SGOTM 22 - Anti-TSR

More data

1. If I'm not mistaken, the AI capitals started with this many land tiles:
6
7
8
9
9
9

At least three appear to be inland. That's relevant to our scouting.

2. We currently have 116 owned tiles, worldwide. That means 40 possible barbs spawned / 6 players = ~7 barbs lemming toward each player. Chances are we won't have more than a couple attacking per turn. Seems like 4 archers should be plenty.

But...we have 2 creative AIs and 2 others with holy cities. So they'll all expand borders again by T25. That could easily be 40 more owned tiles. Then there need to be 4 new cities before the barbs will invade our cities. That's another 30 owned tiles, let's say, so we're down to 36 barbs or 6 per non-GW player.
 
Outside the box

We don't need to steal techs if we can reach all AIs. The only expensive techs we need are:
HBR, Math, Aesthetics, and Literature. We don't even need Iron Working. We build Mids-HG for 2 GEs.

There is an alternative to archers: We surround Rome with a Wall of Warriors and put warriors on our improvements. Barbs will only target cities/improvements they can build a path to. 8-12 warriors for Rome. 4 warriors for Horses-1W. 2-3 to spawnbust stone/gems until settled. When we have HBR, we invite barbs for XP.

We need the garrisons for Rome to REX anyway.

The only question is, can we get 7-10 warriors built before barbs reach our borders (assuming we send 3 warriors to the 4 corners of the world)? They will attack if they arrive next to our units.

We can also build 4 cottages in our inner circle, protected by our Wall of Warriors.

.
 
Darius

Guesstimate:
Myst (64b) in 6t @ 13b*4t + 16b*2t = 84b
Medit (103b) in 5t @ 19b*4t + 20b*1t = 96b. Check.
T5 he's at 4fpt + 6hpt
T12 he's teching AH with 34GNP (4ep+7:culture:+17c*1.4b/c)

How does he do that?

Maybe...his capital is on plain hill stone. He starts with 5f3c fish. Pop2 he adds 1f3h4c river plains marble.

Reading BSP's mind. How does he make Conquest harder? In addition to the obvious (raging barbs etc.), he makes Darius a tech and wonder whore, and far away so that by the time we get to him, he's hard to conquer and he keeps building the wonders we hoped to build.
 
WastinTime said:
So, we cripple Darius. by giving him a city far, far away with huge maintenance. Or two cities.
Click to expand...
Yes, we could do that, if we really have to and he's really that far away.

Okay, on the GW, I have some concerns for you, WT. We need to keep moving and we're stuck on this decision.
1. Most likely scenario is that we tech Masonry and get a whopping 20-30g from failgold. What's our next move if we fail the GW?
2. My analysis tends to indicate we're horseshoed by the 6 AIs and they're mostly not too far away. What if they send wandering archers while we're at war? Even a single archer will force us to backburner the GW if we can't CF yet.
3. Do we really want GSpy eps?
4. What do you envision we tech after Masonry?

More broadly, the only cities I like are Rome, Horses and fish. Others have no hammers to speak of. What's our settling plan, especially in teh event we lose the GW, which seems most likely?
 
LowtherCastle said:
Demo clues
1. Either Zara or Gilga appears to be isolated in a no-growth area. +0fpt from T0-T10.

4. Three AIs went 4hpt to build an archer on T3.
5. 3 more archers have been produced as of T12.
Click to expand...
6 archers in 12 turns is a very low number, when we have so many AI with a high hammer output.

Could Zara/Gilga have been working a pre-improved stone quarry while building a worker t0-10?

Any idea what extra units BSP could have given some of the AI (Darius, Zara, Brennus, Hannibal)? Their score would be higher, if he had given them techs, right? We know there is a 5 :strength: unit out there. Axe for Darius and/or Brennus? Maybe some extra archers and chariots for the others. That would explain why the AI built less archers at the start and possibly went worker first.

LowtherCastle said:
Darius

Guesstimate:
Myst (64b) in 6t @ 13b*4t + 16b*2t = 84b
Medit (103b) in 5t @ 19b*4t + 20b*1t = 96b. Check.
T5 he's at 4fpt + 6hpt
T12 he's teching AH with 34GNP (4ep+7:culture:+17c*1.4b/c)

How does he do that?

Maybe...his capital is on plain hill stone. He starts with 5f3c fish. Pop2 he adds 1f3h4c river plains marble.

Reading BSP's mind. How does he make Conquest harder? In addition to the obvious (raging barbs etc.), he makes Darius a tech and wonder whore, and far away so that by the time we get to him, he's hard to conquer and he keeps building the wonders we hoped to build.
Click to expand...
I played around with Darius having that kind of start in the test game. (With riverside sheep instead of fish. He has no Fishing.) In my ~10 test runs, he would always build a very early wonder (usually after 1st worker, but before 1st settler). Mostly The Oracle. Sometimes Stonehenge, when he went for early Mysticism. Never GW. Also, I have not seen him or any other AI build two early wonders in their capital. We may be lucky that our real save Darius went for Mysticism and now can build 2 wonders with higher priority than GW, in case he gets beaten to one of them.

