News: GOTM 10 Pre-game Discussion

[Shillen]

I never whipped much before myself but in this case, the population cap is going to be so low early on that you're just going to be throwing good food away if you don't whip. You might as well turn those wonder bread slices into hammers or you'll be wasting an awful lot of them.

I'm going to do one more test game before I play and use the whip a lot, but I think you're really oversimplifying the situation. Sure your city is going to be really small anyway, but if you're whipping it's going to be even smaller. While a size 4 capital can be working 1-2 cottages, 1-2 mined hills and the pastured cows you'll be working the 2 fish right after a whip and then the cow or 1 cottage while it's growing from 3-4 and then you're whipping again. I'm not sure how much the production difference will be, but I bet working 2 mined hills is probably as good as the whip is.

Sure the whip might give you an advantage extremely early before you have mines on the hills and the pasture on the cows but IMO the benefit is not long-lived. There is a good chance your later cities will be high food/low production, though, but the capital is not with the 2 hills there and the size 4 limit.

edit: Sorry, checked the starting screenshot again and I see one of the hills requires a galley to improve, but I personally plan to move my settler where I will have 2 grassland hills available.

 

[Ribannah]

My computer crashed when I tried to load your savefile.
I had to reboot.

Ah, I see that I had an incomplete download. Weird with such a small file.
It loads fine now.
The question is, could you make a contender version? This one is no good for contender testing since Fishing and some other techs are already known.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

I'm going to do one more test game before I play and use the whip a lot, but I think you're really oversimplifying the situation. Sure your city is going to be really small anyway, but if you're whipping it's going to be even smaller. While a size 4 capital can be working 1-2 cottages, 1-2 mined hills and the pastured cows you'll be working the 2 fish right after a whip and then the cow or 1 cottage while it's growing from 3-4 and then you're whipping again. I'm not sure how much the production difference will be, but I bet working 2 mined hills is probably as good as the whip is.

Sure the whip might give you an advantage extremely early before you have mines on the hills and the pasture on the cows but IMO the benefit is not long-lived. There is a good chance your later cities will be high food/low production, though, but the capital is not with the 2 hills there and the size 4 limit.

I'm curious if more experienced Immortal players have any comments about this.

I plan on avoiding mining grassland hills in the short term. In 15 turns a mined hill gives 45 hammers and no commerce (ignoring food in this discussion). Whipping two pop and having two lower population gives 90 hammers and no commerce in 15 turns. (Actually you lose some commerce or hammers for a few turns while you grow back to the whipped happiness cap) Bonus hammers from the whipping bug won't come into play until a forge is built but I will probably try and micromanage to grow to one unhappy when my whip weariness wears off and then whip 2 pop and quickly grow to the happy cap again. I'll need to carefully look at how many turns this causes lower commerce but its probably better to not work the cows for a couple of turns.

Will other players be working cottages or fish to maximize commerce? It will take a lot of managing to flip between the cows and a cottage to synchronize the hammers in a project with this 15 turn cycle but I think it works in the end. Is it worthwhile to do anything other than improve resources and build cottages, roads with the early worker turns?

Edit: Improve resources, build a couple of cottages, link resources, link cities. What else do you do with early worker turns at Immortal?

 

[Vynd]

One of the advantages to using high food + slavery for production instead of mines is that the first strategy tends to produce more commerce. Regular mines don't make any commerce and take excess food to support. Whereas things like fish, coastal tiles produce good commerce and food simulatenously.

Also, it's incorrect to assume that a whipping-heavy strategy will keep the capital at 2 pop most of the time. If you manage the whipping properly, the capital can easily regain a lost pop within just two or three turns. Especially if you have abundant food resources, and even more so if you build a grannary. If you settle in place I'm confident that you can whip and still keep your city at pop 3 most of the time. Heck, once you have a grannary and/or a lighthouse it'll probably be at size 4 (with an unhappy slave) more often than it is at size 2.

 

[Ribannah]

Not when you have unhappiness.
And at size 4 you work two extra tiles, not just one hill. In addition you won't use the fish at all when you are at size 4 because that would make the town grow, so you'll have 4 productive tiles, some with cottages. No whipping can match that, no matter how well you schedule it.
Furthermore, commerce from trade routes, once you have Writing, is also higher when the town is larger.

 

[Thrallia]

Im...Immortal?

