SGOTM 03 - Peanut

[AlanH]

Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 3 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

The Game
As Peter The Great, Leader of All the Russias, you are charged with achieving a Diplomatic or Space Victory.

This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, crowded map, at Epic speed, against 17 rivals. All victory conditions are enabled, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Diplomatic or Space victory.

Version
Your team will play this map in Warlords version 2.08, using the standard HoF Mod for Windows version 2.08. This is currently HOF_Mod-2.08.001, but we shall use the latest version of the mod as at the start date for the game.

Your start file will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page at midnight, server local time, at the start of December 1st.

Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.



Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Peter of Russia
Rivals - all the other 17 civs in version 1.61
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Archipelago, low sea level, tropical
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - Aggressive
Barbarians - Standard
Permanent Alliances Enabled
No City Razing

Notes

• Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.
  
• BOTH Civilization IV v1.61 and Warlords v.2.08 are supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with your chosen version throughout the game.
  
• Teams will compete for four awards for each version of the game - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.
  
• All teams must play the sponsored variant - awards will be given to teams who achieve Diplomatic or Space victories in the least turns.
  
• All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.

Remember, Rule Number 11: Have Fun.

 

[ainwood]

Well, here we go!

I guess the first question is where to settle. I think it looks good enough to settle in-place.

I think we want to stay on the coast so that we can build workboats to grab the clams. 1-north loses clams & spices. 2E loses a clams, means one spices gets demoted to a second city. The only benefit is opening-up another flood-plains. Before we considered this seriously, I think the scout would need to move E or potentially E-then-SE (maybe there's something in the water to the east).

I'd suggest that the first tech we go for is fishing. We start with hunting & mining. I think that bronze working & sailing should also be prioritised, but maybe we want to set-up a GPP factory, so pottery might be good early.

 

[DaviddesJ]

It's not a great start position, but I see no good move. Especially with that jungle visible to the north. We might as well move the scout onto one of the hills to see if we spot something exciting. Otherwise, settle in place and start researching Fishing.

With the crowded map, we want to figure out quickly whether we're alone on our island. If we're not alone, then we might want to start pumping out settlers as fast as we can.

 

[civ_steve]

Alright, the threads are open! This position is certainly shield poor; I can see lots of pop-rushing and chopping in our future.

Looks like Coast NW-W of the Scout, so it would seem slightly better to go E-NE and see what that Hill shows. Agree that we will likely be settling in place.

Regarding Team order, I suggest we slide Klarius in after malekithe, and start with malekithe since Phabuk finished SGOTM2 for us.

So proposed order would be:

malekithe
Klarius
civ_steve
ainwood
MailMan
DaviddesJ
Phabuk

We let things slide around a bit towards the end of SGOTM2 - everyone was pretty busy but we were really close to ending it so it wasn't too big an issue. Let's get back to posting a 'got it' within 24 hours of the prior turn set completing, and playing and posting the results within 48 hours after that.

We will be playing the Warlords expansion set (I'm buying it tomorrow!) Make sure you're up to the latest patch, AND have the latest HOF mod installed. Please post if you have any questions.

And don't forget, our primary objective is to ... beat CFR! ( ) (ok, it's to have fun, but beating CFR would BE fun!)

 

[klarius]

I would rather settle 1 north if nothing better turn up by scouting.
In place is extremely low in shields, so we would commit ourselves right away to slavery as only labour civic for a long time. 1 N also gives two more in principle cottageable tiles (though the grass hill probably stays mined for most of the game).
Also for the start it's not so nice to have only one 2 hammer tile. The 2.08 change to expansionist means that a 2 hammer - one food tile is as good for producing workers as a netted clam before lighthouse.

I would also go for BW first for the ability to pop-rush as early as possible. Clams (+2f) don't warrant the effort to hand-build a work boat early IMO.

For 1 N, I would grow to size 3 with both FP (20 turns), then build a worker with both wooded hills and another forest ( at +9 f+h ). Pop-rush the worker 1 turn before fishing comes in an put the overflow in a work boat.

For settling in place I still would go for BW first and worker starts at size 2 (at +7 f+h ). Complete warrior then (which has already started to decay ) and pop-rush a work boat after that.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I don't think settling in place commits us to slavery for a long time. It just commits us to building some settlers quickly, and setting up some other cities in sites with more production. We have enough forests to chop to let us build our necessary early buildings (lighthouse, granary).

I also think that, if we settle in place, the ability to poprush isn't particularly useful, until we improve the clams, or build a granary, or both. With only +3 food (or +2 food, if we're working the forested spices), there's nothing so great about the opportunity to trade 36 food for 45 hammers with a happiness penalty.

