SGOTM 04 - Trash Team

[stuge]

to Agriculture until someone can give me a good reason why ...

A. It makes researching AH cheaper.

B. We'll need it anyway.

C. If Nidaros is going to share the piggies with patagonia's gold site, it needs the farm to work those hills.

D. We could research sailing instead, but what's the point if we're going to be building settlers, workers and military for a while?

 

[Cam_H]

A. Is Animal Husbandry cheaper to research with Agriculture?

B. Look - I'm not saying that we should avoid it ... but we also need Sailing, The Wheel, and Animal Husbandry. We haven't got a Worker to start with, but with Sailing > Trading Post then our best two tiles at the moment will get even better without slowing our population growth let alone reducing our population (as would be the case with getting a Worker).

C. By the time we get a second city built, I too expect that we'll have either Animal Husbandry or Agriculture - if not both. That aside, the Clams and the Lake with a Trading Post should be more than fine in the 'food provision' department for Nidaros.

D. Sailing will improve our best tile; the Clams ... and one of our 'next best tiles'; the Lake ... plus give our Boats +1 movement for the exploration that Cabert's been advocating. So even keeping other coastal tiles out of the equasion, that's +2 on tiles that are delivering +7... Agriculture will require a Worker to be built, then time to Farm the Corn, for +3 on a tile that delivers +0.

 

[pigswill]

Seems like there's almost a consensus on the next three techs: wheel, AH, sailing. Research sequence will depend on whether we want Nidaros to build a TP or a settler. If we want copper on line then we obviously need worker before either.

Good point from stuge re caste system, its a civic I rarely use in my solo games so I tend to forget about it.

Decisions about wonders are at least a set away but its good to debate them anyway.

I'm not 100% sure about which techs to avoid when aiming to lightbulb astronomy.

Also a good point about using library instead of monument for culture, more hammers so takes longer to get in place but much better long term benefits.

Really it boils down to if we want settler before TP research AH before sailing and vica versa.

Edit: I typed this at the same time as the previous two posts, seems consensus is not as close as I thought.

 

[pigswill]

In response to Cam_H's post #122.
1) AH will be slightly cheaper if we have agric first (is it 10% with prereqs, I'm not sure)

2) Yes, we're likely to pick up agric sooner rather than later.

3) Its not sailing that gives us extra food, its the trading post which needs to be built.

Overall I'm still favouring settler before TP.

 

[Cam_H]

It's A to D ... but nevermind, we'll go 1) to 3) if that helps

(Cam starts to suspect that there's some conspiracy to wind him up ... pick a dumb technology choice and then say there's a 10% bonus).

1) I'm not saying you're wrong ... I've just never known that there was a 10% bonus on researching Animal Husbandry if you have acquired both Hunting and Agriculture.

2) Yes ... preferably after The Wheel and Sailing ... and Pottery.

3) Yes ... like I don't know that.

and the supplementary

3b) I think that there's room to queue swap between the two, but I'll be the first to admit that I haven't tested the progress.

 

[stuge]

Okay, did some testing, what about this?

Ditch the warrior, start worker working clams, lake, corn -> ETA 15 turns. Meanwhile start sailing, ETA 12 turns.

After sailing comes in, start on the wheel (9turns). Whip the worker when one turn from completion, apply overflow to the trading post. Worker goes to mine&road the copper.

After TP, build two axes and a settler. Research agri. -> AH.

I know this strat is a "bit" light on defence, but I think we can pull this one off during the barb grace period.

 

[patagonia]

(Cam starts to suspect that there's some conspiracy to wind him up ... pick a dumb technology choice and then say there's a 10% bonus).

Each prerequisite you have for a tech definitely reduces the beaker cost when it comes to researching it.

Cabert and stuge have summed up my reasons for favouring agri first so I won't restate them. If that's too "controversial" a tech to research next, wheel would be a reasonable compromise since we'll all be agreed we need that soon to connect the bronze.

