SGOTM 16 - The Shawshank Redemption

[Dhoomstriker]

SGOTM Settler and Warrior moves with a goal-oriented approach
The way I see it, the moves of the Warrior and the Settler are intricately interlinked.

Where we move the Warrior and possibly move the Settler will depend upon our initial mindset.

For example, if we are seriously going to consider settling on the Coast to grab the Fish + Corn + whatever else we can get, then we'll want to use our Warrior to determine where on the Coast to settle.

One Coastal location is where the Warrior is standing, but going there relative to 1N of where the Warrior is standing does not seem like it would be a good place to go, as where the Warrior is standing gets us 2 Ocean squares, 1 Coast square, 1 Plains square, and 1 Plains Riv For (plus possibly a Resource) square versus settling 1N of the Warrior giving us 1 GRiv For square, 2 Plains squares (which may or may not contain Resources), 1 Coast square, and 1 unknown square.

So, call 1N of the Warrior "Coast A." (The location of where the Warrior is standing doesn't even get its own name, haha).

"Coast B" would be 1SE of the Settler (1W of the Warrior) on the GFor. That square gives us more Riverside squares and less Coast squares, but it may miss out on a Seafood Resource, should a Seafood Resouce be there.

"Coast C" might be 2N of the Warrior--it's hard to tell--if the square 3N of the Fish (NE + E of the G Corn) is a Coast square, then 2N of the Warrior would be a Coastal location.

So, let's say that we decided we almost certainly wanted to settle on the Coast with our capital. Let's also say that we were willing to give up the Riverside squares in hopes of getting some randomly-good squares in the fog to the north of our Warrior.

In that case, we know that we would be moving our Settler toward the Coast and thus we could use our Warrior with that assumption in mind. Sending the Warrior 1SW GH would be one way to check that by NOT settling 1SE on the GFor, we wouldn't be missing out on any Resources... and if no Resources were revealed, the Settler could move 1NE G Corn and then 1 E onto the "Coast C" square.

We'd move there instead of to "Coast A" since we would be out of movement points for the Settler regardless of which location we went to, while we could then settle in either Coast A or Coast C location on Turn 1 (the first turn of the game is Turn 0), assuming that we didn't have a really bad stroke of luck with a Forest growing at the Coast A location.

We'd then know what the area around Coast C looked like--it might not even be Coast--and could pick between Coast A and Coast C (unless Coast C is not on the Coast).


Alternatively, if we knew that we wanted to settle on the Coast but we thought that getting some Riverside squares was important, we'd send our Warrior 1NE PFor. In that way, we'd confirm that we didn't reveal any additional Seafood squares that a Coast A or Coast C location might pick up and thus we would confidently move our Settler 1SE on the GFor location, aka Coast B. If we spotted a Seafood Resource with the Warrior, we'd then decide if that Seafood Resource outweighed having some additional Riverside squares within our capital's big fat cross.


Now, all of that thought process is done with the initial goal in mind of wanting to settle on the Coast. If we go in with a mindset of not wanting to settle on the Coast, it's a totally different ball game.


For example, let's say that we do agree that we want to move the Settler 1W, with the plan of keeping most of the River squares and the Corn, but with the hopes of picking up something else nice randomly.

In that case, it depends upon what we'd be willing to do based on what the Warrior saw.

For example, if the Warrior revealed 1 more Coastal Fish, would we be willing to move to the Coast? If yes, then moving the Warrior 1NE might make more sense, so that we can feel good about ignoring the Coast and moving inland.

Moving the Warrior 1SW onto the GH wouldn't actually reveal any squares that were in our original fat cross that we would be losing, so it would actually be a pretty useless move in this case.

Assuming, however, that we were dead set on not going to the Coast, our strongest Warrior move in this scenario would be to move the Warrior 1NW GFor (1S of the G Corn) and then 1NW GFor (1W of the G Corn). Doing so reveals the two squares that are 1E and 1N of the G Corn that we would get by settling in place... we'd be confirming that we weren't missing out on Plains Marble or something, and would reveal a few more squares to the north, which might help us decide if we think that it would be worth moving the Settler yet again.


What I'm getting at is that I would like to get away from the idea of "let's vote where to move the Warrior first and then decide what to do" and replace it with "let's vote on the top few Warrior-combined-with-Settler movements, but be willing to alter those choices based on what we see."

