SGOTM 07 - Xteam

[Jimmy Thunder]

I too have played a few more test games, both from the Gauntlet save that Shannon put up.

I went with the GLhouse both times. I had populations fluctuating between 14 and 16 depending on the current health resource trades. Heriditary Rule can be an excellent civic to get you to friendly terms with a large number of civs. It's available early on, every civ will use it when it is available and there seem to be lots of leaders who have it as their favourite. This fact supports the GLhouse rather than Representation with the Pyramids.

The first game ended up with 1910AD spaceship win. Late PA via defensive pact because there was no war on the home continent at all.

I am in the middle of the second game and it is going much better (plus I have the knowledge of the map now). I was able to bribe Genghis and Louis XIV into wars and my PA was signed with Louis in 1030AD. I'm in the process of trying to get a fast space launch with that particular game.

On wars and bribery:

Often I would talk to every AI and see what their price was to start a war with each of the other AI's. Almost everytime they said it was impossible, even with 3-4 techs I had available to trade. This was the stalemate I had in my first game where I couldn't get a shared war going.

However, their price to JOIN an existing war was lower and that's when you can more easily get them to join in. If no AI can be bribed to start a new war, and there are no existing wars, we are forced to declare war ourselves and then try to bribe people in. But it could be risky starting a war and assuming one of the big AI's will be be able to be bribed, if it turns out they still won't join in and we are left on our own.

Perhaps the ideal situation is one like in my last game, with one large semi-aggressive AI (e.g. Louis) that you want to PA with, and another very-aggressive AI (e.g. Genghis) who is more willing to start wars that subsequent AI's can be bribed into.

On a side note: I do support going for Bronzeworking rather than my original suggestion of straight to Alphabet via Pottery. Waiting on Alphabet makes us far too vulnerable, and BW does give us a bit of a safety net.

 

[leif erikson]

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.

I agree, but that is not the case that I am asking about. There are two possible wonders that we can build and each provides strengths and weaknesses. In the discussion, should we not weigh the merits of each case, especially if the end results are relatively equal? Sorry, but I don't think that I was trying to reach a zero risk situation, merely trying to minimize risk by evaluating the two possibilities that each carry their own risks, and rewards?

The GLighthouse strategy is fine with me as long as we think we can protect the main components of the strategy.

 

[rrau]

I moved the warrior SW and see food sources. Pausing to discuss moving the settler before settling.

[edit] Depending on how close the AI's settle we probably will have deer in our BFC if settling in place and hopefully expand our borders for the cows for health benefits, even though not in BFC. I'm still leaning towards settling in place.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

My vote is to settle in place.

That deer tile is a great boost. The extra food improves the Pyramids option since we will need more happy early on to work our best tiles and the extra food means more specialists.

It also opens up the debate for worker first and researching hunting as first tech.

 

[leif erikson]

Yes, I agree to settle in place. Cows on plains is 3/3, not a big enough boost to move for imho.
EDIT - Especially if we have to give up two Crab resources that land units cannot pillage.

I think Fishing is still more powerful in this start.

 

[ShannonCT]

2 crabs + fresh water > 1 plains cow. Settle in place.

Not sure whether worker-Hunting is now a better opening than Fishing. Let's stop and retest. Here's a new map with deer added and copper removed.

Edit: don't use this test map. See below.

 

[rrau]

I think the river's too long. I was able to get pyramids by turn 48, but with the river being longer, I got the stone without having to learn and hook up roads and had the fur benefit so was able to grow to 5. So, I'm not sure it was a good test. In the earliest part of the test, worker and hunting then fishing, the worker finished when fishing was learned, so was able to go directly to a workboat. I had to keep the starting warrior close to home though by not building a warrior first.

 

[leif erikson]

Not sure whether worker-Hunting is now a better opening than Fishing. Let's stop and retest. Here's a new map with deer added and copper removed.

Without testing, I think the major difference will prove to be that we lose speed in teching because we go from 4 food and 3 commerce to 4 food and 2 hammers. In addition, Beijing's population will grow during the Work Boat build and will not during the worker build. We are building the Worker faster by working the netted Crab.

The net effect should be a slower Wonder build time, imho.

 

[rrau]

Pyramids turn 50 with the river modified to what's in the official game.

 

[ShannonCT]

I think the river's too long. I was able to get pyramids by turn 48, but with the river being longer, I got the stone without having to learn and hook up roads and had the fur benefit so was able to grow to 5. So, I'm not sure it was a good test. In the earliest part of the test, worker and hunting then fishing, the worker finished when fishing was learned, so was able to go directly to a workboat. I had to keep the starting warrior close to home though by not building a warrior first.

Yes, I noticed that as I started playing it. Here's the corrected test save:

 

[rrau]

So, stick with the original fishing-> BW tech path? With warrior-> workboat build?

[edit] I'm off to .

 

[leif erikson]

I'm off for bed as well. If it is not resolved by morning, I may take a crack at it early.

Thanks for the save SCT, Good Luck.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Settle in place seems obvious. We need access to the sea otherwise we would be cut off from any naval activity for the whole game. Deer and (probably) cow are nice health providers and with the extra food we can grow our city faster.

 

[leif erikson]

Just finished testing. To my surprise, I found little difference in build time. But there is a fairly big difference in tech rate:
Using Deer:
Research path - Hunting, discovered turn 6 => Bronze Working, discovered turn 20 => Masonry, discovered turn 28 => Fishing, discovered turn 32 => Sailing, discovered turn 39 => Wheel, discovered turn 46 => Pottery, discovered turn 51 => Writing 4 turns remain until discovery.

