SGOTM 14 - Fifth Element

[unclethrill]

I gave the priorities, the dot map, the units moves, anything possible. If you don't want to listen, just tell us.

This is a team game not the captain telling everyone else how to play their TS. The priorities are your priorities but they may not be everyone else's priorities. It is also your dot map and your preferred unit moves. If you want to make all the decisions then download the save and play a second TS. Though if you choose this route or continue to not listen to the team or continue to belittle everyone else's suggestions, this team game may quickly become one where you make all the decisions because you are the only left on the team. I'm not threatening to quit just stating the fact that your more recent posts are real close to crossing a line that is making this no longer a fun diversion to RL and just making it a chore. I have plenty of chores already, I don't need another one.

 

[unclethrill]

I agree.
In fact, i'm proposing the GLib to specifically generate 2 GSs to use for Edu and PP, with the target to save some 10-12 turns of research total. Since the GLib will cost some 8 turns in NY it's more than worth.
With Sistine the 2 free GS will also generate 2 culture each, which is a nice bonus.
It can cost 3 turns in Wash, but it's too polluted and we risk to not have the wanted GSs.

But now let's try to have this game moving or we'll have the best opening ever and nothing more.

Great. Thanks for the solid and simple explanation of why you want the GLib. I understand the reasoning now.

Here is my argument against your logic. We need to focus on what gets us to Lib and Music. So by your logic we need 1 GS to bulb half of Edu. While PP will help if we have lots of cottages, it is not in the direct line to finishing this culture game IMO. So if we then say that we NEED only 1 GS to speed up the Culture victory and it will shave off 5 to 6 turns and the GLib takes 8 turns to build then it becomes not so great an investment.

I like the GLib and I think it would be useful but I don't know that it is useful enough to spend 8 turns building it in a city that needs to crank out a worker, settler, granary, library, monument, CH, assorted temples and monasteries. That infrastructure is more important IMO than another wonder.

There are plenty of benefits to all the WW but we can't afford to build them all. We really need to spend every available hammer on growing the empire, defending the empire and building an infrastructure in the empire.

My vote is no to the GLib right now. Feel free to convince me otherwise. I have shown in the past that a solid argument CAN change my opinion ...

 

[pnp_dredd]

I don't believe I ever said site D was my choice. I said sugar city then stone city. ... So my calculations say that we lose 2 commerce and gain 3 food. There is probably more to account for but that is the quick and dirty analysis. We trade 2 coast for 2 oceans and wheat. So BLubmuz enlighten us all on the benefits of your site over site D because I'm still not seeing it.

I see this as the NEpic city, so I feel that the 3 extra food is absolutely the vital point! Also, the wheat is within our borders so we can improve it before settling the city, for faster growth.

Also until we have a few more archers, I like to keep that southern archer a little closer to barb-spawn-bust at the end of the land near the center. I would also like to at least finish that archer that is almost done in Washington before we move on to other builds. We need to REX but we need to be able to defend our new cities against the barb onslaught that has occurred in every test I ran.

Both of these will lower risk, while slightly reducing optimisation. I'm happy with that trade off in this case, so I'll revise my PPP to include archer first, and will send that first archer down towards the center before sending one out exploring. edit: just to be clear, Washington's build order is archer-worker-settler-archer over this turnset.

Third, I think that if the AI finishes Alpha 2 turns before we can, then we need to be prepared to trade CoL for Alpha and everything else they will through in. No sense teching it for two more turns when we can trade for it and several other techs 2 turns earlier. CoL seems to be the most likely candidate to trade around to all the AI to gather as much technology as possible. Why wait until we self tech it all the way when we can trade for it's final 2 turns and get BW too.

I'll halt my set if the AIs tech Alpha.

I also think that after the archer a worker is the better choice. About that time we get the second worker and the archer finished we will have BW in trade and can chop 3 or 4 settlers quickly in Washington.

I'm not sure I fully understand this. Is your proposed build order archer-worker-settler-archer-worker?

 

[pnp_dredd]

The vote was splitted, so as the Captain i decided to go for the Stone first. After 2 archers and 1 worker. Mandatory!
Then your proposed fogbusts are interesting, but not if there're barbs ALREADY there, so we need military units
And about that site "D" i already said what is needed: forget it!I suppose you haven't read any post these days.
Please revise your PPP according to those posts, i'm tired to repeat the same things.

I gave the priorities, the dot map, the units moves, anything possible. If you don't want to listen, just tell us.

I've been paying attention to all of the constructive posts.

sigh, let's have a revote on the city order, now that the consensus appears is that we don't need to uber-prioritise stone for 'mids. I think there is a clear majority for sugar first in that case, mainly because the food allows us to REX faster.

