SGOTM 22 - Xteam

[Jersey Joe]

I did the AGR first test in the original test game, so the extra beakers have to be due to meeting more leaders.
That you only met Saladin does not surprise me. Even though I generated a pangea the map it might also be called a snaky continent. This makes Saladin the "gateway" to the rest of the map. I figured as we explore and meet people in the real game I could adjust this map. Otherwise if you want I could change the map.

Looks like we build the WB, worker and GW in the same way. When I start the worker I change 1 forested hill to pig and next turn I work fish and pig until worker built. Pigs and fish till pop 5 then only fish.

Neil, I did a test game with new file and had about the same beakers in writing as you did I finished GW in 2080 (no starving) with 113 beakers in writing. At 2120bc I have 97 beakers in writing.

 

[neilmeister]

I did the same when building the worker. If we work the Pigs instead of Fish at pop 5 we lose 4 beakers but gain enough food to switch Pigs to GH 1t earlier which means finishing GW 2120, with 93 beakers in Writing.

OK, I think we have enough testing.

Unless anyone objects, I will play out this opening.

 

[neilmeister]

Oh dear, I just realised I managed to reverse the coordinates....
really sorry

x=24, y=12.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Oh dear, I just realised I managed to reverse the coordinates....
really sorry

x=24, y=12.

No problem. I will just make up a new map. In addition to Saladin, should I have few more AI's that we can "quickly" contacted?

Neil, I vote you play it.

Post a screen shot or 2 and I will incorporate that in the new map based on the (24,12) coordinates and any information on any AI that contacts you.

 

[neilmeister]

No need for additional AI's, I was just trying to understand why my test results didnt match yours.

Will wait longer to allow the rest of the team to object before playing of course.

 

[Jersey Joe]

y=12 is close to the bottom of the map Saladin must be freezing his ass off having settled on a glacier.

 

[Htadus]

Good capital location guys. I am not sure if avoiding BW is such a great idea. I am off to see what are the fine points of the MP's are.

 

[leif erikson]

I'm comfortable with you going ahead neil.

Only question I have is what is the tech path going to be?

 

[Jersey Joe]

The last tech path neil and I tried was:
Agriculture->Masonry->Animal Husbandry->Wheel->Pottery->Writing
Agr is an alternate prerequisite for AH and Pottery so knowing it means we generate 2-3 beakers more per turn while learning those 2 techs.

 

[Htadus]

I got carried away with testing a different path last night. Then got tired since I have been training myself to go to bed before 12AM, so I went to sleep.

 

[Folket]

Problem with going BW is that city 2 is delayed until we have 4 archers/axemen/chariots.

 

[Htadus]

I tested going for second city from the get go with a monument as the second build.
It was touch and go with the completion of the GW. I got it each time, but it was in 18XXBC and Barbs were coming in already. The second building was the biggest issue.

 

[Htadus]

Problem with going BW is that city 2 is delayed until we have 4 archers/axemen/chariots.

No, I had the second city much sooner before BW.

EDIT: I just realized my ini file is a very short document and there is no way to set up autosaves to every turn.

This is all it has.

Spoiler :

[CONFIG]

; Allow Camera Flying
AllowFlying = 0

; Dont show the game background during movies - may speed up movie playing
HideMovieBackground = 0

; Enable Trilinear Filtering for the Minimap
MinimapTrilinearFilter = 1

; A non-zero value overrides the FIELD_OF_VIEW parameter from GlobalDefines.xml
FIELD_OF_VIEW = 0

; Enable Tree Region Cutting
CutTrees = 1

The file was created today.

 

[leif erikson]

The last tech path neil and I tried was:
Agriculture->Masonry->Animal Husbandry->Wheel->Pottery->Writing
Agr is an alternate prerequisite for AH and Pottery so knowing it means we generate 2-3 beakers more per turn while learning those 2 techs.

No early Archery? What if we lose Great Wall?

 

[Htadus]

Why agriculture first?

 

[Htadus]

After running bunch of different tests. I highly recommend that we do the following.

First tech=Masonry
First build=WB

At size two work 2 grassy forested hills to complete the WB.

Second tech=AH and then head toward Pottery after Archery if we do not see horses.
Second Build= GW while working food tiles to grow the city to size 4

At size 4 work 3 forested hills and the fish.

Third Build = Settler, we should have size 5 capital by now.

Settle city two (1880 BC, T53) and start warriors.

Fourth Build = who knows? It should be a worker or a building.

This will assure that we will have GW as our second building for the second city to be establish.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Htadus, using the tech path Agri -> Masonry -> AH means that when we research AH we know 2 of its prerequisite techs (Agri & Hunting). Knowing the extra prerequisite tech means we get 20% extra beakers when researching AH.

In my tests I just finish the settler in 1880 BC and assuming no barbarian dodging it takes 3 turns to settle on a hill to claim river wines, ivory and bananas. However, in 1880 BC, I have a worker and you are 3 turns away from building a worker plus I have a mined hill (4 turns) and have pastured the pigs (4 turns) plus the mined hill has been worked and generating an extra hammer and beaker since 2640BC.

