SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Dhoomstriker]

Havr's PPP Question for Worker 1

Spoiler :

Worker 1:
After he's done Mining the Copper,
Turn 79, 2025 BC: Moves onto the GHForRiv to the W + W + W of Delhi
Turn 80, 2000 BC: Chops the Forest (doesn't Mine the mine)
Turn 84, 1900 BC: Complete the chop into The Oracle
Turn 85, 1875 BC: NE GFor: Chop and stop. Chop for 1 turn only.
DHOOM: QUESTION: WHAT DO DO BETWEEN T85 AND T89?
Turn 89, 1775 BC: ***IMPORTANT*** Make sure that Worker 1 STOPS chopping on this turn

Whoops! It looks like I overwrote what Worker 1 was supposed to be doing when I put in that supposedly "important" message!
Turn 86, 1850 BC: SE GFor (1W of Delhi), Chops the Forest (but not chopped to completeion, see Turn 89)

 

[havr]

Warrior 6 Updated

Spoiler :

That's fine and Havr can judge how safe he thinks it will be with moving directly or "creeping" into position. With Zara's Scout in the neighbourhood, now's an ideal time to move, in my eyes, before the Scout runs away and we lose his extra fog-busting before we get into position on the Flood Plains square.



I am suggesting leaving Warrior 6 on the Flood Plains square because it will give us a bit more leeway to spot a Barb unit approaching from the NE. A Barb unit would have to come around the Peak, thus we'd see him 2 turns in advance of him appearing next to us, instead of him possibly appearing next to us.

Since we do not have a Forest square to stand on, I'd rather not push us any further north than the Flood Plain square. Warriors 3 and 4 can handle that northern fog-busting once they are in place, while the Barb Warrior will do the job for them until then.

In the meantime, if we go 1N of the Flood Plains square, we'll simply tempt the Barb Warrior to come after us. The Peak is a natural Barbarian "invisible fence" that should keep him to the north. If we go "poking around that invisible fence," then expect to get electricuted.

Sorry for not being able to keep up - does this modify my PPP in any way?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A Suggestion for Havr

Spoiler :

Why don't you try playing out Mitchum's Saved Gamed using the PPP?

That way, you'll get a feel for how well the format will work for you.

You can then upload your saved game of the final turn of the saved game's PPP. If things don't match up, then we can suggest changes to the wording to make things clearer. If things do match up, then you've proven that what you're PLANNING to do matches what the team wants to do.

If your plans are fine but if you make mistakes in playing, you'll be forgiven easily. But if there's a big misunderstanding with the plan, it would be better to address it up-front, right?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Helping Havr out

Spoiler :

Sorry for not being able to keep up - does this modify my PPP in any way?

I'll tell you what.

I'll modify the wording from your latest PPP's wording to what I think is missing or needs to be updated. I'll list the old wording and the new wording for each change.

Then, you'll be able easily make the changes and will be able to ask specific questions based on the changes, without having to scour 10+ pages of messages.

The goal is to save you the work so that you can go and practice a run through the PPP on a test game save.

 

[Mitchum]

Delhi -
Work tiles - will work copper only once pop is 5. Till then work stays the same.

No. The citizen needs to move from the farm to the copper mine on T78.

T78 - Settle Riverdale, make sure it works the grassland river.
T79 - PH->Writing, Research @ 0%, Worker 1 finishes copper-mine, start choping. Delhi works copper instead of mine.

Actually, the copper mine is done on T78. Please switch the citizen the turn before from the farm to the mine.

 

[Mitchum]

T83 - Research @ 100%, Delhi grows, make sure it now works mine too.

So are you now working two corns, copper and the farm?

In my test game, every turn that a chop came in, I would switch from the farm to a grassland forest (2F 1H). That would give us 30 (chop) + 4 (copper) + 1 (city center) + 1 (grassland forest) for a total of 36 hammers. With the OR bonus, this is a multiple of 4 and actually nets 2 extra hammers over working the farm. A simple trick to squeeze out an extra hammer. It exchanges 1F 1C for 2H. Not a major deal and may not be worth it since commerce is our bottleneck right now.

