SGOTM 15 - One Short Straw

I've done some testing on Pause and queued moves. Results are in the Maintenance Thread. Thanks for raising this, Dhoomstriker.
 
I grabbed one of my settler first tests and played it forward to 2000BC. In mine, I researched poly-agri-TW-pottery-BW(1t to go), so I had to compare base beakers since bbp researched masonry+writing(partial) instead of BW. I then counted the food, hammers, and beakers for mine and bbp's 3 tests as a check.
Code:
         food hamm  f+h base-b wkr-t final-bbpt(1prereq tech)@100%
                             
bbp 2set  132  488  620   92    40     21 -6gpt
wkr-s     126  494  620  108    47     21 -6gpt
wkr-g-s   132  486  618  113    38     21 -6gpt
LC 2set   203  420  623  145    42     24 -3gpt

Base-b are the amount put in to masonry+writing or bw.
I didn't build another settler and didn't build wonders so the hammers and food are significantly different. Instead I built granaries (partial in Bombay). I have built 4 farms, 1 mine, and 2.5 cottages.
 

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My takeaway on the Pause mechanics is:

1. The turnset player should always Pause before uploading.
2. Anyone else should never unPause the save when examining it.
3. The turnset player should only play on after opening the save freshly and unPausing it.

This should prevent idiocies from happening. Like Mitchum gifting Gandhi a city. Oh wait...that was me... :blush:
 
I'd have thought it was easier if:
1. We don't pause the game
2. We don't take unnecessary risks while looking at a saved game. We might need to know what Gandhi will take for peace, for example, but we don't have to do it with a laptop's touchpad.

Accidents happen, but messing around with a mechanic seemingly designed to catch players out is asking for trouble.
3. Let's gift Gandhi lots of cities this time :p
 
Gifting Gandhi a city paved the way for our highly effective use of espionage. That was a big mistake to be sure, but it led to a strategy that allowed us to win the gold. The whole purpose of the city was to steal workers, which we were able to do in abundance without said city. It would be interesting to know if we would have won the gold had I... I mean you not pulled that boner...
 
I'd have thought it was easier if:
1. We don't pause the game
2. We don't take unnecessary risks while looking at a saved game. We might need to know what Gandhi will take for peace, for example, but we don't have to do it with a laptop's touchpad.
I'm fine either way, but knowing how Pause works, it just seems a lot safer to me. I do a lot of fiddling and it's nice to know how to do it safely, leisurely, and stress-free.

I figured out how to disable my touchpad at boot-up. Very nice. Before that I tore my hair out several times a day when I'd be typing some text and I would manage some touchpad sleight of hand that would select an entire paragraph and delete it before I knew what had happened... :mad:
 
Fair enough. Some fiddling (like changing citizens to change our bpt, to work out if our neighbours have Masonry, etc.) can't be done paused, but I guess I'll just remind myself to check when I load a save, if it's paused or not. It doesn't really affect me if you pause the game to fiddle about safely - just if something weird happens after downloading a paused save - I trust you not to screw it up more than necessary. :p

I've been there, done that with touchpads too. Disabling it is always something I do when I have a physical mouse.
 
I'd like to join the I-Hate-Touchpads club too. They seem to sense the most imperfect time to register an event and screw up whatever you're working on... or force the unintended gifting of a city. :lol:
 
Is there any reason something weird would happen after downloading a paused save?

I'm not familiar with pausing so I have no idea what fiddling you can and can't do.
 
We might need to know what Gandhi will take for peace
I thought that we already knew the answer to that question: his price is our third City! ;)


I'm wrestling with this issue: do we need a relatively standard way of playing the test saved games? For example, building a Granary versus building Stonehenge doesn't make for very comparable results. On the other hand, if we make the testing too artificial, then our results may not reflect the realities of the actual game situation and thus we might pick the wrong approach.

