SGOTM 02 - Memphis Blues

[Frederiksberg]

Briefly - my thoughts behind IW and not sailing were get IW, settle near iron if available or copper if not, knock over two Spanish cities, to leave us with four close cities, and the opportunity to move the palace, and only one distant city (Kyoto).

I think "Cow City" will be allrigth. In the period before we move the palace it will be a money maker and that period could turn out to be of considerable length: First we need to finalize the settler and get copper/iron. Then we must build an army - I would say at least 3 axes/swords and finally we must capture two cities and build the palace. My guess would be that it could easily take 70-80 turns before all this is done. When we move the palace Cow City will probably be a money looser but only until we discover CoL. Then we can whip a courthouse and it will start making a little money again.

 

[ShannonCT]

I still agree, but I'd like some archer killer, in case Izzy send us some settler/archers near our copper...

I will try to get the archer with 7 XPs the archer killer upgrade by attacking the nearby warrior and then defending the plains hill. He will have a good view of any settler that Issy sends down.

I think "Cow City" will be allrigth. In the period before we move the palace it will be a money maker and that period could turn out to be of considerable length: First we need to finalize the settler and get copper/iron. Then we must build an army - I would say at least 3 axes/swords and finally we must capture two cities and build the palace. My guess would be that it could easily take 70-80 turns before all this is done. When we move the palace Cow City will probably be a money looser but only until we discover CoL. Then we can whip a courthouse and it will start making a little money again.

I think Cow City will be able to offset the maintenance of our copper/iron city. If so, and we just kept our current beakers per turn, the research path would look like: sailing 7, IW 5, mysticism 4, polytheism 7, presithood 4, (monarchy 21), COL 25. So that would be 52 turns to COL without monarchy, and 73 turns with monarchy. These numbers are subject to change based on 1) an academy in Kyoto (fewer turns), 2) pillage money from Spain used to increase research rate (fewer turns), 3) maintenace from Spanish cities lowering research rate (more turns). If the war with Issy is going quickly, we will probably want to move the palace sooner and have courthouses in Kyoto and Cow City by the time the palace moves (they can be whipped cheaply).

 

[Frederiksberg]

By the way, did you see AllanH's post in the maintenance thread regarding Whipping wonders without 50% "wonder penalty"? Some people consider this to be an exploit, but it is not disallowed for this SGOTM according to AllanH. We haven't really considered any wonder building but it is nice to know anyway. Actually it could be exploited to trade food for gold also if we start building a wonder using this whipping technique but never finalize it and cash in the gold compensation instead. Anyway it's somthething to think about if we run out of meaningful stuff to build in Kyoto.

Regarding tech path I also agree that we should finalize IW when Sailing has been discovered. After that we have CoL and Monarchy on our list of desirable techs. Maybe AH shuld be on the list as well - it will come in handy when we settle Cow City and also when Osaka's cultural borders expand. This won't happen just yet so maybe there is a better choice for next tech after IW. Mathematics is one possibility in order to increase the chop yield (and its also on the path to CoL). Mysticism is the other obvious choice. It would allow the construction of an Obelisk in Osaka and it's on the path to both Monarchy and CoL. Is building the Oracle in cow city an option to get CoL? We could use the "exploit" mentioned above. Right now I tend to favor researching Mysticism and after that AH -> Polytheism -> Priesthood. Remember that we don't want Meditation under any circumstances - not even if we can get it for free! This is to ensure that we can get (part of) Astronomy from a Great Scientist and not Philosophy.

 

[KingdomBrunel]

We’re 5 turns to iron working and 7-8 turns to sailing. Since we can’t do much with the knowledge of IW until we have a settler and since the settler is 18 turns away

Agree with all your comments. Note that this settler is only 13 turns away, we're not obliged to finish the part built archer first, and we probably have enough military force to accompany our settler.

