SGOTM 13 - T'dr'duzk b'hazg t't

[Alamankarazieff]

Home from modernism.

I ran a few test games, and I've got quite poor results with SIP, and trying to build the second city on the Eastern tip of the Island.
By settling on the corn, it went much smoother. WB, WB, Lighthouse, Worker, went nicely. I settled the second city on the scrap of land below the copper and achieved both my objectives : got the oracle by turn 96 AND was able to whip a forge just in time in the second city to get the engineer out 51 turns before the ETA of the great prophet. Which means a great engineer to secure the pyramids if we want to do so.
It seems likely that we will go for a specialist economy considering the huge amount of seafood nearby, and mids could help.

I'll send more details.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Game will be up in shortly over 14 hours (i.e. 6a.m. Friday GMT). Neil I think you should take the first set, as you seem to be the most advanced with testing.

A suggested roster, based mainly on activity:
1) Neil
2) Trystero
3) Alaman
4) Benginal
5) drlake
6) me
7) PS.

If you wish to swap around or feel happier elsewhere, now is the time to pipe up.

And best of luck to all of us. Do it for Cuddy!

Roster changed per Benginal's request.

 

[Benginal]

I'm a tad busier than normal this weekend. I'm visiting the lady friend in California until Monday and then have an econ exam on Tuesday (I'll be fine, see my avatar). But I think I'd be better off at place 3 or below.

Also, what's our timing rule going to be? We have 4 months to play, so 24/96 seems fine to me.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

OK I'll place you below Try and Alaman, then just to keep you in the loop.

As regards time, as long as you're fairly punctual with the got it, I'd rather you play with full discussion over than early (especially on the early turns and at decision points).

Oh, and tell the lady friend you've been drafted into the dwarfen army to fight the Battle of Koom Valley, and you may be gone for some time.

 

[Trystero]

I will be away March 4-6, but the rotation looks fine to me.

I would like to see Alaman's micro before we start the actual game. We have enough time that we don't need to start immediately (other than moving the warrior), I would think. Let's get the opening right.

Edit: I like "Do it for Cuddy!" as a team motto. I've altered my signature accordingly.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

When I get around to changing my sig I'll add it in.

And on playing the set, I expect a lot of microing after that warrior wanders off over hill and dale.

 

[neilmeister]

OK, I'm happy to go first, though it will almost completely be pressing enter X amount of times.

I don't think we have reached consensus on where to settle. I will try to optimize the BW after Priesthood plan, and we can compare.

I am still leaning towards settling the PH. It means that we do not have to rely so heavily on the whip (though we still use it). It also saves a Clam potentially for city 2 or 3.

If people wish to SIP or on the corn, they need to explain it with some micro or a save.

 

[Benginal]

I don't think we have reached consensus on where to settle. I will try to optimize the BW after Priesthood plan, and we can compare.

I am still leaning towards settling the PH. It means that we do not have to rely so heavily on the whip (though we still use it). It also saves a Clam potentially for city 2 or 3.

If people wish to SIP or on the corn, they need to explain it with some micro or a save.

I'm planning on running more SIP tests when I have some time. I'll also run a few PH tests just to get a feel for it. I'm disinclined to settle on the corn just because the extra hammers I don't think are worth the loss of food.

As to the first real save. I think that Neil should go ahead and do the one warrior move right away (like tomorrow sometime) as I think we're all in agreement that the warrior should move up to the plains hill, . We probably won't learn anything too interesting, but you never know.

 

[Benginal]

I ran a few test games, and I've got quite poor results with SIP, and trying to build the second city on the Eastern tip of the Island.

This could change dramatically depending on what the fog situation is on the eastern side of the island. How poor have your results been? It seems I have appointed myself representative for SIP, so I'm just trying to do my duty as the advocate for SIP.

By settling on the corn, it went much smoother. WB, WB, Lighthouse, Worker, went nicely.

Interesting to put the lighthouse before the worker. I'll give that a go.

I settled the second city on the scrap of land below the copper and achieved both my objectives : got the oracle by turn 96 AND was able to whip a forge just in time in the second city to get the engineer out 51 turns before the ETA of the great prophet. Which means a great engineer to secure the pyramids if we want to do so. It seems likely that we will go for a specialist economy considering the huge amount of seafood nearby, and mids could help.

I'm not going to be a fan of settling the second city over there unless the real game is dramatically different from what I'm expecting. A city with one land tile is never going to be good, even if that one land tile has copper.

Interesting going for a Great Engineer first. Given how poor production is going to be this might be a good idea. I'm not sure about the Pyramids though as HR is so much more useful than Rep in terms of city size. In my test game, A-M got up to 7 faces just from whipping. So under Rep that would mean it could work 3 tiles, which is not going to cut it. On these sea heavy maps I prefer to just get really massive (like size 20 in the early ADs massive) and work a ton of 3 tiles. Then the first GP would be a scientist who could build an academy in the capital.

I agree that getting a GProphet first is kind of a waste, especially as gold is no object in this game. Using a GE to build an early Moai in the capital might not be a bad idea as that has a nice synergy with my work-a-ton-of-coast-tiles approach.

Or we could have him build the Pyramids just for denial purposes and so we don't have to research Monarchy. .

 

[Alamankarazieff]

I'll post more of my micro after doing a precise corn settle and try a plains hill settle.
I definitely think that all discussions need to happen AFTER that first warrior move.
I have close to zero experience with running heavy warrior backed monarchies, I usually like my representation too much, though I'm not sure the numbers are on my side.

 

[drlake]

I've been waiting to run test games until we can move the warrior to the PH. At that point, I'll play around with settling on the Corn since I favor that in principle. I HATE giving up hammers on hammer-poor maps, while giving up food doesn't bother me since that is normally abundant. Another city will just be the GP farm, if we settle on the Corn. Less use of the whip, but that's OK since I imagine happiness will be at a premium for a while.