EDIT!!! I forgot that we are already at pop 4. So, we should work the copper mine when it is available (T78). Once the worker is done, we'll have to decide between the farm (3F1C which grows us to 5 in 2 turns) or the mine (4H1C which grows us to 5 in 3 turns). This is just the kind of MM you hate, isn't it...

EDIT 2!! It looks like Dhoomstriker has already answered the questions. Please follow his advice and work the farm to grow to 5 ASAP.

 

[Mitchum]

OK, I've applied a lot of my PBEM graph reading skills on Zara to figure out what he's doing. I could dive deeper, but I don't have the time right now. Here is what I think he did:

1. He grew to three pops before building his worker.
2. His tech path was Fishing -> Wheel -> ?? -> ?? -> Animal Husbadry -> Sailing -> Bronze Working.
3. His build in the capital was archer -> work boat -> worker -> ???
4. He did not lose an archer (unless he built one on the very turn he lost one), which means his settler is due out any turn!!

By diving deeper, I might be able to figure out what resources he has in his capital and what his worker has been doing. I could also figure out when his settler was / will be built. Unfortunatly, it would take a huge amount of effort and it gets harder and harder as the game progresses.

 

[Mitchum]

Can I ask, again, that we will be a little less tedious (aka anal) in our optimizations?

I can see your frustration. In my normal games, I don't worry about such optimizations because I typically just play, attempting to do a trick here or there to gain a few hammers or coins.

However, since we're playing test games, it is very easy to optimize things a bit more to squeeze the most out of every turn (something Dhoomstriker and I are pushing). In a test, it is easy to go back and re-play a few turns to see if something is better or to synchronize the completion of a build with a new tech so that you can start building the new item the very next turn (if the tech isn't learned yet, you can't start building it when you need to). I can see how these iterations get tedious for those of you that don't find value in this sort of work.

BUT, there really is value in doing so. Even though the gain of a few coins or hammers may seem insignificant, over time they add up. For example, it may allow us to run just one extra turn of research at 100%, getting Math (and the 'Mids) 1 turn sooner. If you lose a wonder by 1 or 2 turns often enough, you begin to see the value in what we're doing. Or, an extra hammer or two may allow us to whip a granary one turn sooner, enabling us to synchronize our re-growth and/or food kept in the granary. This may not seem like a big deal, but it could allow us to grow 1 turn sooner, which means that we get the yield of that tile 1 turn sooner. Same with the next citizen.

So, I don't know how to "turn off my brain" and not try to optimize things. Some people on the team either see no value in this or figure that the value is too small to worry about. The question is, how do we balance those two things?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A neat idea for optimization, but it turns out to be not quite what we need at this present moment. Good thinking, though!

Spoiler :

In my test game, every turn that a chop came in, I would switch from the farm to a grassland forest (2F 1H). That would give us 30 (chop) + 4 (copper) + 1 (city center) + 1 (grassland forest) for a total of 36 hammers. With the OR bonus, this is a multiple of 4 and actually nets 2 extra hammers over working the farm. A simple trick to squeeze out an extra hammer. It exchanges 1F 1C for 2H. Not a major deal and may not be worth it since commerce is our bottleneck right now.

Good job on figuring out how optimize our Hammer by switching squares!

I would like to point out the Math going on here, though:
We are working a 3 Food + 1 Commerce square, for a net of 3 + 1 = 4 basic inputs
We switch to working a 2 Food + 1 Hammer square, for a net of 2 + 1 = 3 basic inputs. In addition, we go from 9 Hammers to 10 Hammers, so when our chop of 30 Hammers comes in, instead of having 9 + 30 = 39 Hammers, for an Organized Religion bonus of 39 / 4 = 9.75 rounded down to 9, we get an Organized Religion bonus of 10 + 30 = 40 / 4 = 10 Hammers. We gain 1 Hammer, giving us 2 Food + 1 Hammer + 1 Hammer = 4 basic inputs.

At this point of the game, where we can "magic" Forests from "thin air" for all of the Hammers that we want, we are mostly limited instead by Commerce and a bit by Food (so that we can grow to work more squares).

