SGOTM 08 - Smurkz

[Xcalibrator]

The Kindergartner's home from school so I was deposed from the PC throne. I'll write up what I did through turn 71 and continue later.

51--Capital: continue building WB. Hari: continue building worker. Working copper hill. Research 100% (15/-2).
52--Cap: WB completed, send to clams, begin library. Worker1 completes gold road, send to pigs.
53--Worker 1 arrives at pigs. Research 90% (11/0).
54--Sailing done, start Math. Cap: change library to lighthouse (to prepare for whip). Worker1 starts pig pasture.
55--Hari: worker completed, start granary. Send worker to ivory. (Would have been been better to do more roading of forests by future City3 site--see below). Cap: whip lighthouse.
56--Cap: Lhouse completed, continue library. Swap fish to grass hill so library finishes in 1 turn.
57--Cap: library completed, start worker. 1 unhappy. Pig pasture completed, but continue to work copper hill to finish granary for faster growth. Road on ivory completed.
58--Ivory worker move 1 SE, start road. Pig worker to Hari.
59--Ivory worker completes road. Move Hari worker 2N of Hari.
60--Cap: worker completed, start settler, work clams not mine. Send worker to 1N of Hari. Hari: granary completed, start library, swap copper hill for pigs. D'oh! Can't start Pyramids without Masonry. Switch from Math to Masonry (should have done Masonry first so Hari could start on Pyramids now). Worker 2N of Hari start road, other worker move 1E of 1st worker.
61--Worker on square with 2 river sides starts road. Worker 1N of Hari starts road. Won't have Math in time to chop before 3rd settler settles, so slow Cap production by putting cows square to Scientist.
62--Worker 2N of Hari completes road, moves to hill 1NW of there to build road to cows. Other roads completed.
63--Worker 2N1E of Hari pre-chops (I cancel all chop orders when completed to prevent premature completion). One worker starts road on hill toward cows, other 1N of Hari moves to 2N, pre-chops.
64--Masonry done, continue Math (4 turns to go). Swtich Hari from Library to Pyramids. 2 workers pre-chop. Cap: change from Settler to Axe (to prepare for whip).

Have to go move sprinker and don't want to lose typing to time-out so post now. Will continue to edit.

 

[Xcalibrator]

65--Cap: no unhappiness, whip 2pop for axe, work all seafood and gold. Move 2 workers to 1S of Hari, 1 worker to cows, start road.
66--Cap: axe complete, continue settler, pop 4-->5, move axe toward ivory.
67--Cap: settler built, start galley, move settler to Red site, run 1 scientist, shift clams to mine to avoid pop growth. All workers to red site. Hari working copper, pigs, grass forest. Random event empties Hari granary (lost 14/26). Had 10 gold for emergencies, but it required 20 to avert.
68--Math done, start Myst. Settler arrives red and cools his heels because I didn't have the workers ready with that square roaded and chopped and the adjoining two forests ready for the final chop. This could have been easily avoided and could have settled on turn 68. Instead, chop the red site so 16 hammers to to Hari Pyramids. Research to 80% (10/+1). Cap: shift fish to run a 2nd scientist--working 1 fish, gold, mine.
69--2 workers road the red site, 1 moves to 1s of Hari. Settler waits impatiently.
70--Final chop to the 2 forest square by red site, 60 hammers toward Hari Pyramids. Settler settles, start granary there. 3rd worker starts mine 1S of Hari.
71--Myst done, start Poly (3 turns). Al 3 workers finish mine 1s of Hari. Work that square (instead of grass forest).

So far, I could have started building Pyramids 4 turns sooner (by teching Masonry before Math, though I wouldn't have a library in Hari) and could have settled the 3rd city 2 turns earlier. But I'm too lazy to replay. And Renata has probably already perfected that part.

Second daughter home from school so no more playing until after they're in bed.

 

[Niklas]

That's obviously a... non-optimal play, XC, missing Masonry like that. But there's still value in it, looking to see how far you get with that. If you can get Pyramids on turn 88 still, we know we'll have a margin, and your overall strategy might uncover an idea we'd otherwise overlook.

As a general note on whipping - it's far better to whip the settler than whip the axe, simply because you'll keep growing while hand-building the axe but not while hand-building the settler. Also the settler is more expensive - but of course that means you need a higher pop to start with.

I haven't had any time today to look at either spreadsheet, worker moves or test game. Hopefully tomorrow will be less hectic.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Aye, non-optimal . So I went back and redid it. Up to turn 72 now, and
managed to settle 3rd city on turn 68. Darned ants destroyed Hari's pasture, though, so that's a (small, perhaps insignificant?) setback. Will play to turn 100 tonight--am hoping I can still get Pyramids on 87 (we must have our dreams).

