[SPOILERS] Northstar of the Svartalfar v Bob the Great of the Malakim

[Ichabod]

Nah, makes sense. Just feels odd that they'd choose to leave out some things - I suppose it makes more sense in base. Do foodhammers stay as food and hammers, respectively?

Yes, you don't get more production on the demos while building a settler/worker/whatever with food. It still shows as food.

[Northstar1989]

OK, so another turn:



As planned, I took the opportunity of my Settler traveling to the northwest to swap into Religion:



Nationhood would have given me an extra hammer on a Warrior- but it would have also eaten that hammer as overflow. So now seemed like a solid time to swap into Religion (which I'll eventually want for happy-cap raises with temples anyways...)

I've also got Ancient Chants queued up next:



After that will almost certainly come Mysticism (for God King and Elder Councils). Just as soon as I finish Fishing...



Right about now, looking at the Demographics, I'm sure my elves really would like to go out on a fishing-trip to forget their worries though...



At least I got a couple Forest blooms earlier. Here's a look at the zoomed-out map: any more that have occurred lately I might have missed? (outside my borders...)



We'll keep hoping and praying in accordance with out new-found emphasis on Religion... Maybe we'll be lucky enough to get a random event to even the odds a little... (looking at Bob's Demographics, I can't help but feel I need another one to stand a chance of victory)


Regards,
Northstar

[Qgqqqqq]

Okay, I feel the need to say this, and to hell with spoilers, it's already done so it's not like you can change it.

As planned, I took the opportunity of my Settler traveling to the northwest to swap into Religion:

Nationhood would have given me an extra hammer on a Warrior- but it would have also eaten that hammer as overflow. So now seemed like a solid time to swap into Religion (which I'll eventually want for happy-cap raises with temples anyways...)

You need to weigh more than that when deciding whether to switch in and out of things. Not being in religion is probably a better move, but it also cost you substantially, because it is a turns production, a turns research, a turns food, and the intangibles about getting things out a turn earlier (earlier warrior, earlier worker or whatever else you build) in your cap. That's okay when the benefit is something major, like agrarianism, godking and so on, but for something that isn't even immediately beneficial?

You obviously have a better grasp of how often it will come into play - how many warrior overflow it's going to change, and so on - but your description sounds like it's a wash for now, and was simply done for benefits to temples in the future. You don't even have the technology to build temples!

Based on the demographics/other pictures, this decision is costing you 7h, 6f, and 9b. Is it really going to pay off that much? Will you really build 7 warriors to whom the overflow penalty applies before you would revolt to it normally? Will the +1 happy on temples you do not yet have and cannot yet build pay off compared to revolting later?

And more than that, yields depreciate in value over time. Sevenspirits did an analysis of traits in BTS once where he compared them to beakers at the start, and stated he would rather have ~2-3 extra starting techs than an extra trait. Now obviously a trait is going to give more yield than that other the length of the game - but the point was that early beakers/output is much more valuable than the same amount later on in the game. Your 9b now would compare favorably to twice that in 20t.

Now, you might say that it's going to cost you an anarchy turn later anyway, so why not revolt now whilst you produce less? And ignoring the fact that I question whether Nationhood->Religion is ever worth a turn in anarchy, you can revolt into more than one civic at a time! And shortly down the page you even mention that you'll be prioritizing another civic shortly:

{Ancient Chants and then...} After that will almost certainly come Mysticism (for God King and Elder Councils). Just as soon as I finish Fishing...

That's surely less than 20t away? 20t max until you will be revolting anyway, and could have thrown in Religion as well. Do you think you'll even build 7 warriors in that time, much less 7 warriors to whom the overflow issue occurs (remember, you can't chain them and still suffer from it, so you've got to go warrior->non-warrior 7 times)?

And that's just what you need to break-even, presuming that the NH bonus applies to none of those warriors. To win you need to build a Pagan Temple in that time period, use the extra happy enough that it compensates for everything lost and do so within that timetable.


So yeah, that's self-evidently a mistake. But why am I picking you up on it? It's a minor screw-up, not something that's going to decide this game or any game one way or the other.

I'm jumping on it because it's indicative of a trend that I see in you. You micromanage things crazily to a tee, but the things you are trying to min/max are generally not what you should be focusing on. It's hard to give an example that isn't a spoiler one way or another, but let's take your decision to focus on fishing in this game, which is already decided now that you've finished research.

You say that you chose to research fishing because:

Fishing? Because my 2nd city is going to be located north of the Rice (look at the location- it's surrounded by water!) and working fresh water lake tiles will help me to keep up with Bob technologically without having to research Calendar for the Incense right away...

Lake tiles also produce 2 food apiece. There are only so many Forest Grassland tiles around to work before that- in fact there is only 1 within range for where I will be placing my 2nd city! Lake tiles thus help ensure sustained rapid population-growth without having to wait on my slow Workers to build more Farms...

