SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

[Erkon]

Which copper city.
...

The one 1W of Mountains (on the jungle) of course!!!!

 

[klarius]

We want to hook up the gold in the not so distant future. That's a big argument IMO to settle the clammy site first. The gold direct is too many wasted moves for my taste and with the clam site we will have both cities and gold hooked up soon.

 

[klarius]

The one 1W of Mountains (on the jungle) of course!!!!

Really, haven't seen that on any dot map.
That's distance 3 for 0,1,1,2 maintenance

 

[Erkon]

We want to hook up the gold in the not so distant future. That's a big argument IMO to settle the clammy site first. The gold direct is too many wasted moves for my taste and with the clam site we will have both cities and gold hooked up soon.

I don't like wasting moves either, but moving the first settler to clam without road, then move settler2 by road to clam and then from clam to gold without road is equivalent of moving the settler all the way to gold without roads. Does that make sense? And we will have a bit road (from MW to Copper Town and then a bit more perhaps?). So, apart from potential extra/reduced movement, and if we decide to settle third city at gold, are there any other pros/cons?

Really, haven't seen that on any dot map.
...

That's because LC refuses to add my suggestions (and a site that you proposed a long, long time a go, far, far away)

 

[Erkon]

I've checked with WB and jungle does not spread to copper or iron, but it spreads to dye.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The one 1W of Mountains (on the jungle) of course!!!!

That's because LC refuses to add my suggestions (and a site that you proposed a long, long time a go, far, far away)

Because it embarasses me to embarass you

That site has the same amount of long-term but requires the FC for both the 2nd chop and the pre-IW hill mine. To say nothing of stepping all over MW's toes...

P.s. I'm working on an excel chart and I'll be ready in a few minutes but I'm not taking it all the way to building settler4 only settler3. Ideally we'd look all the way to 4.

 

[klarius]

Ok, looks like I'm not playing today.

@Erkon I'm mainly talking about moving the worker w/o building a road. These turns are wasted. But also I intended (originally) to have a complete road from capital to gold when the 2nd settler comes down. The capital worker to Drojf and Drojf worker farther down. And the city itself is also a road segment.

 

[Erkon]

Because it embarasses me to embarass you
...

Thank you for your friendly considerations!!!

Here's the dot map for the sake of documentation:

 

[Erkon]

Because it embarasses me to embarass you

That site has the same amount of long-term but requires the FC for both the 2nd chop and the pre-IW hill mine. To say nothing of stepping all over MW's toes...

P.s. I'm working on an excel chart and I'll be ready in a few minutes but I'm not taking it all the way to building settler4 only settler3. Ideally we'd look all the way to 4.

But surely, the Coppertown will work -tiles, not -tiles? Are you trying to fool me

And I consider MW overlap an advantage, since we can synchronize poprush and ensure the cottages are always worked.

What is the penalty for chopping outside cultural border?

 

[Erkon]

Ok, looks like I'm not playing today.

@Erkon I'm mainly talking about moving the worker w/o building a road. These turns are wasted. But also I intended (originally) to have a complete road from capital to gold when the 2nd settler comes down. The capital worker to Drojf and Drojf worker farther down. And the city itself is also a road segment.

I see. Will the construction of this road take longer time or short time with CopperTown compared to ClamCity?

 

[Erkon]

Erkon Western Dot Map:

BB at size 4 produces 10 and 2 - maintenance + dye
DM at size 5 produces 14 and 3 - maintenance
CT at size 5 produces 14 : hammers: and 2 - maintenance + 2*dye

DM needs calender, BB needs IW, CT will be focusing on until we need units.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Two variations building settlers 2 & 3, wkr2.

