Arabia to the stars (Goal:IMM fastest space colony)

GKey said:

Actually I meant this one:

Click to expand...

I can't look at details now (just passing by), but I think he's just differentiating speed of whipping cycles from returning hammers from a certain # .

If you have multiple high food resources, adding each resource to the last one will make the regrowth faster than for instance just whipping working few of them just to squeeze the best conversion ratio between food/hammers.

Now, the thread is getting in the direction I want.

Some minor city micro that can be revised if you care to do it, f.e. Nijmegen.

Click to expand...

Always care. I just forgot my newly captured cities are to be micro too. .

Don't have to gamble. Use your 2nd worker to finish the forest chop NW and micro in 10 base hammers.

40 * 2.25 = 90H
212+90 = 302...

Click to expand...

Ah. Did I miss something? I thought I was missing worker forces. Definitely need to see what happened.

@Kossin

Your friend once said HG was a mediocre wonder. What is his/your criterion to say so? And given this wonder worthiness increases with #cities, where lies the line between between unworthy to passably worthy?

Tachywaxon said:

@Kossin

Your friend once said HG was a mediocre wonder. What is his/your criterion to say so? And given this wonder worthiness increases with #cities, where lies the line between between unworthy to passably worthy?

Click to expand...

He was kinda wrong. If you have many cities, it is great wonder. Especially if those cities are small since you get your granaries or lighthouses faster from whips. Now, if you don't have stone or Ind trait, HG+Aqueduct are actually very expensive. You need 13 cities to get the same amount of hammers from whipping from all the pops you got. Still, if those cities are becoming faster because of that, it is worthwhile. Also, GE points and +1 health everywhere are nothing to be ashamed of. HG is a good way to make your grown city build stuff in new cities via whipping.

Now, if you count all the cases, starting with boxed in situation all the way to ultrarexed empire, you can say mean value is that HG is mediocre.
But then GLH is mediocre if you count far from the coast starts too.

Funny because I got a free aqueduc from the dutch in the best place it could have been. So that was basically an investment of 150 including a 3 inefficient pop whip giving base 20 each pop. I'll see my mistake, but definetely keep as it is. I got enough good fortune.

\-o-/ woot. Finally some discussion in my thread and I am the one learning too.

@GKey
Sure, I'll see if I can post a few things tomorrow. Basically, the faster you grow, the better the whip is. Even if you are at a higher population #.

@shaka
I assumed PP would be in by the time the cottage would become a village - which is conservative. Actually, all my assumptions were conservative and the result was at minimum 53C (times bureaucracy bonus, so ~80C) loss. Free Speech might not even be used in this game.

@Tachy
Duckweed's criteria that HG is more often than not weak is based on the following approximation:
1 pop = 30H

This is approximate, as there is no precise conversion in the early game.

Therefore, without stone, HG is
100H (aqueduct)
300H (HG)
---
400H

If you count in Forge + OR then it's still 267H.

So, for HG to be efficient, you want to gain at least
ROOF{400/30} = 14 pop without stone or bonuses
ROOF{267/30} = 9 pop with OR+Forge

The other problem with this approximation, is it neglects both AND .

EDIT2: OTOH, one of the problems with beelining HG is that it usually goes in the BCs, at a time where most cities are strapped on hammers for infrastructure, better wonders or further expansion.

~~~

EDIT1: in your case, it's definitely a powerful build for a very cheap cost. Even with the bad micro

With Monty, as I learned in my 'temporarily paused' game, 1 pop whipping (units for example) is gorgeous.

Whoever who reads and likes a serie of screenshots, here is 79 screenshots from my seventh turnset (T115-131).

Looking retrospectively, agreeing on giving away Aesthetics was a terrible blunder. Haha, it cost me the GLib by two turns. Yes, I can still capture it, but I wanted the GLib in Moscow...given the strong sources of food...for an eventual NE.

===================================================================

Yeah, indeed, very bad micro with HG. Also realizing that turning Wang into Theo may hurt him in wonders a lil bit, but hurt me for awhile given he'll have CG2 archers!




I'm starting to like the fact Persia got the GLib. Looking at his capital's graphics, he doesn't seem to have an academy yet. Not only the GLib would have beaten in race against my GEngineer city, but without Rep, the scientists aren't that ultimate. Meanwhile, Darius WILL use his GScientist to build an academy in a city great for commerce. Yeah, after all, that's great he built it for me.



Prolly and sadly, when I'll capture the city, the GLib is gonna be obsoleted...unless I go the Mining Corp. route while avoiding SM.

Sorry for O/T and wall of text. I recommend skipping if you're not into simple mathematics.

GKey said:

You know, Kossin, would be precious, if you'd give us some screenies together with calculations. I'm staring at your math for like 30th time and still got no clue what do you mean.

So I keep employing intuition instead of exact case to case numbers.

Click to expand...

With which city is it better to whip?
A

B


Well, obviously city B. You can see the amount of turns to grow are significantly less even though the population is higher.

That was my point about infinite 3F tiles...

