SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Irgy]

Nice (half-)turnset Dhoomstriker!

What's happening in Devil's Gate? I assume you're just slowly bombarding it with the catapults? How many defenders are there? Can we take it with what we've got? I would assume the fur is 1S of the city, or somewhere similar, surrounded by all those silly peaks.

I agree with the plans you've given, along with Mitchum's suggestion of holding off the golden age until GPF is ready.

Don't forget we can keep track of Saladin's progress on Education by seeing what he'll give us for it. Just don't accidently make the trade

I assume Theocracy will come after the golden age?

Don't forget to try and work tiles with a mix of hammers and commerce wherever possible during the golden age too.

 

[Irgy]

I would really like to do a GPP spreadsheet. I think that one is warranted.

The thing that makes it difficult is not knowing the exact finishing date. Although I suppose if we assume that we'll take Electricity with Liberalism, then we can work out how many turns it will take to research the rest of the way, and work out how many turns it will take to transport the Great People to the fur, and that gives us a rough finish date.

It should be easy enough to work out the GPP output per turn from each city.

If you give me the total GPP output by the finish date (separately with and without a golden age) of the relevant cities, and the total GPP required for each great person (which I gather is the next target +300GPP for each after that) I'd be happy to then do the fun/tricky bit of figuring out how many great people you can squeeze out of them.

This will tell you whether to delay the GPFarm and/or the golden age as well.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Northern Barb City

What's happening in Devil's Gate? I assume you're just slowly bombarding it with the catapults?

You assume correctly. It's at 10% defence now, losing 8% per turn. I'll wait until 0% and then throw the works at it.

How many defenders are there?

1 Longbowman with City Defence 1
1 Axeman with Combat 1
2 Axemen without any promotions

We'll probably lose the Catapults and a Maceman assaulting that first Longbowman. After that, things should go pretty smoothly. There are at least 2 GH Mines within the fat cross, so we should be able to build Catapults here to replenish our forces for capturing the second Barb City, should doing so prove to be useful (getting another Wheat Resource could be incentive enough).


Unnatural Terrain

I would assume the fur is 1S of the city, or somewhere similar, surrounded by all those silly peaks.

Indeed, the terrain doesn't quite look like it was "naturally formed," does it?


Education

Don't forget we can keep track of Saladin's progress on Education by seeing what he'll give us for it. Just don't accidently make the trade

Good idea. I don't want to "educate" him accidentally.


Theocracy

I assume Theocracy will come after the golden age?

I've just started to put together a spreadsheet. We'll see what the results of it are.

If it turns out that we can complete sufficient Great People without a Golden Age and/or can get the Great People that we need without staying in Pacifism too long, then it'll be useful to know this info, so that we'll be able to switch into Theocracy at the soonest point possible.


Non-GPP Generation during a Golden Age

Don't forget to try and work tiles with a mix of hammers and commerce wherever possible during the golden age too.

Assuming that a Golden Age will pay off according to the numbers, then again, it will be helpful to know exactly which Cities will generate 1 Great Person and which will generate 2. That way, a City like Three Clams could do exactly as you are suggesting, by switching to the PMarble square (which gives +1 Hammer and +1 Commerce during a Golden Age so is a good square to work during a Golden Age), if it turns out that Three Clams will be unable to generate 2 more Great People.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

The thing that makes it difficult is not knowing the exact finishing date. Although I suppose if we assume that we'll take Electricity with Liberalism, then we can work out how many turns it will take to research the rest of the way, and work out how many turns it will take to transport the Great People to the fur, and that gives us a rough finish date.

Indeed, it will be tough to work out. However, we can make certain assumptions:
1. It shouldn't be TOO hard to have the AIs stay out of Free Religion, so that condition is done.
2. We need our State Religion in every City. On that note, I've already sent 2 Buddhist Missionaries to the west, so that the Barb Cities can be converted ASAP. As long as we bring a couple of Buddhist Missionaries with our armies heading towards Mehmed (they can come after the armies), then we should be fine on this condition.
3. Building The UN and winning will probably happen roughly 10 turns after we research Mass Media. But, when will we learn Mass Media? It's hard to say, as you suggest.
4. However, we need 4 Great People to be on the Fur. First we have to find it. Assuming that we can create a Galleon chain that takes us most of the way there and that the Fur is in a Coastal City, we're still limited by the time that we can generate our 4th Great Person. So, I can base my calculations around the maximum feasible number of Great People and the minimum feasible number of Great People. That'll give us the date range to work with, plus logistical time to send the Great People to the Fur.

