SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[bcool]

Current knowledge of AI Techs (went through previous posts)
Doesn't include the last 5 turns (waiting for screenshot analysis)

Gandhi
Mysticism
Mining
Alphabet
Archery
Masonry (T15)
Fishing T?
Agriculture T?
Bronze Working (T30)

De Gaulle
Agriculture
The Wheel
Archery
Nationalism
T10 (? non-soldier)
T19 Meditation
T26 mining
T34?

Roosey
Fishing
Agriculture
Constitution
Archery
T16? AH
??Sailing/BW ??
T33?

Mao
Agriculture
Mining
Archery
Communism
T8 (?)
T17 TW
T25 Myst

Stalin
Hunting
Mining
Military Science
Archery
T9 (The Wheel? either StalinTW(T9) or ChurchTW(T13), but not both.)
T19 AH
T24 Myst or Agriculture
T31 ?
+2 ancient techs or +1 classical?

Churchill
Fishing
Mining
Electricity??
Archery
T13? TW or AH either StalinTW(T9) or ChurchTW(T13), but not both.
T18? Myst or Agri (EDIT must have been Myst)
T28 (Polytheism)

As of T12 5 or 6 know fishing

As of T35? all 6 know fishing

bbp, if you open the Turn 32 - 2720 BC save, you can check whether Stalin (EDIT: could be Mao instead of Stalin, I guess) or Roosy teched Masonry.

 

[babybluepants]

Edited into TS report:

Spoiler :

Turn 36 - 2560 BC
Roosevelt grows to 6
Gandhi grows to 4

Turn 37 - 2520 BC
Gandhi discovers Agriculture
DG grows to 5

Turn 38 - 2480 BC
Mao discovers BW
Churchill grows to 6

Turn 39 - 2440 BC
Mao adopts Slavery

Turn 40 - 2400 BC
We discover Fishing
Churchill discovers a tech
Roosevelt grows to 7

 

[babybluepants]

Screenshots attached.

 

[babybluepants]

I tried building a chariot after the library. It feels much slower than previous tests. I wonder if we can confirm whether DG is on our land mass before we have to decide. Hooking up the horses slows us down clearing the second city site, ofc, but that's something we can do in 1t from NNE gold. We can still spend 2t exploring.

bcool's Currency beeline test is quite a good date (except for barracks???) - I'm getting 1t later, but with another worker built. The problem I've had with this is the lack of Sailing by the WB completion. If we wanna keep the option open on GLH, we kinda need to beeline it.

 

[Mitchum]

I won't have access to the game until tomorrow, but it feels like we're in no immediate danger from DG. If this is the case, I'm of the opinion that getting the second gold improved and our second city settled is higher priority than hooking up the horses and building a chariot. With all of the water we've seen so far, I'm thinking that the Great Lighthouse is going to be a make-or-break wonder in this game.

Even with a chariot, we really can't do much warring until DG has his second city settled, right? We could pillage, but this will delay DG settling his second city...

 

[babybluepants]

I'd skip the chariot, as well. If we find in the next 2-3t that DG is connected in the south, we can revise this plan.

Getting GLH built from here is fairly straightforward. The second city does WB > LH > GLH as fast as possible, and we hope that's fast enough. This, however, doesn't account for an explorer WB (which would be quite useful), or for a tech path that doesn't have room for more or less immediate Sailing.

From what we've seen so far, we could settle Rice/Deer/Ivory, I guess, but the land in general isn't too exciting. If we could find another coastal city with a decent amount of food, I would be more inclined to just tech Pottery-Sailing, build a granary, grow to 6 and crank out another settler before 1000 BC. We could get exploring out of there.

Since Gandhi doesn't yet appear to be nearby, we'll need a substantial tech to start the DoP process, though. This is tougher to do if we want solid expansion with all of Pottery, Sailing, BW and Agri soon.

 

[bcool]

Sorry away from the game but here are possibilities to test

Possible Path 1 (Go for both the oracle and the GLH)
Research Sailing, mysticism, meditation, priesthood, masonry, mathematics
Capital Builds finish library, settler, worker, ??, oracle
Fish City builds workboat, lighthouse (finished before masonry is???), GLH

Possible Path 2 (Check AI research and risk for oracle before committing to both)
Research mysticism (check other AI's status with meditation and polytheism), sailing, meditation, priesthood, masonry, mathematics
Go for both the oracle and the GLH
Capital Builds finish library, settler, worker, ??, oracle
Fish City builds workboat (finished before sailing??), lighthouse (finished before masonry is???), GLH

Possible Path 3 (delay GLH to ensure Oracle--basically my earlier beeline but worker instead of barracks)
Research mysticism, meditation, priesthood, mathematics, sailing, masonry
Capital Builds finish library, settler, worker, oracle
Fish City builds workboat , workboat (explorer), library (finished before sailing is??? otherwise 3rd workboat), lighthouse, GLH

