SGOTM 15 - Kakumeika

[Manco Capac]

I can't see any sign of that. When we get the real save we can see if stone has fresh water, and fog-gaze better.

I'm also not sold on the value of settling on either resource, yet. We need to do some testing once we know how long our tech paths might take and what we can produce during that time.

The commerce along the stone output. Unless Neil is that treacherous, I wouldn't think so. I am trying to count the possible river tiles, but for now, it looks like marble has upper hand.

But I have to admit all my reasoning was turning around GWall, which may not be ideal if isolated. The other reason was emperor level doesn't press us to get the marble so fast, unless we shoot for culture, which seems to have its charm, but still, we have to wait a bit to know what the map is up to.

I understand you are not sold on this idea, but that is the best I can do for now. I am not very good with abstract victory strategizing with so few info.

 

[bcool]

good eye on the river for the stone. It looks like they are almost balanced in terms of the river tiles likely available to each, with perhaps the Marble with 1 or 2 more.

I suspect we are not isolated -- just because those games tend to be less interesting and I doubt the sgotm is designed that way. If we are isolated we could win without meeting any of the other AI-- seems highly unlikely to be designed that way.

Although there is always the possibility the mapmaker again attempted to put all victory conditions on a roughly equal footing, and being isolated certainly is one way to make the cultural victory condition much more attractive (as well as giving us stone and marble).

 

[Manco Capac]

good eye on the river for the stone. It looks like they are almost balanced in terms of the river tiles likely available to each, with perhaps the Marble with 1 or 2 more.

I suspect we are not isolated -- just because those games tend to be less interesting and I doubt the sgotm is designed that way. If we are isolated we could win without meeting any of the other AI-- seems highly unlikely to be designed that way.

Although there is always the possibility the mapmaker again attempted to put all victory conditions on a roughly equal footing, and being isolated certainly is one way to make the cultural victory condition much more attractive (as well as giving us stone and marble).

But, putting away the number of riverside grassland tiles, is there a particular reason marble is better than stone for settling for a bureaucratic capital? I mean, true settling on stone means even third culture ring won't attain marble, thus pressuring us to found another city for marble. And GWall culture is lamentable, thus no speeding up to 4th cultural ring.
Anyways, more testing is needed.

 

[mabraham]

Just in case people are unaware, the point of settling on plains hills with marble or stone is that you get an extra hammer from the central tile from both the PH and the resource - i.e. 2 extra hammers for free. The early boost to production can be well worthwhile giving up the right to work a more productive resource tile later on - but it depends on city size and available tiles.

Our happiness cap with MP, Palace and Hinduism will be size 6, by the way. For example, settling on the marble on turn 1 will be able to work corn, FPfarm, two Gmines and two specialists, and still have +2 food excess. That type of scenario produces 492 per turn from the center+hammers tiles.

Contrastingly, settling 1E of FP on turn 0 can work corn, FPfarm and two quarries with the two specialists. This gets 2125 from the center+hammers tiles, but requires four extra worker turns to complete quarries rather than mines, and teching Masonry. Two food for 3 hammers and 3 commerce is an OK deal, but there's a significant period of time teching Poly->Ag->???->Masonry where we get very little from the resource tiles unless we have spare worker turns and put mines on them (which returns 2103, which is poor compared to settling on marble).

 

[Manco Capac]

Just in case people are unaware, the point of settling on plains hills with marble or stone is that you get an extra hammer from the central tile from both the PH and the resource - i.e. 2 extra hammers for free. The early boost to production can be well worthwhile giving up the right to work a more productive resource tile later on - but it depends on city size and available tiles.

Our happiness cap with MP, Palace and Hinduism will be size 6, by the way. For example, settling on the marble on turn 1 will be able to work corn, FPfarm, two Gmines and two specialists, and still have +2 food excess. That type of scenario produces 492 per turn from the center+hammers tiles.

Contrastingly, settling 1E of FP on turn 0 can work corn, FPfarm and two quarries with the two specialists. This gets 2125 from the center+hammers tiles, requires four extra worker turns to complete quarries rather than mines, and teching Masonry. Two food for 3 hammers and 3 commerce is an OK deal, but there's a significant period of time teching Poly->Ag->???->Masonry where we get very little from the resource tiles unless we have spare worker turns and put mines on them (which returns 2103, which is poor compared to settling on marble).

