SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

I can't get the first cow pasture done by the time the second worker is finished, or the second cow pasture by the time we grow.

 

[Mitchum]

I don't quite understand how pasturing the horses delays the food. Don't we grow to pop2 on the same turn either way?

It may be the same turn, I'm not sure, but it just feels like we're behind because we end up working the +1F horse tile for 2 turns while waiting for the first cow pasture to complete. It also puts the workers a bit behind in getting the second cow pasture finished in time as well. Although, working the horses for a turn or two while waiting for the cow pasture isn't the end of the world...

 

[Mitchum]

I'm still in favour of Wheel before Writing. It feels more comfortable to me, with no food lost due to unhealth. Currently I'm looking at worker-worker-warrior-warrior-library with growth to 4 @ 2280 BC. After that, I now prefer third worker ahead of settler. Horse pasture puts us several worker turns behind in setting up the second city site. This lets me work one gold in second city while building WB and growing capital to 5.

In my latest test, I went worker -> worker -> library (T37) -> warrior -> worker 3 (at 3 pops) -> warrior -> settler (at 3 pops). My tech path was Writing -> Wheel -> Math -> Fishing (Just in time for city 2) -> finish Math -> Sailing -> Agriculture. Putting the Wheel and Fishing as late as possible gives us the best chance of getting bonus beakers for knowing more civs with these techs.

I improved horses -> E+NE cows -> N+N cows -> N gold -> N+NW gold. By T64, Rostov has the fish netted, cows pastured and ivory camped. I have 4 workers and settler 3 is due out in 5 turns.

I'm still going for Oracle in tests, and getting COL or MC in 1400 BC. GLH is doable in 600's.

In my test using my latest test save, the Oracle was built in 1480 BC. I'm inclined to skip the Priesthood line and beeline Currency for DoP with Gandhi and the others. This should allow us to backfill needed techs like Alhpabet, BW, IW, etc.

The biggest issue with skipping PH is that the only things to build while growing are units, library, barracks or recycling center. Masonry before Agriculture would allow us to build an Aqueduct in the captial... Since I haven't grown the capital beyond 4 pops, I have 0 GPP...

Can someone compare this opening with our earlier ones that did not use the horses (or upload an appropriate save so that I can do it)? It's possible that pasturing the horses is actually slowing us down since growth in the capital is a bit delayed. I thought you guys had the timing working out perfectly before with only 2 workers and no horses... This may still be the best option.

 

[bcool]

One thing to consider is whether or not we want 1 or 2 chariots.

If we can get a military unit to threaten an AI city then the price for peace is significantly lower. Chariots would have a significantly better chance of making it to an AI city alive (and perhaps faster if the fallout isn't as severe as it seems near us).

I also found building a 3rd worker and the settler at pop 3 was a decent opening, but I haven't perfected it yet.

Edit: I also think it will probably be easier to get the great scientist from the city by the fish instead of the capital. However this would make the getting the GLH very unlikely.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Mitchum, think you could post screenshots of the espionage screen from T4,T5,T6, please?

 

[Mitchum]

Mitchum, think you could post screenshots of the espionage screen from T4,T5,T6, please?

Not possible... I had my autosave set to store the last 100 saves as suggested. However, when I was doing my testing this morning and advancing the test game to T12, my older autosaves from Saturday were overwritten.

For some reason, I thought that the titles of autosaves had the game name in them such that they would not be overwritten because the test game name is different than the actual game name. This is not the case. All of my autosave names are formatted AutoSave_year. Sorry. I should have put these autosaves in a safe directory right after I played...

Regarding Espionage, is there something different between the test game and the actual game? Are you trying to figure out how long it will take to see Gandhi's techs? Maybe I/we can answer your questions some other way.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Not possible... I had my autosave set to store the last 100 saves as suggested. However, when I was doing my testing this morning and advancing the test game to T12, my older autosaves from Saturday were overwritten.

For some reason, I thought that the titles of autosaves had the game name in them such that they would not be overwritten because the test game name is different than the actual game name. This is not the case. All of my autosave names are formatted AutoSave_year. Sorry. I should have put these autosaves in a safe directory right after I played...

Regarding Espionage, is there something different between the test game and the actual game? Are you trying to figure out how long it will take to see Gandhi's techs? Maybe I/we can answer your questions some other way.

