AU 202: Analysis, Solutions, and Stories (spoiler)

[Konquest02]

Well... I played a little bit and I am truly dominating (I really should have played monarch... Eh, what the... I'll continue my game.)

Finally, taking Athens was a good move, as it hurt the Greeks almost to death. They are now reduced to a tiny strip of land between Germany and me... The Iroquois are 4 tundra-based cites without horses. They are now a fun punching bag... "Mostly Harmless"

My next stop is Germany, as they beat me on the Pyramids by 3 turns. I had to settle for the GL in Washington but it was not of great use as I have a good tech lead... They also built the Great Wall, not that I'll go to war to capture it but it's nice to have...

I am eager to discover the other continent and have fun with the other civs!!

--Kon--

[Catt]

I thought I was coming over here to post something unique . . .

In the AU download thread, BRC threatened not to share his game details if things went badly. I responded with :

Originally posted by Catt
[personal plea]

No -- you must share your game with us (even if it seems embarassing). Part of AU is learning what works and what doesn't, and also learning how AI civs develop under standard rules versus AU Mod rules -- unless we are all willing to share what didn't work, no one learns!

If you look back through all the AU games (and the few mini-tourney or "MT" games that we played) I think you'll find everyone posting a loss or at least highlighting some serious mistakes made or well-conceived, well-executed but nonetheless unproductive strategies / tactics. If I'm not mistaken, the greats such as Arrian, Sir Ralph and Theseus (in alphabetical order) have all posted and dissected failed approachs or strategic errors. And we all learn from it.

So please put ego aside and share -- there's no ranking and no score competition (which is part of the reason why the move to offer AU as a scenario -- and therefore playable at any difficulty level -- was such a great idea!) -- we can all play at the level we consider most entertaining and we can all contribute to the knowledge base! Even if I like to play at Monarch or Emperor, I can still learn from someone who likes to play at Warlord (and vice-versa) -- but only so long as others share their games!

[/personal plea]

Catt

In that spirit . . .

Playing PTW AU Mod as the Arabs on Emperor. I built 3 scouts and then a settler, IIRC. Researching Alphabet at 40 turns in an attempt to make some headway to Monarchy quickly. Pretty good results from approximately 8 huts - 1 warrior, 1 map, 1 settler (very far from home - which results in a tip), 1 gold, the rest techs. I found each of the Iroquois, the Greeks, and the Germans.

My second city (I decided to go west for the gold hill beofre going south) produced two warriors for MP that could move back and forth between Mecca and Medina. About this time Bismarck showed up in the mountians north of Medina. Two turns later, Medina fell and I decided I'd start again The screenshot below is the beginning of the end.

Now I have to go back and read Aeson's posts and see how he survivied (and got a leader!).

Catt

[Catt]

At least one good tip that came out of my fiasco. As you may (or may not?) be aware, you will never get a settler from a goody hut if you have (1) a living settler, or (2) a settler in production in a city. A player tactic has evolved to briefly switch production of settlers in your cities when you're ready to pop a hut in an effort to preserve your chances for a settler.

I hadn't considered doing the opposite - switching production to a settler to avoid getting a settler - but I will consider it in the future. I popped a settler from a hut 15+ tiles from where it could be useful (and defended) and 25+ tiles from my capitol. I think I would rather have had even 25 gold.

(there are a coupla other good tips . . . like building some military units when on the same landmass as Bismarck )

Catt

[Dominae]

It seems the size of the continent and the low number of civs is misleading: the Germans will attack you ASAP from afar, and the Iroquois won't sit around either. What looks to be a pretty easy game when Scouting slowly becomes disastrous. For me, anyway, this is a toughie.

Good work on the honesty, Catt; nice to see someone who will admit a quick loss. I was pretty lucky not to have befallen the same fate, as I spotted the German "invasion force" early on (with a Scout, of course...yay Expansionist!), and assumed they were up to no good.

I don't know if I would ever willingly minimize my chances for a Settler, though. Unless there are hordes of Barbarians, a Settler will certainly make it "home", where the two free pop and 30 Shields is nothing to scoff at. Even if it takes 15-20 turns before it founds a city, the boost a free Settler provides so early in the game is huge.


