SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[Dhoomstriker]

I totally forgot that we can't build maces without CS Another consideration is that we can instead use the GS's to bulb towards liberalism for astronomy. It'll take 4-ish (philo, 2xedu, liberalism) but with a decent GP farm that shouldn't be hard. I think someone mentioned that galleons may be better for troops logistics with the added movement points too.

Lightbulbing Astronomy will be a considerably faster approach than using Liberalism to grab Astronmy, by a wide margin.

Don't forget that in addition to all of the techs towards Liberalism that you mentioned, we would STILL need to somehow research, Lightbulb, or be lucky enough to trade for all of Astronomy's pre-requisites... and there isn't really much overlap in the two paths.

Another minor consideration is that in order to get Optics, you need Machinery, but if you learn Machinery, then Liberalism cannot be Lightbulbed. Not really a big deal, since you could Lightbulb a tech like Optics instead, but don't count on being able to Lightbulb part of Liberalism while taking Astronomy... unless you're playing on a difficulty level so low that you can research Liberalism's pre-requisites, partially Lightbulb it, then still manage to research Machinery + Optics (+ Calendar if you skipped it) in that time... you might get those techs via trades, but basically, it's easier just to plan to Lightbulb techs OTHER than Liberalism.

Also in case any one forgot, vassals are off = no colonial maintenance (yay!). Not that we should be teching that far anyways. And state property for the instant return will probably be better.

Whoa! This no-colonial-maintenance bit is a huge implication. I'm going to have to check this stuff out in a test game, or someone can confirm, but it sounds like you are saying that we will NOT incur additional Maintenance Costs for havaing multiple Cities on the same non-starting landmass. That's like "back to the good old days" and implies that capturing and keeping a ton of off-of-the-mainland AI Cities won't hurt nearly as much as it does in a BtS game with Vassals enabled.

Vassals being disabled also means that we can't spawn a Colony, right?



In regards to no Macemen... if we can find Ivory, we could instead go the Amphibious War Elephants route...

 

[babybluepants]

but it sounds like you are saying that we will NOT incur additional Maintenance Costs for havaing multiple Cities on the same non-starting landmass.

Vassals being disabled also means that we can't spawn a Colony, right?

Yes and yes.

In regards to no Macemen... if we can find Ivory, we could instead go the Amphibious War Elephants route...

True, but it's not as hammer efficient and we need Machinery anyway. I think we really need to wait 'till we've done some exploring before we speculate on the Astro tech path. So long as there's some butt available for kicking with only galleys, I don't see a reason for the mad rush to galleons.

 

[mdy]

Checking in.

Going for an early astro doesn't mean we have to forego maces as well. We could research CS while waiting for the GS's, ideally getting CS the turn after we bulb astro.

Even without CS we would still have quite a bit of teching to do so I think using the first GS for an academy would pay off(and should come before we could bulb the astro pre-requisites). On a map like we would probably get the bulk of our research from scientists, so the pyramids would be well worth the investment.

Settling on the plains hill would allow us to run an extra couple of scientists by working the corn, so I suspect that this site would be best for an early astro.

 

[mdy]

Anyone who wants to see how an early astro game might work out might want to take a brief look at the OSS SGOTM 6 thread.

That was an always war prince game where all victory conditions were required and astro was a requirement for a conquest/domination victory.

OSS won the silver in this game by Oracling machinery, building the pyramids and bulbing optics/astronomy*2 (I don't think we built an academy).

All the top teams won that game with a conquest victory. Given that the SGOTM6 map was rather more favourable for a domination victory than this this one looks, it does suggest than conquest will be the route to go.

 

[babybluepants]

Ok, let's have a look at that. The issue, ofc, is in that it was Prince, your conquest timeline suggests facing only archers for (almost?) the whole game, and you had a land start from which to kill someone right away. Correct?

kovacsflo did a 1000's AD imm normal-speed standard archipelago conquest in an HOF gauntlet. I think he cooked the opponents and got very lucky with metal distribution (as typical in HOF), so it doesn't really apply.

HOF entry

Write-up:

Spoiler :

After several trying, i reached a 1070 AD victory. About the settings:
- I played with tiny islands since I found that this is the onlyone type where you don't need astronomy to win. Everything can be reached by galleys.
- Raging barbs will increase my points and caused little problems.
- Opponents: Isabell, Joao, Justinian, Peter, Suleiman and Ramesses. As you see I preferred imperialistic leaders because of the following reasons: they settle down more cities and it is easier to conquer several small cities than few well guarded cities. That's an advantage of Viking strategy. Also fighting against an imperialistic leader often result that they receive a general early and settle down him into a city, wich later gives you +2 EP points.

