SGOTM 10 - Xteam

[Frederiksberg]

I think what we need is a REX competition to see which layout can achieve a particular REXing goal the fastest.

The outcome of this is certainly interesting. Let's say we find that chopping speeds the REX a bit what would be the conclusion? This is somewhat unclear to me because there will clearly be a trade off between chopping now for REX and saving forests for more free specialists later.

Assuming that a strong NP city is important to do well in this competition what can we do to minimize risks given our limited knowledge at the start of the game? If we start chopping early we may later find out that there is no other suitable site for the NP city within reach and then we have done something irreversible that we may not recover from. If we settle the capital on the dessert hill and the GP farm in place we can chop a couple of forests in the capital FC and still have 9 forests left in the GP farm. We can then postpone the decision on chopping these forests until we have obtained information about the map. If there is indeed another strong site for a GP farm we can then chop the forests anyway. What we loose from this is bureaucracy bonus for a some forests and note that compared to settling south of rice we keep one extra forest for chopping. Compared to keeping the capital in place we bonus for a few more forests but we gain bureaucracy bonus for the gold hills.

My conclusion is that from a risk management point of view we are better of settling the capital on the desert hill and the GP farm in place and then wait for more scouting before we decide what to do with the forests.

 

[ShannonCT]

There's also the issue of forest regrowth. This post explains the mechanics:http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7362681&postcount=4

Tiles next to 1 forest (north, south, east or west) have a 1 in 1000 chance of regrowing a forest per turn. Tiles next to 2 forests have a 2 in 1000 chance per turn. Forests preserves increase the chance by a factor of 8.

If we chopped a few forests early on tiles adjacent to 2 or more forests, there would be a good chance for some of them to grow back (I calculate a 40-50% chance for a tile to regrow a forest before NP is finished).

 

[leif erikson]

I think it is clear that there is another forest to the southwest of the desert hill site. Not sure what else we may find down there, but that gives us two forests that we know of we can chop. By the time we have some of this set up, I hope we will have some more recon done and then we can decide where to build other cities. Not sure we'll be fortunate enough to find another city site quite like that starting plains hill? But it does look like more forests to the south, perhaps we can chop some settlers down there?

The NP/NE seems worth the risk, all those great people.
I am reluctant to pass up the opportunity to use this site for NP/NE without further recon.
If we do not use the NP/NE approach, what is a better alternative? With so much food, pop-rushing isn't bad.

 

[Cactus Pete]

No doubt that delaying founding to put capital on sersert hill makes sense if we go that way. Regarding the competition, if that's still considered worth doing, to control variables, what about adopting Pacifism, or not, and when?

 

[leif erikson]

No doubt that delaying founding to put capital on sersert hill makes sense if we go that way. Regarding the competition, if that's still considered worth doing, to control variables, what about adopting Pacifism, or not, and when?

The best way I can answer for the moment is to look at SCT's game log from the save in this post.

Initially, SCT switched to Bureaucracy, Slavery, Mercantilism and Organized Religion, in 1285 AD.
In 1505 AD, he changed to HR and Pacifism.
In 1590 AD, he adopted Caste.
In 1670 AD, he adopted Judaism, the religion that was founded for us in St. Petersburg.

I do not know if this is the best way to do it, but I think the general concept is quite solid. He left Slavery once his REX was completed and moved on to research with Specialists.

 

[ShannonCT]

No doubt that delaying founding to put capital on sersert hill makes sense if we go that way. Regarding the competition, if that's still considered worth doing, to control variables, what about adopting Pacifism, or not, and when?

I'm still conflicted about this, as well as HR vs. OR at the start. Maybe it is better to adopt HR at the beginning. The capital can whip settlers at Pop8, and that's its happy cap so that works out well. But the second city needs to get to Pop10 to whip settlers without delay, but its happy cap is only 7 without HR or religion. HR would get the second city to Pop10 faster and get more hammers/commerce. So maybe we should start with HR/Slavery/Bureau/Merc and get missionaries from a monastery. When Caste becomes more useful than Slavery, switch to Caste/Pacifism for 1 turn of anarchy. I guess that will be around the time when we have whipped our last settlers.

Then the only decision left will be when to switch to religion. In the last test game I posted, I switched into a state religion for a while. Then in a golden age, I switched out of religion to hunt for some tech trades. Then I switched back into religion before the golden age ended.

 

[leif erikson]

I had planned to try the REX challenge this evening until my dear wife gave me a project to do. So, I'll see if I can get it done tomorrow.

I like your logic above, SCT. HR, Bur., Slavery and Merc. sounds good. I'll try it this way.

Looking at your save and the challenge, is there a reason we should stop at 6 cities? I founded a city or two on islands to gain more cities. Should we not do this as they are more difficult to defend? Is six the magic number?

 

[ShannonCT]

Looking at your save and the challenge, is there a reason we should stop at 6 cities? I founded a city or two on islands to gain more cities. Should we not do this as they are more difficult to defend? Is six the magic number?

6 is an arbitrary number that is easy to achieve on the starting landmass in the test game.

 

[leif erikson]

6 is an arbitrary number that is easy to achieve on the starting landmass in the test game.

In the real game, do you think there is an optimal number of cities we are looking for? The reason I ask is that the AI seem to fill in fairly well. The change from Slavery to Caste, it seems to me, should happen when we have achieved the majority of our REX efforts. If this is so, knowing what number of cities we might like to have would help.

