Turn 104, 490 BC

[nbarclay]

Zeit, it's not so much that you're asking a question with an obvious answer as that you're asking a question with a non-obvious (but still, I hope, well-known in multiplayer circles) one. If the code were written properly, saving and reloading in the middle of a turn wouldn't be a problem. But there's a bug that causes gold, shields, and food to be added when the game is saved and reloaded in the middle of the turn in PBEM games. So in PBEM games, we have to make sure we don't do that.

[Shiber]

I second Nathan on the matter of the aqueduct.

[nbarclay]

For the production phase, I'm thinking in terms of:

1) Rush the temple in Sandstorm.
2) Switch Whirlwind to a galley after doing a short rush. If we go for a 5-turn Inchon, a short rush is slightly more efficient than waiting until the last turn to do a rush. For a 4-turn Inchon, it won't matter.
3) Switch Tempest to an aqueduct.
4) Switch an Arashi laborer from a mined hill to an irrigated flood plains, letting Tempest use the mined hill instead of a mountain to get a couple extra shields to reduce our rushing expenses.

If no one objects in the next couple minutes, I'll go ahead with that production-phase plan.

[Aeson]

As sometimes happens when I try to go to sleep, my mind started racing. I've noticed that both food and shields are affected by production-phase changes (as should be expected now that I think of it; otherwise, it would open an exploit). If we shift an Arashi laborer to flood plains, we can get Arashi back on a path toward growing and, at the same time, get back a couple of the shields Vox's kicking our laborers off the hills is costing us (thereby reducing the gold cost if we rush an Aqueduct by eight). I'm inclined to do that if we want to go ahead with the aqueduct switch this turn.

Remember that commerce and food are already counted by the time we get to the production phase. I think this becomes an exploit if we switch the tiles and end up with less commerce/food from the new tiles (in favor of more production) than we already got this turn. In effect that would be like using 'supertiles' that had the maximum food, commerce, and production of any tile in the city radius. With floodplains and hills, that can mean 'tiles' that give 4 food, 5? shields, and 4 gold a turn.

If we keep the commerce/food even, then it's micromanaging and perfectly acceptable IMO. I'm not sure how it would be viewed if we balance commerce and food out between two cities, but I don't think that would be acceptable either. Each city needs to be working tiles that would have covered the commerce and food they received this turn.

I'm somewhat glad they didn't move 8 and steal EotS' mine, which would have thrown off our 1 turn unit builds.

-------------------

I'm all for the Aquaduct, especially if we turn Cyclone back onto 1 turn Workers to get it up to max size quickly. Tempest has the terrain improvements now to be up to 30 shields per turn at size 12. We skip a couple units to build the Aquaduct, but getting them out faster afterwards should mean we have more units overall in 10 turns than we would by keeping to straight units. The added commerce from more laborers will be paying back the rush cost as well (~15gpt?).

[nbarclay]

Aeson, food is NOT counted prior to the production phase. During the production phase, each city, in turn, gets its food and then its production. That threw me when I first noticed it, but it makes sense precisely to prevent a "change tiles to get more production while still maximizing food" exploit. In terms of commerce, the tile changes I'm making would have given us at least as much commerce as we actually got, probably more, so I think we're okay there. Certainly, we're not engaging in a deliberate exploit in that regard.

[nbarclay]

One more production-phase tweak: accompanying the short-rush in Whirlwind, I'm moving the laborer to an irrigated incense tile so Tempest can work the hill. With a 4-turn Inchon, it won't really matter, but with a 5-turn one, that saves us a little extra gold.

[nbarclay]

Production phase completed. Our military is still average relative to Vox. Preparing to fire catapults.

[Shiber]

:rubbing-hands-together-in-anticipation:

[Shiber]

We're going to use the elite WC that hasn't generated a leader yet this turn, right?
Are there any other elite units in our disposal?

[nbarclay]

Four hits out of seven shots. All immortals reduced to one hit point; I think one took a ZOC hit in his last move. Executioners preparing to do their work. I'll send in the two elite WCs first.

[nbarclay]

The elite WCs got two kills, one losing 1hp and one losing 3hp, but no leaders.

[nbarclay]

Now for our vet MedInfs, fishing for new elites:

[Aeson]

Ack, that's right. City by city on food and production, which opens up the 'use the same tile for several cities' exploits instead.

Nice shooting Nathan.

[nbarclay]

Executions complete. Three MedInfs took one point of damage each, and two emerged unhurt. No promotions, unfortunately.

[Shiber]

Well, at least we incurred no losses either.