SGOTM 12 - Spooks

[Paul#42]

Holy cow. Tough decisions ahead.

While (after several Cola-Whiskey) I'm in a good mood to draw quick decisions and play bravely, yet I know myself good enough to wait another day

I tend to want the GA in 12 turns because Paris could have some better shape then - but in 12 turns it won't be great either. I don't see many more workers there in 12 turns.
I'm also leaning towards joining the one desparetely roading the hill into Orleans to get things started there
On turn #10 from now, Orleans could provide the first worker.
If we join that worker in #3, the first is out on #7, 2nd on #9... well 1 turn spared at the cost of a roaded hill...

To build workers in India, both cities need a granary first and won't build unis for a while. Those two towns (with unis and court) are producing more beakers than Const.

Const at size 6 in GA otoh also hurts. So many MDI won't get built...

A point in favour of GA now is workers can be built after GA meaning less time for paying their maintenance.
Both Paris and Con could make 1 turn workers (Paris at size 11 if everything irrigated)

How do we get Paris irrigated so quickly? I calc 50 worker moves necessary - but only 5 workers from Orleans start in the 2nd half of our GA - that's ~20 worker moves for improvements till GA's over.
However Paris would need another ~10 turns to complete Newtons - there they are, our 50 (rather 70) turns. Okay, might work. From ~turn 32 on Paris could do 1-turn-workers at size 11.
By then however we will know sanitation and want Paris to be site 20...

Wacken, what do you think?

 

[Andronicus]

I believe you are right. Combo of growth and WLTK day should be enough. If I understand how WLTK works (which is far from certain), you get this for Paris. So long as we get 24/27, it's comfortable because even if the next shield corrupts, we still have enough.

T1 20/24 Harbour
T2 20/24 Harbour
T3 24/27 Lib
T4 24/27 Lib
T5 24/27 Uni
T6 24/27 Uni
T7 27/30 Uni
T8 27/30 Uni
T9 27/30 Court
T10 27/30 Court
T11 29/33 Court

With 10fpt excess and owning Pyramids, Paris should grow in 2 from size 9 onwards
Currently we have 4 unmined sheep (and no workers to mine any time soon)
so each extra tile only gains 2 shields not 3.
Paris has 20% waste reducing to 10% after court

T1 20/24 Harbour
T2 20/24 Harbour
T3 21/26 Lib
T4 21/26 Lib
T5 23/28 Uni
T6 23/28 Uni
T7 24/30 Uni
T8 24/30 Uni
T9 26/32 Uni
T10 26/32 Court
T11 26/32 Court
T12 26/32 Court (+2 from disbanding reg warrior unless WLTK day gives extra 2 shields)
T13 29/32 Cop (in14 - less with mining sheep)


The harbour could be built in 1 turn if we disband the vet MDI there for 10 shields (this brings lib, uni and science wonders 1 turn earlier)
Court before Uni saves 1 turn, alt disband a unit ? sword for the 6 shields uni is short the prev turn
edit disbanding a MDI would save a turn on uni making the uni first better

Alt with MDI disbanded for harbour disband MDI for uni
T1 20/24 +10 Harbour
T2 20/24 Lib
T3 21/26 Lib
T4 21/26 Uni
T5 23/28 Uni
T6 23/28 Uni
T7 24/30 +10 Uni
T8 24/30 Court
T9 26/32 court
T10 26/32 +4 court (? disband a sword)
T11 29/32 Cop (in14 - less with mining sheep)



Of course GA would change all the numbers
GA immed after court would give 36/39 shields -> Cop in 12 (11 if 2 sheep mined by turn 7) Newtons would complete approx 3 turns after GA completes. Worker shortage is a problem - perhaps those idle ones near Osaka could be brought here
I have not factored in WLTK days - I dont know the specifics of this effect

 

[Abegweit]

I tend to want the GA in 12 turns because Paris could have some better shape then - but in 12 turns it won't be great either.

Paris in 12 will have its harbour, lib, uni and court. It will be in fine shape to build wonders, making 42 spt minus waste which should be at most 10%, maybe just five. It should also net 80 bpt.

