Micromanagement Sims/Planning

[T-hawk]

On T76 HF can work fish, corn, grass, silk. That way it will have 24/24F after it whips the worker T78 and will be size 3 on T79.

I'm going to explore those two tonight, and look over the worker actions as well.

Do you know about the rules quirk here? When a city grows while producing a foodhammer unit, you end up with two less hammers than the city screen shows. The reason is that the new citizen gets added before the game calculates production. Suppose a size 2 city has 10 food total so 6 food surplus, building a worker with 24/24F in the box. You'd think you get 6 foodhammers on the worker. But the city actually grows to 3 before production is calculated, so you get only 4 foodhammer surplus credited.

This means that growing on a foodhammer unit is often not worthwhile. The new citizen has to work a 4 foodhammer tile just to break even against the turn where he ate foodhammers but didn't produce anything. If he won't have such a tile, it's probably better to enable "Avoid Growth" for that turn.

[kjn]

Do you know about the rules quirk here? When a city grows while producing a foodhammer unit, you end up with two less hammers than the city screen shows. The reason is that the new citizen gets added before the game calculates production. Suppose a size 2 city has 10 food total so 6 food surplus, building a worker with 24/24F in the box. You'd think you get 6 foodhammers on the worker. But the city actually grows to 3 before production is calculated, so you get only 4 foodhammer surplus credited.

No, I wasn't aware of that quirk, though it does explain behaviour that I've seen in earlier games. But does a corn or iron suffice to more than break even? Because that's what the third citizen will pick up on T79.

@m_h: yes, I've thought a bit about that, and used such notes at least for resources. But we can probably do a lot more.

[T-hawk]

No, I wasn't aware of that quirk, though it does explain behaviour that I've seen in earlier games. But does a corn or iron suffice to more than break even? Because that's what the third citizen will pick up on T79.

Yes. Although you have to consider any knock-on effects of tile swapping. If the iron tile comes by taking it away from another city, and that other city works a weak tile instead, that's the same negative net as if the original city/citizen worked the weak tile.

[kjn]

Now I've played through my two tile assignment adjustments, and also done some minor changes in the worker tile improvements.

Micro plan up to T83, under sheet "Sullla's plan, revised"; T84 savegame

In the plan I put MM into 2F deficit on T83 to get the prophet on T84. I also choose to grow MM to size 7. Both of these can easily be changed.

In the savegame I missed to give the corn to FF on T83, so it's down 4F.

Compared to Sullla's plan I'm behind a few beakers but ahead 9g. HF is ahead 2F 1H since it has grown quicker, which is probably the main benefit of this plan. It might be ahead a few cottage-turns - I haven't counted them.

[Sullla]

I'll be happy to answer some of these questions.

novice, Adventure One can grow on T76 instead of T77, but there's not much benefit to doing so that I can see. We essentially trade less post-whip overflow into settler for Adventure One regrowing faster after the whip. That sounds good and all, but Adventure One already regrows to size 6 in a single turn in what I had typed above, and then it's stuck at size 6 for lack of happiness. Having more food in the box at size 6 doesn't matter: the city cannot grow further. I don't see this tradeoff doing anything to benefit us.

kjn asked about changing the tiles at Horse Feathers on T76; I think T-Hawk already explained why regrowing while building a worker or settler can be slightly unproductive. I would prefer to whip to 23/24 food and then regrow very quickly from there. With regards to the other question, it's the same thing as novice's question: giving the corn to Adventure One on that turn just creates further food overflow that we don't need. The capital will be stuck at size 6 regardless after its whip. Having it at 19/32 food instead of 15/32 food on T79 doesn't matter. It still can't fill up the food box beyond size until we get Calendar tech ten turns later. We also don't want to swap the corn off of Horse Feathers in this scenario because the foodhammers get converted into a lighthouse after its own worker whip, and that lighthouse improvement is very important. It gets built with exactly 60/60 production in what I have typed, with no room to spare.

mostly_harmless, most of the key tiles at Forbidden Fruit will be in our borders after the city borders of Mansa's Muse hit 500 culture, which will be at eot 87 or eot 88, depending on how heavily we prioritize the shrine. We'll be able to use the floodplains tile and a grassland spice at that point. That will make for plenty of work in the area; I have Mansa's Muse building another worker because we desperately need more of them. The silk tile north of Horse Feathers is planned to be improved by the two workers at Tree Huggers in the turns immediately following this micro plan. (I have ideas on where the units are going next, but there are limits to how far in the future I'll type a provisional plan.) And a grid system is a nice idea, but these things take tons of time to create already. Placing every tile improvement on a grid would make things that much more complex.

