SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

I've seen havr's PPP, it seems well detailed and well thought.

Many of our present discussions are about decisions which can be took after his TS.

Perhaps i'm too optimistic, but i can't see any reason to further delay his TS.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Comments on Havr's PPP
Okay, I'll have a go at it now, even though I said that I might not. Lucky you! (Or unlucky you, if you can't handle the volume of my comments!).

Spoiler :

OK, here is what I am proposing till T90.

Uh oh! That makes me responsible for clicking on the two techs to pick on Oracle turn. To be safe, I'll pick Code of Laws both times ("What would you like to Research?" and "What would you like to get for free?"). Okay, that's not a comment on your PPP, but in my mind I'd always thought of The Oracle coming your turn (because we'd been talking about Turn 90 earlier and then I forgot about which Turn you actually ended the turnset on), so I'd planned to give you that advice. Now I guess that I am just giving it to myself.

Note that the settler for Stonyville will be built & settled after my TS, so maybe we can progress on this TS while still discussing this issue.

What's more important is that we won't need to decide WHEN we are going to START BUILDING Settler 4 in your turnset--we'll decide in my turnset.

Civics & Research
=================
Research - 100% at till PH @ T79, 0% on T79, T80, T81, T82, %100 from T83 till end. This will give writing at T92.

It is POSSIBLE to get a free Flask (and sometimes more than 1) if, on the turn AFTER you complete a tech, you are able to keep research at 100%. That way, the overflow Flasks are added to one full turn's worth of Flasks, such that the remainder values that otherwise wouldn't give you a bonus Flask might give you one when added together.

A test game should be able to confirm for each tech if we will benefit in this way or not, by:
- Set research to 0% on the turn after the tech is learned. On the next turn, check how many Flasks were invested. Set research to 100%. On the next turn, check how many Flasks were invested.
- Reload the test game. Leave research at 100% on the turn after the tech is learned. On the next turn, check how many Flasks were invested. Set research to 0%. On the next turn, check how many Flasks were invested.
- Compare the results and see if we got a free Flask or not. Sometimes you will get one or two, sometimes you won't get any.

I gave you the procedure instead of the answer so that you can fish for yourself, instead of just eating the ones that I caught for you!

Civics + Religion - switch to Hinduism + OR once Delhi starts building Oracle

Please date these events. Better yet, date as many events as you can, so that on each turn, you'll know exactly what you must do at a minimum. I can't tell you how many times I've had to reload a test game because I forgot to switch Civics at the right time. Maybe you've got a mensa brain and the memory of an elephant, but why take the risk of forgetting when you can remove the risk by just writing this simple info down?

Units
=====
Worker- finishes Copper, and starts to pre-chop.

We'll have to figure out an ideal Forest-chopping path for you. Tentatively, I was sending Worker 1 to the square W + W + W and chopping (not Mining) the Grassland Hills Forest square there. Once we find out exactly how many Forests we will want to chop from test games, we can work out the Forest-chopping order, but I suspect that this Forest will still be the first one to be chopped.

Warrior 5 - spawn bust NE (need to find best spot).

I want him to move to Riverside and defend it. Some messages in this thread mentioned the fear that Zara might attack, and I felt that 1 Warrior was just asking for death if Zara attacked. So, my test games have 2 Warriors parking their butts in Riverside.

Having two Warriors in such a border City would at least discourage Zara from attacking and also would give us a Turn to possibly whip another defender or two should Zara attack.

Clearly, this point is one that will need to be debated, but minimally, until Warrior 4 is at full health, I want to keep Warrior 5 guarding Riverside. I don't think that I will get too much disagreement on this point. It's what happens after Warrior 4 is healed where I expect opinions to drastrically diverge.

North Warrior spawn bust N (on the Hills Forest, 2N of the cows).

MINIMALLY, until Riverside is settled, I'm going to ask that we pull Warrior 3 (North Warrior) back inside of our borders, to save us 1 Gold per Turn.

Preferably, we won't send him out until he has a buddy for backup, or even better in my eyes, until after the Barb Warriors rush our borders. In the meantime, I suggest that you set up shop with him on the Grassland Hills Forest square to the NE + N of Delhi, so that he isn't messing up Forest regrowth by standing on unforested land and isn't unnecessarily draininig our economy by standing outside of our cultural borders.

New warrior (from silverado) sent to police Delhi, otherwise unhappiness will come.

Agreed.

New worker - pre chop

Tentatively, I will say move to the Grassland Hills Forest River to the NE + E of Delhi. This point is subject to change once we find out exactly how many Forests we will want to chop.

Warrior 4 - heal then defend Riverdale.

Yaaa, we agree!

Cities -
========
Delhi -
Work tiles - will work copper only once pop is 5. Till then work stays the same.

I'm not sure that I follow what you're doing here. What I will suggest is that:
On the turn that the Copper is complete, you start to work the Copper, in order to put the most value into Worker 2 (6 Hammers from the Copper instead of just 3 Hammers and 1 Commerce from the Grassland River Irrigation. We need Commerce, but we shouldn't trade away 3 Hammers just to get 1 Commerce, right?):
Turn 78, 2050 BC: Delhi is working 2 Corn, Grassland Copper, and Plains Hills River Mine
Also, on the turn that you start building The Oracle, I would suggest that you switch things around, since we'll be growing our City now:
Turn 80, 2000 BC: Delhi is working 2 Corn, Grassland River Irrigation, and Grassland Copper. That will allow us to grow 1 turn faster than working on the Plains Hills River Mine square. Actually, here's the turn where you'll switch Civics and Religion, so there's a lot to remember to do on this turn. If you forget to switch Civics & Religion (like I've done a lot in my test games!) then we'll lose out on 3 Organized Religious Hammers, due to Hammer overflow, as opposed to just 2 lost on subsequent turns.
After the City grows, we can work the Plains Hills River Mine as our 5th square.

