[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

Well it lets us part-build another unit to be whipped into the SoL. We may have to whip several builds the turn we launch the golden age since I assume we'll swap into Caste.

Another issue is that I think we want Pacifism for the length of the GA, which means the SoL only gets a 1.75 multiplier . So we want to start the build the turn before the GA begins to get the most from our overflow.

Going into the GA I presume we'll switch to Rep/Bureau/Caste/FM/Pacifism to pump great people for bulbs (specifically for winning the race to Physics) and the next golden age.

At the end of it I'm torn between Rep/US and Bureau/Nationhood, then I think Caste and Free Market are obvious, then do we go back to OR or switch to Theocracy (we'd need to research Theology)? If it wasn't for the SoL build I think Theocracy is obvious.

[Fintourist]

I'm not 100 % sure about the pacifism. I think it's time to make the GP plan "for the rest of the game" and see how many GPs and what kind of types do we actually need. If we decide that we don't go for a 4th GA in this game and plan to save our 3rd GA for a possible space race we are not in such a huge hurry to produce so many Great Persons. I haven't considered Uni Suffrage yet, but I assumed that we will end up in Caste/Rep so leaving couple cities for specialist duty after our Golden Age should be totally ok.

Sure bulbs and merchants missions are still ok plays, but at this point their cost is getting GPP-wise kind of big as after corporation a GS bulb is worth roughly one turn of break-even research --> That's still a respectable chunk of beakers, but if we need to sacrifice a lot to to produce an extra Great Person or get the first-to-bonus from Physics I'm not sure we want do it.

Btw reg whipping, remember to complete possible Missionary builds extra early before we give up OR and switch into Pacifism/Theocracy.

If I keep thinking out loud:
- We could go forward with a plan that aims at producing still 4 Great Persons in this game. Preliminary 3 (artist,scientist,merchant) for our 3rd GA and one scientist or merchant for a bulb/mission. However, if we happen to win a Communism Great Spy, we launch our 3rd GA early and use it to produce 2 additional Great Persons and leave us with 4 GPs for a possible space race (artist,scientist,merchant,spy). Our empire is getting big enough that even a 4-man GA starts to sound somewhat attractive in my ears, but for that we need to generate/get somehow a prophet, engineer or a spy.

[TheHumanHydra]

Well it lets us part-build another unit to be whipped into the SoL. We may have to whip several builds the turn we launch the golden age since I assume we'll swap into Caste.

Does this work with the overflow limits? I'm assuming it does, since you posted it, but just double-checking ...

[Fintourist]

Thanks for checking, IIRC OH has it planned around Cuir (100 hammers) and/or Gren (100 hammers) and Grocer (150 whips). OH had couple of variations of those that ended up somewhere above 100 hammers of carried overflow, but I don't know what's the latest status Anyways, getting more than 150 overflow should not be a problem here.

[Old Harry]

At Zucchini we'll do one cascade which gives us 100 overflow hammers at the start of the build, then once or twice we switch to whip another build with overflow hammers which will give us about 20-30 extra base hammers than we'd get if we just built he wonder that turn. It's not an amazing return, but every little helps...

Re: great people and bulbs - when the Golden Age starts our next great person will be the 600 GPP mark. I don't know exactly what the best point to stop generating them is, but I've seen people suggest you should get to 1200 to 1500 or even more GPP in a game.

I've marked five cities on the spreadsheet as being GP farms: Gertie (5 specs at break-even food, probably 7 or 8 in the GA), Kirby (NE, 6 at b/e, 9 in GA), Lucky (4 at b/e, 7 in GA), Marmalade (5 at b/e, 8 in GA) and My Finger once it hits size 8 (5).

With or without Pacifism in the golden age we'll get a spread like this:
...............With Pacifism.....Without Pacifism
600 GPP - - K - t186 ........... K - t188
700 GPP - - K - t192 ........... K - t203
800 GPP - - M - t206 ........... M - t217
900 GPP - - G - t213 ........... G - t223
1000 GPP - K - t220 ........... K - t230
1100 GPP - MF - t241 ........ MF - t248
1200 GPP - L - t250 ........... L - t262
1300 GPP - K - t256 ........... K - t266
1400 GPP -
1500 GPP -


So Pacifism only makes about ten turns difference and if we use some of them for a third golden age things will speed up a lot anyway. In favour of Pacifism:
1. I don't think we're building much infra (other than SoL) in the Golden Age, mostly boats and Rifles/Cav.
2. We're at the biggest size we're likely to be for a while, so I'd like to run two GA's as close to back-to-back as possible to try and push us far enough into the lead that we can go conquering again or force a concession...

I guess the question is: will the game last long enough for this sort of long-term planning to bear fruit?

[retep]

retep - good point, but please don't post here again, we don't want this game to go the way of all your others

Now that you tell me not to post I have to post here at least once a day

I'm like a six years old trap in the body of a seven years old.

[Azza]

Nah I'm done with Civ4 as soon as PB21 is over for me.

Crumbs, what are you going to do instead?

I've been getting back into Counter Strike recently, and I have a new Xbox One with a bunch of new games. Also I have my Masters/PhD I'm about a year into, which is going to take up more and more of my time til that's done.

