SGOTM 11 - Unusual Suspects

Pure fog-gazing and gridline-staring. More explicitly:
1) Look at differences between my view and the holy screenshot.
2) Hypothesize on the differences (like"oh there shouldn't be a tree here", or "hmm, looks like a different color floor than that", or (my favorite) "the gridlines imply a different elevation for this tile"
3) Make changes in WorldBuilder.
4) If tired or out of time or exact match stop.
5) Goto 1.

Oh, cool... so you are doing graphics-matching at the fringes of the fog, if I understand you correctly. You must be much more experienced using the worldbuilder than I am. I had a heck of a time just getting the river where I wanted it.:blush:

Thanks for updating the test game. Have you had a chance to try out some openings? Learn anything interesting?
 
Even if copper is on the hill we can still make warriors by not teching hunting!

Missing the acceleration that the extra hammer provides will be a big mistake IMO.
If this were multiplayer, I think everyone would agree that anything other than the PH is a weaker move. The difference is that in singleplayer the tendency is to give longer-term potential a higher priority. But whether we REX or rush, we want that fast start, and don't expect the game to go long enough for the loss of green tiles to matter. Note, settling PH saves one forest for chopping. PH also frees up more room for good city in N or NW that could share tiles with (grow cottages for) capitol.

I'm pretty confident that that there are at least 2 minable hills in BFC if we settle the PH, perhaps 3. That's important because we're going to want hammers, too.

One factor nobody mentioned yet is that by moving to the plains hill we would not be able to work the corn (3f+1c) until the first border pop. So that's -1C compared to in place, at least for the first 8 turns. I don't think this affects time to first tech, though, since most commerce comes from Palace at this stage.

Copper/iron is an unknowable parameter, and really the only thing that could make PH less attractive.

Note: by moving settler as if to settle PH, we will actually obtain a lot more information before that actual settling choice is written in stone.

The start we have is ideal for fast rexing. Slavery can be used very effectivelly to 2 pop slave settlers and workers and even 3 pop slave stuff....so grabbing lots of land should not be difficult.

Pottery is key to that so that city can grow working farms and cottages, to cover expansion and allow 2-3 pop slaves.


If we get some luxuries around we should be able to expand at double the rate to every ai, grab the land, cottage everythiong while building up army to take close neighbours...grow huge and tech fast to UN. It should be as simple as that...if the land surrounding capital is as good.
Oh yeah... Pottery before writing, absolutely. No REX will last long if there's no pot. BTW- I doubt its as simple as that. There will likely be some challenges along the way due to game conditions, but I doubt that these challenges require an overhaul of the strategy you outline, more like timing adjustments. We'll see. The more I think on it, the more certain I am that UN is the way to go. Culture locks you into some strategies that are not very flexible at all.

I think before we pick a settling spot, we should run a test to see how fast we can pump some first units out (warrior + settler + 2 or more workers). There are so many forests around here, and we have fast workers. This looks like a dream REX starting location. Makes me wonder what surprises are in store for us...

Excellent idea! Everyone report here how fast (and how) you are able to make the units above in each settling scenario. Be sure you do this testing in one of the TEST SAVES, and NOT in the official game save.As for the suprises... if it were Gyathaar, I'd expect the game conditions to require whole new strategies. But that would be upfront obvious in the game description. Eldine seems to allow a standard type of game within some very specific guidleines. This seems a whole lot easier from a strategy standpoint, but we'll see. I expect we throw out our entire plans after 10 turns. Heck, we'd do that in a standard game anyhow, just for fun. :lol:

new topic, new thought:
We have been forewarned that fur is exceedingly rare, however there has been no discussion or revelation about the other clothing resources. Obtaining them may well be non trivial. Another reason not to Declare on anyone.
Spoiler :
perhaps each is owned by one and only one AI on its own landmass; with AI having enough to trade extras

I think this is a good guess. The challenge is not so muchto get them to trade it to you (I mean, your getting them friendly to vote for you, after all). The challenge is to get it from the ones who are worst enemies of your friends and suffering the "you refused to stop trading with our worst enemy" penalties all over the place. So remember that we don't need them until the very last turn, and if trading for them earlier hurts diplo situation, we can be patient.

