[SPOILERS] swance bitten, twice shy

[williams482]

What capabilities does a spreadsheet need in order to be useful?

I have a city production spreadsheet done, which is relatively easy (and can be trivially duplicated to sim multiple city scenarios). Integrating fully accurate tech progress is trickier to start, falling to virtually impossible as you meet other players and subtle, not-explicitly-shown research modifiers start to come into play. I'm going to try to make something that partially automates tracking of worker tasks and finish times, but I doubt there's much actually benefit there beyond simply noting worker movement and progress in a generic "notes" column.

[ljubljana]

trying to chop out a fast THIRD city settler to see if that makes any difference:



realized we should possibly flip to slavery t30 in BW plan instead of t31, a worker turn is probably worth more than one turn of the second city working cow + city center



i'm open to being proven wrong here but... this seems like the best plan so far by a pretty significant margin? t41 vs t40 but we're actually in slavery here (and indeed could whip the second city worker next turn if we so choose) and haven't done anything that would impede an early copper settle, plus with this many early chops we have a lot of flexibility in case someone appears nearby who seems edible

[ljubljana]

@williams that sounds useful already! more features are always good but i'd say put as much effort into it as you find actively enjoyable, and don't worry about it beyond that

also, any wisdom to offer about the sims above?

[aetryn]

trying to chop out a fast THIRD city settler to see if that makes any difference:



realized we should possibly flip to slavery t30 in BW plan instead of t31, a worker turn is probably worth more than one turn of the second city working cow + city center



i'm open to being proven wrong here but... this seems like the best plan so far by a pretty significant margin? t41 vs t40 but we're actually in slavery here (and indeed could whip the second city worker next turn if we so choose) and haven't done anything that would impede an early copper settle, plus with this many early chops we have a lot of flexibility in case someone appears nearby who seems edible

Seems fine. Only cost is perhaps demolishing a few too many forests, but we're probably not high in the running for wonder production anyway with two IND leaders out there and America also probably wanting wonders for Great Person reasons. I think either is fine and if you feel safer going to BW before AH, that's fine. Realms Beyond mostly doesn't do pure axe rushes where you actually want those chariots to counter with - but say the German forum that Xist plays on loves axes. I sorely regretting leaving hooking up horses very late in PB72 and had to do axe vs axe warfare, which is... all right, but not ideal.

Flip to slavery before the second city founds if at all possible, and if not it's usually best to wait to flip until the next settler is en route (basically, make it so it costs one city one less turn by doing it when the settler is moving). What's the timeline on the third unit? We don't know for sure yet but it's likely we'll want at least one more scout somewhere in here.

Re: Williams, most of the subtle modifiers actually ARE shown in BUG, which is an interface mod packaged with Close to Home so you should be able to see on the tech screen how many other players you have met have a given tech already (at least, one that you are eligible for).

[williams482]

@williams that sounds useful already! more features are always good but i'd say put as much effort into it as you find actively enjoyable, and don't worry about it beyond that

Well, here you go.

This makes sense to me, but how comprehensible it is to someone else remains to be seen. The two lookup tabs are for tile yields and city construction projects, the other sheets are each intended to correspond to each city. Feel free to add whatever you want to the lookup tabs, named as you please; there are plenty of examples to start with and hopefully demonstrate what new additions should look like. Keep in mind that the VLOOKUPs match based on the "Short" column in "Yield Lookups" and the "Name" column in "Build Lookups".

For the city sheets themselves, you can safely assume that if a cell is not highlighted in yellow, you shouldn't modify it's value manually. For any of the yellow cells (excluding the row directly below the headers) if you manually input something and then later want to get rid of it, replace the unwanted values by copy-pasting the contents of the cell directly below to restore the original formulas.

