SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Dhoomstriker]

Worker 1 will Mine the Copper starting on Turn 73

Spoiler :

Do we have decided if we mine that copper?

Mitchum reported that we would have time to do so without delaying our Oracle date, so yes, it is in the plan to Mine the Copper as our next Worker task.

Did you miss reading a page of messages somewhere?

 

[Mitchum]

Still, we have time for Alpha before Medi. Why not give our luck a chance?

Well, if we want to use the GPro that we'll have around T115 (thanks to the Oracle and temple you want to build so early), we'll need to know Meditation well before Alphabet, which likely won't come in until T130 or so.

Dehli:
- finish settler (1 turn)
- build worker
- build a warrior or happiness can be a problem. safety too.
- build a temple, with great care in chopping it the very last turn
- build the Oracle.
- take CoL. Game almost won.

No need to build a warrior in Delhi. Silverado was more than able to keep up with our warrior needs. Happiness won't be an issue in Delhi until after T90.

Please test building a temple before starting the Oracle. I'd like to know what impact it has on our completion date, which is currently at T93 and can likely be pulled in if we delay settling city 3 for a few turns.

 

[Mitchum]

OR:
3. Dhoom knows how to World-build in a Copper. Dhoom didn't want to bother bugging you to upload a new saved game just to add a single Resource that anyone doing any serious testing would be able to add in themselves. Perhaps the other person is in the same situation.

What??? I'm not the only one who knows how to use WB?

Seriously, if anyone sees an error in our test game, please let me know. It's best if everyone is using an accurate save.

 

[Mitchum]

Do we really have the time? I recall from havr's testing that in researching Meditation immediately after Writing, Meditation became a bottleneck for Lightbulbing. I.e. we got the Great Prophet before we could use it.

In addition, the sooner that we learn Theology, the sooner that:
1. we will keep the other AIs away from the religious techs that lead up to Theology and thus the longer it will take for them to research Monarchy and thus the longer it will take for them to reseach the dreaded Feudalism
2. we will have the ability to expand the borders of our 4th city
3. we will stop losing 1 Gold Per Turn from having an extra Great Prophet sitting around doing nothing
4. we can stop worrying about an overseas AI, such as Isabella, beating us to Christianity

I'm not sure if this will affect our decision, but Zara's favorite religion is Christianity. Would it make more sense to focus him in this direction from the start? If we instead try to get him to convert to som other religion, will he switch to Christianity right away if/when it organically spreads to him?

Regarding city #4, should we try to settle this city ASAP (potentially killing our research rate) or should we wait until a few turns before we plan to buld Theology?

I guess this is a loaded question since city 4 has so many variables including (but not limited to) whether we want it to be a blocking city or a city to capture stone for a run at the Pyramids.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Can we afford to Delay City 3? Where Louis Settled his City #2: SCREENSHOTS INCLUDED!

Spoiler :

Delaying City 3?

Will we benefit in getting The Oracle (by getting Writing) a bit faster if we delay settling City 3?

The rough answer is: yes, we can save a few turns on getting Writing and The Oracle by delaying the founding of City 3. I didn't try for efficient test runs, but a few turns of difference (say, 3 turns) was certainly possible.


What if Zara does as Louis did?
Well, Louis seems to want to settle his second city close to his capitol. I don't know, it could be that the AI is smart about Maintenance costs. It could also be that Louis realizes that the land to the west of him SUCKS.


I tried a few tests.

The first test was to see where he would settle if he self-built a Settler and we didn't build a City 3. He built the city to the north of his capitol.


The second test gave him a Settler and an Archer on his north west border (just inside of his cultural boundaries). He moved his Settler NE a couple of times and settled in the same location as the first test. Since it's in the same location, I'll only give one such screenshot:

The third test game him a Settler an Archer in the same spot (just inside of the NW edge of his cultural borders), but this time, I made his land to the north really barren, by removing Resources, Forests, and converting Grassland into Desert.

Still, he decided that he didn't care for the western Resources:

As a fourth test, I settled immediately in our Option e) location with a World-built Settler of our own, but otherwise the test was the same as the third test. Yet again, Louis stuck it close to his borders and pretty much ignored what was supposedly our "blocking" city:

As a fifth test, I made almost all of that land where he'd settled in the last couple of tests into Desert. Rather than settling by the Wheat or the Cow, he went SOUTH EAST! Ha! And that was without us even settling City 3.


