SGOTM 15 - Xteam

[zamint3]

Nice summary Undecided. The disadvantages are not that bad, if bad at all, me think.

I think we should use the old Oracle>MC>chop a forge to get a GE gambit. MEanwhile claim friends and chose an enemy. We need to found a city near this enemy (hope for izzy). Build the AP in that city. AP declare on this enemy. Once that AI is the owner of UN (You mean AP!?) and we have the most Votes and at least 1 Friend, the game is over. Been there done that.

I like the idea!

Can we do both: Bulb Theology with GPro and have a GE for AP?

This could fail if one AI on another continent is isolated behind mountains where our missionaries can't reach them, and we would need Astronomy to be able to capture a city to give to that AI. What else could go wrong?

Note we have 8 AI opponents

 

[leif erikson]

How can we hedge our bet in case we run into something that causes us grief?

For culture, I think we are pretty much all in early on. Does going for AP give us more options?

 

[Htadus]

Yes AP.

Can we do both: Bulb Theology with GPro and have a GE for AP? Yes, The Oracle city can also build a temple and run a Priest or 2(another religion say Judaism since we need to horde a few religions and need to run OR.

This could fail if one AI on another continent is isolated behind mountains where our missionaries can't reach them, and we would need Astronomy to be able to capture a city to give to that AI. What else could go wrong?Well we will be on our way to a domination by then

Note we have 8 AI opponents

How can we hedge our bet in case we run into something that causes us grief?

For culture, I think we are pretty much all in early on. Does going for AP give us more options?

AP and culture or war can go hand in hand. but controling AP is going to be almost a requirement with all these Options.

 

[leif erikson]

AP and culture or war can go hand in hand. but controling AP is going to be almost a requirement with all these Options.

I'm with MP, I hate the AP, unless I own it and make it a non-factor.

Certainly the tech walk is similar for AP and Culture victory. I'm not sure I agree that warmongering goes hand in hand though, particularly, early war?

Another key ingredient to culture victory is the number of religions we gain within our empire, even if we do not found them. If we have trouble getting a religion, we only need take a city with the religion we want, build a Monastery and pump out some Missionaries.

Also, instead of an army of conquest, we will need to build an army of converts, missionaries. Suppose it isn't that different...

 

[Htadus]

I'm with MP, I hate the AP, unless I own it and make it a non-factor. Like it or not, if that is not a priority in this game, we are not playing to win. That does not mean we wont exersize the skills of our teams war mongers. That is going to be an intergral part of the game with Agg AI.

Certainly the tech walk is similar for AP and Culture victory. I'm not sure I agree that warmongering goes hand in hand though, particularly, early war? With AP on hand a a few fellow hindus, AP can be a boon to get + modifiers. So I think yes.

Another key ingredient to culture victory is the number of religions we gain within our empire, even if we do not found them. If we have trouble getting a religion, we only need take a city with the religion we want, build a Monastery and pump out some Missionaries.No need for monastaries with OR

Also, instead of an army of conquest, we will need to build an army of converts, missionaries. Suppose it isn't that different...

Oh we are going to need army for this game.

Lets talk about the start.

The Marble tile is on a river I think. Warrior head that way and Settle there?
Worker and Poly first.?

 

[leif erikson]

From the second post in the Maintenance thread:

To all the fog gazers: the screenshot above is a very early one, which we reverted to due to the potentially spoilerish info contained in the mini-map, that some players saw. As such, the tiles around (but not in) the starting area may have been modified since the screenshot was taken.

So, you might want to wait for the actual save before gazing into the fog.

I think we should discuss what wonders we want initially? Shouldn't we take the resource we feel we need most and keep it within the capital's boundaries?

If we want the capital to be a commerce rich, moving the Settler to the SW looks like it'll give us the most riverside tiles.

An argument could be made for Settle in Place, except I hate to give up that Flood Plains tile.

 

[Htadus]

I have used no fog gazing magic captain. Since there is a gold yield on the Marble tile, I assume the river is on the other side. Personally, I would not settle on the marble since it is an early high yield tile. I do not wish to SIP for the reasons you gave. SW and E are my prefered options.

With a brand new religion nearly trippling the cultural expansion rate, any resources within 3 tiles will be in our reach very soon.

Ideal tech path may be Poly, agg, mason and something before Mono. 2 religions can be a problem due to auto spread but we can better control it if we own it.

