SGOTM 23 - Xteam

[Dhoomstriker]

We didn't really get consensus on what to build as our next build item out of XO Cognac. With EDIT: Joao "being smarter" and starting to build Cottages on his P Riv squares, I'm going to suggest that we probably won't be able to easily steal a Worker from Frederick using a Warrior 3. But, a Warrior 3 being completed after a Settler gets built out of XO Cognac could be used as a Military Police Unit.

So, I'm going to suggest that we stick with the original plan--build a Warrior in XO Cognac for 2 turns after completing the Work Boat, then remember to manually switch to building a Settler out of XO Cognac.

We'll probably end up delaying the Revolt into Slavery until after both Settlers have been manually completed.

Once we've got our Settlers built and our Granaries Chopped + Whipped (perhaps 2-pop-whipping a Worker in Paris to overflow into a Granary plus a Chop to finish off the Granary, while using a Chop + raw production + a 1-pop-whip in XO Cognac to complete our Granary), we can debate as to whether it will be better for us to build an exploratory Work Boat or a Chariot to harass Joao.

Knowing the layout of England super early doesn't really excite me, compared to getting up an empire base that can afford to build a Galley and other build items so that we can make use of any tactical exploration information.

We also don't know if we'd accidentally meet another AI by exploring around England early on (think of the Celts).


I haven't had time to play out the Worker stealing, so do it however you feel comfortable. The nice parts about a teleportation war declaration are that:
1. We'll remember to declare war when we still have Warrior 1's movement point available to him
AND
2. We won't make the easy-to-make mistake of "moving" into an AI's Culture to declare war on them, only to go "oh, yeah, that was dumb, I already have Open Borders with that AI, so I wasn't prompted to declare war on that AI"

By manually declaring War and teleporting, these possible mistakes won't happen (and trust me, I've made both mistakes many times, so it's good to avoid such traps).


Sure, Roading the G Riv For that is 1 SE of Paris using Worker 1 also a valid option. The reason why it's good to move to a Forest after Camping the Deer is that it costs us 1 Worker action to move somewhere... either to a Forest or to the G Riv square that is 1 SW of Paris. But, moving to a G Riv square doesn't always cost us a Worker action, so we might as well invest that Worker action in moving to a Forest, which will always cost us a turn of movement (until a Road gets built on said Forest).

Note that if Worker 2 Roads the G For that is 3 NE of Paris, the G that is 2 NE of Paris, and the G For that is 1 NE of Paris, a Paris-built Settler does save 1 turn in settling at north-east City. We'll want the Roads 1 NE of Paris and 2 NE of Paris for certain; if we feel that we can afford the extra 2 Worker turns to build the Road (we already have to move to that Forest on our way back to our empire so it's not 3 extra Worker turns), then we might as well also build the Road 3 NE of Paris.

If we feel that we can't afford those 2 Worker turns, then have Worker 1 go with the original plan of Roading the G For that is 1 NE of Paris and suddenly we can afford those 2 Worker turns.


It does sound that leading with Worker 2 for 2 turns makes sense... one option is that we could move within Frederick's Cultural Borders to a Grassland square and if no Barb Unit was spotted, build a Road then STOP, then move Warrior 1 to join him. If a Barb Unit was spotted, obviously don't stand next to the Barb Unit building a Road and retreat the Worker.

Assuming that we don't encounter Barb Units, for the third turn, we could just complete the Road within Frederick's Culture while our Warrior 1 moves to the GH Riv square, then on the following turn, Warrior 1 could move 1 NW to the G For (2 S of the Fish) and if there are still no Barb Units, we could move Worker 2 two squares to join Warrior 1.

We're going to own Frederick's Cultural Borders eventually, and building a partial Road on one square and a complete Road piece on another square won't speed up the movement of his units, as there won't be 2 adjacent squares of complete Road.


With Warrior 2 heading to Paris now, it will only be a matter of performing all of the micro steps for us to stay on track with our Turn-51 Alphabet plan. Good luck!


EDIT: Out of curiosity, what happens in the test game when we declare war now? Does the Settler run away and do Frederick's Warriors stay in place for a turn?