Guys sorry but this is basic stuff...I cannot believe we are even discussing this :(

First...in place produces 4 hammers per turn towards a worker not 6 and on plains hill produces 5...so 90/4=23 turns for worker 90/5=18 turns ....4 worker turns just like that, 4 turns corn earlier etc etc....that is for first worker, second worker will come alot earlier as well due to faster improved land and the extra hammer, settler much earlier etc etc....the effect is a snowball running down a hill, it starts small and it is massive at the end.

Now for the first 100 turns consider that the plains hill is 100 free hammers! Why on earth would we want to throw away 100 free hammers + lots of worker turns and extra food etc etc :confused:


The only reason one could argue is that settling on plains hill would leave capital with no hills, but that seems not true.

This resource counting and build-turns calculation is one of my weaknesses. I'm glad we got this discussion going, I'm learning much (made same error as deckhand, forgetting the 2F consumed by citizens).

Now that I've thought about it a little bit, I will change my answer and agree with Indiansmoke. Settle on the Plains Hill. Even if we get a Tundra tile or two, we're not gunning for effective size 20 cities. And the snowball argument is compelling. No hunting for a while that means (at least until after we confirm we didn't settle on Copper or Iron!). We DO need hunting by the end so that the Holy Fur is active!

EDIT: Oh great, now I have to change my answer again! Umm, we aren't guaranteed ANY other hills if we settle on the bare hill (except maybe my fog-gazing Tundra hill). Methinks it could be a trap by the Devil Satan! Man, this is tough.

Using the GOTO button, the warrior will always prefer to traverse the terrain with highest defense bonus (forested hill). The settler will prefer to STOP on the most defensible terrain, but traverse the fastest path for a 2-move unit. The white line shows differences due to elevation. Defense bonus is FH>F>H>P I'm not sure how rivers affect the defense bonus calculation, so there is some uncertainty. So its a little tricky deciding if a tile is a hill or a forest if its next to a plains. FH is usually pretty high degree of certainty, though. Long story short: we should have minimum 2 hills for mines if we settle the PH, and that's enough. Also, as a settler/worker pump the hills are not strictly necessary at all. We would work the corn and some cottages while building settlers&workers to a good whip-point. We'll have to favor working cottages over mines anyhow to keep the economy alive.

You're missing the fact that the first population consumes 2 food (and thus does not become hammers). Thus we're choosing between 4 and 5 (post-calculation) hammers per turn, as Indiansmoke said.

:goodjob: :thanx:
 
If this were multiplayer, I think everyone would agree that anything other than the PH is a weaker move. The difference is that in singleplayer the tendency is to give longer-term potential a higher priority.

This is a total misconception!

By multiplayer you probably mean gamespy games that everyone quits after 30 minutes...but there is much more to multiplayer than that...in reality real multiplayer games are much longer than single player and therefore require much more long term planning. You have to go the full way up the tech tree and use the full range of units and buildings available to win at multiplayer...not just tech to mass media and build the UN!

Single player is much more minimal since how the ai will behave is set on stone and you know when they will vote for you how to maipulate them etc.....so you only have to build, tech what is needed to reach a certain goal...how minimal that can be was perfectly demonstrated by MW in the last SGOTM.


So in minimal efforts every hammer, every commerce every worker turn counts much more. The extra hammer will be much more precious in this game than if this was multiplayer.
 
This is a total misconception!

By multiplayer you probably mean gamespy games that everyone quits after 30 minutes...

So in minimal efforts every hammer, every commerce every worker turn counts much more. The extra hammer will be much more precious in this game than if this was multiplayer.

