SGOTM 13 - Gypsy Kings

adrianj said:

A GS bulb on Epic speed is worth 2250 + 4.5/population. So we could expect maybe 2500.

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That's about right from my experiences in test games.

adrianj said:

True cost of Compass (after prereq bonus) is 780 . So bulbing that is definitely quite a waste.
True cost of Optics is 1170. So not a great deal there either.
Machinery is 1365, so not bad value, but it has the added isue that a GS would rather bulb Calendar at this stage.
Astro is one of those few techs that gives no prereq bonus, so true cost is 4680. A double bulb of this is pretty good value.

So I guess the only efficient bulb if we're on a pretty strict beeline is Astro itself.

Other uses for the GS are of course to settle, build academy, or save to bulb something else (eg, Philo or Education). I'll assume the capital is producing at least 20 raw , so in that respect an Academy is more profitable than a settled GS. But, if the city is producing say 30 (couple of scientist specialists for example) then compared to a bulb of Optics it would take 78 turns to pay back the investment. I would have hoped that we would be almost done after 78 turns! And that's just to break even. The Academy is in fact a bit worse than that, because it's unlikely we'll be running 100% science slider.

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In the T238 930AD test game I played to bulb out Astronomy, I was running 6 scientists+GLib in CC, running 50% sustainable slider to return 60/turn. So at that point an Academy was worth 30/turn. However, there's a hidden scaling factor in play - the game reported 156 produced by my empire, but Guilds went up by 190. That scaling factor was about 25% after the academy had acted. I put the academy down at about T140, and probably got the GLib+NE up around T180. So I've had ~50 turns of the ~40/turn from the academy, plus a bit more from earlier. So at this point it's close to breaking even compared with a bulb. I still have the whole Civil Service and Guilds trees to tech (so 26K beakers before prereqs activate, assuming Lib->Steel at the end. That's a lotta tech to swallow - but the academy is only producing one-fifth of our beakers anyway.

That said, this empire had much poorer land than it looks like we'll have available in the real game, and I hadn't expanded that empire as much as I could - was only after dates for fast-Astro really.

I think we still want Astronomy for the war effort - faster and bigger transports are great, and mobile frigates save lots of bombing time while harvesting caravels that occasionally get lucky on our loaded galleons. However with the discovery of Vicky, we don't need it so much for the economy. So it's more a second-last-minute-before-war priority.

Circumnavigation before Optics is now a serious possibility, and I think we want to send a workboat west ASAP.

adrianj said:

A settled GS is pretty easy to calculate how many turns it pays for itself. Assume at least a library, representation civic, and maybe generously consider the 1=2, and it produces 13/turn, or 17 with an Academy. That would still take ~70 turns before it is more profitable than bulbing Optics.

I guess in conclusion, given that our expected time frame is really quite short (less than 100 turns), I don't think using GScientists for anything other than bulbing is going to help to get us to Astro ASAP. Beyond Astro, how much tech do we think we need?

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Muskets+cannons was not what you'd call fast. I was taking losses, and shudder to think how things would have been if my cannons had not been good stack defenders. If trebs are our siege then we'll take lots more musket losses.

We might well want a four-tech force too. Frigates bomb down coastal cities for muskets + cuirassiers to take, while the cannons traipse slowly inland to bomb those cities. Our fast-moving city-taking stacks arrive once the defenses are down and we judge whether cuirassiers or cannons will take more losses. Rinse, repeat. Cuirassiers add Military Tradition to the list.

How to figure out what techs the AI has - BEFORE Alphabet

Recall the hidden tech formula:
/turn = floor(floor(science: from cities + 1) * KAwT) * PrereqBonus)

KAwT is the Known AI with Tech modifier, which is (1+0.3*NAwT/N) where NAwT is number of AI with tech, N is total number of players in the game.

As an example, consider our current situation with Vicky. If we were producing 23 /turn from our cities, investing in a tech like IW that she does NOT have, we would actually contribute
floor(((23+1) * 1) * 1.2) = 28. The tech would therefore take us an expected 468/28 = 17 turns.

If Vicky knows the tech, then we get an extra 0.3/7 = 4.28% bonus.
floor(((23+1) * 1.0428) * 1.2) = 30. Expected number of turns is then 16.

So. Does she have Iron Working?

Edit: FYI - I chose 23 from our cities purposefuly. This is the minimum science required to give a quantifiable difference caused by KAwT of 4.28%, ie, floor(24 *1.0428) = 25. Therefore, when using this trick, adjust the empire accordingly to get 23 showing next to the slider.


