SGOTM 11 - Who Dat?

[pnp_dredd]

Here's a test save. Things are quite different in the test now, so don't take it as gospel! In particular: I messed up the teching and we actually have a few more beakers in Masonry than in the test. Zara has an extra city and no Stonehenge. We have less gold/turn, I think because of fewer trade routes. Bombay doesn't have exactly the same number of hammers invested in the worker.

I guess what I'm saying is that the test save is good to mess around with, but that people should have a look at the real save if they want definitive information. (or yell out if you want more screenies).

 

[beestar]

Very interesting! So we have another great mega-food site to the northwest, and Justinian must have come from the direction of Sugar Island? (I'm assuming there's no coast connection directly west of our continent). Pyramids - Rep - Specialists is looking strong.

The early blocking decision is working out well - Zara will be contained to 3 decent cities and possibly some additional crap ones. He's not very close to Theology, and even if he founds Christianity, with a tiny empire his tech pace might be slow enough that we can repeatedly bribe him into Confucianism as needed.

I'm curious what the landmass to the NE of Zara is. Did the mapmakers put that in to give Zara somewhere to expand to?



I've updated the game tracker. Can someone remind me what the tech path is? We've just got wheel and we're working on Masonry for Pyramids in Delhi - and then Sailing? Alphabet?

P.S. Fluro's next then orb.

 

[Fluroscent]

I'll take a look and try to draft a plan.

Nice of ZY to tech iron working for us. Hope both he and Justin won't found any of the remaining religions.
I think we have only confirmed that mids are critical. I think we should build worker/tech math to be sure we don't lose them. I want to get fishing before alphabet too, since it is cheap, and we need to get exploring. Jungle seems like a place where we could find us some of those resources we need. I bet Justinian has one of them.

I'll also try to make a dotmap of cities, since we know all the northern land at least.

Otherwise, priority is getting started on mids with stone. And to get the 2nd scientist out for Philo.

 

[Fluroscent]

Initial plan

1st priority: Pyramids.
Solution: Chop another worker in Delhi, tech math next, all four workers get quarry done asap. With the half built worker in Bombay, that will make 6 workers, which should get us up to speed, and also accommodate the 4th city once built. Lay of the land suggests that the usual 1.5 workers/city is ok, but with a few more needed right now.

2nd priority: Get worked tiles improved
Solution: more workers. Also, stagnating growth at certain sizes in Bombay/Vijay while building workers/settlers will help the workers catch up.

3nd priority: Expanding, since there are several good sites to settle.
Solution: Settler in both Bombay and Vijay, at size 4 and 3 respectively. Vijay has two forests to chop and Bombay one.

4th priority: Getting the next GS before engineer points take over.
Solution: Work scientists over anything but corn/silver and mines until it pops.

Detail
Delhi: start worker, whip next turn -> finish library-> mids. Run scientists at any pop more than 3. Switch to 2x mines once done.

Bombay: finish worker at size 3, resume growth finishing warrior, start library. At size 4, build settler - aid by math chop.

Vijay: Just focus on growth for now. insert a settler at size 3, since we cannot keep up worker turns to improve more tiles anyway, aid by chop with math. Then grow as tiles are improved/stagnate building workers.

Tech: stay at 0% until library in Delhi is done, then 100% math->fishing->alpha.

Workers: finish road to Vijay, improve stone, two workers stay to farm 2xFP and pasture horse. Time two workers to begin mines at Delhi to finish same turn as math. Other workers prechop forests at Delhi. Riverside ones first.

Other: Move a warrior into culture to reduce upkeep. Eastern scout can check S of 2x silver for seafood, then return to borders. Otherwise, we need workboats to reveal more.

Settling plan: GP farm next. At the marked spot. Then there is the 3x crab (sharing cow+marble). Those stand out for running scientists.

 

[Fluroscent]

Dotmaps

I think we are going to want to settle the GP farm and the triple clam site soon, as they will be able to run a bunch of scientists.
The 2nd wave marked sites should perhaps wait until we have our key techs first. Although settling one of them in plenty of time for Oxford is probably wise.
I think we should get at least Literature/Currency/CS before settling any of them though. Those techs are not worth delaying.

Fillers can work later when convenient.

 

[pnp_dredd]

I also like the following city on the western part of our landmass. It could run up to 8 specialists if it ever grow to maximum size. This would leave the crabs for a city on the next landmass to the West. (there is coast connection to this landmass).

