90 - Sachsens Glanz und Miguelustens Gloria

[Papa Bear]

Ich finde Deine Überlegungen nachvollziehbar

Und angesichts der Tatsache, dass es der Kartenersteller ja sehr offensichtlich darauf angelegt hat, dass "Schema X" zu spielen hier nicht funktionieren wird, umso mehr. Bin gespannt wie sich das entwickelt und lese weiter gespannt mit.

Axttrieren stammen aus einer Zeit, in der man keine Startbogis zusätzlich verteilt hat und Leute teilweise auch lustig mit ihren Startkriegern durch die Gegend erkundet haben. An sowas würde ich nicht viele Gedanken verschwenden...

[klops]

also ZWEI Axttrieren

[Miguelito]

Ich könnte mir schon vorstellen, dass Axttrieren zwischen den ganzen Heimatinseln und zu besiedelnden Küsten ihr Opfer finden würden. Andererseits hat natürlich hier jeder Schiffe im Wasser, und generell glaube ich ja, dass der diplomatische Schaden durch sowas niemals die Vorteile aufwiegt.


I spent the day second guessing myself (and there was a bit of discussion of Civforum), but in the end I stayed with the Pottery start over BW first. Both have similar timings for the third city (t55), but the Pottery start gets the terrace and two hamlets up. BW has an additional work boat and a 2nd city that has not really done anything yet, but it's on size 3. BW first might be significantly better if copper is in the cap BFC (another reason for SIP...), and especially if it's riverside. Otherwise both starts don't really get an axe out for city #3, because they both fail to connect copper in time due to tech. At least Pottery first feels more interesting.

I don't really care for C&D and greatly miss NoScore. PBspy tells me that people got techs, . Everybody got 6 points, only vanguard (Zulu) got 8 . Ari and metal got theirs only upon rolling t9, Ari because he only founded t1, metal maybe changed techs? How does that info help us?



But this at least has some curious bits for speculations. Remember that nobody is Cre nor started with Fishing. Yet somebody grew to size 2 (and this is BTS, so they haven't been building a workboat). It's hard to imagine how that would be a good move, moreso if we actually all start on tiny islands as has been insinuated in the tech thread.

We would also not be capable of an MfG of 4 with our tiles, at least at size 1 not. And what might the GDP of 19 be? A Fin civ working coast? The size 2 guy running oasis and a riverside tile?

[Miguelito]

Who wants to explain to me why we are last in GNP by a margin?

We were tied with at least 2 other players when building the worker, initially even 7. I'm working the deer for fastest growth. Only one player has grown their cap to size 2.
Possible explanations:

• people previously tied with us are researching BW (or Pottery :mischief: )
• they are working commerce, but why though?

Simming ardently, meanwhile. I've sped up research by a lot, for eot49 Sailing. In an ideal world, that would coincide with a 2pop whip of a settler forsome 25 overflow, and a chop on t50 in order to insta build the galley. But I have not found the way yet to get either city to size 4 and advance the settler sufficiently. Due to how worker turns shake out, t50 chop also means delaying the corn farm by 3 turns... or not building the 2nd cottage, and instead a random road on a forest. But without the second cottage we don't get the eot49 Sailing.... stuff to figure out yet, and I suspect the answer is that getting the 3rd city out absolutely as soon as possible should not actually be the priority over everything else.

.
.
.
etwas später
.

Found it.

Most importantly, I resolved my mind blockade and instead of the deer, which was my automatic choice, roaded SE of cap where we want to chop afterwards. This is not quite optimized yet; the galley has 6 hammers too many in it, which are breads that should be taken away from the settler and fed to city 2 so it looks a little less miserable. Some additional hammers may come from a copper tile. The cap has the terrace built t43(?) but uses it inefficiently; this might yet be improved upon.
But I am pretty sure that this is the fastest city #3 (for the Pottery opening - BW first may have an overseas city faster, but that would be just #2). Now need to decide whether it's worth the considerable investment: City 2 gets stunted heavily, and we inefficiently sink a lot of food into the settler

[Miguelito]

Ich hab das Rüberkopieren etwas schleifen lassen. Jetzt kommt eine ganze Ladung:

One of my major mistakes when having too much time to micro is not building in the copper improvement turns and then I have to redo all my micro anyways.