@Mabraham - FYI, 156 *1.2 (prereq bonus) = 187. This is the "scaling" factor you refer to above.

Turnsets are going to get shorter now also. We want to be precise with our actions, and tactics will come into play sooner rather than later.

Explore west ASAP, I agree 100%.

If mab and bc could log into Messenger we could have a 5 way conversation....it is aj, griff and I now!

OK, just sent an e-mail with the Interim save & some screen shots.

I'm going to fly the camera!

EDIT: OK A few quick observations.....the landmass the archer is on is pretty big I think, lots of hills, some peaks and forests in the shadows.

We are very far north, i just realized the tile above the plains on the island to our north is Tundra. Our future scouts should be able to work in a southerly direction.

Because we are in the north, and Vicky seems to be in the north, I would not be surprised if we find next contact to her S > SE...Germany or Spain more than likely. Russia further east.

She has either NOT made contact, or doesn't yet have sailing and is separated by water because she has no trade routes. Actually, none of the AI have trade routes, so no road contact even if they have met on a landmass.

EDIT 2: There is a lot of land SE of WB4 also, varied terrain, forests and jungles.

bcool said:

Now that we have met an AI, this changes a lot of things.

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Changed, changed utterly...

bcool said:

Tech
Do we still beeline Astronomy? Or construction for catapults, or do we beeline Civil Service/Machinery for macemen?
(Techs that AI know give us a discount, we can often figure out what techs they have before alphabet by carefully analyzing the boost to research we get when we tech something they know)

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Vicky is a chance to tech Alphabet for us.... Alphabet has flavours Science/Gold/Religion in ratios 8/4/2. Plausible AIs and their flavours below:

• WvO is Gold/Science 5/2
• Peter is Science/Growth 5/2
• Vicky is Gold/Growth 5/2
• Joao is Science/Military 5/2
• Isabella is Religion 10
• Bismarck and Ragnar are Military 10
• Catherine and Louis are Culture/Military 5/2
• Charlemagne is Military/Religion 5/2

The question is whether some AI will tech Alphabet and it be accessible to us in time for us not to be left out in the cold from the backfill-trading.

I think the priority of Astronomy has dropped a lot. Does this shift the priority of Meditation to bulb Philo for running Taoist Pacifism? That will put out about another two GScientists over the relevant time frame, showing a profit for the bulb. That will mean some of the AIs hate us, but that only matters if we would have needed them for trades.

My gut feeling is that we need siege weapons to overcome transport difficulties and low hammer-production. Axemen and swordsmen are 52 and 60 , respectively. So 2-whipping is only going to produce about 2 per 15 turns per city. Our natural in these three cities will only produce such a unit in about 3 turns over the empire. So from these three cities, fully online and doing nothing else, we could get out about 10 such units every 15 turns if we put our minds to it. We'd also need about 5 galleys and a trireme (75 apiece). That's a comparable number of , so call that another 15 turns. So in 30 turns, if we hook up a metal, we could have 10 axes/swords on boats ready to go. They'd have to travel at least 8 turns to her empire (but we'll know where it is by then). They'd be screwed if she has metal connected or is settled on hills. Obviously, we'd beeline the coastal capital if possible.

Catapults are 75 , but well worth the investment. Crossbows 90, maces 105, trebs 120.

My instinct is to carry on with the CoL-Lit GLib-NE plan, and rely on that tech edge to allow us to take her out faster than we could take her out early and catch up the tech.

Note that if we tech Civil Service, then we won't be bulbing Astronomy until after we have Printing Press. One option is to bulb machinery and attack with catapults and a mix of swords and Xbows. This assumes we can hit her pre-longbows, of course.

bcool said:

Production
I think we still Duckweed the Pyramids since we expand about as fast without Duckweeding as we do just expanding.

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Yep.

bcool said:

Early war possibilities, try to take out Victoria with an early axe/sword rush with or without catapults.

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Three cities is quite few for an AI at this stage - perhaps she has small islands also? A neighbour? What is the espionage ratio over the first few turns of contact?

Tempting... I think we need some more intel on her land before deviating from our GLib plan. Construction and/or Eng are not big side trips. We will have to build a lot of galleys to make that work, too... I think we should aim for high-value units to offset that need.

Capturing her capital is likely to provide either that Bureaucracy cottageville or GT drafting farm of our dreams.

bcool said:

Trades (we open borders immediately of course) Makes currency more valuable. Makes Alphabet more valuable.

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We should give Vicky a clam ASAP - may as well get the plusmod, and ASAP means we can cancel to trade for a useful resource ASAP too.

bcool said:

Odds of meeting other AI just went way up, makes exploring more important too.

