SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

[Murky]

Given that there are pigs for food wouldn't it make sense to beeline to AH? If there are horses that can make for a fast conquest in vanilla.

 

[jesusin]

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

Aaaaaarrrrg! What is the Scout doing there? He should be 1 tile S! Shame on the one who made that move!

<<I am just preparing the audience for a big reaction to my first mistake>>




I'd go Worker first. I would research AH and then pasture the pigs, the only reason being that its conventional. After AH I would research BW. The idea of mining the pigs would never cross my mind. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

I am thinking about playing with my banana this weekend. That way I will be better prepared for this starting position. The more experience the better, uh?

Don’t play intoxicated (from alcohol, drugs or smoke). Don’t play when you are too tired. Or when you have your kids/wife screaming at you

Can there be an exception? I don’t think I can abide to this rule. Why do you think you got me on your team, in the first place?
I have developed an addiction to this game in general and to cultural victories in particular, so I am intoxicated as soon as I open the game. In addition, my wife can start screaming anytime; I wouldn’t be able to play a (quick speed) game a week if I stopped when she is yelling. She is on the barb camp, only she is not teamed with Temujin.

 

[Big Pig]

Given that there are pigs for food wouldn't it make sense to beeline to AH? If there are horses that can make for a fast conquest in vanilla.

I'd go Worker first. I would research AH and then pasture the pigs, the only reason being that its conventional. After AH I would research BW. The idea of mining the pigs would never cross my mind. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

Going Agr>AH will give us a capital with (relatively) fast growth, poor commerce and abysmal production. It will quickly reach its happy cap and struggle to build anything much. Mining>BW allows us to improve the production side of things, and to whip the capital as necessary (and have those barb axemen terrorizing the neighbours) - but growth is much slower, so it is a trade off.

Agr>Mining>BW seems instinctively the best compromise - we can get decent growth from a banana farm (and other farms that will keep the worker busy) and production from the pig-mine. Because of our improved growth, slavery will be more useful - but those barb axemen will show up later

We all need to spend a few days working out the optimal start

 

[jesusin]

Agr>Mining>BW seems instinctively the best compromise ...
...We all need to spend a few days working out the optimal start

If we are not going AH, then Mining-Agr-BW seems better, doesn't it?

I don't like mining the pigs. A single mine is not enought for a decent capital. I prefer 0 mines and a big excess of food to whip. The disadvantage of pasturing the pigs is that we have to research AH.

I also feel we are going too fast, the initial tech and production should be decided after a lot of pondering.

 

[klarius]

If you want agri and mining first, it's probably even best to switch back and forth between the two and complete one only immediately before the worker comes out . By that you maximize the time for a third civ to come up with these techs and get free barb beakers and another bonus beaker (at 10 or 11 research it's also the 3rd civ knowing the tech which gives the first additional beaker).

And again, I don't think there is much to ponder or learn from additional test games (ok, if you haven't played any by now), before we get more intelligence about the AIs and possible city locations on our island.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'll try to put together a test map tonight (American English time) if no one beats me to it, but it would really be better to have us each testing with different ones, simply because the one random variable we can't World build is the location and resources of the AIs. Having a several maps is less likely to lead us astray on what the AIs research and how fast.

I recommend these tests:
1. Using the same map, try different tech paths:

• Agr>Mng>BW
• Mng>Agr>BW
• Agr>Wheel>Pottery>Mng>BW
• Agr>Wheel>Pottery>Wtg
• Agr>Wheel>Pottery>Myst>Poly>Priest (Oracle)

2. Useful questions to keep in mind:

• (Obviously) Which tech path is significantly faster toward Astro? This should include consideration for any faster REXing that a tech path produces, (warring REX is hard to factor in).
• Is early cottage spamming worth it?
• How soon can we start off-shore warring with a BW>Sailing beeline?
• Which tech paths gain us the most almost-free or free techs?
• Which is better for wkr productivity? agr>mng or mng>agr
• How soon do we know if we need Astro?
• Does wb exploration speed up knowing about Astro?
• Is it true we can't get the circumnavigation bonus (yeah I know gyathaar didn't fix it).
• How much are AIs hindered by barbs?
• When do AIs finish their techs (either watch the tech costs or WB to know)?
• From what date to what date do the AIs finish the Oracle?
• ?
• ?
• ?

