At A Crossroads

[RegentMan]

With the knowledge that we are on a relatively small island, we need to decide whether or not to continue with our Stonehenge plan. The strongest-supported alternative is to scrap Stonehenge and take sailing next to pursue a more-expanding plan. We have two turns until agriculture is discovered, so your opinion is needed sooner rather than later. What say ye Quatronia?

Link to relevant discussion.

 

[Earthling]

I think there's a lot of other potential plans that could be voted on; though I'm leaning to something new now, I'd only like to have the options represented. Guess this poll will do for now seeing as I'm not sure how many will vote - but all please give your input! Crucial time for the team.

Anyway, I would break down some proposals with more solid details somewhat like follows. I don't mean to be leaving anything out, and maybe on one or two of these I haven't come up with the "ideal" plan because I haven't considered/tested those ideas enough, but just to lay out ideas/help see where different strategies may be coming from

All plans:
Finish worker, research Agriculture (currently doing so)

1) Current Stonehenge Plan
Tech:
Agriculture => Mysticism => BronzeWorking => More stuff (Animal Husbandry, Wheel, Pottery, Sailing, etc...)
Build:
worker => workboat => Stonehenge (turn 36) => settlers/workers/more units after

2) Oracle + Colossus
Tech:
Agriculture => Mysticism => Meditation => Priesthood => Bronze Working => Wheel => Pottery => Oracle Metal Casting
Build:
Worker => workboat => Oracle (start as soon as tech, maybe another warrior before or something)

3) Metal Casting/Colossus sans Oracle
Tech:
Agriculture => Bronze Working => Wheel => Pottery => Metal Casting
or
Agriculture => Wheel => Pottery => Bronze Working =>Metal Casting
Build:
Worker => Workboat => Workboat? => Settler => Granary/units => Forge + Colossus
or some variant (earlier Granary, later settler; point is Forge/Colossus when possible, mid-60s turns for Colossus)

4) Expansion Proposal (one of many possible, this is a path I think could work though)
Tech:
Agriculture => Sailing => Bronze Working => Wheel => Pottery => Writing => More (Backfill AH/Myst/Mathematics/Alpha/etc...)
Build:
Worker => Workboat => Workboat => Settler (capital size 4) => Granary => More units/settlers/workers, second city grows, etc...
also possible
Worker => Workboat => Galley (part or all the way) => Settler (capital size 4) => (finish Galley) => Granary => More units, settler/workers/ second city grows, etc...

For comparison - especially to building Stonehenge, we could have the 2nd city settler at turn 36 I think, same turn Stonehenge itself would come in. I think the Stonehenge plan has us at 5/closing on 6 pop when it finishes; this would have the cap at 4 or 5 at the time of the settler (but then it would grow before another settler)
**************************************************

So anyway, my current vote would be to switch to sailing and abandon Stonehenge. I like build a second city by the silver + wheat fast, though we could obviously build a city by the two southern wheat instead first if that seemed better; in either case the second city site is good.

I really like teching towards Math => Calendar and Currency, assuming we can live with not getting wonders like SH/Oracle/Colossus. I think a lot or all the other teams will head towards those wonders; we run almost no risk in competition down this techpath; when we get calendar we get 6 spices up and running that are 34 tiles, and we'd generally have a fine economy/tech anyway. I invented/applied the term "El Dorado cities" to a possible set up in this map design and we'd have a great shot at exploring/expanding looking for such. Basically, as many of us guess/speculate, it appears that resources are very clustered/distributed in certain groups. So we don't have access to as many different resources, very crucial in trade and empire building. The possibility is that there are islands/places on the continent out there with a ton of clustered resources - we want to claim these sites (conquer barbs/etc... if needed) as quickly as we can and before other teams.

If we find Marble/Stone that makes picking up some wonders easier too - granted, it wouldn't be the "top" wonders everyone is racing to maybe, but then again we might still be first shots very close on the Great Library for instance with the standard techpath. Certainly we could get a great Scientist + Academy very early just by regular old libraries.

So - I currently vote for an Expansion-oriented strategy - Sailing next and a workboat, then at least part of a galley sounds good.

