SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

deleted...........

 

[LowtherCastle]

How about starting settler for Ghandi?

What do you mean "despite current distance"? A city near our land?! I wouldn't think he would...

Would the other leaders take it?

We'll also probably want a settler for Stalin later on, btw, as that may be the only way to open borders.

In my test game, Gandhi was willing to take my second city for peace. So we should know early on of this is a possibility.

MW used this in SG5 (teamed with the barbs). I have noted in many of my tests that the AIs, including Stalin would take our second city, but that city had fish+gold+pigs. As I recall, there are factors dictating whether the AI will accept a city and Silu listed them in SG11. Having less than 4 cities is one, iirc, another is city within 8-9 tiles of one of his cities, and maybe something else.

This would be an especially good escape valve if we noticed an SoD coming. Preferably we'd give an unimproved city, because there's a probability of losing granaries, etc., and we lose culture building for sure, when we re-capture.

 

[babybluepants]

This would be an especially good escape valve if we noticed an SoD coming. Preferably we'd give an unimproved city, because there's a probability of losing granaries, etc., and we lose culture building for sure, when we re-capture.

I think we'd plant a completely idiotic city for this purpose. Raze after...

Having less than 4 cities is one, iirc

Yeah, I remember that now. Must be why we can gift anyone off the bat.

 

[LowtherCastle]

bcool: I tried loading what I thought was your low-radiation save and it was loaded with radiation. Could you give the correct link again, please?

 

[bcool]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9621575&postcount=157

This post has a lower radiation amount in the wilderness, but it still has a lot of radiation. I left a lot in and I didn't try to count the number of tiles.

 

[babybluepants]

I'm working on the test map (starting with bcool's). I've included the following issues so far:

Spoiler :

I think this map will resemble the SG10 in two regards: 1) All AIs accessible by galley, and 2) Gandhi and Stalin on one landmass, the rest on another. We'll be on one of the two landmasses, my guess on Gandhi's. Furthermore, my guess is that Gandhi will lie between us and Stalin, meaning that they would soon be WEs, after we DoP with them. PUre speculation, of course, although I do know a bit about how Erkon thinks. We'll see how much that little bit is.

Placed Gandhi near the ivories on the large peninsula directly SW of us.

Life Expectancy:
Rival Worst = 57 = 8/(8+6) --> Mao: +2 (bonus) +2 (fresh water) +2 (EXP) +2 (forest) -1 (Pop) -5 (fallout - 10 tiles)
Rival Best = 77 = 7/(7+2) --> +2 (bonus) +2 (fresh water) +3 (forest) -1 (Pop) -1 (fallout - 2 tiles)
Rival Avg = 68 = approx. 6/(6+3) --> +2 (bonus) +2 (fresh water) +2 (forest) -1 (Pop) -2 (fallout - 4 tiles)

Those numbers are a bit weird. I think there may be quite a bit of variation. No one is unhealthy at size 2, though.

Land Area:
One AI with 8/9 tiles, one with 6/9 tiles, four with 5/9 tiles. The borders will pop in 5t, giving us more info.

This took some work. I had to revise all of their capitals.

There's also this:

Well if Erkon launched 50 nukes, that's max 450 fallout tiles. I doubt he covered half the land tiles with nukes as that would really slow AI development.

IIRC, nukes only cause fallout on something like 4-6 tiles out of possible 9. That would further reduce total fallout to 200-250? I'm sure Erkon added some in WB, though. Maybe 300-400 total makes sense? I've also noted before that there are only 1080 total land tiles.

I don't think I'll have time to finish 'till tonight...

 

[babybluepants]

It seems activity has died down a bit... How should we proceed? Is everyone still playing around with the test? I, at least, am not used to not having any decisions made this deep into a game discussion, though I suppose SG10 was similar that way... There could be nasty surprises waiting in the early game, so it may be good to bust a move before too long?

Should we do a head count and see if there are strong opinions on major issues? Maybe we can at least start focussing our play-testing more.

1) Capital location
2) Initial tech or two
3) Initial build or two

???


FULL ROSTER

1. Mitchum
2. shyuhe
3. ZPV
4. babybluepants
5. bcool
6. LowtherCastle
7. mystyfly
8. mdy
9. Silu (lurking)
10. Soirana (lurking? erasing?)

 

[LowtherCastle]

Kudos for taking the lead, bbp, while shyuhe is somewhat tied up. I think we'd definitely need to be wary of losing motivation, especialy with Civ5 luring some away (not me ).

