SGOTM 02 - Smurkz

[Marc Aurel]

Just played one until the palace jump. I needed three chops and finished the last 85 hammers by 3 rushed pops. Took me 12 turns. I had started the first chop 3 turns before I switched to palace. Have attached the save. However I had made the site an economical powerhouse and not a special pop farm. Don't ask me about the locations of Tokyo and Edo. Just wanted to check the palace jump.
And after the palace something very strange happened. Gandhi just turned up to gift me iron working. Never had had this before! Methos, what did you do with the save?

 

[Methos]

Methos, what did you do with the save?

What save are you talking about?

 

[Niklas]

That's your Test Save 1, but I doubt you did something special to it. I notice that MA is quite some ways behind the opponents at this stage in the game, could it be that Gandhi wants to cultivate an ally against the others?

The maintenance is what we suspected, -5 gpt total for the mainland towns and -17 gpt for Kyoto at size 6. Osaka as a commerce center is not at all a bad idea.

 

[Niklas]

Gah, I just realized that all my calculations are off, tech costs are a lot higher than I've calculated with. I just compensated for Epic (x 1.5) but I guess there's a factor for difficulty as well. Hunting is 88 beakers, not the 60 I was calculating with. So the actual modifier is (x 2.2), and the research times are roughly 50% longer than what I've counted. So make that 20 turns for Archery and not 14.

Need to recalculate and test again.

 

[Marc Aurel]

What save are you talking about?

I used your test files for playing. Just to be able to compare to your efforts. But asking what you did with the save was only a joke, since I never saw this AI behaviour before.
AIs sometimes gave me techs when I asked for it, but never showed up just to give me one unasked. So I was quite surprised. That's all.

 

[McLMan]

I've played one test game & re-started a couple of times. I never got to Palace Jump stage, just checking very early tech and survivability of Osaka. I had the best success in exploring with the Settler (covered by the warrior so I didn't get too far) and bee-lining for archery. I founded the city very close to the starting spot because it has good production. For builds I archer spammed. My 1st archer was completing as the 1st barb warrior came into view. At 1300 BC I have 5 archers, the original warrior & just finished a worker. Covering the worker while he builds a cottage on the FP is going to be tough. It will take 2 archers, and probably rotating healthy ones in and out of the city. My biggest error was in Kyoto, I started running citizen specialists rather than working tiles for the gold. As stated by others I ran out of things to build, so I decided to build a couple of workers to ship over to the mainland later. Not a good idea due to the maintenance cost issues.

Tech wise I did better than I thought I would have. I researched Hunting, Archery, Mining, BW, and Pottery.

Strategy from here would be to venture out to get one more city founded, then jump the Palace.

 

[Niklas]

Alright, I played Test Game 1 up to the palace jump:



View attachment 134935

I did really really well in this game so far, but I feel I got off to a better start than I had any right to. I had copper one tile from Osaka, which I didn't know when I settled. Still, even without the copper it would have been a great location.

Research-wise I have Hunting, Archery, Mining, BW, Agriculture, Pottery, Writing, Meditation and Priesthood, going on CoL.

I was beaten to Stonehenge by Mansa, who also got the Pyramids. The maintenance reduction from the palace jump was only 4 gpt because of Kyoto being so large, I feel I could have done that better and not growing needlessly when I can't rush anyway.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Well it seems many of us agree to the research of some key techs. Let me summarize:
We start with:

Hunting->Archery!

Then settle Osaka down.

Alternative A: Mysticism. That maybe if we see good additional resources in the 21 tile zone around Osaka. Following Alternative B

Alternative B: Mining -> BW and then Mysticism.

After that probably Pottery or AGRI->AH if we find the appropriate resources in our city radius.
Don’t want to discuss that further, I only want to point out that this limits the resources we can use early on. Other techs we still shall consider when scouting. Finding rice, corn and wheat all one tile away from a center shall make us consider agriculture again IMHO.
Otherwise I think we are limited to a certain sets of resources in the very early phase:

- Elephants
- Deer
- Fur
- Gold
- Silver
- Gems that are not in a jungle
- Copper

EDIT: and of course the sea food we can already work! Not a too bad idea to scout along the coast!

