SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

Right now Sushi +10 food I think
Maintenance cost estimates
40 gold for a pop 14 city (-1 * 4 + 20resources * 1 std map) * (14 pop +17)/18 * 1.3 (emperor difficulty * 0.75 free market)

-8 for market, grocer, bank in Fish by the time we fish medicine
32 gold for 10 food

It isn't obvious that state property is better than free market.

I agree we should do this calc, though I expect State Prop to still be better.
You're missing the inflation modifier in your equation. Edit: your 40g should be 29g according to my calc. Edit: inflation itself cancels this out, ofc...
You're also missing the distance maintenance for all cities and +10% hammers.
Edit: we also need about 70g per city to spread at 40% inflation.

 

[bcool]

I editted my analysis above. I forgot about the courthouse reduction. And corporation maintenance expenses are not affected by inflation (however the cost to spread them is)

So yes for cost is I think 12 gold for 10 food in Fish once we build a courthouse

For other cities with courthouses it is ~12 gold (depends on pop) for 10 food after a cost of 100 hammers and ~70 gold. (Cost goes down to 8 gold when we build WS, and the food bonuses go up as does the maintenance with more resources)

And yes Free Market has higher maintenance but that can rapidly be addressed by whipping courthouses in several cities next turn. And by whipping the FP next turn (or possibly a new Palace and FP although that idea a bit loony)

Free Market loses the food from workshops (which isn't too significant except in Siberia at the moment and the 10% hammer bonus from whips and other production)

Free Market gives +1 trade routes too.

Free Market also is slightly higher maintenance than State Property too ~+18 gold with inflation.

But +10 food in Pigs might mean 5 more pop there.
+10 food in Moscow might mean a faster GP while growing at the same time
+10 food in Fish might mean we could whip WS (after overspill from Market, Grocer, Bank whips)
+10 food in Siberia (means we make up for the food we lost from switching to Free Market )
+10 food in Hammer city means it viable ~10 turns sooner.

Spreading Sushi to cities in revolt we capture is just gold in our pockets -70 gold and 100 hammers to produce the executive of course...

 

[babybluepants]

The biggest initial cost is the distance maintenance. Can we estimate that?

 

[bcool]

I think the only way to really look at the benefits vs. the costs would be a test game. Try to simulate where we are, run the switch to free market spreading Sushi compare to where we are with state property look at the rates of everything in both games 9 turns from now.

But now I'm leaning towards Sushi sooner is better, but if we wait realistically we research Medicine and steal corporation in 3 turns (with aggressive wealth building might be able to do it)

That means we might have 5 cites with sushi (fish, moscow, siberia, gp farm, pigs) and maybe 2 executive running about
Fish 6 turns of benefits, Moscow 5 turns, Siberia net zero since loses food from switch, GP farm 3 turns, Pigs 1 turn

But spread is somewhat exponential so Sushi starting earlier makes a big difference.

Too many factors like I said. Comparing test games may be the only way.

 

[bcool]

The biggest initial cost is the distance maintenance. Can we estimate that?

easiest way that I can think of is test game (just advance game to turn we are at, give cities population, courthouses where they exist) look at before and after switch expenses.

Can also add FP different places to see how much a difference it makes. (I unfortunately don't have time for all this)

 

[babybluepants]

My bad on the test game. I'll see what I can do tmr. Been busy.

We have another GA in 4-5t and won't be able to found Sushi for at least 3t. Not sure why we need FM right away, given that.

 

[Mitchum]

I used to be on the Free Market bandwagon, but I'm actually leaning toward State Property at the moment. We'll have Sushi in 1 city in 3 to 4 turns. That city also has to build a market, grocer, bank and WS, by the way. It will "quickly" spit out an executive such that we'll have Sushi in 2 cities in 5 to 6 turns. By 10 turns, we'll probably have it in 4 to 5 cities. This is about the time we hope to trigger our next GA, right?

So why not just wait for our next GA to revolt to FM? We won't "really" benefit from Sushi until we have it in a few cities, right? It's the same argument I've heard against Bureacracy: Why pay this high price to only benefit one city?

I think we definitely need Slavery/OR. I think every city needs a granary, ch, lh, and forge. Our mature cities need a market since all of that raw fish and seaweed is going to lead to high populations and unhappiness. The 25% gold is a bonus for when we run merchants too. Grocers are also helpful to combat health issues.

