SGOTM 11 - T'dr'duzk b'hazg t't

[Brian Shanahan]

Yes I reckon we've got a FPforest there too, you dont usually see a green edge on a plains forest by a river, and I see green on the rivers edge.
I think it is a strong start, but a looksee wont hurt any, though 1 SE onto the hill may be the stronger long-term. Pity the warrior is NW and not SE.

 

[ForGreatJustice]

I didn't realize the AI can never trade its only source of something, my bad.

 

[neilmeister]

Settling on a FP is against my religion. With a cottage, it will yield 3F 3C, and will only get better.

To get the fur, we may have to save 1 of our 2 available war opponents.

I think we may need a strategy of having a few undefended sacrificial cities near the AI's, to bait them into declaring war on us......

EDIT. Actually, my paranoia is strating to run wild. I am imagining 2 or 3 builder AI's near us, that will never DoW, with awesome land. And the fur will be under the capital of another builder, on a far flung continent. So we need to be really careful choosing who we DoW with. I suppose that if several civ's to share a religion, and be really buddy-buddy. Then we can Dow one of them, several times over the game hoping that their brothers join in. This of course will pretty much write off a diplo victory.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I really do believe that considering that it's Gandhi, and considering the nearby starting resources (TWO corns and a floodplain? That's just asking for a Great Artist pump), a cultural victory would quite easily be within reach.

And if we do a cultural victory, we wouldn't have to worry about keeping diplomatic relations good.

However, I also recognize that we still have 26 hours to debate this. I just wanted to say that I support a cultural victory, but if we do that, we'll need to start working towards it immediately.

In other news, my keyboard is sticky for some reason. I think there's dried grape juice on it. There are little purple spots on it...

 

[neilmeister]

In other news, my keyboard is sticky for some reason. I think there's dried grape juice on it. There are little purple spots on it...

Sorry, that was me.

Must... resist.... urge.... to.... spam.... these.... threads. (Slow and boring day at work)

EDIT. DS has published the list of scoring. The team with the least penalty points wins, with victory date used only as a tie-breaker.

* Each AI that is alive but not running a state religion counts as one missed condition. (For example, two AIs running free religion means you have 2 missed conditions).
* Each AI above the 2nd one that is alive and has a 'you declared war on us' negative modifier towards the team counts as TWO missed conditions. This should give a measure of how repulsive Eldine finds war to be.
* Each AI that is dead counts as THREE missed conditions (but you won't be penalized further for declarations of war against dead AIs).
* Failing to have 4 warriors and 4 great people on the fur counts as one missed condition.
* Not running a state religion counts as a missed condition
* Not having your state religion in all your cities counts as a missed condition
* Not having fur, dye, ivory and silk available to all your cities counts as a missed condition.

I take a few lessons from this list.
- We cannot let any AI die. If this means we should DoW someone, if it can save another AI. 2 < 3
- Not having the 4 Warriors & 4 GP only counts as 1 penalty point. It will be hard to keep 4 GP, knowing it will only cost us 1 penalty point.
- Not having fur (the others should be easy to get) only counts as 1 penalty point.
- If we do DoW a 3rd, or even 4th AI, and if they are not in a state religion and dont look like they will change, we may as well kill them. 3 = 3

 

[neilmeister]

EDIT BTW, I didn't see this but for you GOTM vets, can others not currently up download saves in order to analyze alongside the person up playing? I ask because I just realized what's to stop a player from d/ling the save and playing a whole game through just for recon? I mean we have the honor system, but not all are honorable dwarves that worship and protect Eldine.

After lots of forum trawling, I think I have the definitive answer. the thread is linked here

Nocho: Okay, as law-abiding citizens we surely do take note!

So to make it clear beyond any doubt, we are allowed to do any of the following reversible changes with the save?
- Change worked tiles in city screens
- Assign/unassign specialists
- Change build queues
- Move sliders
- Change tech selection
- Check what deals you can get with the AI (without taking them of course)

If these are allowed and do not count as reloads, I do wonder what might have happened, especially as you say it has been rather frequent.

As I understand definite no-no's include
- Moving units
- Promoting units
- Other irreversible unit actions (worker actions, great people usage, usage of executives/missionaries)
- Making deals (including war/peace declarations)
- Hit end turn

<snip>

AlanH: Your lists look about right, though are you sure there are no irreversible effects if you change a current build or a tech selection and create an overflow? There isn't a definitive list. If in doubt - don't do it!

AlanH: Team members are not allowed to try irreversible moves and changes and then let the team revert to an earlier position. Any player can load the latest save. If they change it irreversibly then they have changed the game state, so that state must be saved and becomes the new latest save. If two of you load and change the same save, then you create a problem.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Settling on a FP is against my religion. With a cottage, it will yield 3F 3C, and will only get better.

To get the fur, we may have to save 1 of our 2 available war opponents.

I think we may need a strategy of having a few undefended sacrificial cities near the AI's, to bait them into declaring war on us......

