SGOTM 10 - Xteam

[leif erikson]

CP, you might not have seen this from the maintenance thread.

Essentially, it explains that the members section (of the UN or Apostolic Palace) is broken in BUFFY and so you should turn it off by unchecking the Members option in the advisors tab in BUFFY.

I don't think we need worry about PLE, unless you wish to turn it off.

BUFFY is a combination of the BUG Mod, BAT (the remake of the civcoredll file) and the HOF Mod. The core is BUG< so that is why it asks you if you wish to customize BUG.

G22 requests that we turn of unit naming. I think we all should either agree to that or decide to leave it on? I do not mind turning it off.

 

[ShannonCT]

I suggest leaving unit naming on and replacing the default code with the following code:

^ut^ ^cnt[n]^

This will assign a number to each unit by type (e.g. Warrior 1, Warrior 2, Archer 1, Worker 1, Worker 2). This would be especially useful for talking about worker plans.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Essentially, it explains that the members section (of the UN or Apostolic Palace) is broken in BUFFY and so you should turn it off by unchecking the Members option in the advisors tab in BUFFY." Did this for SCT's practice game. Will I need to do this again for the real game, or does BUFFY remember (or is she too busy slaying vampires)?

Gotten to just 1370BC in the test game without incident. Liked SCT's city sites, but agree with PK's suggestion that we don't spend too much time debating best initial sites until the game is available and we move the longbows, then pause to decide.

Interested if others immediately changed civics to Beaureau and Mercantilism, built three workers and two workboats, then changed to Slavery and Hereditary rule once cities began to grow.

 

[leif erikson]

"Essentially, it explains that the members section (of the UN or Apostolic Palace) is broken in BUFFY and so you should turn it off by unchecking the Members option in the advisors tab in BUFFY." Did this for SCT's practice game. Will I need to do this again for the real game, or does BUFFY remember (or is she too busy slaying vampires)?

Nah, she'll remember even as she is slaying those vampires. Let's hope she knows how to slay AI as well...

Interested if others immediately changed civics to Beaureau and Mercantilism, built three workers and two workboats, then changed to Slavery and Hereditary rule once cities began to grow.

I changed immediately to HR, Bureau, Slavery and Org. Rel. I agree with SCT that Mercantilism is better then HR initially.

I suggest leaving unit naming on and replacing the default code with the following code:

^ut^ ^cnt[n]^

This will assign a number to each unit by type (e.g. Warrior 1, Warrior 2, Archer 1, Worker 1, Worker 2). This would be especially useful for talking about worker plans.

Yes, this would be helpful in describing unit moves during the game. Does everyone understand what to do?

If we agree to this, we should all do it in SCT's test game to ensure it works before the "real thing" appears tomorrow.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I still have a feeling that oxford + NP + mass scientists in the settler starting location is the way to go. This setup will anihilate the AI's tech rate, nevermind that their start is unlikely to be as strong as ours. Whether or not this would be our capital isn't entirely clear, we might want to make use of the two gold mines and early Bureau for our capital to push things forward while the gp/beaker farm comes online

It would be valuable to know the approximate number of turns we need to get nukes since this is basically where research ends (perhaps include a few military techs and hammer boosting techs). Then we can better evaluate if it's worth the cost to build 6 libraries, 6 universities and Oxford.

Another thing to consider is where our commerce and beakers will come from now that cottages have reduced value. A grassland farm can support one specialist after Biology. If we also have Constitution we indirectly get 6 gpt from the farm (trough the scientist specialist). So Constitution seems like a tech we should beeline (how close are we with the techs we already know?).

I don't see a huge opportunity for espionage in this game, great scientists will take us most of the way towards where we want, then it's just a matter production.

I tend to agree. No need to steal techs when we are likely to be tech leaders anyway. And I fear that it will be very expensive to use spies to keep the AI backwards. Maybe leif will test this approach?

