SGOTM 11 - One Short Straw

[shyuhe]

Since the stone isn't connected, I think we should go ahead and dump the hammers into the settler at this point. The other alternative is to dump it into the aqueduct. If we're going to attempt the hanging gardens (with stone), we'll need to finish the aqueduct sooner or later. I'm not 100% convinced this is an optimal plan though, as it'll only add at best, 6 pop. Although the GE points would be nice.

In terms of big picture though, I'd prefer to get our 3 settlers out now and then turn Delhi to building the pyramids while growing. Bombay can whip out a worker or two. But in terms of worker micro, I suspect it'll be better to send our existing workers out with the settlers to get those WBs built, and build new workers for Delhi/Bombay using Bombay (which is now looking like a great production site with horse, copper, stone, and two hills). We are going to be severely short on worker turns soon though, so how are we going to bridge that gap?

edit: Another possibility is to dump Delhi's hammers into a worker, then push the remaining overflow into the pyramids on the next turn. This will help alleviate our worker shortage and 2 settlers may be enough for now since we can instead grow Bombay with this plan and have it push out settlers via hammers. This will mean that our 2 cities will be 2-fish and wheat/coast though, since we'll need wheat/coast to build exploring WB's and we want to get 2-fish up ASAP.

 

[babybluepants]

My first thought was to dump the hammers into another worker (with option of overflow into Pyramids or settler, upon discussion), and settle those two (2-fish & wheat-coast). If we dump into the settler, we're really missing workers. The one by Delhi could get to the GP-farm cow just in time, while the other two pasture-road the horse, but I think we wanna farm an FP in Bombay, get some roading done and chop some in Delhi soon. Also, need some turns by the NE city...

PS: Ras isn't the only one getting scared of this discussion. God damn.

Edit: question - BUFFY is showing 2t in blue for the quarry. Does that mean stone hooked up next turn with workers free turn after, or stone hooked up the turn after?

 

[mystyfly]

I prefer leaving the overflow in the settler now then build the mids while regrowing. Remember we can get +1 from switching to confucianism.

Building an aqueduct and HG now (before mids) makes the mids less valuable and delays GE points and is imo clearly the worst of your propositions.

With the one being built in bombay plus the one we'll have next turn from delhi we have 3 settlers for 2 great cities (fish and FP or clams) and one for blocking purpose (wheat city), I think the settler that is complete next turn should go to the wheat site to make sure we get it.

Bombay shouldn't be whipping workers as long as it can't borrow the corn from delhi to regrow, without that corn there isn't that much food and it has no granary (unless delhi), but with horses, stone and copper we get a nice amount of base hammers to build those workers normally. But again I don't see a huge rush to get out those workers when we can be whipping a WB every other turn for seafood, those cities can then whip their own workers once approaching the -cap as they're only working seafood up to that point. Sailing is a priority (I'm for fishing>sailing) so our cities get insta-connected; we get trade routes (foreign ones once we discover just and OB him or zara) and all resources available to all cities.

How many forests do we want to chop around delhi? Delhi gets the buerocracy production boost on them, making them even more valuable. We can also chop a few outside the bfc... I guess we'll want to get rid of most riverside forests to get mines/cottages with extra commerce. Prioritizing mids over other builds in delhi doesn't only lower the risk of losing them but also gets us more GPP and earlier representation, plus it frees up delhi to work more cottages.

Mid-term teching; I have something like fishing > sailing > MC > machinery in mind to push towards caravels. After we finish fishing, I would really like to run binary science all the time unless there is a very good reason.

Another thought I had: If zara stays small (and doesn't find any uninhabited islands) and we get powerful we may be able to vassal him peacefully. Should definitely be very nice and a reason not to piss him off (yet)

edit: Just checked, we're paying 3gpt unit maintenance and 1gpt unit supply. Using the missionary to spread confucianism to fish city would save us a few gpt...

 

[shyuhe]

I'm fine with spreading Confucianism to the fish city to save some gold.

I wasn't saying we should start the HG before the pyramids - just the aqueduct (which won't get a hammer bonus from anything at this point anyways). But again, I think the worker choice is best as Bombay can definitely use one, if not two workers right now (whereas Delhi is mostly ok). Agree that bombay shouldn't whip if possible though.

