SGOTM 11 - Who Dat?

[Fluroscent]

Yeah, Medi-PH is needed first.

I did test the desert square, but a ISP crash prevented me from posting earlier. It finishes Oracle on T81 (1975BC), which means it is just three turns slower. We can chop another forest to compensate, and probably work the oasis a bit to make sure writing is in first.

If we want to have both workers ready to mine a PHF when we settle Bombay, then there is no time to finish a farm around Delhi first. But, if we use the overflow from the warrior into a worker (on T50), then we will have the prebuilt farm ready for size 4. Then we can work on how to proceed from there (i.e. do we farm more, or build some mines?). Lots of planning needed, with workers temporarily returning from Bombay too, but it can wait until the settler is built at least.

 

[Fluroscent]

So the cost of settling on the desert will be 2/turn for lots of turns early on

1/turn actually, but that is for the whole game. But no doubt the desert tile is better in the long run though.

 

[Fluroscent]

Tech considerations:

We will want to optimize beaker output by stockpiling gold while waiting for the academy to be built.

I think we will want to tech Wheel-Pottery-Fishing(assuming coast city)-Masonry after writing, and then shut off the slider (putting the specialist beakers into maths). This means that it makes sense to get the library ASAP, but not as much rush on running the scientists. This is so we can get the library +25% bonus while teching the above mentioned techs.

It may be worth it to grow into unhappiness (pumping warriors, working farms) while teching writing, and then 3-pop whipping the library-> stagnate building settler with no specs at size4-5-> work cornx2+silver and run specs (using castes too) after settler is done (and build whatever needed at that point).

Also, since we will not have a road by the time Oracle-> CoL is in, we will probably want to use the missionary in Delhi to boost its happycap. Then build a road to Zara asap and count on some autospread.

 

[pnp_dredd]

That all sounds sensible, and the settling Bombay on the desert square seems best.

It may be worth it to grow into unhappiness (pumping warriors, working farms) while teching writing, and then 3-pop whipping the library-> stagnate building settler with no specs at size4-5-> work cornx2+silver and run specs (using castes too) after settler is done (and build whatever needed at that point).

This will depend on whether there's an awesome city site (e.g. lotsa riverside cottages, huge production city, GP farm/settler pump). If there's an awesome site then we can whip the settler and rebuild while building a library. It's a pretty easy calculation: is 25% extra beakers better for the number of turns it takes to manually build the settler, or is the city site better for the number of turns it takes to manually build the library?

 

[orb]

OK to keep the turn set's going, I played the remaining turns up to Meditation tonight.

Nothing really happened.

Warrior1 lost his battle with the lion (Not that surprising.)
The workers irrigated the corn and moved on to chop the forests 1N and 2N as per the plan.

Meditation came in and Priesthood was selected. (Complete in 7 turns)

We are now building a settler complete in 9 turns without chop.

Zara is cautious to us. ratio 168/164.

Here is a screenie:

 

[Fluroscent]

Okay, nice to be moving along. I updated the testsave to the current date, and it seems to be correct.

@beestar
You probably want to test the moves up to settling Bombay first, to get the feel for where it can go wrong. One important thing in particular is to make sure the path is properly fogbusted, since we have just the one warrior to rely on. The warrior needs to move to the forest tile to clear some of the path until the workers are moving.

 

[Fluroscent]

Micro plan updated and adapted for desert city.

T49 - 2xchop+settler complete -> warrior (lots of overflow)
Settler path: 2N, 1NE, 1N, 1N1NE, 1NE/settle (faster path runs risk of being wolfed)
Workers begin farm 2N of Delhi

NOTE - Building a worker seems like a clear winner here

T50 - Put turns into farm 2N of Delhi, then stop workers. Warrior-Worker(13 overflow)
Warrior explore -> NW? (to check out the area better). Dangerous since there is much open land.
Fortified warrior to SW forest to fogbust path.

