SGOTM 07 - Unusual Suspects

[Yamps]

We should choose a captain and set up some rules and guidance for game play.

A few other administrative things we are going t ohave to

tackle before we get too far along in the strategy discussion:

Anybody willing to be team captain?

I would recommend that for Team Captain we elect someone who has preferably lots of

experience playing SGOTM's and is comfortable playing on Emperor level or above. I

am disqualified on both counts.

Anybody want the job? Please nominate yourself then.

After we have the Captain, it will be easier to settle things like who will play

turns and in what order, and to provide structure and frame the discussions of both

strategy and tactics.

Just my 2 cents.

I've just seen this on the signup thread:


I suggest we invite him to join! We could use an experienced SGOTM immortal

player!

I'll send him a PM to join us before somebody else does it, if I'm not already too

late.
We should take a vote about this, but by the time we do it it will be to late.
If you don't agree with this, please say.

I'm Melior Traiano and I approve this message.

We should offer him the team captaincy too.

I second the motion. Acidsatyr, do you accept the nomination?
Any other candidates?

 

[acidsatyr]

hmm

LoL, that's fine by me, unless someone else has a burning desire to be the team captain.

As long as we all agree on things it's all good.

 

[marconos]

I'm fine with it.

Did you chop any woods down to make stone henge? If you don't start with a worker and just research
Myst -> Hunting -> Archery then beeline for Drama does that work? Would it make sense to make the worker after you get 2 - 3 archers? When did you build the walls?

It seems to me we should go Stonehenge / GL for early wonders then just build the proper building/units that we need.

How many free military units do we get at Deity/Tiny difficulty?

 

[Yamps]

Hey, didn't know The Unusual Suspects were a band!
Check it out: The Unusual Suspects

 

[Melior Traiano]

Hey, didn't know The Unusual Suspects were a band!
Check it out: The Unusual Suspects

I didn't rip off their name, I swear!
I bet none of the other teams have a band with the same name.

 

[acidsatyr]

Alright let’s get some discussion going in here.

Before we begin I would like to make same general rules we all should follow if we want to make this game an enjoyable play for everyone.

1. There are 7 days in a week. In order to respect everyone’s time management (job, school, family, girlfriend ), there will be a 24-36 hour “got it” rule. This means that you as a next player have exactly that much time to post a “got it” to let everyone else know you indeed got the last save and are ready to play. However, before you actually play your turnset (more o this later), you will participate in an ongoing discussion and only after we all agree on the course of the action, you will play it. You don’t have to play a turnset at all. Just post that you want a skip for that turn.

2. Your turnset does not have a strict number of turns. It can be 5, 10, or even 1. Whenever something major happens which needs more attention, stop playing and start a discussion. Remember it’s about good quality discussion, it doesn’t matter who will execute the plan. Again, the exact course of action will be discussed before we actually play the save file. Relatively simple (obvious) changes like civic changes/ unit promotions up to more delicate matters like obeying others civ request to join a crusade against another civ (remember you can alt+tab anytime!), or excepting other religion needs to be discussed before playing, otherwise it will be unfair to others here.

Now let’s decide rooster. I can go first (unless someone else has a strong desire to go instead. Again everything will be discussed before we play, so it doesn’t really matter who goes when), and let me know who will be next.

As far as our discussion goes on first few moves ->

I think that Stonehenge will be crucial first wonder to get. This is a tiny map with 18 civs, deity , meaning they get an extra settler to begin with, and all land will be settles by turn 3. The only way to combat cultural pressure this early is by getting as much wonders as we can get. This means getting at least one (Stonehenge, Pyramids). Keeping in mind who our neighbors are, because not paying attention to our military can end this game quickly. This means getting barracks and couple of archers asap. This shifts graph power to our liking and there is a less chance we will get attacked. Remember that walls/barracks count as units in power graph.

There is no time for Parthenon; we can’t squeeze in all 3. But we can decide whether we want pyramids or Parthenon. In my opinion Parthenon will be even more powerful than pyramids. Why? Because extra GPP is amazing in OCC where power of our city comes from settled gp. Also, it is very unlikely that we will adopt a religion this early and get Pacifism. We don’t want to piss of other civs who don’t share our religion this early. Pyramids on the other hand give us a research boost (happiness is not really an issue in OCC due to Globe Theater), but remember that we won’t be able to run a lot of extra scientists to make a full use of this. Also, we are not spiritual and we don’t have plenty of food lying around to play around with caste system/representation. STILL mere gpp and culture bonus might justify pyramids in the long run, and getting Parthenon is EXTREMLY hard.

Next wonder which I rank as #2 on our list is the Great Library. We really should aim to get this one. Still we cannot get carried away with wonders and neglect others arguably much more important issues.

Chopping is an issue. Tiles that can be directly farmed should be chopped first. We want forest as health IS an issue here.

