SGOTM 16 - The Shawshank Redemption

[Dhoomstriker]

Our expanding Cultural Borders have revealed an Animal Husbandry Resource (Sheep) and a bunch more Flood Plains squares:

Spoiler :

 

[Dhoomstriker]

We revealed a Coastal Fish! It will pair up nicely with the G Pig, some Forests, and some PH squares.

I guess that from here I will go NW P (1W of the Peak and 1SW of the Coastal Fish) -> 1N P (1NE of the Peak and 1W of the Coastal Fish). We're hugging the Coast more than I'd normally like, but the nature of the geography is forcing our hand. Plus, the squares to the west of the Warrior's current position will get revealed by our second Cultural Border expansion anyway.

Spoiler :

 

[Dhoomstriker]

We revealed a Deer Resource.

Spoiler :

Ironically, unless we go for Hunting and/or Animal Husbandry, this new City location won't be much stronger than our originally-planned Fish City in the short run, and although it has 2 Hills squares (3 by stealing Paris'), it has fewer Forest Chops. So, settling this City as City #2 might work for building The Great Lighthouse there but might not work as well for that Wonder if we settle it as City #3.

Anyway, let's hope that I'll be able to keep the Warrior alive long enough to get us some more useful info. The "semi-wall" of Peaks might help in keeping our Warrior alive for a bit longer.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A Forest grew! It's in a possibly-good, possibly-bad location: good in that it gives us one more Forest for a Pig City to be able to Chop, bad in that it was a PH square that we were Mining for Paris in our test game. Overall, it's good news, since a 3-Hammer square is still acceptable early on, while those extra Hammers will make us switching our The Great Lighthouse's City location a lot more viable.

We also revealed a Tundra passage to the NE. I'm going to ignore it for now (we can save it for an exploring Work Boat). We will almost certainly use the Fish and Deer Resources with the Pig, so exploring along that Tundra passage isn't likely going to reveal another decent City location.

Thus, the plan is to head NW Tundra (1N of Deer) -> NW Tundra (NW + N of Deer) as our next moves.

Spoiler :

 

[Dhoomstriker]

We spotted a Wolf! Buddhism was founded on Turn 8, 3680 BC.

Spoiler :

One thing that we didn't discuss was the possibility of running a non-100% Science Rate. Say, for example, if we were to learn Bronze Working 2 turns before our Worker was to start Chopping, it could be more efficient to run a lower Science rate for up to 2 turns (since delaying Bronze Working wouldn't hurt us), but could let us collect some Gold for when we do have a second City founded and need some Gold to stay at a 100% Science Rate.

That said, I'm not sure that we really know when we'll be Chopping relative to when we learn Bronze Working and we might not even be able to guess now since we're definitely going to have to run some more tests given the new layout of the land. Thus, I'll just stick it out with a 100% Science Rate for now.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Attack, stand, or try to flee?
We could attack the Wolf... Barb Animals, unlike Barb Humans, do not get defensive bonuses for terrain. The odds are good, but no battle is ever truly 100%, except on the lower levels where you get "free wins" against Barb units.

Attacking gets our exploration going along sooner and puts us on a good defensive square to heal... if we survive. We could also die.

Staying in place gives us an extra 5% Fortification bonus and forces the Wolf to attack or run away. If the Wolf runs, we can move NW Tundra Forest on the following turn and be in an even better defensive position.

Fleeing could still have the Wolf attacking us... and we might get double-teamed. For example, assume that we move 1S Tundra Deer. There could be a Bear to the SW of there, which means that if we don't die to the Bear, the Wolf will certainly finish us off (since the Wolf can still attack us).

Thus, I don't think that fleeing is even a valid option.

So, our choices are:
A] Attack the Wolf, risk exploration coming to a halt, but get a move on with our exploration a bit faster
OR
B] Stay in place for an extra bit of Fortification bonus, then move 1NW Tundra For next turn if the Wolf didn't kill us or attacked but didn't wound us, otherwise stay in position and heal from the Wolf attack until we are fully healed before proceeding with exploration

Spoiler :

 

[Mitchum]

Is that a peak 2W of the warrior? If so, I'd be tempted to to go S+SW. If not, the I'd move to the forest and take my chances with the wolf.

That land bridge looks suspicious (i.e. man made). I wonder if there's an AI in that direction...

EDIT: XPOST with Dhoom

 

[Mitchum]

I vote to attack at 99.4% odds. Then we can heal on the forest if needed.

EDIT: unless that's a peak 2W of the warrior.

 

[mscellaneous]

Is that a peak 2W of the warrior? If so, I'd be tempted to to go S+SW. If not, the I'd move to the forest and take my chances with the wolf.

