[Spoilers] PBEM 62 - Ichabod's Thread, feat. Mardoc and retep

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Am I allowed to offer micro advice, or is that only if I lurk in purely your thread? I had a similar opening with England in a pitboss that I am playing.

It's borderline. Not obviously bad like giving us spoiler information, but some people object. It's probably safer if you put the advice in the lurker thread and we can read it after the game - or if other lurkers think I'm being over cautious, then you can post it here later.

No worries, I'll post after you've started then.

[Ichabod]

Am I allowed to offer micro advice, or is that only if I lurk in purely your thread? I had a similar opening with England in a pitboss that I am playing.

Like Mardoc said, I think it's best to not post it, if you are a global lurker. When it becomes irrelevant to my decision making, than feel free to do it. You made me interested.

That seems better. Why are you farming the grass tile? I would have thought that corn + fish would be enough food and we'd want to use riverside grassland for cottages. Maybe something about not researching Pottery yet?

The screenshots are indeed misleading regarding worker actions. The actions that I would call definite if I had to play it right now is farming the corn (obviously) -> when reaching that tile with the worker, putting 1t into a farm 1NE of the Capital is an advantage, even if we cottage it later; I don't have roads and cottages avaiable at that time. After that, I like the idea of mining the plains hill to chop a forest. Chopping + mining takes 5 turns, instad of 3 + 3 if done separately, so we get 1t there (we can't do the same with a grassland forest, because we won't have pottery at the time) and the extra hammer on the hill helps (for example, at size 4, it enables 8hpt, to get 2hpt bonus on a worker).

After that, I'm not sure. We will have roads by then, so one of the workers will likely be roading to where the settler wants to go or doing whatever second city preparation is needed. The other one could start cottages at the Capital. But I can't plan this with the info we have at the moment, so I didn't plan those moves carefully.

Regarding that farm, I think it can be useful as a temporary improvement, taking advantage of the inbetween turns to get it built (the worker first opening has a second turn without anything for the worker to do but farm that tile, so it'll be at 2/4 already). As long as we can cottage other tiles, we might find the extra food useful here or there. But it's nowhere near a necessity, it was basically filler worker actions.

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Right now, I'm only trying to figure out if it's better to start with a WB or a worker. If I had to choose in this very moment, without further planning, I'd go with the worker first. As you can see, it achieves the same results as the WB first opening with basically a turn of advantage. But that's for the 2 workers, 1 settler, granary opening; different strategies might end up with different results and I'm not sure what is the best strategy here. I can't beat a t18 settler if I go for full speed settler (baring things like sending a settler into the wilds without a warrior, which I don't want to do), and again that's with the worker first. I like the 2 workers one because it works well with the idea of building a granary with the overflow and instantly growing to size 4/5 again. In the t22 simulation, we grow to 3 at EoT 23, to 4 at EoT24 and to 5 at EoT25 (with unhappiness, but we can work a settler and 3 pop whip it or something like that), so we are back in business pretty quickly, all things considered.

With such a food heavy start and an EXP leader, we need to abuse the whip as much as possible, while working the heavy food tiles 100% of the time. Using mines for production in the Capital is not good when we can whip, so they are at the bottom of the priority list with the workers, behind cottages, chops and useful roads.

Ah, the one thing where WB first beat worker first in my tries was the fastest granary possible, achieved through the settler whip. But that gets only 1 worker and I think that will hurt us in the long term.

[Mardoc]

With such a food heavy start and an EXP leader, we need to abuse the whip as much as possible, while working the heavy food tiles 100% of the time.

I agree completely with this part. Ideally we never leave a resource unworked, and never hit avoid growth. That's the thing that needs the most careful spreadsheet work, I think.

Using mines for production in the Capital is not good when we can whip, so they are at the bottom of the priority list with the workers, behind cottages, chops and useful roads.

I'm not actually sure this is true. With a granary, 11 food grows you from size 1 to size 2, which you can then whip for 20 hammers. The bigger a city, the worse the ratio, but it's basically 2:1 getting worse as we find happy.

With a mine, you can convert 2 food to 4 hammers (plains hill mine) or 1 food to 3 hammers (grass hill mine). It's basically the same ratio, or better. And it doesn't cost happiness the same way whipping does.

