SGOTM 21 - Plastic Ducks

No, the tile 1NE of the ice tile (1N4E of current WB position)is covered by the barbarian city, so there's no way to enable the trade route from south.

There's no conflict between our opinions of WB scouting. Your 2b option is the same.

Yep, I see it now.

Playing on.

After settling our 4th city, Shaka is Annoyed.

I think I will open borders when he drops down to Cautious, rather than waiting for to reveal trade routes with another AI.

I believe he is annoyed with other AIs, T60 will bring +1 diplomatic bonus to Shaka. There's no benefit of OB with Shaka.

Doshin said:

After settling our 4th city, Shaka is Annoyed.

I think I will open borders when he drops down to Cautious, rather than waiting for to reveal trade routes with another AI.

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Well now we're his worst enemy, so that won't happen any time soon.

He is Cautious with Lizzie and Willem.

WB scouting:


Choice now is between (1) NW; (2) SW; (3) east.

I would prefer to go east.

NW is ice, which is impassable, keep going east.

We are topdog now, of course shaka hates us.

Both William and Lizzy only have 2 cities, before they have 3 cities, we don't need to worry about barbarian invasion.

I meant NW in general. Our WB is not the Titanic.

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A change to the Galley micro let us explore sooner:


Workboat exploration:



I am not sure whether a barb Archer is targeting our city:


Are you certain that 3 cities for Willem/Lizzie will be the tipping point for barb invasions?

If not, I could move the Woodsman Warrior 1E.

3* number of living AI + 1 is the number of cities that triggers the barbarian invasion. Unless there are a few AIs already have 4 cities, which is of very low odd. However, do dodge the archer if he is approaching our warrior.
Excellent news for the new fish.

I think Elizabeth founded Judaism on T53 T52. She hasn't converted yet, but went into Monotheism on T54 T53.

Workboat exploration:


Barb Archer and demographics:


Lizzie settled a third city on T53, so the city average among known players is now 3.

Willem's second city reached 10 culture on the same turn that the unknown city's borders popped. It should be his second city:



Exploration:



I will keep going east from now on. If anybody objects, please say. I won't finish my set tonight.

I am against back towards the west, because it will take a very long time to get another ship in this area.

Barb defense plan:


^^^^ both in place on T53.

edit: trade connections with both Willem and Elizabeth now. Elizabeth switched into Judaism IBT.

I'm going to pause until tomorrow.

Two things aren't certain to me right now.

(1) Shaka's Scout:


This will likely go 1SE, and risks running into the barb Archer, drawing it near our Warriors on T58-9. I'm not sure what movement is best here.

(2) Workboats:

There is a passageway from Thebes to the southern coast:


The current Workboat could (a) turn West (another WB from Athens' or Thebes can later return to the iceway); (b) continue along the eastern ice passage; (c) go east and then improve Thebes' Crab, which loses some food but allows Athens' WB to circle our continent going NE and then West.

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Please let me know your thoughts, and/or whether I should upload.

shakabrade and kossin will enjoy seeing the number of 1-2 tile ice islands.

1. There's not much to worry. William does not like to settle his 3rd city soon since he settled his 2nd city not long time ago, so barbarian does not looks like to invade any time soon. Just retreat our warrior toward Sparta if the archer is approaching.

2. From Thebes' passage, it's very likely that there are AIs accessible from east. Meeting more AIs is far more important than enabling trade routes with the AIs in our continents. Definitely keep going east, it's possible to navigate with a WB?

Unless there are many AI traderoutes to obtain, settling several ice-ball-GLH-cities is not worth it with non-Organized. Well, not now at least.

Well played so far!

Duckweed said:

1. There's not much to worry. William does not like to settle his 3rd city soon since he settled his 2nd city not long time ago, so barbarian does not looks like to invade any time soon. Just retreat our warrior toward Sparta if the archer is approaching.

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If Shaka's Scout moves 1SE to the Warrior tile, and the barb Archer moves 1N, will the Shaka Scout do anything stupid (e.g. 1SE followed by 1W/E)?

kossin said:

Unless there are many AI traderoutes to obtain, settling several ice-ball-GLH-cities is not worth it with non-Organized. Well, not now at least.

Well played so far!

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Thanks



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The discovery of a second Fish in City #5 will also likely change the PPP:



5 turns are needed for a border pop. Before (when we had just 1 Fish) we could generate 20H by working a PH for 5 turns. After the border pop, we would then grow to size 2 by working the Fish (+5F +2H per turn). This would allow a 1-pop Granary whip as soon as we grew to size 2 (30/60H exactly) and 5 turns would be needed to return to size 2.

If we follow the early Granary micro for a 2 Fish city, we can anticipate the following:


On the face of it, a Granary offers +5FPT and a second WB +3FPT, so a Granary build should be superior. However, I am almost certain it will prove best to work a Coastal tile for 2 turns before the border pop, and then whip the Granary @ size 3.

Ignoring hammers and commerce, which balance each other out (Plains Hill = 2HPT, Coast = 2CPT), we can focus on food:


Growing to size 3 and then whipping a Granary should be worth +6F > whipping a Granary at size 2.

Finding a way to build 2 WBs (3WBs with a northern explorer) + Settler in good time, so that we do not delay City #6, will be the hard part.

edit: would need to test and check the numbers, but the basic principle seems sound.