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Indeed. Circumnavigation pre-caravel is now seriously on the cards and we have to plan for a WB west ASAP to try for that and see where our western settling pressure will come from. Probably some backup triremes, too.

This...

mabraham said:

I think the priority of Astronomy has dropped a lot.

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and this...

What is the espionage ratio over the first few turns of contact?

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and this...

Capturing her capital is likely to provide either that Bureaucracy cottageville or GT drafting farm of our dreams.

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and this...

We should give Vicky a clam ASAP - may as well get the plusmod, and ASAP means we can cancel to trade for a useful resource ASAP too.

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The espionage one especially. It would be informative to know if she has contact with other AI further east. Ron believes the map maker has already put them in contact, considering the unique game settings. I'm not so sure. But in any event, we will know if Vicky is splitting her 4 points.

What is the espionage ratio over the first few turns of contact?

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Have not ended a turn since contact. As noted above, no trade routes yet, but that does not rule out contact.

Vicky has Stonehenge and not GLH

Ron believes the map maker has already put them in contact, considering the unique game settings. I'm not so sure.

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Not exactly what I was thinking...just that they would be in close proximity. But my theories should be taken with a large grain of salt, for I did NOT expect galley contact to available at all.

I "think" the game designer tried to design a game that would have the AI's gang up on Napoleon sooner or later. That would be accomplished by having them close together, but not so close as to cause serious border pressure early. They would share a religion hopefully. You would force the human player into war mode (static VC's). Maybe they each have a decent sized landmass all to their own, but in relative close proximity.

Thought I'd put this in here.


FYI: Photobucket is quite useful for inserting images directly into the thread. I find it easier to have them right here than delving into emails or my file system.

This image is from T97 - so obviously doesn't show Stone Mountain. Next city we settle - down by copper (southeast) or marble? We have met an AI that doesn't require Astro contact. Is it more important for us to connect Copper to build Colossus, or connect Marble to build GLib? Marble has the added benefit of going towards many different wonders (eg, ToA) which we can invest in for the purpose of building wealth as fail gold.

Or, should our main consideration for our next city be more about how good the city actually is? Marble city is quite close (lower maintenance), and doesn't require much infrastructure to become useful very soon.

bcool said:

I think it was suggested we fit Currency in right after Math. Since getting the trade routes earlier is better. I assume this would be more than the 20% optional prereq bonus.

I believe the discount on currency (936 ) would be ~187 after modifiers and I imagine we would have at least 5 cities by the time we finish currency so 5 trade routes of at least 2 right (with overseas trade) for a total of ~10/turn. So if we finish currency ~19 turns earlier we would save about the same amount as the prereq discount. It would be somewhat less if we had a library or 2 and/or an academy since those would multiple the raw commerce of the trade routes.

This also suggest that currency pays for itself in approximately 50-75 turns (assuming 20% discount from 1 pre-req and an average gai n of 10-15 commerce from the extra trade routes). Would be a bit less if we have multiplying buildings.

edit: of course we have to look at all of the ramifications of earlier currency... It would delay Literature, but I'm not sure that means it would delay the GLib since we might not be in a position to immediately start to build it. Where we fit in currency might depend on how the timing works out on the builds. The Great Library is more valuable in terms of science than currency would be and is more critical in getting the GS to bulb Astronomy.

Does it make sense to bulb compass and optics? How much do we waste from the bulb? Can we do estimates of the values of an Academy even a settled GS in the Academy city might beat the bulbs when the waste is accounted for?

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Now that we have overseas trade routes, and about 5 city sites visible we can settle in the timeframe up to and shortly past Currency, the value of the extra trade route is in the range of 10-24/turn (depending on timing and how many 3 routes we can get from Vicky or others). GLib is worth 126/turn. Seems vaguely comparable. Not starting GLib risks losing it...

Ronnie1 said:

She has either NOT made contact, or doesn't yet have sailing and is separated by water because she has no trade routes. Actually, none of the AI have trade routes, so no road contact even if they have met on a landmass.

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How do you know this Ron?
The Imports/Exports from the demographics screen is the Net Imports - Exports. So if two nations are trading, at this stage it is likely they both benefit equally, so net is 0. GLH owner on the other hand might have contact with multiple AI, so will get a net number of +2 or -2 or something.

mabraham said:

Now that we have overseas trade routes, and about 5 city sites visible we can settle in the timeframe up to and shortly past Currency, the value of the extra trade route is in the range of 10-24/turn (depending on timing and how many 3 routes we can get from Vicky or others). GLib is worth 126/turn. Seems vaguely comparable. Not starting GLib risks losing it...

