SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

Soirana said:

Second warrior does not give much anyway

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Second warrior is useful if the continent forks/spreads and we can get to 2 AI quickly. And, just for general scouting.

Soirana said:

You are losing turn of growth somewhere as well as synchronization.

I roughly played to turn 43 with growth to four library and two workers. I prefer wheel first since it gives option for quick charriot in case there is need, althogh that does not matter really... [I'd still prefer warrior before making library]

P.S. that is what i meant of food over hammers, i prefer faster growth even by single turn compared to some extra hammers which do not go towards basic needs [i still get 2x warrior+library]

With some work on micro look sit is possible to cut one more turn of growth on cost of second warrior. Well, growth means faster working gold, faster making second city, etc.
Second warrior does not give much anyway - of course my heart hurts since horse is not worked from point second worker completes to point i start settler.
Basically two turns of growth was why i called your plan awfull. That is basically two turns in empire development.

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I played until T42 (2320 BC) following my PPP Test 3. Here are the differences:

You are at 4 pops. I am at 3 pops with growth in 2T (18/26).
I am 1 beaker ahead on T42, but you will pull ahead here since you have 2 extra turns working the gold.
You have 1 warrior and 1H overflow into settler. I have 2 warriors and 8H overflow. So I am ahead 15 + (8-1) = 22 hammers.
Improvements are the exact same.

So, your test is better with respect to growth and beakers (due to 2 turns on gold) at the expense of 22 hammers which equates to 7H plus an extra early exploring warrior.

I like the earlier growth and working the gold mine for 2 extra turns. However, the biggest issue I see with your plan is that your settler will be done before you have a chance to clear the fallout off the tile where we plan to sit him down. It may make more sense in this case to build worker 3 before the settler so that the settler won't have to sit idle.

I think we need to play our options out until City 2 is settled and the fish is netted (assumes that we go Fishing next and build a work boat in city 2).

Soirana said:

Colored stuff against making library. I personally do not see running scientist in BC era.

And i also never said I am pro granary, but might scrap some sort of action plan.

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The library will pay off in the short term big time for two main reasons:

1. We get half-priced libraries, making them very cheap.
2. We will be working 2 golds in the capital for most of the game. This will give us at least 6 free beakers every turn, which equates to almost 25% of our early research.

EDIT: 3. We grow while building the library. The other option would be to build an army, a Barracks or a recycling center...

The Academy is more a long-term decision since you have to weigh the cost of the Academy (1 GS) vs. the other uses of said great person.

Mitchum said:

I played until T42 (2320 BC) following my PPP Test 3. Here are the differences:

You are at 4 pops. I am at 3 pops with growth in 2T (18/26).
I am 1 beaker ahead on T42, but you will pull ahead here since you have 2 extra turns working the gold.
You have 1 warrior and 1H overflow into settler. I have 2 warriors and 8H overflow. So I am ahead 15 + (8-1) = 22 hammers.
Improvements are the exact same.

So, your test is better with respect to growth and beakers (due to 2 turns on gold) at the expense of 22 hammers which equates to 7H plus an extra early exploring warrior.

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No. We can get 2 warriors + library + pop 4 on T43, and have both workers sitting on the second gold by then. 1t into clearing second gold with my Wheel-first option. Both lead to T48 for third worker and T52 for settler, which can settle on T53, with a road on the second gold, and start on a WB working the gold, while the capital grows to 5 or until cow's pastured.

I tested Soirana's idea, otherwise known as: MAX FOOD

T50 comparisons (2 warriors, wtg-TW-fishing-myst-medit):
1. Test 3 (a la Mitchum): Phood 27/93, Food 2/28, RAX 21/50, 1t to health, Novgorod wb 0/30 (8t)
2. Test 9 (a la Soirana): Phood 24/93, Food 8/28, RAX 21/50, 1t to health, Novgorod wb 0/30 (8t)

Notes:
1. If we build 2 warriors, then in Test 9, writing and the wheel are interchangeable.
2. If we tech pottery immediately after fishing, then we can build the granary instead of the RAX while growing to pop5. This gives us excellent synchronization with working the fish while working both gold mines in Moscow.
3. Soirana's MAX FOOD solution works max food tiles instead of the horses every chance possible, including working the silks for 2f.
xpost with MItchum
4. I forgot to note down when the warriors come out. That's an important point. Mitchum's solution gets our explorers a number of turns sooner.

LowtherCastle said:

I tested Soirana's idea, otherwise known as: MAX FOOD

T50 comparisons (2 warriors, wtg-TW-fishing-myst-medit):
1. Test 3 (a la Mitchum): Phood 27/93, Food 2/28, RAX 21/50, 1t to health, Novgorod wb 0/30 (8t)
2. Test 9 (a la Soirana): Phood 24/93, Food 8/28, RAX 21/50, 1t to health, Novgorod wb 0/30 (8t)

Notes:
1. If we build 2 warriors, then in Test 9, writing and the wheel are interchangeable.
2. If we tech pottery immediately after fishing, then we can build the granary instead of the RAX while growing to pop5. This gives us excellent synchronization with working the fish while working both gold mines in Moscow.
3. Soirana's MAX FOOD solution works max food tiles instead of the horses every chance possible, including working the silks for 2f.
xpost with MItchum
4. I forgot to note down when the warriors come out. That's an important point. Mitchum's solution gets our explorers a number of turns sooner.