Hmm, with our without the scout, we could easily get into the situation where the barb archer approaches our warrior wall by accident. In that case, the grassland hill warrior would be in danger. How far are we from sending a third warrior from Corinth? We could put two warriors on that hill so that we'd have 2 vs injured archer on flat terrain if he wins the first battle.

If there's no time for that, we could send the warrior meant for Fish island somewhere east of our scout since the Fish island doesn't really need it yet and theoretically some barbs could still spawn at our northeastern borders.

Doshin said:

If Shaka's Scout moves 1SE to the Warrior tile, and the barb Archer moves 1N, will the Shaka Scout do anything stupid (e.g. 1SE followed by 1W/E)?

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The worst case is that the barbarian archer kills the scout on the GH tile, the it will move away from our culture border as long as the invasion is not triggered. Therefore, just retreat warriors toward Sparta to avoid contact.

Yamps said:

Hmm, with our without the scout, we could easily get into the situation where the barb archer approaches our warrior wall by accident. In that case, the grassland hill warrior would be in danger. How far are we from sending a third warrior from Corinth? We could put two warriors on that hill so that we'd have 2 vs injured archer on flat terrain if he wins the first battle.

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We're safe until the barb invasion trigger occurs, which, as Duckweed mentioned, is when the average # of cities is > 3 among all the players.

Among known players, the average city count is 3 (4, 2, 3, 3). So we are ok for the time being. Further, we can deduce the unknown AI have fewer cities than those we have met. This is for two reasons: (1) in the top 5 city screen, the 7-pop and 6-pop cities all belong to unknown AIs, and we can only recognize Amsterdam (the 2-city AI on our continent). This suggests the other AI have built fewer Settlers than Shaka or Lizzie. (2) on T55, after the LH whip, our population dropped down to 7th overall, although our crop yield and land area are still well placed:


However, the victory screen tells us that our closest population rival, Elizabeth, has less pop than us:


So we must be 7th, Lizzie 8th, and Willem/Shaka 9th/10th.

Population is (city size ^ 2.8)*1000. A city with 1-pop point = 1000 people, and five 1-pop cities = 5000 people, but a single city with 5-pop points = 9000. This suggests that the unknown Ai have more concentrated empires with < 3 cities on average.

Yamps said:

If there's no time for that, we could send the warrior meant for Fish island somewhere east of our scout since the Fish island doesn't really need it yet and theoretically some barbs could still spawn at our northeastern borders.

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I thought about this, but a barbarian spawn on the island is far more costly than a barbarian spawn in the east. The former will delay our Fish City by 5&#8211;10 turns (barb Warrior/Archer spawn) or render it impossible (worst case scenario, a barb city spawns). Both will severely delay GP bulbing and therefore the final victory date. But if a barbarian Archer spawns east of the Scout, we have 7+ turns to react before it reaches Gem City, with several possible responses.

Doshin said:

We're safe until the barb invasion trigger occurs, which, as Duckweed mentioned, is when the average # of cities is > 3 among all the players.

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I know about that, but I'm simply pointing out that this criteria could be met rather soon. If Liz were to settle another city and some unknown high pop civ as well, it could all change very fast. Hopefully not before T61 though.

There's also a possible flaw in your population reasoning. While it could be true that their higher population score also means more compact city placement, they could also have more food resources in general and hence both larger and bigger empires on average than our nearby AI.

I thought about this, but a barbarian spawn on the island is far more costly than a barbarian spawn in the east. The former will delay our Fish City by 5–10 turns (barb Warrior/Archer spawn) or render it impossible (worst case scenario, a barb city spawns). Both will severely delay GP bulbing and therefore the final victory date. But if a barbarian Archer spawns east of the Scout, we have 7+ turns to react before it reaches Gem City, with several possible responses.

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I've lost track on when does our fish city settler arrive to the spot compared to warrior from Corinth. If there is a significant difference, then by all means we should secure that key spot with our warrior. Btw, what's our galley doing after settler movement? We could re-board the warrior when our settler arrives and transfer him further for northeastern spawn busting duties.

Doshin said:

Willem's second city reached 10 culture on the same turn that the unknown city's borders popped. It should be his second city:

Spoiler :

Exploration:

Spoiler :

I will keep going east from now on. If anybody objects, please say. I won't finish my set tonight.

I am against back towards the west, because it will take a very long time to get another ship in this area.

Barb defense plan:

Spoiler :

^^^^ both in place on T53.

edit: trade connections with both Willem and Elizabeth now. Elizabeth switched into Judaism IBT.

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Willem's 2nd city virtually eliminates barb worries from the northwest.

I support the 2 warrior wall idea.
With our current resources, it seems our best strategy to deal with a lone archer beelining Sparta.
The fortified hill warrior should have even odds to kill an archer and the forest warrior should be able to finish off the archer if it wins.
It is also far out enough that if things go horribly wrong, Sparta still has time to mount a defense after Oracle.

All barb troubles will be coming from the southwest until barb galleys start appearing everywhere to blow up our very heavy seafood investments.


I like the exploration workboat continuing east to explore as much as possible.
I don't like sending our newest Athens workboat exploring. Thebes needs food.

Good work finding us a 2nd fish.
That city will be huge for us ya.

Good work finding us a 2nd fish.

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Enjoy it