SGOTM 15 - Kakumeika

[AlanH]

Welcome to your BtS SGOTM 15 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the
Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

You can find the Game Details in the first post of the Maintenance Thread. If any changes occur in the game settings or rules, I shall post them in that thread, and edit that post.

Please wait until your team leader/administrator/scribe has reserved a couple of top posts in this thread for game admin information. Then post here to let your team know you have arrived.

Good luck, and have fun. Remember, it's just a GAME!

 

[bcool]

The Rules of Play

1. All standard GOTM rules apply. Mainly, we get 1 shot, no replays, period!
2. No viewing other team threads, period!
3. Have FUN, compete fairly, argue your points until your fingers bleed, or you convince a majority that your plan is superior!

The following rules have been stolen from Murky Waters and editted, all credit given to Erkon.

The following rules apply to all players in the Kakumeika SGOTM 15 team.

Ensure that you have read and understood the rules provided by the administrators (C-IV SGOTM Reference Thread)* and follow any ongoing discussion at the SGOTM 15 Maintenance Thread

The next player shall post a ”got it” within 24 hours of the upload of the previous game. Else the next available player has the right to post the ”got it”. These rules replaces guideline 6 and 7 in the C-IV SGOTM Reference Thread. To ensure a smooth handover, please post the ”got it” within 24 hours.

After posting the "got it" please put up a roughdraft of a the Grand Strategy and a Goal Oriented Pre-Play-Plan (PPP) within 24 hours of the "got it". If you can't for whatever reason put up a roughdraft of your PPP within 24 hours of the got it please request to postpone or pass your turn to the next player.

To facilitate the group consensus style of play we had in the last game and to make it easier for active player and the team to be involved I suggest a 3 part planning process for turns starting with the grand strategy.

The grand strategy is the strategy that we currently are pursuing to win the game. It was suggested that we keep the grand strategy on the first page. I'm happy to reserve a space and do that, however I think it is should also be copied and posted again before each turn set by the active player so that it is fresh in that player's mind and we don't miss some opportunity to change the plan for the better.

So I suggest the active player copy, review, and suggest changes to the grand strategy before they plan the goals and details of their turn set. The grand strategy would include the victory condition and the stages or phases of the game we need to achieve that victory condition.

For example the Ducks grand strategy in the last game was something like (*just for example purposes--not sure this is exactly right*)
-Goal Fastest Conquest
-expand and set up bulb of mathematics and chop out key city improvements
-build the Oracle and get Code of Laws
-settle and grow 6-8 cities
-generate enough great scientists to bulb to astronomy
-switch to war effort and kill everything including the wizard

An individual turn set would probably only happen in one of the phases that I laid out in the example above, but it is important for us to review the grand strategy before we make the specific plans for our turn sets.

Our grand strategy will obviously develop as we learn more about the game through exploration, testing and discussion and could completely change depending on how things develop.

Once the grand strategy is reviewed by the active player and the current turn is put into that context, the active player can develop a more specific plan for their turn set but still goal orientated rather than planned out with micro.

The player can post a goal oriented Pre-Play-Plan (PPP)
The goal oriented PPP would include:
research (& research trades)
city builds (not tile use)
worker goals (not turn by turn movements)
diplo actions (including resource trades, war declarations, begs, etc)
civic changes planned
espionage
general war plans if applicable, i.e. take this city first or form stack here
stopping points
contingency plans

The purpose of posting a goal oriented PPP first is to save the active player some work. The other players would be asked to suggest changes to the goal oriented PPP before the micro details (turn by turn city builds, tile use, worker movements, whips, chops, war movements) are planned out.

Once the specific goals are agreed upon, then the active player can develop a micro plan which includes the micro details the team thinks this is necessary. (Or the active player can request help with an aspect of the micro from someone else on the team)

Once the micro PPP is produced (same as the goal oriented PPP just with micro details), another round of feedback can start if necessary.

Of course in the course of working out the specific goals, or the micro new opportunities might arise, so it might not be a linear process.

After the goal oriented PPP is posted give the team at least 24 hours to respond. Do you best to respond quickly to any feedback by editting your PPP or by posting why you disagree. We hope to keep this response time to maximum of 48 hours, however if there is still a lot of disargeement after 48 hours, I'll extend this discussion period.

After the 24 hours (minimum) discussion time, post a detailed PPP with all necessary micro and allow another 24 hours for players to comment. If possible after that post a time 12-24 hours in advance of when you intend to play to allow others to either follow by online chat or just to be online for posts.

We are also encouraging players to chat online if possible during their turnsets so an availiable team member can be consulted for significant unexpected events or just to be included for exciting developments as you play. This may not be possible for everyone and we will exchange contact info for those interested by pm.

We also encourage you to stop playing a turnset and upload if something unexpected and/or unplanned for happens.

No-one is forced to play a turn set. You don’t need to announce the reason for skipping a turn set. Any players can swap turn sets if they announce the swap in time. Since the captain has a memory capacity of a demented gold fish, I urge you to make it clear when you intend to skip a turn. Please post as quick as possible to reduce unnecessary confusion and delays.

Please use smilies and emotes in your posts as much as possible. Jokes, humor, sarcasm and offensive language can and will be misinterpreted. Remember that written text is a poor method to convey feelings. Several of us are not native to the English language. The differences in culture is also a source for misunderstanding. If you get upset by a post, please wait a few hours before you respond.

We hope we can come to a consensus on most issues, but if we can not it should be decided by the active player after the team has debated the issue. If you run into a situation where you need advice, please upload the save and let the rest of us take a look. Or post a quick request for advice. It’s better to delay the game a day than build the Globe Theatre in the wrong city. Don't be afraid to admit a mistake or off-plan move as well. We all will make some especially with difficulty of tracking so many details.

Don’t promote units until they are close to action (unless the promotion increases movement). If you are unsure of suitable promotions, don’t hesitate to bring that up for discussion.

Don’t play intoxicated (from alcohol, drugs or smoke). Don’t play when you are too tired. Or when you have your kids/wife screaming at you.

Try to keep track of the diplomatic events each turn, and visit each city regularly. It’s mandatory to check cities that grow or have a border expansion. Remember that the number of happy people will change due to changes in war weariness (WW), gained/lost resources etc. Keep track of specialists. We don’t want to pollute the great person pool. Please respect the micro management plans.

Please contact AlanH if your game crashes, even if you can repeat all your moves.

If you PM the team, please ensure every one receives a copy.

Remember that a lot of players read what we post. Don't be rude or disrespectful to any player not on our team.

Try to run a test game or two before we start. Your experience may either confirm or contradict some one else's, and is therefore valuable.

The goals for Kakumeika are
1) to get the GOLD!
2) learn something through exhaustive debate about the grand strategy, the goals for each turn set, the inner-workings of the code, and best micro plans.
3) have fun ('cause learning is fun )

Ensure that your autosave config is set to save every turn. Don't forget to enable all HOF settings in case you lost them during a dual-install or whatever reason. And set the first-turn-setting to first turn = 0. This will reduce future confusion.

When you state the turn/year research is completed (or any other event), please use the turn you get the report. ****This is a change from the last game**** So if the research for polytheism shows it will be completed at the end of T12 then when T13 starts we get the report of our completion of polytheism. Please report that polytheism finished on T13. Or if we build an axeman and it will finish at the end of T25, report that it finished on T26 (the first turn that we can actually move the axeman).

When we have uploaded the final save, and this has been reported by the active player, you are free to read other team threads. When their game is over, you are free to post in their threads as well.

Randomly selected play order

Walter_Wolf ... UP FIRST
mabraham ... on deck
WastinTime ... in the hole
Kaitzilla ... waiting
Tachywaxon ... waiting
shulec ... waiting
bcool ... waiting
Sun Tzu Wu ... waiting

 

[bcool]

The Grand Strategy

work in progress...