Because of the bronze, I think we definitely need a worker sooner rather than later, and a rax would be a reasonable queue-swapping option in between that and a settler to allow Nidaros to grow again. A TP will be a big help, but it's quite a lot of hammers to invest at this early stage.

Having said that, is it worth thinking about the Great Lighthouse if we're going to build TPs so early in the game? As long as we generate GS elsewhere we wouldn't need to worry about contamination of our GPP (merchants always have their uses anyway so they aren't the worst to get unbidden).

 

[pigswill]

I tried and failed to amend Cam_H's tester to change city tile to plains hill and add copper grassland to its north. If anyone's clever enough to do this then we could test the options.

It does seem that we're mucking about a bit and squabbling a bit as well but that's all part of us settling down as a team. I'd rather lose the time now than play quickly ahead and then start squabbling about what we should have done at the start.

 

[stuge]

It's not squabbling, it's sharing conflicting opinions.

In my testing, I failed to remember that Nidaros lies on a plains hill. Oh well, it just means that the ETAs are a bit shorter.

What do you think of my plan? It would give us a worker, a TP, mined copper and even agriculture in a reasonable time frame. And everything would snap pretty seamlessly together. At least in theory.

 

[patagonia]

It's not squabbling, it's sharing conflicting opinions.

In my testing, I failed to remember that Nidaros lies on a plains hill. Oh well, it just means that the ETAs are a bit shorter.

What do you think of my plan? It would give us a worker, a TP, mined copper and even agriculture in a reasonable time frame. And everything would snap pretty seamlessly together. At least in theory.

As long as we've got 3 axes and 2 cities by the time the barbs start entering our territory, I'm happy with any approach

 

[pigswill]

I think it would be quicker to whip warrior, 1 turn overflow to worker then back to warrior until Nidaros grows back to pop3. Whip worker asap on getting to pop3. This takes 13 turns, shaving a couple of turns off straight build and gives as a warrior (maybe two) at the expense of increased unhappiness.
Once worker is built then its six turns to mine copper before we need a road.

Looking at 12 turns to research sailing, 12 turns to research AH, 6 turns to research wheel at 17 beakers per turn.

So we can research either sailing+wheel or AH+wheel without losing worker turns.

This still doesn't resolve debate about TP or settler.

 

[remconius]

Here is a summary of the AStronomy Beeline and Great Scientist prefs.

Astronomy Beeline:
Fishing (Check)
The Wheel
Mining (Check)
Sailing
Pottery
Bronze Working (Check)
Writing
Metal Casting
Iron Working
Mathematics
Compass
Calendar
Machinery
Optics
Astronomy

Great Scientist preferences:
(underlined we need, bold we need to avoid)

Writing (own Research)
Mathematics (own Research or GS)
Scientific Method (later)
Physics (later)
Education (later)
Printing Press (later)
Fiber Optics (later)
Computers (later)
The Wheel (own Research)
Philosophy (avoid by avoiding CoL and Drama)
Chemistry (later)
Fission (later)
Fusion (later)
Optics (GS?)
Paper (avoid by avoiding CS and Theology)
Astronomy (2 x GS?)
Biology (later)
Electricity (later)
Flight (later)
Genetics (later)
Compass (GS?)
Satellites (later)
Sailing (own Research)

What it means is we need to avoid CoL, Drama, CS and Theology. We can use Great Scientists for Mathematics, Compass, Optics and Astronomy (2x).


I edited the Trash Tester. It is now at 3190 BC in the same situation as our game. Test away!!

View attachment Trash Tester BC-3190.CivWarlordsSave

 

[patagonia]

We don't need to avoid CoL or drama if we avoid meditation (a prereq for philosophy).

I think a beeline that pure would be pretty risky too. Construction (for cats) and CoL (for caste system and courthouses) are just two additional techs that'd benefit us.

 

[cabert]

So to answer cam, yes each prereq makes researching a tech cheaper.
And AFAIK it's more than 10%.
And we're going to research agri not a lot later, making this a waste.

