SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Dhoomstriker]

Test Game Details about where Louis Settles his City #2

Spoiler :

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?

I even gave him an Archer down there, in case he hadn't seen the Fish (multiple Fish, by the way!). The jerk still settled to the north in the same location as he had been settling in the other "barren land to the north" tests.

I then deleted his Settler and Archer that I'd given him and he went SE with his self-built Settler.

I'll attach the saved game from the starting point.

Back to the drawing board... I'll have to make the SE really suck, as well, and then try out more of your other suggestions, as well.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Test Game Details discussing where Louis settles his City #2

Spoiler :

What's clear is that Louis loves that Grassland Forest Spice to the NW of his capitol. He'll do just about anything to settle City 2 with it in his borders.

I'm bored with testing, but if you want to do more, say from my test game or by editing our "main" test saved game, then I suggest that you remove that Spice.

If I put in a Horse Resource on a River, he'll get that Spice and the Horse. He pretty much ignored Seafood to the north and south.

If that Spice isn't there, I don't know what differences the AI will make in city settling locations, but a Horse + a Spice WAS enough to get him to settle a bit to the west of his capitol (although still really close to his capitol itself).


As soon as he learned Alphabet (or got it in trade), his tech pace suddenly took off. Possibly because he started trading around.

A caution about using our Test Game in regards to the Writing Tech
In our test game, though, Louis WILL learn Writing, while Zara probably won't do so before us (unless he knows it already), so, our test game will be "off" in terms of when Writing can come in.

 

[Mitchum]

I'm bored with testing, but if you want to do more, say from my test game or by editing our "main" test saved game, then I suggest that you remove that Spice.

Yes, it's doesn't take long to get bored of testing the same thing with slightly different veriables...

I don't think we need to do too much more testing. There are too many variables in this test game that are different than the actual game (i.e. spices, land to Zara's SW that we can't see, etc.). The point is, I think we'd be the safest to settle near the cows knowing that Zara will not likely settle on the coast (north or south) unless the land to his east is really bad (something that we won't know for a long time).

To be safe, I don't want to delay settling city 3 too long. Maybe just long enough to shave 1 or 2 turns off of Writing at the most. There could be a horse resouce near the cows that we can't see yet and Zara could move and plant a settler before we know what happened.

Sorry if there are any typos or gross errors above. I just finished lifting and my hands and arms are still shaking...

 

[Mitchum]

It looks like the Plastic Ducks just finished a wonder between T82 and T88. Their culture graph spiked up way faster than it would had they founded a religion. If Oracle, it was likely a Metal Casting sling since it would have been tough for them to have researched both BW and Writing already.

As Dhoomstriker pointed out, One Short Straw likely finished the Oracle between T93 and T100.

Note that only 3 teams are futher along in this game than we are. Every other team shot out of the gate quickly. Now, they are likely debating their strategies or they are running into issues. Barbs, anyone?

 

[Irgy]

Re: Temple Overflow

I think BLuBMuZ was suggesting (at some point about a page back now) gaining from the temple double-speed bonus by overflowing twice as many hammers from a chop. This could be combined with the concept of using non-wonders to indirectly whip wonders without the wonder-whip-penalty.

However, from what I remember, one of the patches 'fixed' double-hammer-overflow. By which I mean, if you have what appears to be 20 hammers of overflow from a building with a 100% bonus, you now actually only get 10 raw hammers overflowed into the next buildling. It would certainly be broken otherwise, you could get 10 raw hammers, doubled to 20 overflow, doubled again to 40 hammers in the next building and so on. A test game could easily confirm/deny this (I can't from here at work).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Temple Overflow generally Doesn't Work Well for a Spiritual Civ

Spoiler :

Re: Temple Overflow

I think BLuBMuZ was suggesting (at some point about a page back now) gaining from the temple double-speed bonus by overflowing twice as many hammers from a chop.

If that's the case, then what he is suggesting does not work.

In fact, the opposite happens.


A Baseline Example
Let me give a baseline overflow example that gets capped off.

A Warrior costs 22 Hammers. Whipping will give you 45 Hammers.

If you play foolishly and whip the Warrior with 0 Hammers invested into it, you will only get 30 Hammers. That's like getting a pre-Math chop when you already know Math: a pretty bad thing. In this example, assume that our city is working Food + Commerce squares, such that the only Hammer is produced (the Hammer from the City's centre square). So, we'd have 30 + 1 = 31 Hammers - 22 Hammers = 9 Hammers of overflow.

That seems pretty straight-forward.


Now, let's complicate things with reality.

Overflow is capped at THE COST of the current item being built. Again, that sounds pretty straight-forward.

Let's use our Warrior example again, but this time, we'll build the Warrior for 1 turn. Again, we're just going to work squares with our citizens that give us Food + Commerce, so the only Hammer that we'll get is from the City's centre square.

After one turn, we'll have 0 + 1 = 1 Hammer invested in the Warrior. Very simple stuff.

