Turn Discussion Thread

[AlphaShard]

Maybe Hunting that seems pretty cheap.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Zero need for Hunting right now. And you might send Azz into a rant if you suggest it.

We need Bronze Working ASAP for the chops, if nothing else. Our Worker needs things to do after mining the Gold resources, and chopping will keep him busy for a while (not to mention helping us out with build times). Not to mention the potential revelation of Copper, and the ability to whip if we desire. So in my mind there is a clear argument for going for Bronze Working as our next tech.

For our next build, that could be either Work Boat or Worker. Warrior is pointless now that we know we're on a tiny island. I'll do some testing tonight to determine my own opinion on what works better - Work Boat or Worker next.

 

[champinoman]

Zero need for Hunting right now. And you might send Azz into a rant if you suggest it.

I think he was referring to the tech that boosted the other teams score. Maybe a furs monopoly?

 

[Lord Parkin]

They started with Hunting though (as I already said). So it can't be that.

 

[champinoman]

Well it has to be wither Mining or Mysticism. Is it possible to get those beakers in 5 turns?

(pop isn't worth 6 points is it? I haven't checked but I'm sure its either 2 or 3 on these settings)

 

[AlphaShard]

Yeah Champ had it right I meant the other Civ, not us.

Oh and just so everyone knows I did settle the WB on the closet Fish.

I agree with Trystero, we need some long term goals becuase I don't think we have a consensus on what is the right tech to do since we don't have a long term goal. We may or may not have copper on our island, we also need to build cottages and more cities, not to mention getting off the Island.

What we need is a game plan.

 

[Lord Parkin]

We're definitely going to want a city on the plains-hill on the NW corner of the island at some point. We can already see that spot has 2 Fish, 2 Flood Plains, 2 Silks and 1 Gold. Moving to any other tile would lose at least one of the Fish resources. It has to be there, regardless of what else we discover.

I thought we already had a long term goal? REX as fast as possible, get Academy, avoid wonders, explore the mainland and surroundings as fast as possible, and go from there. We really can't decide much more about our long-term strategy until we find out who our nearest neighbours are. If we're next to CDZ and Amazons, our long-term strategy will have to be significantly different than if we're next to Mavericks and Quatronia, for instance.

 

[Trystero]

I thought we already had a long term goal? REX as fast as possible, get Academy, avoid wonders, explore the mainland and surroundings as fast as possible, and go from there. We really can't decide much more about our long-term strategy until we find out who our nearest neighbours are. If we're next to CDZ and Amazons, our long-term strategy will have to be significantly different than if we're next to Mavericks and Quatronia, for instance.

Sure, but I was looking for something more short term. My understanding of our current specific aims are as follows:

1. Tech BW after Mining, since this opens both whipping and chopping. Follow that with the tech path toward Writing (including AH).

2. After Writing (to build libraries and run scientists) get Sailing.

3. Grow to work both fish and gold hills in Sirius.

4. Get a WB out to explore the neighboring land mass so we can determine where to send our first settler. I'm thinking this will be the 3rd WB, after we first build at least one Worker and a Warrior (to garrison Sirius).

To no-one in particular: Honestly, the argument shouldn't be about the micro at all. It's not immediately obvious that it would be, but the numbers show the workboat->workboat->whip worker option (credit to azzaman for coming up with it by the way, it wasn't my idea) is genuinely the best option for food/hammers. If someone wants to dispute that then they really need to do the math or run a practise game to back it up, as working out the details trumps general intuitions about these things.

The argument should mostly be about the relative values of 35 food/hammers and 34 beakers. Will the beakers lead to the techs we need to pay for REX, or will food and hammers give us population that will eventually replace the beakers?

The issue of whether hammers or beakers will hold up the library more is one relatively nearby critical point, although there's a lot of different paths to it, and it still depends what we prioritise the library over.

This is precisely why I think we need to know specifically what we are going do in the short term. It is hard to assess the benefits of a particular path unless we know where we want to go with it.