I'm also leaning towards joining the one desparetely roading the hill into Orleans to get things started there

This is a good idea. Stop roading the hill and road the plains to the ne instead. Then join when done.

To build workers in India, both cities need a granary first and won't build unis for a while. Those two towns (with unis and court) are producing more beakers than Const.

Delhi can do three-turn workers w/o a granary.

 

[Abegweit]

I have not factored in WLTK days - I dont know the specifics of this effect

Let's see what the numbers are when the harbour is finished.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I tend to want the GA in 12 turns because Paris could have some better shape then - but in 12 turns it won't be great either. I don't see many more workers there in 12 turns.

Thats only a small part of the many things that matter for the golden age timing of course.

I'm also leaning towards joining the one desparetely roading the hill into Orleans to get things started there

On turn #10 from now, Orleans could provide the first worker.
If we join that worker in #3, the first is out on #7, 2nd on #9... well 1 turn spared at the cost of a roaded hill...

And the cost of 3gpt for upkeep. So it's a bad plan.

To build workers in India, both cities need a granary first and won't build unis for a while. Those two towns (with unis and court) are producing more beakers than Const.

Oh ye, i forgot we'd need granaries there.

By then however we will know sanitation and want Paris to be site 20...

Indeed, Paris has double commerce because of the sheep and collosus. It will have 300% science bonus against 100% in another city. This town is the first one to be size 21.
Paris should also not build workers at size 12 before it could have a hospital. This will delay both wonders. Together, those are worth over 100bpt.
Maxing out Paris is one of our highest priorities.

 

[Andronicus]

Let's see what the numbers are when the harbour is finished.

What's your thoughts on wasting a MDI to speed harbour by 1 turn?

 

[WackenOpenAir]

What's your thoughts on wasting a MDI to speed harbour by 1 turn?

Speeding up only the harbor is not so interesting. Speeding up everything including the wonders is more interesting and may be worth the life of an MDI. I'd first build the harbor in 2 turns for sure. We can then see what production we have with WLTK and see if it actually even makes a difference. That one turn again be lost if one of the later buildings is short a shield because the city grew 1 turn too late. If we can calulate and be sure that the turn is not gonna be lost, then you could think about sacrificing an MDI for 150 or so beakers and 3gpt. (earlier build + MDI upkeep)

I doubt that is a good trade, and even if it is, i don't want to go trough calculating if it even pays back for this little thing.

 

[Andronicus]

And the cost of 3gpt for upkeep. So it's a bad plan.

Not sure I understand here - are you referring to the slave on the hill not requiring upkeep?

My thoughts are the sooner we have some workers to improve Paris the better - it appears joining the current slave then getting Orleans up to size 3 where it will have 5fpt surplus so could be a 2 turn worker factory is best compromise although this does stop our upgradable warriors.
ie
this turn stop roading, move 1N Orleans builds warriors till WF ready
2 turns from now join slave to Orleans -> size 2.09, 4fpt surplus
3 turns later size 3.10 and 2 turn WF ready
-> workers on turns 7, 9, 11, etc who can improve Paris for its wonder building

edit delaying workers another 2 turns to allow Orleans to grow size 4 would allow 10 spt 2 turn warrior - worker factory, othwise GA would allow this at size 3

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Yes, you trade 1 free worker for 2 workers that cost 6 gpt.

The important point is that 32 turns from now, we have as many population in workerform as we can. We save gpt for a long time with the slave.

 

[Andronicus]

If our number 1 aim at the moment is getting Paris up to speed with maxing its science potential ASAP then it makes sense to
1) obtain workers to develop Paris's tiles ASAP
2) to sacrifice a few units to get harbour, lib, uni, court built in 10 turns rather than 12 so it can go on to build science wonders sooner. One turn sooner on harbour will be one turn sooner on other buildings if we are prepared to sacrifice an occasional unit. WLTK day may reduce the number of units needing to be sacrificed to make up the numbers as may a GA say after lib build.

