SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element
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Dhoomstriker
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Yes.
Correct.
So far, I have one decision that we have made for me to implement in the next partial turnset (where to settle Goldfish City)... and it sounds like I'll be coming up with the rest of it myself, unless people want to provide further suggestions...
Is there much else that's controvertial? I just had another look for discussion points. I agree with your arguments for settling on the ivory and preferring not to be on the hill.
We've got enough cities that there's a lot of micro to be done in managing them all, but hopefully most of that follows on from what's happened in the turn set so far.
Dhoomstriker
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Well, we earlier talked about building the Shwegadon Paya, then gave up on the idea since we didn't have Gold... but now we have Gold from Toku and could get our own source, too...
But, where would we put this Wonder? Would it be so terrible to build it in Delhi? With 3 Great Engineer sources and us needing extra "throwaway" Great People for the end of the game, I think that we can afford to accidentally generate a Great Artist in Delhi.
Or can we give up on this Wonder, with 4 out of 5 of the known AIs preferring Theocracy as their favourite Civic, with the hopes that the AI who builds it won't switch into Free Religion due to that fact plus the fact that 3 of the AIs will almost completely (if not completely) be Buddhist?
No one has disagreed with me to delay settling that City due to it not being worth the Maintenance costs. We also don't need the Happiness. I'd also like to "trap" a Settler Party on that island. But if someone wants to settle it now, they can still try and make a case for doing so.
Most of it should.
However, no one really commented on whether or not they'd be okay with building a Settler in Grt Person Farm, since we're about to hit the Happiness limit there at Size 5. I presume that the Happiness will increase by a bit while we are buiding the Settler. That way, we would plan to grow to Size 6 when we have enough Happiness available to do so, such that we will be able to whip the Library for 3 population points (or maybe by the time that we've grown to Size 6 we'll have enough Hammers invested to make the whip only cost 2 population points), overflowing excess Hammers into the National Epic.
I also didn't really get any feedback on whether we should try and build a second Settler now, so that we have a "backup Settler available"--to do so would cost us I think I said 22 turns in Risaia--or else we can build one later in a shorter amount of time after that City or another City grows in Size.
It also wasn't confirmed that we want to send a Worker over to Goldfish, but presumably we do, so I'll try to make that happen.
No one disagreed with me making 2 more Galleys for the purpose of defending from the encroaching Barb Galley that is going after our Three Clams' Clam, so I guess I'll go ahead with doing so. We could always use extra boats in case we need to fight a war or in case we need to "chain" Galleys (or Galleys upgraded into Galleons) towards wherever the Fur is located, so that we can have a shorter time window between building our 4th "sacrificial" Great Person and winning the Diplo vote, as otherwise, the logistical issue of getting the units onto the Fur could become an issue.
I'm generally against building Shwedagon. It's almost 100% useless to us, and I think we can keep the Shwedagon-building AI out of free-religion by other means. I just imagine the situation where the AI who builds it eventually learns liberalism anyway, in which case we'd be completely wasting hammers to build it.
How much of a loss does it really make? If for instance you build wealth and work a coast tile, I'd have thought the trade routes would make it profitable.
I'm not against building a settler in Grt Person Farm. However I will point out that if we have enough happiness for 5 pop, then if you whip the library on the turn you grow to 6 pop then you never actually suffer unhappiness. So if the intention is to whip the library, we can do that anyway. With a bit of fiddling (by investing a turn in it before growing), you can also 3-pop whip a settler from 6 pop without a turn of unhappiness, that might (or of course might not) work out better than slow-building it.
What on earth is a backup settler? One we don't yet have a location for? I'd be inclined to wait until it could be built more efficiently if we don't have a plan for it, but I might have missed the reasoning for building it now.
It sure sounds like a good idea. Do we have a workboat for it too?
Does chaining galleys like that really work? How do you transfer the units?
On the whole, I think it's a good idea to defend the clams, and I can't imagine we won't have a use for more galleys.
Dhoomstriker
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It's hard to say for certain, but we get 12 to 13 Gold in Maintenance costs just from settling in the same locations for the Goldfish and Ivory Cities in the test saved game at City Sizes 1. Costs will go up as the City Sizes increase.
Assuming that we'd get +2 Commerce per Trade Route, plus work a Coast square for 1 Food and 2 Commerce, plus the City's Centre square, that's:
2 * 2 + 2 + 1 = 7 Commerce for a cost of 12 to 13 Gold. We'd make 1 Food and 1 Hammer per turn under those circumstances, or 2 Hammers for the Ivory City. Neither is "worth it" until we can get a Work Boat out to either one.
The western City should be settled ASAP due to the strategic reason of going for Buddhism.
I suggest delaying the eastern City for the strategic reason of trying to trap an AI Settler Party plus trying to get a Work Boat or two out there for around the time that we settle the City.