The problem with moving 1N is we'll probably never get to use the 2nd clams at all (until we conquer our neighbors). Plus we lose a turn. I hate to give up valuable tiles when we don't know yet how much space we will have (but we do know the map is crowded).

I'd consider moving 3NE, if we find some good resources near that hill. But, the jungle is a bad sign, especially with no fresh water there. (But, we are Expansive, so maybe it's ok?) This preserves our ability to settle back near the clams, later. But is it worth two turns?

 

[klarius]

Tech:
I hear a lot about sailing being a high priority. I don't think so. Even if we settle in place we will not work more than 0-2 coastal tiles for a long time. A lighthouse is clearly inferior to a granary (and double as expensive for us).
But even after pottery I would rather go for writing and library first.
We need sailing for settling other islands, but I think that's quite a bit down the timeline. If we have a few good city sites on our island it may even be best to burn to alphabet and pick up sailing in trade.

My take on needed research early:
BW-fishing-TW-pottery-writing
Slot in agriculture if needed by another city.
Then evaluate what course to follow next.

 

[malekithe]

Hitting lead-off again, eh? Alright, I'll give it my best. At least it appears unlikely I'll fail to spot a nearby oasis...

I'm hesitant to commit myself to anything at the moment without knowledge of what lies off the eastern coast or off to the NE. If it came down to deciding between settling on the spot and moving north, I'd lean in favor of this spot. I don't like settling on floodplains, but I don't like giving up a 4-5 food tile for the foreseeable future either. The north spot also costs us the forest and a turn. I'm not sure the availablility of a single hill will be worth that; this city's not going to be a production center regardless, so we're going to be forced to rely on chopping and rushing with or without the hill. The hill may end up being worked by another city focused on production anyway.

For the scout's move, I'm leaning toward E, NE. That should reveal most of the eastern coast and a substantial tract of land in the NE. The most notable knowledge deficit there is the coast to the N-NW. I think the likelihood of seeing anything to alter our plans in that area, though, would be very slim.

Tech-wise, it's a bit premature, but I'm definitely thinking fishing first and BW second (swapping those if we settled 1 N). I'm a bit fuzzy on what our exact build order would look like in that scenario, but we've got ample time to straighten all that out. Also, the expansive bonus hammers on workers are, in my opinion, the most advantageous when you're primarily using slavery or chopping to produce your workers; applying the 50% bonus to virtually all of the hammers going into the worker.

EDIT: As to sailing being low-pri... I agree. We'll be wanting to get up to alphabet as quickly as convenient. Contacts can be established by workboat in the meantime. With 17 rivals, someone is bound to have researched sailing by that time. We should probably limit ourselves to the barest neccessities research-wise from the outset, keeping in mind that there are 17 other civs out there to provide a lot of our early research at the start of the classical era.

 

[klarius]

Still, settling N is not gaining only a hill but also 2 plains. That's 10 instead of 5 hammers if all forests should get cut in the fat cross.
And we still would have enough food to work every tile cottaged/mined w/o need for irrigations.

EDIT:
I think moving settler E-NW should show most of the tiles we potentially lose by settling in place.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Just to repeat myself, I agree with malekithe. You can't regard the tiles you work by moving 1N as a "gain", because you are adding them to this city only by taking them away from a future city. But the clams and the spices that you lose by moving 1N are lost "forever".

I do agree that Sailing doesn't seem so important, unless we are on a really small island. Even on a small island, we can pack in one city at our starting location, one city 3N, and one city 3NE, which is enough for a while.

On the other hand, I don't think Bronze Working is urgent either. I would consider Fishing-Wheel-Pottery-BW. with the goal of completing a granary before the switch to Slavery. Then, hopefully, building a 2nd city with good production near copper.

 

[ainwood]

Given that we're shield-poor, I agree that a workboat first-up is a bad move. It requires both researching fishing, and then building the boat with naff-all shields. Perhaps bronze working is a better first tech to get slavery & chopping? First-up build should probably be a worker instead of a workboat.

As a suggestion for settling - what about on the forest tile E-NE? Can settle turn 2, and it gives us two hills (one a plains hill), two FPs, plus a choice of forest, plains, spices etc as the fifth - that's not bad for the first 4 workable tiles until we get some happiness resources or monarchy - a much better hammer / food balance (hammers might also be important for military with an aggressive AI - if we share our island). It means we have two FPs instead of one. It also puts us across the river, which saves a move for units expanding north. If there is a food resource in the sea out east, we're set.

The downside is it gives-up the clams, but I think that is worth it - we won't need the health, the food requires us to build slow workboats. Those clams are accessable from across the bay - a later goal.

