Master Builder Thread

[vondrack]

I would lean towards finishing the Marketplace, spitting out a worker (would be improving the city radius), then building the Cathedral, and then reintegrating the worker back... this way, we will lose minimum on entertainers (just one or two turns right after the anarchy, before the Marketplace would be done), get max on gold, and still have Legopolis at high pop soon.

[ZargonX]

Hmm... we seem to have a split in the issue Well, I guess we should wait for Kloreep's simulation results, and then we can vote on a final decision.

And let us all reflect on how nice it is that we get to debate over building a cath. or market first, instead of having to argue with crazy neighboring civs or fight of invading hordes Let us hope it stays this way.

[Tiberius]

I somehow doubt the we will be able to operate in Republic on 50%, without any marketplaces. Kloreep, could you make your simulation on 40%, too? (maybe even on 30%).

[vondrack]

OK, with our beloved empire now being run as a Republic, with less corruption and better effectivity, I believe it is time to set our priorities for the foreseeable future. IMHO, they are (the order I list them in is a bit arbitrary, though I would probably order them this way if you asked me for a meaningful order):

1) create a second production core around Karina
2) bolster our military
3) keep our population happy (build Sistine's or Bach's)
4) create a sizeable navy
5) settle the rest of our landmass
6) keep our lead in the research
7) properly time and trigger our GA

Keeping this in mind, here is a run-down of all our cities and my ideas re: their future use/builds/development:

Legopolis: after finishing the marketplace this turn, I would suggest starting a settler. He would be ready in mere 2 turns and Legopolis would return back to pop 6 (which is its current "optimum" pop) within no more than 2 more turns. Settler would be sent to found Castlea in the Northern mountains, completing our primary core/ring. After this settler, we would start a Cathedral in Legopolis, partially gold-rushing it (for ca 200 gold). Then, we would add some workers to jump to pop 9 (new "optimum" pop, thanks to the Cathedral) ASAP and go full speed (hopefully @ 20 spt) for a wonder - aiming for one of the happiness wonders: Sistine's or Bach's.

Jackson: after finishing the temple, it should remain at pop 6 and alternate between military units and workers/settlers, so that we waste no food, but make good use of the barracks there. Once we would have our military at a desired strength, we may consider building another improvement there (harbour, cathedral etc...)

Farmerville: Farmeville 2-pop-rushed its temple on turn 103, so we need to keep the pop there either at pop 4, or pop 5 with a specialist until turn 123. Workers and settlers, nothing else to build here - and as fast as possible. Farmerville will grow every 2 turns, so it would be wonderful to somehow get it to 5 spt and spit a new worker every 2 turns from there.

Panama: keep at pop 6, alternating between military units and workers/settlers to keep the pop at the optimum level. After we reach our desired military strength, we build a cathedral there, jump to pop 9 and go for a wonder - possibly a commercial wonder that would trigger our GA.

Red Bricks: 1-pop-rushed its temple on turn 107, so we need to keep the pop there either at pop 5, or pop 6 with a specialist until turn 127. Marketplace first, then cathedral... time enough to ponder about the next build, but I think University might be an option. We will need to take of all the jungle there. I would suggest keeping the pop at 5 with no specialist, working both forests - we will get the best shield output (7-8 spt) that way, keepin the pop at the desired level at the same time.

Forkmouth: 1-pop-rushed its temple on turn 100, so we need to keep the pop there either at pop 5, or pop 6 with a specialist until turn 120. So, after the barracks is finished, spit out a worker that will mine all those hills there and then produce military units until we have our army/navy at full strength.

Karina: 1-pop-rushed its temple on turn 105, so we need to keep the pop there either at pop 5, or pop 6 with a specialist until turn 125. Wait until the forest chop finishes, then goldrush (for ~220 gold) the courthouse and go straight for the Forbidden Palace.

Zargonia: 1-pop-rushed its temple on turn 98, so we need to keep the pop there either at pop 5, or pop 6 with a specialist until turn 118. Finish harbour first, then keep producing naval units.

Dye Fields: 2-pop-rushed its temple on turn 107, so we need to keep the pop there either at pop 4, or pop 5 with a specialist until turn 127. Finish the marketplace first, we will see then. Library would be an option, that's for sure.

Logville: 2-pop-rushed its temple on turn 107, so we need to keep the pop there either at pop 4, or pop 5 with a specialist until turn 127. Worker first, we will see then.