 

[Xcalibrator]

Played through turn 97, when the Great Lib movie appeared. Got a little impatient and sloppy toward the end, so might have been able to get 96. Pyramids were late (turn 91) because of that darned ant infestation that destroyed Hari's pasture--it delayed me quite a bit because of much slower growth, probably 2 or 3 turns. It was 11 turns (61--72 before I could get the pasture back because I was frantically roading and pre-chopping to clear out the site for City3. I didn't think at the time to try reloading and do something different to get a less bad event and didn't expect it to have so much of an effect. There was no way to pay to avoid it. With the 'Mids and GLib so close together I didn't bother to revolt to Representation. Oh, and I got Masonry on turn 60 (no delay this time ) and Math on 68.

Anyway, the big change was getting the GLib even earlier--I had Lit on turn 90, and an academy on turn 85 from running scientist specialists to keep the pop under control in the capital. Will post turn details tomorrow. I'm not sure, Niklas, if whipping the settler instead of the axe would have been better. I used 2 pop for the axe (with just 3 hammers invested, so lots of overflow) and with so much excess food, the settler made better use of "building by hand." Oh, and I was building the settler when I did to deliberately keep from growing beyond the happy cap. But if you could explain to me why I'm wrong I would be sincerely delighted.

Tired, will write more tomorrow.

 

[Niklas]

My point regarding growth and whipping is that each whipped pop generates a lot of hammers. We'd be using food to generate hammers, just like we do when building settlers, only with a better tradeoff. Let's look at some examples, all assuming Granary.

Simplest example: Growing from pop 4 to 5 takes 14 food. We can then whip one pop to go back down to 4, and generate 30 hammers. 30 hammers for 14 food is 2.14 H/F, and 30 hammers over 10 turns is 3 hpt. We stay below the happy cap all the time.

Now say we grow from pop 4 to pop 6. Growing from 4 to 5 is 14 food, and from 5 to 6 is 15, total 29. If we whip the same turn we grow to 6, we never lose any food to angry citizens, and we can whip to pop 4 for 60 H for 29 F, 2.07 H/F but 6 hpt.

Growing from pop 4 to pop 7 is more tricky. We need 14+15+16=45 food, but we also have an angry citizen eating our food while we grow from 6 to 7. Assuming that last growth spurt takes 3 turns, that's another 6 food, so the actual cost is 51. 90/51 = 1.76 H/F, and 9 hpt. The tradeoff decreases, but the net output steadily increases.

Growing from pop 4 to 8 and whipping 4 is what I propose we stick to as much as possible. It costs 62 in sheer growth, and probably around 16 in angry citizens, making it 120 H/78 F = 1.54 H/F, 12 hpt.

In the final example, the tradeoff has dropped quite a bit from the original 2.14, but we still generate more than 50% as many shields for the same food by whipping than we would by letting that food go towards settlers, where the ratio is 1.0 H/F.

 

[Renata]

Just pointing out that at some point you will have the elephants hooked up, and thereafter the capital will be happy at size 6 (assuming frequent whips; size 7 if we ever skip a whipping turn). This probably won't happen before about turn 85 due to the worker demands for the Pyramids, but it should be taken into account.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Renata, I had ivory hooked up on turn 75 and it's possible to do on 74.

Time's a wastin' and I don't think there's too much controversy over the next 10 turns, assuming people are in favor of getting an extra 26 hammers toward the Pyramids by waiting until turn 68 to settle the 3rd city. On that turn we get Math, chop the 3 forests near City3, and settle. How much of a delay (if any?) is that compared to the spreadsheet plan? The only change I might make is wanting to bump up the cash reserves to 20 instead of 10, having been burned repeatedly by random events. The plan below does NOT have that change--we'd want to be sure we can still get math on turn 68.

51--Capital: continue building WB. Hari: continue building worker, work copper hill. Research 100% (15/-2).
52--Cap: WB completed, send to clams, begin library. Worker1 completes gold road, send to pigs.
53--Worker 1 arrives at pigs. Research 90% (11/0).
54--Sailing done, start Masonry. Cap: change library to lighthouse (to prepare for whip). Worker1 starts pig pasture. With Sailing in, we can trade with Shaka, assuming he's connected to the sea, yes? Should we offer fish?
55--Hari: worker completed, start granary. Send worker to ivory. Cap: whip lighthouse.
56--Cap: Lhouse completed, continue library. Swap fish to grass hill so library finishes in 1 turn. Begin road on ivory.
57--Cap: library completed, start worker, swap mine to clams, swap grass hill to fish. 1 unhappy as pop goes 5-->6. Hari: Pig pasture completed, but continue to work copper hill to finish granary for faster growth. Road on ivory completed. Somewhere around here Masonry is ready and we start Math.
58--Ivory worker move 1 SE (to grass), start road. Pig worker to Hari.
59--Ivory worker completes road. Move Hari worker 2N of Hari.
60--Cap: worker completed, start settler, work clams not mine. Send worker to 1N of Hari. Hari: granary completed, start Pyramids, swap copper hill for pigs to grow faster. Worker 2N of Hari start road, other worker move 1E of 1st worker. Note: getting in and out of the square with 2 river edges requires extra movement to cross the river--don't mess up. 3rd worker to river square.

