SGOTM 15 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

[Ronnie1]

Working with Griffs last test game....4 religions on T66, 75% chance of GS on T73(I got a prophet). SH built, Oracled CoL, 1/2 way to Mids in second city by the gems(on the plains tile NE).

Research Poly > Hunting > AG > Masonry > Mono > Priest > Writing > CoL(Oracle) > Med > Theology(bulb) > whatever we want next...I went AH > Pottery > BW

AP is a 20 turn build with no chops....16 base + 25% for Organized Religion in Cap at the time we discover Theology.

Ending save attached

 

[Ronnie1]

Growth - vs - Settler

Can we get some feedback as to which idea has more support and why please?

 

[Conquistador 63]

Does the answer to your question influence the choice between Agri or Hunt next?

I ask it because since warrior as next build seems to be the consensus (SH didn't seem to have support), the choice of next tech would be the only pending question before we get to explore a little more towards Toku.

Remember that his scout showed up at turn 3, so his borders should be 6 to 3 tiles to the East of ours. If there is a juicy site between us, obviously settler ASAP. If not, I couldn't think of a special reason to rush the settler for the "safe" sites to our W and delay the build of the chosen wonder.

 

[Ronnie1]

I have another revision of the test game, Asoka has Meditation and the shrine, but in play testing he still founds another religion, this time even earlier(almost like the random distribution on advanced starts) even though he has not teched a religious tech. I am very unclear why this is happening. I have looked at the WB save in notepad and do not see anything that would suggest a religion should be founded.

EDIT: After restarting again, I see that the Meditation symbol at the top of the main screen(not in tech tree(F5) or religion screen(F6)) does indeed show that researching this would found a religion. I do not see any way to alter this in game(WB) or with notepad.

Any ideas?

 

[Ronnie1]

Does the answer to your question influence the choice between Agri or Hunt next?

I ask it because since warrior as next build seems to be the consensus (SH didn't seem to have support), the choice of next tech would be the only pending question before we get to explore a little more towards Toku.

Remember that his scout showed up at turn 3, so his borders should be 6 to 3 tiles to the East of ours. If there is a juicy site between us, obviously settler ASAP. If not, I couldn't think of a special reason to rush the settler for the "safe" sites to our W and delay the build of the chosen wonder.

I guess not really, I was mostly looking to stimulate the conversation a bit.

The FASTEST way to get 2 improved tiles is Hunting next. You mine the stone and then camp the deer.

 

[Sleepless]

Been so busy the last few days... So struggling to keep up a bit though I do favour the early settler. Just not sure where to settle yet .

A lot of the tech path depends on whether we want to Oacle Theo or bulb it with a GP. Also whether we want to go all out for a culture victory or look to expand by the sword first. Though if Tok has a castle that might stop us as well.

I'll try and play a bit of the test game tonight but I won't get in until 11 pm. A lot depends on how many wonders we want to go for early.

If we want to found Judaism we need to go for mono quite early. In which case hunt - mas - mono might be the best route though I would prefer agr first. Shame the deer and corn are on opposite sides of the BFC.

 

[Ronnie1]

Bulbing Theo seems way easier to me. The Oracle can be used for something else because if we build both SH and Oracle in Delhi which seems easy enough from testing(who knows what techs the AI were given though), the GP is generated in plenty of time to bulb Theology.

The question is really, how else is this start "rigged"?

I am starting to think that the "apparent ease" of wonder building because of the quarry resources must be offset by some sort mitigating factor.

 

[Conquistador 63]

If we want to found Judaism we need to go for mono quite early. In which case hunt - mas - mono might be the best route though I would prefer agr first. Shame the deer and corn are on opposite sides of the BFC.

At least our workers will have 3 movement points

 

[Ronnie1]

VERY INTERESTING!!!!

Because of the issues I am having with the test game, I decided to check the real save also.

Meditation in the REAL GAME will found a religion ALSO!

Would we consider trying to get that also?

 

[adrianj]

My opinions:

Short Term Goal
I'm happy with the bulb Theo + Oracle CoL plan. If things are looking bad after a few turns we can still adjust. Our tech path isn't completely bad since we will want Masonry anyway.

