Population (worked tiles) diminishing returns?

[sampsa]

Thanks for the direct links, saved me a lot of trouble . Thanks for the advice too. And the critiques are no problem, it really got me thinking. Now that I ponder upon a bit more...city #2 did consume an ungodly amount of worker turns. But isn't fin coastal seafood and an extremely start to GP generation worth it? Don't virtually all other viable 2nd city sites require a WB too? And AFAIK, @Swordnboard settled the same way I did for the first 3-4 cities, and got away with it just fine?

Maybe the site itself is not bad, but the handling could be improved. I probably shouldn't make harsh comments without actually playing the start myself.

The other thing I have doubts about is - slow-building settlers??? Really? I thought the rationale was to get cities up as fast as possible, and the benefits of that trump even working fin riverside cottages for a bit more in the early turns, only potentially being surpassed if you're really working a bunch of power tiles like gold, wet corn, or mined copper? And no granary? But food is king and granaries basically double it...

Granaries are very expensive, costing 60% of a settler. While whipping with granaries is very lucrative, setting things up is slow. So often slow-building settlers IS faster, especially if we have forests, talking mostly about settling cities 2-4. Cities 5-7 might come so late that one city is set up for 3-pop whips.

There are many factors that should be taken into account when deciding on how to build those settlers. What is the quality of tiles we work if slow-building? What is the quality of cities 5,6,7? What is the difficulty level? On emperor we can certainly afford to settle them earlier than on deity. Traits? At least EXP, IMP, SPI alter things.

On to the actual game. For me, the first spot that requires thinking arrived on T23

Spoiler :

BW is in, worker is not on forest yet. I see three alternatives:

1. Start a settler, get one chop in in time, settler out T29 assuming we don't work lake all the time. Cap at size 4, can switch to slavery now to whip 2nd worker.
2. Start a settler, planning to 2-pop whip it. Chop is not in in time, reach 40 T26, lose a turn switching to slavery, whip T27, settler out T28. Cap at size 2, but the chop is in now towards 2nd worker.
3. Keep growing, planning to 3-pop whip settler. Need 56 to reach size 6, so short 1 of growing in 5T. Will put chop towards settler, meaning growing to size6 T29, then switch to slavery, whip T30, settler out T31. Cap at size 3.

Of these alternatives, without deep analysis I think the best is number

Spoiler :

1

Anyways...t256 science victory. Only 7 turns off my goal ! That makes me sooo irrationally angry; there was nothing I could've done to shave off so much and yet so little time (still remain skeptical that even a better early game would've put me over 10k beakers and hammers ahead, and besides AFAIK I did everything perfectly after 1AD). If only I had MoM and was able to pop another golden age...but, ah well. Did all I could. Guess it still wasn't enough, though.

Sorry to hear that. 7 turns is a lot, but stronger early play might snowball enough to make a big impact and if your play was perfect post-1AD, you know where to look at least.

 

[Anysense]

@Undefeatable , it could be the amount of time spent. I'd need about 30 hours to play this map to space race victory without feeling that I played too hastily and slpoiled everything. Of course, an ordinary game, just to check how well knights will work on this map, is not worth that much effort. That is one of the things that make HoF play more attractive - it sort of justifies spending dozens of hours on a single game.

 

[sampsa]

I need like two hours to reach T50...

 

[elmurcis]

I need two hours to reach T351 with killing 2 AI and having like 16 cities by that time (Auto-governor works great with supervision when know HOW it works at every point of food/civic/build situation and its easy to just see and correct wrong stuff)

 

[sampsa]

For me at least, there is a big correlation between the amount of time spent on decisions and the quality of decisions.

 

[sampsa]

T54

Spoiler :

Went writing before AH. 2-pop whipping in Utrecht to get the gold-city up, need that +1 soon. 3pop whipping settler @6 in Amsterdam, which has both granary+library, other cities have no buildings. Was rather fortunate to have 3 forest growths. No idea what to expect from emperor barbs, but I'm a bit concerned about safety. Handled fish+clam -city in a way that requires zero worker turns. Settled it 3rd, borrowed corn to grow to 2, whip boat, whip another boat when close to growing to size 3 2, now slow-building a worker cooling off the anger.

 

[Fish Man]

T54

Spoiler :

Went writing before AH. 2-pop whipping in Utrecht to get the gold-city up, need that +1 soon. 3pop whipping settler @6 in Amsterdam, which has both granary+library, other cities have no buildings. Was rather fortunate to have 3 forest growths. No idea what to expect from emperor barbs, but I'm a bit concerned about safety. Handled fish+clam -city in a way that requires zero worker turns. Settled it 3rd, borrowed corn to grow to 2, whip boat, whip another boat when close to growing to size 3, now slow-building a worker cooling off the anger.