Grt Person Farm is by far the best spot to build a Settler for now. I was only worried by the possibility of us delaying our Great Person production there. If we can afford to lose 9 turns of generating Great People, then that's what it will take to build a Settler there.
It may not exactly equate to 9 turns of "running 6 Scientist Specialsits," but we do delay production of other items in Grt Person Farm by building a Settler, and that would take 9 turns (or even more turns if I don't use the current overflow Hammers).
Consider all of our western Cities. Consider our Goldfish City. Consider our Ivory City. Consider our Sugar Daddy City. We got all of those by building a Settler "just in case" we needed it and each time we ended up using said Settlers. That's what I'd call a backup Settler and we've used them for about half of our Cities. I was only suggesting that we continue to be prepared by having one "on standby" like we seem to have been doing for about all of the second half of the game played to date.
I'm low on places to make Work Boats. If I skip building a backup Settler in Risaia (for now), then I can make a Work Boat for Goldfish instead.
YES! Oh, indeed it does! Assuming that you have 20 Galleons and circumnavigation bonus, with the Galleons placed in the right spots, you could feasibly get a unit from one spot on the planet to the opposite side of the planet on the same turn.
We'd still need a few turns to "ferry" across 4 Warriors + 4 Great People + some defensive units (I'd rather not lose our entire "sacrificial party" to a rogue Mech Infantry) over a span of several turns, since the Galleons can only carry 3 units at a time, but it's a feasible way to get the units where they need to be at the last minute.
Preferable would be to have most or all of them in place at the right time, perhaps just sending over the last 1 to 2 Great People near the end of the game via a Galleon chain. We have no guarantees where that Fur will be, except that the Barbs are somewhere guarding it. However, based on what appears to be a "continents" type of map with "low sea level," it would make sense for us to be able to send Galleons probably right up to wherever the Fur is located.
I'm envisioning a Barb City on the Coast somewhere that is placd directly on top of a Fur, so that you have to capture said City (Warriors alone thus won't capture it). But that's just idle speculation; until we have more intelligence, the only really useful info is that if we need to move units quickly, we can do so by having multiple boats in our fleet.
Considering that even Caravels can be used to trasnsport Great People, and that in a continents-type of map, it's usually cheaper to use Hammers to buy Galleys and pay cash to upgrade them to Galleons than to try and massively produce Galleons, we could technically afford to grow our navy quite a bit and still benefit from it even without a war.
Certainly. If anyone but Zara wants to fight us, controlling the seas will be our best chance of winning a war.
If it is still available after we build The Hagia Sophia and The Great Library, since its cheap due to us having Gold, should be build it anyway, for the extra GPP and for less of a need to spend Espionage Points on a particular just to potentially have to switch their Civic (which is not a 100% chance of success mission)?
Basically, if we have the opportunity to "build it anyway," are you against doing so, or is it more of a matter of "don't built it if we need to sacrifice other Wonders just to get it"?
Wow, that is a lot of cost. Put me in the "delay" camp in that case.
Ok, I originally read this settler build as being for the purpose of delaying the growth rather than being primarily for the settler itself. Build away then.
It's still worth considering whether whip and regrow is better than just building. The hammers almost always work out better, but maybe the happiness would have an impact if we're whipping a library as well.
Would this then also give Risaia time to grow?
How do you actually do it though in the interface?
Other wonders, or settlers, or workers, or almost anything else really. If we have a city sitting around doing nothing but building wealth or something then sure, go for it (paricularly since it's a better way of building wealth anyway if we miss it).
Mitchum
Deity
@ Irgy
To move units along a chain of ships, you need to have them the number of squares apart that they can move. For galleys, that's 2. So you will have a galley, an open coast square, another galley, another open coast square, etc.
Load your two troops onto galley 1. Move galley 1 two squares to the same square as galley 2. Select each unit on galley 1 and order them to board a boat. I don't remember the exact name of the button, but it will be obvious. Sometimes you're given a choice as to which one to board. Be sure to select the one that still has 2 movement points left. Once both troops are on galley 2, move galley 2 to the same tile as galley 3 and repeat the process. The more galleys you have, the further you can move the units.
When you get to the end of the chain, your units will not be able to move this turn. However, at the beginning of your next turn, they can move off the galley. At this point, all of the galleys can move back to the squares they were on before the process started and you can ferry 2 more units the next turn.
So, with galley chaining, you can move 2 units as far as you want every 2 turns. I can set up a simple test save with a galley chain in place if you want to test it out yourself.
To move units along a chain of ships, you need to have them the number of squares apart that they can move. For galleys, that's 2. So you will have a galley, an open coast square, another galley, another open coast square, etc.
Load your two troops onto galley 1. Move galley 1 two squares to the same square as galley 2. Select each unit on galley 1 and order them to board a boat. I don't remember the exact name of the button, but it will be obvious. Sometimes you're given a choice as to which one to board. Be sure to select the one that still has 2 movement points left. Once both troops are on galley 2, move galley 2 to the same tile as galley 3 and repeat the process. The more galleys you have, the further you can move the units.
