SGOTM 11 - One Short Straw

[mushroomshirt]

I think you guys are misunderstanding each other slightly...

I'm not surprised! I have been out of it for a while

edited plan (I will not play until tomorrow at the earliest):

1) scout with first warrior to the north - 2nd warrior will go east to find Zara's capital
2) tech BW - I'll stop after this is in
3) worker irrigates corn, irrigates corn, chops (for settler) then mines silver
4) finish worker, build warrior until pop 4 - I will not get to pop 4, but I will put a chop into a settler. I like chopping GH because we will likely mine the hill before cottaging grassland.

 

[babybluepants]

I think BW is too far for this TS. Also, no need to play tmr - let's take it easy for now, IMHO. We haven't fully tested anything yet. And, a few teammates have yet to chime in on any of this.

Growth to 4 and second warrior completion should coincide. The worker can't finish the chop by then.

I do like chopping the grass hill, as I doubt the 1t off the settler will make any difference in terms of Zara.

 

[shyuhe]

Yes - there is no hurry to play the game yet - we have four months for this game

It may be better to break your set into smaller pieces anyways, as our strategy (i.e., need to rush out a settler) may change depending on what we see from our second warrior scouting east.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Yes - there is no hurry to play the game yet - we have four months for this game

It may be better to break your set into smaller pieces anyways, as our strategy (i.e., need to rush out a settler) may change depending on what we see from our second warrior scouting east.

np - definitely will wait for consensus on the plan until I play. If anything interesting / unexpected happens I will stop and give updates.

How long do you suggest for the set? 10 turns? Just let me know... BW seemed a convenient spot but let me know how you want to do it...

 

[shyuhe]

Ok I tried playing around with bbp's test save. Went agri-bw, irrigate-irrigate-mine silver (2 pop whip settler), which becomes turn 45 for the settler. So I think chopping a flat grass for the fastest settler (turn 42) is best here, since we want to make sure we grab any city site between us and Zara without having to war. The obvious downside to this is that we will need a second worker very early - how do we want to slot the second worker in?

@mushroom - I'd like to hear from others first (since we're somewhat divided about to send our initial warrior), but how about you play till the worker finishes irrigating the west corn and post some scouting pics? I think that's about 10 turns actually.

 

[Mutineer]

I want again to make case for researching Well before Bronze working and building settler naturally at size 3. It is actually faster.

Because of bad scouting I can not plan workers turns, but preroading to the settling site can speed up settling to up to 2 turns, same amount one chop provided.

On Bright side, it saves chop for something which we can not whip with out penalty, like Oracle.

We want to settle faster, not to build faster. even there, self building as size 3 is not slower, because we do not produce excess of warriors before settler.

 

[Mutineer]

Ok, I actually went and did tests, Fasters come Workers-warrior-settler at size 2. Reseach Well-Bronze working
Settler is ready on turn 44 and 2 ties of road try the forest build.

 

[mystyfly]

I think BW is too far for this TS. Also, no need to play tmr - let's take it easy for now, IMHO. We haven't fully tested anything yet. And, a few teammates have yet to chime in on any of this.

The speed at which you guys are posting makes it hard for some to keep up...

@mushroom - I'd like to hear from others first (since we're somewhat divided about to send our initial warrior), but how about you play till the worker finishes irrigating the west corn and post some scouting pics? I think that's about 10 turns actually.

I gave my opinion on this, send the warrior north.

I'd say play around 10 turns mushroomshirt, if nothing happens you could still continue, but we'll want to see what you find with your scouting...

Consensus seems to be BW, warrior > warrior and irrigating the two corns. That's settled for the TS. We just have to decide on the initial warrior move and we're good to go on

 

[Mutineer]

No there is no concensys on that yet. Not on Bronze working not on worker actions.

 

[mystyfly]

I recall everyone wanting BW except LC who brought up TW but changed his mind after his testing...

I had a look at the power graph on the progress page... Does this mean that plastic ducks went for a (warrior) rush??

 

[Mutineer]

please, look try my post, each of them advice to research well next.

 

[mystyfly]

Ok, I actually went and did tests, Fasters come Workers-warrior-settler at size 2. Reseach Well-Bronze working
Settler is ready on turn 44 and 2 ties of road try the forest build.

I don't like that because we have 3 great tiles and I don't want to pass up working one of them during the settler build. Also, we only have 2 warriors then, I prefer 3 for scouting and fogbusting. As someone said, it would be nice to slip one of the warriors past zara but that would mean that he'll be far away from home for quite some time.

On Bright side, it saves chop for something which we can not whip with out penalty, like Oracle.

Good point. What you've been doing mut, if I understand that correctly, is roading instead of chopping... after the two farms and the silver mine? I like that.

To correct you mut, we have a consensus regarding worker turns for mushroom's set as he'll be farming the corn anyway, I doubt you want to improve anything else first...

 

[babybluepants]

I had a look at the power graph on the progress page... Does this mean that plastic ducks went for a (warrior) rush??

Nope.
15k soldiers = 2k Mining + 8k BW + 3x1k Warrior + 2k Pop4
They did exactly what we were planning to do.

