SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[Soirana]

Have you guys tested working the cows tile instead of the horses even before the pasture is finished? Isn't growing the limiting factor, so couldn't working a 3 food tile be better than the horses?

2 extra food is more than any hammers horse gives.

PPP looks awful for me since you
A) grow to slow
B) avoid roads as hell. [i like roading as much as post deletion by the way].

I guess A) is reason to go writing>wheel but this is wrong in my opinion since food will be a problem.

As open Oracle goes.... Doesn't Ai's having extra techs give them era bonuses? I mean on paper they might be in renesaince+ which gives them a bit even on emperor, right?

 

[Soirana]

PPP looks good to me, Mitchum.

@Soirana: I completely understand your concern about long-term planning. I'm exactly the same, I want a long-term plan as close to the beginning of the game as possible. Other than agree with everything Mitchum just said, I think the long-term plan is to REX about 50-100 cities and go to space faster than blazes.

There are questions:
1. Do we try to steal a tech?
2. Do we try to stone-age de Gaulle before he builds Taj?
3. Should we get Paper asap to see the world?
4. Do we slingshot AL, then get COmmunism?
5. Should we still go for the CS sling?
6. Is GLH worth it?

I think our two warriors will 1) give us an idea of how good GLH is, 2) maybe find a nearby AI.
We need to grow our capital and granary is too far away, so the library is a no-brainer. By the time we settle our Fish City, we'll know many answers to many questions. I don't think there's a better wait to that point than Mitchum's PPP. Plus, our current path keeps everything open, as mdy wants.

You plan REX into 50 cities on Emperor while clearing fallout? Way to go tiger.

I have rather more simple questions:
1. When will our first person will be born? If it is not GS when the second will be.
2. What we trade for Alphabet?
3. What is decisive factor for GLH? Number of coast tiles, number of goos pots, offshore settling chance?
4. What happens if we are limited to two city spots by our close neighbour Ghandi?
5. Do we try to sign peace with Ghandi ASAP [before trade chips] or use charriots to farm some workers for fallout clearance

Granary by the way is same distance as writing --- one tech.

 

[babybluepants]

PPP looks awful for me since you
A) grow to slow
B) avoid roads as hell. [i like roading as much as post deletion by the way].

I agree (maybe not quite "awful"), but it seems this is near consensus. I would like to see a save showing the result of this plan through the library build and growth to size 4.

I am working the unimproved cow in my testing, btw.

Long-term: too dependent on what we don't know about the game setup to establish anything concrete now. I think our stated short-to-mid-term goals allow us to keep a few options open.

 

[babybluepants]

Nevermind

 

[babybluepants]

I would like to see a save showing the result of this plan through the library build and growth to size 4.

I just tried it. I'm dead-even on everything else with Wheel first and my original worker-action plan, except for 1 worker turn. It's insignificant. If you guys want Wtg first, let's do that. I'd move the game along, according to Mitchum's PPP. Just leave the workers idle at the end of that last turn.

Edit: I'd work 1t horse pasture and 1t unimproved cow after we're done the worker build - this lets us just grow to size 4 as we complete the library later.

 

[bcool]

So I guess no one else thinks a chariot is worth it?

 

[Mitchum]

I just tried it. I'm dead-even on everything else with Wheel first and my original worker-action plan, except for 1 worker turn. It's insignificant. If you guys want Wtg first, let's do that. I'd move the game along, according to Mitchum's PPP. Just leave the workers idle at the end of that last turn.

Edit: I'd work 1t horse pasture and 1t unimproved cow after we're done the worker build - this lets us just grow to size 4 as we complete the library later.

Yes, I will leave the workers unmoved to allow maximum flexibility to the next player. I'll also work the unimproved cows for 1t as you suggested.

If no more major issues arise, I will play tomorrow AM (a little over 12 hours from now).

 

[Mitchum]

Yes, I will leave the workers unmoved to allow maximum flexibility to the next player. I'll also work the unimproved cows for 1t as you suggested.

If no more major issues arise, I will play tomorrow AM (a little over 12 hours from now).

