SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

What the heck is this?

View attachment 252521

This came up the turn I learned Mediation... Random events are turned off. I'm fairly new to BtS, so please forgive me if this is the basics...

Can we trigger this when we want? Could we lose a religion to an AI if they trigger this event?

ha!
you have inadvertently flagged "choose religion" in the game settings.

You can verify in the F8 screen

 

[havr]

OK, from what I gathered, here are the current preferences:
Dhoom - River first.
Mitch - Stone first.
havr - Cow first.

Still waiting for UT, Bluz and Irgy.

I want to move the discussion forward, start making decisions.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Test Saved Game Tech Inaccuracies

Spoiler :

I think we're quickly out-gowing the benefit of our test save. When I played, Louis was getting 1 tech every turn. On T100, he already had Metal Casting, Optics and had just learned Theology. Civil Service was next. I went into WB every 10 turns and took all of his techs away... I hate to say it, but I think now would be a good time to recreate a new save, starting with Zara in the correct spot. Otherwise, I think our testing will be way off.

Agreed. Louis was 1 turn away from Engineering on Turn 94 (that's as far as I've made it in my test game).

If you generate a map with Zara in it that matches the game's settings, I don't mind "starting you off a bit" by World-buildering some of the River system for you. You can do it youself, simply too... it's not a matter of HOW you draw the River, but WHERE you draw it, as it will have the same pattern if you build it at the same co-ordinates on a different map. The pattern repeats within a map, so that you can get the exact same River graphic every X squares away... I just don't know the value for "X"... 8? 10? 15?

 

[havr]

I ran a small test. If we build city right away (I did it in Cows position) we get Writing at T93, and build Oracle at T93.

What is more alaraming is that by the time I did that both CoL and Theology was discovered. Christianity is discovered VERY early. I think that our religion chasing is causing the AI to prioritize getting some religion founded.

So, I don't think we can delay from T90 to T93. We will have to delay settling City 3.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Oracle Date with River City as City 3

I ran a small test. If we build city right away (I did it in Cows position) we get Writing at T93, and build Oracle at T93.

I settled the Plains River square with Settler 3 (I know, it's the most aggressive River City location). I settled City 3 as soon as Settler 3 got there and worked a Grassland River square.

I was able to get Writing and The Oracle on Turn 92, 1700 BC. I haven't played much further yet, as I keep responding to messages in our thread instead of playing out my test game.


Unrealistically Early Techs from Louis

What is more alaraming is that by the time I did that both CoL and Theology was discovered. Christianity is discovered VERY early. I think that our religion chasing is causing the AI to prioritize getting some religion founded.

Louis founded Confucianism in my game. Did he found Theology, as well, in your game?

His tech rate is artificially inflated. I think I found the reason why: the Event Log shows that he was eliminated in 2500 BC.

Clearly, the game gives "bonus research" to AIs that "come back from the dead," or else some other related bug is at play here.

TO MITCHUM:

Spoiler :

It is POSSIBLE that instead of recreating the entire test game, that if you started from a saved game earlier than 2500 BC but managed to create a new Settler or City for Louis before killing off Paris, then he might not "die" and we might not have the crazy teching issue.

Maybe. The reason COULD be for some other reason, but I suspect that the DEAD French Civilization is the reason for the problem.

So, was it Louis or someone else?

So, I don't think we can delay from T90 to T93. We will have to delay settling City 3.

If it was Louis that founded those religions, then his tech research dates (and thus Religious-founding dates) cannot be trusted. If it was someone else, it is possible that Louis traded that person all of Christianity's pre-requisites, so that info might also not be reliable.

Thus, we might not need to jump the gun on settling or not settling immediately. I saw us building The Oracle on Turn 92. You claim that you can get it on Turn 90 by delaying City 3. Two turns of difference can be important, but this early on in the game (1700 BC for Turn 92) is generally considered to be a VERY safe Oracle date for Emperor.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

City 3

I must say that i was amazed and scared by your analisys of the city sites.
Amazed 'cause it cost you a lot of work, scared 'cause i could have done it myself.