After this we road and carefully pre-chop the 3 forests in preparation for getting Math and settling the 3rd city. Cancel the chop orders each turn. In my plan, on turn 61 we want to slow the settler being built in the Capital and speed up Math by shifting the clams to a scientist.

I'll try to run through turn 68 one more time on the test game, but will wait for comments and spreadsheet comparison.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I concur with the plan as stated, including the delay on city 3 for pyramid hammers, but would prefer that we increase cash to 20 sooner rather than later.

 

[Niklas]

Actually, I think there is still quite some discussion to be made. It's a bit hard for me to see and compare the numbers in the format you've presented, I'll see if I can make a spreadsheet out of it in a while so we have better chances to compare.

Just looking at your sequence, I would really like to see the first whip done on turn 53. We can only whip every 10 turns, and delaying one whip by one turn means delaying every other whip by one turn too. Sometimes the benefits of waiting are just too good to pass up on though, and the early Lighthouse might be just such a thing, but do we really have to delay the whip to get that? My gut feeling says we can whip the library on turn 53, and let the overflow go into the Lighthouse which should be available on turn 54. We'd have to make sure we don't build too much on the Library before 53 though, which may delay the LH a turn or two, but that shouldn't be a problem.

How did you manage to get Sailing on 54 btw? Our test games and sheets so far have always had us 1 beaker short on turn 54. Though of course they were done before Methos' turnset, possibly he did something to generate a few extra beakers...

Also, if there are no pressing reasons to do otherwise, I'd advise to always run 100% or 0% science. Due to rounding we make the most of our commerce then. But if we can't get Math in time with that, that's obviously a pressing reason, but then I'd still rather run most turns on 100% and one turn on, say, 50%, rather than all turns at 90%.

I'll get to those spreadsheets in an hour or so, dogs need a walk first.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I'd like to have 20 gold in reserve, too--will check if we can still get Math in time. As for 100/0%, that's not an issue with BTS; they do fractions to 0.01 so there are completely insignificant losses with running 90 or whatever percent.

I suspect that if we whip on turn 53 we won't get sailing on turn 54, but there's probably a way to improve what I did wrt library and Lhouse.

Sorry, I don't have Excel (just some emulators that let me read, but I wouldn't trust them to make spreadsheets that others could read). I'll be very interested to see what you can tweak to improve things.

 

[Renata]

How can you possibly get ivory hooked up that early if the town isn't settled until turn 68? Expansion takes 5 turns, no? So you can't even start the camp until turn 73. For what it's worth, my latest effort has the camp on turn 82 and still finishes all the chops in time by delaying the marble by one turn (which doesn't matter.) It's exceedingly complicated, though.

Re: sailing, I played a few turns yesterday and also got it on 54. I was at 1 turn to go on turn 53, but would have dropped below 10 gold, so went to 0% research. I still got sailing on the interturn. Trade route income, maybe? (Oh, and this was with the whip.)

Are you planning to chop all seven forests towards the Pyramids (finishing at latest turn 87)? If I do my math correctly, that should give you enough hammers to finish by turn 88 (assuming you whip for 2 pop at the end, same as my sheet), even if the plains hills are mined very late. However, I'm not sure how much worker development you'll be able to do, and I'm not sure how city 3 will do.

For comparison, here's what I currently have for workers up until turn 85-ish:

-- original worker: this one does some pre-math chopping and roading, mines both plains hills (turns 69 and 78), camps the elephants 82), then chops one more forest on turn 86.

-- worker from Hari: this one pastures the pigs, pre-chops a forest for one turn, then heads off for the galley to connect the marble, finishing on turn 84.

-- *worker from City 3*: this one is produced via a chop (with considerable overflow towards a granary) on turn 74, roads the elephants, then chops three forests (one is partially pre-chopped) for the Pyramids, finishing on turn 87.

-- second worker from capital: produced turn 76, pastures cows, then mines the grass hill by City 3 on turn 86.