When you get to the end of the chain, your units will not be able to move this turn. However, at the beginning of your next turn, they can move off the galley. At this point, all of the galleys can move back to the squares they were on before the process started and you can ferry 2 more units the next turn.
So, with galley chaining, you can move 2 units as far as you want every 2 turns. I can set up a simple test save with a galley chain in place if you want to test it out yourself.
Dhoomstriker
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Yes, if I do not whip the Work Boat.Dhoomstriker said:
No, if I want to whip the Work Boat in order to get Goldfish working an improved square ASAP.
Building Wealth (or as you point out, a Resource-enhanced Wonder intentionally built for failure Goal being better than Wealth) is a nice way to get cash to help fund our Research, but I think that we have too many things to build everywhere to really fit in "Wealth" builds (or "fake-wealth" builds by aiming to get a Wonder's failure Gold).
It's certainly an idea worth considering--building Gold reserves instead of infrastructure or units--but doing so probably won't happen within my turnset.
No, if I start Shwegadon Paya, it would be because we want to complete the Wonder. I just don't see anywhere to feasibly build it unless we wait until Delhi frees up from building the other Wonders, but as you said, you at least would prefer to build other things in its place.
Bureaucracy + Organized Religion + Gold really does make it a cheap Wonder, though...
Mitchum
Deity
I assume that you plan to run an artist for 4 turns to pop the border quickly...
Just a minor point; although beaurocracy definately helps get wonders built before someone else grabs it, in general building wonders in a beaurocracy capital is inefficient.
What I mean by this is that if you want to build a 400 hammer wonder with a bonus, and 400 hammers worth of, say, units, you pay (forgetting OR for the moment):
400/2.5 + 400 = 560 raw hammers if you build the wonder in the capital and the units elsewhere, and
400/2 + 400/1.5 = 467 raw hammers if you build the units in the capital and the wonder elsewhere.
Wow, now that I've worked it out that's an even bigger difference than I expected in fact. That's not an ideal comparison to make, but you get the point.
I don't think it has an impact on our plans, I'm just pointing it out.
Dhoomstriker
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Goldfish's Fish
Yes I do, but we just changed Civics away from Caste System, so it will take us at least 9 turns to expand the borders at Goldfish (5 turns to switch Civics and 4 turns to run an Artist Specialist).
Dhoomstriker
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Leveraging Bureaucracy
Okay, that's an interesting fact. Now, let me see if I can expand upon your findings to draw some new conclusions.
I do not think that we can completely ignore Organized Religion and Police State bonuses in the analysis. It is my belief that these bonuses are going to fall into the exact same category as a Resource-based bonus.
These bonuses will "add alongside" the Bureaucratic Hammer bonus, not "multiply against" the Bureaucratic Hammer bonus, just like a Resource-based bonus would do.
So, according to this line of thinking, it would be a mistake to build a Military Unit in our capitol if we can get the Police State bonus, as we could make more use out of that Hammer bonus by building the Military Unit in a different City. As long as we have no "deadline" for producing that Military Unit, then we can get better use out of our Hammers this way.
Further, we shouldn't build any buildings in our capitol, because the Organized Religion bonus stacks up additively beside the Bureaucracy bonus. Now, this point is a little bit extreme, because a Wonder (other than its GPP or City-specific bonus like the Scientist Specialists from The Great Library) is CIVILIZATION-based, while buildings are CITY-based. Similarly, Military Units are Civilzation-based. So, it may be a bit too extreme to carry this example forward to a building.
But, one could make a case for saying that if you just needed 6 Courthouses for building The Forbidden Palace and that the Maintenance Costs saved empire-wide would be identical if you built that building in your Bureaucratic capitol under Organized Religion versus in a smaller-population City near the capitol, then as long as you also have the Organized Religion bonus in that other City, it would actually be more efficient to build the Courthouse in the other City, since the impact of the Courthouse would only be felt Civlization-wide (at least before Corporations are involved).
So, other than building a few City-specific buildings in the capitol, what does that leave us with? Building Settlers in the capitol?
Well, I think that you also said that it was more efficient to whip a Settler in terms of its Hammer cost, so it would seem to also be inefficient to whip in a large-sized capitol when we can whip elsewhere in a medium-sized City that will regrow faster and thus get a better return on the investment of Food that gets converted into Hammers.
Maybe we can just designate the capitol as a Missionary-pumping City? That way, we'd get the ideal bonus there--no bonus--while our other Cities could make more effective use of the bonuses elsewhere.
I completely follow what you are saying and I think that it is a very awesome point to make, but I am just struggling a bit with how best to apply it.
Conclusions
1. Certainly, we can say that "if we are going to build a Wonder for failure Gold, we should not build it in a Bureaucratic capitol, assuming that the City that we choose to build it in can receive the same non-Bureaucracy production bonuses (such as Organized Religion in both Cities or in neither City).