Also, I still argue that Alpha-Math will result in an overall faster tech rate at the cost of some hammers. I'm happy with that tradeoff in this game, with a race to Radio. The risk being that we get Mids 3-4 turns later. Again, I'm happy with that risk in this SGOTM where we are competing for slight advantages. But if everyone else wants Math-Alpha then I'll toe the line

 

[cas]

I like pnp's single city on the west coast better than Fluro's 2 split cities in the same spot. But this is not something that matters until after we build city4 (gp farm).

I lean towards math then Alpha. What are the estimated dates for Pyramids in each method ?

cas

 

[Fluroscent]

Two different cities are going to have a higher total pop though. If it was the next city to settle I'd agree on short term power, but for later game we will want as much pop as possible (more votes), so omitting a crab resource will be bad. It is also our only crab resource, which is -1 if we miss it.

 

[Fluroscent]

Alphabet may be worth nothing more than pottery immediately, which is not that much of a priority right now. Growth is going to be worth less unless we can keep up in worker turns, and cottages can wait some ~20 turns till we pop the next GP.
I was thinking Justinian did not have sailing yet due to no trade icon, but that was probably flawed since we have not connected our only coastal city to our capital yet.. But we still need both AI to own any tech we want to trade for at this point.

Previous test suggested pyramids ~4 turns sooner, while saving ~3 forests and a bunch of worker turns by teching math. My updated plan will also take advantage of math chops to get out settler 4+5 faster.

I am obviously arguing that the techs gained from alpha: pottery+maybe sailing will not necessarily be better than the forests+hammers+worker turns saved by teching math, which translates into superior growth.
There is also the matter of HG, which is a nice thing boost and definitely at risk of BIFAL if we don't get it done relatively soon.

I'll try to run a test on the new testgame to try to quantify this.

 

[Fluroscent]

A thing to consider should be teching math-pottery, which may be better than math-alpha if we can get pottery some ~10 turns sooner that way.

 

[pnp_dredd]

No, we shouldn't waste turns teching pottery or sailing when we can trade for them, those are wasted turns. Our overarching goal is to get to Mass Media first (so a race to Education, then race to Electricity). Everything we do should be optimised towards the goal of teching as fast as possible. Forests and hammers do little to achieve this goal, unless they are used to build tech multipliers (e.g. Pyramids).

My other arguments for Alpha, apart from not wasting tech-turns:
1) Unless I've missed something, it isn't actually that important to get another GS out of Delhi over the next 20 turns? We should pump a settler out of Delhi, build Mids, then start working cottages. Why is it important to work cottages ASAP? A picture:

[It's 209 beakers/turn at 60% science for those who will argue that specialists are slider-neutral]
This city is achievable at Education with just 3 extra happy faces (from religion or resources) than what are available now. Because of the way that Bureaucracy works, those are uber-cottages with 1.5*2 = +300% beaker return. It's vital to get those cottages laid down and worked ASAP.

2) Granaries don't just help with "growth", they affect production. We can stay within our improved-tile limits by building workers/settlers and using the whip. Also note that we will have quite a few worker turns available once we finish chopping the Mids (and build a few more workers). Alpha/pottery/sailing doesn't come in till this point anyway.

 

[Fluroscent]

Test results

Tests done on the testsave, which isn't entirely correct, and as such the results are approximate.
The economy numbers pulled are pure estimates from considering when stuff will be done.

Raw facts
Math: Pyramids 1200BC, 7 forests chopped in Delhi - 2 of which are mined, FPfarm+pasture compete in Vijay, forest chopped into settler at Bombay.
Alpha: Pyramids 1175BC, 10 forests chopped in Delhi - 2 of which are mined. No other improvements

Alpha does allow early enough mids, but at significant cost.

Number magic
1 extra turn of rep with 2 scientists yields roughly 10 extra.
Worker turn difference is roughly 20.
Farmed FP+pastured horse yields (building settler) 31 over unimproved FPs. These will add up until we can catch up. The cow will add another 3 which, while not done yet, will be done a number of turns earlier with math.
Growth occurs 1-2 turns earlier in Vijay from farming a FP, further speeding up the settler (instead of prebuilding a library).
Math plan has settler 4+5 out approximately 7-10 turns after mids. Alpha makes it closer to 15-20 turns.
Total base lost from chopping without math: a bit less than 150!! (less because some forests are chopped in 3rd ring). That is approximately the output a very good early production city yields in 15 turns! This is a huge deal.

Alpha tech benefit
Pottery: No effect for at least 10 turns, since we are building settlers+running scientists. After that, we need cottages, and can start granaries. With math, we can start granaries sooner.
Fishing: can be traded for instead of researched.
Sailing: needs fishing first, and it is not certain that we can trade for it. Will yield approximately 1/city-3 total for the turns in question (assuming math first gets alpha about 15 turns later)

So I am even more convinced that math first is best now.
Other advantages:
-Can start aqueduct-HG immediately after mids
-Can bulb Philosophy sooner.
-Can be teched with the gold we have stored, and have enough left to get pottery 2-3 turns after if we want to.

