Ducki Does C3C at Emperor

[Arrian]

Ah, the mechanics of a +5fpt granary-fed settler/worker pump.

Dom's right, you will get to the point where you can just look at the screen and see +5 food sites.

I got that part down pretty easily. I needed Dom's help, though, with shield output. I had a shield-poor site that lacked forest, and was running a 5-turn settler pump (2 turns for workers though) until Dom straightened me out.

The micromanagement of a settler pump isn't actually that bad, particularly if you get the magical +5 food. For more impressive MM, see if you can dig up what Dominae did in the AU succession game with a +6fpt capable site (sharing a particular tile between 2 cities to get them both to average +5fpt). THAT is mircomanagement, my friend. And it is beyond what I'm willing to do in a SP environment.

-Arrian

[ducki]

Mmmm... so alternate them to be +4 and +6, then +6 and +4 each turn? Ouch.
Of course, even worse in getting this thing working(the original save, 4-t settler pump) was the insane amount of Civil Unrest because I was so intensely concentrating on getting it to work that I kept forgetting to bump, bump, drop the lux slider. Oh, for a second or third luxury.

[Arrian]

Yeah, remembering to adjust the lux slider up and down with city growth is my primary failing with settler pumps. I tend to do a few reloads of autosaves in the early stages (when a turn of civil disorder is really bad) to make up for my terrible memory/observation skills.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by ducki
How does that work if I move the laborer to a 2-food tile when it grows? If I don't move him, I'm down to 4 fpt and won't grow in 2 turns. Or does the new laborer get put on forest, produce a food and 2 shields and then I move him? Doesn't that mess with the timing? Or does food happen at the end of the turn and shields at the beginning?

Let's say you've got 15/20 Food in a city, and that city is producing +5 Food per turn. Then the following things happen the next turn:

0. Commerce summed up and allocated.
1. +5 Food added to the Food box (20/20 Food).
2. Food box empties (0/20 Food).
3. City grows one pop point.
4. City gets a new Laborer, due to #3.
5. City Governor assigns new Laborer to some tile according to its algorithm, let's say a Forest.
6. Shields from each Laborer summed up and added to production.
7. Production checked for completion.

(Steps #5 and #6 are what I called "Growth" in my post above.)

So, as you can see, when a city grows you get "free" Shields from the new tile it gets to work, but no Commerce or Food from that tile. In the early part of the game, this source of Shields is definitely non-trivial, accounting for 10-20% of most production items. In particular, it nets you 4 "free" Shields out of the 30 a Settler-pump needs to function.

How do you know where the Governor will assign the new Laborer in step #5? Good question. The best rule the Governor follows that I can think of would be: "Keep a balance between Food, Shields, and Commerce". You can easily "confirm" this for yourself by watching the AI in Debug mode for a while. What it means for Settler pumps is that whenever you have a big surplus of Food (say, +3 Food per turn or more), the Governor will try to balance this out by assigning a Laborer to a high-Shield and (usually) low-Food tile, like a Forest. If there's no Forest handy, a mined Plains or (worse) Hills will do in a pinch; of course, a mined Bonus Grassland will always be picked first, but those should be worked every turn. This is why I always leave a Forest untouched near my pump cities, if possible.


Dominae

[ducki]

Mmmm... free shields..... :drool:
This just keeps getting deeper and deeper. How did I get this far being this ignorant?

So if you can count of 4 free shields in your pump, then does that mean you could nab 4 extra commerce working the fish(in the original sav) every 4 turns?
If so, then you get 4 "free" shields every 4 turns AND 4 "free" gold every 4 turns.
Hmm.. +1s and +1g per turn sounds like a very powerful thing indeed, above and beyond the beauty of the pump.

Y'know what would be cool? A "lock this laborer" button. If you know you don't want your Irrigated Cow and Irrigated wines to EVER disappear as part of a settler, it'd be nice to force the governor AI to leave my +5food alone.


This is, quite possibly, the coolest thing I've learned since figuring out GL generation, maybe even cooler than that. I can't thank you guys enough for continuously nudging me in the right direction. Muchas gracias!

[cloudtoground]

Good thread,

I finally understand the pump concept, too. Thanks!

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Dominae

Let's say you've got 15/20 Food in a city, and that city is producing +5 Food per turn. Then the following things happen the next turn:

0. Commerce summed up and allocated.
1. +5 Food added to the Food box (20/20 Food).
2. Food box empties (0/20 Food).
3. City grows one pop point.
4. City gets a new Laborer, due to #3.
5. City Governor assigns new Laborer to some tile according to its algorith, let's say a Forest.
6. Shields from each Laborer summed up and added to production.
7. Production checked for completion.

(Steps #5 and #6 are what I called "Growth" in my post above.)

So, as you can see, when a city grows you get "free" Shields from the new tile it gets to work, but no Commerce or Food from that tile. In the early part of the game, this source of Shields is definitely non-trivial, accounting for 10-20% of most production items. In particular, it nets you 4 "free" Shields out of the 30 a Settler-pump needs to function.

How do you know where the Governor will assign the new Laborer in step #5? Good question. The best rule the Governor follows that I can think of would be: "Keep a balance between Food, Shields, and Commerce". You can easily "confirm" this for yourself by watching the AI in Debug mode for a while. What it means for Settler pumps is that whenever you have a big surplus of Food (say, +3 Food per turn or more), the Governor will try to balance this out by assigning a Laborer to a high-Shield and (usually) low-Food tile, like a Forest. If there's no Forest handy, a mined Plains or (worse) Hills will do in a pinch; of course, a mined Bonus Grassland will always be picked first, but those should be worked every turn. This is why I always leave a Forest untouched near my pump cities, if possible.

