SGOTM 12 - Fifth Element

[havr]

I see a lot of talk on great wall. But there is no barbarians so the wonder only gives GS points, which translate later on to stealing techs. I think they are cheaper ways to get those techs by research...
GW seems pretty useless to me.

 

[havr]

BLubmuz, if you update the save, please post it so we can play the same testsave. And by the way, we get confucianism, so Moscow can indeed be size 7

Do we know that Gandhi is our neighbor, or are we just assuming?

If he is, then he is Budhist (if I remember UT's log correctly) and we will not able to be confused because we will never make peace with him.

If he isn't maybe we can confuse him and that will make peace easier.

 

[havr]

I agree in St. Pete for Oracle.

And it looks like I won't get to play Civ V tonight after all. They let me buy it from the American website but now they have decided that I'm not allowed to play until Thursday night!

Use a proxy.

Anyway, probably no Civ V for me, at least for a while. I have a laptop and the video card requirements are pretty high. Probably will not run in my laptop, and I am not buying a desktop for a game (that will pop the price of the game pretty high).

I will test the demo to make sure... maybe it will work.

It is annoying because the graphics isn't the main point of the game.

 

[BLubmuz]

Next Tech
Writing first seems to be the winning, to have the Oracle by turn 75.
Academy on turn 71, but no extra techs or production, just 2 warriors, 2 workers and 1 chariot.
So, Fluro's game seems to be better. Of course i've tried to improve it but it's probably the best attempt, for now.
I managed to have the same result, ran some variant, but no way: worse.
I also managed a turn 74, but without Agri.

So, for next TS, Writing after fishing and the MM as decided.
If i can find something better for the 3rd TS, i'll propose it, otherwise let's stick to Fluro's plan.

Great Wall
Sure we discussed it.
With 3 AIs starting with known mid-game techs (and 2 AIs with unknown, for now), it can be worth to infiltrate a GSpy to steal one. I'm not an expert of espionage, but i think that those EPs can be enough to steal such a tech (i'm thinking to Nationalism or Constitution, not to the useless Communism).

But the AI loves that wonder and we lack stone, at least for awhile, so i think it's not worth the effort and mainly that it will go before we can seriously think to build it.

And the GW worths 1GP point, so, unless we run many spies specialists (not easy) it won't be easy to pop a GSpy. You usually do if you build as first wonder.

Hypothesis on the AIs
We know nothing for now of where the AIs are.
I just suspect that Stalin is isolated (reachable after Astro) and with some modern unit, see the impressive power of one of the AIs, which i suspect being him.

I also think the other AIs (our opponents in SG10, where we were Stalin) are in our same landmass or reachable via Galley. It's probable that this map remembers in some way the one of SG10.

Finally, the test save. I was uploading yesterday, but the server was busy, then i forgot.
I already described what i did, have fun!

 

[Fluroscent]

Do we know that Gandhi is our neighbor, or are we just assuming?

If he is, then he is Budhist (if I remember UT's log correctly) and we will not able to be confused because we will never make peace with him.

If he isn't maybe we can confuse him and that will make peace easier.

I don't think anyone has said anything about assuming that Gandhi is our neighbour, but regardless, the thing we seem to be assuming is that Gandhi, or any of the AI actually care what their attitude is towards us when negotiating the price for peace. I am not sure it even matters. It will matter if we do make peace if we want to trade afterwards, and keep them from declaring again too.

Either way, I think running OR with confucianism to finish Universities/Oxford quicker is easily worth any diplo implications.

The point about Stalin being likely to build wonders is something to consider. He seems likely to have been given a better start, and if he is isolated, it could be hard to grab many early wonders. GWall seems lost anyway, and spending early hammers just to get a tech much later seems like poor management, so let's not speculate more on it. But if we want GLH, we probably have to make it priority after Oracle, and we might well lose it anyway.

 

[BLubmuz]

I made another attempt with Wheel before Writing: Oracle turn 73 (not IBT, the turn you can revolt), at the expenses of St. Pete (founded later but already size 2).
Academy turn 68.
No extras, just a chariot and both cities garrisoned by a warrior. 2 workers.
Not a beaker and only 2H of overflow.

Some MM, but not a great deal.

I think it's why a too early library takes long to build and gives almost no benefits: the gold is still unimproved and you can't run specialist or the city never grows.
I also enjoyed a better use of workers and less health problems.