Build - Finish worker -> Oracle (we can probably insert a few settler turns after growth for copper at the cost of an additional chop).

Hmmm, since we don't know for sure when we are going to settle City 4, I'd rather not start building Settler 4 until we're sure when we are going to need to start building him. The longer that we can delay production on the Settler, the more that we can grow Delhi and thus the more that we can work its squares. I'd rather that you just didn't complete a Forest chop and moved Worker 1 to a different square to pre-chop some more elsewhere, only returning to the first Forest on the turn that we're going to complete The Oracle (which, as I have discovered, should happen on my turn).

I would consider it to be a favour to me if you cancelled the Worker actions on your last turn, after you performed whatever their actions happen to be, just in case my BUFFY settings for Forest-chopping don't work (I've had mixed results with that auto-pre-Chopping functionality, so I always manually do my pre-chopping). You can cancel a Worker's current action by selecting them and by either clicking on the "Cancel last Mission" red-circle-with-a-line-through-it icon or by pressing the Backspace key.

It's up to you to watch for your Workers potentially accidentally chopping The Oracle too soon. Dealing with such a situation would be as "simple" as selecting a different item to build, but if that happens, you should switch the build item to something else (a Temple, say, so that you don't forget to switch away from The Oracle when you continue play), save the game, stop playing (you can keep the game open, if you choose), and let the team know about the situation, as the calculations of Forest chopping will need to be readjusted in order to get 1 more Forest chop into The Oracle.

Oh yeah, once Worker 2 is finished chopping that NE + E Grassland Hills Forest (a tentative task, which may or may not change depending upon how many Forests we'll need to chop), then he can immediately begin building a Mine in place, as we'll use that Grassland Hills River Mine for at least a couple of turns.

Worker 2 won't finish Mining that Grassland Hills River square until my turn, so you won't have to remember to switch any citizens in Delhi to work it, but I'll need to remember to do so. Oh yeah, as for these "reminders for my PPP" that I keep throwing in, feel free to throw them back in my face later if I forget to put them in my PPP!

Start final choping for Oracle at T88
(num choping per turn: T88 - 1, T89 - 1, AFTER MY TS: T90 - 0, T91 - 1 --> got it)

I don't understand your numbering system. What do those 1s and 0s refer to?

Silverado -
Finish warrior, build GW for failure cash (another warrior will start costing us).

Surely, we can start on Worker 3, no? While Worker 3 will also cost us, it can mean getting a Cottage out to pay for himself. After that point, all of his additional Worker actions will be "pre-paid" and thus will come "for free." The sooner that we build him, the more of these "free actions" that he can perform for us! Makes sense, right? Especially since we:
a) Need Workers desperately
b) Don't have Stone to make "failure Gold" considerably more profitable. Failure Gold from The Great Wall or Stonehenge can certainly be considered as a valid build option after we have Stone connected, should either still be available by that time in the game.

Riverdale -
Founding - move settler into position, 1W of Zara's cows, settle once see a settler (T81 in my test).

OR if a Road is visible, place him immediately. Are you able to hover your mouse in the real game over Zara's Flood Plains and Cow squares to see if he has any adjacent Roads yet? If he does, then we'll need to plan to settle Riverside immediately. Knowing this info one way or another could help in narrowing down the scope of our test games.

Important - once founded must work River Grass for extra +1 comm, otherwise Writing only at T93.

Good call.

Build - Monument.

Agreed.

Perhaps i'm too optimistic, but i can't see any reason to further delay his TS.

I disagree.

Spoiler :

While I have tried to provide relatively complete comments, until we know exaclty how many Forests we are going to chop, he can't play his turnset, as we'll need to plan out a complete Forest-chopping route. The Worker chopping positions that I gave him are only placeholder positions until we get something more formal.

Plus, Worker 1's details weren't really given, beyond his first chop, as it's still quite up in the air for me.

A couple of other items are still potentially debateable.

Certainly, he can continue to work on the PPP and we can continue to work on our test games. BLubz, also, if you don't want to run test games now, that is fine, but please allow for the fact that others will be running more test games and will have results coming in that will impact Havr's turnset. So, nope, can't play forward till we get more test game info, as well as agreement on a couple of other points, such as where to send Warriors 5 (the dude on the Desert Hills square near Zara) and Warrior 3 (North Warrior).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Test Game Questions

My chopping resulted in Delhi only having +8 health, so I was losing a food per turn at 9 pops. How many forests did you chop and what is your situation?

I have 9 pops, a granary, library, 2 temples, Pryamids and Oracle in Delhi.

Did you intentionally give up on getting a 2nd Great Person in favour of working so many Cottages? Or did you somehow manage to grow that much and still work Specialists?

Does it sound like Unclethrill must have skipped Pottery and/or Meditaiton until after Math? Otherwise, how did he get The Pyramids so much faster than you did?

