Deux Rivières Queue - 3000 BC

[Cyc]

OK, with this granary plan, you're saying we could double our Settler production. Ah, no. What you actually saying is we could get from size 1 to size 3 in half the time. That doesn't mean we're doubling our Settler production, it means we can get to a point where we can afford a Settler population-wise in half the time. Are you doubling the Shield production rate at the same time with your Granary? No. We will be able to achieve higher shield production with growth, but then we'd probably lose those laborers to entertainers anyway. Besides our Shield production will grow naturally even without the Granary, just not as quickly, which means a more controlled happiness level

Another thing we might want to consider is how many Settlers could we have pumped out while we were building a Granary (that we really didn't need yet). The quicker we get those Settlers created and turned into cities, the better off we are. Instead of having maybe three cities (one with a really good Granary ) and falling further behind, we could have 7 or 8 cities and be doggin' the AI.

 

[eyrei]

With one police unit, our city can grow to size 3 before we have an unhappy citizen. This could be dealt with with another police unit or using the luxury slider. The amount of resources we would have to expend would be very small.

Regardless, I think we should hold off on the granary.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I see the logic of the granary approach.

I think that we could control the mood of the citizens in that city, but at a great cost to our treasury. Further, as Cyc points out, the time lost in building the granary (given our poor productivity) will offset the advantages.

Our weakness right now is not population potential, as both our existing cities are pop producers. Our weakness is production capability, and we will need to laydown some roads through a dense jungle. Rather than building a granary, I would prefer to build workers and settlers.

 

[Furiey]

Sorry it’s taken a long time to reply to this, but I’ve been rather busy with work.

I’m not looking at producing the occasional 1 off Settler here, but churning them out one after the other.

The ability to grow to and maintain the population is only half of the ability to produce Settlers. Building a Granary will allow us to replace our population in half the time, giving 4 turns to gain/replace the population for a Settler compared to 8 turns without. Produce Settlers quicker than this and our population will not grow quickly enough, and we will need to produce other units/improvements in between Settlers to maintain the population. Produce them more slowly and our population will continue to grow resulting in unhappiness problems.

The other half of the equation is therefore the ability to produce enough shields to keep producing the Settlers at that optimum rate. This is not changed by building a Granary, but by the tiles in the city radius, improvements to those tiles and the city population.

In order to produce lots of Settlers we need both high growth and enough production. Some cities may have high growth, but not achieve the required production levels resulting in the population growing out of control and unhappiness problems – here we may be better off producing Workers as we can produce 3 Workers for the shields of 1 Settler. Other cities may have high production, but low growth, here we can produce Settlers far faster than the city can cope with and it would be better to produce military, improvements and Wonders with only the occasional Settler.

So – looking at Deux Rivières. Here we have both the potential of growth and production.

We need 30 shields to build a Settler so to achieve our maximum sustainable rate that’s an average of 3.75 shields/turn without a granary and 7.5 shields/turn with.

We need to keep the labourer on the wheat to maintain the growth, so we can currently produce, with no further improvement:

Pop Labourers on                                produces
1   Wheat                                       +5 food, 1 shield
2   Wheat and Bonus grass                       +5 food, 3 shields
3   Wheat and 2 Bonus grass                     +5 food, 5 shields
4   Wheat, 2 Bonus grass, and Forest            +4 food, 7 shields
4   Wheat, 2 Bonus grass, Irrigated Flood Plain +6 food, 5 shields
5   Wheat, 2 Bonus grass, 2 Forest              +3 food, 9 shields
5   Wheat, 2 Bonus grass, Forest, Irrigated FP  +5 food, 7 shields

The unhappiness at populations of 3 and 4 can be dealt with using Military Police. 5 would currently require a bit of slider. The slider would no longer be required once the dyes (or wines) are linked

So without a granary all we need (simply) is:

   pop 2 for 4 turns x 3 shields = 12 shields
  +pop 3 for 4 turns x 5 shields = 20 shields
             After 8 Turns Total = 32 shields   enough for the Settler

This will produce our Settler in the same time it takes the city to replenish the population so our city will balance at 2 or 3 in size, growing to 4 as the Settler is produced. If the city grows larger, the extra production would produce another Settler before the population was large enough and our population would drop lower, lowering our production, so the next Settler couldn’t be built as quickly allowing the population to rise again.

So what about with a Granary? Well to produce 7.5 shields/turn over 4 turns we obviously need a higher population, but at the moment, two of our high producing tiles – the forests do not produce enough food to maintain our 5 excess. This has the effect of slightly slowing the growth rate and slightly extending the time between Settlers.

So with a granary what we get is

   pop 4 for 1 turn  x 5 shields =  5 shields (+6 food)
  +pop 4 for 1 turn  x 7 shields =  7 shields (+4 food)
  +pop 5 for 2 turns x 9 shields = 18 shields (+3 food x 2)
             After 4 Turns Total = 30 shields   enough for the Settler

But this does not generate enough food (4 short) to grow at the same time as the Settler is produced, so the population drops to 3. We therefore need to look at the next Settler as well:

   pop 3 for 1 turn  x 5 shields =  5 shields (+5 food)
  +pop 4 for 1 turn  x 5 shields =  5 shields (+6 food)
  +pop 4 for 1 turn  x 7 shields =  7 shields (+4 food)
  +pop 5 for 2 turns x 7 shields = 14 shields (+5 food x 2)
             After 5 Turns Total = 31 shields   enough for the Settler

This time the Settler is produced in 5 turns and the population grows to 6 just as the Settler is produced, and we are back where we started at a population of 4.

