Turn 36

[Dominae]

Sir Ralph, I was not aware that Hurricane was getting so little food. Is it not possible to give it at least 2 per turn?

Shiber, if a city is growing at a normal rate (2 food per turn at sizes 1 and 2), then it is definitely worthwhile to build Settlers in the early-game. That's the whole point of rapid expansion. Setting aside towns too early for military production seriously reduces growth, and wastes gold. And, the "loss" of production in Hurricane is more than made up for by the city the Settler will found.

Nathan, is it possible to get the Settler out before the Barracks? Doing Barracks-Spearmen-Settler is wasteful compared to Settler-Barracks-Spearmen.

And about the tech-trading thing, I agree that we need to get Iron Working to make sure we're militarily potent (love that word!). But the more we're convinced that Vox is going to attack, the less it makes sense to trade with them. Who knows what they're getting from other teams for our techs? Worst-case scenario: gold for Immortal upgrades.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

The corruption figure I gave is for after the fur by Hurricane is chopped and roaded, which connects Hurricane to EotS.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Shiber
I think the most efficient thing to do is to build settlers and workers in our pump cities, and build settlers in non-pump cities only when the population is growing too high.

I guess I missed this quote earlier. In my SP games, I've found that, apart from Settler pumps, the best thing to do is to ensure most cities finish a Settler the turn they grow to size 3. Admittedly this has a lot to do with difficulty level, since on Emperor you do not want you cities to grow much beyond that. But still I'm not convinced that slowing our growth to build an early Barracks is a good idea. We proposed this way back when we were figuring out our early Eye queues, and voted against it then. The situation is definitely different now, but I'm thinking we still have time to prepare.

Another general point that just came to mind is that we're never going to produce enough Spearmen to set up an adequate static defense in the eventuality that Vox does strike early. They've got too many Jungle, Hill and Mountain tiles to sidestep us with. Thus Spearmen at this stage will not be very useful. Better wait until we can produce WCs, IMO.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Hurricane is getting two surplus food per turn, and will continue to do so. But it just dropped back to size 1 building a worker, so it has to get to size 2 before it can go to size 3. That's where 19 turns to size 3 comes from.

In a REX built on exponential growth, setting towns aside early and not having them build settlers is really bad for growth. But in a REX strategy built around high-powered settler pumps, it's not nearly as big a deal because a single settler pump can do the job of four or five cities with no granary and only two surplus food.

Hurricane should get its barracks in either 10 or 11 turns; I'm not going to try to pin it down more precisely right now. If it's eleven, Hurricane could build the barracks and then still build a settler as soon as it hits size 3. If it's ten, we'd actually need something in between the barracks and the settler to avoid throwing away shields. So even if we have Hurricane build a settler shortly after it hits size 3, a barracks won't get in the way.

Nathan

[Theseus]

Dominae, we need both Spearmen and WCs. WCs only would leave too many mountain / hill attack paths for Vox... we have to funnel them down onto flatlands for the WCs to be effective.

[nbarclay]

What I want most defense-wise, assuming iron is available, is a few vet warriors we can upgrade to swordsmen if Vox starts threatening.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
In a REX built on exponential growth, setting towns aside early and not having them build settlers is really bad for growth. But in a REX strategy built around high-powered settler pumps, it's not nearly as big a deal because a single settler pump can do the job of four or five cities with no granary and only two surplus food.

Would expansion not be even faster if the Settler-pump cities were complemented by Settlers from the other cities as well? Given your willingness to produce a Settler in Hurricane, I think you agree.

Originally posted by nbarclay
Hurricane should get its barracks in either 10 or 11 turns; I'm not going to try to pin it down more precisely right now. If it's eleven, Hurricane could build the barracks and then still build a settler as soon as it hits size 3. If it's ten, we'd actually need something in between the barracks and the settler to avoid throwing away shields. So even if we have Hurricane build a settler shortly after it hits size 3, a barracks won't get in the way.

Hm, too bad the timing is off. Perhaps the Worker was not such a good idea in the first place. In any case, your plan with what we have makes sense.

Theseus, Vet. Warriors sounds like a better plan than Spearmen (I had forgotten that we were even going for Swordsmen). Like I said above, we need a lot of Spearmen to effecitvely funnel the Voxian troops, and this is assuming they will attack with one big stack. I think a dynamic defense based on counter-attacks is better. The only problem will be generating enough gold for the upgrades...