EDIT. Actually, my paranoia is strating to run wild. I am imagining 2 or 3 builder AI's near us, that will never DoW, with awesome land. And the fur will be under the capital of another builder, on a far flung continent. So we need to be really careful choosing who we DoW with. I suppose that if several civ's to share a religion, and be really buddy-buddy. Then we can Dow one of them, several times over the game hoping that their brothers join in. This of course will pretty much write off a diplo victory.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
I don't like settling on FPs either, unless there's lots. And maybe if we need to get a fur from under a capital (if it's near now), we could do a r rolo6 on it. I'm not too fond of all the micro needed, but it's an option.

On the discussion between nocho and AlanH if I pick up a save thats not for me then I can't touch anything.

 

[ForGreatJustice]

On the discussion between nocho and AlanH if I pick up a save thats not for me then I can't touch anything.

That sounds like what I was thinking. See with your eyes, not with your mouse clicks. Basically it seems like those irreversible actions are the type of clicks that does affect the RNG. So at least I can do my ridiculous overanalyzing while not playing, hua!

 

[neilmeister]

So at least I can do my ridiculous overanalyzing while not playing, hua!

You and me both.....

Brian, I cannot believe that anyone attempted what was done in r rolo6

 

[Brian Shanahan]

You and me both.....

Brian, I cannot believe that anyone attempted what was done in r rolo6

My point is that it's doable, and a possible for one city close to us if need be. It was the maddest SG I've ever read though.

 

[neilmeister]

My point is that it's doable, and a possible for one city close to us if need be. It was the maddest SG I've ever read though.

I'll be honest, in that this is an option that I had never, ever considered.

You learn something new every day.

 

[ForGreatJustice]

r_rolo 6, I agree, what a fantastic game. It probably wasn't the most fun win in the world, but certainly opened up my eyes to the versatility esp adds to the game. It's one of the few game mechanics that the human can have a huge advantage in if the humans properly set it up, and are willing to endure time-consuming 10 turn sets of MMing.

 

[neilmeister]

Thought I might get this one rolling again.

Do we want a religion?
This is a painful decision, as we do not start with Agri, and there are 2 corns.

Q) Can we research both, before or shortly after the worker is built?

 

[dima42]

Hi, I'm good with any slot. So why don't we go with third, since that sounds like a pretty happening time.

Yeah, espionage sounds it will be big.

On emperor level we should be able to grab a mid-game religion without too much sacrifice. I'm usually not a fan of grabbing an early religion because the +1 happy isn't necessary for a while, and the more religions our rivals have, the more likely they are to have conflicts.. we need that here . Although having a religion of our own so people declare on us might be useful too .

As for early game, I'm going to be super conventional and say agriculture --> bronze working, with chopping and whipping early and often... and settler moving to plains hill on turn 1.

 

[ForGreatJustice]

I can agree with conventional. The whole religion talk seems to be related to what we're going to see with our warrior scout in the first few turns. I don't see us getting hindu/buddhism, it's risky and not guaranteed. If we have space to settle peacefully, maybe consider oracle path for CoL and found confusionists. The conditions only state we run a religion by vic turn, no need to found one. I say the faster we get those corns up and running the better.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Dima, you made it!

I also agree with conventional, and also with moving to the plains hill. I just love that extra shield, and since we'll likely be running on corn tiles for the first two sizes, the extra shield will be a blessing.

 

[neilmeister]

count me in for conventional.

We may change our minds if we see some pigs or sheep though.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Me five at the moment. Although as Neil says if the opportunity is there we can change our minds.
The saves are up now, just checked and haven't touched. I would suggest whoever's first in the roster to get it.

 

[Earthling]

Conventional opening sounds great. Settling more land faster seems like a good idea. Good luck to starting things off!

Some thoughts of mine:
-If we go cultural marble is way more important than stone. So many of the better wonders need marble, so that'd be the priority
-Diplomatic could still end up faster than cultural though depending on how we tech, it's something to really consider. If AI are on other continents/no way we'd expand to near the pop threshold we could rule it out, but it's still possible.
-I don't like early Stonehenge all too much, though early Oracle is great. The reason is it does take away from early producation/expansion/saved forests for later, and furthermore effectively just pollutes the GPP pool in the end. However heading to Code of Laws/Civil Service and so on is a good path; if we want to found a religion (and I think we might, for the AP+culture bonus on stuff like Sistine Chapel) then we could easily get a later one, not have to gamble against Emperor AI since we don't have super-commerce start.

Anyway, a victory with all conditions by turn 300 would be phenomenal, is where I'd put the timeline starting out. Turn 400, assuming it's not really difficult to get the furs etc... is what I'd call normal. If we want fastest cultural we need to be careful not to birth too many extra GP; Generals are ideal for the final GP we want to save and we get a couple of other types free at techs if we get to them, but we'd want as many artists as possible.

Though this is all speculation, let's see how things look and good luck again. I should have looked up a warcry right here but maybe next time.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Well seing as we're staying out of war our cry should be: "War... huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"
I'm staying out iof the detailed comments for the moment as I'm not sure what's possible on Emperor, but so far it doesn't sound like something I wouldn't do myself.