SGOTM 01 - Smurkz

[dojoboy]

I would not settle this close to Russia. We can only settle 4-5 towns (?) before maintenance becomes a killer, so we need to make each one count. For that reason, I would go for the yellow dot from my pic a few posts up. That grabs a reasonably productive spot and leaves the Russians with just one more spot, near the sugar. Hopefully we can get there first, then they have nothing,

I'm not hopeful we can get back to block Russia in, if we don't settle now. No opposition here to moving North, I just wish I had paused and posted sooner, rather than spending the extra turn or two to get where the settler currently stands.

I went w/ the cow tile for the hammersWhich may not be necessary, but I was thinking production/health.

 

[Niklas]

Sorry for the low input, I've been a bit busy. Not that I have that much to add

If we are indeed capped at 4-5 towns in the early game, then I would agree with the yellow dot. Also I would strongly emphasize working those cottages, we must rely on fast research if we cannot trade for any techs. For every turn we're not working a cottage, we're losing not 1 but 4 commerce. How is that? Click the spoiler if you don't follow my maths.

Spoiler :

Since each turn the cottage is worked brings about each growth step one turn earlier, we lose the one commerce we'd get from the cottage plus the three corresponding to the three steps of growth, so over the course of the game we lose 4.

Here's the compulsory n00b question: We're irritatingly close to our neighbor Cathy, whom we don't really want around. I've heard from various sources that early warfare is really hard, but I've yet to understand why. Why can't we simply build up a force of 6-8 chariots and roll over her?

 

[Methos]

That sucks about blue dot! Oh well, it happens.

I agree with yellow dot as well. It’ll give us another decent production city as well.

Later we can hopefully whack the Russians around a bit and settle blue dot after all.

I agree, once we get all the city sites we want we should kick her off our lands.

Btw, it seems you're not working the 2nd cottage . Let's hope Methos doesn't notice.

 

[dojoboy]

We will immediately begin working the second cottage. I will have my city manager beaten methodically.

I'll send our settler north for the yellow dot.

Question: What do you guys do w/ a worker when there are only 2-3 citizens and they're already working improved tiles? Build roads? I tend to find myself running around improving tiles in my sp games for no apparent reason but to keep the worker busy.

 

[Methos]

Question: What do you guys do w/ a worker when there are only 2-3 citizens and they're already working improved tiles? Build roads? I tend to find myself running around improving tiles in my sp games for no apparent reason but to keep the worker busy.

I try to have tiles improved just prior to a citizen working that tile. If it looks like I'll have a few turns free I'll lay a road down. Sometimes I'll road resources or improve resources that aren't needed yet. Simply put, don't waste worker moves if possible, and try and make it so citizens work improved tiles only.

Good luck dojoboy!

 

[dojoboy]

Thanks Methos for the reply above.

13 - 2410 BC: Moved warrior north onto hill; moved citizen from cow tile to cottage - warrior now in 4 turns.

14 - 2380 BC: zzz

15 - 2350 BC: zzz

16 - 2320 BC: BW discovered, set to Fishing (5 turns); Al Urkzsm settled - warrior queued.

17 - 2290 BC: Thebez b. warrior, set to barracks.

18 - 2260 BC: zzz

19 - 2230 BC: Third cottage completed, moving worker to chop forest one tile west of Thebez; barb warrior spawned to our northeast by mountains.

20 - 2200 BC: Move southernmost warrior onto hill to prevent barb-spawn; northermost warrior moved to possibly intercept barb warrior in the north (who has moved into the fog).

NOTES: Fishing comes through in 2 turns. Worker in 12 turns. I noticed upon saving that research is at 90%, w/ +2 gpt. I didn't adjust the research. ??? Russia has writing because open borders are possible in the diplomacy screen. The diplomacy also shows Catherine with two cities, which includes her capital.

Should we keep that third citizen on the cottage tile? I was weak in adjusting the third citizen in Thebez (a turn or 2 went by before I moved him to the cottage), playing too fast here, sorry. Please tell me where improvement is needed.

Someone had mentioned adopting slavery. ???

 

[zyxy]

Ouch. This getting worse and worse. The only copper in sight is near Cathy's holdings...
I must say I am surprised by this game design. Whether teams are able to settle the choke or not has a large component of luck IMO and seems to be a decisive factor in the early game.