Goal Religious Leader Victory

Stonehenge early to give options for repeated city gifts later (and to help get early great prophets to build Hindu Holy City Building? and Bulb Theology?).
Assuming we need caravels to reach everyone we will take metal casting with the Oracle
Go for 2nd great prophet after building the Kashi to bulb theology.
Bulb Theology after we then research meditation
Use fail gold on pyramids to power through teching currency. abandoned plan to get currency since we got alphabet in a peace deal.
Go for a 50% odds great engineer to help bulb machinery.
Use wealth research builds to power through research to optics
Analyze map via coordinates of capitol/equator to try to determine what base map the mapmaker used.
Explore the seas asap with caravels to assess what we need to do to win religiously.
Spread hinduism city gifts, missionaries, and gifted caravels with a missionary in the case where we can't get open borders (wounded triremes upgraded to caravels might be able to be gifted to AI whom we can not get OB with)

 

[bcool]

summary thanks to mabraham

T1-10 Resolved to tech Polytheism (for the Hinduism constraint) first, then Agriculture. Preferred to move to stone to settler there (unless anything better presented) for the 3 hammers from central tile. That's inefficient in the long term, but very good early, and the latter is important for a SGOTM race. We toyed with a settler-first opening, but couldn't get better results than with worker-first. Even with Agriculture delayed by Polytheism, there's three Gmines to improve and they're good tiles to have improved. Met Tokugawa.

T10-19 Founded Hindu T14. Met Hammuragawa.

T20-29 Teched Masonry next, to make a serious go at SH and TGW to show profit from our settling decision. Whether to finish them or collect fail gold is unsure.

T30-40 Decided to settle north along the river (trade routes for stone, gold and free thanks to the capital's Hindu-fueled border pop) with gold and deer, building TGW there while growing. Not sure yet whether we want to finish it. Planning to Oracle MC T63 using marble from the next border pop in the capital and some chops. Currently planning a religious VC needing caravels. Expected Toku to settle 1NE of corn in the meantime, based on testing. Many animals, so far our warriors are boss, unlike stupid Toto last SGOTM. Teched Hunting next for the deer, then BW. Got lucky Hindu spread first turn. Finished SH T39.

T40-T50
Strategy plans
We had trouble in test games gifting missionary-bearing caravels to AIs and getting them to use the missionaries to spread Hinduism. DanF discovered that if the caravels used to be triremes they have a different AI script put on them, and if they are injured at the point of the gift, then after the gift they'll go home and heal up, releasing the missionary for a spread.

Much debate on the timing of getting fast Optics as well as fast AP. Bulbing Eng with a GSci requires no Fishing, no Theol, and a pile of manual research of post-Writing techs. Bulbing Eng with a GEng requires a big building spree finishing around T110, and is not faster than slow-teching Optics. Bulbing Optics with a GSci after getting Mach requires either no Medi or no CoL (to avoid bulbing Philo instead), so since we need Medi to bulb Theol for the AP we have to avoid CoL to retain the chance of GSci-bulbing Optics.

Also much debate on the merits of T64ish Kashi from our SH GPro. We hope the possibility of distant spreads before AI contact will be useful, so that when we build the AP we get contacts to those AIs and we don't have to spread Hinduism to those AIs where we get lucky. If the distant AIs are non-Tokugawas, this could allow tech trading much earlier than any other strategy. Kashi also useful for getting more OR or Theocracy effects at home, of course, and gets AP hammers.

Current thinking is still to Oracle->MC, then things get vague. There's support for building Kashi, getting another GPro using the Kashi priest slots to bulb Theol, building the AP T90ish and then teching to Optics manually T100-110ish. Whether we expand peacefully or try to goad Toku into war or DOW him ourselves is unknown.

What happened this turn set
Finished BW to find copper in capital. After some testing, despite the benefits of staying at size 5-6 to work Gmines, we decided it was OK to 2-pop whip to get the copper mine up faster, planning to settle 1SW of sheep and build a T63 Oracle there to seize control of Osaka's corn by T90-95 (we hope, depending on Osaka's culture output). DeerGold built a third worker for the empire, and then started a settler for the Pigs-Gems site. Delhi finished settler for SheepGold T50.


T50-60 WastinTime was concerned Toku was coming for us, but since there was no WHEOOHRN fist, we assured him we were OK. How wrong we were to be... We put a bunch of hammers into stone-fueled Great Wall for the fail gold. Worked towards T63 Oracle in SheepTown. Gifted some health resources to AIs to try to keep them happier (eventually). We worked out Toku will give OB at Pleased when he is +5. With Stonehenge, DanF worked out that AI_STRATEGY_DAGGER will not be possible for Toku. We started to work out that it was not efficient to try to use GScientists to bulb towards Optics, given the constraint of needing to get the AP before that. T53 settled SheepTown. T55 discovered PH. T56 someone completed TGW (130 fail gold for us). T58 Judaism founded somewhere. T59 Pottery discovered.

T60-70 Decided not to get more than four workers for the moment. We worked out not to bother trying to organize for maximum beaker overflow onto Writing, because the bug with beaker overflow is fixed. Toku built a library in Osaka to slow down our culture-capture of the corn Got Oracle->MC T63. Settled CowTown about T61. T64 built Kashi Vishwanath in Delhi after significant debate on its merits. In the T62 save finally DanF noticed that Toku is WHEOOHRN on the diplo screen and there is no fist icon for him on the BUFFY scoreboard... Retrospectively we found he's been in that mode since T44, but without border pressure at that time, we didn't think we were the target. However, we added an axe in SheepTown, and started banking gold for possible upgrades. T68 Toku stack spotted on our border 2 axe 3 spear 1 archer. Panic axe-whipping time, we're defended by four warriors only. DanF identifies probable bug in BUFFY where the first icon is controlled by a lookup via player.getID rather than team.getID, and with an AI team of two players this is broken. Apparently nobody noticed this in SGOTM14. Scrambled a bunch of axes. T69 Toku DOWs and bribes in Hammu. His stack crosses the river and SheepTown looks in trouble. Got Fishing and Sailing somewhere in this set or next.

T70-80 We explored baiting AI stacks, and resolved to do so with a scout. We explored whether the Toku stack was actually one stack or not, and whether he would move to the gold hill tile before attacking (probably yes, when we have four axes on defence in Sheeptown), and then whether he would attack a bait scout to the SW (yes). STW did some extensive testing of the war baiting scenario, which if successful will let us get to 40% culture defence before Toku attacks us. We resolved to defend a forested chokepoint with Woodsman I axes against Hammu. Scout bait worked. T74 Toku attacked SheepTown with 5 units and lost all 5! We healed and moved on Osaka, but he organized too much defence, so we retreated with no losses. Toku continues to build up again.

T80-90 Much debate on the relative merits of fast Pyramids or fast AP, trying to get maximum fail gold from a side city building the Pyramids if we delay them until after the AP. Resolved to build AP first, with various misgivings. DanF rediscovers that AI_STRATEGY_DAGGER is possible for Toku after all :-( However he also works out that with Aggressive AI enabled, and lots of war losses, if we position units to threaten more cities than he is threatening of ours, that Toku might well gift us techs to end the war. Resolved to get Walls in SheepTown to increase our survival rate in SheepTown to try to maximise this possibility. T81 met Shakagawa. Also Christianity founded somewhere, so the AP is under threat. T82 Toku willing to talk. T83 distant AI steals Pyramids, so we get 493 fail gold from our four(!) partial builds. T84 done Writing. T85 Toku moves another stack 1S of SheepTown. T86 Toku stack to gold tile. T87 Toku loses four axes and four spears on our pile of 7 axes behind walls. T86 GPro pops. DanF notices that with a few more axe builds we can get to 5/6 of Toku's power which will make his calculation of his EndWar value much more favourable to us - we could get more than Alphabet from it. T87 GPro bulbs Theol, and post-Maths chopping T95 AP plan is set in motion. T88 we work out that with our three axes and our last warrior upgrade we can just sneak over the 5/6 threshold and we get Archery plus Alpha (less one turn of beakers) from Toku in return for peace. Total war losses for us: one scout! Not bad for a situation where we had only a turn or two's notice that we were the AI target and had only four warriors! T89 Hammu bribes in Shaka. Started running an engineer to hope for a ~45% GEngineer ~T109.


