SGOTM 14 - Fifth Element

Give me some time to do a bit more testing okay. Playing today or tomorrow or even the next day won't make much difference in timing but more testing right now will help to refine and maximize the turns.
 
Give me some time to do a bit more testing okay. Playing today or tomorrow or even the next day won't make much difference in timing but more testing right now will help to refine and maximize the turns.
Sure, no reason to hurry. In case you prefer to reverse our sets, just tell me.
 
Give me some time to do a bit more testing okay. Playing today or tomorrow or even the next day won't make much difference in timing but more testing right now will help to refine and maximize the turns.

aye, me too.

I really prefer a BW path over Masonry, even with marble.

A plan with BW gives us freedom to place our second city in an optimal spot (e.g. our test save has a 4-food resource BFC to the SE). If there's another food near the corn/cows then that's a prime spot for an early settler pump / OK GP farm. And if we are going to get BW, it's best to do it early, and in that case it's possible that mining the gems is a higher priority than food, just because the micro works best that way if we take that path (i.e. we can chop forests into an early 2nd worker).

We've got good targets now. Why don't we start posting full stats at turn 34, and also at the point that the library is completed? i.e. details of techs/pop/builds/improvements.

With BLubmuz's path, firstly we need marble, and once we get Oracle we still need to tech BW, switch to Slavery and build another worker. With UT's we are burning an extra GS. Would we be happy with turn 71 Oracle but without those limitations?

More testing needed!


To throw a spanner in the works: If there is only a small amount of land, is GLH a better wonder than Oracle? If we are gonna set up 6-8 coastal cities then GLH is probably superior to earlier CS...
 
We can trade for BW at any time, masonry is almost impossible.

Then, i don't think slavery will be a good move for this game: with all those happy resources and being Philo we can grow big cities with losts of specialists.

The GLH with the capital inland on Emperor? not easy. But there's nothing which can surpass a early CS sling, IMO. Just count the beakers you need for CS and the hammers you invested in the Oracle, then compare the benefits to have +2 TR in every coastal city. With the Capital cut off.
 
Wow you guys have been busy, but all on test games. I'm impressed.

In general I like the PPP that Blubmuz put forward. Even UT's plan as back up. Though I'm starting to wonder if dredd's point about BW might not have some bearing. With all the food work, and precious little for happiness it might be useful to have some way to bleed off the unhappy. Though that's longer term. In the immediate first score years I say go with Blub's plan. Edit: Little for happiness before calendar.

p.s. Doing much better breathing wise today, but I'm going to be very sick from the prednisone soon, so I'm glad I reupped the save.

To throw a spanner in the works

I love that. Everywhere in the English speaking world, but here in the States, it's a spanner.
 
On the GLH: I wouldn't make it priority, but if NY's going well and we are going to end up with nearly all coastal cities, it might be worth pursuing. Though my experience is that the AI pushes for it moderately hard and quite often has it built shortly after the Oracle, making it moot.
 
Wow, you guys make lots of progress during my night time :D

I'm inclined to think that the plan that doesn't *require* marble is superior by far, simply because we don't know if we have any marble.

Although I see BL's point about masonry vs. bw I think bw is going to be stronger *UNLESS we have marble @ 2nd city. Even without revolting to slavery, which I agree is not the way to go with Lincoln if we are pursuing a non-military vc, early chops are way too valuable to pass up.

You guys are way stronger at the testing and MM than I, so I will agree with what sounds logical. The only points I am going to really push are that we need to scout fast and furiously (vc choice depends on it) and we need to all agree on the 2nd city site. Like someone else said, it is going to be crucial that it be a capable city for helping REX and not just a one trick pony for the cs sling.
 
The biggest downsides of chops early are losing the math bonus, lower health due to no forests and lower production due to less hammers.

But ... if we don't have marble then it is the only way to go. If we do have marble then saving those forests will be important for our post Oracle REX to get 6 or 8 cities quickly.

I will post more later or tomorrow. I have been testing all day but need to compile my results to post.
 
The biggest downsides of chops early are losing the math bonus, lower health due to no forests and lower production due to less hammers.

But ... if we don't have marble then it is the only way to go. If we do have marble then saving those forests will be important for our post Oracle REX to get 6 or 8 cities quickly.

I will post more later or tomorrow. I have been testing all day but need to compile my results to post.

I agree with this, and we should have an idea of roughly what turn we'll produce the next 4 settlers post-oracle. We;ll only know that once we've scouted around and can weigh up our options.

Chopping is worth ~25 hammers, so without maths we are giving up ~12 hammers/forest. If we chop 6 forests before maths, that's ~70 hammers. That's not a huge amount - a decent 2nd site for producing settlers will make that up over say 10 turns.

But we won't know. Perhaps there's a spot with marble and 2 wet corns...
 
Slavery is incredibly useful, especially in the early game when we don't have enough happy/health cap to run lots of specialists anyway. Libraries give us 2 scientists so we don't need to run Caste System for a long time. Even if we go Culture, having the first 2 Great People be GSci is a good thing.

Teching BW also lets us locate Copper, which is very useful for early production. I'm very strongly in favour of BW instead of Masonry.

