SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Dhoomstriker]

I think that we need to take the chance and move the settler to the PH to see what we see. The extra hammer for the worker will be nice if choose to settle there. The warrior should go SW IMO.

I would be okay with settling on the Plains Hills square IF we will have 3 Minable Hills (i.e. not counting the Hills square that we settle on) within our capitol's fat cross.

Any less than 3 Hills will be too production-poor for my tastes.

Moving onto the Plains Hills square eats up two Hills--the one to the NE+N of the Settler falls outside of the fat cross and the Plains Hills square gets sat on--so we'd be completely relying on what's in the fog-gazable squares for making the determination of whether we'll have enough Hills squares available to us.


So, we really need a volunteer to validate Mitchum's fog-gazing.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

We should go for BW so that we can surely speed REX as much as possible.

How much is "as much as possible"? Bronze Working first? Bronze Working after Agriculture? Since we wouldn't be chasing after religions, what would be your overall strategy suggestion to win the game? Clearly we can't rely on Diplomation, which is the strategy that best aligns with your suggestion, but if you have another suggested strategy, I'd love to hear it!

Otherwise, we run the risk of being in a very tight situation in terms of land (who knows what is on the map),

We should have no trouble grabbing 3-4 decent city locations even if we are boxed in by several AIs, which will be plenty for the early game, and more city sites will be available if we aren't boxed in. We're on Emperor level here, not Deity.

forcing us to declare war just to get some land... and we have only two...

I don't see that happening. Not in a random game and certainly not in an XOTM where we are limited in the number of war declarations. The challenge will not be a One City Challenge. No, I'm sorry, but we will be able to grab enough land.

Consider the fact that 2 Fresh-Water-Enabled Corn Resources is going to be one of the fastest ways of pumping Settlers that you can get for a starting location. Even without Forest Chops or Whips, we'll have Settlers coming out very quickly. Whipping is probably going to be better after the initial Settler pump anyway, when we want to build a Granary or a Library. Whipping a Settler followed by building a Worker or a Settler is an incredibly inefficient way to play, so the only one that you'd whip is the last one that you're going to build before starting on building a building like a Granary, Library, or a Wonder, and even then isn't necessarily the most efficient, as you'll likely have improved more squares during the time that you stagnated the city's growth while building the Settler/Settlers.

EDIT: The point here is that you'd, in most cases, rather be working improved squares if you have the Happiness levels to do so, instead of whipping citizens, while you'd prefer to whip citizens in the case where the best square to work gives you something like 1 Food and 2 Hammers (a Plains Forest square) or 2 Food and 1 Hammer (a Grassland Forest square).


A Worker-chopping into Settler strategy is going to have much more of an impact when your best workable squares are suckier than the ones that we were given, such as a Wheat without Fresh-Water-access or a Mine like a Gold Mine where most of its value comes from its Commerce and not its contribution towards building Settlers.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Early Bronze Working
Also, note that I DID include Bronze Working in my suggested tech path relatively early on:
Agriculture/Polytheism -> Polytheism/Agriculture -> Masonry -> Monotheism -> Priesthood -> Bronze Working

By starting with Mining and Mysticism, we get to Monotheism extremely quickly and thus have a very, very high chance of obtaining it (greater than 95% chance, in my eyes, if we beeline it except for the Agriculture tech).

Also, by starting with Mining, we get to Bronze Working pretty quickly, too.

So, you'll still get your fast Bronze Working while sticking to an Overall Strategy that seems to be one of the most suitable ones for this game of the strategies that we have discussed. There are certainly other strategies out there, so if you can think of an appropriate one, let's hear it!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I don't want to answer for BLubmuz, but rather than having him go back, read your ideas, and try to distill them into appropriate wording, I think it would be more efficient if you did it. My $0.02.

It would certainly help for more people to first give input on the relevant issues, unless everyone trusts that my intent will reflect the desires of the majority of the team.

