SGOTM 21 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

haphazard1 · Jan 29, 2015

If we do not settle Beaver Isle immediately, then we do not need another WB for a while. We would also have some additional worker turns available, since we could delay sending workers to the Isle. Of course, we have put hammers into the galley, seems a shame not to use it. Plus we delay getting higher-value trade routes.

Still, horses ASAP would be good so we can build chariots for barb defense and exploration. And grabbing the deer would also be good to try to block off any AI expansion into "our" territory. Really, we need lots of settlers to grab all the good sites we can already see, plus of course garrisons to guard them and workers to develop the new cities. If we focus on coastal sites (probably everything except maybe the deer?) then TGL will help pay for everything. Especially with two island cities for higher value TRs.

So what would be our plan?

- Sparta: finish lighthouse, start Great Lighthouse
- Corinth: finish galley, warriors (to fogbust, defend)
- Athens: warrior, settler at size 6 (whip once hammers invested), work boat (to regrow and for Beaver Isle)

Tech: Masonry -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing

What do we want to do with our EP, now that we know a couple more AIs?

nocho · Jan 29, 2015

Looks like you just made a start to your PPP, didn't you?

haphazard1 · Jan 29, 2015

nocho said:
Looks like you just made a start to your PPP, didn't you?

Well, one of Sleepless, McArine, or myself needs to take the next turnset. I will be glad to defer to either of them if they prefer to take the next set. Otherwise, might as well start getting some ideas out there for discussion.

I would like to state that I am worried about Shaka.

Not immediately perhaps, as it is hopefully too early for him to be thinking war mode even if we are already his worst enemy. But for the medium term future, he worries me -- a lot. As aggressive he gets free Combat I on his melee units, plus cheap(-ish) barracks/Ikhanda for another promotion. If he has metal (and I think we have to assume he does until proven otherwise) then we could be seeing Combat I/Cover or Combat I/City Raider I axes, not to mention similarly promoted 2-move-with-mobility impis.

Nothing we have or will have any time soon will stand up to that -- not warriors, not archers, not chariots. And those impis...Shaka could be the one worker stealing from us.

Metal units are really what we need, which means finding some copper or researching/trading for IW to see if we have iron. Something to keep in mind as we plan our tech path.

What are our current priorities?

Short term I see:

- Continue working towards TGL as quickly as we can
- Explore then settle the horse site (and get Wheel) so we can build something stronger than warriors
- Work on settling "our" territory, using each known food resource to anchor a city

Medium term I see:

- Push tech toward Currency so we can start puchasing secrets from Willem
- Complete settling as much of "our" territory as possible
- More extensive exploration to meet the rest of the AIs, learn where they all are, etc.

Longer term is too foggy at this point, since we do not know the various secrets and what they will require yet. Winning the game is in there somewhere.

Ronnie1 · Jan 29, 2015

I still think we proceed as planned.

Settle Beaver Island next, we can debate how/when to get the settler out for that.

The galley can scout eastward a bit after the settler is landed and before the worker(s) need a return trip.

Pre-roads, the galley is also useful moving units from Athens > Corinth.

Scouting westward is clearly the next priority for exploration.

We need a few fog busters to ensure we remain safe in the north and east.

Build GLH, @nocho, in your best test, did you just grow onto mines asap or did you whip other builds into it?

Tech path???

Clearly we need Masonry for the GLH, The Wheel for beaver

, Writing for our cheap Libraries, Pottery for Granaries and cottages, Currency to be able to buy intel from Willem. We just need to sort out the order some.

haphazard1 · Jan 29, 2015

namliaM said:
We are just as creative, will probably beat him to Writing and certainly a chopped Library can bring some fast culture...

The only way this might work is if we settle right next to the gems, so we can get "inner ring" culture once our borders pop. Otherwise I just don't see it working. Yes, we are creative too. But I don't see us settling the deer before both of horses and Beaver Isle. So Willem will have lots of turns to accumulate culture on the gems. Starting out way behind and trying to catch up is rarely good in a culture fight, and if he pops borders again we would be completely unable to overcome that.

namliaM said:
If we start the settler THIS turn it builds to 68/100 before the galley finishes we can then grow one turn for near max food at the 2 pop whip.
But we also need to grab back the Wheat this turn, Corinth is also already at size two for working the two gems.
Would have personally prefered to be at max food size 6 to preserve the power tiles in use... But if we want to settle Beaver isle (or fish or Deer) asap...

Without overflow we are generating 16 food-hammers/turn in Athens once we take back the wheat. We do have some overflow right now, so we could generate the next settler in 6 turns; 7 turns after that without overflow. Since we do not have granaries yet to regrow from whipping, I am thinking we are better off just building the settler normally, followed by maybe another settler. Once we finish Pottery, pull a 2-pop whip for the granary and grow back on a work boat (or warrior or whatever), then we can 2-pop or 3-pop another settler. Without a granary it is just painful to whip much.

Ronnie1 · Jan 29, 2015

I think the gems are in Willem's 3rd ring based on this shot,

Spoiler :

Ronnie1 · Jan 29, 2015

Here is the test save that is closer on the builds and a little closer on the terrain and units. Also have contact Liz.

haphazard1 · Jan 29, 2015

Ronnie1 said:
I think the gems are in Willem's 3rd ring based on this shot. I think we can steal it eventually.

