SGOTM 23 - Xteam

[Dhoomstriker]

The big thing that got us stuck was Churchill's Culture, which overall, most of the team seems to believe is only going to be an issue for the Fish. For me, it's Phoenix Rising's clear continuation on to Animal Husbandry without immediately going for Writing afterward that convinces me that Churchill must be on an island. For others, it is the geographical clues.

At Size 6, once 1 E has reached its "full potential" in terms of working Mines and Resource squares (i.e. after that, we would work G Riv squares--Cottages or Farms), we have:
1 E = 6 Food + 12 Hammers
1 N = 10 Food + 8 Hammers

Assuming that 1 N is working an extra G Riv Hamlet and later a Village with its 6th citizen, the Commerce is about equal.

For a capital that has early Wonders to build, I'd consider taking the Hammers. But, Forest Chops could also be used in place of Hammers for Wonders. Those points made, we don't have ANY Wonders targeted for the capital, with only Oxford University coming later, which will be one-turn built using Chops and Whip overflow... i.e. Mines will play no role in completing Oxford University. If we were to slow-build Oxford University in a teching game, it would mean that we screwed up.

Stonehenege is gone. The Oracle is gone. The Pyramids are gone. The Great Library is gone. The Great Wall is extremely questionable without us playing against Immortal or Deity AIs and not having Raging Barbs, particularly on a map where you have 12 opponents, some of whom won't care that it's inefficient to start building The Great Wall before building their first Settler and without Stone, leaving us no real chance to build it.


Once you aren't building Wonders, base Hammers become far less important, as it is only when building Wonders where Whipping (directly Whipping the Wonder) hurts you, while Whipping becomes more important, with the only exception being when you are low on Happiness. Here, we have plenty of Happiness with which to work, so Whipping is far more attractive.

Let's say that we wanted to build an army of 10 Axemen out of the capital and we have access to either Copper or Iron, perhaps via trading for said Resource for 2 of our Resources temporarily, if necessary. How would we best accomplish it?
At 35 Hammers each, it would take us:
10 turns * 35 Hammers each = 350 total Hammers / 12 Hammers per Turn = 29.17 = 30 turns. That's no longer a "rush" and our empire would be better off doing something differently.

With Whipping, it would take us:
Turn 1 (1 N) = Work Wheat + Deer + Cow + Cottages for 4 base Hammers
OR
Turn 1 (1 E Option A) = Work Wheat + Deer + Cottages for 2 base Hammers
OR
Turn 1 (1 E Option B) = Work Wheat + GH Riv Wine Mine + Cottages for 4 base Hammers

Turn 2 = 2-pop-whip the Axeman
Turn 3 = complete the 3rd Axeman
Turn 4 = dump Hammers somewhere (into Spearmen?)
Turn 5 = Turn 1 all over again

For the cost of 5 Unhappiness, and assuming that you have enough Food to keep regrowing, you can get those 10 Axemen in 5 rounds x 4 turns - 1 turn for the last round = 19 turns, plus having some Spearmen to prevent Chariots from pwning our army and to act as City Defenders in captured Cities. By that time, 2 of the Unhappiness will also have worn off.


Turn 1 out of every 4-turn cycle hurts for 1 E, as we either don't work the Deer or the GH Riv Mine.

We wouldn't be working a Fur for either of 1 N or 1 E, but working a G Riv Cottage in place of the Fur is a fair practice as the Food is the same, we don't want the Fur's 1 Hammer, and we would be maturing our Cottage.


What's nice about whipping is having Food to regrow quickly. At 10 Food per turn, we can earn 20 Food in 2 turns and regrow to any City Size up to Size 10 in the span of 2 turns. At 6 Food per turn, it will take us 3 turns to earn 18 Food, meaning that every time that we whip and it takes us 3 turns to earn the Food needed to grow, it will cost us another turn of not working a square in the capital, be it the Fur, a GH Mine, or a G Riv Cottage.

Typically, whipping is fantastic until you run into a Happiness cap, at which point its value reduces, but for a rush plus a Charismatic Leader, we should have sufficient Happiness to make whipping get us our army without having to worry about our Happiness cap. Play to your Civ's strengths.


Settling 1 E puts us behind by 1 turn for settling City 2 when compared to settling 1 N, which has an impact on our empire, not only in terms of what City 2 produces but also in terms of getting up our first pair of Trade Routes.


Forests: 1 N wins again
Settling 1 E gives us: 2 big fat cross, 5 next Cultural ring
Settling 1 N gives us: 4 big fat cross, 4 next Cultural ring


Both of 1 E and 1 N have an equal amount of Hills squares which can pop a Resource (one such square).


