SGOTM 07 - iWarbadly (Mac)

[peter grimes]

Moving the worker from the tile he is currently chopping wastes a turn when he moves back onto the tile to finish the chop. We're going to have to chop the tile at some point, so it may as well be chopped right now. After that, the worker can go and chop the forest plains hill 1ne (or 2e - another tile we're going to cottage soon). But he should not move until after the current tile is chopped.

True, we don't have Pottery now. But it will come in while we're building the pyramids.

The best course of worker actions is doing nothing but chopping until the Pyramids are secured. Consider the worst case: we lose the pyramids by a turn because we canceled the current chop (wasting a turn) so as to move the worker to a different forest*, or because we mined a hill instead of doing a straight chop. What did we lose? Pyramids. What did we gain at the expense of the pyramids? A mine. :shakeshead:

To me it's a no brainer.

And to be clear, I'm not suggesting that we build a cottage on the riverside grass tile right now. But building a cottage there will be our worker's first priority after the Pyramids come in, and we'll need that forest gone in order to do it. So we may as well chop that tile now.

*As I'm sure we all know, there is no difference in yield between a hills forest and a grass forest and a plains forest

 

[dr_s]

Okay, I'm convinced. We should chop grassland plains before the hills.

My reasoning is this (maybe Peter said this before): chopping the hills allows us to build a mine, which is +1 above what we can get from the forested hills. Eventually we can put lumbermills on these and regain that . But chopping grassland plains allows us to build cottages, which will return many over time. So when we chop, we should chop grassland plains.

Then there's the question of how many chops we should execute. As Peter pointed out, we have 11 forests, so if we chop 3 that leaves us +4 . Seems pretty good to me. Each chop is 40 for the pyramids, so that's 2.5 turns at our current production rate.

That leaves (in my mind) the question of building an axeman, or at least putting one turn of into it so we can whip it in case of emergency. I think it's very unlikely that Washington will attack us before we complete the pyramids, but maybe we should be a bit conservative? I never missed the pyramids in any of my practice games, so I'm not sure how much cushion we have.

 

[peter grimes]

Good point about the health - I forgot to address that in my post. Chopping 3 forests still leaves us with 8. We'll get a bonus from our 2 types of seafood, as well as the deer and sheep. So, conservatively, we should be able to have 11 before modifiers kick in. That's good news

If I were at home right now I'd play a test game and see when the AI completes the pyramids. Actually, I'd play a few, on different maps, just to get a handle on the spread. Alas, I'm not at home.

 

[dojoboy]

Okay, here's what's going to take place during my turnset:

(1) finish current chop, then move worker to another grassland plain
(2) cancel trade with Asoka and gift crabs to Washington
(3) keep The Pyramids under construction
(4) pray

I'm only going to play 5 turns, so if we get antsy about Washington, we can go throw in an axeman or two.

Both my sons have little league ball games tonight, so I'll intend to play around 10 pm EST.

 

[mikeyredk]

Wow so much activity just came back from work uhh let me digest it all and come back with a response


When I made my comment it was because I was predicting what occurred the last few turns, you built the road over the marble and went 1N, you should have went back into the city and 1NE. I think chopping that forest for cottages is a bad idea would rather see a watermill or lumbermill there. BTW I was wrong about the plain hills for some odd reason I thought it was 5. BTW if you guys had read the articles I posted about OCC you would have seen people shying away from cottages. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144787

If your set on chopping that tile then… I guess I will live with the group decision, but we shouldn't chop more then we need to. BTW something not discussed starving off and on every other turn will give us 14 raw hammers per turn ever other turn, then 8 the other turns. I was able to get the total turns down to 15 to finish construction of the pyramids from scratch but we dont' grow for those 15 turns and it requires a lot of babysitting. BTW I only chopped two forests and no whipping.

For Axes just pointing it out you don't have to build axes but with our weak power rating and affiliation with india that could lead to something… Just watch out for it cause I did get DOW around 2100 from Khan in my sim game.

 

[dr_s]

I don't think we need to chop all three forests for the pyramids, so if we don't build any axemen now, I vote for chopping two forests and doing some micromanaging like mikeyredk suggests to cut down on the total turns.

As for which forests to chop, I vote for the two riverside tiles, the one we're on and the one 1N of the current tile. Then we can recover the 1 for those tiles. If not that, then the current tile and the tile 1E. In my games, I found that I was bound, not bound later in the game, so I think we should emphasize over where appropriate.