 

[pindicator]

Sure, but I was looking for something more short term. My understanding of our current specific aims are as follows:

1. Tech BW after Mining, since this opens both whipping and chopping. Follow that with the tech path toward Writing (including AH).

2. After Writing (to build libraries and run scientists) get Sailing.

3. Grow to work both fish and gold hills in Sirius.

4. Get a WB out to explore the neighboring land mass so we can determine where to send our first settler. I'm thinking this will be the 3rd WB, after we first build at least one Worker and a Warrior (to garrison Sirius).

I think this sums up nicely our immediate tech short-term goals. After playing with the world builder saves I would only tinker with it a little bit:

#1 - If we plan on building a library immediately after the first settler then there is not enough time to research Wheel, Pottery & AH before taking on Writing. Either Pottery or AH needs to wait. In my test runs I made AH wait, but it only took 4 turns after Sailing (and building the library) to research AH.

#2 - agreed

#3 - this is why I took pottery over AH -- we'll want to grow onto cottage tiles while we grow to size 6. Do we also want to build a lighthouse after the Library? This doesn't really inspire REXing, building so much infrastructure and growing to size 6, then also waiting for a Great Person to be born before building another settler in the capital.

#4 - 3rd workboat is good, but a 2nd warrior may not be necessary until after the library. At monarch level our happy cap is 5 and we can grow to size 4 without any problems. Considering that's the target for our first settler and we're on a small island, I don't see a need for another warrior unless we can fit one into the specific build order.


With this in mind, I ran a few test cases. You can double check my work at a google docs spreadsheet i threw together while working with worldbuilder:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aq1HHkrNt0f-dFpMdnZmcnVxLVhmdjI0Mjcwalh1UXc&hl=en

Case #1 -
Build Order: Workboat -> Worker -> Workboat -> Workboat -> Settler -> Library

On T39 we have 1 settler, 3 work boats, 1 warrior, 1 worker, library. Worker has chopped 3 forests and Sirius has 12/28 food in the box.

Tech path: Mining -> BW -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing -> Sailing -> AH
Total of 680 commerce produced; AH had 1 turn of 0% invested (due to 2nd city maintenance) and would complete in 3 turns).

Case #2 -
Build Order: Workboat -> Workboat -> Worker (whip) -> Workboat -> Warrior -> Settler -> Library

On T40 we have 1 settler, 3 work boats, 2 warriors, 1 worker, library. Worker has chopped 2 forests and Sirius has 13/28 food in the box

Same tech path as above, had just finished Sailing and was about to start AH. Total of 655 commerce produced.


Some of this may be reinventing the wheel but I hope showing my work will help us spur some concrete discussion rather than "I got xx on Turn yy"

Also, please let me know if the build path can be improve for either option or if I did a total on some of my computations. I mirrored them with playing the wb save in game so they should be good... Should be

 

[Irgy]

We're definitely going to want a city on the plains-hill on the NW corner of the island at some point. We can already see that spot has 2 Fish, 2 Flood Plains, 2 Silks and 1 Gold. Moving to any other tile would lose at least one of the Fish resources. It has to be there, regardless of what else we discover.

I thought we already had a long term goal? REX as fast as possible, get Academy, avoid wonders, explore the mainland and surroundings as fast as possible, and go from there. We really can't decide much more about our long-term strategy until we find out who our nearest neighbours are. If we're next to CDZ and Amazons, our long-term strategy will have to be significantly different than if we're next to Mavericks and Quatronia, for instance.

I second all of the above. I'll also go so far as to say that I cannot imagine anywhere is going to be a better second city than that NW spot. It's good use of land, it's unlikely not to be the best city site available, and being in the far corner it will spread our culture over the island faster than anything else. Only thing I can think of that might change it is finding copper at another site.

With this in mind, I ran a few test cases. You can double check my work at a google docs spreadsheet i threw together while working with worldbuilder:

That's some excellent work. So, it looks like the difference between the two paths hasn't changed much even up to the library at around turn 40. The whip-worker path is ahead a warrior and a forest, which is your 35 hammers difference right there. Commerce difference hasn't changed much either, just narrowed a little to 25. The worker-second path is ahead a turn, but isn't running slavery.

