Phaedo's 1st basic skills training game: patience required

[Salarakas]

I played my 10 turns, don't look before you have played yours

Spoiler :

Turn 0 - 4000BC
-Move scout 1S and 1SW. Wow, that's some nice land. Lot's of bonus grassland, a river, three wines, hills... The only not-so-good thing is the jungle in the south.
-Decide to move the settler 1S
-Start irrigating the wine.

Turn 1 - 3950BC
-Found Moscow, set the citizen on top of a BG next to a river. Growth in 10, scout in 5. Start max science run on alphabet (38 turns)
-Where to move the scout? We could easily pop that hut when our borders expand and move the scout south instead. Then again, the jungle would slow our scout down. Decide to pop the hut and get.. a settler I don't think I've ever got a settler in emperor before.
-Move the settler north as we want it next to a river



Turn 2 - 3900BC
-Found St. Petersburg 3 NW of Moscow. It reveals a wheat which is unfortunately one tile away from the fat cross of St. Petersburg. Start a scout (5 turns), followed by a worker (5 turns). This way we get another scout out fast and then a worker the same turn St. Petersburg grows to size 2.
-Move the scout 2N on top of the mountain and spot another hut.

Turn 3 - 3850BC
-Pop the hut and get ceremonial burial. Spot another wheat Could this start be any better?

Turn 4 - 3800BC
-Irrigation ready, start roading. Scout moves north, spot some ivory!
-Think about using the irrigated wines... It's either growth in 7 and scout in 2 or growth in 5 and scout in 4. Decice to keep working on the bonus grassland.

Turn 5 - 3750BC
-Scout 1E. Some desert north of our core.

Turn 6 - 3700BC
-Moscow scout->warrior. Change the citizen to the irrigated wines for faster growth.
-Scouting reveals a very nice coastal spot for our next(?) town.

Turn 7 - 3650BC
-St. Petersburg scout->worker
-We have three scouts now, that should be enough.
-Move the worker 1SE on top of a BG

Turn 8 - 3600BC
-Meet a redlined Dutch warrior SE of Moscow. A good reminder, we need to watch out for barbarians here.
-The Dutch are up alphabet and down bronze working and ceremonial burial. We are 14 turns away from alphabet and a straight 1to1 trade won't work so I won't do any trading yet.
-Start mining the BG
-Moscow is 4 food short of size 2. I change the citizen on top of the BG again so we don't waste any food and get a couple of extra shields in the process too.

Turn 9 - 3550BC
-Moscow grows to size 2. As we have wines we don't need to touch the lux slider yet.

Turn 10 - 3500BC
-Moscow's borders expand.


Notes:
-We've been damn lucky so far. Excellent land around us, a free settler, a free tech, plenty of bonus grassland, 2 wheats in sight, ivory close to us...
-Moscow will complete a warrior and St. Petersburg a worker next turn. I would set both to warriors.
-Trading with the Dutch is not wise yet. Where do we want to go once alphabet is ready (10 turns left)?

I made a dotmap for our future cities. I'm not sure where we would want the next city as there are at least three excellent locations. Expanding towards the Dutch first would make sense so the one next to the river might be a good choice. The one west of Moscow would have three BGs and could make troops fast.



Edit: it looks like west is a dead-end so I stopped exploring there. Might have been a mistake, not sure.

 

[Aabraxan]

lurker's comment:
Once you have a luxury connected to your capital, all the cities that are connected to the capital benefit from that luxury. So one wine would be enough to make citizens happy throughout the empire.

Yes, but the wines also have a +food function.

Also, I agree that this position has good potential to be a settler pump. I think we need to get at least one and maybe two more cities founded, then look to build a granary for that.

Like Phaedo, I thought that the scout would lose its move crossing the river. In that case, I'd move the scout 1S, 1SW.

 

[Twixmeistah]

Yes, but the wines also have a +food function.

Yes, that was my point. All 3 wine-squares will have that extra food, and that will go wasted if we build our capital SW in stead of S. For in the early game, we don't need more than 2 or 3 tiles each city (certainly a Settler Factory won't). I think it's best to build our first city S and our second city next to the other 2 wines. That way, we will benefit from the food bonus of all the wines and can pump out settlers very quickly.

