SGOTM 16 - Fifth Element

[unclethrill]

@Shan-- No problem on the worker. I'm pretty sure we were all in agreement on the worker as the first build and something had to be chosen so that we could get to T1 and get the demographics screenie.
As far as builds go, I like worker>warrior and that will take up about 22 turns anyway so I think that you have leave to play at least until T5 when we need to choose a tech to research. For exploring, I like the path you planned out. We should try as much as possible to work angles with the warrior as this will reveal the most terrain in the fastest possible time. (With that said, we should also stick to forests and hills for safety as much as possible.)

@BSP - Agreed that is a lousy capital but this really is the kinda stuff ya see on these SGOTMs. The level of play is so fierce that the mapmaker goes out of his was to make the start as hard as possible and inevitably Plastic Ducks will find a way to get a 1400AD win that meets all the requirements and shames all the other teams. So as far as modifying the exploration path, I think that the couple turns delay getting to see what is on the other side of the FP won't make nearly as much difference as getting an earlier look at what is around the clam area.

@ZPV/BLubmuz -- Please work your magic and tell me who the AI are in the game. I have faith that the one demographics SS plus the new one at T5 will allow either of you to be fairly accurate in who we are up against.

@@Shan - I don't see a real reason to update the test save until we get a little more exploration done and get the professional opinion of who the AI are. Once we have that, we can work together to build a new test game that is more likely to represent the actual game. This will make the test more relevant for a longer time.

 

[ZPV]

Spoiler :

edit: I need to check this again - I made a mistake with one leader. It's not Willem after all - I forgot briefly that there's one free beaker added to the GNP figures. Just a sec.

AI GNPs: 20/17/17/17/16/16
One creative leader. Two non-creative, working 0-commerce tiles.

AI tiles worked: 2f1h city centre. No plains-hill starts; all have 6 food-hammers. 5 of them are 5f1h; one is 4f2h.

AI Land area: 9/9/9/8/8/7. Snaky continents produce too many coastal starts; this map was probably Normal Continents. The Great Lighthouse might be available late.

90/91/85/72 for life expectancy.
91 most likely exp/freshwater/10-11 forests or fw/14-15 forests. Probably the latter, the way some inland starts just get forest-spammed.
Only one AI has more than 8 health in their city. This makes Expansive AIs fairly unlikely, but not impossible.


83/85/83/83 for approval rate.
At least one; at most two charismatic

5th best city: so 4 others must have (at least one) extra commerce.
They are 20/17/17/17 GNP. The 20 is most likely a Creative, non-financial AI working an oasis. We can confirm that next turn when we bump up to #2. After that, the next interesting point is at turn 7 when AI 3-food cities grow.

Mining 2k; Wheel 4k.

Neither Mali nor Babylon are present - their UU is worth more, and they start with the wheel.

14k in civ-specific starting techs between the AIs.
Could be 0/2/2/2/4/4 or 0/0/2/4/4/4

Mining: Carthage, China, England, Ethiopia, Japan, Germany, India, Khmer, Korea, Maya, Portugal, Rome, Russia
Wheel: Arabia, (Babylon), Byzantium, Egypt, France, Mongolia, Ottoman, Sumeria
Both: Mali

A quick simulation (for which my CPU now hates me) suggests that if the civs were picked at random, then we're a little more likely to see 0/2/2/2/4/4 (especially if you then only allow one creative leader).
----------------------
AI Profiles/suggestions:
1) Creative AI, with an oasis. 20GNP, 5f1h3c. Suggest Catherine.
2) Charismatic AI: suggest Brennus
3) Wheel AI 1: Egypt/Ramsses.
4) Wheel AI 2: Ottoman. Pick this one for the 5 flood plains city.
5) Mining AI 2: Rome/Augustus. This one could be the one with 14-15 forests.
6) Mining AI 3: China/Mao

 

[ZPV]

I'd like you to change your scouting plan and get that warrior west quicker by avoiding the step southeast. I'd realy like to know if we see floodplains surrounded by hills there. Maybe we want to build a settler asap and kickstart the REX? (worker-warrior-warrior-settler maybe?)

Since we don't have a lot of resource tiles, building a settler at size 3 makes sense.

For exploring, I like the path you planned out. We should try as much as possible to work angles with the warrior as this will reveal the most terrain in the fastest possible time. (With that said, we should also stick to forests and hills for safety as much as possible.)

