SGOTM 19 - A'pos'tro'p'hes

[Pollina]

Excellent! How did you figure out the coordinates? I'm at work so can't open the save. Does it line up with where I think we are?

It does line up pretty well with where you think we are.

See the different forest types 1S and 2S of our copper tile? On an unmodified Lakes map, this transition occurs between y=11 and y=10 (tested for temperate and tropical climate). Of course, we can't be sure that the mapmaker didn't place some trees (of the wrong type) by hand.

 

[Benginal]

I’m no fan of going for the Oracle. I’ve played a number of test games with various sets of AI over the past week. The first tech choices almost always looked like this:

Spoiler :

, it looks like the AIs also don't know what to do with these starting technologies. I think something that we should check is how quickly the AI build the Oracle. I'm not going to give up on building it just yet, . I think it becomes worth it if we can safely do something like maths -> poly -> PH -> Calendar (free tech).

My understanding is that aggressive AI turned on means all the AI have a default -2 diplo modifier against the human. Is this correct? How hard is this going to make early trading?

 

[neilmeister]

According to the Info Centre, the Dike needs coastal or riverside, so lakeside doesn't count.
I can't see a decent site that gets either coastal or riverside without some major sacrifice.

SIP
Clearly has productrion, commerce, and forests galore to chop.
-At 3 pop, corn (before CS irrigation), copper, sugar (farmed), (2+5+2+54 = 13fpt, 1+4 = 5hpt, 2+1+1 = 4cpt)
-At 4 pop (hammers), corn, copper, sugar, PH mine = 13fpt, 9hpt, 4cpt
-At 4 pop (food), corn, copper, sugar, cottage = 16fpt, 5hpt, 6cpt

2 south
-At 3 pop, corn, copper, pigs (2+5+2+6 = 15fpt, 1+4 = 5hpt, 2+1 = 3cpt)
-At 4 pop (hammers), corn, copper, pigs, PH mine = 15fpt, 9hpt, 3cpt
-At 4 pop (food), corn, copper, pigs, cottage = 18fpt, 5hpt, 5cpt

Conclusion
So, you can see we are swapping 1 2 food for 1 commerce.
In the early game, food normally wins.

The big difference is the amount of forests: 14 for SIP vs 8 for 2S, but 2s also picks up 3 mystery tiles, 2 of which are green and the other desert/FP/Oasis.

EDIT: this is wrong, the farmed sugar does not give 5 fpt, only 4. So SIP has 2 fpt less & 1 cpt more than 2S.

 

[neilmeister]

I am also thinking our first build should be a worker, and our first worker action should be to work corn/pigs then chop the worker

~9 turns after settling we have worker 2 and start growing using 5/6 food tile while having 2 workers to chop.

Obviously this is all just gut feels, but I will spend the morning testing out some starts using the test save (thanks for that btw)

 

[Benginal]

I am also thinking our first build should be a worker, and our first worker action should be to work corn/pigs then chop the worker

~9 turns after settling we have worker 2 and start growing using 5/6 food tile while having 2 workers to chop.

Obviously this is all just gut feels, but I will spend the morning testing out some starts using the test save (thanks for that btw)

I'm tending to agree with something like this. We need workers badly. Also I think the SIP depends on (1) who gets us the fastest 2nd and 3rd cities and (2) who is a better Buro cap. We're going to get the second city up pretty quickly. Maybe turn 24 or thereabouts? So we're spending less time than usual relying on just our capital.

I'm currently leaning towards SIP and then a second city to pick up the pigs pronto!

Testing required.

 

[neilmeister]

Yes, I suppose my main concern about city 2 is that the marble/pigs site is largely an unknown.
It might have nothing else, and being further from the centre of the map is usually worse.

Rice & 2 farmed sugar will have tons of food, and tons of grass hills. edit: it also does not need a border pop.

 

[Benginal]

Yes, I suppose my main concern about city 2 is that the marble/pigs site is largely an unknown.
It might have nothing else, and being further from the centre of the map is usually worse.

