SGOTM 08 - Smurkz

[Xcalibrator]

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?

I stick with whatever we're working in the Cap on turn 51, start the lib on 52, change to Lhouse on 54, whip the Lhouse on 55, continue with lib on 56 while also swapping one fish for the grass hilll so lib finishes in 1 turn. Lib finishes on 57 and I swap grass hill for fish.

Renata: "Plains hill"? You mean the one (or two) north of Hari? Er, uh, I don't know. In any case, my dates will be off because of having to redo the pig pasture, which messed things up. (Really wish I'd reloaded after the ants )

 

[Xcalibrator]

Do we know that the test game initial conditions (for turn 51) match what's in the official save???

 

[Niklas]

I should hope so, I think I did the same things Methos did, and rolo checked it after (but maybe not the towns). Could you have a look?

 

[Xcalibrator]

Just grabbed the save (my first time--how exciting!) and compared. There are 2 diffs I see: the test has 15/30 food (game 14/30) and 25/30 hammers toward the workboat (game 27/30). But that would have made it harder for my tests than for your spreadsheet (which has the true game params, right?)

[Edit: oh, and the Hari params are identical, as are tech progress (84/149 Sailing), beakers (24, I believe), and gold (15, -2 per turn).]

 

[Niklas]

Ok, I must have done something strange with the capitol when playing the test game. Sorry about that. But yes, my spreadsheet uses the correct numbers from the save.

After a break for dinner, I'll get back to work on it. So far I'm up to turn 80 or so. I will go test-play in a short while.

 

[Renata]

Your plan for the Pyramids is really nice, XC. Niklas is playing it through now and is going to get turn 87 -- after two slave revolts (one of which delayed a worker by a turn. And that's the only reason I mentioned it, being as the effects were limited to the capital. Really. .) Sweet! And really very little is sacrificed to accomplish that.

 

[Niklas]

Ok, I played through until GLib with my plan. I had problems getting two slave revolts which naturally set back my results (and I had no way to fight anything to make them different).

I had Literature on turn 93 and GLib on turn 101. Since I lost two turns' worth of capital research, as well as 10 gp to put down one revolt (one I chanced and won), that means I would have had Lit on 91 at worst, possibly 90. Pyramids would have come on turn 87 if I hadn't been over eager with workers, so I was one worker turn short of chopping the last forest on turn 86. That shouldn't be a problem in the real game.

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.

If I normalize my numbers to disregard the slave revolts: In my capitol I built WB (52), Library (54, whipped 2 on 53), Lighthouse (58), galley prebuild, Settler (64, whipped 4 on 63), Worker (65 using overflow), Galley completed (67), Axeman (71), galley prebuild, Baray (74, whipped 4 on 73), Galley #2 (79), building Great Lighthouse until turn 91 (or 90), Great Library (98?)

Research (normalized) was Sailing (54), Masonry (58), Maths (68), Aesthetics (80), Myst (81), Poly (84), Literature (91).

To compare, it's obvious that I had more hammers than Xc, as expected with the higher-yield whips. I built one galley more by turn 79, other than that we were equal, with some flips back and forth. I'm a bit weary of delaying the Axe until 71, but we could always slot it in before the first galley (at the expense of later Marble) if barbies look to become a problem.

When I finished GLib in the capitol I was 2 turns from Parthenon in Hari. A problem there is that the Marble isn't connected in time to start it, but we can use the interrim to grow a bit (we're in Representation by then). I was also a few turns (6?) from building ToA in the third town, just for fun, and that after building Granary, LH and Library first.

Worker moves were done after Xc's fashion, chopping three forests on turn 69 (would have been 68 easily) and settling the third town that turn. I had the Dumbos connected turn 75 (would have been 74), and was only 2 turns late of having all hills mined in time for Hari's growth to 5 on turn 75. We should formalize these moves to ensure that we get the optimal sequence here.

 

[Niklas]

Here's the sheet I used for the first part:

 

[Renata]

XC built one extra worker in the capital, didn't he? So you're at similar hammers in terms of what you actually built, though it looks like you would have had the chance to accumulate a few more "unused" hammers than XC did, as XC was building the Hanging Gardens* from about 83-90, while you built the Lighthouse from 79-90 or 91 (normalized), about 4 extra turns' worth.

Research speed was surprisingly close between the two of you, though it appears that XC has the jump in GP Points, since his academy came earlier by several turns.

*Is that not at Monarchy in BTS?

