SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

Oracle Options(...)
Monarchy from The Oracle?
Soo... as our only alternative, we're looking at pushing the REX envelope with Monarchy from The Oracle, which, by the way, denies The Oracle to the AIs.

Monarchy DOES open up Divine Right, in case we wanted to Lightbulb it later, but that's probably only going to happen if we keep spawning Great Prophets by accident.

We can also afford to settle our City 2 and City 3 locations where we'd like, as we won't care that much about the extra Commerce. That said, it would still be safest to get the Silver or another mineable Resouce, in order to get Bronze Working and Priesthood out a bit sooner.

Xpost...
If we need a plan B for the Oracle, i think MC is the best choice.
Pottery is a lot cheaper than writing and a lot more useful than Monarchy.

Edit: sorry, i jumped to this paragraph and read only now your resoning for wheel/pottery. It's right, those 2 roughly equals writing. But please see my previous post about the wheel.

 

[unclethrill]

I would rather have Theo but Monarchy is better than a lost oracle.

 

[BLubmuz]

I would rather have Theo but Monarchy is better than a lost oracle.

Something is better than nothing
UT, can you test including the wheel in the research? just to see if i'm out or in.
But with the commerce poor location we have even 2 commerce can help. Maybe.

 

[Mitchum]

OK. I just ran a test and here is what happened:

Standard start per Dhoomstriker's Plan C.
T15 - Forest grew 2S of capital, which won't allow me to build a farm there any more.
T54 - Settle Bombay near silver. Silver is already within cultural borders of capital. Worker is building mine on it. As soon as the mine was built, a citizen worked that tile non-stop, stunting growth. Bombay built a warrior and then a worker.
T71 - Barb archers everywhere but none have entered our borders yet. Lost a warrior to an archer.
T72 - BW -> Priesthood. There is copper in the plains hill, which I remove via World Builder.
T75 - Vijayanagara founded 4 tiles from capital. -8 commerce at 100% research IIRC.
T77 - PH -> Writing (15 turns)
T81 - Two Organized Religion chops into the Oracle. Writing in 11. Oracle in 10. Grow in 6.
T94 - Oracle completed. Theology is mine. 3 cities, 1 religion each.

I have 5 warriors (1 was killed), 3 workers, 1 Christian missionary, Oracle, 3 farms, 2 mines.

Only two chops were required for the Oracle, perserving forest for a REX phase if we want to start one now. Cities had to be placed nearby to reduce maintenance.

I ran this test in less than 10 minutes (this writeup took longer than playing the game), so it was very sub-optimal. I just wanted to see if the silver would allow the Theology sling, which it does. My guess is we could possibly pull it off by T93 with optimal play, but science was the limiting factor for sure. It may be a good idea to get the silver mine on line a turn or two earlier, which could pull in our completion date bit.

So, is the Theology sling worth compromising our early city placement?

 

[Mitchum]

I just checked world builder the turn before completing the Oracle and not a single AI had even started the Oracle yet...

Obviously, it will be different depending on which AI are in our game.

In any event, I feel that T94 is safe, but it's on the edge.

 

[unclethrill]

Something is better than nothing
UT, can you test including the wheel in the research? just to see if i'm out or in.
But with the commerce poor location we have even 2 commerce can help. Maybe.

I will include this scenario in my tests but the significance of the wheel will depend on what Irgy discovers during his TS. If there are no resources that need to be hooked up then the wheel loses it's value for these tests.

 

[unclethrill]

I just checked world builder the turn before completing the Oracle and not a single AI had even started the Oracle yet...

Obviously, it will be different depending on which AI are in our game.

In any event, I feel that T94 is safe, but it's on the edge.

While my map is not nearly as good as yours is, I have a bunch of religion chasers in the test save I used. I figure this is a good worst case scenario for what we are testing here.