Now, on turn 2, let's whip. This time, since at least 1 Hammer was invested in the Warrior, we will get the full value of a whipped person: 45 Hammers.
1 + 45 = 46 Hammers.

Now, how many Hammers will overflow? 46 - 22 = 24 Hammers. So, we'll get 24 Hammers in our next item in the build queue, right? No! The "capping" maximizes out at the cost of the current unit being built. The current unit being built has a cost of 22 Hammers. So, since 24 > 22, 22 is used as the overflow value. What happens to those extra 2 Hammers, 24 - 22 = 2? They get lost permanently. Gone. Vanished. Caput!



Okay, that's fine, it was only 2 Hammers. We can live with that amount. If you need to whip 2 Warriors quickly, you can invest 1 Hammer for 1 turn and then get 1 fully-produced Warrior.

The next turn, you will get 22 Hammers of overflow + 1 Hammer from the City's center, giving you 23/22 Hammers in the Warrior. That'll give you a second Warrior, with 23 - 22 = 1 Hammer of overflow. Very basic stuff. 2 Warriors can hopefully fend off whatever Barb unit was thrown at you. Had you "waited" until the last moment to whip, such that you had to whip when you only had 0 Hammers invested in the Warrior, you'd only have gotten 30 - 22 = 8 Hammers of overflow into the second Warrior. If the first Warrior had died, you'd be crying. So, don't whip an item that has 0 Hammers invested in it!


The Temple Example
What was the point of all of that talk? Get on with the lesson, already!

You'll quickly see that this info was useful.

Let's throw multiple factors into the mix.

Let's say that you have a Temple which costs 120 Hammers. If you whip the Temple and chop a bunch of Forests, such that you will have 240 Hammers, you'll complete the Temple and get 120 Hammers in overflow, right? Right? Ummm, I hate to break it to you, but, maybe not right.

You see, if you are Spiritual, the actual Hammers that you need to invest comes to 60 Hammers. So, if you've got 240 Hammers invested, 60 will be used up to complete the Temple. 120 Hammers will overflow, though, right? Nope! Only 60, the cost to YOU, will overflow. Yikes! You just wasted 240 - 60 - 60 = 120 Hammers THAT CANNOT BE RECOVERED! They are GONE FOREVER! Oops!


Now, let's complicate things further. What if you had a Forge. Or, instead of a Forge, you were running Organized Religion and the current city had your State Religion in it. Well, it wouldn't cost you as many base Hammers to complete the Temple.

In fact, it would cost you exactly:
120 Hammers / 2.25 = 53.33 Hammers to complete the Temple. The game probably charges you 54 Hammers, but it's hard to tell.

What is easier to tell is how much overflow you get, as you can see the integer value on the next turn. So, how much overflow will you get as a Spiritual Leader who is running Organized Religion with their State Religion in the city?

Assuming that you chopped a ton of Forests, such that you once again have 240 Hammers invested into the Temple, the overflow will be calculated as: 120 Hammers / 2.25 = 53.33, which gets floored down to 53 Hammers.

So, now, you've invested 240 Hammers, while only getting 240 - 54 (or 53, hard to say) for the Temple - 53 overflow = 133 to 134 Hammers WASTED! Gone! Gone forever! Never to return!


Summary
So, that's why it is a VERY BAD IDEA to try and overflow from a Temple into another building with a Forest chop--we'll probably almost certainly waste Hammers, instead of gain them.


Confusing Display
Now, the further truth is that the DISPLAY is confusing. If you'd actually invested 240 Hammers, they would appear as 240 * 2.25 = 540 Hammers, of which only 53 would overflow.

So, it is hard to tell with these Temples exactly how much overflow you are going to get. It doesn't help that some values get floored differently from what's displayed.


When should we whip a Temple then?
If we want to whip a Temple as a Spiritual Leader running Organized Religion, the best time to do so would be after only a couple of turn after you invested some Hammers into it, or as few as 1 turn of Hammers invested into it. Say, that we'd invested 9 Hammers on our first turn (from working the City Centre, the Grassland Copper, and the Plains Hills River square) which got multiplied by the 2.25 bonus to equal 20.25, which gets floored to 20 Hammers.


On the next turn, you'd see 20/120 Hammers invested. Whipping 1 population point would list us as having 121/120 Hammers invested. Assume that we are still making those same 9 Hammers, which gets displayed as putting 20 more Hammers into the Temple.

On the next turn, we'd only get 9 Hammers of overflow. Shouldn't it have been 10 Hammers? Well, that's where things with floors aren't accurate between the values displayed and the actual values that get calcuated behind the scenes. Ah, well, a loss of 1 Hammer that we thought we had but really didn't have isn't a big deal.

So basically, you can whip a Temple at any time, but if you whip it when it is almost complete, and if your citizens are working Hammer-heavy squares, you might not get all of the extra Hammers overflowing. No real difference from whipping any other building, actually.