The finding of copper certainly makes a very big difference. But we can just have luck to find it. And we should look for plain hills to settle on if possible to have the additional hammer in the critical phase, what also would be a big boost to throw out the archers. And it seems we should consider Kyoto to stay small for maintenance reduction to –7 to -12gpt after it has built maybe Stonehenge. Don’t think we have a chance at the Oracle. But I have nothing against trying it at least.

 

[Niklas]

I had to get to bed fast last night so I had no time to really comment my game, so here goes:

I had very little problem with barbarians. Much of this I credit to the fact that I was smack in the middle of a dense settling area, with three competitors close by. I had a few archers come at Osaka from the northern desert, but a single archer took care of them. So in hindsight I built far too many units, but as a test case that may have been just as well. In the real game we're going to have 7 competitors, which might just make for even closer borders. That is for good and for worse though, the AIs in the test games are not extra Aggressive (right?), so while close proximity means help with barbies, it can also mean more tension. But if we find ourselves with neighbors close by, I would gamble on slightly fewer archers and instead start the expansion faster.

However, I did play a few more test games where I tried to stay alive longer, and it is just too risky. I would probably not wait longer than 10 turns, which means settling Osaka after Hunting, but well before Archery.

Once more my calculations were off on tech - I forgot the +1 factor! This factor is really going to make quite a difference once Osaka has been settled. Instead of researching at, say, 5 bpt we'll research at 6 bpt, a 20% increase! So while waiting to settle Osaka, I was researching Hunting at 12 bpt instead of 11, almost gaining me a turn (7 x 12 = 84, 88 needed) but certainly gaining me several turns towards Archery.

Another factor that played an even larger role is maintenance. I deliberately walked my settler in the general direction of the capitol, and where I settled my maintenance penalty was "only" -6 gpt at pop 1, compared to -8 gpt when settling the spot, or -9 gpt settling where MA did. In the real game we'll start in a location where the maintenance would be -7 gpt, so by walking in the right direction it would not be the least bit infeasible to bring this down to -6 gpt, provided there's no ocean barrier like in Test Game 2.
This factor is at least as large as the +1 factor, only it doesn't kick in until the second town is settled.

If we want the Stonehenge, we're going to have to go for Mysticism early, like MA says. I would think Mining->BW is more crucial, and we have no chance on Stonehenge without pop rushing anyway, but after them I think Mysticism is the most crucial tech. I waited until after both Agriculture and Pottery, and I was beaten to it. But being beaten to it is not a complete disaster. I had built a bit on it, and when it was built in Mali I got a nice gp boost that I could immediately pump into research. This is even more true for Oracle. I don't think we stand a chance to get it, but the more we can build on it the more our economy is boosted.

I agree that we should keep Kyoto small. It will grow very fast when we anticipate the need for whipping, but until we have a concrete opportunity for it we should avoid growth.

 

[Niklas]

I still can't help but wonder what the catch is with this game. How will everyone survive? I can't imagine many of the other teams doing the kinds of analyses that we do, which team thread post counts also indicates. Are we trying too hard?

I wonder if the staff is laughing at us:

 

[Gyathaar]

How will everyone survive?

Survive? I cant imagine anyone getting wiped out early... Have you ever seen an amfibious attack done by barbarians?

 

[Niklas]

Survive? I cant imagine anyone getting wiped out early... Have you ever seen an amfibious attack done by barbarians?

