SGOTM 11 - Barley Demons

Nice, detailed report! Not too much bad luck vs the barbs. :)

I glanced at the save and noticed that Aksum is size 3. I guess he whipped something?

We don't need the fogbuster in the northeast any more...We and Zara have busted the desert, though maybe not the river.

Barb questions: Do we want to fully fogbust the continent, or do we want barbs to spawn? Perhaps even a city? If I understand the spawning rules, units won't spawn within 2 squares of an existing unit, but cities can still sprout up in any tile that's unseen by anyone. (Right?)

I'm off on a trip in the morning. Back Monday. Timmy is up. Sounds like we could use some micro-management to suggest Masonry/City4 timings, but perhaps it's not as critical.

Hope we get the Oracle....

About the spawnbuster near Vijay... You're right. I forgot about his culture. We can slide him the other way. Still want someone in range in case a Barb appears from the south.

About Barb spawning rules... Barb units won't spawn within 2 tiles of a unit and won't spawn in a visible tile. This even counts Barb units. So that Barb Warrior up near the clams is helping us spawnbust, and we don't have to pay his unit supply cost. Barb cities on the other hand won't spawn in a visible tile, but can spawn within 2 tiles of a unit. So if you want to make sure Barb cities don't crop up you do need to actually fogbust (make tiles visible). For stopping unit spawn, you just need spawnbusting.

About whether we want barbs to spawn. A well placed Barb city saves us the cost of a Settler. A poorly placed Barb city gives us capture gold when we raze it. Barb units give us experience. I'd say that we'd prefer not to have Barb units walking around, but if we have a city pop up, that's not too bad unless it interferes with a short term plan and will take a little while to capture it.

About Aksum being size 3... I wrote a note about it in the Keeping Your Neighbors Close section in the hammer chart, but I'll add more about it. Zara did a 2-pop whip from size 5 to size 3 on T68. He had 18 hammers invested when he 2-pop whipped, which means he whipped something that cost between 63 and 108 hammers. I think the overflow would have been around 42, meaning a possible unit cost of around 66. The rest of the time, he does not grow his capitol even to size 4, while building something that cost more than 133 hammers. This is almost certainly a Settler, and it's time he built a settler anyway. Whatever it was was built on T77. I bet he'll have another city up within a few turns.

Thanks, SC.

Prelim thoughts:

Micro: Delhi gets the corn this turn to speed growth.

Bigger thoughts: Do we want stone city (still on the stone right?) as city 4?
The megafood city is going to whip out a lot of settlers but it will take some time to get running - needs culture, and probably needs to build its own boats, and no forests in the first ring. So maybe that should be #4 and stone #5, what are people's opinions on how much a risk of not getting Pyramids that entails?

About swapping Corn to Delhi... If you swap Corn to Delhi you slow the Worker set to come in 2 turns in Bombay down to coming out in 3. Not that growth in Delhi a turn sooner isn't more potentially more valuable than a Fast Worker a turn sooner. Depends on what you need for you turnset. If you don't need extra worker turns then I'd say grow Delhi faster. If you are short on worker turns then leave the Corn worked by Bombay.

About Cities 4 and 5... If Stone City is City 5 then how much it hurts chances for Pyramids depends on how soon after our 3rd Settler does our 4th Settler come. Building part of the Pyramids without Stone is inefficient. Off hand I'd prefer the Stone City as City 4 and GPF City as our City 5 so we can build the Pyramids with stone. I think the GPF city can be up and running in not that long. It needs a monument, a granary, and a work boat right away. The Plains Cow can be improved immediately which is a 3f3h tile and should give enough hammers to build a monument while growing. Then the monument can be whipped to completion with overflow going into a granary. The pig can be improved 15 turns after monument and the two workboats can be whipped. Then it's Settler/Worker building until we have enough and somewhere in there a Library to run scientists for an Academy in Delhi.

For counting purposes: My Vote = Stone City next, then GPF This could change based on hearing arguments by other Barley Demons.
 
For counting purposes: My Vote = Stone City next, then GPF This could change based on hearing arguments by other Barley Demons.