T51 - PH in -> begin AH - Both workers move towards PHF (1W of Bombay site), quickest path through hills.

T53 - Bombay founded - Work PHF 4/turn - Begin Oracle. Both workers mine PHF.

NOTE - Group the workers and we lose a worker turn here...
NOTE - Remember to use binary research to avoid rounding loss.

T56 - Delhi: worker->warrior. Continue farm 2N.
T58 - Mine complete, Bombay 5/turn. Free worker to PHF.
T59 - Worker to forest N of Bombay, begin chopx2 (both inner ring forests).
T60 - Grass farm complete -> ??. Delhi size4 - work grass farm.

We need to figure out best action for this worker here. It can farm another grass, chop a riverside forest or begin a GH mine. The optimal task may depend on whether we plan to build a settler or library first.
If we go with this plan, then this is a decent finish point for next set. Next in line (cas) can take us to the completion of Oracle then (should be another ~15 turns).

Attached the projected T60 status

 

[Fluroscent]

Looking at the progress page, and two things stand out.

-We are slow

-Plastic Ducks+OSS seem to have Oracled CoL too. I am guessing that their culture curves steepness has to be from oracle+religion+maybe library.

 

[orb]

Fluro, what about using 1 worker as a scout to help fog bust to aid the settler move? - I know it's a risk to the worker, but at least with the fast worker there is the option to move back if an animal is revealed. The other down side is that we lose some worker turns, but gain 1 turn of settler move to the Bombay site (Instead of waiting for the warrior overflow to come in.)

Also...We are running slavery so we have a whip option on these builds. I cant remember what the happiness figure was from the save file, but Delhi has decent growth resource now so we could look at whip options. - You might have already play tested this.

And also...Delhi is without defence at the moment so we need to keep an eye out for any random Barb's coming in. (And quickly whip a warrior or 2 if we see one)

Beestar should be able to settle Bombay unless Zara beats us to the spot, but it looks like he has been building scouts. (I saw 2 - And since there are no huts this must have been his build.)

 

[Fluroscent]

Hey orb

First off, I believe the emperor AI starts with 2 scouts, so that is probably the reason. If he really did build one, then good for us . In the testgame, he settles his 2nd city a handful of turns after Bombay, and in our game he will have spent hammers on a workboat and of course the two escorting archers first. Somehow would be suprised to see him go that way for a city too. Oh well, I don't think a faster settler plan would be feasible anyway.

Whipping is definitely something we should do. But we should never whip below size three, to keep working 2xcorn and silver at all times. I suggested that we test and find the best way to accomplish the next goals which are library and generating a GS and the next settler. The whip will surely play a part here. My initial thought is to grow past the happycap and 3pop whip the library and then switch to settler. Haven't tested it though..

Barbarians will not enter borders this early, and we have plenty of warriors planned soon, so we should have adequate fogbusting in place before we risk barbs in our territory. But it would be nice to know exactly when the barbs will become aggressive (anyone?). We do not want to take any risks like getting our cities attacked directly without unbeatable odds in our favor.

I don't think one turn later on Bombay really matters. If we are going to whip three forests, we should be able to get Oracle the same turn as writing, and settling earlier will just make us have to micro to delay Oracle. Interesting use of fast workers to fogbust, but I'd rather have them contribute to growth.

 

[beestar]

OK loaded up test game and caught up on the reading a bit. Starting condition is 2900BC (Turn 44) and we intend to settle the desert just north of the oasis.

Plan

1. Review Fluro's impressive micro plan

2. Play tests to get familiar

3. More detailed pre-play plan.

4. Play game.

4.1. Settle Bombay on the desert tile square. Do not get settler killed by barbarians.
4.2. Work toward Oracle.
4.3. Scout and fogbust. Need to confirm we're truly isolated.


Questions

1. When do barbarians enter borders?
2. Fluro, in your micro plan, when does Writing get finished?
3. Fluro, Bombay is founded and starts outputting 4 /turn - you're counting the city tile here, right?

