SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Mitchum]

Re: Tech path

It'll probably have to be Pottery ASAP, with us possibly fitting in Meditation, Fishing, or both in first, depending upon whether or not we settle 4 Cities immediately.

Don't forget BLubmuz' favorite tech!! We'll need The Wheel soon to hook up stone for the 'Mids. Although, The Wheel is required for Pottery, so forget that comment...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Teching

Don't forget BLubmuz' favorite tech!!

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Alphabet. In fact, I keep dreaming up ways to justify delaying it.

I'm not intentionally delaying Alphabet, of course, but instead am simply thinking up ways to justify staying on track with our other stated tech goals:
1. Meditation we agreed we need soon, at least sooner than we could research Alphabet

2. Pottery is desperately needed as a "Grassland River Gem" square didn't materialize out of the fog. As you guessed, The Wheel comes "for free" here, since clicking on Pottery makes you research The Wheel. That said, we are not FORCED to research them immediately after each other, so it's fair to point out The Wheel as a separate tech

3. Math we agreed we need for The Pyramids, which everyone seems sold on getting. It also leads into The Hanging Gardens, which would be nice to get, as growing our population immediately reduces our Unit Maintenance Costs, while doing neat things like growing our hard-to-grow Silverado City and EDIT: allowing us to "trade away" 1 extra Health Resource of which we only own 1, say, a Deer or a Pig, due to the extra Health that we got from the Wonder

4. Alphabet is nice, but it's not as useful as it would be on a Pangea map. Only having one AI to trade with? We'd have to give him deep into our religious tech tree just to get enough trades with him. Plus, my test game results in a game with Zara (not Louis) proved that Zara holds onto Math as though it were the Holy Grail. So, we can't even get Math in trade from him, should he happen to be able to research it first

***EDIT:***

Spoiler :

Is that enough of a warning that this point is a new point? "New Year" was the closest smiley that I saw to "New Info."

5. Fishing, of course, is still up for debate. Getting it in trade is easy. In my test game, Zara would give it to us even when he was the only AI that we knew, the same for Animal Husbandry, regardless of the fact that he seemed to treat all otehr techs as "monopoly techs." Exploring to meet AIs before we are ready to meet them is also a bit dubious. Now, exploring to find a Barb island makes sense, but I'm guessing that we (and any nearby AIs) will need Astronomy in order to reach that area, as building an island is about the only way to effectively separate Barbs from AIs. Without any Seafood in our cultural borders, I'm not convinced that we need this tech before Alphabet


Not Alphabet (Yet) because we Don't Want To Meet the Other AIs (Yet)
Plus, we're trying to avoid meeting AIs until we have "religionless Cities" that can grab Buddhism. The longer that we "know" a Buddhist AI, the more that they will hate us or else the longer that we'll have to stay in No State Religion.

Of course, there's always the hope that they'll declare war on us, but realistically, they'll rack up long-standing negative Diplo modifiers with us before they'll make the decision to declare war with us.

The other fear is that a non-Buddhist group of AIs will meet us, get a bunch of our religions, and then later want to switch into Free Religion. If we can meet AIs slowly and manage to grab Buddhism, then we can put a #1 priority on spamming each newly-met AI with at least 1 Buddhist Missionary, uniting the world behind one banner. Later, we can manipulate one of those AIs to switch religions, if we "seed" enough of their non-Buddhist cities with a conflicting religion, so that we can later spam all of their cities with that religion, while only some of their cities will have Buddhism, making them more likely to convert.

Or else just gift Zara the Confucian Holy City with The United Nations in it, after having spread Confucianism to all of his cities and Buddhism to the rest of the world. Game over, Zara.

 

[havr]

Either way I see it going for the 'Mids will initially kill our tech rate.
The reason is simple: we will have to settler City 4 too early.

a) If we settle River or Cows first then we must settle Stone to get 'Mids.

b) If we settle Stone, we will probably lose River, but if we wait not too long (and getting the 'Mids is going to be long) we will miss Cows too. We cannot miss Cows.

Furthermore, if we go for the 'Mids: If we settle River first, City 4 will surely be Stone if we want any chance for 'Mids. Zara will be no fool. He will grab Cows.

Finally, to make the 'Mids work we are going to sacrifice a lot. And we cannot gaurentee with 100% we will get it! At emperor there is always a chance an AI will get it. We will be in real trouble if we go for 'Mids, pay heavy prices and lose it.

