SGOTM 22 - Anti-TSR

[LowtherCastle]

If I understand this right, we don't need to meet any special garrison or building requirements for the pop size of Rome (intra city growth), but we do need to meet them (but not sustain them) at the time of empire growth (inter city growth, if you will).

Also my understanding.

What information do we need to make some of our early decisions? GW or not is an early decision, just where do we need to explore to sort that out? That seems to depend on nearness of AI and our nearness to coast and on how much of our perimeter.

How early to get BW is an early decision, potentially hinging on horses or not (unless fast slavery trumps all).

Seems that teching AH and exploring for about 12 turns makes sense as a start, only question is exactly where to explore? Is any exploration toward the coast warranted, or just head inland?

dV

Imo, early exploration should:
1. Show us all resource tiles in our proximity, including seafood.
2. Locate nearby AIs.

This will tell us how many happy citizens we can have without HR, whether we have horses, how many healthies we'll have, whether we have stone or marble, whether we go down on an AI early or begin our slave trade.

Looks to me like we probably want HeredRule + cottages in our ~pop14 capital asap, but I still think we should simply tech to AH while building a worker. I would:

1. Settle in place.
2. CHeck the coordinates to see where we are on the map.
3. Most likely send a warrior W,N,E,S each, but focus on defogging every single non-mountain tile.

Later I would send at least 2 warriors on a world tour. We see mountains to the south, possibly blocking land access. If so, we'll want a coastal city asap to explore the beyond. We want to know asap how hard it will be to achieve conquest.

 

[Pollina]

if (pLoopArea->isWater())
{
eBarbUnitAI = UNITAI_ATTACK_SEA;
iDivisor = GC.getHandicapInfo(getHandicapType()).getUnownedWaterTilesPerBarbarianUnit();
}
else
{
eBarbUnitAI = UNITAI_ATTACK;
iDivisor = GC.getHandicapInfo(getHandicapType()).getUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit();
}

if (isOption(GAMEOPTION_RAGING_BARBARIANS))
{
iDivisor = std::max(1, (iDivisor / 2));
}

if (iDivisor > 0)
{
iNeededBarbs = ((pLoopArea->getNumUnownedTiles() / iDivisor) - pLoopArea->getUnitsPerPlayer(BARBARIAN_PLAYER));

"Raging Barbs" doubles the number of barb units that can be created.

20 unowned tiles per barb unit.
7 starting cities = ~130 owned tiles.
800/20 = ~40 roaming barbs when fully spawned.
40/7 = ~6 barbs per player on any given turn.

 

[Pollina]

1. Settle in place.
2. CHeck the coordinates to see where we are on the map.
3. Most likely send a warrior W,N,E,S each, but focus on defogging every single non-mountain tile.

Later I would send at least 2 warriors on a world tour. We see mountains to the south, possibly blocking land access. If so, we'll want a coastal city asap to explore the beyond. We want to know asap how hard it will be to achieve conquest.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Mitchum]

For what it's worth, I agree with LC's plan. AH first is the obvious plan.

Any other spots than SIP? Do we want wine in our capital's BFC?

 

[BSPollux]

Now that you plan to found your city, let this get you in the right mood. Founding mood.


Link to video.

 

[WastinTime]

For what it's worth, I agree with LC's plan. AH first is the obvious plan.

Any other spots than SIP? Do we want wine in our capital's BFC?

I can only see it on my phone, I can't hardly tell jungle from forest , but I thought settling 1N was a possibility what do we gain or lose there?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I can only see it on my phone, I can't hardly tell jungle from forest , but I thought settling 1N was a possibility what do we gain or lose there?

jjhgjhMff
jhMjffwgg
hMffggggg
ffwggSggg

j.ungle
h.ill
M.ountain
w.ine
g.rass
f.orest
S.ettler
c.oastal

Every growth we see to the south is forest.

Fog-gazing 1 row to the south we get:

cccfMMMccc

 

[LowtherCastle]

Comparison between SIP and 1N

tiles      SIP  1N
totalrivgr  13  13 
totflatrg    9  10
rivergrass   8   6
rivgrasjun   0   1
hilrivgras   2   1
hilgrass     2   1
hilforest    4   4
rivwine      0   1

The early difference between SIP and 1N is that SIP has 4 grass hills (2 river) and 1N has only 2 grass hills (1 river). Also, one of the 1N grass hills has 2 jungles and 1 forest adjacent for unfortunate growth before we mine the hill.

Long-term, 1N adds the river wines.

 

[LowtherCastle]

"Raging Barbs" doubles the number of barb units that can be created.

20 unowned tiles per barb unit.
7 starting cities = ~130 owned tiles.
800/20 = ~40 roaming barbs when fully spawned.
40/7 = ~6 barbs per player on any given turn.

News to me, good to know.

Pretty big difference between 3 barb per turn and 6 barbs per turn.

 

[LowtherCastle]

MM detail for Seraiel:

T37 pop5, working pigs+mines when built, otherwise pigs+mines+2f
T39 mine#4 done

 

[WastinTime]

Had a chance to think about the game on the flight home.
Haven't even downloaded the save.

