SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

I love that idea. I love to learn all the nitty gritty details but I find myself unable to respond to some of this stuff because by the time I read the 5 pages of new posts every day, I have forgotten what I wanted to comment on.

ditto!
We're surely beating any other team in number of posts. This seem to be a constant of our last SGs.
Even Murky, usually so prolificent in posts were not even near to this.
In addtition, our posts (not oly Dhoom's ones) are mostly long, while Murky's has many posts, but often 1-2 rows long.

Anyway, i must admit i'm learning something here. Let's hope this will bring to a decent placement this time.

I think that our strategy is out of the schemes enough to be a winning one.
I hope not the unfamous Wooden Spoon.
But that game was without any hope, despite anything we could have done.
There was an AI (Hannibal) definitely too overpowered from the start. And in our game, that AI was lucky too.

 

[havr]

Phew... my hands were shaking when I played, but I managed to do it!

Anyway, pretty uneventful. Lost contact with the Barb, no new Barb spawned.
You can find the attached screenshots.

A few minor points:

1) Dhoom forgot to detail orders to the worker. I understood that the team wanted him to mine the copper, so I started him on the task. Hope I wouldn't be dhoomed for that!

2) Zara is investing 2 ept on us. This means that he probably met the other guy (or woman ) about 15 turns ago. That is a pretty long time for scout so I guess that woman (or guy) is on another continent.

3) Priesthood on schedule. We are researching 27 fpt.

4) Zara's scout is wondering in the fogged-area between our fog-busters and Delhi AND he is not wounded. Probably no barbs there (yet).

5) Warrior 2 in the far-west was incorrectly named "Warrior 3". There were 2 "Warrior 3" so I renamed him.

OK, look at the screenshots. I don't think we found out much. Time to decide where to settle, but we can also move warriror 5 another NE to reveal another square.

 

[Mitchum]

Well done, havr! I know how you feel. My hands were shaking when I played to. It's one thing to screw up your own game. It's another thing to lose a warrior that the whole team is counting on...

Without resources turned on, I can't tell for sure, but it looks like you did not discover any resources in the southern seas or near the cows. Climbing the desert square in the NE will seal cow city's fate. If nothing there, then I think our next city will likely be in the north or north west (to get marble and stone hooked up).

In order for me to generate a test save can you tell me:

How many beakers in PH?
How many hammers are invested in each build in our two cities?
How much food in the basket of both cities?
Assume that worker 1 started mining on your first turn, so that should be fine. I also assume that you did not more warrior 1 or warrior 2.

Thanks!

 

[havr]

Well done, havr! I know how you feel. My hands were shaking when I played to. It's one thing to screw up your own game. It's another thing to lose a warrior that the whole team is counting on...

Without resources turned on, I can't tell for sure, but it looks like you did not discover any resources in the southern seas or near the cows. Climbing the desert square in the NE will seal cow city's fate. If nothing there, then I think our next city will likely be in the north or north west (to get marble and stone hooked up).

In order for me to generate a test save can you tell me:

How many beakers in PH?
How many hammers are invested in each build in our two cities?
How much food in the basket of both cities?
Assume that worker 1 started mining on your first turn, so that should be fine. I also assume that you did not more warrior 1 or warrior 2.

Thanks!

No new resources.
48 beakers in PH.
22F 21H in Delhi
0F 5H in Silverado.

I guess we are going for Marble/Stone only if we are sealed on Pyramids, right?
If everyone else think the 'Mids are a good idea, then lets go for it. I will not argue.
Just one question: we are building the 'Mids are we planning a SE (in which case the 'Mids are useful in the long run) or are we want to use it for beaker early and a GE (in which case the 'Mids will be mainly useful in the start but less later)?
I am asking this just to understand the strategy and why we are making the decision we are about to make.

*) If someone else has still undecided on the 'Mids then let him speak now so we can discuss it. Otherwise I don't want to be the one arguing for it when all of you are in agreement.