For example, some might be:
a) We might settle on the Coast if it is nice but otherwise want to head west instead of settling in place
T0
i. Warrior moves 1NE PFor (1N of the Fish)
ii. Settler moves 1W GRiv For
T1
iii. Warrior probably moves 1NW or 1N, but it won't really give us much info anyway

b) We don't want a Coastal capital but want to head west with the Settler
T0
i. Warrior moves 1NW GFor (1S of the G Corn)
ii. Settler moves 1W GRiv For
T1
iii. Warrior moves 1NW GFor (1W of the G Corn)

c) We want a Coastal capital and we want to keep as many Riverside squares as possible
T0
i. Warrior moves 1NE PFor (1N of the Fish)
ii. Based on what the Warrior reveals, we move the Settler either 1NE G Corn OR we move the Settler 1SE GFor

d) We want a Coastal capital and we'd like to hope that we can settle 2N of the Warrior and still be coastal, while not minding about missing out on Riverside squares, and also hoping for something nice in the fog to the north of the Warrior
T0
i. Warrior moves 1SW GH (3S of the G Corn)
ii. Settler moves 1NE GCorn (we can pause here)
iii. Settler moves 1E Plains (which we hope, in this scenario, is Coastal)
T1
iv. Warrior can't help us much in deciding
v. Settler settles where he is located if it's Coastal (Coast C) or else moves 1S and settles there (Coast A)

e) We want to move the Settler 1NW with the hopes of picking up more production squares while keeping the Corn and many, but not all, of the River squares (and likely getting 1 less Flood Plains square than moving the settler 1W)
T0
i. The Warrior could optionally move toward the NW, to help with exploring up there, or could move 1SW just to confirm that we aren't losing a GRiv For Deer/Spice/Fur square 2S of where the Settler starts


Other possibilities exist, too. This list is just to get you started thinking about how your initial mindset and settling goals can play a huge role in deciding which information that we can reveal will be useful for making a decision and which information won't affect our decision at all and thus is not worthwhile information to chase after.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I prefer to scout the coast asap to check if a 2nd city with GLH is worth it.

Unless we settle really far inland to the west, our two Cultural Border expansions by roughly Turn 25 to Turn 27, which should be before we can get our Settler for City #2 built, will give us visibility of the Coast. It wouldn't hurt to pop into a test game and play it out in a couple of different settling locations until our Cultural Borders have expanded twice, but I'm pretty certain that we should get much of this info for free before our Settler is ready.

I dont' fancy GW

While I tend to agree, I was presenting a possibility of an Espionage-oriented game.

Other options exist, such as playing nicely with the neighbours and getting them to trade peacefully with us, or going to war and beating down on AIs until they are wiling to hand over their techs to avoid their heads being put on poles.

The theory is that you beeline The Great Wall and then Alphabet and then steal whatever techs you want... do you want Bronze Working? Steal it. Do you want Animal Husbandry? Steal it. Do you want Math? Gift the AI Writing and then steal Math.

That said, we're Creative, so one of our Civ's strengths is being able to build our own Libraries cheaply, and we'd also rely on having a semi-competent AI neighbour to be able to steal from. "Hatshepsut has been eliminated by the Barbs in 3000 BC" could really put a dampener on that approach.

So, I'm not really pushing for an Espionage game, myself.

I don't want to gamble on Great Lighthouse before we have scouted our surroundings. If we see 2 or more islands I think we should go for it.

Unless we settle City #1 or #2 on the Coast, how are we going to get an exploring Work Boat out early enough to be able to figure this info out? Also, will the 30 Hammers invested in that Work Boat possibly make us miss out on building The Great Lighthouse? We might not be able to count on having this information available to us when we make the decision on going after that Wonder or not.

With all the forests in the bfc i think mining - bronze working is a good start.
Then probably AH/pottery - writing. At this point we have probably met some neighbours and scouted or surroundings. At this point we must research towards Oracle (I think we want it, and we can always pick MC, if we are short on beakers).

While I agree that we want Writing relatively early on for early Libraries, that's a lot of techs to grab before the Wonder-oriented techs. While building a Library would help us to learn other techs, beelining the other techs directly would still be faster.

That's one area where a test game can help--even if we don't know exactly what will be in our big fat cross as of right now, running through a quick game could give us an idea of how practical it will be to squeeze in all of those techs prior to the techs needed for the Wonder or Wonders that we decide to go for. For example, if we beeline Bronze Working and Writing and in a relatively quick test game find that we can't complete The Oracle until 950 BC, then we'll probably have to put off Writing or else not even chase after The Oracle to begin with, since that date is not a safe date to be completing The Oracle.

I think the map maker have put either bronze or horses reasonably close. They have always done so in the past (Never trust the map maker).

In at least 2 of the 4 SGOTM games that I played, the map designer intentionally put both of those Strategic Resources far away, to make an early rush a lot harder to execute; the idea was to balance out the teams so that the teams who have really good rushers on them would not be able to rush incredibly early.

Given the "steal Iron Working" bit, I highly doubt we have Copper--there's no trick to having to steal Iron Working if you can safely wait to research it and wait to trade for it for a long time. But, if the Barbs are pressing in on you from all sides, you might feel forced to self-tech Iron Working, which does actually add a bit of challenge to the Espionage objective.

We should be able to agree on where to move the warrior, and where to move the settler/settle in place, unless the warrior see something special, before we get the save.

Assuming that we are okay with settling in-place no matter what the Warrior reveals, then one option would just be to move the Warrior inland to start trying to find City #2's location ASAP, or to possibly have a chance at meeting an AI before too many Barb units show up.


Assuming that we're instead "somewhat okay" with Settling in place but might be swayed to move our capital based on what the Warrior reveals, then we'd first need to know where we might be comfortable moving. For example, there's no point in sending the Warrior the Coast if we are 100% against settling our capital on the Coast.


