SGOTM 08 - Trash Team

[blastoidstalker]

We have to have a city on the same landmass as the marble to use it as a resource.

I believe We can get the marble if we road it and connect it to a roaded fort. I will try to check this out on the test game.

 

[cripp7]

what kind of economy are we looking at? A WE, SE, CE, TE? Getting the TGLH will help since were on the coast, but it is an expensive wonder. Taking MC from the Oracle, and maybe Colossus (maybe if we get MC first), also popping a GE to build the Mids would be good too. Sure, doing domination is doable, but if any wonders are built on the other continent we could beeline for strongly to hook up the galleons before anybody else
Cripp

 

[ese-aSH]

Hi !

I made a new try, same settings, I regen until marble/gold was close to my capital (not in BFC though).

I went on the 'religious start' we talked yesterday (SH / Oracle):
On turn 100 I have :
- founded Christ
- founded juda
- founded confu
- Stonehenge
- Oracle
- Parthenon
- SoZ (3rd city catch ivory)
- ToA
- HS
- church of nativity
And i've just got litterature and started GL.

good points :
- religions expanded, so some AI converted to it.
- I should be able to get islam and tao too (can start research on Philo, and having Theo at first makes me good candidate for DR)
- Building the shrines ourselves is a good point because they can be in junk cities (whereas wonders are usually all in the same few places)
- 4 cities, very good eco

problems :
- first GP was a prophet, but second one is likely to be a merchant (not popped yet)
- I already need 3 prophet (and eventually 5), this forces me to focus on priests (therefore no bulb / settle)
- military weak, most hammers have been spent on settlers/workers/wonders

 

[remconius]

what kind of economy are we looking at? A WE, SE, CE, TE? Getting the TGLH will help since were on the coast, but it is an expensive wonder. Taking MC from the Oracle, and maybe Colossus (maybe if we get MC first), also popping a GE to build the Mids would be good too. Sure, doing domination is doable, but if any wonders are built on the other continent we could beeline for strongly to hook up the galleons before anybody else
Cripp

WE, SE, CE, TE?

I know Cottage Economy, Specialist Economy, but what are the others?

In general I made the following assumptions:
1-World wonders get built by the AI, capturing them is easier than building as we need to dominate/conquer the world anyhow for a victory.
2-National wonders cannot be captured so we need to build them ourselves.
3-Religious wonders can only be built by Great Prophets. Normally the AI has most religious capitals but does not build all shrines as it does not focus on getting prophets. It’s a very random factor.

Each wonder type has a different driver:
To maximize 1, we need to wait long enough and support AI in wonder techs.
To maximize 2, we need 5 good production cities (2 national wonders each) and the corresponding techs (some not so useful)
To maximize 3, we have to intervene as we cannot rely on the AI to build all shrines. Therefore a GProphet-farm is the way to go, I think.

As said there is a balance between turns played and wonders held. Getting close to the magic number of 42 wonders (11 national, 7 shrines and 24 world) and dominating the world shortly after the last world wonder is built by the AI with Great Prophets saved to fill in missing shrines. And we need patience to wait long enough to optimize wonder numbers.

This leads to a civ with:
-A good production base of at least 5 cities to build national wonders and units.
-Great Prophet farm to reduce the risk of missing religious shrines that are not built in AI’s religious capitals. Preferably no GP pollution to produce 5-7 Prophets.
-Reasonable economy/research to get us relevant military techs, national wonder techs, and financial support during warfare. A capital with gold, cottages, several shrines, wall street and bureaucracy will go a long way to help in this area. Maybe one more high cottage city.

Questions
What else do we need?

What is the best strategy to achieve the above?
-Early REX, Early Rush, land grab from neighbour
-Mids, GL for research
-GPP with SH or just the Oracle. Which religion(s) for shrine (at least one to assign more priests)
-GLH

 

[stuge]

Good analysis. Some comments:

-I'd skip 'Mids if we don't find stone. It's a horrible drain on early expansion. And we'll have to do some expanding. Those five prod cities could prove difficult to settle.

-Stonehenge/Oracle is a possible combo. The AIs are kinda slow on monarch, and our capital will have good prod, so this way we could make the capital a GP farm.

