SGOTM 11 - One Short Straw

[mystyfly]

Actually (assuming the majority is for PH 1st city) I wouldn't mind if someone played through BW or through irrigating the second corn (whichever comes first). I'm not sure anything we find will change what we do up to that point. The person with the first go can always stop and ask questions if anything comes up that could conceivably change the plan.

Nah, let's keep especially the early sets short to discuss what we find out when scouting. Until agri and show us what we've got. Oh and can someone else take my first TS here, I seem to be extremely unlucky in the first few turns of any game I touch lately Shyuhe goes first?

Moving the settler on the PH is fine by me. Warrior move probably NW to start proper scouting instantly, he won't show us anything to change our mind regarding capital placement.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Oh and can someone else take my first TS here, I seem to be extremely unlucky in the first few turns of any game I touch lately Shyuhe goes first?

Sorry did I miss a post with the roster & turnset order?

I'm more than happy to take a boring TS (like the third or fourth) while I am still getting back in the swing of things.

 

[mystyfly]

Nope I too have yet to see a roster for the sgotm, I was kinda thinking about the sg-roster. It's up to the captain to post an official roster...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Hey guys! I pm'ed Ras and bbp about following along with you guys. I'm interested in experiencing the process of a non-MW team. So if no one has any objections, I'll just post my thoughts occasionally. Perhaps I can bring a sort of outside perspective that might be helpful.

A few thoughts:

1. I think there are water tiles, maybe coastal, maybe lake, 2SW of the warrior and 2SW of the settler. Do you need to be concerned about that, in terms of settling a later city there?

2. I would be very leery of that 2-DoW limit, for all the reasons you've listed. Those 2 DoWs may be the rarest resource in this scenario.

3. Early exploration may also be important to decide if you need an Optics/Astro bee-line. This means: 1) Avoid Meditation, 2) Oracle-MC would be a good thing, 3) When to spam missionaries? (w/OrgRel?), 4) Need to decide on VC sooner?, and 5) How to get enough plusmods, if UN VC?

4. I think a lot of attention will need to go into plusmods for the UN. Common war plusmods may not be a viable option, so you may need to spam a zillion missionaries and have a common religion. Also, unless you meet the Optics-AIs really fast, you might not be able to count on their votes at all or...?

5. Winning an SG invariably seems to boil down to winning the tech race. Everything else you need to do to satisfy the victory conditions tends to be secondary. Of course, you still need to time all those things to be done when your research is. But this forces you to ask, for example, whether you really want to bulb Philosophy or get it in trade. Not sure you can realistically answer such questions yet, but it's good to continually strive for the absolute minimum possible tech path. In SG9, MW got beaten because we set (and met) a goal that got beaten by two other teams. In SG10 we set a goal that was bordering on impossible and met it. So if you think this game can be won in 300 turns, set your goal for 200 or something like that and strive for it.

Personally, I would begin with the assumption that we could slingshot Radio before the AIs get to Liberalism, so I would prefer to get Philosophy for free. That might not be doable for two reasons, either some Ai techs too fast or our tech partners tech too slowly.

 

[Mutineer]

I would disagree with some comments.

I suspect that satisfying the victory condition could be the most hard part of the game. Why?

a) Resources. A few hints given. There is only 1 fur. something about other resources was different. What could be different? Resource distribution!

Usually resources clunk in places. Civ which controlled them has more then one resource and other have 0. So, civ trade excess of resources. Ai will never trade the last of the resource.

Now imagine Map creator change that, by giving each AI only 1 of necessary resource.

In that case we could get them only by:
1) Vassaling AI Or taking it by military means which use Dow or we are lucky to be declared on.
2) Pushing out borders by cultural means.
3) Using opportunity to sneak in settler when AI city change sides as result of the war.

In short, getting necessary resources could be a long process.

B) All AI running state religion. We really do not want AI to go alone tech tree fast. I would disagree with assertion that we need fast tech game.

