TheHumanHydra Falls Behind [Spoilers]

[Old Harry]

So it begins? So it goes...

How would delaying the corn a turn work for you in terms of growth and food in the box? Roading it before farming it would get you an extra 6 gold...

Don't worry too much about that second city - Ichabod's EXP leader should get to that before you , its the third and fourth that you need to win! It sounds like Dazed had a quick second city - you really need to get your fourth city for the gold down before he can nab that spot from you...

When do you expect to have the copper improved? I'd guess that Dazed didn't settle for horses with the second city, so you probably don't have to worry too much just yet, but don't forget that your graphs will update after you end turn, so you can get advanced warning if anyone's power spikes.

[TheHumanHydra]

I'll see about the corn thing. Isn't food usually highly valued over commerce this early?

Copper date isn't locked down; that was one of the things that needed to be played around with a bit more in my sims. So, uh, I'll get back to you.

[TheHumanHydra]

Random notes:

- This turn both Tall Poppy and Greener Grass grew, to 4 and 2 respectively, placing me temporarily in the lead for crop yield and population. That feels good after lagging for several turns.
- I employed some weird (planned) micro at Tall Poppy to ensure the settler finishes in two turns (it would have been one foodhammer short otherwise):




Works the copper, hill mine, deer, and fish the next two turns.

- I discovered Animal Husbandry at end-of-turn, revealing horses in a favourable location:




... and an unfavourable. Turns out dazed did settle for horses with his second city.

- I may be at war next turn. Note the dazed warrior that beelined straight for me. If he enters my borders, well, I do have the warrior I just produced, but I may have to make another to cover my tiles while the first escorts the settler. dazed's actions will provide further evidence, but I think I'm going to have to work into my micro the absolute fastest I can get a spear. This will disrupt my micro for my fourth and/or fifth cities, but it's better than dying to a quick war chariot.

[TheHumanHydra]

Turn 30 Update

Time to get caught up on things. First, dazed did not end up declaring war on me, but instead moved W-NW-somewhere along and away from my borders. Not too threatening, but I'm still counting on having to defend my holdings from opportunistic war chariots down the road.




I finished my second settler eot27. After camping the deer at Greener Grass with my two workers, you can see I roaded the tile then proceeded to farm the corn. I'm sorry, Harry, but I forgot about your suggestion of roading the corn first to generate trade at the moment I played, though all-in-all I think I'd rather have the food at this stage anyway. After this the workers roaded the corn, then the tile 1N of there, granting the third city a connection the moment it was founded. This auspicious event occurred this turn, t30:




Simultaneously, the workers followed the newly-opened path through the city to begin pasturing the pigs in tandem. I plan to have them road the pigs next, then follow the path back through the city to cottage 1S of it, then split off to separate tasks as the next city is founded (one heads north to the new source of pigs while the other chops out the settler for the fifth city at Greener Grass).

These are the graphs after hitting 'enter' this turn - after finishing getting graphs on Commodore and Pindicator, who I met first, I am now trying to put all my espionage points into getting graphs on dazed, since I need his power graph as soon as possible, but I seem to have found myself in a bit of an espionage war with Commodore. Not sure why, but he put enough EPs into me to deny me his graphs this turn (I got them back immediately). Combined with his power spike, this may be a bad sign. But seriously, a warrior rush? Couldn't be ...

(I'm the magenta line, if you forgot.)













And the demographics ...




