Learning Capria FFH SG

[Brian Shanahan]

Which it hasn't been.

Thought that myself, none of the AI starts we've seen have been buffed.

I was thinking of the endless gobbo archer spawn you get from logging in and out of WB.

[Selrahc]

I was thinking of the endless gobbo archer spawn you get from logging in and out of WB.

If all you do is mess around on WB, that won't happen. Goblin Archer spawn happens upon starting a new scenario with the map. So if a map has been edited, saved, then loaded up as a new scenario again for further editing it will spawn new Goblin Archers.

[Hart]

Hey folks! Sorry about the delay, but long weekends in Australia are definitely the worst times to try and be productive. On with the show!

t109:
The only main change I made was switching Bologna to 17H output to get the Thane out on the next turn.
t110:
The Order GP event pops up, and Bologna celebrates "We love the Monarch Day!".
kjn was right, Os-Gabella completed the Bone Palace this turn, and is now in a Golden Age.

Workers A and B both complete individual chops near Bologna. The wine near Oxford is also completed, and a road is begun to connect it to the empire.

Salamanca, now at size 3, begins working the riverside mine, hastening the construction of its monument.

The problem with this turn was overflow. The "chops should always go into expansion or infrastrcture" rule is a good one, and in trying to stick to this I considered some options for production in Bologna for the next few turns.

My original plan was to build Thanes until Bronze Working completes, and then build the Training Yard and proceed with Axes. However, the 26 hammers didn't really provide that much benefit, simply reducing the build plan by one turn.

Code:

Turn                109    110    111    112    113    114    115    116    117    118    119
Build                Thane    Thane     Thane    Thane    Thane    Thane    ?    ?    ?    ?    ?                
Hammers generated    20    22    22    22    22    22    22    22    22    22    22
Overflow            0    0    8    0    12    0    16    0    0    0    0
Chopping/Hurry        0    26    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0
Production multiplier    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5
Total production    30    72    45    33    51    33    57    33    33    33    33
Invested            31    0    0    45    0    51    0    0    0    0    0
Accumulated            61    72    45    78    51    84    57    33    33    33    33
Target                60    60    60    60    60    60    ?    ?    ?    ?    ?

That itself meant that I was probably going to build a Thane for one more turn after BW completed - we'd have another thane, but that Training Yard also waited for a turn.

It was a good thing I waited, as kjn's comment on the Pagan Temple meant I could do something else with this turn. Building the Temple with the 26 overflow, and the two new mines that came online (bringing base production to 22 hammers!), produced a whopping 120 Hammers! That +100% Temple construction bonus is something I always forget about with Spiritual leaders.

Code:

Turn                109    110    111    112    113    114    115    116    117    118    119
Build                Thane    Temple    Thane    Thane    Thane    TY     TY    TY    Axeman    Axeman    Axeman
Hammers generated    20    22    22    22    22    22    22    22    22    22    22
Overflow            0    0    22    4    0    8    0    0    20    2    0
Chopping/Hurry        0    26    0    0    0    0    13    0    0    0    0
Production multi.    1.5    2.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5
Total production    30    120    66    39    33    45    52    33    63    36    33
Invested            31    37    0    0    39    0    45    97    0    0    36
Accumulated            61    157    66    39    72    45    97    130    63    36    69
Target                60    100    60    60    60    100    100    100    60    60    60

The rounded down overflow of 22 meant that we didn't lose any hammers, and we can then one-turn a Thane immediately afterwards. This restores the order of the build queue, at the cost of one Thane (that we arguably don't need). You can also see from these numbers that we can comfortably 2-turn build Axemen once the Yard is done. Only 3 hammers... Don't we have a third Grass Hill Forest we're not using?

And so after a bit of thinking, it's clear. We trade 3 food (in the form of negative health) for those 3 hammers, which gets us an Axe that turn sooner.

