ALC Game #5: England/Victoria

[Nares]

But I will keep it in mind the next time I play as a Financial civ.

Yeah, I think that's the real difference here. I underestimated the ability of Financial to provide extreme research power. But, as I said, I made a drastically different set of choices to get there, making far more use of Cottages than you did. The end result will probably be similar, I just performed research before warring, you will war before researching (heavily).

I think, in a more fundamental sense, The Oracle for Metal Casting is a better choice, especially given that you can, and hopefully will, make far heavier use of the whip than you normally would. On Monarch, you would probably need to make the choice between CoL and MC, even given this Financial Flood Plains start.

While this isn't Monarch, it's not necessarily great to rely on such fundamentally unstable strategies. You obviously need to complete it soon, or else you will miss it. Granted, if you were not given the Flood Plains start, this whole issue would be moot, as there really wouldn't be any possibility of you having completed research on CoL prior to completing The Oracle.

As others note, using a Great Prophet for Civil Service is still an option. I myself did not build Stonehenge, but you did. Your doubled GPP in London will make it available around the time you would be utilizing it anyway (as much as Bureaucracy would help this early in the game). One of the most glaring inefficiencies of a CS slingshot is that it doesn't really come to full fruition until well past the portion involving the actual slingshot.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Actually it would, the "Cost" in population Is calculated Correctly, it always takes into effect all modifiers (both cost and production)

(52 means it should cost 2 Pop... which it does)

For it to be correct, each population should yield 30/1.5 or 20 Hammers for a total of 40 Hammers.

No - that's exactly where you mistake this problem for the bag of hammers bug.

If NEW_HURRY_MODIFIER were a production modifier, the overflow would be:
2 * 30 / (3/2) - 35 = 40 - 35 = 5.

But NEW_HURRY_MODIFIER is actually a cost modifier. The correct overflow is:
2 * 30 - 35 * 3/2 = 60 - 52 = 8.

(Of course, it isn't doing either of these right now - we can all comfortably agree that it is broken).

Should there be a difference between production modifiers and cost modifers? Probably not - it would be a lot easier to test if the yield were always constant or if the cost were always constant, rather than the current choice of treating yield modification and cost modification seperately.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled ALC, we apologize for the inconvenience as we are sure Sisitul is not amused.

And in any case, we're not going to get any closer to convincing each other than we are right now.

 

[Sisiutil]

We now return you to your regularly scheduled ALC, we apologize for the inconvenience as we are sure Sisitul is not amused.

Victoria may not be a mused, but Sisiutil is.

I gotta say, though, you guys lost me with the math. I'm a soccer fan, guys--I'm not big on stats. I know numbers inevitably come into it, but as you saw from my post above, I try to distill them into what it means for how you can better play the game.

 

[Nares]

Victoria may not be a mused, but Sisiutil is.

I gotta say, though, you guys lost me with the math. I'm a soccer fan, guys--I'm not big on stats. I know numbers inevitably come into it, but as you saw from my post above, I try to distill them into what it means for how you can better play the game.

I'll try to distil it as best I can.

With regards to the Granaries (I mention this first because it's so basic), half-priced isn't quite the best way to phrase the bonus that Expansive receives towards building these (or any other trait towards any "cheap" buildings it gets). A better way would be to say that you receive a 100% bonus to production for all hammers applied to that particular building.

When you started the Granary, it said that you had 20 hammers of production on that turn. Yet you were only working two hammers (1 + 1 from city). Bringing in the 100% production bonus for Granaries due to the Expansive trait, this means you actually only had 10 hammers of production on that turn (10 X 100% = 20, which is what you saw).

4/20, aka 2/10, of those hammers was from your current production. The remaining 16/20 (8/10) was overflow from the previous build. Overflow is calculated as being part of your base production on the subsequent turn (the tooltip will, AFAIK, only tell you the overflow on the turn of overflow, not on the turn the overflow would be applied).

That much is pretty straightforward.

With regards to the production bug, I think the Granary actually makes a good example. At 20/60 hammers, you decided to whip. While you do receive a 100% bonus to production for any hammers applied to the Granary, the current system calculates the value of the whip before incorporating any production bonus. That is to say, if you were at 30/60 hammers, you would have spent 1 population to finish it, with zero overflow (as far as I understand the bug).

