Turn 162 : 470 AD

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
Vox will discover printing press in 500 ad, so we will get it when our turn rolls around after that.

.. and we get Banking the turn after that, so RP could do 40-turns on Democracy and have it around the time we get steam, which is, I think, the time to start the prebuilds.

[Cort Haus]

Hoover Dam is 800 shields, same as Universal Sufferage. ToE is 600.

[Arrian]

Praying...

DeepO: no, no extra commerce. Also, the key tiles to RR are going to be hills and mountains, as our primary production centers rely on irrigated flatlands for food and high ground for production. So boosting production with RRs will take a little longer than it would for a city surrounded entirely by grassland.

Also, I could be wrong, but I think the production increase will be somewhat smaller. The biggest gains are made by cities with lots of non-bonus grassland (RRing a normal mined grassland tile doubles its production. RRing a mined hill takes it from 3 shields to 4? Maybe 5? I don't remember, honestly). Granted, in some cases the boosted food from RRing floodplains tiles may allow us to mine over irrigated plains tiles and boost production that way...

-Arrian

[DeepO]

there's one more problem: if we face a build-off, we might only have one prebuild, instead of 2... as all the wonders get built before ToE. Lego surely will go for them...

Also, isn't that a bit too late to start?

DeepO

[Arrian]

Ah, well that's better then. With our palace being only 100 shields shy of Hoover, we're in good shape to get Hoover *IF* we win the ToE race (I'd still call us longshots for now). We just have to time the prebuild right (easier said than done). Universal Suffrage is even better than the palace, true, but it's not as reliable because of course someone could actually build it.

-Arrian

[asleepathewheel]

don't forget we can use sistine as a prebuild.

[Tall Stranger]

Originally posted by Arrian
I think the most likely time for a Bobian breakup would be when Military Tradition shows up.

Makes sense, sort of. If there's going to be a(nother) Bobian war, that would be the time to do it. I just think it would be a horrifying mistake on their part.

They've got muskets over there, and each has a kickass Knight-level UU (with the weaker civ getting the better UU, and Leos too). Both have to be somewhat daunted by taking the other on, especially with Legoland's troops hanging around.

That part worries me the most, actually. If I'm GoW and planning to take down Lego, I'd be working pretty damn hard to get those Lego troops withdrawn. Their continued presence indicates either that 1) GoW wants them there to deter an ND invasion; 2) that ND has convinced Lego to help it dismantle GoW; or 3) Lego is feeling awfully fully of itself and refusing to leave. The first two, of course, suggest a Bobian war.

However, if one could get Cavalry a few turns before the other and upgrade a huge number of them...

Frankly, GoW, with Leos, might actually stand a better chance of gutting ND than the other way 'round.

You might be right about that. If we see either ND or GoW power spike up on the graph, it may give us a turn's advance warning that a Bobian war is about to break out. If the power increase is more gradual, it may show signs of ND-GoW cooperation in planning an assault on Lego. (Otherwise, why upgrade everything immediately?)

It seems to me that we need to think about two possible contingencies for the near-term: 1) ND/ GoW vs. Lego; and 2) ND vs. GoW.

[DeepO]

RR adds 1 shield where mines are present everywhere for sure, I was only not sure anymore on the commerce.

I thought at least EotS had a lot of mined plains, Hurricane and Tempest where more the hill and mountain cities. Considering that we don't need all tiles RR at once (food tiles only after the rest, and instantly adjusted to have more mines), some 30 workers should be nearly enough for one city in one turn. And with our 200-odd tiles to RR, that would lead to some 20 turns before everything gets done.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Does this mean that from aside the inconveniance of Lego's impending GA, we could be in with a chance of the Hoover Dam?

The tech leader expires more energy ploughing the furrow. If Lego GA soon (within 15 turns) and head for Industrial ahead of us at a four turn-rate, we could be slipstreaming at a five-turn rate and not lose too much. If they arrive and gift all to Vox to bring on the freebie, our costs fall further. If Vox get Nat, we could be in with a shout, and their GA will be over.

[Arrian]

We can estimate how long the techs would take us to research. We know our current beaker output. We can count on some increase, obviously, as time progresses. We ought to be able to estimate research times for Steam Power, etc. fairly accurately.

