SGOTM 07 - Geezers

[AgedOne]

While I agree with Mark and Harbourboy's comments (The organisers would take pains to avoid a situation where some teams were wiped out early and others survived, depending on random chance) I would also say that we must build a good deterrent force once we have our first 2 wonders. Nothing massive at first. We must remember that even the mild-mannered leaders will attack if they feel very strong compared to a rival, and they will have a strong urge to expand.

 

[The-Hawk]

RE: all the comments about the potential for getting attacked. I agree it is unlikely that there is a nutcase next door. However, there is a chance anybody may attack. In a recent HOF game (deity), I had it all sowed up, then Asoka went nutcase on me (I even had a defensive pact with an AI more powerful than Asoka). I believe there is always a chance that an AI will DOW, even a peaceful one. If that happens in the first 100 turns, we die... simple as that (especially in OCC). By all means, the unlucky player who is up should not feel bad about losing on his turn. I believe the winning team will not put hammers into early defense and will get lucky on RNG. Later, we might be able to build a decent defense, but we can't do it at the risk of the early wonders.

Anyhow, we've been focused on the initial turnsets. I thought I would capture some thoughts beyond the start. I.e. some things we might want to think about (debate) before we get too many turnsets in. So, here we go:


Economy:

I believe we should run a pure SE (in spite of the fact that Bureaucracy makes cottages tempting). If we get into a war, all cottages will be pillaged. We will have no cities as a buffer between our capital’s cottages and enemy horses. Our meager army will need to stay hunkered down in the capital hoping to survive. Pillaging will be unavoidable. If we are lucky enough to survive a war, farms can be rebuilt. But one pillage attack against mature cottages will set us back forever.

Tech path:

• Initially, follow the play by play.
• After we have Lit, we need to discuss. I think CoL is the next priority tech, but maybe we can beeline to something else, then trade for CoL.

Citizen actions:

• Initially, follow play by play.
• After that, default should be to run extra citizens as scientists. GPPs are going to be critical. The exception would be if we can build a critical building. In this case, we would want to work the stone/marble to speed it along.

City Builds:

• Initially, follow play by play.
• After Glib (and finishing the Granary if necessary), I would make a strong case for National Epic next.
• Once Epic is done, we should be select. Don’t build stuff we don’t need. Don’t build weak offensive units. Our default action should be to build research.

Worker actions:

• Initially, follow play by play.
• Afterwards, build mines and farms. Maybe windmills instead of mines.
• No cottages.

Military:

• Warrior One… he ain’t going nowhere, will turtle up in Beijing.
• After National Epic we can build a couple of more warriors and send them to explore.
• Eventually, we might build a defensive stack to try to ride out any AI attacks. It depends on how the diplomacy picture is stacking up. If we decide on a stack, then we do so in a serious way. Half measures are a waste (a small defense will die as quickly as a 1-warrior defense). We should build all defensive units, I don't think I'd even bother with cats. LB's, Pikes, Rifles... try to make the AI grind his attackers against our fortified stack.

Diplomacy:

• If AI demands stone or marble while we are wonder building, do not give it up.
• If we have a metal or horses, and an AI demands it, I think we give it to them. I assume after 10 turns, can we cancel something we gave in response to a demand (anyone know)? If so, I'd give in to demands. I don't think we need horses at all, nor copper. Iron for Pikes would be nice, although eventually (rifles) we don't need iron either. If we ultimately decide to attack someone, we can cancel the deal to get our metal back.
• Any other resource an AI demands, we give it to them.
• If AI asks for OB, agree.
• Once we have Writing, offer OB to everyone. Once we know who our buddies are, we can cancel OB with their enemies.
• If a religion spreads to us, don’t adopt it. If we have a very dominant religion on our continent, we ultimately may decide to join it (but that should be a group discussion).
• If AI demands we join their religion: say no.
• If someone wants us to cancel deals with another AI, say no.
• If AI demands a tech, give it.
• It will be critical to keep a close eye on diplomacy. This will be very hard with 17 AIs. If someone can come up with a clean way to track voting blocks, then you are my hero!

Civics:

• Do not revolt to Slavery until Mids are done. There are too many excellent tiles to work, so we won’t be whipping early. Premature Slavery is not worth the turn of revolt.
• Revolt to both Slavery and Representation as soon as Mids are done. I doubt we will use the whip in this game (ever). However, taking Slavery with Representation does not add a turn of Anarchy so we might as well do both (in case we need an emergency whip).
• Next civics priority will be beeline to Caste System (for Specialist Economy).

