SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
BLubmuz
HoF Quattromaster
It's my same feeling: better a city for cows, INCENSE and the oasis and stone will follow.
This can better be done by the other warrior, now inside our borders. He can easily move on a hill and tell us what we need. Or we can risk the injured one, but i don't like this.
Anyway a city along the river is all but bad. No resources, but more than decent land.
I'm thinking to 1W of the injured warrior.
BLubmuz
HoF Quattromaster
It's an habit of this Team to post the link to the save.
But you can be right, since we're using lot of test saves. Anyone can easily DL the official save in the appropriate page. I remove the link now.
thanks to you too!
Mitchum
Deity
OK, I just looked at the save and saw something interesting. We have 276 espionage points on Zara and he only has 250 on us. This means that he is now assigning points to someone else, right?
BLubmuz
HoF Quattromaster
Good catch. I usually overlook espionage. Maybe an exploring WB? Or is our continent veeeeery long?
After we do one turn we should be able to see by how much the gap grows. We can then figure out how many turns ago he found that other emperor. This will give us a clue if this is a work-boat or a far away empire.
For example, if he is assigning 2 points per turn to us it means that he found out the other guy 13 turns ago. Now, Zara is pretty close so if that other guy should have gotten to us by now...
Or Blumbluz can bring up his auto-saves and check this issue.
I guess that if we think this is a work-boat we should try to get a one out too quickly to make contact.
Am I the next player? I will try not to ruin the good job you guys did. Luckily Dhoom is after me to correct any terrible mistake 
In any case I will start preparing a PPP once the test game is updated. Probably will be too late to do it tonight, and tomorrow I will not have time. So I will get to only on Wed.
Till when is my turn-set? Any specific goal that we should reach? I guess that Oracle at ~ T90 is the most major short term goal.
In any case I will start preparing a PPP once the test game is updated. Probably will be too late to do it tonight, and tomorrow I will not have time. So I will get to only on Wed.
Till when is my turn-set? Any specific goal that we should reach? I guess that Oracle at ~ T90 is the most major short term goal.
I agree too. We can settle 1NW of the cows. Once we get our third religion in Cow-town
its cultural border will grow to block the west from Zara. We just avoid OB with him to claim it. (or we sign OB and cancel when we see a settler walking through our peace-loving territory).Stones is important only when we want to build the Pyramids (if we really want to build them). That will take some time anyway.
Mitchum
Deity
BLubmuz, I just noticed something. I tried to re-create your moves and ended up with less beakers into PH but had 21 gold in the bank. Your save has 1 gold in the bank but more beakers into PH.
Did you set research to 0% the turn you learned BW? Or did it automatically get dropped to 90% or something by the game?
Did you set research to 0% the turn you learned BW? Or did it automatically get dropped to 90% or something by the game?
Good work Blubmuz.
AIs will not walk through your borders to settle even with open borders. They will send a galley around later on, but they won't walk through them.
I agree too. We can settle 1NW of the cows. Once we get our third religion in Cow-town
AIs will not walk through your borders to settle even with open borders. They will send a galley around later on, but they won't walk through them.
I actually remember seeing the AI do it once. Maybe this is a false memory...
Mitchum
Deity
BLubmuz
HoF Quattromaster
In my first full turn, after Mono was in, i has 3g in bank and was researching @100% -2. So, i left that.
Next turn i noticed i has 90% and 1 in the bank. Since i watched at the end of the turn, i don't remember anything i can have done.
Spoiler :
I suspect i made some mistake. Can you please verify (i'm goin' bed now) the difference anticipating the drop by 1 turn? Or try to reproduce the above.
Hard? just mouse over the research bar. I hope the above can help.
Mitchum
Deity
Yes, here is the problem. Research was set at 100% and -2, but there was not enough in the bank to cover it, so it must have dropped to 90% automatically.
Like a dummy, I played forward to T73 and then started modifying the WB save. I should have updated the WB save first and then played forward. That way, I could have played it forward in different ways to come up with the same outcome you had.
So... I'll have to update the map again in WB, starting on T60, and then play forward to T73. The save I uploaded should be close, but it's off by several beakers which could affect the turn we learn our next tech and/or the one after that. Use it for city placement and initial testing until I've had a chance to upload a new save...
Mitchum
Deity
Not true. On the turn after you learn a tech, you cannot tell exacly how many beakers have overflowed into the next tech. You can see the overflow in the research bar (brighter green rather than darker green), but when you hover over it, it shows 0 / XXX beakers.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
From all appearances, I would agree.
