SGOTM 11 - Who Dat?

[TheMeInTeam]

TMIT: A very good point, we should definitely not handicap ourselves by imposing rules that are not actually there . FR is definitely allowed, but we probably want to be running OR/Pacifism for most of the game if we can handle the diplomatic consequences. Might as well use the forced religion spam to our advantage.

Agreed. My point on FR is that if we do go the diplo route, it could be an important factor under some game scenarios.

The VCs are probably balanced so that both are reasonable, but diplo shouldn't be too rough, and gives us more options.

 

[WithTea]

My mistake on the religions. I thought that they were running a replay of how it was accomplished last game. I completely misread that. Proving again that nothing good comes of reading things at 2 am. Obviously this changes how things are done, and how we should proceed. I would add to the dialog that on all Emperor and higher wins of mine, things have only gone well with early BW. That said, it is more than doable to go from BW over to Judaism, or hop up to Confucianism.

 

[pnp_dredd]

I propose that pnp_dredd move the settler onto the PH and we start teching Agriculture (I'm assuming the move doesn't reveal any surprises. Gandhi doesn't have any other food techs anyway.

A draft turnset plan for discussion (first 'set will most likely be interrupted at some point anyway, say when we run into Stalin to the NE on turn 3):

Move settler to PH
Tech Agri
Warrior NW, SW, S then head vaguely anti-clockwise around the capital
Settle city, work whatever gives 3 [food+hammers] and an extra commerce, if possible
Begin worker (need to get those corns irrigated ASAP)

I doubt that warrior-first is better in this situation.

Any opinions on which direction to send the warrior? I'm interested in the landbridge to the SW, and our capital will unfog a pile of squares to the SE. Perhaps NW, NW then clockwise is better? For reference the current screenshot is at http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/568/ss1do.jpg

 

[Fluroscent]

I think we are best off mapping our surroundings first, so that we can plan city locations properly. If there are no more strong tiles other than the two corn, we could easily be building the first settler at size 2, and it would be nice to know if there are any nice spots(particularly commerce resources) nearby.
Since we are unlikely to attempt an early rush, or even a worker steal, knowing the AI city locations can wait.
I'd just generally spiral outwards around the capital, and not take chances with animals etc. (try to move on forests). Going clockwise seems like it will reveal the most land the quickest.

I propose that the turnset lasts until the worker is built, since there are really no MM concerns until then. Of course, we need to pause and discuss what to research after agriculture, but the knowledge of the immediate surroundings will help determine that.
After that, we should create testgames to figure out optimal moves, try out different early tech paths and so on.

About the tech paths: I am strongly for a tech/economy based approach, in which we strain our economy by expanding and recover with trades and currency (mainly). That approach has made a huge difference for me in dealing with emperor/immortal games. Early religions are just not very helpful, and early beakers are hard to come by. Since we are PHI, we can surely found at least Taoism if we want to.

 

[beestar]

With PHI and a library we should be able to pop our first GSci in <20 turns if I've done the math right (plug for the Google Docs spreadsheet, which now has a - hopefully correct - GPP per turn calculator). It's possibly too early to do anything pivotal, maybe just settle or found the academy early.

The start looks strong for Oracle. Although we're not IND we already have Mysticism and Mining for a quick step to BW and chopping. There are lots of riverside forest that we'd want to chop and replace with cottages anyway. (There's no marble, but that takes too long to hook up anyway, so it doesn't matter that we don't have it). At Emperor/Immortal I like to grab Code of Laws for an early Caste System, then run a lot of scientists to bulb Philo (just have to be careful not to unlock Compass, which has higher bulb priority).

However, that's very conventional. This game might be won or lost by those who can think outside the box. GLH instead? Pyramids? Something to think about ...

P.S. Long turnset to finish the worker sounds fine.

 

[pnp_dredd]

Any other suggestions on the plan, particularly on whether to send the warrior clockwise or anticlockwise?

 

[Fluroscent]

Agree that Oracle is probably worth it (chopped of course).

Currency from oracle is what I would take, it has such an enormous impact. Not just the extra trade routes, and the ability to build wealth, but also from all the gold we will get on top of the many tech trades we will make. Currency is in itself also a great trade bait, better than CoL.
If there are AI that can be brought to friendly without too much trouble, we can even afford to ignore the trade caps.