Cottages: 1 N wins again
Settling 1 E gives us: 8 G Riv Cottages, 5 G Cottages
Settling 1 N gives us: 11 G Riv Cottages, 4 G Cottages


Please, can someone show me the advantage of 1 E over 1 N?

If it were a matter of deciding between one advantage versus another, then we could make that decision and feel happy about it.

But, I can't see any advantage for 1 E and overall, it gives us a weaker capital. Now that we've decided on an in-land capital, our Cottages are going to be key for our tech pace in getting to Railroad.

Losing 1 Cottage-working turn per 2-pop-whipping cycle and growing more slowly into working additional Cottages also doesn't bode well for 1 E in a teching game.

Ultimately, it will be the team who is first to Railroad who wins this game, with a possible exception of a couple of turns if a team has, say, a considerably larger Worker force.

Show me the plan for 1 E. What's the thinking there? Is it build The Great Wall? Is it build The Temple of Artemis (which is normally better off in the hands of an AI for giving us more Gold from a Great Merchant's Trade Mission being spread in the AI City which builds The Temple of Artemis)? Is it for putting 4 more base Hammers into a Market that will likely be 3-pop whipped, meaning that with a Forge + Organized Religion, we need 150 - ( 3 * 30 * 1.5 ) = 150 - 135 = 15 final Hammers in it, such that 1 E can get those 15 final Hammers in 1 turn with 12 * 1.5 = 18 final Hammers versus 1 N needing 2 turns with 8 * 1.5 = 12 final Hammers? So, 1 turn saved on building a Market, which has a net zero effect if we're at a 100% Science Rate at the time.

Other Wonders that we'd actually want to consider building, such as The Hanging Gardens, the Mausoleum of Maussollos, the National Epic, and the Heroic Epic, are all best built elsewhere, with the 2 World Wonders being mostly built with Forest Chops and the 2 National Wonders rarely being best put in one's capital except for a One City Challenge game.


I'd be okay to get behind 1 E if there was at least some sort of advantage to it and we felt that said advantage was important to our overall strategy.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Cottages: 1 N wins again
Settling 1 E gives us: 11 G Riv Cottages, 4 G Cottages
Settling 1 N gives us: 8 G Riv Cottages, 5 G Cottages

I believe a few typographical errors have been made and it should read:
Settling 1 E gives us: 8 G Riv Cottages, 5 G Cottages
Settling 1 N gives us: 11 G Riv Cottages, 4 G Cottages

I find your arguments persuasive and am changing my preferences for settling to:
(1). Settle 1 N;
(2). and (3). Tie between settle in place and settle 1 SE;

 

[Noble Zarkon]

My testing hasn't contradicted Dhoom's findings so if we are agreed the path is Hunting -> AH I'm happy to support 1N, 2nd I would probably go the 1SE / 2 Settlers, 3rd 1E.

 

[pigswill]

I think we've debated this one enough. Settle 1N and then debate delaying research or going straight for hunting.

 

[Jersey Joe]

I favor delaying research, with the accumulated flasks going into hunting on turn 5.
We cannot lose any flasks doing this and we may gain a flask or 2 if we meet AI's. (See post 176, Dhoomstriker explains the math).

What about scouting?

 

[pigswill]

We won't lose flasks but we delay learning hunting/AH and we'd have to check worker turns vs acquiring techs.

 

[Jersey Joe]

We won't lose flasks but we delay learning hunting/AH and we'd have to check worker turns vs acquiring techs.

This opportunity to delay choosing a tech only occurs with the first tech.

Learning Hunting is not delayed.

Hunting costs 59 flasks.

• If we do not delay choosing Hunting, we put 10 flasks per turn into it and in 5 turns we have 50 flasks invested in Hunting. With turn six's 10 flasks we learn Hunting.
• If we delay choosing a tech we accumulate 10 flasks for each turn we delay choosing a tech. Then on turn 5 we invest our accumulated flasks into hunting which means we now have 50 flasks invested in hunting, the same as if we had put in 10 flasks per turn, and with turn six's 10 flasks we learn Hunting.

The difference in the 2 methods is in the overflow flasks that go into the next tech we choose to lean.
Delaying the choice never loses a flask verse taking a choice immediately, but it has the potential to get us extra flasks depending on how many civs we meet in before learning Hunting.

 

[pigswill]

I think I understand the theory. How do you avoid choosing a tech?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

You actually have to select a tech and then deselect it by clicking on it at the top of the screen each turn.

