SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

[AlanH]

Update edit: I see that CFR-W has completed their first 30 turns and are at a score of 65. CFR-V uploaded after 1 turn (to discuss) and are at score of 13 (so we are tied for first !! ) Have we decided on number of turns per turnset in the early game?

Also, since first turn will be turn 0, I would suggest that Ronnie1 play 10x + 1 turns to start, so our saves will thereafter have a multiple of 10 as the turn number. The CFR-W save after 30 turns says 3130 29 turns. The progress chart is showing tick marks at 3100 and 30 turns, so adding one turn to the first set seems to be a better fit to the chart (which is set up for first turn = turn 0)

Just to be clear, we save and upload before we hit end turn of our last turn, or after we hit end turn but before doing anything on the now open next turn? My guess is that is is the former. I am checking with AlanH about any rules regarding these last three issues.

dV

lurker's comment: None of this is subject to rules, only standards of behaviour that have evolved over many years of SG playing.

There are no rules about how many turns you play in each set. A typical pattern is 20 for the first set, then 10 per set, maybe reducing to 5 in times of extreme warring, but you may upload saves at any time after 4000 BC.

I suggest you think in terms of turns played rather than turn number. At 4000 BC the turns played are zero. If the first player hits 'Next turn' 20 times you will be at turn 20. you will save at end of turn 20, and you will have played 21 turns if you include turn 0. If the next player then hits 'Next turn' 10 times you will have reached turn 30, and so on. If you count the number of times you hit 'Next turn' you get to round turn numbers that line up with the tick marks on the graph, if that's important to you.

Normal SG etiquette is stated in the Reference thread. You should normally play all unit moves during the last turn of your set, and save the game with no units on 'go to' orders. Units that are likely to be on active duty next turn(particularly workers and settlers ) should not be left fortified.

You should agree as a team what you intend to do about diplo activity during the last turn of a set. Historically, in Civ3 SGs, last-turn deals have usually been left to the next player.

But the above is all guidance. As I said, it's all up to you.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Hi all,

I've been away for a few days, but just caught up with the reading. I haven't tested with the new info, but I agree on settling on the 3rd turn (er, turn 2 ) on current scout position. Just to be careful, settler 1E then 1 NE en route to the promised land.

On turn etiquette, I am with AlanH. On previous game usually we played a turn to the end but did not hit end of turn. But when I picked up the save, if it seemed fit to me, I could go MM and change production or worked tiles in cities. General rule could be 20 turns at first, but say I'm on my 18th turn and an opportunity to steal a worker (and start a war ) arises: of course I'd save right there and pass the turn to next player (with the proper discussion inbetween) to continue.

Go Ronnie1 Go!

 

[da_Vinci]

I've been away for a few days, but just caught up with the reading. I haven't tested with the new info, but I agree on settling on the 3rd turn (er, turn 2 ) on current scout position. Just to be careful, settler 1E then 1 NE en route to the promised land.

On turn etiquette, I am with AlanH. On previous game usually we played a turn to the end but did not hit end of turn. But when I picked up the save, if it seemed fit to me, I could go MM and change production or worked tiles in cities. General rule could be 20 turns at first, but say I'm on my 18th turn and an opportunity to steal a worker (and start a war ) arises: of course I'd save right there and pass the turn to next player (with the proper discussion inbetween) to continue.

Uploading a completed turn that is still modifiable (end turn not hit yet) makes sense for every reason I can think of (including that new player gets to see the enemy moves in the inter-turn). Just wanted to be sure we were all on the same page.

The reason that I suggested settler 1 NE was that he gets to hill at the same rate, but 1 NE leaves us with the option of settling at original start on turn 2 (completed turn counter will read 1 ) if, for some reason that I cannot at present comprehend, we would decide to do that.

What makes 1E, 1 NE more "careful"? Animals this early???

@Joemama: Yes, pyramids did come to mind. Can we both pop rush and chop rush pyramids?

@AlanH: if you are still lurking, thanks for the info. I love seeing the "behaviour" (vs. the American "behavior")... so Britishly sophisticated, don't you know! Speaking of which, how would YOU have spelled G_psy?

dV

 

[AlanH]

@AlanH: if you are still lurking, thanks for the info. I love seeing the "behaviour" (vs. the American "behavior")... so Britishly sophisticated, don't you know! Speaking of which, how would YOU have spelled G_psy?

dV

'Gypsy'. But I'm not allowed to comment on people's spelling.

