Turn 67, 1350 BC

[nbarclay]

To be edited by the leaders of the Scholia.

Status:
- Research idling at 0% investment (technically on Philosophy).
- 350 gold cash (including GoW's 100 surity), about +33 per turn.

Urgent questions:
- What do we want to build in Tempest? (Should be decided no later than Turn 69.)

Military:


Economy:
- Move a Hurricane laborer from an irrigated fur to an irrigated plains.
- EotS grows. Move its new laborer from the fur forest to an irrigated fur. (Should be on a 2-turn growth pace with a worker produced next turn.)
- Workers by Cyclone and Tornado finish mines, start roads.
- Workers we moved last turn start irrigation.
- Move Tempest's laborer to a hill. (Should still grow next turn, and this trades two gold for an extra shield, which could be a very good thing if it results in getting a worker a turn earlier.)


Diplomacy:
- May have some residual communications with GoW to take care of.
- May get Horseback Riding from Vox.

[Aeson]

How many of the irrigated furs is EotS using currently?

My vote is for at least 1 Worker in Tempest (preferably 2).

[nbarclay]

To keep up our worker pace at its current size, we'll need for EotS to alternate between using one and two of the irrigated furs. In a few turns, we'll chop the forest and use that to help build a settler, and once we get a mine in place, we'll need to keep one of the irrigated furs and the mine fur available for EotS.

An alternative would be to let EotS grow a bit bigger so it can replace quality of tiles with quantity. That would boost our income a little and give Hurricane a bit more production, but it would mean every worker EotS produces comes later than it would otherwise. I don't know whether that's worth it. (And with EotS planning to use a chop to help build a four-turn settler before too long, we can't grow more than half a pop point right now without hitting size 7 too early trying to build the settler.)

[Aeson]

Thanks, I wasn't exactly sure how we were handling EotC. Sounds like if we are going to bump it up to float at size 5, after the Settler would be the best time.

[nbarclay]

After the settler (and after we get the fur grassland mined), we could consider putting EotS on a cycle where it never drops below size 5, halfway to six. Then for production purposes, we'd always be working the mined grassland fur and two tiles that yield one production. The advantages are that we'd get more gold from the larger population and that Hurricane would get a bit of extra production. The disadvantage is that all our workers would come a couple turns later, leaving us with one less worker at any given time. Also note that EotS could maintain its current size, growth rate, and worker production rate without robbing an irrigated fur from Hurricane once we get Republic (since it will need one less flood plains tile then), although that's a fair bit away.

By the way, if we do want to bump up EotS's size, we could go ahead and do the first half of a pop point before the chop and the second half after.

Nathan

[Theseus]

I am an advocate of Nathan's plan... that's sort of the point, isn't it, to be working your best tiles as much as possible?

More than makes up for the Worker delay.

[Aeson]

The worker behind problem I think is negated if we decide to add workers to Hurricane to finish our wonder faster. This is because with EotC focusing on Workers (and if we go 2 Workers from Tempest) we will be slightly ahead in our terrain improvements anyways. The added production in Hurricane due to the extra fur tile will offset the delay in population growth, as the growth will only be adding 1 production. Make sense?

I think every turn we can shave off the Pyramids is important, more for the second wonder than for itself. Also, with 10 cities without Granaries, every turn earlier is likely to save us half a pop point.

[DeepO]

adding workers to Hurricane: YES! But please, timed right... maybe one to get to size 7 faster, but preferably all workers after that, so that Hurricane can use the iron asap (from whenever we can get to size 7, and need 20 turns to grow one pop)

I have been thinking on not building an extra settler in EotS, but using the chop to get more workers faster. If we first of all build 1 worker in 3 turns (giving the furs to Hurricane exclusively), and after that complete one in 1 turn, we're going to lose a bit of shields, but add more to Hurricane, and have enough workers to improve and hurry Hurricane.

DeepO

[alva]

I think every turn we can shave off the Pyramids is important, more for the second wonder than for itself.

Sorry Aeson, but I don't get this one.

