SGOTM 19 - Also Sprach Sid

Doshin said:

Any time after we have made peace with KK is fine, as long as we have enough Cuirassiers for a 3-prong attack against HC.

Cui 47, 50, 51 should be good enough for this task.


My immediate thought last night was that we need 3–4 more Workers chopping Forests for the Crab site. The two Workers who improved the Sheep need to move to do that. One Worker needs to be drawn back from the capital/Sheepish.

I suggested ~6 workers in this area before.

Some Forests around DH could be preserved to chop a Grocer.

I don't think any Grocer in any city is worthy. If the mysterious condition is spreading the Corporation, then saving some forests is important in some hub cities.

I guess, at this stage (in new cities), chopping > Farms > Cottages.

During the war, shortest road network>>> everything else. We need to connect road west of Santiago to speedup the spy movement. Except Aksum, I don't think we need cottages in other cities. The improvement should be farms and windmills.

We need to move some 1-movement military police into the big Spanish cities that are leaving revolt (Toledo, Barcelona).

We should also calculate whether Libraries are worthwhile in some Japanese cities. Aksum and Gondar both have a lot of .

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Aksum needs a lib, Condar does not need it since Aksum can take a Dye from Condar. Whether Barcelona and Madrid need a lib needs further assessment. They are good commercial cities, but they can only contribute ~15 turns.

Some comments on the city build.

All the infrastructure build should consider the ROI now with the assumption of completing research ~T160. Otherwise, build wealth instead.

If any city (except capital and RP) can complete a spear on T138, start it now.

BTW, if you have time, it'd good that you start to play a few turns, even soundjata is ready, he needs some time to study the situation.

My bad, I meant go for Seville rather than Cordoba.

War progress is quite good. HC seems like a soft target... who is hardest, Napoleon or Alexander?

The reason I'm thinking about a Grocer is for the GM slots: in a GA outside of Pacifism, (4 * 3) * 2.5 = 30GPP. But we can't build a Grocer yet, and we will know the hidden objective by the time that we do, so let's not worry about it.

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At the moment, T136, a civic switch into Representation/Caste System/Pacifism makes sense to me. We can stay in Caste/Pacifism for 5 turns (= T141), and then switch into Slavery/Organized Religion.

The main aim would be to generate GM points in BS/DH. Constantinople can run some great people too.

Do we need to generate two Great Merchants in this Golden Age? One for a trade mission, one for GA#4.

If we capture Aachen on T145 with 3 turns left in the GA, then the Economics GM will be too late, if we plan to go from Aachen ----> Prague, before making peace.

With peace on T145, and Guilds extorted, we could research Banking and Economics in 3-turns. We would need to capture Prague later, if at all.

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I can play slowly during the week, but not tonight. I am working 8:30 – 7:00ish most days, but can keep us moving until soundjata takes over. If he cannot play or familiarize himself with the save by Friday/Saturday, others will have to play until kossin is ready (beginning of April?).

kossin said:

My bad, I meant go for Seville rather than Cordoba.

War progress is quite good. HC seems like a soft target... who is hardest, Napoleon or Alexander?

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Alex is softer. He lacks Engineering and Elephants. Also, he is at war with Kublai, so his stack may be isolated by the time we attack.

Yes, beginning of May for me. That leaves about a week before the end of SGOTM to wrap things up.

I should have time to play if needed.

kossin said:

My bad, I meant go for Seville rather than Cordoba.

I considered the possibility of capturing city. Cordoba is a small city, therefore, it's likely to have 2~3 units, while Seville is a big city and new capital, it's not a surprise to see 5+ units there. For example, the defense of Madrid increase from 5 to 9 in 5 turns. Therefore sending those 5 Cuis to Seville was likely to be of no use.

War progress is quite good. HC seems like a soft target... who is hardest, Napoleon or Alexander?

Click to expand...

The major factor is the speed, most of our Cuis are in the land of HRE and easy to attack Alex.

Doshin said:

The reason I'm thinking about a Grocer is for the GM slots: in a GA outside of Pacifism, (4 * 3) * 2.5 = 30GPP. But we can't build a Grocer yet, and we will know the hidden objective by the time that we do, so let's not worry about it.

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At the moment, T136, a civic switch into Representation/Caste System/Pacifism makes sense to me. We can stay in Caste/Pacifism for 5 turns (= T141), and then switch into Slavery/Organized Religion.

