SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

[shulec]

I would prefer that turnsets be ended and the game uploaded at the end of the turn. I would find it to be equally desirable to end turns sets and the game uploaded at the beginning of a turn only if the game is paused prior to upload.

Possibly this would be unnecessary, but isn't SGOTM success about doing the small things that may only be difference makers 1 out of 100 times.

 

[mabraham]

This is my fifth SGOTM and I've never encountered this argument for uploading from the beginning of a turn. Stopping at the beginning of the turn won't change this situation that much. The only difference is there will be one or more units to move first.

Stopping at end of turn X to prepare a new PPP has slightly less information than stopping at start of turn X+1. However, given that we will always stop during turn X, it's better to have discussion about the information acquired after end-of-turn X-1 than to not have discussion about that information, and perhaps have to react too late. Either way, we have to judge whether to consult the team about the information acquired at end of turn X (and after).

I agree that it is rare for this to matter much, and I'd have not brought it up except that the opposite approach has been suggested and that this can occasionally cost lots of real-life time. If we use the pause-game feature, then I think the advantage of uploading at the end of a turn is zero (and is slight even if we don't pause).

I strongly suggest that the game be paused before uploading. That way the game starts paused whenever a team member loads it to review the game state. (When the game is loaded paused, inadvertent moves are simply queued and can be cancelled via a normal exit of the game without un-pausing it.)

Pausing before uploading gains if a player inadvertently does an unintended action while team discussion is taking place. However if we train people to assume that it is paused, then some time when it is accidentally not paused we can lose because we've not got people trained to be focused and protecting themselves. The active player will always need to be focused and defensive while playing, and I'd rather we always have the same mind set when we've got the real save open, whether we are active or not.

I think people opening up the save need to make the most appropriate choice about how to discipline themselves. If I'm the sort of person that will misclick and make units move, then I know I need to use pause, reloading as necessary. If the flashing paused-game thing will irritate me, then I need to turn it off and use my extra focus to avoid doing silly things.

 

[Manco Capac]

deleted.

 

[mabraham]

Possibly this would be unnecessary, but isn't SGOTM success about doing the small things that may only be difference makers 1 out of 100 times.

I'd argue that SGOTM success is more about making the correct macro-level decisions than getting every single unit moved optimally. Sure, do the latter if you've got the former sorted out, but focus on the former. It doesn't matter if your whip micro is perfect for efficiently overflowing to a wonder, if you needed to be whipping an axeman to deal with the incoming threat. Getting macro-level decisions right relies on acquiring information and responding to it. Uploading at starts of turns caters slightly better to that.

In SGOTM13, Gypsy Kings with bcool and I had beautiful tile-sharing whip micro for a massive string of synergistic well-planned fast wonders, but that was only good enough to get us clear of the pack of teams who didn't realise they could just go and kill some people fast. PD and OSS went and killed people fast, and walked all over the field. With two more scout workboats (or luckier guesses with our existing ones) we'd have had the chance to settle better and gear up for war faster.

 

[mabraham]

I have made some minor updates to the PPP in the original post

 

[shulec]

Pausing before uploading gains if a player inadvertently does an unintended action while team discussion is taking place. However if we train people to assume that it is paused, then some time when it is accidentally not paused we can lose because we've not got people trained to be focused and protecting themselves. The active player will always need to be focused and defensive while playing, and I'd rather we always have the same mind set when we've got the real save open, whether we are active or not.

I think people opening up the save need to make the most appropriate choice about how to discipline themselves. If I'm the sort of person that will misclick and make units move, then I know I need to use pause, reloading as necessary. If the flashing paused-game thing will irritate me, then I need to turn it off and use my extra focus to avoid doing silly things.

I guess am OK with knowing that I should pause the game for myself if I download the game save when it is not my turn to play.

 

[shulec]

(Question: should I ensure we obtain enough vision now while Toto is here, so that we will have a coastal trade route later? Answer: Don't stress about it).

Can you clarify this for me? I am not sure what you mean by coastal trade routes. Do you mean overseas trade routes with other AI or coastal trade routes with our capitol?

 

[shulec]

I'd argue that SGOTM success is more about making the correct macro-level decisions than getting every single unit moved optimally. Sure, do the latter if you've got the former sorted out, but focus on the former. It doesn't matter if your whip micro is perfect for efficiently overflowing to a wonder, if you needed to be whipping an axeman to deal with the incoming threat. Getting macro-level decisions right relies on acquiring information and responding to it. Uploading at starts of turns caters slightly better to that.