No, true, survival is not the hard part. But if the exiles don't survive, being stuck on that rock until Astronomy is a fate worth than death.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Commenting on Niklas order of techs: The order of techs concerning Mining or Mysticism first I think depends a lot on where we finally settle Osaka. With no super food tiles around is not very effective to whip in Osaka. And the first thing worth whipping in Kyoto for me was Stonehenge. The warrior itself also might be whipped but we cannot save a lot by this if nothing else can be build there after. The idea of building wonders in Kyoto for economic reasons I just can only support. It helped a lot in my games when I had lost the race for Stonehenge. We just convert otherwise useless hammers to commerce – good idea. However Mysticism early will probably only really pay off with Stonehenge after the palace jump. Since we are in any case looking for a location for Osaka that also is very good in the inner 9 tiles, we might just postpone also the obelisk to the time when we have secured the surroundings by military. So in that case the Mining->BW route first is better IMHO – especially if we really would find gold. But with the early Mysticism after archery I always came to BW long before Stonehenge finished (12 – 6 turns) and whipped it immediately to never care again for culture and getting additionally a great prophet. Since I went for production in Osaka, I had no chance to whip something earlier, so I didn’t feel that BW came in too late when going at Mysticism first. But with a food rich surrounding of Osaka that will change probably dramatically. However too much whipping in Osaka is not possible since we get that 15 turns +1 unhappiness and can’t work the Osaka region beyond 4 tiles. So I think if we can manage to build the archers by production below 15 turns we would be better off by not whipping them but building them. In my last game however I had an elephant, that already gave me one more happiness, so whipping worked better. OTOH I missed a food rich tile then and so on, so on…. That shows IMHO, that it is only really worth to start these efforts after the first ten turns when we know the surroundings. Since we seem to agree on these first 10 turns (scouting and researching hunting), I would say let us just start with the scouting and have the big discussion on the Osaka location afterwards. I somehow think, that the surroundings will be great. Just because (as also Niklas has articulated) I don’ think the moderators want the teams to die early on to provide some fun for every team. (Mabe we find an embarrassment of riches.)

Moving the settler towards Kyoto is a good strategy saving quite important commerce early on. –6gpt shall be reachable.
Being on the coast however also reduces the number of directions from where barbs can come. In my last test game I had a lot of barbs simply due to being surrounded by barb sources. I haven’t lost a unit to them, but the problem was the permanent danger to the land improvements. I really didn’t like this, cause it meant to attack often with the archer stationed inside Osaka, what always gave worse chances to win. A fish resource in the back of Osaka would be simply immune to barbs, but we cannot reuse the workboat, what we will do with the worker.
I can support the idea of settling after ten-twelve turns, so significantly before archery comes in. In ten turns we shall be able to scout enough land to decide on a starting location. With hut gold from the warrior, send to a different direction we are still fast getting archery. Let’s hope!

BTW, Niklas, do we play 10 or 20 turns each in the initial phase this time?

And nice to see Gyathaar is observing this thread. Only cause I missed the moderators congrats on our win in SGOTM01. Or is our last save still missing?

 

[Marc Aurel]

I wonder if the staff is laughing at us:

They will surely do. But that's it! SGOTM is for fun. They are providing great fun for us. So they really have earned laughing at us. I don't mind being the clown or cabaret artist. Having a laughing and applauding audience is always great for me. And let's be honest this civilisation gaming is something like cabaret for real politics. Prominent German politic magazines like "Der Spiegel" have written long articles about it.
So let's go on with our show for the moderators and lurkers!

EDIT: "Smurky oto" is great for our early capital. Took me a while to understand it, but now I got it Let's take this name I say! Maybe we can put one additional letter to make it Smurky OTOS, meaning Smurky On The Other Side (of the globe)

 

[Niklas]

With the game finally coming out tonight, I guess it's time for the administrative post. I've dodged any questions so far because I haven't had any good answers, and I wanted to know as much as possible about what we were up against. Well, it won't get any better than this, so here goes.

I follow my usual tradition of setting up the initial roster after sign-in order, but anyone who wants up or down has only to say so.

• Methos - Starting UP!
• Niklas - On Deck!
• Marc Aurel - Warming up
• dojoboy - Still relaxing
• McLMan - taking it easy
• zyxy - getting a new computer

With the very special start, the early game is going to be very special. We have discussed a near-cooperational playing of the first turns. If Methos wants to play at a particular time, and states that, anyone who wants to can stay around and comment. I will be around if that time is reasonable for my timeframe. In any case I think we should not rush the first turnset. Possibly playing 5 turns the first night, then waiting for a longer discussion on what to do next.

