SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

Looks good. I think you can just keep going towards COL.

Sure, sign OB with Ragnar. If we do that, I would like our western explorer to scout him fully.

I think we definitely net seafood as needed. The timing on the two fish is about identical, right? (I mean Stone border pop and Pig growth). And we currently only have the one WB coming up in Stone? I would be ok with delaying the next one by 4t to get another warrior out of Stone for spawn bust purposes, if that's an option.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Since only one of Willem or Isabella knows Writing, and since Isabella just recently founded Judaism, it is almost certainly Willem that knows it.

Once we pick up knowledge of his Research path, we should be able to decide if we'll need to use Binary Science for a couple of turns at the end of Code of Laws (we're listed as needing 11 more turns at a cost of 15 Gold per Turn with only 155 Gold in the bank) or whether we'll have the liberty to switch back to a 0% Science Rate for a turn (which might be close to the best that we can achieve, anyway, especially if we incur any additional costs between now and then, such as additional Unit Maintenance).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Looks good. I think you can just keep going towards COL.

Roger that. The only good reason to stop at this point will probably be once we discover Willem's Research path and if it turns out that he is several turns ahead of us... but even then, we'll still want the tech... so, it will probably still make sense to finish it off, as he won't trade such a Monopoly tech (even a partially-researched Monopoly tech) to us anyway.

Sure, sign OB with Ragnar. If we do that, I would like our western explorer to scout him fully.

Sounds good to me.

I think we definitely net seafood as needed. The timing on the two fish is about identical, right? (I mean Stone border pop and Pig growth). And we currently only have the one WB coming up in Stone? I would be ok with delaying the next one by 4t to get another warrior out of Stone for spawn bust purposes, if that's an option.

Okay, so here's the situation:
We will soon want 2 Work Boats for netting the two Magical Fish by the Stone Island: one for each of Stone City and Pig City.

In 1 turn, we will complete a Work Boat in Stone City. Let's say that this Work Boat is going to net Pig City's Magical Fish.

In 2 to 3 turns, we will whip a Work Boat in Marble City. I think that whipping after 3 turns will be ideal in terms of Marble City's overall output, but the difference is marginal (+1 Food and +2 Commerce for waiting that 1 turn, I believe), so let's calculate the time that it would take to travel to Stone City's Magical Fish:
It takes 3 turns to arrive on the Magical Fish, which means that it takes 4 turns from completion of the Work Boat in Marble City before the Magical Fish can be netted.

However, Stone City's Cultural Borders will expand in as soon as 7 turns from now.

So, 7 - 4 = 3 turns. But, after whipping the Work Boat, it takes 1 turn to complete. So 3 - 1 = 2 turns. Thus, for an ideal situation for Stone City, we will whip Marble City's Work Boat in 2 turns.

It's still a good time to whip, and doing so then ends up (if I calculated things correctly in my head) trading 1 Food and 2 Commerce in Marble City for 3 Food in Stone City.

Of course, for that extra turn, Stone City could just work a 1 Food + 4 Hammer Stone square, so there is a case for waiting 3 turns to whip in Marble City and getting the most out of the empire overall.

But, let's see if we will mess up the initial growth breakpoint in Stone City:
Stone City has 20 Food right now and will expand its Cultural Borders in 7 turns. I'm not sure how that works... does that mean that on the 7th turn we could be working the Fish (if it were netted) or only on the 8th turn? I'd have to try out a test game to be sure but I just left the real game open (paused), so I won't check. But, let's say that 7 turns later we would have the choice to work a Magical Fish (although we'd only do so if it were netted).

That would mean that we'd have 20 + 6 = 26 Food. We need 33 Food to grow, which gives us a difference of 33 - 26 = 7 Food. However, working a Magical Fish only nets us 5 Food. So, we are going to be stuck spending 2 turns of working the Magical Fish before we can grow regardless of how soon the Work Boat arrives there.

Therefore, I think that I'll whip the Work Boat in Marble City after 3 turns, which means that the Work Boat will Net Stone City's Magical Fish 8 turns from now, even though the Cultural Borders will expand in 7 turns.

But, overall, we'll make +1 Food and +2 Commerce in Marble City while Stone City can continue to work a good 1 Food + 4 Hammer square for that extra turn.


Now, there is a cost to delaying the Lighthouse and the Granary in Stone City in that we will grow slower. Thus, building a Warrior there next does slow down that City. Let's say that it takes 5 extra turns to complete the Lighthouse (it takes more than 4 turns and less than 5 turns to complete a Warrior, but overflow might not work out in our favour so say 5 turns of delay). That means that we will lose 5 Food from the Lighthouse. We'd also probably lose some doubling-effect on future Food on a Granary by completing it slower.

