GK2- The Training Day Experiment

I'm not sure why we're waiting to war with Persia. If it were my call to make, I'd say go ahead and drop the :hammer:

The thing a lot of people like to avoid is a golden age in Despotism. While a GA in Republic would be slightly better than one in Monarchy, either would be far superior to a GA in Despotism. (Much is lost to Despotism penalties.)

Since you guys are researching Feudalism, and have neither Literature nor Republic, the question is more of a tactical one. Do you want to drag this out until Xerxes has Pikemen?
 
D'oh!!!!!! And I mean a BIG, GIANT D'OH!!!!

For some reason, I thought we were still in despotism. Since we ARE in Monarchy- KILL PERSIA!!!! Send MWs to Zulu. The very first turn of the next players turns let's get those MWs moving.
 
Oh don't worry I'm going to finsh the Persians off in my 10 turns... we should be set up complete with the galleys and the MWs... the only quetion is if that they'll be wipped off the face of the earth, or have a city or 2 left.;) I believe it's my turn, and after we have a bit more disccussion I'm jump right on... we're probably looking at weds afternoon.

We weren't waiting to get out of Despotism to start our GA... we were waiting to get some infra builds set up before we started the war... nothing worse then a GA army that's outdated before the GA is done.
 
Alright gang - the "Kill Persia" talk is fun; but each of you, please take the latest save (GJs) and analyze the present situation. In case you missed it in the shadow log, here are the questions:

1) What would you do to finish the Zulu? How would you (generally) pursue the campaign? Would you send some Mounted Warriors over there?

2) Scroll through each of our cities. I mean, pull up "City View" for one of them, and then use the arrow keys to look at the city view of every dadgum city we've got, and answer the following:

2a) Which cities need border expansions?
2b) Which cities need some "serious worker turns"?
2c) Which cities have unit factory and/or commerce/science potential, and what do we need to do to realize that potential?
 
Alright, I got 1 and 2a done, I think. Answer to 1:

The Zulu campaign: I think we are best off trying to mop it up with swordsmen. Consider that most of our MWs are in Panama...even if we built new ones, we would either have to ship them with galleys or wait half a dozen turns (it takes 6 to get on Isandhlwana's doorstep!) for them to come into play. We can get one more boatload of swords fairly quickly, which would bring us to 9 swordsmen. I think if we keep them concentrated, we can make it through the Zulu towns.

I might use MWs to help clean up against Ulundi, since it's much closer to everything else. It's practically on our road network.

--

Answer to 2(a):

Cities who have not had any border expansions: Forget scrolling city-by-city, just use F5! (FINALLY a practical use for the culture screen! See my turnlog for previous lamentations.) Anyone who is at influence level 1 has not yet had a border expansion.

These cities, in the order they appear on my culture screen (arbitrary? I can't seem to sort by column), are as follows:
Zimbabwe, Kyoto, Tokyo, Grand River, Allegheny, Oil Springs, Tonawanda, Hlobane, St. Regis, Centralia, Akwesasne, Tyendenaga, Kahnawake, Caughnawaga, Oka, Chondote, Nara, Camp Mistic, and Panama.

Some of these might have their bases covered by nearby cities. The cities of Kyoto, Tokyo, Grand River, Allegheny, Oil Springs, Tonawanda, St. Regis, Centralia, Akwesasne, Kahnawake, Caughnawaga, and Chondote have most of their tiles available to be worked. Usually, the tiles that aren't available are coastal tiles, since there aren't any Alpha Centauri sea colonies to help add to our culture boundaries :)

The cities left are the ones whose production will be quite significantly improved by a border expansion (and without need for a pesky harbor build) are, therefore: Zimbabwe (12 tiles available), Hlobane (9), Tyendenaga (12), Oka (13), Nara (9), Camp Mistic (14), and Panama (12). This seems about right. We just captured Zimbabwe and Hlobane. Tyendenaga is a little coastal city that's not close to anything except Akwesasne. Oka is a similar holding near Tonawanda - it has the misfortune of not being near other cities. Nara is the little village behind Zulu lines. Camp Mistic screams for a productivity improvement by clearing jungle, and Panama's been too busy working on a barracks to do much of anything else.

