SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

Sure, let's move that warrior.

But what to do with the settler?

 

[Mitchum]

Sure, let's move that warrior.

But what to do with the settler?

This would be a partial turn, if I'm reading it correctly. Move the warrior on the southern coast to the grass land hill 1E. That's it. Then post a screen shot of what he finds. This may provide yet another location for city 3...

We can decide what to do with the settler once we have run a few tests related to city settling locations, timing, etc.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

This would be a partial turn, if I'm reading it correctly. Move the warrior on the southern coast to the grass land hill 1E. That's it. Then post a screen shot of what he finds.

Precisely. Just move the dude (Warrior 4) 1E, save the game, and post a screenshot.

This may provide yet another location for city 3...

What I am hoping is that we'll see a Fish Resource (although I'd accept a Clam or a Crab, Fish would be best). If we do, that'll be about as good as 1 Flood Plains square and a couple of Grassland River squares that we'd have to miss by settling on the Coast.

Zara may not accept the city as easily as he would a River City, but it would make for a compromise: he has a chance of accepting the City, while we can choose to ignore the area for now (since a non-River City won't need the immediate boost of "passive" culture that the River City requires) and thus settle at one of other other spots (Wheat or Stone).

The test games showed that the AIs weren't really interested much in Coast Cities with a Fish--they even ignored ones with 5 Fish for quite some time, so I don't worry about losing such a City to Zara.

Yes, it might or might not be as easy to gift the southern Coastal City as it would the River City, but that's why it's called a compromise--taking on some risk in one area in favour of reducing risk in another area.

 

[havr]

OK, I can move it 1E. Do we we need to wait for agreement from UT and Irgy?

After that decision time will come. No one will tell us what to do. We will have to decide ourselves.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Please wait for input from the others

OK, I can move it 1E. Do we we need to wait for agreement from UT and Irgy?

Well, we have 4 people willing to perform a certain move, but we only are now suggesting it as the official move (until now, it was just an idea that I'd tossed around, but a ton of ideas always get tossed around).

So, I'd suggest that we wait until either they speak up in agreement or else 24 hours have passed without them saying anything, whichever comes first, just in case they want to object. If either one objects, then we shouldn't perform the move until we've had a more official vote, after having heard the reasons for their objections (someone may want to change their mind based on a good argument, afterall, so votes would have to be officially recast).

I know that sounds bureaucratic, but it is also a fair system to follow. I'd rather follow it consistently, so that people don't feel they need to constantly refresh the thread just to see if some new action is about to be performed in the official game.

Since we're still working on preparing test games, there also isn't any real rush.

 

[unclethrill]

Works for me. Make the move with my blessing.

I finally have time to play some test games and danged if we don't have a test game to play from.

Hopefully by tomorrow we will have one.

 

[Irgy]

Yep go for it.

I don't think I can get excited enough about a warrior move to disagree with what everyone else thinks anyway. It took me ten minutes to find the screenshot five pages back with warrior 4 in it. I can't imagine where else it would move, although I suppose the alternative is to heal. He should be relatively safe with Zara's borders so close, the coast in the other direction and only one adjacent tile not visible.

 

[havr]

WB file format

Spoiler :

OK, for someone (Dhoom) who want to know how to edit the WB files *without* using the WB (yes, I edited pure text) here is an explanation.

From it you will be able to understand that I can do anything I want to there.

BTW, the file is fairly self explanatory. I didn't know the format until I peaked in today.

The file has four parts:
1) Declaration of game setting: this is between a "BeginGame" and an "EndGame" line.
*) This inlcudes the start year (start turn) and the current turn (I had to change that one to bring stuff by to 4000BC).

2) "Team" declarations which is bascially saying what Civs are out there. Included are their tech, diplomacy, contacts etc. BUT NOT what civ they are.

3) "Player" declarations , which is basically leader+civ. Here you can change the leader of an existing civ.