Thanks. Maybe you can volunteer next time.


Wheat or no Wheat

Then, i've seen there're not great differnces between the proposed locations and maybe the cow/wheat is stronger than others.

Okay, fair enough. Option f) was actually almost as strong, especially if we avoid the Fish + Incense City, and got us more Forest chops.

But you are right that we'd likely never get the Wheat if we settled at Option f), except as a 3rd Coastal City.


River?

OTOH, i see you're in favour to settle along the river, when i was at the beginning and now i have some doubt.

Still, are 2 decent sites.

My concern was that we would be low on Food. We still might be, if we can't culturally grab many squares from Zara. But one Flood Plain is possible to grab. With it being irrigated, we can quickly grow while working a bunch of Riverside Cottages.

It's Commerce that we need now, while the Cow + Oasis location is low on Commerce. Eventually, once we chop all of the Forests and put Cottages over top of them, this city will have a reasonable amount of Commerce, but it won't come as quickly as Riverside Cottages will get us.


Zara's City 2 Location

Sure, we must settle the city along the river first. Now or never more, i think.
But, in case he's got a settler ready and he should have it

If he beats us to the River, then we'll turn around and grab the Wheat. No real worries, since then we'd get Writing that much faster.

He will not settle as far as the Wheat + Cow for his second City. It's too far. I'm now thinking that the Desert to his north-west was created with this very thought in mind, so that he'd settle in a different direction.


He might settle to the east no matter what we do. But, if he wants to settle on the River, then you are right, we should try to grab it first.


Once he has his second City built, that is the time that we can start to worry about the Wheat location. Until then, it is too far for the AI to consider as a valid city location.


Zara's City 2 Delay

Spoiler :

unless he's building a very expensive WW or he smoked something strange

Sometimes, the AIs will retreat their Settler and Archer parties from Barb units--even from Barb Warriors!

However, they won't retreat for THIS LONG of a delay, so either he lost a Settler to a Barb, he is an idiot like Germany in our test game (building a Settler at Size 1), or he went for a World Wonder, like The Great Wall.

Broken Link

Spoiler :

There's something broken in your link to something

I missed putting the "URL" tags around the link. I've since fixed the problem. I was just linking to an old screenshot, to save you time scrolling through the old messages (instead, I did the scrolling, haha!). But at least that way, the whole team benefited.

 

[Mitchum]

TO MITCHUM: It is POSSIBLE that instead of recreating the entire test game, that if you started from a saved game earlier than 2500 BC but managed to create a new Settler or City for Louis before killing off Paris, then he might not "die" and we might not have the crazy teching issue.

Maybe. The reason COULD be for some other reason, but I suspect that the DEAD French Civilization is the reason for the problem.

Yes, when I moved Louis, I killed all of his cities and gave him a settler. This could have been the issue. Let me see what I can do with a pre-2500 BC save.

In my games, Louis was the culprit for all early religions. He was learning 1 tech per turn as I said in my test game writeup.

Regarding rivers, I can handle them. They may not look pretty or be the exact same "shape" as in the game, but they will be in the correct spot and they will provide fresh water and +1 commerce to the correct squares. The prettiness matters not to me. The accuracy of the tiles and their yields does. Same thing goes with forests.

I actually have work to do today, so I probably won't get to this until Saturday at the earliest. If someone else want to take a crack at it, feel free. I've attached the most up-to-date save I have before moving Louis.

I propose that any testing done with the current save will be mostly useless, meaning that we should do no more major, long-term testing until this has been fixed.

 

[BLubmuz]

OK, from what I gathered, here are the current preferences:
Dhoom - River first.
Mitch - Stone first.
havr - Cow first.

Still waiting for UT, Bluz and Irgy.

I want to move the discussion forward, start making decisions.

1 River
2 Cows/wheat
3 stone/marble
in this sequence. no discounts.

His tech rate is artificially inflated. I think I found the reason why: the Event Log shows that he was eliminated in 2500 BC.

Clearly, the game gives "bonus research" to AIs that "come back from the dead," or else some other related bug is at play here.

