[SPOILERS]Luddite: A Man, A Plan, An Also-Ran

[SevenSpirits]

Here is how I would come to that conclusion.

You're size 1, so the granary can double 7 food.
Your food surplus is max 4. So you need to grow 2 turns to fill the granary. Therefore you want to finish the granary with 4-8 food still needed to grow.
If you go max hammers you will achieve this. If you work any fewer hammers you will delay finishing the granary.

So quick and dirty without figuring out all the details, I'd suggest working copper twice. Of course this rule of thumb will not always produce the best result, because sometimes the max hammer tile is sufficiently less efficient than the more food-focused tile that optimizing the granary does not optimize overall.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

@7S

If you had 9 in the box the turn after finishing the granary, and worked the deer twice, do you get 7 in the granary, or just the 5 that remained to be filled in the box?

[SevenSpirits]

@7S

If you had 9 in the box the turn after finishing the granary, and worked the deer twice, do you get 7 in the granary, or just the 5 that remained to be filled in the box?

You get all 7.

And if you had 10 in the box, you could (would, hopefully) check avoid growth so you get to 14/14 without growing, and next turn uncheck it and therefore get all 7 in that case too. (You'd end up at 11/16.)

[Gold Ergo Sum]

You get all 7.

And if you had 10 in the box, you could (would, hopefully) check avoid growth so you get to 14/14 without growing, and next turn uncheck it and therefore get all 7 in that case too. (You'd end up at 11/16.)

Thanks. Did not know that.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I played this turn for Luddite. Turned the governors off.

The capital keeps pumping HAs. Luddite now has 8 HAs amassed in the middle to hit any approaching stack.

Chose a settler in one oasis city, and a library in the other.

Lots of unrevealed land for Luddite:



Checked, the land is 36 tiles across, by 23 north and south. Luddite has roughly five more unrevealed tiles north in a band across the entire northern map. But the math seems weird horizontally. Assuming everyone got roughly equal starting U-shaped areas, there should be 40 tiles across, otherwise Luddite got 1-2 more tiles than some other players, or the mountains are placed differently. Both Luddite's border peaks have two peaks, and in between there are 8 land tiles. Odd. Maybe I just suck at this. Not everyone can be 7.



These are the newly revealed lands from this turn:






It appears the main river for each team runs straight up to more fertile land across the dead desert space. You can see Luddite's river in the middle, and AT and Sian's rivers just revealed by the scouting warriors. I see spices and incense up there. Might be dyes and silks too. Luddite should circle one warrior back IMO and reveal his available northern lands.



Luddite's land grab of the two full oasis sites is even better than I realized, because unless scooter did the same thing (doubt it), Luddite will be the only person with a truly secure front for his current southern, and future northern cities. Everyone else will likely be able to be hit by 2-movers at the oasis sites, and also potentially end up with their north and south cutoff by a central invasion.


We solved Luddite's other granary question, but he is currently building one in Brisbyland and I figured I would check his micro on it:



If he works the current tiles, he will end up with:

T1 12f (finishes granary, 1 h overflow)
T2 17f, grows to 5/18 food box
T3 Food box goes to 11/18,
T4 Food box goes to 17/18

He could trade the horses for the FP to grow on T4.

______________________________

But if he uses the avoid growth as discussed above:

T1 12f (finishes granary)
T2 17f, avoids growth
T3 City grows EOT, Food box goes to 13/18
T4 City grows EOT at 19/18, with a full granary, to 10/20.
T5 17/20
T6 24/20, grows to 14/21
T7 22/21, grows to 11/23(?, might be 22)
T8 20/23

First option provided 3 more commerce, but grows slower to size 5 unless it gives up 4 hammers from the horses.

_______________________________

Switch corn to oasis.
T1 10f (finishes granary), +3 comm
Switch oasis to corn.
T2 15f
T3 20f, city grows EOT to 11/18
T4 Food box goes to 17/18, +3 comm

Exact same result as option #1.

__________________________

Switch corn to oasis.
T1 10f (finishes granary), +3 comm
T2 13f, + 3 comm
Switch oasis to corn.
T3 18f, grows to 9/18,
T4 15/18 in food box, +3 comm

Six more commerce, but 4 fewer food and a slower growth than option #2.

Clearly, option #2, using the current tiles, but avoiding growth on the turn with the full food box is the best option. You could probably micro from the horse to a FP to grow options #1 and #3 on the same turn as option #2, but you will have to give up four hammers for 3 commerce. Seems like a bad move.

But what about:

Switch corn to oasis
T1 10f,
Switch horse to corn
T2 17f, grows EOT to food box 7/18
Adds horse tile.
T3 13/18,
T4 19/18,


This option provides the most commerce +6, at the cost of 4 hammers. That depends on what is the necessity.

____________________________

Or, this:

Switch corn to oasis
T1 10f
Switch horse to corn
T2 17f, grows EOT to food box 7/18
Add another FP (hopefully cottaged by then)
T3 15/18,
T4 23/18, EOT grows to 14/20
Adds horse tile
T5 21/20, immediate regrowth to size 6 at 11/21, two pop whip and work three 3-food tiles for immediate regrowth to size 5

+18c, -12h compared to option #2, but allows for 2-pop whip one turn sooner, which starts the whip cycle sooner. If you wanted to play it out even further, with slightly different micro you could:

Adds another FP
T5 23/20, immediate regrowth to size 6 at 13/21
Adds last 3-food tile
T6 23/21, immediate regrowth to size 7 at 12/23
Steal FP from capital
T7 23/23, immediate regrowth to size 8

Of course, growing to size 8 would allow him to work all good tiles: Corn, Oasis, Horse, Gems mine, 4 FPs.

Compared to option #2, this is the numbers:

T1 +3c
T2 +6c, -4h
T3 +12c, -8h
T4 +15c, -12h
T5 +18c, -16h
T6 +24c, -20h
T7 +30c, -24h
T8 +36c, -22h
T9 +42c, -20h

Plus whatever gains are made in cottages maturing faster. But since Luddite says the horses are going to the capital anyway, I think growing to size 8 quickly is the way to go. He could also stop at anytime and build a settler or worker.

Demographics:



Luddite is back in first in CY, and if he grows Brisby quickly, he can take a commanding lead there.


At first I thought scooter had been whipping his citizens, except that looks like an 18 pop loss since the last demographics I saw. And since the last score, it looks like scooter has lost 48 points in 2 turns. I wonder if he lost a city to someone? If not, that is almost 3-pop per city of whipping I guess. The rival average crop yield has dropped 5 food in the last two turns. At this stage of the game, that should be just about impossible without some crazy goings-on.

[luddite]

Here's the most recent save if anyone wants to look around. The password is Conqs.

[pindicator]

Ok, I'm playing this now. Can anybody direct me to the final game settings? I dont' want to build anything I shouldn't

Edit: I mean that the first page of the tech thread doesn't seem to be a final setting list.

[Commodore]

Ok, I'm playing this now. Can anybody direct me to the final game settings? I dont' want to build anything I shouldn't

Don't build anything with metal.

[pindicator]

Oh yeah, gotta stick with the theme -- no metal units and lots of wonders!

Which made me very tempted to go Aesthetics -> Polytheism -> Literature -> Drama. Get the Great Library, National Epic, and Globe Theatre all going. But I decided to go another route first: Metal Casting for cheap forges.

Also, 4 workers. Wow. Just wow. I have no words.

[SevenSpirits]

Metal Casting, that's for casting away useless metals, right?

4 workers for 3 cities seems approximately fine.