SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

Attacking Paris with Axes

This battle calculator is useful but one has to be careful. Let's assume that Paris will be at 60% culture and have fortified, CDI archers. That gives them a 155% defense bonus, so their "modified strength" is 7.65. The calculator says two unpromoted axes have a 61% chance of beating the archer. Problem is, it's not really true for a small number of battles. The reason is, the first axe will either cause 0 damage, 16 damage, 32 damage...and most likely is 32 damage. Hmm...after 32 damage, the modified strength of the archer is now 5.2 and the chances that our second axe wins that battle is 29%!

Now, if the first axe has a promotion, either CI or CRI, doesn't really matter in this case, the odds are almost the same that the archer will suffer 32 damage, so the second axe, if unpromoted, will again have a 29% chance of winning.

But!...if the first attack is unpromoted, but the second one promoted, suddenly the odds for a CI axe go up to 60% and for a CRI axe, 63%. Interesing, no?

My conclusion is that Moscow should build barracks, but FIsh, with its focus on the GS, doesn't need to.

 

[mdy]

Btw, I'm pretty sure my save does get the GS 2t sooner, because at T75,

According to the save we would be 4T from size 4.

I like your idea of using worker leapfrogging to build the road to the south.

I can post a final plan and play some turns later today.

Are we pausing everytime De Gaulle's score changes so we can work out what he's building, and if we need to abort to a currency sling?

In light of LC's analysis on the odds of taking Paris I agree that there is not much point building a barracks in fish.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If Fish works the cows+fish+lake on T75, it's pop4 on T77.

I think we need to pay attention to every time dG, CHurchill, or Gandhi gains a tech. We're also paying attention to dG's espionage, Sabotage Production, to see if he's building a monastery. That would be indicated by him accumulating more than 25h hammers (archer) in the build AND by observing that he's accumulating only about 10-11h per turn, rather than 15-16h for a wonder or about the same for a settler or worker.

I would appreciate if you'd make a save every turn, because the live save demographic screen is infinitely more useful than the screenshots.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Estimating AI Production from the Espionage Screen

For anyone who hasn't learned how to do this. Here's a quickie:

1. First you need to find the cheapest building the AI has built in his city, that you can sabotage:

Spoiler :

In Paris it's the barracks. It also has a monument now, but we can't sabotage it, because it's autogenerated by Stonehenge. The cost of the barracks is 50h. Note that the espionage screen uses our cost, not the AI's cost.

2. To determine how many hpt a city is putting into a build, you need to use two consecutive saves. Look at the espionage screen for the AI's city you're observing. Here is Paris for T54:

Spoiler :

3. The principle is that the cost of Sabotage Building is roughly the same as the cost of Sabotage Production. Furthemore, the espionage screen shows the cost of Sabotage Building for the cheapest building he has. So, first determine the cost of Sabotage Building = Sabotage Building / cost of building. For Paris that's Sabotage Barracks / Cost of Barracks, or: 381 / 50 = ~7.6 That's our multiplication factor for determining BOTH how many hammers are currently in the city build AND for how many hpt are going into the build.

4. The current build for T54, above, has Sabotage Production / 7.6 hammers in it, or: 662 / 7.6 = 87h.

5. Now look at the save for the next turn, T55 in our case:

Spoiler :

We see that the build now has 777 / 7.6 = 102h in it. To determine the hpt, we simply subtract last turn's production from this turn's: 102h - 87h = 15hpt.

Note that this is the final hpt, not base-hpt. This is what happened.

------------------

As for Stonehenge, it cost dG 103h, so he got 9h overflow into his next build, which appears to have been an archer (or warrior) because it was finished in 1t (9h + 10h = 19h). We know that he finished a build when we see no Sabotage Production value on the espionage screen, like T57:

Spoiler :

-------------------

As for how I figured out his 15hpt has to include the 50% wonder production bonus, that's a whole different story from reading the demographic screen, but bascially at pop7, my best guess is that Paris is probably running 19f 10h 11g per turn. So his hpt will either be 10hpt for units, 15fhpt for settler/worker, or 15hpt for wonders.

But that tells us how we'll monitor whether he is building a monastery next, which would expand his borders too soon. If his hpt is not 10hpt next turn, then we're good unless he interrupts his production to build the monastery. If his hpt is ~10hpt, we need to see if he finishes (archer) production the following turn and keep monitoring. If he has no value next turn, it means he finished another unit and we keep monitoring. If after two turns, T59, he has ~20h in a build, he's probalby building the damn monastery and 2SW1S may be screwed. The other possiblity might be that he connected copper and is building an axe. This we can determine by whether he's still threatening us with archers or not.