I think it's a mistake to not send out a worker to 2-fish and wheat/coast as it makes a big difference on how fast those cities come online depending on how fast we can chop the forest for the first WB.

 

[Silu]

Without yet checking save specifics, I'm for using the missionary for GP farm - even tiny GA pollution isn't nice and we certainly don't want to build extra stuff there but we don't want to delay borders either. I'm also certainly for 'Mids >>>>>> HG but I don't think anyone was really suggesting otherwise? 'Mids dates have a huge variance, it's not that uncommon to have them go just a dozen turns after GW, since they're opened with such an early tech. Losing 'Mids is the biggest short-mid-term threat to our game plan IMO. Improbable, maybe, but the cost of losing them is so big that it's offset.

I also like Sailing after Fishing, Internatiocontinental trades, if we can get them, are huuuuge.

 

[mdy]

I favour putting the chop into another settler. Bombay could do with having the horses improved after the stone, but other than that neither of our existing cities will need any worker turns for a while. This will give us 1 worker per city, which should be fine. Our new cities won't need many improvements either, so I would start building another settler in Bombay once this one has been whipped as well.

If we build the Hanging Gardens i agree that it should not be built until after the Pyramids.

Popping borders in 2 fish gives us about a 5% chance of an artist, I think this is worth getting the border pop 11 turns early, and saving the missionary for something else.

It maybe easier to get a 10XP unit by fighting barbs on another land mass.

fishing-sailing are the next obvious techs after that maybe either aesthetics-literature or, metal casting- machinery depending on how early we want the National Epic.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Yeah, I hear that's something of a tradition in Grenoble! Right?

yeah, exactly...

PS thanks for inviting me to the chat last night, when I woke up this morning I had 156 new messages on my iphone

your welcome.

I think it goes hand in hand with cherchez la femme... at least in Erkon's case...

"la"? "les"

edit: FWIW, I would prefer putting the hammers in a settler as well. We are likely to be a bit late in expansion. Will try to be more usefull once I see the save... for now I restrict myself to the "entertainer" role.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I would like to propose a couple of moves to be done now, to facilitate our discussion.

1. Warrior 1W so we can see how good the crab site is.
2. OBs with Zara and warrior onto the forest hill. This will tell us if Zara has a settler in Aksum, waiting for an archer escort. Then we can determine how urgent the Wheat settler is.

 

[babybluepants]

That sounds good, LC.

fishing-sailing are the next obvious techs after that maybe either aesthetics-literature or, metal casting- machinery depending on how early we want the National Epic.

Just throwing it out there: how about alphabet(sailing+others)/paper, after fishing or sailing? Paper's on the main beeline we want, and I think we stand a pretty good chance of meeting a couple more AI with our first WB explorer, besides Justinian, for map trading. I tend to agree with LC's earlier assessment regarding pre-Optics map setup. Seems that there's a solid balance between two different VC's built into the map so far.

Edit: I guess I'm ok with another settler, but I still tend to prefer a worker. After a 2-pop whip in Bombay, we'll be a touch short on food between there and Delhi. This translates into a some kind of delay before the next worker or settler is done. If we're really determined to get 'Mids, Delhi should be committed to that and still manage to get an academy GS out reasonably soon, I think.

 

[babybluepants]

Another thought I had: If zara stays small (and doesn't find any uninhabited islands) and we get powerful we may be able to vassal him peacefully. Should definitely be very nice and a reason not to piss him off (yet)

If he ends up in Confu, this is probably quite likely. He's seriously crammed in.

(Mentioned already?) Both Zara and Justinian have Theocracy as their favourite civic... I suppose this is intentional, since we really don't wanna be running that one for most of the game. Assuming they're not the ones we burn our DOW's on, peace-vassaling Zara will work, hopefully, but I guess we might need to overload some tech trades with Justinian? It would be nice to get him in Confu, as well.

Do we need Sailing for autospread to Justinian, or does only he need it (or neither )? OB would increase the chance, correct? (I asked you guys this in the SQ game and, IIRC, Silu said it doubled the chances or something like that).

 

[mdy]

I'm O.K. with both the moves LC suggested.

