What happens after the war?

[Velociryx]

Oh Lord...I can't seem to resist this topic! Apologies to any who take offense at the continued discussion, and please understand that I'm not trying to change any minds at this point (the decision has already been made, and I fully accept that!)....but rather, am keen to continue the discussion for its own sake, and purely for the enjoyment of the topic!

Ennet...man, you are soooooo almost on the same page I'm on that it's not even funny! I mean we're just INCHES apart. And, your reply has shed some light on where I'm going wrong in my explanations.

To set the stage, let us agree to use your numbers, and first, let me acknowledge that yes....in terms of hammers generated from now to the end of the game, the stable hammers approach DOES generate nominally more hammers (13, using your own suite of numbers). That's very true. Now, you may be surprised at that admission, but bear with me and I'll attempt to explain why Abuse is a superior approach.

Let us begin with the acknowledgement that pop rushing generates its hammers in big sized chunks....large bundles, if you will. As such, on the turn that the (2-point) pop is executed, the Abuse methodology shoots ahead in total hammer counts, yes? (turn one, abuse method generates 60h from the pop, +1h from the capital = 61h, while the stable approach generates 12h), and it is precisely this mechanism that enables the five turns faster founding of the cities we want and need, yes--ie., it will take the stable hammer approach slightly more than five turns to generate this same volume of hammers.

If you're with me so far, then the next thing is to ask yourself what our current situation is, and what our goals and needs are. In my mind, I define those three parameters as follows:

Goals: Research Construction with all possible speed (our chosen methodology for dealing with Vox = Catapults).

Needs: The "Core Four" established as quickly as possible (four cities to enable us to carry out this fight and execute a dominating win).

Current situation: We are at war. Worse, we just found a third Civ on the continent with us, and we do not know what their affiliations may be. Because of this, and because of the fact that we cannot control them, we need maximal flexibility to respond to whatever they throw at us.

So my next question is....are the above a reasonable assessment of the current situation as you understand it? If yes, read on! If no, then we probably need to delay further discussion until we come to some agreement on the above.

Assuming you're still with me, the next question to ask is: How can we go about securing all of the above goals in the fastest possible timeframe?

The answer lies in a combination of pops and chops. Imagine yourself at the start of a new game of civ. You've started with Mysticism and want to grab one of the earliest religions. You have a choice between working a Flood Plain for maximum growth, or a wine tile that can net you more commerce over the short run, but at a price of less food.

Clearly, working the FP tile will help you more in the long term, but IF you do that, then you run the risk of losing that crucial first tech (and the prize that goes with it), so your optimal choice is to maximize commerce in the short run, grab the prize, and then start to grow. It doesn't matter that over the course of the game you'll generate slightly less food....your horizon is shorter than that.

The same principles that inform the answer to the situation above also work here (except that we're focusing on hammer counts rather than food), and in this case, our "prize" is flexibility and commerce in a 14 turn window, Abuse is ahead on total hammer counts (because of the aforementioned mechanism...it is mathematically IMPOSSIBLE for the stable hammer approach to produce more hammers by turn 14--which is the benchmark we were using cos that's when we get Pottery, and my original statement was that we could get ourselves mostly set up before we got that tech). If it were possible for the stable approach to be ahead on hammers at this point, then the Abuse method would not be able to churn out those cities five turns faster, each.

Now...what if I told you I knew a way to eliminate the (already minor) hammer difference between the two approaches? That is to say, what if we could have our cake and eat it too? Get ourselves set up fast, and not lose any hammers in the process (in fact, gain hammers slightly)?

We can, simply by chopping the two new forest tiles that come into range (inside our borders) when we get the expansion that also brings copper into the fold. That's 34 hammers worth of production just sitting there...free for the taking . More than enough to offset the nominal total hammer difference (17h per tile without changing the health equation at the Capital, which offsets the 13h loss you mentioned, and gives us 4 extra hammers besides)--thus completely eliminating the downside and leaving us with nothing but profit, in the form of production flexibility and faster research toward Construction (a total of 20 from Wines--extra commerce for the city tile--and 15 from FP2 = 35 beakers closer to our goal), AND all this before we get pottery (at which time, our worker is going to be terribly busy with cottages, which will pay larger dividends than chopping trees).

So if we can gain greater production flexibility faster (and the option to produce three things simultaneously is surely more flexible than only being able to produce one)

And if we can counter act the (very few) lost (total) hammers in some way,

And if we accept that 1c has a greater value than 1h (in general this is true, but in our case, I would argue that it is especially true, since our war is basically stalled out until we get Construction...and the fact that we've got plenty of hammers, but not really so much in the way of commerce)

Then Abuse is your clear winner in that it meets our goals, needs, and addresses the current in-game situation in the fastest timeframe, and not only that, but in a strategically vital timeframe as well....Pottery is one of our pivotal techs.