Thus, a tradeoff of 3 Food + 1 Commerce, while it does add up to the same number of basic inputs as 2 Food + 2 Hammers, is currently less valuable in my eyes.


The fact that it's easy to forget switching back to working the Grassland River Irrigation, though, is also a potential flaw, as we'd lose out overall on the next turn's number of basic inputs if the UP player didn't remember to switch the citizens, unless another Forest chop also came in.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

PPP Updates for Havr

Spoiler :

I think that I got them all, but it wouldn't hurt to look over the final version. It would, of course, be ideal if you played a test game with the final version, just to ensure that you understand all of the changes, before playing the real game.

I'm making you update each point individually so that you will have a chance to read each one and understand it.

Legend
Red text = old text
-> = "arrow" that says "this red text turns into that black text"
Black text = replaces the red text


The Changes (I can spoiler them later, once they've been added to the PPP)
T78 - Settle Riverdale, make sure it works the grassland river.
->
T78 - In Delhi, switch the Grassland River Irrigation to the Grassland Copper square, even if it doesn't look like it has a Mine on it yet, as the Mine will be there before the end of this turn. Settle Riverdale, make sure it works the grassland river.


T80 - Civics: Hindu+OR, Delhi: Worker->Oracle, Silverado: Warrior->Worker
->
T80 - Delhi: Worker->Oracle, Silverado: Warrior->Worker, Civics: Hindu+OR, Delhi: Switch PHRiv Mine to GRiv Irr, so that you are working: 2 Corn, GCopper, GRiv Irr

T82 - nothing much
->
T 82 - Delhi should be SIZE 5. Ensure that you are working: 2 Corn, GCopper, GRiv Irr, PHRiv Mine


Delhi -
Work tiles - will work copper only once pop is 5. Till then work stays the same.
->
Delhi -
Work tiles - Turn 76, 2100 BC: 2 Corn, GRiv Irr, PHRiv Mine (no change)
Turn 78, 2050 BC: Switch to GRiv Irr to GCopper, so that you are working: 2 Corn, GCopper, PHRiv Mine
Turn 80, 2000 BC: Switch PHRiv Mine to GRiv Irr, so that you are working: 2 Corn, GCopper, GRiv Irr
Turn 82, 1950 BC: Delhi should be SIZE 5. Ensure that you are working: 2 Corn, GCopper, GRiv Irr, PHRiv Mine


Important - once founded must work River Grass for extra +1 comm otherwise
->
Important - once founded must work River Grass for extra +1 comm
Also Important - on the turn after Riverside is founded, on Turn 79, 2025 BC, the game may ask you: "Sire, the ciizens of Riverside are rightfully asking to join the Ethiopian Empire..."
Please choose the third option in the list, called "Wait, let me examine the city first." The pop-up message will be gone when you exit the City's screen


Warrior 6:
Turn 76, 2100 BC: NW GHFor
Turn 77, 2075 BC: Straight north from here onwards until you get on the Flood Plains square
Turn 81, 1975 BC:
->
Warrior 6:
Turn 76, 2100 BC: NW GHFor
Turn 77, 2075 BC: Straight north from here onwards until you get on the Flood Plains square. Please feel free to Skip your turn as many times as you need to do so along the way. If Zara's Scout is nearby, you shouldn't need to Skip your turn at all.
Turn 81, 1975 BC (or on whatever turn you finally arrive here):


Warrior 4:
Turn 76, 2100 BC: Heal him up. If you keep an eye out for Barb units, then use the Heal command. If you don't want to keep an eye out for Barb units, Skip his turn (Spacebar) each turn

until he is fully healed
Turn 81, 1975 BC: The dude has healed up! Send him N PRiv (reduced chance of messing up Forests compared to gonig 1NW)
Turn 82, 1950 BC: Keep sending him NW from here, on those Forests
Turn 85, 1875 BC: Goes NW onto the GHills. Wake up Warrior 3 and bring him to the same square. Explore mostly on Forests with the two Warriors on top of each other. Stop play if have a

question about how to react to Barbs. Your "target square" is on the GFor to the W + W + W of the Oasis aka NW + W of he PCow. However, how you get to this square and how many turns you

