SGOTM 15 - Kakumeika

[WastinTime]

I vote scout SE, settle on stone (unless something changes)

 

[Manco Capac]

But I also think the need of a 'centralized' capital for optimized auto-spread of Hinduism has significantly decreased with the new religious setup.

There is also a weaker form of justification for a more centralized capital: city maintenance. We might save some cash, thus perhaps saving us two turns of research in the end. Of course, centralize a capital for the sake of it is definitely a very weak justification, but adding that point put the balance even more favorable to stone.
Furthermore, in a competitive SGOTM, I think making a swap of palace is no good and many hammers in the drain.

BTW Brennus shouldn't be in the game and the AI hasn't converted to Buddhism yet.

Is there something special about Brennus for mentioning about him?
You guessed his absence via military section in demographics?

I haven't downloaded the official starting save yet -- am I even allowed to do that as a non-playing team member?

I can't tell total truth, but if you haven't seeing any other team threads, I don't see the problem of looking the save. As long you have Buffy mod...and without looking the save, the advisor is quite handcuffed.
I let bcool confirmed if you can.

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Okay, you know my position about settling position: stone.

In regards to scouting, I was in favour to NE at first, but I mabraham opined in a way that convinced me: looking SE may lead us to find something that would the balance for marble.
And newly considered, a hill was added recently as DanF5771 pointed it out.

Thus, warrior SE.

 

[bcool]

DanF5771 can download and look at the save.

Brennus is charismatic and I think charismatic leaders were eliminated based on the demo info.

What is the argument for moving the warrior SE instead of SW? The grass hill 2W of the marble would give us a nice view before we have to decide to settle on the stone.

 

[Manco Capac]

What is the argument for moving the warrior SE instead of SW? The grass hill 2W of the marble would give us a nice view before we have to decide to settle on the stone.

Ah...okay, I understand why you favouring westward. You fear we might lose something big next to the corn along the river. And southward because, even if we go for stone blindly, we get access to the tile NW of corn.

Not a bad argument too, bcool . No, that is maybe not what you are thinking. I wait.

Okay I messed up.
I finally compare pictures and, effectively the new hill was westward. Hmmm. Sure adding that hill is such a good bait, perhaps too much of a good bait.

I change my vote for SW, hoping no trap was set towards those making lots of fog-gazing.

 

[bcool]

I favor moving SW because there is a grass hill 2W of the marble, so our warrior will reveal more tiles on its 2nd move before we have to decide to settle on the stone

Spoiler :

Plus there appears to be more river tiles to the west, so that might make our decision on where to settle and what to build first a bit easier.

Of course now that I look at the posted image, I see that we could just move the warrior to the Marble on T1. That might be the best for revealing whether or not to...

1) settle on the stone and start a warrior
2) settle on the stone and start a settler
3) move back towards the marble site

So long story short, moving SW seems a bit better to me. Not sure what advantage moving SE has over SW.

 

[Manco Capac]

^
If I understand well, you want to settle on T2 like STW proposed.

In the case, perhaps, the settler should use one move eastward to see if there is any resource, then moving up to stone or marble depending of the findings in the marble surroundings.

 

[shulec]

^
If I understand well, you want to settle on T2 like STW proposed.

In the case, perhaps, the settler should use one move eastward to see if there is any resource, then moving up to stone or marble depending of the findings in the marble surroundings.

I also favor moving 1S1W as promoted by bcool, but only if we are willing to settle on T3 for Marble. If T3 for the marble site is too long to wait, I favor the warrior going 1S1E to look for a T0 settle site to the east.

T3 on marble would be T0 to stone. T1 back to FP or 1E of FP. T2 to Marble. T3 settle.

 

[Manco Capac]

^
As usual, I didn't mean to offend anyone (especially you bcool) mentioning STW said something about settling later than T1.

Here's the said post.

We can probably afford to use our Settler to scout for 1-2 turns and then settle. Sometimes the delay in scouting is made up for with a better BFC. If the other side of the northern hills is all desert, we may reconsider settling on Stone. Just making the point that moving the settler to Stone or Marble for that matter is necessarily a commitment to settle there. We may need to scout around and a Warrior is rather slow for that task.

Sun Tzu Wu

I have to admit the quote is quite devianting from the newest plans.

I think I am making too much of a fuss about credit...

 

[bcool]

^
If I understand well, you want to settle on T2 like STW proposed.

In the case, perhaps, the settler should use one move eastward to see if there is any resource, then moving up to stone or marble depending of the findings in the marble surroundings.

Okay, I forgot that we were thinking of settling 1E. Moving the warrior SE does help make that decision on T0.

If nothing significant is revealed as expected, move the settler to the stone.

Conclusion...
I'm okay with moving 1SE, but I have trouble imagining anything that might convince us to ultimately not settle on the stone.

I don't really want to settle on T2, I'm just leaving the option open if we find something.