Clearly, the land to his west (our east) is really bad and maybe we don't even want to settle it! HAHAHA! Maybe we should just send the Settler west while we have the chance... otherwise we might fall behind the other teams!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Info on Favourite Religions: They don't really seem to do anything at all, except when you enable teh "choose your Religion" game setting

Spoiler :

I'm not sure if this will affect our decision, but Zara's favorite religion is Christianity. Would it make more sense to focus him in this direction from the start? If we instead try to get him to convert to som other religion, will he switch to Christianity right away if/when it organically spreads to him?

Perhaps it is time to do some internet searching (either on the forums here or using your favourite search engine so that you get results from other Civ sites that I am not allowed to mention as per forum rules), to see what you can dig up on the effects of an AI's "favourite religion."

I don't even know if that part of the XML was used anywhere in the code, and if it was, how much of an impact it would have. I've certainly seen a Christian Saladin, even when he owned the Islamic Holy City.

A lot of factors weigh in as to which religion an AI chooses (the religion chosen by his or her neighbours has a big influence), so I'm not sure where or how much this particular XML variable of "FavoriteReligion" actually weighs in.


EDIT from here and below:
Someone made a Mod for Favourite Religions in Vanilla and Warlords, but then that guy apparently left the forums before BTS came out.

According to someone in that thread, while the Favourite Religion concept was added to BTS, it is very limited in its scope:

the built-in BtS version only effects what religion the leader chooses with the Choose Religion option (at least that's my impression). In this modcomp, it also effected diplomacy and, more importantly, likelihood of conversion when the favored religion entered the leader's land.

 

[havr]

OK, I finally got to work on this game... I started by reading all the posts. Pretty confused pretty hard to keep track of all the threads and details.

So... basically to prepare the short PPP for 1/3 TS I need to know: where exactly do we want to explore in 4 turns? What hidden square we need to know in order to plan the rest of the TS. Sorry... but I just lost track.

Regarding the issue of delaying city 3

I did some experiments on this ages ago. In my games delaying it can get us Oracle about 3-4 turns earlier.

 

[unclethrill]

Okay, so I finally got caught up.

I will not be able to run any tests until Saturday but here is my two cents:

1. We should definitely mine the copper
2. Meditation first. Alpha can wait.
3. City 3 needs to push as close to Zara as possible without it having Zara's capital culture encroaching
4. All cities to the west should wait until we have at least 2 cities to the east
5. As long as we can have the Oracle by T95, i think we shouldn't delay city 3 any longer than needed.
6. More later ...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

TURN 73 PPP

OK, I finally got to work on this game... I started by reading all the posts. Pretty confused pretty hard to keep track of all the threads and details.

So... basically to prepare the short PPP for 1/3 TS I need to know: where exactly do we want to explore in 4 turns? What hidden square we need to know in order to plan the rest of the TS. Sorry... but I just lost track.

Turn 73
0. Go back to the first page of our thread and make sure that you have set all of your BUFFY Settings (Ctrl + Alt + O) to match what is listed there. Also, confirm that you have set all of your Civ4 Options (Ctrl + O) to match what is listed there. EDIT: I have provided a link to the relevant message about game settings. There's one more setting that BLubmuz needs to update, about unit naming, as he said in his message that he uses the default but the default is wrong (he has since confirmed this fact later but did not update his original message on the first page).

EDIT: I went and figured out Unit Naming myself, since BLubmuz was having trouble getting it to work.
Under the Ctrl + Alt + O menu, select the "Unit Naming" tab. For the first entry, "Naming Convention: DEFAULT," set the value to:
^ut^ ^cnt[f]^ (^ct^)

Yeah, it looks crazy, but it works. Almost. The Settlers still need to be renamed, as they don't count our initial Settler as Settler 1. You also have to rename the existing units, as I indicated in the PPP. Oh well, it's better than having to rename ALL of our units from now on (Warrior 6, when it is built, should get automatically correctly named, plus it will say that the Warrior was built in Silverado). Maybe one of you "self-proclaimed programmers" can crack the key to getting the Settlers to be numbered the way that we want, too.

