SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

We need the warriors from Silverado. But if Silverado build the Oracle with intensive chopping, Dehli can do anything else. Also, buiding the Oracle in Silverado will cause less pollution in the GP generation from Dehli, whatever we need.
It must be tested. Unfortunately (by the game point of view) i have to go out tonight and i will be busy tomorrow too, at least until this time or so.

As i said some day ago, we can build the 4th settler in Dehli and let it idle for some turn.

Also, once we invent the Wheel, our research will improve.

the 3rd fogbuster is badly needed. I mistakenly left him 1NW of stone and a barb city spawned in one of the few un-fogbusted tiles, somewhere S of the river. So i reloaded, moved the warrior in the spot i planned, but the city spawned. Reload again, draw some line in F11 and noticed i was wrong. That warrior must be 1SW of stone.

The problem was after turn 80-85, that's why i did not noticed it in my first test.

 

[BLubmuz]

IIRC, the only thing that had to be decided was worker actions...

Wrong.
If we agree on a 3rd fogbuster, Dehli needs to insert another warrior before the settler.

Aside that, i agree on stop at the beginning of turn 74 if we close BW there.

Edit:
unless the warrior we'll send NE will turns pretty quickly CCW and reachs SW of stone before Turn 80.

 

[havr]

We need the warriors from Silverado. But if Silverado build the Oracle with intensive chopping, Dehli can do anything else. Also, buiding the Oracle in Silverado will cause less pollution in the GP generation from Dehli, whatever we need.

The downside is that we need to generate the GPro fast, to get Theology, to start building the GS for Academy.

It is doable: we plan to get CoL from Oracle, we switch to Caste System, hire a priest in Silverado, and get the GPro extra fast. That way we avoid the need to build a temple to get the GPro. This is also a good argument why we should get CoL instead of Theology from the Oracle (we already decided that). We only need to make sure that we have an extra population in Silverado.

The Q afterwards is whether we want to build a second GPro for a Shrine (which will really help our economy) or a GS.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

The downside is that we need to generate the GPro fast, to get Theology, to start building the GS for Academy.

It is doable: we plan to get CoL from Oracle, we switch to Caste System, hire a priest in Silverado, and get the GPro extra fast. That way we avoid the need to build a temple to get the GPro. This is also a good argument why we should get CoL instead of Theology from the Oracle (we already decided that). We only need to make sure that we have an extra population in Silverado.

The Q afterwards is whether we want to build a second GPro for a Shrine (which will really help our economy) or a GS.

Silverado has one primary purpose right now, and that is to maintain our Science rate. As a secondary purpose, it will continue to pump Warriors or Workers, as needed.

We can't work the Silver and a Great Prophet at Size 1. We can't even do so at Size 2, as 2 Food can't support 2 population points. The only way would be to permanently steal the Corn from Delhi, grow to Size 3, and then, only then, being able to hire a Prophet Specialist. That's a long wait, as we wouldn't be able to start growing until AFTER Writing is complete, since we can't grow without switching away from the Silver Resource, and we need that Silver Resource in order to get Writing in order to build The Oracle.


The Oracle really has to go in the capitol. Forget about Great Person pollution--I'd rather have "pollution" than not have The Oracle at all, wouldn't you?


Whether we use Caste System in the captiol for a Priest or if we use Slavery in the captiol for a Temple, we'll be able to meet our religious goals by putting The Oracle in the capitol.


For now, Silverado is going to have to stay in the role of a support city, working that Silver long enough until we can get enough economy-improving techs researched and then, only then, will it be able to grow past Size 1. Without Fishing, there's no net gain to our empire by growing that City anyway, as stealing a Corn doesn't gain us anything if the capitol must resort to working a 3 (Food + Hammers) square in its place.


So, please keep your testing focused on getting The Oracle in the capitol.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

i settled 2 more cities:
city#3 5 W of Dehli
city#4 1NW of the cows NE of Dehli. Horrible spot, but just to have an idea.