Still, I wonder about that Commerce discrepancy that Mitchum found... feel free to admit that you forgot to switch to Binary Science for a bit--it's easy enough to forget when you're having fun. As long as you remembered not too much later, the impact will be relatively small. EDIT: It looks like you already did in a cross-posted message, so no worries.
Also, I still wonder about Warrior 3 and why he didn't go 1SE onto the Grassland Hills square when he first spotted the Barb Warrior. That would have left the "relatively weak" Barb Warrior alive to help us fog-bust (compared to having a Barb Archer spawn in its place), while exploring along the Coast (our stated exploration path), also while leaving us the ability to "retreat" the next turn to a Forest to the west if the Barb Warrior followed us south, or allowing us to continue exploring along the Coast using the second Grassland Hills square if the Barb Warrior went anywhere else, keeping us relatively safe and giving us enough visibility to predict where the Barb Warrior would or wouldn't go next.
But, perhaps you decided to use the "strongest" defensive position (Hills + Forest + River bonus) and the silly Barb Warrior didn't take the bait (if he had attacked you there, I would have expected you to have healed inside of our borders if we were almost dead, or heal in place if we were only somewhat wounded, not to move further west while wounded, thus I have to surmise that the Barb Warrior did not fight you there and ended up attacking later on, as I trust you not to have played a really risky move of exploring with a wounded unit).
Note that I am not trying to pick on you. Instead, I am trying to offer possible suggestions to improve your gameplay, as well as possible reasons to justify the choicse that you made while offering you other options to pick from if you are faced with a similar situation in the future. If we aren't willing to examine our decisions with a critical eye, then we will never learn how to improve upon them.
So, overall, there's probably reasonable justification for your moves there (and lack of Coastal exploration as a result), thus, not a bad turnset indeed!
While I would not make so bold and absolute a statement as to say "won't," the AIs will tend to not want to settle in behind your closest city to them. My BOTM 26 game Replay that I previously linked demonstrates this hesitation on Zara's part.
City locations near the Cow (all of them also get the Oasis)
I heard two such locations mentioned:
a) 2N of the Plains Cow and 1SW + 1S of the Plains Wheat
b) 1 NW of the Plains Cow
Depending upon what's in the fog to the north of our eastern Warrior, I am going to propose several other possible options:
c) 1NE + 1N of the Plains Cow
d) 2E of the Plains Cow
e) 1SE of the Plains Cow
EDIT: Here's a screenshot to help you in visualizing these possible settling locations:
Analysis of these Cow + Oasis City Locations
Option a) is on a Plains Hills square, gets Fresh Water from the Oasis, and grabs the Plains Wheat square for 4F + 1H.
Option b) grabs 1 additional Grassland square, which could be Cottaged. However, I will warn you that two 3Food squares (the Cow + the Oasis) makes for a very slow-growing city, so likely, we'd have to irrigate one of the Grasslands, negating the ability to build an extra Cottage. This location WOULD allow us to work a Grassland Hills square, but is too weak Food-wise to really work a Plains Hills square as well, and would actually "max out" (stop growing) if working: Cow, Oasis, Grassland Irrigation, Grassland Hills, 2 x Plains Hills squares (Food = 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 0 + 0 = 10 + 2 for city centre = 12 = the 6 population points required to work all of thsoe squares). Option b) does not get a Fresh Water bonus.
Option c) is interesting, in that it gives us 2 Plains Hills squares to work, while Option a) only gives us one Plains Hills square to work (while also netting us the extra Hammer per turn by settling on one of the Plains Hills squares). Other than that, it's very similar to option a), except that there are 2 less Grassland squares that can be Cottaged, in exchange for some unknown (Desert? Flood Plains?) squares to the east. It also gets rid of one of the relatively useless (although better than a Desert) Coast squares that cannot benefit from a Lighthouse's extra Food. So, this option gets the same Fresh Water bonus and the same Wheat that come with option a).
Option d) leaves space for another city to grab the Wheat, as well as 1-2 Plains Hills square (depending upon where that other city gets settled), and the fact that this other city would be a Coastal City. In return for the Wheat, option d) picks up a bunch of hidden squares, two of which are Grassland River squares that may or may not have a Resource on them. We would still get the Fresh Water bonus and the Oasis, while the worst part could be that we might not get ANY Hills squares at all.
