SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Mitchum]

Editing messages

Spoiler :

Yeah, sorry about that. I remembered to put the EDIT tags while I was writing the next message. You beat me to the punch, though, before I could go back and do it.

Spoiler :

I'm actually suggesting not to edit a post at all unless it involves fixing typos or grammar. Even if you had put that "EDIT:" tag in there, I could have very easily missed it if I weren't scrolling up to re-read another post.

If you do use "EDIT" tags, only add or change information that you deem not overly important because it could very easily be missed. Assume that anything edited will be missed by at least one person.

 

[Mitchum]

Here is the latest test save. Since Louis and Zara are both Creative, the culture from the capital should be the same (+4/turn). This will allow us to accurately test how long it will take to win the culture battle with "River" city.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Forest Chopping order

Spoiler :

Why are you talking about chopping a square (W+W+W) that only yields 24 hammers? The benefit of chopping in our BFC is two fold. First, we get 6 more hammers. Second, we'll have a clear spot to lay down a cottage (if a forest doesn't re-grow there).

I suggested that W + W + W square due to that square having high Forest regrowth probabilities. The sooner that we chop such a square, the more turns that a Forest will have to regrow there. Right now, the area is "stagnant" in terms of Forest growth, because there are too many Forests in the area.

We also seem to not really need that many Hammers for The Oracle, so a difference of 6 Hammers chopped, as far as I saw, won't make a difference at all in The Oracle's completion date, since it is Commerce that is holding us back, not Hammers.

As for the Cottage idea, you raise a valid point.

However, which squares get chopped really depends upon how many Forests that we want to chop. If we'll be chopping BOTH squares, then I'd rather chop the W + W + W FIRST, to give us the greatest chance of regrowth without losing anything (we don't have Pottery yet, so chopping the River square first won't benefit us, if we plan to chop both of them).

If we can get a more conclusive number, for chopping both into The Oracle and then into, say, a Settler or two, while still leaving enough Forests for The Pyramids, then I'll be better able to plan for this kind of a variable in my Forest-choppnig suggestions.

While we won't get massive regrowth, if we can get even 1 more Forest to grow before we clear-cut for The Pyramids, this extra micromanagement will be worth the effort. Even if one doesn't grow, as long as the moves made are equally as good as each other, then there's no harm in trying for Forest regrowth, right?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Question about EDITing Messages VS Writing even MORE Messages in the thread

Spoiler :

I'm actually suggesting not to edit a post at all unless it involves fixing typos or grammar. Even if you had put that "EDIT:" tag in there, I could have very easily missed it if I weren't scrolling up to re-read another post.

If you do use "EDIT" tags, only add or change information that you deem not overly important because it could very easily be missed. Assume that anything edited will be missed by at least one person.

I think that I'd need to hear others agree, particularly havr, but also at least one of Irgy or Unclethrill, before I proceed with this suggestion. Otherwise, we'll be back to our "Instant Message" quantity of messages, and I want to make sure that the team is comfortable with that approach.

EDIT from here and below: Note that the message in question is a relatively special case item, anyway, as it gives suggestions for the next PPP. Havr hasn't written a PPP yet, so he'll minimally have to go back and read it, and we'll see the info captured in his PPP.

As for EDITs such as this one, it's just adding an "extra argument" without really changing my original point. If you miss reading it, no big deal. But, if you go back to quote me and continue the discussion on the current topic, you'll see it.

Anyway, the original issue was more that I'd FORGOTTEN to put in the "EDIT" indicators, but now it's changing more into a suggestion to scrap the policy of EDITing messages at all, just because I made a mistake in forgetting to do it once.

 

[unclethrill]

Okay, we have no idea what is to the east of Zara's cap. It could be sea, another AI or huge open space. I think we need to take the devil's advocate again until we know more and assume the worst. IMO the worst would be another AI pushed right up against him and Zara blocking his progress west. If this is the case then if we settle in the grasslands to try and culture-push to those FP then Zara will have no choice but to push his settler to the north. In the best case he would settle on his side of the desert but I think the more likely scenario is that he takes our spot on the west side of the desert. If this happens we potentially lose all those resources and we have to worry about blocking him again.

If we settle to the north at A or B then we get those resources and we block all but the GL squares east of Delhi. Those squares have no resources (so far) and thus they won't be that much of a loss. I truly doubt that we will get a third city down now that will have the culture to push his capital's borders back enough to get the FPs especially if he is building a wonder there (which we speculate based on no second city yet).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

River City?

