SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

BLubmuz · Jun 29, 2010

I think we all agree on settling the Sugar Island on your TS, possibly using the same technique we already used: keep the settler there for some turn until we can settle the city with no big harm to our economy.

Same can be done for what seems an island E of Aksum. If i'm right supposing that Zara is building the GLH, we have time to move there our galley and position the settler, maybe with an archer this time.

I'm convinced it's an island since no one came from there. At the time we've seen he was spending EPs to another AI Zara wasn't Confucian, so no one could have been pissed from this. Probably no one of them has writing at that time, so they can't agree an OB, then the WB (i think) moved to some other direction.

BTW, we have to decide which tech after Currrency. I'm for MC, but if you have different thoughts...

Dhoomstriker · Jun 29, 2010

BLubmuz said:
I think (with not great fantasy) that Crabs and 3 Clams can be OK.

Those can be the default names, but I am still willing to entertain other suggestions. "Crabs" can be a mildly suggestive name of a disease, due to a slang context. Of course, the team may find humour in this fact--putting a "disease-ridden City" as the City closest to Saladin/Tokugawa.

I don't know what happened with the WB. As usual once the button was red i made a tour of the cities (even if there was not much to do) and took a look in F4 (same).

But i was nervous because the settler. If the AI was less stupid it could have settled on the GL (not coastal) and i could have done nothing. Let's say we exploited a known bug.
Still, i was nervous, but not at the point to hit the button when it was green.
Can i maybe have forgot to whip and delayed 1 turn? It doesn't seems so from the log.

No worries. I thought that maybe there was another reason to worry about, such as a nearby Barb Galley. Chances are that I'll slip into Caste System before whipping anyway, running an Artist for 4 turns and a Scientist for 1 turn, meaning that the difference in extra Food might NOT work out to be much of a difference.

Either way, it's a far better situation that completely FORGETTING to whip the Work Boat, so you still get most of the credit!

Please plan roads to connect cities. We have enemies and we're pitifully weak.
Even Zara can see our weakness and decide some action.

Indeed, although I wonder how much Roads will really help. If we get into a war, it will likely be due to an AI Sneak Attacking us. That means that if it is Zara, we'll lose Riverdale no matter how many Roads we have.

Plus, once an AI captures a City, it likes to "stay there" with its units for quite a number of turns before pressing the attack.

Still, I see the value in the Roads, I just don't want us to be under the illusion that having Roads will be a sufficient condition for us to avoid war.

And, provided we have enough money, we're bounded to keep 4 warriors.

Well, we can always rebuild them at any point before learning Gunpower. Since we're only going to learn that tech if we go to war, and if we go to war we'll be using Police State to build some units, we'll likely be able to rebuild any needed Warriors before Gunpowder is completed.

Still, I'd rather not have to rebuild our Warriors and would rather just keep all of the current ones alive. The more Cities that we put down and the larger that they grow, the more "free" Military units our empire can support (roughly 1 free unit for every 4 points of population totalled across all of our Cities).

Settling that city has forced me to set the research to 0 next turn.

Thank you for doing so, by the way, since I almost CERTAINLY would have had to do so after settling yet another 2 Cities.

This is the first turn when we can move it again to 100%.

I'll check out the numbers after settling, but it'll be tight.

Also, Dehli is growing next turn. Do this growth will lost by the HG?

No, we will grow from Size 7 to Size 9 in one turn!!! WOOT!

Of course, we max out Delhi when working 9 improvements, which is why I am strongly considering building a Settler there next, which should take somewhere about 4 to 6 turns to complete.

Also, i think we must invest some hammer in units. Archers and spears mainly and some axe. We can regret to not have done this. And a minimal road network.

I've been thinking the same thing. However, I have been struggling in terms of where to put our Military Pumping City.

Wheaties will be tied up, even though it will be one of our higher-output Hammer-producing Cities. Perhaps one of the western Cities (Crab? Risaia?) can whip a few units?

Do you really care if we build them with the Barracks, Theocracy, and Police State bonuses, or would you just be happy to HAVE a couple of units?

