SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

[Kaitzilla]

Heh, there are many things we can do this weekend if people wish to roll up their sleeves.


1)Create a more accurate test map.
It is beyond my abilities

2)Research Random AI.
Does it affect unit cap? Favorite Civic? Do traditional zealots spam missionaries still?

3)Research Teamed AI.
Who votes for whom with UN? How much do AI value Tech trades?

4)Grand strategy:
Can anything but dom/conquest win gold vs. Plastic Ducks on Emperor?



I can take a swing at #1. With what we know about the game settings, we might be able to whittle down the 33 possible maps down to a more reasonable number to guess which map type was used. This is mostly an exercise in futility due to worldbuilder, but I will try anyway.

If I was making Wizard of Oz, I'd pick Fantasy Realm . However, our map looks sane, while fantasy is usually bat-crazy insane.


All 33 map types: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246788#boreal

Maps that can be eliminated because Flat setting is impossible to select:

Ice Age
Tilted Axis
Big and Small
Earth 2
Hemispheres
Medium and Small
Tectronics

Temperate and Low Seas does not eliminate any maps not already eliminated. (Darn the mapmaker!)

The number of land tiles we have (1321, thnx Sun Tzu!) only eliminates one map, the ultra-small Team Battleground that Tachywaxon mentioned (which started this post). That map tops out at 1024 total tiles.

There, whittled 33 maps down to 25!

After that, it is time to make some educated guesses.
I can't imagine we are on a Great Plains map with 19 land tiles being the most land heavy BFC of them all.
Being on a Rainforest map also stretches the imagination, looking at our starting location.

The remaining 23 maps are:

Spoiler :

Aboria
Archipelago
Balanced
Boreal
Continents
Custom Continents
Donut
Fantasy Realm
Fractal
Global Highlands
Highlands
Hub
Inland Sea
Islands
Lakes
Maze
Mirror
Oasis
Pangea
Ring
Shuffle
Terra
Wheel

I will try to whittle down the maps further by removing those that don't ever average around 1321 land tiles, and then those where the 8 AI never start with between 14 to 18 BFC land tiles.

 

[bcool]

My best guess right now is a Islands map with land bridge (aka yellow brick road) world built in.

I don't think eliminating map types that don't average 1321 is necessarily an accurate way to do it because there could be significant map editting.

I think we can safely eliminate Boreal, Fantasy Realm, Global Highlands (not enough hills/mountains in our map)

I would assume that the map type is one that has many AI on the coast already to minimize worldbuilding work by the original map maker would have to do. So Islands or Archipelago would be the places to start I would imagine.

 

[mabraham]

I played a game through of option B, then building a second worker, no switch to slavery, partial warrior to grow to size 4 while finishing river Pmine, then four chops into two settlers (T41, T45). I could plant the wheat city just as I finished Sailing (build Lighthouse), and the stone city a moment thereafter (build WB). These cities did get a trade route between themselves (because I'd fogbusted the southern route) but obviously not one to the capital yet. Then I could eke my way to Mysticism, start Stonehenge (done T57 without stone or whips), eke Masonry to start GLH done T73. Before then, I had started the Pyramids out of sheer boredom in the capital (done about T81). By T72 or so I'd settled the southern coastal city also, had a pile of workers, and had teched out Hunting, Wheel and Pottery. So things were all set to explode in a big way - if those wonder times are (close to) fast enough.

I know people have been suggesting skipping the second worker, or using slavery. I really don't see these ideas improving things much (or at all!). I can skip the partial warrior build to get settlers T39 and T44, but settling earlier doesn't help a great deal if our worker hasn't arrived to farm the wheat, Sailing isn't done (so there's nothing to build), or the stone city doesn't have the river Gmine chopped out (to get its WB out fast). None of the cities really have fast enough food to have wanted to do pre-Granary whipping yet. Getting cities settled faster is not good if we don't have workers to improve tiles and useful buildings to build. Likewise, a whip of the only useful building is not great if we'll have to revert to building warriors that we might not really need.

 

[Manco Capac]

^
first because I was doing some tests in regards TGL,

then,

because that plan is superior. I should stop exhausting myself with test games. Can't emulate the Master.

Here are my sh*tty test games.

Better tomorrow keep myself to PPP only.

Too bad, almost two hours lost once again...