Soooo... are the 'Mids worth it?

 

[BLubmuz]

Either way I see it going for the 'Mids will initially kill our tech rate.
The reason is simple: we will have to settler City 4 too early.

The problem are not 'Mids.
The problem is the lack of commerce and roads.
Any city we settle can not be connected and generate at least that measly trade route to partially compensate with research the maintenance.
Even if connected, they are poor until the cottages are developed and until Courthouses.

BTW i consider CHs a priority in every city.

I also think that delaying Alpha after the wheel is a suicide, like delay to send a WB to explore. This means more delay, but fishing is the cheapest tech to research.
A fast diplo game is all about research, while to be a successful one we need to focus ALSO on Diplomacy.

I can't express a vote for the cities. I see many pros and cons for any option and i'm on a triple fence for cow/river/stone first.

Maybe it's time to decide now if Diplo or Culture.

Differntly from the preceding SGs, i still not have a plan. Usually by this time in game i has a clear picture of what to do. Maybe in the wrong way, but clear.

I'm confused.

A technical note for Dhoom.
No, it's not possible to change the AIs in WB.
AFAIK, at least. But i don't think there're tricks. the options in WB are pretty limited, but I think you know that any WBsave can be edited in Notepad, don't you?
I've never verified how it can work if you substitute a leader/civ with another one.
Maybe a solution can be put a dozen AI in the game setup, then delete some in WB and once we know our opponents try to switch i.e. shaka with stalin using notepad.

 

[havr]

The problem are not 'Mids.
The problem is the lack of commerce and roads.
Any city we settle can not be connected and generate at least that measly trade route to partially compensate with research the maintenance.
Even if connected, they are poor until the cottages are developed and until Courthouses.

Of course the problem are not the Mids themselves. Normally we can delay city 4 somewhat to let us research a few critical techs faster (like the wheel and alpha). But if we go for 'Mids we have to settle City 4 ASAP (for the reasons listed above).
This will delay researching some key techs and might cost us a lot.
This is my point.

 

[BLubmuz]

I've never verified how it can work if you substitute a leader/civ with another one.
Maybe a solution can be put a dozen AI in the game setup, then delete some in WB and once we know our opponents try to switch i.e. shaka with stalin using notepad.

Now i did.
- I opened an old test save, open WB, saved a WB file.
- back to main menu, started a game as Gandhi. Choosed Zara, the other AIs random
- played a couple turns, open WB, save, back to main menu again
- open the WB save with Zara using Notepad, copied the few important rows
- open the WB save from our test, pasted those few rows.

then started a scenario. it's a partial success:
Zara is there instead of Louis, the cities kept the french names, the graphics is correct.
but it starts on turn 0 with the correct year and it resets any research, build, anything.

So, i don't think it's a viable option. If anyone can find a way to edit a normal save, great.
All your programming experience can't help here?

Let's say that if we have a WB 4000BC save with all the land or at least our land perfectly matching the real game, we have only to change the leaders.
But anything must be played from the start. Unless someone has a better idea.

 

[havr]

I don't understand - what was wrong with what you did? What was missing. From your description is seems that you managed to do what you wanted.

 

[BLubmuz]

I don't understand - what was wrong with what you did? What was missing. From your description is seems that you managed to do what you wanted.

This is wrong:

but it starts on turn 0 with the correct year and it resets any research, build, anything.

 

[havr]

You mean it starts in turn 0 not in year 4000BC and all the research&build is still there?

 

[BLubmuz]

You mean it starts in turn 0 not in year 4000BC and all the research&build is still there?

What we researched is there, the units are there, the buildings if we have one already built, idem. The gold in bank is there, culture and EPs are there.
What is lost is the research and the builds we invested on but not completed.

anyway, i'll let you judge.

here is the save, you need to open it normally, enter WB, save from there, so you can even try to open it with Notepad.

Sorry, but CFC does not let upload WB saves.

 

[havr]

OK, I can do it, but I have to go now.
Will finish doing it later.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Uploading an Unsupported File Type
Thanks for doing all of that investigation, BLubmuz! I've been trying to come up with ways to get this World Builder or manual editing to work, without much luck, so I really want to see what you've got there with your WBsaved game.

you need to open it normally, enter WB, save from there, so you can even try to open it with Notepad.

Sorry, but CFC does not let upload WB saves.

