[SPOILERS] Dazedroyalty - Move along! Nothing to see here

[Ichabod]

Also, I noted that at 50% gold I make 11 income (9 science and 2 gold). If I raise or lower research it drops to 10 (rounding I presume--thanks Ichabod!) until I'm at 0 or 100. So, 50% we stay until I can afford to run 100% for a turn.

Just to make some further clarifications on the issue, here's a post in Sullla's PB4 thread that can be helpful:

Anyway, we discovered Agriculture tech this turn, and started on Wheel. We have some weirdness in the research numbers, so let me explain. Here's the relative beakers per turn at different spending levels:

100% = 12/turn base [14/turn TRUE], -1gpt
90% = 10/turn base [11/turn TRUE], 0gpt
0% = 0/turn base [1/turn TRUE], +11gpt

These are true beaker numbers, not what gets displayed on the screen. Why is 100% so much more efficient than 90% here? The answer is due to truncating number values, which don't matter at higher beaker counts but become very important here in the early game. Basically, each tick of spending equals 1.2 beakers right now. We get the max value of that at 100% research, 12 base beakers/turn. At 90%, that goes to 10.8 beakers, which gets truncated down to just 10 beakers/turn. So we're losing about a full beaker there! Furthermore, we get 9% bonus research on Wheel for knowing 3 other teams with the tech (Nakor, Adlain, Moogle). This is meaningless at 11 beakers/turn [11 x 1.09 = 11.99!] but it gets us an extra beaker at 12/turn [12 x 1.09 = 13.08].

Therefore, we essentially get TWO extra free beakers at 100% science compared to 90% science. I'll run one turn at 0% science on this turn, then go 100% until we discover Wheel tech. This will take 8 total turns, and is significantly better compared to straight 90% research:

0% / 100% = 1 + (7x14) = 99 total beakers [also +4 gold]
90% = 11 x 8 = 88 total beakers [+0 gold]

Normally min science doesn't make much of a difference, but in this case it's MUCH better. This is why knowing the beaker math matters, so you can see what's going on under the hood and pick the best options. Or, put another way... don't change our science rate off 0% this turn.

As you can see, the actual number of beakers also depends on known tech bonuses from the other teams and the research pre-requisites. So, if you really want to make all the possible beakers, there's quite some calculations that need to be done.

[dazedroyalty]

Thanks Ichabod! That's helpful. Krill also pointed out the *duh* reason for using binary: it gives flexibility to change your mind! Which I wish I had right now! (I started on IW to be able to settle toward the jungle but then de-prioritized that direction in favor of the tundra so I'd like to have chosen Sailing instead. In other news, now I wish I had archery because Xenu is not happy about this:



I wouldn't be as concerned except he has bowmen. I have a spear enroute and then an axe going soon. Xenu's worried about my immortals but he doesn't know that I don't have horses hooked up. He wants me to make some deal with SlowWalk to compensate them to allow him to settle the silver to his North. i'm trying to be friendly and helpful and have said "everything is on the table" but there's no way i'm paying them for that.

My perspective is that yes, this is a pink dot city. If he attacks me ASAP, i'm screwed. If I was Xenu, I'd be pissed. However, the city is in the tundra, which is a legitimately contested area. I see this game as having a safe "homeland" for everyone and then three contested areas: tundra, jungle and islands. (Xenu doesn't seem to know about the islands so i didn't mention tat to him) Since I'm IMP, I am leveraging that to claim an aggressive site in teh contested area. Yes it is closer to Xenu so it's not "fair." No, I didn't talk to him about it before. That was actually an oversight on my part that is a mistake for sure. But honestly, i don't see how he would have agreed to it. And since he doesn't want to sign naps, it's not like we could really make an agreement official anyway. In short, if Xenu decides that this is a worthy of war act on my part his persona of Mao may make this a very regretful move. Honestly, going north toward Sian would have been nicer but I didn't see the map there.

(Krill will undoubtedly remind me he suggested settling 1NW as a "safer" option when this goes poorly!)

