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Plus it's entirely possible that by moving, you will move closer to one of your neighbors... depending on the settings you could end up in a really cramped situation. For some, that might be desireable. For others, not so much.
You may have just fundamentally altered my early game Lionheart, depending on how the testing goes. Nice job.
-abs
Every now and then I will take a more critical look at certain elements of the gameand often the objective is to push the perceived wisdom. There’s always some small thing you can discover here and there that can help to make a stronger game – though I am still to figure out what use I can make of the Nationhood civic – other than as a civic of last resort
Of course, you have to be open to new ideas too. For example, there seem to be those who have some problem with slavery and they may never understand the indisputable logic as demonstrated on numerous times and set out by Blake.
In my book, the mathematics will never lie….
…. at least, that is, if you have the right numbers to start with.
…. at least, that is, if you have the right numbers to start with.
Yes, and there's precisely the problem. As with physics research, math doesn't lie but your model might. That's why we test.
I do wonder at the implication this has on some other things I've taken for granted. All along I've been a big fan of turn-advantage, but if this is right it implies practically the opposite; that in some circumstances turn-advantage can be tossed aside in favor of growth. I'm so uncertain about that implication that it drives my gut instinct that something is off in the model.
Guess the testing will show us.
If testing shows theory as wrong I suspect we're just missing a variable somewhere. The foundation of the theory feels solid, it's just the results that feel iffy.
there seem to be those who have some problem with slavery and they may never understand the indisputable logic as demonstrated on numerous times and set out by Blake.
That, in my opinion, is an emotional matter rather than a strategic one. It's probably the same people who refuse to use State Property because it comes with Communism.
Age and treachery will defeat youth and skill every time.
Yes, and there's precisely the problem. As with physics research, math doesn't lie but your model might. That's why we test.
I do wonder at the implication this has on some other things I've taken for granted. All along I've been a big fan of turn-advantage, but if this is right it implies practically the opposite; that in some circumstances turn-advantage can be tossed aside in favor of growth. I'm so uncertain about that implication that it drives my gut instinct that something is off in the model.
Guess the testing will show us.
If testing shows theory as wrong I suspect we're just missing a variable somewhere. The foundation of the theory feels solid, it's just the results that feel iffy.
-abs
Turn advantage is about doing things, so if the increased production allows you to do more things, you end up saving turns in the long run.
However, a lot of optimization could occur with the second city. If people are building their second city more than 18 turns away, _deity_ help them in most cases.
Plus, not all resources are revealed initially, stymieing complete optimization. And with that first city, other goods are produced such as culture (defense and barb spawning and territory/resource implications). So I would argue that the discount rate is too low as well - those first turns are weighted far more heavily. My guess is under 10 turns will be where we end up, and that would be for an extreme example.
Originally posted by rah
But it's just like civ II yeah, if you delayed you could get a city to make up for it quite quickly, but there is no guarentee that you'll find better land.
If it's just a few turns, I'll accept that you have another unit out and you know your target, but 10-18 turns, how do you know where you're moving and is the grass really greener where you're moving.
There is always that risk that, seeing yourself surrounded by plains/hills with one sheep, four furs and three marble, you just have to leave it and then spend 10 turns find out that you are on an ice covered island and there is no alternative site. I'm not pretending that the 20 turn delay in founding is without any risk. There is no promise of El Dorado.
Originally posted by Arrian
Plus it's entirely possible that by moving, you will move closer to one of your neighbors... depending on the settings you could end up in a really cramped situation. For some, that might be desireable. For others, not so much.
-Arrian
So you'll actually gain turn advantage (and save costs) if your plan is to rush them
Originally posted by absimiliard
All along I've been a big fan of turn-advantage, but if this is right it implies practically the opposite; that in some circumstances turn-advantage can be tossed aside in favor of growth.
belchingjester hit the nail on the head on this point. Turn-advantage is about doing things faster and the objective of the delayed start is to forego initial investment (growth/production/beakers) in order to acquire a higher rate later from which you will catch up and ultimately overtake where you would have been from your original position.
This is not to be confused with opportunity cost which, when mentioned in the context of CIV, refers to your ownership of some asset that someone else does not have. It tends to refer to the acquisition of benefits from being the "first there" and includes bonus from wonders, "wonder tech" (free GPs, religions, free techs) and huts.
Originally posted by belchingjester
Plus, not all resources are revealed initially, stymieing complete optimization.
We can only optimise based on the information we have. As we acquire more information, we may change direction if the new parameters indicate that we should. I would agree that information itself is an asset although I baulk at the idea of placing a value on it.
