SGOTM 13 - T'dr'duzk b'hazg t't

[Benginal]

Well I just tried building the Colossus in city 3. It stopped at turn 137, but the ETA was about turn 190 (ish prolly). City 2 was between pigs fish, and city 3 was at the tip of that island working fish, mined gh, and mined stone. The capital was going crazy with boats, warriors, workers, and settlers. And city 2 was running two scientists and whipping settlers/galleys for two pop every now and again.

Settling city 2 between pigs and fish is best. And building the forge and Colossus in the capital is required to keep up in rex. I want like 10 cities by 1AD and I think that's totally reasonable given the limited worker turns we need. I'll play out a proper test game using that and I'm sure it'll be BALLER!

Also, the worker goes with city 2 and mines the desert hill, and then comes back to the capital and doesn't miss anything except a nice nap. Or he can go to city three at the bottom of that island and mine the GH there. Depending on when we settle that city.

Other things

1) workshops or cottages on the two grasslands in the capital?
2) when do we want to chop that forest in the capital?
3) I think after BW, we should go Writing -> AH -> Monarchy -> Code of Laws. If we settle city 2 there that is.
4) not urgent, but we'll have crabs in our borders above the capital after the second border pop. So we could workboat that for an extra health.
5) How many galleys should we build. In my test game I had one galley on shuttle duty and whipped another galley into the oracle for exploration. Do we want to send out two?
6) WHIP WHIP WHIP WHIP WHIP WHIP WHIP WHIP.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

I duly accept your challenge of ballitude, although I believe that without exploration, others AIs, or knowledge or where copper is, it won't be that conclusive...

I'll post a proper micro of settling city 2 on W grassland, and building the colossus there.
I have no clue about that forest. I'm not sure that chopping it is worth it at all for now.

 

[neilmeister]

Interesting tests guys, especially as they are so different! Sorry I have been a bit busy to do much, but I should be able to do some today.

A test to 1ad would be extremely useful. This will give us insight into:
- how our economy fares with lots of cities
- what tech trades could be made with the AI

@ the forest
- Yeah, I don't know. I kind of wanted to chop it into Oracle, so that we can time it with finishing Pottery, without doing a 3 pop whip. But, compared to what the options are, it is pretty weak. Chopping the forest means the galley is delayed in exploration, or city 2 & 3 growth is slowed. A big whip, and the new cities getting the best start is probably the best approach.

@ city 2
It is either fish/pigs or N of Stone. I agree with Alaman, that stone seems best, this city has to be the best place to build Colossus, as it can have 11hpt when it borrows the caps mine. Also, if we settle stone first, by the time we settle fish/pigs we should have AH.

Build order would be:
cap: monument -> Oracle -> WB (for city 2) -> galley -> settler (whipped) -> granary
stone city: monument -> lighthouse -> forge -> Colossus
fish/pigs: lighthouse -> granary -> settlers

Tech order:
BW -> Pottery (required for MC) -> AH -> Writing -> ??? depends on lots of things.

@ galleys
We should definitely send the first galley we have off to explore, the only question I see is if we delay it by moving the worker around. After that, we obviously neeed 1 for ferrying, and that is probably enough, as there is not much for workers to do.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Are we going to have a settler ready to go when we discover BW? And a boat?

 

[neilmeister]

No, city 2 will have been founded for about 10 turns when we discover BW.

City 3 won't come until a new galley/settler is built by the cap, after Oracle.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Well as long as we have a settler ready to grab copper (if available) before we start on the colossus.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Yes, the forge takes a long time, way enough time to get a settler.

So, by going all the way to 1 ad, I have whipped like never before in the capital, and we have a total of 9 cities, plus 1 settler ready to embark, and another one coming out of the pipes in 4 turns. A GE gave us the pyramids.
Our max beaker rate is 84 and we lose 35. Our sustainable rate is around 45 % and about 45 beakers.
There is one galley exploring and one ferrying. Two workers, but even like that, they are not overworked.
A handful of warriors in all the city.
The colossus is out by turn 156.

