SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

How about settling Hammer CIty, quickly scrubbing a few grass tiles on the south and eastern sides, gifting it to CHruchill, and letting him build a levee for us? Then capture it back. Of course, it might auto-raze when we capture it...

Edit: Rheims can produce a settler on T146, settled on T147. Earlier I estimated that Nanjing will pop its borders between T145 and T150. We've got a fighting chance. Once we gift it to Churchill, no more maintenance till we steal it back.

Edit2: Cancel the notion. Nanjing now has Buddhism. My estimate is now T143-T147. Too soon.

Edit3: Good catch, bcool. Mao is running Confu, so no extra culture from Buddhism in Nanjing. Okay, but nonetheless, my refined calcs show T145-T148, so it's pretty dicey. We'd have to whip out a settler in Fish or something. Furthermore, my calcs assume Nanjing built the colloseum on T134. It's highly unlikely he finished it earlier, but we couldn't see the Nanjing city center from before that to know for sure. All we know is it's there and he finished something on T135.
.

 

[bcool]

Is Mao Buddhist now? I thought he was confu? (sorry can't access the game)

or do you mean he is getting culture from a buddhist monastery or temple?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Pre-PPP

Edit: Sign OB with Churchill. Also spy on his progress in Tours as possible.

Absolutely. According to the XML, Churchill should not OBs at Annoyed, so maybe this is an artifact of his DoW. Grab it while we can!!! As for Tours, you might even want to send some units there to grab it, if possible. Nice enough city and if either of us captures it, then we can conduct gpt trade deals with Churchill.

Also, watch out for dG's roaming SoD (it left Marseilles). We don't konw if the SoD is south of Marseilles or moving towards Tours. It might attack our axe/chariot pair this IT. We want it to go to Tours so it's better if we don't threaten Orleans or Marseilles whlie they're moving around.

One more thing. We won't be able to cease fire next turn. If dG's SoD threatens Rheims next turn, then to get cease fire, we'll have to threaten Marseilles and Tours on the turn after next. If we lose a battle before that, though, then forget cease fire for 5t.

Siberia/Pigs: as per LC's plans, I think.

Which Pigs plan are you referring to?

GP: CH or fail-cash after lib?

I'd build a Confu Miss immediately (build T140, 1pop T141) in Pigs and send it to GP Farm. If it succeeds in spreading Confu on T143, then I'd do this GP Farm plan or anything better you can figure out. If the Confu fails, I dunno. We could either rush another Confu Miss in Pigs or abandon the CH before uni in GP Farm.

Bermuda: whip WB next turn - start granary

Do we want our wb to explore around the island to the north? I think so. If so, it turns out that the best solution is: whip WB this turn! The workboat goes north but cuts the NW corner, doesn't cut the NE corner and is back in time for pop3. Amazingly, it only loses 1f over your proposal, while getting all that explored. (See my attached spreadsheet for details.)

Cuba: grow into a 2pop granary whip
Edit: Moai location?

Yes. We can pr a galley around T149 afterwards.

Rheims: should it be working gems until Edu, then corn?

Incidentally, your entire worker MM planning should begin here, imo.

Assuming all three workers escape next turn, we can have the corn irrigated by T143, which is perfect for Rheims growing to pop2 in 5t: work gems 3t, work irrigated corn 2t. After that, we only need 4 workers in Rheims, so the other 6 can all peel off towards GP Farm/Bananas. WIth them coming, you can plan for the four workers at GP Farm right now, to farm GP FarmE, then go help farm Moscow and Fish. In fact, only the one scrubbing the unroaded grass should finish scrubbing. The other two should stop now.

As a matter of fact, if I were you, I would methodically cancel all worker actions before hitting <enter> on T140.

Bahamas: is the intent to finish the forge, then lib?
Edit: I seem to get Uni done T152 with forge, or T150 without. T150 is more our schedule.

Yes. 3pop the forge at pop7. See my plan in the spreadsheet. WIth some fancy MM, we can actually 3pop the uni on T149. (Btw, did you remember to use the chop?)