2. If we are building an item that is PURELY being used for its Civilization-wide benefits, such as Military Units, and if we have any other production bonuses (for example, Police State) that can be had equally in either City, then we also shouldn't build this item in our Bureaucratic capitol.
The same could be said for a Wonder if the Wonder's benefits are Civilization-wide (such as The Hagia Sophia) AND we are positive that the capitol will gain no other benefit from being the one to have built that Wonder (in the case of The Hagia Sophia, we expect to generate at least one more Great Person there--likely a few more, to be honest--so it WILL have a City-based bonus that will help the capitol out and thus this Wonder CAN be built in the capitol).
3. Other factors will have a say in the decision. For example, if there is a deadline associated with a build item, such as there only being 1 instance of a World Wonder being allowed in the game, then we can actually LEVERAGE the Bureaucracy bonus' ability to get that build item produced faster, for the opportunity cost of potententially getting more effective use out of those same Hammers Civlization-wide by building a different build item that doesn't receive production bonuses.
Follow-up Research Suggestion
What are the bonuses associated with having a Forge? Do they multiply against the Bureaucracy bonus or are they simply added on to only the base Hammers alongside Bureaucracy's bonus?
The answer there could potentially augment or change some of the above conclusions, depending upon the answer.
P.S. I used to have trouble with how to spell the word "bureaucracy." My trick to remember how to spell the work bureaucracy is to recall that the first part of the word is the French word "bureau," which means "desk." Deskocracy is really what we are saying.
Certainly, one could point out that my building of an Archer in the capitol was "inefficient." In my defence, I had "a different reason" besides the Bureaucracy bonus, which was to grow the City 1 more population point within 1 turn and the fact that the Archer could be completed in 2 turns with a bit of overflow into the next build item, a Settler.
So, there will always be other factors that will influence our decision. But certainly, we can feel happy, thanks to your findings, in not designating our capitol as our primary Military-production centre.
We can also feel happy in not intentionally trying for failure Gold from building a Wonder in our capitol--if we try to build it there, it is because we WANT to complete the Wonder. We might not do so, but the intention should be for us to plan to complete the Wonder at the time of starting it as our next build item.
Okay, so the lesson here is that IF we have another bonus, such as a Resource-based bonus, available in both a Bureaucratic capitol and a regular City, we will get more overall Hammer output by spending those Bureaucractic Hammers on an item that does not receive production bonuses, while building the Wonder that gets a Resource-based bonus in the other City, am I right?
Okay, that's an interesting fact. Now, let me see if I can expand upon your findings to draw some new conclusions.
I do not think that we can completely ignore Organized Religion and Police State bonuses in the analysis. It is my belief that these bonuses are going to fall into the exact same category as a Resource-based bonus.
These bonuses will "add alongside" the Bureaucratic Hammer bonus, not "multiply against" the Bureaucratic Hammer bonus, just like a Resource-based bonus would do.
So, according to this line of thinking, it would be a mistake to build a Military Unit in our capitol if we can get the Police State bonus, as we could make more use out of that Hammer bonus by building the Military Unit in a different City. As long as we have no "deadline" for producing that Military Unit, then we can get better use out of our Hammers this way.
Further, we shouldn't build any buildings in our capitol, because the Organized Religion bonus stacks up additively beside the Bureaucracy bonus. Now, this point is a little bit extreme, because a Wonder (other than its GPP or City-specific bonus like the Scientist Specialists from The Great Library) is CIVILIZATION-based, while buildings are CITY-based. Similarly, Military Units are Civilzation-based. So, it may be a bit too extreme to carry this example forward to a building.
But, one could make a case for saying that if you just needed 6 Courthouses for building The Forbidden Palace and that the Maintenance Costs saved empire-wide would be identical if you built that building in your Bureaucratic capitol under Organized Religion versus in a smaller-population City near the capitol, then as long as you also have the Organized Religion bonus in that other City, it would actually be more efficient to build the Courthouse in the other City, since the impact of the Courthouse would only be felt Civlization-wide (at least before Corporations are involved).
So, other than building a few City-specific buildings in the capitol, what does that leave us with? Building Settlers in the capitol?
Well, I think that you also said that it was more efficient to whip a Settler in terms of its Hammer cost, so it would seem to also be inefficient to whip in a large-sized capitol when we can whip elsewhere in a medium-sized City that will regrow faster and thus get a better return on the investment of Food that gets converted into Hammers.
Maybe we can just designate the capitol as a Missionary-pumping City? That way, we'd get the ideal bonus there--no bonus--while our other Cities could make more effective use of the bonuses elsewhere.
I completely follow what you are saying and I think that it is a very awesome point to make, but I am just struggling a bit with how best to apply it.
Conclusions
1. Certainly, we can say that "if we are going to build a Wonder for failure Gold, we should not build it in a Bureaucratic capitol, assuming that the City that we choose to build it in can receive the same non-Bureaucracy production bonuses (such as Organized Religion in both Cities or in neither City).
