SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

[ChrisShaffer]

Stone is guaranteed four forests, while marble is only guaranteed three.

Which way to send the warrior, assuming the settler moves to stone?

 

[Trystero]

If we are settling the stone, I'd vote for moving the Warrior SE and then explore the area around the marble for a site to put our 2nd city.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Yup, I like moving the warrior SE. Keep in mind the 5 turns of carefree (animal-free) roaming.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I'm thinking SE - SE - SW - SW. Ends turn 5 on a hill, spends lots of time on hills.

 

[Trystero]

This was posted to the Maintenance thread:

A number of teams have PM'd me about a little confusion regarding the start save, and indeed I made a typo in the game description.

The description should say: 8 opponents, not 8 AI. Sorry.

So if we are ranked #10 in the Demo screen, I take it there are 7 single AI, and a team of 2 AI?

 

[Deckhand]

Well, I remember Duckweed posting once how he likes a Production Capital (as opposed to a commerce capital). Stone has 2 hills, Marble has 3 hills, 1E has 6 hills. [that we can see] OTOH, a nice advantage of sone or marble vs 1E is that we won't be settling on a(nother) resource (e.g. horses, copper or iron).
It's possible the game will last long enough for railroad/levees. Therefore, I concur with Stone. As I said earlier, I trust* that Neil has tried to make it so that both are equal and this decision doesn't decide the game.

Spoiler :

*I trust mapmakers.

Spoiler :

Ah, but trust them for what?

 

[Rusten]

It's possible the game will last long enough for railroad/levees.

No way.

 

[SteelHorse]

The test games I played required a lot of gold to keep a large army. The river side cottage argument make sense for the stone as the capital. Also had to get to Currency fairly early and sell techs to finance early wars.

 

[kcd_swede]

I agree stone looks better now.

Good job Rusten showing the way!

HKJJ was apparently correct suggesting teamed AI, as well.

I would like to re-mention the importance of the AP here. If everyone already has Bhudist city, the voting would be nasty if its a Bhudist AP, and we could easily lose to cheese. AP is a decent wonder with the extra hammers, anyhow. Especially if you know you'll be running the AP religion.

 

[kcd_swede]

I'm going to be busy with RL the next four weeks. I'll probably find time enough to be posting, but might be periods where I can't. So Xcalibrator is going to step up and manage the traffic light and put together a play order so we know who's up next.

I'd also like to extend a welcome to our official lurker, Vra3799... Welcome back, I should say!

 

[High King J.J.]

Stone is fine for me. Let's roll.
Looks like I was right when suggesting the stone earlier, but for all the wrong reasons.
I agree we need the AP, just imagine the hammer bonus all the AI get if buddhists were to build it.

In my (limited) experience, the AI tend to switch religions if they have founded a religion. Should we perhaps wish the AI to found as many religions as possible (apart from Christianity, for the AP) hoping that will fracture the united buddhist front? I'm not sure what the AI considers when deciding to switch, is it the culture from a holy city, the possible future shrine (edit: shrine income of course not depending on state religion) or something more.

 

[kcd_swede]

Stone is fine for me. Let's roll.
Looks like I was right when suggesting the stone earlier, but for all the wrong reasons.

I prefer that to naking a correct analysis that tells us to do the wrong thing.

My experience is that an AI that founds a religion will shoot themselves in the foot by adopting it as soon as they spread it to their capitol. Don't know how its coded, probably religious flavor civs do so more than others.

Religion and diplo VC's have some serious obstacles with the religion. If we go culture, we want to found as many religions as possible. If we do anything else, we let the AI found as many as they want. But all that could change when we reveal another tile.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I moved the settler to the stone. Our city center will have:

• 5 forest
• 9 riverside grass
• 2 riverside plain
• 1 riverside floodplain
• 1 riverside grass/corn
• and, unfortunately, 3 grass hills for not much production
• plus 1 plain and 3 grass

We also found more mountains to the NE.

