SGOTM 15 - Kakumeika

[mabraham]

So delaying Oracle until we can tech Mono and Writing is out of the question? (We could skip Pottery as long as we have animal handling)

Do we have any idea how big a risk delaying the Oracle would be?

Not really, but we'd want to have a demonstrable advantage for the increased risk. Oracle->Theol planning fast Optics pretty much requires GEng->Mach, and without MC for a forge that's not really going to happen fast enough.

I'm not happy with how late the great engineer comes. I'm not sure if mabraham is suggesting building a forge/pyramids and hanging gardens in the same city or not. I'm not suggesting anything new really if he is.

I was suggesting the same city in post 744, because I was planning on a single GEngineer. You can see that in my reported spreadsheet timings for Plan E. We have to get more GEngineer output somewhere than we get GPro output from Delhi. If the latter is 5/turn from stacked SH, Kashi, Oracle, then the former has to be 7 from eng, Mids, HG since it's a while before any of the engineer stuff comes online.

Plan J

Just a modified Plan E

beeline mathematics after finishing writing. Build the Hanging Gardens before the Pyramids (Hanging Gardens requires the same raw hammer commitment as the Pyramids if you include the aqueduct, but you can whip the aqueduct without penalties). The problem is we can't start the aqueduct until we have mathematics. If we focus on growth rather than hammers we might be able to build the Hanging Gardens before the pyramids. The Hanging Gardens would help us build the forge/pyramids since it would give us +1 pop we could either whip off, assign as an engineer, or work a mine. It would also help get a great scientist in another city faster.

I think we would have to get the forge up first. It's 120 base hammers, compared with aqueduct+HG (250 base hammers) or Pyramids (250 base hammers). We get access to earning 2/turn from the engineer in about half the time we can complete a 3/turn wonder, as well as reducing the build time of the subsequent stuff. Then HG next simply adds a population point for the Pyramids (so call that some fraction of 30 base hammers from whipping something somehow), whereas Pyramids next adds Rep to the specialists we are running elsewhere.

I will try a few tests when I get home.

Can we delay the Oracle a turn or 2 and save a forest near Deer/Gold? Those forests would be handy to chop for the forge, aqueduct, Hanging Gardens, and pyramids.

Yes, but I'm not sure how we can get 2-3 for Delhi's Oracle, 1-2 for SheepGold's road and infrastructure, and several for Deer/Gold infrastructure all at about the same time while preserving forests at Deer/Gold. Chopping the Deer/Gold forests into workers to improve the Oracle and then GEngineer@SheepGold makes more sense because SheepGold still has 3+ chops to use.

Plan K

Modified Plan E
Go for great engineer bulb of machinery with pyramids and/or hanging gardens.
But just plan to self-tech optics (build cottages instead of farms Or plan for farms and representation empowered scientist specialists, other ways to maximize commerce, perhaps teching currency not just for the trade routes, but also for the ability to sell resources for gold and for tech for gold trades.

What's the gain? Getting the GSci for the optics bulb is the easy part. The problem is getting the early enough Mach+Theol->AP. Getting a GEng is useful because it removes the Mach constraint so long as our AP isn't so fast we shoot ourselves in the foot.

If you're suggesting we give up on bulbing Optics ASAP in order that we get CoL (T84 GPro bulb as well as early Theol bulb?) and run a Rep-fueled specialist economy that will perhaps T113ish GEng bulb for Mach and then T120 bulb Philo for Pacifism and then T125ish bulb Optics, then there's something to consider. Its major advantage is that if we need deep tech, we're set up better than the original Plan E. I don't think that cottages without many specialists will get Optics faster than any form of Plan E.

Lack of OB removes the ability to sell resources for gold, and reduces the return of the extra trade route. If we are still WE, we might not be able to trade tech for gold either. So I can see us wanting plenty of other things before Currency.

 

[mabraham]

How early does the AP go?

T102 in my test game of post 738. Watching when the real AIs finish TGW will give us a very vague timer.

Is plan A really that bad? a T101 start of the AP with Organized Religion, a forge and at least 2 forest chops? We can probably finish the AP in 15 turns.

Successive whip overflows could give us about 55 OF hammers, 2 chops for 60 hammers * 1.5 = 172.5 +12*1.5 per turn for 15 turns?
Each forest we save cuts about 3 turns off of that.

Can we save the forests for the AP and still get the great scientists in Deer/Cows? Perhaps slow down the Oracle by a turn or so to save a forest for the library in Deer/Cows.

Modified Plan B
Or can we run 3 priest specialists with the Kashi to time the great prophet closer to the great scientist from DeerCows? With a temple Delhi could run 4 priest specialists and Kashi gives 1 great person point too, so that is 15 raw *2. We could get the great prophet from Delhi about 3-4 turns after the great scientist from DeerCow on T93. So the Great Prophet could come T97 perhaps.

