A Tale of Two Cities

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Theseus
Why not? Depends on whip timing, as we can grow back to max practical size pretty damn quickly given the food resources.

But we're lacking the Mines. That's why I'm saying that throwing in another Worker into the mix (instead of four cities ASAP) is probably better. 1000BC is not the ideal time to start thinking about Wonders...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Blake
I think this commerce-richness reduces the value of Oracle, after all commerce is "free" while we have to pay for the Oracle. (that statement is reversed in hammer rich commerce weak starts)

Another way of looking at it is the better we can research before the Oracle, the greater it's payoff in net Beakers. So in an absolute sense the Oracle is more valuable to the team with the best early tech rate, which I'm hoping (with this awesome start we have) is us.

I'm actually surprised no one has brought up the Oracle before now...

[notyoueither]

I have made a huge boo boo.

I was remaking the scenario with the correct civs. While looking for the civs I double checked the settings. We are on Prince, not Noble.

The hill has a health limit of 2 pop, not 3.

Does that make a large difference?

[nbarclay]

Ouch!!!! If our health limit is one lower, I think that convincingly shifts the balance of power to a FP start. (Or at least shifts it; I'm not positive about "convincingly.")

In remaking the scenario, have you accounted for the apparent forest tile just out of sight, within the radius of our flood plains blue circle?

[notyoueither]

No. Only things known.

Here it is, with zero contact and correct civs. I can get the Buddha in Timbuktu.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by notyoueither
The hill has a health limit of 2 pop, not 3.

Does that make a large difference?

Yes. The blue circle FP site should have a health limit of 5. That's a 3 food differential, or basically the equivalent of working a flood plain.

That in turn means that you're getting 1 extra hammer throughout the game at the cost of wasting an unimproved FP worth of growth and production at city size 5. Mathematically this is not a good deal.

We can EASILY make back the production differential if we're growing at 2 more food/turn at size 4 by whipping, not even taking into account the effects of a Granary (which will be enormous out of this start). The opportunity cost is an early Scout and some goody huts.

I say settle on the blue circle FP, accept the attendant military risk, and play for the long haul. In any case, if our capital is ever under direct under attack, we probably already screwed up badly enough to lose

[nbarclay]

Aginor, are you sure your health calculations are right? Remember, the difficulty level reduces health no matter where we build our capital.

With the test scenario and starting positions we've been using, we had six forests in our fat cross in a flood plains start, versus three on the hill start. Assuming I'm right about there being a grassland or plains forest that we can see only the fringes of, that would give us seven forests instead of six. Would that really give us a third health point advantage over the hill site?

On the other hand, even a two-point health advantage is a lot bigger if the base health level is one lower.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by notyoueither
No. Only things known.

I'm inclined to view the expectation of some kind of forest at 6-6 from the FP blue circle as sufficiently confirmed that it ought to be factored into the scenario. Actually working the tile in test runs might be a bad idea, but putting a forest there would give a more accurate picture of health, including the health implications of chopping.

[Blake]

I remain in support of the Hill.

We have so much food that the health is not really a big issue. For quite a long time we'll be ramming up against the happy cap. Play it. Yes there are green faces, but the hill city still grows in 2-3 turns from pop 4 through 6! The limiting factor for whipping is still the anger.

Also consider in that founding on the FP we do lose that FP, and "gain" a desert tile.

Playing the FP start I just can't seem to find a way to turn the health into a real tangible advantage. Some of the health can be soaked up by working mines, and that does work well at higher populations, but straight after a lash the FP start is inferior to the hill one.

Hill start just seems to have better synergy with lashing.

FP start is a lot better if we abstain from whipping and it does make for a somewhat stronger commerce capital and much better for specialists. Altough it has less hills and the hill city does have enough food to grow and work all of its mines in spite of the health problems so for like getting a wonder or something the hill city is stronger.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Aginor


Yes. The blue circle FP site should have a health limit of 5. That's a 3 food differential, or basically the equivalent of working a flood plain.

That in turn means that you're getting 1 extra hammer throughout the game at the cost of wasting an unimproved FP worth of growth and production at city size 5. Mathematically this is not a good deal.

We can EASILY make back the production differential if we're growing at 2 more food/turn at size 4 by whipping, not even taking into account the effects of a Granary (which will be enormous out of this start). The opportunity cost is an early Scout and some goody huts.

I say settle on the blue circle FP, accept the attendant military risk, and play for the long haul. In any case, if our capital is ever under direct under attack, we probably already screwed up badly enough to lose

Health in the two spots are:

hill: 5 over 4 at size 1, health limit at size 2

fp: 7 over 3 at size 1, health limit of 5

the hill gets more fp ill health and fewer forests

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Blake
I remain in support of the Hill.

We have so much food that the health is not really a big issue. For quite a long time we'll be ramming up against the happy cap. Play it. Yes there are green faces, but the hill city still grows in 2-3 turns from pop 4 through 6! The limiting factor for whipping is still the anger.

How?

After granery, right?

It's longer to get to pottery and bronze working.

[Blake]

Yeah after granary.

Hmmm. Not so sure anymore. I've been playing with the hill for a while so have a better strat for it.
Now I've come up with what I think is an equally good one for the FP.


The research path is:
Hunting->Myst->Med->Agriculture->Pottery->Bronze Working->Archery.

Grow to size 3, train a worker.
Mine the sheep. (we don't need health or food)
Mine the other hill (? maybe a farm would be better).
Grow to size 5, build a granary by working the mine(s).
Bronze Working completes, can now whip. Whip in a second worker.
Build a skirmisher while growing to 6 or 7.
Whip in a settler.

Mining the sheep seems to satisfactorly make up the hammer shortfall at the FP site. The sheep will ofcourse eventually get a pasture, but it's nowhere near high priority.

[Arrian]

Ouch. Health limit @ size 2. Brutal.

Man, this decision is even tougher than I figured it would be.

-Arrian

[Aginor]

Originally posted by Blake
Yeah after granary.

Hmmm. Not so sure anymore. I've been playing with the hill for a while so have a better strat for it.
Now I've come up with what I think is an equally good one for the FP.


The research path is:
Hunting->Myst->Med->Agriculture->Pottery->Bronze Working->Archery.

Yes! That's precisely the correct tech path out of this start. It gets maximum hammer production online ASAP and does not neglect defense for an overly long period. Have to admit that mining (particularly the Sheep!) like mad and building the Granary rather than whipping it would not have occurred to me.

Pottery confers a twofold advantage out of an FP start - the Cottages for commerce and the Granary for solving the hammer problem via Slavery. The sooner we get farming and whipping, the better. Then we can follow up with the Cottages to get something remotely resembling tech research going.

[Dominae]

Ah-ha! I knew the Health cap was lower (sorry nye, not trying to rub it in)...

When we speak of the "Flood Plains site" do we mean on our starting tile (2 of the current location), or 3 of the current location. I would favor 2.

Is it viable to crap the whip indefinitely? I'm guessing that it's not. Let's not get too attached to what we can do within the first 40 turns, we are playing for the long haul.

Blake are you using an updated sim with the difficulty set to Prince? Without using Cottages we might not reach all the techs we need in time.

In any case, if our capital is ever under direct under attack, we probably already screwed up badly enough to lose.

Not necessarily. If a team like Horde shows up with a few Chariots, they might make a play straight for our cap with little we can do to prepare for it. Being on a Hill would offer some insurance.