SGOTM 14 - One Short Straw

[Dhoomstriker]

I can get Pigs-1S to work now.
After improving the wheat, the worker goes up to pasture the pigs, so two workers can stay at washington for a little longer.
Then the pig worker moves back, accompanied by a washington worker, to camp the deer and mine the hills. With a camp on that deer, we can juggle the wheat tile between the two cities, and pig city really becomes productive.

I would have gotten maths t72-73 and GLH t73-74, except for the first time I've seen it in testing, it was BIFAL 1240BC. I'll repost with a test where that doesn't happen

When are you thinking of slotting in Hunting? After Masonry? Is The Wheel being slotted in there or skipped until after those two techs?

Accidentally discovered something pretty cool. I was a beaker short of completing Sailing on 1880BC because I had gone 0% slider instead of Dhoom's 50%. Decided to switch to slavery anyway and go back later and try 50%. Hit <enter> and lo and behold, in the middle of my revolt, the first thing that happened was that I completed Sailing!

Ahhhh hahahaha! Hooray for the "free Flask, even during Anarchy"!

 

[Mitchum]

I'm liking the Pigs-1S option. I somewhat followed Dhoom's plan in my first test but did not chop as aggressively around the capital and did not build the extra warrior, which would be nice for spawn busting. I chose to build an exploring WB instead of the warrior though.

Looking forward to seeing ZPV's test.

 

[mdy]

I'm concerned that we are planning to chop too aggresively. If the wizard cannot be killed in the early game (which is what I think) then we will have to pursue a balanced strategy of teching whilst expanding via "gradual" warfare. I think some off our forests might be better used to build our first army whilst we stay in CS so our research continues to benefit from representation boosted specialists. I think the risk/cost of building the wonders a couple of turns earlier is not worth such extreme chopping.

 

[Mitchum]

@mdy

The forests are used to REX at the same time we're building the wonders. If we chop less, our REX will be slower and/or our wonder dates will slip, putting them in more jeapordy. If we don't want to chop, I suggest that we either scale back our wonder aspirations or be satisfied with slower REX.

However, in my opinion, faster REX leads to more production sooner which means that we can build/whip an army without needing all of the forests.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

It could be argued that the sooner we use our Forests, the sooner we'll be able to REX, the sooner that we'll be able to launch an attack, and the sooner that we'll be able to capture an AI's Forests before the AI Chops them all, netting us more Forests overall.


Also, I am liking the Math beeline now... it's cheaper than an Alphabet beeline and in someone's test game I noticed that two sets of AIs had learned Alphabet... and Math was able to net us Alphabet plus some other techs, due to the imbalance of tech-trading when dealing with a team with more players than your own team.

Noteably, while we might still want Philosophy for the Religion and the delaying-of-Liberalism effect, we should probably consider trading cheaper techs than normal for more expensive ones... i.e. normally you might learn Metal Casting just to get Calendar and Code of Laws in trade. Here, the reverse could apply, by getting Metal Casting in trade for Calendar or Code of Laws.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The Ducks completed a library on T53 or the Oracle on T59 (or something else I can't figure out) based on their culture graph. Their power also jumped 12 in a 12t turnset. That's quite a bit. Maybe they bulbed math on T62 for 6 pts. That wouldn't surprise me to go along with researching sailing and hunting and growing 4pop pts. That would mean that starting T62 they're getting 30h chops and could easily chop out whatever they want. I did some testing on this early on and its pretty powerful.

Our biggest hang-up in all this is researching math.

If we're viewing GSes as so cheap for philosphical, I'm not sure why we woldnt' consider this, consider how much a a jumpstart it would give us.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

We do have a lot of Forests and it is very arguable that as soon as we learn Math, there is no reason not to clear-cut, barring the desire to save Forests for a National Park (I'd rather do so in an AI's City or not at all) or a Forest-regrowth-cultivation strategy.

However, any form of Forest-saving doesn't really make a lot of sense alongside a Math beeline.

