SGOTM 07 - Smurkz

I didn't check the scheme, but I think a granary can wait until after the Pyramids. A second worker is not really needed as long as the first can keep up with our town growth.

If we want to go for diplo, then we do not need 70 techs. We will need Mass Media, which requires:
Radio, Electricity, Physics, SciMeth, Astro, Press, Machinery, Paper, Calendar, Optics, Compass, IW, MC, Math, CS, CoL, and some ancient techs. Apart from this, we will probably want some others, like Alphabet, Drama and Currency. This means we need about 20 post-ancient techs.

If we build the Globe, then we can trade our happy resources away for health resources, preferably the ones with multiplier buildings - or for iron, if we don't have it.

I agree with Renata that for diplo victory we should not delay contacts too long. Besides, the WFYABTA argument doesn't really hold as we already know some of the best traders - Washington, Lizzy, Asoka. Not only do they have high limits, but also they are relatively easy to befriend. Early trading, before we know the other civs, will just mean that we use up our "longer credit lines" first.
 
I've played around with my spreadsheet a bit, and there's absolutely no need to build a granary before the Pyramids - it would actually delay our longterm growth. There also seems to be no pressing need for a second worker until after GLib. Getting one out before GLib will not delay it, assuming we chop three forests, but there's no real gain in doing so.

zyxy said:
If we want to go for diplo, then we do not need 70 techs. We will need Mass Media, which requires:
Radio, Electricity, Physics, SciMeth, Astro, Press, Machinery, Paper, Calendar, Optics, Compass, IW, MC, Math, CS, CoL, and some ancient techs. Apart from this, we will probably want some others, like Alphabet, Drama and Currency. This means we need about 20 post-ancient techs.
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Well, this is deity, I strongly doubt we'll get away with having only those techs. We're going to need Engineering (Castle, pikes, cats), possibly Feudalism (LBs), likely Rifling (Riflemen). We might be able to skip LBs in favor on Cho-ko-nu's, but for Rifling we will need RP <- Banking <- Guilds <- Feudalism <- ... . And if we need to go to Assembly Line (Infantry), not unlikely, then we'll need a lot more than that.

If we build the Globe, then we can trade our happy resources away for health resources, preferably the ones with multiplier buildings - or for iron, if we don't have it.
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Indeed we can. We'll likely only have two local luxes though, three after Optics, but getting three extra granary health resources means +6 health, really important.

I agree with Renata that for diplo victory we should not delay contacts too long. Besides, the WFYABTA argument doesn't really hold as we already know some of the best traders - Washington, Lizzy, Asoka. Not only do they have high limits, but also they are relatively easy to befriend. Early trading, before we know the other civs, will just mean that we use up our "longer credit lines" first.
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I'm not so sure I agree with this. First of all, both Washington and Asoka have caps of 12, that's average. Lizzy is the only one with a high cap (18) of those we have met so far. We're going to meet one of Peter/Cathrine who also have 18, and of course Mansa Musa with 24. So we'd be using up one of our long credit lines, but if we can delay the other two then all the better. We also know that we will meet Cyrus and Saladin (12 both), and possibly Freddy/Hatty/Chubby/Nappy as well, all 12, though the latter four civs have alternate leaders with only 6.

You are definitely right about the "easy to befriend" part though. If we could become friendly with one or several of our closest neighbors, it would mean a great deal.
 
The problem with thinking of them as credit lines is that if you know six AI and make one trade, that counts as a trade with all six AI.

So if the AI are grouped like this:

Five will trade 6 techs
Five will trade 12 techs
Five will trade 18 techs
Five will trade 24 techs

If you know all twenty of these AI when you make your first trade, you get to make 24 trades - total.

Besides this, as soon as writing enables open borders, the entire continent will come calling to visit us anyway. Why not let them spend the hammers on the exploring units, rather than us spending hammers? Taking a chance on losing the pyramids or great library for a scout or workboat... which can't get through the cultural boundaries anyway... it just doesn't seem right to me. If you play one of the practice games, you'll see that 18 nations on a tiny map -- there just isn't anywhere that is culture-free after the very earliest stages of the game. It's so crowded some of the AI have settlers they can't even use!

