SGOTM 15 - One Short Straw

LowtherCastle said:
I'll leave the calcs up to you. What I'm talking about is working the gems mine for 2 turns, then growing to pop2 by working the pigs for 1t. The alternative is working the pigs for 2 more turns and then both.
Click to expand...

Challenge accepted. :scan: I'll have it done soon, unless I get sidetracked, in which case it will be done after volleyball... :p

I'll try to work through your plan first to see exactly when my precious piggies are pastured and when your sparkly gems are mined.

I'm fine with ZPV playing through SH completion.

@beestar You're on deck. Let us know if you're ready to play the next turnset or if you want to swap or be skipped.
 
@LC

I ran into a snag running your test. On T58, I only had 37 hammers into the settler, not 40, so I was not able to whip it, meaning that Marble would be settled a turn later.

I haven't played it all the way out because I'm focusing on pigs vs. gems, so it may not be an issue. Just to be sure we're on the same page, it's turn T60 and the gems mine was just comleted. We have 14/22F. We can work the pigs for 2T and grow to 2 pops or work the gems for 2T then the pigs for 1T and grow to 2 pops. Is that the situation in your save too?

Regarding the plan, there were some slight changes based on having the copper mine:

- Gems city is founded one turn later because the forest is not cleared and it takes him a turn longer to get there.
- I researched Writing at 50% -> 100% rather than 70% -> 70%. That way we don't lose any beakers/gold to rounding. I'm not sure what the impact of this is to bonus beakers though.
- On T53 it was not necessary to work the two grass forests for max food because the copper mine has given us the extra food we need.
- On T55, it's better to work the copper mine (6 FH) than the flood plains (4 FH). That CU mine is already paying off.
- I build the barracks and grow to 5 pops in Delhi a turn later because I needed to catch the overflow from the chop at Gems City-NE, which came in a turn later in this test. I think this is where the issue is. Even though we're getting more FH from working the copper mine, we grow a turn later...
 
Mitchum said:
@LC

I ran into a snag running your test. On T58, I only had 37 hammers into the settler, not 40, so I was not able to whip it, meaning that Marble would be settled a turn later.

I haven't played it all the way out because I'm focusing on pigs vs. gems, so it may not be an issue. Just to be sure we're on the same page, it's turn T60 and the gems mine was just comleted. We have 14/22F. We can work the pigs for 2T and grow to 2 pops or work the gems for 2T then the pigs for 1T and grow to 2 pops. Is that the situation in your save too?

Regarding the plan, there were some slight changes based on having the copper mine:

- Gems city is founded one turn later because the forest is not cleared and it takes him a turn longer to get there.
- I researched Writing at 50% -> 100% rather than 70% -> 70%. That way we don't lose any beakers/gold to rounding. I'm not sure what the impact of this is to bonus beakers though.
- On T53 it was not necessary to work the two grass forests for max food because the copper mine has given us the extra food we need.
- On T55, it's better to work the copper mine (6 FH) than the flood plains (4 FH). That CU mine is already paying off.
- I build the barracks and grow to 5 pops in Delhi a turn later because I needed to catch the overflow from the chop at Gems City-NE, which came in a turn later in this test. I think this is where the issue is. Even though we're getting more FH from working the copper mine, we grow a turn later...
Click to expand...
It sounds to me like it's better if I just re-write the write-up. Too confusing otherwise.

0. Your understanding is correct on the gems and pigs tiles.
1. I also went 50/100 on Writing, but forgot to mention it.
2. T53/T54 you work +7fpt, in other words, corn+fp+copper+mine.
3. When building the settler it's always max food hammers. For the second settler, it's 2sci+maxfoodhammers.
4. In the new scenario, you do NOT grow to pop5 before whipping the settler. The settler is built for 3 turns (past 40h), then Delhi is whipped from pop4>pop2. At pop2, Delhi works the corn and 1 sci and grows to pop3 in one turn. THen it works the corn and 2sci till the GS pops.
 
I played the two pigs options out for 5 turns.

Pigs 2T grow to 2 pops: 12/24F, 13H, 26C
Gems 2T, pigs 1T grow to 2 pops: 6/24F, 12H, 33C

Working the pigs first gives +6F, +1H, -7C. In addition, it will pull ahead a bit more when it grows to 3 pops a turn sooner.

So, unless there is some crucial timing for getting a tech a turn sooner and those +7C make a difference, I think working the pigs and growing a turn sooner is better.
 
LowtherCastle said:
Man, I can't wait to read the Kakumeika thread. They have 119 attachments already!
Click to expand...
A lot of those could just be screenshots. If you haven't used much of your civfanatics upload space, then it's easy to have room to upload a lot of images.

