SGOTM 11 - ChokoMisfits

[ianw1610]

Yes, our 2nd city could go on a Plains Hill, grabbing Cow + Wheat + Oasis + Incense.

In addition to that, maybe we can build a coastal city that also grabs the Stone.

According to the info in F7, the population of the civilized world is 12 (i.e. there would be 12 available votes on Diplomatic elections at this time). Including Barbarians, our size 1 empire accounts for 5.56% of the world's population - making the total world population 18, and thereby making the Barbarian population of the world 6. So, either there are a few small Barb cities, or (more likely) the mapmakers have given us a repeat of "Atlantis" from SGOTM-9, in terms of a well-developed Barb city, which will no doubt be protecting the world's only source of Fur......

How many Warriors should we build, before we switch to building a Settler? Should we wait to reach size 3, and then immediately switch to a Settler??

What would be a reasonable stopping point for the next turnset?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Switch on Tile output:

Please flip the switch that shows potential output for every revealed Tile.

Build Cottages soon:

I'd like to see at least 4 Cottages built as soon as reasonably possible. They need time to develop into Villages and and later Towns to really make Bureaucracy effective. We'll build more Cottages as our Happiness Cap increases. This implies The Wheel -> Pottery after BW.

Add 2nd Worker before Settler:

It is really critical to have more Workers before having any Settlers, unless there's a credible risk of losing a good City site to Zara Yaqob (which I doubt as long as we're too slow in building Workers and Settlers). We need the Workers to continue improvement in the Capital, chop Forests, build improvements in newly built Cities, etc.

We should 2 Workers for every City we have. It is especially important to have a large number of Workers for Forest chopping.

Otherwise, I'd in agreement with most everything recently said.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[haphazard1]

We have fast workers, which saves worker turns when moving onto hills or forests (but not forested hills). But I agree we need more workers fairly soon. The question is exactly when -- currently our fast workers can only farm and mine. In another 9 turns they will be able to chop. Roads and cottages are further off.

We will grow to size 2 next turn -- if we work both corn tiles we will have +7 food which should allow us to grow to size 3 in 5 turns (I think we will have at least one food overflow from this turn). If we improve the second corn before the silver, we could easily grow to size 4 or even larger quite rapidly:

9 turns to improve the second corn (1 turn moving, 8 turns farming), which we spend as:

(+6F x 1 turn) to size 2
(+7F x 5 turns) to size 3
(+7F (working both corn plus a grass forest) x 2 turns) followed by (+10F x 3 turns) to size 4.

This is 11 turns to size 4, meaning we would have finished BW the turn before. Spiritual allows no anarchy revolt so we invest one turn and then whip a worker for 2 pop, getting it 12 turns from now. This will drop us to size 2, working both corn for +10F, so we will easily regrow to size 3 by the time the silver mine is finished.

For all but the one turn invested to avoid the penalty of whipping with no hammers in the box, we get to spend our normal hammers on whatever we want. 11 turns with 2 hpt from the city center gives us a warrior. We also have 5 turns of working a grass forest which should be enough hammers to finish the warrior currently in progress. So after 12 turns we should have 2 more warriors plus a second worker, plus about half of another warrior as overflow from the whip (due to the production from the one invested turn).

We would be well positioned at that point to put a chop or two into a settler, which could be finished with a 2 pop whip roughly 20-22 turns from now.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts. I tend to be a heavy user of the whip, and two irrigated corn represents tons of hammers once converted by slavery.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

We have fast workers, which saves worker turns when moving onto hills or forests (but not forested hills). But I agree we need more workers fairly soon. The question is exactly when -- currently our fast workers can only farm and mine. In another 9 turns they will be able to chop. Roads and cottages are further off.

We will grow to size 2 next turn -- if we work both corn tiles we will have +7 food which should allow us to grow to size 3 in 5 turns (I think we will have at least one food overflow from this turn). If we improve the second corn before the silver, we could easily grow to size 4 or even larger quite rapidly:

9 turns to improve the second corn (1 turn moving, 8 turns farming), which we spend as:

(+6F x 1 turn) to size 2
(+7F x 5 turns) to size 3
(+7F (working both corn plus a grass forest) x 2 turns) followed by (+10F x 3 turns) to size 4.