Spoiler :

If there is consensus, I can play again in 8 hours. The plan would be:

Settle in place on stone
Build 2 warriors, working grass/forest, then floodplain after culture expand
Research Polytheism, then Agriculture
Move warrior SE, SE, SW, SW then continue counter clockwise
Discover Polytheism, revolt to Hinduism, and stop.

p.s. if there is not consensus, I don't mind waiting at all

 

[kcd_swede]

The plan sounds good to me. But I'd like you to add a few things to it, if that's OK?

1) Take a screenshot of the Demo screen before you start the next turn. That will help us figure out what sort of "real" commerce those cities might be producing.
2) Make note of dates of significant events in log (or just post the log)... revolts to slavery of to a state religion are interesting.

3)Stop/pause criteria:
Someone else founds Hinduism
We meet a neighbor (if we do that before Poly, they are close and we need to think)
We see something with potentially big game impact

4) Diplo: peace is the way (for now).

Need at least 2 more team members in consensus before Xcal should give you the green, though. 8hrs might be tight.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Yes, of course, and because it is early turns, I'll make a manual save at the end of each turn.

If we don't get enough votes for a green light in time, I'll wait. Not a problem.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Another hill or two would have been nice but we'll get a good start and can then concentrate on settling a really good production city next. And it's not so bad where we are; with the extra CC hammers it's (almost) like we have 4 grass hills.

Do we really need to stop when meeting an AI? They won't attack for quite awhile and I don't think there's anything in our opening plan that we could change. Other than that, I approve of the plan. We still need more voices, though.

BTW, does founding a religion provide extra culture to the founding city? I know a shrine gives 4cpt, but that's different. Do we get anything from having it as our state religion? I'm just trying to figure when our borders will pop.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Yes, holy cities produce more culture than cities with only your state religion.

I don't think it will hurt to stop if we meet an AI. At worst, it just means a brief delay to assess.

 

[High King J.J.]

I moved the settler to the stone. Our city center will have:

• 5 forest
• 9 riverside grass
• 2 riverside plain
• 1 riverside floodplain
• 1 riverside grass/corn
• and, unfortunately, 3 grass hills for not much production
• plus 1 plain and 3 grass

I count that 5+9+2+1+1+3+1+3 =25. a bit much for the BFC

I vote let's roll on the stones. (Ouch. Use of cushions strongly recommended when rolling on hard, stony surfaces.)
warning:

Spoiler :

Now I'll go and vote on another election. Won't tell who I vote for president, but unlike in this forum my vote doesn't count that much.
(Well at least we don't have as much corruption as when a sore loser of an unnamed "democracy" bought a supreme court ruling to get him presidency instead of the guy who got a bit more votes. After all, bribes make the Hill go round, excuse me the politically correct term is "lobbying".
And it would have been embarrassing to have the feds continue that investigation into the shady oil dealings with a certain Saudi family, namely the Bin Ladens... It's amazing what you get away with when your IQ is lower than the average and your family money can buy all the media time you want.)

PS. I believe a holy city, when we are either in "no state religion" or in the state religion of the said faith, gives that city a nice +5 per turn instead of 1 like in a non-holy city. That's separate from any shrine culture. When we have a state religion we won't have the religion +5 for any other holy cities/religions founded. It's the same as with religions in general, when in hinduism, a city with that faith has +1 but if there are any other faiths present they don't give their +1 just like they won't give +1 happiness.
So if we also found christianity we won't get +5 in that holy city because we are in another state religion. If we were to found the Church of the Nativity we would still get culture (and gold) from that.

 

[SteelHorse]

I am good with the plan. And yes please stop if we find an AI. May need a discussion on a worker steal. I liked Jovan's suggestion last game of pairing the exploring warriors. Also getting the XP needed for the HE early is a nice option if we can get. Woodsman II if there are lots of forest and jungle is appealing.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Ah, right, you more aggressive types steal workers. I need to work on that. So yes, stop after meeting AI. And we now have enough approvals to award a Green Light to Chris. Good luck!