Workers:

• we seem way behind roading to Corn/Fish; do we really need to be scrubbing grass in Siberia?
• why do we need 5 more grass farms in GP?
• Rheims: stone > irrigate corn > second gems
• can we do some grass farms for Bananas?
• Moscow gets a river farm next
• not sure where to find workers for Fish
• do we want silver asap? i think we can delay.

1. Excellent idea on sending the silver worker to help road to fish/corn. If you cancel the Siberian scrub right now. He can lead the way so that both workers are ready to farm the corn when the settler settles, with only 1t to finish roading the corn, iirc.
2. We need tons of farms in GP Farm, but mostly the workers coming up from Rheims can do that. IMPORTANT: Be prepared to pasture the pigs as soon as our culture grabs that tile. I'm not sure, but I suspect that might be a turn or three after we capture Paris. If the Confu Miss in GP Farm fails, the pigs may still rescue a T149 uni poprush w/ch.
3. In Rheims, imo better is: irrigate corn > 2nd gems > stone.
4. For Bananas, I'd send the worker at Pigs NW, who can still move this turn, in case you hadn't noticed!!!, over to scrub 1t, then help finish the banana plantation next turn. Bananas can work the ivory this turn and still grow to pop2 in the same number of turns. Then those 3 workers can each go road a different one of those three tiles to the NW. Then absolutely farm those tiles, beginning with the one that GP Farm and Bananas have in common.
5. Note that the second gems tile is pre-roaded, as is the tile to its NW. The forest to the SW of the three captured workers could also be pre-chopped one more turn, to not waste any of those three workers turns on T141.


Other notes:
1. Imo, one of your most important goals this turnset is to get the 6/5XP axe in Rheims up to 10XP!!! If he attacks an unfortified archer on the plains, he doesn't even need his 5XP promotion yet. He'll still get something like 98% odds, so you can save that promotion to heal him for the second attack. Getting him to 10XP is higher priority than worker stealing dG, right now. That means I would DoW dG the first cahnce you get at an open archer, even if there are no workers available. He can wait on the grass tile (finish roading it) NW of the second gems tile. From there he can attack the rice, the ivory or elsewhere. A chariot can peak around to the rice each turn, for example.
2. How are we going to get more galleys/triremes for the Mao Campaign? SHould we consider pre-building a fort on the Fish SW hill after all (yeah, I know I was against it before )?

 

[Mitchum]

I'd build a Confu Miss immediately (build T140, 1pop T141) in Pigs and send it to GP Farm. If it succeeds in spreading Confu on T143, then I'd do this GP Farm plan or anything better you can figure out. If the Confu fails, I dunno. We could either rush another Confu Miss in Pigs or abandon the CH before uni in GP Farm.

A trick I learned from Dhoomstriker is that a missionary's chance of success goes up the bigger the city is. They also go up the longer the missionary sits in the target city up to a max of 5 turns (similar to spy missions). Obviously, if no religion exists in the city, the chances of success are 100% on T0 (AFAIK), so spread away. Sometimes you just can't wait and it's best to pull the trigger right away. However, if possible a) wait for the city to grow and b) skip the missionary's turn in the city as many times as possible up to 5 turns. I used this in my last cultural victory and I think I only had two missionaries fail after spreading 4 religions to 9 cities!!

 

[babybluepants]

A trick I learned from Dhoomstriker is that a missionary's chance of success goes up the bigger the city is. They also go up the longer the missionary sits in the target city up to a max of 5 turns (similar to spy missions). Obviously, if no religion exists in the city, the chances of success are 100% on T0 (AFAIK), so spread away. Sometimes you just can't wait and it's best to pull the trigger right away. However, if possible a) wait for the city to grow and b) skip the missionary's turn in the city as many times as possible up to 5 turns. I used this in my last cultural victory and I think I only had two missionaries fail after spreading 4 religions to 9 cities!!

Learn something new every day. Come to think of it, I already did learn something new today...
I'll see how I might work around that 5t wait.

