SGOTM 16 - Fifth Element

[unclethrill]

Okay so I'm gonna throw out my ideas on the ten goals and then in separate posts address other's posts and ideas.

I also want to make a stab at the general direction and VCs I based my goal attainment on.

1. VCs - Conquest and Culture. I think that these two are the easiest to coordinate and force on the same turn. They also lend themselves to meeting several goals by default.
2. Oracle - Gets Theology. This route gets a decent chance to take Judaism and for sure Christianity. It also allows us to build the AP in a religion that we will have a monopoly on so being the resident for the rest of the game is easy. The conquest VC will allow us to keep the AI so far behind that the UN will never get built.




So Now for Goals:

1. Humbaba --an advanced era barbarian unit -- must be dead
This one should be easy to achieve. Just like in the last SGOTM, I would expect it to be similar to a highly promoted rifleman on a secluded island or something similar. It wouldn't surprise me if it was even more hidden than the last time such as surrounded by ice and requiring paratroopers to get to him. Either way overall this is an easily attained goal.

2. You own at least 2 Legendary culture cities.
By going for the Culture VC, we will have the 2 LC already. If we already have 2 LC then bulbing GA for the rest of the 3rd LC allows us to time it to meet our other VC of Conquest


3. You are EITHER the United Nations Secretary General OR the Apostolic Palace Resident.
By an Oracle of Theology, we slow the AI from wanting to get it since Christianity will be gone. This allows us to slowly build the AP without sacrificing too much on expansion/war. We should be well in control by the time Mass Media becomes available so having the UN not built is easy.

4. You have learned Future Tech 1.
This is just a matter of teching deep. After we have the techs for 3 Corps. getting to FT1 should only be a few more techs to beeline.

5. At least one AI opponent has been eliminated (conquered) by your team.
The goal of a Conquest VC takes care of this. I plan to eliminate all AI.

6. You own at least three Holy Shrines
Two holy cities will be ours on the way to the AP so any GProphets we get will be used for those 2. I would expect that since we will conquer all the AI, having 2 or even all 3 shrines already built by the AI and then taken over by us is fairly likely

7. You own at least three Corporate Headquarters
This one is simply resource intensive. We have to build research buildings to get 3 different late game techs that would not normally be a part of Conquest or Culture and we have to commit 3 specific GP to founding the Headquarters.Of course, going culture we will want Sids and this is good since a GM is not very useful otherwise. The other 2 will really depend on what GP we can get. If we have an Engineer, Mining Inc is great and we will likely still need the hammers later for the final war push. Civ Jewel would also be nice for the Culture but not likely to help much that late. I think the driving force has to be what extra GP we get other than artists and prophets. We should have the 3 we need saved well before we get to having to decide the tech path to get the corps needed.

8. You have stolen EITHER Iron Working, OR Astronomy, OR Physics using espionage.
I have run several tests and stealing IW is relatively easy so long as there is an AI close by. As soon as we meet the first AI, set the espionage to +1 and by the time we have alphabet and the pre-reqs for IW we will have a spy in the AI city and IW is a steal. The only reason to even think about Astro or Physics is if the Mapmaker is really evil and put us in an very isolated area. Even then if we are so isolated that we need astro to meet them then we are stuck stealing Physics anyway. IW is the way to go.

9. You fulfil the requirements for TWO victory conditions, at least one of which is NOT Conquest or Domination. (For example, your spaceship arrives on Alpha Centauri the same turn you get Domination, that’s two. If you achieve domination on the same turn as conquest victory, then you need one more victory condition to fulfil this condition. Understood? ).
So here is why I think that Conquest and Culture are the way to go.
1. We can control very specifically when each are achieved. We can kill all the AI except one city and kill it and pop GA on the 3rd LC on the specific turn we want.
2. Conquest of one civ is already required along with 2 LCs
3. FE has a bad habit of losing to other teams that war early, late and well. In this one we need to KILL, KILL, KILL!
4. Domination has the problem that if we are close but not quite ready for the second VC an untimely border pop could push us over the top before we are ready.
5. AP this will come too early or we will be so far into the game that getting it late would be prohibitive
6. UN - Too much fluctuation in when this vote will come to effectively time it to meet another VC
7. Time is out for obvious reasons
8. Space just requires too many hammers late especially after we already have 2 LC.

