Gengis Khan
Deity
You forgot to vote scout?
GK2- The Training Day Experiment
- Thread starter Gengis Khan
- Start date
SolarKnight
Guardian of the Balance
Although i would happily take any of the starts if im outvoted, i would like to carry on with my start as i feel i could get the settler factory started very quickly and will also have a second city within the next turn which I wanted to be either a settler or worker factory.
scoutsout
Minstrel Boy
Deliberately. I've been posting a lot, and I want to give my classmates a chance to get a word in edgewise.
Besides, I think all of the positions are playable. They'd need to be played a little differently, sure. But they're all playable. I think all of us did some good things, and all of us would play those first 10 turns better if we played 'em again.
I will give these comments:
I thought Infoman did better tech-wise than any of us. That Settler that SolarKnight popped is potentially huge. I think you'd probably have to split some hairs to find a meaningful difference in the overall quality of the starts that Shogun and I had. They're different, but nearly equal.
Sir Bugs noted some striking differences in scouting patterns between Shogun and me, without saying that one was "better". Ironically, it was my scouting pattern that made the little er, spirited discussion between me and Mad-Bax possible...but I digress...
I think discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the different positions will force the four of us to consider how we'd play each. I think that will make a difference in the way the next 10 turns are played, regardless of the position we choose.
scoutsout
Minstrel Boy
IMO, we're not ready to 'vote' yet. Take a look at the questions I posted earlier, give them some thought. Please, post what you think.
Assuming you're referring to a settler factory in the capitol, think about how you'd get the settler factory going in any of the starting positions. I will add that you do seem to have a solid start on the Granary, and I've been thinking about whether my starting position could catch up to that production...
Also take another look at what Sir Bugs posted regarding the "Farmer's Gambit". Then take a second look at that settler you popped, and tell us what you think. I'm curious to know if you're thinking the same thing I'm thinking...
Sir Bugsy
Civ.D.
Let's get the lurkers out there to pick which game we should continue with. The polls are now open.
Also, if we have any lurkers that would like to join the game in tmarze's place, just pipe up.
Also, if we have any lurkers that would like to join the game in tmarze's place, just pipe up.
scoutsout
Minstrel Boy
Well that certainly changes things!
Gengis Khan
Deity
Brilliant! Very good idea bugs!
So how bout it Lurkers? Which game should we use?
So how bout it Lurkers? Which game should we use?
yoshi74
Tourist from Mars
lurker's comment:
I think i vote for the one which should NOT countinued.
The extra settler in SolarKnights game is the best you got from a hut, and it would make the game a lot easier. So i think you will learn more when you drop this (although it hurts
)
[relurk]
I think i vote for the one which should NOT countinued.
The extra settler in SolarKnights game is the best you got from a hut, and it would make the game a lot easier. So i think you will learn more when you drop this (although it hurts
)[relurk]
denyd
Emperor
Agree on passing on the extra settler game, though everything else looks good.
I like Infoman & Shogun's except for the warrior, it's too early to spend shields on military.
Scout did a better job of managing the growth of the city and he also has a couple of scouts working hard and a granary underway, are all good points. He got a couple of techs to use for trading and has begun developing the ground around the capital. So this one gets my lurker vote.
I like Infoman & Shogun's except for the warrior, it's too early to spend shields on military.
Scout did a better job of managing the growth of the city and he also has a couple of scouts working hard and a granary underway, are all good points. He got a couple of techs to use for trading and has begun developing the ground around the capital. So this one gets my lurker vote.
scoutsout
Minstrel Boy
no no no no no ...don't pick mine, I wanna play! 
I think the warrior in Shogun's start was of the conscript, goody-hut, no-shield-cost variety. He could be used for a little contentment in the city, nearby scouting, etc... maybe we can get him on some high ground and get him some combat experience against a barb...
One of those other starts (I think it was also Shogun's) is one turn away from completing a scout. Since we did the save before hitting <Enter>, the next player could change the queue to Granary, and put the shields in there, right?
The possibility of a build queue adjustment is one of the reasons I think my start and Shogun's are pretty close...a warrior versus a tech, re-allocate some shields... Ironically, both of us have a scout in position to pop the same goody hut on the next turn...
Unless it would be considered unsportsmanlike, I may download those other saves this evening and have a look...
Seriously, denyd, thanks for the compliments. I may be off on some of this, but here are a couple of quick thoughts:
I think the warrior in Shogun's start was of the conscript, goody-hut, no-shield-cost variety. He could be used for a little contentment in the city, nearby scouting, etc... maybe we can get him on some high ground and get him some combat experience against a barb...
One of those other starts (I think it was also Shogun's) is one turn away from completing a scout. Since we did the save before hitting <Enter>, the next player could change the queue to Granary, and put the shields in there, right?
