SGOTM 05 - Mac Team

[a_man]

yeah i agree if we had them in the BFC chariots would be the way to go...

the game i played last night i went M>BW>AH>MY>Med>PH i got fishing and hunting erally. the best part was when the barb axes spawed they almost instatly took out 4 of the civs probally could have won it prety quick but i was on a diff contident then the other 3, heres hoping we aren't on a seperate land mass then some of the civs. One of the things i think that really helped was he 4 warriors to start and sending 1 in each direction to my opponets and sitting them on a hill or it the woods to keep in the worker as soon as the axes appered they moved right in and took both capitals -no skin of my back at all then i started to work twords sailing to get across the ocean but it wassn't gonna be till Astro that i would have

the whole time i could only think how great it would be if it went like that on the acually game and i could walk to the remaing 7 or so citys that the barbs didn't get to, a conquest win by 1000 B.C. thats always nice

ill give a try jumping strait to AH i just think that the unhappines will effect how fast our capitol grows or atleast how big and then waiting the 40 or so collective turns to be able to whip, if we had horses even a space out of BFC that might be the way to go.

i think we get free beakers in eveything that anyone eles knows or atleast the barbs do so if they do so do we is that what ur talking about ?

Another thought, hooking up the pigs earlly only gives +3 food and +1 health the food we may not yet need and the health, we are expantionist so already have +3

 

[AlanH]

@Alan: If we have questions/comments/feedback about the mod, should we post them here or PM you?

Easiest if you post them here so that all the team is aware of any issues. I'll try you keep an eye on this thread, but if you detect that I've neglected you, please PM me to kick me into action. That gets to my email box as well as my PM list here.

Here are a couple things I noticed, I have no idea if they are bugs, intended, or side-effects from being on the barb team. BTW, thanks again for doing this.

(1) When a civ is eliminated, its score doesn't go to zero. I've attached a save that shows this.

The displayed score is calculated directly in Python in this mod, so it's possible that it doesn't exactly behave as the normal displayed score does.

(2) We get free beakers for techs, just like the barbs do (not just free techs when the barbs acquire them). I didn't notice this in my earlier practice games, maybe it was happening then. Is that intended?

I guess that's one of the side effects of being on the barb team. I imagine it applies to the Windows teams as well, since I haven't done anything in the mod that should affect the research calculations.

 

[dr_s]

Do we want to get organized here? I'm not in a hurry to start, but it would help me plan if we picked an approximate start date. Sometime next week?

Other decisions we have to make:

(1) Order of play.
(2) Where to settle and move scout.
(3) Overall strategy.
(4) Initial techs/builds.
(5) ???

 

[peter grimes]

I'd prefer to not take the initial turnset, if that's ok. I think sometime next week is fine to start, assuming we all get a little more trials done before then.

Should we do 30 turns for the first few sets, then scale back to 20?

Overall strategy:
Seems like we're keep angling towards early Conquest.
Warriors out the door fast to keep the AI workers in their cities.
Tech up to ?? so that barbarian [chariots?, axemen?] start to soften the AI for us.
Selective peace, to keep under control
Selective War, when there are several barbs outside of an enemy city's borders

I'm sure there's lots I'm missing, but it's helpful to start to compile a list of things to keep in mind. Please add on as needed

 

[willpax]

Real life has been somewhat busy lately, but I hope to get at least one practice game in this week. Sorry for the silence--the discussion here is helping me think about the options and differences with this game.

 

[dr_s]

Played some more last night, continuing from the save I posted earlier. In 875 AD, there are only two AI civs left. Some comments.

(1) I did this all with only three cities. I've been building chariots the most by far, with some swords mixed in. My cities only have barracks, granaries, libraries, and temples. Everything else was military units, except one city that has a monastery and built a few missionaries.

(2) Some things are sort of turned on their head from a normal game. For example, empty territory is good! It spawns barbs. There is sort of an avanlanche effect; once you eliminate a couple civs, there's a big patch of fog of war, and the barbs really start generating. The barbs are bad at taking cities, but they are great at pillaging and eliminating stray units.

(3) The AI cities have all been extremely backward, even more than usual. I think this is due to barb pillaging. For example, when I first came across China's capital, it had only one improved tile.

(4) Pillaging is a must, especially horses, copper, and metal. Chariots, swords, and spears are the only dangerous units, and I haven't seen many of those. I've beens sending my chariots out in stacks of twos and threes, and then using multiple stacks against capitals. (A single stack can take out most outlying cities.)

