SGOTM 15 - One Short Straw

OK, I just ran a very quick comparison between my plan and magnusmarcus' plan.

Spoiler :
Delhi: My plan is +15H and -16F.
Zlatorog: My plan is +6H and -15F (he's working a camp already so will be short some gold)
Gold-E Locks: My plan is +3F and -3H
Gems City: My plan is +6F and +2H
Marble City: Same
Tech: My plan is +57 gold and -37 beakers. He's already started taking the hit of not working the gold in Zlatorog.
Intangibles: I get Pottery 2 turns earlier, have a work boat started in Gems City and have an extra forest in Gems City (+30H).


So based on this, I don't see a strong reason to go one way over the other as the +s and -s seem to balance out... Thoughts?
Do you save the 16h=>30h chop for Gems City or not?

To me, a key question is, when does Delhi finish its granary? Because growing to pop4 too soon could conceivably be a waste of food, other than getting to work an extra tile a couple turns sooner. Or, growing to pop4 sooner could dovetail perfectly with finishing the granary and growing to pop5...

xpost
 
6. I don't do this in my test, but we can build the road at Gems City-SW rather than just climbing the pigs hill per the LC test. You were doing this right after finishing the chop and before doing the gems mine, right? That way we get the pigs pastured before the gems mined and get the city growing ASAP.
I think we all understand you mean Gems City-SE, but just in case.

10. Build the road segment at copper-1E rather than copper-1NE.
I'm not sure magnus has the extra worker turn available to road the deer tile. If not, then connecting Delhi requires the road at copper-1NE before the next border expansion, right? (unfortunately)
 
Do you save the 16h=>30h chop for Gems City or not?

Yes, in my test, I chop the forest under Gems City instead. It only gives 8H instead of the 16H, which is why the 1-pop whip trick won't work for me (although I didn't try that hard). That forest at Gems-1E is still there and can be chopped for 30H in Gems City.

To me, a key question is, when does Delhi finish its granary? Because growing to pop4 too soon could conceivably be a waste of food, other than getting to work an extra tile a couple turns sooner. Or, growing to pop4 sooner could dovetail perfectly with finishing the granary and growing to pop5...

Right. And this is tied to our chosen tech path too, so it's all intricately entwined. There is no quick and easy forest chop for the Delhi granary. All available 30H forests are N+N or E+NE of Delhi and would take turns for the workers to get there. If we have 4 pops in Delhi already like in magnusmarcus' test, we could two-pop whip the granary as soon as the GS is born!! I'd have to do some testing to see if this is the ideal time to whip it or not though. In my test, it would take Delhi 2 turns to grow before the whip could be cracked...

EDIT: x-post Damn server is busy.
 
EDIT: We need to test whether Writing -> Wheel -> Pottery -> PH gets us PH in time to start the Oracle.

Nope. Putting Pottery before PH gives us PH too late.

We really need to nail down our tech path. I think we have three options:

Writing -> Wheel -> PH -> Pottery This gets us Pottery ASAP.

I just ran this test. It gives us 30/60H in Delhi's granary and 7/50H in the rax. Same hammers, but shifted 15H from the rax to the granary. The good thing about this was that the granary caught the settler OF hammers rather than the rax.

Gems City shifted 4H from the library (or WB) to the granary, which now has 13/60H.

With respect to not researching Fishing before Pottery, we are down some beakers. -15 beakers and +1 gold.


I played this test forward a bit to see the timing of the granaries and such. I got the granary in Delhi on T67 with some minor worker changes and a chop at Delhi-E+NE. This gave 41 OF hammers, which I put into a settler. On the next turn, I grew to 4 pops and 2-popped the settler and settled cow/deer on T70. I was able to complete the granary in Gems City with the leftover forest chop that has already been used in magnusmarcus' test. The granary in Delhi allowed me to grow back to 3 pops on T72 (with 19/26 food in the granary due to massive overflow - would be 12/26 with no overflow) and back up to 4 pops the following turn on T73.

It would be good to play forward from magnus' test to see when the granaries complete and when we can settle deer/cow (assuming we want to settle this city at all). Then we can see which path sets us up the best moving forward.
 

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I think we all understand you mean Gems City-SE, but just in case.

Fixed.

I'm not sure magnus has the extra worker turn available to road the deer tile. If not, then connecting Delhi requires the road at copper-1NE before the next border expansion, right? (unfortunately)

OK. I was wondering how he was doing that. So I guess he is roading copper-NE and deer-S (not the deer resource) to connect marble to Gold-E Locks.
 
