SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

"Paris grows to Size 6 and hires an Engineer Specialist" Scenario:
Turn 121, 975 BC: City Size 6, Hire 1 Engineer Specialist
Turn 124, 900 BC: City Size 7, Work a Coast (still have the Engineer hired)
Turn 125, 875 BC: Whip the Trireme at City Size 7 (for 44 base overflow Hammers)
Turn 127, 825 BC: City Size 6, Hire 1 Engineer Specialist
Turn 129, 775 BC: Build Settler 6 (at Size 6 and 9/9 Happiness), switch GH Mine + Engineer to 2 Coast squares
Turn 130, 750 BC: Coast -> GH Mine (still working 1 Coast and 0 Engineer Specialists)
Turn 131, 725 BC: Build The Pyramids Still working 1 Coast and 0 Engineers
Turn 132, 700 BC: Grew into 1 Unhappiness at Size 7, 3-pop-whip Settler 6 (56 base overflow Hammers)
Turn 133, 675 BC: Still at Size 4
Turn 135, 625 BC: City Size 5
Turn 138, 550 BC: City Size 6, Hire 1 Engineer Specialist
Turn 141, 485 BC: City Size 7 with 1 Unhappiness, Fire Engineer and work the Coast
Turn 142, 470 BC: Complete The Pyramids with Paris at City Size 7 with 2 turns to grow to Size 8 after Revolting into Representation (with 2 base overflow Hammers)

Note that Paris will have 29 Great Engineer Great People Points. Actually, since we are building The Pyramids here (I forgot about this part), we'll have Great Engineer Great Person Points here ANYWAY! So, what will be the harm in a few more? ;)


So, I saved 1 turn on completing The Pyramids and am at 2 City Sizes larger. However, we will be down 1 Settler (i.e. we'll only have built Settler 6 and not Settler 7). I have a feeling, though, that we want this extra population in Paris so that we can switch to working Specialists under Caste System that much sooner.


Another alternative is to not hire an Engineer Specialist, not whip Settler 7, grow quickly, and plan to "spend" our free Concufian Missionary in Paris if Confucianism doesn't spread there within a few turns of the Religion being founded. I know that people seemed to be against this idea, but it would allow us to keep growing Paris instead of hiring an Engineer Specialist. Of course, instead of whipping Settler 7, we'd probably want to whip SOMETHING in order to finish off the last bit of The Pyramids, such as another Trireme. I'm not really in love this scenario. I mean, it's only offering +1 Happiness--possibly +2 Happiness with still slightly more growth potential than the first scenario of whipping 2 Settlers if we 3-pop-whip a Temple which means 2 more turns of grow when we are not "stalling" growth while building Settler 7--and at the expected cost of "using up" our Missionary.


I am open to running other tests if anyone can think of ideas of what we might do differently in Paris.


That said, I am currently sold on following the "Paris grows to Size 6 and hires an Engineer Specialist" Scenario, for a few reasons:
1. Getting City 7 probably won't help us all that much and will even likely hurt us, as it will have to be founded to the east or west at a Seafood-heavy location, which would just spread our defensive resources quite thin.

2. Being at City Size 5 is kind of lame if we shortly-thereafter want to start hiring Specialists.

3. Hiring the Engineer Specialist doesn't QUITE put us up by the 3 pop that we would have otherwise whipped away on a Settler, but we're close, what with the 2-Settler-whipping Scenario having us growing to Size 6 in 2 turns on Turn 143 while this Scenario would have us growing to Size 8 in 1 turn on Turn 143 (so, more than 2 population points ahead but less than the 3 population points that got whipped away in the 2-Settler-whipping Scenario).

4. If we had another Mine in Paris, we'd be working it. However, we don't have yet another Mine in Paris, so hiring an Engineer is a sneaky way of getting more base production out of Paris without having to whip & regrow. I mean, we built the Forge, so we might as well leverage it to its fullest potential by getting additional production out of its Engineer Specialist, right?
 
