SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[Soirana]

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)

Hoping to have at least one hill in fog is not too much. Something must be in fog.

I do recall some mystical calcultions that fastest way through whole tech tree is sub ten cities.

In my viewpoint this is close to standard scenario of space win on emperor just slowed down due to fallout. Slowed means more workers/settlers.

 

[babybluepants]

I thought NNE would win in a landslide. I prefer an inland capital, as well. This is largely subjective - I think that land-based worker-first is always faster to get going than seafood. That's the case here, as well, despite the fallout, because NNE struggles with unhealthiness.

Been playing around with 1NW, but SIP is just a better city. And, I think we can assume that the fish city will be solid, even if no pig. NNE does seem to catch up eventually with all else being equal, but SIP with 2 quick workers gives us the fastest start, IMHO.

AH seems so obvious here, that I'm half-expecting a horse to show up in the immediate area. Perhaps even in a useful spot for the fish city. Don't like BW until later. If we want MC, we can tech BW after PH. I like starting with AH-Wheel-Writing. Wheel is for hooking up the cow for extra health and ideally pre-roading at least one tile towards the fish site. Also, there's no need for Writing sooner, if we want worker-worker and a warrior or two before the library. I've been building worker-warrior-worker. Worker-worker is better, but it delays the initial scouting unit until T34, which is quite late. I would be ok with that, though.

Just had a run with SIP/worker-worker, and managed a 1480 BC MC sling (could have had COL, ofc), and stole a worker from Gandhi (LC's latest save). Unfortunately, I forgot to save...

 

[babybluepants]

do recall some mystical calcultions that fastest way through whole tech tree is sub ten cities.

That's simply not true. I know that Dynamic goes with 15-18 cities in Settler-level games, which gives him all the cities he can feasibly grow/improve by a useful date and enough production for insta-SS after research. In higher-level games - which last longer - 30-40 cities seems to be optimal. Here we might need more, depending on how tricky the fallout-clearing turns out to be.

 

[babybluepants]

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.

Crashes when loading on my crappy old laptop. That was fi'ty bucks well spent...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Hoping to have at least one hill in fog is not too much. Something must be in fog.

Okay. Have you tried how fast you can get GLH in that city, using both the grass hill and plains hill mines?

 

[babybluepants]

GLH obviously depends on what's in the fog... More than one hill is reasonable, IMHO.

 

[Mitchum]

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.

Hmmm... If we play the game right, Stalin should be dead well before we have an opportunity to steal his Modern tech (or it could be two techs of a lesser age, I guess), right? If the only goal of assigning EPP to Stalin is to steal his tech, I disagree. If we're doing it for other reasons, like being able to see into his cities, then assigning EPP on Stalin makes more sense to me.

For a pure tech-related reason, I would rather assign them to Gandhi since he will be our only tech trading partner for quite some time. It will be good to know what he's researching.

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).

Actually, you don't start at unhealthiness from the get go and I didn't lose 25-30 food but probably closer to 10. At the start, we are at the health cap with 1 pop. Whip a work boat as soon as we hit 2 pop and before losing any food. Netting the Fish increases the health cap to 2 pops. A work boat on the clams raises it to 3 pops before you ever get there and cleaning up one fallout tile raises it to 4 pops IIRC. With fallout removal, cows and rice available, the cap is 8 or 9.

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.

I tend to agree. With a lot of small islands, there will be a ton of off-continent settling opportunities. We will also likely take quite a few additional cities via conquest. I think the GLH makes sense here.

I thought NNE would win in a landslide. I prefer an inland capital, as well. This is largely subjective - I think that land-based worker-first is always faster to get going than seafood. That's the case here, as well, despite the fallout, because NNE struggles with unhealthiness.

I agee that unhealthiness is an issue with N+NE. However, I typically prefer a food-rich captial over one that will struggle with growth. N+NE with Moai, lighthouse and the Colossus could actually be quite decent in the short and mid-term.

What concerns me about SIP is the lack of food, which makes whipping very inefficient. It may get off to a faster start, but I'm not sure for how long. Plus, it misses out on the two foreign trade routes from the GLH since it isn't coastal. SIP wastes the Clam tile. Finally, it delays map intelligence with a later exloring warrior.

(Civ V) Crashes when loading on my crappy old laptop. That was fi'ty bucks well spent...

I downloaded the free demo last night to my laptop just to see if it would work. It did, but I couldn't see the intro movie. My laptop has a separate video card. I read that Civ V doesn't work on the Intel integrated video cards/chips... Even though it works on my laptop, I won't buy it for a while. Maybe after this SGOTM is a good time...

 

[babybluepants]

Actually, you don't start at unhealthiness from the get go and I didn't lose 25-30 food but probably closer to 10. At the start, we are at the health cap with 1 pop.

I'm losing 1fpt to start. It's 22t to grow, then whip. I'm not crazy about early BW, though, and it would be more than 22 food without it.

 

[Mitchum]

I'm losing 1fpt to start. It's 22t to grow, then whip. I'm not crazy about early BW, though, and it would be more than 22 food without it.

Wow! How could I have missed that? I could have sworn that we were at the health cap until growing to 2 pops...