9. Blazing: You must submit a save covering at least your first 100 turns – or victory or defeat - not later than 2 months after game start.
This really should be a non-factor. We normally have the first 100 turns done in the first month to 6 weeks. It is the second 100 that will be time consuming.

 

[Shaandore]

Checking in. Hello everyone! I'm in the eastern U.S which I believe is GMT -6

My main thought going into this game is that the requirement for two legendary culture cities is the most "out of the way" of the objectives. If Capac, Pacal, Lizzy, or Ghandi is in the game, I think we are better of capturing two LCs (unless capturing an LC depletes a bunch of its culture, I am not sure about this) than investing in cathedrals and GA bombing when hammers and GPP could be spent more wisely completing the other tasks.

I don't think that a captured legendary city counts as legendary, unless we accumulate 50000 of our cultere there.

I think we should steal the cheapest techs possible for the espionage objective. IW and whatever the next cheapest was, I forget. Doesn't really make sense to invest a ton of EP to steal a late game tech we will likely beat the AI to anyway. So, early alpha seems prudent.

I'll post more thoughts as they come to me.

Edit: I like AP & Conquest/Dom as our two VC's. They kind of go hand in hand, ie we will capture the AP and control the religious situation by sheer force, allowing us to manipulate the timing of the final vote. Space carries the same advantages, and we're teching to FT anyhow. I'm really not sure I like the idea of culture as one of the VC's, though we could just commit to two high hammer cities wonder whoring like mad for the culture if we do decide to pursue a culture vc. It would be silly to rely on GA and culture slider though since we have so many other things to do.

For that we would have to avoid Mass Media (it obsoletes AP), but that is possible since it is not a prereq for Future Tech 1. I don't see any need to build a spaceship. That would need 3 space techs (Ecology, Fiber Optics, Fusion), plus the hammers of the spaceship. It is at least 30000 beakers. (not counting the time needed to land that ship).

answers in bold

 

[unclethrill]

A question and a thought: On a hemisphere map, are there ever pre-astronomy connections between the landmasses?

Not that I have ever seen but a customized map can have all kinds of twists and turns that are not normal

Else we might run into a trap: If we go berserk on our neighbours early on for expansion we want to have iron early on. If the remaining nations are researching slow we might have noone in range to steal astronomy from and by the time to get physics we will be first in teching anyways, wont we?
If we get a couple worker techs then oracle for Theology, then get Alphabet. We can backfill techs, steal IW and still be in position for a T110ish war to steam-roll all the local AI

We should do some serious scouting very early and decide if our plan-to-survive neighbours have the potential to deliver astronomy at all. else we need to avoid iron to make sure we score that one. This would effect our war plans drasticaly.
I don't think we will have any plan-to-survive neighbors. They will all die.

Edit: We should decide early on in which order we'll be playing. Because some people (cough me cough) wi'll need plenty of advice and depending on the task ahead that will vary

BLubmuz will post a player rotation list shortly. As a general rule, we normally have the newest player on the team take the first TS but since that is almost all of the team, I guess a volunteer to start things off would be best.

For anyone not real familiar with how SGOTMs and FE works, the first TS will normally consist of moving the Warrior in a direction we all agree on. Then saving and posting a Screenie. Then we will decide on the Settler's movement and/or settling location. Then the player will make the new moves and settle the city. At this point we will as a team decided on first build orders, tech research queue and general scouting directions and rules of thumb. Then the same player will play out the TS to a designated point; either once a specific turn is attained, a specific goal is attained or a specific "oh sh!t" is attained (like losing the opening warrior to a lion).

Subsequent TS will have the 'up' player posting a Pre-play plan (PPP) that can range from very specific (T200 move warrior 1 N) to very general (continue warring with SB taking the next 3 cities). The level of detail will depend on how far into the game we are since there are a lot less outside factors early on and those early decisions are much more important.

Also a real attention to detail is expected from all. Each TS should only take an hour or so to play so checking each city for citizen placement and specialists is a must.

 

[unclethrill]

Edit: I like AP & Conquest/Dom as our two VC's. They kind of go hand in hand, ie we will capture the AP and control the religious situation by sheer force, allowing us to manipulate the timing of the final vote.