Sugar-first (site D): Dredd, Beestar, WithTea, Meow
Sugar-first (other site):
Stone-first: BLubmuz

 

[WithTea]

Sugar first. Stone ASAP thereafter. My instinct would be to place the sugar city 1S of Dredd's position D, but his reasoning for the grassland is sound. By that the desire to get the N Epic up and running ASAP. If we have too much food, the wheat could be shared with a city set up to take advantage of the pigs. If not then we can really specialize the Hell out of it.

 

[BLubmuz]

I've been paying attention to all of the constructive posts.

So you consider constructives only the posts whixh agree with you? May i say the same?

sigh, let's have a revote on the city order, now that the consensus appears is that we don't need to uber-prioritise stone for 'mids. I think there is a clear majority for sugar first in that case, mainly because the food allows us to REX faster.

Would that wheat ruin that city which already has a ton of food? IMO site D is better for itself, but we need military and the only city good for that is where i proposed it, so the NE city can be the one N of the lake NW of Wash. Count the food there, it's just 3 less or even less if we farm instead of cottage.

We need HE and production there, no artists.

I already said that we risk to lose the Pyramids after turn 95. The only way to be guaranteed is to settle stone first than with 3 chops we can have them in 3 turns.

To be more accurate, by the time the workers improve the stone we can build the settler for Sugar, a worker, no matter in which order, a granary. Then the stone is ready.

2 archers before anything else. The first will go NE. There're barbs upthere. Do you like to see our improvements pillaged or worst do you want to lose the Capital? It's game over in that case.

And the archer now near the hub will go 1SE then E, straight!!!
And don't move the one now NW E of the desert!

 

[pnp_dredd]

so your first priority is to settle the stone city to get mids, delaying REX, and your second priority appears to be a good HE site?

Can you please explain how prioritising those things gets us a faster cultural VC than focussing on: a great NEpic city firstly, REX second and 'mids once we can.

2 archers before anything else. The first will go NE. There're barbs upthere. Do you like to see our improvements pillaged or worst do you want to lose the Capital? It's game over in that case.

Can you please open up the save and count how many turns it would take for a barbarian to bee-line our capital? Then tell us how many turns it takes to build an archer...

Perhaps if we were building stone city first then the first archer could go NE. But we aren't building stone city first, so we can react to barbs from that direction as required. I think that the second archer should head that way to sit on the spot that the missionary is fogbusting (but that's after my 'set). If the missionary spots approaching barbs then we can prioritise that archer higher.

And the archer now near the hub will go 1SE then E, straight!!!
And don't move the one now NW E of the desert!

See, this is the kind of unconstructive "orders" that I've been simply ignoring.

Post reasoning or I'll continue to ignore these sorts of "orders". I'm getting dodgy vibes from you again BLubmuz.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Oh my. If I were to attempt to reply concerning all the things that have been discussed since my last post I think I would have to write a three page post! Lots of discussion going on. My take on a few key issues:

1. I'm really not seeing the benefit in Mids or GL for a culture game. If it comes down to a vote and I haven't piped up in a few days please consider my vote against chasing after these two wonders. I may be convinced that OU is worthwhile since we are Phi and we will likely be teching beyond lib.

2. imo the crab/clam/sheep/wheat/sugar city needs to be founded next. If we're going for culture we need a gp farm yesterday. It will be our most important city by far.

3. I've said it before, but I don't think alpha is worth self teching more than one turn since the ais will have it soon. I won't get too much into the self tech bw or not debate since I see you all as better more knowledgeable players and think both sides have a point as seen through all the tests you have been doing. However, I will say that we have limited workers and low pop cities, so I doubt bw will be a boon to our gameplay for atleast a few more turns. This is why I voted for the currency first option in the poll. I think we will have a trade for alpha in just a few turns, and then one turn later a trade for bw and other older techs.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Sugar first. Stone ASAP thereafter. My instinct would be to place the sugar city 1S of Dredd's position D, but his reasoning for the grassland is sound. By that the desire to get the N Epic up and running ASAP. If we have too much food, the wheat could be shared with a city set up to take advantage of the pigs. If not then we can really specialize the Hell out of it.

I considered 1s of D as well. It would make the crab usable quicker, but losing the wheat seems to me a bit too big of a hit for the NE city.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Pardon the triple post, but I wanted to comment on one last thing. imho we probably won't even build the HE, or atleast we don't need to. Any wars we fight will be defensive, and we have the advantage of the enemy having to travel far and get through our choke / come from the sea. I foresee us producing enough military units in auxiliary cities to keep our power rank respectable and assuage any threats.

If our guesses about the WoOz are correct, or close to being so, we won't need a massive army to take him out. But for our purposes *now* we need to get legendary culture as fast as possible, and find the WoOz.

That's why I think city site "D" should be the gp farm and settled next. It and the other two LCs will focus on specialists, temples, monasteries and *TO A LIMITED EXTENT* wonders, while all other cities will focus on commerce, research, military, and temples.