Proposal to Mitch:
since you're becoming our WB Wizard, why not try to reproduce our game from the start?
Setup a new game with the same settings, put in Zara, a couple religious zealots, a couple of ball-breakers, another AI, possibly any of them being industrious.
Not Mansa.
It can be easier for you recreate our path from scratch.
I think all our tests will greatly benefit from this effort.

Another idea, coming from Irgy.
You can even setup a multiplayer game, where you control all the Civs.
To avoid to play every Civ, you just retire, so the AI will take control over that civ.
But i think you can always take control back.

 

[Mitchum]

Proposal to Mitch:
since you're becoming our WB Wizard, why not try to reproduce our game from the start?

I'm inclined to take Dhoomstrikers suggestion of trying again from T60, which would be much easier. What difference will it really make for our testing if it is Louis or Zara? Both are Creative, so the culture war issue should be the same.

The reason that I say this is that there will come a time down the road when we will be required to start over or give up large-scale testing like we're doing now. When we explore more and realize which AI are reachable now vs. later when we have Optics may be a good time to start over. I could also force Buddhism to the appropriate Civ using Irgy's multiplayer trick. I've never done this, so it could take me a while to do so.

So, if it is important that Louis be Zara instead, I can do it. I realize that they will behave differently. But will it be different enough to warrant all the extra effort now? Since Zara isn't REXing like we would expect, is he really acting like Zara is supposed to anyway?

 

[Mitchum]

1 River
2 Cows/wheat
3 stone/marble
in this sequence. no discounts.

Can you please give the reasons why you feel this way? Is it that you feel blocking Zara should be our first priorty? Have you given up on the 'Mids?

In my way of thinking, we can almost surely get Zara's votes if we want them. We should be at +15 or so by the time of the vote. If we want Zara to be our opponent AND we still have a war available, we could attack him, take a few cities, including his capital, and then gift him back the UN city. If we want Zara to be our opponent and we don't have a war available, then grabbing the land now may make more sense.

Keep in mind that the AI seem to be willing to settle behind your lines if they can transport their settlers in galleys (he's researching Sailing now) without having to "walk" through your culture (at least that's what I read somewhere) . If we take all of his settling options away, he may start settling our peninsula... This would force us to close borders, which could be a bad thing if our religion has not spread to him yet.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Gifting a City to Zara

Spoiler :

OTOH, i see you're in favour to settle along the river, when i was at the beginning and now i have some doubt.

Well, either a city on the Coast down there or on the River will likely be a decent city for "gifting" the United Nations to Zara.

A River City would be close enough for sure for him to accept it in a peaceful trade, due to his culture eventually getting into the City's Centre square.

A City on the southern Coast, while it probably won't have his culture, could almost certainly be given to him to end a war. If we make him our United Nations opponent, then it wouldn't be a bad idea to get Military Struggle positive Diplo modifiers against him with other AIs.

It all depends. If Zara likes us a lot and if the second largest Civ (we plan to be the largest, right?) is disliked by most of the world, then we won't even have to gift the United Nations and can rely on Zara's votes.

However, the "second largest AI" is a variable that changes over time. It's a lot easier to pick a target for gifting a city.


The two ways that I can think of are:
1. Build a city early on near an AI, such that the city can grow large enough over time.
2. Make war and capture an AI's city, hold the AI's units off while building The United Nations there, and then give the city back as part of the peace deal.

Option 2 is limited due our low number of war declarations allowed. That's why I am trying to find a way to peacefully do it.

If we have to declare war on Zara just to give him the city, then we also face the same war declaration issue. Thus, ideally, we'll build a city that his culture will eventually overlap the City's Centre square of, which is a city that he will for sure accept as a gift, as he will treat the city as if it was "rightfully his."

Southern Coast City?

Spoiler :

That said, if the Coast City has a Fish (or even a Clam/Crab), it'll be easier to grow than fighting for a Flood Plains square. As long as Zara DOES NOT HAVE A LOT OF CITIES, he will also take a nearby city as a peaceful gift.

