SGOTM 13 - Gypsy Kings

Ron's point of the forge in the Moai city... I'm not sure we will have time to build a forge in the Moai city. Even if we got 16 hammers in Moai eventually and thus 4 bonus hammers from the forge. This pays off the forge in 45 turns? Maybe this makes sense if we need the happiness from the forge but this doesn't seem likely since we will get spices, silk?, fur back, wine and probably silver if we settle near london. (Did you guys see the 2 fish and crab? near the 2 silver?) plus other traded for happiness if needed and then the cultural slider when necessary.

Agreed. Any forge we might build has to be built and have been around long enough to pay itself off before the time the major wars kick off. That was around T230 in the test games bc and I have played - so call that 60 turns to build and pay off while contributing to the war effort. So a forge in a city that produces x sustainable hammers over that time period makes sense only if
[pre]
60 >= turns_to_build + turns_to_pay_off
60 >= 180/x + 180/floor(x/4)
60 >= 180/x + 720/x
x >= 900/60
x >= 15
[/pre]
Since our best cities are producing only 10:hammers: for at least about 20 more turns, and we've got no workshops built yet, forges are not going to be worthwhile, even if you poke holes in my guess of 60 turns.

Note that people were talking about forge in Fish Hills back about T130. If you crunch the above equation, that makes sense only if Fish Hills had 9 hammers - which it wasn't going to have for much of the relevant period. So my analysis then is consistent with the above.
 
Stone does matter, it is WHY the hammers get doubled. Maybe you meant to say the forest chops don't matter in relation/opposition to duckweeding settlers.

Yes - stone treats all sources of :hammers: equally.

I believe that Moai needs to have at least 2 hammer sources in addition to the water tiles so it can easily get to 12 or 16 hammers to make a forge more effective. This is why I like MC over GH, or BF over GH for that matter. Even SM has more hammer potential but lacks food of course. This is why I liked bc's proposed city east of York.

No city we currently have can afford to build a forge, never mind a Moai as well. See previous post.

This actually works against GH IMO....this is a much better whipping/drafting city because of the excess food. You don't really want to whip/draft the Moai city because the value comes from being a large city working all those tiles.

As bc said, the marginal value from the last population is 1:hammers:3:commerce: per turn. In a major war, we'd much rather take 120:hammers: musketeer in hand now.

1 forest is 3 tiles and 1 forest is 2 tiles. If we happen to catch a religion in MC and pop the border they are actually both just out of the BFC. We can also use the overflow from the 2 pop granary whip that is happening soon to get ~90:hammers: jump start on it right away. Each forest contributes 16 base :hammers:, so 64 total. Moai is 375 total :hammers: required, given ~90 + 64, that leaves 221/8 per turn = Moai produced in 28 turns with no further whips or chops.

Counting tiles for distance is actually done as 1 per orthogonal tiles and 1.5 per diagonal tile (yes, that's weird...). So these two forests are 3 and 3.5 from the MC tile, and actually return 24:hammers: each (tested in the test game). (The silk forest near PC is 4 away, hence 20:hammers:.) So after stone acts there's about 90 overflow and 96 chop hammers going onto a Moai.

The border pop is immaterial for the forests until they're inside the border, and we're not going to get two border pops in the relevant period, and the southern forest is across water and won't get expanded onto anyway...

I spreadsheeted MC and GH each building Moai (respectively with chops+overflow and two 5/3 Duckweeds on workers). Neither city was assumed to access its extra BFC resource (clams and horse respectively) during the test period. MC built Moai T195 and by T230 was at size 10 having earned 252:hammers: from the Moai. GH built Moai T206 and by T230 was at size 11 having earned 179:hammers: from the Moai. This test is a bit unfair to GH, because the extra clam's :food: affects the Moai payoff both before and after the building of the Moai and the horse's :hammers: affect the Moai payoff in MC only during the building.

So only MC pays off the base cost of the Moai (375/2:hammers:) fast enough by war time, but we have to commit the worker and boat time to make it happen. So MC Moai seems to be best.
 