Okay, so we have a few semi-worked-out plans:

Paris is slated to grow a lot, hire an Engineer Specialist whenever we are at City Size 6 or above (except for a couple of turns while building Settler 6), and then whip the Trireme at the last minute (using each of the bonus free turns that I earned on non-Trireme-Hammer-decay). After the Trireme, it will whip Settler 6, and then the only other build item until Turn 142 will be The Pyramids.


Stone City will build Warrior -> Lighthouse (1-pop-whipped when it is almost completed) -> Granary (1-pop-whipped a few turns later) -> WHAT DO WE BUILD NEXT?


Marble City will whip the Work Boat for Stone City such that the Work Boat arrives "just in time" on Stone City's Magical Fish, just as our Stone City's Cultural Borders will expand over the Magical Fish. Marble City will then work on building a Granary, which I have found an ideal time to whip, which will then let us build 2 Warriors using the overflow Hammers. However, shortly before building the Granary, I will need to pick another build item besides a Granary and a Warrior (not counting a Worker or a Settler).

So, what should we build? Start on a Forge that won't get whipped until later? Start on a Trireme or a Galley? Note that Galleys cost 75 Hammers, but after we learn Astronomy Galleys will not be buildable and Galleons will cost us 120 Hammers. It might be nice to have a couple of Galleys around that we can upgrade using Gold instead of fighting for our most limited resource (Hammers) with other Military Units.

Of course, defending our Seafood with Galleys is pretty sucky.

However, we WILL have Police State for building Galleons, so maybe there's not much of a need for building Galleys now.

What is VERY INTERESTING is a calculation that I made for a thread over in the General Discussion area of the Forums, in that TRIREMES are BETTER for fighting against Galleys than are CARAVELS!

Okay, maybe that point doesn't sound very interesting to you. But think about it: we will want Warriors to defend out Cities so that our Axemen/Macemen/Catapults/Trebuchets/whatnot can go and fight the battles without having to "babysit" our population as Military Police units.

Similarly, we'll benefit from having SOME units sticking around to continue to defend our Seafood Resources from Barb Galleys (and even random AI attacks). Triremes will be perfect for the anti-Barb-Galley role (which is actually the greater threat--our Galleons should kill off most of the AIs' boats before they leave their harbours so we'll only potentially face the random boats that they may already have wandering around before we declared war). For example, only Ragnar seems to have a boat beyond a Work Boat at this stage, and a Trireme would work well against his Galley. Worst case, an enemy Trireme arrives and we can upgrade one of our Triremes into a Caravel.

Anyway, the point is that, just like having cheaper Warriors around, we'll benefit from having cheap Triremes around.


So, since we probably don't want to supply City 7 with Work Boats and defense in our already thinly-spread-defensive system, building a 7th Settler elsewhere isn't all that useful. And, we probably don't really care THAT MUCH about having Galleys that can upgrade into Galleons, at least not until after we feel that we have a "sufficient amount" of Triremes in order to protect our Seafood interests.


Thus, my proposal is that for Cities like Marble City, Stone City, and Gold City, once they are done building their required Work Boats, Lighthouses, and Granaries, that they just switch to slow-building Triremes (and possibly additional Warriors).


Forges can come later, after our Great Person run, when they can be 4-pop-whipped everywhere. I mean, if we're not going to whip them until later, what's the point in tying up Hammers in Forges that will just sit around not being built, due to us wanting to use the population points on Specialists? Far better is to make use of the Hammers, and, given that we won't really need City 7, we also won't need additional Workers. Libraries won't be whipped either, which just leaves us building units: which I propose will be Triremes and Warriors.

Triremes and Warriors are cheap enough that they might actually get completed within a reasonable timeframe and thus might be of use. Besides, we'll need additional Warriors for Military Police purposes.

This approach allows us to focus on safety and leveraging later-game efficiency by being able to send out nearly all of our later-game-built units into war, as the units built now will be able to act as our "rear guard" for the homelands.


It also makes things easier to handle--I won't have to worry about when to whip in Gold City next, for example, as we won't be whipping--we'll just keep growing (into Unhappiness probably) and if we are lucky enough to found Confucianism there, then we might be able to allieviate a bit of the Unhappiness when Code of Laws comes in.


