SGOTM 19 - The Shawshank Redemption

[Mitchum]

You can't get x-y info until you settle a city, can you? I think we'll have to fog gaze...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Warrior
Moving 1NE then 1N isn't much different from moving 1N then 1NE, as far as Turn 1 is concerned.

But, moving 1N will give us more useful info on T0... in particular, it will let us see what is going on around the Rice.

We may want to put a Heroic Epic City to the north somewhere around that Rice, with all of those Grassland Hills squares in the area.

 

[WastinTime]

Moving a Capital?
Didn't you move your capital last game for Espionage purposes?

Yea, technically, we moved it for that broken mechanic, but I've never moved it for the real reasons one would consider moving it.

RE: x,y position. We can get that info from t0. I'll report it once the save is out. I'll even tell you how to do it if you don't know.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'll report it once the save is out.

It's probably best that we just let LowtherCastle handle the saved game initially, at least until he has had a chance to pause the game and upload a paused copy of the game for others to download.

EDIT: All right, if people want to look at the saved game, go ahead.

I'll even tell you how to do it if you don't know.

Yes, it would be nice to know how to do it. Ideally, then, LC could report that info when he first grabs the saved game.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm in favor of laissez faire with the saves. We're all adults and we know the rules. If someone is afraid to make a mistake, then self-monitor. WastinTime should feel free to open the save to his heart's content. Dhoom, this game isn't any fun when we get too restrictive about it.

I'd like to se us win gold while playing fast and not getting too anal about anything.

 

[Jastrow]

I was thinking about things today, and actually started to wonder... Should we be going for Oracle at all??

To get it, we need to research two techs which we could otherwise easily trade for (Meditation and Priesthood). In basic units, they are worth 140 beakers, while CoL is 350, so we are in effect building the Oracle to get 60% of COL.

How many beakers is CoL under these settings (I dont have access to the test save right now)? About 600?

If so, we are building Oracle for 360 beakers, on which we get a 20% discount, making it worth about 300...

For that, we need to invest 75 Hammers, and commit to settling a relatively poor (we can debate how poor) second city...

And we cannot garantee the Oracle (and with the starting gold, failgold is a bit less attractive than usuall).

I am not saying I am against building the Oracle... I am just wondering if we should consider some non-oracle test to see how they compare?

 

[Seraiel]

75 against 300 is a very good trade, in the beginning of a game, where are easier to get than . Just imagine, we're making something like 10-20 , building Oracle just "catapults" us 15T foward.

 

[LowtherCastle]

WastinTime, where did you build the Oracle?

 

[WastinTime]

WastinTime, where did you build the Oracle?

the capital

 

[Jastrow]

75 against 300 is a very good trade, in the beginning of a game, where are easier to get than . Just imagine, we're making something like 10-20 , building Oracle just "catapults" us 15T foward.

Definitly, BUT, it is not only the 75H... If it was I would not even be bringing up the question...

It is 75H plus committing to city 2 on the marble, instead of potentially a much better position... It also delays city 3 by what, 10 turns, I suspect. The paybacks of a better city 2 and early city 3 would begin straight away, whereas the payback of an earlier COL is not really clear... When one can sling CS, the story is much clearer in my mind. You IMMEDITELY switch to Beuraucracy, and getting that 20 turns earlier is 20 turns of insteand payback.

If (and I know this is fantasy, it is just to illustrate my point), there is a city two cite available with two grassland gems, and a city 3 around with gold, we could probably get to CS quicker without Oracle than with it...

To be clear, right now, with the information currently available, I am in favor of building the Oracle... I am just wondering if we should be keeping an alternative in mind...

Since we can bank 5 turns of research, we have 5 turns to explore before we have to commit to our first tech... Finding a spectacular city two cite in that time would make me want to reassess the oracle.

 

[Seraiel]

We don't need to settle C2 on the Marble if the location is bad. 75 is so cheap, that building Oracle without connecting Marble often even is the better choice.

 

[Mitchum]

RE: x,y position. We can get that info from t0. I'll report it once the save is out. I'll even tell you how to do it if you don't know.

Yes, please do tell. I thought you had to settle the city first and then look at the City Info F1 tab.

Connecting and queuing the Marble with first building a Worker and then needing to build Roads + Quarry takes a long time, and Oracle itself isn't strong enough for me to sacrifice our Capital completely for it.