One thing that I would like to be able to tell from fog-gazing with the real saved game is whether or not the square 2N of the Warrior is a Coast square. I'd also like to confirm that we really do have Flood Plains squares nearby--it almost actually looks like there is a Flood Plains square 2SW of the Settler, which means that settling in place would miss it but settling 1W would pick it up; but I'm not really certain.

With a screenshot taken on the same computer as our test saved game, it isn't too difficult to tell if you have the correct terrain types in the partially-fogged squares; it's a bit harder (at least for me) from just looking at a screenshot, but if you have two screenshots of both games, you can start to say things like "oh, well, if I change this square from a Plains to a Desert square, then the colours match up a whole lot better, so, it probably really is a Flood Plains square."

 

[ingentingg]

Something non-game related.
English is not my native language, and sometimes when I write in english I can come out as rash and inpolite. This is not my intention, so please give me the benefit of the doubt when I write something stupid. This is bound to happen sooner or later, in particular if I disagree on something.

Bottom line:
I'm not able to disagree with someone in a polite way in english.

 

[ingentingg]

Unless we settle City #1 or #2 on the Coast, how are we going to get an exploring Work Boat out early enough to be able to figure this info out? Also, will the 30 Hammers invested in that Work Boat possibly make us miss out on building The Great Lighthouse? We might not be able to count on having this information available to us when we make the decision on going after that Wonder or not.

With some luck we spot an island while we scout the coast, or with culture expansion. Sometimes the Great Lighthouse goes very late, and then we might be lucky and built it really fast, even if we don´t go for it from the beginning. Worst case we get some failgold, which is not so bad to get on turn 100. If we sacrifice a lot to do get it, then we must of course make sure that we get it and build it early enough.

While I agree that we want Writing relatively early on for early Libraries, that's a lot of techs to grab before the Wonder-oriented techs. While building a Library would help us to learn other techs, beelining the other techs directly would still be faster.

Like you said, this is something that must be tested. What is a safe enough date on emperor? Turn 70? 75?.

Given the "steal Iron Working" bit, I highly doubt we have Copper--there's no trick to having to steal Iron Working if you can safely wait to research it and wait to trade for it for a long time. But, if the Barbs are pressing in on you from all sides, you might feel forced to self-tech Iron Working, which does actually add a bit of challenge to the Espionage objective.

This makes a lot of sense, but unless there are several cows or pigs in the fog I think i prefere Bronze Working before AH. If there is no horse or bronze, we might need archery and that really messes up our teching, unless we have gold or some other beaker source nearby.

What I'm getting at is that I would like to get away from the idea of "let's vote where to move the Warrior first and then decide what to do" and replace it with "let's vote on the top few Warrior-combined-with-Settler movements, but be willing to alter those choices based on what we see."

For example, some might be:
a) We might settle on the Coast if it is nice but otherwise want to head west instead of settling in place
T0
i. Warrior moves 1NE PFor (1N of the Fish)
ii. Settler moves 1W GRiv For
T1
iii. Warrior probably moves 1NW or 1N, but it won't really give us much info anyway

b) We don't want a Coastal capital but want to head west with the Settler
T0
i. Warrior moves 1NW GFor (1S of the G Corn)
ii. Settler moves 1W GRiv For
T1
iii. Warrior moves 1NW GFor (1W of the G Corn)

c) We want a Coastal capital and we want to keep as many Riverside squares as possible
T0
i. Warrior moves 1NE PFor (1N of the Fish)
ii. Based on what the Warrior reveals, we move the Settler either 1NE G Corn OR we move the Settler 1SE GFor

d) We want a Coastal capital and we'd like to hope that we can settle 2N of the Warrior and still be coastal, while not minding about missing out on Riverside squares, and also hoping for something nice in the fog to the north of the Warrior
T0
i. Warrior moves 1SW GH (3S of the G Corn)
ii. Settler moves 1NE GCorn (we can pause here)
iii. Settler moves 1E Plains (which we hope, in this scenario, is Coastal)
T1
iv. Warrior can't help us much in deciding
v. Settler settles where he is located if it's Coastal (Coast C) or else moves 1S and settles there (Coast A)

e) We want to move the Settler 1NW with the hopes of picking up more production squares while keeping the Corn and many, but not all, of the River squares (and likely getting 1 less Flood Plains square than moving the settler 1W)
T0
i. The Warrior could optionally move toward the NW, to help with exploring up there, or could move 1SW just to confirm that we aren't losing a GRiv For Deer/Spice/Fur square 2S of where the Settler starts

I don´t think I want to settle on the coast. From what we see any city on the coast will be low on productio even if there are fish nearby. I lean towards settling moving the settler west. If we see a hill or too I think it will be worth in, and we might even pick up a resource or two. If we don´t wee anything nice we can always go back in settle in place on turn 1.

 

[Mitchum]

OK. So we have more than one month for our first 100 turns. At least my post had the intended affect of getting us to start strategizing before fog gazing.

