SGOTM 14 - Fifth Element

WithTea said:

Kudos Unclethrill! Nice legwork.

My inclination right now is to stay put. Later on we could share resources away if things are going well. We aren't going to have to worry about what to do with pop 20 guy. Entirely feasible to use the oasis early to pump up the capitol and then when it's going well, switch the oasis over to the stone. Same for lower city and corn. I'm not a fan of taking two turns to find greener grass. Though I am somewhat swayed by the defensible hill argument.

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I would like to move the settler to 1w1nw hill on the first turn to see what it reveals. It should show a lot of new land to help with the decision. We can always move back and SIP if the land is no better. I think this is a logical exploration in what we can expect to be a fairly long game. The difference in settling on t0 versus t1 or t2 is minimal but making a better informed decision on settling our capital can be invaluble.

Edit : typo in directions

Okay just loaded up my AI team test game. I went into WB and added just an archer extra to HC and then the demographics screen showed rival best at 21000. It also says that we are ranked at 9th overall. Therefore I think that the AI are on teams, the victory screen shows conquest of all teams (4) and the demo screen shows the AI individually.

Comment, or thoughts? Do we need a new test game?

In my test, the one i used to post the values (actually 4-5 very quick tests) i paired Mansa with Monty and thus he started with 22k soldiers. He can be the only AI starting so high. So by diplomatic or victory meanings the teams are showed with the stats teamed, but in the demographics as single AIs. Good to know.
The problem is that with random personalities we can have Mansa acting like Toku and Monty acting like Gandhi, so we don't actually know who is the good with and who is the wicked... if teams are made as MZD suggests and maybe on a "normal" leader basis, we can end up with a team normally with a good and peaceful trader and with a jerk/backstabber/warmonger actually formed by 2 of each. We can throw our experience with Leaders in the bog.

unclethrill said:

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Comment, or thoughts? Do we need a new test game?

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I don't think it's worth the effort. By the time we'll meet all or at least a good part of the AIs the test game will cease to be useful. As usual for FE, i think a test game will last until the Oracle or just a bit longer, only for MM purposes. And with random personalities this is even more true.

unclethrill said:

I would like to move the settler to 1n1nw hill on the first turn to see what it reveals. It should show a lot of new land to help with the decision. We can always move back and SIP if the land is no better. I think this is a logical exploration in what we can expect to be a fairly long game. The difference in settling on t0 versus t1 or t2 is minimal but making a better informed decision on settling our capital can be invaluble.

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I assume you meant 1w1nw.

I don't relish the idea of having to come back to SiP on t2, but as I consider it, with the sheep up there as well as riverside tiles I think we'll find a way to settle on t1 at the latest. You have swayed my vote. +1 to moving Settler to the PH 1w1nw for exploratory purposes

Can someone with team experience explain a bit more about AI teams to us?

Suppose we have a bad witch paired with a good witch (even after considering random personalities), is our diplo standing with that team an average of our diplo standing with each individual civ? IE 1 ai "annoyed" at us and 1 ai "pleased", does their team stand at "cautious" with us?

Also, if one ai dows does his partner dow, similar to a vassal?

Do teams of ai always share the same religion?

This could make diplo veeeeeeeeeeery complicated and a UN victory perhaps less plausible. It also makes aggressive early expansion a problem as we'd potentially be declaring against two civs at a time.

MeowZeDung said:

I assume you meant 1w1nw.

I don't relish the idea of having to come back to SiP on t2, but as I consider it, with the sheep up there as well as riverside tiles I think we'll find a way to settle on t1 at the latest. You have swayed my vote. +1 to moving Settler to the PH 1w1nw for exploratory purposes

Can someone with team experience explain a bit more about AI teams to us?

Suppose we have a bad witch paired with a good witch (even after considering random personalities), is our diplo standing with that team an average of our diplo standing with each individual civ? IE 1 ai "annoyed" at us and 1 ai "pleased", does their team stand at "cautious" with us?

