SGOTM 14 - One Short Straw

[Mitchum]

This test map is strange since it's flipped from the screen shot. Having the sheep on the river makes a difference since it provides an extra coin. My save was similar to ZPV but I was a couple of turns behind on Alphabet, possibly not having that extra coin from the sheep made a difference.

I like the Alpha beeline in that it gets us our first GS ~T56. It should allow us to get The Wheel, Pottery, Mining, BW, Mysticism, Hunting, Archery, Masonry?, Sailing?, Med? and Poly? in trade quite early. What I don't like is that we only have 2 warriors: one for happiness in the capital and one fog buster / explorer. In addition, the worker has nothing to do after improving the 3 specials in our capital and our citizens spend many turns working unimproved tiles (the Forested Spice isn't terrible though).

Compare that with bbp's BW test where we have 4 warriors (instead of 2), 2 workers, and a third settler off to found our third city. It would be nice to have the Wheel early so that we could get a trade route established between our two cities. That would add 2 coins/turn to our income...

EDIT: Just re-read that ZPV would build an extra warrior instead of a partial WB.

 

[ZPV]

We won't be able to trade for Masonry - its monopoly value for the AI is way too high. Med and Poly are iffy, but the rest are tradable t52-53 if we want them.

I deliberately flipped the test map so that we don't accidentally confuse it with the real one.

 

[shyuhe]

Or maybe you could wait 'till next Wednesday night?

I guess I can - is there a good reason for doing so? I don't remember Dhoom or LC indicating that they had any plans other than moving the settler 1W. Or are we still toying around with the idea of settling in place?

Sorry I haven't had time to test out the options myself

I deliberately flipped the test map so that we don't accidentally confuse it with the real one.

We can also spam "TEST SAVE" and "REAL SAVE" signs on the maps. I'll do that to the real save when I pick it up (which looks like it will be next week).

 

[shyuhe]

Also, this is pretty awesome:

Following extensive discussions in various threads, and a review by the GOTM Staff, I have been persuaded that two methods for gaining prior map knowledge are contrary to the spirit of the GOTM/SGOTM competitions. The use of these techniques will therefore be banned during this game.

- Players are NOT permitted to use the 'Flying Camera' to look for details under the fog.

- Players are NOT permitted to map invisible terrain using the Go To facility.

I have added these constraints to the rules section of the first post in the Maintenance thread.

I doubt that will affect any of us, but nice nonetheless!

 

[Mitchum]

I guess I can - is there a good reason for doing so?

Snip...

We can also spam "TEST SAVE" and "REAL SAVE" signs on the maps. I'll do that to the real save when I pick it up (which looks like it will be next week).

You answered your own question. The saves won't be available until then.

 

[shyuhe]

Reading comprehension fail!

In any event, if anyone feels like SIP is better than any other option, please post you reasons by next Wednesday.

 

[Mitchum]

I just took a quick look at the dates different techs were learned:

bbp:
AH - T12
Mining - T19
BW - T32
Writing - T46

ZPV:
AH - T12
Writing - T26
Alphabet - T52T51

So, by beelining Alphabet and assuming we get the initial techs on T52 and the following ones on T53 via trade, we are without Mining for (52-1920) 33 32 turns and BW for (53-32 33) 21 20 turns. Other than that, the Alpha beeline pulls way ahead, including a much earlier Academy helping it pull even further ahead with respect to research. Of course, this assumes that we have enough AI to trade with. This tech boost comes at the expense of REX and security / exploration (fewer warriors).

 

[ZPV]

Mitchum (and everyone).
Can we agree on a convention for tech dates, etc? The one I used (Alpha t51) matches what the in-game log will say, but realistically that means that while we move units, etc. on t51 the research bar will show Alpha (1 turn) and the first round of trading is on t52.

 

[Mitchum]

One additional drawback to the Alpha beeline is if we happen to find a better city spot than Oasis/Crab. If that city spot requires mining or chopping (i.e. gold/gems/silver w/trees), we'd have to switch course. If we find said spot after T12 when we've already started Writing -> Alphabet , we'd have to switch course mid-stream.

The Alphabet beeline can be very strong, but it isn't nearly as flexible as the AH -> BW -> Writing approach.

 

[Mitchum]

Mitchum (and everyone).
Can we agree on a convention for tech dates, etc? The one I used (Alpha t51) matches what the in-game log will say, but realistically that means that while we move units, etc. on t51 the research bar will show Alpha (1 turn) and the first round of trading is on t52.