Actually, if we are going to work the unimproved cow tile, it may be better to have both workers improve it first. I will test this tonight.

 

[Mitchum]

PPP looks awful for me since you
A) grow to slow
B) avoid roads as hell. [i like roading as much as post deletion by the way].

That's a bit harsh, no? Actually, by improving the horse first we finish our worker three turns sooner, which means that we start growing three turns sooner, right? As long as we can start working an improved cow tile four turns after the second worker is done we are even in food and ahead in hammers, commerce and worker turns.

Regarding roads, we're not avoiding them. We're building them as we need them. If we were to research the Wheel first, which road segment would you intend to build? My reasoning for researching Writing first is that a few AI may research the Wheel before we do giving us a few extra beakers.

 

[Mitchum]

So I guess no one else thinks a chariot is worth it?

By the time our first chariot gets to an AI capital, it will be defended by an archer. By the time our second one gets there, it will be defended by two archers. In both cases, we won't have enough for an ultra early rush. I don't think we can afford to build an army right off the bat. Plus, all AI other than Stalin need to be alive, so we can't take a lone capital anyway...

A chariot by a capital my help us get peace, but tests have shown that a warrior does the same trick.

 

[Mitchum]

I just ran through 3 tests.

Test 1: PPP as written
Test 2: Work unimproved cow for 1 turn per BBP
Test 3: Have both workers improve the Cow E+NE first and then both go to cow N+N.

In all cases, on T35 the second cow pasture is done just in time with 1 worker turn left. So, they are the same with respect to worker turns. However, there are differences elsewhere:

Test 1: Library - 8/90, Food - 1/24, Wheel - 89/93
Test 2: Library - 0/90, Food - 3/24, Wheel - 88/93
Test 3: Library - 12/90, Food - 3/24, Wheel - 89/93

Test 3 wins by 4H/2F over Test 1 and 12H/1B over Test 2 since I never have to work an unimproved tile and the first cow is improved ASAP to start growing.

By turn 39, all three tests will complete the library in 3 turns with growth in 5 turns. So, growth is not synchronized with library completion as BBP mentioned. If we build Warrior 3 after the library, then we'll be at 4 pops to start on the settler.

BTW, we learn the Wheel just in time to road the gold mine and the cows (a sinlge worker does each one) before growing into unhealthiness. Also, the road is already on the gold so that the worker building the road on the cows doesn't lose a turn climbing the gold hill.

Thoughts?


EDIT: BTW, here is a new test save at T12. In the last one I posted, I forgot to direct EPP toward Gandhi on T0.

 

[bcool]

Looks like test 3 is the clear winner then.

If we have some worker turns to play with to road the cows, then maybe we can road the horses too, and...
If we have time after the library, but before pop 4 (and we see some land that is not covered by fallout), I vote for building a chariot instead of a 3rd warrior (since that extra movement might mean we get cheap peace with another AI (potentially saving us ~100 gold or an extra +1 from tech gifts for a small number of hammers), or at the very least get a bit more scouting done).

 

[babybluepants]

I finish library and grow to 4 on T43 (2280 BC), instead of library on T42 and growth on T44. I'm doing this by working the unimproved cow for a turn, then spice forest instead of horse for 2-3t at the end. I guess building one more warrior and delaying by a turn doesn't hurt, but that's beyond this set anyway.

Regarding roads, we're not avoiding them. We're building them as we need them. If we were to research the Wheel first, which road segment would you intend to build? My reasoning for researching Writing first is that a few AI may research the Wheel before we do giving us a few extra beakers.

What I do is road the gold first with the second worker. This ultimately only saves 1 worker turn (on T43 I have 1t invested in clearing the second gold). It's relatively insignificant, as it turns out. Basically, the tech order doesn't matter so much, because we can get away without building library or roads before both techs are done.

@bcool,
I'm not necessarily opposed to the chariot. The problem is that the horse road delays golds, and that it can't be done by the time I want another worker, followed by the fish city settler. Also, all the fallout around our start slowing the chariot down makes it less appealing. We can discuss this further after Mitchum's set, though.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Lots of good discussion. Mitchum, not sure when you meant to play, but if you could hold off just a bit, I'll try to put together two more tests to compare with the above three tests for T35:

Testing UPDATE: Mitchum, I'm fine with your PPP.
Testing UPDATE2: Soirana is right.