 

[Abegweit]

Comparing corruption and waste in Thebes, it seems pretty clear that the effect of WLTK day is to reduce waste by one third. Looking at Paris, it seems that corruption is rounded UP. According to CAII (and my understanding of the subject), corruption in Paris is 20%. 24 shields * 80%= 19.2 but we are making 20. 82 commerce % 80%= 49.6 but we are making 50.

If all this is right, corruption in Paris should be 13 1/3% after the harbour is built. So looking at the figures again, we get:

Option 1. One-turn harbour
T1 20/24 + 10 Harbour
T2 21/24 Lib
T3 23/26 Lib
T4 23/26 Uni
T5 25/28 Uni
T6 25/28 Uni
T7 26/30 + 1 Uni
T8 26/30 Court
T9 28/32 Court
T10 28/32 Court

Option 2 Two-turn harbour
T1 20/24 Harbour
T2 20/24 Harbour
T3 23/26 Lib
T4 23/26 Lib
T5 25/28 Uni
T6 25/28 Uni
T7 26/30 Uni
T8 26/30 Uni
T9 28/32 Court
T10 28/32 Court
T11 30/34 Court

Conclusion: to save a turn, we would have to burn a warrior as well as the MDI. It puts a crimp in our war plans but I would say it's worth it.

Note that there is only one way that a GA could speed this up. If the court is built before the uni and the GA starts anytime before the court is finished then we save a turn. This is true whether or not we build a one-turn harbour. Under these circumstances, there is no need to burn the worker.

Edit: there is another way to do this if we decide on early GA. This sequence works quite well:

T1 20/24 Lib
T2 20/24 Lib
T3 21/26 Uni
T4 21/26 Uni
T5 32/39 Uni <--- GA before this point
T6 32/39 Uni
T7 34/42 Harbour
T8 37/42 Court
T9 39/45 + 4 Court

 

[WackenOpenAir]

These are tiny details. Anyway i don't really like the idea of sacrificing units. I think 1 failed attack is enough.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I have been thinking about the GA and the workers.

I am sorry, i cannot give a nice calculation. It is too complicated for that. After looking at it from different angles, i think we should not have build MDI from const in the comming 30 turns.

We really need those workers, not only for joining, but maybe even more importantly to irrigate so that cities can also have growth by themselves and after 21, support etra scientists.

If we'd build 20MDI, instead of workers in Const we'd capture some extra towns but we'd not have the workers to work their tiles anyway. That limits the value of these towns to unit support. Even if we bulid workers from India, we'd have so many tiles to irrigate (half the world actually) that the extra cities would not be much of an iddition for a long while to come.

So it's pretty much just unit support instead of workers. Sure, we will be paying quite some unit support, but its worth it.

In other words: our priority is to increase our population (as it is always in civ) and workers are gonna do a much better job at that than MDI.

So i think we should have GA in 12, and just build workers in const.

Edit:
We will probably also capture 4 slaves or so. Not enough to make the difference.

 

[Andronicus]

Re WLTK day
rereading Axelman's article it appears WLTK day has effects on both distance (0 in Paris) and rank corruption. I have difficulty doing the math as for 1 thing I dont know how to find out L, but it would appear that the effects on Paris may be more modest than on Thebes

DISTANCE CORRUPTION

For all non-communal government types, the distance corruption component is proportional to the distance of a given city from its closest Palace. For communal governments, the distance to the closest Palace is considered to be the same for all cities on a given map. The &#8220;closest palace&#8221; to a city can be the Palace, the Forbidden Palace, or any other Wonder with the &#8220;reduces corruption&#8221; ability.

For corruption purposes, distance is always an integer number, and is given by:

Code:
d = max(x,y) + min(x,y)/2
where
max(x,y) denotes the maximum between x and y,
min(x,y) denotes the minimum between x and y,
x is the distance in the NW/SE direction,
y is the distance in the NE/SW direction,
and the integer division is rounded down.In the special case of communal governments, the distance for all cities is taken as:

Code:
d = (MaxD) / 4where MaxD = (MapW+MapH)/4, MapW is the width of the map, and MapH is the height of the map, as given in the editor.