 

[WithTea]

Currency would be my choice if we have a religion. If not Code of Laws outweighs I feel. I want to see what the lay of the land is more than anything else at the moment. We're going to speculate ourselves to death on what to do without knowing what's going on. Of course I'm the worst perpetrator of this, but we need to MAP. Just a feeling but I think we are going to find what's interesting to the East. West should be done first, but what we need is East.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To get currency, we need math or alphabet on top of writing. To get CoL, we need priesthood and writing only, making CoL considerably easier to attain aka lower risk. A wonder whore could take oracle before we'd get currency, so we have to factor risk.

CoL also opens instant scientist slots for powerbulbs and 3 turn border pop in new cities, though we have to give up the whip. If we are playing for diplo however caste starts looking appealing for the hike to our tech pace.

 

[WithTea]

I've stated before and stand stand by my view that caste system is better than slavery. In our present situation of needing to stockpile great people, I think slavery is going to be especially wasteful.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've stated before and stand stand by my view that caste system is better than slavery. In our present situation of needing to stockpile great people, I think slavery is going to be especially wasteful.

Nothing is absolute in civ IV civics, except possibly that serfdom blows chunks for ancient starts . Slavery can very often be important + more helpful than caste. However, when farming heavy GPP that's less often the case.

Fortunately, SPI gives us some flexibility there if we need it.

 

[Fluroscent]

That is why we run tests, to see what is possible. Emperor level Alpha-> trade for medi/poly+PH -> chop oracle should be possible ~1500BC.
Caste is nice, but please do not discount the power of early currency. Every trade we make early can add 20-100 gold on top. And with proper trading, it can easily net us the gold needed to tech CoL soon after.
SPI means we do not have to chose, simply run a slavery period once in a while to whip out stuff, then revert to caste and repeat.
Getting confucianism is only important if we go culture or we have no religions founded nearby.

 

[beestar]

Here's the minimum beeline to UN with beakers, as calculated by the game. It's actually slightly amazing how many techs are not needed - for example, Agriculture and AH, Currency, Philo, Education and Liberalism, the whole Guilds -> Banking -> Economic branch. Obviously we would get many of them anyway as overall teching speed would be better.

Spoiler :

Minimal path:

1. Bronze Working (280)
2. Wheel (139)
3. Pottery (186)
4. Meditation (186)
5. Priesthood (139)
6. Fishing (93)
7. Sailing (234)
8. Writing (280)
9. Mathematics (585)
10. Calendar (819)
11. Alphabet (702)
12. Metal Casting (1053)
13. Iron Working (468)
14. Machinery (1638)
15. Polytheism (234)
16. Monotheism (280)
17. Masonry (186)
18. Theology (1170)
19. Paper (1404)
20. Printing Press (3744)
21. Compass (936)
22. Optics (1404)
23. Astronomy (4680)
24. Scientific Method (5616)
25. Physics (9360)
26. Electricity (10530)
27. Radio (14040)
28. Mass Media (8424)

Path 2 is: Code of Laws (819) to Civil Service (1872) to Paper.

It's more total beakers but skips the religious branch of Theology (1170), Monotheism (280), Polytheism (234), Masonry (186).

Dependencies:

Spoiler :

• Mass Media <- Radio
• Radio <- Electricity
• Electricity <- Physics
• Physics <- SciMeth + Astro
  
• SciMeth <- Printing Press + (Chem or Astro)
• Astro <- Calendar + Optics
  
• Optics <- Machinery + Compass
• Compass <- Sailing + Iron Working
• Machinery <- Metal Casting
• Metal Casting <- Pottery + Bronze Working
  
• Calendar <- Math
• Math <- Writing + Sailing
  
• Printing Press <- Machinery + Alphabet + Paper
• Paper <- Civil Service or Theology
  
  (branch 1A)
• Theology <- Monotheism + Writing
• Monotheism <- Masonry + Polytheism
  
  (branch 1B)
• Civil Service <- Math + (Code of Laws or Feudalism)
• Code of Laws <- Writing + (Priesthood or Currency)
  
  
  The rest you know.
  

