Turn 46

[nbarclay]

Keep in mind that we have to improve not only tiles around Hurricane but also tiles around EotS (including chopping and mining a forest fur there) in order to use Hurricane as a wonder city without crippling EotS as a settler pump. Not only that, but we need to borrow a worker for at least a couple turns to get Cyclone going as fast as I want to in order to make up for some of the time we're losing in EotS, and if we settle the gold city, I'll want to borrow a worker for five turns to irrigate and road a flood plain to help get that city jump-started. Considering that we won't even have all our workers built ten turns from now, I'm skeptical that we'll be ready to do all the worker adding we'll want to in 20 turns, much less in 10. This is not a simple operation.

Nathan

[DeepO]

Nathan what about timing on Cyclone's part? Do we need the second wheat soon (i.e. in the next 20 turns)? Otherwise we shuold go for site #4, instead of the gold one.

I agree we need a lot of workers, and 6 workers in 20 turns is rather hard, but there are a few good things: we can hopefully use some of Vox's slaves if we decide to let them participate in the fun, and the moment we go to size 9 or 10, we can use all the workers we have at that moment, if replacements are on their way. We should be able to get to that goal without comprising improving our other cities too much.

What is the plan with the worker building a road towards Bolderberg, is it meant to also irrigate up to Cyclone and Bolderberg? it can bring water to Bolderberg in 17 turns, just in time for it to hit size 3. After that, it can easily help Cyclone out... which already has a worker on its own.

DeepO

[Shiber]

Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to recall the idea of borrowing workers from Vox.
Nathan, do you think that 1/2 free early medieval age tech of their choice for every worker would sound fair?

[nbarclay]

Just to elaborate, we're already one improved tile short of being able to support Hurricane at size 2 and EotS at size 6 simultaneously without someone's being stuck working an unimproved tile. That's with us working three FPs at all times, but we'll need EotS to drop to just using one FP part of the time, so that's two more tiles needed. Have Hurricane grow by two on its own, and that's a total of five tiles that need improved just to make up those gaps. Plus, each worker added needs to improve a tile either to work once he's added or for a displaced EotS laborer to work. Then there's the fact that one of the tiles involved is a forest that needs cleared before it can be mined and roaded, and also the little side trips I mentioned above.

That means we have to average about two tiles improved per worker before they can be added. But if we add some workers early to get Hurricane working as many furs as practical as early as practical, that leaves still more load on the remaining workers. That's why I don't see us being ready to grow Hurricane beyond size 6 in much less than 20 turns. And if it's almost there anyhow, we may as well let it get there and either save a worker or end up with one higher population.

Nathan

[Harovan]

Ok, I loaded the turn. Compared to Vox, our military is average (I check that every now and then).

Important news, Vox plopped Dissidentville 1 tile south of the jungle wheat. I didn't see the settler run, it must have slipped through when Grog was hunting barbarians.

As for the vet warrior and the chop assisted spearman, well, it's not an appropriate defense, of course, but it's a beginning. Some more forces to hunt barbarians and to monitor our terrain. As for my support for the GL project with added workers, I support it, if matters of continued growth and defense are addressed appropriately. Apart from the 2 vet units, we should build 2 barracks (the one in Hurricane not counting, as it would be not usable for unit building for long) and after this build more spearmen, one more vet warrior (we don't have more upgrade money) and a couple of WC's. My second concern, continued expansion, should be addressed as well, making sure, that we won't have to wait till the settler factory in Cyclone is ready, but that EotS will be put into condition to build more settlers after the workers, although with reduced speed.

Discuss!

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by DeepO
What is the plan with the worker building a road towards Bolderberg, is it meant to also irrigate up to Cyclone and Bolderberg? it can bring water to Bolderberg in 17 turns, just in time for it to hit size 3. After that, it can easily help Cyclone out... which already has a worker on its own.

One thing I need to do this weekend is catch the team up on my long-term planning.

1) My plans to get Cyclone the food it needs involve working one wheat and chopping and irrigating the game forest. That leaves the remaining wheat for other cities. (And Bolderberg can eventually take over the irrigated game in order to mine more plains, assuming workers are too busy working new tiles to modify existing ones.)
2) Toward that end, the worker heading toward Bolderberg will move 1, then road, then move onto game forest and start chopping.
3) The first new worker from EotS will irrigate the two previously roaded tiles. (He can get help from the second worker on the second tile if necessary, but if I remember right, it won't be.) That will allow Worker #1 to irrigate the game tile as soon as he finishes chopping.

From there, if the worker Cyclone built mines and roads the wheat and then starts mining and roading shielded grasslands, Cyclone should be at size 4 with a granary and able to pump out 2-turn workers in 20 turns (assuming I calculated correctly the other day). It will need a little more mining before it can grow a little more and start building settlers, though. (If I can get to it, I do need to verify that a workable 4-turn settler pump pattern exists for Cyclone; otherwise, it needs to start building 5-turn settlers at a smaller size.)

