Plans for turns 40-70

DMOC said:

This seems pretty safe. Just make sure that the workers build roads on the forests so that they can go to the forest and chop in 1 turn. I hope some of the other teams aim for other wonders.

Also what free tech do you plan on getting? I would like Metal Casting or Code of Laws. If this were single player, I would probably consider other techs but those two look like the best so far.

Any idea what the time Oracle usually gets built in multiplayer games with skilled players?

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I like Code of Laws over Metal casting because of our cheap courthouses versus expensive Forges. Furthermore Colossus doesn't seem very useful Wonder at the moment.

I've no multiplayer experience, but I suspect that all or most of the teams are doing similar tests as we're. So I wouldn't have high hopes on getting Oracle especially because we've "bad" starting techs (no mining and/or Mystisicm). We probably have one of the best commerce capitals at population 5 (assuming no gold,silver or gems in other capitals), but against other financial leaders that edge might be quite tiny on getting to Prieshood first.

I wouldn't bother going for the Oracle for metal casting... forges would be too expensive to be really worthwhile at this point in the game (if we were industrious it'd be a different matter) and collosus will be nigh-useless with our glorious one seafood.

Code of Laws though would be superb and I would certainly like to take a shot at it if possible... there's no excessive need for early expansion yet due to starting far apart, the biggest issue probably is hooking up those horses before the barbs show up.

DMOC said:

This seems pretty safe. Just make sure that the workers build roads on the forests so that they can go to the forest and chop in 1 turn. I hope some of the other teams aim for other wonders.

Also what free tech do you plan on getting? I would like Metal Casting or Code of Laws. If this were single player, I would probably consider other techs but those two look like the best so far.

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Code of Laws, without a doubt. Cheaper Courthouses, religion (+1 happiness) and closer Bureaucracy >> Forges and (maybe) Colossus.

DMOC said:

Any idea what the time Oracle usually gets built in multiplayer games with skilled players?

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Usually around the 1500 BC - 1000 BC mark. Sometimes later; very rarely earlier.

plako said:

At the moment I see following realistic alternatives:
1. Don't build oracle concentrate on getting 3 cities as fast as possible and improve their tiles.
2. Use the first presented alternative. Build early second city and improve the horses. If we're succesful Oracle is ready at turn 63. If we lose it, nothing bad has yet happened we've already two nice cities and Immortals start soon to patrol our borders
3. Build Oracle as fast as possible and forget everything else. This would give Oracle at turn 58, but not Code of laws. There would be just 1 city and settler could be ready on turn 59 to collect the horses.
4. Build Oracle and Code of Laws as fast as possible on turn 61. This would delay horse city for ~10 turns, but tiles around capital would be well improved.

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Option 3 is not at all attractive. Option 1 is decent, but personally I'd like to see if we can get the Oracle - it'd majorly help us through the mid-game. Options 2 and 4 are both attractive. There's only a 2 turn difference between them, but of course that might be significant. Turn 61 would be 1560 BC; turn 63 would be 1480 BC. Either way, this would be on the early side for building the Oracle, so we'd very likely get it unless another team prioritises it as highly as we do.

plako said:

I like Code of Laws over Metal casting because of our cheap courthouses versus expensive Forges. Furthermore Colossus doesn't seem very useful Wonder at the moment.

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Also, don't forget Code of Laws will give us a religion (+1 happiness all around). Plus it puts us much closer to a very early Bureaucracy, which is very powerful.

plako said:

I've no multiplayer experience, but I suspect that all or most of the teams are doing similar tests as we're. So I wouldn't have high hopes on getting Oracle especially because we've "bad" starting techs (no mining and/or Mystisicm). We probably have one of the best commerce capitals at population 5 (assuming no gold,silver or gems in other capitals), but against other financial leaders that edge might be quite tiny on getting to Prieshood first.

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It really depends on priorities, though. Other teams might be doing similar tests, but for Stonehenge, or the Great Wall. Personally, I would be surprised if we didn't get the Oracle if we went for option 4. 1560 BC is quite early to get that wonder. Option 2 should net us the Oracle too.

Joshua368 said:

Code of Laws though would be superb and I would certainly like to take a shot at it if possible... there's no excessive need for early expansion yet due to starting far apart, the biggest issue probably is hooking up those horses before the barbs show up.

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That's a good point, early expansion isn't a major issue on this map (although of course we don't want to leave it too long, or we'll get left behind ). The big issue is getting the Horses hooked up to ensure safety from barbs - which is why I'm thinking about option 2 as well as option 4. Barbs will certainly be appearing in human forms by 1500 BC, and we don't want to leave ourselves too vulnerable.