@LC,
No major disagreements with anything you said. I'll respond in detail later. I did forget to chop in Bahamas, btw. And I'd skip the Hammer City. Is that something we should discuss further? Can't tell if you gave up on it, or still wanna pursue.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Thanks, Mitchum. I may try to find some code on that. Like to know that it's not wive's tales.

Edit: In the CvUnit.cpp (CvUnit::spread(ReligionTypes eReligion)) I found what looks to me like the code for spreading religion with missionaries. If there's nothing more to it, and it doesn't seem complex at all, then there is 100% chance of spreading religion to any city without it. The odds go down 9% (sometimes 8%) for each religion already in your own cities and 12 (or 11)% in others' cities. That should mean our Confu Miss has a 91% chance of spreading. I see nothing about # of turns waiting int he city, etc. Question: Has anyone ever had a religion NOT spread in any city without religion?


Forget Hammer City for now, bbp. Too risky that will miss it.

On Moai, I was thinking that we could start building it in a number of places and later decide where to complete it. On the Parthenon, I'm thinking that Bahamas would be a gret place to complete it. I'd like to get a Confu Miss there relatively soon.
.

 

[bcool]

A trick I learned from Dhoomstriker is that a missionary's chance of success goes up the bigger the city is. They also go up the longer the missionary sits in the target city up to a max of 5 turns (similar to spy missions). Obviously, if no religion exists in the city, the chances of success are 100% on T0 (AFAIK), so spread away. Sometimes you just can't wait and it's best to pull the trigger right away. However, if possible a) wait for the city to grow and b) skip the missionary's turn in the city as many times as possible up to 5 turns. I used this in my last cultural victory and I think I only had two missionaries fail after spreading 4 religions to 9 cities!!

Thanks, Mitchum. I may try to find some code on that. Like to know that it's not wive's tales.

It does seem strange that they don't show the chances of a religion spreading. They show the chances of almost everything else. Has this been discussed in any of the Bug Mods suggested improvements?

I'd be surprised if the chances actually do change because they don't show them to you. If you can't control the chances then I could see why you wouldn't display them.

Anyways would be nice to see the code or know for sure this is true.

 

[Mitchum]

Thanks, Mitchum. I may try to find some code on that. Like to know that it's not wive's tales.

Please do. I didn't do any empirical study on it; it just seemed to work much better for me. One thing I did not mention but is likely common knowledge is that the more religions that are already in a city the harder it is to spread another one. Getting that fourth or fifth religion into a city in a culture game used to be a challenge for me until I started using this method, so there must be something to it.

Speaking of looking at the code, what is the best way to go about that. Do I have to download the SDK? Is there a thread or post you can point me to? I tried to figure it out about six months ago when I had a few minutes to spare, but it was only a half-ASCII attempt.

 

[babybluepants]

Please do. I didn't do any empirical study on it; it just seemed to work much better for me. One thing I did not mention but is likely common knowledge is that the more religions that are already in a city the harder it is to spread another one. Getting that fourth or fifth religion into a city in a culture game used to be a challenge for me until I started using this method, so there must be something to it.

Your example sounds convincing enough... Typically I waste 10 missionaries in culture games (or, at least, that's what it feels like).

Speaking of looking at the code, what is the best way to go about that.

Best way? Ask Silu.

On Moai, I was thinking that we could start building it in a number of places and later decide where to complete it.

That sounds good.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Speaking of looking at the code, what is the best way to go about that. Do I have to download the SDK? Is there a thread or post you can point me to? I tried to figure it out about six months ago when I had a few minutes to spare, but it was only a half-ASCII attempt.

YOu already have the code. Mine is in this folder:

Application Data\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\CvGameCoreDLL

I open the C++ files using MS Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, which I downloaded for free from MS a long time ago. THen I go to Edit-Outlining-Collapse to Definitions, to make it more manageable. THen I ctrl-F to search for some keyword that seems to make sense. For this one, I tried "missionary," "spread," and "religion." Found it under "spread." Btw, I've noticed that a lot of the terminology we all use when discussing CIV is the same as in the code. GUess that's probably the origin of our lingo.