View attachment 513205

Your progress is mind-boggling .You’re a city and 20% bpt ahead of me; at this point if I picked things up I could probably easily shave 10 turns off my win time. 3 settlers, 2 workers, a granary, and a library in cap before t55? That’s 525 hammers in 54 turns! I get that whipping is how you do it, but that still seems unreal given the happy cap (assuming t20 BW you still only got to whip at most 3 times in cap).

Can you post 10 or even 5 turn increments for your game?

Also I’m assuming you 1-pop whipped both WBs at the northern city, right?

 

[sampsa]

Your progress is mind-boggling .You’re a city and 20% bpt ahead of me; at this point if I picked things up I could probably easily shave 10 turns off my win time. 3 settlers, 2 workers, a granary, and a library in cap before t55? That’s 525 hammers in 54 turns! I get that whipping is how you do it, but that still seems unreal given the happy cap (assuming t20 BW you still only got to whip at most 3 times in cap).

Can you post 10 or even 5 turn increments for your game?

Also I’m assuming you 1-pop whipped both WBs at the northern city, right?

Well, I did get a bit lucky with those forests, didn't even whip that many times so many came from chops. Granary was completed smoothly with double-chop and some overflow from settler whip (didn't delay the whip for this even). Yep, 1-pop whipped boats. I have all the autosaves, so here you go, T29-T49. After T23 screenshot just slow-built settler and chopped.

T29

Spoiler :

T34

Spoiler :

T39

Spoiler :

T44

Spoiler :

T49

Spoiler :

 

[Fish Man]

I can see where I went wrong now.

On t29 I was ahead of you, so to speak. Whipped a settler and sent him north already; 1-2 turns from 2nd city. However, it seems that was really the wrong spot to pick; I spent literally an eternity building work boats (that's 16 turns, which IS an eternity even in early-game turns) on a grass mine. When I should've whipped at least one. Also, growing on FPs, even unimproved, is really powerful early-game - that's still something I haven't managed to learn yet :/.

By t39 we were about even; I was about to found city #3 but all my other cities were arguable in a worse shape. Neither of our 2nd cities have had time to contribute much (though yours is on the path to much better than mine, poised for a worker whip).

By t49 you were clearly ahead; more cities AND a better developed cap, and cottages up and running.

I think there were a few things here:

0. Not being lucky to have 3 forest growths .

1. First city spot was baller GP farm (in fact I got literally all but one of my GPP-spawned GP from there that game!) but took far too long to set up, and I tried to use grassmines to build WBs, which ended...not badly, just reaaally slowly.

2. Stagnating cap for 4-5 turns to build worker instead of growing again immediately! This is big. I realize now if you whip, grow back, and then put a few turns into settler, that's already about enough for the anger to wear off. Not doing that cost me quite a lot. Whip settlers/workers whenever you can. As for the OF...maybe put it into a settler/worker ONE TURN (or you might actually need a warrior), or granary, or library, but don't feel obligated to complete something that won't immediately help you.

3. Not have a very strong 2nd city that was able to contribute workers immediately, first by whipping one at size 4.

4. "Wasting" workerturns on grassmine and 3 roads (that's over 10 turns!). Cost me 2.5 cottages, at least.

5. Early granaries...yep you were right. I took @lymond 's advice of them being the most important building in the game a bit too zealously. They only really become useful MUCH later (when I had religion + gold to at least grow to size 6, which is pitiful but still better than "your city can only support 3 people after whipping"). Had I spent those pop on a settler/worker/library instead...much better results.

Overall just a bunch of things adding up, really.

t30, 39, 49 pics included:

Spoiler :

HOWEVER: you're forgetting, that your 2nd city also has fish. So fish always wins in the end .

 

[sampsa]

T90

Spoiler :

Managed to Oracle CS, also won Confu and self-researched monarchy. Now helper cities like Rotterdam can start whipping workers. Don't have trade routes open yet... Guess I'm done with this game, but I suppose it's pretty well played so far, and got a bit lucky with forests and winning Oracle.

 

[sampsa]

I think your list is spot on. OF nearly always should go into worker/settler IMO, and waiting for bigger OF is in this case nonsensical (due to 1->1 conversion). Then grow to -cap. Don't build mines unless you have nothing better. I usually don't worry much about s early on, though I guess with this capital academy is more than decent, especially with early bureau. So I think in my game GS builds an academy, then get a random from Oracle-city to start a golden age to produce more . I think a single GP-farm is often very inefficient.