I'm pretty sure that if we are close enough to get a Conquest/Dom VC then AP is impossible since we have to have less than the population needed to win the vote. I guess a vassal driven Dom might work but We have to drive so deep into the tech tree that an AP VC just seems to be not achievable.

 

[ZPV]

Okay so I'm gonna throw out my ideas on the ten goals and then in separate posts address other's posts and ideas.

I also want to make a stab at the general direction and VCs I based my goal attainment on.

1. VCs - Conquest and Culture. I think that these two are the easiest to coordinate and force on the same turn. They also lend themselves to meeting several goals by default.
2. Oracle - Gets Theology. This route gets a decent chance to take Judaism and for sure Christianity. It also allows us to build the AP in a religion that we will have a monopoly on so being the resident for the rest of the game is easy. The conquest VC will allow us to keep the AI so far behind that the UN will never get built.

1. I'll go into more detail below, but taking a slower VC simply to make it less work to synchronise them isn't something we should be doing.
2. Beelining and building the AP is a big big cost for that point in the game. Contrastingly, Mass Media and the UN is a detour worth two turns of late-game research, and 800 factory-ironworks-(mining?)-boosted hammers - a very small cost by comparison.

So Now for Goals:
4. You have learned Future Tech 1.
This is just a matter of teching deep. After we have the techs for 3 Corps. getting to FT1 should only be a few more techs to beeline.

7. You own at least three Corporate Headquarters
This one is simply resource intensive. We have to build research buildings to get 3 different late game techs that would not normally be a part of Conquest or Culture and we have to commit 3 specific GP to founding the Headquarters.Of course, going culture we will want Sids and this is good since a GM is not very useful otherwise. The other 2 will really depend on what GP we can get. If we have an Engineer, Mining Inc is great and we will likely still need the hammers later for the final war push. Civ Jewel would also be nice for the Culture but not likely to help much that late. I think the driving force has to be what extra GP we get other than artists and prophets. We should have the 3 we need saved well before we get to having to decide the tech path to get the corps needed.

I think you have the priority the wrong way around here. We need to research almost the whole tech tree to get Future Tech 1. That automatically includes the tech for several corps, although we do need to manage the GPs. Something like a Pyramids-Hanging Gardens-Forge city is something to consider, to pop us a GE or two if we need it. Economics can give us the GM for Sushi, and we can get another GP from somewhere.

9. You fulfil the requirements for TWO victory conditions, at least one of which is NOT Conquest or Domination. (For example, your spaceship arrives on Alpha Centauri the same turn you get Domination, that’s two. If you achieve domination on the same turn as conquest victory, then you need one more victory condition to fulfil this condition. Understood? ).
So here is why I think that Conquest and Culture are the way to go.
1. We can control very specifically when each are achieved. We can kill all the AI except one city and kill it and pop GA on the 3rd LC on the specific turn we want.
2. Conquest of one civ is already required along with 2 LCs
3. FE has a bad habit of losing to other teams that war early, late and well. In this one we need to KILL, KILL, KILL!
4. Domination has the problem that if we are close but not quite ready for the second VC an untimely border pop could push us over the top before we are ready.
5. AP this will come too early or we will be so far into the game that getting it late would be prohibitive
6. UN - Too much fluctuation in when this vote will come to effectively time it to meet another VC
7. Time is out for obvious reasons
8. Space just requires too many hammers late especially after we already have 2 LC.

1. Those Legendary Cities cost a lot of commerce/great people. That third LC is a fairly big investment which we might be able to avoid. I might change my mind on this based on testing, but if we can manage a cheaper VC we should.
2-4. I'm ambivalent on Conquest vs Dom. With tanks and bombers against (at the worst) rifles, the final wars will be very very quick, and we can start a long way below the Dom limit.
5. AP is unlikely to be a useful VC but you never know.
6. We can control the timing of the UN precisely, with only a few turns' notice - off the top of my head we need to finish building it 7 turns before Future Tech 1 comes in, but we can check that closer to the time. Similarly we can whip cities down to less than 66% population, and use a vassal vote to put us over the limit.
7-8. I agree.