Builds - Worker, finished turn 11 => Warrior, finished turn15 => Warrior, finished turn 19 => Warrior, finished turn 22 => Barracks, finished turn 32 => Work Boat, finished turn 36 => Walls to turn 39, change to Lighthouse which completes on turn 45 => Great Lighthouse completes on turn 55.

Revolted to Slavery on turn 20.

Worker builds camp on Deer, then builds camp on Fur, then pre-chops, then to Marble to build Quarry (I chose Marble because you get 4 Hammers and 3 Commerce versus 5 Hammers on Stone).

Crab on line on turn 37.

Using Crab:
Research path - Fishing, discovered on turn 6 => Bronze Working, discovered on turn 19 => Masonry, discovered on turn 27 => Hunting, discovered on turn 31 => Sailing, discovered on turn 39 => Wheel, discovered on turn 42 => Pottery, dicovered on turn 46 => Writing, discovered on turn 51 => Alphabet

Build - Warrior, completes on turn 5 => Barracks, changed to Work Boat on turn 6 which finishes on turn 14 => Worker, finishes on turn 22 => back to Barracks, finished on turn 33 => Warrior, finishes on turn 35 => Walls, changed to Lighthouse on turn 39, finishes on turn 43 => Great Lighthouse, finishes on turn 55.

Worker pre-chops until Hunting completes, then to Fur and then to Marble, roads to fur and then completes chops to support Lighthouse and Great Lighthouse builds.

Did not revolt to Slavery.

Using Crab gives us a slight research advantage as Writing is completed by the time GLighthouse is built and we are several turns into Alphabet. Using Deer, once GLighthouse completes, there are still 4 turns to complete Writing.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Good work with the testing . Unfortunately I won't have time to test but leif's results confirm my hunch that Fishing is best commerce wise. I think that commerce is more important than hammers in this game where we don't have any settlers to build early on. I might even have built the fur camp before the deer camp.

 

[ShannonCT]

Another argument in favor of delaying Hunting is that since all AI start with Hunting on Deity, the more AI we meet, the bigger discount we'll get on researching Hunting.

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.

Sorry, in my original reply to this, I quoted the monarch research handicap. We're not playing monarch are we... On Deity, techs cost 130% of the base rate, and 180% of the base rate with a PA.

 

[rrau]

(0) Light candle to RNG gods. Warrior SW. See cows and deer. Pause for discussion
(0) Cont. Relight candle. Settle in place and see SHEEP in our BFC!! Start fishing and warrior.
(1) W SE. See blue border beyond mountains.
(2) W SE.
IBT: Meet Asoka.
(3) W S. Meet Tokugawa.
(4) W SW. Meet Washington.
IBT: Asoka settled a city and threw our W back N.
(5) W E
(6) Fishing learned. Start BW. Warrior NE
IBT: Meet Elizabeth
(7) Warrior NE - Dead end
IBT Buddhism founded.
(8) W backtracking.
(9) W backtracking
(10) W backtracking
(11) Washington settled almost on top our boarders. W thrown home.
(12) W SW. Workboat built. Switch from warrior to worker. (had to put one turn into a warrior before I could build the workboat)
(13) W SW
(14) W NW
(15) Hinduism founded. Warrior SW
(16) Warrior gone as far as he can....Heading home. Asoka converts to Hinduism
(17) W heading home
(18) W heading home. Washington adopts slavery
(19) Learn BW. BEIJING IS SITTING ON TOP OF COPPER!!!!! Worker has 2 turns to go. Start Masonry as a placeholder.'

P.S. Anyone else thinK the gold is hard to read?

[edit] I changed to bold above. So: Bold gold or bold orange

>>>THE SAVE<<<

Spoiler :

Here is your Session Turn Log from 4000 BC to 3240 BC:

Turn 0, 4000 BC: Beijing has been founded.

Turn 4, 3840 BC: The borders of Beijing have expanded!

Turn 5, 3800 BC: You have discovered Fishing!

Turn 7, 3720 BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 12, 3520 BC: You have trained a Work Boat in Beijing. Work has now begun on a Warrior.

Turn 14, 3440 BC: Hinduism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 15, 3400 BC: Asoka converts to Hinduism!

Turn 17, 3320 BC: Washington adopts Slavery!

Turn 18, 3280 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!
Turn 18, 3280 BC: You have discovered a source of Copper near Beijing!

 

[ShannonCT]

Nice work rrau. I was half expecting copper underneath Beijing. What I wasn't expecting was all of the additional health resources. Fish, deer, sheep, and cow give us 5 more health than the gauntlet. Silver is a nice bonus as well. Now we can afford to build a forge.

 

[rrau]

Yes, This will be much better! But Washington will likely claim the cow when their city border pops. We probably need to consider making him a target sooner rather than later.

 

[leif erikson]

Looking Good rrau!

We found the copper, now where will the iron be? I was hoping for Iron under Beijing... Can't have everything!!

Roster:
leif - UP
ShannonCT - On Deck
Frederiksberg
Cactus Pete
Jimmy Thunder
Mad Professor - Off on an African adventure.
Gator - Trying to figure out this diplomacy stuff.
rrau - Just Played!!
Mistfit -

Not sure I like Washington so close, but the wonders should help us to keep that fur. Our neighbors are Washington, Asoka and Elizabeth... I read somewhere that you have to watch Asoka? @Gator - What do you think?

Off to have a look. And, yes, the Gold is really hard to read. I wonder if you try using Bold in it?

EDIT - Be sure to check out the Power Curve HERE. I think you can tell we went right for Bronze Working!!