SGOTM 14 - One Short Straw

[ZPV]

If Espionage is done per team, then does that mean that they get two for the price of one, in that they get double the passive benefits?

If so, this game isn't going to be a good one for stealing techs.

That said, it will be funny if one AI on a team "ruins things" for the other AI by continuously executing Spy Missions, such as Sitting Bull and his infamous Water Supply Poisoning.

"What do you mean that I can't spend both my and your Espionage Points? They're shared! What's the big deal? Muahahaha."

It's like a joint bank account.
Both your salaries, or EP spending, goes into one pot, and either of you can go on a shopping spree, or run pointless spy missions on that account.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Are we relatively confident with the Wonder dates that we will get using whichever plan that we end up using?

With the early SH date, maybe this is a critical question now.

With the Good Witch from the North finding us from the south, I'm not ready to rule out a standard Hub configuration. I think the most valuable wonder for this scenario will be GLH. Losing Toto cost us 2-3t on our GLH date in Marble. DO we want it earlier somehwere else?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Mitchum, what exactly was Lizzie's scout's path for the last few turns?

 

[ZPV]

With the early SH date, maybe this is a critical question now.

With the Good Witch from the North finding us from the south, I'm not ready to rule out a standard Hub configuration. I think the most valuable wonder for this scenario will be GLH. Losing Toto cost us 2-3t on our GLH date in Marble. DO we want it earlier somehwere else?

I expect a near-standard hub configuration, with two northern nodes joined together, two eastern ones joined together, two southern ones joined together, and two western ones joined together (each home to a pair of witches).

Stonehenge fell at ~1800 in my last test game, but that was late. I'm not remotely shocked to see 2240 with the lack of early AI second cities, and the two size 6 cities.
The Great Wall will be more interesting as a wonder-predictor, since it requires masonry to start.

We'll still get GLH ~1080. Can we get it earlier elsewhere (without having Sailing before Writing)? How much does it cost to do that?
Pyramids we'll either get or we won't.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Technical question: Do AI units move before or after our borders expand? In other words, if Lizzie's scout decides to scout towards Marble next, which tile will it be on when our borders expand, causing it to telelport, corn-1E or corn-1NE?

The difference is significant for our spawnbusting purposes, assuming the LIzzie is actually settled to the northwest of us. From corn-1NE the scout will teleport 2N, from corn-1E, the scout will teleport 1E and be trapped till Marble's borders expand.

EDIT: Never mind, I tested it, the borders expand before Lizzie moves and she teleports 2N.

 

[ZPV]

Technical question: Do AI units move before or after our borders expand? In other words, if Lizzie's scout decides to scout towards Marble next, which tile will it be on when our borders expand, causing it to telelport, corn-1E or corn-1NE?

The difference is significant for our spawnbusting purposes, assuming the LIzzie is actually settled to the northwest of us. From corn-1NE the scout will teleport 2N, from corn-1E, the scout will teleport 1E and be trapped till Marble's borders expand.

After. Our borders expand at the end of our turn, then Lizze takes her turn.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I don't see any good way to pop a quick library in Stone, while building the Mids in Washington. What I'm thinking we should do is go for the 1080BC GLH in Marble while if possible speed up the settling of Pigs in exchange for a slightly slower Mids in Stone. Not sure how this would look in ZPV's scenario, but may 5 workers instead 6 and the Pigs settler done sooner and not use 5 workers in Stone for he final chop.

I'd like to see less wasting of worker turns running around like headless chickens chopping wonders.

 

[babybluepants]

Mitchum

Is that 1080 BC or 1080 BC in event log (ZPV's last posted test was the latter). I doubt we can beat that by more than maybe a turn or two elsewhere. LC had 1120 BC in Stone and I suspect he played it the same to this point? The way to speed it up in a significant way might be by slowing down city settling, but that's not a great compromise. Edit: no, we probably couldn't speed it up. Stone/Marble is the limiting factor either way.

I'm unhappy about the lack of units in this TS. We now have 2 AIs in the north willing to sign OB, in addition to someone we could meet in the south. Ideally there would be a Sailing TR path to both by the time we complete GLH. Also, I don't want L/G settling some great site circa 1000-750 BC because we failed to scout and send our 5th settler there. Hub with a partial added Wheel ring sounds roughly correct, but I'm still not quite sure what to expect between us and them.

Nice to finally have confirmation of 2AI per team.