 

[leif erikson]

The question then appears to be which way we send the Warrior? My settling preference, except for the loss of turn, would be SW. Should we send the Warrior east to see if we'll miss anything substantial and if nothing, Settler SW?

 

[zamint3]

We should test settling on the marble, the two extra hammers do rock early on!
Also being Philosophical we will be running some specialist and might not be using that marble tile with no food that often, and we don't need to build a quarry.

I did a quick test where the AI researched Poly on turn 9. Removing Mysticism from all AI, I had them researching Poly as early as turn 17, so we don't have too much time to move around.

SIP will give us Poly turn 12 and settling on the marble turn 14 (13 if we work rivergrass)

 

[The-Hawk]

I almost never play AP victory (hate it), so maybe I am missing something. However, seems to me that AP victory is a big risk. AP victory requires spreading Hindu to every AI. Since we will be starting in Hindu, it is very likely we will meet AI's and immediately have a diplo negative from religion. And if Aggressive AI increases diplo negative (not sure about these mechanics), it will be worse. I think we need to anticipate meeting some AIs that are initially unfriendly. It seems likely we will not be able to get OB with every AI. Pretty sure a missionary needs OB to enter a city. With tech trading nerfed, we also might not have sufficient tech lead to gift our way to OB, especially if there is a muddled diplo situation (negative for trading with worst enemy).

On top of that, if it takes us a while to find the 8 AIs (and find a way to please them enough to get OB), it is possible an AI will go Theo on us which will also lock out Hindu.

Take a religious nut like Izzy and put her on a remote continent and AP victory will become very difficult. I suppose we could kill off any uncooperative AI (or capture, infect, then return a city), but then we are exposed to other diplo issues with their friends. And if we are prepared to kill of remote AI, then why not head for Domination?

, here is a scary thought... what if Togu is one of the AI's?

 

[Htadus]

Domination is good. But being a Philosophical civ, may be it is better to head to Radio on full throttle. In the mean time we play a domination game. But still we should not ignore the AP potential.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Unless the fog looks different in the actual save, we stand to learn the most by moving the warrior 1NE. If no new resources are revealed, then we should seriously consider settling on the marble and leveraging a fast start with fast workers.

Because we are going to have an early religion and will be going to OR fairly soon, Stone Henge would seem less desirable than usual. Any quarrels with that analysis?

BTW, does no tech brokering mean that we can't gift traded-for techs?

 

[Undecided]

I agree with zamint's suggestion, settling on the marble is an interesting alternative. We save 6 workerturns for the quarry, getting a 2f3h1c city tile and freeing up the FP. But we'll loose one or two forests depending on the possible modifications.
The downside is we don't know what is south of the mountains

1S might not be to bad either, not loosing a turn and saving/gaining forests

In both cases warrior should go SE or SW for scouting.

------------

Like i said earlier i played a couple of starts with the given settings to look for wonderdates and hinduism. (random civs)

As expected with Agg AI the wonderpace is slower than in normal games.
I used Fractal because it's fair to assume that we have more than one landmass.
(Don't know why it never occured to me, that i could have used the Continents script although it has two advantages over Fractal )
Never tried to pursue any wonders or hinduism. Just watching the events unfold while playing as fast as possible.

Turn
Hindu: 11, 17, 20, 11, 35, 11, 29, 16, 10
Henge: 39, 59, 50, 51, 53, 61, 46, 47, 63
Wall: 84, 49, 76, 76, 66, 70, 72, 60, 59
Oracle: 93, 109, 101, 69, 83, 85, 77, 86, 83
Mids: 107, 135, 107, 130, 83, 93, 116, 115, 77

I know it's not really representative but it should be good enough for a rough estimate.

 

[leif erikson]

BTW, does no tech brokering mean that we can't gift traded-for techs?

Been messing around with some testing too. Trying to answer CP's question, I was isolated on a continent, no one around...

Interesting way to get to AP is; Poly, Agriculture, Masonry, Monotheism, Priesthood, Writing, Theology (from Oracle). Got three religions (Hindu, Judaism and Christianity, later also got Confucianism). Barbs get a bit tough, but can start AP pretty quickly.

If we can grab enough religions, culture may be possible?
edit - I need to go and read jesusin's culture guide. iirc, he was winning before 1,000 AD?
edit 3 - no, around 1300 AD seems to be the fastest?

edit2 - If anyone is interested, jesusin's article can be found here.

 

[Undecided]

BTW, does no tech brokering mean that we can't gift traded-for techs?

