SGOTM8 - Durkz

[Methos]

Where's my manners. I don't believe I've said hello to everyone either. Well, better late than never, so hello everyone.

Me first huh, okay. I'd probably go with scout 2S and worker SW to water. Settler south unless the scout finds something nasty. I asked this before but either no one answered it or I missed it. How much food does a watered FP get during Despotism?

I'd like to get WDC at either +4 or +5 food for growth. Because of this we'll need at least one warrior, maybe two. With this I'd say after watering the first FP maybe water the plains tile east of there, or water the FP tile to the NW?

The main problem I see with watering the tile first is we'll only be earning 1 spt. Does the Industrious bonus shield only get earned once we are a city (size 7+)?

Should growth be our priority at the start?

 

[Durkz]

Well farmers gambit considers building settlers at max with very litle military and when all land is ocupied, then build max military. That will work excelent as we are 90% alone on our island and if we are not alone nothing changes things.


About palace jumping. We need 7 cities on the other continet to be able to palace jump. This makes our P. Jump much harder especialy if the other civ is on a small island.

 

[Methos]

Just a thought. According to the screen shot it looks like there is another river to the north. We might want to explore there first to see if it would be possible to setup another settler/worker factory.

 

[Durkz]

How much food does a watered FP get during Despotism?

3 food

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edit:
yes we get a +1 shield at 7+. But my main fear is the disese as there are a lot of FP and we might not grow to size 3 at all. That's why i was proposing that we move somwere with less FP.

 

[WarDance]

Hello all! Time for me to check in. Thanks for the pm, Durkz. I haven't been paying attention.

Niklas brought up an interesting strategy that could be made even more interesting with the "teleporter trick". It isn't a banned technique but it might be frowned upon still. BUT... with an archipelago map it might not be worth it. If it were continents it could be very useful. But with lots of little islands it could be more trouble than it's worth.

edit: hmmm. now that I've thought about it a bit more, the teleporter might actually be impossible in this instance. Yes I think it would be. Never mind about that. No matter. Even though it's not banned it's still a pretty big exploit.

 

[Durkz]

Hello all! Time for me to check in. Thanks for the pm, Durkz. I haven't been paying attention.

Niklas brought up an interesting strategy that could be made even more interesting with the "teleporter trick". It isn't a banned technique but it might be frowned upon still. BUT... with an archipelago map it might not be worth it. If it were continents it could be very useful. But with lots of little islands it could be more trouble than it's worth.

Hey WD it's nice to see that our team is complete

actually the teleporter trick is banned for this SGOTM, and we need to have 7 cities on the other island to palace jump to make another core. it's clear that we are going to fight most of this game in the MA as it was aimed that way by the staff.

 

[Methos]

Hello WarDance!

 

[WarDance]

Hiya, Methos! Welcome to the team.

About the teleporter, I'm actually glad it was banned. I don't like it. In a game like this it would certainly be helpful, though difficult to pull off. The AI won't do it, and it's possible that many of the teams wouldn't even think of it, so it makes sense not to allow it. This is going to be a fun one!

 

[Niklas]

This is what AlanH has to say about the trick I suggested:

Gifting cities is a part of the game. You've probably seen what happened when I tried to be selective and allow some aspects of teleporting and disallow others. It finished up as a blanket ban. If we totally prohibit every game element that could possibly be "abused" we'll have no game left, so I don't propose to try to stop city gifting.

Your proposal has a downside as well, I guess, and it would require skill and good timing to be effective. Go for it if you think it'll work.

Good luck

I'm not sure it's worth the trouble to set this up though, but I think we should have it in mind if we see that it could work. I guess it all hinges on the size of our island and the sizes of the other islands. (Hmm, if we use this trick after we've gotten flight, then we only need to get one town in which we can rush an airport...)