I agree

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I haven't moved yet. I'm not really sure how Peaks work... if you have two Peaks that are diagonally next to each other, can you move diagonally between them? Like, is moving 1S Tundra Deer, 1SW actually a valid option? Even if it is, I think that I'd prefer to stay in place for a turn, just to avoid the chance of having to face a Bear/Lion on the same turn as the Wolf.

I can't really tell what the square 2W of the Warrior is... I suppose that I could set up a test game that checks, if no one can tell from these screenshots:

Spoiler :

 

[Mitchum]

I'd like to change my answer to moving the warrior S+SW. Yes, you can go diagonally from the deer 1SW between the two peaks as long as that tile is not another peak or some other impassible terrain. I think moving S+SW makes sense because:

1. Our warrior is getting too far away from our capital to scout anything useful. It appears to be all ice and tundra up there. I see no need to explore it now. Even if we uncover something really cool, I doubt we'd settle so far away and with so much ice/tundra.
   
   
2. The fortification bonus will have almost zero impact on the final result. I seem to recall that the fortification bonus doesn't actually kick in on the first IBT, but I could be wrong. Even if it does kick in, our odds go from 99.4% to something like 99.6% which is negligible.
   
   
3. There is a chance that the wolf will not attack. If he doesn't, he'll continue to spawn bust the north pole for us.

S+SW. My final answer...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

2W does NOT look like a Peak to me, but I would appreciate it if someone could look at the screenshots below and confirm my belief that 2W is not a Peak square. The first image is the real game and the next 3 images are with there being a Peak 2W, a Hills square 2W, and a flatland square 2W.

The square SW + SW of the Warrior (SW + W of the Tundra Deer) DOES appear to be a Peak square.

You CAN move diagonally between two Peaks that are diagonally adjacent to each other (provided that there is not another Peak standing in your way).

Spoiler :

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Okay, it seems that there isn't a Fortification bonus for the first turn of "fortifying." Very, very odd.

If the Wolf has sufficient courage to attack us, he'll attack us regardless of whether we move or not.

If we don't move and he doesn't attack, and then plan to take the southern path, he won't have been able to move next to us... but, if we DO move 1S and he moves, he can still remain within striking distance by moving to the SE, which makes me wary because then I won't feel like confidently exploring, for fear of being double-teamed by Barb Animals on a subsequent turn.

Anyway, there is one minor difference:
If the Wolf does attack us, we'll have healed 0.2 Health if we stay in place versus if we move.


Given that the it doesn't look like the square 2W is a Peak, it doesn't look like there is a "complete wall of Peaks" that we can get trapped behind.

However, note that by going 1S Tundra Deer, 1SW, we actually will reveal LESS information than by going 1NW Tundra For, 1SW (where it doesn't look like there is a Peak), since our second Cultural Border expansion will already reveal the extra squares in the south.

So, from an exploration standpoint, it makes sense to go through the Wolf.

I'm not comfortable with moving 1S Tundra Deer in case the Wolf "chases us" (moves SE and stays near us), which then sets us up for death by being attacked twice in one turn.

Thus, I still would like to see one of the two options that I presented being picked:
A] Attack the Wolf
OR
B] Stay in place for 1 turn and either scare the Wolf away and then run south so that we keep a weak spawn-buster alive or else auto-heal quicker if we get attacked by the Wolf

Terrain revealed by our 2nd Cultural Border expansion:

Spoiler :

 

[Mitchum]

If the Wolf has sufficient courage to attack us, he'll attack us regardless of whether we move or not.

I'm not sure how this works. Can the wolf see us from two squares away when we can't see him? If so, then yes, if he's going to attack he's going to attack. However, if he can't see us, then first he moves. Unless he moves 1SE, he can't see us and won't be able to attack.

If the Wolf does attack us, we'll have healed 0.2 Health if we stay in place versus if we move.

What? He attacks us IBT, after we've either moved or stayed put, right? So how can we heal 0.2 this turn if we're still at 2/2 HP? The healing takes place on the following turn after the attack, right?

However, note that by going 1S Tundra Deer, 1SW, we actually will reveal LESS information than by going 1NW Tundra For, 1SW (where it doesn't look like there is a Peak), since our second Cultural Border expansion will already reveal the extra squares in the south.

So, from an exploration standpoint, it makes sense to go through the Wolf.

I'm not so worried about exploring the tundra and ice right now. I think it's more important to scout around our capital ASAP and then park our warrior in a place where he can spawn bust. If we take the northern route, it takes us way out of the way just to explore an area that we likely won't settle until the ADs if ever. Exploring with the warrior can take you all over the place if you're not disciplined. I think exploring north adds zero value at this point in the game and keeps us from exploring/spawn busting in areas where we might settle city #2.

