[LURKERS] Mr. Gradgrind's Review

[GermanJoey]

lurker quiz: what is the most expensive unit that it's theoretically possible to whip for 1 pop on an Industrial era start on normal speed, with 1 hammer invested in it on the previous turn?

edit: and lets say, with and without National Wonders

[Zed-F]

rifles are 88h for an industrial start, which is just under a 1pop whip with coalplant+kremlin.

Dreylin doesn't have coal plants and is not heading toward them. OT4E's plan is all about whipping out starting units, not really anything more advanced. The only new unit they get on their current tech path is airships. So it doesn't matter how many pop it would take to whip units they don't have. Read Sulla's argument in the context of the game, not in the theoretical 'I have all techs and every building already completed' context.

[The Black Sword]

Assuming Dreylin will sit there and do nothing is not realistic. They're mostly talking about the war and units now because that's what needs immediate attention but they'll be doing other things after that. The specialist-centred Oxford will be a really strong move.

[Zed-F]

Sure, it will help. Will it help enough? They will be in a pretty big military tech deficit in 20 turns by the time they double-bulb Biology, and it will get harder and harder for specialists in a few tall cities to keep pace as they burn more GPs and as other empires get factories built before Dreylin/OT4E get Steam Power.

Dreylin's strength is being able to overrun rivals with early units before the other teams can respond. Especially given OT4E's usual modus operandi, I think they will continue to focus on that, and be willing to make sacrifices on their long-term plans to further short-term goals. This could well be the right strategy for them, too. At this point and given they retain their focus on food-oriented technologies for the next 20T, I don't think they will subsequently have the ability to out-tech rivals on military techs; at best they can attempt not to fall too far behind. They need to win by overwhelming military as quickly as possible; they can't afford to let other teams get into a position of being able to check them with more advanced military units.

[Mardoc]

I think the main variable is how profitable Dreylin can make Gaspar's cities. Paying a couple hundred hammers worth of units for a size 5 city with tile improvements already built certainly seems worthwhile, compared to 300h for a size 3 city - even if they do lose buildings on capture. It won't show until the cities start coming out of revolt, though.

Also, Physics might not seem like a military tech, but it totally can be. Due to the civ combat model, Airships have a lot more effect than it appears. An unpromoted cavalry attacking an unpromoted Infantry normally has 21% odds, but if you use an airship to take that infantry to 80 hp first, the cav gets 48% odds - at which point the only factor that really matters is relative production. It's even more dramatic at sea, taking battles from even-odds (or worse if the defender is on coast) to 80+% in the airship civ's favor, and this is a map where sea control has immense tactical advantages. Then you can add in the value of information.

With sufficient airpower, Cavalry can remain effective for a good long time.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, assuming Dreylin and OT4E can run over the rest of Gaspar's cities, which seems likely right now, they can just consolidate on 1.5-2x everyone else's land, grow their cities up and throw a bunch of golden ages. The long game favours them IMO and it's up to everyone else to change that.

They've played a very strong game so far and I don't see why we should start assuming they'll make mistakes in the future. If nobody builds an army by the time the current invasion is done they may decide to invade someone else as the most profitable move. They can easily switch gears to research via working specialists if that path is better, and Rep+Biology specialists beat even factory powered wealth building, let alone Phi specialists.

[DMOC]

I think the main variable is how profitable Dreylin can make Gaspar's cities. Paying a couple hundred hammers worth of units for a size 5 city with tile improvements already built certainly seems worthwhile, compared to 300h for a size 3 city - even if they do lose buildings on capture. It won't show until the cities start coming out of revolt, though.

Also, Physics might not seem like a military tech, but it totally can be. Due to the civ combat model, Airships have a lot more effect than it appears. An unpromoted cavalry attacking an unpromoted Infantry normally has 21% odds, but if you use an airship to take that infantry to 80 hp first, the cav gets 48% odds - at which point the only factor that really matters is relative production. It's even more dramatic at sea, taking battles from even-odds (or worse if the defender is on coast) to 80+% in the airship civ's favor, and this is a map where sea control has immense tactical advantages. Then you can add in the value of information.

With sufficient airpower, Cavalry can remain effective for a good long time.

