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Lanzelot · Jun 21, 2014

Horsemen are much better than swordsmen. And in addition they upgrade to the almighty cavalry, while swordsmen can get one more attack-point with Feudalism, and that's it. For this reason, chariots are the best early unit! You never fight with chariots, because they are too weak, that's true. But for only 30g they upgrade to horsemen, while the warrior-swordsman upgrade takes 60g. (In this game, gold won't be a problem, because of our min run for Rep, but usually in a science game, I'm short on gold, while shields is not a problem.)

I never build archers, unless I absolutely have no chances for horses and/or iron. Archers just die like flies against spearmen, and are more or less a dead end unit. (Invention is too little too late...)

Emperor is most often a "juncture". Below Emperor, horsemen are enough for conquering the world. Same holds true on Emperor with a very good start position. Here we had a bad start, so we'll probably need knights for world domination. It's an optional tech, which we won't research in a space ship game, but on Emperor we can expect the AI to research it for us in time.

The retreat mechanism in Conquests works fine, the probability is 50%. On Emperor we can expect two spearmen per town. So I usually attack with 5 horsemen. The first two bring the spearmen down to 2/4 and retreat, the next two will capture the town, the fifth one is as reserve, just in case. Town captured without losses, sometimes one loss. With archers we can expect on average 2 losses, sometimes 3. (Swordsmen 0-1 losses, just like with horsemen.)
In addition the advance with horsemen and the supplying of reinforcements is twice as swift as it is with archers/swordsmen.
An archer rush really only makes sense, if you have a close-by neighbor, who doesn't know Bronze Working yet.

Of course, after we encounter the first pikes, we pause our military ambitions and wait for knights.

I didn't see the save yet, but from gut feeling I would say for Oasenstadt: complete this chariot and then it's already time for the granary. Growing as fast as possible and using lux slider. (In my reference game, where I had the northern scouting warrior home quite early, I was able to run O'stadt at size 7 at 20% lux with 2 MP. But if I remember correctly, this was possible only, if every worked tile was river+road, otherwise the commerce was not high enough to provide the necessary happiness at 20% lux. But even 30% lux is no problem.)

Free unit support in Despotism is 4 per town, so we are already at 16, soon 20.

tjs282 · Jun 21, 2014

OK, I played my second 10 turns, 1225 BC to 1000 BC. Here's the log...

Spoiler :

I've attached some zoomed-out screenshots of our continent, and the 1000 BC savefile.

I know I've made a few mistakes (e.g. not selling the Barracks when I should've). Sorry about that. Hope it's mostly OK though...

Choxorn, I think you're up (with CommandoBob on deck...)? And I'm going to bed.

choxorn · Jun 21, 2014

You have it backwards; CommandoBob is before me. Although, if he's still busy, I'm fine with swapping with him.

Nice turns. The amount of detail your log went into was very complete- a bit too complete, to be honest. There was so much that I could only really skim over parts of it. We don't really need to know every single thing you do, a lot of it isn't important. Like, the exact movements of the explorers- just say the general direction they're heading and note anything interesting they run into, an every-turn update of what directions they went is kind of unnecessary.

As to deals for Horseback Riding and war- declaring war to get out of a per-turn deal is a great rep ruiner, and a big no-no. I'd also say that intentionally provoking war purely to get out of one is kind of cheap, even if less so than actually starting it yourself.

OTOH, If the AI starts it of their own accord, either because they planned it, you refused a demand, or they refused to get out of your territory or something else like that, then screw that AI.

CommandoBob · Jun 22, 2014

Go ahead and take it, choxorn. I need to re-read this thread and get caught up.

@tjs282: Turn logs are tricky. You don't want to be too brief and not relate something important. And you don't want to get too detailed where the really important stuff is buried.

I still struggle with this. I have noticed in my last few SGs that on the first few turns of the turnset I will detail just about every worker move. But by turn 5 those notes are much more general. This is due in part because the first turn or so I am still trying to relearn my 'feel' for the game, so I pay extra attention to what I do, especially worker tasks. It helps me stay focused. And once I do get the 'feel' for a game, then the my own need for documentation decreases.

Things I Always Communicate in a Turn Log

Other Civs trying to talk to us; what they ask for and what we respond with.
Details of trade deals.
World wide diplomacy (start of wars and peace, trade embargos etc).
Combat results, although the amount of detail may vary.
Some sort of running total of Wins/Loses.
Leader Genearation, MGL and the occasional SGL and what is done with them.
Wonder announcements, both completions and starts.
In the early game, details on worker turns (movement and task and expected time to complete).
In the early game, city build orders.
Founding of new cities.
Connection of new resource or luxury.
Location of Lone Scientist when doing Minimal Research.
New city/Captured city first build orders.
New research speed (Metalurgy -> Military Tradition in X turns at ?%).
Slider adjustments on the last turn of research and the gpt results.
Our own Great Wonder/Small Wonder builds.
Initial contact with a new civ.
AI tresspassers, whether friend or foe (personal pet peeve).
City capture booty (catapults, gold, workers, etc).
AI invasions/raids/leader fodder.