I think I'll make my goal to not be wiped out before 0 AD

There's some good advice in this thread though, but I simply don't know enough of the small-yet-crucial information like happiness thresholds or hammer decay to take on this difficulty level. Even the last one on Emperor was out of my league. Not to say I won't try though

I believe I saw someone mention that happiness and health thresholds are the same on Immortal as they are on Emperor.

 

[Shillen]

I'm not sure it's more commerce at all. Two river cottages and 2 mined hills is a lot of commerce. It's only 15 turns I believe before both of those cottages are 4 commerce each, so that's only one whipping cycle. With whipping you can only develop one cottage and only when the city is size 3 or 4.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I have been continuing to play around with a start strategy using the test game and taking peoples suggestions on getting settler out early this is what I think I am going to try to do.
4000 BC settle in place, start warrior, research fishing
3700 BC fishing-BW
3670 BC Beijing goes to 2 switches to work both fish tiles
3340 BC Warrior- workboat try to scout with warrior to reveal tiles for copper then settle it in a good fog busting position
3220 BC BW-animal husbandry, pray for copper, revolt to slavery
3190 BC whip WB, switch tile back to cow
3160 BC WB-WB place workboat on fish
3130 BC Switch tiles back to fish
2950 BC whip second workboat, waited on this till pop got to 3 to maximize research.
2920 BC WB-worker, place workboat on second fish (could explore with it but it delays the settlers to long.
2800 BC AH- tech of choice (sailing or wheel I think)
2620 BC worker finished, pasteurize the cow- switch to workboat or warrior depending on situation. Start bring 1 warrior back to sit in city when it hits pop 3 in 2500 BC
2470 BC- pasture finished switch tile to cow from forest
2440 BC move worker to forest and start chopping
2380 BC 1 turn away from Beijing growing to four, switch production to settler
2290 BC chop done, switch back to workboat. Settler should be above 60 shields now
2260 BC size up to four switch back to settler and whip it for 2 population
2230 BC settler finished start settler 2 to absorb overflow. Hopefully settler to found a city next to copper and coastal.
2200 BC switch back from settler to workboat or warrior to allow pop to grow
2140 BC switch back to settler to absorb chop
2110 BC back to WB
1930 BC Whip (2 pop) second settler

This is the best I can do so far. Any other comments or recommendations welcome. Thanks for Jorunkum and others for their ideas.

The big questions I will have will be what to research after Animal Husbandry and whether to build a third workboat for scouting or build warriors. I am thinking sailing for the instant connection between the first 3 cities, potentially speeding connection to copper or horses. If copper is close I may risk it and skimp on building units until I have it up then hope I can get a couple of axemen up in time to save myself from barbarians.

 

[lilnev]

My intuition is that it's almost always right to be working a tile that produces 5+ food/hammers. Assuming settling in place (it would take something pretty good to get me to move), I think the initial plan of whipping two boats, then building a worker while at size two is correct -- that gets those three tiles up and running the fastest. Thereafter, I plan to maintain the capital at size three. With both fish and the pasteurized cow, that's +10(!) food, meaning the capital would grow to size four quickly. At that point I can whip back down to three (or grow to edge of size five and double-whip) and stall my growth until the unhappiness wears off by directing food into worker/settler production. I'm looking for my second city to bring in horses/copper and high production, and thereafter I'll prioritize happiness (especially pre-calendar resources).

Another thought re: settling in place. It might, at some point, make sense to move the palace and let this be my GP farm. As a size eight city, it could support five specialists, and it has enough production for the key buildings. That would suggest against early cottages. What do y'all think of that possibility?

peace,
lilnev

p.s. This will be my first full game on Immortal. My goal is to live long enough to lose the space race.

 

[EEO]

Ah, I see that I had an incomplete download. Weird with such a small file.
It loads fine now.
The question is, could you make a contender version? This one is no good for contender testing since Fishing and some other techs are already known.

The contender version was the original one and was made by pigwidgeon (see post #45). Otherwise more than 5 minutes would have been needed ...

Nevertheless, I have another contender version made today. I thought it was too late to post it, but if you are interested ...
Note that this one contains some hidden resources I guess ainwood will add, but, of course, I cannot guarantee

 

[Ribannah]

Without slavery, I get the first Settler out in 2200bc on my first try. At that time the cow is connected, a mine has been built, there is a road to the next city site, the first cottage is almost ready and we are researching Writing.
And of course Beijing is size 4 instead of size 2 and the forests are still there.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Let's say you're stable at size 4, working 2 mined grassland hills (this is somewhat optimistic, since we may need a galley to mine the second hill) and 2 grassland cottages generating 4 commerce each. That city generates 7 hpt and 9 cpt; in 15 turns, that's 105 hammers and 135 commerce.

