SGOTM 15 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

Updated test save with beakers right. Since it doesn't seem we're going to meet any more AIs before Toku/Hammy get writing at the earliest, we won't be getting any extra beakers on Hunting/TW until we are producing 16base-beakers per turn. That's probably not going to happen. Basically the question is how much food and how many hammers to work in the next two turns.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Can't get a read on Toku. On T17 he's still at pop1. If he built a worker first, he finished it on T10 at the latest, unless he partially built something else, because he's had 5fpt since T5 at the latest. Then, from T10-T17 he accumulates 21f and grows to pop2. But he didn't. What gives?

Can RNG start him on a settler build? Can he be building 2 wkrs in a row?

 

[ZPV]

Can't get a read on Toku. On T17 he's still at pop1. If he built a worker first, he finished it on T10 at the latest, unless he partially built something else, because he's had 5fpt since T5 at the latest. Then, from T10-T17 he accumulates 21f and grows to pop2. But he didn't. What gives?

Can RNG start him on a settler build? Can he be building 2 wkrs in a row?

Yes, the AI can start with a settler first.
It can also go worker-settler (more likely). The settler will cost him 95 hammers.
I hadn't considered settler first for Toku. We'll be able to tell when his demographics come up, since tile improvements would show up when he works them.

 

[ZPV]

NW-NW looks great to me - especially with the water 1N and hill 2N of there.

It might be a couple of turns before we get demographic visibility - Toku seems to have gone up to 6EPT.

I agree we want two quick settlers. How quick, I'm not sure. Growing to size 3, with the high food option "should" be best.

If we worker steal, we'll need another warrior for gold site, so gems site will probably have to go first. It will, however, put a settler down a bit in Toku's priorities. (edit: nvm, see above post).

We can't stone-age Toku because of the safe area behind the mountains. My instinct is to move south while we wait for demographics, to explore the coast and see if a worker is coming, and if not, we'll have to leave it and move on, since the border expansion isn't that far away.

 

[Mitchum]

NW-NW for warrior 2 (the first one we built) looks good to me too.

I'm a bit worried about not fully exploring the gold site and half blindly settling gems in the chance that the gold site is much better. That could put us at a disadvantage. On the other hand, if we are able to steal a worker... I guess it depends on how soon Toku learns AH.

 

[ZPV]

NW-NW for warrior 2 (the first one we built) looks good to me too.

I'm a bit worried about not fully exploring the gold site and half blindly settling gems in the chance that the gold site is much better. That could put us at a disadvantage. On the other hand, if we are able to steal a worker... I guess it depends on how soon Toku learns AH.

I probably prefer Gems first anyway, because we can work it straight away (and grow slowly) without first improving food, if we want to. We can't do that with gold.

 

[Mitchum]

That's a good point. I guess it really depends on what food we find near the gems, right?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I agree we want two quick settlers. How quick, I'm not sure. Growing to size 3, with the high food option "should" be best.

I can't get this option to work out too well, though I haven't tried exhaustively. We can grow to p3 in 3t, but the warrior isn't done yet. That means the next settler will be delayed another turn, putting it a couple turns back of the pop2 settler completion time.

But then there's the question of how many warriors we want. Is 3 enough, or will we want a fourth? Looking at the fogbusting situation, I see us needing 1 to the NW, 1 to the south, 1 to the east (after Gold is settled, 2 before) and then there's still 1 tile to the SE that is fogged. So we 5 fogbusters wouldnt' be too many, but that slows down our REX quite a bit. Barb archers could slow down our REX even more, I suppose. As could a DoWed Toku pillaging archer. Then there's the REX enabling chariots, perhaps sooner, to counterbalance the lack of fogbusters.

But the basic problem is that we're either a beaker (for TW on T28) or a hammer short (for the settler on T30) if we go for the faster growth option. It's quite annoying.

 

[LowtherCastle]

It might be a couple of turns before we get demographic visibility - Toku seems to have gone up to 6EPT.

To the contrary, in the last two turns Toku has gone from 55/40 to 59/44 to 63/48. So much for the castle theory. 55/40 makes total sense. He started at 5/0, then add 5*10t = 55 to our 4*10t = 40. He can't possibly get only 4eppt and have a castle, right?

Looks like no castle for Toku and he's just been adjusting his slider, as you suspected early on.

So how's he getting the 4th per turn? A monument? Maybe Neil discovered that by giving them all monuments, they were less likely to research Mysticism...

 

[Mitchum]

Couldn't Toku be changing the weight of his epp in conjunction with his slider to direct either 5 or 4 toward us and the rest toward the other AI(s)?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Couldn't Toku be changing the weight of his epp in conjunction with his slider to direct either 5 or 4 toward us and the rest toward the other AI(s)?

I forgot about that. We surely can. Do AIs do this?

Dangit. We're going to have to DoW Toku, just to find out whether the bum has castles or not. I'll add that to my PPP...

 

[Mitchum]

Do we know how many more turns we'll be able to steal a worker on the sheep resource before his cultural borders make it impossible?

 

[LowtherCastle]

In 7 more turns his borders pop.

 

[LowtherCastle]

ZPV, what's the multiplier factor for AIs for techs? (For, example, how much does AH cost Toku?)

 

[LowtherCastle]

Well, I could play two more turns, but I'm struggling to decide on the MM for Delhi. Anyone with a strong opinion?

 

[Mitchum]

I don't have a strong opinion, but in general I prioritize food and growth over hammers.

 

[Mitchum]

ZPV, what's the multiplier factor for AIs for techs? (For, example, how much does AH cost Toku?)

As far as I know, AI pay the "Noble" cost for their techs. So, AH would cost Toku 100 . It costs us 156 .

EDIT: This does not include any 20% pre-req bonus. AH has two: Hunting and Agriculture, neither of which Toku starts with...

 

[Mitchum]

Sorry. AH is 130 . THe Reference Guide was wrong. I just checked the value in a test Noble game.

EDIT: Map size and game speed are also a variables. The test game I used had the same settings as our game other than a level change from Emperor to Noble.

 

[beestar]

Wait a minute...Toku has mountains at least 1S, 1N, 2N, and 3N of his city center . . .

xpost

So it's a city deliberately placed to choke us off from the east?

I wonder the extra lions were deliberately placed around us. I don't think there was anything in the introduction that hinted at it though.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Lots of minor variations on this, but it strikes me that the best solution is to put 2f into the bin and 3h OF from the warrior. Then if we decide to research TW next, we can get it on T28 with the settler still on T30. I'm not finding any advantages to more hammers and a turn slower Wheel. I'll play forward 2t in a little while if no one slams on the brakes...