I am guessing that you settled City #3 5E of Delhi.

You still haven't answered where you're planning on scouting to the east. Will you be following the Coast (where following the Coast means being able to "step away and back to the Coast" if there is a straight line of Coast for a while)? Because we'll certainly want to take into account any Seafood Resource that we can find over there.

I was thinking that we'd be settling further east than 5E of Delhi. 5E of Delhi doesn't block Zara at all. He's not likely to settle that close to us. In order to have a valid strategy of blocking Zara, we'll have to go a bit more north and east than that. Otherwise, you're just building in a city location that we're likely to get anyway, which means that we should either push out our settling location further or should consider a different city site for another reason, such as to pick up a Stone Resource.


Please let me know if you guys understood differently, but to me, 5E isn't far enough to block Zara's settling at all. In fact, wherever we settle is likely going to put a big strain on our economy, in exchange for the potentially valuable and potentially not-very-valuable chance of taking one of Zara's city locations peacefully.


As for settling a city near that Plains Cow, that square is pretty weak, Food-wise. We would for certain need at least one additional (preferably 2) "real" Food Resources in that city's fat cross if are going to settle a city anywhere near that Cow.

Stretched, lot of MM. OR is also expensive.

The costs associated with Civics go up with city size. When our cities are sized 1-2, the costs aren't THAT high, but the bigger that the cities grow without working any Commerce-based squares, the faster that we'll run our economy into the ground.

I needed 4 chops for the settler and the Oracle. I'm even thinking if can be more efficient whip the settler, provided Slavery will cost 1 more gpt.

Consider that we can switch in and out of Slavery as soon as 5 turns after the last switch.

Consider that after settling more cities, being in the Slavery Civic will cost us more. So, if you know EXACTLY on what turn you want to whip, you can switch into Slavery 5 turns prior, perform the whipping operation, and then switch back to the "No Labour Civic" Civic option just after whipping, in order to minimize empire costs associated with being in that Civic. If the 1 Gold per turn cost isn't there, then we might not need to be so tricky with our Civic swaps, but if the cost is there, that's one way to help mitigate those costs.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Barb Cities?

Wrong.
If we agree on a 3rd fogbuster, Dehli needs to insert another warrior before the settler.

I disagree that if we use a 3rd Warrior for western fog-busting that we must ABSOLUTELY build 2 Warriors in the capitol. However, it sounds like it would at least BLubmuz' suggestion to do so.


Thus, the most important decision is to decide how soon we need that 3rd fog-buster in the west.


BLubmuz has twice talked about Barb cities spawning out there.


BLubz: Can you please get us the specific dates on which those cities appeared in your test games? If you can't get the exact dates, then at least tell us the dates on which you saw them, so that we know they can appear on that date or earlier.


The team: We need to decide if a Barb City will be a Good Thing. On Emperor level, the cities will have 3 city defenders. We also get 0 bonus against Barb People (Warriors, Archers, etc). That's often a more heavily-defended city than the AIs will field, although you're often looking at less cultural defence than you would see in an AI's city.


If we think that getting the Barbs to spawn us a city would be a good thing, then apparently, we can choose where it will be settled by strategic placement of our fog-busters.


Those cities will be tough to take and going after them would almost certainly mean that we'd need to use our remaining Axemen/Swordsmen against Zara, which wasn't really in our plan.


But, for example, we could leave the two squares to the north unbusted, and hope that a Barb City grows there. Instead, though, a Barb Archer might grow there, and then our Warrior 1 would be on flatland, as he'd have to fog-bust from a square 1SW of where he is currently, putting him at great risk.


I'm not a big fan of letting Barb Cities to spawn, given our overall game plan. It sounds like BLubz is concerned enough to want to send one of our Warriors that gets built in 3 turns out there, and if he's seeing Barb Cities appearing, I do not blame him for his concern.