~~~

There's a way to quantify your expected production with whipping.
All numbers assume NORMAL speed. It's a simple exercise to convert for different speeds, although the result is the same.

All multipliers are ignored as they're multipliers... they will affect everything in the same fashion and not actually change the results as well.

Consider the following:
1 population = 30H through whipping

This is the actual yield from whipping 1 population, before any multipliers.

There are caveats as we all know... and loss of tiles.
Higher population costs more upkeep. More civic upkeep as well... for the sake of keeping things simple, I will only consider food and hammers and ignore everything else. Keep in mind that in reality it is not so; you'll have to develop your own model to make the right decisions.

That being said, the whip converts food to hammers. If you know the amount of food required to grow, then you have a way to determine the efficiency of food:hammers ratio.

Food to grow = 20 + 2x
Where x = city size


The F:H ratio is thus a simple equation: 30/(20+2x)

As you see, the ratio is better at smaller size, which is why people say "whipping at small size is better".

How does the granary factor in?

Basically, it doubles the value of food... because it stores 50% of the food. The F:H curve is the same, but the numbers doubled:


Without a granary, whipping becomes inefficient at size 5.
With a granary, whipping is efficient all the way to size 20.

That is, the value of 1F is greater than the value of 1H.

~~~

This brings me back to city A and city B example above. While the last section would appear to contradict the general feeling that city B is better for whipping (after all, you're converting food to hammers at a ratio of 2.7 vs 1.5), you should, in fact, consider the city yield and not the ratio itself.

The expected production of city A is:
(F:H ratio)*(food surplus) + (hammers per turn)
(30/11)*(3) + (1)
9.2 H

The expected production of city B is:
(F:H ratio)*(food surplus) + (hammers per turn)
(30/20)*(12) + (1)
19 H

~~~

This simplified model allows you to see the production worth of various tiles as well:

take 1 grassland hill mine, for example. 1F3H on screen.

What's the actual city yield of working this tile?
-1F+3H
That's right, you're losing 1 food by working this tile over a food neutral tile of 2F.

What's the worth of a grassland hill mine?

That's right. A grassland hill mine is actually WORSE than a grassland forest until size 5... if you intend to whip.

Here's the chart for grassland farm vs grassland hill mine:

Basically, a 3F tile is better than a mine, for whipping, up until size 10.

