SGOTM 20 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

[da_Vinci]

With the world potentially seeded with barbs at the start (to paraphrase Kirk to Khan: "POLLUX !!!!!" ), maybe we need to play this a bit like an always war start.

By which I mean don't go looking for trouble, it will find you soon enough (at least until you can kick trouble's ass ...)

It is not like we don't have enough to do in our little enclave for a while now.

If we can tempt a lone barb warrior to attack the hill archer, might be worth doing (maybe we sim that to be sure it is low risk?). One less seeded barb, assuming that the spawn will follow usual rules, might be a good thing. How close to next promo is that archer? If he is 4/5, might really be worth it. What promo would we take? Maybe the all purpose C1?

The 1N settle might reveal water to our north. If that is true, then not much to scout anywhere but south. So maybe the place for the scout is stacked with the archer on the hill, to heal the archer as he fights off barbs. And if archer gets really creamed, scout could take a bullet for him on a second attack. And we retreat the archer next turn if he is that badly wounded.

I might take the warrior north along forest hills to see just how far up the mountains go. Unless he meets another barb PAIR ("POLLUX !!!!!" ), his survival odds should be good there.

dV

PS: I don't think that BSP is lurking ... he is taunting ...

 

[Ororo]

- Move settler 1N and found capital (suggestions for a name?)

I suggest that our naming scheme is rather simple so that it's easier to remember cities without actually opening the save. I hope the Christians among you won't be mad at me for suggesting this, but "Silver City" would be a good choice imo.

- Grab demographics screenshot on T1 to see AI founding stats

Can you please also take a screenshot of T3 demographics? This way we can determine whether there are any CRE leaders among the AIs. I don't think this piece of information is going to influence our decisions too much, but every little bit helps.

EDIT: As for the warrior and scout moves, we should probably settle our capital first and then make the decision based on what we see in the north. There could always be barb warriors hiding in the fog

So I think right now we should call a vote as to whether everybody agrees with the capital 1N. If that is indeed the case, haphazard can then settle the city. A knowledge of our full BFC is necessary to create a definite PPP as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Ronnie1]

I'm sure I'll be able to remember whatever we name our capitol.

Settling 1N, building Worker 1st. AH as 1st tech makes sense and then to BW for the Silver and Sheep of course.

Archer with any defensive bonus against 1 warrior I would do every day. If I could get to that fort with the Archer, I might try to gain 10XP there.

 

[Ororo]

Yep, my bad, special name for the capital is probably unnecessary.

But since we need at least 70 temples we are guaranteed to have 10 cities minimum, though realistically it's going to be easily more than 20. Then it may be slightly harder to remember which one is Ankara, Konya, Edirne etc.

 

[Ronnie1]

Yep, my bad, special name for the capital is probably unnecessary.

But since we need at least 70 temples we are guaranteed to have 10 cities minimum, though realistically it's going to be easily more than 20. Then it may be slightly harder to remember which one is Ankara, Konya, Edirne etc.

I'm all for naming cities something to help me remember what/where they are. For me, "purpose" names are more helpful than "place" names. I find it helps make build decisions much simpler. My point was that I can generally keep the first one straight no matter how many beers I put down.

 

[da_Vinci]

I think that 1N is the way to go, but do we agree on how to use it?

Actually, I really like our surroundings. The extra cow made the settling spot 1N an excellent Bureaucracy capital. With triple 4 sources, silver, ton of grassland hill mines and riverside grassland to put cottages on this is a much better capital than you get in vast majority of games.

Settling 1N, building Worker 1st. AH as 1st tech makes sense and then to BW for the Silver and Sheep of course.

Seems like O3 (to go with R1, and H2 ... or he could be r2 ) wants to pasture the sheep, R1 wants to mine them. I think maybe we want the food, for faster pop regrowth since we have the grass mines for hammers.

I'm all for naming cities something to help me remember what/where they are. For me, "purpose" names are more helpful than "place" names. I find it helps make build decisions much simpler. My point was that I can generally keep the first one straight no matter how many beers I put down.

I think the appropriate name for the 1N capital is "Not Seafood", as a tribute to BSP's barb trireme.

dV

 

[Ronnie1]

......wants to pasture the sheep, R1 wants to mine them...........

There is a forest that won't allow a sheep pasture before BW I believe.