 

[ShannonCT]

By the way, did you see AllanH's post in the maintenance thread regarding Whipping wonders without 50% "wonder penalty"? Some people consider this to be an exploit, but it is not disallowed for this SGOTM according to AllanH. We haven't really considered any wonder building but it is nice to know anyway. Actually it could be exploited to trade food for gold also if we start building a wonder using this whipping technique but never finalize it and cash in the gold compensation instead. Anyway it's somthething to think about if we run out of meaningful stuff to build in Kyoto.

Regarding tech path I also agree that we should finalize IW when Sailing has been discovered. After that we have CoL and Monarchy on our list of desirable techs. Maybe AH shuld be on the list as well - it will come in handy when we settle Cow City and also when Osaka's cultural borders expand. This won't happen just yet so maybe there is a better choice for next tech after IW. Mathematics is one possibility in order to increase the chop yield (and its also on the path to CoL). Mysticism is the other obvious choice. It would allow the construction of an Obelisk in Osaka and it's on the path to both Monarchy and CoL. Is building the Oracle in cow city an option to get CoL? We could use the "exploit" mentioned above. Right now I tend to favor researching Mysticism and after that AH -> Polytheism -> Priesthood. Remember that we don't want Meditation under any circumstances - not even if we can get it for free! This is to ensure that we can get (part of) Astronomy from a Great Scientist and not Philosophy.

I did read about this exploit. I'm not sure why AlanH is giving away all these secrets in the maintenance thread. Anyway, the Oracle is 225 hammer and we have no bonus for producing it. We would have to get the 43 hammer overflow from whipping 5 times to complete it. The only things that will cost enough to have the possibility of overflow would be workboats, galleys, a library, a lighthouse, or a granary. We wont need that many workboats or galleys unless we find more land up there. We need one more workboat (I'm assuming Kyoto will produce one for cow city) and the lighthouse costs the same as a workboat. But galleys cost 75 hammers and whipping a galley from scratch only gives you 13 overflow. Getting overflow on a library would require whipping 4 pop at once (so you need a pop of 8). Doing as much whipping as it would take would to actually complete the Oracle would come at the expense of running scientists in Cow City. Using this strategy for converting food to money sounds like a good idea. We can do it with Stonehenge, the Oracle, the Parthenon, etc in both cities.

I'm not sure if it's worth going for AH right now for just the cows when it would slow down the path to monarchy and COL and would require us to build a worker as well. Mathematics would be nice but the math->currency path to COL costs 3 times as much as the mysticism->polytheism->preisthood path and doesn't allow us to use the wonder exploit. We can have math in ~75 turns with our second Great Scientist in Kyoto and use it for chopping the palace and courthouses.

Thank you for the reminder: Just Say No To Meditation!

 

[ShannonCT]

Agree with all your comments. Note that this settler is only 13 turns away, we're not obliged to finish the part built archer first, and we probably have enough military force to accompany our settler.

I was thinking about this. We of course want to get a metal hooked up as quickly as possible. And sailing and IW will be finishing up in 13 turns. I'm counting the number of turns for our single worker to get the roads up. If he doesn't have to retreat from barbs, it's 1 turn to move into the forest, 3 turns to road the forest, 1 turn to move onto the plains hill, 3 turns to road the hill, 1 turn to move to the copper 4 turns to road the copper. So 13 turns total without barb interference. It could work out. I was leaning to completing the archer and giving him the city defender upgrade because none of our other archers have this upgrade.

I'll put it to a vote. Settler first or archer first?

