SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

[Duckweed]

Overall, plan looks good. but

1. As Bugg123 pointed out, worker 3 need 3 turns to finish farm before he can do some prechop. I suggest to let him chop and stop 1N and NW for 2 turns and then road the riverside grassland in Bombay afterward.
2. Good point on the growth of Bombay, we can let it grow from the beginning of your set or 2 turns later so that it'll reach size 2 at the same time Delhi reaches size 4.
3. When the commerce increases to 21, partial research loses 1 beaker from round down. So I'd suggest to set research to 100% at T62, 0% at T63, 100% at T64, and whatever minimum slider to finish AH at T71. Use binary research whenever applied.
4. How about letting worker 1 and 2 chop and move toward Bombay so that 3 workers are all ready to pasture the horse around Bombay if there's one.
5. I prefer to stop at AH for further discussion since the appearance of horse, especially around Bombay will bring some changes and allow for more discussion.

Edit:
I have not run further test about whether we should let citizen work on riverside mine when they are available or let it work on irrigated farm all the time.
Should we send warrior 4 to fogbust for a few turns? I'd say let the barbarian spawn to devote some experience for our Axe or chariot, which is needed any way.

 

[kossin]

Regarding 1.
Obvious mistake on my part >.<

Regarding 2.
If we add one pop to Bombay right now we get hit with 1 extra maintenance (which is why we left if at pop1 in the first place). When Delhi grows to 5 however, we get an extra maintenance, regardless of Bombay size -> that is the best time to grow to size 2.

Regarding 3.
Ah indeed. I'll get to fixing that now.

Regarding 4.
Yes this certainly makes sense. I tried it a bit but didn't like falling behind on pre-chops

Regarding 5.
Right. If there's no horses I'll continue, otherwise I'll stop when AH is in.

EDIT:
farm vs mine: I tried using the farm longer but we end up with too much food too soon. Delhi doesn't need to grow to 7 pop before we have a missionary ready to spread there. We can always stagnate it to gain a few beakers earlier true but I'll check to see if it slows down Oracle (which we don't want)

warrior spawnbusting: in any case I doubt we'll be able to unlock HE from barbarians here, there's just not enough land unless we luck out with a few island barb cities

 

[kossin]

Looks like a good plan.

On T61 your worker is still farming (although everything computes if he starts the pre-chop after farming, so I'm guessing it's just a typo), at least that's the case in the testgame.

I'd be more happy with fogbusters as you had proposed earlier. In that case warrior3 would fogbust 4E2S (from Delhi) for a few turns before heading back.

Thanks for catching that, working on revised version.

I don't like the extra warrior so much anymore. If we luck out on horses, it's simpler to get a Chariot with a chop in Bombay.
We still have plenty of time before barbs start entering borders from what my tests have shown.

 

[kossin]

More on Farm vs mine

Working the farm all the time slows down Oracle until t83 so we get CoL on t84... I think my method is close to optimal and it resembles dingding's suggestion of timing the pop with missionary.

It can be done with 2 more farm turns and 2 less mine turns + stagnation which will give exactly 0 overflow after Oracle. I'll try a few variants to see if I can get a pop point earlier for a bit more commerce.

EDIT: Yes it works!

Even better: it accelerates Writing by 1 turn, to t80 with binary research. Oracle is still done on t81 though with 0 overflow (needs 11 hammers). Unless we add a chop, it's not going to happen.

~Updating plan~

 

[kossin]

Second draft

Things to check in the round:

• EP against Zara every turn
• F9 screen every turn to avoid putting hammers in an already complete wonder
• barb activity
• Zara troops activity

legend:
slider
workers
warriors
underlined: city info

t60 research slider to 80% (+2->3) [PH in 2]
t61 research slider to 70% (+4->7) [PH in 1] worker1&2 resume chops
t62 research slider to 100% (-2->5) [PH in, AH in 11]
t63 Delhi starts on Oracle, warrior3 goes to 1W of cow to spawnbust for a few turns worker1 finishes chop into Oracle,
t64 Delhi grows to 4 -> farmed grassland; worker1 starts mine, worker2 finishes chop, worker3 goes N chop, cancel
t65 research slider to 0% (+19->20), worker2 starts mine , worker3 goes NW chop, cancel
t66 no input needed research slider to 100% (-2->18), worker3 goes road NW of Bombay
t67 Bombay switch to SH will grow in 2 turns
t68 no input required
t69 Delhi grows to 5 -> assign mine, Bombay grows to 2 -> assign 2F1C >> There is no extra upkeep for growing both cities compared to just Delhi, worker3 starts roading Stone
t70 worker1 goes W chops+cancel, worker2 finishes second mine
t71 Bombay back on settler, worker2 cancels road (in case of horses), worker3 cancels road
t72 Delhi switches from farm to mine (growth in 3 either way), if horses, workers pasture and [[stop]]
Otherwise: worker1+2 pre-chop around Delhi, worker3 finishes road