T90-100 Maths done T92. Met Genghis and Haste. Built AP T95 despite mabraham's copious micro failures. Pillaged a few boats from Hammu. Planned to settle the western island about the end of this set. Mid-set we resolved to start an aggressive campaign of settling new cities, coverting them to Hinduism and gifting them to Gawas. Discovered that the AP code is broken when a team exists with more than one player. The game will think we have full members of the AP when none but us exist, so many of the AP resolutions will be available earlier than we could otherwise contrive them. Nice to find a bug that works for us after our earlier experience! Osaka continued to deny us the corn (by popping its borders, it increased the rate it was putting culture onto the corn). Hammu brought a mini-stack, retreated with it, then threw away a smaller stack on our frontier Woodsman I axes fortified on forest. Gifted Hindu city to Toku T98. Fortified spy in it to probably steal IW next set. Also T98 spotted white/grey culture on global culture view, across the northern strait.

T100 founded island city, met Liz. T102 finished construction. T103 peace with Hammu after he gives us 30 gold. T104 founded gift city on coast SE of Babylon, infected with Hindu and liberated to Hammu. T105 stole IW from the Hindu city we gifted to Toku. He retaliates by poisoning SheepTown. T105 AP holy war forces Toku and Hammu to war with Shaka (thanks Hammu for bribing Shaka to war with us!) so we can now get OB with those two. Let the settler-Hindu spam commence! Also some scouts, spies and units flowing to the front to push back the fog. Start gifting lots of resources around in the hope of getting people to Pleased at various stages - turned out to be mostly pointless.

Truly staggering debate after T108 (posts 1875-2263). Massive swings as we considered and rejected various plans for using the AP to get Holy Wars (vs Shaka or vs Liz, depending on stuff) or Open Borders going at various future times to get open borers to continue the missionary flow. The matrix of which AIs knew which others, and who would/could have Hinduism when was critical. Planned a series of three city gifts, including one to Liz (who would accept a site across the strait, from which we planned to do cheap espionage tech stealing), and perhaps one to Shaka (who was close enough to a site in Hammu's nominal territory) and a third one. Various options to pass these around to various civs and have various people conquer, culture-flip and/or re-gift at various hypothetical future points. Also debate on how to use our T109 GPro (Golden Age to kick-start the espionage after our tech rate had basically stopped, or bulbing CoL, or waiting and bulbing part of CS). Hammu is our intended voting ally (border tension with Toku would be too costly), with +diplo largely fueled by liberated cities, shared war, shared resources to offset heathen religion. Possible victory dates T136 or T156 given the AP schedule. We want to be the only civ in Hinduism at the victory vote, lest our intended Hindu ally like our Hindu opponent too much for us to fix. We worried about some spontaneous Hindu spreads to Toku and Hammu. We resolved to try to get them into Theocracy ASAP to prevent spontaneous spread of non-Buddhism, by gifting them up to Theology and hoping they'll like Theocracy during war.

T109 liberated another city to Hammu inland SE of Babylon. T110 Toku flips to Theocracy. T111 culture finally captured the damn corn tile from Toku. T111 liberated Hindu city to Hatse. Found Toku's eastern water is a useless lake. Found ice blockade north of Hammu. T112 founded city to gift to Liz, confirmed that she will take it. Shaka seems likely to put serious hurt on Hammu's border city. T113 Toku completes HG so his Hindu population expands to equal his Buddhist population... urg. Liz is finishing Machinery. Gifted Liz city.

Much scheming (e.g. post 2309) to get Hammu and us to peace with Shaka, flip Liz to Hinduism, get Hatse to trade embargo Liz, bribe Hammu to declare war on Liz (else we'll have to do it and risk -1 diplo with Hammu), be secure that Liz can't bribe Hatse to dogpile us because we really want Hatse open borders, capture liz town (so she has no Hindu city and so isn't technically a full member of the AP anymore), T115 Holy War on Liz, meet Cyrus, OB party.

T114 Got peace with Shaka, bribed Hammu to peace with Shaka for MC+Theol. Gifted Hammsville to Liz, flipped Liz to Hindu (avoid negative diplo with Hammu), DOWed Liz, retook both Liz's Hindu cities (to set up holy war resolution).

T115 Met Cyrus through AP from random Hindu spread. We voted holy war against Liz, which worked and started next turn.

Then we set up a plan to steal most of Mach+Compass+Optics+CoL+CS, bulbing one of those according to the flavour of GPerson we pop about T126. This requires cease fire with Liz, gifting her some cities into which we had pre-fortified some spies, closing borders with Toku and Hammu to teleport their units away, stealing for a turn or two, flipping her back to Hinduism (avoid negative diplo with Hammu) and then re-capturing the cities. Easy game.

T118 noticed land NW of Shaka capital that is part of the mainland. Golden age begins, racking up wealth to switch to 100% EPs to steal from Liz.

T120 Liz goes back to Buddhism. Settled Gateway city north of Hatse for possible boat builds, then noticed Hatse has a stack in Toku's lands coming for us. We decided not to close Hatse's border with Toku because of incorrect testing and incomplete understanding of the teleport mechanics (post 2721). We decided later that WastinTime was right and we should have done this, but what would prove to be right would have depended what Hatse does with her stack next (DOW Toku, head for Liz, wait and still hit us again).

T121 Liberated Gateway to Hatse, begged 10gold for peace, which worked. We hoped this might trigger a DOW on Toku because of the location of her stack, but no luck.

T122 Found settle spot on coast between Shaka and Cyrus for building northern boats, to be called WestPort. Planned to send a defensive stack through Hatse's territory and abuse a teleport mechanic to get it to defend EastPort (settled on corn on tip of Hatse's peninsula, again for building boats)

T125 got GEng. More holy war on Liz. Settled WestPort about now.

T126 Liz gets peace with Cyrus. Bulbed Machinery. Settled EastPort.

T127 Cease fire with Liz, closed and opened borders with Toku and Hammu. Gifted LizTown and Trojan Horse to Liz. Stole Compass, Optics, CoL and CS for loss of two spies. For example, we got CS for a cost in espionage points around one sixth of its cost in beakers. Easy game. After steals reDoW Liz.

T128 Recaptured TH and LizTown. WestPort built a trireme, upgraded to caravel and loaded missionary.

T129 found evidence on globe culture view of AI team member SW of our island. Believe other member of AI pair NW of Shaka.

T130 Abused teleport to get a defensive stack from a bit north of Thebes up to the copper tile near EastPort. Popped gems next to Delhi!

T132 Got control of EastPort forests to chop out a trireme.

T134 Met Mali with caravel from WestPort, so contact with Inca also. Traded Mach for monarchy with Hammu. Gave Currency and Machinery to pair for the +diplo and to tech them towards Banking. Lots of discussion about how best to get Hinduism to them (e.g. tech Guilds+Banking for shared favourite civic, or conquering Hatse/Shaka/Genghis cities to gift them, or teching Astro to settle a gift city for them, or Astro for mass resource export for +diplo for OB). Hatse is coming to kill EastPort, so we'll gift that to Genghis after just one trireme. Attach GG, free upgrade, many promotions, circumnavigation = 7 movement points! Load missionary and scout south.

T135 Stole feudalism with the usual Liz cease-fire trick. Found Hatse's backup stack... we would have been toast if we'd tried to defend EastPort. Found WestPort ocean is useless for spreading Hinduism, so killed our units and gifted WestPort to Cyrus.