I'm not sure if they're going for Physics or not (but they're "researching" it at 0% so maybe) but they also get the free Great Scientist from that tech, right? If so, that, along with their Great Spy, means they just need to generate one more Great Person and they can launch 16 turns of a Golden Age after the Gaspar war, meaning that they can try closing the gap between them and the Scooter/Sullla team economically and in this fast-paced game, that could take us close to the very end. You have a good point about Physics also being a military tech ... I mostly remember that tech for the free Great Scientist and don't usually use airships (at least in single player).

From reading Scooter and Sullla's thread, I often think that they've been underselling their team's performance. I think they're in the second place spot right now and the gap isn't that large, especially since Donovan Zoi doesn't seem like he'll be attacking them.

EDIT: Ah, never mind I forgot they already used up a Golden Age earlier. OK, just 8 more turns, then. So then the gap between them and Scooter/Sullla doesn't seem that large.

[Zed-F]

They've played a very strong game so far and I don't see why we should start assuming they'll make mistakes in the future. If nobody builds an army by the time the current invasion is done they may decide to invade someone else as the most profitable move.

I didn't say they would be making a mistake by continuing to focus on units with which to run over rival empires; quite the opposite. They don't need to worry about whether they can whip infantry and tanks with factories because they probably don't need any of that to win, as long as they can keep up the pressure and prevent rivals from building up a counterforce capable of stopping them. Starting up another invasion is what I expect from them.

As far as Dreylin golden ages go, it doesn't look to me like they are planning to throw one soon -- although I may be reading things incorrectly. OT4E's plan is to get a bunch of universities, then Oxford, with physics in 17 turns and Biology in 20. That suggests to me a double bulb of Biology, not a golden age.

[GermanJoey]

rifles are 88h for an industrial start, which is just under a 1pop whip with coalplant+kremlin.

Dreylin doesn't have coal plants and is not heading toward them. OT4E's plan is all about whipping out starting units, not really anything more advanced. The only new unit they get on their current tech path is airships. So it doesn't matter how many pop it would take to whip units they don't have. Read Sulla's argument in the context of the game, not in the theoretical 'I have all techs and every building already completed' context.

That's true, but Scooter and Sulla don't have any cities producing 100hpt, either, nor do they have Assembly Line, so I don't see how speculating on one is any different from speculating on the other. My point is that they're both vastly underestimating Kremlin slaving by saying "well, we'll this city here will be pumping 100hpt city with a Factoy and Coal Plant, surely slavery can't compete with that!" without thinking about, well, actually, you can slave out factories and coal plants just fine. And the slavery setup doesn't need to grow quite so high, doesn't need a grocer and hospital, etc, to reach those numbers.

As an aside, as awesome as having an uber-hammer city is (and believe me, it is), its more awkward to use its full output than you'd think. For example, I had a city producing ~225hpt in PB22, 1-turning tanks (180h). Every 5th turn, however, I had to choose between producing another tank and losing 45hpt due to overflow or else building something I didn't really need. In a faster game like this, its probably smarter to aim for a smaller-yet-lower-maximum city that can come online faster.

The real limiter of the slavery setup compared to hammer-from-tiles setup isn't average-output-per-turn but, as TBS pointed out earlier, happycap, as surprising as that would be. A city optimized to maximize the number of whips since game start could figure on maybe 25-30 total whips during the game duration, but the real number will probably be between 10-15 for most cities before they have to transition out the city towards a hammer-from-tiles setup.

(by the way, the answer to my quiz is that you can actually whip, for 1 pop, the following:

• a Tactical Nuke if you're including Ironworks (but not HE because it isnt available on an Industrial-era start), which would cost 250h in a traditional Ancient-era start
  
• a Stealth Destroyer, if you include Palace+Bureaucracy but not Ironworks, which costs 220h ancient-era
  
• using a more reasonable setup (police state + SP + forge/factory/coal) gives a Machine Gun, 125h in ancient-era. This setup is juuuust 1 base hammer short of 1-pop whipping an Infantry.
  

and of course, nothing stops them from 2pop whipping, or 3pop whipping, etc. again, my point was just that because of the Industrial-era unit discounts and the additional Kremlin discount, slavery is not limited for Dreylin and OT4E in the slightest.)

[Commodore]

Scooter and Sullla are drafting Dreyote very closely; if they can hit a checked out victim too they'll be doing very well.

But I 100% agree with Mardoc up there. Never undersell airships; infantry/machine guns won't impress them at all as defenders. The threat points are tanks, arty, and most especially DESTROYERS.