I took the dates for my data from the in-game log, which lists the IBT turn number rather that the turn you can actually use the tech. I guess I didn't do that for Alphabet as I saw that it had 2 more turns and just added 2 to T50, the current turn. I guess by my own convention, Alphabet should have been T51 and T52 is when we could do our first trades as you said.

So for my comparisons between your and bbp's saves, even though it said Mining on T19, it couldn't be used until T20. So the delta is only (52-20) 32 turns.

I'll update my post.

 

[Mitchum]

One thing to note about the date differences for Mining and BW is the fact that not having Mining doesn't impact us until we actually want to build the first mine, which isn't until all of the specials have been improved, which is ~T30. Same thing for BW and how soon we'd actually want to chop or whip.

 

[Mitchum]

Similar to how we calculated explorer turns in the last game, I'd like to keep track of how many exploring turns we have when comparing saves. So, we'd need to keep track of the turn each exploring warrior is completed (those used for happiness don't count). A simple "sign" in the game with the turn number listed would be fine.

Exploring turns turned out to be important in our last game. We needed all of our exploring turns to find the gold site that other teams stumbled upon quite early. Without those exploring turns, we would not have settled gold first.

So, how far would we settle our first city anyway? I guess it's situational. If there were a 2 gold, 2 pig site 10 tiles away connected to our capital along a river, we'd probably settle it first, right?

In any event, map knowledge of our surroundings before we pull the trigger on where to settle our first city is a good thing and exploration turns is something that we should use as another variable to compare between our different test games.

Regarding tile improvement, I've been going sheep -> cows -> corn. Is that the same thing you guys have been doing?

 

[ZPV]

Mitchum - I've been going for sheep-cows-corn too, simply because it makes the initial warrior build so much easier/earlier. I'll try out the warrior in NY, to see if it means the one in Washington can explore too. edit: nope.

I see two possible types of second city. One is a blocker, which goes wherever it has to go to claim land/resources, and the other is a development city. For the latter type, I almost always prefer a very close city (3 or possibly 4 tiles away) because it a) has low maintenance, b) can share the capital's resources to get on its feet quicker and c) doesn't need a separate army of workers to improve it - instead one combined force of workers is sufficient.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Yes that's correct. I can move the settler tomorrow night and post a screen shot so that we can re-evaluate. Or do people want to try fog gazing before I move the settler?

I think we should fog-gaze before any moves. The warrior has limited useful moves. Some of these moves may be more useful if he will defog hills (possible gold or silver). Edit: If there is a nice site to teh SE, then we don´t want to have moved the settler 1w...

Also, it´s possible that settling to the SE is better than 1W, so it might be better to move the warrior SE first. We don´t want to discuss this to death, but maybe for 24 hours after opening the save and fog-gazing.

===================

On my Alpha beeline suggestion, my idea was to build the second settler and settle the oasis site with it. I can´t see ZPV´s save so I don´t konw if the T51 alpha date includes a second city or not. I´d rather settle a second city than build a second wkr. Plus, that second city could go to a settler pump in the Real Save, if we´re lucky enough to find one in time. I don´t think we want to sacrifice REX to the extreme.

===================

I agree that our initial warrior exploration should be fine-tuned and focus on reavealing good city sites within 5-6 tiles from our capital and there are two rivers to explore.

 

[shyuhe]

Fair points LC. I'll hold off on moving the settler until we've had a chance to fog gaze.

The alpha plan assumes that we will meet other AI by turn 52 who are willing to trade mining and BW. Is that a safe assumption to make?

 

[ZPV]

I think we should fog-gaze before any moves. The warrior has limited useful moves. Some of these moves may be more useful if he will defog hills (possible gold or silver). Edit: If there is a nice site to teh SE, then we don´t want to have moved the settler 1w...

Also, it´s possible that settling to the SE is better than 1W, so it might be better to move the warrior SE first. We don´t want to discuss this to death, but maybe for 24 hours after opening the save and fog-gazing.

===================

On my Alpha beeline suggestion, my idea was to build the second settler and settle the oasis site with it. I can´t see ZPV´s save so I don´t konw if the T51 alpha date includes a second city or not. I´d rather settle a second city than build a second wkr. Plus, that second city could go to a settler pump in the Real Save, if we´re lucky enough to find one in time. I don´t think we want to sacrifice REX to the extreme.