 

[BLubmuz]

After Agriculture, I'm still undecided. Do we have to decide right now or would it be better to assess the situation once we've learned Agriculture? I can see the benefit of hoarding as many religions as possible. However, I keep thinking about the cost of doing so. Some key techs that I feel need to be researched farily early include:

1. Bronze Workering - We have a ton of forests that could be chopped, greatly speeding up the peaceful REX stage in the early part of the game. Getting a lot of land through REX will be required, especially if we're going diplo. We'll also want to run slavery early on because without it, we won't be able to effectively use the over abundance of food in the capital. Sure the capital will be a great settler / worker pump, but it will quickly grow to unhappiness when building other things if we can't use the whip. Finally, I have a suspicion that there is Copper in that plains hill. A typical capital starting location has 4 or more resources. We can currently see two, which means there is more than likely something in the fog and/or a strategic resource or two.

2. Pottery - We'll need a cottage or two to fuel our early science, unless we're planning to play a specialist economy. We'll also need granaries, especially if we plan to whip.

3. Writing - We need to get a library up and hire some scientist. The sooner we get our first GS, the sooner we can build an Academy (or bulb a tech).

4. Alphabet - Our tech path will likely skip many key early techs which will be more effective to get via trade than to self-research.

5. Animal Husbandry - In a typical game, either my capital or first city require AH to improve a pig, cow, or sheep resource. We won't know about this until we've revealed more of the map and picked our second city location. A secondary benefit is that it reveals horses. Chariots can be a great barb-controlling unit.

So, although I agree that getting a lot of religions would be good, especially for a diplo game, I wouldn't want to greatly delay the techs listed above.

All your points make sense. But a beeline to Alpha and the Oracle (maybe without marble, who kows?) usually has the aim to have many of them in trade. I've seen Dhoom's comments on Alpha, i'll comment later them. But if we delay Alpha too much, we can even have it in trade. We're on Emperor and BtS AI is more focused on Alpha since it opens SPIES.

I've posted two screen shots. One has a peak to the SW-SW of the settler and the other has a hill. Can you tell which is which? Which one looks more like our game?

Maybe i'm half blind, but they seem the same screenie. The hill/peak look the same in both: green. In the actual game i see grey.

Have we decided who the "Up" player is? Did we agree on Irgy? In any event, I think the up player should post a PPP. This will give us something concrete to discuss for the next turnset. I also suggest we continue our other discussions in parallel (e.g. victory condition, long-term strategy, mid-term goals, tech path, team rules, etc.).

I think it makes sense to put something in the header of every message so that it is clear what the post is referring to. That way, when a player wants to know more about the long-term strategy, when reading back through old posts they can reader the header and quickly decide if they need to read the entire post to find what they want.

I think Irgy can be. Our new members probably need some time to enter in this game and team.

We haven't yet decided the TSs lenght. I think 15 turns can be a good choice. Just to make my life easier, the first TS can be until turn 15, which means 16 turns.
And we must decide the 2nd tech before start it, along with where to settle, where to move the warrior and... am i forgetting something?
So, SW or NW for the warrior? if we decide that move we can see some more land and maybe take a better decision.

I haven't seen comments on my proposal to have the first TS completed by Friday 30th. So?

 

[BLubmuz]

(...)I thought I had mentioned many suggested changes in the message that I linked. Do you need me to provide you with word-for-word changes? I didn't do so because I thought it was unnecessary for me to provide that level of detail, but I can if you request it.

I'll answer tomorrow to the points i deleted.
Yes, i'm asking you to do so, so after then i can criticize you and not the opposite

Since you have pretty clear ideas on how things have to work, but i haven't catched them yet, i think it's easier for you to propose variations and/or additions to the present rules.

 

[BLubmuz]

We have no chance to send you PMs. Often it's useful and is useful also to see your last activity in CFC in case you do not post frequently. I recommend to post at least one row a day, since the other members can know you're alive and following the thread.

If you disactivated the PMs, please reactivate them, just go and edit your profile.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I haven't seen comments on my proposal to have the first TS completed by Friday 30th. So?

I keep challenging people to either stick to the overall strategy that I am pushing (beelining religions) or to come up with their own. Until we've got consensus on that, it's hard to make a call. If we don't care about religious beelines, then we can take a couple of turns to explore, for all I care.

If even one of Mitchum's Hills squares in our settling-in-place fat cross is correct, then settling in place would probably be my suggestion, because I'd want to start teching ASAP and in-place would be "good enough for me" with 3 Hills squares. If someone can validate or disprove the fog-gazing, I'll be better equipped to cast my vote.

So, really, I don't want to comment on an end date until the team feels happy about these issues. The more frequently that people log in and make a couple of comments, the happier we all will be, as the group will tend to gravitate towards making decisions.

