SGOTM 11 - ChokoMisfits

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Moving the Warrior NW will reveal more tiles, but moving it NE, if revealing a key resource, may lead to a change in our plans for the Settler's first move (such a change will likely not happen from a NW Warrior move). Are there any further thoughts on this?

Since the SGOTM-11 Map was probably finely crafted by a brilliant Civ4 player, it may be wise not to rush for the best settling spot on turn 0-1 which would be normal for a purely randomly generated Map. We might consider exploring with the Settler 1-2 turns before settling him, in case the Map Maker provided an even better Capital site nearby.

Turn 0:

Warrior: NE (trying to follow river N and/or E)

Settler: SW (pause to see what that reveals)
Settler: SE (assuming previous SW revealed nothing to suggest another move would be better)

I'm also fine with moving the Settler onto the PH to optimize its turns, assuming we plan to settle there on turn 1.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[haphazard1]

Re: finding a better capital site -- we have two irrigatable corn. How much better a site are we likely to find? Certainly it would be nice to move 2-3 tiles and find that high-food, grassland gems, stone and marble all together site. But I doubt there is any such site out there. And I hate giving away turns at the start of the game. One or two turns at most, unless we have a strong basis to believe there is a better site nearby. Burning two or three turns and ending up where we started or on the plains hill anyway would be...bad.

On warrior NE vs warrior NW...I do not think it is likely we will move the settler more than 1 tile north as we would lose the southern corn. I also do not think we want to settle on the northern corn. So the only northward move would be settler 1NW. And moving the warrior NW reveals more tiles for that spot than moving the warrior NE.

Really this is all a guessing game. Unless we are willing to sacrifice at least two turns, I do not think we will get enough information to do significantly better than settling T0 or T1. But I am happy to go with whatever the team decides.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Since some of us have committed to a TUN Diplomatic Victory and others are still on the fence between TUN Diplomatic Victory and a Cultural Victory, I propose that we play to achieve an early as possible TUN Diplomatic Victory (our #1 victory goal), and as much as possible crank up the Culture in three Cities as a viable backup plan in case the TUN Diplomatic Victory becomes impossible or drags on much longer than expected. Thus, a Cultural Victory would be our #2 victory goal.

1) TUN Diplomatic Victory is our primary victory goal.
2) Cultural Victory is our secondary victory goal.

Every decision will be made to achieve goal #1 as early as possible. Whenever a decision's options are equal with regard to achieving goal #1, the tie will be broken to help our Cultural Victory backup plan (victory goal #2).

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Re: finding a better capital site -- we have two irrigatable corn. How much better a site are we likely to find? Certainly it would be nice to move 2-3 tiles and find that high-food, grassland gems, stone and marble all together site. But I doubt there is any such site out there. And I hate giving away turns at the start of the game. One or two turns at most, unless we have a strong basis to believe there is a better site nearby. Burning two or three turns and ending up where we started or on the plains hill anyway would be...bad.

On warrior NE vs warrior NW...I do not think it is likely we will move the settler more than 1 tile north as we would lose the southern corn. I also do not think we want to settle on the northern corn. So the only northward move would be settler 1NW. And moving the warrior NW reveals more tiles for that spot than moving the warrior NE.

Really this is all a guessing game. Unless we are willing to sacrifice at least two turns, I do not think we will get enough information to do significantly better than settling T0 or T1. But I am happy to go with whatever the team decides.

May I suggest that whomever starts, load the starting Save and make the Settler active and report whether the Game circles any Tiles as worthwhile settling sites. Sometimes this provides useful information without even moving any unit.

Personally, I think the Plains Hill site will be hard to beat, but I like to consider all reasonable options before moving a unit. I also like to optimize turns to build the initial Worker as early as possible, and it that regard the Plains Hill is again "hard to beat".