The espionage screen is the only screen I know of that gives us specific turn-by-turn information on each AI's MM. With that info I could possibly figure out exactly what the AIs have done so far. Their espionage percentages tell me how much of their GNP was devoted to EPPs each turn. I'm pretty sure that's enough to figure out the rest of the equation. This is another aspect unique to this scenario that I figured out yesterday. As it is, I have a pretty good hypothesis about where they're at and as we go along, perhaps Ican home in on it more precisely.

No biggie! Thanks for looking and for all the screenshots you already made.

LC

 

[bcool]

This is my best test game. At 375 BC...

grew to 4 pop, built 3rd worker then settler.

Got currency with the oracle (1360 BC), currency seems much stronger than MC since we can trade gold, plus we get the extra trade route.

Teched to civil service by 375 BC and Great Scientist will be born next turn
(skipped attempt at GLH, instead tried to get GS in fish city)

4 cities with granaries

capital has market, granary, library, oracle, hindu monastry

peace with all except mao.

Used chariot to very nice effect to buy cheap peace with roosevelt and de gaulle. Got cheap peace with Stalin and Gandhi with warrior.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

lurker's comment: Looks like another fine Erkon's scenario... good luck to OSS for this one!

Raskolnikov

 

[LowtherCastle]

Well, our main problem is getting our two cities up to pop8 asap so we can work our eight useful resources. I don't see any better way than forward. Wtg-TW-Fishing-?. Pasture horses. Finish wkr, then wkr-warrior-warrior-library-warrior-settler. This gives us our priorities: 2 wkrs, 2 explorers, growth (building a library and another warrior), second city. Second worker goes straight to the northern cows and they're pastured on T35 at pop2. Just how it is, horses are idle a while.

Doing pottery and building a granary doesn't seem very good at all. Maybe I missed something, but I don't see it. We get half-priced libraries, not granaries. More workers don't help either. Just slow our growth. We can build them aplenty as soon as we're we're working our 8 resources. RIce is low priority.

 

[Mitchum]

Well, our main problem is getting our two cities up to pop8 asap so we can work our eight useful resources. I don't see any better way than forward. Wtg-TW-Fishing-?. Pasture horses. Finish wkr, then wkr-warrior-warrior-library-warrior-settler. This gives us our priorities: 2 wkrs, 2 explorers, growth (building a library and another warrior), second city. Second worker goes straight to the northern cows and they're pastured on T35 at pop2. Just how it is, horses are idle a while.

Doing pottery and building a granary doesn't seem very good at all. Maybe I missed something, but I don't see it. We get half-priced libraries, not granaries. More workers don't help either. Just slow our growth. We can build them aplenty as soon as we're we're working our 8 resources. RIce is low priority.

When I was playing this, I was building a third worker, which did slow growth but sped up improvements. Let me give this a try. If it looks good, I'll put together an PPP.

Is it still my turn? If so, how many turns should I play?

 

[babybluepants]

The build order sounds good. I'm timing Warr-Warr-Lib with growth to 4, then building the third worker. I still don't get why we're teching Wtg first, but I guess it doesn't matter, so long as we can road the cow in time.

 

[Soirana]

The build order sounds good. I'm timing Warr-Warr-Lib with growth to 4, then building the third worker. I still don't get why we're teching Wtg first, but I guess it doesn't matter, so long as we can road the cow in time.

We can't...

Same reason as we need rice and same as workers. We need dig land out of fallout and fight unhealthiness.

I could understand if we would make library to make GS but with capitols food it is not option.

Maybe we should stop and make some sorting out? Cause one page we are building GLH at any cost, next we plop in place, third ignore unhealthiness due to libraries...