But, if not many of us are logging in and commenting frequently, then it's tough to abide by a timeline. I'd rather not have to "cast a vote" for a concept such as our Overall Strategy--I'd rather have a majority consensus on that issue, otherwise a lot of players won't even have "buy in" to the way that we'll be playing the game, which will make the game a lot less fun for some players.

I wouldn't mind having to vote on the issue of WHERE to send the Warrior, but I can't come up with a "Settling perspective" that will "dictate where the Warrior should move" until we're more in agreement on how we want to approach the game.


So, while I respect your idea to push things on and I am trying to do so by doing my best to throw in lots of comments and throw in lots of requests for people to take actions (screenshots, test games, researching old games) and throw in lots of requests for people to comment, I think that we can only move as fast as the team is willing to go.

That said, later decisions, I personally believe, will fall more into place if we get buy-in up front, BUT, if we don't have buy-in on our overall strategy, we'll keep having diverging opinions about tech path and build orders, as people will keep trying to sneak in other strategies. So, let's hear how else people would like to strategically approach the game, and if you can't think of other ways, let's stay on track and focus on the religious-beeline strategy, realizing that our tech path will be relatively set and that techs like Bronze Working, Pottery, or Alphabet will just have to come when they come.

All your points make sense. But a beeline to Alpha and the Oracle (maybe without marble, who kows?)

Almost all Oracle builds on Emperor and above are done without Marble. We're not playing a HOF game here, where we can pick our Resources. Honestly, the investment of Hammers compared to the payout in either Gold (from failing to build The Oracle first) or payout in Flasks (from the Science not spent on the "free" tech) will be a worthwhile trade without Marble. Having Marble just makes something cheap a little bit cheaper. But, you need to realize that almost 100% of the time you are going to build The Oracle in the capitol, unless you can somehow settle near Marble with City 2 and get it connected (a rare thing to happen, our test game notwithstanding), thus we need to have enough Hills to build this Wonder and others down the road in the capitol.

if we delay Alpha too much, we can even have it in trade. We're on Emperor and BtS AI is more focused on Alpha since it opens SPIES.

Receiving Alphabet in trade is not a bad bargain, as we can almost certainly leverage that tech better than the other AIs can. The bigger concern would be a Vanilla or Warlords game where most of the AIs avoid researching Alphabet as though it were a plague. Whether it is the addition of Spies or a change to the AI programming, you are right that we'll have a better chance of getting Alphabet here in trade than in a non-BTS game.

We haven't yet decided the TSs lenght. I think 15 turns can be a good choice. Just to make my life easier, the first TS can be until turn 15, which means 16 turns.

15 turns/turnset sounds good to start, going down to 10 turns/turnset later as the game gets more complicated.

And we must decide the 2nd tech before start it, along with where to settle, where to move the warrior and... am i forgetting something?

Again, come up with an alternative strategy, and I'll help build a tech path that works best for it. Otherwise, I think that we have a decent tech path laid out.

So, SW or NW for the warrior? if we decide that move we can see some more land and maybe take a better decision.

I'd rather get confirmation on the fog-gazing before deciding where our primary settling location should be, and only then decide which way to move the Warrior in support of that decision. If no one else volunteers to double-check Mitchum's fog-gazing soon, I'll have to see if I can get the game going on this computer, as I for one would LIKE to see BLubmuz's targetted April 30th date become a reality.

 

[Mitchum]

Now to get whiny:
Hmm, it looks like your screenshots are slightly differently sized, so it's not easy to overlap them on top of each other on my screen for comparison's sake.

Oh, and the Forest type is different from the original screenshot, so again, it's tough to tell.

Plus, it's probably easier to tell in-game where you can move the viewing angle, adjust the zoom level, and change the Field of View slider.

I tried to get the two screens lined up as close as possible. The problem was that when I exited world builder, it centered on the active unit, so I had to manually move the screen over. In any event, you're correct in saying that nothing is better than opening the save and looking at it yourself.

By the way, I loaded the test game and moved the settler and warrior back and forth. I ended the turn and tried again. No matter what I did, neither unit could see the peak over the hill.

 

[Mitchum]

I'll run some tests tomorrow. I'll start with the three that Dhoomstriker suggested and post my results when I'm done.

