SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

I too like paper first even better considering that we can trade for maps.

mabraham said:

Note for the unbelievers: slavery returns around 2 per once a granary is up. With Caste, a grassland workshop returns 2 per (one from another tile, one from itself) before Guilds. We have quite a few such grassland tiles around - four near Stone City, three near Gems City and two near Isengard. All have other plains tiles to use also. After Guilds, a plains workshop returns 4 per 2 and grassland tiles 3 for 1. As a side effect, we get to keep our population high to deter other AIs from war and help bolster our UN vote eventually.

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You need to explain this better or provide a link to a thread that does so.

I can't even figure out exactly what proposition you are "hand wave proving".

Whipping with a Granary does provide for a 2:1 to 3:1 ratio where a higher ratio come from whipping smaller population cities whose food requires for population increase is lower.

In general, whipping is for turning excess Food into Hammers. Assuming the excess Food is being lost without any benefit, it doesn't matter what the Food to Hammer ratio is; if the excess Food can no longer be efficiently stored as more Population, it can be converted to Hammers via whipping.

Workshops really aren't that useful until Guilds while running Caste System (for the extra Hpt). It does depend on how important Hammer output is for the current game situation, so a CS Workshop without Guilds could be a viable option.

Sun Tzu Wu

mabraham said:

Frogdude and I were looking at power and score graphs a few days ago. It seems Elizabeth recently whipped and lost a force that I estimate was about a single swordsman.

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Evidently Elizabeth failed to capture the nearby Barbarian city.

Perhaps we should go in and wait for Elizabeth to weaken the city defenders and capture the city before she can complete her own capture of it?

Sun Tzu Wu

Damn you, settled super specialists. I had to remake the test game because of you.

I verified most cities food and production tanks, tiles arrangements, GGP tanks, OF consideration, etc.
and only Culture Bridge has a deviation in regards to hammer tank for the lighthouse and food tank. Probably due to the fact I had to rebuild the city.
Anyways, the city impact is weak and all errors will be corrected in a later version, for the moment, I think the micro for the city can wait.

In a nutshell:

• Culture tank adjustments aren't done.
• It is true that spices would've been more intelligent to improve during my turnset.
• Foreign lands aren't changed. The update was done in the spirit of Kaitzilla's micro.
• Economic value (beakers and gold) aren't verified as well as Music tech progression (approx.).
• For the real game, some notices must be placed:
  Iron in Phants City: 1 turn road
  Sheeps in Isengard: 1 turn road
  riverside grass tile 2SE of GPFarm: 1 turn farm
  incense: 1 turn plantation
  riverside plain cottage : 3 turns cottaging (if we don't intent to complete it)

I repeat the save is valid for testing except for one minor city without impact.

BTW, Katzilla, nice looking PPP. I really like the concept and it is visually helping, thus inciting to mass contribution. I understand why it was silent during my PPP, I badly conveyed the information.

I'm off for a bit I guess; I didn't imagine how long it could take to update a test game.

mabraham said:

Courthouses are a long way away. We have lighthouses in most cities, forges, monasteries and missionaries to build, more scouts, perhaps replacement spies, and sooner or later universities. I agree that courthouses are nice, but so are lots of other things we want to be doing.

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I strongly disagree with a strategy that delays Courthouses. We need the extra 2 Ept that Courthouses and -50% city maintenance. Also, we may want to run a Spy specialist in many of our cities with Courthouses for the additional 4Ept and 4Bpt (3Bpt from Rep) that a Spy specialist provides. We definitely want to keep ahead of all AIs in Espionage, except maybe Eastern Witches, whom we we kill sooner or later in any case.

A Granary and Lighthouse are the only buildings we may want to build before a Courthouse. A Forge possibly might be needed in some cities than a Courthouse, but city maintenance reduction of a Courthouse will usually give it priority over a Forge.

We are currently struggling to maintain a reasonable average Research slider. We want 100% Research slider, but that's only possible with nearly all cities having a Courthouse.

Sun Tzu Wu

bcool said:

I too like paper first even better considering that we can trade for maps.

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We need a technology path plan that we can refer to and compare with to help make such decisions. Just saying were going to do a "lazy beeline to Mass Media" doesn't cut it.

Such a plan will detail which technologies we plan to research, trade, steal or bulb. Of course the situation will change as we play, but having no long-term technology plan at all is simply foolish.

Sun Tzu Wu

Mmm, so are you guys feeling war whipping right now? I am comfortable with the possibility of facing longbows, elephants, and crossbows. 6 out of 9 cities can field 4 units in a hurry using slavery and I like our chances while the AI is still expanding and throwing units away on barb cities.

