SGOTM 07 - Murky Waters

[Gnejs]

Yet another rule for Captain Erkon: Especially early on, we need to monitor our neighbors' attitudes about DoWing people and see if it changes to: "We have enough on our hands now." Maybe give us advance notice about needing archery.

They will also say this if they are at war with an AI that we haven't met...

 

[LowtherCastle]

My life is a mess at the moment.


What about chopping once towards the Library? Saving a couple turns on the GS for the Academy is a big deal.

A question: I have yet to play an OCC domination game. What's the role of our units in the pre-PA common wars? Should we detour to Construction for Cats?

Our worker doesn't have an axe for chopping LIbrary yet, only a butter knife. We get Construction for free before we really have time to build cats, I think. There may be a cat-building window while we're researching CS/Paper/Educ which might dovetail nicely with our partner getting maces. I haven't managed to test that though.

 

[LowtherCastle]

They will also say this if they are at war with an AI that we haven't met...

I know. ALso if they're planning to DoW someone else. Luckily, we have klarius on our side to read between the lines.

 

[klarius]

T44 is excellent! But what happens with this variation if you delay the worker until after the 2nd workboat? If the only improvement that is worked pre-Alpha is the fur camp I don't see the need to complete the worker earlier. Research-wise the delay of the fur camp should be compensated by ~10t earlier growth to pop3 and working e.g. the second crab for a longer time.

It should be possible to win another turn on alphabet. But the progress on the library is much worse then and if we should have horses there is no time to hook them before alpha, when we will be pressed to hook the marble and furs and improve the stone.
Depending on how trading (techs and luxes) goes we will suffer a delay on GLib.

 

[Gnejs]

You also have to factor in the delay to the library (and by extension academy) if you don't have a 5h tile. At size 4 (pre-alpha) I worked the 2 seafood, furs, and stone mine while building library. I also mined the marble pre-alpha. Then with alpha I roaded the furs, immediately grew to 5 once they were completed, used that citizen to work the marble mine, then turned the mine-working citizens into sci's for academy.

It should be possible to win another turn on alphabet. But the progress on the library is much worse then and if we should have horses there is no time to hook them before alpha, when we will be pressed to hook the marble and furs and improve the stone.
Depending on how trading (techs and luxes) goes we will suffer a delay on GLib.

The progress on the library is actually better. If I calculate correctly I can get to pop 5 on T43, complete the library on T44, and discover Alpha on T44 without any mines. This is using warrior-wb-wb-worker-library. Fur is roaded on T48, marble quarried and connected on T52, GS for academy pops on T61.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Wouldn't the extra citizen need to increase beakers by 10% to compensate for reducing the research slider? At size 5 we're 25 raw (8+5+3+3+3+3), with lib+academy that's 43.75bpt @ 100%, but only 39.375bpt @ 90%. So yes, I suppose it is better if he works a 3c or better tile - but then only until beauro.

Being able to grow freely would be huge and we should have Hereditary rule well before CS anyway.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The progress on the library is actually better. If I calculate correctly I can get to pop 5 on T43, complete the library on T44, and discover Alpha on T44 without any mines. This is using warrior-wb-wb-worker-library. Fur is roaded on T48, marble quarried and connected on T52, GS for academy pops on T61.

This may be good if we can trade for a by T43.

 

[FiveAces]

The progress on the library is actually better. If I calculate correctly I can get to pop 5 on T43, complete the library on T44, and discover Alpha on T44 without any mines. This is using warrior-wb-wb-worker-library. Fur is roaded on T48, marble quarried and connected on T52, GS for academy pops on T61.

You can't work the 5th citizen though until T48 since that's when the fur is roaded - but that only delays GS 3-4 turns. That might be the way to go. I'll mess around a bit tonight and see if I can do any better with a different build order.

 

[Gnejs]

You can't work the 5th citizen though until T48 since that's when the fur is roaded - but that only delays GS 3-4 turns. That might be the way to go. I'll mess around a bit tonight and see if I can do any better with a different build order.

I have already taken this into account. At pop 5 we work 2xcrab+2 scientists + one unhappy at zero growth, until the fur is connected. No delay of the GS.

 

[klarius]

Being able to grow freely would be huge and we should have Hereditary rule well before CS anyway.

Well, I usually had no trade bait for monarchy before CS.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Well, I usually had no trade bait for monarchy before CS.

I guess not on your map. On Erkon's map I have every time. I think it depends on whether we have enough neighbors with HeredRule as their favorite civic, whether anyone has Grapes, and whether we know Mansa. I've figured out that it's best to not trade Mansa CoL or something comparable around the the time people start getting Monarchy.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I have already taken this into account. At pop 5 we work 2xcrab+2 scientists + one unhappy at zero growth, until the fur is connected. No delay of the GS.

I presume you have your worker waiting on the Marble hill when you get The Wheel in trade since the Marble is quarried and connected so fast. Why not just have the worker waiting on the Furs? Furs are connected 3 turns sooner and marble is the same. {brain fart}

 

[FiveAces]

I guess not on your map. On Erkon's map I have every time. I think it depends on whether we have enough neighbors with HeredRule as their favorite civic, whether anyone has Grapes, and whether we know Mansa. I've figured out that it's best to not trade Mansa CoL or something comparable around the the time people start getting Monarchy.

