SGOTM7 - Team tao

[tao]

Lots of points were mentioned and I will address those I remember and give some stray thoughts:

Republic is a nono in AW. We will go monarchy.

Transports: we want the game to be over long before they become available.

With 2 luxuries, 2mp and 40% lux we can have a pop 12 city with all productive citizens. 40% lux may sound a lot, but it will also trigger wltkd in pop 6 cities and reduce corruption and flip risk to the culture-strong AIs. I would have no problem at all to have such a powerhouse. In fact I advovcate it strongly. (Once GLib is done we can build a temple; and monarchy is 3 mp and we can reduce lux).

Nobody yet mentiones catapults. This being AW we should build a lot of them to weaken enemy units and repell ships.

We are scientific, industrious. Great Library is "scientific", Hanging Gardens and Great Wall are industrious and would trigger our Golden Age at the beginning of the Middle Ages: nice boost both for building libraries and units. Another reason for a powerhouse city. If we complete Great Library before monarchy is known, we should pre-build for Hanging Gradens to get content citizens.

If we have horses and iron and there is one or more AI civs without them, we definitely will start an invasion and acquire more luxuries.

Clearing the jungle, especially on coastal tiles and putting defenders on coastal hills and mountains is a must.

 

[Keath]

Lots of points were mentioned and I will address those I remember and give some stray thoughts:

Republic is a nono in AW. We will go monarchy.

I agree. My point was that it is a part of a plan and was never mentioned.

Transports: we want the game to be over long before they become available.

Agreed, but I was only making a point that galleys have great value and longevity.

With 2 luxuries, 2mp and 40% lux we can have a pop 12 city with all productive citizens. 40% lux may sound a lot, but it will also trigger wltkd in pop 6 cities and reduce corruption and flip risk to the culture-strong AIs. I would have no problem at all to have such a powerhouse. In fact I advovcate it strongly. (Once GLib is done we can build a temple; and monarchy is 3 mp and we can reduce lux).

Good!

Nobody yet mentiones catapults. This being AW we should build a lot of them to weaken enemy units and repell ships.

And if we had cats, they might just make the difference in never having an AI unit reach our island.

We are scientific, industrious. Great Library is "scientific", Hanging Gardens and Great Wall are industrious and would trigger our Golden Age at the beginning of the Middle Ages: nice boost both for building libraries and units. Another reason for a powerhouse city. If we complete Great Library before monarchy is known, we should pre-build for Hanging Gradens to get content citizens.

And what about Leo's? In this situation it could be worth more than HG saving a ton of coin which could allow even more WLTKD by using the slider. But I think HG would be a good idea if the team agrees. We must find a way of getting our Golden Age tripped before BDs, for sure. Leo's could happen if we get a Leader. I'd even wait a few turns to guarantee the GL was going to deliver Monarchy, though.

If we have horses and iron and there is one or more AI civs without them, we definitely will start an invasion and acquire more luxuries.

Then it's our turn. Obviously we have to conquer our neighbours as the win condition is Domination. With a navy and Dragoon army we should have a lot of fun and I would like to learn all the tactics necessary to wage the best war we can.

Clearing the jungle, especially on coastal tiles and putting defenders on coastal hills and mountains is a must.

But you never commented on a solid navy to repel the invaders? I feel quite strongly about this point. The weakest link in the AI's invasion is when they are in boats. That is when we want to attack not after they have landed. Controlling the seas in this game is as important as controlling the skies in modern warfare. My only fear is that we will get invaded before we can build our navy. I'd almost want to go for MM first and capture the GL later but it seems everyone is in agreement about building the GL from scratch. Some of the better players never build the GL. In Peanut's_06 game they captured it and gifted it to a weak civ, saving it for later. Then you really get a fistful of techs! We could still do this.

 

[Renata]

Pretty sure you were just being silly there but just in case -- since we can't make peace, we can't really count on being able to give a captured GL away!