Code:

Turn                109    110    111    112    113    114    115    116    117    118    119
Build                Thane    Temple    Thane    Thane    Thane    Training Yard    Axemen    Axeman    Axeman    Axeman
Hammers generated    20    22    22    23    23    23    22    21    21    21    21
Overflow            0    0    22    4    0    9    0    0    0    1    0
Chopping/Hurry        0    26    0    0    0    0    13    0    0    0    0
Production mult.    1.5    2.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5    1.5
Total production    30    120    66    40    34    48    52    31    31    33    31
Invested            31    37    0    0    40    0    48    0    31    0    33
Accumulated            61    157    66    40    74    48    100    31    62    33    64
Target                60    100    60    60    60    100    100    100    60    60    60

The catch: that plan relies on a chop of that last grass hill. Which brings us to -1 health until the Fish is connected in Salamanca. Our commitment to getting Fishing next is now set in stone. In order to prevent losing too much food, we probably need to trade a bit of cottage growth for working the Sheep tile. The Food and Citzen Assignment spreadsheet details are below, for completionism.

Code:

Turn                109    110    111    112    113    114    115    116    117    118    119
Bologna                8    8    8    8    8    8    8    8    8    8    8
Patria                1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1
GLH Forest            4    2    2    3    3    3    2    2    2    2    2
GLH Mine (RS)        1    2    2    2    2    2    2    2    2    2    2
GLH Mine            1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1
GL Forest            1    1    1                                
Sheep (P)                                    1    1    1    1    1
Corn (F)            1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1

Turn                109    110    111    112    113    114    115    116    117    118    119
Food consumed        16    16    16    16    16    16    16    16    16    16    16
Food generated        16    16    15    15    15    15    19    19    19    19    19
Food surplus        0    0    -1    -1    -1    -1    3    3    3    3    3
Invested            15    15    15    14    13    12    11    14    17    20    23
Food accumulated    15    15    14    13    12    11    14    17    20    23    26
Target                36    36    36    36    36    36    36    36    36    36    36

t111:(That was a lot of writing for one turn).
Bologna finishes the Pagan Temple and begins a Thane, due next turn. Oxford grows to size 3 and finishes it's Elder Council. Our thane, moved on the previous turn, spreads RoK in Oxford, and the city promptly begins construction of a Temple of Kilmorph.
Oxford's citzen layout prioritises commerce and growth above production, for the time being. Oxford won't be able to rapidly produce Thanes for us for quite some time, regardless of how soon the city completes its Temple.
Shown here:

In what I hope won't be too controversial a move, Albert finishes the road in the tile he's on, while B moves to Bologna in preparation to move near salamanca. Due to the position of the two units, they would reach the tile I want improved near Salamanca (the other riverside grass hill) in the same amount of turns. However, because Albert can move to an adjacent Grass Hill Forest tile in just 1 turn, he is better suited to continuing to work near Bologna. HOWEVER, because of the strict timetable we have with getting overflow into the Training Yard, he *can't* start chopping the forest on t112, because the chop will end on t114, throwing everything off. So, A roads, B moves.

t112:
Bologna finishes a Thane, and cues up another one. Bologna is also switched to cover the Grass Hill Forest instead of the flat tile.

I'm hoping this pays off...

t113:
Interesting news! Fellowship of Leaves is founded in a distant land... is it a city of Amelanchier's we haven't seen yet?

Brian begins building a Mine on the hill NE of Salamanca, for both Sal and Paris to use in the future. Alfred begins his crucial chop.

And now for the news we've all been waiting for...

t114:
WE HAVE DISCOVERED BRONZE WORKING!

That (really loud) sound of power rings throughout the land.

And, in a curious turn of events, Jonas Endain converts to FoL!

The workers near Oxford have completed a farm. They split up to prepare to chop the two hills SW of Oxford, producing a 26*2=52 H bonus in Oxford in 4 turns time, to go towards the new Temple. Oxford's citizenry are reassigned to work the new farm, reducing the time to growth down to 4 turns.