Since we're trying to block him to the west and another AI may be blocking him on the east--plus the fact that he only has 1 city this late in the game--might make this situation very plausible.

There's a bit more risk than in the River City plan in terms of being able to gift the city, but there is less risk in being able to use a lot of the city's fat cross.

Unit Costs

Spoiler :

While playing my Test Game, I noticed that we are soon going to run into 1 Gold Per Turn costs for excess units. We can have 9 free units with 3 Citites.

Thus, if a Warrior dies and if we replace it with a 3rd Worker, then we might get to Pottery that much faster than we would if that dead Warrior were alive and costing us 1 Gold Per Turn. Pottery is the tech that is going to hopefully save our pitiful tech rate.

I want to move the discussion forward, start making decisions.

Warrior 4
Soooooo, I am back to BLubmuz' stance: let's explore with Warrior 4. Send him 1E. See if we can spot a Fish there. I'll even take a Crab or a Clam. If there is one there, I'll shut up about the River City.

Even if there is a Fish there, we weren't planning on settling a southern Coast City immediately, as there is little risk that Zara will go for it now. So, even if Warrior 4 dies but finds a Seafood Resource, we can safely move to the team's other preference (Wheet + Oasis + Cow or Stone, whatever we vote on) without further objection from me. That should simplify the voting, yes?

 

[BLubmuz]

I'm inclined to take Dhoomstrikers suggestion of trying again from T60, which would be much easier. What difference will it really make for our testing if it is Louis or Zara? Both are Creative, so the culture war issue should be the same.

So, if it is important that Louis be Zara instead, I can do it. I realize that they will behave differently. But will it be different enough to warrant all the extra effort now?

I think so. Later in the game, when recontructing all our moves will be difficult, you'll find that Louis is very aggressive, even if he does not have that trait.
In addition, he's industious, he starts with different techs and so on.

Can you please give the reasons why you feel this way? Is it that you feel blocking Zara should be our first priorty? Have you given up on the 'Mids?

To be honest, i'm quite confused now. Despite his great efforts Dhoom has a good part in this. Please see below for further thoughts

Gifting a City to Zara

Spoiler :

Well, either a city on the Coast down there or on the River will likely be a decent city for "gifting" the United Nations to Zara.

Spoiler :

Your reasoning can have some hole.
Hole 1: what if we and/or Zara have not enough land to be the UN opponent to the owner (thanks to our gift) of the UN?
Hole 2: if Zara (and i think it's correct) can be our best buddy, why the gift the UN city to him?

If the land in this continent is not much more that what we can see, there're good chances other AIs can be our opponents.
But, if we can manage to spend one war against the "big dog" and vassallize him/her, we can be the bigger Civ. Then, we have to pick an hated AI (maybe the Buddhist one?), fight a war, give to him/her the city with the UN for peace.
Game won.

Too soon to decide.
But, to finish my answer to Mitch, i think that now we are too short on hammers and commerce for 3 settlers.
So, i think it's probably better forget that blocking city to the south, settle the wheat/cows/oasis one, maybe chop a settler there and a worker in Silverado and go ahead with the stone/marble city as our 4th one.

I suspect we both (me and Dhoom) fell on that nice river and on those even more tempting FPs. But i think it's better forget them now. Zara can be our best trading partner, our best ally and maybe even self-vassallize if we grow powerful enough.
Often i've seen Mansa ask to be a vassal, after centuries of good relations.

Our opponents and our victims will be on different continents.

Zara's friendship can be useful even if we decide to go for culture. Not having to worry about our eastern flank will let us build only the military to defend the west.

 

[Mitchum]

I think so. Later in the game, when recontructing all our moves will be difficult, you'll find that Louis is very aggressive, even if he does not have that trait.
In addition, he's industious, he starts with different techs and so on.

OK, I will create a new save from scratch. I should have a bit of time tonight and maybe more time tomorrow afternoon. I can't promise anything. I know a lot of our current decisions need test games to prove, so I'll do my best to get it done. In the interim, feel free to use the current save for MM purposes, but don't take any wonder or tech dates as reality.

