March 28th, 2018, 23:10
(This post was last modified: March 28th, 2018, 23:19 by aetryn.)
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(March 28th, 2018, 21:51)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: Okay, guys, that was just an exercise, but now I'm really wondering if this is the way to go. I don't need to invest in a Holy Site this way, I guarantee my pick of beliefs, I'm giving up a stone at the capital but hell, I could be ready to do this in 2 turn when the warrior is established (I need to buy the tile or destroy my lovely rice farm). Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Timeline would be:
T45: Builder steps onto quarry.
T46: Builder removes quarry (I suck at planning ahead or I wouldn'ta built the dang thing, probably)
T47 chop. Not sure how many cogs the warrior will need. Let's say we get 120 into the wonder, 60 left.
T48 builder steps onto forest.
T49 builder chops forest, gets 36 x 2 = 72 cogs, more than enough.
I'll sleep on it. This might be worth a shot to have the religion in place on t49. Plus we'd get 162 faith, nearly enough to buy our first apostle and evangelize.
Downsides: This delays our holy site district, but hell, we don't need it. We DO need a Seowon to boost State Workforce. State Workforce is due in 8 turns, so we need a Seowon by turn 49 to get the boost. I'm willing to swap to another civic, although note that I'll have time to sink some cogs into the seowon first (or into the wonder, hell), AND use some of the wonder-overflow to boost the district, so we're probably looking at turn 50/51.
The main motivating factor for this is the early DOTF. No one has successfully yet attacked a civ defended by that belief, and with my tech advantage from lots of Seowons it'll be REALLY tough to get superior units to me.
Right now I'm leaning towards taking the shot. The danger zone is T48-49 - if anyone finishes in that window...well, in that case, I just funnel the cogs into a holy site anyway! No worries! You get failproduction, so all I've lost is my stone tile (a bummer, but I have more!).
*fun fact: you can chop the stone that you used to place Stonehenge with.
Keep in mind you WILL need a Holy Site at some point just to buy Missionaries (and apostles to enhance). JE isn't going to help if you can't spread it to your other cities. On the other hand, you probably don't need the Holy Site any time soon, so pushing that back behind a couple of Seowons is definitely good for starting to get district discounts lined up. I kind of lean toward going for the wonder, since DotF would be so useful in a civ that wants to turtle a bit anyway and the failproduction cost is probably enough to build the missing Holy Site anyway.
Also, the stone isn't that much of a long-term asset - you're essentially only giving up the extra hammer until Apprenticeship. It's a hill stone, so it's slightly less terrible than a flatlands stone (which for me is an auto-harvest), but I don't much like quarries.
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That chop/district cost table is great!  did you make that yourself?
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Right. Let's focus on getting Seowons down, then later we can build a discounted Holy Site - that lets us keep up district diversity for more discounts, too.
Turn 45
Okay, let's do a deep dive into nabbing Stonehenge in 4 turns. First, I have some housekeeping with the barbs and my slinger defenders, then we can take a look at Just Read the Instructions and see exactly how my plan will work.
First, for some reason the injured slinger can't enter the city center this turn. I guess stepping onto the jungled road didn't leave him with enough movement?
Except, weirdly, the new slinger in the city center CAN step all the way out and cover my injured unit from the pursuing slinger. How odd. I did check after the slinger vacated the city tile and I STILL can't move there. Dunno what's going on with the movement system - shouldn't it cost the same to enter a city-center as it does a plains tile? Well, no matter. A mystery for another day.
The other slinger is pulling back from the river, but the damn robot is smarter than I thought - the AI routed its barbarian around the mountain and might cut me off. 
He'll move up to the wheat, and I'll be unable to enter the jungle. I can still flee to the horse tile, but I'm fast running out of room here to evade these guys. Could I get another unit out here to save the slinger? Hm, no, not in any timely fashion.
The two mutilated slingers are basically combat ineffective, and both my warriors are injured, so check out my power score:
Ehehehe...Alhambram is next weakest, with 78. I have 20 turns to fix that. Since I'm using Agoge chops, I'll get a few reinforcements out. If I'm roughly matched with Alhambram and Japper (90 points), and I have DOTF, I should be okay. While I have the scores open, I check everyone's rates. Alhambram is working a mercury and has .1 more science than me, which I'm not bothered about at all. Everyone has fewer beakers, even Japper with his campus. Culture is 1.5 points higher than all my nearby rivals, and I can't see Rowain or Archduke yet. Rowain is sky-high in culture, though.