Trades:

• Trade spare crabs as soon as we have it. My gut feel is we should trade it for a health resource. I expect we will need to build Globe so that we can continue to run Caste System after everyone else is on Emancipation.
• Trade stone as soon as Mids are done. When we are ready to build Oxford, we can cancel the trade for a bit.
• Hang on to Marble after Glib is done. We will need it for National Epic. Then we can trade it too.
• Once we have researched Alpha, we can do some select trading of early techs. However, don’t trade Alpha until we have finished Lit and are well into chopping Glib.
• Don’t trade for stuff we don’t absolutely need (e.g. we don’t need Archery, Meditation, Horseback, Monarchy). We don’t want “you are getting too advanced”. Also, I’d rather gift techs than trade for stuff that isn’t critical. It is never too early to make friends…
• Bottom line, before Glib, limit trades to lesser techs for key ones we need (e.g. Writing or Pottery for Mysticism or Hunting would be good).

 

[Harbourboy]

Good stuff, Hawkman.

 

[erikthecelt]

Great summary Hawk;

My comments.

If we have a metal or horses, and an AI demands it, I think we give it to them. I assume after 10 turns, can we cancel something we gave in response to a demand (anyone know)?

The 10 turn rules applies.

We should gift techs to our trading partners once we know who they are. They faster they tech, the more trades will be available. one good tech can net 5 or 6 with this many potential partners.
When you meet an AI for the first time after reaching Alpha - gift then a tech.

Revolt to both Slavery and Representation as soon as Mids are done. I doubt we will use the whip in this game (ever). However, taking Slavery with Representation does not add a turn of Anarchy so we might as well do both (in case we need an emergency whip).

We can't run any specialistists at that point - I want to consider holding this off until after we complete the GL. I will run some scenarios with the test game. I agree that slavery happens when we choose Rep.
Edit: The 2 is the reason for revolting to Rep - so right after we get the mids makes sense - that way we don't have any citizens not working
I'll see if I can MM so that we get the mids and grow to 5 at the same time. Maybe working a mined hill instead of the stone or marble.

There is a doc available about the % chance of a DOW for each Leader based on their relationship with you. Once we know who we are facing, I will check the stats.

It will be critical to keep a close eye on diplomacy. This will be very hard with 17 AIs. If someone can come up with a clean way to track voting blocks, then you are my hero!

I'm working on a model using a spreadsheet and the reference docs. I plan three categories: friends, enemies and neutrals. I think a set of venn diagrams might help. My son is an algorithm wiz, so I'll have a chat with him as it will be an interesting programming challenge.

Edit 2

No cottages

There are a number of green tiles that we can't farm until after CS and it may be a lot of work to chain farms to some of those squares. If we chop the trees then I am in favour of cottaging the harder to reach tiles. This will give us some options on speed of growth vs extra .

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Anyhow, we've been focused on the initial turnsets. I thought I would capture some thoughts beyond the start. I.e. some things we might want to think about (debate) before we get too many turnsets in. So, here we go:

A nice wide ranging set of suggestions/issues.

Initially, follow the play by play.

A couple of points on this. Do we have an definitive play-by-play that we all agree with? I realise that the play-by-play will probably need to be tweaked depending on AI teching. AgedOne suggested playing the turnsets up to preset milestones (post #101) but there wasn't much response. Is the rest of the team in favour of this?

Warrior One… he ain’t going nowhere, will turtle up in Beijing.

I think there might be something to be said for a few turns scouting around the outskirts of our lands. If nothing else it will give us a better idea of who are our nearest neighbours.

If a religion spreads to us, don’t adopt it. If we have a very dominant religion on our continent, we ultimately may decide to join it (but that should be a group discussion).
If AI demands we join their religion: say no.
If someone wants us to cancel deals with another AI, say no.

No problem with your suggestions in principle. In practice I think we need to have a discussion before each turnset to decide those AI that we're trying to make our friends. Essentially it would be nicer not to get a demerit with an AI for refusing something that we subsequntly agree to do anyway. However I realise that it's a lot easier to spout this kind of idea than implement it in RL.

 

[Thrallia]

RE: all the comments about the potential for getting attacked. I agree it is unlikely that there is a nutcase next door. However, there is a chance anybody may attack. In a recent HOF game (deity), I had it all sowed up, then Asoka went nutcase on me (I even had a defensive pact with an AI more powerful than Asoka). I believe there is always a chance that an AI will DOW, even a peaceful one. If that happens in the first 100 turns, we die... simple as that (especially in OCC). By all means, the unlucky player who is up should not feel bad about losing on his turn. I believe the winning team will not put hammers into early defense and will get lucky on RNG. Later, we might be able to build a decent defense, but we can't do it at the risk of the early wonders.

