Time for some bullying (or not)

[mlinneak]

Honestly, I didn't understand the point of physics either. It was already chosen in the save, actually electricity was already chosen and physics was just on the way. I did not see tech discussion in the previous post excepting that physics had been chosen so I just followed the path that had already been laid out.

Sorry about the great artist, I misunderstood your post to mean that you actually wanted the artist settled in Horice.

If Awkar revolts to us entirely, it has Christianity - another religion that could be spread to build cathedrals.

 

[kossin]

No biggie, just pointing out things. Look Ma!

In any case, odds are that city would have needed a settled GA sooner or later.

Regarding Christian Cathedrals: that would be great as they also use stone as multipliers, meaning they'd be quite cheap. Just have to figure if it's worth going out of OR (I mean if the city has a Christian Monastery) to spread it.

 

[mlinneak]

I'm still really a learner on the site here, so I apologize for my screwups but I really appreciate all the feedback

I am a little confused though, maybe you could explain to me why you want to farm / workshop over all the towns in Cow-misser? I guess I missed this entirely or I would have worked on it during my set.

 

[kossin]

Cottages in any city but the 3 culture ones when you are running the culture slider at 100% are basically useless as all they do is add culture to those cities. commerce: gets converted to ).
I'd rather have more hammers to build wealth or whatever else is needed in those cities.

 

[mlinneak]

That makes sense, thanks kossin.

 

[cripp7]

Physics>Electric was my doing! I just queued those for the wonders, my bad. At least we're on track thanks to kossin's input!

 

[Meerk]

About to take my turn now.

A few thoughts before I go.

It looks like the base culture is lowest in Pig farmer, so it is kind of the critical path. It should be the first to get each of the culture multipliers.

We don't care much about culture until we hit the maximum culture in the third city. From that point of view, I think we want to run mostly for a few turns until we get up a couple more culture multiplier buildings in the main cities (especially Pig farmer), and then switch to 100% after that. Kind of like we do for research while building some key research multipliers.

Other than that, it looks like taking a few suggestions and mostly doing what we have been doing.

 

[kossin]

Switch to Pacifism, build wealth in a few places and the slider will stay at 100% for a loooong time.

 

[Meerk]

Pre-turn (1490)


Switched around buildings in all non-culture cities to prioritize making temples. At this point, all of those are in queues. Useless temple is working a food deficit to get them out faster. Cities that have 3 temples, and all multipliers went into

Tweaked 3 culture cities to grow faster. The plan is to grow fast now, then run a food deficit later (once we have all multipliers in).

Looked for some mansas to sell happy resources to, but couldn't find any with GPT (I renegotiated fish to peach).

Revolted to Pacifism.

Put most of the EPs on Orange Mansa, but it will be quite a while till we can steal stuff.

Set workers to farm teno iron and near pig farmer. In a couple of turns.

Also, saw Kossin's note re: 100% . Decided to go ahead and do that. We can always build more in more cities. That should be plenty (we have lots of in the bank.) Also micromanaged a few cities to work a merchant. We have a lot of cottage paving to do, but I think that's mostly irrelevant.

Also, removed a few obsolete signs.


1500
Not much. Moved some workers around.


1505

Victor Hugo born.

Should I settle? (Math follows... skip if bored by such things.)

Seems like the final culture multipliers will be 2.5 here (in pig farm, which is the slowest city). So settling is worth 12 * 3.5 = 42 culture per turn.
Hence, it's worthwhile to settle if we need more than 4000/42 = 95 turns to win.

Looks like we have 81 base culture now, which will become about 100 base culture in a few turns. Since that gets multiplied out to 350, it will take 48000/350 or 137 turns. So seems like a good idea.

But, we are going to get several GAs in that time. The next is in 7 turns. Let's figure on average one per 15 turns, so we can plan to get several in before 95 turns. Maybe it will be like 4 that we can settle in pig farmer (at some point, someone else will become the slowest and need a culture bomb). So that would suggest we are closer than 95 turns to victory. So we should culture bomb. Right?

So, that's my plan. I am going to plan to culture bomb. Since there is no hurry, I will wait until the end of my set (or maybe even leave them afterwards, in case others think settling better).

1510

Useless temple now done with temples.

1515

20Million and counting!

Also this fool comes knocking.

Ha! I turn him away.

1520

Well, well, well.

Here's the city screen.

Spoiler :

Note: I haven't done anything to it yet.

So, I revolt to OR to make a few quick missionaries. First out in 2 turns. He will go to Cow-misser. I believe I can get

1525

1530

Hippie notions in the AP.

1535

Trade spices to yellow for corn. (We need all health resources, but don't need anything with happiness.)

1540
Spreading around Christianity. Making a few more roads also (to get missionaries to destinations in one turn).

1545

Here comes another one!

Also keeping him for culture bomb.

0/2 on missionaries this turn.

1550
More demands that get refused.

Much better luck this turn. 3/3 missionaries. We now have 7 cities with Christianity. I was planning to play a couple more turns, but this seemed like a potential decision point, so I am stopping here.