With all of those forests, I'm inclined to go Mining -> BW unless we have an AH resource in our BFC. I also like earlyish Writing for a quick library (and Academy). Keep in mind that it's possible to get Writing too early (i.e. before we're ready to build a library).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

English is not my native language, and sometimes when I write in english I can come out as rash and inpolite.

Thanks for the heads-up. I won't take any offense.

In fact, you guys can think of me as more of a facillitator to the discussions. Disagreeing with me is not only allowed, but it is highly encouraged, so that we can achieve consensus through debate.

With some luck we spot an island while we scout the coast, or with culture expansion.

Okay, that's fair. Once we've started to move our Warrior, we'll need to decide how important it will be to check the Coast with our Warrior versus looking in-land for other settling locations, AI neighbours, or good spawn-busting Forested Hills.

When exploring the Coast, since you can see 2 squares over water, you don't actually need to "hug" the Coast. Instead, you can walk away from it and back to it.

Let's look at an "ideal exploration case" where we having a straight line Coast that runs from north to south. Let's say that the water is on our east, the land is on our west, and our Warrior is standing next to the water. The Warrior can already see 2 squares in all directions (including diagonally) across the water.

So, the Warrior can move NW + NW + NE + NE. That puts him precisely 4 squares north of where he was before moving. You'll still get to see an identical amount of Coast squares, but you'll gain a lot of extra in-land visibliity. Exactly how much in-land visibility depends upon terrain heights, such as Hills and Peaks, or Forests that get in the way of seeing "far past a Hills square" that you are standing on, but assuming that the terrain is purely flat, you will get to see a minimum of an extra 8 squares of land this way, with more land being visible with the presence of Hills or Peaks that you see in the distance or, in the case of Hills, can stand on.

Now, the real game rarely has such a flat coastline, so you don't always get that much extra in-land visibility, but it's still worth it to leave the Coast and return to it when exploring "along" the Coast.

What is a safe enough date on emperor? Turn 70? 75?

I'm not sure, but perhaps I have add a message at the top of our thread about "things that need to be tested," so that people can volunteer to help to answer said questions.

Keep in mind that it's possible to get Writing too early (i.e. before we're ready to build a library).

Writing also unlocks Open Borders, but we're unlikely to get Trade Route connections with an AI really early; if anything, it'll just be a quick way to get positive Diplo relations (or potential negative Diplo relations if we Open Borders with the Worst Enemy of another AI and then refuse to close our borders upon request).


If we do go for Pottery -> Writing, will we have the Hammers to fit in both a 60 Hammer Granary and a 90 Hammer Library (which is essentially a 45 Hammer Library, due to it being half-price)? Will we consider building Cottages or would we rather Farm Flood Plains squares or GRiv squares after we've improved our Resources and Hills squares?

Note that a Farmed Flood Plains square is quite strong: it is equivalent to a Riverside Hills square when building a Settler or a Worker (for a non-Imperialistic, non-Expansive Civ like our Civ), but it also allows the city to grow quickly when we aren't building Workers and Settlers.

It can be argued that a Farmed Flood Plains square combined with a Cottaged Grassland River square will provide the same output for a City that can afford to work both squares compared to a Cottaged Flood Plains square and a Farmed Grassland River square. However, the difference is that the Food is CONCENTRATED. So, after you whip away one of those citizens, you can work the Farmed Flood Plains square to more quickly regrow that lost population points, which gets you working both squares that much sooner.

Also, in the early game, when you're pumping out Settlers and Workers, while Commerce from Cottages is "nice," it fails to compare with the Hammer requirements needed to get those Settlers and Workers out quickly.

Which would you rather have? An early Flood Plains Village (Cottage -> Hamlet -> Village) or an extra part of a Settler; a Settler that could go and settle next to a Commerce Resource like a Gold Resource and get you more Commerce per turn than the Flood Plains Village could?


So, I don't think that we need to put a priority on early Cottages and thus we can consider skipping Pottery in favour of trying to expose a Horse Resource on the map via Animal Husbandry, UNLESS we think that we'll somehow have the Hammers to spare for an early full-price Granary.

 

[ingentingg]

I'm without civ4 access until the approximately friday. Waiting for a new graphics card in the mail. Can probably do some testing in the weekend

 

[Mitchum]

I found this post from OSS SGOTM 12 detailing the cost for stealing techs.

This would lead to the following for stealing Iron Working:

Beakers * 1.5 * stationary spy * state religion * trade route * culture * distance * epp differential

312 (cost for IW) * 1.5 * 0.5 (assumes stationary spy for 5 turns) * 1 (assumes we're not in a state religion yet) * 1 (assumes no trade route yet, else 0.8) * 1 (assumes we have no culture in the city we're stealing from... could be more if we gift a city to the target AI) * 1.25 (guesstimate for distance factor) * 1 (assumes we're spending the same amount of EPP on the AI) = 293

At +4 passive per turn, we'd have enough EPP in 74 turns. The sooner we meet our target AI and the closer he/she is, the less we'll have to use the espionage slider to steal IW. We can also affect this based on the trade route situation and whether or not we've declared a state religion by the time we're ready to steal the tech and what religion is in the target city.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

That's a good minimum baseline amount of Espionage Points to work from, thanks.

