SGOTM 06 - Xteam

[Frederiksberg]

Wouldn’t OR add to the gold from chopping walls (in addition to the 25% hammer bonus on regular buildings)? If so, the sooner we start taking advantage of it the better.

I think it will. Monotheism is certainly worth considering.

Do we want to research Sailing first in case we contact another civ? Otherwise, I like Col ASAP, and perhaps Masonry and Monotheism next.

I think we most urgently need Masonry to get the stone online ASAP. Then we should immediately chop the 5 forests around Ivoryville into 600+ gold to keep the science sider at 100% (as suggested by ShannonCT).

It could well just be my ignorance, but I am concerned with sacrificing other production and city growth to produce settlers. That concern makes me reluctant to rex cities. Would it be possible to analyze rexing vs. perhaps build as many as we can when settler production in a given city is least disruptive and additional gold is needed for research.

It should be possible to calculate estimates of the beakers/hammers ratio within a given time frame for different builds like settler (150 hammers), Lighthouse (90 hammers), Library (135 hammers) and Courthouse (180 hammers). My guess is that the ratio is best for settlers in most cases and never best for Courthouses in any case.

 

[ShannonCT]

Organized Religion increases the gold yield from chopping by 11 gold per forest.

A couple things for JT to consider when preparing to chop around Ivoryville:
1) Whipping the walls as well as chopping them has the effect of chopping one additional forest. Ivoryville should be close to Pop2 now.
2) We can chop more than just the five forests in the borders if we get more than 5 workers down there. We'll only get 90 gold per forest outside the borders but if this is the best use for them, why not?

My testgame is almost ready.

 

[Frederiksberg]

A couple things for JT to consider when preparing to chop around Ivoryville:
1) Whipping the walls as well as chopping them has the effect of chopping one additional forest. Ivoryville should be close to Pop2 now.
2) We can chop more than just the five forests in the borders if we get more than 5 workers down there. We'll only get 90 gold per forest outside the borders but if this is the best use for them, why not?

The question is if we really want to convert pop into gold. As I see the situation right now we have plenty of gold. With 6 more cities I calculated that we could chop 8000 gold. The bottleneck is more likely to convert the gold in our treasury to beakers. And to do that we need to increase pop and work more tiles that yield gold.

The forests outside the cultural borders could be used to chop settlers or workers when the borders expand so keeping some of them works fine also.

I suggest we postpone any further play until we have analyzed the possible strategies in more detail since we seem to have arrived at a crucial point in the game. I can probably do some math and some simulations during the weekend as soon as ShannonCT's test game is available. How about continuing the discussions over the weekend before resuming play?

 

[leif erikson]

I suggest we postpone any further play until we have analyzed the possible strategies in more detail since we seem to have arrived at a crucial point in the game. I can probably do some math and some simulations during the weekend as soon as ShannonCT's test game is available. How about continuing the discussions over the weekend before resuming play?

I think this is a great idea. The only question I have is JT's schedule?

I am analyzing city site now. Also, I was looking at Ivoryville (I'm using the 670BC - turn 122 save) and see us farming the Flood Plains. Shouldn't we be building Cottages there?

 

[leif erikson]

I think it would be a good idea to draw some dot maps looking for city cites with at least 4-5 forests and with commerce/growth potential.

Did a quick analysis. As there isn't a lot of Gold lying around atm, the additional city sites are mostly near rivers that we will need to cottage. Some may be good GP farms while others can be used for production. The jungle precludes quite a few sites as well. And some of the sites will need to expand before we have five forests in them.

The first three are pretty good sites, I think:
Spice City, just north of Carthage:

Horse City, just NW of Ivoryville:

Stone City, just west of Timbuktu:

Then there are a couple of more that may not be that great at commerce, but may be strong production cities.

Fish City, north of London:

And Iron City2, just NE of Athens. It has only four forests, but I couldn't resist the Gold Hill and the Food resources...

 

[Frederiksberg]

I guess we should also include the Gold City you have proposed earlier. Horse City was also one of the first spots I identified. Lots of forests and posibility to cottage the grassland riverbanks. Iron City 2 shares one forest with Athens, I think. Maybe move it 1E to get more cottages on floodplain? Spice city 1N to get two dyes inside the fat cross? Or maybe move it south to make room for a commerce only city (no gold chopping) that has acces to all the dyes. Dyes on riverbank isn't that 6g2f? We ned Calendar for that one, of course.

It would be nice to know if our GP plan has room for a GA to bulb Monarchy. That would increase the value of the wine tiles.