We can be sure of 2/3 of our culture cities having cathedrals without further missionaries. That would mean we could switch back to pacifism again, which would save us a bit of money, and enable us to get back to GA spam in pig-farmer. I am inclined to think we don't really need a cathedral in Horice.

On the other hand, it may be worth staying in OR for a few turns for the 3rd cathedral, and the 25% faster buildings. I can go either way on this one.


Some pics

Cities:

Spoiler :

 

[Meerk]

One thing I wanted to highlight -- pig farm will be getting a GA in 4 turns when we switch to pacifism.

Also, it already has 2 GAs ready to culture bomb. So we are significantly closer than the graphs appear. For example, we could push pig farm up to 11.9k culture with those alone.

However, our military is pretty paltry. Our power is like 0.4 vs a number of them. We may want to build a few more units just in case some mansa gets a bright idea. Particularly since cow-misser is all workshops and farms now, it should be able to pump us up pretty fast if we choose.

 

[Meerk]

It looks like cottage growth will give Horice up to 8 more . Let's assume it averages out to 4 more over the rest of the game (a wild guess, admittedly). The temple will also be worth 1 . So that gives us more like 5 * 3.5 = 17.5 more base culture, and about 20 from building culture. That brings us to 447 starting in 5 years. For convenience, I am going to say 425 for the intervening 5 years. So in 5 years, when we start building culture, we will have about 7200 + 425*5 = 9325 , leaving 40,675 to go. That works out to 91 more turns, or about 96 turns total for Horice, if we don't spread Christianity enough to make a Cathedral. The cathedral will be worth about 62 per year. That's good for about 10 fewer turns until Horice is legendary.

All this is assuming we won't have any more GAs culture bomb Horice. I think that's somewhat safe, since it is the farthest ahead of our cities and has the best base .

OK, I think we probably should advance the turn without revolting back to Pacifism, and spread Christianity to 2 more cities.

 

[kossin]

Looks like a great set

Agree on the math for the Cathedrals, let's spread it to 2 more cities.

Regarding the AP: I think defying the resolution could have been possible but we would have lost the across the empire. In any case, we can always rebribe Peach with Biology/Physics when he can attack Blue again.

And I just noticed I did a mistake with the GA calculations. The culture modifiers are added, not multiplied, which means for Pig Farm... (counting the new Cathedral in a few turns)
(50,000-3952)/318.5*3.5*12 = 6072 -> settle

We might consider pulling the 3 citizens working 1 forest preserves and set them on artist duties right away too.

Horice: take back the 2 farmed grassland stolen by Awkar - it can use them better.

Remember we can chop the forests outside the BFCs to help with production.

Lastly, keep checking for spy specialists and take them off. Merchants in non culture cities would be best if there's not tile available left.

Looks like this one is in the bag. Keep Blue busy and we're good to start the next SG!

To the next players: feel free to play 20 turns since there isn't much left to be discussed I think. You can always stop mid-set if a situation arises.

1. Slibluhr
2. Gumbolt
3. cripp7
4. mlinneak
5. Meerk - Just played
6. mjg5591 - UP
7. kossin - On deck!

 

[Meerk]

We might consider pulling the 3 citizens working 1 forest preserves and set them on artist duties right away too.

I was planning to do that after finishing the culture multipliers. Probably best results are with some mm to arrange maximum artists while not slowing down multipliers.

Horice: take back the 2 farmed grassland stolen by Awkar - it can use them better.

Dammit. I fixed that for lolco, but forgot Horice.

Remember we can chop the forests outside the BFCs to help with production.

Good suggestion.

Lastly, keep checking for spy specialists and take them off. Merchants in non culture cities would be best if there's not tile available left.

This was a real pain during my turn. It kept trying to put engineers/spy specialists whenever a culture city grew.

The money is very important. I had deferred building in order to spread Christianity during the last few turns, and we were seriously burning cash. I think Cow-misser should build only one more missionary, the christian temple, and then get back to building .

Looks like this one is in the bag. Keep Blue busy and we're good to start the next SG!

 

[mjg5591]

Got the save will play tonight.

With the 2 saved GA in Pig-Farm, are we settling or bombing? Also if settling where we settling? I'm not good with the calculations like it seem some of you are.

Will spread christianity to make cathedrals. Then go back to pacifism and building wealth and culture where needed.

Will keep an eye on the specialists also. Hate when they always put spy ones.

 

[kossin]

Settle in pig farm, they're worth 6,000+ culture each vs 4,000 for bombing. Do the math for subsequent GAs. (don't forget to add 1.0 base to the multiplier as I did).

The math will be easier to do in a few turns as all cities' next border pop will be the Legendary one, i.e.

In the WORST culture city:
turns left to Legendary*12*(culture multiplier+1) >? 4000
yes->settle
no->keep for bombing or bomb right away, doesn't matter much.

If you use BUG, you can modify the F1 screen to show specialists in every city. (Enter edit mode->add the Specialists tab->save->Exit edit mode). You press F1 every turn and see every specialist in every city. I wish they'd add a unimproved tile worked net

 

[Meerk]

In the WORST culture city:
turns left to Legendary*12*(culture multiplier+1) >? 4000
yes->settle
no->keep for bombing or bomb right away, doesn't matter much.

