[BTS] SGOTM 24 Dancing Bears

[AlanH]

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Good luck with the game, and - Enjoy!

 

[Fippy]

/waves

We are probably all sgotm experienced, and can skip rules reminders and stuff like that?

Yup keeping pause at all times unless playing or checking something quickly, autosave on for each turn..i think there's not much more
On crashes or other unexpected game interruptions, we have to stop and let Alan know.

For quick checking, our starting position pic

Spoiler :

Yup that's jungle plains hill gems we stand on.

 

[pigswill]

Checking in. Autosave 1, pause saves etc?

 

[Gumbolt]

Hi checking in. Not really looked at the rules. I gather we need to keep forest. We have a UU that is resourceless but very strong.

Overall these games are normally won by early conquest be it chariots or some form of aggressive strategy. We'll have to decide how we want to play this.

Oh our starting tile is jungle and gems on a plains hill? Cruel?

 

[Fippy]

Some early settling thoughts, i see no real options for moving?
Losing gems commerce seems less important with jungle on them & 2 Furs, only 2 hammers city tile around as well.
They give more early happy if settled on.
All other positions would lose 1 Fur too.

Chopping some forests will probably still be needed for a good start, keeping an eye on which we chop (best are those surrounded by 3-4 other forests) will be more important than in other games

Dog Soldiers are only good for deity barb defense imo, here they can be a big disadvantage if barb cities pop and we have only str4 units to attack their archers.
Fogbusting our important city locations (corn, fish) should not be difficult thou.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah we lose 2 hammer capital base. Plus commerce from gems? Plus 1 happiness. The deer are 3f1h.

If we planned to move we would want to go somewhere 2-3 tiles off. Moving for fish would be a slow start. Same for corn. Not worth losing fur and deer.

We start with fishing and agriculture. With start it will almost force us to tech hunting. Pending on forest strategy we will need to decide on BW. With all that food here whipping will be important.

Just one big downside from settling in place. If were saving forest does it cripple capital in long term?? Would we chop away all these forest?

We have about 46 forest in starting location. I need to read these rules on winning here.

 

[pigswill]

First minset seems pretty straightforward. SIp, start worker, tech hunting, send warrior east.

After that it very much depends on availability of AI so no point getting too far ahead.

In terms of economy if we're planning on keeping forests then maybe coastal cities, Glite and Colossus.

 

[Gumbolt]

We should also consider where horse, copper and iron might be. That blank grassland above deer could be a resource. Albeit with our start we could start with no resources. Our uu is not that bad. Get it up to a WM2 promo and were having fun. Stealing workers here could be important. We could build a 5 turn warrior. Need to check screens on T1 to see average AI military power.

Our UU needs no resource? So opportunity there. Pends how cruel the mapmaker is.

 

[haphazard1]

Checking in.

That jungle is cruel. I need to think about the rules more to see if anything unexpected occurs to me, but assuming we do want to keep as many of these forests as possible how does that shift our strategy? Environmentalism means we need lots of economy to tech; forest does not easily combine with that, especially early. Coastal approach with colossus and big lighthouse looks promising from what we can see of the starting screenshot -- plenty of room for coastal cities with decent food.

We can't kill everyone, but we will certainly want much more land for economy, power, and more forests. We have to force whoever we don't kill to run environmentalism, without vassaling them, but if we preserve the forests we can reduce the required time enough that keeping them in the civic should not be an issue. Or there is always the UN...hmmm. Sorry, just thinking aloud.

"Friends and foes of nature" with the AIs...pre-set relationship bonus or penalties? A good trading partner or two could be helpful, but several angry militaristic civs could make life difficult. Especially without chop hammers to boost production.

Our UU could be useful -- resourceless means we can start building them immediately with BW. The lower base strength can be troublesome if we do not have any alternatives -- how cruel will the map maker be with the metals and horses? There are a few suspiciously non-forested tiles scattered about the area.

Anyway, it is good to be starting another SGOTM. I look forward to playing with all of you.

 

[Fippy]

Good to have you with us, haphazard

Forest growths are not that rare, it's worth marking those with highest chance (surrounded by 4 others) or good chance with 3. Example pic

Spoiler :

Hmm i found only one with 4 surrounding (the star).

 

[pigswill]

.In terms of forest growth each forest that pops will increase probability of further forest pops so the longer they're left the more forests we get (in theory).

We can't really plan too much before the start of the game, conquest becomes more viable if we're on a pangean map and less viable if we're isolated.

 

[haphazard1]

That desert between mountains "gateway" in the east certainly needs to be explored early to see if it leads anywhere. The island (maybe?) we can see to the west will also need examination, but that will take a bit more effort.

Is that jungle on the pigs tile in the upper right? I am having trouble telling from the picture, but it looks like the yield is 2F and not 2F1H. Starting it forested would be very cruel of the map maker, not that jungle is much better.

 

[Gumbolt]

Welcome aboard Haphazard.

Looks like a jungle as there is no hammer next to the 2 food. Yes island to the west here. Sure to be plenty to explore on this map. Do be aware me and Mylene (Fippy) often update single posts. So we may not appear to post but the previous post is updated.

Interesting idea Mylene. If this map is a mix of desert and forest. Maybe the lush green we see in our circle is the only green left on the map? Probably unlikely. Pends what the map makers goal is here.