 

[Ronnie1]

@All,
It looks like we are in favor of founding Moscow in the southern Urals. My concern about that would be the amount of jungle that appears to be in the fat cross early. Although, I suppose we will hit the happy limit before that comes into play. The coastal site will surely be a science city and a settler/worker powerhouse. I'm going to wait to hear from some of the others, and probably play tomorrow PM (GMT-8). Lets go with the 20 turns to start and then probably 10, but as C63 said somtimes natural break points occur that don't necessarily land on a round number.
Are the rest of the Gypsy Kings present somewhere?

 

[Scout214]

Like Ronnie I prefer early expansion. In playing a few Monarch games, it seems to me that it is better to go after no religion. Then we can 'meekly' accept conversion when AI's demand it, to keep them happy while we take over the map!

 

[Scout214]

Now that I see what the scout found, my input is to go 1E and then 1NE and put Moscow there. With the first city exapnsion, we'll have both of the 3 food squares to the west and the fish square to the east. We'll also get both hills to the north. We'll need both food and production to grow quickly. Then place the second city to the NW in the area as yet unexplored. We'd have to waqit longer to get the stone for building Pyramids or Stonehenge, though.

I'm more than willing to defer to everyone else, though. Just my two cents.

 

[Scout214]

Although going 1E,1NE poses the loss of some of the resources, I prefer it because it gives us landed food for population growth. My Monarch games so far have featured AI's coming after me by sea. The first thing they do is attack work boats. If Moscow's food supply depends on them, we could be crippled early.

 

[da_Vinci]

@All,
It looks like we are in favor of founding Moscow in the southern Urals. My concern about that would be the amount of jungle that appears to be in the fat cross early. Although, I suppose we will hit the happy limit before that comes into play.

@Ronnie1: I am only seeing two jungle squares in the fat cross, maybe one more in the fog. Lots of jungle north of the fat cross, which may play into whether city 2 is back southwest or moving north.

dV

 

[Conquistador 63]

@ Scout214: the spirit of this game is exactly to allow all players to bring their ideas into the discussion, like in a brainstorm. Keep them coming!
Settling 1N/1NE as you proposed isn't a bad idea at all, it has even been discussed before in this thread. But my guess is that, in a crowded map like this is supposed to be, either we would have a lot of overlap with a 2nd SW city, or we wouldn't be able to work those SW tiles at all.
You're 100% right about the need to protect our coastal resources sooner rather than later, though.

@ da_Vinci: the E-NE move for the settler is only for clearing more coastal SE fog.

 

[da_Vinci]

@All,
It looks like we are in favor of founding Moscow in the southern Urals. My concern about that would be the amount of jungle that appears to be in the fat cross early. Although, I suppose we will hit the happy limit before that comes into play. The coastal site will surely be a science city and a settler/worker powerhouse.

In the culdeus test map I settled Moscow at the original settler start. Made that a science center with library, several scientist specialists, a couple of scientist superspecialists, an academy. Pure 100% scientist GP points. My thought is that a second or third city should go there with that aim. That site is hammer poor, so feeding specialists seems the natural for that terrain. Being food rich, that site can also eventually pump out workers and settlers quickly, leaving the hammers in Moscow-on-the-hill for units and wonders.

If north of Moscow is all jungle, then maybe we would put our second city on the original settler site? If the resources are in the jungle, then we go jungle of course, but if not, then it will be slow going growing a jungle city. I think Ronnie1 and I both found that to be the case with St Pete in jungle on the culdeus map.

I am seeing Moscow-on-the-hill as our early production city (can be something else later) for units, wonders.

Moscow-on-the-hill will be sea-dependent for its food for the early phases of the game. Later, we could irrigate our way to Moscow from the river. So there is vulnerability to raiders. But I think that giving up the benefits of having two well spaced cities that capture all of the visible resources, and a capital with two hammers from the city tile, is a bigger risk to us overall than the risk of transient loss of the workboats during war.