@Mutineer,
Your plan is legitimate, too.
The main reason I like the current plan is what mysty said - we get 3 warriors early, and 2 more within 5-ish turns of settler. Fogbusting and exploring...

 

[mdy]

I've been playing around with the test save. The earliest that we can get the silver mine running is T45. With the grow to size 4 build settler and whip we get 2 warriors, the settler on T45, and start working the silver mine on T48. If we went with grow to size 2 and chop we get the settler on T42, but only get 1 warrior and don't start working the silver mine on T49.

Normally I would go for the grow to size 4 and whip, but the need to contain Zara may mean the grow to size 2 option would be better. Perhaps we should pause once we have grown to size 2, when we may be in a slightly better position to determine what to do.

I don't like that because we have 3 great tiles and I don't want to pass up working one of them during the settler build. Also, we only have 2 warriors then, I prefer 3 for scouting and fogbusting.

We won't be able to work the silver till after the settler is built because we won't have enough worker turns to build the mine in time. If we went with the whip plan we would have 3 warriors and could build a fourth on T46 from the whip overflow. If we went with the grow to size 2 plan then we could get an extra warrior by working a hill until we have farmed the corn at the expense of delaying the settler by a few turns.

 

[Silu]

Sorry for not participating all that much, all this early game spreadsheeting and testing out 20 different scenarios whose results differ by +-2 turns isn't really my favourite cup of tea. I don't really have anything to add to the discussion now so I'll just sip my real cup of tea while following the discussion and waiting for something to comment on FWIW the warriors+chopping feels more comfortable than regbuild+roading without any testing but I guess that's no surprise.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Man, I take a short nap (~10hrs), and you guys put MW to shame for thread spam. Great discussion! I went to bed wondering about building the settler au naturale and woke up with all the answers...after I read Mutineer's post.

Kudos to bbp on the test save. Info like the Zara settler on T50 is really good.

I think we need to think in terms of building two settlers before Zara does his first. One settler might not contain him enough. But how? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking we have to combine:

1. The current warrior and the next both explore east/ne.
2. Mutineer's plan, with the roading going NE (if appropriate) so both settlers will benefit.
EDIT: 2'. Mutineer's plan, but with chopping instead of roading.
3. Poprushing the second settler.

This, of course, would be conditional on the warriors actually finding two sites worth settling. But as long as Silu () can patiently endure this testing, I think we should wire this in advance, so we're able to do it, if we want to.

---------------

There are multiple potential benefits to boxing Zara in (if he can't expand to the east).

1. He may have the stone and/or marble we covet. (Temptations of the devil mapmaker.)
2. We might be able to provoke him to DoW us.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Just to get an idea of our scouting warriors' movements. I think our current warrior must scout toward Zara. Animal attacks are likely to slow this down, so our warriors should try to stay in forests and on hills as much as possible and avoid animals. The sooner we see into Aksum, if at all, the better.

 

[Silu]

I don't mind the testing at all (as long as I don't have to extensively do it myself), the discussion is interesting. Just that I don't think I'm qualified to participate in that kind of discussion as much as I don't have it in me to test-game/spreadsheet-simulate dozens of options to dozens of turns in the future (I play xOTM games in 3 hours if that's descriptive). Keep up the number-crunching, guys

 

[shyuhe]

I don't mind the testing at all (as long as I don't have to extensively do it myself), the discussion is interesting. Just that I don't think I'm qualified to participate in that kind of discussion as much as I don't have it in me to test-game/spreadsheet-simulate dozens of options to dozens of turns in the future (I play xOTM games in 3 hours if that's descriptive). Keep up the number-crunching, guys

That's what most of my xotm games look like as well. I try to make an exception to SGOTM.

Regardless of whether we go wheel first or bronze working first, the silver will not be completed in time for us to work it until after the settler is completed.

If we are going to try to rush out a second settler after the first one, then don't we have to slow-build the first so that we can whip the second? Alternatively we can build them both at size 2-3.

@LC - we wouldn't be able to chop the second settler in time since bronze working will not be done if we go wheel first.

edit: @mut - one other consideration is that BW may reveal copper on the plains hill, which is a free hammer. While your wheel plan will let us settle city #2 faster, I think we have a few extra turns (~turn 48) to settle city #2 in the east without interference from Zara. Plus, we will want bronze working to chop out a second settler or worker very soon after the first settler is done.

 

[babybluepants]

I did a quick test run to second settler, but I played a bit too sloppy to post the results. Basically, I put the whip overflow into a second settler for a turn, then grew to 3 on warrior, then completed with another chop after the silver mine. Finished it circa T53-55. Don't remember exactly.

It feels a bit weird that our production here is quite far ahead of tech. I'd prefer to build granary / library asap, but end up over-producing warriors a touch throughout. I guess that could prove to be ok, if we send some scouts further away and there's a real fogbusting need... Still, having 3 cities, gran/lib in size 6 cap, and 3 workers by 2000 BC seems pretty easy. We'll have to massage the tech micro a bit, I think, so we don't waste turns.