 

[havr]

1 River
2 Cows/wheat
3 stone/marble
in this sequence. no discounts.

So, i think it's probably better forget that blocking city to the south, settle the wheat/cows/oasis one, maybe chop a settler there and a worker in Silverado and go ahead with the stone/marble city as our 4th one.

Now I am confused.
Have you changed your mind? Did you change your vote?
Or maybe I am just too tired to understand what is going on.
Please explain.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Test Game Re-work

Spoiler :

I think so. Later in the game, when recontructing all our moves will be difficult, you'll find that Louis is very aggressive, even if he does not have that trait.
In addition, he's industious, he starts with different techs and so on.

While I see what you mean, who is going to recreate the Test Game from scratch once we learn the 2nd AI? How about when we learn the 3rd AI?

If you are going to volunteer your time to do so, then great.

It's clear that it is unfair to ask anyone else to put in this much effort.

I agree that redoing the entire game for just 1AI is too much work.

Do you know a way to edit a saved game we don't use the BUFFY Mod, so that we can switch the AIs? If YES, then let's create a new non-BUFFY game now. We can update the opponents as we meet them.

If NO, then let's not worry about WHO are opponents are, until we've met them all. Then we can consider creating a similar test game or even a different test game that has the same Leaders.

Even if we are able to create a test game where we have all of the same Leaders in our game, we won't have the same random numbers that define who likes who "more" and "less" than normal, including their relationships to us. So, the value of having identical Leaders isn't as good as you might think that it should be. A random number can turn a Gandhi into a Montezuma, I've seen it happen. It just happens less often than Montezuma being normal Montezuma.

So, if our Test Game Maker wants to do things one way, I'll support that, as what you're suggesting is a lot of work.

If you want to volunteer to be the Test Game Maker, and you want to keep updating our saved game per AI met, I'll support that, as well.

Do you want to volunteer?

United Nations Gifting

Spoiler :

Your reasoning can have some hole.
Hole 1: what if we and/or Zara have not enough land to be the UN opponent to the owner (thanks to our gift) of the UN?

Well, if we go for a Diplo game, after Religions and key Wonders, our secondary goal was to REX.

Assuming that we find where the Barbs have hidden the Fur, we'll at least have that land in addition to other AIs. Even if an AI beats us to that land, we MUST capture it, as an AI will NOT trade a single Resource. So, even if an AI beats us to that land, we WILL OWN THAT LAND. So, we can count that land as helping us to be bigger.

If we ALSO STEAL some of Zara's land, then GIVE IT BACK TO HIM later, then we will have all of our original land plus Barbarian Land. That SHOULD be enough to be #1 in population, if AIs are spread out evenly.

If AIs are not spread out evenly, as you suggested they might not be, then we'll do what you suggested: steal land from the biggest or second biggest AI in the game. Then for sure we will be the biggest!

If we take the land that Zara should have (if he weren't messing around letting his Settlers die to Barbs), then give it back to him, we will not LOSE any land. But, if we don't take any of his land, we will have to give him some of OUR LAND. Then, we might be a bit smaller than the average AI.

Hole 2: if Zara (and i think it's correct) can be our best buddy, why the gift the UN city to him?

We simply leave the option open. Why grab any Holy Cities? Can't you send Missionaries around the world and pay all AIs to switch on the same turn? Yes, we can do exactly that, but owning the Holy Cities reduces the CHANCE that the AIs will switch out of the religion that we choose for them. So much for religious freedom--we will plan to force them to practice a certain religion!

The concept here is the same. There is a CHANCE that Zara might be the ideal AI to have as our opponent. We won't know until the Diplomatic situation reveals itself. By that time, it will be too late to build a city in his area to give back to him. We will instead have to use a different option:
1. Declare war on him and take one of his cities
2. Give him one of our existing cities
3. Declare war on someone else, take their city, build the UN there, and give their city back
4. Don't gift the UN and rely on our Diplo skills

Number 4 SOUNDS GOOD and it MIGHT WORK. But if we have the chance to avoid scenarios 1 and 2 just by settling a single city now, why not do it? That way, we will have more options, in case Number 4 isn't as easy a way to victory as we would like to hope.

