Discussion for the The Chronicle of Legoland thread

[Sharpe]

As it is we are 17 hours into our turn thanks to Trip's usual late night playing (wonder if he is doing that deliberately - well at least he isn't bragging about his fast play anymore!), so unless Jack shows up soon, you will have to play the 3150bc turn.

Agreed on the exploration pattern - too bad we don't have an extra unit to explore southwest of Conan, as there could be extra land there (mostly jungle admittedly).

I am worried about the slowness of our turns - isn't entirely our fault thanks to the fact that Trip sends the file when most of us are sleeping grrrr! With that timecounter the others may start to complain about it unfortunately.

I have been recording the length of turns since 3950bc using the times in the Game Save thread but I have no plans to release this info to the general forum.

Legoland about 128 hours to 3200bc (15 turns)
Lux Invicta about 129 hours to 3150bc (16 turns)
Roleplayers about 83 hours to 3150bc
NeuDemogyptica about 80 hours to 3150bc
Glory of War about 77 hours to 3150bc
Gathering Storm about 55 hours to 3150bc
Vox Controli about 36 hours to 3150bc

Admittedly Lux has had 3 or 4 times where they didn't post when they finished their turn meaning that Lux and us have estimates for those turns.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Sharpe
As it is we are 17 hours into our turn thanks to Trip's usual late night playing (wonder if he is doing that deliberately - well at least he isn't bragging about his fast play anymore!), so unless Jack shows up soon, you will have to play the 3150bc turn.

I think it is only 13 hours, not 17 (the savegame arrived at my mailbox at 6:46 GMT and it is now 19:46 GMT...). The bad news is that I will have to stay up late for the 18 hour breaktime - once I go to bed today, I would be unlikely to wake up early enough to play the turn within our 24-hour time-frame, should Jack not have played it before... sigh...

[Sharpe]

Sorry, of course you are right only 13 hours so far. Guess I am so used to reading my Apolyton times as GMT as I do on the computer at work, while my home computer is EST.

[Tiberius]

Hi!

I'm back (a little earlier) from my Xmas trip and will be around for a few days.

I think that in the lights of the new info we have, the new location proposed by Vondrack is a good one. Actually a very good one for a few centuries and later, when it comes to work the desert tiles, a moderately good one. It'll have shores, a sea-cow, bonus-grassland, wow! I like it!

I think the worker should move and build a road on the grasslands in the direction of the new city (name?) and later on mines (after connecting the 2 cities).

For Legopolis I agree with the Merc-Settler-Merc build queue for now. We should build a second worker in the near future, too.

[vondrack]

Welcome back, Tibi!

I have just updated the Chronicle thread according to the save I got from Jack. It's getting late here and I still need to do something business-related today, so I will not comment in details right now.

Just one quick note... is there anyone else surprised to see our settler with no escort?

[Tiberius]

Radek, it's Saturday evening and you're working ?! Take a break, man! Have a wine, relax and browse a little (like myself )

Well, first of all, an escort for the settler wouldn't have hurt. It is better to lose some production or money to the barbarians than a settler, IMHO. Other than possible barbs, I don't think that there are other dangers in the area.

Next, I hope we will change the building order in Legopolis from settler to a Mercenary soon.

Cowa...ahhh, sorry, Howard (nick names and old habbits die hard ) should move toward the istmus, methinks.

I was a little surpised that Conan went west instead of the SE hill, so I hope he will move south next turn (on the mountain) and then probably east-SE to explore the southern jungle and see if it's possible to "walk" in the direction of the roleplayers.

That's it, for a first look.

[Kloreep]

I should have noted what my city sites were. The east coast city was on the hill SW of the seacow; the site vondrack's suggested.

A city S of the seacow would work as well; it has the same shield corruption (loses one production shield starting at three shields gathered) and has the cow in its first ring; this site would also have a dye in its second ring. But I'd prefer SW; it has more protection, and S would still require a temple to reach the dye - expensive for us non-religious types.

[vondrack]

OK, the Chronicle has been updated with the 3100BC entry. I am happy to see that everything is now just the way it should be. There are two things I would like to mention:

1) The new hut: this is good news, but I would not pop it until we found our second city (to allow for a settler to be popped from the hut) and discover Pottery (to improve - by temporarily setting our research to one of the two cheapest unknown techs, Mysticism & Wheel - our chances of getting a beaker-costly tech from the hut, should we get triple lucky...). This suggests that Conan moves south in 3050BC and then perhaps southwest in 3000BC, popping the hut only in 2950BC, after we build our second city.

2) Legopolis National Guard: since we sent our settler unescorted, I believe we should now make the best use of the idle National Guard in Legopolis. Aside from guarding the city from barbarian raids, the warrior over there is quite useless. Considering the area we can "see", I believe it would be perfectly ok to send N.G. (what about calling him Angus? Like N.G. --> Angie --> Angus) to do some exploration? I would start with sending him to climb the Poor Twin (the northern one of the Twin Peaks), as he can get there in one turn, possibly revealing a good deal of the jungle in that direction. Should barbs or someone else show up, he would be close enough to come back and take care of the Legopolis defense in time.

There is also another possibility that prefers making our settler safe from a possible barbarian attack. I am a bit worried about the possibility of our Settler finishing his turn next to a barbarian village (which could happen if a barb village emerged on the sea-cow tile). By moving Howard East and South-East (order does not matter), we would be able to prevent that from happening, as Howard would be able to check whether there is a barb village there or not, prior to our Settler moving to the site of our second city. Howard could then continue southwards, exploring the jungle beyond the Dyes. Angus could take over Howard's current assignment of securing the isthmus. He would be there one turn later and would make Legopolis vulnerable to outside attacks for a certain period of time, but I would consider this a safer way of handling our current situation - as the production in Legopolis can be switched to a Warrior, should we run into an emergency situation.

