Big Fat Cross
ETa, thanks for asking.
narri, thanks for answering.
ETa, thanks for asking.
narri, thanks for answering.
SGOTM 11 - Unusual Suspects
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
OK, what do we know: Foggazing shows that the fogged tile in the SW corner of the picture is a plains forest with river on southern and western edge (see the river --or coast-- S of the southern corn? See the corner of river --this can't be coast I think--in tile 2SW from warrior?)... So if maximizing river tiles is good (and it is) that speaks for settling in place. But what to move the warrior...
Moving warrior NW reveals most tiles, but very unlikely any tiles that would affect our settling decision - unless there is cows or gold or grasssland gems or something juicy up there and we could snag the 2 corn plus something else by settling 1NW on turn 0.
Moving warrior NE has same effect but reveals 1 fewer tiles. Forested tiles less likely to have resource (perhaps deer) that we would move for.
Moving warrior SW shows the fog-gazing to be true or false, but will reveal only forest (unlikely resource), but tell us if we are 1 tile diagonal from coast.
Settling in place is a strong city certainly. Moving might improve that, but just as or more likely will make it worse. Unless we see something to entice us to move after moving the warrior, I'm sure I'll be advocating to settle in place rather than spend a minimum of 1-2 turns to scout for better by moving the settler.
I can see arguments for moving warrior SW or NW. Perhaps the first thing we should do is to turn on the tile yield function and confirm that the tiles 2SW of the settler and 2SW of the warrior are indeed river instead of Coast (river gives +1 commerce which shows up in tile yield reveal function -- oops, forested tiles don't get +1C anyhow!). If river, we move warrior NW to see if we can find a resource. If coast (or something else) then we might want to move warrior SW instead. What do you guys think?
Edit: perhaps on opening the save we should rotate screen and use zoom function and every other trick to fog-gaze. Also, I would like to do a little bit of contour-mapping with the goto function like we did in previous games, just to get a feel for what's around us. Safer to do on a unit that has already used its movement points, though.
I have quickly surveyed the HoF tables and confirm that my own games are a fair measure of what's submitted. Emperor level (all years in AD):
Our conditions (Epic/std) cult = 1708-1974, UN=1556-1872.
large/epic cult=1631-1947, UN=1328-1616
std/any speed cult=1480-1735, UN=1320-1570.
Caveat: In HoF, one decides which condition one will aim for and then selects map and opponents that optimize finish date. We will not have that luxury and must take what we find and adjust. Some situations will certainly favor one or the other VC, and a good cult situation would be slower to get a good UN, perhaps. So we ought to prepare for both.
Just from a general standpoint, though, UN is probably faster, and therefore should give less risk of Free Religion problems. Note, either way we are teching through Liberalism and since this is emperor we can expect at least some of the AI will reach that point too before its over.
Spies for civics changing is useful (espionage points needed), as are bribes to convert. Note, AI cannot change civics nor religions inside 5 turns of their last switch, so we time that with finish if it is risky to revert due to favorite civics.
There are few if any UN guides comparable to Jesusin's culture guide. I'll do some research on that side, but my initial comments on fast UN:
Required: fast early tech rate. (That means bulbing is higher premium than settling GP's.) Fast tech allows trading to get Friendly relations in time for vote, but more importantly gets to Mass Media fastest. Bulb path to mass media: (someone needs to check/figure out this). Elec and Radio are the groin-kickers, and if we could pull one of these from Liberalism we'll do well. Otherwise GSci from Physics will do much of Elec, and a GA (or GE, I think) can do much of radio. Don't need a lot of cities for UN victory (one will do), but perhaps 6 for unlocking Oxford and FP. UN is a big build and should use a GE to assist if at all feasible.
However, resources are needed, and that speaks to larger empire.
mumble mumble mumble... I don't really know what I'm talking about, so I'll start that research now...
Our conditions (Epic/std) cult = 1708-1974, UN=1556-1872.
large/epic cult=1631-1947, UN=1328-1616
std/any speed cult=1480-1735, UN=1320-1570.