 

[WithTea]

I'll check out your numbers beestar. Not going to have time tonight to fully appreciate, though.
Thanks for the compilation.

Sorry TMIT, I should have been more specific. I meant that in general Caste System is better than slavery. Obviously that's not always the case, but I strongly suspect that it will be here.

 

[pnp_dredd]

OK I played 3 turns and met Zara's scout from the East. Does this change anything? I don't think so, but just checking. There doesn't seem to be any good reason to declare war right now. I'm planning to send the warrior zigzagging NE/SE (sticking to forests/hills as much as possible) so eventually he'll get to Zara's land.

I settled on the plains hill, after revealing silver on a plains hill in the BFC (but the other revealed tiles are pretty rubbish). Our warrior heading NW has found a river.

I've stuck with Agri first - farmed corns are better than mined silver.

Here's a screenie, I won't paste it because it's a full 1280 pixels width.

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/87/zarae.jpg

 

[Fluroscent]

Silver makes fast academy even more attractive. Overall a very good Bureaucracy capital site, especially if we can get all the river tiles cottaged and worked soon.
Maybe getting HR early would be strong. With two 6 tiles, we have enough food to work all the tiles except one tundra hill, provided that we can find enough health bonuses. I'd even cottage the riverside plains tiles, possibly consider cottaging the riverside hills too (!). Of course, cottaging all the grass first. Working two corn farms+silver+grass tiles, we will have a +8 surplus to grow on, so we could easily grow it very large very fast (and we need warriors anyway )

For the early game, I think we should build warriors to size 3, then settler, then warriors->library(chop/whip)->warriors->size 5->more settlers/workers

Figures that there would be an expansion whore nearby. We should look for opportunities to block his settling, so I'd make sure to scout the east region quickly.

He is very easy to befriend though. (Innate +2 right?) Anyone know if he likes to spread religions?

 

[beestar]

Cool, interesting few turns pnp_dredd. We can calculate how far away Zara is - the scout can have moved a maximum of 6 tiles in Zara's 3 elapsed turns, I believe - that's pretty damn close.

Can we also get a screenshot of the demographic screen? I think all AIs should currently have the same land, but the CRE civs will soon have their first border pop (2 cpt from palace + 2 cpt from CRE, need 15 culture for first pop on Epic I think). So around this turn or next we should see some Civs have more land than others. This will tell us how many CRE civs there are.

The espionage ratio between Zara and us is also useful - shows us if he has met anyone else yet.

 

[pnp_dredd]

demographics:

so, someone's working a 3 tile, and most AIs have some commerce bonus square. More that one AI is working a 3 square. Between 2-4 AIs have a coastal capital (less than 9000 land area).

Zara's espionage ratio with Ghandi: 4/0. I assume this means he hasn't met anyone else yet. I'll keep an eye on this.

 

[beestar]

Thanks pnp_dredd.

From the land figures, there appear to be three civs that are founded with lots of water in their 3x3 spaces (probably coastal, but could be on lakes). Could be 6, 6, 6, 9, 9, 9 tiles. Or 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9. Or, I suppose, one really watery city founded on an archipelago: 4, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9 ...

Next turn the CRE civs should pop their borders and it would be good to see what the new demo data is.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That is why we run tests, to see what is possible. Emperor level Alpha-> trade for medi/poly+PH -> chop oracle should be possible ~1500BC.
Caste is nice, but please do not discount the power of early currency. Every trade we make early can add 20-100 gold on top. And with proper trading, it can easily net us the gold needed to tech CoL soon after.
SPI means we do not have to chose, simply run a slavery period once in a while to whip out stuff, then revert to caste and repeat.
Getting confucianism is only important if we go culture or we have no religions founded nearby.

It's a risk vs reward eval. We also have to look at our EP on Zara ---> does he know other civs? We might WANT the religion to push us into "no DoW" range...and more importantly friendly would then = tech trade when otherwise impossible.

Generally speaking, oracle will not go 1500 BC on emperor and we can pull off currency. But that is NOT guaranteed. I've seen it go <1800 BC on emp with the AIs just right, and we do not know precisely whether the AIs in our game are wonder whores or not.

We need to pick soonish but not instantly. If there's a good block choke it might be worth passing on oracle, too, so we'll wait a few turns (not long) and see.