You know, we might even generate enough Great Scientists in order for us to take Radio with Liberalism, but then we might be short on Great People for winning the game. So, a possible balance of self-teching Radio might be required for us to have sufficient Great People at the end.

Hopefully, a spreadsheet will tell us these kinds of things, but I'm not sure how complicated it will have to get just to be our "magic oracle" on the subject. We may just have to "wing it" if I can't figure out the math.


GPP Output

It should be easy enough to work out the GPP output per turn from each city.

Okay... but... under what conditions?
Under the condition of trying to generate a Great Person ASAP by using up the Food in the City's Foodbox?
What if another City or two beats it and we run out of Food? Then the rate will change.

Or, maybe at a Food-neutral state?

Or, maybe we should grow 1 more population point first, which is more easily justifyable if we want other Cities to "beat" the current City in generating a Great Person and is especially more feasible if we aren't going to launch a Golden Age at all or at least for the amount of turns spend on growing.

And, do we honestly think that we can generate 2 Great People in said City? If yes, then generating the first one of those Great People should happen ASAP, so that the total cost of 2 Great People from said City can be as small as possible.

Then we'll want to factor in the cost of switching out of Theocracy. Further, we'll have to consider the possibility that even if we plan to run Pacifism, someone may ask us to switch into Theocracy, spoiling our plans if we are "very close" to getting, say, a 2nd Great People in a City, so we need a bit of a GPP "buffer" for any such City that plans to generate 2 more Great People.

Finally, if a City might not generate a Great People until the 3rd or 4th one from now, and that Great Person will come too late for Lightbulbing pre-Liberalism but will come in time for the end of the game, we may have to slow down the Great Person pace in another high-GPP-output City like Delhi or Grt Person Farm at some point, just to be able to get a Great Person out of this auxilliary City.


Spreadsheet

If you give me the total GPP output by the finish date (separately with and without a golden age) of the relevant cities, and the total GPP required for each great person (which I gather is the next target +300GPP for each after that) I'd be happy to then do the fun/tricky bit of figuring out how many great people you can squeeze out of them.

You know, I think that I'll take you up on that offer. Send me your email address via a Private Message.

I'll fill in the inital figures... then you can play with the numbers to see what you can come up with. Is a Microsoft Excel format okay for you?

It'll probably take me about an hour to put together the initial numbers.

 

[BLubmuz]

Good half-TS, Dhoom!
Good idea the spreadsheets to plan the GPeople. I don't know how you can put all the data, but just because i need to think about it.

In case we can manage to squeeze Radio from Lib, we can slowly research MM, or we can delay build the UN. It will NOT be a true delay, if we manage such a high tech with Lib. It woulb be a record for an Emperor game, if we can manage it.

Don't forget to build a strong military for Mehmed. Some Pike must be in the stacks, i've seen HA in his former Spanish City.

I also suggest to convert ASAP Ivory Towers and to be ready to spread Buddhism in Riverdale if we can think to gift the UN city to Mehmed instead of Zara.

If Zara is no more worst enemy of anyone, i can't see why not trade OB with him.

Please be sure that by the time we'll have SM, the switch to Buddhism will give us the max positive with the AIs. I think we can switch even immediately, see that only 2 of our cities lack Buddhism and i suppose for not long.

Golden Age
Your spreadshhets will tell us if it's worth or not. A gut feeling tells me that it is, but if we can have more solid basis, better.

BTW, tomorrow i'll try to update page 1, for what is worth now.
Sure we need you post your save tomorrow, and we'll be 1 day later than scheduled.

Barb city
Don't take it too slow to take it, now that all the players know CS and Machinery, the barbs can upgrade the axes to maces. I suggest you use only a cat in attack and save the other. The maces can do theis job pretty easily with only a LB and 2 axes. Taking the other city can be quicker and it's more pop for our victory.