It's not like we'll give him the city right away. We will use the city as any other city, building Cottages, infrastructure, using it to build Settlers or Workers or Missionaries or whatever, just like any other city. We just will plan for the POSSIBILITY of giving it to Zara.

Who knows, we might even culture flip one of his cities. I've culture-flipped an AI capitol a few times before, it IS possible, especially if we settle close to him, like on the Plains River square. But that is not our main goal with settling there, it would just be a nice bonus that we will not count on having.


There is still a chance that we will build The United Nations in a captured AI city. But, if we want our opponent to be Zara, we can remove the need to declare war, leaving us 2 war declarations for 5 AIs, instead of 2 war declarations for 6 AIs--improving our odds of declaring on the correct AIs.

I'm just trying to find a simple way of making our ending game easy, without much extra difficulty now. It's not like we're settling a Desert City just to have the possibility to gift it to Zara later. Instead, we're going to try and settle a nice Cottageable city.

Gifting Trick and Wars

Spoiler :

If the land in this continent is not much more that what we can see, there're good chances other AIs can be our opponents.

Better to use our war declaration on one of them instead of Zara, to get the needed land to be #1 in population.

But, if we can manage to spend one war against the "big dog" and vassallize him/her, we can be the bigger Civ.

We dare not risk vassallizing an AIs. Our Diplo relations with other players get averaged together with our vassaled AI. Unless you find an AI where everyone is Friendly with that AI, then our relations will suffer with almost all of the other AIs as soon as you take on a vassal. Plus, the other AIs will also get a negative Diplo modifier for "We fear you have too many vassals." If we take even 1 Vassal, kiss Diplo goodbye. We can't get a Diplomation, so we won't be able to get enough Vassals to vote us to victory, and once we start taking vassals, very few other AIs (perhaps none of them) will vote for us anymore.

Then, we have to pick an hated AI (maybe the Buddhist one?), fight a war, give to him/her the city with the UN for peace.

Capturing a city and building the UN in it in the same war is a tough thing to do. You need to defend the city well. You need to wait for revolts to stop. You need to "use up" your Great Engineer and then risk losing all of those Hammers if the city culture flips too soon or gets captured too soon. It's a lot easier to do the "gifting trick" peacefully.

Reducing Risk by Creating an Opportunity

Spoiler :

Too soon to decide.

I agree. We can't decide now if we'll gift the UN city to Zara. But, what we CAN do is set up the possibility to do so. We can set up the possibilty now. We can't set it up later, unless Zara completely stays away from the River or unless you want to give up one of our cities (which may mean us not being #1 in population, as you stated).

Building 2 more Settlers via chops and Food+Hammer Production is easy--it is the Maintenance Cost of Settling them that is the biggest worry

Spoiler :

But, to finish my answer to Mitch, i think that now we are too short on hammers and commerce for 3 settlers.

The Hammers are not the issue. We can chop 2 more Settlers easily, and don't forget that 1 is already built. The real issue is that once we start to settle our 4th and 5th cities, our Maintenance costs will drastically increase.

That doesn't mean that we cannot use a strategy of BUILDING the Settlers and getting them "ready to settle" but without sitting them down. That can be done cheaply enough Hammer-wise, while saving our tech rate until Pottery comes in or until Zara is about to steal one of our spots.

It is easier to put a fog-buster between Zara and the Wheat location to spot when his Settler is coming than it is to put one between Zara and the River City.

Initially Greed was the Motivator, now more about having a Gifting City

Spoiler :

I suspect we both (me and Dhoom) fell on that nice river and on those even more tempting FPs.

Agreed. They are tempting. Greed can be a powerful motivator. But the more that I think about the idea, I like "owning one of Zara's cities" (at least that is how Zara will think of the situation), without having to fight him for it.

Mansa is an Exception Case and plus We Should Not Have Vassals

Spoiler :

Often i've seen Mansa ask to be a vassal, after centuries of good relations.

Mansa is an exception case. He has special modifiers that make him far more likely to peacefully become a Vassal than other AIs.