The tradeoff is that we do still need cash, and hence cottages. But if we're going full hammer, mines are as good as whips. I think part of why I got behind in PBEM54 was building too many cottages and not enough mines/chops.

What we really want to avoid is either leaving our food resources unworked, or putting food directly into a worker or settler, any time past when we have granary and the whip available.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

[quote='ReallyEvilMuffin' pid='497077' dateline='1409337780']
Am I allowed to offer micro advice, or is that only if I lurk in purely your thread? I had a similar opening with England in a pitboss that I am playing.

Like Mardoc said, I think it's best to not post it, if you are a global lurker. When it becomes irrelevant to my decision making, than feel free to do it. You made me interested.

Haha ok, will do. I like the starting sims, they are the most interesting part of the game to me. Enjoy micro planning!

[The Black Sword]

With a granary, 11 food grows you from size 1 to size 2, which you can then whip for 20 hammers. The bigger a city, the worse the ratio, but it's basically 2:1 getting worse as we find happy.

You're mixing up quick and normal. Quick: 7 food to grow, 20h per whip. Normal 11 food to grow, 30h per whip. So, 3:1 and getting worse. The problem with mines is that you can only trade 1fpt at that rate, whipping allows you to trade 15+ food at a time. I'm generally not a big fan of mines in the early game, though it is perhaps something I could use more.

I think part of why I got behind in PBEM54 was building too many cottages and not enough mines/chops.

The problem was you were building cottages that you couldn't actually work for a long time. So it was essentially wasting worker turns. I don't think skewing the ratio of cottages : other improvements would have had such a bad effect, so long as you work the improvements you put down.

[retep]

Sorry I'm super sick right now, but I hava mostly skim the thread but have you try this:
WB-Worker-Grow to size2-worker-grow to size4-whip settler

Not sure about the costs though. Once chop + overflow should be enough to finish the granary.
I'll advice not to chop much (or at all) untill maths. What exactly is the tech path?

Also Ichabod have you try planting 2 cities? Costs are super high you need bunch of cottages early.

[SevenSpirits]

I'm not actually sure this is true. With a granary, 11 food grows you from size 1 to size 2, which you can then whip for 20 hammers. The bigger a city, the worse the ratio, but it's basically 2:1 getting worse as we find happy.

With a mine, you can convert 2 food to 4 hammers (plains hill mine) or 1 food to 3 hammers (grass hill mine). It's basically the same ratio, or better. And it doesn't cost happiness the same way whipping does.

Aside from the quick speed mixup that The Black Sword pointed out, a fairer comparison is a grass mine to a grass farm. The tradeoff is 3f vs 1f3h, or simplified, 2f vs 3h. And with a plains mine the tradeoff is 3f vs 4h. This still isn't a totally fair comparison because if you were going for the mines you would probably grow to happy cap, while if you're whipping your happy cap is one lower. But it's closer at least because it starts both strategies with the same amount of pop.

Btw I would rather compare the food efficiency for a city whipping 5->3 than 2->1, it's a bit fairer I think. In that case it costs 18f to grow back 40h worth of pop - a bit worse than 7f for 20h.

[Mardoc]

Oh! Thank you guys, I was all set to lead Ichabod down the primrose path.

[retep]

Ichabod I read what you put int tech thread, Commodore send me the save (the 3 of us I think) I haven't done anything with it, just check that it opens fine for me.

Also I still think that wb is better. Agri-whell-potery-bronze should make sense but I'm fulll of pain killers right now so maybe I might be wrong

[Ichabod]

I like the Agri -> Wheel -> Pottery -> BW plan. It gets a turn 23 settler, with 2 workers and a granary at EoT. And it doesn't chop a forest to achieve this. It also has more tech.

Worker first gets the settler 1t earlier, but has less tech. It also chops a forest and has less cottages... It gets more food and more hammers (hammers are relative, I guess, because they'd probably be the same if I chop the forest)...

It's though, really though. And it's a pity that the decision can't be more informed than what we have right now, because we need to make a turn 1 decision.

Ah, another problem with going WB first is having to admit that retep drowned on pain killers is still a way better Civ player than I am.