Some of this is hopefully intuitive:
- the Notes column has no mechanical effect, it's for notes. Maybe track worker actions if you please.
- the "Build" column is the name of whatever you want to build, looked up from the "Build Lookups" sheet. The build will "finish" on the appropriate turn and the subsequent cells will be cleared out so a new project can be added. Currently City #1 is set to build a worker first with no subsequent projects.
- The "Center", "Tile1", "Tile2", etc columns correspond to the city center and to individual population points. Fill them with descriptions from the "Yield Lookups" tab and they will automatically populate yields for you. If one of the cells fills with a "%", that means the pop point for that column is available but has not been assigned a tile.
- I have hidden a number of columns which seem unlikely to be relevant at this stage. Feel free to dig around as you please.

I'll continue tinkering with my copy and see what other features I want to add, but this is a decent start. If you have any questions or requests, please ask.

also, any wisdom to offer about the sims above?

You need to commit this turn, right? Tough one. It feels like your latest (prioritizing bronze and chopping a bunch) is the safest while still producing explosive growth, getting slavery into play early, and freeing up your cottageable tiles for improvement immediately. Seems like a great way to cash in the forests and give you a moment to consolidate the economy before further expansion.

I'm curious what the vets think of it, of course, but I like it.

[williams482]

Re: Williams, most of the subtle modifiers actually ARE shown in BUG, which is an interface mod packaged with Close to Home so you should be able to see on the tech screen how many other players you have met have a given tech already (at least, one that you are eligible for).

Ooh, nifty.

Do you know if it's possible to get the BUG mod for the Mac Steam version of Civ IV? My initial searches didn't yield many encouraging signs.

[ljubljana]

Well, here you go.

omg thankyoutyahnkyouthankyouuu :D

we only have to commit this turn if we're doing fast BW, we can delay i think 2 turns more if we want to switch back to wheel + AH

but yeah, i don't expect to ever want to try for wonders (at least not early) with this setup, they don't do much on a rush-to-currency tech path and only the (nerfed) mausoleum is really on the way. i think i'm confident enough in the chops plan to at least roll the turn and see what scouting info we turn up (and also enable the other players to not have to wait on me anymore)

[ljubljana]

well, the rest of the land over here isn't gorgeous, but it's home (i guess...)



complete lack of forests in the first ring is disappointing, i am not too sure how we will efficiently get the granary out (usually i aim for chop + whip + 10 natural hammers)

[aetryn]

well, the rest of the land over here isn't gorgeous, but it's home (i guess...)



complete lack of forests in the first ring is disappointing, i am not too sure how we will efficiently get the granary out (usually i aim for chop + whip + 10 natural hammers)

Possibly a 2 pop whip for the granary. Ideally with max overflow to help build something else on the tail end (basically you whip one turn before you'd only get a 1-pop whip - BUG will tell you this kind of thing as well).

And don't knock the terrain, that's amazing land for cottages, that could be the backbone of the empire if it only had some food, which it probably does in the fog somewhere. Lots of rivers so far, so much so that I suspect we're not on a Global Highlands derivative map (far too few hills and mountains, also). I expect that river north probably goes to a sea, either inland or not, since we can clearly see the source of the river is in the south. Those hills in the east are 8 tiles from our capital, so there's good odds that's going to be a natural border with a neighbor that way.

I'd probably carry on southish for now to continue the clockwise rotation. However, we see two peaks and a lot of hills that way, so there might be a mountain range there, so we may have to or want to change if that is the case.  We probably want to try to claim one more city in the northern riverlands, but it's probably not our third settle unless there's copper there (probably better to settle the third city another direction, or specifically for copper/horses).

[Tarkeel]

I'm going to try to make something that partially automates tracking of worker tasks and finish times, but I doubt there's much actually benefit there beyond simply noting worker movement and progress in a generic "notes" column.

Workers are the only thing I bother to spreadsheet, and then it's just one column per worker with instructions for what it's going to do that turn. This is also one of the reasons why people name their workers.

complete lack of forests in the first ring is disappointing, i am not too sure how we will efficiently get the granary out (usually i aim for chop + whip + 10 natural hammers)

Which is why EXP is rated as such a good trait despite losing the worker bonus. Similarly why CRE is better than it looks.