Okay, we have no idea what is to the east of Zara's cap. It could be sea, another AI or huge open space. I think we need to take the devil's advocate again until we know more and assume the worst. IMO the worst would be another AI pushed right up against him and Zara blocking his progress west.

If that is true, then we stand a stronger chance of losing the River area to Zara.

Test games have demonstrated that the AI will settle their second city close to their capitol. The only exception to that concept that I've ever seen are when there is a huge cache of Resources far away. There is no such cache of Resources, or else we'd be sending our Settler 3 there.

If what you claim, as our worst case, turns out to be true, Zara will have almost nowhere reasonable as a "close" city location to settle but on the River.

EDIT: If we beat him to the River location, he'll then have to settle his close city location either in the Desert or else approximately 1 square away from his current cultural borders towards the other AI. He won't go as far as the Cow + Oasis location for his City #2.


Zara's City #3 has no such constraints, which is the timing that we need to be aware of.


The River City was my "peace offering" of giving up on settling Option e)

If we settle to the north at A or B then we get those resources and we block all but the GL squares east of Delhi.

I prefer Option e) over Options a) and b).

My compromise was to "give up" Option e)'s squares to a River City, making the case for Options a) and f) that much stronger [the other two strong choices and ones that people want--BLubz was wanting f) the last that I'd heard].

The obvious alternative is just to put down one eastern city for now, at Option d) or e), and then put a southern Coast City down later. One of these two cities MIGHT be giftable, depending upon how close Zara settles to them.


1 Flood Plains square would make me happy enough + Gifting City Talk

I truly doubt that we will get a third city down now that will have the culture to push his capital's borders back enough to get the FPs especially if he is building a wonder there

I am pretty confident that we can get at least the western Flood Plains square. All I asked for was 1 Flood Plain, while anything else would be bonus, in my eyes.

It shouldn't be too hard to test out with a test game.

What concerns me MORE than not getting many "stolen" Flood Plains is Zara settling on the River himself, because of the Desert to the north. I was really hoping that there would be Flood Plains in the north, allowing us to put our "gifting city" up there.

EDIT: Settling our "gifting City" in the northern Desert won't really work, as we can't grow the City large enough for us to build The United Nations--a Great Engineer requires a large-population city in order to contribute more Hammers to his chosen "rush" project.

Where do you suggest we put our "gifting city" if not at the River City location?

 

[BLubmuz]

I will read later all the posts, just took a glance.

The river city was one of my points, but we can't hope to steal 3 FPs from a Creative AI's Capital. 1 maybe, surely not the 2 in BFC.

I would also avoid to settle too aggressively.

At this point, we must go for the wheat/cow/oasis spot, in order to grab that only wheat in this continent.

To do this, we must build a settler before the oracle, maybe keep him in place and wait for the Oracle being completed, but we can't wait more.

Only then Zara is actually blocked.

More will follow, once i've read all your novels
Now i'll be busy for my "risotto ai funghi".

 

[havr]

Still looking for concrete votes.
It hard to follow what exactly someone wants only from explanations.

 

[havr]

IDEA: "Cows" has plenty of forest. Lets build COWS, chop a settler @ Cows. Delhi builds Oracle. We can settle "Stone" exactly when we build Oracle.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Here is the latest test save.

THANK YOU for doing all of these test game updates!

Forest Regrowth Indeed

Spoiler :

Okay, I admit that I was really lucky. The same thing is not likely to happen in the real game. But shortly after I chopped the GHFor to the W + W + W of Delhi, it regrew.

I felt that I just HAD to throw up a screenshot of that one!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Settler 3

At this point, we must go for the wheat/cow/oasis spot, in order to grab that only wheat in this continent.

Have you changed your mind? Are you giving up on Option f) in favour of Option a)? Because your previously "preferred suggestion" was to settle Option f). You're allowed to change your mind, but I just want to be clear what you're saying, as Option f) isn't really a "Wheat" City.

In case you forgot which City spot was which, here's the relevant screenshot:

Spoiler :

Blocking Zara

To do this, we must build a settler before the oracle, maybe keep him in place and wait for the Oracle being completed, but we can't wait more.

Only then Zara is actually blocked.

So are you saying that it is your priority to block Zara with two cities before settling the Stone City?

If yes, wouldn't it make sense to settle the city which is closest to him FIRST?

Not only could we secure the closer location, but the second location, if further from Zara, is one that we can get to faster with a newly-built Settler.