[...]
So as far as modifying the exploration path, I think that the couple turns delay getting to see what is on the other side of the FP won't make nearly as much difference as getting an earlier look at what is around the clam area.

My instinct is that we want a compromise between uncovering the clam area (which will be harder to do once barbs start spawning due to lack of defensive terrain) and uncovering some of the area to the (south and) west of Paris, because seeing a resource in either place could affect our tech choice on t5.

The best I can manage for that is S-SW-SW-NW-NW. It's not entirely satisfactory for either goal, but does get a bit of a peek at both.

 

[BLubmuz]

Of all the crappy starts, this is the crappiest , even for an SG.

I think that worker warrior warrior settler is the way to go. As soon as we expand, the better. I'm still of the opinion that MC from Oracle is the best choice, followed by CoL. No CS possible. We can maybe consider Feud and war with longpults?

 

[Shaandore]

Okay. So now our focus should be on the warrioir path. There have been two suggestions, mine and ZPV's.

My proposed PPP until t5:

t1:
move warrior

t2:
select tech (eg mining) and deselect it
move warrior
take demo screenshot

t3:
select tech (eg mining) and deselect it
move warrior
borders pop, switch to working floodplains for one more
take demo screenshot

t4:
select tech (eg mining) and deselect it
move warrior
take demo screenshot

t5:
select tech (eg mining) and deselect it
move warrior
take screenshot of the land
take demo screenshot
Save without ending turn, because we will need to select the desired tech before the end of this turn.

What are your suggestions?

 

[BLubmuz]

I forgot we do not start with mining
I think we can set it as the first research in any case. Then we have pottery or AH to choose from. I can't remmber how many turns we need to build a worker on normal, but in any case i think that his first job will be to farm the corn, then road, then a road through the forest and a cottage on the FP. this should be 6+2+3, not counting the cottage. more than enough to research minng, pottery and AH.

I didn't know about the 5 turns of no research. I imagine it can help with huts enabled. Some more about that thing?

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

I think we can set it as the first research in any case. Then we have pottery or AH to choose from. I can't remmber how many turns we need to build a worker on normal, but in any case i think that his first job will be to farm the corn, then road, then a road through the forest and a cottage on the FP. this should be 6+2+3, not counting the cottage. more than enough to research minng, pottery and AH.

We need to figure: (turns to get the worker)+(farming corn) and decide what we want to accomplish next. The road we need for health and movement, but maybe not just yet, since we're nowhere near the cap. We go mining if we want to get the hammers on the hill(s) next, or pottery to put a cottage on the FP. Chances are we'd have both, but if we're going to mine, would BW be a better option? Knowing if we have copper will be big, especially since we plan of grifting Iron Working. Knowing the evil that is our map makers, I'm going to bet iron is on one of the two hills with copper a long way off.

@Shann - Sounds fine to me. Not really all that much to do just yet anyway.

 

[BLubmuz]

but if we're going to mine, would BW be a better option? Knowing if we have copper will be big, especially since we plan of grifting Iron Working.

Mining is needed for BW and we need to consider that a mined hill is a good tile to produce settler or worker.

I propose:
Mining - pottery - AH - writing - BW
we can skip AH, but i'd like to see horses and there's a discount on Writing for have a 2nd prerequisite.

 

[ZPV]

The big power techs here are Writing and Bronze Working. Other goals shouldn't distract us from these.
Aside from this, we want to be able to work any food resource we settle. If the land is terrible, then we might consider fishing before pottery, so we can settle Fish City.

I'm split between putting mining first, and beelining straight to writing. I think lean slightly towards mining.

Building one cottage is a bad reason to research pottery. (Especially when we really want a farm on the FP so we can grow quickly. We can cottage every other tile (later - I don't think anyone's proposing 3000BC cottage spam) but we need concentrated food now).
Granaries and unlocking Writing are a good reason, so it's not like we shouldn't research the tech, just remember why we're doing it.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

If we're going to REX, and it sure looks like we should, doesn't that put more of a priority on BW? I could see AH for the horses first, but writing is for a spy. How soon will we have the esp points for the mission, and where is it in the build order?

@ ZPV - Don't we want to know a little more about the surrounding land before we settle fish city? It was a dog before... unless it's hiding something good to the north, it's still a dog!

 

[ZPV]

@ ZPV - Don't we want to know a little more about the surrounding land before we settle fish city? It was a dog before... unless it's hiding something good to the north, it's still a dog!

