SGOTM 16 - Kakumeika

[Manco Capac]

PPP T20-T30​

Technological Decisions

Technological choices viewed in the short term:
Writing (T20; 109 beakers invested) => Alpha (committing on T26)

Further test games about barbarian invasions will help us to pose a better sight if AH is a decent choice to gamble on horses (and improving sheeps).

My personal view on this for now is it is a bad choice to divert from the Alpha path for various reasons:

• Sole stock resource in short term.
• Horse gambling although I admit those unforested tiles we had in the original BFC are suspicious. Not to add the bigger range of tiles under culture control thanks to creative increasing chances. Still a gamble though.
• Decrease the power of Alpha beeline move.
• Fear factor might be higher than real game might show us And archers can do a great job too, especially with all those defensive tiles.

Science slider is indeed 100% the whole time of my turnset.

Long term reminders:

• Oracle beeline won't go without a commitment on either Poly or Meditation.
  Since we won't go for the early Astro path (not necessary I think), Poly is not a must to block the usual Philo bulbing path. Meditation or Poly are both valid choices.
  We go for Polytheism if we intent an early AP with oracling Theology AND/OR one neighbour has beelined the Monotheism path, which is monopoly-free.
  We go meditation if MC is the oracle prize and no AI has gone for monotheism (and OR is an indicator for it, but keep reminding a non-spiritual AI will take 25 turns (10 turns for spiritual leaders) before committing a civiv change, thus tech table is better to be checked every turn instead).
• We might go for Masonry if we plan the GLH. And quite often one AI goes for it while the others ignore it, so relying on trading this is random.
• **DANGER** Never trade IW!!! ...unless a future decision revokes this.

Warriors

First Warrior (Adam's the name) : we push further exploration towards west and perhaps south while doing it as geography imposes us to do it. Main goal: Uncover those coast tiles under fog because once the AI will hit Sailing, we necessarily get foreign trade routes. (Second city is coast settled).
Notheless, we can't rely on Brennus because thank to Victory Screen, I calculated his land tiles and there is high chance he is land-locked. He has 34 tiles over the max 37 tiles for a capital that made a second border pop (Buddism +5 ).
EDIT: About T35-40 range, people should bring back Adam and Eve.

Second Warrior (Eve) : Will do the same task as Adam, but uncover eastern coastline. Third city along a single road onto tile that was the original settler positin on T0 will make connect the city trio.

Third Warrior (Louis) : Our Louis role is of an outpost. He will uncover most fog tiles, so to protect from north cities and focus on south waves.

According to this screenshot, bcool put an outpost on that bare grass hill in between those two peaks. I looked at it and 1E is better as it uncover completely flank east (third city is completely protected and has 1 more fogbusted tile. Corn tile is been out on danger without putting the warrior 1E and both sheeps and corn are under random threat. better fight on one from.

The disadvantage is been on a bare tile, but we have to look from the forested plain hill before landing on that tile. We might stand on that hill until ~T42-45 where most animals are gone, but I prefer not because two movers panther cannot spawn north.



Worker

Eiffel (First Worker):
T20-23 :Cottaging 1W of capital.
T24-28 :Cottaging 1N1W of the last cottage.
T29-?? : Farm FP 1N of the last cottage.
I abandoned the idea of a road for a city one turn earlier as I see preparing a farm looks superior.

Governor takes care of plot assignment well for this stage.

City Builds

2 successive warriors then a settler on T26.


Miscellaneous

Redirect EP on the other neighbour if (s)he's superior in terms of a techer.
Check EP levels
T26 - OB for AI I have met or will meet.

End of Turn Actions

Check EP levels against AIs (may change EP targeting if a teching AI is found)
save game (each turns or mostly)
Check culture view for other civilizations
take picture of demographics each turn (perhaps)

Big Decisions

• On T26- Going for pop4 or Settler.
• Alpha beeline
  
  Those two are kinda connected to barb factor, that is why I'll finally make a post on how to speed AI's and get results faster and myself make more tests to see either average or simply the median threshold date.
  