Two questions:
- Am I correct in my assumption that our research isn't wasted if we switch back in the same turn that the GH is popped?
- And have we reached concensus about our science path yet? I think most people are in favor of the Republic Slingshot at max research. Is this now certain?
(I can cope with that now, you guys have gained me over. )

I agree completely with Sarakas' worker turns as well as his micromanagement.

I also think we should put up a granary in both towns ASAP, but not after some military (police and settler escort) and some scouts. My build order would be:

1. Warrior
2. Scout
3. Warrior
4. Scout
5. Granary

 

[Bucephalus]

Am I correct in my assumption that our research isn't wasted if we switch back in the same turn that the GH is popped?

I've just ran a quick test scenario, and that is not the case. Sorry if I misled you; this would only be the case with zero science or at the beginning of research.

 

[scoutsout]

lurker's comment: I saw a lot of really good discussion on the opening moves on the last page.

If I may make a suggestion: Most SGs start with an opening set of 20 turns... since many of those turns involve hitting <Enter> because there isn't anything to do. If you guys are going to compare starts and take one that is 'best', I suggest you play 20 so that the starts will be a little more distinguishable. Just my $0.02.

 

[Aabraxan]

Ok, I've played mine. I'm going to try to post this with spoiler tags, with the picture hosted on Imageshack.

Spoiler :

4000 BC: 1
Scout 1 South &#8211; (now that I know he doesn&#8217;t lose his other move, this makes more sense). I see forests or jungles to the south, but can&#8217;t tell which.
Scout 1 SW &#8211; up on the hill, spot GH.

Settler 1 South &#8211; From this position, Moscow will eventually be able to work all three wines, tobacco, and BGs

Worker &#8211; begins irrigation

3950 BC: 2
Scout 2 NW to pop GH &#8211; Ceremonial Burial.
Found Moscow &#8211; start warrior (5) &#8211; Alphabet max (38)

3900 BC: 3
Scout 1 NW, 1W lots of grassland and a wheat some distance from Moscow
Gold 10
Alpha in 37
Warrior in 5

3850 BC: 4
Scout 1 NW, spot GH
Change build in Moscow to Temple
Scout 1 N, pop GH &#8211; Warrior Code
Switch back to Warrior

3800 BC: 5
Finish irrigating first wines, begin road
Keep Moscow citizen working BG to get warrior in 2
Scout 1 NE, 1 E &#8211; more hills, a mountain, some wheat
Alpha in 35
Warrior in 2
Moscow grows in 7

3750 BC: 6
Scout 1 SE onto the mountain &#8211; I see desert to the north, work to the north is done, time to head south

3700 BC: 7
Warrior done, move 1 SE
Begin Scout
Rename Scout to Scout 001
Scout 001 moves 1 SE

3650 BC: 8
Road complete
Worker 1 SE to BG
Warrior 1 E onto hill &#8211; lots of coastline here
Scout 001 decides to take one more peek off the hill 1 to the N &#8211; see desert and coast

3600 BC: 9
Warrior (Warrior 001) 1 S onto hill &#8211; jungle & bananas to the south
Moscow still working BG for shields
Scout in 3
Moscow grows in 3
Alphabet in 31
Gold 10 (+0)
Worker begins mine on BG
Scout 1 SW, 1 S (I don&#8217;t like recrossing ground like this, but I need to explore south to make some contacts. I don&#8217;t think there is anyone to the north)

3550: 10
Dutch warrior pops out of the fog
The Dutch have the Alphabet &#8211; CA2 tells me I have gathered 32 beakers towards that already
The Dutch have no other techs to offer, and they only have 10 gold. Their military outnumbers us, and they want Bronze working & warrior code for Alpha. They&#8217;ll offer us 10 gold for any tech we currently have. No thanks. I&#8217;ll see if I can locate other civs.
Warrior begins heading back to Moscow.
Scout 2 S &#8211; he&#8217;s now due west of Moscow.
Moscow grows: 2
Alphabet: 27
Scout: 2

Edit: Paint Shop Pro is acting up -- no screenshot available yet.

 

[Aabraxan]

Never mind. I thought I had properly uploaded a screenshot to Imageshack. Apparently not.


