SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

Lots of great testing!

So far I've only looked at mdy's save, but there's an interesting simplicity there.

There are only 5 techs before Astro. Total beaker value: 4212. At the 100% in mdy's save, that would take 54t and with a double-bulb, we have Astro at 20BC. Meditation doesn't cause troubles if we don't research CoL. All we need is one more GS plus 4212b. Pretty simple really. We can probably do it faster, while continuing to REX.

 

[mdy]

As for which City to build the Oracle in, from where are we going to pump Settlers if we turn the capital into a Great Person Farm? I don't see a great location to do so. Do you honestly want to give up REXing just to keep the capital as a Great Person Farm? Can't we be better off by REXing a lot, including to another couple of Great Person Farm locations?

I was thinking that we would build whatever settlers we needed to before revolting to CS. By 1000BC both the capital and the gold city should be able to contribute to our rex whilst running 2 scientists simultaneoulsy.

 

[babybluepants]

Worker: Dropped of on marble after building/roading gold and build road on marble. Sleeps till masonry then builds quarry and chops the forest on the island 2N 1E of marble. Put hammers into granary for 1T to delay Oracle.

I was chopping the forest on the 1-tile island SE of marble for 16h into LH. This puts the worker on marble the turn I get Masonry, with Wtg-Myst-Maso. It's 2t behind for roading the marble, though.

 

[shyuhe]

I actually just removed the "On Deck" from my game summary to avoid confusion. Should leave it to shyuhe. Think you were originally listed next, but it's totally flexible.

We can move people around at any time so not an issue. I think the testing going on right now is good - let's let it go another day or two while working on a PPP so that Ras can play (or at least start the set) towards the end of this week. I think the next set will run through the Oracle (barring crazy unforeseen developments).

On game:
TBH, I'm having a bit of trouble keeping up with the discussion right now and contributing. I think that we could use some sort of clarification and summary of all of our early goals. There is a difference between "earliest Astro = best" and "relatively early Astro would be a strong move on this map". If we set earliest Astro as a primary goal, stuff like early Caste/Pac and grabbing most beakers with Oracle obviously seems attractive. If we wanna expand and grow aggressively at the same time, it doesn't appeal nearly as much - we need Slavery, Colossus and Alpha/Currency more than anything, IMHO.

The big picture debate always kicks in when it comes time to decide the Oracle tech. It looks like the primary candidates right now are MC, philo, and machinery. What are the best dates for these techs right now? I think philo and machinery are both around 1050 BC but I don't know what the best MC date is right now. Knowing those dates should help us make a better decision here.

Lots of great testing!

So far I've only looked at mdy's save, but there's an interesting simplicity there.

There are only 5 techs before Astro. Total beaker value: 4212. At the 100% in mdy's save, that would take 54t and with a double-bulb, we have Astro at 20BC. Meditation doesn't cause troubles if we don't research CoL. All we need is one more GS plus 4212b. Pretty simple really. We can probably do it faster, while continuing to REX.

Is getting astro so early so important though? I'm concerned that even if we get it early, we won't have the production necessary to find the AI, much less starting to conquer them. Also, keep in mind that we need to think of a way to pay for what will likely become a very expensive empire once we start warring. I guess we can always raze though...

Also, how will we get the two great scientists in 54 turns without pacifism?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I was chopping the forest on the 1-tile island SE of marble for 16h into LH. This puts the worker on marble the turn I get Masonry, with Wtg-Myst-Maso. It's 2t behind for roading the marble, though.

That idea of chopping the SE Forest is a really good one, since our Cultural borders will never expand over that square. So, other than waiting for Math to come in, the Chop won't get more valuable in the future and we might as well capitalize on it early on. As you suggest, the timing may have to be adjusted to be after improving the Marble.


The island to the NE of there, the one which we will probably eventually settle for Clam + a Grassland Hills Mine plus low Maintenance, also has a Forest that could be Chopped.