Edit: Just a minute. How were you planning to funnel them with Spearmen, Theseus? Maybe we do not need so many after all (somewhere around 4). I still prefer Swordsmen for counter-attack, though.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae


Would expansion not be even faster if the Settler-pump cities were complemented by Settlers from the other cities as well? Given your willingness to produce a Settler in Hurricane, I think you agree.

I agree that we'd grow faster. What I'm skeptical of is whether we'd grow enough faster to be worth the military risk involved in building a settler instead of having the city focus on units for a while first. That's doubly true with the #7 site city (also intended to be a leading producer of military units) delayed by several turns.

Hm, too bad the timing is off. Perhaps the Worker was not such a good idea in the first place. In any case, your plan with what we have makes sense.

Dominae, have you been watching Hurricane shuffle its laborer back and forth between fur forests for production and unimproved grassland for better growth? We needed that extra worker pretty badly. Further, when EotS works both irrigated furs, Hurricane couldn't stay at size 2 without cutting its food production in half due to not having enough tiles with decent food to work.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, have you been watching Hurricane shuffle its laborer back and forth between fur forests for production and unimproved grassland for better growth? We needed that extra worker pretty badly. Further, when EotS works both irrigated furs, Hurricane couldn't stay at size 2 without cutting its food production in half due to not having enough tiles with decent food to work.

Admittedly, I have not been following the Laborers too closely lately. I was commenting on the big picture, and did not consider the (important) details. So strike my Worker criticism from the record. I just feel it is my role at this point to push for Settlers, because everyone else is thinking about war.


Dominae

[asleepathewheel]

We not only need ironworking to build swords, we need to know exactly where to attack their resource chain. Thus, I would put trading for this on a high priority.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
..., because everyone else is thinking about war.

I doubt, that anyone seriously considers war at this point, but to overlook the obvious military road building and to neglect on our defense, would be very dangerous. An MP game needs a balanced development, growth and defense are equally important. Remember, they can compare our strength compared to theirs in the military advisor screen. To be "strong" compared with us could give them thoughts. In SP you can neglect on defense, because the AI is predictable.

[DeepO]

True... I think that is the whole point here. I don't mind building settlers, or better yet workers from Hurricane, but not to let it hit size 1 again. The best would be if we can balance our expansion so that Hurricane is always at least size 3 or 4, which makes it a verry powerful unit builder. This takes the pressure off the other cities... remember that of our 4 first cities, 2 won't build units for a long time, we need to compensate this.

Further, we need a few spears, as we can't rely on WCs alone (and swords are a bit too expensive on defense). We don't need vast hordes of spears now, that won't do any good, but as always, balance will be most effective.

And, Dominae, you're right in the tense situation with Vox, and thus the weirdness in trading techs right now, but it is for the moment our only chance. We need them to get some techs, and get to other civs quickly. Also, the faster we can get all civs to a certain level in tech, the better it wil be for us. We have the best prospects of researching ourselves (even with our bad luck, of getting hit by disease), so we should build on this advantage. The faster Vox gets all the basic (level 1 and 2) techs, the faster their research will halt. If we can reach this point with a decent defense, we will have put them aside, and make them a good target for a later war. Trading techs will in this respect be best, we should be the first of us two to reach the middle era.

DeepO

[Dominae]

DeepO, in general I agree with you. But:

Originally posted by DeepO
Also, the faster we can get all civs to a certain level in tech, the better it wil be for us. We have the best prospects of researching ourselves (even with our bad luck, of getting hit by disease), so we should build on this advantage.

How do you know we have the best prospects for research? Do you mean between us and Vox, or among all other teams?


Dominae

[DeepO]

Well, the disease was unfortunate, as it might disturb our greatness. But most likely, we will have the biggest expansion, due to our EotS settler pump. Further, we have nice terrain, with a gold city as 5th city, and already a river through 2 cities (which will grow a bit bigger, because we need them at a certain size, and not at size 1). This combined mean that we will have the best commerce, thus the best research posibility. Of all teams.

BTW, it will only be temporary, as we need to build libraries everywhere if we want to keep this position, and we can't predict now in what kind of a situation we will be.

DeepO

[alva]

EDIT:
x-post .
So nevermind