So, yes, I've typed pages of ideas just to arrive at an interesting conclusion: keep it simple. ;)
 
Anyway, I am still working out the details, but I am thinking that once Cities start their "Trireme/Warrior" builds, we'll begin with a Trireme in each of the 2 higher-Hammer Cities (Gold and Stone).

But, then, Marble City will be stuck since we'll have to put the Hammers into a non-Warrior, non-Granary build item in order to avoid losing said Hammers to overflow capping.

Thus, maybe what I will do is only build 1 Warrior in Marble City after whipping the Granary, so that we'll be closer to completing a Trireme there.

In that case, then I guess we'd want to build a Warrior somewhere else instead. I'm thinking that Gold City will take up that duty, since Stone City is more likely going to be better-suited to pumping out a Trireme within a reasonable time period, while a Warrior coming out of Gold City will be better positioned for a Galley to shuttle it to a useful location (such as on the other Fur island to the north and north-west of Gold City).


So, yeah:
Gold City = Work Boat for Gold City's second Clam -> Warrior -> whatever (another Warrior probably)
Marble City = whip the Work Boat -> partially complete the Granary -> start on a Trireme -> 2-pop-whip the Granary -> Warrior -> finish the Trireme
Stone City = Warrior (for Copper Island) -> Lighthouse (1-pop-whipped) -> Granary (1-pop-whipped) -> Trireme -> Warrior for Pig City? -> Triremes/Warriors
 
In the prior PPP spreadsheet, it looks like, after researching Code of Laws, we switched Gold City's Gold to a Coast. Does this situation sound correct?

I mean, we'll want to push the growth in this City once the pressure to be first to Code of Laws is over. Also, the more that we grow, the more Representation-based Scientists that we will be hire, which aren't quite as strong as a Gold square without the GPP, but if you factor in Pacfiism's GPP such a Scientist is probably going to be equal to or stronger than the Gold square in the short run.


Honestly, it would have been awesome to have been able to pumped out The Hanging Gardens or something in order to jack our populations up, but I doubt that such a goal will be feasible, given that we're going for Code of Laws before Math and given that production is already a big pain in the butt to try and come by on this map.

Thus, in some cases (like this case in Gold City), we'll just have to focus on City Growth at the right time and make the best out of the situation.
 
Oh yeah, and I'm going to have to slot in a Work Boat for Crab City somewhere. Maybe that's what we'll do with part of Marble City's overflow Hammers... build a Warrior and a Work Boat.

Anyway, I'll have to look into the timing of when we will need a Work Boat for Crab City in order to figure out from which City it will be best to build it.
 
Interesting, although an early Alphabet may not be so hot for getting Iron Working and Math in trade--only one AI in our game knows Writing yet, for example.

I mention Math since you would think that they would want Catapults in order to be reasonably-effective in their warring.

Most of the AIs (other than Vicky) have troops that are better than Archers. While it's not impossible to take early Cities and then use them as a way to boost your empire's output, and it's a very valid approach, it's not an approach that overly concerns me. If more of the AIs were stuck with Archers, then there'd be more call for concern.


Anyway, I am close to having a PPP ready, but maybe I am trying to bite off more than I can chew. I'm trying to get everything aligned up until the time that The Pyramids are built. There's still the possibility that things will get shifted by a turn by revolting into Confucianism and/or Representation for additional Happiness, but most things will be aligned with the timing.


One fact that has become clear is that most Cities need a Warrior defender.

Also, needing an early Work Boat has me currently skipping any early Warriors out of Marble City. Now that we're commiting Stone City to that task, I'm planning to use Marble City's 40+ overflow Hammers from whipping a Granary in a Work Boat for Fur City. I suppose that there is always a chance of getting our other Work Boat explorer home, but I don't want to rely on that possibility, especially since it is so far away that it might not even make it back on time even if it is able to return home safely.


