SGOTM 07 - Fifth Element

[greatbeyond]

Finally back to my PC and I'll add results of what my experiences were with several tests. The strategy first, then a post on general map characteristics.

Military strategy - I tried this first, including worker steals. With Copper in our BFC and going for mining first, I stole workers to chop more Axemen. As fast as I produced them I still fell behind and was able to eliminate 2 Civs, after that it became impossible to keep up and other Civs settled the areas that I cleared. This made them stronger. I stopped in here because it did not seem possible to pull of a military victory. It also does not seem that a Conquest or Domination will be possible without a PA. I believe PA isn't available until much later in the Tech tree. Perhaps if you were able to get a "generation of Military units" ahead, you might be able to accomplish this.

Worker steals - I first tried this with an adjacent neighbor and was successful, until they eventually overwhelmed me with numbers.

I then sent my starting Warrior off to steal a worker from a Civ that was on the other side of my neighbors, hoping that they wouldn't have open borders and thus insulate me from them. I managed to get a worker (or 2) most of the time, however if this wasn't done quickly, border expansions meant I couldn't get those workers home right away. Half the time they were killed along with my Warrior. Success for this would rely on getting (or and adjacent Civ) Writing early enough to get our captives back to our land. An interesting thing I found was that if border expansions displace your units, they will be transported to the closest unclaimed space or enemy space.

Culture Strategy - I wasn't sure if you could get a Cultural win with just one city. My experience seems to indicate this is not possible. I made as rapid tech advances as possible using a specialist economy and getting ahead of the other Civs allowing me to get many wonders built before they could even start the research. I ended up with probably 60 - 80% of all the wonders ( in my best test) and passed the 50,000 culture mark. Much to my disappointment there wasn't any victory screen. Perhaps with PA this may be possible. I guess it would entail picking the right Civ and letting them get some of the wonders. One benefit to being culture rich was having my border expand to autoraze nearby cities and eventually come to within 1 tile of 2 enemy Capitals.

Diplo was probably the strategy I thought would work so I rushed hard to get the UN built first. Many of the Civs were several techs behind me, and I gifted lavishly to get their vote. I came close on several votes. One of the problems was that the other continent who went for the challenger, (higher Pop?) had enough votes to deny me the win. I certainly think this type of win is possible by someone who really knows how to tweak the vote.

Space - I didn't even try this as I didn't think it could be done with one city and didn't even think about using a PA. I believe what is being said is that if your PA partner gets the spaceship launched first, you win as well?

 

[greatbeyond]

General Map notes - Resources seem to be in great abundance. Obviously from the SS we don't have cows, nor will they appear close enough "out of the fog" to be used. AH does not appear to be a priority unless we need it to follow our chosen tech path. It also doesn't appear we will have horses, based on my tests. Border expansions may get us some resources we don't start with. I did not get a map created with more than 2 continents, (or any islands). Has anyone else?

Strategy notes - IF we are not going to war early, we could start a Warrior right away and as soon as Fishing is researched, we start a WB, even if the Warrior is not finished, (but within 1 or 2 turns). The reason for this is that without early open borders, our warrior will only be able to explore for a few turns before he is hemmed in and most AIs will find us before we get to them. Until we get Open Borders or can trade techs, contact is not a necessity. I did not have any early DOWs in any of my tests, when I kept a Warrior in the Capital.
One of the biggest early issues was Health not allowing growth.
We should not waste time on any Religion, IMO, as one of the AIs is likely to discover it first and the religion of our neighbors will spread to us rather quickly. In most of my tests, each continent has it's own main religion. Until "No State Religion" comes along our continent will probably be united under either Buddhism or Hinduism.
With both Stone and Marble and our Civ traits, we should be able to get any wonder we prioritize. Early Wonders were difficult to get, unless prioritized, right from the start. Later Wonders weren't nearly as hard to get.
What seemed to work best for me, no matter what eventual win I went for, was an emphasis on rapid research and getting the Great Library as well as any other Research enhancing Tech/building/civic.
In one game I rushed to Optics to get Caravels, hoping to be the first to make contact with the other continent, and use it to pick up any Techs I didn't have cheaply. It turns out I was not the first (but close), though this probably could have been accomplished with better research management.