Interested if others immediately changed civics to Beaureau and Mercantilism, built three workers and two workboats, then changed to Slavery and Hereditary rule once cities began to grow.

Haven't play tested at all, but I would suggest to adopt slavery immediately so that workers can be whipped rather than built. I made an analysis in the previous SGOTM showing that it's optimal to whip settlers and workers using only two turns - one turn of "normal" build to remove penalties and one turn where the whip is applied. Regrow while building other stuff like work boats, units etc.

 

[ShannonCT]

Interested if others immediately changed civics to Beaureau and Mercantilism, built three workers and two workboats, then changed to Slavery and Hereditary rule once cities began to grow.

Since I didn't settle on turn 0, I changed civics immediately to Bureau, Merc, Slavery, and OR. I thought it was better to lose a turn of production at the beginning when there were no improved tiles to work. I didn't switch to HR immediately because it would cause a 3rd turn of anarchy. We don't need the happiness right away since we'll get +3 happiness from ivory and gold. We can switch to HR or Representation at the same time as Caste System.

 

[ShannonCT]

Another thing to consider is where our commerce and beakers will come from now that cottages have reduced value. A grassland farm can support one specialist after Biology. If we also have Constitution we indirectly get 6 gpt from the farm (trough the scientist specialist). So Constitution seems like a tech we should beeline (how close are we with the techs we already know?).

Constitution is 2 techs away (requires Nationalism). The AI seem to put a pretty high priority on Constitution, so we might be best off trying to trade for it (or at least trade for Nationalism).

I tend to agree. No need to steal techs when we are likely to be tech leaders anyway. And I fear that it will be very expensive to use spies to keep the AI backwards. Maybe leif will test this approach?

Maybe a better approach for annoying the AI is to use a navy to keep them from settling islands (which will be time consuming to capture). We can either wage open war with frigates, or secret war with privateers against galleons. We just need to find an AI to trade us Astro, or bulb it ourselves. If we don't trade Chemistry to the AI, we can maintain a naval superiority for a while.

Haven't play tested at all, but I would suggest to adopt slavery immediately so that workers can be whipped rather than built. I made an analysis in the previous SGOTM showing that it's optimal to whip settlers and workers using only two turns - one turn of "normal" build to remove penalties and one turn where the whip is applied. Regrow while building other stuff like work boats, units etc.

The capital should be able to whip a worker for 1 pop after 1-2 turns because of Bureaucracy and the forge.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Since I didn't settle on turn 0, I changed civics immediately to Bureau, Merc, Slavery, and OR. I thought it was better to lose a turn of production at the beginning when there were no improved tiles to work. I didn't switch to HR immediately because it would cause a 3rd turn of anarchy. We don't need the happiness right away since we'll get +3 happiness from ivory and gold. We can switch to HR or Representation at the same time as Caste System.

You can change civics before you have founded a city for civics to affect? If so, then that is clearly better, at least for two civics -- more than that would cost a critical turn at the beginning of the game, which I'm not so certain is optimal. Waiting on Slavery and HR until at least one is useful may be better. Also, not sure Fred is correct to advocate whipping initial workers, as that retards city growth and with a granary our cities can grow extremely fast.

Finally, problem with settling in place and building NP: It nixes the early chopping that facilitates rexing.

 

[ShannonCT]

You can change civics before you have founded a city for civics to affect? If so, then that is clearly better, at least for two civics -- more than that would cost a critical turn at the beginning of the game, which I'm not so certain is optimal. Waiting on Slavery and HR until at least one is useful may be better. Also, not sure Fred is correct to advocate whipping initial workers, as that retards city growth and with a granary our cities can grow extremely fast.

Yes, you can change civics before founding a city. We missed this in the last SGOTM.

My rationale behind switching 4 civics immediately is that we will lose less output if anarchy happens when we have 4 population working 4 unimproved tiles than if it happens when we have more population working improved tiles.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Yes, you can change civics before founding a city. We missed this in the last SGOTM. Illogical.