Cathy's town seems to be west of the gems. It will be quite a while before it expands over the copper, but she will of course prioritize settling there. In this situation we really need to grab that copper before Cathy does, not even so much because we need it, but to prevent her from getting it (copper means spearmen).
Can we settle on the desert west of the copper? It seems the best tile, providing a canal, copper, clams and later also cows. Of course the cultural pressure would be big, for both sides. Alternatively, east or southeast of copper seems ok, but cramps the area near our sugar, and we basically give up on the clams. Looks like dojoboy had it right to settle in this area in the first place .

In this situation I would work the cow and 2 cottages. While the money is nice, we urgently need production to quickly push out a worker and 2 settlers. The worker(s) should chop around the capital like there's no tomorrow. Next player beware: worker is on goto .

For me, the game plan now looks like this:
1. Thebez build order: worker, settler, settler. Al Urkzsm build order: warrior, worker.
2. settle near copper to hem in Cathy.
3. settle near horses up north. Send one worker there to connect horses.
4. connect resources (use sailing), build chariots and perhaps some axemen. Do we need raxes first? Probably not, each rax costs more than two chariots. With Cathy no having copper and hopefully no iron hooked up yet, she'll defend with archers. Then chariots are stronger than axes I think, as they are immune to first strike - though I must admit I haven't figured out the combat calculation yet.
5. Perhaps capital can be used for wonder construction, or perhaps delay this until after the war? I would probably go in full war mode first, and the capital is our most productive city (in fact, the only one that could probably push out a rax before units). We'll miss Stonehenge and perhaps also Pyramids that way, but I think the choke is more relevant.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Yes, that's bad news so far. After reading what happened I turned glad again, cause you all are also in favour of an early war. However these 'city attacking bonus' swordsmen are really best for early warring IMHO. So Iron Working is now my top priority. The chariots are good, but only in the open. The archer have a good city defense bonus and probably some additional defense by tile bonus or maybe an early city wall. I already ran with 6 chariots at 2 archers in a city on a hill and have lost terribly. But swordsmen really rock as city attackers. That promotion from the barracks will help also a lot, so I like to build barracks. Now comes the bad : I believe that you must sacrifice everything for your main purpose - so I now would concentrate on production until we have cathy trimmed. On Monarch we have to acknowlede that the AI's are getting fast stronger if they have enough space and resources. So the earlier we go at Cathy - the better IMHO. That would however cripple our research. And with Capac on the other side of the wall, we won't get another trade partner. Bad situation indeed. However I think no team has made it to the isthmus. The AI's are very fast on Monarch and maybe we just got no chance to get to the blue dot in time and the solution of this situation is the real quest of this SGOTM. So gents let's start now analysing in deep.Wht is really better? Can we get along with peace? Or is it better to grab Huaynas lands in the east than to beat Cathy. Are we fast and destroy the Russian empire and get new neighbours beyond Cathy?

 

[dojoboy]

Next player beware: worker is on goto .

Oops, I knew better than that.

Wht is really better? Can we get along with peace? Or is it better to grab Huaynas lands in the east than to beat Cathy. Are we fast and destroy the Russian empire and get new neighbours beyond Cathy?

I don't believe leaving Catherine unmolested (hehehe) is in our best interest. So, I vote for her...capture (hehehe). If we go after Huaynas and get attacked by Catherine, then all our units will be out of position. Geopolitically, Catherine should be first. But, it's got to be complete, in case we end up pursuing a diplomatic win. New neighbors beyond Catherine? If not, would mercantilism be an option down the road?

 

[Methos]

I would have to agree with dojoboy and zyxy that we need to go after Cathy first, and soon. Currently it does not appear that she has access to any military resources, so taking her out, er..destroy her (ok dojoboy, now you've got me thinking wrong ), would be our best option.

The one thing I worry about is where everyone else is. If we are correct in assuming that HC is east of the wall and Cathy is our only other neighbor, than we could screw ourselves over by destroying her. This is Monarch level, so by ourselves we probably won't be able to keep up tech-wise until late in the game, especially if the other AI's are on the same landmass. If we're going for a diplo win, this won't be as much of a problem as we'll have less techs to research compared to a space victory.

So if we do destroy Catherine, than we need to prioritize research after her death to maintain research with everyone else. Or, we leave her be and attempt to sway her on our side for the rest of the game. Hmm, she could make a good PA possibility.

Whoops, talk about rambling!

