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Krill · December 2nd, 2019, 15:26

Oh, and I'm that short sighted I forgot to mention the good news: Gav popped a GE, so he will have Mids incoming next turn. He may have gotten "lucky" with a mixed odds GE/GP he got it so fast, and as there are no PHI leaders then no one could have beelined MC fast enough.

Gav finished Oracle eot48, so he would have generated 62 gpp. If he finished a forge eot49 he would still have only generated 90gpp from an engineer so he must have used a polluted pool for the GE. if he did use the Oracle city (his capital) then he got the GE at low odds. And whilst I doubt he would have run a few turns of a scientist intentionally I can see him screwing up and the scientist being run by accident...nah, I reckon he took the mixed odds with an intention to bulb Theology and ruin GKC and PIndicators bulb plans.

This way I can still see him shoving Mids in his cap, running an engineer and having another mixed odds GE/GP, possibly even making a run at HG? He is 29 turns max from that as well, so decent play IMO.

Krill

I'm getting annoyed at Adler now. I think he isn't invested in the game and just leaves it hanging. TBH, if he is going to be AWOL over weekends regularly, he probably needs replacing, or relegating to a ded lurker.

Krill · December 3rd, 2019, 11:37

Turn 081

Much easier turn to play. Gav did the obvious thing and build Mids rather than bulbing Machinery (Sorry Nauf). I reckon Stalin of Germany is legit now, so that's something good out of the civ rebalance. I dunno if I'm scared of Stalin of Germany with Mids and Oracle. I probably should be, but I'm mostly just glad that Rusten didn't take Mids.

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The barb busting movements are laid out, and I took the small risk of moving warrior 3 back onto the forest.I will be moving a worker to the grass forest 1S2W of Scarrow, so all of the awkward tiles will be fully barb busted from this point on. I had to move the last unallocated warrior back towards Owlthorpe as I will need it as MP from size 4.

I calculated that max bpt will be 59, currently 47, plus the free beaker once I settle Huxter next turn. That's 10 turn Currency if I have the gold.

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I...don't quite have the gold. Next turn I settle a new city, so I lose one unit, and 4 units move back into borders, but I'm moving 1 unit out on T82, and two units out on T83. I'm probably a turn short on the gold, which means three turns short when I start settling new cities around T87 and T88.

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Next turn is a 10 food increase, and 6 hammer increase. This'll be close to a high point for a while.

Krill · December 5th, 2019, 15:17

Turn 082

The big reveal, how beneficial is my late island city going to benefit me? And where did the barb go?

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Well, the barb made the easy move. I'll use the spear to attack next turn at 99.1% odds for 2 XP. That GPT though, jesus.

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City maintenance and civic upkeep is what it is. It's the 10gpt on units to hold a fogbusting net that is killing me. That and the lack of incidental commerce.

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Those figures are pretty dire.

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Ah, bad picture, should have been taken at max tax. Down 3 in unit costs, up 6 in city and civic costs, but up 9 commerce in yields. Not a great improvement, much, much less than I was hoping. Again, it's those costs.

So I finish Maths eot68. I've research Archery, and I have a grand total of 235 gold to show for it? Meanwhile OH just finished a second Classical era tech and has a billion cities, so he has to have finished Currency.

Sure, he has IMP/Inca to my CHM/England, but c'mon, that has to be down to the map.

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I think this is the maoi city. 13 coastal tiles but only 5 land tiles to build the wonder, yet I can hook up stone. The problem is it's still going to be quicker than any cities except possibly WT and even then I'm not sure due to the happiness issues.

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I'm becoming less and less sure I have played this start right, but I am still fairly sure these demographics are competitive with most alternative openings for this start. I would have thought that alternatives that lacked a barb busting net would have been ravaged by axes by this point though. I'm still waiting to see when the first barb axe turns up: that's a misjudgment on my part, and I am unsure if the changes to the barb spawning times has affected it.

Krill

Turn 083

So whilst I've been bored at work, I've been thinking about what I can do to fix my bpt, at least until Currency.

