SGOTM 16 - Plastic Ducks

[Duckweed]

General rule 1: cottage the river tiles and farm the non-river tiles. cottage capitol tiles.

For other cities than capital, it also depends on the purpose of the city, whether it has enough food to support the cottages and have enough commerce in total to become a good commercial city. For instance, Lyons and Tours are good commercial cities, while Mars and Rh are not.

General rule 2: the water tiles and the irrigated plains does not worth one warrior for the happiness. Change citizen to GS to control the growth at the last pop.

On the contrary, it worth to grow the cities on 2F2C tiles. we still gain 1C from that citizen. Most importantly, we are banking the citizens (hammers) for future whip. In short time, Forge, CH in every cities, and units in 3~4 front cities.

General rule 3: build wealth unless it's whipping turn or the turn to get the warrior out for happiness.

Try to produce as many warriors as possible since it will be discontinued for a while when we are preparing the war.

General rule 4: Prioritize missionaries. Ensure that the religion is spread to the city at the same turn when whipping/chopping the buildings.

Paris and Orleans need all possible religions and other cities will need both Jud and Chris.

Question 1: what's the purpose of spy here? scouting?

I built 2nd spy as backup if the 1st one fails. For now, they are not useful, send them to scout or delete them, I'm fine with both ways.

Question 2: How to get 2 lengendary cities? Have we decided to use spies? If not, we need to choose two cities and prioritize culture buildings there.

Paris for sure, Orleans seems to be the best candidate for now.

@Kossin

If we need Salon and overseas trade, the UoS might be a mid-term target. Anyway, it doesn't change the decision to keep those forests in my turns.
I still consider to chop 1 tree for the light house at Gre. I need do some calculation when I have time.

Gre can 1 pop whip LH in 1 or 2 turns.

Will take a look at your plan tonight. I'd like to see a little more detail about your worker micro, such as how many workers in which city and doing what. Do you plan to chop the 2 forests around Orleans for potential Colossus. With OF and 2 chops, it could be done in ~5 turns.

 

[sossos]

Great turn set.

And that free worker is nice.


@soundjata

No need to worry about PR. They probably have less cities, probably playing Mylene style. Problem with that approach is that small empire can't absorb all those new cities. It is an approach for fast conquest where you win with units in strike. Problem is getting to back on feet after that and reaching Future Tech. They'll have to raze cities to keep their economy running.

It's still hard to say that PR's approach is backward economically. By going MC first, you can get earlier forges, troops and courthouses. All of them supports faster expansion. On the other hand, the Colossus can also last longer with so many water tiles within 13~14 cities. Meanwhile our city#13 #14 #15 are not as good as barbarian/AI cities.

 

[sossos]

Gre can 1 pop whip LH in 1 or 2 turns.

Will take a look at your plan tonight. I'd like to see a little more detail about your worker micro, such as how many workers in which city and doing what. Do you plan to chop the 2 forests around Orleans for potential Colossus. With OF and 2 chops, it could be done in ~5 turns.

@DW

I'll assign a time slot to consider your comments tonight.

 

[Duckweed]

Took a quick look at your save. Some comments.

Besides those mentioned in post #881.

1. I forgot the add 1 worker 1N of Avi since it's a captured worker

2. As you already mentioned, give Jud missionaries priority. Note, one of Brennus's Jud missionary is in our border now, it will go either Rh or Mars. No need to produce Jud missionaries for the cities in mainland now. Mars needs focus on producing some Chris missionaries

3. The settler and WB from Tours should go to the Clam/Iron spot(1E of the clam), you also need to send 1 worker to this city to mine the iron. Please add the Iron resources on 1N2E of the clam and 1NW of Rouen. We should connect the Iron in Rouen to produce some swordmans. (we can always pillage this iron later to produce warriors again. 1 cats + 2 swordmans + 1 chariot should be enough to capture a barbarian city. The queued settler in Lyons is for the NW island city, galley could pick it on the tile 1NW of Incense and the WB should come from Orleans(not in a hurry since it takes 5 turns to wait the border pop.

4. Paris should keep on producing monasteries -- Jud, Chris and Bud, these building will give 4 later.

5. Except Orleans, don't hire any scientists, grow the cities for forge and CH whip in the coming turns.

6. Diplomacy. We can beg 50g from Brennus this turn. Also, check the resource table every turn while we have some spare resources.