I.e. They are unlikely to have 100+ test saved game files.


LowtherCastle said:
chop/CANCEL LAST MISSION
Click to expand...
Note that a shortcut key for cancelling the last action is to press the "Backspace <---" key when a unit is selected.

A shortcut for selecting a unit is to first assign it a number from 1 through 9 (or also 0), then access that number. In particular, if you have a Worker selected, you can press Ctrl + 1 to assign it the number 1. When you later press the number 1 key, that unit (in this case, a Fast Worker), will become the selected unit.

So, if you have set up a Fast Worker to be unit #1 by pressing Ctrl + 1 when that Fast Worker is selected, then after you perform a Chopping operation, you can press "1" followed by "Backspace <---" and then his Chopping operation will be cancelled without needing mouse clicks, as per what LowtherCastle was saying needed to be done.
 
Dhoomstriker said:
Note that a shortcut key for cancelling the last action is to press the "Backspace <---" key when a unit is selected.
Click to expand...
Stuff like this makes me nervous. I prefer to click on the icon. That way I see what I'm clicking and it's hard to make any mistakes.
 
LowtherCastle said:
Stuff like this makes me nervous. I prefer to click on the icon. That way I see what I'm clicking and it's hard to make any mistakes.
Click to expand...
To each their own. I've made far more mistakes when trying to click on icons than by using this keyboard shortcut. Actually, I can't even recall any problems when using the keyboard shortcut but the mouse has let me down on several occasions (last SGOTM included).

Maybe your computer and/or graphics card is faster than mine, but often times when clicking on a unit, particularly when you had a previous unit selected, the icons can lag a bit in being displayed--so, you think that you're clicking on Action X and end up performing Action Y.

For example, you try to Heal your unit and you end up doing some other action, like Explore.


Also, when trying to select a unit, it's a lot easier to misclick the other mouse key and end up moving the unit that was auto-selected by Civ 4 when the first unit's action was completed and Civ 4 cycled you to the second unit.
 
Dhoomstriker said:
Maybe your computer and/or graphics card is faster than mine, but often times when clicking on a unit, particularly when you had a previous unit selected, the icons can lag a bit in being displayed--so, you think that you're clicking on Action X and end up performing Action Y.

For example, you try to Heal your unit and you end up doing some other action, like Explore.
Click to expand...
That can't happen if you wait for the yellow highlighting to appear around the icon you're hovering over. When I'm playing an SG turnset, I go in slow motion. Very. Deliberate.
 
For stuff like that, the option "No Unit Cycling" is great - it means the same unit stays selected, even after it's carried out its order.


I'm trying out some different MM for worker actions and Delhi. I'll let you know if I can get it to work, and if it's beneficial.
 
No unit cycling sounds great. I've never tried that and I hate unit cycling. On the other hand, if you use no unit cycling, does that mean that you won't know if some unit hasn't carried out any orders?
 
Demo Screen and other info

We went from 19 to 21 cities worldwide on T42. As of T47, (EDIT) NO barb cities have spawned. Does that align with the probability of a barb city spawning?

Kyoto build another archer on T46 and now has 4 total. When we CFed, Osaka switched from one build (archer?) back to his pre-DoW build, which now has 17h in it, so it can't be a scout. It could be a granary, library, or barracks. Whatever it is, he'll probably poprush it as soon as he researches Bronze Working. We need to keep a close eye on that.

Here's a worker-steal gambit for later that we need to keep in mind:

If Toku builds a library, Osaka is likely to regain the corn tile. We can know exactly when this will happen, because on our and his accumulated culture on the corn tile. This is possible around T65 onward. First of all, we'll need to have an axe there or being built. If we see that we're going to lose the corn, we can pillage one turn prior. Then he'll send one or more workers to farm it and we steal the worker(s) then CF asap. Rinse and repeat.

In my tests, when we finish the Oracle on T65, we need TONS of worker-turns. TONS. More than 4 workers worth, really. Mines, chops, roads, camps, five cities, plus another asap.

.
 
LowtherCastle said:
No unit cycling sounds great. I've never tried that and I hate unit cycling. On the other hand, if you use no unit cycling, does that mean that you won't know if some unit hasn't carried out any orders?
Click to expand...
Pressing Enter cycles through one unit at a time, unless they've all fortified or moved, and the "Press Enter to end turn" sign is flashing.
There are some other unit cycling shortcut keys, but I haven't really found use for them - probably the most useful is \ which goes back one unit - although it's not needed with unit cycling turned off.