 

[Mitchum]

Did you intentionally give up on getting a 2nd Great Person in favour of working so many Cottages? Or did you somehow manage to grow that much and still work Specialists?

Does it sound like Unclethrill must have skipped Pottery and/or Meditaiton until after Math? Otherwise, how did he get The Pyramids so much faster than you did?

I grew Delhi before working two priests. I wanted to work the cottages, the corn and the copper all turns. I did not work the farm or the mined hills every turn.

I think unclethrill chopped pre-math and he chopped more forests than me, but it's just a guess. I built a lot of cottages that could have been chops...

 

[Mitchum]

I purposefully delayed GPro #1 until I needed him and did not push for GPro #2. I'll re-run the test to see if I can get GPro #2 timed with Math to bulb CS before we do any chopping. It should be doable. I may have to skip the granary and build the Pyramids pre-stone for a few turns though. I'll check into it...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Cottages = An Economy in Great Shape!

Spoiler :

OK, I finished my test game. I back tracked and researched Pottery before Meditation.

Well, nice work! It seems like you got our economy back on track! 70% Science rate at an income cost of 0 Gold per Turn, which, using Binary Science simply means 3 Turns of Gold for every 7 Turns of Science.

Trade Route Connection

Spoiler :

Did Delhi's and River's Trade Routes auto-connect once their borders expanded until their borders touched each other, completing the "River connection" beween the two Rivers, via the Plains Hills Forest square that the two Rivers both end at?

Forest Chopping

Spoiler :

I have a monument and library in River (4 pops IIRC) and a granary??? in Silver (not sure why I built this as this city seems stuck at 1 pop until hunting).

It appears that one of the Forests that you chopped belonged to Silverado. Although you might be able to make that Forest "go" to Delhi by changing who owns the square, it is possible that the chop went to Silverado before you switched which City owned the square, so maybe you just decided to put those Hammers into a Granary in Silverado. Possibly.

I'd personally rather leave the 2 Forests to the NE and N + N of Silverado for chopping out Moai Statues. Buildings can eventually be whipped, but Moai Statues needs either overflow Hammers or chopped Hammers, since whipping a Wonder does't give efficient return on our Food investment and there isn't enough production in Silverado to be able to build Moai Statues efficiently by hand.

My chopping resulted in Delhi only having +8 health, so I was losing a food per turn at 9 pops. How many forests did you chop and what is your situation?

Instead of chopping the Forest to the W + W of Delhi, you could have chopped the one W + W + W of Delhi and had 1 extra Forest within our fat cross, for 1 additonal Health.

If you plan to keep chopping all of the Grassland Forest River squares, we might need to get our Aqueduct soon to make up for the Health that you'll continue to chop (getting the Aqueduct sounds fine for getting The Hanging Gardens, anyway, right?).

Also, that Road to the N of the GCopper on the Plains square will drastically reduce Forest regrowth on that square. Since we have Fast Workers, we can just as easily build a Road on a nearby Forest that we don't plan to chop. In this case, you could have put the Road on the PFor to the NW of the GCopper, since you didn't chop that Forest.

Additionally, you could put the Grassland Hills River Mine on the square to the NE + E of Delhi and then chop the Grassland Hills Forest River to the S of that square, i.e. to the E + E of Delhi, for a good chance of Forest regrowth.

The square to the NE of there, which is NE + E + E of Delhi, a Plains Hills Forest square, is surrounded by Forests, so it would be an ideal square to chop. That assumes that the surrounding Forests didn't recently grow and that the Forest in the middle also didn't just recently grow.

Similarly, the Tundra Hills Forest to the SE + SE of Delhi is due for a chop, since it is surrounded on 3 sides by Forests and on the 4th side by a square that can't grow a Forest (the Ice square).

No "Test Game" Sign

Spoiler :

I keep getting leery every time that I look at one of your more recent versions of the test game, since there aren't any more "Test Game" signs and since Zara is there, so it's pretty hard to tell if you have the right saved game open upon initial inspection.

A Barb Sign can be made in the World Builder using the top left icon, called "Enter landmark mode." Adding a sign is similar to the Alt + S functionality that we have in the regular game, except that erasing a sign only seems to be possible via a right-click of the mouse (a normal left click while in "sign mode" aka "landmark mode" doesn't do the job for me, at least).

Civil Service Comes Too Late?

Spoiler :

I'm guessing that even with all of those Cottages, we won't really be able to get Civil Service on time for The Pyramids' chops, will we?

After a Great Prophet Lightbulbs it, we had { 372 - 3 * (our total Cities' population) } Flasks remaining to be researched, which is about half of the cost of Alphabet.

That said, we can certainly get it in time for The Hanging Garden's chops.

As for how soon after we build The Pyramids that we can get Civil Service, I guess it depends upon whether we want to work those extra Cottages like you did or if we want to get Great Prophet points sooner by not waiting until Republic comes in before hiring the Priest Speciailists. Either way, we should be able to get Civil Service in time for The Hanging Garden's Forest chops, but I wonder if a soon-after-completing-The-Pyramids Bureaucracy timing might be of more value than the tradeoff of not getting +3 Science per Priest Specialist by hiring said Priest Specialists pre-Republic.

 

[Mitchum]

For the most part, I agree with Dhoomstriker's advice except where noted below.

