SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

[da_Vinci]

Tamborine reports that we experienced a score curve flattening similar to other teams during the last turnset. So this appears to be a product of pop stagnation during settler/worker development for all teams, and not some military calamity.

We are still with the pack on the narrow culture trajectory (why this is not one single superimposed line for all teams mystifies us, as it seems clear that no team has built extra culture buildings in the first 60 turns).

Gypsalia is still right among the top of the power chart.

The GIA believes that we are in position for a score explosion. We shall see if the other teams achieve that as well.

dV transmitting report from AT

 

[Conquistador 63]

We are still with the pack on the narrow culture trajectory (why this is not one single superimposed line for all teams mystifies us, as it seems clear that no team has built extra culture buildings in the first 60 turns).

I assume this is due to some teams settling in 1st turn, and others on 2nd or even 3rd turn like us. Culture generation begins only after settling capital.

 

[Ronnie1]

@dV, C63 and All,
The early turns are kind of boring, but they set the foundation for the Palace to come! We are right on my test game timeline. Once the settler is built, we just need to grow Moscow. Wb to be the next build to allow growth and then either settler or SH? That is the next big decision!

The roster order is:

C63 - just bored himself to sleep
Joemama - Up Now
Igelkott - on deck
Confusion - in the hole
Scout214 - waiting
Ronnie1 - waiting
da_Vinci - and still waiting

Update from GIA

We are falling dangerously behind on the key statistic of player posts per turn! Carry On

 

[da_Vinci]

I assume this is due to some teams settling in 1st turn, and others on 2nd or even 3rd turn like us. Culture generation begins only after settling capital.

D'oh! That is part of it, and wasn't thinking of that. I still don't always figure in correctly that we are sampling these functions every 20 turns or so.

That having been said, just for fun, look at culture to 1900 BC for just the vanillas. If it is just the who settled when issue, then for all intervals after the first turnset, I should have parallel lines with a constant difference, until the first culture building is build, then some pretty fast divergence should start to occur.

Same interval, restrict to us, Geezers Memphis Blues, and Real Ms. It seem that some curves are criss-crossing, which should not be happening if just a settle delay effect. Maybe its just a plotting artifact of the graphing program?

There will be some culture divergence soon enough!

BTW, score chart suggests that Real Ms. has settled their second city.

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

@dV, C63 and All,
The early turns are kind of boring, but they set the foundation for the Palace to come! We are right on my test game timeline. Once the settler is built, we just need to grow Moscow. Wb to be the next build to allow growth and then either settler or SH? That is the next big decision!

Regarding tech:
Mysticism will be done in five turns. What to research next? The worker is committed to two more turns on quarry, then we need to road the stone (how many turns ... maybe 5?) At our current science, we could get archery in 9 turns the advisor says (maybe he can't count, as it is 133 flasks and we make 12 per turn???). If we find horse, we will want that anyway for HA, and I think we want archers available in case a surprise walks across the isthmus. After road on stone, I think worker should mine hill. This will rush WB in Moscow and increase hammers that the 4th citizen (due in 12 turns from handoff) produces. City, quarry and mine will be 9 hammers per turn and still +5 food per turn, not too shabby!

Since the worker is already committed to other projects, I think we can get archery before pottery without delaying any cottages or granaries. After archery-pottery, maybe iron working or AH? Another reason for archery is that if we want to get city at the isthmus soon, it will need more defense than warriors being on the frontier.

About builds in Moscow:
Workboat next, starts in 1 turn after settler. Found St. Pete at old setter start. Interesting question - in St. Pete, work 3/0/1/ or 2/0/2 tile? Back to Moscow ... start WB after settler. Takes 23 turns at current 2 H per turn. That gets better after new pop (5 turns post settler) works quarry (now 6 H per turn) and considering that, WB should take only 11 turns from when we start it. If we get to chop the hill we will mine, WB can be done that much sooner.

Anyone know if there is an overflow trick we can use for henge? If we chop WB when almost done and have henge already in the queue, is the chop wonder penalty still applied (is there even a chop wonder penalty, or am I confusing with pop rush penalty)? If still penalty, then if we chop WB (which we have to do if we plan to mine the hill), we need to be sure to dump the overflow hammers into settler, then switch to henge.

We should have 9 H per turn soon after WB is done, and I'd say go straight for henge (10 turns at 9H per turn), and pop 5 should arrive in time to work forest hill to speed up further. The sooner henge is up, the sooner we can get a WB on the second clam in St. Pete, and make it a food and commerce powerhouse.

Eventually, I would like to see St. Pete be a pure science specialist city. Academy, four or so scientists, maybe even some science super specialists. That worked really well in my test game. That means farming the FP and grass to max number of specialists. Since we get 2x GP points, I think farm + specialist is stronger than cottage for this game.

I would see us eventually making most workers and settlers in St.Pete (using food), using hammers in Moscow for troops and buildings.

