SGOTM 03 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[Kodii]

Does somebody want to see whether it is faster to start settler at five and whip it, or to start settler at six and whip it?

EDIT: I pretty much have a full schedule until Friday, so if grangerm would like to finish off his turnset and extend it, that works for me.

EDIT2:

After taking a quick look at the save, I think the purple border is Gandhi (or Asoka). Also, I think that if we research Sailing before Pottery, we won't have anywhere that could make use of it, as all our cities will be preoccupied with other things. Pottery may be more useful before Sailing. (Together, the two techs should take ~22 turns; Pottery 10, Sailing 12)

There are no further seafood resources south of the spice resource. Alex and Mao are both now cautious with +1 relations.

 

[LKendter]

If we aren't planning for a granary soon, then Pottery is useless. The only other tech is iron working at 30+ turns. I don't want to wait 40 turns to connect our cities.

 

[Kodii]

Ah, I forgot about city connection via Sailing. I agree, Sailing before Pottery.

 

[greggo]

I also think sailing before pottery. None of our cities will be building granaries soon enough.

In previous (limited) experience. It's always been slightly faster to grow to six then whip a settler, so my vote also goes to growing to 6, especially since we're almost at 5 already.

EDIT: I would prefer that the worker started by chopping the grassland forests along the river, then chop the forests on the hills BEFORE mining it. That way we can get the shields (er.. hammers) in earlier.

As far as I can tell, it doesn't really matter how soon the hammers come in - as long as they arrive before the pyramids are finished, I don't see how it makes a difference.

Also, a plains hill is just 2 hammers, forested plains hill is 3, mined plains hill is 4. If we want to work the plains hill while we're mining it, we should do it in one step so we don't lose any production after it's chopped.

 

[Compromise]

Does somebody want to see whether it is faster to start settler at five and whip it, or to start settler at six and whip it?

I won't get a chance to look at the save until tomorrow. But answering this question from theory: Our size 5 surplus is +6F (2city+3fish+2clams+1FP-1quarry-1grasshill). That's 8T to earn 45 food (7T if we have 3F or more left over when we grow from size 4 to size 5. Add a turn to remove the 0H penalty and a turn to whip and that's 10T to get the settler out going to size 6.

At size 5, working the same tiles (before any mines are complete), we have +13FH (FH is the food+hammers used to produce settlers and workers directly) and need 62FH before we can whip. 5T gets us 65FH and we can whip then, so 6T to get the settler out.

If we still have whip unhappiness, we should start the settler before growing to size 5 so we don't waste food on an unhappy citizen. We should switch to the pyramids (for a turn, to grow) on the turn when the whip balloon says "unhappy for 16T" so that as soon as our 5th citizen becomes happy again, he's available to contribute to the settler build.

So, whipping at size 5 is the fastest way (whipping just after growing to size 4 would have been even faster), but delaying the settler means another mine will be closer to completion by the time we finish the settler. Since we can grow from size 3 to size 5 faster than whip anger will abate, it will be good to have mines to slow down our growth.

EDIT: I pretty much have a full schedule until Friday, so if grangerm would like to finish off his turnset and extend it, that works for me.

My inclination is to let the turnset stand as it is since we may not get everyone's feedback on the settler issue much before Friday anyway.

But if we do make a settler decision, then the creation of that settler is another natural stopping point.

There are no further seafood resources south of the spice resource.

Bummer. Note that that site could still be a good GP generator. It will have +7F while working just clams and a farmed floodplain. If we don't want to micromanage it, it could support 3 specialists (+6F) with a cottage on the floodplain.

Alex and Mao are both now cautious with +1 relations.

I've been reading part of the new AI (warlords) thread. Basically, the die is cast, and no change in relations or open borders or trading of resources will change the fact that they are going after a civ whose power ranking is less than a certain (varies by civ) fraction of their own power ranking when the decision (die roll) was made. Since at this point in the game, all AIs are likely to have similar power rankings, and since we know ours is lower, it's all but certain that their intended target is us. Now, we just wait until they get their forces (whatever they may be) built.

