Micromanagement Sims/Planning

[uberfish]

testing

SIP

worker -> warrior -> warrior -> warrior (placeholder) -> settler @ size 5 -> worker
tech order Pot -> Hunt > AH -> Mining -> BW -> Myst
improve corn and build 4x FP cottages, then move to deer

settler done EOT 37 (Note: both horses and copper are revealed by this time)
Memphis settled T40 at deer/cow PH with 2 warrior escort, starts warrior
BW done EOT 41
2nd worker done EOT 42, 100% research = 22/turn
Thebes starts 2nd settler
Revolt to slavery, 2nd worker starts road
Deer camp and intercity road done t45
Cows done t47

At start of turn 52 status is:

27 BPT + 1 gold @ 90%
Thebes @ 5 working 4 FP cottages
Memphis @ 3 working deer, cow and a grass river cottage that overlaps Thebes. This city is now capable of doing a 9t settler (faster with whipping)

2 workers, 4 warriors, 1 settler just completed
Granary in Memphis just completed
No whipping
Myst done, Writing in 1t (or alternately, Poly completed)

I didn't see the need to whip anything up to this point, so delaying BW might not really be an issue. Simulation pretty much breaks down after this, but played on for a few turns and this has the economic base to go to 5 cities with worker support in t60's while still maintaining a decent tech rate.

[uberfish]

The other thing is starting the capital with access to lots of river tiles means that our expansion cities can help it grow cottages for academy/bureaucracy/HR transition which is not too far down the line.

Cheap granaries are going to be really useful in expansion cities but we don't really need to build one in our capital quickly or whip it much/at all.

[novice]

Building a granary instead of warriors in the capital speeds up the settler in the SIP scenario.

City maintenance in city #2 with map dimensions of 92x52:

[novice]

We might want to go Pottery->Mining->Hunting->Bronze Working->AH in the SIP scenario, as that lets us improve deer, whip the capital, and improve cows in a timely manner.

[Sullla]

I would argue that it's much more important to get the strongest possible capital city, since we don't have any idea what else is located in the fogged tiles. If we think that the starting tile is weaker (which is not the consensus so far), then we should not settle there simply to get a stronger second city at the deer/cows plains hill. For all we know, that isn't where we will put the second city anyway. It's definitely possible to overthink some of these discussions.

Here's a start similar to the one Parkin posted, with teching Hunting before Pottery. Essentially this trades some commerce in exchange for a faster settler. It's about 50 beakers for 35 food/production on a settler. I tried to use the same notation for comparison purposes:

Option 2 - "Deer Hunting"

Simmed: To T32

Settle: Banana

Tech: Hunting (T8) -> Pottery (T20) -> Mining (T27) -> Bronze Working (93/216 beakers T32)

Build: Worker (T10) -> Warrior (T18) -> Warrior (swap unfinished T23 at 10/15 prod) -> Worker (T27) -> Settler (T34)

Worker 1 (T10): Corn (T14) -> move to deer (T16) and camp (T20) -> move (T21) and cottage floodplains (T26) -> cottage floodplains (T29) -> move and mine plains hill (T32)
Worker 2: move/preroad (T27) -> cottage floodplains (T29) -> move and mine plains hill (T32)

Citizen 1 (T0): plains-forest-hill (T0-T9) -> deer (T10-13) -> Corn (T14-)
Citizen 2 (T15): deer (T15-19) -> Deer camp (T20-)
Citizen 3 (T18): floodplains (T18-T25), floodplains cottage (T26-)
Citizen 4 (T21): floodplains (T21-T28), floodplains cottage (T29-)
Citizen 5 (T23): plains hill forest (T23-T31), plain hill mine (T32-)

Comments:
- Settler due T34, 78/100 production, +16 food/prod per turn, will have major overflow T34
- Total beakers = 399, Parkin start = 449
- In case it's unclear, second worker takes 4t to build, T23-T27. VERY fast!
- Settler comes out 2t faster, trade roughly 50 beakers for 35 food/prod
- Bronze Working tech delayed to T38-39 because of Hunting research

Picture:


Whether to tech Mining -> Bronze Working or Hunting -> Animal Husdandry is a very legitimate question here. Most of these starts don't get that large of a benefit from chopping or whipping. (Heresy!) As several have posted, we really don't want to whip the capital much in the early game, due to the unhappiness penalty. We also don't need a granary in there, since the capital has fast amounts of food. It hits size 5 as fast as T23 in my sim here! No need for a granary in that scenario. With all this food, teching to Hereditary Rule for the capital will be a very high priority.

