SGOTM 11 - Who Dat?

[Fluroscent]

Looks great dredd. That was the outline I was looking for. I like that route as it seems to cut down many uncertainties like an unexpected early AI Oracle, Zara sneaking a city in between before our border pops, and almost guarantees complete fogbusting.
Also satisfies working the three good tiles the most (better chop-farm-chop than chop-chop-farm) and ensures near maximum early beaker counts.

Notes:
With that many warriors, we may want to just build more workers/settlers at the cap instead of whipping (or whip lower pop numbers), Monarchy becomes a bigger priority too, although we are probably getting ahead of ourselves here, and Pyramids are still in play.
Writing is the mandatory next tech at this point so we can get the capital started on the academy route, and open up CoL for the slingshot. After writing, we will probably have to make a decision on what other techs we need badly enough at that time that they cannot wait while we run 0%sci and wait for the GS. Maybe only wheel, although pottery is certainly a close call.

I can play some tests tonight, and I'd like to see a direct comparison between Oracle completion dates by various openings.

 

[Fluroscent]

I played some parallel games and the general feeling is that the science output acts more as a rate-limiting step than food+hammers at this point. All delaying the silver mine accomplishes is generating more warriors since we delay the techs needed to progress.

I am completely sold on the mine-chop-farm, size3-worker-settler plan (pnp_dredd's latest post). A very few minor things could change, but not before BW.

I'd chop the forests 1N and 2N instead of W of Delhi after the corn farm, since they can be started same turn. The top cleared grass should be used for the first farm, since it will allow the worker one more turn before moving with the settler (may depend on whether the path to the cow site is worldbuildered correctly - didn't check). It may be better to start mining the hills rather than build more farms afterwards.

Anyone else want to take a crack at it? Otherwise I'd say we are ready to move ahead.

Critical points where mistakes can be made until BW:

-Working the silver mine on T33, which *will* require MM, since the governor prefers the unimproved corn.

-Insert worker-settler in the build queue on T34, as soon as we grow to size 3. Buffy seems to think the warrior will decay a bit, but it does not actually lose any hammers with this plan.

-Move worker to correct forest after completing the mine. The correct one is the plains one, which will allow both workers to start the farm without wasting time moving.

-Not getting our warriors eaten (well duh!). But dredd made a good point that the initial warrior plus the first one built will have to fogbust/escort the settler alone. So if any one of those are lost, we may be forced to delay settling+subsequent scouting. Also makes it imperative to not move too far off when scouting. Keep 'em close and handy.

 

[pnp_dredd]

All great points. This is a pretty important decision point, so I'm keen for people to try other stuff out. It's definately counter-intuitive to not whip hard when we are spiritual and have 2 farmed corns.

 

[cas]

Also: make sure that we don't do anything before cas chimes in - he was the one who got us earliest Oracle in sgotm9.

I'm not doing that level of micro on this one. I'll let you and Fluroscent work it out...you seem to be doing well.

cas

 

[pnp_dredd]

Note to self: check what happens if we prioritise a granary in Delhi.

Edit: doesn't really work. It's not worth building an early settler without early AH/PH, so I went mine/chop worker/farm/warriors/chop&whip granary/whip settler. Get pottery in 2725 at Delhi size 5 and immediately chop a forest into a granary (one turns into a farm). By this stage we've spent hammers on 5 warriors. Whip granary next turn (5->3). 2675 complete granary and put 77 overflow (incl a chop) into settler, then switch to warriors again to grow. 2575 whip settler (4->2).

So we get a slower settler, less useful techs and much later Oracle. Plus to get this fast I needed to whip Delhi twice, so we have 25 turns of unhappy till we can whip again.

This approach sinks too many early hammers into warriors, and delaying the settler for a granary isn't optimal.

 

[beestar]

I don't have much to contribute on the micro. Orb's probably the one who needs to be involved in this discussion as he's up next

Just saw the BOTM28 results - congratulations to pnp_dredd on the fastest cultural victory!

 

[orb]

OK. - As discussed I've picked up the save and played a partial turn set to BW.