However, researching Calender for the incense would have been a much better move for your stated objectives. If you look at the terrain around your second city, it has 3 tiles it can work before needing lakes - thus, presuming a happy cap of 5 (though I believe yours is 4 atm), that leave 2 lake tiles being worked eventually. Let's round that up to 3, for convenience (in case you prioritize differently or something.

That leaves you with a maximum 6c being derived from lake tiles. How much commerce does the incense give - 6. So let's compare the two:

3x(2c) vs. 1x(-1f, 1h, 6c)

1f and 1h are pretty much a wash at this stage, so let's call it 3x(2c) vs. 6c. Why am I seperating those up like that? Because 3 pop giving 6c collectively is a very different matter to 1 pop giving 6c on its own. Each of those pop costs slightly in maintenance (at this stage in the game, considering difficulty and everything, call it 1gpt for the lot), but significantly more in opportunity cost - at this stage in the game, you want to be working either 4-yield farms or other improvements.

Compare, then, 3pop working lakes to a incense + two run of the mill grass farms, for example:
6c vs. 3f, 2h, 6c
And that's not accounting for intangibles like the fact that it means you can work focus on commerce at the cap and let your second city grow faster, or that you could revolt to agrarianism, and so on.

Now I get that you want unimproved tiles to work to allow your workers to catch up. Well, you seem to be missing the fact that the best answer then is to make more workers! As a general rule, you should aim never to be working more than one unimproved tile at a city, and that one for short periods of time, because improved tiles are so much better!

Here's an article that, IMO, everyone should read, but I think it would help you a lot. Particularly this bit:

[SIZE="4"]1. Conversion of food, hammers, and beakers[/SIZE]
1 food = 8 points
1 hammer = 5 points
1 beaker = 3 points

Notes: 1h into a worker/settler is worth 6 points. Food is assumed to be granary-enhanced food at a city of approximately size 7 growing onto early-game grassland tiles. Food is obviously stronger at lower city sizes since growth is cheaper there, and is also affected by other factors such as available health/happiness and the strength of the tiles being grown onto (including bonuses from buildings). Also note that a population point costs 2f and 1b every turn (citizens tend to add about $1 each to total maintenance) i.e. 19 points.

Consider some of the tiles we've talked about under that approximation. Incense is worth 1x8+1x5+6x3=31pts, or 14pts once the zero is minused. Lakes are worth 3pts individually, or 9pts for all three.

Other comparisons:
Base farm vs. normal forest = 3pts
Agrarian grass farm vs. grass forest = 11pts
Grass farm vs. lake = 2pts


...that went off-topic. Anyway, the point is I think you should work more on making sure you're focusing on the right things. You clearly pour a lot of time into thinking about these games, but I don't think that time is being appropriately targeted.

Lurkers:

Uhh, I know that went off-topic. Maybe it was too far. But let's be honest, there's no way Bob's going to lose this duel, and I doubt Northstar will even listen to me. And he refuses to post in the micro-challenge so there's no way of getting this advice to him without drawing on an ongoing game for examples. Tell me if this is too far and I should spoil it.

[Molach]

I agree that calendar for incence should have come before fishing. Plains incence is just an awesome tile.
Q forgot to talk about worker labour..lakes need none, plantation takes some worker turns to get rolling. Still worth it. It will likely get you to massage of the deep in about the same time I think.

Even agranism might be okay, if you have some forest-less grasslands to farm...then you can later cottage the forests which you might want to do later on anyway. Grassland agri farm is as good as an elven forest farm imo. (if I play elves without calendar resource and plenty forests I'll probably skip calendar and go for edu-wayoftheforest but that is off-topic)

[Northstar1989]

Q, no offense, but Molach's right. The reason I chose Fishing was so my Workers could build Grassland/Forest/Farms instead.

By your own point-system a Grassland/Forest/Farms tile is worth:

Grassland/Forest/Farm
8*3 + 5 = 29 points

By comparison a Plantation/Plains is worth:

Plantation/Plains
8 + 5 + 3*6 = 31 points

So only 2 points more. However, if I work two Lake tiles instead of two unimproved Grassland/Forest tiles...

Lake Tile
8*2 + 3*2 = 22 points

Grassland/Forest
8*2 + 5 = 21 points

So, with just two Lake tiles (which is, by your own correct estimation, the number of Lake tiles I'd eventually work at my second city) I end up breaking even.

However, the extra food at my second and (soon) third cities is worth a LOT more when they're small in size- so that's a major tie-breaker in favor of farming the Grassland/Forest tiles...

Beyond that, there was a major opportunity-cost to researching Calendar when I want to be the first to Message from the Deep (Drown make powerful early-game weapons, and I want to deny Bob the free Zealot he would be free to use for other purposes than spreading the religion to one of his cities if he founded the religion...)

