SGOTM 13 - Gypsy Kings

mabraham · Feb 27, 2011

Ronnie1 said:
Maybe I won't....I don't seem to be able to speed up the Oracle any faster than T104 (Whipped T103) unless I leave Sailing out of the que until AFTER Priesthood, which I think is a bad plan for a number of reasons.

My three-wonders runs did Sailing after PH, and I really don't regret it (yet). Neither city has time to get out a Lighthouse before PH and produce a fast Oracle. In my fastest run (T94), Elba hadn't even built a third workboat yet (but that's OK, since it's down at size 1 anyway!)

At best, lighthouses return one or two :food:

in each city. That's not worth a 45 :hammers:

delay on game-critical wonders (if we're building them). We don't need our galley until the worker has done building Oracle-mines for Wrist. So what's the rush on Sailing?

Ronnie1 said:
So, how comfortable are we with a completion of the Oracle at T104?

I'm not at all comfortable with an ETA above T100.

Any volunteers to run some "press Enter only" test games to gather us some data on wonder finish times?

Ronnie1 said:
what seems to make Pottery more important is being able to get the Granaries in the que sooner

Yep. Earlier access to our best-value building seems very right. In our 3rd and future cities, starting with Granary (perhaps post-monument) will be right, even if we switch off it to whip Lighthouses later once we've got our timing judged properly.

mabraham · Feb 27, 2011

adrianj said:
Ooo, I do enjoy trying to decipher these things.

Excellent. I know nothing about those mechanics

Go teamwork!

adrianj said:
For whoever is playing the first turnset, is it possible to take demographics screenshots for all of the first 10 turns?

For sure.

adrianj said:
Some things from that screenshot:
Obviously, one player has already settled a city. This is the AI who has been gifted the GLH. They are currently first in pretty much everything I would say. They are working a 21? tile, and have 6/9 land tiles, ie, 3 coastal tiles near their capital.

Soldiers: They do NOT start with mining or the wheel.

Approval rating of 83% is due to /mad:+) of 5/6. Ie, they are not Charismatic.

Their Life expectancy is 87, ie, /health:+) = 7/8. It's hard to tell if they are Expansive, as it could just be high because they are surrounded by forest or next to a river.

Interesting that their GNP is 24. That's relly quite high for only 1 population.
Base case: 8 from palace + 1 from city tile + 1 bonus = 10. Researching a tier 1 tech that stays at 10, otherwise it could be 12 or 14. Add in 4 and 2 and you get a minimum GNP of 16,18 or 20.
A creative leader gets an extra +2 to GNP from their extra culture. So 18,20 or 22.

There's only one way to get that high as far as I can tell, and that is they are Financial and working a good tile. palace + 4 from tiles + 1 bonus = 13 raw = 13, 15 or 18. There is only one AI that I *think* can get to 24 GNP on turn 1 and that is Willem van Oranje working seafood or something, and teching animal husbandry. He also fits the other criteria in that he doesn't start with mining or the wheel, and isn't charismatic.

They have a lighthouse too, if that's significant.

adrianj said:
edit: FYI http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=328461

mabraham · Feb 27, 2011

da_Vinci said:
Wrist and Thumb were jokes, of course.

They grew on me. I settled a southern city that had to be "Navel", of course. If we keep that up, that could go south rapidly! (hur hur)

da_Vinci said:
Maybe the second city should be Ajaccio (or maybe the cap is Ajaccio and the second one is Elba?) Everything else can be appropriately French.

Or inappropriately French, non?

mabraham · Feb 27, 2011

adrianj said:
Could somebody double check that it is in fact Emperor level on the F8 screen?

Yep, definitely Emperor.

Ronnie1 · Feb 27, 2011

A forge there is too big for its value under the time pressure we have. talking Wrist(city #2)

I am not sure about this....an early forge pays off with the 25% hammer bonus very quickly. With 8 base hammers it pays back very well, and we can whip it early because we have 2 good food resources. Forges will also let us whip for more hammers and more overflow.

@mab...can you point me to the T94 Oracle save please, I can't find it, thanks.

da_Vinci · Feb 27, 2011

I suggest that we name our cities as follows:

First city founded by SIP: Ajaccio (currently refered to as Elba). For obvious reasons (google it if not so obvious)

Second city on start Island: Elba (currently and humorously refered to as Wrist). Since in large measure that will be the launch pad for the Napster's return to Europe.

Remainder founded named as French cities. Ones we capture, name for historically relevant cities (Austerlitz, anyone?) Can be keyed on the enemy we take it from.

dV

Ronnie1 · Feb 27, 2011

snip...

adrianj · Feb 27, 2011

City naming: I prefer the tongue-in-cheek body parts naming. Easier to come up with names, and much more familiar to read/say than historical French names.