 

[dojoboy]

Preturn - 2680 BC - deal w/ Asoka cannot yet be canceled.

(1) 2640 BC - Gained access to (Asoka trade).
(2) 2600 BC - Chop completed.
(3) 2560 BC - Hunting researched, set to Pottery; move worker 1E to chop f/g tile.
(4) 2520 BC - Begin chop.
(5) 2480 BC - zzz

Notes:

• Pottery in 4 turns
• Beijing now size 4
• Pyramids in 12 turns
• Washington remains cautious

The progress page will not load atm; attaching city view image and save file (save file needs to be uploaded).

edit - Save file is now uploaded.

Play Order:

dr_s - warming up
peter grimes
dojoboy
mikeyredk - Up
lazarillo - on deck

 

[lazarillo]

All,

OK, thanks for the encouragement. I will be sure to post my ideas of what I am going to try to do before doing it. I see I am now on deck. I have 2 young kids, so it's tough for me to reply super-fast, but I can definitely handle the 72 hour "max turn around" in the thread. Once I see mikey's save, I will try to look at it & provide my ideas for next steps w/in 24 hours.


On a related note: what did we decide for the # of turns to take? I think it is 5, right?

Thanks!
Mike

 

[dojoboy]

All,

OK, thanks for the encouragement. I will be sure to post my ideas of what I am going to try to do before doing it. I see I am now on deck. I have 2 young kids, so it's tough for me to reply super-fast, but I can definitely handle the 72 hour "max turn around" in the thread. Once I see mikey's save, I will try to look at it & provide my ideas for next steps w/in 24 hours.


On a related note: what did we decide for the # of turns to take? I think it is 5, right?

Good to hear Mike.

I would go w/ 5 minimum right now. I didn't want to go too long and muff something. Those who are comfortable with the plans, may stretch it out. In general, once we get rolling turn-sets are 10 turns. However, since this is an OCC in most ways, 20 may be best.

 

[dr_s]

I still vote for chopping the riverside hill next. Look at the city screenshot, and count the good tiles we can work. It's going to a long time (in my view) before we ever work a non-riverside cottage. We just have too many other good tiles. (We'll work the two crabs, the riverside cottage, the stone, the marble, the beavers, the deer, and maybe the sheep before we work a non-riverside cottage.) But having a mined hill that produces 4 + 1 will be useful for infrastructure and wonder building.

 

[peter grimes]

Dr_s makes a very good point. This is again one of those cases where my simulation didn't quite match reality, and so I made an error.

When I was customized the tiles around our capital, the river didn't draw in the correct spots, and swung too far to the east. I couldn't figure out how to change it, so I just left it. Obviously, when I played, I saw a second river grass and forgot it didn't really exist

Likewise, I accidentally placed a forest on the marble, and couldn't get rid of it. Anyone know how to do that?

Some other worldbuilder problems:

Is there a way to put discreet amounts of food into the bin?
How about hammers?
How about science?

After the early game, none of this is going to be quite so crucial.

 

[dr_s]

In WB, what left-click provides, right-clicking takes away. So if you select the tree tool and right-click on the marble, the trees should go away.

 

[peter grimes]

Why didn't I think of that??

 

[dojoboy]

It shouldn't cost us a few turns to change that chop. dr_s had suggested two tiles, and I chose the grassland for the food, which I see isn't of importance to our game right now.

 

[mikeyredk]

My plan do the starve strategy will be a little harder since we have 4 pop not 3 pop… I will WB it and get back to you no later then thursday night

I have not been able to replicate the new situation where we did not starve the pop. I will just have to play it by ear… Its too late to switch off the grassland tiles we will get the hammers the next turn… I will though go to the beaver spot and build a camp but washington is too close and can steal the worker if he wanted to… (yeah i am cautious)

Peter there is no way to put food into the bin or hammers into an item or breakers into science thats why I have been having a difficult time replicating the situation because its mid-build.

If you don't mind I would like to finish the pyramids.

 

[peter grimes]

Finishing the Pyramids this turnset is fine with me.

