Turn 112, 330 BC

[nbarclay]

There's one other big problem with going for a major wonder in Hurricane: we really need for it to build a harbor and get most of its laborers on water tiles so other cities have more elbow room. Long-term, Hurricane is supposed to work seven water tiles and only five land tiles. That lets Sandstorm grow to a decent combination of size and production and lets EotS shift over to some Hurricane-area tiles, creating a cascade reaction that benefits Bolderberg and our southern cities. That won't matter for a few turns yet because we don't have the aqueducts we'll need for Tornado and Bolderberg (among others) to start growing. But it's very definitely going to matter long before we could get Leo's, and Tempest can go for one of the big wonders almost as quickly as Hurricane could.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I'd like to go ahead and switch us over to builder mode. With Vox's GA over and the kind of superiority we have now (especially after Vox's losses in the last couple turns), I think we can finish Vox off with the units we have. And the lack of city improvements is really going to mess us up in terms of research and finances once our GA ends in another turn or two.

Let's not. We don't know how many more units will come from abroad to Vox's aid.

[zeit]

Great work guys!

I also believe we should keep on building units, but let's do as Aeson suggests: semi-building mode. Let's keep some of our cities on units, and those who will benefit from it most at the short term- we'll switch to peace time building.

[nbarclay]

Are you keeping in mind upkeep expenses? Right now we have 85 combat units (not counting workers). That's costing us 85 gpt for upkeep, gold we can't use for research, for rushing city improvements, or for upgrading horsemen and WCs to knights when the time comes in a few turns. Building additional units would not only divert us from badly overdue city improvements but also add still farther to that economc drain. And while we're running a nice surplus during our GA, I shudder to think what our gpt situation will look like when the GA ends.

We crossed the "strong" threshold relative to other civs a long time ago, and while we've lost a few units along the way, we've been pouring virtually our entire golden age's production into our military. If we faced a clear, direct military threat from some other civ, I could see continuing military production to meet it. But I don't like the idea of adding still more to our upkeep costs while at the same time undercutting our work on city improvements still farther just because someone might possibly decide to intervene militarily on Vox's behalf.

Further, these economic issues are also, indirectly, military issues. If we don't have gold, we can't upgrade to knights. If we don't have gold, we can't afford to research or buy techs unless we can find someone willing to practically give them away. A strong military requires a strong economy to back it up.

[alva]

I agree with Natahn on this, having close to a 100 GPT unit-upkeep at this point is a lot to put it mildly, especially without the marketplaces and such.

[alva]

There's one other big problem with going for a major wonder in Hurricane

There is another one though maybe not as far as the COL is concerned, others are likely to go in GA mode rather soon, so I'm not sure we will beat them with that added bonus.

[nbarclay]

I like the idea of taking a shot at the Colossus. If we fail, ending up with an expensive marketplace or the Great Wall (which, like the Colossus, is only 200 shields) wouldn't be that big a deal. It's the idea of if we fail, going on and trying for a 600-shield wonder in Hurricane that I have a problem with.

[alva]

We can go for it for the next couple of turns, so go for it and see what happens.

[nbarclay]

By the way, at the moment, unit upkeep costs including workers are actually a little over 100 gpt. (We have 19 workers at this particular moment.) But that will come back down a bit when we add workers to Tempest and, probably, to Arashi.

[Aeson]

Do we really have that many units? I stopped keeping track a long time ago... EotS and Hurricane should probably start in on public works projects, along with Tempest.

Maybe we should send a bunch of fast movers up and around to take Dissidentville? Have a Pike meet them at D69?

[nbarclay]

We have five workers two tiles away from Dissidentville ready to start a road. In three turns, we'll have a road right up to the city gates, with numerous catapults looking down on the city. There's no need for any fancy flanking maneuvers.

[alva]

Do we have enough galley to spare one to visit the RP shores?

Sort of like, if you land troops, so will we. They don't have to know the're empty, do they.
Getting a few map updates isn't going to hurt either and just plain scouting is never a bad thing.
And to get some exploring going..

[DeepO]

ending GA: I'm not sure when it ends, but before it does, we should set lux back to 20%, to avoid losing production in Hurricane and EotS, I think. I'm not entirely positive, but I noticed a couple of times before that the moment I got out of GA, I lost city production due to not receiving more commerce when the turn starts...

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I'd rather use our galleys to hit Vox's core as hard as we can before they can reinforce.

[Aeson]

A Galley with 2 Pikes on it in the near future (next 5 turns) might want to head out along RP's coast, staying out to sea and not making itself visable as little as possible.

Once GoW gets Chivalry we may have to act very quickly. If it's RP and GoW against ND, pillaging RP's Iron would be a huge deal. Otherwise they and GoW could share it (I think their trade routes would stay open around the E side, correct me if ND has build on the E coast yet). Maybe not possible for us to do (they could/should block the landing), but it's definitely not possible if we have no one in the area.

If nothing happens, we could just look for other islands out there before the other teams get a chance to navigate the Seas.