Gotm24-Korea Pre-game Discussion

[Qitai]

Opps... just re-check with my corruption calculator and it seems that the corruption will kick in after 10 shields
(My orginal plan was 10, 9, 11, 10 - see if you can figure out how to get that)

Still can make it work. But in this case, I will have to use the irrigated wheat once every four turn to get the same combo.

Mad-Bax> You can get 2 shield on town growth.

 

[mad-bax]

Greebley: you are right, hadn't thought about that. The warrior has to made in 1 turn at the lowest pop size, so you have to make 10 shields on the first turn.

The move NW does seem favourite now.

 

[Ankka]

Wow! Qitai really knows strategies here! Congrats.

 

[mad-bax]

The only way I can see to do that is to alternate the food surplus 4-6-4-6 and that means using the irrigated wheat every other turn and the forest on the turns you don't use the wheat.

I think I'll eat the 1 food loss, mine the wheat and use it every turn. The slight loss of efficiency when balanced against my psycological well-being is worth it I feel.

 

[ControlFreak]

Thinking a bit more about my choice to move 1W....and liking it less.

With the food bonuses you can get a growth-every-two in the start, NW or W. As Qitai stated, you can get warrior+settler every four turns in the NW.

What I just noticed is that the NW can also be a worker every turn capital once the expansion phase is complete. That sounds really good to me. But then I start thinking about...

Originally posted by LKendter
It really makes me wonder what the nasty surprise of the game is.

Moving to the NW is a trap! It's an ocean square disguised to look like a plains. Your settler will sink and your game will be over. Don't do it!

kryszcztov@ you still planning on staying on the hill?

 

[ControlFreak]

OMT (One more thing (TM))
All four of the bonus tiles are shorting you something while in despotism regardless of whether you mine or irrigate. More than ever, you will be rewarded for finding a new government ASAP.

 

[Karasu]

Thanks, Qitai, for the stimulating point you raise!
I only managed a quick look at the starting position yet, but you surely gave us a standard to check our games against.

Other than that, it's really hard to guess what the game looks like.
I suspect a lot of water too, but it may well be that we are at the end of some kind of peninsula in a typical display of Cracker's twists of geographical-historical reality.
That will shape my game plan -I am not even sure I'll go for Diplomatic, really.

 

[HookEmHorns]

I’m concerned that we are isolated so I plan on using max research on Pottery, then Writing. Map Making will probably be next though Literature is possible if my isolation assumption is wrong. I’ll go for the tournament victory condition so rapid technology will be important. I don’t want to drain the AIs’ cash too much so they can keep researching and trade techs. Seoul’s terrain provides a lot of cash and the free tech at each age change will help in moving technology along and keeping us current. A peaceful game will also speed technology.

I was thinking you couldn’t irrigate through a hill town but I checked last night on PTW 1.27f and it can be done. That has a big impact. If my calculations are right for settling on the hill, I should be able to build my granary in 3100 BC and my first settler in 2900 BC. I’ll probably alternate workers and settlers for awhile until a worker factory is set. I’m going to take one more look at this though after reading Qitai’s analysis.

I’m planning to use rapid expansion and undefended town to handle barbarians. Low treasury balance will reduce the barbarians’ impact. The second city will get some warriors built to escort the settlers if I can't get Qitai's idea to work.

Great Lighthouse will be important if the civilizations are dispersed and an early city will get going on the Colossus as a prebuild. If it’s not needed, the Colossus will be nice to have anyway and it’s usually fairly low priority for the AIs. Lighthouse will fulfill the Commercial wonder requirement so the Library should be avoided. Smith’s Trading Company is a good backup if the Lighthouse falls through. Newton’s University or Theory of Evolution will be nice complements for the Golden Age.

It would be very nice to get a second core of cities going before the Golden Age. A Palace jump is a likely way to accomplish this after the Forbidden Palace is built in the center of the current land mass.

 

[Sylock]

Qitai,
You've got me stumped. One assumption I'm making that might not be correct is that you are doing this with pop 4 through 6. If that is the case then you can't have 10 shields with 4 citizens unless you have 1 3 shield tile, and since we are in Dep I don't think that is possible with the current info. Since you need to make the warrior first this throws a wrench in the plans does it not? You'll also need one of the following in order to not get an unproductive civ:
1) Luxary raised (this is a strat I've never used but maybe the great players do?)
2) An extra bonus luxary

So unless you see something that I don't in the fog, there is no 3 shield tile, thus are you doing the 4 turn settler+warrior with population 5-7?

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by Sylock
1) Luxary raised (this is a strat I've never used but maybe the great players do?)

Don't be afraid of the luxury slider in the early game. It's a great way to keep you city productive. I've had the slider at 50% on some occations. The viking game had 30% for a long time. Nad gave a good analysis in his training day game. He said you are basically trading 1gpt to keep a citizen working who will give you 2 food, 1 shield and 1gold on an improved tile. Sounds like a good trade off to me. Especially in despotism when gold isn't good for anything but upgrades.

 

[mad-bax]

Originally posted by Sylock

So unless you see something that I don't in the fog, there is no 3 shield tile, thus are you doing the 4 turn settler+warrior with population 5-7?

