SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

namliaM · Dec 5, 2006

Spoiler Full autolog :

Some intresting stuff has happened allready ! First we run into Mao and Hinduism and Buddism got founded quickly, I am sure glad we didnt aim for an early Religion. Then we run into Alexander... which we all love to hate :devil:

I use our first warrior to scout the opposit side of the scout, the land is mosly Jungle, thus slow going... and I want a maximum view ASAP. The scout steps on a Forrest hill and finds a BEAR. He survives surprisingly easy (0.60/1).

The warrior is on his way back towards Moscow to serve as MP for either Petes or Moscow a bit later on. The scout is on his way to a lookout point on the western most point of our land to check out those purple borders... Hopefully make contact?

The full lay of the land!

For anyone intrested in the save, that is here

Funny how my messages that I did with ALT-E didnt show up... Anyways ...

Spoiler Autolog Submission :

I think we have room for 5 or even 6 cities on our patch of land, which is more than I hoped for. A LOT of jungle tho...
Also good news (I think) BRONZE We have BRONZE! [party]

The land around the Bronze is a bit dry tho and low on food

dot · Dec 5, 2006

namliaM said:
Funny how my messages that I did with ALT-E didnt show up...

[...]

I think we have room for 5 or even 6 cities on our patch of land, which is more than I hoped for. A LOT of jungle tho...
Also good news (I think) BRONZE We have BRONZE!

The land around the Bronze is a bit dry tho and low on food

When using Alt+E make sure that you either hit OK with your mouse :mischief:

OR press Tab (so that OK is highlighted) and then Enter. Else ... no entry!

Nice island! I'll have a look at the save later. Comments to come. And Bronze is nice ... but Iron more needed. Well we'll see ...

Nice turnset, namliaM. :goodjob:

Regards, .

namliaM · Dec 5, 2006

dot said:
Nice turnset, namliaM.

After all that talk and testing... and I had it easy...

The hard part is going to be getting the worker whips and stuff right...

dot · Dec 5, 2006

Yep. I'd actually might like to play rather sooner than later. Maybe our roster is rather flexible. Don't know.

I've asked AlanH (via PM) if changing the strategy layer (i.e. memaps) is ok or also a violation of the rules. He didn't reply before signing off.

Yes. We'll see how we're doing.

bobrath · Dec 5, 2006

I'm more then willing to do a swap out with ya dot. Had my head wrapped around some work stuff and I suspect you're a bit more in tune with the game. That is if our grand leader GreyFox is ok with it of course!

dot · Dec 5, 2006

I'd like to step in bob. But I'll first do another memap tomorrow. Maybe arise a couple of questions. And I probably won't be playing before friday. If that is ok with the team.

Regards to all from Germany, .

GreyFox · Dec 5, 2006

By all means, swap. Why would changing strategy layer be against the rules??? :confused:

Nice enough, surprised we have a relatively big island, although awkwardly shaped.

SO, the next build after the warrior would be worker > settler ??

--

AlanH · Dec 5, 2006

dot said:
I've asked AlanH (via PM) if changing the strategy layer (i.e. memaps) is ok or also a violation of the rules. He didn't reply before signing off.

I sent the following reply to Dot time-stamped forty minutes after he PM'd me, and five minutes after his post, and well before his last sign-off post:

AlanH said:
dot said:

Sorry to bother you Alan! Hi!

What to do and what NOT to do with a save has been discussed back and forth in the maintenance thread already. No gameplay has been said loud and clear. Never had any doubts about that. But what about the strategy layer? Is it allowed to draw dotmaps in the game and take a screeny of it and post that?

I assume that it would be ok. I just want to make sure!

Thanks in advance!

Regards from Germany, .

Click to expand...

Of course it's OK. It provides no new map knowledge than was there before you did it. You can delete it without changing the situation, it is entirely reversible.

