SGOTM 06 - Xteam

[ShannonCT]

I use this reference: Great People Tech Preferences

This one is more up to date: Great People Tech Preferences. It includes a key change: Masonry is now higher on the Great Prophet preference list than Civil Service, so it is not feasible to bulb Civil Service anymore.

I suppose this is the one: Hammer Overflow

Very interesting that you can actually generate gold this way.

In one practice game in which I hooked up stone, I built walls until there was one turn remaining. I chopped 5 forests all at once AND whipped one population. I received 700+ gold the next turn. 44 hammers from a forest (with Math) + 200% bonus (with Protective and Stone) = 132 gold per forest. Other production bonuses like a forge or Organized Religion would make the bonus even higher. If we're at a point in the game where we need cash for research more than we need troops, this is going to be a great help. Build a city in a tundra forest, hook it up to stone, chop 5 forests into walls, and then abandon it to the barbs .

 

[Frederiksberg]

Nice trick indeed! And it might be possible to combine this with using the whip heavily in far away captured cities that we plan to abandon to the barbs (or enemies) after whipping it down to pop 1.

I find this War Academy article interesting as well: The Whip

Actually I thought that the trick of letting overflow hammers from whipping go into wonders had been fixed. I wonder if we should use the "worker whip" trick in this game should we decide to go for BW first....

 

[Cactus Pete]

Sorry to be late for the thoughtful discussion. Did not know about the overflow gold trick (exploit?), and it may be critical to success in this game. I'm not sure that I remember exactly how an AW game plays. There is no tech trading. Is it not also the case that you can't extort tech for peace (since there's no peace), and that the AI's do trade among themselves?

I'm thinking that research may be a primary concern [which is why we're given 2 gold resources] and that getting a gold hill mined quickly may be our top initial priority -- which suggests we start building a worker, improve the gold, delay AH, rearch BW first so that our worker will be able to chop (a second worker, a warrior, a settler -- in an order to be determined) while we research to AH (aided by a gold mine), and then get a second gold city up and running. At least we need to test this tactic. I should have time to try one of leif's games tomorrow.

Agree with Frederiksberg that some discussions in our last game were so lengthy that the man with the mouse sometimes failed to execute useful suggestions that were posted early. Highlighting in red may prove helpful, but I'd suggest we also establish the expectation that the player re-reads the thread before posting his plan, waiting for feedback, and proceeding with his turn.

 

[ShannonCT]

I find this War Academy article interesting as well: The Whip

Actually I thought that the trick of letting overflow hammers from whipping go into wonders had been fixed. I wonder if we should use the "worker whip" trick in this game should we decide to go for BW first....

The bug was that one used to be able to let whip overflows go into wonders without the 50% penalty usually leveled against whipping wonders. As I understand it, the article you linked to is talking about storing overflowed hammers in a wonder but not cashing them in until one has a resource that will give a 100% bonus to those stored hammers.

But I like the worker whip suggestion in the article. It actually works out perfectly if one works a grass forest before the border expansion and the bananas after the border expansion. The warrior comes on the same turn as Pop2. Switch to building a worker, revolt to slavery after BW is done, and whip the worker with 45 hammers remaining. The delay in getting the worker is only 2 turns (plus you've already revolted to slavery) and you've got a warrior out of the deal. The 33 food stored for the whip converts to 45 hammers. And the early warrior can go find an AI capital to harass before it can send out a settler.

 

[leif erikson]

Agree with Frederiksberg that some discussions in our last game were so lengthy that the man with the mouse sometimes failed to execute useful suggestions that were posted early. Highlighting in red may prove helpful, but I'd suggest we also establish the expectation that the player re-reads the thread before posting his plan, waiting for feedback, and proceeding with his turn.

Perhaps a way to ensure everything is considered is to make MM'ing part of the turn set plan we agreed to put together before each turn set.

For our new team mates, the process follows:
24 hours to post a "Got it". During this time, team members may express their opinions on the current state of the save and actions we think should occur during the turn set.
24 hours to post a turn set plan, what the mouse holder plans to do.
24 hours to make comments on the plan.
48 hours to complete the turn set.

It actually took less time as we got better at it as things happened continuously, more or less. The reason for 24 hours, really, is the diversity of locations of the team members. Last game we finished in plenty of time, so the extra time for discussion is worth it, imho.

We can always adjust as we play, as we always seem to do.

Comments/suggestions?

 

[Mad Professor]

I lurk, therefore I am.

 

[Mad Professor]

I should also add that at the start of the game, once you have met a civ, they somehow know if your capital is undefended and any scouting warrior/archer they have will make a direct line towards it. There were many embarassing defeats in GOTM22 in the first 15 turns due to this.

Yes - one of those embarrassing very early defeats in GOTM22 was mine. This is critical. The english archer that took Rome in that game could not possibly have seen Rome from outside my culture area yet made a beeline for it, whereas in several tests I played with a unit defending Rome, the enemy didn't bother to enter my cultural area. It just knows.

