New sandbox t68

[2metraninja]

OK, I will do so, Jovan and will report demographics tonight.

 

[2metraninja]

Comparing Pyramids-save and cottages-save at t89 gives us enough information, through almost double difference in food+hammers.

I will again say it does not give good picture, as it was a slaved down version (to get the Pyramids) of what the same empire will look in just 10 turns after the cities regrow from 2-3 to size 5-6. Anyway, I will play your save using your advices and report what is the situation at turn 100.

 

[2metraninja]

I would like someone else playing Jovan's save 10 more turns to turn 100 and report sustainable beakers per turn, hammers and food per turn to be sure I am not doing something wrong as I being biased.

 

[YossarianLives]

When I opened up both saves (2metra and vranasm), I have to admit I thought 2metra's looked more compelling. But I agree with vranasm that the biggest problem with his save was Monarchy. I played some turns last night but wasn't liking my results, so I'll try again today with Writing->Maths->Currency.

Pyramids are strong, no doubt. Probably stronger than our Fin trait if we can get them. It just feels weird to me to put aside the best trait in the game to use a SE instead.

 

[2metraninja]

No, you are getting me wrong. I am not proposing we use SE. All I am proposing is to get The Pyramids quite cheap (225h) and convert those hammers in to 550 beakers of not teching Monarchy. All the rest is just a bonus - earlier math, earlier currency, earlier Aestetics and Literature for TGL if you wish. We will use some specialists for sure trough all the game too, right? Either for GS for academy, or others for Golden Ages or bulbing or whatever. Why not having +3 beakers on each and every specialist we run? ANd why we dont want +3 happy faces in our 5 biggest cities? And why we dont want to be able to slave units under Police State while no one else can? Why would we leave such good things to some other team, while burying beakers in Monarchy just to be able to control our nation growing cities?

I am not saying we dont make cottages, God, I adore cottages! I said this even in this subforum just 2 weeks ago when we were discussing with vranasm - libraries vs cottages. Remember where I was insisting that the math for cottages is always better compared with normal scientists? Well, the Representation changes the things a lot. We can use food to feed scientists and get nice beakers output when we need it.

 

[2metraninja]

As for the Jovan's save, I played it to turn 100 and it felt quite strong on food and production (117 food for me vs 167 for Jovan - thats 40%; and 38 hammers versus 68 - 75% more). On the science, I was making 60 sustainable bpt and Jovan was making 30 (100% in my favor). You had 13 vs my 10 cities too. But I saw something which almost makes the results from the sandbox almost unusable. Thing is you had actually built the SH. This gave you access to some 20 more food per turn you used for 20 turns till now while otherwise you were unable to work in the first (and most crucial for a city) turns. So no sweet cow-pig-horse city anymore Another thing I noticed is you dont have much army - just 4 serious units. You are no near GS for academy and you were still some 20 turns away from currency. Our max beakers at deficit research were however equal - 150 bpt.

 

[YossarianLives]

Here's my save. Summary:

11 cities, 1 Settler ready to go
15 Fast Workers
10 Axemen, 3 Spearmen
Academy built T99
5 Granaries, 3 Libaries
150 bpt at deficit research, very low breakeven GNP (~30), couple turns from Currency
Crop Yield 114, Mfg 53

Pictures:

Spoiler :

Bottom line, Pyramids are worth the sacrifice if we can get them, not worth the sacrifice for failgold alone. Another lost race at these costs could put us really far behind. Playing solid, but safe and average, can make it hard to break out of the middle of the pack. What's the best choice here? Really hard to say. I guess it's time to put it to a vote.

 

[vranasm]

well I took another test/look into the writing->math->currency path... i don't think I would beat what Yossarian posted.

I don't think that the no-Mids route is superior in economic techs, but for sure in food+hammers and it seems like it will be managable to get Currency in reasonable timeframe.

I will post my save if someone wants to look. It is a bit worse since I have 9 cities settled, but 2 settlers are in their place to settle city at the point of us getting currency.

4 turns to 1st GS in terasvin, there are another GPP's running in lana.

But overall I think Yoss posted better save. I would agree though that writing->math->currency is the way to go and I am borderline on the thinking of abandoning the Mids since will outexpand the Mids save and currency will hopefully not be terribly late to not get better overal empire.

 

[Maga_R]

and currency will hopefully not be terribly late to not get better overal empire.

Are we pursuing currency for trade routes or to build wealth? In the latter case I would argue failgold is tempting

 

[vranasm]

Are we pursuing currency for trade routes or to build wealth? In the latter case I would argue failgold is tempting

we need both... and we could arguably start building market in strongest cottage cities

failgold is problematic...it doesn't help you when you actually crash economy since you don't know when you will get it. it's nice conversion, but doesn't help you avoid crash/get out of it.

 

[2metraninja]

failgold is problematic...it doesn't help you when you actually crash economy since you don't know when you will get it. it's nice conversion, but doesn't help you avoid crash/get out of it.

It is not problematic at all. If I get it unintentionally from failed Pyramids, then great! I got it actually BEFORE i crash my economy. If I am getting the failgold by my intention, then I will get it right when I need it. (Start building TGW in my strongest production city, and at the same time start build Axe in my strongest food city, On turn 2 whip the axe, on the third turn overflow in TGW, the production city builds something else. Repeat starting turn 4, whip turn 5, turn 6 overflow in TGW. For 6 turns, I get 2 axes, a World Wonder and 120-150 failgold coins. 150/6=25. 25 gpt is ALL our income from all cities at 100% slider at the moment. We double our empire income along with getting a World Wonder and few axes. But sigh...

 

[Maga_R]

failgold is problematic...it doesn't help you when you actually crash economy since you don't know when you will get it. it's nice conversion, but doesn't help you avoid crash/get out of it.

That is true that unpredictability of the failgold is its biggest disadvantage. Although if we decide to go for a wonder, we have control over it - we can build same wonder in several cities (in turns), ideally getting both wonder and failgold.

 

[Maga_R]

It is not problematic at all. If I get it unintentionally from failed Pyramids, then great! I got it actually BEFORE i crash my economy. If I am getting the failgold by my intention, then I will get it right when I need it. (Start building TGW in my strongest production city, and at the same time start build Axe in my strongest food city, On turn 2 whip the axe, on the third turn overflow in TGW, the production city builds something else. Repeat starting turn 4, whip turn 5, turn 6 overflow in TGW. For 6 turns, I get 2 axes, a World Wonder and 120-150 failgold coins. 150/6=25. 25 gpt is ALL our income from all cities at 100% slider at the moment. We double our empire income along with getting a World Wonder and few axes. But sigh...

This! Sorry, replied to vranasm before reading your post.

But if our team is set on getting NO wonder - then it does become problematic