SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

T135 Pata
??? this is what's in the plan:

The chop comes into the settler and overflows to wb, which will complete and make the fish net right as fish+deer pops borders. Pata can be 2-whipped at size 5.

Really, I have difficulty seeing how it could work out better than this scenario. I'm updating plan and will post an example save.

That's also my point about MC... Patali would benefit more from a LH than a forge next, offshore cities will be busy with granary>LH,

newer cities are still on granary

Vijay is busy with wb,granary or Parthenon, Bombay with worker... it only benefits Delhi and then as dingding showed it's not efficient before finishing those 3 buildings. We can always whip the forge into HG after TGL... works pretty well together.

Let's look at the direct way of comparison. How many turns of delay of TGL if we go for MC instead of Lit? By going MC 1st , how many hammers we save from the tiles and forest chop?

Pat gets benefit from earlier forge, it saves 22H for LH whip vs 4~5F if we whip LH 1st. Calendar before MC is not even to be comparable.

Updated.
Parts in red are new/fixed.

Every turn


t130 750BC - Alphabet ETA 12


t131 725BC - Alphabet ETA 11


t132 700BC - Alphabet ETA 10


t133 675BC - Alphabet ETA 9


t134 650BC - Alphabet ETA 8


t135 625BC - Alphabet ETA 7


t136 600BC - Alphabet ETA 6


t137 575BC - Alphabet ETA 5


t138 550BC - Alphabet ETA 4


t139 525BC - Alphabet ETA 3


t140 500BC - Alphabet ETA 2


t141 475BC - Alphabet ETA 1


t142 450BC - Alphabet done


Continuing forward this gives...


Attached save of t142 and t138. I'd like to see how MC first comes out ahead in non-Delhi cities. I'll happily switch in MC back otherwise

After trying it out...
Patali is the only city besides Delhi that would be able to start a Forge if we go MC>Aesth+Lit... other cities are busy with something else.

However, the lost hammers in Delhi (assuming we're chopping all those forests to get TGL out faster) is :
(45+36+36+36+30+30+30)*.25 = 243/4 = 60

Or the cost of 2 forests 4 tiles from city.

Anyway, I don't know which will be better in the end but I'm willing to change my vote to the majority just so we can get moving with this set.

MC: Duckweed, Bugg?, BIC (original suggestion)
Aesth+Lit: dingding, kossin

>>>I'll vote MC just to get things moving.

BTW, no answer from AlanH... either it's fine or they're discussing it.
(Context)

dingding said:

To calculate the output of forge in Delhi, it's easy to find the break-even:
Cost: 180H/(1+25%+50%) = 103H
Bonus on output (if building wonders): (1+25%+50%+100%+25%)/(1+25%+50%+100%)-100% = 9.1%
Break-even: 103H/9.1% = 1131H

Click to expand...

Delhi has :
City tile (2H) + 3mines (9H) + Settled GPs (3H ; maybe 4H from next GP, turn 142, but I won't count it) = 14hpt.
With 200% production and no whip, that gives 42hpt. 1131/42 = 26,9.
So, yes, it is a 25-30 turns investment. I think it's pretty good for infra, but maybe we're looking for things that pay off more quickly right now
The Great Lib kinda pays off right away.

@Other cities,
Yep, we may not need the forge to build infra but, in Delhi or elsewhere, it isn't only worth an inconditionnal +25% hammer :
- +2 happy (maybe +3 later on; that's relevant about everywhere. I can't see a forge bringing +2happy being a bad investment in any kind of high food city)
- +1 specialist slot (relevant for Pataliputra, especially for when we're in Slavery but maybe as well for just the sake of running an engineer)


@Kossin,
About commerce being the limiting factor. I would have thought that issue was fixed, actually. I read some discussion saying (roughly) that at our current tech rate vs expansion/development, we could reach Education BEFORE being ready to build/whip 6 universities. I believe it meant we wouldn't have 6 cities size 8 or bigger.
-->
To get Oxford asap, commerce would not be the limiting factor.
Well... that's about when I started thinking about taking a detour in techs.
If we want Education asap, which is a different thing from Oxford asap, then I'll gladly approve the research of Aesthetics first


EDIT:
@Kossin:
I guess you should be safe (don't ban the captain !!! ). As elaborate as the admin security checks may be, well, people willing to cheat can cheat. So these games rely on trust, first... I hope they'll trust YOU ^^
+ They have some ways to check you didn't actually do something bad.
- You gave the admins some work, that is the worst part

kossin said:

After trying it out...
Patali is the only city besides Delhi that would be able to start a Forge if we go MC>Aesth+Lit... other cities are busy with something else.

However, the lost hammers in Delhi (assuming we're chopping all those forests to get TGL out faster) is :
(45+36+36+36+30+30+30)*.25 = 243/4 = 60

Or the cost of 2 forests 4 tiles from city.

Click to expand...

Vij can also start forge at that time.

The difference between 2 tech path is not too much. We will probably want to whip Forge (might be able to finish naturally) or other building to allow some overflow to TGL. The benefit of Lit 1st really relies on how fast we can complete TGL. My imagination is that it won't be that fast due to the short of worker force, therefore MC 1st won't delay TGL for many turns. This is the simple and direct comparison.