Stone City will slow-build a Trireme such that the Trireme will be whippable--we'd rather not whip, but it would be okay to do so, too, probably as a 1-pop-whip, with the hopes of just slow-building the Trireme if there are no Barb Galley threats.


Similarly, we're planning to delay Trireme 1 for as long as possible while the same time being prepared to whip it on a moment's notice. The sooner that we whip it, the less base Hammers will be going into The Pyramids, since whipping it early will mean less turns of working the GH Mine squares. But, again, that's a detail that I can't control and that we'll just have to react to and adapt our plans to.

But, I am finding that if I do just plan out a few turns, I miss little details like "where are we building Fur City's Work Boat," etc, which is why I'm trying to get this "massive" plan into place, even if the plan will end up needing to change a lot--mostly so that some of these important details can be worked into the plan such that if the plan needs to change, we'll know the impacts of those changes instead of blindly stumbling into the impacts of said changes.
 
Okay, I sort of have a plan put together at this point, but it hasn't really been play-tested as a whole. I find that it's a lot more fun to play-test one City at a time. Anyway, I guess the next step is to go through the motions of playing it out, with caveats such as:
1. Barb Galleys that approach our Fishing Nets will just be deleted since I don't want to spend time dealing with imaginary threats--the threats from the real game will almost certainly come at different times. Besides, I'd rather have the plan just go smoothly when testing it out (whippping the Trireme at the last minute instead of early on) and then when playing the real game, go slowly enough that we can effectively respond to these kinds of threats (which probably means whipping the Trireme a bit earlier and then responding)

2. No Work Boat exploration

3. I'm going to ignore pretty much anything that the AIs ask of me, including Resource Trade opportunities (or should they occur) tech trading opportunities

4. Any other stuff that can't be accurately reflected in the test game that I can't think of now but might just decide to "skip doing" while playing out the test game


My goal is to then give you guys a saved game that showcases the completion of The Pyramids, as well as my spreadsheet that outlines the details. Since this part is the "boring part" for me (the optimization is the fun part), I will make no promises as to how long it will take me to complete.
 
Hmmm, it seems like I have run out of web hosting space. I'm deleting the .zip of screenshots that I took. If anyone wants them, please send me a Private Message and we can see about emailing them to you or something. Deleting that huge file is the only way that I can upload additional files (without pillaging important screenshots, test saved games, etc). Of course, those files may have to disappear at some point, too, but I'll try and keep the majority of them around until after the game is over and other teams have had a chance to view our thread.
 
Alright, here we go at last. The Master Plan until up until The Pyramids get completed! Please see the attached saved game and/or spreadsheet.

Here are a couple of screenshots on the turn that we are due to complete The Pyramids, so that you can have an idea of what kind of a status our empire will be in! :D

db1f36b7f4.jpg


b155a29cf5.jpg



So, what do all of the colours in the spreadsheet mean?
Light green = I need to do something on this turn that I don't want to forget to do.

Light yellow = The game will prompt me to do something on this turn (such as "what is the next build item?" or "what is the next tech?")

Light blue = On these turns, we have the option of switching what our build items might be. However, I have played around with these items and am reasonably happy with their current status, so the colouring was more for helping me in planning which build item should go where and that effort is already done. Still, I left the colouring in since those build items are probably the most debateable out of the build items in the PPP

As usual, I did not expand the spreadsheet's columns. Feel free to expand the columns and word-wrap the text in your own local copy if doing so helps you to read the info better. For me, I plan to cycle my cursor through every single field on each turn, so the fact that the column widths are not wide does not affect me, while the colouring should act as a double-check to help prevent me from missing a crucial detail while playing the real game.

Thank you and enjoy! :)
 

Attachments

Any thoughts on how long I should wait to play?

Mitchum said that he's out for the next little while and won't be able to comment on the PPP. Mdy said that he might be back as soon as May the 3rd.

I am not certain about others' whereabouts and their ability to open a saved game and/or a spreadsheet.

Even just an "I can't see anything that should be changed" type of a comment would be helpful.
 
