SGOTM 10 - Smurkz

[Xcalibrator]

If zyxy agrees, I agree. But I'm still confused about hammers being "lost." Are you saying that when chopping a forest on a given tile, you get more hammers if the tile is currently within your cultural borders than if it is not? Or are you just saying that chopping in place will yield 29 hammers while chopping on a tile adjacent to the city will yield 44 hammers, with no dependence on whether or not the tiles are within cultural borders? (Or something else???)

 

[Backwards Logic]

Yes - if the tile being chopped is not in any of your own cultural borders, you lose hammers. Outside borders trees chopped are worth 29 hammers, tiles inside our borders are worth 44.

 

[zyxy]

It depends on cultural borders. Inside borders you get 44 hammers, outside 29. Multiply by 1.75 and you get 50 vs 77 hammers. So the difference is 27 hammers (not 28, I miscalculated it.)

These numbers hold inside the BFC, outside the numbers may be different, I don't recall.

I agree with the moves BL proposes. I suppose you stop play before end-of-turn of the turn that we settle?

In my experiments, a monopoly on Astro looks valuable enough to get most of the other researchable techs in trade. A monopoly on PP does not. So Astro is fine.

It would be interesting to see that 5 settler scheme. I will try to improve my schemes as well, but it will take until thursday as it is already late now and I don't have time tomorrow.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Yes - if the tile being chopped is not in any of your own cultural borders, you lose hammers.

I had no idea.

Yes, I agree with Astro. My second choice would be Gunpowder, but as long as we don't adopt a religion we should be safe (for awhile). Our first Great Sci should probably be used to bulb Education rather than build an academy, yes?

 

[Backwards Logic]

Regarding bulbing. I used it extensively in my test game where I had a tech lead in the industrial age. I think it should definitely be on our to be considered list.

And I've gotten around to finalizing my 5 settler plan. I've optimized it further getting all five completed by turn 37. My apologies on my spreadsheeting skills - I don't particularly like the sheets with all of the gobbaly-garbage all over them so I've created my own and thus stuck to the bare essentials. In an attempt to make it easier to read, here's a short explanation:

City Column: Lists start times and end times for each build, as well as when the chops come into play. Numbers indicate when said item will be completed.

Pop Column: Lists city's population. Number not in parenthesis is city's current pop, while second number in parenthesis is when the city grows. If there is no second number present it means city is not growing.

Happy/Health Cap Columns: First number is the cap, number in parenthesis is how much leeway we have until we're either at negative happiness or health. None of my cities ever have unhappy people or unhealthiness at any time.

Tiles Worked: Quite simply what the population is doing. A "P" preceding a tile means Plains, "RS" for riverside, and "Gr" indicates a grassland tile.

Worker Listings: letters indicated where they move to each turn, their action is self explanatory, and the number indicates number of turns until said action is completed.

Spoiler for Moscow:

Spoiler :

Spoiler for St. Petersburg

Spoiler :

Spoiler for Novgorod (if we choose to settle this site first)

Spoiler :

Spoiler for Worker Moves:

Spoiler :

The end builds and worker actions are not set in stone, I just put them in as placeholders while Moscow completed the final settler. With this setup I had amassed 673 gold in the treasury which will be used for 100% science funding once libraries are up. I should also point out I did not open borders with anyone during these 37 turns in an attempt to keep some sort of consistency from test game to test game.

I'll go ahead with the settler moves in the real thing along with the worker moves then end turn. I'll settle the cities, move the northern longbow around and the explorer SW. The other longbow will likely move SW and my guess is the explorer will finish it's turn moving SW. Are we in agreement to start building workers in each city and have our first worker begin chopping?

 

[unkle]

I think we have an agreement on the settler moves, so maybe seeing what is up there west would help on making decisions.

Science to 0% before libs is a no-brainer, and I guess having the capitol working the gold is our best shot.

Would first GS be able to bulb Edu by itself ?

Looks to me we have, thanks to you guys , all the info required to decided city positions when we'll have the correct land setup.

Last, even if metagaming is always fun, Murky might very well have got a bad situation with barbs... I doubt we'll see another Atlantis (might be wrong but...), so solid fogbusting should avoid most issues (hopefully).