Nice analysis as always. But I think everyone knows about settling on PH quarry is all about getting free ( or free as I always viewed it like settling on a desert). Looking the situation, settling on stone is out of question, right?

 

[mabraham]

Nice analysis as always. But I think everyone knows about settling on PH quarry is all about getting free ( or free as I always viewed it like settling on a desert).

The point is that settling on the resource is better in the first 30ish turns (compared to not settling on it), and competitive thereafter. If the early advantage turns into earlier warriors scouting/stealing/meeting AIs, or workers improving tiles, or settlers settling, then the comparison is fairly clearly in favour of settling on the resource.

Looking the situation, settling on stone is out of question, right?

It seems hard to make a case for settling on stone on the limited information we have now, even given that it is on a river. We will have the holy city and palace culture, so getting three border pops in time for a hypothetical Pyramids run after settling on marble will be comfortable, I expect.

 

[DanF5771]

I spy with my little eye:
the northern river seems to bend around the tile 2NE of Warrior/Settler which also has a forest, like this: 1st attachment.

the zealots who will give us a -4 for different religion have an xml-value of iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange = -2.
Here they are sorted by their ContactRand:CONTACT_RELIGION_PRESSURE, also added the MemoryAttitudePercent:MEMORY_DENIED_RELIGION: 2nd attachment

I understand the game rules force us to deny all demands to convert to different religions or adopt the free religion civic. The same holds for the UN-Vote.
What if an AI forces us out of Hinduism via Spy Mission??

 

[Manco Capac]

I spy with my little eye:
the northern river seems to bend around the tile 2NE of Warrior/Settler which also has a forest, like this:

The rest of the river is hypothetical, right?
BTW, please upload images on the server (manage attachments) from now on. Supposedly to protect ourselves from pictures hunters (cheaters whatever ) . With a value of 50, Isabella is such an annoying bugger as always.

Ah yes, thank to have updated the test game, that river was overlooked.

 

[DanF5771]

The rest of the river is hypothetical, right?

Yes.

I guess the following crazy scenario will fail any thorough analysis, but anyway:

settle Marble, build Settler first, tech (Masonry) -> Poly
settle Stone as second city, build Stonehenge / Great Wall there

do we even have time to wait with Poly to be founded in 2nd city?

 

[Manco Capac]

Yes.

I guess the following crazy scenario will fail any thorough analysis, but anyway:

settle Marble, build Settler first, tech (Masonry) -> Poly
settle Stone as second city, build Stonehenge / Great Wall there

do we even have time to wait with Poly to be founded in 2nd city?

Interesting. mabraham (the analytic guy) will definitely have an answer to that.
Combined with worker stealing, it may work. But if we are not gunning for culture, I don't think SH will have noticeable effect. We have Hinduism for border pop.
Somehow, I really don't know what to think about culture, the best we can get is probably around 1300 AD, but it is one of the easiest path.

EDIT: Just noticed as my blank mind retrieved its senses! You want Masonry before Poly. Looks very risky...

 

[DanF5771]

agree about insane risk of Masonry first
really depends on what's going on on the map ...

+ early & cheap Stonehenge -> super fast border pop of 2nd city
+ quite early GPriest, GP-Pool in Delhi remains clean
+ border pops in new cities without auto-spread luck (better to plan with) or costly Missionaries
(+ stronger culture for flip-razing of AI cities)

 

[Manco Capac]

+ quite early GPriest, GP-Pool in Delhi remains clean

GProphets early is somewhat not recommendable, but combined with GWall and RNG Goddesses, an GSpy may born and its use is good. mabraham told us about Kashi, but I don't wish that wonder so soon. GScientist early or GSpy best. Afterwards, we will see...

 

[bcool]

Yes.

I guess the following crazy scenario will fail any thorough analysis, but anyway:

settle Marble, build Settler first, tech (Masonry) -> Poly
settle Stone as second city, build Stonehenge / Great Wall there

do we even have time to wait with Poly to be founded in 2nd city?

Interesting idea,

A bit safer might be
1) settle Marble, build settler, select Poly for teching turn 0 perhaps to discourage AI from teching mysticism?, tech Masonry for 9? turns, switch to poly before masonry finishes and time it to finish at the end of the same turn we settle the 2nd city

Settler takes 19 turns, hinduism takes 12-13 turns, masonry takes 9 turns, settler needs 2 turns to walk over to the stone. Hmm, probably can't save more than a turn by switching off of masonry.