Improving marble or cows: i already put 1 turn on cows, so the job is only 5 turns, compared to the 9 (IIRC) needed for the marble.

Understood. However, Risaia is not going to whip away its second population point and Risaia does not have the PCow in its fat cross.

So, even though the Marble isn't the strongest square in the game, I'd rather work an improved Marble than an unimproved Flood Plains square. Plus, doing so will get our Worker out a bit sooner, giving us 1 to 2 "free" Worker actions from the new Worker, to help make up for this investment in Worker actions.

Hagia Sophia
It not only gives us GE points, but it also reduces our need for workers, saving maintenance costs. It's one of my favorite wonders and i think we must seriously consider to build it.

Then Marble first definitely wins!

Not a priority until Theo is a monopoly, but...

Do you mean until Theology is "NOT" a Monopoly? You didn't say whether or not Toku had researched it, but by the fact that you did not tell us that he had, I am assuming that he did not research it yet.

AP:
If we want it, we must build it in Dehli. No chance to build it in another city before some AI learn Theo. BTW, building it in our bureaucratic Capital costs 22-23 turns.

Once we have the test saved game, I'll report the math on when Wheaties can possibly complete it. Worst case, if we do not think that we can make it on time, we can gift Theology to Zara and hope that he builds it.

Confucianism is a better choice than Buddhism, although a Religion that no AI has would be our ultimate preference, to avoid giving free Hammers to the AIs.

BTW, when i traded at the beginning of my TS, Zara showed Sailing in red. I suppose he's building the GLH. Forgot to mention early, sorry.

Would he show the same red colour for a National Wonder, such as Moai Statues? I'm not sure myself, but just a thought, since he built Moai Statues in our test game until I deleted it out of his capitol... :mischief:

Dhoomstriker · Jun 29, 2010

BLubmuz said:
I'm convinced it's an island...

Island or edge of someone else's continent (or even our continent that wraps around in an almost donought-shape), it doesn't really matter: we should equally try to settle it.

BTW, we have to decide which tech after Currrency. I'm for MC, but if you have different thoughts...

Well, Havr wants to build The Parthenon. Irgy wants to build The Great Library. Mitchum sounded like he wants to try for both.

Regardless of WHICH of those Wonders we build, we'll HAVE to research Aesthetics as our next tech if we want a fair shot at either of them.

Plus, as nice as Forges are, it will be a long time before our Cities will grow large enough to be able to whip Forges, so other than Delhi and maybe Wheaties (via Hammers), most of our Cities would not be able to build Forges for quite some time, anyway--meaning that if we get the tech in trade instead of via self-research, there will be little difference to our empire's overall Hammer output.

Now, if those points were the only factors, we could have more of a debate about the issue.

The truth, though, is that many AIs favour teching Metal Casting, so if you don't get it early on (via The Oracle or by beelining it), you're not going to get much trade value out of it. Far better would be to get Metal Casting in trade for something like Currency + Code of Laws or maybe even Calendar + Code of Laws if we see the right setup of techs (Zara or Saladin having Metal Casting but not Calendar, for example, and us somehow convincing Tokugawa to hand over Calendar to us).

Also, although the Mausoleum of Maussollos is a nice Wonder (it comes in via Calendar), it will be of very little use in this game. Normally, you'll spawn 2 or 3 Golden Ages. But guess what? We have to save 4 of our Great People.

We're also Spiritual, meaning that the Anarchy-free Civic-swapping bonus isn't really a bonus at all.

So, I would tend to suggest leaving the MoM Wonder to an AI (they hardly ever make good use out of Golden Ages, anyway), while we focus on whichever one or ones we want to chase out of: Hagia Sophia, The Parthenon, and The Great Library.

Irgy · Jun 29, 2010

I don't want TGLib all that much, I was mostly just arguing that it's strictly better than the Parthenon. Hagia Sophia sounds to me like a better option than either. I hardly ever build it myself because usually by the time I get Theology I usually have too many workers and only a short(ish) run to Steam Power, but in this game we're short of workers, probably won't even tech Steam Power, and want the GEng points.

