[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

Nice work .

First up - I think you can assume we'll be using bulbs on techs that others don't have yet (Physics and Flight strike me as the most suitable for the first-to bonus and the lack of arrow bonus respectively).

Looking back at the order the cities are likely to pop their great people:

................With Pacifism.....Without Pacifism in 2-man golden age
600 GPP - - K - t188 ........... K - t190 - Scientist
700 GPP - - K - t203 ........... K - t209 - Artist
800 GPP - - M - t206 ........... M - t217 - Merchant
- Launch golden age -
900 GPP - - G - t213 ........... G - t223 - Merchant/Prophet/Engineer
1000 GPP - K - t231 ........... K - t236 - Merchant
1100 GPP - MF - t241 ........ MF - t248 - Scientist (Merchant)
1200 GPP - L - t250 ........... L - t262 - Merchant
1300 GPP - K - t267 ........... K - t272 - Artist (Merchant)

Once Kirby pops it's current GP I thought it should work scientists (it gets some artist points from NE) then artists for it's next two, just in case we get a low-odds artist when trying for the scientist (I'd rather work the artists in the golden age as we'll waste less turns on culture, but we should probably play it safer to make sure we get the GPs we need). Marmalade already has ~12 artist points, but I'm happy for it to pop us the merchant we need on t206/t217 for the 3-man golden age. You can speed up subsequent GP times by ~8 or ~15 turns depending on if we use Pacifism in the third GA.

Gertie currently has a higher gold multiplier than science so I've already got it set up with merchants and an engineer and some prophet points from Moai (note to self - build a temple or two to run a priest and run a spy as well) for its next GP. If we get the engineer, prophet or spy we can then go for a 4-man golden age, if we get a merchant then I guess you're saying we should be running merchants wherever possible. If it fails we could try to run priests and spies in Kirby if we decide we really want that 4-man golden age...

In our last game I think our best great merchant result was 2300 or 2500 gold - I think you're saying that shakes out to be 3220 or 3500 beakers . The merchant mission multiplier is how valuable the trade route to our capital is to that city, so harbour, customs house, size and Free Market in our target city are all good... I wonder who has a city that fits that description?

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You didn't answer the most important question though - is it worth our while running merchants in My Finger and Lucky for 50 turns instead of five coast tiles? My Finger would be size 8, has 9 tiles to work and +10 food so can max out at size 14 on t35 of our sim.
- At the start working coast gets 15 commerce while working rep specialists gets 30 beaker/coins,
- when the city grows to size 10 on t8 it starts adding specialists,
- by turn 9 the output of coast/specialists equals specialists alone
- by turn 25 the total output of coast/specialists overtakes specialists alone

So if we just base the decision on output that means growing is the best option, but we've got a couple of golden ages where we want to work max specialists for the GPP multiplier, so how about if we just grow these cities unless they are in a golden age? It'll slow down the 1100 and 1200 GPs, but I bet you aren't too worried about that .

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Final question - when we finish Scientific Method the three Monasteries in Alfie will go obsolete - if we have a lot of overflow will we lose out to rounding?

[Old Harry]

Post #2!

And here are also couple of macro points that I planned to state more properly, but here they are just bluntly:
- TBS built Sistine. Let's keep our eyes open reg a culture win attempt

We could drop the Cuirs from our dtay fleet off in his land in a turn or two to map him out so we know where he's likely to try and build it...

- Our power is actually pretty weak (only 6th and almost 800k behind Krovice). We have a huge navy and we are still building more ships in many cities. Probably some of those will advance so slowly that they actually will be auto-upgraded into destroyers, which is fine, but overall I would love to see more musket-rifle and cuir-cavalry auto-upgrades in preparation

I forgot to do this last turn, but I'll see what we can switch to musket builds this turn. I was considering whipping Frigates in a few cities near Boldly before we leave slavery to have at least some fleet over there, but I'd hate to do that before our golden age .

- BGN has easy targets and with cossacks there is a real chance that he just eats Nakor + Q with ease and is soon up to 70 cities. If we weren't already in war I would consider crippling him with a naval strike, but our stuff is in east and we probably can't afford hateful borders with our top 2 competitors simultaneously.

I suspect a lot of his empire is going to be coastal, so if we can build a large enough navy we could pillage/blockade him effectively...

- Consequently, I wonder how fast we could eat Dreylin once we get rid of dtay-war. With enough time we can eat dtay's western part of the empire if the conflict continues as it is and our power improves. Our current land forces (cuirs+cats+grens) are too weak for the real invasion at the moment unless dtay and krovice really clash.

