SGOTM 10 - Murky Waters

[klarius]

Well, ZPV, we have 2 settlers to think about.
And in place is not as good a long term capital as a gold-river city somewhere south (but we don't know if this would be just good or awesome).
It might be the right choice to settle the capital for high food, rex and relocate later, but that's by no means clear.
NP for a city in place would mean not using the wood. And the ages it takes until we get constitution and biology (both not required techs for our goal) while having a poor commerce capital will never be off-set by a few NP specialists later.

Super production city is nice. Still there is the question how many cities we can reach with tacticals. Note the direct hit requirement, which will frequently mean you cannot reach the next city from the one you just captured. IW needs coal to really pay off - it's also not that much farther to AL. Still I think we can handle the late game production in some way and shouldn't be too concerned about this now.

Before moving settlers one still has to establish how long the first revolt should be. Chopping with the worker is only a no-brainer if in fact the capital is in place.

 

[ZPV]

Well, ZPV, we have 2 settlers to think about.
And in place is not as good a long term capital as a gold-river city somewhere south (but we don't know if this would be just good or awesome).
It might be the right choice to settle the capital for high food, rex and relocate later, but that's by no means clear.
NP for a city in place would mean not using the wood. And the ages it takes until we get constitution and biology (both not required techs for our goal) while having a poor commerce capital will never be off-set by a few NP specialists later.

Super production city is nice. Still there is the question how many cities we can reach with tacticals. Note the direct hit requirement, which will frequently mean you cannot reach the next city from the one you just captured. IW needs coal to really pay off - it's also not that much farther to AL. Still I think we can handle the late game production in some way and shouldn't be too concerned about this now.

Before moving settlers one still has to establish how long the first revolt should be. Chopping with the worker is only a no-brainer if in fact the capital is in place.

Well, we have to decide: what is our early-game priority? REX or research?

I suspect REX (as you could guess from my earlier post), but I don't have a good justification for this.
edit: I guess it will depend on the quality of the land around us. If it is lush, then we want to spawn cities as early as possible. If it is full of plains and tundra like the last game, then we are better off concentrating on the initial two cities, and building up our research power as much as possible.
This would be a good reason to choose a lengthy revolt (2 turns, I guess) at the start, so we can have as much map information as possible when we make this decision.

I completely agree with you that NP in a city in place is a bad idea - however, after rex is over (which is surprisingly quick) we can use HeredRule and all 5 food resources to run many specialists very early. Would lightbulbing these GS make up for a delayed (or even aborted ) commerce capital? I think so, but I'm not sure.

On Ironworks, it is relatively cheap for us, but I see where you are coming from. However, it does transfer hammers from the industrial era to the key post-Rocketry phase. This is a minor point, however, as production should not be too tight a bottleneck for us in any event.

 

[klarius]

Well, we have to decide: what is our early-game priority?
I completely agree with you that NP in a city in place is a bad idea - however, after rex is over (which is surprisingly quick) we can use HeredRule and all 5 food resources to run many specialists very early. Would lightbulbing these GS make up for a delayed (or even aborted ) commerce capital? I think so, but I'm not sure.

A food driven GS farm in place doesn't have to be the capital. And the second city will get our religion for early use of pacifism.
The reason for settling the capital in place would be only to use the food for rex in an extended slavery period. This will delay GS quite some time.
You have to compare the early slavery rex to the early caste-pacifism GS out of the second city in place featuring early academy in the golden capital.

 

[Erkon]

This is the current state of my mind. Yes I know, I'm copying previous posts and you all knew this, but Gnejs hasn't understood yet

Overall priorities:

• Keep AIs from advancing (stealing workers, bribe them into wars etc). Rationale: we don't want to face advanced units
• Keep AIs from expanding (kill settlers, kill units to force them to build replacement units instead of settlers, pillage their lands etc). Rationale: we want to face as few cities as possible.
• Expand as quickly as possible. Rationale: we need to carve out enough land before AI/barbs occupy the land.
• Reach Fission as quickly as possible when research of Rocketry approximately matches completion of MP. Rationale: this open up the Manhattan Project, which gates the start of the conquest phase.
• Reach Rocketry when the Manhattan Project is completed. Rationale: this enable the nukes.
• Perhaps tech Radio. Rationale: this enables the use of tactical nukes to certain cities instead of ICBMs. Less hammers, but more delay.
• Perhaps tech Ecology (requires Biology). Rationale: scrub fallout to prevent global warming. Will we have any use of the captured cities, or will the conquest go too fast?
• Produce a lot of GP. Rationale: bulbing will be more powerful in renaissance start compared to ancient, since our research capabilities will take a while to get in place. (this is my gut feeling but I can't really put forward any valid arguments).
  Workers. Lots of workers. 2 per city. Rationale: lots of land to improve, and lots of re-tiling (farms => ws etc). And they are cheap. And can be stolen
• Pre-nuke wars to generate GG to settle in cities (Military Academies).

