SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

[LowtherCastle]

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.

Ha! Woe to the uninitiated. I wonder how many other secrets he inadvertantly revealed. (Or myabe he didn't run enough testing...?)

Started testing last night. First impression:

• agonizingly slow research
• no hammers, low food -- does this beg for cottages or what?
• AIs' first tech choices totally unpredictably
• Qin is going to be a bit hard to catch tech-wise
• Our free beakers don't help much for a long time.

My testing priorities:

• Where are the AIs at when our bee-lined axes are ready to attack?
• How much better is bee-lined cottages?

 

[Big Pig]

• Klarius's and LC's map play quite differently. Klarius's map has a quicker tech pace (presumably because the AI know each other) and faster WW (presumably because there is more room for barbs to spawn and all the AI can be attacked by barbs).
• Settling 1N of the bananas seems to give the best start in terms of growth and tech speed (as the 3F 1G banana is workable immediately and farmable on the turn the worker is built) (It is less good as a capital site later on than the original position - but we may well want to consider a Palace-jump anyway)
• Hammer count is awful - but there is little we need to build with hammers.
• I never needed (or wanted) to work the pigs (as they give no commerce)
• BW beeline seems better than Pottery beeline - predominantly because it enables early chops and whip use for getting out settlers (Edit: I did Agr=Min>BW vs Agr>Wheel>Pott. I haven't tried Min>BW yet)
• BW is gettable in ~BC 2500s (2590BC earliest in my attempts) by working only river tiles (farmed when possible) for the commerce, which minimises the gap between barbs appearing and barb axes being available
• After BW, beeline to Pottery>Writing seems to work well(ish) with river tiles being converted to cottages
• WW happens at size 5 , limiting our effective tile-working pop in our capital to 4 (less with whip unhappiness)
• Most whips should be 2 pop whips because of this
• Getting peace with a couple of AIs does not really affect WW - so it seems better to stay at war and live with the WW. The barbs not uncommonly get lucky and capture or raze AI cities
• After initial worker, a warrior is necessary build to ward off WDMP unhappies
• On K's map we realise quite soon that we don't need Astro (way before it becomes an issue in tech choices)

 

[LowtherCastle]

Game mechanics question: It seems to me that culture does not expand onto deep ocean tiles, at least sometimes. Is that true or am I weird? (no, BP, both is not an acceptable answer)

 

[LowtherCastle]

@BP, excellent stuff.

• Do you have any other dates for tech completions in your two versions?
• Were Barb axes responsible for captured/razed AI cities?

That WW speaks for cottages rather than farms with limited growth.
Poprushing speaks for farms over cottages...

Maybe the land mass to the NE provides us our hammers. Is that arctic forest?

 

[Big Pig]

It is however the correct answer I'm afraid
(just so you don't get offended as I know you Yanks have no sense of humour (or humor) I've added a smilie as recommended in the directives)

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm afraid

What are you Brits always so afraid of...?

 

[klarius]

WW can be quite a bit worse .
I tried a totally peaceful start with AH and pottery before BW. I ended it up with 2 unhappy faces from WW at size 4 . And nobody would make peace at this time.
I think we cannot afford to stay at war with all. War weariness adds up from all and will then get even worse when we go to war ourselves.
Better have some of the barb generated (very slowly) vanish before we get really involved.

I prefer worker->grow to 2->settler. this works about the same with agri/mining->BW as with mining BW (1 chop + 1 pop for settler). I just hope that there is somewhere a decent city site. But we should now that soonish.

 

[Big Pig]

@BP, excellent stuff.

• Do you have any other dates for tech completions in your two versions? I concentrated mainly on Klarius's version as I suspect the real thing will be more like that (without the copper deposit that K kindly left in the fat cross). In your map BW came in with the Agr/Min>BW strat in 2440BC. In K's, wheel came in in ~2380BC, and Writing in 1360BC. (edit)Beelining Pottery got BW in 1930. It will of course be different each time you try it as it depends on what the AI research
• Were Barb axes responsible for captured/razed AI cities?

The earlier barb axemen came, the more AI cities seemed to fall. In 1 game the barbs wiped out Saladin. The screenshot below is another nice example of what we expect from out barbs....​

That WW speaks for cottages rather than farms with limited growth.
Poprushing speaks for farms over cottages... With a happy cap of 4, rapid growth is not really too essential (esp once we get a granary)

I've played around with Min>BW>Agr (and Warr>Worker - whipped at pop 2) settling in the original spot. This seems a good choice too with BW in ~2770 (before barbs appear) and writing in 1360, but IIRC I was able to get 2 rather than 1 settler out in the Agr/Min>BW start. Anyway, everyone needs to play around and see what they think

(yes we do get the free obelisks if barbs get SH )

 

[Big Pig]

One problem I did find during my test games is that having built a library I was unable to assign any scientist specialists (I could assign citizen 'specialists'). Is this expected?

Should we flag this - or let other teams find out the hard way?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I don't know the optimal logic yet, but there are some very interesting factors we're playing with here, balancing WW with AI pillaging, and our REXing with our research rates. We need to figure it out now, because I'm sick of "seeing the light" halfway through the game.

If the barbs can take out 1 AI early, that we help our free beakers a lot, as klarius opinted out earlier.

 

[LowtherCastle]

One problem I did find during my test games is that having built a library I was unable to assign any scientist specialists (I could assign citizen 'specialists'). Is this expected?
Should we flag this - or let other teams find out the hard way?

robably something to do with being on teh barb team. Plus, we need to test for Caste Systems in that case. Good to know in advance. Furthermore we should test if we get any GPPs from wonders while we're at it.

 

[Big Pig]

One problem I did find during my test games is that having built a library I was unable to assign any scientist specialists (I could assign citizen 'specialists'). Is this expected?
View attachment 156728

Ok - this is looking really weird. I played around in WB and added a forge, market and theatre to size 3 Karak - still no specialists allowed.

I then added a temple (and a religion) - I can make priest specialists only

I then added a pop point to Karak making it size 4 - can now make priests and artists

Size 5 - priests, artists, scientists

Size 6 - ditto plus merchants

Size 7 - all specialists can now be made

WTH!!!??

 

[LowtherCastle]

Very useful info, BP. How about with caste systems?

this is going to be very tricky with WW and any pop caps.

Maybe speaks for Hered Rule.

 

[klarius]

One problem I did find during my test games is that having built a library I was unable to assign any scientist specialists (I could assign citizen 'specialists'). Is this expected?

Played a little around. Seems to be a problem with the specialist stacker mod. Disabling it fixes it for me, as well as switching city automisation on and off several times.

 

[Big Pig]

Played a little around. Seems to be a problem with the specialist stacker mod. Disabling it fixes it for me, as well as switching city automisation on and off several times.

Yes - that does the trick

 

[LowtherCastle]

What does that mean exactly?

 

[Big Pig]

What does that mean exactly?

Specialist stacker is one of the options on the HoF mod (HoF2 tab on the options menu) - I had the box ticked when I experienced the above problem. Unticking it resolved the problem

 

[Erkon]

Please PM gyathaar about the specialists asap. Else he will get into trouble and have to spend a lot of time to sort things out.

 

[Erkon]

Perhaps we should request a team name change to "Sorry sods". How come half of the team is posting a Friday night? Get a life you miserable scum! At least I expect you to be drunk by now...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Perhaps we should request a team name change to "Sorry sods". How come half of the team is posting a Friday night? Get a life you miserable scum! At least I expect you to be drunk by now...

You get on your magic carpet and go rescue Gnejs from his wanton life of family misery.