Perhaps the answer is as many as we can found before we are shut out by Barbs or AI's?

 

[ShannonCT]

In the real game, do you think there is an optimal number of cities we are looking for? The reason I ask is that the AI seem to fill in fairly well. The change from Slavery to Caste, it seems to me, should happen when we have achieved the majority of our REX efforts. If this is so, knowing what number of cities we might like to have would help.

Perhaps the answer is as many as we can found before we are shut out by Barbs or AI's?

Any site that has a good number of land tiles should be considered. Windmills, watermills, and workshops can make new cities productive quickly. We want to acquire as many resources as possible for health and happiness. Horse, marble, and stone would all be useful. Uranium is a must and we wont know where it will show up until Physics, so the more tiles we can cover, the better. Coal would give a bonus to the Ironworks, and we wont know where it is until Steam Power, so more cities give us a better chance to have some.

Small islands aren't going to help us tech or war faster. But the AI will settle every island if given the chance. Maybe we can use privateers to keep the AI from settling island cities. The AI wont protect galleons with frigates.

 

[leif erikson]

I thought the more the merrier would be better, as more hammers are better.

With an aggressive recon effort, we should know fairly soon what we have to work with.

 

[ShannonCT]

I completed the 6 city challenge in 1605 with capital on the desert hill and second city on the plains hill.

 

[Mad Professor]

Murky Waters helpfully uploaded a save which shows they didn't settle any city for the first turn or two.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Looks like Murky likes the desert hill.

I've started the challenge, settling on the ivory and S of the rice. Will try to finish within 24 hours.

BTW, found the first two workers in Moscow come sooner if you whip the first and use the chop to immediately complete the second.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I played 10-15 turns with the in-place/dessert hill city placement yesterday. With this setup you can also get 4 workers in 6 turns using CP's whip and chop scheme (chopping the forests that has to go anyway to draw irrigation to corn and rice.

I started out with zero research since we are going to bulb Gunpowder anyway. Is there any reason to spend beakers on Education? If we don't believe that Universities and Oxford are that important we can probably wait. Didn't get very far in those 10-15 turns but I was considering building caravel and then library in the capital with the intention of hiring extra specialist there and speed up the initial GP production. Has anyone tried this?

As I stated earlier I think our dates for researching Biology and Communism will be quite important and I think we should consider making a challenge with these intermediate goals also. It might tell us what early Pacifism and an early push for GP points will do to help here. Maybe there are other ways to speed this? I know we have some worries about early trade options, but what if it turns out that the only thing that matters is our own tech pace on the beeline to Biology (Gunpowder - Chemistry - PP - SciMeth - Bio). Don't know if research of Bio without bulbing is realistic but we could consider making an Academy in the capital with our first GS. The Academy should be able to produce about the same number of beakers as the GS would produce through bulbing and it has greater flexibility. Maybe if we save up enough gold we can have science slider at 100% and all cities building science when time comes to research Bio?

 

[ShannonCT]

I'm a little dubious about whipping both cities to get a 4th worker so early. If we whip both cities down to Pop1 with the granary nearly empty, it takes a while before they can grow back to Pop2. 4 workers can hook resources a lot faster than those resources can be used in the first 15 turns. I've been delaying the worker whip in the capital until Pop3.

 

[Grover22]

Not sure if this has been pointed out yet, so I thought I'd make sure. In the test save (Test2, right?), founding the second city on the coastal elephants picks up another set of clams. That could be pretty important for Rexing and for the GP farm, but I don't think we can know whether those additional clams (or any other food resource) will be there for us in the real game, and I think we need to guard against skewed results due to them.

 

[Cactus Pete]

I'm a little dubious about whipping both cities to get a 4th worker so early. If we whip both cities down to Pop1 with the granary nearly empty, it takes a while before they can grow back to Pop2. 4 workers can hook resources a lot faster than those resources can be used in the first 15 turns. I've been delaying the worker whip in the capital until Pop3.

That was exactly my response to Fred's initial suggestion, and I still think it has merit, but have to stay that after the initial turns it becomes hard for the workers to keep up with growth and do any useful roading simultaneously, so whipping a worker out before the granary is filled may be optimal. Trying it Fred's way in my challenge test, which is looking powerful so far. BTW, HR instead of a religious civic now looks like the obvious initial choice.

 

[Grover22]

1655 for me, with capital on desert hill and second city on coastal elephants, but i'm sure I'm not pushing the envelope there.

I completed the 6 city challenge in 1605 with capital on the desert hill and second city on the plains hill.

 

[ShannonCT]

Not sure if this has been pointed out yet, so I thought I'd make sure. In the test save (Test2, right?), founding the second city on the coastal elephants picks up another set of clams. That could be pretty important for Rexing and for the GP farm, but I don't think we can know whether those additional clams (or any other food resource) will be there for us in the real game, and I think we need to guard against skewed results due to them.

Yes, we should consider this if the results are close. Leaving the plains hill for the ivory loses fish and iron in exchange for another ivory and perhaps nothing else.

1655 for me, with capital on desert hill and second city on coastal elephants, but i'm sure I'm not pushing the envelope there.

And did you chop any forests besides the one needed to irrigate rice and corn?