-=Vel=-

[Blake]

Vel, I don't mind discussing this, and I'm sincerely happy to see you have decided to not be a drama queen .

I think what you are missing here though - is the impact on EotS.

Whipping 2 population in EotS, accelerates Wines development by 4 turns (I think it's 4, because a whip always fulls the hammer bar, so the final turn of prouction is "Wasted" when it coems to getting that build out faster). Okay so wines is accelearted by 4 turns. But EotS?
To grow to size 4, working floodplains only (+5f, +1hpt), costs 26 food, requires 5 turns. Growing to size 5 (+4f, +5hpt) costs 28 food, requires 7 turns.
So EotS is set back by 7+5 = 12 turns.

Basically what happens is we "gain" 4 turns in Wines and a couple turns in Furs, at the expense of 12 turns in EotS and a couple of turns in FP2 (because EotS will be in no fit state to pop out a 3rd settler in any reasonable time span).
Popping, in terms of city development, is actually outright horrible.

I hope you don't mind me going into an analysis of the unique care needed for floodplain cities.

I'm going to compare two types of city: A pure floodplain city, with a city with Grassland Pigs and grassland.

PIGS CITY:
To grow from size 3 to size 4, costs 26f, with the 6f surplus that takes 4.33 turns.
To grow from size 5 to size 6, costs 30f, with the 6f surplus it takes 5 turns.

The growth curve of a pigs city is diminishing - when it comes to whipping, it's quicker to regrow population than grow new population.


FLOODPLAINS CITY:
To grow from size 3 to size 4 costs 26 food, with 5f surplus it takes 5.2 turns.
To grow from size 5 to size 6 costs 30 food, with 7f surplus it takes 4.3 turns.

The growth curve of a floodplains city is increasing - it's quicker to grow new population than to regrow killed population.

When you are interested in maximizing hammer gains, with a Pigs City you want to whip it immediately - since the lower population levels regrow faster than later ones
But with a floodplains city, you want to grow new population (Say into unhappiness) then kill the new growth - that is how you maximize hammer yield from whipping in a FP city.

You cannot optimally use the same whipping strategy for both city types.


Now things do change with a Granary somewhat, since growth is so damn fast that the limiting factor is anger, you can afford to more aggressively lower the population of a floodplains city.

The goal when whipping should always be to have the city completely regrow the lost population and be back at the happy cap in exactly 10 turns - that is how you maximize production and minimize the cost of the lost worker (since when you whip, you do lose the yield of one worker - that is the price you pay for food:hammer conversion).

Food:Hammer conversion is an important concept.
A plains hill mine converts 2f to 4h, using 1 pop. A grassland hill mine converts 1f to 3h, using 1 pop.
Training a worker/settler manually converts 1f to 1h using no pop.
Whipping without a granary is approximately 1:1, at the pop-time cost of the time needed to regrow the pop (ie the time the pop doesn't exist).
Whipping with a granary is approximately 1:2, with a halved pop-time cost compared with no granary.

For example, take a city with no granary, at size 6, and it can work a desert hill mine (3h) : that's a 2f:3h conversion at the cost of 1 pop-time/turn. If you were to simply whip that 1 pop, you get 30h, regrowing (30f, 2fpt) requires 15 turns - so the whip converts 30f to 30h, at the cost of 1 pop-time for 15 turns.

It turns out - that turn advantage aside - it's better to work the desert mine, since you get a 2:3 conversion per turn, rath than 2:2 conversion per turn. But as we know, killing more population reduces the pop-time cost.

For example the same city, with 4f surplus, working TWO desert hill mines. This is 4f:6h at the cost of 2 pop-time/turn.

Whipping that pop yields 60h immediately.
The 4th pop grows in 7 turns (28f, 4fpt). The 5th pop grows in 15 turns (30f, 2fpt).
The total duration is now 21 turns.
We get 60h, 45h from the desert hill worker = 105h total.

105h in 21 turns.

In comparison, not popping, yields 21 x 6 = 126h.

Now... that's killing population on desert hill mines... rubbish tiles... but they still provide a better f:h conversion service than whipping w/o granary does. A granary would obviously reduce the duration to 10.5 turns and the whip, still providoing the full 60h, clearly comes out ahead.

I actually havn't shared my "pop-time/turn" "food:hammers conversion service" analysis method before... mainly because it is pretty complicated and hardcore... it is however an EXTREMELY powerful method to meainingfully compare different means of production - mines - whip - draft, etc.


Anyway... this does have a point.

Mines provide a FANTASTIC food:hammer conversion, if all you want to do is generate hammers, then mines can't be beat. Whipping is invariably the commerce option, since you can work high-commerce tiles like grassland/floodplain cottages.

