SGOTM 14 - One Short Straw

Of course, BW, but you asked about the delay. Pottery is my guess w/o checking details.

Those calendar tiles are valuable while we're growing. As it is, Washington is pretty cash limited, as capitals go. Then there's the MoM. I think about 48t of GA would kick ass while we kick some ass.

Currency is what I think is overrated in this scenario. A fourth TR adds much less than a second, percentage-wise. And we won't be scoring any cash in trades to speak, from my testing. So it's just an expensive route to CoL.
 
Of course, BW, but you asked about the delay. Pottery is my guess w/o checking details.
No, I was assuming they only had four techs. We only have 3 at the moment.

Those calendar tiles are valuable while we're growing. As it is, Washington is pretty cash limited, as capitals go. Then there's the MoM. I think about 48t of GA would kick ass while we kick some ass.

Currency is what I think is overrated in this scenario. A fourth TR adds much less than a second, percentage-wise. And we won't be scoring any cash in trades to speak, from my testing. So it's just an expensive route to CoL.
1 extra TR is 1 extra TR. It's total commerce. Why does the percentage increase matter? You're arguing for total commerce, by saying we wanna work silk. The value of GLH+Currency is that it gives you commerce for free as you expand, and lets you not work stuff like a zero-production silk tile while growing and setting up infrastructure.

I think MoM is pretty dependent on VC type and speed, quite cheap to build with marble and not something that goes very early on Emp.

Edit: I'd still get Calendar relatively early, ofc.
 
3 silks, 1 spice, 1 sugar all in cities with beaker multipliers. Plus they give the happies for whipping if we want. MoM is great for domination. I haven't tested either so I have no idea which is better. Except that I know that in my testing I was able to trade for something like 30g total. But I also don't know where you got that I wanted calendar so much. I just happened to put it there at the next tech once, then kept on. Probably IW would come next, I would think. My guess is there is iron available, quite possibly in Gems on the southern ph, since the bear didn't put his grubby paws there.

MoM isn't really all that cheap, even with marble and it shouldn't be, because it's an awesome wonder. But I was thinking the sooner we get it the better, in case we want an early GA for switching civics and to give our empire a huge jumpstart. Combined with Pacifism and the GA gpp multiplier and we could run about 24t of it and I bet the other teams wouldn't even feel our wake anymore.
 
Sad to hear that Toto died :(

MoM is a very powerful wonder and if we can get it without sacrificing in development, I think we should. That's a discussion that's a ways off though so I don't think we need to worry about it right now -- our primary concern right now is setting up GLH + Mids and hitting 5-6 cities so that we can really start blowing through the tech tree. There is lots of room for cities up north so we'll want to be aggressive about whipping/chopping.
 
Just fun to talk about something longer term once in a while. :D Gets tedious with all this GLH/Mids testing only.

Like I said, I think the critical question right now is how many units we wanna build in the short term. Toto's loss is very unfortunate. I don't particularly wanna have to deal with a barb archer getting close to our borders in the T60-80 period. We have to be very precise with builds there, so we might not have an emergency archer whip available.

I would sure hope neil didn't give us iron either, btw.
 
I'm also sceptical about the value of an early calendar. Representation+our existing resources should be all we need fro future. I also don't think we should go for iron working until we need to clear the jungle; Given the absence of horses/copper I doubt there is a source of iron readily accessible. In the longer term I think we might want to consider cottaging the capital which will enable us to make use of the the extra happiness we have which would otherwise go to waste if we only ran specialists there.


MOM would be nice, but I wouldn't sacrifice research or Rex to get it, as depending on the circumstances it's use could be quite limited.

How can we be sure that a GL in a marble city will allow us access to the AI via the sea? The ocean could be 2+ tiles wide.


I would like another 3 military units in the near future, even if it means delaying a wonder by a turn or two. I think the small extra risk we would run by losing it is outweighed by the risk that the barbs could screw up our plans if we build too few.
 
'Cause where's the fun in that? I like the idea of a no military resource game.
You may be right, though. I have no idea.

Well he was kind enough to give us ivory, so a fairly early war is still possible if a team made a beeline for it.
 
Just fun to talk about something longer term once in a while. :D Gets tedious with all this GLH/Mids testing only.

Like I said, I think the critical question right now is how many units we wanna build in the short term. Toto's loss is very unfortunate. I don't particularly wanna have to deal with a barb archer getting close to our borders in the T60-80 period. We have to be very precise with builds there, so we might not have an emergency archer whip available.

I would sure hope neil didn't give us iron either, btw.


We have elephants now, so it's not like we're stuck with just archers/longbows and gunpowder units.
That said, if there's no iron, the game might hinge on being able to annex some cheaply with other units, so that we can get cannons/knights/whatever to whittle down the wizard.

Yes, units are something to worry about. I think the north can get away with two warriors. I'd like Warrior 2 (in Gems) to go fogbust Marble if we're going to found it next, and then it will move to stone. Warrior 1 will stay in the pig area (uncovering the tiles I didn't), and NY can have a build order of something like WB<->Warrior-Worker (whip)-overflow into Archer. The northern warriors would creep north as we found more cities.
 