Still, Fluro's test is good, but i think that gaining 2 turns on CS is a good thing.
Agri is not needed to keep Moscow healthy, since once scrubbed the PHill you have no penalties from fallout (only 1 remains).

 

[cas]

Ok, I tried to replay it, but I seem to have done something different that I have forgotten, but it is for the better actually, since I now have T75 oracle/academy. 1 turn later, but a scouting workboat out T57, and StP size 3 with 10 stored, and 81 produced rather than 61. So a hefty growth improvement at the cost of 1 turn later oracle/academy.

I believe we can get even faster Academy+Oracle if we delay building the Settler till size6, but I think we want StP in case we need to build chariots. Same reasoning for teching AG, we get StP up and running faster.

MM log

Spoiler :

T19
Worker1 complete ->Worker
Worker1 to SE cows -> scrub+pasture

T20
Begin workboat
Fishing -> Writing

T25
Switch to cow tile 3

T30
Worker1 to W cows -> scrub+pasture

T31
Workboat -> Worker
Wb to fish -> net

T32
Work fish+cow

T35
Writing -> Wheel

T37
Worker 2 -> Library
Worker2 to W gold -> scrub+mine

T40
Size 3, work cow, cow, fish

T41
Worker1 to W gold -> scrub+mine

T42
Set 0%

T43
Wheel -> Agriculture -> PH path

T45
Library -> workboat
Set 100%
Worker1 road cows
Worker2 to SW gold -> road, then scrub+mine

T47
Worker1, wait for road, then move to road the path to StP, then help scrub+mine gold.

T48
Workboat -> Settler, working gold, cow, cow, fish, clam
Workboat nets clam

T53
Settler -> Warrior

T54
Warrior -> Workboat
StP build Stonehenge or whatever.

T55
Move citizen from cow to scientist
Workers begin scrubbing 2S of Moscow (for health)

T56
Switch to fish, gold, gold, clam, scientist

T57
Workboat -> Oracle
Switch to all improved tiles
Workboat goes scouting
PH -> CoL -> Math

T59
Workers improve rice, then PH north of StP, then whatever.
Two citizens from cows to scientists.

Not quite sure about the micro from here on, but I think I had to work cows over gold for 1T to avoid starvation.

T75
Oracle/Academy done

Ok, if I read all the posts correct, the above path is the one I should be familiar with and use/test...correct ? I'll do that tonight and make sure I can duplicate on the test save.

cas

 

[pnp_dredd]

I think we should start thinking about what comes after CS.

1) Lots of settlers (chops into these)
2) Build some military for protection and to begin racking up wins against our closest opponent
3) Lots of workers
4) Quickly to Education + Oxford

plus:
GLH?
GLib/Epics?
Currency?
Optics?

It's difficult to evaluate the various build options without knowing what our priorities will be after CS.

We'll take advatage of our cheap settlers to rapidly grow to at least 6 cities. We'll also need a strong military along our Western front. Production is important. So the size and improvements around StP are pretty important, and must be weighed against the CS date.

Perhaps we can evaluate this by "turns to next settler" in the tests?

 

[BLubmuz]

I think we should start thinking about what comes after CS.
(...)
It's difficult to evaluate the various build options without knowing what our priorities will be after CS.

We'll take advatage of our cheap settlers to rapidly grow to at least 6 cities. We'll also need a strong military along our Western front. Production is important. So the size and improvements around StP are pretty important, and must be weighed against the CS date.

Perhaps we can evaluate this by "turns to next settler" in the tests?

I agree!
Aside the exercise to have the best date for CS (just to have some way to test the various options) i think that 2-3 turns of delay but StPete settled early and another worker out soon, possibly before the settler, and another unit out of StPete (i'm thinking to 2 chariots, one for city) will compensate the loss of 2-3 turns of Bureaucracy, wich is good only for one city.
We can have a better improved land, more roads, and much more land scouted.

Moscow can have a settler in 4 turns before to revolt to Bureau and in 3 after.
There's another hole in a so fast CS and it's that we lack BW. This has 2 important repercussions:
1) we can't see copper
2) we can't revolt to slavery in the same turn of CS, if we so wish.

Thus, since any spot we can find needs to be roaded to and cleaned to avoid wasting settlers turns, i think i'll run a test with BW after PH and a different build queue.
With the Wheel before Writing, since this is by far the best test i ran.

Then we can decide what best suits our strategy.