 

[BLubmuz]

Yes, well done, Havr!
Take it easy next time.

The more i look to the east, the less i'm inclined to settle there.

If we feel to need one more city, we can settle 1W of the cows. 2 excess food (cows and oasis) a couple cottages maybe. Poor.
If we think the incense/fish city can be better, let's send the settler to the stone.

Definitely no E of Dehli. We can settle a city to grab the whale on the ice, to gain some food. Provided we need the whale. Otherwise, let the East to Zara.

Time to decide. I'll let you put your opinions, then i'll set up a vote.

Havr, hold on, no need to upload the save, just be sure to not make any move. Better, any irreversible move.

 

[Mitchum]

2) Zara is investing 2 ept on us. This means that he probably met the other guy (or woman ) about 15 turns ago. That is a pretty long time for scout so I guess that woman (or guy) is on another continent.

For those of you who do NOT want an education in espionage, please avert your eyes.

Dhoomstriker (or anyone else, for that matter), can you explain the implications of what this means?

Let's assume for this discussion that there is us, Zara, AI A (for sure known by Zara) and AI B.

As you've said, if we go full-bore espionage on one civ, he will do the same to us. However, if Zara is getting hit (+4/turn) from two others (us and AI A) will he then split his espionage points between us?

Now assume that AI A knows another AI B and AI A is splitting his points between Zara and AI B (i.e. +2/turn each)? What will Zara do? Will he again split his espionage points between us and AI A? Or will he assign us a bit more since we're hitting him with +4/turn and AI A is only hitting him with +2/turn?

What I'm trying to figure out, if you haven't guessed, is if we can already conclude that there is another AI (AI B) that is reachable pre-Optics.

I'm not particularly in a rush to meet the AI. As we get closer to Alphabet I will be, but not at the moment. Sure, it would be nice to get the extra beakers for knowing more AI with a certain tech. But I'm not ready to go our of our way to do so (i.e. beeline fishing and send out a scouting work boat, or send a warrior around Zara to see what we can find). On Emperor, the AI are usually pretty good at finding us in my experience.

Also, since we're gaining espionage points on Zara, can you estimate how many more turns until we'll be able to see what he's researching, havr? EDIT: I see that we already know he will learn Sailing in 10 turns...

 

[havr]

Land is poor all around. Wars are few, and what we don't settle might cost us.

It is as if the game designer on purpose gave very poor land so that you will reach a strategy point: War on Zara (risk! you might need it later), or make do with what you have (risk! might be too poor).

So the first question should be: are we going to attack Zara (soon)?
If yes - let him have the east and conquer later.
If no - I still think that we better grab what we can now. So block @ east, settle west later. Time to be a cowboy

Also: question of war is seems closely related to the issue of VC. If I understand correctly to get cultural we might need to war on Zara to get decent land. If we are going for Diplo we might better save the wars for later, because Zara will be our brother in faith. (whatever that faith is going to be).

 

[havr]

Also, since we're gaining espionage points on Zara, can you estimate how many more turns until we'll be able to see what he's researching, havr?

GOOD that you reminded me because I actually planned to tell you this:
we are already seeing what he is researching. It is sailing.

 

[Mitchum]

OK. Here is the test save. All of the beakers, hammers and food are just right. I assume that warrior 5 (the one scouting NE) is the only move you've made this turn. Let me know if this is not the case.

I also took Louis' marble away (gave him stone instead). Let's see him beat us to the Oracle now!!!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Comments on the Partial Turnset

Spoiler :

Phew... my hands were shaking when I played, but I managed to do it!

Excellent job! I couldn't have done it better myself!

1) Dhoom forgot to detail orders to the worker. I understood that the team wanted him to mine the copper

Nice catch!

Lost contact with the Barb, no new Barb spawned.

Thanks for keeping us up-to-date!

2) Zara is investing 2 ept on us. This means that he probably met the other guy (or woman ) about 15 turns ago.

