SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

Great work assembling that table, Mitch! Can't find the time to review saves right now, so it's really helpful.

I have a preference for Mit 250 and maybe mdy 173. How is Mit 250 so much ahead in Orleans builds? Faster worker transport and chop?

Why is there nothing in the table with SIP and a very early 3E city (T50's)? Did we just give up on that option? Slows down further growth and production?

babybluepants said:

Great work assembling that table, Mitch! Can't find the time to review saves right now, so it's really helpful.

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Thanks. As I said, I will update it with the latest three saves from LC and Dhoomstriker.

babybluepants said:

I have a preference for Mit 250 and maybe mdy 173. How is Mit 250 so much ahead in Orleans builds? Faster worker transport and chop?

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Keep in mind that mdy #173 used the fish tile which had also been netted IIRC. It also used the forest chop on the island. So, it would either have to give up the chop by settling on the forest and netting the southern clams instead of the fish or give up the fish and share the clams in Paris. I don't want to discount this save entirely; I think LC's latest save has taken mdy's excellent initial testing and improved upon it without using the fish tile. In fact, I think it was mdy's early test runs that initially pushed us toward the PH start.

Mit #250 was inspired by LC Challenge #1 (i.e. PH start, early city #2, leverage the early working by choping/whipping an early granary). I did chop/whip the granary in Orleans. LC #257 (and others) is poised to do the very same thing next turn when it grows to 2 pops. It already has 45 hammers in the granary, so it can be whipped any time after T83. What LC #257 has done better is that settler #3 is already out, meaning that Paris is in better shape than in Mit #250. He traded an early Orleans for an earlier settler #3 and more production overall with a very early granary.

babybluepants said:

Why is there nothing in the table with SIP and a very early 3E city (T50's)? Did we just give up on that option? Slows down further growth and production?

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It's actually very hard to get an early 3E up if you build 2 work boats and a worker first. My very first save (not on the table) did build settler #2 before worker #1. It fell behind the other saves quite rapidly due to a later worker, later granary, later lighthouse, etc.

Personally, I think having a city at 3E is farily weak in the long run. Sure, it can get up and running rather quickly by sharing food and the worker with Paris. But it will never be an awesome city unless it permanently steals food from Paris, which will negatively impact our capital. My $0.02.

Here is the table updated with the latest three saves highlighted in green.

In LC1 #304, WB #5 is completed before city #2 is settled. So WB #5 has some exploring turns before it would be needed to net a seafood resource for city #2. These exploring turns were included in the totals for that save. The exploring turns for galleys are NOT included in the numbers, so saves with an early galley are unfairly represented. I could go back and update the numbers if anyone wants me to do so. Otherwise, you can add the appropriate number of exploring turns yourself when comparing saves.

Also, LC added total hammers for several of the test runs in post #304. I did not include this in my table, but it does show that LC1 #304 is quite a bit ahead of the other saves he compared with respect to total production.




EDIT: Sorry, I can't figure out how to make the table bigger in PhotoBucket. I hope you can all read it.

EDIT 2: Saves for LC #304 can be found in post #318.

Ok, I'm definitely in favour of settling PH, for roughly the same reasons I stated back in QT.

Have some time tonight finally, so I'll play around to see what's required to match your guys' results.

Edit: LC's latest does look good, btw.

Are we decided on PH, then? If we were, I'd like to see the turn rolled and second warrior move sooner rather than later. There might be no point discussing the opening 50t in detail if there's something significant hiding in the fog.

I think this is a fairly straight-forward turnset, but I'm going to detail every step just to make sure I don't miss a citizen switch while playing AND to make it clear which tiles I'll be working for my MM friends just in case they would like to see something slightly different...

Turn-by-turn actions:

T0: Move settler to PH.

T1: Move warrior to GHill (1N). Stop and upload screen shot if anything other than plain coast/ocean tiles are seen north of our island.

T1 (cont.): Settle on PH. Set build to worker. Citizen works the corn. Set research to Fishing. Upload screenshot of entire BFC.

T2: Move warrior to Paris and fortify.

T11: Fishing -> Mining

T19: Worker #1 -> WB #1. Worker farms Corn.