 

[Frederiksberg]

I did read about this exploit. I'm not sure why AlanH is giving away all these secrets in the maintenance thread. Anyway, the Oracle is 225 hammer and we have no bonus for producing it. We would have to get the 43 hammer overflow from whipping 5 times to complete it. The only things that will cost enough to have the possibility of overflow would be workboats, galleys, a library, a lighthouse, or a granary. We wont need that many workboats or galleys unless we find more land up there. We need one more workboat (I'm assuming Kyoto will produce one for cow city) and the lighthouse costs the same as a workboat. But galleys cost 75 hammers and whipping a galley from scratch only gives you 13 overflow. Getting overflow on a library would require whipping 4 pop at once (so you need a pop of 8). Doing as much whipping as it would take would to actually complete the Oracle would come at the expense of running scientists in Cow City. Using this strategy for converting food to money sounds like a good idea. We can do it with Stonehenge, the Oracle, the Parthenon, etc in both cities.

Sounds like building Oracle is not really feasible. Does the bonus hammers we get from building Lighthouse increase the overflow? Another thing is that with the cow tile improved we do have 4 hammers per turn in Cow City. It would still take 35 turns to Oracle assuming that we whip twice to produce 2x43 hammers in overflow. Migth it be worth giving it a go anyway? If we loose the race we get some nice gold as compensation. Probably the best course of action is to go for a library as fast as possible in Cow City - after that we can see what is possible.

I'm not sure if it's worth going for AH right now for just the cows when we it would slow down the path to monarchy and COL and would require us to build a worker as well. Mathematics would be nice but the math->currency path to COL costs 3 times as much as the mysticism->polytheism->preisthood path and doesn't allow us to use the wonder exploit. We can have math in ~75 turns with our second Great Scientist in Kyoto and use it for chopping the palace and courthouses.

I'm not thinking only of the cows but also of the sheep in the fat cross of Osaka. Of course we need some culture first and we could build an obelisk to get this. The worker for building the cow pasture can easily be built in Kyoto with all the food we have available there. There's no immediate pressure to get AH so we could also postpone this decision.

EDIT: Forgot to express my opinion on Osaka build order. Currently we have 3 archers. After founding the copper city we need at least 4 archers: 2 archers guarding Osaka and Copper Town respectively, 1 archer guarding the gold mine and 1 archer guarding the copper mine. Actually I would prefer 5 archers so that we have one "free" archer that can be used for attacking intruders. But we can probably build the 5th archer while waiting for the copper to be hooked. So my vote goes to archer first.

 

[KingdomBrunel]

I was thinking about this. We of course want to get a metal hooked up as quickly as possible. And sailing and IW will be finishing up in 13 turns. I'm counting the number of turns for our single worker to get the roads up. If he doesn't have to retreat from barbs, it's 1 turn to move into the forest, 3 turns to road the forest, 1 turn to move onto the plains hill, 3 turns to road the hill, 1 turn to move to the copper 4 turns to road the copper. So 13 turns total without barb interference. It could work out. I was leaning to completing the archer and giving him the city defender upgrade because none of our other archers have this upgrade.

I'll put it to a vote. Settler first or archer first?

I'm quite happy for you choose either way - it's your turn after all.

 

[radiopill]

I'll put it to a vote. Settler first or archer first?

IMO, safety first... so archer first.

Sounds like building Oracle is not really feasible. Does the bonus hammers we get from building Lighthouse increase the overflow? Another thing is that with the cow tile improved we do have 4 hammers per turn in Cow City. It would still take 35 turns to Oracle assuming that we whip twice to produce 2x43 hammers in overflow. Migth it be worth giving it a go anyway? If we loose the race we get some nice gold as compensation. Probably the best course of action is to go for a library as fast as possible in Cow City - after that we can see what is possible.

For the possibility of building a wonder, it will be really good to grab the Oracle for Col, but it's really unlikely unfortunately. So our main objectives are now founding cow city and building in it a library, and founding copper city, then we could decide if we go or not for the oracle.

 

[ShannonCT]

Sounds like building Oracle is not really feasible. Does the bonus hammers we get from building Lighthouse increase the overflow? Another thing is that with the cow tile improved we do have 4 hammers per turn in Cow City. It would still take 35 turns to Oracle assuming that we whip twice to produce 2x43 hammers in overflow. Migth it be worth giving it a go anyway? If we loose the race we get some nice gold as compensation. Probably the best course of action is to go for a library as fast as possible in Cow City - after that we can see what is possible.