 

[bcool]

I know people have been suggesting skipping the second worker, or using slavery. I really don't see these ideas improving things much (or at all!). I can skip the partial warrior build to get settlers T39 and T44, but settling earlier doesn't help a great deal if our worker hasn't arrived to farm the wheat, Sailing isn't done (so there's nothing to build), or the stone city doesn't have the river Gmine chopped out (to get its WB out fast). None of the cities really have fast enough food to have wanted to do pre-Granary whipping yet. Getting cities settled faster is not good if we don't have workers to improve tiles and useful buildings to build. Likewise, a whip of the only useful building is not great if we'll have to revert to building warriors that we might not really need.

If I whipped the 1st settler I would probably settle him SE of the cows, so that it could share tiles with the capital and those work improved tiles as the capital regrew. It could immediately build workboats or explorers/defenders. I'll test that a bit.

edit: I can get similar results to mabraham by whipping and settling the southern city first. I got the GLH end of T72 I settled the southern site T38, settled gems site T46, stone/crab site T72 (with a workboat planted same turn).

The biggest difference in my game was no mysticism and no stonehenge. I got to pottery by the end of T72.

So the paths are close, I would imagine both paths are worth investigating. I'm assuming both of our results could be improved upon (since that was just a quick test on my part).

Was something wrong with my update to the test game? edit: it does lack archery... was there something else?

Tachy, I know how you feel, but if you work really hard you can sometimes improve them

 

[Manco Capac]

If I whipped the 1st settler I would probably settle him SE of the cows, so that it could share tiles with the capital and those work improved tiles as the capital regrew. It could immediately build workboats or explorers/defenders. I'll test that a bit.

Was something wrong with my update to the test game?

Tachy, I know how you feel, but if you work really hard you can sometimes improve them

Not much wrong with your updated test game except adjusting tech and build, burning a jungle that spread north to gems, units name added. Your test game is just fine.

I somewhat wanted to control my own turn-set; it looks like it won't be like this. My tests game are casted too much in the future, but I wanted to see if my turn-set may change the impact in the future, but the moment I checked if no one beat me to it, guess what. It is just getting tiresome all my contributions become obsolete minutes after. I just don't want to sit back and enjoy the show, I want to include myself too. STW, you are right, I am trying too hard, I surrender.

 

[bcool]

I somewhat wanted to control my own turn-set; it looks like it won't be like this. My tests game are casted too much in the future, but I wanted to see if my turn-set may change the impact in the future, but the moment I checked if no one beat me to it, guess what. It is just getting tiresome all my contributions become obsolete minutes after. I just don't want to sit back and enjoy the show, I want to include myself too. STW, you are right, I am trying too hard, I surrender.

This is an important issue that we should address. I don't want anyone to feel their contributions are not valuable.

Maybe we shouldn't contribute to the MM discussion until the active player puts out a PPP? Would that make the active player feel like they have more say as to how their turnset goes?

With these early 10 turn sets unfortuately a lot of your turnset depends what we do longer term, so we do need to test out different paths to make good decisions about the current turnset. And these longer term tests do take a lot of time, so we don't necessarily want to wait for the PPP to look at them.

The other possibility that I've seen suggested is that we somehow divide up tasks so that not everyone is duplicating each others work. So like someone is responsible for making the test game, someone else is keeping track of great people generation, someone else is the long term strategy guy, etc.

So we could have these sub roles (and make reports on them to help the active player). Of course all of these different aspects of the game work together, so everyone has to be somewhat involved it each aspect. And the active player of course has to put it all together.

With a larger team we could have more than one person on the same aspect/task so they can work together or in parallel to find the best solutions. And these roles could evolve or switch as the roles becomes more or less important, or as new roles come up (war leader for example) (diplomatic number cruncher) (which personality is which AI guy)

What do other people think?

 

[Kaitzilla]

I somewhat wanted to control my own turn-set; it looks like it won't be like this. My tests game are casted too much in the future, but I wanted to see if my turn-set may change the impact in the future, but the moment I checked if no one beat me to it, guess what. It is just getting tiresome all my contributions become obsolete minutes after. I just don't want to sit back and enjoy the show, I want to include myself too. STW, you are right, I am trying too hard, I surrender.

I know how you feel. I spent an hour looking up how units earned XP, wrote a post, and then saw others already did it first . It will probably happen a lot with 8 good players trying to run the same game.

And it does improve the game. Already I have would have forgotten about the T50 capital's border pop, done hunting first for research, and been a turn slower to a 2-pop capital (21/22 food my way). That kind of great micro will help us tons later.


As for grand strategy, everything affects it, even the stuff we do that seems like a no brainer. We could drop a city ON the stone and probably bang out Stonehenge no problem. Free monuments, a centered map! . But what would we use the great prophet for later? Most would say a shrine or Theology, but what if we have no religious capital or we have skipped Meditation and Theology to pursue Astronomy bulb? We could add a library and scientists to tilt it towards a great scientist, but that would require us to research writing, delaying other things.