[ZargonX]

Vondrack: Both of those plans look great. However, as a note, I don't think we'll ever get a settler out of the hut, as we look to be the 1st or 2nd to found a second city. If I understand the way the system works, you have to have below or equal to the average # of cities to get a settler, which we do not qualify for. But, waiting for the technologies is still a very good idea.

I agree that the area around the Twin Peaks needs to be explored, and N.G. seems the best for the job. Howard would do well to run protection for the settler around the sea cow, and Conan can mill around near the hut until the proper time.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by ZargonX
Vondrack: Both of those plans look great. However, as a note, I don't think we'll ever get a settler out of the hut, as we look to be the 1st or 2nd to found a second city. If I understand the way the system works, you have to have below or equal to the average # of cities to get a settler, which we do not qualify for. But, waiting for the technologies is still a very good idea.

Very good point. I completely forgot about this. Although I do not think we will be the first ones to found the second city (see the F11 screen - we are listed as second in area...), we will undoubtedly be among the first. Thus, we can forget popping a settler out. This will actually help Conan make less "pointless" moves... he shall go southwards once and then pop the hut, if I count right (in 3050BC, Pottery will be 1 turn away, in 3000BC, it will be done, allowing Conan to pop the hut).

Originally posted by ZargonX
I agree that the area around the Twin Peaks needs to be explored, and N.G. seems the best for the job. Howard would do well to run protection for the settler around the sea cow, and Conan can mill around near the hut until the proper time.

Well, unfortunately, I do not think we can have both. We can either take the risk with our settler, keep moving Howard towards the isthmus, and have Angus look around the Twin Peaks, OR have Angus go to the isthmus and have Howard cover the settler. If we divert Howard towards the settler and use Angus to explore the Twin Peaks area, we would leave the isthmus unguarded. And that is something I would strongly oppose.

[ZargonX]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by vondrack [/SIZE

Well, unfortunately, I do not think we can have both. We can either take the risk with our settler, keep moving Howard towards the isthmus, and have Angus look around the Twin Peaks, OR have Angus go to the isthmus and have Howard cover the settler. If we divert Howard towards the settler and use Angus to explore the Twin Peaks area, we would leave the isthmus unguarded. And that is something I would strongly oppose.

Yes, yes, very true. I overlooked that aspect of things. Well, given that situation, I would suggest moving Howard over to cover the settler, and postponing Angus' exploration long enough to get the city settled safely, at which point Howard could move south-easterly through the jungle, and Angus would be available to cover the isthmus as Conan continues south.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by ZargonX
Yes, yes, very true. I overlooked that aspect of things. Well, given that situation, I would suggest moving Howard over to cover the settler, and postponing Angus' exploration long enough to get the city settled safely, at which point Howard could move south-easterly through the jungle, and Angus would be available to cover the isthmus as Conan continues south.

As much as I dislike every turn we leave the isthmus with no guard, I believe this is currently the safest way.

Actually, thinking this over again, there may be one better way to do it. Once Howard moves SE+E to the easternmost hill beyond The Sandbox checking it's safe for the Settler to move onto the hill SW of the sea-cow, he may turn back, reaching the isthmus site in the same five turns (W+W+SW+W+W) Angus would need to get there (NW+NW+NW+NW+NW). Angus would wait for the first two turns and then set out exploring the Twin Peaks area (and later the southeastern jungle), being able to cover the capital long enough to allow the Merc to be completed (note: the Merc will take not 9, but 7 turns from now, thanks to the pop growth in Legopolis).

Following this plan, we would have our isthmus guard (Howard) in position in 7 turns, plus we would be able to ensure we do not lose our settler to barbarians, plus we'd have Angus start exploring the Twin Peaks area in three turns from now. Anyone having a better plan?

[Kloreep]

Sounds good.

[ZargonX]

Well, I just got the GoW minimap, and have passed it along to Vondrack. Looking at it, things are not quite as we thought. But, I'll wait until V posts it before discussing it further.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by ZargonX
Well, I just got the GoW minimap, and have passed it along to Vondrack. Looking at it, things are not quite as we thought. But, I'll wait until V posts it before discussing it further.

OK, here is the minimap Zargon received from GoW:



And here is a merged minimap comprising all the minimaps we know:



Looking at the minimap merge, I believe we should change our plans quite a bit. As we now know there are not RPers, nor GoW behind the isthmus (and we can guess that it's not ND, nor Luxes either - as these two reportedly had contact, while GoW has a contact with ND, putting all of them on the "other" landmass), we may expect Voxes or GS. I would be afraid especially of GS - they are known warmongers and their starting position was far from favourable (judging from their current score). It may be tempting for them to try stomping upon us (triggering our GA at the least appropriate time).

Thus, here is what I would do:

1) immediately send Angus to the isthmus site. The sooner he gets there, the better.
2) have Howard cover the Settler, later continuing southwards along the east coast, looking for a route to RPers.
3) change the Legopolis production to Warrior, to have our capital at least lightly guarded. A Merc would follow only then, with a Settler coming next.

This should delay our second Settler production by not more than two turns (2x5 shields = 10 shields for the warrior), making us as safe as we can currently be.

Also, Map Making should be our priority now, as it seems quite likely we are on our landmass either alone or with one other civ.