So I'm thinking about writing....

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Bronze still trumps Husbandry is most cases (opening up slavery and chop, plus the possibility of axes) whereas husbandry only opens up horses/chariots UNLESS you can immediately use the worker action that comes with it. If so, it delivers a one-two punch that compares favorably with the Bronze path. So if you have animals to put to pasture at start, Husbandry would be my default choice...otherwise, it's a crapshoot no matter what you pick. You may get horses, or you may not...you may get copper or you may not...anybody's guess.

-=Vel=-

I'd agree with that and I've been playing with a few ideas for the IMP settler rush. Two leaders who stand out here that might do better than Genghis at this approach are perhaps Cyrus and Cathy.

Both of these start with hunting so you have the early scout and can start one immediately. These serve a multi-role of mapping the land, getting the goodies from huts and escorting/clearing path for the exposed settler.

Cyrus also benefits from getting his super-chariots and the +50% makes them dangerous to garrisons. In addition, his charisma helps by controlling whip damage and also giving you some highly promoted units for your attack. That said, my rush on Louis was a complete failure. He had at least two religions and his creative bonus makes his unpromoted archers tougher. Probably took my foot of the gas a bit on this attempt though to build granaries and the odd monument. And would have been far better to start attack on Paris rather than to take on the nearer city of Lyon.

Cathy, however, gives you another trick because you also start with Mining and can go straight to Bronze-Working. The border bumps at this stage in the game are also a big bonus allowing you to settle city-two optimally. In the trial I'm running I was able to settle on Ivory on the second turn and took the following route (Epic)

1) Build scout ASAP (6 turns)
2) Allow to grow by building warrior (9 turns)
3) Now start settler selecting hammer rich tiles
4) At Bronzeworking, switch to slavery
5) When possible whip out the settler (warrior follows next turn

In this manner, I had my settler moving to the second city site after 27 turns (3190 BC) although I had a little fortune to be given a flood plain (grow in 11 turns) and two more riverside Ivory sites in my city border (9 hammers toward settler when size 2).

The continuation of this is much of the same really. By switching to growth again you can start on the barracks and grow again. At size two, switch to worker and this can be rushed almost 15 turns after the original settler rush. Same trick with St Petersburg and you've got two quick workers and some growing cities for the pop.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by uberfish
I'm not really very impressed with the current 20-hammer-with-diminishing-distance-returns chop unless I have a huge amount of forest inside city radii. You need an extra worker to really make use of it, and that costs 60h so that's three chops before you break even. I would usually rather just have my workers build roads so that the rushing units arrive a couple of turns earlier and it's easier to clear barbarians.

Think of it this way, your city will be generating hammers from several sources

1) a basic 4-7 hpt.
2) whipping for 3hpt (or 30 hammers every 10 turns)
3) chopping for 5hpt (or 30 hammers every 6 turns)

The whip might be able to generate a bit more if you can handle the short term unhappiness stacking or can somehow manipulate a double population whip.

I would say that chopping is generating around 40% of the production towards your army. Let's say you want 8 axemen then this will cost you 280 hammers. Along for two cities building concurrently, your total production is either 16 hpt (without chop) or 26 hpt (with chop).

This converts to a build time of 18 turns without chop and 11 turns with the chop.

Despite the reduction in benefit of the chop, the time saving here is still significant.

[Cort Haus]

With horses in the capital's radius, no settler is needed and some very early chariot rushing is possible. Seeing as a pasture resource would be needed to to direct the initial research into AH this might be quite rare, but a great start if it happens.

I was able to dispatch 8 chariots in an attack in 1840BC (~T54), taking two cities and making peace in 1440BC, (T64). T64 is roughly when the war was launched when a second city was required to get the resource. The attack could have been even earlier if 4-5 chariots were used, I had 4 chariots built in 2320BC.

[uberfish]

Double-whipping is somewhat overpowered, and not too hard to do - just grow the city to size 4 and put 1-4 hammers in the queue towards an axe.

My argument is that chopping hammers are not free, they cost worker-turns and I find building roads to be a more important use of worker-turns. The rush troops arriving earlier is Vel's concept of turn advantage in its purest form, and the ability to get your units where they are needed for defence quickly is in itself worth one or two units. (With chariots you don't need roads quite as much.)

[Velociryx]

CH - Total agreement re: the potential speed gains if you get the Kahuna start with everything right there in the city radius...that would be sweet indeed!