 

[unclethrill]

1. I'll go into more detail below, but taking a slower VC simply to make it less work to synchronise them isn't something we should be doing.
2. Beelining and building the AP is a big big cost for that point in the game. Contrastingly, Mass Media and the UN is a detour worth two turns of late-game research, and 800 factory-ironworks-(mining?)-boosted hammers - a very small cost by comparison.
If we go for a UN VC then conquest is obviously out since there would be no one left to vote. That locks us into a Dom/UN combo. The long pole seems to me to be the teching of the Corp techs and then FT 1. I believe that we can have both VCs (conquest and culture) in hand well before this last research goal is attained but I have been known to be wrong in the past; quite often too !

I think you have the priority the wrong way around here. We need to research almost the whole tech tree to get Future Tech 1. That automatically includes the tech for several corps, although we do need to manage the GPs. Something like a Pyramids-Hanging Gardens-Forge city is something to consider, to pop us a GE or two if we need it. Economics can give us the GM for Sushi, and we can get another GP from somewhere.
You say we don't need to manage the GP but then say we should specialize our wonders to pop specific GPs for the Corps. All I'm saying is that we should build the corps that we have GP for instead of directing our research to specific corps and then try to tailor our GP pops to get those specific headquarters.

1. Those Legendary Cities cost a lot of commerce/great people. That third LC is a fairly big investment which we might be able to avoid. I might change my mind on this based on testing, but if we can manage a cheaper VC we should.
2-4. I'm ambivalent on Conquest vs Dom. With tanks and bombers against (at the worst) rifles, the final wars will be very very quick, and we can start a long way below the Dom limit.
5. AP is unlikely to be a useful VC but you never know.
6. We can control the timing of the UN precisely, with only a few turns' notice - off the top of my head we need to finish building it 7 turns before Future Tech 1 comes in, but we can check that closer to the time. Similarly we can whip cities down to less than 66% population, and use a vassal vote to put us over the limit.
7-8. I agree.

So that coordinates the UN VC with getting the FT1 research but then coordinating the DOM level to being hit on the same or next turn is significantly harder.

I don't see that the VC's I chose are any slower than the ones you chose. I just think that we are in more control of the end date by going culture and conquest than with Dom/UN. We can choose the specific turn when any of the VCs are gained but there seems to be too much chance involved in getting your suggestion than mine and I see both being equally early in the game.

 

[ZPV]

So that coordinates the UN VC with getting the FT1 research but then coordinating the DOM level to being hit on the same or next turn is significantly harder.

I don't see that the VC's I chose are any slower than the ones you chose. I just think that we are in more control of the end date by going culture and conquest than with Dom/UN. We can choose the specific turn when any of the VCs are gained but there seems to be too much chance involved in getting your suggestion than mine and I see both being equally early in the game.

I had not considered the timing of either conq or dom to be difficult - we can always just settle a dozen cities in someone's former land, or accept capitulation on the last turn. We're good enough to handle that.

As for Culture, I'm perfectly happy to go this way if it turns out not to cost very much. My instinct is that it does - it's not like we can push the culture slider or devote all our GP efforts into spamming great artists - but corporate culture might make up for that a bit. I'm sure a couple of full test games will bring clarity on this point.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

On settling the first city. Just from the screenshot, it looks like the decision is either stay next to the river or move SE for the coast and fish.

MF

 

[unclethrill]

I had not considered the timing of either conq or dom to be difficult - we can always just settle a dozen cities in someone's former land, or accept capitulation on the last turn. We're good enough to handle that.

As for Culture, I'm perfectly happy to go this way if it turns out not to cost very much. My instinct is that it does - it's not like we can push the culture slider or devote all our GP efforts into spamming great artists - but corporate culture might make up for that a bit. I'm sure a couple of full test games will bring clarity on this point.

Well the more I think about it the more you are winning me over. Dom instead of conquest means we can really have a huge late economy and un vs culture allows us to not have to focus efforts on popping great artists all game. In addition if we are getting the un then we can use the oracle for a run at CS instead off Theo which will make the war machine roll much earlier.

 

[unclethrill]

On settling the first city. Just from the screenshot, it looks like the decision is either stay next to the river or move SE for the coast and fish.

MF

So I think that we move the warrior 1 SW and the settler 1NE then 1 SE as long as we don't see anything of real interest to the NE.
From what we can see now I like to settle on t1 1 SW of the fish. That gets us fish, corn and a couple hills,IIRC. On phone right now so i may have to edit this later

 

[Shaandore]

dom vs conquest:
hopefully we will be large enough to be near domination after renaissance. If not, then our research power is suboptimal (in a bigger empire we could research faster->we are doing something wrong!)
So taking a vassal in the late game will get us domination. I don't see how having many vassals could lead to such research potential.