It only gives us 13 Hammers (and only 9 Hammers in Paris if we were to try and Chop it before founding a City to the SW of the Marble). We could optionally wait until the Marble City's borders expand to 750 Culture, which would put the Forest Chop within our Cultural borders, increasing its value to 20 Hammers (which would likely be Math-enhanced to 30 Hammers by that late point in the game), but if we were to settle on that square for the Clam + GHMine City plus Low-maintenance City, then we'd get 0 Hammers for the Forest, so Chopping it early may be in our best interests.


If we really don't want to build the Oracle in the capital, then Marble City seems to be the best spot to put it, so these Forest Chops might be best used going into the Oracle after the Marble is hooked-up, since:
a) the Forest Chops are worth "double value" when used in a Wonder with the relevant Resource connected (Marble, in this case)
AND
b) it is hard to get whipped Hammers into a Wonder efficiently, except via overflow. Chopped Hammers, however, don't require you to invest some Hammers in a different build item like overflow Hammers do, so you can get their full amount contributing to the Wonder


It is probably not worth trying to Chop the Forest SW of Marble if we're going to settle on that Forest, as it only yields 6 Hammers in Gold City--which is pretty much only 1 Hammer per Worker turn, obtained at a time when our Worker could be doing something else (even just building a Road on the Marble itself is probably a better use for the Worker at that time).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I guess we can always raze though...

Absolutely! Unless we get a new Happiness Resource or a Commerce Resource (Gold, Gem, Silver, and possibly some Calendar Resources like Dyes if we have Astronomy at that point--which implies that we also have Calendar), we should probably strongly consider razing Cities.

Even a far away City with just Seafood Resources (if it isn't already large-sized or early on in the game) would be a good candidate for razing. It would cost us a lot to grow it and who knows how long we'd keep those Seafood Resources during wartime anyway.


Going for a Domination win usually requires a better setup in terms of economic techs, including several rounds of leveraging your Liberalism-path techs for trading with the AIs. Since we probably won't be going down that path, razing Cities will be a smart move, particularly since we almost certainly won't be making it to State Property (Communism for State Property has Liberalism as a pre-requisite).

Also, how will we get the two great scientists in 54 turns without pacifism?

Let's see... 6 GPP / turn for 2 Scientists * 54 turns = 324 GPP. That's enough GPP for our 2nd Great Person, which only costs 300 GPP, as long as our 1st and 2nd Great People are born in two separate Cities.


It does seem kind of silly to go for Meditation over Polytheism if:
a) We don't need Monasteries since we won't be going for either Code of Laws or Philosophy
AND
b) It means not being able to build Code of Law's cheap Courthouses


So, I think that we need to be very clear on whether or not we'll go for Philosophy + Pacifism on the turn that we learn Mysticism. If not, Polytheism is the way to go, if yes, Meditation is the way to go. If nothing else, then learning Mysticism (or 1 turn prior to doing so if we think that we'll forget to pause play) is a good point to pause play.

Oddly enough, how we get to Priesthood for the Oracle is an important decision, similar to what we'll take from the Oracle.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Is getting astro so early so important though? I'm concerned that even if we get it early, we won't have the production necessary to find the AI, much less starting to conquer them. Also, keep in mind that we need to think of a way to pay for what will likely become a very expensive empire once we start warring. I guess we can always raze though...

Getting Astro early MAKES our production cheaper. 2popping swordsmen with a forge gives us two swords. It's the ultimate 2pop unit at this point of the game. We also need Construction, of course, for some catapults. Then we pulverize the AIs before they have a chance to get Feudalism.

So far, all our targets but one are coastal, including the three new AI cities. We know this by the Demo Screen increases in owned land tiles. Galleons/galleys don't slow down in enemy waters, so we should be able to move rapidly from target to target.

Our third GP can be used for a GA to handle some of our costs also.

