SGOTM 11 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

it will have 1 more food and 4 more forests in TC, 3 of them not shared, available for chopping or health..
If we do not settle west city, because we find other use for seafood.


you put too mach weight in loosing 2 riverside ties.

1. Rice-1S will have 2 forests in TC. River-plains-river will have 4 forests in TC, BUT, 1 that doesn't count because it's in the Two FIsh TC and gets chopped for Two Fish. Furthermore, one other forest could be chpped for Two Fish NE, if needed, because it would be in its second cultural expansion. But we can't chop it into the NE if we settle Rice-plains-river.

2. If we don't chop the two more western forests, they might spawn forest-regrowth in Rice's TC.

3. At pop11, Rice city will not need forest for health.

4. How much weight are you putting on getting a fast western wb explorer and Two Fish REX? Rice-1S gives us western exploration 8-10t sooner than Oasis and gets the wbs for Two Fish much sooner as well, without forcing Two Fish to waste hammers on that. AIs have had exploring workboats out for many many turns. We don't want to miss out on circumnavigation, if workboats can do it alone.

 

[babybluepants]

@LC,
Sorry. We, as a team, are known for endlessly circuitous arguments. Just ask Soirana.

If we build Rice City immediately after Marble City (actually they both could be settled on T120 iirc), then the second pigs worker chops the Two Fish granary, then pre-chops the first Rice wb. That's the fastest wb for western exploration.

I thought we were building horse first and not getting to rice 'till after t130.

To grow asap, both Two Fish and Marble need wbs asap, built elsewhere. Those 5 fishnets are more important than almost anything else right now. They cannot wait for exploring wbs to circumnavigate and return. These two cities plus Delhi will be the lifeblood of our research. We can't be taking 20t to research techs, which is what we're looking at with Currency right now. We should be thinking of how Two Fish can be working 5, 6, maybe 8 sci 20t from now.

Ok, this game is so fast it requires some serious getting used to. I guess I've been so used to running slavery into AD's lately to even imagine such things. Despite my rambling above, I do agree with banning all non-essential builds when I see this. Strange that I would totally do just that when going for fast culture, but never consider it in anything else.

I do think we need 3 explorers asap, though. Finding a critical resource early could mean more than any research pace here (though that's hardly guaranteed).

Frankly, I like the rice marker much more than Mutineer's spot. Inland plains tile is what I wanted (esp. now that horse is a primary city and coastal). Upon more careful thought now, I think coastal is just better overall, so I'm in agreement.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I do think we need 3 explorers asap, though. Finding a critical resource early could mean more than any research pace here (though that's hardly guaranteed).

Yes! Hence, we really need 8 wbs asap, unless one of the explorers happens to dead-end. Oasis could build five (chops + 1pop...), Rice (2chops + 1pop), three. Or something like that. And we also we need build a galley somehow, somewhere. We may need to speed up the ensuing settler for horses.

 

[babybluepants]

So, what's our settling order then? If it's really horse first, should we go rice second and get started on WB's? I guess we can still go to either marble or rice as of the end of the next TS. I'd prefer having a clearer idea of whether we can delay horse without fear of a Zara steal. Can we not decide after we moves his settler? I'd expect him to plant something between Aksum and Delhi...

 

[LowtherCastle]

In the test save he does exactly that--between Aksum and Delhi.

Imo:
1. Delhi settler to Marble
2. Bombay settler to Rice-1S
3. Delhi can 3pop the horse settler a short while later, with overflow into aque/HG. (I haven't tested how soon.)

Horse City can build us a quick galley and will give us more votes in the end. Otherwise, it's not that great, short- or long-term and will cost us maintenance. I wouldn't mind losing it, but I'm also not against it. There may be something even better and more urgent that our wbs will discover.

One more thing: I don't see us having a worker for Horse City...yet. Bombay will make another about the same time Delhi makes the settler in my schedule above. Marble+Rice need at least two workers if not three for a while. We also need to make more cottages in Delhi, but that can wait if we're going to 3pop another settler or two.

 

[babybluepants]

I agree with that order, but that's in conflict with mdy's plan and Mut's arguments as I understood them, too. We need a consensus before the upcoming set, since the first settler moves by then.

