SGOTM6 - Xteam

[Tomoyo]

We also have more posts in this thread than most threads are allowed, nyo.

 

[WillowBrook]

@ Tomoyo - haven't you been on your three-tea tenth avatar for the last several avatars? Or am I just seeing changes that aren't there....

 

[Tomoyo]

I have, I'm just oo lazy to change it, nyo.

Well...

Actually, I've lost track of which avatar this is, nyo...

 

[WillowBrook]

I guess more than three-tea ten is just "a lot"

 

[Tomoyo]

I guess that could be, nyo.

Nyo:

1. Sorry! The administrator has specified that users can only post one message every 30 seconds.

 

[DJMGator13]

1335AD continued

Found: Choke Hill / Igloo / Vegas / Ape City / Wasted Wheat / Yalaha /

rushed temples: Choke Point / Igloo / Vegas / Ape City / Wasted Wheat / Yalaha [6]

rushed libraries: Wheat Rustlers / Beaver Outpost / Camping Trip / Ensasewka Mirror / Fish / Freeze Dried / In and Around / Mining Camp / No Name / Waiting for Electricity / Whale Watch [11]

rushed Cathedrals: Innocent Spies / A Tree Falls / Death of a Forest / New Cataractonium3 / Purple Moo-moo [5]

rushed university: New Entremont2 (used 4 rifles - no other city needing the basic 3 was at size 3 or above)

messed up and disbanded a rifle in Entremont, when I was thinking of partially rushing a uni there, but the city is too unhappy - so I end up rushing a colosseum because the city had no growth left

BTW, Toulouse is down to 2 tiles and BAB has infantry

Military at end of turn: 7 settlers (some in position to found next turn), 5 explorers, 4 rifles, 1 cannon

running -375gpt and an addition of 66 cpt

IBT - same old action - our wool to FRA for 4gpt ends they won't renew / one city riotted? (I checked them all before I ended the turn)

Turn 258 - 1340AD
72583 culture, 2850 cpt, a 66cpt increase
Camulodunum riotted but requires no fix, it did grow to size 6 though
treasury 3663
draft 28 rifles
Military at start of turn: 7 settlers, 65 explorers, 32 rifles, 18 cannons and 22 cavs

 

[WillowBrook]

We're down to 40 cptpt for the rest of the game to get 1385!

We'd need to coast to the end:
74 cpt added each of the next three turns, or
59 cpt each of the next four, or
57 cpt each of the next five.

The sooner we add culture, the sooner we can turn our nation into an army of tax collectors!

Keep up the good work, Gator!

Edit: American, Babylon, England, and France have had replaceable parts since at least the end of my turnset, so if we're just now seeing infantry it's not because they couldn't build it - unless, of course, they didn't have rubber. For example, I doubt Joan has rubber hooked up.

 

[DJMGator13]

We have enough in our treasury to finish out the game even without a nation of tax collectors. We have 9 more IBT's to play so as long as we don't spend more than 407gpt we will finish with a small treasury balance.

My eyes are doing this so I'm going to take a break from this game until tomorrow. I'm up in R&L03 and still haven't started COTM11.

 

[WillowBrook]

But our maintenance will go up by at least 74 gpt over the next three turns if we build the minimum culture needed for a 1385 win and it's all in the form of libraries (which is probably impossible). So we will need to be careful about our treasury.

Edit: Take your time, Gator - better to take several more days than do something silly.

 

[AlanH]

There are also mitigating factors that reduce the impact on our treasury. or example when the 15 settlers currently at large build towns we'll have +15gpt. Selling the maps around can help keep the wolf from the door, and running more cities on wealth as they finish their basic culture builds also helps.

 

[DJMGator13]

Most of our new cities will not have time to build anything other than the temples because they have to fill their granaries, so they will go on wealth right away. I'm also not building anymore unis because there is not enough time for the shortrushing needed to complete them and I can use the rifles elsewhere.

I see us doing the 4 turns (3 more IBT's) at 60cpt and then being able to coast to the finish, so the last turns will allow us plenty of gold to finish. I think I'm starting 1340AD at about -316gpt but that still includes 80+ builds and all other cities still growing. So once we convert all +food to taxmen we'll be way under the -300gpt.

EDIT: I finally got close enough to a BAB city to light it up and that is when I saw the infantry. I thought they had been around prior to that, but I was sure so I put it in the report.

 

[WillowBrook]

Looks like CDZ's culture trajectory will look very similar to our own - but about 25 turns earlier. They look like they'll catch jeffelamer, but not Offa.