Caveat: In HoF, one decides which condition one will aim for and then selects map and opponents that optimize finish date. We will not have that luxury and must take what we find and adjust. Some situations will certainly favor one or the other VC, and a good cult situation would be slower to get a good UN, perhaps. So we ought to prepare for both.
Just from a general standpoint, though, UN is probably faster, and therefore should give less risk of Free Religion problems. Note, either way we are teching through Liberalism and since this is emperor we can expect at least some of the AI will reach that point too before its over.
Spies for civics changing is useful (espionage points needed), as are bribes to convert. Note, AI cannot change civics nor religions inside 5 turns of their last switch, so we time that with finish if it is risky to revert due to favorite civics.
There are few if any UN guides comparable to Jesusin's culture guide. I'll do some research on that side, but my initial comments on fast UN:
Required: fast early tech rate. (That means bulbing is higher premium than settling GP's.) Fast tech allows trading to get Friendly relations in time for vote, but more importantly gets to Mass Media fastest. Bulb path to mass media: (someone needs to check/figure out this). Elec and Radio are the groin-kickers, and if we could pull one of these from Liberalism we'll do well. Otherwise GSci from Physics will do much of Elec, and a GA (or GE, I think) can do much of radio. Don't need a lot of cities for UN victory (one will do), but perhaps 6 for unlocking Oxford and FP. UN is a big build and should use a GE to assist if at all feasible.
However, resources are needed, and that speaks to larger empire.
mumble mumble mumble... I don't really know what I'm talking about, so I'll start that research now...
No! I don't see any of this. time for a new glasses prescription
I am in agreement with you doing following when you get the save:
turn on resource yields,
rotate and zoom away
move warrior to NW
contour mapping from warrior
what say rest of team?
I thought that moving the warrior to NW didn't affect the settling decision? Well then the only direction that remains is SW or maybe W. Anyway I think we should just hit the city where the settler is and not waste any turns there. I can't see anything that we couldn't solve with another city. Unless there is superseafoodarea right next to it.
I don't think any moves would affect settling decision. I'm ok with kcd also settling in place as part of his initial move. Then save and post game at start of turn 1.
Our speculation is that there is ocean to our west and south, and tundra to our south. So, I see an exploration arc for our warrior of NW, N, N, E, E, S, S. Not that specific sequence but in those directions. NW reveals most tiles and starts this exploration arc.
Another possibility is settling first and then deciding where to move warrior.
Well, we'll take this carefully. BTW, everyone is authorized to open the save when it comes out. However, I'll designate myself as turn player for the first set, and be the only one authorized to move any units (or do anything else irreversible). You can zoom and rotate and check demographics screen to your hearts content. Just don't move anything.
Psychology of recent BOTM and last SGOTM indicates mapmakers would not dare make the choice of where to move warrior or the immediate settling options a deciding factor in this game. Warrior NW gets a better start on exploring, plus would have the most chance of finding something worth moving for (which it won't). But we'll do as much scanning before any move that is possible.
Note, the demo screen is very useful in the first 2 turns, as by telling you yours, rival best, rival worst, and average, you can often deduce if Mansa is in the game, if there are AI with high commerce tiles (that indicate early religions will go fast) or high food.
I'll do some rudimentrary contour gazing to see if I can tell if we are on a small island or large landmass, how cloes to the sea, where the mountains are, etc. Anybody else is welcome to try as long as you are VERY careful not to move any unit.
Test game:
Everyone should try at least an opening, up to about 3 or 4 techs. This will be the same progress rates as in our game, roughly. I find that early religion delays worker techs too much. Oracle for Monarchy is do-able after Agri>BW>AH (AH only if no copper found bearby), then I'd suggest wheel>pottery which would supoprt the REX strategy if we decide on that. 2 irrigated corn will make great worker/settler pump, aided by lots of chopping, for easy REX to grab land peacefully. With no religion, real growth can only occur after Monarchy, which is why Oracling it isn't too bad plan.