A lot more can be said and done with this model, but this should give you something to ponder about.

~~~

DISCLAIMER: As I've said earlier, this is a SIMPLIFIED model and ONLY takes into account and . Everything else is neglected. Results may vary with use.

And so I'm late to the party.

6th turnset looked good. Kossin's probably right that you could have expanded a little harder (building wealth did seem strange - was that 5th turnset?). Switching Willem into Caste, popping the GM and whipping an offensive force did look very good, though.

7th turnset... I doubt your tech choices.

Now some random babbling. Mostly concerned with tech choices.


Amsterdam is the awesome, shrined, Hindu holy city.
Just like Moscow is the definite National Epic host, Amsterdam is the clear choice (and an excellent one) to build Wall Street.
Wall Street is the hardest national wonder to build and a key to the late game of a large Empire, especially if you want to run corporations (aka the greedy approach with exploding costs). If given the choice, you should want to run corps. Hence Wall Street, hence early capture of Amsterdam, hence Banking > Education.

Researching Theology (???) and Paper did turn you off Banking/Engineering.
Before that, you researched Caste, Civil Service and Music.
Music could have value for trades towards Engineering. It also unlocks Nationalism, which unlocks Constitution, which is an important (and easy to miss) tech. Also got you a great person in the process, so I think Music was a good choice on your part.

What about Theology?
Theology unlocks Paper, which was already unlocked via Civil Service.
It's main benefits are:
- You founded christianity. You probably can control where the AP will be built. But there are 3 religions on your continent. Not the best case scenario since it'd probably be a poor choice to build it yourself.
- Theocracy is unlocked. Somehow Theocracy makes it seem one can war on the cheap thanks to the extra promotion. Warring on the cheap, though, also include running Org Religion and building infrastructure (better!). Or just having better units.

I think Theology's best justification comes as a trade bait (for Machinery?). However, you already had Music for a trade bait. If concerned with the AP, simply being on the most advanced continent is usually enough.
Machinery=Macemen and a prereq to Engineering/Banking.
Macemen are infinitely better than War Elephants for offensive duty. City Raider makes all the difference to reach 90%+ odds.

6th turnset ended with you trading for Metal Casting. I think 7th should have started with Machinery being researched.
Don't forget Trebuchets are your major military target for a "clean war". Later, Cannons if needed.
Also, the gold from your great merchant is limited. You just ran out, Education is not done and you're still warring with small numbers of Catapults / Elephants.
At the point where you run out of gold, it is a much better thing to have banks to whip than universities. It's also a very good thing to have superior military to whip so the advance doesn't have to stop.
-> GM gold should have been timed with you getting Engineering/Banking.


Any research plan at this point (actually from Classical Era) should consider GP use.
Another reason why Theology / Paper wasn't justified is that, at the cost of stalling your military advance, it gave you trade baits and put you closer to Lib.
Music was already a trade bait.
Philosophy is a better lock than Paper. I think both working more diligently towards a Great scientist or self-researching Philosophy would have given better results. Philo bulb would have taken time, so it would be unreliable, but you're already ahead. If you do lose Philo, you can still get Paper.



National Wonders: can't emphazise enough. Is the National Epic done? In progress? What about the HE, do you have a spot?
A good national wonder city pulls the weight of multiple cities. NE done actually means you can consider the Philo bulb with ease.
Wall Street done... Gold value is drastically reduced and the Empire can fully focus on improving research. Note the reverse is not (as) true for Oxford.

Can you show us the Top5 cities/Wonders screen, please?

Aaah... Maybe you should reload into Machinery
Sorry for the messy form of this post. I'm sure I forgot half of what I intended and have been redundant at will.

Meanwhile in Kansas City,



Overall, don't mind my criticisms too much, Tachywaxon: as you can see, you fare much better than I did

6th turnset looked good. Kossin's probably right that you could have expanded a little harder (building wealth did seem strange - was that 5th turnset?). Switching Willem into Caste, popping the GM and whipping an offensive force did look very good, though.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that prolly cost me to not reach my second 500 bpt by 500 AD. I tend to forget I got the GLH.

Amsterdam is the awesome, shrined, Hindu holy city.
Just like Moscow is the definite National Epic host, Amsterdam is the clear choice (and an excellent one) to build Wall Street.
Wall Street is the hardest national wonder to build and a key to the late game of a large Empire, especially if you want to run corporations (aka the greedy approach with exploding costs). If given the choice, you should want to run corps. Hence Wall Street, hence early capture of Amsterdam, hence Banking > Education.