Test 4: our original plan (cows-cows), and
Test 5: researching TW-Fishing-Pottery.

I'm assuming that you're building 2 warriors before the library, right?

T35:

Test 1: Library - 8/90, Food - 1/24, Wheel - 89/93
Test 2: Library - 0/90, Food - 3/24, Wheel - 88/93
Test 3: Library - 12/90, Food - 3/24, Wheel - 89/93
Test 4: Warrior2 - 8/15, Food - 2/24, Wheel - 85/93, 1 wkr-t (horses not pastured, gold1N scrubbed 3t)
Test 5: War2 +6h overflow, Food - 3/24, Fish-Pottery - 120/124
Test 6: War2 +7h(?) overflow, Food - 3/24, Fish-Pottery - 80/124

Btw, Test 3 opens up the question of what to do with the two workers after Cows1 is done. I'll test if pre-roading Cows2 pays off, since already have the horse tile to work at pop2.

T50:
Test 7: Test 3 Route. Rax 21/50 (for growth), Food - 2/28, Phood 27/93, 1t to health. wb 3/30(8t)
Test 8: Test 3 Pre-road COws2 Route. Rax 18/50, Food - 4/28, Medit 107/124, 2t to full health
Test 9: Fish-Pottery Route. Lib 26/90, Food - 7/28(granary done), Myst 36/78, 4t to health. wb 13/30(5t)

So pre-roading the Cows2 tile (Wheel-Wtg) gets the horses roaded at a cost of about 44 beakers. Pottery route costs 193b so far, plus more until the lib is done, but the Novgorod wb is 3t ahead and the granary is complete and filling.
.

 

[LowtherCastle]

As open Oracle goes.... Doesn't Ai's having extra techs give them era bonuses? I mean on paper they might be in renesaince+ which gives them a bit even on emperor, right?

We can monitor this with our Demo screen knowledge

2 extra food is more than any hammers horse gives.

PPP looks awful for me since you
A) grow to slow
B) avoid roads as hell. [i like roading as much as post deletion by the way].

I guess A) is reason to go writing>wheel but this is wrong in my opinion since food will be a problem.

Testing shows differently. The granary helps get to pop6 faster. This means we can start working a scientist sooner, but at a cost of more than 200. Assuming the AI isn't really slow, this more or less eliminates the possibility of an Oracle slingshot unless you want to skip Writing altogether and beeline Pottery-...-Phood and slingshot MC. I'm not even sure we want an academy in our crappy capital, so I'm not certain that an early granary is special. When we hook up the rice, we can fill the granary quickly anyway.

Btw, 5 AIs have Fishing already, so GLH may be very iffy.

You plan REX into 50 cities on Emperor while clearing fallout? Way to go tiger.

I have rather more simple questions:
1. When will our first person will be born? If it is not GS when the second will be.
2. What we trade for Alphabet?
3. What is decisive factor for GLH? Number of coast tiles, number of goos pots, offshore settling chance?
4. What happens if we are limited to two city spots by our close neighbour Ghandi?
5. Do we try to sign peace with Ghandi ASAP [before trade chips] or use charriots to farm some workers for fallout clearance

Granary by the way is same distance as writing --- one tech.

Pottery currently requires TW-Fishing (T36), shortest path. It's workable, if we build the settler for 1t at pop2 on T35.