This is 11 turns to size 4, meaning we would have finished BW the turn before. Spiritual allows no anarchy revolt so we invest one turn and then whip a worker for 2 pop, getting it 12 turns from now. This will drop us to size 2, working both corn for +10F, so we will easily regrow to size 3 by the time the silver mine is finished.

For all but the one turn invested to avoid the penalty of whipping with no hammers in the box, we get to spend our normal hammers on whatever we want. 11 turns with 2 hpt from the city center gives us a warrior. We also have 5 turns of working a grass forest which should be enough hammers to finish the warrior currently in progress. So after 12 turns we should have 2 more warriors plus a second worker, plus about half of another warrior as overflow from the whip (due to the production from the one invested turn).

We would be well positioned at that point to put a chop or two into a settler, which could be finished with a 2 pop whip roughly 20-22 turns from now.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts. I tend to be a heavy user of the whip, and two irrigated corn represents tons of hammers once converted by slavery.

Excellent tactics and explanation there of. Start the second Corn Farm next.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[ianw1610]

This is 11 turns to size 4, meaning we would have finished BW the turn before. Spiritual allows no anarchy revolt so we invest one turn and then whip a worker for 2 pop, getting it 12 turns from now. This will drop us to size 2, working both corn for +10F, so we will easily regrow to size 3 by the time the silver mine is finished.

For all but the one turn invested to avoid the penalty of whipping with no hammers in the box, we get to spend our normal hammers on whatever we want. 11 turns with 2 hpt from the city center gives us a warrior. We also have 5 turns of working a grass forest which should be enough hammers to finish the warrior currently in progress. So after 12 turns we should have 2 more warriors plus a second worker, plus about half of another warrior as overflow from the whip (due to the production from the one invested turn).

Looks good!

If no objections, I can play the 12 turns as detailed above, in ~12 hours from now...

 

[haphazard1]

Good luck with the turnset, ianw1610!

And good luck to our brave warrior. He is going to need it. Does anyone know how movement order is determined for barbs? The barb lion moved first, then the wolf during the last inter-turn. Hopefully this will be true again, as facing the stronger opponent first will make it more likely our warrior will survive.

Any suggestions for naming our units? Right now we have one warrior and one fast worker, but later it will help avoid confusion if we give unique names to all our units. There are some automatic naming options included in the BUFFY mod, but I have not really liked the results I have gotten in private games. But there is a lot of flexibility allowed and I may not have configured it properly.

 

[ianw1610]

The Warrior will get 50% of his lost strength back, from the imminent promotion, so hopefully his net survival odds will exceed 50%, but he will for sure still need some degree of RNG luck.

My only experience with the naming mod is a game where I got names like "Warrior 17 - Maceman", and "Longbowman 22 - Rifleman" - etc, etc (i.e. the name didn't update with the promotion). I switched off the mod after that! But I'll be sure to think of something creative (if a little obscure) for my turnset...

 

[Sleepless]

Give the warrior woodsman promo and he should survive. Hopefully.

Second warrrior should certainly go and look at the land between us and Zara. Then possibly back to Delhi for happiness issues.

Cottages. No problem with early ones but we will have to micro there use as Delhi will have to act as a worker/settler pump for some time. Still we need to get to pottery and the wheel first before those. Important to plan our city sites as well. A lot easier when we know the lie of the land a bit better.

Other than that good luck ianw1610.

 

[ianw1610]

Welcome to our new lurker, ArcadicGamer !!


I played my turns. It still looks like it is just ourselves and Zara on this continent – neither of us have yet met anyone else.

Our newly-promoted Woodsman Warrior had 96.2% victory odds against the attacking Lion. He survived, but only just (with 0.5 strength left). For reasons unknown, the Wolf waited one turn before launching his attack... but our wounded Warrior still had only 18% victory odds by that point, and was sadly eaten by the Wolf. So, at that point, we had no Warriors.

Completed Bronze Working and adopted Slavery. Started researching The Wheel, as discussed.