So, once we find out how soon Barb Cities can spawn, then we can hopefully make a more informed decision on the matter.
The XML says iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed = 25 for Emperor level. I don't know if that means after 25 turns it starts checking every turn if a Barb city can be spawn, or if every 25 turns it checks if there is space to spawn a Barb city, or if even that number gets manipulated, such as being multiplied by a value of 2 or 3.


Test Game Idea: I suppose that a test game with a large amount of uncontrolled land existed, say like in some of Mitchum's test games with a huge island (but empty said island of our units) we might get a more accurate picture of when Barb Cities start to spawn.

Aside that, i agree on stop at the beginning of turn 74 if we close BW there.

We probably should stop to have a discussion once Bronze Working is in, as knowing if we have Copper or not, or where we might have to settle in order to get it, can be an important factor in our future decisions from that point onward.

Edit:
unless the warrior we'll send NE will turns pretty quickly CCW and reachs SW of stone before Turn 80.

That sounds good in theory, but in practice, we'll want a Warrior or two standing to the east or north (or both) of where we want to settle City 3, so as to fog-bust where the Settler is going to sit.

So, we need to decide which item should get our priority focus: western fog-busting or eastern expansion, or possibly both at once (both at once probably means following BLubz' suggestion of another Warrior in Delhi, especially if we can do it without growing the city and making a person unhappy--which defeats the purpose of building the Warrior, as he'd have to stand around on police duty!).

 

[havr]

Barb Cities?

Those cities will be tough to take and going after them would almost certainly mean that we'd need to use our remaining Axemen/Swordsmen against Zara, which wasn't really in our plan.

I don't understand why going after the Barb cities will mean we have to go against Zara...

I actually think it is a good idea to let Barb cities appear. We can focus on settling the east, and then conquer the west. We are not planning war, so the fact that they are a little harder to take is not a problem, because we are going to have long stretches of peace.

Since we are gong to be a little peace-loving the Barb cities can give us some needed practice. Maybe we can, by very slowly attacking a city train one of our axeman enough to build the HE...

 

[havr]

For now, Silverado is going to have to stay in the role of a support city, working that Silver long enough until we can get enough economy-improving techs researched and then, only then, will it be able to grow past Size 1. Without Fishing, there's no net gain to our empire by growing that City anyway, as stealing a Corn doesn't gain us anything if the capitol must resort to working a 3 (Food + Hammers) square in its place.


So, please keep your testing focused on getting The Oracle in the capitol.

I agree. Getting Oracle is central to our Religion chasing strategy. We cannot risk losing it for some small benefit.

GP pollution is just something we will have to live with.

 

[unclethrill]

Okay

I have read about 3 pages of suggestions, descriptions and plans. Can we get an updated PPP posted that includes all the goals for the next TS? Honestly, I am a bit confused as to what you plan to do in this TS BLubmuz.

I know that Dhoom wants the exact movement of the warrior but my concern is that you are planning the settling of our next city based on what is in the fog on a test game.


For my two cents, I think we need to explore Due North to the coast and then head East. Barbs will start spawning to the north soon I think and we need to see what is up there before we have to start dodging barbs.

 

[BLubmuz]

Can we get an updated PPP posted that includes all the goals for the next TS? Honestly, I am a bit confused as to what you plan to do in this TS BLubmuz.

I know that Dhoom wants the exact movement of the warrior but my concern is that you are planning the settling of our next city based on what is in the fog on a test game.

I think this post summarizes all posts after mine. So:
You're confused, 'cause i am. In other words, i'm undecided about the best possible thing to do.
I can be forgiven for this, because:
- we don't know the map E and N.
- we don't know where Zara has his Capital
- we don't know if he already settled more cities. I just looked to the official saves to see the map, no more. While playing have you ever noticed the message "Zara has founded Gondar (city #2) or Lallibella (city #3) in a distant land?" If any of you (but i think only Mitchum, 'cause Irgy and UT played too soon) can remember this, if can be of help

About Dhoom's point on blocking, and considering we met Zara early in the first TS, i stongly doubt we can go and that we want go so faraway from our Capital. Aksum (his Capital) should be between 10 and 15 tiles E of Dehli, no more.