(5) I've only built one worker, but I have about 12, due to capturing workers, and I've deleted another 6-8. I've spent a lot of time building roads to the front to get my troops there faster.

(6) I only built two wonders, Oracle and Great Library.

(7) My economy crashed about 100 BC. Actually it crashed well before then, I just didn't notice because I was getting so much gold from razing/pillaging. But in 100 BC that (temporarily) dried up because all the nearby civs were reduced to just their capitals. I think we should run an SE, with high-food cities, lots of farms, and libraries. That will allow us to run at 0% science and still tech, which is what I think will be necessary.

(8) Depending on what the map actually looks like, I think quick victory is possible. If all civs are accessible by land, I expect some BC victories. We should plan to finish before any civ gets feudalism. I failed in this in my practice game; Saladin is one of the civs left and he has feudalism. But I think it's doable, I know I could have played better.

(9) I haven't done any tech or resource trading, but I did take some techs for peace at various times. I realize now that Ghandi offered me HBR for alphabet, which I rejected without thinking---that was a mistake. This is one thing that's backward; we definitely want to trade for HBR if we can get it for nonmilitary techs, I think.

(10) AI stupidity can be easily taken advantage of. Twice I had stacks of seven chariots next to an AI capital guarded by axe, spear, archer x 2. Both times the axe and spear left the capital to escort a settler, with my stack right there! Doh!

I'm going to try to play one more practice game, using the AG->AH->chariots strategy, but without horses in the capital's BFC. I think that's the way to go.

 

[peter grimes]

Great job! Sounds like we're developing a coherent strategy here.

I didn't get a chance to play around last night, and likely won't tonight, either

 

[a_man]

hmm. this dose sound do-able, i havent gotten to a game where i b line to chariots but i plan to also tonight

i was (also) thinking Great library as a second (or third) wonder and once we get monarchy and code of laws we should have no problem running a SE

and i noticed we only need minor troops in the city after the first 100 or so turns every 1 too busy with barbs, i figure ya'll noticed that but wanted to say it to be sure

 

[dr_s]

hmm. this dose sound do-able, i havent gotten to a and i noticed we only need minor troops in the city after the first 100 or so turns every 1 too busy with barbs, i figure ya'll noticed that but wanted to say it to be sure

Yes, I noticed this too. After the early stages, the only reason to have troops in cities is for happiness purposes. Once I was really rolling, I also sent my workers around willy-nilly without worrying about whether they would run into the enemy.

 

[a_man]

that economy is killer though, to have a big enough army to send out to raze and pillage i keep running my slider allthe way to 0 then just as i get a strike i also get pottery and can keep the troops happy but have no hope for reaserch, the problem is im nowhere near where i need to be to switch ove to SE and i end up having 70 to 100 turn techs. i think thats not gonna cut it but if we were to move atleast pottery up in the proity list it may help combat it. althouhgthat also puts our earlly wonders back a ways or puts BW back a ways, ive tried to just pillage and raze all the money i need but im still not getting the slider past 20. Any ideas? i guess it depends on when we start to send armys on long trips but the sooner the weaker the citys; i took 2 capitals with nothing but warriors in pairs on the last game but maybe splitting them up and sending them to 4 capitols as loners would be better although it will be risky for them but then again upgradeing hasn't even been an option maybe thier early demise is a good thing?

o and tried AG AH WH it got me off pretty good and i was only a few turns from BW when the human babs apeared so i'm thinking going for chariots is worth the risk (the starting pos looks like it should have at least another resource right by it maybe it will be horses) and if not we can just bite the bullet and send a settler over to some.

 

[dr_s]

I agree that the economy can be a problem. I'm not sure quite how I did it in my earlier game. Are you building four warriors off the bat, a_man? I did that some, but lately I've been doing War->War->Worker, which pops a worker about when AH is ready.

I don't think warrior pillaging will be so effective. They are twice as slow as chariots. I think saving the warriors to combat WW later on might be the way to go. I've just been parking them in the capital, and relying on the barbs to pillage early in the game.

With that said, I'm not sure that AG->AH->Wh is the right way to go. I played a couple more practice starts (can post maps if people like) and I've run into these problems:

(1) Getting beaten to the Oracle about 50% of the time. I don't get beaten by a lot, but that doesn't matter, does it? I don't know how to deal with WW without it though---suggestions on that? The problem is that the tech path is so long: AG->AH->WH->MI->BW->MY->MED->PR. (Can't skip BW, I think, because then you can't chop or whip.) I'm thinking of doing a test game as follows: MI->BW->MY->MED->PR->AH->WH. The goal will still be to spam chariots asap, but I think that we need to guarantee that we can grow our capital. It sucks to be at 850 BC and be stuck at size 3 because of WW.