As for the growth rate, this can be very situational. Give me a city site with riverside corn and plains hill gold (or gems) and floodplains and all manner of other things etc and I will found immediately and start building a worker (while researching agriculture). As I suggested earlier in the thread, the city tile itself is not the whole picture and you have to take in the surrounding terrain.
One correction I would make though is to some of the calculations and comparisons I made. If we have a standard city with two floodplains, the 11 turns growing from size 1 to 2 will represent an increase in 2.4% per turn if we allow for 11 turns of production/research. But the figure is only 1.46% per turn if all we have to work is a single floodplain and grassland forests.
So here’s a brief resume of my progress so far in sending my settler on a scouting mission
I figured that one good test would be to see if this tactic would undermine an early rush so the first preference would go to Aggressive civs (Charismatic might have also been a good option)
The next thing I wanted was a starting scout. It’s just too much work to leave a settler to scout in situation where we might be waiting 10+ turns to settle a site.
Finally I wanted a civ whose traits could be used to leverage the difference between a poor start and a better one. The two obvious ones are Financial (for the extra commerce from certain riverside special tiles) and Imperialist (which can use production heavy tiles to spew out settlers.
There seemed two obvious candidates for the role of guinea-pig here Ragnar (Agg/Fin) and Genghis (Agg/Imp).
But, first a little observation/question…..
Does the map generator adjust to the game level? On the whole there were few strong starts and some of these were rather obscene (1 fish/4 crabs in the ice-bound northern plains). I mean what are you supposed to do with this? The food specials will improve your health but won’t do diddly for you happiness and my experience here is that it can be a terrible bind to control population. There did seem to be quite a few starts of this nature and a lot more mediocre sites that I would normally expect.
The other observation is that Ragnar almost always gets a coastal start. Quite appropriate really and I’ve noticed similar feature with other leaders - Cyrus obviously loves jungle. But if there is some coding preference for Ragnar to start on or near the coast then his Fishing start changes things a little.
In fact I first tried Ragnar and found enough decent enough coastal starts for me to switch over to Genghis.
Still here there were plenty of times where I could see the city site from the start. The first involved moving to a stone plains hill while others were simply good enough starts without any sight of better prospects elsewhere.
It took 8 regenerations before I arrived at something to work with.
************************************************
Wandering Tribes II : Genghis Khan
Genghis and his tribe are wandering around the balmy plains of the south to the east of a large freshwater lake and close to the seas. His scouts are to the north east on the edge of ice-bound lands and all they can see. There is undoubtedly some warm current flowing the seas in this area since all around is covered in ice. The vast number of native fauna are well-accustomed to the conditions and have developed warm coats to protect them. Genghis tribe are skilled in the art of hunting and already know how to extra the pelts of some of the animals. Other larger animals are less easily domesticated and initial attempts of controlling the wild sheep (providing both food and wool) have been unsuccessful.
Genghis scouts travel quickly to a hill in the south overlooking the eastern seas and report further news. Some of them identify edible sea creatures off the shores but they do not have the skills to trap more than a few. Across the bay further to the east, they also identify a strange greyish metal in the frozen hill but the ability to extract and refine this is also beyond the tribe.
[Authors note: The initial site has freshwater from a lake and the city fat-cross contains 1 plains sheep and 5 plains fur. There are a few trees about too. Neither health nor unhappiness will ever haunt the Mongolian people here because the city would never grow that big]
Genghis decides that the city must move and contemplates switching to the coast from where the “crabs” might be caught. But his people are afeard of the waters by the sea and the lands to the east are colder. Genghis’ counsels are rejected but he maintains that the area is too infertile and the tribe are compelled to brave the northern ice lands in search of a better place
[Author’s note: Moving to the plains hill would give 1 plains sheep, 2 plains fur, 1 crab and 1 ice silver. That’s 2 happies (although the silver will take a lot of work) and 2 healthies. Working the sheep, crabs and two furs from the would give +4 food, 5 production, 20 commerce (including palace). Not too bad but not great and there it stops. Also not really the production to get a settler out quickly for a new city.
That was my opinion then and I think I still think that the longer journey gave better. But from a basic level, the extra hammer in the city would have given a straight 8% increase in the city output with only one turn spent. At least this was a better site than the first]
Genghis tribe wanders far to the north encountering native villages and more fertile land. While travelling, they also encounter scouts from the Celtia tribe who are more advanced than the nomadic Mongols.
Finally, the decision is made to settle in a far warmer environment near to Celtia. The location offers the security of a hill and land in the area encompass fertile flood plains, pigs and a sweet vegetable crop. 4290 moons after leaving the south (11 turns), the Mongols build a settlement.