I also think Salamanca is going to need a Thane to spread RoK there.

The hill 1S of Salamanca is being chop+mined, and will be completed next turn. Instead of happening AFTER Fishing is completed, it's going to happen just before it grows AND finishes its Monument. There will be at least 1 turn of "gap" between completing Fishing and being ready to build something else. Fortunately the overflow won't lose any hammers, so what should be built? A Settler? 220 hammers is a huge investment and should really be done in a city with the right infrastructure for it (Bologna). Salamanca might handle this later on down the line, but at the moment not enough of its hills have mines, and Paris will need to use some (or all) of those production tiles soon. A Temple of Kilmorph on the other hand is only 120 hammers, and all hammers invested in it will be doubled. That's 16H becoming 32H, in 1 turn. I realise it can't share many tiles with Paris for those 0% binary research periods, but it does have access to a number of coastal tiles, and if we get the Heron Throne and a Lighthouse in there it will be capable of quite a bit of commerce production.

So I move the Thane that was just produced onto the tile 1E of Sal.

t115:

Albert finishes his chop for Bologna, producing those critical 13 hammers. Unfortunately Bologna seems to need 1 more hammer (NNNNNNNNNG) to finish the Training Yard. So the Grassland Forest is worked isntead of the Pigs, for one more turn of negative health.

Eric finishes the mine for Salamanca this turn as well, giving the city 18 total production to finish the Monument.
Other workers also begin chopping or mining for their respective cities.

t116:

And the best event ever happens this turn: The Open Tome has moved into prominence! This gives us 30 bonus beakers for Fishing, which completes THIS TURN.

As discussed, I pick HBR as the next tech. ETA is 8 turns, but this will probably have to change due to the need to retain or replenish our gold reserve.

Salamanca has finished its Monument and grown to size 4! And despite the fact we have Fishing early, I put the overflow into a Temple of Kilmorph anyway. The bonus to hammers is too good to waste at this point in time, and we can't use the Work Boat immediately anyway, because Sal's borders haven't popped. A period of binary research is going to come up soon, as we're getting closer and closer to the < 200 gold mark, so it'd be better to have the extra gold on hand.

Since we need to focus on production (for a few more turns at least) in Salamanca, Paris switches from one its plains village to work the farm, growing the city in 5 turns. This reduces the production, but 3 hammers isn't that much better than 1, when we still need 200 more.

The only real question remaining for the rest of this turn set is what to do with Eric Flint?

There are a number of options available to us at this point:
He can stay near salamanca and continue to improve its production capabilites.
He can also begin improving other tiles around Salamanca, farms and cottages.
He can proceed up to Paris and begin improving the hills near there, in preparation for a growth/production phase.

In the end I decided on improving production in Salamanca, in particular to secure the horses to the west.
Those horses were one of the main reasons we settled in that particular location in the first place. They are a key strategic resource, and we will probably find that we will finish researching HBR at the same time we get the horses connected. To that end, Eric and Brian will be spending their next few turns connecting those horses to the empire.
This turn, Eric moves 1NW to the grassy hill. The workers near Oxford are instructed to begin chopping.

t117:
Oxford has grown to size 4, and (auto-assigned, I missed this initially) begins working the Hamlet.
Eric begins constructing a mine on the hill W of Salamanca. Brian, having completed his mine the previous turn, moves to assist him.

t118:
Paris' borders popped this turn, revealing an Illian scout.
Bologna finished an Axeman this turn, and begins another.
The OXford worker team has finished both of their chops, producing enough hammers to finish the entire Temple by the next turn. That SPI bonus is great, and we should maxmise our use of it throughout the game.

t119:
Bologna: Albert builds his mine. This means the city can now maintain a 30H output exactly (with God King), leaving one citizen free to work a cottage or farm.
Oxford: Now that the production in this city is going to be focused on Thanes, Oxford switches to working the Wine, the farm, the Copper and the mine. this gives a balanced
The workers begin to build a cottage on the event-effected hill and a mine on the hill west of that.
The mine west of Salamanca completes, and Brian begins building a road.

