Why is plains cow considered a bad start?

[fed1943]

To start, and just to start, 1 wheat is better than 1 cow.
Later it depends on the whole radius and the goal of the city.
For instance 1 wheat+1 cow usually better, or at least easier, than 2 wheats or 2 cows.

[wodan11]

To start, and just to start, 1 wheat is better than 1 cow.
Later it depends on the whole radius and the goal of the city.
For instance 1 wheat+1 cow usually better, or at least easier, than 2 wheats or 2 cows.

Why do you think so?

AH should be an early tech to learn regardless of cow here or there, it is highly desirable to locate horses. So this bit about 100 beakers or whatever for cows is a bit academic, a person with any brains will learn it and learn it early.

Good point.

[Norselord]

AH should be an early tech to learn regardless of cow here or there, it is highly desirable to locate horses. So this bit about 100 beakers or whatever for cows is a bit academic, a person with any brains will learn it and learn it early.

Ofcourse you need to tech AH, but you can tech it faster if you already have your wheat hooked up, instead of researching it without your cows hooked up.

[Lord Avalon]

Ofcourse you need to tech AH, but you can tech it faster if you already have your wheat hooked up, instead of researching it without your cows hooked up.

I'm not sure I'm following your line of thought. Are you starting with Ag, building worker first and researching something other than AH?

Are there cases where you build worker first, research AH first (assuming you have prereq), but the worker is built before you discover AH?

[Krill]

Why? Cow gives +2+2 while wheat is +3. On the face of it, cow would seem better.

Plains cows are 1 food 2 hammer, Wheat is 3 food if irrigated. In all my posts I have been assuming irrigated grain (otherwise they suck just that little bit more).

Assuming both players start the game off by making a worker

Is that a fair assumption? Why not start with a warrior, scout, or work boat?

It's a fair assumption, because we are comparing plains cow and irrigated grains (or at least I am). I'm not comparing them to, say, coastal fish. If both starts had coastal fish that would skew the results (refer back to my comment on their being many factors affecting calculations)

the player with wheat will have the tech to get his resource at the worst in 60% the time than the other player

That seems to ignore the work boat first scenario you were expounding the virtues of. As well as many other possibilities.

BTW I forgot one bullet from my previous post this afternoon that I just remembered. Krill said something about work boat first taking forever. With a little micromanagement, I find it's best to go into the city and manually assign a citizen to work the best hammer unimproved tile. Otherwise it always works the best food unimproved tile. My theory is to crank out the work boat as fast as possible, even if it means I'm not growing at all. As soon as I get the netted fish, I automate citizens again, and the city grows likety-split.

See above. I offered it as an off topic aside to illustrate why starting techs are so important, nothing more. And that MM is correct...if you start with Fishing. I've done some calculations somewhere on this forum about why starting with fish but without fishing sucks compared to starting with land based food and being Exp. A search for my posts should probably find it.

and thanks to higher population will give the player a faster rate of research.

That's not always true. Depends entirely on what tiles are being worked.

And tech path. You get to pottery quicker if you don't have to research AH, so it's a valid point. Same with BW. If you don't have animal food you don't have a reason to get AH early, BW is better for hammers provided you have at least 4 forests and a decent food tile.

Point is: Even if player A has wheat but no AG, and player B has cows and the prereq, player A will still get his food hooked up faster

Again, that depends a lot on other things. Work boat first jumps out as a glaring example.

See above, and demands that you start with fishing, otherwise untrue. But it still means that plains cow sucks massively, which was the original objective of the thread.

Since everyone talks about whipping, you need granaries...the prereqs for those are fishing or ag, AH is off the path to granaries.

You implied above that AH needs Hunting... that's not true. AH needs Ag OR Hunting.

AH needs AG or Hunting...true...but if you have neither and need to get to AH quickly, then you go for hunting, since it is cheaper. Regardless AH take more research to get to REGARDLESS OF STARTING TECH compared to AG. Do the math.

Don't misrepresent what he posted. He said or, not and. I don't see any refutation of his point there wodan...

