SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[mdy]

Another vote for PH.

 

[Emperor Peter]

I said PH earlier but I quite like Shyuhe's Corn save. I think we'll want to move our capital elsewhere later no matter where we settle.

I don't like SIP.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Hey Mitch, how do you put a snapshot of a spreadsheet into a post?

 

[ungy]

Checking in after vaca--pretty rusty on civ tho.

Great job with the testing!

Another plus for PH is that there may be resources in the fog that we'll reveal before we actually settle, plus the long shot that getting our culture in the oceans to the NE will be useful. So PH sounds good here.

 

[Mitchum]

Hey Mitch, how do you put a snapshot of a spreadsheet into a post?

This is how I do it, but I assume there are other ways:

1. Copy the cells you want to show in Excel.
2. "Paste Special" them as a .bmp onto a Power Point slide.
3. Size the picture in PPT (If needed. Sometimes it's too big.... that's what she said!)
4. Right-click on the image in PPT and "Save As" a .jpg file.
5. Upload .jpg into CFC.

I'm sure that programs other than PPT can be used, but it seems to be the easiest for me.

 

[Mitchum]

Checking in after vaca--pretty rusty on civ tho.

Great job with the testing!

Another plus for PH is that there may be resources in the fog that we'll reveal before we actually settle, plus the long shot that getting our culture in the oceans to the NE will be useful. So PH sounds good here.

Welcome back. We were a bit stalled there for a while but I think we're back on track.

Good point about the PH and an extra turn to scout. The warrior can scout on T1 after the settler moves to the PH on T0 and before we sit him down on T1. Depending on what the warrior finds, we may need another round of testing...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Here's another settle-on-the-Corn test, where I greatly delayed the Worker in favour of getting out an early Granary.

I'm including a 4th saved game that shows when the 3rd Settler was completed... optionally, we could have skipped building a Worker and have just completed Settler 3 sooner.

Note that I threw down some signs for the dates of when my exploring Work Boat, City 2, and Galley 1 were built.

 

[shyuhe]

Perhaps the better question to ask here is, does anybody favor settling in place at this point? If not, we can advance the save by a turn by moving the settler onto the PH and move the warrior to scout north (or NW?). This will lock us into PH or corn, but give us some more information to better base our decision. If we go with this plan, I would recommend NOT uploading the save -- I think Mitchum currently has the real save?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'd personally like to see some concrete reasons to back up people's votes. Perhaps you have thought about good reasons, but it would be great if you could articulate them for the team, so as to best convince us.

At least in my opinion, speculating on the chance of additional Resources appearing in hidden squares is not concrete... I could just as easily vote for "settle-in-place" because I am "convinced" that it is worth getting the western island's Grassland Hills Iron and Grassland Forest Horse in our capital's big fat cross (yes, DynamicSpirit has previously made a map with Grassland Forest Horse).

So, I would rather see people look at the testing data and give reasons according to the info... stating which parts they think are important, which parts they are willing to compromise on, etc.
Examples of factors that you weigh more or less heavily might be infrastructure built (Granaries, Lighthouses, etc), population sizes, dates of settling Cities, amount of Worker turns available, Health, amount of exploration, etc.

Also, if you have a particular favourite 1, 2, or 3 test runs, let us know which ones they are and why. That way, anyone still interested in doing testing can possibly try and refine those test runs or can try out a similar approach with a different settling location.

For example, it could be that you value exploration highly but that people who settled on a different location did not emphasize exploration... we might be able to offer a similar amount of that particular aspect (in this example, exploration) of the game but with better results, by settling somewhere else.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I abstain because I'm still not convinced PH is better than SIP.