Uber - I agree and disagree re: road-building. It is another expression of Turn Advantage, to be sure, but its main power comes in pushing up the date of the attack....which can't happen if your attack force isn't put together yet. Therefore, I would say that just as there is a "cost" (specifically, an opportunity cost) associated with chop, so too is there a cost associated with road building. In my mind, the difference is that the forests are essentially a scarce, non-renewable resource from the vantage point of the player, while the Roads can be built at any point in the game, and in the same timeframe it takes you to build two road tiles (sufficient to shave one turn off of the arrival time of the troops), you could chop a forest, essentially CREATING the troop for whom the road is intended.

The best of all worlds then, would seem to be this:

* Use the two workers outlined in the basic plan to chop out troops until the trees you've earmarked for that purpose are gone...once they are, then I absolutely agree...road building is the way to go, because until you nix your victim, you're gonna be popping every chance you get, so terrain enhancers beyond the token food special won't do you any real good.

* Your first combat unit goes over and ambushes a worker, then escorts him back, road building along the way, and when he's in safe territory, the (combat) unit can join his brethern in continuing to put pressure on the baddies, while the workers can do worker stuffs at home.

The potential trouble with focusing all your worker turns on roads is that you'll have this nice road network to your target, and too small an army to use it. Worse, during the timeframe of finishing the road and bulking up your army, there's a window of vulnerability when your own road network could be used against you.

The central issue in deciding which task (road building or chop) needs MORE focus would seem to be two-fold:

* How many forests do I have? (what percentage of my attack force is going to be built using chopped resources)

* How far away is the enemy (how many tiles of roads would I have to build, and how many turns would that save).

Coming to some understanding of the interaction between these two very different needs would give you the "proper" (optimal) mix of roading and chop.

-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

There was one other point I remember now about the Genghis rush scenario.

You mention building barracks with the help of the chop because of the bonuses that AGG gets with this build. But I don’t really see how this helps when you allow for the way that overflows are managed in Warlords. In effect what happens is NOT that you get +100% for any hammers you produce while building barracks, but that barracks simply cost 50% less.

So a worker + barracks + 2 axemen costs 60h + 25h + 35h + 35h = 155h

And it does not matter where the chop goes in all this. If it applies while building the worker then you only need 30h to build this. If it applies when building the barracks you need –5h for this. Or, the part of the chop not needed for the barracks simply carries to the first axemen. And here it does not get the +100% bonus.

[Velociryx]

That comment begins with the premise that all things being equal, if you can arrange to get more hammers from a chop, it's better than getting fewer hammers for a chop.

Aggressive Civs gain a hammer multiplier of 100% when building barracks, and this applies to hammers gained by chop as well.

So...if you chop to build an Axeman, then the chop will yield you 20 hammers (standard speed game). If you chop for a barracks, you'll get 40 hammers out of the chop. So long as you're 10 or less hammers into the construction of the barracks when the chop occurs, you'll get the full benefit of all 40 chopped hammers--there will be no overflow. I consider this to be an important distinction because once the trees are gone, they're gone (unlike pop, which is essentially a predictably renewable resource, and a city's native production which is not only predictable, but also subject to a high degree of player control), and so, my goal is to measure each chop carefully, and try to get as many hammers from it as I can. (Again, also true for other means of generating hammers, but for the trees in particular, since they aren't coming back).

-=Vel=-

EDIT: And on the city management screen, when an Aggressive civ queues up a barracks, the listed cost is 50h, not 25h...but each hammer generated during the build counts twice, so if you can time the build such that your scarce trees get to "count twice" then that's an efficient use of that non-renewable tree resource....true, in looking at the production of all those things as a unit, it costs what it costs, so it don't really matter "where the trees fall" in that equation, but IMO, it's an important distinction because it makes you really think about when to burn those trees....makes you strive to make the most of that non-renewable resource.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Velociryx
That comment begins with the premise that all things being equal, if you can arrange to get more hammers from a chop, it's better than getting fewer hammers for a chop.

Aggressive Civs gain a hammer multiplier of 100% when building barracks, and this applies to hammers gained by chop as well.

