ALC Game #7: Frederick/Germany

[Eqqman]

I'd like a city to grow bigger to have a chance to work 2 scientists asap.

Hopefully there will be some more Cows or Pigs in the range of wherever the capital goes, so it can support Scientists quickly. I hate having to research two food producing techs in the early years, better to trade for the second later or research it directly after you have more beaker output and it can be done quickly. I'm not actually the biggest fan of AH since it's more expensive and can be used on fewer plots than AG. The Horse reveal is nice but vital only if you're going to be short on copper.

 

[cabert]

Hopefully there will be some more Cows or Pigs in the range of wherever the capital goes, so it can support Scientists quickly. I hate having to research two food producing techs in the early years, better to trade for the second later or research it directly after you have more beaker output and it can be done quickly. I'm not actually the biggest fan of AH since it's more expensive and can be used on fewer plots than AG. The Horse reveal is nice but vital only if you're going to be short on copper.

horses can be good for conquest/domination or more often for the barb killing.
I'm pretty sure there will be either horses or bronze (or iron ) in the initial fat cross. It would be a bad move to oversee those horses (assuming there are there).

 

[Fetch]

Can somebody summarize the discussion for me on the last 2.5 pages of this thread? I read it all but don't see the "plan" moving forward.

Thanks.

 

[cabert]

Can somebody summarize the discussion for me on the last 2.5 pages of this thread? I read it all but don't see the "plan" moving forward.

Thanks.

the cat isn't here, mice are dancing

there is no plan yet, AFAIK, but eggman build a very robust strategy towards pyramids, via a GE from an engineer specialist available via forge, MC is to be researched through the oracle for this to be early enough.

The plus part :
- it seems very reliable (at least on prince level, with a philosophical leader)
- it's relying on what we already know, with no assumption like copper in the second city, or such things (only the ability to get MC through the Oracle is not perfectly sure, not being industrious)

The minus part :
- very low defense in the beginning
- one GP used (+next will likely be a prophet) and no academy on the way = 200 GPP scientist flavour are to be gathered before an academy is available
- very low commerce up to this = very likely slow teching
- very low population available = low commerce for some more years


About what we agreed on (we = eggman and myself), it is to tech towards agri now, and build a scout first (or was it a worker for eggman?).

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Stupid thread subscription emails. I didn't get the notification that things had started, so I'm arriving late to the party (I'm so fashionable!). If I remember correctly, there were two key points I wanted to make about the previous 4 pages of stuff.

1) cabert: Your mathematics on getting a prophet instead of an engineer seem to be based on putting the engineer specialist in the same city that has The Oracle. That's the wrong way to do it, because, well, as you said, you might get a prophet. What you need to do is build the forge quickly enough in a different city that the engineer specialist's points catch up and overtake The Oracle's prophet points before it produces a great person. Then you're 100% guaranteed to get an engineer. As Eggman said, you have 6 turns to build the forge to make this happen.

2) Sisiutil: You mentioned the Parthenon as a desirable secondary wonder. Just make sure that if you do build it, you do it after your forge is completed. Otherwise it will double the prophet points generated by The Oracle, which closes your window for building the forge to only 3 turns (or something like that; I haven't redone the math recently). I'm not sure this is a real concern, since I doubt you could actually manage to build The Oracle and The Parthenon before your forge, but it's something to be aware of.

3) OK, so I counted wrong. It's 3 points. Man, this start has some major food issues. It will be interesting to see how a specialist economy plays out here. I guess maybe you turn Berlin into your military production hub and let the others take care of the science?

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Point #4: cabert, I think your 2nd great person will be another engineer. Here's my reasoning.

The first great person requires 100 points. The second great person requires 200 points. The Oracle is generating 4 points per turn (2 + 100% bonus), and the engineer specialist is generating 6 points per turn (3 + 100% bonus).

When you pop your first engineer after 17 turns, the engineering city will have generated 102 points for an overflow of 2. Assuming you timed the forge correctly, The Oracle will have generated no more than 96 points. We'll assume 96 for the sake of argument. So on turn N when the engineer pops, the score is reset to 2 points in the engineer city, 96 points in The Oracle city, and a new goal of 200.

You immediately rush The Pyramids in the engineer city, so you go one more turn generating 4 and 6 points per turn. Then on subsequent turns, after The Pyramids have completed, you're generating 4 prophet points from The Oracle and 10 engineer points in the engineering city. Updated scores on the turn when The Pyramids complete are 8 points of engineers, 100 points of prophets, on the way to 200.

At 4 points per turn, you'll generate a prophet in 25 turns. At 10 points per turn, you'll generate a 2nd engineer in 20 turns. Your second great person will be an engineer.