Between 1/60 and 29/60 hammers, you would have lost one population and received some sort of overflow. This is because it would check to see if the base 1 pop = 30 hammers was sufficient to complete the building, but, in seeing that it was not, then factored in the production bonus, rounded the returned value to the next highest multiple of 30, and recalculated if that was sufficient. Given that, in this case, the production bonus was 100%, it's easier to see how it would round up to 60 (because that's what the bonus provides).

Now, say you wanted to whip an Axeman.

The Axeman is 35 hammers.
Assuming you put in the one point of production necessary to avoid the increased cost (I gather you understand that portion), you're looking at 1/35 hammers completed.

It would now cost you two units of population to produce, assuming no production bonus. The system checks if 1 population is enough (30 + 1 = 31, 31/35 is not enough), then adds in the production bonus (in this case there is none), then checks if 2 population is enough (30*2 + 1 = 60 + 1 = 61, 61/35 is enough), removes two population and adds 60 hammers (26 of which will overflow, as 26 > 35).

If you had a Forge, the system would check if 31/35 is enough (same as above), which it's not. It would then factor in the production bonus (30*1.25 + 1 = 37.5, rounded {up or down?} + 1 {from before} = 38 (39?)). 39/35 is enough to complete the build. One population is removed. However, as the hammers are applied, the whipping system is only able to apply hammers in multiples of 30. It cannot apply 37 (38?) hammers to 1/35. It can only apply 30, 60, 90, etc. hammers at a time, so it is forced to round up to 60. So instead of it being 38(39?)/35, it is instead 61/35 (60 > 37 (38?) > 30).

An Axeman makes a really poor example because it has so narrow a window in which to whip. As I said, the 100% bonus for "cheap" buildings is a better example, even if its inherent production bonus bypasses the rounding error (by actually equalling the same value as the error would provide).

 

[Gnarfflinger]

My vote is MC. With the Asylum relocated to our continent, the faster you can fire out axe-wielding maniacs, the faster you can impose order. How lonng do you have before Monty declares war or Izzy wants you to convert? A two front war is a very real possibility here. I also wouldn't rule out taking our the Americans too. They will take up space that you could use to cottage spam for more research or money...

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 4: to 700 BC

No guts, no glory.

So I shuffled around the citizens' tile assignments in my cities, then compared the completion time on the Oracle and, more important, Code of Laws:



Well, it certainly solved--temporarily--my happiness problem. I decided to still do my usual two chops and then see where that left me. It took the worker 7 turns (he was already on the grassland hill, chopped that, moved to the adjacent plains tile forest, and chopped it). This took the Oracle down to a 4-turn build. CoL was 14 turns from completion. Hmmm...

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

All right, all right, I went for it. I put a Settler in front of the Oracle in London's build queue and crossed my fingers.

Meanwhile, the neighbours came calling:



Isabella also turned up shortly thereafter, also requesting OB. I've turned them down for now. The north is MINE. (Spoken like a true Canadian.)

Then again, I happen to be sharing it with some unwelcome and uncouth squatters:



I'll have to see what can be done about that. Free XPs for some Axes, but I don't want to delay their attack on Monty too long. Nevertheless, the barbs are now starting to become troublesome:



Warriors for now, which my Axemen are easily dealing with, but Archers and Axes are soon to follow, I'm sure. I'm giving the first few Axes, who are my city/resource protectors, Combat I and then Shock promotions to better deal with their barbarian counterparts when they finally show up. Shortly, I'll start building City Raider Axemen.

I also had to whip an Axe in London to take care of some barbs encroaching from the South. I got the Settler built as well, and started changing the floodplains from farms to cottages.

Let's see where all of that left me:



So tantilizingly close! 2 turns!

In the meantime, I built my fourth city on the northeast floodplains:



With all those floodplains, and river + grasslands, Hastings will become the science city. It also has some hills for production, and forests for chopping the Great Library. Nice. I may move the capital there, especially if I build several cities to the north, but we'll see.