Sharpehaven: 2-pop-rushed its temple on turn 107, so we need to keep the pop there either at pop 4, or pop 5 with a specialist until turn 127. Barracks, then military units.

Tarzania: temple first, then perhaps a marketplace.

Kloreepville: no idea... time enough to think its build over.

[vondrack]

Now, as for our military:

Considering our economy, I believe we should aim for a strong military aimed purely for defensive purposes. I do not see us engaging in wars on other continents in the foreseeable future.

I would like to have all our coastal cities defended with 2 defenders, 1 slow attacker, and 1 artillery piece (scrapping the slow attacker rather than the arty piece) - starting with Jackson, going in the clockwise direction around our continent. All vets, if possible (training our regulars on barbs). All our coastal cities should end up with barracks - mostly for defensive purposes and to relieve us from tedious unit shuffling every time a new unit type appears and we need to upgrade.

These "immobile" defenses should be complemented by three groups of fast response forces, comprised solely from fast attackers. Based in Legopolis, Farmeville, and Karina areas, they should be about 5 units strong each (stronger later on), capable of reaching a "beachhead" anywhere in one turn - in order to make this possible, roads should be built towards the coast wherever necessary.

This is quite a long-term goal and we should be building our military gradually, manning our coastal cities one after another in about this order: Jackson, Panama, Dye Fields, Tarzania/Zargonia... and so on, depending on how we are doing. I would leave the inner cities with no garrison... maybe some reserves, but that would be MUCH later on...

As for the navy: short-term, I would like to see one more galley for "ferrying" between Legos Minor/Major. Other than that, I would wait until stronger types of warships become available... galleys/caravels simply don't cut it...

[Kloreep]

DM mostly looks good. Will comment on Legopolis and Kloreepville later when I have the save open. (A SPDG chat is about to start.)

[Sharpe]

Commentary on Vondrack's ideas:

Legopolis - I agree with building a settler, but wonder if Castlea should be done before or after Port Hammer? Also a university should be fitted in before starting a wonder preferably.

Jackson - A harbor would be a very good idea there to allow trade and add food for growth once we eventually have an aqueduct there. Agreed that it should be a military center for units plus building workers/settlers to keep the pop down until we do build an aqueduct.

Farmerville - We should start mining the desert squares and use them to keep the population under control when necessary (when not building settlers and workers) - let's not go too overboard with workers (1-2 per city should be fine) as we do need to settle the south too. We do need to get another happiness building there eventually.

Panama - get mktplaces, libraries, universities etc. there too as it is still one of our most important commerce areas.

RedBricks - agreed mktplace cathedral university and clear the jungle

Forkmouth - agreed re mining the hills and military but we also need to reduce corruption further for it to be worth it - wonder if we should go for another courthouse (I know it will be nearly useless when FP is finished, but might be useful now)

Karina - agreed rush courthouse then FP

Zargonia - not entirely sure about a harbor though it would also help with the food situation there, but will take a loooong time to build

Dyefields - agreed - is becoming a major commerce center so concentrate on those areas

Logville - still nearly useless for building anything - workers for sure

Sharpehaven - with its hills and the wheat I wonder whether we should mix military and REXing here.

Tarzania - agreed

Kloreepville - Temple if we get its defensive units somewhere else - we should be attempting to get the jungle cleared and irrigated here so we can use its large amount of hills

Suggest we get the following cities built within 30 or so turns:

Port Hammer
Ah my foot
Quanto
Tiberium
Castlea

I wonder whether we should also consider using up a worker to build an outpost on the mountain at the northern end of Legos Major - this would allow us to see the sea area between us and Mystery Isle and the Hammer peninsula and without having to have a ship nearby.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Sharpe
Legopolis - I agree with building a settler, but wonder if Castlea should be done before or after Port Hammer? Also a university should be fitted in before starting a wonder preferably.

Where to send the settler remains to be seen... Castlea might be better short-term (lower corruption) - and it'd complete the settlement of our Northern mainland. But I have no strong opinion on this. What matters to me is the settler, not where it goes to.

However, I disagree quite strongly with delaying the wonder build with a university build... remember, the techs we are researching (the Edu branch) are good primarily for great wonder builds. It makes little sense to invest into research of those, while not actually building all or at least some of those wonders. ATM, the world is heading into a major war, with us (and maybe ND) being the only uninvolved (=happily researching) nations. I don't think we need more research potential - for the time being, it would be an overkill. Especially considering how important happiness wonders are for us.

