SGOTM 09 - Team CFR

[Balbes]

I think we planned to have most of the discussion at CFC, but it proved very hard not to use an online chat when all the team members speak the same language and are located in a more or less the same timezone

No, it is very easy. Just don't use it, simple as that. You can refer to Team CFR's threads in past SGOTMs and e.g. Murky Waters' threads in recents SGOTMs for several examples of a team that discussed everything at this forum and still managed to win, somehow, all the while doing a valuable community service. In comparison, this thread looks almost entirely devoid of content.

 

[Obormot]

It is easy for me or for you, but not for everyone in the team.

 

[Balbes]

They should make an effort, then.
Is the majority of the team comfortable with having all the fun to ourselves while contributing nothing?

 

[Dynamic]

Hmmm... We already posted 5K strings in Skype. Of course, the most of it is short so effective amount is 1/3 of this volume. But in any case it's equal to 1.5K posts here so you can feel the efficiency...
And I'm not sure this post swamp is good for reading. May be the better way is posting here resumes but not all replies...

 

[Obormot]

I think the best solution would be to place all the people who are not fluent in english into team CRC and let them discuss everything on their own forum, while others should be discussing everything at this forum. But for this game it is too late already. We should, of course, try to post more here, but I am afraid that dropping the skype chat at all won't be possible.

 

[Dynamic]

Balbes, have you red skype logs on CFR forum? If you made it let's discuss here. And again, what is your timezone now? The most intensive discussion is usually between 21h and 24h Moscow zone.

 

[Lexad]

Da! Is true! Discuss here with this time.

 

[Dynamic]

It looks like I was wrong about Murky. I try to calculate their game and I can catch the Score, Power and Culture but can't understand the reesons for suh way at 100%.
2020BC:
Tech: Agri-AH-Writing-Myst-Medi-Priest.
2 Cities with summary 8 pops.
2 Warriors
Early Library and GS in 1-2 turns.
May be they chose such sequence because religious techs are very hard bought or didn't expect the second AI...
But all my calcs is true for Fish city only, not Marble but in this case they should build Oracle without Marble... May be it's their starting strategy when they didn't know about Marble...

 

[Dynamic]

OT4E is preparing for next session till 1000BC.

 

[Obormot]

We should trade for AH first, because if we find horses somewhere we might need to change our worker action plan. I still didn't move the workers on my last turn.

If we have no horses we can use the worker sequence from my plan since I have everything calculated up to 1000BC, but it might still need some adjustments. Note that worker #1 was sent to the tile 1S of Athens, not 2S, because as Dynamic said, river corners don't give the extra coin for the FPs. This should also lead to several minor changes in the following 10 turns. Then I am also not sure what to build in Sparta & Corinth. More workers, I guess, but its not certain.

 

[Obormot]

We should also not forget about the barb galley east of Sparta. We have not reached the date when random barb units start entering cultural boundaries, but we may reach it soon, so perhaps we should research sailing before math and build a galley in Sparta to protect our fish net.

 

[Lexad]

It's not the date, it's the number of cities per player living that matters, and with us and Babylon having 3 cities and Portugal - 2, I believe we're already there. Sailing should be our next target after Oracle, both for resource defence and trade with Portugal - if we do not get it from trade by then.

 

[Obormot]

What exactly are the rules for this?

 

[Lexad]

If I remember correctly, spawned land barbs will start purposefully enter the territory (not just attacking borderline improvements and units) when there is above 1.5 cities per player alive.

 

[OT4E]

turn40:
Writing <-> Animal husbandry (Hammurappi)
Writing <-> Mining (Joao)
No horses on the entire explored map. AI refuses to trade any other tech including Bronse working.
tech 0%+25
Worker#2 gone to sheeps.
Worker#3 gone NE, E
Scout NE, nothing special

turn41:
barbarian galley appeared at the east
barbarian warrior appeared at the south west
tech 100% -4
worker#2 started pasture
worker#3 started FP
Scout SE, found oil in the desert.

tech42:
barbarians dissappeared
reaserched mysticism
Athens grown to 6 and finished granary, starts library. Recent pop works new FP at S.
session is over

 

[Lexad]

Barbs seem to arrive very fast at Sailing if Gyathaar didn't give them tech directly. That means strong city. The key problem for barbs, limiting their research, is usually city upkeep, as they have no capital and suffer maximum distance-from-palace penalty. However, this particular city could've neutralised all upkeep by having a combo of chouse, rathaus, ikhanda and ziggurat (I wonder if they can have negative city maintenance cost).

 

[Obormot]

No horses, so it looks like we don't need to change much in the plan for worker actions. But we have to decide what to build in Sparta & Corinth. And perhaps we should adjust the plan to research sailing if we cannot trade for it & build the galley for protection.

If I remember correctly, spawned land barbs will start purposefully enter the territory (not just attacking borderline improvements and units) when there is above 1.5 cities per player alive.

OT4E just played two turns to get the trades done, and saw the barbs walking around, but not entering the cultural borders. So we are still in the safe zone, and the rule about 1.5 cities is wrong.

 

[Lexad]

So we are still in the safe zone, and the rule about 1.5 cities is wrong.

Do not forget default barb AI is rather purposeless and stochastic - unless you manually switch it for CITY_ATTACK or CITY_ATTACK_LEMMING, for example. In Pitboss I'm having a barb warrior next to my city coming from direction with no units or improvements, while average number of cities is below 2 by far. So no, we're not in the safe zone.

 

[Obormot]

This is contrary to my experience. The randomly spawned barbs will indeed wander purposelessly, without entering cultural borders for some time, but then at a certain point they all start attacking nearest cities.

 

[Lexad]

Not contrary to mine, though - experienced barb wandering off several times even in mid-game.