 

[Marc Aurel]

Well, this is a first limited analysis on optimising the war costs. Note that it is wrong, cause it only respects the strike odds for one strike and not the damage done. Including the damage done is nearly equal if the chances to win are the same around 50%. But that factor improves the chances of the superior combattant even more. The calc also does not take combats into account with units that have less than 100 hp. Wounded defenders that survived the first strike will be less likely cause big damage, so the chances of really killing the defender with the second unit are bigger. So I assumed for the costs we would need a number of 2.5 times as much units as the losses of first battles for simplification purposes. This calc should only have given us a raw estimate on the overall costs. I assumed 4 defenders per town average.
My first assumptions were false. Our war chariots are so effective since they thwart the first strike chance of the archers. Cause they are so cheap (25), the investment in them is relatively good compared to the 40 gold of a sword. And we will get them earlier. Since the spearmen gain the 100% against the mounted units they seemed to be a danger, but they would not gain the city and the hill bonus, so Cathy would not win a lot with them. The investment in the barracks does not give us a lot if we chose to strike only with war chariots. If we strike with swords however we will gain the benefit of the city raider I promotion and then it is useful in the capital

 

[zyxy]

Impressive calculations. Although I do not quite understand what you are doing ....

Comments:
- If the archer is on a hill in a city, does he not also get the normal 25% hill bonus? And does he get a bonus (up to 25% IIRC) for fortifying? Same for the spear?
- Is 4 defenders not a bit much? Typically I have seen 2 for a noncapital, even later in the game. Of course, the sooner we strike, the better our chances.
- Against archers your figures indicate we would need about 5 units, losing about 2. But if you want to win against 4 archers, then #units - #losses has to be at least 4... Also, the unit cost column seems to figure about double the units.
- The number of attackers needed that you compute seems low compared to your observation earlier about 6 chariots vs 2 archers. Was that perhaps a city with higher defense rating or promoted units?
- The costs for WC and Sword are x 1.5, for epic speed.
- I think all the sword varieties need to get +10% city attack bonus (do you claim 20%?). The WC vs spear should not get this bonus.
- I am not too sure that simple win probability per round says much about win probability per combat. If it is 50-50, then yes. But in general, the win probability per combat is more skewed towards 0% or 100% I think, because the stronger unit deals bigger punches.

Here's an example of WC vs archer. Disclaimer: I don't really know how combat works, so this is all guesswork based on what I've seen sofar.

Let's assume WC's attack 1 archer in hill city, with 20% city bonus and no fortify bonus. All unpromoted units, at full health (100 hitpoints). Then attacker strength is 5, and defender strength is BASE * (1 + HILLBONUS + ARCHERBONUS + CITYBONUS) = 3 * (1+0.25+0.75+0.2) = 6.6.

So WC win probability is 5/(5+6.6) = 43%, and punch is (I think) 40*43% = 17, while archer win probability is 57% with punch 40*57% = 22.
This means archer needs to win 5 times to knock out WC, and we can expect WC to win (on average) 43/57 * 5 = 3.7 rounds in the same time, knocking down archer for 3.7 * 17 = 64 hitpoints.
Now the next WC should have an easier job, because the reduction in hitpoints of the archer also means lower punch for the archer, higher for the WC (I think). So probably 2 WC/archer should work.

Note that the numbers change dramatically when the archer gets his punch above 25, because then he needs only 4 hits to take out the WC. This happens when the archer win probability is over 62.5%, which requires a defender strength of 8.33... or more (with attacker strength still at 5.) This means a combat modifier of 8.33.../3 = 2.66... which seems a bit high. Should this happen, then our WC only gets 2.4 punches in with strength 15 each, for 36 hitpoints total.

Once again, I'm not so sure that these numbers make sense. I'll try to do some tests, but it may take time.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Hi zyxy - Yes, that is not self explaining. I did it during lunch break today. So it was limited by time. I wanted to indicate that we might stop for more analysis at this important point to make sure we are going the best route from here.

My former assumptions with the 6 chariots and 2 archers were experiences with no egyptian WC but normal ones. I neglected the "Ignoring first strike" capability of the WC what gives archer less defensive superiority.
I assumed the Russian city is on a hill. (so far as I can judge the maps I've seen) so the 25% is the archer - hill bonus and the spearman doesn't get it.
I added 20% for the defenses, but you are right, fortifying gives 25%. The spearman will get this.
Concerning your bigger deal punches. Yes, that is correct. I thought I made a hint to this. I wanted to live with this preliminary assumpotion since in most cases we get something like 50-50.
Thanks for the remark concerning the epic speed modifier of 1.5!
That's it; so far, since I am busy with C3C SGOTM10.

 

[dojoboy]

I believe cats would be beneficial. It makes for a longer offensive, but they go far in reducing city defense and causing collateral damage. In terms of research, this would change things. Is it Construction? We may not have time. In my SP games, I build several cats to use fr bombard. After reducing city defenses, I gladly sacrifice one or two to cause collateral damage.