EDIT: The northern sheep is forested, the southern can be pastured immediately. For the record, I am for all the food we can get ASAP.

 

[haphazard1]

With the world potentially seeded with barbs at the start (to paraphrase Kirk to Khan: "POLLUX !!!!!" ), maybe we need to play this a bit like an always war start.

A good point. Until we know more, ultra-cautious with our precious starting units is a good idea.

If we can tempt a lone barb warrior to attack the hill archer, might be worth doing (maybe we sim that to be sure it is low risk?). One less seeded barb, assuming that the spawn will follow usual rules, might be a good thing. How close to next promo is that archer? If he is 4/5, might really be worth it. What promo would we take? Maybe the all purpose C1?

All three units are at 1/2 XP, so any survived fight will get them a promotion.

If we can get only 1 barb warrior able to attack the archer on the hill, our odds would be quite good. Hill defense 25% + inherent archer on hill defense 25% gives us 50% bonus to the basic 3 vs 2, plus we get a first strike. We could even get an extra 5% by fortifying for the one turn as we wait for the barb to attack.

I think it is more likely that if either barb moves towards the archer, they both will. And two attacks I am not sure I would want to risk.

The 1N settle might reveal water to our north. If that is true, then not much to scout anywhere but south. So maybe the place for the scout is stacked with the archer on the hill, to heal the archer as he fights off barbs. And if archer gets really creamed, scout could take a bullet for him on a second attack. And we retreat the archer next turn if he is that badly wounded.

I might take the warrior north along forest hills to see just how far up the mountains go. Unless he meets another barb PAIR ("POLLUX !!!!!" ), his survival odds should be good there.

We can fog gaze forests in all three potential 1N BFC tiles, so we will not see anything beyond them until our borders pop. We could maybe explore a little with the warrior, but I would not want to move him farther from the capital than the nearest barb, just in case we somehow lose the archer.

For the scout, I would like to go NE-E next turn to see what is visible from that point of land. Other than that, maybe it would be best to bring him back to act as a medic.

I suggest that our naming scheme is rather simple so that it's easier to remember cities without actually opening the save. I hope the Christians among you won't be mad at me for suggesting this, but "Silver City" would be a good choice imo.

OK, 1 vote for "Silver City" and 1 vote for "Not Seafood" so far. Maybe something about three pastures, or "Denied Seafood" would work?

Can you please also take a screenshot of T3 demographics? This way we can determine whether there are any CRE leaders among the AIs. I don't think this piece of information is going to influence our decisions too much, but every little bit helps.

Good idea. The land figures should tell is if we have CRE leaders and maybe even how many, although water in their BFCs could make things a bit fuzzy.

Do the power numbers give us anything? What are the normal starting units for AIs on immortal? Pollux could have modified this of course, but 20K for rival best and 10K for rival worst...hmmmm.

EDIT: As for the warrior and scout moves, we should probably settle our capital first and then make the decision based on what we see in the north. There could always be barb warriors hiding in the fog

That would fit in the "something unexpected" stop condition. Even just the warrior could probably hold the capital, since he is CG1 he gets +45% defense there. If we keep him there rather than exploring he can gain another +25% fortify bonus, and after turn 5 will get +20% for culture.

So I think right now we should call a vote as to whether everybody agrees with the capital 1N. If that is indeed the case, haphazard can then settle the city. A knowledge of our full BFC is necessary to create a definite PPP as far as I'm concerned.

I can't think of anything in those three tiles that would change our initial planning. Even a plains hill forest would not produce the worker faster than the forested sheep hill. Unless there is a pre-improved resource...but again that would be "something unexpected" to trigger a stop.

I agree we should have a vote on 1N. It looks like everyone so far agrees (or at least no one has actually disagreed) but this is a crucial decision and we should formally vote.

I'm sure I'll be able to remember whatever we name our capitol.

Settling 1N, building Worker 1st. AH as 1st tech makes sense and then to BW for the Silver and Sheep of course.

Count Ronnie1 as a vote for 1N. Me as well.

Archer with any defensive bonus against 1 warrior I would do every day. If I could get to that fort with the Archer, I might try to gain 10XP there.

Is it worth the risk of getting cut off from the capital, though? As long as there are 2 barb warriors visible, I would prefer the archer be between them and the capital.

There is a forest that won't allow a sheep pasture before BW I believe.

