SGOTM 11 - Barley Demons

[Compromise]

Poor Robert...we hardly knew ye. Oh well. Otherwise good turns. Nice work on the espionage deduction! North coast near wheat fully revealed.

I propose: Archibald W, SW, NW, W, SW Reveals coastal tiles

What about using one of the workers (Benjamin or Reginald) to scout the southern tundra peninsula?

The big decision is whether to build another warrior (3T) or to build a settler right away.

I am inclined to go warrior next to serve as an escort for the later settler. If we build a warrior, it is nearly equal production to grow for one more turn and work an extra tile while the Settler builds.

I'd like to get a sense of where people think this first settler should settle:

• 1) East to block Zara along the river. Exact location tbd.
• 2) North to grab cows, wheat and oasis
• 3) North on coast to grab wheat and oasis
• 4) Somewhere to grab stone?
• 5) Other?

Also, Pottery after Wheel, right?

Another thing I don't have a strong sense for: What use do we want to make of the stone? Is Pyramids worth a shot? If so, we might want to save some forests for stoned bonus. I realize that our exact decision for the stone city will depend on coast scouting.

Settling on the stone is a 13-cottage city assuming no bonuses in the fog.

Early wonders: (I think a plan here will help shape our settling plan.)

Stonehenge: If we settle first settler on the stone, Stonehenge is 3 chops. Anything else is too late I think. I think that the Prophet points probably aren't worth it.

Pyramids: It has been a long time since I've had a decent chance to build them. The occasional Engineer has good uses for us: Great Library, Great Lighthouse, the UN. I'm inclined to go for them, but I don't put a whole lot of weight behind this opinion.

Oracle: I'm inclined to go for it, taking CoL or (if no Pyramids) Monarchy. Chop in non-capital?

Great Library or Great Lighthouse? Too early to tell. Probably yes to Library, but no to Lighthouse mostly because I don't see a place to chop out the Lighthouse yet.

Thoughts?

 

[Swiss Pauli]

With no other contact by T41 then I think it looks quite likely that you're alone with Zara, so you'll need to get him to Friendly by the time Alpha is learned in order that he'll trade his perceived monopoly techs. Liberating a city is one option, sharing a religion the other.

 

[MyOtherCar]

I propose: Archibald W, SW, NW, W, SW Reveals coastal tiles

I agree we need to explore around the peak north of the stone. As I see it now I'd prefer to settle 1S to avoid getting probably 2 seatiles we can't properly work.

What about using one of the workers (Benjamin or Reginald) to scout the southern tundra peninsula?

I'd rather avoid the risk of losing him to barbs.

The big decision is whether to build another warrior (3T) or to build a settler right away.

I am inclined to go warrior next to serve as an escort for the later settler. If we build a warrior, it is nearly equal production to grow for one more turn and work an extra tile while the Settler builds.

Warrior first, we can use him to explore a little till the settler arrives. We definitely need to explore more to the west!

I'd like to get a sense of where people think this first settler should settle:

• 1) East to block Zara along the river. Exact location tbd.
• 2) North to grab cows, wheat and oasis
• 3) North on coast to grab wheat and oasis
• 4) Somewhere to grab stone?
• 5) Other?

1) No, I don't think it's worth it to block Zara so agrresively, while we have other better city sites available. If Zara takes this, it'll be just a slow developing city.
2) & 3) Neither of these sites will completely block Zara, so I prefer the strongest site no. 2. This is where our first settler should go imo, otherwise Zara will send his second settler to the wheat methinks.
4) Probably south of the stone, need to explore first along the coast there. Location for our second settler. Combined with the copper a good HE site, maybe.
5) Let's decide later.

Also, Pottery after Wheel, right?

Yup, that'll give our workers something to do: to lay roads for our future settlers.

Another thing I don't have a strong sense for: What use do we want to make of the stone? Is Pyramids worth a shot? If so, we might want to save some forests for stoned bonus. I realize that our exact decision for the stone city will depend on coast scouting.