-----------

My basic position from all my testing is that we should settle SIP or NNE, depending on which will get us GLH faster and put us in a stronger REX position. Oracle is optional to me. Why do I push GLH? It's better than some of you are thinking, I think. It will mean that we'll have 4 trade routes until Corporation @ 2gpt each, minimum. (Remember, Erkon said this maps has islands. We only need 4 offshore cities to give us 4 @ 2gpt trade routes.) This means each new coastal city will start with a minimum of 9gpt. Pre-inflation maintenance+civics maxes out at aroudn 11gpt, so we essentially have unlimited coastal expansion. I think that's the most likely scenario.

Note, however, that we're not committing ouselves to the GLH. I'm just suggesting that we use it as a way to finally make a decision on where to settle, for lack of a better solution. I'm open to any better way to solve this...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Here's a test save with low radiation and Gandhi nearby.

 

[bcool]

I think NNE is probably the best site for the earliest GLH, and I too think that is a decent place to settle.

Build order of warrior, workboat (whip at 2 pop), overspill into worker (1 turn), switch to workboat, grow to size 2, switch to worker build and whip it, overspill into 2nd workboat is a decent beginning.

Requires a tech path of Fishing, Bronze Working

The worker first start is similar for the NNE settling spot, I haven't done side by side comparisons but you seem to get similar results.

The first tech path gives us earlier scouting, but makes an early oracle impossible I think.

 

[Mitchum]

My basic position from all my testing is that we should settle SIP or NNE, depending on which will get us GLH faster and put us in a stronger REX position. Oracle is optional to me. Why do I push GLH? It's better than some of you are thinking, I think.

I agree that the GLH is a great wonder, especially on a map with a lot of off-continent settling opportunities. However, doesn't the GLH fit in better with settling NNE? Not only can we build the GLH in our capital (which may or may not be a good thing), but our capital, which should be one of our biggest and best cities, is more likely to snag those lucrative foreign trade routes as well.

Edit: Oops. I posted this before seeing bcool's response. I'm having trouble with the CFC website lately and it takes me a long time to save posts for some reason. We pretty much said the same thing related to settling N+NE fitting in with the GLH.

 

[Mitchum]

I just played a quick test game. I settled N+NE. My build path was warrior -> WB (whipped) -> WB -> worker -> LH -> Worker. My tech path was Fishing -> BW -> Sailing -> AH (all AI knew it so I got max bonus) -> Writing -> Math. I was trying to see if Gandhi would make peace for BW and Sailing (187 + 156 = 343 beakers), which he wouldn’t, even though he hadn’t started researching either one.

At 200 BC, I have 4 cities (one off continent!), 2 galleys, 2 more settlers in 2 turns, 4 workers, GLH (675 BC), library, granary, academy (GS at ~ 75% odds). I am 7 turns from Civil Service. I found that if you build the GLH too early (i.e. when you have less than 4 cities), you don’t get the benefit of it. I’m not sure if we really need to push to finish it earlier, but I could have done so in my game if needed. Delaying it also improved my odds of a GS. I chopped two forests: one the turn before city #2 was settled on that tile and another toward the GLH. This gave us 2 forests left in our capital.

I have peace with everyone and OB with Gandhi and Stalin. I got peace eventually with Gandhi for Sailing, Writing and BW. He may research BW earlier in our real game though. I then traded him Math for Myst, Wheel, Agriculture and Archery; Currency +50 gold for Alphabet and Pottery; and CoL for IW, Poly and 45 gold. I basically had to wait for each AI to learn Writing. As soon as they did, I could trade them Alphabet and Math for peace. For Stalin, it took Poly, Writing, IW and 110 gold. He was marching toward my capital and I didn’t want to wait for him to learn Writing.

P.S. I used bcool's latest save because I didn't have LC's yet.

 

[babybluepants]

I found that if you build the GLH too early (i.e. when you have less than 4 cities), you don’t get the benefit of it. I’m not sure if we really need to push to finish it earlier, but I could have done so in my game if needed. Delaying it also improved my odds of a GS.

It also, ofc, increases the odds of an AI getting it...

I find it's quite hard to balance this. Usually, the AI, even on Imm, take their sweet time with it. Every now and then, though, they gun for it. I guess that makes sense, since it's the most situational of early wonders. In normal Imm games, I try to build it pre-1000 BC. Here we'd be really hard pressed to meet that date, so asap sounds good to me.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm good with NNE. We'll soon be able to monitor how many AIs have Sailing and Marble, and hopefully when they get them. Along with an idea of how fast they're going in general, we should be able to get GLH safely. No guarantees of course.

Personally, I think we should put our EPPs on Stalin. He's the one with the Modern Age tech, so it's probably most valuable to us, plus it comes after the Communism GSpy, assuming COmmunism isn't someone's free tech.