Zara is also researching Sailing, which could mean many different things:

Spoiler :

1. He is simply piggy-backing research off of the other AI that he met
2. He is an Organized Leader, so he likes to research Sailing, as it gives him cheaper Lighthouses
3. The AIs don't evaluate whether or not their have any Coastal Cities before deciding to research Sailing
4. His capitol is Coastal and he has even less land to settle than we guessed

Actually, nevermind. There are so many possibilities that the info means nothing at all.

Warrior 2 in the far-west was incorrectly named "Warrior 3". There were 2 "Warrior 3" so I renamed him.

Nice find!

Spoiler :

Of course, there was the issue of the Dead Warrior, which is what messed up our Warrior-naming, but I think that we've paved over his body in the annals of history, so there should be no need to think about him anymore!

OK, look at the screenshots. I don't think we found out much. Time to decide where to settle

On the contrary, we found out a lot. It's just not what we were hoping to see! Thanks once again!

but we can also move warriror 5 another NE to reveal another square.

We'll still have Warrior 3, Settler 3, and possibly Warrior 4 to move (or not move) first, so there are a lot of mini-decisions to be made before we can find out what Warrior 5 will reveal. Still, I am sure that we are all anxious to find out what Warrior 5 will reveal!

 

[Mitchum]

If we think the incense/fish city can be better, let's send the settler to the stone.

Definitely no E of Dehli. We can settle a city to grab the whale on the ice, to gain some food. Provided we need the whale. Otherwise, let the East to Zara.

We have three ways of getting the four happy resources we need.

1. Settle them peacefully.
2. Fight to claim them.
3. Trade for them.
4. Did I miss any?

We can only go so far with settling them peacefully. I think the map designer made it such that this is not possible (unless there is one up north of marble). We can only fight 2 wars. I propose that we save our two silver bullets (you normally only get one silver bullet in life) until we know where all of those resources are.

So that leaves trading for them. If we want to do that, then I think we'll need both incense, all three silvers and the whale as trade bait to get what we want. I'm not saying that we should settle these two cities right NOW. But, we should plan on settling them at some point before Zara gets them. Without these resources, the tradeable resources that we do have are very limited (unless we want to trade our stone, marble and/or copper away).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Let's recap our Cow + Oasis Settling 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

Commerce Cost
With a Size 4 Capitol and Organized Religion, each city location equally cost us 5 Commerce per turn, with one exception. City Option c) initially costs us 6 Commerce per turn.

Spoiler A caveat :

Now, these costs can go up over time as our empire's size grows--even if the capitol grows, it might be enough to "push us up" from 5 to 6 Commerece lost per turn. I only checked for the current turn, if we'd switched into Organized Religion (and not into Slavery).

This info doesn't necessarily discout settling options, but it does show that settling a little bit closer won't have a major impact on costs immediately.

More of an analysis of these locations to come...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Next moves for havr...
EDIT: These moves have already been executed.

Spoiler :

Spoiler A bit more visibility goes a long way :

I don't necessarily want to rush things, BUT:

I think that we all want to see what Warrior 5 will reveal by climbing that Desert Hills square.

Also, I think that we can all agree that if we settle the Stone + Marble site in the west, we can afford to delay doing so for several turns, in order to better secure Confucianism. It's only the east that we may potentially have a time pressure to settle, due to a potential race with Zara.

So, here're the suggested moves:
1. Settler 3 goes 1NE onto the Grassland Hills square. Moving there is safe and it reveals the GFor to the N + N of Warrior 3. It's also the spot where we were planning on moving Settler 3 for eastern settling locations.
2. If there is no Barb Warrior on the N + N GFor, we can safely move Warrior 3 1NE onto the Grassland square, as all of the surrounding squares will be empty of Barb units.

If, on the other hand, Settler 3 reaveals a Barb to the N + N of Warrior 3, then Warrior 3 can move 1E onto the same Grassland Hills square that Settler 3 is on.

