SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

[ChrisShaffer]

Even the Bhuddist civ might not have Mysticism. In worldbuilder, you can give religions without the corresponding technology.

p.s. I could tell the river was on the corner of stone because it obviously wasn't visible on the edges, and it had to exist somewhere.

Edit - this still doesn't explain why we are shown as #10 on the demographic screen. Surely the barbarians aren't included, so why is there an extra??? The test game with 8 AI correctly shows us as #9, and not as #10. A real mystery here...

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Here is a test game and a worldbuilder file to match the current conditions. The GNP are consistent with what we see in the real game. Based on this, I believe that there aren't any settled merchants or similar shenanigans. It seems to me that every AI city is Buddhist and that is enough to generate the 37 GNP that we can see in the shrine city.

 

[kcd_swede]

By "explorers" you mean "exploring warriors," right?

Any comments on the direction the starting warrior should explore when the city is founded?

Yes. See, you are getting good at reading what I mean rather than what I say. Keep up the good work!

You other posts: Perhaps Neil is getting really cute with his wording. 8 AI but 9 opponents would mean that one AI has a twin, a duplicate, a "mini-me". However, I believe it is possible to designate the barbs as a playable civ, thus making them an opponent, even though they would still play by normal barb rules. I think.

I would move the w1 a little further NE, then circle round southward. w2 woiuld go SW then circle northward. But I'd probably follow terrein somewhat. You shouldn't count on any turns to relax before barb animals appear... defensive terrain is highly encouraged.

But all that is getting ahead of ourselves, isn't it? My understanding is that you would upload the save on t1 after you finish turn zero, and we'd have better grasp of what to do. We need to discuss the demographics and other things a bit before we play a lot of turns, I think. Normally, you would proceed from there for about 10t after we discuss the plan... but since you are time-limited, we might let someone else finish your set if you don't return to active status before we're ready to commit to something. Got a lot of players who might have something clever to say. BTW: that was great with your wb test! Above and beyond the call of duty, and greatly appreciated!

Specifically, When do you lose ability to play, and when will you be back?

 

[Xcalibrator]

Nice work reproducing the GNP, Chris! I'm OK with moving to and presumably settling on the marble, but if it's relevant, the marble site has 8 river tiles (more if there's another river system to the south--and I'm not counting the city center) while the stone has 12 (11 if the river dumps into a lake). On the other hand, a quarry on the marble adds 1H2C while the stone gets 2H; I suspect having a quarry on the stone will be more useful. Settling on the marble also leaves that nice grass river site with deer open for a later city. I feel like we should be more quantitative about checking out settling sites, but gut feeling is probably good enough. So yeah, green from me for Chris to settle on the marble (unless something ugly is revealed) and crank out 2 warriors while researching Polytheism, then switch to a fast worker.

How many animal-free turns can we expect? After that, keep to forests or hills when possible. Before then you can be reckless. And although you're probably very good at exploring, let's list the general rules for fun (and so I can be corrected): Zigzagging reveals more tiles than traveling in a straight line. Hills give better sight. Border pops will reveal nearby tiles soon enough so don't waste time revealing those. Usually it's a good idea to move in a spiral instead a straight line. Here we'll have 2 units exploring so you'll have to have them reverse course at some point. Plan ahead to minimize overlap. Don't die.

 

[kcd_swede]

Question for Chris: (Or anyone who has opened the save but not moved anything)

In the Victories screen, how many opponents does it show remain to be killed for Conquest victory?

I have PM'd Neimeister, btw, to make sure the information we see in the game and the Maint thread is the way its supposed to be.

 

[SteelHorse]

Took a peak at the start save after kcd's question. Victory screen says 8 Rivals left. Perhaps even the barbs are ahead of us - do they count on the demographics screen? Don't know what to make of it.

So everyone else has Buddhism, add that to the aggressive AI, means we may need to get some early defensive units if we are not isolated

If the AI have a religion which they did not found are they any more or less likely to go for another? As mentioned by Chris, it is possible they don't have Myst even though they have Buddhism. If they are less likely to head to Poly if they have a religion, perhaps the question of Agri first should be re-opened.

Is there a way in worldbuilder to see what the AI is teching and how far along they are?

 

[ChrisShaffer]

My plan is to move to the marble on Sunday morning and post a screenshot, then wait 24 hours for comments, and if there's nothing surprising, play until the turn after we revolt to Hinduism. Naturally, if there are any surprises, or any need to pause or even any requests from the team to pause, I will do so.

At any rate, I leave town on Tuesday morning and will be gone for 8 days, so I plan to end my turnset Monday regardless of what happens.

I still have no idea why it shows us in 10th place. It doesn't make any sense to me.