Option e) is actually a pretty decent spot. It grabs us 3 Grassland River squares, it lets us use 2 of those otherwise-useless Grassland Hills squares (some other city locations can use one of those, but not both, and Grassland Hills squares are CONSIDERABLY more valuable than Plains Hills squares for a Food-weak city), and there are even 2 other non-River Grassland squares that can be Cottaged, without having to "Steal" a potential Grassland Cottage square from our eventual Fish + Incense City, like Options a) and b) do. We will even get a Fresh Water bonus from the Lake. It almost looks like an intentionally-engineered location that is meant to allow us to settle a city there without Zara beating us to it. It is also a great "pillow City" (as much as I do not think we need to use this reason for building a City), as it only has 2 entrance points to defend and both of those squares are on flatland, meaning that Zara would have great difficulty in sieging that city without us being able to counter-attack his stack from safely behind our city walls*.
* EDIT: Note that when I say city walls, I don't mean the building "City Walls," but I do mean sending out a counter-offensive Catapult or two, plus Axemen or whatever units we have available, to attack an invading stack down to 1 remaining unit (all of our attackers would stay safely in the city, being defended by a non-attacking, Fortified unit). If we had a Chariot or Horse Archer, we could even attack that last unit and safely retreat in the same turn, as the terrain is flatland.
I should note that we are VERY UNLIKELY to actually have a citizen work any of those Incense squares. Desert Incense squares very weak on Food, so they are best worked by a city with excess Food that has "nothing better to do" with its excess Food. Thus, I would actually work 1-2 Incense squares in a city that grabs the Fish, but I think that we will work ZERO Incense squares in a Cow + Oasis City, except possibly option a), but even then, only late in the game once we've grown the city and are already working its Grassland Cottages and Plains Cottages. So, do not worry if our Cow + Oasis City grabs Incense, as for the majority of the game, this city WILL NOT have a good reason to work those Incense squares. The ONLY time we might justify working one of those squares would be if we could do so immediately, to help balance the city's early Maintenance costs--but we can't, as we don't have the required Calendar technology. So, kindly forget about using the Incense as a decision factor as to where to settle the Cow City.
Now, I will point out that most of those locations are going to be hard to defend. We really should consider using Silverado's Warrior as our 3rd western fog-buster, and allowing our original 3rd western fog-buster to go back towards the NE, to help us fog-bust for this new eastern city.
I am extremely hesitant to settle on the River to the east of our capitol without seeing an additional Resource there. Also, if there is a Seafood Resource, we might easily mess up a decent City location with a really bad one (we'd have to irrigate pretty much every Grassland River square if no Land Food Resource is revealed in order to grow the city enough to use its Hills squares). I don't know about you, but Irrigated Grassland River squares are much weaker in the long-run than Cottaged ones, so without a Food Resource there, I am extremely hesitant to try and "make" a City location "out of just about nothing." If it turns out that there is even just 1 Seafood Resource, then we can use some of the Grassland River squares in a Coastal City, while using the others for Option e) or Option d) for settling our 3rd City.
Stone City soon?
After building a blocking City to help block Zara, our next city is likely to go in the west. We seem to be in agreement to settle the Stone location for our City 4. If we REALLY, FOR CERTAIN want The Pyramids, then I would even go so far as to recommend that we settle the Stone City as City 3. Why?
If we go for the Stone, our borders will have time to expand and we'll be able to Quarry the Stone (that's the part that TAKES FOREVER--building a Quarry) ASAP. Roads don't take that long to build, but building Roads and a Quarry later on for City 4 might mean missing out on The Pyramids, as we would make our Worker actions the bottleneck to getting Stone.
Another advantage to settling the Stone City now is that it is quite well defended. Most of the "Blocking City" options are going to be next to impossible to defend. Only Option e), where we are already fog-busting the southern part of the city, and can fog-bust the rest of it with Warrior 5.
If we settle the Stone City, we alrady have a good idea of where to ideally place the city, and can get the rest of that info with Warrior 3. All eastern locations are pretty much guesses as to where the best spot to settle would be. Even Options a) and b), where we can see all of those City's fat crosses, may just "miss" a Resource by a square or two that might have been enough to make us settle somewhere else instead, like Option c). So, in the interest of getting a better-educated location in the east, we could settle the Stone City.
If we don't want to settle Stone City as City 3, then of the options available to us, only Option e) is safe enough of an eastern location for us to leave Warrior 3 fog-busting in the west. That said, we could still send Warrior 3 to the east anyway, using Warrior 6 (the new Warrior from Silverado) to take on the western fog-busting duty.