 

[Big Pig]

If you want agri and mining first, it's probably even best to switch back and forth between the two and complete one only immediately before the worker comes out . By that you maximize the time for a third civ to come up with these techs and get free barb beakers and another bonus beaker (at 10 or 11 research it's also the 3rd civ knowing the tech which gives the first additional beaker).

Just want to highlight this post - sounds an excellent idea (if we want Agr/Min>BW)

 

[Big Pig]

I don't like mining the pigs. A single mine is not enought for a decent capital. I prefer 0 mines and a big excess of food to whip. The disadvantage of pasturing the pigs is that we have to research AH.

I would anticipate we pasture the pigs once we get AH - the pig-mine is just a temporary measure (assuming we get BW before AH)

I also feel we are going too fast, the initial tech and production should be decided after a lot of pondering.

If there is one thing team MW is good at, it is endless pontificating on what to do (why else do you think our post count has been double everyone elses combined for the last 3 SGOTMs. I don't plan to play my turns until next week (or until we fill 1000 posts with analysis of the various permutations available to us)

 

[LowtherCastle]

If you want agri and mining first, it's probably even best to switch back and forth between the two and complete one only immediately before the worker comes out . By that you maximize the time for a third civ to come up with these techs and get free barb beakers and another bonus beaker (at 10 or 11 research it's also the 3rd civ knowing the tech which gives the first additional beaker).

And again, I don't think there is much to ponder or learn from additional test games (ok, if you haven't played any by now), before we get more intelligence about the AIs and possible city locations on our island.

Just want to highlight this post - sounds an excellent idea (if we want Agr/Min>BW)

This is an example of how testing could help, at least probabilistically.

Test Priority 1: Agri or Mng first?
Do we have a reason to research Agri or Mng first (Pig Mine faster; Pig Mine better?; Banana Plantation farm better?; Agri produces less wkr idleness? etc.)

Test Priority 2: Best bonus?
We know that the help for Agri is 2/turn with 3 AIs knowing it, whereas Mng is only 1/turn. So there are 3 scenarios:

1. 3+ AIs learn both
2. 3+ AIs learn Mng
3. 3+ AIs learn Agri.

Testing multiple maps might tell us which is most likely during our time frame. If a 3rd AI is unlikely to learn Agri, we're better off saving Mng for later (unless we want the Pig Mine first).

If a 3rd AI is likely to learn Agri, we're better off with mng first, and so on.

EDIT: Actually, there are additional scenarios, such as 5+ AIs kowing mng, <3 or 3 knowing Agri, etc...

 

[LowtherCastle]

(at 10 or 11 research it's also the 3rd civ knowing the tech which gives the first additional beaker).

Can you explain this game mechanic, please? Are you saying when our research goes from 9 to 10, we get a bonus, making it actually 11?

Are there additional bonuses at higher amounts?

 

[Erkon]

I like the idea to mine the pigs, as long as the mine is BIG. Got the pun? Big mine => big pigs! It's almost Big Pig! Got it? Speaking of which, since BP haven't posted the got-it message properly, we need to prepare for a replacement.

But why do we need production? Barracks is next to useless, due to the lack of hammers, thus the investment will not pay back. As I see it, our capital can be used for workers & settlers mainly. But there's no suitable city site very close (mostly jungle).

My limited experience from one test game indicates that the barbarians will not help us much i.e. we must not deviate very far from the optimal non-barbarian tactics we would have followed in a normal game.

As I see it, the following aspects of the special setting will affect us:

Pros:

• Free beakers for the early techs
• Roughly idea of the layout of the map very early
• No barb threat against us
• Possibility to harass the AI with axe barbarians (if we beeline to BW)
• Less defenders in AI cities
• No penalties for declaring war

Cons:

• We will get increased WW
• The barbs may steal good city sites
• The barbs may steal resources
• We can't pop huts
• We have 50% research penalty

Did I miss anything?

Since this is a competition, I think that any team that can adopt and utilize the advantages and reduce the impact of the disadvantages will win, given a roughly even competence in warring.