And, in 750 BC (a drum roll if you please, Maestro)...





Well, dang. I pulled off a CS Slingshot, on Prince, for the first time.

(I have changed civics to Bureaucracy, but I have not adopted Confucianism as my State Religion, since it would worsen relations considerably with all my neighbours. Washington, as you can see, has converted to Hinduism. Since Monty's Hindu holy city is my first target, I may just do the same once I have it, since that would keep George happy, as is my intent. I'll take a ding, probably, for declaring war on his "friend" (like Monty is anyone's friend! Ha!), but the shared religion should more than compensate for that.)

I was tempted at several points to give the CS Slingshot a miss and settle for Metal Casting, but another deciding factor is that the whip is working marvellously for building Axemen without forges. For example, After the Oracle finished and some Londoners turned grouchy, I put two Axes in the queue:



I whipped away two citizens, the city's happy and productive, and the second Axe has only one turn to complete thanks to the rounding bug/overflow. Neat!

I put a Confucian Monastery in the queue after the Axe that will complete on the next turn, but I'm wondering if I should bother at the moment, especially since capturing and converting to Hinduism makes more sense. I don't have a barracks in London yet and I'm thinking that should be a higher priority.

My wandering Woodsman II Warrior has been exploring the north and has discovered another sea-based resource:



I'll have to think about putting an outpost up there around the time I discover optics. At the moment, I'm researching Mathematics (going for Construction and Catapults). After that, I'll go after Alphabet and Literature.

Here's a look at the map in 700 BC:



I'm going to get a few CR Axes built soon now that each city has a protective Axe. I think I should take out that barb city first; it will give a couple of them some easy XPs, and it will put me a few more turns closer to Catapults before I go after Monty. My next city is going up there to claim the horses, so I need to clear out the riff-raff anyway. After that, it's on to Monty.

So I'm pretty happy with this round. A CS Slingshot, four cities, and Axes happily barb-whomping. This is fun!

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Isabella also turned up shortly thereafter, also requesting OB. I've turned them down for now. The north is MINE. (Spoken like a true Canadian.)

I don't think that's a very good reason to turn down open borders. At this point in the game, Washington and Isabella aren't going to settle in your northern reaches anyway. The AI doesn't start making those random tundra settlements half a world away from its capital until much later.

If you're worried about them snooping around, that makes sense, but if you're just trying to block them out of your territory, I really don't think you need to do that with anyone except Montezuma at the moment.

Case in point, my current game put me in a geographically similar position to yours but rotated 180 degrees -- tucked down south in the ice and snow, Isabella was a close neighbor (ala your Montezuma), and Cyrus and Catherine were north past the equatorial jungle band. I've had open borders with Cyrus ever since I discovered Writing and with Catherine from the same point until she recently and foolishly declared war on me. I left the tundra mostly unsettled because I really only needed one city to grab the useful resources it holds.

It's now 1541 AD, and Cyrus just started sending his first galley with a settler about 3 turns ago. To give you an idea of what stage of the game we're in, everyone has Optics, and I have Astronomy (thank you, Liberalism!). I think I'm working on Economics now. He sent 3 Immortals and a Swordsman down there a few millenia ago, so he's well aware of the iron, crabs, and furs I have available for him down there, but he hasn't shown any interest until now. I'm going to beat him to the spot he's heading for, but I certainly didn't need to close down my borders to do it.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

• Polytheism
• Monarchy
• Sailing
• Mathematics
• Alphabet
• Philosophy
• Paper
• Hunting
• Masonry
• Horseback Riding
• Iron Working
• Metal Casting

Are you operating with a plan here, or are you researching with a short term goal in mind?

 

[Sisiutil]

• Polytheism
• Monarchy
• Sailing
• Mathematics
• Alphabet
• Philosophy
• Paper
• Hunting
• Masonry
• Horseback Riding
• Iron Working
• Metal Casting

Are you operating with a plan here, or are you researching with a short term goal in mind?

Leave it to you to keep me honest.

