SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

[Murky]

Hi guys. Just checking in. I'm slacking this week on vacation.

 

[klarius]

I tried a simple test game (sorry klarius ) and started with mining => BW => IW. Started with worker.

Well, I played a few of these type of simple tests in the last 2 weeks .

Only thing was that I didn't have a banana tile which doesn't change much in the beginning.

BTW seems you're a little late for BW, if you had the bananas.

In my test maps it was just about the same turn for BW and human barbs, but that really depends on when the AIs settle their secondary cities. Probably it's later when they have neighbours as they then will likely build more units first.

It doesn't help much to note the dates of barb cities. It's very dependent on the RNG as there is only a 7% chance per turn after the conditions are met (45 turns elapsed and 2 cities per civ on average).

Still one thing to note:
In several cases I didn't beeline for BW, I couldn't get peace with more than 1 or 2 civs and after some time got a red face in the capital for war weariness.
In the cases with timely BW I could get peace with 4 or 5 civs and didn't experience WW.

 

[Erkon]

Hi guys. Just checking in. I'm slacking this week on vacation.

Great! Welcome. The first thing we would like to ask you is weather we should settle this turn or next. Either you answer randomly, as most of us regularly do, or you spend some time with the screenshots BP provided. klarius and Mîtiu prefers to settle this turn, while BP, LC and me wants to move the settler. Declare your allegiance !!! j/k

 

[Erkon]

It doesn't help much to note the dates of barb cities. It's very dependent on the RNG as there is only a 7% chance per turn after the conditions are met (45 turns elapsed and 2 cities per civ on average).

Still one thing to note:
In several cases I didn't beeline for BW, I couldn't get peace with more than 1 or 2 civs and after some time got a red face in the capital for war weariness.
In the cases with timely BW I could get peace with 4 or 5 civs and didn't experience WW.

What I found interesting was that the cities popped up at the same turn, and it took a while for another to be founded. I have noticed in previous games that the barbarians come in waves. It's as if the barbarians do not spawn during the period just after barb cities are founded. I've also noticed that there is typically a few turns of barb inactivity after the animals disappear. It's as if there cannot be both animals and human barbs on the map at the same time, and the animals don't die on the same turn.

I was offered peace by several AI. Is there any advantage with a peace treaty? The AI will be able to expand quicker if the barbs leave them alone, yes?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Good question: If we DoP with AIs, do barbs still attack them?

I noticed AIs wanting peace w/me as soon as I made a warrior, whether I did that earlier or later.

 

[Erkon]

Good question: If we DoP with AIs, do barbs still attack them?

...

No, they wont, and thus we won't get WW. So, what we have to decide is if we prefer less WW or the barbs to harass the AI.

 

[jesusin]

Hey guys, you type faster than I can read!

In a domination we will probably want GLig and SH. In a conquest we want no wonders at all.

Do we really not fogbust? I never saw a barb spamming before my eyes, did you?

I don’t think we need a warrior, a Lion appeared in my capital and disappeared as soon as I built a defender.

I will be away from my computer from 3Aug to 27Aug. I will probably be able to read and write here through my mobile phone.

I vote to settle on turn two. We need a hill. Mining the pigs sounds outrageous to my rather conventional ears. Bananas and Dyes can be farmed or cottaged, though, they are too late for our plans.

Tech path: BW would be my second priority, a relevant worker tech would be my first, Writing my third.

I have written this now, when I have only read till post 88. I keep on reading.

 

[jesusin]

I prefer WW, the barbs don't last long, WW will wash away easily.

I would move the settler SW-S. That way we can come back to settle on the plains if we find nothing. Another option is 1NW, then scout Sw-SW next turn, we'll have the option of settlin 2W of the current position in the second turn or further away in the third turn if we find something interesting.

 

[Big Pig]

It seems the preference is for settling on turn 2 - so I shall move settler and scout to reveal all.

@jesusin: the settler move should be 1 tile only so it can return to its original site and settle on T2 if nec. I plan therefore to move him 1NW (1SW is also good if the scouut moves W, NE to reveal the coastal tiles)

 

[jesusin]

@jesusin: the settler move should be 1 tile only so it can return to its original site and settle on T2 if nec. I plan therefore to move him 1NW (1SW is also good if the scouut moves W, NE to reveal the coastal tiles)

Do you really prefer settling on site than settling 1S on the plains? Anyway, no need to answer this question, I agree going 1NW.

 

[Big Pig]

It seems klarius and Mitiu made the correct call - no fishies anywhere to be seen:


So, time to make those practice games and optimize our settling position and early development.
(If anyone with WB skills is able to post a test-map with the starting location reproduced, it would be greatly appreciated!)

 

[klarius]

What I found interesting was that the cities popped up at the same turn, and it took a while for another to be founded. I have noticed in previous games that the barbarians come in waves. It's as if the barbarians do not spawn during the period just after barb cities are founded. I've also noticed that there is typically a few turns of barb inactivity after the animals disappear. It's as if there cannot be both animals and human barbs on the map at the same time, and the animals don't die on the same turn.