I agree with this, for the same reasons. The GP farm can take care of itself and won't be drastically hurt by waiting a handful of turns. Pyramids are a bigger risk factor.
 
Had a quick look in-game, and Delhi will grow next turn if we switch to work the cottage (shared with Bombay) and stop working the silver, allowing Bombay to keep the corn. Only costs 4g so seems fine to me.

I'd also go for Stone then GP, as the former also grants access to horses for barb-bashing.
 
Great turnset SC.

My only criticism (agreeing with Timmy): Bombay should not have the corn while building workers/settlers.

The corn should be used to grow cities quickly; past the happy cap if necessary, thereby allowing a 2 or even 3 pop whip.
There's no way it should be used to build workers at this time.

Get a worker down to Bombay, build a gl mine quickly, and switch it to that, giving Delhi the corn back.
We should not need to lose the silver at any point.

Regarding Pyramids + Stone city, I'll abstain for the moment, I'm just glad we're doing the Oracle.
 
My only criticism (agreeing with Timmy): Bombay should not have the corn while building workers/settlers.

The corn should be used to grow cities quickly; past the happy cap if necessary, thereby allowing a 2 or even 3 pop whip.
There's no way it should be used to build workers at this time.

I appreciate the criticism. Just wondering for future use... What about whip anger stacking up past happy cap? If we grow too quickly and whip we'll pile up bigger and bigger unhappiness penalties. At what point is this ok to do? How do people feel about this? I didn't whip the worker because I thought that would stack a third unhappiness penalty on top for like 30+ turns.

EDIT: But you're talking about growing past happy cap to whip, so maybe it's not as bad as I thought to have unhappy citizens. An unhappy citizen who is just going to get whipped off is worth 45 hammers. So if he is born unhappy (because of whip anger or some other reason) and after 5 turns he is whipped off, he has in effect produced 9 hammers a turn over those 9 turns, which is considerable. Obviously it's better if he's not unhappy and working a tile before he is whipped because then he produces more. This interesting to think about. I remember when I learned that the "health cap" wasn't really a cap and the only bad thing about growing past is was it slowed down growth. It is interesting to think that more might be done with the "happy cap" than I thought.
 
OK plan to play a short set on Sunday, probably to founding city #4 on stone (as that seems to be the consensus). Don't have time for detailed micro plan now but will attempt to get one up Sunday morning and play that night.

Writing after Masonry sound ok?

A further-out question - do we want to run to Math before burning most of Bombay's forests on Pyramids?
 
@timmy - Writing sounds good, and we can pre-chop forests in anticipation of Maths (yay for fast workers), so that seems like a sound goal.

@SC, pb - it's normally a good idea to prioritze growth in the early game, but it this case I think we were better off stagnating: we recently whipped Bombay, we'd had to scramble Delhi's MP to deal with a barb so growth wasn't going to benefit us so much, and getting fast workers out ASAP is very important. The optimum time to grow into unhappiness (aside from whipping a settler then overflowing into a worker) is when you have a new source of happy coming up, and we're still a fair way off that.
 
Hey Swiss,

It's not about growth, it's about production.
Corn is 6 food, a gl mine is 1f/3h ie power 4.

Working the corn while building a worker in Bombay gives an extra +2 hammers per turn.

Working the corn from Delhi, growing 2 pop in 10 or so turns, then 2 or even 3 pop whipping a worker gives 90-135 hammers.

There's no comparison, and it ties in nicely with your point about getting workers out asap.

we'd had to scramble Delhi's MP to deal with a barb so growth wasn't going to benefit us so much,
I hadn't even noticed that Delhi had no units in it, I thought that the high unhappiness was whip anger.

That's even better, get growing and whipping that bastard now!

A further-out question - do we want to run to Math before burning most of Bombay's forests on Pyramids?

Timmy: Good question, what sort of speed could we realistically get Maths?
Usually it's too late :(
 
I hadn't even noticed that Delhi had no units in it, I thought that the high unhappiness was whip anger.

That's even better, get growing and whipping that bastard now!

