SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

TBH, I don't know what the Flying Camera thing is... Is there a link to it in use?

I don't personally like it if it reveals otherwise invisible tiles, but I also feel that, as long as all participants are aware of it and using it, there's probably no real harm to the competition. Hard to ban at this stage.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Best link I found was from our one and only AlanH.
Here's a link to rolo1.
Here's what kossin was able to do in SG12. Don't ask me how he managed to get those long-distance views with trees showing and all that. I tried in the test save for a few minutes without success.

 

[shyuhe]

I have no preference on the flying camera trick. I'm not going to do it myself but I won't object if others do it.

 

[mdy]

I'm indifferent to using the flying camera trick as well.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'm against using the flying camera trick, but I won't quit the team just because someone decides to use it.

I think that we can win without using it. Sure, go ahead and abuse AI behaviour to the max--that's what a good portion of playing against AIs is all about, particularly in a game where you play against AI bonuses.

But, using the "flying camera trick" does feel a bit like "dirty playing." The fact is that I'm normally all for using and abusing exploits that aren't game-breaking, like getting Friendly with an AI, tricking that AI into declaring war on someone else, and then declaring war on the AI that you were Friendly with. All is fair in love and war, they say.

I'm also in favour of counting Power levels and GDP levels, etc, because the game intentionally provides you that info and if you want to go to the trouble to try and "figure out what it means," all the power to you.

That said, I'd rather NOT encourage a practice like the "flying camera trick"... I have trouble explaining why, but let me just say that I think it would be pretty lame if XOTM players felt that they had to pull off this trick in order to feel that they could compete on equal grounds. I want to be able to load up an XOTM game, just start playing, and enjoy a good game. I do NOT want to feel that I need to play around for 30 mins or however long it takes, just to map out the surroundings before I am supposed to be able to know what the surroundings are. Discussing opening moves with a Warrior or a Scout, plus with the Settler, is a big part of the draw of the Pre-game Discussion threads for XOTM games... I think that we'd totally kill that aspect of the XOTMs if we encourage the use of the "flying camera trick" by using it in an SGOTM, where many of the players are also XOTM players.

To me, it feels like (say that the BUFFY saves were not encrypted) someone were to read the data in the saved game file directly and then "figure out" who the opponents are, where all of the Huts are, what the surrounding land looks like, all before playing a single turn. Doing so just wouldn't seem to be in the spirit of the game, nor does this "flying camera trick."


But, if my conscience isn't swaying your opinion, consider that using this trick has as much ability to MISLEAD us as to help us... you may plan to settle a City for some Hills, only to find that if we had explored properly with our Work Boats, you could have had 2 extra Fish Resources if you'd settled 1 square away.

I'd say that it's safe to say that there are plenty of islands around us, and that there will be ample opportunities to settle on them. I'd rather base a win on making the early trade-off of sending out a Work Boat that could have otherwise been used for netting, rather than abusing the fact that we can use all of our Work Boats for netting alongside a trick that goes counter to the game's element of exploration in order to find a nearby settling site.

 

[babybluepants]

Tested it and indifferent, as well. Seems basically like fog-gazing, only a bit more effective. If you wanna use it, knock yourself out. I'm too lazy to play with it.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The problem with SIP is that in terms of production it is relatively weak, which unless you are attempting a tech beeline like the CS sling is normally more of a problem than it being weaker in beakers as it cripples your expansion.

I have attached a couple of test saves for settling on the plains hill. Once you take account of the fact that you can do a 3 pop whip for a settler in the 2550BC save next turn, we are significantly ahead in terms of production compared to Dhoomstrikers save, with a larger city as well.

I'm not sure how you're concluding that SIP is weaker than PH production-wise. I tried a different test (than my quick settler test), wb1-wb2-wkr-wb3-granary-settler(3E)-lh-...-settler2+galley. I have attached to saves dated the same as yours.

Comparisons:

T79        PH      SIP   3E
-----      --      ---   --
pop         5       5    20/32
4wbs        y       y
lh          y       y
gran        y       y    14/90
set1        y       y
galley      y       5t
settler2    3t      4t
chops       no      2
health      5       6
wtg        151b    270/280b
rax                 10
wb5                ~10 (could have put them into lh or granary instead)
pop6max [COLOR="Red"] 8f8h15c  11f8h15c[/COLOR]   (PH 9f with one more health resource)

Basically, PH is currently ahead of SIP in hammers about a chopped forest at most. SIP could also chop that forest, but it would be smarter to keep it for health for now. As of T79 SIP is in better position as a city (+19f/hpt compared to 16f/hpt) and writing is about 9t ahead. The trade-off, of course, is that PH has sent out exploring wbs. I haven't tried sending those out earlier yet.

