Sid the Science Kid

I feel very passionate about the cows. Last night they showed a commercial with cows in it who are released into the grasslands again for the first time after being in the stable the whole winter. They were so lovely just jumping around (it is called darteling in Dutch). It is cuteeeeeeeeeeeee. :D

Back to bussiness. I am here to learn and you guys are better at this game then I am. The cow spot towards America is just basic land block. Does it matter that much. Nah, we are going to conquer him anyway MWUHAHAHAHAHA (or other manical laughter).

But I am confused right now. I think people are proposing the following sites:
1) Rice city next to the capitol. Cottage city.
2) Gold desert city. Corn/oasis/gold/stone but we need mysticism which won't be in in 15 turns or so.
3) Golden cow city to the top. Both resources in the inner ring. Instant commerce.

If the pro deity players go for instant commerce then golden cow would make the most sense, followed by desert gold, since we will have mysticism by then. I am in favor of instant gold so site 2 or 3 are fine.
 
just to correct something

my city is the river city west from cap and is voted by me and Sengir
L's city is city between grassland cow and gold north west from capital and is voted by L and nocho
then there is blocking city southwest from capital with plains cow, some hills 1st ring and eventually getting that spices + sugar, is voted by Cam and Killroyan

I hope I got it right ;-).

That corn, gold city far west with some fantastic desert tiles around is deeper prospect and probably city 4 if we don't stall on 3 cities for better cats date (btw did we actually reversed promoting desert cities this game compared to that Elisabeth one?)
 
I like your logic Kill...well, at least the stuff after Dutch jumping cows :lol:

Yes indeed, V, those are some spectacularly shiny desert tiles to the west there...ha

I will say though that I had my eye immediately on that cow spot next to America. However, I had yet to scout up north. It's not a bad play, especially when early DOW threats are minimized by lack of strats (unless Jumping Cow forbid, an AI pops metal). However, given this is IMM and we are already in a fairly deep hole by virtue of a) no traits b) no starting techs, that early instant commerce boost will be a godsend. Just you wait to see guys like Zara blowing us away this game if we don't....he may anyway.
 
I am still in favor of small number of cities break out... we could aim for some spectacular cats date hopefully...

I still think going cottages city over gold one and then settle gold one after building settler 2 is favorable, but in a sense it's not that critical if it is gold one before cottages. Just feel we get more commerce if we start on cottages sooner (something that someone not so lazy as me could try to calculate :-D)

As for how to approach this...deep rushes such as constr one are usually done with combination of cottages and early scientist.

Going writing after mining looks good.

Btw L there is one small problem that right now came to mind with your city spot... we don't know mining and we are sitting 9 turns from pottery and I suppose we get mining in ~6 turns after pottery

Even more arguments for the cottages city.
 
Oh dang, we haven't even got mining. Lol forgot about that. All those cows made me happy and forgetfull :D

Back to the game. We do not have mysticism/writing/mining/pottery yet. Without any culture buildings the American cow city or the desert gold city do not make sense as a first city. That leaves us with 2 choices:
1) Vranasm cottage city. In the inner ring we will have 2 flood plains and dry rice. Requires pottery but can be improved immediately almost when the settler pops up. After 16 turns we get 2 commerce from the first cottage.
2) L Nocho's gold city. Cow and gold in inner ring. Cow can be improved immediately. Requires mining after pottery (something like 16 turns from now). We will get 8 commerce after 24 turns (if we have a worker there straight away). Return of investment within 4 turns after that. We need early commerce if you ask me more then late game commerce so my vote goes to golden cow city. Warrior needs to check for seafood. Sea food would be nice but is not necessary.
 
Btw L there is one small problem that right now came to mind with your city spot... we don't know mining and we are sitting 9 turns from pottery and I suppose we get mining in ~6 turns after pottery

Let's take a closer look at the math/timing of Pot/Min compared to settling and roading to the new city, which would take precedence over cottages in the short term. At a glance, I think it is going to work out close near perfect to getting city 2 up and running and mining coming in. Don't forget we have AH, so we can get the cows up and possible grow onto the gold. Workers double to start 3 tile road which should finish the turn the settler arrives. settle, pounce on cows (oops, sorry Kill ;) ), then gold as mining finishes. That's all that city will need for a long time. Worker rush back to cap and have a cottage fiesta.

Early cottages are great, but the simple fact is that the take time 2 develop. A gold tile is an instant 7 commerce. That allows you to zip through the early tech, get to Writing faster or fund expansion. I still think we are getting up cottages nice and early regardless.
 
Since Killroyan's change of mind made this effectively 3-1-2 I went and played.

