SGOTM 11 - One Short Straw

[RRRaskolnikov]

I can't envision WFYABTA being a problem in this game.

Was speaking generaly Shyuhe said it better. Perso, I never beeline alpha in deity... COL, aesthetics, or MC are way better I find (might be related to play style though). COL and 3 AIs and u can get all classical techs 90% of the time.

I just realized that I never even asked you guys what our goal for this SG is.

Serious question: Are we playing only for fun or also going for Gold?​

We don't stand a chance at Gold if we goof around with our workers. That much I know...

That's why I put a "in my games", here I very much hope we will do our maximum (having fun trying for the gold )

Aren't you up in our SG?

Me? Was a bit exhausted to play seriously. I thought with our attention on this game, the other one could wait one more day.

Looking at the map and Zara can be contained to a very small area with 2 cities if they are placed in what look like very suboptimal positions, and this would still mean conceding the river area to the east to Zara. It may be better to block him by settling to the North and West and conceed the East to him .

I agree, though we need to unfog those tiles along the coast in the east, a food bonus would make for an interesting site. Is there any documentation about the trigger for a dow based on a "I am boxed in by a human" factor? Silu? Bestsss? (OK no chance he helps us here ) Anyone?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Mushroom, when did Zara grow to pop3? Edit: Never mind. Looks like it was about T22.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Zara's Demographics

• I can't see how Zara researched anything else by Fishing-Mysticism , but I may be wrong.
• Zara seems to have interrupted his wb for ~4t to do a partial build on a worker (or settler ).
• I have Aksum at 6 tiles in the inner part and 5 more in the outer part, but I'm not sure about this.
• The picture below shows some possible warrior moves. Our second warrior can get to Aksum 2nw in time, if his path is clear of animals and barbs, a bit risky. Our first warrior can go to the hill and then all the way around Aksum to the south, barely, but that's assuming no mountain or lake lengthening the trip, very risky.

We know that Aksum is a 2h city-center tile. We don't know if it's a plains hill, though. It could be marble, ivory, or stone. So I agree with Mutineer to send our first warrior to Aksum 2nw first, then around to see what's up with the rest of Aksum. That way the second warrior is free to do whatever. Maybe even scout to the south, depending on where the first warrior goes.

I don't see the hurry to scout the river area. We want at least one settler asap, even if it settles the food to the west.

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Zara's medical diagnosis: One partially damaged grey cell remaining.

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[mdy]

Is it really necessary to scout to Zara's South? Moving to the hill should reveal his capital which is what we really need. Scouting along the coast could gives us hints about other landmasses, and barbs depending reveal another peninsular or two which strikes me as being much more useful in the long run

 

[LowtherCastle]

Is it really necessary to scout to Zara's South? Moving to the hill should reveal his capital which is what we really need. Scouting along the coast could gives us hints about other landmasses, and barbs depending reveal another peninsular or two which strikes me as being much more useful in the long run

We have until T37 to get to the east of Zara if the land continues. We're not sure we want OBs with him for some time after Writing. But...if Shyuhe or Mushroom noticed both of Zara's scouts, then I think we can safely assume the land does not continue on.

 

[Mutineer]

you need to understand that after zara border expand we will not be able to scout past him untill one of as get writing. So, I do believe we need to pass one warrior before path is closed.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I don't see the hurry to scout the river area. We want at least one settler asap, even if it settles the food to the west.

How do we know how to block him if we have no clue about the land? Send the settler in the dark? Moreover, I am a bit worried about the lack of fogbusting in the whole western landmass. Been some time since last emperor game (well last SGOTM iirc), but having no warrior(s) there tilll turn 50 or so looks risky. I can't recall if you mentionned that already, maybe the previous tests cleared that issue

Zara's medical diagnosis: One partially damaged grey cell remaining.

Welcome to the club Zara!

edit: I am OK with LC's "safest path" for warrior 1 though I would send warrior 2 clear the river area before going back fogbusting west or north.

 

[mushroomshirt]

We have until T37 to get to the east of Zara if the land continues. We're not sure we want OBs with him for some time after Writing. But...if Shyuhe or Mushroom noticed both of Zara's scouts, then I think we can safely assume the land does not continue on.

I saw both of Zara's scouts for a good portion of the turn set.

 

[Mutineer]

There are a few potential scenarios I do not like.
1) there is some land pass Zara with necessary resource. If we know about that and was able to get settler pass zara, we could have claimed it.

2) there is 2 ties connection to other landmass. Again, setttler there could give as a huge age.

3) There is necessary resource near zara capital and no land at all on other site of Zara.
In that scenario, in order to be able to take Zara Capital by military mean we need to let then to build second city somewhere, preferable a bit away from capital. Failing that we will have to vassal him, which could delay as and create potential diplomatic problems. Or we block him now with desert city, but gift it to him later after we expanded and block him by other cities.

In short, I want to know.

In short we need to know, in order to decide which bullet to bite.

 

[Silu]

Huh, every half an hour there're 10 new posts here. Looks I'm up, I'll decode the discussion when I have the proper time and summarize up some semblance of a plan.