Well, your interesting observations just don't fully match the SDK code.
There is only maximum one barb city generated per turn. Other than that it's the (in)famous RNG.
There is a 7% (monarch) probability check to generate a barb city or not, it has nothing to do with how long it was that the last city was founded (it can succeed 1 turn later 100 turns or even never).
Then the game checks if there is a tile available to found a city by going through all tiles and checking various conditions like unowned tiles in area (110 per city on monarch), visibility to civ teams (not us), distance to cities.
If there are tiles available the best city with some random variation is founded.
Barbarians get more docile by city founding, because they defend their cities. On the other side barbarians are only randomly generated if the number of barbarians in an area (including the city defenders) is smaller than the number of unowned tiles in that area divided by 20 (for monarch/raging barbs). The barbarian city itself reduces the number of unowned tiles, but the bigger effect is that they want 3 defenders in the city, so only the rest is available for suiciding.

After the human barbs appear it takes several turns until they get their full strength. After that only losses are replaced. The animals are killed independently of that.
The game generates a number of needed barbs per area (unowned tiles in this area divided by 20). Then the number of existing barbs in this area is subtracted. If this number is bigger than 1 the game tries to generate 1/4 of this number +1 units. So e.g. if there are 10 units needed the game will create 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1 units in consecutive turns.
The units are created on random tiles with certain restrictions (distance to cities and visibility) if there are any such tiles. If no tiles are available (the whole area fogbusted) the barbs are out of luck.

I was offered peace by several AI. Is there any advantage with a peace treaty? The AI will be able to expand quicker if the barbs leave them alone, yes?

Every barb suiciding in enemy territory will count for war weariness. In my tests war weariness gets pretty bad at some time, if not making peace with several AI. But that may also depend on the lay of the land and how many barbs will be available for suicide at all. Sure not getting pillaged will help the AIs to expand.
Also if barbs get cities near civs, they typically cannot hold them forever if at war. Barb cities might be a nice foothold for the time when we come in force.

 

[klarius]

Do we really not fogbust? I never saw a barb spamming before my eyes, did you?

Yes I saw a barb city appearing right in sight of my settler going for a nice location. And you saw a lion in the capital. It's the same visibility test, which just ignores the barb team.

We need a hill. Mining the pigs sounds outrageous to my rather conventional ears. Bananas and Dyes can be farmed or cottaged, though, they are too late for our plans.

Why is mining pigs outrageous. That's still a damn good tile to have. And if one wants to pasture it later, there is nothing lost.
On the other side, I think cottaging (and work the cottages) tiles is a loss if you bulldoze villages or towns later to get the resource. Rather have the river grass cottaged which can then stay through the whole game.

 

[klarius]

Note on lightbulbing Optics and Astronomy

As I understand the GL tech preference charts for Great Scientists, we cannot rely on the usual avoidance of Meditation, because we'll get it involuntarily. Instead, we need to

avoid Code of Laws​

Do you all come to the same conclusion?

Well, the conclusion is correct, but I don't think it will pay off to avoid CoL (and drama BTW). No courthouses and no cheap path to CS are pretty heavy disadvantages.
Rather research or lightbulb philosophy to be able to sink scientists into astronomy. Or ignore lightbulbing completely and rather settle scientists.

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

It seems klarius and Mitiu made the correct call - no fishies anywhere to be seen:
{...}

Do you really expect such a gift from a game-modder like the ones from SGOTM ?


Anyway - settle in initial place, set research to Mining and production to warrior until city will reach size 2 and in same time wander with our scout downside seems that is more resonable to do - and you could perform your turns doing that.
An alternative could be to research Agriculture first - but I'd like the mined "pig-hill" too much for choosing this approach ...

Regards

 

[Big Pig]

Anyway - settle in initial place, set research to Mining and production to warrior until city will reach size 2 and in same time wander with our scout downside seems that is

Why do we need a warrior?

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

We don't need it - but isn't better to have the city at 2 size before starting our first worker ?

 

[klarius]

If you build a warrior first (I see no reason for that), you could get mining and agriculture before the worker comes out.
I would rather start with a worker even though he might sit idle then for some time. If there is any remotely useful city location I would then go for a settler @ size 2 already. As this path will not even finish a warrior before switching to settler, I would rather sink the few shields in a barracks as they then will not erode away.
I think the fastest path to a settler would be the BW beeline and finish it with a chop and 1 pop.

Alternatively we can do agri and mining and mainly hand build the settler. I still think that we then should go BW before any other worker techs to maximize the barb research feature (and maybe we have copper in the capital for another decent tile). But for sure BW comes then too late for the initial human barb spawning.
But then we should be pretty quick on catching up on worker techs, as well because there is already some research in them, as that we get a bonus for our research for teams knowing the techs.

Another option is to completely ignore the special setting and just do what's usually is a good advice. Get the techs for your resources then get pottery. But that means we don't have BW for a very long time. And with our shield poor - food rich (with AH) location, we soon hit the happy cap and cannot do anything about it.

Crosspost:
We don't need it - but isn't better to have the city at 2 size before starting our first worker ?

Why?
We can have a worker and by that an improved tile much earlier (note we don't even have a 3 food tile for the first 8 turns so growth is slow).
We cannot work an additional commerce tile unless we further slow down the worker.

 

[Murky]

Do you guys know how the barbarians research works? I think that could be a deciding factor in our tech choices.

 

[Big Pig]

Do you guys know how the barbarians research works? I think that could be a deciding factor in our tech choices.

Klarius has covered most of that pretty comprehensively in his posts. It is useful for the early techs but pretty negligible later on