Regarding BW, I'm okay not researching it right away. I just wouldn't want to delay it much longer than in Dhoomstrikers proposed tech path (Agriculture/Polytheism -> Polytheism/Agriculture -> Masonry -> Monotheism -> Priesthood -> Bronze Working).

Also, we need more people willing to open the save and help with fog gazing, run test games, offer opinions, etc. This is a team effort and the more we all contribute, the better we'll do. Even if your only comment is "I agree with what Mitchum said!", that's better than no comment at all. At least we know you're on board with the decisions being made.

 

[Mitchum]

FYI, some of the other teams have already started playing. I'm sure that we could make some good educated guesses about their games by checking out their scores, graphs, etc.

For example, no one has an upswing in their culture chart, which means that none of them have founded an early religion (although only three or four teams have made it far enough to do so). Does that mean that some have tried and failed? Or did they go Agriculture first? Or is there just not enough granularity between the save dates to figure anything out this early?

Check it out here: SGOTM Progress

Dhoomstriker, since you can't play the game where you are, can you spend a bit of time looking at the charts for any nuggets that could be useful for us?

 

[Irgy]

Re: Test Games
I don't particularly see the benefit of more sample games on the Poly vs Agri issue. A lot of the factors will be constant:
* We will get the worker to the corn in either 23 or 19 turns (depending on the move to the plains hill).
* Polytheism takes 18 turns, agriculture 13.
* Therefore we lose either 8 or 12 turns on the corn if we get Hindu
* In my 10 earlier test games, if we missed Hindu, it always went with either 3 turns or 1 turn to go. I don't think expect there's too many other possibilities. In that case we lose either 5 or 7 turns of corn settling in place, and either 9 or 11 turns on the plains hill.

For what it's worth, in the one test game I ran to look at the research times on epic, I researched Agriculture first, and still got Hinduism. It's only a sample size of 1, but it shows it is certainly possible. Admittedly in that same game we'd have got Buddhism only on a beeline however.

I honestly don't think running some number of turns of building arbitrary things is going to shed any light on the significance of losing X turns of corn. As a rough guide, the production + food yeild without improvements is 4, and with is 7, so missing corn for 7 turns is roughly equivalent to settling 4 turns later, at least in terms of development. Techwise it doesn't matter much early on, but eventually a delay in development eventually will become an almost equivalent delay in tech.

I think if we're going to run test games, we might as well wait until we know what squares are in the capital.

Re: Warrior move
I still think NW is the best direction to move the warrior, it reveals the most tiles, is the only direction with any chance of affecting the settling position, and moves away from the settler towards tiles that won't be revealed by border pops.

I also think that given we're unlikely to use any warrior information for the settling decision that it actually doesn't matter a great deal. We should decide soon so we can do it and get the game moving.

Re: Settling location
I still like the plains hill.
Pros:
* Worker 4 turns earlier, and therefore improved corn 4 turns earlier (fast worker means we can still improve the corn on the first worker turn). That puts us a couple of turns ahead in development.
* The earlier growth will catch up the 9 beakers of lost research before too long.
* We trade 7 tiles known to be resourceless (assuming the fogged tiles are forested grass hills as they appear to be) for 7 mystery tiles. This is a risk, but should be profitable on average.

Cons:
* Serious risk of a resource on the hill, which loses production long term and is a hassle if it's copper (though there's plenty of workarounds to that).
* We might not replace the three hills we lose, (although I'd be a little surprised).

I'm not that convinced either way, the development advantage is significant, and the two-hammer start will help even beyond the first worker build, but the resource risk worries me a little.

Re: Overall Strategy
I'm happy with the religeon chasing strategy as Dhoomstriker is proposing.

 

[BLubmuz]

Re: Test Games(...)Re: Overall Strategy
I'm happy with the religion chasing strategy as Dhoomstriker is proposing.

I think it can work, but we need to wait some TS before confirm it.

For the other points of your post:
I agree with your analysis and with your proposals.
Warrior NW, settler on the hill. We surely lose 1 turn, but the worker is anticipated, so it's not a lose.
If the settler does not reveal enough hills in BFC (and standing on a hill he should see all the BFC) we'll lose another turn settling on the starting forest or 1N of the hill.

It's an half bet. Better lose 1 more turn than complain later to have not lose that turn.

If we all agree on the warrior move, we can give Irgy a green light and wait for his screenie to move the settler. Please give your opinions, i would like to see this one move.