 

[Fluroscent]

The reason to push a scientist soon is to make sure it IS a scientist, rather than an engineer. And also to get it out before we can get the cottages built. Also, by doing this, we can reap the benefit of having the farms to grow to the now higher cap quickly (10 with religion and representation), this will partly make up for later cottages, as we will be able to work more of them faster.

That capital is sexy, but it's not like we cannot work cottages soon enough anyway. I imagine it will look much like that whatever we do now. I know they are super cottages, that's why we are going to build them in the first place.

The capital is not our only source of science too, considering the amount of rep.scientists we will be able to run in our auxillary cities. Math first lets us set them up sooner.

And finally, the extra hammers can be used to boost the many many things we want to build in Delhi, even before Oxford, that DO help science. aqueduct-HG-monastaryx2-templesx2(worth a cottage each) and a granary of course.

I think we should seriously consider selfteching pottery though. Alpha just does not have that much oomph right now. I think it will easily pay for itself.

Granaries don't just help with "growth", they affect production. We can stay within our improved-tile limits by building workers/settlers and using the whip. Also note that we will have quite a few worker turns available once we finish chopping the Mids (and build a few more workers). Alpha/pottery/sailing doesn't come in till this point anyway.

I know how good granaries are, but they don't help anything while building workers/settlers. Granaries can be whipped everywhere soon after the first round of settlers are done, with either tech path.
I felt horribly short on worker turns with alpha first, there are so many things they can do, even without being able to build cottages.

 

[pnp_dredd]

Alpha tech benefit
Pottery: No effect for at least 10 turns, since we are building settlers+running scientists. After that, we need cottages, and can start granaries. With math, we can start granaries sooner.
Fishing: can be traded for instead of researched.
Sailing: needs fishing first, and it is not certain that we can trade for it. Will yield approximately 1/city-3 total for the turns in question (assuming math first gets alpha about 15 turns later)

Pottery: 186
Fishing: 93
Sailing: 234

I agree with almost everything else you said [the only exception would be that cottages will still be maturing when we build Oxford, so it does matter how early they are laid down], and I agree that maths first results in a more "well rounded" empire. But I still think that Alpha first will result in a faster overall tech rate.

 

[Fluroscent]

I am not suggesting we self tech sailing. Its benefit is too marginal. I also didn't mean to say that it does not matter when cottages are laid down, but only that it wasn't that big a deal, and easily compensated by the faster expansion/growth/hammers. I think we will reach our overall tech goal faster that way.

Hmm. What do we do then? Anyone else have an opinion?
We need to decide: Do we tech math or alpha now? And if we tech math, do we tech pottery immediately after, or straight alpha?

Maybe I should test how quick we can actually get math-alpha... My gut tells me that if alpha takes more than 15 turns extra, pottery first will be better. Somewhat doubting that, especially since we could run extra rep scientists in the other cities to help.

 

[Fluroscent]

Testing math->alpha

I realized when replaying that we do not actually need the mines, which makes it even smoother (more worker turns).
I ran one scientist in Vijay to help once mids were built. By chopping the future clam site forest and one of the BFC ones it can get the settler out soon enough. This got alpha exactly 1000BC, which coincidentally is the same date as we pop the GS(at 96% odds) AND finish both settlers this way (hope the real game isn't too different). Fits very nicely, allowing us to start granaries immediately after settlers in Bombay+Vijay (and in Delhi). We can switch back to slavery to 2-pop whip all three cities. Then building cottages on the non-farmed riverside grass first to allow quick growth to the cap.
It also means we can pop philo next turn, with an additional set of monastary+temple for the capital. Although we may wish to hold back a bit if our confu religion spread is slow.

This definitely means that math-alpha is viable, and much better than math-pott-alpha. Also, that we can actually get alpha(and thus pottery) before we would really begin making use of pottery anyway. So the benefit of alpha first would basically only be marginally faster granary in Delhi and the better sailing trade routes for less than 10 turns.

We can get to a cap of 12 with two temples, giving us 9 cottages soon (all grass+1 plains). Just need forge+2 happy resource to make it 15.
We will need to squeeze out a couple more workers too at this point.

I am ready to play this plan if no one objects. 24 hours from now if there are no more issues to work out.

 

[cas]

I'm in agreement with Math->Alpha...that was my inclination from the start. I'm glad you tested both ways though.

cas

 

[pnp_dredd]

That looks to be a solid plan. I think Fluro should play a long turn set till Alpha, as he's got the best idea of the micro decisions required.

