SGOTM 12 - Xteam

[zamint3]

Research:
Writing – Agriculture – CS sling?
A CS sling is allways nice, can we do it? Don’t we need the rice (Agriculture) for health after Writing!?

City placing:
City 2 on forest SE of start, we should chop first (16 hammers into worker in Moscow) this will delay city 2 by two turns.
City 3 NW of mainland cow
I’ve attached a dot map. City 4 down by the pigs is questionable, let’s see what scouting reveals down there.



Build orders:
Moscow: Put current overflow into worker and then granary until we can whip worker, after granary -> library
City 2: Worker – Worker – Warrior (mp in Moscow) - Settler
Let’s see how fast we can get a pasture on that second cow and start growing City 2 to be able to apply the whip.

Worker actions:
Mine on river gold is done next turn, then both workers to SE forest, chop -> mine plains hill forest -> scrub and pasture cow -> finish 2nd goldmine (might have to test this a bit).
Worker 3 from Moscow will prepare for city 3, Worker from city 2 will scrub, farm and road rice.

Scouting: Warrior will look a bit further north and then go SW towards France, Chariot will move towards the pigs.

Peace negociations:
Peace at every price? How does tech trading effect chances of CS sling?

I will allow some more time to discuss city placing and research!

 

[The-Hawk]

Research:
Writing – Agriculture – CS sling?
A CS sling is allways nice, can we do it? Don’t we need the rice (Agriculture) for health after Writing!? Health is not too bad right now and continues to improve with scrubbing. I'm thinking we should defer Agri since city 2 can work Moscow's cows (doesn't need the rice right away). I would go writing -> math to improve chops -> sling

City placing:
City 2 on forest SE of start, we should chop first (16 hammers into worker in Moscow) this will delay city 2 by two turns. Agree
City 3 NW of mainland cow Yes, unless the warrior finds something nice North of the deer.
I’ve attached a dot map. City 4 down by the pigs is questionable, let’s see what scouting reveals down there.

View attachment 266623

Build orders:
Moscow: Put current overflow into worker and then granary until we can whip worker, after granary -> library Should we finish/whip the granary first? On the other hand a third worker seems critical. OK, I think I agree with your build order..
City 2: Worker – Worker – Warrior (mp in Moscow) - Settler Once the cows are improved, you might want to switch to warrior to grow to pop 2. Once worker 4 (City 2's 1st) is finished, I would suggest chop/mining the plains hill. Not sure about the timing of all of this.
Let’s see how fast we can get a pasture on that second cow and start growing City 2 to be able to apply the whip.

Worker actions:
Mine on river gold is done next turn, then both workers to SE forest, chop -> mine plains hill forest -> scrub and pasture cow -> finish 2nd goldmine (might have to test this a bit). Sounds right. A test map would be nice, anyone up to making one?
Worker 3 from Moscow will prepare for city 3, Worker from city 2 will scrub, farm and road rice. Depends on agri. As I said above, I think chop/mine might be better than farm rice.

Scouting: Warrior will look a bit further north and then go SW towards France, Chariot will move towards the pigs. Agree.

Peace negociations:
Peace at every price? How does tech trading effect chances of CS sling? I agree, peace asap.

I will allow some more time to discuss city placing and research!

CS is an important decision, might want to wait until everyone gets their opinions in.

 

[Rusten]

Doesn't the fact that there are 3 industious AIs in the game -- even assuming only a 20% inclination on the part of each -- make the odds that none of the three construct a given wonder be .8 X .8 X.8 or 51.2%? So 48.8% of the time one of them would.

For starters they need to choose and finish meditation. Secondly they need to pick a wonder (possibly finishing a building first). They'll also have several wonders to choose from -- not just the Oracle.

 

[Mad Professor]

Peace with Gandhi is the critical one since we might be able to trade techs with him which will help us. on the other hand we probably won't be able to afford to get peace with anyone else until alphabet, and therefore can give them techs for peace. If Gandhi's reluctance so far is any indication, we're going to have to pay big bikkies for peace with everyone...

 

[Rusten]

Yes, peace with Gandhi is critical. The XML has him as trading techs even when furious (though he might not be more than annoyed anyway once peace is made).

 

[Frederiksberg]

I'm obviously in favor of putting high priority on the CS sling. The same goes for making peace with Gandhi to facilitate tech trading.

 

[Cactus Pete]

For starters they need to choose and finish meditation. Priesthood is needed for The Oracle and either Meditation or Poly will get you there. Secondly they need to pick a wonder (possibly finishing a building first). They'll also have several wonders to choose from -- not just the Oracle.

Good point, but I still have some concern. Has anyone had experience with AI wonders built before The Oracle being anything other than Stonehenge?

The sling is certainly powerful, but another powerful strategy is to take AI capital(s) early in the game. That could be a possibility here.

Sailing is worth considering as the next tech for exploring and possibly stealing workers with a unit in a galley. Lthouse would be useful too.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Is it worth to update the test save if only to test stuff like price for peace and likeliness of AI building wonders?

 

[Mad Professor]

Is it worth to update the test save if only to test stuff like price for peace and likeliness of AI building wonders?

