SGOTM 16 - Plastic Ducks

Any suggestion and problem about the PPP? Guys.

sossos said:

@Duckweed

Taking the WB as an example. a WB for me is 24 food->30 hammer for a gain of 3 food per turn. a granary for me is 50 food->60 hammers for a gain of 4 food per turn. Which one is better? The difference between 1 pop whip and 2 pop whip comes from the happy cap. If there is unlimited happiness or you cannot reach max pop in 10 turns, 1 pop whip or 2 pops whip makes no difference, just a conversion between food and hammer.

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I guess 4F is still better than 3F. In fact, it's not 4F vs 3F, as I explained to soundjata already, it's 5F vs 1F at size 2, and 6F vs 1F at size 3 (another FP worked).

At size 2, you are working on fish + FP, while I am working on Sheep + FP, so that's 1F more on your side. With the effect of granary, I gain 5F from the food plus (2F from city center + 2F from sheep + 1F from FP). Moreover, through 1 pop whip of WB before granary, you got 30H from 24F at that time, and you still need to do another 2 pop whip to get granary. While if I also do the 2 whips of WB and granary but whip granary 1st, I can get a WB of 30H from 12F only, that's why I said that you lost 15H from whipping WB before granary (in fact, should be 30H).

Honestly, I'm better at evaluation and judgement than strategic thinking. I could make more mistakes in proposing strategies than making choice among various approaches. As you can see, I immediately agreed with Abegweit's test run of skipping Fishing and also tried a test of your idea of skipping AH. Believe me, I rarely miss the shining points.

sossos said:

Are you both living in Canada? I'll come back to Canada next year.

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kossin lives in Quebec and I'm in Ontario.

@ Duckweed

Green light on the PPP
Lets get a horse 1S of Orleans

It seems to me If all Canadians had kossin's ISP, there would be no people on Civfanatic.


No green light from me, yet. I have guests at home but an idea occured to me I cannot test. Can we bulb Maths and chop GLH. We'll gain 15 per forest while lose 37.8 :beakers: from Writing (20% discount from AH) but we also gain beakers from sooner library. We could probably get GS in time in capitol if we went AH before Writing , but we'd risk high GPro pollution. So I'd rather get it in 2nd city with sooner Writing (before AH?). We could settle very powerful pigs+fish+deer city as our 3rd city and chop GLH in our 4th city before 800BC. 775BC was often repeating as GLH BIAFAL in my tests. Faster Maths means faster chops, faster settlers, snowball, bla bla bla...

I am in a hurry and bad host to my guests and it all probably seems as a mess, but I am appealing to Duckweed since he rarely misses shining points that he considers it and tries to make most out of it.

shakabrade said:

No green light from me, yet. I have guests at home but an idea occured to me I cannot test. Can we bulb Maths and chop GLH. We'll gain 15 per forest while lose 37.8 :beakers: from Writing (20% discount from AH) but we also gain beakers from sooner library. We could probably get GS in time in capitol if we went AH before Writing , but we'd risk high GPro pollution. So I'd rather get it in 2nd city with sooner Writing (before AH?). We could settle very powerful pigs+fish+deer city as our 3rd city and chop GLH in our 4th city before 800BC. 775BC was often repeating as GLH BIAFAL in my tests. Faster Maths means faster chops, faster settlers, snowball, bla bla bla...

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Bulbing Math could be a good idea in some cases, such as in SGOTM14, where

1. Aim for fastest military victory, hence the research stopped at Astro + Engineering
2. Abundant forests to chop
3. Abundant food + happiness + Phi trait to support scientists to bulb all necessary techs in short time

However, in this long lasting game, it's out of my consideration.

1. A huge waste of a GS, any other usage could give us 3000+ yield instead
2. Forests around capital should be reserved to speedup wonders
3. The cost of the delay of working sheep tile is more than the gain from Math bonus (10H each chop). Not many forests outside capital range.
4. Inefficient worker usage, it's better to use minimum workers to do the improvement rather than chopping, because settlers are way better than workers.
5. We can easily pump out settlers/workers through whipping rather than chopping

Sorry guys, I was completely swarmed this we, and I couldn't check the thread until tonight.

I believe I managed to catch up on the discussions though, so Green light from me.

I'm getting my laptop back tomorrow evening (Paris time, so +1 UTC), so I can start working on my turnset then.
I may need a couple of days to really get into the game though, since I still haven't run any tests or checked the saves yet.

Duckweed said:

Bulbing Math could be a good idea in some cases, such as in SGOTM14, where

1. Aim for fastest military victory, hence the research stopped at Astro + Engineering
2. Abundant forests to chop
3. Abundant food + happiness + Phi trait to support scientists to bulb all necessary techs in short time

However, in this long lasting game, it's out of my consideration.