Also, I would prefer that you have a turn-by-turn PPP. Like Dhoomstriker , I can't remember how many times I had to go back and re-load from an autosave because I forgot to switch out of Organized Religion or I left my slider at 100% without enough cash to cover the research. Plus, if things don't line up exaclty with your PPP during your turnset, you'll be clued in that something is wrong right away and you'll be able to make an adjustment before getting completely derailed.

Of course, you can play how it works best for you, but I suggest having a copy of your detailed PPP while you play and just check things off the list as you do them. It may seem to take the "fun" out of playing, but it's a lot easier to avoid mistakes when you're not flying by the seat of your pants. Plus, the fun comes in testing and coming up with new ideas as a team in an attempt to squeeze the most out of our game (e.g. OR-Math-CS-enhanced chops).

Research - 100% at till PH @ T79, 0% on T79, T80, T81, T82, %100 from T83 till end. This will give writing at T92.

I would prefer that you switch between 0% and 100% more often. Why? Well, what if we don't have to settle River until T89? That means that we could have Writing and the Oracle by T90 due to reduced expenses, right? Not if you run 0% science for so many turns at the beginning of your turnset. There is no way Writing would be learned until T92 when it could have come in 2 turns earlier. It's more work, yes. But it gives us more options.

New warrior (from silverado) sent to police Delhi, otherwise unhappiness will come.

I had this warrior moving north and west to help fogbust the last two squares on the peninsula. I think he can do this from within our cultural borders, but I'd have to check it out in-game to make sure. I then built another warrior in Silverado for police duty in Delhi. He may have costed a coin, but I don't think he did right away.

As I said before, I think Dhoomstriker's other points are valid and should be reflected in an updated PPP.

 

[Mitchum]

Well, nice work! It seems like you got our economy back on track! 70% Science rate at an income cost of 0 Gold per Turn, which, using Binary Science simply means 3 Turns of Gold for every 7 Turns of Science.

Yes, I ran binary research, but many people (i.e. me when I'm being lazy ) put their science slider on a set percentage and I think 70% is considered good at this point in the game.

Did Delhi's and River's Trade Routes auto-connect once their borders expanded until their borders touched each other, completing the "River connection" beween the two Rivers, via the Plains Hills Forest square that the two Rivers both end at?

Yes. Plus, both Delhi and Silver have trade routes with Zara (+2 coins).

It appears that one of the Forests that you chopped belonged to Silverado. Although you might be able to make that Forest "go" to Delhi by changing who owns the square, it is possible that the chop went to Silverado before you switched which City owned the square, so maybe you just decided to put those Hammers into a Granary in Silverado. Possibly.

I wanted the forest to go to Silverado. I can't recall what I was building in Delhi at the time, but I did not want the chop to go there. The reason I put a cottage here was that I wanted it to be able to be shared by both Silver and Delhi. However, seeing as how Silver won't grow for a LONG time, this was a mistake.

Instead of chopping the Forest to the W + W of Delhi, you could have chopped the one W + W + W of Delhi and had 1 extra Forest within our fat cross, for 1 additonal Health.

If you plan to keep chopping all of the Grassland Forest River squares, we might need to get our Aqueduct soon to make up for the Health that you'll continue to chop (getting the Aqueduct sounds fine for getting The Hanging Gardens, anyway, right?).

I didn't chop the forest W+W+W because it would give fewer hammers since it is not in the BFC. We had discussed this some time back and I still prefer to get the extra 6 hammers from the forest W+W. Of course, we'll have to map all of this out once we've confirmed how many forests we'll need for the 'Mids + Oracle.

I actually started an aquaduct in Delhi after the Pryamids, but I think it's finally time to start building BLubmuz a settler...

Also, that Road to the N of the GCopper on the Plains square will drastically reduce Forest regrowth on that square. Since we have Fast Workers, we can just as easily build a Road on a nearby Forest that we don't plan to chop. In this case, you could have put the Road on the PFor to the NW of the GCopper, since you didn't chop that Forest.

There was a forest on that square, which I just chopped into the 'Mids. Again, we'll have to plan out our forest chops once we know how many we need.

I keep getting leery every time that I look at one of your more recent versions of the test game, since there aren't any more "Test Game" signs and since Zara is there, so it's pretty hard to tell if you have the right saved game open upon initial inspection.

I'll try to remember to put one in next time.

I'm guessing that even with all of those Cottages, we won't really be able to get Civil Service on time for The Pyramids' chops, will we?

After a Great Prophet Lightbulbs it, we had { 372 - 3 * (our total Cities' population) } Flasks remaining to be researched, which is about half of the cost of Alphabet.

I world built in a GPro. He bulbed 1548 beakers, leaving 324 beakers. I'm thinking that we should not hurry the GPro then. Let's start Alphabet (~13 turns) right after Math. We've waited too long for some key needed techs like Hunting (deer and health), Animal Husbandry (cows and horses), Fishing/Sailing, Iron Working (where is that iron anyway), etc.

NOTE: Zara founded his third city on the tundra south of his capital with absolutely nothing in the BFC (at least nothing we can see yet). I think Riverdale is doing a fine job of blocking!

Dhoomstriker, how is your testing going? Did you get a finish date on the 'Mids yet?