So, let's say that building a Warrior there costs us at least another 5 Food for the delay in the Granary (but it could be more). Thus, that Warrior costs us at least an extra 10 Food on top of its Hammer cost.


However, if we are patient, we can feasibly build 2 Warriors soon enough (less than 10 turns later) out of Marble City.

In the meantime, I could aim to spawn-bust Copper Island with our Galley.


Of course, we might have a better use for the Hammers in Marble City than using them on 2 Warriors, but if we really don't want to whip there much (or at all), then the 2 Warriors are probably a much better investment than letting the Hammers "sit and go to waste" in a partially-completed build item like a Forge or a Library.


Then, there's the idea that we might want to whip Triremes out of Marble City, but perhaps having 2 Warriors coming out of Marble City in short succession will be sufficient to reduce our need for Triremes.

It wouldn't hurt for us to start thinking about where we'd place these Warriors: okay, one can go on Copper Island. So, we just need to figure out where we'd put the other one: either next to 2 Clams + PH in the east or in the south-west to cover Marble City's western Clam would be my suggestions.


The Warriors coming out of Marble City would have a "normal cost" since we would already have a Lighthouse (which we own now) and a Granary there (which we would whip and then overflow into the Warriors), which is why I'd rather build the Warriors there than out of Stone City if we feel that we can afford the delay (8 turns) of getting our 4th Warrior out.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Then there's the concept of "which big build item comes next in Marble City?" I'm GUESSING that since we're going to use Caste System for hiring our Scientists and since, unlike Gold City, Marble City doesn't have a large source of Commerce, that we probably don't have much of a priority on building a Library.

Therefore, I'm thinking that it will be a Forge. That build item will get started-on before I whip the Granary, so as to keep the Granary a 2-pop-whip item as well as to avoid losing Hammers when I overflow the Granary's Hammers into 2 Warriors (any more than 44 Hammers of overflow + production on the first Warrior will simply be discareded by the game). All that this fact really means is that I will have to decide on what "big build item" to build, but I'm going to default that to a Forge unless told otherwise.

 

[babybluepants]

Yes, you get the fish on the 7th turn if there's a WB with a movement point. 1t delay is certainly fine, though.

I was thinking first warrior on copper island, for sure. The second would probably need to go to 2clam in the east.

Think 22h into a copper island warrior is worth a delay in LH, but I'm happy to skip it if that's what others want. The Stone fish is hard to keep if a barb galley spawns there.

 

[shyuhe]

I'd prefer to plop a warrior on the copper island first too.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Oh yeah, we seem to have gotten Animal Husbandry with a few extra Flasks compared to the test game (I'm not 100% certain, but I feel that way). I admit that I didn't record down the exact Flask values from the test game, but so that I can do so later, I'll write down the current Flask value in the real game, which is: 195/234 Flasks.

I am trying to bring the test game up-to-date right now (it'll be easier to do before playing more of the turnset, so that I still have "what I did" fresh in my memory).


It turns out that everyone in the test saved game knows Animal Husbandry for every turn that we have been researching that tech in the test saved game, while we received the exact same number of Flasks in the test saved game.

Thus, either everyone in the real game knows Animal Husbandry or else simply "enough" of the AIs in the real game ended up knowing Animal Husbandry such that we met the same breakpoints for bonus Flasks as if every AI had known the tech (i.e. we couldn't have done any better on self-teching Animal Husbandry by delaying it any futher, other than a possible bonus from knowing Hunting).


Anyway, the real difference (which is why we got more Flasks in the real game than my earlier test game run) comes from that 1 turn of working a Coast instead of a Grassland Hills Mine in Paris, so that Settler 5 would remain a 3-pop-whip.

What's neat is that this 1 turn of working the Coast was done on the second last turn of learning Animal Husbandry, so we got the full value out of the Flasks (and any bonus Flasks obtained on them).

And, by working that Coast, we got 3 Flasks instead of 2 Flasks. So, yes, by taking the Cow in trade, we did lose 2 Hammers but we not only gained 2 Food and 2 Commerce but that 2 Commerce actually translated into 3 Flasks instead of 2 Flasks, thanks to having met a breakpoint. So, yaaa, it was the right call to take the Cow in trade.


Of course, no one probably cares, but I DID say that I'd check this info, so there: I have done so.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'd prefer to plop a warrior on the copper island first too.

That's fine, we can certainly put the next Warrior there, but do you mean that you still want to build the next Warrior out of Stone City or are you okay with waiting for it to come out of Marble City?

