SGOTM 23 - Turbo Ants

[LowtherCastle]

More reasons on Alex.

1. Takes forever for units to arrive at Athens by land.
2. Athens could be blocked by a hill city before we're done mobilizing.

 

[WastinTime]

If it weren't for the mids/glib combo, I would ignore Hatty and probably ignore Alex too. Maybe Alex's capital is not that great (like Joao's seems to not be), and we can just get gems in trade for happiness. Run the RR right thru him as our vassal, or just run it thru Fred.

Alex's cities are likely to be hills and we've got one at 60% already. It is not (likely) on our RR path. We're assuming he is stuck on a small peninsula. That means we won't get the quantity of cities we'd like to out of a war. Just huge losses on his capital.

Fred on the other hand, has forests and food.

 

[Mitchum]

Hatty also has BW but threatens with archers. How to decide on HBR?
1. Alex and Hatty offer very nice rewards. Greece is a great city site plus some gems tiles. Hatty gives us Mids and GLib. Yes, we want GLib very, very fast.
2. We need some time to ramp up our basic military production and build some galleys.
3. Warring with HAs is fun.
4. Frees us up to put some OF into the GW, which in turn frees us up to not work commerce tiles quite so much while we're REXing the next 10 turns.
5. Our exploring units need some time to scout Alex and Hatty anyway.

The timing of HBR seems right. The benefits seem right.

I can get on board with this strategy. Are you thinking Masonry -> HBR then?

If Masonry, do we stick with the current worker MM (or something similar) that gives us access to stone three turns after founding StoneCity for fail gold? In other words, do we ignore the copper for now?

 

[Mitchum]

   worker1     wkr2
   =======     ====
48 past         
49 past         
50 past        mv Par-2w1n
51 mv Par-3w1n rd Par-2w1n
52 chop        rd Par-2w1n
53 chop        rd stone
54 chop        rd stone
55 rd          rd stone-1s    
56 quarry      quarry    
57 quarry      quarry
58 quarry      quarry

I think this worker micro is still valid, but may not be the best option.

This worker micro is synchronized with the whipping actions in Paris so I guess it could change if we decide not to whip until we've grown to size 6. It just seems like a waste of food to grow to size 6 without a granary.

Is anyone working on different MM that has us improving the copper sooner than this? I guess we could skip the chop, delay settling StoneCity by 1 turn and get the copper online a lot sooner... as in right after the cow pasture. We could still quarry the stone with 2 workers in 3 turns starting the turn StoneCity is founded.

EDIT: getting the copper mine online right after the cow pasture frees up FurCity to work the cottage... although as soon as we whip the cottage will be available anyway.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I don't have time to work the MM properly tonight, but worker-turns are clearly more at a premium suddenly. If we simply decide to settle Stone CIty a turn later, then we can save 2 turns roading the city site plus 2t for the delayed turn. That's the mine.

   worker1     wkr2
   =======     ====
48 past         
49 past         
50 past        mine cu
51 mv Par-3w1n mine cu
52 chop        mine cu
53 chop        mine cu
54 chop        mv nw
55 rd stone    rd 
56 rd stone    rd   
57 quarry      quarry    
58 quarry      quarry
59 quarry      quarry

I like your idea of Stone City working the cu mine for 6t to pop out the nets. Seems optimal to get nets asap.

I still think we need to re-MM this whole thing to make sure we don't miss an opportunity. What's the sheep slave going to do after pasturing the sheep? Chop the nets? Join the party?

 

[LowtherCastle]

If it weren't for the mids/glib combo, I would ignore Hatty and probably ignore Alex too. Maybe Alex's capital is not that great (like Joao's seems to not be), and we can just get gems in trade for happiness. Run the RR right thru him as our vassal, or just run it thru Fred.

Alex's cities are likely to be hills and we've got one at 60% already. It is not (likely) on our RR path. We're assuming he is stuck on a small peninsula. That means we won't get the quantity of cities we'd like to out of a war. Just huge losses on his capital.

