SGOTM 07 - Fifth Element

[Merum]

I don't think we can do the "no BC worker" idea... we need the stone to get HG, and we're gonna need it. I think we need to grunt out a worker fairly early.

EDIT: Yeah, let's figure out where that worker needs to be for the HG, and nail it down.

 

[WastinTime]

Of course Globe Theatre is wonderful in OCC, but I usually get it just before everyone goes into Emancipation (very important). In the recent Immortal gauntlet, I even skipped it one game, cus you can win around the same time they emancipate. Nothing should stop us from getting Oxford ASAP. Then Observatory is usually ready, then theatre/Globe after that. That article is not aimed at our kind of game and has some questionable advice. Like you said, targets a Dom victory. The tech trading advice is particularly bad along with the worker.

RE: testgames clogging up your drive. This should not occur. Even though you autosave every turn, it only saves a set number of those (like 10). The rest auto-cleanup. Check your .ini file.

 

[WastinTime]

Hanging Gardens is not that important. I've never built it in any Diety OCC game. But I also don't usually have industrial/stone. So I'm not saying skip it, but it's not a priority. The Marble/GLib should be the focus.

No BC worker is just insane. Even for the article's goals, they should have a worker.

 

[culdeus]

Of course Globe Theatre is wonderful in OCC, but I usually get it just before everyone goes into Emancipation (very important). In the recent Immortal gauntlet, I even skipped it one game, cus you can win around the same time they emancipate. Nothing should stop us from getting Oxford ASAP. Then Observatory is usually ready, then theatre/Globe after that. That article is not aimed at our kind of game and has some questionable advice. Like you said, targets a Dom victory. The tech trading advice is particularly bad along with the worker.

RE: testgames clogging up your drive. This should not occur. Even though you autosave every turn, it only saves a set number of those (like 10). The rest auto-cleanup. Check your .ini file.

The no early worker thing is mitigated at least somewhat by the two sea resources. Working those and then specialists the amount of improved land tiles capable of being worked with the happy limits is very small. This is also something that can be tested as to at which turn a worker would provide anything useful and to what extent that help would be needed vis-a-vis more scientists being run longer.

I hope to have some good logs tonight, but I'm afraid the Mavericks Game 2 might take priority.

 

[BLubmuz]

Played the test game:
- Academy route
- first on music
- built the GL
- the same turn i completed a GE popped, and GK DoWed me, easily cleaning me on turn 98.

I've found happy is a big problem, monarchy comes late, the cap is 4 without furs, not reachable before alpha.
5 Ais without writing, at the turn i has Alpha.
Since we lack all the workers techs but mining, we can build warrior-WB-WB-Library-barracks and start the worker to be ready at the turn we can have some tech trades.

HG? better forget, they was built long before the GLib.

I can't say i has tech parity, but surely a good pace.

Crowded is just an euphemism for this map.

 

[dutchfire]

I think we should have a worker, but we don't need it early. We need it to hook up marble before we start the Great Library.

warrior-WB-WB-Library-barracks
That looks like a good tech path, BLubmuz.


IMO the most important thing will be surviving until we can get a PA.

 

[greatbeyond]

For my part I will attempt to create and post multiple test maps tonight and see if there are any differences.

 

[greatbeyond]

These are the results of my tests so far:

80% of the time there are only two continents
10% of the time there is a third Continent/large island with approximately 40 to 60 tiles and usually three Civs
5% of the time there is an island with approx 15 to 25 tiles and one Civ
5% of the time there are small islands from 1 to approx 15 tiles without a Civ

approximately 60% of the time one of the continents stretches from the North to South edges, blocking sea traffic
Approx 5% of the time both continents stretch from the north to south edges

Resources seem to be in great abundance with the exception of Horses, most maps had just 1 or no Horses. I found this kind of odd.

 

[greatbeyond]

attached is another test, this one with three continents. Our start is on one of the two smaller continents. Running out of time tonight, I'll try another tomorrow.

 

[culdeus]

How you guys like this?

Happens more often than not. It's gonna be a really, really fast game.

 

[greatbeyond]

I 'll try and do a few more test games. So far I haven't had any problems with early wars, unless I instigated them. There were very few wars on the starting continent. I suppose this could be due to the shared religion. It will be interesting to find out who our neighbors are. I have been able to get the Pyramids, Great Library and Academy. We need to run many tests trying out each research path, to see what benefits us the most. I was never able to get the Oracle, of course I didn't prioritize it from the start. With Marble, Stone, and lots of forests, once we have Mathematics, we should be able to get any wonder we want.

 

[MacBalt]

How you guys like this? Happens more often than not. It's gonna be a really, really fast game.

Ha! Yeah, I know -- I think I've seen this same screen several times before! (Sometimes in my sleep! ) I'm really concerned about an early DOW too. I have actually been able to survive one or two early wars if they start before the AI has axemen (so I can sue for peace after alphabet), but even when I survive, it seems to set up such bad relations and make me so weak that sooner or later everyone starts to pile on.