3. Warrior 4 stays in place and heals.

Spoiler :

Although it would be nice to validate what's in the Tundra and on the Coast to the east of him, all test games pointed to the AI treating this area as "too far to settle" for its City 2. So, I don't suggest that we risk revealing this info--later, either we'll settle on the Coast or we won't--there is no clear incentive to do so right now, while at most we could reveal one possible square's worth of Seafood at the risk of our Warrior 4's life--not really a worthwhile thing to risk at this point, in my opinion.

4. Wariors 1 and 2 can stay in place, skipping their turns. With havr's report of Zara's Scout helping to fog-bust, they are in the ideal positions, right?


I don't think that I missed any units that need moving.


5. On the next turn, we can send Warrior 5 1NE onto the Desert Hills square and get some more info from a new screenshot.


Havr, as the UP player, it's up to you to see if I missed anything in my suggestions. You should probably draft yourself a mini-PPP, too.

 

[unclethrill]

On the initial impression, I like A best

 

[Dhoomstriker]

The Pyramids--Reasons to get it

Spoiler :

Just one question: we are building the 'Mids are we planning a SE (in which case the 'Mids are useful in the long run) or are we want to use it for beaker early and a GE (in which case the 'Mids will be mainly useful in the start but less later)?
I am asking this just to understand the strategy and why we are making the decision we are about to make.

I like the idea of The Pyramids for several reasons:
1. We need a lot of Great People in this game. On Emperor level, more of our Great People will come from Specialists than from Wonders. So, by the very nature of the game's constraints, we'll need at least 4 Great People. We've already planned needing 3 more Great People. I'm sure that we'll be happy to generate more of them.
2. It helps to give us even more Happiness, so that we can, say, focus on grabbing Healthiness Resources, like I don't know, that Wheat to the NE.

Spoiler Health Resources :

The more that I think about it, this setup isn't that bad for a Cultural game. I was able to name 2 pretty decent Legendary Sites in the west, which we are certain not to have stolen by an AI. We have lots of Health Resources on-continent. We have the Granary Trifecta (Wheat, Corn, and Rice), we have the Harbour Trifecta (Fish, Clam, and Crab), we have Pig, Cow, and Deer. Already, that makes for 6 (from a Granary) + 3 (or 6 from a Harbour) + 3 = 12 to 15 Health, without needing to trade for Resources. That's a LOT, far more than you'd expect in a normal game without trading. Granted, we have a lot of "one of X" Resources, so trading opportunities will not be plentiful, but we also don't NEED to make a lot of trades in order to get Health resources.

3. If and when we need to build a Military, we can leverage Police State to do so very efficiently and effectively--not only producing an army faster than normal but also getting a sizeable army that much sooner after freshly learning a military tech.
4. We can skip getting Monarchy, even in trade, for a long time, which reduces the AIs abilitiy to trade for it (the less players that know a tech, the longer it takes to get traded around) and thus slows the time that many of them get to Longbowmen.
5. For a Cultural game, we can leverage our empire's Commerce better, by first funneling it into Gold and then switching to Universal Suffrage to spend that Gold in focused areas--such as our weakest and/or lowest-production Legendary City.
6. For a Diplo game, we can have more freedom to switch into an AI's favourite Civic, such as Police State or Universal Suffrage, without needing to learn the required tech.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Food + Hammer + Commerce Breakdown of the Cow + Oasis City Locations

Spoiler The Detailed Results :

Spoiler :

I used a City Size of 10 as my basis for Comparison. Cities that can't grow to Size 10 (without using tricks like Irrigating Plains squares or building Windmills later on) are limited to Size 8 or 9. I listed the Size of each City being compared, for your convenience.

Cottages count as 2 Commerce, since it's not hard to grow a Cottage into a Hamlet. On average, you might have a Village here and a Cottage there, averging them out to Hamlets (2 Commerce each).

