SGOTM 09 - Xteam

[leif erikson]

What this boils down to for the short term:
tech CoL+Monarchy
or
tech CoL+build Mids

With those in hand we spread confuc to our neighbours and grow our capital to max pop asap and start working those cottages.

An important rule of space race games: Never tech something the AI can tech for you.
Math, Ironworking, Sailing, Monotheism are all techs that a monarch AI can reliably tech in an acceptable timeframe.
To ensure that they are willing to trade these techs we want them to like us, which again makes the case for confuc a strong one.

Math is a relatively cheap tech,

Math is 249 beakers while Code of Laws is 349. Monarchy and Alphabet are 300 beakers each. Civil Service is 801. We get double production speed on Libraries and plus 25% on Military Units. A Library should require 4 turns and it is imperative in Athens which is producing 22 beakers atm, more with growth. Pireus is not as critical, producing 8 bpt atm. Perhaps the place to build the Airship is Delphi as we do not have the Workers currently to build improvements to keep pace with its pop growth? A Windmill on the Plains Hill could provide hammers?

I understand the importance of the rule above. We still have much forest to chop and gain 50% from each chop. I think that is about 6 hammers per chop? Do we delay chopping and Water Mills or ...?

Code of Laws also leads us to Civil Service, important for the capital and a boost to science with the boost in Gold. When do we work in Alphabet in order to trade for techs?

 

[PaulisKhan]

I wish Alphabet wasn't such a crap-shoot for the AI >.<
Sometimes they beeline and sometimes they ignore it forever.

We DO need to get bureau online quickly as possible. I can't argue with that.
So with that in mind do we tech Math-CoL-CS and hope to trade for alphabet, monotheism and monarchy?
Or Math-CoL-Monarchy-CS? Or Alphabet-CoL-CS


To help decide lets consider our next revolution set.
We want Hereditary Rule, Bureaucracy and Organised Religion.
Getting access to one of those civics early doesn't actually help us until we can make the switch to all 3 (unless we wanted to endure an additional turn of anarchy or skip OR). With that in mind we want to focus on the techs that unlock additional bonuses before the techs that unlock pure civics changes.

Monarchy lets us improve the wines.
CS lets us spread irrigation (and build macemen/xbows?)
Monotheism does nothing and so should be taken last.

So what is the quickest way to get all 3?

 

[leif erikson]

Monarchy lets us improve the wines.
CS lets us spread irrigation (and build macemen/xbows?)
Monotheism does nothing and so should be taken last.

So what is the quickest way to get all 3?

Perhaps we start with Math? It opens +50% on chops as well as Aqueduct and Hanging Garden, if that is what we decide is important.

Isn't the most important aspect of CS getting to Bureaucracy? As of now, it'll take a while to research, which means we ought to get our cities growing first. That means Monarchy for Hereditary Rule and Wines. Code of Laws is important as well for Confucianism and for Courthouses, should we decide to build them, and is needed to get to CS. Then CS?

Not to confuse the issue, but I sat down and put together a dot map. Hope you can understand it? I had it nearly done before I figured out that I should have organized it differently. Let's see if we can make anything out of it?

Cyan at the top are our existing cities. I started out with red but it got confusing, so I mixed up the colors hoping that it would better define the various options, lettered A thru F. I think we need to keep in mind that we may need a cultural crossing to get to the Barb City, should we decide it is a juicy target. Should we need to build C, then E is a possibility?

 

[PaulisKhan]

E and C are the same as what I had planned. I would drop B from the roster and shift D SW.
I don't think F is ever going to get a chance at the wheat or the cow so would be stuck at pop 3 pretty much forever or grow slowly on irrigated plains.
A I would place on the river to claim the cows and 3 watermills. It would also be part of the irrigation plan to supply the wheat as well as our early traderoute connection to Hammy.

The settler that you devoted to B goes down south on the western Isthmus to block Jao. It claims 5 hills, 5 lakes tiles, a floodplains and 4 coastal tiles.
This city will be a production powerhouse and will quickly become one of our most important cities once it gets the Moai statues and a lighthouse.
In fact I would like to see this city up and running in the next couple of turnsets with the Moai statues chopped into almost immediately.
How does that plan sound to you? At this point it would be a serious contender for either the heroic epic or steelworks.


Our capital will need something to build while its pop is growing, We can decide whether this should the HG, Mids, a cash WW or units later after it has its library and granary (and airship?).

Math-CoL-Monarchy is looking to me like a strong move. While we're teching up to monarchy we can either let our capital grow into unhappiness by building units/improvements or use it to build a few more settlers/workers and then grow once we can keep it happy with military police.

