SGOTM 15 - One Short Straw

OK, so there is a good chance that Toku's archer will take care of the barb archer for us. If not, I like Dhoom's idea of using one of our workers to safely scout for us once the pigs are pastured.

Regarding settling a bunch of cities in the south, I just don't see it. If we go conquest/domination, we're going to have 50+ cities by the end of the game and "filler" cities won't be worth settling, especially if we already cover those tiles with our culture.

I suggest that magnusmarcus play forward with the two-pop option in Delhi. Maybe play 2 or 3 turns at a time so we can reassess how many cities there are, where the barb is and what Toku's archer is doing. I feel like we need to get over this hump and get the game going again...

XPOST with Dhoom, LC and ZPV...

Mitchum said:

I suggest that magnusmarcus play forward with the two-pop option in Delhi. Maybe play 2 or 3 turns at a time so we can reassess how many cities there are, where the barb is and what Toku's archer is doing. I feel like we need to get over this hump and get the game going again...

XPOST with Dhoom, LC and ZPV...

Click to expand...

Is there any objection to me playing the next 3 turns following my previous PPP to include switching Espionage points?

Do any worker turns need to be modified to accomplish dhooms' worker scout suggestions (at the end of 3 turns both workers are on pig)

I'm going to let a couple hours elapse before checking for an objection
So around 15:00 hours Central Time approx. 3 1/2 hours from now

any addendum to where the warriors need to move?

I'm still focussed on TOku's archer. Here are my calcs for his current location. What I'm not sure about, though, is whether or not tiles in our land are considered. It seems like they are. If so, what path does he pick? This is concerning because for the 3NW site, one of the three highest values, he might prefer to go 1N next (as in 1N-1SW-...) or even 1S (as in 1S-1NW-...).


Plus, if he goes 2SW, then will he want to come back NE?!?

.

LowtherCastle said:

Two further clarifications, ZPV:
1. The 5000 for Owned. Is that owned by anyone or by Toku?
2. Can the destination tile be inside our territory, since we're not at war with him? (I don't see it saying not, but then again, I also don't see a reachable path to us without OBs.)

Click to expand...

1. Anyone. Even the barbs.
2. generatePath won't allow him to pick a tile inside our territory without OBs, or mountains, etc, but he will add 1000 per unrevealed tile in our territory, etc.

Then it's this, unless he gets an extra 1000 per tile he defogs 2tiles from the 1SW hill:
It looks to me like the possibilities are dominated by the RNG10K and he is more likely to not go SW, simply because there are many other possiblities. Is that how you read it?

EDIT: Wait a minute, if he can't pick an owned tile, when does the owned 5000 ever get included? EDIT2: Never mind--when we have OBs... (duh)

PPP Suggestions
Please do update the PPP so that we're all on board with any changes that you are making, such the switching of our Espionage Weighting (Ctrl + e brings up the Espionage screen... Weight 0 for Toku, Weight 1 for Hammy).


54 1840BC
Warrior 2 (Jack--the one on the G Banana) can't really do much from the G Banana square, so we could certainly move him back 1N to the GH Riv... that way, if the Barb Archer does come west at the right time, we can consider defending from that GH Riv square. I don't really care THAT much if you'd rather keep him on the G Banana, but I also don't see any advantage to doing so.

Warrior 3 (the one by Zlatorog) goes 1W GRiv

magnusmarcus said:

Delhi mm max food

Click to expand...

Specifically, the Corn, Flood Plains square, Copper, and GFor squares (+8 Food, +8 Hammers, Library in 1 turn)


55 1800BC
If the Barb Archer appears, stop play.

magnusmarcus said:

Continue retreat with banana warrior to culture border 1 w of corn

Click to expand...

This point is no longer applicable. Instead, I would just stay on the same location that Warrior 2 (Jack) stayed last turn (either on the G Banana or on the GH Riv 1N of the G Banana).

magnusmarcus said:

Fortify Marble 1E warrior

Click to expand...

This point is no longer applicable. I would just continue to keep Warrior 1 (John) on his GFor Riv 1S of the GRiv Copper.


Warrior 3:
a) If Barb Warrior is 1W of the Lake or 1E of the Lake, move 1E GRiv For (1S of the GRiv For Deer)
b) If the Barb Warrior is not visible (i.e. he moved to the north), move 1N onto the GRiv For (1W of the GRiv For Deer)


56 1760BC
If the Barb Archer appears, stop play.