BLubz' Food

Spoiler :

Now i'll be busy for my "risotto ai funghi".

What kind of fungus (mushrooms) are you eating in it? Porcini?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Voting vs Explanations

Spoiler :

Still looking for concrete votes.
It hard to follow what exactly someone wants only from explanations.

I understand where you are coming from. The options seem clear and you want us to vote. I get that.

However, Civ 4 is complex. There are a LOT of different reasons and factors to consider for each decision.

Therefore, it is important for us to understand WHICH REASONS we are using to support our decisions.

Sometimes, a compromise can be reached, if we find out exactly which reasons why someone feels that a particular decision is the right one. Often, there is a similar way to achieve the same goals but with a different approach.

Other times, we disagree with an option because we don't think of all of the factors that someone else is taking into consideration. If that person doesn't share their reasons for why they feel a certain way, it is easy to vote against them. But, if the reasons are understood, often it turns out that the other players had not considered certain aspects of the game that went into making the decision.

I can sit on a high horse and try and dictate ideas. Instead, I try and explain my reasoning behind the decisions. Sometimes I am persuasive. Sometimes, others persuade me with their reasons and ideas. However, someone voting in one particular way without saying why WILL NOT persuade me to vote a certain way, and I would hope that the true is the same of anyone else who isn't just flipping a coin when voting. I might vote the same way as everyone else "just to get the game going already," but that's an exception case, when most people seem to be in agreement after having understood the risks and issues at stake.

Until or unless people are willing to explain their reasons, then they are unlikely to convince others to vote in a similar way, so some discussion is to be expected.

I COULD cast a vote, but then I might change my mind 2 or 3 times as other players start to bring forward new information. Wouldn't that constant vote-switching be even more confusing for the UP player than a reasoned discussion would be? You tell me.

 

[BLubmuz]

Settler 3

Have you changed your mind? Are you giving up on Option f) in favour of Option a)? Because your previously "preferred suggestion" was to settle Option f). You're allowed to change your mind, but I just want to be clear what you're saying, as Option f) isn't really a "Wheat" City.

In case you forgot which City spot was which, here's the relevant screenshot:

Spoiler :

Blocking Zara

So are you saying that it is your priority to block Zara with two cities before settling the Stone City?

If yes, wouldn't it make sense to settle the city which is closest to him FIRST?

Not only could we secure the closer location, but the second location, if further from Zara, is one that we can get to faster with a newly-built Settler.


BLubz' Food

Spoiler :

What kind of fungus (mushrooms) are you eating in it? Porcini?

I must say that i was amazed and scared by your analisys of the city sites.
Amazed 'cause it cost you a lot of work, scared 'cause i could have done it myself.

Then, i've seen there're not great differnces between the proposed locations and maybe the cow/wheat is stronger than others.
So, i'm now in favor of that non-coastal-PH to grab both.
I'm concerned too by health.

The downside (but maybe this is an upside) is that the fish city ceases to be important. So we can probably avoid it.

OTOH, i see you're in favour to settle along the river, when i was at the beginning and now i have some doubt.

Still, are 2 decent sites.

But we must run to grab them, and run fast.

Sure, we must settle the city along the river first. Now or never more, i think.
But, in case he's got a settler ready and he should have it unless he's building a very expensive WW or he smoked something strange he would just turn the settler north and beat us to the wheat.

Thus, we must run faaaaaaast!

There's something broken in your link to something

and yes, porcini... how is this in English?
The fact is that i not just eated, i cooked it! i got my specialties...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Havr's Preferences

IDEA: "Cows" has plenty of forest. Lets build COWS, chop a settler @ Cows. Delhi builds Oracle. We can settle "Stone" exactly when we build Oracle.

Which Cow City?
Okay, so you want to settle a city by the Cow Resource next. We have 6 options presented that include an Oasis.

There are other spots that are closer to our capitol which also have the Cow (but no Oasis), including one that would share a Corn Resource.

Which Cow location would you like to settle? If the answer is "I don't care," that is a valid answer, too, you know.


River or Sothern Coast? Neither?
Do you have an opinion on whether or not we should put another city by the River? Maybe instead put one on the southern Coast? Maybe you'd rather just focus on settling the west and leave the River and southern Coast areas entirely to Zara?

Spoiler The Problem :

The problem with the Cow City decision is not whether we want to settle a Cow City. I think that we're all in agreement that we DO want to settle a City by the Cow. What IS the issue is exactly where to settle that city and in what order relative to the other cities.