I think we will get invaded before the Great Library is built. But I don't think going for mapmaking first would really help us, as we'd still lack the techs we need to be truly powerful; namely, math, horseback riding, iron-working. We can't even afford to trade writing (assuming we get it before some of the AIs, which we very well may if they're at all isolated from each other), because we have to minimize the risk of an AI cascade to the GL: we want to keep them all from Lit as long as is possible.

Our best option, IMO, is the GL as soon as possible, and just make due with whatever we can build until then. We can use an empty coastal city in good (for us) territory as bait, and collect archers (with chariots if/once we can build them) around it -- all other towns get at least one spear to try to keep the AI from deciding they'd be better targets. It's my hope we can limit our exposure that way.

Agreed to the umpteenth that cats plus galleys is our best option long-term for taking control of the game.

Renata

 

[Renata]

Oh, and I will try to take a crack at a dotmap as well before Furiey plays, but I'm really short on time.

Renata

 

[Furiey]

Don't worry, I won't play until we're ready, if we're not ready today, tomorrow will be fine. I've got to get things straight in my mind before I start.

On the units side, there are a lot that we may want to build, it's going to be what we need to build immediately. Catapults are useful against land and sea units - we'll need some of them either way. Injure a pillager and they move off to heal and with horses we can pick them off and return to a city to heal ourselves. With Galleys we can pick off injured ships, but to blockade completely with the slow movement through that coast I think we'll need too many of them.

 

[tao]

Don't worry, I won't play until we're ready, if we're not ready today, tomorrow will be fine. I've got to get things straight in my mind before I start.

On the units side, there are a lot that we may want to build, ...

.. and very few we can build currently. Most will only be available once we learn more techs from the Great Library.

IMHO we now shuld build a couple of warriors - they are strong enough to hopefully survive barb attacks if fortified, in town, etc.; should even promote. Then we need some spears to defend against barb horsemen, which will probably pop up before we learn iron from the GLib.

Important point: once the AIs have map making, we should trade a tech for the world map. We want to know it, before we conquer it. And we will never be able later to trade for maps or to explore.

 

[Sabre]

Also, remember that once the bg mine is finished we can begin building a Warrior before each Settler at Sogut at pop 5. They will be regular Warriors unless we take 4 turns to build a Barracks, but regulars should be good enough for mp duty.

My thoughts on defense of the land are that even with 3-4 opponents, landings at the beginning will be sporadic and poorly planned. By the time the AI is capable of making multiple landings per turn we should be producing offensive units in enough quantities to handle the attacks. Keeping a small town ungarrisoned is a good idea as it's my experience that naval attacks will focus on that spot even if they have to travel far out of the way. A spot in the desert near the barb hut seems a decent try - flat lands, little need for mp's in a town with no food and close proximity to our core without using up core tiles. A few groups of offensive units at strategic points combined with 2-3 mps in each town should be fine otherwise.

Normally I agree that defensive units are a bad idea, but we will need to build some when it comes time to start our invasions. The AI will put up a pretty fierce counterattack and a handful of Pikes/Muskets will be necessary.

Of immediate importance is the building of Warriors, Settlers and Workers. I think the idea of building around Izmit has some merit. Below are two possible dot maps with one centered on Sogut and the 2nd centered on Izmit. The Izmit one seems a bit neater, though it will take longer getting to optimum efficiency. Maybe someone can come up with a better Sogut map.

 

[Keath]

Pretty sure you were just being silly there but just in case -- since we can't make peace, we can't really count on being able to give a captured GL away!

What I am trying to say is that getting the GL is NOT the only play. I mentioned the Peanut gambit because it points out how much better it is to capture the GL than build it. If we have a large navy we could then seek out the GL and invade. There wouldn't be too many AI galleys left to invade us so we could afford to go for it but if we don't have a navy we will be at the mercy of those AI that do.

All of you are much more experienced at this game than I am and it may be easy for each of you to take the baton and run with it without a lot of discussion ahead of time but I am still figuring out what are the best plays.

For instance, there is no question about what unit would be best to build in abundance to guarantee winning the game: galleys! If the AI could never land a single unit on our soil, we would win. SO, what about the Great LightHouse? It costs nothing more than the GL and gives us the extra move advantage until Magnetism. In this game, I think we at least need to discuss which is better.

