SGOTM 08 - Smurkz

I've started looking at some spreadsheets. And the more I look, the more I'm appealed by a worker-first start. The big difference lies in getting the gold online that much faster, which really speeds up research. By turn 46 I have AH, Fishing, BW, TW, Pottery and Writing (in that order), with Maths on turn 60 and Sailing on turn 64 (we may want other order though). Gotta run now, will post sheet when I get back.
 
Worker first significantly favors Green as a starting location, due to the 25% expansive bonus. Green gets 9 hammers from the bonus, and there's no way Purple can make that up. It's not until turns 29/30 that Purple begins to make up the difference by netting Fish instead of Clams.

IMHO, Purple is significantly worse than Green given this scenario. It loses one turn momentum to move the settler, and two turns on the worker. Unless we simply must have marble as fast as possible (and I would argue we don't) then a worker first start means settling in place.
 
You're right that settling in place gets you up and running faster, say the first 30 turns. But that doesn't obviously mean that it will be better in the mid-run, say the first 100. I still want to see the sheets.

As for marble, we should need it around turn 120, judging by completion times of the Great Library in the logs I've looked at. That's possible with either start.
 
Probably just a minor point, but after the "rice incident" perhaps worth mentioning: how many jungles do you need to net a point of unhealthiness? The purple site currently has one jungle, with the potential for it to spread to two more.
 
Food for thought - if we settle Purple, and the hill 2S of the start is copper/iron, the best place to put a city to use the tile bonus is 2W of the hill on the coast. I'm not sure that's going to be the best place for a city.
 
I'm thinking along the lines of putting the second town 1W of the starting location, to share the Clams and Cow. That town would get the "copper" tile too. I've never been a fan of sparse city placement. ;)
 
My computer is still dead, so I'm borrowing my partner's. That means when she wakes up in a few minutes, I'm done until this evening probably. So here's what I've got for Green up through turn 32, following Niklas' plan.

Spoiler :


http://gesserit.net/smurkz/Green32.CivBeyondSwordSave

http://gesserit.net/smurkz/green32.xls

One of the questions at this point is what to build? One turn until growth - should we put the chop hammers into a second worker and delay growth one turn? Or drop them into a barracks? There will be a second chop coming soon, so perhaps a second worker would be useful for Green, which starts with lots of forests and +2 river health, so can chop with abandon.
 
Here's the sheet I've been working on. It's lacking detail in some places, in particular worker moves, but it's not like we'll have a shortage of things to do with the worker (pre-chops, roads to new towns etc). I didn't take a shot of it, it's too big to handle easily, so here's some key points:

Settle on Purple site on turn 1.
Techs: AH(14)-Fishing(20)-BW(30)-TW(35)-Pottery(40)-Writing(46)-Sailing(52)-Masonry(56)-Mathematics(68)
Builds: Worker(16)-Warrior(part)-Workboat(28)-Warrior(compl. 30)-Workboat(34)-Workboat(38)-Settler(43, whipped)-Granary(49)-Library(54, wh)-Galley(61)
Resources: Cows pasture (19), Gold mine (24), Fish nets (29), Fish nets 2 (35), road on Gold (36), road on Cow (38), Clam nets (42), Marble quarry (67), Marble road (69), Marble island fort w road (77).
Other things of note: Slavery on turn 38 (no reason earlier). A second town settled around turn 45, in the "production belt" (I still suggest 1W of start, but of course we will scout more before we decide).

Note that I don't take the second town into account when I calculate research, but it will be a net producer working the Clams so it won't delay things at least.
 

Attachments

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I found a sort of glitch in the "whip settler every 10 turns at purple site at size 9" idea; namely, that after one turn the settler will have sixteen hammers, which means it is only whippable for 3 pop, not four. However, if we do go masonry-math after writing, we should have the marble quarried fairly soon after we get to that point, and we could work that tile instead of the clams for slower growth/higher proportion of "real" hammers, without sacrificing commerce or total hammers. That should let us whip at size 8 if we want, though I haven't worked out the details.
 
Oops, that's obviously no good. :)

I suppose that the worker would chop for the first three turns, and then build the mine, since we don't actually work that mine until turn 39 anyway. I'm not sure what to do 24-30 - is there anything at all we could do? :dunno:
 
I did a test of the purple site this morning and as it turns out, did things virtually identical to Niklas up to the point where he whips the first settler. Some minor difference in tile assignments led to Niklas getting BW one turn earlier than me and me growing to size 5 one turn earlier than him. The rest is the same once revolution timing is accounted for.

After that it varies, though. I did warrior (41)-granary (44) before whipping a settler on turn 48, which is probably too late for the first one on most maps. And despite letting the city grow some more before whipping I wound up a turn later than Niklas to pottery and writing, which probably defeats the purpose of allowing that growth. Though I did get back even with him for sailing/masonry, and got to math a turn earlier. I'm sure there's room for improvement, though; I did some weird tile assignments trying to make the whips work out right. The biggest problem with my test game was I left all the settlers too late, not just the first one -- and given that a second city could make good use of those clams, even the first settler should probably get out as soon as possible. So I'll just forget what I did after turn 38. :p

@ Niklas -- I have no idea how you got the fort up so soon, though. Doesn't it take 10 turns? Mine was done and roaded on turn 79, for what it's worth.

Oh, and? Slave revolts without money in the bank are devastating. Got one on the same turn the fort completed and yikes. Heck, even with money they're awful. Can we confirm that events are on for this game?
 
The worker does sit around on his butt for about a half dozen turns.

Edit: or rather, he takes half a dozen turns to wander ever-so-leisurely over to the hill by the river.
 
Slave revolts? :dubious: :wallbash:

What's the chance of one of those occuring? I hate random events, with a passion. :mad: We should definitely wait to revolt until the very last moment before we need the whip then.

I read here that forts take 6 turns to complete, but it may be that that's Vanilla info. If you say it's 10 turns then I'm sure you're right. So I guess I'd have mine up by turn 81 then.

I just saw Chris' last sheet - no idea how come I missed it before. I think a warrior or another workboat would be useful at that point. They could scout and/or fogbust, and the WB could return to hook up the second Fish once we settle a second town. But yes, I also like the idea of a second worker.
 
One more awkward question: Has anyone played out the settle-on-the-spot position far enough to see where the borders are after three expansions? I want to be 100% certain they'd cover the marble with it being overseas. Because when you settle on purple and the borders expand twice, you *don't* pick up the plains tile south of the marble (though as pointed out previously, the fort does still work). If everything was on the same landmass, expansion would get that tile within the borders.
 
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