SGOTM 10 - One Short Straw

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[shyuhe]

No I've just been swamped with work. Finally wrapped it up so I'll have time for some civ again.

 

[babybluepants]

Me, too. Major deadline yesterday.

3 workers serfdom: i felt better putting gold before one of food [cows]

Yeah, same here. The border doesn't pop fast enough for the cow, and the city grows ridiculously fast anyway. Hooking up gold first stays ahead of happy issues, too.

fish goes to that place west of fish.
First why i did not like it initially:
city on phants most likely will fogbust northern peninsula while having city up there requires unit near floodplains. If options are close my rule of thumb is settle inland...
After playing - it honestly does not have forested tile before border pop up. Also settling on phants allows to chop that hill worker is on, so he is done turn before, another guy pops turn earlier.... Basically it is some minor lag which keeps going on.
I don't think it is major concern but i settle on phants.

Good point on fogbusting. The fish city does leave a lot of room for LB's to cover. I'm chopping the tile 1S of iron, after chopping two workers, and getting the border pop in time. More on second city location later...

Also it is possible to run enginneer in cap and citizen in second town, and after switch to caste run few scientists to supress cap GP production. You can easily squeeze three GS at 100% odds.

I've been doing citizen specialist in both and rushing libraries... I guess you could run an engineer in Moscow, but honestly the +1hpt is practically useless with all the base production, multipliers and chops.

I tested running slavery early on. Basically makes sense since whips get bureau bonus [or i am hallucinating already?] the problem is basically double gold... which is not worth whipping away. I'd guess golden age and mass whipping universities?

Yeah, I thought there were too many great tiles to work. Whipping doesn't really make sense.

Mass whipping universities?!!! In the early 1400's? I'd like to know how they managed that.

On most maps i played i had two-three barbarian units. I am also not sold on our need to have trireme or whatever antigaley meassures early on.

I don't really think we need a trireme until probably 1600 AD. That said, if a galley shows up, we could lose 3 fish nets before we rush one out, so I'd stay on the safe side. In my tests, the barbs don't show up at all until the mid to late 1400's. Can we somehow confirm a date?

 

[babybluepants]

Well, to avoid going in circles, will everybody please post their preference for:

(1) capital location
(2) suggested second city location (general direction, i.e., to the south is fine)
(3) first tech to research
(4) civics
(5) liberalism tech

Let's resurrect this...

(1) 1W of gold.
(2) I'm leaning towards 1W of fish. I have some concerns, though. It's actually not quite as great a GP farm as it seemed to me at first (no food really past the three seafood). Soirana's point about fogbusting inland is also valid. In favour of the location, I would say that it's a very fast city to get going, does have quite a bit of food, hooks up two good resources immediately, and leaves room for more expansion.
(3) Nationalism / Education (bulb) / Liberalism
(4) Bureau / Serf / Merc / Pac. I would wanna switch to Caste / HR after 30-35t, once the two cities are taken care of by 3 workers. Alternatively, we could start HR / Bureau / Serf / Merc, and switch to Pac / Caste. I think the first option is better, as it could apply a bit of bonus to library specialists.
(5) Constitution.
(6) GP order: GS academy, GS Education (by the time we finish Nat), GS (by the time we finish Lib) either bulbs PP or save for Chem (depending on how well GS generation is going at this point, possibility of trades, etc.).

Soirana, can you try to explain your tech strategy to me again? I just don't get how it's possibly any better, but you seem pretty determined with it.

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[shyuhe]

Well, the capital appears to be settled on 1W of gold now so I will go ahead and make that move tonight. I think that leaves the worker and other settler. I propose the worker go 1E onto the forested river tile.

As for the second settler, there appears to be a split on whether the second city should go north for the fishies or west to the FP.

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[PaulusIII]

I still favour our food-rich capital by settling in place. That is just me though.

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[shyuhe]

If the worker chops in place, then the hammers don't get applied to the new city before the border pops.

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

there is classic story about swan, pike and lobster trying to make move cart I am starting feeling like lobster lately.

 

[PaulusIII]

The thing about settling in place is that it'll give us a lot of food... and yeah, I know that's about it, but food'll help us expand, which I regard as more vital than getting the gold up early - and I see no reason to go 1W unless it's for early gold, since settling in place has it beat on both food and production. Workboats are 1/2 the price of a worker and will come cheap, if need be aided with chops.