Dhoomstriker · Jun 29, 2010

Tech Research and Wonders

Irgy said:
I don't want TGLib all that much, I was mostly just arguing that it's strictly better than the Parthenon. Hagia Sophia sounds to me like a better option than either. I hardly ever build it myself because usually by the time I get Theology I usually have too many workers and only a short(ish) run to Steam Power, but in this game we're short of workers, probably won't even tech Steam Power, and want the GEng points.

Well, a third option is to forget all of these ancient techs and go straight to Paper and then Education.

However, researching Education takes FOREVER and leaves us mostly out of the trading game. The advantage of either The Parthenon or The Great Library is that either one can help us to get a Great Scientist, making Education faster to research than manually plugging away at it. The argument is such that researching BOTH Aesthetics and Literature plus managing to get 1 extra Great Scientist as a result is CHEAPER than manually researching Education without that extra Great Scientist, since a Great Scientist will Lightbulb more beakers than the cost of Aesthetics + Literature combined.

It all depends upon our strategy. If we want, we can continue being a Wondermongeror and try for one or both of those (The Parthenon and The Great Library), in addition to trying for The Hagia Sophia.

Still, even without going for those Wonders, we DEFINITELY want to build The National Epic, which would again require us to go for Literature reasonably soon. The Great Person Farm is soon going to whip its Granary. After that, it needs only a Lighthouse and a Library before it can begin work on The National Epic. Eventually, it can slow-build a Courthouse, and that's probably all that we'll ever need to build in that City. If we wait until after Education comes in to go for The National Epic, we're not going to leverage our Great Person Farm very well.

The same could be said for waiting until after researching Metal Casting.

unclethrill · Jun 30, 2010

My experience is that toku explores early with WBs so if we met Sal first then he is likely closer and Toku had to wait for OB with Sal in order to meet us.

BTW Good TS Blubmuz!

Dhoomstriker · Jun 30, 2010

unclethrill said:
so if we met Sal first then he is likely closer and Toku had to wait for OB with Sal in order to meet us.

Or, to put it more realistically, Toku had to wait until he liked Saladin enough to be able to walk through his borders. :lol:

Mitchum · Jun 30, 2010

Nice turnset, BLubmuz. Seeing Sal's settler sitting there is indeed strange. What an AI programming blunder not to have that settler take a step or two south and sit down...

Dhoomstriker said:
We can certainly use another Worker. We'll probably want another Settler built SOMEWHERE, though, since we didn't start to make one in Risaia. Should Delhi make one after completing The Hanging Gardens? It would complete quickly due to the overflow. It would also give me the perfect excuse to slip out of Organized Religion on T163 for 5 turns, as Riverdale is buiding a Missionary and Wheaties is building a Settler--the only other two Cities that currently have our State Religion.

Then again, we could consider whipping the Missionary in Riverdale, starting on a Taoist Monastary (to make use of the Org Rel bonus on the overflow Hammers), and building something else in the capitol (a Monastary?) that could make use of the Org Rel bonus. Or we could do both approaches, by buiding a Settler in Delhi and switching out of Org Rel on T164, after having used the whipped Missionary's Hammers as overflow into a Taoist Monastary, since after that turn of whipping, Riverdale would only make 1 Hammer per turn and wouldn't need the Org Rel bonus.

Riverdale does not currently have Taoism to be able to build a Taoist Monastery and I'm not sure what the status is of the "free" Taoist Missionary. In any event, I would think that we would want the missionary to sit in Riverdale for 6 turns to increase his chance of success. Plus, the bigger the city is, the better chance of religion spread, right? Why don't we switch out of OR for 5 turns now, spread Taoism to Riverdale after 6 turns while it is still at 4 (or 5 pops), switch to OR and then whip the Confucian Missionary with overflow going into the Taoist Monastery.

What we should do is switch to No State Religion whenever we are not running (or in need of) a religious civic. We need to keep the Buddhist block happy as long as possible, right?

Dhoomstriker said:
The only other Wonder, the Hagia Sophia, which might be useful to build mostly for the Great Engineer GPP, requires us to first connect the Marble.

Good idea. We may want to consider building this in Delhi after the Hanging Gardens and the settler.