Leif, if we lose the GW it will be around 2200BC when we are researching writing, at that point we could switch to archery (5 turns to learn) while building a granary (6 turns to build). There are other alternatives and at that point we would have more information (e.g have we found horses) so it is hard to say what we would do.

 

[Htadus]

Htadus, using the tech path Agri -> Masonry -> AH means that when we research AH we know 2 of its prerequisite techs (Agri & Hunting). Knowing the extra prerequisite tech means we get 20% extra beakers when researching AH. I know about the 20% bonus but learning a tech we do not need for a while is not a bonus. In that case why has no one recommended learning Myst to get the science bonus for Pottery? We can actually use Myst to get the cheap building.

In my tests I just finish the settler in 1880 BC and assuming no barbarian dodging it takes 3 turns to settle on a hill to claim river wines, ivory and bananas. However, in 1880 BC, I have a worker and you are 3 turns away from building a worker plus I have a mined hill (4 turns) and have pastured the pigs (4 turns) plus the mined hill has been worked and generating an extra hammer and beaker since 2640BC. I do not think that we can prove which option is the best without going further down the timeline. I am willing to run a test later tonight. Experience tell me that if we have goal, go after it with full effort and the option I provided does just that. Who knows, may be Neil might feel like acquiring Sal's worker and we will also have a worker to go along.

Leif, if we lose the GW it will be around 2200BC when we are researching writing, at that point we could switch to archery (5 turns to learn) while building a granary (6 turns to build). There are other alternatives and at that point we would have more information (e.g have we found horses) so it is hard to say what we would do.

Waiting to learn a tech until we need is not the way to go, I believe in my test, I had 1 turn left to complete BW. Any tech we learn, should be a tech we need, filling in techs does not take that much time. BTW, lets put all our espy on Sal.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Waiting to learn a tech until we need is not the way to go, I believe in my test, I had 1 turn left to complete BW. Any tech we learn, should be a tech we need, filling in techs does not take that much time. BTW, lets put all our espy on Sal.

I do like the fact that by not building a worker and going WB-> GW on the test I just finished; GW was built and I started building a settler at 2240BC. The earliest I saw the AI finish GW was 2200BC, so using your way of building I would not have lost out to AI the few times I did.

I am switching my vote to we go WB->GW and start by researching Masonry. Now we just need to settle on the rest of the techs to study while building the GW and since seeing if we have horses and where they are we probably should limit the discussion to: Masonry->AH vs Masonry->Agri->AH
Learning Agri will give our future worker(s) something to do besides waiting for us to learn Monarchy to be able to build a winery, or Calender to build plantations.

 

[neilmeister]

I do not countenance having 2 cities before we build a worker. It doesn't make any sense to me. I will put up a test save that best represents this run, but only for comparison.

I am not so fixed on Agr first, as it made no difference to the GW build time (2120 or t47) but it did result in saving quite a few beakers.

The real choice here is do we:
1) go WB->Worker->GW->Settler and risk that someone else builds GW before us, or
not and build GW direct saving 4 turns, which itself has 2 sub-choices:
2) go WB->GW->Worker->Settler,
3) go WB->GW->Settler->Worker,

In all the runs we get the same techs, but in slightly different orders. I am not arguing for Granary after the first 4 builds, it is there solely for comparison.

Comparing the runs directly:

1) WB->Worker->GW->Settler
Worker (3000bc, t25)
GW (2120bc, t47)
Settler (1880bc, t53), settled 1800bc, t55
Caput Mundi is working Pigs, Fish, Mine, Cottage & Farm, all improved. There is a road between the 2 cities.
We are 9 beakers from getting the last tech.
26/60 hammers into Granary (this could have been half another worker!)
21/30 food in storage
City 2 has 2 food in storage & 1 hammers into whatever, our worker is already improving tiles for City 2

2) WB->GW->Worker->Settler
GW (2280bc, t43)
Worker (2040bc, t49)
Settler (1760bc, t56)
Caput Mundi is working improved Pigs & Fish, and 3 unimproved GH's. There are no roads.
We are 77 beakers from the last tech
0/60 hammers into Granary (though we have 4 o/f hammers going into it)
4/30 food in storage
City 2 still 2 turns from being settled

3) WB->GW->Settler->Worker
GW (2280bc, t43)
Settler (2000bc, t50), settled 1880bc, t53
Worker (1760bc, t56)
Caput Mundi is working Fish, and 4 unimproved GH's. There are no roads, our only worker will not start to pasture the pigs until next turn.
We are 79 beakers from the last tech
0/60 hammers into Granary (0 o/f hammers )
4/30 food in storage
City 2 has 6 food in storage & 3 hammers into whatever.

So, am I happy to risk ALL by delaying GW by 4 turns and get ourselves into a potentially winning position: YES
Comparing the 3 runs there is no comparison which is best...... assuming we get GW of course

I stopped at 1760bc as this is the date the first 4 builds are finished in all variants, but the differences between the saves will only get starker if I went further as there is a huge difference in improved tiles already.


*NOTE* All dates are when the city can start the next thing. So if GW finished 2280bc this means that this is the turn we started the settler/worker. Settler finished means it can move on that date.