 

[babybluepants]

The thing about settling in place is that it'll give us a lot of food... and yeah, I know that's about it, but food'll help us expand, which I regard as more vital than getting the gold up early - and I see no reason to go 1W unless it's for early gold, since settling in place has it beat on both food and production. Workboats are 1/2 the price of a worker and will come cheap, if need be aided with chops.

The city 1W of gold grows so fast, it's hard to even keep up with two dedicated workers. Settlers and workers are better built with hammers than food. I'm not at all sure that the in-place capital gets much better expansion, but you can prove me wrong with some numbers. The bureau bonus on the 2 gold is substantial when multiplied by lib/acad. Long term it's a better city, I think.

Honestly sorting with settlers should come first. Phants place loose some points if you do not start chop on this turn [preferrably after civic switch].

Yeah, you have to switch civics before starting the chop, if you wanna shave a turn. Just to clarify, I'm ok with this city location, just have a slight preference for fish city.

Honestly, guys, I feel like we're going in circles a bit. Could we just vote on the city locations and civics and bust a move? I think if 4/5 (not counting Ras) can agree on something, it should be good enough at this point. If anyone hasn't tested enough in the last couple of weeks, I doubt it'll happen in the next few days. I think we have a 4/5 agreement on: 1W of gold, Bureau/Merc, maybe Serf. Less clear on second city location and Pac. We have to decide on all of these before making any moves, since it all potentially affects worker action.

 

[shyuhe]

Settling next to the gold gives us irrigated corn and rice + clams. So I think the city will grow almost as fast as in place. Plus the commerce from the gold can't be ignored. And to avoid going in circles, I'm putting the capital 1W of the gold.

I don't have a strong preference on the second city. I'm ok with going phants first and fish after that. The phants city will require a worker earlier though, whereas the fish city can busy itself with workboats until we crank out a few more workers.

I do think we want serfdom and pacifism in the beginning.

 

[PaulusIII]

The in-place capital has 1 more hammer to begin with (from settling on a plains hill), plus the iron tile which will give a substantial hammer bonus as well. I'm not too sure on how important the science boost is compared to the bonus from earlier expansion.

I'm not a number cruncher or micromanager... that's two parts of the game I'm bad at. Therefore I'm not going to provide numbers, just because I'm going to screw them up somehow.

 

[babybluepants]

Settling next to the gold gives us irrigated corn and rice + clams. So I think the city will grow almost as fast as in place. Plus the commerce from the gold can't be ignored. And to avoid going in circles, I'm putting the capital 1W of the gold.

There are no clams at that site... Do you mean cows or am I not thinking of the same "1W of gold"?

 

[Soirana]

deleted into oblivion

 

[babybluepants]

I'm changing my mind for the last time, I swear! I'm leaning over to Soirana's side on the second city issue. I think I must have misplayed it bad the first time, because now I'm getting a marginally better start with ivory than fish. I've been thinking about long term potential, too, and it seems to me that, as a GP farm, ivory will be able to run one extra specialist compared to fish for some stretches of the game. Fish/iron could be a pretty decent hammer city at pop 6-7. Mainly though, I thought the two were incompatible, but I now think we should have cities in both those locations regardless of which comes first. Call me undecided and willing to go with either, but if I'm the swing vote we're most likely going with ivory.

1420 AD Stats (equivalent openings):

With ivory & bureau/serf/merc/pac:

Moscow Pop 7 Food 22/45 Settler 124/324 1fpt 29hpt 54bpt 3gpp Builds: work/work/warr/lib/lb/sett
Peter Pop 7 Food 23/45 Worker 32/81 7fpt 7hpt 20bpt 12gpp 72/135 GS Builds: wb/wb/warr/lib/wealth/work
Tech Nationalism 1239/2721; 74bpt

With fish & bureau/serf/merc/pac:

Moscow Pop 7 Food 30/45 Settler 95/324 5fpt 24hpt 45bpt 3gpp Builds: work/work/warr/lib/lb/sett
Peter Pop 7 Food 32/45 Worker 23/81 8fpt 11hpt 16bpt 12gpp 18/135 GS Builds: wb/wb/warr/lib/work
Tech Nationalism 1110/2721; 61bpt

 

[shyuhe]

Sorry forgot the clams are one tile out of range. I'm going to do some test runs shortly and will compare with bbp.

 

[shyuhe]

I got a fish run at 1420 of:

Moscow: 7 pop, 42.5 bpt, 12 hpt, settler 87/324, 93/135 GPP (~50% GS/GE); worker-worker-warrior-library-settler
St. P: 8 pop, 8 bpt, 14 hpt (library in 1), GE next turn; WB-WB-WB-warrior-library

1192 towards Nationalism.