 

[Cactus Pete]

We didn't really get consensus on what to build as our next build item out of XO Cognac. With Frederick (Assume you are referring to Joao.)"being smarter" and starting to build Cottages on his P Riv squares, I'm going to suggest that we probably won't be able to easily steal a Worker from Frederick using a Warrior 3. But, a Warrior 3 being completed after a Settler gets built out of XO Cognac could be used as a Military Police Unit.

So, I'm going to suggest that we stick with the original plan--build a Warrior in XO Cognac for 2 turns after completing the Work Boat, then remember to manually switch to building a Settler out of XO Cognac. I'm good with that.

We'll probably end up delaying the Revolt into Slavery until after both Settlers have been manually completed. Concur, think that's optimal.

I haven't had time to play out the Worker stealing, so do it however you feel comfortable. Okay. Will wait as long as I can (a few more hours, gone tomorrow) to get green (or not) from others.

Sure, Roading the G Riv For that is 1 SE of Paris using Worker 1 also a valid option. The reason why it's good to move to a Forest after Camping the Deer is that it costs us 1 Worker action to move somewhere... either to a Forest or to the G Riv square that is 1 SW of Paris. But, moving to a G Riv square doesn't always cost us a Worker action, so we might as well invest that Worker action in moving to a Forest, which will always cost us a turn of movement (until a Road gets built on said Forest). That was part of my reasoning; also, that could prove a useful road, at least allowing easy access to the forest for chopping.

Note that if Worker 2 Roads the G For that is 3 NE of Paris That's two worker turns to save one settler turn, so I'd rather play it safe and head him home. , We'll want the Roads 1 NE of Paris and 2 NE of Paris for certain; Prefer to wait on road 2NE of Paris, as it won't save a settler turn without the 3NE road.

It does sound that leading with Worker 2 for 2 turns makes sense... one option is that we could move within Frederick's Cultural Borders to a Grassland square and if no Barb Unit was spotted, build a Road then STOP, then move Warrior 1 to join him. If a Barb Unit was spotted, obviously don't stand next to the Barb Unit building a Road and retreat the Worker. Assuming that we don't encounter Barb Units, for the third turn, we could just complete the Road within Frederick's Culture while our Warrior 1 moves to the GH Riv square, then on the following turn, Warrior 1 could move 1 NW to the G For (2 S of the Fish) and if there are still no Barb Units, we could move Worker 2 two squares to join Warrior 1. Will look at one-turn roading, where it doesn't slow us down. Generally prefer roading in France right now.

We're going to own Frederick's Cultural Borders eventually, and building a partial Road on one square and a complete Road piece on another square won't speed up the movement of his units, as there won't be 2 adjacent squares of complete Road. Follow that.


With Warrior 2 heading to Paris now, it will only be a matter of performing all of the micro steps for us to stay on track with our Turn-51 Alphabet plan. Good luck!


EDIT: Out of curiosity, what happens in the test game when we declare war now? Does the Settler run away and do Frederick's Warriors stay in place for a turn?

Fred's settler founds city, and warriors continue north in both test games. Hope it works that way in the real one.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

That's two worker turns to save one settler turn

That's right. Saving one Settler turn allows us to settle a City one turn sooner. What does a City being settled one turn sooner buy us?
+2 Food from City Centre
+1 Hammer from City Centre
+1 Commerce from City Centre
+1 Commerce from Trade Route
-2 Food from the citizen eating
-2 Gold from Maintenance (it could be more for later-settled Cities, but that should be roughly the cost for City 3)
+ Food/Hammers/Commerce from the square worked--in this case, we'll work a G Cow Pasture, but we'll steal it from Paris, so Paris will end up working an extra G For square (likely), meaning that we've only really worked an extra G For square, so:
+2 Food from the G For square
+1 Hammer from the G For square
+1 Culture from spreading Christianity

Net gain:
2 - 2 + 2 = 2 Food
1 + 1 = 2 Hammers
1 + 1 - 2 = 0 Commerce/Gold
1 Culture

2 F + 2 H + 1 Culture is a decent return for 2 turns of Worker actions.

That's better than the gain of switching a G For square to a G Riv Farm square 2 turns sooner (2 F - 2 H + 2 C). Or, an easier comparison to see is switching a G Riv Unimproved square to a G Riv Farm square 2 turns sooner (2 F).