Option a) Size 10
Centre 2, 2, 1
Wheat 4, 1, 0
Oasis 3, 0, 2
Cow 3, 3, 0
GCot1 2, 0, 2
GCot2 2, 0, 2
GCot3 2, 0, 2
PHMine 0, 4, 0
PCot1 1, 1, 2
PCot2 1, 1, 2
PCot3 1, 1, 2
Total 21 (1 surplus), 13, 15
5 Forests to chop in its fat cross


Option b) Size 10
Centre 2, 1, 1
Oasis 3, 0, 2
Cow 3, 3, 0
GCot1 2, 0, 2
GCot2 2, 0, 2
GCot3 2, 0, 2
GIrr1 3, 0, 0
GHMine 1, 3, 0
Lake 2, 0, 2
PCot1 1, 1, 2
PHMine 0, 4, 0
Total 21 (1 surplus), 12, 13
5 Forests to chop in its fat cross


Option c) Size 9
Centre 2, 1, 1
Wheat 4, 1, 0
Oasis 3, 0, 2
Cow 3, 3, 0
GCot1 2, 0, 2
PHMine 0, 4, 0
PCot1 1, 1, 2
PCot2 1, 1, 2
PCot3 1, 1, 2
PCot4 1, 1, 2 (1E of the Wheat--might not exist)
Total 18 (0 surplus), 13, 13
5 Forests to chop in its fat cross


Option d) Size 8
Centre 2, 1, 1
Oasis 3, 0, 2
Cow 3, 3, 0
GRivCot1 2, 0, 3
GRivCot2 2, 0, 3
Lake 2, 0, 2
PCot1 1, 1, 2
PCot2 1, 1, 2
DHillsMine 0, 3, 0
16 (0 surplus), 9, 15
1 Forest to chop in its fat cross


Option e) Size 10
Centre 2, 1, 1
Oasis 3, 0, 2
Cow 3, 3, 0
GRivCot1 2, 0, 3
GRivCot2 2, 0, 3
GRivCot3 2, 0, 3
GCot1 2, 0, 2
GCot2 2, 0, 2
GHills1 1, 3, 0
GHills2 1, 3, 0
Lake 2, 0, 2
Total 22 (2 surplus), 10, 18
4 Forests to chop in its fat cross


Option f) Size 10
Centre 2, 1, 1
Oasis 3, 0, 2
Cow 3, 3, 0
GCot1 2, 0, 2
GCot2 2, 0, 2
GCot3 2, 0, 2
GCot4 2, 0, 2
GHills1 1, 3, 0
GHills2 1, 3, 0
Lake 2, 0, 2
PCot1 1, 1, 2
Total 21 (1 surplus), 11, 15
7 Forests to chop in its fat cross (I didn't count the 8th Forest that would have its chop go to Delhi)


Stone + Marble City (for comparison's sake) Size 10
Centre 2, 1, 1
Cow 3, 3, 0
FloodPCot1 3, 0, 3
FloodPCot2 3, 0, 3
PMarble 1, 3, 2
GCotRiv1 2, 0, 3
GCotRiv2 2, 0, 3
GCotRiv3 2, 0, 3
GCotRiv4 2, 0, 3
GCot1 2, 0, 2
GHMine 1, 3, 0
Total 23 (3 surplus), 10, 23
2 Forests to chop in its fat cross (1 PFor will be saved in order to get 12 base Hammers if we make this City a Legendary City)

THE RESULTS: Options a) and e) are the clear winners, being tied for pure output. Option f) comes a close second and has a few more Forest chops available to it.


Other Comments
The Wheat

Spoiler :

Note that we probably will not be able to irrigate this Wheat square, so it likely won't become 5F + 1H, but compared to a lot of the surrounding squares (Plains and Desert), it's a pretty awesome square. It's also our highest Food-outputing square in the area.

Fresh Water

Spoiler :

probably shouldn't even be a factor, since none of the cities are really going to be huge and by the time that they can EVENTUALLY grow large enough to have Health Issues, we should have some Health Resources hooked up in order to deal with the situation.