Checked the coast
Spoiler :


diplomacy screen out of curiosity
Spoiler :


Scouting the zara's borders
Spoiler :

tells us the story of us having 3-4 cities max before we attack some AI

Judaism founded
Spoiler :


The settler is built and will aim towards gold city
Spoiler :


Gold city founded
Spoiler :


delays pottery a turn even if we got the TR commerce :-(
Spoiler :


pottery finally home
Spoiler :

next will be mining

US have already 3 cities...wonder what would happen if L didn't slow them at least small.

City 2 builds warrior
Spoiler :

and I queue settler, capital grows on warrior into size 4

yeay we got our first cottage
Spoiler :


gold is roaded 1 turn too soon
Spoiler :


Ottoman has 3 cities too... hopefully the AI's will help with fogbusting

We got mining
Spoiler :


time for me to stop :)
 
Math:
Both take the same amount of turns to settle (3), so they'll be settled the turn pottery comes in. If we get mining in 6 turns, it means that the mine can be started (almost) immediately (lose 1 turn). A FP cottage takes 5 turns; Pasture & Mine take 4 turns. In both cases I'm assuming Worker in place for that city only. I stagnated the cottage city at size 3 for sake of simplicity.

Settling is T0

Gold City:
T0 > T8: 1C (city centre, cow)
T8 > T9: 2C (city centry, unmined gold, cow)
T9 > +: 8C (city centry, gold, cow)
Total at T9: 10C, each additional turn 8C

Cottage City
C1: 3-13-33-73
C2: 8-18-38-78
C3: 14-24-44-84
T0 > T3: 2C (city centre + uncottaged FP)
T3 > T8: 3C (city centre + cottage FP)
T8 > T13: 5C (city centre + 2x cottage FP)
T13 > T14: 6C (city centre + cottage FP + hamlet FP)
T14 > T18: 8C (city centre + 2x cottage FP + hamlet FP)
T18 > T24: 9C (city centre + cottage FP + 2x hamlet FP)
T24 > T33: 10C (city centre + 3x hamlet)
T33 > T38: 11C (city centre + 2x Hamlet + village)
T38 > T44: 12C (city centre + hamlet + 2x village)
T44 > T73: 13C (city centre + 3x village)
T73 > T78: 14C (city centre + 2x village + town)
T78 > T84: 15C (city centre + village + 2x town)
T84 > +: 16C (city centre + 3x town)

Code:
Turn    GoldCity     CottageCity
1           1                2
2           2                4
3           3                6
4           4                9
5           5               12
6           6               15
7           7               18
8           8               21
9          10               26
10         18               31
11         26               36
12         34               41
13         42               46
14         50               52
15         58               60
16         66               68
17         74               76
18         82               84
19         90               93
20         98              102
21        106              111
22        114              120
23        122              129
24        130              138
25        138              148
Etc.

Not shown: instant traderoute (2x 1C until the other city catches up with a road connection, though we can preroad to negate that) & maintenance difference (not that much).

Conclusion: if we plan on working three (or more) FP cottages for the first 25t, the Cottage site comes out ahead. It also allows us to go Writing first for an early GS, instead of mining.
 
Hmm too slow by far :(
 
Hmm too slow by far :(

oh well sorry for that.... but what is done is done... we have settler due in ~10T (there will come that gold online so it will probably not be the full 13T) and should settle the river while workers prepare a lot more cottages ;-)

nice that my feeling about cottages was somewhat right... the thing that i felt was important about the cottages is that we would use lower maintenance to get them in size where they actually can compete with gold...

now we will grow cottages while paying bigger maintenance. But won't cry about it.

I like what we did up to now.
Let's stick to the cats+archers plan. I don't think we need archers now though...there is not enough land inbetween us and AI's to warrant superior defense.
 
Oh, no hard feelings, I didn't give any warning that I was doing the calculations. I had to pick up the kids halfway through, otherwise I might have been in time.

For now, we should indeed settle the third city. For tech: Writing > BW > Math > Construction (hoping to pick up Masonry and Archery in trade)?

Looks like we're going to have to do a three-city break-out: I think there's an American city that invalidates CowBlocker and there's a Zara-settler party near the GoldCorn site. Makes that decision a bit easier, I suppose. We might want to check our eastern coast for sea-food.
 
Sorry, I don't buy the above analysis at all. Of course, a multi-FP cottage city is going to come out ahead in the long-term, but that is completely missing the point. In that short term, the gold wins out. Furthermore you can straight up work that gold tile or switch on and off. I do that all the time. The key is you are getting immediate high commerce at a point in the game in which techs are very cheap. You can't beat it. (there is the odd factor here that we had no starting techs and thus would usually have mining well before we settled the city, but the gold still wins out)

What does the graph mean?

Also, don't understand the point about higher maintenance.
 