But of course great to go with what the team decision ends up being. I also don't mind letting the timer run close to 40 hours on the next turn or two if anyone is concerned and we need time to talk - no hurry even if other teams are doing whatever RegentMan, but now we are just a couple turns away from deciding what to do fellow Q!

 

[Earthling]

Ok, hope no one minds the double post. Spent another half-hour to an hour playing around with the test save. Anyway, I of course think this demonstrates at least the two major paths that seem to have the most support (SH versus some sort of expansion) both looking nice. So first is Stonehenge at 36 (which I think our current plan will stick with no matter what, so here's the starting point for SH tests).

After that there's a Stonehenge save played out to 50, for comparison.

The next set of saves are all the "expansion" path with early sailing. What differs is building galleys vs. workboats and timing of the 2nd city. In all of them I've opted to grow the cap some more after the 2nd city; didn't really test how quickly we could get the third city (or if we'd want it really fast). The "half galley" involves building a galley only partway and then the settler. At the end, for your convenience, is the BtS 3.17 save - it should mirror our home island; everything else of course is just random stuff, don't mind if you meet an AI at some point too, obviously contact in our game would proceed differently. Oh yeah, and events aren't off, may be huts on the main continent but I'm not actually exploring - just be aware if you started from say turn 0 sorry if some event happens, happened to me a couple times to get a stupid burnt down forest or something and had to WB it back. But each of these saves should have nothing affecting gameplay that isn't in our actual game. (well, AI claim early religions and all but we'd expect another real team to do so too)

Edit: Again, last thing - we're two turns out on making a decision so that's 60+ hours if we need it. But other teams are finishing up this current team, so if we get picked on too much we could finish this one, and next turn take the 40 hours if we feel that's enough. But I don't want to rush the decision at all so we could even be fine not ending turn on this one yet too.

 

[galdarian]

I don't see Stonehenge as necessary and would gladly give it up in favour of The Oracle or The Colossus. The question we have to ask ourselves:

What does BW give us vs Sailing?
Speed as it enables both the chop and the whip. Also Copper; Assuming we even have copper on our island are we going to mine it now to get access to axemen BEFORE our 2nd city?

Sailing will give us the lighthouse (Great lighthouse has already been built by barbs), trade routes and galleys. If we want to put a 3rd city on the second island we're going to need a galley.

 

[Earthling]

If we have something specific to chop/whip (Stonehenge/Oracle) then sailing is not in debate - we wouldn't go that way obviously. Otherwise, we lose little by researching it earlier (well, maybe barb gallies spawn earlier ) as the worker has plenty of stuff to do for some time, and we'll get Bronze Working next anyway. That said if we didn't want to build a really early galley specifically then just BW after Ag is fine too.

 

[RegentMan]

Alright I voted for scrapping Stonehenge. I think that by the time a city needs a monument for the charasmatic it should be able to build one in a couple of turns. I am anxious to get some ships into the water.

 

[TyBoy]

I wouldn't feel that rushed to get axemen out. We should be able to fogbust our way out of needing to fight anything on our island. Not having any until we get to the next island over ought to be fine (desirable even). It's the whip and the chop that make BW desirable.

Did you try a save where you went straight to BW and started chopping out workers and settlers ASAP to get our island filled up?

I think it is highly likely that the copper is on that plains hill in the middle. If that's the case we'll need to border pop the southern city before we get it (or build it off the coast, but that would be dumb with our awesome UB).

 

[Earthling]

Few strategies diverge before turns in the 30s if the strategy is not building a wonder; this is because up till around turn 30 the worker can just be mining/farming and not much has been teched/has to be teched in a certain order; the capital should probably grow to size 4 at least no matter what we do.

After that things could change up though, but presumably if we went worker => workboat that would be another 10 turns before we'd have to come up with another strategy to diverge on if there was something that came up. We'd have to decide what to tech though; I guess we consider what's worth putting off if we wanted Pottery/Sailing/Bronze or something in a specific order.

I'll play one out for chopping cities as fast as possible though, see how quickly I get 3 mainland cities + 1 overseas.