We all agree that we should not research early techs that we're not in a hurry to learn, yes?

We could spam settlers and REX away, since we don't have to be afraid of the barbs.

We also need to send out a work boat or two to explore. Recon is vital.

jesusin, I think BP messed up the scout move to lower the expectation on LC...

 

[LowtherCastle]

jesusin, I think BP messed up the scout move to lower the expectation on LC...

Which expectation? How soon I can replace the monitor I crashed against my wall?

Speaking of which, BP, I hope you understand why that move was...pig-headed--the scout move N instead of S defogged 1 tile--a tile that was out of fat cross reach anyway...

No biggie, of course, methinks scouting is the least of our worries...

 

[klarius]

Can you explain this game mechanic, please? Are you saying when our research goes from 9 to 10, we get a bonus, making it actually 11?

Are there additional bonuses at higher amounts?

I thought this stuff to be known , from the corresponding war academy article (though this is not quite correct).

If we don't work a commerce tile we generate 10 beakers.
8 capital, 1 city center and 1 which is just there although the commerce screen says we generate 9. So that's what I mean we generate 10 or 11 beakers.

When other civs learn a tech we get a bonus to our research. Again the integer arithmetic gets things a bit involved but the percentage we get is
floor((30 * nw) / na)
this percentage is then multiplied with our research and again truncated. Note we get an advantage here versus the standard games as again we aren't counted as an alive civ .
So 2 knowing it is 60/7 = 8% and multiplied by 10 or 11 beakers this truncates to 0.
3 with the knowledge is 13% and this gives an additional beaker. As the barb science kicks in at the same threshold we in fact generate then 12-13 instead of 10-11 beakers.
Obviously this would also get better if we had more science (at least it makes the truncation steps not so prevalent), but nothing we can do currently.
For techs with prerequisites it's getting even more involved as the 20% prerequisite bonus is summed with the above before multiplication and may shift the breakpoints.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Btw, for making test maps, I think the best choice is archipelageo/snaky continents. Take a look at Syrian's examples:

In any case, we need to watch this, especially during the very early turnsets, because if it turns out to be archipelago/archipelago, it's very likely we don't need Astro (barring evil deeds by Gyathaar).

 

[LowtherCastle]

I thought this stuff to be known , from the corresponding war academy article (though this is not quite correct).

If we don't work a commerce tile we generate 10 beakers.
8 capital, 1 city center and 1 which is just there although the commerce screen says we generate 9. So that's what I mean we generate 10 or 11 beakers.

Sry. I did know all of this. I thought you were saying that the "1 which is just there" only comes when we go above 9. Never mind...

 

[Erkon]

...
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.

I've never thought of it, but I checked in WB, and I couldn't detect any hidden resources next to river on the maps. Only two candidate tiles left for us, which doesn't sound promising.

 

[Big Pig]

I've never thought of it, but I checked in WB, and I couldn't detect any hidden resources next to river on the maps. Only two candidate tiles left for us, which doesn't sound promising.

In an unmodified map, copper, iron and horses cannot be on a river tile (or oil or uranium - coal and aluminium are possibilities tho' )

 

[Big Pig]

In any case, we need to watch this, especially during the very early turnsets, because if it turns out to be archipelago/archipelago, it's very likely we don't need Astro (barring evil deeds by Gyathaar).

It is a hand-modified map (which is why there is no "sort of fractal-archipelago" setting in Civ), so all bets are off. If we don't need Astro I would be amazed

 

[LowtherCastle]

Here's a test map with archipelago/archipelago. I think everything's right. Let me know if otherwise.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/58975/Temujin_BC-3970.Civ4SavedGame

 

[klarius]

Here is another test map. For sure not everything is right .
It's a fractal map with some hand archipelagoing. It doesn't require astronomy, but how and when will we find out.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/47447/test-barb_BC-3970.Civ4SavedGame

Edit:
And BTW, I don't think the map is something like a real archipelago.
Gyathaar didn't run into the alphabet crash in his own tests.
That's probably so, because every civ new another civ. In real archi maps there are mostly some civs coming out very late.