It might be possile to Oracle+Code of laws on turn 60, if we optimize worker movements and tile usage. It is quite tricky, because if we emphasize just hammers we'll lose commerce and will not get writing early enough. Furthermore it might be that 3rd worker can not be sent right away to follow settler. This has to be tested.

I did run couple of more test and found my favourite:
Settler is produced between 2nd and 3rd worker. This enables Oracle on turn 62 (We have time also to accumulate 11 gold) and we've the horse city up and running ~5 turns earlier than producing it after all workers. This can be done so that 2 forests are preserved.

Production schedule after 1st worker:
Warrior - Warrior (pop 5) - 2nd Worker - Settler - 3rd Worker - Oracle

Tile utilization:
Normally: Crab-sheep- 2*FP-riverside mine (if not ready, then forestedplainshill)
When building Oracle: Optimized to finish it at turn 62 using production tiles riverside mined hill, 1 mined plains hill and Forestedplainshill. Meanwhile making sure that writing is ready at the latest on turn 62.

Worker tasks:
1st: sheep-cottage-cottage-chop riverside hill-mine the hill-prechop grassland forest(not riverside)-Follow settler to improve horse city
2nd: Chop eastern plainsforestedhill - mine it - chop prechopped grasland forest (done by worker 1) - chop riverside grassland forest - start to build road to horse city
3rd Chop grasslandhill (west from Saturn) - mine it

Other:
On turn 46 slider was 50% to get 10 gold (didn't remeber to do this on turn 43).

Other tests:
I can confirm that Oracle and Code of laws can be ended on turn 60. However there is no room for miscliks or unfortunate events and we'll had to chop all the forests. Here you'll had to utilize flood plains for max commerce instead of crabs (Yes, getting it depends on just few hammers and beakers).

I also checked that after the Bronze working is ready we can run 1 turn in 40% slider to accumulate 11 gold and we can still get Oracle+Writing on turn 61.

By the way, I know the forest fire is canceled out by 10 gold, how much does it take for the least damaging slave revolt option? 10 as well?

I'm really dubious of the worth of running lower research for a turn to gather the 10 gold. The event may not even happen in this game, and even if it does there's pretty low odds of it happening to us in the near future. Plus, gathering the gold would only shield us against forest fires for a 17-19 turn interval (from turn 43 to turn 61 or so). I really don't think it's worth the effort, personally. Deliberately handicapping ourselves slightly to insure against an event that has perhaps a 5-10% (or less) likelihood of occuring in the time frame we're talking about seems a bit silly. Especially when there's probably an equal likelihood of getting the "research lost" event, in which case staying at 100% research would have been better.

Joshua368 said:

By the way, I know the forest fire is canceled out by 10 gold, how much does it take for the least damaging slave revolt option? 10 as well?

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Not sure... I thought I had a bookmark to a thread which explained all of the events and their outcomes, but I can't find it anymore.

The least damaging slave revolt requires 10 gold. I know this for a fact.

Also, I agree with Lord Parkin. Let's not lower our science slider anytime soon.

collecting 10 or 4 gold wouldn't do much harm unless we're trying to get Oracle on turn 60. If nescessary that money can be recollected when our 2nd city is ready, because maintenance will force us to use lower slider.

plako said:

collecting 10 or 4 gold wouldn't do much harm unless we're trying to get Oracle on turn 60. If nescessary that money can be recollected when our 2nd city is ready, because maintenance will force us to use lower slider.

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It's still research that will be delayed in the early game. Plus, if we get the "research lost" event, having not put the slider down might actually help us to not get delayed by a turn on the Oracle.

So I'm still not convinced that turning down the research slider is a good idea.

I'm using my mobile so I can't write thorough answer. Our capital is quite versatile at pop 5 we can switch between commerce and production and chops can be used to compensate if we had to use commerce tiles. Loss of research means about 1 turn delay on research and that we can easily handle e.g by recollecting the beakers when our 2nd city is ready and using commerce tiles and making 1 more chop. However forest fire means 1 unhappy face for 10 turns. This will be a lot more expensive to us. Only when marginals are very small the loss of beakers means something (e.g. If we try to get Oracle on turn 60).

Edit: main point is that collecting 10 doesn't cost us anything if we get research lost event and check situation 5 turns after our 2nd city has been build. Even if event is very rare it would be foolish not to prepare if it doesn't cost us anything.

Happy holidays to everyone.

I've improved a little our plan for Oracle and this is probably best that I could think of. The basis is still the case where settler is produced after 2nd Worker and it produces 2nd city on turn ~55. If we delay worker ~3 turns before moving it to horse city so that it can help chopping 1 more forest, we can get oracle on turn 61.

If we don't try to get Oracle on turn 60, the limiting factor is the amount of hammers (not beakers). Therefore I still suggest that we collect at minimum 4 gold (preferably 10) on turn 42 after the Bronze Working is ready. After the horse city has been founded we've enough time to recollect the "loan", if we get e.g. research lost event.