In any case, if we can wipe out one, two, three, or more AIs rapidly, then the end-game will be infinitely easier.

Also, how will we get the two great scientists in 54 turns without pacifism?

One is already done at 1050BC, the other is already in progress in Gold. We could probably have a third by 20BC, but I don't think it will take us 54t anyway. It's fewer beakers if we research alpha and trade for math+IW. Furthermore, we could possibly get Calendar in trade, if we're lucky.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Dhoom, you're up late again...

​

 

[LowtherCastle]

More on early Astro making our production cheaper

1. AIs could still be REXing. This means they haven't mobilized significantly, so we need fewer attackers.

2. AIs have fewer cities. This means 1) fewer targets and 2) less production capability to mobilize their defenses, so we need fewer attackers.

3. AIs will be defended by archers. Some might not even have a metal hooked up yet, so we need fewer attackers.

4. Earlier, rapid city capture wins us a disproportionately large amount of gold compared to our needs. (Low inflation, smaller empire, etc.)

Edit:

5. Possibility of capturing the GLH earlier.

6. Galleons can take a more direct line over ocean tiles to targets.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Dhoom, you're up late again...

​

Yeah, I took a nap in the evening this time, though.


Okay, so you have me sold on getting Astronomy, regardless of whether or not we can circumnavigate before Optics and regardless of whether we can also reach all of the AIs pre-Astronomy (the two concepts are not necesssarily inter-connected). Astronomy will help us out.

It's also clear that going down the Libralism route is a slow path to Astronomy.

However, is there much of a difference speed-wise between going the 4-to-5 Great Person route via Pacifism and possibly Caste System versus just slow-building 2 Great Scientists without either Pacifism or Caste System?

I would think that the +1 Happiness from a State Religion (plus possibly an additional Happiness or two from Temples) would play a role in the calculation.


It seems that if people are getting a Great Scientist roughly around the same time as they are building an Oracle, then we can most certainly grab Metal Casting and Philosophy almost simultaneously. As I suggested, grabbing Metal Casting instead of Machinery with the Oracle allows us to whip a Forge and run an Engineer Specialist alongside 2 Scientist Specialists. Under Pacifism, that's 3 Specialists * 3 base GPP + 100% GPP from Pacifism = 9 GPP / turn + 100% = 18 GPP / turn

Say that such a City (Gold City?) were to aim to generate Great Person 1 and Great Person 5, then we'd be starting at 0 GPP when Philosophy is learned. Let's say that it takes another 30 turns to get set up (getting our State Religion in Gold City, whipping a Forge, and regrowing our population to be able to hire 3 Specialists while workign the Gold), after which point it would take us:
750 GPP / 18 GPP / turn = 42 turns to get our 5th Great Person
or, if we only get 4 Great People,
600 GPP / 18 GPP / turn = 34 turns to get our 4th Great Person


Does that approach take us too long compared to Oracling Machinery?


On a similar note, if we go for Machinery with the Oracle and we miss building the Oracle, are we stuck up a creek without a paddle in terms of being able to get Astronomy at a reasonable date?


At least we can't "fail" to produce Great People--assuming that we are able to protect our Seafood Resources from being pillaged. Aiming to get several Great People gives us flexibility in case some of our plans go sour (missing out on the Oracle, for example).

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

@lC: the third scientist is really tricky in 54 turns. (second takes 50 turns in itself without pacifism/caste)

@dhoom: about chopping forests, we need one into Oracle with bonus from marble to build the wonder in marble city around 1000 bc. I couldn't find the worker turns to chop both (there is no way to chop the forest south west of the marble before settling the city so this idea is out -) eastern forests. I will try to slightly delay city 5 (I had it nearly done in my last save) to build a second worker instead (maybe we can shave a turn or two for the oracle this way).

worker management during last test: gold -> raoding -> roading marble -> hooking up marble -> hooking up furs -> chop forest for marble -> planned to road furs (here there is potential to improve and find maybe 5/6 worker turns in addition by choping the forest before improving furs -the oracle should be started by then - though I definatly need a second one to chop both oracle forests because of archipelago nightmare )

 

[LowtherCastle]

Does that approach take us too long compared to Oracling Machinery?


