Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[SevenSpirits]

To expand on that: There IS a situation where having coast would be useful for us, for a production city. That is if we can't produce useful units yet, and want to build up pop to whip away when we unlock a key tech.

That is not the case here. We can build strong units already, namely catapults, so there is no need to contort ourselves to store production.

[sooooo]

Look, we definitely want a lighthouse in Brick By Brick at some point. There's no way to grow the city otherwise because so few of the city's tiles produce food. I'm not suggesting that we grow the city to size 14 or whatever and try to work all the coastal tiles. It's a production city, we want to work all the mines at size 9.

...

Keep in mind that we also hit size 9 much, much faster by building a lighthouse now and working a bunch of water tiles (at +7 food) and then swapping onto all three plains mines at once the minute we hit size 9.

Let's analyse this and count the hammers. Note that below when I say "units" then we could also swap in wealth here for a lib push, there's no difference. Hammers put into lighthouse don't count, since it's a comparison.

Strategy 1: Units until T127, then org. religion and lighthouse, then grow as fast as possible working coast to size 9, then to plains mines.
Strategy 2: Units all the time.

These strategies both end up at size 9 working the 3 plains mines. Strategy 1 does it quicker (size 9 on T132 vs size 9 on T135), but what's the hammer comparison up to T135, when they are essentially the same configuration?

Strategy 1:
T125: Units, 18 Hammers, 17/34 Food (Size 7)
T126: Units, 18 Hammers, 22/34 Food
T127: Revolt to org religion, switch to lighthouse. 27/34 food. +0 hammers.
T128: 32/34 food. Building lighthouse so +0 hammers. Out of golden age.
T129: Size 8 (work a second plains mine). 20/36 food. Building lighthouse so +0 hammers.
T130: Lighthouse done, swap to Units. Overflow +8 hammers. Swap tiles to coast, working 2 x coast and a plains farm for the +7 food surplus. + 8 hammers from prod. 23/36 food.
T131: Units, + 8 hammers. 30/36 food
T132: Size 9. Swap to max production configuration (all 3 mines). 19/38 food and a +1 food surplus. +20 hammers
T133: +20 hammers
T134: +20 hammers
T135: +20 hammers

Strategy 2:
T125: Units, 18 hammers. 17/34 food (size 7)
T126: 18 hammers, 22/34 food
T127: 18 hammers, 27/34 food
T128: Golden age ends, 12 hammers, 32/34 food
T129: Size 8. new pop works plains mine. 16 hammers. 30/36 food
T130: 16 hammers, 23/36 food
T131: 16 hammers, 26/36 food
T132: 29/36 food, +16 hammers
T133: 32/36 food, +16 hammers
T134: 35/36 food, +16 hammers
T135: Size 9, 20/38 food at a +1 food surplus. +20 hammers

Strategy 1 total unit hammers at end of T135 = 18+18+8+8+8+20+20+20+20 = 140. We also have a lighthouse and gained +4 commerce vs strategy 2. We have 2 more food in the box.
Strategy 2 total unit hammers at end of T135 = 18+18+18+12+16+16+16+16+16+16+20 = 182.

Strategy 2 wins on hammers by 42.

But what about when we draft the city later? We definitely do want to draft; at size 9 and a granary, that's a conversion of 18 food for 70 production (mace) or 80 production (musket). It's an insanely good conversion rate. But we don't exactly want to sit there growing at +3 food/turn after we draft to regrow that pop point, and in order to do that, we need a lighthouse.

Disagree here. Say we draft from size 9 to size 8, losing a miner. We regrow to size 9 in only 6 turns, vs 20 turns on a huge map for the draft penalty to wear off. We can still draft here as much as we would want to without a lighthouse.


EDIT: addition error corrected

[sooooo]

Team opinion on the "non-great lighthouse debate"

Novice, Sullla, Boldly going nowhere, Gold ergo sum: YES to lighthouse (when we're in organised religion)
Kalin, sooooo, pindicator, sevenspirits, scooter, fluffyflyingpig: NO to lighthouse

In other news, we agreed not to settle SW of seven tribes. But we could conceivably settle due south of the city if there are coastal resources, right? That would be worth it if we get The Actual Great Lighthouse ray:.

[SevenSpirits]

sooooo, I find your comparison confusing, and I think it has some mistakes. Here is how I would compare - assume all tiles other than coasts and plains mines are always being worked:

Both plans work 1 mine through t128, and 2 on t129.

t130 they diverge and S1 works 0 mines for 2t, while S2 works 2 mines for 2t. Then for 3t, S1 works 3 mines while S2 works 2 mines. After that they both work 3 mines. So overall, S2 has worked a mine (4h 1c) 1t more. Meanwhile, S1 has worked coast an extra 4 times, gaining 12c, though also probably lost 3g to increased maintenance from higher pop 3t sooner. And, S1 reached size 9 3t sooner with 1f less, so has 2f more.

Total gain for S1: +2f, -4h, +8c.

(Quicker way to come to same conclusion: S1 works 1 coast over mine once for +2f -4h +2c, and gets three extra pop-turns which all have to go into coast, gaining about +6c on top of that.)

Meanwhile the lighthouse costs 60h, which even in best case with OR is -48h. sooooo, you must have messed up math on the lighthouse cost - I'm not seeing where you are pulling all those hammers from for S1 to build the lighthouse in 3t, while eating so little into unit production.