4) The map. Here is the real juice. This is a series of plot blocks like this:
BeginPlot
x=0,y=9
TerrainType=TERRAIN_OCEAN
PlotType=3
EndPlot

You see the x and y coordinates. This is the most simple type, but there can be more.
*) a line starting in "ImprovementType= " that lists imrpovements in the square.
*) a line starting in "RouteType=" that lists routes (road or railroad) in the square
* ) A city block: This begins with "BeginCity" and ends with "EndCity"
====> Moving a city simply means moving a city block from one plot to the other.
*) A unit block: This begins with "BeginUnit" and ends with "EndUnit"
====> By putting the settler where you want him to start you can control start position. I just copied locations from Mitchun old test game.
*) a line starting in "RevealTeam=" listing all "teams" that already explored this tile.

Thats it!

 

[havr]

OK, no tie breaker here.

Current votes on city location:

"River" - Dhoom, UT
"Cows" - Havr
"Stone" - Mitch

Unclear:
Irgy - either "Stone" or "Cows".
Blub - on the fence.

Now here is how I see the votes, assuming I got everyones votes right and no one changed his mind:

Whatever Irgy will decide to vote we will still have a tie. As I see it Blubmz is the one who is going to decide. Whatever he decides will be the one that wins:
*) If he choose "River" there will be a Rivers majority.
*) If he chooses what Irgy chooses it will have a majority.
*) If he chooses what Irgy did not choose it will be a 2-2-2 tie, in which case Blubmz decision has extra weight.

I suggest that if Blubmz is unwilling to make a decision then Dhoom, as our lead strategist, will be the tie breaker. Sounds right?

Everybody good with that? If not, please suggest another way to progress things.

P.S. I am not trying to be pushy, but we really must get things going and make decision somehow.

When the going gets though, the though get going.

 

[unclethrill]

I vote for the Plains 1SW of the FP and I think we need to go straight there and settle ASAP so that we can start getting culture.

 

[BLubmuz]

I vote for the Plains 1SW of the FP and I think we need to go straight there and settle ASAP so that we can start getting culture.

What have you smoked?
Too aggressive, and too close to the coast.

If we decide to settle that river city, i say 2W of cows (or 2 N of the warrior, it's the same). Those cows are in 3rd border of Aksum, thus it can be pretty easy to grab them if we found a religion (and we'll do) in that city and we adopt it.
Since there're good chances that religion will auto spread to Zara and we can use the free missionary to spread it in Dehli, it can be a good move.

I've seen havr's summary of the votes.
It's surely correct, but to make me vote for anything, we need to decide what to do, provided we can.

Would be a cultural game benefit from this river city?
Would be a diplo game benefit from this city?
Or both? Or none of them?

This is what keeps me on the fence, but not only.
We need to grab that wheat, for health reasons.
We need to grab stone and marble, for strategic reasons.
We need to not go in strike, or not too close.

Not only i'm on the fence, but i got my pants entagled in it and near something VERY tender (at least when i'm climbing a fence).

hhhhheeeeeeeeeeeellpp

 

[Mitchum]

Current votes on city location:

"River" - Dhoom, UT
"Cows" - Havr
"Stone" - Mitch

Actually, I don't want to vote until some test games have been played. I know you're anxious to get going, but I want to know if we can settle River or Cow first and still have a shot at the 'Mids by settling Stone next.

 

[BLubmuz]

Actually, I don't want to vote until some test games have been played. I know you're anxious to get going, but I want to know if we can settle River or Cow first and still have a shot at the 'Mids by settling Stone next.

River and Cow first.
River makes no sense without the Cows.
And not go close to strike. Research around 50% can be acceptable for few turns, otherwise what we are gaining with our strategy risks to be vanished by our too low research.

Better we spend some time in testing. I hope it's not too hard for you to set up a new test.

See ya tomorrow.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Settling where?

Plains River square (1 west of the Grassland Cow square)

I vote for the Plains 1SW of the FP and I think we need to go straight there and settle ASAP so that we can start getting culture.