So at the moment with a Granary we can’t quite get a Settler every 4 turns, but we can get 2 Settlers in 9 turns. This compares to 2 in 16 turns without.

The increase in production of Settlers is obvious, but what about the time it takes to build a Granary? How many Settlers could we have produced in that time?
Well if we take our current starting population of 2 and use the time it takes to grow to the required size to build the Granary, then it can be built in 12 turns:

   pop 2 for 4 turn  x 3 shields = 12 shields (+5 food)
  +pop 3 for 4 turn  x 5 shields = 20 shields (+5 food)
  +pop 4 for 4 turn  x 7 shields = 28 shields (+4 food)
            After 12 Turns Total = 60 shields   enough for a Granary

The population is still at 4 and will not grow to 5 for another turn. We can therefore embark on our 4,5,4,5 turn Settler building cycle.

So our potential Settler output is as follows

No. Settlers     Turns to Produce: No Granary   With Building Granary
    1                                 8              16 (12+4)
    2                                16              21
    3                                24              25
    4                                32              30
    5                                40              34
   10                                80              57

So in terms of founding our cities taking the time to build the granary will have the following effect:

    1st New City   founded  [COLOR=red]8 turns later[/COLOR]
    2nd New City            [COLOR=red]5 turns later[/COLOR]
    3rd New City            [COLOR=red]1 turn later[/COLOR]
    4th New City            [COLOR=green]2 turns earlier[/COLOR]
    5th New City            [COLOR=green]6 turns earlier[/COLOR]
   10th New City           [COLOR=green]23 turns earlier[/COLOR]

This is without looking at rushing the Granary or improving any further tiles.

 

[donsig]

Great stats Furiey! I'm wondering if you've taken into consideration the recuitment of warriors or spearmen. Barbarian activity is fairly high so our settlers need escorts. If we build a granary now and just recruit settlers in our capitol where will the escorts come from?

 

[Furiey]

The escorts for these Settlers would be best built in other cities, although at a population of 5, if we time it so that we have enough food in the granary to cover running at negative food, we can take a labourer off the wheat, put it on the plains and do a warrior in 1. this would obviously slow the Settler production up a bit, hence having another city producing the escorts would be best. It only needs 5 shields per turn to produce a Spearman to go with every Settler after all.

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by Cyc
We will eventually go into unhappiness because we are not building Settlers fast enough. A granary is NOT needed. Building Settlers is.

Current rate of growth is 4 turns.
With a granary, it's 2. We'll be building settlers QUICKER that way. The lux slider can be adjusted (provided there's an instruction to allow that...)

EDIT: Looking at the above chart, we can easily use our other cities to build warriors/spears and workers/settlers.

 

[Cyc]

Originally posted by Chieftess


Current rate of growth is 4 turns.
With a granary, it's 2. We'll be building settlers QUICKER that way. The lux slider can be adjusted (provided there's an instruction to allow that...)

I don't think so. We'll be growing quicker, yes. But we will not produce a Settler quicker until Settler number four, and then only by 2 turns. Meanwhile all the Settlers will be produced later, not sooner. Then if we ever stop producing Settlers to make anything else, such as a Temple, or Warrior, of Library, we will immediately go into unhappiness unless we take resources away from the Science Department or reduce our gold intake (if that should reverse). What's the point in crippling our city or our Sci Rate or our Gold intake? We can do very well leaving it as it is.

 

[Chieftess]

BTW, there is a temple in the DR build queue that takes 20 turns (currently). A granary would also take 20 turns (currently).

 

[Cyc]

Now a Temple I can see. Not only would that spur us ahead of the Babs and Russians in Culture (they currently have none), a Temple would help keep the unhapiness at bay also. But a Granary that will speed us towards unhappiness? Can't see it.

 

[Chieftess]

It would speed us to quicker settlers, and we can use the lux slider to micromanage happiness. Just look at the above chart. Babylon was probably stalled by barbs, but from the sound of it, they have a lot of borders (so, probably a good deal of food). Russia probably has jungle, too, and we haven't see any cities on "our side" yet (the side closer to us). What don't you see in that above chart, and the micromanagement of the lux slider? Sure it might lower science for a turn or two, but that's only short term. The long term effects is that we expand quicker, and we need to in this terrain.

 

[Furiey]

Originally Posted by Cyc
Then if we ever stop producing Settlers to make anything else, such as a Temple, or Warrior, of Library, we will immediately go into unhappiness unless we take resources away from the Science Department or reduce our gold intake

Not so - all we need to do is move the labourer off the Wheat and onto the Forest or Plains (or Hills). This will effectively stall our population growth and give us:

Pop Labourers on                                produces
4   2 Bonus grass, and 2 Forest            +0 food,  9 shields
5   2 Bonus grass, 2 Forest, Plains        -1 food, 10 shields

again allowing for no further improvements around the city. We just have to time it right and we could produce whatever we needed very quickly. Just move the labourer back to the Wheat and off we go again, churning out Settlers.