It seemed that everyone agreed to have a discussion about our opening play but before we even discussed where we were going to build our first city and before I even checked in, the city was built and before we turned around again, 30 turns have been played – probably the most important turns in the game.

Besides our rush to explore without a game plan agreed upon I have another problem.

Using Tech Calc, Pottery would take @18 turns at max which would be in time for our Granary.

CivAssistII says:
- mysticism: 136
- wheel: 148
- horseback riding: 200
- philosophy, iron working: 240
- mathematics: 320
- literature, code of law: 400

Isn’t this spoiler information? These programs are a cheat! There is no way that this information should be available to a player. If this were a poker game it would be like peeking in the deck ahead of time to decide on your bet. How can these programs be allowed?

Besides, I think it takes the fun out of the game. Might as well write an automatic script and let the Electronic snoops play the game. The irony of this is that as players get better at understanding the game, these programs are like putting on training wheels.

If I were playing in a Chess Tourney, would I be allowed to use my computer to help me play? Not a chance and this is exactly the same thing. All the excitement in the game is gone, no creativity, no unknowns.

These *utilities* are like sonar fish-finders. The skills of being a fisherman are gone as soon as you have one and that is exactly the situation here.

Brainstorming the best game plan is key to our success.

@Sabre - I like the city placement map for Iznet.

Important point: once the AIs have map making, we should trade a tech for the world map. We want to know it, before we conquer it. And we will never be able later to trade for maps or to explore.

What about avoiding the jungle near the Arabs and waiting until we have Lit and they have MM then see if we can trade Lit and our map for MM and their map?

 

[Renata]

The programs aren't spoilers. Part of the information on tech costs is available in the editor, the rest is dependent on the difficulty level. The same is the case for everything else in those programs. CivAssist II was developed by Ainwood himself, and he took care that nothing in it is information that can't be determined in-game given sufficient determination and knowledge of the applicable formulas. (All of which were determined by other players with way too much time on their hands.) You might prefer a more organic, less mathematical approach to the game, but please don't imply that people who use these programs are cheaters. That comment really really rubbed me the wrong way.

On to other topics: getting the Library will allow us to turn off research for what will probably be most of the game. It will get us all the way to education on the upper part of the middle ages tech tree, and, if we're really lucky, all the way to gunpowder on the lower. Military tradition may see us to a win in and of itself; at worst we may need magnetism for galleons and frigates.

If we do *not* get the Library, on the other hand, we are faced with researching nearly everything ourselves. We can't count on having anything to trade to anyone from here on out, not at Deity, and not with only one shot (and no gpt deals) on first contact. That's a couple dozen necessary techs, and never any money for upgrades or cash rushes.

In addition: we have gotten the nearest civs to us into war already; that means their research will be slowed. The Library, if we don't get it ourselves, will probably go to a distant civ we haven't contacted yet. We could very well not be able to capture it until very late indeed, at which point we will have been fighting superior units for a long time.

No other wonder comes close to that sort of return on investment in this type of game, IMO. The Lighthouse would be nice to have, but the Library will keep us from getting overrun by MI and knights while we're still stuck in despotism researching math. The critical factor here is the unit support costs, which will hamstring even what research capability we would normally have with respect to Deity AIs, which is darn little. And again, we cannot trade in any meaningful sense of the word, so we can't count on a well-timed monopoly tech to save us.

Arab contact and related matters -- not sure on that one. We need to be a bit wary about settling in the jungle, because if the AIs do land there, our offensive options stink. And in any case, I'd rather our precious early settlers found towns that will be of more immediate use. Maybe hook up a spice tile with a colony, and stick a couple of spears on top of it?

If we do delay contact with the Arabs, it's likely the first we'll see of them is when they plop a spice town down in the jungle. This might not be a completely bad thing, AIs settling on our island -- at least we'll get some slaves out of it when we raze the cities.

