SGOTM 07 - Xteam

[rrau]

I have it down to 42 turns to Mids, and have gotten them 3 straight times with SCT's save posted in the SGOTM06 thread. The sequence:
Found in place, start Warrior and Fishing.
Turn 5 - Warrior completes, Worker.
Turn 6 - Fishing completes, start Masonry. Change Worker to Work Boat. Beijing at size 1 with 6 turns until growth.
On turn 12, Beijing grows to size 2. Citizens work a grass forest and a forested plains hill. Work Boat now due in two turns.
Turn 14, Work Boat completes, back to Worker. Citizens work Forested Grass and Fur tiles.
Turn 15 - Crab connected. Citizens work Crab and Fur tiles.
Turn 16 - Masonry comes in, start Wheel, due in 5-turns.
Turn 21 - Wheel comes in, start Bronze Working, due in 11 turns.
Turn 22 - Worker completes, start Mids. Worker to Stone. Citizens work Crab and Forested Grass.
Turn 28 - Quarry complete. Beijing grows to size 3. Citizens work Crab, Stone Hill and a Forested Plains Hill.
Turn 31 - Route complete, Stone connected. Worker moves to forested grass east of Beijing, where we want a Cottage later. Citizens work Crab, Stone and Forested Plain Hill tiles.
Turn 33 - Bronze Working completes, start Pottery, no revolt. Worker starts forest chop.
Turn 35 - Forest chop completes.
Turn 36 - Worker to forested plains hill NE of Beijing.
Turn 39 - Pottery completes, start Writing. Forest chop completes.
Turn 42 - Mids completes. Beijing is at size 3 and we have a Crab connected for food.

Turn 42 seems very doable to me!

I thought this seemed like a good start with either pyramids or GLH as a wonder. I do think we need an early wonder to keep from getting culturally squeezed as in some of my test games, the AI would settle really close and squeeze the BFC.

This start delays bronze working to get the masonry after fishing.

 

[leif erikson]

Delete post
EDIT - Sorry, I just reread this and realized I'm not making sense.

I would like to hear from SCT as I think he had a good reason to go Fishing => Bronze Working => Masonry => Wheel and we still get the Mids by turn 45.

 

[DJMGator13]

There shouldn't be any diplo requests/demands in the first turn set. Our warrior just needs to meet as many people as possible. If there is an opportunity to worker steal, first player can save and come back here for discussion.

As for reporting diplomatic happenings and actions in the turn reports, shall we use the color to match our future medal? (That's gold, not bronze.)

Definately note the turn and who the request came from. From some of the studying I've been doing we may be able to anticipate what each leader may ask for. Not what turn they will ask it. With that pre-knowledge before a turnset we could hopefully have some answers ready in our planning stage.

I'll explain more later, but it may not be until tomorrow night.

 

[Mad Professor]

Opening moves:

Warrior can move SW, but I really can't imagine finding anything that would justify leaving the coast and the river. We're guaranteed +4 to health from settling in place (fresh water and crabs). Any health resource the warrior could reveal we can capture with a second border expansion.

Agree. Health resources are the major consideration and moving away from the river straight away handicaps us there. The crabs are also important. Having them within the fat cross is a must I think. The SW move by the warrior is a good start to exploration, but like SCT, I can't imagine finding a better settling spot than where the settler is now.

With no food resources visible on land, worker first doesn't do much good. Best sequence I've found is warrior -> workboat -> worker (MMed so that Pop2 and workboat come on same turn) and I think we are all happy with Fishing -> BW as first 2 techs. We don't need to commit to any early wonder until after researching BW, so that would be a good place to stop and discuss.

I agree. Perhaps if a worker steal is agreed to early, then we can get away with not building the worker. On the other hand, once we start the worker, a worker steal may reduce in value with every hammer we put into building our own. At least early on anyway when one worker can do all the work we need.

There shouldn't be any diplo requests/demands in the first turn set. Our warrior just needs to meet as many people as possible. If there is an opportunity to worker steal, first player can save and come back here for discussion.