1. Click on the name of the Warrior in the far north-west. Name him "Warrior 1," but ask if you don't know how to do so. Wake him up. EDIT: Press the Spacebar to skip his turn
2. Click on Warrior 2 in the far south-west. Wake him up. EDIT: Press the Spacebar to skip his turn
3. Click on the Warrior to the north of Delhi (almost due north, but 1 square west of Delhi itself). Click on his name and name him "Warrior 3." Wake him up. Send him SE onto the Plains square
4. EDIT: Click on Warrior 4 in the far east. Wake him up. Send him 1SW onto the Grassland River
5. Click on the capitol and look inside of it. Ensure that we are still working: 2 Corns, the Mined Plains Hills River square, and the Irrigated Grassland River square. Really, there's nothing to do here, but you should look at this screen on a regular basis, just in case something changes.
6. Press the Right Arrow Key (not the one on the number pad, the one to the right of the Right-side Ctrl key on a standard-sized keyboard). Now you're in City 2. Ensure that we're still working the Silver. Really, there's nothing to do here, but you should look at this screen on a regular basis, just in case. Press the Esc key in order to get out of the screen without making any changes
EDIT: 7. Turn on yields for squares. Press the Ctrl + Y if they are not already enabled. You can toggle them on and off with this key combination. Look at the map around our cities. Ensure that the "bigger sized" yields are still the same as the squares that we are supposed to be working:
Delhi = 2 Corns, PHRiv Mine, and GRiv Irrigation
Silverado = Silver
8. Confirm that our Science Rate is set to 0% Science and 0% Espionage
9. Confirm that Priesthood is still being researched
EDIT: 10. Hover your mouse over Zara's name. Note how many Espionage points we have invested in him and how many he has invested in us. You'll be reporting this info back to the team in our thread.
11. Select Warrior 5 (if he isn't already selected). He's the guy to the E + E of Delhi. Move him 1NE onto the Plains Hills Forest square
12. Take a deep breath. EDIT: Look around and see if you missed anything. My biggest mistakes happen when I end the turn too quickly and then, just as the AIs' turns are processing, I think of something that I should have done... Press the Enter key to end the turn

To anybody: did I miss anything?

More turns to follow...

 

[havr]

OK, not as detailed as Dhoom you wrote it, but here is a plan for 3.5 turns.
I hope I got the place you wanted to explore right.

T73 - Science at 0%, North-Warrior waits for the barbarian to attack**, worker starts minning copper. Warrior 5 NE.
T74 - Science at 100%, Settler N->NE, start worker in Delhi and another warrior in Silverado. Warrior 5 E Warrior 6 NE (going west)
T75 - Warrior 5 NE, Warrior 6 NW, Hopefully North-Warrior (he lacks a name) heals and moves NE, Settler NW->NE only after N-Warrior sees land is clear.
T76 - Warrior 5 NE Stop mid turn.

This should give us most of the info on city possible city locations. See attached screen shot.

**) I know that Dhoom objected to this, but I saw other team members wanted this. Also, we are sending a settler that way. Too risky to let a rogue barbarian stay there.

 

[havr]

6. Press the Right Arrow Key (not the one on the number pad, the one to the right of the Right-side Ctrl key on a standard-sized keyboard).

I am using a laptop. Advanced techie that I am.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Reply to havr about the PPP

Spoiler :

OK, not as detailed as Dhoom you wrote it

EDIT: There are certainly some details missing in your plan. Some of them are movement related (such as moving our western fog-busters back in until Warrior 6 can get out there to support them), while other points are not movement related. Everything that I mentioned was important.

I did my best to detail how I think when I play. It's hard to detail a "thought" with just words as the communication tool, so the messages are thus going to be long. But, they capture everything that I thought should be done, while leaving the door open for others to suggest little details that I missed.

Warrior 3 Movement

Spoiler :

**) I know that Dhoom objected to this, but I saw other team members wanted this. Also, we are sending a settler that way. Too risky to let a rogue barbarian stay there.

This "rogue Barbarian" is weaker than a Bear. He's far weaker than the replacement Archer that will most certainly spawn in his place. He's nice to have around. He helps to fog-bust the "north-west of our capitol" area from further Archers spawning.

He will not enter our borders.

Killing the Barb Warrior WILL NOT give us a unit promotion.

Killing the Barb Warrior will VERY LIKELY wound our Warrior 3. Warrior 3 would then have to sit around healing instead of exploring to the north-east.

He may even kill Warrior 3, but even if Warrior 3 lives, we'd be better served by having a free, weak fog-buster out there for us, keeping the Barb Archers at bay.

Do you honestly disagree with this reasoning? If so, please state your reasons why.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Mouse-click-free play when Reviewing City Details' Screens: F10 + Right Arrow + Esc

Spoiler :

I am using a laptop. Advanced techie that I am.