This was on Vanilla of course, not warlords, but I wouldn't expect the AI to be nicer in this one. We need to consider this if we don't want a very early exit.

 

[DJMGator13]

Gator checking in. I'm located in Central Florida area, so I'm GMT -5. I've been looking forward to this game and helped lure Jimmy Thunder to the team. Now for the bad news - I'm having disk surgery on my neck on the 19th and will be offline for an unknown time period as I recover. I'm hoping it will only be a short time so the January start should be good. The doctor surprised me Tuesday when he told me the surgery date. The overall recovery period is 4 to 6 weeks but they say the first 2 are the worst.

I should have some time to try some of the test games over the weekend. Being that this is an Epic Prince level game and they are suggesting a 4 month deadline are we safe to assume that troop transport will indeed be required?

 

[Cactus Pete]

Being that this is an Epic Prince level game and they are suggesting a 4 month deadline are we safe to assume that troop transport will indeed be required?

That's the obvious implication. Suggest we proceed on that premise until contrary information arises.

Sure hope the surgery is successful and puts an end to your ongoing agony.

 

[AlanH]

4 months is just an arbitrary deadline based on past experience. It's there to concentrate teams' minds on making progress, and in no way reflects any prescience on my part as to how long you might actually need. Fact is, we tend to get through about three games a year.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Well . . . Nevermind.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I'm not sure that I remember exactly how an AW game plays. There is no tech trading. Is it not also the case that you can't extort tech for peace (since there's no peace), and that the AI's do trade among themselves?

We can make no deals with the AI at all and that means no vassals either. The AI will in general be pleased with each other because they share a war for the whole game and that means that they are more likely to trade techs than in a normal game.

I'm thinking that research may be a primary concern [which is why we're given 2 gold resources] and that getting a gold hill mined quickly may be our top initial priority -- which suggests we start building a worker, improve the gold, delay AH, rearch BW first so that our worker will be able to chop (a second worker, a warrior, a settler -- in an order to be determined) while we research to AH (aided by a gold mine), and then get a second gold city up and running. At least we need to test this tactic. I should have time to try one of leif's games tomorrow.

But I like the worker whip suggestion in the article. It actually works out perfectly if one works a grass forest before the border expansion and the bananas after the border expansion. The warrior comes on the same turn as Pop2. Switch to building a worker, revolt to slavery after BW is done, and whip the worker with 45 hammers remaining. The delay in getting the worker is only 2 turns (plus you've already revolted to slavery) and you've got a warrior out of the deal. The 33 food stored for the whip converts to 45 hammers. And the early warrior can go find an AI capital to harass before it can send out a settler.

I think these two suggestions are essentially the same but using the whip will yield some extra hammers we can use for another warrior or for speeding up the first settler. It's clearly an opening I will try in a test game or two. Getting BW early might also enable us to hook up copper with our 2nd city.

Agree with Frederiksberg that some discussions in our last game were so lengthy that the man with the mouse sometimes failed to execute useful suggestions that were posted early. Highlighting in red may prove helpful, but I'd suggest we also establish the expectation that the player re-reads the thread before posting his plan, waiting for feedback, and proceeding with his turn.

Perhaps a way to ensure everything is considered is to make MM'ing part of the turn set plan we agreed to put together before each turn set.

If we agree to highlight MM'ing stuff it will be easier for the mouse holder to collect (copy paste) and post this as a part of the turn set plan. I think we need to make this fairly easy for people to do.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I should have some time to try some of the test games over the weekend. Being that this is an Epic Prince level game and they are suggesting a 4 month deadline are we safe to assume that troop transport will indeed be required?

Don't be fooled by the low difficulty level. This is AW and we will be fighting all AI at the same time and we will no be able to do any tech trade thus making the real difficulty much higher.

I do agree that Astronomy is likely to be required - at least that would make the game more interesting IMO.

Good luck with the surgery!

 

[leif erikson]

As I know what is in the maps I made, I decided to try another exercise. I have been staring at all the blue circles on the starting save screenie and the thought occurred to me that there have to be some pretty good resources around those Gold Hills to make them happen. I have been messing around in World Builder for a while and I don't seem to be able to replicate those circles in that pattern. In fact, I have been unable to make any blue circle on the map move and further, unable to make any new one appear. Even with all the tiles around those gold hills as bonus tiles, nothing will change for me????

Does anyone know what it takes to make the programming re-evaluate the locations of the blue circles? Is there a setting somewhere that I am missing?

Does anyone else think there is any significance to the locations of those blue circles? Implications?

EDIT - My mind may be a bit goofy today anyway. We got about a foot (0.3 meters) of snow last night and I spent my morning clearing it off our 300 foot (100 meter) long driveway.

 

[ShannonCT]

As I know what is in the maps I made, I decided to try another exercise. I have been staring at all the blue circles on the starting save screenie and the thought occurred to me that there have to be some pretty good resources around those Gold Hills to make them happen. I have been messing around in World Builder for a while and I don't seem to be able to replicate those circles in that pattern. In fact, I have been unable to make any blue circle on the map move and further, unable to make any new one appear. Even with all the tiles around those gold hills as bonus tiles, nothing will change for me????