It was a dog of a capital (and I'm even managing to avoid buyer's remorse ), but it's still a useful helper city simply because it is so close it costs very little in maintenance, and can work a few cottages and/or scientists while the capital is otherwise occupied. The same standards don't really apply.

If there's a better city (and we don't need to make the decision to research Fishing right now, so there is a bit of time to find a decent site; especially if we go for Mining first), then we should definitely go for that first, but a even a dog is better than a sewer rat.

 

[Folket]

Hello!

I'm sorry that I have not been more active. Just have been busy and forgot. I will do my best to be more active from now on.

Perhaps we can use one of the first posts to have a summary on our strategy. Both current short term and long term.

Are we still aiming for cultural and conquest victories? I think we would be better off with conquest and diplomatic. Since we can't win before future tech I think culture and conquest are both expensive victories that will slow our research.

 

[BSPollux]

Shan I think you should play those first turns now I guess.

 

[Shaandore]

I would play, but I still didn't get any suggestions on warrior moves. That's why they are red in the PPP, it is the only thing still undecided. I agree with ZPV that there could be a decent city site at the floodplains on the west, so his proposal does have advantages. On the other hand, we will have plenty of time to uncover that area until the first settler comes out, so I would stick to my proposed path to have a better look at the clams area and start the biggest possible circle around the capital.

The first tech question is tough, I would like to run some tests myself before saying anything about that.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

I would play, but I still didn't get any suggestions on warrior moves.

I'm fine with the proposed plan.

 

[ZPV]

I would play, but I still didn't get any suggestions on warrior moves. That's why they are red in the PPP, it is the only thing still undecided. I agree with ZPV that there could be a decent city site at the floodplains on the west, so his proposal does have advantages. On the other hand, we will have plenty of time to uncover that area until the first settler comes out, so I would stick to my proposed path to have a better look at the clams area and start the biggest possible circle around the capital.

The first tech question is tough, I would like to run some tests myself before saying anything about that.

I'm happy enough with your plan. We can fit our research ideas to it.

 

[unclethrill]

I'm happy enough with your plan. We can fit our research ideas to it.

Agreed. Go for it!

 

[Shaandore]

I will play tomorrow afternoon. (I'm too tired now and playing when tired=bad)
Sorry for the slow moving. Weekdays are quite busy for me.

But we do have a BFC, so testing optimal city growth and warrior/settler timing is possible. Is it a good idea to go for a second worker before settler? If we go for BW then it could be worthwile to do so with all these forests.

 

[BLubmuz]

We start to accumulate EP points as soon as we meet our opponents. If we keep them to 0, the game equally distributes them between all the AIs we meet.
This is why we MUST set the EP to 1 to the first AI we meet, which probably is the closest and thus the easier one.

In your TS you can barely complete a worker and a warrior. In case, build another warrior.

But we have still to decide the research: At this stage of the game all the techs are a priority, being all worker techs or techs which open another important one. We must agree NOW on the research path.

ATM we agree on the fact that we consider BW and writing priorities. Since we cannot research both at the same time, we must decide a priority ... obvious.

The shortest way to have both is to research only one of the prerequisites and forget the discounts by having 2 (i'm referring to writing). We must decide between pottery and AH. My personal opinion is that is better to have both before writing. But if i'm asked to decide, i prefer AH.

Mining first is a must, IMO.

Shaan, don't be too worried about the warrior moves: you (we) don't have many choices, do your best to keep it alive while scouting the south then the west and that's all.

 

[ZPV]

We start to accumulate EP points as soon as we meet our opponents. If we keep them to 0, the game equally distributes them between all the AIs we meet.
This is why we MUST set the EP to 1 to the first AI we meet, which probably is the closest and thus the easier one.

Yes. This is important. Especially if Iron is our only resource.

We must agree NOW on the research path.

I disagree with this. We need to agree on t5. The land we see can impact on this, and even then we can delay the decision on AH/Pottery if we choose Mining first.

ATM we agree on the fact that we consider BW and writing priorities. Since we cannot research both at the same time, we must decide a priority ... obvious.

The shortest way to have both is to research only one of the prerequisites and forget the discounts by having 2 (i'm referring to writing). We must decide between pottery and AH. My personal opinion is that is better to have both before writing. But if i'm asked to decide, i prefer AH.

Mining first is a must, IMO.

Mining first is a good working theory, unless we see something that changes our minds.
My impression was that the benefits of a quick library (and the ability to hire scientists) outweigh the prerequisite discount of researching both. I'll keep an open mind as to which one (AH or Pottery) suits us better.