SGOTM 19 - The Shawshank Redemption

[LowtherCastle]

Minimal Tech Path

We have three beelines plus whatever Democracy brings: 1) COnstitution; 2) Democracy; 3) Steam Power. Barring omissions, here's the bare minimum:

[B]COnstitution[/B]
  406 Mathematics 
  568 Code of Laws
 1300 Civil Service
  130 Meditation
 1300 Philosophy
 2925 Nationalism
 3250 Constitution
---- 
 9879 Total Final Beakers

[B]Democracy[/B]
  731 Paper
 2925 Education
  487 Alphabet
  731 Metal Casting
 1137 Machinery
 2600 Printing Press
 2275 Liberalism
 4550 Democracy
---- 
15680 Total Final Beakers

[B]Steam Power[/B]
  487 Monarchy
 1137 Feudalism
 1625 Guilds
  650 Currency
 1137 Banking
 2925 Replaceable  Parts
 1950 Gunpowder
  568 Construction
 1625 Engineering
 2925 Chemistry
 5200 Steam Power
---- 
20229 Total Final Beakers

Analysis
1. This includes LIberalism for the Democracy slingshot. Add 97 beakers for PHood for an Oracle slingshot of CoL.
2. GS bulbing possiblities include: Philosophy; Education (2); Printing Press (1 or 2); Chemistry (2).
3. Additionally, we could bulb Math or Paper. We might also want to bulb Astro (2), maybe Optics, as part of capturing Aluminum Corp if trans-oceanic.
4. That's a minimum of 6 GSes, 5 after we can revolt to Representation, which isn't many, especially considering a specialist economy is almost surely part of the fastest beeline.

COnclusion
If Mathematics takes upwards of 30 turns and we consider it vital asap, I'd be in favor of bulbing it. 30 turns at normal speed is a massive savings for a single GS bulb. If we slingshot CoL, then using castes we'll be able to pump out the bulb for Philosophy while teching Civil Service.

 

[Mitchum]

That worker was perfectly timed. As soon has he finished marble, he was ready to start wheat on the first turn I settled. The cities are at 4 pop (since I just whipped the settler last turn) and 1 pop.
I have a library and only 2 MP. Chances are we will want an archer for safety (for worker steal?) and the library will slip a couple turns. Math will probably slip to T30.

Connecting West Sugar for also means connecting our copper (no more warrior builds without fancy tricks).

Thanks for the reminders, you two. Has anyone played the test save to the point when the barbs invade our cities? My guess is that it will happen right about the time we plant city #3. So should we slot in a unit or two before or during the build of settler #3 (with settler #1 being the one we started with)?

If so, what do we build? A pair of archers which would only be useful on the defensive against barb spears/axes? A pair of axes so that we can better control the situation should it come to that?

Worst case would be to ignore building early units and having to one-pop an emergency axe/archer.

Regarding warrior MP units, we can and should consider building a good ol' fashioned warrior pump, especially considering that we aim to own a lot of cities. Of course, archers are a viable unit for MPs pre-Feudalism.

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Jastrow

Note to above analysis: We need Meditation for our COnstitution beeline, so that cost should be removed from the cost analysis for the Oracle slingshot, because we don't know we'll be able to get it in trade in time.

 

[Jastrow]

I dont agree with bulbing math... The idea is to get math earlier... We can get math on turn 30.... What is the earliest we could bulb it? Library somewhere around turn 20, and then 15 turns to produce a GS (which would slow our empire growth). That is way to late for a mediocre bulb.

 

[WastinTime]

However, this reeks of mapmaker interference, and after he removed Priesthood, I think he intended for the Oracle to be a non-factor in our development.

Yes, I would say you can put kcd_swede down for one vote against going for Oracle.

 

[Jastrow]

Do we realistically dont think meditation will be available in time?? This is a lake map, so likely access to many AI, and the tech founds a religion and is easy to trade around... It should be readily avaialble by turn 50 or so.