Clam Drojf Variant

Key dates:

• T7 Clam Drojf settled
• T9 clam nets
• T22 wb2 exploring
• T26 wkr2 (in CD)
• T29 settler3 (in MW)

Spoiler :

T2 Settler2>building wb1
T5 Banana farm
T6 wb1
T7 Clam Drojf settled
T9 clam nets
T11 Chop (30=>Settler3) (Help me: can't we do this w/o interrupting wb1 build for a turn?)
T12 MW pop2
T17 Chop (30=>Settler3)
T18 rd tile S of MW (1t)
T19 start farming S S of MW
T21 MW pop3
T22 wb2>building Settler3
T26 S S river farmed; Wkr2 mv NW
T28 MW(S) roaded; MW pop2 (poprush Settler3), wkr2 roads
T29 Settler3

Copper City Variant

Key dates:

• T4 Copper City settled
• T6 wb1 exploring
• T12 copper mined
• T16 warrior (oops, forgot to build it in CD variant...)
• T25 Settler3 (in CC)
• T28 barracks
• T29 wkr2 (in MW)
• T31 or 32 copper connected

Spoiler :

T2 Settler2>building wb1
T4 Copper City settled
T5 Banana farm
T6 wb1
T12 MW pop2; copper mine
T16 MW warrior
T18 CC NW chop
T24 MW pop3; CC S chop
T25 Settler3 (in CC)
T28 MW pop2 (poprushed wkr2); CC Barracks
T29 wkr2 (in MW)
T30 MW wb 36/45

Gold comparison chart:
Drojf.....................Copper
T00-T05: 10.......T00-T03: 10
T06-T06: 11.......T04-T05: 12
T07-T20: 13.......T06-T12: 13
T21-T27: 14.......T13-T20: 12
T28-T30: 13.......T21-T27: 13 (T28-> 13 or 14)

Analysis

• Clam is clearly better in , but I leave to klarius to evaluate.
• Copper City Variant has copper mine already in production at T30 and Drojf settled T30 w/Clam nets if we choose.
• Drojf Variant also settles Copper on T30 but doesn't have mine or barracks yet. Drojf is, however, 16(4t) toward pop2.
• Other variations are possible, such as not building barracks yet, but another settler instead, which CC can produce at 9/t with both mines (but would need pop2).

 

[LowtherCastle]

I've checked with WB and jungle does not spread to copper or iron, but it spreads to dye.

How did you figure that out with WB?!?

But surely, the Coppertown will work -tiles, not -tiles? What? Me worry? Not all the time, m8, so sorry. Are you trying to fool me Who me?

And I consider MW overlap an advantage, since we can synchronize poprush and ensure the cottages are always worked. Good point.

What is the penalty for chopping outside cultural border?

It still leaves that hammer hill outside the inner cross. Just how many of the 4 non-jungle hills on this island were you planning to use, Peacemonger?

I see. Will the construction of this road take longer time or short time with CopperTown compared to ClamCity?

With 2 roads (MW S and MW SS), it's the same. With one more jungle road, Clam Drojf is 1 tile faster. With a bunch more roads, it's a bunch faster, but nothing in between.

 

[LowtherCastle]

By the way, I totally agree with Erkon on exploration. Not that we want to slow our research and REX for it, but we still don't know whether we need Astro. If we can reach The Continent by galley, we might just want to focus on Wheel>Pottery>Sailing>IW and...

Spoiler :

Kill 'em. Kill 'em all.

When is the latest we can afford to find out? I think we want to know by the time we finish Pottery.

I think the 2 variations are roughly equal except for one detail: Starting exploration 16 turns earlier!

 

[klarius]

Well, I don't think the second wb is so urgent that we have to build it before the settler, after all we will not use the knowledge before we have sailing.
So my take was farming river first and grow faster. When 3 then settler with 1 (more roads) or 2 chops.

Why you want to chop right away when you anyway need them only later? And be late to the needed farm then.

General rule of klarius:
Be sure that you do the needed long time improvements first before you chop forests for a one time gain.

Though it's no problem in vanilla (not warlords) to put the chop in another build w/o needing an interturn:
Interrupt when it shows 2 turns to go.
Next turn switch build, chop, chop goes in new build.
Switch again.

For copper city:
Why you want to anyway pop-rush mainly sponsoring an not so urgent wb. In this variant we should rather hand build the rest of the settler fulfilling the Obormot doctrine.

