SGOTM 03 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[Compromise]

Low sea level should increase the amount of land on the map, right?

 

[LKendter]

Low sea level should increase the amount of land on the map, right?

Total land yes - I don't know about island size.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

In my limited exerience with Civ IV, the AI seems to be much more diverse in their diplomatic ways. A personal game I'm playing at the moment, Tokugawa and Gengis will do absolutely no trading and I am held in very low esteem by them regardless of wtar I do. I will be going to school on how to do this diplomatic stuff.

 

[Atlas]

Okay, Well I sent AlanH a message asking for a bit of a clarification on the rules regarding lurkers (could not find any thing in the info threads regarding lurkers, I could have missed it though). Anyway we should know soon where or not the Real Ms. Beyond team will be handicapped by my 2 cents and inane jabbering or not.

 

[Kodii]

I think team lurkers basically work like this: You are part of the team. You help strategize and you help with the gameplay. As a lurker, you also learn in the process. The difference between someone on the roster and a lurker is that the lurker doesn't play any turns.

Atlas: If you want to join our team as a lurker, then I think we are all fine with that (and I can let AlanH know). Furthermore, if you actually want to join the team as a player, I think we're fine with that too. After all, we could use another player.

 

[Atlas]

I think that I will have a pretty busy holiday season, so I am hesitant to take on another SG, however if you guys will have me, I would gladly take on the role of official lurker/non-playing team member (I would be subject to all the same restrictions as the other team members I just would not play). That way I could contribute as I travel, but would not have to constantly be asking for skips and swaps.

 

[Iainuki]

Some notes, in no particular order.

I was going to try to separate out my discussion of strategy into separate sections, but after trying to write it out, I discovered that it was too interrelated to work well in that format, so I'm going to continue in one long narrative.

For backdoor domination, we want to grow up rather than out, in general, but we're still going to need a large chunk of territory. That means we want to rush and take some AI capitals, since as Compromise notes, there won't be any good spots left on the map after 17 civs have taken all the best ones. The huge question marks are if there are any opponents on our island, or any strategic resources. The best rush is the axe rush with copper; the others are swords with iron or horse archers with horses. If we have no opponents on our island, Sailing is also a priority. I'll feel much better about our position if we've eaten two or three opponents by 1 AD.

This strategy puts some strict requirements on our starting position and tech path. I'll start by observing that this start lies somewhere between "awful" and "abysmal." If we found in place, not only do we waste a floodplain, but we get a city with 10 non-resource ocean tiles. That's a crippling disadvantage once we get Bureaucracy, because our capital won't generate significant amounts of commerce or production. Meanwhile, the only other visible resources are spices, and the only use of spices pre-Calendar is on grasslands forests, to get an unimproved 2F 1P 1C. The forests north of the river block a move inland, even provided there are resources to be had there, and there's more ocean to the west. There's no place for hidden resources to be: no unforested flatlands or hills for metals or horses. To add insult to injury, there are no hills anywhere, rendering our starting Mining tech useless, and the only food resources available require Fishing, which we don't have.

Honestly, I don't know what do with this start. If I didn't think it was unlikely we'd find anything worth having inland, I'd suggest something radical like a two-turn move. As it is, if there are any food resources near grasslands inland, it still might be worth it.

We can't expect to have any strategic resources at our starting position. Thus, we have to locate them ASAP so we can settle them before the neighboring AIs do. If there are no strategic resources, or we get locked out of them, I don't see any alternative to pretending it's an OCC until we can get a tech lead and use it to kill the AIs.

This leads into a discussion of our opening tech path. Early religions are out: with 17 civs exploring the tech tree and no Mysticism or good early commerce, we have no chance at all of founding anything earlier than Confucianism. That leaves worker techs and our strategic-resource finding techs. If we found on the coast, our first tech has to be Fishing, but workboat-first starts when you have to tech to Fishing are very slow, in my experience. (Worker-first is 15 turns at normal speed, plus the time to improve the food resource itself, plus the worker can add other improvements. Fishing tech to workboat is the time to Fishing, usually 9 turns, then the workboat time, which varies from 15 to 30 turns, and then it's consumed. Even with the extra growth, I think the latter is usually slower.) Presuming the coastal start, after Fishing I think we have to go to Bronze Working for Slavery if we want an early settler, or go to The Wheel/Pottery for cottages. After that, a lot will depend on the strategic situation: whether there are other AIs on our island and what resources we've discovered. Animal Husbandry/Horseback Riding, Iron Working, and Sailing are all possible early priorities.