I suggest that you simply rename the file's extension to ".CivWarlordsSave" so that the file can be uploaded. We'll just have to manually change it back to ".CivBeyondSwordWBSave" after downloading it, in order to open it with the game. I suggested using a Warlords file extension so that we won't accidentally try and load the downloaded file before renaming it.

EDIT: Thanks, havr! I'll take a look and see what we've got here.

 

[havr]

OK, I manually edited the WB file to remove all improvements, cities, techs, roads, you name it!

Here is the file, with a supported file extension per Dhoom's request. It is a WB file.

The only thing left is the tile revealing, but I don't think this matters much. Warrior initial position is off, but easily fixable. Probably Zara's location is one tile off too.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Comments on the World Buildered Saved Game
Overall
Great work, thanks havr and BLubz for sorting through this stuff!


How I was able to start a game with this file (including selecting the options that are specific to this SGTOM)

Spoiler :

After renaming the World Buildered file, put it into your:
"C:\Documents and Settings\{Username}\My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Saves\WorldBuilder" directory (or whatever the equivalent in Linux is).

Load BTS with the BUFFY Mod.

Spoiler How to have the BUFFY Mod automatically when you launch the game :

Do you ever find yourself wishing that the game would start with a particular Mod? Well, edit your game shortcut and add in one parameter and you'll be able to do so!

For example, my BTS "Windows shortcut"

Spoiler What's a Windows shortcut? :

Either look for the icon on the Desktop or the Start Menu entry--both are the same kind of "Windows shortcut"--it helps to right-click on the Start Menu and select the "Explore" option in order to be able to more easily edit your Start Menu shortcuts

, has the BUFFY Mod load by default.

To change the settings of your shortcut, such as the one on your Desktop, right-click on it and edit its Properties.

On the Shortcut tab, look for the Target option.

Without a Mod loaded, it should say something like:
"{Path to Civ}\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe"

Where "{Path to Civ}" is not what is actually there for me--I just didn't install the game in the default path--consider it to be a "replace string" for the value of where you installed the game.

You just have to add a parameter after it in order to have the game load a Mod upon game startup.

For example, I just have the option "-mod= BUFFY-3.19.003" as part of your shortcut's target.

Thus, my shortcut's Target looks like:
{Path to Civ}\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe" "-mod= BUFFY-3.19.003"

Note that you can't leave the space out after the word "mod," as it will get automatically stripped. You don't want to be playing the UFFY-3.19.003 Mod, do you?


If you play multiple Mods on a regular basis, then when you're done making the change, copy and paste the Shortcut. Name it to an appropriate name, such as "BTS with Afterworld Mod."

Then make a similar change to the Target field on the Shortcut tab, such as:
{Path to Civ}\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe" "-mod= Afterworld"


The Afterworld Mod was a pretty fun one, by the way.

Go to Single Player -> Custom Scenario (instead of Play Now!)
Select the World Buildered saved game.

Options to set up on the Custom Game screen:
Speed = Epic
Options = All uncheckmarked, except for two: checkmark "No Tribal Villages" and checkmark "No Random Events"
Victores = All checkmarked
Click on the LAUNCH! button and you're good to go!

Questions about how Havr did it

Spoiler :

OK, I manually edited the WB file to remove all improvements, cities, techs, roads, you name it!

Nice work!

I noticed that if you have the World Builder's Map Mode -> Improvements tab selected, you can right-click on improvements in order to delete them, but Roads aren't deleted. How did you delete the Roads?


Did you manually have to add 2 Archers, 2 Scouts, and 1 Settler for each of the AIs?


I also noticed that you can select Player Mode -> Units tab and then right-click on existing units to delete them. I couldn't find a way to delete the Cities this way, though.
How did you delete the cities?


Do you have any other tips for doing tasks quickly, such as a method of "deleteing all units on the map with one mouse click," or was it just a manual process for you?

Maintaining the Saved Game

Spoiler :

It seems like we'll probably have to maintain two separate saved games.

One will be our World Builder original, where we update the terrain and the Civs.

The other will be the saved game that matches the current turnset, where we can update the terrain, as well, but it should probably also be updated in the World Builder version, as it will likely be faster to update both saves than it will be to delete each AI after they have 5+ cities and have a ton of units running around in our "match the current turnset" test saved game.