Click to expand...

I am starting to grap the idea why so earnest on Banking. In all my space games up to now, I always got Banking from some AI and focused myself on the corp. asap.
I admit in all my games, I always screwed up to set up Wall Street early and possibly that's the very spot where I lose research turns due to financial problems.

My research path is slightly influenced on the fact I'll make Wang Kon my short term friend and hope while being FRIENDLY, I'll get some techs out of him. Of course, all those civics swaps were ******ed because I have no more to trade with him and Education is certainly not a trade chip for now.
I think killing him with infantry might be best of some super efficiency. When I'll finish Willem and have killed Darius I, I'll have an empire of 40 cities!

Researching Theology (???) and Paper did turn you off Banking/Engineering.
Before that, you researched Caste, Civil Service and Music.
Music could have value for trades towards Engineering. It also unlocks Nationalism, which unlocks Constitution, which is an important (and easy to miss) tech. Also got you a great person in the process, so I think Music was a good choice on your part.

Click to expand...

Yes, Theo is slightly doubtful of a choice but I had several reasons for pursuing that tech:
AP control and who will get it. If I end up building it under Hindu banner, the AP hammers return is tremendous. bcool from Kaku team is one space expert and tells repetitively that AP hammers from a gigantic empire is a strong move.

It slightly gives a modifier to Paper, so the effect on researching something diverting from some beeline is less impacting.

If AP ends up on some other continent, that's gonna be disatrous because that might be a long awhile before I snatch their AP religion.

If I let the AI does the dirty job for me, I'll soon prepare a squad of 2 spies and two Hindu missionaries (to minimize RNG screwing me) and spread Hindu in the city I think being building AP. Should be doable to detect. It has no mutiplier and only the capital has one. And if I'm further not sure, I'll give marble and...err...pillage it. Does it work? Is it too cheap of a move. I've done those pillage moves before. So I'll force Hindu upon the AI and I'll get free AP hammers for few cost. Of course, if it ends up to be Wang Kon in his capital, which is so far away, I'll have to prepare some navy with infantries. Or something earlier. But I expect him not really spreading Hindu after the cheap I'm going to do against.

The best target to me is Darius I. He is more into wonders than Wang. From my HoF experience, I often chose Wang Kon for three reasons: civic bonus, better heaps of gold by population and relatively a low wonder hoggering. So I suppose he won't go after the AP after all.

Right now, he's building something in his capital and I hope so much it's not the Parthenon. Don't mind I think if it's the MoM as most of my GAges are late for the final shot to space.

Don't forget Trebuchets are your major military target for a "clean war". Later, Cannons if needed.

Click to expand...

Trebs from Engineering is already on views. It's Willem who will kindly give it to me as spoils of war. I'm not gonna attack his western cities yet. They are underdevelopped and can wait while I'm busy against Darius I with trebs this time! I just he'll get his academy in his capital before. In the end, I think the tech rate is doubled because I don't bother with what the AI usually tech in a bunch.

At the point where you run out of gold, it is a much better thing to have banks to whip than universities. It's also a very good thing to have superior military to whip so the advance doesn't have to stop.
-> GM gold should have been timed with you getting Engineering/Banking.

Click to expand...

That's new strategic assumptions I never went for in my games. Possibly a weak point of mine.

Philosophy is a better lock than Paper.

Click to expand...

I thought I would get it from some of my neighbour if it ends up in their hands. The other continents seem pretty backward as we hear nothing from them. Few wonders, no war, I don't know what they are doing, but no much good. The lib race is gonna be on this continent.

National Wonders: can't emphazise enough. Is the National Epic done? In progress? What about the HE, do you have a spot?

Click to expand...

TRUE! NE will certainly go in Moscow. I decided it the moment I captured it. I haven't started much because I was on multiple stuff in that city, but now I lost the GLib there, well, I can start the NE there with marble. But I wish to attempt a 50% GEngineer in Amsterdam first.

I admit I haven't found a suitable location for my HE.

A good national wonder city pulls the weight of multiple cities. NE done actually means you can consider the Philo bulb with ease.

Click to expand...

The question is: are massive bulbing good for a space game? In a military game where you end up with a military edge, you don't care what's next. But I'll need my GPeople for my multiple GAges later. Not to mention the possible GEngineer attempts.

Can you show us the Top5 cities/Wonders screen, please?

Click to expand...

Sure. Will edit.

=============================================

A compendium:

Not hard enough expansion under GLH benevolence.
Late NE and HE.
Refining my Wall Street path.