Edit: For completeness' sake - I forgot that S1 loses 3c since it works the non-riverside mine for 3t more than S2.

[Yell0w]

I know there has been a considerable effort put into the micro for the liberalism race. But reading the turn reports I can't help but wonder how realistically anyone else can get Liberalism before us, even if we only use 1 GS. Again not trying to fuck up the plans, just asking.

[sooooo]

sooooo, I find your comparison confusing, and I think it has some mistakes. Here is how I would compare - assume all tiles other than coasts and plains mines are always being worked:

Both plans work 1 mine through t128, and 2 on t129.

t130 they diverge and S1 works 0 mines for 2t, while S2 works 2 mines for 2t. Then for 3t, S1 works 3 mines while S2 works 2 mines. After that they both work 3 mines. So overall, S2 has worked a mine (4h 1c) 1t more. Meanwhile, S1 has worked coast an extra 4 times, gaining 12c, though also probably lost 3g to increased maintenance from higher pop 3t sooner. And, S1 reached size 9 3t sooner with 1f less, so has 2f more.

Total gain for S1: +2f, -4h, +8c.

(Quicker way to come to same conclusion: S1 works 1 coast over mine once for +2f -4h +2c, and gets three extra pop-turns which all have to go into coast, gaining about +6c on top of that.)

Meanwhile the lighthouse costs 60h, which even in best case with OR is -48h. sooooo, you must have messed up math on the lighthouse cost - I'm not seeing where you are pulling all those hammers from for S1 to build the lighthouse in 3t, while eating so little into unit production.

Edit: For completeness' sake - I forgot that S1 loses 3c since it works the non-riverside mine for 3t more than S2.

What you have written I believe is correct.

I did it by the sandbox, not using maths. I played through both strategies and recorded the food each turn and the hammers produced. The error I made was not accounting for the 10t overflow we have right now, on T125. In strategy 1 that went into the lighthouse (since we are building wealth for 2 turns it overflows to T127). In strategy 2 those hammers can go into units.

So I underestimated strategy 2's hammers by 10 hammers. The new hammer comparison is:

Strategy 1: 140 hammers
Strategy 2: 192 hammers.
Difference = 52.

Remember, I'm not counting the hammers put into a lighthouse in that comparison.

This aligns with your comparison of Gain for Strategy 2 = 4 hammers + cost of lighthouse = 52 hammers. You got there a lot quicker than me

I think this is correct, let me know if there is still any confusion or if I am wrong.

[Ruff_Hi]

My short take on this is ... do we want a light house in BrB. If we do, lets build it, if we don't, lets save the hammers and put them into units. There are 5 water tiles to be worked (assuming the others will always go to the other city) so that is 40 OR hammers for 5f per turn (assuming max size). Given that we will be drafting from this city and will take ages to hit max size - I am leaning towards the 'skip it' camp.

[dazedroyalty]

I don't do the math like this on my own games and would usually just build the lighthouse now. But, since the math shows tha we gain more by waiting to be in OR, I favor that plan.

In the end, tho, seems like to not a big deal either way.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I don't do the math like this on my own games and would usually just build the lighthouse now. But, since the math shows tha we gain more by waiting to be in OR, I favor that plan.

In the end, tho, seems like to not a big deal either way.

This.

[Ruff_Hi]

Been thinking a bit more about this. BrB is a production city. We will draft from this city, but as much as possible, we want BrB to be running in its max hammer config for the maximum number of turns. That means, size 9 working the tiles shown below plus the 2 plains mine tiles.

pic of BrB

Now, we can either draft from Size 10 to 9 ... it takes 20f to grow from size 9 to 10 ...

Working 0 water tiles - it takes 20 turns.
Working 1 water tile - it takes 7 turns (assuming lighthouse)
Working 2 water tiles - it takes 4 turns (assuming lighthouse)
Working 3 water tiles - it takes 3 turns (assuming lighthouse)

Not working the mines, BrB produces 8 tiles and each mine brings in 4 hammers.

... So, in any 10 turn period ...

Working 1 water tile yields 10 * 8h + 10 * 8h + 3 * 4h = 172h
Working 2 water tile yields 10 * 8h + 10 * 4h + 6 * 8h = 168h
Working 3 water tile yields 10 * 8h + 10 * 0h + 7 * 12h = 164h

Now, without a lighthouse, the numbers are ...

Working 0 water tiles - it takes 20 turns.
Working 1 water tile - it takes 10 turns
Working 2 water tiles - it takes 7 turns
Working 3 water tiles - it takes 5 turns

... So, in any 10 turn period ...

Working 1 water tile yields 10 * 8h + 10 * 8h + 0 * 4h = 160h
Working 2 water tile yields 10 * 8h + 10 * 4h + 3 * 8h = 144h
Working 3 water tile yields 10 * 8h + 10 * 0h + 5 * 12h = 140h

So ... based on the above, I think that we need a lighthouse in BrB ... it will bring in an extra 12 hammers per 10 turns and enable us to regrow our drafting population within the 10 turn draft window.

What about if we draft from Size 11 to Size 10? Would enable us to be in max hammer config longer and still regrowing our draft population?