Also I've been doing lots of diplo over Gchat. Sian has 4 cities, one settler and 6 works PLUS stonehenge. BUT he has no granaries andhasn't even researched pottery. Our NAP is now up to T55. His next city is going on an island to his Norht, then he is going into the tundra.

Catwalk and slowcheetah are also in a NAP with me and I can't think of anythign particularly exciting that I've learned from them.

[dazedroyalty]

So, i think i've discovered i prefer no-diplo games--either AW or in game only. I just don't enjoy this part of the game. I'm trying to explain my city to Xenu and i'm not lying because everything i tell him is true. but I'm not really being honest either. I purposely planted an aggressive city to try to grab land plain and simple. All the other "reasons" are just facts that went thru my head in making the decision where to settle. I honestly would have prefered the more safe site to the NW but not for land settling reasons, just because the less diplomatic fallout.

[Commodore]

Yikes. A landgrab is a landgrab, nothing evil about it but it's also not like you can claim it as anything but hostile. My only question is how much that place is costing. When will you be hooking it up to your road network?

[dazedroyalty]

Yikes. A landgrab is a landgrab, nothing evil about it but it's also not like you can claim it as anything but hostile. My only question is how much that place is costing. When will you be hooking it up to your road network?

Diplomacy is, self admittedly, not my strength in the game. So how does that conversation go? "Sorry dude, just screwed you on some land." I don't see a good reaction from that.

My main argument isn't far off that though. Basically, I am considering that the Tundra is "contested" land up for grabs from whoever can get there first. Which is basically a vaguer way of saying, "yeah i took land that is closer to you."

[scooter]

Ctrl+R is a lurkers best friend.

[dazedroyalty]

Xenu says that the bowmen is there to try to cover the workers in case i had a two mover in teh area. However, I think he'll use the workers to road the tile to the NW of the bow and then move on my city. The only odd thing about that is why he has three workers there instead of two.

I am researching archery full steam. If he doesn't move the bowmen in I will be able to chop out an archer and be safe while a spear and axe make their way there as well. In the meantime, I'm working on building another warrior (which would make three). If he does move in, he'd have to kill three warriors with one bow (assuming no reinforcements). I don't know the odds on that, but hopefully it'd be salvagable.

I also told Xenu "I have two other sources of horse." (Didn't mention that they aren't hooked up though!) So hopefully he won't want to move in. We'll see next turn! Stay tuned!

[dazedroyalty]

Also, this:



I do know that Xenu has built at least one Barracks (since his bowmen in above shot has an available promotion) and that he has atleast one other bowman in his southern city that I could see two turns ago. I'm not gonna over analyze it but suffice it to say, Xenu (without NAPs, rightly so perhaps) has put the most into his military.

[dazedroyalty]

WB test done... i think my archer and/or third warrior will be 1T too late....

[dazedroyalty]

Well, Xenu has made some big mistakes... though it'll be tough to see if I can win this thing still.



So he was telling the truth about the chop (into another unit i presume!). However, he didn't road the tile with his workers. So the Bowman is delayed 1t in arriving. He'll be able to attack a warrior once before having to face an archer that will be chopped.

Bad news is he's also bringing another bowman and spear. I think perhaps he was afraid of immortals and didn't want to get too close without a spear to protect himself. Either that or roading the wheat just never occured to him. If the former, I can hope he doesn't even move in the first bow at all until the spear arrives. He may not realize i can see the spear (because of the hill in my control) and hope that I attack that bow with an immortal which he can then clean up with a spear.

I'm still not sure that 1 archer and 2 warriors would be enough against 2 bow and 1 spear. However, instead of being an easy win for him if he'd moved straight in and attacked the warriors with a bow, he'll take casualties.

That said, I don't expect him to back down at all and fully believe he'll bring as many units as possible for as long as necessary to eradicate the city. So, I just have to try to figure out if I can hold out long enough to get units there to reinforce or should just pull out while I can.