On a similar note, if we go for Machinery with the Oracle and we miss building the Oracle, are we stuck up a creek without a paddle in terms of being able to get Astronomy at a reasonable date?

Each GP costs more. I'd rather use as many as possible on GAs, if we have any available. There's a limited window of oportunity to use swords+cats. If missed, you're into a whole new research-mobilzation era of the game (the maceman era). Civ has always been like that. That's why some teams finish eons ahead of others. The question is, how much damage can we do in the swordsman era?

If we get beat to the Oracle slingshot, we fold up shop (or at least I do).

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

At least we can't "fail" to produce Great People--assuming that we are able to protect our Seafood Resources from being pillaged. Aiming to get several Great People gives us flexibility in case some of our plans go sour (missing out on the Oracle, for example).

Unless I missunderstood you, you are planning to bulb machinery with a GE. It is more likely to get the oracle than this. (I can fail getting the GE three times in a row every day... and I am up! )

edit: beside you need the GE before the GS... I really think all this is a bad idea. Imo it would need to produce a slow GE (at +3 gpp without polution) as first great people to have any chance, but then it would be way too slow.

ie I think we should oracle MC only if we drop the astro plan.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

DOTMAP INPUT NEEDED (so we have less tests to run ):

city 2 goes for gold. (t71)
city 3 goes south west of marble (t82, hard tom improve it without butchering too many parisians)

Where goes city 4?

-> near stone
-> near fur/crab
-> others?

I vote fur/crab as testing tells us it will be really hard to include a pyramids build before 1000 bc in any case. fur/crab gives us a full new pop to play with and hunting is only a one turn delay once we get the library up in Paris.

Opinions?

 

[LowtherCastle]

DOTMAP INPUT NEEDED (so we have less tests to run ):

city 2 goes for gold. (t71)
city 3 goes south west of marble (t82, hard tom improve it without butchering too many parisians)

I've been testing an alternative to T82 that I'm interested in feedback on, in particular from mdy, if it improves your results. After the galley but while Paris is still at pop4, switch 1 clam to the mine for 1t. This delays pop6 by one turn, but gets the lh done in advance.

Since Marble gets the fish nets slowly anyway, I don't see a problem on this.

Another possible fine-tuning on the mdy-machinery variant, would be to chop the northern forest into the lh before quarrying the marble, since the worker sleeps on the marble anyway, waiting for Masonry.

Another variant focuses on getting the library in Gold sooner. In this one, the worker first chops the NE forest for 16h into the Gold granary before moving down to marble to quarry the marble. Gold then 1pops the granary at some optimal time, then builds/2pops the lib asap. The notion of the lib asap is twofold, popping the borders asap to net the second clams and to get the 2 sci running asap (of course).

Where goes city 4?

-> near stone
-> near fur/crab
-> others?

I vote fur/crab as testing tells us it will be really hard to include a pyramids build before 1000 bc in any case. fur/crab gives us a full new pop to play with and hunting is only a one turn delay once we get the library up in Paris.

Opinions?

This depends on our goal. I tried it with a machinery slingshot and I have trouble not losing turns. I would like us to get the machinery slingshot as soon as humanly possible, just in case. BUt ideally, we could also develop the furs at the same time, because I agree with you that the +1 and the improved furs is awesome.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm thinking that all this testing would be more effective if we continually shared with each other the "tricks" that we find to optimize little details.

FOr example, I hadn't even thought of chopping anything around Marble till mdy mentioned it yesterday. THat gave me the idea to chop into Gold. I think GOld could highly benefit from an "asap" granary because it actually grows quite slowly, working the gold all the time, even though it has all that seafood.