So only MC pays off the base cost of the Moai (375/2) fast enough by war time, but we have to commit the worker and boat time to make it happen. So MC Moai seems to be best.

Perhaps Ron was suggesting the horses could help us build Moai here with a cultural pop too. Although if it can build it by T195 then we would have to get a lucky religion spread to do it. If we capture london on T188 then the free monument wouldn't get the horses online by then. Regardless it will be nice to have a city with a few hammers to play with and it looks like MC is the place to do it.


Right now I'm thinking we skip Music entirely if we can't trade for Code of Laws by the time we finish construction. I would rather have the courthouses whipped ~10 turns earlier and a switch to caste system with anarchy then wait for Music and switch anarchy free. I think the faster we get a bunch of scientists working in the capital the faster we can get the war started. I'm thinking we might want to run a scientist here or there in CC even in this turn set.

I noticed that mabraham wasn't modeling the health from the crabs I think so CC might be able to regrow to 7 pop the turn after we whip a worker in CC. Then I think it makes sense to run a scientist there with the 7th pop while building the NE. And maybe run a scientist for 1 turn even before that.
 
OK the old PPP post has been updated.

It turns out I was doing further cheats with galley movement across an ocean tile 2SW of PC. That unavoidably delays the catapults out of BF. I think that is OK, because if we DOW on T184 with the galley with those cats one tile short in the previous plan, they should teleport to a suitable tile and we can land them with no delay. Similarly, the timing to get all three axemen in position means that we can't have both of them standing in place next to the iron tiles at the start of T185. I plan to exploit the same mechanic - but we can deal with the details next turn set, when we know how relevant all of this is.

There's an updated boat and invasion movement plan on that post. I've tested it, and it seems to work.

Note that GLib is a bit earlier than I'd previously published - I forgot the GProphet and the granary being already full. For some reason, in the test game, we lose a bunch of hammers if we whip the worker and chop the forest on the same turn. I don't understand why, but splitting them over two different turns yields about 28 more hammers. GLib plan on the PDF is tested in the test game.
 
Perhaps Ron was suggesting the horses could help us build Moai here with a cultural pop too. Although if it can build it by T195 then we would have to get a lucky religion spread to do it. If we capture london on T188 then the free monument wouldn't get the horses online by then. Regardless it will be nice to have a city with a few hammers to play with and it looks like MC is the place to do it.

Well spotted about Stonehenge.

Right now I'm thinking we skip Music entirely if we can't trade for Code of Laws by the time we finish construction. I would rather have the courthouses whipped ~10 turns earlier and a switch to caste system with anarchy then wait for Music and switch anarchy free. I think the faster we get a bunch of scientists working in the capital the faster we can get the war started. I'm thinking we might want to run a scientist here or there in CC even in this turn set.

OK, but I'm out of time to test scientists.

Might we not research CoL duing the Golden Age and switch at the end? That plan also gives us more time in which to trade for CoL.

I noticed that mabraham wasn't modeling the health from the crabs I think so CC might be able to regrow to 7 pop the turn after we whip a worker in CC. Then I think it makes sense to run a scientist there with the 7th pop while building the NE. And maybe run a scientist for 1 turn even before that.

I was modelling the crabs - the missing food is from the granary box being empty on the spreadsheet. I could certainly work a scientist T179
 
I plan to play the actual game 10 hours from now, barring a hail of protest. I won't have any time to play before Sunday if I don't play then.

I'll tech either Music or CoL at 0% after Construction, according to the state of the discussion at that time.
 
I noticed the new PDF doesn't have an updated FH. I think you have to work the PMine on T172 to finish the axe in time to load the galley on T173. I think that might change the plan in CC too.

It looks like you really have to stretch to get the Great Library by T176, so losing the Pmine to FH to finish the axe does push back the Great Library.