EDIT: I had the PH max hammers wrong--it's only 8hpt, not 10hpt. I also had the SIP at 12fpt instead of 11fpt.

 

[mdy]

I think we may be worrying too much about health. With a granary the capital will have +5 health, so health would only be an issue at size 6. Given that we would probably whip the city once it reached that size I don't think it would have much impact on our game.

 

[Mitchum]

@LC Did you try building a settler (or worker) for the first 10 turns rather than a Rax? Sure, it slows down growth, but it may speed up the settler in the end or break even. In my testing, I ended up growing and working a few un-improved tiles, so maybe growing ASAP isn't the right approach anyway... Those 10 hammers in the Rax, although not a major deal, represent lost/unrealized production and will be stranded there for some time if they don't decay first.

I'm busy this weekend, but I may try it Monday unless someone else does first.

Regarding SIP, the city 3E is pretty weak unless there is something in the fog that we cannot see. I guess this city helps early research/production and once it has a LH/granary?/library, it can be our primary early GS pump running two scientists and one Clam.

Regarding the "Flying Camera" trick, upon further thought, I'm opposed to it . I've never done it nor do I know how to do it. Doing so gives the player information that they are not supposed to know and feels like cheating... Like Dhoom, I wouldn't quit if we chose to use it, but I don't intend to spend any time trying to figure it out.

 

[Rusten]

Flying camera is BS. I won't go into why -- it should be obvious. I'd be annoyed if we'd use it and I hope no other teams do, but it's up to them.

 

[Mitchum]

Re: Flying Camera - We have several "don't cares" and at least three definite "NOs". So I guess we won't be using it, right?

Re: The Game - where do we stand? Are people still running tests? Or have they run out of steam? I've been busy lately in RL, but I plan on running a few tests tomorrow. I plan to focus on SIP but will run one settling on the PH just to get a feel for it. Does anyone have any strong arguments or preference to SIP, PH or settle on the corn?

Re: MIA - Where is everyone? We have 11+1 on the team but only about half of us are posting. I guess that's fine, but it would be nice to get input from the others as it feels to me like we're a bit stalled at the moment.

 

[Emperor Peter]

We should choose the settling location based on our early game goals.
I think our respective goals should be:
1. Build a second city for hammer and commerce boost (overseas trade route), possibly build a third city if there is more good land available close by
2. Explore, we need information to develop a longer-term plan
3. Expand to more cities or attack someone, depending on the results of 2

We need more production early than usual, because we need to build galleys and workboats besides workers/settlers. Therefore I think settling the PH is best. We need those hills.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Re: Flying Camera - We have several "don't cares" and at least three definite "NOs". So I guess we won't be using it, right?

I personally don't care, though I am surprised the issue is coming out so late considering this has been possible since years My vote is NO still if it means some people would leave us.

Re: The Game - where do we stand? Are people still running tests? Or have they run out of steam? I've been busy lately in RL, but I plan on running a few tests tomorrow. I plan to focus on SIP but will run one settling on the PH just to get a feel for it. Does anyone have any strong arguments or preference to SIP, PH or settle on the corn?

I was a bit busy with RL as well... Should be able to help with testing the starting options after work tmr.

 

[Mitchum]

We need more production early than usual, because we need to build galleys and workboats besides workers/settlers. Therefore I think settling the PH is best. We need those hills.

I would like to see a something that clearly points to settling on the PH. Do you have a test game that clearly shows the advantages with settling here? Or are you making this statement based on the test games that you've seen others play so far?

The reason I ask is that there are so many tradeoffs in the opening: research, exploration, REX, etc. That by focusing on one thing (i.e. early production), other things must be compromised (i.e. research). Having a test game with you intended opening will show us exactly what you mean.

Once we understand the tradeoffs between the different openings, we can decide what is more important (i.e. early expoloration vs. faster research, etc.).

How does the rest of the team feel? Are we ready to decide where to settle and move forward? Do we need more test games? Do we need more discussion of the tradeoffs?

 

[Mitchum]

The problem with SIP is that in terms of production it is relatively weak, which unless you are attempting a tech beeline like the CS sling is normally more of a problem than it being weaker in beakers as it cripples your expansion.