Just for fun, I like to try to get inside the mapmaker's head. Join me (I think there's plenty of room )
I'm going to predict we get horses, but don't get copper. Here's why:

1. Every team will research AH first, so everyone will see horses at the same time and before settling a 2nd city.
2. We are being discouraged from going for BW (warriors lose their ability)
3. We are being discouraged from going for slavery (capital population rules make it less desirable)

I think if there are no horses, everyone will be pushed to BW which contradicts the game design in #2 and #3. And what's the point of steering players away from the same ol' early BW if you're going to reward them with copper. On top of that, our UU is iron, so it makes sense to give us iron and withhold copper.

4. Normally I might just assume the mapmaker leaves us without both horse AND copper. After all, we're told there are some frustrating challenges ahead. The final reason I think we will get horses is : Raging barbs.
I don't see BSP leading everyone to research AH, then BW only to find they're stuck with warriors to defend against raging barbs. This scenario is supposed to be for new players.

 

[WastinTime]

With no tech trading, we should think about stealing tech.
Seems like a synergistic strategy might be something like....
settle city 3 and gift it.
Settle city 3 again, gift to a different AI
settle our keeper city 3.

Now we have a nice 5 city core (which will fog bust nicely) where we can let the AI develop 2 cities. We steal tech and/or recapture later when we can grow the capital and have sufficient buildings and defenders.

The AI will road to our core for us and drop workers in our lap.

We would also get early foreign trade routes.

It goes well if we pop a GSpy from the GW too.

 

[WastinTime]

fyi. I think corps are wonders (probably not important)
But also I think shrines are wonders. (may also not be useful -- getting a holy city in our capital isn't so easy)

 

[WastinTime]

wonders that look good (cheapest):
(I'm assuming we don't get any of the wonder resources: stone/marble/ivory/gold/copper)

GW
Zeus
MoM
GLib
Parth
ToA
Aqu/HG
AP (nope, thx LC, we can't build AP with diplo VC disabled)

 

[LowtherCastle]

@roomy mapmaker's head big or air?

He also gave us Hunting, encouraging us to early-tech Archery. Unoriginal, but not uncommon, are OTM scenarios with neither horses nor copper.

@No brokering, no tech trading

Tested: We can steal techs.

@AP

Tested: We cannot build it without Diplomatic victory enabled.

 

[Pollina]

With no tech trading, we should think about stealing tech.
Seems like a synergistic strategy might be something like....
settle city 3 and gift it.
Settle city 3 again, gift to a different AI
settle our keeper city 3.

Now we have a nice 5 city core (which will fog bust nicely) where we can let the AI develop 2 cities. We steal tech and/or recapture later when we can grow the capital and have sufficient buildings and defenders.

The AI will road to our core for us and drop workers in our lap.

We would also get early foreign trade routes.

It goes well if we pop a GSpy from the GW too.

One of my first thoughts when I read the game description was that exploitation of city gifts will be kinda important. With "No tech trading", a combination of city gifts and tech stealing is definitely very tempting.

One issue with this strategy I can see is Raging Barbs. How would we ensure that the cities we give away won't get razed by barbs? Grow them to size 2 before we gift them away? Keep some of our own units around? Settle spots that are unlikely to be targeted by barbs?

 

[Pollina]

Who's up first?

Are we in agreement on SIP, or does anyone prefer to settle elsewhere?

Should we get going? Or is it more fun to keep speculating on the mapmaker's intentions instead?

 

[WastinTime]

I'm on board with SIP. Mainly for the 4 unforested hills and it has long term hill potential.
AH of course.
Scout where ever.

LC: great catch on the AP. I couldn't imagine researching Theo, but if we had gotten there somehow, I would have been surprised by the disabled AP.

 

[WastinTime]

Back in BSP's head....
RE: research

When I read "conquest or space", I read:
Conquest (or space )

This could be hint that conquest will go long to roughly match the time it takes for space. Which would imply paratroopers.
Or a truly evil plan would be to make one AI 100% inaccessible forcing everyone to go space.

However, I predict that neither of these are true. This is a 'beginner' scenario with a short time deadline. No way BSP will have us start on conquest only to discover it impossible and then have to go all the way to space (with a limited empire).
I also reject the Paratrooper need for the same reasons.

Pangaea is a nice hint that we don't need Astro either. I think BSP prefers logical hints to insane ocean fortresses. He did that already.

I think we will be fine with HAs or Praets (depending on resources). Probably cats too. I see research including:

IW or HBR, Monarchy, Aesthetics, Construction, Lit, Calendar
(Poly--not Meditation...just in case we need to bulb Astro)

 

[WastinTime]

In case you haven't been around the last few SG's, here are some of the things players have said they would like which BSP may have provided in this scenario.

1. A vertical empire (opposed to horizontal). This is obviously being provided by limiting our city count and encouraging a huge capital.

2. Give us a reason to build something other than granary, and a couple barracks and libraries. Done. We're forced to build many buildings and wonders this time.

3. Make war more of a challenge instead of allowing us to manipulate the AI like a child's toy.
Seems like we might have this too. Raging barbs is on. Also advanced units (4-6 strength) are on the map I'm told. Could be a lot of spearmen? to stop the usual HA rush. Could be a lot of longbowmen. Walls and castles might be popular too.