SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

Bbp, one thing to watch out for in doing this testing is that the Astro route will also have its production delay. Sure, we might have Astro on 1AD, but it might not be till 500AD (just a random date, not a prediction) that we launch our first attack.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Shyuhe: I don't see a line-up on Page 1. WHo's next?

I agree that:

• we should play the next turn to see what happens with the barb galley
• put our galley on the clams,
• set the Gold build to wb (since Dhoom has shown that we lose nothing with this), send the wb at Willem to the SE rather than OBs with Willem (the wb still has movement this turn).

 

[shyuhe]

Ras should be up but I'm not sure if his internet is fully recovered yet. If he's not picking it up, can mdy or Rusten pick it up?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

an all-1tile-islands map

Wow, that kind of a map sounds like an intense amount of time to build. Do you know of a method, say, using a screenshot for importing the map, of building such a map?

Actually, maybe it would be good to just edit the map via notepad. I can't say that I've done so in order to build land squares, but it's probably feasible to do... in fact, maybe one can even build the Cities on the map this way.

Run, say, 4 (or 8) civs, each having the same city pattern. GIve half OBs, half not. THen just start hitting <enter> and after 50 or 100 turns run your statistics. YOu'll see that some OB civs have a religion spread or two more, some one or two less than the non-OB civs.

The only trouble is that my theory is not about Open Borders but the Trade Routes themselves. If I have one City and an AI has 30 Cities, it will only have one City that has a Trade Route with one of my Cities with a Religion in it.

Which City that is could constantly change.

Then, assuming that I kept Writing out of the hands of the AIs, it would shift its Domestic Trade Routes from City to City, so it could have one City switch to having a Trade Route with a City that has the Religion in it and then the next turn it might switch to having a Trade Route with a different City that does not have the Religion in it. Unless I use Espionage to examine every City on every turn, I won't be able to know if a Trade Route influenced the Religious spread.


I supposed that instead, I could give myself 5 Cities and each AI 5 Cities, so that hopefully, each of their Cities would get a Foreign Trade Route, and then I'd have to put the same Religion in each City.

Somehow, though, I have the feeling that the results will be more easily traceable if I am the one trying to RECEIVE the Religions and I keep an eye on each of my City's Trade Routes (which is easier to do than to look at each AIs' Cities on each turn).

Anyway, I'll have to think about the methodology before I implement it, to ensure that it is reasonably sound.


I'm not even sure how I'd test the Temple/Monastery-building theory, since if I don't build a build item, the game's internal random number generator will (probably) provide a different number.

I suppose that if a different random number is not used for the difference of a building being built or not built, them it shouldn't be too hard to test... just build or not build a bunch of Temples and Monasteries.

 

[babybluepants]

While it's not needed, OB (i.e. an actual possible TR instead of just a "could-be TR with OB") doubles the chance of autospread.

Even the man himself believes in this myth...

 

[babybluepants]

In the test game, barb galleys don't seem to appear until about 300-200 BC. What's so different?

Bbp, one thing to watch out for in doing this testing is that the Astro route will also have its production delay. Sure, we might have Astro on 1AD, but it might not be till 500AD (just a random date, not a prediction) that we launch our first attack.

I know. Post 1 AD seems most likely. I should also test a straight axe rush of Vicky, just in case. I mean, just settle copper and whip galleys and axes. It won't be very good, I think, but there's no harm in trying.

I played my previous test out a bit. I might replay it better before posting. The plan was something like:
Tech: Alphabet - trade for everything - Currency - Machinery - trade for Math - Construction - hope and pray for a COL trade, then just tech it - CS (finished around 100 BC).
Settle on copper first; Paris builds Colossus; Paris builds a market eventually and runs a GM; Stone builds Moai; all other cities work towards forge + barracks, after basics. Academy the Gold GS for lack of anything better to do with it.

COL trade is highly unlikely. Can't see how we could build both Colossus and Pyramids. Settling on copper means no more MP warriors. Trade for Archery may be needed for that. Realistically, we won't have the cities set up 'till 1 AD, and then the production is still slow. Might as well have teched Astro, I guess, unless that makes the setup even slower.

On Pyramids: I wonder if US is even better long term than PS, if we have high enough commerce and no need for further tech.

 

[babybluepants]

Ras should be up but I'm not sure if his internet is fully recovered yet. If he's not picking it up, can mdy or Rusten pick it up?

Are you not intending to play?

 

[shyuhe]

I wasn't intending to but I can pick it up if no one else grabs it by the end of the day.

 

[mdy]

The pyramids is roughly the same cost as 2 galleys and 4 axemen once you take account of the stone bonus. As this would clearly not be enough to safely rush an AI the cost of an early axe rush would basicly be no pyramids and either a much later astro or no astro.
We clearly will have to face longbows from several AI's, and whilst you can fight them with just axes/cats it is a long slow painfull business-especially with our limited production. I think we will therefore need either maces or trebs or both, this implies we will need to keep a reasonably strong economy which we can't do with a lot of early rushing.