Dominae

[Aeson]

Now I have to go back and read Aeson's posts and see how he survivied (and got a leader!).

The survival was complete luck! I've lost 5 games so far to the German starting unit rush (on Deity), never thought I'd survive one where I didn't see it coming.

[Aeson]

Don't worry, I didn't mess with the map this time. It's 100% map generator-made.

I was betting you had at least placed the Greeks. I can't recall ever seeing a starting location without at least 1 source of 2 food in the 8 surrounding tiles.

[alexman]

Aeson, actually, you're right. I did move some starting locations around 1-2 tiles (the Greeks were placed next to that lake by the generator - I didn't see I was putting them in a worse position), but I didn't touch the map. I purposely left that alone so that people can use your tips in the scouting thread.

[jshelr]

Germans Respect Clean Livin'

The Arabs were a good civ and followed Aeson's scouting cookbook to the letter on Emperor. I was looking forward to playing the AU mod for the first time. The receipe worked well and we came up with a list similar to the ones above out of the huts. Our settler pop was right on the lux bed to the west.

One funny thing was the new smart barbs made a mess out of that city. They would advance down the mountains and move to the lux -- which was on a hill and behind a river relative to the city. Then, either we would attack with one of our popped conscript warriors or the barb would of pillage the road. Attacking produced dead conscripts, and, twice, they ended up sacking the city.

The other funny thing was, after the last sacking, along comes a German archer / spearman pair. They enter the unguarded city radius, sniff around for a couple of turns, and then leave?

We have a nice tech lead, and look forward to some fun and games with the Arab's light knights.

Question on mechanics for you guys. When you have a river city with a granery in the early game, what are the considerations for the optimal population size for grinding out settlers?

[Nor Me]

I suppose I should try to say whether expansionist was worth it.
I can say that I didn't benefit from early knowledge of the map. On a larger map scouts would have been more useful for this. A central location would have given me first contact anyway. I could have made better military use of scouts (I Should have had the foresight to leave one on the other side of the Iroquois, near the horses.)

For me at least, the huts made the difference. Getting an early settler, selling techs and the early wheel were crucial. They meant the difference between a first war with archers and one with horsemen.
I was able to concentrate on REX early, knowing a would become a target. When war did happen, I was able to upgrade to horsemen early and buy in the Greeks. Several turns later the Iroquois brought the Germans in against the Greeks so this was obviously a good idea even at 12gpt. Horsemen vs MWs meant I was able to raze a couple of cities and extort to level on tech.
If I'd have been playing a non-expanionist civ, say my favorite the Chinese, I'd have probably had to archer rush the Iroquois. I would have won that war but at the expense of bigger Germay and Greece.
As it is the Germans are the biggest civ in the world.

Originally posted by Konquest02
They also built the Great Wall, not that I'll go to war to capture it but it's nice to have...

If only I felt the same way about the Germans having the Great Wall. For me, this is going to make the game much harder. The Greeks now look like a more inviting target.

All this is nothing new, I have always rated expansionist a better trait than religious.

jshelr, depends. You don't want to go beyond size 6 since you then need 30 food to grow and 6-7 doesn't benefit from the granary. But why would you want to anyway? The only effect of the river then is irrigation. If you don't have a lot of bonus food, you might as well just pump them at maximun rate.(i.e. 3 is fine for me.) 4 only when you hace 2 squares with more than 2 food.

[Aeson]

This is a very tough map. I just lost to a combination of the Iroquois (who I was able to destroy), Greeks, and Germans. I purposely didn't use Scout resource denial (did use scouts to pillage resources though), guess I should have.

I started a war with the Iroquois once I had about 20 Knights. Also had another 20 Horsemen waiting for gold to be upgraded. Again I sent in a Scout to pillage the Iron on the first turn of the war, he was killed the next turn. After a few turns of stand off fighting, I finally broke through the Iroquois defenses and took their two largest cities. My armies quickly moved down the peninsula to finish off the Iroquois.

During the fighting I got 3 Leaders. Sun Tzu's, relocating my Palace to the SW, and JS Bach's were the result. I finally went into revolution, heading for a Republic.