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I never build rax so i do not know what the hell you were testing. Any healthy minded person would follow with some combination of settlers/workers and grow on charriots. I wouldn't make second warrior as it was sacked for growth reasons.

Surely you can clean that space for settler if you drive both workers onto it. Looses on worker turns surely.


Overall this is reason i asked for general plan. If we aim heavily at GLH, when seconds cities earlier settling gives earlier GLH [and better chance to get it].
If we aim at something like oracle CS when you clearly don't want to max food.

So which is the path?

Overall if we compare tests beakers it would probably be best to tech something without AI knowledge discounts like Maths just to have clear vision. I will run earlier growth to turn 50 if you want this date.

edit: I run few worker variations for turns 40-50 things get ugly honestly in all variants. Especially if second city place starts unhealthy on a start and can't work gold.
In my opinion it is best to play out two worker start and wait for next border pop [before second worker gets finished i believe?]. If place is really heavy irratiated than in my opinion we need to insert third worker and agriculture somewhere.
This approach still leaves question on what to tech. For my taste Wheel is safer bet although it should not matter too much as rice should not be touched with first two workers [most likely].

Soirana said:

Surely you can clean that space for settler if you drive both workers onto it. Looses on worker turns surely.

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True, but the second gold won't be improved, so what is the value of settling the second city sooner if there are no good tiles to work?

To answer all of these questions, I think we need a clear indication of what the empire will look like 20 to 40 turns beyond my turnset. Then we can tweak things in the short term that will make a difference many turns in the future.

babybluepants said:

No. We can get 2 warriors + library + pop 4 on T43, and have both workers sitting on the second gold by then. 1t into clearing second gold with my Wheel-first option. Both lead to T48 for third worker and T52 for settler, which can settle on T53, with a road on the second gold, and start on a WB working the gold, while the capital grows to 5 or until cow's pastured.

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OK. I recall you working unimproved tiles to synchronize growth and the completion of the library. It seems counter intuitive to work an unimproved cow tile when there is an improved horse tile to work...

So how do we proceed from here?

FUrther clarification of my two tests:

0. The RAX build is just to build something while growing to pop5. It doesn't matter if it's rax or chariots or whatever. The point is to observe how the two tests compare.
1. Both tests had the exact same builds (2 warriors) and tech paths.
2. IMPORTANT: Unlike in Soirana's test save, it's better to mine the NNW gold first. This is identical for the workers but A) gets us 1 coin per turn more and B) allows the worker to scrub the Fish City site one turn sooner. After mining that gold, worker1 goes to scrub, worker2 goes to road the gold at 1N. (As per Mitchum, one worker roads the cows2 and the other roads goldNNW after the pasture, before the mine.)
3. At pop4, T42, SOirana's Test should work max hammers (switch from silks to gold).
4. In Soirana's test, the settler sits T49. (The alternative is to finish goldNNW 1 turn later,which also gets Moscow healthy one turn later.)

LowtherCastle said:

I tested Soirana's idea, otherwise known as: MAX FOOD

T50 comparisons (2 warriors, wtg-TW-fishing-myst-medit):
1. Test 3 (a la Mitchum): Phood 27/93, Food 2/28, RAX 21/50, 1t to health, Novgorod wb 0/30 (8t)
2. Test 9 (a la Soirana): Phood 24/93, Food 8/28, RAX 21/50, 1t to health, Novgorod wb 0/30 (8t)

Notes:
1. If we build 2 warriors, then in Test 9, writing and the wheel are interchangeable.
2. If we tech pottery immediately after fishing, then we can build the granary instead of the RAX while growing to pop5. This gives us excellent synchronization with working the fish while working both gold mines in Moscow.
3. Soirana's MAX FOOD solution works max food tiles instead of the horses every chance possible, including working the silks for 2f.
xpost with MItchum
4. I forgot to note down when the warriors come out. That's an important point. Mitchum's solution gets our explorers a number of turns sooner.

Click to expand...

I would prefer saves or screenshots if you do not mind. My brain simply does not operate in 8/28+21/50 fashion.

LowtherCastle said:

FUrther clarification of my two tests:

1. Both tests had the exact same builds (2 warriors) and tech paths.

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Missed you by a mile?

You are making second warrior at which point? At least after or before settler?

Soirana said:

Overall this is reason i asked for general plan. If we aim heavily at GLH, when seconds cities earlier settling gives earlier GLH [and better chance to get it].
If we aim at something like oracle CS when you clearly don't want to max food.

So which is the path?

Click to expand...

There is no path. That's the point. We don't know yet. In other words, we're trying to establish an early empire with options to do one or another thing. Meanwhile, we're doing our best to get the needed answers to decide what we can do.