Oh yeah, before that I have to choose which C++ to open. There are many CvPlayer, CvPlayerAI, CvGame, CvUnit, etc. I found this code in CvUnit, the fifth file I tried... I just try to think about which one is most likely. Gradually, I've gotten a little better at it. I've asked a few people how they find stuff, but never gotten a better solution. Maybe there's some index somewhere. That would be nice. I don't know about it.

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

I worldbuildered a testmap with 100 cites for us and 100 cities for Gandhi. Stuck in 200 missionaries and spread religion. No failures on the first religion. A handful of failures on teh second, with a few more in Gandhi's cities. THen for the thrid religion, I got these results:

On the 1st turn: 15% in our cities, 23% in G's
On the 3rd turn: 16% in our cities, 24% in G's

My prediction: 18% in our cities, 24% in G's.

So I'd say that's it. Our Confu Miss will have a 91% chance of succeeding. Not guaranteed, but we should plan for it.

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

Btw, the formula for whether it will spread, as I've interpreted it, is this:

SpreadProbOurCities = 40 + (7 - NumReligInCity)*60/7
SpreadProbAICities = 20 + (7 - NumReligInCity)*80/7​

Spoiler :

With the actual formula (my interpretation):
iSpreadProb = MissionaryReligionSpreadsXML = 40 <iReligionSpread>40</iReligionSpread>

If AICity
=> iSpreadProb /= 2 in other words = 20 for AI cities

iSpreadProb += (TotalNumReligions - NumReligInCity) * (100 - iSpreadProb)/(TotalNumReligions)

If RandomNumber between 0,99 < iSpreadProb
=> Spread the religion

So, for example, when there is no religion in the city, iSpreadProb =
40 + 60 = 100
-or-
20 + 80 = 100
which is always greater than 0,99. Religion always spreads.

Btw, Mitchum, I edited my original post on this, but you might not have noticed due to xposting.

.

 

[babybluepants]

Here's my current test. Worker MM and a few other aspects leave something to be desired, wasn't trying very hard.

I'll have to think about GP Farm a bit. I got CH-Uni here, but just barely and with Confu spread.

I would build wealth in Fish and maybe another city if it gets me Education 1t faster. It probably will, since we're finishing it at 0-20%.

Moai: I like LC's idea of building it in different places for now. Realized that I have to make sure to stagger island whips.

I got a 10xp mace in Paris/Orleans before needing to start HE, btw. I'll still focus on getting the 6xp axe into good odds, but I somehow don't think this will be an issue.

Demands: I'd say yes to Gandhi and Roosevelt (within reason, ofc), and deny others?

I wish we could build more units during this set, but Oxford has to be rushed, I think. A trireme on the French front would also be nice, as well as a galley in the islands (again, probably not gonna happen immediately). That reminds me: I had a GG pop in Cuba! They should pop in the unit's home city and this is some test-save screwball effect, right? We'll also need some MP units fairly soon. Archers would be the cheapest, so I wonder if we should just take Archery from Gandhi at this stage. Then again, we can just build some chariots.

Everything as discussed yesterday feels comfortable to play, so I think we can basically go ahead. I'd probably have a checkpoint after capturing Paris / finishing Education. The only potentially really tricky bit in this set is working around DG's southern stack, which will have to be played by ear.

 

[bcool]

Not much time this morning. Just one or two reminders. I would hunt for gold trades each turn (maybe even tracking gold for each AI each turn). I suspect we will get another set of decent gold trades after we do the gold trades already planned.

Check for wonder builds in major AI cities.

I would consider whipping a galley in Cuba after the Granary (to transport confu missionary, the odd GG, and eventually settlers to the far islands.)

 

[babybluepants]

The Cuba granary whip is probably past the proposed mini-set. Galley there would be ok, except that city could desperately use a LH, since it has no tiles to work. We'll see...

Check on gold trades.

 

[Mitchum]

@LC

Hmmm.... Nothing about city size in the missionary spread formula. It seems intuitive (at least in real life) that it should be easier to spread a new religion in a large city as opposed to a small town. I wonder if there is more to it than what you were able to find.