t73 research slider to 0% (+20->22), if no horse, continue pre-chops and worker3 roads toward Vijay site
t74 research slider to 100% (-3->19) [Writing in 7]
t75 Delhi size 6 assign farm
[[stop]]

Writing in 6 @ -3gpt, 19 gold left
Oracle in 7
Delhi has 7 turns to size 7

We need to stagnate Delhi 1 turn to avoid an angry citizen, but Oracle completes with 0 overflow.
We gain a turn of research and if we add a chop to Delhi, we gain a GP 1 turn earlier so it's probably worth it... 1 turn is big. The overflow can be sent to an Axe/Chariot for barb hunting.

If we still want Oracle in 6 turns without chopping, we need 5 turns of 1F2H and 1 turn of 2F1H which leaves us 3 turns from growth to 7 (32/48) i.e. not worth it imo.

I'd add a forest chop to get CoL one turn earlier. As a result I'd go Masonry>Fishing>Sailing to give workers more things to do right away.

 

[kossin]

I botched the last few turns of worker reporting I've noticed.

Better would be to have worker1&2 road 2N of Delhi, that way on t72 they are ready to move to horses or keep chopping without having wasted too many turns moving around for nothing ... I'll edit in tomorrow so that it's clearer.

 

[dingding]

@ kossin

Here some of my opinions (RED):

T60 research slider to 80% (+2->3); Bombay continues the SH for 2 turns[PH in 2]

Comments: Given SH could be finished early, we'd better accumulate the hammers earlier than later. The extra pop gives 1 extra gold of maintenance, which can be covered by 1 extra commerce the new pop produces.

Worker 3's movement:

Comments:I don't think we need to build the road that early (t66 in your play). If settler comes out at t78, it's Just-in-time to finish the road at t79, so we can displace W3 at t72 or later. Before that we can let it prechop in Delhi.

Personally I prefer the t72 plan, because all the workers will go to work in Vijay afterwards so prechopping in Delhi should be done before that. Stone can be linked with Worker 2 after the prechopping, while W1 can work with W2 on FP.

T70 worker1 goes W chops+cancel, worker2 finishes second mine; Bombay puts 1 pop on the Corn, Delhi puts 1 pop on the 2nd mine.

Comments: It can delay the pop growth to 7 in Delhi by 1turn and speed up the settler in Bombay by 1. If the 3rd city settle at t79, Writing and Oracle can be finished at T82, and Delhi grows at T83.

 

[Bugg123]

@dingding:

We're delaying Oracle a bit by growing to size 2 that early. (1 turn more to research writing, while AH finishes on time, I believe). If that is acceptable, I'm ok with it.

Also aggree on chopping first, and making sure road is done by T79. I think there's also time to road to stone and start the farm with all 3 workers by T79 (prechopping 4 forests around Delhi).

And aggree to swap corn a bit to delay growth by 1 turn, but that should be later than what you propose (delaying growth to 7, and not to 6, maybe.. still gaining the turn on settler.. at T70 we're still at pop 5).

Also done a bit more testing on Pyr+GLH. If we delay pyramids slightly (to ~1300-1350BC) which we'll know more about if we see TGW go really early, I suppose. We can get GLH out at least by 1050BC (and I'm sure some of you can improve on that). Techpath after writing : Masonry->Fishing->Sailing->Mono->Pottery->Maths->Currency. (With Maths->Pottery it'd be a quicker run to GLH, I guess, I'll give that a go later)

Assign 4 scientists untill you get 2 GS. (Maybe even 5 at some point for the 1st one to delay growth in Delhi)
I did delay chops into Pyr waiting for Mono, but not sure that's needed.
Also prebuilt Temples in Delhi and Vijay to ~16h for max overflow into wonders.