So, what's the big deal? Well, we don't want to CHOP into our Temples, if we can help it, as that huge excess of production all at once, especially when the Temple is almost complete, can easily work out to a loss of Hammers, due to the overflow capping effect being combined with the capping effecting taking into account production bonuses (a max overflow of 53 Hammers on a 120 Hammer item isn't a lot of overflow--that's almost a full Mathematics-based Forest chop!).

Final Summary
Don't chop a Forest into a Temple if you are a Spiritual Leader, unless you perform the chop on the first turn or two of building the Temple.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Debating where to put City 3: To the east, to the west, or delaying it for a Faster Oracle Date

Spoiler :

To be safe, I don't want to delay settling city 3 too long. Maybe just long enough to shave 1 or 2 turns off of Writing at the most. There could be a horse resouce near the cows that we can't see yet and Zara could move and plant a settler before we know what happened.

Okay, well it seems that many people on the team are still set on settling east, so moving the Settler north (instead of west) seems to be the way to go.

I'd be just as happy to settle a Stone + Marble city, as we'll actually be able to improve the Marble (as a square to work) while we won't be able to improve the Cow (except to Irrigate it) for a long time. That said, with the CHANCE of something nice appearing on those Grassland River squares, plus the CHANCE of scaring Zara away from his western (our eastern) settling locations, I won't push to settle our 3rd City to our west.


We also seem to be relatively agreed to settle a Cow + Oasis City, but WHICH location to pick of the 6 locations listed is still up for debate.


Hopfully, the turnset for Turns 73, 74, and part of 75 will give us enough info to be able to decide.

If not, we might need to complete Turn 75 and partially perform Turn 76, to get that tiny bit of extra info from Warrior 5 near Zara's western border to make the final decision.


The longer that we delay settling, the greater the CHANCE that Zara COULD beat us to a location. However, the longer that we delay settling, the greater the possibility of us grabbing The Oracle and Confuciniasm before any of the AIs, thus "solidifying our win," according to BLubmuz.

I think that missing the ideal site for the Cow City would be an acceptable compromise, as we can always "fall back" to one of the western Cow + Oasis City locations (1NW or 1W of the Cow, for example), if our more eastward push is interupted by Zara settling. We might even eventually culturally flip his city this way, should he even BOTHER to settle in the (very poor) land to the west of his capitol.


I DO fear us losing either The Oracle or Code of Laws, as Louis beat us to both in our test game, around Turn 87. Just because another SGOTM team got a Wonder a bit later doesn't mean that we'll get the same situation--a lot of random factors affect when an AI builds a Wonder. So, I would be happy with having a Settler in place, enough to spot Zara from settling most city sites that would "mess up" our settling, without actually sitting down for a while. Worst case (which may quickly work out to the best case), we'll be able to settle exaclty 3 squares away from his city, get Confucianism for sure by keeping our tech rate high by not settling, and then settling when Writing is almost complete in order to get Confucianism in that city, hopefully eventually culturally capturing Zara's city (which could be kept or disbanded, however we saw best).


So, to me, it is a PRIORITY to get our Settler 3 near where we want him to settle, but it doesn't have to be settled until we fear Zara stealing our best spots, and even then, we can risk letting him take the spot, only to culturally capture the city a bit later, when we can afford his city's added Maintenance to our empire.

 

[Mitchum]

It looks like the Plastic Ducks just finished a wonder between T82 and T88. Their culture graph spiked up way faster than it would had they founded a religion. If Oracle, it was likely a Metal Casting sling since it would have been tough for them to have researched both BW and Writing already.

Actually, Metal Casting increases power by 4K and it looks like their power only went up 1 K. They may have whipped two pops and lost a warrior, but I doubt it. Maybe they built another wonder...

Anyway, I just thought I'd point that out.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Checking if havr has questions about the proposed PPP

Spoiler :

OK, not as detailed as Dhoom you wrote it

Other than the outstanding issue of the team deciding to defend with Warrior 3 and kill the Barb Warrior, thereby spawning a new Barb unit on the next turn which is very likely to be a Barb Archer, versus running from the Barb Warrior in order to leave the Barb Warrior alive to spawn-bust, were there any questions that you had about the PPP that I wrote for you?

Is there anything confusing in there for you? Because I really do hope that you'll use my PPP (or an edited version of it, if the team disagrees on a point in it).

I'd rather that you understand the entire PPP BEFORE you start to execute it, so even if a question seems to sound stupid, please ask it anyway, and I'll do my best to answer it.

 

[Mitchum]

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.

What do you plan to do with warriors 1 and 2? They are currently out of position by being too far west. They should move back east 1 square until the third spawn buster gets in place. Then, they can move west. Where they are now, a barb could spawn between them and our capital. I think we would all prefer to have them spawn far west if they are going to spawn out on our peninsula.

What do you plan to do with the worker?

What do you plan to do with the wounded warrior to the east?

I don't think you need the level of detail that Dhoomstriker used in his post, but you should at least indicate what each unit will be doing your turn, even if you plan to just leave him in place. At least mention it so that we know what you plan to do.

EDIT: cross post with Dhoomstriker. We were both thinking along the same lines, me thinks.

