SGOTM 22 - Xteam

Htadus · Oct 21, 2015

Jersey Joe said:
I am not convinced that settling the cows is superior to settling the 4 resources in the jungle or even to settling to get the silk west of us.

Joe, how about you do a test settling on your choice site and I will do where I am proposing the city site and see how everything stands when we learn Alphabet. I will post my save later tonight. Then we can make an informed decision as to which is better.

Since I know that without IW that city is going to be sick and without calendar, it can not give us additional happiness, I do not want to test it myself. However, it will give us a very useful happy and will have good amount of food but it will only have 3 hills to use all that food. But it will have 12 base hammers when using all the hammer tiles, which is good to go along with a Forge. I did not say it is not a good site but it is not a good site right now.

Htadus · Oct 21, 2015

Ronnie1 said:
I am pretty certain that BSP tried to design a scenario that will take us BEYOND Cuirassiers.

It could but should not with good planning.

leif erikson said:
That's a long game with no tech trading!

It will be in that case. I guess we better get going.

BSPollux said:
No pain, no gain

Ah-nold the body builder line. I believe it is way over rated. We are going to pump you up.

Ronnie1 · Oct 21, 2015

After playing around with the test save a bit, I am inclined to go IW before Alpha and settle to grab the elephants next.

Ronnie1 · Oct 21, 2015

Also, we need to fogbust our settling choice either way, I had barb cities forming by turn 80ish.

Jersey Joe · Oct 21, 2015

Htadus said:
Joe, how about you do a test settling on your choice site and I will do where I am proposing the city site and see how everything stands when we learn Alphabet. I will post my save later tonight. Then we can make an informed decision as to which is better.

Since I know that without IW that city is going to be sick and without calendar, it can not give us additional happiness, I do not want to test it myself. However, it will give us a very useful happy and will have good amount of food but it will only have 3 hills to use all that food. But it will have 12 base hammers when using all the hammer tiles, which is good to go along with a Forge. I did not say it is not a good site but it is not a good site right now.

I will run some tests, they should go out further than just learning alpha. I suggest that we save on the turn we get a great person and play on with a GS then replay with a GM. With the GS I will be settling him for the 3 sci and 12 ep per turn. GM will run short mission to rome for about 900 gold.

Also, I will probably do a test going IW->Myst->Alpha

I have a commitment tonight so I will post results tomorrow.

Jersey Joe · Oct 21, 2015

Ronnie1 said:
Also, we need to fogbust our settling choice either way, I had barb cities forming by turn 80ish.

The barbs have already settled out to the far east. In most of the test games I play they also settle by the horses.

Htadus · Oct 21, 2015

Ronnie1 said:
After playing around with the test save a bit, I am inclined to go IW before Alpha and settle to grab the elephants next.

If we get a non GSpy GM. this would be a good call. If we get a GSpy, we just set ourselves back by that many turns. Just for 1 happy more than any other reason. I would rather go with Neal's Gem City. Since it will give us some badly needed commerce. May be BSP has placed Iron on one of the tundra hills. Hummm?
Testing.

Htadus · Oct 22, 2015

Here is my excuse of a test.

Spoiler :

T72: Worker to FGH 1S3E of cap to chop (This guy should road to new city and farm the wine sooner). Settler and worker heading out to Cow site. Capital: working fish, 2 mines and cottage. Alpha in 18T, GLH in 10T. Switch build to an archer. GIFT: to complete Archer. Woodie exploring and will head toward Ivory.
T73: Worker start chop. Capital whip archer. Move new archer 1 tiel toward Cap. Start archer and Gift GIFT to Darius. Opps OB with Darius and send back warrior. 2 AI are upset with us. Alpha in 20T due to loss of Sci. Cap: Working Pig, cottage and Fish.
T74: 4Archers in the capital to go with the 4 pop. Settel Rome with Cow and Wine. Move an archer toward GIFT. Another is heading south. Woody is heading to Ivory. Cap: Work fish, mine and cottage. 1 unhappy. GLH in 14T. Rome start Library. Worker start a farm on ivory.
T75: Find Sal to north. Chop is in to the GLH. Archer and a warrior defending GIFT. Worker start a road to N toward Ivory City.
T76: This game has horses to the north. No unhappy in Cap. GLH in 5T. Alpha in 13T. Working Fish, 2 mines and a cottage.
T77: Cap: Whip GLH for 2 Pop(might as well finish asap). Exploring. Working Fish and Pig. Sci=0%.
T78: Wine Farm done or Rome. GP in 9T (This should not change