T136ish We know we could conquer various Shaka or Hatse cities to infect and gift to the AI pair, but we probably want to bait them into DOWing us to avoid negative diplo. Maybe our EastPort and WestPort gifts were too soon! We have some settlers still lurking to make bait cities. OB will work for the Inca. Our caravel hasn't found whether there is a place to land missionaries on the western coast of the Mali. So our strategy can't be decided yet. Also the Banking timing is likely not fast enough for a T156 win unless we get a lucky GMerchant. So we started sending some units towards Shaka so that we know which way to jump when we find out the last pieces of the puzzle.

T140 Finished Guilds, popped 31% GMerchant to bulb Banking for us, saving several turns of teching. T156 win might be possible, e.g. with OB spread to Mali and conquering Akhetaten late to gift to the Incans.

T141 pair of gawas didn't switch to Merc. They're WHEOOHRN, probably against us.

T142 looks very likely no caravel access to north from either side. Ugh. Settled Shaka bait city to try to lure his stack away from the Hammu border. Despite having OB with Cyrus, later he didn't move for that stack, so we were not Shaka's war target.

Hatched idea to teleport a settler "Moses" from 2S1E across to Incan lands to a vacant tile N of Vilcabamba. It had a barb archer on it when we saw it, but testing showed the archer would move aside. Their TGW doesn't look like a problem.

Planned a double-teleport from near Akkad to near Ngomo (cancel/open OB with Hammu, abusing shared war) and then from near uMung to Cyrus culture with the DOW on Shaka to take Bulawayo T157 to gift to the north AI pair member. To avoid diplo penalties we gift Shaka a small city (Hammsville) near the GhostTown gift city we gave him back around T95, with pre-fortified spies to flip him to Hinduism. Then we recapture both cities quickly to make Shaka heathen, call an AP Holy War and hope he's so confused that our stack can take Bulawayo fairly unmolested. Spies for city revolt in Bulawayo, too.

Also an idea to build a galley in the shaka bait city, perhaps steal Astro from Liz (if she techs it) upgrade to a galleon, close borders with Cyrus and then gift the bait city to someone with whom we have closed borders. This should teleport us west into some water that could possibly access the north AIs. Get a missionary over there on our super caravel Patton, get OB with Genghis for the missionary transfer. Could work as backup for the Bulawayo plan.

T144-5 spammed units to attack Shaka. Finished Eng. Got some EPs on Liz to see what we might steal from her next.

T146 Moses teleport failed, unsure why. Later found a bunch of damaged barb units, so there must be something funky going on over there.

Re-planned the Moses settler to be a Hatse war bait city, so her SOD attacks there while we capture Akhetaten with our smaller stack still in the region, gifting the city to the Incans.

Genghis looked in danger of losing EastPort to Hatse culture, so we planned to gift him yet another gift city.

T147 Hatse finishes Eng and spams it around, so we lost a bunch of our hoped-for tech-trade value.

T149 Genghis wants us to DOW Toku. No dice. Liz starts Music, no good for us.

T150 Genghis adopts Merc - first of the AIs to whom we gifted Banking to pull out their thumb and adopt their favourite civic! Akhetaten looks like it has an uncomfortable but not prohibitive set of defenders.

Resolved on a plan to suicide our workers to try to lure Shaka's stack away from our stack attacking Bulawayo. With a planned T166 win date, this seems a good use for workers!

T152 AI pair finally adopted Merc

T153 Liz bribed Hammu to peace, which we didn't notice before doing our teleport to Shaka's lands. Teleport worked OK, but Hammu is refusing to open borders, because we no longer have shared war. We're still pleased with him (+11 visible) so hopefully he relents next turn. This is very awkward for our plan, because we need to re-capture the Shaka gift cities immediately after our DOW in order to have him heathen for the distraction of holy war (and ensuring our shared war diplo benefits and OB rights with the Gawas)

T154 Started missionaries for remaining homeland Hindu spreads.

T155 Confirmed Cyrus was going to take SBB. Took Akhetaten for loss of a few units, infected (100%) and gifted to Inca. Will lose a few more units on the way out.

T156 Abused AP to get a second +2 "you voted for us" with Toku by assigning TH to us and then voting against it. Finished Paper, sold some world maps. Still teching hard to finish DR.

T157 Boring

T158 We lost one of the above +2, so unlikely to get Toku as a backup voting ally.

T159 Finished DR. Simultaneously, Hammu finished Feudalism, which unlocks our ability to gift him Guilds and Banking. So now we have an embarrassment of techs for bribing!

Plans
Because nearly-Friendly Hammu still won't let us have OB, it's still awkward to get Hammu into the war on Shaka, lest he take GhostTown before we can. Resolved to suggest Nobamba to him as a war target, run for GT as fast as we can and hope that one of GT or SBB will survive in our possession as Shaka's eventual Hindu city. We let Shaka target on Borsippa, and then our SOD takes out Bulawayo in a sneak attack.

T159 DOW Shaka, bribed in Hammu, got OB, suggested Nobamba, ran for GT, got Hammu in Merc.

T160 Great news! Hammu send only one unit against GT, so we capture it without loss. Hatched yet another plan to capture SBB, hold it for a turn and chop out a missionary, but this was doubly-flawed because our culture was insufficient to get either forest tile, and Cyrus' stack was in position to take SBB with an immediate DOW. So we gifted SBB back off to Genghis, and might re-take it in a T164 DOW to re-gift to Shaka to be a Hindu city chance. Hammu is finally spreading around Buddhism, which may help us get his Hindu population up, too, without him switching to Hinduism prematurely and being our voting opponent.

T161 Shaka SoD heads for Borsippa as we expected.

T162 Got OB with Inca/Mali from shared civic. Pity it's useless.

T163 Captured Bulawayo for trivial losses, successfully spread Hinduism at 89%. Gifted to Mali. So the setup is nearly complete. Missionaries lurking to spread to Hammurabi after the vote selection and before votes are counted.

Made peace with Shaka for GhostTown.

Hamma offered peace with Shaka plus 80 gold for Diving Right. Have a huge pile of gold and Paper still for bribes later. +13 with Hamma still. Yes I probably should have traded two techs to Shaka for peace, but I chickend out sorry! Only Liz without a Hindu city now.

T164 - Shaka demanded Paper. I told him to go to hell. Trojan Horse revolted and damaged 15 Toku military but did not flip.

Made peace with Liz for Liztown.

Forged peace between Liz and Shaka by trading Paper to Liz and got 100 gold.

Whipped FishTown to Size 1 and gifted to Liz. Won't have access to fish until border pop. Only war in the world going right now is us and Liz vs. Hatsegawa. Her borders are still closed with Toku.

The 3 Hindu missionaries are in position. All civs now have Hindu.

Whipped 1 pop to get to 70.02% of the vote. We have 124 votes out of 177 and need 132 to reach 75%. No cities will grow. Everything seems in place for the Hindu spam next turn.

During the AI turn. Hammuragawa declared war on Shakagawa and captured GhostTown ruining our chances of a T166 religious victory. There is some dispute that Hammuragawa should not have been able to declare war on Shaka since they had just made peace. There might be some chance that this is a consequence of having a team of 2 AI in the game. Or every time you make bribe 2 AIs to peace it is really a ceasefire (But I doubt this).

Hammuragawa bribed Cyrusgawa into war with him against Shakagawa (so even if we had also give Shakagawa Shaka Bacon Bit Cyrus would have captured it and knocked Shaka out of being a Hindu voting member).

Selected make peace with Gandhi for the AP resolution instead. This was an unfortunate choice because it prevented another chance at victory on T176. The enforced peace wasn't just against Hatsegawa but anyone we DoW in the 2 turns until the vote came up. And then after the vote we couldn't DoW for 10 turns.

T165 DOWed Cyrus. Moved a missionary where it would lose to a Cyrus swordsman in Hammu culture. Sorry, forgot to look for things like this.

T166 AP peace with everyone including Shaka, as expected. Full 10-turn peace treaty. So T176 win is looking remote.

