Turn 71, 1250BC

[Aeson]

It does give us several city turns advantage to chop.

In one my runs I used 3 workers to get the mine built the turn the road was finished (might have used 2 workers for the road, not sure). Timed right I don't think we miss out on any shields.

In a Republic and GA EotS could get to 29 shields per turn with the chop, so it might make a big difference not to make it. It might make the difference between 15 and 20 non-GA shields (for most practical purposes), so definitely is something to check on. We make Cyclone into a smaller town to do so, but it's not a big deal.

[nbarclay]

One big question is how important the settler that EotS would produce when it does the chop is, compared with going on producing just workers. Do you have any insight into that from your test runs?

[Aeson]

Just looked and it doesn' make any difference in the GA, still can't get EotS to 30 per turn unless we are willing to run a food deficit, in which case mining an extra Plains works just as well. It also just means the difference between 17 and 18 shields in EotS in a non-GA setting unless we are willing to cut into Hurricane's tiles. Hurricane sits at 20 shields per turn (22 - 2 corruption) at size 12 non-GA (it can't maintain it's population though, Worker needs to be added every so many turns).

If we do cut into Hurricane's land tiles to get EotS up to 20 per turn, mining an extra Plains is just as effective as leaving the Fur Forest.

It looks like we don't lose anything from the EotS Fur chop.

[Aeson]

Depends on where we put it. If we use it to build the Spinebreaker city, then the extra city turns are definitely worth it. None of the other remaining cities we found are going to be all that valuable for a while.

In my tests, it looks like we can keep ahead on Workers either way. Overall population (assuming the same number of cities at any point in the future) should be higher with the Settler first. Especially if we use it to build a city with FP access.

[nbarclay]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think adding a worker every so many turns works. Once the city starves down to no spare food, adding a worker to get the size back won't refill the food box, so we'd have to wait for the food box to refill before adding a worker. And while it's filling, we'd be losing a shield (which may or may not matter, depending on what we're building) working an irrigated grassland instead of a mined one. In any case, once we're finished using it for wonders, Hurricane is supposed to build a harbor and shift to working mostly water tiles so the land in the area can be used by other cities.

Do you think we're better off with a settler from EotS or two workers? I think that's the real issue for determining whether or not a chop is a good idea. If we want the settler, the chop makes sense. If we don't, it makes little enough difference one way or the other that our worker turns are likely better invested elsewhere. (With the chop and mine in place, the difference would amount to one shield every other turn until we get to Republic, and no inherent advantage over other strategies after we're in Republic. And a head start on worker actions elsewhere could very likely more than pay that back by letting us add a worker to Hurricane a few turns earlier while being at the same place in our infrastructure.)

[Edit: Crossposted with Aeson's preceding message.]

[Aeson]

You're right about running a deficit. I was thinking we got our Granary box back when shrinking for some reason. We can run Hurricane with a food deficit throughout the GA though, it would starve back down to size 11 the turn after our GA ends.

If we run the deficit with Hurricane until we hit size 11 (or until we are out of food and have a Harbor), then Hurricane can produce 15 shields a turn instead of 20, giving 1 fur to EotS. That fur in EotS would allow us 20 turns of food deficit at 20 shields a turn in EotS, at which point we could re-irrigate Plain tile(s) in order to balance things out.

Not sure how important 20 shields per turn are at that point, 19 per turn builds a Knight just as fast. Can't hit 19 in Hurricane though.

What's the shield cost of a Mace unit?

[nbarclay]

Medieval Infantry are cost 40, like Longbowmen, but I'm hesitant to build them because they're so slow and don't have a decent upgrade path the way knights do.

[Aeson]

Looks like if we mine EotS Plains until we hit a food deficit of 1 (should be timed so that this starts the first turn after our Barracks is complete) that we can keep it at 30 shields per turn throughout the rest of our GA as well. Then we'd have ~30 more turns of 20 shields per turn after the GA before we run out of food.

Earliest we could do this is probably halfway through the GA. Still would mean the difference between 10 WC's/Spears and 10 Horses/Swords in that time period.

[Aeson]

Well at 20 shields per turn they do crank out 2x as fast as Knights... so maybe we could find a use for them. If we aren't looking to use them right away they would be a waste though.

[nbarclay]

If we'd go ahead and order the chop in EotS, we could build two more workers before the chop and then divide tiles however we need to to have the right number of shields when we build a settler. That way, we'll be working on the mine while we build our settler and maybe we can leverage extra production from being size 6 instead of size 5 to offset at least some of the loss while we're waiting for the mine to be finished. Does that sound like the right course to you? By the way, unless we waste a worker turn using a second worker to help with a road, a mine can be finished just as quickly by mining and then roading as it can by building a road and then bringing in other workers to help with a mine.

[nbarclay]

By the way, the flip side is that if we focus on workers instead of building a settler in EotS, there's a good chance we could be in a position to add more workers to Hurricane earlier since we'll be farther ahead in tile improvements. One option would be to add one worker in the very near future (maybe one of the extras we build instead of a settler) and then really pile them in when we hit size 7. So the question is, which approach gains us more?

[Aeson]

I really piled them on when Hurricane hit size 7... even added 1 worker before then. By the time the Iron mine was done I hit size 12 I think. We could speed it up a little bit, but at most we could shave off 1 turn from the Pyramids. The turn wait probably helps us more (unless we get beat to the Pyramids by 1 turn!), as that's the turn Tempest grows to size 7, and all the Workers start being added.

If the extra workers have any effect, it would mostly be in building up Cyclone (if we go that way), or the Spinebreaker city. By that point though, I think being a city ahead of schedual will have payed off. Certainly in the case of Cyclone, as we'd end up having to build the Settler there.

If we'd go ahead and order the chop in EotS, we could build two more workers before the chop and then divide tiles however we need to to have the right number of shields when we build a settler. That way, we'll be working on the mine while we build our settler and maybe we can leverage extra production from being size 6 instead of size 5 to offset at least some of the loss while we're waiting for the mine to be finished. Does that sound like the right course to you?

Sounds better than what I was doing. Some shields can be 'lost' from Hurricane though, as we don't hit the Pyramids right on. Looks like we have 3 shields leeway. It's a bit hard to tell with 40 shields per row, but it looks like the last turn needs 15 shields and we are at 18 per turn after corruption. So 1 or 2 lost shields isn't going to hurt our completion date.

[nbarclay]

Okay, I changed the turn orders so we'll chop the fur forest instead of irrigating the plains near Tempest. We can still use our next worker from EotS to irrigate those plains before we need them, if we don't have a higher priority.

[Aeson]

Sounds good. Looks like we don't have to idle the Worker either (not sure why I thought this was necessary).

If all our worker moves from now on are going to take this much text...

[nbarclay]

I'll go ahead and finish playing the turn now. For the moment, I'm rejecting ND's offer to trade for contact.