If you use that engineer to rush The Great Library, you'll be generating 16 scientist points per turn in that city. Assuming that's in a third, separate city (thus keeping the great person gene pool pure), your next great person should be a scientist. That might be a close call. It will take 19 turns after the library is rushed to finish the scientist, so if there's any delay you might get a 3rd engineer first. After that, I'm not sure. I suspect you'll eventually get a prophet someday, but it might take a surprisingly long time.

 

[Petrucci]

I have been trying this specialist economy for a bit now and I have to say keeping your capital as production is stronger for your civ with bureaucracy. Even to the point where I move my capital, if my city had been founded in a heavy food spot. Of course, this changes alot trying this MC -> pyramids start and needing the specialists. Would you think this would be a smart move moving the capital if you find a stronger production city?

 

[Quotey]

I'd love to try a specialist economy, but I don't know how to STRART it. Is there a guide somewhere? Also, how do you turn the f/p/c displays on?

 

[Petrucci]

I'd love to try a specialist economy, but I don't know how to START (edit) it. Is there a guide somewhere?

I guess watching this thread will tell alot! I'm looking forward to learning much mysefl!

 

[cabert]

Point #4: cabert, I think your 2nd great person will be another engineer. Here's my reasoning.

The first great person requires 100 points. The second great person requires 200 points. The Oracle is generating 4 points per turn (2 + 100% bonus), and the engineer specialist is generating 6 points per turn (3 + 100% bonus).

i knew this was coming out
i already adressed this issue (as well as the "same city" issue) somewhere

My point being : low commerce = low tech, unless you set up a big specialist economy. Litterature is far away when all you have is 5 commerce!
We're not waiting for GL to set up 2 scientist specialists are we?

The fact that you end up with a second GE is good (or even a great prophet, you could well go on a religious path).

The fact that you don't have an academy in the city where you finally have enough food to feed 2 scientists before the great library is built is bad for the tech rate. It's very bad. It's awful. It's something like german barbarians getting stomped by roman legions (praetorians in cIV ).

 

[Araqiel]

Point #4: cabert, I think your 2nd great person will be another engineer. Here's my reasoning.

Your reasoning is wrong. Great people percentage is based entirely on how many sources are contributing, weighted by the number of turns they contribute. This leads to very different results than a weighted average of the total GP. Take a look at this thread here.

If you have different types of GPP sources, it gets a little more complicated. For each turn, the game notes what types of sources had produced GPPs in the city (regardless of how many GPPs each source had contributed!). This determines the odds of which type of great person would be produced for that turn. The overall odds are the average values of all the turns since the last great person was generated in that city.


Note that difference: The number of GPPs will determine when a great person will be generated, and the number of sources will determine what type it will be.

Unless they slipped in a change in one of the patches your analysis will be off.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

My point being : low commerce = low tech, unless you set up a big specialist economy. Litterature is far away when all you have is 5 commerce!

I've tried the specialist economy in a couple half finished games. It worked quite well in both, but I found that I was happier if I built a few cottages along the way during the early part of the game. First, yes, it does take a while to get your specialists going, and I couldn't stomach waiting that long before I had decent commerce. Second, until you research Civil Service, you're likely to have a lot of flatlands that can't be improved with anything except a cottage. My workers were far enough ahead of the population that it made sense to have them build cottages there which were later destroyed to put in farms.

We're not waiting for GL to set up 2 scientist specialists are we?

Gosh, I hope not. Among other things, you need a library before you can build The Great Library. You should have 1 or 2 specialists in place (depending on food) from that. Still, like I said above, even libraries seemed like too long a wait for me.

Your reasoning is wrong. Great people percentage is based entirely on how many sources are contributing, weighted by the number of turns they contribute. This leads to very different results than a weighted average of the total GP. Take a look at this thread here.


Unless they slipped in a change in one of the patches your analysis will be off.

I understand how great people points work. The key point here, again, is that The Oracle and your engineer specialist are in different cities. Presumably you'll build The Pyramids in the city with the engineer for exactly the reason you're mentioning. So you'll have two cities producing great people points.

One (The Oracle) will produce purely prophet points, nothing else. That city, if it produces a great person, will produce a prophet 100% of the time.

The other (engineer specialist and The Pyramids) will produce purely engineer points, nothing else. That city, if it produces a great person, will produce an engineer 100% of the time.

The only variable is which city reaches the threshhold first. You might pollute the gene pools with scientists at some point, and my analysis ignores that factor, but as far as prophet vs. engineer goes, the number of sources and weighted averages don't matter, because both cities are 100% pure one type of points.

 

[UncleJJ]

Your reasoning is wrong. Great people percentage is based entirely on how many sources are contributing, weighted by the number of turns they contribute. This leads to very different results than a weighted average of the total GP. Take a look at this thread here.