Why are you against early BW? Is that for this game or in general? Because in a capital with a lot of early food (like N+NE), early BW can be quite strong.

 

[Soirana]

Okay. Have you tried how fast you can get GLH in that city, using both the grass hill and plains hill mines?

The answer would be unreasonably late. But assuming fog has two forest to chop and two hills is aproxim same as assumption there is enough land including worthy islands.

To stop discussion getting worse - IMO, if you want guarantee GLH you need to settle NNE or go for something like worker settler and hope for goodies in fog... [without land locked food source and extra forests to chop it would be arround 600BC]

 

[LowtherCastle]

Hmmm... If we play the game right, Stalin should be dead well before we have an opportunity to steal his Modern tech (or it could be two techs of a lesser age, I guess), right? If the only goal of assigning EPP to Stalin is to steal his tech, I disagree. If we're doing it for other reasons, like being able to see into his cities, then assigning EPP on Stalin makes more sense to me.

I think we should keep him alive, barely, till we steal his tech. But we can also start with EPPs on G till we can see his teching.

 

[Mitchum]

To stop discussion getting worse - IMO, if you want guarantee GLH you need to settle NNE or go for something like worker settler and hope for goodies in fog... [without land locked food source and extra forests to chop it would be arround 600BC]

BBP, didn't you finish the GLH pre 1000 BC in one of your SIP tests that you played out until 200 BC? If so, I'm starting to lean toward SIP. I played around with it a bit and it does seem to be faster for the first 100 turns or so. Regardless of where we settle, there is a strong chance that we'll be moving our capital mid-game anyway...

We need to get this game moving. I think Civ V may have stolen some of our teammates. If we can agree on settling location, first two techs, and first two builds, I can put together a PPP and we can get out of the gate, so to speak. After the first 30 turns, we should have a better idea of our surroundings and what the AI are up to.

 

[babybluepants]

BBP, didn't you finish the GLH pre 1000 BC in one of your SIP tests that you played out until 200 BC?

Don't think so. Did I? Realistically, we ain't gonna beat 500 BC by much for GLH in second city. Maybe 750 BC, if the fogged tiles are ideal. Hard to test, since it's so tile dependent.

The GLH is certainly overpowered on some maps and this has potential to be one of those (except for possible difficulties in even obtaining OBs). Still, I don't think it's a good idea to completely devote our opening to it, without further map knowledge. This is the significant advantage I see in the NNE capital - it offers the flexibility to go for the MC-sling/GLH/Col trifecta or any part thereof, if they prove to be desirable.

I prefer SIP, though.

After the first 30 turns, we should have a better idea of our surroundings and what the AI are up to.

Not if we go worker-worker.

 

[Mitchum]

It looks like the Ducks have started. Their power climbed 6K in 32 turns. They cannot have learned BW (8K). This implies:

Option 1: Archery (6K), capital must still be at 1 pop. Not likely. Who would research Archery unless they are really spooked about a nearby AI? They seemed to have a crystal ball in SGOTM 11 by predicting the presence of the Horse resource near their second city, so you never know...

Option 2: AH (2K) and Wheel (4K), capital must still be at 1 pop. This would appear to be a SIP, worker -> worker start. I'm not sure, but I think BBP's suggested opening would put us in about this same place.

Option 3: Wheel (4K), capital at 2 or 3 pops (1K), 1 warrior (1K), no AH. Not likely as AH seems like an obvious choice if you're not settling N+NE and learning BW.

Option 4: AH (2K), Barracks (3K), capital at 2 or 3 pops (1K). Not likely.​

There are many other options, but I think option 2 is the most likely.

However, I can't figure out how they got a score of 130 so fast. I played an AH -> Wheel and worker -> worker start. I had 10K soldiers like they do but my score was only 113 by T32. I did research Writing next, which wasn't done yet. But if I researched two cheaper techs instead of Writing (i.e. Fishing and Mysticism), my score would have been 125. The Ducks (and the Dwarf cry team) have a score of 130. Growing 1 pop = 5 points. So...

This is what they must have done: SIP (had they settled N+NE, their land score would be too low), researched 4 techs, built a single worker and then grew their city while building something other than another worker or settler. The total of all four techs and non-worker builds had to equal 6K soldiers.

Who said the graphs weren't spoilerish...

 

[babybluepants]

Yes, I'm pretty confident both Ducks and T'dr SIPd and went AH/worker.

 

[bcool]

So what do we need to settle the issue between NNE and SIP? I favor NNE for the early scouting, flexibility, ability to get the great lighthouse early, and ability to fit more cities into the opening land tiles.

Compare play tests between NNE and SIP?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I see us having three possible openings:

1. SIP, AH-wtg-(TW?)..., wkr-wkr-library-3war-settler
2. NNE-AH, AH-..., wkr-...
3. NNE-slavery, fish-BW-AH-wtg-..., war-wb(1pop)-(wkr or wb...)

SIP is a much better tech bee-liner and REXer.
SIP runs into health problems at pop4, requiring TW or agri and fishnets (add fishing) or lots of scrubbing. This slows down the tech beeline somewhat.