 

[pnp_dredd]

Revised PPP. I plan to play in around 12 hours from this post unless there are substantial new issues raised.

I'll play until someone completes Alpha, or if we have barb presure. Build order in Washington is archer-worker-settler-archer

69: Switch to Caste/Bureau, research to 0% for 2 turns, tech Alpha
Washington: fire specialists, continue building Archer.
SW Archer heads 1SE then E, waits for the 2nd archer before exploring the hub.
Conf missionary fogbusts to the NE (eventually to be replaced by an archer), GS to the SW. SW warrior moves sligtly down the isthmus for extra fogbusting.
Northern archer moves 3SE (onto the gold) to protect the missionary as he gets into barb-busting position, then back to 2NW, to maximise 5x5 barb-free area.
NY builds library, focussing on growth.

The worker stays near NY to make 1 farm and 1 mine, so that NY has 5 decent tiles to work (corn, clams, marble, mined hill, farm) and can grow rapidly.

70: archer complete, heads SW, begin worker2
74: worker2 complete, moves to farm wheat 3W1S of washington, begin settler. NY worker completes farm, moves to mine grassland hill.
78: Settler complete, moves to settle "site D" (where the GS is fogbusting), begin Archer

79: complete Alphabet, set ends.

 

[beestar]

pnp, can we please wait until BLubmuz is onboard before you start playing? I know we all want to get the game moving, and we'll never have total consensus in all our decisions, but we need to all give the green light to proceed. And I think part of this is waiting to hear back from BL as he had the strongest difference of opinions.

Also, welcome back MZD!

Game notes:

For me the value of Site D is not just NEpic farm (since what we really need to pump out are Great Artists, and we don't need that until later). It's that it is an amazing food site which can produce lots of workers and settlers in the short term, while Washington continues to build whatever it needs to build.

pnp, I would be very careful to move the fogbusting GS and missionary only 1 tile at a time if it's in fogged territory. Be careful not to use up all movement turns heading into forests/hills. If you can do this, you might be able to avoiding having to use the archer to cover the defenseless units.

 

[pnp_dredd]

The issue with the missionary is the final move onto the gold hill, which uses all the movement points and there are a pile of adjacent fogged tiles. That's why the archer needs to sit on that hill till the missionary arrives. The archer is out of position for only 4 turns.

I'll wait to hear from BL. I look forward to further constructive discussions to refine the plan, based around the proposed PPP which appears to have general agreement.

 

[BLubmuz]

Revised PPP. I plan to play in around 12 hours from this post unless there are substantial new issues raised.

I'll play until someone completes Alpha, or if we have barb presure. Build order in Washington is archer-worker-settler-archer

69: Switch to Caste/Bureau, research to 0% for 2 turns, tech Alpha
Washington: fire specialists, continue building Archer.
SW Archer heads 1SE then E, waits for the 2nd archer before exploring the hub.

1 turn at 0% is enough after the revolt to complete Alpha.
We'll arrive to 0 gold in the bank, but it's enough.

You all seem forgetting that we must research probably until rifling+astro+chem. The value of the Pyramids is that while hiring artists our research will stay at decent levels even with the slider on culture.
I suffered attacks from privateers and without a frigate my galleons were toasted.
PLease remember that by the time we can have our galleons loaded, we need over 20 turns to arrive, always if my foreseeing is correct.

Then Dredd, my suggestions about the moves for the archers were suggestions, not orders. Can you please remember that i was asked to test some game until completion and that i know well what can happen in this scenario? If anything i say is interpreted like a personal attack, i think there's something wrong somewhere.

HE. If we're lucky enough we'll never see a war. But in many attempts i was forced in a defensive war with impressive stacks arriving at the choke. If they bring siege, we must defend aggressively, there's nothing which can survive to 6-8 cats. It's Emperor and we will fight against 2 AIs.

Better revise the PPP.

 

[WithTea]

I don't see the problem. I'm good for go to t79.

 

[pnp_dredd]

1 turn at 0% is enough after the revolt to complete Alpha.
We'll arrive to 0 gold in the bank, but it's enough.

cheers, will do.

You all seem forgetting that we must research probably until rifling+astro+chem. The value of the Pyramids is that while hiring artists our research will stay at decent levels even with the slider on culture.
I suffered attacks from privateers and without a frigate my galleons were toasted.
PLease remember that by the time we can have our galleons loaded, we need over 20 turns to arrive, always if my foreseeing is correct.

HE. If we're lucky enough we'll never see a war. But in many attempts i was forced in a defensive war with impressive stacks arriving at the choke. If they bring siege, we must defend aggressively, there's nothing which can survive to 6-8 cats. It's Emperor and we will fight against 2 AIs.

Better revise the PPP.