Interesting. Due to Zara having the Grassland Cow in his outer border, your approach aims to take over the Grassland Cow within a few turns after we've expanded our city's borders once.

Spoiler Why? :

That plan will work because of Irgy's correction of the way that Passive Culture is generated. Zara is generating ZERO Passive Culture on the Cow and the western Flood Plains square (as well as on the Grassland Forest River to the NW of the Grassland Cow). He is only adding 4 Culure per Turn to those squares, plus possibly 1 more from an Obelisk (we know he doesn't have Writing so no Library, and we know he has no religion).

Let's assume 5 Culture per Turn. We'll be generous and say that he expanded his borders 40 turns ago and that he had an Obelisk all of that time. That would be 5 * 40 = 200 Culture in each of those squares.

Now, it's Turn 76 and we can get Confucianism on Turn 92 if we get our expenses back down (right now I see they are at -3 Gold per Turn--we'll need to get another unit back within our borders until City 3 is settled to get that number down to -2 Gold per Turn.

Then, it will take 4-7 turns to complete a Library and a Temple, after which point we won't need the Organized Religion bonus in the capitol (since we'll build Settler 4 while working a Priest Specialist), so Confucianism can be ours then. Give it 3 turns to expand City 3's borders. Let's round up one turn to Turn 103 for switching to Confucianism, in case we miss a turn of research in there due to some reason.

So that's another 17 Turns until we can get Confucianism to expand our City 3's borders. There's no way that he'll get enough Culture in that time for another border expansion, but let's say that he got Hinduism and pop-rushed a Temple in the same turn on Turn 76.

That would give him 6 * 17 = 102 more Culture in each of those squares, for a total of 302 Culture in each of those squares.


As soon as Confucianism expands our borders, we will be putting 20 + 5 = 25 Culture per Turn on the Grassland Cow square. We will only be putting 5 Culture per Turn on the Flood Plains square, so it will take a while for us to get it from him--sometime after our city's 3rd cultural expansion, likely, when that square, too, will start getting an additional 20 Passive Culture per Turn..

Anyway, back to the Grassland Cow. We just need to see how many turns it will take for us to overwhelm his culture:
Turn Number, Fifth Element Culture Added This Turn, Fifth Element Total Culture, Zara Culture Added This Turn, Zara Total Culture
0, 25, 0, 6, 302
1, 25, 25, 6, 308
2, 25, 50, 6, 314
...
15, 25, 375, 6, 392
16, 25, 400, 6, 398

So that means, on Turn 103 + 16 = 119, the Cow will be forever ours, drastically improving our growth in that city enough to work the Cow + Grassland Cottages. Even if Zara were to build a Wonder, such as The Great Wall (+4 Culture per Turn) or Stonehenge (+8 Culture per Turn), that would only put him at 10 to 14 Culture per Turn on the Grassland Cows, while we are making a steady 25 Culture per Turn there, plus possibly more after we pop out an Obelisk and a Confucian Temple before moving on to building a Granary and/or Courhouse and/or another Missionary.


If we were instead to settle one square west of there, we'd only be generating about as much Culture as Zara is generating on that square, meaning that we'd be behind him by about the same culture as what he will be ahead of us by at the time that our borders expand--just over 300 Culture. It won't be until we get our 3rd border pop, 30 turns later, that we'll start to eat away at that Culture. If he builds a Wonder in that time, then we will get about 10 more Culture per Turn than him after our Cultural Borders expand a second time. 300 / 10 = 30 more turns.

That means 60 Turns to get the Grassland Cow after our cultural borders expand once on Turn 103, putting us at around Turn 163 to get the Cow. So that's a difference of over 40 Turns (163 - 119 = 44 Turns) of using the Cow by settling on the Plains River square.

Note that the Plains River square also grabs 1 pre-Cottaged Flood Plains square, in addition to the Grassland Cow square, on or before Turn 119.