[Old Harry]

And of course I multiplied K by 6 rather than 4 in the GA, the real figures are these:

With or without Pacifism in the golden age we'll get a spread like this:
...............With Pacifism.....Without Pacifism
600 GPP - - K - t188 ........... K - t190
700 GPP - - K - t203 ........... K - t209
800 GPP - - M - t206 ........... M - t217
900 GPP - - G - t213 ........... G - t223
1000 GPP - K - t231 ........... K - t236
1100 GPP - MF - t241 ........ MF - t248
1200 GPP - L - t250 ........... L - t262
1300 GPP - K - t267 ........... K - t272
1400 GPP -
1500 GPP -

I'd like one Great Scientist to bulb Physics with, having a Great Artist in case of warfare might be handy, but I doubt there is anywhere that the culture is low enough to make one viable, so two would be necessary.

So if K produces Scientist then Artist, M produced a Merchant and Gertie produced a Scientist/Prophet/Engineer mix we'd have a third golden age t214 and either a spare Scientist or a Prophet/Engineer to set up the 4th golden age.

We could try to win the Communism Spy for the 4 GA, but I don't think we'll want to switch to SP will we?

[Fintourist]

Hey, huge thanks for the analysis and good work! If I have time before our GA I would love to:
a) calculate how many adjusted beakers a Great Scientist currently brings with this size of an empire
b) calculate the value of a GA for us (extra commerce + hammers, and some sort of qualitative valuation of GPP and civic switch benefits)
c) calculate the opportunity cost of generating a Great Person vs. growing on coastal tiles (using different GPP limits), e.g. by using Seven's point system and estimated discount rate
... unfortunately I can't promise I get to that due to social life during the weekend and work.. But we'll see

1. I don't think we're building much infra (other than SoL) in the Golden Age, mostly boats and Rifles/Cav.

Probably true, but speeding up SoL by a turn is already worth couple hundred beakers and Wall Street in Alfie also brings more than 200 gold per money-saving turn. I haven't calculated this, but if OR speeds up those builds by a turn it already compensates for a decent amount of GPP.

2. We're at the biggest size we're likely to be for a while, so I'd like to run two GA's as close to back-to-back as possible to try and push us far enough into the lead that we can go conquering again or force a concession...

There is one thing I really like reg this view and one thing I don't:
- What I don't like: I think there is a scene in "fast & furios" where one guy is in a car race and he uses his nitrous oxide super boost too early and ends up losing the race due to his impatience. I don't want us to end up doing the same. Known-tech bonus is a real thing in this game, 8 % per person knowing the tech, which means that maintaining a possible lead isn't as easy as it would be in base BTS.
- What I like: Rifles and Cavalries will be a significant improvement for us, but we already saw that they aren't an automatic win button against someone like pindicator. However, if we can reach the next level of military level quickly (infantry etc.) there might still be time to convert that lead into more land, which actually manages to pay back for itself and help us winning this thing.

We could try to win the Communism Spy for the 4 GA, but I don't think we'll want to switch to SP will we?

Yeah, Communism might actually be a completely blank tech for us in this game. I mean, e.g. the hammer bonus from SP could be useful in the very late game and if everyone closes borders with us Free Market becomes weaker, etc., but I can see us skipping Communism altogether. Where to get the 4th type of Great Person is a real challenge though, I like your idea of mixing it up in Gertie. Spending a load of beakers just for a Great Spy would obviously be a bad deal.



I don't still have a complete counter-proposal ready for you, but I think your plan could work. However, I would probably remove either My Finger or Lucky from the equation and aim at max 7 self-generated Great Persons. Getting an extra bulb at ~T250 instead of earlier benefits does not sound on theoretical level too attractive. I come back to these...

[Old Harry]

Hey, huge thanks for the analysis and good work! If I have time before our GA I would love to:
a) calculate how many adjusted beakers a Great Scientist currently brings with this size of an empire
b) calculate the value of a GA for us (extra commerce + hammers, and some sort of qualitative valuation of GPP and civic switch benefits)
c) calculate the opportunity cost of generating a Great Person vs. growing on coastal tiles (using different GPP limits), e.g. by using Seven's point system and estimated discount rate

I don't still have a complete counter-proposal ready for you, but I think your plan could work. However, I would probably remove either My Finger or Lucky from the equation and aim at max 7 self-generated Great Persons. Getting an extra bulb at ~T250 instead of earlier benefits does not sound on theoretical level too attractive. I come back to these...

Agreed on A, B and especially C - I'm assuming that working 4 or 5 Rep Scientists in Lucky and My Finger for 50 turns is better than working 4 or 5 coastal tiles, which may be totally wrong as +10 food is very valuable... Having a second Pacifism GA at t214 would reduce that number of turns by about 15 though...

I agree that known-tech bonus is going to be bad for a front-runner, but if we (or us and BGN) are the only front-runner then 8% (or 16%) doesn't seem that hot. We could also offset it by trying a deep beeline to something that others won't want to follow us to (maybe for a wonder, tanks, advanced boats or bombers?) We do seem to have a lot more cottages than our competitors (and correspondingly fewer workshops ) which could mean that known-tech bonus doesn't hurt us as bad as it did Mackoti in PB13.

On golden ages - once our cities are grown and our land is totally developed I'm planning to use spare worker turns to convert grass farms to workshops and plains workshops to farms where they cancel each other out, meaning extra golden age hammers on as many tiles as possible (already done at Hazelnut). Also at the start of the fourth GA switching to US would probably be a good idea - although I don't think I've ever run a rush-buy economy .