What a very mean thing for you to say, when I'm basking in the glory of my opening !
I also think it likely doesn't apply here, as I probably will not build the copper mine within the scope of this sim, prioritizing the farm instead. So it is just a possible extra hammer that may pop up.
I have to look up though when to expect barbarian axes and spears. In PB59 a spear pestered us badly around t58 and following. I have read up on one CFPB89 thread where they kept getting warriors until much later, but I want to check two more threads yet. One relevant factor I believe is that with assumedly everzbody on islands, existing barb warriors and animals will not be culled, so it's less likely for them to be replaced with metal units. Does that make sense? Also need to look up when they start entering borders, was it at an average of 3 cities/player, unless they can attack/pillage?

I tried an alternative where the cap grows to 3 before the first settler. The idea was that we had established that city 2 would only be really useful with granaries in, so it can be delayed a bit.



upsides:

• The granaried capital has a fuller foodbox (and the granary gets filled perfectly to exactly 13f)
• there's a road on the fur for happiness - although that should also work with the original plan, if city 2 gets delayed by a turn. I'll try that yet.
• instead of the grassland we could actuall road the riverside plainsforest, for another riverside cottage soon

downside:

• city 2 has like 20 less hammers in the terrace, that's a lot.

[Miguelito]

I am curious about preferring to cottage the riverside plains over the non-river grassland. My instinct would be that the +1 food is more valuable than the +1 hammer/commerce, even with FIN. Particularly when it is a shared tile vs. only the second city. Do you disagree with the instinct, or is there something specific about this start that changes your assessment (like saved worker turns)? Or are you just not working the plains cottage?

Edit: Nevermind, I can tell from context you aren't working it. Move along, nothing to see here. :smoke:

Your question is valid. In the shot the cities are freshly whipped down (and I have to assess yet whether this much is really justifiable for an asap city 3). But both cottages have been worked (one is, in fact, a hamlet already) and are essential to get BW and Sailing at this date.
The grassland is freshly chopped, and the cottages are built before BW, so this isn't an option, but we have to decide whether we want the road and chop on that tile, or rather on the remaining forested riverside plains, which will likely decide which of these tiles will get cottaged first (we probably build a copper mine somewhere first though).
Mind that we are playing unnerfed Fin, so it's 1/1/3 vs 2/0/1, (1/1/4 vs 2/0/3 after ten turns, but that's a long time) and also commerce is really important on deity if we still want to expand fast (and of course we want to, always).
Would you still prefer the grassland? You are correct that food is scarce.

I think the other thing I hadn't really considered was the need to get to Sailing as quickly as possible. In that context the riverside cottages probably beat out the grassland one for me too, yeah. In the post-Sailing world I might prefer a grassland unrivered, all things being equal, but it depends a little on the total food of the city working it (how many turns it speeds up growths, essentially).

I think the other thing I hadn't really considered was the need to get to Sailing as quickly as possible. In that context the riverside cottages probably beat out the grassland one for me too, yeah. In the post-Sailing world I might prefer a grassland unrivered, all things being equal, but it depends a little on the total food of the city working it (how many turns it speeds up growths, essentially).

I think you have not completely understood me yet, but you've convinced me anyways. Ftr, it's straight up impossible to build a grassland cottage before Sailing because the grasslands are all forested, hence why the 2 riverside plains cottages are without alternative.
But you are right that afterwards an off river grassland cottage is better, especially given our early granaries. What with 1f>2h etc. And after Sailing hammers will be needed more than anything, in order to get a firm foothold on both landmasses. And we certainly are in no peril of happycap issues due to whipping with all those drylands. Anyways, before any cottage comes a copper mine (assuming we have some).

Pointless PBspy observations:

• Last turn we were tied for first place in score with TR, having researched two first column techs. this turn more people grew.
• Just 7 players grew together with us. 7 more did the turn after; of those only 2 had not founded on t0. I have trouble explaining that - if everybody had a 3f->5f combination we should all have grown together; if not you'd expect more disparity actually because the workers should come 3 turns later. Maybe some had to move two tiles for a farm :noidea:? vanguard with Shaka (!) grew on t8. Confirms my placing of him in the esoteric tier. kreutzberg and Xist10 (Hammer and Rammer) are still on size 1.
• Apparently the Exp players (Pacal, Peter) could not realize their worker bonus :alright:. Maybe that's the reason for vanguard to grow early, but I can hardly imagine it's worth it.
  