Finally, you're also missing that there are more city-sites than just my second city that can take advantage of Lake tiles... Pretty much all of my planned city sites are next to water tiles of some sort- and most are next to freshwater lakes...


Elven Workers are SLOW, so I need to sacrifice an early Plantation for more Farms. This also means I have a lower Return on Investment from building additional Workers. If I were any other civ (with faster Workers- *especially* the Dwarves) I would never have made this decision...

The Elven civilizations are weak (unreasonably so- they really need a major buff from EitB... Perhaps an increase to the beaker-yield they get from Elder Council since Elves essentially live forever unless killed in combat, so their elders would be much older/wiser?) Even the Svartalfar with Volanna have been quite weak ever since you removed Volanna's Expansive trait. My current lag in this game is more due to the slow speed of my Workers and the loss of those early Scouts (I risked a lot on early Scouts to try and choke Bob, and lost on that gamble... I would have been better off with another Worker or more Warriors...) than anything to do with my micro-management... (which by your own admission has been VERY careful)


One last thought: switching into Religion was indeed a sub-optimal decision by the numbers. If you didn't catch on, that was very much a roleplaying move: the idea being to invoke the blessings of Deity upon my people, who live in a world where "gods" are quite active (and one Supreme Being watches and judges all these "gods" who are really just angels, waiting for his time to come back...) I'm quite religious in real life, and I only felt it appropriate for my civilization to be so as well...

IIRC, the Spiritual line is currently quite weak compared to raw numbers of mundane units with a powerful civ like the Clan, Khazadh (after your recent buffs to the vault-mechanic: they used to be one of the weaker civs...), or Hippus. You really need to think about giving them a buff now that you nerfed Spiritual leads with the changes to Favored and EitB (some of these changes might be before you) nerfed the Spiritual line in general by making the alternatives better than they were before... I say this even though the weakness of the Spiritual line currently gives me a fighting-chance against the Malakim (whereas I would be doomed if it were stronger like it should be...)


Regards,
Northstar

[Qgqqqqq]

The Elven civilizations are weak (unreasonably so- they really need a major buff from EitB... Perhaps an increase to the beaker-yield they get from Elder Council since Elves essentially live forever unless killed in combat, so their elders would be much older/wiser?)Even the Svartalfar with Volanna have been quite weak ever since you removed Volanna's Expansive trait. My current lag in this game is more due to the slow speed of my Workers and the loss of those early Scouts (I risked a lot on early Scouts to try and choke Bob, and lost on that gamble... I would have been better off with another Worker or more Warriors...) than anything to do with my micro-management... (which by your own admission has been VERY careful)
...
IIRC, the Spiritual line is currently quite weak compared to raw numbers of mundane units with a powerful civ like the Clan, Khazadh (after your recent buffs to the vault-mechanic: they used to be one of the weaker civs...), or Hippus. You really need to think about giving them a buff now that you nerfed Spiritual leads with the changes to Favored and EitB (some of these changes might be before you) nerfed the Spiritual line in general by making the alternatives better than they were before... I say this even though the weakness of the Spiritual line currently gives me a fighting-chance against the Malakim (whereas I would be doomed if it were stronger like it should be...)

Both these statements are incorrect.

Elves have been massively boosted by EitB. They can go FT to double cottage development! Republic late for even better towns! Early-mid techs have lost price, decreasing their vulnerable period. Svartalfar got more and better leaders! ARC trait was boosted! FIN was nerfed (increasing their viability in comparison)! Kithra was moved to HP! Druids are now that much closer! And so on and so on. Elves benefited massively both directly and indirectly from EitB changes.

SPI also has not been nerfed. I wish people would stop saying that, it's factually incorrect. Potency used to be 20xp. Favored is now also 20xp - no change was made! The difference is that Potency is now 30xp - but that's as much a nerf for SPI as it is a nerf for RAI and any other trait. There is a minor bug atm which only affects one specific unit upgrade in real terms, but other than that it's exactly the same/strictly better than in base.
SPI has also been massively boosted in EitB through the improvement of the Divine line in general, as well as the increased viability of different civics and religions.

I'll respond to the rest in a separate post.

[GermanJoey]

Each of those needs to subtract off the 8 points per food it costs to work the tile. so:

grassland forest = 5 points
lake = 6 points
improved plains incense = 21 points
grass forest farm = 13 points

this point system is for base bts, by the way, not fall from heaven. i think that a hammer is worth relatively more in FFH, maybe something like 8/7/3 for food/hammer/beaker as a guess? Seven's score for food is particularly high because of the extreme power of the slavery civic in BTS.

also remember that these point values are also just rough benchmarks and will change as you get access to different ways to convert between them. the thing you should get out of this is that a plains incense is an at least three times better tile than a lake.