In fact, going north has risks too, right? If we get attacked in the middle of the ice, we may have to camp up there for many turns to heal. During that healing time, we're spawn busting an area that we could care less about and provides no benefit to our short-term goals of finding a spot for city #2 and spawn busting around our capital.

So, I hear what you're saying. I understand your concerns and the risks/tradeoffs involved. And I still vote for moving our warrior 1S.

Hopefully others weigh in soon, but I think it might be best to hold off until our European friends (those guys who are losing the Ryder Cup ) wake up and comment.

 

[Mitchum]

By the way, all of these AH resources make me happy. I suspect that we'll find a strong city site with sheep/FP and the pig/fish/deer site looks decent now. If after researching BW, there's no copper, I'd consider researching AH next even though it takes 2 turns longer than Pottery and given the fact that we'll have to research Pottery for MC anyway. In fact, if it doesn't delay the library, maybe BW->AH->Pottery->Writing would work. That would give us an extra 20% bonus when researching Writing which will recoup some of the cost of researching both techs.

There are a lot of plains tiles around which is where horses typically show up... in randomly generated maps, that is... If we don't find copper it may be our saving grace for our barb defenses...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'm not sure how this works. Can the wolf see us from two squares away when we can't see him? If so, then yes, if he's going to attack he's going to attack. However, if he can't see us, then first he moves. Unless he moves 1SE, he can't see us and won't be able to attack.

I seem to recall that AI (and Barb units) can "see your unit" from an extra square away.

I only ran one test, but if I stayed in place, the Wolf attacked, and if I moved 1S, the Wolf attacked.

I don't know how to conclusively disprove that the Wolf can't see us other than to come up with a counter-example... which could take longer than forever to do if the Wolf really can see us from 2 squares away.

Given that the Wolf had 5 places to move and only one of those places led to him being able to attack us, there's a good chance that he attacked us because he could see us from 2 squares away, but it's not really conclusive evidence.

What? He attacks us IBT, after we've either moved or stayed put, right? So how can we heal 0.2 this turn if we're still at 2/2 HP? The healing takes place on the following turn after the attack, right?

Wrong. The healing takes place after the Barbs attack us, but before our turn begins. I only knew to come up with that point since I saw it happen and thought "hmm, that's interesting."

In other words, in the test game, if I moved 1S, we were at 1.2/2 Health, while if I stayed in place, we were at 1.4/2 Health. Staying in place was therefore stronger in the case where we get attacked, because we'd be an equally-distant number of moves away from continuing on our exploration path to the west, but we'd be up by 0.2 Health (except for the case where we walked away unscathed--which has just under a 23% chance of happening).

I'm not so worried about exploring the tundra and ice right now. I think it's more important to scout around our capital ASAP and then park our warrior in a place where he can spawn bust. If we take the northern route, it takes us way out of the way just to explore an area that we likely won't settle until the ADs if ever. Exploring with the warrior can take you all over the place if you're not disciplined. I think exploring north adds zero value at this point in the game and keeps us from exploring/spawn busting in areas where we might settle city #2.

Exploring NW then SW gives us more of a picture of the Coast, letting us know if there's another Seafood Resource up there and giving us more of a clue about what that "Tundra bridge" might be all about. It might be our only way to meet a neighbour, for example.

Not only does attacking the Wolf reveal more squares that our Cultural Borders won't already reveal, it speeds up our exploration by one movement point, since we can either go:
NW, SW, SW/W (3 turns' worth of movement)
OR
S, SW, NW, W/NW (4 turns' worth of movement)
in order to arrive at the same location.

In fact, going north has risks too, right? If we get attacked in the middle of the ice, we may have to camp up there for many turns to heal. During that healing time, we're spawn busting an area that we could care less about and provides no benefit to our short-term goals of finding a spot for city #2 and spawn busting around our capital.

Barb Humans are a long way off and I'm not talking about exploring the Ice, but instead getting to the same location just outside of where our Cultural Borders will reveal, 1 turn of movement faster. I have no intention of wandering off in the Ice but just want to get around that Peak. If the Peaks were Hills, I'm move 1SW (1W of the Tundra Deer), but since we can't, we need to go around one way or another.

On a map with 0 Barbs, we'd conclusively move NW SW, SW/W, since that gets us to an identical location 1 turn faster while also giving us extra exploration.


Given how it's about as guaranteed of a kill as you can get, it would also be nice to grab the 1 XP point while also continuing on the most efficient path that lets us continue to explore just outside of our where our Cultural Borders will reveal.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

As for Animal Husbandry... that's what our test games will be for.

