[PB56] NobleHelium Tells It Like It Is

[NobleHelium]

Interesting Fin, but I think you are not accounting for the fact that Brainstorm and Thoughtseize both growing 1t sooner means we get a few more points of value from that which offsets any difference even if you are using the food = hammer assumption. Although I suppose an argument can be made that the faster growth is baked into the calculations because that's the point of the food? I haven't quite wrapped my head around whether that applies in this case.

[Fintourist]

Interesting Fin, but I think you are not accounting for the fact that that Brainstorm and Thoughtseize both growing 1t sooner means we get a few more points of value from that which offsets any difference even if you are using the food = hammer assumption.  Although I suppose an argument can be made that the faster growth is baked into the calculations because that's the point of the food?  I haven't quite wrapped my head around whether that applies in this case.

No, no, you are correct. I can easily believe that food > hammers by a fair margin in your situation. The way I approach this kind of analysis is that I simply count foodhammers as the starting point and then look closer. I would say that it's the base case that food snowballs faster, but I'm just personally liking this method more than using some standard conversion rates such as 1 food = 1.5 hammers. There is just so many factors that impact the evaluation (do you have granary in the city, how good is the tile you are growing onto, are you continuing the growth or stagnating at the next size, are the additional hammers getting you a faster settler/worker/ granary, etc)

[NobleHelium]

I don't see how Ruff could have double moved. He was second to play on t36 after vanrober, and vanrober played before him on t37. He has not played t38 yet.

[NobleHelium]

Ruff went ahead and played right after me. Was I getting double moved from across the map without knowing it? I am so confused.

[novice]

Presumably his warrior stumbled upon a worker, settler or city of yours? Which turn are we at, anyway?

[NobleHelium]

It is turn 38. He could have a scout around us I guess but not a warrior.

Since you took my post seriously, I logged in again to check and we have still not met Ruff. I assume the double move situation was related to somebody near him and he changed his move subsequently such that it was no longer a relevant double move. I'm not sure that should actually be allowed if he gained information before the reload, but I assume I'm missing something since you know, Ruff is on the other side of the map.

I will post an update soon.

[NobleHelium]

novice, my man!

Releases:

Latest release, version 1.09. Has a revamped user interface.

Can you provide the fixed link for the executable your program?

[novice]

Try this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2162h9xdnt1fsn...9.zip?dl=0

[NobleHelium]

All right, I'll report.  But only because I love you novice.

First, we executed the micro plan (normal line) exactly as detailed in the previous posts.  We also met a bunch of people around the map and are missing only three contacts, but we'll worry about that later. (We also know that Ruff and vanrober are at war in the northwest part of the map due to meta reasons.) Laz and gira previously signed peace, but then Laz declared on gira again a few turns ago. No idea how hot that is.



On turn 41 we found AT's horse.  No sign of a settler.  Turn after that we settled Channel as planned.  AT seemed to have reacted pretty strongly to this when he saw it the next turn.  I don't have a picture of that turn (t43).  I took this to mean that we stole his copper and he could be coming after us immediately.



On t44 we saw him settle on horse and he moved a quechua southeast out of his second city towards us.  This is the point when I remembered that he has quechuas. I took the combination of this to be an aggressive action and decided to move in to see if his defenses were up to snuff.  However, after moving in we discovered the copper north of the horse and after extensive scrutiny of the power graph we determined that he most likely did not have Animal Husbandry and settling on the horse was coincidental.  We also determined that he had 2-3 quechuas at this point.



This turn (t45) we moved in further and discovered that his copper city is empty.  Unless he has a quechua 2N of our warrior and that tile is roaded next turn, we will raze the city. (Or if he attacks across the river at 4.5% odds and wins.) We know his second city just grew this turn and he immediately whipped it, which means he most likely whipped a quechua and will overflow into a second quechua.  We whipped an axe in Thoughtseize because it seemed necessary given the situation.



Here are some other facts.™

1) We know he researched the Wheel about 4 turns ago.
2) He may have started researching Archery on t44 when he saw our city and reacted strongly to it.
3) Archery most likely would take him at least 7t to research and could be 8 or 9t, or if he was really lucky and has some gold saved up it could maybe be done in 6t.
4) His second city is utter crap claiming a cow and nothing else that we see (there is one fogged tile).  It would be very annoying for us if he built Stonehenge there, but he doesn't have Masonry and he mined his stone.  So it would take him a while to get that done if that's in his plans.  He is PHI/IND.
5) Assuming he overflows into a second quechua in the second city next turn, he would most likely have four quechuas.  That is a lot of quechuas which would be annoying on defense, but not really threatening on offense.
6) We will finish a spear in Thoughtseize in 2t after the axe.
7) AT's capital borders will pop around t50 and claim the copper again post-raze.

