SGOTM 17 - The Shawshank Redemption

[Dhoomstriker]

In your analysis, we'd also need to factor in other variables... for example, earning more Hammers overall = either less population points that need to be whipped or more Horse Archers sooner.

Let's say that it translates to more Horse Archers sooner. Say that we can start the war 3 turns sooner. From that perspective alone, 3 turns of warring sooner - 1 turn lost to anarchy = 2 turns warring faster, which could mean winning the game 2 turns faster or even faster by more than 2 turns if we can also then face less units from Mansa and from all future AIs that we need to fight as a result of getting our warring started sooner.

Even if there aren't cumulative effects for future wars in terms of additional turns saved, you still have to consider that we'd be ahead in our overall game by 2 turns.


Or, you can look at the problem as one of "due to having to whip less, 31 F = roughly 2 population points, so we just have to justify that we've whipped 2 less population points over the army build up time to equal the Food expense." The Hammer expense is more easily compared. Treat the Commerce and Flasks equal for the sake of argument and then factor in something like "by getting our warring going sooner, we should be able to complete research on Alphabet 2 turns sooner, which translates into Code of Laws 2 turns sooner, which could translate into some Rathauses coming online sooner (especially, say, if we partially Chopped one in NE City or something), and could also lead to getting other techs in trade sooner if we have met more AIs by then, such as Calendar, etc."

Even if the Commerce cannot be made up in absolute terms, getting several techs in trade 2 turns sooner could more than make up for that Commerce loss... think of it this way... if we meet even 1 more AI and can trade with that AI and with Mansa sooner, and if those AIs would otherwise have duplicated tech research on, say, Math or Horseback Riding, we just got the Flask value of two AIs' two turns' worth of research added onto our trading value. Given that we know Currency, we can get much closer to the actual trading value of techs than we could if we just knew Alphabet, so even this excess trading value could make up for the difference in Commerce all by itself, without even factoring in the value of gaining techs in trade sooner.


So, no, the analysis cannot be simplified to just the numbers as you listed them, but they are certainly a good starting point for a discussion (i.e. for knowing that we're missing out on roughly 2 population points worth of Food in Cities that have Granaries... although that's not totally a fair comparison since some Food is being earned in Cities that do not have Granaries, but it's a reasonable way to look at the problem.)

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I thought that we were going to be trying for a Great Person in Aachen, but I guess that this idea got dropped in favour of growing the City.

That's fine.

But, now we need to decide how many Specialists we need to keep running in Prague... do we whip them away for now in order to get our war machine started sooner, especially since we won't benefit from a Golden Age until we are ready to switch into Representation, and we likely won't need to switch into Representation until we've regrown our Cities (likely sometime after we start working our to-be-dejunglified 4 G Pig Jungle squares)?

 

[Mitchum]

There is no doubt that the lost turn due to anarchy will cost the F, H, C and B that I mentioned above. I did not include the fact that without anarchy, cities will grow 1 turn sooner at different points throughout the game leading to a small snowball effect. But I ignored these for simplicity.

So, if the gain of the 25% PS hammers provides enough benefit to outweigh what we're giving up, then the decision to revolt makes sense. As you said, you can't just look at the 25% more hammers. You also have to look at what those extra 25% hammers allow you to do, such as war earlier, whip less pops, etc. If the 25% hammer bonus alone saves us enough H to about balance what we lose in terms of F, H, C and B, then all of the other benefits you've mentioned are gravy on top, right? If the 25% hammer savings doesn't make up for a lost turn's worth of production, then we need to start weighing the other benefits you mentioned more closely.

In any event, I think revolting to PS will make total sense given that we'll have to build 18ish HAs which will equate to about 9, 2-pop whips. 15H (75H vs. 60H 2-pop whips) * 9 = 135H. So the hammers alone make it worth the turn of anarchy without getting into all of the other stuff that is difficult to nail down.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Another point... does it make sense to build Horse Archers for 1 turn prior to Police State, in order to make them whippable sooner? You do lose out on 1 turn of any raw Hammers gaining the Hammer bonus. But, those Hammers would probably just get "parked" in a build item that might not get completed for a long time, so those Hammers will essentially be lost for the short term.

