SGOTM 18 - BadCiv

[Tall German Joe]

imo it is a very good idea IF AND ONLY IF our start spot looks like it has nice production. we're industrious so we already get a discount even without stone... and an early great spy would be pretty sick...

 

[fizzy]

so, soldier demographics. assuming Dr. Evil is the guy with the highest soldier value (48000), we get 16000 pts unaccounted for (Fat Bastard, archers in bastardstack, fission, hunting and chichen itza all count towards soldiers). this means no mech infantry worries! basically the best defender he could have is a machine gun, the best attacker a cavalry or the most advanced unit a carrier or bomber. Immortal AI usually start with three archers which would lower the numbers further to 7000 unknown soliders, but since this game is so heavily modified we can't assume he does have those guys.

For the lowest ai soldier number, im thinking it's either portugal or india due to starting techs and units (mali's skirmishers bump it up a bunch). the three immortal archers is a safer assumption here, i think, because they are supposed to be mostly normal civs. if so, these guys have only 7000 pts unaccounted for, which means they are very limited in terms of extra units (maybe a couple archers or a single crossbow) they almost certainly don't have the following techs:

8000 soldiers- Guilds, Fission, Flight, Bronze Working, Machinery, Assembly Line
10000 soldiers- Horseback Riding, Iron Working, Artillery, Industrialism, Rocketry, Advanced Flight, Laser
12000 soldiers- Gunpowder, Rifling, Military Science

those numbers are from this article: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/demographics.php
population is also a factor but since everyone but goldmember has only 1 city and it's the ancient era, that would mean 1 or 2 thousand soldiers from population tops.

 

[Chucat]

I know you're not going to forget but don't forget to move the Scout.

 

[Tall German Joe]

so, soldier demographics. assuming Dr. Evil is the guy with the highest soldier value (48000), we get 16000 pts unaccounted for (Fat Bastard, archers in bastardstack, fission, hunting and chichen itza all count towards soldiers). this means no mech infantry worries! basically the best defender he could have is a machine gun, the best attacker a cavalry or the most advanced unit a carrier or bomber. Immortal AI usually start with three archers which would lower the numbers further to 7000 unknown soliders, but since this game is so heavily modified we can't assume he does have those guys.

For the lowest ai soldier number, im thinking it's either portugal or india due to starting techs and units (mali's skirmishers bump it up a bunch). the three immortal archers is a safer assumption here, i think, because they are supposed to be mostly normal civs. if so, these guys have only 7000 pts unaccounted for, which means they are very limited in terms of extra units (maybe a couple archers or a single crossbow) they almost certainly don't have the following techs:

8000 soldiers- Guilds, Fission, Flight, Bronze Working, Machinery, Assembly Line
10000 soldiers- Horseback Riding, Iron Working, Artillery, Industrialism, Rocketry, Advanced Flight, Laser
12000 soldiers- Gunpowder, Rifling, Military Science

those numbers are from this article: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/demographics.php
population is also a factor but since everyone but goldmember has only 1 city and it's the ancient era, that would mean 1 or 2 thousand soldiers from population tops.

hey goddamn that's pretty neat

 

[Tall German Joe]

I know you're not going to forget but don't forget to move the Scout.

i wont. where do you think i should move it. also do you think the settler/warrior should go next

 

[boak]

i agree with moving settler 1 more tile north, we'll still have plenty of moves left for settling. How much do SGOTM map makers like to troll everyone? is it likely this road leads to something worth seeing before settling or is it possible it leads to a bunch of desert with mountains in the shape of a dick or something?

dont move the warrior for now, we definitely should use most of the settler's movement first before deciding on where to go with it.

fembot can really go wherever, i dont think it's too important in which direction we go to begin with since there could be literally anything, in literally any direction, so we might as well just pick a tile to move to at random (excluding the hills to the SW since that will limit movement) and take it from there.

i guess there may be some merit in at least moving it toward our yet-to-be-settled-city since the more turns it spends out in the wilderness the more likely it is we could lose it to a hostile unit.

I feel like we should absolutely try to maximise the number of tiles we reveal with each of fembot's moves though since we can't make any assumptions about the shape of the map. there was no mention of if the map was made completely from scratch or if for example a terra/fractal/pangaea map was generated and then modified. the more map knowledge we can secure now will give us more information to work with when other decisions need to be made later in the game.

 

[Sodavich]

I'm wondering where the resources are at -- we really need to find some sort of resource in our capital BFC. So, it makes sense to me to investigate the river delta, since maybe there's a gold hill or something.