The answer I've come up with is that I pretty much can't do anything meaningful except work coastal tiles at Westminster. THerefore I've come up with a route to grow to size 9 for around the time the silver is hooked, and to get the work boats I'll need for the island. I've had to fiddle around with that micro because the second island city has to steal the fish for two turns. In all I've found a way to work coastal tiles for a total of

That should generate around 85 commerce over the next 10 turns. Enough to make Currency by T92 feasible. The downside is no workers from Westminster until after it reaches size 9. I'm sensing a theme of misjudgement here.

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The barb died, but got a decent number of hits in. No worries, the spear promote/heals up to 72hp, then heals over 2 turns within borders, so I'll move it to Scarrow and then heal.

I'm tempted to move both Yeld and Cavendish 1SW next turn, so on T85 I'll have the full barb busting net up, and then I'll...do something, I suppose.

The worker micro is worth noting just so I don't forget it.

This leaves the unpromoted axe to defend at Scarrow, and the spear will toddle along.

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All the above uses Cavendish, 3 workers, an axe and chariot. I need another unit to allow Yeld to push further south. Once Aldeburghs borders pop, The warrior on copper can move 1W. Once the silver city is settled on T92 Warrior 3, which is hidden behind the axe symbol can move 1W. I think I can settle 1NW of the stone T95-ish depending on workers around Scarrow.

I'd only need a unit on the wheat, another on the tundra forest somewhere, and unit on the copper hill to complete teh fog busting net. And Yeld is one of those units...an archer, a chariot and Yeld would then finish the fog busting net.

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After the settler whip on T88, I expect to get WT stuck at size 4-5 and slow build workers. No more happy...but if I'm giving up on religion, I should probably try to get a GS out of here? Whatever gives more beakers on the push to Currency.

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Next time, can I have double food resources at my first 5 cities, and plenty of metal happy?

Krill

Hmmm.

Is it better to settle for the plains sheep, or on the grass sheep for city8? There is no difference to turn of founding, as both get settled t87, T86 if I wanted to road extra tiles. It opens up improving the corn much quicker, but I could chop both forests into the sheep city on t88 if I wanted to push the corn food through it, corn hooked t81, which is several turns ahead of a library chop in Hunter.

Or I could stick with the library chop t87 anyway due to the fish, but hook the corn t89...catfish would grow eot91 22/22 if it worked the plains forest for 2 turns, chop the other forest t93 and whip a granary t94 82/60, avoid growth t95, library 40/90, t96 growth@2 17/24, whip the library t97...whilst Huxter just sits on the copper tile and then the fish.

Yeah, that makes so much more sense. Catfish will be settled t87 instead of Eswick.

But because it is further away, costs will be worse dancing

worth noting that settling Catfish before Huxter was the better play but I screwed that up.

Juri · December 7th, 2019, 02:45

What's the cost/benefit of the barb-busting net like?

Krill

(December 7th, 2019, 02:45)Juri Wrote: What's the cost/benefit of the barb-busting net like?

Interesting question.

In a general sense, it depends on the terrain. DanF explained barb busting in this thread, and provided a great little screenshot that showed how sometimes it can be amazingly efficient. Unfortunately, photobucket, in their corporate greed, madness and stupidity, fucked themselves. But here is the screenshot with their awful fogging cover on:

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You can just make out the outlines that show how a two cities and three units stop barbs from spawning on an 81 tile island. That's pretty cheap use of 45 hammers and 3 of the 4 free unit supply.

In this situation, it means there is no need to invest into actual military units for a significant length of time so full attention can go to development. I wouldn't even know where to start to figure out how to quantify that benefit. It stops low odds losses occuring, it means you don't have to focus on research AH and settling a city for horses and chariots to deal with axes.

In PB46, with my start? It's harder still to quantify. Here is a new world map from T84.

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I have added on some detail to make it easier to understand.

Solid white line: current area barb-busted by my units (yes, there is a barb warrior right in the middle of them)
Dotted white line around warrior three: area barb-busted by that single unit
Red dashed line: area fog busted by territory once I settle thre three new cities over the next 7 turns (and I have a spare settler).

As of this point in the game, I have 4 warriors and 2 scouts creating the majority of the barb busting net. I have 7 workers total, but 5 of them are outside borders (one on the island is because I can't remember if barbs can spawn on small islands once there is a city present, and I'm not taking the chance).