BL, I guess you can proceed

 

[Backwards Logic]

Well, I managed to do the moves as agreed upon, and we've met everyone's favorite punching bag, Gandhi! He's extremely close - his explorer appeared on the plains hill 2 south of the riverside ivory during the ibt. We should decide if we wish to open borders with him. I also moved the longbow up north around - it appears to be not only a dead end but also has one less land tile than originally perceived. The good news is our explorer revealed some goodies down south, though just out of the reach of St. Pete's BFC. Settlers have not settled yet in case anyone wanted to try something different, though I think we're pretty much set at this point and I'd like to get a move on here. Also the explorer still has a move left, though I think SW is the best option for him.
Spoiler for southern land:

Spoiler :

How to proceed? Still settle as originally planned? Open borders with Gandhi? Start the worker chopping? Explorer finish it's move by going SW? My vote is yes to all of the above.

 

[Renata]

Is Gandhi close enough to suppress development with a well-placed longbow and still keep down the barb cities? If so, I'd consider it, maybe.

 

[Backwards Logic]

More than likely. Since we met him on the in between turn, my guess is he's about five - six tiles away somewhere to the NW of us assuming his explorer moved in a straight line away from his starting spot. Regarding the Edu bulb, I think we need two scientists to bulb it completely. One will get us really close, though I'm not sure how close.

 

[Xcalibrator]

"Aye" to all BL's suggestions about how to proceed. Yeah, that new land to the south isn't too shabby.

It may not be worth the trouble, but could the spreadsheets note when resources are hooked up (and not just improved)? I'm thinking of the iron in particular, since once connected archers-->crossbows and warriors-->metal melees.

 

[Backwards Logic]

In my plan it's the end of turn 32 when the iron is hooked up. As for the others, that I'm not going through ( ) but it's not terribly important anyway so long as our happiness and healthiness requirements are met.

 

[zyxy]

Hm, cows and horses just outside the BFC... does that change anything? Should we consider moving 1S?
Moving loses 2 ivory (one on river), 2 riverside hills (one with forest) and 2 shared tiles. It also loses a turn, and may give more land to Ghandi.
It gains 3 grass (1 riverside forest), 1 cow, 1 horse and 1 forested plains.

So it gains food, loses hammers and is roughly neutral in commerce. Probably settle in place, though it is tempting to move...

Our first Great Sci should probably be used to bulb Education rather than build an academy, yes?

I would rather trade for Edu. I think first GS to academy will be stronger.

And I've gotten around to finalizing my 5 settler plan.

Ah, you mean 5 settlers including the two original ones.

Is Gandhi close enough to suppress development with a well-placed longbow and still keep down the barb cities? If so, I'd consider it, maybe.

I think this is a good suggestion. Let's try to prevent Ghandi from boxing us in. Fortunately, he's not very warlike.

It may not be worth the trouble, but could the spreadsheets note when resources are hooked up (and not just improved)?

My scheme doesn't hook up iron I think - I rather have cheap MP's initially.

 

[Xcalibrator]

It would require rejiggering the spreadsheets, but maybe we could replace a few archers with warriors (if only fogbusting is required in some areas rather than defense, too). We'll probably need to adjust things anyway, once we see what the land looks like, who the other neighbors are and how close.

 

[Backwards Logic]

I vote keep the archers. Warriors add next to nothing in terms of power numbers at this stage of the game and don't have a realistic shot of winning against attacking barbs if they were to drop by for a visit. Sounds like I'll settle the cities where previously agreed and start the worker chopping, while moving the explorer SW. Agree? Another site we can use later is the clams horses along with using another city in conjunction with the plains cattle.

 

[Backwards Logic]

No posts/comments/opinions in 24 hours then? Going ahead with my moves outlined.

I decided to not open borders immediately with Gandhi because if he was as close to us as I predicted then we'd have to wait a bunch of turns to be able to cancel the deal if we wanted to choke him. His capital is 6 tiles due west of St. Pete. Choking him is looking like a very good option:

Spoiler :

Note two longbows and the settler headed our way. My guess knowing the AI's settling tendencies that he's going for the plains hill 1 SE of his position. It'd give him ivory, 3 floodplains and cattle while threatening a number of St. Pete's tiles including one of the aforementioned floodplains tiles. Just would like to reiterate that no city razing is on and how much I hate this option... Well, at least we don't have to fogbust anything out west.