Likely, we'll want about 1.5 times the amount of Espionage Point spending as the target AI when we send our Spy into his/her Cultural Borders. That way, we'll greatly reduce the chance of instant death of our Spy as well as greatly reduce the chance of suffering a negative Attitude hit from said AI if our Spy gets caught. It also means that our Demographics info on the AI won't suddenly disappear if we try to spend "exactly the right amount" of Espionage Points and somehow get away with it without being caught.

We might also be able to steal a tech like Archery or something afterward with the extra EPs invested, if we are afraid of a We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced penalty for trading too many cheap techs like Archery.

 

[mscellaneous]

A couple of quick points...

Moving the settler
If we decide to move the settler towards the river I would not move it W for the following reasons:
1. We move it onto one of the few grassland river tiles. If we decide to settle on T1 then we lose that tile
2. We are pretty sure there is a FP 2W2S if the settler, therefore we do not really need to scout it

Therefore I would prefer to move the settler NW.


Scouting the coast
If we can scout with our borders then that is even better. However, I am unsure how far off the coast we can see that way. Will test this when I get back home.


Farming vs cottaging FPs
Since we are not financial, I am for farming FPs first

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Moving the settler
If we decide to move the settler towards the river I would not move it W for the following reasons:
1. We move it onto one of the few grassland river tiles. If we decide to settle on T1 then we lose that tile
2. We are pretty sure there is a FP 2W2S if the settler, therefore we do not really need to scout it

Assuming that the square SW + SW of the Settler is a Flood Plains square, then settling 1NW will miss out on the Flood Plains square. Settling in place would also miss out on said Flood Plains square. Settling 1W would gain that Flood Plains square.

The most important squares for our capital are going to be Resource squares, Hills squares, and Flood Plains squares, in that order. If we have to lose a GRiv square to pick up a Flood Plains square, that sounds like a favourable tradeoff.


The biggest fear that I see with moving the Settler 1W or 1NW is the possibility of not ending up with enough production, because we'd be giving up on the GHills square SE + S of the Settler (1SW of the Warrior) and would also be giving up on a potential Horse or Iron Resource near the Fish.

That said, leaving the GH and any potential Strategic Resource to be partnered with the Fish would make a Coastal City much stronger.


If your thought process of moving 1NW is to "probably settle 1W unless we see something awesome up there," then consider that moving directly 1W with the Settler and NW + NW with the Warrior will give us the same visibility minus the 1 square NW + NW of the Settler, but would also give us extra visibility of 1 more square, SW + W of the Settler, which brings us net neutral in terms of fogged squares uncovered. Of course, the presence or lack of Hills or Peak squares in the distance can also alter the visibility slightly, but we don't really gain in terms of map knowledge by moving 1NW.

So, the decision to move 1NW over 1W should be based on wanting to settle at the location 1NW in preference to settling at the location 1W and should not be based around "trying to see more of the map," which we won't really be doing.


Settler 1S?
Another possibility that we haven't discussed is moving the Warrior 1SW onto the GH, which would reveal the squares 3S and SW + 2S of the Settler, which, if a Resource became visible in either square, might make moving 1S be worthwhile.

The biggest problem is that we wouldn't gain much help from the Warrior should we then want to send the Settler 1W or 1NW.

So, I would only really advocate this approach if we were to say "we'll probably settle in place, but we could consider settling 1S if the Warrior moving 1SW reveals something interesting down there." I.e. If we decide that we probably want to move the Settler 1W or 1NW, then this Warrior move won't help us as much in making our ultimate settling decision as would moving the Warrior NW + NW.

 

[Keilah]

I'd like to say real quick, that in my test games where I was getting a feel for hemispheres, I ALWAYS got a ridiiiiculous amount of land to settle peacefully, with loads of spots for coastal cities. I'd estimate an 80% chance that we will want TGLH, with the 20% being reserved for those few times where you say 'WTH there are 100 tiles of coast/ocean and 0 seafood'. We don't even really need island sites IMO. Just play nice with other civs we meet, and possibly rush to astronomy for cross-ocean trading.
We'll also want plenty of fogbusting warriors*, which likely means delaying city #3 to crank out an extra 2-3 warriors first. Sucks when you find your great city site impossible to settle because of a poorly positioned nearby barb city.

*make sure we leave enough barbs to unlock the heroic epic

 

[Mitchum]

Having off-continent cities gives us immediate +2 intercontinental trade routes in every one of our cities, which is why having this option makes the GLH even more powerful.

Regarding playing nice with the AI, that will only work if either a) the one AI we take out of the game has two or three holy shrines and we build one ourselves or b) we plan to found three religions, farm three GPros, and make three holy shrines ourselves. Founding three corporations ourselves will be much easier. Therefore, my guess is that there will be more warring involved in this game than the typical rush your neighbor and then play peacefully game.

Good point on the Heroic Epic. You can't always get there with barbs... unless you plan ahead.

From the Great Wall...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Strategy up to the Mid-game
So, I have been thinking about some of the inter-related concepts that involve our early- to mid-game tech path.