Aside from the settling on the PH or settling in place on the PF, there is the unusual option of settling on either Corn Tile, boosting growth immediately by +1 Fpt, but sacrificing +6 Fpt with a worked Corn Farm. I'm not seriously suggesting this for this Game, but simply pointing out that I often consider unorthodox plans/tactics so long as they might help achieve Victory as little as 1 turn sooner.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[haphazard1]

The option of settling on one of the corns is interesting. It would give us the boost in building the first worker (saving 5 turns relative to a non-resource, non-plains-hill tile). It would leave the plains hill available to be mined...although adding a zero-food tile to a city which has already given up one corn would mean very slow growth for the capital unless we had another food resource.

Settling on a corn would then argue for moving the warrior NE, and if nothing was revealed spending a turn to move the settler SW (and maybe SE after, depending on what was seen). If nothing good appears either direction, this would cost us 1 extra turn before settling on the plains hill anyway. But it would give us more information about our area, with at most one turn of delay. We might even see good things from the southern corn and settle there T0.

On blue circles, I never play with them turned on. But it is one more thing we could check.

 

[haphazard1]

Hmmm. No blue circles?

I un-checked the "No unit action recommendations". I did see blue circles in the test game start when I loaded it. But I saw no blue circles in the actual game start.

Maybe someone else can try this, in case I was doing something wrong?

Not that I would trust the blue circles. In the test game, the tile NE of the northern corn was circled. No idea why. When I moved there, I then saw a circle further east. When I moved there, I found there was a seafood resource...and nothing else. So the blue circles led me away from double corn to a single seafood.

 

[ianw1610]

Yes, it is the same for me. Blue circles in the test game, but not in the real game.

 

[Sleepless]

No blue circles for me either. No good at reading hidden tiles but the 3 to the North/NE etc of the warrior all look like forests an a plains NW.

So my suggestion is to move settler on to plains hill and warrior NW. Probably settling on ph next turn if we don't see anything better.

 

[JerichoHill]

While NW shows us more tiles, NE does give us more info relevant to settling.

Thus, Warrior NE

Pause. If anything changed, report

If nothing of import revealed, settler to plains hill

Agree with Sun Tzu on overarching plan.

 

[ianw1610]

Sounds good.

Any comments /preferences about the potential order for our roster?

 

[Sleepless]

No preference from me about the roster order. Not sure if I'm right in this but warrior NE will only show 3 more forest tiles (said I'm bad at guessing the tiles ). Second move might show more but to move the settler would then take at least another couple of turns, so I'll be very surprised if there is anywhere better than the ph. Pretty certain there is a resource where the warrior is standing though. I'll just have to wait and see.

 

[JerichoHill]

I'm advising and talking out of my ass until May 7th, when I am done with classes. So in others words

NOT FIRST!

 

[ianw1610]

How about we arrange the roster to alternate between ex-Misfits and ex-Chokonuts, with Sun Tzu Wu in the middle position, so......

1. haphazard1
2. ianw1610
3. Sleepless
4. Sun Tzu Wu
5. McArine
6. JerichoHill
7. Mighty Dwaarf

Any objections?

 

[Sleepless]

Sounds good to me. Good Luck Haphazard and find us some nice sites.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Turn set length:

How long will our turn sets be for the early part of GOTM-11?

Roster suggestion:

How about we arrange the roster to alternate between ex-Misfits and ex-Chokonuts, with Sun Tzu Wu in the middle position, so......

1. haphazard1
2. McArine
3. Sleepless
4. Sun Tzu Wu
5. ianw1610
6. JerichoHill
7. Mighty Dwaarf

Any objections?

I'd suggest alternating between European, Asian/Austrialian and Americas Time Zones if possible. This can allow the actual turn set real-time duration to be a third/half day shorter; this can help if we ever find ourselves under time pressure. Of course it can also make the turn set a half day longer, but that can usually be avoided by switching the order when the Player up is a bit too busy for a quick turn set. It can be an advantage to have Players distributed around the globe like we seem to have.