Bulbing. Too much manual research. Indeed, I can see some bulbing make me approche the corp era faster, but if I can't get a GEngineer for sure, I don't see the point. I may end up with SP if things go wrong. Possibly Steel shall be inline for the IW and massive engineer allotment.

Wow, Peter went for GLH. That's a really nice gift of him.

Usually, I only cottage heavy greenish cities or those with many FP's. The capital is decent and possibly I'll do the same for Amerstdam and Persepolis. Persepolis already has 4 commerce plots. And a possible academy. The remaining cities should go workshops/farm.

Thanks, Kossin! A bit late cuz I was trying to settle this stuff in my head. Knowing in general that with granary you should whip as much as possible =/= applying your math on the fly.
That is actual reason why not so many people comment in this thread: anyone can drop a few words regarding "to build or not to build Mids" and stuff like that, however making useful suggestion in advanced strategy thread is not that easy.

So don't get frustrated, Tachy, and by the way

This is a great thread

GKey said:

Knowing in general that with granary you should whip as much as possible =/= applying your math on the fly.

Click to expand...

If you want it put really simply, when whipping:
-don't whip specials
-food > hammers
-more food is better

Banking is not that powerful if you can fuel your research with gold from other sources. This is where large capital + large foreign intercontinental port comes in handy.

Wall Street is useful, but it's not as pressing as other things.

I played until T150.

For a serie of screenshots, see here and there.

What I did in summary.

Warfare: I captured most Willem cities except the most wertern ones and the one with iron. When he reached Engineering, that was too late to push further. And irrelevant. It was time to think about tech towards Lib. I made peace for Engineering. No capitulation. Don't care about vassals. Especially that weak and with many juicy cities left.
His wheat city was so lightly defended I rushed two elephants towards there and managed to captured it. I made some worker stealing via terraforming trick, but my phant ended goaded with pikes. In the end, sheep's clothing trick doesn't really exist. But then...

The rest: I built meanwhile MoM, Hagia Sophia and a failed attempt to AP, which returned to Darius. Sadly, but not bad at all. I've got Judaism. I didn't reach in time with my Hindu missionary+spy. Anyways, when I'll fight him, I should make a swift war.
I think that's gonna be a cannon war. Since it's in the way for Mining Inc. More than a cuirassier invasion. And anyways, cannon will hurt more than cuirassiers against my last target: Wang Kon.

He has built Chicken Pizza (bad for cuirassiers along protective), Notre Dame (awesome in any space corp. game) and the Parthenon. Unfortunately, that wonder won't be any use once I capture it. I'm sure I'll reached SM way before.

I have maxed out my settlement. Island settled max capacity=4 cities. I've found some strange passage SW of Wang Kon lands. I'll bring a galley+settler. I should have prepared some sentry chariot. I forgot. Anyways, perhaps Wang Kon is gonna tech Optics for me. I whipped Oxford ~700 AD.

As expected of Darius I, he consumed his first GScientist in an academy and he's cottaging his capital surroundings. Excellent! Sadly, Darius chose the Education path.
I think a made a terrible gaffe to trade Paper to him. I think the AI beelines with one techs between max. So, probably he's beelining either Lib or Economics. I need to find a solution because I want to beeline Steel and Lib it. I will trigger a GA with my GA even if my empire is far from settled strong. I need to get to Steel asap before he goes Lib. Meanwhile, I'll slow him down with more civics swappings.

At last, greatest event of all: I got at 800 AD, at 37% odd, a GEngineer. Sadly, a corp. game is so random because of GEngineer popping.

A small post because I was effervescent to play until Lib. I got both the free GMerchant and free Steel. On top of that Wang Kon is starting Nat for 5 turns!!! It's because he's popping so many Great Merchants. He has just popped his 3rd. If I'm lucky, he won't start the wonder right away.
Oh, I popped a free gold tile. Nice for Mining Corp.

Now that SGOTM has started, I fear I won't get any criticisms and tips anymore.

This is my first fast space game without Mids and it rocks anyways. Wow, I've learnt that for sure.

Callous Corporate out.

If some are looking mah thread, notice for each of my turnset, I upload quite a bunch of pictures. If it doens't interest anyone, I can take it back too. It's a very consuming process, slowing a play down by quite a bit.

Tachywaxon said:

Now that SGOTM has started, I fear I won't get any criticisms and tips anymore.

Click to expand...

The saves aren't out yet

EDIT:
As for advice, at this point you have to optimize the tech path and hammer use.
Do you rush for Corporations now and war later?
Do you rush for war and get Corporations later?

You also have to watch out for your micro. Having unhappy citizens isn't really excusable at this point.

Forests are pretty much the best way to speed up a few executives, unless you absolutely need them now, consider saving them.

BTW, coupling Wall Street AND Ironworks in the same city makes for a very start Exec spreading