Assuming we are settling 1N what scouting moves do we want to do?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Assuming we are settling 1N what scouting moves do we want to do?

T0, 4000 BC Make sure that no tech is selected
T0, 4000 BC Build a Worker
T0, 4000 BC Work the G Riv Deer For (should happen by default, and we can leave the City Governor on, so there's no action to take here)

I'm fine with these suggestions:

move missionary W>pause, move scout SE>pause

I think that pigswill also wanted to move the Warrior 1 NE (to 1 E of the G Cow), which I am also fine with.

I think I understand the theory. How do you avoid choosing a tech?

A Picture can convey a thousand words... especially when you add a lot of text to your images.

Spoiler :

 

[Jersey Joe]

Yet another test game with build settler first:
Tech Path: Hunting->Animal Husbandry->Pottery->Writing (due in 4 turns)
Settled 1N
Paris founded Turn 0 4000BC
Hammers 100+60; size 1
Built settler+worker; 0 food and 0 hammers overflow.
Building Granary (30 turns) 0/60

Orleans Founded 3120BC (Settler moved 1E G For Deer; 1E G, 1SE G Hill Wine Wet)
effect of founding: 1 Trade route, Total Commerce 9gpt->14gpt
Christianity has spread to Orleans
Orleans
Food 20/22
Hammers 10; size 1
Building Worker (5 turns) 10/15

French Totals:
12 Gold in bank; earning -1gpt
Research 100% = 14 base flasks per turn
Total Flasks 59+149+119+106=433 Learn writing in 4 turns

 

[Jersey Joe]

Assuming we are settling 1N what scouting moves do we want to do?

Starting the padre west is fine.
If the padre's ultimate mission is to spread Christianity to our second city Orleans, I would use the padre to explore what is west of us and some what south to see if Spain or Portugal is South of us.

Starting the warrior NE is fine. How long to we want to let the warrior scout?

I am fine with the scout moving SE and then in a general easterly direction. What is to the west of the scout can be explored by the padre.

Does out scout have a goal, other than fog bust? Should the scout try to make a beeline to the other side of the map or concentrate on exploring near to us to uncover resources we can settle?

 

[Cactus Pete]

Scouting:
Warrior 1NE; 1SW; Scout 1SE
Pause

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Orleans Founded 3120BC (Settler moved 1E G For Deer; 1E G, 1SE G Hill Wine Wet)

That idea is pretty interesting for a settling location. If we have as many GH squares to the east in the real game as we see in the test game, it could be a good location for a production City, at the cost of the capital not being able to work its Deer all that frequently.

I'm not sure what square we'd work with City 2, though--steal the Deer with City 2 to grow faster but thereby delaying City 1's Worker? Work a G Riv square to focus on squeezing out as much Commerce as possible?


Settler-first does lock us in to settling a City close to our capital and on our River, so we remove the option of settling on the coast for City 2 (unless we settle in place and then settle 2 W of the G Cow, giving us a weaker capital but with the hopes of earning a netted-by-Churchill Fish Resource for City 2).

If we were going to have this focus on Commerce without Workers, I'd suggest this tech path:
Animal Husbandry -> Writing -> Alphabet (i.e. no Hunting, no Pottery, just straight to Alphabet)

Our Worker would still be able to improve the Wheat and Cow on our way to Alphabet.

EDIT: Or, perhaps even Pottery -> Writing -> Alphabet, as France is one of the few Civs who can make that beeline by starting with Agriculture and The Wheel, improving the Wheat and building Cottages on our way to Alphabet.


It would be nice to see just how early we could get Alphabet with this approach.

From earlier comparisons, we already saved most of the cost of self-teching Bronze Working by getting Granaries and Cottages on the way to Alphabet, but Alphabet was still somewhat delayed, while gaining Granaries in our Cities. It would be neat to see just how far we could push the envelope going the other way, getting Alphabet ASAP and then trading for a lot of techs early on.

I'm not sure that Settler-first can compete with Worker-first in terms of the speed of settling Cities 3 and 4, but if it can give us an efficient path to Alphabet, then we may be able to pay an up-front cost for a longer-term gain.



The Missionary's goal should be to explore for a few turns and then get to safety. How we go about doing so is going to depend upon the terrain that gets revealed; seeing more of the Coast by moving 1 W (which won't delay us spreading Christianity in Paris, if we were to decide to do so ASAP) will hopefully give us a bit more indication of the land to the west.

The Scout could go in either direction, again depending upon what it reveals or doesn't reveal.