 

[ShannonCT]

OK, here's the test game.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SGTEST_BC-0580.CivWarlordsSave

It's 580BC. We have just completed Stonehenge and Masonry, and we're one turn from Preisthood. Athens has come out of revolt. An army of 6 swords and 2 axes is on its way to Carthage. All of the forests around Ivoryville are prechopped and ready to be chopped into walls this turn.

Important note: I killed off all of the other civs from the game because I didn't want the fact that we knew three other civs to give us any research bonuses that we wouldn't get in the real game. If you plan on taking Sparta, you will need to add an AI city somewhere on the board or the game will end in Conquest. I have redrawn the board under the assumption that we will need Astronomy to find the other AI.

 

[Frederiksberg]

OK, here's the test game.

Great . I will certainly try out the aggressive REX strategy sometime during the weekend. I hope I will also have some time to experiment with the GP strategy: Pacifism or not, GA for Monarchy or not, late CS with a GM.

I think my preferred tech path will be CoL and then beeline Calendar. Cities will primarily build granaries, workers and settlers.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Great . I will certainly try out the aggressive REX strategy sometime during the weekend. I hope I will also have some time to experiment with the GP strategy: Pacifism or not, GA for Monarchy or not, late CS with a GM.

I think my preferred tech path will be CoL and then beeline Calendar. Cities will primarily build granaries, workers and settlers. Our cities will not expand without either Sronehenge or a religion. Question beeline for Calendar. How about Monotheism and Sailing until city growth is taken care of?

Regarding city sites. They are all rather slow growth and only one, the fish city north of London, give us another outlet to the sea. I remain a bit skeptical.

Presuming we need a GS for Philosophy, where do we best get 2 scientists operating quickly while other cities grow?

 

[Frederiksberg]

Our cities will not expand without either Sronehenge or a religion. Question beeline for Calendar. How about Monotheism and Sailing until city growth is taken care of?

With CoL and Caste System expansion can happen in 5 turns by hiring an artist.

Regarding city sites. They are all rather slow growth and only one, the fish city north of London, give us another outlet to the sea. I remain a bit skeptical.

I haven't decided on city sites yet but even with slow growth producing a settler should be clearly superior to building any infrastructure in terms of beakers per turn if my calculations are correct.

Presuming we need a GS for Philosophy, where do we best get 2 scientists operating quickly while other cities grow?

I think we only have one Library so it must be Ironsite. It's far from ideal though because we also want to work the gold hills there. Maybe building a Library in London is an option?

 

[leif erikson]

Regarding city sites. They are all rather slow growth and only one, the fish city north of London, give us another outlet to the sea. I remain a bit skeptical.

The original Gold city proposed earlier north of Timbuktu is also a seaside city.

For coastal cities, York, Ironsite, Athens, Sparta, Carthage, Fish City and Gold City. There is still the area to fog bust in the east. Who know what we may find there?

I'd also like to get a look at that island east of Carthage...

 

[Cactus Pete]

With CoL and Caste System expansion can happen in 5 turns by hiring an artist. Forgot about that, but still need to think about best way to spread religion in time for Philosophy.

I haven't decided on city sites yet but even with slow growth producing a settler should be clearly superior to building any infrastructure in terms of beakers per turn if my calculations are correct. Are you taking into consideration long term implications of state of city after forests are chopped and nothing built and little growth?

I think we only have one Library so it must be Ironsite. It's far from ideal though because we also want to work the gold hills there. Maybe building a Library in London is an option?

Agree, this is a problem. Perhaps we should condsider sacrificing a little future gold and chopping a library in a more food-rich city.

 

[ShannonCT]

Agree, this is a problem. Perhaps we should condsider sacrificing a little future gold and chopping a library in a more food-rich city.

Timbuktu is already working on a library and can get some help from a couple forests near its borders and/or a whip. And Tim will be able to best take advantage of Caste System which becomes available soon.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Are you taking into consideration long term implications of state of city after forests are chopped and nothing built and little growth?

The idea is to improve the land around the new cities before chopping and only chop gold as the need arises. I'm not too worried about infrastructure since this is a domination game - Granary and barracks should do in most cities and no need for many more techs after we reach Astronomy.

Forgot about that, but still need to think about best way to spread religion in time for Philosophy.

Spending 90 hammers on a Monastery seems like a better deal than spending 256 beakers on Monotheism.

 

[ShannonCT]

I'm having good success with Fred's and Leif's settler building plan. After my gang of 7-8 workers finished chopping Athens's and then Carthage's forests (and improving some tiles), I started settling new cities every 10-15 turns and sending the workers to chop the forests and improve the new resources. I didn't build many new workers. York and later Ivoryville make good settler/missionary factories.