And that's that.

City Overview
Bologna: 30H per turn, 3 food surplus.

Paris:
2 turns until growth.

Oxford:
7 turns per Thane, 5 turns until growth.

Salamanca:
Work Boat in 1 turn, border pop in 2.

Future Planning
The most immediate thing that needs to be addressed is our gold reserve. I think on turn 118, it dropped below the 200 gold mark. I think that at some point soon, probably once Paris reaches size 7, that we need to drop into a binary research state. You might notice that the screenshots above are all at a 50% research rate - I was playing around with potential resarch levels that don't miss out on beakers due to rounding down.

Beyond this I have absolutely no idea where to proceed. I've overanalysed this whole post too many times, and desperately need some feedback to continue.

[Brian Shanahan]

I see the save, I will look at it this evening, and give my thoughts. I should play it tomorrow evening (touch wood ).

Just one question immediately, 100 gold for the reserve correct?

[Brian Shanahan]

I think 100 gold is plenty for the moment as a reserve. We're at b/e science on 66% so there is room to rex yet.

As regards the save, we need more workers, 5 is not enough with the farming and cottaging we could do, not to mention chopping and mining. But where to build them? Bologna? Plus: great hammers, good food=quick workers. Minus: Workers=no axes, so big no-no there. Salamanca. Plus, no pressing need for other business, decent hammer production. Minus=not great hammer production means slow workers. Oxford is our secondary unit producer so it is out too, and Paris could do in a pinch, but is slow building Deruptus.

Cities:
Bologna gets on with building an army.
Paris the Deruptus, with emhasis from future worker on mine.
Salamanca goes with current builds and later workers.
Oxford finishes Thane and goes with a Training Yard.

Units:
Workers look pretty ok for the moment. Salamanca gets a cottage next, then a farm (will have enough food in the next few turns). Bologna needs farms and mines, and then can look to cottaging the south edge of the BFC. Oxford needs whatever can be spared, farms, mines, cottages the works.
The Thane from Oxford converts Paris.
Axes go towards Oxford as a jumping off point for invasion (I'll see if we can get an advantage here).

Tech:
Finish HBR and then go with warfare (reasoning below)? After that move towards Empy, and backfill the most useful techs after that.

Civics/Religion:
Religion first. We should pull Kili switch now I think. We have enough cities to go with it and it does us no harm (we're happy, we want to attack Os, etc.)

Next civics. I'm thinking adopt Conquest after warfare. We have a few cities with decent food surpluses, and will be able to quick-pump an army out the gate. The 2 xp will be nice too. Keep apprenticeship, adopt Religion (I think we're in Nat. atm) for the extra happy. At the moment the 2xp from apprenticeship is marginally better than Military State (though for later wars that will reverse). Other than that what we have is the best available.

Longer term I'm not sure what we need to do, but get Ozzie out of the way and we're probably fairly set for the game.

[kjn]

Looks like a solid turnset, with some great luck in the Open Tome event.

As for the gold reserve, I think we should keep at least 100 at all times right now, and if we drop below 150-200 it might be time to run a few turns of max gold whenever we finish a tech (perhaps with tile rearrangement, if it fits from a empire production standpoint).

I'm not sure we will need more workers soon. Bologna and Paris are working all developed tiles, and are at their happy/health caps. Oxford and Salamanca have room to grow, but three or four workers should be plenty to keep up with the population growth, and Oxford has a few tiles to grow into already.

As soon as it looks like we will either found or conquer new cities, then we will need extra workers, but right now things seem under control. Bologna can need a cottage and maybe another chop/mine, and Paris can get a cottage shared with Salamanca.

I think we should try to keep as many forests as we can until we get Archery or something worthwhile to chop them into, preferably both, especially around Paris.