Note that if they only have 1 horse or 1 copper, we can't know that until we get those resources hooked up ourselves.

 

[Iainuki]

One further argument in favor of Sailing first, if we don't have time to build granaries or cottages, is that we'll immediately get +2 commerce from having trade routes between Moscow and St. Pete.

I know that I've seen an AI not declare after it had "too much on its hands," so I think it's at least a theoretical possibility that if it doesn't have any appropriate targets (e.g., no civs with less power than it), it won't declare. However, in this case, it's all but certain that Alex and Mao will ramp up their military faster than we will, so we need to plan for two wars in the 1000 BC-1 AD time frame. I think once we finish the Pyramids, our first priority should be defensive galleys. We may want to consider switching to Police State instead of Representation: we won't have any specialists yet and our cities will still not have enough useful tiles to hit the happy cap (except, maybe, for Moscow), and while we won't be able to abuse the whipping bug to pump out ridiculous amounts of military, the +25% unit production will help us more than either of Representation's abilities.

I'm still otherwise occupied, but hopefully I'll be more available by Friday.

 

[Compromise]

I think you're right, Iainuki. I've seen the AI not go to war for a very long time with "enough" on its hands. I think its more of an opportunity thing: it thinks it needs more units or a route to the victim.

I also think we want representation mainly for the +2 happy faces. Since we're always whipping and limiting our happy cap to 4, that's like a 33% increase in the capital and it applies to everything, not just troops.

Hereditary Rule could work too for happiness, but our troops will probably be finding themselves busy elsewhere soon.

Sailing for sure. After the pyramids, Moscow whips a granary first thing.

I think Moscow should work the quarry even when we're trying to grow at max speed. Growing from size 3 will take 7 turns instead of 5, but choosing the FP over the quarry for those 5 turns costs us 20H (x2 for pyramids).

 

[Iainuki]

I also think we want representation mainly for the +2 happy faces. Since we're always whipping and limiting our happy cap to 4, that's like a 33% increase in the capital and it applies to everything, not just troops.

At that point, though, we'll have at least two other cities (hopefully!), and until Iron Working, not many workable tiles. Blue dot (aka Novgorod) at size 3 will have the horses, copper, and fish, while St. Pete will only have the cows. Moscow will have its seafood, the quarry, and possibly some mines later on. The question is if we'll get more hammers from the +25% everywhere or the higher happiness at Moscow. Later on, once we have Iron Working and have started to clear the jungles, Representation is obviously better, but I'm concerned about the period right after we finish the Pyramids and need to prepare to beat off Mao's and Alex's invaders.

I think we should start by trying to win the naval war, blocking the AI's attack routes (how many galleys will that require?) and only after we've secured the water landing troops. In particular, establishing firm naval control will be a hopefully low-cost way of defending while allowing our workers and workboats to keep building up our island, since at the moment our commerce and production are weak because of all the jungle.

 

[LKendter]

One further argument in favor of Sailing first, if we don't have time to build granaries or cottages, is that we'll immediately get +2 commerce from having trade routes between Moscow and St. Pete.

A very good point. I hope we can consider Sailing locked as the next tech.

 

[grangerm]

Unhappy (or unhealthy) citizens don't eat any food when you are producing a settler or a worker, so it doesn't matter when (size 5 or 6) we put the turn into the settler. I know it sounds like a bug, but one of the Firaxians that posts here said it was by design.

I've always interpreted "too much on its hands" as they don't want another war cause they're busy with someone else. I guess we could be that someone else though, but it would make more sense for them to say "We don't like you enough".

FYI, I also think the other civ is India based on the color.

Our whip penalty expired a turn or two before the end of my set, so we'll be totally happy until size 6, when we whip. We can also cut down the time to grow to 6 down to 7T by swapping the grassland hill for a grassland forest a couple of turns.