Well open up a test game and see if you can "arrow over" to the next city. That way, you reduce the opening and closing of cities, often done by double-clicking on a city's name. With lag, this clicking is a time where a mis-click with a mouse can easily switch a citizen working a Corn into a Grey Citizen in the bottom right-hand corner that only produces 1 Hammer per turn. That kind of a mis-click would be a very bad thing to have happen.

EDIT: You can remove all clicking from the approach if you use BLubmuz' technique of pressing the F10 key (again, run a test game to confirm that it works) to open your capitol city's screen.

 

[havr]

I agree with your reasoning, and I am OK with it if that is what the team wants.

Just this:
With him around we should be extra careful with Settler movement. If he moves "wrong" we might even be forced to delay settling city 3 (something we may end up doing anyway for Oracle).

 

[havr]

Well open up a test game and see if you can "arrow over" to the next city. That way, you reduce the opening and closing of cities, often done by double-clicking on a city's name. With lag, this clicking is a time where a mis-click with a mouse can easily switch a citizen working a Corn into a Grey Citizen in the bottom right-hand corner that only produces 1 Hammer per turn. That kind of a mis-click would be a very bad thing to have happen.

EDIT: You can remove all clicking from the approach if you use BLubmuz' technique of pressing the F10 key (again, run a test game to confirm that it works) to open your capitol city's screen.

There is also the option to use the nice arrows on the top that some poor coder in Firaxis had to put in.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

TURN 74 and TURN 75 PPP
Turn 74
1. You have trained a Settler in Delhi. Select a Fast Worker as the next build item.
2. You have trained a Warrior in Silverado. Select a Warrior as the next build item.
3. Turn on yields for squares. Press the Ctrl + Y if they are not already enabled. You can toggle them on and off with this key combination. Look at the map around our cities. Ensure that the "bigger sized" yields are still the same as the squares that we are supposed to be working:
Delhi = 2 Corns, PHRiv Mine, and GRiv Irrigation
Silverado = Silver

This way, you won't have to "enter" each city on every turn, as long as the PPP details which turns you need to adjust what the cities are working.

4. Set the Science Rate to 100%. Confirm that Priesthood will be learned in 5 turns and that we have sufficient Gold saved up to cover this cost (the test game shows 21 Gold with -2 Gold Per Turn, but these numbers may or may not be slightly incorrect).
5. Hover your mouse over the Priesthood tech and see how many Flasks we have invested in the tech. Write this number down. You'll be reporting it back to the team in our thread.
6. Hover your mouse over Zara's name. Note how many Espionage points we have invested in him and how many he has invested in us. You'll be reporting this info back to the team in our thread.
7. Select Warrior 1 in the north-west and press the Spacebar to skip his turn. We can't afford to Fortify him, as a Barb Archer may now spawn in the west. If we kill off the Barb Warrior to our east, we will almost certainly spawn a Barb unit somewhere near us.
8. Select Warrior 2 in the far west and press the Spacebar to skip his turn.
9. EDIT: Now, it's time to decide what to do with Warrior 3. If the Barb Warrior is visible on the Desert Stone or on the Plains Forest 1E of the Desert Stone, then move Warrior 3 NE onto the GFor.

If the Barb Warrior is visible on the PFor to the E + E of the Desert Stone, or if the Barb Warrior is no longer visible, then EDIT: send Warrior 3 moves E onto the PHills square (with the expectation that a Barb Warrior won't yet enter our borders to attack us if he is to the NW of this square).


10. EDIT: Select Warrior 4. If no Barb units are visible to the east, send him 1S onto the western Grassland Hills square. If you do spot a Barb unit to the east, instead retreat him 1W onto the Grassland Hills Forest River square.
11. Select Warrior 5 and send him 1E onto the GFor
12. Select Warrior 6 that was just built in Silverado. If he's not named Warrior 6, then rename him to Warrior 6. Send him 1NE onto the GForRiv
13. Move Settler 3 (the one just built in Delhi). If he's not named Settler 3, rename him to that name. Send him 1N GCorn then 1NE GrassHillsFor