The final big question about the opening I see is: do we try for the Pyramids? The Pyramids have two important functions we can exploit, early Representation for the free happiness and the bonus to running a specialist economy (something we want to do because we're Philosophical), and bugged 1-pop axe-whipping with Police State. If we do, we're going to have to bend our early settlement and tech plans to finding a site able to build the Pyramids fast enough to beat 17 AIs, and to get Masonry.

 

[Kodii]

Atlas: I think that sounds good. After all, if your schedule lightens up, you can always join us in playing. Compromise mentioned that his schedule may be tight in around January, so having a lurker on board will only be a good thing. I'll let AlanH know.

Iainuki: Looks like some good analysis. I don't have much time to go through it now, but I'll comment in about an hour or so.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

@ Iainuki - Very thorough analysis. I think whoever plays the opening, needs to move the scout to see if there is anything worth gambling a two-turn opening on. Moving directly north onto that hill will give an answer to that one.

Technical question - can a fishing boat sail on a ocean tile? I don't think so. I'd be happy if I'm wrong. If I am correct, fishing is not a good opening tech to go for.

 

[Kodii]

No they cannot, but considering this is an archipelago, and we have fishing resources, Fishing is very important to head towards. Not only will it improve our seafood resources, but we can get a head start on getting the circumnavigation bonus. There should be enough islands to hop between them without any ocean tiles. The only problem I see with trying to circumnavigate is that there will be so many opponents that it might be hard to get through without open borders.

 

[Kodii]

Tentative Roster:

Compromise
Sir Bugsy
LKendter
greggo
Kodii
grangerm
Iainuki

I tried to put this as alternating as possible. I put Compromise first because he wants to play the opening moves. Does anyone else want to be near the front? Iainuki perhaps? (judging from your interesting analysis)

 

[Compromise]

Great thoughts, Iainuki. I'll sit down to analyze the start later, but I just wanted to throw out a couple quick thoughts. I completely agree with the low-probability of any hidden resources popping up near the starting position. We may actually have to try a (shudder) archer rush!

I was tentatively leaning toward researching Bronze first, Fishing second. And starting with a worker as the first build who can then chop out a fishing boat (or two or settler, etc.) Bronze allows chopping and slavery.

Also, for production, the starting location will be excellent if we build the Globe theater there. Yhen we can whip with impunity. Working both clams would be +6 food at size 2.

@Sir Bugsy: If you culturally control an ocean square, it counts as coasts for your workboats and galleys. So while the rules technically say you can't sail on the ocean, you can if a city of yours or a civ with whom you have open borders colors it.

About the Pyramids...I'm leaning against it, but it's something to consider. I'll have to think about it.

 

[Atlas]

Sounds good Kodii

Okay, onto discussion

I'll start by observing that this start lies somewhere between "awful" and "abysmal." If we found in place, not only do we waste a floodplain, but we get a city with 10 non-resource ocean tiles. That's a crippling disadvantage once we get Bureaucracy, because our capital won't generate significant amounts of commerce or production. Meanwhile, the only other visible resources are spices, and the only use of spices pre-Calendar is on grasslands forests, to get an unimproved 2F 1P 1C. The forests north of the river block a move inland, even provided there are resources to be had there, and there's more ocean to the west. There's no place for hidden resources to be: no unforested flatlands or hills for metals or horses. To add insult to injury, there are no hills anywhere, rendering our starting Mining tech useless, and the only food resources available require Fishing, which we don't have..