T167 Hammu+Cyrus vs Shaka is the worst-conducted war I think I've ever seen. Cyrus is milling around without seeming to have a city target, Shaka has a stack with all his catapults wandering around neither attacking nor defending, and a stack with only one treb attacking a Hammu city with a castle. Hammu's stack at home is wandering back and forth, and he's not reinforcing the city that is under siege.

T168 Mansa liberates Bulawayo to Shaka, right on schedule :-( Our eastern spies are scouting Incan land. I was erroneously thinking that we could choose the smallest city in which to spread, but that's a bit hopeful. All we can do is gift a missionary and hope they use it.

T169 Hammu "far side of the world" stack makes a reappearance 1SE of SBB. Shaka cat stack seems to be heading to join the treb stack. Cyrus stack bombing kwaDukuza.

Genghis DOWed Cyrus, so if we want to DOW Genghis we can get OB with Cyrus. This would be useful T173, so we can duck a stack into Cyrus territory, DOW Shaka and open a several-front war. We have a flood of spies and units on the way. We have units that could capture SBB this turn from Genghis, but I'm not seeing a use for it other than a galleon upgrade with the Astro nobody has for an impossible teleport to the hypothetical water route north of Genghis to Mansa. The city would have no tiles, 1 population, and it'd be only a matter of time until we lost it. Opening borders with Cyrus now would let us maybe do a teleport T179. Can't imagine that being useful... we can afford the -1 diplo hit with Hammu for DOWing Genghis, so I figure I'll do it - or would if we didn't have this damn peace treaty with the whole world.

T170 Shaka is sending his second stack towards Borsippa also. I can't see any reason why the Moses teleport to Incan land should not have worked - screenshot attached. LizTown revolted to us.

T171 Toku spreading Buddhism around - including to TH, which might one horrible, horrible day be useful. Genghis took Ecbatana and means to stay - 8 knights 4 WE 10 cats and a few others in Ecbatana. Liz and Hatse trading shots somewhere. Gifted missionary to Incans in an 8pop Buddhist city, hoping for the best.

T172 Inca spread Hinduism in 19pop Cuzco, however we still have 70% of the Hindu vote. Another missionary on Patton heading for Genghis for insurance there. Genghis advancing on SBB. Cyrus still bombing kwa. Shaka still bombing Borsippa. Our Bula stack is in position for a hypothetical T173 DOW of Shaka, but we can't DOW Genghis until later because of the AP vote, so can't get Cyrus OB, so it's all a bit futile. Units slowing trickling into position near Borsippa.

T173 I can't see any value in DOWing Shaka this turn, just because it is legal. We can't get OB with Cyrus yet, so we'd be nowhere near Bulawayo. Our spies have only just started to fortify in Shaka's cities (lost 1 on the approach march, and another back in Hammsville, for no diplo penalties). Our Borsippa stack is nowhere near formed.

T174 More boring shuffling of units. I won't even get the fun of smashing Shaka with them. Liz has set up camp in Fishtown for good, it seems. I'm growing LizTown.

T175-T186
DoW with Genghisgawa so I could get OB with Cyrus before I declared war on Shaka. This allowed us to keep our stack up near Bulawayo.
DoW with Shakagawa, North stack went for Bulawayo again.
Shaka took Borsippa so we had kill his stack there before we could push through to his homeland. I gave Borsippa back to Hammuragawa.

I thought I might be able to finish Shaka off completely but 2 spies were caught I and didn't have time or the forces to take his units in their castles. Settled on taking Nongoma and Nobamba and retreating into Bulawayo (after I gave it back to Mansagawa)

I gifted Nobamba to Mansagawa in case Bulawayo flipped to Shakagawa. Thought about spreading hinduism to it, but realized that those 12 votes might push us too close to the edge in the voting. Relied on our stack in Bulawayo to prevent a last minute flip to Shakagawa which would have caused the Mansagawa to lose his Hindu status.

On T184 I set up for the vote with hindu missionaries set to spread to 3 of Hammuragawa's cities. This included making a ceasefire with Shaka and gifting him back Nongoma. I also bribed cyrus to peace with Shaka (not that it did any good since it is only a ceasefire apparently!)

On T185 The vote came up, I attempted to flip Hammuragawa to Organized Religion AND Hinduism with Philosophy. The deal was okay with Hammuragawa but when I clicked okay he only flipped to Organized Religion. Hammuragawa apparently didn't realize that the game doesn't allow him to flip both civics and religion in the same turn Realized afterwards that I only had to flip him to Hinduism since I would have been able to spread Hinduism with him in theocracy.

Spread Hinduism to 3 of Hammuragawa's cities without any religion.

Flipped Hammuragawa to Hinduism using spies.

T186 we won the vote by 8 votes.

 

[Walter_Wolf]

Checking in

Welcome to the new members, and cheers to the old crew .
I'm sorry frogdude is not participating, but I guess he'll chime in at some point to at least check on how we are doing.

Looking forward to start this up.

 

[mabraham]

Hi and welcome all, both new and old. Time to get that gold!

 

[mabraham]

• No City Razing - makes early Conquest victory nearly impossible, and other early military VCs difficult
• City Flip After Conquest - only matters if you capture a city whose neighbouring cities include it in their culture radii, so that a few revolts can cause a flip to return the city. So if we commit to a war, we're committing to taking only isolated cities, or all the nearby cities. It's much cheaper to build more units to take more cities than to build enough MPs to contain revolts.
• Aggressive AI - good for bribing intra-AI wars. Does this do more than add the "Aggressive" trait to those AIs who lack it?
• No Tech Brokering - nobody can trade on a tech that they received in a trade. So tactics like trading Aesthetics for Alpha, then both for backfill techs, getting Currency and trading backfill with everyone for cash won't work. It does mean we can trade a tech on the Lib path (say) to someone we judge won't be in competition for Lib even with the trade.
• No Vassal States - more nerfs for Domination, also can't found colonies.
• No Goody Huts - normal for competition games
• No Events - normal for competition games
• Unrestricted Leaders - as we learned in SGOTM14, we'll need to pay close attention to when diplo levels change so that we can learn who the personalities are by elimination from the known personality traits. Note that this is different from the nation type (UB, UU) and leader type (traits like Org or Fin).

 

[Manco Capac]

V1.5 New facets of inner game mechanism and some tactics as well

• Test needed.
  We have learnt teleportation over an ocean pre-Astro is possible thanks to map cylindrical wrapping. We can teleport over an ocean under condition our continent part is connected to the other part. Otherwise, you may be teleported far away, but still on the same continent.
  Teleportation on other continents are possible only if no possible tile is available to welcome the teleportee in the starting continent.
  
• We have learnt a wounded caravel (85% of total health?) with a missionary is a way to spread a religion without a city or/and OB. The said caravel needs to be an upgraded trireme as upgrading keeps its behaviour script, which is ATTACK. For an AI, an attacking unit needs to recover from his wounds, whence the go back to the port (releasing the missionary) instead of continuing autoexplore.
  
  
  
• Animals don't go on resources tiles unless attacking a unit on this tile; useful on how to avoid animals.
  
• We have learnt one angry citizen doesn't eat food while building a settler or a worker and as long we can provide food for all citizens, angry or not. 5 citizens (where one of the 5 is angry) would need 10 to sustain the needs.
  (credit: mabraham and Bebejika)
  
• We have learnt beaker investment comes before hammers in builds. Sometimes useful for earlier use of marble or stone if settled on it.
  
• Banking beakers in the 5 first turns for a tech with a modifier means some added beakers because the modifier goes for the 5 turn lump of beaker at once at T5.
  
• In No Tech Trading, an AI refusing a tech for trade with an excuse means he has reached over 50% of said tech and is unwilling to lose its trade capacity.
  
