Qsc20-Spain Results & Strategy Discussion

[DaviddesJ]

Looking at my GOTM20 log, I pop rushed 4 temples, 2 granaries, and 1 barracks. The temples were all just in outlying cities where I wanted to expand and cement my borders before the AIs barged in. The granaries basically paid for themselves in faster growth. The barracks was a city on the flood plains that, I think, was up to the size 6/7 breakpoint where people become more expensive.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by Mr. Ego
Wow!

I can't believe I managed to do so well on my first QSC attempt!

Nice one Mr. Ego . I thought I was going to be the no. 1 Conquest player, but you pipped me to the post by 56 points!

I'm not sure whether I had a really good game, or if the Conquest bonuses were more powerful that cracker thought. I'm playing Open this month and expect to be around middle to lower middle of the pack. It will be interesting to see how you do. Are you playing Conquest, Open or Predator this month?

 

[jeffelammar]

Originally posted by Dianthus

I'm not sure whether I had a really good game, or if the Conquest bonuses were more powerful that cracker thought.

There is no doubt in my mind that the conquest bonuses were worth more than advertised in some cases.

Cracker, et al did a good job of evaluating the potential scoring bonus of the extra units given to the conquest players, but the actual scoring will by its nature be dependent on what the player does with the bonuses.

I think that in the hands of any of the predator players, the starting bonuses would have been worth 1600 or more extra qsc points.

I am treating the stated conquest discount as a guideline, and then looking at each timeline to determine what I think the score would have been without the second settler and other bonuses.

As a note, I don't think the fortresses were much of a bonus. I think they encouraged players to build more defense than is really desireable for optimal expansion.

 

[Mr. Ego]

Nice one Mr. Ego . I thought I was going to be the no. 1 Conquest player, but you pipped me to the post by 56 points!

Thanks Dianthus... Sorry about beating you!

I'm not sure whether I had a really good game, or if the Conquest bonuses were more powerful that cracker thought. I'm playing Open this month and expect to be around middle to lower middle of the pack. It will be interesting to see how you do. Are you playing Conquest, Open or Predator this month?

That's pretty much what I've been thinking as well. I recon the Conquest bonuses helped me out a LOT. I'll be playing Open from now on, so I guess we'll see who does the best this time around.

 

[LKendter]

Originally posted by cracker
A change in the arbitrary cutoff date from 1000bc is unlikely to occur in any foreseeable future.

Well that is disappointing news.

QSC#20 was my worst ever, while the full-blown GOTM#20 was by best ever. Give me a score from 975BC and the standings match up much better. Any ideas what to do to fix the situation of moving the capital one square, and suffering the 975BC penalty?
IMHO the QSC is a competition since everyone is ranked. A jump from 51st to ~20th is very significant. Cracker, I realize you probably consider this a dead horse issue. However, the main reason I play GOTM is competition.

Originally posted by cracker I will also add a separate note that Aeson's comments about short rushing, either by despot pop slamming or through the well timed use of cash, may be one of the most important under discussed issues that intermediate level players can use to improve their game success.

I could not agree more. When I made the decision for the big push for domination I heavily used the partial rush with cashed to get workers / setters, then switched back to artillery. This got my 8 to 10 more artillery a turn. That let me domination push occur faster during the end game.

 

[jeffelammar]

Originally posted by cracker
I will also add a seperate note that Aeson's comments about short rushing, either by despot pop slamming or through the well timed use of cash, may be one of the most important under discussed issues that intermediate level players can use to improve their game success.

This is IMO one of my weaknesses. I would really enjoy a good strategy article on when (and especially when not) to make use of pop rushing.

I have always approached it on a gut feel basis. Sort of a "well I think this is a good idea now." I would really like to see a strategy article so I can have a better overall view of pop-rushing.

 

[Mark Cutt]

Originally posted by jeffelammar
I would really enjoy a good strategy article on when (and especially when not) to make use of pop rushing.

Try cracker's article on "Improving Your Opening Play Skills"
It's in the War Academy. (the link should be this "http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/civ3_starts/")

 

[jeffelammar]

Originally posted by Mark Cutt


Try cracker's article on "Improving Your Opening Play Skills"
It's in the War Academy. (the link should be this "http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/civ3_starts/")

I've read that, and while it does a good job of discussing the benefits of early pop-rushing, it really doesn't cover the logic behind it. It shows a couple examples where pop-rushing helps. What I would like to see is a primer on mid game pop-rushing. Cracker says he pop or short rushes in most turns in the middle game. I'd like to know more about how he makes those decisions.

