Turn 23

[Harovan]

No, we don't have the save yet.

So far this is space for diplomatic reports about our running negotiations and recommendations for the next turn.

[Dominae]

If we do not hear from Vox, I suggest Grog moves up to explore the chokepoint, Slash moves West to intercept Tim and Hack moves up to shadow Willy (I believe everyone is agreed on this course of action).

Our second city will begin by building a Warrior, correct? If so, I think Ouch should begin moving North either this turn or the next, since there is no danger of Barbs from any other direction.

We should check if we're going to have Pottery by the time we accumulate enough Shields. How full is the Food box?


Dominae

[ManicStarSeed]

I will opostthe reply here once I get one.

If we do not here from VOX soon, I suggest setteling the chokepoint ASAP.

Mss

[nbarclay]

Food box: We're about to grow to size 3, so it will be empty.

Aording to my test scenario, we'll do fine on research. We can max our science rate once we have our second city, which should put research time down to four turns - one turn ahead of completion of the granary (assuming we work one FP and two furs each turn).

My current though is to have EotS use a FP, an irrigated fur, and the forest fur by the river this turn and then switch to using both irrigated furs and a FP from then on until it reaches size 5. That sticks Hurricane with an unimproved grassland along the river most off the time, but it gets our granary finished quickly and puts us well on our way to a settler for our third city. It also times things so we grow shortly after building the granary instead of shortly before (since using both irrigated or soon-to-be irrigated FPs would delay building the granary), with the paradox that by growing the city later, we actually end up ahead in the size/food combination. I'm not thrilled at stunting Hurricane's production, but I think starting to exploit #3 more quickly is more important. (By the way, watching for opportunities to exploit the delayed-growth paradox as granaries near completion is a key ingredient in settler pump strategy.)

Ouch needs to stay home, since building our next settler ASAP means we can only have one more warrior by the time it's ready without compromising growth and thus future production (unless someone can find a better way to manage our builds).

Barbarians from the far South are a very regular feature in my test scenario. We can't rule them out in the actual game.

Nathan

[alva]

What are your barb settings in the tes scenario? They bugged me too quite alot

And yes, please, first the granary before growth...!!

Not that I would support this course of action, but it is an option:
we could try to take the warriors out.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Food box: We're about to grow to size 3, so it will be empty.

Good, I was just thinking about the Settler-pump strategy you just described. Glad to see we're on the same wavelength for once!

Originally posted by nbarclay
Ouch needs to stay home, since building our next settler ASAP means we can only have one more warrior by the time it's ready without compromising growth and thus future production (unless someone can find a better way to manage our builds).

Are you saying Hurricane will produce 1 Warrior, then begin a Settler immediately? If so, where will that Settler go? Assuming it is to the nearest site (in the Desert), we may not need a defender in Hurricane: by placing the new Warrior somewhere in the Mountain range, Barbs will appear far enough away that we can muster reiforcements easily. So I think Ouch should get his butt up North. If Hurricane is to produce 2 Warriors, there is no problem and Ouch should again move North.

Concerning the chokepoint, it is definitely an important place for a city, but I think we should get settle closer to home first. Once we have 7 or so cities, maybe we can consider sending a Settler that far North.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Come to think of it, we're lacking a Warrior to protect the Settler that will be going toward our third city site. So if Hurricane is only building 1 Warrior, Ouch should not move North but return to Eye of the Storm to help defend our third city.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

The problem is competition for irrigated furs. Under my current plan, EotS can (barely) build a settler six turns after it finishes the granary and still end up at size 4 when it's finished. But in order to do that, EotS needs to hog the irrigated furs for itself most of the time.

I tried an alternative approach with Hurricane using forest furs two turns to reduce shield wastage that had been due to timing and was able to get a second warrior built in Hurricane pretty much just as EotS finished its settler. I then had Hurricane build a worker to bring tile competition back down for a while, and at the same time had EotS build three workers (one in three turns and the next two in two). After that, Hurricane built a barracks (double-chop-assisted) while EotS was in a good position to crank out back-to-back settlers (using a chop to speed up the second one). By the time the dust cleared from all that, all three remaining furs were cleared of forest, which should leave plenty of growth-oriented tiles to go around. (In my experiment, I had our original worker start work on a road north after finishing work on our northernmost fur tile.)

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alva
What are your barb settings in the tes scenario? They bugged me too quite alot

The scenario I started from indicates Roaming.

[Dominae]

I've done no testing of this myself, but is it really a good idea to be produce three Workers in our Settler-pump city during our REX phase? The competition of resources between Eye and Hurricane is frustrating, but Settlers should be our top priority.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Three workers seems excessive... but one out of the new city (warrior, worker or warrior, warrior, worker) and one out of EotS would be good. The one from the new city can develop its terrain, and the one from EotS can be sent to road to the next city.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae
I've done no testing of this myself, but is it really a good idea to be produce three Workers in our Settler-pump city during our REX phase? The competition of resources between Eye and Hurricane is frustrating, but Settlers should be our top priority.

We might possibly be able to get away with one less, but we'll need workers eventually and I want to avoid snags that would reduce the total number of settlers+workers that EotS can build. And the workers all serve useful purposes.

(1) We want a road north for military, settling, and trade purposes (and the settler who builds it may end up stopping to serve as #13's worker).

(2) City #3 needs a worker (who can road to it along the way), and supplying the worker from EotS lets it kick into settler pump mode sooner. (I've about made up my mind I want a second settler/worker pump there.)

(3) We need a road to the horse site (starting off following the road to #3), and eventually to the city we'll build next to that site.

(4) We need to irrigate to the horse city if we want any kind of growth in it.

(5) Once Hurricane gets a barracks, I want it to be a fair-sized town, not something that builds settlers as quickly as possible, so it can become our leading supplier of war chariots. And it may even attempt a wonder sometime. That calls for more tile improvements around it.

That (plus a little work around EotS one or two of them would do first) accounts for our original worker, the one Hurricane produces, and the three EotS produces. It's not like we'd be building workers who have nothing of any short-term value to do.

After the three workers (or two if a test that way works out), EotS can start focusing on settlers until we get to a point where workers are our bigger problem again.

Nathan

[ManicStarSeed]

Envoy recieved...

For the diplomatic discussion, See this discussion thread

For the Vox Diplomatic record See this thread

Enjoy,
Mss

[nbarclay]

I just realized our free settler is even more of a blessing than I initially realized. With five warriors, it would have been a financial nightmare to switch EotS over to a settler pump without building a second city first. But that burden gets replaced with a couple gpt bonus when we found our second city, letting EotS go into settler/worker pump mode earlier than would be practical otherwise given our early choices.

Nathan

[DeepO]

Well, I vote for 3 early workers, if this is possible to combine in all the plans. We need roads, lots of them, and these are not going to build themselves. Plus, we need to cross the jungle asap.

#3 into another pump: I thought we more or less agreed on this (at least I do ), but I've got 2 questions: first of all, we need to settle #7 soon to get to our horses. Second, for #3 to work at topspeed, we should settle #4 soon as well (or build a temple in #3), so we get access to another wheat, and some extra SG. More testing will be needed to see if we get time to build these settlers from EotS...

DeepO