The worker-second path is however missing either an escort for the settler or a warrior to keep the peace in the capital. So that extra warrior is kind of important.

In all cases, I'd consider putting the third workboat on a fish from the second city and building another to explore. I'd seriously consider the possibility of a galley and a warrior or two as the main exploration force, they'll start exploring later but they'll do more.


If going to look at options involving earlier sailing and more whipping for further comparison if I get time tonight, hopefully I will.

 

[AlphaShard]

So well be going Mining --> BW, making gold mines then mining the remaining hills? I'd just hate to have an idle worker if we can't build
roads or cottages while teching the Writing. That's what was happening in a test I did belining Writing.

 

[Trystero]

In both of pindicator's test cases, the worker mines both gold and then chops to speed production, so there are no idle worker turns prior to turns 39 or 40 (where his analysis ends).

 

[champinoman]

I just ran a test to see what the difference would be if we waited until pop3 to 1pop whip the worker out and came up with the following results as compared to pindicator's Case#2:

Ran to Turn 41 for better comparison:
(pindicators test Vs whipping at 3pop)
Beakers in current tech: 59 Vs 54 (both have researched Mining, BW, Wheel, Pot, Wri and Sail)
Production after turn: 19 vs 31 (both have same units with library being last built)
food supplies: 17 vs 18 (will get us to pop 6 1 turn earlier)
Both cases have settler arriving at NW hill on turn 40 for settling on turn 41
Library is 1 turn later in the whip at 3pop.

What is our next build? Will getting it quicker be worth this alternative? Also getting to 6pop 1 turn earlier might be helpful for the academy.

Attached is the game file.

EDIT: Hope this works: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tg5E5CWt7kylQ49q3rbW1Ig#

 

[azzaman333]

I noticed that CDZ's score went up from 33 to 39. Did their capital grow? Did they finish a tech? If so, it'd have to be a cheap tech. They started with Fishing and Hunting, so it'd have to be something else. Any thoughts?

It should be easy to check whether their they grew, on the top 5 cities screen we'd obviously be able to see a size 2 city.

Also, the demographics would reflect it.

 

[AlphaShard]

Well unless we get more votes for something else were going with WB that does seem to be the consensus...

 

[champinoman]

Just remember to move the Warrior SE first before heading back north to uncover that last fog tile.

 

[champinoman]

Land the the South West? That wasn't something I was expecting. We need to get the warrior up to that City C site asap to check if there is any land visible out in that direction from the hill.

Our creative trait is starting to look really handy...

P.S. The discussion link in the other thread sends you to a thread 3 pages back. I'd suggest linking it to this post as its the first one regarding this new turn.

 

[grant2004]

Looking at Pindicator's annalysis I think option 2: 2nd workboat next, looks the best. I'm not sure if Irgy's suggestion to use WB#3 to fish at the second sity is a good idea. If we found the city in the NW it will take a while for WB#3 to get there, it might be smarter just to build WBs locally.

Plus I really really want to see what's on the other island

 

[champinoman]

Actually the WB can arrive at the fish a long time before the city is even settled. Its only 6 turns to get there (might have been 5) and the WB will most likely come before the settler to allow for city growth to work the 2 golds while its being built. Add onto that the fact that the fish are not in initial city culture so it'll take another 5 turns to be able to work it.

But I also would like to know more about those 2 land masses we can see so sending the 3rd WB in that direction is a good idea. An interesting question is, has the map maker been sneaky in making the first island we saw a decoy?

 

[dima42]

see: test case 3, whipping worker at pop 3 instead of at pop 2 and growing to pop 4 asap.
result (i think): compared to pindicator's #2, 1 food, 8 hammers in exchange for 11 commerce. worth it to me...

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AraUK8En6x3pdFZpNW9GY1B4RjUxdndvVnBLMFBvMWc&hl=en

edit:
also, library can be done at least by turn 38 with a worker-first start. so please don't end turn just yet.
edit: okay, i've convinced myself that worker-first start is inferior.