Turn 71, 1250BC

[Harovan]

To be edited by the leaders of the Scholia.

Status:
- Researching Republic at 100%.
- 289 gold cash, +1 gpt (thanks to our 5gpt from ND).

Urgent questions:
- What will we offer GoW for Legoland contact?

Military:

Economy:
- Reconfigure EotS and Hurricane laborers so EotS works its three flood plains, an irrigated fur, and a 2-food/1-shield tile, and Hurricane works three irrigated furs and a 2-food/1-shield tile. (I just noticed that this will alternate EotS producing four and six shields, eliminating the need to chop the fur forest if we don't want to. Note that in Republic, two FPs and the fur forest would balance to create the right food surplus for two-turn workers, and Hurricane could have all the irrigated furs then.)
- New worker from EotS moves to the fur forest to prepare for a chop.
- Worker on the flood plains by Tempest finished road; moves 8-9.
- Worker by Bolderberg finished road; moves 3-6.
- Worker 8-9 from Tornado finished road. Moves 8-9.
- Bolderberg finishes spearman. Starts War Chariot.
- Worker north of Tempest starts road. (We don't need the mine yet, and extra mobility might conceivably come in handy.)

Diplomacy:

Thread library:
- Standing orders for workers

[DeepO]

One question: isn't it possible to get typhoon onto a library, instead of a temple? I know I asked this before, but don't remember if an answer was given... I can fully understand if a temple would give a better timing, but in this game, temples seem such a waste unless we need to build cathedrals...

DeepO

[Harovan]

Well, we build it mostly for the culture, not happiness effect, and a temple is just cheaper. At the moment, both wouldn't give much effect.

[DeepO]

That was exactly my point... 2 culture for 60 shields is worse then 3 culture for 80 shields... Neither of them will do much good, but a library might be better in the long run.

DeepO

[alva]

Madrid is still stuck on 5 (not growing).

-
Is ND building up again? (powergraph)
If we might need to hurry up, if we want to get some kind of compensation from GoW.

[Aeson]

Well we do get 2 culture for 30 shields. In cases where we just want to expand the borders, Temples will work much better. Most of these cases are on the fringes, so Libraries won't have that much affect until things like Courthouses and Aquaducts have been built.

I agree that long term advantages of Libraries are more than Temples, but if a Temple opens up some tiles we need to use 10-15 turns earlier, it can swing things in favor of cheap culture.

In Typhoon's case specifically, a Library throws off timing quite a bit from my scenario. We would basically be cutting out ~3 Galleys from our fleet by the time we'd want to make a crossing, cutting our landing force in half. We could leave out the Harbor and make reg Galleys (may want to do this anyways). A Harbor there isn't important from a food standpoint, as Typhoon gets stuck on size 6 for quite a while with food excess.

An option would be to pop rush the Library in conjunction with a forest chop or two. It would need 10 more turns than the Temple, but very well could pay off if we get back to size 6 by the time our GA hits. I think the worker turns are available as I was keeping ahead on the improvements in the S. I'll look into this. We certainly won't need the Temple's happiness effect, and it could mean +5-7 beakers a turn in our GA.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by DeepO
That was exactly my point... 2 culture for 60 shields is worse then 3 culture for 80 shields... Neither of them will do much good, but a library might be better in the long run.

Since we're religious, don't we get a 50% discount on temples and cathedrals? (no teasing intended)
In that case, temples turn out to be more cost-effective than libraries, culture-wise. Therefore, I'd go with a temple first, so we could join the culture race; a library would take much longer and is less cost-effective culture-wise, and its scientific benefits won't begin to make a real difference until later on.

Edit: x-posted with Aeson.

[DeepO]

D'oh... I need to pay more attention... this has been a busy day already, but that's no excuse to make two mistakes in a row (the expansionist comment to huts, and us being religious). Sorry guys, I totally forgot we were Egyptian

Temple it is, then

alva: I think that's the 10th turn Madrid is not growing (if I counted right, which, given the rest of the comments the past hour is not very likely), maybe I should ask Ninot about it... I never came around to it.

ND: that last bump is more then 1 city, so either a city plus some units, or 2 cities, or a large cash deposit from somewhere. I've been paying attention to the teams upgrading, and I can's say for sure, but it seems that if gold gets used to upgrade troops, there is little to be seen in the power graph. Gold deminishes power, while better units increase it again. So it's not a simple upgrade.

DeepO

[Aeson]

Don't totally abandon the idea of a Library just yet... It is a good idea if we can fit it in.

Thankfully we have several turns before a decision has to be made.

[DeepO]

this reminds me of something: forests. In my SP games, I try to clear all forest asap, especially if I have enough workers, and can fit them in without wasting shields. I know many players think they are best kept until aquaducts and marketplaces, but how exactly are we treating them here? I'd rather have both forests near Typhoon put into some culture, if possible, or at least one for a temple... the only exception being that we might need them in a GA to get to a nice round number of shields in the city. The sooner shields are given to cities, the better I would say, and certainly if this means that we get some more culture or commerce. Any POVs on this?

BTW, players, how is our culture doing? are we still over half of the culture of the team with best culture?

DeepO

[Shiber]

Originally posted by DeepO
BTW, players, how is our culture doing? are we still over half of the culture of the team with best culture?

Agreed. Let's see some culture graphs.
Btw, do we also check the wonders screen every turn? I know that teams can still mask their wonder prebuilds using palace builds, but still...

[Aeson]

In my testing, the chop on the Furs near Typhoon always went to Typhoon. We only gain by chopping that tile as soon as possible. If it leads to a quicker border expansion, all the better, as then we can use it and the Whale. As any chop puts us 10 shields ahead in the build queue, now or later doesn't really factor into things. We should do the chops as soon as the Worker turns are available for it. Timing things to not waste shields of course!

In my scenario all the Grassland come out unshielded (Jungle or Forest), so we may have more shields S than I am counting on.

[DeepO]

Aeson, did you hear of the trick discovered here that wonders guide chops? If you want, you can have the chop go to Cyclone by temporarily switching to a wonder (or palace) in Typhoon the moment the chop is completed. Not that it would help in this case, but it might help in others...

DeepO

[Aeson]

Good idea DeepO. We could switch the W city to a wonder just to make sure (will give some of the other teams something to talk about for a turn). I think we definitely want all 3 chops going to Typhoon.

[nbarclay]

I'm not convinced we want to chop the forests until we're ready to use the chops to help finish aqueducts. Right now we have a major food surplus thanks to all the wheat down south, and forests provide a surefire way to turn food into shields when we hit size six. If we chop, only shielded grasslands (once mined) can keep up the same number of shields. Once aqueducts are in place, a faster growth rate would be worth sacrificing shields for, and we could even replant forests once the cities are size 12 if that seems profitable. But until aqueducts let us go past size six, I suspect that the forests are worth more left intact.