So far it's all going to plan.

The highlights - Copper is just outside our BFC NW,NW of Delhi. - No other copper visible in the known world.

The stone site looks OK. - Plains river tiles to the W although no food resource found near the stone (yet).

Our original warrior is moving back towards the northern cow site and has spotted the Lion he managed to avoid earlier.

Warrior1 - The stone warrior survived a lion attack on the turn when we reached the stone, and is now moving to the forest hill 1N of the mountain for a safe recovery spot, and to fog bust the last fog to the north.

The worker has connected the silver and moved to the plains river forest and started to chop.

The build queue now reads, worker/settler/warrior so the chop will go into worker2.

Nothing has happened elsewhere in the world. - No announcements. - No other AI has been discovered.

We have switched to slavery.
We are teching AH.

Here are some screenie's....

 

[cas]

Well, at least the stone site has some food. Still not enough food exposed to justify Pyramids. Looks to be further land to our west and not much to Zara's east unless there is a very skinny land bridge of some type.

I'm concerned a tight box on Zara might make him too weak and small to be very useful.

How bad did the stone warrior get hurt (ie...how many turns rest to full health) ?

cas

 

[Fluroscent]

Great job scouting orb! Now we just need to kill that annoying lion that seems to be in the way.

I was curious about buddhism not being founded yet, so I pulled the save, and it IS in fact founded, so we must have missed the announcement somewhere. It is only at 4% though, while hinduism is at 13% (So maybe it was just founded, and the announcement will come next turn?).

@cas, the warrior is at 0.9 health/6 turns healing.

The land to the NW looks a bit better now, but it does look more like our chance at the GE wonders is best in the capital.

I think we should definitely stick to the plan and settle to block NE. Dealing with a free expanding Zara is suicidal, and he will settle any nook and cranny he can find anyway, so he should be useful. We are probably looking at semi-isolation, so getting him to friendly takes priority.
Also, settling our 3rd city with coastal access is important to get a scouting boat or two out. The plains tile that has both stone and cows in the BFC seems like an obvious choice here.

We may want to consider settling the 2nd city on the PH 2N of cows instead, since it gains the wheat tile. It would mean that we can delay AH, since the cows are not in the inner ring, but we can work the PH/forest for 3H instead. It will sacrifice some early growth in favor of higher pop later, but it will require 2 pops to block Zara completely. Oracle+Confucian holy city should pop those borders quickly enough.
If we do this, then we could research medi-PH immediately and get started on Oracle even earlier. Then afterwards we have a choice between AH-Writing and Wheel-Pottery-Writing, with writing being needed before Oracle is complete of course.

 

[pnp_dredd]

Thanks Beestar, I've been practising culture for a while now.

I'd really like to see what's in the fog near the injured warrior. Once we can see that we should be able to draw out a decent dot map which will help advise where to put the Oracle/blocking city.

I propose that we run one more turn, teching Meditation (because we'll need it anyway), and move that warrior to the forested hill, then work out where we want to put our cities.

 

[orb]

Hi Guys.

I should have some time tonight to run the extra turn and post. - Does anyone have any more comments?

I agree in the comments around the switch of tech to Meditation. - I would rather have the ability to build Oracle quickly regardless of city, especially if we are not surrounded by AI (less REX pressure).

Also...What do you guys think about Aksum? - Looks like a nice city spot. I'm wondering if we should wait for Zara to expand then take Aksum and get him to capitulate?? - It would still fit our Diplo aim and as long as we expand more than he does we should be guaranteed his vassal vote. (And it might just generate our first great general if we play the war right) - He had 2 Archers fortified on the hill so we would be looking at 5 axe's to take it now- Maybe not on our priority build list right now, but something to consider. (After construction and feudalism maybe???)

 

[pnp_dredd]

I think that's worth considering, but we need more information on what the world looks like. It may be that we need our war decs for other things that are mandatory.

I think that a friendly Zara with a couple of nice riverside cities will greatly assist our tech rate during the early game.

