Micromanagement Sims/Planning

[SevenSpirits]

Sorry, Sullla. I didn't mean it as a criticism of your plan but a comment about future strategy.

My thinking is: copper is obviously better than whipping. If we also prefer a river cottage to the copper tile (or, even if it's close), we should probably be whipping less.

I realize that just stopping whipping right now isn't necessarily a good solution; you point out that without that whip we'd be working a forest. I'm thinking this means we should focus on getting some more workers out and slow down a bit on settlers, so that we can more fully use our happy cap on working cottages.

[kjn]

I think the round of whips just before T80 will be the last whip frenzy, with maybe one more round of general whips. After that, we'll have calendar in, with +2 happiness, and a limit of 8 (or 9, in our Hindu cities and the capital).

Another way is to spread out the whips more in time, so we can make use of our shared tiles better.

[kjn]

Idea using Sullla's plan: on T76 and T78 we have AO work the lake instead of a plains cottage. We'll lose a little commerce and two cottage-turns, but we'll gain the commerce and one of the cottage-turns back on T79 when AO will be size 6 instead of size 5.

[kjn]

Another alternative is to use workers B&D to go E-NE on T72 and finish a grassland cottage there on T73. They can still start to cottage the second flood plains for GM on T74 by using the roads. This would give a loss of some commerce, but would net one extra cottage-turn over Sullla's basic plan.

Both of the plans (lake or the grassland cottage) also means that FP can work the copper mine, since AO can pick up the shared mature riverside cottage.

[NobleHelium]

Surely it would be better to cottage SW of the lake rather than S of the lake? That tile is shared with HF.

[kjn]

@noblehelium: Yes, cottaging the shared tile would be better from a city logistics standpoint. But the trouble with doing that cottaging is that it gives B&D a harder time to move southwest to support our next city there - they'd be 1t later in getting the road to the city et c.

[kjn]

Evaluating the alternatives

Plains plan (as per Sullla's current micro plan)

9 plains cottage-turns (9F 9H 27C)
Misses to work copper on T79 in FP

Lake plan

Works the lake in AO instead of a plains cottage on T76 and T78

7 plains cottage-turns (7F 7H 21C)
2 lake turns (4F 6C) - T76 and T79
1 copper turn (1F 5H) - T79

Grass plan

9 grass cottage-turns (18F 9C)
1 copper turn (1F 5H) - T79

If my math is correct, the grass plan will also mean that AO hits size 7 at end of turn 83, 2t earlier than the plains plan.

[NobleHelium]

Oh yeah, I forgot that the other grassland is roaded. Would 1t later be too late? We don't waste those worker turns, we can dump them into a cottage on the eastern grassland too.

[Sullla]

Riverside plains cottage is an excellent tile for a Financial civ. It's not just that it starts at 1/1/3, it will always be ahead of the non-river grassland cottage to the end of its days. I don't believe that we come out ahead by skipping it to build a non-river grassland cottage instead. Gaining 0 foodhammers (trading 9 production for 9 food) and losing just shy of 20 commerce is a poor trade in my book. Keep in mind as well that Adventure One will be happiness-capped at size 7 regardless of what we do. That's why I don't believe we need to work lesser tiles to rush a size increase there - the capital will then be stuck at size 7 until its whip unhappiness wears off or we connect Calendar resources.

SevenSpirits, I definitely agree with what you're saying about not wanting to whip off excellent tiles and increasing the worker to settler ratio. Our situation in the immediate future is dictated by our small happy cap, since we're still sitting on only gold at the moment. I've wanted to emphasize horizontal growth with more settlers because we can't grow our cities vertically. (That and everyone wanted to push for that stone location across the lake, which means a need for more settlers.) Once we have +2 happiness from silks and spices, we'll want to lean more heavily on the workers and pull back on expansion a bit.

I think we are finally about to get another turn done.

[Sullla]

Another alternative is to use workers B&D to go E-NE on T72 and finish a grassland cottage there on T73. They can still start to cottage the second flood plains for GM on T74 by using the roads. This would give a loss of some commerce, but would net one extra cottage-turn over Sullla's basic plan.

One other thing - we've actually already played Turn 72. Turn 73 just started. We already built half of the plains river cottage next to Adventure One. There's no reason not to finish the rest of it at this point.

I'm sorry, kjn. It was a good thought, but I don't think we come out ahead doing this. If I try to change the plan now, we end up working a lake tile instead of the plains river cottage, which have identical foodhammer output while building the settler. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.