I wish to remind you that the original sims done on whipping had a simple assumption:
That we would get pottery early.

That had two important ramifactions:
1) A granary, doubling the power of whipping.
2) A choice between mines OR cottages.

However, where we ended up, is a position where we don't have a granary (half powered whipping) and our worker's only option was building mines.
As such we've ended up in a situation where we have the powerful Food:Hammer conversion service of mines available, rather than the slightly less powerful (but much more commercial) cottages + granary option.

Another thing, is that my original whipping sims assumed Hinduism happiness and sheep pasture. Returning to the growth curve of a floodplains city - getting up to size 6 rather than size 5, quite dramatically reduces the time to regrow killed population, because of the increasing growth curve of a floodplains city.
However in reality it turned out some *****es stole our happiness (now there's a good quoteable reason to go to war...), leaving us with a rather more puny happy cap of 5. Since whipping was not looking attractive any more, we wound up mining the sheep - since we wouldn't need the health anyway, being unable to grow to size 6.



Wheee.... that's long.

Okay chopping. I don't have a problem with chopping. However, the here's the real (ie non enron) accounting. We have this copper to mine and road. This has to be done some time.
Our choices are basically:
Chop now, Mine later, cottage much later.
vs:
Mine now, cottage later, chop much later.
Or the poor (IMO):
Chop now, cottage later, mine much later.

Having copper mined is comforting, so I think we probably want to do that before cottages.

The advantage of chopping much later, is that the chop yield gets increase from +16 to +24, by mathematics, which is very much on our target list. I feel that the mathematics effect is enough to largely offset the turn disadvantage of getting the hammers later - a 50% boost is not to be sneezed at.

This is not something I feel strongly about however, I feel vehemntly that whipping EotS is just plain dumb, daft, foolish, poorly concieved, self-destructive (etc etc). Chopping however is one of those tradeoff things - we have scarse worker turns to be allocated between a number of tasks, at some point in the future chopping becomes +50% more powerful, ya de da. It is not so clear-cut what the best option is.
I think the best option will be to mine the grassland hill, chop *one* of the border forests and then mine the copper, that should get finished slightly after pottery research, so we wont waste *much* cottage time.

I firmly believe that time spent improving cottages is worth more than the 4hpt from chopping - a floodplain cottage requires 5 worker turns and produces +3c (lets call it that, from future-growth) ever after. If you chop for 15 turns, you would get 60h total - 4hpt for that duration. But if instead you made 3 cottages, you would be up by a permament +9cpt, and with any reasonable hammer:commerce exchange rate, +9cpt forever is better than +4hpt for a little while.

I doubt my mind can be changed on cottages vs chopping - those numbers are pretty conclusive. As such we only have a short window of oppurtunity for low-yield pre-mathematics chops, namely until pottery. The grassland mine pays off quickly - it costs 4 worker turns, it produces +1hpt (3 turns of this produces the settler 1 turn faster) and +1cpt. In order for that to equal a chop, it is nessecary to run for 16 turns - we'll call the 16 free commerce equal to the turn disadvantage from getting the hammers over 16 turns, instead of all at once.
The copper mine... well we need that. I know we have skirmishers. But Axemen are comforting and they are so much better to whip than Skirmishers (Zeroh-poppable and all). THe copper requires 4 turns of road and 4 turns of mine.

Total time is:
3 turns GL chop.
4 turns GL mine.
2 turns GL road.
2 turns copper road.
4 turns copper mine.

Our worker is busy for 15 turns... about the same time as ETA to pottery.

I think to find some extra worker turns for chopping is going to involve enron accounting - it'll be at the expense of other important things rather than free hammers.

On ideology - I'm convicned that this is all a numbers issue, not ideology. I suppose that might be my ideology - that the optimal, painstakingly calculated solution is better than a heurestical solution based on past experience. However I'd call that logic rather than ideology.

I go sleep now....
(And at some point we have to post some of this stuff to the general strategy forums because it's truly fascinating)

[Ennet]

I'm not arguing that it is the best way, yet. Also no offence taken, discussion is good, at least I learn something from it.
Which approach we want to take again yes would be dependant mostly on our goals.
Just a few things, the chops can work for either approach, but i think you counted on that as. Also I'm not sure a chop would be beneficial at all, the worker turns involved vs what improvements we can build.. we want to road 1 and 1-2 of EotS so that we'll get the happy from the fur city once it is founded, we want to road and mine the copper, we want to build some cottages and we want to road east to wines. The last not giving any commercial advantage but a tactical one.