It would be good to play forward from magnus' test to see when the granaries complete and when we can settle deer/cow (assuming we want to settle this city at all). Then we can see which path sets us up the best moving forward.

We can stunt growth in Delhi from 3 to pop 4 on 1360BC Turn 66 and have Granary built on turn 1400BC Turn 65 for 14 food in granary on turn 66 Grow to pop 5 on turn 68 Incidentally on turn 68 Slave Unhappiness Penalty expires.

Trade off is no camp in zlatarog -1 forest hunting tech finished later gain 2 roads between zlatarog and delhi.
 

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We can stunt growth in Delhi from 3 to pop 4 on 1360BC Turn 66 and have Granary built on turn 1400BC Turn 65 for 14 food in granary on turn 66 Grow to pop 5 on turn 68 Incidentally on turn 68 Slave Unhappiness Penalty expires

In general, if we need something now and don't want to wait, it's okay to stack unhappiness as long as we can deal with the extra :mad: from the whip.

I assume you are chopping a forest with the second Zlatorog worker rather than improving the deer and skipping early Hunting too.

To compare able to apples, when would you have cow/deer settled and when would the deer resource be camped (the one east of Delhi)? Whipping from 3 -> 5 takes more food to grow back than whipping from 4 -> 2 but it does allow Delhi to work both of ZPV's power tiles (corn + copper) and still grow reasonable quickly with the third citizen on the FP.

How about the granary in Gems City?

There are so many variables and moving parts that it's really hard to compare our options... :crazyeye:
 
@magnusmarkus

Can you provided a clean, updated version of your plan so that I can walk through it?

Provided As Requested.

Went Writing -> Wheel -> Priesthood -> Pottery -> Fishing -> Hunting

Improved and worked gem mine to get Pottery on same turn 5th Settler finished in Delhi (Switch to pig turn after completed) Gained second pop on same turn if worked pig 1 turn earlier.
Delhi works Bronze and 2 scientist after 1 pop whip. Next turn change back to working corn. and then changed from bronze to grassland hill and corn and 1 scientist on turn 1440 for granary produce next turn. (Chop tree after Math bulb)
TechPath Writing -> Wheel -> Priesthood -> Hunting -> Fishing -> Pottery -> Iron Working
(debating Pottery then Fishing for start on granery in Dehli before barracks)

Military unit movement in this plan not finalized.

Spoiler :


Turn 48 2080BC

Gold Worker NW NW
Bronze Worker Mine
Zlatarog 1S Worker Chop
Change Production in Zlatarog to worker
Zlatarog Works Gold only
Delhi GrassHillMine x2 Floodplain COrn
Tech at 100% Writing in 5 turns 26G -7G

Turn 49 2040BC

GOLD-ELOCKS works Plains forest and gold this turn only.
Deer worker W SW Mine
1S Zlatarog Worker Chop
Tech at 100% Writing in 4 turns 97G -7G

Turn 50 2000BC

Zlatarog 1S worker S SE
Warrior Complete in Gold-E Locks. Start Worker MM Sheep Gold
Move Warrior in Gold-E Locks NE
1 Bronze worker N Chop Cancel Order
1 Bronze worker W NW
Tech at 100% Writing in 3 turns 90G -7G

Turn 51 1960BC

Delhi 1SE Worker NE Chop
Delhi 1SW Worker Chop
Delhi 2NW worker 1 SW Chop
Move "Jim" 1NE Gold-E Locks Warrior E
Tech at 100% Writing in 2 turns 83G -7G

Turn 52 1920BC

Move "Jim" 1E Sheep Warrior West
Tech at 100% Writing in 1 turn 76G -7G

Turn 53 1880BC

All Workers Chop
Settler SW NW
Delhi start on library
MM Delhi to work 2 Mines Bronze Corn
Library Should finish in 2 turns
Move "Jim" home to Gold-E Locks and fort
Tech at 100% Writing Complete; The Wheel in 2 turns 69G -7G

Turn 54 1840BC

Delhi 1SW Worker W W Farm Cancel order
Pigs 2E Worker S Chop Cancel order
Settler SW NW
Delhi 2E Worker SW Chop
Tech at 100% The Wheel in 1 turn 62G -7G

Turn 55 1800BC

Do All Worker Chops first!
Settler Settles. Rename City "Nature's Candy"
Delhi finish Library 1 Scientist Corn FloodPlains Bronze Begin Settler
Nature's Candy Work Unimproved Gem Start on Library
Move "Jack" 1N Banana Warrior SE
Move "John" 2E Marble Warriro SE
??? Can I now move Jack East to Cover Johns fog busting duty? Or do I have to worry about tile 1 NW of Banana???
Tech at 100% The Wheel Complete; Priesthood in 2 turns 55G -12G