There is also an axe in position to deal with the barb warrior.

What units do I need?

Now consider what units I would need to use to protect my workers in the current positions. I'd need two units around Aldeburgh and SW of WT to deal with any possible approach of barbs, realistically two chariots as the cheapest units that I could use. I couldn't build any chariots until T82. So 2 axes, 70 hammers. I would need a further archer and axe to support the workers roading to the city8 location. Another 60 hammers, but I'll be reasonable and consider I already have one of those units. I'd also need another axe to defend the apporach into Owlthorpe and a third to deal with barbs coming from teh north into SCarrow (but that could realistically be left in the queue).

In total, I would expect a minimum of 200 hammers of real military to protect these cities, and more to push for new cities. I have 105 (with 160 in 2 turns when I add a chariot and an archer).

What is the cost?

What about per turn costs? The barb-busting net is 6 units. I'll be generous and say that this is 6gpt. Well, Add in the single spear and two axes, that's 9 gpt. I've already stated I'd need a minimum of 6 units to replace the net and to deal with barbs, so if I was being brutal I'd say the barb net costs 3gpt but I think that's unrealistic: Those three units are heading to future city sites, and If I lacked the barb sentry net I'd need even more units to cover the future city locations, so it's probably a wash.

What about units outside borders? Again, I'm paying 3gpt for 6 military units outside my borders, if you assume that the 4 free units are the workers. But I'd need to have at least 2 units just sitting on the workers outside borders anyway, considering the worker micro 4 would be much more realistic because those units would also then become the city defenders as they are settled.

tl;dr: in this start, I don't think the barb sentry net costs me more gpt than I'd have to spend in any other defence configuration.

What about the benefits?

With this net in place, the closest a barb can spawn to my cities is 1SW of that grass cow. It takes 7 turns to reach a city, and I'll almost always get vision on it 5 turns before. Without a net, a barb can spawn and then move adjacent to my culture borders, so I would need response units stationed through out road network. If two barbs turn up at the wrong place, I would still need two units to deal with it, but because of the number of turns to respond I would have to have real units built and in position.

With a sentry net, I can adjust build queues and worker micro without significant disruption to build the units, if I need them. Otherwise, I can just keep on focusing on expansion (although I accept the argument I should be focusing on cottages).

The sentry net also means I have significant vision advantages if anyone else were to turn up. I should be trying to put in place to deal with other humans anyway.

tl;dr: the costs of defence are about the same (ie prohibitive compared to someone with a more compact, peninsula style area), but the upside to a barb busting net is significant when you have wide open spaces you need to deal with.

Krill · December 7th, 2019, 07:56

Something else that needs to be considered is how to kill barbs. You can't always guarantee that barbs will suicide into warriors or archers on good defensive tiles.

You need to have a plan to get axes or chariots out. I've made the comment that copper is the least important strategic resource before. It's probably still true, but that doesn't mean it is unnecessary.

This start is by no means impossible to play, but it does have difficulties. Copper is next to a 4 yield dry rice, or on an island with a 4 yield seafood that invalidates a fish, or has second ring food (if you settle where Huxter is). Horse has only inner ring plains cow, or shares a plains cow between two cities for inner ring horse, or can grab a dry 5f wheat second ring if you also accept the horse as second ring. Or settle Scarrow for double "food" inner ring and second ring horse.

With this in mind, I do not accept that the alternative option of grabbing early horse and just using chariots to fight off barbs as they appear as a valid choice UNLESS the player with this start picks CRE. Without AGG, relying on axes to deal with barb axes is pretty risky as well, and you usually need to ensure that you have a back up unit to attack with if you get unlucky.

Which brings me back to using a comprehensive barb busting net to push away barbs until I could get teh resources hooked up. At this point I could collapse the net, but what's the point? In 10 turns I'm going to have cities set up such that I only need 2 units and I essentially have the fully net anyway, and a further 3 units to block all barb spawns in am area comprising of over 200 land tiles.

Juri · December 7th, 2019, 08:19

Sounds like the savings are pretty real. I think my favourite part of all this is forcing the location of a potential barb city spawn to be exactly where you want it

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