SGOTM 16 - Maple Sporks

[Ororo]

Anyway, I like Ororo's dotmap. I'm not sure on the order of 2 and 3 either, but that's a logistics reason. If we can get a Galley out in time (which we might be able to do, I'd have to check), then settling 2 first makes sense (overseas traderoutes are just that strong).

By 2 cities not profiting from the GLH, you mean dot 5 and the cap right? Or is it mystery dot number 6?

Yeah I totally agree that no. 2 is going to be pretty tough but it's definitely worth it (something like +9 not counting the worked tile and the city tile itself)

And sadly no. 6 is not really a mystery but rather a mistake . I'm afraid I've left it out (I was in a hurry). Next time I should really double check what I post

 

[Ororo]

@Ondskan: I really don't think we should wage an early war here. We have a lot of room to expand to, we have potential for some trades going on and franly - with so many wonders/wrokers/settlers to be build we just want have the production capacity to produce an army.

What I do think we should do is abuse the GLH to its full potential. That doesn't mean 6 stellar cities but rather 10 good ones (which is actually a good thing in a game where you plan to go for multiple corporations), most of which are settled on coast and get our intercontinental and foreign trade routes going. We'll reach Currency in no time if we do things right and then we can just choose whichever path we want (including say medieval rush, which btw. I really love! )

 

[Sengir]

Well if you're saying that you're in absolute need of an extra FP then you are loosing far more with a tight city placement in total through doubling.

But that's my point: you don't lose a tile by sharing it between two cities. It just means you can chose which city is going to work it. If you just whipped city A, then it can work less tiles, leaving the shared tiles for city B. Which means that more tiles are worked in the long run. The situation where in the end game you want to work all 20 tiles doesn't come into it. By that time our cities will be running corps as well, due to the nature of this game, which means they are not quite so dependent on the tiles around them.

And concentrating most GP-production in one city is far from sub-optimal. The only thing to consider is that we want to be able to farm extra GP's (from other cities) during a Golden Age, but that's something we'll have to micro at that point.

And while we are going for a military/cultural victory combination (IIRC), this map is horrible for an early rush, as we've got lots of land and the enemy is pretty far away. Better to wait and trade. And kill them in with medieval units.

 

[Sengir]

Yeah I totally agree that no. 2 is going to be pretty tough but it's definitely worth it (something like +9 not counting the worked tile and the city tile itself)

Yeup, it is +9 from traderoutes alone to start with. Also are we building Moai in this city? We can put a forest chop into it (after Math preferably).

 

[Ororo]

Yeup, it is +9 from traderoutes alone to start with. Also are we building Moai in this city? We can put a forest chop into it (after Math preferably).

Moai would really shine in this city. And I can see a valid arguement for building it early (the production capacity of such city would increase drastically). However I can also see a reason to wait a little bit a check if there's some stone somewhere. With stone that Math-powered chop would provide 75 instead of 45.

 

[Ondskan]

But that's my point: you don't lose a tile by sharing it between two cities. It just means you can chose which city is going to work it. If you just whipped city A, then it can work less tiles, leaving the shared tiles for city B. Which means that more tiles are worked in the long run. The situation where in the end game you want to work all 20 tiles doesn't come into it. By that time our cities will be running corps as well, due to the nature of this game, which means they are not quite so dependent on the tiles around them.

That's actually quite smart! But then we just must see to it that we don't whip two at the same time!
But one total, non shared FP then wouldn't have meant anything anyway considering the amount we have.
The amount of workers we have should also soon have farmed/cottaged enough tiles that it becomes suboptimal to whip in this way and then we might see some problems with doubling of tiles but that's ok I guess.

And concentrating most GP-production in one city is far from sub-optimal. The only thing to consider is that we want to be able to farm extra GP's (from other cities) during a Golden Age, but that's something we'll have to micro at that point.

And while we are going for a military/cultural victory combination (IIRC), this map is horrible for an early rush, as we've got lots of land and the enemy is pretty far away. Better to wait and trade. And kill them in with medieval units.

Well I don't know what's early here hehe I'm fine with a medieval one. What I mean is we can't sit back and develop, we can't just make buildings but have to perhaps designate 2 cities as production cities and not push a market through just cause it's nice to have a market and stuff like this cause we have to compensate for our amount of cities with the capture of new ones (lol) as to grow the economy larger in the end. Especially since the AI often uses cities with alot of spread.

I just don't see how we will do the GP thing in any efficient way but let's worry about that later then.

 

[Ororo]

You're right about the military - we should try our best to get a level 4 unit (perhaps the Barb city can help with that?) to unlock a Heroic Epic, which will be a great asset when we're preparing for a war with Egypt/Celtia. It also makes Literature a very high priority tech (although can you name a scenario in which it isn't? TGL+National Epic...)