Yes, there are other things that you can do:

Spoiler :

For example, you can put a Windmill on a Hills square to increase its Food output and MAYBE work 1 more square as a result, but for now, the comparison serves its purpose.

Options f) and a) Subtlety with shared Grassland Cottages.

Spoiler :

2 of the Grassland Cottages from the Option f) City can actually be worked instead by the Fish + Incense City. So, while this option appears to be reasonably strong, we're actually "borrowing" Cottages that would otherwise be worked by the Fish + Incense City.

The same 2 Grassland Cottages apply for Option b), but that option isn't a great one anyway.

One of Option a)'s Cottages also falls into this shared-with-the-Fish City.

Options c) and d) do not count most of the hidden squares.

Spoiler :

It is possible that something better is in the hidden squares, but I'm mostly counting on it being Desert in my above comparison.

 

[Irgy]

Falling behind the pace of the posts a bit, but still here and still reading.

I like spot 'a' the best as well. If the warrior can risk moving NW (should be safe if it's really next to culture boundaries) then we can find out if 'd' is better or not. 'b' is the only one which actually properly blocks Zara, but it loses the wheat (probably completely losing it to Zara). In any case it looks like there's a fish-incense city to be had later.

Those rivered grasslands directly to the east of Delhi would make quite a nice city later in the game, but it would take a long long time to get going with no resources. I expect we'll probably lose that land before we can really afford to settle it.

I'm pro-pyramids and pro-specliaist economy, from what I remember of the land there's not a lot of good cottage spots to be had but quite a number of food resources.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Attacking Zara is probably not worth it

Spoiler :

Land is poor all around. Wars are few

A war over poor land would not make for a strong choice for one of our war declarations.

and what we don't settle might cost us.

Agreed, although I'd only really worry about missing out on Resources, not on missing out on barren land (he can have the barren land, for all that I care).

It is as if the game designer on purpose gave very poor land so that you will reach a strategy point: War on Zara (risk! you might need it later), or make do with what you have (risk! might be too poor).

We also risk that Zara will settle a Horse Resource or an Iron Resource in an otherwise barren location. Then again, Chariots are cheap fodder for Spearmen, and Swordsmen often die to Axeman. We do have Copper for both Spearmen and Axemen.

So the first question should be: are we going to attack Zara (soon)?

No. We can't eliminate him. He only has 1 city. Attacking soon would accomplish nothing. We'd want him to have at LEAST 5 cities, so that we can leave him 2 or so, to avoid him becoming someone else's vassal (which might still happen if he only has 2 cities).

If no - I still think that we better grab what we can now. So block @ east, settle west later. Time to be a cowboy

Don't cowboys dominate the west, not the east?

Anyway, your point of blocking the east is understood.

Also: question of war is seems closely related to the issue of VC. If I understand correctly to get cultural we might need to war on Zara to get decent land.

Nahhh. We're set for 2 western Legendary Cities (Stone + Marble + Cow + Flood Plains) and (Cow + Pig + Fish + Flood Plains), without needing to conquer any cities.

If we are going for Diplo we might better save the wars for later, because Zara will be our brother in faith. (whatever that faith is going to be).

Agreed. Even if he isn't our brother in faith at the end of the game, he might still vote for us, if we're nice to him in all other regards throughout the game. Other AIs won't be such an easy sell, as we won't have the large number of turns to "butter them up." Then again, Zara could start demanding us to declare wars on the Buddhist Heathens, so the longer that we don't meet the Heathens, probably the better, at least until our economy can afford us spamming cities in order to get Buddhism spread to one of them.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Defining a Blocking City

Spoiler :

'b' is the only one which actually properly blocks Zara

Don't worry too much about forming a cultural "line." An AI will strongly hesitate to settle a city that is a farther distance from its capitol than to your nearest city to their capitol in the same direction.

Options d) and e) are actually the "best" in terms of "blocking potential," simply because they are closer to Zara's capitol. But most of the city sites listed will do an acceptable job.