EDIT 2: In re-reading Dhoomstrikers PPP, I agree with everything in it. Yes, it's detailed, but it ensures that you won't forget to move one of the western warriors or check the espionage levels each turn.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Guessing what the Plastic Ducks Team is up to due to their surge of Culture

Spoiler :

Maybe they built another wonder...

Knowing the players on that team a bit, if you think that they didn't go for The Oracle, then I'd wager that they went for The Great Wall using the Stone.

They'd thus want a Great Spy in order to steal techs from Zara.

You saw just how powerful an early Great Spy can be in your test games.

A mid-game Great Spy is only so-so, but as your first Great Person, it can be really awesome.

But stealing all of the techs in the world won't help them if they can't manage the religious situation.

 

[unclethrill]

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.

I don't believe I expressed an opinion but if the barb warrior being alive stops archers from coming and doesn't put our settler in undo danger, then I'm all for keeping him alive.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Replies to Unclethrill's Comments

Warrior 3 Movement

I don't believe I expressed an opinion

My apologies. In reviewing your messages, you appear to be right.

I must have mixed up our slightly differing opinions on other points.

but if the barb warrior being alive stops archers from coming and doesn't put our settler in undo danger, then I'm all for keeping him alive.

Great. We still might risk a fight with a Barb Warrior on the following turn, depending upon what we do with our Warrior 3, which will depend upon whether we see where the Barb Warrior moves.


Next Worker move and Tech Path Comment

1. We should definitely mine the copper
2. Meditation first. Alpha can wait.

I definitely agree on these points. Test games also support these points.


City 3 Location

3. City 3 needs to push as close to Zara as possible without it having Zara's capital culture encroaching

I mostly agree, although if a city site is a bit further from Zara but is a superior location in terms of Resources or output of the squares [such as the chance of having little to no production at Option d) versus some guaranteed production and probably similar Resources at Option e)], then I'd take the slightly further-away-from-Zara location [Option e) in that example]. Still, I prefer to settle on the eastern side of the Plains Cow than on the western side of it, so I think that we're pretty much in agreement here.


How many Cities in the east do we need immediately? 1? 2?

4. All cities to the west should wait until we have at least 2 cities to the east

Test games seem to indicate that Zara (errrr, I should say Louis) puts very little emphasis on settling cities all the way to the Coast near the Wheat or near the southern Coast that is by the Grassland River squares. I am of the opinion that we can get away with just 1 city near him for a while, without risking him stealing the other spots west of his capitol.

My opinion may drastically change if we see a Resource-heavy city location directly to the north, south, or east of Zara's captiol, i.e. in areas that we have yet to see and discuss. In that case, I'm all for rushing a second city out there, if we think that we can still meet our other goals (such as building The Pyramids, if we stick to that possibility, or whatever our other goals happen to be at the time).


Oracle Date vs City 3 Date

Spoiler Debating the details :

5. As long as we can have the Oracle by T95, i think we shouldn't delay city 3 any longer than needed.

Here are the relevant proposed City 3 Cow + Oasis locations:

a) 2N of the Plains Cow and 1SW + 1S of the Plains Wheat
b) 1 NW of the Plains Cow
c) 1NE + 1N of the Plains Cow
d) 2E of the Plains Cow
e) 1SE of the Plains Cow
f) 1W of the Plains Cow

City 3 Options d) and e) (the most eastern of the locations) cost 5 Commerce per turn when running Organized Religion, which we will be running about the time that we could settle City 3 at the earliest.

The best square that we could work, which only applies to options a), c), and d), would be the Oasis square, for 3 Food + 2 Commerce.
Working that square would net our empire:
3 Food, 1 Hammer, 3 - 5 = -2 Commerce

Option d) could have us working a Grassland River square, netting our empire:
2 Food, 1 Hammer, 2 - 5 = -3 Commerce

Neither option is a good tradeoff right now, when we want to make as much Commerce as we can and the extra Food + Hammers isn't all that useful to us at present.

Even the "closest" (and presumably lowest-Maintenance) City 3 site, Option f), STILL costs us 5 Commerce per turn. Without any Commerce squares workable from that city (we can't work the adjacent Lake without the Fishing Tech), that city would actually net our empire:
2 Food, 2 Hammers, 1 - 5 = -4 Commerce


While none of the locations are a HUGE drain on our Commerce levels, I would be willing to give up the small amounts of Food and Hammers produced in order to reduce our current Commerce bottleneck and more securely grab The Oracle for Confucianism.

With Warriors 4 and 5 being on the western edge of Zara's borders, I contend that we should be able to spot whether or not Zara has a Settler ready on his western border by the time that we are ready to sit down.

Maintenance for Unit Suppply--Settler 3 plus Warriors outside of our borders will COST US GOLD PER TURN

Spoiler How many units can we support? :

One final consideration is that each unit past 5 units outside of our cultural borders will cost us 1 Gold Per Turn in Unit Supply Maintenance costs. With 5 Warriors (soon to be 6) floating around, plus a Settler, we may have to keep one or two of these units within our borders.