It all comes down to how many other AI start with stone. We should be able to beat any AI without stone to GW. AI without stone/marble appear to go for at least one settler before they start on wonders.
 
Some more test runs with DOW on T0. I get the same behavior from Darius. Oracle before settler in all my tests, sometimes even before worker. Other wonder dates did not appear to be much affected either, but that's hard to tell, as they vary a lot more.
 
LowtherCastle said:
4. What do you envision we tech after Masonry?

More broadly, the only cities I like are Rome, Horses and fish. Others have no hammers to speak of.
Click to expand...

After Masonry, I see Archery, The Wheel
If we fail the GW, we would probably need a building, so Myst/monument then.
Maybe no Archery at all. Depends how much danger we see or how a test games plays out.

I thought Deer/gems had quite a few forests, but I didn't think about it's hammer potential. That city is seemingly going in a dead-end direction. Still, it could produce a lot of defenders for our capital which needs to focus on wonders. The gems are important for happiness and our economy needs that boost too.
 
On 2nd thought....

I'd like to think we don't need archery until we're ready to get HBR. We may never need/want HBR. So I would go The Wheel after Masonry.

We can get roads in place for chariots to be built in the capital.
Produce GW T41, finish warrior, a settler T47, 2 warriors (to get 4 defenders)
Settle T49
Horse connected T52
Chariot T54. Can we survive on warriors until T54? should be use our 4 warriors to defog/defend instead of explore much longer?
 
After Wheel?
No sense thinking about HBR/archery until we set up our core cities.

Pottery/Granary, Myst/monument.

We need a 3rd building to be able to settle a gift city for Darius, then settle a city #3 for us.
Then we need the 4th building (assumes we have GW).
 
Pollina said:
6 archers in 12 turns is a very low number, when we have so many AI with a high hammer output.

Could Zara/Gilga have been working a pre-improved stone quarry while building a worker t0-10?
Click to expand...
That seems like an excellent explanation for the switch from 2 total food to 4 total food on T10. :goodjob:

Pollina said:
Any idea what extra units BSP could have given some of the AI (Darius, Zara, Brennus, Hannibal)? Their score would be higher, if he had given them techs, right? We know there is a 5 :strength: unit out there. Axe for Darius and/or Brennus? Maybe some extra archers and chariots for the others. That would explain why the AI built less archers at the start and possibly went worker first.
Click to expand...
I don't know how to guess what units but I do have the following score guesstimates. Hannibal started with 15, Darius probably 17, others are speculation.

Code: 
      Total Partial scores
      Score Techs Archer Other Units  
      ----- ----- ------ ----------- 
Hanni   15     8     3     4 spear?
Brennu  15     8     3     4 spear?
Sal     17    10     3     4 spear             
Zara    17    10     3     4 spear?
Gilga   17    10     3     4 spear?
Dariu   17     8     3     6 axe? or 2*archer

or

      Total Partial scores
      Score Techs Archer Other Units  
      ----- ----- ------ ----------- 
Hanni   15     8     3     4 spear?
Brennu  16     8     3     4 ?
Sal     16    10     3     4 ?             
Zara    17    10     3     4 spear?
Gilga   17    10     3     4 spear?
Dariu   17     8     3     6 axe? or 2*archer

Pollina said:
It all comes down to how many other AI start with stone. We should be able to beat any AI without stone to GW. AI without stone/marble appear to go for at least one settler before they start on wonders.
Click to expand...
I'm assuming all started with stone quarries to go with Masonry. BSP didn't give out free Mysticism. He wanted to ensure GW gets built by some AI. How many also have marble is debateable. PH is harder for us to get, the Oracle easier for the AIs to beat us too.

Note: I'm only showing Sal, Darius, and Brennus with Mysticism right now. I think I mistakenly reported before that 4-6 had it. I should have reported 3-4.

.
 
WastinTime said:
After Masonry, I see Archery, The Wheel
If we fail the GW, we would probably need a building, so Myst/monument then.
Maybe no Archery at all. Depends how much danger we see or how a test games plays out.

I thought Deer/gems had quite a few forests, but I didn't think about it's hammer potential. That city is seemingly going in a dead-end direction. Still, it could produce a lot of defenders for our capital which needs to focus on wonders. The gems are important for happiness and our economy needs that boost too.
Click to expand...
The southern peninsula is excellent for gifting cities because we can block barbs at a single chokepoint.

WastinTime said:
On 2nd thought....

I'd like to think we don't need archery until we're ready to get HBR. We may never need/want HBR. So I would go The Wheel after Masonry.

We can get roads in place for chariots to be built in the capital.
Produce GW T41, finish warrior, a settler T47, 2 warriors (to get 4 defenders)
Settle T49
Horse connected T52
Chariot T54. Can we survive on warriors until T54? should be use our 4 warriors to defog/defend instead of explore much longer?
Click to expand...
You see, that's part of the conundrum. I would think 2 or 3 exploring warriors are a high priority so targeting GW has to be able to accommodate that.

WastinTime said:
After Wheel?
No sense thinking about HBR/archery until we set up our core cities.

Pottery/Granary, Myst/monument.

