SGOTM 02 - Geezers

[Thrallia]

Here's a couple saves...I'm extremely new to WB, so they aren't anywhere near high quality, and I don't know how to replace the blacked out fog of war...but at least they look pretty similar to the start!

One has metals, one doesn't...so we can test it out both ways.

Enjoy!

edit: I also am not sure if aggressive AI and raging barbs is on or not...so I guess that'll also be figured out.

 

[markh]

I also played two starts yesterday. One was almost in the same condition like this SGOTM. Starting on the coast with crabs nearby. In both starts barbs were swarming all over and I also had some bad RNG. highly promoted archers with a winning probability of 97%+ lost regularly. One save had copper nearby, but I had absolutely no chance connecting it in a reasonable timeframe.
From these two games I would not take the gamble on copper. The game might be over sooner than we wish then. Hunting and archery is a must according to my feeling. Warriors will not be able to handle the situation if the barbs come in these numbers.

 

[markh]

Does anybody have any objections if we ask klarius to join our team ?

 

[trippstowe]

Does anybody have any objections if we ask klarius to join our team ?

of course not, welcome.

 

[markh]

I just saw that klarius has been assigned to us. Welcome.

Where are juballs and sidiousstone (I hope I got the name right) ?

 

[AlanH]

juballs was nominated to chase up the rest, using PMs if necessary. It looks as though one of you will have to chase *him*. New players frequently forget to come back and find out what the results of the sign up were, so siddiousstone will probably also need a chaser.

 

[markh]

I will chase the rabbits.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I had a play with WB last night. As I'm not too experienced with it the results may not be entirely valid.

I found I could only research at 30% max, Kyoto hit health problems after growing to four and Osaka had no culture and hence didn't expand. The last was probably because I hadn't built an obelisk to generate culture

I'm sure that Gyathaar will do a better job than I did so hopefully we won't have all these problems.

One thing I did do was build a barracks early whilst waiting for archery to come in which certainly helped with the barbs.

I certainly agree with markh that we should go for archery early. We will undoubtedly need to focus on an ocean going capability as well.

I suspect Gyathaar and the staff are still feeling their way with Civ4 SGOTMs atm. Perhaps they thought the last one was not too challenging so this one may go tothe other extreme and be a real pig.

I'll try and have a go at Thrallia's games this evening.

EDIT: No problem with Klarius joining.

 

[klarius]

Well, I'm here

BTW 48-year-old fart, holding a masters degree in physics, but working as an engineer in computer programming and simulation nowadays. Living in Germany at the shore of Lake Constance.

To the game:

I also did some world builder tests and I come to the conclusion that we cannot afford to settle anywhere near where we are now .
Our economy will be totally trashed by the distance maintainance (at least -7gpt and it will go up by 1gpt with every pop growth on the second city).
To get a healthy economy we would have to work several mature cottages, which then means we have nearly no production.
Even w/o looking on gold, it's questionable if a city here could survive. It would need a worker and an obelisk before it could get even marginal production and then it's limited to size 4 with no lux. And if not settled on the river it will even get unhealthy then (sure health resources are available, but the fish needs a workboat, the rice may soon be subject to pillaging).

Losing the city after it has dragged down our economy for a long time is obviously the worst case.
So I think we should scout with the settler and warrior until we either find a real power location or we are much nearer to the capital.
I'm talking here about anything between 10 and 30 turns and am well aware that the settler maybe eaten by an animal even with the warrior covering.
But I think losing the settler would still be better than settling a lousy spot and killing the economy. Our capital is in a safe spot and can do very good research and also some production with slavery.
I'm pretty sure that there is coast north of the capital (the sea looks a bit lighter and there is commerce on the edges), so there should be the chance to get there with galleys.
I think we should start with researching mysticism, while scouting the land towards the east (and maybe a little towards the south along the river). If we don't find a good location or the settler gets lost early, head for polytheism, which should give a good chance for a religion in the capital or in the then later settled second city.
If we find a power location early, research what's needed for the second city.
If we get an early religion in the capital we could try to get a great prophet there to research most of civil service (pop rush a temple and run a priest). Getting to code of law should be no problem as long as the second city isn't too much of a burden.
We could even try to partially pop-rush the Oracle there, but that would come pretty late (though I succeeded in one test game running only the capital).

I don't have much hope for building the Oracle otherwise. We for sure cannot afford a third city this far away from the capital and building enough military and then the Oracle in the second city would really need an extreme good spot (like a marble hill to settle with some gems, gold and food around ).

 

[Sam_Yeager]

To the game:

I also did some world builder tests and I come to the conclusion that we cannot afford to settle anywhere near where we are now .
Our economy will be totally trashed by the distance maintainance (at least -7gpt and it will go up by 1gpt with every pop growth on the second city).
To get a healthy economy we would have to work several mature cottages, which then means we have nearly no production.
Even w/o looking on gold, it's questionable if a city here could survive. It would need a worker and an obelisk before it could get even marginal production and then it's limited to size 4 with no lux. And if not settled on the river it will even get unhealthy then (sure health resources are available, but the fish needs a workboat, the rice may soon be subject to pillaging).

Certainly sounds pretty grim.

However I can't believe that Gyathaar would make it so totally impossible especially since the laurels are only for a conquest victory. Realistically I think we need to settle within the first five turns otherwise our settler will be wiped out by barbs and we're up the creek without a paddle.

I believe the spot NW is by a river mouth so hopefully that should help with health.