Edit: Ok. Somehow, I got it put into my previous post . . .

 

[Twixmeistah]

Here are my first 10 turns :

Spoiler :

Turn 0 (4000 BC):
Worker -> Irrigates wines he's standing on.
Scout -> West. He is looking for a site to place our next city. Then he moves SW where he pops the hut. It reveals maps of the area... (maybe I should've waited to pop it after my settler built Moscow, because the things you guys got from the GH were defenitely more valuable).
Settler -> South (the best thing is to split those wines in two cities).

Turn 1 (3950 BC):
Settler -> Builds Moscow. A scout will be built there, which is a gamble because a barbarian attack would this way be lethal in the next few turns.
Scout -> NW (towards other GH) + W (Movement turns towards GH will be the same, but we uncover some dark stop on the road this way).
Our wisemen are given orders to focus on Alphabet. The Republic Slingshot is set in motion. I set the reseach slider at 100% and I'm curious as when I should lower it.

Turn 2 (3900 BC):
Scout -> N + NW and pops hut. Again maps of the region which reveal some ivory. Twice no settler and no tech, kind of dissapointing.
Alphabet is due in 37 turns.

Turn 3 (3850 BC):
Scout -> 2N
Moscow: growth in 8, scout in 3. Worker will finish the irrigation next turn.

Turn 4 (3800 BC):
Worker -> begins roading irrigated wines.
Scout -> N (wherever it moves, it's always allowed to move just once). We have now explored the northwestern side of our continent and will begin the northside ASAP.
Moscow: I decide to work the BG a bit more: if I change to the irrigated wines city growth will be in 5 in stead of 7 turns and the scout will be in 4 i.s.o. 2. I value quicker production of the scout higher than a quicker city growth for the moment.

Turn 5 (3750 BC):
Scout -> East (reveals desert).
Moscow: Not is a good time to make the switch. Growth is now in 4 i.s.o. 6 and the scout is in 2 iso 1. Alphabet is researched in 27 turns.

Turn 6 (3700 BC):
Scout - SE (only option really)
Worker will finish road in 1 turn.

Turn 7 (3650 BC):
Worker finishes road and begins travelling towards BG NE of Moscow. The road brings wines into Moscow, happiness among the citizens .
Moscow: creates Scout2 -> SE-E on hill he spots a river delta. Moscow will build a warrior for the necessary defence.
Scout 1-> E-SE.

Turn 8 (3600 BC):
Worker begins mine.
S2 -> S on top of other hill.
S1 -> 2SE (northern side is almost totally explored as well).

Turn 9 (3550 BC):
S2 -> S-SW and sees barb warrior with 1 HP left, something has happened here earlier. After reading your reports it's obvious that some Dutch warriors have failed to kill the barbs) I doubt it if my second scout will live through the next round.

Unlucky again

Turn 10 (3500 BC):
S2 is slaughtered by them warriors (min 2).
Moscow: Warrior is due in 3 turns, hopefully in time to retain those nasty barbs.

Overview

*Alphabet is researched in 18 turns.
*Moscow (size 2): growth in 6 and Warrior in 3.
*Treasury is 10 gold (+0 gpt). Income is 6 gpt.

My turnset wasn't that great . The absence of some luck had a great deal in that (no contact with the Dutch, no tech or settler from GH). But oh well, I gave it me best shot.

I think that Salarakas' turnset was optimal as he gained two of the most valuable things from the GH's (settler + tech). I got only maps twice, so that's just (partially) unlucky.

 

[Salarakas]

It seems that we are not playing the same number of turns. I think I played 11 (or even 12?), Aabraxan 10 and Twixmeistah 11. Not a big deal though.

Spoiler :

I just read THIS thread and it explains why we got different things from the first hut.

Aabraxan didn't get a settler because he popped the hut before founding the city (i.e. had a settler unit already). This meant that the game made a re-roll and gave a tech instead.

Not sure why Twixmeistah got maps and not a tech like Aabraxan though. I'm pretty sure you can get techs from huts even with no cities founded yet.

 

[Aabraxan]

It looks like Salarakas and Twixmeistah called 4000 BC "turn zero," while I called it "turn one." Not a problem, though. That's easy to straighten out. While we're still waiting for Phaedo and Allanc to play and post, here's what I see so far.

