SGOTM 19 - Xteam

[Htadus]

Guys, do you know that the test game is just junk map to see if rushing is good.

First, the real game has Asoka of Biz who is not Aggressive and protective.
Second, the capital is 8 tiles west and 1 N or S where as the test game, the capital is 11 tiles west and 1 tile N or S.
Third, well should there be a third when the first 2 are that good?

I just wasted the bit of time I had. I will see if I can build a test map later. Lets test likely maps shall we?

 

[leif erikson]

Junk map or not, the issues are very real. Once we hit 5-cities, our maintenance costs will be very high, slowing research. Maintaining an army sufficient to take the gray city will only make that maintenance more acute. And we need to know what units he has in the city before we decide to make any rush.

Once we actually take the cities, I think our army will start disbanding because we cannot afford to carry those units.

How we deal with those realities should be determined before we rush out and

 

[Htadus]

Really? I have to totally disagree with you leif.

It does make a big difference.

Capturing a city 8 tiles away vs 11 tiles is huge. -5 to 6 gpt vs -3 gpt.
Attacking Protective archers vs reg archers are significantly tough. 2 axes vs 1 archer to 3-4 axes per archer. the 100+ capture gold per capital city is also significant.

Building our own settlers just because we cheaply can when there is no good land is not the smartest thing.

But if everyone else feel that way. Lets just play. I have made my position clear. And during the last SG I have decided to stop pushing the rope. I have to go.

 

[Cactus Pete]

After we get to Math, a better map for testing would certainly be useful. Of course, easy for me to say, as I'm not capable of making one.

 

[leif erikson]

It does make a big difference.

Capturing a city 8 tiles away vs 11 tiles is huge. -5 to 6 gpt vs -3 gpt.
Attacking Protective archers vs reg archers are significantly tough. 2 axes vs 1 archer to 3-4 axes per archer. the 100+ capture gold per capital city is also significant.

I'll give you this.

The issue is still maintenance! How much does it cost to field an army?
How many of our own cities should we build? What I said is that with 5 cities, the maintenance really starts to bite. Then add to that the size of the army you need and it will hurt research.

What is the cost in hammers of adopting different actions?

I appreciate your arguments, but please let's base them on testing that shows clearly what the issues are.

Building our own settlers just because we cheaply can when there is no good land is not the smartest thing.

Is every city site we see junk? Should we play as an OCC and conquer based upon that or are there viable city sites we should claim?

Please, can we get a bit more specific?

 

[Frederiksberg]

Had a very busy weekend.

I agree with leif that we need to be more specific.

Regarding the war plans I think we need to find a way to determine the best timing for an attack. So far we have had different suggestions: After 3 cities are founded, after 4 cities and so forth. In my own opinion it should be later but a lot will depend on what is revealed in the fog.

The advantage of an early attack is that we MAY combine this with a worker steal which is otherwise illegal according to the special game rules. And the early worker steal has more impact than the late.

The advantage of a late attack is that the hammers invested in the axe stack and the gold for upkeep is a smaller part of the total production and commerce. And we may not have any more attractive spots left for settling anyway. Also we would expect captured cities to have better infrastructure like granaries, lighthouses maybe even a wonder. And we may be able to attack with swords. It's not unlikely that we can get Alpha ~T55 in a trade for Currency and shortly after we should be able to trade for IW. If Asoka has copper swords are less useful. A late attack can also take advantage of a more extensive road network. And we want Asoka to spend some time and hammers spreading Buddhism before we take his holy city.

When is the attack too late? I'd say when Asoka gets Construction+HBR we must be ready to pillage his ivory. And of course we want to attack before he has Feudalism. And finally we must catch Asoka while he is still expanding so that we can expect no more than 2-3 units per city.

We could also consider a worker steal war i.e. if we have the opportunity to snatch a couple of workers and then take one of Asokas minor cities. That might be doable with a smaller stack than 7 axes. If we leave a unit in his territory we can watch for an opportunity.

How do we estimate the right timing? I think we need dates for discovery of Construction, HBR and Feudalism. And we need to explore to determine the number of good city sites in the area. Another number of interest is the number of AI cities that signals the end of the expansion phase.

We need to decide if we want to shoot for the Stonehenge. I'm in favor because the automatic monument let's our new cities expand very fast. If they have to wait for a monument many things are postponed like granary and the usage of outer ring resources. With Stonehenge we can settle next to gold and wait for the wet rice to become available. We shouldn't forget the additional happy face either. Faster culture will also help fog busting a lot. We must decide now because the city by the pig will have to start building it immediately in order to have it done around T32. A GProphet might also be convenient since we are taking a holy city later that may not have a shrine yet.