 

[ZPV]

I'm unhappy about the lack of units in this TS. We now have 2 AIs in the north willing to sign OB, in addition to someone we could meet in the south. Ideally there would be a Sailing TR path to both by the time we complete GLH. Also, I don't want L/G settling some great site circa 1000-750 BC because we failed to scout and send our 5th settler there. Hub with a partial added Wheel ring sounds roughly correct, but I'm still not quite sure what to expect between us and them.

We have 2 AIs in the south. Or at least the scout came from the south.
We're at a point in the game where exploring units are just too expensive. We can spawnbust, or else we can send our warriors out to explore, but not expect them to survive.
We'll have to try and finesse it, but if an AI settles a site we want, we'll just have to put up with it. I don't think settling right up to an AI is a sensible move in this scenario anyway, since the team setting means they'll be more likely to declare on us if we make an 8-tile land border with them.

 

[Mitchum]

Mitchum, what exactly was Lizzie's scout's path for the last few turns?

Here is the path that Lizzie's scout took. We couldn't see it on T42 because our warrior was still in the city at that point.

Spoiler :

 

[Mitchum]

I don't see any good way to pop a quick library in Stone, while building the Mids in Washington. What I'm thinking we should do is go for the 1080BC GLH in Marble while if possible speed up the settling of Pigs in exchange for a slightly slower Mids in Stone. Not sure how this would look in ZPV's scenario, but may 5 workers instead 6 and the Pigs settler done sooner and not use 5 workers in Stone for he final chop.

I'd like to see less wasting of worker turns running around like headless chickens chopping wonders.

OK. Does this mean we should actually try to develop Stone (i.e. net the crab and grow to size 3 or 4) as we build the 'Mids? Or do you still want to stagnate at 1 pop working the stone quarry but use fewer workers to do the chopping?

ZPV, can you give me a quick rundown of how you built the GLH in 1080 BC? I'm thinking something like this:

- Steal corn from Washington and grow
- Build library until Sailing comes in and switch to LH -> GLH
- Work netted crab at 2 pops to keep growing.
- Work mined marble at 3 pops
- Work mined GHill at 4 pops
- Chop 3 forests into GLH once Math is learned

 

[LowtherCastle]

OK. Does this mean we should actually try to develop Stone (i.e. net the crab and grow to size 3 or 4) as we build the 'Mids? Or do you still want to stagnate at 1 pop working the stone quarry but use fewer workers to do the chopping?

ZPV, can you give me a quick rundown of how you built the GLH in 1080 BC? I'm thinking something like this:

- Steal corn from Washington and grow
- Build library until Sailing comes in and switch to LH -> GLH
- Work netted crab at 2 pops to keep growing.
- Work mined marble at 3 pops
- Work mined GHill at 4 pops
- Chop 3 forests into GLH once Math is learned

I don't know. I'm not really sure what ZPV does when. I just know that at the end he had 1 wkr with the Pigs settler and 5 at Stone, iirc. What I'm *hoping* is that some how it works to build the Pigs settler before the 6th worker. But most often when I speculate like this, there are reasons why it doesn't work out. At this point, we're all dependent on ZPV figuring it out or letting us know what we're working with so we can contribute something.

 

[LowtherCastle]

@bbp: In addition to what ZPV said, if you look at a 1000BC save, it's typical that the barbs have spawned a number of cities that easily might block our TRs even if we suicide our wbs past them to defog the TR paths.

That said, not getting an explorer or two out asap is often a defect of succeussful war campaigns. Since archers are only 5h cheaper than wbs, maybe we shold try to slot in a wb on each side of our landmass asap (even thought that asap might not be for a few turnsets).

Edit: Part of our war planning will involve knowing where team members are in relation to us. It wouldn't surprise me if the nearest pair is not together, but rather pinchering us, so that if we declare on Lizzie, we get socked from both sides. If they are together , then DoWing one also means it will get reinforcements immediately. These are things we'd like to know.

 

[ZPV]

I don't know. I'm not really sure what ZPV does when. I just know that at the end he had 1 wkr with the Pigs settler and 5 at Stone, iirc. What I'm *hoping* is that some how it works to build the Pigs settler before the 6th worker. But most often when I speculate like this, there are reasons why it doesn't work out. At this point, we're all dependent on ZPV figuring it out or letting us know what we're working with so we can contribute something.

You don't really need the 6th worker - and yes, the 5th settler comes before it. I'll run it through again briefly to give some definitive instructions.
Really it only needs 3 at stone - the other two came from marble where they'd already chopped GLH.