A good point. We should send one of the scout/warrior down south to see what's up. I'm not necessarily that worried though. Up north, the tiles are on average better. But nothing beats pigs as an early tile (especially when we start with AH). I could see that city doing not much other than building workers / running scientists early in the game if it turns out the tiles below it aren't great.

Rice & 2 farmed sugar will have tons of food, and tons of grass hills. edit: it also does not need a border pop.

Yeah, but all 4 food tiles means that it's immediate impact will be a bit lower. How quickly can this city grow? We can chop build it a granary right out of the get go.

 

[Trystero]

I have created a spreadsheet in Google Docs to facilitate micro planning.

It can be viewed here.

Anyone can view it, but you need permission to edit the doc. If you would like to use this please PM me your email address, and I will add you.

I have added Neil and Chris, whose emails I already have. Benginal: I think I have your email address, but want to be sure I have the right Ben.

 

[Benginal]

My address: secret forever! bwahahahaha. Not really though, we're all pretty googlable

 

[neilmeister]

Just started testing...

I will start with 2S, as it is my slight preference: 3000bc is target.

t0 - Revolt to Slavery, move worker to PH 2S1E, move settler 2S (assuming worker sees nothing)
t1 - Settle, start pasturing pigs, start worker
t5 - worker move to forest 1W of copper
t6 - worker chop
t8 - worker finish chop
t9 - worker 2 out, start granary, w1 mine copper, w2 farm corn
t13 - city pop 2, w1 cottage FP, city works pigs & corn
t14 - w2 roads 1 NE (connects copper)
t15 - switch city working pigs & copper
t16 - growth to pop 3, switch granary to settler, w2 move to forest NW of city
t17 - w2 chop
t18 - w1 road cottage
t19 - w2 finish chop
t20 - w2 move to forest 1N of FP
t21 - w2 road, w1 move to forest 1W of city, settler to forest 1N of FP
t22 - settler to GH between rice & sugars, w1 chop
t23 - settle city 2, road riverside sugar
t24 - city 1 pop 4, city 2 connected, w1 finish chop
t25 - city 1 granary finished, w1 quarry marble, w2 farm sugar

3 forests chopped, city 1 working improved corn, copper, pigs & cottage, city 2 working unimproved sugar.

 

[Trystero]

My address:redacted

Thanks! You can delete that post if you want it to remain private.

 

[neilmeister]

Spreadhseet added to reference post on first page, can someone confirm it is correct as I cannot connect to google docs at work

 

[Trystero]

Spreadhseet added to reference post on first page, can someone confirm it is correct as I cannot connect to google docs at work

Yep. Looks good.

 

[neilmeister]

Settle In Place

t0 - settle, revolt, w1 farm corn, start worker
t5 - worker move to forest 1W of copper
t6 - worker chop
t8 - worker finish chop
t9 - worker 2 out, start granary, w1 mine copper, w2 move to sugar
t10 - w2 farm sugar
t13 - w1 move to PHF
t14 - city1 pop 2, w1 road PHF
t15 - city1 work corn & farmed sugar only 4fpt, not 5. move w2 to forest 1W of lake
t16 - w2 chop, w1 chop PHF
t17 - city 1 pop3, copper, corn & PH
t18 - both workers finish chops
t19 - both workers move to corn, w1 roads
t20 - w1 finish road, w2 move to pigs & road, settler moves to plains 1W of pigs. City1 copper, corn & sugar
t21 - settle city 2 on desert (if it is a desert), w2 finish pigs road, w1 pasture pigs
t22 - w2 pasture pigs
t23 - pigs pastured, w1 mine PH
t24 - city1 pop 4, corn, copper, sugar & PHF
t25 - city1 corn, copper, sugar & PH mine

3 forests chopped, city 1 working improved corn, copper, PH mine & farmed sugar, city 2 working improved pigs.