So my plan for the next 10 turns would be to whip granary, ch, lh and forge into our less mature cities. Our more mature cities could either whip or slow build markets and grocers. Whipping markets makes sense because it has a net positive impact on happiness, even during the 10 turns of whip anger. Plus, OR+SP+forge+Kremlin just screams for whipping. I would probably only slow build grocers except for cities with really low hammers, like Cuba.

Then, we should be running the science slider at or near 100% for a large portion of the the rest of the game. So I think we should build all science buildings in just about every city.

But I'm a builder, so feel free to let me know if this is too much. Maybe it's better to build wealth instead of science multipling buildings so that we can run the slider at 100% that much sooner.

NOTE: Scratch the lh part. With Sushi, I'm not sure that we need any more lighthouses (at least in the cities getting Sushi).

Finally, do we plan to spread Sushi (and Mining Inc.) to every city? If not, we need to make a clear decision about which cities get it and which do not. I don't have much experience with Sushi, but I spread Mining Inc. to every one of my cities and it was awesome!

Then, with all of this, we still have to fight 3 major wars (English, Americans, and Indians) and figure out how to approach and take out Stalin, who is starting to expand a bit.

On a releated topic, are we still conviced that we have to snowball everyone? Would it make more sense leave one or two of them alone? I know we can do it easily (Conquest used to be my victory of choice), but will we be able to assimilate all of their cities in a timely fashion to justify the extra time and production spent on war? Building cannons keeps us from building executives, infrastructure or wealth, for example. It slows down our research. Plus it keeps our city pops down due to WW. In past games I've played, it takes quite a bit of time to fully take over a civ and make his cities productive.

This is a very fun and interesting game!!

I'll work on my PPP tomorrow. How many more turns do I get?

EDIT: multiple x-posts.

 

[Mitchum]

But spread is somewhat exponential so Sushi starting earlier makes a big difference.

Just to make sure I understand the mechanics, I thought we could spread corporations under SP but we wouldn't see the benefits. Just like you can spread religion but if you're not running a religious civic or a SR, you don't benefit (except for the culture, of course).

So, I agree. Let's get Medicine and Corporations ASAP and start spreading it around. My question is when to pull the FM switch? Now or in 10ish turns?

 

[Mitchum]

We have another GA in 4-5t and won't be able to found Sushi for at least 3t. Not sure why we need FM right away, given that.

OK, I'll check my spreadsheet. Hang on. We'll get a GP from Moscow in 8 turns, which is likely to be a GS. We'll get another one from Pigs in 11 turns. So our next GA will likely be in 11 turns.

 

[mdy]

Just to make sure I understand the mechanics, I thought we could spread corporations under SP but we wouldn't see the benefits. Just like you can spread religion but if you're not running a religious civic or a SR, you don't benefit (except for the culture, of course)

You can't found corporations in state property (I have just checked this).

I think we should revolt to Free Market as soon as we have both medicine and are in our next golden age. The + 2 commerce from the additional trade routes, combined with using the Forbidden Palace should mitigate most of the increased costs, and getting Shushi spread a few turns earlier should easily make up for the rest.

Perhaps we should consider building Versailles now instead of the Forbidden Palace in Beijing in order to stop the AI building it in an inconvenient place?

OK, I'll check my spreadsheet. Hang on. We'll get a GP from Moscow in 8 turns, which is likely to be a GS. We'll get another one from Pigs in 11 turns. So our next GA will likely be in 11 turns.

Have I missed something? It looks like we will generate a GP in Moscow in 3 turns, and one in pigs in 5T.

So my plan for the next 10 turns would be to whip granary, ch, lh and forge into our less mature cities. Our more mature cities could either whip or slow build markets and grocers. Whipping markets makes sense because it has a net positive impact on happiness, even during the 10 turns of whip anger. Plus, OR+SP+forge+Kremlin just screams for whipping. I would probably only slow build grocers except for cities with really low hammers, like Cuba.

I agree with whipping in our immature cities, but I doubt whipping markets is population efficient in our more mature cities.

Finally, do we plan to spread Sushi (and Mining Inc.) to every city? If not, we need to make a clear decision about which cities get it and which do not. I don't have much experience with Sushi, but I spread Mining Inc. to every one of my cities and it was awesome!

I think that it is so powerful that every city would benefit it, and that we should make doing so a priority.

On a releated topic, are we still conviced that we have to snowball everyone? Would it make more sense leave one or two of them alone? I know we can do it easily (Conquest used to be my victory of choice), but will we be able to assimilate all of their cities in a timely fashion to justify the extra time and production spent on war? Building cannons keeps us from building executives, infrastructure or wealth, for example. It slows down our research.