Below 10% the city's defence means nothing: next turn use a cat for bombard, attack with the other. Then start with maces.

 

[Irgy]

Okay... but... under what conditions?
Under the condition of trying to generate a Great Person ASAP by using up the Food in the City's Foodbox?
What if another City or two beats it and we run out of Food? Then the rate will change.

Or, maybe at a Food-neutral state?

A food neutral state I would say. I'd imagine that we should have most cities at or close to a stable population state that we're happy with leaving them at, before running the golden age. We do have the ability to sacrifice a bit of food, or even to go all-out and abuse the "maximum of 1 population point loss per turn running no food at all" trick by running no food at all with all the population as specialists. However I would work out the ballpark of how many great people we can get first, and then use that to figure out where we have the opportunity to use tricks like that.

If we plan on whipping GPP producing cities for military then it gets complicated again, but on the other hand working things out this way will tell us whether that's a good idea in each city or not.

The only spanner in the works then is whether we're running Pacifism. I'm starting to think we're going to stick with Theocracy after the golden age is finished. Once we start building up a big military then Pacifism will become increasingly expensive anyway.


By the way, I noticed Justinian likes Mehmed more than us at the moment - he's friendly in fact. This doesn't matter if Zara is going to be our opponent, but it's worth noting. I see there's plans in the works for fixing the situation either way.

 

[Irgy]

Barb city
Don't take it too slow to take it, now that all the players know CS and Machinery, the barbs can upgrade the axes to maces. I suggest you use only a cat in attack and save the other. The maces can do theis job pretty easily with only a LB and 2 axes. Taking the other city can be quicker and it's more pop for our victory.

Below 10% the city's defence means nothing: next turn use a cat for bombard, attack with the other. Then start with maces.

I don't necessarily agree with this. If there is a genuine chance that the barbs will upgrade the axes to maces next turn then maybe we do need to rush, but if they won't then I'd certainly be much more inclined to be cautious by taking our time and sacrificing both catapults. I'd even consider suiciding a longbow into the longbow either before, after or in between the two catapults, to reduce the possibility of the cat doing no damage at all to the longbow. Not sure on the merits of that idea though - the catapults are almost as strong as the longbow anyway so it probably won't help much.

I wouldn't expect we'd need to lose a maceman at all, we should be able to get the odds in our favour for that attack. If we can't get the odds in our favour though for that macemen, then again it's worth considering the merits of attacking with one maceman earlier to cut the longbow down to size and avoid the catapults doing zero damage to it.

 

[Mitchum]

I already have a spreadsheet created, which I did with the last posted save game. This means that some of the values are off. But the basis for the spreadsheet are ready.

Just add a 1 to the column (columns C through F) for each turn that a give situation is true. You also have to adjust the base GPP rate for each city for each turn. This allows you to adjust as the city grows, hires/fires specialists, etc. The spreadsheet should do the rest. I whipped it together quickly, so there could be some errors as I have not tested it during a game. But it should be close.

File attached.

 

[Irgy]

I already have a spreadsheet created, which I did with the last posted save game. This means that some of the values are off. But the basis for the spreadsheet are ready.

Just add a 1 to the column (columns C through F) for each turn that a give situation is true. You also have to adjust the base GPP rate for each city for each turn. This allows you to adjust as the city grows, hires/fires specialists, etc. The spreadsheet should do the rest. I whipped it together quickly, so there could be some errors as I have not tested it during a game. But it should be close.

File attached.

That looks great to me. Assuming Dhoomstriker hasn't already duplicated it, I'm happy to use this one.

I'd still need to know a few values (that I can't check from work), in particular:
* End date estimate
* Current great person number
* Correct base GPP values at food-neutral
* Correct current GPP values

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Well, it's taking me longer than I'd estimated, as I'm trying to include as many variables as I can in the spreadsheet.

For example, if we hire max Scientists now, we might have +1 Food and after X turns we'll be at (Current Size + 1) and can hire an extra Scientist for Y amount of turns without starving our City, after which we'd have to go back to the original number of Scientists.

These minor differences may or may not add up to an overall difference, but it's best to have all of the relevant info available if we're going to do it correctly.