Yes it does unfortunately.

 

[Htadus]

Unless the fog looks different in the actual save, we stand to learn the most by moving the warrior 1NE. If no new resources are revealed, then we should seriously consider settling on the marble and leveraging a fast start with fast workers.I have a feeling there maybe FP's to south.

Because we are going to have an early religion and will be going to OR fairly soon, Stone Henge would seem less desirable than usual. Any quarrels with that analysis?If we are not going for culture, I do not care for SH. 16 cpt is a boon for culture in a production/bulb LC.

BTW, does no tech brokering mean that we can't gift traded-for techs?

That is true as Undecided noted.

Interesting way to get to AP is; Poly, Agriculture, Masonry, Monotheism, Priesthood, Writing, Theology (from Oracle). Got three religions (Hindu, Judaism and Christianity, later also got Confucianism). Barbs get a bit tough, but can start AP pretty quickly. I would not be in a hurry to Oracle Theology. GE route is faster. And AI wont get it too fast.

If we can grab enough religions, culture may be possible?Not over war game.
edit - I need to go and read jesusin's culture guide. iirc, he was winning before 1,000 AD?2 words.....HOF Starts. And player selected opponants

edit2 - If anyone is interested, jesusin's article can be found here.

If you want a good guide with these setting check Jovan K's recent culture game with partial AW.

 

[Mad Professor]

I keep coming back to our noble map maker trying to even out the value of the various VC's and there are a few good ways to make the normally attractive early AP win a lot more difficult. We seem to be covering them here.

Settling on the marble has its attractions. Can we bank on our mapmaker doing something like removing mysticism from the AI's? If not, Hinduism is hardly guaranteed - it would seem strange to me to make a game where there is a good chance a team will lose on turn 9 or 10 because of something they couldn't control - such as Izzy or Saladin settling next to a gold mine and studying poly first... My ideas of "fairness" suggest to me that to lose hinduism we'd have to do something a bit foolish. If we can confidently think like that, we might be able to settle on turn 2 or 3 rather than 1. Otherwise it's settle on turn 1 no matter what, grit the teeth and close the eyes and hope for the best until we have hinduism.

Any victory condition requiring a long road through the tech tree will definitely be slower than normal because of the no tech brokering. That would include space and diplo (with the UN requiring radio) I wouldn't expect any 11th century diplo victories in this one. Culture requires less teching but is generally a bit slower unless (as someone pointed out) you have a very carefully selected start and the right opponents. We're getting back to the old bash them over the head methodology of a military victory - except that we're bound to need at least astronomy for that.

So I'm thinking going for the AP can't be such a bad idea, as we can use it for various reasons, and perhaps with some judicious city capturing and releasing meanwhile infecting with religion, we might be able to pull off a respectable AP victory...

 

[leif erikson]

Looks like AP then? A couple of articles to read if you wish:

The Apostolic Palace Guide

Achieving Apostolic Palace Diplomacy Victories

Been thinking about roster. If you like where you are slotted, that is good. If you think you will be busy, then please let me know and we'll shift things around a bit.

Proposed Roster:
Mad Professor
Undecided
The-Hawk
zamint3
Cactus Pete
leif

Lurking for now:
Htadus - unless you have time to be slotted?

edit - game save is scheduled to be out sometime Saturday, 21 January.
Please feel free to download it and have a look, but do not move anything nor make any changes that cannot be reversed.

I think our task between now and then is to decide where to move the Warrior and, if we know, the Settler. Then we can make up a test save and test to our heart's content.

 

[Mad Professor]

Been thinking about roster. If you like where you are slotted, that is good. If you think you will be busy, then please let me know and we'll shift things around a bit.

Proposed Roster:
Mad Professor
Undecided
The-Hawk
zamint3
Cactus Pete
leif

Lurking for now:
Htadus - unless you have time to be slotted?

Me up first may not be ideal. I'm fine for the next few days, but from the 24th to the 1st I'm doing a bit of border and continent hopping and my ability to play the game in that week will be severely limited - some of that (late next week for a few days) is out bush and I won't even have my laptop with me. If we think I can play a turn set between when the save becomes available and the 24th I'm happy as I will have plenty of time before the 24th, but I suspect that might be a bit of a short time to get the necessary discussion, testing and playing done? From the 2nd I'm readily available again, so second (or maybe third if you like) on the list would probably work well.

 

[leif erikson]

Thanks MP. Should I take the first set?