Then the Greeks sent close to 20 Knights into my territory while I was in anarchy (8 turns). Most of my forces were terribly out of position down on the Iroquois peninsula, but a few recently built Knights, and my Knight army, held onto a city in the western hills. All my available forces from the north were sent to hold that city, leaving my northern border (actually my entire empire other than that city) completely bare of troops. If the Greeks had had any veteran Knights it would have been over then and there still, but they were all regulars. Another leader showed up in the fighting (on defense!), and rushed Leo's.

My Knight army must have killed close to 10 Knights on it's own while defending the city in the hills, and counterattacking, and finally my entire Knight force was brought to bear on the Greeks. When the Greeks had attacked I was close to 50 Knights, with a smattering of elite Horsemen still around. I was down to 16, all my Horsemen gone, just 5 turns later. The Greeks had lost their entire offensive force though (close to 40 knights with Hoplite and Longbowmen escorts as well), and I was able to capture 2 border cities in the next few turns.

Thinking to build up a large Cavalry force I started researching on my own, and cut off my Iron supplies to build up as many Horsemen as possible. I was researching Gunpowder on my own at the time, having switched to Monarchy.

Then the Germans attacked. There was nothing I could do, as all my few remaining Knights were still down on the (new) Greek border, and my roads all went well around the mountain range to their NE. The German's had at least 50 Knights, my Iron was cut off. They took out my entire FP core in 2 turns, my Pyramids city, former capitol... and all my luxury deals were negated because I had been relying on a German harbor to make those deals. The remaining cities were all underdeveloped or corrupt as I had just moved my Palace before going to anarchy, so the German Knights just kept taking city after city. I could have made peace by the time I was down to a couple of Iroquois tundra cities, but.. no surrender. I had lost my remaining Knights trying to take back some of my core cities, and didn't relish waiting there in the tundra for Bismark to attack again.

I should have lost that game by 2000BC anyways. The Germans got their revenge. (I apologize for the lack of screenshots of my defeat, but something "happened" to the save files I was keeping towards that end, shortly after I lost )

[jshelr]

Aeson is quite right, being in the middle is a tough map position.

Groveling shamelessly and buying RoPs when they are the ones crossing our land, the Arabs have stayed out of the early wars and expanded successfully. My God, these PTW AI civs never stop! We have concentrated on building workers in order to have the best "knight factory." We are now approaching the end of the ancient era and the transition to knights will be critical.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
I don't know if I would ever willingly minimize my chances for a Settler, though. Unless there are hordes of Barbarians, a Settler will certainly make it "home", where the two free pop and 30 Shields is nothing to scoff at. Even if it takes 15-20 turns before it founds a city, the boost a free Settler provides so early in the game is huge.

Early settlers are a huge boost. But after thinking it through, I'm still convinced that there are appropriate times to minimize the chances of a settler, even absent hordes of barbs. Even in our game, I lost a scout to a barb (weren't we roaming barbs?) -- it's pretty easy to blunder into them in rough terrain, or even to have a new encampment appear right next to you or a tile or two away.

I see the trade-off as follows:

Option (1) is to preserve the chance for a settler -- the "value" of this choice is the sum of the values of all the possibile individual goodies (including a settler) multiplied by whatever the respective probabilities of getting each goody is. The value of a settler would need to be calculated, IMHO, taking into account (a) the "value in pop and shields" of the settler (admittedly certainly large, but hard to quantify convincingly -- a warrior and 2 workers?), multiplied by (b) the chances it will make it home over 20 turns (again hard to quantify), and (c) reduced by the investment of 20 gold as upkeep while it makes its way home. As long as I'm throwing around difficult to quantify variables, I'll add that I would probably consider the possibility that a lonely settler might add to the inducement of AI attack from the more aggressive AI's -- I obviously didn't think about it in my game, but I wonder if the presence of an unescorted settler, closer to German lands than mine, could contribute to the German decision to rush early? In my case, probably not ( ) since it seems Bismarck was intent on getting frisky.

