SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

[mabraham]

I suggest that Toto be moved W successively for turns 3, 4 and 5. If the Team agrees, I will make it so.

Yeah 3W seems forced.

If anyone has further moves to add to that, please let us know them.

If anyone is certain of what is in the plot 2S+1E of Marble, please tell us and explain why.

Future Considerations:

1) Consider founding a city to work the Grassland Gems plot.

Seems a high priority, so long as we can find some kind of food supply for it.

2) Consider Mining -> Bronze Working -> Iron Working for military build up.

Sun Tzu Wu

Certainly a lively option. Mining->BW seems automatic to enable chopping for settlers. It is not clear to me that we want Slavery in a hurry. Before we have Pottery and Granaries, whipping is good for short-term acceleration only. After, it's a good food-to-hammers conversion mechanic.

 

[mabraham]

Please note Alan's reminder about uploading saves to the server, not the team thread.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I agree with following the coast west until the capital pops its borders.


Good job on the culture tab trick.
I too have never heard of it.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The moves of Toto W, W, W were rather obviously the best, so I considered 5 of 8 responding (including myself) with affirmation to be quite enough though technically not at all a consensus.

The attached map image shows the new state of our game. Only the culture of our own city is revealed in the cultural view so a screen shot of it has not been attached.

A Clam is revealed to the south, but can't be in the same BFC as the known Crab plot.

A Deer is revealed 1S of the Gems, so there's ample food to support a city whose BFC contains both plots.

Information from the upload to the SGTOM Server:

Spoiler :

Reference number: 11112
Game: C-IV SGOTM 14
Your team: Kakumeika
Your name: Sun Tzu Wu
Date submitted: 2011-08-14
Software Version: BtS 3.19
Game date: 3800BC
Player race: America
Firaxis score: 37
Session time played (hh:mm:ss): 00:26:52
Total time played (hh:mm:ss): 00:26:55
Game status: Incomplete
Submitted save: Kakumeika_SG014-0005-BC-3800-End-of-Turn+upload-to-Server.CivBeyondSwordSave
Renamed file: Kakumeika_SG014_BC3800_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

Right click the Renamed File link above to copy it.
You can then paste it into your team post as the download link for the next player.


Here is your Session Turn Log from 4000 BC to 3800 BC:

Turn 0, 4000 BC: Washington has been founded.

Turn 4, 3840 BC: The borders of Washington are about to expand.
Turn 4, 3840 BC: The borders of Washington have expanded!

You may wish to copy it to Notepad for reference when you write your turn set post. It includes any entries you added with the in-game Chat facility

Note: Our population (1P) is now 10.0% of the world population.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Walter_Wolf]

Smells like isolation

 

[Manco Capac]

Oh la la! That gems site looks even more attractive with that deer tile under forest. Definitely a strong location for second city.

 

[mabraham]

A Clam is revealed to the south, but can't be in the same BFC as the known Crab plot.

Well, it's possible, but the city wouldn't have the marble or access to fresh water.

A Deer is revealed 1S of the Gems, so there's ample food to support a city whose BFC contains both plots.

Indeed.

Smells like isolation

Indeed.

I suggest warrior W-NW-NW. We can come back later for vision off the southern hill. For now, finding out if we're isolated (or not) is of paramount importance. We don't want to fall too far behind teams that scouted north in the case that we are not isolated. AI contacts are worth beakers.

 

[Manco Capac]

I totally agree with W-NW-NW (I can't wait for dissension for looking deeper into strat. plans) because it is hard to disagree to such almost obvious PPP.

Just a small warning as far I remember animals first appearances (Turn 6), after landing on deer, I think we have to be careful in itinarary with animals. We don't want to see our Toto killed too early.

 

[bcool]

W-NW-NW looks good for Toto. There is a lot of land to the north, so isolation is still unlikely I think.

Decent amount of water, the great lighthouse is a possibility.