I've been thinking about this as well, we lost one previous space race SGOTM because we over expanded. I don't think we ran corporations in that game which does make a big difference, even so it may be better to leave America alive-for now at least he is researching some useful techs for us.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'll work on my PPP tomorrow. How many more turns do I get?

Considering we're on a relatively tight time schedule, I prefer to see people play more turns than less, because there's always ramp-up time between turnsets. It's also generally preferable if one person plays a full phase, when possible. It makes sense to me that you would plan/play the infrastructure/poprushing phase.

 

[babybluepants]

Finally, do we plan to spread Sushi (and Mining Inc.) to every city? If not, we need to make a clear decision about which cities get it and which do not. I don't have much experience with Sushi, but I spread Mining Inc. to every one of my cities and it was awesome!

Yes, every city.

Edit: Hard to really estimate without city specifics, but it seems that the 200h + 200g investment in spreading two corps should pay for itself and the increased maintenance in 10t or less with CH+Forge alone. No, we obviously wouldn't spread if we're launching in 2t, but we can probably do an easy calculation on cities that are still not infected as the endgame nears.

On a releated topic, are we still conviced that we have to snowball everyone? Would it make more sense leave one or two of them alone? I know we can do it easily (Conquest used to be my victory of choice), but will we be able to assimilate all of their cities in a timely fashion to justify the extra time and production spent on war? Building cannons keeps us from building executives, infrastructure or wealth, for example. It slows down our research. Plus it keeps our city pops down due to WW. In past games I've played, it takes quite a bit of time to fully take over a civ and make his cities productive.

In a typical game, yes, over-expansion wouldn't be good. The primary reason for it here was that we need to clear all the fallout in their lands.

Edit: agree with longer TS's, so long as you have the time for it.

 

[bcool]

Have I missed something? It looks like we will generate a GP in Moscow in 3 turns, and one in pigs in 5T.

With the planned switch to OR and the ending of our GA our gpp production will dramatically be reduced.

Since we can't found Sushi under State Property and our next GA ~11 turns away, not switching to Free Market delays Sushi ~11 turns.

If we plan to stay in State Property I would like to see us reduce that 11 turns if at possible. Either by staying in Pacifism or by running more specialists in Moscow (giving up gold to Fish for example)

 

[babybluepants]

Have I missed something? It looks like we will generate a GP in Moscow in 3 turns, and one in pigs in 5T.

You and me both. I guess GA and Pacifism help a bit...

 

[babybluepants]

Corp costs attached for reference.

 

[mdy]

With the planned switch to OR and the ending of our GA our gpp production will dramatically be reduced.

Since we can't found Sushi under State Property and our next GA ~11 turns away, not switching to Free Market delays Sushi ~11 turns.

In that case I think we should stay in pacifism/state property/caste system for now, and revolt at the start of the next golden age. If we generate our next GP in pigs this should occur in 4 turns time.

 

[babybluepants]

I'm ok with staying in Pacifism in that case. It will delay Kremlin and WS, but that should be ok. Do we need Caste? Pigs can run 8 specs without it.

It would seriously suck if we don't get different GP's, btw...

 

[bcool]

Running 8 specialist in Moscow this turn and for 3 more turns + 4 specialist the last turn gets us a great person there T198 even under OR actually it would be T120 T200 under OR
(we give up the gold mines or one gold mine to fish and give up the horses or a workshop)

Pigs is the limiting factor most likely though for GA

If we stay in Pacifism but switch to slavery we can generate a great person in Moscow T198 (running 8 specials, might be able to tweak a little) And the next great person T121 T201 in Pigs if we can build one more building that gives us a specialist slot.

attached excel zipped file

Starting Sushi 5 turns earlier might be worth going without OR.
Actually according to my spreadsheet, we would save 3 turns without OR.

 

[babybluepants]

I'll take Sushi @ T121.

According to your spreadsheet, we're 1gpp short in Pigs? That's sucky. Don't see how we can fix that with limited spec slots.

 

[bcool]

Yeah we are 1 gpp short, I thought we might be able to build one more specialist building...

Only thing I could think of was a grocer that we whip and starve? to run one more specialist

edit: with careful MM I think this is possible.

One mistake on the spreadsheet on the non-pacifism side (copying down the number of specialists caused it automatically goes to 9,10,11 instead staying at 8)

edit: The other glaring mistake is my labeling of the turn numbers.