Now, my main question is:

Assuming we raze the city, should we offer a treaty?  I am sure he is pissed but I think he is still likely to take it.  Or should we go full bore into an axe rush?  The original plan called for a 2-whipped settler out of the capital at size 4 coupled with a chop, and if we get peace we could still go with that with maybe a 1-2t delay.  The settler would settle south at the triple seafood spot with the spearman as defense.  The other micro deviations we've made so far are the axe whip in Thoughtseize and not camping the fur at Channel, which I thought was too vulnerable so I sent the worker south to chop instead.  Basically I'm saying we're not that committed right now and the micro cost can definitely be made up down the line.  We could go full bore into the rush and I am sure we could take his second city, but it is really bad and I'm not even sure we'd want to keep it.  His capital is presumably quite good since it is a capital, but it is very far away and I am not sure if we can take it before he gets archers.  We could attack the capital directly before attacking the second city, but it is very far away and we would be vulnerable to attack from Amica to the west or Gira/mackoti to the south.  We could also offer the treaty and still go into the axe rush if he declines.  As the picture says, we'd be easily able to get two axes out of the capital instead of a settler. But we could get bogged down into an interminable ancient war if we can't take his capital and then civac might run away with the game from the other side of the map again or we might get run over by keshiks later.



Here is the south. The cow is pastured and half roaded, and so is the tile southwest of it. So that indicates that the cow is most likely owned by gira, although it could be owned by Laz as well and he has an aggressive road forward. Both gira and Laz have three cities and as mentioned Laz declared war on gira a few turns ago (previously gira declared war on Laz and they were at war for a long time). A settler out of Brainstorm at size 4 could settle 3S of the capital, at the cluster of seafood visible at the top of the picture. Most likely that would be our border city towards the south, I am not hopeful to claim land further south than that given the current game state. I do not see any other improved resources in this picture, so no idea where Laz's cities are.

If AT takes the treaty it would be safe to assume that he'll attack us later, but he would probably resettle his copper city first (most likely 1S to claim the corn given that his capital will claim the copper) and in the meantime he has a lot of useless quechuas.  His capital is size 2 and his second city is back down to 1 and he doesn't even have the cow pastured because he doesn't have AH.  He might also be researching AH (which he was probably originally planning to research) instead of Archery in the hopes that he has horse somewhere in his borders already.  So I think we'd be fine returning to a mostly normal largely peaceful expansion plan and dealing with the problem later.  Razing his city is still good for us because we are his closest neighbor and it will be a very big setback for him given his current production capacity. Heck, even if he doesn't give us peace we could probably just not attack him further and continue our normal business for a while.




t44-t45 demos.

[Serdoa]

I was pretty certain about him not having AH yesterday when we talked as it seemed unlikely by the data we have - there are three 2000 soldier point bumps (once together with BW) so we assumed three warriors. But can he really not have researched AH despite claiming a cow and nothing else with the second city? I'm not certain, it seems easy to dismiss it as bad play - but I don't like to underestimate our opponents, so I want to look at the demos for power again, match them with GNP and score increases and see what we get.



Inca starts with Myst and Agri - 0 soldier points.

(6 Turns) 3760 BC = increase by 2000 points. This coincides with a score increase of 6 (tech). This can be Mining, Hunting, AH. AH it can't be, because the amount of beakers necessary can't be achieved. It has to be Hunting or Mining. With 6 Turns of research and no bonus it should be between 54 beakers on the low end and 66 max if he worked something with 2 commerce. That would require a 2/1/2 or 1/2/2 tile, as I can't believe anyone would not work a 3foodhammer (fh) tile at the start. The delay is just too big. So, I looked at his GNP graph. It shows 17 for the start. We know that everyone has 4 EP, 8 commerce, 2 culture from the palace + 1 commerce from the settled tile. That gives a total of 15. So yes, he worked a x/x/2 tile and made 11 beakers per turn or 66 in total.

Anyhow, Mining costs 74 beakers, so it can't be Mining. Therefore this is Hunting. Which costs 59 beakers, therefore overflow of 7 beakers.

(13 Turns) 3480 BC = score increase by 6 (tech). With 7 turns that should be 77 beakers, with overflow 84 beakers. We know it is not a soldier tech, so not Mining or AH, Wheel. It can be Fishing (74), Masonry (119), Meditation (119), Polytheism (149). As the latter three are all too expensive, it has to be Fishing. And with 74 beakers cost we know that we have 10 overflow

(18 Turns) 3280 BC = increase by 1000 points and 4 score increase (pop) -> Growth to 2.
(19 Turns) 3240 BC = increase by 2000 points and 6 score increase (tech) -> Mining or AH - his GNP increased on T19 by 1, so that must be the new pop that works a tile with 1 commerce. Therefore we can calculate that he had 11 commerce for 6 turns = 66 + 10 overflow = 76. AH costs 149 so this has to be Mining. Overflow of 2. 