 

[bcool]

I think we want 2 FP cottages for the capital. If we do make a FP farm I'd like to see it workable by the sheep/fish city. I don't think the tile 1N of the cottage we started is shared by the planned sheep/fish city.
I'm okay with a FP farm shared between sheep/fish and the capital as mabraham's plan shows... assuming delaying alphabet isn't putting us too close to the barbarian invasion time.

Longer term issues...
-I like sheep/fish as the city where we try to build the great lighthouse. I like corn/fish as the city where we try to get a great scientist.

-We might want to whip a worker in sheep/fish rather than a granary first.

 

[Manco Capac]

I think we want 2 FP cottages for the capital. If we do make a FP farm I'd like to see it workable by the sheep/fish city. I don't think the tile 1N of the cottage we started is shared by the planned sheep/fish city.
I'm okay with a FP farm shared between sheep/fish and the capital as mabraham's plan shows... assuming delaying alphabet isn't putting us too close to the barbarian invasion time.

Longer term issues...
-I like sheep/fish as the city where we try to build the great lighthouse. I like corn/fish as the city where we try to get a great scientist.

-We might want to whip a worker in sheep/fish rather than a granary first.

The Farmed FP is outside the capital BFC and all tiles within capital's BFC are cottages (somehow trying to get a bureaucratic capital). Perhaps I made a mistake with tiles location presentation.
That was the plan, but mabraham proposes another. I'll look at it.

Me too, I had in mind those task for secondary cities, but it is outside my turnset.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I prefer all Floodplains have Cottages built on them so we have strong Commerce plots in place when we adopt Bureaucracy.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Manco Capac]

Ok, I'll share the easy steps to get an easy fast-forward of AI developments...and that includes barbarians too as they are AI too.

In that simulation, human player is automatically destroyed because the human obviously cannot play along fast foward. Indeed, the function keeps the human alive putting a default lion unit instead (the first unit in the list; look at it in worldbuilder) somewhere. And if it gets killed with another fast foward, another lion is spawned somewhere. This avoids the loss message and end game I suppose.

There is a problem when it comes to consider barb invasions as it is proportional to AI alive and cities averaging. I think it doesn't affect city averaging value at all, but for the simulation, better keep it as exact as possible. Then add a seventh AI to replace the poor human.

Here are the steps (that work only in non-BUFFY mods or the unmodded game)

1. Check for the CivilizationIV.ini file under BTS (Go see your documents for Windows users). Search for CheatCode line and change the value to "chipotle". Those chipotle lovers made a weird change from the usual boolean 0 and 1.
2. Set up your random hemisphere game with 7 AI's.
3. Go under debugger mode using CTRL+Z. Should work for most mods. Ask for help if it doesn't work. There is a longer and annoying method.
4. Bring up the python console with CTRL+ ~ (tilde).
5. Write Game.AIPlay [put a number of turns here; please interger]. Capital letters are not necessary. E.G. " game.aiplay 23 " where the space is needed otherwise you call an undefined function.
6. Debugger is not necessary, but so great to get a world view while the fast forward. Anyways, enjoy easier testing.

CivilizationIV.ini file and CheatCode line:

Spoiler :

Python Console:

Spoiler :

 

[Manco Capac]

OK, you were right. I'll play my turnset tomorrow.

 

[WastinTime]

I prefer all Floodplains have Cottages built on them so we have strong Commerce plots in place when we adopt Bureaucracy.

Sun Tzu Wu

Ditto

 

[mabraham]

We're 30 turns from Alphabet, so 60-90 turns from Bureaucracy with a bunch of side tracks being considered in our plan (Oracle->MC? GLH?, Theol?). We have no plan to get enough happiness to support enough population to use a cottage on each of our capital's 5 floodplains and work the wheat. With an MP our happy cap is 5. If we ever whip the capital, it's less. We won't ever be working five floodplain cottages from the capital, so we only need four.

Similarly, the sheep-fish site will have a happy cap that starts at 4 and goes down when we whip it. It'll work fish and sheep the whole time, and at best two of its 4 floodplains (1 is shared with the capital).

So retaining the option to grow faster by working an FP farm does not seriously impede the maturation of the cottages that we can actually work.