) Alpha in 13T. After Alpha, we can even build beakers. Another reason for Alpha next. Cap start Granery. Sci=100%
T79: Cap at 3 pop. Work Fish, Mine and cottage.
T80: Start second farm for Rome. Capital back to 4 pop with 1 unhappy.
T81: Exploring and roading. Rome grow to 2 next turn. So switch to Archer. Sci=0%.
T82: Whip archer in Rome. Sci=100%.
T83: Setting capt to Grow in 3 turn to pop 5. Rome cont Lib. Send archer toward horse and corn site.
T84: Prechoping. Roading to banana.
T85: Same.
T86: Capital size 5 and 1 unhappy. Set city to grow in 3.
T87: We get a GSpy and bomb in GIFT. Damn. We need to change Espy to Darius. BTW, Darius's tech rate dropped like a lead ball. We can see Sal is learning IW. Darius is learning Writing. Sci=0%,
T88: Switch capital to a settler.
T89: Bringing back archers. Prechopping.
T90: Switch Rome to archer.
T91: Connecting 2 cities. This could be done better.
T92: Alpha is in.

I should not have whip the archer in Rome and Should not have completed the first archer. The first archer should have been whipped for at least for 10 or more hammer overflow and finished during last turn. Then with the overflow, whip a spy immidiately. Need to replay this.

This whole sequance is not good. We need to have at least 2 spys ready on the second turn after we learn Alpha to go steal techs. And the third settler should be chopped in new Rome as well as a lib should be chopped there. Also the capital should get its Lib done way sooner. Re-test again tomorrow
The jungle city really needs iron. Joe, you must have some inside map info from BSP. No Iron anywhere close to us but Darius was willing to trade.

Jersey Joe · Oct 22, 2015

Here is a test I did with Tech path being Alpha->Math and building Jungle city then Gem city.

Spoiler :

Htadus, it looks like we got about the same results and we both need a border pop. Where are you settling new Rome? Is it 1 NE of the wet wine at the river bend?

Actually, even though I advocated for Alpha and steal IW after several tests, going IW->Myst->Alpha seems to be superior. I am at about the same spot in 275bc but if Iron exists in the west (by the silk) I have a chance to settle it before the AIs. Also, Jungle city gets developed quicker.

Ronnie1 · Oct 22, 2015

Played around with the test save some more and I have some general observations.

By T87'ish we see barb Axes appearing. Our best counter is currently Archers, problematic for fogbusting flat open locations.

We need more units fogbusting our immediate vicinity or the good city sites will disappear.

If we go east towards the wines/cow site first, we need to fogbust our elephant site as the highest priority. We will still not know where Iron is located, and the Elephants may be our only option for a more powerful unit.

If we get a GM instead of a GSpy, we will be set back significantly.

We need a bulbing strategy and a food heavy city to make it work, or take what we get at random'ish odds out of Caput.

The new second city needs to produce Archers immediately imo. For this reason, I favor the Elephant site next. It can work a mine from early on and build archers in 7 turns. IW next allows farming the bananas soon. That makes this city viable pretty quickly because we have 3 workers to dedicate since Caput is mostly finished for improvements in the short term whipping cycle it is in.

This also lets us know sooner if Iron is available to us or we are going Cata/Phant for our earliest warring for sure.

Ronnie1 · Oct 22, 2015

Ran another test.

225bc Alpha is learned having gone MYST > IW > ALPHA

At 200bc, Caput is size 8 ready to 2 pop whip a Spy, overflow will finish the Library and most of the 40 :hammers:

will go to the build following that.

New city 2 was founded in the jungle NW and is size 3, working on a Library, already possessing a Monument and Granary.

City 3 went to Gem site as wine/cow was barb city by then. It is size 3 and 2 turns from completing its Library.

Gifting of Rome slows down whatever civ we gift to substantially, I am back to favoring Sal, as he is a runaway train in the test game having just teched or bulbed Theology and immediately switched to Theocracy. :borg:

I am going to try going east first and see if it feels any better.

Jersey Joe · Oct 22, 2015

Ronnie1 said:
Ran another test.