Dhoomstriker said:
Interesting. He's (TokugawaO ummm, how shall I put it, a very tough character to please (one of the toughest AIs to please, actually, requiring that he is Pleased with you before he will even Open Borders with you to get the bonus postivie Diplo modifiers for having shared Open Borders).

Since Tokugawa is NOT in our test game, I think the usefulness of the test game with respect to AI relations and tech trading opportunities will continue to get less and less. However, it will still be good to help us optimize worker actions, city management, build order, etc.

How accurate are we expecting the test game to be going forward?

Dhoomstriker said:
Can we get a volunteer to update the test saved game? I have people coming in to renovate my place all of tomorrow, so I won't be able to keep my computer set up. I'll have some time on the day afterwards, so if we can get a test saved game in that time, we'll be golden.

I'm pretty busy these days and won't be able to get to this. BLubmuz, since you just played, it would be the easiest for you to recreate your moves. The biggest issue will be having us meet another Buddhist AI on the proper turn, but a world-built work boat on the proper turn should do the trick.

Dhoomstriker · Jun 30, 2010

Mitchum said:
Riverdale does not currently have Taoism to be able to build a Taoist Monastery and I'm not sure what the status is of the "free" Taoist Missionary.

BLubz has had the Taoist Missionary sitting in Riverdale for a couple of turns already.

The City is also Size 3, which should be large enough to accept a second religion, and with that Religion's Holy City being only "one City away," we should be physically close enough to have a very high proability of success (greater than 90%). So, I'll aim to spread it at the last possible moment that it makes sense to do so (immediately if I want to whip the Taoist Monastary and then switch out of Slavery on the turn that we complete The Hanging Gardens, but later if we don't do exactly that).

Anyway, I will have to play with the numbers, but I may just decide to stay in Organized Religion, since we really could use a Market in Delhi. We're going to have to run a LOT of turns at a 0% Science Rate per tech, so a Market in Delhi would help out a great deal.

Why don't we switch out of OR for 5 turns now, spread Taoism to Riverdale after 6 turns while it is still at 4 (or 5 pops), switch to OR and then whip the Confucian Missionary with overflow going into the Taoist Monastery.

That possibility is another one worth trying out.

What we should do is switch to No State Religion whenever we are not running (or in need of) a religious civic. We need to keep the Buddhist block happy as long as possible, right?

As well, later on in the game, once the AIs know Theology (hopefully, after we are well on our way to completing The Apostolic Palace and The Hagia Sophia), two of them will start to switch into Theocracy (Saladin and Zara). If we find that we don't need Organized Religion or a Religion, we can still run the somewhat-cheaper Theocracy at the same time as running No State Religion, if for no other reason than to stay on the good side of these AIs while we Wondermonger.

Good idea. We may want to consider building this in Delhi after the Hanging Gardens and the settler.

We won't have the Marble Quarried and Roaded to immediately build The Hagia Sophia, so I definitely have a window of time to throw in a Market. Would I be able to get BOTH a Market and a Settler before starting on The Hagia Sophia? Maybe, but I'd probably whip the Market at some point just to be able to do so within a reasonable time frame.

Depending upon how many Worker actions I can get in around Delhi, it might be a good idea to whip there anyway (since I think that I'll get lynched if I don't go an improve the Deer for Silverado next, instead of sticking around Delhi to improve more squares for Delhi's citizens to work).

Since Tokugawa is NOT in our test game, I think the usefulness of the test game with respect to AI relations and tech trading opportunities will continue to get less and less. However, it will still be good to help us optimize worker actions, city management, build order, etc.

How accurate are we expecting the test game to be going forward?

Basically, I will want a test game for trying out various sets of Worker actions, build orders, and Civic + Religion swaps. I don't care THAT much about the accuracy of the AIs in the test saved game.

I'm pretty busy these days and won't be able to get to this. BLubmuz, since you just played, it would be the easiest for you to recreate your moves.

I didn't see him volunteering, so I am guessing that his silence equals reluctance to do so. No worries. My place is currently a disaster area and my computer is sucking in plaster dust just to talk with you guys, so I likely won't be able to do anything until tomorrow, but if no one else has done so by then, I will be forced to update the test saved game myself.