What are the victory conditions in this game?

Remember that AI only has 2-3 cities up to this point. There is a high chance that more aggressive civs will acquire more than that. So our research pace should be up there with them. Diplo victory will be hard to pull off with another 17 civs (but still possible. Note here that we DON’T want to for PA in this case). Looking for where to make that bit of a tech lead and use it to our advantage will be the hard part. Our continent should be enough for domination. We need to keep all options in mind here:

Diplo win -> we don’t need PA. Civs that don’t like us we can kill!
Space, Domination, Conquest -> they all require PA one way or another. Space comes late, Domination is not easy, also late.

Our first moves

Beijing should start with a worker while we research mysticism. After that we are researching wheel and masonry, while the city is stuck at size 2 and builds Stonehenge. After that its all a big question, since we don’t know who is our first neighbor.

If you read this far you get a high5.

 

[marconos]

Arggg .. soo many bagpipes ... so few bullets

Edit: Response to above post.

As soon as the worker is done we are then going to start on Stonehenge. Approx how long do we have before the first civ attacks us? Do we have enough time to do Worker / Stonehenge / Barraks / Archer? If we get attacked early at this point we will only have 1 warrior.

Is that our target build order? What are we looking at having the worker do early? IMO getting that worker 1st is just going to allow us to build things that the computer is just going to pillage anyway.

 

[kcd_swede]

Approx how long do we have before the first civ attacks us? Do we have enough time to do Worker / Stonehenge / Barraks / Archer? If we get attacked early at this point we will only have 1 warrior.

Is that our target build order? What are we looking at having the worker do early? IMO getting that worker 1st is just going to allow us to build things that the computer is just going to pillage anyway.

There is a risk that farm or quarry gets pillaged before they give us much benefit. If we are attacked fast, it probably doesn't pay. But if we don't take this risk, then we should abandon plan for 2 early wonders.

What we KNOW is that culture pressure is going to be substantial and start very early. So the SH + (Pyr/Parth) + GL plan sounds good, and the quarry is a reasonable risk to take to get there.

If we have nasty neighbors we might want to revise plan, though. Most civs won't have a reason to attack us early, but some don't need one.

I agree with acid's initial build plan, worker first. How many turns will Myst take and the worker build take? If worker done first, put hammers into barracks until can switch to SH. By this time we will know whether wiser to go for archers first or continue plan by heading for masonry/wheel first.

BTW - I will probably not be available from April 27 - May 4.

 

[Morganknight]

Here is a proposed turn order, simply alphabetical:

1>acidsatyr
2>classical_hero
3>kcd_swede
4>marconos
5>Melior Traiano
6>Morganknight
7>shikhee
8>vra379971
9>Yamps

It should work to get us going. Like Acid said, since all major and most minor decisions will be made as a group, the turn order is almost irrelevant.

I say settle in place and agree we should do the Mysticism>Wheel>Masonry==>Stonehenge as suggested.

edit: Worker in 12 turns, Mysticism in 8... (having a worker to hook that stone and or marble up is vital to our early wonder strategy...yes the quarries may get pillaged sooner rather than later, but its a gamble we have to take...)

 

[kcd_swede]

1) Now let’s decide rooster. I can go first

2) because not paying attention to our military can end this game quickly. This means getting barracks and couple of archers asap.

3) Chopping is an issue. Tiles that can be directly farmed should be chopped first.
4) Diplo victory will be hard to pull off with another 17 civs (but still possible. Note here that we DON’T want to for PA in this case). We need to keep all options in mind here:

Diplo win -> we don’t need PA. Civs that don’t like us we can kill!
Space, Domination, Conquest -> they all require PA one way or another. Space comes late, Domination is not easy, also late.

5)Looking for where to make that bit of a tech lead and use it to our advantage will be the hard part.

6) Beijing should start with a worker while we research mysticism. After that we are researching wheel and masonry, while the city is stuck at size 2 and builds Stonehenge. After that its all a big question, since we don’t know who is our first neighbor.

1) No objections, unless someone else wants it open for a vote or discussion.
2) I guess "quickly" is not well-defined here. If I look at #6, with the proposed research path and the proposed build order, I wouldn't call our first archer build "quick". I assume we evaluate build order and tech path again when we meet neighbors on turn 3 or so.
3) Which tiles specifically will you chop/farm first? Also we do not have BW yet and it isn't on the tech path to be acheived before the worker is built. We should consider what that worker will be able to do and when.
4) Only diplo victory that is early is Religion victory. We will not be big when AP is built, so we will have to build it to get this. Is it realistic to think we will have a chance at AP? Maybe you are better at keeping up in tech than me. (Errr... you damn well better be better than me!) I think PA is the primary aim, and only if we see a shot later do we chance religion victory. With continents, it is likely to be hard to get our religion to all 17 civs - and could cause wars. As for Domination, I doubt any continent is 60% of the land mass. There will be at least two, but probably only 2 continents on a Tiny map. One will be bigger, one smaller, but 60% is questionable. I have seen as many as 4 continents on Tiny, too, and they are like islands, really.
5) For me, that's an understatement.
6) We shouldn't make any tactical decisions beyond those before we know who we border. No plan survives contact with the enemy. However, the long-term strategy should be agreed by all.

