[SPOILERS] JR4 tries his luck in PB 37

[RefSteel]

I definitely agree the second city would ideally take one of the 5f tiles, at least for the first 3-4 turns. What I meant about "depending on tile-sharing" is that the settler might have to move for one or two full turns before founding, so when the tile sharing will begin remains a question. (I could imagine we might even forego sharing the key tiles if there's a great site with first-ring resources that would work better than any of the possible sharing sites, although that seems unlikely.)

Obviously none of this is time-critical though; first we need a map, then the game needs to be set up on its server, and then it'll still be ten turns before there's any difference between any of the plans, and by then we should know a lot more.

[RefSteel]

Pictures: (Ignore everything outide the 5x5 starting square)

[IMG][Image T23w2c.jpg to be rehosted because photobucket is terrible...][/IMG]

[IMG][Image T23w2o.jpg to be rehosted likewise...][/IMG]

[JR4]

Okay, I`ve tried out your sim. It feels like a slightly faster start , as we only need two turns to grow to size 4 after the settler is finished. The first road could go 1N of the cows, but we need more scouting info to decide.
Also, I`m not so familiar with demultiplication. I thought all overflow from the work boat automatically was fueled into the next build without losing any hammers.

[RefSteel]

Sounds good to me. I may try to optimize further while we're waiting on the map, but I don't know if I'll get anywhere on that, and I like this start as-is. (Unless/until one of our units gets eaten by a bear or something.)

As for what I call "demultiplication," it only happens on overrflow from builds where you get a hammer bonus* (in this case, +35% on an Expansive Work Boat). Each turn, the number of hammers we put into the workboat is multiplied by 1.35, rounding down - which means we get one "bonus" hpt for every 3 "base" hpt we put in (until we get to 20 base hpt to get the full, unrounded 35%). After we complete the build, any leftover hammers are available to put into the next build, just as you said ... except:

The game doesn't know (even if the build is queued; we can always change it) whether our next build will have the same hammer bonus, so to play it safe, the game automatically divides out our bonus from the overflow hammers - so in this case, it divides our overflow hammers by 1.35, rounding down again. Then if we build another Work Boat or Worker the following turn, the overflow hammers plus all our regular hammers get multiplied by 1.35 again (rounding down again) so it more or less comes out right ... except that due to rounding, it's never actually "more" - only equal or less. Worse, for workers (and Settlers once we have a forge) the food we put into them is not multiplied by the hammer bonus, and the game doesn't distinguish between sources of overflow hammers, so it divides everything by the hammer multiplier, even if it was originally food that didn't get a multiplier in the first place.

* - It actually also applies to builds that provide a multiplier when you're done. Among the micro-experts around here, Forges are infamous for this.

This is usually a minor effect (and probably even more minor on Marathon, since everything costs so much in comparison to the lost overflow anyway) but at times when one or two hammers make a big difference, it's worth paying attention to it, particularly with RtR Expansive because 35% is such an awkward number: Suppose we have 28h in a work bost, and are now making 5 base hammers per turn. 5 x 1.35 rounds down to 6, giving us 34/30 hammers in the work boat, completing it with 4 overflow. The game then divides by 1.35, rounding ~2.96 down to 2! (You can try this in the sim to see it in action.)

[JR4]

The game doesn't know (even if the build is queued; we can always change it) whether our next build will have the same hammer bonus, so to play it safe, the game automatically divides out our bonus from the overflow hammers - so in this case, it divides our overflow hammers by 1.35, rounding down again.  Then if we build another Work Boat or Worker the following turn, the overflow hammers plus all our regular hammers get multiplied by 1.35 again (rounding down again) so it more or less comes out right ... except that due to rounding, it's never actually "more" - only equal or less.  Worse, for workers (and Settlers once we have a forge) the food we put into them is not multiplied by the hammer bonus, and the game doesn't distinguish between sources of overflow hammers, so it divides everything by the hammer multiplier, even if it was originally food that didn't get a multiplier in the first place.


This is usually a minor effect (and probably even more minor on Marathon, since everything costs so much in comparison to the lost overflow anyway) but at times when one or two hammers make a big difference, it's worth paying attention to it, particularly with RtR Expansive because 35% is such an awkward number:  Suppose we have 28h in a work bost, and are now making 5 base hammers per turn.  5 x 1.35 rounds down to 6, giving us 34/30 hammers in the work boat, completing it with 4 overflow.  The game then divides by 1.35, rounding ~2.96 down to 2!  (You can try this in the sim to see it in action.)

This is new to me. Civ 4 never stops surprising me! We should certainly pay attention to rounding. I have noticed that the overflow doesn`t always turn out in a straightforward way, but I haven`t known the mechanics.

I am happy with the sim as it is now. Just waiting for the mapmaker to finish the map.

[RefSteel]

Civ 4 never stops surprising me!

I know, right? Just for instance, I didn't realize a river's headwaters would interact with a lake in the same way as a river's estuary (where it's much more obvious graphically) until I tried out a sim for this game!

While we're waiting for the map though: Are you planning to use a naming theme? Some very non-specific suggestions if you do:

- For cities, use a theme for which you can easily think of at least 20-30 city names off the top of your head. Needing to look up an esoteric example of [whatever naming theme thing] eight months into the game while you're managing a large empire is fun for a certain kind of crazy person (like me) but usually you're going to be better off if there's a quick and easy option you don't have to think about.

- For Workers, it can be fun to use a related theme, but you generally don't need nearly as many names: After about the first 5-6 Workers, all of their names will probably start devolving to "the worker on the grassland forest" and "the last worker from the mine" and the like to the extent we talk about them anyway.

- For military units, similarly, it's fun to name the first five or so. After that, they all start to run together, and if new names get added only to commemorate significant events, if at all. (E.g. naming the first few of a cool new unit type, or the first unit to take an enemy city ... or an enemy capital...)

- Boats (apart from short-lived Workboats) can sometimes be in their own world with their own naming scheme. This is often another case though where only the first few - or the first few of each new type - get names.

[JR4]

Are you planning to use a naming theme? 

Hmmm, I haven`t actually thought about that. I have basically always gone for the default choice of the game. Maybe we can try a random list from wikipedia (or somewhere else)? If the game is going well for us I might be persuaded into naming some military units and workers.

[RefSteel]

Hmmmm...

We can certainly go with the default names if you like. (Fair warning: I will probably still look up a bunch of random information about the actual Mongolian cities in question and post it in spoilers in this thread.) But if I may make a suggestion relating to Isabella of Mongolia, here's a not-so random list from Wikipedia:

(Short description and adjective can also be Khatun)
(Some names modified slightly to fit within 16 basic characters)

Borte
Muqa
Toregene
Oghul Qaimish
Oghul Khoimish
Chubei
Chabui
Nambui
Kokejin
Bulugan
Radnashiri
Sugabala
Babukhan
Budashiri
Daliyetemishi
Danashri
Bayan Khutugh
Empress Gi
Oljei Baajii
Monggutsar
Oljei Taikhu
IkhKhabrtuYungen
Mandukhai
Shodai

[JR4]

Well, it sure fits our theme. From now on we shall be known as... the Khatun Empire!

Btw: You are free to write up something extra if you have the time and energy. I like random fun facts. Always looking to learn something new.

[RefSteel]

Sweet! I'll also do some write-ups that are purely fictional and relate to our empire rather than real-life stuff if you like, because that's the way I roll.

Also, further thought suggests that, by analogy with Khanate, the name of the empire itself could actually be:

Full name: The Kipchak Khatunate
Short desciption: The Khatunate
Adjective: Khatunate