want to "sneakily creep your way" in this direction.
->
Warrior 4:
Turn 76, 2100 BC: Heal him up. If you keep an eye out for Barb units, then use the Heal command. If you don't want to keep an eye out for Barb units, Skip his turn (Spacebar) each turn until he is fully healed
Turn 81, 1975 BC: The dude has healed up! Send him N PRiv (reduced chance of messing up Forests compared to gonig 1NW)
Turn 82, 1950 BC: Keep sending him NW from here, on those Forests
Turn 85, 1875 BC: Goes NW onto the GHills. Wake up Warrior 3 and bring him to the same square. Explore mostly on Forests with the two Warriors on top of each other. Stop play if have a question about how to react to Barbs. Your "target square" is on the PHFor to the N + N of the PCow, aka to the NW of the Oasis. However, the details of how you get to this square and how many turns you want to "sneakily creep your way" in this direction are completely left up to you, based on where you last saw the Barb units in the area.


***EDIT:*** It seems that somehow we missed putting in a Worker action for Worker 1. Here's the missing line:
Turn 90, 1750 BC: SE GForRiv (1S of Delhi), Chop the Forest

 

[BLubmuz]

I think it's enough details to give a green light to havr.

Also, i prefer to lost 1 hammer or 1 commerce in game than a good team member or even 2, since Irgy does not contribute much here, but he posts regularly in our MTDG.

We're spending a lot in verifying any minimum detail, which can easily be forgot.
We risk also to put too much pressure on the UP player.

This is not a criticism, but please, don't forget CIV has also a good part of randomness.
It's up to us reduce this factor, but we can't eliminate it.

So, let's hope anything strange will ruin our so-well-thought-and-detailed-plans.

Well, trying to keep the ball rolling and avoid to have other balls broken.

BTW my monitor is the oldest component of my HW, it's a 19", so 1280x1024.
And usually i don't open Firefox full screen. But even if i do, i can't handle a 1650 without Hor scroll.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Please note that the following points all refer to things that will happen AFTER Havr's turnset.

Stone City Location Debate

Spoiler :

I'm still convinced that the Stone city is better placed 1 NE of stone

Okay, that's a fair opinion. You want to put City 4 there in order to get the Stone sooner, correct?

Do you have a test game (or even just an idea for one, so that someone else can execute it if you are too busy) for how we will make better use of the Stone this way?

Would you agree that, ignoring the concept of a Fish + Incense City, a better overall location for the Stone City would be 1W, in order to grab the Cow, Marble, and an extra Flood Plains square?

If you agree and if test games can show that The Pyramids will come no faster or slower based on which location we settle, can you agree that settling immediately next to the Stone does not offer us any extra value?

Or is there perhaps a different reason in mind than to get the Stone sooner?

Fish + Incense and similar Cities in order to increase our Diplo-voting Population, so that we can become the Largest Civ Population-wise, for an easier Diplo Victory

Spoiler :

and that we can avoid the fish/incense city.

This point is a separate point. We can choose to settle or not settle this City regardless of where we put Stone City. It does become a bit worse of an option by settling Stone City, but if we have nowhere to expand to until Astronomy, then every piece of land with a Food Resource may be required in order to increase our population.

Even with 1 Fish as a Food source, you can't go from a Size 1 City to a Size 14 City in a few turns, hence why we might consider building the Fish + Incense City sooner than researching Astronomy, should we choose to settle it, so that the City will have enough time to grow before voting time comes in. 14 votes may not be the difference between winning and losing, but those votes will certainly help us in becoming the largest Civ; if we aren't the largest Civ, then we can't use the gifting United Nations trick.

"Minor Cities" like this Fish + Incense City might just be the key to an easy victory (by gifting the UN).

Math is a Multiplicative Synergy of Stone and Organized Religion

Spoiler :

Researching math for the Pyramids with the stone at hand and so many techs needed seems... strange at least.

The difference is the way that additive vs multiplicative bonuses work.