 

[LowtherCastle]

As far as testing, Ras, imo we have three basic variants to test:
1. Machinery slingshot
2. MC slingshot + Pyramids + REX
3. MC slingshot + REX

I guess you could add a fourth:

4. Philo slingshot + Pyramids + REX

EDIT: I don't really like the idea of spamming GPs with CS+Pacifism without Rep.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

OK tx for the replies LC, will test those paths further after work. (city 4 will be next to furs in the "no pyramids" tests, next to stone in the others ofc)

edit: xpost with Dhoom

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Unless I missunderstood you, you are planning to bulb machinery with a GE. It is more likely to get the oracle than this. (I can fail getting the GE three times in a row every day... and I am up! )

edit: beside you need the GE before the GS... I really think all this is a bad idea. Imo it would need to produce a slow GE (at +3 gpp without polution) as first great people to have any chance, but then it would be way too slow.

ie I think we should oracle MC only if we drop the astro plan.

Okay, it's my fault for not being clear here.

My point about running an Engineer Specialist is that we would do so alongside Scientist Specialists and, ideally, we will NEVER generate a Great Engineer at all, or if we do, it is our 4th Great Person.

Let's look at GPP production without Caste System, because that's the case that I am talking about running an Engineer Specialist for. If we use Caste Sytem, then we'll just run purely Scientist Specialists.

So, if we don't have Pacifism, then, when running 2 Scientists, it takes us:
150 / 6 = 25 turns for our first Great Person
300 / 6 = 50 turns for our second Great Person
450 / 6 = 75 turns for our third Great Person (probably too long, at least certainly not doable in "54 turns")
and too long for our fourth Great Person

If we do have Pacifism, then when running 2 Scientists, assuming that we did not use the Oracle to get Philosophy, it takes us:
150 / 6 = 25 turns for our first Great Person (because we don't have Pacifism yet)
300 / 12 = 25 turns for our second Great Person
450 / 12 = 38 turns for our third Great Person
600 / 12 = 50 turns for our fourth Great Person
750 / 12 = 63 turns for our fifth Great Person

But, what if we could run a 3rd Scientist? Well, we're using Slavery, so we can't. But we can instead run an Engineer or a Merchant Specialist (or 2 Merchant Specialists, or one of each, or possibly, with a lot of whipping, 1 Engineer and 2 Merchants).

Running a 3rd Specialist could speed up our Great People generation significantly when we are running Pacifism. for example:
450 / 18 = 25 turns for our third Great Person
600 / 18 = 34 turns for our fourth Great Person
750 / 18 = 42 turns for our fifth Great Person

Suddenly, the numbers look even better.


Now, LC is advocating spending 54 turns on Great Person generation, which gives us 2 Scientists. Those 2 Scientists will Lightbulb Astronomy, since that's the most efficient tech for our Great Scientists to Lightbulb (as per LC's earlier explanation in this thread about tech bonuses). It makes reasonable sense, too, in that you need about 1.8 to 1.9 Great Scientists to Lightbulb Astronomy, so they are relatively efficiently used.

In his scenario, we would still need to self-tech Optics.


With Pacifism, we get more Great People. We still want 2 Great Scientists for Astronomy.

We will invest a third Great Scientist in Pacifism.

At this point, we are "even" between the two approaches, as long as you are willing to believe that we would research Code of Laws in both cases, otherwise we are still behind by the cost of researching Code of Laws in the Pacifism case.

If we also were to use the Oracle on Metal Casting, we'd be behind by the cost of Machinery, too.

However, I'm suggesting that by using Pacifism (really, it's mdy's idea), we'd get more than those 3 Great People.

Let's say that the 4th Great Person that we get is a Great Scientist. Well, we'll just use him to Lightbulb Optics. The cost is roughly the same as Machinery.