I want first clarify my concept of Blocking Zara:
- i do not and won't pretend to box him in 2 cities
- i just want a) a pillow city for Dehli, just to be safe, b) possibly a city with some resource or at least good land to help our otherwise poor Empire.

If you look o the west, we must "invent" city sites, if this would be a HoF game, i'll quit and regenerate the map. We have at best 3 decent city sites, one of them is Dehli. So, find a good one E can be a great help.

Let's clarify mow my idea for city #3: The ideal location would be exactly 5E (straight, 1S or 1N) of Dehli. Reduced maintenance, mainly.
If i'm right in my guessing the placement of Aksum, this city can be somewhere in the middle between the 2 Capitals (i hope closer to Dehli). Thus our target "block Zara" is half accomplished.

To accomplish the 2nd half, we need a city N. If the lake/cow area do not reveals nothing better than our test (just to throw in an example), that city can be the one we want to place for stone and marble.
In this way, we don't actually block Zara, but if the city sites in the NE will be crappier than our ones in the West, he'll be more than welcome in settle there crappy cities.

This brings me to the start of this post: we know nothing of E and N.

Barb cities spawning
the first time i've seen one was during my first or second test.
the city appeared i a coastal W tile in turn 73-75. Torture me, but i can't remember

the second time it was in my extended test for Oracle and it was around the end.
I can find from the autolog when i reloaded, so i think i can say between turn 80 and 85, maybe later.

From here my proposal to build only the already planned warrior in Dehli, send him NE and in CCW turn have him in position (1 SW of stone) by turn 80.
I suppose Zara is already fogbusting E with his Capital borders and with his units.

I also suppose we're in a smaller continent than the one in our test, since we met only him. This would probably reduce the chances of barb cities spawning, since it's related with the % of unclaimed map and the % of fogbusted map related to the landmass. This can be wrong if those % are related to the overall land.

Building only the warrior currently in queue in Dehli also reduces our maintenance, which in my last test delayed BW by 1 turn.

Since we decided i stop once BW is researched, and i can see i'm maybe too prudent, if we decide to go in this way, i'll update my PPP accordingly.
Just this: we won't know much more of the land after my TS, since the warriors will barely pass Dehli's borders.
If you like, i can give a map with my planned warrior movements.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

About Dhoom's point on blocking, and considering we met Zara early in the first TS, i stongly doubt we can go and that we want go so faraway from our Capital. Aksum (his Capital) should be between 10 and 15 tiles E of Dehli, no more.

I want first clarify my concept of Blocking Zara:
- i do not and won't pretend to box him in 2 cities
- i just want a) a pillow city for Dehli, just to be safe, b) possibly a city with some resource or at least good land to help our otherwise poor Empire.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't play my games with making junk cities "just in case the AI attacks." If I'm worried about an attack, I make good friends with my neighbours and give into their demands, making them like me even more, or else I increase my power level, or both.


If we're settling a city so early just to act as a "pillow city," then we're certainly throwing away any chance at a Cultural Game. We really should be thinking about settling a possible Legendary City next, or at minimum a city that gets use something useful, such as another Gold/Gem/Silver city in order to keep our tech pace high enough to be able to afford to settle yet another city afterwards.


See the REPLAY for my BOTM 26 game against Zara as a nearby neighbour. I placed an early city near him in order to block his territorial expansion peacefully. He just put up with this fact and crammed in more cities closer to his capitol, allowing me to get another city location between where I settled and my capitol that others lost to Zara, due to Zara's fast expansion policy.


You'll have to select the Civ Beyond the Sword -> BOTM 26 game, and then scroll down to my name in the list of Players. Pick someone else's game to compare against and watch where we settle our early cities. Mine effectively "blocked" Zara, because an AI is hesitant to settle "in behind" your cities (between your outlying city and your capitol) early on, meaning that you really can "fill in" the space in between with a larger margin of time than if he'd settled the farther location and then "naturally" expanded just past it to the spot closer to your capitol.