Fog gazing:
i accept bets for a tundra hill SE of the plains hill.

 

[Mitchum]

I decided to run the three test games even though Irgy thought that they were not necessary. Here were my results:

In all cases, I SIP and fortified the warrior in his starting location.

A] Polytheism (complete this tech for our test, but note the Hinduism date if we don't found Hinduism, just so that we can get a feel for the greatest delay to Agriculture) -> Agriculture; Worker -> Worker; Worker Mines the Plains Hills River square; Work a Corn until the Hills square is mined and then work the Hills square for better production of the 2nd Worker

T0 - Citizen to corn. Start worker. Set research to Polytheism
T6 - Meet Roosevelt
T13 - Meet Ramesses II. Buddhism FIADL
T18 - Finish Polytheism (founded Hinduism in capital). Set research to Agriculture.
T19 - Meet Boudica
T23 - Worker 1 completed. Start worker 2. Worker 1 starts mine.
T28 - Meet Zara Yaqob. Mine complete. Move citizen to mine.
T29 - Move worker to corn. Agriculture in 2 turns.
T31 - Finis Agriculture. Start Masonry. Worker starts farm.
T33 - Meet Stalin
T37 - Meet Justinian.
T38 - Farm done. Move citizen to corn.
T39 - Worker starts farm on second corn
T41 - Worker #2 done.
Stats: 157/186 beakers in Masonry. 1 Pop. 0F 0H. 1 farm, 1 mine and 1 partial farm. 2 workers. I'm not sure what the second worker will likely start mine, but after that, we'll have 2 idle workers. Maybe a warrior build rather than a second worker would have made more sense...

B] Agriculture -> Polytheism; Worker -> Warrior; Worker Irrigates the 2 Corns; Citizens work only the Corns, but if we haven't completed Polytheism by the time that our city is Size 3, complete that tech and have our citizens work whatever other squares you want--just say which squares they are

T0 - Citizen to corn. Start worker. Set research to AGriculuture.
T6 - Meet Roosevelt
T13 - Meet Ramesses II. Buddhism FIADL. Finish Agriculture. Set research to Polytheism.
T19 - Meet Boudica
T23 - Worker 1 completed. Start warrior. Worker 1 starts farm on corn
T24 - Meet Stalin
T26 - Hinduism FIADL (Ramsesses)
T30 - Farm completed
T31 - Finish Polytheism. Start Masonry. Worker starts farm on second corn.
T32 - Grow to 2. Citizens working improved corn and unimproved corn.
T38 - Grow to 3. Farm completed. Citizens on 2 improved corn + grassland river.
T39 - Move worker to hill.
T40 - Worker starts mine. Citizens on 2 improved corn and grassland forest (synchronize growth to 4 with completion of warrior).
T41 - Nothing
Stats: 166/186 beakers in Masonry. 3 Pop. 36/39F 21/22H. 2 farms. Partial mine. 1 worker. 1 warrior.

C] Polytheism (complete this tech for our test, but, as with Test Path A], note the Hinduism date if we don't found Hinduism, just so that we can get a feel for the greatest delay to Agriculture) -> Agriculture; Warrior -> Worker; Worker Irrigates the 2 Corns (part of this test confirms that Agriculture will be researched in time to do so, and if it isn't, by how many turns we need to wait before we can begin Irrigating--if it is many turns, then build a Mine first with the Worker); Grow to Size 2 before building the Worker (if the Warrior is not complete, build something else, or if the Warrior will be complete well after reaching Size 2, consider building something else like a partially-built Obelisk if we're going for Cultural or a partially-built Stonehenge for Hammer->Gold conversion if we're going for Diplo, so that we can switch to building the Worker immediately at Size 2); A citizen works a Corn to grow while building the Warrior and 2 Citizens work the 2 Corns when building the Worker

T0 - Citizen to corn. Start warrior (22 turns). Set research to Polytheism (11 turns)
T6 - Meet Roosevelt
T8 - Move citizen to hill to synch warrior with gowth
T11 - Move citizen back to corn.
T13 - Meet Ramesses II. Buddhism FIADL. Move citizen to grassland forest.
T14 - Move citizen back to corn (I may not have done this in the optimum way, but it did synch growth and warrior)
T15 - Warrior completed. Start worker. Grow to 2. Citizens on two corns.
T17 - Meet Boudica
T18 - Finish Polytheism (founded Hinduism in capital). Set research to Agriculture.
T24 - Meet Stalin
T29 - Finish Agriculture. Start Masonry.
T33 - Worker completed. Start warrior 2. Worker starts farm.
T40 - Farm done.
T41 - Worker starts second farm. Learned Masonry. Set research to Monotheism. Grow to 3.
Stats: 187/186 beakers in Masonry. 3 Pop. 1/39F 8/22H. 1 farm. Partial farm. 1 warrior. 1 worker.