Please understand the reasons for the rules:

A player or team should not know what is ahead of them when they make a move or hit next turn. Each move or turn should be a step into the unknown. That's all there is to it! It's the simple reason for the reloading rule, the playing-ahead rule, and the spoiler rules.

namliaM · Dec 6, 2006

. accoording to the rulez of the SGOTM (or SG actually or GOTM) say that you can basicaly do anything but, which can be undone the same turn without ever hitting enter, thus you cannot:
- "Hit enter" (DUH!)
- Make any kind of deal
You can see if one is available, but you cannot actually make it.

With having played the first 100 or so turns allready for a few times, the builds are pretty planned.
Moscow:
Warrior
Worker (1 turn production, followed by 2 pop whip) => Clams, Fish, Stone, Grass/Forrest Hill
This makes 14 hammers in, now whip for 2 pop. Start mining/Chopping the hill closest to the stone.
Settler (1 turn only for overflow) 46 hammers (overflow!) + 2 hammer + 7 food = 55 hammers
Workboat (for Petes and work the Clams+Fish+Grass forrest to grow ASAP to size 4)

Now there are 2 options. Once Size 4, and 53 hammers left in the settler (yes we lost 2 hammers unfortunatly)
A) Whip now, grow later
Build the settler to the point where it is whippable by two pop (1 more turn), and do so. Settler out on turn 58.
Directly followed by a workboat in turn 59.
2 Chops aid the Lighthouse (finished in 62).
Start work on the TGLight, Grow to max size 5 - 1 turn
Start Galley (1 turn only), Whip for 2. Galley turn 82
Continue TGLight, finish it turn 92
Turn 99 produce Galley #2

Moscow on turn 99:
Fo Ha Com Size
24 04 1069 5

A1) I have to figure this one out myselve but the option is here.
Convert 1 more turn of food on the settler to hammers, delaying the settler 1 turn (59) Followed by a workboat and finish the lighthouse in turn 61. Ultimately saving a turn on TGLight.

B) Whip later grow faster
Hand build the settler aided by 2 chops. Settler out on turn 60.
Folowed by the workboat next turn 61
Lighthouse comes in turn 73
Start work on TGLight, Grow to max size 5 - 1 turn
Start Galley (1 turn only), Whip for 2. Galley turn 77
Continue TGLight, finish it turn 98

Moscow on turn 99:
Fo Ha Com Size
16 23 1069 4 (Galley to be produced turn 105)

Offcourse all these wonder grabbin' things do minimize Army. With all that land available, which is good. Does mean we can expect to run into a barbarian or 2. => Fogbusting warriors and Archery some place?
We can (at size 5) turn 10 hammers/turn. 2 warriors in 5 turns... Offcourse we dont hit size 5 before turn 74. Untill which time are we "safe" from Barbs with only 2 warriors that are (badly) needed for MP?? => We need more warriors?

We do have a nice Choke point on that Gems hill, the fortified warrior would get a good bonus in defending.
+ We post fog busting warrior 1 north of the cow. Now we have only 4 jungle tiles fogged up. We can risk the scout on contact duty out there... Or retreat him to relative safety to fogbust those remaining 4 jungle tiles.

Or get a Settler out ASAP for city #3 by the Copper, get copper up and start Axemen for Barb defence.

Cosmichail · Dec 6, 2006

Got to like that two gems/clams/rice site. mmmmmmm
We will have lots of commerce and two civs that you can't trust so far. Once we finish wonders we will need some settlers fast and some culture to make them grow.

dot · Dec 6, 2006

AlanH said:
I sent the following reply to Dot time-stamped forty minutes after he PM'd me, and five minutes after his post, and well before his last sign-off post:

My apologies, Alan. :blush:

I would've cleared this when posting the screenies. Thanx for your reply and for taking care of all of this! :worship:

@Team: I was sure of what NOT to do. But I wasn't sure of what is allowed.

So now I know!

@namliaM: I had the second warrior out by turn 40. Wonder what caused the delay of one turn. :mischief:

But I assume we'll be fine anyway.