[Miguelito]

I'm a little swamped, sorry. I'll have a lot of time from next Monday. Will read through everything and get up to date then.

Looking forward to it. I don't know how loosely you have been following, did you getthe part where I threw all previous plans out of the window at the eleventh hour in order to go Pottery first?

On that note, I think I have never changed plans and redone a start plan so often like with this one. I suppose that's a compliment to the mapmaker? The game was intended as a casual side gig to PB59, but here we are...

Anyways, I came up with a new plan again, and now I think I'm satisfied, and there is maximum a hammer and coin or two left to be obtained by further optimization:

So instead of building the galley in the cap on whip overflow from the settler, we instead generate overflow from a workboat, and settle the southern fish. The downside of course is that the distance to the cap is 7 instead of 5, which is 0.42 coins more expensive at size 1 and 0.8 at size 8, so that's not nothing. But we want to settle both fishes soon, so it will cancel out. The upsides though:

• Because the settler does not need to generate overflow and he can come 1 turn later, there is more time in the cap to prepare things. Specifically we can remain on size 2 until the terrace is finished, and make the fullest use of it.
• In turn that allows city 2 to grow to size 3 (then whip WB), so it doesn't end up miserable at size 1 with no food in the box, like in the previous sims. It has only 37 hammers in the terrace, which it will have to finish with a chop or maybe with a copper mine.

When trying to whip the settler into the galley before, the cap always had to grow asap and put a lot of food into the settler. Meaning that we built an early terrace but didn't use it actually, just filling it finally when growing 3->4, the effects ofwhich would only become useful after the whip.
Mostly I'm happy that city 2 doesn't end up a stub. So that's the plan that I would follow if there are no objections.

[Miguelito]

I had one last significant improvement in mind: build the fur road, to have it done before we can start chopping (or ferrying the worker away). That however delays city two by a turn (because the city tile doesn't get pre-roaded in time). To my great disappointment, I end up with one of the cities lacking one crucial hammer. Now there is a high chance that one of the cities has copper, in which case we could probably find that hammer, but do we want to gamble on this? (losing the gamble would delay city 3 by a turn).
An alternative would be to move city 1W. in that case we can road so fast that city 2 is not delayed. It also saves a forest, but orphans two coast tiles and invalidates the third city spot on the island (the miserably foodless fishing village in the west). Is that worth it?
So, options are:

1. don't road fur, finish all builds securely
2. road fur, gamble on copper in one of the two cities' BFCs
3. road fur, move city 2 1W

Anyways, I'm pretty happy with the micro, so here it is (the original version without the fur road):

All the essential builds finishing with the last hammer, ideal use of the granary, workers and techs in great harmony with the builds.

[Miguelito]

not sure if anybody is still following my descent into this rabbit hole, but:
Turns out that option 3 from the last post is not actually viable. By founding on one of the 2 places for early riverside cottages we delay Sailing by at least a turn, besides the other stated downsides of the spot - and even if we deem that acceptable, it also means that the worker is jobless for four more turns even. So it leaves us with option 1 (do as planned, don't road fur) or 2 (road fur, gamble for favourable copper).

For a closer look at option 2, there are 11 tiles on the island where copper could be. Of those, 8 would salvage the t50 galley + settler. I made a mistake yesterday - copper at the cap only helps if it's on the city tile itself or on the grassforest (which is also shared with city 2).
If copper is under a city, on a grassforest, or on a cottage we're good (of course woudn't love the cottage, but anyways). If it's on a plains forest we get into serious tech trouble (because we have to leave a cottage unattended in order to work it), but it is possible to eke out Sailing in time, as I have tested in th sandbox.

So, 8 out of 11 tiles are a win, although and the reward is considerable (3 worker turns saved when we can really use them, for after BW - mind we'll still have just that one worker). A loss would be appreciable but not devastating - 1 turn delay for city 3. It also has fixed costs of 4h less into the terrace plus likely a suboptimal tign assignment on t50. Yeah I guess I'll take the gamble.

Nice, I am following and was hoping you go for it, I like a good gamble

who doesn't. The torture here is that we will know the result only in 18 more turns, that might be a month's time....
I managed to lower the stakes a bit though, as I found a way to get the missing hammer even without favourable copper:


If this is obscure, the settler gets 2pop whipped from 40h in it, the galley gets built on whip overflow and a chop by working 2 plains forests in the 2pop second city, and Sailing finishes on the point without overflow.
So the finale is quite ugly, and having copper at city 2 would improve it a lot (not so much if it's under the cap, actually). I may still be convinced that without it the required sacrifices are too much.

