FP Placement Discussion

[Aeson]

Let's use this for discussion, not voting, as I'm sure there will be many new ideas brought up. We have 5-10 more turns before any type of decision needs to be made.

[DeepO]

I think one of the major points we need to decide on is, in case we start conquering / settling other lands, we're going to move our palace or not. (and moving means hoping for a leader, as a palace jump is not possible, our core is too closely settled)

In case we're not going to, I think we should be better off moving our FP farther away, to around D-ville, or even towards Elipolis if possible. Otherwise Arashi seems to be the best spot. I don't mind building an extra 20 turns on our FP if it nets us 5 more productive cities...

As to specific plans: with pumping and getting into WLTKD, we should be able to get at least 5 unwasted shields, otherwise it's going to take too long. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that should be possible in a lot of locations...

DeepO

[Aeson]

From the discussion in http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=89311

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I just ran a simulation. Three different FP sites and likely city placement. Don't read too much into the numbers, as for quite some time most of our productive cities (regardless of where we end up building the FP) will be in the S. Also, most of the bonus wonders we are able to grab (Collosus, Copernicus', Newton's hopefully) will also be in the S, Tempest, Hurricane, and/or EotS.

Case 1: FP Arashi
Case 2: FP Dissidentville 7
Case 3: FP Elipolis 7

Without ever moving the Palace (and not having any holdings off Stormia), these are the 'end' numbers we will be generating (everything built).

1: +477 gpt
2: +578 gpt
3: +620 gpt

With holdings off of Stormia: (used most of RP's territory, GoW's territory should be similar or slightly better. Likely scenario for us to get onto Bob is alliance in a 2v2, each of the victors taking one of the opponents land)

1: +786
2: +746
3: +651

I think we can expect RP at about 600-700 with their territory now. It wouldn't suprise me any if Lego was the same or slightly better. GoW/ND are in the same boat as us, and need expansion of the military sort to compete with RP and (probably) Lego in the end game tech race.

Suprisingly, a FP at the bottleneck is pretty much the same whether we move onto Bob or not, and puts us close to competitive either way (as long as a giant doesn't emerge on Bob).

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So this is what I think we should do. Build the FP in Arashi ASAP. Start a rather long FP pre-build at the bottleneck. The FP in Arashi will help it be a bit faster, probably around 40 turns. In 40 turns it should be clear whether or not we are going to get onto Bob in a reasonable timeframe. If we can get onto Bob, and get a Leader, we move the Palace there and take our maximum. If both those don't happen, we 'disband' (liquidate into Workers/Settlers) Arashi once the FP prebuild is ready, then rebuild Arashi. We should be able to have Arashi back up to speed within a few turns of disbanding it.

This way we get a short term boost ASAP by building our FP in Arashi. Then we have the option to have our 'max' empire if things go right on Bob, and if not, will have our 'max' Stormia empire set up to take over about the same point D7 would be catching up to Arashi in efficiency.

[DeepO]

Well, I quickly glanced over the numbers when you first published them, only now I look at them in detail. Some comments:

I very much like the two-way plan, in that we could build two FPs if we disband the first one. However, I would take it one step further (if at all possible), and not try for a second FP in Elipolis 7, but maybe even closer to GoW. If it would take an additional 10 turns on the prebuild, it doesn't matter that much if we are profiting from another FP in the mean time. But this assumes we would go after ND or GoW, instead of RP... Don't know, perhaps the D-ville 7 one remains best. (also, we can start sooner on that one, as we will be gifted the city sooner)

However, there are also some downsides on this: we can't temporarily get the happiness up in our second FP to get into WLTKD, as it would cost us too much (minor disadv). Further, as we are needing a prebuild, it would take away one of the wonder prebuilds we could use (palace won't be available normally, but we could use the GL). For secrecy, this might be a big issue, otherwise I wouldn't mind at all.

Further comment: in case this 2-way plan goes through, our second FP location should be near the sea, so that we could use it (in emergencies) for a coastal wonder too (e.g. Magelhaes' voyage). Not that I expect to use it, but you never know.

No, for the moment, I would certainly go for a FP in Arashi, asap. If this means we have to pump the population, so be it. We can afterwards build workers to compensate (it's kind of a waste to pump a city with access to fps). The rest of the discussion can then be postponed a little (the 5-10 turns Aeson posted at first)

Another good plan, Aeson

DeepO

[Arrian]

I like it, Aeson.

As I've said before, a LOT of things have to go right for us to actually pull off our "max" empire - with a Palace off-continent. This way, we get the FP down relatively soon and get a bit of a boost soon, while still leaving open the possibility of a FP up north.

The downside is that we will have to rebuild all of Arashi's improvements if we do go with the northern FP (which I consider highly likely).

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Well, the rebuilding of improvements is not that bad, if we plan for it, we simply build less buildings there. I know we currently have a lot of military, but I would like to have some knights too... with all our cities on buildings, we would need at least one barracks city (hey, am I really turning into a hawk? )

DeepO

[Arrian]

Well, all of our cities are barracks cities, thanks to Sun Tzu. But I assume you mean pretty much dedicating one town to building units?

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Yeah, that was the idea... education is coming shortly, and we still have to finish marketplaces and libs in all our cities. I doubt we will have time left to build more troops.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Euh, I mean peaceful building of course, where there are no buildings left we'd want. In case war breaks out again it's obvious we'll be switching to troops in more cities

DeepO

[Aeson]

I think Arashi only has City Walls at this point, so we won't be losing much in that regard. Once it finishes the FP, building Knights (4 turn) there would be a good idea whether we are at peace or war. We could replace most of our Med Inf with Knights if at peace, and would need all the units we can get if at war.