That's without considering the gain from working our netted Fish for one extra turn by getting our Cultural Borders to expand 1 turn sooner. It's also not considering the gain that we get from working extra squares in the future by having a City that grew its City Size one turn sooner for some City Sizes.

Prefer to wait on road 2NE of Paris, as it won't save a settler turn without the 3NE road.

If we don't get Sailing in trade right away, we'll lose 1 Commerce per turn by not having a Road on the Grassland 2 NE of Paris, so it's possibly a worthwhile precaution to build it.

We've played out several test runs to Alphabet and in some of them, we were able to trade for Sailing right away, while in other test runs, we had to wait a while for additional AIs to self-tech Sailing before we could trade for it. Even if some nearby AIs know Sailing, it will be hard to predict exactly how many other AIs they will meet by the time that we have Alpahbet, so it's a question of uncertainty as to whether we'll get Sailing in trade right away.

We'll almost definitely get Mining, Bronze Working, and Archery in trade, as all of the AIs whom we have met know those techs, but those are the only ones that we will be almost guaranteed to get right away. It's at least promising that Joao has Pottery (due to being able to build Cottages).

Will look at one-turn roading, where it doesn't slow us down. Generally prefer roading in France right now.

I concur, but if we're going to wait for Warrior 1 anyway, we might as well get some extra use out of our Worker 2, assuming that Worker 2 doesn't walk adjacent to a Barb Unit (in which case survival by retreating beats any partial Roads that we might build).

Call it an extra bonus if you can manage it, with the Worker's survival being of much greater importance.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Good argument. How confident are you that we will indeed soon be able to settle a city next to Germany?

Would like to hear from rest of team.

Have a plan through T48. Should I stop there or continue to Alpha (assuming no untoward events)?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I do not see the need to play forward past Turn 48 without a PPP in place. If you had time to play tomorrow, I'd suggest that you play ahead in a test game past Alphabet and propose a plan for the additional turns up to Alphabet (it's better to play beyond where we need to play so that we can account for other items needing doing in the short term), but since you'll be busy, stopping at Turn 48 is fine.

Racing to Alphabet isn't going to tell us much--we're all but guaranteed to get Bronze Working and Archery, and Joao is likely to be our primary tech-trading partner, unless Churchill knows another AI whom we haven't met (such as the Celts) or Churchill gets out an exploring Work Boat to meet either Frederick or Joao.

I'd rather make sure that we have all of the other details wired up, such as knowing when we'll need to move our Missionary toward the north-east City, before rushing ahead. It's a common temptation to race toward completing a short-term goal and then once arriving there, asking "Okay, now what?" A better approach is to think about our other upcoming goals, play past the short-term goal in the test game, and figure out what we might do in the short term to make our future goals faster or easier to achieve.

Also, knowing for sure that Warrior 1 and Worker 2 will be alive will make for different plans than if they were to die.


We've been planning a north-east City for a long time; I haven't heard anyone disagree with settling there. If anyone wants to raise a concern with settling there, feel free to speak up.

The concerns raised to date are:
1. Will Barbs stop us from settling there?
2. Will Frederick stop us from settling there?

Assuming that we don't lose Warrior 1 to a Barb Unit during this turnset, then Warrior 1 will take on the duty of spawn-busting the north-east City's area, making Barbs essentially a non-threat. It could be worth it to use the World Builder in the test game to erase Berlin (there's an erase icon near the top left of the World Builder icons or else you can select Build City on a the Player icon's Buildings tab and right-click on Berlin), place a City of ours in Berlin's location (either select Build City on the Buildings tab or select a Settler on the Units tab simply give ourselves a Settler--exit the World Builder for a Settler and settle it before going back into the World Builder), then give ourselves 100 Culture in Berlin. Doing so should give us an idea of where Culture-busting is happening, so that we can figure out where to best spawn-bust with Warrior 1 to the north-east of Paris once Worker 2 is Roading around Paris.