A mace/treb/galleon war would have a certain lag, but it would be much smaller because we would need fewer units, we could use the whip much more because we had completed our research, we would have the 25% police state bonus if we went for the mid's, we would have more excess pop to whip, we would take fewer losses and thus need to build fewer to replace them, this also makes it easier to maintain momentum and not have to wait 5 turns fro reinforcements to be bought up. Finally galleons are a lot faster-I can easily see this alone being worth 10+ turns.

Taking this into account I think we should stick with the same basic outline we had before. Stopping research and switching to all out war just after 1AD seems realistic to me.

It occurred to me that if we generated a GP from marble city then we could use it to bulb theology (assuming we can trade/research polytheism and monotheism).

Unfortunately I am moving house tomorrow and a combination of bad luck and a royal wedding means that I won't have internet access at my new home till the 5th of May. As my employer won't let you access games sites during lunch break I am unlikely to be able to access the forums until then.

 

[LowtherCastle]

mdy, surely you can go to the library to access the forum? Sheesh. May 5th is a long time.

 

[LowtherCastle]

In addition to the benefits mdy mentioned, galleons carry 50% more units. COmbined with needing fewer (and the previously mentioned ability to appraoch from ocean tiles), this means we can more easily land our entire army in 1 or 2t, giving the AI less time to build reinforcements. All around, Astro is modern versus primitive warfare.

Plus, there's another reason to build the Mids, which is always at the back of my head--we have a back-up plan in case we need to swtich back into research mode.

 

[shyuhe]

I'm more intrigued by the royal wedding part We'll be eagerly waiting for your return!

 

[LowtherCastle]

bbp: If I were going to try a rush, I might focus on just construction. Wait for ALpha+maths+IW to come in trade, then research construction. Meanwhile, beeline VIcky because she only has archers still. Izzy likewise, but she's pretty far away.

Or maybe get IW asap, then follow the above.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

a royal wedding

Best wishes to the princess and her groom... would that be you?

As my employer won't let you access games sites during lunch break I am unlikely to be able to access the forums until then.

Well, at least you should be able to access personal email messages, which would let you read updates from our thread.

You could even compose your replies during your lunch break and then upload them whenever you visit the library.

 

[mdy]

I'm more intrigued by the royal wedding part We'll be eagerly waiting for your return!

It's not that exciting. The heir to the throne in the UK is getting married, and the government decided to have an extra holiday to celebrate the occasion. Unfortunately it's relation to the other public holidays is such that you can have an 11 day holiday, whilst only taking 3 days off work. This means that most of the country is going to shut down for 2 weeks, including most of the telephone companies engineers-which is why it will take such a ridiculously long time for me to get back on line.

Best wishes to the princess and her groom... would that be you?

Thankfully, No.

Well, at least you should be able to access personal email messages, which would let you read updates from our thread.

After the first email I don't get any further notification of updates until I visit the forum again. Is there some way to change this setting?

I might be able to make the occasional post from a library depending on time restraints/availability in my area-but the would be occasional at best and I can't promise anything.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

After the first email I don't get any further notification of updates until I visit the forum again. Is there some way to change this setting?

The quick-and-dirty way is to first unsubscribe yourself from this thread, should you already be subscribed to it, then to re-subscribe by selecting your subscription option.

If you aren't already subscribed, then you can skip the first step of unsubscribing.

See this image for the relevant links, starting from the "Thread Tools" drop-down list at the top right of this page (just below the page numbers).

You can also manage your subscriptions for other threads by visiting the following URL, once you are logged into forums.civfanatics.com:
CFC Subscriptions

The interface on that page isn't completely intuitive... you have to checkmark a checkbox on the right side of the page, then scroll to the bottom of the page, select a drop-down list option from the "Selected threads" drop-down list, and then finally, click on the "go" button to the right of the drop-down list.

The options in that drop-down list are the same as the "Notification Type" options available to you when you manually subscribe to a thread, such as:
No email notification
Instant email notification
Daily email notification
Weekly email notification

You probably want either the "Instant" or the "Daily" choice, depending upon how much lag-time you don't mind suffering (i.e. the "Daily" option) versus getting spammed with an email message every single time that someone authors a message here (i.e. the "Instant" option).



Finally, it should be noted that whenever you first author a message in a thread, your default subscription option gets used. You can change this setting on the Edit Options page. Specifically, look for the "Default Thread Subscription Mode" heading on that page and you can change the default behaviour by picking the appropriate drop-down list option.


Another handy tip is that the above-linked CFC Subscriptions page can also be a quick way for you to check if there have been any updates to the threads that you have authored messages in. Threads with new messages will have their thread titles bolded.