Chopping early is good - the health bonus of forests is not important because our pop will be far away from our health cap, and early hammers are worth way more than later hammers.
 
Okay well I have been testing and testing and testing. The best I can do on the first 34 turns is
Hunting -> AH->Mining->Writing

At the end of 34 turns we have:
Washington Size 5 -
17/30 Food
19/25 hammers in an Archer
BPT range from 18 to 20 with a library done in 10 turns at 18bpt up to 18 turns at 20 bpt
3 warriors
1 worker
Washington has 6 happy and 7 health available.


I have tried many different permutations and this is the order for things that seems to put us in the best position at T34 and through to the end of the Oracle.

Here are the highlights to what I did:
T1: Choose Hunting
T7: Hunting in. Start AH
T14: Worker done. Move to deer and camp.
T18: AH done. Start Mining
T20: Size 2. Camp done. Move worker to Sheep. Washington works deer and one lake square.
T22: Warrior 2 done. Start Warrior 3.
T24: Size 3. Move worker to Gems. City works Deer, Sheep, Lake.
T25: Mining in. Start Writing. Start mine
T28: Size 4.
T29: Warrior 3 Done. Gems mined. Work Deer, Sheep, Lake, Gems. Worker to PH NW of Washington. Start Archer.
T32: Size 5.
T34: Writing in. End TS.

Where we are at:

Our initial warrior explores to the N to the top of landmass and then circles around to the W and SW and travels about halfway down the hub peninsula then fortifies. We don't want to move too far down to limit the number of AI we meet before writing.
The second warrior explores to the SE. If our map type guess is right we should have almost all squares on our area visible by T34. Third warrior MP in Washington.

We can decide which way to go after this TS but I have rolled out both ways from here and both arrive at the Oracle on T69. I will continue to look for ways to maximize and streamline the second half of the TS but more exploration is needed to really be able to definitively say which route we should go in the second 35 turns.


Okay so now for the bad news. I have run probably 15 tests so far and in 2 of them the oracle has gone on T67 and when I just run things out to see when the oracle goes, it usually is between T72 and T74. So odds are in favor of us making it in time but there is, still even at T69, a chance that the Oracle goes before we can be ready to get CS. So we need to discuss how much of a risk we are willing to take here. I think that at this point we gotta try and make it happen because it will really give us a leg up on this game. We could go for an earlier Oracle and take something else but CS has the best return on risk then anything else. Other options for the Oracle could be:
Currency
Theology
MC

All of them would be good but none as good as CS. I just want everyone to understand that to get the big reward we have to accept the risk that we play as hard as possible and come away with 100 fail gold when it is all said and done. I'm willing to take the risk. Is everyone else?
 
I would rather that we make an exploring Archer first, rather than 2 warriors. Real barbs don't appear till later on, and the earlier we send out that exploring Archer the better.

I assume that you tested hunting-mining-AH and found that it wasn't as good mining gems before pasturing sheep?

Also: what turn is your Library complete with that start?

It looks pretty solid. I'm nearly done testing a wierd start that focusses entirely on early BW and Academy, at the expense of food. I'm not sure it's any good, but I'll play it through and post it up in detail for consideration.

I'm always up for a risk. Just ask any old "Who Dat" ter's about my crazy bulb-plan in a previous SGOTM (9?). We are competing against people who will kick our butts at micro management. We need a strong, bold overarching plan if we are to overcome all who stand before us! (yeah, I'm a little drunk)...
 
OK, I tested but I think it's too risky. I focussed on beakers completely, except when building Library.

But it's not quite there without Hunting early on. I've got COL/Oracle/CS all completed at the beginning of turn 72 with BW+2 workers, and without using an extra GS on maths.

The problem I'm having is that with Washington at size 4 when the Academy completes, I have to choose between sheep + either gems or deer. Gems results in fastest Oracle, but growth is too slow.

Anyways, here's the details, but I think it's just too risky:

Turn 1: begin worker1, work sheep then deer. Tech mining
Turn 9: mining complete, begin AH
Turn 14: worker1 complete, begin exploring Archer. Mine gems. Switch from deer to lake tile.
Turn 17: mine complete, work mine.
Turn 18: worker1 to sheep.
Turn 19: Idle worker1 turn. learn to knit.
Turn 20: AH complete. Begin pasture. Tech BW. Maximise commerce.
Turn 23: Pasture finished. Worker1 to plains hill to mine. Work pasture to grow this turn.
Turn 29: Washington grow to size 3. Completes Exploring Archer. Begin Worker2. Worker1 completes mine, moves 1E to Forest. Work Sheep, gems, lake.
Turn 30: complete BW, begin Writing. Worker1 chops.
Turn 33: Worker1 to forested plains hill, to mine.
Turn 34: 1 city. 1 worker. 2nd worker 56/60. Gems, sheep, 1PH improved. 1 forest chopped. 1 Archer. Teched mining-AH-BW-118/187 writing (3 turns)
TUrn 35: complete worker2, begin settler. Worker2 1S to chop silk forest.
Turn 37: writing complete, begin Library. Work sheep. gems, mined PH.
Turn 39: worker2 1W1NW to chop forest
Turn 41: hunting complete, begin myst-med-PH. Science to 0%. PH mined. worker1 1E to chop.
Turn 42: Washington to size 4. Work sheep, gems, mined PH, deer.
Turn 43: complete Library, begin settler. Worker2 2SE to chop. Tech to 100%. Built: 2 workers, 1 exploring archer (turn 29), Library, warrior 7/15. improved: sheep, gems, 2 PH. Teched: mining-AH-BW-writing-Hunting-Myst(48/72)
Turn 45: Worker1 1N to chop forest
Turn 47: worker2 1 SE to chop
Turn 49: Worker1 to Deer
Turn 51: PH complete, begin Maths. Settler complete. Settler 1E2SE to found NY between cows and corn. Worker2 2 E to chop. 1 Scientist to food.
Turn 52: Academy complete. Focus on commerce in Washington. Begin warrior, monument, warriors.
Turn 53: found NY, begin Oracle.
Turn 55: Worker2 farms corn.
Turn 56: Washington grows to size 5, works sheep, deer, gems, lake x2. Worker1 improves cows.
Turn 61: maths. Have free worker turns here (pigs?)
Turn 68: Move ontp final forests in NY this turn
Turn 71: Chop final forest into Oracle. COL in 1 turn. Oracle built in a far away land!
 
BW is more expensive than Masonry.
To research it we need to delay the Oracle date. More tests demonstrated that unfortunately, turn 69 is NOT a safe date. While being a great date for a CS sling and usually safe, it's not safe with this game set up.

We can't improve that date, it's the best possible date. No way to shave a single turn.

We have 3 choices:
1) risk turn 69 for CS only if we have marble,
2) use the Oracle for CoL with the same opening i proposed until turn 34 changing the research path after that in:
the wheel
Myst-med-PH
BW-Alpha (BW can be moved any where after the wheel)
3) same as 2), but aiming for MC, so BW inserted at any time after writing, pottery after PH then CoL, which should be safe enough.
 
I would rather that we make an exploring Archer first, rather than 2 warriors. Real barbs don't appear till later on, and the earlier we send out that exploring Archer the better.

I assume that you tested hunting-mining-AH and found that it wasn't as good mining gems before pasturing sheep?

Also: what turn is your Library complete with that start?

It looks pretty solid. I'm nearly done testing a wierd start that focusses entirely on early BW and Academy, at the expense of food. I'm not sure it's any good, but I'll play it through and post it up in detail for consideration.

I'm always up for a risk. Just ask any old "Who Dat" ter's about my crazy bulb-plan in a previous SGOTM (9?). We are competing against people who will kick our butts at micro management. We need a strong, bold overarching plan if we are to overcome all who stand before us! (yeah, I'm a little drunk)...

For now it gets me the Lib on T43 and the academy on 51(or52) IFRC. More testing tonight though.
 
I assume that you tested hunting-mining-AH and found that it wasn't as good mining gems before pasturing sheep?
If you have read my posts, you knew that i've found this is the best path to have an early Academy. Our target is not the library itself, but the Academy.

My previous post was started 3 hours ago,then i had to go out to try to fix my bicycle with a friend. So i need to read all what you posted after i started.
 
Though I think CS would be the best boost, this is the make or break for us. In every scenario I can think of, life is easier with the Oracle. I would like to run a couple of tests myself, but would say that I'd rather use the Oracle for Theology or CoL, rather than risk losing it. Theo being my first choice simply for being more expensive.
 
There's some useful information here on team games (apologies if this was already posted)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=302747

I forget the exact numbers, but if 3 people are on a team, and they're all producing 100 beakers, the end result is NOT 300 beakers towards the next tech. It's much closer to 100, though it is still greater than 100 beakers. Four people on a 4 person team producing 100 beakers each would be greater than 3. 5 > 4, and soforth.

Anyways, in there somewhere is a division by the number of teammates or a number based on the number of teammates. This means the human can greatly abuse this feature by not killing off one of your opponents teammates, and instead hearding him or her to a horrible spot on the map (hopefully somewhere in the arctic, antarctic, or some bastard city on a 1 square island) so his or her team still suffers from the extra person tech penalty without him or her being able to contribute very much to the team.

I assume our practice games are using teamed AIs, is that right? Right now the T72 date for Oracle+CS is looking pretty risky, though I'd be happy to go for it.

Some ideas to accelerate our Oracle CS date:
- Is it possible to bulb COL with a GPro instead of bulbing Math with a GSci? (Is this even preferable if we could?)
- Can we meet AIs to reduce tech costs?
- Can we improve by trading for required techs?
 
More tests done. I was able to get the cs slingshot on T71 going th BW route and without using a GS for math. I think I can shave some morfe turns off that possibly a bunch using that GS. More testing tonight after kids in bed
 
Possible to bulb CoL, but easier and better use to bulb Theology. My preference would be to Oracle CS and Bulb Theology but we're in a rush. Trading for techs would assume that after our mad dash to get that far ahead of the AI, there's a team just as advanced that decided to go for Alphabet. A scary proposition.
 
Top Bottom