Compare this to using slavery, with a granary. The fish are 5f 3c. (We'll assume no lighthouse, for now, and we won't even bother with the cows or AH.) Say you are at size 4, with one unhappy citizen, and the food box nearly full. When your unhappiness expires, you whip 2 citizens for 88 hammers, taking you down to size 2; next turn, you immediately regrow to size 3. Then you have to wait 14 turns to whip again.

In 15 turns, you need to generate 18+20 = 38 surplus food, to replace the pop lost to slavery. You can work mined hill, mined hill at size 2, for +0 food for 1 turn (but we grow because we had an almost-full food box before rushing). Then fish, mined hill, mined hill at size 3, for +3 food for 6 turns. Then fish, mined hill, mined hill at size 4 (with 1 unhappy), for +1 food for 5 turns. Then fish, fish, mined hill at size 4 (with 1 unhappy), for +5 food for 3 turns. That's the +38 food we need.

So, in 15 turns, we generate 15+27*3+88 = 184 hammers, and 15+17*3 = 66 commerce. That's a lot more hammers, at the cost of less commerce.

Of course, it's even better if you want to build settlers or workers, because then you can use your excess food between slavery cycles, rather than generating hammers.

 

[Shillen]

Now now, don't pretend the commerce is worthless. That's a lot less commerce. Especially when you consider the growth of the cottages. Don't forget to also count the fact that without whipping we don't need a second workboat for the second fish (until much later on anyway), saving us 45 hammers in the short term.

edit: Just to be clear I'm not saying that not whipping is the best course of action, I'm just saying that whipping isn't clearly the best option either.

 

[Ribannah]

And you don't have that granary. You don't even know Pottery yet because you had to prioritize Bronze Working. By the time you learn Pottery, my capital may have two scientists that you cannot afford, I am two towns ahead of you, and I'll have BW too so if whipping is any good WITH a granary I can still switch and in fact I can do it right away since in contrast to you I am already at maximum size.

 

[blastoidstalker]

And you don't have that granary. You don't even know Pottery yet because you had to prioritize Bronze Working. By the time you learn Pottery, my capital may have two scientists that you cannot afford, I am two towns ahead of you, and I'll have BW too so if whipping is any good WITH a granary I can still switch and in fact I can do it right away since in contrast to you I am already at maximum size.

explain how you are two towns ahead? I have 3 by around 1840 BC.

The point of BW is not just slavery it is also to see where the bronze is for city 2 (and AH is next if brionze is not there?). and then hook it up immediately. City three comes quickly after, hapiness resource or forested on coast for great lighthouse. Then it is build axemen and pray time.

The scientist can also only be there if you find a happiness resource and get it connected.
Part of the point to going the way I am thinking is to get bronze hooked up as quickly as possible allowing a skip of archery and to build a minumum of warriors (workboats instead for scouting). I will be pushing the envelope for the first barb surge but i think that is the way I need to play in this game.

 

[Ribannah]

I can build a Settler every 10 turns while you need 15, so by the time you finally get Pottery ...
Then you still need to build the granary, while I build a library.
Why would I need a happiness resource to run a scientist?

 

[DaviddesJ]

And you don't have that granary. You don't even know Pottery yet because you had to prioritize Bronze Working. By the time you learn Pottery, my capital may have two scientists that you cannot afford, I am two towns ahead of you, and I'll have BW too so if whipping is any good WITH a granary I can still switch and in fact I can do it right away since in contrast to you I am already at maximum size.

I look forward to you leaving me in the dust.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

btw I think there is another reason favouring settling in place: By moving SE, you basically free up a spot for another city North of the settler start position on the end of the peninsula, while reducing the potential for further cities East of the start. However, the spot you free up looks pretty useless for a city due to the low production, while it seems plausible that East of the starting area will contain decent city spots. So by moving, the likelihood is that you're slightly reducing the number of good cities you'll be able to get on the starting landmass.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Most people (myself included) seem to have assumed that hill to the west is inaccessible without galleys, but on closer examination, I'm not so sure. Looking at the very south of the start position, the coast seems to curve inward slightly from both sides. I'm wondering whether there might be a land bridge to that hill, just out of sight to the south.

 

[Thrallia]

I think it may be a totally different landmass, in which case putting sailing on your list of techs might be important for expansion.