[Spoilers] PBEM 62 - Ichabod's Thread, feat. Mardoc and retep

[Mardoc]

That's true.

At the same time, we gained 5 hammers by putting the whip into a worker instead of something where we don't get a bonus. Net is still +2 hammers for your example.

If you compare it to spending three turns of 9 food/2 hammers to slowbuild the worker, it's even better. True, that route only loses 2 hammers to overflow dividing instead of three. But we could have used that food to grow the city, maybe twice, instead of spending it on the worker. And the worker comes out earlier if whipped, so it's worth more.

If you're just arguing for careful micro, to whip workers at the right times and choose the order of builds carefully, I can agree. We probably would gain some efficiency that way. It's when you extend that to 'don't whip or chop workers' that I disagree.

[Ichabod]

That's true.

At the same time, we gained 5 hammers by putting the whip into a worker instead of something where we don't get a bonus. Net is still +2 hammers for your example.

If you compare it to spending three turns of 9 food/2 hammers to slowbuild the worker, it's even better. True, that route only loses 2 hammers to overflow dividing instead of three. But we could have used that food to grow the city, maybe twice, instead of spending it on the worker. And the worker comes out earlier if whipped, so it's worth more.

If you're just arguing for careful micro, to whip workers at the right times and choose the order of builds carefully, I can agree. We probably would gain some efficiency that way. It's when you extend that to 'don't whip or chop workers' that I disagree.

True, I wasn't taking into account the hammer bonus you get from the whip.

So, yeah, I guess it's far more complex and case by case than I initially thought.

[Mardoc]

I know there's room for me to improve on the micro front, and it gets into the details of overflow and such. But there are some simple rules that seem to be true 95% of the time:

Always work your resource tiles
Food first
Always improve a tile before working it
Use the minimum workers and units you can, but no less
The best place for food is into a granary, to grow your cities

I feel like most of the details of microplanning are in managing your builds and happiness and workers to get as close as you can to that ideal, with the constraints of terrain and happiness and so on. Then the very best players manage to go one step further and take advantage of the exceptions to those rules. But I think exceptions are always case by case and complicated .

[Ichabod]

By the way, another way to pop borders is Stonehenge. But I guess Commodore has a big head start on it, being India.

[Ichabod]

I was going to backtrack with the scout to the Capital, to explore the East, but two things made me change my mind. The first is that I realized the copper will give me 1 more warrior than my previous plan, so he can go exploring. The second is that there was a bear on the way.




He isn't showing in the picture, but he's at the sign. He was also blocking the way on turn 15. By the way, the exploration from the last turns revealed that the map is very small, I'm almost rounding it N to S.

Anyway, I haven't been able to find time to work at micro stuff, so I can't really show anything better than my previous plan, which is what I have been following. I hope I can do better this weekend.

But here's an interesting topic:




This is my first warrior. He doesn't need to be in the city, since the happy cap is 5. He's supposed to guard the settler for my second city. But here's the thing. If I send him to the hill 3E of the Capital, perhaps he can find a better place to settle my second city, since it'll reveal a lot of land. But, he won't be able to make it to guard the settler on time after that. He'd be able to reach the second city on turn 25, the city would have been settled on turn 23. The warrior will reveal the hill on t19, which is soon enough for us to change the micro plan to accomodate for a city settled to the E.

So, is this move worth it? The second city can be settle without the settler/workers ever staying a turn outside our borders. The only thing that would make we get owned is a wandering warrior from an opponent (highly unlikely at this point in the game, since everyone started with scout) or a barb warrior that decides to ignore the no crossing borders rule (which can happen). There's a small risk for a game wrecking outcome, but there's also a chance for a game improving outcome. I'm undecided. I moved the warrior E on turn 17, which is irrevelant for either decision. I'll move him further E next turn, because it makes things the same again (warrior can reach the settled city on the turn it's settled), but after that we need to reach a decision.

Finally, here's a random picture from the turn we grew to size 4:

[Ichabod]

I moved the warrior to the defensive position. It's not worth the risk. My current plan has a city to the E as 4th city and it'll have a warrior to explore it quite a bit sooner than the turn I intend to settle. The Capital border expnasion on turn 25 will also reveal a lot of that land.

I finally had some time to test things in the sandbox. I prefer the city 1S of the corn rather than the one 2S, since it's faster and it shares more cottages with EG, which requires less worker labour.

I can get Polytheism on eot 30 and that doesn't delay AH for the third city pig that much (it makes us lose some worker turns inneficientely, but that's not so bad). Hindu would spawn on our second city. But I didn't like the benefits of it that much. I don't need a border pop in that city and the 3rd city, that requires one, can get a monument wihtout that much trouble. The third city I'm planning is 1S of the pigs, by the way. Going for Poly delays Maths and, since the costs start ramping up fast after the 4th city (4th city to 5th city goes -10g to -18g), I don't think that's worth it. And maths gets us 1 chop granaries, which is awesome for the 4th and 5th city (it'd be awesome for the 3rd too, but I can't get it in time, so I have to do some avoid growth plays, most likely).

Currency and sailing will be really big. We can think about getting a religion later. Let's enjoy expansive for now and think about using SPI later.

[Ichabod]

Here's a shot at a dotmap.

Red circle is the second city. Has first ring food, shares tiles with the Capital.

Blue circle is the third city. Has first ring food, shares tiles with Capital and second city. Second ring ivory. Right now, I think is better to put this city closer to the Capital rather than having first ring Ivory (anyway, we'll delay hunting for a bit to allow building warriors for longer). It requires less worker turns and helps to grow cottages to the Capital. Not that I want to go light on workers, but that saves them to more meaningful improvements.

White circle is the region where I plan the 4th city to go. Share Capital food, only settleable with another food.

Yellow circle is the 5th city. Lots of food, lots of chops. Powerful city, likely a GP farm.

Pink circles are likely 6th and 7th cities. I need a better screenshot of the more northern pink area, to show how good it is. Wait.




Here it is.

I don't have good land for the 2nd and 3rd city, so I'll use them as set up for the powerful cities on that river valley. That's why I'm valueing more the short term, rather than the longterm with these cities.

There's a chance for a city in an island between all this settling.

[Ichabod]

Buddhism founded:




My guess is that Commodore built a settler at size 2 and settled his second city to land Buddhism in it.




There's only one city besides mine that is size 4, but there are 2 people with more food, so someone is at 2 cities already (or has a 3 food Capital, unlikely). Most likely Commodore, who is IMP with no food techs. He likely went Agri, BW, Medi or something like that and went for a quick second city with religion.

Interesting play. Hopefully I can catch up with fast granaries, which he's pretty far from, I guess.




Exploration.

[Mardoc]

Religion to pop a 2nd city's borders is one of Commodore's favorite moves, so you've probably guessed right.

[Ichabod]

Revolted to slavery, whipped the settler, pottery finished at end of turn.




EG will go granary (1t), warrior (1t), warrior (1t), 1t in a worker at size 4, something to grow to size 5 (warrior or axe), finish the worker at size 5 (1t, 2t in total), grow to 6 to whip settler.

LapsangSouchong (LS), the second city, will go granary (2t with copper + chop), warrior + partial built axe to grow to size 4, one turn into a worker at size 4 and 2-pop whip (I spend one more turn building an axe at size 4, because I want to work the cottages and I don't need the workers that fast, it's debatable, though), overflow into another worker (1t), overflow into axe to complete it.

Demos are ugly!!