Nice theory but it seems to ignore a lot of things... scouts to go pop huts? Bad terrain? Hostile neighbors? Bad position such that you should rush early rather than REX to that extent?

scouts to pop huts...if you are relying on luck to win you the game then uyou need to think a little harder . Bad terrain comes in 1 type: lack of food. Everything else is interchangeable, so I don't see what point that is. And rushing an AI with chariots seems a little OTT. If they start with warriors and they are that close a warrior rush is generally quicker and cheaper to pull off, if they start with Archery then chariots don't have great odds unless you are Egyptian or Persian.

[wodan11]

Plains cows are 1 food 2 hammer

Not unless there's an error in the BtS Reference Guide produced by Anion. I'm looking at the 5th edition of the Guide right now.

It's a fair assumption, because we are comparing plains cow and irrigated grains (or at least I am).

How in the world does "comparing plains cow and irrigated grains" lead to the assumption "worker first" is fair?

It should be obvious that if we get a start without any improvable resource then non-worker first is a more viable alternative than if we had an improvable resource ready to go.

See above. I offered it as an off topic aside to illustrate why starting techs are so important, nothing more. And that MM is correct...if you start with Fishing. I've done some calculations somewhere on this forum about why starting with fish but without fishing sucks compared to starting with land based food and being Exp.

If you grant Expansive to the land start, you should grant Financial to the work boat start. Or something. Your analysis seems skewed to me, without even looking at your numbers.

Don't misrepresent what he posted. He said or, not and. I don't see any refutation of his point there wodan...

Huh? You were responding to Norselord. And *I* was the one who said the OR. You have both of your quotes backwards, Krill.

Don't presume just because I'm playing devil's advocate that I am taking a stand and that my statements are consistent with each other. I'll happily fuel both sides of the debate.

scouts to pop huts...if you are relying on luck to win you the game then uyou need to think a little harder .

If you aren't putting yourself in position to take advantage of the random elements in the game then you need to try a little harder.

Bad terrain comes in 1 type: lack of food. Everything else is interchangeable, so I don't see what point that is.

Bull. Lack of copper is bad. Lack of other strategic resources is bad. Lack of forests is bad. Lack of fresh water can be bad. Lack of grass to cottage is bad. There is plenty of things that are not "interchangeable".

And rushing an AI with chariots seems a little OTT. If they start with warriors and they are that close a warrior rush is generally quicker and cheaper to pull off, if they start with Archery then chariots don't have great odds unless you are Egyptian or Persian.

That's why I said War chariots.

[Krill]

Not unless there's an error in the BtS Reference Guide produced by Anion. I'm looking at the 5th edition of the Guide right now.

A cow gets +1 food for the base tile, and +1 food/+2 hammers for the pasture. So if you meant that the cow is a +2/+2 food/hammer tile you are correct...but then you are wrong about the wheat, as that is a +1 food for the base tile, and +3 food for the farm if irrigated.

Why? Cow gives +2+2 while wheat is +3. On the face of it, cow would seem better.

It's a fair assumption, because we are comparing plains cow and irrigated grains (or at least I am).

How in the world does "comparing plains cow and irrigated grains" lead to the assumption "worker first" is fair?

It should be obvious that if we get a start without any improvable resource then non-worker first is a more viable alternative than if we had an improvable resource ready to go.

It's fair if you go worker first for both. The aim is to maximise the output of the empire. If you try and dispute that then you are going off topic.

Oh, and needs maths to prove that

See above. I offered it as an off topic aside to illustrate why starting techs are so important, nothing more. And that MM is correct...if you start with Fishing. I've done some calculations somewhere on this forum about why starting with fish but without fishing sucks compared to starting with land based food and being Exp.

If you grant Expansive to the land start, you should grant Financial to the work boat start. Or something. Your analysis seems skewed to me, without even looking at your numbers.

Again...that was an illustration, not a proof. It's a sliding scale, depends a lot on difficulty and map size. Oh, and Financial doesn't really help the fish...you are already down by having to research Fishing, so you have to repay that first to catch up. Arguably you can survive without Agri for the entire game, but I woudn't want to try that.

Don't misrepresent what he posted. He said or, not and. I don't see any refutation of his point there wodan...

Huh? You were responding to Norselord. And *I* was the one who said the OR. You have both of your quotes backwards, Krill.