 

[Mitchum]

Regarding what to do with our GS(s). In ZPV's last save, our sustainable beakers in the capital are ~13/turn (includes running 2 scientists). So, the academy gives us 6.5/turn. If we instead settle the first GS, we'd get 6*1.25 = 7.5/turn. With another pure GS coming from Washington in 6 turns (assumes building the 'Mids in Stone), we could build an academy then. Add to this the fact that our settled GS will give us 9*1.25 = 11.25/turn once we revolt to Representation and is seems that settling the first GS and building an academy with the second is the way to go. We could easily generate a third GS in time to bulb Philosophy if that's what we want to do.

EDIT: On turns when we run 0% science with a settled GS and running two scientists, we'd get 6 (settled GS) + 6 (two scientists) = 12*1.25 = 15/turn with no beakers wasted from rounding...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Big Picture Strategy

I suppose no one has tested out this scenario to the end. I haven't. It might not be a bad idea for one of our faster players to do that.

I'm wondering (as always) if the fastest conquest route is an Astro beeline. With no circumnavigation, this time galleons double our movement over galleys in addition to saving extra turns by going directly across ocean tiles. Furthermore, we're philosophical, so we can generate the GSes even faster. Of course, the galleons are also much safer against galleys and triremes and carry 50% more units.

I've noticed that by the time we get our first GS, the academy or super spec only saves us about a turn on math. Our capital is not particularly commerce rich. I'm wondering if we even want to use our GSes that way at all. What if instead we grew our empire to 1AD and had Astro at the same time?

 

[shyuhe]

@LC - I don't think you can ship troops to the other side of the map on a hub. We would need to build canals to do that. Although that may still be faster...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Warring against AI Teams and War Success: Does anyone know if War Success is a team-based factor or an individual factor? I.e. If we do well against one team member in war, will the team still potentially refuse to talk for a while, since we didn't do well against the other team member as well (due to probably not fighting their units much)?

I'm thinking of the mechanic where, if you have a decent amount of War Success, they are willing to negotiate for Peace sooner than they would otherwise and are willing to offer you a small lump sum of Gold instead of demanding your City for Peace.

Depending upon the answer, it may change how we want to co-ordinate our attacks (possibly hitting both team members at once).

 

[mdy]

I'm against making an astro beeline, mainly because I think it is unlikely that we can kill the wizard with pre-astro units. Going for an allout war so early would kill our economy and delay our victory date as it would massively slow down our future tech rate.

Exploration is clearly going to be important in this scenario, but I can't see how we can realistically do this prior to the completion of the GL, so I think we should make this our top priority after the initial wonder building/REX phase.

If we are guaranteed to get 2 very early GS I agree that the first one should be settled, and the second used for an academy.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'm wondering (as always) if the fastest conquest route is an Astro beeline. With no circumnavigation, this time galleons double our movement over galleys in addition to saving extra turns by going directly across ocean tiles. Furthermore, we're philosophical, so we can generate the GSes even faster. Of course, the galleons are also much safer against galleys and triremes and carry 50% more units.

I've noticed that by the time we get our first GS, the academy or super spec only saves us about a turn on math. Our capital is not particularly commerce rich. I'm wondering if we even want to use our GSes that way at all. What if instead we grew our empire to 1AD and had Astro at the same time?

I'd be okay with going after Astronomy. If it does look like we can settle Canal Cities, I see nothing wrong with razing many AI Cities except for Canal-based ones and keeping some of those Canal-based ones (and bringing along the odd Settler with our war parties in case the AIs settled 1-square-away from where a Canal would fit).


It certainly would be easier than shuttling troops down an isthmus and then up an isthmus over and over again.


I don't think that we can get Circumnavigation on a map without world-wrap though, right? Still, Galleons with 4 movement points and the use of Canals Cities (plus Forts, as required) could be a quick way to win a map IF the rest of the map looks like our area--if the rest of the map is one big Pangaea and we only have an isthmus just to make a Cultural Victory easier, then things would be different.


It will really help to be able to see if there is an indication of:
a) Whether or not one more "hub" exists... if one more exists, then we can probably safely assume that all of the AIs have hubs

b) Whether or not it looks like there are thin isthmuses to hubs (assuming that there are hubs)... if the isthmuses are thick, then we can't really make effective use out of Canal-Cities, since building multiple Forts takes time and might not fit everywhere if an isthmus is 4-squares-wide

c) Whether or not said potential hubs are connected to the edges of the map, potentially negating the need for Canal Cities if we can sail around them

I think that ONE Work Boat exploring in a randomly-chosen direction will be a good way to check for a), b), and c), without commiting too many resources to early exploration.