NNE-AH is similar to SIP but lags by about 6 turns (because the first worker is done 6 turns later).
NNE-AH can build the GLH sooner because it's a developed coastal city.

NNE-slavery develops much slower than SIP, I'm pretty sure, mainly because it adds BW, thus delaying the library by 10+ turns, and adds 1 warrior + 2 wbs to its early production queue, thus delaying the first settler and the library.
NNE-slavery is much better for early exploration, giving us a chance for an early, cheap DoP with Gandhi***
EDIT: One more reason to settle NNE. It keeps our score down, which tends to keep us in the lower half of the rankings, where Gandhi also is for the time being. He'll give us +1 hidden plusmod for that, so that after DoP we have a much better chance of him meeting dG, Mao, or Stalin and picking them as WE, whereupon he'll trade techs with us at Annoyed. But this is iffy, because it depends on the random number they each draw and also on them not getting CommonWar plusmods. Clearly, though, early exploration has a BIG potential to pay off, if we meet G rapidly.

*** My warrior discovered the nearby Gandhi just as I finished AH. Gandhi wouldn't DoP. I moved the warrior to the diagonal tile, 2 tiles from his capital. Voila! Gandhi traded AH for DoP!!! I thought of this after re-reading our thread yesterday:

We can effectively triple our power by threatening one of their cities with a warrior (so long as our cities aren't threatened).

It didn't work 3 tiles from his capital, but worked two or one tiles from his capital. Further testing shows that it has to be a land unit on land. A land unit on a galley next to an empty city does not cause the AI any concern...

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Mitchum: Excellent analysis! Btw, Bts warriors are 2k.

Meditations...

Spoiler :

Since I advocated turning off the graphs, let's have at it! They asked for it...

The most interesting (mystifying?) detail is the four techs in 32 turns. That's not easy. The only logical combo I've found so far is agri-AH-TW-fishing, with the logic being: 1) Since we can't trade early techs, let's maximize our prerequisite bonuses. 2) Our capital is low food so let's get a granary asap. (Hence, fishing even though the capital isn't coastal.)

But that would leave the mystery of what they built while growing to pop2 (let's ignore that growing to pop2 causes a health imbalance for now). They couldn't have built a warrior because of their power, so it had to be barracks. Why build rax? Maybe AH revealed nearby horses? Supposing their initial tech plan was agri-AH-wtg, but there were horses in the bfc, then it makes sense they switched to TW, to connect the horses and to get the +1 from the cow pasture. That would mean the horses are at 1E or SSW or NNE, because on the river they don't need a road to connect.

Another possibility is that some AI turned up at their doorstep, but that's unlikely because ZPV already told us their initial builds and it doesn't include any sort of exploring unit. But it could be that a nearby capital city border expansion became visible. Putting Gandhi nearby would align to SG10, there's no doubt about that. ANd putting G very close would ensure that all teams knew of the danger, even if they didn't send out explorers. But wait, only if they SIP rather than NNE...hmmm...

I also looked at some sort of AH- Priesthood beeline the wtg prereq bonus, but that couldn't be done in 32 turns. This is very weird. I don't see a strong opening with 130 points here. What am I missing???

 

[Soirana]

@Mitchum: Excellent analysis! Btw, Bts warriors are 2k.

Meditations...

Spoiler :

Since I advocated turning off the graphs, let's have at it! They asked for it...

The most interesting (mystifying?) detail is the four techs in 32 turns. That's not easy. The only logical combo I've found so far is agri-AH-TW-fishing, with the logic being: 1) Since we can't trade early techs, let's maximize our prerequisite bonuses. 2) Our capital is low food so let's get a granary asap. (Hence, fishing even though the capital isn't coastal.)

But that would leave the mystery of what they built while growing to pop2 (let's ignore that growing to pop2 causes a health imbalance for now). They couldn't have built a warrior because of their power, so it had to be barracks. Why build rax? Maybe AH revealed nearby horses? Supposing their initial tech plan was agri-AH-wtg, but there were horses in the bfc, then it makes sense they switched to TW, to connect the horses and to get the +1 from the cow pasture. That would mean the horses are at 1E or SSW or NNE, because on the river they don't need a road to connect.

Another possibility is that some AI turned up at their doorstep, but that's unlikely because ZPV already told us their initial builds and it doesn't include any sort of exploring unit. But it could be that a nearby capital city border expansion became visible. Putting Gandhi nearby would align to SG10, there's no doubt about that. ANd putting G very close would ensure that all teams knew of the danger, even if they didn't send out explorers. But wait, only if they SIP rather than NNE...hmmm...

I also looked at some sort of AH- Priesthood beeline the wtg prereq bonus, but that couldn't be done in 32 turns. This is very weird. I don't see a strong opening with 130 points here. What am I missing???

Mysticism and building henge for failure gold? Although who in their sane mind would choose gold over scouting unit...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Mysticism and building henge for failure gold? Although who in their sane mind would choose gold over scouting unit...

No kidding. I tried to make Mysticism work, but it costs too much, unless somehow enough AIs gave them big discounts on that, TW and the others. I'm still mystified by this. Now I can't wait to see their game after it's all over...