Master Builder Thread

[vondrack]

OK, let's do a worker. 'twas just an idea.

[Kloreep]

And a good idea. I just think we should delay it for a few turns for more use of growth potential + a needed northern worker.

[Tiberius]

Can I have a suggestion for a change?

Since we have built a settler in Panama, it is now size 5. It will grow quickly back to size 6 and over and unless we build a settler again this a unique opportunity to build walls in Panama. (I think Panama doesn't have walls, does it?)

Looking at the summary table: damn! I should have said this last turn Now we would lose one turn of production. Maybe building a worker after the market would allow us to build the walls?

PS Apparently walls don't lose their effect after the city is growing beyond size 6. I don't know exactly where I read this, but I know it was one of those amazing tests done by Alexman. (probably somewhere in the strategy forum)
I know this is a bug, but a useful one

[Kloreep]

Yeah, that would have been a good idea. Especially as I have a post-FP camp city to propose...

Well, here it is anyway:


This site can be prepared by Gus and Stanley (the two mining RB's gold mountain).

[vondrack]

With our revised global strategy, we need to redo our build queues, I believe. Here is the first draft:

Legopolis: wonder

Despite the war being close, I still believe we should go for the wonder.

Jackson: aqueduct, then knÃghts

I suggest we build an aqueduct here first, possibly even changing the current merc build to it - we will be able to bring the pop here to at least 10 quickly (by joining workers from Farmerville) and the raw shield output to 21. Currently, it is 13+2=15... we could work one more mined hill (+3), the desert + an irrigated grassland (+2), and mined grassland (+1). That's 15+3+2+1=21spt. I hope we would be able to get 18 net shields, which would mean 4-turn veteran knights.

Farmerville: workers

This is simple... the 2-turn workers are priceless. Used both for improving the land and quickly boost the pop in other cities.

Panama: finish marketplace, then knights

Another no-brainer, I believe. I do not think we can afford the luxury of building a library here now... besides, we do not really need it now, our research is fast enough and GS is unlikely to speed up, since they will have to invest heavily into their military. With one more mined hill, we should be getting at least 14 spt net, which means 5-turn knights. Working the forest and irrigating the plains up The Hammer should net us a vet knight every 4 turns.

Red Bricks: finish cathedral, then artillery

Low shield output and no barracks make R.B. not very suitable for building military units, so I suggest we get the cathedral done and then use the city to spit out some catapults (we should be able to get net 10 spt out of R.B., which is just fine for 20-shield cats).

Forkmouth: finish courthouse, then military

I guess 2-turn mercs should be doable here. After mining the last hill, we can grow F'mouth to pop 7, generating gross 18 spt - with the courthouse, I'd hope that we get net 15... if not, we can mine some grass to get there.

Karina: finish FP, then infrastructure aqueduct, barracks, and knights

With almost no corruption, lots of commerce, and a high shield output, we should be able to get a lib & market quickly here, boosting science and commerce. Only if the war goes the wrong way, we should build barracks here and pour military. Kloreep is right, this will be one of our best knight production centers, better not delay the military with something we do not urgently need (infrastructure).

Zargonia: finish settler, then navy

With our only harbour here, I think this is a no-brainer... after we build ourselves some decent transport fleet, we should build an aqueduct (perhaps a courthouse first) here and grow beyond pop 6 - lots of hills to work...

Dye Fields: keep building infrastructure

After the market, I would consider an aqueduct - we will need to grow the pop to get to a decent shield output here. Mined grasses simply don't cut it easily... you need to work LOT of them.

Logville: settler/worker farm

Abundance of food, a decent shield potential, and low corr/waste thanks to the nearby FP... with all the hills, plains and bonus grasses mined, we should be able to build settlers and workers quickly here, while maintaining a steady pop level.

Sharpehaven: military

Not much to say... the barracks and a lot of hills make it a perfect place to build vet units. Though, we may consider building an aqueduct at some moment, to allow pop 6+...

Tarzania: barracks, then military

I am not 100% sure how to manage Tarzania... it would probably be worth considering an aqueduct here first, possibly rushing it partially... in order to be able to grow past pop 6. Probably 3-4 turn mercs from here.

Kloreepville: finish harbour, then navy

After we build ourselves a decent navy, let's rethink...

[Tiberius]

Shouldn't we switch in Panama to a library? Most of the upcoming turns we will spend on high research, where marketplaces won't help too much. Especially for the Gunpowder ultra-fast research we will need beakers-rich cities, like Panama.

The current beakers output of Panama is 18 (I think) on 100% science and should be soon 20, when Panama will grow. A library would mean a 10 beakers bonus for our research. In 6 turns of ultra-fast research this bonus alone will worth 5% of the gunpowder's cost.

[vondrack]

Hm, that's a point worth some discussion... on high research, marketplaces will not help us that much, while libraries will, true...