 

[babybluepants]

I kinda object on principle to not growing/improving current cities. With irrigated rice and PH mine, Moscow at pop7 gains 5hpt towards a worker or 7hpt towards a settler, and is set up with a full granary for further growth (after hooking up silver, for instance). We can research Agri-Pottery right after the Bureau revolt (while building another worker), and get a granary in sync with a half-full bin, then build a settler before growing on 5fpt rice and 3fpt grass very quickly while building barracks. Just seems better to me.

Are we planning to settle pig/rice with our fourth? I'm unclear on that, and it seems like a stretch. I wouldn't mind getting silver next, actually.

 

[babybluepants]

In my save, I have to start the scientist a turn earlier because I'm initially behind in beakers working the cows three turns instead of the fish, then later working the ivory 3t instead of the lake. But I gain the beakers all the beakers back, but one, with the library bonus and working the scientist in Fish. My way gains a bunch of hammers in exchange for food, but at pop4 you're losing an extra fpt.

Btw, I'm pretty sure my save does get the GS 2t sooner, because at T75, you're 2t from the library completion, I'm 2t from pop4. We both start working 2sci at the same time, but I've already got 12gppts in it.

Status @ 1000 BC (latest submitted tests):

mdy

Moscow - 9h 0f, 32/100 GS
Fish - 74/90h Library, Pop4 w/ 2/28f
Rostov - Pop1 w/ 0f, 7h Warrior

LC

Moscow - 4h 0f, 35/100 GS
Fish - Library done, 7h WB, Pop3 w/ 17/26f, 12/100 GS
Rostov - Pop1 w/ 0f, 7h Warrior

bbp

Moscow - 6h 0f, 35/100 GS
Fish - Library done, 9h WB, Pop3 w/ 22/26f
Rostov - Pop1 w/ 0f, 16h Lib

So, mdy has more food/commerce, LC and I more gpp/hammers.

 

[babybluepants]

Attacking Paris with Axes

This battle calculator is useful but one has to be careful. Let's assume that Paris will be at 60% culture and have fortified, CDI archers. That gives them a 155% defense bonus, so their "modified strength" is 7.65. The calculator says two unpromoted axes have a 61% chance of beating the archer. Problem is, it's not really true for a small number of battles. The reason is, the first axe will either cause 0 damage, 16 damage, 32 damage...and most likely is 32 damage. Hmm...after 32 damage, the modified strength of the archer is now 5.2 and the chances that our second axe wins that battle is 29%!

Now, if the first axe has a promotion, either CI or CRI, doesn't really matter in this case, the odds are almost the same that the archer will suffer 32 damage, so the second axe, if unpromoted, will again have a 29% chance of winning.

But!...if the first attack is unpromoted, but the second one promoted, suddenly the odds for a CI axe go up to 60% and for a CRI axe, 63%. Interesing, no?

My conclusion is that Moscow should build barracks, but FIsh, with its focus on the GS, doesn't need to.

2.5-3 axes per archer are often enough, and, yes, the total numbers matter. Against a 40% city (more common in my rushing experience), I'd expect 15 axes to always defeat 6 archers at equivalent promo levels, but not necessarily with 5 vs. 2.

This isn't the issue I was trying to raise, though. Sure, you can know at some point in the future that you have enough force at that moment. There's a big difference in opportunity cost between having to build 6 axes + 2 galleys vs. 12 + 4 in our situation, and it's difficult to predict this need and its schedule. More so if he keeps spamming units in war mode. Getting started on this path pretty much necessitates that we finish it no matter the cost, 'cause we've otherwise wasted a lot of production for nothing.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I kinda object on principle to not growing/improving current cities. With irrigated rice and PH mine, Moscow at pop7 gains 5hpt towards a worker or 7hpt towards a settler, and is set up with a full granary for further growth (after hooking up silver, for instance). We can research Agri-Pottery right after the Bureau revolt (while building another worker), and get a granary in sync with a half-full bin, then build a settler before growing on 5fpt rice and 3fpt grass very quickly while building barracks. Just seems better to me.

This is an important discussion, imo. My basic principle is getting as many resource tiles running as soon as possible. In Moscow, that tells me we want to be at pop8 when the two silk plantations have been built. We want to have Southern Pigs at pop4 asap. FIsh City at pop4+. Silver City at pop?. How do we balance all that?