I believe we should settle in place, then stop and reassess what is in our BFC, as well as whatever is revealed by exploration. Then we should proceed one turn at a time for a while, unless nothing new is revealed. Each Civ that is revealed may indicate what our research should be or if we have "aggressive" neighbors and need to build our military.

 

[MacBalt]

Finally back to my PC

Welcome Back! I agree that diplomacy seems the right way to go. Great summary of our strategic options. Thanks!

I did not get a map created with more than 2 continents, (or any islands). Has anyone else?

Nope. Been using your test map the whole time. I'd really like to try whatever strategy we select on one or two additional maps. Any chance we could coax you into preparing one or two more of those?

What seemed to work best for me, no matter what eventual win I went for, was an emphasis on rapid research...

The more I play the more I agree with this. It IS possible to keep up on tech and even get ahead, but only if we don't let ourselves get distracted by anything else.

I believe we should settle in place, then stop and reassess what is in our BFC, as well as whatever is revealed by exploration. Then we should proceed one turn at a time for a while, unless nothing new is revealed. Each Civ that is revealed may indicate what our research should be or if we have "aggressive" neighbors and need to build our military.

Agreed.

 

[WastinTime]

Culture wins can be done and require a PA for 3 cities. This would be a great plan if this was on BTS. The AI does culture much better there. I think we should forget it on vanilla.

Space Race w/PA is by far the fastest way to do Space. It may be the only choice we have if we can't get the voting to work out for Diplo. The good news is, if we waste time working on the UN, trying to get the votes and fail, it really doesn't slow us down on the space race. The finish date there is determined by how big/fast the top AI civ is. I'd call this our plan B.

 

[MacBalt]

Given the posts by Sweetacshon, Merum, & GreatBeyond I thought I'd give a Pyramids game a closer look. My notes are attached. I won't claim this was the best possible Pyramids game, but I think it is good enough to give us some details to focus our discussions around.

Highlights:
Tech Path: Fishing, Masonry, Wheel, BW, AH, Writing, Alphabet
Build Order: worker (part), WB, worker (finish), WB, warrior, Pyramids, Library
Pyramids completes on turn 46 (popup on 47)
Library completes on turn 51
First Great Person on turn 63 (but I got an Engineer! -on low %)
Writing completes on turn 45 (late exploration...)
Alphabet completes on turn 60 (...only met 4 AI, only 1 needs writing)
Trades:
(t61) Writing got me hunting and Mysticism
(t65+) Alphabet still traded well, incl: IW, Math, & most low techs)

Things I Liked:
Got the Pyramids with no problem.
Worker completes on turn 17, and didn't spend any time doing nothing.
Stone, Marble, & Copper all connected by turn 48.
Bronze Working on turn 31.
No early DOW trouble (so far as I could tell).
Decent Alphabet trades still possible.
Great Person is still relatively early on turn 63.

Things I Didn't Like:
Popped a GE instead of a GS (despite low % chance of that), so...
Chance of losing the early Academy.
Late Writing means less exploration and fewer AI for trades.
Only 1 AI still needed writing, so must trade Alpha to keep tech parity.
--- (Can't withhold Alphabet to open tech lead on AIs.)

Some Thoughts:
This came out better than I was expecting. I still favor the "Beeline to Alphabet" plan though for four important reasons. (1) It retains a 100% chance of getting a Great Scientist and an academy, without which I don't think we can maintain tech parity for long, let alone any kind of tech lead. (2) It allows us a greater chance to meet more AI fast and trade Writing while withholding Alphabet, which gives us a head start on the AI and a better chance of getting to Civil Service faster and learning Liberalism first, which, I think, makes a fast Diplomatic Victory much more possible. I also think our trading options will be better after withholding alphabet in the "Alphabet Game" than they are with the more or less "forced" alphabet trades around turns 60-70 in the "Pyramids Game." (3) Being able to trade first Writing and then either Alphabet or subsequently learned techs like Literature or Drama will create better relations with a wider number of AI leaders, thus again paving the path better for an early Diplomatic Victory. (4) Missing the Pyramids hurts, but given the fast tech pace I think I'd rather chop our forests for later wonders like the Great Library, Notre Dame, and maybe the Hanging Gardens if health becomes a problem. In the end, I'm just not sure the Pyramids are worth all the fuss.