 

[ShannonCT]

I wonder if PK can play ahead 1 turn so the warrior near the river can reveal more tiles. The only disagreement left to be settled before hitting "enter" is whether to finish the phalanx in Athens.

On that question, I think the airship can wait a few more turns. It can be whipped in Athens or Piraeus (this is hard to type - what happened to Sparta?) for 2 pop. We can have a look to the east first, and then rebase it to Delphi to reveal that Bab city. We can then rebase it to the Bab city and quickly scout all of Babylonia. Maybe we can even meet more AI. In any case, we can send the warriors back home as MPs.

I'm counting our workers and notice we only have 5 with city #4 coming soon. I think we should aim for no less than 1.5 workers per city. Can we build one in Piraeus before the granary or in Athens after the library?

On tech path, I was leaning toward CoL next. It would be useful to pick up a religion soon, or we run the risk of being religionless for quite a while. We can hold off on Alpha and see if the AI research it. Math can be delayed. There aren't a lot of forests we need to chop soon. Iron Working isn't much use unless we are serious about rushing Hammy (and I think it's going to be tough to choke Hammy right now with his Bowmen).

 

[PaulisKhan]

I looked at the save before work this morning and I'm convinced that we need to finish that phalanx in athens for settler escort duty.

We always need more workers.
I think an airship in athens after the library works fine(4 turns to build?).

CoL first works for me. Gives us more time to establish confuc in hammy territory so we can get those relations up.

Do we want a Gproph after the first GS so we can shrine confuc? This would require dropping the two scientists in our GP farm for a few turns after the GS pops (which we could turn into a worker pump for that time).

What would be the exact procedure for me playing the one turn? I downloaded the save that Fred linked after his turnset to look at.
Would I play the turn and then upload the save to the official site, or would I just post the save here.

 

[ShannonCT]

What would be the exact procedure for me playing the one turn? I downloaded the save that Fred linked after his turnset to look at.
Would I play the turn and then upload the save to the official site, or would I just post the save here.

Just post a screenshot or save to the thread. Making infrequent uploads to the GOTM site makes it harder for other teams to glean useful info from our graphs.

 

[rrau]

I agree with the phalanx. Equivocal on maths vs CoL. Are we going to waste hammers now building courthouses when there is other stuff we need to be doing first? I'd want an airship out of athens after granary and library. I wouldn't want to wait any longer on that.

 

[PaulisKhan]

I think CoL early is as much about securing a religion as it is about courthouses.
Getting it before Math might mean wasting 15-30 hammers worth of tree chops but if it means being able to use OR effectively then those lost hammer are repayed many times over. More so if we decide to shrine.

 

[leif erikson]

I looked at the save before work this morning and I'm convinced that we need to finish that phalanx in athens for settler escort duty.

Yes, I think you're correct. I agree with completing the Phalanx.

I think an airship in athens after the library works fine(4 turns to build?).

This seems the best way to handle it. We really need that Library in Athens.

CoL first works for me. Gives us more time to establish confuc in hammy territory so we can get those relations up.

How many more forests do we plan to chop. I suppose happiness will not keep pace with improvements? A couple of Watermills and a couple of Forest Preserves.

Do we want a Gproph after the first GS so we can shrine confuc? This would require dropping the two scientists in our GP farm for a few turns after the GS pops (which we could turn into a worker pump for that time).

A shrine would certainly help our economy. Especially if we are planning to spread Confucianism to Hammy.

What would be the exact procedure for me playing the one turn? I downloaded the save that Fred linked after his turnset to look at.
Would I play the turn and then upload the save to the official site, or would I just post the save here.

I think it would be best to save the game and post a screenshot of the tiles discovered. Unless someone wishes to see the save. If so, you can attach it in the thread. The fewer times the save is attached, the better.

Refined the dot map a bit. What do we all think, knowing that we do not know what lies to the east...

 

[PaulisKhan]

That's the dot map I had in mind, and you raise of the important point of being flexible once we see what is revealed to the east.

A plan seems to be coming together though we can see a bit of disagreement on the ordering of math and CoL, the path ahead seems to be somewhat consensual.

I'll reiterate again that worker micro is not my strong point. I win my HoF games by using better strategy, not by implementing my strategy better (wait until you see my embarrasing deity submission in the next update >.<). I will be looking forward to some serious feedback about worker jobs.

Tentative city plans
Athens: Phalanx-Library-Airship-Settler (before monarchy is in and real growths needs to happen)
Pyrayryeyaus (SPARTA): Settler-Library(whip?)-grow back to 4 (on something)-slow build worker while running two scientists
Delphi: Granary until pop 2 (to work sheep and plains hill windmill)-worker-worker-finish granary
New City: Granary-worker (must move warrior first to determine optimal place to settle this city)

Worker general jobs: minimise chopping until math is in.
Watermill every river, Windmill every hill, connect up every city until our land is full.