"I can't see anything that should be changed" though I haven't looked very hard :mischief:

I'm quite busy this week, sorry. I think we have a good overall plan, and you've done more than your due diligence in optimizing it. Play forward whenever you like.
 
Hi guys! I'm back for a fleeting moment, only to vanish again... I must confess that RL is taking me away and I doubt I'll be able to contribute from here on out. I'll be able to follow what's happening vicariously till this Friday. Then I'll hardly be able to check the forum at all for lack of time.

Looks like you've got things under control, Dhoom! I'm hoping you play through to the Mids before Friday, just so I can see it happen, but don't hurry on my account.
 
I'm unfortunately in the "RL kicking my arse" camp too. I took a look at the PPP and it looks ok. Gold is happy strapped so there isn't much we can do about it. Would it be worth building a worker or settler with an unhappy citizen instead? Unhappy people actually provide food/hammers for workers and settlers if the city has enough food to be food positive. This will have the added benefit of stopping growth into unhappiness (which will cost us unnecessary city maintenance). Just a thought.

For stone, I thought granary --> lighthouse is better than lighthouse --> granary in almost all situations for coastal cities? I don't remember the math but that's what I remember... I know we have cheap lighthouses but I think the granary may still be a better build. The same would apply to pigs.
 
I think ORG might skew the LH/Granary thing, esp if you have two seafood. With only one and pig maybe not, but I was also just assuming LH first is better. In any case, it should be pretty close. No time for calcs right now.
 
shyuhe said:
Gold is happy strapped so there isn't much we can do about it. Would it be worth building a worker or settler with an unhappy citizen instead?
Click to expand...
Well, at Turn 142, we can revolt into Representation. It was my understanding that we were intentionally growing into Unhappiness and continuing to focus on growth despite this fact, since Representation immediately removes 3 Unhappiness, and the sooner that we get Representation + Pacifism, the sooner that we can hire Specialists.

But, if we haven't grown the Cities sufficiently, then will we be forced to keep growing them when we could have otherwise spent time on hiring Specialists?

Gold City is actually at the PERFECT SPOT, or close to it, since it only JUST grew to City Size 9. City Size 9 with the three Seafood allows for us to hire 6 Specialists with stagnant growth (while stopping to work the Gold).

In fact, my earlier understanding, thanks to what was in the previous PPP, was that we'd work a Coast instead of the Gold after learning Code of Laws, but doing so seemed to have us growing too quickly. Thus, we have worked the Gold up until now.

The only "downside" is that we still have 2 to 3 turns to go until Math comes in, so perhaps we grew to Citiy Size 9 as much as 2 to 3 turns too early. Unforutnately, 2 to 3 turns is not enough time to build a Worker, so I think that we're just stuck here.

Probably the best thing that I can offer is that as we get close to The Pyramids' date and get close to learning Math, we can hire a couple of Scientists instead of working Coast squares so that we'll grow to City Size 9 at the same time that we can Lightbulb Philosophy.


Of course, if we get either Alphabet or Math in trade, then Philosophy will be available sooner than The Pyramids will be, meaning that the date that we complete The Pyramids will be the date that we ideally will start hiring Specialists, so in that case, we will have grown at the perfectly precise time in Gold City.

Thus, until we get closer to that date, it will be hard to say whether we should hire some Scientists early in order to delay growth.


Then, there's also the thinking that once we're in Representation, we'll have sufficient Happiness for 10 population points in Gold City, meaning that we could technically not worry about slowing growth unless we were going to exceed 10 population points at the turn of completing The Pyramids.

Really, it's the other Cities not having grown sufficiently that has me more concerned.



For stone, I thought granary --> lighthouse is better than lighthouse --> granary in almost all situations for coastal cities? I don't remember the math but that's what I remember... I know we have cheap lighthouses but I think the granary may still be a better build. The same would apply to pigs.
Click to expand...
Okay, this kind of feedback is extremely helpful. If there is any sort of a way to grow our Cities faster, particularly Pig City, then I definitely would rather use that approach. I'll try testing out your suggestion.

