SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

Not everyone has expressed an opinion on the warrior move, but no one currently holds any other opinion other than moving 1SE.

So when you are ready Sun Tzu Wu, you can move the warrior 1SE save the game and upload either screenshots and/or the save game here. (Since you can't upload a 4000 BC save to the regular site).

I'm more concerned about how playing against teams will affect everything from Grand Strategy, work stealing tactics, early rushes, etc.

I my opinion, we should all play test games versus AI teams (2, 2, 2, 2) or (3, 2, 2, 1). We need to determine which Victory Condition is most likely to result in a very early win without worrying much about the Wizard. In my opinion spending at least 1-2 weeks and even more just playing test games to better understand what we are up against would be well worth the time spent.

If everyone wants me to move the Warrior 1 SE to reveal more of the map, I can do that and post the new save. Dealing with several AI teams should not affect REX and searching for better capital sites.

AI teams (from the perspective of PA team formation) are not very well coordinated. Also, I would guess that each AI can research its own Technology and they aren't necessarily the same. Teams will need to research at least +50% more beakers when teamed up than playing solo.

Again, I'd prefer that we don't be too hasty in the beginning. The AI team thing was just the sort of information from the start file that puts most of our bigger plans into disarray. We need to start regrouping and understand how to defeat AI Teams. An Emperor Team of 2 is probably much easier to defeat than a single Deity AI Leader (2 Settlers, 2 Scouts and 4 Archers), right?

In the mean time, I will move poor Toto 1 SE and report the results and save file here later tonight.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
I've tried the (3,2,2,1) test game and here is what I found.


The pace is faster. Especially at the start! Using espionage, I saw the AI teams researching the same tech together to get it done much faster.

First animal I saw was Turn 11, first time the barbs came in force to pillage hard was Turn 68.

Espionage is screwed up even more than usual. As far as espionage costs go, the x3 team got triple esionage, x2 teams got double espionage. Even with a settled great spy I had +24% to espionage mission costs when I finally tried to start stealing from lion/tin man/scarecrow.

Once an AI gets a tech the rest immediately have it. :(
Not 100% sure but I think they might share resources too.

War vs. one is war vs. all.
Also, the wars the AI teams got into were not overly long. Between 10-20 turns frequently. Seemed to be caused mostly be religious differences.

Diplo modifiers are seperate. When making decisions if feels like the diplo "average" is used. If you want friendly lion,tinman,scarecrow bloc, have to get each of the 3 civs friendly I think.

Begging is seperate for each AI, but the 10 turn peace is linked.

AI's judgement on what a tech is worth seems a bit off. Got construction, calendar, and 100 gold for currency. :eek:

And finally, the "Wizard" was so far behind, it was pathetic. Those are my first impressions. :crazyeye:
 
First some Settings observations (F8/Settings tab); I don't recall anyone else mentioning these:

Flat (World), thus not Cylindrical or Toroidal.

Temperate Climate

Low Sea Level

Scouting observations:

1) No additional seafood was found.

2) Toto is now 2 plots from the east edge of the map.

3) E of Crab appears to be Ocean (East Map Edge)

4) SE of Crab is Ocean (East Map Edge)

5) 4 E of Settler is Ocean (East Map Edge)

6) E of Desert Hill appears to be Ocean (East Map Edge)

7) SE of Desert Hill appears to be Ocean (East Map Edge)

8) S of Desert Hill is Riverside Grassland

9) 2 S of Desert Hill is Riverside Marble Desert Hill

10) E of Marble Desert Hill appears to be Ocean (East Map Edge)

11) SE of Marble Desert Hill appears (guess) to be Desert (East Map Edge)

12) S of Marble Desert Hill appears (guess) to be Riverside Grassland Hill

* "(guess)" means I'm not as good at divining unrevealed terrain as mabraham!

Comments:

We should be very pleased with our 1 move scouting maneuver of "Toto go SE". Not the bounty of resources we hoped for, but knowing where Marble is this early isn't bad, right?

The closeness of the east edge of the map strongly suggests that we are on a flat land map with some Lakes and Oceans. "Yes, Toto, we are on a Lakes Map, if only I can tap my shoes like in the movie we'd know for sure." Given that we have Low Sea Level there may not be many large Lakes or even small Oceans. Being on the map edge will make Conquest much more difficult to achieve early. Being on the east map edge also makes Domination harder, but not as hard as Conquest, since we don't need the west 3/10 of the map for Domination and thus Civs exclusively in that area could be war allies. Cultural Victory can actually be easier on a map edge and no need to meet all Civs, except one, assuming The Wizard of Oz is a Civ. Diplomatic Victory is not affected much, but most Civs (not all) must be met and subdued.

I strongly suggest that we keep a Cultural Victory as close secondary victory goal, in case our primary victory goal Domination or Diplomatic proves untenable. Being Philosophical will allow a reasonably early Cultural Victory, especially with successful early rush that gains two capital cities as the 2nd and 3rd culture cities.