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Currency has the extra advantage now in that we could trade for from Vicky. She might not have a lot available, but 30 is still 30.

It also gives us the opportunity to Gift gold to new AI that we meet. Small gifts made on the same turn we meet them have an unexpectedly large benefit in terms of diplo +mods.

We had some IM discussions. For the record (and those not there) we decided

• Vicky does not have Meditation, Monarchy or IW
• Grifftavian should play 3 more turns circling the copper island for the intelligence (this might delay the worker returning to the mainland for workshops, but a few of us thought it worthwhile) - no serious changes to the PPP required
• keep exploring east - we want to see Vicky's capital to plan how soon we want to capture it
• Colossus is back on the table now that we have copper and maybe late Astronomy
• Can we get get some wonders built in Fish Hills while CC runs its piles of scientists? Hanging Gardens? Colossus? ToA?
• HG in CC for the GE would be nice, but it's pretty busy with GLib+NE...
• Settling on marble gets +1 in the central tile in a test. Settling SW of marble loses a chop and some distance maintenance, but gets to work the marble tile, and the clam sooner, so seems best. Chopping that forest early onto the Pyramids gets only 6 base, which is about 2/3 of a turn on the Pyramids, so probably not worth the worker and galley turns.
• once we get EPs on Vicky we can see if she has AI contacts
• SM has put two turns on a granary working grassland following the PPP - this was changed to monument working the Ghills and then Gmine because that gets monument out fastest to get working the fish

Finished out my turn set with the completion of Writing. I've put Mathematics on for research, but there are zero invested, so it could be changed.

Didn't find English territory but WB4 did spot a Barb Archer not far from where it saw Vicky's Archer.

Stone Mountain was founded on T104, on the Stone. Initial build was Granary, but per Windows Messenger discussions with R1, aj & mab, I changed the build to Monument. Worker is building a Mine 1S of SM, should be finished in another turn or two. I believe the plan is for Galley to pick him up & take him back to CC for some Workshop builds there.

CC & FH will both grow next turn. CC is building a Forge, but I did put a turn or 2 on a Pyramids build there, so ~16 invested in that. FH is building another exploring Work Boat, which I guess should sail NW & W from FH.

Now that we have Writing, game says Vicky will sign OB Treaty, but I did not initiate that trade request.

Game is uploaded to P&R page, and here...

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm13/Gypsy_Kings_SG013_BC1300_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

Upload Log...
Autolog for the final part of my turn set...

re: currency vs. Literature (and the GLib)

10-24 commerce from currency vs. 12 and 8

early points are very valuable. The Great Library actually gives 8 / turn (2 from the library and 6 from the free scientists)

For example, I believe it is 300 gpp for 2nd great person
Each GS gives us up to 2500 from bulb **

So what are 8 gpp worth? 8/300 * 2500 = 66.7 /turn if helps get 2nd great person (GS)
goes down to 44.4 for 3rd great person (GS)
then 33.3 for 4th great person (GS)

This of course assumes we get the full value of the bulb and the great scientist bulbs something we want.

(and conceivably benefit is multiplied if we get the National Epic or get Pacifism)

**an academy benefit is less immediate and thus probably less valuable (over the course of the game it would be more valuable in terms of raw and is more flexible but it is harder to quantify)


Currency allows gold trades as aj was mentioning both gold for clam and gold for techs and the trade routes. We can also build wealth although this seems doubtful early on with so few hammers (and other better options like building the pyramids in 2 cities for failure gold)

adrianj said:

Currency has the extra advantage now in that we could trade for from Vicky. She might not have a lot available, but 30 is still 30.

It also gives us the opportunity to Gift gold to new AI that we meet. Small gifts made on the same turn we meet them have an unexpectedly large benefit in terms of diplo +mods.

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Wow, great points!

adrianj said:

How do you know this Ron?
The Imports/Exports from the demographics screen is the Net Imports - Exports. So if two nations are trading, at this stage it is likely they both benefit equally, so net is 0. GLH owner on the other hand might have contact with multiple AI, so will get a net number of +2 or -2 or something.

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The short is answer that I assumed I knew something about the workings of the demo screen that in reality I am clueless about!

I assumed that imports/exports would show something in that column if trade was occurring. Obviously I was wrong, which is why I usually leave the screen reading to you! So, I will try to refrain from making assumptions that assure people I know less about this game than may be obvious at first glance!

Duckweeding a Moai Statues too should be considered in a city soon, maybe FH?