The possibility of a build queue adjustment is one of the reasons I think my start and Shogun's are pretty close...a warrior versus a tech, re-allocate some shields... Ironically, both of us have a scout in position to pop the same goody hut on the next turn...
Unless it would be considered unsportsmanlike, I may download those other saves this evening and have a look...
Gengis Khan
Deity
Proceed as you like, just don't hit enter.
scoutsout
Minstrel Boy
Infoman - I had a little trouble downloading your save. I was able to work around the problem and get it downloaded, but the link is missing a couple of things in the URL... Shoot me an e-mail if you have trouble finding destructions in the forums and want some help with this stuff...
GK - I promise not to hit <enter> (or spacebar) on these saves...
GK - I promise not to hit <enter> (or spacebar) on these saves...
I was reading this and I wanted to point one (ok, I got to pontificating and it was more than one - I do have a tendency for longer posts - hopefully it is of some use) thing out:
Scoutsout's move to get the scout a turn earlier is not free. Growth was delayed a turn. It is therefore quite possible that every settler from the capitol will be a turn later. The effect is similar to moving twice before settling. The benifit is that your first two scouts are a turn ahead.
In other words you have probably delayed the founding of every city in your empire (other than your capitol) by one turn in order for two scouts to be a single turn ahead.
This reasoning has led me to always emphasizing food over growth with my capitol with very few exceptions. They are:
Certain floodplain cities have plenty of food, but little shields. In this case shields can be better than food.
When you have +3 food (with or without a granary) or +4 food with a granary (or 6+ food extra food) you have excess food and can micromanage your food. For example, with a max of+4 food and a granary you build in 3 whether you choose +4, +3, +3 or +4, +4, +4.
Building a granary before the turn you grow is worth +10 food. Thus you can get more food by slowing growth. The worst case if they both build on the same turn. To calculate how much you gain you take 10 - Max food per turn* number of turns you delayed. So if you have +4 food and delay growth 2 turns you have gained 2 food (you will be at 10 instead of 8).
If you are approaching size 7 and your settler is not going to be finished after you hit size 7. I usually play around with increasing and decreasing food until the two line up. Building a worker is another alternative which has the advantage of using the the food.
Sometimes building faster is worth the waste. Defense of ones capitol due to suspicious movement by the AI for example.
-------------------------
I would not use RCP in a training game. Knowing that it exists and that the article is in the strategy articles is sufficient. I would base a training game on settling in optimal spots. Finding the best spots is a much more difficult problem than putting your cities in a ring.
City density is largely a matter of choice and very much depends on the situation. If you play with 4 civs on a large map, you would want very little overlap as you have all the space in you will need. If you play with as many civs as you can then a tighter build is probably better. Things to consider are:
1) Cities do not grow to size 12 until later in the game. Because of this having more than 12 squares per city will waste squares for the formative years which can really hurt you at the higher difficulties. I often use coasts to help with this - during the early game all cities are fully using land squares, but then when cities get hospitals, the coastal cities start using more water tiles and less land tiles so all cities can grow to size 16 or so.
2) I have become very attached to putting cities at distance 3 (so city-tile-tile-city. The reason for this is that one city can defend another by moving along roads. So if china lands 2 attack units next to a city, there are 1-4 cities that are 3 moves away, and the defenders of those cities can be brought into the endangered city. There is nothing more agravating than having cities at distance 4 and losing a city because all the units that could help defend it miss by a square.
3) I also never like building a city within the 20 tiles another city can work (distance 2). I may want all 20 spots (it might allow me to build a tank in one turn instead of 2 for example) for a city.
4) It just so happens that placing cities at distance 3 as mentioned above tends to lead to about 12 squares per city (on average that is 3 squares SW is very different from 3 squares S in terms of overlap.
--------------------
Since you asked lurkers to vote:
Shoguntake's save simply because of my first point on Scoutsout's turn delay and is a decent middle road in terms of chance.
Second choice would be SolarKnights save with the settler disbanded or merged into the capitol.
Scoutsout's move to get the scout a turn earlier is not free. Growth was delayed a turn. It is therefore quite possible that every settler from the capitol will be a turn later. The effect is similar to moving twice before settling. The benifit is that your first two scouts are a turn ahead.
In other words you have probably delayed the founding of every city in your empire (other than your capitol) by one turn in order for two scouts to be a single turn ahead.
This reasoning has led me to always emphasizing food over growth with my capitol with very few exceptions. They are:
Certain floodplain cities have plenty of food, but little shields. In this case shields can be better than food.
When you have +3 food (with or without a granary) or +4 food with a granary (or 6+ food extra food) you have excess food and can micromanage your food. For example, with a max of+4 food and a granary you build in 3 whether you choose +4, +3, +3 or +4, +4, +4.