Couple of notes : all the cities range between "lame" and "horsehockey" with the exception of north of stone. But at least, we're rexing. This is a really a test of pure settler production capacity.

This beaker rate is only achieved after a trade for currency with Frederick. When we do meet him, he already have monarchy (like us) and alphabet. Which means that our research wouldn't be optimal at all with such an opponent. With so many cities, currency is a massive boost, and I didn't have any open borders.
I would actually go for it before monarchy. Math is more tradable, and so is currency.

 

[Benginal]

at 10AD

• 8 cities at sizes 6, 6, 6, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1
• 4 granaries, 3 lighthouses, 3 monuments, 2 libraries, 1 forge, 1 Academy, 1 Oracle, 1 Academy
• I have Maths, IW, MC, Alpha, Monarchy, Currency, CoL, and half way through CS
• I'm getting 38.5 beakers from the capital at 100%
• The empire gets 116 beakers at 100% and we get +2 gold and 62 beakers at 50%.
• We founded Confucianism.
• I sailed pretty much around the whole continent and have met all the AIs.
• I have 9 warriors, 4 galleys, 1 worker, and 1 trireme.
• Current builds are 3 granaries, 2 lighthouses, 2 triremes, and a settler.

Notes: Build a Trireme or two

 

[neilmeister]

all the cities range between "lame" and "horsehockey"

Thats Gold.

Nice tests guys. Looks like all out rex is invadisable, probably better to get the first core cities out and focus on them, build the WB's, galleys, triremes...

The first couple of great people will make such a big difference. GS for Academy, GE for Pyramids, GP for a shrine maybe.....

Benginal, did you get a GS first? Where & when did you build Colossus?

 

[Benginal]

Nice tests guys. Looks like all out rex is invadisable, probably better to get the first core cities out and focus on them, build the WB's, galleys, triremes...

Yes. Building just settlers without workboats to go with them and without any decent core cities to support them financially is not good.

The first couple of great people will make such a big difference. GS for Academy, GE for Pyramids, GP for a shrine maybe.....

I got a great scientist first which I got from city 2 (pigs and fish). He built the academy in the capital. Speaking of this, I think that the Pyramids are a waste on this map. HR for the rule. As such, I think the pyramids are a wasted engineer (who I'd settle in the capital ... or maybe bulb machinery (?) or whatever those engineer bulbs are.

Benginal, did you get a GS first? Where & when did you build Colossus?

Yes. GS first. I built the Colossus on turn 157 in the capital with no whips (into the colossus itself, I overflowed into it and the forge several times).

I'll do a detailed game for the spreadsheet soon and pay more attention. So i imagine everything will be a little better and you guys can follow along better.

 

[Benginal]

Yes, the forge takes a long time, way enough time to get a settler.

So, by going all the way to 1 ad, I have whipped like never before in the capital, and we have a total of 9 cities, plus 1 settler ready to embark, and another one coming out of the pipes in 4 turns. A GE gave us the pyramids.
Our max beaker rate is 84 and we lose 35. Our sustainable rate is around 45 % and about 45 beakers.
There is one galley exploring and one ferrying. Two workers, but even like that, they are not overworked.
A handful of warriors in all the city.
The colossus is out by turn 156.

Couple of notes : all the cities range between "lame" and "horsehockey" with the exception of north of stone. But at least, we're rexing. This is a really a test of pure settler production capacity.

This beaker rate is only achieved after a trade for currency with Frederick. When we do meet him, he already have monarchy (like us) and alphabet. Which means that our research wouldn't be optimal at all with such an opponent. With so many cities, currency is a massive boost, and I didn't have any open borders.
I would actually go for it before monarchy. Math is more tradable, and so is currency.

I think one of the biggest differences in our game is what we did with the AIs. Unfortunately, this sucks, as we have no idea what it will be like in the real game. By 10 AD I had open borders with everybody. Had a foreign trade route in most of my cities (that's 3 commerce). And had traded Monarchy for IW, Maths, Alpha, Poly, Hunting (DOH), and AH (and I still had MC and CoL on everybody). Obviously, this might be impossible in the real game. But it's definitely worth sending that galley out to see if we can find neighbors.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

If we have a lot of seafood pyramids would be a good GE rush build. The more food the better the mids are. Plus, if we build them where we already have a forge we could probably get another GE for the Great Library - although if we settle the marble site that is probably unnecessary.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Ok it looks like the tests are shaping up. Much better than I would do anyway.

