SGOTM 05 - Trash Team

[stuge]

I am on the same lines with Cabert. Here's the opening I used in my testing.
- We can afford to scout a turn or two at the start for the best city site
- Build warriors while growing to size two, then a settler
- Research mining and BW, switch to slavery
- Whip the settler one turn remaining and apply overflow to worker
- Then towards AH and wheel

Otherwise I found out that the barbs pretty much amounted to nothing. Also, rushing a close neighbour with galleys and chariots is quite doable, as long as you have patience to attack only the smaller cities and not the capital.

 

[cabert]

I am on the same lines with Cabert. Here's the opening I used in my testing.
- We can afford to scout a turn or two at the start for the best city site
- Build warriors while growing to size two, then a settler
- Research mining and BW, switch to slavery
- Whip the settler one turn remaining and apply overflow to worker
- Then towards AH and wheel

Otherwise I found out that the barbs pretty much amounted to nothing. Also, rushing a close neighbour with galleys and chariots is quite doable, as long as you have patience to attack only the smaller cities and not the capital.

I waited to get to keshiks before rushing a neighbour, but it was really easy to do so (only 1 or 2 archers defending even the capital)

 

[remconius]

Let me try to summarize the results from the test games:

Barbarians in the early game are pretty useless, thus we’ll be playing option 1, which is our own game, trying to win by ourselves. We should try to leverage barbarian support.

Barbarians will help us with
1-Technology – Free technologies allows us to beeline, gaps will be filled by barbarians. And research is sped up sometimes.
2-Exploration – Knowing the world in an archipelago map is very useful. I am not sure if circumnavigation is possible with barbarians on the team.
3-Easy early game without barbarians – This is our greatest benefit. We can send out settlers and workers without any risk. We should really take advantage of this.

They will hurt us in
-War weariness
-Diplomacy
Not sure how big these problems will be.

Research
I think there is a general consensus to beeline to BW first.
After that we can go for:
-AH (pigs/horses) > HBR (Keshiks)
-Fishing > Sailing (galleys)
-Wheel > Pottery (for cottage spamming to fund early expansion and warfare)
-Iron working (Swordsmen)

Diplomacy
Staying at war – AI will be annoyed by barbarian archers and axes.
Signing peace – This does not spawn a large number of barbarians. Barbarians seem to work on a replacement basis so as more useless warriors get killed, axes might spawn.
Either case the AI will not send out unescorted settlers, so peace will not help them expand any faster.
For the early we stay at war so barbarians can do their pillaging and explore borders of the AI. After a few turnsets we can decide if we start signing peace deals

Build order
-Few warriors.
-Then Workers and Settlers.

Wonders
-Colossus
-Pyramids

Religion
If we can capture a religious capital, it will support our income. With our war focus we I doubt we can get one ourselves.

Strategy
Our goal is earliest victory…

Thus an early strategy with galleys and Keshiks will get us quite far. We will have to raze a lot of cities to keep finance in balance. Keshiks rule in the early game as they tear archers up and dont have terrain penalty.

Please comment and I’ll post the first screenie (after scout moved) tonight.

 

[cabert]

A few more general ideas (not thoroughly tested) :
- I have the feeling that barbs "autofog bust", meaning that they never get to pile up enough units to do any actual harm. This means I don't think researching HBR or IW fast will have any effect. Thus I suggest mining>BW>fishing>sailing as tech path. This will give the barbs a large number of galleys which is great to make the seas ours.
- I played quite long and didn't see a barb city spamming. I guess this is linked to the "autofog bust". OTOH I didn't raze a lot of cities. Maybe someone could test a total razing feast and see if the barbs settle or not?
Without any further testing on this issue, I suggest we go for domination and don't raze any cities.
Why this?
- because the way it works, the dead AIs don't help our research, while the barely alive AIs do.
- because with enough cities, you can build large amount of galleys and keshiks, and later catapults which are all you need to take cities. Production is low on this map. More so for the AIs which will face seafood pillaging from our allies .
- because we can sue for peace with the mostly harmless civs as soon as it feels right, and redeclare later without second thoughts because nobody will like us anyway.
- because we don't need to fund a lot more research than construction. Anything beyond this point is just icing on the cake.

 

[remconius]

A few more general ideas (not thoroughly tested) :
- I have the feeling that barbs "autofog bust", meaning that they never get to pile up enough units to do any actual harm. This means I don't think researching HBR or IW fast will have any effect. Thus I suggest mining>BW>fishing>sailing as tech path. This will give the barbs a large number of galleys which is great to make the seas ours.