Looks less and less likely a pure lakes map. That is a large body of water for a lakes map isn't it?
A cultural victory with sushi is something to consider if we have a lot of water too.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Toto's moves:

I suggest that we move Toto SW and around the edge of our revealed plot boundary, revealing plots in a back and forth between the south ocean and the east ocean in an expanding spiral such that we maximize revealed plots per turn Toto is moved.

For Toto's path to Deer I prefer SW -> NW -> N -> NW to W -> NW -> NW, because I'd prefer to see any nearby land ASAP rather than coming back to it later; it only cost an extra turn.

Technology path: Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> Bronze Working

Comments on Technology path:

If we find horses, we may want to continue on to Horseback Riding, since we already have Archery.

We will want at least Mining, once we have a settler for the Gems and Deer plots.

We will want Bronze Working to chop forests and find Copper for Axemen, though we haven't yet contacted an AI to fight yet.

Thus:

Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> Bronze Working

If we find horse, we may continue ...

-> Horseback Riding -> The Wheel -> Pottery

or

-> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Horseback Riding

If no horse, we my continue ...

-> Iron Working -> The Wheel -> Pottery

We may want to see where Iron is located earlier, if we find no Copper. Otherwise, if we find Copper, we may want to connect it before looking for Iron ...

-> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Iron Working

In any case, my turn set is unlikely to last longer than:

Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> Bronze Working

Builds: Worker will complete on turn 15

We may want to start an Archer or Warrior at that time.

Length of Turn Sets:

Do we want 10 turn sets now or 20 turn sets as originally suggested for the first two turn sets and 10t thereafter?

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Manco Capac]

Length of Turn Sets:

Do we want 10 turn sets now or 20 turn sets as originally suggested for the first two turn sets and 10t thereafter?

Sun Tzu Wu

I feel it is more a fair share (at least for you) in the early game. Otherwise, you wouldn't do much except moving a warrior. Nonetheless, since we are almost playing altogether (by seeking consensus), do we really play turn sets alone?

Oh yeah... That decision is up to bcool, but I let my opinion of it.

 

[bcool]

Pause for tech testing?
Since we need hunting for the deer we may want to interupt animal handling for it. With hunting we get a 20% discount for research we put into animal handling. Of course this delays mining and bronze working, so it is something I think we should test. Do we need to test the idea or is it garbage?
Regardless hunting has to be fit it relatively soon if we make the gems site our 2nd city.

Regarding other tech speculation
I think it is too early to know. If we are isolated clearly horseback riding and ironworking coud wait for a long time. Too many variables.

Scouting
I would rather push Toto W-NW-NW. I expect we will build another warrior before our 1st settler and that warrior will have time to explore the the farther ocean tiles. Getting contact with the AI a turn earlier can have significant impacts on our research, and it will give more info that could drastically change our strategy for the beginning stretch. What teams are there? Are they close? Are we isolated? I would rather know these things 1 turn earlier.

Length of Turn Sets
Let's keep the turns 10 turns long to keep everyone more involved.

 

[Walter_Wolf]

For Toto's path to Deer I prefer SW -> NW -> N -> NW to W -> NW -> NW, because I'd prefer to see any nearby land ASAP rather than coming back to it later; it only cost an extra turn.

The hill SW is only 4 tiles away from Washington, so checking it later should be no problem for a future warrior/archer or even worker unit as there shouldn't appear any barbarians.
Maybe it would be better not to waste the extra turn now.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Need one more vote for W -> NW -> NW:

Toto's moves:
...
For Toto's path to Deer I prefer SW -> NW -> N -> NW to W -> NW -> NW, because I'd prefer to see any nearby land ASAP rather than coming back to it later; it only cost an extra turn.

OK, I will go with W -> NW -> NW as well, making it 5 of 8 with 3 not responding so far. That would be a majority, but not yet a consensus. For that we need at least one more vote for it.

