SGOTM 19 - The Shawshank Redemption

[ZPV]

Regarding seeing 0 cities on T0, two SGOTMs ago, there were a few pre-founded barb cities in the north. Could we "see" those cities on T0 already? I'm not even sure how to tell how many cities/pops exist now.

We can tell world population from the victories screen - our 1 population is 9.09%, so global population is 11. There are 7 UN votes. That leaves 4 population for barbs.

We can tell the AI didn't have any cities pre-settled on turn zero, but can't tell the global population until at least one civ has a city.

 

[Jastrow]

I just quickly reproced turn 29 math...

I single-whipped the granary... Is that optimal, or is a double whip better? I have essentially the same position as WT described, but have 14 turns of whip unhappiness in the capital. Is that similar?

A worker would follow in 3 turns from this position (and the capital is at happy cap 4 because of the two whips, so that should be the next build.)

I still have no idea where the wheat is... I settled city two on the western sugar. Math 29 was not tight, but I dont think there is any hope of bringing it down to 28.

 

[Jastrow]

Just to make sure I am interpreting ZPV correctly... This means we know there are from 1 to 4 pre-settled barb cities, and they have a total population of 4. It appears very likely that one of these has Alu-co prefounded...

 

[WastinTime]

The Sugar site is a bit faster at research (the wheat tile does not have commerce). My whip unhappiness must be very similar.

 

[Jastrow]

I will open the game now to see what wheet looks like, because I am not able to follow why we would then settle that second... Will be back soon...

 

[Jastrow]

OK, I see we have try wheat, but nothing much else around it... The sugar has wet rice, which is similar in value... Is there a reason you prefer the wheat for city two? My instinct is to go with the sugar-rice city first...

 

[WastinTime]

Wheat has Sheep.
Sugar has Rice.

Neither city can reach these two resources for a while tho.

I wasn't sure about settling on the sugar. Maybe next to the rice is better? or maybe something that can use the other silk? etc. So I just did the Wheat city for my test. Not saying we should settle there first necessarily.

 

[Jastrow]

OK... I also have no real strong opinion as to what is better... I guess we will have more information about both sites (and other options) before the settler is ready, so no real need to make a decision now.

 

[Jastrow]

BTW, I forgot to check... What civalization is Asoka? We are playing unrestricted leaders, I beleive.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Anyone even read the tuurnset report?

T1
...

All AIs are at pop1, but including barbs, the world population = 11. Barb city(ies) have pop4 total.

Well spotted, Jastrow!!! I checked for wonders and projects but it has never occurred to me to check for completed corps. Learn something new every day! We definitely need to reveal Aluminum. That was made clear in the discussion thread. Every resource, for our chosen corp, that exists on the map must be 1) appropriately improved and 2) in our possession by our cultural or a trade. So for Aluminum Corp, we need Industrialism and all its prereq techs.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Asoka of Byzantium. He'll want Drama for Hippodromes and Guilds for cataphracts.

 

[Jastrow]

We definitely need to reveal Aluminum. That was made clear in the discussion thread. Every resource, for our chosen corp, that exists on the map must be 1) appropriately improved and 2) in our possession by our cultural or a trade. So for Aluminum Corp, we need Industrialism and all its prereq techs.

I disagree completly. The research of the chosen corp is COAL (Check the corp screen... It list the resources for the corps. Only Coal is listed.) The output of the corp is irrelevant to the objectives.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I like settling on the West Sugar and 2N of the sheep. West Sugar is a powerhouse settler pump (4t per settler) sharing the fp cottage and Sheep gives us some nice cottages and decent food. BOth quality cities. Both require only one road to enable next-turn settling. Connecting West Sugar for also means connecting our copper (no more warrior builds without fancy tricks).

 

[LowtherCastle]

I disagree completly. The research of the chosen corp is COAL (Check the corp screen... It list the resources for the corps. Only Coal is listed.) The output of the corp is irrelevant to the objectives.

I stand corrected. I've never even used or built Aluminum Corp.

