What happens after the war?

[snoopy369]

Not when you're being watched silly

Anyhow, this exploit isn't a horribly damaging one, and is something that's pretty widely known. I leave it up to you all to choose whether to use it or not. This question has been asked of me before, though I will not say by whom nor what they decided to do, nor how many asked

[Velociryx]

My computer died at home, so I'm not able to access 'poly, 'cept for here at work.

Anyways, with Snoopy's comment, I can't imagine a scenario where we SHOULDN'T take advantage of it....in the absence of knowing what other teams are doing, we must act in our own best interests, and this surely means proceeding with those plans.

Speaking of the plan, here are my concerns:

* We already decided against speed and in favor of suriety. If we wanted speed, we'd pop rush ourselves silly NOW, build up a force of axes needed to crush Vox and have done with it some fifteen hundred years quicker than with Catapults, so what's the rush? One of the advantages to this strategy is the safety. Another is that we can take our time at it.

* One of the chief selling points to the plan as initially proposed revolved around the idea of maximizing commerce in order to both speed tech and facilitate easier expansion. Clearly, this means taking immediate advantage of the two FP sites for the cash.

* There is a clear (ideological) emphasis on hammer preservation in preference for raw speed, and with this in mind, I see no particular reason to rush to spit out cats when we get the tech. What's our sudden hurry?

IMO, we should stick with the plan as originally sold....take our time, get the "core four" established, and kill them when we get the force for it. I don't know that, given our chosen strategy, there is much to be gained from hurrying.

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Agreed, given Snoopy's comment, full speed ahead on use of zero-hammer rushing for maximum advantage.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
Agreed, given Snoopy's comment, full speed ahead on use of zero-hammer rushing for maximum advantage.

Now that sounds more like true GS-spirit

DeepO

[DeepO]

Blake, if you simmed out the 3-city approach, when was the general eta on Construction?

That is, how many units are we probably going to build before we can build cats? Just to get a feel for our units, and what # of foes we're going to face while expanding.

DeepO

[Blake]

Construction is about 45 turns regardless of number of cities, I'm really not exactly sure how long it'll take because of discounts and stuff.

* There is a clear (ideological) emphasis on hammer preservation in preference for raw speed, and with this in mind, I see no particular reason to rush to spit out cats when we get the tech. What's our sudden hurry?

I don't think the tradeof is that clear. Vel, how it works is this. You can poprush a settler out to get city #2 faster, but that's at the expense of City #3 being slower. In terms of getting *everything* we want ASAP, it's best to maximize our hammers per turn.

The reason I think we should go in with 4 catapults is... why wait any longer? The sooner we take the voice, the sooner we have religion, the sooner we get the goldmines happiness. I believe that 4 catapults should be enough to turn The Voice into a total pushover, and how much easier do we need it to be than that? Poprushing, once we have a granary, is not at all expensive in a city like wines since it just regrows so fast, especially since we'll have gold to cover the happy hit. In effect we just grow it over caps to store up some hammers to, in effect, "prebuild" catapults, since pults are so much better than anything else before them.

Combat Sims!:
Typically 4 Catapults vs... say 10 archers goes like this.
Catapult #1 and #2 either die, retreat, or win. About 28% chance of winning.
Catapults #3 and #4 win, at about 50-60% odds.

At this point, an untrained Axeman has ~86% odds against the surviving battered archers.
Once the Axeme have taken down the toughest survivors, a skirmisher will have 90-95% odds against the remaining archers.

Catapults are just such murder on Archers.
Getting silly, if Vox train 16 archers (and a warrior, can't forget the warriors) - about 415h, then even then, 4 catapults, 4 axemen and 6 skirmishers (a force costing only 450h) will easily taken down the entire stack in 2 turns, sustaining probably only 3-5 losses. Axemen who win at 60% odds get 2exp, so next turn they are CR1.

Vox may as well just give up once catapults are on the horizon, because however desperately they try to cling to life, they'll still fail dismally.

[Blake]

Okay what I did was a what if sim:

What if we found Wines and Furs, grow EotS to size 6 (At 12hpt) and devote every hammer to units to crush Vox?