-edit- City site B could make an excellent candidate for a national park city. It can't work enough tiles at the moment to require us to chop down the forests immediately. Should we keep that future in mind for the city? 10 free GP.

 

[leif erikson]

They may be the city site we think we want? I'll be listening for others to chime in.

We should agree on what order we want to settle them. Site E might require a Courthouse due to its distance.

Sorry, its late and I can't remember if there is a test map? (btw, keeping test maps as non-HoF mod maps has worked out great! ) It may be helpful to try a couple of runs and see what worker actions provide good results. A Worker will need to follow the Settler wherever he goes to begin developing that city.

Are there any upcoming wonders that are "must haves" that we should be planning for?

Also, what about Espionage Points? Haven't talked much about them?

 

[PaulisKhan]

There are no "must have" wonders now that we have the oracle. That said, Glib is always useful for the scientist points and the bonus to beakers. GLH is probably too late but can sometimes run very late on certain map types, it looks like we'll have two cities on other landmasses and 4 coastal cities on the mainland before long, someone can do the math on the traderoutes to check the benefit but it's definitely a powerful wonder (that's a minimum of 12 free traderoutes, it would repay itself in less than 20 turns with that number of cities at a 1:1 hammer:commerce conversion rate?).
Christo Redento is probably the best wonder available to us (given how early we can get it), but picking the right time to tech radio is going to be crucial.

There IS a "must have" great engineer.
There are two main ways to get him: build the GE wonders and run an engineer in an unpolluted city, to avoid running away from this GP generation the main GP farm usually needs to be held back in some way, usually by running a sub-optimal number of GP's.
The second way to get him is to run a GE in our GP farm non stop and hope that the 5-10% chance of popping a GE will work itself out with a large enough number of popped GP's. This maximises the rate of GP generation but does run a small risk of catastrophic failure.
There is a third option that I have used in the past as a last resort.
Steel is on the way to railroad and if acted upon quickly enough, and fueled by enough chops the steelworks can be built for an extra 4 GE slots, running 5 engineers at starvation levels can pop the great engineer in a reasonable period of time, so long as not too many GP's have been popped previously. This short delay can often be spent teching biology which has advantages of its own and can offset what was lost by delaying Mining Inc.

City order:
C should be last, it's not much use until we can secure the coast with triremes.

B should be timed to pop to size 3 a few turns after monarchy is teched, so no rush to settle this immediately.

D we want to have maths in so we can start clearing land (I would consider chopping GLH into here once math is done, can be the city that builds our trireme once MC is in)

A is more of a blocker than anything but should be reasonably high on our priority list.

E will be one of our best cities (5 windmills, a floodplains watermill and 5 moai lakes tiles is very excellent) even if it is one of our costliest in terms of distance. It also needs time to go through two border pops to properly block Joa, for this reason I would want to settle it sooner rather than later. It's also the one most likely to be blocked by a barb city if we don't take action soon.


Espionage: Dunno, I'm not an expert with this stuff by any means but I'm for focusing on Hammy until we can see what he is teching and then dropping a bunch on Jao to see what he is doing too. Once we have courthouses in place we'll easily outstrip a monarch AI for EP points.

 

[PaulisKhan]

The more I think about it, the more I want to settle 3 cities asap.
E, A and D. I especially think that GLH is still worth going for in D. The worst case scenario is that we turn a bunch of trees into gold without major multipliers which we can use to fuel 100% research. The best case scenario is that we secure a wonder that will fuel our expansion on all offshore landmasses, and also provide GM points for trade missions.

If we were to go this route, what would be the best way to get 2 more settlers built without delaying libraries or running out of workers.
I might try this GLH gambit tonight on a practice map for homework.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Should we site D one tile east of where it is on leif's map in order to get culture (and galleys) to the barb city one expansion sooner? Unlikely but conceivably that's the best city site available.

PK, take note during your testing whether you're frustrated by chopping inhibition.

 

[PaulisKhan]

I just played a test game all the way through to a paratrooper war to get a feel for the best strategy.

Things I learned, we can probably rely on the AI to tech alphabet, ironworking and monotheism for us while we head to civil service.

Slightly delayed math was no real problem.

Hereditary rule is as important as Bureacracy. Our capital was absolutely driving the research and the cottage spam was essential.

I built hanging gardens in our capital while it was growing, getting a forge in there and running an eng as well would have been enough to pop our GEng if I had been paying proper attention.

ToA and Glib weren't available to build, can I assume that this is because we possess the obseleting techs?

Paratrooper war assisted by Airships is fun and the AI has no defense.