Back to topic The hammers and commerce gained from the second will be delayed so they wont have the chance to affect the pottery research, starting at -5(which is lost from the capital being smaller in size) gaining 4 commerce per turn for 5 turns -1 maintainance so 15 commerce, then the non-abuse player would settle. The last 5 commerce isnt gained until after reaching size 2. Hammer gain would not be more than the initial 5 until the city hit size 4 so difference is even smaller there.

Timewise it will take 6 turns to catch up and pass production in the capital with the non-abuse method, unless the next build there is either a settler or a worker, in which case it will take longer.
A settler will take 3 turns more to produce, 2 if there is a little overflow, which i am counting on, with the abuse method, but it will start 5 turns earlier, so there is infact a gain of 3 turns. (if the non-abuse method will have enough overflow a turn will be cut there aswell, but i think it was going to hit 100 prod exactly so im not counting on it)
Note that an additional 2 commerce and 3 hammers are lost in the capital per turn in this case with the abuse method. (for the build which will take 11 turns)

City 3 will from what we know cap on size 3 with 5 hammers & 4 commerce -maintainance for 3 turns extra. (<-Unimproved) True the copper will surely be mined before that, however I'm not sure wheither it will be mined before or after the city is settled, if after the abuse method will not gain as many extra hammers as it will be worked for the same period of turns in both cases. (Gaining 1 extra food from another 3 turns + some extra hammers from earlier growth)
In the case it is finished before the city is founded i think there will be a gain of a total of 12 hammers for the abuse method. Now we come to something intressting, if the road connecting the two rivers is finished both the capital and the wine city will be able to grow 1 more population.
Now in the capital, this is a little complicated, the abuse method won't gain anything from this, it is 3 turns ahead yes - but 9 turns behind in growth. As it only takes 5 turns to grow to size 6, and the non-abuse method is being 3 turns after + another 3 to found the city, the actual gain is 5 turns at size 6. Unimproved this is only another commerce or hammer per turn, whichever you like. And our worker would obviously not have enought time to improve all the tiles until the abuser grows to 6.
In the wines city the abuse method is 5 turns ahead (city3 being founded 3 turns earlier won't matter as the wines city wont have finished growing by then anyway). So the gain will be another tile for 5 turns. Unimproved that tile will only add another commerce per turn, and any busy worker won't have had time to improve all the tiles.
So in either case there wont be a direct gain by either of the growths vs the other. (If either want to pop-rush there will be a slight gain in turns however in that particular city)

I think the non-abuser will be able to finish the skirmisher in production without losing a turn on the second settler due to overflow. The abuser can't poprush at size 3 as that would be ineffient, growing to size 4 would take 5 turns, eliminating the turn advantage but gaining 5 throught the whip, and finaly losing one turn due to slightly lower hammer + food yield. Gaining 4 turns instead of 3, the shortened time wont be beneficial as again, the fur city will not generate much, and the loss from the capital having to grow back from size 2 would be greater.

A lot of possibilities all in all, so hard to calculate everything. I might take a deeper look at the numbers later, to enhance my argument as it is a little unsupported at the moment. However if you do not build another settler or worker in some turns the advantage may be small or non-existant. (Again the non-abuser will gain a 2.3turn advantage in the capital, so waiting further, any new settlers will be faster with that method.)

It's been a fun discussion, so dont worry. This argument has some holes in it as i've put toghether it in my mind and not on paper..

[Ennet]

to blakes analysis

[Velociryx]

Blake, I agree with nearly everything you posted in your last post.

I suppose it comes down to what how much you value the benefits we gain from the faster cities (which relates directly back to Ennet's latest comments about it all being a matter of priority). IMO, those benefits FAR outweigh the (nominal) cost, since we can make up that cost in other ways. Your methodolgy revolves strictly around counting hammers, and IMO, that does not give us the complete picture, and THAT is where it becomes more than a simple matter of the numbers and moves into an ideological difference, because I believe we could turn those 5-turn faster cities into a compelling edge over the competition, even if the ONLY edge winds up being turning some of our plentiful hammers into commerce (via the gains by the faster city founding), and a faster, more flexible production suite....but again, that assessment is absent from the hammer counting approach, and is one of the main reasons why you've seen me rebel against it.

It's got nothing to do with me doubting that you're an efficient player...I know very well that you are...

Specifically, it has to do with the fact that counting hammers isn't the only, and in some cases, not even the best way of measuring total productivity.

I attempted to make that case in a number of ways and seem to have failed miserably (in as far as the team opted not to go with the notions I was pushing)...but I have, and continue to enjoy talking about these notions in theoretical terms, and am quite pleased to see that you're more open to continuing the discussion now than you were the other day...(and for the record, it was never about me being a "drama queen" (which is a strange and amusing notion, I must admit!), but more about me not wanting to piss you off....you do so much for us as a team, and it seemed as though I was genuinely antagonizing you...so that's what I was seeking to avoid.