I go ahead and lock in the Seowon to preserve its cost. I don't THINK I'll finish a tech between now and building it, but you can't be too sure. I have two candidates:
I decide to preserve the plains hill for the extra production, and plant the seowon on the grassland hill instead. Both locations boost 2 mines and 2 farms, with a plantation and lake tile taking up the other two neighbors.
Finally, in the west the barb horseman is dead or missing. I didn't get a notification of attack, so I think he ran off - strange behavior for a barb. Maybe he wants Emperor's scout?
Okay, let's do a dive on Stonehenge. Here's JRTI:
The warrior needs 17 cogs to finish - agoge is kind of awkward here, but a boost is a boost. A Seowon takes 4 turns at 14 cogs per turn, while a Holy Site is 7. That means that a district is somewhere from 84-96 hammers base at the moment, I think on the higher end. If I check my table, it looks like districts must cost 92 hammers atm. Therefore, I can expect - yikes - only 38 hammers from my stone harvest. x3 for Magnus + Agoge = 114 hammers, or 97 into Stonehenge. One turn of production into the henge will take us to 111 hammers, still needing 69.
I will spend 1 turn on a slinger to boost chop #2. That's happening right now, so once I start the 'Henge I can keep working on it. The slinger will receive 21 hammers, needing 14 to finish. A wood chop will yield 30 hammers, x3 = 90, -14, so 76 into the wonder, which will be at 135 and only need 45. 31 will overflow into the Seowon, which will then need just one turn or so to finish at the end of turn 49 (there actually is no net gain in time from the slinger - it produces 30 extra cogs on the chop but costs 35 total to build. It's just more efficient to magic up the extra 30 cogs - I think of it as getting a 5-production slinger in the bargain. Since the timeline is the same either way I prefer to do it this way).
Okay, so everything is still on schedule, assuming my table is remotely accurate. I can't manually check chop yields yet, because I need to remove the quarry first.
Downside is I only get 136 faith, not quite enough for an immediate apostle. Oh, well, more chopping will grant me more. I'd love to enhance the religion before anyone else manages to found one.
Now, risks: Who could beat me?
First, you need astrology. Most people are just now arriving, so I don't think anyone is well ahead of me. Poor Emperor still hasn't found a natural wonder, I think, going by era score (unless he also found one before the patch introduced johnny-come-lately scores for natural wonders). The second thing you need is Magnus. Rowain certainly has Magnus, and I think the ARchduke should get him soon, if he hasn't already. But I lead the Archduke in culture for a while, so I don't think he has an early Magnus. Alhambram is tied with me. Japper is lagging and is behind me.
Could Archduke/Alhambram beat me because of turn order? Well, they need to have a builder ready to harvest, and 2 units ready to be chopped. That's certainly possible, but they also need stone in the right place...eh. It's possible, but I think very unlikely, that they're doing exactly the same thing I am. Archduke has the highest domination score in the game, just ahead of Rowain, so I don't think he has the spare builder to chop right away. He'd have needed to squeeze one in with his military builds, AND not get the Craftsmanship boost, AND needs to have not used it at all. I think that's unlikely. Alhambram...maybe. But he's been working on a granary, same as I did a few turns ago, and just produced a trader. I don't think he's fully set up yet.
Rowain - who knows? I can't deduce anything about him, but he's had Magnus for longer so the wonder could be mostly finished by now in Sumeria. I think he's used his buidlers for ziggurats to start, though.
Finally, an overview of the west:
The east:
And the Dutch south:
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(March 29th, 2018, 13:19)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: First, for some reason the injured slinger can't enter the city center this turn. I guess stepping onto the jungled road didn't leave him with enough movement?
Except, weirdly, the new slinger in the city center CAN step all the way out and cover my injured unit from the pursuing slinger. How odd. I did check after the slinger vacated the city tile and I STILL can't move there. Dunno what's going on with the movement system - shouldn't it cost the same to enter a city-center as it does a plains tile? Well, no matter. A mystery for another day.
In order for the road to have any effect BOTH there must be a road build on both the tile you move from and the tile you move into, otherwise the move costs the full movement points as if there was no road at all. Since the damaged warrior did not start on a road, the jungle took all movement points to enter. Since slinger in the city was already on a road, it was able to enter the jungle for just 1 MP cost and continue moving.