GreyFox said:
SO, the next build after the warrior would be worker > settler ??

namliaM said:
With having played the first 100 or so turns allready for a few times, the builds are pretty planned.
Moscow:
Warrior
Worker (1 turn production, followed by 2 pop whip) => Clams, Fish, Stone, Grass/Forrest Hill
This makes 14 hammers in, now whip for 2 pop. Start mining/Chopping the hill closest to the stone.
Settler (1 turn only for overflow) 46 hammers (overflow!) + 2 hammer + 7 food = 55 hammers
Workboat (for Petes and work the Clams+Fish+Grass forrest to grow ASAP to size 4)

The worker would have nothing to do though. How about this variant? >> namliaM, could/would you run an excel for that?

Spoiler :

So the settler would be out faster and hence St Pete could start producing faster. Whip the settler when possible and take the overflow into a worker. I guestimate that it's not the best option ~ at least according to arithmetics ~ but it might be the best gameplaywise. ?

Now ... with all this room and all the jungle ... I'd go for: Mysticism > Masonry > The Wheel > Sailing > IW.

And finally the .maps:

A) One for six rather big cities:

B) One for seven cities - which might be placed better when thinking about warfare and movements:

"The Pa" is "The Passage". And we'd have 14 overlapping tiles in total. :sad:

-----
Edit: I'd favour B).

-----

Waiting for your thoughts, folks! Regards, .

namliaM · Dec 6, 2006

The worker could be mining those hills around Moscow... Tho I realized today why you got the Mids so much faster... You went Settler first, This saves a whole lot of time on the Mids. Therefor I would say whip the Settler ASAP overflow into a workboat.

I had a stab at Dotting as well... two different ones as well...

I like your solution for the low food Copper area... I think this must be city #2 (Petersberg = #1) for us, in what ever city placement we choose.... I would definatly move my 2 to your spot!
It will/must be our #1 military producer, get a Monument in it and a barracks & (cheap) Granary... That about it... (oh add a lib if we have time)

I dont like my A5 as it is again to low on food (who would have guessed that on a Archipelo map?

I kindof like my B6, on the gems to get the fish and the hill. Add a couple of Workshops on the "normal" tiles or whip it every now and again and we have another military producer.

I think if we merge your B and my B we have the best map.
Dont know about putting #4 one more West. There is allready borders there, it maybe under big pressure from that culture....

About the Merchant, we should burn him on "Forges" ASAP. So we can get a forge in St. Petes ASAP, to run an Engineer to fit with the Mids. Engineer + mids = 10 Great engineer points per turn. => Great lib? in St. Petes or "my" city #3.

Also it would be great if we can get a foodhold on those 2 landmasses where we know AI to be! But that is a pipe dream. Lets first get TGL and Mids and EXPLODE with 4 more settlers to grab up our peace of land.

I dislike picking up IW. It is an alltime AI fave which we dont have to research.
Techs IMHO (subject to test and other oppinions tho) should be:
Myst => Sailing (for lighthouse in Moscow) => Masonry (Stone for Petes) => Wheel

If we work the FP and later the clam in Petes we should have time to Finish masonry + wheel for the stone to be up, whip the last few hammers and overflow into Pyramids.

After wheel, Pottery (cheap Granaries!) => Writing (OBs + TGLight belong together) => Math => Alpha
If we have some good trade routes after OBs of writing we can finish Maths soon enough to help with the last chops (+50% yield after Maths) in St. Petes.

I didnt have time today to delve into Excel... Hey, I just remember Dot, you had something in Excel you wanted me to look at? is it Civ ? or something else?

namliaM · Dec 7, 2006

I did a quick fogbusting exercise... Using 4 warriors and a scout we can nearly fogbust all our land... with only 1 or 2 tiles left open... we can relieve the scout when Moscow pops its borders (76/2 = 38 turns from now = turn 78-79)
Maximum fogbust, only 1 tile remains fog

Fogbust & try to make contact... (2 Fog tiles) which will be resolved when we settle City #2 on the red cross.

Both bring down the chances of (strong) barbs spawning seriously.

Meatbuster · Dec 7, 2006

Excellent turns by mailman and planning by both mailman and .--now the only thing I'm afraid of is that the quality of the game will go down when it's my turn. :lol:

namliaM · Dec 7, 2006

Burning the Great Merchant from TGLight...