 

[Mitchum]

One of the final things needed to get havr's game going is to figure out the number of chops and the ideal pre-chopping/chopping pattern. In my test, I used 3 BFC forests for the Oracle/Library/Temple, 5 BFC forests for the 'Mids and 1 final BFC forest overflowed into the settler (not needed, but it was pre-chopped so what the heck... ). I also chopped a shared BFC forest into Silver so I could build a cottage there. I chopped 1 final forest into River's library.

So, the only forests that really NEED to be chopped in the capital were 8 (3 + 5) according to my test game. If I skipped the granary in Delhi and started on the 'Mids right away, I would have had 8 turns of pre-stone slow building, which would have preserved at least 1 forest. However, we need a granary in Delhi for health and faster growth, so I consider it a fair tradeoff.

How many forests did the rest of you need in your testing (be sure to count both the Oracle and the Mids)? Were they all BFC forests? Did you have any BFC forests grow?

If you plan to run tests, is it fair to ask that you be done within the next 12 hours? I don't want to drag this testing out until the cows come home. With all testing done and a solid gameplan for getting the 'Mids, I think we can optimize the next turnset fairly quickly (so havr can play) while we fiddle with other things that happen after his turnset.

Once havr has an updated PPP, we can discuss any other points of contention while Dhoomstriker works out a chopping map for us.

Don't forget, once we get this test session finished and our short-term Pyramids plan nailed down, it should be fairly quick for us to get to T130 or so since we're playing our test games out this far. It's worth it to spend a little extra time here IF NEEDED to esure that the next 50 to 60 turns go smoothly (that's 4 turn sets!!!)

 

[unclethrill]

Yes I chopped pre-math to see how fast I could get the 'mids.

In a couple test games I ran later last night, Zara did something neat with his settler.

In both games, I sent the settler to the plains spot to settle Riverdale and then camped out instead of settling to see what effect it would have on Zara. In both games, Zara had a settler either on the cows or 1E of cows when I got there. Both times he turned the settler to the south and settled in the tundra. That makes 4 tests where he settled in that general location. The important thing is that when I let him settle before me, he settled on the tundra too close to allow me to settle on the Riverdale plain site.
I don't think we have much leeway on settling Riverdale. If we want the site, and I think we are mostly in agreement on this point, we need to have the settler bee-line it to the spot and settle on that turn or the next turn. If we see him appear to turn around and head another direction, there's a good chance we are going to screwup our shot at that spot.

 

[havr]

Havr, did I miss your response about the roads on the cow or flood plains tiles? If they are not there, I would like to consider delaying River.

EDIT: I will look at your PPP in more detail later tonight.

Sorry, forgot about that.

Looked at the save. There is a road on the cows but not on the FP.

BTW, a minor detail, the map in the test game is not 100% accurate to what we see in Zara's land. The ocean is closer to him than the current test. He may actually have a coastal capital. See attached screenshot.

 

[havr]

Here is a new plan, INCLUDING chop plans & turn by turn.

Now, I know this team has a bad case of OCD (we have x3 posts as other teams), but can we get this game rolling??? From the drop of volume by some members I can smell loss of interest...

SEE TURN BY TURN DETAIL BELOW.

Civics & Research
=================
Research - 100% at till PH @ T79, 0% on T79, T80, T81, T82, %100 from T83 till end. This will give writing at T92 and let us research 100% at T92.
(Mitchun - We are settling Riverdale right away because of Roads. I prefer it this way to avoid forgeting).
Civics + Religion - switch to Hinduism + OR once Delhi starts building Oracle

Units
=====

Worker- finishes Copper, and starts to pre-chop (see below).
Warrior 5 - Defend Riverdale.
North Warrior spawn bust N (on the Hills Forest, 2N of the cows), avoid fighting barb if can.
New warrior (from silverado) send to police Delhi, otherwise unhappiness will come.
New worker - pre chop (see below).
Warrior 4 - heal then defend Riverdale.
Warrior 6 - spawnbust west, 1NE of pigs.

Prechoping plan: see screenshot
1a, 1b, ... is for first worker
2a, 2b, ... is for second worker

1c is shared between Silverado and Delhi. Prechopping it will give us flexability to rush things in either city.

Cities -
========
Delhi -
Work tiles - will work copper only once pop is 5. Till then work stays the same.
Build - Finish worker -> Oracle (we can probably insert a few settler turns after growth for copper at the cost of an additional chop).Start final choping for Oracle at T88
(will need to chop 3 forest. 1 will be choped @ T88, one @ T89 and finally one @ T91).

Silverado -
No change to work tiles.
Finish warrior, build GW for overflow cash (another warrior will start costing us).

Riverdale -
Founding - Zara has roads, settler immediatly, 1W of Zara's cows. Will still give Writing at T92.
Important - once founded must work River Grass for extra +1 comm otherwise
Build - Monument.

TURN BY TURN (execpt warriro movement according to plan above).
============

T76 - Research @ 100%, start moving settler towards Riverdale location, North warrior 1N, Warrior 5 towards riverdale.
T77 - Nothing much.
T78 - Settle Riverdale, make sure it works the grassland river.
T79 - PH->Writing, Research @ 0%, Worker 1 finishes copper-mine, start pre-choping. Make sure Delhi doesn't work copper.
T80 - Civics: Hindu+OR, Delhi: Worker->Oracle, Silverado: Warrior->Worker
T81 - nothing much
T82 - nothing much
T83 - Research @ 100%, Delhi grows, make sure it works copper.
T84 - nothing much.
T85 - nothing much.
T86 - nothing much.
T87 - nothing much.
T88 - Delhi grows: work Plains Forest, Final chop 2b.
T89 - Final chop 2a.
T90 - Worker 2 - 1 NW (to chop on next turn for getting Oracle).