So, we must discuss the settling of the Cow City, the Stone City, and a possible River or southern Coast City all at once, because the decisions are all inter-related.

Whatever decision we make for one item impacts the other items.

For example, if we go for the Stone City now, we might or might not lose one of th eastern locations to Zara. We don't know for certain, but the risk is greater than if we settle one of the eastern locations first.

Further, the longer that we wait to settle two cities to the west, the greater the chance that Zara will take one of them.

Finally, exactly where we MIGHT want to settle a River or southern Coast City WILL impact which of the Cow City locations is better or worse than the others. So, we can't even accurately pick a Cow City until we know IF and WHERE we want to settle a City to the south east.

Yes, it is complicated.

Yes, there are lot of factors to think about.

Yes, the answer isn't straight-forward.

However, the more that we talk about the reasons behind our decisions, the more we can decide as a team WHICH REASONS are more important to us. By coming to agreement on the REASONS, the choice of which Cities to settle where and when will be narrowed down considerably, possibly down to only 1 obvious choice. The more that we can understand each others' reasons and agree on which ones are more important than others, the less conflict we'll have when it comes to voting time and the easier it will be to get immediate consensus.

I'd rather have a full page of discussion in place of three pages of fighting, as we saw earlier when we started voting without expressing our reasons very clearly. Which situation would you prefer?

 

[Mitchum]

I think we're quickly out-gowing the benefit of our test save. When I played, Louis was getting 1 tech every turn. On T100, he already had Metal Casting, Optics and had just learned Theology. Civil Service was next. I went into WB every 10 turns and took all of his techs away... I hate to say it, but I think now would be a good time to recreate a new save, starting with Zara in the correct spot. Otherwise, I think our testing will be way off.

So, here are the results of my testing.

Cities settled: Stone (T90 - the turn before learning CoL) and River (T109 - the turn before learning Theology)
Techs: I used binary research exclusively. Priesthood (T79) -> Writing (T91) -> The Wheel (T98) -> Meditation (T106) -> Theology (T110 - bulbed by GPro) -> Pottery (T113) -> Math (would take about 26 turns...)
Delhi: worker (T80) -> Oracle (T91 - 3 chops) -> library -> (T93 - large chop overflow plus whipped 2 pops) -> temple (T98) -> settler (T106) -> worker (T111) -> Pryamids
Silverado: warrior (T80) -> settler (37 turns) ** This should have been a worker!!
Stone: Pyramids (1 turn) -> library. Stone is low on health due to flood plains and no fresh water. Things got better once Stone was connected to Delhi.
River: Library
Civics: Switched to OR (T80), Slavery (T92), Tribalism (T97 to save 1 gpt), Paganism (T106 - could have been sooner since Delhi stopped making buildings on T98), OR (T111 for the 'Mids)
Religion: Hinduism (T80), Confucianism (T93 - used free missionary from Stone to infect Delhi = risk because I did this on the very turn the missionary landed in Delhi. This kept my OR bonus in Delhi and let Stone's borders expand to include the stone) - Christianity (again, I used the free missionary from River to infect the capital. This time I let the missionary stay still for 3 turns. Now River's borders can expand and start the cultural battle of city tiles)
Workers: Workers 1 and 2 chopped two forests into the Oracle, built a mine on the hill E-E of Delhi, chopped a third forest together into the Oracle/library, pre-chopped until Stone's borders expanded, built a quarry, built a road connecting Delhi and Stone, and then would continued to pre-chop around Delhi until Math comes in.

By T109, I had 4 cities and only 3 workers. I had learned Pottery and The Wheel. I had WAY too much for them to do since workers 1,2 and 3 were busy pre-chopping the 'Mids while waiting for Math. Rather than building a Settler in Silverado, I should have built a worker. I was thinking that this settler would be done in time to found River, but it did not, which forced me to build that settler in Delhi anyway. An additional worker would have been much more useful. Cottages in Stone would have been nice. Having a worker help out in River would have been great too.

I did my best to minimize expenses by settling cities as late as possible, keeping the settlers within my cultural borders until the last minute, keeping one warrior inside our cultural borders to avoid paying supply costs, switching out of civics when not needed, etc. All of this probably added up to about 30 gold if I had to guess. That's 3 extra turns at 100% research, which is well worth the MM required to pull it off.