I tried to make the blue circles change as well. They seem completely unaffected by anything you do in WorldBuilder. I assume they are decided based on the initial random map. If Gyathaar made any WorldBuilder modifications to our starting area, the blue circles may be meaningless. I am at least highly opposed to settling on top of a gold hill. My first preference would be to settle on top of the dyes (Calender is far off) and second preference is to settle in place, given what we know now. The grass hill with the blue circle is also a possibility, but it would cost 2 turns to get there for an unknown benefit.

I would be in favor of the first player moving the warrior W or SW in the next few days so that we don't have a two week discussion based on speculation about what lies to the south. If there is something like corn to the south, it will make our decision a lot easier. If other people are also entertaining the idea of settling on the dyes, we might also want to move the settler NW first to reveal what we would miss by not settling in place. This would of course cost us 1 turn.

 

[Cactus Pete]

I would be in favor of the first player moving the warrior W or SW in the next few days so that we don't have a two week discussion based on speculation about what lies to the south. Certainly support this suggestion. Further, I propose that ShannonCT play first. I've tried the whip worker tactic that he advocated in an earlier post, and it works nicely in this set up. If there is something like corn to the south, it will make our decision a lot easier. If other people are also entertaining the idea of settling on the dyes, we might also want to move the settler NW first to reveal what we would miss by not settling in place. This would of course cost us 1 turn.

I've tried settling on the dyes as well, and I think (didn't actually calculate) that it speeds research to BW and eventually to AH by at least three turns, which seems worth the trade off of not being able to build a plantation there later. This figures to be a game very strongly weighted towards early success. My question is: What could the warrior move tell us to make us want to settle differently? What could he find out by moving where that would alter the settlement on the dyes?

I have no idea what's behind the blue circle placement.

 

[leif erikson]

What could he find out by moving where that would alter the settlement on the dyes?

Yes, this is a very good question.

My fog gazing skills are far from legendary, but I think I see either Jungle or Forest east of the southern Gold Hill, a Grass tile to its SE and more jungle to the south of the Warrior. Moving the Warrior SW looks to me like it will reveal the most tiles and in a direction we may wish to see, even if it doesn't affect where we settle. The western river widens out near the bottom of the screenie, wonder if there is salt water nearby?

Settling on the Dyes, seems to me makes a lot of sense for our purposes. I think that makes recon around the northern Gold Hill important, perhaps for a second city to use that hill. That will also depend upon whether we find Copper, or not? The second Gold Hill would help get us to Iron Working faster if we need that.

Ramblings...

 

[Cactus Pete]

Having played leif's test games 2 and 3, I'd like to compare notes with others who have played them. Test 2 was much trickier, because both Izzie and Hanibal attacked London and I had to build extra warriors to defend. I regretted sending my initial warrior exploring so far from home. I'm thinking that warrior exploration beyond potential future city sites might be counterproductive in the beginning, as it introduces us to more AI's sooner. Test 3, on the other hand, only provided Gandhi to deal with (up to 2000BC), and (having decided to keep the initial warrior around) I was able to build second city (and defend it and my improved tiles) in a much more timely manner. The tactic of sending warriors out to keep AI workers from working doesn't seem so well suited to AW games.

I produced a warrior and whipped the first worker in both games, then mined the gold and produced a second worker with the aid of a chop (two excess turns were used to begin farming bananas), getting him as AH was researched so I got cows pastured quickly, then I began another warrior as London expanded to size 2. Next, produced settler as soon as I was able, depending on defensive necessities as mentioned above. Like to hear about others' experiences.

I will try Test 1 as soon as I can.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I haven't had time for any test games yet but I have downloaded the starting save to take a closer look. It seems logical to move south with the settler. Not only can we settle on the dye and gain an extra gold in the city tile but we also get more river tiles inside the fat cross. Only drawback I can see is that we loose one forest. By moving north we loose both banana, dye and river tiles so I don't really consider that an option. Maybe we should move the warrior to the banana tile to find out if it's better to settle 1E or 1SE. Together with the dye tile and the start tile those are the only tiles that give us 4 of the visible resources in the fat cross.

I think it's a good idea if ShannonCT starts us off by moving the warrior. I suggest we move him NE and if nothing shows up we settle on the dyes. Maybe the best sequence is to first move the settler 1S and then move the warrior 1NE or 1W depending on what the settler reveals. I agree with leif that the river is widening to the SW indicating that we are near the ocean. I think I see ocean 1W of the northern gold hill as well.

Btw. if you don't have the HOF mod installed you can find it here: HOF Mod

 

[leif erikson]

I think it's a good idea if ShannonCT starts us off by moving the warrior.

I believe that whoever will lead us off should be the one to move the Warrior. As I understand the upload system, we cannot upload another 4000 BC save. Therefore, whoever moves the Warrior should also play the first turn set.

I was thinking about asking you if you wished the first turn set Frederiksberg?