Also, don't understand the point about higher maintenance.

well I thought that is somewhat clear... but probably isn't ;-)

with 2 cities we pay 3 gpt, 2 we get back with extra trade route commerce in a sense + city tile + some worked tiles, thus overall bpt doesn't drop almost at all. the cottages need some time to catch up (that one is obvious).

with 3 cities we will pay something between 5 and 7gpt, but get only 1 commerce back from tr and some worked tiles + city tile. Since gold commerce is instant the moment it's improved (no catching up) the city starts paying back the overall empire increased cost sooner.

so in a sense the progress of maintenance and payback is much smoother.

I think what the calculations maybe prove is that growing into 4 tiles quick enough is superior to growing into 1 more tile and stalling.

The commerce from gold will maybe suffice for writing, but then we stall until cottages kick in and we have some big work before us.
If we had to reach writing and then own some AI the gold is clear winner, badly it's not about writing, but about masonry, math, construction, thus laying good commerce background and working it sooner is better and the table (hopefully, didn't check the calculations) prove that the payback is much shorter then I expected.

All that said...cottage city will be city 3 and that is given. It's probably task for killroyan to lay down cottages for future city 3 and capital to work on while building the settler from gold city.

What we have to find out what we do with cap... I didn't hit there good sweet spot and the growth and warrior is desynced.

there will come 2 more cottages in 2-3 turns and we should switch from farm to cottages totally, so maybe Killroyan should check the math a bit to sync... right now we work that silk which is probably best tile right now.
 
Sorry, I don't buy the above analysis at all. Of course, a multi-FP cottage city is going to come out ahead in the long-term, but that is completely missing the point. In that short term, the gold wins out.
If I read the numbers right, the point is that even in the short term gold city doesn't win out commerce wise. It does clearly win out on hammers though, so it's not a bad move settling there. ;)
 
I guess the definition of "short term" is in question. Let's not forget the extra happy to work more cottages as well. And yes, I much prefer production in a second city. FPs are weak in that regard.
 
Ah we have cows but stop pouncing on them. They just got released into the meadow so go easy on them. You can have fun though with cows. All over the world I bet there are silly games. In Holland we got something called farmers golf. In this game you go into a meadow with cows and get a stick with a clog/wooden shoe at the end. You have to hit the ball across the meadow to a certain target. Better watchout where you step because cows do their thing in the meadow (check the ball, it is not exactly clean :lol:)



Back to the game. Nice turnset Vranasm. Zara is also freaking close so we might need writing real soon so we can seal of our land a little. As I understand we only want a few cities we thrive on with a lot of cottages. The ricey floodplain city will be next I guess? And as a 4th city we want the other gold city. I do not care about all the desert tiles though. It still has a corn/stone/gold/oasis/lake and 3 more hills and grassland. This could become quite a production power house. At size 6 we can even get 14 hammers and enough commerce to let the city pay for itself, but I am afraid Zara will beat us to it.

The thing I really need to watch out for that this is 2 levels above my normal play rate so upkeep is far more expensive as well as the happy rate and health rate. So keep me in check. I still think a lot in monarch/emperor levels.
 
If I read the numbers right, the point is that even in the short term gold city doesn't win out commerce wise. It does clearly win out on hammers though, so it's not a bad move settling there. ;)

Yeup: commerce wise, the cottage city would have been stronger all along (there's no point where the Gold city has produced more commerce in total then the cottage city). However, this is an exceptionally crappy gold city, as far as commerce goes ;) (no river, no other workable commerce tile) and an exceptionally strong cottage city (2FP's would have sufficed, but with only 1 and two river-grass sides, the gold would have been at least equal). Throw in the fact that we didn't have mining to start with, which means that the gold city just didn't have the headstart it normally would have had.

That said, Commerce isn't the only factor. As Nocho mentioned, hammerwise, the gold city comes out ahead. The happy didn't factor in as much, our happy cap would have sufficed for a size 3 cottage city (we would have settled the gold city shortly afterwards anyway).


@Killroyan: The other gold city is most likely gone: there's a Zara settler party near it.
 
Damn that Zara, oh well, back to plan 1, get cottage city number 2 up :) Scouting the east side will be more important then. We still have shoarma on a hill with lots of river forested grasslands over there.

The only thing I don't understand in this game is that whales take so freaking long before we can work them. It is not that it is a superpowerfull resource or great tile after all. I mean we need optics for crying out loud, which requires machinery. Talk to Sid and tell him we could use the whaling boats now :)
 
Whales are indeed supremely disappointing and generally better ignored. :)

Indeed settle V's spot and unfog the waters due east (also tile 2N1E of sheep and those tiles SE), who knows what we got swimming. Kebab city will be okay regardless.

I wonder whether we really profit from writing right now. I might squeeze in BW for chopping power.
 
dont want to be mean nocho, but you either make it 3:1:2 or 2:2:2 and Cam will flip a three sided coin (which I admit will be a bit complicated)

we should split the gordian knot.

A three-sided coin is not that difficult to construct. Just take a standard six-side dice and call three pairs the three sides of the coin. Then throw it. I am looking forward to the video.
 
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