Lighthouse does not affect demographics except as to how it might affect their food output. The GLH owner is producing 4 :food:

and 2

total, so most likely working a boring old 2 :food:

1

tile, or possibly they are settled on a plains hill and working the coast and teching a tier 1 tech. Too many options to make any decent guess.

mabraham · Feb 27, 2011

bcool said:
Okay I played out an early wonderless game out to the same date I played out the pyramids game.

Good work! :goodjob:

bcool said:
quick summary: expansion without early wonders could be competitive
-assuming we can get AI trade routes (big assumption)
-and we have some forests to chop out and aggressively whip courthouses
-take this comparison with a big grain of salt
--pyramid game had huts so AI was bit more advanced and possibly trades were a bit better
--My play is probably about the same quality but who knows
--the map was subtly different

I'd say more than subtly. Joao seems to have been taken out in Grifftavian's updated save, so the Pyramids game had a lot more options to trade techs with a faster-teching crew of more AIs - and Joao had the GLH then, to boot. That said, I think the Pyramids game is only ahead by Compass and Optics at 655AD.

Also more AIs gives more chances for religious divisions and (say) bribing a backward aggressive AI into wars to distract people from teching.

bcool said:
Here are some quick screen shots of those two games
Quick statistics

No early wonders game
11 cities, 57 pop, at 100% research 204 science & -75 gold / at 0% research +75 gold // edit: 17 gpp split 2 cities ///edit#2 : 298 GNP at 100% science, 74 Prod, 166 Crop

Pyramids game
8 cities, 49 pop, at 100% research 234 science & -9 gold / at 0% research +108 gold // edit: 100 gpp split 4 cities ///edit#2 : 367 GNP at 100% science, 42 Prod, 108 Crop

That seems to indicate a significantly higher tech rate for the Pyramids game - higher GNP and higher conversion of :commerce:

to

. There's still a lot of tech to go (Nationalism, Astronomy, Gunpowder). The no-Pyramids game will have had higher production than it seems, because of more whipping.

mabraham · Feb 27, 2011

Ronnie1 said:
I am not sure about this....an early forge pays off with the 25% hammer bonus very quickly. With 8 base hammers it pays back very well, and we can whip it early because we have 2 good food resources. Forges will also let us whip for more hammers and more overflow.

Sure... but at a naive 2 :hammers:

turn profit, that's 90 turns to break even on a 180 :hammers:

forge. We'll have 2-whipped a few times to profit 22 :hammers:

/whip from the forge. So the break-even point is something like 60 turns (four 2-whips = 88, 60*2 = 120, but we didn't work all our mines while regrowing). If we switch out of slavery, our returns go lower.

Meanwhile we could have had about settler and a workboat to start working a new city+seafood about 15-20 turns earlier to start bringing in a net of (say) 4 :food:

1

. That city's returns will snowball. Forges are great for long games or Industrious leaders, but I'm skeptical here.

Ronnie1 said:
@mab...can you point me to the T94 Oracle save please, I can't find it, thanks.

Here

mabraham · Feb 27, 2011

da_Vinci said:
I suggest that we name our cities as follows:

First city founded by SIP: Ajaccio (currently refered to as Elba). For obvious reasons (google it if not so obvious)

Second city on start Island: Elba (currently and humorously refered to as Wrist). Since in large measure that will be the launch pad for the Napster's return to Europe.

Remainder founded named as French cities. Ones we capture, name for historically relevant cities (Austerlitz, anyone?) Can be keyed on the enemy we take it from.

Sure, I don't really mind what we call cities, but I'll abbreviate viciously regardless

Grifftavian · Feb 27, 2011

da_Vinci said:
I suggest that we name our cities as follows:

First city founded by SIP: Ajaccio (currently refered to as Elba). For obvious reasons (google it if not so obvious)

Second city on start Island: Elba (currently and humorously refered to as Wrist). Since in large measure that will be the launch pad for the Napster's return to Europe.

Remainder founded named as French cities. Ones we capture, name for historically relevant cities (Austerlitz, anyone?) Can be keyed on the enemy we take it from.

dV

OK, I knew Napoleon was born on Corsica, but never knew the name of the town. But Ajaccio is on the island of Corsica, and we've been exiled to the island of Elba. And the two largest cities on Elba are Portoferraio (and if you believe Wikipedia, where Napoleon first came ashore on Elba) and Campo nell'Elba, so we could do something like the attached screen shot.

adrianj said:
City naming: I prefer the tongue-in-cheek body parts naming. Easier to come up with names, and much more familiar to read/say than historical French names.