Minor Tweak Suggestions to Havr's World Buildered game

Spoiler :

1. The Plains Silver River square is currently a Grassland square. Otherwise, things generally look like they match our real game quite nicely! Excellent!
2. Napoleon could probably be relocated somewhere else. Right now, he's to our west, on the Pig, near our potential Legendary City 3/Great Person Farm City. Maybe, if it's not too much trouble, he can be moved off of our continent.
3. Eventually, the Forests will have to be updated to reflect our current turnset. Probably the only way to do so is just to make manual adjustments to the "current turnset saved game," rather than the World Buildered version of our game, since Forests will randomly grow differently in our test game than they will in the real game.

 

[Mitchum]

FYI, I created a new save from scratch. It's still at T0 with Zara. I still have to add Zara's land and play forward to our current turn. I should have it done later today.

If we get this new game and the one BLubmuz/havr/Dhoomstiker have been working on, we'll have two test saves to test our strategies on...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A Suggestion for Changing the Civs in our World Buildered Saved Game

Spoiler :

It's probably worth starting up a Custom Game, selecting all of the opponents that we want (so far, we only know Zara for certain), and then starting the game.

Then, enter the World Builder and save the game as a World Builder file.


That way, we can directly edit this new file in order to copy and paste the exact values that match an AI into our World Builder original file, replacing an existing incorrect AI, so that there aren't major errors in the process of manually editing the AIs.

I'm not sure if Havr already followed this procedure or if he was manually editing the values, but this way seems like an easy and efficient way to ensure that our replaced AIs' values are as close to as accurate as we can get them.

 

[BLubmuz]

FYI, I created a new save from scratch. It's still at T0 with Zara. I still have to add Zara's land and play forward to our current turn. I should have it done later today.

If we get this new game and the one BLubmuz/havr/Dhoomstiker have been working on, we'll have two test saves to test our strategies on...

The one i uploaded is your one, with Zara instead of Louis.

So, better forget it, due to too many WB on it.

It's only purpose was to see if the notepad thing can work.

Before delete all the cities of a civ, or the initial settler, you need to create another city or another settler somewhere. So if you have to move a city even only 1 tile, you can do it in WB. Then you'll copy the pop, culture, buildings and units from the other one, then you can delete it.

In this way we'll avoid to have a dead-and-resurrected AI.

 

[havr]

Removing all routes in one command

grep -v RouteType Input.CivBeyondSwordWBSave > Output.CivBeyondSwordWBSave

Removing all improvements in one command

grep -v ImprovementType Input.CivBeyondSwordWBSave > Output.CivBeyondSwordWBSave

You need Linux or Cygwin for windows.

Other changes I did manually by editing the text file.
Probably could have written a perl script to do most of them for me but was too lazy.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Editing the World Builder Saved Game

You need Linux or Cygwin for windows.

You've definitely made a good case for using either one. I wonder if I could just as easily get away with a download of a grep port for Windows... although I'm not sure of which one should be trusted as a virus-free download.

Other changes I did manually by editing the text file.
Probably could have written a perl script to do most of them for me but was too lazy.

So you didn't even use the in-game World Builder interface for any of the changes?

How did you get the AIs to appear where they started? Was there some sort of automatic process that distributed them?

Did you use some sort of co-ordinate mapping in order to place Zara in the right spot?


I have to say that it is refereshing to be the one asking a bunch of questions, instead of trying to answer them. That said... I... must... have... more... details...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Next Minor Move Suggestion

Warrior 4
Soooooo, I am back to BLubmuz' stance: let's explore with Warrior 4. Send him 1E. See if we can spot a Fish there. I'll even take a Crab or a Clam. If there is one there, I'll shut up about the River City.

Even if there is a Fish there, we weren't planning on settling a southern Coast City immediately, as there is little risk that Zara will go for it now. So, even if Warrior 4 dies but finds a Seafood Resource, we can safely move to the team's other preference (Wheet + Oasis + Cow or Stone, whatever we vote on) without further objection from me. That should simplify the voting, yes?

Like BLubmuz, I'm curious too. I think moving warrior 4 E now and posting a screen shot will let us know if the coast is clear... so to speak.

Does anyone else agree or disagree?

I appreciate the fact that we're trying to get some test games going. I'd like to see some test game validation before playing much further, myself. That said, I think that it would help the testing effort a bit if we are able to narrow down the test game possibilities of which City should be settled next.

That is, as long as playing a tiny bit more of a turn won't risk Havr playing the wrong saved game when he's in the midst of working on test game saved games.