I think that after CS we need, in the order:
- Agri, sailing and masonry, just to stop at the immediate
- a 3rd city out soon
- the spot for the 4th ready (don't forget we have to scrub before to settle)

StPete size 3 can produce a settler in 9 turns with the rice irrigated and surely we can chop 2 forests: one will go for the plantation and another to chain irrigation to the rice in any case.
The forests near Moscow can be used for wonders, i think one can go for the GLH.

 

[Fluroscent]

I made another attempt with Wheel before Writing: Oracle turn 73 (not IBT, the turn you can revolt), at the expenses of St. Pete (founded later but already size 2).
Academy turn 68.
No extras, just a chariot and both cities garrisoned by a warrior. 2 workers.
Not a beaker and only 2H of overflow.

Some MM, but not a great deal.

I think it's why a too early library takes long to build and gives almost no benefits: the gold is still unimproved and you can't run specialist or the city never grows.
I also enjoyed a better use of workers and less health problems.

Still, Fluro's test is good, but i think that gaining 2 turns on CS is a good thing.
Agri is not needed to keep Moscow healthy, since once scrubbed the PHill you have no penalties from fallout (only 1 remains).

So I guess that I have to try my plan without AG and sacrificing StP growth too for comparison
Well, it is likely that any plan we have will have to be modified along the way, I think it is important that we get the wheel/writing decision correct.
But I think that if we can rack up some 80 into stonehenge, which will become 80, which will become 210, then it is worth delaying Oracle two turns

StPete size 3 can produce a settler in 9 turns with the rice irrigated and surely we can chop 2 forests: one will go for the plantation and another to chain irrigation to the rice in any case.
The forests near Moscow can be used for wonders, i think one can go for the GLH.

We should chop the shared forest (irrigated one) to Moscow to take advantage of the Bureau bonus though.
I imagine we will be better off assigning StP as our early military pump with barracks, while Moscow spams workers/settlers.
We can have a happy cap of 8 with confu and a temple in Moscow, so we can build cottages on the two grasses and work them, so we will want pottery soon after (also to make granaries in all new cities the first build).

We also should consider our longer term strategy, whether we want to go for a lot of cottage cities and fast democracy, or go for earlier biology and lots of specialists.
Cottages are most practical if we can find decent flatlands, but we might have problems with pillage/sabotage. We also might want to dedicate more cities than usual to production, which means we can't work as many cottages.

 

[BLubmuz]

So I guess that I have to try my plan without AG and sacrificing StP growth too for comparison
Well, it is likely that any plan we have will have to be modified along the way, I think it is important that we get the wheel/writing decision correct.
But I think that if we can rack up some 80 into stonehenge, which will become 80, which will become 210, then it is worth delaying Oracle two turns (...)

As my latest tests demonstrated, wheel first is better than Writing.
Not only the turn 73 one, but mainly the turn 77 with BW in, just completed
after a first attempt, i used basically the same moves as in the turn 73 attempt, but inserting a worker after the library and BW after PH. Also, clean soon the hill SE of Moscow provides great benefits in running 2 Sci with a food deficit, since you lose only 1F/turn. Thanks to the 3rd worker, the Academy came even earlier.

I got even 2 chariots.
We need them, probably more than the failure gold from SH. But if we see that we can settle W between the cows and the lake, we can try to start it there.
In our not-yet-bureaucratic Capital it can be completed in 8, BTW. We can even produce it for 2-3 turns in any city if we think it's worth.
Have you ever used failure gold from NW?

Edit
an inspiration: i took a look to what the opponents are building in my test:
all of them have a scouting WB, many archers, 1 worker and some is building a settler.
some is still to 1 city, but this is probably only in this map.
No wonders. Don't count much in that gold from failure.

 

[Fluroscent]

OK, I did roughly the same plan but delaying the settler till Moscow size 6, and not researching AG.
Got Oracle T72 (ready to revolt, yes), Academy T74, StP at size 2+10, with extras being 2 warriors and 53. Edit: that is on T72

I am calling it now, writing before wheel wins

 

[Fluroscent]

Also, clean soon the hill SE of Moscow provides great benefits in running 2 Sci with a food deficit, since you lose only 1F/turn. Thanks to the 3rd worker, the Academy came even earlier.

One fallout does not create . So we don't have to clear the hill.