Grassland Forest River square (2 west of the Grassland Cow square)

i say 2W of cows

Spoiler :

Based on the above calculations, it will take us until Turn 163 until we can grab the Cow and the 2 Flood Plains squares.

What do we gain? 2 Grassland Hills squares. It's more of a long-term trade off.

Of course, that would mean that a Whale + Silver City wouldn't be able to later use those same 2 Grassland Hills squares with Windmills on them.

So, we would trade 44 Turns of working a Grassland Cow and a Flood Plains Hamlet for the chance to use 2 Grassland Hills squares a bit sooner than we would get to use them by building Windmills on them and using them for a later Whale + Silver City.

Plus we also give up the chance to grab another 2 more Flood Plains squares, which might come under our control after about another 60 - 120 Turns for the Plains River square (a very rough estimate--it depends upon how many Cultural buildings Zara and City 3 build).

The problems, as I see them, with getting those Grassland Hills squares are:
- We get them early, but we won't have the Food to support them for a long time
- By delaying the use of the Grassland Cow + a Flood Plains Cottage/Hamlet, City 3 will take a pretty long time to grow, vastly reducing its usefulness.
- Those Grassland Hills will eventually go to another city anyway--a City that will hardly be able to work any squares so we'll be very inclined to give up those squares.


Further, the Grassland Hills squares are the only real benefit. While we get an additional Grassland River square and a Grassland Forest square by settling on the Grassland Forest River square, those two squares won't be useful for a very long time, due to our lack of growth. They'll maybe only come online around the time that our Plains River square will get Zara's 2 additional Flood Plains squares. 2 Flood Plains Cottage squares are better than 2 Grassland Cottage squares, especially when only 1 of them is on a River.

The Comparison--Plains River or 1W of it on the Grassland Forest River

Spoiler :

The Maintenance Costs are nearly identical, so aren't really worth commenting on.

Zara will equally take either City near the end of the game, so no gain or loss there.

The Grassland Forest River location takes an additional approximately 44 Turns before it can work a square worth more than 2 Food without Irrigation, which drastically limits its growth and its usefulness to us as a City.

The Plains River square City will "earn" 2 extra Flood Plains squares around the time that the Grassland Forest River square City will be able to use the additional 2 Grassland squares that it gets, allowing the Plains River square City to win out there.

The Grassland Forest River location can have more production overall, if it can ever grow enough to use it. The Plains River location will "make up" for this fact by getting almost the same amount of Hammers from just working the Cow as 1 Grassland Hills square, while getting them so much sooner and growing so much more, that it will take a really long time for the Grassland Forest River City's total production to surpass that of the Plains River square.


The Grassland Forest River location will eventually have to give up those Grassland Hills squares (or else we'll needlessly stagnate our Whale + Silver location when it could instead be working 2 more Windmilled Grassland Hills squares).


Overall, we grab a chance for a tiny bit more medium-term production with the Grassland Forest River square, while having less production early and the same amount of production-output later on in the game. In exchange, we will give up a lot of Food.

Summary
When comparing the Grassland Forest River (2 west of the Grassland Cows square) head-to-head against the Plains River square (1 west of the Grassland Cows square), the Plains River square kicks the Grassland Forest River's butt.


The Caveat
Stone City still beats both of them.


One more Tidbit--Delaying the settling of City 3 can help our Cultural Output in City 3, oddly enough, because the timing of when Writing comes in matters the most in the Passive Culture calculation

Spoiler :

We gain more Culture per Turn on the squares owned by Zara by actually DELAYING when we Settle City 3 until just before we learn Writing. That's because of Irgy' correction to my Passive Culture accumulation--until our borders pop once, there is 0 Passive Culture accumulation. In exchange for 2 Turns' worth of later Passive Culture accumulation (+40 Passive Culture), we get an Obelisk about 10 turns sooner (10 Culture, plus maybe later another 10 more Culture when it doubles its Culture a bit sooner).