Fred on the other hand, has forests and food.

Not sure we're going to get quantity from any one AI on this map other than Stalin. I'm thinking coastal cities for GLH. Plus Berlin. Note that 60% culture on flat (Athens) is far better than 40% culture on a hill (Berlin).

If we covet Berlin we should send a chariot to deny him copper asap.

I think axes against a weakly defended Athens might be pretty easy to grab. Axes are basically 2 per 2whip.

 

[Mitchum]

I don't have time to work the MM properly tonight, but worker-turns are clearly more at a premium suddenly. If we simply decide to settle Stone CIty a turn later, then we can save 2 turns roading the city site plus 2t for the delayed turn. That's the mine.

On the surface, this looks better than what I had envisioned. I was skipping the chop all together. At the cost of 4 worker turns, this gives +16H in Paris which will most likely overflow into fail gold. Is 16H worth more than our precious worker turns??

I still think we need to re-MM this whole thing to make sure we don't miss an opportunity. What's the sheep slave going to do after pasturing the sheep? Chop the nets? Join the party?

I agree that we need to sync worker actions and MM in Paris. It was all perfectly timed before but now we may need to change some things around in Paris although I think the Paris micro is still good.

WT had suggested that the slave help improve FurCity. Another option would be to start building a road to Fred to speed up his demise. I think he'll arrive back home too late to do too much good really... At least in the next 10 turns (4 turns to pasture, 6ish "wasted" turns to move).

 

[Mitchum]

I've changed my mind on Masonry and a quarry ASAP in favor of HBR and horse pasture ASAP. More details once the kids are in bed... but I'm sure you can tell where this is going.

 

[LowtherCastle]

You have to ask sossos about the value of wkr-ts.

If we're going to settle northern cows/wine, then that also adds a road, so with the slave roading we'll be well on our way to Ferd. With the copper, Paris can now build a settler in 5t. Maybe we should just settle our way to the Orient.

Anyway, second thought on Ferdburg. Is it more optimal to chop/1whip the granary, then 1whip the nets? The fish adds 3f to 5f, +60%. The granary adds food almost 1:1, +90%.

 

[Mitchum]

I was thinking about the OF into the GW thing and it seems very sub-optimal to hold OF hammers in the build queue in Paris while waiting for the stone to be quarried. Especially at a time when we have WAY more important things to be building than Research.

So, if we're thinking about self-teching HBR, isn't better to beeline it than to meander our way there? Also, if we're going to actually fight a war this game with 2-movers, shouldn't we be hooking up our horse resource ASAP.

If the team is dead-set on getting GW fail gold, can we at least start HBR now and then tech Masonry so that we get it just in time? It makes little sense to tech Masonry now and then to wait ~7 turns to actually need it. It's possible that we can get it in trade. It's possible that an AI will build the GW in the next 10 turns. It's possible that more AIs will learn it between now and 10 turns from now so that we at least get a few more bonus beakers on it, right?

So, back to fail gold, I'd rather not build Research for 4 turns (or 3 turns?) when we can be building an army or at least another unit (axe or archer) to go harass Fred. Maybe we can get another worker or three. Like LC said, maybe we should deny him copper so that we don't have to face spearmen.

So my vote is to start teching HBR now (assumes we're on board with fighting our first war with HAs) and we can decide what to do on Masonry when the time comes.

 

[Mitchum]

Anyway, second thought on Ferdburg. Is it more optimal to chop/1whip the granary, then 1whip the nets? The fish adds 3f to 5f, +60%. The granary adds food almost 1:1, +90%.

I'm not sure. I've always improved a food resource first so my first inclination would be to build the fish nets first. Kossin did some short Civ scenarios where the goal was to get the most out of a very small empire in just a few short turns. IIRC, one of the scenarios had to do with a small fishing village and one had to decide whether to build the nets or granary first. I can't remember what made sense.... or if this was even a real scenario.