About current game: In my capital I produced a work boat before settling down my 2nd city to circumnavigate the globe, which I reached in 975BC. I had 3 cities in my starting island, these cities had 9-10 hammers each. My 4th city was settled down to a desert iron (this city was very poor BTW), and immediately after that I started to produce swordsman. Peter was close to me and it was easy to conquer his cities. Justinian was the next, since he built the Great Lighthouse. While still being at war with him I attacked Isabella, I conquered 2 out of her 3 cities, but not the capital which happened later. None of my first 3 opponents had iron or copper, which was a big luck. Practically I destroyed 3 civilizations before AD.

Ramessess was a piece of cake, in spite that he had copper. I Conquered his strategical city and later I realized that he only built 2 axemen! He became my first vassal, Joao followed him. This was the 1st big fight, I conqered him by fast and concentrated landings. Fortunately id didn't have to fight in his well guarded main island, since he capitulated quite early. By that time I had some catapults, but these units weren't so important yet since I attacked only Joao's smaller cities.

Suleiman was the last. Before attacking him in 940 AD I upgraded all of my swordsmen to berserkers as I discovered machinery and I added triremes to my navy. Suleiman discovered feudalism aBout 1000 AD but it didn't help him too much, it was too late. My outnumbered forces showed him that he didn't have a chance.

This land-and-attack strategy I applied in the game needs a lot of galleys, almost half as many as the number of my fighting units. But this is a very effective way to collect several units to one place.

Flóri

Edit: Obormot played a very similar game in BOTM 16, btw, and has a detailed final spoiler. Neither of these games required Astro, however.

Edit2: In light of all these examples, though, perhaps maces aren't required until the clean-up phase.

 

[LowtherCastle]

One AI starts with the GLH and this scenario is stated to be hard to win by conquest. Possibly that means that one or more AIs will be fairly advanced before we even meet them. Another consideration for whether to prioritize research.

Furthermore, we're surrounded by tiny islands. That's going to mean very few hills, so another reason conquest might be tough is the difficulty of building a war machine. To me this calls for REX. The more cities we have, the more we can rapidly poprush an army. The REX will also provide us lots of coins because of the low maintenance, tightly packed cities.

One more thought on the Astro beeline. I assume we could get Astro around 1AD. We might be able to set the GLH city as a first target. That would give us a realtively early GLH to go along with a bucketful of coastal cities with organized trait, etc.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Another consideration for whether to prioritize research.

About that, wouldn't it be better to settle the PH and then the island west to get oversea TRs, rather than the SIP/3E approach?

 

[Mitchum]

Regarding bulbing Astronomy, as long as we don't research Mediation early on, which opens up Philosophy for the GS to bulb, we can make the decision of what to Oracle and whether or not to research Civil Service until we have a lay of the (is)land(s).

Said another way, we have to be sure that we get to Priesthood through the more expensive Polytheism.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

About that, wouldn't it be better to settle the PH and then the island west to get oversea TRs, rather than the SIP/3E approach?

I think that 1 Commerce in difference from the relative value of the Trade Routes will be a less important factor than the fact that if we settle our second City on our starting continent, we'll be able to do so a lot sooner.

As soon as we settle our second City, it will start adding to our Hammers, Commerce, and Food inputs.

If the timing of settling either on-continent or off-continent end up being negligibly the same, then the difference in Trade Route values would have a larger impact in the decision, but I think that the assumption with settling in-place is that we'd be able to get a second City up several turns sooner than we would by settling it off-continent.

Perhaps if we are willing to whip a Galley immediately after building our first Settler, though, then the time difference will be relatively small.

Still, settling a second City on-continent will guarantee a low-Maintenance-Cost option.

One more thought on the Astro beeline. I assume we could get Astro around 1AD. We might be able to set the GLH city as a first target. That would give us a realtively early GLH to go along with a bucketful of coastal cities with organized trait, etc.

This idea has a lot of merit... the extra Commerce from capturing The Great Lighthouse would go a long way towards fuelling the costs of a successful conquest of AI lands.

Certainly, it's a more concrete reason to go for early Astronomy than just assuming that the map layout *might* not allow Galley-based conquest or that it *might* allow for Galley-based conquest but only through a very ackward route.

This kind of a move (stealing The Great Lighthouse early on) could have a major impact on the game relative to other teams who don't think to do so.