Agreed

Without any further testing on this issue, I suggest we go for domination and don't raze any cities. .

Can we continue to conquer the world indefinitely? Will captured cities pay for maintenance?

Why this?
- because the way it works, the dead AIs don't help our research, while the barely alive AIs do..

I think less AIs also lower the threshold. The barbarians might get a tehc when 75% (not sure about exact %) of the AI has it. With 8 player this mean threshold is 6, with four players the threshold is 3....

Thus backward AI will reduce barbarian tech rate.

- because with enough cities, you can build large amount of galleys and keshiks, and later catapults which are all you need to take cities. Production is low on this map. More so for the AIs which will face seafood pillaging from our allies ..

Never tried this, can we keep conquest up given increasing maintenance costs for our not so cash strong civ?

- because we can sue for peace with the mostly harmless civs as soon as it feels right, and redeclare later without second thoughts because nobody will like us anyway.
- because we don't need to fund a lot more research than construction. Anything beyond this point is just icing on the cake.

True, we dont need money for science, but I am unsure about maintenance, will test it tonight, after I post the screenie.

 

[cabert]

Can we continue to conquer the world indefinitely? Will captured cities pay for maintenance?

hard to tell, but we're not talking about a pangea, so you won't be capturing 10 cities in 20 turns.
We should try to get the colossus at some point to help funding the cities.

I think less AIs also lower the threshold. The barbarians might get a tehc when 75% (not sure about exact %) of the AI has it. With 8 player this mean threshold is 6, with four players the threshold is 3....

Thus backward AI will reduce barbarian tech rate.

interesting, didn't think of that
Here is what I suggest then :
- tech path = MINING>BW>FISHING (for free hopefully)>SAILING>THE WHEEL (for free hopefully)>AGRI (for free hopefully)>AH > POTTERY >WRITING > HBR(earlier maybe?) >ALPHABET > MATHEMATICS > CONSTRUCTION
end of needed research, good things to get for peace after that : currency, CoL, monarchy,
MC can be researched at this point, to try for the colossus.

Never tried this, can we keep conquest up given increasing maintenance costs for our not so cash strong civ?

Not really sure, but we can stop this if we start gaining cities that don't pay for themselves (including the trade routes).

We will need to use something to get money. Maybe we could raze all cities below size 4 and pillage all the corresponding tiles to avoid bankrupcy. Growing is a priority. We will need population to
1) work commerce tiles
2) reduce the troops upkeep cost.

True, we dont need money for science, but I am unsure about maintenance, will test it tonight, after I post the screenie.

Maintenance from cities will hurt soon, but more population will allow more troops.
I guess we need to capture some happiness resources soon enough, to grow our cities bigger.

 

[remconius]

More or less agree with the tech tree, but think we should focus on HBR sooner:
1.MINING>BW>
2.FISHING >SAILING>
3.AH (pigs) > HBR >
4.THE WHEEL > POTTERY >
5.WRITING >ALPHABET > MATHEMATICS > CONSTRUCTION >
(Agri /archery/mysticism for free)
We could do 4 before 3 or even before 2 to start cottages as soon as possible.

City setup:
Lets try to build/conquer a compact base consisting of cities that will probably never grow bigger than 10 with:
Commerce cities:
A food tile for growth and lots of grassland/coast to support commerce.
Production cities
Enough food tiles to support hills/workshops to get reasonable production.

EDIT: These cities can be placed quite compact as they'll never outgrow 10, depending on the land of course.

After we start conquering we can add more cities to build units or support commerce. Other cities should be razed.

After we have 10? 15? cities we should continue conquering and razing what we encounter. This will limit city maintenance.

If we try to take the world in one fell swoop, we should make sure we can get everywhere on galleys and are not hindered by ocean :O We'd have to turn science back on trying to get astronomy... Well should be able to reach 65% for domination.

 

[cabert]

Sounds good for a start.
We'll see how it goes, and adjust later if needed.

 

[remconius]

What I'll try tonight is a quick test of the strategy.

That means I'll start the test map (which is a scenario), but put it to quick speed. This way it should give some indication on how far we can go.

I'll post the save for others if they want to try.

 

[remconius]

Turn 1:

I suggest we move one more turn to see what is in the sea. Then settle in current location if nothing is revealed.

 

[patagonia]

Scout 1W, 1NE in that case will reveal the most coast tiles.

I think conquest will be the quickest route to the win here. Most of our production will likely come from the whip, depriving us of caste system which would help any captured city pay for itself via merchants. We'll be able to afford a bigger army if we keep fewer cities and will have to tech further to afford an empire big enough for domination.