Spoiler :

First, I think Salarakas' opening 12 is clearly better than my opening 10. Getting that settler was huge. I wish I'd thought about building Moscow before popping the hut. I'll know better next time.

Second, GH items: I think I got better GH items than Twixmeistah, but not as good as Salarakas. (Did I mention that getting the settler was huge?) If you look at the turnsets, I popped the two huts on different turns than Twix. So the RNG generated different numbers.

Third, exploration: I notice that both Salarakas and Twixmeistah both got more of the northern expanse explored than I did, though. I didn't even get the ivory unconvered. Then again, I didn't uncover the whole desert, either.

Finally, I notice that my research is slow compared to Twixmeistah. He says at 3750 BC that he'll have Alphabet in 27 turns. By my calcuations, I don't hit that until 3550 BC. In other words, at 3750 BC, I've got Alphabet in 31 turns. I'm not sure why those are different. Our worker turns appear to be the same and our citizens are both working the BG for shields. Anybody else see any differences between 4000 BC and 3750 BC. Four turns (31 vs. 27) seems to be a big difference for a 5 turn set. I think this bears some examination.

 

[Salarakas]

Spoiler :

Finally, I notice that my research is slow compared to Twixmeistah. He says at 3750 BC that he'll have Alphabet in 27 turns. By my calcuations, I don't hit that until 3550 BC. In other words, at 3750 BC, I've got Alphabet in 31 turns. I'm not sure why those are different. Our worker turns appear to be the same and our citizens are both working the BG for shields. Anybody else see any differences between 4000 BC and 3750 BC. Four turns (31 vs. 27) seems to be a big difference for a 5 turn set. I think this bears some examination.

Twixmeistah said in his turn report that he changed the citizen to work the wine square instead of the bonus grassland. The wine square gives 2 gold even without a road, 1 more than the BG square.

 

[Aabraxan]

And unto you, Salarakas, I say:

Doh!

 

[Phaedo]

I've played my turns I seem to have made similar dececions to Twix. I'll post after work. Nice work Sal!

 

[Phaedo]

I finished at 3500 too. I used the Victory Screen calcualtion of the turns. It seemed that 3500BC was a nice even number to end at. I seem to remember zerksees saying that turns shoud end on even numbers. Not really a big deal though.

Spoiler :

Turn 0 (4000 BC):
Scout to west hill (1 move, I played before I was corrected by Sal). See the hut so switch to CB.
Settler to hill
Worker irrigates wine he’s on

Turn 1 (3950 BC):
Settler builds Moscow, the hut pops and we get WC. Start building Scout, set research to 100%, get
citizen working the BG.
The scout moves S to the mount and see jungle

Turn 2 (3900 BC):
Decide to see what's up north figuring the jungles will be a bit of a natural barrier for other civs
Move scout W then NW

Turn 3 (3850 BC):
Move Scout N twice and open up some land but that's it. (It is nice land though )

Turn 4 (3800 BC):
Worker finishes the irrigation and starts laying the road.
Scout moves one west, sees the hut and pops it. We get 25 Gold.

Turn 5 (3750 BC):
Move the scout N twice again and see the ivory. If we could get the ToZ that would be really nice as we will be
warmongering

Turn 6 (3700 BC):
Build another scout and start a warrior.
S1 moves E to the hill. See the desert and a possibility of more land to the North and no tundra yet.
S2 moves to the tobacco. (looking to get on the southern hill)

Turn 7 (3650 BC):
Worker finishes road and moves to the BG
S1 moves NE to the other hill ot see what he can see.
S2 moves SE to the hill

Turn 8 (3600 BC):
Worker starts road and move the citizen to working the grapes (should have done this last turn but forgot. Sorry)
S1 moves NW thinking that could be more interesting than desert. It looked like the desert would make a bit of a
protrusion and sweep down to meet the coast E of Moscow. See the bit sticking out North and wonder if it might
not be a land bridge
S2 moves 2 East and sees a barb warrior. Count the squares and see that it can reach the capital before we build
the warrior, so I change the citizen back to working the BG and we will have the warrior before the barb can get to us.

