Turn Discussion Thread

[champinoman]

As intent as we are on this early library, it's worth considering building a second worker to get the second city going sooner. It's also worth considering sending a workboat over to it from the capital to get the fish worked as soon as possible. Both will slow down our other plans a little, but taking several turns off getting the second city going will pay huge dividends.

FWIW I'd really, really like to know where horses and copper are on our island, if at all, as soon as possible.

I ran a quick test earlier that might be of interest to you both to look at. It was done in a rush as I was meant to be working so feel free to micro it better for improvements.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9094804&postcount=257

Edit: I should add that if we are thinking about getting AH soon then its worth getting it before Writing to take advantage of the bonus beakers for the extra prereq.

 

[fed1943]

This game of ours is very interesting:
I "always" build workboat before worker, go whip ASAP and hammers over commerce. But,
Here it's the opposite. Why? Our big commerce tiles (mined gold hills plains) are also production tiles, 3H. And we have enough food to work all of them.
So, to get the food=fish and the gold speeds both production and research, and are IMHO top priority to serve any strategy.

 

[AlphaShard]

Exactly the Fish feeds our gold while still letting us grow! Then we build a second WB, fish feeds the other gold and still allows us to grow nicely. I think we have a very good capital city here.

 

[dima42]

I second this or something similar. With all the talk about the capital I started to wonder late last night if we were overlooking developing our smaller cities. The capital usually isn't the town getting the main benefit of the whip anyway.

I disagree. I think we should be waiting on slavery until HR. This is why we are going worker first.

I strongly doubt that we will be able to make up one turn's worth of anarchy whipping before HR. Someone would need to do calculations to convince me otherwise.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I'm for settling "City C", it's got one more fish than the south west corner, it's pretty much as good as the capital site so it's worth getting the settler out sooner rather than later. We should have it settled before we could get to the mainland (or whatever's out there) anyway.

Yeah, 2 Fish + 2 Flood Plains + 2 river Silk + 1 river Gold is pretty much as good as our capital. No question that our second city should be settled there.

As for AH, I think we should get it sometime soon after writing, possibly before if it doesn't delay the library much. We definitely need AH before settling any off-island cities. IW would be nice to know too.

Actually it just occurred to me that it's worth going Writing before AH even if we don't count the Academy benefit down the track. Getting the Library up a few turns earlier gives us 25% of 29 commerce per turn (at size 4 working 2 Gold and 2 Fish), which equates to 7.25 bonus beakers per turn. That should easily (and quickly) make up for any slight loss of beakers we get by not having the AH prereq before starting Writing.

By the way, I think someone mentioned considering a Worker over a Library or something. I strongly disagree, because our Library is so cheap (45 effective hammers = a couple of turns of building and a chop) that it's well worth getting ASAP.

I disagree. I think we should be waiting on slavery until HR. This is why we are going worker first.

I strongly doubt that we will be able to make up one turn's worth of anarchy whipping before HR. Someone would need to do calculations to convince me otherwise.

I agree that I'd like to see some numerical calculations on this too. I'll do some myself when we get a bit closer to the time.

 

[Irgy]

I agree that I'd like to see some numerical calculations on this too. I'll do some myself when we get a bit closer to the time.

It's a bit hard when we don't even know the tech path that we would take to get to Monarchy in the first place.

I'm starting to think we might want to do:
Bronze -> Writing (via pottery) -> Sailing -> Monarchy (via whatever). With Animal Handling thrown in there somewhere.
We might even be lucky enough pick up Judaism on the way through to Monarchy. At least two Civs going down this tech line will have religeons (from meditation and polytheism), and they'll probably all be chasing the Oracle, at which point monotheism becomes a lower priority.

Then we can revolt to slavery and HR at the same time, and start whipping city police and growing to work all of our grassland cottages. Make something of a beeline for Beaurocracy and leave everyone else for dead in tech.

I originally thought we'd want to consider code of laws, calendar and currency before making the big detour to monarchy, but at the rate we're teching (especially now that we've chosen to build a worker) we won't have enough cities to get much benefit from these techs as early as we can get them.