Notes:
* Kyoto has not had its first border expansion, which neglects two (!) wheat tiles to its southwest, but most of its other land tiles are filled in.
* Grand River has all 21 tiles worked in spite of having no border expansion.
* Kahnawake, in spite of having most all of its tiles available, is not growing, probably because two of the available tiles are mined hills. Without a harbor or a crash irrigation project based on clearing the forest NW of Niagara Falls and irrigating inward, it might be tough to get growth there.
* Akwesasne is experiencing a similar problem, but there's a forest clear in progress that should help at least a little bit.
* Oka isn't growing because it's a poor desert town. Poor Oka :(
* St. Regis and Centralia will both pick up an extra resource (the fish) if they get a border expansion.
* Camp Mistic's productivity will improve immensely when we finish clearing out the jungle tiles there. It was borderline for "most of their tiles available," which, I'll admit, is a horribly subjective measure.

---

I'll keep thinking about wrapping things up with the Zulu and work on answers to 2b and 2c.

(edit: added number of tiles available to the cities that desperately need a border expansion. The other cities who haven't gotten 21 from their own expansion are in the 18-21 range themselves, and they're mostly in the core of the empire.)
 
@GJ: you're on the right track with the border expansion thing, though F5 is of no help. Forget about the cities that are in the interior... what I'm after is this: Which cities can work any of 21 tiles surrounding the center. Some cities will overlap - this is okay. But we have some cities that can only work 9 tiles, because that's where our cultural borders end...
 
scoutsout said:
Question for the team: what is the danger in fortifying a unit in Jungle?

Does anyone happen to know the probability of that, by the way? In all of my games I have only had one unit die. A jaguar warrior died in the late Middle Ages or early Industrial Ages, and he had been there to avoid too many barbarian camps and I never bothered to move him. I doubt he was the only unit standing in jungle. City disease seems to be more common.
 
Finally finished reading through all of this lot. Great job to everybody on this!

I just wanted to say something regarding ControlFreak's post on the matter of the worker moves.

Way, way, way back in post #640 he said:
ControlFreak said:
Two workers moving to the FP on the same turn will irrigate in 2 turns. But making them both road it afterwards wastes one turn. (Still takes 2 turns = 4 worker turns, to build a 3turn road.)

I don't think that this is entirely the way the game works this out (or maybe I just missed the point he was trying to make and it's somewhat more subtle than I am). I've never played a vanilla Civ game, but certainly in PtW and Conquests the above isn't entirely accurate.

If we take a road as our example again with 2 workers then I think the following happens:

We move both workers onto the tile. Instructing the first worker tells us that the road will complete in 3 turns. At this point there are three worker turns left to do in order to finish that road.

When we look at the second worker, before we instruct him to start it says there are 2 turns left to build the road and there doesn't seem any advantage in getting him to do this. Now, if we instruct him to do it anyway then we will have put 2 worker turns in to the 3 turn bucket.

The next time the workers get to move (normally in the IBT) the first worker will use his move to add another turn to our bucket. The bucket is now full and the road is complete. The IBT will then move on to the other instructed worker, but it sees that the road is complete so the move is not consumed in the IBT.

What you see is the following:

You instruct both workers to start a road. During the IBT the road completes and when you get to play again you will see a stack of two workers one with a move 0/1 and the other with a move of 1/1 so you can do something with him.
 
KS - This actually has to do with the rounding effect on worker turns. This is why stacking workers is more efficient if done properly. Cracker did all of the leg work for this in the War Academy. This is a must read..and re-read article for any wanna-be-deity player.
 
@ Bede - Thanks for your instruction on markets.