Things I Sometimes Communicate in a Turn Log

Initial railing connections (City A to City B).
Assigning specialists in cranky cities.
Mundane worker tasks, which will vary depending upon the task, stage of the game and relative importance of the task.
In a time of warfare, city builds such as 'City A: vCav -> vCav in 4', especially when there are many such builds.
When attacking units widely scattered over the map, the individual battles are sometimes combined into one overall statistic: '10 Longbows are decimeated by our brave and glorious Knights and Cavalry.'
Swapping tiles between citeis for better production.
Exploration highlights.
AI on AI combat results from the IBT
AI monopoly tech status, when it is known.

Things I Generally Don't Put Into a Turn Log

Generic specialist assignment, especially in science farms.
City tile assignments.
Fortification orders.
Exploration movement details, unless suicide galleys.
Enemy ships bombarding our cities.
Number of Happy/Content/Unhappy/Resisting citizens of a city.
Gold per turn, unless it changes greatly.
Time of Reseach, unless it changes greatly.
Bombardment results details; summary is fine ('All 3 defenders red-lined)'.

Now that is my list and while it looks exhaustive I know it is not. I do not feel that it is THE list of what should or should not be in a turn log.

It is also okay to put into the turn log your frustraton with certain events, like bad combat results and such. Or wondering how the AI could be so stupid as to do some-stupid-AI-thingee.

choxorn · Jun 22, 2014

I'll take it then. When do you think you can play, right after me or not for a while?

1. Acronym
2. Lanzelot
3. MrRandomGuy
4. tsj282 <-- Just Played
5. Choxorn <-- UP

6. CommandoBob ?

I'll take a quick look at it now and play some time in the next few days.

I mostly agree with what CommandoBob said on turnset detail. A few things come to mind that I do:

-I usually mention all builds on the IBT even when it's late, peaceful, and they're not super important.
-I'll pay attention to what resources that we have and the AI have as new ones become revealed, or the AI gains or loses resources, or we have new trade route possibilities to get resources we don't have.
-And, one big one CB missed- Our own government switches, and the number of turns they take, are of course important, even if we usually only switch governments once a game.

choxorn · Jun 22, 2014

Took a look. Just a note to tjs (and MrRandomGuy, who also did this)- take care of all of the unit move orders before handing the save over, so the next person doesn't have to do much on turn "0."

Other things:

-England will trade us Mysticism for 138 gold, or Horseback Riding for 148 gold + 1 gpt, or 4 gold + 9 gpt. Scandinavia will trade us the same techs, but want more money for them.
-England has 9 cities, lots of room, and both types of strategic resources. Scandinavia has 6 cities. We have 4.
-We have 3 workers. We need more than that.
-Our capitol will hit size 7 before it finishes its Granary. Settler factories don't work at that size, because the amount of food to go up in size increases when you go from town to city. They work best if the city spends 2 turns at size 5, 2 turns at size 6, and then hits size 7 the same turn that it builds the settler and immediately goes back to size 5. Although, at the moment, I'm not sure how I can give it enough shields to actually make a 4-turn Settler Factory, at least not while we have to deal with the Despotism Tile Penalty.
-Is Konigsberg really going to have much use for that Granary? It's in a pretty food-poor region, and it can't pass size 6 until we start clearing that jungle. By my math, it will hit size 5 before finishing the Granary. I think we need military units more than a Granary there. Even a Barracks or, heck, some Walls seem like they'd be better builds.
-The coastal cities could probably use Harbors soon-ish.
-Apparently Korea exists and built the Oracle. Looking back at tjs's turnset, I now see where it happened. I didn't notice it in his set at the time. This is why it's important to focus on the most important details, dude.

-It is my understanding that the dotmap in post #124 is our current settling plan? Looks good to me, though maybe we should put city #4 a bit closer to Copenhagen to pressure the Vikings a bit more? I'd also recommend settling city #8 before #7, and, really, maybe a few others before #7- That location has little value to us and, given its location, the AI isn't going to get there before we are. We can grab that spot whenever we want, but there's a few other slightly more useful spots we need to get to before the Vikings or English do.
-I'm not quite sure what some of these units are actually doing right now.

Plan for the next 20 turns:

-(hopefully) Build the Colossus.
-Build a Granary, then Settlers in Oasenstadt.
-Avoid getting into a war, if possible. We're too small for that right now.

Any other thoughts?