I'm not sure what the best way to handle the situation will be: we probably can't count on getting Pottery ASAP in order to build Granaries, but if end up building Granaries (or at least one of them) early on in the real game, then such a Building can actually have an impact on our earlier build items (i.e. Settler-first or not).

Similarly, if we were to whip some build items, with or without a Granary, we'd possibly more accurately reflect how we'll play out the real game but it will be harder to consistently apply such whipping for comparison's sake.

If, however, we avoid building Granaries, avoid revolting to and using Slavery, and if we avoid Chopping Forests, could we feasibly end up picking an approach that is inferior when all of those factors are involved?

For example, expanding to a second City quickly might work better if that City gets whipped frequently, due to said City perhaps only having marginal squares to work (either due to the location sucking or our Worker being behind the City's growth curve), giving us greater value out of the whipped population points than by working unimproved squares. If we were to just work unimproved squares, then delaying the creation of that City may, on paper, look better, but turn out to be worse since in practice we might have had an extra whipping action or two by founding the City sooner.


So, I guess that the best answer is to try and play as solid of a game as you can (building Granaries, whipping, and anything else short of getting a tech in trade from an AI would be allowed), so long as you write down notes that would allow the turnset to be reproduced, should your results end up being one of the better test runs to date.

If our test game doesn't already have us isolated, we should test with us being isolated, so that random times of an AI meeting us won't potentially alter the amount of Flasks that we obtain (due to free Flasks potentially coming in from known AIs alreadying knowing a tech).
 
Is there any reason something weird would happen after downloading a paused save?

I'm not familiar with pausing so I have no idea what fiddling you can and can't do.
It seems that you can do quite a bit without affecting the game...
a) you can swap squares worked by a citizen in a City (which is already allowed since it is a reversible action) without having the squares update (although this fact could be annoying, we really should be using a test saved game for this activity anyway, as long as our test saved game stays up-to-date)
AND
b) you can give orders for a unit to move without it moving, which is probably the primary benefit
AND
c) you can enact a trade (presumably accidentally accepting it) and the trade won't actually resolve itself until you unpause the game. The behaviour here is weird--to avoid you trying to barter the same tech twice with the same AI or to barter with other AIs to avoid things like We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced limits, the game prevents you from opening any other trading screens until you have unpaused the game... which, in a good sense, if nice, since this functionality means that you can't abuse the Pause mechanism for getting around the game's trading rules

While the game is paused, you can still ask an AI what they would like to trade, but it appears that you can only speak with one AI per paused session, even if you don't make a trade. In fact, all that you need to do is click on a leader's name and even if you don't open the trading window, you won't be able to access another AI's menu of options until the game is unpaused or else loaded again while staying paused the whole time.

Thus, having the game paused when we first learn Alphabet could be more of a hindrance than it would be a help.

AND
d) you can delete a unit without it actually being deleted (even if you confirm that you want to delete the unit) until you unpause the game... in fact, any unit action (i.e. a hotkey being pressed, such as "e" for Explore) will also not register
AND
e) you can try to click on the tech bar to change your tech but that click won't register until you unpause the game. You can still view the F6 Technology Advisor, though, so that fact isn't really a hindrance
AND
f) you can even accidentally click on the "End Turn" round circle (either green or red) and not have the turn end until you unpause the game. Of course, this fact can lead to an unexpected ordering of events... if you tried to talk to multiple leaders and also clicked on the End Turn icon, after unpausing, the turn would end and THEN you'd get to talk with the leaders--on the following turn


I like to leave a unit with movement points available to it when uploading a saved game to avoid someone accidentally pressing the Enter key or Spacebar key and inadvertantly advancing the turn. Since this team is terrible at actually following this process, then Pausing could also work... but we're just as likely to forget to pause the game. :crazyeye:


I think that the best policy is going to be:
a) Let's upload the saved game unpaused. As ZPV seems to imply, we don't need to go gung-ho crazy here on instituting over-cautious behaviours
AND
b) Maintain the highly-desired suggestion of leaving a unit with movement points remaining when you upload the saved game (such as unfortifying a unit in a City that doesn't need that unit for Military Police in order for the City to remain happy)... normally unfortifying your capital's Warrior is workable, but if we're at the Happiness cap there, then it would be preferable to leave a different unit with movement points remaining
AND
c) Do your own pausing. Try to be just as careful as normal and don't take the cavalier attitude that playing with a paused game is a free pass--but at the same time, feel free to pause the game to add an extra layer of safety before you look around at the saved game
 
I tried wkr first and added some improved ideas. This try builds a third worker quite early. I'm 4b short of completing BW.
Code:
         food hamm  f+h base-b wkr-t final-bbpt(1prereq tech)@100%
                             
bbp 2set  132  488  620   92    40     21 -6gpt
wkr-s     126  494  620  108    47     21 -6gpt
wkr-g-s   132  486  618  113    38     21 -6gpt
LC 2set   203  420  623  145    42     24 -3gpt
LC wkr1st 171  444  615  152    63     25 -3gpt

Base-b are the amount put in to masonry+writing or bw.
All is speculative still, but for now this map looks hammer heavy and commerce/food poor. I don't like SH because it forces us to spawn a GProph when we'd really prefer for our first GP to be a GE, I think (via MC). So my testing is focused more on maximizing beakers. When we get the save, we'll know if we get any commerce tiles in our FCs. If so, we might be able to go for a machinery slingshot. That should give us very early Optics and meeting AIs. Otherwise, slingshot MC for the fast GE. In any case, I think if we're isolated we'll want to beeline Optics.
 

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All is speculative still, but for now this map looks hammer heavy and commerce/food poor. I don't like SH because it forces us to spawn a GProph when we'd really prefer for our first GP to be a GE, I think (via MC). So my testing is focused more on maximizing beakers. When we get the save, we'll know if we get any commerce tiles in our FCs. If so, we might be able to go for a machinery slingshot. That should give us very early Optics and meeting AIs. Otherwise, slingshot MC for the fast GE. In any case, I think if we're isolated we'll want to beeline Optics.

My assumption is, despite being Philo, that we'll want to cottage early - they provide us with a lot of commerce early on those river tiles, without having to build Libraries first.

I'm against a Stonehenge beeline simply because Masonry is essentially a wasted tech that early.

If we're isolated, and there's a funny team situation which will make Religious difficult at best, maybe we should consider delaying Fishing - to let us hedge our bets between a cultural run (i.e. Aesthetics is on our tech path) if the land really does support it, and leaving a GS bulb of Machinery open if it isn't.
 
My assumption is, despite being Philo, that we'll want to cottage early - they provide us with a lot of commerce early on those river tiles, without having to build Libraries first.
Interesting. Grassland River Farms are also a strong improvement, but their strength is relative to how many Happiness Resources you have access to. If you are short on Happiness Resources, then the Farms go down in value.

That said, assuming that we settle on the Stone and that we Farm the Flood Plains square (concentrated Food = a better thing. I.e. It is better to concentrate the Food on a Flood Plains Farm and Cottage a Grassland than spreading out Food by having a Flood Plains Cottage and a Grassland Farm), we will only have 1 guaranteed Riverside Grassland square... fog-gazing can tell us more, but remember that Neilmeister said that some of the fogged squares may have changed, so we can't rely on the current image.

We'll want Granaries anyway, so we'll still get Pottery (which unlocks both Cottages and Pottery), but assuming that we settle the Stone location first, we may not actually have that many Grassland River squares to Cottage for our capital.

Cottaging outside of our capital is going to be a no-no if you ask me and Cottaging the Flood Plains square is also going to be a no-no, since its extra Food will be extremely useful for quickly regrowing either City (assuming that we don't deviate from the "settle on both rocks" plan later) after whipping.