But of cuorse, there are many options, such as the writing>alpha line for getting relations off early, and tech boost (of course, if we are isolated with Toku this would need some "adjustment")
Test game:
Everyone should try at least an opening, up to about 3 or 4 techs. This will be the same progress rates as in our game, roughly. I find that early religion delays worker techs too much. Oracle for Monarchy is do-able after Agri>BW>AH (AH only if no copper found bearby), then I'd suggest wheel>pottery which would supoprt the REX strategy if we decide on that. 2 irrigated corn will make great worker/settler pump, aided by lots of chopping, for easy REX to grab land peacefully. With no religion, real growth can only occur after Monarchy, which is why Oracling it isn't too bad plan.
But of cuorse, there are many options, such as the writing>alpha line for getting relations off early, and tech boost (of course, if we are isolated with Toku this would need some "adjustment")
Indiansmoke
Deity
Checking in 
have not looked at the situation at all....will look into it during the weekend and give my thoughts.
have not looked at the situation at all....will look into it during the weekend and give my thoughts.
CAUTION: If you open our team save to look around, do NOT move any unit!!!!
I will do a rudimentary contour-mapping. Right now all I can say is that it looks like a long snaky east-west continent, with a bulge of land up to our direct north. Sea on every diagonal, most likely. I'll do a little better detail mapping than that this weekend, I hope.
Note, Soldiers count indicates half the AI start with a scout (fair chance of aggressives).
Note, we will watch the land percentage progression and try to determine if/how many creative civs are out there.
GNP will be another thing first turnset player needs to watch, for financial civs count.
I've changed my mind about that river, I think it turns south rather than continuing westward s of the corn.
I will do a rudimentary contour-mapping. Right now all I can say is that it looks like a long snaky east-west continent, with a bulge of land up to our direct north. Sea on every diagonal, most likely. I'll do a little better detail mapping than that this weekend, I hope.
Note, Soldiers count indicates half the AI start with a scout (fair chance of aggressives).
Note, we will watch the land percentage progression and try to determine if/how many creative civs are out there.
GNP will be another thing first turnset player needs to watch, for financial civs count.
I've changed my mind about that river, I think it turns south rather than continuing westward s of the corn.
I'll post screenshots as I play. I'm not planning to make any moves before Monday, and I'll put up a Pre-Play-Plan that you guys can greenlight before I do anything irreversible. First PPP will have several pauses for discussion.
Right now, the only thing we have tentatively decided is to move warrior NW and pause for discussion. I'd like Indiansmoke to have a chance to look at the start first, though, in case he has some other thoughts.
Contour-mapping on unmoved units is not easy to screenshot, I'll post an XL chart of some kind, perhaps, if I get enough detail to warrant that. I'm not as good as Yamps at this sort of thing.
Here's a screenshot of what I am talking about with the soldiers count. Not sure what the AI actually start with on emperor (two archers, a worker and a settler?) but some AI have more than others which I believe indicates AGG AI are in the game (exactly 50% of the competition). If anyone knows for sure, please enlighten us!
View attachment 250482
Right now, the only thing we have tentatively decided is to move warrior NW and pause for discussion. I'd like Indiansmoke to have a chance to look at the start first, though, in case he has some other thoughts.
Contour-mapping on unmoved units is not easy to screenshot, I'll post an XL chart of some kind, perhaps, if I get enough detail to warrant that. I'm not as good as Yamps at this sort of thing.
Here's a screenshot of what I am talking about with the soldiers count. Not sure what the AI actually start with on emperor (two archers, a worker and a settler?) but some AI have more than others which I believe indicates AGG AI are in the game (exactly 50% of the competition). If anyone knows for sure, please enlighten us!
View attachment 250482
Yamps
Deity
Lurker comment
What, no XLS map in this game?
I never did make that map plotting crash course after all...
Have fun with this one! Like I've said to kcd_swede, not much civ playing for me these days.
What, no XLS map in this game?
I never did make that map plotting crash course after all...Have fun with this one! Like I've said to kcd_swede, not much civ playing for me these days.
Lurker comment
What, no XLS map in this game?
Have fun with this one! Like I've said to kcd_swede, not much civ playing for me these days.
