[Spoilers] Shallow Thought and Hitru's series of (unfortunate?) events

[The Black Sword]

Naufrager is correct about the max overflow.

In your example you would get 15/1.25 =12h overflow, so it applies to base hammers.

[shallow_thought]

Thanks for all the comments guys. I feel that I now understand the mechanism (the fact that it's the higher of build or base hammers is a little interesting, suggesting there are situational plays based on building something cheap in high-production city followed by - for example - helping to one-turning a wonder along with chops). I just have to remember to apply it and actually feed the correct numbers in. No guarantees.

In game, the scout survives the attack by the lion with half-health, but the second lion moves up; I don't fancy those odds, so move off to the NE. The lion follows, so I move E. This reveals pigs! Interesting enough that I decide to risk moving to the nice cover of the forested hill to see better. And that reveals - borders! Looks like RFS-81. Do we want to be settling this way? Oh yes, we do. RFS-81 is no dummy but he's new to Civ IV and even newer to RtR. And while haphazard1 is technically strong, he's not an MP specialist.




I have a feeling I might want to finish that warrior before the second worker, and a third not long after the first settler. This is a small game, so having a neighbour that close is no real surprise. We've probably got one as close to the W and N as well. I'm not sure whether we want actual contact here or not.

Now, I didn't beeline E, so the implication is that either no-one has moved towards us at all, or they've seen borders and avoided contact, or they are about to arrive.

The game moves up a gear, albeit a gentle one.

[shallow_thought]

I'd expected to be making this sort of post at some point, but I'd really hoped it wouldn't be this soon. Thing is, I'm not very good at this game. My knowledge of the mechanics is OK, I have some grasp of what ought to be done, but (and this is ignoring the extra complexities that MP brings to combat and diplo), I have one really major issue.

I'm lazy, undisciplined and careless.

Which is odd, because in my day job as a software engineer, I don't really show those traits at all (well, some laziness, but of the useful "I'd rather spend time automating this properly" kind of laziness). Thing is, I've played computer games for years, and I do it to relax. This means that I like something that occupies my mind without stressing it - the equivalent of quiet motorway miles in light traffic and good weather for an engine rather than the twists, turns and hills of a country road. The problem is that I have years of bad habits based around being able to pick a comfortable level, roll back to an earlier save or start another game without consequences. I can overcome this - see the MOO IMP 42 (although I did have a chunk of good luck there), but it takes a focused, continual effort. Which I can rarely sustain.

Case in point; on Sunday the turn rolled and I played, either just before my parents turned up for a BBQ or just after they left. The fact that I can't remember which shows you exactly how much attention I was paying . I logged on on my laptop, which doesn't give me easy access to my rough notes, left the scout to heal for a turn, and decided there was nothing left to do.

Oh yes there was .

The worker had finished the wheat farm. Ironically, I had deliberately turned off the auto-citizen management, which I often leave on for my SP games unless I have a specific reason not to, so we didn't work it. I woke up this morning knowing damn well I had missed something, dashed downstairs and checked - the turn had rolled, again. Damn high turn pace .

I'm just relieved that I hadn't actually left the worker there twiddling his thumbs - it was only the one turn of farm food we missed. It's kind of obvious though - we should have grown last turn . We're now behind in score, and I bet everyone can work out what happened from the demos. My shame is complete . That's 6 food-hammers, one commerce down the drain (3 fh from not working the farm, 3fh1c from the delay in the second pop), which is quite a lot at this stage. FAKE edit - nope, that's only 4fh 1c, as the extra pop would have eaten two food; sometimes my errors come out in my favour.

To be more positive, that's not far off the cost of a scout, and ours could be dead and isn't. More practically, hopefully this will be a wake-up call. No more winging it because the turns are fast and "easy". Finalise a decent written micro and check it every turn. There will come a point all too soon where I will reach the limits of my ability to track details even if I am concentrating, but we're not there yet. I hope.

[JR4]

I woke up this morning knowing damn well I had missed something, dashed downstairs and checked - the turn had rolled, again. Damn high turn pace .

I know the feeling, making a mistake on the chess board and suddenly realizing what just happened. At least you have a better chance of recovering from this one than losing a Rook to an oversight.

[Old Harry]

I seem to remember you using that overflow trick to snaffle the Eiffel tower from us in pb18 TBS.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, the second overflow limit can be quite useful for late game wonderbuilding, you don't need to build up a lengthy overflow cascade if the max overflow is a turn's hammers anyway. Even better when you can combine the two options for space ship building ...

[shallow_thought]

If I get to the point where I'm trying to snaffle the ET or building spaceship parts, then this game will not have gone the way I expect . But I should try and get to grips with it in an SP game sometime.

Been a bit of a reporting gap while the scout heals. He's up to 0.9 health, which I decide is enough; we've little time until barb warriors start to appear. I decide to send him up the far side of the river, which does mean that we get contact with RFS-81. He doesn't appear to have contact with anyone else. Our warrior pops up in the meantime and heads off to scout  a little beyond the pigs we're pasturing. If we stick with the cows settling plan he has plenty of time to get back across, as I'm going for a second worker ahead of the settler.




There's a few key decisions to make. It'll be Wheel after BW, but Pottery or Fish after that? The cap isn't getting above size 3 any time soon, and even with a barracks first build helped along with a chop (after pasturing the cows), the first city is not going to get the clams into culture for a bit, so I don't need workboats that urgently. I'm thinking Pottery.