Building a granary before the turn you grow is worth +10 food. Thus you can get more food by slowing growth. The worst case if they both build on the same turn. To calculate how much you gain you take 10 - Max food per turn* number of turns you delayed. So if you have +4 food and delay growth 2 turns you have gained 2 food (you will be at 10 instead of 8).
If you are approaching size 7 and your settler is not going to be finished after you hit size 7. I usually play around with increasing and decreasing food until the two line up. Building a worker is another alternative which has the advantage of using the the food.
Sometimes building faster is worth the waste. Defense of ones capitol due to suspicious movement by the AI for example.
-------------------------
I would not use RCP in a training game. Knowing that it exists and that the article is in the strategy articles is sufficient. I would base a training game on settling in optimal spots. Finding the best spots is a much more difficult problem than putting your cities in a ring.
City density is largely a matter of choice and very much depends on the situation. If you play with 4 civs on a large map, you would want very little overlap as you have all the space in you will need. If you play with as many civs as you can then a tighter build is probably better. Things to consider are:
1) Cities do not grow to size 12 until later in the game. Because of this having more than 12 squares per city will waste squares for the formative years which can really hurt you at the higher difficulties. I often use coasts to help with this - during the early game all cities are fully using land squares, but then when cities get hospitals, the coastal cities start using more water tiles and less land tiles so all cities can grow to size 16 or so.
2) I have become very attached to putting cities at distance 3 (so city-tile-tile-city. The reason for this is that one city can defend another by moving along roads. So if china lands 2 attack units next to a city, there are 1-4 cities that are 3 moves away, and the defenders of those cities can be brought into the endangered city. There is nothing more agravating than having cities at distance 4 and losing a city because all the units that could help defend it miss by a square.
3) I also never like building a city within the 20 tiles another city can work (distance 2). I may want all 20 spots (it might allow me to build a tank in one turn instead of 2 for example) for a city.
4) It just so happens that placing cities at distance 3 as mentioned above tends to lead to about 12 squares per city (on average that is 3 squares SW is very different from 3 squares S in terms of overlap.
--------------------
Since you asked lurkers to vote:
Shoguntake's save simply because of my first point on Scoutsout's turn delay and is a decent middle road in terms of chance.
Second choice would be SolarKnights save with the settler disbanded or merged into the capitol.
akots
Poet
How's about just calculate QSC-type score? You can try to do it yourself or post the saves and me or somebody else can calculate them for you. It is rather easy. Just needs a spreadsheet in Excel.
Sir Bugsy
Civ.D.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Greebley. I knew I would learn something working this game.
scoutsout
Minstrel Boy
Lots of city advice here I'm going to have to re-read. Though I can't play this out without cheating, I think your "every settler...a turn later" conclusion may be premature.
Something to consider: I also started the Granary a turn earlier.
Edit: I'm building a spreadsheet to compare some granary build-out scenarios... It looks like managing for food or shields would require a little bit of micromanagement at some point after the city hits size 3, and that the smart thing to do would be to cut back food for a couple of turns at some point in the process so that the granary isn't empty the turn it's built.
I'm going to play with these numbers and see if one version or the other can gain a clear advantage in getting the granary built one turn earlier. My first cut shows that it makes no difference, but I'm going to go through it as best I can.
Thats why I used the word "probably". There may be situations where hurrying to the granary is a win. Remember though that when you grow to size 2 one turn later, you lose one of the shields you saved, and again when you grow to size 3 assuming there are are 2 BG's.
I definitely recommend doing the study though and seeing how the two work out. That is an excellent way to learn the game.
For example if there were no BG at all, just grassland, and forest, I could well believe using the forest could be beneficial. Getting the granary earlier IS a benefit.
I definitely recommend doing the study though and seeing how the two work out. That is an excellent way to learn the game.
For example if there were no BG at all, just grassland, and forest, I could well believe using the forest could be beneficial. Getting the granary earlier IS a benefit.
Gengis Khan
Deity
Whew! After spending 3 hours reinstalling, then deleting, then installing Civ again, trying the patch, reinstalling, trying it again I finally got it to work.
I'll post the save we'll be using & some screenshots shortly.
I'll post the save we'll be using & some screenshots shortly.
scoutsout
Minstrel Boy
Good deal GK...it'll be good to get going. I've started 2 vanilla games in the meantime...trying to decide which to finish. Maybe I'll get to set 'em both off to the side this weekend!
I've had a heckuva time finding something that Mad Bax posted a while back on how stuff is tallied in the cities between turns (using for this spreadsheet I'm going to send to Greebly)... gotta make sure I count stuff right...dang, splitting hairs is almost like work!
I've had a heckuva time finding something that Mad Bax posted a while back on how stuff is tallied in the cities between turns (using for this spreadsheet I'm going to send to Greebly)... gotta make sure I count stuff right...dang, splitting hairs is almost like work!