Until we know who we are up against, when you update your save to match what Irgy sees, can you change the AI to include Izzy, Monty, Saladin, Justin, Brennus, & Hatty.
These guys all chase religions and religious wonders so if our tests show that we can beat this group to the early goals then we should be set in the actual game

 

[BLubmuz]

I will include this scenario in my tests but the significance of the wheel will depend on what Irgy discovers during his TS. If there are no resources that need to be hooked up then the wheel loses it's value for these tests.

Sure, but my main interst is in the trade routes.
i. e. if we delay the Oracle 1-2 turn(s) but with one more tech in the bag and our cities connected it can be worth.

No more than that. Watch your email.

 

[Irgy]

Ok people, we have ourselves a situation.

Spoiler :

I see two key options. Fortify in place, or move NE. Running to the SW could work in theory, but I'd have to come out eventually, and when I do I'll probably find a bear. Not to mention it could just as easily corner me as well.

One absolutely critical question: If I click fortify this turn, do I get the 5% bonus in time or not?

If so, the increase in odds for 3.1 (2 + 55% for forest and fortify) vs 3 as opposed to 3 vs 3 is huge, and that's clearly the best option. If not, I might was well just keep moving, to see at least a few more tiles before I die (or to not waste a turn if I survive).

 

[Mitchum]

Thanks for stopping to get feedback. If it were just my game, I would fortify and hope for the best. Animal strength is -10% and attack probability is 90% on Emperor, AFAIK. So the bear's strength is actually 2.7. I guess you could tell for sure by seeing what your attack odds would be if you did attack the bear (don't do it though).

Best wait for an hour or two (or longer?) for more feedback.

 

[Mitchum]

It looks like we can seal off that western peninsula from the AI quite easily, which is good. We won't have Animal Husbandry or Fishing for some time, so cities settled out there wouldn't be too useful in the short term.

 

[Irgy]

Ok, I did an experiment. You do not get the fortify bonus in time. There is however a 10% bonus vs animals on emporer (according to the combat log), so we're in with a chance. There's no point staying where we are then, the best chance to escape is to move NE and our survival chance is just as good there. Wish me luck...

 

[Mitchum]

Dhoomstriker said something about assigning 100% espionage to the first civ we meet. It's automatically at 100%, so I'm not sure what the benefit is.

BTW, can you tell by looking at the espionage screen if Zara has met another civ besides us?

1000 posts!!!

 

[unclethrill]

Good luck with that bear! Got my fingers crossed

 

[unclethrill]

Dhoomstriker said something about assigning 100% espionage to the first civ we meet. It's automatically at 100%, so I'm not sure what the benefit is.

BTW, can you tell by looking at the espionage screen if Zara has met another civ besides us?

1000 posts!!!

I think the reasoning is that as soon as more are met, it will automatically spread espionage across all AI evenly but if we manually set it to 100% for Zara then it will stay that way until we change it.

 

[Mitchum]

I think the reasoning is that as soon as more are met, it will automatically spread espionage across all AI evenly but if we manually set it to 100% for Zara then it will stay that way until we change it.

Yes, I understand the mechanics of how it works. I guess I wasn't clear. I'm not sure why we would want to focus all of them on the first AI we meet just because they happened to be the first. As far as I know, we haven't really included espionage in our strategy discussions. How does the up player know whether or not to adjust the percentage once the second AI is met and how does he pick which one to focus on?

This may be something we need to discuss after Irgy's turnset.

 

[Mitchum]

We're the last team to play our first turnset... Is anyone surprised?

I just looked at Phoenix Risings score and power graph. They obviously learned BW between T34 and T35 (look at their power spike).

The only reason why I can think that they would stop after 1 turn (they posted a save on T34 and then again on T35) is that they settled on top of copper... which means they can no longer build warriors.... They will be able to do so once they research Alphabet, connect to an AI that doesn't have copper and then gift their own copper to another AI, but that won't be for a long time. They could also settle a remote city and build a warrior in it. (Note: Dhoom, did you say PR was one of the teams that settled on T1)?

