SAT - #2 Pencil only Please

[AutomatedTeller]

so, we could get a city out that could build a forge the turn after getting oracle. that would delay oracle a couple of turns, but probably get the engineer faster.

or we could oracle CoL and run caste.

or we could say screw it on oracle, just expand and handbuild the wonders we want.

[Sareln]

so, we could get a city out that could build a forge the turn after getting oracle. that would delay oracle a couple of turns, but probably get the engineer faster.

or we could oracle CoL and run caste.

or we could say screw it on oracle, just expand and handbuild the wonders we want.

Pretty much .

Ideally if we leave wondering alone, the IND civs split it with one of them grabbing Henge/Oracle/Colossus while the other grabs 'Mids. If it looks like there's a lot of coast, one of them might try for TGL or something but it's not looking like that right now.

[Serdoa]

I think T7 it is, after you finished researching Agri. Next techs could be a whole different bunch. Hunting, BW, Meditation (for a possible religion), The Wheel. But you are completely right that there is some time before any decision has to be made. Which will be helpful because right now all second city sites suck.

Also I think getting the cheap Granary asap in the cap is more important then BW. Especially as the cap can grow to size 6 with the elephants and that is helped immensely by a Granary. At size 6 it can work 3 GLH-Mines, 1 PH-Mine, 1 Elephant, 1 Wheat for a total of 18 hpt. Thats 2-turn workers. And a 6 turn Oracle without chops. With some overflow (10 hammers) even 5 turns.

Anyhow, lets hope there is better land somewhere, because as it is, I can hardly see a good second city site which does actually help to reach your goal of an early Oracle. Not that I fully agree with that goal in itself. I came to think that other wonders are more helpful and also without PHI it just takes too long to create that GE imo. 23 turns is a lot imo. And that just for a GE which you are not even sure on which wonder to burn? With all really good economic wonders gone at the time you'll have it?

[AutomatedTeller]

No, I had visions of rushing pyramids with the engineer

[Serdoa]

Not when you are not PHI. Or your opponents are incompetent. You are not the former and I doubt the latter. You still can get it, I am pretty sure. Question is if the price is worth it.

[Sareln]

Not when you are not PHI. Or your opponents are incompetent. You are not the former and I doubt the latter. You still can get it, I am pretty sure. Question is if the price is worth it.

T44, single city, with a giant target on our backs for building the 'Mids. Seems like a sucker's bet unless our land is well and truly terrible.

I've been opening Agriculture, Hunting, Fishing, BW w/ Worker, Warrior, Warrior, Warrior, Worker-whip, Worker (1) using the lake tiles to speed BW so far, btw. With Fishing in, we can settle adjacent to the clams and whip a workboat while teching pottery to overflow into the granary. I suspect it's suboptimal though.

[AutomatedTeller]

I have no wish to hand build the pyramids!! Not against 2 ind civs.

[Sareln]

I have no wish to hand build the pyramids!! Not against 2 ind civs.

Agreed.

Man, I really want to see the turn, I'm so curious to find out what's over that grassland hill!

[Sareln]

Why does it feel like Luddite is writing to us?

I wonder if it's possible to use this kind of analysis to calculate a real decision?

Like, say you're debating whether or not to go for the Oracle. To keep things simple, I'll assume that no one else is competing for it, and that you're going to use it to pick up Metal Casting. My intuition is that, for industrious leaders, that's usually a strong play, but for leaders who aren't industrious it's usually not worth it. But I'll check if the math agrees.

Getting the Oracle requires meditation (79 beakers), priesthood (59 beakers), and 100 hammers. I won't count mysticism since you'll probably need that anyway and you might have started with it. The reward is metal casting- 450 beakers for free. This is with standard/monarch/quick speed settings. I suppose we should also discount the 1.2 prerequisite bonus, so you only need to research (79+59)/1.2=115 beakers. Those aren't totally wasted, since you would have needed meditation and priesthood eventually anyway, but probably not for a very long time.

Total (nominal) cost: 115 beakers, 100 hammers.

The 115 beakers would be devalued by inflation over the time you spend researching them. However, the same is true for anything else you research also, so it's the same cost as anything else (bronze working, for example, is almost the same). Same goes for the 100 hammers.

However, chances are you wouldn't have researched metal casting so early, so you have to discount those 450 beakers. You'd need to estimate what turn you would have normally researched it on. If you assume that 20h = 1 hpt (I think that underestimates early game hammers, but nevermind), then an 80h forge is worth 4 hpt, and is therefore a good investment for cities making more than 16 base hpt. Even counting slavery, there aren't many cities like that early in the game.

(since this is getting really complicated, I'm going to ignore all the other benefits like the Colossus, triremes, happiness, Prophet points, etc. and just focus only on the hammer benefits of early forges).

Let's say that, when we first finish the Oracle, there aren't any cities where it's worth building a forge. But 20 turns later you build 2- one in the capital making 24hpt, and 1 in another city making 20 hpt. So that's a total of 3hpt "profit" from the forges, which we'd say is worth 60 regular hammers. But that came 20 turns after the Oracle was finished, so it gets discounted by half, to be worth only 30 hammers at the time the Oracle was built.

So, in hammers, you've traded 100 hammers for 30 hammers. Not a good trade.

Let's say that you would have normally researched Metal Casting 20 turns after the date you got the oracle. So that would make it worth, equivalently, 225 beakers. Minus the 115 you invested in priesthood and meditation, gives 110 beakers profit.

So in this situation, building the Oracle gives a very rough equivalent of +110 beakers, -70 hammers. Using Seven's points system that comes to -20 points, for a net loss. So roughly speaking the math agrees with my intuition that it's not a great deal for non-industrious leaders, especially compared to the benefits of getting earlier math and an extra settler.

On the other hand, for an industrious leader, things change quite a bit. Now the Oracle is 67 hammers, and forges cost only 40 base hammers. So the profit from the early forges is 70 hammers, and metal casting would probably be worth more as well since you'd want to research it earlier. But even without that, you're getting +3 hammers, +110 beakers, or +345 points.

[Sareln]

AT, have you opened the turn yet?

Settlers and workers!