For example, Warrior 6 could sit within our borders 1NW of the Copper, helping to fog-bust part of the west enough to allow Warrior 1 to head back 1W onto the Marble, but Warrior2 would still have to stay a bit east, leaving a 1-square gap of spawn-busting-coverage at the far edge of western land (1SE of the crab).

We'd still need to decide if we'd accept the 1 Gold Per Turn cost of keeping the Settler and the other 5 Warriors outside of our borders, or if we'd have to keep one unit inside of our borders, such as the Settler, although doing so would, of course, slightly reduce our ability to "respond" to Zara's Settler appearing.

 

[Mitchum]

I DO fear us losing either The Oracle or Code of Laws, as Louis beat us to both in our test game, around Turn 87.

In my test game, Louis beat us to CoL, but not the Oracle. Did he beat you?

In any event, we've messed around with moving Louis around so much that I can hardly take what he does as anything to expect in a normal game. In my test, I had to take BW away from him every single turn and he had it the very next turn each time. He may have been getting free beakers somehow...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Test Game Dates and Timing

Spoiler :

In my test game, Louis beat us to CoL, but not the Oracle. Did he beat you?

He did beat me to The Oracle in at least one test game, but it was probably a game where I was more focused on watching where Louis would settle. Still, it SEEMED like an early date, but I don't have the autosaves anymore to check.

It only took him about 7 turns to build The Oracle, if I recall my "World-builder gazing" correctly. I'm pretty sure that he's an Industrious Leader, though, partially explaining the reason why. Still, that doesn't mean that Louis or another Industrious Leader is not in our game.

In any event, we've messed around with moving Louis around so much that I can hardly take what he does as anything to expect in a normal game. In my test, I had to take BW away from him every single turn and he had it the very next turn each time. He may have been getting free beakers somehow...

Perhaps that situation occurs whenever you take away a tech that an AI has just researched. With one of your Great Spy "see all tech paths" saved games, you could probably quickly verify for us if taking away an AI's tech on the turn that they learn it will cause them to keep "relearning it" on successive turns or not.

Settler 3--Beating Zara or Not

Spoiler :

We'll find out after a couple of turns of play, anyway, if Zara has a Settler nearby, and whether or not we'll even have the option to beat him to a settling location or will just have to take whatever remains.


Also, my earlier Settler 3 path of N -> NE, NW -> NE is inferior to the safer-from-the-"Barb-Warrior-to-the-north" path of: N -> NE, NE, as this latter path puts us the same distance away or even closer to all of our possible settling locations than the former path. So, I do not fear losing Settler 3 to the northern Barb Warrior at all.

 

[BLubmuz]

City 3 location and more:
The one Dhoom indicates as "option F" (1W of cows) is the only decent spot.

The other locations in that area have too many unworkable squares to be of any use.
We now can see 2 mountains, but a pretty easy fog-gazing reveals there's a 3rd E between the 2. E of the Oasis it should be desert. No resources, no hills, no rivers, useless desert.

So, to use Dhoom's arguments, if Zara wanna settle there, he's welcome.
Also, again using Dhoom's arguments, what is the big advantage of that oasis/cow location compared to the one straight E along the river?
By the "legendary city site" point of view, both are pitiful. By any other point of view, they are pitiful.
The only reason to prefer the cows is... the cows. And the future access to the coast.
As i already said, a city on the incense to grab the fish can be planned. between Fish and wheat, i choose fish, no doubt.
That wheat is placed in a sadic way. To work it you must accept to have 5-6 desert tiles in BFC. No thanks, take it Zara, be ruined if you like.

So, i think that the land E of Dehli is so poor we can even not bother to settle there.
Just to buy time for our West cities and to settle one more city, we can settle 1W of cows.
Next one will be stone/marble city, 1N+2W of stone. No fresh water, but being coastal it will benefit from an harbor, so not a great problem.
It can also be a legendary site. Flood plains, production. A good site for a XotM game.

Fogbusters:
I hope anyone will not dare to move the 2 warriors west.
If you think it's better not fight the barb, just move the warrior 1SW.
Another step fom there (1SW of stone) and all the W will be safe.
Also, don't forget Zara's scout. He's still around since i did not seen him turn to E.

Let's mine that copper and build a worker.
The warrior now 1E of Dehli will move N instead of E, escorting the settler to his site.

This is my opinion. If you agree, OK, otherwise we need a vote.
Let's move!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Thoughts on Legendary City Locations. Also, let's decide: Cultural or Diplo?!

Also, again using Dhoom's arguments, what is the big advantage of that oasis/cow location compared to the one straight E along the river?
By the "legendary city site" point of view, both are pitiful.

Do you still want to talk about Legendary Cities? Well I have analyzed the map and have found the best two remaining Legendary City sites. The last WOTM game that you spoke about, where I took the Fastest Cultural Victory, is one where I had one city with only 8 Hammers. That city still went Legendary in time for my victory.