 

[beestar]

First test from Fluro's test save, following the micro plan.

- I made one change, I finished the warrior build before the settler. #1 priority is not getting the settler eaten, and producing the warrior first lets him start trudging toward Bombay ahead of the settler. We can keep the existing warrior fortified on the PHF. This delays us by only 1 turn and settler is finished T50 with 12 hammers overflow.

- Note our worker does some fogbusting for us, but we are not 100% fogbusted against 2-move panthers and wolves in the path.

T54 Bombay founded.
T57 Worker done.
T58 First barb warrior spotted.
T59 Mine completed
t60 Warrior completed. 55/225 hammers into oracle.
t66 2 chops in, 145/225 hammers into oracle. Chopping 3rd forest (only 20 hammers)
t68 3rd chop in. Oracle ETA on T78. Writing ETA T76 but that's unoptimized research.
- Zara goes Slavery.
t76 border pop for Delhi, copper becomes accessible. Writing in.
t80 border pop from Oracle in Bombay. Can whip library
T82 Wheel completed.

Barbs didn't enter our cultural borders in this time period (up to 1950BC) but I don't know if this guarantees immunity.

I used the missionary to convert Zara to Confucianism. I don't think we should risk the delay in conversion - hopefully once he joins, he'll start self-spreading Confucianism. We should auto-spread to Delhi, and warriors/silver can provide happiness in the short term.

No civ finished any wonders in this time (though this may be because of the WB setup)

Interestingly we are close to being able to bulb Theology (need mono, poly, masonry) and Philosophy (math, alphabet). If we can generate a GP we can bulb Theo to prevent Zara from going Christianity, and trade Theology to him so he builds the AP in Confucianism, and makes hammers for us.

I chose to tech Wheel for Chariots and to hook up the silver.

The Oracle came in at T78 and I wonder if it's worth growing to 2 before working the PHF [edit - tested it, and it's not worth it. Finished Oracle on T81 when I tried]

 

[beestar]

By the way, since it's looking like we're isolated with Zara and we have a good chance of sharing Confucianism with him, it seems like Confucianism will be our Spread Religion. (i.e. we don't need to adopt a neighbour's religion to keep them happy).

This suggests to me that we should consider shrining the Confucian holy city for extra gold, and to help us spread Confucianism without spending hammers on missionaries. The shrine also lets us run a billion priest specialists, which can help us bulb Theology. Oracle and a priest specialist from a temple could get us the GP for the shrine pretty quickly.

What do you think, guys? Is it worth the tradeoff?

 

[pnp_dredd]

Thinking out loud:

I think we want a GScientist first, to create an Academy. I think this gives us the best possible tech rate (+50% science in capital is better than a Shrine unless we have like 6 cities with Confucianism).

Bulbing Theology looks to be a strong play: getting it early guarantees that Zara will have plenty of time to build AP. Plus denying the AI religions now may help to make them friendly later on (but there may be unexpected effects like a huge block of AI all with the same religion). We'll want Masonry pretty soon, and perhaps Monarchy, so the prereq techs for Theo aren't hugely off pathway (although we probably want Maths first and should consider currency, CS and Aesthetics).

So I'd say first two Great People are Academy and bulb Theology. Then we can decide what the next one should be. I think a Shrine is a good idea eventually, but it's not a priority right now.

 

[beestar]

Good point about the relative value of Academy. Just to be clear, I'm not saying we should beeline to Theology or Philosophy. We would slot in the bulb at the right point - there are lots of techs we should be getting, and lots of expansion to do, between now and then.

By the way, we want Library mainly for the +25% beaker boost, right? If we our primary goal is to pop a GS, we can simply switch to Caste.

 

[beestar]

Religion and diplo:

About block of AIs with other religion: somewhere out there there's a Buddhist and a Hindu. I suspect the other continents are going to have those religions (and adding a Judaism, Christianity, or Taoism to the mix won't make much difference to peace).

