Operation: "Hanging Gardens"

[regoarrarr]

Man I was so close to being able to get enough food to grow back to size 4 on the turn we build the HG (117). I did test that if you get it so you're at size 3 with 1 turn to grow and 1 turn to the HG (so it says Pink Dot: 3 (1) Hanging Gardens (1) ), then it will grow you to 4 and then HG you right to 5 on the next turn.

Feel free to play around and see if someone can get it to happen.

ETA: After running some numbers, I'm pretty sure it is impossible.

We have 5 turns to do it (not counting the anarchy turn of 112). T111 where we can adjust our tiles worked to get various amounts of overflow. T113 where we'll be at size 6, and T114-116 where we'll be at size 3.

Here are the various amounts of (excess food, hammers) that we can get in the various configs

Overflow turn: (4, 7), (1,9), (2,8), (5,5)
Size 6: (7,8), (4,14), (3,15), (0,17)
Size 3: (6,7), (7,5), (4,8), (3,9)

The max food you can get and still get the 40 needed for the HG (250 - 90 whip - 120 chop) is 27. We need 29 - 3 to grow from size 5 to 6 and 26 to grow from size 3 to 4.

27 is (4,7) on the overflow turn (current config), (4,14) on T113 (grass forest at Size 6) and 2 turns of (6,7) - rice, cow, mine and the last turn the mine can be swapped to a grass forest. Though we may want to keep it on the mine to get double hammer overflow plus the commerce from the river mine.

I am going to revisit whipping the granary though. Whipping the granary and then double whipping the aqueduct. Maybe there. If you're lucky I'll reply to myself (again)

[regoarrarr]

Okay - we can do it if we want to spare one of the 3 workers that are on the forested wine.

He can spend T112 moving E-SE on to the road. Then T113: SW-SE-S onto the forested hill NW of Pink Dot. Then T114-116 chopping. That means we only need 10 out of Pink Dot itself (because we'll have 150 chopping and 90 whipping).

We can easily do this and make sure we grow back to size 4 to be HG'd up to 5. We might even be able to get away with only a double whip and still have enough to grow back to size 5 and be HG'd up to 6.

But alas it is my bedtime....

The only thing we need to decide THIS TURN (T111) is to cancel John's cottaging. There's no harm anyways - if we decide later to keep him cottaging we can always just cottage him again next turn.

[Swiss Pauli]

====
Plan #5 (HG on T117)
T111 (THIS TURN): John cancels his cottaging

T112: (anarchy) Syme moves SE-NE-NE to yellow and starts chopping (3t), Parsons moves N-NW-NE-E to blue, John chopping on red (3t)

This doesn't work, I'm afraid John has already moved on T111, and there's no road on red, so the chop on red will need an extra turn, meaning HG on T118.

EDIT: my mistake. John is already on red, so it might work. I'll re-test and post again.

[Swiss Pauli]

Right, I've re-run the test and rego is right: if John and Syme chop and we whip 3 pop and work the river mine, we get HG on T117

[mostly-harmless]

T117!!!! Thats amazing.
mh

[ruff_hi]

anyone watch the Rocky and Bullwinkle show? Remember some of the little skits between the various cartoons. Here is Bullwinkly ...

"Hey Rocky ... watch me pull a rabbit out of my sleeve"

[Bullwinkle then goes 'abracadabra' and pulls a Hanging Garden out of his sleeve]

"Ooo, don't know my own strength".

[regoarrarr]

Let's call it

Plan 6 (T117 with a size 5 pink dot)
Same as plan 5 except:
T112: Either Bernard Helmholtz or Winston (I think Helmholtz) moves E-SE onto the road
T113: HHoltz moves SW-SE-S onto the forested hill NW of Pink Dot
T114: HHoltz chops (3) - Pink dot at size 3 works the grass forest instead of the hill (along with the rice and cows)
T115: HHoltz chops (2) - grass forest still
T116: HHoltz chops (done) - grass forest still

T117: HG comes in and Pink dot grows from size 3 to 5, with 13/30 in the box.

Pros of this method:
25 overflow hammers
Pink Dot gains 4 extra food, plus the output of an extra tile for 2 turns (every time we grow)

Cons of this method:
1 less forest available later.
1-2 turn delay on one of the wineries.
3 less commerce due to not working the river hill.

To me this makes better sense.

We might be able to even slightly improve this - if we only double whip the granary, but it might involve a 2nd winery worker.

[ruff_hi]

rego - do you want to write up a complete list of required actions (worker movements and chops, PD tiles, PD builds, PD whips, etc) to get us the HGs by T117. That should make it easier for the turn player.

[Swiss Pauli]

Thanks for plan 6, rego, but I think you're trying to 'gild the lily'

I believe we should stick to plan 5, and look to improve tiles for our new citizens to work, rather than investing more worker turns at Pink: China Beach, Green Acres, and Mellow Yellow would all be working 1/2/0 tiles with their HG citizens. Fishy will surely whip something in between, so it shouldn't need improvement, and whatever land tile Cape Town works will be doubled, so no problem here. A1 & Pink are fine for improvements, and Saxon will add the 2-1-1 Silks to the Deer, so we can forget these cities.

[mostly-harmless]

Saxon the Beach's deer need improvement first (currently 2/0/0). Until then Silks and for example the lake tile.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Saxon the Beach's deer need improvement first (currently 2/0/0). Until then Silks and for example the lake tile.

mh

Useless barbs not improving tiles for us

[mostly-harmless]

Yes I am also puzzled what they have done. No builds, no workers, no units and a very late growth. must have worked a plain tundra tile!

mh

[Sullla]

Hey folks, lets not absolutely destroy Pink Dot in the process either. I would rather see us shoot for a T118 finish, and leave the city at size 6 or 7, then have us whip it into the ground just to finish on T117. Yes, I know it has the food to regrow quickly, but still! This city has amazingly good land, and we can run something like +4 food along with 15 shields per turn as constant values, then just keep adding more and more grassland river cottages as the city grows.

Anyway, I absolutely LOVE the work you guys have done, even the part where you made my math look bad. I should have said, no way to go faster without using the whip. I dont have the time to look at this in detail, I would just like to request that Pink end up somewhere around where it started. Can we have it finish at size 6 or 7, and still get the wonder out on T118? That is only 6 turns from now, after all.

I will commit to following whatever you decide upon, naturally! (Why does our team always come out of the woodwork for wonder optimization completion dates? Hehe. Now can someone try doing the same effort for an optimal plan of improvement at Something Fishy? )

[regoarrarr]

I will try to sim something out this evening. My thought is that each turn we get the HG earlier is 7 new tiles that we can work across the empire. Of course SP did point out that a lot of cities will be working unimproved tiles which give a net +1 after counting the food of the citizen that is working it.

[mostly-harmless]

Of course SP did point out that a lot of cities will be working unimproved tiles which

... so we either whip or hire scientists. :-)

mh