Confu spread to vijay on it's own. I just grew it and let borders pop on it's own.
Mono completes by the time you chop into Lighthouse (from hill), the turn after you whip WB and the turn before cows are pastured. Math completes 1050BC and 3 workers chop into GLH to completion that turn (6 hammers to spare and 1 tree remaining around Vijay).

 

[dingding]

@Bugg:

@dingding:

We're delaying Oracle a bit by growing to size 2 that early. (1 turn more to research writing, while AH finishes on time, I believe). If that is acceptable, I'm ok with it.

No, Writing is delayed due to the maintenance of Vijay. kossin didn't mention if Vijay is settled before the Oracle, Writing will be pulled back for 1 turn.

Masonry->Fishing->Sailing->Mono-> Maths-> Pottery shall be workable.

@ kossin:

If Vijay is to be built on the Cow-Marble-Stone site, I think the optimal road is built in this way: road in 1N and 2N1W of Bombay instead of 1N1W and 2N1W(2N2W) of Bombay

In this way, if Delhi pops a GPriest, it can be settled in Vijay in 2 turns instead of 3 (I would prefer it to settle in Vijay).

 

[Duckweed]

A little confused of workers' move at T71. Worker 1 NW C&C, Worker 2 2W or 1W C&C? Worker 3 Cancel road?

In my test run, no other forest chop needed to complete Oracle and Writing at T80. Bombay is better to produce the 4th worker with 1 chop before Axe or chariot.

Edit
@dindding
Sending worker 3 to Bombay road 1st speed up the work around Bombay so that we can chop 1 forest (1S of Bombay) before irrigating the FP. I disagree of settling any GP outside capital because the burea and academy bonus and faster getting all kind of multipliers.

I'm strongly against researching Mono before CS.

Question:

Does the beaker overflow get the prerequisite discount? The answer decides whether we want barely science slider to finish a tech.

I'll be away until the weekend.

 

[kossin]

Okay I'll get to answering everything but since Duckweed is leaving soon:

what size is Delhi when you do that?

I tried to maximize growth while getting Oracle so that we can start on max scientists right away. I just can't see how you can do both at the same time.

Getting Oracle earlier isn't really helpful if we still need to grow before running scientists.

 

[Duckweed]

Delhi at size 6. Earlier Oracle is not bad, you can hire only 3 scientists by then, they still gives you the 1st GP 7 turns later, although a little low on the odd of GS, which I really don't care for the 1st GP.
Edit:
Moreover, Delhi needs Confu for size 7, there's a good chance of auto-spreading during the growth time, which can save us 1 monastery.

 

[kossin]

@ kossin

Here some of my opinions (RED):
T60 research slider to 80% (+2->3); Bombay continues the SH for 2 turns[PH in 2]

Spoiler :

Comments: Given SH could be finished early, we'd better accumulate the hammers earlier than later. The extra pop gives 1 extra gold of maintenance, which can be covered by 1 extra commerce the new pop produces.

Quote:
Worker 3's movement:

Comments:I don't think we need to build the road that early (t66 in your play). If settler comes out at t78, it's Just-in-time to finish the road at t79, so we can displace W3 at t72 or later. Before that we can let it prechop in Delhi.

Personally I prefer the t72 plan, because all the workers will go to work in Vijay afterwards so prechopping in Delhi should be done before that. Stone can be linked with Worker 2 after the prechopping, while W1 can work with W2 on FP.

Quote:
T70 worker1 goes W chops+cancel, worker2 finishes second mine; Bombay puts 1 pop on the Corn, Delhi puts 1 pop on the 2nd mine.

Comments: It can delay the pop growth to 7 in Delhi by 1turn and speed up the settler in Bombay by 1. If the 3rd city settle at t79, Writing and Oracle can be finished at T82, and Delhi grows at T83.

.Point noted on worker3, agree... I'll just try to keep him close in case of horses.

.I'll check to see what the earlier second pop does to the research; we delayed it in the first place to not have the extra maintenance. The great thing about growing the same time Delhi hits size 5 is that we avoid the extra maintenance since it is rounded down. It makes quite a difference on research which is still our limiting factor. imo

.I'd rather swap the corn later if need be in this case. If there's horse by Bombay, we won't need to delay Bombay's growth at all. Corn swapping should be done after AH is in on t72 if any.