Now, remember that blank Grassland tile that the Warrior was standing on at the start of the game? It has Copper... (outside of our BFC for another ~30 turns until our borders pop again).

Capital grew up to size 4, as discussed, pumping out Warriors along the way – 3 completed already (including a 1-turn Warrior from the whip overflow), with a 4th Warrior in progress now.

Whipped a second Fast Worker, as discussed, reducing our Capital down to Size 2.

The Silver mine just completed on my last turn. I’ve already switched from the second Corn onto the Silver but I didn’t press Enter after doing that, so if we would prefer to switch back to Corn, then go ahead and do that.

The second Fast Worker has started chopping a forest, with the idea of us moving onto producing a Settler very soon.

There is nothing of note between ourselves and Zara, but he appears to be at the easternmost point of the continent, so we need to choke his westward expansion.

View of the lands to our North-east, with a suggested 2nd city site.

View of the lands to our West, with a suggested 3rd city site, to meet our needs of a port, and a site with Stone.

I’ve done some work with the “unit naming” mod as well

Sleepless up next!


Here is your Session Turn Log from 3325 BC to 2950 BC:

Spoiler :

Turn 27, 3325 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Gandhi's Warrior (3.36)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Combat Odds: 3.8%
Turn 27, 3325 BC: (Animal Combat: +10%)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: (Fortify: +5%)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: (Feature Defense: +20%)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Gandhi's Warrior is hit for 15 (76/100HP)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (74/100HP)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Gandhi's Warrior is hit for 15 (61/100HP)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (48/100HP)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Gandhi's Warrior is hit for 15 (46/100HP)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Gandhi's Warrior is hit for 15 (31/100HP)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (22/100HP)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Gandhi's Warrior is hit for 15 (16/100HP)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (0/100HP)
Turn 27, 3325 BC: Gandhi's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 28, 3300 BC: Barbarian's Wolf (1.00) vs Gandhi's Warrior (0.98)
Turn 28, 3300 BC: Combat Odds: 82.0%
Turn 28, 3300 BC: (Animal Combat: +10%)
Turn 28, 3300 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 28, 3300 BC: (Fortify: +10%)
Turn 28, 3300 BC: (Feature Defense: +20%)
Turn 28, 3300 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 30 (70/100HP)
Turn 28, 3300 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 30 (40/100HP)
Turn 28, 3300 BC: Gandhi's Warrior is hit for 13 (13/100HP)
Turn 28, 3300 BC: Gandhi's Warrior is hit for 13 (0/100HP)
Turn 28, 3300 BC: Barbarian's Wolf has defeated Gandhi's Warrior!

Turn 35, 3125 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!

Turn 36, 3100 BC: Gandhi adopts Slavery!

Turn 42, 2950 BC: Capital can hurry Warrior for 1? with 22? overflow, 11? added to the treasury, and +1? for 27 turns.

 

[JerichoHill]

It would seem the most imperative task is to get city #2 up.

 

[haphazard1]

Well, Sleepless was correct in his thoughts on where we might see a resource. Not at all convenient for us, unfortunately.

Might have to rethink the 1SE of the stone idea -- it would still be short on food but would now have excellent early hammer potential. Farm the flood plains tile, maybe? Or we could do something more to the west with the copper and that cow, although that would be really short on food. Hmmm.

Zara is at land's end eastward, much as I suspected. Not really good for us, as it practically guarantees cultural pressure and war. But I agree we should probably cut him off, unless we want to try having him found cities for us to seize later? The plains hill you marked, with wheat cows and incense, was the spot I was also considering. The land between us and Zara is certainly pretty crummy, despite the river there.

Welcome back, Arcadic! Always good to see one of our former Misfits again.

Edit:

Almost forgot! Sad news on our brave starting warrior. Poor luck for us to take that much damage from the lion when the odds were that much in our favor.

Nice turnset, ianw1610!

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

It would seem the most imperative task is to get city #2 up.