It would be nice to know if our GP plan has room for a GA to bulb Monarchy. That would increase the value of the wine tiles.

I think Monarchy is one of the most likely techs that we'll research while waiting for the last couple GSs to arrive, along with Calendar and Construction. Using a GP on Monarchy only gives half the value as using one for Optics and less than half the value as using one for Astronomy. It looks like going for a Great Artist would slow down our progress to Astronomy.

My main tech line is Preisthood, Code of Laws, Monotheism, Sailing (note that Athens already has a lighthouse), Metal Casting, Machinery, Compass, with Hunting (for ivory camps) and Meditation (for Philosophy) thrown in right before they are needed and Calender/Construction/Monarchy thrown in while waiting for GSs.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I'm having good success with Fred's and Leif's settler building plan. After my gang of 7-8 workers finished chopping Athens's and then Carthage's forests (and improving some tiles), I started settling new cities every 10-15 turns and sending the workers to chop the forests and improve the new resources. I didn't build many new workers. York and later Ivoryville make good settler/missionary factories.

Nice to hear. I haven't come very far with my test game yet. I feel I'm short of workers with 6-7 workers tied up doing nothing but chopping.

I think Monarchy is one of the most likely techs that we'll research while waiting for the last couple GSs to arrive, along with Calendar and Construction. Using a GP on Monarchy only gives half the value as using one for Optics and less than half the value as using one for Astronomy. It looks like going for a Great Artist would slow down our progress to Astronomy.

I'm surprised that getting the 3 GS's is the bottleneck in our research - JT predicted that the opposite would likely be the case. Can something be done to speed up this? JT's suggestion was to use 3 GP farms running in parallel (Athens, Carthage and Timbuktu).

My main tech line is Preisthood, Code of Laws, Monotheism, Sailing (note that Athens already has a lighthouse), Metal Casting, Machinery, Compass, with Hunting (for ivory camps) and Meditation (for Philosophy) thrown in right before they are needed and Calender/Construction/Monarchy thrown in while waiting for GSs.

I'm trying Priesthood - CoL - Med - Sailing - Calendar. Reason is that I want to build a city that can work the 3 dye tiles for a total of 20 gpt. I have also started building settlers immediately and that may be a mistake if getting the GS's are is the limiting factor. MC, Machinery and Compass are not very useful and I will wait with them.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I think this is a great idea. The only question I have is JT's schedule?

I am analyzing city site now. Also, I was looking at Ivoryville (I'm using the 670BC - turn 122 save) and see us farming the Flood Plains. Shouldn't we be building Cottages there?

I am holding off playing till we get our next plans sorted out. Once we are ready I'm sure I will be able to play within 48hours getting the go-ahead.

We are farming Ivoryville so that it grows onto it's high yeild tiles as soon as possible. I thought food would be better since it is airmarked as a production city rather than research.

The question is if we really want to convert pop into gold. As I see the situation right now we have plenty of gold. With 6 more cities I calculated that we could chop 8000 gold. The bottleneck is more likely to convert the gold in our treasury to beakers. And to do that we need to increase pop and work more tiles that yield gold.

Good points. I agree that forest chopping and working our highest commerce yield tiles will likely be the most fruitful approach.

OK, here's the test game.

Thanks muchly

I see the dilema with calendar. Such a useful tech based on our island's resources but we don't want to have a period where our cities can't expand onto their fat crosses.

My hunch is still that we can take a minimalist approach and avoid Philosophy and Monotheism. I will also try a few tests out over the next 2-3days.

No hurry right?

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Timbuktu is already working on a library and can get some help from a couple forests near its borders and/or a whip. And Tim will be able to best take advantage of Caste System which becomes available soon."

Sounds like the way to go. Wouldn't whipping be counter productive to having multiple GS's?

 

[Frederiksberg]

"Timbuktu is already working on a library and can get some help from a couple forests near its borders and/or a whip. And Tim will be able to best take advantage of Caste System which becomes available soon."

Sounds like the way to go. Wouldn't whipping be counter productive to having multiple GS's?

Whipping is not good since we would want to grow as fast as possible and start getting some GS points. Amazingly it seems that getting 3 GS is indeed the bottleneck - at least that's what I notice in my test. One problem is to grow the necessary pop to support 3 scientists.

I see the dilema with calendar. Such a useful tech based on our island's resources but we don't want to have a period where our cities can't expand onto their fat crosses.

With CoL and Caste an artist can do the expansion job in 5 turns in a new city.

 

[Mad Professor]

I see we have two GOTM25 medalists among us. I see you're both in the top 6 in the latest global rankings too with JT's rise to such heights (CP is used to it!). Well done CP and JT!