Lets keep an eye on Dreylin's tech/power, but I'm not sure that BGN/Pindi will let us eat him whole... I think we could swallow dtay's western empire with a force of 20 Cav + 10 Grens + 10 Rifles right now. Unfortunately we're perhaps twelve turns from having that available, in which time he'll keep adding more .

- Krovice's economy is actually pretty weak, they make only a bit more than 700 gpt when saving gold. They really need a breakthrough with dtay, which probably would mean dtay putting a big stack of units in range of krovice cannons. They probably can continue rolling cities one by one, but the total destruction of dtay would have required pindi continuing his push in the north + us starting the invasion in the south (Maybe Krovice wasn't ready, but moving in couple of turns sooner could have made a difference as now dtay has drafted couple of rounds and spent thousands and thousands of gold for upgrades). For us the current position is already a great result, but Krovice would have needed a bit more. Well, we keep still dtay's forces divided and try to help Krovice, let's see if they have further big moves in their sleeves.

Are they still running a specialist economy? If so does that 700 gpt undersell their strength? Making a table of where we are on tech vs the top five would be really handy (hint!).

[Fintourist]

................With Pacifism.....Without Pacifism in 2-man golden age
600 GPP - - K - t188 ........... K - t190 - Scientist
700 GPP - - K - t203 ........... K - t209 - Artist
800 GPP - - M - t206 ........... M - t217 - Merchant
- Launch golden age -
900 GPP - - G - t213 ........... G - t223 - Merchant/Prophet/Engineer
1000 GPP - K - t231 ........... K - t236 - Merchant
1100 GPP - MF - t241 ........ MF - t248 - Scientist (Merchant)
1200 GPP - L - t250 ........... L - t262 - Merchant
1300 GPP - K - t267 ........... K - t272 - Artist (Merchant)

I wonder if by T267/272 someone is already in space and the game is over (if the game does not collapse earlier) --> Meaning the 1000 GPP from Kirby maybe needs to be an artist if we aim for the 4-man GA. I'll also see if I can make that analysis reg MF and L can make up me mind whether we should stop at 1200 or 1300 GPP.

Once Kirby ..
Marmalade already ..
Gertie currently..

In our last game I think our best great merchant result was 2300 or 2500 gold

great merchant trade value = 500 + 200*trade_value

yeah, should be something like that

I think you're saying that shakes out to be 3220 or 3500 beakers

Not quite, unfortunately (I think you used the 40 % multiplier here).. That 2500 gold will pretty much equal 2500 base beakers for us. Those both will equal roughly 2500/1.4 = 1800 commerce. If we assume gold = base beakers then Great Merchant provides 300 gold more value than Great Scientist, but the money comes later than we can bulb and someone might kill our GM or something. Of course it's nice again not to be tied for a bulb list..

You didn't answer the most important question though - is it worth our while running merchants in My Finger and Lucky for 50 turns instead of five coast tiles?

I'll come back to this!

Final question - when we finish Scientific Method the three Monasteries in Alfie will go obsolete - if we have a lot of overflow will we lose out to rounding?

This should not be the case

Post #2!

And here are also couple of macro points that I planned to state more properly, but here they are just bluntly:
- TBS built Sistine. Let's keep our eyes open reg a culture win attempt

We could drop the Cuirs from our dtay fleet off in his land in a turn or two to map him out so we know where he's likely to try and build it...

Sounds good, if our fleet ends up there. Not sure if it's too early to speculate about Culture Win attempt, but I were playing Gandhi, have Sistine and be in TBS's position I would consider it.

I suspect a lot of his empire is going to be coastal, so if we can build a large enough navy we could pillage/blockade him effectively...

Pillaging and making BGN defensive and angry does not sound too attractive. Razing something like 10 cities is probably a minimum requirement if we want to hurt him at all.

Lets keep an eye on Dreylin's tech/power, but I'm not sure that BGN/Pindi will let us eat him whole...

Depends how busy BGN is at that time and it's not impossible to gather enough forces so that we can beat pindicator too if he interferes.

Are they still running a specialist economy? If so does that 700 gpt undersell their strength? Making a table of where we are on tech vs the top five would be really handy (hint!).

Their tech timer showed a big number IIRC, which would indicate that there isn't too many specialist beakers coming in.

[Old Harry]

................With Pacifism.....Without Pacifism in 2-man golden age
600 GPP - - K - t188 ........... K - t190 - Scientist
700 GPP - - K - t203 ........... K - t209 - Artist
800 GPP - - M - t206 ........... M - t217 - Merchant
- Launch golden age -
900 GPP - - G - t213 ........... G - t223 - Merchant/Prophet/Engineer
1000 GPP - K - t231 ........... K - t236 - Merchant
1100 GPP - MF - t241 ........ MF - t248 - Scientist (Merchant)
1200 GPP - L - t250 ........... L - t262 - Merchant
1300 GPP - K - t267 ........... K - t272 - Artist (Merchant)

I wonder if by T267/272 someone is already in space and the game is over (if the game does not collapse earlier) --> Meaning the 1000 GPP from Kirby maybe needs to be an artist if we aim for the 4-man GA. I'll also see if I can make that analysis reg MF and L can make up me mind whether we should stop at 1200 or 1300 GPP.