[Northstar1989]

OK, so I've got my 2nd city up:



There's a Baby Spider off to the west- so at least one of my Scouts served to make the wilderness a little more dangerous for Bob's units... Still, he doesn't seem to have even lost a single Scout yet- so it appears he's been either incredibly lucky (to avoid the Tiger and Giant Spider, or defeat one when the odds were greatly against him...) or has kept his Scout at home to avoid it getting eaten...

On the bright side, those spiders might make a natural defensive-barrier if I found more cities to the north (Giant Spiders, unlike most Barbarian units, tend to remain fortified in place unless an enemy unit comes in range- meaning they will both heal over time and attain fortification defensive-bonuses if attacked...)


Here are the end-turn Demographics:



If I hadn't lost those 3 Scouts before, my soldier-count would actually be at least 14000 at this point- meaning with my Combat I promotions and Elven racial traits my military would actually be about to become STRONGER than Bob's. Unfortunately, that's not the case...


And a look at my capital:



LURKERS, do any of you remember how much food it takes to grow a city from size 4 to size 5?

I suspect it's only 18 food- in which case I can safely switch a citizen to work the Plains/Forest/Farm for a turn to get an extra hammer without slowing either of the next two city-growths to the happy-cap at all...

All this discussion of food-production before missed the critical point that food is only useful insofar as it produces additional happy citizens faster: if it won't speed growth up it'ss not useful, and if it leads to angry citizens it's actually a liability...

Anyways, Bob hasn't founded his second city yet despite coming before me in the turn-order...

[Qgqqqqq]

This was the relevant section:

Now I get that you want unimproved tiles to work to allow your workers to catch up. Well, you seem to be missing the fact that the best answer then is to make more workers! As a general rule, you should aim never to be working more than one unimproved tile at a city, and that one for short periods of time, because improved tiles are so much better!

Build. More. Workers.

Besides which, the worker labor of improving incense is 3-4t, whereas the worker labor of improving a forest farm is 7-8. So you shouldn't compare it like that. I don't think I ever said don't farm, and I certainly did not mean it.

Elven Workers are SLOW, so I need to sacrifice an early Plantation for more Farms. This also means I have a lower Return on Investment from building additional Workers. If I were any other civ (with faster Workers- *especially* the Dwarves) I would never have made this decision...

What? That's not what this means at all! The fact that your workers are slow means that you need to build more of them compared to your opponents. The Luchuirp, say, can probably get away with three Mud Golems for three cities, where as an elf I would be aiming for more like 5-6.

The thing you sacrifice is never valuable improvements, it's marginal improvements - for example, let's compare farming a non-forested grass and plantationing the incense to farming a forested grass.
FGF: 3/1 output for 29. Minus 19 = 10pts
I/GF: 1/1/6 and 3/0 output for 55. Minus 38 = 17pts
Which is the more proper comparison, if you wish to think of it in worker turns. Which leaves us with a considerable advantage to Incense.


And I could go on to talk about your other points, but I've chosen only to bother with the major one. Why is this?

Because if you were to ask any vet here with experience in FFH/EitB, they'd say that you should have gone Calender over Fishing here. Not only that, but they'd also say you should have gone for it even earlier. This isn't something that's negotiable, really, it's something that is known. I'm simply trying to use this as a way of illustrating the underlying problem with your actions.

Seriously, make a sim for these games! It's not that hard - just fool around in world builder for a while, or reroll a map until you get the right one, and then experiment! Examine different approaches to your start - how would things have gone if you'd led with a worker? Led with a different tech? Grown more and earlier? Settled somewhere differently? Used different civics?

And so on. I'm not saying any of those are necessarily right or better than what you did, but I am saying that you should look at trying out different approaches to your actions, because IMO that's the biggest thing you need to improve. You're refining the paths that you are taking well, but you need to make sure that these are the best paths for you to take.

[Qgqqqqq]

Each of those needs to subtract off the 8 points per food it costs to work the tile. so:

grassland forest = 5 points
lake = 6 points
improved plains incense = 21 points
grass forest farm = 13 points

this point system is for base bts, by the way, not fall from heaven. i think that a hammer is worth relatively more in FFH, maybe something like 8/7/3 for food/hammer/beaker as a guess? Seven's score for food is particularly high because of the extreme power of the slavery civic in BTS.

also remember that these point values are also just rough benchmarks and will change as you get access to different ways to convert between them. the thing you should get out of this is that a plains incense is an at least three times better tile than a lake.

You missed an extra food on incense. So it's 15, not 21 - though you should also take 3pts for a beaker off all of them. Which gives you 3pts for lakes and 15pts for Incense...which I think proves your point all the more.

And yeah, this is BTS. But it's still useful as a tool to think about the game.