[SPOILER] Dark Savant's thread: Competition for limited resources remains a constant

[Dark Savant]

I wonder if that's going to decline with the easy availability of knowledge these days?  It hasn't happened yet.

Then again, I don't think people know enough about, well, everything.  

Perhaps very gradually...the trouble is for something to be general knowledge it needs to pass the hurdles of 'elementary and middle school teachers know a lot about it' and 'written into the curriculum'.  And both of those are chicken and egg problems.  Hard to convince a curriculum committee to expand the requirements, especially for something that's not STEM.

Even setting inertia aside, there's a lot of very arbitrary reasons for what's in the early-schooling curriculum.  Take learning about Christopher Columbus.

• Washington Irving served as ambassador to Spain and fell in love.  He wrote a lot about Christopher Columbus, boy howdy.  Irving is the source of the (not true) common idea that "Christopher thought the world was round, when all the Catholics he met thought it was flat".  That's also been used as pro-Protestant/anti-Catholic religious propaganda.
  
• Christopher Columbus has also long served as a de facto #1 hero to Italian-Americans.  These days I don't think many people are aware that Columbus Day is intended as a celebration of Italian-Americans.
  

But yeah, inertia.

The real thing to teach is the desire and capacity to learn things yourself, which isn't an easy task.

Personally I've been enjoying filling in some of the gaps in my history knowledge with podcasts.  I tend to go from the edges of what I know outward so I still haven't made it into Africa

What would you recommend?  I haven't looked into it lately, and I probably want one once my commute becomes longer.

[Dark Savant]

Random observations:

• I have an unexciting capital once I chop down the forests.  I presume everyone has a capital of about this quality.  This map script tones down giving you a pile of stuff at your capital.
  
• The stunt of building Stonehenge on a single city is probably a worse play than usual.
  
• Advanced cottages aren't pillageable, can act as forts, can connect strategic resources, and give +1 food with Emancipation, which is free to revolt to.  As this likely won't be a megafood map, it probably won't pay to build all the workshops that got built in previous games.
  
• It may be tempting to go for new naval promotions, but you still need Combat promotions to actually win combat at equal tech.
  

[Mardoc]

Personally I've been enjoying filling in some of the gaps in my history knowledge with podcasts.  I tend to go from the edges of what I know outward so I still haven't made it into Africa

What would you recommend?  I haven't looked into it lately, and I probably want one once my commute becomes longer.

Well, some podcasts that I've enjoyed include The Fall of Rome, The History of Rome, The History of Byzantium, Revolutions, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Tides of History.  You may notice that one leads naturally into the next by either author or being an adjacent topic . I've hardly done an exhaustive survey of the options.  And of course the Romance is only quasi-historical; there are occasional interludes talking about 'who was the real guy this character was based on' but it is originally fiction.

These are all free, although some have ads or donation requests.  Also a few of them are finished - still can get the old episodes but no new ones.

I'm always looking for new podcasts myself, if you or other lurkers can recommend some others I'll definitely at least try them.

[Dark Savant]

Well, some podcasts that I've enjoyed include The Fall of Rome, The History of Rome, The History of Byzantium, Revolutions, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Tides of History.

Thank you for the recommendations!

These are all free, although some have ads or donation requests.  Also a few of them are finished - still can get the old episodes but no new ones.

I'm always looking for new podcasts myself, if you or other lurkers can recommend some others I'll definitely at least try them.

I've normally gotten my history by reading; I've never had both the technology and a long enough commute to learn via podcast, so I've got nothing for recommendations myself.

What I've always done is whenever I feel the inspiration, look up something random in an encyclopedia/Wikipedia.  It took a long time for print encyclopedias in my life to be superseded, and if I get the space I'd actually buy one!

[Dark Savant]

More random observations:

• I don't think Stonehenge by itself is adequate payoff for being Industrious, because it doesn't do much to fight the crashed economy from expanding aggressively.  There are lots of traits and civs that help with the Writing to Alphabet to Currency crawl; a shot at one of the Oracle or the Great Lighthouse is our big ticket.
  
• Since this map script won't place gold/gems/silver at your capital, that may inspire others to move their settler on t0.  The heavy forest we can see might be present at all starts to discourage that.
  
• The snaky continents are made extra twisty by snaky mountain ranges, which create additional choke points.
  

I've also done a bit of quick-and-dirty spreadsheet micro.  Originally I was assuming we had one blank starting technology (Agriculture or Mysticism), and planned work boat first in that case; quick-and-dirty micro has us get 2 workers and a settler by eot 28.  We'd revolt to Slavery with the settler in transit.