Tech Path
I quite like the Hunting -> Agri -> Masonry -> Mono line.

Having hunting enables a 6 power tile, which is pretty powerful, and since we won't have use of the whip the extra at expense of (compared to corn) is valuable I think. Including Agri early not only helps improve our excellent corn tile, but it means the worker won't run out of things to do, as it can always build farms. Even part building farms while moving elsewhere is better than wasting the spare movement.

Growth vs Settler
Perhaps a compromise might be to get the capital to size 4 and build the settler from there. Size 4 is pretty much the minimum we will want this city to work all the resource tiles.

Build Order
I like warrior next so that it can act as a fogbuster for city #2 site or garrison. Part build Stonehenge while growing to size 4.

Meditation Free Religion
That IS interesting! I suggest we ignore this one as we have other priorities and there is a decent chance that another civ is already part way through it. If somebody that isn't the Shrine holder researches it, then it could split the AI into factions, which is good for us. We might not be everyone's worst enemy. My suspicion is that discovering Mono, CoL, Theo, Philo will all still found religions. Maybe just Divine Right will miss out, or whichever gets discovered last.

Worker steal from Toku
Is this something we wish to risk? I think it's safe to say we will never have good relations with him anyway, so the -ve for declaring isn't relevant. Slowing him down would be useful. Gaining an extra worker would be useful. But we might not get a ceasefire from him any time soon, if ever.

Great People Not related to this turnset
After we bulb Theo and Oracle CoL, there is no urgent need to produce a GS. We won't be able to bulb Philosophy until after we have Alphabet, Maths and Meditation. An extra GProphet for our second great person isn't so bad - it can be used to bulb Civil Service. Follow this up with a GS (preferably 100% guaranteed from a different city) and we could find ourselves at Philosophy + Civil Service very fast indeed.

 

[Ronnie1]

If we want to found Judaism we need to go for mono quite early. In which case hunt - mas - mono might be the best route though I would prefer agr first. Shame the deer and corn are on opposite sides of the BFC.

With my last discovery, I am not convinced this is true any longer. I am more convinced than before that none of the AI started with Myst to rule out the randomness of an early loss. I wish we had noticed this (Meditation founding a religion) from the very beginning, I think it may have been safe to go AG or Hunting 1st, but that is water under the bridge now.

For someone to win the race to Mono, they need to go Myst > Poly > Masonry > Mono and skip worker techs which they won't do I believe.

 

[Ronnie1]

Growth vs Settler
Perhaps a compromise might be to get the capital to size 4 and build the settler from there. Size 4 is pretty much the minimum we will want this city to work all the resource tiles.

The thing I am finding is that before Hunting and AG are available, we grow really slow, so we may as well get the settler out of the way using a mined tile and then grow really fast after we get the Deer and Corn improved. Settler walking on T33 is very close to matching what most of the AI seem to be getting in the test games.

 

[adrianj]

I'm thinking, if we do choose to do both Hunting + Agri, and we want to grow the city to size 4, then Agri first is probably a better choice. It also gives +1, and we'll get to size 4 faster.

Size 4 was only an idea... size 3 could also work fine. . What size were you in your tests Ron?

I don't have time to play the test game I'm sorry. But this is something I'd like to test out...

 

[Ronnie1]

I'm thinking, if we do choose to do both Hunting + Agri, and we want to grow the city to size 4, then Agri first is probably a better choice. It also gives +1, and we'll get to size 4 faster.

Size 4 was only an idea... size 3 could also work fine. . What size were you in your tests Ron?

I don't have time to play the test game I'm sorry. But this is something I'd like to test out...

In my testing I am growing to size 2 ASAP working the corn and floodplain. But as soon as I reach size 2 I am working a mine to speed the warrior ASAP and starting the settler immediately at size 2. I have tried a number of different ways going AG 1st and Hunting 1st, and T33 seems to be as fast as I can get a settler moving.

AG 1st allows both the marble and the grass hill to be mined with perfect timing to move to the corn.

Hunting 1st allows perfect timing to mine the stone and then move to the deer.

 

[Ronnie1]

Going AG next and growing to size 3 ASAP, then building a settler gets him walking T36.

Going Hunting next, growing to size 3 ASAP, then settler gets him walking T35.