Stone and Organized Religion are additive bonuses, not multiplicative bonuses. That means that their bonuses add onto each other, instead of multiplying against each other, which results in a smaller amount of bonus than if they were multiplied against each other.


Let's give an example of a 30 Hammer Forest chop.

If Stone and Organized Religion were multiplicative bonuses, they would be multiplied against each other, and you would see:
Original Hammers = 30 * 100% Stone bonus = 30 bonus Hammers
Total Hammers after Stone but before Org Rel = 60 Hammers * Org Rel 25% = 15 bonus Hammers
Total Hammers after Stone and after Org Rel = 60 + 15 = 75 Hammers

Instead, they are additive bonuses, and you actually see:
Original Hammers = 30 * 100% Stone bonus = 30 bonus Hammers
Original Hammers = 30 * Org Rel 25% = 7.5 bonus Hammers (rounds down to 7)
Total Hammers after Stone and after Org Rel = 30 + 30 + 7 = 67 Hammers

Awwwww, too bad they don't multiply against each other, right?


Well, here's where things get interesting! Getting the Math bonus means that the original amount of base Hammers are affected, on top of which we apply the Stone and Org Rel bonuses, creating a multiplicative bonus. That multiplicative bonus is where we start to see the real synergy with Stone and Organized Religion thrown into the mix.

If Math were just another additive bonus, we would see:
Original Hammers = 30 * 100% Stone bonus = 30 bonus Hammers
Original Hammers = 30 * Org Rel 25% = 7.5 bonus Hammers (rounds down to 7)
Original Hammers = 30 * Math 50% = 15 bonus Hammers
Total Hammers after Stone and after Org Rel = 30 + 30 + 7 + 15 = 82 Hammers

However, Math is actually applied before the Stone and Org bonuses, making it a multiplicative bonus and a two-step process:
Step 1:
Original Hammers = 30 * Math 50% = 45 Mathematics-based Hammers

Step 2:
Mathematics-based Hammers = 45 * 100% Stone bonus = 45 bonus Hammers
45 Mathematics-based Hammers = 45 * Org Rel 25% = 11.25 bonus Hammers (rounds down to 11)
Total Hammers with Math after Stone and after Org Rel = 45 + 45 + 11 = 101 Hammers

HOLY CROW, BATMAN! That difference is HUGE!

We go from one pre-Math chop of 67 Hammers to a post-Math chop of 101 Hammers, an increase of 101 - 67 = 34 Hammers*! WOWZERS!

* Edited as per Mitchum's comment.

 

[Mitchum]

We go from one pre-Math chop of 67 Hammers to a post-Math chop of 101 Hammers, an increase of 66.3%!

It's actually only an increase of 50.75% ((101-67)/67), but the difference is big!! 34 "free" hammers.

Another reason why we would settle the fish/incense city is that we may need the resources as trade bait.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Participation--It's all about what YOU make of it

Spoiler :

Also, i prefer to lost 1 hammer or 1 commerce in game than a good team member or even 2, since Irgy does not contribute much here, but he posts regularly in our MTDG.

1 Hammer vs 1 Commerce vs whatever isn't the only thing that is being discussed here. Far from it.

The majority of the team's messages focus on higher-level strategic points, such as whether we should fog-bust and where, what our relative tech order should be, how many cities we should settle and in what order, etc.

By agreeing to a certain fog-busting approach, it is important to get the details right, otherwise we won't really be following our agreed-upon approach.

I understand what you are saying, but I am also throwing down the gauntlet to others to stand up and discuss more about whatever topics interest them.

I'll talk anywhere from extremely-high-level down to extremely detailed points, and everywhere in between. If you don't like the way that the conversation is going, instead of complaining, start a new conversation thread. That's my challenge to anyone who will accept it.

We're not trying to eliminate randomness, but are trying to improve playstyle and skills

Spoiler :

don't forget CIV has also a good part of randomness.
It's up to us reduce this factor, but we can't eliminate it.

I do not see anyone pushing the goal of eliminating randomness. It's certainly not my goal, anyway.

However, how is it random to take the time to switch one citizen on the turn that a Worker completes an improvement, instead of one turn later when the game asks you to move a Worker? That's not random. That's just good playing.