If we don't see copper nor horses, I'd seriously consider getting archery. Even if we do obsolete warriors by hooking up copper later, archers are still cheap at 25 hammers and have the up-side that unlike warriors they actually protect your city from attack. Warriors are great value for HR happiness but they're pants otherwise.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I noticed the turn has flipped. We need to decide before next turn whether we want to switch to The Wheel before Bronze Working. I'm almost positive that we will, as it shouldn't delay our chop times at all, but will allow us a useful prebuild on a road.

It's a bit hard when we don't even know the tech path that we would take to get to Monarchy in the first place.

I'm starting to think we might want to do:
Bronze -> Writing (via pottery) -> Sailing -> Monarchy (via whatever). With Animal Handling thrown in there somewhere.

I'd also want to chuck Maths into the mix, because the 50% extra hammers per forest will be very handy if we're getting it early on.

Make something of a beeline for Beaurocracy and leave everyone else for dead in tech.

Well, don't forget the value of trading... other civs will be able to trade to keep up, although if they don't have an Academy and Bureaucracy then we'll probably have the effective research rate of almost 2 civs. So even though we'll have an awesome research rate, we'll still need to look for long-term trading partners as soon as we can - if only to prevent other civs from teaming up with them.

I originally thought we'd want to consider code of laws, calendar and currency before making the big detour to monarchy, but at the rate we're teching (especially now that we've chosen to build a worker) we won't have enough cities to get much benefit from these techs as early as we can get them.

Yeah, that's true. Getting Hereditary Rule and the larger cities that come with it earlier will probably be a bigger benefit than (for instance) getting an extra trade route for 2 cities earlier.

If we don't see copper nor horses, I'd seriously consider getting archery. Even if we do obsolete warriors by hooking up copper later, archers are still cheap at 25 hammers and have the up-side that unlike warriors they actually protect your city from attack. Warriors are great value for HR happiness but they're pants otherwise.

I wouldn't go for Archery until after we need Hunting. By getting Archers, we obsolete Warriors for HR happiness, which is quite a big loss. Not to mention we don't need to even consider defence until we get onto the mainland. And even when we do need to consider defence, if we find we don't have Copper or Horses, then going for Iron Working will be miles better than going for Archery. Archers suck when they're not in a city on a hill, and even then they're inferior to (for instance) an Axeman, which can act on the offense. Archers can only ever act as defensive units, and as such they're incredibly weak especially in multiplayer games.

 

[Trystero]

If there was no difference between going The Wheel > BW and BW > The Wheel, I would prefer going BW first for the reasons I argued earlier. Since LP's analysis shows the difference is between pre-building a road or a farm, I now endorse researching The Wheel next.

Once we decide this, can we go over our immediate goals? I know we are going to build a WB after the Worker, but have we decided on which of the many micro plans we were actually going to follow? I've read so many in the past couple days, I'm having trouble keeping them straight.

 

[Lord Parkin]

This is the micro plan I believe we had in mind, but it's still up for discussion if people disagree with it.

Techs:

Mining
The Wheel
Bronze Working
Pottery
Writing

Builds:

Work Boat [while working PHF] (already completed, worked first Fish)
Worker [while working Fish]
Work Boat [while working Fish then Fish + Gold at size 2] (for second Fish)
Work Boat [while working Fish + Fish then Fish + Fish + Gold at size 3] (for exploring)
Settler [just as we reach size 4, while working Fish + Fish + Gold + Gold, and chopping]
Library [completed at size 4 from chops]

That's all that's been set so far.

 

[grant2004]

Yeah, if going wheel first doesn't delay us using any of the techniques unlocked with BW, but does allow us to build an important road earlier, why not go with the wheel first? I'm all for it.

 

[DaveShack]

Do you have the worker turns to go with the above plan?
We can blaze through turns as soon as they roll with people in so many time zones, if it's all laid out in advance.

 

[grant2004]

Also in response to LP's micro plan, I like that a lot. I'm convinced that such a plan will be most effective. I'm also very happy to see our exploratory workboat in there as early as it is.

 

[Trystero]

Do you have the worker turns to go with the above plan?
We can blaze through turns as soon as they roll with people in so many time zones, if it's all laid out in advance.

I agree. I would be much less hesitant to try logging on and playing a turn if we posted the micro for the set of turns in which we've agreed upon how to proceed.