 

[Morganknight]

I don't think the AP will be built this game...by anybody.

 

[Yamps]

All right, we are on the move here!

Some thoughts:

Starting moves

We should consider masonry/wheel/mysticism, I believe this way Stonehenge is built faster. Mysticism is researched later, but we hook up stone and finish it faster. (Worker first)

We have to see who our first neighbors are, but there is a very good chance that even the most aggressive ones won't attack for the first 40 turns. This at least allows us to built SH, if not more, and still have defense by that time.

Chopping
Camp location, grassland/river location 1E of city(we are going to settle in place, right?), border locations if the ownership percentage drops to ~60%, we'll see what else

Victory conditions

Why is PA bad for diplo? Do we need more votes, or is it because our PA partner will probably have bad relations with most civs?

We will have to count tiles on our continent to see if we have enough land for domination.

Pyramids vs Parthenon

Parthenon usually gets built later than Pyramids by AI (~55 turns), we can take it. But the real question is will we take that risk.

Technical rules

1) Set autosave to 1
2) Set first turn to 1 to avoid confusion
...

Roster

We should consider playing strengths of players posted on the signup thread.

 

[classical_hero]

I don't think the AP will be built this game...by anybody.

ARe you referrng to the Apostolic Palace? If you then this is not in this game. That is one thing I need to remind myself, that this game is not BTS. I must unlearn something that I leanrt over in BTS.

 

[kcd_swede]

ARe you referrng to the Apostolic Palace? If you then this is not in this game. That is one thing I need to remind myself, that this game is not BTS. I must unlearn something that I leanrt over in BTS.

Oh sorry!
That's my fault. I'm the BtS guy who is slumming it here on a Vanilla game. Ooops. Morganknight's just having some fun with me.

I got to wondering how anybody could consider Diplo victory (Mass Media for goodness sakes!!) to have a shot at fastest victory type... and the AP pushed everything else out of my empty head.


You guys better keep me on a very short leash.

 

[vra379971]

All right, we are on the move here!

Some thoughts:

Starting moves

We should consider masonry/wheel/mysticism, I believe this way Stonehenge is built faster. Mysticism is researched later, but we hook up stone and finish it faster. (Worker first)

We have to see who our first neighbors are, but there is a very good chance that even the most aggressive ones won't attack for the first 40 turns. This at least allows us to built SH, if not more, and still have defense by that time.

We should consider playing strengths of players posted on the signup thread.

I'm a tad confused about what the rush to build archers is. Mainly as we don't really need them early. A couple warriors are enough to keep our power rating high enough to discourage attack early.

Here's what I've found works...

Start with worker build. Research MASONRY. Start on THE WHEEL. Build ROAD AND QUARRY on Stone. Build WARRIORS between work finished and MYST decovered. Switch to STONEHENGE. Start BRONZE WORKING. Farm River GRASSLAND north of city. (We get extra coin this way). Work STONE and River Grassland and prepare to chop away with worker. FINISH STONEHENGE and build PYRAMIDS.

POSSBLE PLAN HERE: HOOK OF MARBLE QUARRY AND USE IT'S 3 COIN BONUS TO SPEED UP BW discovery, and faster chop potential.

Finish BRONZE WORKING AND CHOP CHOP CHOP!

We also need to build roads to our neighbours as fast as possible. Due to the size of this game/map we should adopt an early religion, espeically as we're virtually assured a contiential lovefest with whatever religion comes first.

 

[kcd_swede]

The rush to archers for me is based on strategy article. I don't have enough exp to know if it makes sense for this game or not. I won't argue either way. If we fail to avoid an early war, this will be a very short game with only warriors, though.

Your build/tech order seems sound. You mean to chop out the pyr. I think that's a risky strategy, but so are they all on Deity, I think. Be sure to leave some unpillagable prod tiles in the fat cross, though, would be my preference.

Roads to neighbors I don't understand... is that to ensure religion spread or something else?

I also thought we want to avoid adopting a religion until asked by our target PA to do so, or until all our neighbors have adopted that same religion. I would expect more than one relig on our continent. But it could happen that we get a bunch of agg civs to contend with and all the religions go to the other cont.

 

[shikhee]

1) Now let’s decide rooster. I can go first

I'm happy with my position on the list (less pressure on late game ??)... won't be phased if I get kicked of entirely

3) Chopping is an issue. Tiles that can be directly farmed should be chopped first.