In SGOTM13, Gypsy Kings with bcool and I had beautiful tile-sharing whip micro for a massive string of synergistic well-planned fast wonders, but that was only good enough to get us clear of the pack of teams who didn't realise they could just go and kill some people fast. PD and OSS went and killed people fast, and walked all over the field. With two more scout workboats (or luckier guesses with our existing ones) we'd have had the chance to settle better and gear up for war faster.

I certainly agree with you but would argue that PD probably made more of the 1 in 100 difference makers to push them in front of OSS.

 

[mabraham]

Can you clarify this for me? I am not sure what you mean by coastal trade routes. Do you mean overseas trade routes with other AI or coastal trade routes with our capitol?

Either internal or external trade routes, potentially. If we connected our capital to the coast at the moment, we have a discontinuity in our potential range for trade routes because of the fogged tile 2W of clams. We accepted that we would be able to bust that fog soon enough. Similarly, if we see that SW is a peninsula and don't see enough tiles for the hypothetical future trade routes, when/if we make an AI contact up the western coast (and have Writing and Sailing) we may find ourselves unnecessarily short of trade routes. It might not be so convenient to solve that issue at the time (barbs, say). The trade-off is a turn or two of scouting the peninsula vs scouting up the western coast faster, for the benefit of not needing to come back and finish the job.

frogdude pointed out that the river heading north might do some of this job - if it reaches the western coast, then we don't need to defog all the coast tiles as well.

One possible scenario is that we settle the coastal gems site, build an overland road to it (lacking Sailing at the time), and settle our third city on the coast SE of cows at about the time we get Sailing (say, for city two to try for GLH). Now we'd want to have defogged the coastal route from city two to city three to get the free +1/turn before we've had time to build a road to city three. Similar cases might exist if there's an AI up the western coast and we get Sailing and Writing.

 

[bcool]

I'd argue that SGOTM success is more about making the correct macro-level decisions than getting every single unit moved optimally. Sure, do the latter if you've got the former sorted out, but focus on the former. It doesn't matter if your whip micro is perfect for efficiently overflowing to a wonder, if you needed to be whipping an axeman to deal with the incoming threat. Getting macro-level decisions right relies on acquiring information and responding to it. Uploading at starts of turns caters slightly better to that.

In SGOTM13, Gypsy Kings with bcool and I had beautiful tile-sharing whip micro for a massive string of synergistic well-planned fast wonders, but that was only good enough to get us clear of the pack of teams who didn't realise they could just go and kill some people fast. PD and OSS went and killed people fast, and walked all over the field. With two more scout workboats (or luckier guesses with our existing ones) we'd have had the chance to settle better and gear up for war faster.

agreed.

I certainly agree with you but would argue that PD probably made more of the 1 in 100 difference makers to push them in front of OSS.

I was under the impression that PD finding and settling the gold early was significant (mostly by their use of the flying camera to optimize their early scouting). This was a situation where optimal scouting (a 1 in 100 difference maker) did help them early on.

But I think their early axe/cat rush of the great lighthouse was the macro level decision that really made the difference. (which they implemented well with micro level optimized whips and good logistics).

I'm happy with the changes to the PPP. And I'm happy with the suggestion that those who like the pause feature use it when they open the real save to avoid mistakes with the real save. And those who don't like it (me) are free to never use it

I would really like it if the save is uploaded at the beginning of a turn. The experience of accidently ending a turn when it wasn't my turn is something I don't want to repeat, ever. This is regardless of whether it is an advantage or not in terms of real life time devoted to events that occur at the end of the turn and change the priorities of the PPP.

 

[shulec]

Either internal or external trade routes, potentially. If we connected our capital to the coast at the moment, we have a discontinuity in our potential range for trade routes because of the fogged tile 2W of clams. We accepted that we would be able to bust that fog soon enough. Similarly, if we see that SW is a peninsula and don't see enough tiles for the hypothetical future trade routes, when/if we make an AI contact up the western coast (and have Writing and Sailing) we may find ourselves unnecessarily short of trade routes. It might not be so convenient to solve that issue at the time (barbs, say). The trade-off is a turn or two of scouting the peninsula vs scouting up the western coast faster, for the benefit of not needing to come back and finish the job.

frogdude pointed out that the river heading north might do some of this job - if it reaches the western coast, then we don't need to defog all the coast tiles as well.

One possible scenario is that we settle the coastal gems site, build an overland road to it (lacking Sailing at the time), and settle our third city on the coast SE of cows at about the time we get Sailing (say, for city two to try for GLH). Now we'd want to have defogged the coastal route from city two to city three to get the free +1/turn before we've had time to build a road to city three. Similar cases might exist if there's an AI up the western coast and we get Sailing and Writing.