Turn 9 (3550 BC):
S1 goes NW and think I found a land bridge.
S2 goes E and S to get away from the warrior and start his trek across the jungle. Barb gets lost in the fog but
Moscow's defense is as secure as I can make it.

Turn 10 (3500 BC):
S1 moves NW again and sees theere is no bridge just a bunch of wasted turns.
S2 moves SW again putting distance between him and possible barbs while still crossing the desert.

All and all I didn't hink I did too badly although I played a number of days ago and after I saw Sal's start mine is irrelevant. That extra settler trumps pretty much everything I did and seeing the Barb put my growth behind so This start is out.
In retrospect, I'm not too happy with my scout moves. Looking for that land bridge was a waste. Opening up as much of teh black as possible should have been my priority as we are looking for huts.

I havent looked closely at any of the other saves yet.

We seem to have 4 plyers in this. Don't know if Alac is still with us. As the premise for the thread was to have patience, I think we should wait. I suppose we could still discuss things in spoiler mode. Let's give him until the 8th and if we don't hear from him we'll proceed without him. If that happens I think we could take on one more player but four should be enough for now. We have some good discussion and have had some good lurker comments to keep us busy.

 

[Aabraxan]

On the roster, I agree. Give Allanc until the 8th and open up the roster for 1 more if he doesn't show.

Spoiler :

I realize that this isn't a competition to see who played the best start, but we are going to have to rank these to choose which point to play from next. So let me be the first to say that my start was the worst so far. My goodie huts produced decent things, but I stayed on the BG the whole time emphasizing shields without ever switching our citizen to the grapes to speed growth and research. Critical mistake on my part. I just realized that imageshack chopped off the western edge of my screenshot, but I never got the ivory uncovered. If this were a solo game, I'd go ahead and play mine out because I do think it could be salvaged (and because I like to play games out to learn from my mistakes). That said, I'd say Sal's opening was the best so far. At this stage of the game, the settler is the best thing he could have gotten, IMO. I haven't had time to really analyze Phaedo's and Twixmeistah's plays, except to determine that they both uncovered the ivory that I missed..

With the wheat and ivory to the north, I'd say we need to plan for our empire to grow in that direction.

 

[Salarakas]

Spoiler :

Then again, we might want to pick some other save as the extra settler might make this easier than we'd want. Having two cities on turn 3 or 4 feels a bit like cheating.

 

[Phaedo]

Spoiler :

Without a doubt the extra settler helps but you did a great job of opening up the board as well. Despite the luck, I feel your movement choices were better Sal
But you are right. This isn't a challenge to win, it is a challenge to learn, so perhaps your excellent start shouldn't be used (I'm not convinced of this though.)
I think mine shouldn't be used because of the early Barb sighting. I stand by decesion for MMing but it doesn't add to any better knowlege of playing the game. However, if you can see a flaw in my reasoning, please point it out!

so it might be more helpful to choose between Abra's and Twix's saves. Regardless which save we play from, it would be nice to assess relative strengths and weaknesses of the different starts (for the education aspect)

 

[Twixmeistah]

In await of Allancs' turnset, I decided to compare some stats of the different games, to see which one is best to play further. Because Sal finished one turn before and Aab one turn after 3500 BC, comparisons were a bit troublesome. The most figures you see next will be corrected to the year 3500 BC.

Spoiler :

Production/Building Order:

Sal: Scout (3700) - Warrior (3400) // St. Pete: Scout (3650) - Worker (3400)
Aab: Warrior (3700) - Scout (3450)
Twix: Scout (3650) - Warrior (3350)
Phae: Scout (3700) - Scout/Warrior (3350)

- The year is the number the unit was finished or will be finished.
- Phaedo's second build was unclear. In his story he exclaims that he will create a warrior, but in his last screenie Moscow seems to build a scout.

Military:
So everybody has their basic units (scout + worker) plus the unit that he built first. This results in a total of 3 units. Sal though has one more (St. Petersburg was able to creat another scout) and Twix has one unit less (his second scout was murdered by barbarians).

Goodie Hut Luck:
Sal: Settler + Ceremonial Burial.
Aab: CB + Warrior Code.
Twix: Maps + Maps.
Phae: WC + 25 gold.