Been debating this whole Aest/MC thing, and can't really bring any new arguments to the table, I think.

I guess saving 60h and removing unhappiness issues in Delhi also counts for something. We'll run into that shortly, no?

Also.. whipping in a forge will get us more hammers ahead without really giving up much.

We are giving up some beakers and commerce doing it this way, but right now those are not our main issues. Getting hammers into all the Delhi wonders seems like more of our immediate concern, no?

I don't really think it'll matter all that much, but I do see benefits of immediate forge in Delhi.

The difference between 2 tech path is not too much. We will probably want to whip Forge (might be able to finish naturally) or other building to allow some overflow to TGL. The benefit of Lit 1st really relies on how fast we can complete TGL. My imagination is that it won't be that fast due to the short of worker force, therefore MC 1st won't delay TGL for many turns. This is the simple and direct comparison.

Click to expand...

I think at least 1 pop into forge, maybe 2 (letting all new cities pop borders, including the sugar site if we want that). So that gives us quite a lot of hammers into TGL.

Good point about workerturns to chop all those forests too..

Fair enough. That's 4 votes for MC (I changed mine a few posts up).

What of the newest plan? I can play today if it's voted for.

I'm good with this plan. I just played it through, and nothing jumped out, so..

You sorted out your "issue" with AlanH?

Good luck!

No, he hasn't answered back despite logging on a few times since... either he didn't bother replying since it's silly, has too many pm's or is discussing the issue with other mods/admins.

The rules state one may not look at other threads... but I can't begin to fathom how using the search engine would be grounds for disqualification when searching for something totally unrelated =\

Nah.. it's probably nothing. We don't worry about it. He'll answer in his own time. Que sera, sera!

Do I need to repeat the word "go ahead"again?

Fine with me !

Alright that's 4 votes including myself, will play after dinner. Expect report+save in ~2 hours.

Alright, everything went according to plan. Some good news, some bad news.

I'll let screenshots do most of the talk for me.


Summary - text notes by me


Turn log


EDIT: I'll update the test game tomorrow... had enough for today. If anyone wants to do it however, you're welcome to it!

Overall good news >> bad news.

OMG, I had not seen any resource pop for many many months!

Too bad to get a demand from Toku, hope he can forget soon.

There are 3 three choices for tech trading next
1. Col + 25g <-> Alpha
2. Currency <-> Alpha + 30g
3. 3 turns later MC <-> Alpha + ?

I don't have a strong preference right now. We are going to turtle for the next few turns. I hope kossin can continue on a little bit.

Popping gems is definately quite allright

I'm hoping that galley won't really do us much harm. Maybe we should try to get sugar-island set up before 3xclam now. Other than that I guess just try to lead the galley to Zara and have him deal with it

@duckweed:
I kinda like Col+25 for Alpha, I think. Then get whatever else we can.

Maybe we can just keep pushing? Adjust plan slightly to get sugar-city up (could be ok to navigate the galley with settler up there) and do a few trades/donations? If we have to, queue up a trireme in Vijay ahead of WBs for the (possibly) delayed 3xclam?

Bugg123 said:

Popping gems is definately quite allright

Click to expand...

Let's put it that way


So... the bad news is Toku being annoyed, right ? Then he may target our gold cities when he's done with his expansion. We're his worst ennemies. Uncool.
What do you guys think of the diplo ? Is it still feasable to get Toku to pleased ? If not, it's not worth anymore to go Hindhu. Better go Buddhist, since the 3 eastern AIs are Buddhist...
But... In that case, we would definitely need to plan a war against Toku. What military tech should we target, then ? I'm thinking maybe Military Science, for the Navy/Infantry balance... But Grenadiers aren't the best units out there.
Cuirassiers could work as well, I guess. Military Tradition also brings in Defensive pacts.
We could set some spare EP/turn towards Toku.


Trade for Alpha :
I don't mind either of the 3 techs. I can see pros and cons to each choice.
My (slight... and blind) preference would go to Currency, though. Here are a few reasons :
I suppose it is the tech that will speed up the AI the most. That would be a good thing for us, right ? If we can trade some more with them, we will also be faster overall.
CoL is 1 tech away from Civil Service. MC is 1 tech away from Machinery. Both are prereq to Macemen... I'm willing to speed up the AI but I'd rather delay the moment they get Macemen...
Although I can see how leading the AI to the bottom of the tech tree could be wise (--> trading MC) : having them tech Guilds & Banking would be nice. Still, MC is our most expansive tech to trade. Maybe we should keep it for other techs.
Last, for Currency : I'd rather let the AI build markets than Courthouses/Forges.

The gems are most welcome indeed!

Funny that I said we'd pop gems in Delhi a long time ago!

I like BIC's explanation to trade Currency. It also adds trade routes to the AI.

I'm not too worried about Toku. We can gift him techs to get him up to Cautious again, plus he's the likely target of Justinian.

While we can't DOW AIs just yet, there's nothing preventing us from bribing war... We're quite safe I believe. And not land targets on top of that.

Duckweed, you want me to play the next 2 turns that were planned?

I'm fine with that. However a few things:

I'd go for another pre-set, trade for Alpha then upload so we can decide other trades. Also we need to decide how to handle the barb galley.