 

[Xcalibrator]

Nice to have things just about perfected. I'd be happy to follow that plan for my turnset, although I'll need detailed info on the worker moves if they're different from my plan. The 4th worker was mostly to speed up the marble and fort work, but I image the plan will have evolved quite a bit by then. I like the 2nd galley for exploration. Oh, and add a big note to see if we have anything to trade (not gold or ivory, of course) once we get Sailing.

Does you plan boost the gold reserves to 20? Any thoughts on what to do if we meet other civs? Shall I have our exploring warrior focus on getting west as fast as possible in the hope of meeting other civs, or scope out Shaka first? I favor the former, though would try to check out Shaka too.

No, Hanging Gardens don't need Monarchy--I was just killing time in the Cap waiting for Lit.

 

[Renata]

My preference would also be to meet as many civs as possible.

 

[Niklas]

I forgot to note that I also built another settler, whipping 3 pop on turn 86 (norm.). By that time we had Elephants, and were close to Representation, so I didn't want to whip too far down in pop, hence waiting a few turns. But after that it's only a few turns' worth of growth to get up to sustainable size 10, that's how fast we grow.

I could of course have built a worker instead, which would have completed naturally on turn 82. In fact, I could probably have done both, we don't really need to put any hammers into that secondary wonder.

Hanging Gardens comes with Monarchy - in Civ3.

My gold reserves were mostly high, but shrunk close to 10 on certain points. During these first 10 turns I did turn 53 at 10% research, getting Sailing and a gold boost on the same turn. If it's possible to get Sailing on 54 at 0% in the real game then I think we should. No other min-research turns up to turn 61.

Note that my sheet is not correct regarding turn 62. I couldn't get an accurate test of the situation there due to the revolt I had, which paused everything in the capitol except the drop in whip unhappiness. So in the sharp game we'll have 5 pop there, I had 6. We should have another look at it after Xc's turnset. The important thing there is to not generate more than 9 hammers towards the settler, so that we can whip 4 pop.

Note that the 34 hammers listed after Lighthouse is a galley prebuild.

My preference is definitely to meet new civs. I want to see Shaka's capitol, but we'll do that next turn. After that, go explore. I'm sure you can do the best of it.

I'll write up a detailed plan for what I did with my workers. It's probably not far off from yours, but I'll get it up.

 

[Renata]

Monarchy, Mathematics, they both start with "M" ...

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I'm good with the next turn set. Let's just cross our fingers that all events will be good events!

 

[Niklas]

Here's my suggested worker plan, in the spirit of Xc's worker movements. It connects the Dumbos by 74 as Xc suggested, and it mines the hills that Hari needs in time:

I'll have a look and see if there's actually a chance to get the Pyramids on 86. Gotta do some household work first though.

 

[Niklas]

Actually, it was a fast check - it is possible. With the scheme above, and my scheme for Hari, we will be at 505 hammer on turn 86.

Ok, chores await, be back later.

 

[Renata]

Nice . I think I see one problem with the worker plan, though -- worker 3 can't load to the galley on the turn after chopping the river forest, can it? That tile isn't roaded (and is on the wrong side of the river in any case). So the galley can't be loaded until turn 70.

 

[Niklas]

Right, good spot. We'll have to take one of the other workers to embark though, and let this one go back to finish the second pHill mine after the Dumbos are online, before chopping the forests.

EDIT: Here's a simpler sequence, since we don't need either pHill mine until turn 75:

We can't really delay the Marble any further. It's perhaps possible to send a second worker over there after Pyramids, but we'd rather not, the journey over there is costly in terms of worker turns.

 

[Renata]

Is it possible to "load" a unit that's out of movement?

I agree it's better not to send two workers over there if possible, though a fourth worker would be valuable in any case.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I hope this doesn't mess up the Pyramids by 86 scheme, but camping the ivory takes 4 worker turns--looks like it only has 2 in the spreadsheet, so that would push back the ivory hookup to turn 75 (which is when I got it--when I said "possible on turn 74" I meant if we had a 4th worker). [Edit: Duh, you settle the 3rd city on 68, not 69--so no problem, you allow 4 worker turns. Maybe add "move to ivory, start camp" on turn 73]

On the unloading of no-movement units from ships, I'm fuzzy on the details, but it seems that if you dock your ship in a port (and it still has movement??) it can unload the unit. [Edit: which is irrelevant to what you asked--coffee hasn't kicked in yet. But no, I think once a unit is out of movement it's done.]

As you know, I'm a greenhorn on GOTMs and don't even know how to capture screenshots, much less incorporate into a post. Ditto for how the turn log business works. Help? Or I could just type a record of events by hand into a post and let someone else take pictures and post after I've submitted the save.