EDIT: One more thought: if you get Instant email notifications, you will miss all of the edited text. That's why I generally recommend that people use the "Daily email notifications" option, so as to get the (hopefully) finalized version of the text. Still, if you want to stay current, then perhaps the "Instant" option is the best one for you, even if it means reading my typos and missing out on people's clarifications.

I try to spam new messages to avoid editing-in new ideas into existing messages, but when it's a clarification such as this one, I'll often just edit the original message, particularly if it's within an hour of posting the message. It's too bad that CFC doesn't have an "sent out after an hour email notifications" option, as that one would provide the best of both worlds.

 

[LowtherCastle]

mdy, you could also email one of us messages, if that would be easier, and we could post them for you.

 

[mdy]

I've altered my email subscription to a daily email notification as Doom suggested, so hopefully I will at least be able to keep up with our progress now.

mdy, you could also email one of us messages, if that would be easier, and we could post them for you.

Could we exchange email addresses via PM? I don't really want to post my email address in a public forum. Under the circumstances I doubt I would be sending more than 1 message every weekday.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Game summary &#8211; T104​

Goal: Conquest, using galleons+maces+catapults/trebs

Urgencies: protection against barb galleys, CoL beeline

Research path: (AH)-CoL beeline

General rationale:
1. We have a food-rich, hammer-poor empire and the AIs are far away, so poprushing galleons+maces+seige probably gives us the most cost-effective way to capture cities.
2. The fastest Astro beeline requires GS bulbs, which require gpps. We can get more GSes and bpt running Pacifism and Caste systems, so we use our first GS to bulb Philosophy. If we're running lots of specialists, then Representation gives a huge research boost and we have stone, so we can cost-effectively build the Pyramids.
3. Gold City will spawn the first GS.
4. We're about to Oracle slingshot Metal Casting, so we want to 4poprush a forge in Paris to get the hammer multiplier on all its poprushes. We MM for max hammer overflow into the Pyramids.
5. To bulb Philosphy, we need CoL+Math+Alpha. We hope to be first to CoL to found Confucianism for running Pacifism. We hope to get Math+Alpha+IW in trade.
6. We'll need 2-3 triremes for defense against barb galleys. If we can get the forge in Paris quickly, then Paris can whip a trireme or two with max overflow into the Pyramids without seriously altering our overall Astro beeline (I think). Another trireme will hopefully come from Marble, which gets the next wb coming from Paris. Later on, a few warriors placed strategically will help ward off the barb galleys.

Details:
1. Paris builds: forge(4pop)-wb(Marble)-Mids(partial)-[triremes(2pop)]-PigsSettler(3pop)-library(3pop)-FurSettler(3pop). We want to maximize overflow into the Pyramids for each poprush. NOTE: The forge changes the hammers needed for max overflow!!!
2. Gold builds: library(2pop)-monument-wb and works scientists asap to spawn the first GS.
3. Marble builds/poprushes: Oracle(Metal Casting)-trireme+wbs and wants to poprush a granary asap.
4. Stone builds: wb for Pigs City, wb for itself, granary

Exploration:
1. The wb near Willem should try to come home, because we need nets but also triremes asap.
2. The wb at Izzy hopes to find the last AI then meet Ragnar. (We're not concerned with defogging anymore, only meeting these two AIs asap, because of the barb galley danger.)

Open borders:
1. We currently have OBs with Vicky and Izzy, enough for +3c trade routes in all 4 cities.
2. We probably don't want OBs with Willem for now, because he is a threat to beat us to CoL.
.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Points of discussion:

1. SHould we play the next turn before further discussion?
Whether our galley defeats the barb galley or not affects our immediate plans. It would be helpful to play 1t to find out what the RNG gods have in store for us.

2. Do we research AH before CoL?
AH will delay CoL be about 6t, iirc. It will also significantly speed up the growth of Pigs and give us +1, and of course exposes any horse tiles. The barb galley threat adds a new dimension to this discussion, because we may have to poprush 1 or more triremes in Paris, thus delaying the settlement of Pigs, thus delaying the need for AH.

We don't need to decide on this question, though, until Gold has built its library, because we plan to run 0% research until then. So we can possibly postpone this decision until we see what threat the barb galleys represent.

3. Do we send the Willem wb straight home? If so, do we send him home along the dyes route or through his culture (with OBs)?

4. Do we abandon the Astro beeline and go for an earlier axe/sword rush?

5. Do we consider a domination victory strategy?

6. Do we close borders with Izzy asap to lessen religion autospread?
The code I know of shows that open borders have no effect on religion autospread. We have a trade network with Izzy independent of OBs. Dhoom might test his hypothesis that there is other code that increases the likelihood of autospread, based on OBs.

7. ____?