Turn 75
1. Check the Yields for both cities to ensure that the correct squares are still being worked. You never know, and it's so quick of a check that why not do it?
2. Leave Settler 3 in place for now, as you'll probably want to give us a screenshot after moving the Warriors. Don't skip his turn or anything, but don't move him yet, either.
3. Skip Warrior 1's turn if no Barbs are visible. Let us know if a Barb is visible.
4. Skip Warrior 2's turn if no Barbs are visible. Let us know if a Barb is visible.
5. Skip Warrior 4's turn if no Barbs are visible. Let us know if a Barb is visible.
6. Move Warrior 5 NE onto the Grassland River square. We'll want a screenshot of this area
7. If we moved Warrior 3 to the NE GFor last turn and he didn't die and he isn't wounded, then send him NE again, onto the GFor that is to the NW of the PlainsCow. EDIT: If we instead moved him E onto the Plains Hills square last turn, don't move him yet. If he is wounded or dead, let us know about it.
8. Hover your mouse over the Priesthood tech and see how many Flasks we have invested in the tech. Write this number down. You'll be reporting it back to the team in our thread.
9. Hover your mouse over Zara's name. Note how many Espionage points we have invested in him and how many he has invested in us. You'll be reporting this info back to the team in our thread.
10. Save the game. When saving the game, try never to save over top of an existing saved game. I have seen the game crash during the saving process. Doing so corrupts the previous saved game. So, be careful never to save over top of a similarly named game. If you receive a "Save Error" prompt that tells you that you are about to save over an existing saved game, cancel the action. Instead, save the game again, but this time, add a letter to the end of the saved game, if needed, such as "b," "c," or "d," etc.
11. Take some screenshots, particularly of the land uncovered to the east. Upload those screenshots
12. Write a message about anything intersting that you'd like to share. Include your relevant data, particularly that of the Priesthood values and Espionage values.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Movement for Warrior 3

Spoiler :

I agree with your reasoning, and I am OK with it if that is what the team wants.

The team is divided on the issue.
From what I have heard:
BLubz and Unclethrill want to fight the Barb Warrior

Mitchum and I want to leave the Barb Warrior alive

You seem content to leave the Barb Warrior alive, after having heard my reasons. BLubz or Unclethrill might have other reasons that might convince you otherwise. I'm not sure what Irgy wants to do.

IMPORTANT POINT FOR TURN 75, AFTER THE CURRENT PPP, ABOUT WHERE TO SEND SETTLER 3

Spoiler :

Just this:
With him around we should be extra careful with Settler movement. If he moves "wrong" we might even be forced to delay settling city 3 (something we may end up doing anyway for Oracle).

On Turn 75, after we've looked at the screenshot or screenshots, the safest move would be to send Settler 3 1NE, onto the Grassland Hills square, that is just SW of the Plains Cow square. That square puts us in a good position to soon settle many of the surrounding squares, while also unfogging the Oasis square, while also not being in danger from dying to a Barb unit.

 

[Mitchum]

Clearly, the land to his west (our east) is really bad and maybe we don't even want to settle it! HAHAHA! Maybe we should just send the Settler west while we have the chance... otherwise we might fall behind the other teams!

Thanks for running these tests!!

I hate to ask you to run another test, but since you're set up, what happens if you put some fish in the un-explored southern coast between us and Louis. Will he settler there? What if you put horses between our capitals (a resouce he can likely see but we can't)? What if you put a fish resouce near the wheat in the north. Will he go for that? Finally, what if you put something interesting in the fog just east of our proposed city e (something like gems or sugar)?

If he doesn't settle toward us by us putting something juicy just out of sight of what we've explored, then I'd say we don't really need to be too concerned about blocking Zara in our game. I still propose settling a "blocking" city near the cows as city 3, but I'd say we put city 4 in the best possible location, whether it's in the east or west.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Reducing Mouse Clicks when Viewing the City Details Screen

Spoiler :

There is also the option to use the nice arrows on the top that some poor coder in Firaxis had to put in.

That would involve another mouse click, though. The point was to reduce the amount of mouse clicking that had to occur when a city screen was open, in order to reduce possible mis-clicking mistakes. If that's all that you have available to you, then be sure to check the Yields on the main map after closing your cities, even on the turn where you were just looking inside of the cities. Actually, it's probably a good double-check to do that anyway (I do it). I'll go and add that point to Turn 73.

 

[Mitchum]

I agree with your reasoning, and I am OK with it if that is what the team wants.

I prefer to keep the barb warrior alive. He is currently doing more good than harm (the good he is doing has been mentioned a few times by Dhoom and myself). If we can avoid a fight, that is the best option at the moment in my opinion.