If you look o the west, we must "invent" city sites, if this would be a HoF game, i'll quit and regenerate the map. We have at best 3 decent city sites, one of them is Dehli. So, find a good one E can be a great help.

Compared to many XOTM games, we have some reasonably nice land to the west. I would think that the same would have been true for your SGOTM games, no?

Let's clarify mow my idea for city #3: The ideal location would be exactly 5E (straight, 1S or 1N) of Dehli. Reduced maintenance, mainly.

While reduced maintenance is a nice thing to have, it was not what the team stated was their purpose. If people want to change their minds to settling a reduced maintenance city site, that's fine, but my understanding was that we really wanted to block Zara.

In my opinion, due to our cultural borders from our capitol expanding one more time within the next 50 turns, Zara will not settle anywhere close to 5E of our capitol. So, we wouldn't be blocking him at all, as far as I am concerned.

The maintenance idea is a valid point, but it's a different type of city settling, and if we're considering settling so close, then why not settle near the Stone and get some extra value out of the city, not to mention a site that Zara may actually eventually go after (the Stone site) because it won't be as oppressed with our cultural borders.


No, I'd actually prefer to find a location further out than 5 squares away from our capitol, and that's what in mind would be considered a "blocking city." But, we don't know what's out there yet or how easy it will be to fog-bust, so no matter how much I say I "want" such a location, there might not be a feasible location to go to. If there is, though, I'd rather settle out that much further than 5 squares away.

If you like, i can give a map with my planned warrior movements.

Great!

 

[BLubmuz]

I played a new test attaining to my posted PPP, but moving the warriors as i decribed in my previous post.
Here is a SS with a sign.
It's turn 74, we learnt BW in turn 72 and set research to 0 next turn.
Time to save and decide if this was the real game.
As you can see we know enough on N and E to take a decision, at least for the E site.
- The 3 warriors W will be fortified and secure all the W. Warrior 3 can probably go 1 more tile E before to turn back.
- Warrior 4 is close to French borders and probably he can be close to Ethiopian borders in the real game
- Warrior 5 is inside our borders and there he'll wait the setler to escort him, while 5 moves back to garrison the city, or scout further S or N.

I attached a screenie and the save of this test.
I started from Mitch one. Once net Shaka, i deleted all his units to not screw the test and break the land to isolate him.

Now i have digested my rich dinner and go to bed

 

[BLubmuz]

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't play my games with making junk cities "just in case the AI attacks." (...)

This is not an argument for my TS. We can use our swords after it, when we actually know the land.

For now, let's think to barbs and to survive.
after my TS, we'll discuss city placements on a more solid basis.

 

[Mitchum]

Consider that after settling more cities, being in the Slavery Civic will cost us more. So, if you know EXACTLY on what turn you want to whip, you can switch into Slavery 5 turns prior, perform the whipping operation, and then switch back to the "No Labour Civic" Civic option just after whipping, in order to minimize empire costs associated with being in that Civic. If the 1 Gold per turn cost isn't there, then we might not need to be so tricky with our Civic swaps, but if the cost is there, that's one way to help mitigate those costs.

If we're going to go to this effort, why not switch to Slavery and whip on the same turn. That way, we'll be running Slavery with a smaller popultion = smaller cost. Then switch back out of Slavery 5 turns later.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I played a new test attaining to my posted PPP, but moving the warriors as i decribed in my previous post.
Here is a SS with a sign.

Okay, but I still don't see the PATH that our 4th Warrior took (are we now calling Warrior 3 -> Warrior 2 and Warrior 4 -> Warrior 3, to deal with the death, or is Warrior 3 still Warrior 3 and we'll just have a "dead" Warrior 2?). That's what I wanted to comment on: HOW he got to where he got, both for possible Forest regrowth and for limiting the chance that he'll walk next to a location where a Barb has a chance of being, based on having spawned a turn or two earlier.

