SGOTM 16 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

I would rather not settle in the middle of the jungle right now.

Actually there're 2 corn spots, 1 near the coast and another near an inland river. First i'd like to know which one Shaan is proposing to settle.
IMO the river corner is a great spot. But the settler needs at least 3 warriors for escort and garrison, one of them preceeding it.

But i already said i'm in favour of aggressive settling.

In any case, i'd like to have a new dotmap, assuming we keep the barb city.

 

[Shaandore]

I was proposing the river corn. The other one would be tough: Brennus will go for it, and his culture might have just reached 1S of horses. We will be better off leaving the spot to him.

I did make a spreadsheet. Not very exact one, but here are my assumptions:
maintenance for the city is 5 gpt: 2 for distance maintenance (exact number), ~2 for number of cities maintenance increase (both taken from a startegy article), and 1 for civic upkeep (estimate).

I asssumed that we work the corn when possible, and other than that only cottages.

The city starts generating more commerce per turn than its maintenance cost at about turn ~17

It turned out that we need ~27 turns to break even. At that point the city is generating 9 commerce per turn and the cottages are growing like hell ...
For that growth, we need two workers to build the first cottage and the farm, and possibly later too for clearing jungle.

I can post the spreadsheet if someone is interested.

 

[Shaandore]

Barbs can't attack spies. So they will walk to Brennus.

So if I understand correctly, they are the invincible spawnbusters? Great news.

Can you give a plan for that city and estimate its cost and when it'll start contributing? It just looks like a gold drain to me, but something concrete could change my mind.
My preference is for Paris-W to start working some food and developing the plains cottages Paris will need when our happiness cap rises.

We are getting back on our feet. The river helps a lot, those farmed FPs and the two cottages Blub started/built do help us. Paris is growing on cottages. We have 5 workers now for 4 cities, with Lyons and Orleans almost improved to happy cap (one worker will be enough for these two.)

That, and we have some turns until the settler comes out, so we could do that corn city first. (but building the eastern Paris helper shouldn't be postponed, too. Maybe I will start a settler in Lyons after it grows to size 5.) Spies are on their way to steal IW, which will give us a very nice tile and even more happiness.

 

[Shaandore]

PPP

Every turn: make sure Lyons has the Engineer hired.

Military: One north warrior comes south, the same amount of fogbusting can be done on that forest just N of the mountain range. (AFAIK barbs cannot spawn on horse resources, and the northern corner of our landmass is not spawnbusted anyway.)
We will need at least one more warrior if we plan to settle the red spot. The other warriors will continue scouting as planned.

Paris: grow while building a spy, then build a warrior/barracks
Lyons: build work boat, then build granary while growing to size 6. Put 11 hammers into settler and whip 3 pop into granary.
Orelans: build barracks (or maybe a warrior first) until size 6, then whip a settler.
Rheims: work clams for five turns, and whip a workboat. (this is much better than building workboat while working mine) After that build granary.

Workers: One worker in Lyons mines the other grass hill, then goes south/east to improve new city
Other Lyons worker chops into the workboat, then stay in the general area to improve FloodPlains.
Orleans worker starts road south to the new city/stays near Orleans and improve FPs.
Paris worker builds the last green riverside cottage, then starts building the other riverside plains cottage that could be shared with Orelans.

Rheims worker finishes the road and builds a road on the gems tile. (gives us faster spy movement, and we will need the road soon anyway.)

Questions that need to be adressed are underlined. Mini-turnset ends when the first settler gets built. Most important question is of course the next city.

 

[Shaandore]

Thinking it through, the eastern Paris helper city will break even immediately at size 1 if it works the fish (maintenance ~3 gpt, 3 commerce income), so maybe we should really settle that first. The next settler will come out fast, and in the meanwhile we generate some income with the helper. (And more mature cottages for Paris)

Edit: and the corn city won't be stolen from us: there is just no way that Brennus would bypass the other corn/pig/horse site(s)

 

[BLubmuz]

Shaan, your build plan seems well thought.
As i said, i prefer the south corn city regardless of the cost. Then, if it can have a break even in less than 20 turns, the better.

That said, the "original" fish+pig city can be next.

 

[ZPV]

I was proposing the river corn. The other one would be tough: Brennus will go for it, and his culture might have just reached 1S of horses. We will be better off leaving the spot to him.

I did make a spreadsheet. Not very exact one, but here are my assumptions:
maintenance for the city is 5 gpt: 2 for distance maintenance (exact number), ~2 for number of cities maintenance increase (both taken from a startegy article), and 1 for civic upkeep (estimate).

I'm afraid that strategy article is somewhat out of date. Distance and #cities maintenance are rounded to 2 d.p. and then only truncated when you've added them up across all cities.

I've just run a quick test. If our other cities are at sizes 5/4/4/1 then it's an increase of 8gpt for either spot on the corner. (20 instead of 12).
Only 3.67 of that is in the new city - the rest comes from increasing maintenance in our other four cities (and possibly civic maintenance).