Option (2) is to prevent a settler, in which case you trade the value of option (1) for the value of alternative hut goodies (techs, a city, units, gold, maps, or nothing), modified by how the odds of getting each are changed by the elimination of the settler possibility. Obviously depends on the probabilities inherent in popping huts, which probs vary by difficulty level, among other things.

Someone did an extensive test at CFC, but only with vanilla civ, not PTW (and the new "city" option), and, IIRC, the probabilities varied by difficulty level, traits (i.e., expansionist or not), and map size. But the key point for my view here is that the probabilities of receiving different goodies all increased if expansionist and therefore barbs were removed from the RNG role -- in other words, a hut that the RNG says will be barbs doesn't automatically become "empty" if an expansionist pops it (and can't get barbs). I am assuming that removing a settler from the probabilities also increases all other probabilities proportionally -- i.e., slightly higher chance at tech, etc. -- if this is not the case (i.e. an RNG result "settler" becomes "empty") then there of course isn't any merit at all in my point of view.

Too difficult to quantify objectively and accurately, IMHO, but I do foresee times when my gut will lead me to deliberately eliminate the chances of popping a settler -- increasing the chance to get a tech will be more valuable to me than preserving the chance to get a settler.

Maybe I'll have a chance to test it in my second go at AU 202 later this weekend .

Catt

EDIT: I actually had a save from just before I popped the settler. On reload and setting a city to settler production, the goody hut in question popped a city. I hope there isn't a hardcoded "settler or city, depending on the 'no settler' rule" but I'll keep my eyes open on future huts and will ask each of you to just take note when you get a city -- try to confirm whether or not you (1) had a living settler, or (2) were building one.

[Dominae]

Catt, I was thinking about this very discussion last night, and came up with almost exactly the same analysis! I still hold by my different conclusions, however. Here's why (sorry for the math!)

The value of a certain outcome of popping a goody hut is the worth of the outcome times the probability that it will occur. For example:

Value of getting nothing: p(nothing)*v(nothing) = 0.15 * 0 = 0.0
Value of getting a tech: 0.25 * [tech worth in gold, 200 for Mysticism] = 50.

Let's keep it simple and convert all "worths" into gold (although this is hard to do for some outcomes, like maps and Settlers).

Now, the expected value of popping a hut is simply the sum of all the values of these possible outcomes:

E = p(gold)*v(gold) + p(settler)*v(settler) + ...

While p(settler) may be quite low, v(settler) is surely high enough for the "settler" term to have the highest value among all terms (by the way, I would value a Settler at around 3 Workers this early on in the game).

Unfortunately(!), Civ3 is a complext game, and your Settler decreases in value because it may be lost to Barbarians (in contrast, you cannot lose the tech you discover, or the gold). So now we have to figure out exactly how to represent this decrease. My inclination is to do something like this:

settler = E(settler) = p(dies)*v(dead) + p(survives)*v(alive)

If we agree that the value of a dead Settler is zero, then we get:

E = p(gold)*v(gold) + p(settler)*p(survives)*v(settler) + ...

All we've done so far is decrease the value of the "Settler" outcome to reflect the fact that it might die "in the field".

From personal experience, p(survives) is high enough so as to keep the the "Settler" term quite high (at least higher than all other terms). This is a fudgy, I know, but if you're playing Expansionist, you've got the added advantage that you can scout with your Scouts(!) to make sure you don't run in to any evil Barbs.

[Sorry this is so long!]

If your hunch is correct, then if you "block" the Settler option by building one in a city, the probabilities of each of the other outcomes increases. So we get:

E' = p'(gold)*v(gold) + p'(map)*v(map) + ...

I hope we're in agreement so far! Now, here's my analysis of the situation. Given that the probability of getting a Settler is low in the first place, the increase of in probabilites in the E' equation (when you block the Settler outcome) is small. This assumes that the increase is divided somewhat equally between all the other outcomes (my conclusion may be different if this were not the case, depending on which outcome becomes more likely). But here's the catch: the values (v-coefficients) stay the same! So E' is going to be less than E:

Value of "blocking" the Settler option = E' - E < 0.


Dominae

[Dominae]

I'm not quite done with this game yet, but I've got some time to post my results so far.