 

[Mitchum]

Well, it's taking me longer than I'd estimated, as I'm trying to include as many variables as I can in the spreadsheet.

For example, if we hire max Scientists now, we might have +1 Food and after X turns we'll be at (Current Size + 1) and can hire an extra Scientist for Y amount of turns without starving our City, after which we'd have to go back to the original number of Scientists.

These minor differences may or may not add up to an overall difference, but it's best to have all of the relevant info available if we're going to do it correctly.

If you post the actual save or post screenshots of the cities that could generate great people (i.e. Delhi, GP Farm, Crabs, Three Clams and Risaia) with your mouse on the great person bar (showing the great person details), Irgy and I should be able to help.

 

[Irgy]

Don't get too caught up in details Dhoomstriker, there's going to be at least +-2 (maybe even +-5) turns in the end date estimate, there's leeway for working a few extra or a few less specialists here and there and so on. It's not going to be 100% accurate, and if we relied on it being so we'd only end up suffering a time consuming upheaval when something changes.

We should estimate first the ballpark of how many great people will come from each city, then only investigate the details in the places that it turns out to be tight.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'm mostly trying to put together the numbers that come from the game, including:
1. Current GPP in the relevant Cities
2. The number of Scientists that can be hired with some temporary starvation, then the number that can be sustained afterwards
2. The number of Scientists that can be hired at as close to "Food neutral" as possible, but if it's +1 Food, then I throw in numbers for how long we can hire an extra Scientist before having to go back to the original number of Scientists
3. Growing to (Current Size + 1) and then following path 2 above
4. Growing to (Current Size + 2) IF the City's Health cap allows for it (Delhi's won't anytime soon, for example) and then following path 2 above

What I'm not including is any other info, like the GPP that come from Wonders.

So, you'll need to use Mitchum's spreadsheet, but I'll give you the info that lets you fine-tune things so that your formula can be "copied and pasted for 42 turns, but after which, it becomes a different formula for 19 more turns, after which it goes back to the original formula, etc," but bearing in mind that you'll need to run different scenarios for having a Golden Age and not having a Golden Age, as well as how soon we can switch into Theocracy.


As for the Great Person Number, that's part of the trick... the spreadsheet not only has to figure out which Cities we can get them in, but possibly have a couple of different scenarios where, for example, Risaia might not even generate a Great Person, so other Cities could possibly generate their faster instead of delaying them.

I'm not giving GPP values, just numbers of Scientists, as the GPP values will vary based on whether you're using Pacifism, still able to use the The Parthenon's bonus, or are in a Golden Age.

I would suggest that you work under the assumption that we'll get The Parthenon's (and thus also The Great Library's) bonus for 4 more turns.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

If you post the actual save or post screenshots of the cities that could generate great people (i.e. Delhi, GP Farm, Crabs, Three Clams and Risaia) with your mouse on the great person bar (showing the great person details), Irgy and I should be able to help.

It'll be just as fast for me to finish the document. I had a lot of issues trying to get screenshots going earlier, while I have a format worked out for this method. Stay tuned.

 

[Mitchum]

So, you'll need to use Mitchum's spreadsheet, but I'll give you the info that lets you fine-tune things so that your formula can be "copied and pasted for 42 turns, but after which, it becomes a different formula for 19 more turns, after which it goes back to the original formula, etc," but bearing in mind that you'll need to run different scenarios for having a Golden Age and not having a Golden Age, as well as how soon we can switch into Theocracy.

All of these scenarios can be easily accounted for in my spreadsheet without having to copy and paste anything. We can move the golden age around in time (12 turns, right?) to find the best timing for it. We can also see the impact of slipping into and out of Pacifism.

We just need the data, man!

 

[Irgy]

I'm mostly trying to put together the numbers that come from the game, including:
1. Current GPP in the relevant Cities
2. The number of Scientists that can be hired with some temporary starvation, then the number that can be sustained afterwards
2. The number of Scientists that can be hired at as close to "Food neutral" as possible, but if it's +1 Food, then I throw in numbers for how long we can hire an extra Scientist before having to go back to the original number of Scientists
3. Growing to (Current Size + 1) and then following path 2 above
4. Growing to (Current Size + 2) IF the City's Health cap allows for it (Delhi's won't anytime soon, for example) and then following path 2 above

Sounds good, if you can get all that then that will be more than enough. Mitchum's spreadsheet makes it very easy to play around with variables relating to golden ages and pacifism.