You didn't subtract the 8 or 15 turns due to the 3-man GA...

You didn't answer the most important question though - is it worth our while running merchants in My Finger and Lucky for 50 turns instead of five coast tiles?

I'll come back to this!

Columns AD and AE of this are where I did my workings (just for My Finger):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...dit#gid=22

[Fintourist]

Ok, I did the analysis for My Finger with 1200 GPP Great Person limit (Lucky should work more or less the same way). Result:

Great Persons win! :P

- If we only count the output from size 4 onwards, growing to size 14 and gradually working more specialists gets us 4403 base beakers/commerce between T182 and EOT280
- Producing a Great person (worth 2500 base beakers/gold) first at size 8 and then growing gets us 5566 base beakers during the same time frame

Note 1: I did not take maintenance into account, which favors grow-approach --> Great Person plan wins even clearer
Note 2: If we calculate the present value (based on 2.3 % discount rate) of commerce produced, Great Person approach still wins. With 1300 GPP requirement it gets pretty even though because those Great Person benefits arrive just that much later.
Note 3: If the discount rate is estimated to be 3 %, growing on coast becomes already equally good --> I'm not going to do the analysis reg estimating a more sophisticated rate for our purposes here so let's just use that 2.3 % as the best estimation ..

Anyways, I'm now fine with producing great persons both in Lucky and My Finger. However, my requirement is that those great persons will actually complete and they are used for something useful soon after they are born. Without the bulb/mission impact just growing on coast beats rep scientists by a fair margin.

Let me know if you want me to send the excel-model to you :P


No worries lurkers, I think we are soon done with theorizing..

[Mardoc]

I'm actually finding this fascinating. I had a vague feeling that I underestimated the value of GPP, but I never would have guessed even the twelfth is worth generating. I'm also interested to note that bulbs are quite that powerful; you've got ~50 cities and still can't make a Golden Age more valuable?

[Fintourist]

I'm actually finding this fascinating. I had a vague feeling that I underestimated the value of GPP, but I never would have guessed even the twelfth is worth generating.

Yeah, that of course always depends on what the other option is. In this case My Finger uses it's last available tile at size 9 and then it has to work specialists in any case, because our other cities + BGN's culture limit are pushing it. If we just could grow My finger onto couple further coastal tiles: Immediate stagnation for one great person at 1200 GPP would already lose the comparison.

I'm also interested to note that bulbs are quite that powerful; you've got ~50 cities and still can't make a Golden Age more valuable?

Yeah, 51 (!) cities and 400 pop --> our average city size is 8, which means that we are not using all our tiles yet + we have a handful of weak filler cities. You whipped your cities well and many of those + filler cities are still pretty small. And your and Azza's former cities lost/didn't have that many commerce or hammer multiplier buildings so we are a bit behind in that respect. Those are probably the easy reasons if you considered our Golden Age values low and yeah, bulbs scale surprisingly well with pop if you compare them to 3/4-person GAs. That was something I had not previously thought about too. Of course when our Golden Age starts we'll adjust our tile allocations and squeeze still some value out of it, but that does not change the big picture.

[Mardoc]

Oh, sure, Conditions May Vary, Not Valid in All States, and etc. But I'd have stopped at maybe three Great People, and never a bulb. Which is pretty clearly wrong, even if sometimes you should stop at the 1100 level.

And this is without any GPP boosts, right? And with Fin for the coasts? No National Epic, no Phi, no Representation or Parthenon?

[Fintourist]

And this is without any GPP boosts, right? And with Fin for the coasts? No National Epic, no Phi, no Representation or Parthenon?

FIN coast, Rep scientists and there was 8 turns worth of Golden Age in the model (our 2-man GA) that starts soon. (no Pacifism though)

I don't have the model in front of me anymore, but if you want I can run the analysis with different variables or send it to you tomorrow if you're interested.

[Mardoc]

Well, mostly it's the perspective shift that I find valuable. The precise model depends too much on details. I'd be interested to see the breakeven point if you were Phi instead of Fin, though.

If you're much more organized than I tend to be, and built the sheet with reuse in mind, then I might like a copy - but if it's anything like the ones I build, it'll be easier to recreate than to adapt.