(2) It takes a lot of hammers to build a settler and a second worker to hook up horses in the second city. In my successful game I had taken out two civs by 1030 BC. That's just not possible without horses in the BFC.

I just tried out the sequence MI->BW->MY->MED->PR->AH and I like it. The reason is that by the time I got to AH, I already had AG, HU and WH, and was only 2 turns away from completing AH due to beakers from being a barb. So that saved a lot of beakers. With the other sequence I never got nearly as much help when teching down the MY->MED->PR path. I haven't yet hooked up horses (or built a second city), but I got the Oracle. I also built War->War->Bar->Arch->Arch->Worker, which allowed me to archer-rush my neighbor and capture a second city. The worker was done in plenty of time to chop the Oracle, which I also whipped to finish.

 

[a_man]

i have been going war>war>war half way(about) and then worker(size2) then finishing the war before >arch>arch>baracks then again we get archery if almost everyone eles has it already witch makes it not as usefull for sending out. The game i took the 2 capitols my closest opps. had not yet learned it and only had 1 war. gaurding their citys

it would be nice if we turn out to have the horses in our BFC cuz then the chariot spam makes for a great plan but we wouldn't know it till too late if we go M>BW>MY>Med>PH i do think that is still the way to go to ensure we finish the game, at the very least, again the WW is killer so monarchy really seems to be necesary

also in the time it takes to get the oracle and poss. writing and/or lit we seem to either have one city with too many defenders or several citys/armys and no more money

but at the same time all the starting tech get real cheap(barb beakers) and we usually can grab our pick of Ptry/Mas for only a few turns of res.

we could skip lit. and go strait for CoL but then will prob. be beaten to GL but maybe not seeing as the AI, if still at war, should be going for mil. techs at the time but maybe not i havent noticed as of yet then again i havent had peace with any civ that is scoring higher then me at the time and then ill re war them as soon as the do (they get WW too)

i also think that spending hammers on a settler isn't the ideal way to go just a back up if our plan of action puts us in a bad place . I dout that we will have cop. in the BFC or horse cuz that seems to make the game too easy and it is a customized map wich means we will need to take a city near the resourse of our choice(tech path wise) and use it as a unit prod. city and then build a road back with the worker we (hopfully) capture when we get the city

im sure their ws somthing eles but ill just add it when i think of it

 

[dr_s]

i have been going war>war>war half way(about) and then worker(size2) then finishing the war before >arch>arch>baracks then again we get archery if almost everyone eles has it already witch makes it not as usefull for sending out. The game i took the 2 capitols my closest opps. had not yet learned it and only had 1 war. gaurding their citys

You sure you're playing Monarch? I haven't seen any AI cities guarded by warriors in my games.

The thing I don't like so much about war->war->worker is that there's not much for him to do because we're so tech deficient at the start. Especially if we go Mi->BW->My->Med->Pr, what's the worker going to do for that time? Going war->war->bar->arch->arch->worker allowed me to grow to size four before starting the worker, which means that the worker gets built that much faster. And even if the archers can't take cities, they are much better for pillaging than warriors because of their higher strength.

Yes, I agree, if we go Mi->BW->Oracle->AH and then find horses in our BFC we might regret it, but not as much as if we go AG->AH->no horses->no oracle.

Regarding Lit vs. COL, that's an interesting question. In my good game, I was ahead in techs at that point, being first to Alpha, so I was able to get the GL without problem. I wasn't first to COL, though.

Couple of other things.

(1) AI archers seem to avoid my capital if I have two warriors inside.

(2) I've been seeing lots of promoted AI archers (CG2 and CG3), due to failed barb attacks on cities. These are a pain, especially if the city is on a hill.

(3) Does everyone know the difference between a cease fire and a peace treaty. This is something I learned only recently. With a cease fire you can't include any techs/gold, etc, but you also don't get the 10 turn moratorium on DOW. You can declare war again as soon as you want. I suggest that we alway do a CF, not a PT early in this game, especially with our neighbors. It's easy to do, just negotiate when they come asking for peace. I've taken advantage of this in a couple of my practices.

 

[peter grimes]

Yeah - I've had trouble with those promoted archers, too. I'm not sure there's much we can do about them, except to have enough units within range when we see an injured one.