 

[astre]

I did make few tests.
went massonery / sailling/ writting
prioritise food over hammer unless max pop.

paris: (settler) / warrior/ char (1 pop whip)/ pyr (T84)
worker: farm FP, road to maize (for lyon), mine the hill, chop x3

orleans: (WB) / warrior/char/worker (2 pop whip)/GW (81 fail gold)/LH (2pop whip)/GLH (T78 or 79 (-925))
worker: farm FP, go to lyon.
2nd worker : mine hill, preschop/chop

Lyon: warrior */ settler
worker: chop hill/ mine hill/ cottages...

I think delayed sailling is better as we will 2 pop whip the LH to GLH and then lose only few turns (2 at maximum).
It however, enable to build pyr earlier (obviously) but also to get a nice failed gold from GW. I got 81 g from it and that was handy

as LH is of no use by its own in orleans when settle 1N of sheep (It was usefull when 1W ^^) so delayed it is not a problem

next city will be east coast as i found no time to build a galley yet but i put one after GLH in orlean.

Btw, i propose to play until wonder are both started

 

[Norvin_Green]

I like the idea of masonry before sailing but think we need to test more (the fail gold & earlier 'mids are good). As we are basing our strategy on getting the GLH if we can build it 2 turns earlier by going sailing first then we should.

Ororo's dotmap looks good to me too. I'd change the #8 to the phantom #6 as it can steal the pigs for a few turns from city 3 and get up to speed faster.

 

[Ororo]

Well...that is a possibility but 7 seems better to me as it has 4 forests, 2 mines and a clam we can improve on turn we settle it.

@Astre, do you think you can come up with a PPP?

 

[Sengir]

@nocho, can you replay your turns on Norvins testmap? Then we can test the next turns a bit further. Otherwise I'll try to do it myself.

 

[pigswill]

Been distracted by other stuff (FFH2) recently so haven't really been following the discussions .

In terms of city size/dot-mapping it depends on how long the game will last, relatively long I suspect given the objectives we need to achieve. In a longer game we'll probably get more from 8 pop 20 cities than 16 pop 10 cities; lower maintenance costs for sure, better trade routes (because fewer cities will be competing for the same trade route) and we save a lot of hammers by building 8 lib/gran/market/grocer/CH etc rather than 16 of them. In the short term lots of small cities are nice but not so good later on.

In terms of objectives we could perhaps pick sides between Ram and Bren, annihilate our enemy (objective), attack and vassalise our 'friend' and get them to research astronomy for us which we then pinch from them through espionage (objective).

 

[astre]

Well...that is a possibility but 7 seems better to me as it has 4 forests, 2 mines and a clam we can improve on turn we settle it.

@Astre, do you think you can come up with a PPP?

well it's pretty mutch detailed in my previous post.
I can detailled it, just tell me what data to add.

 

[nocho]

I do prefer sailing before masonry. There seems to be a 5 turn difference in GLH between Sengir's earlier tests and astre's going vv, which is too considerable to ignore imo.

I'll try updating the map in a while.

 

[astre]

Well, peraps Sengir played better than I did ^^
I'm sure, my build can be optimized a bit more and gain 1-2 turns

BTW, a GLH is worth 4 gold per turn. Delayed it by 5 turn mean 20 gold.
I still prefer the 81 fail gold and do not build granary + warrior.
I'll add my test map as soon as I am on the right computer.

 

[nocho]

My worry is not about missing out on 20 gold, but on the GLH itself.

And sorry, no time now to update the map, it'll have to wait until the evening. My turns where rather straightforward though...

 

[Sengir]

I won't have time to do any testing until this evening anyway.

Masonry before Sailing means that you can start 5 turns later on the GLH (and about 10 turns earlier on the Mids) IIRC, so you'll have to make up for that somehow if the goal is to get GLH up fastest. More pre-chops might do it, but without playing, I can't tell. It also depends on how much overflow you can create for the GLH.

 

[Ondskan]

If we scout well Sailing is obviously great for coastal trade-routes.
So it depends on how soon we hit rival cities. I think we should leave this as a general note to the player playing. If he sees a rival city and can setup Open Borders go for it! If not then go for masonry.

 

[Sengir]

We won't have writing until after both Masonry and Sailing, so that's a non-issue. Unless the AI gets it of course, but that's kinda iffy.

 

[pigswill]

I've said it before (and will probably say it again) but I think we spend too much time discussing tactics/micro at the start of the game and not enough time thinking about long term strategy first then debating tactics to achieve the strategy.