We can burn him on Metal casting, tho a Great merchant IIRC gives some 1500 beakers... and MC is only a 1000.
It does save us a good number of turns (~12 atleast) for research, while getting us MC => Forge faster => Great engineer faster.
Wonder(s)
We can use the Engineer to whip us the Great lib someplace if we want, which eventually means substantial research + More Great Scientists. Or save him for Kwats (someone mentioned it) or Taj mahal (allways nice to have a "free" GA).
Or even safe him for the UN? Can the UN be build by an Engineer??

Burn
Alternatively we can burn him on Machinery (#1 on the engineers list) or after researching/trading that, Engineering (a bit of a priority for the castles +1 traderoute). Or even save him to burn on Replaceable parts, which we dont need for the UN but might be a nice boost to Rifling.

Merging the GE... Dont think that is a real option for this particular kind of GP.

The next GP should be either Merchant again or Scientist, likely from Moscow? Tho its main priority should be growing and Settlers untill our land is filled.
Merchant
Will burn on CoL => Monarchy => Civil Service => Machinery => Guilds
Strike any techs we have or cannot research, burning the merchant on CS would be nice.

Scientist
Paper => Education => Philo => Compass => Calander => Machinery => Optics => Astronomy => Engineering => CS
Maybe optics? Tho without real benifit, it does allow us to get Astronomy which is needed for a Mass Media (UN) (beeline)
Or create an Academy in our capitol and/or our Great lib city? Tho at say 25 beakers a turn, it takes a long while to get to the point where the Academy is more productive than burning the Scientist ( burning = 2000 beakers? 2000/25 = 80 turns).
A scientist will not burn on anything else but Education once we get Paper. Untill we get to Physics offcourse.

While researching Paper, hopefully we can spawn 1 maybe 2 more scientists to burn on Education or Astronomy.

The free merchant with Economics will only burn on Corporation which obsoleets TGLight. Therefor shooting for economics will not do much for us, other than getting the Free Markets civic (+1 traderoute) or the Trade the GM will give.
The free Scientist with Phisics will burn
Chemistry => Biology => Gunpowder => Electricity
Thus will not help towards Mass Media

We get cheap Universities, but is it worth picking up Education at all? That is if we dont burn scientists on it.
Education is some 4000 beakers, Liberalism some 3600. To get a free tech of say 5000 beakers, we may end up spending 7500 beakers....
Neither tech is on the (beeline) route to Mass Media.

Offcourse with a SE, running Pacifism would be good if we can get Philosophy early (enough).
Merchantalism (Banking), while running an SE in Representation is never wrong.

Beeline
A beeline to Mass media:
Optics => Calander => Astronomy => Printing Press => Mass Media

In addition we may want:
Chemistry (Frigates and Workshops + 1 hammer)
Gunpowder (pre-req to Chemistry)

Cossacks
I would skip cossacks all together. The big power in archipelo games are boats not horses and with the circumvention bonus galley are about as fast as Cossacks. Galleons are faster than cossacks and even Cossacks are nowhere without boats...
Cossacks require us to get Music, Nationalism, Military tradition of the path from Mass media.
While if we get to CS/Machinery (Macemen) => Chemistry (Grenadiers) fast enough we have a good enough fighting force I think to take down a couple of AI and I think we want Chemistry anyway for the Frigates...

Gunpowder
How do we get there? Use Guilds or Education? Education seems a nice synergy with our goal of UN (We need paper anyway) and the cheap Universities sudenly seem more attractive.

namliaM · Dec 7, 2006

1) St Petes

2) Yellow city (military) is food neutral when working the plains and the hills. Along with the fish. It should be netting a good 14 hammers/turn @ Size 6.

3) The red commerce city/GP Farm
Commerce city I like it here cause it gets the cow without a border pop
It can go 1 SE, where it will have the Rice without a border pop. But why leave tiles to #5 that it is never going to use?
We could farm over this city and turn it into a GP Farm. But we need the fish for #2 and only the cow and rice for food is not much... We should probably cottage it.

4) Green filler city
Small little thing wont do much... But with the 2 gems will turn a nice profit.