I'm on deck for the second turnset, and I anticipate a few issues coming up that I'd like the group to start thinking about:

A key decision will be whether we go for oracle or pyramids, if we go for wonders at all. With 17 AI, I don't see how we get both. If some industrious civ gets marble, oracle could be tough. If an industrious civ gets stone, same could be said for 'mids. Seems like we would need to have a second city producing defenders in order to commit Moscow to wonder construction. Allthough if we pop rush and chop rush, maybe we pull it off.

If we go oracle, use it for MC as a leg up for Colossus? Or go for a different tech?

Defense of the realm. I had a nasty experience in one short (for this reason ) test game where my second city, defended by a warrior, was taken by a single barb archer. I would like to have something more than a warrior to escort/garrison the settler/second city. So if there is no readily available copper (or if we have to settle second city to get it), do we grab archery (or AH and pray for nearby horses) before settling, or take the warrior risk?

Pop rushing. I could use to learn optimal approaches to this. Are there general rules, such as only pop rush at happiness limit? or Only pop rush if happiness penalty is one turn block (15 turns is minimal unit on Epic, it appears)? Or only pop rush when it costs 1 pop? Any guidance on this would be appreciated.

Chop rushing. I have wondered if there is any logic to "saving" forest to chop on larger production items. I am not sure that makes any sense. If you are making an axeman, and next want to make a wonder, it might seem to be sensible to save forest chops for the wonder. But if hammer oveflow goes to the next item, then it seems you should chop the axeman. You need A + W hammers total to finish the wonder, so start chopping sooner. Am I right, or are there rule nuances that make me wrong?

Answers to several of the "what to do?" questions will be clearer when we see the save at the end of Ronnie1's turn. I want to have a good sense that the team has thought out these early choices, as we will be living (or dying) with the consequences for quite a while.

I have notice that according to the results page, footballguys are playing quite fast (three cycles done). They are also scoring lower than others for a particular time, so I am quite content to be more deliberate about this early process.

Bulletin: just in from agent Tamborine of the GIA (Gypsallia Intelligence Agency). Media accounts indicate that footballguys have a score growth curve that is becoming flatter (just slightly so) with each successive turnset. Review of SGOTM 1 curves show that by about the same time, the eventual winners were begining to steepen their score growth curves. Does this just represent the crowded, watery map? Or have they run across some hazzard lurking out there in the fog ...

dV

 

[Joemama]

Bulletin: just in from agent Tamborine of the GIA (Gypsallia Intelligence Agency). Media accounts indicate that footballguys have a score growth curve that is becoming flatter (just slightly so) with each successive turnset. Review of SGOTM 1 curves show that by about the same time, the eventual winners were begining to steepen their score growth curves. Does this just represent the crowded, watery map? Or have they run across some hazzard lurking out there in the fog ...

dV

Some wild speculation, but I would guess the early spike for trash team indicates they settled in place. The fact they leveled off after that seems to indicate our proposed capital location will pay off soon.

 

[da_Vinci]

Some wild speculation, but I would guess the early spike for trash team indicates they settled in place. The fact they leveled off after that seems to indicate our proposed capital location will pay off soon.

This chart gazing is rather interesting ...

If you display the chart for culture, out to 3400 BC, everyone who has played that far (8 or so total among W and V) are on the same trajectory, except for trash team! Maybe they are the only ones NOT to settle in place (!), or they are the only ones who did not build some addtional cultural item.

It is really hard to tell since we don't have turn by turn data, but a line that connects only two real data points.

Since (as I understand the scoring), population carries huge weight in the scores, their early high score may be a function of not slowing pop growth to build a worker or settler, or of not pop rushing anything. I am curious as to why they are not keeping up in culture.

Looking at power over the same period, there are only two trajectories, with Fifth Element appearing to be taking the lead (hard to know if someone else is hiding behind them ... oh, except I can delete them, and they are alone). More techs? More units? A second city (how by that time??)?

So with equal power and less culture, Trash Team has the highest score at first turnset handoff? Seems to be ... So maybe they did settle in place, and the early max score is due to pop. But with 2 or 3 extra turns of palace culture compared to settling elsewhere, how have they gotten behind in culture?

Culture is very non-differential so far ... has everyone built no culture buildings, or has everyone built similar ones ...

What we can say for sure is that Team One (W) and CFR-V have not settled in place on turn 1. Score of 13 at year 3970. A good reason to upload the scout move as a screenshot, not a save: its is more covert !!