Nothing says that we have to use the first Great Scientist on an Academy. It has been noted that its effect is relatively marginal early on, to the point that it's not much different from settling a Great Scientist. If we're going to be clear-cutting anyway, that's roughly an extra 8 to 10 Hammers per Forest Chop (30 - 20 = 10 Hammers for within the fat cross; 24 - 16 = 8 Hammers for within Cultural Borders just outside of the fat cross).


Also, since we appear to be fine with continuing to run 2 Scientists in our capital well after the first Great Scientist is generated, I see Lightbulbing Math as being quite feasible, as we'll already be working on our second Great Scientist. Being Philosophical, our second Great Scientist takes just as long to generate as our first Great Scientist with a Leader that has other Traits.

We'd still perform some pre-Math Chopping, particularly up to and including a Library.

However, if we delayed Chopping for a bit, we'd probably want to tech something like:
Sailing -> Masonry -> The Wheel -> Hunting

That way, the Workers could do something (build Roads) while they wait for the Great Scientist to appear.

Doing so does give us the flexibilty of a Currency beeline in place of a Math beeline. There's also a Construction beeline... how awesome would it be to start fielding uber-early Catapults, tech Horseback Riding, then drop off (hopefully via Galleys or using Roads and our large Worker force) a stack of Cats with a couple of War Elephants, all without needing to learn Iron Working, Alphabet, or many of the other techs that you normally go for near the start?


EDIT: I don't want to see us changing gears and going for an Oracle build, but I'd be up for a Math Lightbulb, seeing as how it is SO MUCH FUN to clear-cut masses of Forests early on, and each one that I Chop pre-Math feels so painful.

 

[babybluepants]

Good testing, guys.

Math bulb just doesn't sound like something they would do. If they oracled anything this early, I would think it's MC, which is a power spike, too.

I'm not entirely opposed to a Math bulb here, since it's the bottleneck. However, I would think we need more than 1-2t off a wonder to justify it.

 

[mdy]

Maths is amongst the least efficient bulb you can make. If we want more hammers from our chops delay them until we can research maths ourselves, it is only a few turns.

Whether chops are better used fro REX or an army depends on when we wanted to go to war. I was thinking we might research construction+horseback riding soon after maths. With a significant food surplus in most cities we will find it easier to build settlers/workers than units for a while. We don't a huge number of identified good city sites after our first expansion wave anyway.

 

[ZPV]

Here's a version of my Sailing-Hunting-Masonry-Wheel-Maths test.
GLH 1080/1040. I'm not sure when the Pyramids will be done - just whenever all those chops come in.

I've thought about the Math bulb a bit, but I don't think that's where our bottleneck is - instead something like Philo+Edu + a nice slingshot are where scientists can help us get up to researching any expensive techs we need.

I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that I'm in favour of clear-cutting. I see only two reasons for going to war - to seize land and cities (but we have enough of our own for now) and to win the game (which we're not ready to do yet).

 

[LowtherCastle]

Bulbing math is not just for the chops. It frees us up to research other techs.

I don't see how the DUcks could have researched enough to slingshot either MC or math. Maybe I'm wrong though.

 

[ZPV]

Well, I'll try a maths bulb, and see if it comes out ahead ~500AD.

 

[ZPV]

The more I play with the maths bulb, the more I like it.
GLH comes at least 3 turns earlier (possibly more with correct MM), and we can get those extra cities out that much quicker.
edit: yes, with a math bulb and a garrison for gem city built at pig city, we can whip GLH on t69. Maybe earlier if we delay hunting until after masonry, I haven't tried that yet.

 

[mdy]

I don't think bulbing maths is a good idea, it will waste a huge number of beakers, and I can't see how getting the GL a few turns earlier can possibly make up for that.

 

[ZPV]

I don't think bulbing maths is a good idea, it will waste a huge number of beakers, and I can't see how getting the GL a few turns earlier can possibly make up for that.