Turn 56 1760BC

MM Delhi 2 Scientists work Corn Bronze
Delhi 1SE Worker E Road
2Bombay 1E Workers SW Mine Gem
Tech at 100% Priesthood in 1 turn 43G -12G

Turn 57 1720BC

Tech at 100% Priesthood Complete; Pottery in 2 turns 31G -12G

Turn 58 1680BC

Slavery Whip 1 pop in Delhi to finish settler. MM Delhi to work 2 scientists and Bronze
1NE Bronze Worker SE Road el after
Gold-E Locks Worker NW Road
Zlatarog worker SE Road
2 Gems Workers E Road
Zlatarog Start warrior
Gold-E Locks start Oracle
Tech at 100% Pottery in 1 turn 19G -12G

Turn 59 1640BC

Tech Slider 0%
Settler S SW
Delhi Start Granary MM Corn and 2 Scientists
2 1W Gems Worker NW NW Pasture Pigs
Tech at 0% Pottery Complete; Fishin in 6 turns 7G +28G

Turn 60 1600BC

"Jack" W
1SE Zlatarog Worker SE Road
Settler SW S
Deer 1S Worker SE Road
1N Gold-E Locks Worker SW Road
Tech at 0% Fishin in 5 turn 35G +28G

Turn 61 1560BC

Settler SE
2 Pig Workers SE SE SE SE
Nature's Candy work Pig
1 1W Gold Worker NE E Chop
1 1W Gold Worker NW NW SW Road
Tech at 100% Fishin in 1 turn 63G -12G

Turn 62 1520BC

Settle Crab Rangoon Work Marble Start WB
2 NW Marble Worker SE Quarry
1NW Gold-E Locks worker Road
1NW Zlatarog worker S Chop
Zlatarog Warrior finish Start Granary
2SE Zlatarog Worker SE Chop
Tech at 100% Hunting in 1 turn 51G -13G

Turn 63 1480BC

Bronze Worker NE SE SE NE Chop (Cancel Order)
1N Gold-E Locks Worker W Chop (Cancel Order)
Tech at 0% Hunting Complete; Iron Working in 31 Turns 32G +24

Turn 64 1440BC

Finish quarry and Bulb Math Gold-E Locks before Workers chop 2 forests to finish Oracle
2N Delhi Worker Chop
Tech at 100% Writing in 5 turns 56G +27G
 
1. Build road to connect Gold-E Locks to Delhi before pre-chopping. Only requires 3 road segments from the deer to Gold-E Locks.

Point addressed but because of how my worker turns are had to build a road s of the deer

2. Delay building the warrior in Gold-E Locks by one turn. We still get the worker on the same turn. But we exchange 3H for 3F. I'm not convinced that this way is better, by the way. If we do this, we end up at 3 pops one turn sooner, working an unimproved tile for 2 turns. If we finish the warrior on T49 like magnusmarcus is doing, we only end up working an unimproved tile for 1 turn. In general 1F > 1H. I'm not 100% convinced in this case though.

I went with the food this time. I think either way is negligible

3. Don't forget to work the copper on T49 in Delhi.

I havent had a problem with it not autoworking that tile but I will update the plan to verify

4. Move the warrior in Gold-E Locks to the hill E+NE rather than fortifying him in the city.

Ok and then move him back or wander around? Does anyone else have input?

5. On T54, the Delhi-1SW worker can build a partial farm rather than just moving to the forest and not performing any improvement that turn.

Point Addressed

6. I don't do this in my test, but we can build the road at Gems City-SW SE rather than just climbing the pigs hill per the LC test. You were doing this right after finishing the chop and before doing the gems mine, right? That way we get the pigs pastured before the gems mined and get the city growing ASAP.

Point addressed

7. Depending on when Hunting is learned, the second worker from Zlatorog may or may not stick around Zlatorog. He may be able to do more useful things in Delhi and/or Marble City.

Point addressed. He is used to chop a forest for the quick granary

8. Move the settler to the corn so that he can go around any forest that might happen to grow in our path.

Point Addressed

9. Start building granaries as soon as Pottery is learned in Delhi and Gems City (unless we get early Fishing and prefer the WB...). I think it best for Zlatorog to finish the warrior before starting on its granary.