To summarize, I am thinking

Tech: finish Myst in 5, Archery in 10, Pottery in 12, then who knows?

Build Moscow: WB (chopped?), henge, settler, WB (for 2nd clams St P) then Barracks? Worker? WB for scouting?

St. Pete: work 3/0/1 for faster growth, 4/0/2 after WB on clams

dV

 

[Conquistador 63]

We are falling dangerously behind on the key statistic of player posts per turn! Carry On

Good point. I'll do my best and try to spice up discussions again. The beauty of SG's is to get to know how other ppl think and play the game in its details. I, for example, would never do in a solo game what I did in my turnset: keep that western warrior stationed for fogbusting. I might be wrong, but I'd surely send him into black jungle exploring. I know, I know, too unsafe playing this way, but that's just me.

About tech path: in our small landmass, I'd never research archery next. I'd go AH, pottery and writing. Why AH?
1. To locate horses, we already have wheel for chariots. Also, mounted troops will be the backbone of our army later (cossacks!), so the earlier we start building the horsemen (for later upgrading), the better.
2. What if no horses nearby? AH for working the cow and making research writing cheaper (it's one of the pre-reqs). Then I would consider archery as a last resort.

OTOH, I agree with dV's suggested building orders, except for the barracks, after a couple exploring WBs I'd put a granary instead. We will continue to whip for a while, won't we?

 

[da_Vinci]

Good point. I'll do my best and try to spice up discussions again. The beauty of SG's is to get to know how other ppl think and play the game in its details. I, for example, would never do in a solo game what I did in my turnset: keep that western warrior stationed for fogbusting. I might be wrong, but I'd surely send him into black jungle exploring. I know, I know, too unsafe playing this way, but that's just me.

I don't play epic much, so maybe I am thinking that "after this many turns, the barbs must be next" rather than after how many YEARS do we expect the barbs. If we had copper, or already knew archery, I'd be fine to send off the warrior as I'd have time to whip up defenders at home if needed. I just would not want to face this: a barb axe pops up 2 away from warrior, kills him, and beelines for Moscow, when all I can make is a warrior. Or worse, spawn on the St Pete site and march in at full strength. Warrior are melee units, so no match for axes.

Seems to me that having to divert production to several defenders (whipped, no doubt) at this point would derail our progress much more than researching a tech now that we need later anyway. But maybe that risk is low probability.

Now once the settler has the St Pete site in view, that warrior there can move north, as he gets to middle warrior that one moves, out, and eventually we release the far northern one to go scouting.

About tech path: in our small landmass, I'd never research archery next. I'd go AH, pottery and writing. Why AH?
1. To locate horses, we already have wheel for chariots. Also, mounted troops will be the backbone of our army later (cossacks!), so the earlier we start building the horsemen (for later upgrading), the better.
2. What if no horses nearby? AH for working the cow and making research writing cheaper (it's one of the pre-reqs). Then I would consider archery as a last resort.

As long as you are confident that we can defend if attacked, I'm willing to skip early archery. But 7.5 vs 2 to 4 aren't my favorite combat odds. 5 vs. 4.5 is more like it.

OTOH, I agree with dV's suggested building orders, except for the barracks, after a couple exploring WBs I'd put a granary instead. We will continue to whip for a while, won't we?

Sure, granary before barracks works for me (works better if I have archers or at least something better than warriors).

dV

 

[Ronnie1]

About tech path: in our small landmass, I'd never research archery next. I'd go AH, pottery and writing. Why AH?
1. To locate horses, we already have wheel for chariots. Also, mounted troops will be the backbone of our army later (cossacks!), so the earlier we start building the horsemen (for later upgrading), the better.
2. What if no horses nearby? AH for working the cow and making research writing cheaper (it's one of the pre-reqs). Then I would consider archery as a last resort.

I'm with C63 here except that I would probably go pottery first, then AH-Writing, for the same reasons that he argued for pottery in an even earlier post, cheap granaries matched with our expansive trait. A granary in Moscow right after SH will allow countined whipping with very fast pop recovery.

OTOH, I agree with dV's suggested building orders, except for the barracks, after a couple exploring WBs I'd put a granary instead. We will continue to whip for a while, won't we?

A long while probably, actually on second thought, in Moscow build order might go like this SH-WB(poprushed for max overflow)-Granary(max overflow is doubled)-WB

@dV, To try and alleviate some of your barb concerns, in all of my test games (1 as far as 760BC) I have not seen an axeman. And as you said, once St Petes is up we can start pushing the fog back in the north. We had raging barbs last game, this a cakewalk.

 

[Joemama]

Just to let everyone know, I may have a chance to play in around 12 hours, otherwise it will be around 36 hours until I can move the game along. Work is not fun.