The biggest issue will be having us meet another Buddhist AI on the proper turn, but a world-built work boat on the proper turn should do the trick.

Although you are right, if someone wants to update the test saved game and skip these little details, it would at least be a decent enough start for me to work from and then I could take it from there, updating the status of the AIs (such as possibly converting one to Buddhism by manually spreading the religion via the World Builder), etc.

Basically, I'll take whatever I can get in terms of help in getting us a newer test saved game and will adjust it from there.

BLubz: If you don't want to update the test saved game yourself, it would help a ton if you could tell us the Science Rate values that you used on each turn, since that info was not included in the PPP.

Another Thought
If I write a detailed enough PPP that people agree with (i.e. if I can save Havr some time), do you, Havr, want to play it? Or would that situation be something that you would not really enjoy or not have time for?

If the answer is "no," then does anyone mind if I play both Havr's and my turnsets? :cool:

BLubmuz · Jun 30, 2010

Dhoomstriker said:
BLubz has had the Taoist Missionary sitting in Riverdale for a couple of turns already.

BLubz: If you don't want to update the test saved game yourself, it would help a ton if you could tell us the Science Rate values that you used on each turn, since that info was not included in the PPP.

I think the missionary is just arrived in Riverdale. I would wait 1-2 turns at least.

I can surely update the save with my moves following the PPP, but i can't guarantee the trade routes and the other stuff. Also, i think you don't mind if instead of a settler/spear party i'll left the Archer/settler which Izzy sent in the test game.
Surely i can build a WB for Peter, or move the one which i've already seen.

Hope i can do in few hours or tomorrow morning.

unclethrill · Jun 30, 2010

I don't have a problem with you playing your's and Havr TSs.

Irgy · Jun 30, 2010

It would make more sense to me to just skip him if he doesn't have time, but having said that I'm perfectly happy for Dhoomstriker to play it as well.

BLubmuz · Jul 1, 2010

I don't think it's a good thing that Dhoom plays 2 consecutive TSs.
Of course he will swap with Havr, unless Havr can just play over a PPP wrote by Dhoom.
But then it's to next player, Irgy seeing the roster.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 1, 2010

BLubmuz said:
I don't think it's a good thing that Dhoom plays 2 consecutive TSs.

The idea would not be to play them consecutively, but to get us through those 30 turns in multiple partial turnsets (like you played, but with the emphasis on getting through them faster).

We had said multiple times that by the end of my turnset, which would be 30 turns from now, we'd try to "lay off" on the need for such detailed Worker actions. Well, if I only play 15 turns, then Irgy's still on the hook for that task.

I'm just volunteering my services because I ENJOY putting in that level of detail and I know that many of the others on the team DO NOT enjoy doing so as much.

Like I said, in the next SGOTM game that we play, should we play together as a team (I am sure that we all have our doubts about that possibility but also have some good thoughts about the matter), it would be prudent to either Worker steal or build 2 to 3 Workers before buiding anything else. Then we'd have the Worker turns to spare on Road-building, etc.

In this game, we got caught short-handed with the Workers and are still in "catch up" mode--we have to play extra efficiently in order to "get caught up."

If I can manage to mostly build The Hagia Sophia, as well as maintain a high focus on worker micro for these next 30 turns, then we should be able to afford to have our Workers work on less important improvements (in terms of where a City's citizens can benefit) but where those improvements might be more important for our Civ overall, such as building a Road network or improving our Incence (laying down a Fort if we have yet to trade for Calendar).

Test Saved Game?
BLubz: Did you get a start on a test saved game or should I just do my best to make one myself?

The only real info that I'd really need is on which turns you used which Science Rate values.

Thanks!

Mitchum · Jul 1, 2010

Dhoomstriker said:
BLubz: Did you get a start on a test saved game or should I just do my best to make one myself?

The only real info that I'd really need is on which turns you used which Science Rate values.

The easiest way to provide this is to give us your Buffy log. You can find it in Program Files_Firaxis Games_Beyond the Sword_Mods_BUFFY-3.19.003_Autolog.