I'm not arguing against scouting/meeting at all - just wait until after we have our crucial wonders.
 
unkle, I just discovered an error in the spreadsheet - we have access to the second crabs one turn earlier than I counted with - and that may have far-reaching (positive!) effects. So please don't play until I've had a chance to post my thoughts on that.

Chris has it right on the credit lines, and I think what he says about letting AIs explore makes a lot of sense.
 
I think this should be correct, but please doublecheck. It's always harder to edit than to create new, chances are you'll do an error somewhere.

Spoiler :


The idea behind this is that with the crabs online just one turn earlier, we can grow quite a lot faster. So my suggestion here is to skip the quarry on the marble for now (we lose 1h 2c each turn we work it) and instead just road it, then camp and road the furs so we can sustain size 5 earlier, and then go back and quarry the marble afterwards. Doing this will cost us some hammers early, but will give us more growth and commerce. As you can see we have to fiddle a bit to not delay Pyramids one turn, but after Pyramids the gains are quite large for having grown faster.

Gotta run now, will be back later to comment more.
 
It's actually not the workboat coming one turn early; it's Hunting coming one turn late. They were both on turn 26 in your spreadsheet of post 63. But that said, I very much like the re-working. Can't argue with reaching pop 5 five turns earlier while still getting the Pyramids on the same turn. (As I said before, someone else will have to do the double-checking, though.)

I'm in agreement with not building either a granary or a second worker now or directly after the Pyramids -- I want them, but they only need to be built shortly before they'd become useful. Now is not that time, obviously.

(Regarding growth -- How many more turns do we have until the next border expansion? I don't know if we'll get it right away, but I'm eyeing that silver for size 6.)

Finally, exploration again -- I guess I'm outnumbered, but I don't mind too much. I'm even wondering if maybe there are three or four continents on the map, and the civs we've met already are the only other ones on this one. Because unless Gyathaar put a lot of sneaky little mountains and lakes and chokepoints and such, I can't think of any reason additional civs wouldn't be able to reach us already. Unless they just haven't gotten around to the northern corner of the map yet, in which case they still might show up in the next turnset. And of course, Gyathaar being Gyathaar, there may very well be mountains and lakes and chokepoints and such. :)
 
Well, actually it's not the workboat being early, it's the "Net on Crabs" comment being one turn late in #63, which fooled me a bit. Since the worker was delayed one turn I just moved the entire column down one step, and didn't remember to adjust for the workboat not being late. :crazyeye:

Without a culture doubling on the palace, we will hit 100 culture on (the end of) turn 48, i.e. two turns after Pyramids. I'm surprised that we're not seeing that culture doubling though, doesn't all buildings double in culture after 1000 years? :confused:

I'll double- and triple-check over the next few hours. That's not to say that someone else shouldn't do it too. ;)
 
A few random thoughts:

1) New York is a blessing in disguise. Thanks to it, we'll be connected to Washington as soon as we finish the road on the Furs, which means turn 43 (could be 39 if we road before camp, but no point really), same turn that Writing comes in. A quick OB with Washington means we'll have some nice extra commerce from the trade route to Washington, which will mean quite a lot towards Alphabet.

2) Even better is if we could trade away one of our health resources for (what will be) Washington's surplus Gold. We can safely cancel the deal once we've built the Globe, but until then we are going to need luxes more than health. An well-timed forge and gold+silver would allow us to grow to size 11! And we'll need a forge sooner or later anyway, the sooner the better.

3) Question: are we still limited to 2 national wonders in OCC? If we are, which two will that be? If we plan to use the Globe for one of them, that's only one position left. National Epic and Oxford University both look like clear candidates to me, not to mention Heroic Epic... :hmm:

EDIT: If we can trade for gold (or some other lux), I have a plan that will give us GLib on turn 70, at the expense of 2 forests. If not, we'll have it on turn 72, at the expense of 1 forest.
 