-=Vel=-

EDIT: And re: heurestics and past experience, I would contend that the greater bulk of strategic discussion that occurs--both on this board and elsewhere is based on these, and that the bean counting we do "behind the magic curtain" is a) generally in support of the above and b) usually drawn down to the tactical level...it is rare that whole strategies are based on bean (or hammer) counting.

[Ennet]

Yeah it's mostly about priority, and as they also put us in different situations its dependent on our plans. Vel is right in that commerce in itself might be more important to us than the same(slightly less even) amount of hammers. Founding one new city, that may be the best way to go.
Question is how rapidly we want to found these new cities? And what other things we want to build. It's not only a trade with hammers vs. commerce but a relocation of hammers aswell. 43 hammers are lost in the capital but 30 are gained in the wines city. (But a turn of research is lost with the non-abuse method)
The capital hammers will be paid back fastest, this is nearly 2 skirmishers or 43% of a settler, on the other hand, 30 hammers invested in a granary or something else enhancing growth in city 2 is well spent, but will also be paid back slower.
Also as I tried to point out in my above post, but that might not have been very clear, the abuse method become inefficient if we want to build another settler/worker quickly as we get stuck on lower commerce and hammers in the capital for longer. The fur city will also bring back less hammers and commerce to the capital for a shorter period of time as it will be capped at size 3. Therefore it will repay less of the spent resources from the capital, which will also be in no state to produce the third settler.

[Blake]

(and for the record, it was never about me being a "drama queen" (which is a strange and amusing notion, I must admit!), but more about me not wanting to piss you off....you do so much for us as a team, and it seemed as though I was genuinely antagonizing you...so that's what I was seeking to avoid.

Just to set things clear. I'm a very hard person to annoy. I was literally just - tired . Since at the moment I'm spending every moment of my free time working on the AI

After this post, I'll leave the team forums for a time, however, since I do not want to be seen as an antagonizing force (and it's clear that I've already started down that road...sorry Blake ). The team doesn't need that.

*anytime* someone says they'll leave, they are being a drama queen . IMHO. Harsh, maybe, but I'm sure you understand why I feel like that way.
I do know it's very out of character for you to do - even say - something like that.


Anyway, moving on to the hard strategy (which is more fun) - yeah I know I'm being a hyopcrite by continuing to post on the subject when I said I wouldn't, but I like to get my thoughts down on "paper" to help solidify them, as long as I have those thoughts bouncing around I'll turn them into a post. That's how it goes (or: I can't argue with my brain, it's in charge up here...).

Question is how rapidly we want to found these new cities? And what other things we want to build. It's not only a trade with hammers vs. commerce but a relocation of hammers aswell. 43 hammers are lost in the capital but 30 are gained in the wines city. (But a turn of research is lost with the non-abuse method)

See the "lose hammers in capital, gain in secondary city" thing should raise a red flag, because concentration of hammers is good, it's better to have a complete build in one city rather than several incomplete builds.

If we were only going to found 2 cities, I'm honestly not sure whether whipping the capital would be best to do or not. It probably would be, I think.
But for sure, we want to found more than 1 new city, we want to train 3 settlers along with garrisons and an extra worker (Atleast) For this massive construction task (435h - the city only has 120h total in whippable pop), nothing beats a concentrated stream of hpt.

Note that if our target City #2 was a "Pigs" city I would be much more ammendable to whipping out the settler, because a "Pigs" city is immediately much more productive than a floodplain city. A floodplain city is always a longer term investment because of the growth curve which means it's more productive at larger sizes (funny that a pigs city is actually more productive when smaller, at least if it's production you want...). The gains from a FP city are extremely discounted - huge in the long run, next to none in the short run, the idea of founding one to assist in a rush is almot nonsenscial, for rushing purposes a FP city is barely better than one working grassland forest. (further down I confront the "well if it's a long term investment, we should invest asap at any cost")

In a way I almost wish we had Animal Husbandry because then we could found a cows city and cows are a good tile for booming expansion. 4 worker turns and the city is ready to spit out stuff (for example with plains cow the city can grow to size 3 then work grassland mine and plains mine and produce sustained 10hpt).

But the FP city requires much more investment and care, most importantly, it requires a lot of worker time, but it's really quite poor at training workers, due to having a very small food surplus when founded (compare 3fpt in floodplain city, with 6fpt in pigs city).


Furs city isn't any better - once founded it pretty much provides a permament 6hpt which never increases much. There's no growth curve to look at - just how quickly it can turn that 6hpt into a useful build. The happy effect isn't useful until we have +1 health. So it's meaningless to look at the "progress" Furs makes in development.