Re: the dotmap. If we focus on Izmet or whatever the heck it's called, are we planning to build palace there or FP? It's only the palace around which rings matter.

I gotta go, back later.

Renata

 

[Furiey]

Isn’t this spoiler information? These programs are a cheat! There is no way that this information should be available to a player. If this were a poker game it would be like peeking in the deck ahead of time to decide on your bet. How can these programs be allowed?

All this information is already available to the player without these programs if they have enough time on their hands to get it and do the calculations....

I have not played Deity, but I do remember how hard SGOTM3 (Emporer) was. We were very nearly overrun and the teams that did best were those with the Great Library. Here we have one go at a trade then that's it. We have to research ourselves. Without the GL it will cost us dearly to keep up, while at the same time we have to support a large army. If we don't get the GL and don't manage to keep up it will be a hard fight indeed to capture it, particularly if it's the other side of the World.

On Sabre's dotmaps for the first ring in each case, Sogut site 1 and Izmit site 8 are both on rcp distance so would fit with either. Guess I'm going to need 2 or 3 sites for the next 10 turns though.

 

[Renata]

Ok, let's assume Izzie gets the FP, because obviously we want both FP and palace ASAP for the OCP doubling, if nothing else, and if we build palace first in Izzie, we'll be stuck with only one of the two buildings until we go capture another island. In that case, the Izzie-centered map doesn't gain us anything over completely random city placements, since we'll wind up with cities at every possible RCP distance from Sogut itself. And it's apparent from the completely lackluster response to purely Sogut-centered dotmaps that that option gets really awkward in places.

So let's assume the FP *will* go to Izzie, and see what sorts of city placements will be best, taking that into consideration. All that matters with most of the southern and southwestern towns (all of which will be closer to Izzie than to the capital) in terms of corruption is how close they are to Izzie relative to the distance of various cities to the capital. (Man, that's hard to explain.) For example, Izzie itself is RCP 4 from Sogut. That means any town RCP 4 or less from Izzie and closer to Izzie than to Sogut will enjoy minimal corruption -- as long as we don't sneak in any towns closer than RCP 4 to Sogut itself.

In other words, we should have a little more flexibility with city placements than we've been thinking about so far, provided we're willing to sacrifice just a tad in corruption here and there until the FP is built. I think it's worth it if we have something to gain -- more river cities, for example, or faster access to resources of various types, or more coastal cities, or more efficient movement between towns, or whatever.

I actually have time tonight, since I misremembered the date of the concert we're going to (it's tomorrow, not today) and already mistakenly begged off my SGs, so I'll try to put together a half-way decent dotmap based on an FP in Izzie. We already have a Sogut-centered one, and the Izzie-centered one is only of use if we move the palace there (for which I'm perfectly willing to hear arguments, if there are any) -- anyone care to take a crack at a completely strategic one? In other words, ignore RCP entirely and just figure out where cities would fit best with all we have to take into consideration.

We could pick the best of the three options and tweak as necessary. Thoughts?

Renata

 

[tao]

For instance, there is no question about what unit would be best to build in abundance to guarantee winning the game: galleys! If the AI could never land a single unit on our soil, we would win.

I can't completely agree with this. In order to win by domination (and that is the target victory condition), we have to conquer a significant part of AI territory. And that will be done with land units.

SO, what about the Great LightHouse? It costs nothing more than the GL and gives us the extra move advantage until Magnetism. In this game, I think we at least need to discuss which is better.

Once again, I can't agree. Just look at the map. We live in a tiny(!) world, the AI territory is grouped all around us. Our galleys can reach at least India, Zulus, Arabs in 1 turn and return to port the same turn. GLight is wasted shields. So are more galleys than we need to do our transports IMHO.

Regarding CivAssist II: Mad-Bax expicitely encouraged us to use it!

Regarding trades: well-timed GLib will finish within a dozen turns after we learn literature and then we have not motivation at all to increase tech speeed except learning the world map. IMHO we should not trade tech for tech.

 

[Keath]

The programs aren't spoilers.

