Chairmen NobleHelium and Gaspar Demand Your Presence in the Collective

[Gaspar]

So, why pottery all of a sudden after we had planned on Bronze Working all along? Well between us Noble and I knocked out about a half dozen sims yesterday. We tried a couple different tech paths, a couple different opening strategies and these were our conclusions:

• Given toroidal maintenance costs, it is probably a better idea to save those forests for wonders. Getting a bunch of runt cities down with 1 or 2 improved tiles just felt like poor play. I completed a sim yesterday where I clearcut the land, finishing the last two forests at the capital for Stonehenge on T34 with 3 settlers built and settled where I felt like an absolutely terrible player. It also made the 35-50 period just painful.
  
• We need something to build when we're growing. Both of us ran into having a pile of semi-useless warriors done. Growing on granaries is smart because they're useful.
  
• The choice between cottages and farms at the capital comes down strongly in favor of the cottages. Even when you run a hardcore specialist economy, you typically cottage your capital. When your first plant costs 2.7 gpt? Its really not an option. Getting cottages down sooner means quicker hamlets, villages and towns and further there's no need for that kind of food surplus at that capital. Between cows, wet corn and 2 floodplains the capital is already +6, which is plenty for our needs.
  
• Stonehenge is pretty much a gimme if we prioritize it. Is it worth pushing T34 and having an underdeveloped capital or finishing T38 or so and having a capital working 6 improved tiles, a second city working 3 and ready to explode through the next phase of the game? I thought so.
  
• Its actually debatable whether the Great Lighthouse or Pyramids is a better build for us. Both will defray the expansion costs on this map, but only one of them doubles the hammers into possible fail gold. The decision certainly tilts towards the GLH for reasons we discussed earlier. But it is a decision.
  

So with all that, we liked this sim best. I started this and then NH iterated on it and improved it. I'm sure it can be refined further, and thus I present our crummy micro notes to the rest of the team:

T5: Mining in, onto Pottery (6)
T7: worker done, queue worker, farm corn
T9: nothing new, but could finish pottery this turn by working FP if we wanted
T10: corn farm done, work it
T11: Pottery in, worker starts road on corn, onto AH (7)
T12: worker finishes road
T13: second worker available, both workers move to NE FP and cottage; start granary
T14: first cottage done
T15: start second cottage
T16: second cottage done
T17: build road on cow
T18: start cow pasture. AH in, onto BW (6)
T19: cow pasture done, remaining worker goes to PH, swap from cottage to cow
T20: start PH mine, other worker goes to grass hill, granary finishes EOT
T21: start road on grass hill, dump overflow into settler
T22: PH mine done, swap to warrior to grow, road done
T23: road PH mine, other worker moves 1SW and starts road, swap back to settler, BW finishes
T24: roads finish, start Fishing
T25: both workers move to roaded grass hill and put two turns into a mine-chop, settler finishes eot
T26: settler moves towards new city, workers still mine-chopping (cancel), swap to slavery
T27: found USSR, both workers start farming corn, drop slider to 0%, Fishing finishes from free beaker, finish warrior in capital, give grass hill to USSR
T28: start Sailing, tech to 100%, finish corn farm, start worker in capital
T29: one worker finishes mine-chop into granary in USSR, other worker moves 2N onto plains forest, third worker done
T30: start chopping plains forest, one worker goes onto a capital forest to chop, other worker roads to sheep or whatever
T31: USSR grows, work grass mine, start chop at capital, Sailing finishes EOT
T32: third worker can pasture sheep or whatever, chop goes into galley, start Mysticism, drop tech to 0%
T33: whip galley, USSR worker moves 1W and starts cottage, chop at capital finishes settler

That's a rough idea of what we're up to. Sandbox link is up to date if anyone wants to take a bash at it. Would definitely like some comments, concerns, criticisms, general appreciation of my rugged handsomeness.

