Turn 183: 690 AD

[Dominae]

Lego built Back's before or instead of Sistine? That's odd...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Then lets all hope we have coal. 109 maint, ouch. More with additional workers, so it would be good to offset it with less troops.

I think it's useful and reasonable to assume we have Coal.

[DeepO]

Re: Re: Turn 183: 690 AD

Originally posted by Dominae
1. We only have 22 Workers, and are 3 turns away from Steam Power. We could use about double that number. I suggest the following cities build Workers this turn: Blizzard, Whirlwind, Sufa. Bolderburg could also go this route, at a modest loss of Shields. Getting our rail network faster up is better than being efficient right now.

I agree, and was waiting for the save to see where I could do it. However, in some of these cities we added workers to get the size up, if there is not enough growth it would be a loss to let them build workers. I'll look into it, though, as workers are our priority right now.

2. Sandstorm can easily be a 2-turn Worker-pump without Railroads (as DeepO already mentioned). I suggest we implement this immediately.

It can only start from next turn onwards, this turn it will max commerce, while making sure next turn gets enough food.

3. Cyclone can become a 1-turn Worker-pump with a bit of Railroad attention, by using all the Bonus Food sources down there. Specifically, it would use tiles 2, 3, 4, 7, 21. Since we're already low on Workers, I suggest this be our top priority for Railroads.

Sorry... only after Tempest has grown. RR priority should IMHO be as follows:

1. Arashi. We don't need RR in theory to beat Lego, but most likely we can pinch an extra turn off our research plan... with another turn off the ToE prebuild, we gain 1 turn on Lego.
2. EotS. Right now, it doesn't really need RR, but it has to be fully improved the moment ToE is build. This is the other constraint we have to take into account, as such it becomes 2nd priority, while other cities migth get RR earlier (funny, I know)
3. Tempest. Newton is not fully used right now, and it cuts into the food and shield production of quite a few coastal cities. We need to max this out in commerce asap, even if it costs us one or two workers.
4. Cyclone, to get to a 1-turn worker pump. This also means some of the other cities around it will need some RRing... but most can run a limited deficit for a couple of turns.

If I see it correctly, we can safely do Cyclone before having to worry about EotS (to be safe, we can only use the GLib as a prebuild, instead of the Sistine. So letting EotS grow too much is not what we want). Improving Tempest will at most only take 1 turn from all our workers, so that might either give us 1, or 0 workers less from Cyclone. (depending on precise timing). I'm not sure yet if we have to add one worker to get it to size 12, I'll try to avoid that of course. But if one worker gives us an extra 10 bpt, we can't not do it... that's 2% of our total!

[quote]4. If Cyclone uses all the Bonus Food, Typhoon will not have enough. Therefore I suggest we switch the Library build to a Harbor.[/quote[
Interesting... will look into this!

5. Dissidentville should stop working a Coast and a mine Grassland, and work a Mountains and irrigated Grassland instead. This gives 2 more Corruption-free Shields without Food loss. It's not necessary to give Dissidentville the Iron from Monsoon, in this case (the extra Shield is lost to Corruption).

My initial post wasn't too clear... I already had D-ville use the irr grass (instead of a coast) by reshuffling WoC. That meant another coast going to one mountain. The iron would then give it an extra 2 shields before waste, IIRC.

6. Santa Ana and Inchoff should both switch a Laborer from a Mountains to a Coast, in order to grow next turn.

Sorry, was planning on that, didn't mention it. Some further reshuffling can be done as SA? built a harbor this turn... wasn't too easy to figure that out before I had the save

7. Whirlwind should switch the Laborer working the Coast at 1 to the Coast at 4 or 7. This frees up a Coast for Olibanum Gale to use instead of a Sea, and so on cascading all the way down to Typhoon (super micro!).

Will certainly look into this, and I think I see what you want. However, does anyone have a link to the numbering system for the workforce? I don't know it... always refused to learn it actually, but can't anymore

8. RP could use an extra couple of cities up there. They're not building a city on the Cattle (the northernmost tile on our continent) because it's a good tile, but they would benefit far more from exploiting more Coast. They could also put a city 63 of Monterrey.

Interesting... maybe something to mention to them? Who's doing the contacts to RP?