I am diverting from the Redcoat bee-line we discussed in the pre-game show. I'm hoping that by emphasizing early warring against the two psychos, I can turn around and pull off a cultural win. So I'm going after a short-term goal, yes, of Construction and Catapults.

But, long-term, since Mathematics is needed for Music, that ties into the cultural idea.

Research-wise, after Construction, I plan to double back for Alphabet and see about some tech trades. Isabella should still be alive at that point, I might be able to talk turkey with Washington, maybe even extort something from Izzy.

Unless, of course, everybody has some better ideas, which I'm always open to. The benefit of Metal Casting's forges to whipping is buzzing at the back of my mind. And Monty's borders are right up against my only source of copper! I may have to rush a city out to that northeast corner of the continent for the copper there, and/or prioritize Iron Working, if the English culture % on that tile starts to drop...

And jeez, I pulled off a CS Slingshot! Does that not rate a slap on the back in your book?

Doc: good points RE: Open Borders. I'll reconsider, since I want good relations with Izzy and George...for now.

 

[pigswill]

Congrats on succesful CS slingshot. It makes a difference that research is calculated before buildings are calculated or you'd get oracle just before CoL, not good.
This is the time in the game to decide if you're going for cultural victory. If so then London and York do the unit building (with two ancient wonders London has all the culture it needs for the next thousand years). Hastings looks very promising as potential legend; whip granary,library, if you can import confucianism then monastery,temple as well. Is Nottingham/Pigs Ear going to be third legend, if so same kind of build order.
If you're not going for culture then need to review redcoat beeline and decide on research order.
Diplomatically it could be worth considering some confucian misionaries to George; as Hindiusm is an import religion he should convert to confucianism with enough of his cities converted. You should stay nsr until you're ready to take on Isabella. Meanwhile if George and Monte are hindu they should be rapidly amassing diplo penalties with Bella;maybe enough that she'll ask you to participate in her buddhist jihad (oops, religious mixed metaphor).
I'd wait for cats before warring anyone; if you got barbs wandering in (football hooligans, eat your hearts out) as well as cheap promos for CR axes how about cheap promos vs warrior/archer for your cats? Four accurate cats and a few CR axes and you've got a Stack o' Doom ready to roll.
I think that all these ideas can be run at once. But I'm sure you'll be given equally valid alternatives.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Leave it to you to keep me honest.

I am diverting from the Redcoat bee-line we discussed in the pre-game show. I'm hoping that by emphasizing early warring against the two psychos, I can turn around and pull off a cultural win. So I'm going after a short-term goal, yes, of Construction and Catapults.

But, long-term, since Mathematics is needed for Music, that ties into the cultural idea.

Research-wise, after Construction, I plan to double back for Alphabet and see about some tech trades. Isabella should still be alive at that point, I might be able to talk turkey with Washington, maybe even extort something from Izzy.

OK, you've got a plan. The target is Construction, which requires Mathematics and Masonry. Next question: why are you researching them in that order, rather than the other way around?

And jeez, I pulled off a CS Slingshot! Does that not rate a slap on the back in your book?

wake me up when you slingshot Paper.

 

[Killroyan]

Well I find the CS slingshot pretty good. Didn't succeed in that on prince level yet. So nicely done Sisiutil. Now, is it going to be a cultural victory with early warmongering? Getting the barb city is very nice if I may say so. 4 furs and 2 wines on that spot and then get another city out to the east to grab 4 more resources (1 W of the crabs). I do think that those may be more important then the horses. Axes to macemen will take care of most of the cities but horse archers is not something you are going to use quickly. But I have to say that it is the expansionist in me talking here and it could be very well a good mistake from my side again, expanding instead of warmongering.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

wake me up when you slingshot Paper.

I pulled a CS slingshot on Monarch just now...but if you really want a coup, try a Liberalism slingshot!

(Ok, I'll admit that I only did that in the 1000AD scenario...)

 

[frogger3d]

I pulled a CS slingshot on Monarch just now...but if you really want a coup, try a Liberalism slingshot!

(Ok, I'll admit that I only did that in the 1000AD scenario...)