Obviously these values change wildly over the space of just a couple turns in these early stages; that crop yield especially should not be taken as a steady margin I've maintained over the last several turns. It does look nice to show in my t30 report, though.

~~~

In other news, I've finally managed to work up the motivation to do some more simming (I was just starting to run into turns where I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, so that's good). How does this look for turns 40 (Xian is founded) ...




... 44 (Chengdu is founded) ...




... and 47 (when I decided to stop simming )?




As always, things get rougher as we go. By eot47 I had six workers, five warriors, and four spears in one permutation (shown). The first spear (from Greener Grass) reaches Chengdu or Xian t46, a second t48, and a third can follow a turn after that (the fourth had to be garrisoned in Tall Poppy for military police as I could no longer build warriors). Beijing (Tall Poppy), Shanghai (Greener Grass), Guangzhou (High Point), and Tianjing (city no. 4) all have granaries by the final shot there, and Guangzhou, the speculated future Bureau-cap, has just triple-whipped a library (of course, it could have done other things, like build more settlers/workers).

Only one cottage, not two, by t40, unlike before, but they proliferate after that, and seem to come on-line just as cities need them. Also, look, Harry, more roads! (I wanted to get that copper hooked STAT. ...) These would be the demographics by the turns in question:







[Edit: Oops, looks like I misplaced the t47 one.]

(Now to have a quiet chuckle at those lurkers who only skim/look at pictures and flip out thinking one of those is for the current turn - , I'm one of them normally.)

Not much else to say; do you guys have any thoughts?

Edit: Some other information I maybe should have added for the t40 shot - there are four workers there, five at eot, compared to three before with another in two turns' time. Xian (city no. 5) is founded a turn later, 40 instead of 39; Tianjing (city no. 4) was founded the same turn as before, t37, for a spread of 0 - 22 - 30 - 37 - 40 - 44. Hm, can't think of anything else I've forgotten.

[Old Harry]

What is your EP ratio with Com? I could see him chariot rushing too... He's only just got BW, and nothing on that graph looks like a chariot, so I don't see anything to worry too much about just yet.

Turn 40 - with Dazed so close I'd prefer Nanjing and Xian to have spears over warriors. I know there are more roads here, I suspect still not enough - BUT Xian will be able to build cheap MP Warriors until it's linked up if you do want more of them. Really though in a game this tight you'll have very few cities that Warriors are useful for...

Turn 44 - Chengdu is four tiles from Dazed's city. It's a very nice defensible spot with the river and hill, but it's going to need to keep its first ring tiles to be safe from catapults and have a good garrison of spears to be safe from 2-movers! I think in spite of that it is a better spot than most of the southern ones you have available. Also you've got a road north of the silver but not linking to your northern cities yet are you just teasing me?

Turn 47 - I think you should be able to get the granary in Xian in place earlier (chop and whip?) The library in Guangzhou is to pop the borders isn't it? I'd probably actually try for a religion before going Writing-Maths - has anyone gone that way yet? If you can manipulate that city to be biggest when the tech comes in there is a good chance of it founding there, but wherever it lands will be useful. The hammers for the library could very happily be another city and a half... (although I know the beakers spent on the religion could get you half way to Currency...)

Obviously I'm saying all this without playing the sandbox - I might have some time tomorrow if you wanna post your t30 save?

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks for the comments, Harry.

Re: Comm - he's actually just declared war on Pindicator again, immediately after making peace. I don't know what's up over there. EP currently 38/36 for me, but that'll change with his turn. I really want to be spending on dazed ...

t40 - Those warriors can't become spears without a radical reworking of the entire micro-plan, almost certainly delaying the cities substantially. They're mostly intended to make sure the path to the city-site is clear of barbs, and for MP; I'm not counting on them to defend against dazed. Roads, again, this is about the maximum I can build without leaving tiles unimproved or brining my whole empire to a shuddering halt to build a bunch more workers. Maybe you can do better with the save ...

t44 - Yeah ... I also want that city just to lock down the border. And because Fintourist wants it so bad ... though it does lose the sheep now. The random road was built by my AI neighbour; I guess he's teasing you .

t47 - Xian's granary is already being chopped; it can complete it earlier by working the improved gold, I just thought I'd want the food instead . The library in Guanzhou was because I thought it was about time for a beaker multiplier; I may be wrong on that. I don't think I want to pursue religion. Buddhism's already been founded, and my research already slows to a crawl by the end of the sim (50% break-even despite the proliferation of cottages); I think I want what beakers I have to go toward Currency.

Here's the sandbox save. It's at exactly the current turn in-game. I think the beakers are slightly off, but that shouldn't matter for the purposes of this sim. I would definitely appreciate it if you were able to have a look at it (but only if you have time!), because I don't think I can do much better (but then, I'm not a very skilled simmer ). Have fun!

T32

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

If I'm remembering correctly, 43/43 is the ideal EP split. You can get graphs on your opponent as early as 32 (?) EPs invested, but as soon as your opponent begins to invest into you the number that you need to have invested to retain graphs increases. When you both have 43 EPs invested you can maintain graphs without further investment, so long as neither party increases the number of EPs invested.

Note: I do not know if this explains Commodore's EP investment, but it is a possible outcome.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T-Hawk or someone had a formulaic explanation for why that is the number somewhere around here. Or is 42 the number. Actually I'm sure 42 is the answer to something I just don't remember what the question is.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks, Boldly. xenu, I can't for the life of me figure out what that question might be.

[Old Harry]

IIRC it's how many roads must a man walk down. So Commodore is trying to tell you something...

And Boldly is right - I'd bet that Commodore gets to 43 EPs invested and stops, so if you think Dazed is a more pressing problem you should switch your EPs this turn. You can always catch up to Com later.