On first move and settling:
I agree with warrior 1SW. Going NE would only reveal plains and an ocean tile, that is not very interesting.

Here is how I see the current settling options, without voting for any of these:

T0 SIP
1 dry corn, 1 FP, 1GrassHill, 1PH, maybe one forested hill. 10 or 11 riverside flat tiles, of which 2 are grassland (and 1 or 2 is FP). 9 forests in BFC.
=>This is a weak food cap with okay early production, good bureau potential, no ocean access. Leaves space for a weak fishing village.

T1 1SE
1 dry corn, 1 fish, 1 GrassHill, maybe one forested hill. All other tiles are flat. 7 forests. Only 6 riverside tiles, with only one riverside grass.
=> Strong early city with good food, but less hammers. If we go for watery wonders (TGLH or Colossus), it might be useful, but the hammers and forests won't be enough to produce more than one. Not very good mid-game city and okay late game (after bio) city. We would need to move palace to use bureau.

T1 1NW
1 dry corn, 1 FP, 2 riverside grass tiles, 1PH, many unknown tiles. At least 5 forests.
=>weak food cap with weak early production, good bureau potential. Leaves space for a strong helper fish city. Quite a gamble IMO.

T1 1S
1 dry corn, 1 FP, 1 grass hill, maybe one forested hill. 2 unknown tiles, 1 useless ocean tile. 2 riverside grass, 2 unknown tiles. At least 8 forests.
=>Depending on what the warrior reveals, this might have some potential. Good for bureau, but still weak food. Only 1 hill for sure. Leaves space for coastal fishing village.

 

[ZPV]

The only reason to move the warrior north is to reveal that hill - I can't tell from the screenshot whether it's plains or grass. The former would allow the possibility of gold, which is a game-changer, but we can have Fish City work it if we choose to move away.
That pic seems particularly unhelpful for fog-gazing, so I can't tell how many floodplains or grasslands there are.

I don't believe a corn-fish capital has enough production to build all the workers we'll need, or frankly much research potential to power our midgame - it looks more like a throwaway whipping post, then just running a couple of specialists.

SIP seems like the natural move, unless the warrior reveals something. Unforested BFC tiles are more likely to have a resource than other tiles, and there's no sense on wasting a turn for no visible gain.
The fish city isn't complete junk, since there are cheap Creative libraries - it can generate a GS for us while the capital builds our settlers and workers, for instance, and then grow a few cottages for the capital.

 

[BSPollux]

I would hate to SIP.

If warrior->SW doesnt completly change the whole thing then settling 1SE seems the most usefull move

 

[Shaandore]

Oh, I screwed up the directions. Editing it soon.

Done

 

[ZPV]

I would hate to SIP.

If warrior->SW doesnt completly change the whole thing then settling 1SE seems the most usefull move

1SE will never be able to build Oxford University - it has no production (and so we'll need to chop most of the forests before then). This plays like a space game, so we need the early hammers.

What in particular do you hate about SIP?

 

[BSPollux]

What in particular do you hate about SIP?

That we lose the fish and that we wont find another well-fitting spot for a city that uses it. In fact I fear that we will have the same problem in the south as well. Very likely that we'll end up with unuseable spare land east and south of our capital.

I hate settling close to the sea. I either settle at the sea of inland, not one step away

 

[Shaandore]

I'm with ZPV. Settling in place seems like the logical decision for this game.

If someone tests the fish start and can get a much faster early game (i.e. shave off 5 turns from settling second city) then it might be a good idea to settle 1SE on turn 1.

 

[unclethrill]

Over the next couple days I'll make a few runs at a CS oracle with settling in both spots to see how it goea

 

[BSPollux]

I thought we are forbidded to replay the map? Are you testing on some other map is just somewhat similar?

 

[Shaandore]

I thought we are forbidded to replay the map? Are you testing on some other map is just somewhat similar?

There is a test map with the same settings that unclethrill worldbuildered to match the posted screenshot . In the early game, we will update everything in that test map to look like the real game, so we can make test runs there. He uploaded this save in post #9.