However, since it's obvious we're going for PH, I will give you some cud to chew. For starters, assuming we're planning to REX several settlers and possibly run several scientist specialists, I believe this is false:

The problem with SIP is that in terms of production it is relatively weak

Here's the summary data for the three sites, 15t cycles, building a settler as many turns as possible after re-growth (not including the 135h for 3pops):

At 5 healthies, 6 happies
SIP = 236f+h 105c
PH. = 239f+h .75c
Cor = 218f+h .75c

At 6 healthies, 7 happies
SIP = 269f+h 105c
PH. = 247f+h .75c
Cor = 188f+h .75c

Spoiler :

So the bottom line is that SIP, for our REXing purposes, is actually the most powerful production center. In addition, it has more growth capability (14fpt versus 11fpt versus 9fpt) so it can expand faster, as needed, and can work more specialists, as needed. Finally, it produces more cpt. One more bonus from SIP is that after 15 it defogs 17 tiles for us, by my count. PH only defogs 1.

So from the beginning the only question in my mind has been whether SIP is too slow to ramp up. The other main caveat with SIP is as ungy just mentioned, the unknown of the fogged tiles to the N of PH.

 

[shyuhe]

@Dhoom - I'm not opposed to having everyone state the reasons for their votes but I'd like to see where people stand first before we start asking for opinions. My reasoning is two fold - the first is because if we're all going in the same direction, I don't see the need to waste time on unnecessary discussions.

The second (and stronger) reason is that I'd like to try to move the current discussion forward to something more concrete than "let's try testing various possibilities." As the various test saves have shown, no single save is clearly stronger in every department of city growth, expansion, research, and exploration. So I see each player's vote right now as a reflection of how that player values the interplay between these factors. Pretty subjective stuff if you ask me. And please don't see my (or Mitchum's) attempt to hold a straw vote as an attempt to marginalize/ignore the minority voice. Let's see what the results of the vote are and then give it a few more days for people to discuss their positions, especially if there are people who want to do more testing and/or advocate for SIP. While it'd be nice to reach a consensus about every big decision in the game, at some point, we do have to keep the game going to make sure we finish before the deadline.

With all of that being said, my justification for NOT settling in place is that I don't like the long-term viability of that spot since it lacks hammers for the capital. I'll go test some SIP + 3E to see if I need to change my vote -- LC's SIP version is clearly better than mine, and I completely forgot about the SIP + 3E variant

edit: x-post with LC. Looks like we'll have to discuss opinions now

 

[shyuhe]

@LC - are you assuming that Paris keeps all three clams in your numbers?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Also, consider that our settle-in-place testing has focused around getting a second City out early. While doing so is a possible advantage of settling-in-place, we might be able to get a better result if we don't rush so hard-core towards building a second City and instead settle it around the same time as other settling locations... optionally on the main island or optionally off of it.


In a non-island-based game, there is definitely a trade-off between rushing to get out City #2 versus waiting to get City #2 out in favour of getting faster Cities #3 and #4.


It may be that instead of getting a fast Trade Route set up by settling City #2 ASAP, it could be that first getting a bit more infrastructure or growth in our capital (when settling-in-place) could provide superior results. I'm not sure that we've really done that kind of testing, have we?


Anyway, I'm going to play around a bit more with settling-in-place and see what I can come up with. Others are welcome to do so, too.

 

[Mitchum]

@LC

The biggest problem I have with SIP is that it greatly delays exploration. At least the SIP tests that were run had very late explorers out. Your test with 35 turns of exploration by T82 is pretty good. It can also get a pretty early settler #3 out.

Having played SIP a couple of times, I do like how much excess food there is and agree that the whippability (is that a word) of this city is awesome!!

For those that are opposed to SIP, please try a quick test to see how it flows.

I'm currently on the fence between PH and SIP. If I could recreate LC's SIP with LC/granary in the capital already...

 

[LowtherCastle]

@LC - are you assuming that Paris keeps all three clams in your numbers?

As needed, yes.

Also, I'm not wedded to 3E necessarily. Next turn we may find out that there's a nearby island to the north that works the northern tiles. We already know there's a possible site to the SE for the se hill.

