[BTS] SGOTM 26 - Home Slices

[Kaitzilla]

IIRC, Peter is a pretty generous tech trader.

Test game indicates Peter will trade Iron Working and a whole bunch of other techs if he knows 1AI that has them.

If he has met no AI, he won't trade anything.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 80, 875 BC: You have discovered Civil Service!

Nice Work Mitchum!
We have been aiming for this since we built the 1st Galley.

I think we have to bite the bullet and research IW ourselves. If this map has a lot of dead ends which both SB and Peter appear to be (since they are both putting +5/turn on us), we won't be meeting any of the other AIs until Astronomy.

I agree.

Unless Peter meets Sitting Bull in the next turn, we can't take the risk.
All our Workers are in place for fast Bureau gems starting T84.

Even if we teched Alphabet, how many techs do we really need?
Poly, Monotheism, Archery, Monarchy? Nope! Just Iron Working.

At least when we tech Iron Working, we will get a tech bonus from 2AI (+9 or 10%?)

We can just wait for someone to tech Alphabet for us.

 

[MirrorGuard]

Great job
What I mean by " trapping" is to close border before the boat is about to go beyond canal city to prevent circumnavigation. SB has 2scouts roaming within our territory and he may send boat too. SB and Peter have a big chance to meet before Peter's wb sees SB's land which would take about 20t to reach. In the meantime, our galley would move at least 20 tiles horizontally if not blocked, pass through Peter and reach west hemisphere.

 

[MirrorGuard]

We can just wait for someone to tech Alphabet for

Is there such thing as the fewer nations AI meets, the lower priority alphabet has? IIRC, AIs in a pangaea game are more enthusiastic about alphabet compared to those in continents game.
Still I don't like gambling on gem in bureaucratic capital. just do IW first.

 

[WastinTime]

Getting IW ourselves seems like the obvious, right thing to do.
Alpha was an interesting option earlier, but if all we can get for it is IW and poly, what's the point?
Alpha is more beakers than IW.

MG, I don't think the AI prioritizes Alpha based on map. Just random I think.

Take a deep breath...
Ok, now, hear me out. This might be hard to swallow, but it's not like we have a bunch of resources stuck in jungle.
Just 2 gems. And working those gems is painful with only 1 food. The tiles are valued at: 1f2h6c = 14c
A farmed plains is 2f1h1c = 11c
That's not a big difference. although in a bureau captial, you could say the gems are 1f2h9c = 17c, which is a +6 difference.

But even if you count an extra 6c / turn, it would take 50 turns to make up for free IW .
IW was good if we had squeezed it in 30 turns ago.

Now that we've waited until T84 to get IW, I think we need to ignore it.
If you ignore the +1 happy, I don't see any way to justify getting IW.

What good are all those turns spent on the gems tiles if we waste them on 300+ beakers for IW?

I'm strongly voting for Currency next, and NEVER researching IW now that we know Peter will give it a soon as alpha arrives.
This is a game changing moment. Can we find something else for our (excess of) workers to do? I think so.

15 minutes ago, I was going to agree with IW, but now I think you'll find it hard to convince me to research it. Anyone have an argument they want to try?

I'm very excited to move on without the food-crippling gems tiles. Science can do Monastery and whip missionaries with max OF.

This decision is a test. A perfect example of learning how to cooperate with the AI. This will be one of the smartest decisions of the game (if you agree with me .)

 

[WastinTime]

I think we have a good area to pin SB's scout SW of Science. We can see both scouts right now.
If we close borders at the right time, we can be 100% sure SB meets Peter once Peter sails past CowsCity.
I hope Peter doesn't chose to sail northeast of Whales, but even then, he should hit the dead-end and turn around and go to Cows.

Can anyone think of another way to get them to meet sooner? (other than gifting WhalesCity to SB)

 

[WastinTime]

Yay! Oracle. What’d Mitch take, Montheism?

He would have, but we need Poly first.

 

[Kaitzilla]

But even if you count an extra 6c / turn, it would take 50 turns to make up for free IW .
IW was good if we had squeezed it in 30 turns ago.

There are 2 gems, not 1.
It would be more like +12 commerce per turn.

312 for Iron Working.
Go backwards from +10% bonus from AI and +20% bonus from knowing Bronze Working, and it is roughly 240 raw commerce.

With wonderbread values of 4 for food, 2 for hammers, and 1 for commerce, the 2 gem mines would pay back in 20 turns not counting the 16 worker turns we used up to make the mines.

However, can we really get 4 commerce from each food in the capital if we just went with farms?
With 50% production bonus and +15 per turn production after modifiers, we need to 2-pop whip things in the capital that cost more than 60 to unlock the 4 to 1 conversion ratio.
Isn't going to happen.