Plus, we DO NOT WANT a Vassal in a non-Diplomation Diplo game.

Cultural = Stone City Next, the Wheat City will still be there, as Zara will take the River and/or Settle east

Spoiler :

Zara's friendship can be useful even if we decide to go for culture. Not having to worry about our eastern flank will let us build only the military to defend the west.

If you want to go for Cultural, we should turn that Settler 3's butt around and send him to the Stone now. The Wheat City will still be there, because we'll leave the River area to Zara.

Pillow City?

Spoiler :

Not having to worry about our eastern flank will let us build only the military to defend the west.

Whatever happened to your idea of a Pillow City between us and Zara? Zara would settle near our capitol if we give him the River City. I thought that you cared about this fact. Zara is an AI that will DECLARE WAR if Pleased--only if he is Friendly with us will he not do so.

 

[Irgy]

Mini-lesson on Passive Culture...

My understanding is slightly different to how you seem to have explained this. The equation for the bonus culture is basically 20x the number of times the border has popped since that tile was in the culture radius, not including the border pop that put it there. So for instance the first ring of 9 (including the city square itself) only get the basic culture points until the first border pop at 15. The inner ring then gets 20, while the outer ring of the BFC gets just basic culture until the next pop at 150. The way you phrased it (or the way I read what you wrote anyway), the inner ring was getting 20 culture straight away. My understanding comes from:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/culture_mechanics.php

It also matches my (admittedly) limited experience with culture wars in new cities.

Re: Editing
I vote for people using common sense rather than having some policy written somewhere. My opinion though for what it's worth is that edits should be written for the benefit of people who haven't read the post, or people who go back and refer to it. Anything you want to say to people who might have read the post already don't say in an edit. If there's an error and it's minor, use an edit. If it's important everyone sees the change, use a new post. If it's so important that the original mistake should be hunted down and killed then make a new post and edit the old post as well.

Re: City Locations
If we settle river, we settle if first. We don't settle it later or else we'll just be too far behind in the culture war.

I think we don't have a hope in hell of taking BFC tiles away from a creative capital. A religeon founded gives us 5cpt (only 4 extra if you compare to the 1 a religeon could give without being founded there), compared to the 4 from palace and creative. The BFC flood plains are no closer to us than Zara, and he has a headstart, so where is our advantage that we could use to take them from him?

So I still vote to give up on river, because it still only really has 1 flood plain. But only just - it is still a great cottage site. I'd certainly prefer an option that involved settling it first to any option that involved settling it later.

Stone we should settle first if and only if we are going to otherwise have started building the pyramids before city 4 is settled. The test games will tell us that.

My preference for the cow city is still location 'a', with or without river city.

Re: Tech path
I'll confess I've somewhat lost track of this.

 

[Mitchum]

Stone we should settle first if and only if we are going to otherwise have started building the pyramids before city 4 is settled. The test games will tell us that.

In my test game, I settled Stone first (T90) the turn before CoL was learned. I switched to Confucianism as soon as it made sense for a quick border pop (T93). I had 2 workers ready to build the quarry as soon as the borders popped (T96). Those 2 workers were also just about ready when the Wheel was learned (T98) to start connecting the stone to our capital. All of this allowed me to start the Pryamids on T111 in Delhi. I could have started a few turns sooner if I had three workers sooner (i.e. built one on Silverado).

I settled River the turn before bulbing Theology (T109). If we switched this around and built Stone on T109, we wouldn't be able to start the Pryamids (with stone) until T115 to T118 or so (this assumes 4 workers building roads and improving stone). So maybe the delay of 4 to 7 turns isn't that big a deal... unless we lose the race by 4 to 7 turns!

Or, we could settle Stone as soon as the settler was completed (T108?), which may not buy us anything because the borders wouldn't pop until 3 turns after founding Christianity there. Plus it will kill our research rate that much sooner.