We'll have Alphabet before settling our north-east City, so if Frederick is giving us trouble with his units in that area, we'll give him a tech for Peace. Simple. He'll be willing to talk to us by that point.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Playing now . . .

 

[Cactus Pete]

REPORT through Turn 48 -- according to plan, except bear has blocked getting worker home

T38: GSc created in far away land; DOW and steal worker

T39: Another GS created far away

T40: Hamburg founded; road sheep and stop

T41: J's wkr starts another cottage 1N of horses; our new worker completes road on sheep

T42: Barb bear appears 1N of Paris; road tile 1NW of sheep and stop; J completes another wkbt

T43: Trade J wheat for crabs; trade Church deer for fish; bear cuts off route home

T44: Bear moves to cut off alternate route home, so build road for 1 turn on GF west of sheep

T45: Churchill founds York; bear plays like human; fortify warrior on grass forest, hoping bear will eventually attack him from across river and lose, so we can settle NE city; move worker hoping for an opening

T46: Bear frustrates again, so road and stop 2S of sheep (in Germany)

T47: Complete road 2S of sheep; rest of PPP is going just fine

T48: Position new worker again, hoping bear plays like the rest of the AIs

For next player: bear has never moved west of his present position; if he moves east next turn, then the worker is home free; if the bruin moves 1S next turn, then suggest you just patiently wait, hoping he will not retrace his step (which he has done); if he moves 1N, then move the worker onto the forest with the warrior, and move around him (onto northern forest or southern hill) and home if the bloodthirsty beast moves east to attack the two of them, leaving fortified warrior to try to eliminate him; if none of that works, think we're going to have to take turns moving the warrior south onto a forested hill and attract an attack. GOOD LUCK!

No German units have been spotted since the worker steal.

Save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC2080_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Barb Animals shy away from moving adjacent to Cultural Borders and won't move inside of Cultural Borders. Barb Animals also can't walk on top of a Resource square, although they can spawn on top of one.

I'm a bit confused as to where the Bear was giving us trouble, as I imagine that there must be a typo there: "Barb bear appears 1N of Paris" doesn't sound possible.

EPs
Stalin 17 / 0
Churchill 293 / 192
Frederick 156 / 0
Joao 12 / 0

There are 86 population points in the world, 10 of which are ours.

The Bear's location

Spoiler :

We should put together an updated test game and play around with the Bear, but I see two main options:
1. Warrior 1 moves 1 W G Riv now, baiting the Bear to attack us across of a River. We'll probably lose Warrior 1, but then Worker 2 can head 2 SW toward Paris on Turn 49.

2. Warrior 1 moves 1 S G Riv now
Then, we spend several turns sending the Warrior and Worker toward the south (i.e. Worker 2 moves 1 S Riv > 1 SE G Riv Road on Turn 49), then further south, the south-west, and then hoping that at one point, the Bear will move 1 N and give our Worker an opening to move to the GH that is 2 E of the G Cow Pasture. The tricky part is that there might be another Barb Unit in the south as we aren't spawn-busting there, so we're probably going to end up doing:
T48 Warrior 1 moves 1 G Riv Road
T49 Warrior 1 moves 1 S G Riv and hopes that a Barb Human Unit isn't adjacent to him
T49 Worker 2 moves 1 S G Riv > 1 SE G Riv Road
T50 If Warrior 1 is still alive, move 1 SW GH For
T50 If there are not additional Barb Units down there, Worker 2 moves 1 S G Riv > 1 SW GH For to join Warrior 1
Then, we wait for a chance to move our Worker 2 to 1 NW G > 1 W GH when the Bear is further to the north of where it is located now


Can you describe on which squares the Bear has moved to date? Has it just been the squares that I indicated in the picture or has it moved to other squares and if other squares, which ones? Has the Bear moved every turn or has it ever stayed in place?


That many Great Scientists? Someone has been gifting AIs some Buildings; not just a Harbour and a Lighthouse, but Libraries, too. Those Great Scientists can't all have come from Mehmed and his Great Library.