I agree with BW first.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Give up both clams, forever? Sorry, but I think this is really a terrible idea, even worse than 1N. (And the eastern clams are not accessible from across the water, even assuming we eventually cross the water and kill whoever is over there and that they haven't built their cities in crappy locations that prevent us from using the resources.)

I firmly believe that the main objective at this point in the game (given the crowded archipelago map) is to maximize the number and value of the productive cities that we can locate on the land available to us. The relative productivity of any one city is not so important (as long as our capital isn't so feeble that it holds us back from building more cities quickly, which it definitely won't be if we have the clams). What is important is the total. The way to maximize the total is to make us of every high-value tile we have. The way to minimize it is to block a bunch of high-value tiles so that we can't use them. Building 1N or 1N1E or 1N2E are really damaging to our eventual total productivity. Essentially, it costs us one whole city in the middle part of the game.

I also don't see why a workboat is considered such a big expense. Or what else we are doing with those hammers, in the early game. Build a worker, so we can chop our forests for a settler? I'd much rather build a workboat, and use the food to build a settler, and we'll still have the forests. Chop them all down, and then we will be short on hammers. Not to mention the 20 hammers we lost just by settling on one.

If it's really so important that we have shields in our capital, then we should go settle on the jungle or the plains hill (assuming a food resource somewhere nearby, and not too much jungle), and at least we have preserved the starting location for settling later. But I really don't understand why two of you think those shields are important. Why is it so critical to have production in our first city instead of our second one? Doesn't the ability to build settlers quickly, using our food resources, make for a good start? Isn't it going to be useful for our Philosophical civ to have a GP farm, with lots of food, down the road?

 

[klarius]

Well, one thing is that the clams are not a good food resource before lighthouse.
They don't add more to a settler than a mined hill. So at least the spice hill should be mined early and the chop can then go in whatever seems necessary at this time.

But all these arguments don't really help before we know more. Settling in place (as well as 1 north) will waste eventual food resources on the east coast.
We don't how far the land extends to the north and by that cannot how many cities there could be fit in eventually.
I'm also not convinced that squeezing in mediocre towns early does really help.

 

[DaviddesJ]

So at least the spice hill should be mined early

I don't see any spice hill. The tile 2N1W is plains/forest/spices, I think. The tile 1S/2E is grassland/spices.

I obviously don't agree that the clams aren't a good tile. Overall I think they are way more valuable than the grassland hill. But I still think the right comparison is between settle in place (which lets us use both the clams and the grassland hill, in different cities) and move 1N (which gives up the clams forever).

 

[klarius]

Well, if this is no hill (and you are probably right), then I think settling in place is absolutely bad.
It will take over 60 turns to build a settler naturally with nothing else than 1 work boat and 1 warrior built before.
Then the second city still needs a worker to get up to speed. So we are talking about maybe 80 turns w/o any real military production (and also no scouting work boat).

So I'm leaning now to let the starting position be our second city (maybe GP farm) and look for a better capital position even if it takes 3-4 turns to settle.

A fishing village like the starting position will do a lot better if a work boat comes already along with the settler.

 

[civ_steve]

In general, I'm really leery about removing resources from any city's fat cross, especially the capital. I can see considering settling in place, or possibly 1 N; the scout would have to uncover something eye-watering to consider settling near 3NE, and nothing else seems nearly as good.

Settling in place will eventually get us to +8 food with the 2 Clams and 1 Floodplains, assuming we have a Lighthouse and Irrigate the Fldplns. (With this much coast we would want a Lighthouse at some point.) Moving 1 North with same consideration gives us +7 food. Without Lighthouse both locations provide +6 food. Settling 1 North will gain us access to the Hill space, and quicker initial growth since we will have 2 Floodplains to use, but lose us 1 Clams and 1 Spice within Fat Cross and one forest to chop.

I'm not used to Warlords yet. klarius makes an interesting point about the Expansive benefit. Moving 1North and using 2 Floodplains we would grow to Size2 in 11 turns, and Size3 in 8 (I think). Building Worker with the 3 spaces indicated would take just 6 turns (15 h+bonus+f per turn), getting it on turn 25. Settling in place will grow to Size2 in 11 turns, and Size3 in 11 as well (3 turns later), and a Worker would take 7 turns (14 h+bonus+f per turn), getting it on turn 29. A 4 turn advantage, probably reduced to 3 turns so that a Warrior can be completed, or wait until after the Worker is done to complete the Warrior, or pop-rush the WB then and spill over to the Warrior.

Settling 1North provides some significant early advantages vs potential mid- to long- term slightly less favorable situations. I'm in a quandary as to which one is better for us to pursue. I'm not at all hopeful that the scout will reveal a better location for us to move to. And what if we're on a very small island?!