Lanzelot · Jun 22, 2014

tjs282 said:
K'berg's citizens reassigned: 2x iFlood, 2x RivHills (+3spt, +2spt, T.S.L.C=5.1.2.-1); growth now in 6T, Worker complete in 2T, iFlood freed up for O'stadt (will grow on IBT)

But that makes it drop population again, and then it can't maintain the 5fpt/2spt for the next worker!! :eek:

Why? We have 6 floodplains, 3 for O'stadt and 3 for Königsberg, perfect for 5fpt in both of them?!
Ok, you gave one of our floodplains to Hamburg. But that's not necessary. It can grow slowly to size 6 and needs to stop anyway for a long time, until we get aqueducts. The food tiles need to be given to those towns, which produce settlers and worker, as these are our most important units!

The granary in Königsberg is a bit too early for my taste, as we still need to clear two jungles, before the gran makes sense. (And with a total of 3 workers for the entire empire, that is not going to happen soon...) I would first have built 2-3 more workers and then start the granary, while 2 workers can start on the jungles.
As we have only 4 shields collected so far, I suggest to build a warrior now to let it grow back to 4, and then go back to the 5-turn worker cycle at 5fpt/2spt. (Hamburg gets a coast instead of the floodplain, until we have enough iPlains for it.)

A general remark: from the turnlog it appears that you sometimes stacked workers to complete things faster? That's a good thing, however, if I read the turnlog correctly, sometimes you moved two workers on a tile without road, is that correct? This loses a full worker turn, which is especially bitter, as we are so short on workers! Usually I let one worker first build a road in three turns, and afterwards move additional workers onto the tile, so that they can start on the mine/irrigation immediately without loss of a turn.

What is also bad: all three workers are now in the south, but there is only one more tile worth improving at the moment: that plains for O'stadt. However, in the north there are three plains, two for Hamburg and one for O'stadt, so that we can finally give K'stadt more plains for growth to 7! 3 tiles to improve (and also roads to our future settlement sites + tiles for the new towns) and no workers within reach...! That needs better planning ahead.

choxorn said:
Took a look. Just a note to tjs (and MrRandomGuy, who also did this)- take care of all of the unit move orders before handing the save over, so the next person doesn't have to do much on turn "0."

Other things:

-England will trade us Mysticism for 138 gold, or Horseback Riding for 148 gold + 1 gpt, or 4 gold + 9 gpt. Scandinavia will trade us the same techs, but want more money for them.
No need to spend any gold for their techs at the moment: once we have Republic, we'll get all their techs for free. (And we want them to become Republics anyway: fighting a despotic AI is no fun: in every size-2 town they'll pop-rush a spearman, making our conquest much harder and we can't even get their towns, because most of them will auto-raze at size 1... and the ones that don't auto-raze because of culture, will be unhappy for the next 40 turns because of their constant whipping. Therefore: before you attack an AI, always gift them Republic/Monarchy - and if you can then attack in their anarchy phase, even better...
-England has 9 cities, lots of room, and both types of strategic resources. Scandinavia has 6 cities. We have 4.
-We have 3 workers. We need more than that.
Exactly.
-Our capitol will hit size 7 before it finishes its Granary. Settler factories don't work at that size, because the amount of food to go up in size increases when you go from town to city. They work best if the city spends 2 turns at size 5, 2 turns at size 6, and then hits size 7 the same turn that it builds the settler and immediately goes back to size 5. Although, at the moment, I'm not sure how I can give it enough shields to actually make a 4-turn Settler Factory, at least not while we have to deal with the Despotism Tile Penalty.
As I wrote in my previous post: growing to 7 during the granary build (and the first settler) is not a problem here. I tested that when dropping from 7 to 5 the granary remains half full, so the town will be ready to start the 5-turn cycle (described in #124) with the second settler without problems. Only growing to size 8 would mean wasting food. So after O'stadt has reached size 7, you can give a floodplain to Hamburg.
-Is Konigsberg really going to have much use for that Granary? It's in a pretty food-poor region, and it can't pass size 6 until we start clearing that jungle. By my math, it will hit size 5 before finishing the Granary. I think we need military units more than a Granary there. Even a Barracks or, heck, some Walls seem like they'd be better builds.
We just sold the barracks there... It is going to be our worker-pump, so doesn't need barracks. Unfortunately, as it is now back to size 3, it is quite difficult to re-establish the messed-up 5-turn worker cycle. I suggested above to build a warrior to get it back to size 4, but then it would hit size 5 during the next worker, and we don't have a 2-food tile available for it yet. So it can't keep up the 5-turn growth. Darn. Giving that floodplain to Hamburg was a grave mistake.
-The coastal cities could probably use Harbors soon-ish.
Yes, K'stadt can build one as soon as the Colossus is finished. However, Hamburg is not on a river, so Hamburg's harbour can wait until after the aqueduct. (When it hits size 6, it can use 4 plains and 2 coasts (or a hill instead of a coast) for 0 fpt.)
-Apparently Korea exists and built the Oracle. Looking back at tjs's turnset, I now see where it happened. I didn't notice it in his set at the time. This is why it's important to focus on the most important details, dude.
-It is my understanding that the dotmap in post #124 is our current settling plan? Looks good to me, though maybe we should put city #4 a bit closer to Copenhagen to pressure the Vikings a bit more?
Bad idea: my plan was to have #4 use that one floodplain for a bit of early fast growth, for example while Königsberg is building the granary and therefore doesn't need the floodplain. By moving it closer to Copenhagen, it would lose access to that floodplain!
I'd also recommend settling city #8 before #7, and, really, maybe a few others before #7- That location has little value to us and, given its location, the AI isn't going to get there before we are. We can grab that spot whenever we want, but there's a few other slightly more useful spots we need to get to before the Vikings or English do.
Yes, #7 and #8 can be switched, good idea. But I'm afraid that settling other spots before #7 will not necessarily be possible: by the time we have found #4, #5 and #6, we'll probably already be fenced in by the Vikings. I expect the second ring already needs to be captured by force.
-I'm not quite sure what some of these units are actually doing right now.