This is what I expect will happen

We move warrior 1SE (we find nothing significant)
We move the settler to the stone

We move the warrior to the marble or the adjacent grass hill -- we determine it isn't worth moving the settler back to the marble
We settle on the stone T1

 

[bcool]

Basic testing with settle on stone and then immediately start settler.
T14 Hinduism founded (started agriculture)
T18 Settler
T20 2nd city founded
T23 Agriculture finishes with 1 turn at 0% research
T25 1st warrior built
T28 worker finishes in capital
T28 2nd city grows to 2 pop
T30 2nd warrior built
T31-2 Masonry finishes (depends on AI contact most likely)

On T31 3 warriors
Delhi 1 pop 9/22 food 11/15 on warrior
Bombay 2 pop 11/24 food no OF hammers (4 hammers invested in barracks) Could start great wall this turn or stonehenge
corn farm will finish T32

notes: scouting might be compromised a bit with this plan, since will need to plan to have the warrior on or near the marble T18-T20 to prevent animals from eating our marble settler.

 

[Walter_Wolf]

These are the current votes/thoughts about the warrior move:

mabraham SE
WastinTime SE
Kaitzilla on a trip or something iirc
Tachywaxon SE first, changes to SW after bcool's explanation
shulec SW EDIT: (SE, sorry)
bcool SW first, changes to SE after reviewing Sun Tzu Wu's post about settling 1E
Sun Tzu Wu not clearly stated
DanF5771 SW

I would really like us to have a wide consensus about this, so maybe you US/Australia people (you have a half day left, and mabraham's day is just about to begin I believe) could get a clearer decision while I'm in bed .
I propose to wait for another 24 hours, and make the move tomorrow at this time approximately.

The hill 2W of Marble is new compared to the picture in the maintenance thread ... I believe it is worth exploring -> At the moment I'd also vote for Warrior SW.

If this is true, and the hill is really worldbuildered, it increases it's chances of having a resource on it (I think). Good catch DanF.

 

[shulec]

shulec=SE

 

[Walter_Wolf]

Do we have enough votes to make the SE move now (in an hour or so)?

 

[bcool]

The majority is in favor of moving SE so I think you can move the warrior SE, Walter Wolf.

The new hill 2W of the marble will remain a mystery for now despite DanF's desire to explore it because it is new. In the end, the slim hope that moving southeast will change the decision to move to the stone is what won over the curiosity of that new hill.

 

[WastinTime]

I don't like the sound of settling on T3 on normal speed.

I'm opposed to building a settler first, unless the marble city has some really good resources (gold, gem). We may not want the marble city 2nd anyway. We may want to do more of a land grab if we are crowded.

 

[Walter_Wolf]

OK, playing now ...

... uploading ...

Some food and hills found ... not that appealing

Spoiler :

... and a close - up. There is a peak 1N of the deer

Spoiler :

that must be the spring of the river which goes near the stone

 

[Manco Capac]

Oh deer dear!

That deer worth 4 food, not a strong food resource. Until border pop, we can't use it to speed up whatever we are building.

That map looks very hillyish.

The deer seems worldbuilded because we aren't that close to the tundra. Tropical climate may mean less cold regions. The deer is a bait by Neil.

 

[bcool]

Now we are comparing
If nothing useful around the stone...
Option 1 (2 warriors then worker)
If we settle on the Stone (and find nothing exciting in the initial city radius)
T5 warrior
T10 warrior & Pop 2
T14 found Hinduism
T19 worker finishes (2 turns on a mine, then start on farming corn T21
Option 2 settler first (harder to compare)

To settling 1E on T0
T8 pop 2
T10 warrior
T12 Hinduism
T20 worker (and ~+25 research) worker can start farm immediately

The deer lets us build a warrior before the worker, so we can scout now with the starting warrior and a built warrior before the worker.
This eliminates one of the bigger disadvantages of settling 1E.

Meta-gaming
I suspect all the reasonable settling locations around the starting area to be roughly balanced. I think Neil likes to try to have teams make interesting choices. He tries not to make one choice clearly superior to the other. The deer seems to balance settling on stone or marble with settling 1E.
I suspect we are not going to find anything really exciting near the stone or the marble.

And I suspect we might have found something similar to the deer if we scouted to the west to make going west something to debate.

So
Do we move the settler to the stone? Right now I'm thinking no.

Advantages
--possibly find more resources around the stone
--settling on stone even without additional resources gives us extra hammers that open up possibilities with multiple warrior opening or settler opening
--faster access to stone if we want to build early stone wonders
--more scouting done
edit: WastinTime paraphased settling on stone gives us the option of settling on Marble later whereas settling 1E denies settling on either of them later.

Disadvantages
--Distinct chance we find nothing exciting around the stone and waste a turn (or more), if we settle on stone worse long term production in the capital compared to 1E
--slower research, corn delayed at least 1 turn.

 

[WastinTime]

Another thing I like about settling stone is that you don't have to use a citizen to work that tile. That means one more specialist.
Settling 1E also blocks the option to settle on the marble or stone for another city.

 

[bcool]

Another thing I like about settling stone is that you don't have to use a citizen to work that tile. That means one more specialist.

I'm not sure I understand this.

The only excess food settling on stone might have is the corn and the FP, settling 1E would have corn, FP, and deer. So if specialists is what we want, 1E is better based on the known information.