Affirmative... my experience with mp is via gamespy FFA (usually with CTON settings) and the game is decided in the first 30 minutes, usually by the first player who can mount an attack on a weaker opponent. No point playing on after one player gains such advantage.

You make an excellent point here with minimalizing the game for this competition. I have only recently discovered that getting a food tech only slows down Religious AP victory... so yes, I have a lot to learn in just how minimal we can be.

Most of what I know about manipulating AI for diplo wins was learned on this team during SGOTM's. Its a substantial base of knowledge, but I have yet much to learn.

And if I go with my first instincts, that PH looks best. Even if there is copper there, it is not a disaster, as we will likely be finding a different city for our production powerhouse anyhow. For what we need the capitol to do, those two corn alone make a great site, with much chopping hammers to be obtained. One extra free hammer every turn only makes it better.

First move I think should be warrior 1 SW to see what is there and then decide on settler.

Ooops... too late. :( Warrior has already moved NW. Next turn (with settler on PH, if that is consensus), we can move the warrior again.
 
Ooops... too late. :( Warrior has already moved NW. Next turn (with settler on PH, if that is consensus), we can move the warrior again.

Ooo never mind, I thought we should check the BFC before moving on the hill....so lets move on the hill and see what is there.

BTW if there is copper on that plains hill capital tile will get 3 hammers so even jolier.
 
I used the test save as modified by Narri to run some starts using the different settling choices. Testing time to first settler using the following build path: worker>warrior>worker>settler. tech path Agri>BW>Wheel>(pottery)



In place:
Spoiler :
1st worker takes long time to build, work riverside corn directly from start. Worker actions are irrigate corn, irrigate corn, and chop riverside forests in that order. Techs arrive slightly faster, but not timed well with when they are needed (working unirrigated corn much longer), can't chop second worker in time, though could work unirrigated corn even longer to remedy that, (start chop asap when BW arrives) it probably isn't optimal to do so. 3 chops go into settler, AND a 1-pop whip, giving the settler in t51 (2725BC) with overflow that will complete a warrior next turn, plus 1 unhappy face for 14 turns; city at pop2.

On Plains Hill:
Spoiler :
1st worker is faster. First irrigation is faster so second worker is much faster, and two irrigated corn is faster so settler build is faster. 3 chops and settler is complete without whip in t45 (2875BC), with overflow to warrior (about 2/3 of warrior). City at Pop2, no unhappy faces. Wheel is not yet complete.


The thing I liked about the PH settling is that BW arrives when it is needed, not long before it will be used. When tech pace matches development pace at which the techs can be utilized, it is usually closer to the optimum than just getting tech as fast as possible. So "in place" gets more tech because you don't lose the turn to settle and you gain about 1-2 turns on the first tech due to working commerce corn right from the start. Earlier BW does not help, though, since the worker isn't complete as quick and thus the corn is not irrigated for longer, and the worker is farming and has no time to chop. In both cases the city reaches pop2 before or just as the warrior is completed. In the PH case, the city has not acheived pop3 at any point yet... but the third citizen in the "in place" scenario is relegated to working an unimproved tile (I selected a 1f2h tile) and thus is not doing a lot of good anyhow.

Working improved tiles, esp irrigated corn, fast is probably the optimum. However, if someone wants to try beating my times by chopping/whipping in different sequences you may do so. I don not claim that mine is optimum, but within a turn or two in each case, I hope. Also consider letting city grow to size 3 in PH case... I don't think that speeds things up, but having another warrior for escort before the settler might actually make some pragmatic sense. Since I quit after building settler, I didn't worry about that... just wanted to compare the speeds for the designated units using the different start options.

In case I needed any convincing, this test comparison makes me more inclined to settle the PH.

Edit to add: 41 hammers in the earliest stages of the game appears to be an enormous advantage... equal to more than one free forest chop! For 4 units that accounts for at least 4 turns faster, and since you are working improved tiles earlier you are getting even more than just that 41 hammer bonus, combing in the rest of the 6 turn improvement. 1 movement turn is nothing compared to the gains.
 