Slightly safer plan, build settler, tech polytheism to within 1 turn of completion, then switch to masonry. If buddhism gets founded, immediately switch to back to poly before the 2nd city is founded.

Of course all of this might not be worth the risk.

 

[bcool]

GProphets early is somewhat not recommendable, but combined with GWall and RNG Goddesses, an GSpy may born and its use is good. mabraham told us about Kashi, but I don't wish that wonder so soon. GScientist early or GSpy best. Afterwards, we will see...

Having the holy city building really early, does spread the religion randomly quite a bit faster. A very early holy city building (with early AI contacts) means we will get quite a few AI following our religion.

And spreading the religion to our own cities is a virtual guarantee (depending on distant to the holy city). Which might not be a great thing if we are hoping for some random spread by another religion (if we are going for a cultural victory).

 

[Manco Capac]

Slightly safer plan, build settler, tech polytheism to within 1 turn of completion, then switch to masonry. If buddhism gets founded, immediately switch to back to poly before the 2nd city is founded.

I don't really get it. Even if we stop Poly researching, thinking Buddism is a reference can be a wrong reference. If the AI guns for Poly first. Without Myst. an average AI takes something around 6-7 turns for Myst. and ~9 turns for poly.
Adding those means ~ 16 turns < 22 turns (our Masonry and Poly).

 

[Manco Capac]

Having the holy city really early, does spread the religion randomly quite a bit faster. A very early holy city (with early AI contacts) means we will get quite a few AI following our religion.

And spreading the religion to our own cities is a virtual guarantee (depending on distant to the holy city). Which might not be a great thing if we are hoping for some random spread by another religion (if we are going for a cultural victory).

No doubt we will have a holy city, we found Hinduism. But early Kashi, hmm...not that very attractive from a GProphet first. EDIT: Did you mean Kashi helps spread rate; I don't think so.
Even for cultural victory, I would prefer an early Academy (also +4 ) to get as fast as possible Lib -> Nationalism and then push the culture slider on maximum.


We have many rivers...Sailing? => Automatic spreading. But if we intent worker stealing, which is also very attractive, we won't count on our neighbour to OB.
Come to think, do we even need an OB for automatic spread; somehow I think it is not necessary.

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Looking at the hypothetic positioning of rivers in the attached image, you may look this post.
Credit to our partner code diver.

That is something we can use to connect two cities without roads. And even for automatic Hindu spread.
To easy study of trade route in real time, on global view mode, next to culture pattern button (bcool showed us this in the last SGOTM), a currency button is displayed: trade route button. Ideal to avoid confusion.

 

[bcool]

sorry I meant the holy city building Kashi (yes this instead of an academy or a 1st great spy is clearly worse) I was just pointing out that an early holy city building doesn't dramatically spread the religion around the world.

 

[Manco Capac]

sorry I meant the holy city building Kashi (yes this instead of an academy or a 1st great spy is clearly worse) I was just pointing out that an early holy city building doesn't dramatically spread the religion around the world.

Okay. Ignore the question in red.

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I made my little investigation in regards map sizes of precedent SGOTM's (stopped at #07 because Warlord version) and only the tenth succession game had small size. The rest was standard size.
Although may undergo severe changes from the mapmaker, the map grid is determined.
I have a guess we have a standard size with 8 leaders. Someone here talked about trying to equalize victory conditions; a large mapsize would mean dom/conquest will be out of question because I think this will go beyond 1300 AD under such conditions (especially no vassal state).
I don't remember if someone has resolved the case, but IIRC, a map that underwent changes doesn't update the land tiles value in the score table (cursor must hover bottom right score).
We should make some stats and see if conquest (and especially dom) are viable according to the number of tiles, if ever it corrects itself.

Under condition the military campaigns would become more infernal than the last SGOTM, perhaps we might think about other alternatives like culture.

 

[bcool]

Sorry, early morning here. The holy city building DOES dramatically spread the religion around the world. I believe it doubles the random rate of the religion spreading.


I believe editing the map in worldbuilder doesn't update the land tiles only if you don't create a new world builder file.

I believe the mapmaker has to make the worldbuilder file and then the starting save is created from that worldbuilder file, so the land tiles are updated in the start files we receive. I could be wrong though.

 

[Manco Capac]

Sorry, early morning here. The holy city building DOES dramatically spread the religion around the world. I believe it doubles the random rate of the religion spreading.

Wutwut! I didn't even know.