New vote for Hunting now:

Pause for tech testing?
Since we need hunting for the deer we may want to interrupt animal handling for it. With hunting we get a 20% discount for research we put into animal handling. Of course this delays mining and bronze working, so it is something I think we should test. Do we need to test the idea or is it garbage?
Regardless hunting has to be fit it relatively soon if we make the gems site our 2nd city.

If we continue Animal Husbandry it will complete on t13 (8 more turns), two turns before the worker is completed. It will take the worker an extra turn to get to either Sheep or Cow to improve them. It will take 6 turns to complete Hunting, so our worker will be idle for 3 turns while Animal Husbandry is completed, but it can work on a Corn Farm instead. It will save 2 turns on Animal Husbandry, because that last turn is really only about 1/3 of turn. It will push back everything else by 4 turns x 10 Bpt = 40B until such time that delayed Hunting must be researched to work the Deer. At that point Hunting now becomes 16B ahead of Hunting later due to the discount on AH.

It also allows us to built a scout after the worker, and that tips the scale in favor of the idea, if anyone doubts the discount alone is not enough.

Please provide your yes or no vote on interrupting Animal Husbandry right now to complete Hunting.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[shulec]

W->NW->NW sounds good.

Beyond that, I am thinking west, not north. I think this increases our likelihood of finding AI as well, I would want to start settling toward where the AI will most likely be. We should be seeing scouts soon unless we are isolated or connected by a small yellow brick road.

Bear in mind that we do have a jungle tile to the west, so we may see a panther, or worse yet, not see a panther that still kills us with his two movement points.

I vote yes for hunting.

 

[frogdude]

I vote W-NW-NW for the warrior. We need to discover ASAP what direction our nearest neighbor is, and I don't see that visibility of a couple of water tiles down there will be critical in the shortterm as we are highly unlikely to place our second city down there.
A subsequent bored unit of some description can always make the detour.

The tech decision is harder. On one hand, it does get us hunting significantly faster. However, it delays AH sufficiently that:

1. We're committed to working the corn first. This costs us potential science vs working the sheep square. However, this isn't all bad, as corn->cow->sheep is playable.
   I have been having some good things happen with working sheep->cow->corn as a work order as it leaves the worker in a much better position to do work on the river plains hills as the 4th piece of work. This plan is also better from a science point of view.
   I'm intending to do some more testing on the work order, but thought we'd have more time to sort this out.
2. Since AH & BW are delayed, we will lose some hammers if we happen to have had horses/bronze in our capital's BFC.

When we need hunting depends a little on what else we find, and where precisely we want to place the second city. We need hunting 'when the deer is in the workable BFC of the side city out there.'
This needs to be shortly after the first settler (turn 40ish) if and only if the 2nd settler settles the square W or NW of the deer.
If we find other stuff out there, we may well want the 2nd city further out, at which point either it is only relevant after the capital pops borders again.

As for warriors vs scouts, I'm not sure the warriors aren't better choices anyway. They're much more solid once the barbs start sending stuff. Give them double woodsman and the warriors can pretty much keep pace with scouts. Since charismatic, it is easier to get them there as it will only take around 2 fights.
Of course, maybe this is just because of my personal habit of losing scouts easily, which is some cases is certainly because I did not pay sufficient attention to them

 

[Kaitzilla]

I agree with W->NW->NW. That area is good for perhaps our 5th city at best, and the odds of glimpsing a civ by moving SW onto the hill are remote in my estimation.


The hunting question is a bit trickier. We already have archery. Delaying research even 4 turns might ruin our chances of getting an oracle or stonehenge before the teamed AI's.

Look at what the mapmaker has done and ask, "which techs do we NOT want right now?"
Deer next to gems next to desert incense next to silk. How unnatural is that?
Forest spam that demands bronze working.
Two good animal husbandry tiles.
A broken river that begs for roads to establish trade routes to our capital.
Ocean/Coasts with a hint of world buildering for the great lighthouse/sailing temptation.
Marble and Stone in case we felt the urge to tech masonry.