If however, we happen to generate a Great Engineer, while hoping for a Great Scientist, we'll just Lightbulb Machinery instead.

Now, let's say that we will aim to get 5 Great People. 1 for Philosophy, 2 for Astronomy, and 1 for either Optics or Machinery. That leaves us 1 Great Person to figure out what we're going to do with.


We can play around with this 5th Great Person in multiple ways.

One way is to say that we'll get an Academy. An Academy isn't going to be all that great on this map, particularly pre-Bureaucracy, and we might not even want a post-Bureaucracy Academy, since once we learn Civil Service, we'll hopefully be done most or all of our teching.


So, let's say that we'll aim to Lightbulb with this 5th Great Person, but will use it on an Academy if its our 5th Great Scientist in a row. That's reasonably fair, right? I mean, it won't help us ALL that much as a 5th Great Scientist, but everyone loves an Academy, so it won't be the end of the world if we get an Academy.


If we fail to get a Great Engineer by our 4th Great Person, then we're at a point where we should just give up on trying to get a Great Engineer and should start self-teching Machinery.

However, we'd be okay with getting a 5th Great Scientist, but we'd probably be even happier getting a Great Merchant at this point, so that we can Lightbulb most of Civil Service.


Okay, so for one or more of our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Great People, we can try to get either a Great Scientist or a Great Engineer. To avoid getting 2 Great Engineers, we can only have 1 City running an Engineer Specialist at a time, until said City generates a Great Person, at which point, if it did not get a Great Engineer, another City could add an Engineer Specialist (or the same City could keep trying for a Great Engineer, whichever approach is deemed to be more efficient at the time).

For our 3rd, 4th, and 5th Great Perople, we can try to get either a Great Scientist or a Great Merchant. Again, to avoid getting 2 Great Merchants, we can only ahve 1 City running 1 to 2 Merchant Specialists at a time, until said City generats a Great Person, at which point, if it did not get a Great Merchant, another City could add 1 or 2 Great Merchant Specialists (or the same City could keep trying for a Great Merchant).


So, essentially, we'll play the odds in that we will hope to get mostly Great Scientists, so that we will still be able to "keep trying" to get a different Great Person type for our later Great People, which allows us to run more than 2 Specailists at a time while using Slavery.


Ideally, we will get ONE of a Great Engineer as our 4th Great Person or a Great Merchant as our 5th Great Person, with the rest of the Great People being Great Scientists.

If that scenario doesn't work out, we're still pretty flexible.

The worst case scenario is that we get a Great Engineer and a Great Merchant as our, say, 2nd and 3rd Great People, which means that we can only run Scientist Specialists while trying to get our 4th and 5th Great People. If such a case occurs, we're going to be stuck switching into Caste System.

But, as long as you only try for a Great Engineer in one City at a time and only try for a Great Merchant in one City at a time (which may or may not be the same City), then just about any other case allows us to skip using Caste System altogether, while still generating 5 Great People.

The nicest part about trying for either a Great Scientist or a Great Merchant as our 5th Great Person is that we can maximally get the Great Person in:
750 / 24 = 32 turns for our fifth Great Person


The whole idea is about playing the odds (Russian roulette, if you were) of "pretending to try" to get a non-Great-Scientist while actually hoping that we get mostly or all Great Scientists.

Getting a different Great Person type means that we'll get a Great Person that we can still use for Lightbulbing, but it unfortunately means that we will have to stop running Specialists of the corresponding type (no more Engineer Specialists if we got a Great Engineer, for example).


By not trying for a Great Engineer for our 5th Great Person, we will be able to start manual research on Machinery, without worrying about getting a Great Engineer that we won't be able to use for Lightbulbing. At this point, it means that we likely got 4 Great Scientists, so Optics will be Lightbulbable and our 5th Great Person is mostly going to be used for Civil Service... either to Lightbulb most of it as a Great Merchant or to help research it faster as an Academy.