225bc Alpha is learned having gone MYST > IW > ALPHA

At 200bc, Caput is size 8 ready to 2 pop whip a Spy, overflow will finish the Library and most of the 40 will go to the build following that.

New city 2 was founded in the jungle NW and is size 3, working on a Library, already possessing a Monument and Granary.

City 3 went to Gem site as wine/cow was barb city by then. It is size 3 and 2 turns from completing its Library.

Gifting of Rome slows down whatever civ we gift to substantially, I am back to favoring Sal, as he is a runaway train in the test game having just teched or bulbed Theology and immediately switched to Theocracy.

I am going to try going east first and see if it feels any better.

Ronnie, Going IW > MYST > ALPHA is a little better. If Iron is around we find it 3 turns sooner, which might be the difference between us settling it and the AI.

Iron is not the explored area of the test game. For testing I would put iron over by the silk in the west.

When I was doing tests with gifting to Sal over 50% of the time Rome became a Holy city when Sal learned Theology and it spread Christianity to us while Sal's state religion is Hinduism.

Htadus · Oct 22, 2015

Barb cities are not a bad thing. Let them pop. That is raze gold waiting to happen.

I am not worried about an AI taking Iron either, then we claim either copper or horses (since BSP made sure that both can not be controlled by 1 city) and go take the darn city. Also there is a great chance that we can trade for some metal.

Learning IW is not a wise choice. It is wasted turns. Every AI goes after Math. This game is about the wonders. Math gives us 1 and Aesthetics leads to 2+2 wonders when Literature comes around. It is a common knowledge that AI do not favor Aesthetics and we should use the advantage to our favor while stealing our self to tech parity.

I too am leaning back towards Sal but just Marginally. I would rather have his cities. Also he has that Shrine, so I would go after him asap.

Jersey Joe said:
Htadus, it looks like we got about the same results and we both need a border pop. Where are you settling new Rome? Is it 1 NE of the wet wine at the river bend?

Yes NE. BTW Joe, had I settle the GSpy in the Capital, the results will not even be close. Settling the GSpy is a short term solution for a long term game.
Testing.

Htadus · Oct 23, 2015

I played the game a bit past T93 and found out I was only able to steal IW and after that Darius had no techs available. I waited until his current tech, monarchy, was completed and still there is no techs to steal. That is odd. Last night I stole my way to Monarchy.

Here is my new test to T93 when Alpha was learned. In this game The capital had a library and a granary by T97. Second city also had a library. Alpha and IW in but no other techs to steal. Also, if I recall correctly, a GSpy usually give 4000 points on a standard size and normal speed maps. Why is our GSpy give just 3000 points?

Spoiler :

Htadus · Oct 23, 2015

Woke up with two ideas.

1. Set our next tech to HBR and go build the horse city and go after Sal as soon as possible. Or.
2. Gift a city each to Darius and Sal. Give Rome to Darius and make him our tech target and give the next city in the jungle to Sal to slow his tech rate.

BTW, we should build that jungle city without sugar(?) and make it our HE city.

Off to work.

Cactus Pete · Oct 23, 2015

"Learning IW is not a wise choice. It is wasted turns. Every AI goes after Math. " It is not wasted turns because it would be helpful to know location before settling. There is the trade off, however, that the AI will surely tech it early.

Two-city gift idea is interesting, but we need to found some cities of our own right now.

Setting next tech at HBR and going warring ASAP seems incompatible with building early less expensive wonders, which I agree are probably going to be a limiting factor. Also, we are ignorant of the map and therefore don't know who and where we would have to conquer.

Jersey Joe · Oct 23, 2015

Htadus said:
Barb cities are not a bad thing. Let them pop. That is raze gold waiting to happen.

I am not worried about an AI taking Iron either, then we claim either copper or horses (since BSP made sure that both can not be controlled by 1 city) and go take the darn city. Also there is a great chance that we can trade for some metal.

How do you suggest we capture these cities? Archers will not cut it. We would have to go with Cats and Elephants. That is a long way off tech wise.
In most my tests the horses get settled by barbs. I have tried settling copper and taking the horses from the barbs with axemen and archers and it is a costly fight.

Htadus said:
Learning IW is not a wise choice. It is wasted turns. Every AI goes after Math. This game is about the wonders. Math gives us 1 and Aesthetics leads to 2+2 wonders when Literature comes around.