I have attached a couple of test saves for settling on the plains hill. Once you take account of the fact that you can do a 3 pop whip for a settler in the 2550BC save next turn, we are significantly ahead in terms of production compared to Dhoomstrikers save, with a larger city as well.

I'm comparing this opening to LC's, bbp's and mine. I have a few questions:

When exactly did you have the settler and the galley completed? Is it just at 2025 BC? What about the exploring work boats, did they recently get completed or did you just complete them and put them to sleep?

The reason I ask is that in bbp's save, his exploring workboats were out much sooner (or appeared to have been finished sooner) due to how far they are from the capital. It would be nice to have scouted the nearby islands to know where to send the settler. Also, his settler/galley were ready several turns earlier.

I like how in LC's save the LH and granary are already completed in the capital, but it seems very late to get a scouting work boat out.

I think that in order to compare saves, the key things to compare include:

• Date first exploring WB is completed.
• Date second exploring WB is completed.
• Date each tech is learned.
• Output and size of capital (and second city) at the end of the test.
• Infrastructure built.
• Date off continent settler/galley are ready.
• Others?

I think all of the other details (i.e. date worker is completed, date clams are netted, date city 2 is settled, etc.) will all manifest themselves in the data above.

With this information, we should be able to compare the merits and tradeoffs of each approach.

For my save:

First exploring WB finished T63.
Second exploring WB not started.
Fishing (T10) -> Mining (T20) -> BW (T39) -> Pottery (T49) -> Sailing (T63) -> Mysticism (T70).
Capital: 1 pop mischief, +4F (22/33 in food box), 2H, 12C, LH -> 26/90
City 2: 1 pop, +4F (31/33 in food box), 1H, 4C
Settler for off-continent city could be whipped ~T80. Galley could be done at same time.

So, the major tradeoff made in my test was science over exploration. It also has a late worker since the build queue was rax (partial) -> WB -> WB -> Settler -> WB -> Worker -> LH. The build queue in the second city was WB -> galley.

Maybe we need to run the testing a bit further to the date that you have the second city settled (we should agree on an off-continent location for the PH variants) and a third settler on a galley ready to settle city #3... It's possible that SIP + 3E will have city 3 settled earlier than PH, but I'm not certain.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I am going to test things now (SIP, PH, and maybe PH with additional sea food to see if waiting a turn makes sense even if SIP comes ahead of PH site as we see it now)...

which is the lastest test save? the one in post number 76?

edit: xpost with Mitchum: I will take notes of the elements u mentionned then
edit2: 2 pop t70 seems a bit extreme to say the least Another trade off for this approach is that following settlers/workers will come in very slowly

 

[Mitchum]

which is the lastest test save? post 76's save?

That's the one.

edit2: 2 pop t70 seems a bit extreme to say the least Another trade off for this approach is that following settlers/workers will come in very slowly

Agreed. That is why I think the test should be run until the second settler is completed and on a galley. The fact that my cities have one pop each will either be able to grow and catch up or will fall way behind.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Here is another 2 pop save for t 69. Settled the PH. second city 2 w of starting spot.
tech path: fishing, mining, BW, sailing, pottery, myst.
Will continue to t79 to compare with LC and mdy saves as well.

t 34 wb
t 39 bw
worker t 41 (whipped)
t46 wb
corn t49
t51 corn linked
t56 sailing + wb
t59 mine up
t64 chop
t65 settler up (whipped)
t66 pottery
t67 galley (whipped) <- this might be bad
t69 2nd city up, third sea food improved, 32 beakers in myst, 23f/21h in cap.

screen:

Spoiler :

edit: Well, I am dumb ... nvm... I shouldn't have hooked up the fish, this wb should be exploring till a border pop (tile switching needed in city 2)

 

[Mitchum]

Here is another 2 pop save for t 69. Settled in place. second city 2 w of starting spot.

I don't think we can assume that the fish is there, so that WB should either improve the clam we can see (EDIT: not possible since it's not in our cultural borders upon further review) or be sent exploring... The second city can steal a clam from the capital, especially since it's only at pop 1.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

u read my mind, I was editing my post while u posted yours

edit: went on to t79 (reloading autosave to avoid the fish problem).

myst 2150 bc
t72 2nd mine up
t74 road up
t77 road up
t78 wb, orleans size2
t79 stop.

edit: loaded mdy's save: I should be behind in production a bit but ahead in research.

screen:

Spoiler :