Last, it's great if we can grab TC, however, I won't give it too much hope. this wonder generally will go around 1AD, this is one important reason why I didn't prioritize MC. Earlier Burea + OR and 3 more cities are guaranteed advantage, while TC is a very risky gamble after 1AD. So no need to sacrifice too much worker micro for TC.

 

[sossos]

Mars needs focus on producing some Chris missionaries

As we're not sure when the AP will be built, can we wait for a while? I think earlier forges can help us more.

5. Except Orleans, don't hire any scientists, grow the cities for forge and CH whip in the coming turns.

Try to produce as many warriors as possible since it will be discontinued for a while when we are preparing the war.

On the contrary, it worth to grow the cities on 2F2C tiles. we still gain 1C from that citizen. Most importantly, we are banking the citizens (hammers) for future whip. In short time, Forge, CH in every cities, and units in 3~4 front cities.

The whipping at lower pop level can gain more food, and I don't think it's a good deal to invest 15~20f+15 h + 1c/turn for one more pop with only 2C. The return rate is only 3%. By building wealth and hiring scientists, we can get MC earlie with a higher return rate. The return rate is 5~6%

Do you plan to chop the 2 forests around Orleans for potential Colossus. With OF and 2 chops, it could be done in ~5 turns.

I'm not sure I can get the Colossus now, so I'll build but not hurry. By going CS first, the benefit of TC is lower and the risk is higher.

For other cities than capital, it also depends on the purpose of the city, whether it has enough food to support the cottages and have enough commerce in total to become a good commercial city. For instance, Lyons and Tours are good commercial cities, while Mars and Rh are not.

Lyon and Tours are good commercial cities because there are more river tiles and flood plains for cottaging. The purpose of each city is hybrid. The science city is whipped less because there are more cottages and less food surplus. This leads to fewer units production naturally. Anyway, we don't need argue on this as it will not change my ppp much.

For other comments, I agree with you.

 

[sossos]

I will polish my plan today with all inputs collected today. A new plan and test save will be published. Hopefully I will play until construction is discovered today.

 

[Duckweed]

As we're not sure when the AP will be built, can we wait for a while? I think earlier forges can help us more.

Ram is the founder of Chris and he is Industrious, so over 90% odd he will build AP. Jud missionaries get higher priority, but we should also spread Chris in the same time, especially Paris and Orleans, where should build those monasteries as earlier as possible.

The whipping at lower pop level can gain more food, and I don't think it's a good deal to invest 15~20f+15 h + 1c/turn for one more pop with only 2C. The return rate is only 3%. By building wealth and hiring scientists, we can get MC earlie with a higher return rate. The return rate is 5~6%

Not clear what you mean here. A scientist gives 3B + 3 GPs( GP is the major goal of running scientist without representation and here they takes long time to be effective) while you lose 2F2C=5H2C from a water tile. We only want to hire specialists when we cannot control the happiness or we want a GP in short time such as the 1st GS for academy.

My major concern is that we need 5 citizens to whip Forge + CH in ~5 turns. Except Orleans, most of the cities are not big enough for these 2 whips, not mention a lot of other build.

 

[kossin]

Sorry, I don't have time to test, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

Bigger cities support more free troops. Extra MP cost at most 1g. Extra pop of city about the same. 2F2C city is therefore adding whipping potential more than anything else, which is good for when war comes.

Christianism shouldn't be a priority I agree, but if you are done with other things, start spreading it.

Monasteries only work until Scientific Method, which we shouldn't be waiting too long to get, I doubt they will ever double their culture output for 1000 years, but Free Speech should double it for a few turns.
In culture games, Theaters are better buildings for culture... anyway, we're far from that path.

 

[sossos]

This plan is worked out without hiring the scientists. One Christian missionary is whipped if the espionage approach is given up.
The WB for the 15th city can be from Avignon instead of Orleans. Orleans may build more more warriors for its happiness before building TC.

T123:
Revolt first.
Cherbourg is founded at 1SW of the North tip. Here's a trade-off between 1 more tree and 1 more coastal tile. 1 more tree can help the city to muture(6f1h33c=52c) earlier by 12 turns, which will be surpassed by 1 more coastal tile(2c) in 300 turns. build granary rather than light house as 5f>2f.
The galley may move to Cherbourg to defend the north. (I removed the babarian galley here)
1 NW of Gre needs to be farmed.