2. If we are building an item that is PURELY being used for its Civilization-wide benefits, such as Military Units, and if we have any other production bonuses (for example, Police State) that can be had equally in either City, then we also shouldn't build this item in our Bureaucratic capitol.
The same could be said for a Wonder if the Wonder's benefits are Civilization-wide (such as The Hagia Sophia) AND we are positive that the capitol will gain no other benefit from being the one to have built that Wonder (in the case of The Hagia Sophia, we expect to generate at least one more Great Person there--likely a few more, to be honest--so it WILL have a City-based bonus that will help the capitol out and thus this Wonder CAN be built in the capitol).
3. Other factors will have a say in the decision. For example, if there is a deadline associated with a build item, such as there only being 1 instance of a World Wonder being allowed in the game, then we can actually LEVERAGE the Bureaucracy bonus' ability to get that build item produced faster, for the opportunity cost of potententially getting more effective use out of those same Hammers Civlization-wide by building a different build item that doesn't receive production bonuses.
Follow-up Research Suggestion
What are the bonuses associated with having a Forge? Do they multiply against the Bureaucracy bonus or are they simply added on to only the base Hammers alongside Bureaucracy's bonus?
The answer there could potentially augment or change some of the above conclusions, depending upon the answer.
P.S. I used to have trouble with how to spell the word "bureaucracy." My trick to remember how to spell the work bureaucracy is to recall that the first part of the word is the French word "bureau," which means "desk." Deskocracy is really what we are saying.
Why not have an impact? It's an interesting analysis and we should certainly try to understand the impacts and make use of them.
Certainly, one could point out that my building of an Archer in the capitol was "inefficient." In my defence, I had "a different reason" besides the Bureaucracy bonus, which was to grow the City 1 more population point within 1 turn and the fact that the Archer could be completed in 2 turns with a bit of overflow into the next build item, a Settler.
So, there will always be other factors that will influence our decision. But certainly, we can feel happy, thanks to your findings, in not designating our capitol as our primary Military-production centre.
We can also feel happy in not intentionally trying for failure Gold from building a Wonder in our capitol--if we try to build it there, it is because we WANT to complete the Wonder. We might not do so, but the intention should be for us to plan to complete the Wonder at the time of starting it as our next build item.
Mitchum
Deity
I have a few comments to make about a few of the issues raised:
Shwegadon Paya: I don't want to build this in the capital if we can help it. At least not until we've gotten our Great Engineer. I would prefer to let our Great Engineer wonders do their job before we go wonder crazy in the capital. The Oracle and the Great Library (soon) are already more than I would like at the moment. When will the next great person come from Delhi and what are the odds of it being a GPro vs. a GE? Also, I don't think this is a "must-have" wonder, so I wouldn't want to make major sacrifices to get it. Let's build it if we have the opportunity.
Delay settling Ivory Coast? Yes. I like the idea of trapping another settler. Plus, we don't need an additional city to drain our economy nor do we have a free worker available to improve the city.
Settler in GP Farm? Yes. If we're already suffering from whip unhappiness, this gives us a chance to let some of it go away. A GP Farm with a happy cap of 2 citizens doesn't help us grow the city and work specialists, right?
Backup Settler? Yes. If I'm not mistaken, this is for the incense, right? Or are we talking about a backup to this settler? If so, I presume that we would use him settle Silver Whale if/when we need more resources as trade bait in the event that we don't find another settling location during our exploration.
Worker to Goldfish? Absolutely. I prefer to get the gold mined and roaded ASAP. That way, we can get our worker out of there so that we won't lose him in the event that Sal or Toku get some crazy idea about taking the city from us. Plus, we'll have an improved tile to work while we're waiting for the borders to expand and the fish to be netted, although it will take quite a few turns to transport the worker and mine the gold...
2 more galleys? Yes. As has been mentioned, they protect our nets for now and will be used later to ferry our warriors/great people to the fur and presumably our army to capture said fur as well.
Workboat for GoldFish? Yes, built it in Risaia as mentioned rather than a very slow settler there. There's no need to whip it until about 4 turns before the borders will expand in GoldFish, right (assumes it takes 4 turns for the work boat to travel to the fish)?
Bureaucratic Capital Wow, it's hard to get my mind wrapped around the idea that building certain things in the capital is not efficient. As mentioned, if we want a wonder's benefits in the capital (like the Great Library), we have no other choice. Also, if timing is an issue, we'll have to do what makes sense. In Irgy's example, if we build 10 axes in 5 cities and the Great Library in the capital, after 10 turns we'll have 10 axes and the Great Library. If we build the Great Library in another city and 10 axes in the capital, we'll have those same 10 axes and the Great Library in 20 turns or more (more likely the 4 cities not building the GLib would chip in and build 2 axes, so this isn't really a fair example...). So it really depends on what we need, where we need it, and how quickly we need it.