If we would need to get some resources by cultural means we would want to slow down general tech speed. WE might find that because of that we want to go culture after all.

Right now only 3 things clear to me.

1) WE need to scout as mach as fast as possible.

2) We need to Rex, probably be ready to sneak cities near AI capitals. Rex for more voites, Rex for resources.

3) WE can mach more easier to claim resources from AI culturally on our own continent, leaving DOw available for claiming resources form other continent. IN addition we could hope on some AI declare on as on our own continent.

 

[babybluepants]

Re: roster
I'd assume shyuhe was waiting for everyone to check in before posting it.

It seems we have an agreement on moving the settler then?

So if you think this game can be won in 300 turns, set your goal for 200 or something like that and strive for it.

That may be just a tad too optimistic. I think shyuhe's original estimate is probably correct, assuming that getting the resources will be a bit of a PITA. Otherwise, diplo would be doable circa t250 (1000 AD), most likely (I will now begin to pretend that I never spewed all that BS about culture ). That kind of tech pace probably requires Oxford at 1 AD as a minimum? It would probably be good to try setting some benchmarks that we wanna achieve in test play.

@Mutineer,
Not sure we wanna assume that much difficulty in acquiring the resources. Seems easier to adjust from fast-tech play late game, than the other way around. I suppose we need some kind of guess... My basic assumption is that 2/4 will be available to us if we scout and REX well early, and the other two will be acquired through late-game wars. I think that's about reasonable.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I pm'ed AlanH about lurking with you guys and he said he'd sign me up on your team. That's not really what I intended, but whatever. I still don't plan to play any turnsets, although if too many guys go AWOL I might consider doing one. Please speak up if any of this is objectionable to anyone.

a) Resources. A few hints given....something about other resources was different. What could be different? Resource distribution!

That's interesting. I missed that hint, Mutineer. Where did you get that something about other resources was different?

 

[shyuhe]

Re: roster
I'd assume shyuhe was waiting for everyone to check in before posting it.

Correct. Although I think I might as well post a roster now since Ras is AWOL again

It seems we have an agreement on moving the settler then?

I believe so. I'll move the settler and warrior and re-post shortly.

I pm'ed AlanH about lurking with you guys and he said he'd sign me up on your team. That's not really what I intended, but whatever. I still don't plan to play any turnsets, although if too many guys go AWOL I might consider doing one. Please speak up if any of this is objectionable to anyone.

Welcome to lurking LC

That's interesting. I missed that hint, Mutineer. Where did you get that something about other resources was different?

I think he's envisioning a worst-case scenario of evil map modifications.

1) WE need to scout as mach as fast as possible.

This is probably one of the most important parts of this game (other than research of course). Without map knowledge, our overall game planning will be severely hampered.

 

[shyuhe]

1. I think there are water tiles, maybe coastal, maybe lake, 2SW of the warrior and 2SW of the settler. Do you need to be concerned about that, in terms of settling a later city there?

Good call - I looked closely at the map once I opened the actual save and saw the blue too. Moved the warrior SW:

I haven't moved the settler yet - I don't think this affects our settling pattern but I'd like to hear from others. And yes, that's a freshwater lake.

edit: Also, I looked at the other teams' graphs and it looks like everyone else has settled in place so far. The ducks and xteam are yet to make a move though.

 

[babybluepants]

Yeah, good call, LC. I totally missed that.
I don't think it changes anything.
I'm guessing in-place and PH will be 50:50. We had a bit of a debate, too, so the other teams are not that surprising.

 

[Silu]

How it looks now, I don't have very strong feelings about SIP or move on the PH. The grass that'd be lost by moving does look very suspicious. But I don't think it matters much, other than that the PH might be VERY prod poor, making early wondergrabs hard. That might be an issue since we're thinking about Oracle - though could have time to build that in a 2nd city. Dno.

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Mutineer: I agree with all your ideas.

