SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

Okay, this latest test gave less than stellar results. As I alluded to above, I played SIP kind of like it were PH.

However, I still got an early Granary, so I wasn't actually able to get Settler 2 + Galley 1 ready until Turn 76... so, in the end, I got a Lighthouse and a Work Boat instead of an early Galley, then just settled 3E as normal.

I suppose that a true "playing SIP like PH" start would have skipped the early Granary, but I am really liking the idea of building an early Granary, so I couldn't resist. So, the comparison to a PH start could definitely be improved if we delayed that Granary and got an off-continent City #2 much sooner.

I got Work Boat Explorer #1 out on Turn 47, 2825 BC, which became a permanent explorer.

Work Boat Explorer #2 came out on Turn 54, 2650 BC, but I couldn't resist using him, so he was netted 7 turns later, hehe.

Techs came slowly, but we do have a capital with a Granary that is working 3 Lighthouse-enhanced netted Clams as of the Turn 82, 1950 BC cut-off date.

Probably, instead, we would have just sent out a replacement exploring Work Boat on Turn 74, 2150 BC.

I think that this test run will fall short of previous trials, but whatever... not every test can be better than previous ones.
 

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For that matter, the wkr's in no hurry to chop an Orleans forest if we want to use that forest to get 2hpt, which is likely. The worker is awesome for galley defogging.

True. I had the worker idle for maybe 3 turns before I finally completed the chop into a granary. This doesn't give too much time for exploring if we do in fact want a quick granary in Orleans.

I haven't been following your system at all for my saves. Sorry. What I have been doing is exploring, so the defoguerie speaks for itself. I'm just testing ideas. WHen I find something I like, then it's time to fine-tune it.

It's easier to compare exploring turns than defoguerie. If possible, once you are able to upload the saves can you provide the turns that each WB was completed? It will make comparisons more meaningful (assuming they are meaningful now... :lol:)

Speaking of that, is my table adding value? If not, I'll stop updating it because it takes about 15 minutes per save to populate...
 
Another random thought: if we settle on the PH, then probably at least one of, if not both of, Cities 2 and 3 are going to need a quick Border pop.

This fact might mean that we'll be better off putting Mysticism ahead of Writing, but in so doing, we do slightly nerf the value of extremely-early exploration, since we might either delay Foreign Trade Routes by several turns or have unproductive Cities 2 and/or 3 for longer while they wait for Mysticism and Border pops.

As LC said, for a SIP start, if we settle City 3 to use the western-most Clam, City 3 can be settled in a few positions, including ones that do not have the Clam within the City's initial 9-square radius, since that Clam will already be within our Cultural borders.
 
Speaking of that, is my table adding value?
Yes! It's the only reason why I'm still doing testing. Hardly anyone wants to look at someone else's saved games, but it's very useful to see each game compared against the others in your table format. Keep up the good work! :goodjob:
 
Mitch, your table has great value. I will give you info for updating if I think my test is of value. I was thinking of just posting screenshots of the t4 and t5 exploring variants. For me, the visual works better. Especially when one starts to compare wb versus galley+warrior.
 
Could you hook up both clams before starting the galley? I have tested this tech path as well and my timing was a bit off regarding those builds. I couldn't get them without delaying city 2. I wonder how you did it.
No. The galley build had to wait a few turns.
 
Mitch, your table has great value. I will give you info for updating if I think my test is of value. I was thinking of just posting screenshots of the t4 and t5 exploring variants. For me, the visual works better. Especially when one starts to compare wb versus galley+warrior.

I agree that galley + worker or galley + warrior can achieve better exploration than a WB or galley alone and I think it is an excellent idea that we should use. :goodjob: But that can be done with any save that gets a galley done quickly, right? As long as I have dates for when each exploring WB is done and how many free turns the galley has for exploration, we can compare concrete exploration numbers between test runs AND your screen shots can give us a nice visual of how much exploring we can do with a galley+unit exploring pair.

This lends itself to sending one or two workboats off to meet the AI (after exploring 1 or 2 nearby islands each?) while a galley + unit pair finish exploring the rest of the nearby islands. The best of both worlds!

BTW, this is one advantage of settling on the PH because the galley typically has several turns to explore after founding Orleans.