I mean look at whipping a Furs settler, from size 5, for 2 pop.
Furs is then founded 5 turns faster, in that time it generates 6hpt, a total of 30h in furs. Oh heck, call it 7hpt to account for food. 35h in furs.
But EotS is set back by 12 turns, for 4 of those turns it generates 1hpt (-11hpt) for 7 turns it generates 5hpt (-7hpt), a total of 112h - we deduct the 60h gain from the whip, 52 h.

Whipping Furs settler:
+35 h in Furs.
-52h in EotS.

I think it should be extremely obvious that it is not in our best interests to whip a furs settler when we can train it at 12hpt. Not only do we lose net hammers, we also lose hammer concentration where it matters most.

Remembering that a Floodplain City starts out at only 3fpt I think it should also be quite clear that a FP city is not fantastically more profitable than Furs - in the long run it will be, but those gains are discounted. As such much the same logic works for the time of founding a FP city.


Due to the early weakness of FP cities and the non-growth of Furs, it's all up to EotS to do the heavy lifting in this empire building and that's why it's valid to count the hammers coming out of EotS.

We can also look at this from an economic perspective.
Imagine you want to make an investment which will earn 8% pa compounding. For you, it's a long term investment. Imagine you are given this offer:
You can make the investment next year, for any amount of money.
Or you can make it RIGHT NOW but this incurs a 25% fee.

So imagine you have $1250, you have the choice of spending it in one of two ways:
Invest $1250 next year, at 8% pa.
Or invest $1000 now, at 8% pa, and paying a $250 "express processing" fee.

Now to decides it's simple to just look at what we would have next year. If we wait, we have $1250 at 8%, if we don't wait, we have $1080 at 8%. Clearly, it's not worth the fee to accelerate the process.

This is almost exactly what the situation is with whipping here, paying extra to start on a long term investment a little earlier. Just because it's a long term investment, doesn't mean it's worth paying much extra to start it earlier.

In CIV terms, in some cases it would be like this:
This is a one-time offer only - you pay a $250 express processing fee and you get the exclusive 8% pa investment ! But if you don't pay the fee, you'll be stuck with a 6% pa investment - it's the case where there's one clearly superier city site, contested by multiple players.

This isn't one of those cases. If Vox trains a settler and trys to steal one of our city sites, we bumrush them off the map so quickly they wont know what hit them. It is in fact in our benefit for them to try.

[Velociryx]

At another borrowed computer (damn but I hate that my comp at home is DOA)

Before I touch on strategy (which will be brief...I've got nearly an hour's drive to get home, and then work in the morning), let me say yes...my reaction to your reaction WAS unlike me...but then, your reaction itself was unlike you, which I guess is what triggered the non-characteristic response (anyone who says that this whole thing is getting tiresome and then vows not to respond about the matter further is sending a rather clear message, IMO, tho I am pleased to see now that it was born out of weariness and not genuine anger)...

Specifically, my response was born from the facts that:

1) Before anything else, I consider myself to be a team player.

2) The team opted to go with your strategy instead of mine.

3) My continuing to talk about my proposals seemed to be ticking you off

4) Nobody can execute your proposals better than you

so...given the above, it was my duty as a good member of the team to make myself scarce so you could focus. Drama didn't figure into my thinking....strategy did.

Anyway, now that we've had our chick flick moment...onward!

So...strategy.

I have to say I disagree with the assessment. In this particular instance, hammer concentration is unnecessary. Why? Because we're not really going to war until we get catapults. We're not getting catapults till we get construction, and construction is a LOOOOOONG ways off. In the meantime, we need 25 hammer Skirmishers dribbled out however fast we can build them.

Somewhat later on, we need a few axemen...actually, we don't. We're relying on Catapults to so wreck the opposition that we could likely walk in and kill them with Warriors, so even if we never hooked up our copper, we should be just fine when zero-hour comes.

What we NEED is cities, and we need to give those cities time to grow.

By rushing through the first two by whatever means necessary, we get them planted and give them time to grow, and so what if the furs city is behind the curve? Almost instantly it gets the same hammer counts, and it provides it's +1 happy at the moment we need it (by rushing the first two out the gate, we give them time to grow sufficiently that we'll be glad to see the arrival of furs, which should be nearly perfectly timed.

In the meantime, we have three FP cities with slowly increasing growth bonuses and can snap out a skirmisher if and as needed (and in the meantime, save on maintenance costs until those cities are a little more mature.

Not to mention that two new FP cities five turns sooner translates into size four cities in the same # of turns that FP cities founded the slow way reach size 3.

So if we're not fighting until we get catapults, and if that isn't for another 45 turns or so, and we can build cheap chokers in the meantime, then we really don't need hammer concentration until closer to construction, and in the meantime, we can speed ourselves along to that path and time it such that we re-gain hammer concentration when it is actually needed.