But we have The Wheel; if we go worker-first it won't be twiddling its thumbs before we get Bronze Working.  And if it mines the plains hill (not usually the second thing to improve), that plus pig and fish at size 3 can eke out a second worker from scratch in 4 turns.  A revolt to Slavery, two chops, and a whip still get a settler eot 29.  One turn later, but I'm already in Slavery with a whip clock started, plus a mine and a couple extra roads.

In both cases, I'm at size 2 with only one warrior.  That's probably safe on this map script; this version of RtR gives us extra time before the barb warriors start wandering around, too.

I'll set up a sim tomorrow to formalize this.  And make sure I didn't make any mistakes. 

[Dark Savant]

Link to sim (RtR 4.1.1.5).

All of the following aren't end-of-turn.  (Sorry, just not used to that way of thinking.)

Work boat first:

• t5 capital expands borders, swap to 1f2h tile
  
• t6 Fishing
  
• t7 work boat -> warrior, start working fish
  
• t9 size 2, swap to worker
  
• t10 Hunting
  
• t16 worker -> resume warrior, move worker to pig, 2nd citizen works 1f2h
  
• t17 worker starts pasturing pig
  
• t18 warrior -> worker
  
• t20 pasture done and worked, worker now has time to move to a forest and build half a road
  
• t23 Bronze Working, worker starts chopping
  
• t24 worker2 -> settler, worker2 moves to forest
  
• t25 worker1 done chopping, worker2 starts chopping
  
• t27 worker2 done chopping
  
• t29 settler emerges (zero overflow)
  

We're not yet in Slavery, capital at 6/24 food, and 5 undefined worker-turns.

Worker first:

• t6 Hunting
  
• t10 worker -> work boat (at max hammers), worker moves to pig
  
• t11 Fishing, worker starts pasturing pig
  
• t13 move citizen to 2f1h tile
  
• t14 pasture done, start working pig
  
• t15 worker moves to plains hill
  
• t16 work boat -> warrior, boat fish, worker starts mine
  
• t18 size 2, work both food
  
• t19 mine done, worker has time to build 1.5 roads and move to a forest
  
• t21 size 3, warrior -> worker
  
• t24 Bronze Working, worker starts chopping
  
• t25 worker2 done -> settler, worker2 moves to forest, revolt to Slavery
  
• t26 worker finishes chop and worker2 starts
  
• t28 worker2 finishes chop
  
• t29 whip settler
  
• t30 settler emerges (20 overflow)
  

Settler is one turn later and the food box is completely empty, but we're already in Slavery with a whip clock already started, have significant overflow, and a mine plus 7 undefined worker-turns.  (That amounts to the mine.)

Not obvious which I should pick, but my instinct is worker-first.

[Dark Savant]

I have something to say about Bismarck.  The real-life Otto von Bismarck, I mean.  

One of the things you're most likely to hear about him these days is predicting World War I, "some damned foolish thing in the Balkans will set it off".  Except he didn't actually say that; there's no German source, and the English quote seems to date to the early 1920s, after World War I ended.  It's like "May you live in interesting times", long said to be Chinese, except that's also English.  

[Miguelito]

Never heard of that quote, probably cause I'm German

[Dark Savant]

Never heard of that quote, probably cause I'm German

I can't think of any other German quote (in English) that wasn't actually said.

There's "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", attributed to Sigmund Freud, which he didn't say.  Freud was Austrian, though.  

There's not a lot of misquoting Beethoven or Gauss or Goethe or Kaiser Wilhelm II, I'm afraid.  

There are other World War I misunderstandings:

• Gavrilo Princip wasn't in place to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand because he was getting a sandwich.
  
• When Woodrow Wilson "kept us out of war", well, he did say that, as a slogan for the 1916 election.  But he actually meant Mexico at least as much as Germany.  There was a lot of pro-German sentiment at the time in the US, and a lot of anti-British sentiment.
  
• The Treaty of Versailles was not as harsh as commonly believed; that's one of the still lingering effects of Nazi propaganda.  ( Stupid sexy Nazis )
  

[Dark Savant]

A History of Civilization: Not Settling In Place

Civilization I

There are many reasons not to settle in place in the original Civilization:

• The city center doesn't automatically provide a shield (hammer).  The rule that it always provides a shield didn't arrive until Civ 2.  Your capital's center should have one.
  
• Your Big Fat Cross is not revealed from the start; there are very often good tiles right there.  The BFC being always revealed also didn't arrive until Civ 2.
  