BUT:

With 2+ luxuries (our dyes, ND spices, GoW wines... perhaps ND ivory later on), we will be able to boost the pop in Panama up to 11-12, if I am not mistaken, which will have pretty much the same effect on science (since we will be generating more raw commerce there).

AND:

If we change the build to a library here, we will effectively waste 9 shields, as we are going to have 77S in bank next turn - Library needs 80. OTOH, 77+12+12=101, only 1 shield over the market cost.

Plus, as we intend to go 100% research... a library will not save us money, but will/might speed research up - and while a 5-turn gunpowder research should be doable even without this library, a 4-turn gunpowder research is out of our reach:

Gunpowder cost: 1152 beakers

Our current net beaker output at 100% science: 197 @ -86 gpt

Gunpowder in 6 would need = 1152/6=192
Gunpowder in 5 would need = 1152/5=231
Gunpowder in 4 would need = 1152/4=288

Our current corruption eats 66 commerce - I am fairly confident that with the FP completion in Karina (in 6t) and a couple of cities growing a bit, we will be able to get to 231 beakers per turn needed to do gunpowder in 5t.

OTOH, it is totally impossible to get to 288 in such a short time.

Hence - extra beakers will not speed up research turn-wise... might only allow doing it in the same time at a lower research rate, which we do not consider...

After thinking this over, I am for finishing the marketplace. The extra happy face and extra gold during the less than 100% research turns will help us more than a library here.

[Tiberius]

Actually I'd be for building both, since we don't know yet what will ND+GoW need most: money+techs, or military help. Not researching anything, both of them, leaves us as the only researcher in this alliance. I'm sure GS will slow down, but then, how much?
Panama is just too good of a commerce city, to build military with it (before infrastructure, I mean).

[vondrack]

I am quite tempted to agree... just that a knight or two within 5-10 turns may be more important than 10bpt in the long run - we should see quite soon, since we have little idea of what GS is going to unleash at ND+GoW. If they can hold, I'm all for boosting Panama com/sci-wise.

I'd probably use Panama to build a couple of knights while at 14spt (as 5*14=70), reconsidering once we get to 16spt (5*16=80). It may be just one knight, or two, then a library...

But the most important thing is that I believe we should stick to the market build for the moment.

[Tiberius]

I will agree with the market build for one reason: the happiness boost, once we will have 3 or 4 luxuries. This will allow Panama to grow, will boost its gold+beaker+shields output and Panama will be capable of building a library (and later a cathedral) even faster than now.

OK, let's go with a market->knight->knight queue for now, and we will what next (a library, I hope!)

[Sharpe]

I am resigning as Master Builder (southern or otherwise) effective immediately.

[Tiberius]

Camps

I'm uploading a map with the possible locations for the 2 camps proposed in the "Next turn" thread.

For convenience, the post I am talking about:

I'd favour building some camps, especially for military production purposes.
They should have grasses + hills nearby, so one of them could be S-S-SE from Karina (using two grasses from Tiberium and Logville and some yet unimproved hills), while another one NW-NW-W from Karina (using two grasses from Karina and three nearby hills). Karina would still have at least 12 tiles left for itself.
They must be low-corruption cities, hence the placement near Karina. I couldn't find a proper place near Legopolis; maybe after clearing more jungle.

With one irrigated and one mined grass each, they could work 3 hills, so we could have 10 spt (11 - 1 waste; I hope the waste wouldn't be higher than that). 20 more shields / turn wouldn't hurt our military industry, that;s for sure.

Edit: I've already found names for them: Camp David and Camp Goliat

Each camp would work one irrigated reg. grass, one mined reg. grass and 3 mined hills, for a total production of 11 shields (0 growth at pop 5). Hopefully waste wouldn't be more than 1 spt, leaving us with two 10spt cities.

I believe there is also a possibility to use two irrigated grasses, in which case the camps could work 4 hills. (this would worth it if waste is more than 1 shield for the previous scenario)

We would build only barracks in these camps and then mil. units. They would be disbanded (transformed in workers) after we build hospitals in the surrounding cities.

In case somebody wouldn't recognize the map, the city in the middle is Karina.



Edit: added the quote

[redstar1]

Looks like a well thought out plan. I would certainly favour the idea of an extra military producing city to allow more development somewhere else. Its really a question of looking at this alongside the need to finish our expansion plans.

Personally its the sort of tactic I would pursue myself. I'm a fan of small, purpose built cities in my own game and I can't see the harm in it here.

[vondrack]

I would not oppose camp cities once we have our long-term ones established. Let's finish the five permanent cities we still have on our list and then revisit the idea, ok?

[Tiberius]

Hmm, actually I'd be for building the camps earlier. All we need to build in these camps are barracks and immediately after that they could churn out units after units.

This way we could focus in the permanent new cities on infrastructure (temples, markets, libraries, cathedrals) without having to worry about the lack of a proper army.