Next PPP: How many more turns do you have, Dhoomstriker? Can we expect a PPP from you soon now that you're not working on a test save any longer?
Shwegadon Paya: I don't want to build this in the capital if we can help it. At least not until we've gotten our Great Engineer. I would prefer to let our Great Engineer wonders do their job before we go wonder crazy in the capital. The Oracle and the Great Library (soon) are already more than I would like at the moment. When will the next great person come from Delhi and what are the odds of it being a GPro vs. a GE? Also, I don't think this is a "must-have" wonder, so I wouldn't want to make major sacrifices to get it. Let's build it if we have the opportunity.
Delay settling Ivory Coast? Yes. I like the idea of trapping another settler. Plus, we don't need an additional city to drain our economy nor do we have a free worker available to improve the city.
Settler in GP Farm? Yes. If we're already suffering from whip unhappiness, this gives us a chance to let some of it go away. A GP Farm with a happy cap of 2 citizens doesn't help us grow the city and work specialists, right?
Backup Settler? Yes. If I'm not mistaken, this is for the incense, right? Or are we talking about a backup to this settler? If so, I presume that we would use him settle Silver Whale if/when we need more resources as trade bait in the event that we don't find another settling location during our exploration.
Worker to Goldfish? Absolutely. I prefer to get the gold mined and roaded ASAP. That way, we can get our worker out of there so that we won't lose him in the event that Sal or Toku get some crazy idea about taking the city from us. Plus, we'll have an improved tile to work while we're waiting for the borders to expand and the fish to be netted, although it will take quite a few turns to transport the worker and mine the gold...
2 more galleys? Yes. As has been mentioned, they protect our nets for now and will be used later to ferry our warriors/great people to the fur and presumably our army to capture said fur as well.
Workboat for GoldFish? Yes, built it in Risaia as mentioned rather than a very slow settler there. There's no need to whip it until about 4 turns before the borders will expand in GoldFish, right (assumes it takes 4 turns for the work boat to travel to the fish)?
Bureaucratic Capital Wow, it's hard to get my mind wrapped around the idea that building certain things in the capital is not efficient. As mentioned, if we want a wonder's benefits in the capital (like the Great Library), we have no other choice. Also, if timing is an issue, we'll have to do what makes sense. In Irgy's example, if we build 10 axes in 5 cities and the Great Library in the capital, after 10 turns we'll have 10 axes and the Great Library. If we build the Great Library in another city and 10 axes in the capital, we'll have those same 10 axes and the Great Library in 20 turns or more (more likely the 4 cities not building the GLib would chip in and build 2 axes, so this isn't really a fair example...). So it really depends on what we need, where we need it, and how quickly we need it.
Next PPP: How many more turns do you have, Dhoomstriker? Can we expect a PPP from you soon now that you're not working on a test save any longer?
Mitchum
Deity
I used to read about galley chaining in the forums all of the time but never understood how it worked until I played around with it using World Builder a year or two ago.
Here is a test game for you to see the power of galley chaining.
Goal: Get all 4 great people and the 4 warriors to Fur Island in 3 turn.
When you "Load" your first unit from one Troop Transport to another, it will automatically go to the other one. When you "Load" the second unit, it will ask you which ship to board. Be sure to select the one that still has 5 movement points left. It's easy to make mistakes (i.e. move your ship before all four units are on the right one, load a unit on the wrong ship, etc.), but with a little practice you'll be able to do it with no issues. Be sure to note that the units are shown in the picture right AFTER the ship that they are on.
In this example, the last transport can sail right into Fur Island, so the units could be unloaded at the end of T1 such that they could actually move at the beginning of T2. In a typical scenario when you're using ships to transport units for war, the units will end their turn on the last boat right next to the enemy's land. At the beginning of T2, the units will move off the last ship onto enemy land and then the boats will move back into position to prepare for the next load. Be sure not to move your ships back along the chain before the units have hopped off (a mistake I've made more than once).
Moving the ship directly into the city isn't a big deal in this example since the city is on an island and the units have nowhere to move, but when in a war, it's nice to have a beach-head city that your ships can sail directly into. Not only does this prevent your units from being sunk while sitting on a vulnerable ship waiting to unload on the next turn, it provides your city with immediate defenders should it be attacked. It also allows your units to move along roads or out of the city immediately on T2 rather than having to use their movement points just to hop off the ship. If you do have to end their turn on a boat near the enemy continent, it's advisable to have another defensive ship or 10 on the same tile as your transport to avoid losing all of your troops (and a transport). Also, your transports along the chain are vulnerable, so it sometimes makes sense to have other ships protecting your chain.
This is a great way to ferry troops to the front lines from your home continent. In a typical game, when at war units are being built on your home continent and are completed 1 or 2 per turn. You then move them all to the "send off" point, such that they can board ships and move into action .