All the more reason to focus on pumping out an army of Horse Archers. Rather than just having a few Chariots and losing most of them taking Lisbon, we'll want a decent army that can keep on rolling through the AIs.

 

[Folket]

I agree that HA are the way forward.

Both England and Portugal has sailing. But they have not met each other. Once they do or if Egypt has Sailing we will be able to trade for it. Germany does not have sailing.

 

[pigswill]

Move worker SE to join warrior, when bear moves N move worker SW>SW, then S then SW.

Fred is willing to talk with us. Will he accept ceasefire or peace?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Move worker SE to join warrior, when bear moves N move worker SW>SW, then S then SW.

We would do something like that except that Worker 2 has already moved this turn, hence why it gets a bit more complicated.

Fred is willing to talk with us. Will he accept ceasefire or peace?

Peace for XO Cognac or a cheap tech once we know Alphabet. We'd have to get more War Success for a Cease Fire, probably just by winning 1 battle against Frederick.

 

[Folket]

If the animal is going to avoid borders we can just have our worker wait two turns.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Our Worker doesn't need to wait, just dodge.


Suggested PPP
EDIT: After some discussion and some testing, we'll be going with slow-building our 2 Settlers. So, the City micro is incredibly easy; make sure that the G Horse square and that's it for the short term.

T48 Warrior 1 WAKES UP and moves 1 S G Riv Road (he seems to have Skipped his Turn in the real game, although I didn't Skip his Turn in the test game)

T49 If Bear didn't go 1 N G Riv (1S of the Fish), stop play for team feedback

T49 If Bear went 1 N G Riv (1S of the Fish), Warrior 1 moves 1 SW GH Riv
T49 Worker 2 moves 1 S G Riv > 1 SE G Riv Road

T50 If Bear came back 1 S, Warrior 1 moves 1 S GH For
T50 If there wasn't a second Barb Unit spotted, Worker 2 moves 1 S G Riv > 1 SW GH For
T51 If the Bear moves 1 N, Worker 2 moves 1 NW G > 1 W GH (2 N of GH Wine)
T51 Warrior 1 doesn't move yet

T50 If Bear went 1 NE G Riv For (1 E of the Fish) and if there isn't a Panther or a Wolf to the south, Warrior 1 moves 1 NW G Riv For (2S of the Fish)
T50 Worker 2 moves 1 W G Riv (1 SE + 1 S of the Fish) > partial Road > STOP
T51 Worker 2 moves 1 SW G > 1 W GH (2 N of GH Wine)
T51 Warrior 1 doesn't move yet


For any case where an "if" condition is different, we'll need a different set of moves, so we should stop and consult with the team before moving our Units.

By the way, Paris' Cultural Borders JUST expanded, so Cactus Pete did have a different area in which the Bear could have wandered.


Our Missionary can move northward now, arriving in Paris on Turn 51.


Worker 1 will be busy Pasturing until Turn 51.


Our Scout keeps Skipping its Turn in place.


Who has got time to play out these 3 turns until Alphabet?


XO Cognac could switch from working a G For to the G Horse, so that we won't forget to switch squares later.


EDIT from Folket: Stop play if a German Unit has been spotted.


In the test game, I tried out Warrior 1 moves 1 W G Riv and the Bear attacked in between turns, losing 0 Health and totally consuming our Warrior 1, so it's a pretty big risk to engage the Bear directly, especially when we should be able to dodge around him as long as we don't end a turn with one of our Units adjacent to the Bear.

 

[Folket]

I guess we should also pause if we see any German units.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I am reading this each day but struggling to keep up with the detailed discussion. Glad to see the game progressing, [emoji106]

 

[Dhoomstriker]

What we should be doing is testing to see if pigswill's idea of growing and then whipping our Settlers can give us a better result than slow-building our Settlers.

For XO Cognac, that might mean a 1-pop-whipping action with us growing while we don't yet have the Horse Pastured so that we're missing out on less Hammers going into our Settler during that time.