If it's too long or it's a bit confusing due to all of your test games, just attach the whole .txt file.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 1, 2010

BLubmuz said:
I can surely update the save with my moves following the PPP...

I was going to get a start on doing so, but I found at least one item not mentioned in any of your PPP attempts, such as the fact that Riverdale seems to have stopped working the GRiv Irr square at some point. I don't recall you ever mentioning that change in any of your PPPs, so I have no easy way to know when you did it (which could affect things based on which turns you used the extra Commerce to run at 100% Science vs 0% Science vs some other Science Rate value).

I get the feeling that there was also at least one turn not at Binary Science, but that could just be because at least one different square got worked than what your PPPs said you were going to do; either way, I'm finding it pretty tough to match up the science values, which will make a difference for me figuring out when to go to 100% Science on Currency, which will affect future decisions, such as whether to settle an off-continent City ASAP or not, which would net us Domestic Overseas Trade Routes.

Having Currency would make settling ASAP the choice, but until we get Currency, the Maintenance cost of that City will likely not be paid off if we just have 1 Trade Route per City.

So, I'm kind of stuck either waiting for your BUFFY Log or for you to update the test saved game yourself.

BLubmuz · Jul 1, 2010

Answers to Dhoom's questions:
First off, sorry but i won't have found the time to open the test save and reproduce my moves.

So:
- I always ran binary science
- i moved the citizen in Riverdale from the farm to the Cottage the turn i whipped
- BUFFY Log: i copy paste what i have, but unfortunately i not only forgot to rename the old one, i also kept it in html format (the one i use in my solo games). here it is:

Spoiler :

Sure i hope this team as a whole will participate in next SG. Despite his many defects, Dhoom has some good side. If you search them carefully

EDIT: reading the autolog i solved the mistery of the WB in GPF: i forgot to whip the turn it reached size2 and i did the following turn. I was definitely nervous for that settler, sorry.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 1, 2010

BLubmuz said:
First off, sorry but i won't have found the time to open the test save and reproduce my moves.

That fact is okay. Here is your friendly, neighbourhood Dhoom to the rescue!

EDIT: reading the autolog i solved the mistery of the WB in GPF: i forgot to whip the turn it reached size2 and i did the following turn. I was definitely nervous for that settler, sorry.

Thank you for admitting what happened and owning up to it. I would much rather that players be open about the changes that they had to make from the plan, instead of feeling the need to "cover up" mistakes.

I think that we have a very tolerant team in terms of people making mistakes.

That said, we're hard on people who could have avoided an unfortunate sitaution if they'd spent a bit of time to plan ahead. It is fair to say that not all things will go according to the plans that we make, but if we start with pretty solid plans, then the deviations from said plans will generally result in only minor mishaps.

The trickiest part of updating the test saved game was getting Bedrock in synch with the real game. Somehow, we managed to swap 4 Food for 2 Hammers into the Granary and 2 Hammers into the Galley. :crazyeye:

I'm not sure you managed to set up that situation, but with a lot of goofing around over several turns, I was able to get the Food and Hammer values correct, by reducing the amount of Commerce that we made in Bedrock and then adding Gold to our Civilization as a whole, afterwards. Since Food and Hammers are calculated on a City-by-City basis and since Commerce gets calculated on a Civ-wide basis, and since one has access to edit the amount of Gold that your Civ has (up to a max of 5000 Gold), that was the easiest way that I had of updating things, after trying unsuccessfully to figure out exactly what squares you worked there on which turns.

Despite his many defects, Dhoom has some good side. If you search them carefully

I don't think that I really deserve that comment. In fact... I only have a dark side! :scan:

............................... Just kidding.

Please see the attached test saved game so that "viewers at home can follow along," or something like that.

As always, please let me know if something doesn't look right.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 1, 2010

Looking for Feedback
Okay, I can certainly provide Worker actions.
I can also provide build orders.

But things like Tech Trades, Resource Trades, and Gold per Turn Trades are going to be very difficult to plan out.

What level of interactivity would you guys like to have in these additional decisions?

For example, do I need to post a partial PPP, then once I've started to play it and come to such a decision, stop play, report the situation, and then wait for 24 hours?