 

[Tall German Joe]

I'm wondering where the resources are at -- we really need to find some sort of resource in our capital BFC. So, it makes sense to me to investigate the river delta, since maybe there's a gold hill or something.

here's some.

Link to video.

i can see 3 possible positions to settle here, at least as far as we settle this turn:

1.) on the river desert, which gets us 5 floodplains, 5 desert, and 2 peaks
2.) on the plains hill, which gets us a 2h city tile, 3 floodplains, 3 desert, and somewhere between 3 and 6 peaks
3.) on the marble, which gets a 3h city tile, 1 floodplain, 4 desert, 1-4 peaks, and a few mystery tiles. it might seem foolish to waste the quarry, but since we have a gold and all them floodplains, we likely won't want to work it until at least size 3.

i guess it depends on what we want to tech and build first. grow till either size 2 or 3 before building a worker or settler, but which and what? do we still want the great wall if we know we have marble? (e.g. to avoid polluting GP pool?) do we even care about polluting GP pool if we want to gift GP to AIs to improve relations ?? also, both types of GS would be useful so who cares which we get ??? do we want to just start cottaging? post your thoughts....................

 

[johns5]

isn't the marble kind of a red herring since AI already has oracle? It's useful for the Mausoleum and the Great Library but both of those are awhile away so we don't need the marble right now

 

[boak]

yeah i feel like the marble is irrelevant for at least the first 50 turns or whatever. the first marble wonder we can get is The Partheon (are there any strong strategies that we can use that include this wonder?) and then after that there's the GL, Mausoleum and the two epics but they're all a ways off yet. we will obviously improve it for the hammers, but yeah i dont think we need to prioritise it at all.

as for settling location, idk... i'm not really experienced enough to be able to identify the real pros and cons of each location so i don't really have much to say on that point. i do like having lots of food in the capital for epic whippage so my noob opinion will be the 5 flood plains spot. however if we decide to try for the great wall obviously settling on or near the marble/hills will be the best course of action.

Gandhi has mysticism so its unlikely we can found a religion (which from what i understand is pretty hard to do with any civ on immortal/deity) so that rules out starting our tech down the religious line. we're going to want to get that gold improved pretty quick so i would think mining definitely needs to be done before our first worker is out. all 3 resources we can see are on river tiles so we can delay the wheel for a bit if we decide to settle on the river also. we already have agriculture/pottery/masonry which covers all the other high priority first techs so i guess we should maybe beeline bronze working, pick up slavery and take it from there? does that sound reasonable?

PS sorry if my posts are really verbose and if i state the obvious a bunch, i'll mostly be posting to understand and reflect on my thought process rather than to communicate Hella Strategy. tia for tolerating my noob Moderator Action: expletive deleted
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889. peace.

PPS lol at the profanity filter on this site.

 

[johns5]

Moderator Action: Deleted. Bypassing the auto-censor is not permitted
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I dunno about the Parthenon. It'd dilute the GP stream with Great Artist points. GAs might be useful later in the game if we go for culture victory but I think getting great spies early on is a better investment

 

[Tall German Joe]

lol I thought nobody was supposed to read our thread except for our team? aren't these threads supposed to be private? or does that not apply to the moderators?

anyways, did you guys not notice that the marble, the gold, and the wheat are already improved?!?? that definitely changes an ordinary early game around. i also agree that the marble might be a red herring, BUT, where we settle here basically decides whether we're gonna try for the great wall or not, or whether we go for a worker or settler at size 2 or 3.

if we grow to size 3 first with a floodplain it'd take 19 turns for the desert river spot, 17 turns for either the plains hill or the marble spot.

if we work the gold mine at size 2, it'll take us 16 turns at the marble spot, 17 turns at the plains hill spot, and um the desert river spot is gonna be like 22 turns. our food basket will be fuller with the first method at teh end, but we'll have way more commerce with the second method.

also there's the question of what we want to research. the wheel maybe? maybe go for slavery? we start with pottery, right? an alternative to the great wall could be to build a granary. once we're at size 3 we're probably gonna want to start pumping workers and settlers, so it's gonna be awhile before we can build the granary itself... then again, we probably won't want to whip a lot at this site with such good tiles to work...

 

[AlanH]

The general public can read these threads, both now and in the future. Your posts have to conform to forum rules.

SGOTM is a spectator sport on a read-only basis, for all except the players on your opposing teams. And they can show up as well, once they have finished their games.

 

[Tall German Joe]

well, I suppose we'll try to be on our best behavior then..........