What do y'all think? I'm perfectly willing to be convinced. This game did come out far better than I expected, at least. Anyone want to suggest a better build order or tech path?

My Game Notes
"Pyramid Game" notes & "Alphabet Game" notes side by side in a vertical (& more readable, I hope) format.

 

[Sweetacshon]

Holy smoke! (insert iron maiden riff here) That's alot of chat when you don't come in for 24 hrs. I think I'm going to go back and read it all again.

Briefly, the points made about skipping the mids are valid, typically I would get (go for) them every time, but the food/hammer situation dictates that scientists might not be the way to go in the early-mid game. I could go either way, but it sounds like more of us want to skip it, so that's fine with me. Other early wonders are the oracle (already given up on this), parthenon (was mentioned a while ago, but nobody seems interested; is it worth the trouble? +50% GPP good, GA points bad), and HG (worth the hammers for +1 pop and +1 health? GE points bad). That being said, the parthenon and HG would go a bit later, and we could probably have the library and GS done by the time we build it. It's something to ponder.

I agree about playing 1 turn, settling, moving the warrior southish, and stoipping to talk more. No need to upload the save to the sgotm server, of course.

edit: Handwritten notes, Balth? That's dedication!
edit 2: I see we're outranking the ludicrously verbose Murky Waters for posts this time. Nice work, team.

 

[Merum]

A couple of cons I noticed from my pyramids game...

Getting the mids seriously tipped the scales in favor of GEs for me in this game. In fact, all of my GPs ended up being GEs, which was not entirely useful to me in any way. I still got to alphabet first, but was only really able to trade it for "catch-up" techs and the only significant deal I got out of that imo was Mathematics. Without the science boost of an academy, I quickly fell behind in tech again.

Additionally, at least in our test game, I developed serious health problems around size 10, and consequently I think that skipping the mids in favor of other wonders might be a better plan. I think it may be better to prioritize on the GL and HG as early wonders. There's no way we're going to get the Oracle, and I'm dubious about the Parthenon as well. Unless there's more food than is what's visible so that we can grow quickly enough to whip out wonders, I'm afraid we're just going to have to choose which ones we're going to try for. Getting the mids seems to almost preclude getting any others.

I didn't go for a worker steal, and I question the value of doing so here. In my opinion, there's not much land to be worked, and weighed against the value of stealing somebody's worker and pissing them off early, I'm not sure it's a good idea. If we do this, we have to shift resources to military production that could go to early science instead, just to have an extra idle worker or two when everything gets built out, which will happen fairly rapidly in an OCC. Also, on deity, I'm not sure losing the early worker has that much impact on the AI.

Bottom line for me is, if we can't keep up in tech to be able to build modern units, I think we come out on the stinky end of the stick fairly consistently.

 

[WastinTime]

If we get a GE 3rd or 4th, that's OK. We can use that for the UN. But getting it first would be disasterous.

 

[MacBalt]

edit: Handwritten notes, Balth? That's dedication!

As you remember, one of our esteemed rivals had a go at me in the SGOTM06 thread. I'd love to repay the compliment on the results page this time. Even making him check his rear-view mirror a little too often would feel like a victory to me. (Never say never, Sweetacshon )

Thought of some other things about my test games too. For one, there is no guarantee we'll get copper in our BFC. The copper played no role in the "Alphabet" game, but was not insignificant in the "Pyramids" game. While I think it is likely that we'll discover either copper or iron in our BFC, it could easily be iron, and that would slow us down compared to the test. For another, if we are able to withhold Alphabet for a while, we might be able to selectively trade it only to the AIs that look friendly, thus helping our potential allies in a Diplomatic Game also to get a bit of a leg up on our mutual rivals.

I agree with what Merum said about the later wonders we might want to go for. I also agree that Great Engineers won't always be something we'll want to avoid, but as WastinTime indicated, we don't want to get one first.

 

[Sweetacshon]

Yep. Ok, I'm sold. First wonder is the GLib, followed by THG? (maybe even just for a cash boost) Btw, when is the initial save out?

