SGOTM 12 - Xteam

[da_Vinci]

Some random thoughts about settling:

Settling in place forces us to put second city on the mainland to the west ... which might be fine in a ususal game, but could be very vulnerable in a start at war scenario with the potential for an advanced unit in enemy hands. That and the wasted food resource makes me nervous about that choice. We may need to settle an optimal early capital spot, even if it is not an optimal late capital spot (which is the crux or the "too many sea tiles" complaint of NE and NNE, right?).

Not sure I follow the logic of the SE settle idea. If the first build is a settler, doesn't that say that the current city is so poor that it is not worth developing, and I need a settler ASAP for a better city. In which case doesn't it make sense to make better use of the first settler? An early undeveloped city is just more maint burden to bear, isn't it? Does the SE settler and settler first really get to anything faster than putting the capital where we think the built settler would go? Now, if we were going to put the second city on a currenly radioactive tile, then the initial "dummy" city for building the worker, to clear that ideal settling point, might make sense.

That leaves NE or NNE ... I lean slightly to NNE ... as that leaves room for a south city for the rice and 2 silk, which NE seems to preclude somewhat, as the capital will need the rice in the NE case. As to the number of water tiles in the capital, I can see this city building Great Lib, running two scientists in addition, having an academy, even if the capital is moved out to a better spot mid game, and being a nice GS producer and science center (even if we put NE in a more food-filled city elsewhere).

If we don't go NNE with capital, and go just NE, then we pretty much have to have a city 1 or two west of the fish if we don't want to waste that food.

Attachment looks at settling options for a south and west city if we settle NNE (A) or just NE (B).

dV

 

[Mad Professor]

Just tried opening the game file to make sure I have everything working correctly here. I have, and I noticed a couple of things.

We are at -8 with everyone because we also have a -2 "You nuked us" penalty with everyone along with the -3 for declaring war and -3 for the existing war. No-one will talk.

I presume Gandhi has alphabet since in the foreign advisor we can see what techs he can study?

 

[leif erikson]

I presume Gandhi has alphabet since in the foreign advisor we can see what techs he can study?

I was thinking about this? Why can we not see Mysticism, as Gandhi starts with Myst and Mining.

We start with Hunting and Mining.
Maybe a mistake in building the WB file?

edit - been there and done it...

 

[Grifftavian]

I'm trying to update the TEST save; anybody know the exact phrasing of the XML code to add the penalty? I've tried NukedByTeam=0 and several variants, but no luck so far.

 

[da_Vinci]

BLubmuz is talking about some AI having a project (in the Maint thread, so relax!) ... have not gotten at the save yet, but does Stalin still have Manhattan?

@ leif: invisible mysticism ... 1) do we already have it? 2) Does G not start with it in this game? 3) Maybe we lack the pre-requisites for it?

dV

 

[Conquistador 63]

I was thinking about this? Why can we not see Mysticism, as Gandhi starts with Myst and Mining.

We start with Hunting and Mining.
Maybe a mistake in building the WB file?

Well, the list of techs shows which techs Gandhi can research next, not what he is willing to trade to us. It does not show Mysticism, Mining, Hunting or Archery because he already has those, as in a regular Emperor game. It does show Currency, because he has Alphabet.

Not sure why it doesn't show what he will/won't/can't trade, though.

About us nuking them etc: in the event log [ctrl-tab] there are a lot of messages telling that in 4000BC Catherine (we) launched tactical nukes on every AI, and that we suicided lots of warriors against their Modern Armors. Therefore, we have high (97) war weariness accumulated against all AI - I suspect that means lots of unhappiness in our cities until we get peace. If that is true, a size 1 capital as Zamint proposes might make sense.




EDIT: the wonder/top 5 cities screen [F9] it shows Stalin (Old Russia) has built the Manhattan Project!

EDIT2: also from game statistics and demographis screens: we lost 84 (!) warriors and there is an AI whose power rating is 230000, whereas the rest are around 8000, we have 4000. Does that mean such AI has an advanced unit or is it possible to reach that number just by having an advanced tech as Fission?

 

[leif erikson]

Leif, if you have time, could you redo your test but researching AH after BW? Pasture the cows ASAP to improve health. And think about whipping a settler fairly early. You probably need to grow Moscow to size 4 for that purpose. Perhaps even AH before BW to get that health up.

Tried AH after BW, interesting sequence. Looked at AH before BW and it really doesn't seem to work because the Work Boat completes with the discovery of BW, speeding up the Worker completion. Once the Worker is produced, there is 6-turns of scrubbing fallout during which AH can be completed.