This seems like good sense to me.

As for reporting diplomatic happenings and actions in the turn reports, shall we use the color to match our future medal? (That's gold, not bronze.)

Yes, reporting exactly who asked what when is good. It will help us analyse the oh so important diplo factor in this game.

 

[leif erikson]

Warrior can move SW, but I really can't imagine finding anything that would justify leaving the coast and the river. We're guaranteed +4 to health from settling in place (fresh water and crabs). Any health resource the warrior could reveal we can capture with a second border expansion.

I can't see any reason to move either, especially off of that nice defensive bonus, the hill!

If the Warrior reveals anything really juicy that we might want to take advantage of, then we should discuss, otherwise, let's continue on to Bronze.

With no food resources visible on land, worker first doesn't do much good. Best sequence I've found is warrior -> workboat -> worker (MMed so that Pop2 and workboat come on same turn) and I think we are all happy with Fishing -> BW as first 2 techs. We don't need to commit to any early wonder until after researching BW, so that would be a good place to stop and discuss.

@rrau - I think this is the best way to begin. Playing through Bronze and then we can stop an assess where we are, what the neighborhood will be like and see who else we can meet.

There shouldn't be any diplo requests/demands in the first turn set. Our warrior just needs to meet as many people as possible. If there is an opportunity to worker steal, first player can save and come back here for discussion.

As for reporting diplomatic happenings and actions in the turn reports, shall we use the color to match our future medal? (That's gold, not bronze.)

If a Worker steal presents itself, I think we need a discussion. Contact info is important, so let's try to keep an accurate track of it.

 

[leif erikson]

Almost forgot?

The roster has been finalized and remains as follows:
rrau - UP
leif - On Deck
ShannonCT
Frederiksberg
Cactus Pete
Jimmy Thunder
Mad Professor - Off on an African adventure.
Gator - Trying to figure out this diplomacy stuff.

Mistfit - diligently lurking to keep us straight!

 

[rrau]

OK, got it (and can open it). Plan to play tomorrow night after work, so any other suggestions welcome until then.

 

[ShannonCT]

I thought this seemed like a good start with either pyramids or GLH as a wonder. I do think we need an early wonder to keep from getting culturally squeezed as in some of my test games, the AI would settle really close and squeeze the BFC.

This start delays bronze working to get the masonry after fishing.

I've found that getting BW before any techs for wonders only delays the wonder by 3-4 turns, because of the ability to chop. The AI seems quite slow to build the GLH, so if we decide on that one, it should be easy to get. Mids are a little less certain but they are usually built by the AI after turn 50.

Early BW is very versatile though. It will let us know if we want archery and allows us to whip/chop units if we're attacked early. And if we have copper, building a copper mine is as productive as chopping.

OK, got it (and can open it). Plan to play tomorrow night after work, so any other suggestions welcome until then.

If the test games are any indication, Our continent should be fairly narrow and long. Try to get our warrior as far south as possible and don't worry about exploring our local area.

 

[leif erikson]

OK, got it (and can open it). Plan to play tomorrow night after work, so any other suggestions welcome until then.

We need to try to meet as many civs as possible before the culture borders close off access until Writing and Open Borders.

I think the other thing early Bronze Working does, as we learned in the last game when graph reading, is increase our power rating enough to, perhaps, hold some early AI attacks at bay. In testing it seemed to me that there were fewer early declarations when we had Bronze.

Just remember to be congenial with all those tyrants out there. Give them a big
And let's have Ghandi and Mansa Musa for neighbors?
Good luck!

 

[Frederiksberg]

I finally finished a test game where the first DOW was not super early (Got DOW'ed by Peter around turn 80).

A later DOW means a lot because you have a good chance of surviving the attack with 4 axes and more techs for bribing other civs to join the war. This war went well and the later wars against Elisabeth and Tokugawa were all planned to gain common war turns. In the end it wasn't enough for an immediate PA when Communism was discovered in 940 AD (T157). Genghis was saying "We don't like you enough" and Capac had not shared wars for long enough.