5) In white
With 2 (1 hammer) Workshops on the grass and plains tiles and 3 surplus food not to bad a (small) military complex. 8 Hammers ensure 1 axe every 7 turns or a Catapult every 8. The surplus food (with a cheap granary) at size 4 would allow the city to grow to 5 in 7 turns and to 6 in 8. So in an even 15 turns we can whip it every time untill time runs out (or we are UN Secretary) for 2 pop, netting another 90 hammers. That is 7 Catapults every 30 turns, not to great, not to bad either for such a small city.
It needs:
- Lighthouse
- Granary
- Barracks
- Some form of culture
- (cheap) Harbor?
- Forge?

6) Blue commerce.
With the rice to grow it and 2 gems and 5 cottages should/could turn out to be the cornerstone of our economy. Verry low on hammers tho, untill US.

I tried to number them in order of founding. But maybe we should swap 4 and 6.

bobrath · Dec 7, 2006

Ok, enough planning - lets play!

On to my replies to above points and such:
Dot mapping - If you want to be sure we get site 6, then we need to found it much sooner, mainly because that's a prime site that other close by civs will found asap. I do like 4 for the much shorter naval route it gives us.

Putting 7 cities on our island seems a bit extreme to me. There's no need to cram in extra cities because they are marginal at best. There's a big world out there with numerous capital city sites. Lets make sure we get the sites on our home island that we "want bad" and keep our options open for others.

GPs - anything that gets us forges faster is a good thing since that would enable us to possibly grab the colosuss. Its the other "wonderful" wonder on archi maps that more then pays for itself - even if only to deny it to other civs.

I do like the fog busting plan laid out above - reducing the fog to one or two squares makes life SOOOOO much nicer.

dot · Dec 7, 2006

namliaM said:
The worker could be mining those hills around Moscow... Tho I realized today why you got the Mids so much faster... You went Settler first, This saves a whole lot of time on the Mids. Therefor I would say whip the Settler ASAP overflow into a workboat.

namliaM said:
I like your solution for the low food Copper area... I think this must be city #2 (Petersberg = #1) for us, in what ever city placement we choose.... I would definatly move my 2 to your spot!
It will/must be our #1 military producer, get a Monument in it and a barracks & (cheap) Granary... That about it... (oh add a lib if we have time)

Thanx. I agree on settling the copper/fish site after St Pete.

namliaM said:
I kindof like my B6, on the gems to get the fish and the hill. Add a couple of Workshops on the "normal" tiles or whip it every now and again and we have another military producer.
...
I think if we merge your B and my B we have the best map.

I've been wondering why not putting 3 1SE in your merging attempt, namliaM. It would have more food and hence more specialists. For production it could "borrow" a hill from moscow.

Technologies
I'd still go for IW. We really need to know if we have iron on our island. If NOT we definitely need to grab some early. Furthermore IW leads to compass >> harbours >> 50% trade route yield & +1 :health:

for clam, crabs and fish!
:hmm:

Tech tree:
Myst >> Masonry >> Wheel >> Sailing >> (Pottery >>) IW >> (AH >>) Compass

namliaM said:
About the Merchant, we should burn him on "Forges" ASAP. So we can get a forge in St. Petes ASAP, to run an Engineer to fit with the Mids. Engineer + mids = 10 Great engineer points per turn.

Yes. But I'm not so sure about the Great Lib. It basically works as a scientist spammer.

I'd rather have a couple of Great Engineers. Maybe for the UN. Maybe for the Space Elevator. Don't know if the latter is possible, though.

namliaM said:
... Hey, I just remember Dot, you had something in Excel you wanted me to look at? is it Civ ? or something else?

It was some civing. But I don't have the time currently to dig into excels, too. I'll ask again later if I may. Thanx for replying.

Fog busting
I like the second scenario.

namliaM said:
Burning the Great Merchant from TGLight...

We can burn him on Metal casting, tho a Great merchant IIRC gives some 1500 beakers... and MC is only a 1000.
It does save us a good number of turns (~12 atleast) for research, while getting us MC => Forge faster => Great engineer faster.