In this game, we will have one such city. The difference will be that that city will have a lot more Food than it did in my Warlords game, so we WILL be able to get some additional value out of whipping, not to mention early Organized Religion, so we can definitely make a go of it.

I will target us winning right around 1700 AD. We could easily win about 50 to 80 years sooner if we manage to grab the Sistine Chapel AND if we start getting some of our key Temples and Monastaries in place by 500 BC in each of our Legendary-to-be Cities.

Those dates require us to start settling those cities now, so that they'll have a few years to grow in order to be able to output the production for 1 Temple + 1 Monastary minimum, each, by the 500 BC mark.

Voting Poll 1:
A} Head for a Cultural Victory. The next two cities settled (Cities 3 and 4) will be settled in the west. They will be our Legendary cities.

Spoiler Cultural Victory Details :

Those locations are:
Legendary City 2: On the Coast, grabbing Marble, Stone, Cow, a Grassland Hills square, 2 Flood Plains squares, and 5 other River-based squares.

We will have a total of 10 Cottages, which is a pretty decent amount for a Legendary City. We can easily achieve the ideal 12 to 13 base Hammers by working the Cow, Marble, GHills, and either a PFor or the Stone. We will only have two "dead" squares--the Peak and the Desert, which is ideal--normally, you'll work around 17 squares in your best Legendary Sites. We're also on the Coast, which means that if we are short on Health Resources, we'll have a Harbour to give us 3 more Health.

Legendary City 3: On the Coast, grabbing Fish, Pig, Cow, and 2 Flood Plains.

We will have a total of 11 Cottages. We can achieve base 8 Hammers by working the Cow, 2 Plains Cottages, and one Plains Forest square. We will have a lot more Food surplus than the average Good Legendary City Site, meaning that we'll be able to more effectively leverage the whip than the average Good Legendary City Site can muser. Again, we're on the Coast, and we even have a Fresh Water bonus.


Both cities have some nice supporting city sites, to help work Cottages for the Legendary Cities into towns:
a) On the far western tip, by the Crab. This City will help to work 4 Cottages for Legendary City 3
b) West and a bit north of Silverado, picking up a Fish, a Lake, and sharing another Lake and the Cow with Legendary City 3. It can help to work 2 Cottages for Legendary City 3
c) On the Rice, grabbing a Flood Plains square. Other squares will mostly be shared with other cities, with the primary intent of being a Cottage-helper city. 4 Cottages can be worked for Legendary City 2. 2 Cottages can be worked for Legendary City 3


Including our Capitol for Legendary City 1 and Silverado, we'll have 7 cities. We'll only need 2 more city locations. One has already been decided as a partial-Great-Person-Farm, that being the one to grab the 3 Clams to the far north-west.

That leaves us only needing to settle 1 other city. It could be closer to Zara, it could even just be Fish + 2 Incense. We will have no rush to settle this 9th city. We won't need to settle the junky land to the east.


Our biggest challenges will be:
i. Needing Astronomy. It's really tough to get Astronomy in a Cultural game. The ONLY way that I know how to do so is to run Representation from The Pyramids. If we go for a Cultural game, our strategy will depend upon getting The Pyramids. If we fail at this Wonder, then we'll have to convert back to playing for Diplo, as, although we can get an early Legendary Date without Astronomy, we will probably be unable to capture and/or trade for at least one of the Required Resources without Astronomy.
ii. Getting Optics in order to find out where the Barb's Fur is located, as well as to meet the other AIs. A Cultural game avoids Optics like the plague. We'll have to take this tech in trade, but that may mean having to fight a war with the AI that may have beaten us to Astronomy and thus captured the Barb Fur.
iii. A small amount of land with a small amount of surplus Resources. Fish and Cow aren't likely to be easily traded. So, we might be able to trade a Corn, an Incense, and if we are lucky, a Clam. That's not a lot of trading options. The more cities that we settle in order to grab additional Resources, the farther off our Cultural Victory date will become.
iv. We're on Emperor Level. Getting Wonders isn't easy. We really have to target them aggressively if we want them. Even then, we might still not get the ones that we want. For example, we'll want The Parthenon, and the best spot to put it would be Legendary City 3, the city with around 8 base Hammers per turn. That means learning Aesthetics early. That means skipping Alphabet for a long time (waiting for an AI to research it) and getting Math (for The Pyramids) and then Aesthetics (for The Parthenon, as well as for the chance at building some other nice Great-Artist-producing Wonders).
v. We may get attacked. I don't worry about Zara. We'll get him to Friendly relations soon enough. However, we've likely created ourselves a Buddhist block. If that Buddhist block is on a different continent, it probably won't be until near the end of the game that one of them manages to put a Missionary on a boat. We WILL NOT get Buddhism spreading to us naturally, based on the small number of cities that we require plus the fact that we're founding a lot of religions. We can mitigate this problem by running No State Religion, but that's kind of suicide for a Cultural Victory. The other option is to "hide" in our corner of the world and meet as few of the AIs as possible for as long as possible. If an AI doesn't know you, they can't start hating you for being in a differing religion! We could also aggressively spam Missionaries, but we need that production for our Cathedrals. At least overseas invasions are not TOO hard to fend off, even in BTS. That said, it's not an easy problem to deal with.