We don't seem likely to beeline Calendar for the resources before Bureaucracy, but if we do, that is the time to start maximizing cottages. Monarchy for wine or HR is not happening any time soon. Pyramids are (so far) not on the cards.

I don't understand the insistence upon committing to 8 FPcottages early, when we can't use the last few cottages until much later, won't have the worker time to build the last few until much later, and when the value in the one (shared) FPfarm accrues early by accelerating the growth and productivity of the sheep city (by working the extra food) and the corn city (by planting a turn earlier and doing everything it does for the whole game a turn earlier).

Even if we get a state religion for +1 before Bur and switch to it, we're still not going to be able to commit to using a full rack of 8 FPcottages.

 

[bcool]

We're 30 turns from Alphabet, so 60-90 turns from Bureaucracy with a bunch of side tracks being considered in our plan (Oracle->MC? GLH?, Theol?). We have no plan to get enough happiness to support enough population to use a cottage on each of our capital's 5 floodplains and work the wheat. With an MP our happy cap is 5. If we ever whip the capital, it's less. We won't ever be working five floodplain cottages from the capital, so we only need four.

Similarly, the sheep-fish site will have a happy cap that starts at 4 and goes down when we whip it. It'll work fish and sheep the whole time, and at best two of its 4 floodplains (1 is shared with the capital).

So retaining the option to grow faster by working an FP farm does not seriously impede the maturation of the cottages that we can actually work.

We don't seem likely to beeline Calendar for the resources before Bureaucracy, but if we do, that is the time to start maximizing cottages. Monarchy for wine or HR is not happening any time soon. Pyramids are (so far) not on the cards.

I don't understand the insistence upon committing to 8 FPcottages early, when we can't use the last few cottages until much later, won't have the worker time to build the last few until much later, and when the value in the one (shared) FPfarm accrues early by accelerating the growth and productivity of the sheep city (by working the extra food) and the corn city (by planting a turn earlier and doing everything it does for the whole game a turn earlier).

Even if we get a state religion for +1 before Bur and switch to it, we're still not going to be able to commit to using a full rack of 8 FPcottages.

I'm not sure I understand your argument. If we build 4 cottages on FP near the capital they will be growing from very early in the game. I don't anticipate that we will whip the capital much at all. And even if we do a FP farm isn't going to allow us to regrow significantly faster --at least not in terms of cottage-growth turns. I don't think anyone has suggested that we place more cottages than we can work around the capital.

If we have another town by the time we get bureaucracy since we built a cottage instead of a farm, that means we get 4 more commerce which is multiplied by 1.5 and then 3 with the university and Oxford and academy. That's 18 science per turn that we wouldn't have otherwise. (+1*1.5*3=4.5 more when we research printing press).

18 science per turn seems like something we might want to sacrifice for. Plus the extra commerce we get while the cottage is growing is going to unlock technologies faster that might get us the extra happiness a bit earlier that you point out we need. Perhaps +1 5? turns earlier is better than getting fish/corn up a turn earlier.

Since happiness does look like a big issue, perhaps we should consider getting a religion with the oracle. Or we need to seriously consider the pyramids. Once we have bureaucracy in the capital several chops will go a long ways to getting the pyramids. Perhaps this is the way to solve the happiness issue.

 

[bcool]

The Farmed FP is outside the capital BFC and all tiles within capital's BFC are cottages (somehow trying to get a bureaucratic capital). Perhaps I made a mistake with tiles location presentation.
That was the plan, but mabraham proposes another. I'll look at it.

Me too, I had in mind those task for secondary cities, but it is outside my turnset.

Sorry Tachy, you are right your proposed plan has the farm outside of the capital's BFC.

I'll have to look at the micro, but I think I built another cottage 2N1W of the capital (the tile shared by sheep/fish) before I built the FP farm for sheep/fish you proposed.

 

[bcool]

I like

finish cottage 1W of the capital T20-T23
cottage 1N1W of the capital T24-T28
start cottage 2N1W of the capital T29

after the cottage 2N1W of the capital you can farm 2N2W of the capital. This farm finishes the same turn that the capital grows to pop 4, so you can switch from working the cottage with sheep/fish to the farm. Then sheep/fish grows in synch with cottages 3N2W of the capital and 4N1W of the capital.