50 turns from now, this is the assembled stack, ready to roll out of Wines (in reality some units will be in choking):


I think you can probably agree that is overkill, since it weighs in at 490 hammers and in that time Vox wont be able to train more than about 350h of archer. I think we could quite easily spare 125h to found another city, OR, configure EotS for higher commerce earlier - I favor city. We probably can afford a 3rd worker too, probably after furs settler, to hook up deer.

The EotS max-comm setup is basically getting a granary and cottaging all the floodplains and turning it into a pure whipping pump. This however doesn't really pay off until we have atleast +3 happiness, and +4 is even better, unlimited (effectively +6) is better again. Once we get Monarchy we can whip with impunity and basically keep EotS working all floodplains + pasture sheep full time (for sick 9fpt surplus), whipping it for 3-4 pop everytime doing so wont result in non-workage of good tiles.

To give you some idea how powerful this comm-pump is, to grow 4 population (size 7, 8, 9, 10) costs 74 food, with a 9fpt surplus that takes 8 turns - which is 15hpt - from whipping alone. In other words, EotS can generate a settler every 6 turns (no overflow) or 8 turns (lots of overflow), this will allow us to quickly fill our landmass with cities and we'll ALSO have over 100 cpt from our floodplain cottages, so the upkeep simply isn't going to be an issue.

We have an amazingly strong position here.

So what I think we should do, is found our 3 new cities, then after EotS trains one catapult, get a granary (or combine these 2 as the same action) and start the whole whip-pump thing, as the needed happy sources will rapidly come on-line as we liberate the Gold and research Monarchy.

[Velociryx]

Got an early start today.

I don't think the tradeof is that clear. Vel, how it works is this. You can poprush a settler out to get city #2 faster, but that's at the expense of City #3 being slower. In terms of getting *everything* we want ASAP, it's best to maximize our hammers per turn.

I dunno...I think the tradeoff is a pretty clear one. We know that our Capital at max (current) size can generate 12hpt. We know that worst case (using it like a pop machine) it can generate a minimum of 6hpt (this, demonstrated by both of us in previous pages). Thus, the WORST CASE hammer loss in the Capital is 6hpt. That's the lowest the capital will ever get.

So the question is....can we do better?

And the answer is....absolutely.

Each new city we have planned (all three of them) will generate 6hpt minimum--the fur city may only be five...not 100% sure here...don't have the game pulled up--and in every case, they'll allow for more net total resources to be harvested from the turn of their founding, and in one particular case, they'll increase the happy cap, and the new cities can immediately begin working on Skirmishers and later, Axes/Cats (this being the other part of the "everything we want" equation).

So from turn one, we get more total resources and at least as many hammers per turn (this assumes that ANY pop rush in EoTS immediately results in hammers plunging from 12 to their minimum of 6...in reality, the drop off would not be so immediate or complete)....maximizing hammers (or total resources), in this case, is NOT accomplished by the path of greatest efficiency.

Again, I supported this position as originally sold....develop the "core four" and kill Vox at our leisure. If we were in a hurry, there was a faster approach on the table to use (one with a weighted chance of success of 89.8%, even with the nightmare scenario you outlined on page four of this thread...before taking into account any of the ways we could have enhanced the basic play).

All of the following arguments in favor of ending Vox quickly:

The sooner we take the voice, the sooner we have religion, the sooner we get the goldmines happiness.

I would agree with this, and all of these arguments were ones I used when I was pushing a speedy resolution for this war.

We chose not to do that, going for economic development instead.

So let's do that.

As I said earlier, the worst thing we could do is try to take a hybrid approach that doesn't wind up doing either particularly well.

Yes, we COULD build three cities and then hurl ourselves at Vox, but we get more mileage out of the core four plan as originally sold. That plays to the strengths of the plan we decided to go with (and, it plays to the local terrain).

If we're going to rush units, then we need to be rushing settlers and letting the spillover fund token garrisons, get the core four up with all possible speed (chops, pop till it hurts--and even before the first pop's unhappy penalty has worn off...granted, not much before, but still), and then be building troops (chokers) while the population recovers, and on the way to Catapults.

Once there, it's an easy matter to build what we need and end the matter, but our chosen path was economic development, not war with all speed, so...let's develop.

Let's find a way to get the core four established, even if it means a (slightly) slower attack. We've already committed to a slower attack...that was the point (or one of them) of choosing the more conservative approach!