B} Head for a Diplo Victory.

Spoiler Diplo Victory Comments :

We're also well-set-up for this victory. Our Religion-beeline Strategy is on track. We have Zara who is very easy to please nearby. Other AIs are likely sharing Buddhism with each other. We can grab Buddhism, too, as our economy will support settling additional cities for the sole purpose of picking up this religion.

We can choose to block Zara or we can leave him alone and settle the Legendary Sites for now, such as the Stone + Marble city. Either way works. We'll get more land off-continent and we'll be sure to get SOME cities in the east before Zara takes them all. I'm not very concerned about HAVING to settle to the east now.

But, if we DO settle to the east, we are COMMITTING to going after a Diplo Victory. By settling to the east next, you are essentially voting to play a Diplo game. Don't think that we'll be able to "fall back" on a cultural game. We won't. I guarantee it.

If we want to go for a Cultural Victory, we need those Legendary Cities up and running as our next 2 cities. End of statement.

For the Diplo game, we have a leg-up on other teams who will have to keep ALL AIs in some sort of a religion. They can take the time to spread Missionaries, maximimum 3 at a time sailing around the world, with some of them failing to spread. They can try to play tricks, such as gifting the United Nations. They can even try and trick the other AIs into declaring war on them and thus try for a Diplomation type of game. All of those tricks will take a long time or else are a trick that we are equally going to try for (the United Nations gifting trick). So, we're definitely competing with the leaders of this game.

Seeing the other teams' standings on the SGOTM Progress page, we're definitely in the top 4 teams for a Diplo win. If we play our cards right, we might even get a top 3 spot.

The Pyramids will help us a lot, but if we miss them, it won't be the end of the game, like it probably will be for a Cultural game (assuming that we want to win the game with a reasonable date if playing for Cultural). That's still a "probable," not a "definite" thing, though, as we might get away without needing Astronomy in order to grab all of the required Resources.

We can optionally play "blocking games" with Zara, but we don't have to. We can keep our Settler 3 "ready" to the east while our Warriors 3 and 5 explore more of the land to the east, looking for better spots to settle. Once one is found, we can consider going for it.

We can alternatively plan to either fight Zara or else just court him as a voting ally. Either way, letting him grab cities now that will cost us a lot of Maintenance is a Good Thing. Later, we will either capture these cities or else we will get the same number of votes from them as if we'd built the cities ourselves, without suffering the Maintenance drain on our empire and our tech pace.

We also have a lot more flexibility with a Diplo game, as we can build more Courthouses, Markets, Banks, Universities, and Cities than in our cultural game.

Although I would stay away from the idea of getting Vassals or Colonies, we can certainly settle (or capture) up to 2 cities per continent on other islands or continents without trouble.

We'll have more production that we can devote to spreading the Missionaries of our choice around the world, be it one of our religions, or, as per our original strategy, Buddhist Missionaries to our cities, while spreading a different religion's Missionaries to our "target United Nations voting opponent."

Our western cities will probably look very similar the locations that I mentioned for our Cultural game, with the possible exception of combining Legendary City 3 and the Fish city south of it together, into one massive Great-Person-producing Farm. The Rice City would then get more of the Flood Plains squares to itself, while the Crab City could optionally move 1 square east, if there isn't another Seafood Resource off of the far west Coast, in order to get more Cottageable land for itself.

C} Delay deciding even longer. We can delay the decision of which victory condition to chase after by making our next City the Legendary 2 location. However, we'll have to make a decision at some point. Perhaps once The Oracle is complete and we know exactly where we stand (i.e. if we missed The Oracle or if we missed Confucianism), we'll be able to make the decision once and for all.

 

[BLubmuz]

Do you still want to talk about Legendary Cities? Well I have analyzed the map and have found the best two remaining Legendary City sites. The last WOTM game that you spoke about, where I took the Fastest Cultural Victory, is one where I had one city with only 8 Hammers. That city still went Legendary in time for my victory.

C} Delay deciding even longer. We can delay the decision of which victory condition to chase after by making our next City the Legendary 2 location. However, we'll have to make a decision at some point. Perhaps once The Oracle is complete and we know exactly where we stand (i.e. if we missed The Oracle or if we missed Confucianism), we'll be able to make the decision once and for all.

I mentioned the Legendary cities only to give an idea on how poor the land - at least the visible land - to East is.
I'm even thinking that the only decent place where to place a city is on that coastal incense.

This said, i agree with your legendary city 2 spot, cultural or diplo is a great site.
Your proposal for Legendary 3 spot looks like too much overlapped: we pay maintenance for 2 support cities for LC3 and another one for LC2. Why?

But it's too soon to discuss this point.
The fact is that i pushed for block Zara, but now i start thinking it's not worth the effort.
Once we settle the stone/marble city we can delay LC3 or anyway settling to the west and settle the incense, just to secure the land.
If Zara wants the cows/oasis area, welcome.

