SGOTM 09 - Fifth Element

[Sweetacshon]

Damn, we're still not going to see what in the south. I guess the airship can do it after it's gone around the world. Yep, settle that scientist!! I can't quite believe the worker ran off to road before the corn farm was in (head explodes)... we need to get LP up to max pop asap. I wonder if it's worth a 3 turn granary to aid this before the mids. If you think that it'll take 6-8 turns to grow, a gran will pay for itself in about that timeframe in regards to pop, although it'll take probably the time taken to build the mids to break even in hammers. What do you think?

Athens, I feel, should be working max food now (sheep and FP) this makes lib 3 instead of 2 (total cost 2 beakers), but gets it growing much quicker, and we need to get it up to speed so it can take on worker/settler duty while the mids are being done.

 

[WastinTime]

Are you sure you're not going to lightbulb Education?

 

[Mesix]

Nice turnset Blubz. It looks like we're on track.

I got HOF Mod up and running on my desktop, so I can play any time.

I read through the Autolog, and saw that we got CS from the Oracle. My initial thought was "why not Theocracy?" and then I remembered the goals of this game are different than G-Minor 70.

 

[BLubmuz]

Are you sure you're not going to lightbulb Education?

Almost.
We save some 10 turns on Edu, but we lose more not settling the GS. In the short-mid term, i mean.
I plan to REX to total 7 cities and this will hurt our economy: research @40% or some.
After the REX and with research so low, a settled GS is simply fantastic, mainly if we manage Pyr/Repr.
We can also have a CH as first build in any new city, but this will not change much until we complete them.

Sweeta, most cities will suck for food. Don't worry, they have plenty of time to grow by the time we'll need big cities.
Pyr in 34? no, for sure. We can complete them by turn 70-71 with forge and chopping.

The airship can recon west, then rebase in LP to scout the furry island and the barb borders.
Then it can go in Sparta and recon South.

The best research path can be: MC - paper - edu (with a 3-turns break for calendar to build MoM in Athens) - GP - philo with some switch to try to found Tao in a wanted city.

Mesix, if you can play, you're UP. I change immediately the roster accordingly.

 

[BLubmuz]

Damn, we're still not going to see what in the south. I guess the airship can do it after it's gone around the world. Yep, settle that scientist!!
I can't quite believe the worker ran off to road before the corn farm was in (head explodes) That road is highly strategic: the settler can run it and found his city unless there's a barb in the tile we choosen. Even if a barb is 1 tile from settler, he can found and the barb will be moved outside FC. Also, having a 3rd city will immediately add a TR to all our cities.
... we need to get LP up to max pop asap. I wonder if it's worth a 3 turn granary to aid this before the mids. If you think that it'll take 6-8 turns to grow, a gran will pay for itself in about that timeframe in regards to pop, although it'll take probably the time taken to build the mids to break even in hammers. What do you think?
You can be right for the granary, it can pays for itself like the forge. Let me run a test

Athens, I feel, should be working max food now (sheep and FP) this makes lib 3 instead of 2 (total cost 2 beakers), but gets it growing much quicker, and we need to get it up to speed so it can take on worker/settler duty while the mids are being done.

Yes, once the pasture is completed Athens must work it, no matter in delay Library by 1 turn.

My proposal for our discussions: for now we have 2 close targets: Pyramids and REX to 7 cities.
The first is not sure.
I propose to limit the discussion to events until tuns 70-75 for now, to better focus on the short term plans.
In the meantime i'll run some more tests to try to draw a roadmap.

 

[Mesix]

I'll take a look at the save tonight and post any comments about the proposed TS. I will then wait 24 hours and play tomorrow night.

If my last game for G-Minor 70 is any indication, the XP install on my new family desktop is a lot luckier than my Vista laptop!

 

[BLubmuz]

I'll take a look at the save tonight and post any comments about the proposed TS. I will then wait 24 hours and play tomorrow night.

If my last game for G-Minor 70 is any indication, the XP install on my new family desktop is a lot luckier than my Vista laptop!

Napoleon chose his Generals between lucky men.

I'll post some line on #3.
For now, i can say the granary in LP does NOT pays for itself. But the Forge DOES!
Also, CHs as any new city first build seems a good idea.

As you probably will note, the AI has loads of airships, but don't use them to explore, if not around their borders.

 

[WastinTime]

Not sure why you're going for 7 cities instead of 6 (for 6 universities).
Your economy will suffer even more. Education may be delayed much more than 10 turns.