• Cities can only be gifted if they are on the same land mass and within 9.5 tiles (rounded to 9 in fact) of their closest city and if they are not in financial crisis. When the receiver civilization has 3 cities or less, they agree for the gift everywhere.
  
• AI rarely flip out of religion if they are in a war (and their cities are threatened?) I think the AI must evaluate the value of flipping compared to 1 turn of anarchy. I've noticed this in other games, an AI will rarely flip out of the AP religion when at war.
  
• Queued missionaries can be used to build wealth. If you erase a queued missionary from the queue and then build 3 missionaries using other cities, then the hammers invested in the missionaries in the erased queues will get converted to wealth. A way to build wealth before currency. Not sure if it has much use since you have to build 3 missionaries as well. Building wealth through fail gold with a wonder that you have the resource for is clearly better but has its own problems.
  Original post by bcool.
  
• The whipping debate
  whipping away grass hill mines to build settlers and workers is clearly better than not whipping (assuming you have a decent food surplus)
  Whipping away grass hill mines for non-settlers and non-workers is only better only in some circumstances. Obviously if you need the units for a critical war it is better. If you have a good food source and farms to work while you regrow. Whipping vs non-whipping results in very similar total production outcomes if you are whipping away grass hill mines. However this assumes you have the happiness to deal with the unhappiness and you have grass farms to regrow the city while it recovers from the whip. --mabraham might remember more details from his tests.
  
• Fast Worker greater efficiency on moving between tiles makes a UU less needed in number than usual worker.
  
• Aggressive AI option needed.
  Threatening more cities than an AI threatens dramatically improves the peace deal you can get. There is a cutoff point for the formula that calculates peace deal value if you can get at least 5/6? of their power. You can threaten a city by having a unit in the 5 by 5 square centered on the city.
  
  The code itself...
  
• With no tech brokering on, you can gift an AI a chain of technologies that are prerequisites for the next one. In a regular game you have to gift the technologies that have prerequisites one per turn.
  
• Barbarian units will move out of the way if they are on the tile you are going to teleport to. Although the barbarians might have been the reason Moses failed. If the barbarians have no valid tile adjacent to them for them to move to then maybe your units teleport to a different tile.
  Needed to be tested.
  
• Watch out for the isolated civilization with the great wall! They will teleport a horde of barbarians over the ocean at you! Possible if no other locations are available for the barb. Tested a while ago IIRC.
  
• Trade Embargos are a perfect way to get two civs to stop having open borders or liberating cities to each other .
  
• The open borders through shared war can be abused to teleport units. This is because canceling an open border results in "not right now, maybe in a few years" before they will sign a new one, which takes from 1 turn to many turns depending of RNG, but with shared war this too is bypassed. So close borders to teleport, then sign a new open borders treaty right away if there is a shared war with the civ.
  
• If you and a hated civ are at war together against a 3rd civ, you can open borders with the hated civ no matter what the relations are at. OB always available in shared wars.
  
• "Show enemy movements" allows you to see if a stack is "grouped" or has a straggler or two. If there is a stragler, then the stack can attack and die and the straggler can retreat.
  
• Tribute in wars is out of worst enemy system; quite useful to give something without bad diplo kickback. Tribure are not counted in the worst enemy counter. Pretty sure bribing will count for WE.
  
• Culture over mountains gives two tiles of sight. Elevation always gives better sight.
  
• Barbs are idiots; a single unit (whatever the kind) can block a chokepoint and no barb will come near mainlands if that chokepoint is the only path to mainlands. AI units doesn't follow that rule. And barb next to the unit will follow a rule that goes over this one: KILL.
  
• No-city-razing-infinite-city-liberation...still working for a city recently captured which has passed size 2 on default settings.
  

• Beaker rate = floor((regular beakers + 1 freebee)*Modifier) + floor(clean_OF*Modifier).

• City Liberation mechanisms and conditions.
  
• Religion spreading inner mechanisms.
  
• Given exploration was done in past, it is possible to deduce where the AI settled their cities without renewing exploration with yield on or disappearance of forests. In addition, an improved resource will show itself differently despite not having seen the improvement yet.
  
• Flipping mechanism via AI will.
  
• AI owning the holy city will add an additional diplo hit to usual bottom we can get with a certain leader.
  
• Forcing peace via AP resolution gives a peace treaty to everyone who were at war for a period of 10 turns, independently to gamespeed.
  
• Holy war resolution against a target won't pop up if one of voter has an existing non expired peace treaty.
  
• Negotiating peace between 2 AI civilizations is just a ceasefire.
  
• The AP resolution to open borders with all members won't come up if 2 of the members are at war with each other.
  
• Stationary spy bonuses for espionage missions accumulate for a stationary spy no matter what (even if the spy makes it to the city location before there is a city there, or if the spy was sitting in your city that you gifted to AI).
  
• There is a significantly greater chance for a spy to be caught in the borders of a civilization which whom you have closed borders.
  
• If you ever have 2 peace treaties with an AI that crosses over by at least 1 turn, the 2nd peace treaty doesn't help--it will end the same turn as the first peace treaty.
  
• Toku has a interesting flavour in science that leads him to tech Alpha theoritically early.
  
• Never trust the fist indicator for WHEEO(R)N!!! Sometimes, it doesn't even show up in modified games.
  Another post.
  
• CTRL+CLICK on leader name permits to open the diplo table even though nothing can be put on the table. Still useful for WHEEON.
  
• Stuff about SoD's willingness to attack; threshold to attack and so on.
  
• Forests in third cultural rings shared by two cities are not fighting for the chop gains; by opening the city table, you can see the cities order by acquisition time (founded or captured). The oldest in a fight for a chop will get the .
  
• AI Fortresses don't create water channels for any other AI or player, OB on doesn't matter!
• Interesting aspect of culture patterns over waters...
• mabraham gives us some lessons on AP resolution...
• Explanation of AP's bugs of an non-existent full member....
  Another post...
• On world view mode, there is a button with : this buttom enables culture pattern to be viewed from outer space...even those that can't be viewed via fog-gazing at tile corners...
• Close borders spark tensions...
  DanF's own explanations.
• Diplo web's bug for discovering unknown civs before meeting them.
• Culture in city before liberation; what short-circuits the liberation button?
  
• Civs can take up to 10-15 turns to switch to their "favorite civic" once you give them the Tech that enables it .
• If a civ goes into WHEOOHRN against you and sends a stack towards your borders, getting them involved in a Holy war will not cancel their war plans. Also, a successful gold beg will only delay their DoW on you by 10 turns.
• Flipping an AI to the AP religion the turn of vote will not change the vote itself, but at least double the value of the voter without making him AP rival.
• Different diplomatics values and time dividors. (Excerpts from DanF5771's complete XML variables)
  1. Share of 1 resource takes 50 turns before a plusmod to a maximum of +2. Giving three resources halves the time by three (while rounded up, which means (50/2) = 25 and (25/2) = 12.5 = 13 turns.
     Stopping the share means your diplo plusmod start to decay.
  2. Same religion plusmod ceiling depends of different AI's and it takes 10 turns to get another plusmod.
  3. Different religions diplo hit differs from one AI to another one. For most AI, you get an instantaneous diplo hit and the bottom is another one diplo hit. For instance, Cyrus gives nothing at first and after 5 turns we already reached the bottom. Indeed, it takes 5 turns to get to the bottom, so better hurry to trade before becoming Worst Enemy. BTW, even thout switching back to another religion or no religion and return to the religion we came from, it doesn't clear up the bottom diplo hit. Different religion in heathen situation will take its own 5 turns to get the bottom heathen diplo hit.
  4. Sharing a favorite civic takes 10 turns to get a plusmod. The max depends of the leader.
  5. Sharing wars takes 8 turns before getting another plusmod. After ending a share war, a plusmod is always retracted.
  6. OB takes 25 turns before getting a plusmod. Max is +2.
  7. Diplo bonus from lasting peace takes 60 turns.
  8. Bonus info for late games: Signing a defensive pact gives plus mod (max +2). It takes 12 turns to get a plusmod.
• Factors that influence the cost of ending a war.
• In No tech brokering, a stolen tech cannot be traded.
• Some concept of hypothetical routes. Most interesting: 2 ocean tiles owned by different AI won't make a trade route or hypothetical route.
• Clash of SoD's. What does tick the AI's SoD to attack now or wait a turn? Or never attack because the AI evaluates his chance of win is nil. This the theory for AI attacking a city!
  