Speaking of Dehli's health cap, we've been trading away health resources like mad (note: (mad = figure of speech) again, don't take it too literally), are there any that we've traded all of which we can afford to take back? If there's not much gained anyway by growing more in potentially unhealthy cities then it doesn't matter though. The wheat for instance though would give +2health if we took it back off Zara, although there's no need anyway if we're capturing a new one.

What I'm not including is any other info, like the GPP that come from Wonders.

I'd have thought that was the easiest of all to work out? In which case though don't worry about it, I can figure it out for myself anyway. Just to double-check, the only wonders we're going to obsolete on our tech line are the Parthenon and Great Library, right?

So, you'll need to use Mitchum's spreadsheet, but I'll give you the info that lets you fine-tune things so that your formula can be "copied and pasted for 42 turns, but after which, it becomes a different formula for 19 more turns, after which it goes back to the original formula, etc," but bearing in mind that you'll need to run different scenarios for having a Golden Age and not having a Golden Age, as well as how soon we can switch into Theocracy.

All easy to fiddle with in the spreadsheet.

As for the Great Person Number, that's part of the trick... the spreadsheet not only has to figure out which Cities we can get them in, but possibly have a couple of different scenarios where, for example, Risaia might not even generate a Great Person, so other Cities could possibly generate their faster instead of delaying them.

Sorry, I wasn't clear what I was after here. I realise that's what we're working out with all this, but what I need to know is the number of great people we've generated already, so that I know what the first target is.

I'm not giving GPP values, just numbers of Scientists, as the GPP values will vary based on whether you're using Pacifism, still able to use the The Parthenon's bonus, or are in a Golden Age.

That's what's preferred anyway, the base values.

I would suggest that you work under the assumption that we'll get The Parthenon's (and thus also The Great Library's) bonus for 4 more turns.

Ok.


Just another thought I've had; once we no longer care about which sort of great person we generate (for the final four particularly), we should work out whether it's better to run merchants instead of scientists in some cities. It's actually a surprisingly easy thing to do, all you need to work out is:
* (science multipler / gold mutliplier) for that city
* (global empire-wide commerce science multiplier / global empire-wide commerce gold multiplier)
Then just work out which is better. The first is obvoius, the second is just (science at 100% - science at 0%) / (gold at 0% (i.e. 100% gold) - gold at 100%).

Don't worry about that just now though.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

All of these scenarios can be easily accounted for in my spreadsheet without having to copy and paste anything. We can move the golden age around in time (12 turns, right?) to find the best timing for it. We can also see the impact of slipping into and out of Pacifism.

We just need the data, man!

While it is true that those scenarios can be accounted-for in your spreadsheet, you still either need to expand your spreadsheet to deal with Food values or else just take my numbers and be willing to change the values in the Base GPP column over time, as per the values that I specified.

Since each City has multiple options, you'd then be best off having multiple Base and Total columns per City, probably one set of Base and Total columns per scenario.

Am I right in thinking that your spreadsheet would also require you to manually figure out which order would be the best way in which to generate the Great People? If yes, then that'll work well with having multiple scenarios per City, as you'll just have to use your brain for the task, instead of an algorithm that might have otherwise been written to not support more than 1 scenario per City. Without an algorithm, there won't be any bugs in said algorithm by adding multiple scenarios per City.

 

[Irgy]

While it is true that those scenarios can be accounted-for in your spreadsheet, you still either need to expand your spreadsheet to deal with Food values or else just take my numbers and be willing to change the values in the Base GPP column over time, as per the values that I specified.

Since each City has multiple options, you'd then be best off having multiple Base and Total columns per City, probably one set of Base and Total columns per scenario.

Changing the base values (and fiddling with different options by hand) seems easiest to me.