Settling on the stone is a 13-cottage city assuming no bonuses in the fog.

Early wonders: (I think a plan here will help shape our settling plan.)

Stonehenge: If we settle first settler on the stone, Stonehenge is 3 chops. Anything else is too late I think. I think that the Prophet points probably aren't worth it.

Pyramids: It has been a long time since I've had a decent chance to build them. The occasional Engineer has good uses for us: Great Library, Great Lighthouse, the UN. I'm inclined to go for them, but I don't put a whole lot of weight behind this opinion.

Oracle: I'm inclined to go for it, taking CoL or (if no Pyramids) Monarchy. Chop in non-capital?

Great Library or Great Lighthouse? Too early to tell. Probably yes to Library, but no to Lighthouse mostly because I don't see a place to chop out the Lighthouse yet.

I like SH for the creative bonus, but the piramids are nice too At least we have plenty of forests to chop, maybe piramids in Delhi and SH in Stone city? I have no idea about timing though. I mostly prefer Piramids, since we may miss Stone Henge if we first build 2 settlers and some warriors. Those have higher priority then any wonders. An engineer from the mids will pay off if we want to build one of the GL's.

Btw, I will be away till next sunday taking my kids on a short vacation.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

So who's up then?

 

[Compromise]

Anyone else with advice for the second part of SilentConfusion's turnset?

With the loss of dear young Robert, I think we should build another warrior next. And start another for the extra turn to get to size 4. The loss of a turn growing can be more than made up by whipping the settler to completion.

Maybe I'm biased by Adlain's save, but I think there's a way to scout the tundra peninsula with a worker without endangering him. We know it's a peninsula because the water tile north of the tundra is coast, not lake. So that peninsula has to end somewhere. If the only unknown tiles are W and/or SW of what we see, then the warrior's first move (of three) will remove them from the fog. He's still able to step back and be safe even if it's a wolf. With me saying "yea" and MyOtherCar saying "nay", I think we can leave this micro decision to the turnplayer.

Chops go into settler, not warrior. In addition to exploration, a primary reason to build warriors is city growth.

I'm torn on the use of the northern warrior. We really need to see the sea tiles near the stone to make a decision about the city placement. But with a Woodsman promotion, Archibald could do a fine job fogbusting up near the wheat/oasis for a settler headed up there. So too could the new warrior though. I don't have a huge opinion about this. Again, unless someone feels strongly about this, I'd say it's turnplayer's choice.

Let's have the stopping point for the second part of SC's turnset be the point where the Settler could be whipped and/or chopped to completion. Then we can decide if we're ready for the super-early settler and where he should go.

I'm assuming that everyone feels free to jump in with an opinion when they have one, so few posts mean few strong opinions (and a lot of thinking about how to proceed with Adventure 45~ ). If anyone has other comments, opinions or advice for SilentConfusion, let's let him know in the next 12-15 hours Edit: 9 hours or so. Then he can finish the next few turns.

Then we'll have to have a team debate about where Bombay should go!

Edit: Crossposted with Swiss. SilentConfusion is still up. He played the first 6T of his turnset, then paused to give us a chance to comment.

 

[SilentConfusion]

With the loss of dear young Robert, I think we should build another warrior next. And start another for the extra turn to get to size 4. The loss of a turn growing can be more than made up by whipping the settler to completion.

I definitely want another warrior before our settler comes. I have the numbers for these plans (chopping, 1-pop whip) for getting out the settler. I'll dig them up and post them shortly. 1-pop whipping after growing to 4 may very well get us a faster settler anyway (depends on chopping).

Maybe I'm biased by Adlain's save, but I think there's a way to scout the tundra peninsula with a worker without endangering him. We know it's a peninsula because the water tile north of the tundra is coast, not lake. So that peninsula has to end somewhere. If the only unknown tiles are W and/or SW of what we see, then the warrior's first move (of three) will remove them from the fog. He's still able to step back and be safe even if it's a wolf. With me saying "yea" and MyOtherCar saying "nay", I think we can leave this micro decision to the turnplayer.