That said, since there is a River by the Stone, we might actually have a lot more Cottageable land to the north... fog-gazing should tell us, but of the revealed squares, Marble City has 4 Grassland River squares to Stone City's 1 Grassland River square. I'm not sure if this factor would be sufficient to sway us from choosing to settle on the Marble instead of the seemingly-current plan of settling on the Stone, but I suppose that we'll just have to wait for fog-gazing as well as more input from the team about how they feel about Cottaging.

If you find yourself Cottaging outside of your capital when you aren't Financial, then either the land really sucks or else, for most cases, you need to work on picking better City locations. ;)



I'm against a Stonehenge beeline simply because Masonry is essentially a wasted tech that early.
Stonehenge's value is only really for a Cultural Victory. Due to the value of early Hammers and due to the fact that NOT building Stonehenge causes more AIs to waste their Hammers on Stonehenge than on other projects (such as earlier Settlers and The Oracle) and then given that AIs getting Failure Gold doesn't help them much, I wouldn't build Stonehenge unless:
a) We were prepared to complete The Oracle within 5 turns of completing Stonehenge
AND
b) We were set on going for a Cultural Victory (then it is like a free settled Great Artist, in terms of Cultural output, which is pretty strong)

Even with Stone, self-building Monuments is almost always going to be a better choice due to the spiraling effects of putting more Hammers into Settlers and Workers earlier, and given that we will have a Religion that may auto-spread, Stonehenge's value is even further reduced than normal.


If we're isolated, and there's a funny team situation which will make Religious difficult at best, maybe we should consider delaying Fishing - to let us hedge our bets between a cultural run (i.e. Aesthetics is on our tech path) if the land really does support it, and leaving a GS bulb of Machinery open if it isn't.
What's that bit about delaying Fishing? Is there a Lightbulbing-path trick if you delay researching Fishing? Does Machinery come up extra early for a Great Scientist this way? If yes, then how many other expensive techs can we get by Lightbulbing by further delaying Fishing?
 
Also, I have been more aggressively Chopping in my games of late and have liked the results. Normally, I would keep around Grassland Forests that cannot be Farmed until learning Civil-Service, but these days I find myself Chopping just about any non-Plains-Forest.

I tend to keep around Plains Forests if there aren't that many Hills squares in a City's big fat cross and perhaps a set of 2 trees if I am low on Healthiness Resources, but otherwise I am finding myself to be a big fan of massive Chopping.

Since we're not able to beeline Bronze Working, the Forest placement shouldn't really affect which of the two rocks that we settle on with our initial Settler, but I do support massive Chopping efforts once we get going.


As we're Philosophical, once again we may want to consider Lightbulbing Math--I guess it will depend upon how many additional Forests are revealed in the vicinity of these two rocks.
 
Cottaging outside of our capital is going to be a no-no if you ask me and Cottaging the Flood Plains square is also going to be a no-no, since its extra Food will be extremely useful for quickly regrowing either City (assuming that we don't deviate from the "settle on both rocks" plan later) after whipping.

If you find yourself Cottaging outside of your capital when you aren't Financial, then either the land really sucks or else, for most cases, you need to work on picking better City locations. ;)

We'll see about this one. It's not quite as simple as your last sentence.
What's that bit about delaying Fishing? Is there a Lightbulbing-path trick if you delay researching Fishing? Does Machinery come up extra early for a Great Scientist this way? If yes, then how many other expensive techs can we get by Lightbulbing by further delaying Fishing?
Yes - LC mentioned something about this earlier - delaying fishing blocks out Sailing/Compass/Calendar, which means that (if we go down the lightbulbing to Optics/Astro route) we just need Aesthetics (which we'd get for GLib), Mathematics (ditto) and Alphabet (which we wouldn't) as well as a few cheap techs, and then Machinery is opened up. There is no value to further delaying Fishing - we'd just use up a GS lightbulbing it - see below.
Also, I have been more aggressively Chopping in my games of late and have liked the results. Normally, I would keep around Grassland Forests that cannot be Farmed until learning Civil-Service, but these days I find myself Chopping just about any non-Plains-Forest.