Point Addressed

10. Build the road segment at copper-1E rather than copper-1NE.

Do to the way my worker movements are this is not possible

11. Start moving the warrior away from banana-1N as soon as the settler gets to his final location (T61). Be sure he is in a position to prevent barbs spawing at banana-1NW. @magnusmarcus, if you're not sure how spawn busting works, ask us. Hint: It has nothing to do with which tiles the unit can actually see (i.e. unfog).

My understanding is any tile 2 squares away from an active unit is considered "busted"
What I am unclear about is the role the borders play. Am I correct in thinking only visible tiles are busted by borders?

12. Zlatorog warrior should head NW, not fortify in the city. In your test, you were still building a spear, so this didn't come up.
Still finalizing Military Unit movement. Looking for input
13. In general, move as few units as possible on the final turn of play. That way, whoever is up next has complete flexibility to do what makes the most sense going forward. You could just stop at the start of T64 or you could use the GS to bulb Math and use the two workers to chop the forests (assuming the marble quarry is done already).

Im not trying to impose my will after my turn set. I'm quite sure I'll only get a few turns in before something else occurs and my turn becomes fini
 
To compare able to apples, when would you have cow/deer settled and when would the deer resource be camped (the one east of Delhi)? Whipping from 3 -> 5 takes more food to grow back than whipping from 4 -> 2 but it does allow Delhi to work both of ZPV's power tiles (corn + copper) and still grow reasonable quickly with the third citizen on the FP.

How about the granary in Gems City?

I wouldnt have cow/deer settled during the next 15 / 16 turns or a granary completed in Gems City. How far beyond my turnset should I test before we can compare plans apples to apples?
 
Regarding spawn busting, the short answer is this:

1. Units spawn bust a 5x5 area regardless of whether or not they can "see" these tiles.
2. Cities only spawn bust the tiles that they can see.

To see the actual tests I ran to prove this, take a gander at this post from my glory days on Fifth Element. I give kudos to Dhoomstriker in this post, so I must have been smoking crack at the time... :lol:
 
@magnusmarcus

Thanks for addressing each of my points specifically in your post. It's good when the player that is up does this so that things don't have to be repeated or fall through the cracks.

I havent had a problem with it not autoworking that tile but I will update the plan to verify

Sometimes, the city governor can get you into trouble. In general, it's better to leave it off and check each city manually every turn. I check each city multiple times because I'm paranoid... :p

Ok and then move him back or wander around? Does anyone else have input?

I would keep the warrior posted on that hill at Gold-E Locks-E+NE at least until its borders pop. That warrior is actually spawn busting the tiles along the peak range.

Im not trying to impose my will after my turn set. I'm quite sure I'll only get a few turns in before something else occurs and my turn becomes fini

I know you're not trying to impose your will. I'm just making the point that it's better to make as few irreversible moves at the end of your turnset as possible (i.e. move units, change civics, whip units, etc.). Who know, we may change gears and do a 180° based on some obscure demographic digging by LC and the more flexibility we have the better.


I wouldnt have cow/deer settled during the next 15 / 16 turns or a granary completed in Gems City. How far beyond my turnset should I test before we can compare plans apples to apples?

Well, if Delhi is at 5 pops, you should be able to quickly whip a settler if that's what we decided to do. My only concern is that it's hard to look at a static point in time (i.e. the turn we get all of the hammers into the Oracle on T64) and tell which test run is better. One may look good in the short term but fall behind as we move forward. As an extreme example, one test may 5-pop whip a wonder and on the surface it may look good from a total hammer output compared to other tests but in the long run a test that doesn't sacrifice those 5 pops could come out ahead several turns in the future.

In the case of comparing the 1-pop whip vs. the 2-pop whip options we have on the table right now, personally I don't think there is one that is clearly better than the other. However, if we play them out a bit, we may find that one outperforms the other due to any number of reasons (i.e. city growth, REX, research, etc.).

Regarding the 2-pop whip test I ran, I was using the second worker from Zlatorog to help around Marble for 2 reasons:

1. I couldn't get the roads to work and I needed one more worker turn to do it.
2. Since the worker was down there for the road, he also allowed me to chop the forest under Marble City. This is a very minor reason as this only gave 6H if I remember correctly. But I did it because the worker was in the area.

If I build the roads like you did between Marble City and Gold-E Locks (i.e. not roading the deer but deer-1S), then I could use this worker around Delhi like you did to speed up the granary even more. That's the beauty of all of this testing. We can take the best points from all of our testing (most of mine originated from LC's plan, BTW) and combine them into one cohesive plan.