I certainly think we could scout it with the worker without putting him at risk, but I wonder if the potential information gain is worth using a worker turn. That city spot is ours, so if it's not even potentially going to be our next city, then I'd rather use the worker around our capitol. We'll get a guy down there before we're ready to settle it. We'll also have more visibility when our capitol pops its border (t=76 I think).

Chops go into settler, not warrior. In addition to exploration, a primary reason to build warriors is city growth.

Agree completely.

I'm torn on the use of the northern warrior. We really need to see the sea tiles near the stone to make a decision about the city placement. But with a Woodsman promotion, Archibald could do a fine job fogbusting up near the wheat/oasis for a settler headed up there. So too could the new warrior though. I don't have a huge opinion about this. Again, unless someone feels strongly about this, I'd say it's turnplayer's choice.

I'd say Archie should head W to explore. Our new warrior is born in 3 turns. He could be up in the Oasis spot as Archie is leaving, keeping the area pretty well spawnbusted. I think the Woodsman promotion is better used where we know there are lions, rather than just spawnbusting.

Let's have the stopping point for the second part of SC's turnset be the point where the Settler could be whipped and/or chopped to completion. Then we can decide if we're ready for the super-early settler and where he should go.

Sounds fine to me. I'll try to put some numbers up soon to give us an idea how soon that is.

I'm assuming that everyone feels free to jump in with an opinion when they have one, so few posts mean few strong opinions (and a lot of thinking about how to proceed with Adventure 45~ ). If anyone has other comments, opinions or advice for SilentConfusion, let's let him know in the next 12-15 hours or so. Then he can finish the next few turns.

I, too, am guilty of spending time studying the Ad 45 layout and trying to figure out what wonder combination to choose, but that's not for this thread. Just as a note: we're 10th (out of 13) in post count per turn, which is interesting considering we have regoarrarr on our team. I guess his posting abilities don't transfer to CFC.

I plan to run the turnset in about 10 hours, unless people really want more time. I think we are ready to proceed.

 

[Compromise]

Everything above sounds reasonable to me. Unless you've already written them up, I don't think you need to pre-post the micro for your turnset since you're the one running the turns. The micro's been good so far....

 

[SilentConfusion]

Seeing as how no one has anything further to add (perhaps they are impatient to get the game going so they aren't talking), I am preparing to take the rest of my turn now. I will upload the save after I play it, but depending on how late it is I may choose to put the turnset report up tomorrow. So tomorrow morning at the latest (that's about 10 hours).

As said earlier I will stop the turnset when we are in position to chop or whip the settler to completion. I will do what micro-magic I can to shave some turns off our settler and therefore off my turnset.

 

[SilentConfusion]

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| . \<_> || '_>| |/ ._>| | | | | |/ ._>| ' ' |/ . \| ' |<_-<|_/
|___/<___||_|  |_|\___.`_. | |___/\___.|_|_|_|\___/|_|_|/__/<_>
                       <___'

I opened up the save, took a look at my micro-work, and then realized that the stop time for this turnset (when you would chop or whip a settler to completion) is problematic. How quick we want our Settler needs to be decided before the turn is played, even though the idea was to see if we're ready for a settler and discuss where to put it. I think we have to decide when we want our settler first. Then I'll play it to the turn before the settler's completion and we can stop and talk about where it goes.

We will be growing to size 5, then whipping that citizen to finish off the settler. I think we'll put at least two chops into the settler.

My question is: Do we want a Settler ASAP? We can get a Settler done on t=49 with three chops and a 1-pop whip from size 5 down to size 4. Or we can get a Settler on t=51 (two turns later) and save a forest to chop (probably already prechoped for future use). Does saving it only matter if we don't chop it before we get Math? Is there any reason to be concerned with forest conservation?