Also, if one ai dows does his partner dow, similar to a vassal?

Do teams of ai always share the same religion?

This could make diplo veeeeeeeeeeery complicated and a UN victory perhaps less plausible. It also makes aggressive early expansion a problem as we'd potentially be declaring against two civs at a time.

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Yes it was a typo. 1w1nw is where I would like to move the settler right now and most likely settle there on t1 unless what we reveal proves to not be good at all.


Tonight I will try to research/test with team play to answer some questions. I don't have theanswers now

MeowZeDung said:

I assume you meant 1w1nw.

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Yeah, i assume this too. But please let me suspend my vote, I'd like to hear more from the others first.

Your questions on team play:
First off, with random personalities you will hardly know who you're actually facing, as i wrote above. I've heard of a way to know this using the Python, but never found how it works.
Assuming the map maker does NOT know who we're actually facing, it can be easy to couple a -normally- peaceful and trader AI with a warmonger jerk. Provided that those warmongers jerks not always act like they usually do. I remember a WotM with Ragnar as a far neighbor where he acted more like Lizzy than like Ragnar. Thus there's a random even without random

They will be penalized by 50% on research, but this goes after thay have roughly doubled their research capability, being in team. And they're Emperor AIs.

They can have different behaviours or feelings about any other player, AI or human (you can have OB and trade techs with one and the other one is annoyed, but he has OB with you since you got it with the other player in his team... not completely sure on this). But, since they're teamed, if one declares, the other one will declare too. Same, if we declare, we declare on both.

No, they doesn't necessarily share the same religion, or civics. They're completely independent players. They can decide to research different techs and they will automatically share both (no need to trade) when they're finished to research or they can research the same tech at an impressive speed.

They will start with the starting techs of both players in team. No need to have Alpha to trade between players (2 or more) of the same team.

I think UN diplo is the last VC we can think to pursue. Their votes will be individual, but it will be far more difficult then a normal game.

I think we can try for culture if we manage to have 3 religions, which are the minimum requirement for a decent date. Or one of the military options. Space will hardly be competitive. But it's too soon for this, Let's wait to have the Oracle in the pocket, then we can start thinking to the grand strategy.

Though I can understand the desire for more knowledge before settling where we are, I think there is a simple, and logical reason why not. What possible resource could be revealed that is going to make 1W 1NW better? When we were hoping for more seafood on the coast, that was massive trade and food, plus coastal access. W by NW is not yet going to tell us of any metals, horses or such. It's going to at best be what we already have. The only really good reason to go would be access to early marble, but as there is going to be a strong, "It better be worth it," sentiment toward wonders, perhaps that's not much of a reason. Unless of course we were going to go for a strong religious attitude, which seems unlikely, with Religious Victory disabled.

Though I do still recommend founding one just for the cash.

WithTea said:

Though I can understand the desire for more knowledge before settling where we are, I think there is a simple, and logical reason why not. What possible resource could be revealed that is going to make 1W 1NW better? When we were hoping for more seafood on the coast, that was massive trade and food, plus coastal access. W by NW is not yet going to tell us of any metals, horses or such. It's going to at best be what we already have. The only really good reason to go would be access to early marble, but as there is going to be a strong, "It better be worth it," sentiment toward wonders, perhaps that's not much of a reason. Unless of course we were going to go for a strong religious attitude, which seems unlikely, with Religious Victory disabled.

Though I do still recommend founding one just for the cash.

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Okay while I can see your arguments, here are the problems I have with them:
1. There are metals that can be revealed: Gold or silver.
2. In addition to gold or silver, there is a possible gems or marble.

I really think getting the oracle no matter what it gives us (CS MC or whatever we choose) is going to be really important and while settling in place is nice I think that we need to take a chance if we are going try and do better than not lose. With the potential of competing against team AI, we really need a great capital as opposed to quickly settled capital.

