Smackdown Starting positions

[SevenSpirits]

Seven has run a few sims and it looks like AH>Pottery>BW>(Writing) is the best opening tech path. It's possible to go worker>warrior>worker>granary>warrior>library at river, and workboat>worker>granary>warrior>settler (triple slave) and still get the settler around the same time as BW first.

Workers at river go cow>sheep>wheat and the second worker goes for the gems. Worker at coast goes rice>plains hill mine. Main issues at coast are ensuring a warrior is built to sit in the city before it grows to size 5 if not slaving, and size 4 if you have slaved. I think Writing could be put off for Sailing if the light house was wanted, and to give time to get a settler out of river but for the first three techs that order isn't really possible to beat. Coast isn't that tech dependent whereas river really needs AH first. We tried Pottery first and it doesn't really do much (as you'd expect) as well as worker first at Coast.

I updated the spreadsheet with the first 18 turns of this plan, in a new sheet. More to come.

[Krill]

Swanky.

[novice]

Yeah, looks like a good plan.

[Ichabod]

Hey, Seven, I was looking at your micro plan. Why do you improve sheep over wheat on the Lizzie start? You can finish the wheat on the same turn as the sheep, since you start working it one turn sooner. And you'd grow to size three one turn earlier (at EoT 18, not 19) by working wheat, not sheep. So you can work the recently improved gem at turn 19, that otherwise would go to waste (either that or the sheep goes to waste), which more or less equate the commerce gained by the sheep (it loses a bit of commerce, but gains quite some food, I think).

Edit: And if the second worker went for the sheep instead of the gems, you could work sheep/wheat/cows at turn 19, all improved, for even more food.

[novice]

How does the granary timing work out in that variation, Ichabod?

[Krill]

It's a dry wheat (so unless that changes) would grow a turn earlier but would complete the granary 1 turn later, unless the extra turn of production was used on a 3 hammer tile.

[Ichabod]

Ah, ok, I think I got it now. But will the 1t late granary end up resulting in less food, considering that improving the wheat first results in more food earlier (this soudned horrible, hope it's clear)? I have to test it, I guess.

[Krill]

I think it does end up costing more food. When the granary is completed sheep second, food box is at 12/17 making 4fpt, size 3. Wheat second finishes the granary at 12/18 at size 4, if the sheep is worked instead of the gems at size 3. I think that the wheat second gets to size 6 eot T25, whereas sheep second gets to size 6 about eot T27 working the gems at size 3, not the sheep.

Eh, I think I prefer it, especially if you consider the extra pop points as meaning you could revolt to slavery and double whip out a settler (at size 6, so always working gems, cow, wheat and sheep) and regrow on the library. Make warriors on T23 and T24 so got 3 warriors to use, already got 2 workers, both cottages can be done by T25 so the workers could road to the second city. Avoid growth is needed T23, and need to buidl a warrior to fill up the food box, but after that could eithr build into the settler and grow at the same time instead of the third warrior. Either way, with 1 turn revolting (T26), 2 turns building settler (T27, T28), slave T29, Library is due eot T33 at size 6...

[SevenSpirits]

Hey, Seven, I was looking at your micro plan. Why do you improve sheep over wheat on the Lizzie start? You can finish the wheat on the same turn as the sheep, since you start working it one turn sooner. And you'd grow to size three one turn earlier (at EoT 18, not 19) by working wheat, not sheep. So you can work the recently improved gem at turn 19, that otherwise would go to waste (either that or the sheep goes to waste), which more or less equate the commerce gained by the sheep (it loses a bit of commerce, but gains quite some food, I think).

Edit: And if the second worker went for the sheep instead of the gems, you could work sheep/wheat/cows at turn 19, all improved, for even more food.

Short answer is because I haven't tested all the variations, I had to just write one down first.

Longer answer is that I tried two runs with AH first. First turn I improved the wheat before sheep and the run worked out kind of poorly (though that's not necessarily because of this choice). So the second run I tried improving sheep before wheat, and that run seemed really good so I decided to write it down.

We should definitely check out wheat before sheep too. It's probably going to be different in a lot of ways. It sounds like Krill thought about it and listed some of those differences, such as the need to revolt to slavery, but the whole picture isn't clear to me from his post.

[Krill]

I ran the sim. I don't know the difference tech wise, I don't know what the effect on Writing ETA for example, but I do know it comes out ahead food wise. It also ends up with 3 warriors at size 5 and one turn to size 6 and can build a library for that run. I think it's better than Sheep second because it's much easier to get a settler out via a double slave@size 6, and then to finish the library on regrowth to size 6 to then pump out a GS. I don't think that the 3 warriors is an indulgence in particular.

Nothing has to be decided until T10 though.