Depending on what we want the whole pattern is shifted. Does everyone say chop, chop, chop -> fastest Settler? I would lean towards chopping the heck out of those trees, but we might rather put the forest into a wonder (especially one with a doubling resource). That's pretty much the only situation I think saving a forest might be better. Unless I hear something by tomorrow morning I'll probably just chop the three trees and get a faster settler.

 

[Compromise]

Since a chop only adds about 2T to a settler build time, I would lean toward saving them for a later build.

 

[timmy827]

Agree with Compromise; also I'm not sure about whipping 1 pop without a granary. Apologies for being absent from the discussion and not noting that earlier.

 

[SilentConfusion]

The whip also takes away two turns, although we are whipping a citizen off an unimproved tile.

With the whip and 2 forest chops we get a settler on turn 51. Without the whip we get it one 53.

EDIT: My opinion would be that the whip is fine, since it's off an unimproved tile, so the loss is minimal. The tile is not soon to be improved so we can probably grow it back before we have an improved tile to work. The forest however, I can see saving for a wonder. Unless we use it to hurry a wonder, the only reason I can see to save the forest is to wait to chop it after Math. Both Compromise and Timmy suggest leaving the forest. Just curious guys: do you say leave the forest for chopping into a wonder?

 

[pocketbeetle]

imo get the settler out asap.

The sooner we get a second city contributing, the sooner we can go wonder happy in the capital.
Tech rate is strong thanks to the silver, so chop it, whip it, whatever works.

At size 4 and 5 are we working unimproved tiles?

Edit: Oh and as for warrior exploration, I'm for sending Archibold North above stone peak, and then West across to coast.
I'm still not liking that stone area, looks food poor so far

 

[SilentConfusion]

imo get the settler out asap.

The sooner we get the second city contributing the sooner we can go wonder happy in the capital.
Tech rate is strong thanks to the silver, so chop it, whip it, whatever works.

At size 4 and 5 are we working unimproved tiles?

I wrote the city would grow to size 5. That was an error and maybe that confused some people. I meant size 4 (one more than now). Growing to 5 is not the best way to get out the settler. We have three improved tiles (2 irrigated grass corns, 1 plains hill silver). After that we work a forest tile. Currently we can only build a farm and a mine. A mine we'd need to chop down a forest first. We could build a farm 1N of silver if we wanted.

Every turn earlier our city is founded is a turn earlier for every contribution of that city throughout the game. For example getting a city up 2 turns earlier, might mean a 2 turn faster worker, which in turn improves every tile 2 turns sooner than he would have otherwise, which in turn can get out units out even faster. It's a compounding thing. The only reason I see to save it is if we're going to acquire bonuses before chopping it, such as Math or stone for a wonder.

 

[Compromise]

Rushed response here...

I think the greatest short-term improvement to our civ's productivity will be earlier granary rather than earlier settler. But I can't test the worldbuilder save to give a specific suggestion at the moment.

Chop first settler and granary so granary can be 1-pop whipped maybe?

 

[SilentConfusion]

Rushed response here...

I think the greatest short-term improvement to our civ's productivity will be earlier granary rather than earlier settler. But I can't test the worldbuilder save to give a specific suggestion at the moment.

Chop first settler and granary so granary can be 1-pop whipped maybe?

I agree that an early granary is a good thing. Getting a granary faster is important, so I agree we should think about how much getting our fast settler sets back the granary.

No need to save the pop whip for the granary, because that citizen will regrow before we can even start to build a granary.

I'm pretty sure the fastest we could get Pottery is turn 54 (Wheel finishes on t=46). After a 1 pop whip our city will grow back that citizen 5 turns after the settler is done.

If we triple chop and whip the settler done on turn 49 (the fastest we can get a settler), that pop will grow back on 54 the same turn we get Pottery. We can start building a granary on t=54 (90h). I think we could put 8 hammers and 30 from a chop the first turn. If we could get 7 overflow hammers we could whip the next turn but I don't think we can manage it. But we could whip on t=56 and get the granary out on turn 57. We could chop two forests and pop whip but that will end up being overkill, but it would get the granary a turn earlier.