On early granaries, yep with minimal -cap the capital is really the only city that has the ability to get some whips going, so I wouldn't prioritize granaries elsewhere. Mostly slow-building settlers/workers, with maybe a single no-granary whip is ok, if you have decent tiles. Also library is most useful in cap due to +8 from palace.

 

[krikav]

Putting OF into settlers/worker is good most of the time, since that maximizes the number of turns where your cities can grow. ie, with this aproach you want food to be food to grow pop.
This is good both since it usually allows you to work more tiles, and most of the time that extra pop can be turned into hammers.
However, I think the opposite is true when you are close to happy-cap. OR when you have a city with way too much food and little production OR you have a granary. (Basically, if can regrow and reach your happy-cap in less than 10 turns) Then you really want to minimize OF into settlers/workers, and instead spend all OF into things you need, since you will be unable to build them normally. And use workers/settlers to stagnate growth.

Early in the game, non-capital cities can be better of slowbuilding more workers/settlers, since this minimize the turns they have to divert hammers into something else, such as granaries or libraries or warriors which we may not need at that point.

Very rough calculation to illustrate the point: city at pop3, working green cow and two unimproved floodplains.
Surplus food 6, hammers 3.
If we just slowbuild, we have 9 H/F direcly into settlers.
Or 90 hammers over 10 turns.
If we do a 4->2 whip, we have to spend aprox 9 turns regrowing on something and harvesting 50 food (24+26).
That food is turned to 60 hammers with a 2-pop whip the 10th turn. And the cycle repeats.
During the 9 turns we produce 9*3=27 hammers.
So we have 60+27= 87. I say this is equal to 90 since I just calculate very roughly here.

The point is that the 27 hammers are diverted from settler production.
This may be what you want ofc, but if the goal is to maximize settler production over the long run, slowbuilding is most likely the way.

 

[Fish Man]

@Undefeatable , it could be the amount of time spent. I'd need about 30 hours to play this map to space race victory without feeling that I played too hastily and slpoiled everything. Of course, an ordinary game, just to check how well knights will work on this map, is not worth that much effort. That is one of the things that make HoF play more attractive - it sort of justifies spending dozens of hours on a single game.

Of course. I actually spent close to 20-ish hours on here too (maybe more). But I'll be honest: I'm both wildly impatient and a chronic reloader. So I'd often finish a turn quick, press "end turn", and go "oh $*!#, I forgot to do/maybe I should've done XYZ." Then it's go back and do that. Repeat every turn, sometimes several times for one turn...

 

[Fish Man]

Putting OF into settlers/worker is good most of the time, since that maximizes the number of turns where your cities can grow. ie, with this aproach you want food to be food to grow pop.
This is good both since it usually allows you to work more tiles, and most of the time that extra pop can be turned into hammers.
However, I think the opposite is true when you are close to happy-cap. OR when you have a city with way too much food and little production OR you have a granary. (Basically, if can regrow and reach your happy-cap in less than 10 turns) Then you really want to minimize OF into settlers/workers, and instead spend all OF into things you need, since you will be unable to build them normally. And use workers/settlers to stagnate growth.

Early in the game, non-capital cities can be better of slowbuilding more workers/settlers, since this minimize the turns they have to divert hammers into something else, such as granaries or libraries or warriors which we may not need at that point.

Very rough calculation to illustrate the point: city at pop3, working green cow and two unimproved floodplains.
Surplus food 6, hammers 3.
If we just slowbuild, we have 9 H/F direcly into settlers.
Or 90 hammers over 10 turns.
If we do a 4->2 whip, we have to spend aprox 9 turns regrowing on something and harvesting 50 food (24+26).
That food is turned to 60 hammers with a 2-pop whip the 10th turn. And the cycle repeats.
During the 9 turns we produce 9*3=27 hammers.
So we have 60+27= 87. I say this is equal to 90 since I just calculate very roughly here.

The point is that the 27 hammers are diverted from settler production.
This may be what you want ofc, but if the goal is to maximize settler production over the long run, slowbuilding is most likely the way.

The problem with that is that a worker or settler now is worth more than a worker/settler 5 turns later. And the new cities founded sooner can contribute faster...so it's not a raw hammers thing, but a speed thing?

 

[Fish Man]

I think your list is spot on. OF nearly always should go into worker/settler IMO, and waiting for bigger OF is in this case nonsensical (due to 1->1 conversion). Then grow to -cap. Don't build mines unless you have nothing better. I usually don't worry much about s early on, though I guess with this capital academy is more than decent, especially with early bureau. So I think in my game GS builds an academy, then get a random from Oracle-city to start a golden age to produce more . I think a single GP-farm is often very inefficient.