 

[Smirk]

Originally posted by jeffelammar
What I would like to see is a primer on mid game pop-rushing. Cracker says he pop or short rushes in most turns in the middle game. I'd like to know more about how he makes those decisions.

There is not much to it really, when ever you need 20s you can trade 10f to get it quickly. For a moderately productive town this is never really worth it, for a completely corrupt town you can do this every 20 turns and you won't have any problems with unhappiness. In the best case you can double worker output in all of those cities since they usually only have 1s production.

These are always special cases though, like you want to rush a temple or something. Most times (with a 10t growth city) you can just build a worker and join it to a productive town and get more than 20s from it in the same time period. That is joining a city where that worker works a 2f1s2g or better you gain more in ten turns than rushing.

I wouldn't expect you'll see many midgame strats since despot is usually left behind at that point, however I am sure you can find some strategy articles about pop-rushing in communism, not sure if the search feature is working yet.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by Smirk
There is not much to it really, when ever you need 20s you can trade 10f to get it quickly.

But it's really 20f (the amount of food you need to generate to replace the citizen), unless you have granary.

For a moderately productive town this is never really worth it

Well, I disagree, I gave some examples when it's worth it earlier in this thread. (Building a granary which will make up as much or more population than you lost, building a temple or library that will expand your borders and let you work better tiles that will make up the cost, or shrinking a city that's grown beyond your development and is working unproductive tiles that actually slow its growth.)

for a completely corrupt town you can do this every 20 turns and you won't have any problems with unhappiness. In the best case you can double worker output in all of those cities since they usually only have 1s production.

Yeah, but I never have towns totally corrupt before I'm out of despotism. (And even if I did, they would become less corrupt when I transition to republic or monarchy, so the value of the citizen would still be significant.)

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by jeffelammar
[What I would like to see is a primer on mid game pop-rushing. Cracker says he pop or short rushes in most turns in the middle game.

Short rushing and pop rushing are separate subjects. Mid-game you're likely to be out of Despotism. When you become a Monarchy or Republic, pop rushing is no longer possible. This is when short rushing with cash becomes a useful technique.

Short rushing is a technique which allows you to increase what you get for a given amount of gold, when rushing production with gold. (It is a technique which mainly applies to governments which can rush with gold. You might be able to use a similar technique in some situations with pop rushing but generally I haven't found short rushing useful that way, it works best with money.)

I think it is best described by example. Suppose we have a town which is producing from 10 to 14 shields per turn and we want it to produce a Horseman. A Horseman takes 30 shields so this town will take 3 turns to produce one. We want to rush the build with cash. There are three ways to do it. I'll assume the town produces 10 shields/turn in the following:

1) On the first turn of production, rush with cash. Since there are no shields in the bin yet this will cost 8 gold per shield and will cost us 240g to get the Horseman in one turn. This is generally a very bad idea. The premium is just too high. We can usually put that much gold to much better use some other way. (For example, two completely corrupt towns producing 1 shield each could both start a Horseman, then next turn each could be rushed for 116g, resulting in two Horsemen for the same amount of money.)

2) On the second turn of production, rush with cash. This will cost 4 gold per shield and will cost 80g to get the Horseman in two turns. Much better use of our money than case (1) but there's still something wrong with this picture: On the second turn, the 10 shields our town produces are wasted. This seems a pity, can we do anything about it?

3) "Short rush". On the second turn of production, switch production to a 20 shield unit such as Spearman. Rush the Spearman at a cost of 40g. Switch production back to Horseman. The town's 10 shield production will result in the Horseman still being completed on the second turn. But now it has cost us just 40g to get the Horseman in two turns instead of 80.

 

[ainwood]

Excellent summary SirPleb.

One thing to add - If you are going to be short-rushing, the 'optimum' shield production strategy is to tweak production to emphasise gold or even food on the final turn. If you have a city producing (say) 12 shields, consider SirPleb's case 3 above:

Turn 1: Produce 12 shields towards a (say) spearman for the first turn, then rush it (pay 8 x 4 = 32 gold). Switch to horseman. You are then going to be producing 12 shields the next turn, two of which will be wasted. Instead, see if you can work different squares: Eg. You might be able to switch production to produce exactly 10 shields, and maybe produce an extra 2 gold.

Turn 2: Produce final 10 shields.

 

[rabies]

I love this forum! I practically learn something new here everyday! Sir Pleb, thank you for the example on short-rushing. I have never used it before. I think I will be looking to use it to my benefit in GOTM22.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by SirPleb
I think it is best described by example.
...