I'm not thinking only of the cows but also of the sheep in the fat cross of Osaka. Of course we need some culture first and we could build an obelisk to get this. The worker for building the cow pasture can easily be built in Kyoto with all the food we have available there. There's no immediate pressure to get AH so we could also postpone this decision.

I think we probably wouldn't win the race but it depends on how many industrious opponents we have and who got marble. Even if we lose the race, it's not a bad loss with the money that we would get that could be pumped right back into research. But winning the race is certainly better than losing. So, if we want to go for it, we should get a worker for those cows when and if we get AH. The grassland cows yield 4 food and 2 hammers improved, not 3 and 3 like the plains cows. But the extra food is even better. Growth to pop2 requires 33 surplus food and can be whipped for 44 hammers. So 1 food = 1.33 hammers. Pop3 requires 36 surplus food, so when you whip that 3rd population 1 food = 1.22 hammers. Food is worth more than hammers until Pop6. With a granary, each food is worth twice as many hammers and food is worth more than hammers at even higher populations.

So after we found cow city, we can start building a workboat or lighthouse, wait ~17 turns for IW, mysticism, polytheism, and preisthood, and then start whipping with the surplus going into Oracle. Then research AH, and have a worker from Kyoto ready to start the pasture. The library in Cow City becomes less of a priority with this plan since we wont be keeping many population for scientists and would want to produce as much food as possible.

As for the lighthouse overflow, we unfortunately get only half of the regular overflow because we're getting the production bonus.

EDIT: Forgot to express my opinion on Osaka build order. Currently we have 3 archers. After founding the copper city we need at least 4 archers: 2 archers guarding Osaka and Copper Town respectively, 1 archer guarding the gold mine and 1 archer guarding the copper mine. Actually I would prefer 5 archers so that we have one "free" archer that can be used for attacking intruders. But we can probably build the 5th archer while waiting for the copper to be hooked. So my vote goes to archer first.

Your vote has been recorded. I think the archer currently at 7 XPs can become an archer killer that can roam around Copper City and attack anything that threatens the copper. 4th archer will be garrison for Copper City. Instead of the 5th archer, I prefer two warriors for fogbusting before the copper is mined and then a quick axeman with the Cover promotion to level up with some City Raider promotions by attacking anything that moves. I would propose pre-chopping the same forest that I build the road through and then chop it as soon as copper is mined to speed up Osaka's axeman.

 

[ShannonCT]

IMO, safety first... so archer first.

For the possibility of building a wonder, it will be really good to grab the Oracle for Col, but it's really unlikely unfortunately. So our main objectives are now founding cow city and building in it a library, and founding copper city, then we could decide if we go or not for the oracle.

I think we need to decide one way or the other:
1) go for the Oracle and try to get those whip overflows in Cow City to go into the Oracle, starting Cow City producing a lighthouse and workboat to max out food, and not trying to run any scientists.
OR 2) forget about the Oracle in Cow City, work on Oracle in Kyoto, and start Cow City with a library so that it can be running two scientists ASAP. Kyoto can whip 2 work boats, 1 warrior, a lighthouse and a granary and most of those overflows could go into the Oracle.

I'm inclined to go for choice 2 even though this will delay the academy some.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Your vote has been recorded. I think the archer currently at 7 XPs can become an archer killer that can roam around Copper City and attack anything that threatens the copper. 4th archer will be garrison for Copper City. Instead of the 5th archer, I prefer two warriors for fogbusting before the copper is mined and then a quick axeman with the Cover promotion to level up with some City Raider promotions by attacking anything that moves. I would propose pre-chopping the same forest that I build the road through and then chop it as soon as copper is mined to speed up Osaka's axeman.