The distance, d, is used to get the adjusted distance, da, as follows:

Code:
da = 0.5^Ni * min(Gd * t * d, MaxD)
where
Ni is the number of anti-corruption buildings,
t = 1 if the city is on the trade network
5/4 otherwise
Gd = 3/2 for Rampant corruption (Despotism)
3/4 for Minimal corruption (Democracy)
1 otherwise
For waste calculations only, when the city is in a WLTKD celebration, divide da by 2.

So each anti-corruption building, which is a city improvement with the &#8220;reduces corruption&#8221; ability in the editor (Courthouse and Police Station), divides distance corruption by 2.

Finally, the exact value of the distance corruption component is given by:

Code:
Cd = da /MaxDRANK CORRUPTION

The rank corruption component depends on the rank (R) and optimal city number (Nopt) of each city.

In a non-communal type of government all cities of an empire are ranked in order of distance to the capital, starting at zero for the capital itself. If several cities have the same distance to the capital, they are ranked in order of founding, and if they also have the same date of founding, they are ranked by their order in the database. In a communal form of government, all cities have the same rank, which is half the total number of cities in the empire, rounded down.

Each city also has its own optimal city number, Nopt, given by:

Code:
Nopt = max(OCN * (L/100 * (1 + c + Gr + Gp*Nwe) + 0.25*Ni), 1)
where
OCN is the optimal number of cities for the map size,
as found in the editor
L is the percentage of optimal cities for the current
difficulty level, as given in the editor
Nwe is the number of active Wonders in the empire with
the &#8220;reduces corruption&#8221; ability
(Forbidden Palace, SPHQ)
c = 0.25 for a commercial civilization,
0 otherwise
Gr = 0.1 for minimal or nuisance corruption
2 for communal corruption
0 otherwise
Gp = 3/8 non-communal corruption
3 for communal corruption
For waste calculations only, when the city is in a WLTKD celebration, add OCN/4 to Nopt.

The rank corruption for a city is then given by:

Code:
Cr = R / (2 * Nopt), if R < Nopt
(2 * R &#8211; Nopt) / (2 * Nopt) otherwise

 

[Andronicus]

I have been thinking about the GA and the workers.

I am sorry, i cannot give a nice calculation. It is too complicated for that. After looking at it from different angles, i think we should not have build MDI from const in the comming 30 turns.

We really need those workers, not only for joining, but maybe even more importantly to irrigate so that cities can also have growth by themselves and after 21, support etra scientists.

If we'd build 20MDI, instead of workers in Const we'd capture some extra towns but we'd not have the workers to work their tiles anyway. That limits the value of these towns to unit support. Even if we bulid workers from India, we'd have so many tiles to irrigate (half the world actually) that the extra cities would not be much of an iddition for a long while to come.


So it's pretty much just unit support instead of workers. Sure, we will be paying quite some unit support, but its worth it.

In other words: our priority is to increase our population (as it is always in civ) and workers are gonna do a much better job at that than MDI.

So i think we should have GA in 12, and just build workers in const.

Agree workers are higher priority, but what about workers in Bombay (could build granary next turn) and Orleans - workers in Con will take too long to get to Paris - we want workers there ASAP I think

How many workers will we want - for irrigating, railing and folding in after hospitals built?
What will workers do in meantime? Paris obviously has need. I would suggest some plant and chop teams to speed production of hospitals (esp for Con after it finishes worker factory duties)
If we know how many workers we need once sanitation is known and how many turns to sanitation we could work out when we need to start Con on worker duty - the later we start the less time paying support costs. I suggest 6-8 for Paris ASAP anyway.

Edit
Since all bar 1 Bombay citizens are Indians - will workers produced there mostly be Indian slaves? And therefore free of upkeep, or is it likely new citizen on growth (Byzantine) be asigned to worker duties?

 

[WackenOpenAir]

How many workers will we want - for irrigating, railing and folding in after hospitals built?

We want as many as we can support and a few more.