On the 1st turn: 15% in our cities, 23% in G's
On the 3rd turn: 16% in our cities, 24% in G's

I'm not sure I understand these numbers. Are you saying that the failure rate was 15% on T0 and 16% after skipping the missionary's turn for 2 turns (which is opposite of what my assumption was but could be considered close enough to being equal; 15% = 16%)? And per the formula you found, this should have been closer to the 9% failure rate you're predicting, right?

Also, do you think the TotalNumReligions in your formula is the total number of possible religions (i.e. 7) or the total number of religions that have been founded so far in the game?

I'll try to do some digging into this myself later when I don't have my daughters looking over my shoulder... Assuming I can figure out how to open the files and view them.

BTW, can you upload the save you used to test this? I may try to extend it by changing the city sizes, number of religions founded and such.

@BBP

I'm fine with you playing. Don't forget to cancel the free resources to Roosevelt.

 

[LowtherCastle]

In general, I'm fine with what you're doing. Some questions and observations.

1. What did you build in Pigs, in addition to the COnfu Miss?

2. I'm not sure why we should give in to any demands from Gandhi. Roosy, maybe, if they're not too steep.

3. I'm not sure I see the need to rush Educ and Oxford so urgently (1t sooner, etc.). Also, if it looks like you're getting the 10XP unit really fast, then you might consider squeezing the HE into the Moscow build queue instead of something else.

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

Observations on your test save:
1. Fish shouldn't build maces after your initial SoD. Either cats, a galley, or a trireme, imo. We could also poprush a trireme from Paris or Orleans, possibly.

2. Let's not neglect Siberia. It should also get a farmer, sent up from the south quite soon. The silver miner should be able to scrub that farm tile one turn on its way to help road, right?

3. Not sure we really need to worry about garrisons for our various cities yet. They're still poprushing infrastructure.

4. Bananas actually grows faster if we work the ivory tile at pop2, and the mine at pop3, then 1pop the granary asap. The farms aren't needed yet, now that I checked it out.

5. The workers peeling off from Rheims can most usefully scrub the Rice-NE tile to not waste turns, imo. Pigs will be able to use another farm eventually.

6. If Paris is going to lose population to starvation, then figure out how much and 2pop a spy or wb or 3pop a library or trireme or galley.

........................

Wow! xpost...

 

[LowtherCastle]

@LC

Hmmm.... Nothing about city size in the missionary spread formula. It seems intuitive (at least in real life) that it should be easier to spread a new religion in a large city as opposed to a small town. I wonder if there is more to it than what you were able to find.

I'm not sure I understand these numbers. Are you saying that the failure rate was 15% on T0 and 16% after skipping the missionary's turn for 2 turns (which is opposite of what my assumption was but could be considered close enough to being equal; 15% = 16%)? And per the formula you found, this should have been closer to the 9% failure rate you're predicting, right?

Also, do you think the TotalNumReligions in your formula is the total number of possible religions (i.e. 7) or the total number of religions that have been founded so far in the game?

The actual code is:

iSpreadProb += (((GC.getNumReligionInfos() - pCity->getReligionCount()) * (100 - iSpreadProb)) / GC.getNumReligionInfos());

I'm pretty sure that GC.getNumReligionInfos() is a globally defined constant, rather than an ingame, changing variable. It would be possible to change it in a mod, pregame, I suppose, but that's not what we have here.

The percentages you asked about were specifically for spreading the third religion. That's why I put my predicted percentages below the two you quoted. In other words, the results I got were pretty close to what the formula predicted, surely within some random deviation. The conclusion I draw is that ther are no other factors than what I've listed in the basic formula. The difference between 1st turn and 3rd turn is that I started with the same save, but in the first case I spread the religion immediately, in the second case, I hit <enter> three times before trying to spread the religion.