Is it a waste of turns? If Iron shows up on the map we may have a chance to settle it. Even without finding Iron it we could clear 3-4 tiles of jungle during those "wasted" turns waiting to learn alpha and steal IW. Math is the gateway to many techs we need. You want us to wait to steal Math? If we tech it ourselves we could be teching Construction or Calendar while stealing our way to Monarchy.

Htadus said:
It is a common knowledge that AI do not favor Aesthetics and we should use the advantage to our favor while stealing our self to tech parity.

We cannot steal our way to tech parity. We can only steal techs an AI knows. The best thing to do is pick an AI like Sal whose tech path is mostly on the bottom of the chart while we tech the top. We should view stealing as a supplement to our teching not as a replacement.

Htadus said:
BTW Joe, had I settle the GSpy in the Capital, the results will not even be close. Settling the GSpy is a short term solution for a long term game.

Seems to me with Darius you have about 2800 eps going unused because he does not have any techs to steal. A settled spy could redirect points to another AI. Granted if you had chosen Sal for the gift you could have used up about 800 eps stealing IW, religious techs and Monarchy. It takes a settled spy 67 turns to earn that many eps. The spy would have been settled for about 20 turns before the first steal so 47 turns to go, but in those 20 turns the settled spy also gives us 60 beakers which is enough to pay for teching Myst so we do not have to steal it. Further, having more spies than 2 in a city makes it likely 1 will be caught. Stealing requires several turns so the 47 turns gets closer to 30 turns need to close the gap. Also, when we start warring we can redirect our efforts and use spies to weaken city defenses.

Htadus said:
if I recall correctly, a GSpy usually give 4000 points on a standard size and normal speed maps. Why is our GSpy give just 3000 points?

For BtS, Normal Speed is 3,000 eps, Epic speed is 4,500 eps, and Marathon is 9,000 eps.

Htadus · Oct 23, 2015

I do not think I am being clear with respect to tech path. So let me try again.

Limitations for the player will be building 7 wonders,
Tech rate, and
Eventual VC.

Our tech path is crucial for each of above items. We need to know the right tech to build the right wonder. It is quite apparent, that these AI are given wonder city sites and if we do not consider them to be nearly Immortal if not Deity level, we are risking the outcome of this Game. These AI has likely already learned Math and likely already have access to Stone and Marble. They will easily beat us to HG. Sals capital is size 8 and Hannies size 7 and they have great production already.

Let me try to make an argument under each of these Items;

1: We need either stone or marble or a tech that AI do not prioritize. They are the last to Aesthetics usually. We can have a monopoly on those wonders. The idea is to get them done soon right? So why not go after wonders we know we can build easily without competition. That is why Aesthetics should be our wonder priority and not math.

2: The reason I am dead set against learning a tech that we can steal is that it is waste of limited amount of Bulbs we will generate in this game. Also going for alpha allow us to build science. So if we do not get a GSpy, we can speed to IW building bulbs. If there are no other sites that can be available, then I can see the extreme urgency to learn IW. It is not the case. Anything that delay us to Aesthetics will have snowball effects in this game. It is as simple as every tech we have to learn on our own will delay the entire game. (Yes it may take us to Modern Armor if we get things wrong.)

Ronnie mentioned about the bulb path. BSP did his best to make sure that we have very little control over this matter with all the wonders we are going to build. It is very likely we will be running many Golden Ages in this game.

3: Either this become a Space or Conquest game, the fastest route involve us following a path AI do not follow (unless we need a wonder like Colossus) and stealing techs from AI while learn techs AI do not go for.

What if we spend 7-8 turns learning IW and there is no Iron anywhere? I would not put it past BSP. Could we have not wait a few more turns to steal the tech? I do not believe I am having to make this argument. I am going to go play the current BOTM.

Ronnie1 · Oct 23, 2015

The focus of my test was to develop a new city in the jungle because it is a lot closer than the wine/cow city. The Elephants combined with the Gems allows Caput to grow to the point where we can settle 2 more cities towards Sal once we know where he is.

That puts us on a Cat/Elephant attack path which we know we have the resources to pull off. If iron shows up, that is great, however, if there is not any iron near by, and we have not secured the elephants, we are in trouble.

The wine/cow site feels very far away.

Ronnie1 · Oct 23, 2015

If Alpha is absolutely the next tech we want, the fastest way to it is to settle the gem site next.

SGOTM 22 - Xteam

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