 

[Mitchum]

This is the micro challenge I was referring to: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=498753

I don't have time to watch the videos or read the thread but I think there are a few nuggets of wisdon in this challenge.

 

[WastinTime]

I thought I'd have a hard time talking you guys into HBR next, but I think I talked myself out of it. First reason being the galley targets we have.

But what concerns me most is if we go HBR (and make what I suspect will be a weak effort to get failgold--always something with higher priority), then we will have complete economy collapse until we get capture gold. And that won't be much and won't come very fast once it starts. My feeling is that if we can just push on to currency, then we get at least 50 gold per AI. That's 600 gold! There are 12 AI's don't forget. We should leverage that.

How many turns would it take to get HBR after Currency? Compare that to trying to get Currency after HBR.

We want Egypt (maybe even first) And in order to connect trade rts to the east, we need to knock out that barb city (or build a million roads*). That gives us not just trade rt income, but Silver and Ivory . Based on the other happies, we can expect one AI to have 2 golds. That means supporting lots of whipping anger which makes me
* Maybe it's not that many roads. We only need to road to Istanbul IIRC.

 

[Mitchum]

Ha. I mentioned Currency earlier and you talked me into HBR. My point about HBR is that it's best to beeline it. If we tech Currency, then it may make sense just to skip HBR. I'm fine with Currency next.

Edit: I don't see high value in teching Masonry next and building Research for 1000 years.

 

[WastinTime]

Another drawback of having the AI's not meet is that we don't see Fred's research yet and won't for a long time. I wish we knew if we had a chance at stopping him from getting a spear/axe.

 

[WastinTime]

Masonry: pros
- we got Myst so it's +40% bpt, without myst we'd have a reason to wait
- we get a stone tile to work
- we can try GW failgold
- we can try for GLH (worst case we get failgold)
- it's a very small tech
- it's a hard tech to get from an AI

GLH (masonry) : Seems like most cities will be coastal. We should probably try for GLH pretty hard. Which means we should figure out which city is building it (assuming Furcity, but maybe not) and how are we going to manage it. Without Math, we need to focus on whip OF into GLH. So we ideally not 1-pop whip the granary, but is a granary--probably worth it. A lighthouse is only 30h.

Ugh, maybe we need Math. That gives us +40% bonus on Currency.

 

[WastinTime]

I think FishSheep can build GLH faster than Furcity. And then we're not whipping away the fur so much.

On 2nd thought 3rd thought, StoneCity is probably best. It can actually use organic hammers.

Anyway, clear plans would need to be made, but first we need to agree on GLH or not (i.e. Masonry or not) How bad do we want GLH? Capturing it is a nice dream, but it could likely be in a 60% hill city. It could also be London and then we need boats in a 2nd body of water. I'd rather spend the measly 230h for lh+GLH.

 

[Mitchum]

That's funny. I was just thinking about the GLH and I don't think it's that great of a wonder on this map. Sure, a lot of our cities will be coastal. But we'll have no island cities of our own. The only likely intercontinental TRs will be with England. With our warring and the way the continent is laid out, our TR connections to the cities in the east will blocked off and on all game. So I fear that many of our GLH-enhanced TRs will be of the 1C internal variety.

A bunch of extra 1C TRs is better than nothing but I think the value of the GLH is lower on this map than on a "normal" map.

 

[ZPV]

I don't think HBR is needed at the moment. Axemen are a lot cheaper, and the AIs don't have enough cities for us to take advantage of the manoeuvrability.

GLH: Won't we be settling that spice island south of fur city? There's one 2c trade route per city, for sure.
There are also going to be a lot of foreign cities, what with 12 AIs and everything.

GW: I just don't see us having the spare hammers to throw into failgold. We're not struggling for gold in a timescale that it could pay off (i.e. post-currency)

 

[WastinTime]

lol : **deleted** Send from my pocket...

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