COTM 05 Pre-Game Discussion

[osi]

Just finished my test game... domination at 410AD and the game ended before I got cavalries.

 

[SirPleb]

Somthing I have seen the elite players mention doing is Pop Rushing units in Despotism. Is there a good article somewhere explaining the when and where this is used to it's fullest and the positive and negitive aspects of doing so? Or would one of you be willing to shed some light on this technique for me? I have never utilized this in game play.

I don't know of an article on this subject. Here are my thoughts about it:

In general pop rushing in productive (i.e. not totally corrupt) cities is not worthwhile. The gain of at most 20 shields per citizen seldom outweighs the loss of what that citizen could have produced in subsequent turns. And sometimes the resulting unhappiness is also a problem, further reducing what is gained. But there are of course exceptions. Sometimes I pop rush a number of builds while in Despotism, sometimes none. On overall average I guess I pop rush one or two things per game.

Situations I can think of where it makes sense to pop rush:

1) A panic situation. Sometimes pop rushing a military unit is the best way to deal with an incoming threat such as a barbarian appearing from nowhere.

2) Hurrying a build which will be more effective the sooner it happens. E.g. I sometimes rush a galley or two immediately after learning Map Making - in some games the sooner they go out exploring the better.

3) Putting the population in corrupt towns to some use. This doesn't often apply - I don't often have corrupt towns before getting to Republic. But it sometimes happens. E.g. from popping a settler from a distant hut or from sending an early settler to claim a resource or luxury outside the core region. In these cases it can be useful to pop rush something in the town.

4) Reducing the population in a captured town. This is another rare one - I don't often capture towns while in Despotism and if I do they're likely to be small. But if the chance comes up it is worth taking - a captured town with four citizens can be reduced to two citizens at the same time as rushing 40 shields worth of production. One I really like when possible: if a captured town is size 5 or larger, pop rush a settler. That uses two citizens for the rush and two more for the settler. Warning: if the other Civ has high culture, don't use that settler for a while, the city it creates will have a foreign citizen.

5) Using a citizen in a town which has stopped growing or is growing slowly due to its size. (But not due to unhappiness and needing specialists! Rushing in such a case usually does as much harm as good because it increases unhappiness.) E.g. if a town has only two "food" tiles to work, everything else in its sphere being hills or tundra. When the town reaches size three it may be desirable to pop rush something - the town will then grow at a greater rate, replacing the whipped citizen.

6) Just before revolting from Despotism. This is a good time to review all towns and see if any last minute rushing makes sense.

 

[solenoozerec]

I guess it also make sense to rush a harbor on an island with luxes or resources assuming you have map making, but no monarchy or republic.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Furs add 1 shield and 1 commerce to the underlying terrain. So Forest with fur will produce 3 shields instead of 2, mined plains or mined regular grassland with fur will produce 2 shields instead of 1 (unmined will produce 1 instead of 0). As Alan pointed out, the tricky part is actually the government type you are under: in despotism, the 3rd shield on a forest-fur tile is eaten by the despotism penalty. The same goes for a 3rd commerce (road = 1 commerce, fur = 1 commerce, river = 1 commerce, for a total of 3). You will not get the third commerce until you get out of despotism.

It is probably a good idea to clear those forests on the fur tiles so that you can get the 2 food and 2 shields while in despotism. Also, only road the furs on a river under despotism if you want the movement bonus, because you will not get the 3rd commerce. Once you get out of despotism though, you will definitely want the roads, and you may even want to replant the forest if your city needs the shields.

Doesn't this also suggest that it's not a good idea to settle in place on the furs, since you are sacrificing 1 shield and 1 commerce (at least once you get out of despotism)?

 

[Mistfit]

@ sirpleb As always thanks to you for your insight. Am I correct in saying that if you own a captured town with 3 foreign citizens and 2 native that pop rushing will take the native citizens first?

 

[SirPleb]

The discovery that we're starting on plains (under the forest) instead of grass sure changes things. I haven't worked out a build sequence but intuitively it seems better to settle at the start than to move west.

The discovery that there are cattle E,NE makes a huge difference! Do we know for sure that they're on grassland, or might that be plains they're on?

I will almost always move my settler to bring a food bonus inside the starting city radius if possible. This start may be a very rare exception to that rule. Being agricultural changes things, and having the chance to settle on a shield bonus is a very big factor. Assuming the cattle are on grassland, I think that we can grow to size 3 in 12 turns by settling at the start position. (7 turns for first growth, then 2 turns with 3 food/turn before border expansion, then 3 turns with 5 food/turn.) We can grow to size 3 in 10 turns by moving closer to the cattle. (1 turn to move, 5 turns for first growth, 4 turns for second growth.) So moving gains two turns toward growth. But it loses one shield per turn for a very long time and it uses up a BG. Before deciding I want to learn more about what else lies under the fog. If there are even more goodies perhaps even a two step move could make sense for the settler. All I'm sure of at this point is that there will be interesting decisions to make - the first thing is to scout NE and see what else is nearby.

 

[SirPleb]

Am I correct in saying that if you own a captured town with 3 foreign citizens and 2 native that pop rushing will take the native citizens first?

I don't know. And if a settler is made from one foreign and one native citizen, which nationality will it be? I don't know about that one either, does anyone have answers for these?

 

[AlanH]

I don't know where I read it, but I seem to recall seeing it stated somewhere that native citizens are used up first when any citizen is called upon - whether it's for a pop rush, a mobilisation, a settler or worker build, a starvation or disease. I could have got it wrong though.

A settler or worker takes the nationality of the citizen(s) that went into creating her. I've no idea which nationality a settler made from one native and one foreign citizen would be.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

The discovery that we're starting on plains (under the forest) instead of grass sure changes things. I haven't worked out a build sequence but intuitively it seems better to settle at the start than to move west.