If we're sending our 4th Warrior for that western fog-busting duty, then we can afford to have him skip his turns a couple of times on the way to getting in place, to reduce the chances that a Barb had spawned in an un-fog-busted square a turn or two prior, because if we wait long enough, we can predict where a Barb could and couldn't be, based on not seeing one moving back and forth into our field of view.

Only once you've laid out a clear path can we comment on it, in order to improve it. I was expecting you to draw arrows on the map, indicating your movement, and somehow also indicating when a Warrior had ended its turn in place (which should be happening at times, to increase our safety margin). Don't forget that in the real game, we won't have as many AI units to help fog-bust for us, so the lands will have more Barbs than you'll see in our test game. Safety of our Warriors IS very important, as our plan starts to crumble if we start to lose them.

I have a lot more comments that I would like to make, but it's Mother's Day, so I'll be busy today... I'll comment when I can get time.

 

[Mitchum]

Test Game Idea: I suppose that a test game with a large amount of uncontrolled land existed, say like in some of Mitchum's test games with a huge island (but empty said island of our units) we might get a more accurate picture of when Barb Cities start to spawn.

According to the reference guide, barb cities can spawn 5 turns after human barbs first appear. I still had barb animals running around on T60, but that doesn't mean that there weren't also human barbs. I just didn't see any.

 

[Mitchum]

I actually think it is a good idea to let Barb cities appear. We can focus on settling the east, and then conquer the west. We are not planning war, so the fact that they are a little harder to take is not a problem, because we are going to have long stretches of peace.

I see two issues with letting barb cities appear:

1. They often get put in places that don't make sense. If this happens, then we would have to build a bunch of units AND a settler. If we never let the city spawn, we'll just have to build the settler and we can put it exactly where we want it.

2. Barb cities pump out units. This may not be a huge deal, but if we don't have copper, it could spell trouble. Plus, we'll have enough barbs coming from the north and east in this game. Do we want them coming from the west as well?

 

[Mitchum]

- we don't know if he already settled more cities. I just looked to the official saves to see the map, no more. While playing have you ever noticed the message "Zara has founded Gondar (city #2) or Lallibella (city #3) in a distant land?" If any of you (but i think only Mitchum, 'cause Irgy and UT played too soon) can remember this, if can be of help

No, I never saw this message. But, I find it strange that he wouldn't have two cities by now... I have seen this message in my other games, so I know that I have Buffy set up properly.

 

[BLubmuz]

Okay, but I still don't see the PATH that our 4th Warrior took (are we now calling Warrior 3 -> Warrior 2 and Warrior 4 -> Warrior 3, to deal with the death, or is Warrior 3 still Warrior 3 and we'll just have a "dead" Warrior 2?).

Only once you've laid out a clear path can we comment on it, in order to improve it.

I think the paths are almost useless, since anyone can reconstruct them easily.
That's why i put a sign on the eastermost point of the warrior now near the Stone.

But, if you like it, here is the screenie with the paths.

About unit naming, BUFFY takes care of it and i used it's names in my post. If in doubt, just open the save i posted. All the names are automatically assigned by BUFFY.

I can see the benefits on your proposal to stop our units from time to time to gain knowledge if barbs are around. But we must consider also the need to move fast, if we can consider fast 1 tile/turn.

In any case, if you missed it, i deleted all the foreign units (Zulu and German) and separated the continent, let the Zulu in a small landmass.
I left the French untouched.

 

[havr]

I see two issues with letting barb cities appear:

1. They often get put in places that don't make sense. If this happens, then we would have to build a bunch of units AND a settler. If we never let the city spawn, we'll just have to build the settler and we can put it exactly where we want it.

2. Barb cities pump out units. This may not be a huge deal, but if we don't have copper, it could spell trouble. Plus, we'll have enough barbs coming from the north and east in this game. Do we want them coming from the west as well?

On the other hand, when you conquer them you get a bunch of gold that can be useful for research.

I am not really that hooked up on spawnning them.. I am just throwing some pros for the sake of argument.