@dingding:

We're delaying Oracle a bit by growing to size 2 that early. (1 turn more to research writing, while AH finishes on time, I believe). If that is acceptable, I'm ok with it.

Also aggree on chopping first, and making sure road is done by T79. I think there's also time to road to stone and start the farm with all 3 workers by T79 (prechopping 4 forests around Delhi).

And aggree to swap corn a bit to delay growth by 1 turn, but that should be later than what you propose (delaying growth to 7, and not to 6, maybe.. still gaining the turn on settler.. at T70 we're still at pop 5).

Sending the worker3 away was Duckweed's suggestion. If there are horses, it makes all 3 workers ready to improve the pasture right away so we get them in 2 turns. In any case, whatever they do they need to be able to reach Bombay in 1.5 move on t72 so that if any horses are present they can be done right away. If there are horses there, it makes taking the corn away a moot point afterwards... we shouldn't ignore the possibility and make a plan that works both ways. If there are indeed horses, the settler will be accelerated as well so I can leave Bombay on SH for a bit longer.

@Bugg:


No, Writing is delayed due to the maintenance of Vijay. kossin didn't mention if Vijay is settled before the Oracle, Writing will be pulled back for 1 turn.

Masonry->Fishing->Sailing->Mono-> Maths-> Pottery shall be workable.

@ kossin:

If Vijay is to be built on the Cow-Marble-Stone site, I think the optimal road is built in this way: road in 1N and 2N1W of Bombay instead of 1N1W and 2N1W(2N2W) of Bombay

In this way, if Delhi pops a GPriest, it can be settled in Vijay in 2 turns instead of 3 (I would prefer it to settle in Vijay).

Yea that's a better road to avoid crossing the river indeed. I liked hooking up the river which is why I suggested NW in case something spawns alongside the river.

In my plan, Vijay was settled the turn Oracle is finished, that is t81/82 so the maintenance didn't slow down Writing/Oracle.

~~~

@Duckweed
So we let Delhi grow to 7 after Oracle... will take a while to start on second GP. I'll compare 2nd GP time to see how it compares.

~~~

Man and here I thought I was going to have a casual round... turns out it's pretty complicated after all

 

[dingding]

@ kossin:

About the maintenance from the early 2nd pop in Bombay: -1 gpt of maintenance is covered by +1 gpt of 2F1C tile. The research output will be the same if you use binary research.

Or you can stop the pop growth in Bombay, but it will make you loose 1 food.

About the foundation of Vijay: It should be done as soon as possible (at t79). Oracle and CoL will be finished at t82 anyway, so it's irrelevant to slow down Writing by 1 turn and finish it at t82.

Settling Vijay only loose -2 gpt (-5 from maintenance, +1 from city, +1 from trade road, +1 from pop working on 3F1C). If Vijay is settled at t81/82, we'll lose 6-9 food in this city, which will postpone the WB and probably GLH.

 

[kossin]

double post

 

[kossin]

Yea I know it "evens" off overall but I'm trying to see how it alters research timing. We delayed the second pop on purpose since it wasn't really paying off and slowed down PH... just making sure it's not screwing around too much with our research now.

overflow+pre-requisites: I just tested it in a new game. The answer is YES, overflow is multiplied.

picked random (Churchill: Fishing+Mining) and worlbuildered away from oponents.


started Hunting (9 turns) @ 10bpt
On the 10th turn I dropped the slider to 0%
-putting the overflow in Archery (20% discount) granted 8 beakers
-putting the overflow in Agriculture (no discount) granted 7 beakers

So the answer is yes + it is rounded down so we should run max slider or whatever offers no rounding down.

 

[kossin]

After playing some more with the save, here is trying to mix in everything:

-Oracle t80, Writing t80 (completion dates)
-Delhi size 6 (actual food depends on horses/no horses)
-Vijay t81 (earlier means Writing+Oracle t81) after Oracle

To accomplish this, Bombay starts on SH on t61 to delay growth 1 turn (or we delay AH 1 turn by 1 gold). Sure it means 5 gold later but 1 turn earlier Oracle+CoL means 1 more turn of research which is worth a lot more than 5 gold.