Do we need Sailing for autospread to Justinian, or does only he need it (or neither )? OB would increase the chance, correct? (I asked you guys this in the SQ game and, IIRC, Silu said it doubled the chances or something like that).

Religion can spread to a city as long as there is a valid trade route between it and the Holy City. It can therefore spread if Zara has sailing and we don't, I don 't know whether us having it would increase the chances though.

Just throwing it out there: how about alphabet(sailing+others)/paper

I would be reluctant to research alphabet as it is one of the few techs we could trade for from the AI. Paper is bulbable with a GS, however if we decide we defineately don't want an early Astro it mat be more efficient to trade for MC and research paper manually.



If we share the same religion with Zara we should be able to get him to friendly without worrying about the favourite civic bonus. If I remember correctly the AI's attitude to a Civ is an average of it's attitude towards the Civ and it's vassels, it may therefore be better to avoid vassalising him, unless we are certain of getting enough votes from us and our vassels. We would get his votes anyway.

 

[Silu]

Religion can spread to a city as long as there is a valid trade route between it and the Holy City. It can therefore spread if Zara has sailing and we don't, I don 't know whether us having it would increase the chances though.

Yeah either we or them need Sailing and link via coast/river, or a road, and an unobstructed path (like no barb cities on the way). OB doubles the chance. Or this is what I've always thought anyway, I might verify it later.

About bulbs (all math for Normal since Epic doesn't change)... Our bulb will give about 1600 beakers. Paper'd be 926. Education is 2808. So bulbing paper wastes ~40% of the bulb, while bulbing 2nd Edu only wastes around 15%. I'm very much against bulbing Paper

About general tech path, I'd rather go Aesth->Lit after Sailing than Alpha stuff. I don't think early Paper gives us much tangible benefit, and if we delay it a bit we get it in a trade.

ZY is really easy to please esp with his religion, him being a zealot (up to 8 religion love) and being one of the very few leaders that give everyone +1 default love (also the reason for quick Pleased here). I wonder if zealotry is a theme here, with a religious backstory and ZY+Justinian so far... we might have to do some serious bribe/espionage religion alteration to get things going our way for the diplo win.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Mutineer, I believe your concern is beating the AIs to the Pyramids, right? So here is the schedule they will complete under three scenarios: 1) hammers straight into Mids now, 2) worker now then overflow into Mids, 3) settler now.

turn
done     no wkr/stlr    worker     settler
----     -----------    ------     -------

T117      3 chops    
T118                    3 chops    4 chops(1@36h)

T122      2 chops
T124                               3 chops
T125                    2 chops

T128    0/1 chop
T130                  0/1 chop     2 chops
T131                               1 chop
T137                               0 chops

If we switch the Bombay build to worker immediately and poprush it on T103, then we can have 4 chops by T118. That means we can settle 2-fish and Wheat immediately. Bombay makes the Marble settler on ~T112. The horses are pastured by three workers. FIrst one out goes to wheat. Nest turn two go to 2-fish and pasture cows-pigs. THen one roads and moves to marble, while the other chops Delhi. The Bombay worker chops Delhi.

Everything works. 2-fish is rapidly booming. Marble has a worker on time. Wheat chops a wb. We get the Pyramids asap.

Merry Christmas!

 

[Silu]

It's a miracle!

EDIT: I think this is the optimal purpose for many chops - anyway, we get the max use out of them since we have all the bona (even Bureu), and later hammers are easier to get so this is the time when we get the most out of them. So I wouldn't hesitate using 4 chops for 'Mids here. After this there is no rush for anything, really. Unless we get a ninja TGL out of the blue like in the No Happy People SG

 

[mdy]

I think we are getting a little too focus on pyramids/workers at the expense of other priorities. Delaying the settler will delay a very good city (the clams) or mean we risk losing the wheat, and If founded on the coast it could make a good workboat pump to assist exploration/the other two cities.