Warrior 3 (near Zlatorog):
Maybe don't move him (just "wait" his turn by pressing the "w" key), since there are so many possibilities based on what the Barb Warrior has done up until this point. We may want to move this Warrior (so don't end this turn), but it'll be easier to just discuss where to move him based on what the Barb Warrior does instead of trying to predict all possibilities and discussing them all in advance.

Warrior 1 (John): Just stay where he is
Warrior 2 (Jack): Just stay where he is



As a minor point, perhaps you can put your "MM" points a bit higher in the list of things that you need to do... if you perform your micromanagement at the end of the turn, once all units have moved, then it's easy to forget to do it and it's also easy to accidentally advance the turn too soon by pressing the Spacebar or Enter key and thereby not end up performing the micromanagement.

LowtherCastle said:

Then it's this, unless he gets an extra 1000 per tile he defogs 2tiles from the 1SW hill:

Code:

location	Goody	fogged	adjFog	RNG10K	adjLand	owned	MinVal	MaxValue
1SW			  1	   	  1		11000	20999
1S,1N,1NE,1E			   	  1		10000	19999
2SW,1SW1S,2S				  1 	  	10000	19999
3SW			  1	   	  1		11000	20999

It looks to me like the possibilities are dominated by the RNG10K and he is more likely to not go SW, simply because there are 4 other possiblities. Is that how you read it?

EDIT: Wait a minute, if he can't pick an owned tile, when does the owned 5000 ever get included?

Click to expand...

If he does have OB, then he can pick an owned tile, and the 5000 provides an incentive to explore rival territory.

2-tile-sight doesn't provide a boost - it's just the 1000 per adjacent tile.

Mitchum said:

Regarding settling a bunch of cities in the south, I just don't see it. If we go conquest/domination, we're going to have 50+ cities by the end of the game and "filler" cities won't be worth settling, especially if we already cover those tiles with our culture.

Click to expand...

Well, there are three big things to consider here:
a) Getting the Marble (all of the options that I presented will satisfy this criteria)
AND
b) Having a City that can be a productive contributor for my army-spam next turnset... such a City has a very high importance since Zlatorog can't contribute much, Nature's Candy has very little production, and we only have 2 other Cities
AND
c) Having the option of building a navy in the future (or at least an exploring Work Boat in a City with a decent amount of production--Nature's Candy isn't really amazing in the production department)

My preference for option point b) is settling on top of the Marble. There, we get base Hammers from the Marble and can share the Copper, Corn, and Flood Plains squares when Delhi isn't using them. Remember: when building mobile Hammers (aka a military), it matters less exactly which City produces the Hammers. So, it's stronger for us to have, say, Marble City borrow the Copper and Delhi work a GH Mine than to have Delhi work the Copper and Marble City work a GFor square (due to not having other improved squares to work yet) while Delhi's GH Mines go unworked.

Option b) leaves open the possibility of settling a City on the Banana for a later decent naval City that has a decent amount of Food, has access to GRiv and GHills squares, and will be close to our capital for low Maintenance. We don't necessarily need to settle every Seafood Resource (i.e. not necessarily settle the two Fish to the south-east), but this way, we'd get two pretty strong Cities that have low Maintenance.


Given that I have to magic an army out of nowhere, my current inclination is to settle on the Marble, which will still be a reasonable City in the long run and will be a very powerful City in the short run--and it is the short run that we have to focus on, since the whole point is to get a large army ASAP and then convert those Hammers into allowing us to grab superior Cities (Toku's Cities).

1. Looks like pure luck whether TOku will help us.
2. Our best hope is to get both warriors to teh Marble-1SW forest before the settler. BUt for now I'd leave the SE warrior on the forest to fogbust to the SE. If the archer attacks, we should be able to clean up with the second warrior, especially if one warrior promotes to Woodsman I. I agree that if the barb archer appears anywhere to teh South, we stop and discuss it.
3. I also agree that we just continue the original 2poprush plan and see how things go for a few turns. (And plan to settle Crab Rangoon as planned.)
4. Please continue making saves each turn so we can monitor the worldwide city count and Osaka's build hammers.

Good luck, magmus!

magnusmarcus said:

Do any worker turns need to be modified to accomplish dhooms' worker scout suggestions (at the end of 3 turns both workers are on pig)

Click to expand...