 

[Mitchum]

Are we done testing? Should I put together a quick PPP for the first xx turns?

Is everyone fine with:

1. Settle N+NE
2. Fishing -> BW
3. Warrior -> WB

Or should we continue to test other permutations (i.e. worker first, SIP, etc.)? I'd like to get this game going if possible.

FYI, I won't be buying Civ V for a while. I'm sure that it will be buggy and I prefer to wait until something more stable is available.

 

[Soirana]

Doesn't NNE start unhealthy from get go?

That alone would be big no for me... But since I am eraser anyway... [best for me looked SIP and going worker/worker]

 

[LowtherCastle]

Doesn't NNE start unhealthy from get go?

That alone would be big no for me... But since I am eraser anyway... [best for me looked SIP and going worker/worker]

Yes, it does, costing us 25-30 food-hammers. Have you tried SIP with building a GL? I'd be interested in hearing your best shot at that, but without using the plains hill and pigs at the northwestern fish site (in other words, without using what we can't see right now).

Wkr-wkr is how I do SIP also and it clearly develops much faster and research is faster. There are a few problems though, that I haven't resolved yet. 1) Getting a city for GLH developed without sacrificing capital development. 2) Figuring out how much better NNE is once poprushing from pop7-pop5 comes on line, because SIP doesn't really offer this. THus, figuring out if and when NNE catches up with SIP, in terms of hammers.

If we knew we could just bee-line math or whatever and then trdae for BW, the SIP wins hands down. But testing shows that'll probably be pretty hard.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Are we done testing? Should I put together a quick PPP for the first xx turns?

Is everyone fine with:

1. Settle N+NE
2. Fishing -> BW
3. Warrior -> WB

Or should we continue to test other permutations (i.e. worker first, SIP, etc.)? I'd like to get this game going if possible.

FYI, I won't be buying Civ V for a while. I'm sure that it will be buggy and I prefer to wait until something more stable is available.

Even if we go NNE, I'm finding a library beeline better than poprushing, but I'm not certain. bbp's 200bc save looks pretty strong. But I haven't tried your build sequence yet.

 

[Soirana]

Yes, it does, costing us 25-30 food-hammers. Have you tried SIP with building a GL? I'd be interested in hearing your best shot at that, but without using the plains hill and pigs at the northwestern fish site (in other words, without using what we can't see right now).

Wkr-wkr is how I do SIP also and it clearly develops much faster and research is faster. There are a few problems though, that I haven't resolved yet. 1) Getting a city for GLH developed without sacrificing capital development. 2) Figuring out how much better NNE is once poprushing from pop7-pop5 comes on line, because SIP doesn't really offer this. THus, figuring out if and when NNE catches up with SIP, in terms of hammers.

If we knew we could just bee-line math or whatever and then trdae for BW, the SIP wins hands down. But testing shows that'll probably be pretty hard.

Without half of cross or maybe whole site i would settle instead of seen area?

On other hand you seriously believe optimal path is grow unhealthy city not having three food tile into whipping?

For me going for GLH is too much strain which pays only if we have decent amount of land. Somehow i doubt we could spread to 20 cities with ease, but that is just my senses.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Without half of cross or maybe whole site i would settle instead of seen area?

On other hand you seriously believe optimal path is grow unhealthy city not having three food tile into whipping?

My apologies, Soirana, but I'm not sure I understand these two sentences. I tried SIP (wkr-wkr-lib-war-war-war-settler) and settled 2W of fish. Then I only built the grass hill mine, because we can't see anything else. I found buiding GLH there very slow without BW. With BW, we could poprush lh and maybe lib into the GLH to make it faster. Do you think this or another way would be good for GLH? (even if you don't like GLH for this scenario)

Edit: I don't thnk either capital site is optimal for a capital, in fact both are weak, which means BUreau is not as attractive as usual. I thnk SIP is totally useless for whipping. I think NNE can be somewhat useful for whipping after it reaches its max happiness level. Later it grows forever and works coastal tiles + colossus (MC from Oracle?) + Moai (for example).

For me going for GLH is too much strain which pays only if we have decent amount of land. Somehow i doubt we could spread to 20 cities with ease, but that is just my senses.

I'm thinking we'll build/capture ~50+ cities, with as many coastal as possible. This scenario is unusual. We need space techs plus 100-150 workers (maybe) plus 50-100 military units. SO more population means cheaper unit costs, but same research level (we run 3-4 golden ages toward the end.)

BOttom line, Soirana: I would like SIP better if we could get the GLH by around 1000bc and Oracle (maybe) in the capital. I'm just not sure it's possible.