So, ideally we'll get Settler 3 in place and then not immediately settle him unless we spot Zara's Settler (which we will have time to beat unless he lays down a massive Road network in the next 5 or 6 Turns, in which case we can compromise and just settle a bit sooner than Writing comes in).

That said, we may want to settle City 3 soon, anyway, just to help reduce our Unit Supply Maintenance costs, allowing us to get the western fog-buster in place. It's only a difference of a couple of turns' worth of research on Writing and a couple of turn's worth of cultural output, so if we can save money that we'd otherwise have to spend on Unit Supply Maintenance, then a case can be made to settle City 3 a bit sooner than "just before Writing comes in."

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Responding to BLubmuz' comments on Settling and making a case for our City Settling Order

Spoiler :

What have you smoked?
Too aggressive

The numbers show that the Plains River square is actually not too aggressive at all. It will be a very effective location and it won't culture flip to Zara.

, and too close to the coast.

I don't understand this comment. It was either souther Coast or River, never both. So it's not like we are "messing up" another City Site's possible settling by the "don't settle within 2 squares of radius of another city" rule.

We don't have any Coast squares in the fat cross of either of the Plains River or Grassland Forest River options.

So I am confused as to what is meant here.

Those cows are in 3rd border of Aksum, thus it can be pretty easy to grab them if we found a religion (and we'll do) in that city and we adopt it.

That's true. However, it will take us 44 Turns longer than the Plains River City site will take in order to get the Grassland Cow. Add to that the fact that it will take the same amount of time to be able to work an extra Flood Plains pre-Cottaged square.

It's surely correct, but to make me vote for anything, we need to decide what to do, provided we can.

I don't mind waiting. That said, Mitchum already gave us some preliminary numbers on when The Pyramids can come in.

According to his testing, we can't leave the Stone City until City 5. I realise that this fact may change peoples' decisions about where to settle next, but I would rather have this fact in the open, rather than people being surprised by it later.


That said, in the extra time that it will take to get the Stone connected by building Stone City as our 4th City, we can have Settler 5 ready to go. Settler 5 can then be on "standby mode" right on top of the Wheat City's settling location.

By this point, two of our western fog-busters and one to two of our eastern fog-busters will be able to sit within our cultural borders, freeing up Unit Supply for us to leave Settler 5 plus a couple of Warriors to guard him and one more to scout for Zara's Settler, for free. So, we'll still get Wheat City, as we'll see Zara coming several squares away, giving us plenty of time for a lock on the Wheat City.


I would ONLY be concerned about losing the Wheat City if Zara was now settling his 3rd City. Since he is settling his 2nd City, it WILL BE CLOSE to his capitol. That's just how the AI is programmed. It's a smart move on his part, as it keeps his Maintenance costs down, while getting up a Trade Route early on. He'll do it.

Not only i'm on the fence, but i got my pants entagled in it and near something VERY tender (at least when i'm climbing a fence).

hhhhheeeeeeeeeeeellpp

I can tell you which way to "fall" off of the fence, but I'm not going to "touch" that situation with a ten-foot pole!

 

[Mitchum]

OK. Here is the test save. Havr, please check it out and see if it matches with our actual sav with respect to hammers, food, beakers, units that can still move this turn, unit locations, etc. It should be right.

OMG, this was harder than I thought.

Jumping through hoops!!

Spoiler :

I kept getting beat to Hinduism, so I had to go into WB and take away HCs oasis (+3C for a Financial civ). Then I got beat by Pacal, so I had to take away his river!! Then, I had to give us a mature town the last turn to win the race. Because of this I was then off by 8 beakers, so I had to remove our river for 4 turns such that our corn no longer gave +1 commerce. The downside of this is is that Buddhism did go quite late since all three of us were going after Hinduism...

Then, after we won the Hindu race, I gave Pacal and HC their goodies back. Then gosh darn, we got beat to Monotheism. I had to back track using an autosave and jump through hoops once again!!

