Turn 21

[DeepO]

Dominae, you got a point when it comes to the WCs and jungle clearance, but I hope you're right when it comes to a possible attack. If they beelined for it, Vox will be close to discover ironworking. If so, they don't need archers (which would require another tech, BTW).

DeepO

[Dominae]

I'm not too worried about defense at this point. Vox needs a bunch more turns to muster a effective offense, and we'll see them coming a mile away. As a precaution we could hook up the Horses with our fourth city (second built Settler), in case we need to pump out a few WCs to push back an early attack.


Dominae

[DeepO]

Oh, I definately would hook up the horses by the time our fourth city gets founded, we simply can't risk that we need to connect horses the moment we see them coming. But keep one thing in mind: in between settlers, we need something to build in most cities (except the pumps). Why build 2 warriors, when you could be building a WC?

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I think the position Ouch is in is best for our free settler because it lets that city and EotS divide the furs between them however makes sense at a given time. Otherwise, we're likely to waste a fur or two a lot of the time while EotS is in settler pump mode and/or can build something just as quickly using a 1-shield tile in place of a fur part of the time.

I just ran a test in which I built a granary in EotS and still had #3 founded and a worker to help improve it just about seven turns after #3 would have reached the same state had it been founded immediately but had to build a worker itself. I even built a road from EotS to #3 along the way. So I think the early granary is worth it, although the flood plains do add some danger to delaying our third city.

In general, the key issue regarding how practical it is to build a settler before a granary is the number of bonus food tiles the city has. With just one food bonus, dropping back to size one after building a settler doesn't cost any access to food tiles. But with EotS, dropping back to size 1 means we can only get three surplus food instead of four or five, and then only by reducing production to 1. The best path to a granary that way would be to work a flood plain for four turns and then go pure furs. If my calculations are right, we'd end up needing 17 turns to get a granary after we build the settler, and we wouldn't hit size 3 until another turn after that (but at least we'd have a full granary to help us toward size 4). The one good thing about the delay is that our worker would be farther along on tile improvements by then, so there would be a little less competition for tiles between EotS and #2.

Nathan

[alva]

although the flood plains do add some danger to delaying our third city.

Slightly off-topic,
whenever disease strikes, you can bet your *rse, it will strike again next turn.
It's abit like a resource dissapearing and immediatly reappearing on the same tile.

I agree with Dominae here, at the moment WC's are not our prime concern. Stopping those two warriors is IMHO

[Theseus]

Thanks for the very clear explanation, Nathan.

My sense is that we build the granary, and stay focused on REXing. Vox is just too far away to be a big worry as of yet.

I'd like to see town #2 where Ouch is.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by alva
whenever disease strikes, you can bet your *rse, it will strike again next turn.
It's abit like a resource dissapearing and immediatly reappearing on the same tile.

This is most likely a bug, and I'm tired reporting it. It's in the game since 1.07f. Disease always strikes twice. Stupid, if you ask me.

[DeepO]

Thanks for the explanation, Nathan. Looks like granries are the way to go, then.

As to the disease striking twice: has anybody tried to have all workers off the fps the second turn, does it happen then too? Frankly, I haven't seen it happening, or somehow it didn't register...

DeepO

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by DeepO

As to the disease striking twice: has anybody tried to have all workers off the fps the second turn, does it happen then too? Frankly, I haven't seen it happening, or somehow it didn't register...

I'm pretty sure I've tried it and it didn't protect me, but not quite 100% positive.

Nathan

[Arrian]

I've definitely tried that, and it didn't work. Even if all citizens are reallocated to non-fp tiles, you will still get hit again.

This is why I hate floodplains.

-Arrian