Originally posted by Sharpe
Jackson - A harbor would be a very good idea there to allow trade and add food for growth once we eventually have an aqueduct there. Agreed that it should be a military center for units plus building workers/settlers to keep the pop down until we do build an aqueduct.

Actually, 6+ pop will need a cathedral/colosseum before the aquaduct. With just a temple, pop 6 is Jackson's max. So going 6+ pop in Jackson is a major shield investment, which we should commit to only after having our defenses set up. To allow trade, all we need is ONE harbour and that is currently being constructed in Zargonia (see my note on Zargonia below). All that + considering we have one of our few barracks in Jackson, I really believe we should make it a highly productive military camp for some time, shifting to infrastructure only later on.

Let's not make the mistake of building too much infrastructure on the expense of military - we could very well be building all those improvements for someone else...

Originally posted by Sharpe
Panama - get mktplaces, libraries, universities etc. there too as it is still one of our most important commerce areas.

Most of what I said about Jackson applies here, too, but I agree that a marketplace & library would be nice. But only after we train ourselves few more units here.

Originally posted by Sharpe
Forkmouth - agreed re mining the hills and military but we also need to reduce corruption further for it to be worth it - wonder if we should go for another courthouse (I know it will be nearly useless when FP is finished, but might be useful now)

An 80-shield courthouse would take about 15 turns to complete. IIRC, The FP in Karina should be done in less than 30-40 turns, which would make the courthouse really effective for ~15-25 turns. Considering the courthouse could save like 2-3 spt max, it is not a good investment (shields saved < shield cost of the build)

Originally posted by Sharpe
Zargonia - not entirely sure about a harbor though it would also help with the food situation there, but will take a loooong time to build

Not that long, actually - even at this very moment, we can get Zargonia to 3 spt. With both hills mined, it will be at least 4 spt, maybe 5. That should allow us to complete the harbour build there in ~15-20 turns from now, which is exactly the time we should be finishing our Astronomy research (for us, harbours are useless for trade until the discovery of Astronomy, that allows trade over sea tiles).

Originally posted by Sharpe
I wonder whether we should also consider using up a worker to build an outpost on the mountain at the northern end of Legos Major - this would allow us to see the sea area between us and Mystery Isle and the Hammer peninsula and without having to have a ship nearby.

This is actually why I was suggesting to found Castlea with the Legopolis settler... the first build would be a temple, to quickly expand the radius to make us see what is going on between us and Mystery Isle.

Even though I know we can have SO many workers, I am not really thrilled with the idea of using one up for an outpost - would be better to move him there and order him to mine/road mountains... would do the same service (watch over the strait) while being at least marginally useful...

[Kloreep]

Edit: Crossposted with vondrack. (Yes, I really was working on this 10 minutes later. ) Edited in some new comments.

On Legopolis: A settler looks best. But I'd prefer Port Hammer or Suez/Benelux to Castlea. Also, I'd like to see us run a surplus over the next five turn so that we get 475-500 gold; that way, we'll have quite a lot of leeway on the Legopolis half-rush, and we may have some money left over for upgrades depending on that rush. And I don't think a university should be built before wonders; universities cost 200 shields. That's 1/3rd the cost of either happiness wonder. Bach's should come before the University, and maybe Sistine's too.

Kloreepville: We could build a Barracks well before a temple is needed, but I'm not sure how many units would be produced before we'd have to switch to a temple. So, temple first for now.

Originally posted by Sharpe
Farmerville - We should start mining the desert squares and use them to keep the population under control when necessary (when not building settlers and workers) - let's not go too overboard with workers (1-2 per city should be fine) as we do need to settle the south too. We do need to get another happiness building there eventually.

Ideally, I'd like 1-2 per city, plus more for jungle clearing. We need lots of jungle clearers to get our palace core to max productivity.

Panama - get mktplaces, libraries, universities etc. there too as it is still one of our most important commerce areas.

I agree we need a marketplace and Lib ASAP. A Cathedral and a Harbor are important investments too, IMO. I'd wait till all four are in place (a while from now, as it's still needed for unit production as well) before worrying about banks or universities.

RedBricks - agreed mktplace cathedral university and clear the jungle

Yes, Red Bricks should be made into a commerce powerhouse.

Forkmouth - agreed re mining the hills and military but we also need to reduce corruption further for it to be worth it - wonder if we should go for another courthouse (I know it will be nearly useless when FP is finished, but might be useful now)

A courthouse may be worthwhile... it'll be some distance from the FP, too. Something to think about.

Edit:I think a courthouse could be good over the long term, as Forkmouth will be some distance from the FP, same as it is now some distance from the palace.