We need a 3rd building to be able to settle a gift city for Darius, then settle a city #3 for us.
Then we need the 4th building (assumes we have GW).
Click to expand...
Okay. Personally, I think that sets us up for potential catastrophe. Once there are 4 new cities, we will get hit with a wave of barbs and that's likely to start between T30 and T40, easily before we complete or fail GW. We either hope AIs build wonders or settlers/units. That's our conundrum. If they build wonders, we fail at GW. If they build settlers, we get swarmed by barbs before we're done with GW. If they build units, they could send a single archer or higher unit at us and our goose is cooked (game over) without any defending archers.

What I'm looking for is a GW-gambit solution that yields:
1. exploration
2. safety
3. a sensible plan forward if we fail GW, which seems highly likely.

This might be one of those situations where the luckiest thing that could happen is that GW goes on T15.
 
Pollina said:
6 archers in 12 turns is a very low number, when we have so many AI with a high hammer output.

Could Zara/Gilga have been working a pre-improved stone quarry while building a worker t0-10?
Click to expand...
That seems like an excellent explanation for the switch from 2 total food to 4 total food on T10. :goodjob:
Click to expand...
Hm...problem. On T10, when Zara/Gilga goes to 4fpt, the minimum hpt is still at 3hpt. How to explain that?
Code: 
    city tile  wkrbuild
T1  2f1h  4h     5fhpt
T10 2f1h  2f2h   5fhpt
Okay, I guess the stone tile might have 1c and the 2f2h might be a deer grass forest hill.

Lot of contortions this guessing game puts you through. :D
 
Pollina said:
when we have so many AI with a high hammer output.
Click to expand...
We know one AI started out at 5hpt and 2 others had at least 4hpt. Furthermore the average fpt was 5fpt, so they're working at least a 3f tile (or started with barays :) ). That indicates a strong likelihood of plains hill if not stone/marble hill starts for 2-3 AIs, maybe even all of them. A typical Demo screen hammer stat for most games are 2h max and 1h average. Here we have 5h max, 3h average, 2h minimum.

If I'm correct about Darius, he has produced (10+)12+30+21=73h.
T0 10h
T3 19h (9K gained by AIs =? 3 archers built by 3 AIs)
T7 40h (4K gained by AIs = 1pop + archer or Rax)
T8 46h (6K gained by AIs = 2 archer/Rax)
T12 73h

Darius might have built a Rax on T8. Otherwise, with stone, Darius would have already completed SH. The Oracle could fall next turn.

The above analysis implies that 3 other AIs built the 3 archers on T3, running 4hpt. Add Zara/Gilg building your worker at 5hpt, and we have these starting hpts: 5,4,4,4,3,2.
Code: 
          T3       T4     T5     T6    T7     T8        T9       T10    T11    T12 T12hpt T12pop HasMyst?
Han 2hAI1 16h                    22h-? 24h-p2 27h                33h           39h  @3hpt  pop2  
Dar 3hAI2 19h      22h-p2        34h          46h-Rax?           12h-p3 19h    26h  @7hpt  pop3  Myst
Sal 4hAI3 22h-arch        4h-p2   8h          16h       20h-p3   26h           38h  @6hpt  pop3  Myst
Bre 4hAI4 22h-arch        6h?-p2 12h?         22h-arch?  6h-p3   12h    19h    26h  @7hpt  pop3  Myst
    4hAI5 22h-arch                8h          16h                24h           36h  @4hpt  pop1
    5hAI6 25fh-wkr               40fh         50fh      55fh-wkr  3h-2f         9h  @3hpt  pop1

MaxAIHpt   5hpt            6hpt                6hpt                7hpt  
MinAIHpt   2hpt            2hpt                3hpt                3hpt 
TotAveHpt  3hpt            4hpt   4hpt         4hpt                [COLOR="Red"]4hpt   5hpt[/COLOR] 
TotHammer 22h             25h    27h          28h                 29h    30h   
Comments: TotAveHpt has to correspond to demo screen          **[COLOR="Red"]tricky part here[/COLOR]**
1. It appears from this likely that Darius built a barracks, because Hannibal would have completed an archer 2 turns earlier. We'll find out next turn.
2. Significant here is the amount of hammers in each AI's build as on T12. Sal, Darius, and Brennus could be building (Oracle or) SH rather than GW. Zara/Gilga are not growing, so settler or worker is likely. That leaves Hannibal. IF he's building GW with stone, he'll complete it T22 to T25.
3. Darius, Sal, and Brennus with stone could complete the GW in a minimum of 12t. They can start it any time before ~T28 and beat us to it. Later if they tech BW and whip it at the end.

Okay, folks, I think I've about maxed out the data analysis I'm going to do. I'm leaving town tomorrow and pretty much a way from the game till Thursday.

Someone needs to take the save. WT? Pollina? DV? Seraiel?
 
LC, is there anything the next player needs to watch for each turn? Score changes? Power changes? F/H/C changes? Are there any specific triggers we should watch for and stop if they happen?

Of course, we don't even have an agreed plan so that needs to happen first. ;)

Thanks for doing the analysis. I used to do it for PBEM games and I know how much work it is!
 
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