And again I don't see that we urgently need a scouting wb. If we can reach out to the west will hopefully be known by the barb there, before even a wb can get there.
If we can reach north is more a question of balancing domination on the big continent versus conquest with or w/o astronomy. Knowing now will help us nothing. Yes I'm also interested, but realistically it will not change much short term. We for sure need sailing and IW, which is still an immense task for our tiny empire.

 

[Erkon]

CopperTown will loose us 20 although it could be less if it is located on the superiour site 1W of mountains.

LC, did you count the trade bonus once we connect Copper Town with MW?

I think it's better to have another settler, than barracks.

If I remember correct, and if I interpret klarius note earlier, the chop will go into the build at the moment of the chop, while in Warlords, the chop will go into the build at the end of the turn.

LC, if we want a road from settler3 to the gold site, does it matter if we go for Copper Town of Clam Drojf?

In general, we don't need the hills until we leave the -panic state, so the gold hill is enough And don't call me a peacemonger!!!

I used WB to draw a large area with stripes of jungle. The jungle spread to dye tiles and empty tiles but not to copper or iron tiles.

I am pretty sure that we will need cats and probably mace/WE as well.

klarius, do you have all facts you need to grab/take/make a decision? I don't trust my own judgment, since I'm starting to believe LC is right. I'm very worried about the state of my mind....

 

[LowtherCastle]

Good questions, both of you.

1. How long are we assuming we need to research Wheel? (Before which we can 't buid any roads...)
2. I can work out other variants, too, no probs.
3. I didn't popr in Copper, only in MW. Poprush can go into whatever we want, of course.
4. The only chop really needed is the S hill so we can mine it (semi-bonus tile).

 

[Erkon]

...
And again I don't see that we urgently need a scouting wb. If we can reach out to the west will hopefully be known by the barb there, before even a wb can get there.
If we can reach north is more a question of balancing domination on the big continent versus conquest with or w/o astronomy. Knowing now will help us nothing. Yes I'm also interested, but realistically it will not change much short term. We for sure need sailing and IW, which is still an immense task for our tiny empire.

If we know we can reach the large continent eastward, we don't need a culture bridge to the west, and we can thus settle our cities in a more optimal way.

If we're going for domination, then stonehenge becomes more interesting.

If we know the layout of Alexander's home land, we can actually launch axes rather quickly i.e. higher focus on sailing. We can at least launch a small raiding party to pillage his lands.

What if the barbs will not show up on Alex continent? What if there is gems that we can grab? What if the AI get out galleys and kill our wb? Etc etc. I'm not looking for confirmation, I'm looking for the unexpected that can push us up in ranking

My arguing is a reflection of how I play. I value intel very high since that is the part humans can utilize and the AI cannot.

You may be right that we don't need the intel yet. I'm not trying to force my view on you or anyone else either, even if it may appear so

 

[Murky]

We probably should try to decide what we're going to attack with early on. Is it going to be mainly axes and catapults or faster moving units? If axes then we should get the copper hooked up. If not, then we might want to settle a different site first. LC's numbers look about right to me.

 

[LowtherCastle]

So my take was farming river first and grow faster. When 3 then settler with 1 (more roads) or 2 chops.

I'm not sure how you are figuring this, klarius. The second farm will take 8t and give you only 1 add'l for the settler. What turn do you produce the settler on? EDIT: Okay, I tried out what I think you did and again get Settling GC on T33.

Settling Gold Drojf asap w/wkr available to mine gold:

• Copper Settler3 settles Gold Drojf on T32 (no chops, w/warrior and almost wb2 in MW) Wheel needed T14
• Copper Settler3 settles Gold Drojf on T30 (chop hill, w/warrior and almost wb2 in MW) Wheel needed T20
• MW Settler3 settles Gold Drojf on T33 (2 MW chops, w/wb2 but no warrior) Wheel T18
• MW Settler3 settles Gold Drojf on T33 (w/ farm and 1 MW chop, w/warrior, no wb2) Wheel T20