Current Information

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
There is a problem with going for the fp ASAP: wasted worker moves. Two of them, at least.

Darn. Wasted moves are bad...

Originally posted by Arrian
The part that will really hurt, actually, will be T23-T26. On T23 we build a settler, dropping EotS back to size 1 and adding yet another unit to support.

We're only founding our second city on the fourth turn after our Settler is complete? I thought we were going very a very close (3-tile) spacing. Plus, we will surely be making use of roads.

Originally posted by Arrian
One T26 we can build a second city, alleviating most of the strain.

All of the strain, actually. Unless we go for a big military really early, our cities should keep us out of support costs (4 units per city in Despotism, regardless of size).


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
On the other hand, I think Dominae is underestimating the value of producing veterans instead of regulars.

Probably!

Originally posted by nbarclay
Regular spearmen upgrade to regular pikemen, and then to regular musketmen, riflemen, and so on, so whenever war does come, they'll still be regulars. Veterans, in contrast, upgrade to veterans. That's four thirds the value for our upgrade gold, since we're upgrading four hit points' worth of fighting capability instead of three. The same goes for warriors upgrading to swordsmen and beyond, and WCs to knights and beyond. And vets are a notch closer to becoming elites and then leaders. So I truly hate building any more regular units than I have to.

Honestly, I'm all for building Barracks and producing Veterans. But a super-early Barracks, achieved by chopping lots of Forest and at the expense of the earliest-possible Settler, is pushing it. The Forest will still be there if we decide to build a Barracks once we start forming a real army (Spearmen and War Chariots). For now, Settlers and Warriors are the top priority.

I think most of us are planning for a very early attack. This a wise move, for sure, but we should also keep in mind that we most probably will not start fighting before we got a good amount of WCs up and ready. Again, there is plenty of time to build Barracks and crank out WCs just a bit later.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Dominae,

The second city I founded in my testing was founded 3 tiles away (6, 6, 9, build), and there are no roads to speed the settler to the site.

Nathan,

Sure, I can test throwing in a barracks after settler #1.

By the way, not that it is really relevant, but I tend to build a bunch of regular spearmen in my SP games. They are mostly for defense vs. barbs and/or an AI warrior rush. After my initial expansion is done, I build barracks and veteran attack troops... and I don't intend that my old regular spearmen (which yes, eventually become regular mechanized infantry) will ever see battle. This is of course probably a bad idea in MP.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

I never upgrade regs, or I should have cash in abundance. And even then, in many cases upgrading costs more then disbanding the obsolete unit in corrupt cities, and building a new one in your core cities...

DeepO

[Arrian]

Nathan:

Picking up after settler #1 is built (5 warrior/settler plan)...

T23: settler built. Size 1, 0f. begin irrigation (2nd fp), use fur, order barracks.
T24: 2f, 3s.
T25: 4f, 6s, irr done, road.
T26: 6f, 9s
T27: 8f, 12s, road done, move to fur
T28: 10f, 15s, chop
T29: 12f, 18s
T30: 14f, 21s
T31: 16f, 24s
T32: 18f, 27s
T33: Size 2. 0f, barracks done, chop done. Irrigate. Use 1 fur, 1fp. Order settler.
T34: 3f, 3s.
T35: 6f, 6s. Irr done, road.
T36: 9f, 9s.
T37: 12f, 12s, road done (furs connected). Move to last fur on this side of river.
T38: 15f, 15s. begin chop, switch to both furs
T39: 17f, 20s.
T40: 19f, 25s.
T41: settler done, size 1.

I think that's right. Minimal shield waste (2 on T33).

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Arrian, I like the most recent queue a lot. If we're going to build a Barracks, just after the first Settler is a good time. This is a bit far ahead, but do we go straight to WCs after the second Settler (assuming our Horses are hooked up), or take the more cautious Spearmen route?

3650BC shot just came in. The Wheel is at 14 turns right now (yay! Rivers and Luxuries). I think this is good enough to go with the 5 Warriors plan. With the growth of the city and upkeep costs balancing each other out, we should get The Wheel in ~14 turns.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

I'm not thrilled at the delay in the second settler (and thus all subsequent settlers) from the capital. That probably offsets the advantages of getting our second city founded earlier unless we find some good bonus food terrain. Still, the extra early warriors would come in handy, even if their upkeep is expensive. (Remember that counting our worker, we'll be at six units, seven during the time our first settler is heading for the city site.)

Arrian, I'm willing to bet that if you work an extra flood plain a turn earlier, EotS could grow to size 3 before the second settler a turn sooner and still produce the settler at the same time. That would give us a little extra food toward our third settler.

[Arrian]

Nathan,

Actually, I originally had a switch to floodplain one turn earlier, and the settler does indeed complete on the same turn, but I was actually trying to minimize use of floodplain at that stage. Nothing is worse than being a couple of turns shy of building a settler and getting hit with disease.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Ok, another possible variant: 5 warriors, then 2 settlers.

Picking up on T23...

T23: settler done, build another. Use fp. Begin irrigation
T24: 3f, 1s.
T25: 6f, 2s. Irr done, road.
T26: 9f, 3s.
T27: 12f, 4s, move worker to fur.
T28: 15f, 5s. Chop
T29: 18f, 6s. Switch citizen to fur.
T30: Size 2, 11s. Switch both citizens to fp.
T31: 4f, 12s.
T32: 8f, 13s.
T33: 12f, 24s (chop done). Road
T34: 16f, 25s.
T35: Size 3, 28s. Road done. Irrigate
T36: Size 1, 4f (? I think), settler done.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

So our 3rd settler would be 5 turns faster than with a barracks? Seems good, unless we encounter the GoW 8 tiles north of us

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I like the two-settlers-in-a-row variant best. Good job using the chop to speed the second settler up.

I hate gambling on flood plains early, but refusing to gamble is itself a gamble. We don't seem to be blessed with first-class terrain from what we've seen so far, so I'm not sure we have the luxury of playing it safe.

Nathan

[Arrian]

Nathan,

True. Things a looking a tad ugly so far w/respect to terrain.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Hm, I had assumed we wanted a Barracks in our early build queue...Personally, I always preferred exclusive Settler/Warrior queues anyway. If Arrian can make it happen (with minimal Flood Plain risk), that's good news.

If we end up 8 tiles away from Glory of War and they decide to attack us ASAP, we'll actually be glad we built 5 Warriors instead of a Barracks.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae
Hm, I had assumed we wanted a Barracks in our early build queue...Personally, I always preferred exclusive Settler/Warrior queues anyway. If Arrian can make it happen (with minimal Flood Plain risk), that's good news.

If we end up 8 tiles away from Glory of War and they decide to attack us ASAP, we'll actually be glad we built 5 Warriors instead of a Barracks.


Dominae

As long as we're building back-to-back settlers rather than military units, there's no point to a barracks, so speeding up the second settler rather than building a barracks makes lots of sense.

[notyoueither]

Hmmm, I think I like the 5 warrior, 2 settler variant.

We will have no enemies near us to the South most likely. I am guessing we only border 1 civ at most (to the North) or we are on an island.

If we are near the end of a peninsula with one civ to the North we will want to expand in that direction as fast as possible. Ditto if we are on an island, but for different reasons.

/Edit. I am not sure I am piecing things together properly. Could you post a complete 5W/2S plan, Arrian?