Ooo never mind, I thought we should check the BFC before moving on the hill....so lets move on the hill and see what is there.

BTW if there is copper on that plains hill capital tile will get 3 hammers so even jolier.
I did not know a plains hill with copper (but no mine) gets 3 hammers. That's great news.

After testing in WB I confrim this: 3 hammers in capitol if copper is on the hill. For PH settling this enables 1-pop whipping at size 2 (2 chops) to get the settler at turn 44, though probably better to take it at turn 45 when the 3rd chop is done instead, saving the unhappy face and not leaving an improved corn unused for 4 turns while we grow back to size 2.
 
OK glad you are convinced Swede....2 pop slaves have to be used with a 2 riverside corn start BTW, but we have time to optimize this for next sessions.

First session will be just exploring and building our worker.

I suggest you play a longer turn set than 10 turns....complete the worker at least.
 
OK glad you are convinced Swede....2 pop slaves have to be used with a 2 riverside corn start BTW, but we have time to optimize this for next sessions.

First session will be just exploring and building our worker.

I suggest you play a longer turn set than 10 turns....complete the worker at least.

OK, I'll put up a PPP to reflect these decisions. Since Deckhand defers to us anyhow, and Narri seems on-board with the PH settling, that's probably a quorum. But I'll post a PPP for at least 24 hrs and see if there are any lingering objections before actually playing it. I think we're all agreed on the Agri>BW tech path, too. As a security measure, I'll put lots of pause conditions in there in case we see some suprises from our vantage up on that hill, too.

PPP Coming soon...
 
Turnset duration: Worker built (18 turns)

Units
Settler to plains hill. Pause for discussion if start significantly different than expectations which led to this PPP.
Explore with warrior (defog perimeter, remember no huts).


Settler settles PH unless something unexpected requiring discussion.
Warrior explores perimeter

City Management
Work forest plains until border pop (8 turns) then southern corn for remainder

Builds
Build worker> (18 turns) move to southern corn and begin irrigation (0 turns) and save for next player.

Techs
Agriculture > BW (completed in next turnset)


Diplo
Even though their head would look better on a pole, we will tell them otherwise. Peace with all AI met.

Other actions

Pause and save after each AI met, report in this thread and wait 24 hrs for team input before proceeding.

Pause and save if anything important shows up, if anybody declares war, if warrior is eaten by bears, or anything else happens we ought to discuss as team before proceeding. (Note, barb animals do not appear before turn 20 iirc).


I'll give 24hrs from now for objections to this plan. If you think its an acceptable start, I'd appreciate you indicate your agreement with an explicit "green light" (note for future reference, for the rest of you the green light must come from team captain or his designated surrogate).
 
Turnset duration: Worker built (18 turns)

Units
Settler to plains hill. Pause for discussion if start significantly different than expectations which led to this PPP.
Explore with warrior (defog perimeter, remember no huts).


Settler settles PH unless something unexpected requiring discussion.
Warrior explores perimeter

City Management
Work forest plains until border pop (8 turns) then southern corn for remainder

Builds
Build worker> (18 turns) move to southern corn and begin irrigation (0 turns) and save for next player.

Techs
Agriculture > BW (completed in next turnset)


Diplo
Even though their head would look better on a pole, we will tell them otherwise. Peace with all AI met.

Other actions

Pause and save after each AI met, report in this thread and wait 24 hrs for team input before proceeding.

Pause and save if anything important shows up, if anybody declares war, if warrior is eaten by bears, or anything else happens we ought to discuss as team before proceeding. (Note, barb animals do not appear before turn 20 iirc).


I'll give 24hrs from now for objections to this plan. If you think its an acceptable start, I'd appreciate you indicate your agreement with an explicit "green light" (note for future reference, for the rest of you the green light must come from team captain or his designated surrogate).


green light from me
 
In post #3 is the batting order now listed (as per my suggestion that we go in order that we reported in to this thread).