It's not about the number of beakers we would get, it's about speeding everything up - not just GLH, but getting everything a few turns earlier. We can use that extra GS to save ourselves 3 turns on Electricity or 10 turns on Maths.

If we don't use our first GS to bulb, then we'll e.g. make an academy. When the next one is done, we won't be ready to lightbulb anything more substantial (well, maybe alphabet )
So it's a choice between a cheap but useful bulb now, or else making an academy and then letting the next one sit around until we're ready to use it. (I'm discounting settling it because that's only very slightly better than an academy in the short run and doesn't pay off nearly as much in the long run. This isn't a space race)

 

[LowtherCastle]

What might we do with our first 2 GSes?

1. settle + academy (in either order)
2. settle + bulb a tech (philo, machinery)
3. academy + bulb a tech
4. bulb math + bulb another tech

In the short run, I think there's little doubt that bulbing math is more powerful because it gives us faster GLH (= lower risk of losing it + a few coins extra), faster REX and earlier worker/building techs, such as hunting for the deer, mysticism for instant culture, pottery for earlier granaries, assuming we actually take advatnage of those techs.

So the question is really the long run, and whether the REX makes up for the lost beakers. To me, faster REX is worth its weight in gold. Even after we build the MIds we'll need to REX a lot before we can take advantage of it. I see us having eight cities (Wash, Gems, Pigs, Stone, Pigs-NE, Marble, Bridge City, and Canal City). They all can hire some number of sci (or merchants with CS) and all need granaries and libraries plus any additional infrastructure. Out research will primarily come from the number of scientists and our capital will probably not yield significantly more beakers than the gems city (unless we cottage it and build the two plantations) or some high spec cities.

So maybe the real question here is, how much faster will the REX actually be?

What criterion could we use to compare the two scenarios?

 

[LowtherCastle]

One comment on settling or academy: If it didn't save a couple turns on math, giving us a safer date on GLH + Mids, I wouldn't do either. Period. I'd much rather save it for bulbing our way to Astro.

So that's another possiblity for our first 2 GSes:

5. Bulb two techs (philo, machinery, optics, etc.)

 

[mdy]

I think settling would be better than bulbing, as we will be running representation and have an academy in the capital for most of the game. Even saving it to bulb something like calendar/construction would be better (this is especially true if we wanted to try to bulb astro, though I still don't think that would be optimal).

 

[LowtherCastle]

@mdy: I think you have different assumptions about this game than I have. I think it's going to be a horse race. An all-out sprint. I thnk the fastest finish will look something liike this:

1. REX(partial) + GLH + Mids + any possible exploration
2. REX(finish) + infra + population + some combo of techs like COnstr/HBR/Aesth/Lit(HE+GLib) + more serious exploration
3. Heavy teching with Rep and hired scientists + (maybe) sending out one or more mini-teams of WE+cat (or x2) to pillage, worker-steal, and stone-age a couple nearby civs.
4. Bulb astro, all-out war against 5 AIs in preparation for domination.
5. Kill the Wizard using as many WEs is necessary.
6. Dominaton VC.

If our exploration happens to show that WEs have no chance in hell of kiling the wizard, we should know that during our heavy teching at the latest and we can adjust accordingly. Note further that our heavy teching phase can easily produce bulbs all the way to Astro and Chemistry, via GUilds, giving us both frigates and 4h workshops. (I studied the GS-bulb preferences and this is surprisingly doable.)

 

[LowtherCastle]

Analysis of my above post wrt our first GS

Great persons will not be the bottleneck. Units likewise not. Transportation likewise not. That leaves only REX, tech and exploration. Faster REX surely leads to faster exploration because our cities can build more explorers. Bulbing math accelerates our teching by 7-8t and an academy or settling, yielding at best a 7-15bpt faster tech speed, will catch up our tech maybe aroudn 500BC or 1AD or maybe never.

Again, that's assuming that bulbing math significantly speeds up our REX. What is the criterion for significantly? THree turns at least, I'd say. That means three turns sooner explorers, granaries, 8 cities settled, etc.