We need to find a way to be strong enough and keep everyone happy enough to avoid the early DOW. It isn't going to be easy.

 

[MacBalt]

attached is another test, this one with three continents. Our start is on one of the two smaller continents. Running out of time tonight, I'll try another tomorrow.

Thanks greatbeyond! This will help us to double-check ourselves a bit. Your analysis in the second post is interesting too. What do we do if we're stuck on a little contintent with only one or two neighbors? Would we trade what we can and then avoid mysticism and hustle for optics/astronomy? That could be an "interesting" variant. Are our mapmakers sadistic enough to do that to us?

 

[Merum]

Because of this I think we need to find a priority spot for consruction. With cats, we can grind down big stacks like this pretty efficiently and then dispatch them with relatively few combat units. I did this in my playthrough of the test game pretty reliably against numerically and technologically superior opponents. Collateral damage rules.

In fact, in the wars I fought I was so successful in grinding down their stacks that they ended up paying me for peace, all the way up to when it was rifles vs longbows.

 

[MacBalt]

Of course Globe Theatre is wonderful in OCC, but I usually get it just before everyone goes into Emancipation (very important). In the recent Immortal gauntlet, I even skipped it one game, cus you can win around the same time they emancipate. Nothing should stop us from getting Oxford ASAP. Then Observatory is usually ready, then theatre/Globe after that. That article is not aimed at our kind of game and has some questionable advice. Like you said, targets a Dom victory. The tech trading advice is particularly bad along with the worker.

WastinTime, I don't think I'd be going too far out on a limb to suggest that you probably have more experience playing Diety than all the rest of us combined. Thanks for helping us to debunk the misleading stuff that is out there. I agree that the worker advice given in the article is bad (and probably the stuff about the trees too), but can you help me figure out what is bad about the technology trading advice? I agree that what the author says about trading alphabet right away is bad, and I'm not sure about going for Drama right after Alphabet (as Literature seems the better choice for the Great Library), but the passages quoted below all seem like good advice to me. Could you give me some pointers about better trading strategies, or direct us to a different article we could consult? I think that trading technology is going to be very important to us this game and I don't think any of us wants to screw it up.

All other things being equal, trade with the most backward nations first (want everyone close together in score, and want the latest techs from the lead researchers not the old techs from them). You ideally want to plan 5-10 trades ahead. Think of it as a game within a game – your goal is collect every tech, even though some appear initially un-obtainable....

...

When you get to the later techs there can be some advantage to holding them back. Until 1000ad or so though just trade anything you can with anyone who will - they're all so cheap that an AI who wants them will have them before you know it.

Once you get currency or paper Don't be afraid to trade techs for cash whenever you need it, and maps if you haven't got around to making a scout yet. Often by selling a tech cheaply for whatever gold a few civs have you can get enough to trade the tech and gold to an advanced civ for another tech.

Don't expect a fair deal from the AI. They'll want to rip you off on each trade offering say a 1200 beaker tech for a 1800 beaker tech. This is a huge plus in your favor, as it severely limits how much they trade amongst themselves. You can trade a tech to Civ-A and contrary to popular opinion he wont give it to Civ-B until Civ-B can offer fair value for it. Meanwhile you can trade it to 5 civs taking a loss on each deal but adding up to a large net gain. Note however that sometimes you can get them to increase their offer fairly significantly or at least throw in their map and any cash they have. In the early game ultimately you want to take whatever deal they offer - because you'll hopefully get 5 other deals for the same tech, and often some deals from the techs you got in trade. Note you want to avoid techs which the AI beelines for - as they will have no trade value.

Hanging Gardens is not that important. I've never built it in any Diety OCC game. But I also don't usually have industrial/stone. So I'm not saying skip it, but it's not a priority. The Marble/GLib should be the focus.

I'm willing to take your word for it on this one -- partly because after some test games I agree with BLubmuz that the AI completes the Hanging Gardens too quickly to make it realistic for us to get both it and the Great Library. I'll take your word for it that the GL is still worth the effort despite obsoleting with scientific method too.

RE: testgames clogging up your drive. This should not occur. Even though you autosave every turn, it only saves a set number of those (like 10). The rest auto-cleanup. Check your .ini file.

Actually, I was probably overstating this. It isn't really a problem, though I do have multiple autosaves mixed together in that folder and it is very confusing to try to figure it all out. I'll wipe it clean for clarity purposes anyway.

 

[MacBalt]

One note about me: i'm suffering for some problem to the gallbladder, and tonight i was to the hospital for a colic. The discovery is recent, i thought i have a gastritis.

I hope i can schedule a surgical intervention for June without any further problem, but if it happens that i disappear for some day, you'll know why.

Good luck BLubmuz, and no disappearing allowed! You don't think we're going to let you off the hook in this game just because of a gall bladder problem, do you? After you got us all into this longshot Deity exercise in humiliation??! Be careful, or we'll plan a "victory (or "whatever") party" for Italy and you'll wake up one morning to find us all partying in your recovery room!