I think we really need to wait 'till we've done some exploring before we speculate on the Astro tech path. So long as there's some butt available for kicking with only galleys, I don't see a reason for the mad rush to galleons.

Nothing stops us from Axe-rushing (even backed-up with the odd Crossbowman/Spearman stack defender) with Galleys on the path to Astronomy.

Going for an early astro doesn't mean we have to forego maces as well. We could research CS while waiting for the GS's, ideally getting CS the turn after we bulb astro.

That's a very good point, particularly if we are content to 2-Great-Scientist Lightbulb Astronomy, which would allow us to simultaneously self-tech Civil Service while waiting on the last Great Scientist to pop. There are theoretically "lost Flasks" when using 2 Great Scientists on Astronomy, since Astronomy doesn't quite need 2 full Lightbulbs, but it is close to about 1.9 Lightbulbs, which I think is still generally worth it...

The alternative is to Lightbulb a tech like Compass, Machinery, or Optics, each of which "cost" far less than a full Great Scientist Lightbulb, so ideally from a pure Flask-perspective, you probably are best "spending" 2 Great Scientists on Astronomy.

That said, it can be argued that "wasting" a Great Scientist's lost Flasks on Lightbulbing either Optics or Machinery can get you the relevant tech and its abilities sooner--Caravels or Crossbowmen, for example.


As for exactly how Lightbulbing might work--I think that we'll have to test out the tech path... I recall that Aesthetics and Alphabet can show up in BtS as Lightbulbable options, each of which has the potential to mess up our tech path if we don't plan it out well.

 

[shyuhe]

Metal casting (with copper) will go well with expansion since new cities will easily pay for themselves with a seafood source.

I don't think there's much merit in oracling civil service here anyways.

@LC - I imagine we'll be whipping most of our army into existence. Or drafting through nationalism.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

RE: Lightbulbing

For example, here's a conversation about Lightbulbing Machinery. While the purpose was different (getting early Crossbowmen without teching Fishing), it shows that some techs along a potential Astronomy beeline will be harder to Lightbulb with a Great Scientist than will others:

ive never tried the GS route to Machinery before so ive a question.Did you tech Aesthetics first as a trade bait to get Alphabet?or is Aesthetics a pre-requisite bulb like maths before you can bulb Metal casting?

Yes you have to have Aesthetics, math, alpha or the GS will bulb one of those before machinery. Also need masonry, IW, BW, the wheel, AG but you should pick those up with trades easy by that time.

You also must not have fishing or the GS will bulb sailing, compass, calendar first.

 

[mdy]

Reserching meditation and bulbing philosphy won't necessarily slow us down.,as the extra GPP points from pacifism could make up for the extra GS (though unit maintenance might be an issue).

It look like bulbing machinery will involve sacrificing far too much. If we have spare GS's bulbing calendar/compass would probably be more realistic.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Still, settling a second City on-continent will guarantee a low-Maintenance-Cost option.

What?
We need to go off the island. The first city out of the island will have a higher maintenance if we settle the second city on our continent.

I will test the SIP/3E build as iirc that's the only thing which hasn't been tested for now (unless LC went for it?) anyway Should have more data afterward to talk.

Now, may the astro debate continue...

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Ras: You're right that the the offshore city will give us 2*(+1)cpt. Plus, the offshore maintenance might not even be more, if the city is closer (e.g., W of SIP). My thinking is what DHoom says--the sooner we settle the better, assuming the second city has useful tiles to work. But even coastal tiles with low-maintenance speed up our early research.

One way to think about our REX is to try to maximize the number of hills we can mine.

One other way to strategize our REX is to settle a chain of cities toward our first war target.

mdy makes an excellent point on Pacifism, if we wanted to bulb Philo as soon as we got CoL. Probably better than an academy for the first GS.

Btw, bulbing Astro gives better value than generally realized, because Astro doesn't give a 20% prereq bonus. All other bulbs miss out on the research bonus.

 

[babybluepants]

One way to think about our REX is to try to maximize the number of hills we can mine.

One other way to strategize our REX is to settle a chain of cities toward our first war target.

Yes.

The PH capital can work all the good tiles visible on the island, minus a clam (which can almost certainly be used by another city). In the mid term, our biggest challenge will be getting the shipping turns, IMHO. Moving future production (i.e. future cities) closer to a major land mass seems better. I think you'll find that settling on PH and building a settler/galley is not actually much slower (if at all), then SIP-3E, since we need to build a number of WBs first and grow onto all the hill mines in the process.