Since it's a "hot topic," I won't proceed right away and will see about getting a test game up and then playing around with it... maybe to even find out the exact cost in terms of building a Warrior in Stone City (limited to a certain number of turns, like 30 turns down the road).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Here's the updated test game.

There are going to be some inaccuracies:
- I don't know what techs the AIs have in the real game so the techs that the AIs have in the test game will be completely off
- The wrong AIs will have met each other
- We are using Joao in our test game to represent Willem in the real game
- Espionage with Vicky is off, since we met her on a different date in the test game
- The map layout has not been updated at all, so the terrain that was incorrect (anywhere outside of our immediate vicinity) will still be incorrect
- We have 5 Foreign Trade Routes without needing to Open Borders with a 3rd AI
- Several AIs have learned Writing in the test game. I "took it away" from some of them but they'll be able to re-research it within a turn of switching to that tech, so there will be more AI-AI Open Borders agreements in the test game than in the real game
- The Health level of our Galley (it has just a few too many hitpoints in our test game)
- The number of Cities that the AIs have, the amount and types of units that they have, their Scores, etc... basically, the AIs have been given free-reign without much intervention, other than me changing which Resources they are allocated and have currently hooked-up

However, most other important things are correct:
- Food and Hammer totals in each City
- Flasks invested in our current tech
- Gold accumulated (I didn't even have to edit it--the test game matched-up with the real game perfectly in this regard; the same point being true for the number of Flasks of Research)
- Build items
- Location of units except for our exploring Work Boat, which is just "Fortified to the west" in the test game
- The F4 -> RESOURCES screen is very close to accurate

So, literally, if you want to play around with build orders and the like, the test game will still give you a very accurate picture of how things will proceed in the real game.

 

[babybluepants]

@Dhoom,

The long-term cost of the warrior is entirely irrelevant, IMHO. It's a risk management issue, rather than a straight growth/hammer one. If we stand a chance to lose the Stone city fish for some turns and need a new WB + maybe new defence, then the warrior pays many, many times over. If we get lucky in this regard, then obviously Stone's better off long-term with a focus on infra.

Personally, I think 22h is easily a worthwhile investment in this case, but I'm also not married to that opinion. It think we just see what Mitch thinks, and then proceed.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Think 22h into a copper island warrior is worth a delay in LH, but I'm happy to skip it if that's what others want. The Stone fish is hard to keep if a barb galley spawns there.

It's probably only the 3 of us discussing things anyway. Mitchum and mdy are out for the weekend (Mitchum emailed me to say that he's out for now) and LC is probably unavailable, too. No clue about RRR... maybe he's still around. The others are free to comment at any time, too, if they so choose.


I ran the numbers. Here's the cost of going for a Warrior before Lighthouse + Granary in Stone City:
7 Food, 3 Hammers, and 2 Commerce

That's how much Stone City would be behind by by Turn 132, which is when the two approaches were first fairly comparable to each other (due to the timing of the arrival of the Granary in both approaches).


Now, I played around with Marble City, too. Yaaa for having brought the test game up-to-date, so that I'm not guessing on these issues.

We actually don't save any turns on getting Stone City's Magical Fish netted by whipping 1 turn earlier in Marble City, since I was counting wrong... the 4th turn of travel for the Work Boat is actual the turn that it can sit down, thus we are able to go with the 1-turn-later whip in Marble City and still have the Work Boat sit down on the same turn that Stone City's Cultural Borders expand.

Of course, I forgot that it's Epic, so we don't get +1 Food and +2 Commerce by delaying the whip, just +2 Commerce. Still, it's 2 free Commerce, so I'll take it.

Then, when it comes time to whipping Marble City's Granary, I can do so on Turn 127, 128, or 129. Turn 129 gives us inferior overflow in the Granary's Foodbox, starting us off with only 8 Food in the Foodbox.

Turns 127 and 128 are nearly equivalent, in that Turn 127 gets us +2 Food (18 Food in the Foodbox) while Turn 128 gets us +2 Commerce (16 Food in the Foodbox but +2 Commerce relative to a Turn 127 whipping action). Of course, whipping the Granary on Turn 127 means that our Granary will complete on Turn 128, such that our next Warrior will complete on Turn 129, then another Warrior will complete on Turn 130.

Waiting until Turn 128 to whip the Granary would delay the appearance of 2 Warriors by 1 turn each. Thus, I think that I'll go with the Turn 127 whipping option, getting us very efficient whipping timings plus Warriors appearing on Turns 129 and 130.


So, the question becomes: is having that extra Warrior (built out of Stone City in place of an earlier Lighthouse) for 10 turns (8 turns of difference plus a bit of travel time to get to Copper Island, so, say, 10 turns) on Copper Island worth the extra cost, as outlined above (7 Food, 3 Hammers, and 2 Commerce)?

