SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

Agreed then
just, what's the procedure?
If I download the savegame from the sgotm server, I guess I am allowed to load it, take screenshots, and peek as much as I want, as long as I don't do anythiing irreversible? From where do I continue playing afterwards? from the downloaded save (loading it the 2nd time) or the save buffy ceates when exiting game?

I'll post a 3 turns PPP in a few hours. I don't have time now. Actually, I am already late to a certain place.

cheers

Agreed then
just, what's the procedure?
If I download the savegame from the sgotm server, I guess I am allowed to load it, take screenshots, and peek as much as I want, as long as I don't do anythiing irreversible? From where do I continue playing afterwards? from the downloaded save (loading it the 2nd time) or the save buffy ceates when exiting game?

Click to expand...

Yes you can load the savegame you downloaded and take screenshots, etc, as long as you don't do anything irreversible.

I personally don't have the option selected to save upon exit, but if you do then I think it would be safest (less likely to cause the people checking our game any concern) to continue playing from the save that buffy creates when exiting the game.

I am doing this for the 1st time, so I hope you forgive me my noobiness .

Our explorers paths were the easiest part to do, so I am attaching that first.

In the three turns, Amundsen would reveal some of the northern coast tiles. After scouting the whole remaining east, he would have some spare (catching crabs or stone grinding) time. We could keep him somewhere to fogbust untill the settlers are ready.

I would heal Burke for the turn (T30) Tachy kindly left over, and send him NW on turn 33, as it seems it's a hilly tile.

Columbus has the time to preserve (mabraham's dictionary) both southern traderoutes "fogs" and be ready to escort the 1st settler (if we send him for the gems site - best optiion IMO - settling towards the witches).

This is all open for discussion, but the three turns we talk about here are pretty much obvious aren't they?

continuing shortly

EDIT: I see now that I used the same color for Burke and Columbus, I hope you don't mind as it's orange.

As you can see, we did 151/187 bakers. At 12 bakers rate, we get BW in T33. Zero bakers overflow. This means we can't switch to corn which will be produced the next turn because we would have 151+12+11+11=185 bakers, and BW at T34. If we stay with the spices three more turns, and then switch to corn, we get the worker at T35.
If we switch to corn immediately, we get both BW and the worker at T34.

Interesting isn't it?

(disclaimer: I could have miscalculated something)

I am uploading the city screen (nobody did it untill now), so you can see for yourselves


Eiffel has already done his job for T30. The farm will be finished in T31, so he can move to the plains hill N of him and start a mine on T32. That covers the three turns frame.

Talking about chopping, which forests will we chop 1st?
The E of capital, and W of cows clears the way for settler movement (examples) while the ones on hills, liberate the, well... hills for mines. Which option is better?

I hope I am not missing anything. If you agree, I would play the three (or four if we decide for a one turn faster worker) turns tomorrow at about this time (24 hours from now).

I agree up to T33. The only question I have is do we want to heal for 1 turn or 2 turns with Burke?

I personally would heal for 2 turns in my own game, so he is at 2/2 rather than 1.9/2. I see the argument for not healing, but I guess I am adverse to risking our 2nd western scout at not full health after losing Toto.

No time right now, but you are wrong about BW in 4 turns by switching to corn

We are actually researching at 12*1.2 (since we get a 20% bonus for knowing mining and possibly another bonus from knowing AI that know it too.)

Ok, got that.
I forgot to mention the build order. Did we agree on the second warrior while growing. I forgot to take a foodbar screenshot, and have already closed the game. With Sheep, corn and cow we should be at (5+5+3+2) - 6 = 9 surplus. food needed to grow from 3 to 4 is 30 + 3*3 = 39. 39/9 = 4,33. At least 0,33 (0,33 * 9 = 3) must be in stock. 4 hammers (cow + city tile) = warrior in 4 turns also.

EDIT: I'm probably wrong with something here too, so correct me please.
I thought the bonus was already in the cost of the tech.

EDIT2: according to mabraham's pdf for turns 20 - 30, we are at 4 food stored now. Enough for growth in 4 turns.

I didn't have time yet to read all the stuff (just arrived), but before playing, if nobody inserted a comment in this way, chopping time is coming soon and maximising of forest regrowth without affecting much units moves is perhaps probabilistic, but strategically. I wouldn't spit on an additional 20 (30 after math). I will elaborate further a bit later.

(BTW, bcool, how the hell can continuously help people, you are a machine!? )

bcool said:

I agree up to T33. The only question I have is do we want to heal for 1 turn or 2 turns with Burke?

I personally would heal for 2 turns in my own game, so he is at 2/2 rather than 1.9/2. I see the argument for not healing, but I guess I am adverse to risking our 2nd western scout at not full health after losing Toto.

Click to expand...

Does it really worth another turn for an additional 0.1 hp? That is why I said one turn healing instead of two. If we were injured down to 1.6 hp, then two turns are reasonable at a rate of 0.2 hp per turns, but for a meager 0.1 hp...hmmm.