Plan for the next 20 turns:

-(hopefully) Build the Colossus.
-Build a Granary, then Settlers in Oasenstadt.
-Avoid getting into a war, if possible. We're too small for that right now.

Any other thoughts?

Actually, we are quite lucky in one respect: Bergen is building the Mausoleum for us, and now London is building the Pyramids. :goodjob:

Let's hope they get it done before the other continent does.

Exploration with the curraghs was also very good. Could be that in the north we already discovered another continent?!

tjs282 · Jun 22, 2014

Choxorn and CommandoBob:

Thanks for your feedback. I was pretty sure my turnlog was too long/detailed, but (1) I was recording this stuff to remind me what I needed to do, as much as anything, and (2) I wanted to be sure of including everything important. Sorry I went overboard -- I'll try and do better next time (remember this is my first ever SG...).

Choxorn, I deliberately left our units active, because I wasn't sure what you might want to do with them. I was feeling nervous about the Vikings -- I know it's a small, weak force, but since it doesn't include a Settler, it looked like Ragnar might be thinking (ha ha) of doing something silly. A single Warrior would have been adequate for peaceful exploration, so why is there also an Archer?

And regarding rep-ruining gpt deals, I know that, which is why I left the prospect up for discussion, rather than doing it myself. I know the Vikings want more cash in total, but if they sell us HbR for, say, 12 gpt, and are then stupid enough to declare war (and the AI is definitely stupid enough to do such things, if it thinks it can 'win'*), then yeah, like you say, screw 'em... You will still have enough cash to upgrade all 3 of our Chariots in one turn.

(By the end of most of my solo games, the surviving AIs are usually all 'furious' with me, regardless of whether I've actually ever broken deals with them -- and usually it's them who break the deals anyway, with pointless/ stupid/ suicidal DoWs.)

Feel free to change any of those builds (except the Colossus, obviously

). I started the Granary in K'berg knowing that you would probably rather build something else, but I wasn't sure what. Maybe Walls, to bring the regWarriors' defence strength to 2... I didn't want to be building any more unneeded Barracks though... :mischief:

I did discuss O'stadt's build with Lanzelot, and he specifically advised allowing it to go briefly into Pop7 while the Granary is being finished: (1) all its food-rich tiles are/ will be in use, so you'll be using the shield-tiles for slow growth but fast building of the Settlers and (2) once the first Settler is built, O'stadt should drop down to Pop5 with a full Granary, and can then grow to Pop6 in 2T, and Pop7 in 3T, for a 5-turner (as also suggested by Lanzelot above, although it's a bit fiddly and wastes shields).

I know we need more workers too, but my main priority was to get all our cities grown to the point where we could actually build anything at all -- which is also why you've also got all those MP regWarriors sitting around. A Harbour in H'burg would probably be a logical move, if you don't need to build military units to fight Ragnar anytime soon -- that way, you can work the Coast tiles for 2f, and give H'burg's iFlood back to O'stadt...

Personally, I agree about moving City 4 1NE from the original mooted spot to the next Hill NE to pressure C'hagen. Since K'berg was mis-placed, it will now need both the iFloods SE of O'stadt until some jungle is cleared, so placing City4 (which was supposed to be a Barracks city anyway) on the SW Hill gives no benefit, but bordering C'hagen, it will get 3 (i)Grass in its BFC for growth. That's your call though, since it will happen on your turnset.

Expanding our eastern border (Cities 4, 5 + 8) before our western border (Cities 6 + 7) also makes sense to me -- but you will need lotsa lotsa Workers for jungle-chopping if City8 is to grow...