I have mentioned before that I consider this a variant opening that might be inferior to the straightforward BW beeline (which also would have been interesting no doubt, what with founding city 2 and 3 overseas and on different landmasses). But the early granary is still awesome, and I've been enjoying these puzzles.


Other people are connecting their second food resources and growing to size 3 (we will not until t47 and t42, respectively. And the latter is actually city #2 growing ). Fwiw with BW after Hunting we would now have an idling worker for four turns and with fur camp first would just have grown to size 2.

[Miguelito]

Nothing left do to for a month probably, until we see copper. Meanwhile I get gratuitous anxiety:

Everybody has grown to size 3 and works 2 food resources (again, even rushing BW we couldn't). Looks like at least one other person is also working a commerce tile. As of the current turn actually we finished Pottery and started Mining, so we lost the shared GNP lead as well because no more arrow bonus. Still doing great on approval rating though!
We'll start using Pottery in 5 turns with the first cottage and the turn after we queue terraces in both cities. The capital has to finish the quechua it started during growth to size 2 first though. That one hammer that I have worked so desperately to extract, and finally found it? It's necessary because we lose a single hammer to decay, as the settler takes 12 turns.

[Miguelito]

We're on turn 30, where so many things happen!


The settler is out!
We start the first cottage!


I have to set a terrible tile assignment, as otherwise we will lack one hammer to finish the terrace on turn 43 (unless copper changes that balance, but we can't bank on it)!


We're last in CY, average in MfG (thanks to working the cornforest) and above average in GNP again, with the arrow bonus for BW! Somebody is at size 5, and GT/Empirate (GK) whipped their cap to size 1 on turn 27 and have not grown back yet.
Still rocking approval rate (no idea what #1 is doing)!

Back to boring until t39 when BW finishes, but at least I have to make sure to set the slider correctly.

[Miguelito]

Working the first Fin cottage!

The effect is a bit underwhelming? At 100% we climb to #4 GNP at least; also shade (Brennus) built Stonehenge so that's him leading, probably. We'll add a second cottage soon, but maybe other people also went Pottery?

[Miguelito]

Draw your ticket for the copper lottery!

• Pink is jackpot. We can settle overseas at maximum speed (overflowing the workboat so as to one turn the galley in Meißen) and still work optimal tiles. Und Meißen would be suboptimal long term maybe, but not having to spend worker turns connecting copper, and having it earlier, would be a significant relief, and a free hammer is always nice. The eastern grass forest is roaded and already scheduled to be chopped after improving the corn, so that would be ideal.
• Green also helps us a lot with the overseas operation, but we may still have to assign one or two turns of awkward tiles. The cottages would actually be as good for that as pink, but then they're established cottages.... :rolleye:
• Blue - I haven't checked, really. It might help us to shuffle one or two good tile-turns from Dresden to Meißen, but I'm not sure.
• Cyan would not help us in the short run, but would be ok long term. They're pretty suboptimal in being plains/far off/riverless*, making for an unerwhelming mine, but still better than the
• Zonk. We'd have to spend 12 turns to connect copper (and of course we'd have to) and then be unable to work that tile, ugh .

Overall the odds look promising.

Place your bet (on a tile) and win the right to name a unit!


* some may argue that that's an advantage with Fin, leaving room for precious cottages?

[Ramkhamhaeng]

Nice lottery idea, but kinda tragically funny.
I've read stories of other players and abstain from voting because of it.

[Miguelito]

Nice lottery idea, but kinda tragically funny.
I've read stories of other players and abstain from voting because of it.

Das ist ja schon fast eine Auflösung. Es... gibt kein Kupfer, stimmt's ?

Wahrscheinlich ist das gar nicht so schlecht. Es verbessert unseren Keramikstart relativ zum stumpfen (aber wahrscheinlich immer noch stärkeren) sofort-auf-Bronze. Und die Quechuas können auch mit Holzkeulen den Barbs prima auf den Schädel hauen (zumindest solange wie die keine Äxte tragen ).
Jetzt der Extrahammer an der richtigen Stelle wäre natürlich trotzdem nett gewesen.