Am I right in thinking that your spreadsheet would also require you to manually figure out which order would be the best way in which to generate the Great People? If yes, then that'll work well with having multiple scenarios per City, as you'll just have to use your brain for the task, instead of an algorithm that might have otherwise been written to not support more than 1 scenario per City. Without an algorithm, there won't be any bugs in said algorithm by adding multiple scenarios per City.

That's exactly it - this is the best part to be done by hand, given the data.

This is how I plan to go about it.
1. First, create an estimate of the total number of GPP that city can generate.
2. Use that to work out how many great people each city can generate.
3. Create a great peson ordering, which is essentially an assignment of cities to great person numbers. Mostly by hand, obviously with help from the spreadsheet. This will be a combination of when the great people would naturally be generated, and when we want them to be generated (insofar as we can practically re-order anything).
4. Check that the ordering and plan is practical and robust. If not, return to step 2 or 3 to fix it.
5. If it is robust, make a note of it, then go back to step 2 and try and see if there could possibly be a better plan.

Should be easy enough, I just need to get the answers to the questions I mentioned earlier:

* End date estimate
* Current great person number
* Correct base GPP values at food-neutral
* Correct current GPP values

I think most of those are in the spreadsheet Dhoomstriker has sent me, but I need to make sense of it.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

The numbers from my half-baked spreadsheet (it's good for nothing without Mitchum's spreadsheet)

Sounds good, if you can get all that then that will be more than enough. Mitchum's spreadsheet makes it very easy to play around with variables relating to golden ages and pacifism.

Hopefully, the data that emailed to you guys will help. If it's confusing or missing things, please let me know.

I won't be playing until my tomorrow evening time, as my schedule won't allow me to play before then, so you have some time.


Health Cap

Speaking of Dehli's health cap, we've been trading away health resources like mad (note: (mad = figure of speech) again, don't take it too literally), are there any that we've traded all of which we can afford to take back?

The Health cap that I referred to in the spreadsheet already accounts for the Crab that we got back from Saladin and the fact that we're going to get the Pig back from Zara, even though we'll have to wait 3 more turns before we can get it. Since we shouldn't grow into unhealthiness anywhere within those 3 turns, I simply treated us as "having" the Pig back in terms of what I called the "Health cap" in the spreadsheet.

I did not account for possibly getting the Deer back by, say, being able to capture and trade for a Wheat, as we have no idea how long it will take for the Revolt in the Barb City to be put down, such that we can own that Resource, and whether or not it'll actually be eligible for trading.

So, I tried not to rely on this possibility and we'll just treat any such excess Health that we can get beyond getting our Crab and Pig back to be "Health that lets us grow for extra Diplo Votes," instead of "Health that lets us grow to generate more GPP."


Zara's Resource Trading

The wheat for instance though would give +2health if we took it back off Zara, although there's no need anyway if we're capturing a new one.

Okay, well we got the Wheat back during BLubz' turnset and gave Zara a Pig instead.

In 3 turns, we'll get the Pig back, because I was able to scam an extra Gold out of Saladin that I am trading to Zara.

To be clear, we have cultural control of 3 of 4 of Saladin's Golds, while Saladin is trading us the 4th one (his only remaining source of it). Yes, I am a jerk, at least to the AI.


GPP from Wonders

I'd have thought that was the easiest of all to work out?

It's so easy to work out that I assumed it was in Mitchum's spreadsheet. Looking closer at his spreadsheet, it appears to be missing. So, I guess, since you probably don't have the game with you, I can look up and type out that info quickly enough:
Delhi = 15 from Wonders' buildings + 6 from the 2 Scientists that come with The Great Library. Let's say that we have 4 turns' worth of use out of The Great Library, so on the 5th turn, you'll just get the base 15 GPP from the Wonders.

Grt Person Farm = 1 from the National Epic. Don't forget to include the National Epic's +100% bonus GPP, which Mitchum's spreadsheet may or may not already account for (I haven't looked at his spreadsheet in detail yet).

Risaia, Crabs, and Three Clams don't have Wonders.

Hmmm, that was easy!


Obsoleting Wonders

In which case though don't worry about it, I can figure it out for myself anyway. Just to double-check, the only wonders we're going to obsolete on our tech line are the Parthenon and Great Library, right?