*Irrelevant, off-topic, self-congratulatory footnote follows:

Spoiler :

tjs282 · Jun 22, 2014

Lanzelot:
I knew that K'berg could already have been set up as a Worker-pump already but (1) as soon as it is given the 3rd iFlood again, it will grow quickly and the Worker pump can still be set up, and (2) when it first reached that point, I did still need the iFloods for growth elsewhere.

I needed K'berg's 3rd iFlood for O'stadt as it hit Pop5, because I did need the other iFlood for Hamburg, so that I could get its Pop and hence spt up for building, well, everything! Our military is still too small, and H'burg is now our only Barracks city, where you advised me to build Chariots rather than (twice as many) Warriors, remember?

I fiddled around with H'burg's tiles-worked, and using the iFlood was the only result I found that allowed any growth at all, because otherwise there was not enough trade/ Lux spending to keep its people happy -- or no food excess (because only the iFlood gave both 2cpt and +1fpt, whereas Coast tiles gave 2cpt, but 0fpt). It finally grew to Pop5 on my last couple of turns, and doesn't need to grow any bigger (its waste is already pretty bad), so O'stadt -- and hence K'berg -- can have those iFloods back 'real soon now'...

[EDIT:]
Just realised, I didn't even try pushing up the Lux slider to 30%-40% to make H'burg's Lux-cpt go further... D'OH!
[/EDIT:]

K'stadt also needed more pop/spt, which is why the Workers are down there. I knew that crossing the river would use extra Worker-turns that we could ill-afford, but again -- my priority was to improve tiles quickly as each city grew, and I only had 2 Workers to do it with (and only the recent possibility of building more -- which I admit, I stuffed up). So what other choice did I have? I realise that the Workers are now currently too far from H'burg's unimproved Plains, but I would at least suggest irrigating O'stadt's last southern Plains before crossing back over the river.

In general, on every tile, I irrigated first for the food/growth, then roaded before I left -- should I have done that the other way round?

As I stated in my previous post, which I was writing as you posted yours, the K'berg Granary was a placeholder. I should have put that in the handover summary, but I was kinda tired by then (the sun was already rising...).

Just to put things into perspective:
I started my turnset with Pop8 plus 2 workers, 6 mil units (only 2 of which were defending our cities), way behind in tech, and very little gold in the coffers.
I finished with Pop17 plus 3 Workers, 16 mil units (13 of which are within our borders/cities, 7 of which can be upgraded as soon as we get the tech, Iron and/or gold), 5 more techs, 150(ish?) gold, and 2 Embassies.
No doubt a better/ more switched-on player would have got a better result, but at risk of sounding petty, some credit where it's due would be nice...

Lanzelot · Jun 22, 2014

Well, guess I sounded to harsh, didn't I... Of course the turnset was indeed very well played. I only criticized two points, the worker management and the decision to give a floodplain to Hamburg, but didn't mention all the good things and the huge progress that you achieved in these 20 turns, and that made it look like I thought it was a bad turnset...

I can console you: we Germans are good at "Jammern auf hohem Niveau" (Don't know how to translate that? "Whining when everything is just fine" perhaps? Literally it means "complaining while being on a very high level")

So anyway, I didn't mean to say it was a bad turnset-- it was very good. Just trying to give a few pointers on how it might have been even better... :king:

But let's get back to the discussion of the game. I just realize, that both of my points above can be traced back to the same shortcoming of our game: our lack of workers! And that's not your responsibility.

a) I didn't check the development of Hamburg in detail. If you say, it was the only way to get Hamburg to 5spt, it's ok. You probably made that decision back when you still thought Hamburg would be building warriors, and building warriors at 4spt is a huge waste, so trying to get to 5spt was the right decision. But still in retrospect it was not good, because:
1. Now that we are building chariots, 4spt or 5spt doesn't matter much. Both add up to 20, so there is no overflow, and it's not that important, whether Hamburg gets to size 5 a bit sooner or a bit later.
2. On the other hand, getting more workers quickly is of utmost importance at the moment, as it will benefit all cities and our expansion as well (roads to the next city sites). And by dropping Königsberg down to size 3, our next worker is now delayed by at least 10 turns?!

b) You tried to keep up with the demand for new improved tiles by stacking workers. But with only 3 workers for 4 towns, this is doomed to failure anyway. If one town gets the tile improvement it needs, 2-3 others will fall behind... And by using up worker turns for movement instead of for improvement, the situation is even worsened.
In the short run, you have gained extra food, but in the long run, the next improvements will all come later than they could, losing the extra food again (and even more than was gained).

But let's look forward: here is my suggestion for the short-term worker management.