 

[markh]

Nice analysis and strategy, klarius. Didn't consider the maintenance with our capital in that position.

I think the cities are not too far apart. Kyoto is in the far left and the settler is in the far right, so it might not be that bad concerning maintenance and corruption. I will test a little more this evening.

I am quite sure that if we move the settler too far it will be toast. I do not think that this was in the mind of the developers, but you never know.

If we lose the settler and achieve a conquest victory from the one tile island this will be the game of the year for sure. And this team should get a special laurel.

 

[klarius]

Well, I have moved a settler with these settings for 30 turns and it was not toast. Nevertheless the city was toast when I tried to get the Oracle there with only 2 warriors defending .

I don't think there are human barbs before around turn 30-40. For sure a bear can eat the settler, but mostly you can avoid animals.

The tile NW is not on the river. It has no commerce.
It's really a poor location. Only after culture expansion it can be marginally productive and that will take a long time. About 20 turns to mysticism, if we trash our economy by settling right away, then another about 20 turns to build an obelisk, after that build a worker and a work boat. All the time we still have no more than 2 warriors.
Any decent city site settled on a plains hill with some river food bonus and an easy accessible lux will perform better even when settled 20-30 turns later.
That doesn't mean such a town will be safe, but it has a better chance than this spot.

The cities are roughly 40 tiles apart for sure (36-37 e-w and 5-6 n-s according to my pixel counting). Note you don't see the whole map in CIV only the part encompassing what you have scouted. About half of the map is not visible. The whole width should be 84 tiles.

And I don't see the big problem with winning from the one tile island, if I'm right that other land is reachable by galley.

 

[markh]

I also had a game where the barbs did not hit me that early, but the majority of test games so far gave massive barbs and very early. If I would have not settled early and built 2 warriors right away the city would have been gone.

I really doubt that the staff would be that cruel to make the second city that useless in the beginning as then the whole competition would depend on luck whether your settler would be killed or not when you would have to move him. The second city will have higher maintenance, but I do not think it will be that severe. I am thinking of -2 or -3, but that's it. If the maintenance of the second city will be at -7 it would take the whole fun out of this game. It is only the second CIV SGOTM and I think many players would lose interest with such a setting. It would be an OCC game for quite a long time. The barb setting already will make the game more difficult and I think this will be the biggest obstacle, but also the the most fun in the early game. The beginnings of CIV games quite slow, so I think the staff wanted to give us a beginning with much more action to make the game more attractive especially in the beginning.

I do not want to neglect your strategy which I find very interesting. I just cannot believe that the developers are that tough to the teams in the second SGOTM. I would see your setting as a challenge and I would love it, but I think many younger players here would simply drop out.

 

[klarius]

Well, I'm absolutely sure about the -7gpt like in the attached save. That doesn't mean that the game cannot be played, the research is just pretty low.
Still settling at the lousy nw spot needs about 30 turns for 2 warriors.
A similar spot (1 times 3 food and a forest) settled on a plains hill will need less than 20. So 10 turns would already be justified for just getting a plains hill.

BTW, I just played another test game up to CS slingshot where I did wander 26 turns before settling (with another map I didn't save). There was only one really dicey situation, when a barb archer came along while there was only one warrior in the city . That's still a good chance for a warrior fully fortified in a hill town.
It helped a lot in this game that the second city was settled near to an AI capital .

 

[juballs2001]

im here guys,,, sorry been busy with work.,.. i will read what we have so far and get caught up...


glad to see you joined us Geezers Klarius. for once i can join klarius instead of trying to beat him in the civ 3 SGOTM.

lets win this thing this time guys!

 

[markh]

I checked your save and if it is really that far from the capital it does look ugly indeed. That would take away all the fun from the game in my opinion. If the barbs are like in most of the test games I played the settler and warrior walking around will not have a chance most of the time. Raging barbs and aggressive AI with such a bad setting does not make any sense to me for a SGOTM.

Will play around with the world builder, too and see what that gives me. Most likely the game has started until I find out how it works though.

 

[markh]

Here is what I have. Maintenance is at -2 if you found Osaka on that spot.

It all depends how far the settler really is from Kyoto. I do not think it is too far.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I've been experimenting further and I got -5 for maintenance. I didn't keep the save so I can't post it. However I started playing a couple of games just trying to use Kyoto and to build the Oracle and that gave me problems as well. I got stuck at pop 4 for quite a while until I got hinduism. After that the next sticking point was pop 6. The main problem was the lack of hammers in Kyoto. If I tried using citizen specialists to increase hammers then research slowed down.

I got the Oracle once but failed twice. I'll have a look at the saves and see how they compared but at the moment I think there may be something to be said for gritting our teeth and accepting the maintenance cost. That's not to say that we shouldn't settle on the hill instead though.

 

[klarius]

Well, look at this picture:

The upper minimap is from your file. I copied the 5X5 tile square around the capital and stamped it in 15 times meaning about 75 tiles. So with the wraparound we only have about 10 tiles distance in the other direction.
The lower map is from the first post in the thread. I can only fit in the 5X5 square about 7 times so around 35 tile e-w. Together with the n-s difference we get the roughly 40 tiles distance I put in my file.

 

[markh]

I do not know whether I got it, but you cannot compare the pics in the first post as the first one showing Kyoto is zoomed in. The ocean tiles are bigger than in the pic showing the settler. I would say that the distance is not that big. Maybe it is maintenance -3, but not more.