If everyone had this level of play style, we'd all be Diety-level players. The goal isn't to turn everyone into Deity-level players, but it is to get you guys thinking more about the way that you play, to see if you can find simple ways of improving upon your play.

Chosing where to settle isn't an easy thing to do and it varies for each game. Yet, improving a Resource is something that you will do in each game. If you know the trick to switch a citizen to the improved Resource on the turn that it is completed, your game play will improve for all of your future games.

That's not random; that's controllable.

Our Plans take into account some of the game's risks and have contingency plans in place--when we don't need the contingency plans, we celebrate (such as when we got Hinduism)

Spoiler :

So, let's hope anything strange will ruin our so-well-thought-and-detailed-plans.

The plans were made with these things in mind.

If we lose The Oracle, we can still get a Great Prophet from Temples and Lightbulb at least 1 of the 2 religions, if not both of them from 2 Great Prophets.

If we miss out on a religion such as Code of Laws, we'll just take Christianity with The Oracle.

If we lose a fight to a Barb, we have already planned to be fighting them far away from our cities, so the loss of a unit won't also include the pillaging of our lands or the capturing of our Cities.

There is a lot of risk-tolerance built into our plans, to allow for this very random nature of Civ 4. The randomness makes it fun!

If I could hand you a script and you could run that same script every game and get identical results, the game would be boring! Well, you can't do that, as you'll fail time and time again. Each game is different and how you play each game must be different if you wish to succeed!

Screen Width Available

Spoiler :

BTW my monitor is the oldest component of my HW, it's a 19", so 1280x1024.
And usually i don't open Firefox full screen. But even if i do, i can't handle a 1650 without Hor scroll.

Okay, so a screenshot that is about 1050 pixels wide would be the largest that you can probably handle viewing if you maximize your browser window.

But you said that you don't maximize it, so I can't go by that number. But you didn't say how wide you view the thread's text. So, I'll ask you plainly: how wide do you open your Firefox web browser? Half of the screen? More than half? I'll also take a pixel-specific width, if you want to throw one out there. I generally know the picture's width before I upload it, due to having manually cropped its size first.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

HIGH-LEVEL STRATEGY DISCUSSIONS!

Free Religion

Spoiler :

* Every AI is still alive and running a state religion.
This pretty well means not running the "free religeon" civic. We can change this with spies. Once we've researched mass media, we can set our slider to ep production, focusing on those AIs who are inclined towards free religeon, and make sure we have spies in each of their cities. No point wasting EPs switching them earlier when they can switch back. Someone needs to confirm whether switching out of free religeon will automatically bring the state religeon back if there was one before switching to it.

The Free Religion Civic is special, in that it alters the way that religion works.

For one, you don't actually "switch out" of your current State Religion. It's just that your current State Religion no longer applies.

Thus, if you switch from Free Religion to any other Religious Civic, even the default one of Paganism, you will find that your previous State Religion is once again your State Religion.

One further impact is that you CANNOT SWITCH between religions (i.e. you cannot change your State Religion) while you are running the Free Religion Civic. An implication is that an AI who switches to Free Religion can have all of its Cities spammed with a particular religion, but they won't be able to switch to that religion until they first leave Free Religion.

Whatever strategic implications this info has are for you to decide.


Keeping the AIs' Tech Levels down, particularly those techs which are related to Liberalism
It would be my preference if we could keep most of the AIs in this game "dumb" enough not to learn Paper, Education, Philosophy, or Liberalism for a very long time. Liberalism opens up the Free Religion Civic, while the other techs are techs that all lead to Liberalism. The fewer techs that an AI has that lead to Liberalism, the longer it will take for that AI to get to Liberalism.

Note that if a Chinese, Mongolian, or Russian Leader is in the game, they may aim to get Liberalism so that they can get to a tech that has Liberalism as its pre-requisite: Communism. By them beelining Communism, they will also end up beelining Liberalism, and although they might not use Free Religion, there is the danger that anyone to whom they sell Liberalism might switch to Free Religion.

So let's try to keep the AIs stupid and we'll have less Free Religion headaches.