A note to everyone on expressing their City Location Preferences
Everyone is going to have an opinion, while there are a LOT of reasons floating around for why to settle where and when. So, PLEASE, when you express an opinion, try and list (or quote) the reasons why you feel a certain way. That way, if we have multiple differing opinions, we'll be able to better reach a compromise by trying to meet as many of your "important reasons" as possible, should we end up having to settle somewhere else than where you would ideally like us to settle. We can also have a better discussion this way, as we won't try to persuade each other for reasons that we don't feel are all that important. Cool?
Attachments
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Please make sure to update any pre-chopped squares to match where BLubmuz pre-chopped. You can find out where he pre-chopped by hovering your mouse over the appropriate Forest, as there will be hover text in a light blue colour over every square where a partial Worker improvement was performed.
BLubmuz, YOU DID PRE-CHOP DIDN'T YOU? Exactly as we agreed, right? Chopping the Forest to 1N of the Grassland River immediatly after Bronze Working came in, right?
Sigh, I opened up our team's official saved game and am disappointed to see that we lost an important Worker turn of Forest chopping that should have been used towards getting us The Oracle via chops. There is 100% evidence of why each and every Worker Move Needs To Be Described in our PPPs.
The only saving grace is that we only lost 1 turn, because you ended your turnset. No one discussed mining a Copper Resource. We had agreed to chop the Forest. Had you wanted to make a change to an agreed-upon decision, you should have spoken in the thread first.
What's worse is that you have "forced" the decision for us, instead of allowing a test game to determine if it is worth throwing away a Worker turn instead of getting 2 pre-chops on the way to the Copper or instead of delaying mining the Copper until after The Oracle is complete. Despite what you did, we might still not mine the Copper right away, if a test game supports doing more chopping first.
But what really gets to me is that you didn't move the Warrior after Bronze Working came in, but you did move the Worker. Why? I can only surmise that you consciously chose to override the team's decision. Why not wait for a test game to at least provide the best option?
I don't know, but I'm disappointed by this point.
Forgetting to switch our Science Rate is an honest mistake. Reducing our exploring in favour of keeping our Warriors alive is an agreed-upon strategy and I won't really hold that against you. This issue, however, is a clear choice to change what the team agreed upon. It's a trust issue. That's 10 times more of a disappointment than a mistake, as it means I can't trust a teammate to follow through on what they're supposed to do.
EDIT from here and below:
Spoiler The relevant messages :
Am I wrong to point this situation out? No one likes to throw around dirty words, including me. However, shouldn't we be accountable to our teammates?
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
One more point in favour of eastward exploration and settling to the east:
The lands to the west of Zara's capitol city's cultural borders are mostly fog-busted. Recall that unless there is a Forest or something to "block the view," cultural borders actually "fog-bust" two squares out from the edge of the cultural borders.
So, the area to the west of Zara's capitol is already well fog-busted. That would make it VERY safe (not 100%, but close to it) for our wounded Warrior to explore north for a square or two. That said, exploring with a wounded unit is just asking for trouble, and we'd be risking a Barb unit spawning in the southern area that he is currently fog-busting.
Thus, instead, I would move our Warrior that is already on the way east (Warrior 5) with confidence into that area, expecting to meet little Barb resistance. I.e. I would be confident sending him:
1NE PHFor, 1E GFor, 1NE GRiver (otherwise a dangerous, unexplored flatland square, but in this case, it is fog-busted already by Zara's borders), 1NE.
This path is a bit less risky than going 1NE PHFor, 1N PFor, 1NE P (not too risky), 1NE (a lot more risky).
Both paths reveal approximately the same amount of squares, while the one that I suggested tells us if any Resource is visible on one more of the Grassland River squares, in exchange for not immediately knowing what is E + E of the Oasis. This tradeoff is mitigated by the fact that we can find out what's E + E of the Oasis on the following turn, while still doing so a bit more safely, since we'll be next to Zara's passively-fog-busting borders.
With this knowledge, we'll have a really good idea if some of my suggested options, such as d) and e), are better or worse than settling at a location that grabs the Wheat.
I think that we'll still want to send Warrior 3 towards the NE, to help fog-bust, if we do want to consider picking one of the non-southern locations, i.e. a location other than d) or e). We might want to send him that way, anyway, just to reduce the chance of City 3 being sacked by a Barb Archer. Doing so would mean we'd have to send Warriors 1 and 2 back 1E, at least until we can get Warrior 6 up in place to help fog-bust the west.
In terms of going NE with Warrior 3, I would actually suggest that we first "dip into our cultural borders" by first going 1SE, as the Barb Warrior shouldn't be interested in entering our cultural borders just yet (i.e. he won't be allowed to enter them at this point of the game, since we have a small number of cities--as does Zara--and since there aren't a lot of nearby Barbs to have the required "large enough critical mass.") After entering our cultural borders, we can either go directly 1NE and then keep heading NE, or else "wait in place" for a couple of turns to hope that the Barb Warrior goes away before going NE.