Don't presume just because I'm playing devil's advocate that I am taking a stand and that my statements are consistent with each other. I'll happily fuel both sides of the debate.

Since everyone talks about whipping, you need granaries...the prereqs for those are fishing or ag, AH is off the path to granaries.

You implied above that AH needs Hunting... that's not true. AH needs Ag OR Hunting.

? At the very least that is a non sequentur, and misrepresents the point that teching AH is not teching towards Pottery.

scouts to pop huts...if you are relying on luck to win you the game then uyou need to think a little harder .

If you aren't putting yourself in position to take advantage of the random elements in the game then you need to try a little harder.

This is a strategy game, not Bingo.

Bad terrain comes in 1 type: lack of food. Everything else is interchangeable, so I don't see what point that is.

Bull. Lack of copper is bad. Lack of other strategic resources is bad. Lack of forests is bad. Lack of fresh water can be bad. Lack of grass to cottage is bad. There is plenty of things that are not "interchangeable".

I didn't know copper was a terrain type. lack of fresh water = less health = don't grow the cities so big, focus on horizontal growth some more. Trade for resources. Lack of forests, don't need so many workers so you've just saved some hammers and can slave out settlers early, so cities grow sooner = quicker slaves = more hammers.


That's why I said War chariots.[/QUOTE]

So Just Egypt it works for then. Not a general proof?

[Krill]

Make up your mind. Are we comparing wheat to cows or not? The original poster asks why cows is a bad start, compared to other foods. I outlined that fish start is best.

Again, you are being an argumentative poopie head. There is more to a debate than just trying to pick at small details and shooting them down. There needs to be a counter argument. Why don't you come up with some solid arguments why a Plains Cow start is better than Plains Wheat.

This.

[Krill]

if you start off with fishing your start will automatically be next to water.

Let me stop you right at the start. Just because you get a coastal start doesn't mean you have sea based food, and just because you start coastal doesn't mean you start with Fishing.

if you are near fish, and you don't have fishing you only take 2/3 as many turns to research your 'food' tech as someone who has wheat but no agriculture.

It takes only 1/2 as long to build a workboat as it takes to build a worker.

Not entirely true. You need Fishing before you can build a workboat, so the time it take to to research Fishing + build time + movement time = time to hook up food. Time to hook up land based food = time to build a worker if you have a grain, because Agri is always researched before the worker is finished. but after you have hooked up the fish, you still need to build a worker, but the land based food already has those 60 hammers invested and starting to pay back the investment.

Additionally, the city is growing while the workboat is being built.

Erm...sure. Assume you start with a grass forest, and a plains hill forest. You grow in 11 turns, then you work the phf and finish the workboat. Then you move and net it. Grand total is 13 turns, size 2 an 2 hammers overflow and no other investments, if you start with fishing. Other option is to work the plains hill, net the fish on turn 9 with 2 hammers overflow and be at 20/22 with 6 hammers extra. The first case leaves you 9 turns from a worker, so t22 you have food hooked, size 2 and a worker.

If you don't start with Fishing, then it can take up to 8 turns to get fishing. Assuming the same tiles, then you finish a warrior on turn 8 with 1 hammer overflow, and start the wb. 7 hammers invested and size 2 on t11. t16 net the fish, and a further 9 turns to get the worker, so t25.

You start with a 5 food grain (ie grass rice). Work tile for 15 turns to get worker. Hook up rice t20. t22, size 2, 7 hammers invested into something else and a worker. Irrigated corn is +2 food better. Irrigated wheat is 18 food and 14 hammers. t25 for the wheat (ie without a 3 food tile) is 11 food better off and 22 hammers better off.

Then, it doesn't require a road to be built to get the +health bonus. So those turns are saved too.

Irrelevent in the early game, you shouldn't be running into health problems. And you need roads for trade routes, and to more easily protect your second city. Yes, roads aren't free, but you need them all the same.

All of these result in the fisherman's city growing faster than the farmer's city. The fisherman should still build a worker very early on, but he will do that faster than the farmer too, since his city will be at a larger size, and for the purposes of building workers/settlers food=hammers.

See above for examples of why this assertion is false.