I don't agree. Using the Editor should not be allowed. It is a tool for designing not snooping. I'll bet I'm not the only one that thinks these utilities are spoilers. How could I find out how long it will take to research a tech? Only my experience should be at play in a game like this or in a GOTM.

If I recall, the only reason any of these utilities were allowed was because in a conquest game a player might trigger a Domination win. If he did, he was allowed to take the move over and rectify the situation. This produced the first of these utilities -- MapStat. I don't agree with this either.

If you squeeze too hard and trigger a Domination win, tough luck. Next time you'll leave a little leeway to guarantee you don't trigger it. Being an experienced player means you might intuitively get closer but to have a utility extract that info is a cheat regardless of how you see it. And if I am that mathematically dedicated then okay give me a calculator but an electronic crutch is just that, a crutch.

In chess tournaments and all chess games of consequence, it's *touch move*. If you touch the piece you must move it. No take backs. I see no difference here.

Renata, isn't part of the thrill of this game in making a decision, pressing the return key and nervously waiting to see if you made the best choice? It's that unknown part of the game what makes for the real excitement. I mean if it was only important to win at all costs then why not allow players to redo whole moves if they erred? But, that is not allowed. I see no difference.

And, I don't really care who produced the utilitiy, a cheat is a cheat -- the Emperor has no clothes.

All this information is already available to the player without these programs if they have enough time on their hands to get it and do the calculations....

Where?

In a chess match, you are restricted by time. Sure, you can spend all the time you want analyzing a move but time is a factor. Same thing here, in a GOTM you have only one month to complete your game so there is a restriction here, too. And there is a restriction in an SG, too. You are expected to do your moves in a specific time span even if it isn't monitored.

You can use a computer to analyze a chess position but not during a game. These utilities might be great to figure out why things went the way they did and in this case I think they could be a great learning tool but not during a game. Sorry, I disagree.

 

[Renata]

So are more galleys than we need to do our transports IMHO.

I think I agree with Keath on this point. If we can establish naval supremacy, such that our opponents are maxed out on land units and we can kill nearly all enemy galleys at sea before they can land, we will be in a much better position to carry out invasions of our own. Sabre mentioned the need for 'a few' defensive units to cover our invading forces: we may well need more than a few unless mad-bax has been very *very* kind with resource distribution. Even if we are fortunate enough to get an army for cover, we will not be able to transport it full; therefore we will have to have enough defensive and artillery units to hold off the AI for at least one turn. Establishing ocean supremacy (and hence potentially needing very few real units on the home island) would go a long way towards enabling us to get those defenders built promptly.

This is all a bit down the road, though. A lot will depend on the timing of our GL build and the advent of mapmaking among the AI -- the former controls when we can start to build galleys at all; the latter has a lot to do with when the invasions start. We have a few more turnsets to mull over the options.

Renata

 

[Furiey]

A discussion on the use of utilities won't get us anywhere in this game, while they are allowed I will use them, they just save too much time, so getting back to the basics and how the next 10 turns fit with what we do.

I have been looking at Sogut. We build a Settler in 1 dropping the population to 4 with growth in 2 but only 9 shields. The BG is mined in 2 so it will be useable for when Sogut grows to size 5, giving 10 uncorrupted shields at size 5 with +5ftp. So to produce a Warrior then a Settler in 4 turns the city has to maintain the growth in 2 and not drop below size 5. At size 6 we use the Grassland (not bonus) to maintain the +5fpt, the shields are unimportant as any more go to waste. We therefore need to let Sogut grow to size 5 and spend 1 turn at size 5 before we start another Settler. This gives 3 turns (pop4, 9shields + pop4, 9shields, + pop5, 11 shields) for the next unit(s) ie: either 2 Warriors or an Archer/Spearman. We can then fall into the Warrior>Settler>Warrior>Settler sequence until we want to change. This will give Settlers on turns 1, 7, 11, 15, 19 etc and we'll need 2 city sites for my turns. We have so units and it looks like there are barbs about so I'm tempted to go for the 2 Warrior option, but the next city we build should be suitable for churning out units.