How can we be sure that a GL in a marble city will allow us access to the AI via the sea? The ocean could be 2+ tiles wide.
Yes, the ocean could be two tiles wide, but not with 1f1c. See the above picture. I added an example showing what happens if there's no land tile reachable by the 100:culture:.

Oh, and btw, the two tiles I'm emphasizing are NOT be reachable by Bridge City at 10:culture:. The only question is whether those two tiles are connected to the land to the SW of BC that is reachable at 10:culture:
 
To me the question is when will the barbs begin entering our borders. Before that, we only need the two warriors, ASSUMING they succeed in establishing spawnbusting positions safely. Obviously, we need to test things again. Alas.

If we could build GLH in Marble and Mids in Washington, then Stone should be able to chop an archer, in a pinch.

In any case, it argues for building some mines here and there. Like Gems, Washington, Stone, and Pigs. Marble will have them but is too far away.

EDIT: ZPV, are you putting together a test save?
 
To me the question is when will the barbs begin entering our borders. Before that, we only need the two warriors, ASSUMING they succeed in establishing spawnbusting positions safely. Obviously, we need to test things again. Alas.

If we could build GLH in Marble and Mids in Washington, then Stone should be able to chop an archer, in a pinch.

In any case, it argues for building some mines here and there. Like Gems, Washington, Stone, and Pigs. Marble will have them but is too far away.

EDIT: ZPV, are you putting together a test save?

ok, I'll try and update the test.
If there are more tiles in the north than there is room on my map, then :trouble:
edit: I've held onto my intermediate and auto saves, and will upload them if anyone wants them.
 
Here's an updated test save:

I've gotten the warriors as close to the health of the ones in the real save, the beakers in Writing match exactly, and removed a couple of AI scouts that were getting close.
We now correctly have Archery, and are no longer named in honour of me. :rolleyes:
 

Attachments

Yes, the ocean could be two tiles wide, but not with 1f1c. See the above picture. I added an example showing what happens if there's no land tile reachable by the 100:culture:.

Oh, and btw, the two tiles I'm emphasizing are NOT be reachable by Bridge City at 10:culture:. The only question is whether those two tiles are connected to the land to the SW of BC that is reachable at 10:culture:

You're right - something there will definitely be accessible by Classical-age boats.
We'll know if it's the same landmass as our starting one, by whether our culture expands into the "1f1c ocean" that you've highlighted or not. If it does, same landmass; else an island.
 
Of course the crab nets give +2fpt. WhatI'm looking at is that at p1, Stone is already working a 3f2c oasis tile, so the 4f2c crab nets add very little value. This is low value after a 9t wait from Gems, but even chopping the wb in Stone is low value imo, for a measly +1fpt compared to chopping the library, simply because the 5f rice and gold tile are waiting. But that's just my gut feeling without testing it.
While the Oasis does throw a loop into things, consider which Food-based square we could work at Size 2 then.

I was under the impression that the Rice was unirrigated, making it a comparison of 4 Food from the Rice versus 4 Food and 2 Commerce from the Crab if we Chop out a Work Boat.


ZPV delays the library in Washington but still gets math on 1160BC because he settles Stone so late and hasn't settled Pigs yet.
Let's be careful about how we combine the various approaches here. My understanding is that Stone has a lot more Forests that would be Chopped into The Pyramids than our capital does.

Even if our capital does have several Forests, we'll probably want to use a good portion of those in Workers/Settlers (or even Archers/Warriors now?), so if we build The Pyramids in our capital, we'll either use up less Forests for other things (potentially slowing us down) or else will need to settle Stone City sooner, so that our capital can spend a good number of turns manually building The Pyramids using the Stone-Resource-production-enhancement factor.

If we settle Stone late and don't build The Pyramids there, then aren't we essentially delaying the value out of a whole ton of Forest Chops in Stone City? If not, then would we really focus on making those Chops anytime soon?

Chopping a ton of Forests in Stone City for The Pyramids is pretty nice since:
a) We have enough post-Math Forests to be able to almost complete The Pyramids, to the point that the City's Centre and working the Stone with our Size 1 citizen can finish off the last bit of The Pyramids quickly

b) We could do it with 0-pre-Chopping using 3 Workers being near the Stone at the last minute and a 4th Worker coming in at the very last minute

c) We could virtually clear-cut (maybe not one of the Silk or Spice) the Forests in our capital as soon as possible for non-Wonder build items, while keeping those Workers nearer to other Cities and not feeling that we need to save said Forests

d) Our Workers won't be out of position later by having to go up and Chop Stone's Forests for post-Math Chops into random, non-Wonder build items



As I mentioned in point b), we could aim to send 3 Workers to the Stone to Road and Quarry it as soon as the City is settled (or with a bit of ideal timing, Road it just before the City is settled).