I'm in the Central Time Zone (-5 UTC/GMT) which is currently in Daylight Savings Time. Otherwise, Central Time Zone is defined as -6 UTC/GMT. Please use offset from UTC (Universal Time Coordinated). UTC keeps track of leap seconds whereas I don't think GMT does. For example, I could be listed in the roster as:

4. Sun Tzu Wu: -5 UTC

Turn set #1 suggestions:

Good luck haphazard1! Final bit of advice, settle on the PH in turn 1 and explore well whether along Rivers or Shores and I'm sure there will be no complaints.

Did we agree to start building a Worker immediately on turn 1? If so the Worker should be ready on turn 19 (90H / 5 Fpt+Hpt = 18 turns build time).

Commerce rate will be at lease 9 Cpt -> 9 Bpt (minimal initial research rate); hope a nice Commerce tile (Gems/Gold) is revealed by the Settler hop on to the Plains Hills tile.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[ianw1610]

I think the suggested roster is as close as it can be to alternating between time zones. We don't have anyone from Asia / Australasia (as Ozbenno is only a lurker, not a player), so we have only players from Europe (4) and North America (3).

Based on my list from earlier, this (I think) is the pattern...

1. North America
2. Europe
3. Europe
4. North America
5. Europe
6. North America
7. Europe

Good luck, haphazard!

I think there is a way of interpreting the statistics tables in the first few turns of a game, to establish if any of our opponents are Cultural, Financial, etc... although I'm not sure of the specifics of how to execute this......

 

[haphazard1]

You want ME to go first? And this would be the day I didn't even log in to my computer until 9 PM...finally got my hands on a copy of the new David Weber book.

But I can certainly get the initial warrior move (NE) done, and if nothing interesting is revealed will move the settler to the plains hill. Warrior will move again (depends on what is seen), and if still nothing interesting we will settle our capital and stop for team input. If the warrior sees anything of course we will stop and consider.

Will be back shortly.

 

[haphazard1]

OK, initial moves done...and we have some choices to make.

Warrior NE, did not reveal anything of interest -- plains and a plains hill. Moved settler to the plains hill. We have silver! But we also have tundra, and probably ice. I moved the warrior NE again on T1 to a plains hill to get a better view, then stopped. Here is what we know:

My fog-gazing says the tile 1S of the tundra hill is ice. And 1E of the tundra hill is tundra, probably a tundra hill. That's three (at least) very poor tiles for our capital, although tundra hills can at least be mined or windmilled. But we may want to move our capital back west, despite the lost turn. Nothing revealed by the warrior is close enough to make a difference to the capital unless we really want to go walkabout.

What do we do next?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

OK, initial moves done...and we have some choices to make.

Warrior NE, did not reveal anything of interest -- plains and a plains hill. Moved settler to the plains hill. We have silver! But we also have tundra, and probably ice. I moved the warrior NE again on T1 to a plains hill to get a better view, then stopped. Here is what we know:

<image omitted>

My fog-gazing says the tile 1S of the tundra hill is ice. And 1E of the tundra hill is tundra, probably a tundra hill. That's three (at least) very poor tiles for our capital, although tundra hills can at least be mined or windmilled. But we may want to move our capital back west, despite the lost turn. Nothing revealed by the warrior is close enough to make a difference to the capital unless we really want to go walkabout.

What do we do next?

I'm fine with settling the Capital on the Plains Hill on turn 1 as planned. We can afford a few useless tiles in the BFC. At least we have a moderate Commerce Tile in sight (Silver) and plenty of food to work it. Of course we already have Mining to build a Silver Mine after a Corn Farm. We do want to set Research for Agriculture, right?

Other then the above, I'd just Scout for future City sites and our neighbors, if any.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sleepless]

I'd agree with settling on the plains hill. The silver will help enormously with the early techs. Long term (hope there won't be one as we should be finished before that ) as Sun Tzu Wu said a few useless tiles aren't going to hurt us to much.

Told you I was no good at reading tiles as all the ones I thought were forested none had any on.