Mining inc is near useless until after we've secured most of the available land (so getting our paratrooper war in asap is important)

GLH as usual makes having two overseas cities incredibly valuable (big jumps in GNP when they are settled) however it will take most of the trees in city D (which may want to go back east, contrary to what I suggested) if we want to rush it, however we may not need to rush it which brings me to my next point;

The AI is not very good at building wonders with these settings, I guess it gets distracted building horribly expensive late era buildings like hospitals?
Pyramids we still available in 1500AD

Christo, while expensive (18 turns to build in capital >.<), was useful for swapping in and out of different gameplay phases (I grabbed radio with lib).

I'm rambling a bit now, I'm touch this up later when i've had time to properly digest the game.

 

[ShannonCT]

Are we going to waste hammers now building courthouses when there is other stuff we need to be doing first?

Courthouses are probably a waste in cities near the capital. And State Property is not that far away.

A shrine would certainly help our economy. Especially if we are planning to spread Confucianism to Hammy.

A settled GS in the capital (with library and academy) would be worth 1.5-2 hammers and 10.5 beakers. An early shine would be competitive with the settled GS with 8-9 converted cities.

Refined the dot map a bit. What do we all think, knowing that we do not know what lies to the east...

Pending the warrior move, it looks pretty good. I think we should settle toward Hammy next, and use the airship to finalize the dotmap before settling a 5th city.

-edit- City site B could make an excellent candidate for a national park city. It can't work enough tiles at the moment to require us to chop down the forests immediately. Should we keep that future in mind for the city? 10 free GP.

Those forests might be more useful to chop paratroopers. National Park is still pretty distant, and we can locate it in jungle just as well as forest.

Also, what about Espionage Points? Haven't talked much about them?

Put them all on Hammy to see his research, and then shift some to Joao to see his graphs.

GLH is probably too late but can sometimes run very late on certain map types, it looks like we'll have two cities on other landmasses and 4 coastal cities on the mainland before long, someone can do the math on the traderoutes to check the benefit but it's definitely a powerful wonder (that's a minimum of 12 free traderoutes, it would repay itself in less than 20 turns with that number of cities at a 1:1 hammer:commerce conversion rate?).

We may be able to get this pretty late. Right now, it's more important to REX and prepare for conquering our continent.

There IS a "must have" great engineer.
There are two main ways to get him: build the GE wonders and run an engineer in an unpolluted city, to avoid running away from this GP generation the main GP farm usually needs to be held back in some way, usually by running a sub-optimal number of GP's.
The second way to get him is to run a GE in our GP farm non stop and hope that the 5-10% chance of popping a GE will work itself out with a large enough number of popped GP's. This maximises the rate of GP generation but does run a small risk of catastrophic failure.
There is a third option that I have used in the past as a last resort.
Steel is on the way to railroad and if acted upon quickly enough, and fueled by enough chops the steelworks can be built for an extra 4 GE slots, running 5 engineers at starvation levels can pop the great engineer in a reasonable period of time, so long as not too many GP's have been popped previously. This short delay can often be spent teching biology which has advantages of its own and can offset what was lost by delaying Mining Inc.

Are you sure the GE is a must have? I'm seeing very few Mining Inc. resources so far. And with a focus on windmills over mines, there wont be metals popping up much either. I definitely would rule out the first option. We want to maximize the number of GP we get, so we can end the game with 4-5 golden ages.

C should be last, it's not much use until we can secure the coast with triremes.

The barbs can't touch the fish. It's not on the coast. This city will make a decent GP farm #2.

Should we site D one tile east of where it is on leif's map in order to get culture (and galleys) to the barb city one expansion sooner? Unlikely but conceivably that's the best city site available.

We can let our airship answer that question before we settle.

 

[PaulisKhan]

Here is the screenshot and the plays in the one turn.

Shifted EP to Hamm.
End Turn
Complete Phalanx and Settler, switch both cities to library, zero hammers deposited.
Writing completed, switch tech to CoL, zero beakers deposited.
Moved warrior to hill to reveal:

Spoiler :

Another copper, yay! Also see another grassland hill and some grassland, could be worth giving up the plains cow for? Can irrigate the grassland and work the copper, two grassland hills and some plains watermills?

Screenshot taken.
Game saved at 1240BC and exited. All worker and unit moves remain untouched with the exception of the warrior scout.

 

[PaulisKhan]

ps. This is the point where you jump in and tell the new guy he didn't screw up the game for everyone so he can stop stressing.

 

[ShannonCT]

ps. This is the point where you jump in and tell the new guy he didn't screw up the game for everyone so he can stop stressing.

I would have prefered to see some food rather than more copper, but I guess that's not your fault. Other than that, well done rookie.