I would like to run it again tomorrow night to see if a chop can be worked in to bring another Worker on line earlier. Scrubbing fallout before constructing a Pasture is a pain, an extra 6-turns.

The Log:
Turn 0 – 4000 BC – Move Settler NE.

Turn 1 – 3960 BC – Move Settler N and found Moscow. Production to Worker, research to Fishing.

Turn 2 – 3920 BC – Gandhi adopts Representation.

Turn 4 – 3840 BC – Moscow’s borders expand.

Turn 8 – Fishing is in, start Bronze Working. Change production to Work Boat.

Turn 11 – 3560 BC – Buddhism founded in a distant land, Gandhi adopts Buddhism.

Turn 23 – 3080 BC – Bronze Working is in, start Animal Husbandry. Work Boat completes, continue with Worker. Adopt Slavery.

Turn 27 – Moscow’s borders expand again.

Turn 30 – 2800 BC – Churchill adopts Slavery.

Turn 32 – 2720 BC – Worker completes, start a Work Boat.

Turn 33 – Begin scrubbing fallout on Cow tile to the west.

Turn 34 – 2640 BC – Moscow grows to size 2.

Turn 35 – 2600 BC – Animal Husbandry is in, start The Wheel.

Turn 39 – 2440 BC - Moscow grows to size 3. Worker begins pasture on cows. Hinduism is founded in a distant land.

Turn 40 – 2400 BC – De Gaulle adopts Slavery.

Turn 42 – 2320 BC – The Wheel is in, start Pottery.

Turn 44 – 2240 BC – Moscow grows to size 4. Work Boat completes, start Settler.

Turn 45 – 2200 BC – Pop-rush a Settler for two pop.

Turn 46 – 2160 BC – Settler produced, start Warrior.

Turn 48 – 2080 BC – Moscow produces a Warrior, start on a Warrior.

Turn 50 – 2000 BC – Pottery is in, start on Writing. Found the city of Novgorod. Start a Worker.

Turn 53 – 1880 BC – Moscow grows to size 4, Warrior completes, start a Settler.

Turn 54 – Pop-rush Settler for 2-pop

.Turn 55 – 1800 BC – Moscow Settler, start a Granary.

Turn 57 – Stalin adopts Slavery.

Turn 59 – 1640 BC – Found Rostov, start a Warrior. Moscow grows to size 3.

Turn 61 – Complete Writing, start Agriculture.

Turn 62 – Moscow grows to size 4. Change production in Moscow to Worker.

 

[The-Hawk]

I had trouble figuring out which tiles were which under the fallout. We'll see how good Hawk is...

...it appears Hawk's eyes are better than my eyes

You guys give me too much credit. Erkon was kind enough to post the map details in the rules thread :

rules thread

I have some time tomorrow, I'll play with different start scenarios as well. My one try last night has me wondering if worker first might be better. Quickly getting those grass cows tiles productive seemed pretty powerful.

 

[leif erikson]

You guys give me too much credit. Erkon was kind enough to post the map details in the rules thread :

rules thread

That is the kind of team mate I like, attentive and quick to the draw...

I have some time tomorrow, I'll play with different start scenarios as well. My one try last night has me wondering if worker first might be better. Quickly getting those grass cows tiles productive seemed pretty powerful.

I'll be interested to see what you come up with. Getting a Worker produced, the fallout scrubbed and the cow pastured before a Work Boat can get out will be an interesting exercise.

 

[Mad Professor]

Because our evil map mapmaker not only gave us a bunch of nukes then launched them to add two unhappies to everyone towards us, but also gave us about 80 warriors then suicided them against the modern armours he had given the other guys, we have 97 war weariness with each of the AI's. My first question is what will that do to our happy cap? How many unhappies will be have in our capital for WW once we settle? Will there be 1? (Which would be a nuiscance) 2? That would be serious. 3? That would be downright nasty...

I'm thinking BW must be a priority in early techs so we can use the whip to make the most of whatever food we have near the city. This is going to be a slow and difficult start.

Hopefully he either deleted the modern armours again from the AI's or has somehow made it impossible for those modern armours to reach us, or people could be wiped out without being able to do much about it.

At the least, the unhappies (if there are at least a couple) and all the fallout make this like a deity start rather than an emperor start as far as getting your capital going early.

I hope we are near Gandhi and he'll talk soon. That way the disadvantages might be offset by the advantage of early tech trading!

 

[zamint3]

About us nuking them etc: in the event log [ctrl-tab] there are a lot of messages telling that in 4000BC Catherine (we) launched tactical nukes on every AI, and that we suicided lots of warriors against their Modern Armors. Therefore, we have high (97) war weariness accumulated against all AI - I suspect that means lots of unhappiness in our cities until we get peace.

