[BTS] SGOTM 26 - Unusual Suspects

[SittinDown]

OK - barring a VETO on further scouting from Dynamic Spirit in the next few hours, I'll scout until end of Turn-3, leaving E available to settle, and post updates. That's 2-turns of scouting, so hopefully with 5 settlers roaming around we'll reveal something decent.

 

[SittinDown]

Have a look...............

 

[Zhary]

Nice!
I guess you had some fishingluck after all.
Let me run some test with the double clam before we continue.

 

[SittinDown]

What's everyone thinking? Looks like maybe the land isn't too terrible - if we use the 2-food-sites, and grab the commerce tiles (furs / silver).

I'm leaning towards SIP here, or possibly settle a different city as city-2, depending on maintenance. It'd be great if we could get a 2-food city that didn't need myst for city two, and had some commerce. Early commerce is probably more useful in this situation than normal, because we can't build settlers, so the normal expansion approaches are a bit different than usual.

 

[SittinDown]

Deer/Crab/Silver + 9 ocean tiles, looks like a possible Maoi site / GP city.
The double-clams are not all that appealing to me.
Wheat / Lake / 2 furs + 3 PH looks possible. Pretty poor food though, just two + tiles.

 

[Zhary]

Well I've done some testing and I still get the same city arrangement as the best uptil turn 120 or so. Wine E and clam+ gems are a good play if we want to save our settlers to conquer a ai land around turn 100.
If we dont go that way I agree with your opinion that E sip should be settled on a later occasion. When we have myst probably or writing.
Best tech path for me is still Ah->writ before myst maybe even alpha or bw and sailing to.

 

[kcd_swede]

I've looked at the pics. No chance to think about it, but agree E looks less priority compared to other possibilities. Are we looking for city2 as the best 9-tile city possible, or the best 21-tile city? For quick start 9-tile city 2 makes sense, but as a long game, all other cities need to look at 21 tiles. Is the wheat plus rice (after border expansion)worth leaving the coast?

 

[Deckhand]

a) SIP double gems city will be Awesome eventually.
b) Settle 1E of wine Now will give us the fastest start. I don't see anything else as useful.

So, that's still our dilemma.


Silver nice in the future.
SE coast (plains hill double clam) nice in the future. Good Moai site.
SW of wheat (NE corner) looks ok; but maybe something better to the east.

(b) only gets us one clam that (a) doesn't have. Yes, the start will be slower; and I have no idea which city to settle when. With few good city sites I am still hesitant to trade a strong city for two OK ones. So, I am still voting to SIP for double gems. I leave the timing up to others.

--
reminder: you can irrigate tundra if it has fresh water, but you cannot chain irrigate it.
Irrigating plains for 2f 1h look like good tiles on this map.

 

[SittinDown]

Wheat + Furs city could be good now too - gives us a fast-ish start. 12 turn worker, food in the first ring, and 2 commerce tiles to improve without needing any special techs.

 

[kcd_swede]

• Level 4 Unit for Heroic Epic
  
• Level 6 Unit (28 exp, since where CHA) - for West Point

Just noticed this. We do NOT need West Point.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Just checking in after a long absence because of getting the lockdown BOTM 194 sorted.

Can I draw attention to these two spots:

• Spot 1: Reasonable food with rice, wheat, inland lake, Also has one fur , loads of hills, and a couple of riverside tiles. 5 forests to chop in the BFC - and every tile in the BFC is useful. Disadvantages are a slow start (useless until border pop), and overlap with SIP E if we go for the gems. Also, we already have furs, so getting more fur doesn't help happiness. And that wheat cannot be irrigated and not enough food to mine all the hills pre-biology.
• Spot 2: 2 clams, some riverside. And with 11 coast and 2 oceans, a potentially excellent spot for building Maoi Statues. 4 Forests in BFC (but only 3 that should be chopped, as the 4th would leave an unirrigable tundra). And distance from capital will add maintenance. Also needs border pop so slow start - but has a forest before border pop.

4-tile overlap between 1 and 2 which may be too much to settle both sites.

I agree with @SittinDown that the deer/crab/silver site to the North looks very interesting for City #2.

 

[SittinDown]

Just noticed this. We do NOT need West Point.

I'm glad someone is double-checking my assumptions there. Did I miss something?

This is from the Pre-Game Announcement Thread:

Spy - Dun, Temple, Courthouse, Intelligence Agency, West Point, Great Wonder generating Great Spy points​

 

[kcd_swede]

Ooops... nothing to see here.

 

[kcd_swede]

I'm glad someone is double-checking my assumptions there. Did I miss something?