Forges may distract you from the goal of chopping 6 libr/univ. The NatPark city cannot chop forests, so it needs to start building early. For this, you need Education early. You don't want that city to finish a library and then sit around for 15 turns building junk.

Keep in mind, in the last SG, we had the usual great start, and we played a pretty smooth strong finish. It was mid-game, when our economy collapsed that we got behind the other teams by 20+ turns. We got to Astonomy and Education too late.

 

[Mesix]

Blubz, why do you say to never adopt religion? Pacificism is a powerful trait for churning out a couple extra great people needed to achieve the best finish date.

 

[BLubmuz]

Not sure why you're going for 7 cities instead of 6 (for 6 universities).
Your economy will suffer even more. Education may be delayed much more than 10 turns.

Because we need 7 cities to cover strategic points on the map, or to grab resources.

Forges may distract you from the goal of chopping 6 libr/univ. The NatPark city cannot chop forests, so it needs to start building early. For this, you need Education early. You don't want that city to finish a library and then sit around for 15 turns building junk.

No one forest in BFC can be chopped in this game. And the forests outside BFC are very few.

No junk to build: any city will need an airport, a market, an Odeon, and some need to build Paratroopers.

OU? a good addition, we'll see when we have time to build it.

Keep in mind, in the last SG, we had the usual great start (thanks to me, BTW), and we played a pretty smooth strong finish. It was mid-game, when our economy collapsed that we got behind the other teams by 20+ turns. We got to Astonomy and Education too late.

Yes, right. But we suffered for a too early DoW, and we lose many turns accumulating gold for upgrades.

Blubz, why do you say to never adopt religion? Pacificism is a powerful trait for churning out a couple extra great people needed to achieve the best finish date.

Pacifism for a Philo leader is almost nothing (as anything it will add to the base GPP). And please remember we need OR first to spread a religion.
3 turns of anarchy to gain maybe a GS in the mid-late game? no thanks.

Bear in mind this: we need a big and strong empire to quickly research the late techs and to quickly build SS parts. ASAP we arrive at Paratroopers, ASAP our empire can expand and grow.
What do i care to research @100% if i can have >3K @80%? And with the army needed to afford possible invasions. Remember, it's an ugly world.

I know we can launch between turn 190-195 with my strategy. I'd like to see if any aother team can beat this.

Final note: to be more accurate, 2 forests will be chopped in BFC: near Athens, to bring water and the hill SE of Launch.

 

[greatbeyond]

I just want to clear the air a little with regard to waiting for comments. It appears that myself and Berserks may be the only ones in a time zone 6 hours behind Blubmuz and it appears most of the others.

Swetacshon's post his turn completed: 04/22/09 3:41pm
Blubmuz's post that he will play in 10 hours: 04/23/7:38am
Blubmuz's post that he has played: 04/23/09 9:38pm

By my count that is about 30 hours from the end of one turn to the end of another.

Re: Rule #6
I know that like others, I sometimes get busy days where I can look, but not put much time into the analysis of the previous turn and planning for the next turn in only a day or so. We are far from getting close to the deadline and I don't see any reason not to allow at least 24 hrs to analyze the previous TS after it is posted, 24hrs to plan the next turn, then waiting 24 hrs before completing the next player's turn.

I know it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of wanting to see what is next, something I have to fight the urge to do in all my games.

Silence does not necessarily imply agreement or that a consensus has been reached. Would a post that I've had 5 minutes to read the latest posts but not comment or think yet (sometimes via mobile) suffice to delay further action? In this case I did not disagree with the PPP regarding MM, and may be the only one who did not entirely agree with going back to pick up Alpha, much less Currency, and I'm not sold on MC yet. I am firmly in agreement with the idea that the majority rules and we can't delay forever, so it is not hurt feelings I speak of, just the desire for more discussion.

We keep repeating that we want to research quickly. IMO, with Paratroops being a key to winning, we should be researching only those techs that get us there as quickly as possible. Paras against Bowmen or even longbows is a quick defeat for Hammi. We then sign Open Borders with Korea and use that as a jump off point to attack another Civ and leapfrog around, killing off or crippling the other AIs, then turning our focus to launching our spaceship.

Blubmuz's turnset went well so this is not a critique of how it was played. I just think we need to take a little more time as I have already outlined.

 

[Sweetacshon]

For now, i can say the granary in LP does NOT pays for itself. But the Forge DOES!