 

[Irgy]

Still interested, still reading, just not much to say. There's a certain level of detail I'll comment on, and we're well past that into things I'd really have to run a test game to have much to say about. Plus all the discussion about how to set up the tst game was interesting but completely outside my areas of knowledge.

Turnset looks good to me. I would ask why we've got two warriors defending Riverdale rather than one of them fogbusting somewhere, maybe I missed a post somewhere explaining that though?

 

[havr]

I would ask why we've got two warriors defending Riverdale rather than one of them fogbusting somewhere, maybe I missed a post somewhere explaining that though?

Dhoom suggested this so that Zara will be less motivated to attack.
In general I tended to follow Dhoom's advice.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Forest-chopping--More info needed and answers to decisions needed before the Worker paths can be written

Spoiler :

One of the final things needed to get havr's game going is to figure out the number of chops and the ideal pre-chopping/chopping pattern. In my test, I used 3 BFC forests for the Oracle/Library/Temple, 5 BFC forests for the 'Mids and 1 final BFC forest overflowed into the settler (not needed, but it was pre-chopped so what the heck... ). I also chopped a shared BFC forest into Silver so I could build a cottage there. I chopped 1 final forest into River's library.

So, the only forests that really NEED to be chopped in the capital were 8 (3 + 5) according to my test game.

Okay, that info helps a lot, thanks!

Now there are some details that need to be worked out:
1. Will we plan to keep our Unit Supply costs at a minumum (0 Gold per Turn) by only sending 5 units of our of borders at a time?
2. Will we be building an extra Warrior as Mitchum suggested or a Worker that a couple of other people suggested in Silverado as the next build? If it's another Warrior, he will cost us 1 Gold per Turn, and we don't really need him unless you want to 100% fog-bust pretty much every square west of Zara. There is a price to pay on his head if we do get him.
3. Are we going for Meditation after Pottery? If yes, then my idea to chop a Temple after the Library so that we can get working on Great Person #1 that much sooner doesn't matter... we might as well grow Delhi instead.
4. Should we put a Forest chop into Settler 4? That way, we can delay building Settler 4 as long as possible, allowing us to grow as much as possible first, which would help since we'll otherwise have Mines that we won't have enough population to work.
5. On what Turn will we get The Wheel? Knowing that can help in planning the ideal "Forest pre-chop paths" that lead into the Roading paths. Honestly, wouldn't you rather have the Worker actions already worked out for you, so that you don't have to try and figure out "on-the-fly" during your turnset how to optimize your Worker's moves?
6. On approximately what Turn or Turns do we plan to settle City 4 and Lightbulb Christianity, if we get Pottery before Meditation? I think that we'll need more testing to see how late we can push this date (for extra research on Pottery) without really delaying us much in other ways.
7. On which Turn should we send a Worker to the east to River City?
8. Can I count on having 3 Workers for Quarrying the Stone or should I plan to do it with 2 Workers, as we'll want 1 Worker to have gone east already?
9. How soon do you want to start building Cottages? Before or after the Stone is Quarried? Do you have an approximate relative order of how many Cottages to build:
a) Before Quarrying the Stone?
b) After Quarrying the Stone but before chopping The Pyramids?
EDIT: c) The above 2 points broken down by City, so that I don't end up doing something silly, like planning on having 2 extra Cottages that can't be worked by one City while the other City is forced to work 3 (Food + Hammer) squares in exchange

If you plan to run tests, is it fair to ask that you be done within the next 12 hours?

Only if you have detailed answers to all of the above questions. Otherwise, it will take some time playing with the different combinations to work out the answers, and I think that we're already around that 12 hour mark anyway. Some of us need to sleep, afterall!

Don't forget, once we get this test session finished and our short-term Pyramids plan nailed down, it should be fairly quick for us to get to T130 or so since we're playing our test games out this far. It's worth it to spend a little extra time here IF NEEDED to ensure that the next 50 to 60 turns go smoothly (that's 4 turn sets!!!)

What you are suggesting is correct: the idea is to get all of these Worker actions mapped out, so that they flow into one another. Otherwise, what "sounds good now" because there are so many Forest-chopping actions can actually lose us a good 4 to 10 Worker turns over the next couple of turnsets. There is no need to rush to play under these conditions. Slow and steady wins the race and makes for the most fun laughing at the rabbits, too!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

The Little Details about the Map

Spoiler :

Looked at the save. There is a road on the cows but not on the FP.

Okay, I'm going to have to go back and scratch my current test game of delaying settling River City. River City must be settled immediately. This info is good to know, though, so that I don't waste time going down a path that we won't use! Thank you!

It is too bad that we won't have Cows connected to our empire until we learn Animal Husbandry, though. I learned that lesson in an Egyptian 1-City-challenge XOTM game (I took the Fastest Diplo and Gold Medal in that game--that game was the initial inspiration for the religion-beelining Diplomacy strategy). In that game, I culturally "took over" a Roaded Cow, only to discover that I couldn't actually "use" it as a Resource unless the AI traded it to me or until I learned Animal Husbandry. Since it wasn't even in my fat cross in that game, I saw no benefit from it, but at least in this game, we'll see benefit from the square's increased output due to the Pasture!