I'm with that.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I think we need to decide one way or the other:
1) go for the Oracle and try to get those whip overflows in Cow City to go into the Oracle, starting Cow City producing a lighthouse and workboat to max out food, and not trying to run any scientists.
OR 2) forget about the Oracle in Cow City, work on Oracle in Kyoto, and start Cow City with a library so that it can be running two scientists ASAP. Kyoto can whip 2 work boats, 1 warrior, a lighthouse and a granary and most of those overflows could go into the Oracle.

I'm inclined to go for choice 2 even though this will delay the academy some.

I'm beginning to dislike both choices even though I started this discussion. We can't start on Oracle before we have researched Priesthood and with the current research rate that is 29 turns from now even if we don't research AH. We can't wait that long with pop rushing galley and workboat because we need those to get Cow City up and running and I think this has to take priority over anything else. I guess we just have to trust that our scientist in Kyoto and Cow City can do the job of keeping us well into the tech race. Maybe we could research Mysticism before finalizing IW? Its only 4 turns and having Mysticism would enable us to put some overflow hammers from rushing workboat and galley into Stonehenge. Not because we want the Henge but only to collect some cash when someone else builds it

 

[ShannonCT]

I'm beginning to dislike both choices even though I started this discussion. We can't start on Oracle before we have researched Priesthood and with the current research rate that is 29 turns from now even if we don't research AH. We can't wait that long with pop rushing galley and workboat because we need those to get Cow City up and running and I think this has to take priority over anything else. I guess we just have to trust that our scientist in Kyoto and Cow City can do the job of keeping us well into the tech race. Maybe we could research Mysticism before finalizing IW? Its only 4 turns and having Mysticism would enable us to put some overflow hammers from rushing workboat and galley into Stonehenge. Not because we want the Henge but only to collect some cash when someone else builds it

I was starting to think about Stonehenge instead too. We can reaserch mysticism and still finish IW when the settler is ready. And its not completely improbable that we actually finish the Henge. In some of my test games, the Henge wasn't finished until after turn 130 (some before turn 90). But finishing the Henge would take care of our cultural boundary problem on the Continent and give us the 20% cultural defensive bonus against barbs.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I was starting to think about Stonehenge instead too. We can reaserch mysticism and still finish IW when the settler is ready. And its not completely improbable that we actually finish the Henge. In some of my test games, the Henge wasn't finished until after turn 130 (some before turn 90). But finishing the Henge would take care of our cultural boundary problem on the Continent and give us the 20% cultural defensive bonus against barbs.

Yeah - we could decide to build it as well - either way we gain. Only drawback is that it gets more difficult to control the type of Great Person we get in Kyoto due to the Great Prophet points from the Henge. On the other hand we get more points. And if we hire specialists in Cow City as well we migth still be able to micromanage our way to a 100% guaranteed GS. In light of this I think we should go for the research path Sailing -> Mysticism -> IW -> Polytheism -> Priesthood. We can decide later if we want to mix in AH somewhere along the line and after Priesthood we can discuss if we want to go directly for CoL or want to reseach Monarchy first.

 

[ShannonCT]

Yeah - we could decide to build it as well - either way we gain. Only drawback is that it gets more difficult to control the type of Great Person we get in Kyoto due to the Great Prophet points from the Henge. On the other hand we get more points.

I thought about that but we'll be running 1 or 2 scientists for much of the time that we're building the Henge and even if we won the race, running 2 scientists gives a 3 to 1 advantage in GPPs to a Great Scientist. The chance of the first GP being a scientist will be 80%+.

And if we hire specialists in Cow City as well we migth still be able to micromanage our way to a 100% guaranteed GS.

This is a certainty. Why else build the library?