 

[Renata]

Are you counting any shields we'll get on growth? If there is an unused 2-shield tile available (just looked at Tao's dotmaps -- there's a forest, unless we've chopped it), we should pick it up on growth for 11 shields on the second turn. So you could actually get an archer and a warrior, in that order.

Edit: not sure of the corruption situation. Is your 9 shields at size 4 after corruption, or before? If after, what I described should work. If before, we'll only actually see one of the extra two shields and come up a single shield short of building an archer. (Unless you want to disband a warrior in Sogut on the first turn!)

Renata

 

[Furiey]

Yes I am, but one shield is lost to corruption. At size 4 we get 9 shields with no corruption, at size 5 using the forest gives 10 shields after corruption (as Sogut is getting at the moment), but also drops us to 4fpt so the city will not grow in 2 which we need to retain. The 2nd BG will be mined in 2 turns so that can be used when the city next grows to 5 also giving 10 shields after corruption but with growth in 2. I've been using a spreadsheet (Excel) I developed quite a long while back now rather than Offa's - it's not as pretty, but it allows you to set up a queue and also predict what tile will be used on growth. I've just added a corruption column to take that into account as well. It's attached if you want to play with it - just fill in the queue on the Build Queue sheet and put a y (for yes) in the column for the tiles used that turn and an n (for next) on the tile that will be used next when the city grows.

 

[Renata]

Oh, I see where you put the extra shield now. (I tend to add it to accounting for the turn before growth, rather than the turn after.) Dang, that's annoying.

I guess I'd prefer the 30-shield archer over the two-warrior option then, all else being equal.

Thanks for the spreadsheet; will download it later.

Renata

 

[Furiey]

Yes we have a 19 shield Warrior or a 30 shield Archer (or Spearman). Pretty annoying.

 

[Keath]

I think I agree with Keath on this point.

Hurray!!

I don't mean to be nasty about my feelings towards these utilities but my strong feeling is that we, the team, make the decisions based on the best pooled knowledge we can muster -- not electronic snooping.

This team cooperation and strategy discussion is what I wanted to do before we got/get too far into the game. If I was late arriving then I guess I miss out but the word was May 16 but these threads began days earlier. But all is not lost. We actually needed to have a look and the first city was definitely in the right place and the second choice was a good one, too. However, when tao had to make a call on a second research tech, I don't think IW was the right choice. This is why we needed to have a consolidated agreement on our destinations, strategies or goals.

Happily, Sabre got a terrific deal from the Zulu. And now we are at a position to analyze exactly our choices. I stated last game that I like to find a unique path to take and maybe here the choices are clear -- the Great Library is a must get. I know from the games I tried that techs are hard to come by and without the boost of the Library it's pretty tough. So, Great Library it is!

If we can establish naval supremacy, such that our opponents are maxed out on land units and we can kill nearly all enemy galleys at sea before they can land, we will be in a much better position to carry out invasions of our own. ...... Establishing ocean supremacy (and hence potentially needing very few real units on the home island) would go a long way towards enabling us to get those defenders built promptly.

Yes! Well explained and I agree.

GLight is wasted shields. So are more galleys than we need to do our transports IMHO.

I cannot disagree more. Our navy will be our most important asset. I can't imagine trying to invade even a nearby civ without naval supremacy. So whoever builds the GLH should have a big target on their back. Extra movement and sea capability all the way to Magnetism is a huge bonus and possibly a winning tactic.

Without protection from a stack of galleys we are in a worse position than when the AI attack us. One galley worth 30 shields could destroy a 30 shield galley containing 2 - 100 shield Dragoons - a 230 shield loss! We cannot afford to take that chance and if we have more than we need, we fill the regs and leave the elites and vets empty. I believe the elites, vets fight before the regs, right?

And, if there are extra galleys and it's necessary to cross ocean tiles on a suicide run then we have them. I hope everyone agrees that galleys should be a top priority.

@ Furiey - Nice spreadsheet. I will have a look. By the way, I think using spreadsheets is perfectly within the rules. It's the extraction of information from the save file that I disagree with.