My rationale behind switching 4 civics immediately is that we will lose less output if anarchy happens when we have 4 population working 4 unimproved tiles than if it happens when we have more population working improved tiles.

Understand, and you may have it right . . . the counter argument is that 4 civics delays city growth and production for a turn when only one worker is working, so the turn is almost completely wasted. When you change 2 later, workers can be working to improve tiles or chop settlers while in anarchy, so the turn is not wasted. I had 4 workers working when I switched to Slavery. Question is whether those extra 3 worker actions are as valuable as a turn of production when our total pop is around 6. With about 4 improved tiles being worked, I calculate about 46 hammers + gold in the two cities being lost during a late turn of anarchy vs perhaps 10 on turn 2. Guess 36 hammer/gold is worth more than three extra worker turns, though they are crucial to rexing.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Constitution is 2 techs away (requires Nationalism). The AI seem to put a pretty high priority on Constitution, so we might be best off trying to trade for it (or at least trade for Nationalism).

I understand your argument about increasing trade opportunities. How long do we have to wait before these techs come up for trade? Nationalism opens up for buidling the Taj so the AI may be reluctant to trade.

Perhaps it would aid the tech discussion if we made a list of the minimum techs required to get nukes. Then we could discuss which side branches to include for enhancing military, beakers and hammers.

The capital should be able to whip a worker for 1 pop after 1-2 turns because of Bureaucracy and the forge.

I'm sure this is the best way to play the opening. Whip workers in both cities after 1-2 turns and start improving a food tile. It means that we should seek to put our cities next to a food resource because the workers will come before expansion to FC. Do we have a free worker to begin with? In that case whipping only one worker immediately may be better. Need to do some testing to determine this.

Also, not sure Fred is correct to advocate whipping initial workers, as that retards city growth and with a granary our cities can grow extremely fast.

You can play test both strategies if you doubt my analysis. Remember that building workers and settlers also ****** city growth. And that having the granary actually makes whipping twice as efficient.

Finally, problem with settling in place and building NP: It nixes the early chopping that facilitates rexing.

This does cast some doubt on the feasibility of keeping all the forests. In the previous game this was possible because we could preserve the forests immediately and thus turn the forest tiles into something useful. In this game the forests would just sit there waiting for SciMeth and Bio. Perhaps it's better to plan for NP in a later city.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"You can play test both strategies if you doubt my analysis. Remember that building workers and settlers also ****** city growth. And that having the granary actually makes whipping twice as efficient."

I will test, Fred, Do you want to fill the granary first before whipping?

 

[leif erikson]

Been trying to play the Spy game, but it isn't too productive.
EDIT - Espionage missions are expensive!! And trading is way easier than stealing, at least in this game...

I made a mistake in that I didn't change over to Caste soon enough so ended up researching some and trading for Printing Press. Also traded for Education, Liberalism, Replaceable Parts, Economics, Nationalism, Rifling and Astronomy. Bulbed Chemistry, some of Scientific Method.

Augustus went directly for Nationalism. Took a long while before Education became available. My buddy Qin and Augustus traded easily. Izzy, of course, is a pain. The Ai are pretty much at war and fighting valiantly. Hope we can get that happening in the real game. Got to choose our friends carefully, imho.

Here are a series of saves through Communism, 1800 AD.

 

[Mad Professor]

The official starting save has been posted on the SGOTM progress page. AlanH has a link to it in the first post of the maintenance thread.

It may help us for someone to grab it and move a unit or two so we get a better view of the starting area...?

I'd prefer not to have one of the really early turn sets as I'm still learning heaps every time I open BtS, which suggests I might play a lot better in a week or two than I would now.

Edit: Just been gazing at the starting screen shot. The northern longbow could move NE, the explorer two SE onto the eastern gold hill, and the southern longbow could move SW and we'd have a much better view. The worker could even go onto the western elephant if we wanted to use a worker turn that way, and if we're not going to settle instantly, that would be a good use of the worker turn. A screen shot when those woves have been made would be very helpful I think.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"I suggest leaving unit naming on and replacing the default code with the following code:

^ut^ ^cnt[n]^" Say . . . What?