I got lazy in the south and left the warrior fortified on the hill down on the coast. Because of this, a barb archer spawned in the only tile possible between Louis and us. The barb was easy to manage with a little help from WB... We'll need to keep this in mind if we chose not to settler River as city 3.

Why did I stop my test? Well, Shaka built the Pyramids on T115 (1125 BC!!!) This is about 19 turns before I think we could have completed them if we had 4 workers. This is VERY early, especially on Monarch for a non-Industrious leader that "very rarely" builds wonders (he did have stone though). My honest opinion is that DS gave us stone and marble because he wanted to give us a very fair shot at getting early wonders, especially the 'Mids. I highly doubt that they will go this early in our game, but you never know...

What are everyone's thoughts about the test save? Should we generate a new one? If so, what should we put in Zara's BFC besides the flood plains that we can already see? How much land should we give him to the SE?

This will take some time to create and then play forward to T76 in the exact same way we've done it in this game. If we re-do the save now and I do it, this MAY be the last time I volunteer to do so...

 

[havr]

Which Cow location would you like to settle? If the answer is "I don't care," that is a valid answer, too, you know.

I do care.

I am just trying to methodical and discuss one thing at item.
First: city order.
After we decide that we discuss exact placement.

 

[Mitchum]

What the heck is this?



This came up the turn I learned Mediation... Random events are turned off. I'm fairly new to BtS, so please forgive me if this is the basics...

Can we trigger this when we want? Could we lose a religion to an AI if they trigger this event?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Food

Spoiler :

The fact is that i not just eated, i cooked it! i got my specialties...

Nice work!

and yes, porcini... how is this in English?

I'll answer this question first because it is the easiest! The rest I can respond to afterwards.

We use a lot of Italian words (or at least words of Italian origin) in everyday use, mostly food-related ones.

Most of our noodles use the italian name for them, or if not the exact name, then a bastardized spelling or bastardized pronunciation of the same thing. For example: fettucine, rigatoni, linguini, and spaghetti.

I do a lot of cooking, too.

I make a good lasanga and really tasty pizza, but I'm not sure how "Italian" those dishes are or if they are just bastardized versions themselves.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Religion-selection Screen

Spoiler :

What the heck is this?

This came up the turn I learned Mediation... Random events are turned off. I'm fairly new to BtS, so please forgive me if this is the basics...

Can we trigger this when we want? Could we lose a religion to an AI if they trigger this event?

That is a bug with the game that results when you try to "pretend" that an AI didn't beat you to a religion.

You can remove the tech from an AI (such as Code of Laws). You can even take away their Holy City and the religion from all of their cities. You can even delete their Missionary.

But the game still "remembers" that Confucianism was founded in some other variable.

The bug is that the same part of the code that "checks" whether Confucianism was founded is not the same part of the code that checks whether you are the founder of a religion upon learning Code of Laws.

Thus, this strange behaviour results: that of executing the code that is only supposed to run when you have selected the "Choose Religions" Game Option.

Spoiler How do I know of this info? :

I ran into the same problem during my test game. Check out my Forest-chopping screenshot. If you look closely, you'll see my Islamic Missionary that came from my eastern city, from when I ran into the same issue.

Can we trigger this when we want? Could we lose a religion to an AI if they trigger this event?

EDIT: Only if you have access to the World Builder or know some other way of "hacking" the saved game. If you can guess the randomly-generated Admin Password for a Locked Assets game, you can presumably access the World Builder...

 

[Mitchum]

I do care.

I am just trying to methodical and discuss one thing at item.
First: city order.
After we decide that we discuss exact placement.

I think this is where it gets complicated. If we pick Cow first, then we may not even get River, so we put Cow in a different place if it's settled first, second or third. Also, if we place Cow first and later get River out of "luck", then there may be too much overlap if we put Cow in one location vs. another.

Personally, if we want to go for the 'Mids (which I do), then I think Stone must be city 3 or 4, no later. If someone can show me a test where we settler River (and/or Cow) first and still have a good shot at the 'Mids, I'm fine with taking that risk. Otherwise, I'd like to settle Stone first. My primary reason for this is obviously the Pyramids. There, I've stated what I want and why. Fire away!!

Regarding timing of city settling, research slowed WAY down once city 3 was settled and it was MUCH MUCH slower once city 4 was settled (break even at 50% or 1 turn at 0% followed by 1 turn at 100%). Since research will be the gating factor for a lot of things, including wonders and turning around our economy, I vote that we settle cities as late as possible. Fire away!!