Getting workers out of Paris would be a mistake, I think. Paris is our primary commerce/research pump, and will probably remain so until after the war with Os-Gabella. Its limited production should go into stuff that assists in that goal, ie Deruptus, happy/health buildings, and research boosters. We can use chopping (after Archery) to help in infrastructure, and the mines shared with Salamanca.

Oxford should go max food and work its cottages until it is size 7, I think. Then it can go food neutral or with a small surplus and work mostly mines, building thanes the entire time, and maybe later on convert to archer or cavalry production (I doubt we will need two melee production centres among the current four cities).

Salamanca will need the most worker attention, but with the fish and a few cottages it should be mostly set. Building more workers from Oxford or Salamanca can wait until they are at their happy/health caps - get max worked tiles ASAP. With the fish, and the shared farm/sheep with Paris, Salamanca should also have enough food - no need for a farm. Cottages and mines going forward. It can either support building up the army (with maybe a few scouts and warriors), or go for infrastructure. I think we have a very good shot at landing the Heron Throne, if we go for it.

Hmmm... looking at things, I think Brian's plan is mostly a builder's plan. We can go for that, spread religions, and go for a settler race in the south and settling Northpoint. It will increase our empire, but won't really allow our core to grow (except for the rice in the south). Or we can go for a war with Os-Gabella as soon as possible. Then we should keep every thane we have currently for the war effort (they can scout decently thanks to 2 moves, end resistance, and act as medics), set Oxford for thane training, Bologna to axes, and maybe get some more forces (scouts and extra garrisoning warriors) out of Salamanca.

If we go war, then don't switch to Religion. It would mean too big a production hit of axes and thanes. Go all military, at least until we have taken their capital and are certain of having enough forces in the field.

Tech choice after HBR is quite a hard choice. I'd like to pick up Priesthood (for Stonewardens), Hunting (for the deer health and hunters/hawks), Archery (for better choppings and strong garrisons), and all the various post-Education techs... I also want to move towards Order (with their awesome stack-buffing priests).

The main reason to switch to RoK is probably to research Arete, so we can start on the Mines of Gal'Dur. However, I think the tech after HBR should be either Hunting or Sailing. Hunting will do wonders for exploring the rest of the map, and increase our health and happy caps. Sailing would help exploration, and allow us to settle Golden.

[haphazard1]

Nice break with the Open Tome event.

What do the power graphs look like now? How many troops do you think you will need to attack Os-G, and when could you have them built?

Interesting that Jonas Endain founded FoL. What is Amelanchier doing with his time to get beaten on that? Anyway, the Clan has Hunting and (maybe) a lot of forests around their start. Not sure how much it will benefit them, lacking the elves' ability to improve forests. But I guess the happiness would be useful in any case.

What is your breakeven beakers per turn at this point? I am not sure what represents "good" on this at various stages in FFH. My development in my Ljos game has been very sub-optimal, so I am curious.

[kjn]

How many troops do you think you will need to attack Os-G, and when could you have them built?

Unless the power graph has changed a lot since last time, I guess we'd need 8-10 axes in the field to break her resistance, and then about as many thanes, scouts, and warriors for mop-up, scouting, and new garrisons. We'd need to continually send in reinforcements during the fight, too.

If she has Pyre Zombies, we will need a much larger force and a different mix, but she seems to be quite a bit away from them.

Interesting that Jonas Endain founded FoL. What is Amelanchier doing with his time to get beaten on that? Anyway, the Clan has Hunting and (maybe) a lot of forests around their start. Not sure how much it will benefit them, lacking the elves' ability to improve forests. But I guess the happiness would be useful in any case.

I wonder that too. The Clan has relatively little benefit from FoL, anyway. The health is good, but their research capacity to get to Priesthood is quite bad, likely.

What is your breakeven beakers per turn at this point? I am not sure what represents "good" on this at various stages in FFH. My development in my Ljos game has been very sub-optimal, so I am curious.