1. Exploration. I agree with you: We need to locate all 4 resources asap. Now, if we need Optics, that alone demands very fast research for the purposes of this game and an Optics beeline is not ideal for a cultural victory, right?

2. Research. I need to clarify for no misunderstanding. Ideally, we would get CoL first and trade it only to someone we hope to be Friendly with or Mansa Musa. Then we hope that AI bulbs Philo so we can get it for free. In this way, we can keep the AIs somewhat slow but still advance our interests. Paper is still a huge barrier for AIs to Liberalism.

There may be a speed-demon researcher we don't meet early, so we can't assume Liberalism-Radio will be easy, if we go that way.

3. If we need to get a resource with culture, that doesn't necessarily mean we still have to go for a cultural victory. It's quite possible that resource will be somewhere else than one of our three LCs, don't you think?

4. Are you sure about Defensive Pacts? I was thinking the opposite. If our defensive partner DoWs someone, doesn't that just void our pact but not bring us into the war? On the other hand, if our partner gets DoWed, then we get a free DoW with no penalty.

 

[babybluepants]

4. Are you sure about Defensive Pacts? I was thinking the opposite. If our defensive partner DoWs someone, doesn't that just void our pact but not bring us into the war? On the other hand, if our partner gets DoWed, then we get a free DoW with no penalty.

That sounds right to me.

@shyuhe,
Actually, how do you know they settled t0? No one submitted a save until much later.

 

[Silu]

4. Are you sure about Defensive Pacts? I was thinking the opposite. If our defensive partner DoWs someone, doesn't that just void our pact but not bring us into the war? On the other hand, if our partner gets DoWed, then we get a free DoW with no penalty.

No, I'm pretty sure if your DP mate gets DoWed, YOU DoW the aggressor, giving the penalty. AP holy war also gives the penalty, AFAIK so does a war target spawning a vassal during your war... So many ways to get screwed.

 

[shyuhe]

No, I'm pretty sure if your DP mate gets DoWed, YOU DoW the aggressor, giving the penalty. AP holy war also gives the penalty, AFAIK so does a war target spawning a vassal during your war... So many ways to get screwed.

Silu is right - you declare war when a defensive pact triggers. Of course if someone hits us, then our DP buddy can declare war with no penalty for us.

I didn't even think about the AP holy war - that's a really big potential screw over that we have to keep in mind. If that resolution comes up and there's any doubt that we may not have enough votes to avoid it, we should DEFY (unless we've already declared war or it's our target).

@bbp - you can tell because they all start accumulating culture from turn 0. If you move, you have a flat line for culture on turn 0.

edit: I'm feeling kind of lucky so I'll go ahead and move the settler now

 

[shyuhe]

Oh boy am I good

So pros and cons. Obviously silver is huge. But the downside as Silu mentioned is a lack of production - there's a grass hill, the plains silver (3 hammers), and a tundra hill. From the looks of the land to the east, I don't think there's any other hills in that direction. Also, it puts an ice tile and a few plains forest tiles in our bfc. Basically, the capital will be good till about size 10 but suck past that.

On the plus side, this is a powerful commerce capital with 7 riverside grass, two corn, and silver. We can use the forests to chop out settlers to settle a better production city for our short-term production needs. So I think settle on the plains hill.

I think we need to compare corn-silver-corn vs. corn-corn-silver (probably better). My gut says agri-BW and while improving corn-corn-silver and whipping a second worker at size 4, build a warrior (or SH hammers if we can't get a warrior out in time before size 4) while growing back to size 4 then chop out a settler (using pre-chopped forests).

I think a civil service oracle is realistic given our tiles here, although we'll need a good second city to handle worker/settler spam if we got that route.

edit: The three blank tiles in the original bfc (plains hill, riverside grass, and grass) all probably have resources although it's hard to guess which ones.

Here's my crude fog reading:

The riverside flat grass is forested. And please excuse my horrible paint skills (been a while).