The Warrior is probably best heading off in a direction that a) Explores around a possible coastal Cow location and b) then from there, generally in a direction that searches for an AI from whom we'd consider stealing a Worker as of about Turn 11 (assuming that all of the AIs weren't gifted Workers by BSPollux).


We want to meet a few AIs, but not too many of them. The sooner that we learn Alphabet and trade for some of the cheap techs, the sooner that we can go out to meet the rest of the AIs. Many AIs will only allow us to learn around 7 or 8 techs in trade before refusing to give us techs for the rest of the game. An ideal number of AIs to meet by the time that we've learned Alphabet is probably only 3 or 4 AIs.


EDIT: Going Pottery -> Writing -> Alphabet while building the Settler first -> Worker and improving the Wheat + G Riv Cottages, we get to Alphabet on Turn 49, 2040 BC.

Paris is at Size 4, Orleans is at Size 2, and we have 2 Workers, with 4 G Riv Cottages being worked.

I built a Worker first from both Cities and then dumped Hammers into Granaries; instead of Granaries, we could have built 1 Warrior from each City, but only receiving said Warrior recently; not early enough to dare Worker stealing.

I'm thinking that it might still be stronger to sneak Hunting in there first, since the Fur squares are much stronger to work than G Riv Cottage squares.


EDIT: Going Hunting -> Pottery -> Writing -> Alphabet and building Worker -> Settler, we get to Alphabet on Turn 48, 2080 BC and have THREE Workers (although I just finished building Workers 2 and 3 on Turn 48) with about the same number of Hammers as above in Granaries (maybe even a couple of more Hammers), and with Paris being Size 4 and Orleans being Size 3.


EDIT: Going Hunting -> Pottery -> Writing -> Alphabet and building Settler -> Worker, Mehmed got Alphabet on Turn 42, 2320 BC and we get to Alphabet on Turn 51, 1960 BC.


I think that the above test runs show that an opening of Worker-first and Hunting-first is going to be stronger than Settler-first, regardless of what tech path we were to take with Settler-first.


We don't yet have enough data to conclude which approach will be best for Worker-first; by going for Hunting first, Animal Husbandry becomes almost as fast to research as Pottery, and we haven't really tried proper comparisons of going for early whipped/chopped Granaries versus an Alphabet beeline, with or without Animal Husbandry. But, I do like going Hunting -> Animal Husbandry, for the Cow as well as to plan out our overall strategy by knowing whether we have a Horse Resource (or 15 of them like in one BSPollux SGOTM that I missed out on playing).

Being at City Sizes 4 and 3 is acceptable, but based on earlier testing with Alphabet coming a few turns later, we can do much better if we focus on Worker techs instead of focusing purely on an Alphabet beeline at a cost of empire development.


As for the Missionary, moving 1 SW won't reveal any new info, but moving 1 W will reveal 2 water squares and might help us to determine the shape of the surrounding land (in the test game, we see where the land curves downward just by making this bit of extra water-square exploration).

 

[pigswill]

Thanks for the ilustrated example, most helpful .

I did indeed mean warrior 1NE, missionary 1W, scout 1SE. Pause, post screenshot (and save?).

Its probably worth checking demographic screens regularly to find out how turbocharged the AIs are in this game.

Fine with unselecting tech.

Lets not get too far ahead. We need to meet AIs (or not) before deciding on alphabet. We also don't know if barbarians are going to be a significant issue, I'm assuming that there will be barbs around or there would be no point in initially opting for raging barbs.

Worker first, the earlier we use improved tiles the more food/hammers/commerce we have. We could build a settler any time after worker at pop1-4.

 

[Jersey Joe]

I agree with pigswill, and would like the (x,y) coordinates for Paris.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Missionary 1W is fine by me. Green light here.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@NobleZarkon: Are you still planning on being the Active Player?

Does anyone want to make any specific play-order requests, such as "I like to play the early-game turns," "I like to do Military Unit build-up," "I like to execute the warring," "I enjoy maximizing the value out of tech-trading when Alphabet comes in," or any other form of requests, such as "Maybe put me about 3rd in the playing order"?

For myself, I'm quite flexible and will pitch in at whatever point of the game that other players feel less enthusiastic about playing.

 

[Jersey Joe]

@Dhoomstriker: I have no preference on when I play. However, I am "weak" on tech-trading so it would be a good idea not to have me playing when Alphabet comes in.

I am willing to build new test games (or modify existing ones) until it is felt they are no longer necessary.

 

[pigswill]

I have no particular preferences or particular strengths. I would like us to gets started and it seems like we have a consensus on the first move at least.

Time for NZ to play or pass.