Now take just the 2 and 6 from each gem mine and compare to river farm.
It is +7 commerce each, or +14 commerce each turn from both.
Iron Working will pay for itself in 17 turns just from the gem mines not counting the 16 worker turns needed to make both mines.

If you ignore the +1 happy, I don't see any way to justify getting IW.

The +1 we get T85 is a good benefit for the 9? turns before we get Pyramids.
Hard to quantify.

Then there is the fact we will have Iron. (hopefully?)
40 Swordsman or 35 Axes will make whipping into Pyramids or Moai statues very easy.
We will just have a garrison unit that eats 1 per turn afterwards.

Then there is the fact we can trade 1 of our 2 gems.
Might be valuable.


Iron Working is a good idea unless we can find really good uses for our Workers.

**Edit**
Hmm, a really fast Mids might make for impressive results now that I think about it.
Cow City is now the holy city so it can pop borders soon for all those forests.
Tech Paper (936) next and then bulb Education 1 or 2 times?
With Pyramid fail gold I can see us barely getting Education with just 1 Scientist bulb.

Getting Peter's and Sitting Bull's map might make finding the other AI faster.
They trade map at Cautious and Annoyed.

We could do University of Sankore in the capital with stone (550) which will give +2 for each temple/monastery/cathedral which would be way better than Great Library. (+28 per turn with Temple + Cathedral in 7 cities)
Sankore obsoletes with computers, while Great Library and monasteries obsolete with Scientific Method.
Heck, all our cities could make Monasteries for +10% science if nothing else and get +2 from that.
Better than Currency.
Fail gold could go into Moai or Sankore.
Plus, who can be bothered to wait like 40 turns for marble to build Great Library?
Ain't nobody got time for that.

And finishing Education absurdly early to unlock Oxford might have good results.

It would be quite the beeline waiting for AI to get Alpha/Iron Working for us.
Don't forget that Education bulbs before Alphabet or Philosophy.
https://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/references/great-people-tech-preferences/

At the start of T82, we only have 292 fail in Pyramids hmm.
Could we get 500 more by T92?

Our gold-neutral sustainable tech rate on T82 is 30% slider and +25 per turn.
Need Mids and lots of scientists to really crank the tech rate.

 

[WastinTime]

There are 2 gems, not 1.
It would be more like +12 commerce per turn.

true. I did think of that after I posted.
So even if you say it's 17-20 turns to come out even. I'm OK with that.

I'll argue it's more than 17-20, cus don't forget to count that we get Currency 3 turns sooner.
Once we reveal Peter's cities, Currency is +14/turn. Plus a couple gpt for resources.
That bumps it back up to 21-24 turns.

If we manage to get IW before T105-ish, we come out ahead.

We will also be getting other techs 1-2 turns sooner (MC? Paper?) not sure how to value those.

Forests are not going to change in value (maybe a little if we ever get a forge). We'd be better off if we could magically chop all of them into Mids right now.
60g now is worth way more than 60g later. We have a very disturbing gap in gold coming that I hope to close with Currency and as much failgold as we can get.
The only thing we lose by clear cutting our empire is any chance of regrowth.
(I still want to keep Science's forests for NatPark)

I guess my point is: it's hard to come out behind by skipping IW. We'll likely come out about even, but there's a good chance of jumping ahead.

We could do University of Sankore in the capital with stone (550)

'way better' than G Lib? Hmm. Sure, GLib only gives +12, but don't count out the +8gpp. That's one extra GS (1600)
It's only 350h vs 550h. And the Sankore buildings cost a lot. Don't count on too many cathedrals without copper. So that's 28 per turn with temples+monasteries.
It will take a lot of turns to make up for the GS we get from G.Lib.

 

[Kaitzilla]

How many turns will we have between Great Library completing, and us getting Scientific Method?

We want fast biology since National Park is getting stronger all the time.

Great Library has 8gpp, but Sankore has 2gpp, and it can be completed earlier and lasts the whole game.
We still need Great Scientists to bulb Physics and Electricity right?

The fail gold we can get from Sankore also comes earlier than that from Great Library helping our snowball.

Who knows when Profit City will complete Moai.

 

[WastinTime]

Great Library has 8gpp, but Sankore has 2, and it can be completed earlier and lasts the whole game.

Keep talking. I'm listening. You might be right. The fact that it is stone vs marble is key.

With 50% production bonus and +15 per turn production after modifiers, we need to 2-pop whip things in the capital that cost more than 60 to unlock the 4 to 1 conversion ratio.
Isn't going to happen.