I think the city's definitely worthwhile. Any city with a tile like fish is, IMHO, and it could help with WB/galley production in the short term. Plus, keeps Zara smaller and weaker.

 

[mdy]

On second thoughts I agree with LC about not building anything in 2 fish that can be built anywhere else. Unless we want to risk the incense/horse spot however I think we are gong to have to delay either the clams or the rice city by a few turns.

As it is very unlikely that we will beat Zara to any site on the eastern island I am tempted to send the first workboat to the 2 fish city instead, the second explores to the north, and the third explore to the east. We should also be able to combine a chop with a 1 pop whip to get the Galley built there after the third workboat. The last forest there I would be tempted to combine with a 1 pop whip for the granary.

The horse/incense city could also be treated as a workboat factory in the short term, providing the workboats for the clams city. (and maybe for exploring to the west to avoid building workboats in the rice city.


Revised plan:

Immediately open borders with Justinian, Revolt to slavery, Equalise espionage points, convert to Confunicism.

Two fish keeps working cows as that will allow us to do a 1 pop whip on the granary on T+7 (T+10 if we work pigs first)

T+1: workboat built in Oasis, sent to 2 fish city.
T+1: order Delhi worker to chop forest 1S of capital. Order 2 fish workers to forest 2W NW of capital, then chop this forest.
T+3: Delhi grows to size 6, works 2F 1H. Start settler.
T+4: Delhi whips settler for 3 pop. Works corn and two scientists. Bombay works other corn instead of horses. Forest 2W NW is chopped, order 1 worker to cottage for 1T 2N of capital.
T+5: workboat built by chopping forest 2W of Oasis city, explores to north. Worker moves to chop forest W SW of oasis city. Start workboat.
T+5: GS born in Delhi. Found academy. Fire scientists and work 2 corn and silver. Bombay goes back to working horses. Settler built, send to found city between horses and incense. Worker 2N of Delhi moves to forested grass hill. worker 2W NW cottages 1W of capital for 1 turn.
T+6: Pyramids built T117. Start aquaduct. Worker S of Delhi goes to improve Incense city. worker on hill chops, worker W of capital chops plains forest NW of capital. Worker S of Delhi goes to chop incense/horses city, road 1N of Delhi for 1 turn .



Warrior in Askum stays fortified where it is to spy on Zara.
Keep slider at 0%.
Play until Pyramids is built in 6 turns, or till something unexpected happens.
The settler for our seventh city could be built in the capital on T123 with 2 chops with this plan.

 

[Mutineer]

No Oasis workboat should explore! We rich this agreement! It is ridiculous to send it to go around all island.

We need exploration!

Argument that food rich city should not build stuff if wrong. It could whip stuff easy!

 

[LowtherCastle]

@mdy: 2fish 1pop on T+9 if you work the pigs 2t and the cows 1t. As you can see from my comparison, it's quite a bit better to poprush from pop3 to pop2 and work both resource tiles non-stop.

-----------

@Mutineer: Right and wrong depends on our goals and priorities.

Our goals are 1) Pyramids, 2) REX, 3) exploration, and 4) research. Our priorities are: 1) Pyramids, 2) REX + exploration, 3) research.

Our REX will kill our research. Our exploration will cost us some REX and a coin or two of research. We must not alloy REX to kill our research too long.

"Right" creates the above, "wrong" hurts the above.

In 2fish we're already poprushing lh, library, and mdy wants to poprush the granary too. As fast as 2fish will grow, the whip unhappiness will 1) delay our ability to run max sci and extra whipping will 2) delay when we can start running max sci. You seem to be saying that whipping workboats in 2fish is "right." Are you saying that delaying our max sci is "right"?

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Mutineer: Do you still like Rice at plains river better than at Rice1S? If so, why? Because it can't be the forests or the health.

Btw, I'm not just weighting the +2 riverside tiles. Also the marble tile. The plains site is 1hpt. Rice 1S can be 4, 5, or 6hpt.

 

[LowtherCastle]

As it is very unlikely that we will beat Zara to any site on the eastern island I am tempted to send the first workboat to the 2 fish city instead, the second explores to the north, and the third explore to the east.