 

[Mad Professor]

I'm beginning to dislike both choices even though I started this discussion. We can't start on Oracle before we have researched Priesthood and with the current research rate that is 29 turns from now even if we don't research AH. We can't wait that long with pop rushing galley and workboat because we need those to get Cow City up and running and I think this has to take priority over anything else. I guess we just have to trust that our scientist in Kyoto and Cow City can do the job of keeping us well into the tech race. Maybe we could research Mysticism before finalizing IW? Its only 4 turns and having Mysticism would enable us to put some overflow hammers from rushing workboat and galley into Stonehenge. Not because we want the Henge but only to collect some cash when someone else builds it

I grimace at IW four tuns later. But then it is only 4 turns. I quite liked the idea of having IW about when that settler is ready to settle, in case we want to adjust the position by a tile or two to get both iron and copper should that be possible, and to know where the iron is if not so that we can prevent Izzy settling by it. Having it four turns later I suppose is no big deal, though I wouldn't want to delay settling on that eastern copper more than we have to. We don't want Izzy getting that either.

In my experience, the AI tends to go for Stonehenge before the Oracle and therefore Stonehenge tends to be built early, while the Oracle often comes along later. This can be changed if the player goes for Stonehenge early, in which case the AI attempting Stonehenge and failing will immediately switch to Oracle if possible and this can result in a quite early oracle. This happened to quite a few people in GOTM8, though that was made worse by the archaepelgo map.

I think our chances of actually completing Stonehenge are very small. It's a possibility for India right from turn 1, for example. Our chances of the Oracle are not great either given our path so far. Some wonder would be nice, but I don't have high hopes of getting either of these two.

 

[Mad Professor]

I was thinking about this. We of course want to get a metal hooked up as quickly as possible. And sailing and IW will be finishing up in 13 turns. I'm counting the number of turns for our single worker to get the roads up. If he doesn't have to retreat from barbs, it's 1 turn to move into the forest, 3 turns to road the forest, 1 turn to move onto the plains hill, 3 turns to road the hill, 1 turn to move to the copper 4 turns to road the copper. So 13 turns total without barb interference. It could work out. I was leaning to completing the archer and giving him the city defender upgrade because none of our other archers have this upgrade.

I'll put it to a vote. Settler first or archer first?

I'd rather have an archer first. I don't think we have enough of them to adequately defend two cities, unless we got really lucky. It would be very frustrating to settle by the copper then lose the city.

 

[Mad Professor]

But finishing the Henge would take care of our cultural boundary problem on the Continent and give us the 20% cultural defensive bonus against barbs.

The cultural boundary problem would be a good one to fix. Increasing your cultural boundaries one of the most effective ways to fogbust.

The 20% cultural bonus is good too, though n the other hand, it's not one I want to put to the test. Hopefully barbarians never get that close. If they get that close they have probably plundered resource improvements on the way in, and our worker will have enough to do in coming centuries without redoing everything more than once. With good fogbusting, we're trying to reduce the chances of barbarians getting that close.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I grimace at IW four tuns later. But then it is only 4 turns. I quite liked the idea of having IW about when that settler is ready to settle, in case we want to adjust the position by a tile or two to get both iron and copper should that be possible, and to know where the iron is if not so that we can prevent Izzy settling by it. Having it four turns later I suppose is no big deal, though I wouldn't want to delay settling on that eastern copper more than we have to. We don't want Izzy getting that either.

If we build archer first we can still have IW before the settler is produced even with Mysticism in between.

I think our chances of actually completing Stonehenge are very small. It's a possibility for India right from turn 1, for example. Our chances of the Oracle are not great either given our path so far. Some wonder would be nice, but I don't have high hopes of getting either of these two.

I agree with this. If the Henge is not completed we get a gold compensation meaning that we have effectively traded food for commerce, which seems to be a good deal right now when Kyoto can't grow past pop 5 anyway. Using the overflow from other builds is to circumvent the wonder penalty on pop rushing (The legal exploit mentioned earlier).

@Mad Professor: Yes - I am going to now.

@ShannonCT: Good luck with the turns.