Otherwise - obviously next turn we have to choose what to tech next, Mysticism or something else (well, if we put a turn into BW or something then I guess we could go back to Mysticism and get Stonehenge). But anyway if Stonehenge is still going to happen we need team agreement soon - I know I welcome everyone's input and those who haven't spoken up feel free to do so. (Sorry if anyone feels I'm abandoning the SH plan but just on a personal level now I like a different path, but in any case a democratic decision is great).

Edit: knocked out a quick runthrough heavier on the chopping - up to the founding of the 4th city; capital doesn't grow and builds about only settlers and workers. Obviously we don't know what's overseas for what the third city would actually be - ideally we'd claim a good spot of course (or 3rd city could be on our continent and fourth overseas). But naturally as would be expected we could chop out a lot of stuff fast, probably better if I'd timed Mathematics/bothered to prechop near the end of the runthrough (turn 50+)

 

[Arakhor]

I'm a fan of Stonehenge and Bronze Working is always important, but that's only my Warlord-Noble opinion

 

[TyBoy]

I agree with you arakhor, but you have tied our poll! Further indecisiveness ensues =).

 

[Arakhor]

I didn't actually know that before I voted

 

[RegentMan]

Heh that's good. No need to change your vote if it doesn't produce a majority.

 

[MrBanana]

Do we want a Great Prophet? That another reason for Stonehedge.

 

[RegentMan]

I'm not too sure how much use a great prophet would be to us. I don't think we'll be going for a religion (at least it hasn't come up in discussion), nor do I think it would be worth getting just for an extra 2 and 5 . Although any great person would be useful to kick off a golden age, but we could always do specialists to get the easiest one.

 

[galdarian]

IMHO Great prophets are only useful to build the founding church building (Church of the nativity, Kong Mao etc) which brings in the Mow-nay!

In order of usefulness i rank them

1. Engineer
2. Scientist
3. Artist
4. Prophet
5. Merchant

Religion in this game is less of a concern based on the fact that it doesn't affect diplomacy like it would in a normal AI game. I think that we would only chase it down if we need it for happiness / culture / Religious capital (Which would become a financial city). Otherwise we could just stumble upon one naturally as we tech.

 

[Earthling]

All right, let's ask a straightforward question here. And I of course mean no offense to anyone's thoughts or opinions, but I think the team as a whole needs to consider it.

Who here is still intent on building Stonehenge? I know Provo probably was and not trying to go behind his back, it's ok if he is busy/away right now, but if he's being outvoted by the team that's the way this goes. If people want to switch to Stonehenge now I'd be ok, and we can still do it - we'd really have to do it soon is all, which is why it would be great to have this decided.

If we're not after Stonehenge, then there's still a lot of discussion to be had on tech etc... Things are by no means set in stone. Interestingly we can see things like no team has apparently gotten a religion yet (= later Oracle most likely) and we'll be watching demographics and all to see how fast teams are growing their cities. But if we're just set to expand then after typical Bronze working and then say Pottery/Animal/Sailing there are many different ways we could go.

I also like getting a second workboat to explore right now while the cap grows, but that's also open for discussion (or again if we don't choose Stonehenge). If there was something I'd favor it would be an early economy and push to early bureau, but that would require pursuing library+scientists sometime sooner in the capital. Military contact/harassment/naval power and diplomacy with other teams are all unknown right now too of course.

 

[RegentMan]

*I am in favor of scrapping Stonehenge.
*I am in favor of researching sailing after BW. I haven't thought too much past sailing; hoping to see what others think about that. Pottery sounds good, but do we need granaries and cottages yet?
*I like two exploring workboats, building them back to back.

I believe those were the main things you wanted to know. This is my opinion. What are yours, fellow Quatronians?

 

[Arakhor]

Well, I do like Stonehenge, but if the team want a different wonder or something else altogether, I'm happy to go with that.

 

[Provolution]

We need to repoll this one, until we get a verdict.

 

[RegentMan]

We need to repoll this one, until we get a verdict.

Set her up, my good sir.

Are you back and ready to take up turnplaying again or would you rather not?