I'm fixin' to update my table as soon as files can be uploaded again and y'all (I lived in Texas for 5 years, but I never talk like this ;)) have uploaded your saves.
 
One trick that shy was using was to put a sign in the actual game indicating when each exploring wb and galley was completed. Then all the data is in the save for easy access. It only takes a second to do while you're playing.
 
Well, I tried a PH test run. I'd tried them out at the very beginning of testing but that was before I was writing things down in spreadsheets, so whatever results I had had from those initial runs are lost to the sands of time.

The theme of this test was "Worker -> Granary," to see if pushing this hard for a Granary could make up for itself by Turn 82, 1950 BC.

The results are very interesting.

At the cost of a really slow City 2 (Turn 77, 2075 BC), we get a Settler 3 on Galley 1 a turn faster than a couple of other tests, as of Turn 81, 1975 BC. The next turn, we get an extra Work Boat from Hammer overflow.

Instead, if we don't care about maximizing whip overflow, and if we delay the Lighthouse by a couple of turns, we can get Settler 3 out on Turn 78, 2050 BC!

My two Exploring Work Boats came out on Turn 52, 2700 BC and Turn 73, 2175 BC. While the Work Boats exist for a bit less time than the average PH game, they have more time to explore, since Settler 2 takes a while to come out.

City 2 was not working an improved square (just the western Unnetted Clam), which is why I was going for maximizing whip overflow into a "free" Work Boat. Instead, we could just as easily slow-build one in City 2 (which probably means whipping it once City 2 hits Size 2) or use the 2nd Work Boat Explorer and perhaps replacing this explorer with City 2's whipped Work Boat, so that we can leverage that fast Settler 3 for City 3.
 

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Wake up you drunken laggards!!!

Tested PH pottery-sailing
granary; lh
Paris+Orleans each have a cottage
T53 wb3; T63 wb4; T71 galley1
T72 Orleans
T82 settler3 in galley1
wb5 57/45
warrior2 19/22 (should have been wb5)
wtg lagging (2-3t)
Orleans 30/33f, 45/90 gran

Observations:
1. wkr should be onboard with settler3 (he cottaged instead)
2. I don't particularly care for Orleans sharing the clams with Paris because Paris should always work them.
3. Paris can definitely use the cottage.

----------------

The Ducks have waddled. T53, score = 75, power=18, settled PH. That means they researched fishing-mining-bw-pottery. Probably they did something like what I did here, up through T53. I assume they are at pop5 and just built their first exploring wb.

Getting pottery on T53 requires a good deal of fancy MM, starting with working the clams for 5t instead of the corn, completing the wkr on T20 and mining on T21. Then there are two possibilities: mine first or farm first. I tried both. I have concluded that farm first works better, focusing on pop growth, but it still requires some serious MM to optimize it. BW comes in on T43, revolt to slavery is not until T53, to allow the explorer to get out a turn sooner.

Upload failed. :cry:
 
@LC

So, your research path was Fishing -> Mining -> BW -> Pottery (T53). You finished WB3 on T53 and started a granary on that same turn? Sounds tight. Does getting an early granary make up for a delayed city #2? Maybe so if you were then able to get Settler #3 out on a good schedule.

I agree that having Orleans steal 1 of Paris' 3 food tiles is no good. We should be able to find a better location for Orleans in the (71-53) + (71-63) = 26 scouting turns.

We may need worker1 to do some improvements near Orleans. It sounds like you did that in your test (i.e. chop -> cottage). You were implying by your point 1 above that after a making an improvement near Orleans, that the worker needs to then go with settler 3, right?
 
The Ducks have waddled. T53, score = 75, power=18, settled PH. That means they researched fishing-mining-bw-pottery. Probably they did something like what I did here, up through T53. I assume they are at pop5 and just built their first exploring wb.

From their culture graph, is it possible that they settled on T2? If so, either they moved further north or back to SIP...
 
Yes. The Orleans wkr should have chopped, then boarded rather than chopping and cottaging. That will depend on the situation.

