What about Hurricane?

[Harovan]

EotS lacks a barracks to build units. Do we really want to waste shields on regulars?

[notyoueither]

We could insert a Barracks into the que if needed. It will be a sizable city and could build one quite quickly.

[DeepO]

Well, I have to agree with NYE, plus I'd like to point out one problem with Nathan's thinking: we have so few troops in the test scenario, because both pumps were pumping settlers, and workers get build elsewhere. So the ratio between cities and troops goes down. If EotS gets converted to a worker / unit pump once Cyclone is up, expansion would be a little less swift (but still far better then what Vox can deliver), but much more balanced. We wouldn't need Hurricane as a troop builder, as we can defend our empire with what we have.

So, the problem with Hurricane is that as our second city, it obviously is good as a unit producer, but it could become a wonder city as well. But, by making both EotS and Cylcone into purely growth pumps, we lose balance. So, we can either destroy a wonder city, or take back our enthousiasm on the 2 pumps... I definately vote for having one pump set to workers some more, instead of pumping out cities that our military thinks are hard to defend (which I more or less agree with).

With more workers, there are a couple of advantages, better and faster growing cities, better defensive road network (we need a lot of workers to get the roads done in a timely way, look at all the mountains we need to cross. Forts would be nice as well), and with an abundance of workers, we could supersize Hurricane, building the Pyramids faster, and getting it back faster as a super unit producer.

I think that much more logical than building another 5 units in Hurricane, which will mean our army size will be nice, but our chances of building a wonder get awfully slim.

DeepO

[notyoueither]

With the 1675 scenario I believe both Nathan and I were using EotS for almost purely Worker production. It slows the Pyramids down a bit, but inserting some units would not be catastrophic. Or, new cities build their own workers and the Pyramids stay on schedule.

Cyclone at 4 turns per Settler fills the space fast.

[nbarclay]

DeepO, in my test run, I built exactly three settlers in EotS, two while it was growing back to size and one using a chop on our last fur forest around EotS. The rest of the time, it was pumping out workers to try to catch up and keep up with our growth (and to pile into Hurricane once we got a bit ahead in tile improvements). I'm not sure I built any workers anywhere but EotS and Tempest through the whole test; it wasn't a case of building workers all over the place so new cities stay small.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Gambling on high stakes (survival or not) in a MP game?

Since the average case gets great payback and the worst-case is extremely unlikely (IMO), this is hardly reckless gambling. Plus, any strong player knows when to gamble and when not to. Or should we play "too conservative"?


Dominae

[DeepO]

Hmmm.. sorry, I didn't had time to thoroughly check your tests now. I noticed at least a few settlers, I was thinking last night of trying the scenario with only workers produced (after the first settler which we can't stop anymore). Cyclone is fast enough, that's not the issue, so the workers can help.

BTW, did anyone considered using workers to pump the size of Tempest or Bolderberg? Or any other barracks city? Workers are cheap when produced from EotS, nobody has said that they an exclusively be used on wonder cities. Tempest seems like a good choice too, as it is also a high commerce site (with the river), which can't both grow and produce at the same time.

Even if the vote atm is in favour of the spear, it is by a very small margin. I don't feel very comfortable using it in our turn, however I do agree that we can't postpone things indefinately, so let's go ahead..

DeepO

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DeepO
BTW, did anyone considered using workers to pump the size of Tempest or Bolderberg? Or any other barracks city?

I had considered it, but didn't say it loudly, because I didn't want to anger the wonder folks yet more. By the way, I did so in a PBEM game of mine, where I'm under siege of, ahem, the black plague. This, combined with some mild poprushing, works a charm.

[alva]

That would make a good comprimise IMHO.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
This, combined with some mild poprushing, works a charm.

Or so pink-men think.

[Theseus]

Two Immortals.

That's all... and we'll be sh-tting in our pants.

As Aeson said: what would we do to beat us?

[DeepO]

SR, why would it anger the wonder folks? I consider myself one of them, and if adding workers to other cities can get us out of this defense problem it would be good for my beloved wonder.

I want to at least get a balance in terms of production in the game, and having 2 settler pumps with 1 or 2 barracks cities is simply not enough. Having Hurricane on troops instead of on a wonder might still not be enough, as those 2 pumps are too good for us, and we need to deal with them anyway.

So what we have is an opportunity to build a wonder in one city, an opportunity to get good in commerce in another (Tempest), 2 super growth cities (size++ each 2 turns), and a few moderate cities which we plan to use military. Rather then sacrificing the wonder, to get balanced, I'd rather sacrifice a bit of growth as it is cheaper (unless disease hits us). Each worker added to a city is likely to give us an extra shield, which means that in 40 turns (which is about the period were looking at), that worker is worth 2 spears. The trade of pop to production is a valid one, and it may be the tool we need to get both Hurricane as a good wonder city, and the needed military to feel safe.

It's not exclusive, I don't mind if EotS builds 20 workers in those 40 turns, uses 6 for pumping Hurricane, 8 for regular improving, and another 8 for pumping barracks cities. I don't think that workers need to go either to Hurricane or to other cities, we will have enough to do both.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

If EotS skips the second of the three settlers I'd planned, that would get workers down to help out #4 a lot more quickly. Two workers down there could get it caught up on tile improvements at a fairly rapid pace, and then one worker could join the city to get its production up to a decent level more quickly. EotS could still build what I'd planned to be its third settler when we're ready to chop the last fur forest, so we'd only be one settler behind in our REXing pattern.

Opinions?

[alva]

Sounds good

[DeepO]

My opinion is that what you propose can be a start, but I'd like to test it out what pure worker building in EotS can do to us. My guess is that if e.g. Bolderberg gets pumped to size 5 or 6 (using a mountain to balance), it could be a good barracks city. #4 would be my least choice of pumping, as it has extra food on its own. But if there are enough workers to add, it certainly can help as well.

One note to take into account: a worker is in EotS cheaper then half a settler, and on our production and commerce it is many times better to add a worker to a good city, then it is to create a bad, new city. Of course, in the end you need more cities, but we won't lose this capability by making better but fewer cities early on. ASs long as we make sure we can catch up, of course, but catching up won't ever be a problem with a city like Cyclone helping us. We simply need to make sure that we don't overproduce ourselves.

DeepO