There won't really be much of a cost in building the Warriors out of Marble City, since it will already have its Lighthouse and its Granary, thus a Warrior built there costs exactly what the City screen tells us that a Warrior costs.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Obviously, (22 Hammers + 7 Food + 2 Hammers + 2 Commerce) < 45 Hammers from building a replacement Work Boat.

There is, like I suggested, the fact that we can use the Galley to spawn-bust MOST of Copper Island. I think the best that I can do with placement is missing 2 Coast squares, but that's if we put the Galley on the SE side of the island and leave two squares unfogged that are nearer to the Magical Fish.

Practically, we'll put the Galley on the west side of Copper Island, which does leave 3 Coast squares on the east side of the island for a Barb Galley to spawn.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A further thought is that a Barb Galley has to die somewhere in order for a new one to spawn.


That's part of the reason why we don't want to go aggressivly killing off Barb Galleys until we have more of our empire covered, since a wounded Trireme would not be in a good condition to respond to a newly-spawned Barb Galley that appears somewhere close to our empire.


Of course, we can't really control whether or not the AIs kill off the Barb Galleys, which is probably the biggest source of Barb Galleys appearing near to us. How frequently this kind of thing will happen, I can't be certain.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Practically, we'll put the Galley on the west side of Copper Island, which does leave 3 Coast squares on the east side of the island for a Barb Galley to spawn.

In contrast, if we place a Warrior directly on top of the Copper Resource, then no new Barb Galleys will be able to spawn down there, as the Warrior will completely cover all of the area thanks to spawn-busting (although he won't see all of those squares, just him being there will be sufficient).


So, given that 1 Warrior makes that area risk-free (from new threats--if a Barb Galley already exists by the time that a Warrior arrives, the Warrior can't do anything about it), I'm feeling swayed by your guys' desire to build a Warrior first.


We know the cost, it's cheaper than a Work Boat, and it gives us the peace of mind in that sector of our empire to allow us the chance to redistribute our Galley to another location. So sure, I'll slot in a Warrior next in Stone City.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Of course, what I have not worked out is whether we will gain by whipping either of the Lighthouse or the Granary in Stone City. Assuming that we are working:
1. Magical Fish
2. GH Stone (1F, 4H)
3. GH Mine (1F, 3H)
4. Coast (2F, 2C)

then there might be a savings if we 1-pop-whip both build items. I'll look into that possibility next.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Yet another thought is that we can't really have too many Warriors.

Okay, yes, they will start costing us Gold per Turn in terms of Maintenance. But just about every City should have a Warrior for Military Police purposes, unless we want to be forced to later use Archers or Axemen to do that duty.

We should probably look into how many units we can have before we start to incur costs, but it's not an easy calculation, because you pretty much have to play out the entire turnset so that you'll know your City Sizes, as the total of our City Sizes will be used in the calculation of how many "free" units that we will be allowed.

It's hard for me to project too far into the future since I don't yet know what the whipping timings will be, etc.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Okay, that calculation was easier than I thought. Let's say that we have City Size 4 on average across 5 Cities (20 population points).

That situation allows us to have 2 Workers + 10 other units (Galleys, Triremes, Warriors, Missionaries, Settlers, etc) without paying any Gold per Turn Unit Costs (although there might be Unit Supply Costs if enough units are outside of our borders).


That's enough units not to worry about Warriors costing us Gold per Turn in the short run.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Okay, whipping in Stone City is the way to go. I'll write down the turn numbers here as they seem to be about as good as I can get for whipping-timing optimization, given that we are starting with a Warrior.

So, after the current Work Boat, Stone City will build a Warrior. then:
Turn 121, 975 BC: The Warrior will be completed and we will start work on a Lighthouse
Turn 130, 750 BC: We will 1-pop-whip the Lighthouse
Turn 131, 725 BC: The Lighthouse will be completed and we will start work on a Granary
Turn 133, 675 BC: We will 1-pop-whip the Granary
Turn 134, 650 BC: The Granary will be completed, but I have no clue what we will build here next. More Warriors?
Turn 141, 485 BC: At City Size 3, work the Magical Fish, GH Stone, and a Coast square (as opposed to a GH Mine for the third square--we are trying to regrow quickly with the Granary in hands to make up for the lost population points)

When I project these two Warrior-first scenarios out to the first really comparable date of Turn 145, 375 BC (the first scenario involves no whipping and the second one invovles the whipping timing that I just listed), we see the following results:

No Whipping Scenario, as of Turn 145, 425 BC:
City Size 4
14/42 Food in the Foodbox
19 Hammers accumulated after having completed the Lighthouse and the Granary

Whipping as per above Scenario, as of Turn 145, 425 BC:
City Size 4
19/42 Food in the Foodbox
50 Hammers accumulated after having completed the Lighthouse and the Granary
2 additional Commerce


So, that's the power of whipping at the right time! Additional Food, Hammers, and Commerce!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Okay, so I played around with Paris. Maybe 3-pop-whipping Settlers isn't the ideal approach there. I'm not sure, but we definitely miss out on some turns of working the GH Mines.