 

[johns5]

sorry

 

[boak]

sorry

me two

 

[Drachenreiter]

We don't have Mining yet which means settling on the plains hill becomes somewhat more preferable. We won't gain the happiness from the Gold until we discover it, I believe.

Settling on the desert river(boo) would regain the tile as useable and give us another flood plain(at least).

Considering the marble is already quarried, which takes more worker turns than a mine(IIRC), in addition to losing guaranteed floodplains in exchange for fog, I'm of the opinion that settling on it is not worthwhile. On second look, the tilebleed seems to be grassland, floodplain, floodplain, south->north. Hmm.

We don't know what's beyond the flood plain delta besides what the tilebleed shows, which appears to be at least two more floodplains, including one 1SE of the Gold which would be part of the capital with either the desert river or plains hill settle.

My vote is on the desert river.

 

[boak]

yeah desert river sounds good to me, idk if that was clear in my previous post.

also what are our choices wrt great wall alternatives?

 

[Tall German Joe]

We don't have Mining yet which means settling on the plains hill becomes somewhat more preferable. We won't gain the happiness from the Gold until we discover it, I believe.

Settling on the desert river(boo) would regain the tile as useable and give us another flood plain(at least).

Considering the marble is already quarried, which takes more worker turns than a mine(IIRC), in addition to losing guaranteed floodplains in exchange for fog, I'm of the opinion that settling on it is not worthwhile. On second look, the tilebleed seems to be grassland, floodplain, floodplain, south->north. Hmm.

We don't know what's beyond the flood plain delta besides what the tilebleed shows, which appears to be at least two more floodplains, including one 1SE of the Gold which would be part of the capital with either the desert river or plains hill settle.

My vote is on the desert river.

that's a really good point about mining and worker turns... what is your opinion about our initial build order then? do you think we should get TGW or do some kind of granary->worker @ size 2 deal?

i think i'm sold that settling on the marble isn't worth it, but I still couldnt decide between the plains hill and the desert river so i had to sperg out here:

desert river, working gold at size 2, marble at size 3
prod at size 1: (1+1)*1.5*5 = 3*5 = 15
prod at size 2: (1+1+3)*1.5*7 = 7*7 = 49
prod at size 3: (1+1+3+4)*1.5*7 = 13 * 7 = 91
@ turn 19: great wall + 5 overflow
@ turn 19: 163 commerce from tiles, 7 food in the bin @ size 3
baseline towards worker

plains hill, working gold at size 2, marble at size 3
prod at size 1: (2+1)*1.5*5 = 4*5 = 20
prod at size 2: (2+1+3)*1.5*7 = 9*7 = 63
prod at size 3: (2+1+3+4)*1.5*4 = 15 * 5 = 75
@ turn 19: great wall + 8 overflow
@ turn 19: 163 commerce from tiles, 7 food in the bin @ size 3e
3 turn faster worker b/c of large overflow

desert river, working floodplain at size 2 till just before size 3, then switching to gold+marble
prod to just before size 3: (1+1)*1.5*8 = 3*8 = 24
prod after: (1+1+3+4)*1.5*10 = 13 * 10 = 130
@ turn 18: great wall + 4 overflow
@ turn 19: 159 commerce from tiles, 10 food in the bin @ size 3
1 turn faster worker

plains hill, working floodplain at size 2 till just before size 3, then switching to gold+marble
prod to just before size 3: (2+1)*1.5*8 = 4*8 = 32
prod after: (2+1+3+4)*1.5*8 = 15 * 8 = 120
@ turn 16: great wall + 2 overflow
@ turn 19: 159 commerce from tiles, 8 food in the bin @ size 3
3 turn faster worker

by settling on the plains hill, we get our worker 2 turns faster at the cost of 1-2 flood plains. ordinarily that might be worth it, but really that just means that we'd be working a cottage 2 turns faster, which is a paltry 2 commerce now and 2 commerce 10 turns from now as compared to working a raw flood plain. or, it means an additional road. don't think that trade is worth it. i'm not sure if we'll end up having to move our capital because of all these stupid junk tiles, but at the very least 5 villages + a goldmine makes our existing capital worth an academy.

so, tl;dr i agree with drach that we should settle the desert river at least as far as beelining TGW is concerned.

 

[Tall German Joe]

also thinking about it some more, an immediate granary wont really be useful here, at least without sacrificing a lot of commerce. it won't complete until just after we hit size 3 (12-15 turns depending on where we settle and what we work), but then we'll just be pumping out workers and settlers for a bit; at least 1 of each. so, we won't even have time to accumulate food in the bin if we wanted to whip one of those to completion without stalling first beforehand.