-=Vel=-

EDIT: We could pop twice (before the first unhappy expires), and use chops to get all the basics we need (three token garrisons, a worker, and three settlers), and we could do most, if not all of that before we even get Pottery. We could be set up that quickly, and spend the time sailing from there to Construction letting the unhappy penalty bleed off and building the pop back (plus installing Granaries). In any case, since we've chosen this line of development, the right answer IMO, is settlers and their garrisons with all possible speed, while still attending to the choke at Vox (best accomplished by having our new burgs beginning Skirmishers right away, on founding, and possibly squeezing in a spare choker at some point from EoTS).

[Velociryx]

So what I think we should do, is found our 3 new cities, then after EotS trains one catapult, get a granary (or combine these 2 as the same action) and start the whole whip-pump thing, as the needed happy sources will rapidly come on-line as we liberate the Gold and research Monarchy.

I totally agree with this. Found three new cities, and I would add the phrase with all possible speed.

The short term hiccup in population is **nothing** compared with the exponential gains we'll reap, and those gains will be magnified with each turn we can shave off of the time to completion. The time to getting that fourth city planted.

The fastest way to achieve that is not to focus on maximal hammer efficiency in EoTS (what I have called "coddling our hammers"). This this instance, it's the total number of turns that counts, and not efficiency simply for its own sake.

Faster = whatever gets us four cities in the fewest number of turns, not what preserves the greatest number of static hammers per turn at the Capital, and we know that by founding additional cities, our net total resources harvested will be greater, as will our aggrregate growth. IMO, *ANYTHING* we can do to speed that process, even if it only speeds it by a single turn is worth giving serious consideration to, and we have the tools at our disposal to get two of the three settlers out almost immediately.

I think we should, given our chosen approach.

-=Vel=-

EDIT: In this case, we need three settlers, a second worker, and token garrisons. We could pop the capital all the way down to size one if it meant speeding that process along, and why not? It'll be size 4 and growing back to five in about the same timeframe we get Pottery (and most, if not all the unhappy penalty will be off by then too). That, combined with a few chops, and we're done. From there we just build chokers and infrastructure, kick back and rake in bucks from cottages until we get Construction, keep the choke pressure on and idle till we get the tech that the majority agreed to wait for.

[Blake]

EDIT: We could pop twice (before the first unhappy expires), and use chops to get all the basics we need (three token garrisons, a worker, and three settlers), and we could do most, if not all of that before we even get Pottery.

:boggle:
I guess you hae the luxury of not doing simulations :\.

EotS have 120h stored up in population.
EotS can generate 6hpt while being abused.
A worker generates 5hpt chopping.

Pottery will arrive in no longer than 14 turns.
In that time we could generate about 274h through full abuse.

Now, in 14 turns, we could generate 168h from 12hpt. okay that's not so cool? But we still have the potential 70h from chopping and 120h from population - 358h, and we also have the 14 worker turns spent doing other stuff.

Now simulations suggest through rampant abuse we get City #2 and #3 out 5 turns faster (both of them). Assume they generate 6hpt (which is fair enough) and together that's 60h. At that to the 274 and we have 334h. Which is 24h less than the total hammers we have available. (and no, in rampant abuse case, Eots has not regrown to size 5 after 14 turns of being rampantly abused)

Now in-game simulations basically back this up.

I do two strats, one is front-end whipping - whip the first 2 settlers asap (actually the first at size 4.9, the second at size 4, since grow to 4 then whip is an optimization), the other is tail end whipping - train first 2 normally, whip the final settler, for both, I chop. Then record the date cities get founded. I'm ignoring garrisons to keep it simple (but keep in mind skirm garrisons are much easier to train from real hammers than whip).

Front end whipping:
City 2: Turn 9
City 3: Turn 18
City 4: Turn 33

Tail end whipping:
City 2: Turn 13 ( -4 )
City 3: Turn 22 ( -4 )
City 4: Turn 25 ( +8 )

Now what happens, is we gain 4 turns at the first two cities, but then we lose those turns at the 4th city. Because after being ravaged, EotS cannot easily pop out a 4th settler.

Now the reason it turns out better to not whip is basically this... 60h (2 pop whip) in EotS is earning us income by working on improved tiles - good mines. 60h in a new colony, is working un-improved tiles and thus earning less income. Spending more time working the good tiles, is better. I say this logic can be extended indefinitely - it's better to actually never whip at all when you have mines and no granary.