I agree with all of this...defensive will kill us in this game, and anyone else who doesn't take a risk like we are.

Economy:

I believe we should run a pure SE (in spite of the fact that Bureaucracy makes cottages tempting). If we get into a war, all cottages will be pillaged. We will have no cities as a buffer between our capital’s cottages and enemy horses. Our meager army will need to stay hunkered down in the capital hoping to survive. Pillaging will be unavoidable. If we are lucky enough to survive a war, farms can be rebuilt. But one pillage attack against mature cottages will set us back forever.

Agreed as well...SE is the way to go in any OCC.

Tech path:

• Initially, follow the play by play.
• After we have Lit, we need to discuss. I think CoL is the next priority tech, but maybe we can beeline to something else, then trade for CoL.

I think CoL>CS>Edu>Lib should be the tech path after Lit. CoL for Caste, CS for Bureaucracy(hammers!) and trade, since the AI doesnt usually go for CS quickly, Edu for Oxford, and Lib for a hopeful Nat free tech.

Citizen actions:

• Initially, follow play by play.
• After that, default should be to run extra citizens as scientists. GPPs are going to be critical. The exception would be if we can build a critical building. In this case, we would want to work the stone/marble to speed it along.

Agreed here as well...research should be the focus of nearly our entire game.

City Builds:

• Initially, follow play by play.
• After Glib (and finishing the Granary if necessary), I would make a strong case for National Epic next.
• Once Epic is done, we should be select. Don’t build stuff we don’t need. Don’t build weak offensive units. Our default action should be to build research.

Agreed again that an early NE will greatly enhance our SE. After NE, I can't think of anything that is greatly important until Oxford.

Worker actions:

• Initially, follow play by play.
• Afterwards, build mines and farms. Maybe windmills instead of mines.
• No cottages.

I'm always horrid with workers, but I definitely agree no cottages...not sure what the benefits of windmills over mines would be though.

Military:

• Warrior One… he ain’t going nowhere, will turtle up in Beijing.
• After National Epic we can build a couple of more warriors and send them to explore.
• Eventually, we might build a defensive stack to try to ride out any AI attacks. It depends on how the diplomacy picture is stacking up. If we decide on a stack, then we do so in a serious way. Half measures are a waste (a small defense will die as quickly as a 1-warrior defense). We should build all defensive units, I don't think I'd even bother with cats. LB's, Pikes, Rifles... try to make the AI grind his attackers against our fortified stack.

Hopefully we won't need a defensive stack, because I'm not sure we could create one strong enough to withstand any AI attack...every time I've ever gotten into a defensive war, I lost in short order.

Diplomacy:

• If AI demands stone or marble while we are wonder building, do not give it up.
• If we have a metal or horses, and an AI demands it, I think we give it to them. I assume after 10 turns, can we cancel something we gave in response to a demand (anyone know)? If so, I'd give in to demands. I don't think we need horses at all, nor copper. Iron for Pikes would be nice, although eventually (rifles) we don't need iron either. If we ultimately decide to attack someone, we can cancel the deal to get our metal back.
• Any other resource an AI demands, we give it to them.
• If AI asks for OB, agree.
• Once we have Writing, offer OB to everyone. Once we know who our buddies are, we can cancel OB with their enemies.
• If a religion spreads to us, don’t adopt it. If we have a very dominant religion on our continent, we ultimately may decide to join it (but that should be a group discussion).
• If AI demands we join their religion: say no.
• If someone wants us to cancel deals with another AI, say no.
• If AI demands a tech, give it.
• It will be critical to keep a close eye on diplomacy. This will be very hard with 17 AIs. If someone can come up with a clean way to track voting blocks, then you are my hero!

Yeah, the game treats a demand like a gift once it is agreed to.
However, perhaps we should consider trading/gifting every resource we have before they can go demanding them. Although giving in to demands gives us extra + we can't get otherwise in diplo...

Civics:

• Do not revolt to Slavery until Mids are done. There are too many excellent tiles to work, so we won’t be whipping early. Premature Slavery is not worth the turn of revolt.
• Revolt to both Slavery and Representation as soon as Mids are done. I doubt we will use the whip in this game (ever). However, taking Slavery with Representation does not add a turn of Anarchy so we might as well do both (in case we need an emergency whip).
• Next civics priority will be beeline to Caste System (for Specialist Economy).