[Sullla]

uberfish, that plan seemed a little too good to be true, so I went ahead and tested it. Long story short: it is too good to be true. I think you may have gotten the wrong initial starting conditions for this map, as the numbers didn't match up with my own test. I certainly mean no offense in saying this! Using the same format:

Option 3 - "Uberfish's Plan"

Simmed: To T32

Settle: Starting Tile

Tech: Pottery (T12) -> Hunting (T18) -> Animal Husbandry (T28) -> Mining (T34)

Build: Worker (T12) -> Warrior (T20) -> Warrior (T27) -> Warrior (swap unfinished T9 at 4/15 prod) -> Settler (T38)

Worker 1: pre-build road (T12) -> farm corn (T17) -> finish banana road (T18) -> cottage floodplains (T23) -> Cottage floodplains (T28) -> cottage floodplains (T33)
Worker 2: none

Citizen 1 (T0): floodplains (T0-T16), Corn (T17-)
Citizen 2 (T19): floodplains (T19-T22), floodplains cottage (T23-)
Citizen 3 (T22): floodplains (T22-T27), floodplains cottage (T28- )
Citizen 4 (T25): floodplains (T25-T32), floodplains cottage (T33-)
Citizen 5 (T29): floodplains (T29-)

Comments:
- Settler due T38, 36/100 production, +12 food/prod per turn
- Only one worker in this plan, a lot of unimproved tiles being worked
- Total beakers = 467, most I've seen so far
- Information in first post on this plan is not accurate

Picture:


This approach does produce slightly more beakers than the one Parkin used (mostly from working the 3/0/1 floodplains tile in the beginning), and quite a bit more beakers than the approach that I used. That said, I think that this plan gets the capital off to a significantly slower start. The growth rates are much slower than in the setup that I outlined:

size 2: T15 vs T19
size 3: T18 vs T22
size 4: T21 vs T25
size 5: T23 vs T29

That's very noticeable early in the game. This start also produces the settler 4t slower, and does that despite skipping the second worker entirely. This means that the rate of tile improvement gets slowed down significantly as well. I'm able to improve the deer tile and still get two floodplains cottages up by T29. This plan doesn't get the fourth improved tile done until T33. It will take until T38 to get the final floodplains cottage done, and that will still be with only a single worker on hand. Second worker doesn't come out until T43! The alternate is to delay the settler until after the second worker, which forces the settler out on T42-43, also extremely late.

There's no way that this plan comes out ahead over settling on the banana tile 1N. After simming this a bit, I'm fairly certain that that tile is the optimal play. If we want to emphasize commerce, Parkin's plan is stronger than this one. If we want to emphasize food/production, the one that I outlined is likely the way to go.

Even if the starting tile makes for a stronger capital longterm (and I don't think that it does), the delay in getting started makes it not worth the tradeoff. Openings are everything in Civ4.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Are those two peaks to the south? How would that effect city sites down south?

The left 'peak' is actually a plains hill. Tempting city site for some of the flood plains depending on what else is in the fog. Updated sandbox with the hill.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a397pjo6et64pt...dSwordSave

[uberfish]

The main strategy behind SIP is to fast tech to a super-capital, there are 10 cottagable river tiles in the setup and they're well placed for overlapped expansions to pre-grow them. I expect it to pay off in the t80-100 range even if it's a city down, but the trouble is we don't have the map info to simulate out that far.

[novice]

The main strategy behind SIP is to fast tech to a super-capital, there are 10 cottagable river tiles in the setup and they're well placed for overlapped expansions to pre-grow them. I expect it to pay off in the t80-100 range even if it's a city down, but the trouble is we don't have the map info to simulate out that far.

Very possible. I checked out the SOB (Settle On Banana) start briefly, and one drawback with it is that we need both Pottery and Hunting for our capital. With SIP we can delay Hunting until we found the second city. Tech is a very real restriction on these settings - very happy with our starting techs right now.

[novice]

Another option: Settle on the bananas and go worker->settler (partly)->warrior (grow on farmed corn)->settler (when size 2)->worker->warrior and go for an early second city. Memphis is founded on T27.

Turn 32: