SGOTM 13 - TNT thread

[enKage]

;/ i hate Ragnar ;/

So... we have marble - Oracle slingshot to Colossus and triremes (at least 2 are needed for antibarb protection and armytransport. I would not risk sending galleys w/u triremes.

We have to settle very very soon on the island with marble

Keath: we cannot settle western 2tile island for marble. To have marble we would needt to construct fort on it! We wouldnot have maths for a long long time! The nly choice is settling on it, if we want it early (that means for oracle) (or on a tile 1 SW from it)
It a pity, you didn't check the hole marble island, but i think we will discover it when settling next city there

 

[fizbankovi]

ragnar came from south west

 

[Keath]

Lots to talk about. Here is the lineup:

***ROSTER

2metraninja (up)
The Dude Esq (on deck)
justjohn
bjartur
dima42
enKage (back in action)
keath
Windfury
fizbankovi (just played)

cottage chris - not checked in....

 

[Keath]

- -
Time for the Generals to come to the table and determine what we need to regain the glory of France.

1. We don’t need to wait until astronomy and that has to be good news.
2. We already know two of our victims - Victoria and Ragnar.
3. We need a plan for conquest/domination.
4. We need to formulate a settlement plan to found new cities and develop them to serve our military.
5. We need to know what science achievements our savants must discover.
6. We need a navy big enough to dominate the seas. That means galleys and triremes when we get MC. 6 galleys needed and no reason not to build them soon.
7. Are we building monuments of wonder and if we do, which one(s)?
- Pyramids have been mentioned but I’m not convinced we will be changing our government often.
- Are we going the Oracle route to slingshot MC?
- Colossus is a winner and will serve our financial situation until Astronomy.
- Statue of Zeus could be a game breaker advantage. (if we researched Mysticism we could find three cities that would benefit from a monument and this opens the building to SofZ.)

But do we even want to build wonders? We’ve no use for culture. Are there any others in the immediate future that would be an advantage?

How good is the Stature of Zeus?
Where would we build
a the Colossus
b the Oracle
c the Statue of Zeus
d others??

Alphabet opens spy building. Is someone fully adept at managing espionage? It could be a powerful way to steal technology, incite riots and wreak havoc.

And how do we get a unit to level 4 experience for the Heroic Epic? Have we even seen a barb yet? I think not....

 

[fizbankovi]

We are most definitely going to build monuments! They are a 45 hammer +1 happiness building for us.
As for the plans, I think the settle on marble—>oracle to MC and colossus would be a really nice combo. We would have a settling and building phase, where we get 8-9 cities out, and prepare for war. We should try to optimize a build order for this.
Thoughts on war:
A trebuchet, catapult, longbow + crossbow + 1 pikeman war with galleys and triremes seems plausible. It’s a good unit composition on this kind of maps. (You never have to fight on a field, only defend (preferable on hills), and attack/defend cities.) we shall c.

 

[Keath]

@2metraninja - if you could formulate a plan as to what you'd like to see happen during your turnset, post it and we'll discuss it. It's exploration time and you'll want to to do a little fogbusting with our galley and we have a work boat ready.

If you can't do your turnset in the near future, just let us know and we'll skip you or you can trade with someone down the line.

 

[enKage]

weekend time!!

 

[dima42]

So, the earliest I've seen Oracle go on epic Emperor is turn 98 (in SGOTM11 in my game, no less, when I argued that it would probably be okay to build it by turn 105! That was embarassing. Fortunately we hadn't started the build.)

Just putting that out there. If your plan involves building Oracle, you need to do some math to figure out how quickly it can be obtained (and I am virtually certain that a post-Alphabet Oracle is very unreliable).

The beaker input from Oracle is probably somewhat better than an early Alphabet, especially since we want the early Colossus. However, I don't think we can reliably get it. Some very rough calculations: mysticism+meditation+priesthood ~= 450 beakers. That's roughly 20-25 turns after writing (based on library date(s), number of scientists running, third city location). Add an extra ~8 turns for masonry (or the extra build turns), and I find our prospect for an early oracle very sad. (It will take Elba about 15 turns to build it.) Someone with more emperor/epic experience than I should weigh in on possibility of snatching Oracle at turn 115-120...

A quick aside: fizban, it's usually better to run 100% science or 0% science because of beaker rounding. Not sure if you were doing that and just stopped for the screenshot.

 

[2metraninja]

I'm up and will play the turn. A bit of tips like from where to take the save, how much turns to play, how much time I have available for my turn set and where to send it when I'm done will be nice.

At this point I guess it is really exploration time - we need to find copper/iron and our potential victims. From my experience with archipelago maps (if this is the current case) super-early axe wars are very rewarding. The AIs usually keep only 1 or 2 archers per city and their cities are juicy.

 

[Keath]

I'm up and will play the turn. A bit of tips like from where to take the save, how much turns to play, how much time I have available for my turn set and where to send it when I'm done will be nice.

Download the save from the Progress and Results Page >here<

We can be flexible when it comes to turnset length (find a convenient stopping point between 10-15 turns) and how long a player takes. Normally, once you start to play, 48 hours is usual, but if it's longer, you can let the team know and if you run into something unusual, stop and post so the team can comment.

Once you have played, you post your save >here< and for convenience you can also post it on our thread with your writeup.

Before you start to play, post a Pre-Play-Plan similar to the one jj planned for our first turnsets in post #143. Everyone can then comment and/or improve the plan.

At this point I guess it is really exploration time - we need to find copper/iron and our potential victims. From my experience with archipelago maps (if this is the current case) super-early axe wars are very rewarding. The AIs usually keep only 1 or 2 archers per city and their cities are juicy.