I am "UP",
Deckhand is "On-deck"

Note, the batting order may be changed at any time by team captain discretion and/or team consensus. Let us know in advance if you think you will be absent during your set or during the time preceeding your set, so that there is time to swap positions and we don't have to just skip over anyone.

Note, I'll be more firm with skipping folks who do not contribute to the discussions or at least post a "howdy" now and then than I will be with those who are active in the discussions. Not to be mean, but its no fun for the rest of the team to wait for someone who doesn't show.

And since we're not Stalinist Russia this time, I'll even open the option of holding elections to decide the team captain, at any time, if you guys think I'm being a PITA, or if anyone is just eager to take the reigns for a while.

In that vein, if anyone wants to volunteer to be deputy captain, raise your hand (or better yet, just say so in this thread or by PM to me). I do expect to go on vacation at some point, probably far from the nearest internet connection.:eek:

I've looked at the strategy articles for UN victories, but they are so old and full of inaccuracies I'm not sure whether to send you guys there to study them or not. There is a list of diplo modifiers that can be incurred, but the leaderheads reference table is needed to make sense of max/min/and rate differences for leaders we encounter. Note, we'll try to gather this information as we go. The trickiest thing with diplo in succcession games is that when that contact screen comes up, some kind of decision has to be made before the game can be saved... so we'll try to anticipate what we might encounter, but all should have a reasonable idea of what we are trying to accomplish diplomatically (who will vote for us, who we will piss off, and who will be opponent) before they start their turnset.... and a reasonable idea of what their decisions will result in. Some of you are surely better at this than me, some maybe have even more to learn than I do. But we should all become better players by the time this is won. Lets do it!
 
Whoops! So busy writing papers when team threads open months after they should have.....I miss it. Figures.

OOO

Done!
 
green light

Speaking of learning about diplomacy: in recent GOTM diplomacy game, I succeeded in getting Radio from Liberalism - but I didn't make plans for building the UN. :( I didn't have a powerhouse production city and I didn't have any engineer specialists. We should plan for both (specialists and production city).
Spoiler :
getting the votes is another story
 
green light

Let's see where the land leads us...

I have finals coming up soon, so I may need a skip/swap when it gets to me, depending on how much stoppage there is...
 
That's a green from everyone except Classical_hero who hasn't posted in a while so we can pretend he agrees with the plan, too, and forego the rest of the 24 hr wait. The suspense is killing me. Be back shortly with my report, or for discussion when disaster strikes.:mischief:
 
Hi, as per my PPP, I shall pause here for a short bit. Nothing really to decide right now, but you can start thinking about how close the neighbors might be and what the diplo traits will be like with:



I have made peace, but he looks kind of grumpy. Our settling site has nice bonus as you can see... I didn't think this warranted a pause for discussion, but rather was even more incentive to settle the PH:



Hopefully that decision wasn't too hasty, as we gain a couple crap tiles in the bargain. But we won't reach size 18 for a while (if ever) so it should not deter us. Early commerce with the food to work it is guaranteed early tech lead at this level. I still think irrigating both corn first is the way to go, but that comes in next session (Deckhand can start thinking of optimizing the improvements schedule with chop schedule). I'll continue when enough of you chime in that my plans should be unchanged. Though I would like to alter my plan a bit and not pause at every AI meeting since its just to accept peace at this stage, and we don't need to plan the reaction before first worker build anyhow. OK?

Status: Turnset paused. Will resume in no more than 24hrs when cleared by the team or 24hrs runs out, whichever comes first.
 
Right now the land looks a bit bland to our northwest, unless those desert tiles end up as flood plains. Nice to see I was basically correct on the tiles I asserted with the fog gazing.

I say screenshot the field everytime a new AI civ is met (and post it if it's interesting), so maybe we can figure out where they are, but otherwise continue on as usual. Meanwhile it will be testing time soon for getting everything out optimally. After worker 1 is out is the time teams can shine by thinking and calculating before playing, so let's take our time.
 
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