 

[Cactus Pete]

The cost of SH (without stone) is the cost of 4 monuments, and it doesn't expand cities faster than a religion would, which we may well have by the time SH begins to pay for itself. Moreover, we would want to do it sooner rather later, thereby slowing the production of everything else. Prefer to have some chops put into one or two other things: such as a settler, worker, barracks, axe, even a library, and probably a couple of monuments as needed.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Religion spread can't be done for quite a while and we won't have Monotheism before we have Alpha and thats ~T55 at the earliest. Testing shows that we can easily have 5-6 cities by then. And the main point of my argument is that we get the new cities up and running faster because they don't need to wait for the monument to be built. It's even possible to settle cities with all resources in the outer ring. Besides, the extra happy face means that we probably want monuments in all cities anyway. We don't have many happy resources before Calendar which is now postponed. Even if we only need to build 2 monuments that means we have cut the cost of Stonehenge to 120-2*30 hammers = 60 hammers for 1 additional happy face in all cities plus the GProphet points. And the instant build of the monument making the cities develop faster.

 

[Htadus]

I am still having issues with my computer. I can not install printer drivers to print the screen shots to make the map.

So I did what I can for the moment.

I took Freds test map and played the way I wanted.

I did alot of bad play with respect to MM since I did not do much. What I did was:

Switch the build to a warrior,
Worker start cottage on FG east of city.
Whip warrior to complete warrior next turn, worker start road on the FG.
Warrior done and heads to new city site while Cap finish granary with overflow.
Start axe.
After axe start settler and whip next turn.
more axes.
Learn Math and start Currency.
Attack Tokugawa with about 8 axes.
Capture capital.
Stop.
Oh yeah, there was 2 2 pop whip of a worker and an axe in there some where.

Here is the save.
A smarter player with better plan can do much better in the real game.
I am not joking. I do this normally at highest level I play....Immortal.

If we need to, use second city to build the SH. Whip chop a granary there. After that whip, 2 pop axes to get maximum overflow to SH. Not that hard.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I happened to have a save with a similar date. Also a fast game just to see how things develop after building the Henge. The differences are, I guess, as would be expected. Cottaging river sugar is probably a good idea and in my game more cottaging should probably have been done.

Stonehenge+REX

 

[The-Hawk]

I'm not in a position to look at anyone's test games at the moment (or test). Maybe tomorrow. One other thought on Henge. We are further up the tech tree than normal. This means Henge would delay other buildings that normally would not be ready to build while rushing henge. So the opportunity cost is greated. With our poor commerce, I am inclined to build a library in pig city very early. Gold from marble plus a couple of scientists seems like a good play. Unfortunately, can't test that at the moment.

 

[leif erikson]

Played Htadus' game out four more turns to see what the maintenance costs would be once the city comes out of resistance. Currency certainly helped!

It bit pretty well, especially since we built a city near the horses with the Settler.

The question I had was what is next, take more cities from him?

Also looked at Fred's save. Not much economic headroom left to build an Army to conquer? Think we need to carefully consider how many cities we build and what we expect of them?

 

[Htadus]

Now remember, in the real game we get a break from the distance maintenance. And having a few cottages built early will help a lot. That is why I am pushing for 2nd worker early. As for my game plans, I would keep Asoka alive with 1 city and keep him in a perpetual expansion mode. A good plan would include timely worker steals from Asoka. We can let him build most of our future cities while we spend our hammers on building wealth, libs, (markets even), workers and other needed things.

I think hawk is making a good argument for a library build in the second city and I would like to add we build one in the capital asap. I think we should build no more that 4 cities our own until we can build CH.

There is no alternate option to Currency in this game. Well may be CoL.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Like Hawk, I can't test for at least 20 hours, but would be helpful for everyone to test with a better map.

What do we need to decide in order to get to MATH and pause to test?

 

[leif erikson]

Think the only issue is whether we build Stonehenge in our second city?

 

[Frederiksberg]

I'm quite busy at the moment with the new job and other things so I'm afraid I have to turn over the mouse to the next player.

 

[leif erikson]

Thanks for all the work thus far, good luck with the new job!

Roster:
Mad Professor - UP
fishystick - On Deck
The-Hawk
Htadus
Cactus Pete
leif
Frederiksberg

 

[Mad Professor]

Thanks for all the work thus far, good luck with the new job!

Roster:
Mad Professor - UP
fishystick - On Deck
The-Hawk
Htadus
Cactus Pete
leif
Frederiksberg

I'm sorry Leif, no can do.

 

[leif erikson]

I'm sorry Leif, no can do.

Thanks for letting us know, hope you can find some time soon.

Roster:
The-Hawk - UP
Mad Professor - On Deck
fishystick
Htadus
Cactus Pete
leif
Frederiksberg

Let's try this?

 

[Cactus Pete]

BTW, the possibility of missing SH has not been discussed, but in testing I believe it has been built as early as T33. Without stone, won't that be hard to accomplish?