This whole thing is getting tiring...
The reason to whip BEFORE a granary, is either as an optimiztion (on pure floodplain), or because time is of the essence - not just to give new cities a head start (while giving the capital a good setback), but because if you DON'T whip, you WONT get the city site at all - someone else will get it. And the idea is you pay for this advantage gained via the net hammer loss from whipping. In that way, whipping is balanced, at least pre-granary, you only want to whip mine workers when there is some time-sensitive factor external from production/growth. Thank god something about whipping is balanced.

In this case, there isn't. Our prime city sites aren't going anywhere because our only competition is getting choked.

Anyway this will be my last post on this debate, I hope because it's conclusive, but if not, just because I have better things to spend my energy on.

[Cort Haus]

Yes, I really think we should now trust the numbers from Blake's extensive and very thoroughly modelled simulations, rather than qualitative ideology.

[Velociryx]

Well...we've selected your strategy, so ultimately, we ought to let you run it your way (and you're right...I'm reduced to having to do this stuff all in my head, because my comp at home has died, and I'm writing only from work), but this, IMO, is not the fastest way to get the job done, and your own numbers bear that out (you can't "count" the hammers of population remaining in EoTS by NOT whipping, because you never actually convert them into hammers for any purpose--ie, they're either hammers or they're not...in your model, they're not, and as such, (unless you're an accountant for Enron) they cannot be counted--and if you leave them off, then your own numbers seem to indicate that the abuse method is some 140 hammers faster .

{{the actual numbers, again, drawing from your own posted data would be Abuse 334h, Stable 188h (which includes the 20h from the one chop you mean to do...you don't get 70h from this category for the same reason you can't count the 120h in pop...if they're not converted to hammers, then they're not hammers, and under your plan, you're chopping once), or 146h in favor of the Abuse method, which is the extra settler, a garrison, and 4h shy of another choker}}

Note that with population bounce back, Abuse is likely a smidgeon faster than what's reflected here, because of hammers recovered as population replenishes. (Essentially, under the stable hpt plan, EoTS "freezes" its pop at the happy cap, where the alternative regularly converts them into hammers and regrows....)

The only time working a mine provides a greater income is if that mine earns more than the marginal hammer conversion rate (5hpt). If we work a mine that generates fewer hammers, then the population point "gives us" more hammers by being sacrificed--MORE hammers, not less....important point-, and it's only less for the Abuse method (both at the margins *and* in total) if you intentionally count phantom hammers you never convert, which you clearly did in your example-- (the earlier discussed rate of 6hpt counts 1hpt from the city tile itself, which we get even at size one, so the marginal rate to compare against is actually one less, or five per turn). That's the benchmark.

I totally agree that the new cities with unimproved tiles earn less "income" (best case, at least where pure hammers would be concerned) would be a forested hill (3hpt), which is still less efficient than working an unimproved FP for the pop-sac (5hpt).

I'm not trying to annoy you by bringing it up, but.....I guess it's just an ideological difference.

I'll shut up and let you do it your way, though I must say that I thought these forums were designed for just this type of discussion (if not here, where?), and further, that as a team in a demo game, these sorts of discussions are rather the life blood of the process.

-=Vel=-

*** Footnote, detailing the math behind the two approaches (in answer to the charge that my position consists of merely qualitative ideology):

"Stable Hammers Approach" 14 turns to Pottery. 12hpt * 14 turns = 168h + 20h (1 planned chop) = 188h. Production till pottery:
1 Settler
1 Worker
1 Skirmisher (garrison - Skirm)
3h toward a second garrison - Skirm

"Abuse"
6hpt * 14 = 84h (raw production)
+ 120h (whipped hammers)
+ 70h (chopped hammers (5hpt * 14)
+ 60h (6hpt * 10, five turns faster founding, each city)

Total = 334h
Production (same timeframe)
2 Settlers
1 Worker
2 Garrisons (skirms)
24h toward a third garrison (skirm)

Edit #2:

Can’t believe I got up so early to drive to the office to make an edit that no one is going to care about, or probably even read…what can I say…I’m a total masochist. I’m also right, and since this is a demo game, and we are a team, even if nobody wants to listen I’m going to make the point again, another way.

Blake, post 43: Floodplains are the most overpowered terrain type in CIV.