Brian estimated it to about 2/3. Our development is also quite different from most FFH games - its not every game where AH you plan to go for Calendar as your fifth tech, usually it's your second, and our lack of commerce resources has slowed our development a lot.

[Brian Shanahan]

As regards the workers, I'm of the school of 1 worker per city is dangerously low school. I'd rather have too many workers early improving stuff we won't use for 40 or 50 turns than have to go all out later after the second or third push. When we're mid game, I rarely push workers unless I'm founding on a large island away from the mainland.

Yes it is a builder set. We've 2 mature cities and 2 growing ones, I don't think we're ready for war yet. Now while it being builderish I was looking towards seeing what we can do to get ready for war, hence thinking along the lines of training yard for Oxford and going with conquest. I'm willing to continue with the Thane production, but I do think that the extra produce from Conquest will help us a lot more at this moment than Sailing (or any other tech for that matter). Our primary focus is taking out the Sheaim after all.

I think from Jonas founding FoL that Amelanchier is going to be the main runt of this particular litter, and we should really look to taking him out soon after the Sheaim. We don't want him either messing up our dot map or stabbing us if someone else comes knocking. And as kjn has said, Jonas' power is not in teching but in production, so it's nice to see him found Leaves.

About the 2/3 b/e rate on beakers. If you pull the sliders around you're getting +3 gpt at 60% and -2 at 70%. Simple arithmitic will tell you 66% is the b/e point.

I think I'll leave off playing for a few hours and see if we can get a final consensus on what to do exactly.

[kjn]

Taking a look at the save right now. My comments. Note that this is based on the strategic goal of an invasion against Os-Gabella as soon as possible. Everything is geared towards that.

Bologna: Go max axes for now, and the entire turnset. Once the fish is online, we can work the corn+cottage and be food-neutral. Health for one more mine. We can also easily work one or two cottages for Paris while still two-turning axes.

Paris: Go max food this turn, then back to all cottages. Thus, I think we should go max gold this turn, with Bologna working two of the shared cottages.

Oxford: Go max growth (work cottage instead of mine), so it can grow to 5 as soon as possible, and pick up the mines/cottages that are being built right now.

Salamanca: Will have to run a food deficit this turn, but can pick up sheep+farm next turn, and then the fish the turn after that, for extra-fast growth. Should probably build scouts and warriors after the work boat.

With Auric's scout and the bear, I'd love to pick off a wounded bear or scout with a scout for some XP to get Subdue Animal, but we don't have any scouts we can use.

Future path:

What about aiming for an invasion of Os-Gabella on turn 136, using eight axes as the primary force? We can assault Galveholm on turn 139.

With the fish, Galveholm can reach 10 hammers/turn at size 4 with a good food surplus, and it will pick up more hammers for each new citizen, say about 125 hammers until turn 132. That's 2 warriors and 3 scouts. We can use a scout or two and the warriors as the ready reserve, while our old reserve joins the axes in the assault.

Oxford can add a thane, probably with another half-finished, for two total in the invasion force. It can six-turn Thanes working copper and two mines, five-turn using the hill cottage being built. I'd have liked to have one more thane in the assault force, but that's water under the bridge now.

New axes on turns 120, 122, 124, 126, 128, 130, 132, 134. Stage them on the reserve tile. Forces from Salamanca can stage either via the reserve tile, or go over the mana node (especially if we can get a road there). Forces from Oxford can go to the copper tile or the reserve tile.

Turn 133 8 axes move from the reserve tile, together with one (two) thane, two scouts, and four or five warriors. Turn 135 they stage on the copper, and are joined by the missing thane. Turn 136 they move E-SE and declare. Then 2SE, and we can assault Galveholm on turn 139.

We will have to look closely at the power graph, and abort if Os-Gabella's graph spikes.

Once we declare, Salamanca might be able to finish the ToK and pick up an infrastructure project, but it should probably wait until we're very certain Os-Gabella is down.