If this were to be played like an AW game, the best option would be to completely kill one AI before moving on to the next. Crippled AIs will hinder our barb-powered teching since they'll fall way behind on tech making era-jumps take longer to achieve. Dead ones shouldn't count so we'll tech at the pace of the quickest.

 

[remconius]

Settler can still move on turn 1, so I could move the settler 1N, and the scout sw, s on the next turn.

 

[patagonia]

Settler can still move on turn 1, so I could move the settler 1N, and the scout sw, s on the next turn.

Moving the settler 1N uses up that turn though. If moving the scout first can reveal enough to make the decision on settling in place or not, then the capital will be up and running slightly sooner.

 

[remconius]

Ay, but we are still in the first turn, scout moved, settler has not...

 

[remconius]

Going to bed early today, couldnt wait for more feedback. Founded Karakorum after nothing of value was found:

 

[Cam_H]

Here is what I suggest then :
- tech path = MINING>BW>FISHING (for free hopefully)>SAILING>THE WHEEL (for free hopefully)>AGRI (for free hopefully)>AH > POTTERY >WRITING > HBR(earlier maybe?) >ALPHABET > MATHEMATICS > CONSTRUCTION
end of needed research, good things to get for peace after that : currency, CoL, monarchy,
MC can be researched at this point, to try for the colossus.

Cabert's path seems very sensible to me, although Alphabet before Maths or Construction will be situation dependent I suspect ... if we're after peace, then 'yes' to earlier Alphabet for technology extortion.

I would like to propose that we pursue Metal Casting for everything it offers.

I'd less firmly suggest Drama for Theatres - border pops (land area) and happiness (population) are both worthwhile for Domination wins ... provided we go down that path (refer. Patagonia's view for Conquest). I guess that these test games will highlight whether Domination or Conquest is the better option. Then there's also Literature for the Heroic Epic ...

I'd also like us to think about the consequence of (a.) not having Copper, (b.) having Stone, and (c.) having Marble, in close proximity to our capital. I am assuming that Horses will be around somewhere ... they wouldn't do that to us, surely?!

Remco - thanks again for the 'next' test game. Lack of is an issue with the start - but there's no real apparent alternative. Looks like it could be 'Whip Central'!

 

[cabert]

Wow, looks like we will build a galley before a settler here.
lots of jungle down there

 

[pigswill]

I've played a few turns in the test game. i was amazed at how slowly we were researching. I'm wondering if we should go fishing-sailing-wheel-pottery and get some cottages running. I'd as soon have barbs spawining galleys as axes to keep AI from finding each other (and us).

 

[cabert]

I've played a few turns in the test game. i was amazed at how slowly we were researching. I'm wondering if we should go fishing-sailing-wheel-pottery and get some cottages running. I'd as soon have barbs spawining galleys as axes to keep AI from finding each other (and us).

the fact that we start without techs is a huge penalty
then again, we gain a few techs for free later
I found that it was hopeless to try for the oracle or pyramids (except if we have stone somewhere, and even then I'm not sure), ut later on, we can keep pressure on the AIs if we don't sue for peace too soon.

 

[remconius]

Not much happened so the turn report is short. Instead I spent some time to make nice maps

After founding the capital I started a worker and researching mining. When mining came in, Bronze Working was started. As Karakorum grew to 2 the warrior was ready. Worker started and will be ready 1 turn before BW.

The rest of this my turnset was used to discover our island. We have 7 food resources (2 banana, 2 clams, 2 rice and the pigs), we also have Gold, 4 dye and Stone!

Spoiler :

The barbarians did a good job discovering the world.

It consists of one large continent with 4 opponents and 4 sepereate islands with us, Qin, Saladin and Alexander.

As it looks now we can only reach Saladin and nobody else (sounds like Gyathaar). We need astronomy...

I also noticed Barbarians seem to be more abundant (21 animals on my closing turn). I put the number of barbarians per island on the map below. They seem to favour continents, which explains the lack in the test game...

Spoiler :

My thoughts
-Our strategy needs to include a way to get Astronomy asap.
-With stone, the pyramids are an option.
-With more barbarians, it seems we can makre more use than in the test game. I am curious to see how many axes will appear.
-While we are busy getting astronomy, we can direct the barbarians to attack one at a time. Peace with 3, war with one... Then on to the next

Going to brood on a dotmap....

Roster

Remconius (just played)
Pigswill UP (25 turns)
Cam_H Or Stuge(depending on when weekend comes, 20 turns)
cabert (15 Turns)
patagonia (15 Turns)

EDIT:
SAVE can be interesting and useful