BTW, a minor detail, the map in the test game is not 100% accurate to what we see in Zara's land. The ocean is closer to him than the current test. He may actually have a coastal capital. See attached screenshot.

Well, according to your screenshot, Zara is certainly on a body of water.

We can't tell if his capitol is connected to the Ocean or if it is on an inland Lake. What we can tell is that his City Centre's square touches this Ocean or Lake, as the square to the NW of his City Centre is a Coast square, right where the River empties out into it.

The Coastal squares to the north and east of the Desert that sits to the NW of Zara and similar Coastal squares to the north and north-east of the Wheat definitely combine together to point towards it all being an Ocean. However, I won't make the claim that Zara is on the Ocean 100% just yet, as it is possible that the Desert to his NW loops around a big inland Lake. You can be the judge as to how likely you think this possibility to be the case.

 

[unclethrill]

The biggest problem I see with the PPP is that Silverado needs to finish the warrior and then build a worker. We need at least 3 workers ASAP. 2 won't do. I'll look in more detail in a couple hours.

 

[Mitchum]

Let me answer these questions as best I can based on my testing.

1. Will we plan to keep our Unit Supply costs at a minimum (0 Gold per Turn) by only sending 5 units of our of borders at a time?

I think we should keep our costs down as best we can by having our units spawn-bust from within our cultural borders where we can. We know that we have two warriors on the peninsula. Once we settle Riverdale, at least one warrior (or two?) will be parked there. That means we have 3 more units to fog bust, right?

I propose we place them as shown in the attached screen shot. Warriors 6 and 3 can stay within our boundaries until the barb is seen (hopefully north of our capital). Once the coast is clear, warrior 6 can move 4N to the tile NW of the stone, which will spawn-bust the peninsula 100% plus some of the land north. Warrior 3 can move onto the desert hill eventually (which 100% spawn busts the north as well), but he can stay in our cultural borders for now and inch out as our borders expand. Warrior 5 should carefully explore the north east by walking on hills and along the coast, using the space bar a lot since that desert looks very dangerous if an archer is found. That’s my vote anyway.

Spoiler :

By the way, what is the formula for the number of units we can have outside our borders? Does it go up as our empire grows?

2. Will we be building an extra Warrior as Mitchum suggested or a Worker that a couple of other people suggested in Silverado as the next build? If it's another Warrior, he will cost us 1 Gold per Turn, and we don't really need him unless you want to 100% fog-bust pretty much every square west of Zara. There is a price to pay on his head if we do get him.

I’m all for getting a worker out (2 more actually). But I’d like to use warrior 6 to prevent a barb from spawning 3N of the cows on our peninsula. Once we settle Riverdale, how many “free” units can we have? How about after settling Stone? I’d have to run a test, but I don’t think we need military police in Delhi just yet. After whipping two pops and building the temple, we’ll even have a bit more leeway, right?

3. Are we going for Meditation after Pottery? If yes, then my idea to chop a Temple after the Library so that we can get working on Great Person #1 that much sooner doesn't matter... we might as well grow Delhi instead.

Agreed. I think 3 chops into the Oracle/library with a 2 pop rush is good. There should be quite a bit of overflow into the temple, such that it can be built the slow way in 2 to 3 turns.

4. Should we put a Forest chop into Settler 4? That way, we can delay building Settler 4 as long as possible, allowing us to grow as much as possible first, which would help since we'll otherwise have Mines that we won't have enough population to work.

I don’t think this is necessary, but testing would be required. I had to purposefully slow settler 4 down so that he wouldn’t come too early.

5. On what Turn will we get The Wheel? Knowing that can help in planning the ideal "Forest pre-chop paths" that lead into the Roading paths. Honestly, wouldn't you rather have the Worker actions already worked out for you, so that you don't have to try and figure out "on-the-fly" during your turnset how to optimize your Worker's moves?

I got it on T99, but I delayed settling Riverdale by 2 turns. It could be a couple of turns later if we settle Riverdale ASAP on T78, but I think Dhoomstriker got it on T99 in his test, so this is a safe date I think.

6. On approximately what Turn or Turns do we plan to settle City 4 and Lightbulb Christianity, if we get Pottery before Meditation? I think that we'll need more testing to see how late we can push this date (for extra research on Pottery) without really delaying us much in other ways.

I settled it on T116 with the GPro coming on that same turn, which is a good ball-park date for now.

7. On which Turn should we send a Worker to the east to River City?

I sent worker 4 (T102) from Silverado to River right away. It could easily have been worker 3 (T102 as well) from Delhi, which was built right after the Oracle.

8. Can I count on having 3 Workers for Quarrying the Stone or should I plan to do it with 2 Workers, as we'll want 1 Worker to have gone east already?

I would count on 3 workers chopping, cottaging, roading and quarrying around Delhi and Stone and 1 worker in Riverdale cottaging and farming. We need to grow the pop in Riverdale so that we can hire two scientists as soon as we're running Representation and start working on our third great person (GS) to bulb Philosophy.

9. How soon do you want to start building Cottages? Before or after the Stone is Quarried? Do you have an approximate relative order of how many Cottages to build:
a) Before Quarrying the Stone?
b) After Quarrying the Stone but before chopping The Pyramids?