Yeah that's all plausible, except that we have a hidden constraint on the Mach GSci-bulb that we need all of Writing, Maths, Alpha, Aesthetics and IW first. We probably want AH and Mono for the empire. Without tech trades that took until T102 in my suboptimal test game of post 738, and I didn't get Mono. So I reckon we're unlikely to be able to GSci-bulb Mach before T95 at the earliest in variants of plans A and B, and plan D and E look better than that.

 

[bcool]

Yeah that's all plausible, except that we have a hidden constraint on the Mach GSci-bulb that we need all of Writing, Maths, Alpha, Aesthetics and IW first. We probably want AH and Mono for the empire. Without tech trades that took until T102 in my suboptimal test game of post 738, and I didn't get Mono. So I reckon we're unlikely to be able to GSci-bulb Mach before T95 at the earliest in variants of plans A and B, and plan D and E look better than that.

How is the modified Plan B worse than a plan D or E plan?

Modified Plan B gets us Kashi, AP, and Optics by about T110. (And nothing would stop us from building the pyramids as well in that plan)

From what I've read the best we can do for a machinery bulb with plan E is a T120 great engineer.

Plan D can get Optics earlier, but it doesn't have the Kashi.

The only problem with a modified Plan B is that we get the AP about T110 which might be too late. The later bulb time of the great scientist isn't that big of a deal for plan B. We just would need to bulb machinery before we bulb theology which would happen about T97.

With the possible problems with spreading Hinduism via gifts of caravels it seems that the Kashi is more important than we thought. I think plan D is out, since it doesn't have the Kashi.
And I think Plan E is about 10 turns slower than Plan B. Yes we take a risk with the AP, but remember that the test game is the worst case scenario (the AI were given all of the initial technologies, that has to speed up the AP by at least 8 turns). Plan B has some room to build military, too.

 

[shulec]

I feel that I haven't gotten any clear go ahead on the PPP other than from STW.
It has more or less been available for comments, for several days and I have not gotten much feedback. i will take the few comments about changes to mean "OK with these changes." I also feel like an idiot could decide the next few moves so I will play through bronze shortly, as outlined in my ppp.

 

[mabraham]

How is the modified Plan B worse than a plan D or E plan?

Plan D and modified B can start AP T93 or T97ish, if pre-Mach tech is done. So there's a small theoretical edge for D there for getting the AP, for the price of no Kashi. Plan E can start AP T84 regardless of tech.

Modified Plan B gets us Kashi, AP, and Optics by about T110. (And nothing would stop us from building the pyramids as well in that plan)

... if we've completed the pre-Mach tech by T97, and can get Fishing-Sailing-Compass as well by about T110. The latter group is about as much tech as MC, remember.

From what I've read the best we can do for a machinery bulb with plan E is a T120 great engineer.

Yep.

Plan D can get Optics earlier, but it doesn't have the Kashi.

The only problem with a modified Plan B is that we get the AP about T110 which might be too late. The later bulb time of the great scientist isn't that big of a deal for plan B. We just would need to bulb machinery before we bulb theology which would happen about T97.

With the possible problems with spreading Hinduism via gifts of caravels it seems that the Kashi is more important than we thought. I think plan D is out, since it doesn't have the Kashi.
And I think Plan E is about 10 turns slower than Plan B. Yes we take a risk with the AP, but remember that the test game is the worst case scenario (the AI were given all of the initial technologies, that has to speed up the AP by at least 8 turns). Plan B has some room to build military, too.

I think the modified Plan B needs some non-OB non-tech-trading test game evidence that we can organize the pre-Mach tech at a good time to get a decent AP time and finish the pre-Optics tech by about T110. Building the AP keeps Delhi occupied and that could hurt our tech a good deal. My test game in post 738 had Delhi not building the AP and running two scientists and hadn't done the pre-Mach tech by T102. If the pre-Optics tech will take until around T120, then the modified plan B doesn't have much advantage over Plan E while adding some amount of risk to the AP. Plan E does need ~T88 Mids, but that seems acceptable to me.

 

[mabraham]

I feel that I haven't gotten any clear go ahead on the PPP other than from STW.
It has more or less been available for comments, for several days and I have not gotten much feedback. i will take the few comments about changes to mean "OK with these changes." I also feel like an idiot could decide the next few moves so I will play through bronze shortly, as outlined in my ppp.

Sorry, I'd meant to re-post "I'm still good with it" since there were only tiny changes from the last.

 

[shulec]

T41
Cook moves NW, no animal seen.
Burke moves 1NW. This actually leaves a tile unfogbusted for Deergold. Move 1e Next Turn.

Spoiler :

Amundson moves to gold and finds a bear 2S on forest.

