A Tale of Two Cities

[Theseus]

I'll do some more test runs too...

What do we think are the target accomplishments for 1000BC?

e.g.,

3 Warriors
2 Scouts
x Skirmishers
2 Workers
2 Settlers
Techs: Meditation, Hunting, Archery, Agr, AH, Pottery, BW
Bldgs: Granary, Barracks, Library

Comments?

We have to do this relatively quickly, at least for the first settling decision.

[Dominae]

How about we end our testing with the founding of our second city, instead of at 1000BC?

It's very possible that we will have to revise much that we plan after our second city anyway.

I'm sure we can evaluate any "investment-type" decisions on the fly, without having to sim it out too far into the future.

Just a suggestion.

---

Does contacting a civ that a certain tech still reduce the cost of that tech for you? If so, let's be very careful about tech milestones since the AIs show up relatively quickly. Perhaps another sim with all the AIs on and island might better...

[Dominae]

Here's my first run-through of the sim (site B, to 1000BC). I'll compare it to Blake's pop-rush screenshot:

As you can see I invested more heavily in Workers: almost all the Flood Plains tiles are improved and in use, and I'm also ahead in the Mine department.

We have an equivalent number of cities, and I'm well on my way to a fourth Settler. Oracle is available in the capital in ~8-9 turns.

Blake's military is much better than mine: all I have is a Warrior in each city, while he has Skirmishers.

I have a grand total of zero city improvements.

I researched "breath-first" because I thought it would be easier to compare: on the first "page" page of the F6 screen I have all techs except Meditation, Horseback Riding, Metal Casting and Monotheism (1 turn away though).

---

My goal in this first run-through was to maximize Commerce through Cottage use, and see what we can accomplish by tying up as few resources as possible in military development. We would probably not go so military-light in the actual game, of course.

My intuition is that settling on the Flood Plains is the right move, economically speaking. The cost is poorer scouting, and thus a better shot at an rush.

[Blake]

I think though you kind of prove one of my points, it doesn't matter too much what we do.

Well the skirmishers are no small deal. In mine I consider my military too thin even with a skirmisher at every city except capital. 1 Skirmisher can't be relied on to stop 2 chariots... so 3 settlers by 1000BC is probably expanding too fast. Altough another possibility is looking at it as every pop point being one whip away from being a skirmisher...

Oh, complete list of improvements:
In Capital, Granary and Barracks. In 2nd city, Granary.

I've also played where I get the barracks early enough to make every skirmisher bar one barracks-trained. Might be an idea since we'll want the barracks sooner or later.

Here's one starting on the hill... I trained the worker as soon as I hit 3 pop, I believe, and no whipping. I was amused that the score was identical to my 10-turn whip game. City 4 is still on the way, but it looks stronger. However no granary or barracks (the granary isn't a huge issue when whipping isn't used tho). City2 was founded in time to train a worker. Research was slower due to working the mines rather than cottages.

[Dominae]

I agree with you re: military, we're going to probably want much more than what we've been producing in our sims so far. Or at least expand less aggressively.

Anyway, the point of this thread is to determine which city-site we like better. Any specific idea (i.e. criteria) on how to evaluate this? I disagree with you that it's academic, all the site B sims look a lot better to me.

[Arrian]

Note: One other thing... if we do found on the plains, we probably may as well go Meditation THEN hunting, since it takes 15 turns to complete the first warrior. On the hill it only takes 8 turns and then we can start the scout.

An important point. Do you mean Mysticism, or do you mean Mysticism + Meditation? If the latter, you're talking about founding the religion prior to getting hunting. That, IMO, would assure us of the religion, whereas with hunting first we are gambling somewhat.

-Arrian

[Blake]

Okay here's another one. (last one for now... I think!)

This time I used this build:
Found on hill, warrior, hunting.
Grows to size 2, warrior completes, switch to scout, tech = myst.
Grows to size 3, Scout completes, switch to worker, tech = medi.
Meditation completes, tech = AH.
Worker completes, two turns later AH completes. The worker spends 1 turn pre-building the road.
City grows to size 4 and enjoys the sheep (guilty pleasures), at size 4 it starts training a settler - wont be whipping this one.

I think after AH the best tech is Agriculture because farmed FP is 4-0-1 which is just better than 0-4-1 mine, since we are whipping. Build a single worker early and optimize the hell out of him seems like a good idea to me.

After that either Bronze Working or Pottery. The idea is the next build is a Granary and it is whipped so both are needed. So it's knowledge of copper vs cottages. The worker can always build farms while waiting for pottery; they offset the health - the farms should be built where the 2nd city can borrow them.

The nice thing is that I finish the barracks before training any skirmishers, and every city has a skirmisher waiting for it.

City #2 manages to build a granary, skirmisher and is ready to whip a worker. When I redid the scenario I micro'd that city instead, it completed a granary, worker (completed a cottage) and barracks, and grew to size 4. The rewards of micro...
I think getting a fairly fast City#2 is a good thing, because with 3 floodplains it really can whip out stuff fast. Getting fast city#2 is easier on the hill.


This is a "happier" number of skirmishers. One for each city and another 2 floating around. I'd consider 2 skirmishers for every city a baseline military. If they are all vets that's a big plus.

[Theseus]

I just did one run each on the hill and the floodplain... they are just about the same through 1000 BC. In either case, I got to about the same point:

Units -
3 Warrior
2 Scout
2 Worker
2 Settler
4 vet Skirmisher

Buildings -
Granary
Barracks

Techs -
Hunting, Myst, Poly, Archery, AH, Agr, Pottery, BW, IW, Priest, Writing

Working on -
Masonry and Oracle

Pretty happy either way, and I'm sure the team can do better.

[Arrian]

The general feeling, then, is that through 1000bc the two options are roughly equal... but logically the longer the game goes on, the better the floodplains site will be, due to health.

Given that, I guess I'm now in favor of settling on the floodplains...

-Arrian

[notyoueither]

The turn approaches.

Can we vote by paw?

Please speak up and say if you prefer the city on the hill or the fp.

Arrian counted as one vote for the fp.

[Dominae]

fp

[Hot Mustard]

I'll be the one to buck the trend and vote for the hill. There's plenty of things that can increase health (long-term) in this game, yet precious few that will get important early units out. This may be an example where GS needs a warmonger's perspective to help balance the builders, not that I'm ordinarily a warmonger.

[nbarclay]

I wish I had a clearer picture of when the units were built on the flood plains starts. Knowing what units people had at the end of a time period doesn't give a picture of how much vulnerability was accepted along the way. My own two attempts at FP start strategies haven't worked out all that well.

One thing to consider about the timing of scouts is the question of who will end up popping the huts - us or our rivals. That might make almost no difference, or it might make a pretty big one. A change in who pops a hut is defined not just by what we get but also by what we keep a rival from getting - or vice versa.

[Metaliturtle]

so it counts double in a way nbarclay?

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Metaliturtle
so it counts double in a way nbarclay?

More precisely, a change in who pops a hut counts double with respect to the civ that's competing with us to pop it, and once with respect to the other civs.