For the options you listed, i continue to delay my decision.
You got it right, let's complete that Oracle, than we can decide.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Voting Poll 1:

I vote for option C}. I can play either game equally well and I think that we have a shot of placing well with either Victory Condition path.

Spoiler More Thoughts on the Current Situation :

For now, with the pitiful eastern locations that we are struggling to choose between, I'd be more than happy to go west, without fear of losing any crucial land to Zara.


Challenges Ahead
While the Challenges that I laid out for a Cultural Victory may sound tough, with The Pyramids, they'll mostly be manageable (Police State if we get attacked, anyone?).

What I didn't lay out are the myriad of Challenges involved with a Diplo game. It's very hard to predict them, as we are reliant on the inter-relations of the various AIs and what demands they will make of us "cancel this deal," "declare war on that heathen," "kiss my boots and give me all of your Gold or your Monopoly Tech," etc.


Play a Diplo Game to completion, please. YES, THAT MEANS YOU!
If you've never played a Diplo game to completion, then I claim that you should do so. Play out our practice game, if you can. Don't try for any additional Wonders after The Oracle, besides The United Nations. Play a relatively quick game, where you don't worry about micromanaging the details (use the city governor to do the work for you).

Goof around as much as you'd like. But play the game to completion. Or at least until you get to the United Nations voting time. By then, you'll have gotten a feel for all of the demands that the AIs will make of you throughout the game, pulling you back and forth.

The Diplo tapestry is not an easy one to weave. I've done it and can do it, but I'll either need a lot of you to follow my Foreign Policy suggestions exactly or else I'll require you to quickly gather a lot of your own Diplo experience in a short period of time, so as to be able to make properly-informed decisions.


There's no doubt that either Victory Condition has its upsides and downsides. Both can be fun in their own rights. Either could theoretically get us a top 3 placing in the final standings.

Summary--Play a Test Game, Please!
If the reason that you are voting a certain way is because you have only played for one of those victory types, then say so. Then, make the time to go and play a game of the other victory type. I don't care if it takes you until 2040 AD to win, or even if you lose. The experience gained is what's more important.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

"Supporting" Cities (AKA Helper Cities) for a Cultural Victory

Your proposal for Legendary 3 spot looks like too much overlapped: we pay maintenance for 2 support cities for LC3 and another one for LC2. Why?

The answer is that it is a top-level Cultural Player tactic.

Spoiler The details :

A Legendary City has to perform many roles: It needs to work Food squares in order to grow. It needs to work Hammer squares in order to get the multiple buildings it requires. It needs to work a lot of Matured Cottages once you set the Cultural Slider to 80% Cultural output or higher.

What is the item that can be played with, here?

Well, another city could work the Legendary City's Food, but that wouldn't help the Legendary City in growing, just the other city. So, that's not much help.

Another city could work the Legendary City's Hammers, but that wouldn't help the Legendary City in building any of its crucial buildings. So that's certainly no help, either.

What about the Cottages? Sure, a Cottage is a nice thing to work. But, assuming that your supporting city and your Legendary City have similar multiplier buildings (both have a Library or both don't have a Library), then a Cottage worked in one city is EQUAL to a Cottage worked in another city. So, work the Cottages in another city!

The Legendary City can then focus more on working the Food and Hammer squares, growing and building its needed infrastructure and Cathedrals, while growing to the large size that it needs to attain. Over time, as it grows, it can start to work SOME cottages, but it will have difficulty working ALL of the cottages that it needs to work PLUS the Food squares PLUS the Hammer squares. So, skip many of the Cottage squares.

By the time that we are ready to increase our Cultural Slider, our supporting cities will have helped to mature some of the Cottages into Villages or Towns.

Instead of the Legendary City switching from Hammer squares onto immature Cottages, it can switch to working Villages or Towns. What a lovely delight! All the benefits of a lot of cultural output (from Village and Town Commerce being converted by the Cultural Slider into Culture points), without the delay of waiting for those Cottages to mature AFTER switching to 80%+ Cultural output. Amazing!


The Number of Cities Required for a Cultural Victory
The fact is that you only need 3 cities for a Cultural Victory. However, if you go for a Cathedral-based game, your ideal number will initially be 6 to 7 cities, to allow for more Temples to be built, which allows for more Cathedrals to be built. Then, near the end of the game, you'll want 9 cities, so that you can have 9 Temples and thus 3 Cathedrals per religion. You might not even need all 3 Cathedrals in every religion.

If we were to, I don't know, capture a Size 10 Barb City near the end of the game, it shouldn't be too hard to send it about 14 Missionaries (that should be enough to guarantee 5 religions being spread in such a large-sized city) and then easily whipping 5 Temples at 1 population point cost each. Bam, we now have Fur and all of the Temples that we need. Alternatively, we could build the Temples in other supporting cities and just grab the Fur City (assuming that it's a city--it could just be Barb-infested land) near the end of the game, or at least some point before the AIs try to grab it.