War, for what is it good? Diplo? Yes. Resources? Certainly!

Spoiler :

* All your cities have access to fur, dye, silk and ivory.
We need to control the fur anyway. How easy the others are to get isn't clear. We may need to declare war to get some of these, so as such we must not waste our limited war declarations until we know where these resources are.

Well, indeed Irgy has a great point here that we can't forget about. Our war declarations might not just need to be Diplomatically-related, but also might need to be Resource-related.

We can hope that some of these other Resouces will have duplicates in the AIs' lands. However, if an AI is playing dumb like Zara is and has 1 Resource in their capitol but doesn't settle the other Resource, then two DIFFERENT AIs might end up with ONE EACH of the same Resource, meaning that we can't get it from either one of them in trade. Yikes!

Great People, Music, and More

Spoiler :

* You have the welcoming party of four great people and four warriors standing ready on the only fur in the world. (The great people can be of any type)
The warriors we just need to build early, and keep in a safe place. The great people requirement is going to take some planning. We'll need to figure out how many great people we can generate before the end of the game, and probably keep the last four. We can consider getting the Music and Physics great people and maybe Communism and Economics as well to help with this.

Well, we have several Warriors. I'm guessing that we're going to want to keep all of them (at least all of the ones that don't die to Barb units), right? So that we'll have a couple of backup ones? An early Cottage or two should pay for this extra expense over time, right?

Whether or not we will go for Music might be worth discussing soon.

Aesthetics and Literature are on the way to it, which lead to some useful Wonders: The Shwedagon Paya, to prevent an AI from building it and thus being able to switch to Free Religion without them learning Liberalism, as well as The Great Library.

Physics we should get for sure, as it's on the way to The United Nations.

Communism may not be worth the invested Flasks, unless we take a long time after researching Mass Media to build The United Nations or else if we take a long time to win a vote, in which case we can backtrack in our research in order to grab Communism, should we not yet have the required number of Great People.


SPEAKING OF GREAT PEOPLE...
It should be noted that "multi-selecting Great People" is NOT the correct way to choose which Great People get used in a Golden Age. The best way to control which other Great People get used in a Golden Age is to put the one or ones that you want to use in the same City as the Great Person that you are using to trigger the Golden Age.


ONLY SELECT ONE GREAT PERSON when you are triggering a Golden Age. If you select more than 1 Great Person, then you will trigger multiple Golden Ages at once, EATING UP OUR STORED GREAT PEOPLE. This point could be an easy way to lose the game, if we don't run a lot of Golden Ages, since, with 3 Great People selected, you can accidentally use them all up at once by clicking on the Golden Age icon and thus triggering two Golden Ages in a row (using up all of our hard-earned Great People in the process).

Another point: When we DO decide to run a Golden Age, that is when we should plan to run Caste System and a bunch of Specialists, as Great People generation is doubled during a Golden Age. Some people also like to run Pacifism at the same time, if they aren't generating Great People Points on a regular basis on non-Golden-Age turns. The Golden Age Great People Points bonus and the Pacifism Great People Points bonus are not multiplicative bonuses, but if you'd be normally working a Cottage or a Mine on other turns, you might as well switch to Pacifism at the same time that you decide to hire a bunch of Specialists, right?

Our State Religion EVERYWHERE (not just in all of our Cities)!

Spoiler :

* You are running a state religion which has been spread to every one of your cities.
This ought to be fairly straightforward, just something to double check as we come up to the last few turns. We can leave this until later.

If we spread our State Religion all around the world, say, Buddhism, then it won't matter if we capture a City near the end of the game--we'll still meet the condition of having our State Religion in all of our Cities. Otherwise, we'll have to be careful about capturing a lot of Cities near the end of the game, as it may take a while to build and "ferry" Missionaries of our chosen faith to these newly captured Cities, especially if we are busy using our boats to "ferry" military units around!

2 War Declarations

Spoiler :

* No more than two AIs have a 'you declared war on us' negative modifier towards you.
So, a diplomation victory is less likely here. We need to save these war declarations for getting the resources we need if neccesary.