I agree that Caste is the next civic we should go for, what do you feel are the ideal eventual civics for us to run? I'm thinking Rep/Bureau/Caste/Merc/FR(or Pacifism if we adopt a religion)

Trades:

• Trade spare crabs as soon as we have it. My gut feel is we should trade it for a health resource. I expect we will need to build Globe so that we can continue to run Caste System after everyone else is on Emancipation.
• Trade stone as soon as Mids are done. When we are ready to build Oxford, we can cancel the trade for a bit.
• Hang on to Marble after Glib is done. We will need it for National Epic. Then we can trade it too.
• Once we have researched Alpha, we can do some select trading of early techs. However, don’t trade Alpha until we have finished Lit and are well into chopping Glib.
• Don’t trade for stuff we don’t absolutely need (e.g. we don’t need Archery, Meditation, Horseback, Monarchy). We don’t want “you are getting too advanced”. Also, I’d rather gift techs than trade for stuff that isn’t critical. It is never too early to make friends…
• Bottom line, before Glib, limit trades to lesser techs for key ones we need (e.g. Writing or Pottery for Mysticism or Hunting would be good).

I believe Oxford only requires Marble as well...so we wouldn't need to ever cancel the stone trade.
If we decide we need a defensive stack, archery and monarchy become important to trade for, but I agree that with a beeline such as we will be making, trading for nonimportant techs will hurt us in the long run...and gifting a tech is an easy way to get +4 early with a civ.

I'm working on a model using a spreadsheet and the reference docs. I plan three categories: friends, enemies and neutrals. I think a set of venn diagrams might help. My son is an algorithm wiz, so I'll have a chat with him as it will be an interesting programming challenge.

I'll also be attempting to come up with some way to display them...venn diagrams may be the easiest way to do it, although a spreadsheet will also work.

There are a number of green tiles that we can't farm until after CS and it may be a lot of work to chain farms to some of those squares. If we chop the trees then I am in favour of cottaging the harder to reach tiles. This will give us some options on speed of growth vs extra .

I don't think we need to spend worker turns building cottages...by the time we grow large enough to work those cottages rather than the riverside farms/mines/fishes, we'll probably already have CS researched.

The one thing I haven't seen us discuss is what to do with our Great People. Obviously our first GS will be an academy...but what about the rest? Do we bulb them or settle them? Bulbing them will net us an instant bonus(possibly a monopoly tech or little known tech we can use to get cash/techs for), but settling them will be powerful with our setup(Rep+Lib+Uni+Oxford=9*(2.75)=24.75 beakers/turn per settled GS.

As for GE...do we settle them(16.5 beakers/turn and bonus hammers(4.5/turn with Bureau)? or do we save a couple of them for fast building the UN? I doubt we need to use any of them for any other wonders...after Mids and GLib, UN is the only wonder I think we need left.

 

[Harbourboy]

You guys rock.

 

[AgedOne]

Excellent discussion!

Also there doesn't seem to be any dissent, so it looks as though we are closing in on the plan. I'm not going to add any disagreement of my own, either. It all looks very sensible to me.

I think the 'play by play' that we follow should be the final one The Hawk published here . I haven't seen anyone disagree with it, and it gets the two early wonders done in the fastest times we've seen.

I played through it again last night, and didn't see anything that I'd like to improve (even if I could).

Looking further on, I agree with Thrallia that the essential tech path is CoL - CS - Edu - Lib. Also, the early build of the National Epic looks good. I was playing down this path last night, although I didn't get further than CS (through sleep, not disaster!), and was very pleased to see that I wasn't bottom score, and that various AI were getting pleased with me.

That brings me on to diplomacy. I'm fairly bad at this, and the idea of trying to keep 17 of them organised fills me with horror. Any good pictorial representation that anyone can come up with (erik?!) will be worth its weight in gold.

I would like to suggest again the running order that I did a little while ago.

How does that sound?

 

[Thrallia]

well, as long as I am not up until after May 3rd, I'm fine with it

 

[AgedOne]

well, as long as I am not up until after May 3rd, I'm fine with it

According to the Crystal Ball, you'll be bringing home the Great Library on the evening of Friday May 9th

 

[markh]

I have nothing to add. Everything looks set. Go, guys.