Possible Path 4 (focus on GLH, make attempt at oracle)
Research Sailing, Masonry, Mysticism, Meditation, PriestHood, BW
Capital Builds finish library, settler, worker, ?worker?, oracle
Fish City builds workboat , lighthouse, GLH

Possible Path 5 (focus on GLH, forget oracle)
Research Sailing, Pottery, Masonry, Mathematics
Capital Builds finish library, settler, worker, granary, ?worker?, settler
Fish City builds workboat , lighthouse, GLH

 

[LowtherCastle]

bcool, I'd just go for your 1480BC Currency slingshot. If we're going to go for the ORacle at all, we wouldn't use a granary or the rice before that anyway. This map is research limited for a long time. We need cash and Alpha asap. We need to work on getting Ganshi as a trading partner asap. We'd be goofy lucky to still get the GLH with 3 AIs already knowing Sailing, two probably industrious and one (Stalin) possibly having Masonry already as well. Fish CIty could build wb-barracks in preparation for capturing Paris eventually. Either deGaulle is on our landmass or at least one other AI is, that we know.

 

[babybluepants]

bbp, if you open the Turn 32 - 2720 BC save, you can check whether Stalin (EDIT: could be Mao instead of Stalin, I guess) or Roosy teched Masonry.

The GNP change is at 2760 BC - Stalin knows it.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I noticed that de Gaulle's borders aren't spreading to our landmass in the test game, but they are in the real game, so maybe he is connected. Maybe it connects down south.

Yes. Fog-gazing says that Paris1E is coastal and Paris2SE is land. The only way I can get the cluture to expand like the real save is a land tile as Paris1SE, which would connect to us through Paris2SE. Good spot, bcool.

The GNP change is at 2760 BC - Stalin knows it.

I already figured out that it couldn't be Roosy--he doesn't have mining or mysticism yet. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to rule out Mao, in fact, I'd rather it be Mao...

Could you check the T34 save to see if a fourth AI has learned TW? (I don't think so, but it'd be nice to verify.)

 

[babybluepants]

bcool, I'd just go for your 1480BC Currency slingshot.

I prefer building a third worker, but I'm 6 hammers short of 1480 BC Oracle, with Math on schedule. I think bcool's works because he can grow faster on the barracks (or alternatively chariot - though that's another 2 worker turns) and get the capital working 2 gold faster as a consequence.

 

[babybluepants]

Could you check the T34 save to see if a fourth AI has learned TW? (I don't think so, but it'd be nice to verify.)

No, only 3 AI.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Capturing Paris

Whichever team captures Paris first probably has a huge advantage.

When dG settles his second city is precisely the ideal time to capture Paris. The AI will often send the settler off with two archer escorts, leaving the capital guarded by just one. If we have a unit within two tiles of Paris, dG will want to build more defenders, so we don't want to do that. So I think the best appraoch would be to build a scout (not now, later) to monitor Paris. We'll know in advance, by various means, when the settler is going to be finished and whether the archer/escorts are already waiting or not. So we should be able to have our chariots ready and waiting. The scout can follow the settler to its destination, so we know when we can attack.

Of course, if dG is in a hurry to build his first settler, then we might not have our chariots ready so soon.

 

[babybluepants]

I doubt that timeline will work out for us. Think he'll settle sooner, and we'll need 5 chariots to hit Paris (against two archers min)...

Edit: What's the fastest we can get 2 chariots in striking distance? 3 chariots?

 

[LowtherCastle]

bbp: A third worker for a 1440BC slingshot sounds like an excellent trade-off.

Paris: We still don't know if it's on a hill and whatnot, but we should keep it in mind. We could use the same trick when he sends out his second settler too, but we might not want to wait.
EDIT: I usually plan 3 chariots per archer. He's also got 40% culture defense so it may take 4 per.
EDIT2: If he's on a hill with CGI, he's got a 28% chance of beating 4 chariots. So we'd need at least 5 per in that case. It'd be expensive but absolutely worthwhile. After we finish the Oracle, our two cities could build several chariots quite quickly, I think.
EDIT3: If we're right on the land route, it'll take chariots 4-7t to get there, depending on how many roads we build.

 

[bcool]

We'd be goofy lucky to still get the GLH with 3 AIs already knowing Sailing, two probably industrious and one (Stalin) possibly having Masonry already as well.

If we are sure about this I will post a detailed PPP with the currency slingshot and worker build soon.
I'll post another test game with the results at the same time.

Should I go until the currency slingshot?