So...if you chop to build an Axeman, then the chop will yield you 20 hammers (standard speed game). If you chop for a barracks, you'll get 40 hammers out of the chop. So long as you're 10 or less hammers into the construction of the barracks when the chop occurs, you'll get the full benefit of all 40 chopped hammers. I consider this to be an important distinction because once the trees are gone, they're gone (unlike pop, which is essentially a predictably renewable resource, and a city's native production which is not only predictable, but also subject to a high degree of player control), and so, my goal is to measure each chop carefully, and try to get as many hammers from it as I can. (Again, also true for other means of generating hammers, but for the trees in particular, since they aren't coming back).

-=Vel=-

Yes but this means that your other sources of production don't get the +100%. So your barracks cost 25 hammers however you want to generate these. Axemen cost 35 etc etc.

If I have 20 chop and 40 city production then I build both no matter where the chop appears.

In this situation, it does not matter that you get the barracks early - unless you are in dire need of a unit to protect your city and can rush this instantly. What is important in the rush is the timing of the whole shebang which includes all the axemen too.

And timing the chop for the barracks won't speed this up

p.s. It's different when chopping granaries for EXP though because these start working immediately

[Velociryx]

Exactly right...in terms of looking at the production suite as a whole, it doesn't matter, but then...you only get to chop the trees once, while your other forms of production will be around long after the trees are gone.

It's a minor point, yes, and one that has no bearing on the overall speed of getting the rush ready--except in those rare cases where your plan gets changed in mid-stream, in which case, the production suite is out the window anyway, at least until whatever crisis has occured, is past--however, I feel the distinction to be an important one if for no other reason than the fact that it makes you pause and really think about the chop.

-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

Definitely wise to consider chopping or delaying and sometimes holding a few trees back for later use can be a very efficient way of getting a wonder up quickly – particularly after Mathematics and with access to the wonder-specific resource.

I quite agree with the overall point you are making here but took issue with the logical argument that led to the conclusion that the chop and the barracks makes things more efficient.

It’s strange really because now that I think about it, I think almost all military have almost no immediate effect when they are built. While all other buildings start working straightaway

[Velociryx]

Yes...if it weren't for the fact that production degrades over time if you partially build something and then switch, I would seldom actually run with garrisons in cities....just MOSTLY build a unit, leave it in the queue, and avoid paying maintenance on those units until the city was threatened, or I needed a unit quickly...in fact, this might warrant some investigation...keeping units in a state of mostly built to avoid maintenance...or rather, shifting the maintenance to hammers instead of gold....

-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I would seldom actually run with garrisons in cities....just MOSTLY build a unit, leave it in the queue, and avoid paying maintenance on those units until the city was threatened, or I needed a unit quickly...in fact, this might warrant some investigation...keeping units in a state of mostly built to avoid maintenance...or rather, shifting the maintenance to hammers instead of gold....

-=Vel=-

I’ll put this on my list too.

It also goes with a little algebra to work out how pop n chop of workers/settlers compare to other pop n chop (particularly with the IMP trait).

And then there’s figuring out why my latest efforts at rushing out a settler with either Cyrus or Cathy, and then burning up an army, are not creating the impressive religion-soaked benefits that I had been anticipating. Either the results have to improve or my expectations have to fall because there is quite a noticeable shortfall here

[padillah]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Yes...if it weren't for the fact that production degrades over time if you partially build something and then switch, I would seldom actually run with garrisons in cities....just MOSTLY build a unit, leave it in the queue, and avoid paying maintenance on those units until the city was threatened, or I needed a unit quickly...in fact, this might warrant some investigation...keeping units in a state of mostly built to avoid maintenance...or rather, shifting the maintenance to hammers instead of gold....

-=Vel=-

Well, the other down-side to this is that it only defferes ONE unit (or, more accuratly, one unit of each type). I have rarely found one unit to turn the tides.

You'd have to find a way to defer three or four units at a time. And by the time I know I need a garrison I can have at least one unit built, meaning at best this would give me a two unit jump as opposed to one.

Not as good an option as I'd like.

One idea this gives me is a Mobilization civic (a la Civ3) but this gives you the option to draft units 2-for1 or even 3-for-1 (2 units for one pop point) but the maint goes up a certain percentage (+50% ?). Kind of like "arming" your citizens and having them fight. This way you pay a higher maint but only when you need it.

Or something like that.

Tom P.

[Velociryx]

Good points! I think it is possible to "pre-build" multiple units, but the MM involved in making sure none of them ever got finished may be daunting (especially if you start adding in pops and chops...might be more trouble than it is worth, ultimately)--and besides, it has a particularly "gamey" feel to it.

-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

I'll start a separate thread on the "part-build" question.