I'm away from my Civ computer right now so I can't comment on your updated PPP. Hopefully someone else can get around to it or I'll get to it tomorrow AM. Before commenting, I would ask that people play through both test options first. Playing through them gives you a better feel for how things come together. It also gives you a better idea of how to take bits and pieces from each test to come up with something even better.
 
Just a quick note. My whole reason for diverting from magnus' original test was to try to save a forest inside of Gems City's inner ring for a quicker granary (or WB). In doing this, I was also able to chop a forest under the city that would have otherwise been wasted. I ended up having to do quite a few different things to make it work because the forest I chopped was worth fewer hammers and the 1-pop whip option didn't work any longer.

So, if we put a low value on having said forest available for Gems City, then the whole reason for my diversion is gone...
 
I played through your plan and I have some comments:

T49: MM Delhi to work copper. I know that the governor does it in the test game. If the governor is not on in the real game, you may miss this. I think it's safer to put this in your plan just in case.

T52: Don't move Jim (Gold-E Locks warrior) back to Gold-E Locks. We don't need a military police unit there yet and he's better served to spawn bust and keep an eye on Toku.

T55: I assume that you have the gems-W worker move 1N and help chop.

T55: Moving the warriors one tile SE is okay. But they shouldn't move any further until you've settled the marble city. We do have to worry about the banana-NW tile

T56: I think it's better to road -> pasture pigs -> mine gems than gems -> road -> pigs. I'll do a quick test in a bit.

T58: Why do you work the copper (+7H -2F) rather than the corn (+5H -0F). In general food is better than hammers and those extra 2 food could help us grow a turn sooner down the road.

T58: I don't think it makes sense to have the second Zlatorog worker building roads south of Zlatorog. It seems that we could come up with more useful things for him to do.

T59: I'm assuming you don't do this, but don't gang your workers. It is faster at times but you risk the chance of losing worker turns when actions take an odd number of turns, like chopping forests.

T60: Why do you move Jack back west? He should stay put or move east.

T60: I get +27 gold, not +28.

T62: we learn Fishing on T62, not T63.

T62: "1NW Gold-E Locks worker Road" He's actually chopping. THis may have been a carryover from your last plan.

T62: "1NW Zlatarog worker S Chop" Another carryover?

T62: Start moving the Zlatorog warrior NW + W.

T63: I have 67 gold not 32 gold
 
I ran the test on road -> pig -> gems vs gems -> road -> pig.

Road first is +9F, -19C +0H. It will grow to 3 pops in 2 turns vs. 4 turns, so it can pick up an extra 6H if borrowing a mine from Delhi.

So the final tradeoff is something like 9F and 6H for 19C. Obviously, the more food means growth to 4 sooner and a sooner whip. The 19C doesn't get us Pottery or Fishing any earlier...
 
On T58, it's better to work the corn (0F +5H) than the copper (-2F +7H). We grow to 4 pops one turn sooner and can start working better tiles sooner.

BTW, for a long stretch, Delhi is not working the "power tiles" but is at 3 pops working corn +2 scientists, just like my test...
 
On T58, it's better to work the corn (0F +5H) than the copper (-2F +7H). We grow to 4 pops one turn sooner and can start working better tiles sooner.

BTW, for a long stretch, Delhi is not working the "power tiles" but is at 3 pops working corn +2 scientists, just like my test...

I did this so the granary will finish a turn sooner than the pop increase. Other wise you lose the granary bonus on the pop increase
 
I ran the test on road -> pig -> gems vs gems -> road -> pig.

Road first is +9F, -19C +0H. It will grow to 3 pops in 2 turns vs. 4 turns, so it can pick up an extra 6H if borrowing a mine from Delhi.

So the final tradeoff is something like 9F and 6H for 19C. Obviously, the more food means growth to 4 sooner and a sooner whip. The 19C doesn't get us Pottery or Fishing any earlier...

Are you sure you dont miss pottery by a turn? If i remember right pottery shows up just in time for dehli
 
I did this so the granary will finish a turn sooner than the pop increase. Other wise you lose the granary bonus on the pop increase

I'm pretty sure that you can complete the granary on the same turn either way. In one case, you're at 3 pops and get fewer hammers on the turn the granary is completed but you have the extra hammers from working the copper earlier while in the other case, you're at 4 pops and get more hammers on the turn the granary is completed.

In general, food is better than hammers. More food means you grow sooner which gives more citizens and more production sooner which allows you to continue to pull ahead turn after turn.
 
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