@ KayEss - I will have to look at your theory closer.

@ Tim - I have had several units die in the jungle. Very frustrating when you are gathering an attack force.

@ The Team - One advantage to all of your MW builds is that you won't need to build any military units during your GA. We've discussed the value of markets, but I would like each of you to consider which other buildings would be of value to build during the GA and where. I'm not looking for a formula here. ("I always build temple, research lab, and police station in every city") Each city is unique and has their own requirements. Something to look at while your going over the save is what building should you build where and why. I'm always interested in the why, because I like to see how your brains are working.
 
Sir Bugsy said:
@ KayEss - I will have to look at your theory closer.

That would be very cool. I've been through a load of stuff at the war acadamy (including the article by Cracker - thanks Mistfit) and haven't seen anything posted on exactly that sequence.

It doesn't mean that you shouldn't stack the workers, but does show that there is value in stacks that don't multiply out the number of base turns to complete an improvement.

There is a time when rounding effects become important on it. If you take a more modern build of rails on a flat tile this may take two worker turns. If you put one of your workers to it and then add a slave what happens depends on the order of the unit execution in the IBT. At the end of your turn you will have added 1.5 turns to the bucket. If the slave is first in the IBT turns then their extra 1/2 is added and the rails complete, but you still get to use your worker. If your worker goes first then it completes the rails, but now you've wasted the 1/2 slave turn (but you do get to do something with the slave on your next turn).

I think the final analysis will be somewhat more complex than this as there is a load of stuff with industrious traits and with the base worker efficiency, but I think most of the really complex stuff will only appear in mods.

I guess I should really do this properly and write it up with some serious analysis...

(Note that I never ever play the computer, I only do Play by Email games, but I can't imagine that this part of the game dynamics will be any different for that).
 
To recap, my answers to (1) and (2a) were:

1. Plow straight through, get the other swords in Kahnawake there by boat. If we keep our forces concentrated we'll be okay. Sending MWs would take a long time for anything but helping to clear out Ulundi.
2a. Cities which only have a few more than their original 9 available: Zimbabwe (12 tiles available to work), Hlobane (9), Tyendenaga (12), Oka (13), Nara (9), Camp Mistic (14), and Panama (12). The other cities either have had a border expansion or have most of their tiles available by overlap (usually by virtue of being in the core of the empire).

---

(2b) Where do we need to send the workers?

Well, how big are our cities going to be growing? :p I think this is almost a team discussion point, because the amount of effort we need to spend improving tiles depends on how many of them are actually going to be worked. If we're going for an ideal of having every tile worked for maximum benefit, we'll want to work on every tile in every city's 21.

For now, I think the following cities need more than just a touch-up on a square or two, or they will in the future:
* Osaka - Borderline, as I was getting some stuff done there on my turns. Post-Electricity I might consider going back for some irrigation, but for now it need just a few more turns to increase productivity.
* Tokyo - Borderline as well, although when it starts working more tiles after the next interturn, they'll be weak grasslands. It's not completely hurting for help, but some extra worker turns sure would be nice.
* Grand River has a couple of tiles that still need some irrigation.
* Allegheny definitely needs some improvements: the plains squares SW and 2NW of the city both need irrigation. If (when?) Allegheny's borders expand, the extra grass tile near Akwesasne and the mountains could use some benefits. I think Allegheny has enough food production potential (clear that forest and irrigate, maybe?) that mining the mountains and working them is not out of the realm of possibility, but we should finish irrigating plains first.
* Satsuma just needs general improvements to the rest of its tiles - a couple of grasslands, the mountain, and the hill. In particular, we might want to work that mountain later for the gold, so a road and mine wouldn't be a bad thing. We have plenty of food production here.
* Tonawanda still needs tiles irrigated.
* Hlobane needs to be thrown a bone for an expansion first. Then it will need irrigation everywhere we can get it.
* Kagoshima has many tiles that need improvements to its south and southwest.
* Mauch Chunk has some jungle tiles still in its radius that need to be cleared. Also, it looks like the hill north of the city is still unimproved.
* St. Regis would benefit from a harbor, a little extra irrigation west of the city, and some mines in its mountains (the irrigated floodplain helps the food issue).
* Centralia has one hill that should be improved soon for its seventh citizen. It's NW-N of the city and there are some workers standing on it.
* Akwesasne is kind of an unfortunate mess. To keep food production up, we'll almost certainly have to irrigate grasslands after we finish the forest chop and rely on hills and mountains for production. This might not be all bad, though if we do it, it's a long-term project that will definitely take some serious worker-turns.
* Caughnawaga needs some extra mining, roading, and irrigation. Less corruption would help a lot here, too.
* Oka needs more irrigation.
* Nara needs worker-turns everywhere. And a friend.
* Camp Mistic still needs its jungle tiles cleared. One of them is gone and there're workers hacking down the others.
* Panama has one jungle tile that needs clearing.
* Zimbabwe still needs serious worker-turns in all its tiles.
* Kyoto needs a border expansion in the worst way, but it also has a couple of grasslands that could be worked on.