 

[Fluroscent]

I am just putting production into sh to make it easier to see how many hammers were produced. I agree we might want to build chariots instead.
I tried putting in a 3rd worker, but it slowed us down a lot. The only thing I cannot quite do in time with two workers is clear the 2S fallout to speed the academy 1T, but building a worker slows us much more. I also don't know why you want BW that early. We don't need axes yet (since we have horses), and we don't need slavery, and we don't need chops yet.

an inspiration: i took a look to what the opponents are building in my test:
all of them have a scouting WB, many archers, 1 worker and some is building a settler.
some is still to 1 city, but this is probably only in this map.
No wonders. Don't count much in that gold from failure.

Don't forget that Stalin is likely much better off, and likely to build wonders (although he might not go for myst early). And it seems we should have a couple of chariots do defend from scouting archers at this point.

 

[Fluroscent]

A thing that is different which I cannot figure out why, is that in the new test save, we grow unhappy at size 5 if we don't have a warrior MP. In the earlier save, we didn't. Maybe it is because the AI have higher power rating that we get -2 "we fear for our safety"?
Also, presumably due to different tech patterns, the tech costs are slightly different, which means that many of the detail MM things in the earlier plan are not correct. For instance, I think wheel is a bit more expensive in the new test game, so we cannot stock as much gold pre library.

Still it works out nicely imo.

 

[BLubmuz]

OK, I did roughly the same plan but delaying the settler till Moscow size 6, and not researching AG.
Got Oracle T72 (ready to revolt, yes), Academy T74, StP at size 2+10, with extras being 2 warriors and 53.

I am calling it now, writing before wheel wins

I can't see how: you have no exploring units, which we need, not 3rd worker and mainly, the Wheel is of immediate use, while the early Library not. I think my turn 77 Oracle with BW wins, mainly looking to the improved land, which is another key to fast victory

One fallout does not create . So we don't have to clear the hill.

Sure, this is why i clean the hill otherwise you got 2 fallouts =1.
I also can't undestand how you can delay the warrior without having Moscow with an angry citizen at size 5.
And my Academy arrived in turn 68, despite the "late" Library.

edit:
Xpost. ahhh, you fell on it! it's WW from the 14*6 warriors died! Sorry to have posted too late the last version, those server problems are annoying.

 

[Fluroscent]

I can't see how: you have no exploring units, which we need, not 3rd worker and mainly, the Wheel is of immediate use, while the early Library not. I think my turn 77 Oracle with BW wins, mainly looking to the improved land, which is another key to fast victory

First off, how is the library not of immediate use? It comes online the same turn we start working the 1st gold. It is basically a half academy.

Second, the 53 could be converted to exploring units, so it is wrong to say that I don't have them.

And what good is improved land that is not worked? I am working only improved tiles, barring the non-farmed rice due to no AG. The two early workers can easily keep up with tasks to this point.

How can a T77 being behind in production, tech and growth win over T72/T74 oracle/academy? (Or T75/T75 with earlier StP and Agriculture?). The only thing that is ahead is on worker turns, and I maintain that we have what we need up to Oracle completion, and we can easily build more workers then if we need them.

Sure, this is why i clean the hill otherwise you got 2 fallouts =1.

Where is the 2nd fallout? I assume you are not leaving the grass fallout unscrubbed.

I also can't undestand how you can delay the warrior without having Moscow with an angry citizen at size 5.

I can't, not in your latest test save, but I could in the previous one.

And my Academy arrived in turn 68, despite the "late" Library.

Yes, that is nice, but I manage to complete the required techs by T72 anyway. The library bonus in itself is not so useless.

 

[BLubmuz]

I must run 3 turns at 0 right before the library completes.
So i can stock some 60 gold (i'm working the gold) and then run 100 'til the Oracle, with some spare.
Researching the wheel early can make it more expensive, since some AI can not have researched it yet.
This is a limit of the test. Maybe in the real game they prioritize it.

If you're interested i can give the build queue i used.

Be warned, i'm satisfied of this last test, much more than of the one on turn 73

Why i want BW? to see the copper, dammit! And it perfectly fits with our production. If i have to build the Oracle 4 turns early, i'm in trouble.

 

[Fluroscent]

Why i want BW? to see the copper, dammit!

Well, why? We are not going to settle another city before we have BW anyway.

 

[Fluroscent]

Ok, just to prove a point (apologize to everyone else that me and Blub are spamming a bit here):

I played the extra turns to T78 in my test, with T78 the logical comparison point, since I spent a turn revolting.
We have the 3rd worker, BW, AG AND Pottery already. Also 30 stored.