Saves attached.

 

[Mitchum]

My thoughts are that option C (Polytheism first and warrior first) is the best of both worlds. Comparing it to option B (Agriculture first) We give up 35F and 13H for 21 beakers (presumably we get the extra beakers because many of the AI we had met already knew Agriculture when we started researching it, thus giving us a small bonus), a shot at founding an early religion and a second early warrior for scouting. Note that we are also behind by 10 worker turns.

Assuming we're going for a Diplomatic victory, I think that the chance of founding an early religion (and preventing an AI from getting it) outweighs the benefits of early Agriculture. Why? Preventing the AI from getting a religion gives us WAY more control when it comes to AI relations. If we can found all but Buddhism, we can better control who our friends will be and who our hated enemy will be. Ideally, Buddhism is founded on our same continent so that we can spread our religion of choice to the other "virgin" continent (assuming there are 2 or more continents).

In any event, the religious situation is typically the largest factor in a diplo game. It more often than not determines who will be friends and who will be enemies. I'd like to have as much control over this aspect of the game as possible.

On the other hand, if we're going for cultural, I prefer option B (Agriculture first). It's hard to effectively use more than 3 or 4 religions in a cultural victory and we will like found 2 or 3 of the later ones ourselves. We'd only need one to spread to us organically for a great culture game.

 

[BLubmuz]

Mitch, you've put good boys in your test (or you obtained them from the RNG).

Let's imagine this scenario:
- we're in our landmass with 1 or 2 AIs.
- The remaining 4 or 5 AIs are in a separate landmass, reachable only with Optics.
note: this is NOT a random generated fractal map, a SG map is usually heavy edited.
- some of the resources we need is in the other landmass (highly possible)
- they found only one religion: Buddhism, this will surely auto spread or be actively spreaded and they will form a compact, friendly block sharing the same religion.
- how do you think they will welcome us? i suspect they would hardly open their borders to us
- when we'll need to move war to have those resources (they're already trade them each other, no way to have them in trade), we'll surely face a compact block, making impossible to keep those resources long enough to win.

In all that nice scenario, what if they have 2 different religions? At least, they will be divided and easier to manipulate. At least, we have to fight 2 of them, not all of them.

Now, try to imagine to have some religious zealots in that pack: Izzy, Monty, Hatty, Justin, Brennus, pick your favourite(s) ...

First, how do you think you can beat an Emperor AI working one measly coin? An improved gold mine is what we need to manage this.

Then, there's the option to not settle in turn 0, which can be another handicap in founding a Hindu.

No thanks, i proposed this first, but now i changed my mind. Too many cons.

Can you please post your starting save? So we can use the same one for our tests.

 

[Mitchum]

Mitch, you've put good boys in your test (or you obtained them from the RNG).

I started a game without selecting the other AI, so they were randomly selected. I then regenerated the map until I got something close to our starting location so that I wouldn't have to change every single square in world builder. We could re-run a test where we select the other AI to be the worst case scenario (e.g Izzy, Monty, etc.) and see what happens.

- how do you think they will welcome us? i suspect they would hardly open their borders to us

In my diplo GOTM game, I had no problem getting open borders and trading with the other continent, even though we didn't share the same religion.

In all that nice scenario, what if they have 2 different religions? At least, they will be divided and easier to manipulate. At least, we have to fight 2 of them, not all of them.

This is an interesting thought. In this scenario with 2 religions on the other continent, we could declare on one AI (the one we want to be our enemy) and his religious friend will declare on us himself, so it would only count as one war declaration. Then we could bribe the other religious block to declare on the same AI(s) we're fighting, giving us a diplo bonus for mutual struggle. We could then beat these two AI down to one or two cities each. One of these guys would be our opponent for a diplo victory (we'd have to gift him back one of the cities we took from him after building the UN in it). He would be hated by all other than his one friend that is as small and weak as he is. We cruise to victory with the support of everyone else.