 

[LowtherCastle]

SIP-3E settles 3E in the T40s easily, depending on what we want. Even with no additional resource tile 3E can borrow the corn and clam if we toggle poprushing cycles. Every settler SIP poprushes can overflow a completed wb.

I'm wondering if we want to sacrifrice our early development for exploring wbs.

Edit: In fact, in the back of my mind is that we want to poprush granaries in our cities asap, as a rule of thumb. I'm wondering if someone can come up with a way to get a granary and settler out of our capital by T50.

 

[babybluepants]

Are you talking Normal or Epic turns? There's no way you're getting granary + settler by T50 on Epic. You couldn't even tech Pottery/BW by then. The fastest we were getting for Fish/Mine/Sail/BW is T58 in EP's test, so maybe 1-2t faster for Pottery.

My test was getting Worker / 4 WB / Warrior / Settler / Galley by T69 (2275 BC), as a reference.
Edit: You could speed this up by skipping a WB, but getting Sailing and BW would be a limiting factor at some point (don't really remember the details now)

I do think we need the 2 explorers - that was the assumption. You don't think this is important?

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I do think we need the 2 explorers - that was the assumption. You don't think this is important?

It is very important imo. Locating targets/GLH, navigation bonus, AI met research bonus, start to work on diplomacy, general strategy planning... all this depends on exploring wbs (oh, I forgot oversea trade routes...)

Agree on no academy for now.

edit: about team logistic: we (I will if I remember it ) should PM the whole team once we get the save in case someone miss the start of the game.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I do think we need the 2 explorers - that was the assumption. You don't think this is important?

Oh, I think that we all agree that we should have 2 exploring boats... there was a bit of a push for Galleys over Work Boats, but the consensus is at least having two boats exploring...

But there is probably going to be disagreement on the timing of these boats. For example, given that "Food is king" when getting a City up-to-speed, I would think that we would want to have a minimum of 2 improved Food sources ASAP, which means the Corn plus a Clam.

A second improved Clam can probably be delayed as an acceptable trade-off, but more precise testing as we get to that stage of the game (i.e. after we have settled and played our first turnset) can tell us for sure how much of a sacrifice this trade-off will be.

Without running the numbers, my gut instinct tells me that it will be too big of a trade-off to delay netting Clams until we build our 3rd Work Boat, hence my instinct says that we will use at least the first Work Boat to net a Clam Resource.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

AI met research bonus, start to work on diplomacy

To be honest, for these two points, meeting the AIs early can actually backfire.

For example, if we play a beeline-like game and will not be beelining Alphabet, then the AIs will actually stand to gain more in a research bonus from having met us than we will by having met them.

This fact can work to our disadvantage... if we get early Bronze Working, then those AIs that meet us will be more inclined to piggy-back off of our research and also go for early Bronze Working. Then, the AIs which have met the AIs that we know but have not met us will be able to piggy-back off of the research into Bronze Working that was done by AIs that we had met.

IN FACT, I will make the bold claim that if we plan to research Priesthood, delaying meeting these AIs can often give us less competition for building The Oracle, since AIs will be less inclined to research this tech simply because it is cheaper for them to do so, due to another player (us) already having "bitten the bullet" on researching this tech as a "monopoly" tech.


Unless we think that the AIs will be ahead of us in research for a particular tech that we want to research but may delay getting, such as Animal Husbandry, we will actually potentially be helping the AIs more by going out and meeting them, compared to not meeting them and staying isolated.


The other aspect... starting to work on Diplomacy, doesn't have much weight until we research Writing. Ideally, in terms of both research bonuses and diplomacy, we would meet our first AIs on the turn that we learn Writing, but no sooner.

At worst case, we could upset one AI who makes a Demand that we do not want to meet... although I can't think of many bad things that can be Demanded at the start of the game, pre-Alphabet and pre-Currency, unless we first start trading a Resource with one AI, where another AI asks us to stop doing and we refuse to stop (or even if we agree to stop--one AI will get angry either way). This point is kind of minor, because you could argue that we are at least accumulating positive "Shared Resource" bonuses with the AI that we are trading with.

Locating targets/GLH, navigation bonus, general strategy planning

Now, the trade-off comes in with these other points, since these points do favour finding more AIs... we just need to decide which points are more important.

Essentially, we need ot decide whether or not it is worth rushing out Work Boats when we have not netted some of our Clam Resources is worthwhile when doing so also means accepting the negative point of speeding-up AI research on techs that we don't want them to get, such as techs that reveal Strategic Resources and techs that put them into greater competition with us for being the first to build World Wonders.