The original is actually in XLS format, but converting it to Word was the only way I could figure out to upload it.
I didn't have the stamina to do it properly, and I didn't want to embarass myself in front of the new team members by asserting a bunch of tile layout that turn out to be wrong.What the contour map suggests to me:
1) we are on a relatively large landmass, common to this map script, and we should expect neighbors (aka competition for grabbing the good settling sites).
2) there will be other landmasses, some likely reachable by galley, some only reachable after Astronomy.
3) Terrain looks like global highlands - lots of hills and peaks, forests(andjungles); on this map type metal is pretty common (incl gold), horses pretty common. Happy resources reasonably good after calandar.
If we have consensus, I'd like to move that warrior and post a screenshot before we do anything else. Today, if I can get 2 of you guys to greenlight this (with no objections).
Note: it is impossible to upload a save file with same date as start file, so I will only be able to upload a screenshot after moving the warrior.
I'm thinking about arranging the batting order to reflect the order in which we posted in this thread. Everyone OK with that?
I'm thinking that the first couple turnsets will be 10 turns each, as these will take a long time since there will be lots of pauses. Small information gains have big potential to entice us to throw out working plan and start strategizing from scratch.
You can also make comments and heckle me for the proposed PPP below.
Right now, my PPP for the first 10 turns looks something like this:
Note: it is impossible to upload a save file with same date as start file, so I will only be able to upload a screenshot after moving the warrior.
I'm thinking about arranging the batting order to reflect the order in which we posted in this thread. Everyone OK with that?
I'm thinking that the first couple turnsets will be 10 turns each, as these will take a long time since there will be lots of pauses. Small information gains have big potential to entice us to throw out working plan and start strategizing from scratch.
You can also make comments and heckle me for the proposed PPP below.
Right now, my PPP for the first 10 turns looks something like this:
Spoiler :
Which is why you would be in the gulag if Eldine didn't disapprove of such things.
Make yourself a real life while you can... Civ V comes out in a few months.
Please start spamming our thread... we have lower number of posts than every other team except Who Dat?. And I'm over-represented in the post count. If I'm the only one strategizing, we will finish about mid 1800's, in solid last place. Wild ideas welcome. Even stupid ideas are probably better than what I come up with by myself.
Mass Media beeline (from 2nd row techs):
sailing-pottery-AH-poly-mason > writing-mono-BW > MC-IW > math-alpha-compass > calandar-mach-optics-theo > paper > p pr > astro > sci meth > phys > elec > radio > mass media
Random thoughts on
GPP usage:
GPro's should be saved for Eldine, generally. IMO
GSci: Academy, then bulbing, GSci bulb path is:
writ-math-sci met-phys-edu-ppr-fib op-comp-wheel-alpha-philo-chem-fission-fusion-optics-paper-astro-bio-electr.....
pretty easy to keep GSci bulb paths open for paper, edu, ppr, astro, phys, elec. Paper least valuable.
GArt: if we get literature, drama, music, poly, monarchy then we can bulb Radio and then Mass Media - don't need to avoid any techs to do that.
GE: one for rushing UN.
GM not esp. useful for bulbing, save for eldine, cash mission if can afford the GP.
GG save for eldine to free up another GP for whetever is best.
So if we choose a UN victory condition, we want lots of GSci, and any other we get is saved to the end or at least until ready for radio. I think.... I'm pretty bad at planning GP's. Please help with this.
And if we go for culture VC, obviously we want nothing but GA for settling (early one or two) and culture bombing... (maybe one GSci for academy). Any other "pollution" gets saved for eldine.
Finding and starting a strong GP farm is a priority. I don't like to farm the capitol in a tech race, so hopefully we find a different spot if we go for UN VC -- even in cultural VC having capitol as GPFarm is not optimal. We can consider moving the capitol if we find no better place to farm.
What important considerations am I overlooking? In test game, I find that the "don't declare war" seriously hampers diplo situation as we must decline all requests to join wars, at least until we identify how many civs we might have to war with to get the required resources for clothing Eldine. I'm playing like a UN game, but suspect that diplo problems will equally affect culture victory if we have to get military techs just to survive when everyone hates us.