 

[mabraham]

I'm not sure I understand your argument. If we build 4 cottages on FP near the capital they will be growing from very early in the game. I don't anticipate that we will whip the capital much at all. And even if we do a FP farm isn't going to allow us to regrow significantly faster --at least not in terms of cottage-growth turns. I don't think anyone has suggested that we place more cottages than we can work around the capital.

STW and WastinTime want "all floodplains have cottages". My point is that we have more floodplains than cottage tiles we can work over the next 50 turns. Over these 50 turns we care a lot about getting out our infrastructure - REX, wonders, academy, army, whatever it is. The option to work a shared FPfarm caters to all of these. The capital will not want to work the farm much if we are able to continue a peaceful REX, but having the farm is useful if an unforeseen need arises for whipping or working mines. The sheep site will likely want to work the FPfarm over the 20-30 turns where it is up and both the pasture and fish nets are not and the city has building and unit infrastructure to whip out (granary, library, lighthouse, galley, etc.).

If we have another town by the time we get bureaucracy since we built a cottage instead of a farm, that means we get 4 more commerce which is multiplied by 1.5 and then 3 with the university and Oxford and academy. That's 18 science per turn that we wouldn't have otherwise. (+1*1.5*3=4.5 more when we research printing press).

A farm is not forever. When we can anticipate the ability to run cottages on all our floodplains, then I'll want cottages there. But I can't see we'll be able to do so for about 50 turns, and if so, Bureaucracy has not been obtained as fast as possible (unless we bulb CoL, which nobody's seriously suggested so far).

Further, the actual loss is much lower than 18 science per turn, because Oxford will be at least two techs and a pile of hammers later than Bureaucracy, which provides some maturation time for a cottage started later.

18 science per turn seems like something we might want to sacrifice for. Plus the extra commerce we get while the cottage is growing is going to unlock technologies faster that might get us the extra happiness a bit earlier that you point out we need. Perhaps +1 5? turns earlier is better than getting fish/corn up a turn earlier.

We're not getting "extra commerce" if we build a cottage we can't use. I want a FPfarm on the FPtile we probably can't use in the short term. Also, the existence of that FPfarm has snowball effect of the extra turn on settling the third city, and the faster academy that results from whichever side city can pop the GSci at least a turn earlier.

Since happiness does look like a big issue, perhaps we should consider getting a religion with the oracle. Or we need to seriously consider the pyramids. Once we have bureaucracy in the capital several chops will go a long ways to getting the pyramids. Perhaps this is the way to solve the happiness issue.

I don't have a handle on how fast we can get Bureaucracy, because I haven't played such a game in a long time. What's your turn estimate for Bureaucracy? With Oracle->MC? With Oracle->CoL? Stealing IW on the way? Attempting GLH or not? Earlier in this thread I reported non-Industrious Pyramids times around T100, and GLH times T90-T100. If Alpha is due T51ish and our third city plants T55ish, we're going to have to do pretty well to get Maths, some prereq for CoL, CoL and Civil Service done in the 40ish turns we'd have to attempt a fast chop-Pyramids. We'd almost have to Oracle CoL, and particularly so if a city is busy getting GLH.

 

[bcool]

We definitely need to address priorities...

We probably can't build the Oracle and the GLH and maintain our expansion and grow a great scientist and produce a spy to steal iron working...

And mabraham is right that bureaucracy isn't around the corner.

 

[mabraham]

I had a go at doing it all of my T49 save above. It was a bit rough and ready - if I'd guessed where to put the EPs, I could have stolen IW T75ish. I got a T82 GLH and ridiculous T86 Oracle in different cities. Having Oracled CoL, CS was due about T105 if I'd microed properly. Capital was starting work on the Pyramids. (By the way, if we want a pure-great-engineer city that is not our capital, we have to consider getting Oracle and GLH in the same city...) I had Confu. Fourth city up on the wines about T75. GSci due about T90, slight GPro pollution - another reason to run the scientists in one city and build the wonders elsewhere.