I too chose to build 3 Scouts to explore the map. I would normally build 2, but I figured alexman gave us a map that favors Expansionism, and I was right. On turn 2, I get a Settler out of my first hut (I put up a screenshot of this a few posts back)! I heard somewhere that getting a Settler so early is equivalent to decreasing the difficulty level one notch. That doesn't really make me feel better, as this game is still pretty hard.

I also posted a list of the contents of the huts I popped, which I think were above-average. The Iroquois didn't do much with their Scout, so I'm thinking it died to Barbs or something. After revealing the "lay of the land" for the continent, I begin expanding aggressively towards the Germans, as I figure they're going to be the long-term threat. Bismarck ends up attacking me with 2 Archers and a Warrior, but I saw them coming and repelled the attack. A few turns and a couple of donations later, everyone was Polite towards me and I knew I could expand in relative peace for a while longer.

I begin building Barracks for a Horsemen offensive against the Iroquois, who don't seem to be doing much other than building Wonders: they get The Oracle in their capital ridiculously early, followed by the Great Lighthouse a little bit later. Dumb luck, I know, but just wait to see what's to come!

Here's a screenshot of the Palance jump I do around this time, probably my best ever (neat, efficient, painless):

[Dominae]

As I begin my assault on the Iroquois, I'm deathly afraid of their Wonders: my only Culture-producers at this point are a relocated Palace and a lonely Temple. They also have access to Horses, but strangely enough decided not to produce their UU very much. The MWs that I do spot I catch napping in the open, and my 10 Horsemen eventually start capturing some cities.

I'm pre-building a Wonder in capital at this point, though I'm not sure for which one right yet. I've got Literature handy, so I figure the Great Library is within my grasp...

And then, news from the front!!!

[Dominae]

Well well, things are looking up! What is widely regarded as the worst civ actually has a secret weapon that makes them formidable: the English are lucky!

I send a few more Horsemen to grab the relevant Iroquois cities, then turn my attention to the Germans, who are getting angrier by the minute (someone really should tell Bismarck to calm down...). For the first time in recent memory, I use the Iroquois as a "punching bag" to generate a steady stream of Elites (a strat from the Theseus when he was known as rpodos). Killing the Iroquois for sport is certainly fun (if not completely un-PC), but it has yet to be profitable; I haven't gotten on Leader from them yet.

Just as I'm celebrating my good fortune, I look toward the German cities and begin pondering why they all have City Walls. I don't recall the AI even thinking Walls were all that great...must be a "minor tweak" in 1.14. Then it hits me: the Germans got the Great Wall off a cascade from the Great Library! ARGH! What was once looking like a really good game is now surely going to be long and arduous. Worse yet, I contact the rest of the world at around this time (~300AD), and they're behind our continent in tech! Bismarck is the one with the tech lead, and he's not trading, so the Great Library is crap (although I admit it got me up to 4000 gold, edit: more like close to 3000). Out of fear of German superiority (they've got Chivalry and Theology over me), I begin doing my own research, with an unexpired Great Library collecting dust.

[Dominae]

I realise that trying to conquer German cities with Horsemen is suicide, so I begin devising plans to obtain Chivalry. Do I research it myself? Nope, that would take too long. Do I buy it from the Germans? Nope, that would give them money, which they could use for Horsemen upgrades. Do I steal it from the Germans? Nope, too expensive, as I wouldn't have any money left for my own upgrades. Do I wait for someone else to research it? Everyone else is basically in the Stone age, so that would also take too long.

The Germans and I have been fighting pretty much ever since my war with the Iroquois ended, but with no real progress so Bismarck is ready for "peace" anytime. In order to buy myself some time to mull over how to get Chivalry, I sign an alliance and a right of passage with the Greeks. When our alliance is over, I declare peace with Germany, but keep the ROP in place. For about ten turns there's some major fighting going on between those two, right in the core of my empire. The Germans have a silly amount of Horsemen, so I help out the Greeks by doing some "interference".

Here's a very messy screen of the situation:

[Dominae]

That's it for now, although I've already passed this "hump" in the game and it appears to be smooth sailing until the end. I got a pretty lucky break against the Germans. If you've played the game, you may know what I'm referring to. Hint: the answer is in my last screenshot...can you find it?