T22: Mining -> BW

T26: Corn farm done.

T27: Move Worker to GHill at Pairs-SE (2 turns)

T29: Start mine. Paris grows to 2 pops. Citizens work Corn farm and GFor (2F/1H).

T34: Mine completes. Citizens work Corn and mine.

T35: Move Worker to Corn tile.

T36: WB #1 -> WB #2. WB #1 nets clam at Paris-W. Paris grows to 3 pops. Citizens work Corn, mine and Clam. Worker roads Corn.

T38: Corn road completed.

T39: Worker moves to GHill at Paris-N.

T40: Worker starts mine.

T43: Paris grows to 4 pops. Citizens work Corn, Clam, mine and Clam (2F/2C) (or should it be GFor (2F/1H)?)

T44: BW -> Pottery. End turnset.

Things to do each turn:
Screenshot of F9 Demographics screen.
EDIT: Screenshot of F8 Victory screen.
Make a manual save of each turn before, during and after learning each tech.
Others?

I believe that most PH saves started this way (or very close), so we haven't eliminated any of the PH test runs.

EDIT: If we're decided on PH as bbp said, I can play out moving the settler to the PH and the warrior 1N to the GHill and post a screen shot.

The plan looks good to me.

MIght as well let Dhoom chime in before moving the settler.

LowtherCastle said:

MIght as well let Dhoom chime in before moving the settler.

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Agreed. Were you going to run more SIP tests too or are you fine with the plan of settling the PH?

BTW, on T43, did your latest save work the unimproved clam (2F2C) or the GFor (2F1H)? Other than that, I think all moves were quite obvious.

@PPP
Sounds good. The only thing I did differently in my initial testing was roading the SE hill before moving to corn (not necessary - yours is better for saving 1t). No opinion on clam vs forest until I do some testing myself tonight.

I roaded that hill tile as well the first time I played. I think we have time to road the hill and still hook up the corn before we run into issues.

The reason I did NOT road it this time is that if there does happen to be Copper or Iron there, it would be nice not to have it hooked up automatically in case we still want to build cheap warrior for MP duty after we've learned BW (and Hunting).

I'm fine roading it if the team doesn't want to climb that hill again later. It will likely be some turns before we learn Hunting unless we find a camp resource (e.g. deer, ivory, etc.).

Is it better to road the corn before mining the other hill? I don't think I ever went corn road first in my tests so I can't remember if you get hit with unwhippable unhealthiness (i.e., unhealthy before we adopt slavery).

x-post with Mitchum: good point about auto-hook up. But if we have copper, we'll want it hooked up reasonably early particularly if we are going to go attack someone.

Also, please remember to take screenshots of the F8 screen for the first few turns, especially T+1 and T+2. It'll give us some idea of the other civs on the map. Also, please let us know if any world reported events like religion foundings occur.

shyuhe said:

Is it better to road the corn before mining the other hill? I don't think I ever went corn road first in my tests so I can't remember if you get hit with unwhippable unhealthiness (i.e., unhealthy before we adopt slavery).

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Yes, becomes an issue when you grow to 4 pops unless you have the corn hooked up first. I haven't played it out recently, but if you mine the second hill first, I think you will lose 1F for 2 or 3 turns. The drawback is that the second mine isn't ready and we have to work an unimproved tile for 2 turns (T43 and T44).

shyuhe said:

Also, please remember to take screenshots of the F8 screen for the first few turns, especially T+1 and T+2. It'll give us some idea of the other civs on the map. Also, please let us know if any world reported events like religion foundings occur.

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OK. I assume you mean F8_Victories screen, right?

I just tested this and we lose 3F due to . So, our 4th citizen works a GHill mine (1F3H - 1F = 3H) for three turns rather than a GFor (2F1H).

I guess the tradeoff is then 9H vs. 6F3H. Which do we need more: Food or Hammers?

EDIT: We also lose at least 1 worker turn by mining the second hill first due to movement.

I think we should mine both grass hills before building any roads. With 3 food sources hammers are in shorter supply than food. Losing a couple of worker turns in the current situation due to moving them back onto hills is a non issue in our current situation due to the lack of other useful things for our worker would have to do at that time. This also means that we have 0 risk of accidentally hooking up any copper before bronze working.