Having said all that, I do not believe any wonders are that critical for this game except for perhaps The Great Lighthouse if this is a water map.

So I vote yes for hunting. With 8 AI, settling towards them can gain us the biggest possible peacetime empire. The first worker can always mine that plains hill waiting for Bronze Working.

 

[bcool]

Hunting Question
I know I'm the one who suggested it, but I don't think I'm voting for it.
I think the hunting question needs some testing. If we end up working the farmed corn instead of the improved sheep we might lose just as much commerce as we gain researching hunting before finishing animal handling.
Add that to the potential delay in revealing horses/copper suggests the decision is much closer.

We need some detailed tests to really tease out if hunting now gives any benefit.

I too doubt that building a scout is something we want to do. I've only built scouts if I had goody huts to explore and I thought they had a good chance of avoiding significant barbarians.

Edit:Some testing of the hunting question

I tried 3 scenarios
1) no hunting (continue animal handling, mining, bronze working, and I had the worker improve sheep then farm)

2) hunting first, but accelerated animal handling completion by 1 turn by switching from sheep to lake for 1 turn. (then mining, bronze working) worker improved sheep 1st with a 1 turn delay and then farm

3) hunting first, no switch to lake, then mining, bronze working) worker improved farm first then cows

Results
1) on T26 Bronze working 92/187 (no hunting a 62 research tech*) 3 pop 5/26 food 13/15 on warrior
works sheep by T19, mining finished by T20, farm complete by T26
2) on T26 Bronze working 31/187 (with hunting) 3 pop 2/26 food 11/15 on warrior
works sheep by T20, mining finished by T24, farm will finish by T27
3) on T26 Bronze working 20/187 3 pop 3/26 14/15 on warrior
Farm finished T20, cows finished T25, mining finished by T25

My conclusion is hunting first is worse than finishing animal handling even assuming no advantages from knowing where horses might be or copper might be several turns earlier.
If you look at the research situation the no hunting path (option 1) is even or ahead of the research of the other options. Especially if you consider that we will get research bonuses on teching hunting if we meet any other AI before ~T33. Assuming like any Emperor game all the AI know hunting.

So I vote animal handling, mining, bronze working (no hunting for now)

Now others might disagree with my testing or worker improvement plans, but I assume the situation with animal handling first will still be better.

 

[Walter_Wolf]

The gem site needs deer improved early only if there isn't any other food resource around (We can hope there is some seafood SW/SW-W of the deer). The scout would probably arrive around the time barbarian warriors and archers start spamming, so it's a risky build IMO.
bcool's scenario 1 seems most reasonable.

btw. the SGOTM page scores graph shows we have the best 3800BC score. Does that mean others didn't settle on the first turn?

 

[mabraham]

I agree with bcool's analysis that switching to Hunting is not best, but would like the chance to test those approaches out to production of the first settler, plus a variation of 1) that gets sheep, cow, then corn improved. This variation sets up for the fourth improvement best (by minimizing time spent walking the worker) and gets the highest-production tiles working fastest. I think at the point the cows might get improved second after sheep, we actually want hammers so we have some more scout warriors and land explored by the time the settler arrives.

More generally, earlier access to the sheep commerce, the prospect of AI-based discounts to Hunting, earlier chops and possible earlier horses or bronze make getting the beaker bonus from switching to Hunting seem less good to me. There is about enough time to get Hunting after BW and before we settle. Note that the T50 culture pop from the capital will get the deer and gems, so we might well choose to settle that city further west so as to have gems and deer in its outer ring, which further delays the need for Hunting.

Another thing worth noting is that pastures take 4 turns to build and farms 5, so "farm first" takes an extra turn to improve the tile.

As a minor issue, if we have hunting and a metal, we can't build warriors, but it is not clear this would ever matter.

If knowing Hunting merely reduces the number of beakers required for AH, then we have about 5-6 turns up our sleeve before we have to commit to either decision - but I'd want to test this to be sure.