Should we set up a "scheduled time," where I can aim to play while a few of you are going to commit to trying to be online for providing feedback?

I know that I, personally, would want to give input to you guys on tech trades and initial Resource trades.

Usually, though, once 1 or 2 Resource trades are set up with an AI, you don't tend to really change things much there, but for now, there could be opportunities.

For example, if I slip into No State Religion, there is a tiny chance that Tokugawa will be Pleased with us. Likely not, but if I am willing to gift him a tech

Spoiler :

, then I can almost certainly get him to a Pleased status and can set up an initial trade or two with him (which again may just be gifting him a Resource).

We're playing a Diplo game, so it will be important to set up trades with the AIs that we want to be happy with. We have 2 Buddhist AIs that we want to "butter up," and once we get Buddhism, we'll want to convert others to "the flock" and then start trading Resources with them, as well.

So, if I were to say pick a time on Saturday to play, assuming that I can get a Worker-action-based PPP out by then, would it make sense for us to pick a range of time for me to play and then people can try to be online during that time period?

Obviously, if you don't care about these kinds of decisions, then you don't really need to be there and can just say that you have no interest. In that case, we won't need to co-ordinate around your timezone. Still, I'd prefer to have more participation in such an exercise than less of it.

I was thinking that Saturday would probably be the day where I'd get the best chance of having a few of you available at the same time for "quick consultation."

If we go with this idea, how do you want to proceed with decisions?

Let me just propose something and then you can critique how it sounds:
1. 4 hours or 2 replies that agree, whichever comes first, means that I proceed?
2. If I see 1 reply that disagrees before the above condition is met, it means that we stop play and will debate the issue? Then we will try to have some kind of agreement reached within 24 hours of posting the situation?

The tricky part is that I'd probably have to schedule another session with people, which MAY work if we plan to have two sessions, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, but then we could easily be forced to set something up on a weekday if we have a lot of disagreement. Still, hopefully we won't have THAT much disagreement and I suppose that we can say that:
3. If the person that disagreed can be swayed to agree or if they can sway everyone else that agreed to the original idea to follow a different idea, then we can proceed immediately instead of waiting the full 24 hours?

I don't know what's going to be the most fair way to do things. The weekend is probably the best that I can offer, since I know that Irgy and I are about 12 hours apart from each other. At the same time, BLubz usually needs to go to bed around my supper time, which would mean that Irgy would have to wake up super early or BLubz would have to go to bed really late...

Or else I would just sacrifice my sleep schedule and be up in the wee hours of the morning, while it is BLubz' morning and Irgy's supper time. Mitchum would have to stay up a bit late at night, too, for that second option to work...

Anyway, your thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 2, 2010

Resource Trading
Okay, here's an idea:
Why don't we just talk about the Resources that we want and do not want me to trade around ahead of time.

Then we can discuss the criteria that I would follow in trade deals.

So, for example, here are some of the Resources, which I will divide up into categories:
1. Health Resources: Fish, Clam, Rice, Pig, Cow, Corn, Wheat, Deer, and Crab
2. Happiness Resources: Silver, Incense, and maybe eventually Sugar (ha! We do not have many Happiness Resources!)
3. Military Resources: Iron, Copper, and Horse
4. Wonder Resources: Stone and Iron