The main aim would be to generate GM points in BS/DH. Constantinople can run some great people too.

Do we need to generate two Great Merchants in this Golden Age? One for a trade mission, one for GA#4.

Think widely about GP plan, we don't need to switch out of CS+Pacifism immediately 5 turns later, we could also switch to slavery but stay on Pacifism. I don't have too much interest in OR since not many cities will produce infrastructures. Still, I prefer to produce next GP in DH. 459 GPPs for now. It can hire 6~7 merchants, which leads to 6~7*9=54~63 GPPs per turns, 6 turns to complete it.

Edit: I strongly prefer to produce the GPs in Constantinople as 2nd one since it has quite high chance of producing an unwanted type. I'm not sure whether to leave the last GP in capital, it has some chance of producing an unwanted type, but producing the 3rd GP here wastes the wonder GPPs.

If we capture Aachen on T145 with 3 turns left in the GA, then the Economics GM will be too late, if we plan to go from Aachen ----> Prague, before making peace.

With peace on T145, and Guilds extorted, we could research Banking and Economics in 3-turns. We would need to capture Prague later, if at all.

Click to expand...

I think we should take Prague and Nurenberg before signing peace, otherwise, these 2 cities are going to block our way to attack Alex.

Folket said:

I should have time to play if needed.

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Good!

Here is a first effort:

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(1) Bacon Sandwich: 621/800GPP


(2) Constantinople: 127/800 +4 base


(3) Dye Hard: 459/800


(4) Case Départ: 188/800 +14 base


Summary:

T145: BS, 801/800GPP
T147: Co, 901/900GPP
T148: CD, 1003/1000GPP
T150: DH, 1143/1200GPP

2 Market Specialists outside of Pacifism with an obsolete Parthenon = 12GPP per turn, so:

T155: DH, 1203/1200GPP

A few thoughts:

• I assume we are in Pacifism constantly, but switch into Slavery for 5 turns.
  
• BS could generate its GM a little more slowly, if we are not in a hurry to run the trade mission ASAP.
  
• The Golden Age ends on T148.
  
• Currently, Constantinople produces its GP on T148, Case Départ on T149.
  
• Shall we push this harder? So that Constantinople produces a GP on T147, CD on T148.
  
• This lets us pick from 4 Great People for the GA (1 GS, 1GA + 2 new GP). For safety, we could postpone the GM mission to T148.
  
• There is heavy GArtist/GSpy pollution in Constantinople, and heavy GEngineer/GArtist pollution in Case Départ.
  
• This will waste some wonder GPP in the capital, generated from ~T150–60. But GScientists lose their value soon after, and we also lose the Parthenon and TGL at about this time. So I don't mind generating a Sushi GM last.

The Economics GM is irrelevant to the above, because it will spawn after we begin our final GA.

I don't mind staying on Pacifism before capturing Alex's capital, however, with SP, we should take the benefit of FR civic.

I really don't see strong reasons of letting BS producing 1st GP before DH.

Checked our spy position, unfortunately it can't arrive Aachen in time. Either we delay the attack of Aachen waiting for the spy or use it in another city, like Nuremberg.

About the north pole crib and Whale city. Whale city can produce the galley itself with 3 chops. Therefore crib (4 forests can offer 52 hammers) only need to produce 2 WBs for the crab and Whales. Since both cities don't need any infrastructures, try not to over-invest hammers.

Duckweed said:

I really don't see strong reasons of letting BS producing 1st GP before DH.

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What is the advantage of producing the GP in DH before BS?

DH has more pop and more food at high sizes. At size 11, DH can work:

= +10F +18C, allowing 5 specialists.

For 6 specialists, –2F –4C and lose a Coast.
For 8 specialists, –7F –10C and lose a Farm/Coast/Dye.

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At size 10, BS can work:

= +9F +2H +9C, allowing 4.5 specialists.

For 6 specialists, –3F and lose a Hamlet/Village.
For 8 specialists, –7F –9 to –16C and lose three Hamlets/Villages.

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We would stay in Pacifism for 15 turns in total. This will roughly coincide with our capturing the SP.

I've changed some numbers around. The plan isn't finished yet.

The current plan will aim to delay the first Great Merchant mission until T148. I need to check that it can be in Mecca by this time. It can be generated sooner without difficulty.