The team has reached a consensus (except BL) on the location of the first city, which is sugar-first and agreed on a focus on REX rather than absolutely rushing 'mids. Does the team want to re-open a discussion on 'mids and city location based on BL's most recent post? If anyone else pipes up witha "stop" then I won't go ahead, but I feel that we have reached as much consensus surrounding these issues as possible, and I should play my set.

Edit: I will wait for UT and beestar to confirm that they're happy for me to go ahead.

I think that we'll want HE at some stage, but don't see it as a priority that we need to consider at this stage.

 

[unclethrill]

Revised PPP. I plan to play in around 12 hours from this post unless there are substantial new issues raised.

I'll play until someone completes Alpha, or if we have barb presure. Build order in Washington is archer-worker-settler-archer

69: Switch to Caste/Bureau, research to 0% for 1 turns, tech Alpha
Washington: fire specialists, continue building Archer.
SW Archer heads 1SE then E, waits for the 2nd archer before exploring the hub.
Conf missionary fogbusts to the NE (eventually to be replaced by an archer), GS to the SW. SW warrior moves sligtly down the isthmus for extra fogbusting.
Northern archer moves 3SE (onto the gold) to protect the missionary as he gets into barb-busting position, then back to 2NW, to maximise 5x5 barb-free area.
NY builds library, focussing on growth.

The worker stays near NY to make 1 farm and 1 mine, so that NY has 5 decent tiles to work (corn, clams, marble, mined hill, farm) and can grow rapidly.

70: archer complete, heads SW, begin worker2
74: worker2 complete, moves to farm wheat 3W1S of washington, begin settler. NY worker completes farm, moves to mine grassland hill.
78: Settler complete, moves to settle "site D" (where the GS is fogbusting), begin Archer

79: complete Alphabet, set ends.

Looks good to me. I am torn on site for the next city. D is better for a GPF and can share improved squares with a city to the N of it but It is not highly defendable and if we get attacked and they punch through our blocker city farther down being on the hill instead of giving the attackers hills to attack from is a better choice. With that said, I am not so concerned that I think I need to fight against everyone else on it. You have my vote to play.

 

[beestar]

Green light from me. It may be imperfect but let's get the game restarted, and we'll learn a heck of a lot more as we go along, which we will need to react to.

I'm not too worried about military, especially if we are adopting a neighbour's religion. In the test game barbarians kept the hub no-man's-land for a long time, though if the real game has water in the centre (which I think is a good prediction), this will reduce barbarians and increase the risk of AI border conflicts. We'll have to be very careful on diplo.

From the first-page roster, MZD, you're on deck - time to catch up and think about the next turnset

 

[unclethrill]

You all seem forgetting that we must research probably until rifling+astro+chem. The value of the Pyramids is that while hiring artists our research will stay at decent levels even with the slider on culture.
I suffered attacks from privateers and without a frigate my galleons were toasted.
PLease remember that by the time we can have our galleons loaded, we need over 20 turns to arrive, always if my foreseeing is correct.


HE. If we're lucky enough we'll never see a war. But in many attempts i was forced in a defensive war with impressive stacks arriving at the choke. If they bring siege, we must defend aggressively, there's nothing which can survive to 6-8 cats. It's Emperor and we will fight against 2 AIs.

I agree completely on these points. We need to get the Mids and my tests have shown that T100 is still safe and we can REX pretty good up to that point. If our fourth city is on the hill by the Stone (BTW This is my choice for the Stone city and I will actively fight for that location) we only need 3 road segments and the stone quarry to get stone to Washington. I think that we can still get this done before T100 without any issue.

As far as war goes, in all my tests we get attacked by tons of barbs but hopefully strategic spawn busting will help with that. We also uually get attacked by an AI at least once and they roll deep. HA, Caps, Swords and it takes 6 or 8 LB to defend that choke city. We will need to have a solid, strong and uptodate military if we want to survive. We also will need Frigates to escort our ships.

So my point is we need the mids by T100-102 and I have found that the GLib is still safe as late as 115 which should be after our initial REX and the 2 GS are helpful in producing a GS for Edu.

 

[BLubmuz]

I am still convinced that stone first is the way to go, just because it will be our 3rd LC, which again all of us seem forget.

Beestar tricks about religion founding can or cannot work and as i said, having Tao in the Stone city will help a lot. Or at least is a good start for a LC.
I don't understand why this point is still in discussion, the decision was took days ago

Then, i'm still convinced that the hill where the warrior is is far better for many reasons for city 4. If Beestar did not arrived with that dotmap, not made to be played further like mine was that spot would never be used.

Can anyone explain me why i tested 3 games until completion and one pops out a dotmap he never used and that was a good map? If you do so i can maybe be convinced.

No. Stop this. your PPP will bring us to a disaster. And Pyramids are not safe after turn 95.