SGOTM 11 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

I was just doing the same calculation. I figure that we're looking at 16t (12t GP + 4t extra on Taj) x 57 gpp = 912 gpp. It's just not even close to the 3000 gpp. We could maybe up our GP production with Rice somehow, but the end result would just be getting back the one we spent on a golden age (kinda sorta maybe).

This has been a topic of discussion for some time, without any resolution. LC and Mut, could you make a more detailed and convincing argument for it?

Also, even if MoM was a consensus good move, Justinian has had Calendar for some time. I don't really wanna spend pre-Oxford slider money on Calendar when we're not even sure we're gonna get it.

Edit: It's also starting to look like we won't be warring much, if at all. That means we can't exactly count on multiple GG's for the variant.

 

[Silu]

Just something that popped in mind: if we're going Chemistry (we might not be?) we should be able to grind a single GG pretty easily with Privateers even if we won't wage war at all.

 

[shyuhe]

I had assumed we were going the astro route so that we can skip gunpowder and chemistry (and also engineering).

 

[babybluepants]

We can't bulb Elec if we open up Chem/Bio, IIRC.

 

[Mutineer]

we can do some calculations when taking in account Golden age,, but there are 2 factors have to be taken in account in addition(Actually together) with additional GPP production.

1) GA not only help with GPP point accumulation from general food neutral/positive process, which by itself can help as push out gP we can not get by normal process. GA can be used for additional GPP generation from loosing food or even starvation in order to push out GP we otherwise can not get with out slowing down our main GP farm and this way preventing waster of previously generated GP points.

On other hand WE can not calculate this effect NOW, because that pretty mach depends on demand on our cities. We can only estimate it.

2) GP has other effect, like additional shields/commerce which will help as in general, speeding up our research and production.

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I do not think we want to go to chemistry, not before we get Mass media. Astronomy road is shorter and more beneficial :

Our trade routes would not have risk to be cut as result of war.

We will have access to better and faster ships for Fur occupation.
Thought I do believe Fur island would be connected to main system, otherwise Cultural victory would not stand a chance.

 

[babybluepants]

I don't think starvation works, other than in the very late stages of a cultural win, or occasionally when really needing to push one out asap. Just can't pay off over the long term. We're already planning on pushing quite a few GPs from Marble and Delhi, considering how good Two Fish is.

Honestly, and I've said this already, I believe that the golden-age GP push tactic is specifically effective when you are: 1) not running Caste/Pacifism much in the game; 2) not spiritual. Calculating the effects of city starvation isn't any more difficult than the spreadsheets shyuhe already did. If you want, go ahead and put up some numbers. I may be wrong - wouldn't be the first time...

 

[LowtherCastle]

I figure that we're looking at 16t (12t GP + 4t extra on Taj) x 57 gpp = 912 gpp. It's just not even close to the 3000 gpp. We could maybe up our GP production with Rice somehow, but the end result would just be getting back the one we spent on a golden age (kinda sorta maybe).

This has been a topic of discussion for some time, without any resolution. LC and Mut, could you make a more detailed and convincing argument for it?

Also, even if MoM was a consensus good move, Justinian has had Calendar for some time. I don't really wanna spend pre-Oxford slider money on Calendar when we're not even sure we're gonna get it.

1. 16t? I don't understand that, but an Epic GA is 10t. Plus MoM is 15t.

2. To me the calcs are not about 3000 gpp. Since we will be be running a partially specialist economy, our cities will end up with surplus gpps. More or less surplus. The benefit of the GA would be to enable one or more cities with with lots of surplus gpps to complete another GP. Normally, this is doable. In this game there might be the constraint of not wanting to starve off population too much, which is one reason I've been pushing for getting all but Sal into BUddhism, including Toku. We'll still have to have the most population, but that's not usually a problem. We might have to build a couple more cities, such at the lake/deer city to the SW of Delhi. Or capture enough of Sal's cities, or capture...cough cough...Aksum lol. In contrast to you, I find it inconceivable that we wouldn't be able to get an extra GP or more out of this, but it's true I didn't get around to doing any calcs and I don't see that happening either...alas. If we only break even then we drastically gain in terms of the added commerce and hammers.