EDIT: Just like keeping a Lion alive, keeping that northern Warrior alive is a Good Thing, as he acts as a free fog-buster for Barb Archers (or even Axemen, considering that Zara is also about to learn Bronze Working, meaning that many of the AIs might have already learned it or will do so soon... once all but 1 player knows Bronze Working, the Barbs automatically "know it," too, meaning that Barb Axemen are eligible to appear after that point).
Warrior 6 should go up around the east side of the Lake, rather than the west side of it, so as to save a turn on its way north (to see what I mean, note that Warrior 6 can get to the same Grassland Hills Forest square that is 1NW + N + N of Silverado one turn sooner by going east around the Lake than by going to the west around the Lake).
The lands to the west of Zara's capitol city's cultural borders are mostly fog-busted. Recall that unless there is a Forest or something to "block the view," cultural borders actually "fog-bust" two squares out from the edge of the cultural borders.
So, the area to the west of Zara's capitol is already well fog-busted. That would make it VERY safe (not 100%, but close to it) for our wounded Warrior to explore north for a square or two. That said, exploring with a wounded unit is just asking for trouble, and we'd be risking a Barb unit spawning in the southern area that he is currently fog-busting.
Thus, instead, I would move our Warrior that is already on the way east (Warrior 5) with confidence into that area, expecting to meet little Barb resistance. I.e. I would be confident sending him:
1NE PHFor, 1E GFor, 1NE GRiver (otherwise a dangerous, unexplored flatland square, but in this case, it is fog-busted already by Zara's borders), 1NE.
This path is a bit less risky than going 1NE PHFor, 1N PFor, 1NE P (not too risky), 1NE (a lot more risky).
Both paths reveal approximately the same amount of squares, while the one that I suggested tells us if any Resource is visible on one more of the Grassland River squares, in exchange for not immediately knowing what is E + E of the Oasis. This tradeoff is mitigated by the fact that we can find out what's E + E of the Oasis on the following turn, while still doing so a bit more safely, since we'll be next to Zara's passively-fog-busting borders.
With this knowledge, we'll have a really good idea if some of my suggested options, such as d) and e), are better or worse than settling at a location that grabs the Wheat.
I think that we'll still want to send Warrior 3 towards the NE, to help fog-bust, if we do want to consider picking one of the non-southern locations, i.e. a location other than d) or e). We might want to send him that way, anyway, just to reduce the chance of City 3 being sacked by a Barb Archer. Doing so would mean we'd have to send Warriors 1 and 2 back 1E, at least until we can get Warrior 6 up in place to help fog-bust the west.
In terms of going NE with Warrior 3, I would actually suggest that we first "dip into our cultural borders" by first going 1SE, as the Barb Warrior shouldn't be interested in entering our cultural borders just yet (i.e. he won't be allowed to enter them at this point of the game, since we have a small number of cities--as does Zara--and since there aren't a lot of nearby Barbs to have the required "large enough critical mass.") After entering our cultural borders, we can either go directly 1NE and then keep heading NE, or else "wait in place" for a couple of turns to hope that the Barb Warrior goes away before going NE.
EDIT: Just like keeping a Lion alive, keeping that northern Warrior alive is a Good Thing, as he acts as a free fog-buster for Barb Archers (or even Axemen, considering that Zara is also about to learn Bronze Working, meaning that many of the AIs might have already learned it or will do so soon... once all but 1 player knows Bronze Working, the Barbs automatically "know it," too, meaning that Barb Axemen are eligible to appear after that point).
Warrior 6 should go up around the east side of the Lake, rather than the west side of it, so as to save a turn on its way north (to see what I mean, note that Warrior 6 can get to the same Grassland Hills Forest square that is 1NW + N + N of Silverado one turn sooner by going east around the Lake than by going to the west around the Lake).
Mitchum
Deity
If I'm reading the autolog correctly and I evaluated the save properly, we just learned BW IBT T72 and T73. That means that chopping was not an option until just now. When I tried to recreate his turnset, I used binary research and got BW IBT T71 and T72 (1 turn earlier) with hardly any beakers to spare (I think this is when we were planning to get it according to the PPP as well). I can only surmise that the one turn at 90% delayed BW by 1 turn, but it must have only been 1 or 2 beakers short.
I will try to recreate the save and see if I can come up with the same results from our real game.
Similar threads