We could run 2 citizens in FH and the GMine to finish the axe by end of T172 or we could make an archer instead. 2 citizens probably is what you are doing...
 
I noticed the new PDF doesn't have an updated FH. I think you have to work the PMine on T172 to finish the axe in time to load the galley on T173. I think that might change the plan in CC too.

The bubbles are end-of-turn location indicators. The axe builds start T174 to load then.
 
For some reason, in the test game, we lose a bunch of hammers if we whip the worker and chop the forest on the same turn. I don't understand why, but splitting them over two different turns yields about 28 more hammers. GLib plan on the PDF is tested in the test game.

OF hammers are maxed out at the builds maximum hammers (90 for a worker). I assume this is what is happening if you chop, max whip, and put hammers into from tiles on the same turn.
 
SR... switch to lighthouse and 1-whip that ASAP

Is this really the best coarse if we have no seafood to work. I think a granary first might be better here if we can get the workers to improve a 2nd tile in a reasonable amount of time.
 
So these two forests are 3 and 3.5 from the MC tile, and actually return 24 each (tested in the test game).
That's weird...when I dropped workers on the forest tiles in the test game it gave me 16:hammers: per forest, 24 is great if we can get it, but I have my doubts.

I'm good with the PPP. I would tech Music after Construction only if no one else can tech it by then. If we are in a race for it and lose it, then I think it is a waste of resources.
 
Is this really the best coarse if we have no seafood to work. I think a granary first might be better here if we can get the workers to improve a 2nd tile in a reasonable amount of time.
I missed this on the PPP, I agree with bc here, with no seafood, I think whip the granary first.
 
SR grows in a few turns. Another improved land tile is about 10 turns away, by which time we'll need another. Hence whip something that'll be useful later.
 
So just put 1 turn on the lighthouse the turn it grows, and then whip it I guess. No reason to put extra turns on the lighthouse, those hammers will speed the granary whip later.
 
Yay for war!

Just a heads up, I'm going to be away for 10 days from Saturday - if my turnset falls during this period it might be prudent for the next player to jump in front of me.

Good luck Mab!
 
It really doesn't matter if you planned to whip the lighthouse if you switch to the lighthouse now or put 1 turn on it. The OF from the whip of the lighthouse would be applied to the granary, so you wouldn't lose those hammers you put into the lighthouse if you switch now.

Here is my thinking though.

Yes we don't have good land, but we are going to be cutting it close with Spicy Rice's builds in terms of will it have time to whip a courthouse before we switch over to caste system.

If we build the granary without ever whipping the lighthouse then we can whip 1 pop whip the granary on T191 going down to 2 pop, which allows us to 1 pop whip a courthouse with 1 in our cultural borders chop or 2 out of our borders cultural chops.

Regardless of the granary or lighthouse build

a slightly better plan for the workers here Eiffel and Strauss

I think they finish the rice farm T175, then which ever one is free moves to the jungle grass hill. Then they road the rice and jungle grass hill at the same time. Yes this delays the empire's access to rice, but if we still have the sheep we don't need the rice until CC hits 8 pop which it will not do since we whipped the worker there T176.
That allows us to get the grass mine a few turns earlier T184 I believe.

So yes a population in SR ends up working the grass tile for several turns at 3 pop if we don't whip the lighthouse, but we aren't losing that much since if we did whip the lighthouse we would only be 2 pop and probably working the grass mine and rice and not any coast.

Another point.
With 2 citizens on T172 FH could finish the axe and that galley waiting by FH for that axe to finish could leave a turn earlier. I'm sure this probably won't help unless all the builds in the various cities are reconsidered since the builds and the galleys seemed to be synchronized like a dance. However I offer this option if having that galley leave 1 turn earlier helps address the delay you mentioned.

edit: If I understand the galley plan now, I think this (finishing the FH axe at the end of T172) does land the axes a turn earlier on Vicky's island. And it might help later on too.

edit#2: With these minor suggestions I'm satisfied. Good luck. I'll be asleep when you play unfortunately.
 
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