Why all this hating on the marble resource? Seriously though, it takes 6 turns to quarry the marble. Compared to the 5 turns to mine a hill (1 turn to move and 4 turns to mine), it's only +1 turn. Once quarried, we get 1F3H2C. It's not spectacular, but it gives us some coins (and production) on this commerce-poor start pre-Calendar (unless you want to build cottages which I don't).

We don't need to settle C2 on the Marble if the location is bad. 75 is so cheap, that building Oracle without connecting Marble often even is the better choice.

Assuming we sette 2S, to actually hook up the marble takes 4 more worker turns to build 2 road segments. But those 4 worker turns translate into 75H when building the Oracle, so I would think that it would be worth it. With marble so close, I see no point in building the Oracle without it... 75 early hammers is a lot in my opinion.

 

[Jastrow]

We don't need to settle C2 on the Marble if the location is bad. 75 is so cheap, that building Oracle without connecting Marble often even is the better choice.

Jein,

If we do not settle C2 at marble, and build without connecting marble, then it is 150H, not 75, making it a 2:1 instead of 4:1 B:H trade. Still not bad, but not nearly as eye-popping.

Add to this that going for it without using marble brings up the possibility of missing out all together into a decent probability range.

Both does together would lead me to suggest that commiting to Oracle is commiting to marble.

 

[LowtherCastle]

So it appears that WastinTime was right:

Spoiler :

So learn Democracy. Fast. The sooner you do so, the sooner you will know what you need to do to win Laurels in this game.

The whole point is that you prioritize getting there quickly in terms of game turns AND in terms of the 3-month time limit. Teams which display skills of adaptation will, as usual for SGOTM's I have made, do well.

This can be twisted to make it ambiguous, but I don't think so.

Of course, it's still possible that a Sushi beeline gets Democracy just as fast as a Democracy beeline (without Sushi), we'd have to test. Furthermore, it's also possible that Seraiel's domination beeline + sushi + trading for Nationalismetc is also just as fast.

The problem is, we don't know what the criterion is and thus we don't know if we've screwed ourselves by all that warring or all that bulbing. BY screwed, I mean lost any chance for the gold, of course.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Early Warring could actually work in our favour
I have to say that if I were the map designer, had I thought of the idea of "every City that you own must have a Town," I would considered it to be a pretty neat condition to put in. It certainly fits with the Monopoly theme of growing your houses into hotels (Cottages into Towns). It also fits in nicely with Democracy's rarely-used (unless forced to use, via Happiness issues) Emancipation Civic, and making us play outside of our comfort zones is what kcd_swede strives for.

For such a scenario, capturing Cities early on will help more than playing peacefully and getting to Democracy ASAP (you can't trust an AI not to pave-over their own improved Cottages).

Part of the problem is that when you tech hardcore peacefully, you are often racing to a "breakout military tech," but Democracy does not provide that benefit.


Warring
That said, with Nationalism (for Democracy) in the bag, how much further away is it to Cuirassiers? Hmmm, I guess it's a bit far away, as you need each of:
Aesthetics -> Literature -> Music -> Military Tradition
Paper -> Education -> Gunpowder

We were already talking of going for Literature, Paper, and Education relatively early on, but adding Music + Military Tradition + Gunpowder on top of it will take a while.

Waiting for Cuirassiers seems way too far off for our first war, given our great traits, and I'd still like to be warring much sooner.

 

[WastinTime]

With the copper gift and a potential immediate ax rush, I have to assume that there are no close neighbors. I'm willing to war as soon as it makes economic sense. Certainly before Cuirassiers. We should aim for 30 cities by 1AD, T115. That's a good target for Democracy too I think. Build the Statue of Liberty in 1 turn.

 

[WastinTime]

save comes out at midnight?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Well, it is already 2:36 AM UTC/GMT, so that's probably not the time that is being used. More likely, it is the submission time, which will mean "just after midnight in the last time zone that still is Feb 6."

Apparently that Time Zone is Pago Pago, which has a current time of 4:36 PM.

12 - 4.5 = 7.5, so a little less than 7.5 hours from the timestamp on this message, assuming that your CFC Time Zone is correctly set to match your local time.

 

[Mitchum]

I was checking out the REAL SAVE, had an accidental misclick and settled 2S... so now what?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I was checking out the REAL SAVE, had an accidental misclick and settled 2S... so now what?

No probs. Just play up to Democracy or thereabouts and hand it off to AlanH.