Spoiler :

Eiffel moves to deer.

T42
Cook moves SW, nothing of interest seen in ocean.
Burke moves 1E to share a tile with Toku scout. This scout was heading west and presumably fogbusted the tile that was not fogbusted by Burke the previous turn.1
Amundson finds a Lion 1SW, the bear 2S1W before moving.

Spoiler :

Based on PPP. Stop turnset due to Animal interference.

 

[bcool]

I would retreat 1NW 1N1E and hope the lion follows. With the forest and the river on defense you could likely kill the lion with little to no injury.

 

[shulec]

I would retreat 1NW and hope the lion follows. With the forest and the river on defense you could likely kill the lion with little to no injury.

This is the most sensible move. You mean 1N1E I believe. I second this.

mabraham?

 

[bcool]

good luck shulec, I'm off to bed.

I'll try to play plan B without OB and trading to see where we get, but I won't be able to do this until ~22 hours from now.

 

[mabraham]

This is the most sensible move. You mean 1N1E I believe. I second this.

mabraham, can I get an "Of course dummie, go ahead"?

1N1E was my gut reaction, but if the lion doesn't follow then we're stuck there in the dark unable to move back out for fear of the bear. Toku has an archer that might save us sooner or later...

The primary objective is for the warriors to stay alive and try to establish a safe settler route. My next thought was Amundsen 1S1E, hoping the animals don't come for us. Now we keep visibility of some useful tiles. If the bear comes for us, we move 1E and bunker down on the hill 1W of corn. Otherwise we might be able to get to the forest 2S of gold, which could work well with the other warrior 1E of marble. That would be bad if the animals just mill around on the spot, and we'd have to fall back on the slower northern settler route.

I think on balance moving 1S1E offers more future. This also benefits if Toku's archer heads for the menagerie.

 

[shulec]

Another alternative is to fortify. It will be 90.1% odds.

Spoiler :

Since we have a few choices. I will call it a night and wait for the team to weigh in.

 

[mabraham]

Another alternative is to fortify. It will be 90.1% odds.

Spoiler :

90% and vision sounds OK. IIRC that will get us 2XP and to 5XP total for a promotion?

 

[WastinTime]

I'd move away to the forests and let Toku kill them.

 

[DanF5771]

The Lion won't follow us into the NE direction because it cannot move into a tile with a resource (Gold) unless it is attacking.

The majority of the players has founded the 2nd city by now, so the game has entered the stage where it doesn't spawn new animals anymore (2nd condition: game turn >= 20 for Emperor). Now barb Warriors & Archers are created as needed and the remaining animals get killed off at a rate of one creature per turn. If we are lucky the Lion and the Bear simply get deleted before we send our Settler around the hills, but there is of course no guarantee (with a high starting number of animals, they can still roam around on this kind of map till T60 and later).

I kind of like mabraham's 1SE proposal so that the menagerie continues to help preventing spawns of Warriors & Archers, but I wouldn't mind risking the fight fortified in place.
Defending at 90.1% only yields 1XP but still brings us to 5XP for the 2nd promo.

 

[shulec]

I actually like the 1S1E plan. If we have to face the lion, it will still be at 90.1% from a hill. I will have to try to bring De Soto into the in 2-3 turns. Hopefully, Toku's archer will head southwest.

 

[DanF5771]

Yes, I can look into the Caravel and Missionary gift dilemma. Maybe other means of Religion spread to distant, unknown Civs too.

Sun Tzu Wu

Okay, I think I've found one way to make Caravels move into a city, so that the Missionary is able to disembark and do his thing. It's not easy ...

We need 2 Triremes which we will have to upgrade to Caravels and they both need to be damaged (<85HP). One has the Missionary loaded as cargo.
After gifting the group (on the same tile) to the AI, they will let them heal in the closest city and the Missionary jumps out. The Caravels need to be a group and they also need to be upgraded from Triremes in order to get the right UnitAI = ATTACK_SEA, with single Caravels or with their default UnitAI = EXPLORE_SEA the healing-move into the city doesn't seem to work.

Let's hope for barb Galleys ... ... or other more convenient ways.

 

[bcool]

moving the warrior 1S1E sounds good to me. Thanks to DanF better understanding of how animals move.

And thanks to DanF for coming up with the very creative caravels gifting strategy, but my that is going to be difficult to accomplish...

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

DanF5771, great work on the Caravel and Missionary gifting issue. Now all we need is some Barbarian Galleys for our Triremes to attack and keep moving them so they won't heal too much.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[shulec]

I will try to play the next 4 turns tonight at about the same time as last night.

Amundson will move 1S1E. If pursued by the lion, move to the grass hill. If pursued by the bear, head 1N1E, then head 1N1W to forested tile with river defense.