Strategic choice: how many techs should we target? We must tech these (order to be decided later):

• Astronomy
• Printing Press
• SciMet
• Physics
• Electricity
• Fission
• Gunpowder
• Chemistry
• Steel
• Replaceable Parts
• Rifling
• Artillery
• Rocketry

Optional techs (in approx priority):

• Education (for unis/oxford)
• Liberalism (for free tech)
• Biology (+1 food & NP)
• Ecology (scrup fallout)
• Radio (sub)
• Nationalism (draft)
• Economics/Constitution/Steam(worker speed + coal + levee)/AL (factories + inf)
• Communism (SP, GSpy and Kremlin)
• Military Tradition (Cossacks)
• Military Science (Military Academies)

Strategic choice: how do we prioritize expansion vs research in the early phase? The main drawback with REX is that we may a) miss liberalism and b) choose a cheap tech. REX means slavery & no early GP/academy/oxford etc. When do we switch from REX to research-phase? Perhaps at 5 cities and then still grow but more slowly?

Here comes my Grand Proposal (not at all grand actually, but I may update/add once I realize how stupid it is...)

Initial scouting.
Move the units according to attached screenshot. Yellow arrows is first turn, red is second turn.
One settler goes NE in case LBM-N detects a juicy site, and if hill 1W of fish is juicy. Else settler goes back to start tile.
Worker goes 2SW to explore. Early intelligence is worth two potential worker turns.
LBM-S go SE, then E
Scout goes 2S, and then further south second turn.
The second settler goes south of SE depending on what the scout reveals.

City specialization:
Capital to the south (if nice resources). Capital focus on research once the early expansion is completed. That means oxford in capital and lots of cottages (+ gold mines).
Our second city needs lots of food. First to whip settlers, then to run specialists. Builds NE. Either in site or to the north.
One other city (to be founded later) builds HE + IW and later the palace for Bureaucracy. Comment from klarius: I'm not so sure about HE coupled with IW (especially if we don't go for coal). One could also think of HE and Globe in a high food city to pop-rush nukes (Kremlin would help).

REX or Research? I favor REX. Whip workboats + settlers + workers. Build warriors while regrow. Run 0% research until libraries are in place, then go 100% research to Education, the 0% until unis+oxford.

Civics: HR + Bureaucracy + Slavery + Mercantilism (the extra two hammers are useful in the early game, and GP polution is not that bad since we can either save a GE, or start a GA, and NE will also contaminate).

Hmm, this post doesn't look as impressive as I intended...

EDIT history:
Chemisty + Steel needed for Rocketry path
Communism + Military Tradition + Military Science added to optional techs.
Synchronization of Rocketry and Manhattan Project added.

 

[klarius]

Chemistry-steel is not optional, but needed for the rocketry branch.
An additinal optional tech we talked about is communism (SP, GSpy and Kremlin).
There was also talk about using cossacks (military tradition).
I don't see a lot of value bee-lining fission as the techs on this path don't help much early. We just need enough research turns left, not the whole rocketry path, to get timely Manhattan.

I'm not so sure about HE coupled with IW (especially if we don't go for coal). One could also think of HE and Globe in a high food city to pop-rush nukes (Kremlin would help).
In this game (with lots of military builds very late) we should also think of using GGs for military academies (another optional tech - but may come on the trade table relatively soon).

Edit:
Now looked onto your move screenie.
You seem not be aware that the explorer can move 2 in any territory, so one can move 2 SE, then 2 SW with the same and a lot more explored than your moves.
I don't see what the worker can detect where you want to move it that could change our decisions, so I'm against this move.

 

[DMOC]

Hm ... now I'm re-thinking my original scouting plans.

How about having the scout go south, then southeast so it's on top of the plains hill gold mine? This way it has greater visibility than if it were to just go 2S.

klarius - AI's (especially the ones with the aggressive trait) research Military Science quickly. If we've got Shaka for instance, we can bet on getting Military Science for military academies.

This is also why we should war early (although no city capturing) so we can get military academies BEFORE we actually build nukes.

 

[klarius]

I think there is no alternative to the explorer 2SE and northern lb NE. Otherwise we cannot know if E or NE of the the corn is a good location (maybe there are 5 seafood to go with rice,corn and 2 gold ). If we closed out the eastern positions, there is no reason to not move one of the settlers southish. Before that we can then move the southern lb SW as this is the only tile where he can uncover a tile not uncovered by the moving settler.

klarius - AI's (especially the ones with the aggressive trait) research Military Science quickly. If we've got Shaka for instance, we can bet on getting Military Science for military academies.

Well, the AI researching something doesn't mean that we can acquire it. Especially if you think about somebody like Shaka, who trades only at pleased and has 50% iTechTradeKnown.

 

[Erkon]

The idea with the worker is to gather more information before we settle. There may be a better capital location that does not include the gold tiles (perhaps a city with the two gold has a lot of water tiles?). And the forest where the worker is located may be outside the 8-tile radius of a city so the chop may have to be aborted.

I'm fine with Explorer going SE-SE although I think the LBM can reveal those tiles. But you are right that we need to reveal tiles to the east.

DMOC: do you want the LBM or the Explorer to go that tile (gold plains 1SE of LBM)?

 

[DMOC]

I would like the explorer.