Agreed, but let's work the Silver Mine for the Commerce boost. It only slows our growth from +6 Fpt to +4 Fpt and when we reach Pop 3 we can work the 2nd Corn Farm increasing growth from +4 Fpt to +8 Fpt.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Just use Alt-X to enter Dot Map edit mode, set up a dot Map or two, and use Alt-X to exit Dot Map edit mode.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[haphazard1]

I agree we need to work the silver mine and speed our research. Finish Wheel, then Pottery? When do we want to fit AH into our plans, see if there are any horses around? We have copper so it is not critical for military. Maybe push through to Writing before AH, get a library in (grow to size 6, 3-pop whip it) and start running scientists for an early Academy?

I will have to experiment with the dot mapping included in the BUFFY mod, it is not a system I have used before. I usually just put signs and draw in lines, but I will give the new mod system a try.

 

[ianw1610]

A big watch-out for us is the fact that Zara is Cultural and we are not. Furthermore, he has a very early Unique Building which further enhances his Culture by 25%, and again, we do not.

If we settle our 2nd city on the labelled tile, there is a risk that Zara could put his own 2nd city on the PH, 4N of our Capital. Our 2nd city's cultural borders would not expand for some time, by which time Zara would already steal our 2nd city's Cow from us by way of his stronger cultural control.

In the longer term, Zara may be able to build a cultural bridge between Aksum and his 2nd City, which may lead to our 2nd city eventually revolting into Zara's empire...

 

[JerichoHill]

Indeed there is that chance Ian. However,
we can get to Writing and get a Library up in that 2nd city, which should ease the pressure enough until we have a military and can goad Zara to attack us (we repel) and then we wipe him back down to 1 city. No worries there.

 

[Sleepless]

Just wondering why all our warriors are all named after Indian cricketers? Just realised.

Anyway take this as a got it.

Planned tech path. Carry on with the wheel, pot, writing. I would normally say once writing is in turn off tech until we get a lib up. Being philo I think we should wait for an academy as well. I do think we should tech AH as well though before turning down tech. I agree our second city should be used as a blocker. Hopefully we will get the ph site. If not will have to wait to see where Zara settles.

City builds. I think Delhi should build warriors till size 5 then start a settler for our second site. Once size 5 we can 2 pop whip/chop him and keep our best tiles in use. One of the workers should start building a road towards the ph site as soon as the wheel is in. We should also have some fogbusters out. One on the ph is definitely needed. Would probably move the one in Delhi out now to that site

Need to explore more. Find out if any of the coast sites have seafood?

Will plan on playing in approx 24 hours from now so plenty of time for comments/suggestions.

Edit Aksum is still size 3 so likely Zara is building a settler now.

 

[haphazard1]

Plan sounds good to me, Sleepless.

Agree we need to explore the coasts further, looking for land across the water as well as seafood.

On Zara and cultural pressure, we will need to be careful. But the Stele (sp?) only multiplies existing culture. Creative + the Stele only gives 3 cpt, so Zara needs a library or religion or his capital to actually gain any additional benefit.

The Stele has always struck me as one of the worst UB in the game, unless you want to go for a cultural victory as Zara. A creative leader, yet the UB is a monument replacement? Talk about wasting hammers on things you don't need.

In any case, we want Zara to settle a second city somewhere, so that when war happens we can take his capital for ourselves.

 

[ianw1610]

Good to see that someone noticed my naming scheme! I noted that we were playing as India, and couldn't think of enough Indian politicians or Bollywood stars!! Specifically, I named our military units after batsmen, and named our Fast Workers after bowlers (but I'm sure you all knew that anyway)...

Try to make the most of forest chops in pumping out a Settler.

What is our current position on wonders? What do we want to chase in the short term? Or in the medium term?

 

[Sleepless]

Well if were not going cultural. We can still try the Oracle CS. No guarantee we would get it. A lot depends on the other AI not going for the Oracle. I do think an Academy would be needed to get us through Math/CoL in time. Obviously our costs will increase with more cities so turning off tech until we get our first GP I think would be a good idea.

Pyramids would be great but not worth trying until we get the stone hooked up. I've played a lot of OCC recently and trying to get the Mids early without stone/industrious takes an age to build them. Hopefully the AI will take there time as well and we will have a chance at the Mids.

Tbh I would like to see more of the surrounding land before we make to many decisions.