If we do get a Great Engineer by the time that we get our 4th Great Person, then we'll use him to Lightbulb Machinery and will manually research Optics instead of manually researching Machinery.

The last Great Person can once again be used for an Academy, if it is a Great Scientist, or for Lightbulbing most of Civil Service, if it is a Great Merchant.


In fact, if we want, we can skip going for the 5th Great Person altogether.


Getting those 4 Great Scientists with Pacifism will take just a bit longer than getting 2 Great Scientists without Pacifism. If we are willing to "play the odds," and I don't see why we wouldn't, then we can feasibly speed up one or more of these 4 Great People, to bring the timing much closer between the two scenarios.


If we plan on getting 4 Great People, then we might not run any Merchant Specialists at all, but we'd still be able to leverage a 3rd Specialist by way of an Engineer Specialist, while hoping that we won't get a Great Engineer or that if we do, we'll get him as our 4th Great Person.


If our strategy requires us to try for 3 Great People without Pacifism, then a Pacifism approach is lightyears ahead.


In summary:
If we Oracle Machinery and aim not to run Pacifism, we'll need to manually research:
- Metal Casting = 1053 Flasks
- maybe we'll skip Code of Laws altogether or maybe we'll have to research Polytheism instead of Meditation, but I'll just pretend that we'll skip Code of Laws
- Optics = 1404 Flasks
1053 + 1404 = 2457 Flasks

If we Oracle Metal Casting and aim to run Pacifism, we'll need to manually research:
- Code of Laws = 819 Flasks
- One of Optics or Machinery = 1404 Flasks or 1638 Flasks, but let's assume the worst case of Machinery
819 + 1638 = 2457 Flasks


Look at that! The amount of manual Flasks to research is identical!

Of course, the Pacifism scenario will allow us to pop-rush Courthouses, if we choose to do so.


We're not even talking about running Caste System, so there isn't a cost to switching out of Slavery. There also isn't a cost of running 5 Scientist Specialists at a time instead of other potentially-profitable squares.


However, we are talking about running the occasional 3rd Specialist--a Great Engineer, for the Pacifism case. We would not dare to do so for the Oracle Machinery case, since a Great Engineer would not help us to Lightbulb Astronomy.


While the numbers for generating 4 Great People in the Pacifism case might put us slightly behind if we were to only run 2 Scientists at a time, we can leverage the Great Engineer to speed things up and help this scenario to have a competitive pace with the 2-Great-Person approach.


Now, let's take LC's further comment about wanting to use additional Great People for Golden Ages.

Non-Pacifism scenario: we have used 2 Great People, so we, say, will want to generate Great People 3, 4, and 5.

Pacifism scenario: we have used 4 Great People, so we, say, will want to generate Great People 5, 6, and 7. However, I will also provide the numbers for the 8th Great Person, in case we want to use the Pacifism's approach of Lightbulbing or Academying the 5th Great Person and thus would use Great People 6, 7, and 8 for Golden Ages. Let's see how the numbers stack up.


2 Specialists case:
Non-Pacifism Scenario's Great People:
450 / 6 = 75 turns for our third Great Person
600 / 6 = 100 turns for our fourth Great Person
750 / 6 = 125 turns for our fifth Great Person

Pacifism Scenario's Great People:
750 / 12 = 63 turns for our fifth Great Person
900 / 12 = 75 turns for our sixth Great Person
1050 / 12 = 88 turns for our seventh Great Person
1200 / 12 = 100 turns for our eighth Great Person (in case we want to use our fifth Great Person for an Academy or for Lightbulbing)

3 Specialists case:
Non-Pacifism Scenario's Great People:
450 / 9 = 50 turns for our third Great Person
600 / 9 = 67 turns for our fourth Great Person
750 / 9 = 84 turns for our fifth Great Person