By netting both Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working, we have probably already blown our chance for a deep Oracle play. We want to focus on what techs we can skip for now I think, since the mapmaker has added things that make us want them ALL. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if we find Ivory up north, just to make us want horseback riding for those eventual elephants.


Once the team gets out to around 50 turns, I'm positive we will start to have major disagreements on what to do. *


*Disclosure, first SGOTM and thus only pretending to be cool*

 

[bcool]

Re: deep Oracle play

We still have time to reconsider our strategy here. However, I think we can reasonably get the Great Lighthouse or the Oracle, but probably not both. This primarily what I was referring to when I said we had to sacrifice for the GLH.

I haven't tried to get both, nor have I just tried to get the Oracle.

The traditional deep oracle plays do not seem as beneficial in this game as some. Since our capital isn't a great commerce capital, the Civil Service slingshot is not as good (and very hard to do successfully since our commerce is so limited)

Oracling construction for catapults or elephants is also limited unless we have a nearby AI that is hiding without scouts.

My impression is the TGH is the stronger play and we pick up the oracle if for some strange reason it goes very late.
And I would rather keep forests for a late Oracle play, rather than a stonehenge chop. (I'm not adverse to building stonehenge, but I think our forests might have better uses)

 

[bcool]

I finally took a look at your test game finally Tachy, and you beat both mabraham and my times to the GLH, so there must be some value there!

rereading mabraham's post too, suggests his test is quite impressive. It would be nice to see a save file, just to see if my game is anywhere close to competing.

 

[bcool]

In an effort to maximize everyone efforts and avoid duplicating our efforts, I'm suggesting that we may want to take on roles.

I'm imagining that there would be both major roles and minor roles. And that people could take 1 major role and 1 minor role (so there would be a lot of overlap). And of course anyone could contribute to any role if they have the time.

So initial brainstorming (major and minor roles, some will switch from minor roles to major roles as the game changes)

Major Roles
1) Micromanaging city tile use, builds, growth, and city placement
2) Test Game creator and backup updater
3) Devil's Advocate (you try to poke holes in the arguments of the other major roles)
4) Long term strategy

Minor Roles
1) War logistics and implementation
2) Great People (generating the right types, strategies for bulbing, how to use)
3) Wonders (evaluating which ones, where, and why)
4) Turn set summarizer
5) Team captain (primary job making sure turnset smoothly transitions to the next active player)
6) Random Personality AI decoder

Others?

I'm imagining that people would take 1 or more major roles, and a minor role. Ideally we have more than 1 person on each role as both a backup and to keep the others on their toes within that role.

On the turnsets, people would focus on their roles, but of course they can contribute to other aspects of the game if they have the time and/or they think they have a better idea.

The active player would still be responsible for a PPP, but each role would give a report before or after the PPP is posted and the active player would assimulate the suggestions into a PPP and try to resolve conflicts between the different roles.
The active player if possible would also update the test game as they played the real game. The test game role would update the test game if the active player didn't have time or the experience to do so.

As the game progresses we can rotate roles, or create new ones as the game changes and our strategy takes shape.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I would assume that the map type is one that has many AI on the coast already to minimize worldbuilding work by the original map maker would have to do. So Islands or Archipelago would be the places to start I would imagine.

I agree with bcool here on map type. I'm now guessing that our map is based on Archipelago with Snaky Continents.

I know people have been suggesting skipping the second worker, or using slavery.

I don't agree with skipping a second worker. We should be chopping workers as well as settlers. On a water map, there should be at least one worker per city and possibly more, since we have so many forests to chop!

We have many non-slavery means of producing hammers, such as many hills for mines, cow pasture, and many forests.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

4)Grand strategy:
Can anything but dom/conquest win gold vs. Plastic Ducks on Emperor?

Conquest or Domination certainly is the best Victory Condition for a very early win, given that Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory is forbidden. A water map requiring Optics/Astronomy and Normal speed will make this more difficult to achieve, but that simply means the victory will come significantly later.

Using The Oracle for Feudalism may allow a faster Conquest, via adopting Vassalage and its +2 XP for all military units built and free support for many additional units. Monarchy is the only moderately large (early) Technology required to do this.

A Great Prophet can be used to bulb Theology and allows adoption of Theocracy for +2 XP in cities with the State Religion; may require building some State Religion Missionaries.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[bcool]

I'm assuming we will continue to use the PPP format and let people contribute where and as they can. If anyone thinks the role idea is a good one we can explore it in parallel with the next few turnsets. If it is a bad one just let me know and I'll drop it.