The good thing is that everybody starts with these disadvantages. However the hidden tile and the tile that the scout is on could have resources in/on them, so it is not hopeless. Anyway we will, without a doubt, want to settle another city on this island. You know how on Pangea you beeline to settle floodplains, well on archi map you beeline to settle hills and there are 2 hills visible in the north. Hammer wise the capital will suck until lumbermills, but it will crank out Great People and commerce and be an excellent whipping boy.

Honestly, I don't know what do with this start. If I didn't think it was unlikely we'd find anything worth having inland, I'd suggest something radical like a two-turn move. As it is, if there are any food resources near grasslands inland, it still might be worth it..

No need to do anything radical, a capital works better as a commerce heavy site anyway. The thing is that hammers are short on Archi maps so do NOT chop forests.

We can't expect to have any strategic resources at our starting position. Thus, we have to locate them ASAP so we can settle them before the neighboring AIs do. If there are no strategic resources, or we get locked out of them, I don't see any alternative to pretending it's an OCC until we can get a tech lead and use it to kill the AIs.

It would be a bummer to have no stategic resources, but not insurmountable. A beeline to catapults would remedy everything. Cats are the Uber unit anyway.

The final big question about the opening I see is: do we try for the Pyramids?

I would not, build units instead and take it from your neighbor (after he/she builds the Great Lighthouse too )

 

[Compromise]

Good comments, Atlas. And good to have you aboard. If this game lasts as long as SGOTM2, we may eventually get you in for a few turns if you're willing. But I always enjoy more discussion.

While I think you're absolutely right about archipelago being low production, I think any city settled in place on the starting spot (even if it were a later city and not the capital; say if we put the capital on the jungle NE of the scout) would be a commerce monster.

That starting site can, with a lighthouse and a cottage on the other floodplain, make +9 food per turn. Over the 15 turns it takes for whip anger to dissipate, that's 135 food or enough to grow at least 3 pop for reasonable city sizes. If that can get converted to hammers, it's 135 hammers (for non-wonders anyway). Compare that to working 3 grass forests for 15 turns or 45 hammers. My thinking is that any city that has a decent food surplus will get most if not all of its production from whipping.

(And we don't want any city without a good food surplus!)

 

[grangerm]

As for the newb/vet question: I played SGOTM2 with Team One (they moved to Warlords, I haven't bought it yet), but I've never player Peter and I have never tried to win diplomatically (though if we're going for backdoor domination it's not exactly a peaceful, love everyone diplo game). So I'd say I'm half and half.

Just so I am clear, diplo victory requires researching to the UN tech, building it and having 51% of the vote for sec gen? Is that it? Is it more than 51%?

As Compromise said, fishing boats can move to ocean tiles as long as they are inside our borders or the borders of a civ that we have OB with.

I would agree with moving scout E and probably to a hill before deciding on the where to settle the capital.

If this is such a crowded map, we might just want to forget about a early settler and get some early units to go after the nearest AI. As people have noted, we're not likely to have a great place to put a 2nd city anyway. I think this should be determined by the lay of the land, how close the nearest civs are, if we can mount a good offense vs. them considering a early UU (skimishers = bad). I guess we'll find out how crowded it really is and decide accordingly.

The roster is fine for me. I would suggest that if we discover some rich new land/resources with our scout that the first player stops and discusses with the team before we settler our city.

As for tech, I'm not sure whether we should go for BW or fishing first.

If we do fishing first, what do we build while we wait for it to come in? If it's a warrior, do we finish it before starting the workboat? If not, we'll lose the shields to decay. A worker first is the same thing and we wouldn't have anything great for the worker to do if we aren't chopping. Final result is that our city grows quicker, but produces less and is ready for more whipping when BW comes in.

If we do BW first then we can whip the WB the turn after getting fishing after building a couple warriors or a worker. The advantage here is that we know where bronze is.

I am going to keep thinking about BW vs fishing.

Sorry for the long post, just trying to catch up on everything and give my input

 

[greggo]

Just so I am clear, diplo victory requires researching to the UN tech, building it and having 51% of the vote for sec gen? Is that it? Is it more than 51%?

Not quite...