 

[Fluroscent]

Turnset report - T95-120.

Took us to alpha, and the micro part went largely as it should. A few things of note happened:

T102 - The Great Wall BIFAL
T106 - Zara begins poly
T111 - Justinian gets hinduism spread!
T111 - Zara begins monotheism
T112 - Pyramids complete
T113 - Zara settles Lalibela, same spot as testgame
T120 - Alpha finished. Justinian finished alpha same turn!

Status
-Zara has finished mono, but we have to wait for the next turn to see his next tech (theology likely).

-There are five workers around Delhi, ready to begin cottaging. There are three rivergrass tiles with no farms to cottage first, then we can begin cottaging over the farms.

-We did not get confu spread to any other city yet. Aqueduct is just finished->HG begun.

-Vijay settler done, Bombay one done in 1T. Suggest Vijay one go to clams, Bombay one go to GPfarm.

-Justin went hindu, so someone else is around, and we might have a muddled religion picture on our hands.

-City counts: Justin 4, Zara 3. With at least one additional AI around, we can presumably get 10 3 trade routes with 5 cities and currency.

-There is a GS in Delhi. It can bulb philo. We should probably consider settling it too, but this will require some calculating. Delhi is done running specs now until we can get a forge. We need to make sure we can get the GE before the GPfarms take over.

-The land passage between Delhi and Bombay will be sealed in 5T by the next border pop in Bombay. So we should be good.

-There are no more seafood at the 2xsilver site.

Tech trades
With alpha, the next move is to trade techs. The trades I would suggest in round 1 are: Zara - writing for poly, Justin - medi+PH for fishing+pottery.

Round 2 should net mono+IW+sailing. We should be able to trade alpha+math+medi+PH to Zara and math to Justin. Hopefully we can avoid trading away math yet.

Builds
Vijay should probably begin a serious workboat spam immediately. There are three directions to scout, since we see land both W, N and E. Also, we will have an inner ring clam in a few turns+four other BFC seafood to improve. Thus I'd just let it grow and work hammers, and forget granary/whipping for now. The library is not very attractive just yet, so it should be moved below all the workboats and granary.

Bombay finishes settler next turn, and could begin a granary. We might want to build some confu missionaries first though, for Delhi and new cities, if we can trade for mono that is. Again, the library in the queue is not worth finishing before the other priority builds.

Delhi might want to add in a worker, but otherwise it is probably smart to get the HG done asap.

New cities could start with granary, if we make sure to spread confu for border pops. GPfarm needs library afterwards, clam city whatever seems best (workboats/lighthouse probably)

Next tech
I set it to currency, but no beakers in it yet. We have three high priority techs: Currency, CS and Literature. I suggest currency-cs-lit, to capitalize on a bunch of overseas trade routes and trade gold first. CS is probably marginally stronger right now, but at double cost, it will take a while. Lit can wait a bit since the GPfarm will need to build granary+library first. We may consider GLib in Vijay since it has many hammers, and the GPfarm will struggle to complete it+NEpic in a reasonable timeframe.

Civics
We are in Caste+Rep. Not running any specs means we could switch to slavery to whip a granary in Bombay. But we should probably hold back if we can get Monotheism in 2T.

Workers
Most will be tied up in Delhi, building cottages. We also need to get some to the new cities, and improve more tiles at Vijay.

Next turn
Since we will know more once we make the first round of trades, and see what Zara is teching, I suggest the next set starts with a one turn play and evaluate.

 

[Fluroscent]

Additional thoughts on further sets

-The real game begins now. Opening moves have been planned carefully, our gambits were successful and we have a very strong position. From now on, lots of stuff is going to happen that will make precise micro plans impossible. We need to make sure we don't make any big mistakes, so planning should try to anticipate anything that could happen and how to react.

-We may well face various demands now, which can mess up details. We should of course give in to all demands/requests for now, since we are SPI. No techs are too valuable right now to refuse to give. Philo may be worth turning down. Religious/civic requests are auto-accept, and if bad, reverse in four turns.

-If someone becomes someone's worst enemy, we should probably stop and evaluate immediately (e.g. to consider closing borders with someone to avoid cancel deals demands)

-We are now middle of the pack in terms of progress, so we should have some time to plan out the next sets. The graphs put us narrowly at #1 in score for those teams that have reached 1000BC, and #2 in culture, beating all but early religion Fifth Element. The slopes suggest that some other teams have had more luck with religion spread. Power, as expected, is average. It looks like some teams may have built an axe or something. Maybe they didn't fogbust properly