If you use the typical way to transport troops, your transport will wait around until 4 units are on board. Then it will take 8 turns for the transport to move to fur island and 8 turns for the transport to move back to pick up more units, completing it's round trip. In this scenario, there are typically too many boats and not enough units, or too many units and not enough boats. With a troop transport chain, you can move from 1 to 4 units into action every 2 turns. No units have to sit around and wait since the boats will be back into position every other turn. Plus, you don't feel bad about sending a half-full transport since units will never have to wait more than 1 turn and you can get those 1 or 2 units into the war ASAP.
As you extend the war to further reaches of the continent, it is more efficient to add one more boat to the beginning of the chain and have all of the boats shift out one position. This allows you to transport your units 5 tiles further on the continent and closer to the war front sooner at the cost of an extra transport.
Like in the test game, I usually put a sign at each position in my chain. That way, I know exactly where each boat should end it's turn as it moves back and forth along the chain.
If you're still having trouble getting it to work, just ask.
Here is a test game for you to see the power of galley chaining.
Goal: Get all 4 great people and the 4 warriors to Fur Island in 3 turn.
When you "Load" your first unit from one Troop Transport to another, it will automatically go to the other one. When you "Load" the second unit, it will ask you which ship to board. Be sure to select the one that still has 5 movement points left. It's easy to make mistakes (i.e. move your ship before all four units are on the right one, load a unit on the wrong ship, etc.), but with a little practice you'll be able to do it with no issues. Be sure to note that the units are shown in the picture right AFTER the ship that they are on.
In this example, the last transport can sail right into Fur Island, so the units could be unloaded at the end of T1 such that they could actually move at the beginning of T2. In a typical scenario when you're using ships to transport units for war, the units will end their turn on the last boat right next to the enemy's land. At the beginning of T2, the units will move off the last ship onto enemy land and then the boats will move back into position to prepare for the next load. Be sure not to move your ships back along the chain before the units have hopped off (a mistake I've made more than once).
Moving the ship directly into the city isn't a big deal in this example since the city is on an island and the units have nowhere to move, but when in a war, it's nice to have a beach-head city that your ships can sail directly into. Not only does this prevent your units from being sunk while sitting on a vulnerable ship waiting to unload on the next turn, it provides your city with immediate defenders should it be attacked. It also allows your units to move along roads or out of the city immediately on T2 rather than having to use their movement points just to hop off the ship. If you do have to end their turn on a boat near the enemy continent, it's advisable to have another defensive ship or 10 on the same tile as your transport to avoid losing all of your troops (and a transport). Also, your transports along the chain are vulnerable, so it sometimes makes sense to have other ships protecting your chain.
This is a great way to ferry troops to the front lines from your home continent. In a typical game, when at war units are being built on your home continent and are completed 1 or 2 per turn. You then move them all to the "send off" point, such that they can board ships and move into action .
If you use the typical way to transport troops, your transport will wait around until 4 units are on board. Then it will take 8 turns for the transport to move to fur island and 8 turns for the transport to move back to pick up more units, completing it's round trip. In this scenario, there are typically too many boats and not enough units, or too many units and not enough boats. With a troop transport chain, you can move from 1 to 4 units into action every 2 turns. No units have to sit around and wait since the boats will be back into position every other turn. Plus, you don't feel bad about sending a half-full transport since units will never have to wait more than 1 turn and you can get those 1 or 2 units into the war ASAP.
As you extend the war to further reaches of the continent, it is more efficient to add one more boat to the beginning of the chain and have all of the boats shift out one position. This allows you to transport your units 5 tiles further on the continent and closer to the war front sooner at the cost of an extra transport.
Like in the test game, I usually put a sign at each position in my chain. That way, I know exactly where each boat should end it's turn as it moves back and forth along the chain.
If you're still having trouble getting it to work, just ask.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Assuming that we build The Hagia Sophia successfully and that we either don't complete The Great Library in time to contribute to the next Great Person or else don't beat the AIs to building it, then our next Great Person in Delhi, also assuming that we don't generate a Great Person elsewhere first, will be due on:
Somewhere around Turn 202 to Turn 203. It's Turn 175 now.
Roughly, we will have just over a 68% chance of getting a Great Engineer.
Currently in the build queue, we have 0 Settlers. I can switch to building one or two Settlers. The first one would be earmarked for Incense City. The second one would be our "floater" aka what I called "backup" Settler--free to settle Whales if we feel we need it (it'll be a pretty junky City, though) or free to settle elsewhere if we can find another spot that the AIs haven't gobbled up.
Pretty much, so I can focus on growing and then whipping a Work Boat, but THEN do we want to start on a "backup" aka "floater" Settler?
18 more turns, give or take a turn depending upon whether we're close to a time where we might need to switch Civics or something.