One minor thought here is environmentalism.
1. Near the end we will have to ensure we give the Ai enough techs so to get them to med.
2. Tha AI have to run this civic every turn for us reach the tally of 100 turns from the forest preserves. We also need scientific methods for forest preserves. If we wanted 50 forest preserves we might need a lot of workers. 25-50 or so? 1 for each reserve?
3. Philosopical - We have a lot of food here. You can pretty much bulb a lot of the tech tree to med here. Just avoid gunpowder. One good golden age could prove key here.
4. Winning condition.
A. In theory we could still win by domination here. As long as all Ai alive still run the civic? You only need 1 Ai left alive? Getting from 60-64% of land is quite manageable. Ai can change civics from peace deals? Albeit gifting the techs could prove a problem pending on who is left alive.
B. UN - More peaceful. Would require 4 more techs. About 30k more beakers.
C. AP - Skips out the extra techs but a lot of management to get the VC and environmentalism.
D. Culture? Unless we plan to do the EP trick to boost culture and gift cities seems much slower.

So UN or domination? Ap could be very possible but could be slower tech wise? Harder to plan. E.g Ap timing, getting all Ai to right civic and winning the game after the vote. Resetting of Ap vote? Getting to medicine should not be too hard. With start I almost favour a bulbing strategy.

 

[Fippy]

Yup jungle pigs.
My first thought on the desert we see was..that could be the border towards "enemies of nature"
Also supported by the mountains, something i do as well when creating maps for atmo.

 

[haphazard1]

Thanks, Gumbolt! I will have to remember to check earlier posts just in case if I have not seen the thread in a while.

Desert as a sign of the enemies of nature -- I like it. Works nicely with the scenario theme. I will have to think about possible leaders who would be friends or enemies, based on their history and perceptions of their actions.

 

[pigswill]

Can we change surviving AIs to environmentalism via swop civics mission?

Killing AIs then domination appears pretty straighforward.

 

[haphazard1]

We can change the AIs to environmentalism any way we want: spy mission, simple bribery, UN resolution, whatever. But we have to keep them in the civic. If we have enough forest preserves to bring the turn counter down really small (<5), this might not be a problem. For longer stretches the UN resolution would be more certain.

I agree that with the visible food and philosophical that we should plan for a lot of bulbing. Pyramids and Rep to combine with specialists would be amazing, but no stone in sight and of course we don't want to chop it out so that probably not workable.

One possible concern early is if there is an AI just beyond the desert gate in the east. We do not want an AI sending settlers into our area and chopping all the forests. Of course we plan to claim the visible lands ourselves, but getting a unit in that area to keep watch just in case could be worth doing.

 

[Gumbolt]

I would envisage that time being 1-2 turns. TA will probably try for 1 turn.

In previous conquest games teams have rushed to galleons and conquered the world that way.

Normally they grab GLH, Oracle or Mids.

Pends what defences the Ai start with. If this is a pangea base map conquest very early could be possible. Sooner you build a chariot sooner you can steal workers.

GLH this map has been made harder as you are forced to start away from the coast. The gamble might be to move to the coast? Not really worth losing so many turns.

The Oracle gambit here could be interesting. A great chance to bulb maths and try and grab a big tech. Pends how engineered the AI here are. E.g do they start with resources or on settled marble? This is where Elite always used to be very strong. Reading demo screens. Not sure where he is these days. Real life I guess.

Risk of Ai chopping forest is interesting. I wonder how cruel the map maker could be?

The reality with a war economy is you can demand many techs and gain a lot of good land. we saw last game how strong the war economy was. The minute you get 10-20+ cities the game soon starts to turn. The issue here is how to build a huge army without chopping forest. The answer is to use food to enhance unit production. The big downside on this map is travelling across so much forest. This also reduces worker use too. As if a worker has to cross forest you lose 1 turn for each forest move. Where it takes 4 turns to road between 2 tiles. Unless you include our city spot. Tackling these worker issues could be key. A woody dogsoldier could steal a lot of workers. That or focus roads only on key sites or where it ultimately saves worker turns by building it.

Scouting wise - Guess where everyone's warrior is going to head first??

 

[Fippy]

I think we probably will want to use forests as needed still, saving 2 turns in the end would not help us if we lose 5 turns in the beginning cos we cannot support building important stuff with some chops

Pyras would be the top wonder yup, with so much food and Phi.
Maybe stone over the sea, we can see an island or new continent west (work boat scout will be nice).

And GLH probably as mentioned by you guys, Bur. Cap seems out (or much weaker than usual) if we want to avoid replacing forests with cottages.
So wonders & scientists.

I did not look much into victory conditions yet, but seems conquest would also be an option (known timing from other sgotm games, killing last AI before ending turn, winning & making all conditions?).

War economy, always an option yup

 

[haphazard1]

I agree that some carefully targeted chopping may still be important. Anything that would speed our eventual success by 2 turns or more would certainly be worthwhile, such as an early settler to get expansion going sooner. The tough decisions will be less obvious things, like an extra military unit a bit sooner or a building a couple turns sooner -- how to estimate whether that gain is worth the turns?

Movement through the forest will be an issue early. I don't know if spending worker turns for an early road network will be worth it, especially if we are not chopping additional workers. We will want to connect our cities for trade and resource sharing, but coast and the two rivers could do some of that depending where we place our cities.

A city on the coast for early naval exploration will be important, also for the great lighthouse if we choose to go for that wonder and maybe colossus too. The triple fish spot up north, maybe? Not a lot of hammers, but with that much food whip overflow could do much of the work.

Worker steals would be even more useful than normal. If we have a nearby AI or two as targets, then an early woodsman II or chariot (if the map maker has been generous with horses) would be a good investment. I need to recheck the scenario rules -- normal barbs? If so we can probably get enough XP for a woodsman II without too great of difficulty.