Mitchum said:

I guess the tradeoff is then 9H vs. 6F3H. Which do we need more: Food or Hammers?

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SOmeone needs to just test it and see what the impact is.

babybluepants said:

Why is there nothing in the table with SIP and a very early 3E city (T50's)? Did we just give up on that option? Slows down further growth and production?

Click to expand...

To be honest, we seem to have gone in quite a circle.

I was under the impression that we wanted an exploring Work Boat out before building Settler 2 and that Research was the factor that we cared about the most after an early explorer.

However, now it appears that we are favouring a production-heavy approach. This fact is a real turn-about, since sacrificing production is usually required to get the other two "supposedly more important" working at a "better than average" level.

For example, getting City #2 up before our Work Boat Explorer #1 and trying to leverage City #2's early production could theoretically compete with our current choice of PH game... the fact is that we haven't really tested it to completion so we don't know.

But, like I said, I took the advice that we wanted a super early Work Boat Explorer #1 and heavy reasearch too literally and now we're favouring heavy production instead... so, if we were to run more SIP testing, we should at least fairly try to complete an "early City 2" run, to see if it really can get ahead.

With the current focus on being "how awesome" getting an early Granary up in City 2 is going to be, you would think that getting one up in a City placed 3E would also give a competitive game... the trade-off will be that we will likely delay our first Work Boat Explorer, but since we aren't choosing the save with the fastest Work Boat Explorer (a SIP save), clearly, this criterion isn't our most important selection criterion, either, and thus we might actually vote on a save that produces a late Work Boat Explorer #1.

I can try and run such a test this evening, if for no other reason to say that "we tried it, didn't like it, and were thus happier with our current decision."

I just ran the tests. In all cases, I switched from the GFor to the first mine on T34 per the PPP.

Test 1: Mine second hill before roading Corn

T46: 15/42; 14/45; 32/186 in Pottery

Test 2: Road Corn first, work clam (2F2C) when grow to 4 then switch to 2nd mine when completed

T46: 20/42; 8/45; 36/186 in Pottery

Test 3: Road Corn first, work GFor (2F1H) when grow to 4 then switch to 2nd mine when completed

T46: 20/42; 10/45; 32/186 in Pottery

Mitchum said:

Here is the table updated with the latest three saves highlighted in green.

Click to expand...

It's a minor point, but could you also please add the fact that Dh #310 has 21/45 Hammers invested in a Work Boat?

It's only of slight interest, but Dh #310 seems to have minorly beaten Dh #247 in terms of research and production, while also managing to settle off-island (personally, I see nothing wrong with 3E), at the cost of not getting Work Boat Explorer #2 out before Turn 82... but in exchange, we got Galley 1 out sooner, where Galley 1 has 10 turns before he is needed. We're not really comparing Galley exploration, which is fine, but those are the trade-offs that were made between those two saved games.

The key highlights are still that we get Work Boat Explorer #1 5 turns sooner than LC's latest games, as well as more Research. But, since "good Production" now seems to be the factor that we are aiming at, each of these two SIP saves seem to have made trade-offs in the wrong direction.

Mitchum said:

I just ran the tests. In all cases, I switched from the GFor to the first mine on T34 per the PPP.

Test 1: Mine second hill before roading Corn

T46: 15/42; 14/45; 32/186 in Pottery

Test 2: Road Corn first, work clam (2F2C) when grow to 4 then switch to 2nd mine when completed

T46: 20/42; 8/45; 36/186 in Pottery

Test 3: Road Corn first, work GFor (2F1H) when grow to 4 then switch to 2nd mine when completed

T46: 20/42; 10/45; 32/186 in Pottery

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Taking the lowest values of Food, Hammers, and Flasks as our "base" values, we can say that:
Test 1 gave us 6 Hammers
Test 2 gave us 5 Food and 4 Flasks
Test 3 gave us 5 Food and 2 Hammers

It sounds to me like Test 2 is the winner, unless the extra 2 Hammers from Test 3 are needed to complete a build item 1 turn sooner, in which case it is more of a judgement call.