I guess they could have stopped on T35 to figure out where they were going to settle their second city close to a nearby copper source, but their first settler shouldn't be out until T50 or so.

I have a very strong feeling that there is copper in that plains hill. That means we should do our best to slot in BW before PH. The sooner we get that extra hammer bonus, the sooner we can "catch up" to the bonus teams got for settling on the plains hill. We'll also want to have 5 or 6 warriors built by this time.

 

[unclethrill]

We're the last team to play our first turnset... Is anyone surprised?

I just looked at Phoenix Risings score and power graph. They obviously learned BW between T34 and T35 (look at their power spike).

The only reason why I can think that they would stop after 1 turn (they posted a save on T34 and then again on T35) is that they settled on top of copper... which means they can no longer build warriors.... They will be able to do so once they research Alphabet, connect to an AI that doesn't have copper and then gift their own copper to another AI, but that won't be for a long time. They could also settle a remote city and build a warrior in it. (Note: Dhoom, did you say PR was one of the teams that settled on T1)?

I guess they could have stopped on T35 to figure out where they were going to settle their second city close to a nearby copper source, but their first settler shouldn't be out until T50 or so.

I have a very strong feeling that there is copper in that plains hill. That means we should do our best to slot in BW before PH. The sooner we get that extra hammer bonus, the sooner we can "catch up" to the bonus teams got for settling on the plains hill. We'll also want to have 5 or 6 warriors built by this time.

While that is a likely scenario, they may have moved and settled 1NW and this could be the copper or for that matter with a heavily modified map, there is a chance that there is copper under us.

 

[havr]

OK. I just ran a test and here is what happened:

Standard start per Dhoomstriker's Plan C.
T15 - Forest grew 2S of capital, which won't allow me to build a farm there any more.
T54 - Settle Bombay near silver. Silver is already within cultural borders of capital. Worker is building mine on it. As soon as the mine was built, a citizen worked that tile non-stop, stunting growth. Bombay built a warrior and then a worker.
T71 - Barb archers everywhere but none have entered our borders yet. Lost a warrior to an archer.
T72 - BW -> Priesthood. There is copper in the plains hill, which I remove via World Builder.
T75 - Vijayanagara founded 4 tiles from capital. -8 commerce at 100% research IIRC.
T77 - PH -> Writing (15 turns)
T81 - Two Organized Religion chops into the Oracle. Writing in 11. Oracle in 10. Grow in 6.
T94 - Oracle completed. Theology is mine. 3 cities, 1 religion each.

I have 5 warriors (1 was killed), 3 workers, 1 Christian missionary, Oracle, 3 farms, 2 mines.

Only two chops were required for the Oracle, perserving forest for a REX phase if we want to start one now. Cities had to be placed nearby to reduce maintenance.

I ran this test in less than 10 minutes (this writeup took longer than playing the game), so it was very sub-optimal. I just wanted to see if the silver would allow the Theology sling, which it does. My guess is we could possibly pull it off by T93 with optimal play, but science was the limiting factor for sure. It may be a good idea to get the silver mine on line a turn or two earlier, which could pull in our completion date bit.

So, is the Theology sling worth compromising our early city placement?

I ran a small test too.
You can get Oracle by turn 90, if you delay building the third city to right before you get Oracle+Writing (which you get at the same turn using choping). This works even if that third city is very far. You have to prepare the settler, of course, but not use it.

The tradeoff:
+ better city placement
+ earlier oracle -> earlier great prophet, good for the 4th religion or a shrine
- City 3 is built later

 

[unclethrill]

I ran a small test too.
You can get Oracle by turn 90, if you delay building the third city to right before you get Oracle+Writing (which you get at the same turn using choping). This works even if that third city is very far. You have to prepare the settler, of course, but not use it.

The tradeoff:
+ better city placement
+ earlier oracle
- City 3 is built later.

Interesting. I'll have to try that. Where did you settle city 2?