Basically:

GArtist and GScientist are stored.

1. BS: generates a GM. Runs to Mecca.
2. Co: generates a GP. Could be a GArtist/GScientist/GEngineer/GSpy/GMerchant.
3. CD: generates a GP. Should be a GScientist. Could be a GEngineer/GArtist.

This is the most flexible Golden Age plan, and would let us use a low odds GSpy/GEngineer to start a Golden Age.

The GM can't run a trade mission until T148, in case Constantinople and Case Départ produce 1 Great Artist and 1 Great Scientist, or 2 of either type.

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If you want earlier trade missions, we will need to change the GP order to:

1. BS/DH
2. Constantinople
3. BS/DH
4. CD

This is harder on BS/DH, one of which needs to generate 1000GPP by T148.

We generate more money early on, but increase the likelihood of a wasted Great Person in the capital (GEngineer/GArtist at ~35% odds).

Doshin said:

What is the advantage of producing the GP in DH before BS?

DH has more pop and more food at high sizes. At size 11, DH can work:

Lake: 3F 4C
Rice: 5F
Clams: 5F 4C
Farm: 3F
Dye: 2F 6C
Coast: 2F 4C
​

= +10F +18C, allowing 5 specialists.

For 6 specialists, –2F –4C and lose a Coast.
For 8 specialists, –7F –10C and lose a Farm/Coast/Dye.

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At size 10, BS can work:

Pigs: 6F
Wheat: 5F 2H
Hamlet: 2F 3C
Hamlet: 2F 3C
Hamlet: 2F 3C
​

= +9F +2H +9C, allowing 4.5 specialists.

For 6 specialists, –3F and lose a Hamlet/Village.
For 8 specialists, –7F –9 to –16C and lose three Hamlets/Villages.

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We would stay in Pacifism for 15 turns in total. This will roughly coincide with our capturing the SP.

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This comparison is not fair and not correct.

Both cities can support same specialists at the same size if add a farm in BS, in fact BS can do it with 1 size smaller. The commerce lose of running specialists in both cities are not like what you listed, but

BS loses Cottages~Hamlets at the moment, they yield mostly 3C, while DH loses water tiles and Dyes, which is already more than loss in BS. Therefore, BS is a better candidate for running specialists since it loses less. The commerce difference is not much.

The most important reason is here

Duckweed said:

About the GP production.

Doshin listed a detailed plan before.

I'm thinking whether we should let Dye Hard produce the next GP, the advantage is that DH will produce the GP before BS when both cities have enough GPPs in the same turn, therefore save the turns we need to stay on CS.

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http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13182931&postcount=1554

For every turn that we stay at CS+Pacifism, we lose the yield from captured cities which need whip and the extra fee for maintaining the huge number of military units.

About the order of GPs, my opinion is

Duckweed said:

Think widely about GP plan, we don't need to switch out of CS+Pacifism immediately 5 turns later, we could also switch to slavery but stay on Pacifism. I don't have too much interest in OR since not many cities will produce infrastructures. Still, I prefer to produce next GP in DH. 459 GPPs for now. It can hire 6~7 merchants, which leads to 6~7*9=54~63 GPPs per turns, 6 turns to complete it.

Edit: I strongly prefer to produce the GPs in Constantinople as 2nd one since it has quite high chance of producing an unwanted type. I'm not sure whether to leave the last GP in capital, it has some chance of producing an unwanted type, but producing the 3rd GP here wastes the wonder GPPs.

Click to expand...

I don't have strong preference of whether to let capital produce the last GP since either way has the pros and cons.

Been out of internet for the last few days... Maybe tomorrow I get connected at home. Will update then.
I suggest someone else take over now and I'll try to catchup on the weekend.

Good progress it seems

The way that minimizes the turns on CS and Pacifism:

Staying on CS+Pacifism

DH produces the 1st GM 6 turns later,

• Const produces the 2nd GP
• BS produces the 3rd GM

Leaving CS and/or Pacfism

Let Capital produce the last GP.

Or we could let BS produce the 2nd GM and then switch to slavery but staying on Pacifism. Const can still hire 2 scientists + Merchants + engineer.

We probably could produce all the GPs during the 3rd GA.

@doshin

If you still feel strong of your plan, I don't mind of using your plan. All of those difference won't count for more than 1 turn of the final result. The progress is more important now.