[oledavy]

Would definitely like some comments, concerns, criticisms, general appreciation of my rugged handsomeness.

I can't really pick apart your micro having not run the sim myself or seen the other ones you ran - but I have faith that you and Noble did good job with it bouncing plans off each other and it's better and more intensive than what I could have come up with. Just some general thoughts:

I generally favor early pottery, even more so for an expansive civ. Early cottages are always really powerful, and when you have flood plains at your capital and the map is toroidal, they become all the more important. Early granaries are good as always too, so definitely think this is a solid plan.

However, I think if we want to nab Stonehenge, we need to get it done sooner. Turn 38 just strikes me as a little late. Guess it comes down to how important you consider the wonder. If we want to make it a major priority, then we should push it to completion sooner. However, if we can stand losing it, then keep the current plan.

Also, where is the calendar happiness on this map?

[Gaspar]

However, I think if we want to nab Stonehenge, we need to get it done sooner. Turn 38 just strikes me as a little late. Guess it comes down to how important you consider the wonder. If we want to make it a major priority, then we should push it to completion sooner. However, if we can stand losing it, then keep the current plan.

I agree with you that it seems a little late, but if you look at 23, in many ways the most comparable game considering both the players involved and the mapmaker it didn't fall until the mid-40s there. Of course there were several CRE civs there and none here. I'm prepared to lose it though, I just can't see sacrificing a lot to get it earlier. Maybe we can shave a turn or two off, though.

Also, where is the calendar happiness on this map?

QFT.

Actually, where is any happiness on this map. One lousy ivory is going to be tricky to manage. Better be stupid Ivory for everyone else - ivory is easily the worst happiness resource.

[oledavy]

Actually, where is any happiness on this map. One lousy ivory is going to be tricky to manage. Better be stupid Ivory for everyone else - ivory is easily the worst happiness resource.

It's like PBEM25v all over again

[Gaspar]

Played this one by myself, so hopefully I didn't ruin anything.

Pretty quiet, but we've found another happy resource:



Other than that, worker finished EOT.



And the demographics, which look more different because the governor picks the floodplain @EOT when the worker's done. Unfortunately for the governor, we'll be back on the forest making another worker next turn:

[NobleHelium]

So I was thinking about potential sites for a run at GLH.

The current plan for the corn city would leave it with only three forests, which isn't much.
The sheep city could have up to four forests, if we don't chop the shared one with the capital for Stonehenge, and potentially five if we're willing to chop the furs.
The other alternative is the northeast, which can catch seven forests if we plant on that open grassland in the middle. But there's no food that we can see so far, so we'll need to see some food there first. There's lots of coast to the north of it, but the east looks like a landbridge to the whales area.

[Gaspar]

Turn came in right after NH went to bed, but we've already discussed everything so I probably didn't ruin anything.

Uncovered pretty things everywhere! NobleHelium will be pleased to hear I followed his preferred scout movements rather than my own. Probably wouldn't have if he had been awake.



In the east, there was only ever one option - there's gold in them thar hills! Pretty sure that's an island now, however. Remains to be seen how quickly we can get there.



In the unnecessary pictures to make sure NH has nothing to nag me about department, our worker started farming the corn, 2nd worker queued:




And finally, the boring EOT demos:

[NobleHelium]

Of course it happens that your movement would have been better since there's a lake there.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 8.

I decided to backtrack in order to get both moves and...



Remarkably, they do not have a second city yet.

Also found sheep. That grassland spot won't be that great, as there's only one farmable tile besides the sheep which is on plains, but it's not miserable. Do we bother scouting one tile further next turn? Doesn't really do anything unless we're willing to scout to the PH...since only seafood two off the end of the shore would possibly cause us to plant differently. But hey, since that's now a corner, maybe copper is on that PH after all?

[Gaspar]

As noted in our chat, NH should have wardec'd 7 to keep him out of our pass. Also because given the bowchoke comments from the organizing thread, they'd wonder how crazy we really are.