Until it is, why not invest in something that will help us get to our goal faster? Extra commerce and giving our planned cities a chance to grow does exactly that, even as it gives us production flexibility to churn out what chokers are required between now and then.

-=Vel=-

EDIT 1: In a way, your own arguments help my case. Your statement that you could see a case for rushing one city (in for a penny, in for a pound), and your statements that FP cities are long term investments.

Since we have no pressing need for hammer concentration till construction, our energies are better spent on things that will win us the war....like four robust cities.

[Blake]

I have to say I disagree with the assessment. In this particular instance, hammer concentration is unnecessary. Why? Because we're not really going to war until we get catapults. We're not getting catapults till we get construction, and construction is a LOOOOOONG ways off. In the meantime, we need 25 hammer Skirmishers dribbled out however fast we can build them.

I'm talking about the speed to produce 3 settlers, 1 worker and 3 skirmishers - the 435 hammers.
I'm not really comfortable with sending out settlers without a skirmisher garrison - ideally EotS builds them.
While in theory Wines could pop out a skirm for FP2, bear in mind that popping a skirm would set Wines back by 8 turns, while it only sets EotS back by 2 turns.

So what we have is a situation with 435 hammers of essential stuff to get asap and the stuff (with the exception of furs stuff) being largely unable to assist in getting the stuff. So that's why and where hammer concentration matters - the 435h seed of our empire.


Now with those floodplain city growth curves...

There might be one optimization which will help.
We would have to chop a worker NOW. Until I analyized it closely I didn't realize just how dependent a FP city is on worker time to be productive. Thus I think the next build being a worker would be acceptable - that would involve chopping both of those forests. The idea would be to build roads to the new city sites and possibly build them a farm to accelerate their growth curves.

I'll look into this more closely.

[Blake]

Um yeah....
Next build = another worker.
Wines is much better when being improved by a worker...

A worker can't actually be accelerated by a chop (it wont land in time) so I think we should just build the grassland mine. The next settler can be chopped.

Okay in terms of accelerating Wines...
He can build 2 roads, cutting 1 turn off movement (we don't need a road all the way, because the settler is 2 move and river crossings and such...
Or he could run over, part-building the road to avoid wasting worker turns, and have a shiny new farm waiting for Wines right as it gets founded, then go back and finish the road.

Wines:
22 3fpt = 7 turns (+1)
24 4ftp = 6 turns (+1)
26 5ftp = 5 turns (0)
28 6ftp = 5 turns (+2f)

Total = 23 turns

Wines w/ Farm:
22 4fpt = 6 turns (+2f)
24 5fpt = 5 turns (+4f)
26 6fpt = 4 turns (+4f)
28 7fpt = 4 turns (+3f)

Total = 19 turns.

As you can see, that farm gives Wines a 4 turn head start on life, when we consider that a worker takes only 5 turns to train in EotS, it is clearly best to pop that 2nd worker out.

In fact doing the sims, if we found FP2 before furs, we could EASILY employ 3 workers.

The build order would become:
Worker
Settler (Wines)
Skirmisher (maybe)
Worker
Settler (FP2)
Skirmisher (Furs)
Settler (Furs)



Our current worker would do this:
Mine Grassland Hill.
Chop forest.
Chop forest.
Cottage
Connect Copper (road gl mine, road copper, mine copper)
Connect Deer (health for FP cities)


Our 2nd and 3rd workers would build a farm for Wines and FP2 each, and otherwise build roads and cottages as needed.

Furs would be founded and the deers connected at about the same time.

[Velociryx]

Worker turns to sub for pop rushing at home and accomplish the same, or nearly the same turn saving....brilliant. I love it. Blake, you have perfectly synthesized our plans, allowing us to preserve maximal hammers even while building (or at least growing, which amounts to the same thing) those cities faster. I had one of those forehead smacking moments when I kicked myself for not thinking of that.

IMO, we still don't need Furs all that quickly tho, and would advocate another Skirmisher build in there somewhere....possibly even 2, before we actually settle in to build the Furs city....security and all that.

-=Vel=-

EDIT: Here would be my pick for build orders, with the understanding that our new workers will go around building roads to the city sites and farms to jumpstart the new burgs:

Worker

Settler (Wines) - I assume we'll have an existing unit pull temporary garrison duty for Wines?

Skirmisher (Wines garrison)

Skirmisher (FP2 Garrison)

Settler (FP2)

Skirmisher (choker/relief force) - optimization...FP2 replacement garrison and cycle the current garrison toward the front

Skirmisher (Furs)

Settler (Furs)

And of course, if the situation changes radically, and we NEED more Skirmishers, more quickly, we can always put the more expensive Worker/Settler builds on hold temporarily and churn out some more chokers before getting back to the regularly scheduled program.

