2 AIs will be reachable.


However, since a "pause play" request was made, I will not execute any further turns until I see a bit more feedback from people as to whether or not they approve of the above plan.

shyuhe said:

Well, one thought is to consider exploring the desert island we aborted earlier to see if we can plant city #2 there as an outpost for a Vicky conquest. A bit of a stretch but I thought it might be worth throwing out there.

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That idea fits with sending Work Boat Explorer #3 to the east, as I just suggested in a cross-post... the idea of at least EXPLORING that island in time to help us decide, not necessarily the idea of commiting to settling there... just to be clear.

Here's a pretty picture to describe the exploration plan that I am suggesting. Note that uploading file attachments to the forums works again.

Dhoom, upload the save to the CFC server, please. There is a lot of new stuff for us to analyze. I'd rather not go any further so we don't regret something.

As requested, I have uploaded the latest saved game.

Here is the rather sparse-looking Session Turn Log and the link to the saved game, both provided by the submission page:

Nice turns Dhoom,

I really like your exploration plan. As Shyuhe suggested, I am more inclined to lurk the north east now that Vicky might come from there.

edit: maybe (a) and (b) will do redundant pathing in a couple of turns... perhaps (a) can go south west once it has checked the west side of that clam island.

RRRaskolnikov said:

edit: maybe (a) and (b) will do redundant pathing in a couple of turns... perhaps (a) can go south west once it has checked the west side of that clam island.

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Sure, the exploration paths will remain flexible based on what gets revealed.


As for redundancy, soon one of those two Work Boat Explorers is going to head towards a Seafood Resource, to net it for City 2. That is, unless we settle by the Stone such that we'll require a border pop in order to net a Seafood and thus won't need to net a Seafood for quite some time.

Obviously, once a Work Boat heads towards a Seafood for netting purposes, it "gives up" on exploration and so it won't be too long before we'll just have 1 Work Boat in the west.


The yuckiest part, in my mind, is that I don't see an ideal settling location... settle next to Stone and Magic Fish and you kill a chance to settle a Pig City (unless you settle directly on the Pig, which kind of sucks to do). Settle next to Pig and then we're stuck without Animal Husbandry. Settle by the Copper and the Worker can't improve a single square. Settle by the Fur and we'll have to research Hunting, not to mention the fact that we would be settling a Commerce-oriented City instead of production-oriented City... but at least it would have a Forest Chop to get a fast Granary going.

Anyway, part of the concept of not having an "ideal, straight-forward solution" is part of the fun, right?

City 2: we need to explore south of stone to check for another magical fish, but for now I like double fish/copper. No need for worker, just whip things out of the seafoods waiting for IW.

edit: hopefully DS remembered the crabs i was asking him south of this island, and we can settle on the copper. (ie i am not sure u explored there from the pics)

THis exploration path to the SW makes more sense to me, given our planned settling date:



I would take the long route. (the red line)

I like the longer route LC proposed.

There really isn't an obvious second city. We have up to another 8t to decide (perhaps less if we want to set up an instant seafood net), so let's just hold off on that.

Really feeling the advantage of epic speed this game. So much more time to scout the surroundings.
LC's longer (red) scouting route looks good. Maybe worth considering going green -> red and postpone circling the closest 1 tile island.

Should make sure we have a wb ready to map out England by the time we finish researching writing, but no urgency required yet.

I think both the longer red line or green-> red will work. I guess it depends on where we want our work boat to end up 7ish turns from now.

@Rusten We have WB#5 (explorer #3) due out in 2 turns. It has been proposed that this be used to head east toward Victoria and the islands east.

@Ras

Congrats on your Deity win in the last BOTM. Many good players failed at Immortal, so it must have been a tough game. I take back everything bad I've ever said about you... well, almost everything.

Mitchum said:

@Ras

I take back everything bad I've ever said about you...

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That'll keep you busy.

I also like LC's scouting plan to the west, and agree that we should send WB3 out to look for Liz.

Mitchum said:

I take back everything bad I've ever said about you... well, almost everything.

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Actually keep it up! I had a huge laugh reading through it this morning

edit: I would have gone north of the island then red path but I am ok with red. We seem to have a consensus here, nice!

LowtherCastle said:

THis exploration path to the SW makes more sense to me, given our planned settling date

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Indeed, it looks good, thanks for drafting it!

LowtherCastle said:

I would take the long route. (the red line)

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Okay, that approach fits with trying to get more inner-circle exploration along with having the Work Boat ready to go either west or towards netting a Seafood Resource.

We could be tight on the timing of netting a Seafood Resource if we pick either the Fish in the east (by the Pig) or the Crab in the north as our targeted Seafood, either of which may warrant turning Work Boat Explorer #3 around and sending one of the first two Work Boat Explorers towards the east to explore in its place.

So, I'll just have to take the turns slowly, to give us enough time to plan a netting path with one of the three Work Boats.

Rusten said:

LC's longer (red) scouting route looks good. Maybe worth considering going green -> red and postpone circling the closest 1 tile island.

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Indeed, it is worth considering the green -> red loop. It does give us a tiny bit of immediate flexibility, in that if we need a Work Boat Explorer to head east for netting, then we can skip the red line and go there directly... but I'm not sure that this approach is a good balance... we'll still be leaving some of the western area hidden. On the other hand, if we complete the green -> red loop, the Work Boat Explorer is somewhat out of position for netting... it'll be approximately on the southern side of the GFor one-square island on the turn that we complete our Galley 1. That's a great spot to be in if there is more land to the SW that we want to explore immediately, but not so great of a spot if we'd like to choose between netting and heading west.

So, I've considered the idea but I think that the red path does look to be better in terms of our positioning as the deadline for settling approaches... we'll be more centrally-located just before Galley 1 comes out (on approximately Turn 70, according to LC's image, while Galley 1 should be ready on Turn 71). The timing might be tight, but that's why we have multiple Work Boats that could be used for netting. Besides, we will get one extra turn of movement with the Work Boat which gets used for netting, since a Settler loses all movement points on the turn that it "lands," while a Work Boat can still move on that turn.


As another option (more like the pre-LC-image plan), taking only the green path gives us less info but more time to go and net a Seafood Resource... but since that option doesn't seem to be on the table (no one has suggested it after seeing LC's image), and since I don't like it as much as the red path, I won't vote for it.


So, I think that out of the two options that we have on the table (red path or green path -> red path), I would vote for the red path.


Since we seem to have general agreement here, I'll plan to continue play in 1 hour (unless someone asks me to wait longer), but will aim to take the remaining turns pre-City-2 slowly, to give us time to figure out which Work Boat should be positioned exactly where for netting purposes.

Sounds good. I say play on!