 

[McArine]

I think there has been a great discussion so far. And I'm sorry, but I haven't had the time to try the test save.

I think we need to get the decisions split up. I think the longer term plans (T60+) has been focused on a culture victory, I have no problem with that. But I think that our next turnset has to be without focus on what our victory condition should be.
So how about making the best turnset, where we can still go after several different victory conditions?
This might mean that we''ll have another short turnset, but if it can give us the information we need, to decide on what the best path is, I think we should go for that.

 

[Ronnie1]

I think there has been a great discussion so far. And I'm sorry, but I haven't had the time to try the test save.

I think we need to get the decisions split up. I think the longer term plans (T60+) has been focused on a culture victory, I have no problem with that. But I think that our next turnset has to be without focus on what our victory condition should be.
So how about making the best turnset, where we can still go after several different victory conditions?
This might mean that we''ll have another short turnset, but if it can give us the information we need, to decide on what the best path is, I think we should go for that.

I'm all for this idea as well....but then what is the goal of this turnset, and what would emergency stop conditions be?

 

[Ronnie1]

Here is my proposed PPP.

End Turn 12!

REVOLT to Hinduism!

Start warrior next while researching Hunting. Hunting next because whether we build settler at size 2 or 3 this either equally fast or faster by a turn.

Continue to explore towards Japan and look for great settling sites.

Stop when I get a view of Kyoto (check for Walls/Castle) or a chance to steal a worker.

Worker will mine stone then camp deer.

 

[adrianj]

In my testing I am growing to size 2 ASAP working the corn and floodplain. But as soon as I reach size 2 I am working a mine to speed the warrior ASAP and starting the settler immediately at size 2. I have tried a number of different ways going AG 1st and Hunting 1st, and T33 seems to be as fast as I can get a settler moving.

AG 1st allows both the marble and the grass hill to be mined with perfect timing to move to the corn.

Hunting 1st allows perfect timing to mine the stone and then move to the deer.

Going AG next and growing to size 3 ASAP, then building a settler gets him walking T36.

Going Hunting next, growing to size 3 ASAP, then settler gets him walking T35.

So it sounds like growing to size 3 costs us 2 or 3 turns on the settler.
What do we gain from being size 3? I assume we get extra , maybe 10 more over the turns we builds the settler. But 2 extra turns of a city with a gem mine is worth at least that much. I'm starting to think that having an earlier settler will be a net profit for us no matter how we play it (certainly if it is for gem city, unknown city not connected for trade by river might cause us to lose out on some commerce)

I agree with McA that short, sharp turnsets are a nice way to keep the game moving and so we have the most information to fuel the discussion. We need to decide right now which tech we go for next, Agri or Hunting.

Another way to look at the Ag vs Hunting debate, is that the Deer camp adds 2. The corn farm adds 3. Ie, unimproved corn + deer camp = 7/2/1, farmed corn + unimproved deer = 8/2/1. If we go for the size 2 settler build, is there any difference in the amount of overflow after the build between the Agri first and Hunting first methods? Does one method generate more commerce than the other?

Regarding the micromanagement, at size 1 are we working the 2/2/0 deer tile or a 3/0/1 corn tile? Presumably some mixture of these two will see us grow to size 2 and finish the warrior build at the same time. 4 turns corn + 4 turns deer for example, doing the corn set first to give a hammer overflow into the settler maybe.

 

[Ronnie1]

RE: Micro....

If you build settler at size 2, you work the best available tile all the time. What that means is working a 3f/1c tile to size 2 then a 3f/1c + mine(stone if hunting next), then camp + mine on the settler.

If you grow to size 3, then you actually interrupt the build after the 1st warrior to start a settler as soon as you make size 3.

Another way to look at the Ag vs Hunting debate, is that the Deer camp adds 2. The corn farm adds 3. Ie, unimproved corn + deer camp = 7/2/1, farmed corn + unimproved deer = 8/2/1. If we go for the size 2 settler build, is there any difference in the amount of overflow after the build between the Agri first and Hunting first methods? Does one method generate more commerce than the other?

But deer camp happens way sooner...3 turns shorter research and 1 turn shorter build if I remember right.