1. The GS could be made in Novgorod, as bcool suggested. Do we really want an academy? Yes, I know it will pay off more than a GS bulb, but not necessarily more than a GM trade mission or a golden age late on in the game.
2. Alphabet can help us get peace and lots of cash for cheaps techs.
3. GLH factors. 1) How soon do AIs get Masonry+Sailing? 2) Can we get BW in trade around 1300-1500BC? (Whip lh, lib into GLH in Novgorod.) 3) Does the Oracle get built very early? 4) Does Stonehenge get built very late? Very early? COastal seafood, offshore sites NOT important for GLH (We'll settle lots of coastal cities, even if just as a path for warmongering.)
4. If Gandhi is close, Hooray!!! Then our strategy is perfect. 1) We get peace + OBs very early. 2) We get tech trades very early (unless no one knows him, but then we could use your idea to build a stupid city, gift it to the most advance AI between dG, Stalin, Mao for DoP, who will be G's WE, so we get tech trades. 3) We can warmonger him after that as needed. We already have good enough city sites for Oracle+GLH.
5. Worker farming is an other possibility and with chariots we really have nothing to fear. The problem is, we probably don't want to DoW Gandhi multiple times, but if we have to, so be it. We only really need one chariot to keep Gandhi thoroughly stone-aged.

 

[LowtherCastle]

So I guess no one else thinks a chariot is worth it?

Warrior explorers are a risk, no doubt. My thinking is: 1) Hopefully they're gong out early enough to not encounter archers for a while + no barbs, 2) it seems we need to go in two directions, 3) we might as well assume that Erkon meant it when he said the world is covered in fallout, 4) our MM works out much better if we minimize the hammers spent on exporers.

What if anything did we learn from the earlier screen shots? How many already know fishing for example?

We learned quite a bit.

Technology:5 or 6 AIs know fishing, but I think Stalin teched The Wheel with his power jump +6K on T9 (TW 4K + warrior 2K). Churchill is teching Sailing/BW. Roosy is teching Sailing/AH. Both would have finished any other possible tech already. If Sailing, it'll be done in a couple of turns.

Pure speculation, but maybe TW means that Stalin has the 17 land tiles, though that could easily be connected to coastal tiles with 4 water tiles in the bfc.

Power: It's weird. Very, very weird. We had these power changes:

Spoiler :

T5    +2 warrior (Churchill?)
T6    +1 pop (Gandhi)
T7    +1 pop (Roosy)
T8    +2 2x pop (Stalin+CHurchill)
T9    +9 pop (dG) + TW + warrior (Stalin) + warrior (?)
T10   +2 warrior (?) or Mining (deGaulle)
Total 17

What's with all the warrior builds? Do some AIs not have archery? They don't build warriors in any tests I've done. Did Erkon nerf Archery to protect us early on? If so, what accounts for the +6 power instead of Archery. Any ideas? Can anyone think of something other thanTW + warrior for Stalin's +6K? I doubt he built a military academy...?

Life Expectancy: This stuff is tricky. I may be scrweing it all up. I may be missing easier ways to crack the code. Here's what I think so far, but take it with multiple grains of salt:

Spoiler :

Gandhi Started at 4/3. At pop2, 4/4. I would say he started working a 3f1g tile (fp or river pigs/corn). He has 2 from some combination of fp/jungle/fallout. He seems to have one forest tile at most, unless his city's not on fresh water, which could contradict 3f1g. In any case, Gandhi looks like he's got some short-term health problems.

Note that Gandhi seems to have slowed his growth at pop2. Might this be in the code for unhealthy reasons?

Mao I have at 75% healthy. Very good for him. What I don't know is whether it's without fresh water 3/1 (unlikely), with 2-3 tiles of fallout and 6-7 forest 6/2, or with 4-5 tiles of fallout and 10-11 forest 9/3.

Churchill Seems to be very healthy with plenty of forest tiles. I have him starting at 7/2, going to 7/3 at pop2. That's likely to mean 2-3 fallout tiles (fp unlikely because he's working 2f tiles at pop1 and pop2), along with 6-7 forest tiles.

Stalin Here's the weird one, which makes me think I'm goofing this all up. My calcs show that someone dropped from 66% to 50% on T8. Trust me that this could easily be wrong, but if true, that can only mean that someone started at 2/1 and went to 2/2. That would mean no fresh water in the capital, no forest anywhere, no fallout anywhere. And...it would be either Churchill or Stalin. Now it could be the AI with only 6 tiles in the bfc (5 tiles in inner cross). That AI is either on an island or a one-tile-connecting peninsula. Did Erkon stick Stalin on his own island?