Just noticed that it might be hard to understand what these alternatives mean in practice. Here is summary of main points:

I assume that all cases are identical until turn 39, when population has just raised to 5 and our 3rd warrior is ready. Slight changes are possible e.g. I've assumed 2 chops before we start Oracle. If we use 3 chops before it we could get Settler a turn earlier and possibly 1 Warrior before starting Oracle, but possibly lose a turn in getting Oracle. This is only possible if there are sufficient chopping power (i.e. at least 2 workers before settler).

1. Settler - Worker - Worker + Oracle 63
Settler ready on turn 47 and Titan founded on turn 52. Horses are online on turn 57. We also send the worker right after minig the riverside hill to horse city (will follow 1 turn behind). Lack of chopping power delays Oracle. 2 forests left.

2. Worker - Settler - Worker + Oracle 62

Settler ready on 50 and Titan founded on turn 55. Horses are online on turn 59 (Worker follows right away settler). 2 forests left.

3. Worker - Settler - Worker + Oracle 61

Settler ready on turn 50 and Titan founded on turn 55. Horses are online on turn 62, because Worker has to help in chopping before it can leave Saturn. 1 forest left

4. Worker - Worker - Settler + Oracle 60

These are approximations. Haven't done notes for this case.

Settler ready on turn 54 and Titan founded on turn 59. Horses are online on turn 64. No forests left. Note: Very tricky to achieve. Smallest of delays or problems will make this impossible.

My personal favorites are cases 2 and 3. We can delay desicion making and depending on the barb situation could either go for early horses or delay them 3 turns to get earlier Oracle.

would you be able to send me the starting save you are using? I would quite like to run through the scenarios and see if i get the same as you.

Here is save from turn 20
View attachment 197641

There is 1 additional forest north from the horses.

I'm just back. I'll play through the potential options as well, to double-check that they're correct (although I'm sure that they will be). Once I've looked into it in a bit more detail, I'll share my opinion on what option I prefer. At this early stage, options 2 and 3 do seem to look nice though.

i think i vote for option 1: not to build the oracle ... we have to shuffle so much stuff around..chop almost all of our forests .. it just doesnt seem viable enough ... other teams might get it much faster

i like the idea of having more cities and improved tiles (and forests around for health)

Scuum said:

i think i vote for option 1: not to build the oracle ... we have to shuffle so much stuff around..chop almost all of our forests .. it just doesnt seem viable enough ... other teams might get it much faster

i like the idea of having more cities and improved tiles (and forests around for health)

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Dude, forests are for chopping. If not the Oracle, then settlers and workers. We don't need no steeenking health, we have sheep, seafood, fresh water, and soon enough our expansive-esque unique building. Forests exist to be chopped!

Though most of us have our sights set of the oracle at this point... chose cheap courthouses are so tempting. You'll need to give us a good alternative for those hammers, it doesn't really seem like we'll be in a race for nearby city sites.

Scuum said:

i think i vote for option 1: not to build the oracle ... we have to shuffle so much stuff around..chop almost all of our forests .. it just doesnt seem viable enough ... other teams might get it much faster

i like the idea of having more cities and improved tiles (and forests around for health)

Click to expand...

I'm also somewhat indifferent whether we should try Oracle or not. Earlier I was little against but now I I favor it a bit. It is a gamble, but reward is quite nice. Here is some rough calculations what we lose/gain in the process:

The horse city won't be delayed much (depends also how fast we want Oracle). Flood plains city is delayed about 10-15 turns (dependes if we use chop to get it).

Delaying flood plains city would cost us ~20-40 commerce (commerce - maintenance is about 2-5, depending on the size of the city) and ~30-50 excess food. The possible reward "Oracle" provides 522 beakers and if we fail to get it some gold so I see the gamble like this:

What we lose:
150 hammers, 30 commerce, 40 food

What we get:
522 beakers or ~150 gold (if Oracle goes earlier we will not get his much gold, but can found our third city earlier).

At this early point of the game I would value gold/beakers almost as high as hammers and food. So the cost could be considered as 70.

So directly we would be gambling 70 to get 522. Of course both alternatives have indirect benefits so in reality the price and the reward are higher.

Short term, health in our current capital is not that big on issue, because happiness will be limiting its size. Middle term health will be smallish issue, if we chop all the forests. However this capital doesn't have much food so it won't be able to grow that big unless we mainly work coastal tiles.

Overall our middle term health situation seems pretty bad at the moment. Especially this affects somewhat to the usefulness of the flood plains city. Hopefully fog reveals some more health resources. It is unfortunate that there are no grain resources visible to take advantage of additional granary health and there are no coastal city sites to take advantage of additional sea food health.