I like it!

EDIT 2: Do we absolutely need the third worker tho? If there's anything at all to be cut from this plan, we should try to cut the third worker (or, if he's ultimately gonna be needed, at least delay him until after we get the core four established--Furs won't need much in the way of improvement, and one additional worker *should* be able to road-build/farm for both FP's? 'sides, IF we can make it work with just two workers until the core four are founded, then we speed up the settler builds by 5t (12*5 = 60h = cost of the 3rd worker)...so if we DO build the 3rd worker, then we basically undo the time saved by building the roads and such. Unless we find a way to run without him, the turn savings will be cancelled out by the need for the third worker. (a farm for FP2 would be the clearly better worker play tho vs. roads to that site--if we could only do one or the other, I mean)

[Blake]

No no a 3rd worker is definitely in our benefit. It is only 5 turns after all.
Having 3 workers lets us hook up the deer, build roads, put a cottage on every floodplain AND configure EotS for maximum commerce (the "granary whip pump") earlier.



Here's a draft terraforming plan. orange lines are road, thicker are higher priority.

The road to the desert hill is VERY good, as it cuts 1 turn off both Wines and FP2. A unit on that DH can move to any of those 3 cities in a single turn. It's also got 6 adjacant floodplains, making it a good hub for workers - they can moe 1 tile on the road, then onto a floodplain and improve it without losing a turn.

Teal line is something like what our worker 1 would do - that has only 1 "Waste" turn (spent on pre-building a road, I guess).
Worker 2 is blue link.
He would move STRAIGHT to the desert hill and build the road on it, then hop down onto the floodplain, and build the farm in time to minimize wines time to grow to size 4 (since there's the 3 food slack)

Worker 3 would build the connecting road (9 of EotS), then take the complete road to FP2 site and build a farm for it.

We could do without worker 3...
but my calculations about the commerce those little buggers bring in when building cottages can't lie. That 3rd worker will be worth A LOT of extra commerce.

Altough if we end up like... axe rushing or something, and pump out a bunch of units before FP2, then in that case, we wont need worker #3... but for that to happen Vox are going to have to give a green light for being axe rushed. For now it looks like the best thing is to slip in a worker before both floodplain settlers - or maybe after... no I think before is better... or ... maybe if our 2nd worker builds 2 farms, one for each FP city, that could work... obviously means less cottages but getting FP2 founded earlier would offset that...
I could stop arguing with myself and test it, I guess.

edit: oh, silly me. FP2 settler can use the existing plains hill road to cut 1 turn off his journey, That reduces the value of the road.

[Ennet]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Not to mention that two new FP cities five turns sooner translates into size four cities in the same # of turns that FP cities founded the slow way reach size 3.

Just the first city(wines) will be founded five turns sooner, the fur city will be founded maximum 3 turns sooner, the 2nd FP city will be founded way later.

Originally posted by Velociryx

Until it is, why not invest in something that will help us get to our goal faster? Extra commerce and giving our planned cities a chance to grow does exactly that, even as it gives us production flexibility to churn out what chokers are required between now and then.

-=Vel=-

EDIT 1: In a way, your own arguments help my case. Your statement that you could see a case for rushing one city (in for a penny, in for a pound), and your statements that FP cities are long term investments.

This was only for a one city build, i'm pretty sure there will be no commerce advantage with the abuse method if we plan on building three cities more or less in a row.


Also about your other points, the happy bonus 3 turns earlier at most wont make much change as with the abuse method, the wines city dont have enought good land so it will only gain us another commerce per turn and in the capital there is the health cap and also the fact that you are behind the non-abuse metod in size..

The hammer bonus from founding the wines city earlier will also come in way later, and will be less than the loss in the capital, if we want some extra skirmishers its not the effiant method to choose.
Oh and about the FPs being long time investments, true, but keep in mind these cities will work unimproved terrain from the start, so there wont be any benefit from improvements by founding earler.

[Arrian]

to a second worker... not so sure about a 3rd. Let's wait 'n see on that one.

-Arrian

[Hot Mustard]

I'm starting to get a little excited about these plans. Well thought out, augmented by discussion and input, and now even becoming very detailed - I love it!

I'd would very much like to test/play the simulation myself so that I prepared for what's coming and the needed micromanagement. Blake, could you post/attach a sim. save? Or email it to the team address.

As for the 3rd worker - sounds very good to me, but as Arrian suggests, I think that is part of the plan that will hinge on how things progress. No plan survives contact with the enemy, or rather, things you can't control. Vox will surely try to do something, and who knows what The Bunch will do.