I tend to keep around Plains Forests if there aren't that many Hills squares in a City's big fat cross and perhaps a set of 2 trees if I am low on Healthiness Resources, but otherwise I am finding myself to be a big fan of massive Chopping.

Since we're not able to beeline Bronze Working, the Forest placement shouldn't really affect which of the two rocks that we settle on with our initial Settler, but I do support massive Chopping efforts once we get going.


As we're Philosophical, once again we may want to consider Lightbulbing Math--I guess it will depend upon how many additional Forests are revealed in the vicinity of these two rocks.

Leaving forests around with no reason isn't worthwhile - an early hammer boost is an early hammer boost.
Lightbulbing Mathematics for no reason is also not a good idea - we have plenty of hammers atm and those beakers could be better spent on a tech which costs more than 500b.
 
If the Civ 4 Info Centre is to be trusted, we start with Mysticism and Mining. Our Traits are Philosophical and Spiritual.

Philosophical = Great People birth rate increased 100 percent. Double production speed of University.
Spiritual = No anarchy. Double production speed of the Temple.

We have a Fast Worker as our Unique Unit and Mausoleum as our Unique Building.

Fast Worker = Can do anything that a normal Worker can do but also gets 3 movement points
Mausoleum = -25% War Weariness, +2 happiness


Some immediate thoughts from these facts are:
1. Bronze Working is powerful, since we start with Mining (can get it early), are Spiritual (switching to Slavery is free and there are no Random Events to give us Slave Revolts), and have Fast Workers (no loss of movement when moving into a Forest with good Worker micromanagement).

2. Due to our Unique Unit being a Fast Worker, we can either skimp on Workers or we can spam Workers. Getting fewer Workers can save us in costs because the Fast Workers can do slightly more than regular Workers within the same timeframe. I tend to favour spamming extra Workers, though, then using them to fuel a good rate of expansion (including possibly Chopping Granaries/more Fast Workers/Settlers)

3. Again, as mentioned, Philosophical allows for an early Math Lightbulb, which combines well with our Fast Workers deforesting the local area. We could also go for an early Academy, which has more synergy with skipping an Optics/Astro beeline, since the real power of an Academy comes in when you go for early Civil Service and combine one of the few sets of multiplicative multipliers (as opposed to the more normal additive multipliers) in the game, that being Bureaucracy + an Academy. Early Civil Service, however, messes up an Astronomy Lightbulb, but at first glance, it doesn't appear to mess up an Optics Lightbulb:
Great Scientist Tech Preferences:
Spoiler :
Writing
Mathematics
Scientific Method
Physics
Education
Printing Press
Fiber Optics
Computers
Laser (BTS)
The Wheel
Alphabet (BTS)
Philosophy
Chemistry
Fission
Fusion
Optics
Paper
Astronomy
Biology
Electricity
Flight
Genetics
Compass
Satellites
Aesthetics (BTS)
Sailing
Alphabet (Vanilla & Warlords)
Calendar
Medicine
Ecology
Advanced Flight (BTS)
Iron Working
Metal Casting
Engineering
Steam Power
Liberalism
Agriculture
Masonry
Bronze Working
Machinery
Gunpowder
Refrigeration
Superconductors (BTS)
Rocketry
Fishing
Combustion
Plastics
Composites
Stealth (BTS)
Mining
Military Science (BTS)
Radio
Meditation
Drama
Theology
Music
Civil Service
Democracy
Corporation
Communism
Economics
Hunting
Archery
Animal Husbandry
Construction
Robotics
Monotheism
Mass Media
Horseback Riding
Replaceable Parts
Rifling
Artillery
Future Tech


4. The Spiritual Trait saves us a turn in switching into Hinduism, but since we're not allowed to switch Religions ever again and since all teams will have to do so, this point is pretty much meaningless.