If you really want to get that Horseman out in 1 turn though, rather than the 2 turns for #2/#3, you can use #4 :

4) Rush a Worker for 10s*8g = 80g, then rush a Spearman for 10s*4g = 40g to get a 1 turn Horseman for 120g.

 

[DaveMcW]

There is another way to build 2-turn horsemen in that 12-shield city without spending anything. Rearrange the citizens so you get 15 shields and -3 food. When the stored food runs low, shift to high-food tiles and let it recover. This works best when you have a surplus of workers to change irrigation to mines and back.

 

[Smirk]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ

Looking at my GOTM20 log, I pop rushed 4 temples, 2 granaries, and 1 barracks. The temples were all just in outlying cities where I wanted to expand and cement my borders before the AIs barged in.

I have not been able to find your qsc in the list.





Anyway, I'm using ten turns as a reference point, since a 1 pop city with 1 grass will grow in 10 turns.

If you burn the pop after ten turns you got an effective 2s production for ten turns from that citizen, its as if the citizen was working a 2s0g tile for the last 10 turns. Overall you have lost productivity unless your city is no longer growing and food is still being produced anyway.


A less complex case would be a size 6 city that has a filled bin, burning a pop that turn will not lose anything but the 20f in the following turn of growth. In this case growth doesn't exist, so there is no future potential lost.
A case where the town is +1f per turn, and you burn the pop every 20 turns is in steady state, locally. Nothing gained, nothing lost, you are translating food for shields in a direct manner, you are giving up 5 pennies and getting back a nickle.


If on the other hand you make a worker, and join him to another city within say 10 turns, and eventually work him on any tile, developed or not the investment will be made back in 10 turns or less. If you eventually work on an improved tile like say 2f1s2g (which is a common tile), you make back the base investment in 6 turns.

Originally posted by DaviddesJ

Building a granary which will make up as much or more population than you lost

There might be cases when rushing a granary would be useful, I'd have to see the numbers that makes you think this is a generally useful approach. It simply doesn't work out in my mind. In most cases when building a granary and you delay (cut back on growth) to keep the bin full after completion you end up losing overall, rushing is a more extreme case of cutting back on growth so goes doubly.

building a temple or library that will expand your borders and let you work better tiles that will make up the cost

In this case, you'd seriously have to evaluate the cost of the lost pop and using a less-than-optimum tile. I can't really picture a situation where you would not have a workable tile before the border expansion, but yet for whatever reason you've settled there anyway. I'm sure there are examples, but are they odd or extreme cases or is this a general occurance in your games?

or shrinking a city that's grown beyond your development and is working unproductive tiles that actually slow its growth.

Ok, say you have a city with 3 grass tiles, 2 of which are shieldlands, you work the shieldlands first and then the 3rd citizen gets the unimproved grass. In this case in 10 turns he makes 20f, so instead of getting the 20f you rush him and get 20s instead, in one turn.
However, in about ten turns a worker could road two of those tiles yielding 10g, and in another 2 turns you will earn 30g every ten thereafter. For example: 0-000 1-111 2-222, this is move-roadx3. The number is the yield, after 12 turns you are finished 3 roads, and have earned 12g, every 10 turns there after you earn 30g. In total the turn after you finished those 3 roads you have made back your investment.

I have found that if I am working unimproved tiles that this is a very large clue that I don't have enough workers, not as you apparently say a reason to sacrifice some citizens.




In closing something like rushing a temple to get early culture, and an earlier double cannot be obtained in any other way quickly, so it can be reasoned that any cost is worth it. I think some of the cases you mentioned are special cases, or odd cases and do not constitute a sound general strategy. Of course I couldn't compare the results of your QSC since I couldn't find it, did you submit?

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by Smirk
In most cases when building a granary and you delay (cut back on growth) to keep the bin full after completion you end up losing overall, rushing is a more extreme case of cutting back on growth so goes doubly.

An interesting opinion. In my experience and calculation, I generally gain by delaying growth by a turn in order to grow after completing the granary.

If you pop-rush a granary, that's like doubling your food surplus, for the turns until it would have been completed anyway. So if you're generating +5f/turn, and you accelerate the granary by 4 turns, that's like 20 extra food (1 citizen) in exchange for your citizen. Plus you still have the 20s you generated by pop rushing: i.e., at the end of 4 more turns, instead of having just a granary, you'll have a granary plus a bunch more shields accumulated in the city. It seems usually a net win to me, unless your city is producing a significant number of shields (but I usually build granaries in cities with lots of food and not many shields).