What's intuitive to me is that the formula is no more complicated than it is. Spies increase their productivity (decrease their mission cost) by 10% per turn for 5t, because they're constantly in danger of getting caught and killed. The longer he's there the more info he can gather, the more effective he is as a spy, the more bang you get for your buck. Not so with a missionary. A missionary is a missionary. Spread is spread, whether it happens on this turn or the next. He found some followers and they believed in his religion. If there's no religion there, then it's easier for him to find followers. As more religions exist there, there are fewer people prone to looking for faith. Your point about population is valid, imo, but evidently Sid decided not to complicate things in that respect, is my guess.

I have a number of saves, for different points in my testing. In the first save, all cities have one religion, but Gandhi only has 89 cities (I miscounted somehow initially). In the second save, both have 100 cities each and all cities have 2 religions already.

A couple of caveats while you're testing.
1. I found it easier to give us one type of missionary and Gandhi another. Then you can just click on teh spread icon and count the non-spreads from the Event Log at the end.
2. If you're going to try testing after hitting <enter> a few turns you'll run into two problems. After every two turns, you'll have to go into worldbuilder and give us and Gandhi a whole bunch more cash (5000g is the max). On the fourth turn, all of our cities are going to pop their cultural borders, which slows down the whole process.

 

[Mitchum]

It looks like we will crack the 500 epp on Gandhi during your turnset (assuming the test game is accurate with respect to espionage). If that is the case, do we want to switch espionage toward Mao at the 500 mark since 500 should be what we need to steal Philosophy?

 

[babybluepants]

1. What did you build in Pigs, in addition to the COnfu Miss?

Spy

2. I'm not sure why we should give in to any demands from Gandhi. Roosy, maybe, if they're not too steep.

Did we confirm that there are no negmods? I thought it was the opposite. I guess you don't care about the -1?

3. I'm not sure I see the need to rush Educ and Oxford so urgently (1t sooner, etc.). Also, if it looks like you're getting the 10XP unit really fast, then you might consider squeezing the HE into the Moscow build queue instead of something else.

Well, we won't be building more units prior to Oxford, will we? Not sure what the benefit of earlier HE is in that case.

1. Fish shouldn't build maces after your initial SoD. Either cats, a galley, or a trireme, imo.

You mean the mace currently under construction? Ok. I won't get there for now anyway. Are we planning for a fort on that hill, if you wanna build ships in fish?

2. Let's not neglect Siberia. It should also get a farmer, sent up from the south quite soon. The silver miner should be able to scrub that farm tile one turn on its way to help road, right?

Sure. I won't do stupid things like scrubbing Silver city site in the actual game.

4. Bananas actually grows faster if we work the ivory tile at pop2, and the mine at pop3, then 1pop the granary asap. The farms aren't needed yet, now that I checked it out.

Noted. I was a bit careless with non-Uni cities in that test run.

 

[babybluepants]

It looks like we will crack the 500 epp on Gandhi during your turnset (assuming the test game is accurate with respect to espionage). If that is the case, do we want to switch espionage toward Mao at the 500 mark since 500 should be what we need to steal Philosophy?

Ok. 500 it is?

 

[LowtherCastle]

We got a negmod from Roosy, so that's confirmed. If we get -1 negmod, he'll go to Annoyed and won't trade till we get +1 from OBs or resource trades, not sure when those happen. We're planning to give him CUrrency for HBR. That leaves CS and Paper. We're surely not giving him Paper. Period. Not before Liberalism, that is. We don't want to give him CS either, because it's too valuable in trade. So I'd rather trade him CS for Feudalism plus some gold asap or wait till we get him back up to Cautious.

No negmods from Gandhi. I see no reason to give him MC yet. Save it for some cash or whatever.

HE sooner means HE instead of something else other than units, so units immediately after Oxford.

Yes, I'm thinking that we might want to build a galley and/or trireme in Fish for the Mao Campaign. BUt I don't think you need to pre-build the fort yet. First some farms.

I agree on switching EPs to Mao at 500EPs on Gandhi, even though that will leave us short of seeing his research. Tough bounce.

I didn't notice that you had scrubbed Silver city site. Maybe I better check again...