March 29th, 2018, 14:01
(This post was last modified: March 29th, 2018, 14:03 by Woden.)
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(March 29th, 2018, 12:59)Cornflakes Wrote: That chop/district cost table is great! did you make that yourself?
Looks like Victoria's table from CivFanatics:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/y...t-14918177
Please note it is a little out of date since they added a tech/civic at the end of the trees and reduced district's base cost to 54 
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(March 29th, 2018, 14:01)Woden Wrote: (March 29th, 2018, 12:59)Cornflakes Wrote: That chop/district cost table is great! did you make that yourself?
Looks like Victoria's table from CivFanatics:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/y...t-14918177
Please note it is a little out of date since they added a tech/civic at the end of the trees and reduced district's base cost to 54
Oh, yeah, sorry, Cornflakes, didn't see that you slipped a reply in ahead of my report!
Yeah, I got it while digging around CivFanatics to try and find an easier way to calculate chop yields. It's a little out of date, but I can adapt it pretty easily by taking known information like district costs or something and extrapolating, like I did above.
And thanks for hte info on how roads work! I'm rubbish at remembering these small details.
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(March 29th, 2018, 13:19)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: Right. Let's focus on getting Seowons down, then later we can build a discounted Holy Site - that lets us keep up district diversity for more discounts, too.
Turn 45
The warrior needs 17 cogs to finish - agoge is kind of awkward here, but a boost is a boost. A Seowon takes 4 turns at 14 cogs per turn, while a Holy Site is 7. That means that a district is somewhere from 84-96 hammers base at the moment, I think on the higher end. If I check my table, it looks like districts must cost 92 hammers atm. Therefore, I can expect - yikes - only 38 hammers from my stone harvest. x3 for Magnus + Agoge = 114 hammers, or 97 into Stonehenge. One turn of production into the henge will take us to 111 hammers, still needing 69.
Can you micro workers to lower production tiles to get the warrior almost to completion (say, 2 cogs away) without actually completing it? If so, that means more overflow into Stonehenge and less spent on the warrior. Again, more "free" hammers off the chop. That's generally how I try to work Agoge chops.
Quote:I will spend 1 turn on a slinger to boost chop #2. That's happening right now, so once I start the 'Henge I can keep working on it. The slinger will receive 21 hammers, needing 14 to finish. A wood chop will yield 30 hammers, x3 = 90, -14, so 76 into the wonder, which will be at 135 and only need 45. 31 will overflow into the Seowon, which will then need just one turn or so to finish at the end of turn 49 (there actually is no net gain in time from the slinger - it produces 30 extra cogs on the chop but costs 35 total to build. It's just more efficient to magic up the extra 30 cogs - I think of it as getting a 5-production slinger in the bargain. Since the timeline is the same either way I prefer to do it this way).
Sounds good to me. Slingers are hard to leave almost completed for maximum chopiness unless you have a really poor production city (or just a REALLY small one).
Quote:Okay, so everything is still on schedule, assuming my table is remotely accurate. I can't manually check chop yields yet, because I need to remove the quarry first.
Downside is I only get 136 faith, not quite enough for an immediate apostle. Oh, well, more chopping will grant me more. I'd love to enhance the religion before anyone else manages to found one.
You can't buy an apostle immediately anyway - no Temple. I suspect by the time you build the Holy Site + Shrine + Temple, you will have accumulated enough faith even if you don't chop anything, which is itself incredibly unlikely.
Quote:Now, risks: Who could beat me?
First, you need astrology. Most people are just now arriving, so I don't think anyone is well ahead of me. Poor Emperor still hasn't found a natural wonder, I think, going by era score (unless he also found one before the patch introduced johnny-come-lately scores for natural wonders). The second thing you need is Magnus. Rowain certainly has Magnus, and I think the ARchduke should get him soon, if he hasn't already. But I lead the Archduke in culture for a while, so I don't think he has an early Magnus. Alhambram is tied with me. Japper is lagging and is behind me.
Could Archduke/Alhambram beat me because of turn order? Well, they need to have a builder ready to harvest, and 2 units ready to be chopped. That's certainly possible, but they also need stone in the right place...eh. It's possible, but I think very unlikely, that they're doing exactly the same thing I am. Archduke has the highest domination score in the game, just ahead of Rowain, so I don't think he has the spare builder to chop right away. He'd have needed to squeeze one in with his military builds, AND not get the Craftsmanship boost, AND needs to have not used it at all. I think that's unlikely. Alhambram...maybe. But he's been working on a granary, same as I did a few turns ago, and just produced a trader. I don't think he's fully set up yet.