On a side note, to me skipping BW for an Alpha beeline on Deity sounds quite ""

 

[mystyfly]

Just a small notice: Zara does not know any other AIs so we're most likely in semiisolation here . WBs to find potential paths across the ocean early to other AIs could make the difference here if we find them.

 

[mdy]

1) there is some land pass Zara with necessary resource. If we know about that and was able to get settler pass zara, we could have claimed it.

2) there is 2 ties connection to other landmass. Again, setttler there could give as a huge age.

3) There is necessary resource near zara capital and no land at all on other site of Zara.

If Zara's border expansion will block of access to a resource/peninsular then that information won't do us any good as we couldn't possibly get a settler there in time. If he has a necessary resource in his capital I don't think that means we would have to fight him, we could always trade for it later.

Given the map layout, and the fact that we have seen both his scout means there probably isn't much land down there anyway, which means any scouting to the East that needs to be done could easily be done with the second warrior. Sending our first warrior north would also be better for fogbusting as the area to he east will be protected by ours and Zara's borders. Does anyone have any dates for when barbs start spawning/crossing cultural borders on emperor.

 

[Mutineer]

Ai never trade a last of resource, unless they are vassal. So... if Zara has a single instant of resource there is only 2 ways to get it: take over his city or vassal him.

 

[shyuhe]

Barbs will cross borders when there are 2n+1 cities on the map, with n being the number of civilizations. In my test emperor games, I did not see any barbs cross borders until ~1000 BC or even later.

I am presuming at this point that we will settle a city in the river area to the east - it will provide nice commerce so I don't see any reason we would want to cede that to Zara. That being the case, I would move the warrior on to the hill 2NW of Aksum to take a peek before going around south. As I count the turns, the warrior gets to the hill on turn 28, then reaches the very bottom of Aksum's borders on turn 34. The warrior will then have a few turns to look to the east.

The earliest we can get a settler ready is on turn 42, at which point Aksum's borders will have popped. We can only settle to the south and east of Zara if there is ample land to move AFTER the border pop. So I see little reason to hurry scouting in that direction since either:

a) it's up against the ocean and we can explore it later with a boat or
b) there's a land passage after Zara's border pop in which event we have a lot of time to sneak another settler past him.

 

[shyuhe]

As for the western area, I think most of us feel confident that we have bronze or horses nearby - in which case we can always farm the barbs for XP and cities later. There aren't many hills to the west so it shouldn't be hard capturing any barb cities that spawn.

 

[mdy]

Ai never trade a last of resource, unless they are vassal. So... if Zara has a single instant of resource there is only 2 ways to get it: take over his city or vassal him.

We are told taht there is only one source of fur on the map, and that is guarded by the barbs not Zara. This implies that there is more than one source of every other needed resource on the map, so we could always obtain it from someone other than Zara.

There aren't many hills to the west so it shouldn't be hard capturing any barb cities that spawn.

Barb cities are rarely founded in the best place and will auto raze if they are too small. When you take account of the losses we will inevitably sustain taking them it would probably be easier to build the ones we want ourselves.

I am presuming at this point that we will settle a city in the river area to the east

Zara will probably steal several tiles of this city which makes it less attractive. In any case warrior 2/3 can scout that area so why would we need to send warrior 1 down there.

Determining the best city two site can't be determined yet as we have less info than we will have when the settler is built. There are only 2 things we really need to decide before the next turn set:

1) Weather we grow to size 4 before starting the settler or not.
2) Where we move our warriors.

 

[shyuhe]

Determining the best city two site can't be determined yet as we have less info than we will have when the settler is built. There are only 2 things we really need to decide before the next turn set:

1) Weather we grow to size 4 before starting the settler or not.
2) Where we move our warriors.

Agreed. I vote to grow to size 4 with the worker irrigating corn then chopping a flat grass.

I would move warrior one to the northern coast to see what's up there. Warrior 2 can scout the south.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm with Mutineer on this. I'd prefer to know what resources Aksum's got in it before its borders expand. Somehow, it might affect our choice of settling the river city, even if it's unlikely. If we've been seeing Zara's scouts, then it's likely they have already scouted the entire landmass and it's small. We'll get it all scouted soon enough. Furthermore, scouting up north in the desert is very dangerous for our warrior. We don't have any warriors to spare. Later, scouting units might be more plentiful. And we still have the south to explore. What about warrior1 to the hill then south and warrior2 down to the south? Then both back up for fogbusting duty. The silver site to the SE might have fish and be helpful for the Oracle research, for example. Down by the deer might have marble. Etc. We're less interested in up morth right now because it's so far away in terms of settling.

Edit: An alternative would be for warrior1 to go SE immediately. If Aksum's on a hill, he'll see it on T28. My hunch is that he will dead end and still be back to the hill before T38. If not, warrior2 can still make it to the hill by T36.

Edit2: Rethinking this. The best hammer site that we know of is ~1W of the cows--a good place for the pyramids, for example. We really don't want Zara to mess with that, which means it would be nice to know if there's a site he'd prefer, so we don't have to race him for that site. With this in mind, I think I'd prefer mdy's idea of warrior1 going to the hill and then northward around the coast. Warrior2 goes due east. If we go pop4, then we get warrior3 who can go south or whatever.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Zara does not know any other AIs

How did you figure this out?

 

[mystyfly]

^ Espionage ratio.