So, I guess that the answer is that we should still build the Horse Archers (where it makes sense to do so) on Turn 0 of the next turnset.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Without having looked at the saved game, a simple 2-turn PPP could be something like:
- Load Rice Peninsula's Archer onto our second Galley and send the Warrior from Fish to Rice
- Have 2 Workers head toward the wet G Banana, 1 Worker make his way west, 1 Worker Farm the G 1W of NE City and then Camp the Ivory
- Switch to building Horse Archers in most Cities, except where we are still building key infrastructure like Granaries
- Next turn, switch to Police State... actually... hmmmm... if we are 2 turns from popping our Cultural Borders, should we delay Police State for 1 turn and switch AFTER our Cultural Borders have expanded at Fish + Silver, giving us +1 turn of exploration? That way, we'll get free movement from both Galleys (assuming that they have somewhere to go) and free movement of our Work Boat... yeah, that sounds better...
- Two turns from now, switch to Police State and hopefully meet an AI so that we can stop play and discuss that situation


I will just have to be careful not to turn any 2-pop-whips into 1-pop-whips for Horse Archers.

 

[Mitchum]

@ Dhoom

The odds of us meeting an AI in 2 or 3 turns is quite low.
If you're going to wait 2 turns to revolt (makes sense to wait for border pops), be sure not to get more than 50 - 37 = 13 - 1 = 12 hammers into a horse archer build. Staying under 12 hammers is easy in 1 turn. Several cities could easily go over 12 hammers in 2 turns (please confirm the 12H number in the test game).
Don't forget that in one city, there are more OF hammers in the test game than the real game.
In addition to granaries, please finish the barracks in Ivory City since it's only 1 turn from completion.
I have the archer on the railroad spawnbusting for barb galleys. I'd leave him where he is and skip his turn each turn until Dual Bananas is settled.

I don't think you have to nail down turn-by-turn moves for the workers. I think we trust you well enough to eek out a worker action on every turn possible. In the mid term (i.e. after farming the banana and finishing the last ivory camp), I think we need 2 to 3 workers in the west and 2 to 3 workers around Horse in prepartion for IW. They can be building roads and putting down the odd farm or cottage while they wait.

Should we settle Dual Bananas right now? Or wait at least 2 turns to see if there is somewhere to settle to the south of the canal? If that is a different land mass (which I have a feeling it is), that could be an extra +2 TR in several cities and it would have four +2 TRs from the start!

When do you expect to have a high-level plan done and when would you like to play?

 

[Jastrow]

To be clear.... The fog gazing does not garantee we can cross the chanel in two turns... It shows that it is 3 tiles wide, which means we can bridge it for sure with our SECOND border pop (at 100 culture). If the 3rd tile is coast (as it would be on a random map), we could of course cross. Mapmaker-evilness could have made those ocean as well. Even at silver, while it sure looks like coast south of the mountain, there is no garantee.

Having said that, the border pop in two turns should at least give us vision of the other side. That might be enough to make contact to another civ if it has cities on the coast, even if we connot reach them by boat.

Of to wether it is another land mass or connected near the peaks at Silve-Bridge... It seems like a pure guess one way or ther other to me.

At our current empire size, what is the cost (in anarchy turns) of a 1-civic and a 2-civic or 3-civic revolt? I dont think it matters for now... I am envisioning soon enough a chance to representation-caste-Beuracracy, and am thinking we should save the golden age for that.

War plans... I have nothing constructive to add at this stage.

Worker micro.... We are at the point in the game, where the guy with the mouse can work things out... We all know how to use workers efficiently, so extra planning in the micro will not make a significant difference.

Have we decided on the next tech? That is probably the biggest decision now... I think it is clear we should be at 0% research to build gold, so it is not that many beakers of investing, but we need to put them somewhere sensible...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

PPP
Set research to Alphabet at a 0% Science Rate.

We can revolt into Police State after 2 turns' time (but I won't rush to do it if we happen to meet another AI before then... i.e. the priority will be on meeting AIs and only revolting if we haven't met anyone after having exhausted all of our Galley's movements and the movements of all of our units on board... otherwise, we'll stop play before needing to revolt).

