SGOTM6 - Xteam

[leif erikson]

Talking about territory.. we should prolly take out Carthage and Iroquois.. we should be able to wipe them out easy with our existing military, and there is lots of high food land in that peninsula for new cities

iirc, our cavs are mostly in the post-French area while Carthage and the Iroquois are across the bay. Should anyone decide to take issue with us, I think it'll be in north. If we want to take on Carthage, I think we should divert shields in the southern areas and not use what we have in the north. Providing there are some Barracks left somewhere, cities with culture built through Cathedrals could, conceivably, produce some cavs for use there. I thought it was pretty thin up north as it was.

I think it becomes a matter of priorities. If we need more land to expand on, then we need to divert the shields. If we can keep the cultural pace we need on what we have, then we should focus on that.

Keep up the culture WillowBrook!!

 

[AlanH]

We're building rifles not infantry, and only about half a dozen per turn, I think.

If we delay using them for libraries for a turn then that's 18 or 20 culture points we don't have at the end date. All we know right now is that the end dates are going to be very close, and no one knows whether those 18 points would make the difference between a winning date and a draw, or a draw and a loss.

I doubt if six conscript rifles would have much effect at all on the AI's perception of us, as strength is mainly measured on attack parameter and hit points if I recall correctly. Draft rifles only have attack 4 and 2 HP.

On balance I'd vote to risk all for the fastest culture date we can manage, and deal with Babs if the problem arises.

 

[DJMGator13]

On the infantry I must have been thinking about the Gator01 game then. I know we are drafting infantry in one of these games

Based on your additional culture builds, a few posts above, do we have an idea of how many new cities we would need to make a difference in our estimated ending date? Assuming we only have time to add temples to them all and say libraries in half.

If we're only drafting 6 or so rifles a turn, how much food in our draft cities would we lose if we switched govs and started producing so more military to grab more land with? Could we maintain +10 fpt in any of the 1 turn draft cities? How many could maintain +5fpt for drafting every other turn?

Just throwing out some ideas, I'm at work and can't research any of these myself, so they may be of no use to us.

 

[WillowBrook]

Quick note (I'm in class right now. Bad me. )
In the save I posted this morning, I hadn't done much pop-rushing or changing cities to from wealth that will pop something next turn. So things will look significantly different on the build front by the time I press enter.

 

[Tomoyo]

If anything would scare away the AI, it's our number of cities. They add an enormous amount to our power rating, which IIRC goes into the AI attack formula.

 

[AlanH]

Assume all existing and in-build settlers plus all towns currently building culture will achieve (temple+library+cathedral+university) by a combination of pop rushing, disbands, self-build. Assume they all end up creating wealth.

We have:

- 11 settlers in transit. There are probably spots for all of them, and most if not all are already in position. They will create 11 x 12 = 132 cpt. They are costing 11gpt currently, so will eventually cost 33 gpt net extra in maintenance.

- 10 settlers in build. I suspect we can find places for them, possibly including some aggressive settling. They will add 120 cpt and cost 40 gpt.

- 53 cities building temples that can also create 53 x 12 = 636 cpt if they also build libraries, cathedrals and universities. They will eventually cost 265 gpt net when fully built.

- 7 cities building libraries which can create 70 cpt if they also build cathedrals and universities. They will cost 28 gpt

- 14 cities building cathedrals which can create 98 cpt if they also build universities. They will cost an extra 42 gpt

- 14 cities producing universities which can create 28 cpt and will cost 14 gpt.

Net result of these builds will be 1084 cpt and a net cost increase of 422 gpt. That gets us to 2812 cpt, probably around 15 turns from now, and we'll probably have eaten into our piggy bank by about 3500 gold. If we do nothing else, my estimate then says we then finish in 1390 AD. We should probably try to build and locate a few more settlers if we can, and soon, but I doubt if our date is going to change much from here on.

 

[DJMGator13]

France and the Vikings are still at war, so there may be a chance to poach some tiles in that area, but the BAB have a single city in between those two. There is also some available jungle north of India for more cities, so I think we can place a number of cities without having to go to war.

I'm surprised we're not getting some flips with the cultural pressure we have on some cities.

 

[WillowBrook]

major problem with Alan's numbers is that towns are put on wealth between builds, until the turn immediately before poprushing the next improvement, so there is no indication what builds they already have - only 98 of our ~300 towns are counted in the above analysis.