Then, we were off by a measly 2 beakers, so I gave us a spice in our BFC on a forest tile we were working already to give us +1C for two turns.

By the way, Zara had an early settler out, so I killed him (and his escort) when the bear didn't finish him off!! I'm 99% sure that this is what happened in the real game. He is currently 12 turns from finally getting a replacement settler out. Assuming I got some of his resources approximately right (we already know about the flood plains), I would guess that he will have his settler done in the next 5 to 12 turns in our game.

So, if you didn't read the hoops spoiler, I'm almost certain that Zara's second settler was killed. This gives us a HUGE advantage over the other teams, which we need to capitalize on! He should have his second settler out in the next several turns and my strong hunch is that he'll head east!!

Why? Because if you agree that his first settler was eaten, why didn't we see a wounded animal to our east or north-east? Because the animal killed his archer un-touched? I doubt it. Because his second archer finished him off? I doubt it, but it's possible.

So, I have a strong feeling that River, Cow and Coast will be safe for settling in the next 30 turns or so. That's my guess.

BTW, if he's working on a wonder (which I doubt with only 1 city), we should know in the next several turns.

Sorry for the delay. On the weekends, I have to sneak time here and there in small bits. If I spend too much time on Civ, my wife will throw my computer out the window!! Or my daughters will want to watch Justin Bieber on YouTube if I turn my computer on when they are around...

 

[havr]

Actually, I don't want to vote until some test games have been played. I know you're anxious to get going, but I want to know if we can settle River or Cow first and still have a shot at the 'Mids by settling Stone next.

OK, lets do some testing, BUT isn't it obvious that if we go for "River" first we are basically giving up on 'Mids???

Here is why: For any chance on 'Mids "Stone" will either have to first or second. If we settle "River" and "Stone" second then surely Zara will not be a fool and settle "Cows". I know that Dhoom says that he will not settle something farther than his closest city, but what other option does he have?

Now, is losing "Cows" an acceptable lose? I don't think so.

 

[unclethrill]

OK, lets do some testing, BUT isn't it obvious that if we go for "River" first we are basically giving up on 'Mids???

Here is why: For any chance on 'Mids "Stone" will either have to first or second. If we settle "River" and "Stone" second then surely Zara will not be a fool and settle "Cows". I know that Dhoom says that he will not settle something farther than his closest city, but what other option does he have?

Now, is losing "Cows" an acceptable lose? I don't think so.

You have to remember that the AI doesn't make "choices" like we do. As a Software Engineer you know how a computer makes choices. If the code says to not go past a certain distance with the second city and if the river site is covered and the north is a desert, he won't have a choice and the settler will just sit there until he has boats and another choice is available.


That point there is both the best argument for my choice on the river site and the best argument against it.

For: It will likely delay Zara settling for even more turns since the code tells him that he has no where to send the settler.

Against: As soon as he has sailing, he will build a galley and will send that settler to our wes coast or off the landmass to another continent or in the other direction (if there is another direction).

 

[unclethrill]

Also, I don't think that by going for the river, we are giving up on the mids. I think by dismissing the river site we may be giving up on the diplo VC though.

 

[havr]

You have to remember that the AI doesn't make "choices" like we do. As a Software Engineer you know how a computer makes choices. If the code says to not go past a certain distance with the second city and if the river site is covered and the north is a desert, he won't have a choice and the settler will just sit there until he has boats and another choice is available.

Of course, I know that. But I also know that the Firaxis programmers are not dumb. I don't think they made the AI so stupid as to be boxed so easily. Yes, they have conditions saying "don't settle if the human has city closer to our capital then the city I am about to settle". BUT the city we are going to found will be considered by Zara as a "captured city" (it will have the liberate option), so if I were a Firaxis programmer I would put an exception that captured cities don't count. Here, problem solved.

ALSO: Zara will have another option that he might take, and that is to declare war. Do we want an early war?