Wow! That's really easy then. Stunningly easy.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Jastrow, in your analysis of the CoL slingshot benefits I would add these benefits/costs:

* culture growth from the Oracle 8cpt
* culture growth from Confu 5 cpt
* 1 confu miss for expanding borders of another city
* CoL is on our tech path and very difficult to get in trade without Mansa
* Calendar and Currency are far easier to get in trade because most AIs tech them early
* Caste systems for working scientists

Costs:
* gene pollution if we build it in our capital (this can be counterbalanced by castes and is not a cost if we build a wonder-spam city while building FailGold.


~~~


"AI Hammer has built an archer already" means that the AI with 6hpt has already completed an archer, as can be concluded from his power going from 35K to 38K in the F9 Demo screen. That also tells us he isn't building the Oracle...yet.

 

[Jastrow]

For the record, I also have never used this corp, and indeed, if you had asked me 10 minutes before I spotted this, I would not have had a clue what it did! This is the first situation which made it worth checking out.

AI-hammer... If he is getting 6H per turn on a archer, then either he has a pre-improoved square, or he is working a 3H forrest hill, and has a 3H city square... How do you get a 3H city square? Plain-hill-stone/marble are the most common (only?) option, right? If it is marble, then Oracle next is likely, I would think...

As to the CoL benifits...

* culture growth from the Oracle 8cpt, I view as negligeable... Culture in our captital is of little value in my mind.

* culture growth from Confu 5 cpt +1 confu miss for expanding borders of another city.

Yes, free border pops for two cities (and an moderate increase in probability of free border pops in other cities is of some value.)

* CoL is on our tech path and very difficult to get in trade without Mansa + Calendar and Currency are far easier to get in trade because most AIs tech them early

I agree on Calendar... I doubt that Currency will be had by the AI by the time we would like to have it.

* Caste systems for working scientists

I highly doubt we will be wanting to revolt to caste (instead of slavery in a food rich start) anytime soon, so I see no value to that at all.

So yes, I see a little bit of extra value in what you list, but nothing which would change my opinion, especially when weighted against what I think is a very real chance of getting beaten to the Oracle and getting nothing out of the deal.

 

[Mitchum]

Anyone even read the tuurnset report?

Yes, but when I read it the post was something like 4 lines long. You must have gone back to edit it after I had already read it. The post then went to the previous page so I never re-read it. The risk of modifying posts, I guess...

In any event, what could KCD have done to make this harder than it seems? As I said earlier, he could have founded it and then razed the city but what else could he do? There is no monster unit on the map per ZPV's estimation so it should be easy to capture when we find it unless...

The only thing that I can think of is that this city is hard to reach. It either requires Astronomy, paratroopers or some other thing not on our beeline to reach. Maybe it's in the far corner behind Toku and the only way to get to it is to plow through Toku or get OB with him somehow.

This is all speculation, of course. Until we actually see the city that has the Aluminium HQ in it, we should be careful not to make too many assumptions about being able to capture it. If we haven't found said city ourselves, we'll surely find it (or at least where it is on the map) when we learn Paper which is on the "Oracle Democracy" path.

 

[Jastrow]

Most obvious to make it difficult is that the city is hard to get to...

But who is to say that it is supposed to be difficult... Maybe the difficulty is in the post-democracy objective, and that this first phase is just a simple race to dykes+democracy...

Who knows what if going on in evil's mind...

 

[ZPV]

AI-hammer... If he is getting 6H per turn on a archer, then either he has a pre-improoved square, or he is working a 3H forrest hill, and has a 3H city square... How do you get a 3H city square? Plain-hill-stone/marble are the most common (only?) option, right? If it is marble, then Oracle next is likely, I would think...

We know that the hammer AI is getting 6h and at least 4f. You can't do that with unimproved tiles, unless they are getting a production bonus on something.

We should check it again on turns 7 and 9.
Turn 7 is when a doubled granary would be finished, and turn 9 is when the 4f AI should grow to size 2, if not building a worker or settler.

"AI Hammer has built an archer already" means that the AI with 6hpt has already completed an archer, as can be concluded from his power going from 35K to 38K in the F9 Demo screen. That also tells us he isn't building the Oracle...yet.

Average (or max) power should have jumped on turn 2. An archer costs the AI 20 hammers, and they get 10 free in their first build.
However, they shouldn't choose to build a wonder at 6hpt in their only city.

-----------------
Should we still try and build the Oracle?
If the 6h AI has marble, but the 6h are currently unboosted, then that AI will likely beat us to the Oracle, even if we go for it.

If it doesn't have marble, then we could build it (although it would be tricky to do it outside the capital). The gains could be useful, but don't seem mind-blowing to me.

However, this reeks of mapmaker interference, and after he removed Priesthood, I think he intended for the Oracle to be a non-factor in our development. I do wish he'd killed it via a barb city instead though.

 

[WastinTime]

I stand corrected. I've never even used or built Aluminum Corp.

Wow! That's really easy then. Stunningly easy.

yea, that discussion was referring to people using the Corp where aluminum in an input not an output.