Pacifism Scenario's Great People:
750 / 18 = 42 turns for our fifth Great Person
900 / 18 = 50 turns for our sixth Great Person
1050 / 18 = 59 turns for our seventh Great Person
1200 / 18 = 67 turns for our eighth Great Person (in case we want to use our fifth Great Person for an Academy or for Lightbulbing)

4 Specialists case:
Non-Pacifism Scenario's Great People:
450 / 12 = 38 turns for our third Great Person
600 / 12 = 50 turns for our fourth Great Person
750 / 12 = 63 turns for our fifth Great Person

Pacifism Scenario's Great People:
750 / 24 = 32 turns for our fifth Great Person
900 / 24 = 38 turns for our sixth Great Person
1050 / 24 = 44 turns for our seventh Great Person
1200 / 24 = 50 turns for our eighth Great Person (in case we want to use our fifth Great Person for an Academy or for Lightbulbing)


5 Specialists case:
Non-Pacifism Scenario's Great People:
450 / 15 = 30 turns for our third Great Person
600 / 15 = 40 turns for our fourth Great Person
750 / 15 = 50 turns for our fifth Great Person

Pacifism Scenario's Great People:
750 / 30 = 25 turns for our fifth Great Person
900 / 30 = 30 turns for our sixth Great Person
1050 / 30 = 35 turns for our seventh Great Person
1200 / 30 = 40 turns for our eighth Great Person (in case we want to use our fifth Great Person for an Academy or for Lightbulbing)



So, the 4-Great-Person Pacifism Scenario comes ahead in terms of the total number of techs and the ability to get future Golden Ages. The arrival of the pre-Astronomy Great People isn't that far behind the 2-Great-Person approach and may be close to equal if we run a 3rd Specialist by way of an Engineer Specialist.

The Pacifism Scenario also has the option of giving us a 5th Great Person for either Lightbulbing or an Academy, but the 2-Great-Person approach would take too long to generate the 3rd Great Person to help out... so, when comparing them head-to-head, we look at using only 4 Great People, but the Pacifism approach gives us the flexibility of using that 5th Great Person to get ahead in terms of Lightbulbing (or in terms of having an Academy), while STILL being able to get the 6th, 7th, and 8th Great People for 2 Golden Ages faster than the non-Pacifism approach.



Now, mdy has proposed an aggressive, third alternative, which is to Oracle Machinery and Lightbulb Philosophy. The issue with that approach is that we almost certainly will want to run Caste System for a while, giving up on Slavery, since we cannot afford to run an Engineer Specialist.

I'm simply offering an alternative that allows us to stay in Slavery the whole time and compete pretty closely in time with the 2-Great-Scientist non-Pacifism approach. If we were to decide to switch into Caste System for a short period of time with my scenario, then we'd definitely kick the pants off of the non-Pacifism approach in terms of our Astronomy timing, although at the cost of not being able to use Slavery for a while and temporarily losing some production due to hiring Scientist Specialists instead of working squares with citizens. That's kind of why I suggested an approach that still allows us to maintain about the same amount of production by playing the odds of Great People generation--so that we wouldn't fall behind production-wise.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

^^ I think I got you now, it is more about being able to use everything we got. (i thought you wanted to generate first a GE, then a GM then 2 GS )

note about pacifism though (you are talking of generating more than 5 GPs in the pacifism scenario): we can't really plan on how many turns we will be able to run the civic. As soon as u need units, the civic starts to be expensive (and u don't whip units while being in pacifism).

Most of that will be usefull to decide which path we go and for the next set though (I think I should play till completion of the Oracle).

I will try both approaches (MC and machinery from oracle). the philo variant is basically the same than machinery (COL costs less than MC) so I won't go on much with it except to try a pyramids build at the same time (option 4 from LC's post).

OT: I think it would help me if you could be a bit more synthetic concise in your posts (it's not a criticism, I am just bad in english so we might want to decrease the possibilities of missunderstandings) ?

edit: but thanks for the documented reply nevertheless!