The early game is all about acceleration. In the sense of obtaining food through fishing v. agriculture v. animal husbandry to create more population quickly, fishing wins hands down. This completely ignores the religion, hunting, mining branches; and this analysis only compares those three options. I am assuming that the more population one has through more and/or bigger cities, the faster one will be able to tech the other branches.

See above.

I think I will try to compare this in terms of actual turns gained by messing around with a trial game using the worldbuilder.

Diadem did a good example of this years ago, but without hte researching fishing part.

EDIT: Also, you mention chopping. This implies that you have prioritized BW over any of the food techs. I like going for BW early too, but i like hooking up food first, and only then doing BW. After that its a mater of taste of whether you want to focus on religion, military, infrastructure, or wonders.

Not necessarily. It is difficulty and map size dependent, and sometimes hooking up a second food resource isn;t the wisest course of action, depending on what it is (eg ocean clams, unirrigated rice, plains hill sheep is a favourite, mining that tile is pretty awesome).

[wodan11]

but then you are wrong about the wheat, as that is a +1 food for the base tile, and +3 food for the farm if irrigated.

And +2 if not, which means +3 base until Civil Service.

[q=Wodan]It should be obvious that if we get a start without any improvable resource then non-worker first is a more viable alternative than if we had an improvable resource ready to go.

It's fair if you go worker first for both. The aim is to maximise the output of the empire. If you try and dispute that then you are going off topic.

Oh, and needs maths to prove that [/q]
How do you maximize output if you don't have any improveable work for the worker to do?

I can't see any possible way that maths can be used to prove that a idle worker "helps maximize the output of the empire."

Again...that was an illustration, not a proof. It's a sliding scale, depends a lot on difficulty and map size. Oh, and Financial doesn't really help the fish...you are already down by having to research Fishing, so you have to repay that first to catch up.

Which is pretty easy given the commerce income from the fish tile. What, 13 turns on Normal? Zounds, you're really "down" having to come back from that huge deficit. And, FIN changes 20 to 13, so yes it does help. And it continues to help as you go on to research BW, Pottery, and so on.

? At the very least that is a non sequentur, and misrepresents the point that teching AH is not teching towards Pottery.

Again, you're totally backward. The original comment from Norselord was the incorrect one (as I pointed out). If you're going for AH to get cows and max your city sizes instead of whipping (as was discussed), then BW is much less desirable. The very conditions of this choice mean you're not whipping. So, the comment "since everyone talks about whipping, you need granaries" is actually a negative to the Ag option, and does not apply so much the cows option.

Go back and read it, I was pretty clear.

This is a strategy game, not Bingo.

If you don't play, you can't win.

You always only do sure things? Is there not combat in your game? Or do you maximize your chances to benefit from the random elements of the game?

Don't be silly, Krill. The benefit you can get from huts, as just one example, can be huge enough to make it worth investing some resources. Since the same scout/warrior can also be used for fogbusting or fighting later, it's not like those are totally wasted resources and it's something beneficial anyway.

I didn't know copper was a terrain type.

Those were examples. Nice comeback, though... "your specific example doesn't fit the general category of example you mentioned first."

So Just Egypt it works for then. Not a general proof?

Again, examples. Somebody made a general statement, and my response was basically "there are a lot of situations where that doesn't seem to apply". Throwing out just a few of those examples is very valid.

It isn't necessary to have a general proof to invalidate a hypothesis. In fact, it's the other way around. If you want to prove Fish is better, post a "general proof". I'll be interested in reading it.

You're being argumentative here, Krill, not reasoning with any kind of logic. There at 3-4 responses that you gave which fall into that category. Let's stick to the issue rather than attack the other person and sarcasm.

[wodan11]

Let me stop you right at the start. Just because you get a coastal start doesn't mean you have sea based food, and just because you start coastal doesn't mean you start with Fishing.

He is quite correct with his implication (if not his literal words) that these cases make it much more likely. Let's look at what he's getting at, and suggest a revision to his words, rather than simply shooting down his literal statement.

In other words, he has a very good point, even if he didn't state it 100% correctly.

Not entirely true. You need Fishing before you can build a workboat, so the time it take to to research Fishing + build time + movement time = time to hook up food. Time to hook up land based food = time to build a worker if you have a grain, because Agri is always researched before the worker is finished. but after you have hooked up the fish, you still need to build a worker, but the land based food already has those 60 hammers invested and starting to pay back the investment.