This boils down to knowing who you want to keep happy. You literally want to write down a pecking order of who you least want to annoy, working downwards to folks you don’t care about annoying, and then use it to accept/deny every request based on siding with the higher person on your list - consistency is key here.

This is critical. I can recall a particular incident in SGOTM3 where an unfortunate civics change caused us to lose the game (maybe we would have lost anyway, it's debatable). We need to be aware of the political situation at all times, so we can make the correct decisions when other civs come to us asking for (or demanding) things of us. There are no do-overs on those decisions, and the impacts can be very long-lasting.

I agree completely. This may be the straw that either breaks us, or keeps us far enough out of trouble so that we can reach our goal. I think maybe adopting some kind of rule where whoever is playing must agree to stop and post a screenshot or "discussion point" at every political decision "popup communication" might be a good idea. If we were playing a monarch game I'd say we could just blow it off, but at Deity we have to all be in on such decisions because they are SO important. Taking 24 hours to discuss each one may seem extreme, but I think we have the time to do it and I think it really is THAT important.

 

[MacBalt]

Other things I've learned that I think is set in stone is alpha is the absolute beeline tech. The other thing that is critical is we need to shoot that warrior out to the SE as fast as possible. No diversions in the route just draw a straight line to the opposite corner. Need to meet as many AI as possible before they settle the land and we can't get thru.

I agree with both of these points. Only thing I'm still concerned about to this point in the game is how to make sure we can avoid an early DOW. Still thinking about that one...

I think I can log this well enough to see if this makes sense. There's no reason why we can't totally script an optimum 50 turns right down to the tiles worked and specific moves to make.

I agree that logging is the way to go... at least when we think we've got a strategy that we'd like to put forward for the rest of the team to evaluate. It is amazing how many details you don't think are going to be important actually turn out to be crucial for choosing one strategy over another.

Because of this I think we need to find a priority spot for consruction. With cats, we can grind down big stacks like this pretty efficiently and then dispatch them with relatively few combat units. I did this in my playthrough of the test game pretty reliably against numerically and technologically superior opponents. Collateral damage rules.

In fact, in the wars I fought I was so successful in grinding down their stacks that they ended up paying me for peace, all the way up to when it was rifles vs longbows.

This makes sense to me. I don't know how else we'd stand a chance of surviving a war once the enemy has got, say, macemen (let alone riflemen), but I'm also wondering if we haven't just already lost the game if we get DOWed by somebody with macemen. WastinTime, what is your experience with Construction? The AIs are usually reluctant to trade it, if I remember correctly -- should we research it ourselves? If so, when? After Literature, maybe?

 

[Sabre]

I agree. This should be a pretty fast game, so taking the time to make sure we make the right political decisions would be wise.

Welp - played another test game (the origional) and again I was war decced. This time it was Russia, with no modifiers to our relations. I'm guessing it was due to my meager military. Building a barracks before maxing out my archer budget was probably a mistake. We may want to beef our defenses as much as possible quickly, even if it means delaying the Great Library. I think our starting site is much better than many of the AI's and they will be getting space hungry quickly. We don't want to appear an easy target. Just another thing to keep in mind along with making the right diplo moves. This game may really come down to which team avoids war decs the most.

Key times from my game:
Turn 29 - build Library
Turn 46 - Alphabet (trade Writing/Alphabet for 12 techs over next 20 turns)
Turn 56 - Academy
Turn 70 - Great Library
Turn 71 - Russia declares war - sends multiple stacks of units

 

[MacBalt]

I'm on GMT +2, as is BLubmuz, the servers are in Texas, USA.

Okay, so that means the game will be available at midnight, USA Central time, tomorrow night (Wednesday April 23/Thursday April 24). Texas is currently on Daylight Savings Time, I believe, so that makes it GMT-5, right? Arizona is GMT-7 (always), so I should be able to get the game about 10:00 PM GMT-7. I'm planning to be home and will do my best to post the first (worker move 1SW to blue circle) screenshot as soon as I can (by 10:30, barring disasters). Unless everyone on the team gives me a "green light" sooner (or we adopt an alternate plan), I'll wait 24 hours before settling and taking/posting the second screenshot.

Let me know if anyone wants to suggest modifications...

 

[Merum]

The obvious issue with stopping to discuss "pop-ups" is that there's no way to get out of them to quit the game during the discussion. A player would have to leave the game running until the discussion ended.

I think a more workable solution is for us to keep a running ranking of our known rivals, from "high priority" to "low priority". Resolution decisions for pop-up demands would be resolved by a simple priority check. AI 1 wants us to stop trading with AI 2? OK. AI 18 wants us to stop trading with AI 4? No.

The obvious deviation from this is when a decision would obviously result in us getting crushed by a DoW from the requestor. Hopefully this doesn't happen too often, and we can sustain relations to the point where we can get one of our most favored nations to help us out.