We could manage 9h base (13/60) monastery 2 whip. And we could 1-whip missionaries.
I'm having trouble with the math rt now, but I think we're converting about 16 into 75 with bureau.
That's closer to 5:1. not 4:1.

 

[WastinTime]

Is that right? Does maxOF give 75g or 90g with bureau? (into a stone wonder) 75g I think.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Wait, Great Library is only 350 hammers and we have 50% production bonus in capital.

How fast could we get it if we went for it right now?
Hmm, would take all the non-bfc forests.

Max overflow is 75g with bureau in stone capital.

 

[WastinTime]

How many turns will we have between Great Library completing, and us getting Scientific Method?

40t

 

[WastinTime]

Ya know. If we manage to squeeze out one ~600gpp GS from Science that's about it (pre-Biology). It is better off working gems and maybe cottages after a few turns using scientists to contribute one GS. Then, then gpp from G.Lib will be mostly negligible since this city can't compete with the 6-7 scientists in other cities.
Maybe G.Lib is a dud. Especially since it is obsolete with SciMeth. I think I forgot that.

Unless we think Kait's idea about rushing GLib ASAP without marble has merit. Then I could see how GLib can get us a GS very early (philo or Edu) plus another for Biology.
Otherwise. I think we scrap G.Lib for Sankhore.

 

[Kaitzilla]

What an interesting thought exercise.

Oxford means we can run 5 scientists in capital or 6 with observatory.

National Park will add enough specialists to run all 6 scientists.

The question is, with Pacifism will Great Library capital produce 1 extra great scientist compared to Sankore capital?

If we speak of before Scientific Method, then yes it does.
It gets us biology faster and national park faster.

Faster national park pushes Great Library back ahead of Sankore over the long term I think.

I'm just having trouble factoring the fail gold Sankore can generate on completion.
The long term temple beakers +14 per turn after Sci. Method plus the fail gold hmm.

 

[MirrorGuard]

Out-of-the-box thinkingI have never whipped in a bureau capital before. Does that 50% bonus apply to whipping the same way as forge?


I think the next tech could be either currency or IW. Education would take long if we put in only 1Great scientist and university is 200h. What a pity we can't convert to Confu to prevent negative attitude of those we haven't met. Organized religion would be a good boost to fail gold and wonders we want.

Scientific method obsoletes both Glib and Parthenon. Note that profit culture will cover marble at ~T124 if we don't build extra culture building. Parthenon would have a short lifespan if we don't prolong pre-scientific method era. The main reason for Parthenon instead of MOM is we want optics. The reason is hard to resist. Maybe we can go for Taj after we have a national park?

 

[WastinTime]

If we speak of before Scientific Method, then yes it does.
It gets us biology faster and national park faster.

Not necessarily. We have organic research to do to get to Biology. So instead of the 12 GS's in my latest plan, we only get 11. That doesn't delay NatPark at all. It just delays Astronomy.

And, btw I have eliminated a GS, so we only need 11. 9 for Biology + 2 Astronomy.
Remember : GS #9 doesn't come later just because we will be short 1 GS from Science.
Where it hurts is this was a 100% pure GS. If we get too many non-GS, then we could feel the sting of no GLib.

But if we're doing 400bpt, then it's only 4 turns to make up for a missing GS.

 

[Kaitzilla]

T124? Hmm
Great Library is 50 turns away then.

Right, 200 hammers for a uni is a lot without a forge or org. religion.
If we burned all gold to get Education, then we would have no gold to run slider to use Oxford until we cashed in Maoi or Sankore.

I've never heard anyone regret teching Currency before, and it makes sense since we will find Russian cities as WT pointed out soon.
Storing hammers in Wealth can be nice too.

 

[WastinTime]

And, btw I have eliminated a GS

After losing some sleep, I did come up with this solution to our Philo bulb problem. How to get the 300gpp GS before our GAge.
Answer: we don't get a 300gpp person before the GAge.
We get Philo free from the AI.

All you do is make sure to give them Meditation + CoL on (or before) the turn they get a GS.
If you see the birth announcement, it's not too late (unless they don't even have Priesthood yet)
They will bulb Philo.
They should get a GS with just a library, but we could put them in Caste. Would they then get a GM? Hmm.
I hope Peter doesn't get a GS before Alpha.

Both SB and Peter are PHI leaders, so GS's should come.

We need Friendly SB or Peter
It appears we can all share a religion since no one else has one. Maybe even get free spread to Peter
It seems NZ has made it fairly easy to cooperate:
+1 shared tech (Peter only requires 5 tech gifts!, SB needs 20)
Shared Civic? Peter: Bureaucracy!
We gotta get Peter some resource trades as soon as we are connected.