We definitely get extra National Wonders. I don't know how many, though.
 
I believe we can build five national wonders.

I suspect the reason the other AI have not yet visited us is because (let me say it again) the whole darn continent is covered in cultural boundaries. The other AI can't get through the cultural boundaries to visit us without declaring war on the intervening AI. Most of the exploring scouts are trapped by cultural borders.

My test maps with these settings show 2-3 continents is the norm, and Astronomy is needed to visit the other continents most of the time.
 
Great, thanks Renata, that's a relief! :)

That means that we'll most certainly want National Epic quite early, since we're already going for GLib/Literature. And I guess an early Heroic Epic as well, before we start cranking out units. Hmm, I realize I'm not planning for many unit builds - how long can we survive on a single warrior? :crazyeye:

If we get four NWs it will do just fine, I really doubt we'll want any other than the four I mentioned (Globe, NE, HE, Oxford). Possibly Iron Works of course, if we reach Steel and have coal and/or iron and can spare the health and not the least think there's enough game left that we will get the investment returned. West Point is a similar story, though I doubt we'll fulfil the requirements for that (hope not!). EDIT: x-post with Chris - 5 NWs will definitely cover our needs for this game.

Question again: do we get our industrial bonus towards National Wonders too? I realize there's a lot I don't know... :blush:
 
Looking at last plan Niklas, it seems fine to me.

I think vanilla is ok with all National, and bonus is applied too (edit Xpost with Chris).

Key point is that I fear we are building too few defenders. Currently, if suddenly Washington decides to attack us, we cannot even rush anything, and our best defender is still a warrior (archer behind walls+hill would be much better). I know researching archery is a new delay, plus producing archer is another. But since Washington is our only neighbour, how can we be sure he will not attack ? Map is crowded, and we are his best target...

I'll play tomorrow some turns at least, but I'd really like some comments from anyone who understands how AI decide to go to war. Or do we have some grace time as with the barbs ???
 
What is the reason going for pottery instead of AH ? Sure we save 2 turns of research, but pottery is not a huge gain for us. We do not plan to build cottage (while pasture could be useful) and getting an earlier writing is a smaller gain since we cannot get a library in time.

I reiterate the question on archery too, by the way. We need to be sure we can take the heat of risking an early rush. We would loose to a archer rush currently.
 
unkle said:
Key point is that I fear we are building too few defenders. Currently, if suddenly Washington decides to attack us, we cannot even rush anything, and our best defender is still a warrior (archer behind walls+hill would be much better). I know researching archery is a new delay, plus producing archer is another. But since Washington is our only neighbour, how can we be sure he will not attack ? Map is crowded, and we are his best target...
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Honestly, I have no idea. This is also my one main worry, that we can't be nice enough to ward off a potential attack. I also haven't played any test games so I wouldn't really know what the odds are. GNE was attacked by Catherine several times, but Washington isn't Catherine.

On the one hand, I want us to have as much protection as possible. On the other hand, if we put resources into protection, we might lose the game because of that, by falling behind and being outteched and outgunned later. So if it is at all feasible that we can manage the first 70 turns with minimal protection, and not get attacked, then I think we should. If we get attacked, it won't really matter if we defend our capitol or not, we'll be out of the game anyway from the pillaging. So as I see it, our only hope to do well in this game, to have a chance to actually win an OCC crowded deity game (!!), is to take risks.

As those of you who have played with me before know, I'm not really interested in playing it safe. I rather take risks, not stupid risks but calculated ones, than play it safe and not even have the chance on the gold laurel.

That said - since we will likely get a trade route to our capitol really soon, that will speed up research quite a lot. Cramming in Archery in the pipeline shouldn't even be hard, and we might still get to Alphabet ahead of plan. We could go for Archery right after Writing and have it by the time the Pyramids complete, then build an archer or two instead of the Barracks. Though a Barracks gives the same boost to our power rating as two Archers (4k), so I'm not sure it's worth it, and clearly the Barracks is the better long-term investment. We want a high power rating to deter attacks in the first place, if someone attacks we'll be toast even if we have three archers defending our home.