1. A huge waste of a GS, any other usage could give us 3000+ yield instead
2. Forests around capital should be reserved to speedup wonders
3. The cost of the delay of working sheep tile is more than the gain from Math bonus (10H each chop). Not many forests outside capital range.
4. Inefficient worker usage, it's better to use minimum workers to do the improvement rather than chopping, because settlers are way better than workers.
5. We can easily pump out settlers/workers through whipping rather than chopping

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I agree with 1., 4. and 5. and that is already enough for green light from me.

However:
In 2. I was still thinking about using capital forests for wonders while using non capital forests for speeding up what ever needed speeding up.
In 3. it is 15 because I meant about forests which would be used to chop GLH (+50% bonus for wonders), 4 or 5 forests.
And you didn't asses setting pigs+fish+deer city sooner, which can, in turn, whip like mad sooner (your point 5.).

Edit: Did some testing and my idea simply isn't feasible. Also witnessed T53 Oracle but we agreed not to be scared by that...

shakabrade said:

I agree with 1., 4. and 5. and that is already enough for green light from me.

However:
In 2. I was still thinking about using capital forests for wonders while using non capital forests for speeding up what ever needed speeding up.

I don't see anything here against my point 2

In 3. it is 15 because I meant about forests which would be used to chop GLH (+50% bonus for wonders), 4 or 5 forests.

I'm still for building GLH in sheep city, which is totally mature to whip LH and has 3 mines to build GLH. Not sure which site for GLH in your mind, if it's the one marked in your test game, then 3 forests actually belong to capital.

And you didn't asses setting pigs+fish+deer city sooner, which can, in turn, whip like mad sooner (your point 5.).

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I don't see strong reasons whether to settle that site or the wheat + FPs site as 3rd city. The Pig+fish+Deer site helps further expansion, while the wheat+FPs site helps research (better to work cottages sooner than later), which helps getting wonders sooner.

Played as the plan

Turn Log


Report

A bit more map revealed.

North, 3 Horses in sight, 1 in our culture border next turn


South. Celtic culture border revealed. Not too far away, but large area of jungles between.


Test save updated, due to the horse tile, there might be 1 turn delay of Oracle if we want to connect the horse. Edit: Remove the Marble in Pacal's capital so that you won't be bothered with the scary early Oracle date (T51 in one of my test run)!

Bebekija is UP, who's on deck?

Ha, what a luck to get the horse and deer within the C2 radius! Duckweed, have you already cracked the asset file?

1. It seems that we need to HA rush to get the marble, aren't we?
2. a good spot with 12 coastal tiles for the moai, isn't it?
3. I'd like to REX after TGL is completed.

If there is no response from Bebe, I'll post my plan tomorrow night.

It seems that Kakueika lost their warrior.

sossos said:

Ha, what a luck to get the horse and deer within the C2 radius! Duckweed, have you already cracked the asset file?

1. It seems that we need to HA rush to get the marble, aren't we?
2. a good spot with 12 coastal tiles for the moai, isn't it?
3. I'd like to REX after TGL is completed.

If there is no response from Bebe, I'll post my plan tomorrow night.

Click to expand...

The tradition of SGOTM map is to ensure that human player can easily survive the early stage. With the large area of unoccupied land in the south, the designer will give us either copper or horse to deal with barbarians. In SGOTM14, we were even given archery because of no easy access to copper/horse. Although I expected that horse tile will more likely appear in the BFC of the original capital site, the current tile is not a surprise for me as well -- suspicious due to being surrounded by 4 forests.

Regarding the future plan, let's go step by step and focus on one major goal at a time. The current goal is securing Oracle.

@Bebekija

You probably need to give one of the AI mediation as I was a little bit short to research Fishing 1 turn faster in the test.

Ok so like I said yesterday, I'm getting my laptop back tonight.
So I will be able to use Duckweed's test game and run some tests to come up with a PPP.

I propose the building of the Oracle as a natural stopping point, barring any unexpected event.

I think I will start my tests following these lines :
-- Research : Myst-> Med-> PH
The usual Oracle line, though if we feel safe about the Oracle, we could consider switching Med to Poly, since we're aiming at the TGL + Music anyway, plus it allows us to trade Monotheism right off the bat.

-- Scouting : northern warrior defends against the lion then fogbusts, probably on the eastern deer tile (if the east barb warrior has been taken care of). Southern warrior proceeds E-NE to uncover more tiles near us.

-- Builds : this I really don't know right now without testing.
Orleans seems pretty obvious : warriors till pop 4 then 2 pop whip granary then WB
However, I'm not sure about Paris. I'd probably want to build another warrior because of the barb threat to the east, and we're going to build the Oracle here with 4 (5?) chops, but meanwhile? start another settler right away for city 3?