Here's the list so far:
A] Build The Great Lighthouse
B] Oracle Metal Casting (note that we will need Pottery in order to do so)
C] Get an early Great Scientist for an Academy
D] Get 1 Great Prophet for Lightbulbing Theology by running 2 Scientists in the City that builds The Oracle or else just get Great Scientists a bit faster
E] Get 1 or 2 more Great Scientists for Lightbulbing Education
F] After our techs needed for our two early Wonders, get these techs in some order: Alphabet, Math, Monotheism (plus Polytheism if we researched Meditation earlier), Code of Laws, Currency, Civil Service, and Paper (note that Compass, Machinery, and Optics are not on this list)
G] Get a neighbouring AI to hopefully build the Apostolic Palace for us
H] Get a neighbouring AI to hopefully tech Compass and Machinery for us while we head toward Education
I] Get a neighbouring AI to build Forges for us (sure, we can build them cheaply, but "free" is still cheaper)
J] Since we won't be Lightbulbing Astronomy, we can feasibly go for Meditation instead of Polytheism on our way to Priesthood if we need to save a turn or two and also want access to Monasteries, but we'll need to double-back and grab Polytheism after we know the techs for our first two Wonders in order to learn Monotheism
K] Make a half-hearted attempt at building The Hanging Gardens (it will be a low priority) since it's a really nice Wonder and we'll need Math for being able to Lightbulb Education (and possibly Paper with a Great Scientist in place of a Great Prophet), not to mention that we need Math in order to learn Civil Service, and since we'll need Masonry for The Great Lighthouse, it seems like a good Wonder to get (Math + Masonry being the two techs that unlock The Hanging Gardens)


Here's my rambling reasoning for how I came up with that list of goals:

Spoiler :

It seems like it will be a good play to get an early Academy. But, what should we do with a second Great Person? Try to get a Great Scientist for Lightbulbing Optics (or Machinery, but I think that you have to do some tricky stuff with the tech tree to be able to Lightbulb Machinery with a Great Scientist)? Try to get a Great Engineer for Lightbulbing Machinery and a Great Scientist for Lightbulbing Optics?

Try for a Great Prophet that will Lightbulb Theology, which we can give to a neighbour, along with a Christian Missionary, to get them to build the Apostolic Palace in a Religion that we have within our Cultural Borders?

How important is it going to be to own overseas land? Assuming that we have a decently-sized continent, do we really need Astronomy quickly? Optics will be enough for back-filling techs via inter-continental tech trading... but do we care enough to beeline Optics or would we prefer to beeline Education?

Is it worth stopping for The Great Library or is it better to just tech up quickly to Education?

Lightbulbing Astronomy seems to be a poor play in that with an early Academy, Bureaucracy from Civil Service will be very powerful, and Civil Service leads directly to Paper -> Education. Yet, in order to Lightbulb Astronomy early on in the tech tree, you have to avoid Civil Service and other techs on the way to Education (Paper and optionally Theology).

So, my temptation is to use The Oracle on Metal Casting, which lets us build cheap Forges early on, putting our Industrious Trait to good use since we won't be chasing after too many Wonders.

But, we could also aim to use The Oracle on Code of Laws and then go for Civil Service relatively early on.

Yet, in looking at the tech tree, I saw something that I haven't ever noticed before... Education is actually quite easy to get to by way of Theology! If we know Theology, all of the techs that we were already thinking of getting (such as Fishing), plus Math (which we can possibly get via trading or Espionage or else just self-tech), then by knowing Theology, Paper and Education are the next Lightbulbable techs!

So, let's say that we DID get an Academy first, which makes sense to do, we could try for a Great Prophet for our second Great Person and a Great Scientist for our third Great Person, giving us Theology and just over half of Education via Lightbulbs.

Or, we could skip Theology, self-tech Code of Laws and Civil Service and then use two or three Great Scientists on Paper and Education (two on Education if we only had two of them). Of course, by skipping Theology, we give up on the Apostolic Palace on our continent, which will be pretty powerful, as well giving up on having Christianity within our Cultural Borders, which would mean one more Religion that we'd have to obtain later in the game for building Cathedrals.


I'm kind of excited about the idea of delaying Optics for a while. If we weren't Industrious, I'd say let's even skip using The Oracle on Metal Casting and use it on something like Theology or Code of Laws. However, cheap Forges are too good to pass up, so I think that Metal Casting is a really good tech to try and Oracle.


If we don't fear seeing Crossbowmen, we could even gift Metal Casting to an AI on our continent and let said AI research Machinery for us; AIs tend to avoid Metal Casting but once they have it, many of them tend to beeline Machinery. Why waste a Great Person on Machinery if we can just get it in trade relatively early in the game, and by giving said AI Metal Casting early on, they will learn Machinery sooner than AIs on other continents; worst case, we can't get our neighbouring AI to Friendly and we use Espionage to grab Machinery from said AI.