I never knew the difference between a Peace Treaty and Cease Fire! Good to know it.

 

[a_man]

You sure you're playing Monarch? I haven't seen any AI cities guarded by warriors in my games.

you know i was wondering why that game was so much easier and that might have been why i thoght i just got good, but it was earlly when i sent them out i left the capitol guarded by only a scout when i did

well if we do go war>war>wor>barr>arch>ect.
the worker can improve a hill to a mine and we can work that tile with a food tile to make production of everything else a lot faster. not sure if its any faster than useing those turns to do the barracks and arches but once i think about it prob. better to have more units early then a worker possibly just go and get a worker from our closest opp. save us the hammers, i'll do that this time

and i too have had problems with promoted archers i just wait for the barbs to weaken them as peter said

 

[dr_s]

The problem I have with war->war->worker in this game is two-fold.

(1) If we go Mi->BW->Oracle path, there won't be much for the worker to do. He won't be able to chop until BW is completed, and anyway, I think we should save all chops for the oracle. So that leaves mostly mine building, and only on unforested hills (if we save chops for the oracle). And if you look at the start, the only unforested hill has the pigs on it. Even so, a mined grassland hill is only 1 3 and a forested grassland tile is 1 2, so we don't gain that much with an early worker.

(2) Pillaging by a nearby civ can be a problem. If we build an early worker, we won't have the units to defend it or the improvements it builds. I've had this problem in some test games when I went worker early, that's why I started thinking about barracks early.

The nice thing about war->war->bar->arch->arch is that we grow to size 2 during the warrior production, to size 3 during the barracks, and to size 4 during the archers. (Archery is not available after the two warriors are built, and I don't think we should build too many warriors.) Also, the archers come out promoted; we can give them CG1 if necessary, or we can give them Combat1 or Drill1 and send them out to pillage/stifle the AI/protect our improvements. And of course they are only 1 EP away from a second promotion. (And since the "barbs" in this game are AI units, we're not limited to 10 EP per unit from killing "barbs".)

I don't think we can have too many units early (depending on the map, obviously). I think 4 is a good number. Growing to size 4 early also gives us more flexibility about tiles to work (e.g. coastal tiles if we need the early).

BTW, this is all IMHO, of course, and I reserve the right to change my mind as I play more practice games. I don't mean to sound too dogmatic either, I'm just throwing my thoughts out while I have time. Differing opinions are more than welcome .

One last thought: if we get the oracle early, we'll pop a great priest early, which we can settle in the capital for 2 5 which is very helpful for early war. In fact, if we could pop and settle even more great prophets, that would be good, I think.

 

[peter grimes]

I agree that so far, War - War - Barracks - Archers is more useful. A couple of tests ago, I had a worker sitting around for close to 12 turns with nothing to do, because I was expecting the barbs to have already provided AG.

 

[a_man]

ok then war.war.barr.arch it is
ya'll are probally right

 

[dr_s]

Played some more today on the same map that I did well on before. This time went Mi->BW first, then Oracle, the AH. Of course this slowed down the initial rush a lot, but the long term results are similar. In 1600 AD it's me and two civs, and I think I have a straight-forward path to a domination win. I will play it out just to be sure and to help test the mod.

Couple of notes. Several civs declared war on each other, which was something I hadn't seen before. In fact Saladin and Alex eliminated Ghandi. Someone said in the pre-game thread that the AI sees us as barbs, and I think that's true. So they will declare war on each other even if they are still at war with us.

Something that may be obvious, but it really hit home this game: WW is calculated per enemy, not globally. So if you make peace/eliminate an opponent, your WW can go from +12 to +1 instantly, even if you are still at war with multiple civs. So strategic peace will be important. I still think that Monarchy is vital, though.

In this game, I kept/built many more cities than in the first game. I think I have 10 or so total, and by spamming settlers, I think I can get close to the domination limits. So that's something to consider. BTW, looking at the victory conditions screen, it seems that our population/land area is combined with the barbs when doing the calculations for domination.

Alan, you wrote the python code, is that correct?

Lastly, I will be out of town Thursday through Sunday of next week, Aug 9-12. It's a vacation, so I won't have a computer.

edit: I made the screenshot below because I found it amusing. It shows "my" barb army marching on the chinese.

 

[AlanH]

BTW, looking at the victory conditions screen, it seems that our population/land area is combined with the barbs when doing the calculations for domination.

Alan, you wrote the python code, is that correct?

The Python emulates the DLL code, and checks the total land for the team against the domination limit.