SGOTM 09 - Smurkz

[ChrisShaffer]

It's too bad the land around the capital won't support a second city - shared forest preserves can really help the happiness.

 

[Renata]

Which is probably why the land around there is so cruddy.

I don't have time to think about it now, but remember to keep forests in mind when deciding where to settle. Even a single one means we can grow one size larger.

... and switch to Pac+Caste+Bur in one go.

Except that's two turns of anarchy, I believe. We don't gain anything over doing it in two steps.

 

[Renata]

Oh, and I forgot -- Niklas, what exactly did you sacrifice to the RNG gods on behalf of our scout? Because apparently it works.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Assuming nothing to the east of the clams, I'd say settle 1N of the cow and possibly another city 1E of the rice that would allow the cow to be shared. That's if nothing else comes into view south of the wine.

I second. We definitely want an early coastal city and 1N of the cows is the one to do. For the next one, 1E of the rice is tempting, but we might want to grab some territory farther inland first--say, the forest tile that has the cows, uranium, wine, and wheat in its BFC. True, there's not a lot of food, but it's enough to get the city started, and there are lots of potential forest preserves for happiness to let it grow really big. Once we get Bureau we can irrigate toward it from the new coastal city on the river (sacrificing one forest) and get a bunch of plains tiles up to 2 food and get some water to the wheat for another food point. It only gets us one hammer and no commerce per plains tile, but we can grow quite big, and those hammers add up. Then once we get Bio we'll have a lot of extra food and can convert some plains to workshops to make a pretty impressive production city. Eh?

 

[Backwards Logic]

Alright, so I've put together a brand new save that should precisely mirror our situation for turn 11. I would appreciate it if someone were to go through it with a fine-tooth comb and check to make sure everything is covered before we use it as our new test save. I'm certain I did give all of the techs to every AI.

Speaking of the AI, I've added Justinian to the save on a very small little island. The other AI's I've stuck far away from the main map, so they will not impact us in anyway by meeting them. On the flip side of that, Justinian won't meet any of them either, but we're not going to be able to know who he's met and who he hasn't anyway, so I don't think it's a big deal.

Note also in this test save Justinian has founded Buddhism on the same turn it was founded in our real game. If in fact he has, his borders will pop on turn 12, and thus we will meet him. If they do not pop, then we can be sure someone else has discovered the religion.

If there are any glaring errors with the save let me know and I'll go through and fix it. Thanks.

...

As for city #2, I agree 1N of the cows should be city #2. And we should test out when the Oracle gets completed by the AI in separate games, since the test save I've provided will not be a useful indicator of when wonders fall, seeing as I've nerfed the other AI substantially with their starting locations.

EDIT: Just realized the save is worthless, since barbs won't appear . I'll fix it tomorrow sometime.

 

[unkle]

I agree 1N of the cows looks nice, and coastal is almost mandatory quickly.
I also agree with BL on third city, because we want to position ourselves inland too (might we have another neighbor ? we'll have one soon if we dont fogbust...)

Another option (instead of irrigation) is hoping for forest growth, with the help of preserves. Need to check the data on this though.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Based on what we have seen, I favor continuing to follow Renata's plan and build the second worker while farming the corn and scouting. While we could discuss further plans (and anyone who wants to test/discuss further should do so) I don't see any reason for Niklas to delay the next few turns.

How many turns are we playing per turnset?

Just a reminder of turn order.

Niklas: playing
Methos: on deck
Xcalibrator
r_rolo1
Renata
ChrisShaffer
Backwards Logic
CommandoBob
unkle

 

[ChrisShaffer]

BL, thanks for the test save. Minor note for the next one (won't affect planning this time) - we are in police state.

 

[unkle]

Dug a little in the forums, this is what I could get from forest growth/preserve:

# adjacent Expected Chance of no growth after
preserves Turns 100 turns 200 turns
1 87 45% 20%
2 43 20% 4%
3 29 9% 0.75%
4 22 4% 0.15%

to be compared with:

# adjacent Expected Chance of no growth after
forests Turns 100 turns 200 turns
1 693 90% 82%
2 347 82% 67%
3 231 74% 55%
4 173 67% 45%

Thread is here

Basically, forest growth will just be a bonus I guess (though if at anytime we need to chop, making it in a checkerboard-pattern would probably be nice) given the numbers... And iirc, no growth as soon as you have an improvement (road...).

 

[r_rolo1]

Even worse: no growth after you STARTED a improvement there ( 1 turn making a farm or a cottage will be enough )

 

[Xcalibrator]

Going strictly from my fallible memory, I believe roads don't affect forest spread, but spread is prevented if there is a unit of any kind on the square. [Edit: Hmm, a post in that thread says roads halve the probability of spread.]

Wow, the preserves make a much larger difference than I expected.

 

[r_rolo1]

It is +100%, but the starting prob is pretty small, so don't expect to chop for a living

 

[unkle]

Rolo it is in fact +700%... i think.
Or *8, you choose.

Btw we still have the option of the fish+horse/copper/iron as a 4th or 5th city.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Are we waiting for something to be discussed and decided, or can Niklas continue playing? Has anybody heard anything from Our Leader since yesterday? Just wondering...

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I think Niklas can play until the second worker is complete, or until his turnset is complete, whichever comes first. I'm not sure how long his turnset should be.

We definitely need a stopping point when writing is complete, because we haven't decided on a tech path after Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry -> Writing. We also don't know (yet) if we'll have met Justinian and could sign open borders with him. (p.s. are we sure it's Justinian?)

 

[Renata]

Our fearless leader is hideously busy with the MTDG at the moment.

 

[Niklas]

Hideously is the word...

 

[Backwards Logic]

Well, when Niklas has time I think he should play up until writing is in. I think there's a consensus to go worker -> worker while farming the two corn tiles and finishing AH and moving on to writing.

And if anyone would like to tell me how to edit the text files associated with the WB saves it would be most appreciated so I can keep up with making test saves.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

First, you have to open a file in the WorldBuilder, edit the terrain and such as desired, but don't edit techs. I'm not sure what else you nave to leave alone in order to make the barbarians appear. Then you make a worldbuilder save.

Look in the saves folder (probably C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Saves\WorldBuilder replacing UserName with your Windows user name). Right click on the file name and choose "Open with" then choose Notepad. After that, it's fairly straightforward plain text editing. Most of it is human readable, e.g.

CivicOption=CIVICOPTION_ECONOMY, Civic=CIVIC_DECENTRALIZATION

 

[Backwards Logic]

Thanks Chris.

I've gone ahead and made yet another save, this time with everything correct (I hope). I've also replaced Montezuma with Justinian and placed him in the correct location, except there's one difference I've noticed.

While putting the save together, Buddhism was founded by Justinian on turn 6. However, his borders popped on turn 11, and thus we have met him. Obviously on turn 11 in the real thing, this hasn't happened.

I went back and took a closer look at the borders in both the real save and the test save before they popped, and noticed a slight difference in color, specifically the borders in the real thing are a deeper shade of gray. Since the borders haven't popped, the color is slightly different and there's been a mention of the barb activity being somehow increased without turning raging barbs on, I think the AI whose borders we see is not of a 'real' AI, but rather a barb minor city. We should have this confirmed on turn 13 when our borders pop, so I'm very anxious to see exactly what happens on that turn. If it is in fact a barb city, I bet there's others just like it scattered around the map.

And the new save with Justinian in, if in fact it is him. If not, then I guess I better learn how to add minor civs into a WB...