I still plan to work on the test saved game, just not with the intention of being so accurate with it. Right now, I have an AI-inaccurate version that I'm using to test Worker actions and build orders. I have a somewhat updated map version but it's from an earlier point in the game (from the start of my turnset). Depending upon how much time I'll have, I'll figure out which one to use for now and whether I'll need to spend more time now or later updating the more similar looking one so that our Worker actions can be accurately executed in future turnsets.
Now that I have some FEEDBACK from the team of where you guys would like to see things going, I feel more confident in getting started on playing some tests, in order to get an idea of what to put in my PPP.
Mitchum
Deity
Build a floater settler if it fits into your build queue, but I give it a bit lower of a priority at the moment. I would prefer to get 6 libraries built (after every city has its granary built and sea food netted). This will allow us to quickly chop/whip 6 universities once we learn Education so that we can build Oxford in the capital. I would also like to see an extra worker or two unless you feel that we can afford to send one to GoldFish, one to Sugar Island and one to Ivory Coast and still have enough workers to improve our domestic cities.
By the way, based on the fast expansion of Saladin and Tokugawa and the fact that Izzy is somewhat stiffled in expansion, I doubt that we will find any good locations off continent and have time to ferry a settler all the way there before an AI gets there first. The exeption to this might be if we find another island that has not been prioritized by the AI yet.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
The Statue of Zeus
This Wonder gets opened up with Aesthetics. In addition, it uses Ivory as its bonus.
If we want to build it, we have a reason to justify settling the Ivory Resource soon.
I don't really see a need to build this Wonder, as it only really gives more Unhappy faces to an AI if you get into a war with them--unless you plan a lot of battles with an AI, War Weariness levels won't really get high enough for this Wonder to be useful at all.
Since we're not going to war, I don't think that we should build it, but I did want to throw the option out there while I thought of it.
While the Wonder itself is relatively cheap (450 base Hammers compared to 600 Hammers for The Parthenon), we'd also have to build 2 more Monuments (3 total and we already have 1 Monument) before we could build it. Those would cost 2 * 45 = 90 more Hammers, which would NOT get to take advantage of the Ivory bonus. Therefore, this Wonder would actually cost us more Hammers than building The Parthenon would cost us and the Monuments would provide questionable value at best and realistically would provide no value.
So, if it wasn't obvious, I am against building this Wonder since we're already going to be "busy enough" as it is, building other things. That said, I wanted to be "fair" and present the option to the team, so that we don't regret not thinking about the Wonder later on.
Other Relatively-undesired Wonders
On that note, I am also against building Chichen Itza and Angkor Wat, as I don't see see a need for more Great Prophet Points (The Statue of Zeus would equally give us unnecessary Great Artist Points).
While it could be justified that we need 4 "of any type" of Great People to sacrifice on the Fur (errr... to be "enlightened" by the Goddess), the benefits that these Wonders provide are kind of questionable. Unless, again, we just want to focus on generating "random" Great People by running Priest Specialists ala Angkor Wat, then that Wonder has no value to us.
Chichen Itza, even if we do get into a war, won't be enough to save our butts for off-continent Cities and on-continent Cities aren't really going to be threatened by the weak inter-continental war tactics of the AI in this type of a game.
This Wonder gets opened up with Aesthetics. In addition, it uses Ivory as its bonus.
If we want to build it, we have a reason to justify settling the Ivory Resource soon.
I don't really see a need to build this Wonder, as it only really gives more Unhappy faces to an AI if you get into a war with them--unless you plan a lot of battles with an AI, War Weariness levels won't really get high enough for this Wonder to be useful at all.
Since we're not going to war, I don't think that we should build it, but I did want to throw the option out there while I thought of it.
While the Wonder itself is relatively cheap (450 base Hammers compared to 600 Hammers for The Parthenon), we'd also have to build 2 more Monuments (3 total and we already have 1 Monument) before we could build it. Those would cost 2 * 45 = 90 more Hammers, which would NOT get to take advantage of the Ivory bonus. Therefore, this Wonder would actually cost us more Hammers than building The Parthenon would cost us and the Monuments would provide questionable value at best and realistically would provide no value.
So, if it wasn't obvious, I am against building this Wonder since we're already going to be "busy enough" as it is, building other things. That said, I wanted to be "fair" and present the option to the team, so that we don't regret not thinking about the Wonder later on.
Other Relatively-undesired Wonders
On that note, I am also against building Chichen Itza and Angkor Wat, as I don't see see a need for more Great Prophet Points (The Statue of Zeus would equally give us unnecessary Great Artist Points).
While it could be justified that we need 4 "of any type" of Great People to sacrifice on the Fur (errr... to be "enlightened" by the Goddess), the benefits that these Wonders provide are kind of questionable. Unless, again, we just want to focus on generating "random" Great People by running Priest Specialists ala Angkor Wat, then that Wonder has no value to us.
Chichen Itza, even if we do get into a war, won't be enough to save our butts for off-continent Cities and on-continent Cities aren't really going to be threatened by the weak inter-continental war tactics of the AI in this type of a game.