kjn's micro plan is very similar to what I typed, with some modest alterations. I don't think they come out behind or ahead, simply emphasize slightly different things. For example, we can easily run Priest specialists and pop out the Great Prophet at Mansa's Muse if desired. (The city finishes at 92/100 GPP in my test; I always chose to work improved tiles over specialists if given a choice.) I also chose not to grow Mansa to size 7 because there weren't enough improved tiles to work there. kjn has to swap the capital onto the 0/3 plains hill tile as a result of growing Mansa's Muse. I wanted another worker instead, since I found I could get exactly 8 production in MM and make full use of the Expansive bonus. Your mileage may vary.

The general thought there was to either finish the worker at Mansa and then double-whip a following worker, or build the worker to 1t away from competion and then whip it, using the overflow to finish library. Then grow the city upwards using the Calendar bonus happy cap. I didn't want to go too far into the future, however. Over in the west, I favor growing Gourmet Menu to size 6 (where it will outpace its improved tiles) and then triple-whipping a settler for the stones location. The chopped silks forest at Horse Feathers can complete a galley for the trip over there. Again, we can revisit some of these ideas in the 10 turns / 35 days of real world time we have ahead of us. Planning too far ahead can get counterproductive.

If you guys want, I will do a quick video playing through the turns and put it up privately on YouTube. Let me know if that would be worthwhile.

[Fintourist]

1. Video would be absolutely awesome.

2. Great work everyone

[SevenSpirits]

Looking good.

I'll be happy to answer some of these questions.

novice, Adventure One can grow on T76 instead of T77, but there's not much benefit to doing so that I can see. We essentially trade less post-whip overflow into settler for Adventure One regrowing faster after the whip. That sounds good and all, but Adventure One already regrows to size 6 in a single turn in what I had typed above, and then it's stuck at size 6 for lack of happiness. Having more food in the box at size 6 doesn't matter: the city cannot grow further. I don't see this tradeoff doing anything to benefit us.

I don't understand what you're saying. Doesn't swapping the tile configurations and builds for AO and affected cities on t76/77 just get us +1 pop? Not to mention we work more commerce in AO while running science.

[novice]

novice, Adventure One can grow on T76 instead of T77, but there's not much benefit to doing so that I can see. We essentially trade less post-whip overflow into settler for Adventure One regrowing faster after the whip. That sounds good and all, but Adventure One already regrows to size 6 in a single turn in what I had typed above, and then it's stuck at size 6 for lack of happiness. Having more food in the box at size 6 doesn't matter: the city cannot grow further. I don't see this tradeoff doing anything to benefit us.

By growing sooner we get more turns in working our improved tiles. It reaches its happy cap after the whip sooner - that just means we'll be able to start a worker there sooner. And my general guideline would still be to let as much food as possible end up in the food box instead of as foodhammers.

we can easily run Priest specialists and pop out the Great Prophet at Mansa's Muse if desired. (The city finishes at 92/100 GPP in my test; I always chose to work improved tiles over specialists if given a choice.) I also chose not to grow Mansa to size 7 because there weren't enough improved tiles to work there. kjn has to swap the capital onto the 0/3 plains hill tile as a result of growing Mansa's Muse.

We could grow MM to size 7 and work two priests there.

[NobleHelium]

The general thought there was to either finish the worker at Mansa and then double-whip a following worker, or build the worker to 1t away from competion and then whip it, using the overflow to finish library.

I'm pretty sure double whipping a worker or not whipping at all would be best. EXP players get lots of overflow out of a worker whip, and MM already produces significant hammers at this point.

[kjn]

The thing about the whip at 23/24 or 24/24 shouldn't be evaluated theoretically. As I can see it, the two plans are quite similar in production on T84 (the growth to 7 in MM and the shrine can easily be changed), but I'm -1b +9g at end of turn 83.

MM is +1F on end of turn 81 in my plan (which can easily switched over to Sullla's plan for turns 82 and on).

HF is +2F +1H on end of turn 83 in my plan.

AO, FP, GM and the other cities are exactly the same.

Ie, my plan for the T76-77 micro is up 9g 3F 1H at the cost of 1b.