[Aeson]

Our timing for adding workers to Hurricane is one of the things I'm working on. Certainly workers added after size 7 are more efficient, but getting up to that size as quickly as possible is also important. My initial run through with 1 worker in Tempest was pretty close to having all the terrain improved as we need them. I didn't build the EotS Settler though.

We may want to Irrigate the one Hurricane Grassland once we are in a Republic as well. That way we can hit size 12 and use both the Mountains. We can get above 30 shields per turn during our GA after corruption that way (Horses and Swords oh my! ). Otherwise we are stuck at 29 (32 with 3 corrupt). It doesn't matter for the Collosus, but that would still allow for 13 GA Units.

We get Tempest up to 20 per turn with an Aquaduct pretty easy (size 7 I think does it). Not sure if we can hit 30 though. Size 12 would be close but I'm not sure if corruption will let it be. Tempest might be better suited for a Library, Marketplace, Wonder prebuild GA.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by alva
Sorry Aeson, but I don't get this one.

Aeson's simulation tells us that we may actually be able to build two ancient age wonders (see GS Scenario thread). I think this is what he meant.

[Aeson]

(pardon if I am assuming too much about the wonders we want, I know it hasn't been decided on yet. This is just an 'if' we do go in this direction.)

I mean that if we build the Pyramids, we are likely to get it. Just guessing, but I don't think any of the other civs will have our capacity to pump up a city so fast, and Lego is likely the only one who could be pre-building a wonder long enough to beat us. The BOB civs have strong militaries compared to us, and given our relative number of cities, and the nature of our terrain, that suggests to me that no serious run at a wonder has been started on that continent yet.

Lego is much better suited by the GL (either of them ) than by the Pyramids at this point. They are possibly looking at being 5+ techs behind, and nothing much of value to trade to catch up unless they have a large stash of money.

As such, we may be able to beat a BOB team to the Collosus even if they start it (in the form of the GL or Pyramids prebuild) while we are building the Pyramids. No one else will be in a GA, and likely no one else will have a size 12 city. Best case, we could make a play for the GL in Tempest and Collosus in Hurricane after the Pyramids. Doubt we'd get the GL, but that's why it's 'best case'. Worst case (while still getting the Pyramids) is that someone is prebuilding a wonder on the coast, and when we get their desired wonder, they switch to our second choice and build it quickly. The earlier we can start on the Collosus, the less danger there is of this obviously.

My comment was that I feel losing the Collosus is more likely than losing the Pyramids given a few turns delay.

[alva]

Thank you

PS: I still think we should 'sell' the Great L to Lego even if we don't build it. .

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
They are possibly looking at being 5+ techs behind, and nothing much of value to trade to catch up unless they have a large stash of money.

Although in general I couldn't agree more with what you said (hard not to, I made the same points before, albeit not so detailed and structured), I don't fully agree on this. It seems everyone is willing to go for very cheap techs, Vox getting MM from GoW for 40 gold certainly confirms that. Lego could after MM (which they needed to beeline for, to get out of their isolation asap) stayed on 100% tax, and get some 200 gold in the treasury, enough to buy at least a few techs. Further, they have one thing that is certainly of value to most teams: their map. If they trade wisely, they can sell their map to 4 civs at once, giving them 4 techs... they are not that far behind that it won't get them back tech-wise.

BTW, If I was lego, I would certainly have done things differently: I would have put everything on the GL, and after that put myself on 40 turn research towards construction, and currency. By the time others contact lego, they could have been far along the tech tree, giving an isolationist, wealthy, and large empire techs farther then education. Of course, they would have needed enough territory, but with enough warriors or spears, they could protect their island until marines come around. No need for any fancy offensive units

DeepO

[nbarclay]

Numidians, not spears.

Keep in mind that Currency and Construction both require Mathematics as well as Writing, while Literature and Map Making (you didn't speciffy which GL ) do not. So after researching the needed tech for a GL, Lego would have to research Mathematics before starting on a 40-turn pace to Currency or Construction. Actually, Lego might do well to consider going for both GLs, since they need contact for the Great Library to bring in techs. (Although if they've made contact by now, the need for the Great Lighthouse is largely gone.)

Nathan