T124: prefer researching MC

chartres train a warrior instead of courthouse to gain hammers after the forges is whipped.
Orleans train and whip missionaries for Amiens. Should I whip galley here? In the extreme case, our galley may be defeated.
Avignon trains and whips a missionary for Rouen
workers start to build the road to the babarian city near Tours

T125:
settler whipped at Lyon
lighthourse whipped at Avignon
Tours build wealth


T126: Gre whip the lighthouse
Mars releases a warrior for Rheims
Poiters founded, build granary
Avignon overflows to a library, take the FP (should overflows to a WB then a warrior here)
Orleans overflows to a monument then a warrior then wealth
Rheims build wealth

T127: Gre train a warrior.
Avigon: return FP to Rouen


T128: Rouen: whip the lighthouse
Mars, train a missionary to whip
Orleans: return FP to Lyons
Avignon: whip the lighthouse
A worker moves to poiters from Tours
Chartres trains and whips a missionary


T129: start to research MC(1 turn later than the the approach of hiring scientists or waste a bit beakers by changing the slider)
Paris lends Mars a warrior, build a warrior and starts the 2nd monastary

T130:
the Cherbourg worker moves to Orleans to chop the Colossus
Toulouse founded

T131: MC discovered. start and whip forges in all cities.

T133: connect the iron, research constructoin. cities can train swardsman and whip barracks/courthouses/catapult now.

Construction can be reached at T134 or T135, but it doen't matter as barracks are still needed before whipping catapults.


Barbrian city successfully denfends against Brennus this time!

 

[soundjata]

I am ok with the plan Sossos

Don't hesitate to stop on the way if you need advice.

Good luck.

 

[Duckweed]

Looks better. Still some issues:

1. Have you given yourself 50g to simulate the gain in the real game. The commerce in the real game is better due to more foreign trade routes (more will come after we map Egypt land in a few turns. Let the chariot scout along the coast but not along the road since Alex is not connected to their capital obviously). Therefore, it's quite possible that we can get MC in T130.

2. Toulouse will pop the border in a couple turns, the WB is nowhere. We should produce a WB either from Orleans or Chart to be available as soon as the border pops.

3. Dij, and any coastal city with seafood should produce LH before Forge

4. Try to produce more warriors, as you can see, most of the cities are on the edge of unhappiness and we are going to whip heavier ahead, We are going to have a hard time to manage the happiness afterward without enough warriors now. Better to produce warriors than archers.

5. Lyons should not hire a scientist and should work on the shared plain cottage whenever possible (after it works on all of its FP tiles) and let Paris work on 2F1H instead (favors growth). Moreover, it seems that Lyons could whip the Forge earlier.

6. Tours' workers should improve the riverside plain tiles as what you did last time, those roads are useless at the moment. We need to gather at least 4 units before marching to the barbarian cities, there's plenty time to road after improving tiles.

7. Cherb does not need a warrior for a long time, so let it stay in either Orleans or Rh.

8. It would be better to send 1 worker in Paris to chop another forest in Orleans. You put too many roads in Paris, 1NE and 2E tile do not need road. While the forest tile 1SW of Mars needs a road since Mars will be a city for producing military units.

9. Could you send the worker in Poit 1 turn earlier? Edit: it's better to chop a forest before mining the Iron.

10. In Rh, you could whip some missionaries there (either bud for Orleans or Jud if Brennus spreads Jud in Rh) and let OF to warriors. I have to emphasize again, don't bother with the maintenance fee, we need more warriors than you have thought. Each of those 2 seafood cities will need 5+ warriors after they got gra + LH Same in Mars. I don't see the reasons of hiring scientist in any city.

Last, for safety issue, we might want to produce (at least put 1 turn in queue) a couple of Triremes to guard the sea, especially the western sea area. Barbarian galleys are possible from NW of Rouen or even the barbarian cities. Also it's time to scout the south.

Edit: PS, we might just delete those 2 spies, they are eating 2g/t and won't be useful for a long time.

 

[shakabrade]

Regarding the format of PPP, we have passed the stage of expansion. Worker micro and tile management are less important now so that the rough directions are enough. Your plan could be more simple and concise than mine. What to produce in each city still deserves attentions. Raise the potential issues before working on your plan.

What happened to this?