But that's not an argument in favor of MoM. Only in favor of the GA. It's conceivable that MoM is not worth the extra 5t, especially if we only run 1 GA. Maybe the hammers should go into more population, or whatever.

3. We should be able to look at Justy's sabotage production and figure out if any of his cities is well along on a wonder. Incidentally, it would also be interesting to watch Izzy's cities and see if she tries to build the ApoPal.

4. I think shyuhe's calcs are very useful and I believe this can be more or less well determined now. I thikn the calcs should consider Rice City. I also have a sneaking suspicion that MoM and Taj aren't worth the hammers since we're so hammer poor.

5. Maybe there's an optimization not building Buddh Misses for Toku and building a wonder or settlers or units instead, I don't know. Just a thought.

6. That silk city near Mehmed has a lot of food as I recall. That's a prospect.

Just ideas, guys. Sorry I can't help with any calcs.

 

[babybluepants]

1. I used Normal speed, ofc... Doesn't make that much of a difference in that calc, though.

2. Ok, that makes sense. If we did use a GA to push one out of Rice, we would only need to make back 900 gpp for an extra GP, which is doable even without MoM. I think that can be re-evaluated more precisely at a later date. It's MoM that would need to decided on right away.

5. Maybe. How do we judge that? The main issue is the lack of space left to safely settle now, I think.

6. We'd need multiple galleys with axes. I've thought about it, but I seriously doubt we have the ability to build those and transport them before Mehmed takes it.

 

[shyuhe]

We might be able to break even if we start running specs in rice. I didn't include rice in my calculations but I'll do that tonight (finally some free time!). We can pop a GP in Bombay I think, but it'll almost certainly be a prophet which is only useful for our VC. So I'd rather not pop one in Bombay.

I'll do one pass with no GA modifications. I agree that the hammer and commerce bonus from a golden age may be significant, but it's hard to tell if it's going to beu seful for us.

The silk city is on flatland so with 4-5 swords (or maces?), we'd be able to take it I think. But we're presumably going to be either (1) trading for both silk and dye from a happy Mehmed or (2) capitulating Mehmed to force him to give us those two resources. So at this point I don't see the hurry in grabbing that city.

 

[mdy]

A possible plan:

Slider to 0% until Oxford, then 100%. Tech Aesthetics, Literature, Machinery
Revolt to Caste System/Pacifism once we have Oxford.

Delhi:

Worker chops 2 forests for Oxford, then builds more cottages.
Immediately hire an engineer, then two scientist once we have Oxford (from the mine workers)
T+3 Oxford built, spread buddishm with missionary, continue market
T+11 Generate GP with 80% chance of an engineer. If we get an engineer fire all specialist and work cottages instead. If we get a scientist save it for printing press, only fire the scientists, and hire an engineer in 2 fish to maximise chances for a future engineer.

Ivory:

Immediately switch to working mine, finish Maori, then spam buddist missionaries. We should probably focus on converting Zara with them before he gets access to theocracy.

2 Fish:

Worker 1S 1SW of Bombay goes to chop forests for 2 fish.
Build wealth until literature, then start National Epic. Estimated completion date T+16
Stop working 1F tile while building wealth, then goes back till working hammer tiles.
Grows till happy cap, then hires merchants.

Rice:

Send warrior SW of Delhi to act as garrison.
Worker farms grass tiles.
Finish spy. Are we planning on doing this before using it to spy on the barbs land?
Start courthouse

Marble:

worker roads cows, then the mines near Bombay.
Start courthouse (should give us more gold than a forge building wealth)
Grow to size 10 and hire scientists.