Mass Media beeline (from 2nd row techs):
sailing-pottery-AH-poly-mason > writing-mono-BW > MC-IW > math-alpha-compass > calandar-mach-optics-theo > paper > p pr > astro > sci meth > phys > elec > radio > mass media
Random thoughts on
GPP usage:
GPro's should be saved for Eldine, generally. IMO
GSci: Academy, then bulbing, GSci bulb path is:
writ-math-sci met-phys-edu-ppr-fib op-comp-wheel-alpha-philo-chem-fission-fusion-optics-paper-astro-bio-electr.....
pretty easy to keep GSci bulb paths open for paper, edu, ppr, astro, phys, elec. Paper least valuable.
GArt: if we get literature, drama, music, poly, monarchy then we can bulb Radio and then Mass Media - don't need to avoid any techs to do that.
GE: one for rushing UN.
GM not esp. useful for bulbing, save for eldine, cash mission if can afford the GP.
GG save for eldine to free up another GP for whetever is best.
So if we choose a UN victory condition, we want lots of GSci, and any other we get is saved to the end or at least until ready for radio. I think.... I'm pretty bad at planning GP's. Please help with this.
And if we go for culture VC, obviously we want nothing but GA for settling (early one or two) and culture bombing... (maybe one GSci for academy). Any other "pollution" gets saved for eldine.
Finding and starting a strong GP farm is a priority. I don't like to farm the capitol in a tech race, so hopefully we find a different spot if we go for UN VC -- even in cultural VC having capitol as GPFarm is not optimal. We can consider moving the capitol if we find no better place to farm.
What important considerations am I overlooking? In test game, I find that the "don't declare war" seriously hampers diplo situation as we must decline all requests to join wars, at least until we identify how many civs we might have to war with to get the required resources for clothing Eldine. I'm playing like a UN game, but suspect that diplo problems will equally affect culture victory if we have to get military techs just to survive when everyone hates us.
Indiansmoke
Deity
OK briefly looked at this... some thoughts.
1. We should settle on the plains hill, that extra hammer is too valuable to lose.
2. UN victory for sure. It is more straight forward and it should be faster. Optimizing cultural victory to be faster than UN is tricky and ends up lots of times you getting crashed by large ai armies. So UN to be safer IMO....but we don't need to decide on this just yet.
So for now I would say move settler on plains hill and settle and explore with warrior, while we tech agriculture and then bronze working.
1. We should settle on the plains hill, that extra hammer is too valuable to lose.
2. UN victory for sure. It is more straight forward and it should be faster. Optimizing cultural victory to be faster than UN is tricky and ends up lots of times you getting crashed by large ai armies. So UN to be safer IMO....but we don't need to decide on this just yet.
So for now I would say move settler on plains hill and settle and explore with warrior, while we tech agriculture and then bronze working.
Indiansmoke
Deity
@ Swede...regarding great people the scientists bulb line is good for UN, lots of techs to be bulbed.
We are allowed to declare on 2 ai so we should get some great generals, some if not all of who might be saved for Erdine so that we don't waste GS.
As a general plan I think that taking out our 2 closets ai's (leaving them single city) and growing huge will be the fastest way to win, some ai's will even vassalize voluntarily to us if we are too advanced to make UN vote even easier.
Basically this game looks alot like the game we played with Khmer which we won by UN with some minnor details like the great people on Erdine and the 4 warriors.
What I am most worried about btw is how do we keep ais from killing each other especially early.
We are allowed to declare on 2 ai so we should get some great generals, some if not all of who might be saved for Erdine so that we don't waste GS.
As a general plan I think that taking out our 2 closets ai's (leaving them single city) and growing huge will be the fastest way to win, some ai's will even vassalize voluntarily to us if we are too advanced to make UN vote even easier.
Basically this game looks alot like the game we played with Khmer which we won by UN with some minnor details like the great people on Erdine and the 4 warriors.
What I am most worried about btw is how do we keep ais from killing each other especially early.