Over what time frame? Obviously it will pay for itelf at some stage... so perhaps leave it til after forge?

Not sure why you're going for 7 cities instead of 6 (for 6 universities).
Your economy will suffer even more. Education may be delayed much more than 10 turns.

Forges may distract you from the goal of chopping 6 libr/univ. The NatPark city cannot chop forests, so it needs to start building early. For this, you need Education early. You don't want that city to finish a library and then sit around for 15 turns building junk.

Keep in mind, in the last SG, we had the usual great start, and we played a pretty smooth strong finish. It was mid-game, when our economy collapsed that we got behind the other teams by 20+ turns. We got to Astonomy and Education too late.

It's a good point. We don't necessarily have to get 7 cities right away, although 6 is a must. I'm still on the fence about forges, but in this forest friendly game, it's probably worth it. Re: NP city, I don't even see it finishing the lib before we get edu, at this rate.

Yes, right. But we suffered for a too early DoW, and we lose many turns accumulating gold for upgrades.

Pacifism for a Philo leader is almost nothing (as anything it will add to the base GPP). And please remember we need OR first to spread a religion.
3 turns of anarchy to gain maybe a GS in the mid-late game? no thanks.

Yes, but we did have some sloppy direction mid-game, also, and perhaps calendar/MoM might be one of these sloppy moves... not sure. Mesix, could you grab a screenie of the tech trade screen when you are checking the save for your PPP? I'm away from my computer for the weekend.

Philo/pacifism- do you mean that the bonuses are additive, so don't give as much of a boost as at first glance? I DO know I don't really want to waste hammers on missionaries, but if we can switch in a GA, I can accept it.

 

[greatbeyond]

Now that I've gotten my administrative concerns out of the way with the previous post, I'll focus on the actual game and plan.

Next Settler:
I have gone back and forth between settling City #3 to block Hammi vs placing it to the SW where it will grow the fastest. If we keep OB with Hammi, we can't block his Settlers and we'll need to get Settlers 3 and 4 out very quickly.

If we try to Settler spam too quickly to take up the available space, we will run very low on cash. I think we should settle in the best places first. If we follow the plan, our Paras will take all of the cities that Hammi builds for us.

Research: still thinking if we need to go back to get MC just yet. I'd like to see what the next turn or two brings. We should be meeting more AIs very quickly and be able to see how fast the tech pace goes. If it is slow, we don't want to speed it up. I'm thinking going for paper first makes more sense, but I need to think of this a little more.

The map:
The last round of exploration revealed that our continent ends to the south with what we have already seen. There could possibly be an Isthmus to the extreme SE, but based on what we've seen of the map, I doubt it. It also appears that the other AIs will not have a lot of space and may be isolated to their own island. I have yet to see what impact the barbs are going to have unless, Gyathaar has given them an exceptionally larger Island to themselves and placed most of the resources there. He may have planned to let them grow quickly without fear of them being destroyed so they are more formidable at the end game and able to delay the building of the spaceship.

I'll try and contribute a little more later.

 

[Sweetacshon]

Blubmuz's turnset went well so this is not a critique of how it was played. I just think we need to take a little more time as I have already outlined.

You are right. Blubmuz has always been trigger happy, no doubt. But in this case, there we just no posts from anyone else. At all. Yes, a quick note saying please don't play yet would've done the trick.

 

[BLubmuz]

GB good to see your comments and criticisms.
My PPP was actually made 4 TS ago, when we agreed for the classical CS sling and for Alpha. I haven't seen any complaint about Currency, and it's at least a week we was talkin'bout this.
Thus, my TS went fast after Sweta's one, since everything was already decided.

Now we got the points to be discussed:
1) MC right now: I'm strongly for this. Forges are one of the keys, mainly on quick.
2) Calendar: It depends by our luck (or bad luck) with GPersons. If we have a GSpy next we can aim for 3 GAges, if we have another spy we *must* do it.
But what if we never pop a GSpy?
I suppose we all agree on a GAge from Taj, a 2nd one with some crappy GPerson (not a GS or a GE). In this case the tech detour and the turns to build the MoM are not a great choice. But we'll have a good tech to trade.
Surely i don't wanna trade Paper, Edu or GP. Also currency must be delayed as much we can.
3) GS: no doubt to settle the one popped in my last turn.
But if we're so lucky to pop a 3rd one in a row, LB 10 turns of Edu or settle him?