In general, I'm not seeing killer amounts of fallout in the AI bfcs.

 

[Soirana]

I'm not even sure we want an academy in our crappy capital, so I'm not certain that an early granary is special. When we hook up the rice, we can fill the granary quickly anyway.

Not sure io get why you need library if you do not want academy... Must be born dumb.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Not sure io get why you need library if you do not want academy... Must be born dumb.

Why build a library asap:
1. Our capital needs to grow.
2. Library is half-price for creative.
3. Our capital is hammer-rich.
4. Our capital can occasionally work a sci, if there's nothing better to do.

Why not build a GS:
1. Our capital is food poor.
2. Our capital will never be a particularly good research center.
3. GM trade missions are better for research in the long run than an Academy or GS bulb, especially since we get half-priced libraries everywhere we want.

Why build an early GS:
1. CS slingshot...NOT (at least the GS won't be done in time for it)
2. Half-priced GLs...NOT
3. Great research capital...NOT
4. Small empire...NOT
5. ???

================

Soirana, do you still like building a granary in view of the T50 test I did above? Do you have an alternative plan that focuses on Pottery and a granary? What tech path would you follow after Pottery?
.

 

[Soirana]

I just ran through 3 tests.

Test 1: PPP as written
Test 2: Work unimproved cow for 1 turn per BBP
Test 3: Have both workers improve the Cow E+NE first and then both go to cow N+N.

In all cases, on T35 the second cow pasture is done just in time with 1 worker turn left. So, they are the same with respect to worker turns. However, there are differences elsewhere:

Test 1: Library - 8/90, Food - 1/24, Wheel - 89/93
Test 2: Library - 0/90, Food - 3/24, Wheel - 88/93
Test 3: Library - 12/90, Food - 3/24, Wheel - 89/93

Test 3 wins by 4H/2F over Test 1 and 12H/1B over Test 2 since I never have to work an unimproved tile and the first cow is improved ASAP to start growing.

By turn 39, all three tests will complete the library in 3 turns with growth in 5 turns. So, growth is not synchronized with library completion as BBP mentioned. If we build Warrior 3 after the library, then we'll be at 4 pops to start on the settler.

BTW, we learn the Wheel just in time to road the gold mine and the cows (a sinlge worker does each one) before growing into unhealthiness. Also, the road is already on the gold so that the worker building the road on the cows doesn't lose a turn climbing the gold hill.

Thoughts?


EDIT: BTW, here is a new test save at T12. In the last one I posted, I forgot to direct EPP toward Gandhi on T0.

You are losing turn of growth somewhere as well as synchronization.

I roughly played to turn 43 with growth to four library and two workers. I prefer wheel first since it gives option for quick charriot in case there is need, althogh that does not matter really... [I'd still prefer warrior before making library]

P.S. that is what i meant of food over hammers, i prefer faster growth even by single turn compared to some extra hammers which do not go towards basic needs [i still get 2x warrior+library]

With some work on micro look sit is possible to cut one more turn of growth on cost of second warrior. Well, growth means faster working gold, faster making second city, etc.
Second warrior does not give much anyway - of course my heart hurts since horse is not worked from point second worker completes to point i start settler.
Basically two turns of growth was why i called your plan awfull. That is basically two turns in empire development.

 

[Soirana]

Why build a library asap:
1. Our capital needs to grow.
2. Library is half-price for creative.
3. Our capital is hammer-rich.
4. Our capital can occasionally work a sci, if there's nothing better to do.

Why not build a GS:
1. Our capital is food poor.
2. Our capital will never be a particularly good research center.
3. GM trade missions are better for research in the long run than an Academy or GS bulb, especially since we get half-priced libraries everywhere we want.

Soirana, do you still like building a granary in view of the T50 test I did above? Do you have an alternative plan that focuses on Pottery and a granary? What tech path would you follow after Pottery?
.

Colored stuff against making library. I personally do not see running scientist in BC era.

And i also never said I am pro granary, but might scrap some sort of action plan.