Now, just to make things even more slightly interesting, Gunpowder can be researched after Education, and we just happen to have 2-movement-point Musketeers. They aren't as good as Knights versus AIs that do not have access to Spearmen and Pikemen, but they are pretty solid units to use versus a Pikeman-equipped AI. If nothing else, Musketeers make for great Pillaging parties, say, to dig deep into AI territory and disable their Strategic Resources or just to pillage their lands quickly for profit.

I'm not actually too interested in the Musketeers, particularly since without Astronomy, we'd have to rely on there being an island chain to make them useful against overseas AIs, but fast Education + fast Civil Service (in any order) does excite me a whole lot. Having Metal Casting and Theology for our own usage and for gifting away would also be wonderful. It's nice when a captured City comes complete with a Forge. In addition, Crossbowmen are actually better for an AI to build than Longbowmen if you're going at them with a non-melee army, be it Knights, Musketeers, Catapults, or what-have-you.

The AIs are loathe to research Currency, and since we'll need both of its optional prerequisites (Alphabet and Math), and since we'll also want Code of Laws (which gets cheaper to research if you know Currency), and since Currency gives us Trade Routes and some Gold from selling the techs that we want to gift away to our continent mate or mates, it seems like a useful tech to detour for.


So, I'm right now thinking about totally scrapping the early Optics idea (let an AI on our continent learn Compass and Machinery for us and then we can self-tech Optics later, yet still sooner than the overseas AIs). I mean, do we really need to trade for techs like Monarchy, Calendar, Hoseback Riding, and Aesthetics early on in the game? Probably not so much as to really want to beeline Optics just to be able to trade techs like those.

Instead, I'd like to:
1. Build The Great Lighthouse
2. Oracle Metal Casting
3. Lightbulb Theology with Great Person #2 (a Great Prophet)
4. Tech these techs: Monotheism, Math, Currency, Code of Laws, Civil Service, and Paper
5. Lightbulb part or all of Education with Great Person #3 (a Great Scientist) and hopefully, Great Person #4 (a Great Scientist)

Knowing Theology makes Paper cheaper and I think that having a strong chance for the Apostolic Palace being built on our own continent will be a worthwhile reward for the investment of Great Person #2. Plus, since we need to self-tech Monotheism and might get our continent's first and only Religion (Christianity) via learning Theology, we'd be able to leverage Organized Religions's bonus early on; combined with cheap Forges, running Organized Religion (via learning Monotheism) would make Universities cost half price!



The trickiest part is going to be actually generating a Great Prophet; since we will want to try for one, we can run 2 Scientists in the City that builds The Oracle. Worst case, we end up with 3 or 4 Great Scientists and just end up with Education sooner. We'd miss out on the Apostolic Palace, but since we probably won't have a Religion sooner, we'd only really have The Oracle as a source of Great Prophet Great Person Points. I mean, we can't run a Priest Specialist without a Temple and we can't build a Temple without a Religion; if we wanted, we could just skip Currency or delay it and try for self-teching Code of Laws early enough to grab a Religion.


Should we find Marble, Theology will also unlock the Marble-enhanced The Hagia Sophia, which is a powerful Wonder if you get it early on and will be a nice source of Great Engineer Great People Points, so that we can work on generating TWO Great Engineers for each of Mining Co (available with Railroad) and Creative Constructions (available with the tech after Railroad, which is Combustion).

 

[Keilah]

Having off-continent cities gives us immediate +2 intercontinental trade routes in every one of our cities, which is why having this option makes the GLH even more powerful.

Regarding playing nice with the AI, that will only work if either a) the one AI we take out of the game has two or three holy shrines and we build one ourselves or b) we plan to found three religions, farm three GPros, and make three holy shrines ourselves. Founding three corporations ourselves will be much easier. Therefore, my guess is that there will be more warring involved in this game than the typical rush your neighbor and then play peacefully game.

Good point on the Heroic Epic. You can't always get there with barbs... unless you plan ahead.

From the Great Wall...

Oh yeah I know that about the overseas trade routes but what i'm saying is that we should be able to get enough, or nearly enough trade routes via foreign civs. And I definitely think we should play nice with other civs until much later on in the game, when we see who has the most shrines and have plenty of trading partners anyways. Besides, my experience of hemispheres maps is that the other civs are so far away that early warring seems really weak.

 

[ingentingg]

I've got my graphics card earlier than expected, so I will test wonder dates this evening. Just one question: How do I enable the buffy log?

 

[Mitchum]

If I remember correctly, select Ctrl + Alt + O in game which brings up the Buffy options menu. There should be an autolog tab where you can turn it on and select which items appear in the log. I suggest turning all options on. It's better to have more info than less, right?

My autolog is found in: C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword\Mods\BUFFY-3.19.003\Autolog

This is from memory as I sit in a meeting so I could be way off...

 

[Mitchum]

Regarding Dhoom's mid-game strategy:

A. I'm all for building both the GLH (with caveat that map supports this) and the Oracle.

B. The MC sling sounds like a good way to take advantage of our Industrial trait. This sling also takes research off the critical path so that we can build the Oracle as soon as we've learned Priesthood.

C. Getting an early Academy makes sense, especially since we're Creative (half-priced libraries) and research (i.e. Future Tech 1) will our critical path.