5. If we want Hinduism to auto-spread well, we can spam Fast Workers to build Roads to nearby AIs (assuming that they are some) Investing your Hammers in Fast Workers is a better investment than in Missionaries, given the right conditions (i.e. Missionaries going to an AI are less valuable than Missionaries being used locally, and Missionaries are infinitely more useful when an AI City already has a Religion, since auto-spreading can't occur in a City that already has a Religion in it).

6. Being Philosophical and having Stone for The Pyramids (better Specialists and more Happiness availalbe), plus probably not going for early Civil Service means that Farms > Cottages, so I'm finding it really hard to justify building any Cottages. Now that I think about it, if we aren't planning on getting Civil Service anytime soon, then the location of Cottages (in our capital or not) wouldn't really matter, with the thinking that poor-man's Cottages (non-Bureaucracy-enhanced and non-Financial-enhanced Cottages) are probably not worth bothering with unless we really over-expand.
 
6. Being Philosophical and having Stone for The Pyramids (better Specialists and more Happiness availalbe), plus probably not going for early Civil Service means that Farms > Cottages, so I'm finding it really hard to justify building any Cottages. Now that I think about it, if we aren't planning on getting Civil Service anytime soon, then the location of Cottages (in our capital or not) wouldn't really matter, with the thinking that poor-man's Cottages (non-Bureaucracy-enhanced and non-Financial-enhanced Cottages) are probably not worth bothering with unless we really over-expand.

The reason to build cottages is because we need commerce now, not 30 turns down the line when we have Representation and Libraries available.
 
Yes - LC mentioned something about this earlier - delaying fishing blocks out Sailing/Compass/Calendar, which means that (if we go down the lightbulbing to Optics/Astro route) we just need Aesthetics (which we'd get for GLib), Mathematics (ditto) and Alphabet (which we wouldn't) as well as a few cheap techs, and then Machinery is opened up. There is no value to further delaying Fishing - we'd just use up a GS lightbulbing it - see below.
I suppose that the only other tech that might be of use to gain using this method might be Engineering, which we would presumably be able to Lightbulb after Optics but before Astronomy by not learning Fishing.

Unless it's a land-based map or unless we see 0% use for Astronomy and wouldn't mind saving a few turns of Missionaries in Caravels walking to their final destinations, I'm not sure how this fact would help us.

I haven't checked, but can you even build Caravels if you don't know Fishing and Sailing?


Lightbulbing Mathematics for no reason is also not a good idea - we have plenty of hammers atm and those beakers could be better spent on a tech which costs more than 500b.
More Hummers (Hammers) can be a good thing. Simply learn Currency (for building Wealth) and then use Forest Chops on build items and raw Hammers on Wealth. Given that we have Stone and Marble, a better investment than Wealth is Failure Gold, since it gives twice the return on your invested Hammers and since you don't have to tech up to Currency to get it.

While early Hammers are valuable, if we do end up being short on Commerce, then building Wonders for Failure Gold could be a much stronger investment than Cottages, particularly if we are Happiness capped (meaning that getting less Food from a Grassland Hills Mine's relative to a Grassland Cottage won't hurt us all that much, as we won't need the Food as much until we get Happiness Resources).

Math-enhanced Chopped Hammers used for Failure Gold could help toward paying off the investment in early Math, particularly if we find ourselves wanting a post-Math tech (Construction or Currency) early on.
 
Early failed gold for REX is an good idea! :goodjob: We'll have to test that a bit to see how it plays out.

All this talk about SH just reminded me that if we build it early we increase the likelihood of the Oracle going earlier. In my tests, I've been getting BW about T50, so that leaves only PH (and Masonry) before building the Oracle for an MC slingshot. That gets us started on the GE very early, freeing us to spam GSes after that and REX. And it protects us from losing the Oracle.
 
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