 

[neilmeister]

As to the first real save. I think that Neil should go ahead and do the one warrior move right away (like tomorrow sometime) as I think we're all in agreement that the warrior should move up to the plains hill, . We probably won't learn anything too interesting, but you never know.

Roger, wilco.


I agree with you that Pyramids are not that useful, except to allow us to go Police State very early. I do like the idea of going for a GE though, because while we will never have enough hammers to build Pyramids, it is always nice to rush them with a GE.

I don't know about running a specialist economy, I can't see it being that useful in a conquest game, with lots of ocean squares & colossus.

Second city off island gives us +2 trade routes for both cities, so it is not just the lack of decent tiles, it is the money.

After reading through Benginal's SIP tests, I don't think there is much difference between SIP and the PH. BUT.... I just think the PH gives us better long term options, about where to settle city 2, what resources it might start with....

BUT, all of this could become void if the warrior see's something exciting.....

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Tried another go at the corn : the build went like this

Warrior (sacrificed hammers), WB (out on turn 22), WB (out on turn 34), lighthouse (t45), worker (whipped on t52), galley (whipped on t59), WB (t63), settler (whip t68), WB (for second city wherever it is t78) and start Oracle, put a chop in it, and worker have finished mining the three hills, first city is at 4 pop and can work all three and still grow.

Second city finish a lighthouse with some whipping.

I can whip the Oracle at t 92 or grow at pop 5 and get it at t96

If I wait at t96, second city have time to complete a workboat before starting the forge.

First city whip forge a T104

Now possible options : work all three mines, or slot an engineer.

If we slot an engineer, we get the first great person online in 26 turns, but we're not sure it's going to be an engineer, we take a chance. Population is stagnant for max hammers. I'll run this one to check. The good thing is that if we gamble, we can start building settlers and triremes in city 2.

Supposing we can have copper online when we start colossus in city 1 or thanks to city 2, I can whip the colossus by turn 117 or let it go normally to turn 125


Talking about random events, what about this fire that destroy your forge and therefore stop your construction of the colossus ? Just had it, ain't nice.

And to finish this test game, I have by turn 128 founded a third city, I'm 1 turn away to found confucianism (caste system if we decide to go the specialist way, or simply to forgo monuments, and boost these workshops which are going to be needed)
By gambling for the engineer, the final figures are 45 % prophet, 42 % engineer and 13 % merchant.
I'm at the nice 31 beakers, and it's growing.

With luck (like I just had) we can be in caste system and representation by turn 137

Maybe I'm not seeing it right, and maybe it's going against the colossus strategy, but any city with two seafood sources with CS and REP and maritime routes will bring a nice share of science. Which I think is always beneficial for conquest. Thus said I'm not a super fast player when it comes to warfare, and I have the bad habit to postpone my attacks until I'm really sure I have that extra edge.

Thus said, I really like settling the corn more than SIP and PH. The hammer output of these three hills is great, two 5 food clams does bring enough grub on the table.
And on an weird thinking, we don't know where the possible copper or iron could be. Except for one thing : we know it won't be under the corn, so it's the safest place to not spoil it. Okay, far fetched, but it's late.


Anyways, it's far in the future, but after monarchy or code of laws, currency is a must have since we're hopefully going to get lots of trade routes. That, of course, is assuming the mapmaker didn't make all the AI hates us from the beginning which would be consistent with the scenario...

 

[neilmeister]

Those are interesting numbers Alaman... great idea to do lighthouse very early.

I don't know about Representation/Caste being that useful.
HR/Slavery will allow us to have large populations and/or ability to whip like crazy.

We start in a tiny island zone, so lack of hammers (for all of our cities) is going to be our big problem, this kind of means we probably have to stay in Slavery for some time.

After we get Metal Casting, I agree that the next most important techs will be: Monarchy, Alphabet, Currency, CoL, CS, Construction, Machinery.

We these techs, we can conquer several AI while we head towards Cavalry.

 

[neilmeister]

The Game is ONNNNNNNN....

Moved the Warrior, and revealed nothing.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Plains Hill then is the plan?

What map type does it say it is on the Settings screen?

 

[neilmeister]

It doesn't say, it just says:

'cylindrical', standard size, epic.

No Vassals, No Events, No Vilages.

I am going to try run a few more tests, SIP. But we will then need to have some sort of straw poll on were to settle. Seeing small islands to the west is another factor to settle east.

 

[drlake]

Settling on the PH offers a chance at more seafood (the two tiles still in fog to the N), and won't mess up any early metals since they don't seem to spawn on forested tiles. I still like the Corn, but I can live with doing it either way based on the tests that have been done.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Settling on the PH offers a chance at more seafood (the two tiles still in fog to the N), and won't mess up any early metals since they don't seem to spawn on forested tiles. I still like the Corn, but I can live with doing it either way based on the tests that have been done.

You're right about forested hills, It's usually a good idea to try and spot tiles that won't get forests/jungle when in the midst of them, it usually means unknown resource.

PH will be stronger in the short term, from the bonus hammer alone and the extra pop for slaving, but Corn looks like a better city long-term with the 3 hills for mining.

Both ways, if we want Maoi here, we'll have 16 water tiles giving us hammers. Though it may be better giving Paris the GP slot (especially if we settle on the hill), with the surplus food available.


I'm going with Plains Hill personally, as while a corn city will be better long-term, it is not enough to balance out the early advantages (up to and including maybe finding a sweet spot).

 

[neilmeister]

I'm for settling the PH too.

Settling the corn didn't give enough food, SIP has to much.