Riverdale worker 4 is free to build as many cottages as he can. I was typically just one cottage ahead of the growth in that city such that a new citizen had a cottage to work right away. Near the end, I was a bit more ahead. It may also be a good idea to put a chop into the library too. After two or three cottages, maybe a farm is in order to help us grow faster.

Workers 1, 2 and 3 should have time to build two cottages in Delhi and possibly one in Stone before starting the quarry. Then, they could build two more cottages in Stone before Math is in and they need to chop the Pyramids. The first two cottages in Stone will likely be late since we’re settling it so late. The two in Delhi will be able to be worked as soon as they are done.

What you are suggesting is correct: the idea is to get all of these Worker actions mapped out, so that they flow into one another. Otherwise, what "sounds good now" because there are so many Forest-chopping actions can actually lose us a good 4 to 10 Worker turns over the next couple of turnsets. There is no need to rush to play under these conditions. Slow and steady wins the race and makes for the most fun laughing at the rabbits, too!

The only way to map this out exactly is to play a test game and see for yourself what works. My test game is off due to settling Riverdale two turns late. However, my answers should help plan a bit better how to optimize worker actions and chops. For example, I pre-chopped way too many forests. It’s better than idle workers, but I could have had workers 1, 2 and 3 ready to build a cottage in stone the turn it was settled. IIRC, I only had a partial cottage in Stone before I had to start quarrying the stone (there are three turns until the borders pop). The road was already there, as I had 1 worker building it (if I used more than 1 worker outside of our culture, the supply cost went up). To that end, when the worker was roading the tile NW of the stone, I could have moved the spawn-busting warrior back inside our borders to save a coin since the worker was handling the spawn-busting duty.

 

[Mitchum]

Research - 100% at till PH @ T79, 0% on T79, T80, T81, T82, %100 from T83 till end. This will give writing at T92 and let us research 100% at T92.
(Mitchun - We are settling Riverdale right away because of Roads. I prefer it this way to avoid forgeting).

Now that we know there is a road on the cows, I agree that we're shooting for T92, so your science rate looks good.

New warrior (from silverado) send to police Delhi, otherwise unhappiness will come.

At a minimum, I'd rather have him spawn-bust per my previous post until he is actually needed in Delhi.

Warrior 6 - spawnbust west, 1NE of pigs.

His final spawn-busting place should be 1NW of stone, but we don't need him there right away as the barb warrior is out there helping to spawn bust.

Prechoping plan: see screenshot
1a, 1b, ... is for first worker
2a, 2b, ... is for second worker

Now that we know we should plan for 8 chops, we can let Dhoomstriker work out a chopping plan. At a minimum, I'd like to chop one of the eastern grassland river hill squares since a mine there will help quite a bit. I used both workers 1 and 2 to build that mine once the forest was chopped and it still got completed a turn late IIRC. It may be better to think about getting the workers to the east of the capital (worker 2 can go to the hill on his first turn) for mine duty.

Delhi -
Work tiles - will work copper only once pop is 5. Till then work stays the same.

I think we need to work the copper on the turn it is completed (T78). This will speed up the worker and trades 1F 1C for 4H (or 1C for 3H when building a worker or settler).

Build - Finish worker -> Oracle (we can probably insert a few settler turns after growth for copper at the cost of an additional chop).

I don't think it is neccesary to start the settler. Start the Oracle right after the worker 2 is done.

Silverado -
No change to work tiles.
Finish warrior, build GW for overflow cash (another warrior will start costing us).

I propose that we start worker 3 right after the warrior. There will come a time very soon where 2 workers (and even 3 workers) won't be enough.

T76 - Research @ 100%, start moving settler towards Riverdale location, North warrior 1N, Warrior 5 towards riverdale. Warrior 3 inside our cutlural borders.
T77 - Nothing much.
T78 - Settle Riverdale, make sure it works the grassland river. Move citizen from farm to copper mine.
T79 - PH->Writing, Research @ 0%, Worker 1 finishes copper-mine (on previous turn), start pre-choping. Make sure Delhi doesn't work copper.
T80 - Civics: Hindu+OR, Delhi: Worker->Oracle, Silverado: Warrior->Worker
Beyond this my test game diverges, so I'll have to start over...

 

[Mitchum]

Still interested, still reading, just not much to say. There's a certain level of detail I'll comment on, and we're well past that into things I'd really have to run a test game to have much to say about. Plus all the discussion about how to set up the tst game was interesting but completely outside my areas of knowledge.

Turnset looks good to me. I would ask why we've got two warriors defending Riverdale rather than one of them fogbusting somewhere, maybe I missed a post somewhere explaining that though?

Hi Irgy, I think you can still express your opinion about spawn-busting vs. leaving the NE open to the barbs. You can also comment on city settling order, tech path, Pyramids date, etc.

There was some concern that Zara may attack us. Having two warriors there, although quite pitiful, could prevent him from doing so. However, Zara got Confucianism right away in my game. I opened borders and gave him a free corn. He was friendly and very unlikely to declare on us (90% odds that he will refuse to declare war on us if the roll suggests that he should declare (if I'm reading the reference guide correctly). If he is going to declare, we should have several turns of warning since we'll see that he has gone WHEOOHRN.

EDIT: Irgy, are you not playing test games because you lack time? Or does this testing aspect of the game seem overkill to you? We could use your insights if you have time...