Or are you feeling buildings? Forges, Courthouses, Aposolistic Palace, Temples, Monastaries, Barracks, Universities? Expanding out onto the hub peacefully?



I always favor war personally, earlier the better.

Kaitzilla said:

Mmm, so are you guys feeling war whipping right now? I am comfortable with the possibility of facing longbows, elephants, and crossbows. 6 out of 9 cities can field 4 units in a hurry using slavery and I like our chances while the AI is still expanding and throwing units away on barb cities.

Or are you feeling buildings? Forges, Courthouses, Aposolistic Palace, Temples, Monastaries, Barracks, Universities? Expanding out onto the hub peacefully?



I always favor war personally, earlier the better.

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Even I favor war, but after seeing how fast they tech...

Tachywaxon said:

Even I favor war, but after seeing how fast they tech...

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Ya, in test games it seems like it shows them 7 turns from construction, then 5 turns, then 3 turns, then they have it. Perhaps we should wait for trebuchets or gunpowder before war

I will make one last argument for war right now. If we take over Asoka, we will be able to whip our conquered cities. If we wait by building buildings, then we will aquire Asoka's cities during the Caste_System beeline phase I think.

Kaitzilla said:

Mmm, so are you guys feeling war whipping right now? I am comfortable with the possibility of facing longbows, elephants, and crossbows. 6 out of 9 cities can field 4 units in a hurry using slavery and I like our chances while the AI is still expanding and throwing units away on barb cities.

Or are you feeling buildings? Forges, Courthouses, Aposolistic Palace, Temples, Monastaries, Barracks, Universities? Expanding out onto the hub peacefully?

I always favor war personally, earlier the better.

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War now is better than war later. Half Catapults and half other units would probably be a good ratio. At least six Catapults and six other unit types plus replacements for KIA units.

Are we missing Horseback Riding for War Elephant whipping?

In may opinion, we should also build as many Courthouses ASAP too. War is expensive and we need to pay the bills.

What is our estimates of current unit counts of Eastern Witches, separated by mobile forces versus garrison duty forces?

Sun Tzu Wu

Thanks for the updated test game Tachywaxon!

We have 592/936 beakers towards Music in the Real Game, and accounting for the 20% research bonus we need +287:beaker: during T115 and T116 to complete Music in 2 turns.



As for estimated defenses of the East Witches, we have no intelligence on them due to closed borders and no scouting yet. Both Asoka and Ragnar's power rating is higher than ours currently. We have 6 warriors, 1 galley, 1 archer, 1 chariot, and 2 axement currently, so thier power rating isn't that impressive.

They have catapults, axemen, chariots, archers, spears, and most likely swordsmen. The will have horse archers next turn, but don't appear to have ivory for elephants yet.

Sadly, we only have a gold surplus of around +20-30 gold right now. If we start whipping a huge army, I estimate that we will go gold-negative when it leaves our borders. I will continue testing.

Let see what war plan looks like. I'm okay with if we still can build the national epic and the AP

Is anyone having problems with the test game crashing as T122 changes to T123? My game crashes every time. I am also playing on a nearly brand new CPU and these are my first Civ IV crashes.


EDIT: It must be my CPU. I am not having crash issues anymore.

We will want to beg before we switch to Taoism and we lose our pleased status. We should beg for 100% of the AI's gold if they have less than 50 gold.

shulec said:

Is anyone having problems with the test game crashing as T122 changes to T123? My game crashes every time. I am also playing on a nearly brand new CPU and these are my first Civ IV crashes.

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I just tested it and I notified no problem.

shulec said:

We will want to beg before we switch to Taoism and we lose our pleased status. We should beg for 100% of the AI's gold if they have less than 50 gold.

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Very good point. I also might add (not related to beggings)the need to note down after religion conversion who are more angry than others (strating diplo hit) because we are running a heathen religion. The fact we have zealots may help us for identify the AI.

Tachy, nice job on the test game, I am sure that was a lot of work.

Note: When testing espionage in Boston, the test game has Taoism in Boston whereas the real game has Buddhism.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

I can't even figure out exactly what proposition you are "hand wave proving".

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... that in a fairly short length of time (Guilds plus initial workshop spam, say 15-20 turns) Caste System will tend to out-perform Slavery on hammers, and provide access to our desperately-needed mass specialists too.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

You need to explain this better or provide a link to a thread that does so.

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What's to explain? I gave some worked examples of slavery here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11009201&postcount=2158

A grassland workshop returns 11. This increases by 1 under Caste and one more under Guilds (and later under Chemistry also). So in the medium term we get 13 from working the tile, so it needs one external food supply. Regrowing after slavery requires an external food supply. The question is which mechanic is more effective at turning that excess food into base hammers. Grassland workshops with Caste and Guilds do so at a 3:1 base ratio. Slavery does so at around a 2:1 base ratio. Complicating the analysis is that with slavery we would run OR, so buildings are built at 5:2, and we would be building many buildings. Earlier forges are worth something also, so in the short term slavery runs at 3:1 before Caste can reach its forge+Guilds-enhanced 15:4.