• "Not now, we'll think about it in a few years!" is an excuse from a leader we just cut the bridges (cancel OB). The ability is sign a new OB treaty immensely depends of a random factor, so they can agree to re-open an OB treaty as early as 1 turn after! Current share wars short-circuits this mechanics and allows re-agreement of OB at once.
  
• Code behind begging system.
• Interesting fact about forts whose use is to hook up a resource on an island:
  that fort behaves like a city but doesn't generate the road under its foundation just like a city, so putting a fort plus a road is necessary to connect a resource on an island.
• Some hidden modifiers:
  "We have a higher score than you!" is a hidden modifier that can be found in the XML files and is very dependant of the leaders. Usually, the AI is all happy to be better than you, but a Willem is a special case: he doesn't like the fact he's better than you. It bothers him to be with turd of society while if you are stronger in score than him, he admires you and thus get a better relationship with you.
  
  "We have a lower score than you!" is the counterpart. And it usually pisses some AI off to be losers.
  For instance, real Tokugawa Ieyasu was a leader ready to exchange with foreigners to learn more of them. So why the easy PLEASED defense pact, PLEASED peacevassaling (manipulative trick to gain power), doesn't care about you are better than him. It was the following generations of Ieyasu family who closed border to the world.
  I wonder what real Willem von Orange had in mind...
  
  
  "development civilization should work together!"
  
  Type of diplo modifier hardcoded in DLL files, meaning it is a more generalized behaviour and less specific to leader real life habits. Diplo modifier that comes from the AI who is the most powerful score-wise. He tends his/her hand to lesser nations being more merciful (one plusmod).
  
  Scource #1 and #2.
  
• AP typical period between votes is scaled at 10 turns. But making intentional efforts to make no possible resolution on the next vote degenerates the period length shortening it. The vote is converted into a new vote for a new AP resident.
  I would like to have a reminder what are the exact changes in term of turns.
  

 

[Manco Capac]

• Aggressive AI - good for bribing intra-AI wars. Does this do more than add the "Aggressive" trait to those AIs who lack it?

If I remember correctly (anyways we have Dan on our side to correct us ), it adds one more point in the military aspect (flavour), making agressive super unit spammers even more ferocious (something like 11 instead of the max 10) and weakling barely more agressive.
In other words, it is unbalanced.

• Unrestricted Leaders - as we learned in SGOTM14, we'll need to pay close attention to when diplo levels change so that we can learn who the personalities are by elimination from the known personality traits. Note that this is different from the nation type (UB, UU) and leader type (traits like Org or Fin).

You sure? Unrestricted leaders does not equal with random personalities although I wish a following of that option. But unrestricted leaders mean super combos. Maybe all leaders with Mali civs and skirmishers! o_O

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

An interesting assumption and by the reaction of people, AP victory is a new kind of accepted victory condition, but I wouldn't be surprised the all-game hinduism is set up to hinder abuses.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Kaitzilla checking in.

Nice to see everyone coming back for another shot at the gold!
Welcome to the new members Dan and WastinTime also.


**EDIT**
Rough Index spaced every 10 game turns


Post #020 - Testing Polytheism first teching plan.
Post #088 - Scary map scenario
Post #096 - Rough domination outline
Post #114 - Starting Save Screenshots
Post #115 - Demographics Analysis
Post #125 - More Polytheism testing
Post #164 - No charismatic leaders
Post #189 - Test Game, Turn 0
Post #272 - PPP #1 T0-T9
Post #298 - Screenshots for T0-T9

Post #321 - PPP #2 T10-T19
Post #362 - Screenshots for T10-T19
Post #365 - Reminder of SGOTM team play rules

Post #404 - PPP #3.1 T20-T23
Post #431 - Results for T20-T23
Post #455 - Oracling Metal Casting Testing
Post #458 - Testing Masonry for next tech
Post #480 - PPP#3.2 T24-T29
Post #484 - Results for T24-T29
Post #496 - Test Game, Turn 29

Post #571 - Spreadsheet comparing various micro plans for T29-T39 turnset
Post #574 - PPP#4 T29-T39
Post #594 Post #611 Post #625 - Turn by turn play results
Post #628 - Results for T29-T40
Post #631 - Test Game, T40

Post #642 Post #650 - Analysis, we are all connected by rivers and the center waterway?
Post #652 - Confirmation that warrior on a land chokepoint keeps barbs from heading towards cities behind chokepoint. Northwest wilderness is safe
Post #686 - Testing conducted for liberate city mechanics
Post #709 - Testing conducted for T62 Oracle out east
Post #736 - PPP#5.1 T41-T46
Post #740 - Religion mechanics bible linked
Post #742 - Contact can be made with unmet civs if they get a Hindu spread and we build the Aposolistic Palace.
Post #767 Post #782 - Turn by turn play results, screenshots of T46 empire
Post #777 - Possible game winning solution to spreading religion to hostile distant civs found using triremes.
Post #788 Post #800 Post #810 - Testing conducted out past T100


**Update**

It would take quite a few hours to update this now. Maybe I will get around to it in the next few weeks. I won't be completing this
However, Tachywaxon has a delightful 'lessons learned 1.5' section two posts up that is really worth reading.

 

[mabraham]

You sure? Unrestricted leaders does not equal with random personalities although I wish a following of that option. But unrestricted leaders mean super combos. Maybe all leaders with Mali civs and skirmishers! o_O

You're right, that is quite different. We won't need to do as much detective work as we did in SGOTM14.

An interesting assumption and by the reaction of people, AP victory is a new kind of accepted victory condition, but I wouldn't be surprised the all-game hinduism is set up to hinder abuses.

Fast AP-win attempts do look somewhat obvious, but I've almost no experience of them. The map structure is probably key to whether that is reasonable.

 

[shulec]

shulec checking in.

Welcome to wastintime and dan5771


I added the pic of our start:

Spoiler :

 

[Manco Capac]

Thanks for the picture, shulec.

Each time I look at the starting location, my senses go for settling on marble. (EDIT: Settling on marble unlocks more interesting discounted wonders compared to riverside stone.) Such a nice city tile, but at the time, looks like a trap for instant loss because of Polytheism race.

The first assumption to consider as a rule is to preserve any turn if moving the city is an option. We have to minimize risks.
The FP was indeed put just under the settler to make us feel bad to destroy the land feature upon settling.

Those GHs and super PHs are quite good to preserve.

Because of rule one and the corn and surrounding forests positioning, I think it is best to move the warrior eastward as this the only move that permits to preserve a turn.

We won't lose any worker turn as we have the FW and the FP will make up the lost commerce from the riverside corn.

Still, the moving warrior must find something worthwhile to move the capital like more other GH's to make up the loss of the of the two in the west or perhaps a super tiles (food). Gems or Gold are certainly unprobable giving too much of an advantage to those moving the warrior in the right direction.

Come to think, nothing proves there is nothing next to the corn and moving the capital may end up something terrible like losing another riverside corn or pig.

I am convinced the FP was installed to mess with us.

And, BTW, no corn settling. Okay.

Any thoughts?

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

Big question about instant loss.

The thing is with religious race for founding a religion, and especially the earliest ones, on emperor level, there is a noticeable chance to lose Poly. Even it could be 10%, it is still 10%! Losing to such RNG is completely unfair and Neilmeister must have tested largely to know we have ~100% to get under condition we don't lose any turn.
IIRC, I recalled some tests I did about how the AI's behave for religious techs (Med. and Poly), I think it is settled with preserved random seed, but I will come back with some tests. (Later)

There is also the other the case with civ not starting with Myst., then assures us to get the religion. I doubt it, otherwise Neil wouldn't advise us for instant loss.