There is a warrior 1NE of Delhi. He's back to the city probably this turn, so we have 1 more happiness. There's only 1 whip anger and it has 6 turns left.

Bombay has 2 whip penalties, one for just 1 more turn, and the other for 11 turns. I could have got the city built 1 turn sooner, but that would have left Delhi at Pop 2 with 2 whip penalties when the city was built instead of 6 turns of whip penalty with 3 almost 4 pop. I thought this would allow us to get the second city out more than 1 turn faster with the added ability to double whip. I forgot to mention that. I agree with whipping Delhi soon to get out the settler faster.

And I see your point about the corn.
 
Crap. Since it seemed we were agreed and I was held up over the weekend I decided to just play a short set to settling on the stone (2-pop whipping the settler), but there's a significant monkey wrench - barb spearman:


Sorry, was moved warrior away before deciding to take this to the team, but trust me it's there. Also apologies for not noticing right away this turn - some workers are already moved.

The "safe" play is for our workers to drop what they are doing, run to the copper, and try to get an axe out of Bombay ASAP. But if we are trying to win, maybe it's worth a gamble that (1) it will leave us alone for a while (though it's very close to stone city) or (2) multiple warriors will be enough to take it out. Thoughts?

Save
 
Crap. Since it seemed we were agreed and I was held up over the weekend I decided to just play a short set to settling on the stone (2-pop whipping the settler), but there's a significant monkey wrench - barb spearman:
Spoiler :


Sorry, was moved warrior away before deciding to take this to the team, but trust me it's there. Also apologies for not noticing right away this turn - some workers are already moved.

The "safe" play is for our workers to drop what they are doing, run to the copper, and try to get an axe out of Bombay ASAP. But if we are trying to win, maybe it's worth a gamble that (1) it will leave us alone for a while (though it's very close to stone city) or (2) multiple warriors will be enough to take it out. Thoughts?

I think that we shouldn't stop what we're doing to get an axe out. I would suggest using warriors for defense. Barbarians won't enter cultural borders if the cities/civ average is less than 3, unless: (a) they can pillage an improvement or route the next turn, or (b) they can attack a city that same turn (only possible for 2-move barb units. I highly doubt there is an average of 3 cities per civ. If the other civs, or some of the other civs, are as slow as Zara at getting out cities, they probably have on average 2 cities. We obviously will have 4 cities at that point increasing the average, but it might just stop the barb from entering our borders for a little while. The only improvement/route on our border will be the road 1SE of Stone City, which can only be approached from 1 tile. When we improve the horses we'll have chariots (not good versus barb spears, but when barb axes appear, we'll be able to take care of those.
 
OK finished the set. SC, I'm not totally sure about that - thought it was 2 cities per civ and only those on your continent count - but for now that spear did wander around:

Spoiler :




However, I did follow SC's advice - no axe, but a good number of warriors such that we should be able to overwhelm it with numbers.

Samuel sadly died in the north against a barb warrior, had he lived the whole of the island would be fogbusted.

Notes:
Settler in place for stone city and Masonry will be in next turn. However, I think it makes sense for Bombay to finish its worker - losing a few turns on Pyramid production will be made up by having more chopping power. If we wait on starting Pyramids a few turns, there is no reason to found the stone city until then.

When the stone city is founded, Humphrey can move (the peak's vision will fogbust all that area).

I forgot to write down every turn of Zara's EP but here's the summary:
Spoiler :

Turn Sabotage Production Hammers
80 115 17
81 149 22
82 183 27
83 216 32
84 271 40
85
86 379 56
87
88 488 72

I didn't have time to crunch the numbers exactly so went with the ratios SC did in his turnset, hammers may be off a bit. Could be a worker or settler. He founded Gondar in a crappy southern location, getting horse + cow + a lot of tundra/ice/coast.

In response to my last question, I think PB was right - Maths is likely too late. But I think we are basically a lock for the Pyramids, Bombay can make 28 hpt with the stone, can chop up to 9 forests for 60h each.