Worker3 has time to pre-chop 2 forests before going to Vijay in case of horses.
Worker1+2 finish their mines then put a road 2N of Delhi. This allows them to go pasture horses without wasting turns. If they are told to chop, horses are hooked up one turn later... all 3 workers need to be in range >>in case<<.

~~~

I think I can tweak it a bit further after t72 but getting AH on t72 is crucial I think. Settling Vijay on t80 just before Writing+Oracle is probably doable, I'll tinker with it a bit more to see if I can pull it off.

 

[dingding]

@ kossin:

With respect, I'm confused by the dates you mentioned:

-Oracle t80, Writing t80 (completion dates)

getting AH on t72 is crucial I think

I reckon the first date (t80) is the turn before the finishing date (t81) (otherwise you will have settled Vijay at t80 instead of t81). AH is the finishing date right?

As I see it, AH can be finished anyway at t72 (I tried it just now, with pop growth in Bombay at t62. By t72 AH is finished with 17gold and -3gpt).

Concerning Oracle+CoL at t81 or t82, it's like 1 turn of Oracle+CoL at the cost of 6 food in Vijay and 2 food in Bombay (Bombay can use the FP as soon as Vijay is settled). IMO I prefer the later: earlier settlement in Vijay allows an earlier WB and probably earlier GLH.

It's not the time to discuss this by the way. We have a decent chance to get 20gold from failure to SH before the third settler (t78/79).

kossin, I'm eager to see where the horse is for further simulation, can you play it today?
BTW I don't know why we told so much about the possibility of finding a horse in Bombay, I don't find it apparent.

 

[kossin]

Oh yes, that's confusing sorry.

Finish date for AH: t71 (we see horses location on t72)

I'm all for playing until t72 but the plan is not settled in stone it seems. Nobody has suggested the same thing twice and I don't want to go ahead like this.

As for horses: the possibility is quite small yes but we have to consider it nonetheless.

I'll post a plan until t72 again but with fewer details (early worker turns are decided).

 

[kossin]

Until AH - I've tried mixing everything together to get this.

t60 research slider to 80% (+2 -> 3 gold)
t61 research slider to 70% (+4 -> 7 gold) -- Bombay starts on SH (growth in 2)
t62 research slider to 100% (-2 -> 5 gold) [PH in, start AH]
t63 research slider to 100% (-3 -> 2 gold) -- Bombay size 2 (2F1C), Delhi starts Oracle -- farm done, 1st chop done
t64 research slider to 0% (+19 -> 21 gold) -- Delhi size 4 (3F1C) -- worker1 mine, worker2 finish chop, worker3 1N pre-chop
t65 research slider to 100% (-3 -> 18 gold) [AH in 7]
t66 research slider to 100% (-3 -> 15 gold) [AH in 6]
t67 research slider to 100% (-3 -> 12 gold) [AH in 5] -- Bombay starts on Settler -- worker3 cancel chop
t68 research slider to 100% (-3 -> 9 gold) [AH in 4] -- worker3 NW pre-chops
t69 research slider to 100% (-3 -> 6 gold) [AH in 3] -- Delhi size 5 (1F3H1C mine1)
t70 research slider to 100% (-3 -> 3 gold) [AH in 2] -- Delhi (farm -> 1F3H1C mine2) growth in 6, Oracle in 12 -- worker1 goes 1W road
t71 research slider to 100% (-3 -> 0 gold) [AH in 1] -- worker2 goes NW road
t72 research slider to 0% (+20 -> 20 gold) [AH done, start Writing] -- all 3 workers ready to pasture if needed

Growing Bombay 1 turn earlier delays AH by 1 turn which is not desirable in case of horses.

later on... -- worker3 roads to Vijay spot (needs 7 worker turns before t81 so can start on t75), worker1+2 pre-chop and end on the roaded forest pre-chop t80 so they can move in immediately to farm Vijay on t81

t75 Delhi (corn->3F1C) Bombay (2F1C->corn)
t76 Delhi size 6 (2F1H to accumulate food)
...
t78 Bombay borrows corn to finish settler faster
t79 slider to 90% (Writing in 2)
t80 Oracle in 1, Writing in 1, -- settler done move in position
t81 Vijay settled

---

The road 2N of Delhi might not seem like much but it saves a worker turn when coming back from Vijay to chop... also it's the only thing that allows all 3 workers to be ready without 'wasting' turns moving closer.