 

[mabraham]

Those GHs and super PHs are quite good to preserve.

That is, by settling-in-place, i.e. SIP

Yes, but keeping the FP farmed allows us to run corn, FPfarm, stone, marble and two specialists at size 6 (assuming sufficient happiness). This looks like a good way to leverage being Philo. (Allows for fast academy, or fast Theo, or both, or fast Kashi Vishwanath, or...)

If we need to rush someone early, (or need an early wonder rush) and so would have wanted to SIP to get all those extra GHills, then we need to work corn, marble, stone and three GHills. That only provides 11 food (including the food from center tile), so we'd have to get to size 7 and work a Gfarm to get that third GHill. That's quite a lot of happiness required... It's not realistic to plan on working all three in the early game, and that's what matters most often for the initial settling decision. Settling 1E keeps the best (river) GHill and allows for quite a few fogged tiles to provide a compensating hill or two, if required.

Also, being Spi allows us to switch in and out of slavery to get hammers at about 1=>2 (with a granary) so I'm less keen than usual to have grassland mines available. That FP is worth an extra 2 per turn for itself if we're whipping regularly, and because it makes sense to work a farm now, it might be 4 turn. For example, we whip from 6 to 4 working corn+FP+marble+stone and growing working the river Ghill at size 5.

Because of rule one and the corn and surrounding forests positioning, I think it is best to move the warrior eastward as this the only move that permits to preserve a turn.

If we want the GHills available then this is true. However, if we want the FP available, then the default must be to settle 1E, so scouting east can only reinforce that default. Scouting west brings in timely information to do something other than the default. Fog-gazing the actual save would have to suggest which of NW or NE would be better.

 

[Manco Capac]

Yes, but keeping the FP farmed allows us to run corn, FPfarm, stone, marble and two specialists at size 6 (assuming sufficient happiness). This looks like a good way to leverage being Philo. (Allows for fast academy, or fast Theo, or both, or fast Kashi Vishwanath, or...)

Very good point to get as fast as possible an academy.
I don't Kashi is ever a good choice. Right, we may need to spread a lot our religion to make an AP victory possible, but spending a GP in a shrine not spreaded by the AI isn't always the best.
A GP on theo, that is correct if the oracle isn't available, but going for Polytheism all for ourselves mean an easy straight path to Oracle. Better make a Theo slingshot.
I think it is better to keep scientists.

Also, the GP spawning rate leaps around 1000 GPP by jump of 200 GPP, so philo is all about earlier GP, not more. Better choose carefully the ones we want.

I still have doubts about AP, no comment for now about it. I suspect there might many zealots out there with the -4 heathen diplo hit.

If we need to rush someone early, (or need an early wonder rush) and so would have wanted to SIP to get all those extra GHills, then we need to work corn, marble, stone and three GHills. That only provides 11 food (including the food from center tile), so we'd have to get to size 7 and work a Gfarm to get that third GHill. That's quite a lot of happiness required... It's not realistic to plan on working all three in the early game, and that's what matters most often for the initial settling decision. Settling 1E keeps the best (river) GHill and allows for quite a few fogged tiles to provide a compensating hill or two, if required.

You convinced me on the greenish statement.
Good thing you keep in mind war options. We have to ponder better this time this option. And fast growth I think too.

 

[bcool]

Why not settle on the marble? I assume you are worried that if we settle on the 2nd turn you are worried that we will lose the race to polytheism?

I can't imagine that if we go straight for polytheism we will lose the race to found Hinduism even if we settle on the 2nd turn.

We might very well run out of useful tiles to improve if we go with a worker first since we will have to tech polytheism first. So the 2 extra hammers for settling on the marble might not be as good as it usually is (since one of the big advantages of the extra hammers is getting a worker faster)

 

[Manco Capac]

Why not settle on the marble? I assume you are worried that if we settle on the 2nd turn you are worried that we will lose the race to polytheism?

Yup. That option was taken in consideration, but that is true the race is something to not take lightly.

We might very well run out of useful tiles to improve if we go with a worker first since we will have to tech polytheism first. So the 2 extra hammers for settling on the marble might not be as good as it usually is (since one of the big advantages of the extra hammers is getting a worker faster)

Definitely right on this one.

 

[bcool]

I can't believe that the map maker would risk teams losing the game just because they decided to settle on the 2nd turn. You would get a lot of upset players.

I'm willing to bet good money that there are no other civilizations that start with mysticism in the game. So teams that don't go for polytheism first will definitely risk losing the game, but teams that tech polytheism first even if they settle on the 2nd turn are safe.

 

[DanF5771]

Hello Team Kakumeika!

DanF5771 checking in, thanks Tachywaxon for the invitation and thanks everyone for the warm welcome.
I'll try to closely follow and contribute to this thread, but wouldn't mind getting pm'ed when specific (esp. game-mechanics-related) problems need to be tackled.
Got a bit rusty though during my hiatus, let's see.

Interesting scenario, AP allowed and all ... this game might be over rather quickly (after Optics? depending on layout of land masses).
And interesting options, definitely require intensive testing in order to avoid bad surprises, but they could also provide opportunities for -may I call them- slightly "exploitive" tactics.
I believe 'No City Razing' still allows disbanding of a city after culture flipping -- so in combination with 'City Flip After Conquest' there may be ways that still allow a fast military approach to this game, but this is just a rough idea I'm throwing out here, nothing thought out at all...

Quite excited to see what the map creators give us in terms of AI opponents and how they guarantee the player founds Hinduism.
Will this be a 4000 BC save, or perhaps 3960 BC with the AI capitals founded and research already chosen?
I need to refresh my knowledge about the impact of 'Aggressive AI' and 'No Tech Brokering'...

 

[Manco Capac]

I'm willing to bet good money that there are no other civilizations that start with mysticism in the game. So teams that don't go for polytheism first will definitely risk losing the game, but teams that tech polytheism first even if they settle on the 2nd turn are safe.

That would be radical to think that way, but I think it would be fair if a team who thinks they are capable to squeeze in agri and get Poly just in time to lose the game; that would quite unbalanced to others if a team who improves food (the strongest food tile in addition) first.

And interesting options, definitely require intensive testing in order to avoid bad surprises, but they could also provide opportunities for -may I call them- slightly "exploitive" tactics.

That is okay, SGOTM can be very exploitative at some moments because people are fiercely trying to win using all grey zone rules at all cost. Too much in-depth analysis will bring these kind of "tactics" out of the box one moment or another.
At least, since the last SGOTM, for example, camera flying mode and the "Go to" (I still have no idea what it is or how to make it working...)totally exploitative methods were banned, but they could be used extensively to the ire of teams following closely the code of chivalry (no criticism intented ).

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Okay, I have made the testings in regards how the AI behaves due to different human choice and how it affects the tech choice RNG.

Between a SIP capital where the initial warrior didn't move at all and another shot where I fogbusted differently, it looks like it doesn't have any impact in AI tech choice.

Losing a turn to found the capital elsewere (like on PH marble in the real game), has an impact on AI tech choice.

Putting a lot of settled Gspies plus a scotland yard and waiting a turn for tech result does have an impact (modifier AI slider) and I corrected later that little mistake.

I just used a worldbuildered random save and not the debugger mode.

After looking Polytheism remaining turns from an AI, and us with either a riveride corn or FP, I can say we have no chance to beat the AI if one starts with Myst.
The high prob. chances to win Poly race comes (I think) from the fact the likes better Med. due to its lower cost (faster completion).

The direct conclusion, not a single AI stats with Myst. and methinks it is safe to move the capital.
Neil probably did have tested the game as it is doable and warrior different exploration patterns won't influence AI tech choice.