 

[BLubmuz]

Trying to resume all the stuff above:
1) Pyramids can be built, but at the expenses of early trades and the Academy.
2) Beelining for a library/academy opens early trades and early OB, also gives our science a good boost.

I'm trying to put some numbers:
- 11 gold from improved furs and 2 crabs, and at least 1 scientist: academy will give us 6 or 7 beakers;
- 2 scientists with representation will give us +6 beakers, but since we need GSs to try to keep science parity, pyramids can pollute.

for the happy problems we can build some unit and adopt HR, building some unit will also avoid us to be considered too weak.

We can go for literature right after alpha, and try the GLib, or if we see that all the known AIs lack Alpha, we can go for MC, to build our cheap forge.

Opening: there's a blue circle right close to the warrior. I don't think we'll see nothing worth to loose 3 turns (and in normal speed) and better than our position, but i think the best thing is to send the warrior there, save, close and upload the SS.
I can bet the now hidden BFC is all grassland forest, without any strategic resource: usually the resources under a forest are silk or spices, but you'll never know what the Evil Viking can do.

The starting save should be in 24th (3 days).

I don't think it will be easy for the AIs, in a so crowded map to settle more than 3 cities.
Some case from the test games can be interesting.

 

[WastinTime]

11 gold from improved furs and 2 crabs, and at least 1 scientist: academy will give us 6 or 7 beakers;

You're forgetting the 1 for the city square and the 8 for the palace. Academy is +10 minimum.

 

[dutchfire]

How about the Colossus? Cheap and easy to get, if we can trade for Metal Casting. I think early Metal Casting for the forge is a good idea, although it will hurt our health. (-1 food for 25% hammers is a good tradeoff though). It gives Great Merchant points, which isn't bad.

I'd rate the GPs like this:
1. GS
2. GE
3. GM
4. GP
way behind
5. GA

 

[WastinTime]

I rate them GS, GA, GE (but only 1)...way behind GM, GP.

GA's can bulb Radio and Mass Media. What do you like about GM?

Colossus is obsolete almost before it gets built.

 

[culdeus]

I think it's obvious to say this, but so much will depend on what's in the FC after settling the city. Perhaps something else good is in the fog. Certainly the blue dot below indicates something decent is to the south. A one turn settle, move, hold and a better re-creation of the area for a test game will really help out.

 

[dutchfire]

I rate them GS, GA, GE (but only 1)...way behind GM, GP.

GA's can bulb Radio and Mass Media. What do you like about GM?

Colossus is obsolete almost before it gets built.

GMs give extra food, which I rate as quite good. Then again, on a speedy game like this, lightbulbing is probably better.

 

[BLubmuz]

I agree with WT about the GPs, and i already posted something about GAs on this thread .

So WT, since we must choose: Pyramids or GS for Academy?
I'd like to see your definitive opinion on this, i'm slightly for Academy, especially if we manage the GLib, we can always try a GE with the forge and give a shot to the HG (i suspect we need more turns for the aqueduct than for the HG itself).

And Culdeus is right: send the warrior to the blue circle, save, wait and if is worth the effort update the test game to reproduce what we'll see.

Edit:
i'd like to see if Sabre is around, he seemed interested...

Time zones:
I suppose all our new members are in GMT -5, am i correct?
I am in GMT +1 (maybe +2, we're running the "summer hour").

 

[WastinTime]

I'm GMT-8, California. Need more time on Pyramids. Normally, we'd have no chance to get it, but with Industrial and Stone it seems a shame to miss it.

 

[WastinTime]

Actually, we don't have stone unless we get wheel.

 

[Merum]

Depending on what day it is, I'm either in GMT +9 (Japan) or GMT - 5 (US CDT) Either way it doesn't really matter, because I rarely know what time (or even day ) it might be. Such is the life of the road warrior.

I'd like to get the pyramids if we can pull it off, I just don't see how it's possible without breaking the long-term science strategy. Somebody convince me, please.

My GP rankings go like this

GP
GS
GE
GM
GA

These are my general preferences (Prophets are awesome when settled) but for this game GS probably moves to the top.

I agree with the warrior move and post screenshot, and with a test game refinement based on the revelations. There's no reason to rush here.