 

[Pariah]

Ithink The-Hawk, Thrallia & Sam have said everything necessary.
Let's do it!

 

[Thrallia]

According to the Crystal Ball, you'll be bringing home the Great Library on the evening of Friday May 9th

lol oh boy...that's the night of my brother's bachelor party lol

In addition to not being available until May 4th, I won't be available from May 8th until May 12th! lol hopefully the crystal ball was in error

edit: I need to correct my beakers/turn figures above...forgot the academy. a settled GS will give us 29.25 beakers/turn and a GE will give 19.5 beakers/turn

 

[erikthecelt]

We are all waiting with bated breath to hear from The-Hawk that the game is afoot.

 

[The-Hawk]

We can't run any specialistists at that point - I want to consider holding this off until after we complete the GL. I will run some scenarios with the test game. I agree that slavery happens when we choose Rep.
Edit: The 2 is the reason for revolting to Rep - so right after we get the mids makes sense - that way we don't have any citizens not working

Yes, one motivation was happiness to get the 5th pop. However, I do suggest we run two sci specialists as soon as the library is built. During the time between Library completing and GLib starting, the critical path is research. Two scientists with representation are quite nice... and the GP comes faster to boot.

not sure what the benefits of windmills over mines would be though.

Only if we have an odd bread... in that case, working a windmill provides one extra citizen.

I'm thinking Rep/Bureau/Caste/Merc/FR(or Pacifism if we adopt a religion).

I agree 100%. The only reason to diverge would be if we don't research (or trade for) banking.

I believe Oxford only requires Marble as well.

I'm pretty sure Oxford is stone.

The one thing I haven't seen us discuss is what to do with our Great People. Obviously our first GS will be an academy...but what about the rest?

I would think first GS would be academy (although bulbing Philo may help us get Liberalism first). If the first GP is a GE, then I would join him to the city as a super specialist. Once we've finished with the first GP, I think we need to play it by ear. I'm guessing we would mostly bulb them.

We are all waiting with bated breath to hear from The-Hawk that the game is afoot

Great discussion going, but I think the first turnset is pretty clear. So, this is my formal GOT IT post, I will play tonight! Per AgedOne's suggestion, I'll get Mids started then turn it over.

 

[The-Hawk]

OK, that didn't last long . I settled, here is what I found:



I think we need to review the play-by-play to see if there is a better path. My gut feeling is the original plan may be still OK, but working the deer when building the first WB may be better than working a forest hill (turns 6-11). Or, maybe the deer justifies hunting instead of fishing (I doubt it, the gold from the crab tiles is critical).

Anyhow, I think this is worth some testing and discussion. I've saved after turn zero, will pick it up after we've had a chance to consider a different play-by-play.

 

[Harbourboy]

I think that someone should model this start in World Builder and then run a few play by play scenarios to see if we can zero back in on the optimimum path. This is kind of what I meant when I said that we might need to stop frequently at the start of the game.

Once we get into it, the game will move pretty quickly, so well worth figuring a few things out now, both for the purposes of winning this game, but also for general education on how to approach this type of game.

 

[The-Hawk]

OK, play-by-play can be improved with the deer. Here is a first cut:

- Finished Mids on same turn (44).
- Finished GLib 2 turns sooner (71).
- Had already finished Granary so overflow from GLib chop went into Epic. (In my previous play-by-play the Granary was still in queue.)
- Popped the GP 2 turns earlier. Once again, I didn't use him in the test.
- I only made one trade of substance (Writing for Myst). Could have made several others. If Myst is not available for Writing, this would add a couple of turns. However, I would NOT recommend trading Alpha for Myst (or Poly). Not worth the risk of an AI beelining Lit and beating us to GLib.

I haven't tried to optimize, but this may be pretty good. I work a coastal tile for a couple of turns (for the gold). As a result, was able to pull Writing up with the completion of Mids. This meant the overflow hammers from the last chop took a turn off of Lib.

Play-by-play:



One last thought... I suspect 2-3 turns could be pulled off of Mids by immediately chopping it (not quarrying the marble first). Uses up an extra forest, but early Mids will allow early Representation, faster GP, faster GLib. I might try that next .

 

[The-Hawk]

I took a stab at early chop of Mids... I was able to finish one turn earlier (43). However, I don't really like the way it was turning out. Not working marble (with all its gold) is setting the research behind. I don't think an extra chop is worth a turn.

I'm sticking with the approach in my previous post... feel free to top it!!!

 

[Harbourboy]

That play-by-play is pretty cool.