GNP gets harder to read after this, as it increases every few turns by a little. 

(20 Turns) 3200 BC = score increase by 10 - I assume this are land points. Too short for tech obviously and also pop would not work, even if he planted a second city (which we know he did not).

(22 Turns) 3120 BC = score increase by 4 -> pop no. 3

(25 Turns) 3000 BC = score increase by 10 -> land points after border pop on T5

(26 Turns) 2960 BC = 1000 soldier points -> pop no. 4 

(30 Turns) 2800 BC = 10000 soldier points and score increase by 10 (tech, pop no. 5). This was Bronze Working + Quechua, I can't see anything else that is possible for some many soldier points. These is 11 turns of research after the last tech, so at least 99 beaker + 2 overflow = 101. He has to have produced 150 though (BW costs 179 but gets a 1.2 bonus) and also we saw it go up. It was

T19 start: 2 overflow + 1 add = 3 + 14 + 15 + 15 + 17 + 17 + 18 + 18 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 = 197. He was at 177 the turn before so missed it by 2 beakers. Therefore the overflow was 15 raw beakers. (18 / 1.2)

(37 Turns) 2520 BC = 2000 soldier points and score increase by 6 (tech), followed by 4 (city settled) followed by -8 (capital whipped). This has to be Sailing or Animal Husbandry therefore, both cost 149, but he would have a 1.4 multiplier for having Agri and Hunting for AH but only 1.2 for Sailing. He has the 15 overflow + 16 (?) + 26 x 6. Ok, that is weird, because it makes no sense. I believe these 16 beakers there have to be a different tech - maybe The Wheel - that he started to research before switching away from it. And because that did eat his overflow, the 26 x 6 = 156 beakers make sense. Else he should have gotten the tech a turn earlier. Ok.

Now for the actual tech. He has researched with 20 beakers last BW. Given the 1.2 modifier that should be 17 raw beakers. 9 of that is palace and city center. That leaves 8 commerce with 5 pop, he whipped two away. We know he has a 2 commerce tile he likes to work and probably a seafood as well, so most likely another 2 commerce. That leaves 3 pop for the other 4 commerce, 2 of which he whipped. Lets assume the third pop produces 2 as well, we didn't see any increases of 4, so unlikely he worked a tile that produces as much (plus I don't think such a tile exists).  I assume he started a trade route, getting +1 in both cities, for 2 more commerce and 1 more commerce from the city center + maybe 1 more from the new pop. So that means we start with 17 + 2 (trade routes) - 2 (whips) + 2 (new city + pop) = 19. Which, with a 1.4 modifier gives 26.6 or 26 beakers rounded down.

So yeah: AT has in fact Animal Husbandry. 

(42 Turns) 2320 BC = 6000 soldier points and score increase by 6 (tech). This has to be The Wheel for 4000 soldier points + 2000 at the same turn for the second Quechua. 

Techs in order: Agri / Myst -> Hunting -> Fishing -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> AH -> The Wheel

---

Conclusion: AT has AH. Given that he settled horses in 2240 BC (last turn) he can only have started Chariots last turn either. He whipped his second city (are we certain that it was his second city and not his capital?) this turn so in theory that could be a Chariot, if he started it immediately last turn. He certainly could whip one in his capital as well. 

Anyhow: I still think we raze his city if we don't lose the unit. That prevents him from more Chariots and from Axes / Spears. We will need a Spear soonish though, no matter what. I think we should start a Chariot in Channel though. We can whip that when it grows, the spear follows from Thoughtseize a turn later (if I calculated correctly). 

We could keep the Axe as well though. There is only one tile that AT could move with a Chariot that would present an issue and it is 2E of Channel. Moving there we could not block the direct attack on the city with putting the warrior in the way (as he can go 2W or 1SW, 1NW). Else we block with the warrior and even if he attacks and win, we can than attack with the Axe with good odds. Basically as in chess, giving up a pawn for a rook, it's a good trade. And it does take him at least 3 or 4 turns to get there IF he has a Chariot available in one of his other cities. So we should get everything produced in time. 

Anyhow, Chariot would be fine as well. Worse odds against a Chariot of his (50/50) if we are the attacker, but much better if we are the defender. For the cities it should not make a difference, if he can't get something better than Quechuas, than a Chariot would be even better to be there faster and potentially before he gets Archery. 

But yeah: Raze his third city first, see what happens after. 

(Blood for the blood god!)