The three workers now move onto the hill (they'll lose all movement anyway, when crossing the river), build a road there in two turns, while we are there, and then move to the three plains. After building three roads there, two workers can be combined to irrigate all these 3 tiles in just 6 turns without losing any turn in movement! The third worker can start a road to spot #5.

For Oasenstadt, it doesn't matter, whether it is now using that southern plains or one of the northern ones. Hamburg can use the other two and that way give the one it is currently using to K'stadt. (Or perhaps even the mined oasis?) That way K'stadt can finally grow again with +2fpt. After all it's on the river so should not waste time growing.

Meanwhile the next new workers from Königsberg can build a road to spot #4, improve the last southern plains for Oasenstadt and also start chopping the jungle. As Königsberg is south of the river, it makes sense to employ new workers from there mainly south. But a few will also be needed in the north, although it means losing a turn for crossing the river.

tjs282 · Jun 22, 2014

Lanzelot said:
Well, guess I sounded to harsh, didn't I...

Well, wording like 'a grave mistake' does kind of give that impression

but (1) this is the Internet, where intent does not always communicate well, and (2) your written English is very, very good (believe me, I know -- you should see some of the MS-texts I work on, including the ones from 'natives'...), so it is easy to forget that you are not a native English speaker.

Of course the turnset was indeed very well played.

Thankyou for that :pat:

I can console you: we Germans are good at "Jammern auf hohem Niveau" (Don't know how to translate that? "Whining when everything is just fine" perhaps? Literally it means "complaining while being on a very high level")

Oh, it's a national thing? I thought it was just my wife, "Die kleine Frauchen Nimmer-Satt" :lol:

(apologies to all German feminists out there -- please don't flame me...)

b) You tried to keep up with the demand for new improved tiles by stacking workers. But with only 3 workers for 4 towns, this is doomed to failure anyway.

Only 2 workers for most of my turnset, actually. And I know that 'firefighting' is always a dangerous sign in Civ, but no one said anything about MRG's worker-stacking, so I carried on doing it. I'm annoyed with myself over that double-roading job though, that was dumb, and I should have known better...

If one town gets the tile improvement it needs, 2-3 others will fall behind...

Actually, with only 4 towns to manage, I don't think any of them ever grew without having an improved tile already available for them to use -- except for K'stadt right at the end. And I've already explained why I didn't think it was worth improving Hamburg's Plains any further yet, and why my assumption was an error. I would say that my major mistake there was rather not using the Lux slider: at Monarch (where I'm currently playing solo games), using the Lux slider isn't usually needed under any govs except Rep/Dem, so it's definitely a weak point of my game. But baby steps, baby steps -- it's only in my last couple of games that I've weaned myself off going for max. Science, after all... :crazyeye:

K'stadt can finally grow again with +2fpt. After all it's on the river so should not waste time growing.

But for the Pop not the shields, right? Corruption/waste is already at 20%...

tjs282 · Jun 22, 2014

Lanzelot said:
But that makes it drop population again, and then it can't maintain the 5fpt/2spt for the next worker!! Why? We have 6 floodplains, 3 for O'stadt and 3 for Königsberg, perfect for 5fpt in both of them?!

While I was doing the washing-up, I remembered why I didn't start the K'berg worker pump right away: at Pop4, without a Granary, and before the Jungles were cleared, it wouldn't get +5fpt -- it was getting 2fpt and 1spt from the city tile, 9fpt from the 3 iFloods, and 1fpt and 1spt from a rRivHill tile = 12fpt (i.e. only +4fpt at Pop4) and 2spt = 5 turns for growth/worker production, with a stable Pop4.

So although I did recognise the possibility (IIRC, I even noted it in the turnlog -- I noted everything else, after all!

), it would have been a veeeery slooow 'pump' at Pop4, and also at the expense of delaying O'stadt's growth (for the crappy reasons I posted earlier, but still...). I'm pretty sure I was thinking that a 5-turner just for workers wasn't worth it at this stage, and that it would be better to get that reduced by building a Granary in K'berg first, and in the meantime getting Workers out of O'stadt in between Settlers, or from Hamburg to avoid overpopulation unhappiness. I had to work with what I had, under Despotism.

The granary in Königsberg is a bit too early for my taste, as we still need to clear two jungles, before the gran makes sense. (And with a total of 3 workers for the entire empire, that is not going to happen soon...) I would first have built 2-3 more workers and then start the granary

See above. I must have decided that those hypothetical 10-15 turns' worth of shields would be better going into a Granary straight away (so no, I guess it wasn't a placeholder, saying that was me trying to figure out what the hell I was thinking/ justify my error -- should've just checked the turnlog...). But you're right, 5T-Workers would have been better, since that would avoid the overpopulation unhappiness that K'berg would suffer while the Granary is being built. What can I say apart from sorry, it was 3:30 am, and I goofed :wallbash:

So yes, switch that Granary build to a Warrior, or Walls or something.