The way it works (as I understand it) is that you spend two turns at size 5 and 2 at size 6. At the end of the turn at size 6 the settler is completed which should drop the pop to 4 on the interturn, but as the food box is full you get the extra citizen straight away so the population just drops to 5. If you make any mistake whatever in the micromanagement then you will not complete the settler in time, and this means your city will grow to size 7. At this point the number of food required to fill the food box is increased and the granary is emptied, so a turns food goes into the granary, rather than the food box, and on the next turn, even though you are back at size 5, the granary is still half empty. In effect it means that it takes 6 turns to make the settler. Also you risk making far too many shields, so instead of waiting 6 turns the settler completes early and your pop is reduced even further. Now you don't have enough shields to build a settler in 4 turns. Any way you look at it, getting to size 7 is not a good idea.

Again, this post is preceded with IMHO in bright neon lights.

 

[Txurce]

For those (like myself) who need all the tutoring they can get on creating a combo factory, Qitai laid out the workings of his original one in the QSC thread for GOTM20.

 

[samildanach]

Boy the micro-managers are having a field day with this start position. I never really spend too much time thinking about getting settler factories up and running as long as I have a couple producing settlers every 6-10 turns I'm happy. But given the victory condition and the map size I think I'll be joining the crusade for the Holy 4 - turn settler factory - hopefully speeding my bee-line to republic.

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by mad-bax
If you make any mistake whatever in the micromanagement then you will not complete the settler in time, and this means your city will grow to size 7. At this point the number of food required to fill the food box is increased and the granary is emptied, so a turns food goes into the granary, rather than the food box, and on the next turn, even though you are back at size 5, the granary is still half empty.

Having done this in GOTM22 the turn you realize you're going to miss the settler build switch to some infrastructure. Allow your largish size capital to grab a temple or barrack or even a spear. Then go back on settlers which will now build in 2 or 3 rather than 4. Your pop will start dropping back down towards your 5-7 cycle. If you've been in >6 size long enough to fill your granary then when you crash back to <6, you granary will already be full and you can continue on as normal. Staying at size 7 or more should not be thought of as a bad thing because there are still good things you can do with the higher pop. And you can still end up averaging 4turns per settler if you correct your "oversight" right away. Note that for this to work you need to improve more tiles than the 7 you're going to be using for the settler factory. Don't be to quick to move all your workers away from your capital. (Thank's to Sirian for these insights.)

 

[Karasu]

I just can't micromanage my games. It's really against my nature... but I will try to do it at least for the QSC period this time, even if I have to reduce the time I spend on each Civ session!!!

 

[Svar]

Originally posted by mad-bax
The only way I can see to do that is to alternate the food surplus 4-6-4-6 and that means using the irrigated wheat every other turn and the forest on the turns you don't use the wheat.

I'm no expert at this but even if I settle in place don't I get a food surplus of 2 on the very first turn? Then when I get the first wool irrigated this goes to 3 with only 1 population. When I get all the wool irrigated, I get a food surplus of 4 with a population of 2 and a food surplus of 5 with a population of 3. Then as long as I just work irrigated plains as well as the irrigated wool my food surplus stays at 5 as I add population.

 

[ControlFreak]

Svar@ Mad-Bax was refering to Qitai's combo factory which is a warrior+setter every four turns. You alternate 4-6-4-6 food so that the first turn (+4food) you also get 10s and build the warrior in one turn. The remaining three turns: +6 grow to size 6, +4, +6 grow to size seven, build settler drop to size 5 start over.

EDIT well I guess now everyone will be doing it. Qitai, you should never have started this.

 

[mad-bax]

If you settle on the spot you can get +5 food easily. But... to make a warrior and a settler in 4 turns you have to make the warrior in one turn, on the first turn. That means you need 10 shields.
The capital gives 1, the 3 wool give 6 and two plains give ermm.. 2 more and that makes 9. You come up short. You can swap a plain for a forrest which will give you 10 shields, but only 4 food. So if you do that you need to make 6 food on the next turn, and that means irrigating the wheat. Trouble is, the wheat isn't in the radius. Therefore you have to move the settler NW to bring it in.

My view is that it's simpler and more tolerant of my sloppy play to mine that wheat. Qitai's method is more accurate, but could you trust yourself to play with that precision? As ControlFreak says, if you make a mistake you could probably stick a rax in the city at size 7 and thereafter make vet warriors. So you pays your money and you makes your choice.

 

[Svar]

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Svar@ Mad-Bax was refering to Qitai's combo factory which is a warrior+setter every four turns. You alternate 4-6-4-6 food so that the first turn (+4food) you also get 10s and build the warrior in one turn. The remaining three turns: +6 grow to size 6, +4, +6 grow to size seven, build settler drop to size 5 start over.

EDIT well I guess now everyone will be doing it. Qitai, you should never have started this.

Thanks for the clarification. That sounds like an excellent approach. I think I will still build in place and gamble on finding a bonus grassland under the forest or even game on one of the forest tiles under the fog.

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by Svar
Thanks for the clarification. That sounds like an excellent approach. I think I will still build in place and gamble on finding a bonus grassland under the forest or even game on one of the forest tiles under the fog.

This may be the only game I waste the worker turn to move to the mountain. Checking the forest/grassland out before moving seem like the best way to minimize my losses. I don't like the capital one tile from the coast because it means coastal tiles without benefit of a harbor and no room for fishing villages. If there is a known BG I wouldn't move either.