 

[Mitchum]

Perhaps the better question to ask here is, does anybody favor settling in place at this point? If not, we can advance the save by a turn by moving the settler onto the PH and move the warrior to scout north (or NW?). This will lock us into PH or corn, but give us some more information to better base our decision. If we go with this plan, I would recommend NOT uploading the save -- I think Mitchum currently has the real save?

The only issue with this is that we could settle on the Corn on T0, so if we do choose Corn in the end, we will have lost a turn... with the tradeoff of seeing over those hills before we finally settle there of course.

 

[Mitchum]

As needed, yes.

Also, I'm not wedded to 3E necessarily. Next turn we may find out that there's a nearby island to the north that works the northern tiles. We already know there's a possible site to the SE for the se hill.

If we go this route (i.e. SIP with second city off-island), we'd have to make sacrifices elsewhere in order to speed up the galley. Also, how much exploring could we really do before we have to know for sure.

A major benefit of SIP-3E is the very fast city #2 pre-galley and the ability to share tiles with the capital. Of course, 3E may need one Clam (or corn), which could mess things up a bit, but I'm sure it could be worked if Paris is whipped down to 3 pops, thus not needing all 4 food tiles.

 

[shyuhe]

The only issue with this is that we could settle on the Corn on T0, so if we do choose Corn in the end, we will have lost a turn... with the tradeoff of seeing over those hills before we finally settle there of course.

Fair point. I completely forgot that you can settle T0 corn, even though I tested it

I will see if I can come up with a good exploration + SIP combination.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Base Hammer Production

With all of that being said, my justification for NOT settling in place is that I don't like the long-term viability of that spot since it lacks hammers for the capital.

Let's fairly assume that settling-in-place will not get to keep all 4 Food Resources... either a City to the east or the west will likely borrow at least one of these Food Resources, perhaps two of them... but 2 Food Resources will be more than sufficient to work all of the production-based squares for either settling in-place or settling on the PHFor.

So, I'm going to ignore Food-based production and just look at Hammer-based production here.

Settle-in-place:
City Centre = 1 Hammer
east-north-eastern PHFor that gets Mined = 4 Hammers
western GH that gets Mined = 3 Hammers
Total = 8 Hammers

Settle on the PH:
City Centre = 2 Hammers
northern GH that gets Mined = 3 Hammers
south-eastern GH that gets Mined = 3 Hammers
Total = 8 Hammers


So, I'm a bit lost how settling in-place differs from settling on the PH in terms of Hammer output. Ignoring whipping-based production and after our Worker has improved the relevant Hills squares (for a capital, this situation will apply for the majority of the game), the production output appears to be identical.


Forest Chopping
In fact, I could argue that by settling-in-place, I'd be more heavily leaning towards keeping the 2 GFor squares, for +1 Health (which equates to more Food which translates into additional production) or for occasionally working those 2 squares for a bit of extra production, say, if we want to build a Wonder.

By settling on the PHFor, you already "eat up" one Forest, and with only 1 Forest remaining the big fat cross, you "might as well" chop the remaining Forest... which actually equates to an equal amount of Hammer production from Forest Chops as settling-in-place if settling-in-place saves its two GFor squares.

If by settling-in-place we start clear-cutting, we actually get more Forest-Chop-production than by settling on the PHFor. So, once again, I fail to see how settling on the PHFor provides more production than by settling in-place.


Convince Me
Note that I am not necessarily pushing for any settling location yet... I still have yet to be convinced of a superior choice... which is why I asked people to try and articulate their reasoning, to better convince me of their reasoning and to help me with my voting.

 

[shyuhe]

My assumption for SIP is that it keeps the PH but loses the western grass hill to a second (or third) city over there. Is this a dangerous assumption to make? Your point about forests is good though.

Also, I'm secretly a fan of corn (I love high base hammers) but have yet to make a save that shows its awesomeness. Corn also almost certainly gives up a spot on the western island unless there's more seafood since Paris needs to keep all three clams in that situation.