If we do the following:

T101: settler built, overflow Pyramids
T103: whip settler in Bombay, start worker
T105: Delhi grows size 4, work cottage
T109: Delhi grows size 5, hire 2 scientists in place of cottage
T113: Bombay builds worker, starts worker/settler
T114: Delhi grows size 6
T115: start settler, micro for 13 hammers
T116: GS born in Delhi, build academy, whip settler for rice site
T117: Settler built, overflow into pyramids
T119: Delhi grows size 4, work hill
T122: Delhi regrows size 5, work hill
T126: Delhi now size 6 work plains forest, start settler micro for 13 hammers
T127: whip settler
T128: settler built, overflow to pyramids
T130: Delhi grows to size 4, work hill
T131: Pyramids are built.

I have been doing some tests on when the Pyramids are built on Emperor. I got the following results:
350B.C., after 0A.D., 170B.C., 365B.C., after 0A.D., 575B.C., 410B.C., 5B.C., 215B.C., 410B.C.

We would have easily gotten the Pyramids on all these dates so we would not have any problems.

In the above 1 worker was sent to improve the fish, the second to the wheat site, and the third to the clams after improving the horses. The one from Bombay was sent to improve the capital, including putting 1 chop into the Pyramids. Lack of worker turns are not going to be a problem in the near future.

 

[shyuhe]

Settling the 2-fish then wheat/coast as per LC's plan lets us build the wb's necessary for both exploration and for the marble/clam city from wheat/coast. So I think it'll actually let us get the marble/clam city up faster since we can have a WB waiting for it as soon as it's settled. The problem with settling marble/clam by itself is that it doesn't have any forests to chop for a WB so it needs to grow to size 2 then whip, before it can be productive.

 

[Mutineer]

I Just notoced, stone is not connected yet????? WHY? You are forcing our hand with out discussion. WE agred to play 5 turns to get more information, not to force our hand. What point of discussion if you just ignore what some one else say?

ANd in all your discussions you are forgetting exploration wb. I want our first WB been exploration WB and so Wheat desert city is first.

 

[babybluepants]

I thought we already invested hammers in a settler in Bombay? So, you end up with 7 cities by 700 BC or waste those hammers? I don't see why we need expand beyond the OU 6 that early.

I have been doing some tests on when the Pyramids are built on Emperor. I got the following results:
350B.C., after 0A.D., 170B.C., 365B.C., after 0A.D., 575B.C., 410B.C., 5B.C., 215B.C., 410B.C.

mdy, you didn't note who built the 'Mids in those tests? and whether they had access to stone?

This doesn't mean that Pyramids are sure thing, ofc. Someone already pointed out that the Pyramids date tends to vary more widely than other wonders.

Another thing: Slow wonder dates in general may also indicate that a wonder-spam culture game is given a good chance by map-makers? i.e. no real AI wonder-hog around, no BFC marble or stone, that kind of thing. It would have been quite possible to pull off the stone-trifecta here, as we did in the no happy game, for instance.

 

[babybluepants]

About bulbs (all math for Normal since Epic doesn't change)... Our bulb will give about 1600 beakers. Paper'd be 926. Education is 2808. So bulbing paper wastes ~40% of the bulb, while bulbing 2nd Edu only wastes around 15%. I'm very much against bulbing Paper

I agree. We already wasted a GS on Math, and have 4 more to waste in the end. I don't see us possibly bulbing Paper here. The reason I might want it early is because map trading could be so powerful with this variant. We could potentially have a really good view of the map well before the Emp AI's settle all the land. Also, I doubt we'll get it in trade if we wanna beeline Oxford, given our tech timeline so far.

Alphabet is a judgement call - I'm not saying it's a good move necessarily. If we were assured of one more AI, it would be better, IMO. I've often gone straight Alphabet after an early CS sling, since you end up with quite a few give-away techs via the gambit and it ups the overall tech pace in the game (assuming that's what we want).

The suggestion was totally speculative, based on an assumption that we'll meet more AI's soon (??) The value is purely in trade opportunity. Aesthetics line is most likely better (it's what I would do on in a solo game, for sure).

 

[babybluepants]

Edit: question - BUFFY is showing 2t in blue for the quarry. Does that mean stone hooked up next turn with workers free turn after, or stone hooked up the turn after?

I just checked in another game, and it should be 2t before we have stone hooked up. That means no 2x overflow into Pyramids if we go with a worker now, as suggested by me and shy.