The good news is, as soon as K'berg gets back to Pop4 (in less time than it will take to road those Hills and Hamburg's Plains), Choxorn can set up a 5T-Worker pump without further ado, as described above. Better late than never, eh, eh...?

OK, you can throw things at me now.

Lanzelot · Jun 22, 2014

tjs282 said:
Well, wording like 'a grave mistake' does kind of give that impression

I like to use "drastic" words... A note to everyone here: don't take anything I say too serious... I'm a very "theatrical" guy... :mischief:

tjs282 said:
and (2) your written English is very, very good (believe me, I know -- you should see some of the MS-texts I work on, including the ones from 'natives'...), so it is easy to forget that you are not a native English speaker.

Thank you for that :pat:

tjs282 said:
But for the Pop not the shields, right? Corruption/waste is already at 20%...

For both. The next shield will again be un-corrupted, so it's worth going for it. (Though it'll probably come too late to make a difference for the Colossus now.)

tjs282 said:
While I was doing the washing-up, I remembered why I didn't start the K'berg worker pump right away: at Pop4, it wouldn't get +5fpt -- it could only get +3fpt from the 3 iFloods, plus 1fpt and 1spt from the Hills = +4fpt, +2spt = 5 turns for growth/worker production (without a Granary, and before the Jungles were cleared).

Well, actually that was a mistake in my previous post: I didn't mean to say +5fpt, as of course the hill eats up one food. I meant those +4fpt/2spt as you do. (Which are necessary for the 5-turn workers.) So anyway, at size 3 K'berg can't generate those, and getting K'berg back to the start of that circle will now require some delicate micro-managing. (Haven't worked out the details for that yet. Choxorn, do you want to try your hands on that?)
So in short: in the long run, the granary in K'berg makes a lot of sense, but only when we can actually run the +5fpt/4spt cycle at size 6. And for that we still need three more 2/1 tiles, which have to be carved out of the jungle. And for that we need workers first. (And for many other things too...)

tjs282 said:
OK, you can throw things at me now.

Northern Pike · Jun 22, 2014

{delurk}

tjs282 said:
Oh, it's a national thing? I thought it was just my wife, "Die kleine Frauchen Nimmer-Satt"

Google Translate turns this into "The little mistress, never-saturated", which I enjoyed.

I hadn't been aware that German has two words for "never", knowing only "niemals". That does imply a rather mournful attitude to life....

{lurk}

tjs282 · Jun 22, 2014

Hi, Northern Pike

I enjoyed that translation too

It wasn't quite what I'd intended, but it does kind of work (Google-Translate was probably using 'mistress' in the sense of meaning, 'female pet-owner', which ... actually also kind of works... :lol:

). I'm sure Lanzelot knew what I meant, although he could almost certainly have punned it better.

Or maybe I should just go and do another night-school German language course...

tjs282 · Jun 22, 2014

Lanzelot said:
getting K'berg back to the start of that circle will now require some delicate micro-managing. (Haven't worked out the details for that yet. Choxorn, do you want to try your hands on that?)

Hoping Choxorn hasn't started already... I just reloaded the save, and as far as I can tell, it will take only 2T.

First, change K'berg's build to a regWarrior, and move a citizen from the iFlood to the Hill -- you'll get +1fpt and +3spt for growth to Pop4 in 2T, Warrior complete in 2T. Set the governor temporarily to 'emphasise food', and K'berg's 4th citizen should get sent back to the free iFlood on the IBT (don't let O'stadt steal it on growth!) -- but if I've understood correctly, because the food/growth step has already been calculated for the city, the new citizen won't contribute any new food (is that right?).

On the turn after K'stadt grows (at the latest), Hamburg needs to give up its iFlood to O'stadt (actually, I think you could do that right now, with Lux 30% and 0fpt at H'burg -- but H'burg might as well get a little more food in its bin first). O'stadt can then free up K'berg's 3rd iFlood, so you can move one of its 2 Hill-citizens there. Et voilà! At that point, I think we should be sweet: K'berg will be at Pop4, with empty food+shield bins, working 3 iFloods and 1 Hill again, for +4fpt, +2spt, and a Worker every 5T...

EDIT:
OK, I tested it, I was right, so now you can throw roses... O'stadt does need some MM though...

choxorn · Jun 22, 2014

I haven't started yet.

tjs282 said:
Personally, I agree about moving City 4 1NE from the original mooted spot to the next Hill NE to pressure C'hagen. Since K'berg was mis-placed, it will now need both the iFloods SE of O'stadt until some jungle is cleared, so placing City4 (which was supposed to be a Barracks city anyway) on the SW Hill gives no benefit, but bordering C'hagen, it will get 3 (i)Grass in its BFC for growth. That's your call though, since it will happen on your turnset.