9. We could probably cut down on our military upkeep costs (109gpt!). Knights or Cavalry will not be that useful once we get Railroads everywhere; it's not like we're going to get attacked with Marines before we have Tanks, and even then we should be able to handle it with Infantry and Artillery. I know it's tough to disband a Knight, but do we really plan to attack anyone?

Dom, we don't really need knights, but once the reg MIs and warriors are gone, we don't have extras anymore. We do want to keep a complete sea wall for the time being, at least until we have a decent picketline set up. Once marines arrives, the sea wall won't have much use anymore, but until then, we have to face the support costs, as it is our best insurrance against invasions.

10. Whirlwind should probably build an Aqueduct before a Marketplace.

Will look into that

11. Flight will be very important to us.

Certainly... question is which of the techs will be most important to us? I've been thinking on radio first myself, but it will depend on timing. If I may make one suggestion: repost this in the Spartan Academy thread, we tend to keep most long-term military things concentrated there. It's much easier to keep track of then the turn threads...

Right... and if nobody objects, I'm going to open the turn. I'm excited

DeepO

[Arrian]

Sweet! Good to see the two of you getting into this stuff

Though as DeepO points out, we did actually lower our number of workers deliberately via adding them to cities. I get the feeling Dominae disagrees with that approach, and I (of course) now worry he might be right - as he often is. I was a big fan of adding the workers to cities. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I largely agree with DeepO's assessment of RR priorities. ToE city, Hoover city, then everything else.

7. Whirlwind should switch the Laborer working the Coast at 1 to the Coast at 4 or 7. This frees up a Coast for Olibanum Gale to use instead of a Sea, and so on cascading all the way down to Typhoon (super micro!).

Wee! Isn't superMM fun? It can be, actually, if you're in the mood for it. Keep it coming, Dom, and anyone else who can be arsed.

8. RP could use an extra couple of cities up there. They're not building a city on the Cattle (the northernmost tile on our continent) because it's a good tile, but they would benefit far more from exploiting more Coast. They could also put a city 63 of Monterrey.

Yeah, I was thinking they could squeeze in an extra city. Let us suggest this to them right away. Hell, at the very least, that's one extra tile that doesn't need a unit covering it until marines.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

If you guys have done the calculation and RRing the ToE city first gets us the Wonder faster, then I'm all for it. But are we even sure we'll have Scientific Method by then? It would be a waste to hurry production now only to slow it down later.

By the way, with 22 Workers I doubt we can RR all of Arashi in one turn.

I assume from your comments that we're prebuilding Hoover's in Eye of the Storm. Are we sure that's the best place? Prioritizing the Hoover city for RRing might not be necessary: unless we're afraid that some other team is going to get to Electronics and steal it from us, Hoover will do nothing until we get Factories built.

All this to say that I think our RR efforts should look like this:

1. ToE city, if really necessary.
2. Piggyback directly to Cyclone.
3. Cyclone (enough tiles to create 1-turn pump...should be 5 flatland).
4. Hoover city, if really necessary.
5. All remaining flat land.
6. All remaining bumpy land.

Micromanaging RR construction and city growth/production is extremely difficult, and I'll not be suprised if we do not do it as efficiently as possible. However we do it, more Workers will always be better, which is why I want to prioritize our pumps. Even our top cities that are not working on Wonders should pop out a Worker or two to help (after finishing whatever they're on).

But if one worker gives us an extra 10 bpt, we can't not do it... that's 2% of our total!

2% of our Commerce is not that great compared to what the other cities will contribute once they're fully-developed. This is, of course, one of those general statements that I have no intention of backing up.

Dom, we don't really need knights, but once the reg MIs and warriors are gone, we don't have extras anymore. We do want to keep a complete sea wall for the time being, at least until we have a decent picketline set up. Once marines arrives, the sea wall won't have much use anymore, but until then, we have to face the support costs, as it is our best insurrance against invasions.

I agree that we should keep our wall up using whatever units we have available. But note that Workers are just as good for this purpose as Knights (all the more reason to build more Workers). We'll have a surplus of Workers when we're doing RRing, at which point we should start disbanding some of our military. All I'm saying for right now is that if we can afford to disband anything (without breaking the wall), it should be Knights.