Stats:

T157: Communism learned (940 AD).

Wonders:
T52: Great Lighthouse
T76: Great Library
T81: Globe Theater
T104: National Epic
T125: Oxford

Great People:
T81: GM, used to bulb CS later
T101: GS, used for Academy
T119: GS, used for bulbing part of Education
T137: GA, settled
T152: GM, settled

Beakers per turn:
T77: 43 bpt
T107: 127 bpt
T111: 143 bpt
T125: 180 bpt
T131: 315 bpt
T144: 363 bpt
T146: 393 bpt
T157: 412 bpt

Tech path: Fishing - BW - Hunting - Masonry - Sailing - The Wheel - Pottery - Writing - Alphabet

I got religion very late in the game (T130). Trade routes were less valuable than in the other test game - probably because the average city size was lower. There was also no access to health resources which would have helped grow Beijing above pop 13.

I'm still leaning towards building the GLH rather than the Pyramids. The beaker output of 412 bpt from Beijing will be very useful when teching on to Mass Media and even further if we decide that Space Race is faster than Back Door Diplo. Even in a domination gain the higher pop of Beijing can be useful and turned into hammers by working grassland workshops under State Property.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Thought you might want to take a look at T157:

Spoiler :

And here's the save.

940 AD

 

[leif erikson]

Nice work Fred. As I said, I was surprised by the tech pace in a Great Lighthouse game. I missed the Great Engineer chance and the +2 Happy Faces that Representation gives us until Globe Theater. However, I don't know which is the best way to go as they seem nearly equal. I think the decision for me is that I believe we are assured of getting The Great Lighthouse and I'm not entirely sure we will get the Pyramids.

The other advantage of the Pyramids is that, with the +2 , I think we can build The National Epic before Globe Theater and juice up our Great People production by a few turns.

Let's hope for copper close by and iron in the bfc!

EDIT - It is starting to look like we can get to Communism well enough. The key then becomes managing warfare to ensure we have 40 turns aligned with someone we want to have a PA with. We may have to start some wars while we have a tech lead in order to stimulate a bit of unity?

 

[ShannonCT]

Nice work Fred. As I said, I was surprised by the tech pace in a Great Lighthouse game. I missed the Great Engineer chance and the +2 Happy Faces that Representation gives us until Globe Theater. However, I don't know which is the best way to go as they seem nearly equal. I think the decision for me is that I believe we are assured of getting The Great Lighthouse and I'm not entirely sure we will get the Pyramids.

I think the main difference between the Pyramids/great people strategy and the GHL/cottage strategy is the power of cottages with a financial civ running Bureaucracy. But I am fine with going for GLH instead of Mids. There will be a happiness shortage early but we can whip away unhappiness or run specialists until we can trade for Monarchy. And the GM we will likely get can be used for CS after trading for Currency, MC, and Monarchy.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Nice work Fred. As I said, I was surprised by the tech pace in a Great Lighthouse game. I missed the Great Engineer chance and the +2 Happy Faces that Representation gives us until Globe Theater. However, I don't know which is the best way to go as they seem nearly equal. I think the decision for me is that I believe we are assured of getting The Great Lighthouse and I'm not entirely sure we will get the Pyramids.

Actually the Great Merchant you get with the GLH is quite useful as he can bulb CS. The GLH game was only 9 turns faster than the Pyramids game and that can be a random fluctuation. My point is that the 400+ beakers per turn ensures a good tech pace also after Communism. The specialist economy will be less efficient in the late game because it will require more and more GPP points to get a Great Person.

EDIT - It is starting to look like we can get to Communism well enough. The key then becomes managing warfare to ensure we have 40 turns aligned with someone we want to have a PA with. We may have to start some wars while we have a tech lead in order to stimulate a bit of unity?