That was my thinking. It does, admittedly, have a lot of overlap with Copenhagen, but given our current dotmap and that wasted wheat floodplain tile the Vikings have, I'm not so sure that Copenhagen really needs to exist that badly. :mischief:

I think I understand how to turn Konigsberg into a 5-turn Worker factory. I'm not sure how to turn Oasenstadt into a Settler Factory, or what tiles should go to what cities, but I'll tinker with things until I figure something out.

Lanzelot · Jun 23, 2014

Northern Pike said:
I hadn't been aware that German has two words for "never", knowing only "niemals". That does imply a rather mournful attitude to life....

In fact, "nimmer" is kind of a slang form of "niemals".

tjs282 said:
I'm sure Lanzelot knew what I meant, although he could almost certainly have punned it better.

Or maybe I should just go and do another night-school German language course...

Well, I caught both meanings when I read it, and had to "schmunzel" (= smile secretly), too...

A language course? What a question, don't wait! Just imagine, being able to read Schiller, Lessing and Goethe in the original! (Or being able to understand your wife... Though I can't make any guarantees on that... :mischief:

I'm not quite sure sometimes, whether I understand mine, even though we speak the same mother tongue... :rolleyes:

)
I've been able to read Shakespeare and Douglas Adams in original, and it was a great experience! When I compared it to a German translation, I was quite disappointed. Therefore I'm quite sure that when I read Tolstoi or Dostojevski in a German translation, I missed most of the enjoyment I could have had, if I had been able to read Russian.

Back to topic.

tjs282 said:
Personally, I agree about moving City 4 1NE from the original mooted spot to the next Hill NE to pressure C'hagen. Since K'berg was mis-placed, it will now need both the iFloods SE of O'stadt until some jungle is cleared, so placing City4 (which was supposed to be a Barracks city anyway) on the SW Hill gives no benefit, but bordering C'hagen, it will get 3 (i)Grass in its BFC for growth. That's your call though, since it will happen on your turnset.

I don't understand this?! On the spot, where I planned it, #4 will have access to the same three iGrass?!?!
I still believe that being able to access that iFloodplain once in a while, will be very powerful (especially under Republic, when our worker pump in Königsberg won't need it for quite a while and where it provides +4 food!). So we could do the same that you did with Hamburg, and grow #4 quickly so that it becomes powerful faster!
"Pressuring" Copenhagen, on the other hand, is not important, as that town won't exist for long anyway. Therefore I think the original #4 spot is better than the spot 1NE.

choxorn · Jun 23, 2014

Lanzelot said:
I don't understand this?! On the spot, where I planned it, #4 will have access to the same three iGrass?!?!
I still believe that being able to access that iFloodplain once in a while, will be very powerful (especially under Republic, when our worker pump in Königsberg won't need it for quite a while and where it provides +4 food!). So we could do the same that you did with Hamburg, and grow #4 quickly so that it becomes powerful faster!
"Pressuring" Copenhagen, on the other hand, is not important, as that town won't exist for long anyway. Therefore I think the original #4 spot is better than the spot 1NE.

Only two of them. There's a third tile that's currently a jungle that eventually could be an i-grass, perhaps.

Basically, the net effect of moving city #4 one tile Northeast is to lose a floodplain, a hill (under Konigsberg), a jungle, and two mountains, and gain a grassland, a desert, a mountain, and two hills (one of which is currently under Copenhagen)

I'm of the opinion that spacing core cities close enough to each other that they're in each others' 20 workable tiles usually isn't a good idea. And yes, Konigsberg doesn't always need that floodplain right now, but eventually, we're going to want it to have as much food as it can so it can actually grow to a decent size and work some of the hills in the area, because, as has been mentioned many times, most of the tiles in its BFC can never produce more than 1 food, if that. The benefit of letting city #4 grow a little faster isn't enough to make up for the fact that Konigsberg really needs that tile for itself.

tjs282 · Jun 23, 2014

Lanzelot said:
I don't understand this?! On the spot, where I planned it, #4 will have access to the same three iGrass?!?!

Sorry Lanzelot, but no -- look at your food-map again, or this screenshot. In my zoomed-out screenie, the Warrior is fortified on Spot4, and City4 will only get the 2 iGrass directly adjacent to Spot4 -- at least until its borders have popped and the Forest near Bergen is chopped (assuming there's Grass not Plains underneath -- a good bet given its proximity to all that Jungle/Marsh, which is always on Grass).

"Pressuring" Copenhagen, on the other hand, is not important, as that town won't exist for long anyway. Therefore I think the original #4 spot is better than the spot 1NE.

This point is far more relevant, however -- if we're going to raze/abandon C'hagen, then it makes even more sense to move City4 1NE, to grab more territory in our first ring.

EDIT: I see Choxorn beat me to it. I need to think/type faster...

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