I'll go with the team decision but I really think that we need to move the settler 1W1NW on T0 and see what it reveals before we decide on where to settle.

WithTea, aside the corn we can't see a single resource we can improve soon.
More than for a strategic resource, which we can't see yet, or for a "wonder resource" we're looking for gold, gems or silver. As you surely know, the chances for a successful CS sling reside on a gold or gems start or even silver if riverside. About happiness it won't be a problem until after the Oracle and by then we can settle a city to grab those resources, if any.

I've seen many players or teams delay to settle their capital even for 3-4 turns on normal, to be sure to not throw away a good spot for a decent one.

Also, SiP is out of question if we wanna a city for crabs/stone. Too much overlap, even if we will never use all the BFC.

IMHO we have 2 choices:
a) climb the hill where you (we) sent the warrior and try to see if the site E of stone can be interesting
b) jump on the hill 1W1NW and see what there's in the center, provided it's the center.
2 more choices, just for completeness:
c) SiP
d) settle 1W of the start, probably on top of a resource

BTW, IIRC you suggested that the Capital would be better moved towards the center, since the coast revealed that we're on the Eastern edge of the map.
This makes a lot of sense, mainly in the early stages.

As i said before, i will keep my vote suspended until some testing is done. But I can surely anticipate that i would never vote for c) or d).

If anyone can see more choices, please post them, so we can set up a vote on all of them.

BTW2, which kind of things do you write?

edit: Xposted with UT, which basically says the same.

I agree with BLubmuz. SiP may be good but it isn't great. One move of the settler will reveal several tiles and will help us make an informed decision. We may lose a turn or two but we have the potential to make a better informed decision with that one move.

I think we move the settler 1W1NW and see what that hill reveals and then make our decision.

BLubmuz, while I understand your abstaining from a vote of where to settle I hope you can see the logic of spending 1 turn to move the settler and see what it reveals.

If the point is to search out gold/silver/gems then I can get on board. Though I don't really hold out any hope on those points. Marble would be great, but I wouldn't risk it for marble, and I am a builder/peace monger by nature. My last solo game I had all but two of the wonders, sooooo, you're not going to have to try hard to get me building. Though if marble is there I would make a very strong push for MoM.

BTW2, which kind of things do you write?

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unclethrill said:

BLubmuz, while I understand your abstaining from a vote of where to settle I hope you can see the logic of spending 1 turn to move the settler and see what it reveals.

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If you missed i actually put 2 choices on vote, both on moving.

WithTea said:

If the point is to search out gold/silver/gems then I can get on board. Though I don't really hold out any hope on those points. Marble would be great, but I wouldn't risk it for marble, and I am a builder/peace monger by nature. My last solo game I had all but two of the wonders, sooooo, you're not going to have to try hard to get me building. Though if marble is there I would make a very strong push for MoM.

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I'm a builder too. But in this case i'm looking for precious metals or shiny bright things. And, please, try to be optimistic. Or proactive, more on fashion these days.

Spoiler :

Leftist op-eds, had been the staple for awhile, but my fiction fans having been clamoring louder, with messages for more. Fantasy is also the one that's been making the most $, if not the highest number of fans, so any extra writing time is going to my book. If anyone wants a sneak peek at the first few chapters pm me, and I'll e-mail it to you. (Though I would protest that each author's voice is unique, I've been told I'm somewhat reminiscent of Modesitt.)

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At present i think i'm on the left of Che. And will continue to move left until that dwarf is prime minister. But probably left in the States means the Democratic side. I'm a fan of Obama, anyway.
I like fantasy, i own and read many books. Obviously the unsurpassable one is "The Lord of the rings", which i read for the first time some 30 years ago (yeah, guess, guess). Too lazy to look for that Modesitt. Please remember i'm an ignorant stranger.