Rowain - who knows? I can't deduce anything about him, but he's had Magnus for longer so the wonder could be mostly finished by now in Sumeria. I think he's used his buidlers for ziggurats to start, though.
Hard to tell what others are capable of this early. I would think that Rowain going for an early religion would be an unexpected play, given that his civ is probably more offensive than defensive at this stage of the game, but he is right next to Archduke. Unless someone else has taken a massive faith generation pantheon though, or just wants a religion for denial purposes and doesn't care to do much with it, you'd think they'd go for early Holy Sites to actually get some faith generation going. It seems like you have a good shot at this.
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Turn 46
Two turns in one day! So you guys get a score report:
Total population:
Chev - 11 in 2 cities
Alhambram - 8 in 2 cities
Emperor - 8 in 2 cities
Archduke - 9 in 2 cities
Rowain - 7 in 2 cities, 1 district.
Japper - 8 in 2 cities, 1 district.
Apparently Rowain and Japper delayed settlers to get down early campuses?
Rowain's culture is insane. He's dramatically improved his score, and it's all legit - civics and empire score were the two big gains, as he finished a campus and built a city for a combined 9 points.
Overall, my stuff looks good. Science is neatly keeping pace with the leaders, even without a 4 beaker seowon (which will, as you can see, increase output by nearly 50%). My culture advantage is slowly eroding - I look to rectify that with Valetta-bought monuments down the road. Archduke and Rowain are ranked ahead of me on culture, but I'm not sure if that's because they just have more civics or because their rates are faster. Well, I know Rowain's are, but Archduke has the same amount of civics I do so far. Gold generation is equal or ahead of all my neighbors, except Alhambram with his Antioch advantage (  ).
Military score is, uh, embarrassing. Those barbs did a number on me, but the crisis is mostly passed. We did a good job clearing the horse camp just in time, and the other camp - well, you'll see.
[a few minutes later]
Aaaand only one of my screenshots actually worked. Well, nuts.
Anyway, the barb slinger attacked me, but my slinger retaliated and red-lined it. I can finish it next turn, most like. The warriors moved as predicted, and my slinger ran further north. I MAY escape, I'm not sure. There's a river up here, and a fuckin' sweet city spot:
First, I moved I Blame The Parents one spot east, and this is my top-priority for a new spot. It grabs diamonds, it locks down the border with Japper, and it has wheat and lots of 1/3 tiles and an awesome Seowon spot. The only downside is I'm competing with Japper, so my first Magnus-settler in <10 turns will go here. Just need to finish a Seowon, promote Magnus, adn then I can start choppin'.
Japper's borders are nearby. I'm pretty sure these are new, because he only just showed up on settler vision. This is Japper's second city, founded on his latest turn by the score. It JUST barely allows me I Blame the Parents, but they will be competing for third-ring tiles. Thankfully, they're all crap, Japper can have 'em. I'm not worried about the pink dot - with DOTF, I can throw down an encampment and Victor here and stand off any army Japper chooses to send. Loyalty might be an issue down the road, but the Audience Chamber will help with that. This will be a good spot for Amani if Victor can be spared. All of the governors are useful to me! Not sure what order I'll grab 'em in. Pretty sure only Magnus is getting promoted to start, though - the rest I crave more for their sheer existence than any specific abilities.
Note also Japper's borders - he doesn't have early empire yet. That means no colonization yet, so no 100% settlers. He probably has State Workforce, so he DOES ahve Magnus, but he's paying full price for settlers until he finishes 2 more civics.
At home, I notice that the eastern barb camp disappeared! What the - Alhambram! His scouting warrior has vanished and I bet dollars to donuts he snatched my camp!
Well, I'm not too upset. The 50g stings, but at least I save on 3 era score (the camp was "threatening" to my cities, I'm pretty sure), which means that finishing my Seowon won't tip me out of a dark age...except that Stonehenge probably will. Shit. Well, nothing to be done about it. At least we won't have to worry about reduced border city loyalty...
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I admire everyone's restraint in not pointing out, "But Chevalier! Harvesting stone requires Masonry!"
back to the drawing board
sheepishly researching Masonry (eta 7 turns), so that's the new ETA for Stonehenge as well.
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I made that same mistake in one of my early plans for pbem5 
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