Dominae

[Tharsonius]

hmm, has it something to do with Bremen?

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
That's it for now, although I've already passed this "hump" in the game and it appears to be smooth sailing until the end. I got a pretty lucky break against the Germans. If you've played the game, you may know what I'm referring to. Hint: the answer is in my last screenshot...can you find it?

Well-played and a good recap (and great screenshots! ). I want to follow your game to the end!

Originally posted by Dominae
Catt, I was thinking about this very discussion last night, and came up with almost exactly the same analysis! I still hold by my different conclusions, however. Here's why (sorry for the math!)

Good analysis! Exactly what I was thinking, but was too lazy to lay out coherently.

But I think we'll just end up being on opposite sides of the fence on this one (unless we confirm that a "settler" RNG result will always produce a city if a settler is prohibited -- in which case, I'll never close off the settler option!).

There are simply too many variables in the formulas, as applied to a given game circumstance, to produce an ironclad rule, IMHO. For instance, I think our personal experiences (or our personal game outlooks in terms of aggressiveness / conservatism) dictate different probabilities on a settler dying or being captured during a 20-turn, unescorted walk home. My views might dovetail with yours if I were playing sedentary barbs and/or with a "promising" mix of AI civs -- but as of now I too often experience aggressive AI opponents and/or pretty crafty barbs that will target a settler (and if they have horsemen, watch out!). I think it is also dependent on difficulty level -- my view is that early AI aggression is necessarily more frequent the higher the level -- the AI starting bonus units means the relative power level almost dictates an early war of aggression (provided there is a moderately aggressive AI civ nearby). The prospect for AI aggression may decrease over time if the human works to close the gap (as human unit totals grow to match AI levels). But the 30 - 40 turns it takes to produce a settler from a hut and get him back (assuming a 20-turn walk home) provides an awful lot of time for aggression to get bubbling. In sum, I am pretty skeptical of much settler value 20 turns away from safety without an escort; I think the value is pretty darn low, absent some very favorable circumstances. And I think the ongoing investment of 1 gpt while the settler is making its way home decreases the settler value further -- whereas the value of, say a tech, is immediate and without further investment. No "time value of money" costs associated with the other goody hut possibilities.

And if even if the v-coefficients on the other possibilities remain unchanged and the p-coefficient moves only a bit upwards across the board, my gut still tells me that trading a very small settler value (v * p on the distant settler) for a slightly increased p' on certain alternatives (principally techs) may be a good trade. Of course, this still all devolves to our differing view of settler value from a distant hut!

Catt

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Tharsonius
hmm, has it something to do with Bremen?

Yup! Bremen is their only source of Iron, and they have yet to hook it up to the rest of their trade network!

MUWAHAHA!


Dominae

[Dominae]

Catt, you're right in saying that it depends on personal experience concerning the chances that a "far out" Settler actually makes it home. In my games it's definitely around or over 50%, but I'm probably just lucky. Given that you've had bad experiences with losing "far out" Settlers, I can see how increasing your chances of getting a better "sure thing" (preferably tech) would be appealing.


Dominae

[Jawa Jocky]

Damn Germans

After getting a settler, cerimonial b. and bronze working I got 3 warriors, 2 mini-maps, and a lot of empty huts. The barbs have also been given my weak civ a lot of problems. I wasted to much time before pruining and now Germany is being a real pain. I just finished the acient era and I'm hoping for a GA to help me out of the hole I have dug for myself.

This is also my 1st attempt not to overlap my cities so much. I can't find the right balance. I either space them too far like this game and have problems early, or they are too close and I hurt myself in the 2nd half. Oh well its only been a year I might figure this out yet.

[Dominae]

Hm, your cities are a lot more tightly-packed than mine. Are you playing Deity?


Dominae

[Jawa Jocky]

Originally posted by Dominae
Hm, your cities are a lot more tightly-packed than mine. Are you playing Deity?


Dominae

No just Emperor


Okay, here is my moment of truth. I've held off the Germans and I'm actually losing more cities to the Ir. to due culture flips. I hope I manage my GA better than the rest of this game.