Absolutely. I think it's a key thing to start wars as soon as we know that allies can be brought in.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I think the main difference between the Pyramids/great people strategy and the GHL/cottage strategy is the power of cottages with a financial civ running Bureaucracy. But I am fine with going for GLH instead of Mids. There will be a happiness shortage early but we can whip away unhappiness or run specialists until we can trade for Monarchy. And the GM we will likely get can be used for CS after trading for Currency, MC, and Monarchy.

I think this is a correct analysis. The GLH in itself doesn't provide more beakers than the Pyramids, but the fact that we have citizens working cottages rather than working as specialists boosts population and matures cottages.

 

[leif erikson]

I think the main difference between the Pyramids/great people strategy and the GHL/cottage strategy is the power of cottages with a financial civ running Bureaucracy.

This brings a question to mind. The strategy of the AI is to pillage your improvements to the stone age. Before I'm ready to commit to the GLighthouse strategy, I would like to see the lay of the land a bit and see how many neighbors we have and if there are any choke points that allow us to use a civ as a block.

If the power of the GLighthouse strategy is mature, worked towns and we loose them during a conflict, doesn't that kind of leave us up the creek without a paddle? Is the Pyramid, Great People strategy more pillage proof?

 

[Frederiksberg]

This brings a question to mind. The strategy of the AI is to pillage your improvements to the stone age. Before I'm ready to commit to the GLighthouse strategy, I would like to see the lay of the land a bit and see how many neighbors we have and if there are any choke points that allow us to use a civ as a block.

If the power of the GLighthouse strategy is mature, worked towns and we loose them during a conflict, doesn't that kind of leave us up the creek without a paddle? Is the Pyramid, Great People strategy more pillage proof?

I didn't have any problems protecting the improvements. If we are not at war with our immediate neighbors I think we will be OK because we can bribe someone closer to the attacking civ to join the war. If we are attacked in great force early there will be no cottages to pillage and if we are attacked late we can always research or trade for Constitution and adopt Representation so nothing is really lost compared to having Pyramids. But our late game advantage of having cottages would disappear. So this leaves the risk that we are attacked in mid game by a neighbor. I don't think it's a winning strategy to plan for worst case and I would be prepared to run this risk. If we don't want to risk anything we shouldn't build any wonder at all but only axes and archers. That's the only way we are guaranteed to survive the first 60-80 turns. Luck will be a big factor no matter what we do. The team that is never attacked and gets the most useful Great People will most likely win. Also the diplomatic situation can be more or less favorable. Worst thing would be to end up in a situation where it's impossible to bribe anyone to war.

By the way, I went back to the 940 AD save and gifted a tech to Genghis. After that he went from pleased to friendly and now willing to sign a PA. I noticed, that after signing the PA the number of turns needed to research Physics jumped from 12 to 15 which indicates to me that there is some penalty on tech speed coming from the PA.

 

[ShannonCT]

If the power of the GLighthouse strategy is mature, worked towns and we loose them during a conflict, doesn't that kind of leave us up the creek without a paddle?

It would, but if we can't find a way to effectively protect our territory by the time we have mature towns, we're probably out of medal contention anyway. Once we can build Cho-ko-nus, we should be safe for the rest of the game.

I'm finding that with the GLH/cottage strategy, one can't devote much effort to working cottages early because of happiness problems. So up until the point where the AI have researched Calendar and Monarchy, running a scientist or two makes good sense. After our happiness problems are solved, it's time to grow big (at least size 10) and to develop 5-6 cottages into towns. We can keep a size 10 city healthy without trading for any health resources if we save 4 forests in our BFC.

 

[ShannonCT]

I noticed, that after signing the PA the number of turns needed to research Physics jumped from 12 to 15 which indicates to me that there is some penalty on tech speed coming from the PA.

Yes. On Monarch, without a PA, techs cost 115% of the base cost. With a PA, techs cost 165% of the base cost. But obviously, the tech benefit of getting a PA outweighs the extra tech cost.

 

[rrau]

OK......Starting now.