Hard to be certain without a bit more map info, but you may be correct. If so, I think it is even harder to take them from him. His capital will be getting minimum 4 cpt, and will undoubtedly get a library as soon as he can build one. And Willem usually techs pretty decently, being financial, so that will be early-ish. And if he builds a wonder there....

Ronnie1 · Jan 29, 2015

Played from the current position out to whipping the GLH on T65.
Autilog of that run

Spoiler :

namliaM · Jan 29, 2015

Obviously straight Settler > Settler will be slightly faster vs 2 popping a settler a few turns from now. The two pop though is working a normal unimproved forest tile.... Not THAT usefull. The grass hill I would prefer to keep but we should have swapped back to the wheat earlier to allow more growth in Athens to make it so.

Also the advantage of whipping is the conversion of food to hammers, rushing out either 3 warriors in successive turns or a Workboat (perhaps to scout) and warrior

I think if it is third ring capitol, then probably starting to battle over that gem would be a bad idea. Good odds it has an obelisk already generating some additional culture, on top of which the risk of Wonder(s) down the line.
While we will be in our second ring, getting to 100 culture will take 30 turns after settling atleast, the inner ring bonus will help.... Not sure we will be able to keep it though.
I would be more inclined to battle for it if it were anything but the capitol.

The cost of not settling Beaver Isle is 4 commerce/turn
Cost of not settling Deer or Horses??
If we can get Deer in NOW but it is taken/blocked by the time we get the settler there ....
Not having horses, meaning no Chariots, can be costly once the barbs that are around come into our borders and start pillaging our gem mines.
In game we know we have a warrior lurking, which is positive since it will while it is alive stop Archers from spawning.
Though we are nearing turn 60 fast now, at which point we will have barbs comming for us and our improvements. Losing mine(s) or worse a city

Alternative is switching to Iron Working, which is a 8 turn research project (post Masonry) which will also take us thru the 60th turn then need to put up a mine and a road and build an unit pushing well past that 60th turn.
Speaking of 60th turn, we must remember to upload the save..

Turns 60 115 145 170 190 205 225 240 260 (TBR)

Fastest way to TGL I would think is
- Get warrior from Corinth for MP
- Pasture cow
- Mine hill
- Mine hill
- Chop forest
- Work the lake at size 5
- Work the 3rd mine once finished.

Trouble is it will grow to size 6 and 1 unhappy if we dont settle Beaver Isle ASAP, which means delaying TGL as a result. Though we can change the Crab to a Mined hill reducing the food surplus by 4, slowing its growth but adding hammers.
While the cost of Settling Beaver isle means no horses, no chariots and risks of getting pillaged back to the stone age by Barb (archers)...
Choices, choices

haphazard1 · Jan 29, 2015

What did you do at Sparta, Ronnie1? Just add mines as the city grew? Or did you make any other changes there?

haphazard1 · Jan 30, 2015

namliaM said:
Obviously straight Settler > Settler will be slightly faster vs 2 popping a settler a few turns from now. The two pop though is working a normal unimproved forest tile.... Not THAT usefull. The grass hill I would prefer to keep but we should have swapped back to the wheat earlier to allow more growth in Athens to make it so.

I am thinking settler -> settler because I think we want both Beaver Isle and the horses site as quickly as we can get them. Since we do not yet have a granary, whipping the first settler would significantly delay the second settler. So at least the first settler would not be whipped. We could whip the second if that looks worth doing -- need to run a couple tests on that.

Also, it looks to me like we can not fully explore the horses site before the first settler would arrive there, so settling Beaver Isle first (which helps Sparta get TGL efficiently) makes sense. But we do want horses very quickly, so we plan for a second settler right after the first. This does mean we need to send the spare warrior from Corinth to Sparta to replace the one already there, as it is the only unit close enough to explore the horses site.

namliaM said:
Also the advantage of whipping is the conversion of food to hammers, rushing out either 3 warriors in successive turns or a Workboat (perhaps to scout) and warrior

I think the next workboat is needed for the southern crab, to feed the upcoming Beaver Isle city. Not sure if we can afford the hammers for an exploring WB just yet -- more military for anti-barb defense would be a higher priority, to me at least.

namliaM said:
The cost of not settling Beaver Isle is 4 commerce/turn
Cost of not settling Deer or Horses??
If we can get Deer in NOW but it is taken/blocked by the time we get the settler there ....
Not having horses, meaning no Chariots, can be costly once the barbs that are around come into our borders and start pillaging our gem mines.
In game we know we have a warrior lurking, which is positive since it will while it is alive stop Archers from spawning.
Though we are nearing turn 60 fast now, at which point we will have barbs comming for us and our improvements. Losing mine(s) or worse a city

We definitely want the horses city, and soon. But as noted above it will take some turns to explore the area properly. We could settle based on what we currently see, but it would be a pretty poor city unless we get lucky.