 

[Niklas]

@zyxy: Your numbers are accurate, at least according to Arathorn's strategy article. I can see now why the early warfare is so difficult...

I would go for WCs and try to roll over Russia. First of all we will soon have horses hooked up, second we don't have IW yet, and third we may not have iron at all. I would definitely argue for a military solution to the russian "situation". We can meet others by boat soon enough, so I don't think we'll have to live out our lives in solitude if we oust dear Cathy.

 

[zyxy]

Hi zyxy - Yes, that is not self explaining. I did it during lunch break today. So it was limited by time. I wanted to indicate that we might stop for more analysis at this important point to make sure we are going the best route from here.

My former assumptions with the 6 chariots and 2 archers were experiences with no egyptian WC but normal ones. I neglected the "Ignoring first strike" capability of the WC what gives archer less defensive superiority.
I assumed the Russian city is on a hill. (so far as I can judge the maps I've seen) so the 25% is the archer - hill bonus and the spearman doesn't get it.
I added 20% for the defenses, but you are right, fortifying gives 25%. The spearman will get this.
Concerning your bigger deal punches. Yes, that is correct. I thought I made a hint to this. I wanted to live with this preliminary assumpotion since in most cases we get something like 50-50.
Thanks for the remark concerning the epic speed modifier of 1.5!
That's it; so far, since I am busy with C3C SGOTM10.

Thanks for the extra explanation!

I think the fact that your experience involved normal chariots is very significant: the 1 extra strength point and "ignore first strike" of the egyptian WC are both very important.

I use the world builder to simulate some attacks of WC's against two archers, fortified in a hill city, all starting at full health, no promotions. This means a 145% defense bonus for the archer, which brings it to strength 7.35. The game claims a 10% win chance for the WC, which seemed about right: I mostly lost the first two WC's. But they managed to damage the archers and usually that changed the odds to more than 50%, sometimes as much as 90% in my favor for the second attack on the same unit, so that 4-5 WC's seem enough to take out a city with 2 archers. I've checked an old save and two archers seems to be the standard defense level for a noncapital AI city at 1400BC.

For the ordinary chariots it was much worse, I think like a 1% win chance on the first round, and often they did not manage to damage the archers at all! WC against spears is also pretty bad, they defend with modifier 100% (vs mounted) + 25% (hill) + 20% (city) + 25% (fortified) = 170% for a total of 4*2.7 = 10.8. Again getting the first damage done is the hardest, and it took me about 8 WC's to kill two spears, losing 5 or 6 WC's.

Btw, I think the reason for this strange phenomenon of having to hurt a unit a bit first is that losing hitpoints has three negative effects on its strength:
1. It is closer to death. Pretty obvious.
2. Its win probability is lower. Essentially, attack/defense value is multiplied by hitpoints.
3. Its punch is smaller. Again "punch strength" is multiplied by hitpoints (not exactly true, it's averaged with the full strength I think, but somewhat true.)
To compare: in civ3, it only had the first effect.

All in all I think WC's are a good bet as long as Cathy has no spears. Meaning we should grab the copper asap to prevent spear production, settle and connect the horses, and strike before Cathy finds some iron somewhere. Btw, I would be happy to just take out the choke, and let her live for a while longer. Maybe we can get her to trade some techs with us again over time. Or is this not possible, diplomatically? In any case, Moscow might be a lot harder to take: higher city defense, and more units (but maybe not on a hill).
EDIT: for tech, I would go either ironworking or masonry after fishing. I am not giving up on the pyramids yet . Do we need sailing for trade network? Probably IW first is best - it will take some 25 turns I think, probably less with our cottages coming along.
Timeline: worker - settler - settler - rax in capital, takes about 30 turns with some chops? Followed by WC's. We can build those in about 3 turns each, and a few from the second town as well, so war with Russia in 40-50 turns? Or can we build a settler from the second town to speed things up?

I believe cats would be beneficial. It makes for a longer offensive, but they go far in reducing city defense and causing collateral damage. In terms of research, this would change things. Is it Construction? We may not have time. In my SP games, I build several cats to use fr bombard. After reducing city defenses, I gladly sacrifice one or two to cause collateral damage.

I agree cats are very good for attacking cities with minimal losses. But indeed researching to construction takes a long time, so I would be against this for the moment.

@zyxy: Your numbers are accurate, at least according to Arathorn's strategy article. I can see now why the early warfare is so difficult.