Hmmm...

I agree with Mutineer on prioritizing exploration here, especially to the east and west. As it is we're extremely late on meeting AIs and circumnavigating. I wouldn't push our luck on either of those two or they could cost us.

Frankly, I'd rather whip wbs in 2fish than delay our exploration any further.

Most of all, though, I'd like to convince Mutineer to settle Rice-1S asap so we can explore and turbo-charge 2fish.

(I wouldn't worry about Zara beating us to the horses. He already has horses for one thing. Silu can probably tell us how likely he is to settle that far from his capital when he has at least two much closer sites available.)

 

[Mutineer]

Are you saying that delaying our max sci is "right"?

Yes, it is Right, because otherwise it would cost as exploration.
In a future we need 6 cities developed enough so they can whip Unies, so delaying development our first 2 costal cities to pursue other priorities (exploration) is right.

With your position of rice city you created supper overlapped filling city, instead of one major research center. Why we can not explore first before deciding?? What the harry??
No one will take this cite from as.

Actually I see fish /horse site is better as next city.
Horse is fast to improve and it will provide production for fish WB. Easy and fast to develop with minimum workers commitment, same true about north marble..

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Mutineer:

Yes, it is Right, because otherwise it would cost as exploration.
In a future we need 6 cities developed enough so they can whip Unies, so delaying development our first 2 costal cities to pursue other priorities (exploration) is right.

Rice-1S is the FASTEST to explore to the west. Period. T121 the Rice-wb heads due west. Horse wb costs us exploration, not Rice. 2fish wb costs us exploration, not Rice.​

With your position of rice city you created supper overlapped filling city, instead of one major research center.

What major research center are you talking about?
What overlap are you talking about? (Marble City won't work the marble tile as a GP farm.)
EDIT2: I don't consider a 50bpt-plus-research-modifiers city exactly "a filling city," compared to our other cities, btw.​

Why we can not explore first before deciding?? What the harry??

EDIT: FIrst of all, because it will take till about T130 or later to find out about that island. Also: Because exploring won't change anything. Rice-1S is better. The hurry is 1) western exploration ASAP and 2) making 2fish a "major research center" asap. Your plan will delay 2fish by 5-10t or more, imo.​

Actually I see fish /horse site is better as next city.
Horse is fast to improve and it will provide production for fish WB. Easy and fast to develop with minimum workers commitment, same true about north marble..

What? Horse is not fast to get western exploration or 2fish wbs. ?!?!? Mutineer, please give me some concrete turn numbers, when you expect the first wb to explore west from our western coast and the first wb to make nets at 2fish.

My turn numbers are T121 T123, leaving from Rice-1S and T129 making a 2fish fishnet.​

 

[Silu]

Soooooooooo many posts... Doesn't help keeping up either that every page seems to have the same arguments time and time again Okay, some rambling...

I can promise to eat my socks if Zara settles the Horse direction next - AFAIK he can't settle 1SE of Cows for example (as it has more than 33% of the BFC under enemy culture). The only tiles he could theoretically settle are the Horse, 1E and 2E of it. That's quite a trek from where he's standing, as there's perfectly good land next to him. To be honest I wouldn't shed too many tears even if he did settle that. It's not the best spot in the world and it would be severely culture pressured by Bombay (pop in 24t and Oracle doubles at 700BC).

I agree that sending WB from Oasis to 2Fish seems pretty ridiculous. A minimum of 13 turns travel time? Surely we can spare a chop or whip to get them up earlier. I thought we agreed on scouting east first? What changed? Sorry, it's hard to keep up at times...

To my eye the (1S of) Rice spot is the best we have left, I'd rather grab it as the difference in that and the plains is minor but the FP we can do right away. It would certainly build WBs faster than the Horsie, and is in position to give them to 2Fish if we want to concentrate on whipping other stuff there.

 

[shyuhe]

I'd send the oasis boat east to explore. It just takes too many turns to travel around the island. 2-fish can build a workboat in almost the same amount of time just growing on pigs/cow. I'd be more for settling 1S of Rice to whip out WBs.