Any way of implementing the ww in the testgame?

@Leif: I think you missed this one

Tile S, SE: Should be grass hill, not grass

But my eyes are not the youngest any more either...

 

[zamint3]

I took a look at Leif's latest test and could someone please explain why Leif's Rostov is connected and my Novogorod is not?
Both are on the river, but I didn't think it would be connected anyway??

Spoiler :

Leif:

z3:

Apparently I'm not allowed to attach the same file twice in the same thread, you can find mine here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9607297&postcount=46

Leif's save is attached

 

[Frederiksberg]

@The-Hawk. Your suggestion of worker first would be consistent with researching BW first and start by building a warrior until Moscow hits pop 2. Then start worker and whip as soon as possible. Perhaps build two workers back to back using this approach and put hammers into warrior while growing. Whipping a worker is superior to building him if the build time is about the same in both cases. Maybe test settling in place and 1NE with this approach?

@leif, zamint3: How does your tests compare now?

 

[leif erikson]

Any way of implementing the ww in the testgame?

Sure, we can take the save into WB and recreate the same events. I should have some time in about 10 to 12 hours to do so if you wish.

@Leif: I think you missed this one

But my eyes are not the youngest any more either...

Not surprising. My eyes aren't so young either...

I can recheck when in WB later.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Sure, we can take the save into WB and recreate the same events. I should have some time in about 10 to 12 hours to do so if you wish.

Suggested actions for recreating events:
1.Give each AI a Modern Armor;
2.Give us 14 warriors and a Tactical Nuke next to each enemy capital;
3.Suicide the warriors against the MA's;
4.Nuke them ;
5.Delete the enemy MA's if any survived.

Hopefully we will get something close to the WW=97. It would give us 14*3+12=54WW if vanilla, things have changed and not been documented in the forums for BTS.

BTW, with 97WW for 6 AI's, we should get something like 3 for WW at size 1!

I am short of time to elaborate more right now, but I'm doing some research trying to:
1. assess the implications of we can see in the soldiers info from the Demo screen, in terms of starting units and techs for our rivals - but it is clear only 1 civ has units - and he is Stalin, who could have like 5 ICBM's and a galley - I'll try to demonstrate it later.
2. assess the "refuse to talk" delay for each AI, based on their leaderhead info and the war success variable.

 

[The-Hawk]

OK, here is some food for thought. I decided to try to get two workers out first. My end result is similar to Leif's (3 cities founded), but I have made a little more progress clearing scrub and improving tiles (for example a mine built in my 2nd city). However, I took all three chops in the capital to get the settlers out. I suspect if Leif chopped a second worker quickly, he would do better.

It will be an interesting decision on workers vs. settlers. In this case, I built two settlers to match Leif's approach, but an extra worker may be better. Folks tend to think 1.5 workers per city, with the fallout, I think a higher ratio is needed. Of course, if we are at risk of being blocked in, we might need quick settlers first.

Turn 1: Found Moscow, start worker, AH
Turn 14: AH -> BW
Turn 21: Worker -> Warrior, move worker to cow
Turn 22 scrub
Turn 27: scrubbing done, move citizen to cow for faster pop, worker pastures
Turn 30: BW -> Fish, warrior -> warrior
Turn 32: Pasture done, move to forest
Turn 33: Chop, population to 2, switch build to worker
Turn 35: Chop done
Turn 36: Move to cow, whip worker
Turn 37: Fishing -> wheel, worker 1 scrub, worker 2 move to cow, switch build to WB
Turn 38: worker 2 scrub
Turn 40: worker 1 pasture
Turn 41: worker 2 pasture, WB to fish, let warrior finish (will lose hammers)
Turn 42: work fish for pop growth, worker 1 to forest
Turn 43: worker 2 to other forest, worker 1 chops
Turn 44: Wheel -> Pottery
Turn 45: Warrior -> Settler, worker 1 finishes chop, worker 2 starts chop
Turn 46: Worker 1 to cow
Turn 47: Worker 1 roads cow for health, worker 2 finishes chop
Turn 48: Worker 2 to gold
Turn 49: Settler -> WB, worker 2 scrubs, worker 1 moves to hill near St. Pete site
Turn 50: pop 3, switch to settler
Turn 51: Worker 1 mining hill near St. Pete
Turn 52: Found St. Pete, start worker
Turn 53: Pottery -> Ag (for the rice)
Turn 54: Whip settler
Turn 55: Settler -> Granary
Turn 57: Chop done near St. Pete
Turn 58: Settle Novgorod, worker 1 to rice to begin scrub.