LowtherCastle said:
Demo Screen and other info

We went from 19 to 21 cities worldwide on T42. As of T47, non barb cities have spawned. Does that align with the probability of a barb city spawning?

Kyoto build another archer on T46 and now has 4 total. When we CFed, Osaka switched from one build (archer?) back to his pre-DoW build, which now has 17h in it, so it can't be a scout. It could be a granary, library, or barracks. Whatever it is, he'll probably poprush it as soon as he researches Bronze Working. We need to keep a close eye on that.

Here's a worker-steal gambit for later that we need to keep in mind:

If Toku builds a library, Osaka is likely to regain the corn tile. We can know exactly when this will happen, because on our and his accumulated culture on the corn tile. This is possible around T65 onward. First of all, we'll need to have an axe there or being built. If we see that we're going to lose the corn, we can pillage one turn prior. Then he'll send one or more workers to farm it and we steal the worker(s) then CF asap. Rinse and repeat.

In my tests, when we finish the Oracle on T65, we need TONS of worker-turns. TONS. More than 4 workers worth, really. Mines, chops, roads, camps, five cities, plus another asap.
Click to expand...

I agree we need more workers. It's almost tempting me to have a go at SH-in-Delhi again.
I'm trying to build a second worker in Zlatorog atm after Stonehenge, with one chop. This has some costs - most notably some pasture turns in Gems.

Edit: there's a 7% chance per turn of spawning a barb city on Emperor, so 5 turns without one isn't such a rarity.
 
Buddhism spread to another city on T42. That appears to be it for now. Not much spread so far.

Hammy has stopped putting espionage points into us altogether. Toku has raised his spending and continues to share it with us and one or more others.

ZPV, as I recall you made some mention very early on about being able to determine that there were many non-food land tiles on this map. IS there any way to make a more precise determination of that?
 
LowtherCastle said:
Buddhism spread to another city on T42. That appears to be it for now. Not much spread so far.

Hammy has stopped putting espionage points into us altogether. Toku has raised his spending and continues to share it with us and one or more others.

ZPV, as I recall you made some mention very early on about being able to determine that there were many non-food land tiles on this map. IS there any way to make a more precise determination of that?
Click to expand...

Only that there are 1784 land tiles, but between land, lakes and coast, there are only 2330 base food. I don't know of any way to make a more precise calculation, these numbers are typical of there being lots of peaks/snow.

Since MaxPlotDistance is 64 instead of 72, religion spread is much harder:
Code: 
Dist NoShrine Shrine
 3   1/10     1/5
 4   1/10     1/5
 5   1/20     1/10
 6   1/40     1/20
 7   1/50     1/25
 8   0.014    0.028
 
Our land might not be very representative of the entire map, but based on it, I estimate that there will be about 200-300 coastal tiles, 550-600 mountain tiles, and 1300 food-land tiles. We need 1071 land tiles for domination, so ignoring mountain tiles, we'd need to control 82% of the land which means conquer about 6.7 AIs. So it's conceivable that we don't have to conquer the AI pair, or Mahad and half of the team.
 
ZPV said:
Pressing Enter cycles through one unit at a time, unless they've all fortified or moved, and the "Press Enter to end turn" sign is flashing.
Click to expand...
No offense, but that sound dangerous for two reasons:
a) The screen has yet to update with the "Press Enter to end turn" message or else you get so used to pressing Enter you don't think to look for it, then you end the turn after having moved the units but not after having done everything that you had planned to do in the turn (such as switching build items in Cities, as one example)

b) You'll be going until there are 0 units left to be moved, such that anyone who opens the saved game can accidentally non-reversible advance the turn by accidentally pressing either the Spacebar key or the Enter key, which (especially the Spacebar key) is easy enough to do


Personally, I make liberal use of the "w" (for wait) key, which goes hand-in-hand with unit cycling turned on (which, being the default setting, is something that everyone has at least used, if not being the only setting that they have used), since you can keep pressing "w" when there is only one unit remaining to be moved, so that you know you have only 1 unit remaining to be moved and can save and submit the turn at that point, to avoid accidental mis-types ending the turn when others are looking at the saved game (or even yourself doing it when you are reviewing other screens before ending the turn, such as the F4 screens).


LowtherCastle said:
As of T47, (EDIT) NO barb cities have spawned.
Click to expand...
Do we know for a fact that zero Barb Cities exist? Like, do we know that there couldn't have been a Barb City at the start of the game, say, as the home to the Mahabodhi (Buddhist Holy Shrine)?
 
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