We have 5 turns of production while waiting for pottery after our fast settler. We could start SH if we want it in the capitol or warriors. We don't have to decide on this until the next turnset.

We just need to know if we want a Settler on turn 49. We can save either a chop or a pop whip (though it will regrow before we have Pottery) and get the Settler on turn 51. If the former, my turnset will go to turn 48, and if the latter, my turnset goes to turn 50. I'd lean towards earlier settler, but I will give Compromise a chance to come up with an alternative.

In my opinion the earliest we can get a granary (with two chops) is t=56 (t=57 with only one chop). The earliest we can get a Settler (with three chops) is t=49 (t=51 with only two chops).

We can have both, if we're willing to pay the forests.

-5 forests buys us a Settler on t=49 and a granary on t=56.
-4 forests buys us a Settler on t=49 and a granary on t=57.
-3 forests buys us a Settler on t=51 and a granary on t=57.

With the first two cases we get 5 turns of production in between the Settler and the granary, with the last one we get only three turns of production. Those turns we have 5 hpt so we could put as much as 25 + 14 (overflow) hammers to invest in that time period.

 

[Compromise]

-5 forests buys us a Settler on t=49 and a granary on t=56.
-4 forests buys us a Settler on t=49 and a granary on t=57.
-3 forests buys us a Settler on t=51 and a granary on t=57.

Certainly seems to highlight the value of our food resources versus un-multiplied forests. I'd lean toward saving the forests for a wonder race or a math-enhanced build. Two forests for 3 turns savings doesn't seem like that great a deal. (I know I'm ignoring overflow hammers....)

Mine isn't a strong opinion though. Any other thoughts?

If none, I'm willing to defer to the turnplayer. I'm getting antsy about seeing more of the map!

 

[SilentConfusion]

Certainly seems to highlight the value of our food resources versus un-multiplied forests. I'd lean toward saving the forests for a wonder race or a math-enhanced build. Two forests for 3 turns savings doesn't seem like that great a deal. (I know I'm ignoring overflow hammers....)

Mine isn't a strong opinion though. Any other thoughts?

If none, I'm willing to defer to the turnplayer. I'm getting antsy about seeing more of the map!

A granary needs to be in place when we grow, but it actually doesn't have to be in before that. Not sure it will be better to whip the granary finished or not, but that's for a different turnset.

I would suggest the two turns earlier settler is worth the extra forests, but the granary may not need to be hurried as much. A Settler out 2 turns sooner not only gives two extra turns of production (a portion of the hammers from the trees), but makes any worker or settler built out of that city come two turns sooner than it would otherwise and this is when the production bonus gets multiplied. I think that the production lost from the forest will easily be made up by that city being settled 2 turns earlier. Plus if the forest grows back (there is a chance) it was absolutely the right call.

This is this turn-players opinion, so this will be my course of action unless others disagree. This would mean my turn set ends at 48 when the last chop goes in causing the settler to be built the next turn. We can talk about where it goes and what to build next after that.

 

[Compromise]

This is this turn-players opinion, so this will be my course of action unless others disagree. This would mean my turn set ends at 48 when the last chop goes in causing the settler to be built the next turn. We can talk about where it goes and what to build next after that.

Sounds good. Long live Archibald; may he live to see Eldine's arrival!

I think the rule with newly-built granaries is: if the granary is at least half-full when completed, it adds half the food-bar when it grows the first time.

 

[T-hawk]

I think the rule with newly-built granaries is: if the granary is at least half-full when completed, it adds half the food-bar when it grows the first time.

Other way around, actually. If the food-bar was half-full or less when the granary was completed, it adds half the food-bar on the first growth. If the food-bar was almost full when the granary was finished, the granary only adds food equal to the empty space when the granary was built.

Technically that's not quite true either but fairly close. The real mechanic is that the granary's food retention is capped at the total food produced since the granary was completed. Food on the turn of granary completion does not count; food on the turn of growth does.