It is obvious that Sal has had the most advantagese from popping the huts, and the question is of course if these advantages are worth playing. I don't think so, learning > winning at this point. Aab has had some luck as well, and I think Twix was rather unlucky (maybe also plain dumb for popping the first hut in Turn 0 ). Techs are very important at this stage.

Research:
Sal: Alphabet in 11 turns.
Aab: Alph in 26.
Twix: A in 18.
Phae: A in 19.

In this area, there are some major differences. Of course Sals' quick research is due to St. Pete, but Aab is really behind on Twix and Phae. So Twix and Phae have the advantage here.

City Growth:
Sal: Moscow (size 2) grows in 7 turns // St. Pete (1) grows in 2.
Aab: Mos (1) in 1.
Twix: Mos (2) in 6.
Phae: Mos (2) in 7.

Twix has the most growth by a slight margin and Aab is still at size 1 with Moscow. In Sals' and Phae's game Moscow is the same size.

Territory Explored:
Sal: 207- squares revealed (including Desert tiles near Netherlands)
Aab: 99+ (no ivory, no hills north, desert half, BG north half,)
Twix: 160
Phae: 127

Due to his third scout Sal managed to explore quite a lot. Twix did reasonably well to. The -symbol represents the one turn that Sal has had more to explore, so actually he has a smaller number of tiles explored. The opposite is true for Aab, who actually has one more turn to explore.

Score and Contact:
Sal: 92- (and contact w/Dutch)
Aab: 46+ (and contact w/Dutch
Twix: 47
Phae: 47

Speaks for itself...

Aftermath:
Overall, I think that Aab's game is not the best one to continue with. He is back on Reseach, Explored terrain and City growth. He compensated this only by a slightly quicker production, but also with contact with the Dutch. Twix has some small advantages over Phaedo (territory, research and growth) but hasn't had the right benefits from the goodie huts and lost a scout, so there is a choice to make. Sal is of course has the best game in any gameplay area, and his game might even be too good to play further.

If anyone has spotted an error, let it know so I can update the scheme. I think at the hand of these stats we can make a decision as which game to continue with. Please give your opinions on the game we should proceed with.

 

[Salarakas]

Good analysis

Spoiler :

I think Aabraxan's decision to get a warrior first was not a good one and it shows already in the beginning of the game. Otherwise the differences aren't that big and it was mainly luck (huts) that affected the outcome. If I had to make a choice now I'd probably go with Phaedo's save mainly because of getting warrior code from a hut. The other opening turns aren't bad at all either so if you guys want Twix's or Aabraxan's save that's fine with me.

 

[Aabraxan]

Nice work, Twix!

Spoiler :

I agree that my decision to build a warrior first was not a good one. I think that the place this really shows up is in the amount of territory uncovered. Assuming 10 turns to build a warrior, that means that the scout could have traveled as much as 20 tiles by the time my warrior was done. Even if I were to play out my last turn, there's just no way that I could uncover as much territory as Phae, who uncovered the next smallest amount of area. It's not even close.

I also think that there are other important differences to point out here. To my mind, the really remarkable differences were in pop growth and research. I thought I remembered a discussion earlier as to whether to emphasize food or shields earlier. So I put my citizen on the BG in an attempt to maximize shields. (That's unusual for me, as I almost always emphasize food in the early game.) The result was that I also lost out on the food and trade generated by the wines. I should have put the citizen on the wine in an attempt to get that extra citizen faster. Look at the numbers (I've intentionally omitted Salarakas in this analysis because he's got an extra city in the equation):

Population: I'm the last one with Moscow at size 1, and everyone else is within 7 turns of going to size 3.

Research: I'm seven turns behind Phaedo. We only played ten turns and I've already lost 7 turns!

Aftermath:
Clearly, the Regent-level games that I've played simply did not challenge me enough to really worry about MMing and it showed.

At this stage, I'd say that Sal's game is probably too good to go on with, while mine is not good enough. (Salarakas is being too kind). Even though this is a learning game, let's not make it unnecessarily difficult. I'm not sure we can make up for my research deficit if we really want to pull off the republic slingshot.

I'd have to say let's go with Phae's game. He popped WC, while Twix got a map. Maps are useful, but we've got scouts.