Oasis:

Builds forge. Do we really have any need for a third galley at the moment.

2 Sugar:

Worker chops jungle, then builds roads
Work mines as the city grows
build lighthouse-forge

Bombay:

worker builds more farms.
courthouse-barracks-????

We could build wealth here, or altenateivly perhaps we will have enough religious buildings to make the University of Sankore worthwhile? MOM would also be a possibility, but it would mean researching instead of trading for calendar. Given the difficulties in making a GA pay off I don't think the MOM is worth it.

 

[babybluepants]

then two scientist once we have Oxford (from the mine workers)

Do we have to? I'd rather get higher GE odds. No time to look at numbers now. If I get your numbers right, it should be a 6t delay?

Finish spy. Are we planning on doing this before using it to spy on the barbs land?

I just started building the spy, 'cause Rice has no production for anything more substantial short term, and we had some spare hammers. There isn't necessarily a clear plan for spy transport to barb island.

Start courthouse (should give us more gold than a forge building wealth)

Forge was also for the +2 happy. I was actually suggesting 3pop whipping it before the civic switch some pages back. Don't have a strong opinion on it, though.

Do we really have any need for a third galley at the moment.

No, we don't necessarily need it. I was thinking we may want a galley pair to go for circumnavigation. Trireme would've been better for that, I guess, but we will need some galleys soon enough for missionary transport and all, so I thought it was maybe more flexible... Not sure.

Bombay:
worker builds more farms.
courthouse-barracks-????

Are we gonna build another worker? Don't have to, but I think we can definitely use it.
Do we need a CH there? Can't be much maintenance.

 

[Mutineer]

I am all for hiring scientists. The way odds are calculated it will decrease odds for 1-2% max.
I only wary about growing capital and working cottages, but pushing GE out faster can actually speed up growing later(No need to run engineer for long time).

Can we use spy to steal something from Zara? It is long walk with out roads, but but with zara we have good discount at the moment.

I am for whipping forges in Org/slavery. Forges is always good, and if we will need army we will get most of it by whipping. Question only when? We want cities not to fall to low in population so they can work all improved ties.

We need plan to scout this island, it must be connected to barbarian continent.
If it is possible we better organize Galley/Trireme pair with land 2 more scout(Like chariot).

So, our fleet can get to barbarian continent and drop chariot there.

So we do need 3rd Galley, because we need other 2 galley to move thinks.

 

[LowtherCastle]

@mdy Possible Plan:
1. Priorities:
Oxford check
GP Farming check
Buddh Miss spamming check
Furs exploration ???

2. CHes are non-optimum, I think. We have only so many turns left in this game. We have a lot of production to do. We'll need Budd misses, galley->galleons, units. Commerce won't be that much of a factor in our critical path, I doubt. We need to know about the furs asap. Western coastal cities with nothing to produce now should be building sea vessels. Inland cities can produce the spy. When hammer cities that have nothing to produce, they should build forge/barracks. Etc.

3. I agree with your logic, but still Buddhist Misses to Zara is lowest priority, imo. Who cares if he remains Confu? He's a non-entity in this game. Ignore him. Let him DoW us. Whatever. First priority: Buddh misses in our Miss spammers and GP Farms. Second priority: Justy and Toku.

4. I see no good reason to poprush Marble. It grows asap and works scientists. Will it even need the +2 happiness from forge? Anyone calculated that? Minimize, guys, minimize. No unneeded infrastructure anywhere.

5. Why grow Two Fish to happiness cap THEN hire merchants? Surely that's not optimum when it has +17f at pop6? Or is that to slow down the GM so Delhi can spawn the GE?