But I disagree with your proposed move with the worker. Until the Pyramids complete, the worker should continue to chop forest. The next tile he chops should be the Forested Plains Hills 1ne of Beijing. We can't afford to lose the pyramids to the AI for the sake of a camp that we don't actually need just now. Besides - if you're cautious, and don't want to give Washington a reason to attack, keep the worker far from his borders

I don't really follow what you mean when you say "...the new situation where we did not starve pop..." What is the new situation, and why are you averse to starvation? Starving the population down is fine as long as it's necessary to achieve out goal: The absolute most important thing is to keep the hammers flowing into the Pyramids as robustly as possible. With those crab tiles we'll be able to regrow very quickly. But I still don't see why we need to starve off a pop point. Perhaps you were you thinking of whipping?

Looking at the screenshot, I think it would be wise to stop working one of the clams and reassign the citizen to a forested plains hill. We will stagnate, but we'll bring in an extra 6 hammers every turn.

One last thing, and I apologize if everyone already knows this: when chopping, click the Chop Forest button - NOT the 'build mine' button. Building a mine will indeed clear the forest, but we only see the hammers after the chop turns (3) plus the mine turns (4) elapse: 7 turns We need those hammers now, dagnabbit!

 

[mikeyredk]

Peter, I meant a controlled starve if you read my earlier post it talks about working 2 forest hills tiles instead of the crabs then switch before we lose a pop (micromanaging) we can still do it but its a little bit more difficult. With this method we get 14 hammers every other turn and get 8 hammers in-between (@ pop 3). When I proposed it we had 3 pop not 4 and could build the pyramids in 15 turns rather then 17+ turns and save us a forest. I could go and do the deer tile its further away from Washington plus the camp wouldn't destroy the forest. Also the deer will give us the same amount of food that the crab gives us plus 2 hammers.

Oh I am just a wee bit tired from work haven't had a good nights sleep in a week. So when I did the edit earlier today it might not have sounded coherent

 

[peter grimes]

I know that feeling! Sometimes I go on the forums in the morning and I think "how could I have written that last night? I made no sense at all!"

I understand what you mean about the controlled starve now. Somehow I missed your earlier post when I was reviewing things. But I think the only reason to save the forest is if we wanted to chop it down later. We don't need it for health reasons - forest health (+1/2)is rounded down, and as we started with 9 forests (+4), we are able to chop 3 and only lose one health point.

But if there's something else down the line that we think it's worth risking not getting the pyramids for, I'm open to persuasion.

This discussion raises another good question:
What is our worker to do after the pyramids come in?
1. Cottage the riverside grass - the sooner we get going on that cottage, the better. I did the math once, and every turn we don't have a town there costs us 40 commerce. That can really make a difference when you think about all the research multipliers we're going to have!
2. Camp the Deer: More + more = more growth, and more faster whips
3. Camp the Furs: Happiness is the limiting factor for our city size right now. Plus, with added happiness, we can whip more often to bang out the infrastructure we need to really get on our feet: Granary, Lighthouse, Library, Temple, Barracks
4. Quarry the Marble: Parthenon may be a good wonder to shoot for since we have a lot of food and can therefore run several specialists. If we don't need the marble, we can always trade it to a cautious neighbor

These are in no particular order. My personal order would be 1, 3, 4, 2

 

[dr_s]

I think we should focus on food first, then happiness, then commerce. Making high commerce tiles doesn't do anything unless you have the pop to work them.

As for wonders, if we can fit in the parthenon, that would be great. The great library is more important, though. We will also need hammers for national wonders; globe theater is very important to us.

I'm not too concerned about missing the pyramids. I never missed it in my tests and I never chopped three forests. If we're only going to chop three forests, we might want to think about saving one for a later wonder.

 

[lazarillo]

Hey all,

In an attempt to more pro-actively engage:

o I ran through a test finally. As others mentioned, it seems we'll get Pyramids without a problem (well, assuming it is OK to chop the 3 forests folks have implied).

o Assuming we get Pyramids & the switch to the civic that allows +2 happy & +3 research (the 3 in line... I forget it's name), I don't think that happy will be a problem, at least not until around 9 or 10, at which point we can start cranking out soldiers (probably needed anyway) and switch to hereditary.

o since we are financial & since it will be hard to keep research up with others, I tend to think that the order should go food, commerce, then happy because of what I wrote above. Other than that, I agree with what others have been saying.

Mostly, I just wanted to chime in & start contributing...