I also need to look at the build order. We'll be growing to size 3 on warrior to get the mine into play for the settler build. But that leaves us just short of food (sigh ), so something else will have to slot for that last turn before growth. After the settler. Hitru sketched in worker, 1-pop whipped into a settler, and I'd be tempted to follow that with a granary. I'm also not 100% convinced about whipping off the hill just before a settler build. Slow building the worker and then chopping/whipping the settler into a granary is slower but may be more efficient.

Either way, if that annoying extra turn of growth is spent on a warrior, or possibly even on a barracks, we have to worry about my next  "Rule of thumb". Hammer decay. The rule: don't take more than 10 elapsed turns to build a unit (unless it's in production the whole time, like the first worker).

Now, that is not an elegant or efficient way to handle hammer decay. It's a safety net, to cover the fact that I don't understand it . My belief  is that if you put production into a unit but then replace it with something else, after 10t the hammers start to decay (game speed may affect this), at some rate I don't know. Putting it back into production helps, but may not prevent some decay. And there is a similar rule for buildings except replace 10 with a bigger number - it's usually less of an issue.

Now this is something I really do need to look up, because I need to grow on warriors but the numbers are not coming out nice in the micro, with odd turns needed here and there.

[shallow_thought]

I've avoided doing too deep a dive into the micro, because this turn (21) we discover where our copper is. And it's in the capital's BFC.




This is mixed news. It means we don't have to fiddle a dotmap; it means that the micro has to be re-worked; it means I'm even less keen on whipping the capital much, with another hammer rich tile to be worked (I'm probably wrong on this - simming will tell). However, let's assume, for the moment, that everyone has similar access. And that the distance between us and RFS-81 is representative. On paper, that means the first Impi could get here ... well, sooner than I'd like (minimum 7t travel time, plus some turns to hook up copper). I'm not saying that whipping an Impi at the first possible moment and beelining it at us is a likely move, but that copper placement demands that we actually hook it up sooner rather than later. Will be interesting to see how many warriors the micro dumps out first.

Our scout finds more copper; I would assume RFS-81 has a closer source. Not that he's got BW yet. And for some reason, neither has Charriu? That's the EXP hammer-tile delay, I suspect. Meh, C&D is strictly a sideline - there's no way I'm going to the effort to actually work anything out .




Oh, and while it's not clear from the screenshot of the capital (taken before the EOT), I am working the newly finished pasture. It's probably a good thing the turn rolled, as otherwise I would have been itching to log back in and check, just in case .

Turn has rolled, but I'm pausing to think; it's just possible that moving towards the copper and not mining the riverside plains hill is the correct move with the worker. Sadly, with the football on tonight that may mean I have to beg for a pause to let me play again in just over 24 hours.

[shallow_thought]

Our scout moves on, still dodging lions. The area up by the silver looks quite nice, with river and wheat. If we can, we should steal it (there is still optimism, even here, for the moment).




Closer to home, our warrior gets as far west as he can afford to go, according to the plan - he should now start trekking all the way back to provide the double-cover for City A. However, the biggish news here is the fish - City C is making a case for promotion. Enough to push out City B, or even A? I'm not sure - we need those pigs at the cap for helping push settlers and to regrow from whips. City B is weak by itself, but gets farmed sugar from day 1, can work a riverside cottage for the cap and will get the ivory with its first border pop (I'm seeing no other achievable early happiness) City C lacks non-food production and screams "Moai" if it can be done - better leave it some of those forests from B.




In the department of casual C&D, the demos say that I suck. I no longer even have top approval or life expectancy . Looks as if some people have gone for early growth, probably on workboats. That explains Couerva's score (I'm guessing), but Charriu? Did he go early fish? Or has he picked up some other score somewhere? Pretty confident RFS-81 has grabbed cheaper food techs and delayed BW, explaining his score.

I need to put together some clear micro notes, as I may need support from Hitru to get turns in on Saturday; that will mean making a decision as to whether to stick with site A (probably). Current plan gets first city t33, second t41. Slow for IMP? Maybe. But the capital should be able to pump and pump once we get going. The other problem is scouting - Immortals can fix that, but we don't get AH until t50, and then we have to hook horses. But with barbs on I'm reluctant to send warriors out too far. Maybe I'm being a bit too cautious, and a single warrior (built while growing to size 3) is sufficient  - it can get to the site and fortify, then the settler can move to the (forested) site from inside borders in one turn. That would free up the current warrior to roam.

[shallow_thought]

So, micro stuff, in case I need cover on Sat. I hope to get a turn in before heading out, but my parents tend to be very punctual. Posted now as I may be short on time tomorrow (Fri).

The plan. In technicolor. The red is for my benefit; an attempt to minimise ... issues. FGH = Forested Grassland Hill; FPH = Forested Plains Hill. I doubt it will come up before I'm able to play again, but the important thing is to make sure the chop goes into the Settler t28; only 1t goes into the third warrior.




This is probably clearer given this picture. Except that I've called both workers 'B'; red is 'A' .




After chatting with Hitru, plan for warrior is to keep scouting further W, then arc back toward "City B". Scout just keeps heading N, with a bias towards the W when possible.

With any luck this is unnecessary, or Hitru gets a chance to play on Sat afternoon/evening to keep the turn pace up. In any case, I'll post in the tech thread if I actually need lurker cover.