Archer 3 moves into Galley 2
Warrior moves to Rice
Worker 4 can finish the P Cottage 1N of Fish City but then is kind of out of position to do anything else useful... I guess that for lack of anything better to do, I can have him build a Road on this Plains square in hopes of meeting an AI that will trade us Iron Working, in which case we'll at least be near Rice City's Pig and Banana Resources... if we don't get Iron Working, I guess that he can slowly build Roads toward the north... on the G Riv Banana Jungle, then north from there, until Iron Working is available
Worker 1 will move 1SW and complete the Road 1S of Ivory City and then will head westward... say, something like partial G Farm NE + NE of Aachen, move for 4 squares without doing anything, build a partial Road on the G Riv Hamlet SE + S of Prague, build a partial G Riv Cottage 2S of Prague, then move to the G Pig Jungle 1S of GP Farm. Alternatively, if Iron Working is available earlier, instead of partially Roading the G Riv Banana, he can move toward Silver Bridge's G Pig Jungle Resource and can start Pasturing it
Worker 2 will complete the G Farm that is 1W of NE City, then Camp the G Ivory Jungle SW + S of NE City, then Chop Forests around NE City or else, if Iron Working comes in, help to improve Resources around Horse City
Workers 3 and 5 will move to Farm the wet G Banana, then can Road the G square 1W of there, and from there can way toward other tasks... or, one of them could move NW + NW to the G For and the other one could move 1N (1S of Ivory City) to the Grassland square and partially Farm it, before moving elsewhere (say, to help with building Roads around Horse City or to head westward?... one of these two Workers will need to head westward at some point)
Worker 6 can Road the G Gems Jungle, then Road the G Pig Jungle by Horse City, then can build a Road 1NE of Horse City, Chop the G For NE + E of Horse City, and then Road the G Rice Jungle NE + N of Horse City. Obviously, if Iron Working comes in sooner, then we will Pasture the Pig as a priority, then it will be a toss-up between Farming the Rice and Mining the Gems... perhaps another Worker can Mine the Gems while this one Farms the Rice... we can decide later, as we'll be pausing play before we ever trade for Iron Working anyway, right?

Archer 5 (south of Prague) does not technically need to spawn-bust for Barb land-based units, but he can spawn-bust for Barb Galleys, so we can pull him back within our Cultural Borders but he can still stay in the south there... one Barb Galley appearing would become a huge pain in the butt to deal with.

Chariot 1 can board Galley 1

Obviously, the Work Boat built in Island City will head toward Fish City's Fish

Settler 10 can get into position on the G Riv Jungle square that is SE and SW of the two Banana Resources for potentially settling Dual Banana City there. We minimally want to wait to settle this City until AFTER we've seen if there is a Cultural Bridge to the south... if there is one, I'm inclined to settle on the G Riv Jungle, which lets us share more Cottages with Prague and gives up 3 Ocean squares and 2 Coast squares... but, if we don't have a Cultural Bridge to the south, we'll want to settle this City 1S of there on the P Riv... so, let's hold off on settling the City for now, and there won't be a rush to settle it if we do meet an AI to the south... i.e. Mitchum's idea about settling on another landmass can be kept open as an option for now


I don't think that we have any other units that will need to move.


Cities:
Aachen:
Pyramids -> Horse Archer for 1 turn -> Spearman for 1 turn
Turn 86 hire a Scientist? There doesn't seem to be anything better to do with the citizen.

Prague:
Horse Archer for 2 turns -> whip it after Anarchy -> more Horse Archers
Note that in the test game, we apparently have +1 Hammer, so we end up with 13 Hammers (1 too many) in the test game after 2 turns' time, but should have just enough Hammers in the real game to avoid turning the first Horse Archer into a 2-pop-whipping action

Ivory City:
Barracks -> Horse Archers
We should switch to working the wet G Banana once it gets Farmed. No whipping should happen in this City, as we want to grow into working the Ivory squares, then perhaps a G Farm square, then probably a GH Mine, depending upon the timing of having Worker actions to improve those Resources relative to hooking-up Jungle-covered Resources (worst case, we can work a G For or even whip if we don't have enough improve squares to work later... but, that won't happen for a while anyway as this City grows quite slowly)

