Don't get to exited. There are still some features missing (like Unhealthiness) and my maintenance calculations seem to be somewhat wrong. And of course I will never be able to calculate the trade income correct. Oh and you are only meant to change values in the green fields of the spreadsheet.
Yeah. I think we should lock Babylon. We have two relevant techs and an early UU. Rather keep that then re-roll and trust to the dice. It's super unlikely we get something better. If you don't have misgivings, you or I can tell Mardoc that Sury/Babylon is the future champion of PB41.
I had a look at your sim and it looks pretty solid. You told me you didn't gaze under the fog, but for not gazing you pretty much nailed it except for some graslands in the east that may be plains.
I had a look at the 34 civs and I would have said that there are 19 civs which are better or equal to Babylon and 15 which are worse. Note that I only valued a civ better or equal if it at least has either Hunting or Agriculture. Assuming that the other players also want a civ out of this pool it would be 12 against 22. So yes keeping Babylon might be the right decision.
I played around in the sandbox today. I have no idea what timings are good or bad without Imp. Everything feels slow, but I just don't have a frame of reference outside of Imp. In the spoilers below I've talked a little about one line of play. Spoilered so as to not be too distracting. (I get fixated easily, so once I had started playing out worker-warrior-warrior a couple times, it was all I did, so I really have no clue about other openings.)
This is from turn 39. We are in Slavery. The first city gets founded on turn 32. The second just got founded this turn. The floodplains cottage completes next turn; the UI is mistaken. We have two warriors. The second unit in Dur-Kurigalzu is just the starting scout.
The capitol went worker-warrior-warrior (to size 3)- worker-settler-settler-granary (but probably not a real granary). I chopped two forests, 1N and 1E of the cap. The weirdest thing I did was the worker movement. After the obvious pig pasture, I mined the hill 1NE of the cap. I really like this move, not because it's necessarily good. Just because it's so wacky to mine before hooking up your food resources that I'm desperate to make that move worth it.
Some minor criticisms that I can just fix on the next run: we're not working all our best tiles. If Nippur were a tile west it could be working the forested ivory instead of the floodplains. The granaries aren't real builds. Just something to fill the time.
More major criticisms: 1) We burn a lot of worker turns on roads. The best techs for this start are mining + food. (When I was trying to figure out how good Babylon was or if we should toss it, I discarded every civ with mysticism or fishing. We are really tech constrained.) I tried to get away with one worker, so I wouldn't have excess worker turns sunk into roads, but I couldn't figure it out. 2) We are very compact for a Creative civ. I like tight layouts for all the usual reasons (defense, tile sharing, working transit time), but we do need to figure out if we should be leveraging creative a bit more here.
Speaking of tight layouts, I think you're right that we're going to want to share the pigs (or perhaps the rice) with our second city. I think this means we should start by scouting northeast to north, so we can figure out that second city as soon as possible.
Archery is about a 4 turn tech on t39. I just picked up econ techs in the sim, but for us having bowmen it might be useful to slot in. Perhaps ahead of animal husbandry? As with all sims, I'm sure this will all be upended as early as turn one. Just making notes of benchmark timings.
(October 27th, 2018, 20:33)naufragar Wrote: This is from turn 39. We are in Slavery. The first city gets founded on turn 32. The second just got founded this turn.
First city in T32 is ok without Imp. In PB39 I was the first to found in T29 and that was early.
(October 27th, 2018, 20:33)naufragar Wrote: The weirdest thing I did was the worker movement. After the obvious pig pasture, I mined the hill 1NE of the cap. I really like this move, not because it's necessarily good. Just because it's so wacky to mine before hooking up your food resources that I'm desperate to make that move worth it.
Did you try farming the rice first? I don't find mining the hill that weird considering that you are Exp.
(October 27th, 2018, 20:33)naufragar Wrote: Some minor criticisms that I can just fix on the next run: we're not working all our best tiles. If Nippur were a tile west it could be working the forested ivory instead of the floodplains. The granaries aren't real builds. Just something to fill the time.
City placements will likely change after exploration.
(October 27th, 2018, 20:33)naufragar Wrote: More major criticisms: 1) We burn a lot of worker turns on roads. The best techs for this start are mining + food. (When I was trying to figure out how good Babylon was or if we should toss it, I discarded every civ with mysticism or fishing. We are really tech constrained.) I tried to get away with one worker, so I wouldn't have excess worker turns sunk into roads, but I couldn't figure it out.
The roads look fine to me. At least this gives you early trade income.
(October 27th, 2018, 20:33)naufragar Wrote: 2) We are very compact for a Creative civ. I like tight layouts for all the usual reasons (defense, tile sharing, working transit time), but we do need to figure out if we should be leveraging creative a bit more here.
I find not doing a tight layout one of the dangers of being Creative. You leasted all the reasons why tight is still a good thing even with Creative.
(October 27th, 2018, 20:33)naufragar Wrote: Speaking of tight layouts, I think you're right that we're going to want to share the pigs (or perhaps the rice) with our second city. I think this means we should start by scouting northeast to north, so we can figure out that second city as soon as possible.
You don't necessarily have to start northeast. If you go south first and then scout around the capitol south to east to north you will explore enough terrain to evaluate city placements. I always like to get my first scout as quickly as possible away from the capitol for the following reasons:
Using the full 2 movement points yields the most explored tiles.
With the first border pop you will discover a lot of terrain especially with the pig hill.
There is no danger of animals in the first turns, so you want to make these turns count
In RtR everybody starts with scouts, so the danger of your scout being killed is really low
For the above reasons. You don't need to make sure to land on a forest tile every turn for defense.
Looking at the initial screenshot the fastest way to get away from your capitol is south.
(October 27th, 2018, 20:33)naufragar Wrote: Archery is about a 4 turn tech on t39. I just picked up econ techs in the sim, but for us having bowmen it might be useful to slot in. Perhaps ahead of animal husbandry? As with all sims, I'm sure this will all be upended as early as turn one. Just making notes of benchmark timings.
What was your actuall tech path. I assume Hunting->Mining->Bronze Working->Agriculture->Pottery? How else could you build cottages. I think Animal Husbandry vs Archery will depend on how far away you are from other players and how the barbs will treat you. I would propably go Archery first, because in RtR it's a very cheap tech and your UU will be great against any barbs.
I would like to dedlurk, too, naufragar, if you'll have me.
Sury of Babylon sounds pretty good. I'd recommend only building what we need: that said hunting for the pigs, then mining/bronze working sounds pretty good.
The only substitution i could think of would be moving pottery up for early cottages; does your micro plan have early chops?
If we don't have any early chops, it might make sense to forgo mining -- although if we forgo mining/bronze working, we're doing something wrong.
Charriu, mind sharing your spreadsheet with me if it's a new doc?
Also, first turn we need to send the scout SW-SW to make sure we're not going to orphan some seafood. Although that would be pretty cold if that were to happen. Make sure it doesn't, mapmakers!
More to come later, once i get spreadsheet access.