I have just been thinking of a new plan. If we do make the MDI from const in GA now, we could conquer extra towns. If we have a bunch of workers to go there (Portugal / Spain), those could build forests and cut them to turn the population into slaves. This would provide us upkeep free workers for joining. Maybe this could both give us the workers we want, and the cities for free upkeep and farms later on. We'd need some workers to forest cut them out of their towns though. (And then irrigate so that the pop grows back quickly)

I gotta sleep now though. Tomorrow i'll think a bit more if this could work out.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Can't sleep, but made up my mind.

To compare these things, i have been looking only at the next 30 turns. But after that, we will have all our towns with nothing to build than units and we will be needing many many workers.

We should go for the workers from Const, and make as many slaves with forest cuts as possible.

Growing population is our goal. Making workers is making population. Those workers in turn will do the forest plants and cuts, followed by irrigation to make even more population in turn. And then.... We make 1000bpt

 

[Abegweit]

Re WLTK day
rereading Axelman's article it appears WLTK day has effects on both distance (0 in Paris) and rank corruption. I have difficulty doing the math as for 1 thing I dont know how to find out L, but it would appear that the effects on Paris may be more modest than on Thebes

L is 60 for C3C deity.

Skipping the MAX part...
Nopt = OCN * (L/100 * (1 + c + Gr + Gp*Nwe) + 0.25*Ni)
Nopt = 20 * (.6 * ( 1 + 0 + .1 + 3/8 * 1 ) + .25 * 0)

Nopt = 20 * (.6 * 1.475) = 17.7

Cr = R / (2 * Nopt), if R < Nopt

R is less than Nopt whether or not the city is celebrating so I am afraid that the answer is that WLTK day will have absolutely no effect on Paris.

This also appears to indicate that a court has no effect either but I am pretty sure that it adds 10% to the max corruption experienced by a city, meaning that it would cap corruption in Paris at 10%.

Re-doing the figures once more based on consistent 20% corruption before a court, we get:

Option 1. One-turn harbour
T1 20/24 + 10 Harbour
T2 20/24 Lib
T3 21/26 Lib
T4 21/26 Uni
T5 23/28 Uni
T6 23/28 Uni
T7 24/30 + 9 Uni
T8 24/30 Court
T9 26/32 Court
T10 26/32 + 4 Court

Option 2 Two-turn harbour
T1 20/24 Harbour
T2 20/24 Harbour
T3 21/26 Lib
T4 21/26 Lib
T5 23/28 Uni
T6 23/28 Uni
T7 24/30 Uni
T8 24/30 + 6 Uni
T9 26/32 Court
T10 26/32 Court
T11 28/34 Court

Option 3 Early GA
T1 20/24 Lib
T2 20/24 Lib
T3 21/26 Uni
T4 21/26 Uni
T5 32/39 Uni <--- GA before this point
T6 32/39 Uni
T7 34/42 Harbour
T8 34/42 Court
T9 36/45 + 10 Court

Viewed strictly by the effect on Paris, it seems clear that early GA is the way to go. Cops would take an additional 10 turns and Newt about 12 more. And the one-turn harbour method is simply too expensive. Burning two MDIs and 2 warriors is just too much. The other two options cost one unit or one turn.

 

[Abegweit]

Can't sleep, but made up my mind.

To compare these things, i have been looking only at the next 30 turns. But after that, we will have all our towns with nothing to build than units and we will be needing many many workers.

We should go for the workers from Const, and make as many slaves with forest cuts as possible.

Growing population is our goal. Making workers is making population. Those workers in turn will do the forest plants and cuts, followed by irrigation to make even more population in turn. And then.... We make 1000bpt

Agreed here. The problem is that training workers in GA is such a waste. Can we not avoid this? GA now producing 20 MDI in twenty turns followed by endless workers. Or x workers now followed GA with MDI?

 

[Abegweit]

Since all bar 1 Bombay citizens are Indians - will workers produced there mostly be Indian slaves? And therefore free of upkeep, or is it likely new citizen on growth (Byzantine) be asigned to worker duties?

If a worker is trained, the last citizen will take the job. In Bombay the worker will be Byzantine. Further workers will be too so long as the city grows before the next one is trained.