-We should build TGL, because we'll be going for the epics anyway. Maybe couple it with the NE after we've gotten some prophets first?

 

[KingMorgan]

WE = Wonder Ecom
TE = Trade Route Ecom??

Agree we should head down the GP farm route, taking SH and ORC. Then TGL.

Agressive settling of 3 production and 2 cottage spams, maybe rush depending on the map and neighbours.

If we get easy stone, i'd be keen to see an engineer farm in a second city, then we get the best of both, along with the 'Mids.

When do we plan to start? I see the saves are available

 

[cripp7]

WE, SE, CE, TE?

I know Cottage Economy, Specialist Economy, but what are the others?

Wonder economy, where all wonders built in the capital builds mega GPP. Trade route economy where the TGLH add +2 trade routes so a lot of coastal cities add commerce(with Colossus the +3 on water tiles)

 

[remconius]

With regards to actually starting I suggest we do not rush.

We should at least play a few games to close to finishing to get a feel for:
-What are the best early moves.
-How the G.Prophet farm works and how it plays later on.
-How to achieve an early victory while grabbing all wonders (I am terrible at early finishes)
-What is achievable in terms of wonders vs turns. Maybe we need to conquer faster or slower...

If a few of us have played a game and have reports/learnings we can discuss early moves before starting. It's a bit tedious and personally I like to just get cracking, but experience teaches us that test games make a big difference.

 

[pigswill]

In the real game its going to depend a lot on which AIs we're facing as well as map, resources etc etc. I did a quick run through on all psychos up to about 300bc: stonehenge got built in 1500bc, great wall got built about 500bc and that was it. So if we get loads of warmongers we'll need quite a different strategy.

 

[stuge]

In the real game its going to depend a lot on which AIs we're facing as well as map, resources etc etc. I did a quick run through on all psychos up to about 300bc: stonehenge got built in 1500bc, great wall got built about 500bc and that was it. So if we get loads of warmongers we'll need quite a different strategy.

Very true. In my test game I managed to box Zara in on a little peninsula in my backyard. He was quite content to stay there, massing wonders in his capital, while I conquered the continent with the help of some very favourable diplomacy. He had nine wonders there when I took over.

It turned out however, that the continent was enough for domination. Despite a quickish victory (turn 254), I ended up with a score of ~ 0.53. Clearly, some restraint is called for in order to maximize the score.

 

[remconius]

Very true. In my test game I managed to box Zara in on a little peninsula in my backyard. He was quite content to stay there, massing wonders in his capital, while I conquered the continent with the help of some very favourable diplomacy. He had nine wonders there when I took over.

It turned out however, that the continent was enough for domination. Despite a quickish victory (turn 254), I ended up with a score of ~ 0.53. Clearly, some restraint is called for in order to maximize the score.

Excellent to see some results from a test game. I want to finish one in the coming days. I hope others are too.
Good work on the finish with 27 wonders. Grabbing the 9 from Zara would lead to 36 (close to the magic 42 ). 36 wonders in say 270 turns would lead to 0.66 which is closer the "target" of 0.7 (which we need at least, I reckon)

For some extra info:
How many shrines were built and how many did you have?
How many national wonders?
Do you have a save near or after the end (I'd like to look around)?

 

[stuge]

For some extra info:
How many shrines were built and how many did you have?
How many national wonders?
Do you have a save near or after the end (I'd like to look around)?

I did the Stonehenge/Oracle-> Theology thing. Additionally I managed to research CoL first. The only other religion on the continent was founded by Saladin. I built shrines for all three holy cities with the three GPs I got before my TGL/NE city took over the GP production. It turned out that Izzy was out in the archipelago and had grabbed the remaining religions, building one shrine. Another civ out there happened to be Louis, who also built a nice collection of wonders. I really didn't make the best of the very favorable circumstances, I'm afraid.

Nationals, let's see. Palace, NE, HE, Moai, FP, WP.

Unfortunately I don't have a save from the game. I didn't think of keeping one
and I've already started another game from Jadex' save, overwriting the old saves.

 

[remconius]

So there was the opportunity to build a few more national wonders and if you had more prophets for other shrines, and captured Zara's 9 you could have come very close to the magic 42!