I agree that exploration is a priority. Before we settle a third city we should have a map of the local area. But we also should be searching out the enemy. We have a new work boat ready and it could move east, explore the fish/pig site east and then continue east, hopefully finding Victoria and Ragnar and the others.

We'll need a build sequence for both cities and you'll need to list what MM will be required to maximize efficiency. We have some experts at this and everyone can make suggestions. Finding a metal would be great.

Research - we need to decide what tech is next. This depends on whether we go for Alphabet or Mysticism/Meditation/Priesthood line to get the Oracle/Colossus. We'll need MC for the Colossus which could be our free tech if we're successful.

I'm actually away from home for a few days right now but will have regular internet. I think a few tests to see what dates the Oracle is built would be very useful. Discovering the other AI would be a giant step.

I hope to be able to do a few test runs later today. I'll post results then. If anyone else can or has results that would be timely.

 

[fizbankovi]

i have an exam comming up on wendsday.. and will be inactive untill then...

 

[Keath]

I have a test result from a game I altered to match the start with AIs able to find us. Didn't meet Ragnar until about 1800. Met no one else.

Buddhism 3725
Hinduism 3450
Stonehenge 1750 Ragnar
Temple of Artemis 1325
Oracle 1275

I don't know how indicative this is. I'll try again....

 

[2metraninja]

I think to move the galley SW to look at the marble island for possible settling location.

The workboat moves SE through Paris to explore the most SE piece of land.

I think we need 2 settlers - to settle S of the furs and near the marble.
I think to obtain them trough 2 pop wippings. The furs will further help us fight the wipping unhappiness.

As far as techs goes, In the medium long span, I think it is worth to try the Oracle path when we have Marble and take the Metal Casting and build the Collosus, even more apealing if we found copper. Otherwise we can try to get Civil Service with the Oracle - at monarch it can be not that hard.

 

[The Dude Esq]

Hello!

it's me again!

sorry, I'm too lazy to read 20 pages of posts. (sorry guys, it's not the right attitude I know!)

but could someone tell me please: WHAT IS GOING ON?? have we started playing the proper game yet?

again, apologies for my slothfulness.

thanks!

Ed: ah, I think I caught the word 'TEST' in one of the posts. p.s. I'm on deck, I think, whatever that means...

 

[Keath]

@The Dude - There is a synopsis in post #351 with hooks to the turnsets and PPP plans. We have played up to Turn 75 with pics in post #318. justjohn's spreadsheet plan in post #353 and some maps showing the lay of the land in posts #355.

On deck is the term for being next in line meaning after 2metraninja plays it will be your turn. On deck comes from baseball, I think. The batter warming up is 'on deck'.
You may have noticed at the top of each page, there is a notice about server problems we are presently experiencing. This is making it more difficult to post screenshots and game updates. Once you have ImageShack or DropBox or use Google, you can post files.

Nothing can replace reading the posts, but I know that can be a chore. There are some test games available which can be very useful in testing your plans. Once your turn is up, you prepare a PPP and post it for everyone to comment. Once it's been honed into a fine tuned plan, you play your turns.

So, how's the tea coming?

 

[Keath]

I think to move the galley SW to look at the marble island for possible settling location.

Good. That could be a great spot. If we had Mysticism we could settle on the marble and build a monument (or Library?)

The workboat moves SE through Paris to explore the most SE piece of land.

A good question is should we then send this work boat east to search out neighbours or send a galley?

I think we need 2 settlers - to settle S of the furs and near the marble.
I think to obtain them trough 2 pop wippings. The furs will further help us fight the wipping unhappiness.

Agree with two settlers and those sites look to be the best unless we find metal south east.

As far as techs goes, In the medium long span, I think it is worth to try the Oracle path when we have Marble and take the Metal Casting and build the Collosus, even more apealing if we found copper. Otherwise we can try to get Civil Service with the Oracle - at monarch it can be not that hard.

The Oracle would be good. And it is on the way towards Colossus and the Statue of Zeus. Is this wonder useful to us with 100% war weariness to our enemies?

I'll be on the road most of today but I'll be more active Wednesday.

 

[dima42]

Just a quick correciton: this is Emperor (and AI has nice land to start), not Monarch.
I think Statue of Zeus is worthless. I'm also for waiting for Colossus until we get copper.
Oracle isn't a bad plan, so long as we're willing to accept that there's a reasonable probability of failure. I'd guess ~20%, but I'm just making that up -- it's been a while since I've played epic/emperor.

I have to think a little bit more about the whipping settlers. One of them should definitely be whipped; not sure whether both and whether to 2-pop whip or 3-pop whip. Elba also probably should run some scientists if we plan on getting Oracle relatively early.

 

[2metraninja]

Just a quick correciton: this is Emperor (and AI has nice land to start), not Monarch.

Its nearly the same

I think Statue of Zeus is worthless.

Agree.

Oracle isn't a bad plan, so long as we're willing to accept that there's a reasonable probability of failure.

Even if we fail, the failure gold will be nice with marble.

So, I am going to take my 15 turns fame

 

[2metraninja]

I played one turn and on the next turn the Bug mod told me that Elba will become unhappy on the next turn. I guess the solution to this is to put to build a settler. It will take normally 9 turns, but we can whip it for 5 population if we had them on the first turn with the penalty. When we wait for the second turn, the penalty will be gone and either we will be able to whip it for 2 pop with the invested hammers and food in it on the next turn, or on the turn after the next, or we simply put 1 turn of building something else, Elba grows to 6 pop and we whip for 3 pop.

Say your thoughts.

Something else which bothers me is that Vicky have 2.5 times stronger army than us. Also, someone just got Great Merchant. Who can be this? Who is philosophical and have the GLH?

 

[dima42]

I like the 3-pop whip here.
Also, AI started with GLH, so whoever got the Merchant isn't philosophical. (unless it's their second merchant...)