What does the rest of the team have to say on this?

unkle said:
What is the reason going for pottery instead of AH ? Sure we save 2 turns of research, but pottery is not a huge gain for us. We do not plan to build cottage (while pasture could be useful) and getting an earlier writing is a smaller gain since we cannot get a library in time.
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This is a very relevant question. I don't think the answer is obvious either way, but I'm still leaning towards Pottery, for several reasons:
- We can be fairly sure that whichever of the two we skip, we will be able to trade for it, so it makes sense to research the cheapest one ourselves.
- We don't really need access to the Sheep any earlier than when we get to trade for AH anyway, since we're already touching the limits of sustainable growth.
- It's not the time to Writing that matters, it's the time to Alphabet. Every single turn there matters, since the earlier we can trade, the bigger the chances that we have things to trade away. And every other tech after that (Literature!) will also be sped up, not by much but even a one turn gain is plenty worth.

Still, if someone wants to make a case for AH over Pottery, I will definitely listen (horses on the plains tile? what would that be worth to us?). As I said, I don't think it's obvious.
 
I've been thinking some more on trade routes (I sure do a lot of thinking today eh? :crazyeye:). Turns out I was a bit optimistic on my previous assessment, I missed a factor 2 in the divisor, so it'll be ~+7-13% and not +15-25%. But still, it's going to mean a lot over time.

Washington is 6 tiles away, which means that it will not be worth all that much to us. In fact, it will cap in yield at size 8, size the term contains a MIN([pop*0.5],[dist*0.7]). [6*0.7]=[4.2]=4, so that subterm will win out as pop grows above 8. At our size 5 and his size 5, it's worth +1. At our size 5 and his size 6, it's worth +2. At his size 8 (and above), it'll be worth 2+[our size/10]. EDIT: Actually, foreign trade routes have a minimum of +2 yield, so it'll be +2 until we hit size 10.

I'm not sure how diagonal distance is counted in CIV, but if it's like Civ3 (1.5 for diagonal, rounded down) then London is 9 tiles away and Delhi 9.5. Either multiplied by 0.7 is 6, so they will both cap out at size 12. London is on the coast, which means it will likely be our first trade route stop, as soon as we open borders. There will be no difference in worth compared to Washington until London grows to 10 though.

I'm not sure if the AIs will offer us OB as soon as they have Writing available. It's definitely possible, not to say likely, that they will get it before we do. Since we gain extra commerce from an OB agreement, it is crucial that we get it at the first possible chance. Please check every turn whether we can trade OB with Lizzy and/or Washington!

It is also possible that Washington will get Writing before turn 43, and that the factor that determines if we can trade or not is the road on the furs. There's really no reason not to road before camp (quite contrary to what I said before), so please road the furs before creating the camp! If we gain +4 +8 commerce from having a trade route 4 turns earlier, hooray!


Alright, now it's Sunday night, and I promise I won't have quite as much time to fuss over these details come Monday... :mischief:
 
@Niklas:
your point on the trade routes is understood. I'll delay military (I do not play SGOTM safe, I agree, but we need to believe we can last more than 70 turns).

Playing tonight, so now is your last chance to change anything :D
 
One more thought occured to me. We won't need health resources for a long time yet, and we won't need to trade for more happiness resources until we're ready to grow to size 8. So if we get OB with Lizzy and/or Washington, and can't trade for luxes yet, we should consider gifting them our health resources, just to get the "We appreciate the years you have supplied us with resources" bonuses as early as possible.

I think we can already now say that we will want to stay good friends with Lizzy and Washington, and alienate anyone that they dislike or who dislikes them. Hopefully they'll stay happy with each other...

I don't have anything else to add for the immediate turnset, have fun playing unkle! :)
 
Btw, here's the xls document I'm using, including a few different scenarios for this game. Feel free to take it and modify to come up with counter-proposals. The more alternatives up for discussion the better.
 

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