Zargonia - not entirely sure about a harbor though it would also help with the food situation there, but will take a loooong time to build

Yes, but I think we need a harbor somewhere by the time of Astronomy (admittedly a ways off), and at least a few vet ships are also important for us.

Suggest we get the following cities built within 30 or so turns:

Port Hammer
Ah my foot
Quanto
Tiberium
Castlea

Agreed, though I don't think we should be building too many cities over the next 20-25 turns; ocn corruption is setting in. But a settler burst from Farmerville beginning in ~20 turns (after the poprush unhappiness wears off) to settle the FP ring would be good.

I wonder whether we should also consider using up a worker to build an outpost on the mountain at the northern end of Legos Major - this would allow us to see the sea area between us and Mystery Isle and the Hammer peninsula and without having to have a ship nearby.

I think this is a good idea, once we have a worker to spare (which may be a while...)

Edit: vondrack, it's true that castlea will be an okay city with some investment, but I'd prefer to put off building it, at least till the FP is completed... to keep OCN down.

[Tiberius]

Finally, Republic!

Originally posted by vondrack
OK, with our beloved empire now being run as a Republic, with less corruption and better effectivity, I believe it is time to set our priorities for the foreseeable future. IMHO, they are (the order I list them in is a bit arbitrary, though I would probably order them this way if you asked me for a meaningful order):

1) create a second production core around Karina
2) bolster our military
3) keep our population happy (build Sistine's or Bach's)
4) create a sizeable navy
5) settle the rest of our landmass
6) keep our lead in the research
7) properly time and trigger our GA

I agree 100% on these. Maybe we could discuss the order, but the priorities are definitely these.

Now, my 2 cents:

Legopolis:
market, settler, Cathedral, wonder

Jackson:
phase1: temple, units+workers/settlers
phase2: harbor, cathedral, aqueduct, marketplace, etc

Farmerville:
workers+settlers for a long time

Red Bricks:
marketplace, cathedral, ... and we'll see

Forkmouth:
worker, then units, and a couthouse at some point

Karina:
courthouse, FP

Zargonia:
harbor

Dye Fields:
marketplace, library


Sorry, have to go now. To be continued ...

[vondrack]

Kloreep raises a point worth stressing... until we finish our FP in Karina, every new city will sort of "worsen" our corruption levels in cities "closer" to the capital. So we should found only strategically located cities... or cities which are farther from Legopolis than Karina is, so that we do not delay the FP completion in Karina.

I have been thinking about the Legopolis settler destination - and I would probably vote for the Benelux site now. That is the only location that brings in more than just a land grab and "yet another city"... by shortcutting the naval route around Legos Major, effectively allowing our vessels to avoid circumnavigating Legos Minor...

After Benelux, I would focus on the southern coast - because cities there will grab the land for us just fine while not affecting the corruption/waste in the existing cities...

[ZargonX]

Agreed. Benelux fufills the "strategic" aspect of warrenting a city build, and the southern tip cities are distant enough to not matter. Other than that, I would say hold off on any further settlement in the north until the FP is up and running.

[lmtoops]

Makes perfect sense. Time to slow down the REXing and concentrate on setting us up for a glorious future. The three major goals are:
1 - Make us self-sufficient regarding Happiness
2 - Make us self-sufficient regarding Military Defense
3 - Set ourselves up for a Glorious GA (GGA?)

[Tiberius]

Regardless of what will happen now with the ND scout it is clear that we need to build a military force as soon as possible. We are no longer isolated, intangible by others.
In the near future it is posiible that 4 or more caravels or galleons can arrive, fully loaded with Ansar knights or Raiders or whatever. Our defence should be ready for such an event, especially in our coastal cities.

Besides we need to settle Port Hammer, Castlea and Crossing, to get an early warning of such attempts.

[Tiberius]

In regard to our plans, I wanted to add something about Panama:

Building the Collossus in Panama would trigger our golden ages, unless I'm not mistaken. So, with its very nice commerce rich surroundings plus the Collossus, Panama could be a very productive commerce city. (science or gold or both).

In order to build a wonder there, we need a Cathedral first and possibly a market and/or a library (to harvest then the extra commerce output). Now, these are a lot of turns. Should we want to trigger our golden ages in time for the Sistine's/Bach's build, we don't have time to build units in Panama and we should start the Cathedral immediately. Even if we will save the GA for a later wonder (Smith's maybe, or Magellan's) we still don't have too much time for the preparations.