There will lots of stopping points I imagine.
-Confirming De Gaulle is on our landmass?
-After Myst is researched? (assess the risk of someone else building the oracle.
---(maybe barracks instead of worker if there is some risk? for 1 turn earlier oracle? barracks also helps capture Paris)
-After Meditation is researched (to further assess the risk)

-Meeting another AI
-other stopping points?

Things to do on each turn:
1.Screen shot of the scoreboard.
2.Screen shot of the Demographics screen.
3.Screen shot of the top 5 cities.
4.Screenshot of the F4 screen to monitor when the AI meet each other.
5.Screenshot of the Espionage screen.
6.Use LCs Excel file to determine which tech an AI learned by watching changes in our GNP.
7. Check for peace with Gandhi and other AI?

 

[bcool]

PPP

Tech path
Myst, Meditation, Phood, Mathematics

Builds
capital: finish library, settler, worker, oracle
fish city: workboat, workboat (7t or less to finish)??--to explore but maybe chariot/barracks??

Worker actions
both finish NWW gold mine
1 worker goes to fish city site and clears fallout, then clears and pastures cows 1N of city
1 worker goes to N gold mine clears fallout and mines it, moves to horses builds road, moves 1E of capital builds road, moves to forest NW of capital builds road, moves to hill 2S of fish city starts road
3rd worker built moves to rice clears it, builds road, moves to forest 2W of capital builds road

Tile management
Capital works 2 cows, horse, gold mine NNW (with 4th pop) until 2nd city built
2nd city works gold mine NNW of capital while building workboat
Capital works silk for 2 turns after gold mine N is finished (this allows capital to grow to 5 the same turn Fish city switches to fish from NNW gold mine)
2nd city switches to fish when 1st workboat nets it, when grows pasturized cows 1N as well.

Units, warrior to North continues to scout as far West as possible, looping back along north coast if deadends.

warrior to South
SW, SW, (stop confirms De Gaulle same land mass), south after possibly exploring De Gaulle a bit more.

Stop for De Gaulle same landmass confirmation
Stop for mysticism
Stop for meditation
Stop if met another AI

Things to do on each turn:
1.Screen shot of the scoreboard.
2.Screen shot of the Demographics screen.
3.Screen shot of the top 5 cities.
4.Screenshot of the F4 screen to monitor when the AI meet each other.
5.Screenshot of the Espionage screen.
6.Use LCs Excel file to determine which tech an AI learned by watching changes in our GNP.
7. Check for peace with Gandhi and other AI?

 

[babybluepants]

The fish city should be settled @ T+10 (2000 BC). Maybe we should start with 10t TSs now. In any case, Oracle seems too long.

Are we fully decided on beelining Oracle Currency then?

My thoughts on worker actions:
Worker3 finishes with 2t left on N gold mine, moves onto gold, then roads next turn. Worker2 then uses that road to move towards fish city, and double up on cow-ivory. This gets the cow pasture done the turn we build the WB. Worker3 should then road the N gold after clearing/mining it, followed by rice roading/clearing.

 

[bcool]

10 turn set is fine with me.

bbp worker actions seem better than mine.

I still think we should have 2 turns working the silk after the N gold mine is finished to grow the capital.

Edit: I can play about 20 hours from now unless there is more input.

Just out of curiosity, I took construction with the oracle (after a 2 turn delay to get masonry) and took Paris by 600 BC.

The chariot rush seemed slower, De Gaulle had up to 6 archers in his capital but that might have been because I was threatening it.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Two Problems.

1. The test save is deceiving us and it gets Phood done on T52, timed to the worker, but most likely, Phood will be 8 short. The test save starts with 5 overflow, but should be 0 overflow (which you already alluded to, bcool) and it has 2 AIs with Meditation instead of one, all adding up to enough to cover the 8.

I tested optimizing to provide the 4g needed to run 100% research to T52, but that still leaves us 4 short.

2. Somehow I didn't realize that your slingshot plans skip the chariot build. I don't think that's wise. The chariot will be able to warn us if dG sends some attackers (unlikely, but...). More important, imo, the chariot will allow us to control dG's metals/tiles, if he gets BW, etc. We can't allow him to build spears, which he will because he knows we've horses. If Erkon was a b@$t@rd and put dG's copper in his city or on an inaccessible tile, then we may have to abandon a chriot rush.

So I'd like to see a plan that includes a chariot (+worker?) and still gets a reasonably early slingshot.

Attached is a T41 save with the beakers corrected and Gandhi no longer Meditating. It ran 100% science on Myst T40. Our optimal path from here may involve storing a few coins on T40, T41, and/or T42.

Note that while testing, you need to monitor if G researches Meditation again or dG or Stalin gets Phood. If so, these shold be worldbuildered out. We can't count on that happening.