Spoiler :

If we beeline CUrrency-Calendar after CS, it will take us 15-20t, off the top of my head. That means we want Moscow to be at pop6 on ~T90. Now, we want Fish to work the gold while Moscow is working the rice. Moscow will grow to pop6 in 5t at +6fpt, so we need the irrigated rice on T89, but Fish will pop the GS on T93 at the earliest, so let's say irrigated rice on ~T93, granary before T99. If our fourth worker roads the horses, then to rice and we add a second worker, this should be no problem.

Then we have Silver and S-Pigs. Iirc, S-Pig needs about 30t for roading, less with leapfrogging, then 6t*2 for scrubbing city site and pigs. So with 2 workers, it's ready around T90. The settler needs 4t to get there, so that settler should be done roughly T86. After Bureau, Moscow will build 2wkr/5t and 1settler/4t. So we could go: T75Bureau-T76/80-2wkrs-T81-89-2settlers. So we need the Silver City site scrubbed around T86. It will have the Fish worker and get one more. I don't see any problems.

We'll have to see behind the fog, but I supsect you're right: Silver-Pigs. There's another tundra hill, so maybe two silver mines. That would rock.

In short:
1 worker: FIsh, then silver
2 workers: Rostov and roading to Pigs
+1 worker: MOscow rice
+1 worker: Silver
+1 worker: Moscow rice

 

[LowtherCastle]

There's a big difference in opportunity cost between having to build 6 axes + 2 galleys vs. 12 + 4 in our situation, and it's difficult to predict this need and its schedule. More so if he keeps spamming units in war mode. Getting started on this path pretty much necessitates that we finish it no matter the cost, 'cause we've otherwise wasted a lot of production for nothing.

You're right. We may have to bail until maces or something. I see these phases:

0. DoP, trade bldg techs
1. galley1+chariot or axe: worker stealing, pillaging
2. monitor his unit production, make plans for axe rush if feasible
3. If axe rush not feasible, continue worker stealing/pillaging until better unit

I'm not too interested in going for Paris with axes against more than 3 archers because we're not planning to continue warrring for the time being, so we don't want lot of units.

 

[babybluepants]

We may have to bail until maces or something.

I think early Construction may be better here. Even without HBR (though I'm dying to do an amphibious elephant attack ) cats should mow Paris down easily with axe support. I haven't thought about the logistics of it enough, so I may just be wrong, though.

I'll have to do some more testing on Agri/pottery, Moscow growth and further expansion. What you guys are suggesting seems very counter-intuitive to me (and less flexible in terms of circa 500 BC gameplay), but may be better indeed...

Do we need to decide anything before playing some turns? 5-6t? I think mdy should be stopping frequently in this TS, because of the espionage work, so we may as well get it going soon.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Cats to me represent a huge expense for one city, especially adding Construction to the price tag. Our goal is REX, not conquest per se. Paris is a nice chunk of real estate, especially holding onto the pigs. Anyway, I think we agree, we need to find a smart way to capture it.

I'm ready for mdy to rock and roll as soon as he's ready...

 

[mdy]

I have uploaded the T61 save so we can evaluate whether we need to abort to a currency sling. The autosaves are attached.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Looking fine so far. I'd just keep going, watching for score changes. Looks like dG is building units, so no need to worry about his culture expanding on T68. Edit: Wait, I guess I haven't looked at the T61 save yet. Misunderstood you.

----------

Excellent news! Churchill researched Pottery. Onward!

 

[babybluepants]

Do you have a current score data spreadsheet, LC? Would save me some time... Actually could you do me a big favour and save your spreadsheet in .xls (Win XP).

 

[LowtherCastle]

Do you have a current score data spreadsheet, LC? Would save me some time... Actually could you do me a big favour and save your spreadsheet in .xls (Win XP).

Hope this is what you wanted, in the format you wanted.

 

[mdy]

It looks like Churchill researched a tech in 2 turns. Could this be priesthood?

 

[babybluepants]

London's up to Pop 7.

 

[LowtherCastle]

It looks like Churchill researched a tech in 2 turns. Could this be priesthood?

Nope. Pop growth to pop7:

London's up to Pop 7.

+1

dG 3popped something, but I don't knw what, because I haven't seen the save fro mlast turn. I suppose it was a settler. Mao settled his third city!

Onward!

 

[mdy]

We have now founded our third city, and England has built the Great Wall. I'll finish my turn set when we get to CS (hopefully) tomorrow morning.

 

[LowtherCastle]

mdy, could you upload the 1520 save too, plz?