 

[da_Vinci]

@dV, To try and alleviate some of your barb concerns, in all of my test games (1 as far as 760BC) I have not seen an axeman. And as you said, once St Petes is up we can start pushing the fog back in the north. We had raging barbs last game, this a cakewalk.

OK, if we are confident that barb axes are not a risk, I'm game to delay archery. Pottery or AH first? question is will knowing horse location affect next settling decision? if yes then maybe AH first, if not, pottery first?

dV

 

[Confusion]

guys i have to drop out, i just cant find time to join discusions and im cant folow tham at all, so it's better for the team that i drop out eary because i see now that i will not have any time fo this SGOTM.

again guys, im sorry.

 

[Scout214]

I think that it is important to pay attention to some of the military development soon. Archers are great for defense. That could be important given seacoast cities. Barracks are important for creating quality units. In an island setting, getting to galleys will loom crucial eventually, for both offensive and defensive reasons. Horse archers are especially good for taking cities from others, whether AI's or barbarians. I agree that we need to emphasize development in the direction of our eventual cossacks.

From what experience I do have playing this game, it is obvious that the AI's make a beeline for human players who fail to stock sufficient troops early. With our capital's food supply tied heavily to the sea, we are vulnerable to sea attack.

With 17 AI's, they tend to specialize in types of development. That means while some of them push forward with technological research, others will push land or sea military research. Our unenviable task is to keep up with all of them, because of the potential threat that each poses of different kinds.

To that end, it is also important to discover where horses and iron are. I'd be disinclined to assume that there is no iron on our island. Even if that is so, though, we need to find out where those resources are for future expansion. Where exactly we place some of the cities could be dependent on where those resources are.

P.S. Just now in trying to get to the end of these posts, I inadvertently hit Next Thread. Didn't appear to be us, so I backed out immediately without looking. Don't know where I was exactly. Hope that isn't a way to DQ us. If so, my apologies.

 

[Ronnie1]

@Scout214,
Send a PM to AlanH and explain exactly what you did and did not do! He will respond in short order. I only access our thread from my user CP page which I have bookmarked, that eliminates all possibilities of accidentally entering someone elses thread.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I believe such mistake can happen even if we do as Ronnie1's suggestion. If I understood correctly, he misclicked the link "next thread" below the posts when he wanted to click "next page".

Btw, farewell Confusion, hopefully you can join us in the future.

 

[Ronnie1]

@Scout214

I believe such mistake can happen even if we do as Ronnie1's suggestion. If I understood correctly, he misclicked the link "next thread" below the posts when he wanted to click "next page".

I haven't done that so I'm not sure where it would take me, as I said before, just send the details to AlanH, he will respond. Sorry if I misundestood what you were trying to communicate.

 

[Scout214]

I sent a Private Message to AlanH as you suggested, Ronnie. I was only wherever I was for 3 seconds, until I realized what I had done.

Hopefully it's no big deal. Sorry again if I jeapardized our standing. This is a good team with knowledgeable players. I thought about using the handle WeakLink because of my inexperience with this game. Didn't want to scare you, though! When it's my turn in our sequence, I will have dV on the phone while I do it!!

 

[Scout214]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scout214
Commish,

While in my team's private section, I tried to go to the last page in order to add a comment. However, I accidentally hit Next Thread instead. When I saw your handle come up, I hit Back. I can't tell you which Thread I was in because I was only there for about 3 seconds and saw nothing but your name. I hope that doesn't put our team in jeapardy of being DQ'd. I am new to your forum and still getting used to how to move around. I was certainly not trying to cheat in any way.

scout214

Thanks. No problem, no harm done. Try to avoid it in future

 

[da_Vinci]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scout214
Commish,

While in my team's private section, I tried to go to the last page in order to add a comment. However, I accidentally hit Next Thread instead. When I saw your handle come up, I hit Back. I can't tell you which Thread I was in because I was only there for about 3 seconds and saw nothing but your name. I hope that doesn't put our team in jeapardy of being DQ'd. I am new to your forum and still getting used to how to move around. I was certainly not trying to cheat in any way.

scout214

Thanks. No problem, no harm done. Try to avoid it in future

I've generally found AlanH to be reasonable, even when I exasperate him!

@Confusion: sad to hear that you can't continue (just for now?) If you don't go into other team's threads, maybe we could put you on "injured reserve" and if you get time a month from now, hop back in?

@ others: which Confusion may not see if he doesn't stop back by ... ought we to PM him?

Anyone heard from Igelkott? Maybe a PM or email is in order?

Did we leave Joemama with a clear consensus on the way forward?

dV

 

[Ronnie1]

@ All,
I already sent Igelkott a PM telling him he was on deck, Joemama said he could play within 36 hours which is great. Now I have more time to play out my practice game a few more times to see if I missed something. I'll send Confusion a PM and give him the IR proposal.

 

[Joemama]

I got it. Reviewing the thread and playing next!!