• If you happen to be close to an AI, you can often score a quick kill anyway; a single chariot is often all it takes.  (Quick kills still happen in Civ 2/SMAC but aren't as likely.)
  
• The start normalizer (yes, even the original had one) only takes into account the nine tiles you can see from the start, and even then it doesn't care about bonus resources.  If the normalizer gives you a lot of stuff, you often do much better just by moving a few tiles.
  
• If you enter a hut without a city, you can't get barbarians.  And units from huts are very good for exporation, as if you don't have a city when you get them, they're free to support.
  
• A fast growth curve is greatly aided by at least other one 2 food/1 shield tile (shielded grassland), and at least one 1 food/2 shield tile (forest).  There's very little out there that actually explains this, but this is so you can produce starvation settlers; on a single city, producing a settler doesn't cost population if it is size 1.  Food from nowhere!
  
• The AI isn't so hot at getting off to a quick start.
  

All of this makes it worthwhile to move the initial settler more often than not, and often for several turns.

Civilization II

The strategy guides out there heavily lean towards "Deity level and start scum and no huts", alas.

The first four reasons from the list above no longer apply.  The start normalizer still exists, but I know less about how it works than it does in Civ 1.

You still often do want an exploring unit or 50/100 gold from a hut, but it rarely pays to do more than a few turns' moving.  Having a river near your start is very good, not just from the commerce, but so you cover more ground in looking for a start site.

The starvation settler trick still works, but if you have a whale (an excellent starting tile), it's typically not worth it.  Another good start tile is directly on a hills resource, if you start with a second settler; you can start to mine it before planting and get the benefit of the mine.

You always get two settlers at Deity difficulty.  That means Deity isn't really harder than Emperor.  You can move both in different directions to look for a better start position.  It doesn't matter so much if the second settler is out of position; improving terrain in Civ 1/2 this early in isn't nearly as helpful as it is in later games; and you may not want the second city right away, so your capital can produce starvation settlers.

Alpha Centauri

If you don't have a 2 nutrient tile at your start (these are significantly rarer than 2 food tiles in any Civilization game), you often have to move (or generate a new map), as it is much more awkward to produce early colony pods.  (You can't produce starvation colony pods in SMAC.)

You don't want to move much if you can help it otherwise, since the growth curve is much more exponential compared to any Civilization game.

Unity pods (hut equivalent) can produce native life (barbarian equivalent) if you don't have a base, so that incentive to not settle in place doesn't exist.

The start normalizer will only give a Unity foil and/or a second colony pod.  The former is bad because it means you're on a tiny starting land mass.  The second is bad at anything below Transcend difficulty because it usually means you are very close to another faction.  You always get one at Transcend.

Civilization III

Civ 3 doesn't have a start normalizer beyond "this random spot looks halfway decent, we're done!"

If you don't have a food bonus, it often pays to move, since a food bonus at your capital helps so much.  Civ 3 food bonuses generate mountains of food compared to previous games, and Civ 3 also doesn't have the cubically escalating cost of Civ 1/Civ 2/SMAC to grow population -- it's instead linear below size 7 -- so you really want one to drive early growth.

The AI also attacks you very rarely in the opening, unlike Civ 1/Civ 2/SMAC.

You don't want to move much, though; the AI is now far better at actually growing.

Civilization IV

The Civ 4 start normalizer now makes sure you have both enough food and enough production, relative to any previous game.  You'll now always get food bonuses at your capital, which wasn't guaranteed in any earlier game, and it's similar to Civ 3 in that the escalating food requirements are only mildly quadratic.

Together with the urgency of starting the growth curve, you don't want to spend more than a few turns, maximum, moving.  If your scouting doesn't promptly find a better plant site, don't look for one.

As the game in question, I don't feel the need to comment more.  

Civilization V

The mountains of food you could get early in Civ 3/4 are now gone.

You still do want to look for 3-food tiles, rivers, hills, and resources, and it's worth a few turns to look if you don't have enough of those.

I'm not nearly as good at this game as I am with the other games above, so I'll pass on further comment.

The current actual game

Oh, right.  

Moving 1N and planting will get an extra fish.

If we go worker-first, that sacrifices one turn to move and one turn to produce the first worker already, which I feel is not worth it.

If we go work boat first, that does bring the 3-hammer tile closer, but the fish still gets worked one turn later, and it takes more time to grow to size 2.  This probably is also not worth it.

Either also gives up a forest and the hammer from the plains hill plant.  It's still fresh water I guess.  

I plan to move the scout that way to know for sure; if something like gold comes into view, then I'd probably move, but otherwise this is too much of a growth curve hit, I feel.