And later (post 160) Spending more time working the good tiles, is better. I say this logic can be extended indefinitely

I absolutely agree, which is why I pushed for the Abuse method. It lets us spend more time working the best tiles we have….the Floodplains (to say nothing of its demonstrably greater hammer outputs…read above for specific details on how and why the Abuse method produces more hammers…no Enron-style accounting….just a quick look at hammers produced (which, at the end of the day, are the only hammers that count)).

For those interested in the history and background of the mechanism that is CAUSING the disagreement between he and I, it is, in my estimation, as follows: Blake’s preferred style of play revolves around a concept that was given voice (and a lot of play) back in the heyday of pen and paper RPG’s (Dungeons and Dragons, and the like). It’s called “Min/Maxing,” and mind you, the concept has been around a lot longer than pen and paper RPG’s, but this was the first time it ever really got tons of attention.

The concept is a pretty straightforward one, and quite powerful. In any given situation, you look for the solution that gives you the maximum gain for the lowest possible amount of risk. It’s an effective way to game. It relies on the notion of making fewer mistakes than the person you’re playing against (in this case, a mistake—from the perspective of a min/max player--would be anything that’s not done to min/max specifications). The trouble is that the min/max world has no explanation for how or why someone who does NOT use that particular approach is able to make a leap ahead of them. Typically, these results are shrugged off and attributed to the other player getting a lucky break (blame it on the RNG). In fact, while this is sometimes the case, it is not the case every time (or even in most cases). Oftentimes, by taking a calculated risk, you can reap benefits that far outweigh the relatively small measure of risk you took, and thus, see your position greatly improved over what the min/maxer’s gains will be, simply because that player is so focused on the min/max concept that anything falling outside the parameters of it will automatically be treated with suspicion, if not outright contempt, and will be fought hard against.

As I said, I understand the mindset. I use it myself sometimes. I also like to explore other possibilities. Sometimes, min/maxing is the right play (especially true in a tense, exceptionally close contest, like a closely fought war between two equal, or near-equal titans….obviously not the situation we’re currently in). Sometimes it’s not. Hopefully, as a team, we can benefit from both approaches when it is appropriate to do so. The only way this will happen, however, is if both parties agree to discuss the issues, despite their disagreements (ie., it doesn’t work if one side or the other throws a hissy fit and puts his fingers in his ears…but if both parties are willing to get behind whatever plan the team decides to run with, it can create an environment where victory is a foregone conclusion).

I’m Shutting up again and going to an art festival this morning. Because I’ve been at ground zero of what could potentially turn into a rift in the team, and because that would be detrimental TO the team, I’m bowing out for a while, and will leave you guys to it. Everybody else seems to be more or less on board with the min/max approach anyway, so there will be markedly less disagreement, which is good.

-v.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Blake
What if we found Wines and Furs, grow EotS to size 6 (At 12hpt) and devote every hammer to units to crush Vox?

50 turns from now, this is the assembled stack, ready to roll out of Wines (in reality some units will be in choking):


I think you can probably agree that is overkill, since it weighs in at 490 hammers and in that time Vox wont be able to train more than about 350h of archer. I think we could quite easily spare 125h to found another city, OR, configure EotS for higher commerce earlier - I favor city. We probably can afford a 3rd worker too, probably after furs settler, to hook up deer.

This looks like an excellent plan.

Let's go for the overkill, if possible... Who knows what Vox is going to try. If we can put a few more chokers in the field rather soon, excellent.

The whole discussion on what way gets us there fastest doesn't really matter. Now that we're going for cats, we've got the time. I lean more for taking perhaps 1 or 2 turns longer, but in a better position to profit later on.

So 4 cities, perhaps even a 3rd worker for cottages and roads, no popping to the death and no super commerce setup either. If we can, we should try to minimize the happy hit, to not tax our future too much. When alone on our continent, we're going to need the research soon enough.

Which brings us back to the original question: what happens after the war?

DeepO

[Krill]

Now I'll really piss off Blake...why no barracks, placing Barrage/CR on the cats and CR on the axes?

And why only 4 cats? would not waiting for a few more cats mean that we need fewer axes for the final invasion? Would waiting just a few more turns for a few extra cats to stop any freak RNG results not be prudent?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Blake
50 turns from now, this is the assembled stack, ready to roll out of Wines (in reality some units will be in choking):

Thanks for the sim; more Cats please.