Spencers Game part tree

[jshelr]

Sent.

[Eli]

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Sorry for the delay.

[jshelr]

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I don't think it matters much what time you send as long as it gets here in time for me to play before Spencer goes home for work.

[Eli]

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[jshelr]

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[Eli]

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[jshelr]

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[Eli]

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[jshelr]

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[jshelr]

We were surprised by the Mongol’s tech direction and our scientists and economists are in disarray in the alliance.

Here is an outline of the Zulu case for immediate sanitation and factories.

· Bee lining for Electronics delays the start of hospitals and factories.

· The combination of population growth and shield production lost by those delays is, it is alleged, larger by far than the cost of building coal and hydro plants.

· After you have factories, power plants are a short-turn build job

· Stock exchange builds are also delayed, with lost gold

· Navel technology lags, resulting in possible loss of control of important sea lanes

· Not building Hoovers saves the shield cost of Hoovers (what, 4 power plants?) or, when one is available, allows a leader to be used for something else. (Army)

This list was not encumbered by any calculation of actual facts. It’s just my hunch. Clearly, the lost shields and population are far smaller at the very high tech rate the Mongols are maintaining. Still, I wonder…….

[SpencerH]

The discussion so far (I'm assuming this is OK with Jshelr)

:from Jshelr:

there is discussion among the players about why you chose to go for hoovers before having industrialization or sanitation. if you would like to engage in a little academic chatter on the side, feel free to weigh in!

the claim is that the pop and shields lost by delaying those builds might outweigh the gain in shields due to not having to build coal plants. tech rate seems an important factor. also the lack of lux suggests sanitation is less important for this game.

:my response: "Which players would this be? "

I asked that out of curiosity. I was wondering whether other PBEM games had noted our progress.

:from Jshelr:

just Eli and I. he thinks your move was a good one and I'm questioning it. This is purely an academic discussion that will not affect the play in any way.

OK

First, one has to decide whether wonders in general have worth. For my style of SP game (builder) I believe they do. Therefore, I believe it is worth my while to also try to build specific wonders in MP (PBEM).

Next, one has to decide what wonders to build. My choices are based on having played civ1, civ2, smac/x at deity level and by my playing style. In SP games I want those wonders that will allow me to turn republic as early as possible and fight defensive wars i.e. Sistine and Bachs. All others are secondary to me, nice to have but no big loss if I dont. Now we know of course that there is no war weariness in PBEM which makes all of the wonders that prevent it virtually worthless. I consider this to be another failure by Firaxis to create a worthwhile MP game.

The only other wonder I actively try for is Hoover. Many players considered Hoover to be the most important wonder in earlier versions of civ (and I agree). I've never lost an SP game at any level in which I acquired Hoover. Civ3 has toned the importance of all wonders, but Hoover is still very important (but not critical) for late game success.

As to my choices of techs. Normally my choices are similar to what y'all have done (I assume) steam->industrialization->medicine->sanitation->Hoover->electricity->replaceable parts. That is for SP games though where the human player is the tech leader or 2nd. In that case, production i.e. factories and growth are the most important factors.

In this game I am not the tech leader, and most importantly, I will never be the tech leader unless your alliance is broken somehow (one of you may come to your senses ). Therefore my initial choice of steam->electricity->replaceable parts was based on a need for riflemen and guns in order to attack Eli.

The run for Hoover rather than industrialization-> sanitation was based on my estimation that the game would definitely be lost if Jshelr built it on his continent. Therefore, I had to prevent that. On my side was the fact that I have held a leader since middle middle-age for just this kind of race. I was very worried when you built Theory of Evolution because I thought you would build Hoover. Instead it looks like you were forced to go to replaceable parts to counter my offensive against Eli with my riflemen/ARTY (?). If that is what happened, I would say that it was probably the best choice from Eli's perspective since I certainly would have reeked havoc on his production but not from Jshelr's who probably would have built Hoover.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by jshelr
We were surprised by the Mongol’s tech direction and our scientists and economists are in disarray in the alliance.

Here is an outline of the Zulu case for immediate sanitation and factories.

· Bee lining for Electronics delays the start of hospitals and factories.

· The combination of population growth and shield production lost by those delays is, it is alleged, larger by far than the cost of building coal and hydro plants.

· After you have factories, power plants are a short-turn build job

· Stock exchange builds are also delayed, with lost gold

· Navel technology lags, resulting in possible loss of control of important sea lanes

· Not building Hoovers saves the shield cost of Hoovers (what, 4 power plants?) or, when one is available, allows a leader to be used for something else. (Army)

This list was not encumbered by any calculation of actual facts. It’s just my hunch. Clearly, the lost shields and population are far smaller at the very high tech rate the Mongols are maintaining. Still, I wonder…….

I'm not a bean counter type of player so my choices are based on experience rather than facts too. But heres a few

Cost of Hoover 800 shields
Cost of Coal plants in 40-50 cities 6400-8000 shields
Cost of upgrading some plants to Hydro 240*x
Cost of loss of production caused by pollution (especially if one only uses coal plants) --A LOT
Cost of aggravation caused by constantly moving workers all over to effectively counter pollution while not allowing them do stupid crap while at war --A LOT

Total value of Hoover --"priceless"

[jshelr]

Thanks for your framework. It's interesting how we make decisions in this game. It's simply too much trouble to do arithmetic on the fly all the time and we develop solid instincts through experience.

I always thought the value of Hoover's was basically to keep the AI from building it. If the AI leader fails to build it, they will not build power plants in every city anyway. That mistake by the AI creates part of a winning edge in single player.

However, human players will build power plants in every city, regardless. So, it really is a bean counter's story -- which way of getting power plants in every city produces the best overall result. If we take your 50 cities and finish factories in them (say) 25 turns earlier, what will the increase in shields produced be? If we have hospitals 25 turns earlier, will population growth be 150 citizens over that span, grinding out perhaps, 200-300 shields per turn and some gold? I don't know, but maybe I'll get off my duff and look into it.

An interesting perceptual difference: Pollution is not a problem, IMO, although it's a bit of a micro management pain. A stack of 15 or 20 workers will keep a full continent completely clear every turn, without lost productin, and Hoovers won't eliminate pollution anyway. (Am I wrong about lost production if you clean every yellow splotch that appears before the end of the turn?)

[Eli]

Sent.

[jshelr]

Sent, nothing to report