The explorer and LBM can end up on the same tile for turn 1. Then, when we make a move, the explorer goes south 2 tiles and then the LBM can move on the second gold hill.

I just suggested that the explorer go on the gold mine so that the extra hill would give more intelligence on turn 1. It's not much but it's something.

 

[Erkon]

I've updated post #3 with the tech list. Both the mandatory and optional techs are valued at ~58 kBeakers each. The start techs are valued at ~22kBeakers. Which means that we right now are 27.5% into the mandatory techs, and 16% into the combined techs.

The beaker generation is typically exponential, which means that the accumulated beakers during the first third of the game is more or less irrelevant (represents <5% of total accumulated beakers). The challenge for the first stage of the game is thus to create an empire that generate the beakers needed for the second stage of the game (tech to nukes). We thus don't need any GP until we end the REX...

EDIT: the 22kBeakers are not included in the 58kBeakers. Total combined value = 22+58+58 etc

 

[klarius]

One thing is that I want to reveal stuff on T0 already, because I'm not decided on how many turns of revolt.
Scouting with the worker to really find something good means at least 2 turns going away (and probably 2 turns returning) as the single move cannot reveal enough to make a better location (5 tiles of which 1 is desert, the rest seems to be plains - that cannot be really good for food).

I don't understand what the advantage of explorer going to SE of lbm shall be.
That's my test save after the lbms and explorer move according to original plan.



If it looks like that I would next move one settler 2 SE.
The explorer isn't worse of at this tile as 1W as he should anyway pass over the mountain 1SW on turn T1.

 

[DMOC]

Agree with klarius now.

 

[Erkon]

klarius, I'm fine with your moves. I just wanted to bring up options. The save will be available in less than 24 hours, yes? If I remember correct, it's midnight server time (located in US) i.e. before noon European time. But we can wait until you get back from work

 

[ZPV]

I've updated post #3 with the tech list. Both the mandatory and optional techs are valued at ~58 kBeakers each. The start techs are valued at ~22kBeakers. Which means that we right now are 27.5% into the mandatory techs, and 16% into the combined techs.

The beaker generation is typically exponential, which means that the accumulated beakers during the first third of the game is more or less irrelevant (represents <5% of total accumulated beakers). The challenge for the first stage of the game is thus to create an empire that generate the beakers needed for the second stage of the game (tech to nukes). We thus don't need any GP until we end the REX...

If we need 58k beakers, start with 22k, and if we lightbulb 10GS (not unreasonable with a GP farm in place - I got 11GS + 1GE in a test with extreme Rex - 5th city on turn 38) which brings us 25k, we need just 11k beakers on top of that. That doesn't sound right - it must be 33k beakers, and the 22k aren't included in the total.

Regardless of this waffle - we should decide on a target date for having Fission and Rocketry.
From my test where I just pressed enter after Oxford (t70), I got them around t150, with Nationalism and Constitution. I think this can definitely be improved to t130 at worst, so we should base any calculations we make around this ballpark date.

 

[klarius]

The 58k don't contain the 22k.
And lightbulbing 10GS might be a bit challenging on the minimum path.
First we cannot bulb later than fission, so GS after that are of no use. And we have to find the techs to bulb at all (delay stuff until GS available, don't research bulbable stuff). For the minimum path we have (? if there is doubt if we can use GS by either timing or because it might be tradeable):
Edu - 1 (?)
PP - 1
Astronomy 1 (?)
SM 1
Chemistry 1 (?)
Physics 2 (slight ? because we want the free GS)
Fission (3)
That's 10 max with several questionable.
Adding biology (and electricity by that) would probably fix the availability of techs to bulb but not the fact that fission is the last tech.

 

[Erkon]

Hmm, there seams to be a conflict between bulbing and early high-valued liberalism. And we want an academy in Moscow.

How about running 0% research for a very very very long time and skip liberalism? We switch it on once academy and oxford is in place in Moscow (a short burst is needed for Education). We then want NE as quickly as possible in the GP farm.

 

[klarius]

Well, I took my laptop to work .
Got it. Opened save. Made exp and lb moves. Lay of land is so that we have to re-think .


Edit: Minimap shows we are pretty much in the center of the map.

 

[Erkon]

klarius - thanks!

Immediate reflection: how about settling capital 1E (on forest)? That would be a kicka$$ city!

EDIT: klarius: how about moving the worker SW-SW to reveal more tiles?

 

[klarius]

klarius - thanks!

Immediate reflection: how about settling capital 1E (on forest)? That would be a kicka$$ city!

Well the problem there is that this city needs to be ~ size 30 to get to the full potential. Where to get happiness and health for that and when will that be the case. And the second gold is only usable by a city which has to take away part off the goodies.

How about capital south of rice. Second city using seafood.

 

[klarius]

EDIT: klarius: how about moving the worker SW-SW to reveal more tiles?

Well, I still don't see how this can give enough information to follow by a settler immediately, which should be done if we want to settle somewhere W. And it still doesn't give information about potential additional seafood on the western coast.

There is still the option for one city in place and one on the desert hill south of gold.