What is the date that we're trying to get? Also, how big do we want Paris to be?


We'd probably be able to work the GH Mines more frequently if we either:
a) Whipped more Triremes
OR
b) 2-pop-whipped instead of 3-pop-whipped the Settlers

But, if we 2-pop-whipped the Settlers, then there'd be less Hammers going into The Pyramids, so that's probably not the right thing to do. Thus, maybe we will be spamming Triremes from Paris. I haven't tried it out yet, but I'll post my results for Settler-spamming:

Turn 123, 925 BC: 2-pop-whip the Trireme with 40 base Hammers overflowing into The Pyramids
Turn 127, 825 BC: Start to build Settler 6, switch a GH Mine -> Coast (to keep Settler 6 as a 3-pop-whip)
Turn 128, 800 BC: Switch the Coast back to a GH Mine
Turn 129, 775 BC: 3-pop-whip Settler 6 for 52 base Hammers overflowing into The Pyramids
Turn 137, 575 BC: Start on Settler 7; GH Mine -> Coast
Turn 138, 550 BC: Coast -> GH Mine
Turn 139, 525 BC: 3-pop-whip Settler 7 for 52 base Hammers overflowing into The Pyramids
Turn 140, 500 BC: We can complete The Pyramids in 3 turns (2 if we switch the Corn to a GH Mine)
Turn 143, 455 BC: The Pyramids are complete. Paris is Size 5 with 2 turns to grow to Size 6


I was under the impression that we'd be getting The Pyramids slightly sooner and at a higher City Size. Now, I DID push the Whipping Anger to the max, in that we're at 9/9 Happiness in Paris at City Size 5. Representation would help to deal with this situation, but growing more than that before getting Representation would just give us Unhappy people.

That is, unless I whipped a bit less.

I suppose that there will always be the chance to get +1 Happiness from Confucianism

If we DO get Confucianism, then there might also be the chance to whip a Temple, which, if we only put in 5 base Hammers (working only 1 of the GH Mines) for 6 final Hammers, it remains a 3-pop-whip... but if we put in 8 final Hammers, it turns into an inefficient (in terms of Hammer overflow) 2-pop-whip. Whipping such a Temple seems to give us 44 base Hammers overflowing. At least such a whipping action would be Happiness-neutral.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

How do you feel about spending some turns running an Engineer Specialist in Paris?

He's only worth 4 final Hammers going into The Pyramids (i.e. no benefit from the Forge).

However, the fundamental issue with Paris is that we either will grow too quickly (hence why hiring an Engineer Specialist can help as we'll grow slower) and then have to whip away the citizens working our Mines, or else we'll need some way of slowing growth.

For example, let's say that I delay the 2-pop-whip of the Trireme for as long as possible, so that we go from Size 7 to Size 5 then back up to Size 6 on the next turn. In this way, we're working the 2 Mines the whole time. However, if I regrow to Size 7, then we'll have 1 Unhappy person.

So, instead, I can work a Settler for 2 turns and then 3-pop-whip the Settler, but then we're back to the situation where we've whipped away both of our GH Mines' citizens (whipping from Size 6 down to Size 3 means just working 3 Food Resources). Or, at best, I whip on the turn that we grow to Size 7, which means that we'll still only be working 1 GH Mine at Size 4.


I suppose that if Paris manages to generate Great Person #2, we'll be in great shape, right? I mean, Lightbulbing Machinery using a Great Engineer would allow us to start work on self-teching Optics (which requires Machinery to unlock it) immediately after researching Compass, which we should be able to start work on as soon as we get Iron Working in trade.


Front-loading the Lightbulbing of Machinery (if we do end up getting a Great Engineer--we'll still have a great chance for getting a Great Scientist) should hopefully allow us to still get 2 Great Scientists for Astronomy by running purely Scientist Specialists. It'll just be that we'll have a chance for a Great Engineer for our first Great Person out of Paris.


The potential gain is additional turns working the GH Mines in Paris as well as additional raw Hammers coming from the Engineer, all going towards The Pyramids.


Anyway, I'll try it out and see how things go.