[Nor Me]

Depriving the Germans of iron. Now that would have been a good idea:

[notyoueither]

Hmm.

Playing Yanks. Didn't know it going in, but their traits are ideal for REXing on this map. It's almost not fair. At Monarch, anyway.

I am at 900bc. Have the entire continent scouted. Mostly peaceful, but I told Otto to stuff an ultimatum. He declared war, then gave me 30 gold some turns later for peace.

The scouts did great for me. I got the free settler from hut 1 (I won the game right there). Then I proceeded to get many, many techs. The last hut popped gave me Polytheism.

The Iroquois just built the Oracle for me (nice of them) and started the Pyramids. Only fly in the ointment so far is that Washington was supposed to finish the Colossus a turn or 2 ago and then switch to units to start the conquering. Salamanca would build the Pyramids in 40. It would have taken NewYork longer than that, so I switched Washington to them. Oh well. Iroquois will most likely switch to the GrLib so then I can take that at the same time as the Oracle.

[Aeson]

On the issue of Settlers from huts, I agree with Catt. There comes a time when a tech is more useful. I like your formula Dominae, but it needs to be modified to account for the non-static nature of various game situations. Namely, number of cities, tech level (research time), desireability of location and/or distance to desirable location.

I look at huts as a turn advantage. A Settler when you have only one city is going to be worth 14-20 turns (depending on terrain). Distance plays a factor as well, as the turns that you would save/lose from having a Settler 'produced' at the hut location vs. in your city is just as much a part of turn (dis)advantage. That makes an early Settler very useful, as it basically puts everything ahead of schedual (population, research, gold, production) by at least 14 turns, and is usualy going to be nearby where you wish to settle. Normally a tech in that time frame is worth little to nothing, as it will be a starting tech, which you can trade for anyways.

Once you get past the starting techs, a tech from a hut is worth a lot more. On higher difficulties, or larger maps, it may be up to a 40 turn advantage in commerce/research, plus whatever you can get through diplomacy for it. Now compare it to a Settler in the same time frame, where you probably have 3 to 4 cities, or fewer with Granaries. Now a Settler can be produced on an average of every 4 to 7 turns. Distance again plays a part, but is very much game dependant.

A Settler's turn advantage is in several areas of course, and if one of those areas is at a critical juncture (claiming territory especially), then the long term benefits might tip the scales back in favor of the Settler. That's something the player has to judge, as it can vary wildly from hut to hut.

For example, in a recent game I had already built to over 10 cities. This makes a Settler value very low in turn advantage (I could produce a Settler in my empire just about every turn) from a production sense. In contrast it was a Deity/Huge game where I had already traded or gotten from huts all the starting, and most of the second tier techs. The remaining techs were all 40 turns regardless of research.

At each hut I had been making sure I was blocking off the Settler from being a result because of these factors. Then I ran into a hut nearby a 'chokepoint' (basically a grassland alley between large expanses of jungles) that had 2 cows and 3 luxuries and was about 30 tiles from my nearest city. That made the decision very easy. To make sure a Settler was available from the hut, because I wanted to settle there for certain. I ended up getting a tech anyways.

Later on when I was hitting huts, trying for both Monarchy and Republic from them (researching either construction or currency... not sure which), I made sure to keep Settlers out of the equation. Both those tech's turn advantage was about 20 turns, while I was producing Settlers at least 1 per turn (which makes it very easy to block off Settlers ).

[Dominae]

Catt and Aeson, I'm starting to see the situations when you would want to block off Settlers. The problem is, they do not happen too often in my games. In AU202 for instance (hey! this is the right thread!), once I had all the huts popped, I had under 5 cities and was barely at the level 2 techs. This situation is standard in Expansionsist games that I play. However, if Barbs were running wild, I might think twice about blocking Settlers. Similarly if was further ahead in the tech tree, or at the end of my REX phase.

All in all, it's least nice know that it's possible ('Settler blocking'). Knowledge is power.


Dominae

[Dominae]

nye, I believe the Americans are the best Expansionist civ for this map. The combination of Scouts, large continent with room to expand and Industrious Workers is just dominant.

Have fun!


Dominae