I was a big fan of adding the workers to cities. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It certainly was a good idea. I'm surprised we only have 22 Workers nonetheless.


Dominae

[DeepO]

okay, intermediate question:
After disbanding the 2 reg MI, and one warrior CH missed (it was dificult to spot ), we will still have another 2 units we could disband and keep our sea wall free. Do we want to do so (it would leave Elipolis empty)? And if so, which units? All our units are vets now, and we have spears, pikes, knights and cats left.

DeepO

[Dominae]

However, does anyone have a link to the numbering system for the workforce? I don't know it... always refused to learn it actually, but can't anymore

I think we've done it this way:

The city is at 5 on the keypad. The tiles adjacent to the city correspond to the numbers 1-4 and 6-9. The outer tiles correspond to a sequence of two numbers, using the cardinal directions first (if any). So, it's 23 (for S-SE) instead of 32.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by DeepO
okay, intermediate question:
After disbanding the 2 reg MI, and one warrior CH missed (it was dificult to spot ), we will still have another 2 units we could disband and keep our sea wall free. Do we want to do so (it would leave Elipolis empty)? And if so, which units? All our units are vets now, and we have spears, pikes, knights and cats left.

Well, we need Gunpowder to make Cavalry. That may not be easy to trade for. Our Medieval Infantry upgrade to Guerilla without requiring a resource. Our numerous Pikemen and Spearmen upgrade to Riflemen in case we end up without Rubber for Infantry.

Tough call. I vote for Knights...they're worth more.


Dominae

[DeepO]

Sorry, crossposted here.

Originally posted by Dominae
If you guys have done the calculation and RRing the ToE city first gets us the Wonder faster, then I'm all for it. But are we even sure we'll have Scientific Method by then? It would be a waste to hurry production now only to slow it down later.

Yes we can be sure, provided GoW doesn't cross us. Which is why they are so important. I just redid calculations, and without RR, the only way to be absolutely sure we beat Lego is if get Coal. Otherwise, we're running a fooddeficit. We might be able to compensate it by switching tiles around a bit with other cities, but right now, it should keep on working on 22 spt, -1 fpt.

By the way, with 22 Workers I doubt we can RR all of Arashi in one turn.

No of course not, but in one turn we can get enough tiles RRed to be 100% sure. We even can get enough RRed to pinch one turn off.
BTW, the one turn delay I was talking about was for Tempest, our Newton city, not Arashi. I think you'll agree that even if it takes our workers 5 turns to be sure we get ToE, it is worth it.

I assume from your comments that we're prebuilding Hoover's in Eye of the Storm. Are we sure that's the best place?

It was a bit of a discussion, but yes, we're sure. The reason was all the other prebuilds going on in several other places, and our assumption that if we don't have coal, we need to get as close as possible. Tempest is our best shield producer if configured the right way. With RR, it can get to 33 spt, so even with coal it would be best to build there.

Prioritizing the Hoover city for RRing might not be necessary: unless we're afraid that some other team is going to get to Electronics and steal it from us, Hoover will do nothing until we get Factories built.

Lego... as we can't use Sistine as a prebuild, we can only be sure of GLib prebuild (note that we need the palace in Arashi). So we have to do little less then 400 shields (if Sistine hasn't been build we can use it for our last turn), which can be done in 12 turns. Or 13 in case Sistine is build by that time. If Lego gets either steam or medicine as Vox's free tech (which we count on, it is quite likely), they will be one turn behind us in discovering SM. Which leaves them 10 or 11 turns to beat us to Hoover. They can use a palace prebuild, and they will have loads of cash from their GA which started a couple of turns ago. We already know they are ahead of us in pop, GNP, and very close in literacy.... It will be close even if everything goes well for us.

So, EotS is top priority to RR, if we don't do it in the most efficient way, we will get beaten, or at least the chance increase dramatically. Researching both electronics and atom theory at second researcher cost in 10 turns seems to be too much, even for Lego's power, but they can run 100% science then. So 12 or 13 turns is very possible!