We're not researching Pottery for the Granaries or Cottages (yet), but we are researching it for the Metal Casting slingshot. EDIT: That said, I think that we had a Granary placeholder build in a couple of the test runs, but we could equally build Warriors if there is no plan to complete the Granary AND grow said City a few times within a short period of time.

While improving a G Pig Resource is great, it doesn't gain us any Commerce to make up for the detour to Animal Husbandry, so we have to make sure that we'll have time to research Pottery without significantly delaying the Oracle or The Great Lighthouse.

Also, by not settling Fish City, we won't be able to quickly pump out a Work Boat.

It is very arguable that it makes sense to settle both Fish City and Pig City and build the Oracle in one of them and The Great Lighthouse in the other of them, with us settling Fish City first because doing so lets us borrow the Corn to get the Fish online quickly, and it can then whip a Work Boat for the Pig City, which can get itself online that much quicker as a result.

Teams that settled in place won't have that advantage, which is something that we can leverage to kickstart ourselves ahead by a bit. Plus, whipping 2 Work Boats makes the switch into Slavery that much more effective than just whipping 1 Work Boat.

 

[Mitchum]

Wrong. The healing takes place after the Barbs attack us, but before our turn begins. I only knew to come up with that point since I saw it happen and thought "hmm, that's interesting."

In other words, in the test game, if I moved 1S, we were at 1.2/2 Health, while if I stayed in place, we were at 1.4/2 Health. Staying in place was therefore stronger in the case where we get attacked, because we'd be an equally-distant number of moves away from continuing on our exploration path to the west, but we'd be up by 0.2 Health (except for the case where we walked away unscathed--which has just under a 23% chance of happening).

That game mechanic doesn't make sense to me. The movement or staying in place happens before the attack. I never would have guessed that it would work that way.

I assume you verified in the combat log that we got hit by the wolf the same number of times in each test... Getting hit 3 times would give us 61/100 * 2 = 1.22/2. Getting hit 2 times would give us 74/100 * 2 = 1.48/2. Unless Sid rounds down in all cases, I guess it couldn't work...

Maybe Sid gives you an extra turn of healing for standing in place to make up for the fact that the fortification bonus doesn't work as expected on the first IBT.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

The healing was easy to spot because 1.2/2 Health = yellow health bar, while 1.4/2 Health = green health bar, and you actually see the colour change and the bar's size increase if your view is in the right location.


What doesn't make sense to me is that you don't get the fortification bonus for the first turn of movement that you give up. I had observed that fact before on AI units, but I didn't realise that it was a problem for the player's units, too.

The game says:
"A unit gets a 5% defensive bonus for each turn it is fortified..."

But the game obviously lies. Clicking on the Fortification icon has no effect, either, which we already knew but I just confirmed for this special case of the first turn of fortification.


Whether I move the Warrior 1S, 1SE, 1NE, or stay in place, the battle results are identical...
The Wolf attacks us with these results:
Wolf is hit
Wolf is hit
Warrior is hit
Warrior is hit
Wolf is hit
Warrior is hit
Wolf is hit

That's why I fear being attacked twice in the same turn... even if it's just two Wolves, your chances of surviving go down greatly. You won't even get to heal between Barb attacks, but you will get to heal between Barb attacks if the attacks occur on separate turns from each other and you stayed in place.

Arguably, the Wolf can validly see us across the water if we move NE, but he can't if we move S or SE. It's not 100% conclusive, but it indicates that the attack odds are identical meaning that the Barb Wolf will consistently decide "I have enough courage to attack you" and therefore, it is reasonable to assume that since it consistently attacks us even when it can't "see us," like we can see it, then it actually CAN see us by that extra square worth of visibility. I even remember reading something to that effect over in the Strategy & Tips Form.

Switching the Wolf for a Barb Warrior and "fortifying" for a turn also did not give us a Fortification bonus (i.e. it's not just because it was a Barb Animal that we didn't get the fortification bonus).


So, my claim is that the healing mechanism works but the Fortification thing is a software bug. Either the bug is in the functionality or it is in the text, but whichever it is, it's still a bug.


Anyway, back to the game...
Thanks to our discussion, I'm convinced that I'm will to take the risk of dying by walking right through that Wolf.

As you can see, we'll actually reveal an extra 7 squares (marked in green) and will have a chance of revealing Hills squares that are in an extra 5 possible yellow locations (marked in yellow) AND we'll have one extra turn of exploration, given the assumption that we'll suffer the same damage from the Wolf whether we attack or move 1S and end up having to defend from the Wolf.

Spoiler :

 

[cas]

I would attack the wolf rather than retreat south.

cas