This point seems to be the one that we talk about the most, so I don't worry about us forgetting about it.

It does mean that we have to be careful in watching the size of various AIs, to ensure that a much larger one doesn't vassalize a much smaller one. Giving them both the same religion could cause this peaceful vassalization to occur, so we do need to keep an eye on relative AI sizes.

Zara, for example, won't be allowed to take a City from us via a Diplomacy Trade if he is a Vassal of someone. He MIGHT, however, be able to take such a City if we "Liberate" it to him--which can only be done for Cities that have at least 1% of his culture in their City squares. Oh, look, we are going to have such a City! Riverside! Sweet! But, still, that's just an "if" that should be tested--I'm not sure if you can actually Liberate a City to someone's vassal--the master might get mad if doing so causes the vassal to become big enough to cease being a vassal!

Diplomacy with the AIs

Spoiler :

As a diplomatic victory in a team game, one important issue is going to be demands from AIs. We really need to think carefully about how to respond, and we're not going to know when they're coming. I don't think you can even save while the AI screen is up. What do we do in this case? Plan out all possible responses beforehand? Leave the game running and alt-tab out to get the team's advice?

Diplomatic Policy is soon going to start playing a role in our games. We'll soon know Writing (on my turnset), so every AI that we will meet with want to Open Borders with us.

However, as soon as we Open Borders with more than 1 AI, we risk them asking us to shut down borders with a different AI.

Plus, we risk random religions spreading if we Open Borders with off-continent AIs, as they won't be as effected by the "Confucianism will likely spread due to its proximity" as will Zara, since he is on the same continent as us. If an AI gets multiple religions, they're more likely to want to switch to Free Religion, which would be bad for us.

So, a Closed Borders policy is probably a wise idea until we can settle some cities either off continent or on our continent on the other side of Zara, next to a Buddhist AI, hoping to get their religions through an Open Borders exchange (without us giving away too many of our religions to them!)

Avoiding the Creation of Holy Shrines

Spoiler :

Here's a reason to avoid building our own Holy Shrines: to reduce the spread of their corresponding religion in Foreign Cities, in order to reduce the chance of said AIs adopting Free Religion.

Plus, we're focused on a Lightbulbing game, anyway. Extra Great Prophet anyone? How about grabbing Divine Right with it?! The Spiral Minaret will pay for a lot of future tech pace, and Versailles means that we can economically afford to capture one of the biggest AI's lands on a different continent, by building Versailles locally and rebuiding our (cheap to build) Palace over there.

 

[Irgy]

For the record, I've also basically been either asleep or busy at work since I posted last, back on page 62, and now I have two pages of posts to catch up on before I can make a comment. Not to mention that two pages of Dhoomstrikers tidiliy spoilered posts is more like 4 pages of ordinary posts - it's a very good thing that it's structured the way it is, but it's still a lot of content.

Still enjoying being involved, just struggling to keep myself on top of things and making relevant comments. Apologies for not being able to contribute more.

 

[Irgy]

PS I'm not complaining about the bulk of content here, just pointing it out. My main point was that I hadn't posted for 'a while' (in terms of post numbers) because of the time zone. Although I admit I've been a bit quieter than I'd like to be the last couple of days.

Another problem is that I'm not going to post just to say I agree with something (other than when there's a vote involved of couse). I just read Dhoomstriker's high level strategy discussions post above hoping to have something to contribute on topics that don't involve me needing to open the test game to catch up on the micro issues, but I basically just agree with all of it

 

[Mitchum]

Please say "Aye" if you agree to play it (after Dhoom answered the questions). If all say "Aye" I will play it tomorrow morning (about 8 hours). Good?

The only sticky thing would be accidentally completing the Oracle before learning Writing (it happened to me once in a test game because I was playing too fast). Since you've played a test game already, I don't expect this will be an issue for you.

I think we've for your turn set. With the final few changes made by Dhoomstriker, I think you're good to go unless you still don't understand something.

 

[Irgy]

For what it's worth, I'm happy with the plan as it currently is as well.

 

[unclethrill]

Aye.

And my screen is 1920x1200 and on some of those screenshots I still need to scroll.