I think we'd prefer to have larger blocs of a single religion - it's easier to become friends with all of them. We may want to 'catch' one of those religions for diplo reasons, which would probably require us to settle a city on a distant continents (or to capture a city). Either way, I suspect we're going to need some overseas action.

Finally - if I understand the rules of the game, we can win the UN vote, and then switch to our state religion - is that right? There was a question about when we needed to demonstrate our warriors/GPs were standing on the fur tile, and it was stated that we could win the game, click 'just one more turn' after the diplo victory, move the warriors, then save and upload. If I understood it correctly ...

 

[Fluroscent]

So, warrior before settler essentially costs a turn. That should be fine if you think it is safer.

I am not sold on the Theology bulb. It is a serious detour in a time where we have several priority techs. I am not sure the benefits mentioned are anywhere near strong enough to warrant the use of something as expensive as an early great person.
Academy is 1000% the best to get first. We are counting on producing the majority of commerce in the capital. Once we get CS and grow some cottages, it will output a ridiculous amount of beakers.

If we somehow get a prophet next (requires running a priest in Bombay/not running scientists in Delhi after the first GS), a shrine still feels like a better choice for me. We are going to want to spread confu to several AIs to help get diplo bonuses anyway. Alternatively, we will have to join a different religion to get votes, in which case it will probably be that religion that holds the AP anyway. I much prefer bulbing Philo, which is on the tech path anyway and greatly increases the chance of being able to do liberalism->radio later.

2. Fluro, in your micro plan, when does Writing get finished?
3. Fluro, Bombay is founded and starts outputting 4 /turn - you're counting the city tile here, right?

I didn't optimize tech either, but writing was in the same turn for me too. And yes, I counted the city tile in the 4/turn.

Beestar, how many warriors do we have, and what size is Delhi once writing ticks in?

Also, I think you should go ahead and play your set (until T60?). The stuff we are arguing now lies further ahead.

 

[Fluroscent]

I think we'd prefer to have larger blocs of a single religion - it's easier to become friends with all of them. We may want to 'catch' one of those religions for diplo reasons, which would probably require us to settle a city on a distant continents (or to capture a city). Either way, I suspect we're going to need some overseas action.

Definitely, and we still have no clue about the whereabouts of the other needed resources (ivory, dye, silk). We are probably going to need to devote a lot of resources to handle all the different objectives. Which is also why it is nice to have the capital be the research center. It frees the other cities to do whatever is needed.

 

[beestar]

I feel we're not going to meet any other AIs and the chance of spreading Confucianism to them is low. Either we pick up an overseas religion for diplo and painstakingly spread it around our cities to make it the Spread Religion, or we make Confucianism our Spread Religion, in which case we want to capitalize on all our cities having it to make +2 hammer temples. True that there's quite an opportunity cost to bulbing Theology, though we would make some of that back by trading it around after Zara finishes the AP.

I much prefer bulbing Philo, which is on the tech path anyway and greatly increases the chance of being able to do liberalism->radio later.

In the sense that we have a better shot of being first to Liberalism?

 

[Fluroscent]

No, we WILL be first to liberalism. Getting Philo first makes the AI shy away from it, and thus makes it easier for us to delay liberalism long enough to take radio. Pacifism is also a neat option, especially with SPI.

The 2 bonus from temples is good, but in this particular game, it may not be all that. Consider that the last really hammer intensive phase will be Universities/Oxford, and that is likely to be mostly done before anyone builds the AP. We should have a bunch of cities with no huge commitments other than further facilitating the VC and special goals. We are also unlikely to build monastaries outside the capital, due to early obsoletion. I honestly don't think it is worth the GP, and a shrine would be much more powerful through the lategame teching phase.
If the AP is built in another religion, we can certainly spread it with easy missionary spam anyway.

It is hard to speculate too much though, without knowing the diplo picture yet.