Very promising. This means it seems possible to have a fast finish with 42 wonders....

42 wonders in 280 turns is 0.75 .

In the real game, when we get close to victory we have to decide if we stop to build more wonders ourselves or whether we rush to victory.

 

[stuge]

Based on my testing, I'd say that the 'Henge is nice to have. It's easy to get with one chop or two and with the Oracle it means a fast first GP. It must be noted that if we settle a city before grabbing CoL/Theology via the Oracle, that city will become the holy city and as such should have lots of food to serve as our GP farm with the shrine.

A proposition for a general outline of our start:

-Build a warrior while teching fishing.
-Build a workboat when fishing's complete, start on AH.
-Grow to size 2, start worker. Start the Wheel when AH completes.
-Grow to size four while building warrior/workboat. Start BW after the Wheel.
-Start a settler and whip it for 2pop, build worker with the overflow, settle second city.
-Research towards priesthood while building Stonehenge in capital. Second city builds troops/whatever. Research path at this point depends on whether we want CoL or Theology from Oracle. CoL is more useful for peaceful expamsion, Theology gives uo theocracy for warring.

Opinions? Would it be better to go worker first, building workboats to aid with the settler construction?

 

[cripp7]

Were we going to try a test game first? I'll be honest, I'm proficient as noble/prince-marathon so the monarch-normal jump will be fun. but as long as we have a pre-defined plan before play and after things should be good. However, don't hesitate to tell me where I can improve (which I don't think that'll be a problem)

I noticed the saves are posted, since this is my 1st sgotm I'm excited to be playing with you guys!
cripp

 

[remconius]

Well, what we need is some insight in the full game dynamics of this variant, so if we all play some test games we can get a feel for what is possible and if our initial start pays off in the end.

A full SG-test would take too long, I think.

 

[remconius]

Just a note:

You can download the starter save and look around, but do NOT play any turns.

 

[pigswill]

I'm also playing from Jadex's save. Got to 1ad so far. Went a slightly different path, basically got settler out then got Oracle/Col in capital (confu founded in city2 of course). Built a temple to speed up by the GP production. Had a bit of a war with Billy Boy next door. Eventually got a GS from library in city2 (currently building Glib) and bulbed philosophy, got Taoism. I'd been keeping the prophet on ice while awaiting GS coz I didn't want to mess up the gp points when I really wanted to bulb philosophy. Taoism was founded in a city I'd built on top of the marble (2 fish in BFC) so I'm about to found the Daio Mai (sic) in Marble city.

My thinking is to go for a fairly standard lib-sling-nat-rifles routine and then pump out prophets after bulbing lib. 2 fish+lighthouse give +12 food which is enough to support a bunch of priests (3 from shrine +1 per temple).

 

[chopster]

I'm here and available now.

A couple of thoughts:

If we're planning a prophet farm, then building mids for the extra beakers (Rep) rather than capturing it seems like a good synergy.

With respect to COL vs Theo from Oracle, Theo forces us to adopt a religion for the benefit, while COL does not - this may be a key factor again depending on our neighbours.

Perhaps we should do some analysis on the hammers invested to capture vs build the wonders. They'll only be estimates, but some may be no brainers to build, while others might be no brainers to take by force.

I'm still not sure on the prophet farm idea - they may be the only way to build shrines, but I tend to find that other great people are more useful, especially in achieving a tech advantage which is always nice if we plan on getting wonders with pointy sticks - or pointy sticks that shoot!

As mentioned by other posters, our neighbours will play a pretty big role in what type of game we choose to pursue. Peaceful industrious builders will be easy to take lots of nice wonders from, while warmongers might be better killed off quickly using their cities for our own personal production.

Regarding the initial location, I don't see the benefit from moving to the cow from the starting place - sure a thoroughfare is nice, but I think sub-optimal without further information - losing a hill and fresh water.

The current starting position lends itself to pretty much any initial strategy - it would be interesting to compare some test games, which I'm happy to play a few opening over the next week or two.

I also agree we shouldn't rush to begin.

 

[chopster]

On forts and resources:

I just found THIS POST in the current BOTM discussion thread which says that a coastal fort within our cultural borders WILL give us access to a resource.