EDIT: The northern sheep is forested, the southern can be pastured immediately. For the record, I am for all the food we can get ASAP.

Agree on the food. Mining hill sheep could work if we had other food sources available. But we will need those pastures to feed growth and to support working mines.

Shall we have a vote on settling 1N?

For: Ronnie1, haphazard1
Against: (none so far)

 

[nocho]

I think I already stated I'm in favour of 1N too. I interpret Ororo as well.

Would barbs even enter our borders before the average city count per civ exceeds 2? Guess that might depend on the script they were given.

 

[haphazard1]

Would barbs even enter our borders before the average city count per civ exceeds 2? Guess that might depend on the script they were given.

The script is my worry. Since these are obviously placed barbs rather than spawned barbs, I don't think we should count on them acting as barbs normally would.

 

[da_Vinci]

There is a forest that won't allow a sheep pasture before BW I believe.

EDIT: The northern sheep is forested, the southern can be pastured immediately. For the record, I am for all the food we can get ASAP.

Was it aj who talked about mining the sheep? In any event, with current information, do we all agree on 1N capital and pasture the sheep?

That is my vote.

And doing that first makes sense, if we agree. In this potential barbarian minefield, we should make each move with as much intel as is safely possible.

dV

Edit: The shorter version of the "No Seafood" or "Seafood Denied" name for the capital might be "NoNets" or "Netless". Or being positive rather than negative, we could call it "Baaa" for the sheep (and our impression of BSPs barbs? ). Or, since 1N is sort of our last resort, our refuge in the barb storm, we could call it "Silver Lining"

 

[haphazard1]

I rather like "Silver Lining" for the capital.

OK, so we have 4 votes for settling 1N (myself, Ronnie1, dV, and nocho). No votes actually opposing, although we have not heard specifically from everyone. At what point do we consider an issue decided?

 

[Ronnie1]

At what point do we consider an issue decided?

Now!!

 

[nocho]

Now!!

Yeah, Ororo liked it too and can't really imagine anyone thinking very differently. From what we know and see there really isn't another spot that comes remotely close imo, so go for it. Silver Lining sounds fine.

 

[Sleepless]

Sure I posted something earlier today which isn't there...

Still yep 1N seems best ah - worker..

Nearly caught up with RL..

 

[haphazard1]

OK, grabbing save and off to found our capital. Back shortly.

 

[haphazard1]

Founded our new capital, Silver Lining, in the 1N location. Some forest was revealed to our north.

Spoiler :

We do have a plains hill forest, but even with our expansive worker bonus it is no better than the forested sheep. And it is not yet within our culture anyway.

Set research to AH (15 turns), build to worker (12 turns), working the forested sheep tile for max food-hammers. Took some more screenshots (see below for analysis). Nothing more to move, so hit end turn.

For a game that has gone through exactly one turn, a lot has happened. Yes, more interesting things occurred. First:

Spoiler :

Note the east across the water. That border was NOT there at the end of turn 0 -- I reloaded my turn 0 save afterward and checked. The color is really hard to tell, it looks like a barb border. Maybe a barb city popped borders due to religious culture? Or maybe it is an AI? Not sure. I think we need to move the scout NE-E to get more information, and if it is an AI to make contact.

Speaking of barbs.... The trireme moved S and then N, for no overall change. In the southeast, we now have 2 barb warriors in the fort. However, one of them came out of the fog while one of the previously visible warriors (the eastern one) moved out of view. So there are 2 in the fort and at least one more nearby. They did not advance on the archer, but are now on the road and could attack the archer on the hill. We need to decide if we want to risk that -- my first thought is to retreat the archer towards Silver Lining for safety.

I grabbed religion and demographics screenshots after founding the capital on T0 and also on T1.

Religion:

Spoiler :

Founding our capital did change the influence of Confucianism from 21% to 20%. Still need to determine if this is population or cities, but this appears to confirm that there were 19 pop/cities before and our capital makes 20. When we look at the T1 numbers, they now match with 29 pop/cities existing. So it looks like all 9 AIs founded their capitals.

Demographics:

Spoiler :

Rival worst land is 6K, rather than the previous 0, so this confirms all AIs founded their capitals. Rival best land is 8K, so they all have at least 1 water tile and most have 2 or 3. There could be single-tile lakes, but most likely all the AIs are coastal.