Delhi can pay our bills if we don't expand past 6-7 cities for now.

 

[babybluepants]

Despite the insane amount of posts today, I'm still not clear on where the next settler is going.
For the record: I'm for rice-1S and marble ahead of horse, and no WB's out of 2Fish.

 

[mdy]

O.K. The consensus seems to be to settle the rice city next, to build any workboats 2 fish needs there, and to explore to the east.

Revised Plan:

Immediately open borders with Justinian, Revolt to slavery, Equalise espionage points, convert to Confunicism.

Two fish switches to working pigs.

T+1: workboat built in Oasis, send to explore to the east.
T+1: order Delhi worker to chop forest 1S of capital. Order a 2 fish worker to forest 2W NW of capital, then chop this forest. Other worker chops forest 1W of pigs.
T+3: Delhi grows to size 6, works 2F 1H. Start settler.
T+4: Delhi whips settler for 3 pop. Works corn and two scientists. Bombay works other corn instead of horses. Order worker S of Delhi to cottage for 1T 2N of capital.
T+4: 2 fish grows to size 2, starts working cows.
T+5: workboat built by chopping forest 2W of Oasis city, explores to north. Worker moves to chop forest W SW of oasis city. Start workboat.
T+5: GS born in Delhi. Found academy. Fire scientists and work 2 corn and silver. Bombay goes back to working horses. Settler built, send to found rice floodplains city.
T+6: 2 fish worker moves 1N and builds road for 1 turn.
T+6: worker 1S of Delhi roads 1N of Delhi for 1 turn
T+7: Pyramids built in Delhi. Delhi grows to size 4, works cottage. Worker 1N of Delhi moves to forest hill. Worker to west of Delhi cottages 1W of Delhi for 1 turn.
T+7: Settler for crab built in Bombay. Start worker.
T+7: worker S of axe chops forest 1SW of axe.



Warrior in Askum stays fortified where it is to spy on Zara.
Keep slider at 0%.
Play until Pyramids is built in 7 turns, or till something unexpected happens.
The settler for our seventh city could be built in the capital on T125 with 2 chops with this plan.

 

[shyuhe]

That sounds fine. I'm going to be completely out of pocket the next few days but should have civ access next week (finally ). I'm sure you guys can manage fine without me LC - you're more than welcome to take a set after mdy if you want.

 

[Silu]

Sounds fine to me as well Only thing I'm not 100% in that (doesn't affect the plan though) is the destination of settler #2. But we can discuss that when we actually have the Settler

And I agree with shyuhe: LC, you might as well play since you are among the ones doing the most extensive analysis anyway So there's a big chance that the game progresses for a big part how you analyze the play-by-plays, be it done by your hand or not

 

[LowtherCastle]

Often alternative plans have very small differences, so I put my money where my mouth was, to be fair to Mutineer. I tried to do my very best with each alternative up to T130. Delhi, Bombay, and Patal are identical. Here are the differences:

Spoiler :

T130          Horse City 1st     Rice-1S 1st
----          --------------     -----------

Viagra        pop4 33/42f        pop4 21/42f
                      +8fpt             +12fpt    
              lh   42/90h        lh      done
              lib  6/135h        lib  46/135h
              :(   1(5)          :(   1(11)
              fishnets  0        fishnets   1

Marble        p1   13/33f        p1   17/33f
              gran 18/90h        gran 26/90h
              cows      1        cows      1
              clams     1        clams     1

Horse         p1   14/33f        p1    2/33f
              wb   19/45h        wb    2/75
              horses    1        horses    0
              forest    0        forest    1

Rice          in 0 or 1t         p1   18/33f
                                 wb    8/45h
              forest 2or3        forest    0
              rice      0        rice      1


Currency      652/936b           674/936b
Gold          40g                34g


Units         5 wkrs             5 wkrs
              4 wbs              4 wbs
              1 net              2 nets

So I played both out to T145 to see what the difference is in 2fish and in fact, horses first is only about 2-4t slower to hire 5sci. The 6th sci is about 10t later if we want to work all four resource tiles at pop10. We would need more happiness to reach pop11.

Whatever...