I don't think you can see AI research in worldbuilder. This start is bizarre enough that I vote against Agri-Poly and for Poly-Agri.

 

[High King J.J.]

I see the river now, Deckhand. It is visible in the starting screenshot but much more obvious on the screenshot you provided. Like I said, I'm blind and should wear black glasses and a white stick. Thank you for the extra effort to educate me.

How many animal-free turns can we expect?

Based on the link to barbarian thread it's
"Barb Animals start appearing after game turn 5 (hard coded, independent of game speed)."
There's also information about when the animals start to die off and the more dangerous, 2-legged kind start to appear. I guess we have minimum 20 turns before we encounter the first barb people. Unless of course the barbs have some pre-existing stuff like cities?
Perhaps the creator of Humbaba has some experience on the barbarian situation? I recall a holy barb city in Westeros that shared the offensive faith of our current opponents.

I agree marble is probably the way to go. I'd suggest a possible 2nd city site 1E from the stone but I may be all wrong about that (too).
Looks like we get to convert or kill off a lot of heathens who worship an obese golden statue and aspire to a catatonic state. Let's prove their claim that existense really is full of pain!
No razing means we can't kill off that pagan faith but at least we can bring the dark ignorance of our own mythology to overshadow their braindead ways
I guess AP victory is hard unless we can bribe our way to open borders for our missionaries with everybody. Or liberate/gift a converted city to every opponent. I'd say we keep an open mind to all victory conditions just in case a purely military solution proves impractical.

(More) than enough said by me.

PS. Maybe one of the AI civs has a permanent alliance with another. Does that count as only one opponent to kill on the victory conditions screen? Still the two allied civs show as separate entities on the demographics? Just guessing.
High J.J. over and out.

 

[Trystero]

Here is the Victory screen:

Spoiler :

There are only 8 opponents.

I'm not trying to be a contrarian, but do we need to commit to a settling decision so quickly? I'd like to see (or run) some tests to figure out what the settling options would give us. 1E seems like a would be a good long term Bureaucracy capital (6 hills, ~10 riverside tiles). OTOH, I tend to play conservatively, so maybe we should just go with settling on Marble and see what happens.

Edit: x-post with SteelHorse, Chris, and the High King.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

If you want to take more time, that's fine, I just didn't think the warrior move showed us anything that would change our minds. We did have a week of discussion with test games where it seemed fairly clear that everyone was in favor of settling on either marble or stone.

To be honest, I'm having a hard time believing that giving up +2H in the city center is a good idea.

 

[Trystero]

No, on the Marble seems like a strong start. I'm just being overly cautious.

 

[Xcalibrator]

There's a post in the Maintenance thread that clarifies that we have 8 "opponents" but not necessarily 8 AIs. So I guess that means that some AI are teamed up. Golly, getting a bit crowded. Perhaps that's another point in favor of the fast marble start--we need to grab land and/or build defenses against Aggressive AI on a relatively crowded map.

 

[Rusten]

Am I the only one who wants to settle on the stone now? Looks to be a huge amount of river tiles, and we can fog-gaze even more grassland river north of the warrior. Seems to be an upgrade on marble where the river ends immediately.

37 GNP isn't that scary as you already mentioned. Culture is included in that.

Don't see deer making us change our minds. 3H city center is too good and there's already enough food with the wet corn and green land so there's no long term problem. You can make a bureaucracy powerhouse here with or without the deer.

I'm OK with poly first. Early exploration is a gain too. Will try to play a quick test game to get a feeling.

 

[Rusten]

I'm confused. The sign-up thread image has the river continuing south of the marble whereas in the image posted by Chris it ends. Is the image from the WB save?

Edit: Indeed the river ends now in the official save. The map has been tampered with post-sign up. As mentioned I am no longer in favour of settling on the marble, stone is superior.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Why, exactly, is stone superior?

 

[Rusten]

Count the river tiles.

Edit: Marble has only 8 whereas stone has at least 12.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

stone 9 marble 7. Are two river tiles worth that much more? We get them all eventually anyway with cities 2 & 3. I also like the riverside grass hill at marble, since our worker will be mining a hill before agriculture is researched.

 

[Rusten]

It's more than 2, and these are potential riverside cottages with bureaucracy -- they matter.

Blue X stone - Red X marble

Spoiler :

Been a while since my last civ game so hopefully I'm not wrong, but I believe those hidden tiles are riverside based on the shape.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

OK, I'm convinced. Anyone want to argue in favor of marble? If there is no dissent, I will move the settler to stone tomorrow morning (In about 16 hours).

 

[Xcalibrator]

OK, twist my arm for the stone! Odds are slightly in stone's favor for having more forests, too.