For Paris, that will probably mean 2-pop-whipping, possibly aiming to get some overflow Hammers going into a Granary or else just being content with 2-pop-whipping a Granary shortly thereafter.

We should be able to plan for a Turn-52 switch into Slavery, which would mean whipping on Turn 53 and completing our Settlers on Turn 54.

The alternate approach remains that of slow-building our Settlers and only slipping into Slavery after both of the Settlers have been built.

I don't think that anyone has run head-to-head tests yet, but our Turn 48 test saved game (see my message above) would be a good place to start.

 

[pigswill]

Double whip Paris settler T53 (T52 BW+anarchy). No value in whipping X. Get Paris settler T54, XO settler T55.

 

[Folket]

How is there no value to whipping in XO? Are you sure about that. Just a quick look at the save I came to the opposite conclusion.

 

[pigswill]

How 'bout that. Straight building gets settlers in Paris and XO T54.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

How 'bout that. Straight building gets settlers in Paris and XO T54.

Yeah, that approach sounds better. That's the beauty of working that additional improved square.

XO Cognac takes until Turn 54 to get enough Hammers to 2-pop-whip a Settler counting the switch into Slavery and turns of growth up to Size 4, and then we'd be at Size 2 for quite a while.

Although we would have our revolution in Slavery in the bag, we'd still only get our XO Cognac Settler on Turn 55.

So, even though Paris can still get its Settler on Turn 54 by whipping, we end up being at Size 6 instead of at Size 7.

The big problem with growing and whipping in the short term is that we don't have somewhere really "useful" to dump Hammers while we grow. If we did (say, if we knew Pottery), then it could be argued that dumping Hammers into Granaries could be a good play. But, we end up putting Hammers into Warriors, Barracks, a Work Boat, or some other items that don't help our immediate REX, while the Food that we earn isn't being enhanced by a Granary yet.

Thus, keeping it simple seems to be a good approach in this case.


Later, once we have Granaries, it won't matter as much if we do not have somewhere "useful" to dump our Hammers since, as long as we aren't Happiness-constrained, and we have decent Food surplus, whipping and regrowing is generally the way to go.


So, having heard of no volunteers and no other comments on the PPP, I suppose that I can push us through the next 3 turns so that we can have a livelier discussion once we reach Alphabet.


Upcoming Decisions
1. Which City will be City 3?
Do we want to settle the north-east City or the south-east City first? I'm leaning toward the north-east City just to get the Culture going there and because we don't need Worker actions to start working an improved square with our citizen.

2. Where to settle the south-east City?
The north-east City's location is pretty much locked, but for the south-east City, we could consider settling to get the GH Sheep within our Cultural Borders. The downside is that we wouldn't get to improve the Fur for quite a while, as our Missionary is earmarked for the north-east City. I'm tempted to skip getting the Sheep, settling closer to our capital for 2 shared G Riv Cottage squares, and leaving open the possibility of partnering the Sheep with that Gems square later by settling 1 S of the GH Sheep (once the Light Blue AI's Culture is gone).

3. What do we want to name our next 2 Cities?

4. Currency or Horseback Riding first? (Or, even Masonry?)
Testing could give us a better answer, but by gut-feel, do we think that we can get up our Granaries, keep 2 Scientist Specialists hired, and actually be able to pump out enough Horse Archers in the short run to warrant going for Horseback Riding next? Maybe. One argument is that we could skip Barracks and try to cultivate Experience Points against Joao's Warriors and Archers in the field.

Or, do we want to go for Currency, using the time to build Barracks and/or a few supporting Chariots, then get to Horseback Riding in a reasonable amount of time with Currency in the bag to fund our research?

If we're actually able to capture a City, we can use its Gold to fund our Research. We also have had reasonably low Maintenance Costs to date, so while Currency will help out a lot, it won't be a life-or-death tech to get to like it would be if we had Quechua rushed all of Europe.

Or, do we even detour to Masonry to be sure that we get The Great Lighthouse? It's going to make or break this map based on how we've planned to have so many coastal Cities. I suppose that we'll just have to find out once we learn Alphabet how feasible it might be to get that tech in trade.