I think it's best not to trade Mansa anything unique unless he's the only one with a tech you must have right then - he'll trade whatever you give him IBT as soon as a new tech becomes available from someone which blocks you out. But if you can wait a bit, he will trade whatever he has to someone else for another tech you probably don't have, and then you can get both those techs.

 

[Gnejs]

I presume you have your worker waiting on the Marble hill when you get The Wheel in trade since the Marble is quarried and connected so fast. Why not just have the worker waiting on the Furs? Furs are connected 3 turns sooner and marble is the same.

I think that my plan indeed included having the worker waiting on the fur... but I am doing a pen and paper excersize here so don't hold it against me if the details are wrong. The number of turns required for various worker actions is one such detail...

 

[klarius]

I presume you have your worker waiting on the Marble hill when you get The Wheel in trade since the Marble is quarried and connected so fast. Why not just have the worker waiting on the Furs? Furs are connected 3 turns sooner and marble is the same.

You need a road on the furs and on the marble to connect the furs. It doesn't really matter which road you do first, just that you do both roads before quarry.

The quarry will not be as fast as Gnejs thinks. It takes 6 turns to build it. But that's no problem as we don't need the marble resource at that time probably. Depending on worker turns available before, we can have either marble or stone (could be too tight with the late worker) mined, so production can be up earlier (for granary or lighthouse).

 

[morpheus11]

Something else that might help in eliminating confusion between ideas is a set list of acronyms.

For example, GL, in the last SGOTM that was Great Leader, now I believe it to mean Great Library, but it could also be Great Lighthouse.

Much like what Erkons says about using the smilies to help express emotions to avoid confusion acronyms can cause people to misunderstand what the writer was trying to say. You can take or leave this suggestion b/c I am not playing any turns so as long as all of you understand what each other are saying everything should be fine.

 

[LowtherCastle]

You need a road on the furs and on the marble to connect the furs. It doesn't really matter which road you do first, just that you do both roads before quarry.

The quarry will not be as fast as Gnejs thinks. It takes 6 turns to build it. But that's no problem as we don't need the marble resource at that time probably. Depending on worker turns available before, we can have either marble or stone (could be too tight with the late worker) mined, so production can be up earlier (for granary or lighthouse).

Right. And I even knew that, having connected those furs 40 times in the last two weeks...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Got 740ad PA on Erkon's save again, but this time skipping Drama. I also threw in 10 cats and Catty and I eliminated Washington, so that Cathy has 6 cities at around 100ad. BUt that I could have done on the Drama route also, I just didn't bother. But I did play a few turns ahead and my absolutely certain conlcusion is that Drama with Globe is the better route. War weariness is immediate and drastic. I suppose because Cathy's strategy is to suicide 50 units per city. This also works well with getting Alpha on T44 and being forced to throw some turns into Drama.

If wb-wkr-wb and wb-wb-wkr are more or less the same, then I think the earlier wkr is much better, because we'll need the stone mine to speed up the GLib and to chop a forest, if we so decide. Even more important, though, is that we want both the stone and marble mined in advance, because we plan to DoW someone at that point and we may have to send the worker to mine copper or iron (hopefully) right then. So there won't be any turns available for the worker to camp furs and the like.

EDIT: I'm even thinking a second worker, somehow, might not hurt. It sure would help later on.

 

[Gnejs]

Got 740ad PA on Erkon's save again, but this time skipping Drama. I also threw in 10 cats and Catty and I eliminated Washington, so that Cathy has 6 cities at around 100ad. BUt that I could have done on the Drama route also, I just didn't bother. But I did play a few turns ahead and my absolutely certain conlcusion is that Drama with Globe is the better route. War weariness is immediate and drastic. I suppose because Cathy's strategy is to suicide 50 units per city. This also works well with getting Alpha on T44 and being forced to throw some turns into Drama.

If wb-wkr-wb and wb-wb-wkr are more or less the same, then I think the earlier wkr is much better, because we'll need the stone mine to speed up the GLib and to chop a forest, if we so decide. Even more important, though, is that we want both the stone and marble mined in advance, because we plan to DoW someone at that point and we may have to send the worker to mine copper or iron (hopefully) right then. So there won't be any turns available for the worker to camp furs and the like.

EDIT: I'm even thinking a second worker, somehow, might not hurt. It sure would help later on.

I am assuming that we are running 2 scientists from the moment we complete our library until we pop a GS 17 turns later. This means that for the first 5 turns after Alphabet, until the fur is connected, we will not be able to work either mines or quarries. For the next 6 turns, while the marble is being quarried, we can work the Fur camp instead with less hammers but more science. After this we can work the marble while the worker starts chopping towards the GL.

LC, I don't see a need for any military units until much later. We DoW at Alpha and get at least two AIs to join in on our side. This way there is no chance at all that the civ we are at war with will send a single unit into our land.

 

[Erkon]

To the roster:
I recommend that Gnejs plays 20 turns (or 21-22 if he messes up ) to AH.
That's the point where we should decide if we are nervous and go for archery for a 3-4 turn delay on alphabet.
...

According to my proposal, LC will do his mid-turnset break when we reach AH. I would prefer shorter initial turnset this game since that will enable more discussion and analysis of our neighbors.

However, I will update the plan if other team members support klarius' ideas...