6. Furs exploration: The spy has to travel by galley to be safe. The chariot can go by land. The sooner the chariot goes, the sooner he'll be able to tell us exactly where the barb galleys are. Not all barb galleys will attack us!!! Hand-built barb galleys that transport attack units will not attack our galleys. The chariot might be able to watch for barb attackers landing and discern the difference. Soon Toku's and Justy's cities will fogbust the spawning barb galleys that attack. And Toku and Justy will gradually kill off existing barb galleys that were spawned. We need to hurry and explore the furs. Figure out a solution for the next 10-15t max.

 

[LowtherCastle]

5. Maybe there's an optimization not building Buddh Misses for Toku and building a wonder or settlers or units instead, I don't know. Just a thought.

5. Maybe. How do we judge that? The main issue is the lack of space left to safely settle now, I think.

We estimate the votes for (Meh+Izzy+Justy+Zara+Gandhi) and against (Sal+Toku).

We can settle the deer/lake. That's good for lots of pop. We can settle the Oasis cows. There must be other possibilities.

Or we beeline Machinery for maces+cats who will quickly capture any cities we want. By the time we get to Machinery, we have a unit spammer or two with RAX ready to build our forces.

We also need to think in terms of building a city we'll gift to Sal (or anyone other AI in danger) to prevent them from getting exterminated. This is not the UN city but the extermination-proofing city. It has to be placed where it won't flip and also not likely to get attacked.

EDIT: Also, we don't want Sal to get vassaled to Toku or anyone else.

 

[shyuhe]

5. Why grow Two Fish to happiness cap THEN hire merchants? Surely that's not optimum when it has +17f at pop6? Or is that to slow down the GM so Delhi can spawn the GE?

Yes. Otherwise 2-fish pops a GP first and totally messes up the later GPP generation. we need another 20 turns to get the necessary GP if we let 2-fish pop one at 750 GPP.

6. Furs exploration: The spy has to travel by galley to be safe. The chariot can go by land. The sooner the chariot goes, the sooner he'll be able to tell us exactly where the barb galleys are. Not all barb galleys will attack us!!! Hand-built barb galleys that transport attack units will not attack our galleys. The chariot might be able to watch for barb attackers landing and discern the difference. Soon Toku's and Justy's cities will fogbust the spawning barb galleys that attack. And Toku and Justy will gradually kill off existing barb galleys that were spawned. We need to hurry and explore the furs. Figure out a solution for the next 10-15t max.

Agreed.

 

[babybluepants]

I am all for hiring scientists. The way odds are calculated it will decrease odds for 1-2% max.

No.
mdy's plan: we pop a 76% GE in 11t
no scientists run: we pop a 93% GE in 16t
shyuhe's plan doesn't call for a Two Fish GP by then anyway. We invested quite a bit in the GE so far. Why pollute the gene pool in the end?

 

[babybluepants]

4. I see no good reason to poprush Marble. It grows asap and works scientists. Will it even need the +2 happiness from forge? Anyone calculated that? Minimize, guys, minimize. No unneeded infrastructure anywhere.

Edit: NVM, Deleted. On second thought, this is irrelevant if we can acquire further happy resources on a similar timeline - which we actually most likely will with calendar + maybe a trade...

Edit2: Agree with LC's plan for fur.

Edit3: Also agree with LC on Buddhist spam: our gpp cities > Justinian and Toku > Zara.

 

[mdy]

Furs exploration: The spy has to travel by galley to be safe. The chariot can go by land. The sooner the chariot goes, the sooner he'll be able to tell us exactly where the barb galleys are.

Am I missing something big? From the map it looks like we can't find the barb cities before optics. How would a chariot help us find them?

Also agree with LC on Buddhist spam: our gpp cities > Justinian and Toku > Zara.

Why worry about Justin? He is already in Buddishm and will adopt theocracy before we could get a missionary there anyway. He should spread buddishm quickly himself. Toku is a potential U.N. opponent why would we want to make our diplo more complicated by getting him into our religion? We can easily win without him.

When were we planning on switching to buddishm? if we want to do it soon, I agree that spreading it to our 2 GP farms is a priority.