Save File
 
Had a quick look at the save, and seeing as we don't get Masonry til next turn then we can put at least one more turn into the worker. Not sure whether it's worthwhile, but we could switch to Pyramids next turn, grow to 5 pop, then whip the worker before hammer decay sets in, overflowing into Pyramids, and starving slightly at size 3 and working only mines until the wonder completes.
 
Had a quick look at the save, and seeing as we don't get Masonry til next turn then we can put at least one more turn into the worker. Not sure whether it's worthwhile, but we could switch to Pyramids next turn, grow to 5 pop, then whip the worker before hammer decay sets in, overflowing into Pyramids, and starving slightly at size 3 and working only mines until the wonder completes.

Crazy talk - only Bombay can work its plains cow, so that tile stays always. :)
Some combination of whipping the worker and borrowing the corn to regrow could be good. It may make sense to bring Bombay up to size 5 when one more grass mine is done - have it work 4 mines + cow at -1 fpt and occasionally swipe the corn for a turn to prevent starving.

Of course, assuming Delhi needs to keep whipping out settlers we would want Delhi to take both corns when growing, then let Bombay borrow one during the few turns we slow-build the settler before whipping.
 
I'm back in town. Haven't had a chance to examine the save, but from scanning the posts, things seem to be proceeding nicely.

SC and timmy just played, so in theory, it's regoarrarr's turn. However, we haven't heard from regoarrarr, MyOtherCar or sunrise89 in quite some time. [Any of you guys around?]

If we don't hear from any of them in the next couple days, and if none of our lurkers wants to run a guest turnset, I'll assume I'm up again.

Barb spear...yuck.
 
Okay, I'll take the next turnset. My plan is to run it until the Oracle is founded--either by us or biadl.

I'll run the set over the weekend, so if there are more suggestions other than what's above, let me know.

Also, once we have stone hooked up, how do we feel about making some "failgeld" by working on Stonehenge or the Great Wall in Bombay?
 
Great Wall is gone, but Stonehenge for failgold sounds good. Can we spare the production in Bombay? Seems like it might be better for Delhi to put a few hammers into it while growing to next settler whip.

Playing until Oracle sounds longer than our previous sets but I'm ok with it as we probably need to pick up the pace.

EDIT: no time now, will try to get some more suggestions in Saturday morning PST.
 
I gave sunrise a chase-up in his PB1 thread, and I hope he'll also give rego a nudge, though he only seemed interested in lurking rather than playing.

Seeing as we're short on players, might as well add me to the roster ;)
 
Oracle: Needs 114 more hammers (once you add in the 60 from forest chops), 108 after 3 more turns to grow to size 2. Would take 18 more to finish at 6 hpt (wheat + one mine), the same it would take Vijay to grow to 3. We could speed that up by mining the 2nd plains hill and alternating that with the wheat (can be swapped every other turn at food-neutral). That raises avg hpt at size 2 from 6 to 7.5, taking ETA down by 3 turns. Don't think this is worth it (with Stonehenge not yet built I feel pretty secure about oracle due in 1325BC) but option.

Ideally we get the barb spear to attack a warrior in a forest across a river, but more realistically the best/most likely way would be to pile warriors into Stone City and let it suicide there (likely killing first warrior, then counterattacking the next turn). Between Delhi finishing one and Bombay;s MP free to move in 2 turns (whip anger gone) you should have plenty to deal with it, and hopefully enough left over to quickly fogbust the rest of the island.

I would grow Delhi back up to size 6 to whip out settler for the GP site. I think the natural growth will get there a little before the whip anger wears off, but you can put a turn into settler at size 5, grow and whip immediately to avoid actually having an unhappy citizen not working.

EDIT: Swiss, thanks for poking teammates, and would be happy to have you on the active roster.
 
Micropost here; visitors due in minutes

I said "not Bombay" so often, I wrote Bombay. Failgeld in Delhi, if anywhere.

Thanks for the chasedowns Swiss. And welcome to the roundup. How about taking the turnset after the next one.

I was actually planning to average 7.5H/turn there in Vijay<...>. I think we're still rolling the dice with ETB of 1325BC.

Off now.
 
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