So where to from here? I don't think we're going to need five settlers if Gandhi's going to be this close and this big of a pain. Depending on where exactly Gandhi goes, we're going to want to get the horses hooked up just to have the cavalry option later if we have no oil for tanks. At least for the next two moves while our worker chops out the worker in the capital the moves are pretty straight forward. Shall I play it out and see where exactly Gandhi settles his second city? Reassign all EP's towards him? Open borders with him to scout his land, or wait in case we wish to choke him?

 

[Niklas]

It's rather hard not to direct all EP against Gandhi at this point...

 

[r_rolo1]

Bah, a lurker giving stupid comments

BTW, why am I getting a chicken page when I try to download the save, mr lurker?

 

[Xcalibrator]

Frak!

This is going to take awhile to sort out, although I don't think we need to interrupt playing. Some random thoughts: Given the way cultural control works, it might be very important to get a border pop before Gandhi does. Fortunately, St Pete will be our religious city, but I think we might want to think about building culture for a turn or two to get the BFC early. We're going to be neck and neck with Gandhi on culture for awhile and we can't afford to lose tiles to his culture--might even think about a monument. Turn order may be critical--does he go before us?

Our first settler isn't planned until turn 27 so we have lots of time to open borders and do recon beyond India before it's time to attack him. Yes, we want to choke Gandhi from all sides, and to do that we need to put settler(s) on his far side, which will very likely require open borders. Perhaps we could close borders (if necessary to keep him out) and send a galley to the other side but that would take extra hammers. I'd rather have open borders and hope he's tempted to settle toward us so we can capture his later settler(s) (which will require a decent military).

We can't let him him camp the ivory--elephants are too strong to let him have any, since we're going to be at war soon.

Our hope is that there's lots of land on his far side for us to settle. If not we'll need a galley or two to find new land but we still need all those settlers! We must settle lots of cities no matter what.

I haven't opened the save to see what's required in terms of fogbusting but I'd say bring that northern longbow back ASAP and send up a warrior or something cheap to keep the barbs from spawning; we'll need the longbow to harrass Gandhi.

 

[Backwards Logic]

I think I'll open borders with Gandhi then since if we don't it's quite likely our units get bounced far away when his city is settled. Plus after some consideration declaring now would be really bad, since we have no units to defend our cities and his second city os going to have two units to defend it. I also think Gandhi has met someone else already since our EP's against him are at a 12/8 ratio so I'd like to see who exactly that is as well.

In better news the green site up north is looking ridiculous as a draft center and/or GP farm. The latest move of the longbow revealed two sources of coastal fish that would be in the BFC of settling on the plains hill. Just something to keep in mind as well.

 

[zyxy]

OB means we cannot DoW for 10 turns. By that time, Ghandi could have ivory camped.
Apparently his capital borders popped already.

Lots of forested tiles means our longbows are relatively safe in Ghandi's lands. So DoW is reasonably safe as long as he cannot hook up metals, and it would hinder his development. Should we DoW? Is he really a threat? Would the settler turn back if we DoW now? It depends mostly on relations and on some AI-specific parameters... In any case, our second longbow can turn back south to help out.

We can found at least 4 and perhaps 5 cities if we are quick enough: one up north, one or two in the south. We can push a settler much sooner than turn 27. I think turn 18 is doable, and we should, in order to block off Ghandi in the south. This is probably more urgent than fogbusting.

I vote keep the archers. Warriors add next to nothing in terms of power numbers at this stage of the game and don't have a realistic shot of winning against attacking barbs if they were to drop by for a visit.

Barb units don't appear until turn 30, so if fogbusters are in place by then, the barbs are no problem. Power doesn't influence the AI war decisions unless your power is above a (high) threshold, which is probably won't be. So I vote warriors.

Given the way cultural control works, it might be very important to get a border pop before Gandhi does.

How does culture work? I though it was just based on total culture points...

Fortunately, St Pete will be our religious city

So is his second town...