All this to say that I think our RR efforts should look like this:

1. ToE city, if really necessary.
2. Piggyback directly to Cyclone.
3. Cyclone (enough tiles to create 1-turn pump...should be 5 flatland).
4. Hoover city, if really necessary.
5. All remaining flat land.
6. All remaining bumpy land.

I think we agree, Dom. The only difference is Tempest, which needs RR to get most out of Newton. And EotS which is higher in priority on my list, but as we'll have enough time, we can do Cyclone in between.

Micromanaging RR construction and city growth/production is extremely difficult, and I'll not be suprised if we do not do it as efficiently as possible. However we do it, more Workers will always be better, which is why I want to prioritize our pumps. Even our top cities that are not working on Wonders should pop out a Worker or two to help (after finishing whatever they're on).

I agree. I do not pretend to get the most efficient way out of this, but I know how to use a calculator, and I have a good feeling for RRs. You're actually the first to say that flat land (including irr) superseeds hills, a lot of people don't know that RRing and switching extra irr to mines is less costly then RRing hills. Let alone mountains.

2% of our Commerce is not that great compared to what the other cities will contribute once they're fully-developed. This is, of course, one of those general statements that I have no intention of backing up.

Of course... depends on the situation. An extra worker would get the rest of the world RRed sooner... and I might need to switch priorities on Tempest and Cyclone in my list according to that. It will only differ one turn though.. the effect won't be great in either direction.

I agree that we should keep our wall up using whatever units we have available. But note that Workers are just as good for this purpose as Knights (all the more reason to build more Workers). We'll have a surplus of Workers when we're doing RRing, at which point we should start disbanding some of our military. All I'm saying for right now is that if we can afford to disband anything (without breaking the wall), it should be Knights.

That answers my question... and I prefer knights as well. However, there has been a lot of discussion on the power of cavs, and vulture showed they are not totally obsolete, especially not if we don't have rubber. And somehow get SP. And Mil Trad.

It certainly was a good idea. I'm surprised we only have 22 Workers nonetheless.

That comes from our deals with ND and GoW: we didn't expect to get to steam this fast. We planned on 10 turns more, meaning 10 more workers.

DeepO

[Dominae]

Something to consider: other teams may pool their Gold together in order to Steal techs from us. As you can imagine, this is extremely efficient. Lego's rise in Power may not be due to military units at all...they might just be stockpiling Gold.


Dominae

[Arrian]

I'd say disband either knights, or - if we still have some (and I think we do) - War Chariots.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Not sure if this is allowed in this game:

With all our excess Workers after Railroads, we could organize a "Worker swap" with RP, removing much of the Worker upkeep burden on both our teams. Our Workers would be less efficient, but it's not like they have much to do but sit around on the beach after all the rails are laid down. This, of course, involves going to war with RP for a turn.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Dominae
Something to consider: other teams may pool their Gold together in order to Steal techs from us. As you can imagine, this is extremely efficient. Lego's rise in Power may not be due to military units at all...they might just be stockpiling Gold.

Dominae

I was under the impression that their rise on the powergraph was rather dramatic, and though I may be wrong about this, I thought that gold had a smallish effect on the powergraph. Wouldn't that need to be a HUGE amount of gold to have the type of impact we've seen?

However, that being said, it doesn't have to be huge if several teams intended to band together and split the cost of their theft.

To be honest, I don't think anyone has mentioned this possibility before.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

This, of course, involves going to war with RP for a turn.

Why? Why couldn't we just trade the workers?

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

I think it was felt that as we couldn't take Coal for granted, we'd be better off with the workers in cities working tiles (mainly coastal) to maximise our commerce. That got us the tech lead, and the projected research times (assuming we get Medicine from GoW in time) to fit the ToE prebuild in Arashi.

All of the coastal core cities except Hurricane were pulled up to size 10-12 (depending on temple & mkt) with workers.

Another thing was that we weren't expecting to pick up Chem and Metallurgy on the way, so less workers got built. I think we'd planned on about 30 when Steam Power arrived. We considered 40+ but decided against it.

The trouble is, it's impossible to make perfect economic plans that depend on the uncertainty of tech trades.

If we peel off a few workers and we have coal, it'll be worth it. If we don't have coal we'll still try for the ToE, and might need every beaker we can squeeze. It all comes down to gambling on either Coal or Not-Coal.