Almost equally puzzled by the cost of settlers being more than 4 times the cost of workers in this game. What is going on with that?

Don't think I'll be able to get to nuclear weapons testing before the game starts, but I will take time to look at immediate worker whipping, as I'm skeptical about that -- especially when there is a worker available to chop a workboat.

Here is my 1485BC save of SCT's test game to compare with SCT's own save and others http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223702&stc=1&d=1249624557

Like the fact that I've built a library (and am half way to Education), a galley, a spy (for safe exploration, not espionage), and a caravel (and will achieve circumnavigation IBT, I think). Note that SCT's 1485 save is about three turns ahead of me in city expansion. Difference seems to be that I've chopped more forests and proritized exploring at some detriment to rexing. Together, the two saves give us a good idea of where we can be settling on the ivory and south of the rice, if that's how we chose to go after moving the longbows.

I have not switched to Caste System nor taken advantage of science specialists afforded by the library and so am producing two GE's. Not at all sure that is optimal, but it does open the option of building a wonder early in the game. Is there one available and valuable?

 

[ShannonCT]

"I suggest leaving unit naming on and replacing the default code with the following code:

^ut^ ^cnt[n]^" Say . . . What?

If you hit ctrl-alt-o to open the BUFFY options and click on the unit naming tab, you'll notice a line of nonsensical code. I propose replacing that nonsensical code with my nonsensical code.

Almost equally puzzled by the cost of settlers being more than 4 times the cost of workers in this game. What is going on with that?

You're paying for a Pop2 city with a granary, aqueduct, forge, and perhaps lighthouse.

 

[ShannonCT]

Edit: Just been gazing at the starting screen shot. The northern longbow could move NE, the explorer two SE onto the eastern gold hill, and the southern longbow could move SW and we'd have a much better view. The worker could even go onto the western elephant if we wanted to use a worker turn that way, and if we're not going to settle instantly, that would be a good use of the worker turn. A screen shot when those woves have been made would be very helpful I think.

I agree with these moves. Leif, what's the lineup?

 

[Frederiksberg]

I will test, Fred, Do you want to fill the granary first before whipping?

Well, this all depends on where you settle, the availability of food resources/forests for improvement before/after expansion to FC etc. The general rule is that WHEN you decide that another worker/settler is needed the time spent building the unit should be minimized by using the whip.

Without having tested I would suggest to whip one worker ASAP in the city that is not our capital and wait with the third (we have one at the beginning, I understand), but this is only a guess.

Augustus went directly for Nationalism.

When did it come up for trade?

Regarding civics, have anyone considered Pacifism instead of OR? We are probably not building much infrastructure in the beginning so perhaps we can wait with OR for a later switch. Pacifism would allow a fast GS for constructing an Academy in our Capital thus adding significant beakers in the early game.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Regarding rooster I won't be up to speed for the next 2 weeks. I suggest that SCT plays the first set as usual .

 

[leif erikson]

When did it come up for trade?

Late, around turn 132. Augustus had Nationalism unique for quite some time and refused to trade it. Eventually, several others also got it and then, after I gifted him Economics to get him to Pleased, he was willing to trade it.

Regarding civics, have anyone considered Pacifism instead of OR? We are probably not building much infrastructure in the beginning so perhaps we can wait with OR for a later switch. Pacifism would allow a fast GS for constructing an Academy in our Capital thus adding significant beakers in the early game.

I think we have to be very careful about taking on a religion. Nearly all the wars get going because of the religious divisions between the civs. I played without taking on a religion. I think we should consider how this will affect our ability to trade and maintain relations. If we take a religion, it ought to be another civ's that we think, either by geography or by research rate, will benefit us.

OR was good because we could build Missionaries and use them to help expand our borders. Although I built Theaters to do so.