In my experience, yes it is worth an extra turn to get 0.1 hp on a warrior. When you step into a forest and a barb archer is there next to you, having 2 hp instead of 1.9 makes a difference.

Healing or not healing?
1.9 * 1.5 =2.85 vs lion odds? vs. 3 vs lion is ??? (forest defense)
1.9 * 1.25 = 2.38 vs lion odds? vs. 2.5 vs. lion is 80% (hill defense)
1.9 * 1 = 1.9 vs lion odds? vs. 2 vs lion is 50% (no defensive bonuses)

The 0.1 is significant I believe but I don't know the odds of the above scenario to fully evaluate. I believe the above strengths quoted for scenarios are correct, but I know I don't understand combat fully.

I forgot to mention the build order. Did we agree on the second warrior while growing. I forgot to take a foodbar screenshot, and have already closed the game. With Sheep, corn and cow we should be at (5+5+3+2) - 6 = 9 surplus. food needed to grow from 3 to 4 is 30 + 3*3 = 39. 39/9 = 4,33. At least 0,33 (0,33 * 9 = 3) must be in stock. 4 hammers (cow + city tile) = warrior in 4 turns also.

EDIT: I'm probably wrong with something here too, so correct me please.
I thought the bonus was already in the cost of the tech.

Click to expand...

I believe we are building a 2nd worker at 3 pop rather than growing to 4. This would be the only build you would be doing until T33 I believe.

I think the suggestion was to either build a warrior after the 2nd worker. Or to immediately build a settler after the 2nd worker. I don't believe the grow to 4 pop on a 4th warrior has been suggested. I believe it would be significantly worse than building a 2nd worker first.

Growing to 4 pop would set up a whip but I believe whipping a settler first has been deemed worse than alternative plans.

tech rate
the displayed tech rate doesn't include prerequisite bonuses or bonuses from other AI already knowing the technology. So we are actually teching at ~15 or 16 beakers per turn. You can determine this easily by comparing the tech progress from one turn to another. Or there is a more complicated way of doing it from demographics screen.

bcool said:

Thanks frogdude,
Man those Great Wall times are not good news for us.

I was hoping to have a try at the Great Wall as well as the GLH. If we want to do the great wall, the stone city has to be a big priority and we would likely mess up our REX.

The great wall is 150 hammers I believe, 75 with stone. Just looking at the savings in terms of units that might be needed for barbarians that we could possibly delay ... the cost with stone is 3 archers or 5 warriors. Maybe it is worth it. I think we can get away with no MP in our cities with the great wall for some time since we are flush with early and middle happiness resources...

Click to expand...

Great Wall times very discouraging. But on the bright side, those lighthouse times are beatable.
Btw, those times were recorded on an Archipelago(Snaky Continents) and Archipelago(Archipelago) type maps.


I was reading through some barbarian articles someone linked here a few days ago, and according to one about barbarian spawning, each unit can prevent barbarian spawn in any tile up to 2 squares away, regardless of LoS. Using that knowledge, it's possible to pretty much (barring one or two square) spawnbust our entire area for 5 units at the moment, down to just 3 warriors after the 2 settlers.


Scout movement plans seem sensible. I vote for Burke to fully heal, as I'm unlucky by nature, but I'm happy to go with the flow on this one. Once Burke is on the move, the 'Hill?' W of sugar looks good, but will depend on what direction the landbridge seems to be taking.


Plains Hill north of corn looks right for Eiffel. We need a 4th tile to work efficiently in preparation for when we grow.
After that, for random chopping, I personally tend to only chop the hills if I'm planning on staying around for the mine too. That's because otherwise you'll have to spend another worker turn getting back onto the hill later.
Chopping the forests that will make settler movement out of the capital faster seem good, but you also don't want to spend worker turns moving to the best forest.
So the one NE of capital looks good to me on first glance.

Walter_Wolf said:

I hope I am not missing anything. If you agree, I would play the three (or four if we decide for a one turn faster worker) turns tomorrow at about this time (24 hours from now).

Click to expand...

Excellent, this let me time to breathe and contribute better.

Kaitzilla said:

I also like getting the first settler out fast and revolting to slavery while it is walking. Why lose a turn with two cities when you can lose it with only one?

Click to expand...

Sure, that's a good idea normally.

Kaitzilla said:

Have the 2nd city build a worker or settler first if you guys are that worried.

Click to expand...

Can't do that with a size-1 city trying for GLH.

Kaitzilla said:

Slavery adds nothing but flexibilty to turn food into hammers instantly, which is amazing with barbs around.

Click to expand...

Slavery is a device that can rapidly convert pre-existing into at about 1:1 (until granaries double that). Working a Pmine is a device that converts such into at about 1:2. Working a Gmine converts 1:3. These do that conversion slowly over time, however.

If we whip our first settler from size 4 to 2, that generates 2*2030. Then, we build a unit while working the corn and sheep to regrow from a near-empty food box in about 3 turns to size 3, start working the cows and regrow to size 4 in another 3 turns. So that's 6 turns of the river Pmine that we gave up, and 3 turns of the cows. That cost 9336 from unworked improved tiles, and cost us the opportunity to grow to size 5 and work the river Gmine. Also, now we have 4 turns on a settler producing 15+/turn to just scrape get to 60 for another 2-pop whip. So, pre-granary slavery is breaking even quite reasonable for our capital while getting its first few settlers out. Nevertheless, with gems and gold and calendar resources abounding, I'd like to see us pushing our happiness cap all the time at max population working masses of cottages...