I asssumed that we work the corn when possible, and other than that only cottages.

The city starts generating more commerce per turn than its maintenance cost at about turn ~17

It turned out that we need ~27 turns to break even. At that point the city is generating 9 commerce per turn and the cottages are growing like hell ...
For that growth, we need two workers to build the first cottage and the farm, and possibly later too for clearing jungle.

I can post the spreadsheet if someone is interested.

 

[BLubmuz]

The increase in maintenance and civics costs due to number of cities is something we have to take in account all the game. We must arrive soon at least to 6 cities for the OU. Other considerations, like distance can be taken in account, but as i said, take one city is more costly than build one, since we do not have an army for a long while.

Take a spot we choose instead of a crappy one on a hill (you know that the AI always privileges hills despite in weaker spots) can be costly and a long thing. By having cities close to Brennus we save on war costs and in the meantime we can develop them.

You already marked that spot as interesting, let's go for it. But first let me look again at the map and draw a dotmap. BTW Shaan, can you please post your intermediate save so i can see the present situation?

 

[ZPV]

The increase in maintenance and civics costs due to number of cities is something we have to take in account all the game. We must arrive soon at least to 6 cities for the OU. Other considerations, like distance can be taken in account, but as i said, take one city is more costly than build one, since we do not have an army for a long while.

Take a spot we choose instead of a crappy one on a hill (you know that the AI always privileges hills despite in weaker spots) can be costly and a long thing. By having cities close to Brennus we save on war costs and in the meantime we can develop them.

You already marked that spot as interesting, let's go for it. But first let me look again at the map and draw a dotmap. BTW Shaan, can you please post your intermediate save so i can see the present situation?

The way to take those costs into account is by delaying a slow-starting city like that one until we've got some of the late classical techs (say, we're close to currency or have calendar, depending which we take first) and the economic hit is less significant.
If we lose it, we lose it. We have enough city sites available that we'll just settle somewhere else almost as good instead, so it's more important for us to develop our empire than make sacrifices (like settling it early) to take that one. The costs of taking an extra city in a war you're already going to fight anyway are small - by the final city you have promoted units which get better odds and you don't lose many.

 

[BSPollux]

It would be very friendly if you could write out the meaning of it when you use an abreviation for the first time. I had to google wftyagta or what it was called and I dont understand "We must arrive soon at least to 6 cities for the OU" either.

these discussions seem to be intresting but I dont understand them cause of all your slang.

I asked a while ago why you guys think its allready to late to build cottages (below 100 turns played!) and noone felt responcible to answer that question.

When this game was announced I said I'd like to play but felt to unxperienced. The answer was that it was as much about learning then anything else and that I should join the team. So please, answer a question here and there, ok?

 

[Shaandore]

It would be very friendly if you could write out the meaning of it when you use an abreviation for the first time. I had to google wftyagta or what it was called and I dont understand "We must arrive soon at least to 6 cities for the OU" either.

OU is for Oxford University. It is one of the strongest national wonders. There is a prerequisite of 6 universities before one can start building it, so we need at least 6 cities for that.

these discussions seem to be intresting but I dont understand them cause of all your slang.

I asked a while ago why you guys think its allready to late to build cottages (below 100 turns played!) and noone felt responcible to answer that question.
I don't think that it is too late. I guess ZPV's thought process was that they won't be mature enough to help us throgh the early game, and in the mid game, we will wage wars, so we will be more effective with military cities, and let our enemies build those cottages, so we can take them.

When this game was announced I said I'd like to play but felt to unxperienced. The answer was that it was as much about learning then anything else and that I should join the team. So please, answer a question here and there, ok?

We are sorry, it is easy to get carried away with these abbreviations.
Answers in red.

 

[Shaandore]

I'm afraid that strategy article is somewhat out of date. Distance and #cities maintenance are rounded to 2 d.p. and then only truncated when you've added them up across all cities.

I've just run a quick test. If our other cities are at sizes 5/4/4/1 then it's an increase of 8gpt for either spot on the corner. (20 instead of 12).
Only 3.67 of that is in the new city - the rest comes from increasing maintenance in our other four cities (and possibly civic maintenance).

It means that I underestimated civic maintenance, and/or the article is out of date on #of cities maintenance. (I knew that not all of the increase would show up in the city, but the article has a diagram where it shows the TOTAL #of cities maintenence increase for every new city, and it wrote 2 gpt for city #5 IIRC)

There could also be a difference from difficulty level (Monarch vs Emperor) that I didn't take into account. This means that the city needs >30 turns to break even, and would be very expensive until then. (If that 8gpt maintenance increase is true, it would kill our economy)

The more I think about it, the more determined I become that we should build that fish-pig helper first. (we know for sure that it won't have distance maintenance at least)

@Blubmuz: I'm sorry, I'm at the University, but I can post the save at about 6 o'clock tonight. (We are in the same time zone)

 

[Shaandore]

One more thing: It is obvious that we can't settle the city before we get one or two economy techs. Our gpt is 13 at 0% slider for now. We need sailing and preferably currency too before going for that jungle cottage spot.