Regarding the roster, I'm still not sure how much I can play in the early game. Put me whereever and I'll try to play as much as time (and wife ) allows. I think we should really consider the lesson from last game, and not play so bloody fast. We played with the results of the one faster team in mind (XTeam) and so we beat them, but Peanut had our results to go on and could "tailor" their ending to ours. I'm not saying we would have beaten them if the roles had been reversed, just that we'd had a much better chance. I guess what I'm trying to get to is that no one should feel pressured to play their turns fast since it's not really an advantage to do so.

 

[Durkz]

yes i was thinking that too. We should discus every litle thing in the game and whenever some1 feels insecure about making a move they should come to the forums and ask what to do. Even the best players do this.

NK because you are good at seting up a game, i think that you should go first or second, if you agree ofcorse.

 

[Methos]

whenever some1 feels insecure about making a move they should come to the forums and ask what to do.

Good. I was planning on doing that anyway!

 

[Niklas]

I can go first unless Methos (or anyone else) really wants to. The first 20 turns are usually fast accomplished, so it shouldn't be a problem for me to find the time.

I have made a tentative start plan that emphasizes the early granary. It is a bit uncertain though since I assume there will be at least one BG tile available. Here goes:

If there's something you don't understand, feel free to ask.

The downside of this extreme start is of course the low commerce (=science) that comes from not growing faster early, but I think we can more than catch up with a faster expansion. The first settler could come out on turn 25, and then every 5 turns until we've mined all the necessary tiles, then hopefully every 4 turns (if we have enough BGs).

Going further than this with the plan is not really worth the while yet, the insecurity beyond what we know is too great. Just moving the scout on the first turn should help a lot. Comments?

 

[Methos]

Wow! Very impressive! This makes it a lot easier to understand why the granary is the first build.

Go ahead and play first Niklas, that's fine by me. I was rather amazed I was put first due to me being the least experienced of us.

 

[Durkz]

That's great NK. You should go firs so you can adjust the ss if something important apears. Anyone other want to change their roster place?

Niklas
Methos
The Adjudicator
WarDance
zyxy
Durkz


@ methos you were first because of the alphabetical order and because i jumped to the last spot

 

[The Adjudicator]

I went through some start plans trying the plains instead of the desert. With a chop we can get the granary turn 17 and a settler turn 24. The plains gives us instant access to the sheep. The downside is we lose the production of the plains tile. I think we shouls take a look down south with the scoutto check out all of those grasslands. If there are no bg, then perhaps the quicker access to the sheep and the faster settler will serve us in the long run.

Also, I will try a few games where I gift some cities, immediately retake them, and sue for peace to try and get more cities. If it works, it could be very powerful, indeed. But the cost seems very high, with a rep hit and the risk of ruining the cities. It seems like it will only work if we have a few unproductive cities and we are fighting a weak opponent. If it gives us a beachhead on a larger continent with multiple AI, then it would be best.

 

[WarDance]

Regarding the farmer's gambit:

I'm concerned about raging barbs. How early can we expect to see barbs approaching our first town? The earliest I've seen in a random game on monarch is around 2200BC, with roaming or restless barbs. Another thought is what if we aren't alone on our landmass and the other civ is not expansionist? If they pop a hut close to us while we're building our granary or first settler we could be in a bind. Anyone else worried?

I'd also like to open discussions about 1) our golden age, and 2) wonder building.

When do we want our golden age? I would think that we would want it prior to f-15's. Having a second core up and running when you trigger your golden age is always nice, but may not be possible in this one. Being Industrious and expansionist we could trigger with the Lighthouse and the Hanging Gardens for a late AA golden age. Or should we put it off further than that?

As for wonders, the Great Library is always useful of course, and the lighthouse WOULD be useful if we could build ships... it's only use would be to trigger a GA. I am a big fan of the Hanging Gardens. It is useful until Steam Power, and can sure help when you don't have many luxuries around. In my opinion, no other AA wonders will be useful to us. In the MA we should definitely go for Copernicus' and Newton's. Smith's is always nice but never necessary. The value of Leonardo's I think will be much lessened for us in this variant. Usually the big boost that Leo's gives is cheap upgrade of knights and cavalry, and (depending on the map of course) we really don't have a need for a big knight army.