The discovery that there are cattle E,NE makes a huge difference! Do we know for sure that they're on grassland, or might that be plains they're on?

I will almost always move my settler to bring a food bonus inside the starting city radius if possible. This start may be a very rare exception to that rule. Being agricultural changes things, and having the chance to settle on a shield bonus is a very big factor. Assuming the cattle are on grassland, I think that we can grow to size 3 in 12 turns by settling at the start position. (7 turns for first growth, then 2 turns with 3 food/turn before border expansion, then 3 turns with 5 food/turn.) We can grow to size 3 in 10 turns by moving closer to the cattle. (1 turn to move, 5 turns for first growth, 4 turns for second growth.) So moving gains two turns toward growth. But it loses one shield per turn for a very long time and it uses up a BG. Before deciding I want to learn more about what else lies under the fog. If there are even more goodies perhaps even a two step move could make sense for the settler. All I'm sure of at this point is that there will be interesting decisions to make - the first thing is to scout NE and see what else is nearby.

Based on what we know, why isn't moving north the right move? Assuming there's a cow to the southeast of the hill and/or a sugar to the northwest of the hill (two hypotheses the fog-gazers have put forth, and who am I to argue?), it puts both food bonus tiles within our initial starting radius. It also provides a means to irrigate the sugar at our earliest convenience. We've still got one fur in our initial radius, and will grab two more on first expansion. Same for the bonus grasslands.

My initial plan is to move the scout northeast then north onto the hill. I suppose if the fog gazers are wrong and everything I see from the hill is desert, I might move the worker west. But probably, I'll move the settler north, road the fur, and then irrigate the hypothetical cow.

 

[Mistfit]

I made some modeling and I think there is a cattle on E,NE tile from start spot

I believe the reported cow spotting is 2 tiles SE of the hill. So you would not benifit from the cow until after the expansion of the borders.

 

[SirPleb]

Edit: deleted, Mistfit already answered

 

[Roland Ehnström]

The discovery that there are cattle E,NE makes a huge difference! Do we know for sure that they're on grassland, or might that be plains they're on?

Let me put it this way: I am more sure that the tile in question is Grassland, than that there is in fact a Cow walking around on it.

-- Roland

 

[Roland Ehnström]

So i edited the pictures collor settings a bit, and yes, i see something but how do you know it's a cow?

You can't know for sure that it is a cow, and don't kill me if I am wrong (kill Dynamic, it's his discovery! ). But you can tell it's most likely a cow, by using the editor. You build a number of different worlds (different bonuses in that tile), and compare the result in the game (the "shape" of the blurry pixels) to ainwood's initial screenshot. Doing this, the result I get is that it is most likely a cow there. Of course, it could well be something else, or worse: Nothing at all.

-- Roland

 

[WackenOpenAir]

do you not alter the picture in some editing program before seeing any blury pixels ?

I don't have experience with picture editing, is there any program that will let you not just alter brightness,contrast and colors, but also alows you to specify a collor range and zoom in on that? (like you could turn the 10 darkest tints out to a white to black grayscale)

That could help a lot.

 

[dmanakho]

The Cow or not the cow

Let me tell you how it really works. Ainwood has to keep the thread hot, so he is leaking information to the trusted parties, and those trusted parties in their turn masquerade information leaked from Ainwood as their abilities to look under the fog . Everybody else is getting fooled time after time after time

 

[Roland Ehnström]

WackenOpenAir, that would surely be helpful, but so far I've just used regular zoom. What I have done, however, is make sure I save my own screenshots with the same amount of jpg-compression as ainwood is using for the official pre-game screenshot (looks like it's around 40%).

-- Roland

 

[solenoozerec]

The Cow or not the cow

moo or not to moo.

Everybody else is getting fooled time after the time after the time

I do not have sufficient data for statistic, but at least in COTM3 predicted caw existed.

However, the prolem is that sometimes Ainwood starts to move mountains and rivers around after publishing the map.

So I do suspect that the moo (or another creature) is likely to be there in fog right now, but... nobody garantees us that it still will be there when we startto play

 

[Xarin]

Is sending the scout to the hill definitely the right opening play? It seems like sending it E, E or E, SE might be better. It reveals only 10 total tiles instead of 17 (since we already know the sugar) to the hill, but it reveals a minimum of two more tiles adjacent to the river and the tiles it reveals are far more likely to be cows, wheat or BG's. It's certainly the most likely direction for our second city.

 

[Denniz]

Based on what we know, why isn't moving north the right move? Assuming there's a cow to the southeast of the hill and/or a sugar to the northwest of the hill (two hypotheses the fog-gazers have put forth, and who am I to argue?), it puts both food bonus tiles within our initial starting radius. It also provides a means to irrigate the sugar at our earliest convenience. We've still got one fur in our initial radius, and will grab two more on first expansion. Same for the bonus grasslands.

My initial plan is to move the scout northeast then north onto the hill. I suppose if the fog gazers are wrong and everything I see from the hill is desert, I might move the worker west. But probably, I'll move the settler north, road the fur, and then irrigate the hypothetical cow.

I don't think you can get a food bonus from sugar by irrigating in Depot since you take a -1 if >= 3. You can get 2f & 2s by mining, however.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

I don't think you can get a food bonus from sugar by irrigating in Depot since you take a -1 if >= 3. You can get 2f & 2s by mining, however.

Really? Nuts. I thought you could get 3 food out of irrigated sugar in despotism.

Uh ... I mean ... you can irrigate the sugar once you get out of despotism. Yeah, that's what I meant!