The biggest troubles to overcome are probably going to be that:
1. We don't have an easy way of making a Granary into a 1-pop-whip in Pig City, so we need to find a way to grow to Size 4 efficiently. Without a Lighthouse, that means working 2 squares that don't get +1 Food from a Lighthouse (the Magical Fish and a Coast). Of course, there's the possibility (if I can get the DesH mined quickly enough) of working the Pig + Magical Fish + DesH Mine while growing to Size 4, which may not be enough Hammers to make the Granary a 2-pop-whip but may be enough Hammers, with the overflow from a 2-pop-whipped Granary and some time spent, to complete the Lighthouse manually (i.e. without whipping away a population point on the Lighthouse).

So, there are two opportunities of things to try:
a) Grow to Size 4 while working a Coast square without a Lighthouse at Size 3 and 2-pop-whip a Granary, followed by 1-pop-whipping the Lighthouse
OR
b) Grow to Size 4 while working a DesH Mine at Size 3 and 2-pop-whip a Granary, while trying to manually complete the Lighthouse
OR
c) Possibly using Lighthouse -> Granary but focusing more on working the DesH Mine square in order to turn the Granary from a 2-pop-whip into a 1-pop-whip

Whichever option gives us the greatest growth in Pig City is the option that we want to use.

2. Stone City is even more backwards in terms of Food-based-growth without a Lighthouse, in that its only real Food-based squares are Coastal, including its Magical Fish. Here, we already used the Hammers gained from Hammer overflow from 1-pop-whiping the Lighthouse plus collecting additional Hammers as a means of turning the Granary into a 1-pop-whip.

So, I'm not sure that we can grow fast enough to get 4 population points (for a 2-pop-whip Granary) by working 3-non-Ligthhouse-enhanced Coastal squares (one of them being the Magical Fish). There is the Grassland square, but it doesn't even have a Forest--would we REALLY throw up a Cottage there, or worse, work it without any sort of improvement on it?

There is the possibility, though, of focusing more on the Hammer-based squares until the Granary becomes a 1-pop-whip, in that we wouldn't work any Coast squares except for the Magical Fish and would just focus on working the GH Stone and maybe the GH Mine. This approach probably has the best chance of beating out the current Lighthouse -> Granary approach, but I can try both.


Anyway, it will be nice to have somewhere to focus my last-minute testing efforts, thanks! :cool:
 
I think I found a rough answer.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8709312&highlight=granary+lighthouse#post8709312

Around post 260 of that thread, Ras posted some calculations on granary vs. lighthouse first in a size 1 city.

I don't have the time to do this on epic speed but using normal speed numbers, it looks like this (using only coastal squares):

Food to grow from size 1 to 4 = 22+24+26 = 72

Granary first:
grow from 1 --> 2 = 22 food (at 5 food/turn) = 5 turns + 2 food overflow
grow from 2 --> 3 = 24 food (at effectively 4 food/turn) = 6 turns + 2 food overflow
grow from 3 --> 4 = 26 food (at effectively 3 food/turn) = 8 turns
whip granary = 1 turn
whip lighthouse = 1 turn
total turns = 20 turns-ish since I'm ignoring the city center hammer.

Lighthouse first:
grow from 1 --> 2 = 22 food (at 5 food/turn) = 5 turns + 2 food overflow
whip lighthouse = 1 turn
grow from 1 --> 2 = 22 food (at 5 food/turn) = 4 turns
grow from 2 --> 3 = 24 food (at effectively 6 food/turn) = 4 turns
grow from 3 --> 4 = 26 food (at effectively 6 food/turn) = 5 turns + 2 food overflow
whip granary = 1 turn
total turns = 20 turns-ish with the same caveat as above.

So I guess the lighthouse first is better by 2 pieces of bread? If a city has more than one seafood, then lighthouse first is definitely better for an organized civ. I don't think a desert hill will improve this number as that tile is inferior to whipping.
 
My testing on Pigs showed that granary-lh was somewhat faster. I believe that I 1popped the granary, after working the desert mine for some turns. Can remember the exact details though.
 
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