If we think there's a good chance that the test save is giving us a good indication of the chances of the AI going for the wonder. In order do that best, we might have to create a 4000BC save based on our extra information and play it from there to simulate more accurately what the AI will do. Starting a test save from the WB at the current date might not do it.

I would think that even if we did that, we'd have to play a number of tests to see what the chances really are.

I think trying a CS slingshot is worth it unless we see that actually getting it is only a small chance. Failing will cost us, but even then there are some lights - we'd have some techs to trade, and if we got started on the oracle, we'd have some hammers converted to cash. No as good as the oracle by a long shot, but still useful, and if we have a chance of making it, we should go for it. Testing to see what the chances are might be a good thing first though. If we have very little hope indeed of doing it, then it might not be worth it.

Another question I have is about the AI cheating with the scrubbing. As far as I understand this means the AI can scrub without ecology. It doesn't necessarily mean that the AI will build enough workers to scrub the necessary amount, or make the best use of forests to chop wonders, and while the AI is scrubbing they are without the use of that tile just like we are. If we produce the necessary workers and scrub those tiles we are still ahead of the AI even if they can scrub without ecology right?

 

[Cactus Pete]

Had the same thoughts re AI needing to scrub too.

Do we have any time to explore further before committing to The Oracle?

I'm wondering just how much those 97 suicided warriors will frustrate our chances to get peace and trade. Could that not be tested with some updated version of the test map already created, giving us a sample of increasingly valuable techs that India has the prerequisites for-- then we could find out just what, if anything, India would need to grant peace.

 

[Mad Professor]

Had the same thoughts re AI needing to scrub too.

Surely we can test this by using existing test saves, and regularly checking the WB to see what fallout is disappearing from AI lands and how are they making it disappear?

I'm wondering just how much those 97 suicided warriors will frustrate our chances to get peace and trade. Could that not be tested with some updated version of the test map already created, giving us a sample of increasingly valuable techs that India has the prerequisites for-- then we could find out just what, if anything, India would need to grant peace.

Again, I think we can do this by just playing an existing test save - it doesn't have to be accurate in other respects does it for testing this? On the other hand, if someone is going to make another test save (it won't be me) it might be better to play it for all the things we want tested... If someone can do the WB manipulations, then play it exactly as we've played the game so far and post the save, I could promise to a bit of testing in the next few days. It seems to me we want to test the following:

1. What will it take to get peace with Gandhi?
2. What is the AI's propensity to build the oracle early?
3. How does the AI get rid of fallout, and how quickly are they doing it?

The first one just needs us to play on a few turns in a test save to see what it takes for Gandhi to call it quits on the war, the third would require simply regularly checking AI lands from the WB in the process of doing number 1, and number 2 would at least require regular checking of the WB to see when the AI starts and finishes the oracle (if they beat us to it) perhaps playing more than once to see if circumstances change.

 

[leif erikson]

This is the info from the thread referenced in Alan's post in the Maintenance thread.

Anyhow, you know what sucks? This is the first instance I see the AI blatantly cheating. I mean, in order to scrub fallout, one needs to have the technology of Ecology. Well, not Shacal. They don't have it, yet their workers are cleaning up all the waste we laid on their land and our nuclear prevention strategy backfired in that sense.

It appears that they still have to scrub and that means they need to build Workers to do so. I think we should assume they will scrub their lands (a fairly good thing, so we do not have to do it) and plan accordingly.

As for a test save, not quite there, but I could try this evening if all works out with no glitches.

Civ5 is working but I have to load up Civ4 and all the patches and the HoF Mods.

 

[Mad Professor]

Civ5 is working but I have to load up Civ4 and all the patches and the HoF Mods.

This is the price you have to pay for getting your name in green...?

 

[leif erikson]

This is the price you have to pay for getting your name in green...?

There was a little too much irony in being made a moderator of a game forum and not being able to play the stinking game!

Too much time this weekend with my daughter's high school marching band between a competition Saturday afternoon/evening and a parade Sunday.
We are slowly getting back to normal.
Whatever that is??

 

[Cactus Pete]

The emotocon suggests that your daughter's band won. If so, good for her. Now it's our turn.

 

[Ronnie1]

I am still reading and following. Permanent internet solution is still a few weeks away I fear. I would think the fallout will slow wonder builds by about 100%. If you figure scrubbing before all improvements, it just kinda makes sense. A CS sling should be doable safely about T160 I think given T80 is about right for this difficulty level.

 

[leif erikson]

Finally seem to have my Win7 permissions straighten out and ready to go. Working on the map now, may not finish until tomorrow, but I'll try.

The emotocon suggests that your daughter's band won. If so, good for her.

Yes, they beat a long time rival.

Now it's our turn.

Absolutely.

 

[Mad Professor]

Working on the map now, may not finish until tomorrow, but I'll try.

Tomorrow will be soon enough for me to still have a little time to do some testing Leif. Take much longer than that and my time is gone. Actually I'm looking forward to watching carefully how the AI plays in the WB...

 

[leif erikson]

Well, here you go.

We have 108 War Weariness with the AI's, a bit more than 97. One extra Warrior I think?

Gandhi has Alphabet, all the AI have Ecology (worst case).

Stalin has 4 Tac Nukes, see what he does with them?

Hope I have it all right, tired eyes...

 

[Mad Professor]

I'll have a go at it a few times over the next couple of days.