D. Hmmm... I'm not sure that I want an early GPro and if we/when get one, it may make more sense to build an early shrine to help auto-spread our religion, bring in some additional gold per turn, and help fulfill the requirement of owning 3 shrines.

E. Early Education and Oxford is never a bad thing. However, I'm still uncertain which will lead to a faster "global" tech rate: early Optics to enable massive tech trading or early Education. If we're planning to "play nice" with most of the AI in our game (other than the one we must eliminate and any we need to attack to own three shrines/corporate HQs), on the surface it seems that earlier "liberal" tech trading will get us to FT1 sooner than earlier Education. Not only will we be able to quickly backfill any skipped techs, we'll also be able to greatly speed up the AI research, getting them to research new techs and opening up even more tech trading options.

F. There may be other techs on this list, including Calendar (for happiness and/or MoM?), Literature (open up the epics and the GLib) and possibly others (I'm away from the game right now). Note that if we semi-beeline Optics, we can skip more techs and wait to get them in trade.

G. It's possible that an AI on our continent will build the AP without us doing anything. Unless we "Stone Age" every AI by stealing workers, rushing, etc. I'm not sure that I'd put too much focus on encouraging the AP to be built on our continent, but I'm open to team agreement here.

H. Do you think we can get an AI to Friendly soon enough to get Machinery and Compass in trade in a reasonable timeframe?

I. I'm not sure what you're referring to regarding forges, but it seems that your suggesting gifting MC to our neighbors. A lot of this depends on whether we plan to play nice with the AI on our continent or take them out early. This will be better defined as the game unfolds.

J. I need to re-evaluate the bulbing preferences, but self-researching early game techs is pretty quick later in the game. It's also possible to get them thrown in for "free" as we trade away other, more expensive techs.

K. Why make a half-hearted attempt at the Hanging Gardens. I think we should definitely go for them and I place more than a "low priority" on them. They typically tend to go late so are not that hard to get. The +1 pop in all cities quickly pay back any hammers spent building the wonder. Plus, we absolutely have to start generating GE points early if we want 100% chance of getting a GE to found Mining Inc. GE points from the HG plus an early forge-enabled engineering specialist should get us a GE about when we need one. Other GE-producing wonders to consider include 'Mids (if we have stone) and Hagia Sophia. I'd rather have one 100% chance of getting a GE than two 67% chances of getting one. I've been burned too many times on this...

 

[ingentingg]

I've tested wonder dates. I tried 5 games on emperor, hemispheres with everything default, and just hit enter. The AI were always the same. Huyana, Asoka, Cyrus, Ramses, Augustus, and Louis. They are the ones that are most likely to build a wonder.

Stonehenge: 49, 54, 42, 58, 53 Average: 51
Great Wall: 63, 59, 58, 64, 60 Average: 61
Oracle: 83, 82, 80, 67, 80 Average: 78
G. Lighthouse 79, 107, 92, 88, 94 Average: 92
Temple of Artemis 103, 108, 96, 96, 98 Average: 100
Pyramids 96, 110, 92, 99, 120 Average: 103

There seems to be no connection between different wonder dates, religions, stone/marble resources etc, so I don't think it's possible to predict the dates in the game.

I think Oracle by turn 75, and Great Lighouse by 85 is reasonable safe.

I have all the data in an ods-file, and if anyone want it I can post it.

What to Oracle:

Possibilities:
Metal Casting - nice for forges, and possible Colossus. Colossus and GLH is a nice combo, in particular if we delay Astronomy. Altough GLH and early Astronomy is also a nice combo.

Currency - Early library and bulb mathematics. Plastic Ducks have had success with this. Gives us increased chop value for forest. Can sell technologies. Can produce gold. Extra traderoute is not that important if we have GLH.

Asthetics - Maybe if we have marble.

Code of Laws - Secures a religion. Enables Courthouses, but they are expansive.

I think i prefer Metal Casting or Currency. Depending on the map, Currency might not be doable. Metal Casting is very safe, and probably fits best with GLH.

 

[ingentingg]

On Dhooms strategy;

A. Agree with Dhoom and Mitchum. Build both Oracle and GLH.

B. See previous post.

C. Early Academy is usually good, the only exception is if we choose to lightbulb Mathematics. The game will last a long time so I think Academy is best.

K. Hanging Gardens is nice. As mentioned by Mitchum it goes very late. If we have marble or stone we must reevaluate wonders. Failgold is also an option, in particular on national wonders.

On the other points I haven't really made up my mind.

Something else:
As everyone have noticed there is a lot of room for expansion on a Hemisphere map, so we don't have to expand very rapidly. If we want to build both Oracle and GLH, 1 or 2 extra cities should suffice till we have built both these wonders. Then we can expand quite fast and whip forges and granaries in all new cities.
In a perfect world we find gold (nice with forges) and a good coastal production city, with some forests for GLH.

One thing to look out for is barbarians. If we don't have bronze, nor horses we might have to pick up archery depending on the surrounding land. Since we are creative we get some free fogbusting, so warriors might suffice.