Rival best GNP of 20 probably indicates at least one CRE civ -- we should know for certain after turn 3. Rival best food of 5 could be a grain resource, grassland cow, etc. -- nothing really strange here, so probably no pre-improved tiles for the AI. Hammers also looks unexceptional.

Rival best approval rate of 85 with everyone else at 83 probably means we have at least one Charismatic AI. Our life expectancy is tops, not surprising with Expansive, fresh water, and multiple forests. The big spread to the rival worst at 75 probably means an AI with a flood plains start. I am trying to think of other explanations for that low a value at the start, any other ideas? Unless someone is buried in jungle?

Just scraps of info here and there, but potentially useful. And it is fun to speculate.

So what do we do with our three units? I recommend scout NE-E to check that peninsula and determine who owns those borders. The warrior and archer...how cautious do we want to be?

Save has been uploaded for inspection.

 

[adrianj]

Edit: Crosspost with H1 playing.

I like "Silver Lining" for the capital name. Incorporates both the silver and the sinking of our hopes and dreams

Spoiler :

I knew there was a reason we let dV back in

And yes, settler 1N I also agree with.

What to do with Archer/Warrior/Scout: I think the archer looks fine fortified on that hill. If the city is ever under threat it should be able to get back in time. I like Ororo's idea of sending the warrior north along the wall. Scout can move around the coast a little, to check for future city sites. We should only move the scout 1 tile/turn, so it doesn't get eaten by hungry barbarians.

Stopping point: I think much sooner than the worker arrives. Frequent pausing at this point is good, eg, every turn. How about a proper stop at turn 5?
Would we consider NOT selecting a tech in order to delay the choice? I recall that there might be a downside to this approach - I think we lose 1/turn. I'm also unsure how it affects techs with prereq bonuses, eg, AH. Perhaps someone could try in a test game:
1) Play 5 turns with research set to AH. Note down invested at start of T6.
2) Play 5 turns with no research selected. Select AH on T5. Note down at T6.


Sundry
Please, all players check their civilization.ini file for autosave intervals set to 1. Max autosaves could preferably be quite high, eg, as long as your turnsets. After turnsets, it's probably not a bad idea to zip them all up together.
Also, I restate my preference for BUFFY Autologs to be turned on, with colour coding option enabled. Please familiarise yourselves with this, and check that it is working in a test/other game.

 

[da_Vinci]

I like "Silver Lining" for the capital name. Incorporates both the silver and the sinking of our hopes and dreams

I thought that the reason to settle inland was to AVOID the sinking of our hopes and dreams ...

I knew there was a reason we let dV back in

Well, with enough blind, random shots, you hit something eventually. Most of my civ career seems based on this, particularly my current global ranking ...

Spoiler :

Problem with that is you occasionally get Novgoroded ... or is that Nov-garroted?

dV

 

[Ronnie1]

Looks like land in the fog across the water NE of the eastern crab.

What to do with Archer/Warrior/Scout: I think the archer looks fine fortified on that hill. If the city is ever under threat it should be able to get back in time. I like Ororo's idea of sending the warrior north along the wall. Scout can move around the coast a little, to check for future city sites. We should only move the scout 1 tile/turn, so it doesn't get eaten by hungry barbarians.

I agree with all of this. Scout is safe to move 2 tiles to the point next turn, but safety after that for sure.

Stopping point: I think much sooner than the worker arrives. Frequent pausing at this point is good, eg, every turn. How about a proper stop at turn 5?
Would we consider NOT selecting a tech in order to delay the choice? I recall that there might be a downside to this approach - I think we lose 1/turn. I'm also unsure how it affects techs with prereq bonuses, eg, AH. Perhaps someone could try in a test game:
1) Play 5 turns with research set to AH. Note down invested at start of T6.
2) Play 5 turns with no research selected. Select AH on T5. Note down at T6.

I don't believe it makes a difference on second tier techs, but I could be wrong. I have no time to test in the short run, sorry.

As to stopping, what is there really to do before the worker arrives? Explore as usual imo. Cautious with the scout as previously noted, and I would ditto the warrior by trying to stay in forests when possible, forested hills being first option obviously for both visibility and defensive bonus.

Build a road towards the cows while waiting for AH. Remember to cancel the road build on the cows the turn before AH is learned.

Exceptional stopping conditions withstanding, hopefully an uneventful continuation of a mildly shocking T0.