 

[champinoman]

Do you have the worker turns to go with the above plan?
We can blaze through turns as soon as they roll with people in so many time zones, if it's all laid out in advance.

Worker movements are pretty standard with that plan:

Worker moves to SW Gold and builds Mine following turn
Worker moves 1 NE and prebuilds road
Worker moves 2 NE to NE Gold and builds mine
Worker moves 1 W and starts chop the following turn

Then from here it depends on whether we want 3 or 4 chops and choosing which forests to chop first.

 

[AlphaShard]

What do you mean by Prebuild road? Build it for a turn then stop and move again?? The Civ1 trick?

 

[champinoman]

Actually it just occurred to me that it's worth going Writing before AH even if we don't count the Academy benefit down the track. Getting the Library up a few turns earlier gives us 25% of 29 commerce per turn (at size 4 working 2 Gold and 2 Fish), which equates to 7.25 bonus beakers per turn. That should easily (and quickly) make up for any slight loss of beakers we get by not having the AH prereq before starting Writing.

Actually the Library can be completed on turn 41 even with AH in there. Off the top of my head I think that was 2 turns after when it would have been built without AH.

So the math:
Beakers saved by getting AH: 36
Beakers saved by getting Library 2 turns earlier: 14.5

Adding an earlier academy into this changes things but if we have no copper then this seriously needs to be considered. Even if we have copper it could be viable.

By the way, I think someone mentioned considering a Worker over a Library or something. I strongly disagree, because our Library is so cheap (45 effective hammers = a couple of turns of building and a chop) that it's well worth getting ASAP.


I agree that I'd like to see some numerical calculations on this too. I'll do some myself when we get a bit closer to the time.

How about a Library with a worker 1 turn later?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9094804&postcount=257

What do you mean by Prebuild road? Build it for a turn then stop and move again?? The Civ1 trick?

Exactly

 

[AlphaShard]

Well if we want Wheel first instead of BW better decide soon as the end turn has been hit and only two other teams haven't gone Amazon and Quartina.

 

[champinoman]

Well if we want Wheel first instead of BW better decide soon as the end turn has been hit and only two other teams haven't gone Amazon and Quartina.

There isn't too much of a hurry. We can put 3 or 4 turns into BW and still switch to the wheel in time to have it ready for the road build.

 

[Lord Parkin]

What do you mean by Prebuild road? Build it for a turn then stop and move again?? The Civ1 trick?

Yep, exactly. After mining the first Gold, we'd move 1 tile towards the other Gold, build a road, cancel the build, and then head on to the other Gold on the next turn and start mining. Doesn't lose us any turns of Worker movement, and means that when we head back to build that road, it'll only take us 1 turn rather than 2 to build.

By the way, we should decide which Gold is best to improve first. They both give the same yield, of course, but our Worker will end up in a different place to start his chops depending on which one we improve first.

Actually the Library can be completed on turn 41 even with AH in there. Off the top of my head I think that was 2 turns after when it would have been built without AH.

So the math:
Beakers saved by getting AH: 36
Beakers saved by getting Library 2 turns earlier: 14.5

Adding an earlier academy into this changes things but if we have no copper then this seriously needs to be considered. Even if we have copper it could be viable.

Actually, it wouldn't delay the Academy, because we won't be employing any Scientists until at least size 5. (We'll need to decide whether it's preferable to have that Scientist at size 5, or work the Silk instead and grow to size 6 quicker to have 2 Scientists earlier.)

I'll do my own analysis later on today, but from the looks of it it seems like it might be worth getting AH before Writing. Of course, we have to factor in that we might meet other teams, and if they're researching as fast as we are, we (or they) may have Alphabet quite early. In that case we might be able to skip AH and trade for it later.

There isn't too much of a hurry. We can put 3 or 4 turns into BW and still switch to the wheel in time to have it ready for the road build.

If that's the case, then there's no hurry, but I just want to double check that. Actually, it could be interesting to switch mid-research, because it would confuse other teams who were trying to calculate exactly what we're doing. The times that we get our techs would be off, and mess up calculations from people watching the demographics.

 

[AlphaShard]

I like the way you think LP.