I agree that test games are needed. Our current test game is inadequate for this. I am considering doing a test game from scratch...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Irgy did indeed find a mistake in my Passive (Plot-based) Cultural Explanation

Spoiler :

My understanding is slightly different to how you seem to have explained this...
So for instance the first ring of 9 (including the city square itself) only get the basic culture points until the first border pop at 15. The inner ring then gets 20, while the outer ring of the BFC gets just basic culture until the next pop at 150.
My understanding comes from:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/culture_mechanics.php

Nice work! Thanks for digging up that URL! I did have a mistake in the way that I explained things and your clarification of how things work sounds correct.

What that means is that it should be relatively easy to grab 1 Flood Plains square, as it is not in Zara's fat croass and thus Zara's culture there will be relatively small. The other squares which are in his fat cross will be a lot harder to get.

What the article DOES reveal is that:

Basically, you got 7 Great Artists for the price of one by exploiting a hole in the game mechanics.

So, if we were to use a Great Artist there later for cultural bombing, Zara will be crying.

The other relevant info is that:

Sitting on a spot for a long time counts a lot with regards to cultural control.

So, by founding a Religion in the River City, as long as we switch to it within a reasonable timeframe (say, 4 to 7 turns after The Oracle is built), we can ensure that Zara will be very unlikely to ever be able to culturally flip the River City from us, even if he builds a couple of Wonders in his capitol.

Spoiler :

4 to 7 turns = building a Library (whipping) and a Temple (whipping or chopping = 4 vs self-building it = 7).

After that point, while the capitol is building a Settler, we won't need the Organized Religion bonus there.

By the time that we've gotten the Settler, the capitol should have Confucianism, from the Missionary having sat in the capitol for a few turns before "more safely" spreading--kind of like Espionage Missions but on our own city.

Re: City Locations

If we settle river, we settle if first. We don't settle it later or else we'll just be too far behind in the culture war.

Fair enough.


Giving up on Zara's Big Fat Cross but Not Giving Up on the Gifting Idea

I think we don't have a hope in hell of taking BFC tiles away from a creative capital. A religeon founded gives us 5cpt (only 4 extra if you compare to the 1 a religeon could give without being founded there), compared to the 4 from palace and creative. The BFC flood plains are no closer to us than Zara, and he has a headstart, so where is our advantage that we could use to take them from him?

As I said, I am less worried about this point. You've proven that it is even easier than I thought to take his first Flood Plains square. At this point, I'm more interested in having a city that he'll take for sure as a gift, than on exactly how many Flood Plains squares we can likely steal via culture pressure.


Stone City Now, Leaving River City for Zara, and Delaying Settler 4 in favour of getting another Much-needed Worker and a Desperately-needed Faster Tech Rate

Stone we should settle first if and only if we are going to otherwise have started building the pyramids before city 4 is settled. The test games will tell us that.

That's an idea that we hadn't really discussed: intentionally delaying Settler 4 (maybe in favour of making another much-needed Worker) and planning on starting on The Pyramids sooner, instead of building Settler 4 and having him "sit around."

We WOULD be able to better maintain our tech pace this way.

We would also get super-powered Specialists that much sooner.

We would also get Great Engineer points that much sooner.


Re: Tech path

I'll confess I've somewhat lost track of this.

It'll probably have to be Pottery ASAP, with us possibly fitting in Meditation, Fishing, or both in first, depending upon whether or not we settle 4 Cities immediately.

 

[unclethrill]

Okay, Dhoom has convinced me. I vote to settle the River city.

 

[Mitchum]

Warrior 4
Soooooo, I am back to BLubmuz' stance: let's explore with Warrior 4. Send him 1E. See if we can spot a Fish there. I'll even take a Crab or a Clam. If there is one there, I'll shut up about the River City.

Even if there is a Fish there, we weren't planning on settling a southern Coast City immediately, as there is little risk that Zara will go for it now. So, even if Warrior 4 dies but finds a Seafood Resource, we can safely move to the team's other preference (Wheet + Oasis + Cow or Stone, whatever we vote on) without further objection from me. That should simplify the voting, yes?

Like BLubmuz, I'm curious too. I think moving warrior 4 E now and posting a screen shot will let us know if the coast is clear... so to speak.