 

[Silu]

I don't think the low prod is that bad here, as we have SOME, at least a 3 tile we want to use almost ~always is huge. Since we have tons of forests this city is certainly great for an Oracle shot.

Certainly settle on the hill now.

 

[LowtherCastle]

A bit disappointing that the mapmakers gave the plains hill such an advantage over SIP but that's not our problem. We haven't talked about synergy yet. This might be a good time. We have these characteristics:
- fast worker
- spiritual/philo
- myst/mining
- commerce tile in BFC
- epic speed
- 2h city center
-

We want:
- fast exploration
- REX
- fast research (?)
- lots of GPs
- Oracle slingshot (?)
- Lib slingshot
- GE for UN (?)

If Mutineer is right that research isn't ultra important, yet it turns out we need Optics for full exploration, maybe an Oracle-Machinery slingshot gives us a better position. That would work with this synergy:

- pottery gives us granaries and cottages for REX and research
- early MC gives us engineers for a GE
- Optics gives us all AIs for tech trading and earlier knowledge of the 4 resources
- we might even meet all AIs early enough to get more up to Friendly
- disadvantage: 50% less on chops for Oracle
- advantage: probably get alpha(?), math, IW in tech trades

There are still some unknowns of course: 1) how many AIs we'll meet early on, 2) whether we'll need Optics, 3) which VC we'll take. Luckily, our early tech path is probably about the same. At least agr-BW-TW(?). Then we decide on pottery or not.

Anyway, that's just thinking one scenario out loud.

----------

Fog-gazing: isn't that another grass hill N-NE of the plains hill?

 

[babybluepants]

Great! That's what I was hoping to get by moving.

To me this = CS sling. In my original test save, I gave us gold and some FP's for the PH capital. I got CS in the 1200's and was at 4 cities + 5 workers in 1000 BC (the nearest save I have - attached with this post for reference). Silver's not as good as gold and we lack an FP for faster whip re-growth, but I think with collective play-testing and optimization we should match my sloppy-ass play. I don't quite have enough experience with Emp Epic to say that's safe, but it feels pretty reasonable to me. Not much we can do if they put Ramesses next to marble, but under normal circumstances, it should be fine.

If we play-test the Oracle from around here, I think we should be benchmarking both Oracle date and early expansion, btw. Also, if we commit to it, we should pound enter off a bunch of random-gen starts to get an idea of the AI dates involved.

The Machinery sling sounds appealing, but I think that depends on what we find. I'd start leaning that way if we prove to be in something like semi-isolation. With reasonable TT opportunities pre-Optics, CS should be the clear winner. The boost to early research rate it would provide here is substantial even if we choose to not cottage, IMHO. The two slings don't diverge until Math/COL vs. MC (I'm assuming we'd want Writing >> Academy fairly early regardless), so there's time to reconsider any plan.

One thing that just occurred to me is that early Paper (via CS sling) could be huge here, if we have 3+ AI's met pre-Optics. It can help make up for weaker early exploration due to chasing the Oracle.

I think we should just go ahead and play through Agriculture tmr. Hopefully, we locate a second city site, for better play-testing...

@bbp - you can tell because they all start accumulating culture from turn 0. If you move, you have a flat line for culture on turn 0.

Don't think so. The graph isn't continuous, but rather line segments between the save points submitted.

Roster: I see I'm first. I'm going away for ten days on Thursday, so I should get moved down.

 

[shyuhe]

Oh nuts, I thought I had put in another post but guess I forgot to hit the button.

One other possibility for the oracle is to take philosophy. It does religion denial, saves us a GS, and opens up pacifism early. In only requires code of laws + meditation (which we'd have anyways from going med-ph-col). On the other hand, early GS's mean it'll make it harder to farm a GE later.

Also you're right bbp. I looked at the culture graphs and it looks like some of the teams did move - they don't have 20 culture on turn 10.