-SIP is 2fpt behind settling 2S, this will be the case until pop 5 or 6, this is significant especially while trying to build/whip settlers & workers. At lower pop, settling 2S will always have the ability to grow back faster.
-SIP gets an extra GH, at the expense of the marble (same f & h, but 2 less c)
-SIP means City1 is slower to get going, but City2 is faster. (purely down to Pigs vs Sugar)
-SIP could mean that city 2 is useless (pigs, marble & nothing else)
-2S means City 2 will have 14fpt 1hpt at pop3, 16fpt 7hpt at pop 5, 18fpt 13hpt at pop 7. In other words it will be very good just on the tiles we can see (it also gets 3 mystery tiles)


My initial conclusion (biased obviously)
Settling 2S gives us a better long term cap for a military game (more food, same production, less commerce).
Settling 2S would also seem to give us a better City2, unless there are more resources near the pigs/marble.

 

[neilmeister]

I am also going to try settler first and granary first, just to get a feel

 

[Benginal]

-SIP is 2fpt behind settling 2S, this will be the case until pop 5 or 6

How long do we plan to be at pop 5 or 6. Granted the first three tiles are better if we move south because pigs > sugar. But the next 5 tiles are better if we SIP. How quickly can we get to Calendar seems a relevant question as that's our main source of happy in the short term.

My initial conclusion (biased obviously)
Settling 2S gives us a better long term cap for a military game (more food, same production, less commerce).
Settling 2S would also seem to give us a better City2, unless there are more resources near the pigs/marble.

This misses the buro bonus though. I'd rather have the commerce tiles -- river and four calendar resources -- working together with buro.

I think I have a more general question, though, and that is how far out we have to test? When is it no longer relevant?

 

[shulec]

My first impulse is settle PHF. Farm=>Mine=>Pasture gets us a settler on t18 (t16 with a whip). I like getting out two settlers before another worker. Cash in on Imperialistic trait. We have the cash to support it, so we need to do it. Getting Alpha, Currency gets us in the driver's seat. The earlier we can war the better.

I don't like settling the capitol with the dike in mind. I love a bureaucracy capitol, but an early production monster is better. Don't forget that production is not limited to hammer tiles. We have slavery from T0, so food tiles make hammers!

Spoiler :

 

[neilmeister]

The starting area just has no real commerce, so if we need a commerce beauro monster, it is most likely to be a different city.
Plains silk will be worth 1f1h4c, OK, but not particularly exciting. Same as riverside plains village.
Grass sugar 4f1c, basically it is a dry rice with 1 commerce. Its a food tile.

At pop 10, SIP is definitely a better proposition than 2S, for sure.
If we are whipping early in the game, we will most likely be whipping down to pop 4 or 5, and at that pop 2S wins hands down.
A counter argument is that SIP can chop out an army pretty quickly.... no decisions yet of course, but I find it is useful to take a position and try to defend it, then switch.

I was also tempted by the PHF, but its only hammer tile is the copper tile, unless there are hills in the fog, and there are limits to how much you can whip early on. As we are imperialistic, we get 50% bonus for settlers, but only from the hammers of course, not from the food.

Any capital with pigs, corn & copper will get us going a bit faster, but at a long term price.

How lucky are we feeling that the pigs/marble has just 1 more resource to make it a great city?

It is difficult to test too far, as we do not know about further resources for city 2 & 3. If there is gold & corn just south of the pigs, then that changes everything.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

One argument in favor of locations with more forests - the chops for settlers will be powered by the Imperialistic bonus. With 200 gold and lots of forests, how quickly could we get to 3 cities? 4? 5? It might be possible to supercharge our empire by chopping out lots of settlers.

 

[Pollina]

Here’s an updated test game I prepared after doing some fog gazing.

Spoiler :

I am 99.9% certain those grassland hills I added are really there. How will that impact our settling choice?

It was too easy to steal workers from Roosevelt, so I also made some changes to his capital. (I probably should make him Native American, too.)