Recall that you'll still get the Wonder buildings' GPP for an obsoleted Wonder. So, this question only really applies to the 2 Free Scientists from The Great Library and the +50% bonus GPP from The Parthenon; you'll still get +2 base GPP from each Wonder per turn after they are obsolete.

As I said, consider getting the bonuses for these Wonders for 4 turns, while on the 5th turn, consider that the bonus has disappeared.


Number of Great People Generated

Sorry, I wasn't clear what I was after here. I realise that's what we're working out with all this, but what I need to know is the number of great people we've generated already, so that I know what the first target is.

We need 1500 GPP to generate the next Great Person. Mitchum's spreadsheet tells me that this means that we have generated 9 Great People and are working on our 10th one, but it's the 1500 GPP number that you're probably truly after and 1500 GPP is what the saved game tells us.


Base Values

That's what's preferred anyway, the base values.

If you want the actual base GPP values, it should just be a matter of taking the number of Scientists and multiplying by 3 for the base GPP values, adding in any Wonder GPP, as appropriate. It might be worth trying to input the GPP formulaically, kind of like how Mitchum has abstracted out the "Pacifism?" and "Parthenon?" values outside of the formula, so that instead of trying to ensure that the base GPP value is correct, you can simply change a value in a column from "6" to "7" in terms of the number of Scientists and have the GPP value update automatically by multiplying that number by 3 in the base GPP formula.

The GPP from Wonders will remain constant.

The GPP from The Great Library can probably use the "Parthenon?" variable... where you simply multiply the "Parthenon?" value by 6 and add that number to Delhi's base GPP.

So, we'd basically be adding in another column for each City that says Scientists. Then, the Base values would turn into formulas instead of constant values. Then, there should be no need to update the Total column's values, although copying and pasting columns might be a pain if you do not first use dollar signs to anchor the formula values... actually, it looks like Mitchum already thought of this possibility and has put in dollar sign anchors for the variables... you'll just have to remember to do so when you come up with the formulas for the Base column, so that copying and pasting doesn't grab the wrong numbers.


Merchants?

Just another thought I've had; once we no longer care about which sort of great person we generate (for the final four particularly), we should work out whether it's better to run merchants instead of scientists in some cities.

We may indeed have to run Merchants for a time, after capturing some Cities.

The same could be said of switching into Mercantilism, where we'll have to run a ton of Merchants everywhere just to avoid Strikes.

* (science multipler / gold mutliplier) for that city

The only problem here is that we only have 1 Market, and it's in Delhi, the City that has by far the largest Science multiplier.

So, really, we're just looking at first hiring Merchants in Cities with the LOWEST Science Multiplier, since, for all intents and purposes, all Cities besides Delhi do not have a Gold Multiplier and thus the only way to compare them is how big or small their Science Multiplier is.

* (global empire-wide commerce science multiplier / global empire-wide commerce gold multiplier)

Well, since we have so many Cities that have Science Multipliers, we can easily (even now) justify hiring Merchants in our auxilliary Cities so that we can run more turns of 100% Science.

 

[Irgy]

Should be easy enough, I just need to get the answers to the questions I mentioned earlier:

* End date estimate
* Current great person number
* Correct base GPP values at food-neutral
* Correct current GPP values

I think most of those are in the spreadsheet Dhoomstriker has sent me, but I need to make sense of it.

Ok, I've made some sense of it. I've got the starting numbers. They're lower than Mitchum's estimates, I gather this is because we've been growing instead of generating GPP these last few turns (and because Dehli generated an actual great person as well)? I have the base values, and indeed all sorts of variations on them.

I still don't know how many great people we've generated so far already, this should be pretty easy for someone to check but hard for me from work.

And of course the end date estimate, which is the hardest part. I don't even have the foggiest ball-park clue on this which prevents me from getting anywhere; if I at least had an idea within 10 turns it would be good. I'd then need to subtract the number of turns it will take to get the great people over there, which I'm not entirely sure of either but at least can estimate.

EDIT - crossposted with Dhoomstriker's post above, not sure this post is still relevant. I'll see when I read his post (which will take a while)
EDIT2 - Ok, read it now. I just need an end date estimate, however inaccurate, to get started. I'll try a few scenarios involving different end dates anyway, I just don't know where to start.