The same is true of Fishing. And, with the Fish case, you have a ton of commerce coming in while you're making a follow-up worker.

See above for examples of why this assertion is false.

Your examples seem to indicate they're almost exactly the same. Just a few hammers difference, and variance in that is affected more by the "3rd tile" (whatever is worked by the 2nd citizen after the city grows to size 2).

What your example leaves out is all the commerce generated.

[fed1943]

Plains wheat=2F 1H 0/1C; with farm=4/5F 1H 0/1C.
Plains cow=2F 1H 0/1C; with pasture=3F 3H 0/1C.
So, before improvement they worth the same. But wheat can be improved earlier.
After improvement wheat gives more food,cow gives more hammers.
Then, the "best", after start, depends on the needs.

[wodan11]

Plains wheat=2F 1H 0/1C; with farm=4/5F 1H 0/1C.
Plains cow=2F 1H 0/1C; with pasture=3F 3H 0/1C.
So, before improvement they worth the same. But wheat can be improved earlier.

And is dependent on irrigation or is not worth as much.

After improvement wheat gives more food,cow gives more hammers.
Then, the "best", after start, depends on the needs.

And on game strategy. If whipping, wheat is better, obviously. If cows, then not prioritizing whipping becomes more of an option.

[Krill]

How do you maximize output if you don't have any improveable work for the worker to do?

I can't see any possible way that maths can be used to prove that a idle worker "helps maximize the output of the empire."

Non seqentur.

Which is pretty easy given the commerce income from the fish tile. What, 13 turns on Normal? Zounds, you're really "down" having to come back from that huge deficit. And, FIN changes 20 to 13, so yes it does help. And it continues to help as you go on to research BW, Pottery, and so on.

13 turns of not cottaging, 13 turns being behind on getting granaries, 13 turns behind on chopping out a settler.

If you think that teching Fishing has no consequences then you are deluded. The extra commerce, if the fish is coastal is the most minor point that is is close to irrelevant.

Again, you're totally backward. The original comment from Norselord was the incorrect one (as I pointed out). If you're going for AH to get cows and max your city sizes instead of whipping (as was discussed), then BW is much less desirable. The very conditions of this choice mean you're not whipping. So, the comment "since everyone talks about whipping, you need granaries" is actually a negative to the Ag option, and does not apply so much the cows option.

Go back and read it, I was pretty clear.

The opening question was why is plains cow considered a bad start. If you aren't going to bother keeping on topic, then sod off because you are trying to thread jack.

The original was because I mislabelled them, but the second one was correct. However, you then completely missed the point. Slaving is always the point. So is Chopping. So is finding out where the smegging copper is. If you don't get BW early you are going to fall behind, especially if you want to work those cottages as teh hammer output of the city is . The problem is that AH always puts you further away from the other important techs. You mention something to do with beaker rates, about how faster teching is better?

What is the point of that comment? It adds nothing to the argument about AH being better than Agri, in fact the counter is true. If I'm being argumentative, then you are beyond obtuse.

If you don't play, you can't win.

You always only do sure things? Is there not combat in your game? Or do you maximize your chances to benefit from the random elements of the game?

Don't be silly, Krill. The benefit you can get from huts, as just one example, can be huge enough to make it worth investing some resources. Since the same scout/warrior can also be used for fogbusting or fighting later, it's not like those are totally wasted resources and it's something beneficial anyway.

Again, off topic. The argument is AH is good if you pop it from a hut, in other words, if you don't have to research it and so can spend time getting useful techs. Which is a corollary of what NL posted.

Your examples seem to indicate they're almost exactly the same. Just a few hammers difference, and variance in that is affected more by the "3rd tile" (whatever is worked by the 2nd citizen after the city grows to size 2).

http://apolyton.net/forums/showpost.php?p=5755981&postcount=23

if you start off with fishing your start will automatically be next to water.

That is FALSE, to quote a coder I know.

[Krill]

This thread is getting off topic. The opening question was why is plains cow considered bad. If someone wants to argue the converse, that'd be cool, but just arguing semantics is a waste of time and pisses posters off.