Once we have a better guestimate for our discovery of Steam Power and Sci Method, we can try and calculate
our prebuild situation. If we figure we discover Steam power on TurnX, we can work out much we can boost production in CityY in Z number of turns using our workers to build RRs. So we ought to be able to figure out what our cities are capable of, production-wise, and time the prebuilds to coincide with our discovery of the techs in question. The ToE prebuild has 100 shields of "play" in it: we can use the palace, and pass 600 shields to make sure we get ToE the very turn we discover Sci Method. That's the key, because w/o ToE we are definitely not getting Hoover.

The real wildcard in all this is tech trading.

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Arrian
The real wildcard in all this is tech trading.

Both in terms of what we might not have to research, and depreciating costs. If other civs have trading partners and we don't then we'll suffer. It makes the prebuild planning imprecise.

Should we launch a diplo effort to see if GoW or ND might want to trade tech in the future? I don't suppose we'd get a straight answer and they must be fed up with hearing it from us by now - we keep asking them.

At 60% science, which can be supported with ND's lux and RP's gpt, we have 268 Scpt (Science per turn) - call it 270. That'll get us Chemistry in 6 turns. That techs value is 60. Steam Power's value is 120, so we'll need 12 turns to research Steam at today's rate.

Add 2 more Unis, 3 Banks, another 36 pop points worth of (mostly sea) commerce and a science wonder and - hey, that's not bad.

[Cort Haus]

Newton's in Tempest?

With ND's lux coming in, we could start prebuilding Newton's in Tempest next turn. It's 20 turns work, and could stay disguised via cathedral & bank before using the Great Lib. It would complete perhaps the same turn as Copernicus in Hurricane! The pair would give us another 50 Scpt

[DeepO]

I strongly doubt we'll be able to get two science wonders build... one will be nice to have, and a good goal.

demo adds one commerce per tile, right? that means some 150 extra scpt after corruption, taking into account we also gain more gpt. It might be worth it to go for demo ourselves at maximum speed, if we can get it in 4 turns, and lose 1 when switching govs, we might pinch 10 turns off our research to ToE. That's 5 turns of profit.

I agree, tech trading is going to be key in all of this. So far, am I right in thinking nobody even thinks about trading tech to Lego? We maybe shouldn't ask GoW and ND for direct tech trades, as well how they see Lego in all of this.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

We might get both, Deepo. We have the Copernicus prebuild going, and could get Newton simultaneously on the turn we get ToG. Lego have Smiths to think about, and Sistine to finish. With our Colossus we have most incentive, and Lego can't hide both Smiths and a science wonder behind a palace prebuild.

Democracy doesn't add any commerce to what republic gives - it just speeds up workers and gives a little less corruption.

I think you're right in thinking that no-one is thinking of tech trading with Lego.

[Cort Haus]

Calculation of turns before ToE

The following model makes all sorts of assumptions, but we have to start somewhere.

We know Banking will take us 3 turns.
Chem will take us 6 turns at current rates, but will fall to 5 as GoW/ND will surely get it before us.
By the time we finish Chemistry we will have another ~ 40 Scpt from Uni's in EotS and Arashi, and three post-aqua boom towns.
Physics needs 1536, and 310 Scpt can do that in 5 turns.
ToG needs 1632, needing 6 turns

So 19 turns to ToG and Newton -which times well with a 20-turn build in Tempest starting next turn if we want that.
If we get Copernicus and Newton at this time, that's another 50 Scpt and more aquas coming in, totalling say 380 Scpt.
This leaves Magnetism (1632) in 5 turns and Metallurgy (If we have to research) it in four turns, hitting the modern era in 29 turns with 380 scpt.

Steam (2880) could then be completed in 8 turns, Electricity (3360) in 9 turns, Medicine (2400) in 7 turns and Scientific Method in 7 turns.
Total (without Industrialisation (2880 in 8 turns)) = 8 + 9 + 7 + 7 = 31 turns.

So by these calculations, with no trading or devaluations except Chemistry and Metallurgy, we can get Scientific Method in 60 turns from now, (adding another 8 turns if we want Industrialisation on the way) and 23 turns from discovering Steam.