Alternately, we could just use 2 Workers for Quarrying if we need the 3rd Worker to be elsewhere (Worker "A" in my diagram below is this flexible Worker, while Workers B and C would definitely be Quarrying the Stone--it's not a one-Worker-job).

A 4th Worker, Worker D, can arrive at the last minute from elsewhere to Chop the last Forest.
e848ff2192.jpg



the maintenance costs of Pigs+Stone push back the completion time of math, imperiling our early GLH date.
It may not be feasible to Mine and work a Gold in time for it to contribute fast enough to Commerce to offset a potential drain on our economy by settling Stone City earlier.

Then, there's the issue of how do we leverage all of Stone City's Forests if we aren't using them on The Pyramids. Yes, there is The Great Lighthouse, but then we'd probably Chop most of them or all of them pre-Math, right?

Anyway, I'm not discounting any ideas, but combining them might not work as well as the two main existing approaches, since certain trade-offs were calculated in each one--saving Flasks by settling Stone late goes hand-in-hand with putting The Pyramids in Stone, since, otherwise, we can't really leverage it's Forest Chops.

Meanwhile, settling Stone sooner makes us say "well, let's use those Forests, but let's probably not wait until Math and just Chop as many as we can into The Great Lighthouse." At 20 Hammers instead of 30 Hammers each, that 7 * 20 = 140 Hammers--a good chunk of The Great Lighthouse. A balance of some pre-Math and post-Math Chops could work, too, if, say, we Chopped a Forest into a Work Boat and saved most of the Forests until after Math, but it sounds like the timing makes it just very tough to do, since The Great Lighthouse needs to come out sooner than The Pyramids.

Thus, I really like the synergy of building the Wonder that we want quickly (The Great Lighthouse) using a lot of production squares (i.e. putting it in Marble City such that Marble City is settled adjacent to the 2 Hills squares), since Mine-based Hammers do not pay a penalty pre-Math like Forest Chops do.
 
As for spawn-busters, if we need 3 in the north instead of 2, I would support building an extra Warrior somewhere, even if it means delaying a Wonder date. Unless there is another isthmus connection up there, then being able to fully spawn-bust the north is worth said cost, due to the high potential for Barb units entering our borders if we leave room for any of them to spawn.

Dealing with Barb units walking onto our Resource squares and having to attack them is a nightmare, and, as we saw with Toto Deado, any fight can be a loss, so it's better to prepare ahead with an extra unit than to be short units when the time comes and be forced to scramble to make more.

At least if we can spawn-bust the north (hopefully there isn't a second isthmus), then we'll have only really a Barb threat from Barb Galleys (which isn't too big of a concern here) or from near Gem City, which is a City that flexibly can afford to whip an Archer, since it won't be building Wonders and it isn't an area where a poorly-placed Barb could get in the way of a Worker wanting to Chop a Forest.

It does not pay off to micro all of the Worker moves, only to have the Barbs disrupt our Worker micro plans.
 
Let's be careful about how we combine the various approaches here. My understanding is that Stone has a lot more Forests that would be Chopped into The Pyramids than our capital does.

Even if our capital does have several Forests, we'll probably want to use a good portion of those in Workers/Settlers (or even Archers/Warriors now?), so if we build The Pyramids in our capital, we'll either use up less Forests for other things (potentially slowing us down) or else will need to settle Stone City sooner, so that our capital can spend a good number of turns manually building The Pyramids using the Stone-Resource-production-enhancement factor.

It may not be feasible to Mine and work a Gold in time for it to contribute fast enough to Commerce to offset a potential drain on our economy by settling Stone City earlier.

Then, there's the issue of how do we leverage all of Stone City's Forests if we aren't using them on The Pyramids.
If we put Pyramids in Washington, there are at least two forests that Washington can take instead of stone (the ones in both cities' BFCs), and also any we chop before we settle stone (into other things, and save another forest for 'mids). I'm not too worried about where the hammers will come from.
I'll try it out, but I still think that "building settlers", "growing so it can build and research at the same time" and "popping out 1(+?)GS" are too many things for the capital to try and do at once, especially if marble has to borrow the corn.

If we settle stone earlyish, then 3-4 chops go into an instant Library (+ work boat?)
We also cede at least two to the capital, so there aren't many forests going unused.
Meanwhile, settling Stone sooner makes us say "well, let's use those Forests, but let's probably not wait until Math and just Chop as many as we can into The Great Lighthouse." At 20 Hammers instead of 30 Hammers each, that 7 * 20 = 140 Hammers--a good chunk of The Great Lighthouse. A balance of some pre-Math and post-Math Chops could work, too, if, say, we Chopped a Forest into a Work Boat and saved most of the Forests until after Math, but it sounds like the timing makes it just very tough to do, since The Great Lighthouse needs to come out sooner than The Pyramids.
What's this talk of pre-maths chops in GLH? Why would you do that? We can get maths around t71, and GLH a couple of turns later. That's not really a problem.
 
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