And the Colossus!!! Hello? We're on an archipelago map!

namliaM said:
We get cheap Universities, but is it worth picking up Education at all? That is if we dont burn scientists on it.
Education is some 4000 beakers, Liberalism some 3600. To get a free tech of say 5000 beakers, we may end up spending 7500 beakers....
Neither tech is on the (beeline) route to Mass Media.
...
Gunpowder
How do we get there? Use Guilds or Education? Education seems a nice synergy with our goal of UN (We need paper anyway) and the cheap Universities sudenly seem more attractive.

Education - Liberalism
I'd definitely go that route ~ If only to deny the free tech to the other civs. But free religion and free speech can be quite powerful.

Robo Kai said:
Excellent turns by mailman and planning by both mailman and .--now the only thing I'm afraid of is that the quality of the game will go down when it's my turn.

Thanx--Oh, Yes!

bobrath said:
Ok, enough planning - lets play!

I'd play tomorrow, bob. I hope that'd be fine with you?

Settling maybe seven cities seems quite nice to me. But I'm willing to go with whatever the team decides.

bobrath said:
GPs - anything that gets us forges faster is a good thing since that would enable us to possibly grab the colosuss. Its the other "wonderful" wonder on archi maps that more then pays for itself - even if only to deny it to other civs.

See above!

Regards, .

namliaM · Dec 7, 2006

bobrath said:
Ok, enough planning - lets play!

I was allmost waiting for this one to come some day ... LOL

bobrath said:
GPs - anything that gets us forges faster is a good thing since that would enable us to possibly grab the colosuss. Its the other "wonderful" wonder on archi maps that more then pays for itself - even if only to deny it to other civs.

Maybe... but we have better places to put our hammers and if we do want to beeline-ish to UN, we will be at Astronomy rather soon. Making it short lived.

bobrath said:
Putting 7 cities on our island seems a bit extreme to me.

Agreed.... #7 is very marginal and can be dropped without questions asked (by me)
The other 6 look good to me or ???
And I dont mind "giving" #6 away for a bit. #2 should grab the Gems so as they are not workable and it saves us a settler. Also I did mention to swap it with 4... Or is that to late too?

Teching to Math/Alpha sets us up for early Currency & Trading getting at that AI Cash to keep science at 100%.
Sure cheap Harbors are nice, but we need to build them and we are busy (I think) with settlers and other basics still (granary, barracks, walls, LIB) in the cities that need them.
Harbors are important I agree, but disagree with the timing. Also math(559) for IW(448) is a possible trade, the otherway around is not. Plus in my experience AI like IW much more than Math....

The space elevator can be bought (I learned that one in VQ... Alg Gore) therefor I think it can be Great Engineered...
If it is great engineers we want, how about Hanging gardens? We do want 1 or 2 Great Scientists I think? If only to burn on education/Philo or an Academy or 2?

I have been playing with my Excel
Tech
We need to go Sailing => Masonry => Wheel so Moscow can start the lighthouse.

Spoiler Planning :

Spoiler Moscow :

TGLight to finish on turn 101.
1 Galley is out and about to scout.
We can add in the final 2 warrior FBs but this delays TGLight by 4 turns.

Spoiler St Petes :

Finish Mids turn 119

Spoiler Workers :

Workers chopped their hinies off to get the Mids ASAP, leaving only a forrest on the Plains Spice which we can use to kickstart the lib in Petes.

Disclaimer: I appologize if anyone feels I am beeing to detailed... But it is quite a restrictive schedule... to get TGLight turn 101 and Mids turn 119, I sure hope it is good enough to get both!

It was in my test game(s).

After the wonder snatching we need to explode with atleast 3 maybe 4 settlers. I will do some more math later to get them ASAP as well, unless someone speaks up... in which case I will leave the planning and counting well enough alone.

dot · Dec 7, 2006

So if you say so Sailing >> Masonry >> Wheel it shall be. Even though my intuition is pointing to the other path.

I'll play tomorrow evening. Maybe around 6PM my time (GMT+1). Any thoughts, Team? You'll have to post them until then!

Regards from Germany! The . is off to bed!

SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

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