This will cause us to settle a little too often, because it doesn't take into account subsequent bombs. For example, if we were to get 5 more GAs, and use them all bombing Pig Farmer, we would end up needing fewer turns to reach legendary, which cuts down on the value of settling.

Unfortunately, I don't know the formula for how many GAs we will get. How much does the GPP increase for each one after the first? How many have we had? How many do we expect in the next ~75 turns before we win?

Even if we did know that formula, there are lots of other questions, like how many do we need to send to each city?

On the other hand, Kossin's formula currently undercounts the value of settling, because we currently have only 3X culture multipliers in Pig Farmer, and will ultimately get to 4x. So maybe it all works out.

If you use BUG, you can modify the F1 screen to show specialists in every city. (Enter edit mode->add the Specialists tab->save->Exit edit mode). You press F1 every turn and see every specialist in every city. I wish they'd add a unimproved tile worked net

That's a great tip! Thanks.

 

[kossin]

Good point, we will have to consider 3+ bombs available to us in the future. Feel free to skip to the bolded part if you don't like maths!

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_points.php
"So you need 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, then 1200, 1400, 1600, 1800, 2000, 2200, ... GPPs to generate a new great person."

GPP with Pacifism+3 more artists in Pig farm is 141/turn.

Very very rough guess gives us about 100 turns left to play (culture bombs).

That's about 14,000 GPP (again, rounding down).

Right now, next GP costs 700 so in theory we should get another 10 great Artists.

Each bomb will save us about 10~11 turns at our current cpt rate.

I'm guessing we will likely bomb at least 3 artists, more likely 6. = maybe 20 turns less for calculations.

Which makes settling the first artist right now be worth about 5,000 culture, the second a bit over 4,000 but the ones after <4000.

Settling in Horice is pointless as it's way ahead already and settling in Lolco is a bit better than 4,000 culture assuming the same as above.

Conclusion if you don't want to read the above:

-settle the current 2 GArtists in Pig farm
-settle the next in Lolco
-bomb the other GArtists (always slowest city first)

My math was really crude for this so it isn't quite right, but it should *more or less be close* to the real thing unless I did something really badly.

 

[mjg5591]

Ok played til 1645AD,

Started off by taking the farms back in Horice. Also settled the 2 GA in Pigfarm.

1555AD Switched to Pacifism. Christianity spread to Useless temples.

1560AD Spread Christianity to Yayoi.

1565AD Spread Christianity to Frosty.

1570AD Not much.

1575AD Hindu Mandir in Pigfarm. Start on Christian temple.

1580AD GA born. Also started war with Blue mansa. This might have been a mistake. Blue brought Yellow and Orange into the war. Peach is starting to lose cities.

1585AD Settle GA in Lolco.

1590AD Not much.

1595AD Blue cancels copper deal for wine and 7gpt turn. I make fur for wine trade. He had no gpt.

1600AD Not much.

1605AD Trade fish for banana, and copper for 9gpt with blue.

1610AD GA born and bomb Pigfarm.

1615AD Not much.

1620AD We are worst enemies of Blue mansa. Start making some rifles for defense, although this might not help much I think he has infrantry.

1625AD to 1640AD Not much happening.

1645AD GA born. I stopped here. GA is sitting in Pig farm.

I'm worried about Blue mansa. He is still at war with peach. As is Yellow and orange. We might want to step in and stop wars with maybe yellow and orange. Try to bribe them out. If peach capitulates to someone we will be target for Blue mansa. And we have no military. Also might not have techs to bribe someone into war. We have about 1100 gold though.

We are 66 turns from last city to go culture. Although we have GA in pigfarm now and 1 coming in 6 turns or so in Horice 86% chance. Might want to take few artists away from Horice so Pigfarm gets the GA in 7turns. 98% chance.

All 3 cities have Hindu, jewish, budda, and christian cathedrals.

Screenshots.

Save.

 

[kossin]

Vassals are off!
Observations/plan:

Buy peace between Peach/Yellow and let the others go at it. I'm really not too worried about Blue, 50ish turns should not be enough for a DoW.

Take spy off in Akwar.

Horice -> work horses, cottage+mine to delay the GP.

1. Slibluhr - On deck!
2. Gumbolt
3. cripp7
4. mlinneak
5. Meerk
6. mjg5591 - Just played
7. kossin - UP

I'll play tomorrow maybe so time for more input!

 

[Meerk]

Looks like a good set. We are closing in. It does look like we will win within 50 turns, especially with all the GAs.

If we do end up with something other than a GA, we should probably use it to pop a golden age. I don't think we have had any yet.

I must say, I am impressed by the amount of land we have taken via culture. It's a little unfortunate how close it has come onto Blue.

It looks like we lost the ability to see a few civs' demographics, so espionage needs to get adjusted.

Given how many uninteresting turns we have, it may make sense to run more than 20 turns, unless something major comes up (blue DOW or whatnot).