But the main reason why I'm posting is I'm out of pocket until Sunday. So skip me if I'm up.

 

[Trystero]

Looks good guys. I will take a closer look at the tests tonight. I ended up working half the weekend, which threw the rest of my schedule off, and I'm just catching up now.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

I tried my test without talking with anyone, no open borders at all, to know the raw output of the config. Could you try close borders with everyone on your last save and see how much beaker and gold that give you ?

 

[Benginal]

I tried my test without talking with anyone, no open borders at all, to know the raw output of the config. Could you try close borders with everyone on your last save and see how much beaker and gold that give you ?

well i didn't save my test game. :-/. But I'll do another test tonight most likely and will purposely only meet two AIs. I think in the real game, we won't be isolated. That would be too mean.

@ Pyramids

Thinking about it in terms of just food is missing some of the picture. We also have to be in Rep, which means no HR. We also have to be running specialists which means no growth.

We could do some more tests out to ~500 AD, when the true power of massive trade routes and a dozen colossus powered tiles per cities is obvious. It also enables maassssssive whipping which running specs does not. If we have ~5 cities at 10 pop and 10 cities at 15 pop by ~700 AD. We can whip out excellent numbers of troops. Production is too low for anything but whipping so we need big cities, so we need growth, so we need HR and to work tiles.

Otoh, I really like the idea of saving the GE for the Great Library. We can put it in fish + pigs which can also run two scientists from its fish. And then still be able to have production working the desert hill and whipping the extra pop from the pigs.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

We've got marble available though haven't we? Bit of a waste using a GE for the Great Lib then.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

We do have marble, but it's not exactly easily connected.
I think we can save the argument about the GE when we actually get one... At that moment, we might have landed on a continent and a different strategy might emerge.

Benginal, you probably still have the autosave unless you played other games since. You can meet as many AI as you want, just don't open borders, so as to measure more precisely the sheer weight of our cities.
I'll try another test game with your options : colossus in the capital and fish/pig first. In case of colossus in the capital, it was the strongest site for city 2. Maybe pushing to 1 ad we have similar status, but early colossus would be better. Need to check.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Tried your settle in fish/pig and build the colossus in the capital approach : it works quite well.
I have similar results, though a bit stronger : 109 beakers at 100% without any trade, and without any academies. I had a great engineer, with which I build the pyramids, and got into HR, since I chose to prioritize currency (which proved much more tradable.)
The second was a great merchant, with a sweet CS bulb or a possible juicy overseas missions.
The city profile was quite similar : between 8 and 9 cities of various sizes.
Two triremes are necessary, three would be comfortable. But they are cheap to build : it's a 2 pop whip after 1 turn of hammers in it. So we could have just one until needed.

After this intense testing, I'm quite eager to see where the actual copper is, and which AI we will meet !

Could we agree on a micro ?

I suggest :
- Work forest and not corn.
- Build WB
- Settle desert, mine desert hill. Start building a lighthouse.
- Send galley exploring.
- When 4 turns before bronze working, start a monument.
- Revolt straight away.
- Whip the monument, work coast and not corn.
- Research Animal Husbandry (after testing, it works, we have time for pottery, it delays oracle, but greatly speeds up city 2)
- 2 pop whip a galley in the oracle before unhappiness kicks in.
- Whip the lighthouse for city 2, and build a warrior. When size 3, build a settler.
- Wait for pottery to arrive to whip the oracle.

How does that sound for a start ?

 

[neilmeister]

It sounds OK, but when did you build Oracle? We do not want to delay it by too much, I know we are building it reasonably early, but I don't want to risk losing it. Especially after investing so much into it. I really think we have to build it by t95, at the latest.

Agreed about researching AH, but I would do it after Pottery.