I think we should go with 20 turns per player for the first revolution of the roster, does anyone see any reason to do otherwise?

 

[Methos]

In any case I think we should not rush the first turnset. Possibly playing 5 turns the first night, then waiting for a longer discussion on what to do next.

I think we should go with 20 turns per player for the first revolution of the roster, does anyone see any reason to do otherwise?

I agree on starting off playing 5 turns at a time, as the beginning will be the roughest part. I'll play 5 turns tomorrow and post pics so we can discuss how to continue. I'll probably play them in the morning when I get home from work (around 8 AM GMT -5) and than play the next 5 turns tomorrow afternoon/evening when I wake up. Unless I don't get enough responses.

 

[Methos]

Well it seems many of us agree to the research of some key techs. Let me summarize:
We start with:

Hunting->Archery!

I agree, it seems that we all agree these are the first two techs to research.

Alternative A: Mysticism. That maybe if we see good additional resources in the 21 tile zone around Osaka.

IMO this alternative depends on how much we want Stonehenge. At this point we’ll be researching fairly slowly, so Mysticism will take twenty or more turns ( to be honest, I’m not for sure, just guessing). The benefits of a free obelisk at the start will definitely help, since we won’t have the time to hand build obelisks.

Alternative B: Mining -> BW and then Mysticism.

This depends on how soon we want the Slavery civic. The faster we can get to Slavery the faster we can jump our palace.

I guess it all depends on what our goals are at the beginning. I’d like to have the free obelisks for the quicker expansion, but I’d also like to get our palace jumped fairly quickly too. I’m unsure which I prefer.

What about our first builds? In Kyoto I stuck withe Workboat>Workboat>Warrior>Workboat>Workboat. In Osaka do we want to start with a barracks, followed up by warriors. Or stick with warriors from the get go? Osaka may depend on where we settle.

AIs in the test games are not extra Aggressive (right?),

In the test game they are agressive. I checked the Agressive AI's box at startup.

 

[Niklas]

Yes, we all seem to agree on Hunting + Archery. We most probably won't see Archery within the first 20 turns (unless we come upon some grassland gems ), so the discussion on what to research after that can wait. I really think we want Stonehenge, so I'm willing to go with Mysticism as the third tech, no use having Slavery if we don't have anything to rush! Sure we could rush the third work boat, but the gain of that is rather small. But as noted several times now, it all depends on what we find.

Build sequence in Kyoto sounds good, not much else we can build there (is there any chance whatsoever that we will get anything off that island before Astronomy?). In Osaka I would build a single warrior, followed by archers. Since we're not settling right away, taking the time to a barracks seems too risky.

According to AlanH, the saves will be released at 4AM GMT, i.e. 11PM Methos-time. Will you be able to grab the save then, play the first moves of the settler and warrior (without ending the turn), and then upload a screenie? Or are you off to work then already?
In any case, I would move the settler SW first. We want the settler to move in the general W-ish direction, towards Kyoto. I don't know if we want the warrior to go W as well for protection. Probably.


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The fact that the test game AIs are aggressive is interesting, I was worried we would see way more early warfare, but if they're not more hostile than that then I wouldn't mind so much settling near them. After all, that just makes the supply lines to the front shorter.

 

[Methos]

According to AlanH, the saves will be released at 4AM GMT, i.e. 11PM Methos-time. Will you be able to grab the save then, play the first moves of the settler and warrior (without ending the turn), and then upload a screenie? Or are you off to work then already?

Nope, I have to be at work at 10:30 PM, so will just miss it. I can play in the morning after I get home from work though.

Edit: Settler SW is understandable. I'm thinking it might be wise to go S-SW with the warrior, to keep him close to our settler as well as towards Kyoto.

 

[Niklas]

Nope, I have to be at work at 10:30 PM, so will just miss it. I can play in the morning after I get home from work though.

No problem. I'll just have to dl it myself then, run it up and sit there drooling until you come around and post a screenie.