 

[Fluroscent]

I concur on the extra turn+switch to meditation. It does not really matter now, as AH will still be in time if we need it after all.

Some tests would be best to see how the tech scheme fits with Oracle completion.

It is probably unlikely that Zara would be our optimal target in a war, since we should be able to hold his vote regardless, and we probably need to work to get the elusive resources instead.

 

[beestar]

Are we agreed on Oracling CoL? I generally find I tech quickly to PH and start building Oracle, but end up delaying finishing the Oracle while I'm waiting to tech Writing. In general I'd recommend going for AH first to reveal horses and build Pastures for food (depending on where our second city goes).

In general I favour friendly Zara rather than vassalized Zara, at least until we have a better picture of who else is out there, and whether we're isolated.

 

[orb]

Well, 1 more turn played...2 things to note.

1) Another lion....looks like warrior1 is in for a tough time. 0.9 strength on a forested hill versus lion str2.

2) Zara's scout has re-appeared from the West.

Switched to Meditation- complete in 8 from 3100BC.

 

[pnp_dredd]

cheers. [edit: I got it] [Can you please post a hig-res screenie of the unfogged area, with tile yields and resource bubbles on? I wanna have a go at placing cities.]

Poor warrior1

 

[Fluroscent]

Ugh, let's hope the RNG gods favor us this time.

The green area seems unattractive until Civil Service, unless there is unseen seafood. Not much we can do to check on that unless the warrior survives. The other warrior really needs to fogbust for the settler, so it definitely shouldn't be used for more scouting.

I don't see any reason not to settle the PH (the one our warrior is fortified on). Oracle there and we have a great block, and a very decent city site, and the additional effect that Zara will remain somewhat small, but with good river terrain to help us out with teching.
Another good thing is that we are surely not going to have culture problems with that city and the capital as border cities, and thus less risk of border tension negatives, also we avoid having to deal with Zara getting big enough to become our opponent in the election.
Still possible that there is more land to the east, maybe other landmasses reachable by galleys though. Sea exploration should remain a priority after the block is in place.

 

[beestar]

Our entire landmass looks rather unimpressive, especially given the observation that Zara's scout has returned from the west. Oh well, makes expansion strategy more straightforward.

How's the EP situation, does Zara have another AI to the east?

 

[pnp_dredd]

Espionage ratio in 136/132, so he hasn't met anyone else yet.

I had a go at dot mapping the next two cities. The plains hill (Fluro's suggestion) works quite nicely with a stone city.

In terms of early growth:

The yellow Oracle city can work a plains hill mine until we complete Oracle. Once the borders pop it has 6 excess food at size 3 and 7 excess food at size 4 (2 base food, 2 extra from wheat, 1 from cow, 1 from oasis, 1 from farmed grassland) so will be great for 6->3 whipping of settlers.

The green Stone city is quite useful once it's borders pop, even without working the shared corn. At size 5 it's a great production city, working farmed FP/grassland copper/mined plains hill/mined grassland hill (11)and still has 1 food left over. It's also got 6 unshared grasslands for cottaging. Plus it can share the corn, particularly once Delhi starts focusing on cottages. There are also enough forests for useful chopping.

[edit: the blue city is Fluro's suggestion, see post below]

The only reason I can see not to settle those two cities next is that we want a coastal city. But there's nothing jumping out yet.

The red dots indicate other marginal city sites.

 

[Fluroscent]

A coastal city could get the stone too, if put at the plains with the cow in its BFC. The green city could then be a backfill city. It does not have that much going for it if we go mids. Mids means that cottages outside the capitol are not worth it compared to farms, so it is better once we have CS. The cow/stone city has 7 surplus food with just the tiles we can see, good for a couple of scientists and some whipping on top.

I am ok with orb finishing his set following this plan, which means that we can choose Priesthood before AH. Maybe finish the set at Meditation (8T more). Not much should happen, and the worker moves should still follow the earlier plan.

Edit: another reason not to settle the green city is that it will steal some forests from Delhi 3rd ring, which are probably best used in the capital to rush the stone wonders.