Rice:
Switch the P Cottage to a Coast square and then keep working Coast squares as we grow
Slow-build Horse Archers, perhaps whipping the final one shortly before the start of the war (this whipping action will happen in a future turnset)

Island:
Work Boat -> if we see land access to the south, Galley to be whipped -> overflow into a Military Police Archer -> slow-build Horse Archers

GP Farm:
Horse Archer for 2 turns -> whip it -> more Horse Archers

Horse:
Granary -> slow-build Horse Archers

NE City:
Fire 2 Sci and work G Farm and Lake to grow faster (we don't need to work the GH Mine while building Wealth).
Wealth until Police State is available (since we want to save our overflow Hammers until then) -> Spearman to dump our overflow Hammers into -> Horse Archers to be 2-pop-whipped
Turn 86 Work another Lake

Fish:
Granary

Silver Bridge
Granary
I guess that at Size 2, we can work a GFor square, rather than the default 2-Food G Banana Jungle square that gets assigned


Our first Horse Archer can keep an eye on Timbuktu + Kumbi Saleh (plus scouting for wherever Mansa puts any additional Cities), while our second one can keep an eye on Djenne and the G For squares to the east of that City but can dip back into our Cultural Borders at the end of each turn to avoid incurring unit costs.



Open Item: Meeting of AIs
If we do meet one AI, should we stop play and potentially do any trades immediately, so as to avoid WFYABTA hits with any other AIs that we might meet, or should we also try and unload our Chariot or Archer and try and meet additional AIs that may, say, have Scout units roaming nearby (I often meet multiple AIs this way, by meeting other AIs' Scouts in one AI's lands), so that we'll have a clearer picture of any trading options available and can avoid the first AI that we meet becoming a tech broker?

Obviously, if the first AI that we meet does not know Alphabet, the point is moot and we should try and meet 2 or 3 AIs ASAP, if we can. Obviously, if we can't get to the south now, the entire discussion is moot.

I'm not sure what the right answer is, but if we meet an AI who knows Alphabet and is willing to trade, and, assuming that all AIs are not Mansa and that no AI starts off being Friendly toward us, we will KNOW that said AI knows at least one other AI (unless the only tradeable tech is a non-Monopoly tech like Monarchy), so that's when the decision will need to come into play, and it will be nice to know in advance what people think for such a case... trade before meeting others to reduce WFYABTA with others or else try to meet others for the rest of the turn and possibly for 1 or 2 more turns and then trade techs once we've seen the whole tech-trading picture.

Again, obviously, if an AI that we meet won't trade any techs but knows Alphabet, that AI will be isolated but also, since they won't be willing to trade with us, the discussion is again moot.

So, it only really matters if we meet 1 AI who knows Alphabet and who is willing to trade techs other than Monarchy with us: do we meet others first or do we try and reduce WFYABTA hits with others by trading with the first AI that we see and then try to meet other AIs?



Ideally, I'll target playing in less than 24 hours from now (say, roughly 20 hours from now) if I've heard from preferably two players who are current on the game's situation, but otherwise, I'll wait until 24 hours after that point in time. That's the ideal case, but I have an appointment shortly before then, so I'm not positive that I'll play at exactly that time).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

At our current empire size, what is the cost (in anarchy turns) of a 1-civic and a 2-civic or 3-civic revolt?

1 turn, 1 turn, and 2 turns

Once we own our 13th City, the numbers will change to:
1 turn, 2 turns, and 2 turns

Have we decided on the next tech? That is probably the biggest decision now... I think it is clear we should be at 0% research to build gold, so it is not that many beakers of investing, but we need to put them somewhere sensible...

Alphabet, but I'm not 100% certain what we'd tech after that if we got Alphabet in trade... but, we'll stop play before then anyway, so we don't need to discuss it now... and it will depend upon the tech-trading situation once we've learned Alphabet, either manually or with help from an AI.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Worker micro.... We are at the point in the game, where the guy with the mouse can work things out... We all know how to use workers efficiently, so extra planning in the micro will not make a significant difference.