Thanks for the link! I think some details have changed with the patches, but it is still great info. I was working on my own formula's, let's see what I get...

 

[Methos]

Thebez: As zyxy stated (I believe it was him who said it), take the citizen off the newest cottage and put him on the improved cow. This’ll shave four turns off the worker. Our second oldest cottage is shy two turns from becoming a hamlet, so that’ll increase Thebez’s research to 14 bpt. Our first cottage is currently eleven turns shy of becoming a village.

Al-Urkzsm: Whether size one or two this city is still going to take 30 turns to finish a worker, plus the 18 turns required to finish the current warrior. Until the tiles are improved here I believe speed is more important than growth. I suggest we move the citizen off the grass tile and put him on the hill. This will finish the warrior in six turns, and still get the worker in 30. When tiles are improved here then the citizen can be reallocated. Edit: Remembered that we’re creative, so in four turns our borders will expand picking up the cow. That’ll speed up the worker by 15 turns. I suggest leaving the citizen on the freshwater hill until the warrior is complete, than working the cow while constructing the worker.

Former Blue Dot: By the looks of it Cathy has settled on the grass hill southwest of the cow. I’m thinking it would be best to raze that city and settle one tile north (west of the cow) for the added food bonus from the clams. Or basically where we intended to settle.

Red/Yellow Dot: In order to pin Cathy in I’m guessing we’ll settle yellow dot first, but we might want to start prepping red dot soon. When one of our workers is free we should put some roads in so those horses get hooked up quicker. Due to all the rivers around us, it’ll only take three tiles to road to do it. We can road tiles outside our cultural borders, just can’t improve tiles outside of them.

Queue: We might want to remove the barracks from the queue, as any excess hammers from a chop will flow into the barracks. Since it’ll be awhile before we get back to working on the barracks any hammers invested will start to decay. Currently only five hammers are invested, so that’s not too much of a loss. Losing chopped hammers though will be a lot more expensive. I suggest we take the barracks out of the queue for now, just to be safe. This will also speed up our settler builds since the overflow can be put into them.

With our current builds we need 380 food/hammers to complete the worker and two settlers. We’re currently producing a combined ten food/hammers a turn. I don’t know how long it takes to chop a forest, but I’m guessing we should be able to get at least two, possibly three chops in before we finish those builds. With only two chops (the adjacent tiles) that’ll be 60 hammers plus 32 turns of hand building. With three chops it’ll be 90 hammers with 29 turns of hand building. So either way it’ll be around 40 turns before we can get to military production (30 turns for the builds, 3-4 turns to move the settler, and a half-dozen or so to improve the horses). With our current production it’ll take seven turns per war chariot, so we’re looking at war in about 60+ turns. Edit: Okay, it looks like we'll get a lot more than two or three chops in, so my numbers are off. I'll leave them there anyway.

I’m wondering if we should chance settling red dot first, as this will shave off around six turns or so by getting the horses improved quicker. The question is will Cathy take yellow dot before we can get another settler there?

 

[Marc Aurel]

EDIT: for tech, I would go either ironworking or masonry after fishing. I am not giving up on the pyramids yet . Do we need sailing for trade network? Probably IW first is best - it will take some 25 turns I think, probably less with our cottages coming along.

Great to read this. On the long run the war is more important, but midterm the pyramids would do a lot to let us grow. Let's hope we get both.

Great work on combat anlysis You really have incited me. I shouldn't have invested so much time in C3C SGOTM. So let's roll over Cathy with WC's and grab the copper first.

I think sailing would help for trade network. However we would at least also make good use of the road network during the war for possible reinforcements, so need to build this anyway. I would research masonry - IW next, cause I want the benefit of the stone for our capital production - of many WCs.

 

[zyxy]

Methos, which dotmap are you looking at? I would prefer not to let Cathy take the copper. We may be too late already...

I think I have figured out how combat is modified in the patch compared to Arathorn's analysis. For your viewing pleasure, here are graphs of the win probability of a war chariot attacking an archer and a spear respectively, as a function of the hitpoints of the defender (1 = full health). Defender is assumed to be full fortified in a hilltop city.

As you can see, the archer will get killed with high probability once its health drops to 60% or so. The spear holds out a bit longer, but more importantly, it is much harder to damage while at full health!
"Lives" is the number of times a unit can be hit before it dies.

 

[Methos]

Methos, which dotmap are you looking at? I would prefer not to let Cathy take the copper. We may be too late already...

Whoops, when I was saying yellow dot, I meant pink dot.