-- Worker micro : again, Orleans seems obvious : sheep, then horse, then finish cottage on the way back to Paris to help chop the Oracle. In Paris, all the important improvements seem to be done, so I guess all is needed is prechop "cleverly" to minimize the worker turns lost when the actual building of the Oracle comes, and prep the road to city 3 for the settler


Those are my general guidelines. Keep in mind that I still haven't tested anything in the game so there may be some absurd thing in there, but I just wanted to lay it down for you to make sure we're on the same page.

~~~

@Duckweed :
To be 100% sure about your last point: you're telling me that I should manually add Meditation to other AIs to match the test game with the real save, right?

Nice turnset Duckweed Now you can sit back and think about strategy

I will ask a few questions here.

Oracle Monarchy
I understand the idea behind HR: grow our cities. But growing our cities for what purpose exactly?

Great Lighthouse
I also understand this wonder is overpowered. Is there a way to calculate the return on investment (how many turns until the hammer investment become beneficial?)
I am saying that because it seems to me we are going to have many non coastal cities on our continent.

Medium term objectives apart from these 2 wonders

I guess we want to setup a strong commerce base. IE cottage and work many floodplains (Ah I can see what monarchy does here ) Maybe move our capitol at some point?

Settle toward Brennus and crush him at some point. What point?
Not too soon I guess. We don't want to crash our economy and we'd like him to shrine his capitol first. Attack before or after Oxford could be the question.

Wonders
We lack marble unfortunately and it will limit our wonderwhoring efficiency.
The Great Library, the MOM, NE, Taj Mahal are still useful I guess.
A good reason to save the forests around Paris for wonders after MC maybe.
I'd put a priority on scouting the Northern Pole with a WB, looking for Marble.

Other remarks.

No Stonehenge yet: wonders are going slowly?

Health bar: noticed the tiny health bar of our warrior. Gives an indication about Umbaba (huge) strength I guess.

Scouting: I am serious about sending a scout into Brennus land ASAP. SGOTM 15 our better scouting made other teams jealous

Brennus/Ramses rivalry: We'll need to pick side at some point unless we don't care about keeping either of them alive.

Iron Working: to steal or not to steal?
We want to steal IW to satisfy one of the VC of the marathon. (and we don't want to depend on AIs for Astronomy/Chemistry)
We can work on that as soon as we get Alpha. What would you think about gifting Brennus a city (close to Paris) for that purpose.
IIRC, he will accept any city as long as his city count is low (<5?)

Enough Questions for now and Xpost with Duckweed, with bonus irony

Gogo BBKJ!

Bebekija said:

@Duckweed :
To be 100% sure about your last point: you're telling me that I should manually add Meditation to other AIs to match the test game with the real save, right?

Click to expand...

The best would be to have Brennus the founder of Buddism (as in the real game).
I think Duckweed was pointing at the research bonus we get on meditation due to contact with Bren.

Bebekija said:

I propose the building of the Oracle as a natural stopping point, barring any unexpected event.



I think I will start my tests following these lines :
-- Research : Myst-> Med-> PH
The usual Oracle line, though if we feel safe about the Oracle, we could consider switching Med to Poly, since we're aiming at the TGL + Music anyway, plus it allows us to trade Monotheism right off the bat.

Poly could be good, but will delay the Oracle a couple of more turns. Need tests though.

-- Scouting : northern warrior defends against the lion then fogbusts, probably on the eastern deer tile (if the east barb warrior has been taken care of). Southern warrior proceeds E-NE to uncover more tiles near us.

With horse easily accessible, I think we could pull the warrior back, just let the barbarians spawn, they will be good experience. Southern warrior needs to scout the surrounding area of the wine, which would be one of our next cities.

-- Builds : this I really don't know right now without testing.
Orleans seems pretty obvious : warriors till pop 4 then 2 pop whip granary then WB
However, I'm not sure about Paris. I'd probably want to build another warrior because of the barb threat to the east, and we're going to build the Oracle here with 4 (5?) chops, but meanwhile? start another settler right away for city 3?

We probably need to delay the granary whip a little bit so that the overflow can go to the WB, which is the reason why I mentioned about getting Fishing 1 turn earlier. Paris's build is quite clear, granary to size5 and 1pop whip it, the overflow will go to Oracle. We need to chop 3 forests to get Oracle done on T61. After that, let it grows to size 6 and whip a settler.

-- Worker micro : again, Orleans seems obvious : sheep, then horse, then finish cottage on the way back to Paris to help chop the Oracle. In Paris, all the important improvements seem to be done, so I guess all is needed is prechop "cleverly" to minimize the worker turns lost when the actual building of the Oracle comes, and prep the road to city 3 for the settler

The worker micro is quite tricky. we don't have time to cottage another FP tile. What I did was 2 workers complete the sheep pasture together, 1 worker goes to improve the horse, another worker road 1 turn on the sheep tile and immediately went to the PH tile of Paris to mine and then chop another forest. Another worker will connect the horse, 1 turn cottage and then chop the riverside grassland forest tile.

Those are my general guidelines. Keep in mind that I still haven't tested anything in the game so there may be some absurd thing in there, but I just wanted to lay it down for you to make sure we're on the same page.