In a typical game, where you'd already have most of your key Resources improved, I would agree, as whether you decide to Farm a wet Grassland square for +1 Food or Mine a GH square for +2 Hammers makes less of a difference at this stage of the game.

However, as soon as we get Iron Working, we'll want to be very careful about planning our Worker actions well... it can make a significant difference and the big thing holding us up from having been in a position with similar population levels as the Ducks has been the lack of getting these Junglified Food Resources improved.

A turn or two saved on +1 Food from a Grassland Farm is nice, but not critical, but a turn or two saved on +3 Food from a G Pig square can have a significant impact on your game, even at this stage, as that could be the difference of a key Military Unit or a key Building coming a turn sooner.

So, once we learn Iron Working, we'll need to make every Worker action count.

 

[Jastrow]

1 turn, 1 turn, and 2 turns

Once we own our 13th City, the numbers will change to:
1 turn, 2 turns, and 2 turns

I am surprised it depends only one city number, and not on population as well... I assume it also depends on map size and game speed? Is there a chart of this somewhere? (Not paticularly for this game, but for my general education.)

 

[Mitchum]

I'm fine with the plan. I don't think it makes too much sense to speculate what will happen in 2 turns with respect to meeting other AI and speculating on tech trades. I propose that you play until we meet another AI or tech trades are available (i.e. either Mansa or we learn Alphabet).

 

[Jastrow]

agreed

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I am surprised it depends only one city number, and not on population as well... I assume it also depends on map size and game speed? Is there a chart of this somewhere? (Not paticularly for this game, but for my general education.)

Turns of Anarchy Length Formula

The factors involved are:
i. The number of Civics being changed at once
ii. The number of Cities that your Civ owns
iii. The Map Size
iv. The Game Speed
v. The Starting Era (Classical = Ancient for this factor)

On a normal map, it's every 100 / 8 = 12.5 cities. So your 13th city, 25th, 38th, 50th, and so on each cause extra anarchy.

 

[Mitchum]

Thanks for digging that out. It may come in useful when considering switching civics before or after founding more cities. In a recent Warlords game, I had something like 60 cities and it was painful to switch civics, especially since golden ages don't don't allow you to switch anarchy free...

 

[Jastrow]

Yep... Nothing like 50+ cities to make you appreciate the spiritual trait!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Okay, I'll aim to play late this evening, as I suggested earlier. If we meet an AI, we can just stop play at that time, although it would be nice to have a pre-approved go-ahead to "try to meet as many AIs as you can on the same turn that we meet an AI as long as no AI that we have met knows Alphabet," since we'll probably just end up deciding to do exactly that and having that extra info could help us to make better-informed decisions about what to do with the first AI.


There's a good chance that this case won't matter, but if it does, I'd rather not have to spend another 24 or 48 hours waiting just to make such a short amount of moves. As I said, if we do meet an AI that knows Alphabet, we can simply stop play immediately; it's only the case where an AI that we meet does not know Alphabet where, before ending the turn, we might have extra chances to meet more AIs that I would like to just go ahead and try to meet said other AIs (up until meeting one that does know Alphabet or before needing to end the turn to be able to make further moves, whichever comes first).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Does anyone know much about teleporting over top of Peaks? I couldn't figure out how to do it in the recent WOTM and figured that it was impossible until others reported that they'd done it.

For example, could we use Mansa's Cultural Borders to teleport us over top of the Peaks to the south-west of his lands? Would it work if we gifted him a City near the Rice + Copper area?


I suppose that some playing around in a test game could help, but it would be nice to know what the criteria are for getting over top of a Peak.

 

[Jastrow]

I dont know anything about teleport (have NEVER used it intentially), but we all know the basic is that you teleport to the "nearest" available tile from where you are that is outside the culture of where you close borders...

I dont know how "nearest" is actually defined, but I suspect there is a strong bias against crossing water (and maybe other impassible terrain) but from forum reports it is not impossible... It may be something like each impassable square counts has 10 normal squares for distance, or similar...

This is all just guessing on my part however.

 

[Mitchum]

I'm fine if you try to meet more AIs on the turn you meet an AI if they don't know Alphabet as you requested.

I have no idea on the mechanics of unit teleportaion.