IMHO we have 2 choices:
a) climb the hill where you (we) sent the warrior and try to see if the site E of stone can be interesting
b) jump on the hill 1W1NW and see what there's in the center, provided it's the center.

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For option a, are you talking about the ph up by the stone, or the grass hill e of the warrior? Either way I think option b is stronger. If we head toward the hill near the stone we use up two turns of settler movement, and what's worse if we don't find anything good we need two turns to get back. The closer grass hill would only reveal one tile, so I assume you meant the more northern hill.

Option b only takes us one turn of movement away from SiP, so if we don't find anything good we can get back in place asap.

BLubmuz makes a good point. Gold/Gems/Silver would be such a boon to our research and CS sling chances that a little settler recon seems a no-brainer.

So it sounds like unclethrill, BLubmuz, and myself are in favor of further scouting before making a decision with 1w1nw being the preferred location to scout, and WithTea is still on the fence. I can't remember if beestar or pnp_dredd commented one way or the other, and have we still not heard from vanettedvelt(sp?)?

We have not heard vanettedvelt.

On the fence is a pretty good assessment for me, but it's looking like at least one scouting foray is how it's going to come down. I would like to hear from beestar and dredd though. Beestar may be unavailable as per his note about traveling forever this week. So we need dredd to chime in.

No strong opinions on moving the settler. In principle I'm okay with sacrificing 2 turns in exchange for more knowledge.

I think we should plan our VC now (I.e. not wait until Oracle). Military sounds harder than usual but may still be a lot quicker than Cultural, especially if we can ensure the AI teams are busy fighting each other. Do we have research into the finish dates of typical teamgames?

Seeing the latest posts, i can say that we have a clear consensus on moving the settler 1W1NW.

Blub, UT, Meow are clearly in favor
Tea and Beestar are on the fence or slightly in favor
Dredd did not posted about it, but his vote changes nothing
vansomething will probably not even check in, so better we do not consider him. If he will not check in a week from now, i will ask Alan to cancel him from our roster.

Thus, WithTea, please make that move with the settler and post a screenie.

@Beestar
any discussion about the VC can be interesting, but until the time when we (hopefully) complete the Oracle we can't do anything about any VC. Also, until that time we only need to survive, expand and research and this is necessary for any VC we decide to pursue.

I agree with moving the settler, but I'd prefer to just move W, then post a screenie of what we find.

That leaves open the option of settling 1W on turn 0. If it's not impressive then we can continue onto the PH.

just to expand on that:

1W gains a riverside grassland sheep, which is a pretty decent tile (5F2C), particularly for a specialist economy. Also, this saves a forest.

By moving, we lose an oasis and perhaps some hammers from a possible resource, although note that copper, iron or horses will all give +1H to the city tile as soon as they are discovered. We keep the cow, corn and 2 plains hills.

I feel that 1W is stronger than SIP, so I feel that it's worth evaluating whether to settle 1W on turn 0.

pnp_dredd said:

I agree with moving the settler, but I'd prefer to just move W, then post a screenie of what we find.

That leaves open the option of settling 1W on turn 0. If it's not impressive then we can continue onto the PH.

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Unless I'm mistaken 1W will only reveal the two tiles across the lake which doesn't give us much intel. While I understand the desire to settle on turn 0 and guarantee we keep the cow/corn I still think even if we move 1w and see something amazing it would be better to hop up to the hill revealing 7+ tiles and be absolutely sure we aren't missing out on a commerce resource before coming back down to settle 1w on turn 1.

It sounds like beestar is on board though giving a majority vote to 1w1nw with the settler so I think we should go ahead and do it like BLubmuz said.

Well, dredd proposal will just delay our actual start, only on RL time perspective, provided it reveals nothing interesting. It costs nothing to move the settler 1W and post a screenie. Who knows, there can be 2 GL gems right W of the small lake.

If nothing like that is revealed, we can move the settler on that NW hill. The decision is already taken. But it's better be slow and safe.