I know I'm getting a bit ahead of things...

 

[WarDance]

I've thought of another way to get units onto a different landmass. The chances of it working are probably slim, but still a possibility. It is entirely dependent on us not being alone on the starting landmass.

If there is another civ on our starting island or continent and there is another landmass nearby on the other side of them AND there are unclaimed tiles there AND all of the nearby tiles on OUR landmass are claimed, we could make a right of passage agreement with the civ sharing our landmass. Then we move a bunch of units all the way to the far edge of their territory as near the other landmass as we can... and wait for the ROP to run out. They will ask us to leave. We say ok but leave our units there. Then they will say "get out or declare war" and we say ok we'll get out. Our units then jump to the nearest unclaimed tile, right? I think that would work, but not entirely sure.

 

[Niklas]

Got it, and the game is underway!

Moving the scout 2S gives this lovely view:

Those two BG tiles means we can run a 4-turn factory at sizes 5.0-7.0. Settling the desert is then clearly my vote. Settling the plains tile gives to little production IMO, the expansion is important but we will want a capitol that can be productive in the long run as well. Should I go ahead and settle?

Btw, F10 reports our rivals are Rome, Greece, China, England, Scandinavia and Japan. They just had to throw those Vikings in again, didn't they? We should stay on their good side in a game like this I think.

WD, you're right about the barbies. I wonder how Wacken handled them? I'm going to check that later. But anyway, we might want to consider throwing in a real unit after the granary, just to be sure. With the new info gained from the scout, I'll come up with a new improved spread sheet.

 

[WarDance]

The desert tile looks like the best option to me. I say settle there.

 

[Niklas]

A few more things to consider before I continue playing:

As Methos pointed out we should discuss tech strategies. As we will probably be alone for a while this is more important than it otherwise should be. I'm not convinced that the GLib is the way to go, as I believe we will have AI visitors before the end of the AA. If we go straight for Republic chances are good we can get it first and trade up to tech parity. And if we don't get any visitors, well, then the GLib won't do us any good anyway (you only get a tech if you know two others who knows it, right? At least I think this is the case). And regardless of which, we will want to get Republic asap just to get out of despotism. I would thus prefer that we start with Alphabet, then straight for Republic.

Another thing to discuss is those nice goody huts. I don't know if there's much to discuss though, we're expansionistic so we won't get any barbies. If we save them for later we could get more expensive techs from them, but otoh if we're lucky to find an early worker that would be a great boon which would cut several turns off the setup of our settler factory. After all there are 6 tiles to improve, costing a total of 33 worker turns including moves. I'm therefore tempted to pop that S hut directly next turn. Anyone against?

WD brought up the issue of wonders and our GA. I agree that we should probably not wait for F-15s to make our day, so wonders is the key.
Industrious wonders are Pyramids, Great Wall, Hanging Gardens, Hoover Dam and Manhattan Project. The Pyramids are just not worth it on archipelago IMO, and we'll probably not get it on emperor in any case. The Great Wall is never worth it. Thus if we want a GA any earlier than mid IA, we must get the Hanging Gardens, which at least gives us a reasonable benefit. However, I'm thinking it might actually be a good idea to have a late GA, to build up our invasion force.
Expansionist wonders are Colossus, Great Lighthouse, Copernicus, Magellan and SETI. Of the two AA ones, I'd go for Colossus, no use of a lighthouse with no boats! We should go for Copernicus in any case, and I'd prefer a mid-MA GA to an AA one, so I would probably skip the Colossus.
This also has implications on our research, if we want those Gardens we should get Monarchy pretty fast... Of course we don't have to decide anything 100% before we know a bit more about our situation and the lay of the land.