First, how do you think you can beat an Emperor AI working one measly coin? An improved gold mine is what we need to manage this.

The only way we would win the Hinduism race is if no other AI who starts with Mysticism goes for it.

Then, there's the option to not settle in turn 0, which can be another handicap in founding a Hindu.

Not true. If an AI beelines Hinduism and starts with Mysticism, we'll LOSE the race whether we start researching it on T0 or T1. If an AI does not beeline Hindusim, we'll WIN the race whether we start researching it on T0 or T1. Am I missing something?

No thanks, i proposed this first, but now i changed my mind. Too many cons.

I'm not sure that I understand this comment. Are you now saying that we should NOT chase an early religion? That we should not chase late-game religions?

Can you please post your starting save? So we can use the same one for our tests.

I used the same save that I posted here.

 

[BLubmuz]

I started a game without selecting the other AI...
sure, no sense in selecting just to try a start

In my diplo GOTM game, I had no problem getting open borders and trading with the other continent, even though we didn't share the same religion.
good to know. Who were the opponents?

This is an interesting thought. In this scenario with 2 religions on the other continent, we could declare on one AI (the one we want to be our enemy) and his religious friend will declare on us himself, so it would only count as one war declaration. Then we could bribe the other religious block to declare on the same AI(s) we're fighting, giving us a diplo bonus for mutual struggle. We could then beat these two AI down to one or two cities each. One of these guys would be our opponent for a diplo victory (we'd have to gift him back one of the cities we took from him after building the UN in it). He would be hated by all other than his one friend that is as small and weak as he is. We cruise to victory with the support of everyone else.

Nice... let's hope this will be the case.

The only way we would win the Hinduism race is if no other AI who starts with Mysticism goes for it.

Not true. If an AI beelines Hinduism and starts with Mysticism, we'll LOSE the race whether we start researching it on T0 or T1. If an AI does not beeline Hindusim, we'll WIN the race whether we start researching it on T0 or T1. Am I missing something?

It's what i meant: if there is (are) more than one AI starting with Mysticism, for some reason they will chase different religions. True that only Gandhi have Hinduism as favourite religion (he's the only one, even Asoka have Buddhism), but put in your test (or i can setup one) 3 AIs starting with Mysticism, possibly not financial. Then let's see what will happen.

I'm not sure that I understand this comment. Are you now saying that we should NOT chase an early religion? That we should not chase late-game religions?

I used the same save that I posted here.

I'm saying we should NOT chase a very early religion. Mono can be our first one. Then if there's a chance to have something better from the Oracle than Theo, we can see. Can we set turn 100 as a safe date? When we'll know more about the map (at least our BFC) we can discuss this. Now, it's time lost.

Thanks for the link, i've look for it, but it's probably buried under tons of posts.

 

[unclethrill]

BLubz beat me to the post. The biggest problems I see in the test for early religions is that if getting one of the early religions is a possible scenario, then we need to stack the opponents to several of the religious zealots. Based on the real games requirements, I will lay odds that at least 2 or three of the AI are religious zealots that will target the early religions.

Then next problem that I see is that if the AI splits the two early religions then we will likely have half the world Hindu and half Buddhist. If this is the case, diplo gets real hard real fast. This brings me back to the chance that a cultural may be the better choice.

For the current TS, I vote for the settler to move to the PH since that move is going to reveal enough of the map to help with the decision. The warrior move really doesn't bear on the settling position very much based on where he is. So I vote for:
1. Settler move to PH
2. Warrior move SW
3. Save and decide where to settle

 

[Mitchum]

In my diplo GOTM game, I had no problem getting open borders and trading with the other continent, even though we didn't share the same religion.
good to know. Who were the opponents?

On our starting continent was HC. On the other continent, which couldn't be reached until Optics were:

Peter (Buddhist and my competitor)
Hatty (Jewish founder, but I later converted her to Confucianism)
Mansa (Jewish but I later converted him to Confucianism)
Napoleon (Jewish but I later converted him to Confucianism)
Mao (Buddhist)

This game was the situation that you described. There were two separate religious blocks on the other continent and I threw my hat in with the Jews, who later saw the Confucian light...