Yes - there was a second city already, founded t40. (crabs-oasis)

@shyuhe - we'll know more by the time we've finished AH. It's a possibility to keep in mind, but with 8 AIs out there it's not that likely that we'll meet none of them (unless they're all in Kansas). The AIs are near-guaranteed to all have mining and BW. The main risk on that front is if we get Shaka and Toku type personalities - otherwise they should be willing to trade them.

 

[babybluepants]

I see two possible types of second city. One is a blocker, which goes wherever it has to go to claim land/resources, and the other is a development city. For the latter type, I almost always prefer a very close city (3 or possibly 4 tiles away) because it a) has low maintenance, b) can share the capital's resources to get on its feet quicker and c) doesn't need a separate army of workers to improve it - instead one combined force of workers is sufficient.

Yeah, basically. Crab/oasis/corn falls under the second type reasonably well, as we start with Fishing.

I've been going sheep-corn-cow. Generally, I always take food first. In this case, it's probably close to even, though I had some pretty tight growth turns in the Pop2-4 range.

Don't remember when I got the warriors now. 2 warriors by 2000 BC is really not acceptable on Emperor, though. I barely even felt good with only 4 myself.

 

[babybluepants]

Save comparison:

ZPV
Research: AH - Wtg - Alpha; total beakers = 625
Production: 1 Warrior - 1 Worker - 1 Settler - 1 Library - 40/60 Worker - 18/30 WB; total hammers = 323
Tile improvements: sheep - cow - corn; total worker turns = 13
Per turn: Washington 4f6h22b NYC 1f3h4b Total 5f9h26b
Exploring and fogbust: bad
Bonus: 48 gpp

bbp
Research: AH - Mng - BW - Wtg - Wheel; total beakers = 578
Production: 3 Warriors - 2 Workers - 2 Settlers - 1 WB - 45/90 Library - 9/90 Library; total hammers = 449
Tile improvements: sheep - cow - corn - 2 mines - crab - farm - 4 chops - 6t into 2 chops and mine; total worker turns = 48 + WB
Per turn: Washington 8f7h12b NYC 4f1h3b Total 12f8h15b
Exploring and fogbust: good
Bonus: nothing

 

[ZPV]

Yeah, basically. Crab/oasis/corn falls under the second type reasonably well, as we start with Fishing.

I've been going sheep-corn-cow. Generally, I always take food first. In this case, it's probably close to even, though I had some pretty tight growth turns in the Pop2-4 range.

Don't remember when I got the warriors now. 2 warriors by 2000 BC is really not acceptable on Emperor, though. I barely even felt good with only 4 myself.

I've done some more testing, and you can fit another warrior in at the very start (i.e. worker-warrior-warrior), but it's not without cost. Specifically, 19 hammers and 12 GPP. Similarly NY can build a warrior by 2000BC if necessary, but I'm not sure yet that it is.
It'll be a long long time before there are enough cities on the map for the barbs to start invading, so it's just a question of exploring and defogging areas we really don't want a barb city to spawn.

 

[Mitchum]

After looking at bbp's comparison, I have some thoughts:

1. Even though the Alpha beeline is currently ahead 625 - 578 = 47 beakers, that total is going to jump to over 700 beakers and continue to grow once we trade for several techs and get our academy built. Of course, this assumes that we have 3 or more AI to trade with.

2. The Alpha beeline is behind 126 hammers, which is a lot. However, 80 hammers came from chops, which are still available and 60 came from the whip which can be taken as soon as the GS is born in a few turns. Presumably we would not be whipping too much in the capital in bbp's save as we'd be hiring scientists for the next 15 turns or so. So, in 5 turns or so I would expect the production gap to come down by at least 60 (whip in the capital) with the 80 forest hammers to come over time. In addition, in the Alpha beeline, we'd be free to research Math soon turning those 20 hammer chops into 30 hammer chops.

3. bbp's save has a settler on the way, meaning that it will settle city #3 quite a few turns (10ish?) ahead of ZPV's save. That's obviously quite a big advantage on REX for the BW path.

4. If ZPV built a warrior rather than a WB in city #2, that warrior would have been out a few turns ago, which would not have provided any exploration or fog busting worth mentioning.

So for me, it comes down to a tradeoff between REX/security/exploration vs. Science. I've heard of the Alpha beeline being successful at Deity and Immortal. I wonder if Emperor AI research fast enough to make it worth the risk...