I compared my last PH test with my best SIP test. They're relatively comparable on dates, but there's a discrepancy on hammers versus beakers.
Code:
       SIP     PH
       ---     ---
wb3    T47     T53
wb4    T61     T63 [COLOR="Green"]I netted the SIP wb[/COLOR]
expT   28t     30t [COLOR="green"]Turns explored before settling[/COLOR]
gal    T73     T71
Orl    T75     T73
set3   T83     T82


T82 stats
deltaH         +68h [COLOR="green"]base hammers[/COLOR]
deltaB +77b         [COLOR="green"]base beakers[/COLOR]
 
Based on only that data, I'd say that the PH start looks better. It has two full-time explorers vs. one (if I'm reading it properly). Also, for early development / REX, :hammers: > :science:.

I assume that the PH start has completed 2 chops while the SIP only has 1, right? So 30 of the 68:hammers: are from timber... I don't know if that matters.
 
From their culture graph, is it possible that they settled on T2? If so, either they moved further north or back to SIP...
I see what you mean. That's baffling. Five teams have settled on PH, it seems. Presumably they would all have moved their warrior north to see if there's anything up there, but none saw anything that attacted them enough to move. Or they went sw for the same reason and didn't like it. So either PD went somewhere no one else went and liked it, or they saw something they liked that no one else liked enough (others may have preferred to stay on the PH), or PD decided to come back to SIP. Very bizarre. Maybe on epic they liked SIP best but didn't want to risk missing something really good.

Based on only that data, I'd say that the PH start looks better. It has two full-time explorers vs. one (if I'm reading it properly). Also, for early development / REX, :hammers: > :science:.

I assume that the PH start has completed 2 chops while the SIP only has 1, right? So 30 of the 68:hammers: are from timber... I don't know if that matters.
VIce versa, SIP has chopped twice. PH only has one chop anyway. SIP still has one chop on the island, theoretically.

To me, the data tell me that SIP is better, simply because they're close enough that the increased research rate plus SIP being more powerful in the mid-game rapidly moves it ahead of PH in hammers.

I guess we could play both out another 50t to compare.

The general rule, imo, is: research>food>hammers. SIP is stronger on the first two.
 
research>food>hammers. SIP is stronger on the first two.

Unless you are going for an early tech beeline then I think food and hammers>beakers as the extra production can be used to get more hammers/food/beakers.
 
I get the feeling that a lot of our team is leaning toward PH in large part due to the early exploration, which they place a high value on.

I agree with mdy that food/hammers > research in this game. We really aren't trying to get too much from the Oracle (Metal Casting?), so is research really more important than REX?

Maybe we do need to play out PH vs. SIP for another 50 turns to see how quickly each capital can spit out a library and settlers #4 and #5. Although, the comparison gets tough the further we play because with SIP, I assume we'll settle 3E next (unless we research Sailing before Pottery for SIP). With PH, our second city could go almost anywhere. There could be a very juicy site that PH settles first...

Should we take another straw poll for settling location or do we need more testing?

@bbp Good call on PD's culture. Revolting to Slavery could be the cause.
 
Unless you are going for an early tech beeline then I think food and hammers>beakers as the extra production can be used to get more hammers/food/beakers.
Normally, that's true. Normally, the plains hill dominates. But we have an atypical scenario in which PH has three severe short-term limitations: 1) it needs a galley for settling, 2) it has to research several techs to take advantage of its hammers, and 3) it can't build early wbs quickly.

If PH can't dominate SIP in the short term, then it loses in the mid term (as far as we know), because SIP has a fourth food resource. WHen I made my comparison above, what I was looking for was the PH acceleration, leaving SIP in the dust. It never happened. The entire time, both cities are running head-to-head. As soon as SIP mines the western hill, PH has lost any advantage it had. That's around T80. That's the point.

Maybe we do need to play out PH vs. SIP for another 50 turns to see how quickly each capital can spit out a library and settlers #4 and #5. Although, the comparison gets tough the further we play because with SIP, I assume we'll settle 3E next (unless we research Sailing before Pottery for SIP). With PH, our second city could go almost anywhere. There could be a very juicy site that PH settles first...
In my SIP save, I did NOT settle 3E. In fact, I didn't even settle west. I settled the NW desert island with 2 fish. I'm assuming we wouldn't want to settle 3E.

I see only two resolutions here: Either we throw up our arms and go PH or we play our best saves out a few more poprushing cycles to see what happens.
 
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