Sorry, I forgot to answer this question. The answer is that no, no Worker actions need to be altered for the next 3 turns (only once we start Mining the Gems square will we make a modification to one Worker's actions).

Settling on the marble would definitely speed up the capture of Kyoto, but I'm not sure by how much. We could test that out a bit, but I don't think we need to decide in the next 2-3 turns, do we?

LowtherCastle said:

Settling on the marble would definitely speed up the capture of Kyoto, but I'm not sure by how much.

Click to expand...

I forgot to mention that settling on top of the Marble would also give us 3 Forests to work with without requiring a Cultural Border expansion... equalling a quick Granary to get productive plus a partial Catapult.

LowtherCastle said:

We could test that out a bit, but I don't think we need to decide in the next 2-3 turns, do we?

Click to expand...

No, we don't need to decide during the next 3 turns.

What about having the worker near the copper hook up copper to Delhi before hooking up GEL to Delhi. Sure, we lose the +1C trade route, but it gives us options if we need an axe in an emergency. As long as we don't learn hunting, Zlatorog can safely finish its warrior.

Maybe we should stop at the point where we have to make this decision. If Toku's archer is being a man and charging into battle, there's no reason to change...

EDIT: Good luck, magnusmarcus!!

Mitchum said:

What about having the worker near the copper hook up copper to Delhi before hooking up GEL to Delhi. Sure, we lose the +1C trade route, but it gives us options if we need an axe in an emergency. As long as we don't learn hunting, Zlatorog can safely finish its warrior.

Maybe we should stop at the point where we have to make this decision. If Toku's archer is being a man and charging into battle, there's no reason to change...

EDIT: Good luck, magnusmarcus!!

Click to expand...

Actually, that's one detail that might change if we settle on the marble, namely, we could probalby road straight from teh marble NE, instead of roading the copper and copper-1NE.

That would be an improvement. Magnus, I would suggest that you play till the worker has chopped Delhi-1SE and is ready to make his next move. How's that sound?

LowtherCastle said:

Magnus, I would suggest that you play till the worker has chopped Delhi-1SE and is ready to make his next move. How's that sound?

Click to expand...

Well, we'll be stopping play on 56 1760BC to confirm what to do with Warrior 3, once we've seen what the northern Barb Warrior has done.

At that time, you can look at the manually saved-games for two additional turns to see if we're getting any closer to the 31-Cities-Worldwide mark.

We'll also have seen where Toku moved his Archer for 2 turns and whether or not the Barb Archer has shown its head.

After that, we can confirm where the Warriors will move and can decide which further Worker actions may need to change, if any, in terms of our eastern Roading plan.

Magnus, how soon you planing to play?

LowtherCastle said:

Actually, that's one detail that might change if we settle on the marble, namely, we could probalby road straight from teh marble NE, instead of roading the copper and copper-1NE.

That would be an improvement. Magnus, I would suggest that you play till the worker has chopped Delhi-1SE and is ready to make his next move. How's that sound?

Click to expand...

I don't understand why this is better. They way I see it, we need 5 road segments to connect the marble to GEL. Having the road go NE through the copper has the added benefit of connecting copper to Delhi and Delhi to GEL.

In any event, this doesn't change the in the next 2 turns... play on, magnusmarcus.

LowtherCastle said:

Magnus, how soon you planing to play?

Click to expand...

1 hour from now unless prompted to do so sooner

Mitchum said:

I don't understand why this is better. They way I see it, we need 5 road segments to connect the marble to GEL. Having the road go NE through the copper has the added benefit of connecting copper to Delhi and Delhi to GEL.

In any event, this doesn't change the in the next 2 turns... play on, magnusmarcus.

Click to expand...

I guess there's not a lot of difference.



I like roading the deer because it costs us a turn to improve them anyway. COnnects Delhi to GEL with only 3 roads. More direct route from Marble and Nature's Candi to Kyoto. Makes a road directly to the Cows/Deer site.

LowtherCastle said:

I guess there's not a lot of difference.

I like roading the deer because it costs us a turn to improve them anyway. COnnects Delhi to GEL with only 3 roads. More direct route from Marble and Nature's Candi to Kyoto. Makes a road directly to the Cows/Deer site.

Click to expand...

I dont think there are any extra worker movements to spare to road deer. (Unless of course we bring in a worker from the pigs / mine crew)