Peanut (W) won SGOTM 1. They have a nice score trajectory, the same culture trajectory as the rest, and a power curve that is flat to start then catches up all at once.

CFR took the silver in 1, the W team is off well, V team is still thinking (like us). Geezers, the bronze in 1, are starting well.

Looking at just the Vanilla teams, Flying Vanillas are out of the gate fast, as is The Real Ms. Beyond. Geezers in striking distance, while footballguys appear to be losing momentum.

It will be intersting to see where Ronnie1's save puts us on the chart, not to mention where we will be when I get done

dV

 

[AlanH]

Some wild speculation, but I would guess the early spike for trash team indicates they settled in place. The fact they leveled off after that seems to indicate our proposed capital location will pay off soon.

lurker's comment: ... or simply that they uploaded an earlier save than everyone else

 

[da_Vinci]

Scout214 and I played more of our multiplayer game on the SGOTM 3 settings, each of us playing Peter. We have clawed our way back into the top five in score, and we have eliminated 3 opponents (I took out Cyrus and Monte, he took out Japan). The first PA in the game was made just before we stopped for the night: Frederick with Mansa (Hoo boy! Now life gets interesting).

Frederick was somewhere in the top 3, with Mansa in the top 10, when this happened. I had just set up a defensive pact with Mansa to try to court him into a PA myself, as he is a tech leader and we were friendly (rather by accident, not by my great management of relations). Luckily, Victoria suddenly decided I am her friend, and we just made a defensive pact (maybe a PA to follow?). Does she like me now because she also fears the other alliance (how smart of the AI if yes)?

This has focused my thinking on the implications of such an event: how can I win if two powers ahead of me in tech pool their resources? We are in the mid 1700 as I recall. My only chance is to find a strong ally. Scout214 an I are not going to ally with each other (if that is even possible) except as a last resort, as we want to learn how to do it with the AI.

It did not seem to take long, after PA became available, for AI to pursue them. So I am thinking that this game cannot be won without being able to court a strong ally. Which just confirms what Ronnie1 said earlier.

Ronnie1 gave us a post that discusses these alliances. Below I have copied in the part key to laying the groundwork for one. It is in the context of a one city challence (only ever have your capital, on deity no less )

Spoiler :

Preparing for defensive pacts and permanent alliance
As early in the game as possible, pick one leader, who's borders are not going to be near yours anytime soon (say by 1200ad) and do anything they ask. Yes! for 4 thousand years you get to be their biatch. Aside of agreeing to their demands (even going to war) the main task here is to always monitor which civ they dislike the most - and dont trade with that civ. Definitely never trade with anyone they are at war with. By 1200 or 1300 ad you want them totally happy with you. This will often require that you spend time using their favorite religion and/or favorite civic. As soon as its available, ask them for a defensive pact. If you somehow upset them and there is a red item or two you may need to give them a gift (trade techs with others for a gift they dont have, or sell techs to others for a cash gift. One decent tech or around 800 gold is usually enough to add +2 or more to your relations at this point

The PA stage can be difficult if you've never got a PA before, so to walk through an example:
Lets say you want a PA with Catherine, because you like the way she shakes her hair at you and her lands are far away from yours.
First, from 4000bc do everything she asks you to do. Wars, trades, giving her tech, doesnt matter - just suck it up for now.
Second, from 4000bc always check to see if she's at war before you trade with someone (this hurts relations real bad and I cant find any trick to having it forgiven).
Third, around 500ad start using hereditary rule (her favorite civic)
Fourth, around 500ad, if available, convert to her religion
Obviously monitor your friendliness and adjust the above as required. Be aware that sometimes civs will drop their religion as soon as they get the free religion civic available around this time - so dont rely too much on the religious element of the modifiers.
Fifth, as soon as available get a defensive pact in place (find a gift to bribe with if its red)
Sixth, after 20 turns or so start checking if a PA is available, and plan to have a gift ready for a final bribe just incase its red (once the PA is signed you will both get all the other parties techs, so any tech gift here isn’t being wasted)
If a third party offers you a defensive pact then don’t take it! If someone declares war on them you’ll declare war automatically on that person and break your DP with your target civ, possibly losing relations – in a worst case scenario you could end up at war with your target, which would be er “strategically sub-optimal, Sir”

Assuming you’ve been nice to the target since the start of the game and are at +10-15 relations you’ll find they agree easily to the DP and PA regardless of how weak or technologically backwards you are – as they like you more than anyone else.