This is from the Pre-Game Announcement Thread:

Spy - Dun, Temple, Courthouse, Intelligence Agency, West Point, Great Wonder generating Great Spy points​

Ooops... I was looking in the Pre-Game Announcement II thread... but silly me was looking at the General city and missed the Spy city requirements. So yes, we do need West Point.

I suggest we should name cities appropriately so we don't build things in places they shouldn't be. I am living proof that if it is possible to screw things up, it will happen.

 

[SittinDown]

Whelp - we're kind of stuck again, huh?

Here's an update save, mirroring everything we know so far.

 

[SittinDown]

I play tested an option today. When I cross-compared it's T-35 score against rival teams, it came in about 75% as good at that point. (150 vs 200). Biggest differences I think are that rival teams founded their 2nd city on T-0 and T-1 respectively, and founded their 3rd city both by T-15.

I'm going to explore options that get a higher score by T-35. But still, I figured I'd post this to show what I found.

Tech path was AH -> Mining -> BW.

 

[SittinDown]

Played a 2nd one where I founded the same Wheat/Fur spot, but also E-SIP much earlier - like T-3. Maintenance was a little painful, but all indicators were strong by turn 35. Tech path that time was Myst -> AH -> ?. Did a monument first in E.

I think this game is positioned well - E has border popped by T-35, and is improving the food tiles. Wheat has improved and is working all its good tiles. Capital is size 4 and working and improved all it's good tiles, except the deer.

 

[kcd_swede]

Myst is a must if we are setting up optimized 21 tile cities. 6 monuments is not that big of a deal, especially if we consider Culture as one of two viable VC's. Did your testing show that the fast start by an optimized 9-tile city is worth the cost? Normally I'd say yes, because I'd be expecting a victory in the 1500's at the latest. We have a longer game, though, so I'd guess we gain back anything we lose in the early game by going Myst route and finding best 21-tile cities.

Also, we will run out of time and be very unoptimized in the end-game if we keep stalling. Perhaps the active player should propose a PPP to the 3 city point and we can discuss/modify it as a team.

 

[SittinDown]

@kcd_swede - I think I'm still the active player, if we're going by 10-turn increments, and I ran turns 0-3. So here's my best approach.

Did your testing show that the fast start by an optimized 9-tile city is worth the cost?

I did not play deep enough into a game to foresee whether the fast-start got bogged down later by a weaker late-game city.

• I've concluded that I strongly favor SIP-E, because I think we give up too much by settling in another configuration.
• I'm less clear on other city spots - and I think there is a trade-off here.
  • A faster start = an earlier foreign capital site.
    
  • If we get off to a really slow starts, we might be forced to have cities 5-7 be in very unfavorable spots, because we MUST settle all cities before gunpowder (to build a DUN everywhere), so if we want to get a foreign capital site, we MUST war early, and probably with something like Catapults and GW's.
  • This makes me want to lean towards 1 early-boosting city, but the rest MUST have at least 2-food, and ideally also net us a new resource, or at least a corp friendly and/or commerce resource, and grab a decent chunk of land.
• I think we should have up to 1 city that can boost early-game, and that city should NOT be E.

To this end I am proposing:

1. Settle E on T-5. Produce a worker first. [Maintenance is somewhat annoying, but delaying the city seems worse in my tests].
   
2. Research myst first on turn-5. Keep scouting with Settlers.
3. Be ready to settle the fur-wheat site on turn-8, using the settler south of E now and start on a worker immediately. This city is gets +8 commerce while E drags us down getting up to speed. It's weak late game, but strong early, and ok for a long time. Can help explore with work-boats early. Being coastal, it can be any required city.

• Because this site only gets 1-food, it should be a backup plan if scouting doesn't get us a 2-food, (1 in first ring) + commerce site by turn 8.

City Plan:

• Bibacrte
  • Finishes the work-boat, 1-turn into warrior to grow to size two, then start on a worker.
    
  • Improve PH furs first. [Cows aren't possible. and Deer are too far from everything else - they burn 4 worker turns just getting there and back - and only are only a 3/1 tile anyway, and we need the commerce].
• E
  • Start a Worker. Farm the plains.
  • Stop worker to Slow-build monument when myst available. [Cause no BW]
  • Finish worker once monument built.
• Wheat/Furs
  • Build worker
  • Improve wheat.

 

[Zhary]

Sorry for being so inactive. We got an earlier than expected inspection of our new house and I got a lot of planing to do since.
Looks good anyway consider me as green. I'm might be able to come back more activ in a week.