The clams city can work max scientists at size 10, so we won't need any extra happiness there.

mdy's plan: we pop a 76% GE in 11t

I think this might force us to delay the 2 fish GP, but I will have to check the Maths.

CHes are non-optimum

Courthouses will only give us a small net benefit over the course of the game, but we don't seem to have anything else that would be more economically valuable to build in some cities. Th extra espionage points could also be useful.

We also need to think in terms of building a city we'll gift to Sal (or anyone other AI in danger) to prevent them from getting exterminated. This is not the UN city but the extermination-proofing city. It has to be placed where it won't flip and also not likely to get attacked.

Is it possible to get an AI to accept another city along way from it's core. The current diplomacy screen suggests that this is unlikely. The only AI currently in any danger is Saladin. Perhaps we should complete the chariot in Bombay and send i to spy on the war. If Saladin looks like he could lose a city we could then bribe one of them to make peace with currency?

 

[Mutineer]

Am I missing something big? From the map it looks like we can't find the barb cities before optics. How would a chariot help us find them?
------------------------------
LOOK ON LEFT CORNER OF MAP!

Do you see unexplored island? Our workboat die here, after dodging one barbarian Galley and see 2 others. One small island can not generate this many Barbarian Galleys.
The only explanation that it is connected to barbarian continent.
So, idea is, Chariot moving by land, spying Barb Galleys. Trireme/Galley pair moving behind, position themselves so trireme can attack Galley (50% bonus to attack) and not been hit by second Barbarian Galley. That why land spy is needed.
After reaching Island, chariot go to Galley and hopefully and most likely move to Barbarian continent and scout it.
It is needed to explore this island anyway in order to Circular bonus. So, do not sell our Maps!

All that was already discussed before and not by me. I am forced to repeat it. Please, read previous posts!
---------------
Why worry about Justin? He is already in Buddishm and will adopt theocracy before we could get a missionary there anyway. He should spread buddishm quickly himself. Toku is a potential U.N. opponent why would we want to make our diplo more complicated by getting him into our religion? We can easily win without him.

When were we planning on switching to buddishm? if we want to do it soon, I agree that spreading it to our 2 GP farms is a priority.
----------------------------------------------
There is no particular hurry, but we better spread Buddhism to our cities first anyway, even just to have more then one city that can produce missionaries and if we forced to switch to Buddhism by diplomatic reasons we can do it.
------------------------------------------------

The clams city can work max scientists at size 10, so we won't need any extra happiness there.

I think this might force us to delay the 2 fish GP, but I will have to check the Maths.

Courthouses will only give us a small net benefit over the course of the game, but we don't seem to have anything else that would be more economically valuable to build in some cities. Th extra espionage points could also be useful.

Is it possible to get an AI to accept another city along way from it's core. The current diplomacy screen suggests that this is unlikely. The only AI currently in any danger is Saladin. Perhaps we should complete the chariot in Bombay and send i to spy on the war. If Saladin looks like he could lose a city we could then bribe one of them to make peace with currency?

I have no problem with Salladin reduced to one city. actually the less cities saladin have the better. Our gold city is near his capital. If he has less then (7? I do not remember) cities, he will accept it! Idea of gifting Saladin city is not to increase his population, But that we build UN there and gift it to him. That will guaranty that he will be our opponent if we have enough population.

 

[babybluepants]

@Mutineer,
Just to clarify - No, I didn't mean to say I saw two more galleys. Just the one you saw and another that got me a few turns after.

@mdy,
I don't think it would slow down Two Fish, at least not enough to be a problem. Too lazy to calculate now, but I figure we need something like 15-18t there to grow to 12 and get to 750gpp. I think the question is just what GE odds we're comfortable with as a team. My vote is for highest possible, especially as our current strategy calls for probably building the thing in a marginal border city.

btw, we should trade for Justinian's map right away and note if he discovered any new tiles down there.