So, allow me to make a few proposals:
1. Health Resources are fair-game to trade around as long as it doesn't look like we'll be exceeding the Health cap anytime soon in any of our Cities. Bedrock is probably the one that will be unhealthy first, with it maxing out at 5 Health given our currently-available Health Resources. However, we'll soon get more such Resources online and we'll also soon be whipping this City down to Size 1. So, shall we say something like "at the time of trading, try to maintain at least 2 extra Health available before a City will grow into unhealthiness"?
2. Happiness Resources are a little more important, as we can always whip away Unhealthiness, if we have Happiness to spare. So, let's say that I won't trade away any of these Resources unless we manage to get a duplicate.
3. Here I'm not really sure. Surely, we do not want to give away Iron or Copper to Zara. We likely do not want to give away Horse to Saladin, because then he'd just build Chariots or Horse Archers which could be easily upgraded to Camel Archers. If he doesn't build the prior units, though, then he'll have to either find his own source of Horse or else he'll have to build all of his Camel Archers the hard way, meaning that he likely won't build that many. But what about other AIs? Should I just avoid all of these kinds of trades by default and only if a really awesome deal comes up, raise it in the thread before making the deal? Does that approach sound reasonable?
4. After The Hanging Gardens are complete, we won't actually need Stone for quite some time. Unless you want to build Walls or want to go to war with an AI that you don't want to have Walls, we really could afford to trade away Stone, at least for the short term, until someone learns Code of Laws (Chichen Itza). The next Stone-based Wonder doesn't come until Philosophy (Angkor Wat)--which would require the AI to learn either Code of Laws or several techs up to and including Drama first. After that would be Engineering (Notre Dame), which is a tech that is really far off.

Now is the "age of Marble," it would seem, so we definitely don't want to give that one away. What do you feel about giving away Stone? If we do, should we give it to a Buddhist AI, while avoiding Zara and any non-Buddhist AIs? Or would you prefer not to give out Stone (and hence the incentive to build Walls) to no one?

Now, as to criteria, should I consider "Resource gifts"? Usually, I'll only do these early in the game, when the AIs have yet to build enough Cities for them to get duplicate Resources. It's well past that stage of the game.

So, I'm going to suggest that I do not gift Resources.

May I suggest that the preference of what to get in trade for a Resource deal would go to:
1st a Happiness Resource,
2nd followed by Gold per Turn, and
3rd followed by a Health Resource (of which we have plenty that will soon be hooked up, let me assure you).

Shall we set a minimum of 2 Gold per Turn? Maybe 3 Gold per Turn is a bit better of a minimum? Yeah, let's say 3 Gold per Turn, unless someone disagrees with that figure.

For tech trades, I will do my best to hang onto our Code of Laws and Theology Monopolies. Even if 1 AI researches such a tech, I can look up in the XML to see if they would be willing to trade it away when 2 players know the tech, and if not, can hold onto the pseudo-monopoly for a little bit longer.

I may need to use Currency just to be able to get to Open Borders and Resource trades with some of the AIs, but others may be willing to trade us a tech like Construction or Calendar for it. Zara seems to be going for Construction, so maybe when he learns it, at least one of the AIs will want to trade it to us. Zara is "tight-fisted" with techs, though, so a lot of the AIs will have to know the same tech before he'll trade it.

Tokugawa is also pretty tight-fisted and requires us to have a Pleased relationship with him before he'll even think about trading with us, so Saladin will probably be our best bet for getting a tech out of Currency.

Obviously, if possible, I would prefer to trade Currency with Saladin for SOMETHING and then gift Currency to Toku on the same turn, as I'll get the most out of Saladin that way. Doing so on the same turn as each other would be so that Saladin can't turn around and "tech broker" Currency away and learn something else from Toku, while leaving us out of the trade deal and with an unpleasant Toku on our hands.

With a Pleased Toku, we could in future wait until they both have a tech and then try and trade with both of them on the same turn for 2 different techs, either throwing in some Gold or some "partial research into the tech we're asking for," in order to ensure that we'll get both techs. That's assuming that we can get a situation where they will both have a tech that we want and both won't have the tech that we have to offer them.

Of course, if we meet any other AIs within my turnset, then the tech trading situation will start to get a lot more complicated. But, I've at least laid down my initial plan for how to try and leverage Currency.

I guess I still want feedback on how much involvement you would like in the details of the trading of Currency. Perhaps just by listing down plans like the above, then playing a few turns, then seeing the new situation and posting new plans, would be enough for you guys?

I'd probably want a bit more involvement if it were someone else's turnset, but tech trading is an area of speciality for me, so I figure that I would have tips to offer to people and thus might like to get a bit more involved with the decisions that you guys will have to face.

Only you can decide how much interaction you will want and whether the info that I wrote in this message "counts" as a plan to play by or if you'd rather follow an approach like in my previous message, where you get a more real-time and interactive decision-making process.

EDIT: Welcome to the 2000th message in this thread!

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