But I guess we'll have a bit more time for micro since we have stormed through some 50T in 20 or so days.

I agree with accumulating warriors and working 2F2C tiles. They are not that bad. Especially if they'll be whipped, as mentioned.
Don't know how many EP we have left with Brennus (someone did spy mission with only 20% stationary bonus ) but spies could attempt some gold steal from Brennus and then die. Better than nothing. Or leave them for some recon while warring so we could balance our stacks better.

 

[Duckweed]

The things I spotted were from the save alone without tracing the plan. If I care about the micro, I'd try to optimize the TC build, however, I don't feel necessary to run tests myself in this stage.

I did not feel safe about the spy, so I stole IW in the 1st available turn. We can suffer 1 failure, but the 2nd failure will do great harm to our plan. Don't know whether you guy are interested in 10g treasure per mission. Maybe there's some unknown tricks there.

 

[sossos]

Looks better. Still some issues:

1. Have you given yourself 50g to simulate the gain in the real game. The commerce in the real game is better due to more foreign trade routes (more will come after we map Egypt land in a few turns. Let the chariot scout along the coast but not along the road since Alex is not connected to their capital obviously). Therefore, it's quite possible that we can get MC in T130.

Yes, in real game, there could be much differences. How many gold does Brennus have? As many as 80g can be begged in the test file

2. Toulouse will pop the border in a couple turns, the WB is nowhere. We should produce a WB either from Orleans or Chart to be available as soon as the border pops.

The WB from Avignon can be out on T127, so it should be on time
3. Dij, and any coastal city with seafood should produce LH before Forge


The break point is 8 food surplus. Lighthouse is a little bit better as it does not hurt the health. However, health will not be a constraint for a long time.
4. Try to produce more warriors, as you can see, most of the cities are on the edge of unhappiness and we are going to whip heavier ahead, We are going to have a hard time to manage the happiness afterward without enough warriors now. Better to produce warriors than archers.

I'm OK with that if the plan is not to hire scientists

5. Lyons should not hire a scientist and should work on the shared plain cottage whenever possible (after it works on all of its FP tiles) and let Paris work on 2F1H instead (favors growth). Moreover, it seems that Lyons could whip the Forge earlier.

Yes, these can be improved.
6. Tours' workers should improve the riverside plain tiles as what you did last time, those roads are useless at the moment. We need to gather at least 4 units before marching to the barbarian cities, there's plenty time to road after improving tiles.

Different try this time to help the chariot go to babarian city faster. I think it does not worthy. It's mainly a rating issue whether the babarian city will be lost.

7. Cherb does not need a warrior for a long time, so let it stay in either Orleans or Rh.

Acknowledged

8. It would be better to send 1 worker in Paris to chop another forest in Orleans. You put too many roads in Paris, 1NE and 2E tile do not need road. While the forest tile 1SW of Mars needs a road since Mars will be a city for producing military units.

The road are to save 1 turn in the future as the worker has nothing important to do here. If we still want to hurry the Colossus, it can be changed.
9. Could you send the worker in Poit 1 turn earlier? Edit: it's better to chop a forest before mining the Iron.

Yes, 11~12f vs 8 h/c

10. In Rh, you could whip some missionaries there (either bud for Orleans or Jud if Brennus spreads Jud in Rh) and let OF to warriors. I have to emphasize again, don't bother with the maintenance fee, we need more warriors than you have thought. Each of those 2 seafood cities will need 5+ warriors after they got gra + LH Same in Mars. I don't see the reasons of hiring scientist in any city.

OK. warriors are fantastic units since we need the swords soon

Last, for safety issue, we might want to produce (at least put 1 turn in queue) a couple of Triremes to guard the sea, especially the western sea area. Barbarian galleys are possible from NW of Rouen or even the barbarian cities. Also it's time to scout the south.

It's not bad to build 1 turn around turn 130.
Edit: PS, we might just delete those 2 spies, they are eating 2g/t and won't be useful for a long time.

May try some espionage missions, but I think they may not gain 2g/t. Even if we can steal some cash, it may not compensate the higher risk if AIs successfully poison our cities with the EP advantages.


I'll play it again this evening.

 

[sossos]

Here's the PPP v1.0.