Sailing is fine. Are we planning on building a galley to move the settler to blue dot quicker? I don't think we have the hammers to do that.

Another question is are we planning on sending along a worker with blue dot settler? The soon to be produced worker in St. Pete could do one chop N of Moscow, then peel off and follow the settler. In that case we'd want to only mine the (currently being mined) plains hill and chop forests on the river to get more, quicker with our 1 chopping worker left around Moscow.

 

[Iainuki]

I've always interpreted "too much on its hands" as they don't want another war cause they're busy with someone else. I guess we could be that someone else though, but it would make more sense for them to say "We don't like you enough".

It means they've decided to attack someone, which may be you. In this case, given the situation, it's almost certainly us and not other AIs.

Our whip penalty expired a turn or two before the end of my set, so we'll be totally happy until size 6, when we whip. We can also cut down the time to grow to 6 down to 7T by swapping the grassland hill for a grassland forest a couple of turns.

If we haven't already started the settler, then we need to grow to size 6. It will be faster, anyways.

Sailing is fine. Are we planning on building a galley to move the settler to blue dot quicker? I don't think we have the hammers to do that.

We don't have the research or hammers to do that.

Another question is are we planning on sending along a worker with blue dot settler? The soon to be produced worker in St. Pete could do one chop N of Moscow, then peel off and follow the settler. In that case we'd want to only mine the (currently being mined) plains hill and chop forests on the river to get more, quicker with our 1 chopping worker left around Moscow.

No; both workers have to stay to chop the Pyramids. We don't have the time to send another worker to blue dot, without risking the Pyramids, and it would spend a lot of time idling, anyways.

 

[LKendter]

No; both workers have to stay to chop the Pyramids. We don't have the time to send another worker to blue dot, without risking the Pyramids, and it would spend a lot of time idling, anyways.

I agree 100%. Keeping the workers at Moscow, and concentrate on chopping forest along the river first.

 

[Compromise]

I agree with just about everything Iainuki and LK have said.

Except that I think representation is better. We don't need to produce any troops until we have horses or copper hooked up. That's 8T to make the settler, 11T to found the city, 15T to build an obelisk, 5T (assuming proper roading by worker while waiting for border pop) to mine. That's 39T from now before we can start any axes. Maybe slightly less for chariots.

Sailing is 12T, Pottery is 10T, Ironworking is 25T. Total is 47T (unless we do Writing first). Plus some turns to make jungle productive.

It seems to me that since the capital can be made to be more productive (and maybe sooner) with representation than with police state, representation is better. The happiness will also benefit the other cities, since it basically means a couple more whips with no penalty to the ability to work their good tiles.

I suspect the best time to decide this question is right when we finish the pyramids.

Are we thinking writing or Ironworking first? Depending on our war situation, I tend to lean toward writing since libraries are an investment that starts paying off right away--especially in the capital.

 

[LKendter]

Are we thinking writing or Ironworking first? Depending on our war situation, I tend to lean toward writing since libraries are an investment that starts paying off right away--especially in the capital.

I am leaning toward Ironworking.
1) Get the gems on-line for another happy face.
2) St. Pete can work the rice.
3) All the blasted jungle to chop.

A library is the capitol slows down the rest of the empire becoming usefull.

 

[Compromise]

That's true. Ironworking helps everywhere whereas a library would only help in the capital. Okay, Ironworking has my vote (after Sailing and Pottery). Plus, there are at least a couple places left on the island where we might discover iron.

 

[Compromise]

I sat down with a piece of paper and figured out when we'll complete the pyramids. It looks like we can chop them to completion on turn 103, then we'll see the movie on turn 104 (955BC). We're on turn 78 now. We also poprush a settler from size 6 on turn 87 (available to head west on turn 88).

We should have Sailing and Pottery finished and be a few turns into Ironworking by then.