 

[Folket]

It seems like we are mostly agreeing on Pig/Fish city now. That city will not need a road for trade route, since fishing will give it connection to Clam/gems right?

 

[BLubmuz]

It seems like we are mostly agreeing on Pig/Fish city now. That city will not need a road for trade route, since fishing will give it connection to Clam/gems right?

While seems true that we agree on the pig/fish city, it needs a road even after sailing to be connected with the Capital, since it's not on a river.

About Pollux questions: sorry but i overlook them. Well, a little acronyms dictionary:

OU was well explained by Shaan.
IW can be Iron Working or Iron Works. Obviously since you speak of Iron Working in the classical age and of Iron Works in the Industrial age, you always know of what you discuss. Like all the the NW (National Wonders) it needs 6 buildings (forges in the case), the Globe 6 theaters, while the HE (Heroic Epic) needs barracks in the chosen city, but a level 4 unit (which can even be died after you promoted it) and the NE (National Epic) only a Library in the chosen city.
The numbers of buildings of a certain type varies with the map size.

Then, the diplo acronyms:
WHEOOHRN - We Have Enough On Our Hands Right Now means that an AI is goin' to war or he's already fighting one.
WTYABTA - We Think You Are Becoming Too Advanced is the limit an AI has for trading techs. It varies depending by the AI: Mansa has no limit, Elizabeth (usually Lizzy) has it very high, GK (Genghis Khan) very low. You can see anything about the leaders in the CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml located in your \Assets\XML\Civilizations folder. You can open it with notepad, but better use an XML editor to read it easily.

More: MM is for Micro Management.

 

[Shaandore]

WTYABTA - We Think You Are Becoming Too Advanced

Just nitpicking....
IIRC (If I remember correctly) it is WFYABTA, which stands for We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced

 

[Shaandore]

It seems like we are mostly agreeing on Pig/Fish city now. That city will not need a road for trade route, since fishing will give it connection to Clam/gems right?

As far as I know, fishing is enough as long as all the coast water tiles on the route are within our culture borders. (Which is true BTW, Paris' and Rheims' borders have just expanded)
So no roads are necessary for the trade route. I would still prefer to build roads in the near future, because that city has some nice food, thus some whipped units will come out of there eventually.

 

[BLubmuz]

Just nitpicking....
IIRC (If I remember correctly) it is WFYABTA, which stands for We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced

Picky... but correct. I'm human, after all

 

[ZPV]

It seems like we are mostly agreeing on Pig/Fish city now. That city will not need a road for trade route, since fishing will give it connection to Clam/gems right?

It does not need a road; that is correct.
We don't even need Fishing - Paris and Rheims have popped their borders, so we have cultural control of the entire coastline - so there's a coastal connection down to Rheims and then the road back to Paris.

edit: If we did not have cultural control of the coast, then we'd need Sailing for this connection.

 

[ZPV]

It means that I underestimated civic maintenance, and/or the article is out of date on #of cities maintenance. (I knew that not all of the increase would show up in the city, but the article has a diagram where it shows the TOTAL #of cities maintenence increase for every new city, and it wrote 2 gpt for city #5 IIRC)

Yes, it's hopelessly out of date. In Vanilla civ, much of the # of cities maintenance increase is lost in rounding errors, whereas in BtS it all counts. There is also the difficulty level difference - maintenance is more on Emperor than Monarch.

The correct formula for maintenance in a city is:

Distance maintenance = 25 * distance to gov't centre * (pop+7)/10 * WorldSizeDistMod/100 * DifficultyDistMod/100 / MaxPlotDistance

NumCities maintenance = min(MaxNumCitiesMaint, NumberOfCities * ((pop+17)/18 * WorldSizeNumMod/100 * DifficultyNumMod/100))

.

where WorldSizeDistMod is 50/60/70/80/90/100 for Duel/Tiny/.../Huge
DifficultyDistMod is 45/55/65/75/85/90/95/100/100 for Settler/Warlord/.../Deity

WorldSizeNumMod is 45/40/35/30/25/20 for Duel/Tiny/.../Huge
DifficultyNumMod is 40/50/60/70/80/85/90/95/100 for Settler/Warlord/.../Deity
MaxNumCitiesMaint is 4/4/5/5/6/6/7/7/8 for Settler/Warlord/.../Deity

Note, tile distances are calculated as long_side + short_side/2 where long_side is the larger of the x and y coordinate differences, and short_side is the smaller.

The strategy article for civic upkeep is broadly correct.

There could also be a difference from difficulty level (Monarch vs Emperor) that I didn't take into account. This means that the city needs >30 turns to break even, and would be very expensive until then. (If that 8gpt maintenance increase is true, it would kill our economy)

The more I think about it, the more determined I become that we should build that fish-pig helper first. (we know for sure that it won't have distance maintenance at least)