We should consider whether we want to use the Settler is scout South, but settling 1W still seems best. There are fewer Forests south, but greater chance of Horse, Copper and Iron and other resources in as yet unexplored plots.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
I've tried the (3,2,2,1) test game and here is what I found.


The pace is faster. Especially at the start! Using espionage, I saw the AI teams researching the same tech together to get it done much faster.

First animal I saw was Turn 11, first time the barbs came in force to pillage hard was Turn 68.

Espionage is screwed up even more than usual. As far as espionage costs go, the x3 team got triple esionage, x2 teams got double espionage. Even with a settled great spy I had +24% to espionage mission costs when I finally tried to start stealing from lion/tin man/scarecrow.

Once an AI gets a tech the rest immediately have it. :(
Not 100% sure but I think they might share resources too.

Frogdude and I have quite a bit of experience of teams of AIs. Their beaker "box" and tech choices are common to the team. Resources are individual to the controlling civ, however. So each needs a metal to build metal units. Attributes like holding the Pyramids, Stonehenge or Great Wall go for all members of the team, but Golden Ages, GP boxes, GG boxes are individual for civs.

War vs. one is war vs. all.

Yes.

Also, the wars the AI teams got into were not overly long. Between 10-20 turns frequently. Seemed to be caused mostly be religious differences.

Diplo modifiers are seperate. When making decisions if feels like the diplo "average" is used. If you want friendly lion,tinman,scarecrow bloc, have to get each of the 3 civs friendly I think.

Yep, average has seemed about right. Note that Tokugawa's refusal to allow OB until after a war forces his teammate to do that too - not that we know who has Tokugawa's personality.

Begging is seperate for each AI, but the 10 turn peace is linked.

AI's judgement on what a tech is worth seems a bit off. Got construction, calendar, and 100 gold for currency. :eek:

Surely you had one of those techs almost completed...
 
Here's a screenshot of the new information.

Spoiler :
attachment.php
 

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We should be very pleased with our 1 move scouting maneuver of "Toto go SE". Not the bounty of resources we hoped for, but knowing where Marble is this early isn't bad, right?

Yes, marble suggests a tech path like AH (worker), Mining (warriors, then worker), BW (1 Settler, settle say 2S of corn), Myst (chop Stonehenge), Wheel, Pottery (chop granaries), Masonry, Poly (another settler or two), PH (chop Oracle), Writing, Oracle-bulb CoL, OR, GPro-bulb Monarchy and maybe later use a GPro for Confu holy building. Now we can get some libraries, get a GSci or two for academies, grow the population using warriors for happiness onto working masses of cottages while we explore the rest of the map and get a strong enough tech lead to start being able to take on teams of AIs. This will be particularly good if we do not find metals or horses for the early-war strategies - and we may learn that early wars would be suicide anyway!

I strongly suggest that we keep a Cultural Victory as close secondary victory goal, in case our primary victory goal Domination or Diplomatic proves untenable. Being Philosophical will allow a reasonably early Cultural Victory, especially with successful early rush that gains two capital cities as the 2nd and 3rd culture cities.

Yes, the geography does buff Cultural Victory, but if we get some early prophet- or engineer-polluting wonders, that would hurt a bit.

We should consider whether we want to use the Settler is scout South, but settling 1W still seems best. There are fewer Forests south, but greater chance of Horse, Copper and Iron and other resources in as yet unexplored plots.

Also in favour of settling 1W is that we have our capital further from the map edge, which is slightly better for capturing land and reducing mid-term maintenance costs. Settling the southern site second helps us avoid settling on top of copper and horses, should they exist. The desert hills marble (needing Masonry to get improved) is not enough to make settling south sound any better than it might otherwise have been.
 
Another point about geography is that while having our backs to a wall may make for easy defence, it gives us fewer choices of offensive opponent, when the time comes. Worker stealing might be particularly risky if that opponent has two teammates. Imagine they start north, west and south of us... ugh!

So we may find ourselves coerced into a peaceful opening while we tech out to Construction (or something).
 
Yes, marble suggests a tech path like AH (worker), Mining (warriors, then worker), BW (1 Settler, settle say 2S of corn), Myst (chop Stonehenge), Wheel, Pottery (chop granaries), Masonry, Poly (another settler or two), PH (chop Oracle), Writing, Oracle-bulb CoL, OR, GPro-bulb Monarchy and maybe later use a GPro for Confu holy building.

I had a go at this approach on a version of frogdude's 1v3v2v2v1 map that had the terrains updated with the new scouting information. I got Stonehenge T54 after AH-Mining-BW-Wheel-Mysticism, but I was nowhere near starting for the Oracle when it went T64. Then the triple AI got Monarchy around T82 when I was still short two of the minor techs to permit me to bulb it for the trading value. I had four decent city sites up, with plenty of cottages, but things were really not looking too good.
 

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Sorry didn't get a chance to play with the assumed set up of the game.

random thoughts
We might want to oracle construction if we are boxed in by a team of 3.

I agree that the marble doesn't make settling to the south any more appealing. Still could consider risking a move 1SE 1S with the settler, but I think settling 1W is looking like the best bet.