 

[Jastrow]

However, this reeks of mapmaker interference, and after he removed Priesthood, I think he intended for the Oracle to be a non-factor in our development. I do wish he'd killed it via a barb city instead though.

This reminded me of a sentense from the pregame discussion tread:

kcd_swede:"The way worldbuilder works does not require the pre-reqs. However, for gameplay and preventing Oracle from being a make-or-break decision for the players, you have convinced me that Priesthood should NOT be included for the human players. "

Reading it back now, it sounds even more like he is trying to make sure Oracle is not in play...

 

[Mitchum]

COnclusion
If Mathematics takes upwards of 30 turns and we consider it vital asap, I'd be in favor of bulbing it. 30 turns at normal speed is a massive savings for a single GS bulb. If we slingshot CoL, then using castes we'll be able to pump out the bulb for Philosophy while teching Civil Service.

Thanks for this. Everything just snapped into focus just now. You've been preaching the notion that you must compare turns, nothing else, when comparing fastest finish games, not raw hammer output, beaker output, etc.

No one thinks twice about double bulbing Education to save 10 to 20 turns self researching it but just about EVERYONE says that bulbing Math is a huge waste since it doesn't use the full number of beakers available to a GS bulb. But when you look at it with respect to the number of turns saved, a Math bulb starts to make a lot of sense.

So it sounds like your current thinking is Med -> PH -> CoL sling -> Civil Service where we revolt to Caste System (if no library) to crank out a quick GS for Math. I have to believe that this is the quickest way to Civil Service.

But, we don't have an awesome Bureau capital really. Plus we need Slavery for our War Economy more than Caste System. By which turn could we have a GS from the capital using only the 2 library scientists slots? Library + 17 turns, so maybe something like T40? Also, what do we research after CoL while waiting for the GS to bulb Math?

EDIT: multiple xpost.

 

[WastinTime]

I see what our mid-game war could look like. Clue #1 : nationalism
After Democracy, we can get Gunpowder first. It's a great tech to research because the AI cannot. Gives us more time to trade for feudal, guilds, etc.

And then we draft.

 

[WastinTime]

So it sounds like your current thinking is Med -> PH -> CoL sling -> Civil Service

You can't research CS without Math. Oops I see you knew that.

(and we are not bulbing math.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Average (or max) power should have jumped on turn 2. An archer costs the AI 20 hammers, and they get 10 free in their first build.
However, they shouldn't choose to build a wonder at 6hpt in their only city.

This is interesting. I assume most or all AIs revolted to Slavery immediately, but I can't tell on Asoka.

The archer power change appeared on T4. Built by a non-religious AI?

T0 revolt
T1 build archer
T2 16h
T3 done, appears on power graph?
T4 appears on power graph?

If so, that's not Asoka, who is religious and gets 0 turn revolts.

NOTE: Asoka threatens with archer on T5 so no copper connected yet.

Should we still try and build the Oracle?
If the 6h AI has marble, but the 6h are currently unboosted, then that AI will likely beat us to the Oracle, even if we go for it.

If it doesn't have marble, then we could build it (although it would be tricky to do it outside the capital). The gains could be useful, but don't seem mind-blowing to me.

However, this reeks of mapmaker interference, and after he removed Priesthood, I think he intended for the Oracle to be a non-factor in our development. I do wish he'd killed it via a barb city instead though.

How blazing fast can we complete the Oracle in Trumpster?

 

[ZPV]

This is interesting. I assume most or all AIs revolted to Slavery immediately, but I can't tell on Asoka.

The archer power change appeared on T4. Built by a non-religious AI?

T0 revolt
T1 build archer
T2 16h
T3 done, appears on power graph?
T4 appears on power graph?

If so, that's not Asoka, who is religious and gets 0 turn revolts.

NOTE: Asoka threatens with archer on T5 so no copper connected yet.