**********
Some more notes
Nothing in the initial square, but the fat cross contains, pig, sugar and floodplain. Given that this is about the best site I could find it says something about the overall terrain. The city was at least 18 squares from the former site so the settler made fairly good progress to get there in just 11 turns. With a starting tile of 2/1/0, the gain from the city tile represented an increase of just 0.7% per turn for the effort. But waiting for the expansion would yield a further 1.5 per turn over the next 8 turns. Two squares of the fat cross are shared with Biberos.
I was later to find Mali not far away. In fact, my city was almost directly between Mali (5 tiles away) and Celtia (4 tiles). But Timbuktu is across a small stretch of water so it’s really just me and Brennus for now.
First tech was Animal Husbandry and first build was worker. Horses were seen far to the south.
My two scouts (one given from hut in journey north) did not last long. The first died to a bear attack after popping a hut on a hill and before they had the chance to benefit from the experience that it gave. The second, journeying back to the south got caught by two groups of wolves. The RNG was cursed in the traditional way.
But luck did not betray me when I acquired Bronze Working (and just before my first settler was completed). Karakorum had almost cut off Brennus from two sources of Copper. I would settle a second city giving pigs and copper or 2 copper but unfortunately all resources would require a border expansion. After long deliberation, I decided to settle city 2 in a site encompassing one of the coppers and another pig tile for longer term benefit. A third city was then quickly established to settle within range of the other copper at a site including corn, pigs(the one used by Karakorum), sugar and copper. That one can be used for a few early game GPs.
Finally, I managed to borrow a religion from Brennus. Seemed sensible to convert since that +1 happiness will always help in Karakorum while I am planning the overthrow of the Celts and the capture of the holy city.
It’s still early days so it’s quite possible that this might all crash and burn. As rushes go, this one will be a little late but since I will have three cities building, it will be set up more quickly and the Axemen won’t have far to go. Will be a little tricky though since the two Celtic cities I know will have +40% culture defence and are both built on a hill. But I can at least comfort myself that it is Immortal level and things are not meant to be that easy here.
Should have a lot more to report after the weekend
I have to admit that my Immortal game turned into a bit of a damp squib. I can’t say that I spent too much time pondering the military plan and simply too the sledge hammer approach which almost broke on the first gate.
A quick summary:
7 Axemen were lost killing 4 Archers in the capital Nidaros!! That’s 245 of my hammers gone to 70 of Ragnars!! You will be pleased to know that the capital was well supplied with resources (plains cow, plains marble and sugar). You will also not be surprised to know that I was rather short of troops at this stage so plans to capture the holy city were shelved since there would be no doubt of this city building archers and there was little prospect of me being able to produce Axemen at a rate sufficient to beat those!!
All in all, not a very successful experiment. When I try it again it will be monarch level
I don't do the math but I usualy play a financial civ an restart the map until I have a river with flood plains and at least one gold hill by the river (two would be better) then found the city on the gold hill. If there is also an oasis in the first square (rare but happens some times) I end up with 14 commerce from the first turn of the city or 12 without it. Add to that the two hammers and 5 ? (can't remember the number here) food. Had I founded on the flood plains I would only have 10 commerce since working an un-minned gold hill from the beginning is not a good idea.
I've been wondering why my gut-instinct and the numbers were so off on this issue.
I believe I have the answer, and it's bloody obvious. For mathematical analysis related reasons we've been talking about fairly basic city sites. Comparing 2/1/1 city sites and 2/0/1 first squares to better sites and better squares, then comparing that to growing a city after an immediate founding.
I kept wondering why the numbers seemed to strongly hint at some movement when my gut very strongly said "Found in turn 1, or at the latest 2". The reason is that almost no starting site is basic, they almost all have some strong tiles to offer.
Raising the starting value of your total output obviously negates the value in moving to a degree.
I think I was forgetting that we rarely start with a truly crappy site. Sometimes, sure, but usually we get a pretty good starting site. So most of the time going searching for a good first city-site is a waste of time. At the same time the numbers have to be right if you get a crappy starting site, feel free to wander some in that case.
So what I'm taking is that your initial condition still controls your destiny, but now you can move if you have to. Your mileage may vary. (I play All Random games so get good value from this, thanks Lionheart) Basically we now have a tactical option we didn't think had before now, if we have a fairly boring start the growth returns of moving to a new city may outweigh the lost turns of production.
It was always just an option to seriously consider more than just a simple hop onto the nearest plains hill if the early site offers next to nothing. Most initial positions do offer something near to the best site around so are worth using. With Ragnar I simply got fed up being dropped on the coast with one or two seafood specials because there is no question what to do there.
It is when you are handed something truly awful that the question should be asked.
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