Does a flat map guarantee a lakes map? No time now to check, but can you have a continents map with a flat setting?
 
Dorothy arrived to Oz when a twister picked her house and it fell onto the wicked witch from the East.

The closeness of the east edge of the map strongly suggests that we are on a flat land map with some Lakes and Oceans. "Yes, Toto, we are on a Lakes Map, if only I can tap my shoes like in the movie we'd know for sure." Given that we have Low Sea Level there may not be many large Lakes or even small Oceans. Being on the map edge will make Conquest much more difficult to achieve early. Being on the east map edge also makes Domination harder ...

Well, seems like we have some resemblance with the story for now. It may not help us "along the road" with the gameplan (maybe diplo), but we could make a few guesses for "uncovering" the personalities later, when we meet the "witches".

The south didn't really fulfill the expectations but, as someone mentioned, knowing the marble location is great. I don't think settler scouting is worth loosing three turns. It doesn't seem to be very hilly in the south, and as everyone agreed, the 1W site looks pretty decent. The AI being grouped in teams and our east location calls for mabraham's REX strategy a few pages back with exploring/settling to the West.
Does building the archers while REX-ing instead of warriors complicate things? Archers would surely be better survivors during scouting, but no Tachy's woodsman enslavers :sad:.

A thought: warring against a lame AI during an early rush or warring against two of a kind shouldn't be that big of a deal, or am I wrong? (well, a big deal for me, but for Kakumeika? piece of cake:D).

cheers

EDIT: by deal I ment difference in the last paragraph
 
A thought: warring against a lame AI during an early rush or warring against two of a kind shouldn't be that big of a deal, or am I wrong? (well, a big deal for me, but for Kakumeika? piece of cake:D).

I second this thought and hope to do more tests on the practice games. I have seen that the AI have been willing to accept peace once their other half (or third) is wiped out. If we can make a true rush, I think we will have little to worry about with retaliation, as well we can try to steal workers at that time.

Obviously, we will take a bigger diplo hit for war declaration vs you declared on our friend.

In my tests, the AI will not make peace after a worker steal until the alphabet allows tech trading.
 
Worker stealing shoud probably be sinchronized against teammates. Stealing from both at the same time if possible. Max gain and min damage :crazyeye:.
 
Stealing workers from multiple team members may very well be impractical since I expect the witches at least to be separated by significant amounts of land.

We may want to develop a rexing plan or at least agree to a plan for the first 10 turns so we can make more accurate test games.

If we explore with the warrior for 10 turns and possibly meet 1 or more of the teams we could make significantly more detailed test games.

For example, I can't imagine what we would find with test games at this point that would cause us not to settle 1W and research animal handling and start a worker.
 
For example, I can't imagine what we would find with test games at this point that would cause us not to settle 1W and research animal handling and start a worker.

Agreed. I would scout SE to see the coastal seafood (if any), then SW. I can't see a reason to go via the marble desert hill. I would wait until about T9 to apply our upgrade, because we can't need it until then. My heart is in Woodsman I, but if were to find ourselves tracking across open lands, Combat I might prove to be wiser.

Also, could STW please put up "Real Game" signs on the lake and the ocean per my earlier suggestion, lest we inadvertently confuse people about which game they are looking at.
 
For example, I can't imagine what we would find with test games at this point that would cause us not to settle 1W and research animal handling and start a worker.

I definitely agreed that this is a good plan.

Agreed. I would scout SE to see the coastal seafood (if any), then SW ...

Also, could STW please put up "Real Game" signs on the lake and the ocean per my earlier suggestion, lest we inadvertently confuse people about which game they are looking at.

I concur with both points.

Warrior SE -> SW would take us to the beginning of turn 3 (before the Warrior is moved).


I can play till the beginning of turn 3 as described above with a consensus from the team.


Test Games:

Meanwhile, quick test games for those of us not familiar with AI team play would still be recommended although as bcool they won't help us decide the next few turns of play. Once the Worker is completed things will get interesting.

I agree with shulec that the AI teams may not be a strong as we think. Hitting one Civ of a team of two may work very well, especially when its partner is far away and unable to assist in the war effort. (The notion that AI can help each other with war is tongue in cheek; they are often barely able to take another AIs city, much less a human player's city that is adequately defended).

We need to understand the dynamics of war against teams, especially an early rush before we rule it out. We also need to contend with Normal speed which does make an early rush a little harder to pull off.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
Although I anticipate no dissenting votes to my plan, we still don't have a consensus yet, so I'll wait at least 18 hours more (nearly 24 hours total) before I make the planned moves till the start of turn 3.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
yes settling 1W, starting a worker and animal husbandry and moving Toto SE then SW sounds good.



I agree with this. Every strong opening I can imagine begins this way.

With normal speed and partnered AI, something exotic like archer-archer at the start would be ineffective and extraordinarily risky.



Once the Capital is founded, I would be interested in knowing the % of the dom with the 7 land tiles under our control.
 
I agree on the ppp

EDIT: maybe you would see more tiles revealed with warrior SE, S on the marble hill ?
 
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