Micromanagement Sims/Planning

[novice]

Okay I think I have something that works. It's basically Seven's plan with some small modifications. We'll have to whip the worker in MM this turn (turn 60), and we'll have to work a plains forest over a plains cottage in MM for one turn to get the last hammer we need.

This costs us some commerce so we need to manage the other cities carefully with regards to that. I had to work the lake over our unmature cottages for a few turns, but I probably overdid it since I finished Mathematics with some beakers/gold to spare.

Anyway, this will be the situation on turn 67:



Here's a save stack:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15215428/ISDG1/...le-t67.zip

We haven't run any priest specialists, so no extra GPP from those. AO has 10 hammers into a settler though, so it can be triple whipped on t68 if we so desire. If we do that the only site our workers are set up to support is a city claiming bananas and plains cows. Or possibly a city on the desert hill 2E of our gold. EDIT: Actually I didn't put hammers into a settler yet in this runthrough, so we can put 10 foodhammers into a settler on t67, and triple whip it on t69. Which also means our workers have one more turn to reposition.

Tile configurations on turn 60 can stay unchanged, just whip away the priest in MM. On T61 we'll probably have to run the slider at less than max tax so we don't end up on T67 with gold to spare and short on beakers. But someone should check on my slider settings and commerce prioritizations at AO / HF.

[novice]

So I think it's worth pointing out that this change of plans we're discussing doesn't really slow down our civ development much. All our cities are as developed as in the original plan, except MM which is size 3 instead of size 4, and has size 3 as its new happy cap. Apart from that, what we've sacrificed is some commerce (about 20 gold perhaps?) and 7 priest gpp. (Although we can reclaim three of those gpp on t63 by working a priest over a plains cottage, if we can spare the commerce. But I don't think those gpp were that important, they were just a nice freebie.)

What we gain is Currency one turn earlier, two worker turns, and an improved chance of winning the Oracle race. And if we lose the Oracle race we'll regain some of our added investment through increased failgold. In other words, our Oracle gambit is still fairly low risk. So my vote is to go for a turn 67 Oracle.

On a side note, our workers had to kill some time waiting for it to be time to chop the forests around MM, so I put three turns into a cow pasture and 1 turn into a plains cottage, plus I roaded the corn. We could choose to spend those worker turns on other stuff depending on what we want to do after turn 67.

[NobleHelium]

I don't think the GPP are important. Let's focus on getting the Oracle and Math on t67.

With MM's low happy cap I strongly think we should settle 2E of the gold with the settler out of AO. It can take the corn and gold from MM while expanding to the flood plains and soon the banana and spices. MM can work some cottages and maybe a priest. We'll probably have to delay the shrine a few turns, but I don't think that's a big deal and it's pretty much the cost of a t67 Oracle anyway.

Also, I would build the road south of the corn instead of on the corn. Diagonal roads are good.

[SevenSpirits]

I ran through a sim, and though I didn't actually open your save stack I'm pretty sure I followed along what you did. Couple further ideas for modification:

* In the west, don't build two grass nonriver cottages, since we need to work the lake anyway. Build one, then build the roads, then build a plains river cottage for AO (or, I guess we could start improving the FP). This is straightforward.

* In the northeast, I don't think that's the best use of worker turns. I actually tried it your way first but I don't think getting the grass nonriver cottage a turn sooner is important - in fact I'd rather stick with the old plan there of working the grass forest another turn, so we get the next axe 1t sooner. With the guy who's coming east from fish city, I think 1t into the pasture and 2t into a cottage on the forest would be good. For the other guy, I'd just put a few turns into the plains cottage he was previously going to finish. ALTERNATELY (and I haven't worked this out, but it intrigues me) maybe they can team up and build a plains hill mine?

An important point is that if the oracle falls t66 we can have the chopping workers stall for a turn (cottage or road) and still get the math bonus. Worst case is if we lose the tiebreaker, then we get unavoidable inefficient chops.

[NobleHelium]

Why 1t into the pasture and 2t into a cottage? It could easily be 3t into one or the other...I have a hard time fathoming why you want a little of both.

Yeah I mentioned the plains hill mine to novice as an alternative to working the bare plains hill to get enough hammers, but the plains forest should work fine anyway. I think we could also have both of them cottage chopping the forest which will get us a complete plains cottage...maybe that's the best move? Would that cottage be useful in any way?

[SevenSpirits]

Not 3t inyo the cottage on the forest, otherwise there's nithing useful to sink s turn into if Oracle's built t66.

[NobleHelium]

What would we chop on t68 if not Oracle then? I would have thought that we'd just move off the forests if Oracle falls. Are we really ready for yet another settler?

I guess we could also chop a library?

[Sullla]

novice/Noble/Seven, does anyone have a full description of the moves so that I can have them for easy reference? (I can reverse-engineer it from the savegame pile if everyone is extra busy, but it might be best to avoid possible confusion.) This definitely sounds like it's worth the slightly lowered beaker output / extra whip at Mansa's Muse for what might be the turn's difference in building the Oracle. I agree that we should go for it.

With 18 more hours on the timer, I'm going to hold off on making any final moves until tomorrow, just to allow for extra discussion. Barring a last minute change, I will whip Mansa's worker and end our turn in about 10-12 hours.

[NobleHelium]

I don't think we're really happy with any of the sims yet.

Minor point for consideration: build the southern grass cottage shared between HF and AO, leave the northern one partially incomplete. Then when the newly whipped worker comes out it can finish the cottage (or at least put another turn into it) before moving onto the forest to chop the granary for the clam city. We should definitely finish the flood plains cottage in time for the city's founding (it was one worker turn short in the t68 Oracle build). We could move north to do the plains cottage after that.

[novice]

ALTERNATELY (and I haven't worked this out, but it intrigues me) maybe they can team up and build a plains hill mine?

Yeah, this is definitely worth doing, it frees up the deer more for AO. We can work the plains hill mine on the turns where we're building workers, and still get enough hammers.