Ended here since Stalin was about to spoil my test

View attachment TEST XTeam - Hawk.CivBeyondSwordSave

Your suggestion of worker first would be consistent with researching BW first and start by building a warrior until Moscow hits pop 2.

I did not try this because the time to grow to pop 2 was greater than the time to build the first worker straight away. We start with -1 health so growth takes forever.

 

[leif erikson]

Suggested actions for recreating events:
1.Give each AI a Modern Armor;
2.Give us 14 warriors and a Tactical Nuke next to each enemy capital;
3.Suicide the warriors against the MA's;
4.Nuke them ;
5.Delete the enemy MA's if any survived.

He dropped 40 Tactical Nukes!
Must be how he created all the fallout without having to address each tile?

I'll give it a try in about 7 or 8 hours. It is going to take a while to complete with all the combat and nuke launches. May have to turn down the sound so my wife can sleep, she hates it when the musical score gets interrupted by the sound of nukes and combat. Oh well, she'll have to take one for the team...

 

[leif erikson]

<snip> However, I took all three chops in the capital to get the settlers out. I suspect if Leif chopped a second worker quickly, he would do better.

It will be an interesting decision on workers vs. settlers. In this case, I built two settlers to match Leif's approach, but an extra worker may be better. Folks tend to think 1.5 workers per city, with the fallout, I think a higher ratio is needed. Of course, if we are at risk of being blocked in, we might need quick settlers first.

Yes, there are many interesting decisions here. And with the unhappiness, those decisions may get a bit harder?

The unhealthiness is one of the reasons I wanted to get the seafood quickly as it adds health, and it doesn't have to be scrubbed. I wonder about chopping a WB early too?

Ended here since Stalin was about to spoil my test

This is making me consider if researching Archery before Pottery may be worthwhile since we probably cannot get Rice online for a while? And there are no other cereal grains in sight?

I did not try this because the time to grow to pop 2 was greater than the time to build the first worker straight away. We start with -1 health so growth takes forever.

Again, the reason for seafood. Just have to find a way to get WB's out quickly?

With the situation at the start, I am almost afraid of playing 50-turns and what we might find...

 

[Conquistador 63]

Soldier information (Demo screen from starting save)
#1 AI:230000
#6 AI:8000
AVG(AI):47333 => Total:47333*6=284000
SUM(4 remaining AI)= 284000-230000-8000=46000

Source: War academy
#soldiers for each known tech:
Hunting (2000), Archery (6000): known by all AI (Emperor)
Mining (2000), Wheel (4000), Alpha(4000), Fission (8000), Rocketry (10000). Only the relevant techs are mentioned, other starting techs have zero value.

#soldiers for some units:
galley (2000)
Tactical Nuke (30000),
Modern Armour, Battleship, ICBM (40000)

Forecast for each AI's # of soldiers, based on starting techs (plus Hunting+Archery=8000 for all):
Roosevelt (Agr,Fish):8000
Churchill (Fish, Min):10000
Mao (Agr,Min):10000
De Gaulle (Wheel, Agr): 12000
Gandhi (Myst,Min + Alpha): 14000
obs:Sum of the 4 AI above=46000 as expected
Stalin (Hunt,Min):10000...or 230000?

We know there is an AI with 230000, Stalin is obviously the one, and since he built the Manhattan Project he could have Fission (8000), maybe also Rocketry (10000) for the ICBM's. So that, plus starting techs makes 28000, the remaining 202000 could be 5 ICBM's plus 1 galley. Those are "non-biological units", as discussed in the rules thread. I doubt Erkon gave him MA's, it would be impossible to defend from them, thus game-breaking. Stalin must explore our lands before he could launch his nukes on us, and even then it would be possible for us to rebuild.

Implications? If we are in a civil war as guessed before, neighbouring Stalin, the fish nets would be at risk, and the coastal cities could be exposed early by Stalin's galley, allowing him to launch his nukes on us. Or maybe it is better that we get nuked early on, when we still have less units/buildings?

Does the above make any sense?

 

[leif erikson]

Implications? If we are in a civil war as guessed before, neighbouring Stalin, the fish nets would be at risk, and the coastal cities could be exposed early by Stalin's galley, allowing him to launch his nukes on us. Or maybe it is better that we get nuked early on, when we still have less units/buildings?

Does the above make any sense?

It makes too much sense.

Perhaps we should consider researching Sailing early on and try to have a galley or two of our own to keep his galleys from entering our waters? More research and hammers...