Firstly, once the UN is built, there is a vote for sec gen between the builders, and the nation with the highest population. This vote is a simple majority (51%). This also means we don't necessarily have to be the ones to build the UN, although I imagine we will anyway.

To win a diplomatic victory, we need to be the sec gen and ask for a vote to elect us the winners. This second vote requires a 60% majority (I think, could be 2/3 as well).

 

[Compromise]

The roster is fine for me. I would suggest that if we discover some rich new land/resources with our scout that the first player stops and discusses with the team before we settler our city.

If I do run the first turnset (as seems likely), I'll certainly ask for advice before settling the capital. Unless it's quite obvious where it should go. (Right now, it's not clear to me what would make it obvious.) I'm mentally compiling a little list of possible city sites and the advantages or drawbacks of each.

If we do fishing first, what do we build while we wait for it to come in? If it's a warrior, do we finish it before starting the workboat? If not, we'll lose the shields to decay. A worker first is the same thing and we wouldn't have anything great for the worker to do if we aren't chopping. Final result is that our city grows quicker, but produces less and is ready for more whipping when BW comes in.

If we do BW first then we can whip the WB the turn after getting fishing after building a couple warriors or a worker. The advantage here is that we know where bronze is.

I'll be able to check these numbers on a sample game tomorrow, but I think it'll be roughly something like the following:

Going for fishing first should take some 8 or 9 turns of research. Assuming 9 turns of working the clams, that would be 27 hammers toward a worker. Then, we'd work the spiced forest for a total of 3H for 15 turns to get our workboat. That would give us 15 food toward the 33 we'd need to grow to size 2. During that time, we'd earn 11 beakers-per-turn for 165 beakers toward bronze. We'd also lose 5 hammers to decay on the worker (or settler)

If we then work the newly netted clams, we can finish the other (90-22=)68H on the worker in (68/5)=14 turns. During that time, we'd probably finish bronzeworking.

Another thought is to work on a warrior before the workboat. But we'd only be able to put in maybe 9H and lose 6 to decay. (We could work a forest instead of the clams, perhaps delaying fishing by a turn or so. That would get us twice the hammers into a warrior.) The nice thing is that the city would grow a little in the mean time: 9F or 18F in 9 turns, depending on whether we work the clam or the forest.

We could start a settler instead of a worker. (Or switch to one if our island turns out to be tiny.) Second cities are the best barb-reduction "units."

I think the only item that wouldn't decay (at least not quickly) would be a barracks. We'll want one eventually, but I'm not sure about starting with one.

I'm also thinking that unless it's a very very small island, our lone scout won't keep our fledgling empire safe. So much to consider....

Any ideas that people have are welcome. Not much else to discuss at this point in the game anyway.

Note: I don't mind being this micro-conscious in the first 50 turns or so. After that, I'm all for optimization, but I'd rather just get on with things than pay attention to every little detail.

 

[Kodii]

Adding on the Compromise's last note, we don't want to dawdle in this game, like we did in SGOTM2. We have about three months to finish the game, and we can meet this if we have a continual pace. It is important to discuss in between, but we shouldn't leave more than the 24/48 hour rule.

 

[Compromise]

I'm also considering the first moves of the scout. Going E seems the clear first move, since I'd like to know of any seafood on the east coast before making a decision about moving or settling the settler.

After that, my first thought was the plains hill forest NE, but I've started to lean toward the grass hill forest NW of that (net scout move=1N). This would probably reveal the most tiles and some from each coast.

From what I can discern from the screenshot, the next move north will necessarily be a one-step move to the north into forest or jungle.

The only other decent option would be to go NW then NE (net move = 2N). This gets us the furthest north and will better reveal the extent of our island, but doesn't shine any light on the seafood prospects off the east coast.

 

[Kodii]

I think that the wisest thing is to move 1E, 1NW. It looks like the plains hill will only reveal a lot of coast. I don't think skipping out on seeing the eastern seafood resources is wise. Furthermore, if we decide to move our settler towards the north, we should move one space east first, that way we can see if there is anything on that grassland tile in the fog (I don't think the Scout move will reveal it).