Unless they slipped in a change in one of the patches your analysis will be off.

I am fairly sure he's assuming that there are 2 cities, one with the Oracle and the other with an engineer from the forge and the Pyramids. So with separate GP pools it means he has complete control over what GP is built

Edit; too slow... much too slow

 

[cabert]

We're not waiting for GL to set up 2 scientist specialists are we?

Gosh, I hope not. Among other things, you need a library before you can build The Great Library. You should have 1 or 2 specialists in place (depending on food) from that. Still, like I said above, even libraries seemed like too long a wait for me.

you cannot set up libraries if you don't tech writing
if you research AH, writing is available.
Then it comes early!
But if you go the oracle way, you come up with a useless forge, one used GP, and no scientist specialist available before you build 200 GPP in a city that probably has no library yet...
I'm really afraid building a forge to get the pyramids is a long shot (in the foot) because you'll end up lagging behind.

 

[Araqiel]

Oops my bad I skimmed over the second part of the post missed the bit about them being in seperate cities. Which only makes sense. Btw if you're using warlords there is now a different way to get a GE to pop the pyramids. Build the great wall with a philosophical civilization. Its 250 hammers and generates 2 GE points. So in 25 turns after you build your great wall you can build the pyramids. Since the great wall is unlocked by masonry as well this means your tech tree is no longer so tight giving you much more margin for error.

You have to make up a 100 hammers difference in the oracle and great wall costs but you don't even have to bother with a forge or researching up priesthood. So overall much easier to do. And you can build the pyramids in the same city and get even more GEs relatively soon!

 

[Eggolas]

Food - it comes down to food in a capital, especially if you intend to run a specialist economy. I am intrigued by why the blue circle appears where it does. Moving the settler to either the forest NW of current position or NNW on the river/grassland tile might give us some information as to why the computer likes that other tile.

This position reminds me of one I had as Rome on Monarch. The difference is that I had some flood plains to help out and Praetorians only need production to whale away, but the capitol didn't really shine until Biology.

It's a challenging situation on the hill to the west also. I would look towards more river grassland tiles to go along with the hills, which are woefully short on food for the most part.

[Edited capitol to capital so that the police don't get too anxious.]

 

[carl corey]

capital
capitol

Sorry, but it really bugs me when people constantly get it wrong.

 

[cabert]

capital
capitol

Sorry, but it really bugs me when people constantly get it wrong.

OK, i was asking myself constantly capital or capitol? now there will be only capitals everywhere

 

[Eqqman]

i knew this was coming out
i already adressed this issue (as well as the "same city" issue) somewhere

My point being : low commerce = low tech, unless you set up a big specialist economy. Litterature is far away when all you have is 5 commerce!
We're not waiting for GL to set up 2 scientist specialists are we?

The fact that you end up with a second GE is good (or even a great prophet, you could well go on a religious path).

The fact that you don't have an academy in the city where you finally have enough food to feed 2 scientists before the great library is built is bad for the tech rate. It's very bad. It's awful. It's something like german barbarians getting stomped by roman legions (praetorians in cIV ).

The tech rate is not actually that bad. If you prioritize Masonry and Writing after completing the Metal Casting research requirements, you will have a Library out just in enough time to run 2 specialists under representation as soon as that becomes available. Futurehermit's numbers (if memory serves me correctly) state that an Academy is not essential if you have only 2 specialists in the first science city. If you build the Library in a third city (still possible under the MC strat) you have total control over the second Great Person. Run no specialists for the minimum amount you need for the GP from Oracle, or keep the Forge going for a GE, or turn off the Forge to get a GS. With two specialists running in the Library you can catch up on GS points in a fairly reasonable amount of time. But I'd expect Futurehermit to weigh in on this stuff, my expertise (such as it is) runs as far as getting the Pyramids out, once this happens I'm still fooling around myself with pulling this off. I just make the bomb, I don't drop it.

 

[Betafor]

Oops my bad I skimmed over the second part of the post missed the bit about them being in seperate cities. Which only makes sense. Btw if you're using warlords there is now a different way to get a GE to pop the pyramids. Build the great wall with a philosophical civilization. Its 250 hammers and generates 2 GE points. So in 25 turns after you build your great wall you can build the pyramids. Since the great wall is unlocked by masonry as well this means your tech tree is no longer so tight giving you much more margin for error.

You have to make up a 100 hammers difference in the oracle and great wall costs but you don't even have to bother with a forge or researching up priesthood. So overall much easier to do. And you can build the pyramids in the same city and get even more GEs relatively soon!

You're my new best freind.

*starts up warlords*