And for city 3:

founded turn 65, worker on turn 75, granary on 82 (lots of chop overflow), and lighthouse on 90 (whip 2).

Can you get similar worker development and city 3 output (granary and lighthouse, anyway) in the same time frame?

 

[Niklas]

I'd like to have 20 gold in reserve, too--will check if we can still get Math in time. As for 100/0%, that's not an issue with BTS; they do fractions to 0.01 so there are completely insignificant losses with running 90 or whatever percent.

Do they do fractions down to that for what is gathered too? I was under the impression that that was not the case, as shown by the interface.

What I mean is, each town generates beakers and gold that are counted to each 0.01, which can be seen in the screen for each town. All the output from all towns is summed, and then floored to the nearest integer. Our treasury is in integers, and our gathered beaker total is given in integers. The numbers written after the sliders are integers. Are you saying they are actually counted as fractions under the hood?

I'll have a look at sheets now.

 

[Renata]

Anyway, here's my latest effort. I emphasize "stuff" over commerce/GS points in the capital, so I'm sure we could manage earlier lit and academy if we really wanted to. For that matter, I suspect our techs may come a little faster than advertised when this is played out for real, as long as we don't build a fourth city. I don't have time to check it out, though. It's been played only up to about turn 55.

Edit: oh, and the spreadsheet is *really* not optimized for having the ivory hooked up earlier than I first planned it. We spend way too much time at size 4 and 5.

Techs:
sailing 54
masonry 58
math 70
alphabet 83
lit 90

Capital:
workboat 52
library 54
axeman 55 (by the way, anyone playing a test game should take this axe out and park it next to the barb city that pops up SW of the elephants. anytime we get an annoying event, just reload and whack a warrior)
galley 62
settler 64
lighthouse 68
baray 74
worker 76
galley 79
settler 84
barracks 88
(academy 96)
GL 100

'Nother edit: the potential whip on turn 93 is skipped.

Pyramids in Hari turn 88, city 3 as above.

 

[Niklas]

I'm on the wrong computer right now - could someone tell me what the current status on gathered beakers is? Are we at 77 as the latest sheet predicted?

Renata, how come you're not online?

 

[Xcalibrator]

Sorry for the double post back there--server hung so I tried to cancel and resubmit.

Ivory: I build a road to the ivory before the city is even built. When the culture encompasses it (turn 74) I have two workers standing on it ready to go.

Yes, I chopped all available forests for the Pyramids. I pasture the Hari pigs much earlier, turn 57. City 3: Pop 3 on turn 82, working cows, clams, ivory; granary was done on 75, library on 86.
-----------------------
Hmm, don't know about the rounding details--I'm recalling from a Strategy thread, but I haven't worried about rounding for a long time and assume I knew what I was doing .
-----------------------
Renata's new post came in...
I had Math 68, Mysticism 70, Poly74, Aesth 85, Lit 90. Your build list looks very similar. Btw, I never saw any barbs.
Capital: Lhouse 56, library 57, worker(3) 60, axe 66, settler 67, baray 76, galley 79, worker(4) 83, quite a few turns on Hanging Gardens, then switch to GLib, finish 97.

[Edit: Hmm, Renata did Alphabet-->Lit, while I did Myst,Poly,Lit. When I finished Aesth I clicked directly on Lit and that's the path (presumably shortest) it gave me. We'd certainly prefer to do Alphabet instead--might slow things slightly but much better for trading.]

 

[Renata]

I was, I was just hiding from pesky team leaders.

84 beakers, surprisingly. Discount at some point from Shaka knowing something?

 

[Niklas]

Xc, I don't understand how you manage to get the Library on the turn after Lighthouse. You state that you work the hill instead of fish on turn 56, but that still doesn't cut it for me. Could you tell me what tiles you work each turn up to that point?

Btw, you've asked several times now and gotten no reply. Yes, I think giving Shaka our spare Fish is a great idea, and we should do so as soon as we have a connection.

 

[Renata]

I actually figure that if we go alphabet first, we may be able to trade for poly within a couple of turns and get a bit of a further discount on literature. Can't do it the other way around. But that's speculation obviously.

Might also be our trade route with Hari is getting us an extra bpt or something.

Edit: ah, two workers for the ivory, of course. Thanks. I used two for it also, but separated in time. (Told you it was complicated ... )

Son of edit: but aesthetics lets us start the Parthenon, hmmm.

When do you get the plains hills mined, XC?

 

[Renata]

Ugh, forget everything said about alphabet; I totally misread the tech tree. You need aesthetics and poly, like XC has. Alpha is irrelevant.