Nathan

[nbarclay]

My goal is that EotS will resume full-speed settler production after it finishes the workers.

Regarding warriors for upgrades, we'll be taking in huge amounts of gold (well over 20 per turn) once we add those workers to Hurricane, so a lot depends on how we feel about building veteran warriors for possible upgrade versus upgrading regulars and using our shields to build other units.

Nathan

[DeepO]

Nathan, let's assume for the moment we're aiming for size 6 in Hurricane in 20 turns, no earlier then that. No need to try to calculate any timing before that, it won't be possible...

With the worker movements you suggest, we should have enough to improve all Hurricane tiles (except the iron, perhaps) around turn 20, and have a few workers running around making other improvements, no? It should leave us the option of starting on a settler immediately in EotS, while other cities are already working towards a worker (the gold city would be nice to build a worker fast), or very close to it.

If we got surplus, we can pump the size of Hurricane faster, but that won't net us as much as getting it to final size fast. Shields should balance out: if we add a worker on an unimproved tile, shield wise it's exactly the same if that worker improved the tile first, and was added after that. But in commerce, there is something to say for getting more tiles quickly, as it will provide more commerce for each tile worked. The best to do is to add workers as quickly as a newly improved tile can be worked, as long as it doesn't keep us from improving a next one (the iron might take 2 workers to be done quickly)... we should be able to get Hurricane to maximum size in 20-25 turns.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Re: Dissidentville:

Is there now any reason not to accept the border treaty as proposed? I'm voting to get the treaty ratified asap. We already lost what seemed to be the primary discussion point: the location of Vox's closest city. From now on, we can only gain from signing it.

DeepO

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Important news, Vox plopped Dissidentville 1 tile south of the jungle wheat.

Regarding location: I understand why they're settling this site so early. Although it's farther from their capital than several other sites and will suffer from high corruption (at least until it is connected by road. Still two more tiles to go), they need the food for growth. Ok, we've discussed this already. But what's important is that their production capabilities will be very limited for the time, since Dissidentville will focus on growth and settlers/workers, and can't build much even if it wasn't corrupt. Furthermore, the fact that they settled a growth city prior to a production city means that they're not aiming at producing mil. units at the moment, but settlers and workers.
All this should significantly lessen our fear of an early immortals rush.

Regarding name: this implies that Dissident is a key player in their team. IIRC, one or more of us is playing a PBEM game with Dissident. Is there anything you can say about his strategies?

Originally posted by DeepO
Is there now any reason not to accept the border treaty as proposed? I'm voting to get the treaty ratified asap. We already lost what seemed to be the primary discussion point: the location of Vox's closest city. From now on, we can only gain from signing it.

Agreed!

[nbarclay]

If they want Dissidentville for food for growth, I suspect that they'll be disappointed, especially since they planted it in the worst of their possible sites in terms of corruption. They'll probably need to gross four shields, maybe even more than that, before they can net more than one, so the best the city will be able to do is 10-turn workers and an occasional pop rush. (Pop rushing could do sustainable 21-turn settlers, which is actually worse than a closer city could put out.)

[Conqueror]

I just cant figure out why to build Dissidentville there so early when much better positions were available near the isthmus.

Either Voxians are drunk or that is some very clever plan we havent figured out yet.

I sure hope its Dissident who is making the calls in their team, since his playing style is somewhat irrational, i just destroyed one of his cities in Earth PBEM - he had no units in a border city Even tho he had seen my units coming that way for several turns.

[zeit]

Nathan isn't Dissidentville located at a site you and Vox havn't talked about- wasn't this supposed to be located "1" and and not "2" from the wheat?

I see that the Voxian right hand doesn't realize what its left one is doing, or at least doesn't care. Indeed, a very bad city site, but we need to revise the border treaty, and make sure we are compensated.

Re: revised order- my full support, as this will give us further versatility.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by zeit
Nathan isn't Dissidentville located at a site you and Vox havn't talked about- wasn't this supposed to be located "1" and and not "2" from the wheat?

It's exactly where Nathan suggested that it be built, according to the latest plan in the GS mailbox.

Originally posted by Conqueror
Either Voxians are drunk or that is some very clever plan we havent figured out yet.

I don't like to underestimate my enemies, but I'd guess that they're just drunk. This isn't the first time we see evidence to how unorganized and unwise our neighbors are.

[nbarclay]

Jon had expressed a desire for that site, and I guess in light of our having two more cities than I'd originally calculated when we were negotiating, they decided to press the issue. Definitely a dangerous game for Vox to play, but very possibly a deliberate decision on their team's part to grab what they could while there is no treaty to stand in their way. Now if we want a border treaty, we have little choice but to accept that spot.