Perhaps a different way of counting would be to calculate our excess food (i.e., watered RR plains have one extra; watered RR grassland have two; not forgetting about bonus tiles; every town center counts as two extra - and not counted as per base terrain, etc), and every ten excess food translates into one pop-point which translates into 20 shields, discounted to perhaps 18 due to popping of explorers and cannon only giving 5 moveable shields per pop-point. This would tell us how many shields we can, assuming perfect MM, expect to have available on average each turn.

I have no time, but I'd love to see the analysis....

 

[leif erikson]

I think we are wasting our time on trying to build Universities, they require too many citizens to be rushed effectively. For 10 citizens, we can build 5 cannons or LB's (or 10 Explorers) to rush 100 shields, a Temple and a Library, or 5 culture points versus the 4 we get for a University.

The answer then, I think, is to pack the cities in even denser than ICS. All we need is 1 citizen and we can rush all we want with the units we can build, as fast as we can produce them. Pick the most productive areas, grasslands and specials like cows and wheat, and reserve them for growth and unit rushing. Take the less productive areas, plains and jungles, and pack the cities in tight and start disbanding units for culture. With this scheme, we shouldn't need more land, I don't think.

 

[Gyathaar]

The answer then, I think, is to pack the cities in even denser than ICS.

The game dont allow you to build tighter than 1 tile apart

 

[Capt Buttkick]

lurker's comment:
I've been wondering: why are you consequently building libs before caths when you don't do any research?
I understand the maintenance bit, but the shield cost is the same.
I doubt it's much of an issue b/c of luxes, but the caths might help with happiness issues in a few cities and would be worth building first in those cases?

 

[AlanH]

major problem with Alan's numbers is that towns are put on wealth between builds, until the turn immediately before poprushing the next improvement, so there is no indication what builds they already have - only 98 of our ~300 towns are counted in the above analysis.

That's good news. Actually my previous analysis included towns building other units and improvements, and we currently have 162 towns on wealth.

Perhaps a different way of counting would be to calculate our excess food (i.e., watered RR plains have one extra; watered RR grassland have two; not forgetting about bonus tiles; every town center counts as two extra - and not counted as per base terrain, etc), and every ten excess food translates into one pop-point which translates into 20 shields, discounted to perhaps 18 due to popping of explorers and cannon only giving 5 moveable shields per pop-point. This would tell us how many shields we can, assuming perfect MM, expect to have available on average each turn.

I have no time, but I'd love to see the analysis....

Ok, here you go:

We have:

304 city centres = 608 fpt.
Assume 150 of these are on grass and 75 on plains.

547 grass - 150 cities - 25 not irrigable = 744 fpt.
358 plains - 75 cities = 283 fpt.
18 flood plains = 54 fpt

Assume we have 50% of the world's food bonuses:
4 wines = 4 fpt
3 whales = 3fpt
6 game = 12 fpt
4 fish = 8 fpt
9 cattle = 18 fpr
9 wheat = 18 fpt
3 lambs = 6 fpt
6 sheep = 12 fpt
4 wool = 8 fpt
3 oysters = 6 fpt
7 goats = 14 fpt
3 olives = 6 fpt
Total bonuses = 117 fpt. This is an over-estimate because some are on hills or mountains, so reduce it to 90 fpt

Total theoretical surplus food = 1779 fpt.

We have 124 specialists consuming 248 fpt, leaving 1531 net fpt.

Our current actual surplus food production is 1412 fpt, so if my numbers are correct we are "wasting" 119 fpt, which is under 10%. Some waste is inevitable as a town completes another citizen and surplus can't be shared efficiently. Some happens because MM-ing 300 cities is not easy

Using our current actual number of 1412 fpt surplus we can produce 140 pop per turn. If five pop points are required per 3 cpt this should allow us to generate 84 cpt per turn. At 84 cpt per turn we'd finish at 1380 AD.

Please pick holes in my arithmetic or assumptions.

 

[AlanH]

lurker's comment:
I've been wondering: why are you consequently building libs before caths when you don't do any research?
I understand the maintenance bit, but the shield cost is the same.
I doubt it's much of an issue b/c of luxes, but the caths might help with happiness issues in a few cities and would be worth building first in those cases?

Libraries are the second most cost effective source of culture we have after temples.