Pff, future tech slingshot all the way

Nice series by the way Sisiutil, keep up the good work! Learning alot here

 

[pigswill]

I'd reckon on ignoring barb cities for now; sort them out after you finish stealing and/or razing civilised cities. You're gonna get barbs for a while yet so let them build a city or two for you in the tundra, might also keep them out of mischief. Maths first is an idea if you're planning on any more chops (on the other hand pop regrows faster than trees).
With 4 gp/turn for prophets you'll get a couple, maybe three, before you build Great Library when scientists take over. Shrines or religion slingshots? (still theology,philosophy and DR up for grabs).

 

[Hans Lemurson]

What I've found is that barbarians tend to become better behaved once they start building cities. Perhaps that just coincided with my own expansion, but they may just become less aggressive once they have something of their own to protect.

 

[cabert]

Sissiutil,
you play it quite well, CS slingshot is worth a lot, assuming you start cottaging London. And does the 50% production bonus apply to whipping?
then you wouldn't need those forges too soon
I doubt it does, though.

About cultural victory, one special point : building get double culture after 1000 years. Meaning you need to build temples/monasteries ASAP in your 3 big ones (well, London needs nothing, to be true, but a monastery gives 10% research. Quite good since you get the boost from bureaucracy then the 10%.

A few turns ARE a big deal (not for London : double culture stonhenge and Oracle is perfect), since turns are becoming shorter in years later, but are worth 40( ? need to look again) years right now.
1000 years are flying away in those times.
And please do use your GP to build the shrine, it will get double culture later if it's early enough (that is a lot!).

PS : open borders with isa and george ASAP = let religions (with roads built)/missionaries come in.

 

[Betafor]

Good job hitting the slingshot.

Having said this, what was your indication for settling on the floodplain as opposed to the forested hill i thought we agreed on? I havent looked at the map in a while so this is a question not a berate!

and, what ever happend to stifling monty? this would definitly be a goood idea NOW before he gets some good cities up besides his capital.

 

[Eggolas]

I was going to use that line in trying to convince you to try the CS slingshot, but great minds think alike.

Does researching Masonry prior to researching either Mathematics or Construction reduce the research time for those last two? I know it improves the research rate on IW (In one case it dropped by 10 turns). I never could figure out which techs reduce the research time of which later techs and I'm too lazy to go into Worldbuilder to find out. Actually, I'm afraid if I go into Worldbuilder, I might start using it. Is there a thread that discusses these?

As for the Cultural win option, that seems such a waste now that you've pulled off the CS Slingshot. Get that Academy up and running in a Bureaucratic London and you'll pull off the Liberalism slingshot as well easily. Couple that with an early war against some barbarian cities and you will have your upgraded CR3 Redcoats to rule the continent for awhile.

Once the CS Slingshot is accomplished, you might want to think about heading towards the Academy in London by devoting two specialists in another city or moving towards researching Literature and building the Great Library.

The power of Bureaucracy increases substantially as the size of the capital increases. I would stop whipping in the capital and begin to figure out how to grow its size. The Pyramids are probably out as you haven't connected the Stone. I would probably think in terms of getting IW for swordsmen to take out the barbarian city to the NE of London and earn them some early CR2 promotions. Monarchy would not only provide you with a fast way to increase the size of London via military police, but also the Wine could be developed for its happiness and substantial increase to commerce immediately! Alphabet would allow you to check out your neighbors and perhaps seize some early techs you chose to pass. I could make a case for all of these prior to the math/construction route, but they would probably require that you hold off on a major early war and wait for maces.

I still like the idea of blocking off Monty to the north. Let him fight the Americans with his Jaguars while you begin to build the financial and production empire that will sweep him away.

I know you want to try the cultural route, but you're on track for a mid-1700s space race win fed by production and some early conquest with maces or melee/cats. Review the dot map again carefully and think in terms of being financial and expansive and you may see another series of tactical options serving a different strategic vision.

 

[cabert]

pyramids are still an option (not built yet AFAIK), but being financial makes the specialists a not so good option (well, an academy would still be good!)

About whipping, i don't share Eggolas' opinion : it's time to whip as many happiness buildings = temples as possible, wherever possible (the axeman "bug" can still be used, 25 hammers towards a temple is good)