I would like a city for the deer, but I think it is lower priority that horses and Beaver Isle. Still, we should push for a third settler fairly rapidly. We really need more military first, though.

Just too many things needed right now.

namliaM said:
Alternative is switching to Iron Working, which is a 8 turn research project (post Masonry) which will also take us thru the 60th turn then need to put up a mine and a road and build an unit pushing well past that 60th turn.

Shorter term alternative is Archery, at least for barb defense. Barbs are not nearly as dangerous as Shaka -- archers should be pretty solid defense against barbs. I would really like to get through Masonry, Wheel, and Pottery first if we can. Maybe Writing too...but how far do we feel we can push our luck?

namliaM said:
Speaking of 60th turn, we must remember to upload the save..

Very good point! I don't think the next turnset will reach that far, though.

namliaM said:
Fastest way to TGL I would think is[...]

I would be very reluctant to whip Sparta below size 3, or even size 4. But we can manage a whip right at the end, overflowing into TGL, if we set things up right. Maybe a 2-pop of a barracks after investing one turn -- should get us 10 (2-pop for 60 on 50 hammer building), plus 2 x hammers/turn rate (one turn invested plus whip turn). So rather than whipping TGL itself at a penalty, we get a barracks "for free" and finish the wonder at the same time we would whipping it directly.

Ronnie1 · Jan 30, 2015

Here is a better new test game.

Map upgrades, unit position upgrades, English Archer replacing Shaka Archer

Ronnie1 · Jan 30, 2015

haphazard1 said:
What did you do at Sparta, Ronnie1? Just add mines as the city grew? Or did you make any other changes there?

Work the hammers until the LH is complete, then work the lake for 1-3 turns to speed growth to size 6. Work max hammers as soon as it does not affect growth. Chop the one forest T64, whip T65.

Sleepless · Jan 30, 2015

Fine with you taking the save haphazard1..

My initial thoughts from work..

Next cities as haphazard1 noted we don't have any really nice sites available to us. With the glh and a food tile they will pay off but the north and east can wait for the moment.

As were well on the way to the galley in Corinth I'd finish that and still settle beaver next. For city 5 I think we do want the horse city regardless of food. Opens up the possibility of horse archers if we don't have any metals around. Especially as I don't expect a totally peaceable game.. :lol:

Fog busting? 2 units will cover the North and East with wil's culture helping a bit in the NW so seems our main fog busting priority should be to get a couple of units out West. Especially to cover the horse site. Don't want a barb city cropping up there!

Tech..

Masonry - wheel though for once I wouldn't be against archery. Perhaps bank some cash after the wheel to let us go at 100% for a few turns on the next tech.

Shaka... No threat from what I can see.. With masonry we could whip a wall and expect to have archery by then (if required) so good luck on him taking a city..

Ronnie1 · Jan 30, 2015

Barb incursions are significant in the near future if you don't get some warriors in the wild.

Ronnie1 · Jan 30, 2015

We can 3 pop whip the GLH on T64. Earliest date for me.

nocho · Jan 30, 2015

Ronnie1 said:
We can 3 pop whip the GLH on T64. Earliest date for me.

I think I got that result too.

For an extra settler, I'd contemplate growing Corinth to size 4 and then 2-pop whip one. Even without wheat (supposing gifting it back to Athens) it could whip that settler after only 6 turns. This Corinth settler can probably be done before 2nd settler from Athens, besides let's us whip 1st settler for beaver a bit earlier and growing on a workboat for beaver.

namliaM · Jan 30, 2015

Since barb invations happen depending on number of cities in the world, it may well depend on the "evil" of our map designer. We know there are many AI, perhaps a few AI are on hideaway islands or something stuck in thier capitol with no where to go....
Barbs depend on 3 cities per Civ I believe, if... that is maybe a big IF 1 AI is stuck someplace without room to expand into more cities, barbs incursions will be delayed..... But not something we can count on unless someone can go back to turn 0 and make sence of the demographics to see if there is indeed an AI starting on a 1 tile island.

Also if those barbs are to be comming, they are already out there.... not more to spawn now.... not more than there are already anyways which is why keeping that warrior alive is not unimportant since when he dies he can be replaced by an Archer (or worse)

Re: getting warriors out to the wild, is one reason I like whipping the next settler simply because it guarantees us 3 warriors fast
Have to be carefull about too much overflow though, from warrior to warrior cant be more than 15 hammers, overgeneration will go to gold so wont be wasted completely but we would prefer hammers over gold right now

haphazard1 · Jan 30, 2015

OK, no word from McArine and Sleepless says go for it, so I will take the next turnset. I will do some testing with Ronnie1's improved save (thanks!) and then post a PPP for discussion.

nocho, I don't understand your comment about a settler from Corinth. :confused:

Without the wheat there is no way for the city to grow to size 4 in any reasonable period of time. And I think we really want the wheat in Athens to speed settler production and/or growth.

We do need to fog bust to avoid nasty barbs spawning, but to get the warriors we need for that will mean delaying the second (and maybe even the first?) settler. Not a choice I like very much.

We also need to be thinking about more workers in the not-too-distant future.

Anyway, let me run some tests and see just what I can come up with.

SGOTM 21 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

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