So, you now have a PA. Things to note:
1. You can now ask the AI for any of their resources and they will give them to you. (so dont take their only coal and trade it away!)
2. You can see the ai's cities (check out that growth and production!)
3. You can see what the ai is researching and ask them to change it
4. Your research is added together (makes sense to always research the same thing as them for faster times)
5. Your relations with other AI's has just dropped somewhat. They’re all somewhat miffed that you made a PA with someone else.
6. You probably now have access to bronze, iron, coal and maybe oil for the first time. If you have coal and railroads dont forget to railroad your lumbermills at this point.
7. team projects are now gray if one of you is building it (hint: build the pentagon yourself as soon as available, if your pet AI starts it and allocates to some backwater dump of a city it really sucks if they lose that city in a war)
8. The AI will insist on giving you any spare happiness resources they have, even though you don’t need them. If you refuse they will keep asking until you go insane, so you might as well just take them when offered and be done with it.

At some point we will probably want to be starting an ending every turnset with a list that includes our target PA civ(s) and our "do not trade with" list.

@AlanH; you must enjoy being the fly on everyone's wall (is that a British expression too?). Given the omniscience that provides you, perhaps I should say, the god in everyone's temple! We are happy to have you lurking ... as long as you don't spill any beans to ainwood, civ_steve, et al.

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

lurker's comment: ... or simply that they uploaded an earlier save than everyone else

A good point. I think not entirely a function of early or late save in isolation though.

Score and power trends often look like step functions (culture seems to be smoother), and we are trying to approximate step functions by sampling them at a few points in time.

So if the early save by Trash Team came just after a score boosting event, it would make the early interval slope high, and the next interval slope smaller. It is very possible that their turn by turn trend looks more like the rest of the other teams, and their high/low appearance is a timing artifact (timing in relation to step-up events).

All of which makes this early tea leaf reading even less reliable than it was to begin with !

dV

 

[Ronnie1]

There obviously wont be a need for the second city site for at least a few years, and normally, on this type of a map, I would look for a good choke point to close down the closest AI. But since the original site will be such a great site as previously discussed, I would lean towards getting it up running asap. Soon we will be able to crank out whipped: ) the workers and settlers needed to fill in the surroundings. I learned 1 very important thing from reading the CFR tread from the last game, as Obermot taught team CFR, "whip till your hands bleed" was the quote if I remember right. They were whipping at least once every 15 turns and sometimes more if the cities had enough food to support it. I'll be playing later this afternoon, I have to leave for a couple hours.

 

[da_Vinci]

Sounds like whipping is like voting: whip early, whip often. D)

The whipping tradeoff is population reduction, and potentially less commerce for science (lost hammers are less an issue as whipping gives you hammers).

So I assume the idea is to whip at a high population equilibrium, rather than at a low one? Which would mean whipping would wait for some population threshold in a city?

Or maybe not. I could see whipping a second workboat in Moscow, even at a relatively low population.

dV

 

[AlanH]

A good point. I think not entirely a function of early or late save in isolation though.

Score and power trends often look like step functions (culture seems to be smoother), and we are trying to approximate step functions by sampling them at a few points in time.

So if the early save by Trash Team came just after a score boosting event, it would make the early interval slope high, and the next interval slope smaller. It is very possible that their turn by turn trend looks more like the rest of the other teams, and their high/low appearance is a timing artifact (timing in relation to step-up events).

All of which makes this early tea leaf reading even less reliable than it was to begin with !

dV

No tea leaf reading required. Score is mainly related to population and territory. By the time most teams have posted their first save they have (1) built a city, (2) grown a pop point or two and )3) maybe expanded. Their scores will then stagnate until the second city is founded, they discover techs, or some other event occurs to boost their score. So as soon as a team builds its first city it gets the main early score boost, regardless of when they post their first save.

 

[Confusion]

hmm, i vote for the NE-NE position for settling, that would bring in the fish and the clams in to the fat cros aslo we will bring hills for our production and one F.plain will be still in our city, but the best thing about this location is that it has lot of forests so we can build pyramids that will enable us reprezentation for early growth and we will get great engeenier (sp?) 40 turns after we build it.

Neg side is that it will not be on the river and that we will spend one turn to settle