Or, since the SIP city has Clams & Corn, it gets named Clam Chowder, and the 2nd city 3E, since it will only have Hills land tiles to work, name it Hillsville. :crazyeye:

adrianj said:
Lighthouse does not affect demographics except as to how it might affect their food output. The GLH owner is producing 4 and 2 total, so most likely working a boring old 21 tile, or possibly they are settled on a plains hill and working the coast and teching a tier 1 tech. Too many options to make any decent guess.

OK, thanks! Learning lots of new stuff already in this game. I've read through the link to your post about interpreting the Demographic Screen, need to try and read through the War Academy article you reference there. I find it interesting that when everyone is tied in one stat, like with Imports/Exports early in the game, the Demographics screen lists the Human Player as being in 7th place.

mabraham · Feb 27, 2011

adrianj said:
Ok. this changes things. The GLH owner must be pulling in 12 if they are not creative. Only 10 if they are creative. Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell if they are a creative type researching a tier 1 tech, or a non-creative researching tier 2. We do know they aren't researching AH.

They're also "European" so if they are Creative, that reduces to Catherine, Louis, Pericles and WvO. Catherine does make historical sense (she died 1796, the Sixth Coalition acted 1813-14, Peter was a few generations before her, and Stalin quite a few after!). Louis makes some sense. The Bourbon Louis XVIII was restored by the Sixth Coalition, and the Bourbons provided most/all of the Louis kings. Pericles would be bizarre. The GNP is too low to be WvO.

Ronnie1 · Feb 27, 2011

The Bourbon Louis XVIII was restored by the Sixth Coalition, and the Bourbons provided most/all of the Louis kings

That actually makes a great deal of sense!

Ronnie1 · Feb 27, 2011

I think we have enough consensus for the 1st 10 turns through fishing at least, do we not?

adrianj · Feb 28, 2011

I wouldnt rule out WvO. The GNP isn't low at all if he is researching a tier one tech like mining, and his financial trait makes no difference for most of the tiles he could be working. Pretty much the only thing we know for sure is that the GLH owner is not Charismatic.

And since it seems the power ratings have been modified from a "normal" emperor start I'm not particularly confident in making any predictions based on that either.

We will at least know how many creatives we have after their borders pop in a few turns.

edit: xPost with Ron - I'm keen for whoever to take up the first 10 turns. Could we please clarify what the first build is - I can't remember if we decided warrior or barracks - not that it will matter...

Ronnie1 · Feb 28, 2011

On another note, both of the teams that have posted saves settled on FPH I'm pretty sure based on there scores. I suppose they could have settled in place and gone worker 1st, but I don't think so. In my test games, I get to a score of 55 in 3475bc, well ahead of the dates in the graph.

I'm keen for whoever to take up the first 10 turns. Could we please clarify what the first build is - I can't remember if we decided warrior or barracks - not that it will matter...

I would go barracks because we have a much longer period before the hammers decay. However, I am pretty sure we are going to abandon them anyway.

The roster was posted earlier....here

The Roster order for the Gypsy Kings for SGOTM 13 is.....

mabraham = leading off, UP NOW, please prepare your PPP(should be the easiest one of the game)
adrianj = on deck
Ronnie1 = in the hole
bcool = waiting
grifftavian = waiting
Thorn = waiting
da_Vinci = waiting

EDIT: Even settling in place and going worker 1st produces a higher score than shows on the graphs, they must have moved.

Grifftavian · Feb 28, 2011

^I saw that two teams had posted; also changed the graph to Team Thread posts, and we are 1st by a large margin (75 when I looked at it)! Keep up the good work guys!

Are we pretty much in agreement that the initial research path will be Fishing>Mining>Bronze Working?

Grifftavian · Feb 28, 2011

Ronnie1 said:
...I would go barracks because we have a much longer period before the hammers decay. However, I am pretty sure we are going to abandon them anyway....

On the other hand, we don't know for sure that we have a very isolated start, and if we have a nearby neighbor, and if Copper does turn up in a workable location for one of our first two cities, having a Barracks with 10 :hammers:

already invested could provide an opportunity for a quick Axe Rush.

Ronnie1 · Feb 28, 2011

Did a few tests to try and simulate the scores posted on the progress page....very difficult to do. I am thoroughly confused about where they settled, what they built, and what they researched. :crazyeye:

EDIT: Also, just for giggles I tried a settler 1st start, I don't see any way that is viable on this map.

SGOTM 13 - Gypsy Kings

Deity

Deity

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Gypsy Prince

Deity

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Deity

Deity

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Emperor

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

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Emperor

Emperor

Deity

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