I think BW is vital... we're unlikely to get pyramids or parthenon without that marble/stone AND chopping. In one test game with those resources and constant chopping I was 3 turns from getting all 3 (was killed by some . .. .. .. .).

While I suspect it is possible - the point is in the realm game there is no luxury of reloads and the price of NOT getting a wonder finished will push us back too much. So I 2nd the notion of choosing Pyr or Parthenon (and agree with Acid that Parth is better). Stonehenge is also vital just for the culture, otherwise we'll be squashed and I'll put money on it that theres key resources outside of our city radius but inside a quality cultural radius. It would be ridiculously cruel if they don't give us copper (at least) within cultural boundaries (unlike that first test game! war would have been so much simpler with axes). I have a strong feeling that this being a Deity game, that we'll have as many 'favours' as the 'gods' can give us in these departments throughout the whole game.

I also agree about Worker as the first build... the extra hammers from the marble/stone is extremely useful and (maybe) farming the 2 grasslands (primarily because they will get destroyed by warring civs... but grasslands and mines are easily repaired unlike cottages, just don't let our worker get taken!).

6) Beijing should start with a worker while we research mysticism. After that we are researching wheel and masonry, while the city is stuck at size 2 and builds Stonehenge. After that its all a big question, since we don’t know who is our first neighbor.

Myst doesn't have to be the first because it takes 12 turns for our worker, up to 6 to find Myst... if we get Masonry first then we'll be almost ready with stone for SH to be built in under 6 turns.

(oh, and I'm in Australia... +10 GMT half a day ahead of most I suspect, might be helpful in determining member rounds).

 

[acidsatyr]

Ok, few things, but when i get back!


You are correct! I keep forgetting I got mysticism from a hut in a test game

1) Masonry should be first. Wheel is second. Mysticism is third.
At the same time we build a worker in Beijing.

2) After worker is done, he builds road and connects stone, while Beijing
starts barracks, continues with Stonehenge + Pyramids (at size 2 for max hammer output, meaning stone + grassland forest), and finally finishes barracks.

3) After mysticism and before Bronze Working is researched (chopping pyramids; we will chop grassland tiles first, we only need 3 chops for pyramids), worker will build roads trough forest we will later chop.

4) After that comes hunting (furs), and archery for archers. Finally fishing seems to be in order. Right after pyramids, and just before archery, Beijing can only build walls, and warriors. So we’ll go for walls.

Ok so we all agree on this as best course of action so far.

Why are we building barracks and not warriors? Because barracks (and walls) count as units in power graph. It goes something like this (i think) Barracks = 2.5 archers = 4 warriors. We have 5 (?) free units here so it only makes sense not to build warriors. We will also need a scout once we open borders. Mapping whos got where is important.

Why is it highly unlikely that we will get attacked first? Because at the start everyone is cautions with us. On the other hand, there are civs which are annoyed with each other even from the start (Monty and Hatty come to mind), so it is very likely they will fight first, giving us time for wonders and archers.

Victory conditions

Why is PA bad for diplo? Do we need more votes, or is it because our PA partner will probably have bad relations with most civs?

We will have to count tiles on our continent to see if we have enough land for domination.

To get PA you need to be in great relation with the chosen civ. So they will vote for you anyway. On the other hand forming PA only makes relations worse with everyone else.
Right now i think diplo win seems like the fastest way to win (i hope you guys are ready to WIN THIS! ), unless we make tech breaktru and just finish everyone fast enough

 

[acidsatyr]

Got the save, logically moved warrior into that forest south, and BAM we got a nice surprise here. I still heavily favor settling in place ofcourse. If anything, this makes our culture even more important.
Let me know your ideas if any, before I continue with our proposed wonder happy plan.
We need to consider working deer -> 4f2h faster now.

 

[vra379971]

The rush to archers for me is based on strategy article. I don't have enough exp to know if it makes sense for this game or not. I won't argue either way. If we fail to avoid an early war, this will be a very short game with only warriors, though.

Your build/tech order seems sound. You mean to chop out the pyr. I think that's a risky strategy, but so are they all on Deity, I think. Be sure to leave some unpillagable prod tiles in the fat cross, though, would be my preference.

Roads to neighbors I don't understand... is that to ensure religion spread or something else?

I also thought we want to avoid adopting a religion until asked by our target PA to do so, or until all our neighbors have adopted that same religion. I would expect more than one relig on our continent. But it could happen that we get a bunch of agg civs to contend with and all the religions go to the other cont.

The roads are to assure we get that religion fast as...in all my tests this - or until all our neighbors have adopted that same religion - has happened very early. And as soon as they choose one, they'll stay there.

And...well, I do'nt really mean to Chop out the Pyr. In actuality what will happen is we'll be half through building by the time BW comes in.