1) Exploration.
a. Are there any AIs nearby?
b. Is Gandhi on our landmass?
c. What sort of resources are available for settling?
d. Can we establish trade routes?
e. How big is our landmass?
f. How much is covered with fallout?
g. Will we want to build a galley soon?

2) Monitoring AI growth.
a. How fast are they developing?
b. How fast are they building wonders?
c. Which techs are they researching?
d. Are they meeting each other?

3) DoP
a. Will we get DoP with Gandhi soon?
b. Will we need expensive techs to DoP Gandhi?
c. Will we need defenders to protect ourselves against SoDs?

4) Diplo relations
a. Will we get DoP with Gandhi before he collects lots of common war points?
b. What are the AIs hidden modifiers?
c. Will we need a religion?
d.

5) REX
a. Will we need major roading to REX?
b. WIll we need a galley?
c. Will we need Astro asap?
d. Will we need happy resources (such as the Pyramids)?

6) Warmongering
a. Will we want to slave farm?
b. Will we want to kill off Stalin?
c. Will we need to protect ourselves?
d. Will we want to capture a lucrative AI capital as soon as he builds a second city?

Current solutions:
1. 2 worker for improving 7 resources, scrubbing, and roading.
2. 2 explorers for WNW and WSW.
3. Tech toward a deep tech path (writing opens up Math, alpha, etc.) to keep our options open.
4. Build a coastal city quickly to use resources and open up galley/GLH options.
5. Improve horses and research the wheel in case we need to warmonger.
6. Grow Moscow to pop5 to work resources. Fish City to pop3 or pop4, for the same reason.

LowtherCastle said:

FUrther clarification of my two tests:
2. IMPORTANT: Unlike in Soirana's test save, it's better to mine the NNW gold first. This is identical for the workers but A) gets us 1 coin per turn more and B) allows the worker to scrub the Fish City site one turn sooner. After mining that gold, worker1 goes to scrub, worker2 goes to road the gold at 1N. (As per Mitchum, one worker roads the cows2 and the other roads goldNNW after the pasture, before the mine.)

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You loose food on health issues by not connecting cow or worker turns by moving that way. Either that or i miss something.

Soirana said:

I would prefer saves or screenshots if you do not mind. My brain simply does not operate in 8/28+21/50 fashion.

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Your wish is my command.

Soirana said:

Missed you by a mile?

You are making second warrior at which point? At least after or before settler?

Click to expand...

In both tests, I followed the exact same build and tech paths:

wkr1-wkr1-warrior2-warrior2-library-settler-RAX (RAX could be chariots, granary or whatever while growing to pop5 to work the second gold when FIsh City builds the wb and switches from the gold to the fish nets.)

The purpose of the test was to compare the two, not to optimize. Whether we build one or two warriors before the settler is a different testing process. My gut feeling is that an earlier settler is too soon anyway, because the workers are still busy improving the first gold mine and then we don't want to send both workers to scrub. That wastes too many worker-turns moving across the desert.

Soirana said:

You loose food on health issues by not connecting cow or worker turns by moving that way. Either that or i miss something.

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We connect the cow through the river. The worker turns are identical--you road one gold or the other. No problem.

Yeah. The workers should road cow and N gold first, then mine the gold before clearing fallout for the second city, otherwise we waste more worker turns and turns working second gold. After this, we need another cow, ivory and rice, all cleared, improved and roaded, before moving towards another city. Third worker before settler, IMHO.

Edit: x-post w/ LC

Right. That's the MOST important reason to mine Moscow-NNW before MOscow-N: So FISH CITY CAN USE THE MINE. In other words, there's no point in building Fish CIty until we mine Moscow-NNW.

Fish CIty starts with -1. We "cheat" by working the gold mine at -1f. If we work any tile with 1f or more, we are just losing 1fpt. IF we work the gold mine, we lose 0f-1f=0f...

LowtherCastle said:

My gut feeling is that an earlier settler is too soon anyway, because the workers are still busy improving the first gold mine and then we don't want to send both workers to scrub.

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babybluepants said:

Third worker before settler, IMHO.

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My feeling in gut and head is second quote is an answer to first one. Need to make optimization but should be so.

LowtherCastle said:

Right. That's the MOST important reason to mine Moscow-NNW before MOscow-N: So FISH CITY CAN USE THE MINE. In other words, there's no point in building Fish CIty until we mine Moscow-NNW.

Fish CIty starts with -1. We "cheat" by working the gold mine at -1f. If we work any tile with 1f or more, we are just losing 1fpt. IF we work the gold mine, we lose 0f-1f=0f...

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I would guess unhealthiness is not that sure in real save? Some tiles must be unrevealed?

babybluepants said:

Third worker before settler, IMHO.

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I don't think we need the third worker that soon. Fish City will work the gold mine for 9 turns, while that worker is scrubbing the cows. Then Fish City will work the fish nets for 6 turns (4fpt because of ) to grow to pop2. Fish City maybe waits a few turns for the ivory, but it can always work the gold again, or whatever. Anyway, I'd rather have Fish CIty losing a fpt or two or three than waiting to exist at all.

xpost with Soirana