Dominae

By the way, this information should definitely be put in an easy-to-access location (like the topped "must read" threads) if it's not already.

It's something that many people don't know, and even those of us who do know it can forget or get confused.

-Arrian

[ducki]

I was actually thinking about gathering all the elder wisdom here and compiling it in one big text chunk for easy access, though I'm a notorious slacker and can't be trusted to actually get it to "release" status.

I'll see what I can do, because the whole series of explanations is, I agree, definitely worthy of a Must Read Mention.

[ducki]

Oh, I also meant to mention one other thing earlier...
Dom, now I understand why Ag is so overpowered, but I think there's two flavors of Ag power - Extra Heavy Duty, for those that recognise and can implement a 4-turn settler pump, and Simply Strong, for those that don't or are just not willing to work that hard.

But your reasons are more clear to me now, I think. I can't wait to try this with an Ag civ. Muwahahahahaha! But that'll have to wait until I can reproduce this on a different map without so much coaching. Mmm... practice....

[ducki]

Boy, I hate to post 3 times in a row, but it is my thread, so here's a math question about this 4-turn pump.

+5 fpt + Granary = growth every 2 turns

growth every 2 turns = 2 "extra" shields every two turns

Settler costs 30 shields IIRC.
My pump has +7+7+8+8 = 30
When a) micromanaged and b)given 4 free shields, shouldn't +6+6+7+7 = 30?

IOW, if you have that forest and the governor gives you 2 shields just for growing, do you really need to produce 30 shields from your micromanaged tiles or wouldn't 26 work just as well?

[Rhothaerill]

You won't necessarily get two shields all the time so don't count on it. It depends on the autoallocation of the next citizen. You can "lead" the computer to autoallocating to the correct tile, but not always. Basically I try to set up 4 turn settler pumps with 28 definite shields not 26, that way the extra shields from city growth don't come up short.

[Dominae]

Rhoth, I've never seen the Governor select a low-Shield tile over a high-Shield one when there was a high Food surplus in the city. To my knowledge no one has ever written down the rule governing (ha!) its behaviour, but even without it I'm confident I know where that extra Laborer will end up. While you're learning there's nothing "wrong" with reloading the odd turn here and there, as Arrian suggests. You can give yourself a little insurance by counting up to 32-34 Shields for every Settler, but those are extra Shields that another city could be using (say, to pump out Warriors).

ducki, I count the "free" Shields from city growth in my calculation up to 30, but you can equivalently count up to 26 "worked" Shields, confident that you'll get those extra 4 for "free". It's not really all that important, as long as you hit the 30-Shield mark in 4 turns (and not one Shield over!).


Dominae

[Aeson]

It will always give you the highest shield production tile that will allow it to stay at +2 food per turn or more. The main thing to watch out for is overlap on the production tile with an earlier city in the queue, as then it could grow and take the production tile first.

When a) micromanaged and b)given 4 free shields, shouldn't +6+6+7+7 = 30?

Most my Settler factories end up as 6,8,7,9 cities (not always in that order though).

[ducki]

I guess I was unclear in that I was speaking of "intentionally worked" tiles. My pump is "intentionally" generating 7+7+8+8.
If I can count on those mystery shields, I can do 6+6+7+7 (again, intentionally worked shields) and use a tile that has more commerce.

At least that's how I'm understanding it. And yes, I see that depending on the "free" 4 shields could probably be considered a risky policy.
I'm just still trying to make sure I fully understand it and Dom's comment about working the forest confused me for a minute, but she cleared it up.

It seems a bit "dodgy" getting free shields, but in a pinch it could be helpful knowledge. I hadn't even conisdered sharing the tile, I was thinking more along the lines of extra commerce or being able to create a pump with less shieldy tiles, but that's yet another good point, Dom.

Aeson: Is 6+8+7+9 from size 4-6 or some other size range? I'm just trying to picture what terrain could give me +5 fpt and +9 shields... maybe something with mined iron on a hill? Or is that knocked down to 2 shields under despotism?
(Edit: Nevermind, I'm a dummy. I was forgetting the shield from the city tile. I always forget that one.)
Grr, I'm gonna have to find a good chart or make a little app so I don't have to keep asking such newbish questions. You'd think I'd memorize this stuff by now.

Roth: You're still counting on free shields, right? You're just not counting on them from both pop growths, only one of the two, correct?

[Aeson]

Aeson: Is 6+8+7+9 from size 4-6 or some other size range? I'm just trying to picture what terrain could give me +5 fpt and +9 shields... maybe something with mined iron on a hill?

I like to use size 5-7 most of the time when possible (river, versions which don't empty the granary at size 7). Normally the river tiles allow the city to stay productive with the same Luxury rate as the non-river cities. In the capitol, you can use 5 (+ the city) tiles of 1 production, then add the 2 production tile, then 6 (+ the city) tiles of 1 production, add the 2 production tile again. Substitute 2 production tiles as needed due to low production tiles (Wheat) or corruption. Especially useful for those FP and Forest/Hills/Plains starts where 2.2 tiles are scarce.

The larger the city, the more 2.2 you can pass on to other purposes or do without. The first Settler is a couple turns slower though, and so the first couple Settlers should probably be ASAP. Then build up pop during a Barracks, Temple, or unit build, and continue on.