Happiness isn't as big an issue as maintenance cost right now. With markets in the high pop towns we can contain it. Delaying the 2 gpt buildings is worth while to sustain our current crock of gold for as long as possible. When we get to over 2000 cpt our maintenance costs will go through the roof.

 

[leif erikson]

The game dont allow you to build tighter than 1 tile apart

So, there goes that theory!! I never tried it. I learn something new every day...

Just tried it with the 1250AD save and it won't let me plant settlers if the square touches another city square.

I have to download WillowBrook's save to know but in the 1250 save, there are still places to settler closer. Looks like more work to find every last place that we could build a city and plant one there. Had I realized that you can't build a city adjacent to another, I would have planted cities more carefully.

Someday I might learn how to play this game??

 

[AlanH]

That's why combat settlers work in relays - plant a city, move a settler forward, trash the city, plant a new city, rinse and repeat.

I'm going to try to help by crawling over the map and putting dots where there are still spaces. Watch this ... space .

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Libraries are the second most cost effective source of culture we have after temples.
Happiness isn't as big an issue as maintenance cost right now. With markets in the high pop towns we can contain it.

Libs and caths have the same culture output.
Got to admit I haven't looked at the game, but just to clarify my thoughts:
Libs = 1gpt maintenance, markets = 1gpt maintenance. So if a city with high pop (they're all pretty corrupt now, aren't they?) could contain happiness with a cath, it'd be better to go Cath --> Lib --> market than Lib --> market --> Cath, culture wise.
And b/c the market doesn't help w/r to income, you're just a few turns worse off w/r to gold than the other way around.

 

[AlanH]

If a city is unhappy a market is much better at containing it. We have all the luxuries, so a market gives us 20 happy faces. A cathedral gives us 3. We have been going lib->cath->market to get the best deal on culture. As I said, happiness is only a problem later on when you are drafting, not while you are building the third culture improvement. So we are typically building lib->cathedral->drafts->market. That delays the 2gpt for the cathedral for a few turns.

 

[DJMGator13]

I tried to post a picture last night but I had a terrible connection. The largest area of unsettled land right now is the jungles north of India. Next area is old France moving west towards the Vikings. There are also some border spots open.

I'm not opposed to placing cities 2 tiles from AI civs also, we won't get the full 9 tiles but we don't need all 9 tiles.

BAB and CART are at war but are seperated so I don't think we can expect to gain any land there and I checked the F4 to see if we could MA with BAB against CART and no dice.

 

[WillowBrook]

@ Capt - we have Adam Smith's, so markets are free. libraries and cathedrals cost the same to build, produce the same amount of culture, but cathedrals cost twice the maintenance. So we build libraries first (well, most of us do - there are a handful of towns currently that inexplicably have a cathedral but not a library.... )

I'll probably finish 1260 AD today; depending on how long it takes, I'll post it just before pressing enter for comments. We still have space for more towns, though I haven't counted.

As for uni's, with the exception of a few already started at the beginning of my turnset (mostly aquaduct builds switched to uni's) I'm only building them in towns that can't draft and that can build them in 8 turns once they reach size four. Since a whole bunch of towns completed their cathedrals during Leif's turns, we're getting increasing numbers of towns giving us cannons and explorers for moveable shields (even excluding the towns building uni's), which will hurry the building of temples and libraries in new towns. We also will have a significant number more towns get to drafting in the next few turns.

@ Alan - thanks for the food analysis. I should note that it assumes that no citizens are working tiles of less than 2 food, a rule I've tried to enforce, but you know how these people are. I'm glad that it looks like we have enough food for the required culture push.

I'm also reminded that many of our new towns need harbors in order not to be using low food tiles. I'm thinking at this point, that it's probably not worth building harbors any more in towns that will only get 5-turn growth; the 40 shields can better go to the temple or half a library. But if a town will get 3-turn growth (i.e., they have a fully-developed grassland available but the rest is tundra), it's probably worth it to build a harbor. But I haven't run the numbers.

Keep the comments coming!

 

[AlanH]

Here's a dot map showing the places we can build ... I think. Orange dots are safe, yellow ones may be seen as aggressive. Click the displayed map to get the full 400KB monster.

There are:

22 orange dots and 10 yellow dots in our northern province.
32 orange dots and 4 yellow dots in our southern empire.

WillowBrook has some of these covered with settlers waiting to work, but I think we have spaces to keep us busy for a while.

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