How blazing fast can we complete the Oracle in Trumpster?

Non-spiritual AI revolt on the t2-3 interturn.
The sequence should be:
We play turn 0
AI puts 16h into archer
We play turn 1
AI puts 6h into archer; archer is produced.
We play turn 2 and see a jump on the power graph.
AI revolts to Slavery.

edit: I'll just check that we really will see the jump on turn 2. Just a sec.
edit2: Confirmed.

I'll do a quick Oracle run in testing now...

 

[Jastrow]

Not fast enough... The best time so far is 25 turns by WT... Maybe we can knock a turn off of that, but I doubt even that.

With the amount of tempering we already know of (6H+4F from start, while building an archer !?), the Swede could easily have set up an AI to get the oracle well below turn 20 to make sure it was out of play.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Jastrow, don't forget that it's Random Seed on Reload. Kcd-swede didn't set up any AI to do anything, unless he knows how to prebuild the ORacle 90% or something, which I don't think is even possible.

We know what the code says from Tachy. There are no guarantees but in all likelihood, all AIs will not build the Oracle until after pumping out a settler at least. We'll know when the first AI city #2 gets settled.

 

[WastinTime]

t you must compare turns, nothing else, when comparing fastest finish games, not raw hammer output, beaker output, etc.

No one thinks twice about double bulbing Education to save 10 to 20 turns self researching it but just about EVERYONE says that bulbing Math is a huge waste since it doesn't use the full number of beakers available to a GS bulb. But when you look at it with respect to the number of turns saved, a Math bulb starts to make a lot of sense.

I also preach saved turns over beakers, but in this case it's very different. You can't give a 30 turn savings to the Math bulb. If you were given a free GS on turn 0 and were told to race to Philo. Bulbing Math for "30 turn savings" would not beat bulbing Philo for "20 turn savings". Now, why does the "count turns" system fall apart in this case? It's because your research rate is ~10 when you start math, but it's doubled by the time you finish. So if you had to research Math again right away, it would already be devalued to only 15 turns, or less.

 

[Jastrow]

By the time the AI builds city 2, it is too late. We have to invest beakers now if we want an early Oracle, and it is those beakers I fear we may be wasting... I would be all for going for Oracle later if it is still around, but want to start researching math directly now.

I am not sure what part of the code you are refering to from Tachy... I just know that Swede could easily have set up an AI in a strong enough position for him to go Archer-Settler-Archer-Oracle, and still get the Oracle before turn 20.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Currency is a low-value tech in this scenario. All AIs already have the cheap techs we usually leverage for cash trades. We won't necessarily want to gift around valuable techs too much. Pangaea-like map means the +1 TRs will be +1 cpt per TR. Blech. Let's wait and get it in trade.

I'll channel my newly learned WT Absolutism: We're not teching Currency.

 

[Jastrow]

Well, I would much rather tech Currency than meditation...

But if we dont like Currency, construction is also out there, as are many other options... I am for math for to start the chopping, and that is reason enough for me, even if we dont follow up with Currency.

 

[ZPV]

How blazing fast can we complete the Oracle in Trumpster?

I can definitely do t24, with a 2nd worker, settler, and 1 chop.
The limiting factor is hooking up the marble.

I have some ideas for weird ways to try and make it faster, at the expense of screwing up our development - I'll let you know if any of them look palatable.

 

[WastinTime]

Currency is a low-value tech in this scenario. All AIs already have the cheap techs we usually leverage for cash trades. We won't necessarily want to gift around valuable techs too much. Pangaea-like map means the +1 TRs will be +1 cpt per TR. Blech. Let's wait and get it in trade.

I'll channel my newly learned WT Absolutism: We're not teching Currency.

I know currency isn't a huge deal, but I think it's the best option if we're going to try to trade for CoL, among others. And then we get cash when we trade for Medi/ PH, etc.

What else do we research? Aesthetics/Lit?