So tell me if I understand this correctly about establishing trade routes without roads or rivers. Sailing is required for coastal trade routes. We also need to have a cleared all coastal fog between two cities before we can establish trade routes (if cultural boundaries do not touch.)

If the fog is still there but all of our cultural boundaries touch, will this establish trade routes?

 

[mabraham]

So tell me if I understand this correctly about establishing trade routes without roads or rivers. Sailing is required for coastal trade routes. We also need to have a cleared all coastal fog between two cities before we can establish trade routes (if cultural boundaries do not touch.)

If the fog is still there but all of our cultural boundaries touch, will this establish trade routes?

Culture of itself does not ever establish a trade route, but it can influence the role of a terrain feature (e.g. who controls a road).

In the present case, I understand one's culture is only relevant for trade routes lacking the relevant tech. A city 2N of sheep would have a trade route because the river inside our culture does not require Sailing. However, a city further north on the river would not have a trade route until we got Sailing or a border pop. I guess the rationale is something like that for galleys being able to traverse ocean inside our culture - our people know that land well enough to use it without being geniuses

It works similarly for culture between coastal cities, but I don't know offhand whether culture on just the land tile adjacent to the coast is sufficient for trade routes lacking Sailing.

 

[mabraham]

So we judged wrongly about Toto needing an upgrade. We lost him with both units needing one hit to win. So I have stopped on T11. Combat I would likely have seen us win, but we were trying for Woodsman II So we are a long way up the proverbial creek now. I haven't uploaded the save, because nothing has changed and we don't need to advertise that we lost Toto.

I noticed most teams uploading on T13, so we might well have settled on horses. We were first on land area, so that means AIs are pretty coastal.

Options

1. finish worker; if we settled on horses build warrior working PFH, tech wheel and get chariot
2. finish worker; if we settled on horses build warrior working PFH, tech mining->BW, build more warriors fast
3. finish worker; if we settled on horses build archer working PFH, tech mining->BW, build more warriors fast
4. switch to building warrior working PFH
5. switch to building archer working PFH

In all cases work the improved sheep tile when available, and then the PFH to get max hammers. We have to sacrifice some growth to get faster replacement scouts, in my view.

I like option 1. What do people want? Are there alternatives?

 

[bcool]

Truly a bummer.

I like option 1 as well. However it would be useful I think to see how much teching wheel changes things for us. It will delay chops and potential whips. We need to know how much it will slow our development before we can make a good decision I think. I'll have no time to test in the next 24 hours.

 

[Manco Capac]

Interesting beginning, already bad luck...

 

[neilmeister]

Poor Toto

 

[frogdude]

Option 1 sounds reasonable, but some testing might be in order. Wheel was pretty early on the list anyway.
I'm not too concerned about the delay in the whips, but are we running the risk of Eiffel running out of work if we delay bronze working? Will mining that plains river hill north of corn keep him busy long enough?

Not sure that teams uploading on turn 13 means much. They may just have been pausing 'after they found out whether or not they got horses'. I'm not sure you can conclude 'they got horses'.

I knew putting in an unlucky man in charge of this turnset was a bad idea

 

[Manco Capac]

Not sure that teams uploading on turn 13 means much. They may just have been pausing 'after they found out whether or not they got horses'. I'm not sure you can conclude 'they got horses'.

I am sure starting another warrior right away will only put us more in disadvantage (we are enough disadvantaged already...) compared to other teams and let's continue the worker at all cost. Thus I won't deal with option 4 and 5 as well. mabraham, if a consensus ensued regarding not switching to something else than the existing worker build, then you should continue the play until AH is teched and then we can make test games on a firm ground. Anyways, if we continue the worker, nothing will really happen (except meeting an AI scout).
What do you think, guys? Of course, let's pray there are no AI's badly placed for us (North?), boxing Dorothy.

My question is: Are options 4 or 5 really giving us benefit or do we must reject them? My thinking process is "can we really test the benefit of making another warrior (let's forget the archer, it is really too costly!) right away when we do not even know what's await us beyond the known world?"

I vote for worker first. And we have to know if horses are under the capital tile.

 

[mabraham]

OK that's four of us who want to finish the worker, so I will play on to finish AH while building the worker. Then we have some data to see whether a tech switch might be reasonable.

Neil, can you beam us in a new Toto?

 

[Manco Capac]

OK that's four of us who want to finish the worker, so I will play on to finish AH while building the worker. Then we have some data to see whether a tech switch might be reasonable.

Neil, can you beam us in a new Toto?

Just to know, at what GMT-6 time will you play those two next turns?