Here i arrive to another important point. In one of my (numberless) attempts i managed Lib on turn 100. Great, kill'em kill'em all with paratroopers?
No.
I needed to complete airports and odeons at least before start build them. And i has only 3 cities powerful and developed enough to do this.
Then, do you start a war with 4 units?
No, we need no less than 8 to start, and we must suffer a bit more 'cause we don't have enough troops to quickly close the game.
Ideal would be start with 12, so you take 2 cities in the 2nd turn and possibly 2 cities every other turn.
We can also build some Xbow to airlift in the most safe cities.

To make it short, we not only need the techs, but also the structures to sustain a war. And we need some tech to trade.

Techs we must trade for: Contruction, monarchy, Feud. Possibly Compass and Optics. If we arrive to trade for Calendar, goodbye MoM. Easy, we can have those later: Aestetics > Literature. Drama. Music if we have some crappy tech to trade for.
I was able to trade for guilds and even banking in some of my tests. Rarely for Engineering. Once for Chem.

I'm not concerned by blocking Hammu, but to place the cities in good spots.
If you can call good the spots of this map, of course.
The site for Sparta is just great in the late game and good enough to make it a good city after the territory will be improved.
You probably noticed the river SE of Babylon, with Copper. Hammu will probably settle there, giving us a powerhouse. And the water to irrigate down to Sparta. Babylon itself is a great city, probably better than our Capital.

BTW my TS not only went well, it was F A N T A S T I C.
- 11 techs in 9 turns
- 2 overseas AI met in the early BC
- 1 GS popped.
I must say it to myself, since no one tells to me

 

[Simon_c]

OK I'll say it then. it was F A N T A S T I C



very imprssed with the scouting aishisp.

I'd vote for MC to get forges too. It would be my instinct too. (so it's probably wrong )

 

[Sweetacshon]

I must say it to myself, since no one tells to me

Well, we wouldn't want you getting a big head, would we?

Here's another point on calendar/MoM: Which of the AI we currently know is likely to build it? For example, if there is a high chance it's Ham, let's just let him build it. I've got to say, currently I'm against detouring for it.

As I said, I'm away for the weekend, and may not be able to post . Good luck if I'm not back on before the next TS.

 

[Mesix]

Spoiler :

Here is a screen shot of the land to the south. I propose placement of two cities on the blue dots drawn on the map. Settling our National Park (let's call it Yellowstone) city on top of the Wine resource will get us 11-12 forests, more than any other location. Moving Sparta 1 SW of where Blubz recommended will limited the canibalization of tiles between the two cities and still get us the Iron, Cows, and Wheet resources for Sparta.

What do other people think?

 

[Mesix]

Spoiler :

Here are some screenshots of the tech tree.

To get to Rifling, we need four techs (Paper, Education, Gunpowder, and Rifling). This will get us Paratroopers to fight a war.

To get to Biology we need seven techs (Construction, Engineering, Paper, Education, Gun Powder, Chemistry, and Biology). This will allow us to build the National Park for several free specialists and also increase the output of our farms by 1 .

To get to Astronomy we need four techs (Compas, Optics, Calandar, and Astronomy). This will allow us to build Obsveratories and Laboratories to increase our research.

To get Liberalism we need four techs (Paper, Educcation, Philosophy, and Liberalism). This will get us a free tech.

Three of the four tech paths mentioned have Paper and Education in common. These are high priority techs. Gunpowder is on two of the tech paths as well.

Metal Casting is not required for any of the proposed tech paths. It is a detour from our goals. It is likely that we will be able to trade with one of the four (or more) AI players since it is such an early tech. We will also likely to meet more AI players as we explore with our Airship which will give us more trading opportunities. In the screen shot below, it is clear that we are teching well ahead of the AI players. If we don't allow the AI to get some early techs to trade with us then our detour for Alphabet will be a big waste.

Spoiler :

 

[Mesix]

This is my proposition for the turnset goals. Settle Sparta on the blue dot placed on the map above which is 1 SW of the location originally proposed by Blubz.

Settle the GS in the capital.

Tech Paper and start Education.

Chop unnecessary forest near the capital to rush the Pyramids after the Settler is finished. I propose that we chop the three forests to the south of our BFC in the third ring which cannot be worked by the city.

Build a Granery in Sparta after the Library is finished so we can grow faster and work more FP tiles.

Continue to use the Airship for exploration.