Turn 6

[Theseus]

I guess what I'm saying is that at T33, if we get lucky and have a connected Horse resource, we might want to build a WC.

The ensuing Settler would still get the benefit of the chop, and on Regent we're OK with a lux and 1 MP up to pop 4 (right?).

[nbarclay]

If I'm reading the timeline correctly, the idea is to build our second settler back-to-back with our first, using flood plains for growth and chopping to make up for the fact that flood plains don't provide shields. Building a WC during that time would mess up that plan. On the other hand, if we don't build some kind of military unit in between, we have no escort for our settler.

Yes, one lux and one MP can do us up to size 4, not that I'm too worried about it at this point. With the kind of high-gold tiles we have, I'm not the slightest bit afraid to use the lux slider in the early game rather than let an arbitrary city size limit interfere with our plans.

Nathan

[Theseus]

I'm not strenuously arguing the point... I just like the idea of getting WCs out sooner rather than later. Would a WC mess up the Settler building so much?

Agreed about happiness.

[nbarclay]

It would delay the settler by however long it takes to come up with 20 extra shields (plus or minus any difference in wastage). Actually, at size three, that would only be four turns working one flood plains tile and two irrigated furs if we can avoid wasting extra shields in the process. So the benefits of a WC to serve as escort and maybe scout ahead a little in the process might be worth it (especially since we'd keep growing pop toward our third settler in the meantime).

A bigger problem is, how would we hook up the horses? Our first worker is pretty heavily committed at the moment; as it is, I'll probably take a closer look at some point to see if we really want to keep the worker so busy in the capital rather than using him to help our second city. (Of course if the capital and second city share furs, working the capital may also be preparing tiles for use by the second city.)

[Arrian]

Nathan's understanding of "the plan" is correct: I wanted to bounce the city pop back quickly, sacrificing production while chopping to compensate. This also has the positive side effect of clearing a 3rd fur tile, which is off the river and therefore worth roading for both happiness AND commerce reasons.

However, I could reshuffle the plan to allow a spearman - or perhaps a warrior or two - inbetween, but a WC would require not only changing the citizen allocation & build queue, but also the worker actions. Assuming the very lucky development that horses are within our capitol radius, we will have to move the worker, most likely several tiles, road, and then come back.

I just don't see a WC until after settler #2. Upon discovery of the wheel, we can discuss it further, of course.

-Arrian

[alva]

We could one in our second city !?

Or do we have different ideas for that one?

Get cranking on that second build cue

[Arrian]

I figure the second city should build a warrior, a worker, and after that it depends on what terrain is available to the city and whether or not our exploring warriors have met anyone yet (the relative proximity of other civs will help decide whether or not we will need to engage in early war or not).

Yeah, I'm about to start writing it out so I can test it.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Clarification: I'm suggesting slipping a WC in after the 2nd Settler on T26.

[Arrian]

T26 is the FIRST settler, buddy. T36 is #2.

-Arrian