If the warrior can risk moving NW (should be safe if it's really next to culture boundaries) then we can find out if 'd' is better or not.

I am going to guess that you mean the Warrior to the mid-east, and that you mean to send him 1NE onto the Desert Hills square. If that is the case, then yes, this Warrior, Warrior 5, should be relatively safe in mounting that Desert Hills square. If you meant something else, please let us know.

Those rivered grasslands directly to the east of Delhi would make quite a nice city later in the game, but it would take a long long time to get going with no resources. I expect we'll probably lose that land before we can really afford to settle it.

Even if that land happens to have Iron or Horse, it will take a long time to be useful, agreed. It would also be an acceptable city site, but since we probably want to focus on tradeable Resources at this point, I wouldn't mind if we lost that site to Zara.

In any case it looks like there's a fish-incense city to be had later.

As far as I am concerned, if we settle ANY of the Cow + Oasis sites, the Incense site will be secure for a LONG, LONG time, since it's further from Zara's capitol than our Cow + Oasis site would be.

The Pyramids and Food-based Cities

Spoiler :

I'm pro-pyramids and pro-specliaist economy, from what I remember of the land there's not a lot of good cottage spots to be had but quite a number of food resources.

Out capitol is actually pro-Cottages, but that's fine--it's often nice to have Cottages in a capitol when running a lot of Specialists, anyway, as Specialists don't benefit from the Bureaucracy bonus, but Cottages in the capitol do.

We do have a couple of nice Food sites:
1. The 3 Clam spot to the far NW
2. Either Legendary City 3 in the far west for a Cultural game or a location with an extra Fish to the south of it for a Diplo game

Those are about it, though, from what I can recall.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Espionage

Spoiler :

For those of you who do NOT want an education in espionage, please avert your eyes.

Dude, you finally found a way to stump me.


Or, more precisely, it's hard to tell.

What I'm trying to figure out, if you haven't guessed, is if we can already conclude that there is another AI (AI B) that is reachable pre-Optics.

Sometimes an AI will not assign any Espionage points to another player. In a small sample set of test games, I observed this situation consistently happening between two AIs that were Pleased with each other. So, for all that we know, Zara has met everyone else.

I have no insights to offer on how Zara divides up his Espionage Points amongst those he is willing to spend them on.

Delaying Meeting other AIs = A Good Thing

Spoiler :

I'm not particularly in a rush to meet the AI. As we get closer to Alphabet I will be, but not at the moment.

I would go so far as to say that I'd be happy delaying meeting most AIs until the end of the game.

We have two possible scenarios: Buddhism was founded by an isolated AI, so we might be better off spreading one of our religions around.

The other scenario is that a few AIs will share Buddhism and the founder will be really hard to convert. In this second scenario, we should do our best to obtain Buddhism as soon as possible after meeting the Buddhists. That would require a strong enough economy to support settling further-away cities, as well as possibly the knowledge of Astronomy.

Another reason to delay meeting AIs is that it helps to keep them backwards. They do piggyback off of each others' research, but by not meeting them, we reduce one possible vector for them to piggyback off of (us). Since we are mostly beelining techs that few or no AIs know, they'll gain a lot more from piggybacking off of us than we will off of them.

Zara is not likely going to beat us to Confucianism, but there is a small chance that he might chase after The Oracle

Spoiler :

Also, since we're gaining espionage points on Zara, can you estimate how many more turns until we'll be able to see what he's researching, havr? EDIT: I see that we already know he will learn Sailing in 10 turns...

At least we know that Zara is likely out of the running for grabbing Confucianism, as he has yet to learn Writing (we'd know if he'd learned it, as we would have been able to offer him an Open Borders agreement... then again, maybe the UP players didn't notice when this trade possibility came in, but the AIs are usually insistent about offering Open Borders, so I would believe that he hasn't researched Writing).

He may still try and steal The Oracle if he's piggybacked Priesthood off of us.