I agree that the wheel may have a superior effect in the next few turns (copper! gold!), so I suggest the following path
wheel>agri>AH>sailing>pottery.

 

[remconius]

Did a few test runs and this is the best result:
-Set research to Sailing.
-Finish warrior at max food.
-When Nidaros at 4 and warrior completed: switch to worker.
-Can whip worker when Sailing is due in 1... When completed build Trading Post.
-Settler next.
-Then Axe.
-By turn 65 we should have these complete, ready to settle city 2 and produce axes/galleys fast.

 

[remconius]

So to answer cam, yes each prereq makes researching a tech cheaper.
And AFAIK it's more than 10%.
And we're going to research agri not a lot later, making this a waste.

I agree that the wheel may have a superior effect in the next few turns (copper! gold!), so I suggest the following path
wheel>agri>AH>sailing>pottery.

No point in wheel first, we dont have a worker for at least 12 turns and when we get him he'll be building a copper mine first.
Sailing > Wheel > Agri > AH would not waste any worker turns and give 10% bonus for AH.

 

[pigswill]

I've also been testing quite a bit with the aim of producing a settler rather than TP.
My dry run: switch research to wheel after anarchy (9T), then AH (11T) then Sailing (12T) then tech of choice (pottery? agric?)
Immediately after anarchy whip warrior, work lake and clams, switch to worker (12 T). After worker build warrior while worker builds mine then a road connecting copper. Copper connects same turn as warrior completes and Nidaros grows to 3. Build axe (working copper, lake, clams) while worker pastures pigs. Switching to pigs once pastured gives you axe and pop 4 in same turn (2260bc). Build settler, whip for 2 pop after 4 turns. By 2140bc we've got two warriors, one axe, one worker and one settler. Sailing is in for TP or can build axes (or barracks).

 

[remconius]

By 2140 I had Settler, worker, warrior, 3 turns left of Axe and a Trading Post. I did chop one forest in all my test games...

I have the feeling an early TP will pay off very soon.


<EDIT>
For max expansion I suggest the following:

Tech: Wheel > Agriculture > AH > Sailing
Build: switch to worker (whip when possible) > warrior > settler (with chop) > 2/3 Axes > TP
Worker: Mine > Road > Chop > Farm > Road > Pasture > Road
</EDIT>

 

[Cam_H]

Agriculture > Animal Husbandry

Alrighty, I'm happier to go with Agriculture before Animal Husbandry then. I suppose the downside is that we don't get to see if there are Horses around that may impact on city placement, but otherwise if it saves us a turn or two in research then I guess that's OK.

Splitting the Gold

I'm fine if the verdict is not to split the Gold tiles across two cities - as before, it was a proposal. I still think "Z" would be a good city site, but agree that it would take a bit of time to clear the Jungle and grow Cottages, and as Stuge points out, perhaps easier just to capture it in a semi-developed state rather than build.

Testing

Thanks Remco for editing the test game ... unfortunately I'm unable to run tests for the next few days, but I'm pleased that this tool is available to others. Your results are encouraging.

Astronomy Bee-Line

Just for your reference, in my earlier test game I popped a Great Engineer in my capital after I had built a Forge and was running a Specialist Engineer in addition to the two Specialist Scientists and the points from The Colossus. He lightbulbed practically all of Machinery. Thanks for outlining the tech' preferences of the Great Scientist and tech's to avoid if we intend to do a lot of lightbulbing.

"... mucking about a bit and squabbling a bit ..."

I think that we're agreed that this discussion is all worthwhile. I guess I'm a bit wary from a previous succession game where we should have had more thorough debates so we would avoid errors and misunderstandings when it came to hands-on playing. I'm happy to hear alternative views to my own, especially if they lead to a better outcome.

 

[pigswill]

How do people feel about boardnames being abbreviated? If you've got any views or suggestions for an abbreviation you'd be happy with please post for future reference.
I don't know why but I'm not keen on 'piggy' (lord of the flies reference?).
ps is ok ( cap'n is ok too )