Forges and OR multiply those base hammers, but it is disingenuous to quote numbers that are true for whips of buildings as if they do not have conditions.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Whipping with a Granary does provide for a 2:1 to 3:1 ratio where a higher ratio come from whipping smaller population cities whose food requires for population increase is lower.

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3:1 is not close to realistic estimate of base hammer conversion, as I showed in the above link. Forges do not appear magically, and only in cities producing lots of base hammers after whipping is there a window where the earlier access to forges under whipping out-performs Caste.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

In general, whipping is for turning excess Food into Hammers. Assuming the excess Food is being lost without any benefit, it doesn't matter what the Food to Hammer ratio is; if the excess Food can no longer be efficiently stored as more Population, it can be converted to Hammers via whipping.

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That scenario will never apply at a relevant stage of an SGOTM medal attempt. The majority of our cities will be able to work another lighthouse-enhanced coast to derive 2 benefit for additional population, or run a specialist - there is always something to do. I showed above that Isengard is stable working workshops an all of its non-resource BFC tiles. Stone City is stable at size 10 working crabs-rice-oasis-stone-RGmine-gold and four Gworkshops. Gems is stable at size 13 working gems-crab-deer-wheat-sugar, 2 Gmines, 1 Pmine, 3 Gworkshops, 2 Pworkshops.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Workshops really aren't that useful until Guilds while running Caste System (for the extra Hpt). It does depend on how important Hammer output is for the current game situation, so a CS Workshop without Guilds could be a viable option.

Sun Tzu Wu

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It could, but there is significant merit in a short period of slavery to bootstrap the process. Slavery does give fast access to the result, and that's what we need soon for forges and/or monasteries.

Tachywaxon said:

Very good point. I also might add (not related to beggings)the need to note down after religion conversion who are more angry than others (strating diplo hit) because we are running a heathen religion. The fact we have zealots may help us for identify the AI.

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I'll make sure to beg those pleased AI before the religion switch if they have any gold

Staring at the diplo screen, I can tell you that Ghenghis and Monty will be likely to move towards -4 heathen, while the rest will move towards -2. That is what they have done towards the other AI who are heathens.


@Bcool

I'm not sure I can construct the National Epic, work the cottages in the capital, and build AP in Gems city plus create enough units for an effective war. That is 3 of our 6 cities that can crank out units occupied doing other things. The three new cities will take some time before they can turn into whipping centers.

Also, those South Witches have been in War Preperation mode for about 15 turns now and they haven't been spotted yet. Here are some screenshots of our financial situation which isn't very good and a shot of the edge of the southern barb city about 10 tiles from Isengarde.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

I strongly disagree with a strategy that delays Courthouses. We need the extra 2 Ept that Courthouses and -50% city maintenance. Also, we may want to run a Spy specialist in many of our cities with Courthouses for the additional 4Ept and 4Bpt (3Bpt from Rep) that a Spy specialist provides. We definitely want to keep ahead of all AIs in Espionage, except maybe Eastern Witches, whom we we kill sooner or later in any case.

A Granary and Lighthouse are the only buildings we may want to build before a Courthouse. A Forge possibly might be needed in some cities than a Courthouse, but city maintenance reduction of a Courthouse will usually give it priority over a Forge.

We are currently struggling to maintain a reasonable average Research slider. We want 100% Research slider, but that's only possible with nearly all cities having a Courthouse.

Sun Tzu Wu

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Slider position is not really relevant until we have a heavy beakers multiplier in our capital - Oxford or an academy. During the caste phase, we will run merchants in our smaller coastal cities to pay the bills to maintain as high a slider position as possible, to take advantage of our libraries and universities - but since we produce little commerce anywhere but the capital, the slider position doesn't much matter in most places.

The AIs will start building courthouses soon, but since we've only got two teams to target, and they're likely to want to split EPs on their worst enemy and at least one other team, I don't see us falling far behind. Some courthouses on the spoke and hub make good sense to unlock the FP, but I don't see a courthouse-in-each-city scenario at this stage.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Evidently Elizabeth failed to capture the nearby Barbarian city.

Perhaps we should go in and wait for Elizabeth to weaken the city defenders and capture the city before she can complete her own capture of it?

Sun Tzu Wu

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We're after the experience for the level 4 unit more than we are after the city. So we'd rather she wasn't "helping" so that we can get a couple of 2-3XP fights at 95%.