In summary: A lot of our desert cities still need irrigation work to be productive. Cities which have a lot of mountains or hills in their radii are in the interesting position of needing more food and having none; a lot of them have mined grasslands. Now that the Despotism penalty is gone, I think we should consider mining the hills and irrigating over the grasslands, which would allow our city size to grow and produce a comparable number of shields (then we will be working more tiles for more commerce). Cities in old Zululand, old Japan, and outside the first ring need the most work. Some cities will be helped a lot by a harbor (food production, anyone?) and a border expansion.
 
Since Gengis has had some difficulties of late it has been decided that our training staff should be expanded slightly.

I would like to welcome Bede to our Training Staff. I have sung his praises in the past. He is an accomplished player having competed in GotM and RBCiv competitions in addition to numerous SGs. One of his forte's is city management. In RBCiv Epic 38, he won an remarkable OCC victory. His report of that game is excellent reading. In his new role, he will continue to add to the Civ community.

Welcome Brother Bede!
 
:wavey:

As always Bugs is too kind. To let you guys in on a little secret: that "remarkable" OCC 20K victory in RBC38 was the result of chickening out on the full scope of the game. With only one city (variant rules required enslavement to found a new town and I didn't want to go to war against Carthage, Germany, Rome and China all in the same game) it was a simple choice....

Here is a link to the story if anybody is interested:

Mayan OCC 20K-RBCivEpic38

I've already learned alot from this bunch about urban planning and FP placement, looking forward to the opportunity to return the favor.

Edit to Misfit's edit: That's Founding Member Order of the Wooden
Spoon. GK was part of that crew but I notice he doesn't talk about it much!:D
 
Welcome Bede! Be careful ladies and gentlemen, Bede has the habit of making you feel like... "What didn't I see that!?" Oh, if you ever want to have amphious warfare.... Bede is the man to see... he has a fetish for the Viks... maybe that's not the right word to be using with someone of Bede's ilk.:p He favors the Viks.;) Anyway, I'm looking forward to you posting regularly instead of just delurking once in a while.;)
 
Bede said:
GK was part of that crew but I notice he doesn't talk about it much!:D
@Brother Bede: I think he one-upped your sig with his avatar... :mischief:

Now that our SGOTM team's effort is over, I'd like to point out ... ooh wait... I can't... because team Bugsy isn't done yet....

Anyway - Sir Bugsy likes "thinking outside the box". And Mistfit came up with a little gambit that was way, way outside the box... and made a significant contribution to our "Capture the UN to win a Diplomatic Victory" variant.

For those that can, surf it. Mistfit did this crew proud.
 
You gave up a city? An Industrial Age, full fledged CITY?! That's insanity! INSANITY! But I guess it worked, so good thinking.;)
 
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