T123:
Revolt first.
Cherbourg is founded at 1SW of the North tip. Here's a trade-off between 1 more tree and 1 more coastal tile. 1 more tree can help the city to muture(6f1h33c=52c) earlier by 12 turns, which will be surpassed by 1 more coastal tile(2c) in 300 turns. build granary rather than light house as 5f>2f.
The galley may move to Cherbourg to defend the north. (I removed the babarian galley here)
1 NW of Gre needs to be farmed.
beg for gold(80?)

T124: prefer researching MC

chartres train a warrior instead of courthouse to gain hammers after the forges is whipped.
Orleans train and whip missionaries for Amiens. Should I whip galley here? In the extreme case, our galley may be defeated.
Avignon trains and whips a missionary for Rouen


T125:
settler whipped at Lyon
Tours train a warrior



T126: Gre whip the lighthouse
Mars releases a warrior for Rheims
Poiters founded, build granary
Avignon overflows to a WB, take the FP
Orleans overflows to a monument then a warrior then wealth
Rheims train a warrior, citizen on 4H tile

T127: Gre train a warrior.
Avigon: return FP to Rouen
A worker moves to poiters from Tours
Rouen: whip the lighthouse and overflows to WB

T128:
Mars, train a missionary and whip
Avignon: whip the lighthouse
Rouen: whip the light house
Chartres trains and whips a missionary


T129: start to research MC


T130:
the Cherbourg worker moves to Orleans to chop the Colossus
one paris worker moves to Orleans to chop the Colossus(depending on whether there is still any chance
Toulouse founded

T131: MC discovered. start and whip forges in most cities.

T133: Rouen: start to build courthouse
Reims: 1 warrior moves to Paris
5 warriors will be trained at this turn and this is the last turn before connecting the iron

 

[Duckweed]

Looks pretty good now. Brennus only has 50g in bank.

Only minor suggestions this time.

1. As mentioned already, the commerce in actual game is better, so you don't need to stick to the test game, try to complete MC on T130, which means you might need to start research earlier.

2. I prefer not to bother with the barbarian city, you can send a chariot or the warrior to south of the city to see whether there are Brennus's forces. If not, then it'd better to let those 2 workers do some improvements.

3. We are going to build forces from Tours, Lyons, Gren, and Mars, so it's better to connect these cities to south. For instance, let 1 worker road the tile 1SW of Mars and Gre to barbarian cities. We are going to produce 2 stacks to take those 2 barbarian cities. Each stack will have 1 cat + 2 swordmans + 1 chariot.

4. Why 2 farms in Tours, which has enough food to work on all those plain cottages.

Good to go.

 

[soundjata]

Yay! Go sossos.
Quack it like it's hot

 

[kossin]

The latest test looks pretty good!

Green from me. Let's finish early and go see other threads

 

[sossos]

Looks pretty good now. Brennus only has 50g in bank.

Only minor suggestions this time.

1. As mentioned already, the commerce in actual game is better, so you don't need to stick to the test game, try to complete MC on T130, which means you might need to start research earlier.

2. I prefer not to bother with the barbarian city, you can send a chariot or the warrior to south of the city to see whether there are Brennus's forces. If not, then it'd better to let those 2 workers do some improvements.

3. We are going to build forces from Tours, Lyons, Gren, and Mars, so it's better to connect these cities to south. For instance, let 1 worker road the tile 1SW of Mars and Gre to barbarian cities. We are going to produce 2 stacks to take those 2 barbarian cities. Each stack will have 1 cat + 2 swordmans + 1 chariot.

4. Why 2 farms in Tours, which has enough food to work on all those plain cottages.

Good to go.

I didn't check the real game, so I think the frontier micro may be different based on the scouting result.

I irrigated 2 farms at Tours because it's adjacent to the barbarian city. I'm afraid that this city will be lost to Brennus, which means a loss of 50~80 gold + 1 more pop + 5~10 turns of delay to get the city work. In the mid term, Tours is also a main military base. Mars is a little bit far, Lyon has to whip at a higher pop level because of so many FPs, and Gre's food surplus is not enough. Both reasons make Tours a potential city for more whipping in the next 20 turns. During whipping, Tours will not fully utilize all plain tiles, so the hybrid of farms + cottage can gives it more flexibility.

 

[sossos]

I'll play tomorrow morning. It's a good time to play at the dawn of thanksgiving day. I can make less mistakes when I'm refreshed after running, bathing and meditation.

Thank you all for your kindness and patience.