In this case, you'd seriously have to evaluate the cost of the lost pop and using a less-than-optimum tile. I can't really picture a situation where you would not have a workable tile before the border expansion, but yet for whatever reason you've settled there anyway. I'm sure there are examples, but are they odd or extreme cases or is this a general occurance in your games?

This happens to me very frequently. Partly because I don't pump out settlers quite as aggressively as some players, so I may not be able to use other cities to expand my territory. Partly because I've been trying to use RCP, so my city placements are sometimes locally suboptimal.

But it's common that I locate near one bonus resource, and 5-10 turns later I have a second citizen ready to work a second tile, but the second bonus that I want to work isn't in my cultural boundary. Or even citizen #3 can have this problem. It's rare that I can hand-build a library or temple in that short period.

Ok, say you have a city with 3 grass tiles, 2 of which are shieldlands, you work the shieldlands first and then the 3rd citizen gets the unimproved grass. In this case in 10 turns he makes 20f, so instead of getting the 20f you rush him and get 20s instead, in one turn.

No, this is completely wrong. If the citizen works an unimproved grassland, he generates 20f in 10 turns, but he also consumes 20f in 10 turns, so he's not worth anything at all. On the other hand, if you pop rush with him, you get 20s. The question is whether the 20s right now is worth more than the eventual value of the citizen in your city, who is producing zero net value now but might eventually be worth something in the future (e.g., if you manage to improve that tile). That depends on what you're going to do with the shields. If you have something to do with the shields that gives you an immediate productivity boost, then it's usually worth it.

However, in about ten turns a worker could road two of those tiles yielding 10g, and in another 2 turns you will earn 30g every ten thereafter. For example: 0-000 1-111 2-222, this is move-roadx3. The number is the yield, after 12 turns you are finished 3 roads, and have earned 12g, every 10 turns there after you earn 30g. In total the turn after you finished those 3 roads you have made back your investment.

I have found that if I am working unimproved tiles that this is a very large clue that I don't have enough workers, not as you apparently say a reason to sacrifice some citizens.

Well, I almost always find I'm working some unimproved tiles. So I have several things for my workers to do, and if they aren't doing this they can do something else equally useful. Maybe you have many more workers than me, and my comments only apply to the "worker-poor" environment.

Of course I couldn't compare the results of your QSC since I couldn't find it, did you submit?

No, I didn't manage to submit in time, unfortunately. (I was on vacation when the deadline passed, with no access to my files.) I did post a link to my 975BC save in Post #2 of this thread. I can also post my log if you're really interested.

Sorry for not getting it in on time.

 

[Bamspeedy]

In most cases when building a granary and you delay (cut back on growth) to keep the bin full after completion you end up losing overall, rushing is a more extreme case of cutting back on growth so goes doubly.

Delaying growth for 1 turn to get full benefit of a granary is a good move. Delaying it 2 turns breaks even for a +5 food city, but delaying it more than 2 turns, then that would depend on food production (would be a bad move for a +5 food city).

City at +5 food
Turn 1: pop 4 (growth in 1, but you delay it to keep granary full)
turn 2: pop 4 (Granary completed and full, back to full growth)
turn 3: pop 5
Turn 4: pop 5
turn 5: pop 6

+5 food
Turn 1: pop 4 (you don't slow growth)
Turn 2: pop 5 (granary complete, but it is empty)
turn 3: pop 5
Turn 4: pop 5
Turn 5: pop 5
Turn 6: pop 6

+2 food
Turn 1: pop 2 (growth in 1, but you delay it to keep granary full)
Turn 2: pop 2 (Granary completed and full, back to full growth)
3: pop 3
4: pop 3
5: pop 3
6: pop 3
7: pop 3
8: pop 4

+2 food
Turn 1: pop 2 (you don't slow growth)
Turn 2: pop 3 (granary complete, but it is empty)
3: pop 3
4: pop 3
5: pop 3
6: pop 3
7: pop 3
8: pop 3
9: pop 3
10: pop 3
11: pop 3
12: pop 4

For pop-rushing a granary, I don't like to do that. It may actually be good to do it in a +5 food city, but those cities are usually so high in population and already drain alot of luxury tax as it is that I don't want to make the problem worse. I haven't worked it out to see if would be beneficial to poprush it to save just 4 or 5 turns, but it could be if you aren't worried about gold at all.