We might be able to shave a turn or two off of this by chopping a forest on one of the grass hills instead of building the mine there.

To do this, we let the 1st worker (we should give them names; I'll call him M1 since he's the first one Moscow generated) finish mining the plains hill. Then, he moves to the river forest SW of Moscow and chops it. Then, he moves 1W and chops that river forest too (this is the chop that completes the pyramids).

The other worker completes in turn 83, heads to the grass hill NW of Moscow and builds a mine there. Then, it moves to the other grass hill 2N of Moscow. A chop here will complete on the turn we see the pyramids movie, so it doesn't add to the pyramids. So, we can decide whether to mine it instead of chopping it, or apply the chop to a granary (or whatever is built immediately after the pyramids).

There are some details about city tile assignments, but I can post those as appropriate.

 

[Kodii]

SUMMARY POST #4

Compromise
greggo
LKendter
grangerm (just played)
Kodii (UP)
Sir Bugsy (on deck)
Iainuki

Diplomacy -

Mao and Alex currently have enough on their hands. They may declare war in the future, but we cannot be sure. There are purple borders to the west, which I think is India.

Technology

Sailing - Pottery - Iron Working

Settling -

Red Dot - St. Petersburg
Blue Dot – First Priority
Green Dot - Second Priority
White Dots - Fishing Villages

Builds -

Moscow
Warrior (to grow) - Pyramids (begin + chop) - Settler (at size 6 + whip) - Pyramids (chop + finish)

St. Petersburg
Worker - Obelisk - Workboat

Religion

Let it spread to us.

Great People

Once we complete the Pyramids, we’re gain engineer points in Moscow, hopefully to use the Great Engineer on the GL. Later, St. Pete’s will be our GP farm.

Civics

We’re in Slavery right now. Once the Pyramids finish, we probably want to switch to Representation. Even in the short run, the added production from the happiness with Representation may be more than the 25% unit production with Police State.

Fogbusting

Our island is successfully fogbusted

 

[Kodii]

Looks like there's enough information to move on with another turnset. I am still very occupied until tomorrow afternoon (which will be evening for most of you), so I won't be able to get to it until then.

 

[Compromise]

Good summary, Kodii. I suspect we can wait until you're free for the next turnset. We might want to change Red Dot from "First Priority" to "St. Petersburg". And although I prefer representation to police state, we should keep the latter possibility in mind if/when we build the pyramids.

Also, I was doing some reading on the "better ai" thread. (I really want to try that out when they hit v1.0.)

Here are a couple quote on AI war declarations:

(post #425) As an aside, the declare war code is really convoluted. Would you believe that AIs only declare war (other than diplomacy) when a unit which is moving wants to move somewhere where it cannot move, and by declaring war, they can move there? (Yes, there are other criteria, but that one has to be satisfied first, then it decides if it makes sense to declare war).

(post #536) There are a few basic things with how AI's war, which cause AI-AI wars to be shorter than you would expect.

1. After 30-40 turns, if the war is going about even for both, then peace is made.
2. After 50 turns, peace is made, always.
3. unless you have aggresive AI checked, the chance of war goes down in proportion to the number of cities an AI has. (it rolls a die from 1 to number of cities, if it rolls a 1, then it will consider war that turn).
4. if an AI thinks it is in financial trouble, it will not declare war, under any circumstances. you would be supprised how often this occurs.

Maybe super-early workboat explorers would have been counterproductive. Now, I think we'll be pretty well off militarily when we're ready to explore.

 

[Iainuki]

Another question: are we going to be building granaries in our cities? If so, how soon and when? I think the big benefit of both Pottery and Writing will be in the capital. If we don't have any immediate plans to cottage Moscow, build a granary there, or build a library there, I think we should consider going Iron Working after Sailing. The point of the Pottery/Writing line would be to speed up Iron Working; if it isn't going to do that, I think we need to start working on those jungle chops.