It's interesting how spread out the C3C finishes will be, while the Vanilla/PTW finishes probably will be within a few (10?) turns of each other.

 

[AlanH]

It's the sharpness of our knee that distinguishes our curve, even compared with Offa and CDZ. The "0 to 60" time for our cptpt acceleration was about 20 turns, whereas the other teams have much slower transitions from 'no culture' to 'max culture'.

The area under the culture curve indicates the cumulative maintenance cost for the cultural builds. Our sharp knee makes our area smaller than anyone else's, and I suspect that has had a major beneficial effect on our treasury. It will be very interesting to see how the other teams have managed the financial effects of their longer curves.

 

[WillowBrook]

The area under the culture curve indicates the cumulative maintenance cost for the cultural builds. Our sharp knee makes our area smaller than anyone else's, and I suspect that has had a major beneficial effect on our treasury. It will be very interesting to see how the other teams have managed the financial effects of their longer curves.

Are you sure about that? Wouldn't the maintenance be proportional to the area under a cpt curve? The total maintenance required to get 100k c is about 50k g (with the four major builds averaging 2c per 1g maintenance), no matter how many turns it takes to do it. Of course, the less turns you take to get to 100k, the less time you have to make the money to support it. And the quicker you build/capture towns, the more income you have.

In the end, our strategy of putting off culture works not because it costs less in absolute numbers but because we focused our resourses on gaining land and income potential (i.e., spaces for towns) as quickly as possible, rather than diverting some to early culture builds. At the beginning, the culture can wait: ignoring culture doubling, a temple for 100 turns gives 200 culture and costs 100 maintenance; 2 temples for 50 turns also gives 200 culture and 100 maintenance.

 

[Gyathaar]

WillowBrook is correct...

maintainance gpt is proportional to cpt

gold used on maintainance is thus proportinal to total culture

total culture is the integral of cpt, which is the area under cpt graph
(cpt is the derived of culture, and cptpt is the derived of cpt)

not sure what the area under the culture graph represents (except from the abstract concept of being the integral of culture)

 

[leif erikson]

In the end, our strategy of putting off culture works not because it costs less in absolute numbers but because we focused our resourses on gaining land and income potential (i.e., spaces for towns) as quickly as possible, rather than diverting some to early culture builds.

Isn't this the key to the game? The ability to wisely use your resources while planning out the steps necessary to attain your desired goal. In this case, we ignored the benefits of early cultural builds, and their associated maintenance costs, in order to gain the military needed to take territory and secure resources to later rush the culture. Because we built culture later, we needed more cultural buildings because the cultural total couldn't "build" fast enough to reach 100K in a timely manner.

We had more time to save gold for the later maintenance costs while we were taking the land we needed for the extra cities. It would be an interesting analysis to look at how many fewer cultural builds, and associated cities and territory, we would have needed to attain the same date if we started building culture earlier and what the "costs" associated with that would be.

Gyathaar estimated we would need 300 cities, yet we will have 400 or more. I think we needed this because we started out culture rush later, but in the end, it looks like it will work out. I'm sure Gyathaar's estimate included building Temples, Libraries, Cathedrals and Universities in those 300 cities. Yet I think we found more cities building Temples, Libraries and Cathedrals was a better way to go because it was faster and more economical.

The Vanilla/PTW games are coming in close to date and it will be interesting to see when they started their culture rushes (well, we do know this from the graph) and how many cities and culture building were needed to get to the date. Where they started earlier, I'm sure their city counts, and ultmate build counts, will be lower than ours.

 

[DJMGator13]

The key to me being able to rush as much as I have was the huge treasury. That and Willow had most cities above size 1 which allowed me to rush all those explorers and cannons in the first couple turns. The last few turns have been more consistent and I think we could achieve about 60 for the rest of the game, even though we only need it for a few more turns.

My goal is to play 2 tomorrow and either pass it to Gyathaar or play the 10th on Monday. These turns have taken me over 4 hours a turn.

 

[AlanH]

You're quite right, the area under the cpt curve represents total culture, and will be 100K at the end of the game for all teams who don't have to go over 100K.

PS. Just noticed the following spare locations:

 

[WillowBrook]

Great catch, Alan! I knew of the one in western old France, and hadn't built there because it would reduce the food production which the neighboring towns needed at the time. But I'd missed the one in southern old Japan.

Edit - BTW, I had a dream last night that when Gator posted his 1350 save, there was only 300 g in the treasury and we had a discussion ~100 posts long to try to figure out how to handle it.

 

[DJMGator13]

I think I've settled the 2nd one already. I need to check the Old France one, though.