 

[Mitchum]

I just ran through a test run as suggested by LC and everything looks good. Here is the PPP until T35:

T15 - Worker 1 -> Worker 2. Move Worker 1 toward Horses.
T16 - Start pasture on Horses (4)
T19 - Horse pasture completed. Move citizen to Horses.
T20 - Worker 1 to Cow E+NE
T21 - Worker 1 scrub fallout (6)
T27 - Writing -> The Wheel. Worker 2 -> Warrior 1. Worker 1 pasture Cows E+NE (4). Worker 2 to Cow N+N
T29 - Worker 2 scrub fallout on Cows N+N (6)
T30 - Warrior 1 -> Warrior 2. Warrior 1 explore northern coast Cow pasture done. Move citizen from Horses to Cow.
T31 - Worker 1 moves to Cow N+N.
T32 - Worker 1 helps scrub Cow N+N.
T33 - Worker 1 starts pasture on Cow N+N.
T34 - Worker 2 starts pasture on Cow N+N. Warrior 2 -> Library.
T35 - Pasture done. Grow to 2 pops. Work both Cow tiles.

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.

EDIT: Cross post with Soirana.

 

[Soirana]

EDIT: Cross post with Soirana.

I will make myself more clear.

Do we have anysort of ongoing longterm plan or vision?

Honestly i believe most of players can work reasonable plan of worker usage, but before we sort there we are going it is most definetely useless.

 

[Mitchum]

I will make myself more clear.

Do we have anysort of ongoing longterm plan or vision?

Honestly i believe most of players can work reasonable plan of worker usage, but before we sort there we are going it is most definetely useless.

Based on my understanding, our primary goal is to get DoP with Gandhi so that we can trade for Alphabet, which can be used to get DoP with everyone else. This is why we're building two exploring warriors so early. We'd like the GLH, but we'll have to monitor the progress of the AI (i.e. production, techs, etc.) to see if it's feasible. We're also leaving our options open on the Oracle. Since this is a tech heavy game and we get cheap libraries, I think it makes a lot of sense to build one early.

So, regardless of our long-term plans, I don't think our short-term plans (i.e. the next 20 turns or so) will change much. We need to grow our cities and work as many of our improved resources as soon as possible. This includes staying out of unhealthiness as much as possible and getting both gold mines on line ASAP.

 

[shyuhe]

Oracle will probably be available until quite late on this game because of the wars at the start. Also, if we invest one hammer in the oracle before any of the other AI tech priesthood, it discourages the AI from teching it and makes oracle available until a much later date.

I don't think we're going to get a good long term picture until we scout around a bit more and see who are neighbors are. What's most important for now is getting our land up and running. All of our options are still open, and I don't see our opening moves changing significantly between going GLH, Oracle, or REX.

 

[LowtherCastle]

PPP looks good to me, Mitchum.

@Soirana: I completely understand your concern about long-term planning. I'm exactly the same, I want a long-term plan as close to the beginning of the game as possible. Other than agree with everything Mitchum just said, I think the long-term plan is to REX about 50-100 cities and go to space faster than blazes.

There are questions:
1. Do we try to steal a tech?
2. Do we try to stone-age de Gaulle before he builds Taj?
3. Should we get Paper asap to see the world?
4. Do we slingshot AL, then get COmmunism?
5. Should we still go for the CS sling?
6. Is GLH worth it?

I think our two warriors will 1) give us an idea of how good GLH is, 2) maybe find a nearby AI.
We need to grow our capital and granary is too far away, so the library is a no-brainer. By the time we settle our Fish City, we'll know many answers to many questions. I don't think there's a better wait to that point than Mitchum's PPP. Plus, our current path keeps everything open, as mdy wants.

 

[bcool]

What if anything did we learn from the earlier screen shots? How many already know fishing for example?

Perhaps what Soirana is saying is that if we believe (for example) GLH is critical for victory, then would could consider drastically different opening...

If we wanted the GLH at all costs, a very early 2nd settler is a possibility.

If we plan for it, hooking up the horses would allow us to build a chariot instead of 2 warriors. Wouldn't that potentially be very useful? The cost for peace is significantly cheaper if we can get a military unit in their territory. I know that the fallout we see is very dense and so the extra movement for the chariot would be small initially, but I assume that it can't be this bad everywhere or the AI will be very crippled...

Also a chariot rush of a nearby neighbor might be a possibility (limited since we can't eliminate them except maybe Stalin)--we don't know enough to risk this I assume.

In general I agree that the next 20 turns or so are pretty clear, but I'm just suggesting ways that we could develop that would be significantly different.

 

[bcool]

Have you guys tested working the cows tile instead of the horses even before the pasture is finished? Isn't growing the limiting factor, so couldn't working a 3 food tile be better than the horses?