~~~

@Duckweed :
To be 100% sure about your last point: you're telling me that I should manually add Meditation to other AIs to match the test game with the real save, right?

Click to expand...

As soundjata explained.

soundjata said:

I will ask a few questions here.

Oracle Monarchy
I understand the idea behind HR: grow our cities. But growing our cities for what purpose exactly?

Whip settlers/workers, we need a lot of warrior to make the sheep city happy.

Great Lighthouse
I also understand this wonder is overpowered. Is there a way to calculate the return on investment (how many turns until the hammer investment become beneficial?)
I am saying that because it seems to me we are going to have many non coastal cities on our continent.

You are right that GLH advantage is largely affected by the number of available island cities. In the end of our SGOTM11, dingding did a good analysis of how every wonder paid back.

Medium term objectives apart from these 2 wonders

Might be Music beeline or Currency and CS, I'm still undecided.

I guess we want to setup a strong commerce base. IE cottage and work many floodplains (Ah I can see what monarchy does here ) Maybe move our capitol at some point?

No, our capital seems quite weak in the beginning, however, once those riverside cottages are mature, it's a very strong capital, even better with levee.

Settle toward Brennus and crush him at some point. What point?
Not too soon I guess. We don't want to crash our economy and we'd like him to shrine his capitol first. Attack before or after Oxford could be the question.

I think we will let Brennus improve the jungle area for us, we already have a lot of great sites to settle.

Wonders
We lack marble unfortunately and it will limit our wonderwhoring efficiency.
The Great Library, the MOM, NE, Taj Mahal are still useful I guess.
A good reason to save the forests around Paris for wonders after MC maybe.
I'd put a priority on scouting the Northern Pole with a WB, looking for Marble.

Yes, WB scouting would be one of our priority. Even without Marble, our industrious trait helps, so TGL and NE should not be a big problem.

Other remarks.

No Stonehenge yet: wonders are going slowly?

In emperor level, SH goes ~2000BC in average.

Health bar: noticed the tiny health bar of our warrior. Gives an indication about Umbaba (huge) strength I guess.

No doubt, I won't be surprised to see a super MI.

Scouting: I am serious about sending a scout into Brennus land ASAP. SGOTM 15 our better scouting made other teams jealous

WBs will do the job, only better. Chariot is also better.

Brennus/Ramses rivalry: We'll need to pick side at some point unless we don't care about keeping either of them alive.

Both of them are going to die, only a matter of time.

Iron Working: to steal or not to steal?
We want to steal IW to satisfy one of the VC of the marathon. (and we don't want to depend on AIs for Astronomy/Chemistry)
We can work on that as soon as we get Alpha. What would you think about gifting Brennus a city (close to Paris) for that purpose.
IIRC, he will accept any city as long as his city count is low (<5?)

Click to expand...

IW a very cheap tech, we don't need extra effort to do it, a couple spies should be enough.

shakabrade said:

It seems to me If all Canadians had kossin's ISP, there would be no people on Civfanatic.

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That being said, I have to call the ISP again. And again... and again... gahhhh.

kossin said:

That being said, I have to call the ISP again. And again... and again... gahhhh.

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Kossin, do you have a smartphone? I used mine to tether the internet to my PC when I was out of internet a week ago and I am in Croatia. Browsing doesn't use that much MBs, just don't forget to turn all the updating off and no youtube and downloads. Enough for SGOTM.


On Game:

Great turn set and great news.

Regarding roster, I'd like to finish and submit BOTM so I can see if everything is ok with my civ installation which is not spawning barb galleys as we already found out.

Ok guys, got the save.

I've run a couple of tests and I manage to get the Oracle IBT 60-61 with Fishing done that same turn so that the granary in Orleans max overflows into a WB (see save attached).

I'm quite happy with that result, especially since only one AI needs to have learnt Meditation for this to work, so it *should* work in the live save. I will monitor the beakers put into Medi->PH to make sure everything is running according to the test game.

Anyway, I'm sorry but I don't have time to post the PPP right now, will do it first thing in the morning.

On a side note, I tried going for Poly instead of Medi, but it messes up the timing pretty bad and I'm not happy with the result (both whips in Paris and Orleans are much more ackward, I tried putting some hammers into a settler in Paris but like I said, doesn't feel right). Got the Oracle IBT T63-64, but it's probably feasible IBT 62-63. OTOH, Pacal built the Oracle on T60 in 2 out of my 4 tests, so T63 already seems like a much riskier gambit....

So far so good.

Poly... without marble, I prefer going MC or Alpha besides monachy.