In the meantime let's focus on the next 10 turns which shouldn't be too drastically different no matter which way we go.

 

[Manco Capac]

My PPP will come after school in 10 hours after this message I guess.

EDIT: I just came back and I will for myself some tests, then around 6-7 PM (GMT-6, forum time), I'll post my PPP. It is possible a rough is slowly coming meanwhile. Just one thing surprise me: the discussion stopped; what happened?

Mark, I am really curious of your plan of fast-rushing lots of wonders, may I ask the save(s)?
I really want to consider your test game. I am sorry for my bad attitude, if ever this is the cause you haven't posted lately.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No replies for distributing roles may mean people fears that our friendly team becomes a "corporation type" of team, overwhelming some maybe. Anyways, I will see in depth all the previous posts for the next two-three hours.

 

[frogdude]

I agree with bcool here on map type. I'm now guessing that our map is based on Archipelago with Snaky Continents.

It certainly does look like we have a 'zone' to ourselves. It's anyone's guess as to how the opponents are distributed.
The vision in the back of my head is a series of zones interconnected by landbridges. Sortof like a 'Hub' map, minus the central zone.

It is possible that the map is arranged such that, although a long walk to the 'wizard', he may be not far away by sea, so long term, I think we need to keep in mind that an astronomy assasination attempt could be in order.

I'm imagining that there would be both major roles and minor roles. And that people could take 1 major role and 1 minor role (so there would be a lot of overlap).

Feels very regimented to me. I like the free-flowing nature of the conversations to date, and I feel that everyone has been making good comments on a wide range of game aspects.
I'm quite enjoying thinking in depth about some of the issues we're facing, as my natural play style for solo play is just to mash the end turn button lazily for awhile and just do stuff randomly.

Also, everyone should get in there and make random comments, even if of a 'this feels right but haven't tested/thought about it in depth' type ones. This is because even though some people have put a lot of analysis into something, it is easy to miss obvious alternatives.

Conquest or Domination certainly is the best Victory Condition for a very early win, given that Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory is forbidden. A water map requiring Optics/Astronomy and Normal speed will make this more difficult to achieve, but that simply means the victory will come significantly later.

Speaking of ignorant questions, time for mine. Conquest/Domination doesn't look ultra speedy at the moment, simply because we can't find any opponent, let alone the wizard
If we want to keep Cultural on the table, how do we need to setup our empire ideally? I've never played Cultural victories competitively, so not sure of the best setup.
Is it possible to setup a proper Cultural empire, and still maintain enough of a war machine to crush the wizard?

For at least the next while, we should probably keep the game aim flexible while we try and find these hidden opps.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I'm not too thrilled with doing roles. It would require all of us to communicate constantly, slowing us down even more I believe.

I'd rather just have everyone keep throwing in their best advice, and trusting the person playing the game for 10 turns will do their best.

 

[Manco Capac]

Hmmm...I am testing warrior scouting, and I find difficult to make the coastal brigde for trade route early without strongly diverting a warrior path.
I only see warrior #3 doing the job and make a U turn back to stone city. By T40, warrior #3 is on the FPH right besides stone, just enough time to see of other resources are hidden in fog.

I may have a way to reduce to zilch the risk of our settler being killed on gem tile by double-movement animals with bringing back second warrior if tundra is found. A worker may come along, so better be careful or it is a disaster. The warrior #2 should be back to PH 3 tiles NW by T40.

Late prediction, but it crosses my turn-set, so not useless.

I am more and more leaning towards mabraham plan B as I can't find stronger path.

 

[bcool]

scouting the coastal connection to 2nd and 3rd city
I think we will likely have another unit to scout with by the time we have 2 settlers. Something produced by our 2nd city perhaps.

However I wouldn't mind changing the warrior scouting plans to see more water. I think we might be missing some important seafood.

roles idea dropped
I'll drop the roles idea. I just didn't want anyone to get discouraged by their contributions not being used. Of course, plans that don't get used still make us better as Kaitzilla I believe pointed out. And by trying to do better than someone else's plan we learn regardless.

 

[Manco Capac]

scouting the coastal connection to 2nd and 3rd city
I think we will likely have another unit to scout with by the time we have 2 settlers. Something produced by our 2nd city perhaps.

However I wouldn't mind changing the warrior scouting plans to see more water. I think we might be missing some important seafood.

Wait I am testing that out.

Well, after second settler, we can get another warrior in one turn, but I prefer invest overflowing into another worker in four turns. Anyone disagreeing? The warrior #3 has enough time to investigate stone site before settling or does people find better to scout north more before returning to stone for protecting the settler?