I probably should have arranged a T75 Oracle, for earlier Confu for the , and maybe a later GLH. There was some time building settlers and workers where I might have worked five FPcottages if I'd had them, but there is going to be time when the capital is building granary and library (and maybe Pyramids or Aq->HG) when we are going to want to work some mines rather than these FPcottages. So I'm still doubtful that we want to commit now to all 5 of the capital FP as cottages.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Hey guys! I decided to lurk your thread for fun, since bcool invited me to an SG or two ago and since tachy and I had such fun this summer in the HOF challenge. (Not lurking other threads of course.) I'm not opening games any more, so it's all about what your thread presents me. Hope you don't mind my interjecting a thought or two occasionally. If so, tell me and I'll stfu.

One minor detail I didn't notice you considering. Not sure when you expect to get/trade for Fishing+Mng, but a plains hill mine at silk-N for the sheep/fish town would give you the fishing boat about the same time the borders pop. The 4h mine also gives 8h when building libraries in both cities. Might be worth testing to see if you have the wkr turns to invest and if they pay off. Of course, the alternative is working the shared cottage and growing.

Also, since you're planning to go military, I don't see any need to spawn prophets and build any shrines. I'd assume the AIs will build all three for you. (Maybe you already discussed this and I missed it.)

As for your capital, later on you might consider settling a junk city to work some of its cottages, depending on how many cottages you plan to build there. That city could double as a gift-city for stealing techs (a la SG11).

Good luck!

 

[WastinTime]

I'm surprised to hear that Pyramids are not being taken seriously. I was thinking this was a must-have...not only for happiness and research, but also a key part of our GE plan including a forge and probably hanging gardens later.

GPro:
I'd like to be able to count on the AI for the shrines, but we will definitely want one Gpro to make the buddhism Shrine UNLESS the founder builds Stonehenge. We'll want a 2nd GPro later as a safety for another shrine or it can always be used for a GA. I'm thinking 2 scientists first, then Prophet, Engineer.

FPfarm: Still against +1 food. I've read the argument that this cottage tile won't get worked, but then I read that the FPfarm would get worked 20-30 turns. I'd rather have those 20-30 turns on the cottage.

Next up: I think I'm next. I'll be ready to plan/play my TS Monday-Wednesday.

 

[bcool]

Hey LowtherCastle! Nice to hear from you I think it was the other way around though... You invited me to play in your sgotm and now I'm hooked.

We won't have fishing/mining until T50 or so, so the mine will have to wait a bit longer.

The junk city has been proposed by STW but I'm not sure when we would settle it.

Does it make sense to settle a junk city early enough to gift it the Brennus and steal IW there? We could potential whip out a 3rd settler shortly after we got alphabet perhaps and settle the junk city. How quickly do the AI get more than 3 cities?

Re: FP farm vs cottage
I don't feel strongly one way or the other about FP cottage or FP farm. I'm leaning slightly for the FP cottage since we are commerce poor to start and we have a lot of research to do.

Re: pyramids
I don't think we have given up on the pyramids, just that it wasn't part of the early planning yet. And I wasn't sure where we would build it and if we didn't plan for it we might lose it.

 

[WastinTime]

There should be time to squeeze in a road in order to settle 1 turn sooner, yes?

 

[Kaitzilla]

There should be time to squeeze in a road in order to settle 1 turn sooner, yes?

Oh nice. There does seem to be some worker slack if we are doing 3 pop settler. Hmm

@LTC - Hope you have some reading glasses. This is shaping up to be the longest SGOTM we've ever played.

 

[bcool]

Re: the road
The road delays the FP farm I had been building for sheep/fish so by settling a turn early we only net about 1 extra hammer I believe.
There is little worker slack if you want to keep pace with the capital and the sheep/fish growth.

I built cottage 1W, cottage 1N1W, cottage 2N1W then FP farm 2N2W for sheep/fish. If you do this the improvements are built just in time for the cities to work them assuming we grow to 4 pop after the 1st settler.

I haven't tested staying at 3 pop with the capital and building both settlers. If we do that then there might be some worker slack.