I won't discuss commerce, because the differences are so small as to be irrelevant.

I had assumed in my test that we would spend 5 turns in Caste/Pacifism, 5 turns in Slavery/Pacifism, then 5 turns in Caste/Pacifism.

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The GP bottleneck is not DH or BS, but Constantinople. To cite your argument:

Duckweed said:

I'm thinking whether we should let Dye Hard produce the next GP, the advantage is that DH will produce the GP before BS when both cities have enough GPPs in the same turn, therefore save the turns we need to stay on CS.

Click to expand...

Consider the GPP in BS:

We could then run 8 Specialists for the remaining turn of Caste/Pacifism, so...


For Constantinople to generate the next Great Person, BS can only run 3 Merchants across the next 4 turns (9 * 3 = 27GPP; 872 + 27 = 899/900). The OF is irrelevant, then, because DH could catch up in that time outside of Caste.

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Constantinople is already pushed hard. To take it as far as possible, while always working Pigs/Rice/Corn/FPs:



Returning to BS


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The alternative is to invert the order:

BS:


Constantinople:

I'm not sure if Constantinople has enough food banked to avoid starvation between T136–40. –2F for the first 3 turns, –5F for 2 turns after that.

CD could generate the last GP on T148. We would then switch out of Pacifism.

In total:

The order in which DH/BS spawn the GM can be flipped.

The central thought of your original plan is switching to slavery 5 turns after, while staying on CS+Pacifism for longer continuous turns gives Constantinople more potential to produce its GP. The major disadvantage is no whip from Toledo and Barcelona, and the advantage is that we can stay on CS for shorter turns. I think the advantage from the civic is better than disadvantage in a couple cities.

Try to think about it in another way. Usually I won't insist on my point when there's not too much difference.

Doshin said:

In total:

T136: Caste/Pacifism (5 turns)
T141: Slavery/Pacifism (7 turns)
T141: GM (DH)
T143: GM (BS)
T146: GP (Constantinople)
T148: GP (Case Départ, GA ends)​

The order in which DH/BS spawn the GM can be flipped.

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This looks better to me. IIRC DH needs 6 turns to produce its GM

Duckweed said:

The central thought of your original plan is switching to slavery 5 turns after, while staying on CS+Pacifism for longer continuous turns gives Constantinople more potential to produce its GP. The major disadvantage is no whip from Toledo and Barcelona, and the advantage is that we can stay on CS for shorter turns. I think the advantage from the civic is better than disadvantage in a couple cities.

Click to expand...

I can't open the game now, but I will look at Spain when I am home. I think Toledo and Cordoba both leave revolt in 5 turns, so if we can stay in Caste for one more turn than I had last planned, this will surely relieve some of the GP and food issues in Constantinople without much loss in Spanish cities.

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Other things to do:

• Determine which Workers will go to road towards HC.
• Any whips, before we leave Slavery? I don't think the OF in Condar will be enough for a Spear, but will check.
• Spy target city.

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If we are in Caste for 5 turns, DH needs to run ~8 Merchants per turn (341/5 = 68.2/9 = 7.6 Specialists per turn). If 6 turns: 341/6 = 56.8/9 = 6.3 specs per turn). Slower is obviously better, if it's possible.

I assume I am the active player for the short-term, but I am quite happy for Folket or soundjata to take over as soon as they wish. Otherwise I'll continue until Friday/Saturday.

The turns are quite complex with a lot of things to juggle, so anyone who takes over who hasn't played much yet will need some time to look at the save, produce a plan, and solicit and respond to feedback.

Doshin said:

Other things to do:

• Determine which Workers will go to road towards HC.
  
  There are quite a few workers can be captured this turn, or next turn after we captured Seville.
  
• Any whips, before we leave Slavery? I don't think the OF in Condar will be enough for a Spear, but will check.
  
  Whip Condar, since otherwise it will grow without good tiles to work. Yeha should resume Granary.
  
• Spy target city.

Click to expand...

Duckweed said:

Checked our spy position, unfortunately it can't arrive Aachen in time. Either we delay the attack of Aachen waiting for the spy or use it in another city, like Nuremberg.

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The choice is here. The spy can revolt Aachen on T146, which is 1 turn later than our stack. Unfortunately that I did not insist on my previous suggestion. The major reason is that pomthom's war progress was on the upper part of my expectation.