I favor both Fishing and BronzeWorking for our first 2 Techs, probably BW first. Chopping and rushing early and often seem pretty necessary. I would think that Chopping the 2 Grass/River spaces early then Cottaging them seems pretty desirable; perhaps one can help the Granary and the 2nd can help with the Library.

How do we wish to use GP and our Philosophical trait? We could go for Mysticism early and build Stonehenge; at 5-6 hpt it would take 30-36 turns, less with a chop and/or rush. The Great Prophet would come in 38 turns with Philosophical trait; probably just about right to give us a big boost for Civil Service. (Epic speed) Or just power up to Writing, build Library, and double Scientist would give us 1st GS in 13 turns, probably to be used to build Academy, and more after that. This is a research game and we have to make many decisions with that in mind.

 

[ainwood]

If you look at the top of the screensot, it does look like its 'rounded' - is it coast? Are we really on a tiny island?

RE the scout - if its first move is east, will it show the tile 2E of the settler? I don't think it will.

 

[klarius]

Well, civ_steve, your math about expansionist workers is wrong. Let's take the 1N case.
Growth is in 11 (33/3) then 9 (36/4) turns.
After that we can work forest spice + forest hill + grass forest for 6 h +0f.
The bonus is 50% on hammers so that's 9h (no food surplus) towards a worker meaning 10 turns.
If we grow only to size 2, we can get a worker at 6h(4+50%) + 1f in 13 turns, which means we will already lose hammers on the warrior partially build before.

If you think of (probably temporary) irrigating floodplains, agriculture should come before BW.
Worker should come then with only 1 growth after 23 turns and be able to irrigate right away. We then need another worker tech (TW or BW) before fishing or will run out of worker tasks.

BTW for the tech sequence some durations

BW is 22 turns initially.
Fishing 8 turns.
TW or agri 12 turns

GP:
A prophet is not useful for civil service in 2.08.
Masonry is now higher on the list so no way to avoid a religious techs.
If we could snatch a merchant wonder, we could use a merchant for CS (after currency and metal casting is traded/researched).
Now there are a bunch of very useful early merchant wonders (Great Lighthouse, Colossus, Artemis). It's just a question, if we will have a city to build any wonder against all the industrious nuts in the game.
And if we have a city capable of building a wonder there is still the question if we want to try for pyramids.

Generally I think we should later try to get mostly scientists. 1-3 academies later use them for research.
In a high research game you want to get quick towards education research.
After researching paper there are lots of techs where you can use scientist lightbulbs for full value.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Well, if this is no hill (and you are probably right), then I think settling in place is absolutely bad.
It will take over 60 turns to build a settler naturally with nothing else than 1 work boat and 1 warrior built before.

That seems way too long. Here's my calculation:

10 turns working (3/0/1) => +30 food, +10 hammers in warrior
1 turn working (3/0/1) => +3 food (grow to size 2), +1 hammer in workboat
11 turns working (1/2/1, 2/1/0) => +11 food, +44 hammers in workboat (done)
5 turns working (4/0/2, 3/0/1) => +25 food (grow to size 3), +5 hammers in warrior (15)
2 turns working (1/2/1, 2/1/0, 2/1/0) => +2 food, +10 hammers in warrior (done, +3 carryover to settler)
21 turns working (4/0/2, 3/0/1, 1/2/1) => +147 hammers in settler (done)

That's 50 turns. (I think building a granary and poprushing the settler is probably better, though---it might take a bit longer, but we'll have the granary. If we can research Fishing/Wheel/Pottery/BW fast enough.)

So I'm leaning now to let the starting position be our second city (maybe GP farm) and look for a better capital position even if it takes 3-4 turns to settle.

I'm happy to look for a better location, if it exists. I'd definitely prefer to be in a position to use our cheap workers from the start. Certainly we should move the scout onto one of the two hills, before settling. But there's also the chance that we move onto one of the hills and we see the north coast of the island, or extensive jungle, and no resources anywhere nearby. Suppose that what we see is all we have. Then what's the best choice?

Also, are we agreed on the best initial move for the scout? Before we even move the scout, I'd like to load the savegame and blow up the magnification and try to figure out what's on the tiles at the edge of the shroud.

 

[ainwood]

Also, are we agreed on the best initial move for the scout? Before we even move the scout, I'd like to load the savegame and blow up the magnification and try to figure out what's on the tiles at the edge of the shroud.

I think the first is east. Then, not sure. Based on what we see, either NW or NE.

If it truly is coast above the hill to the north, then NE is probably preferred.