On early granaries, yep with minimal -cap the capital is really the only city that has the ability to get some whips going, so I wouldn't prioritize granaries elsewhere. Mostly slow-building settlers/workers, with maybe a single no-granary whip is ok, if you have decent tiles. Also library is most useful in cap due to +8 from palace.

Good to know, thanks again for the help/info! Will do in another map, am kinda tired of Willem at this point...

 

[krikav]

The problem with that is that a worker or settler now is worth more than a worker/settler 5 turns later. And the new cities founded sooner can contribute faster...so it's not a raw hammers thing, but a speed thing?

Yes, whipping does absolutely speed up the first settler you whip. But it slows down the arrival of settler #2 and #3 etc.
This may or may not be what you want, depends on situation.

It is true that a settler NOW is worth more than one 5 turns later. But the same is true for the citizens you lost.
It's better to have them citizens working tiles now, instead of later on when you have regrown them.

 

[Bibor]

Yes, whipping does absolutely speed up the first settler you whip. But it slows down the arrival of settler #2 and #3 etc.

Regarding whipping further settlers/workers, I think it boils down to how productive active citizens are. In the northern city with only 2 sea food improved, I'd say it's a whipping heaven, but Hamsterdam and the SW city is a different matter. On the other hand, if connecting a new city would yield you a luxury that helps growing further in enough cities to work even more riverside cottages, well that changes the picture.
I guess ideally, I'd want to connect a new city around 10 turns before I need a new resource (border pop + connecting the resource).

On this particular map and at this difficulty (and thus happy cap), I'd say connecting new cities is inferior to improving existing ones to the happy cap, and the food surpluses by themselves are enough to hard build new settlers & workers for a more balanced expansion. Am I right?


Sorry for not playing this map again sooner, I'll give it another go this afternoon when I'm fresh

 

[Fish Man]

Yes, whipping does absolutely speed up the first settler you whip. But it slows down the arrival of settler #2 and #3 etc.
This may or may not be what you want, depends on situation.

It is true that a settler NOW is worth more than one 5 turns later. But the same is true for the citizens you lost.
It's better to have them citizens working tiles now, instead of later on when you have regrown them.

Hmm, does whipping really slow down later settlers? If you use a 5-3 whip cycle then:
Without whipping - 8 turns a settler, 16 turns for 2 settlers.
With whipping - 3 turns -> whip, grow back for 6-7 turns (at most, given you have good food), 3 turns -> whip, 12-13 turns for 2 settlers.

Also...as I said, the benefit of worked tiles is not nearly as great as the benefit of a city some turns earlier, unless it's really a power tile (like food, mined metal, or luxuries). I think that the yields you get on the latest turn(s) from a city/tile is the additional that you get compared to if you had not worked the tile or founded the city. Even in the short run an entire city will definitely produce more yields than a worked tile. In the long run? An order or two of magnitude more. Opportunity costs, is what I'm saying.

 

[sampsa]

I assume we are talking about whipping settlers without a granary. @Undefeatable, I'm not sure if I understand correctly the assumptions in your example and I think especially when trying to draw general conclusions you have to be very clear with your examples. Details just matter so much that it's easy to draw wrong conclusions.

When slow-building early settlers, usually there will be some chops, but obv one chop is beneficial also for 5-3 whips. Assuming you have two wet corns, yes whipping is often good, since growing 3->5 costs 26+28=54 and you transform it to 60 and gain some extra from worked tiles (i.e. growing is so fast that only a few get diverted into something else than a settler). However, depending on the quality of say 4th city, it might be that slow-building @size5 working two extra cottages is better that getting that 4th city up faster. I'm also not sure why you chose 5-3 whips, as 3-pop whipping is less taxing for your -cap and should usually be preferred, if possible.

I think it's quite hard to come up with rules on whether whipping is better than slow-building, so I just work it out like I did here on T23 Population (worked tiles) diminishing returns?. Sometimes I switch to slavery before settler for 2nd city is out to whip it, usually when that settler is on the way, sometimes when settler for 3rd city is on the way and sometimes I switch even later.

 

[krikav]

Yes, it's very hard to come up with rules, since circumstances change so much from map to map.
But the general idea is that if you have an excess of food, you will want to turn that food into production via slavery.
If you have scarse food, you want all your food to be citizens, and you won't whip much.

Granary factors into this, as it more or less doubles the food you harvest in that city.

So some starts, like 2 wet corns, you will want to whip even w/o granary. While starts with dry rice or so, you likely won't whip until after granary.
Plains cows sites you probably won't whip at all.