And with Sailing, Masonry, Wheel and Pottery coming before we can get granaries...

Don't get me wrong, slavery can be great, but it's only great when whipping smallish cities with granaries that were not otherwise working highly productive tiles.

Great Wall
Really the biggest benefit of the great wall is the great spy. Even with significant distance penalties the 3000 espionage from infiltration translates up to ~4000 beakers (assuming stealing a tech base cost is 1.5 * our cost to research * 0.5 for stationary spy * distance penalty * espionage spending discount) I'm assuming the distance penalty and the espionage spending discount roughly cancel out.

Now this assumes the target civilization techs something we want, techs something that they are not willing to trade, and we can get a spy at the right time.

However, that stolen tech could then be traded for more than it is worth to other teams. So those 3000 espionage point could easily translate into 6000+ beakers. (Plus several turns of city visibility, and knowledge of what they are researching...) Not bad for a 75 raw hammer investment and our first great person.

If we whip our first settler from size 4 to 2, that generates 2*20

Click to expand...

whipping gives us 30 per pop

Walter_Wolf said:

In the three turns, Amundsen would reveal some of the northern coast tiles. After scouting the whole remaining east, he would have some spare (catching crabs or stone grinding) time. We could keep him somewhere to fogbust untill the settlers are ready.

Click to expand...

Amundsen's first move is suicidal if there's a panther in the fog. Move 1E first.

Walter_Wolf said:

I would heal Burke for the turn (T30) Tachy kindly left over, and send him NW on turn 33, as it seems it's a hilly tile.

Click to expand...

SW-W-NW looks fine, but you can make the third decision yourself when you see the land.

Walter_Wolf said:

Columbus has the time to preserve (mabraham's dictionary) both southern traderoutes "fogs" and be ready to escort the 1st settler (if we send him for the gems site - best optiion IMO - settling towards the witches).

Click to expand...

Well, he'd be establishing those potential trade routes, rather than extending them, but I like the movement plan.

Walter_Wolf said:

Eiffel has already done his job for T30. The farm will be finished in T31, so he can move to the plains hill N of him and start a mine on T32. That covers the three turns frame.

Click to expand...

I think that is best.

Walter_Wolf said:

Talking about chopping, which forests will we chop 1st?
The E of capital, and W of cows clears the way for settler movement (examples) while the ones on hills, liberate the, well... hills for mines. Which option is better?

Click to expand...

I think Eiffel should do Pmine, move north, chop, Gmine, then chops. I think the second worker (choose a name someone!) should chop S and then SW, clearing a path for the settler around the southern end of the lake, and pre-positioning for a run to improve the wheat.

frogdude said:

I was reading through some barbarian articles someone linked here a few days ago, and according to one about barbarian spawning, each unit can prevent barbarian spawn in any tile up to 2 squares away, regardless of LoS. Using that knowledge, it's possible to pretty much (barring one or two square) spawnbust our entire area for 5 units at the moment, down to just 3 warriors after the 2 settlers.

Click to expand...

That's good news.

frogdude said:

Scout movement plans seem sensible. I vote for Burke to fully heal, as I'm unlucky by nature, but I'm happy to go with the flow on this one. Once Burke is on the move, the 'Hill?' W of sugar looks good, but will depend on what direction the landbridge seems to be taking.

Click to expand...

Heal him fully.

Originally Posted by Walter_Wolf
In the three turns, Amundsen would reveal some of the northern coast tiles. After scouting the whole remaining east, he would have some spare (catching crabs or stone grinding) time. We could keep him somewhere to fogbust untill the settlers are ready.
Amundsen's first move is suicidal if there's a panther in the fog. Move 1E first.

Click to expand...

Moving 1SE first instead of moving 1E reveals the elephant. This allows the warrior to make the next move E slightly safer since we would be moving next to 3 tiles with a possible barbarian in them.

If you move E first instead you would need to move the next turn SE into a space surrounding by 4 tiles with a possible barbarian in them.

Furthermore moving SE first suppresses barbarian spawning in 3 more tiles compared to moving 1E.

I don't think it is clearly better to move 1E rather than 1SE. The panther risk is real, but the path SE-E does reduce other risks slightly.

bcool said:

Moving 1SE first instead of moving 1E reveals the elephant. This allows the warrior to make the next move E slightly safer since we would be moving next to 3 tiles with a possible barbarian in them.

If you move E first instead you would need to move the next turn SE into a space surrounding by 4 tiles with a possible barbarian in them.

Furthermore moving SE first suppresses barbarian spawning in 3 more tiles compared to moving 1E.

I don't think it is clearly better to move 1E rather than 1SE. The panther risk is real, but the path SE-E does reduce other risks slightly.

Click to expand...

OK fair point