The worker thread

[Zeviz]

I like this plan with one change: I'd prefer to do a couple tiles of road before the chop so that the chop would go towards Settler instead. (Our capital has good production, but not much food surplus, so it might be better to direct chops to units that eat food, instead of units that use production.)

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by Sullla
It should take us about that long to research Pottery tech, and then we can start a couple of cottages at the capital.

I would build Farms and Mines at the capital and make it pure production, at least until Monarchy.

Darrell

[Zeviz]

Originally posted by darrelljs


I would build Farms and Mines at the capital and make it pure production, at least until Monarchy.

Darrell

You are still thinking about this as a typical MP game. It isn't. Even if we take aggressive approach (which I am still opposed to), we have to plan for a game that lasts more than a hundred turns.

If we invest everything into production, would we be able to catch up to the civs who focus on expansion, instead of wasting tons of production on military?

[darrelljs]

Zeviz,


You are making a false assumption; I've never played MP before. In an SP game I specialize my cities. The capital was made for production. I'd use it for Settlers/Workers in the early game, and Wonders/Military as the game progresses. Site #2 is an excellent commerce city, I'd cottage it.

Darrell

[Sullla]

For what it's worth, I think that city #2 makes a better production city (more hills) while our capital makes a better commerce city (on a river, Bureaucracy commerce bonus). I also like to build Heroic Epic in a non-capital city for military, so it avoids taking up one of the national wonder spots.

Basically, we won't be topping size 10 in the capital anytime soon, so we can afford to have some tiles set aside for both production and commerce configurations, and swap back and forth as needed. (Essentially working cottages when pushing growth, production when popping out workers/settlers.)

Since we won't have Pottery for about 12 more turns anyway, we don't need to decide everything right now. (Although having a long-term plan *IS* a good idea.) My vote in the longterm is to make the capital a commerce city, Pink Dot a production/military pump. For the immediate future... well, I already outlined that in my last post.

Maybe get some more votes on how to specialize our two planned cities? Darrell, Zeviz, and I are the only ones who've had a chance to weigh in so far.

[mostly-harmless]

On the topic of city specialization:
Pink Dot is also better suited as a military pump, as it is closer to the "frontline".

As for the worker assignments: Pink Dot needs to be stood up asap.
With the rice and the cows improved, we will soon hit the happy cap of 4 I am afraid. So the inevitable whipping makes Pink Dot an even better military pump, no?

The road connection should start at the southern branch of our river towards Pink Dot to get the additional 2gpt asap.

mh

[Zeviz]

Darrell, sorry about incorrect assumption.

For the worker actions, there are two ways to keep our worker safe from animals on his journey:

1. Leaving new city unprotected, while warriors wait along the road.

2. Having a warrior meet worker in the forest, then escort him for a turn until worker can enter our borders.

3. Having both workers start on a road while we are waiting for the first border expansion.

Option 3 will waste the least worker turns (both because of not having to use slow escort and because the worker will get closer to destination while building road), so I'd suggest going with it.

[darrelljs]

Zeviz,

No need to apologize of course, I think we got the measure of each other pretty well in RBTS6 . I just wanted to be clear *why* I am not in favor of cottages in the capitol to better influence others .

For Worker protection, in my private games I normally do #3.

Darrell

[Zeviz]

For the road direction, we could either go straight south, or do it diagonally. Going diagonally has the benefit of giving us half of a road to the front, but has the disadvantage of taking longer to build (going through forests and deserts) and alarming Templars even more. (Building a road towards them might be a bit much, especially after settling on their doorstep. )

My preference would be for the road straight south, because worker turns and peace with Templars are more important than starting a road to Templar capital early.

[darrelljs]

Do we want to run one of the two Workers south ASAP (and let the other build the road) to get started on the Rice?

Darrell

[regoarrarr]

I would tend to agree with this since having an improved tile seems to be a much better idea than increased movement for units we're probably not really going to even move down there (any time too soon)

Though rather than improving the rice, I'd send it to improve the cows, which should be in our borders by the time a worker could get to them (or shortly thereafter).

I don't have BtS so I can't check for sure but maybe a hybrid strategy where we have the 2nd worker do a turn or 2 on a road until it reaches the point that it would get to the cows right when Pink Dot's borders expand.

Grassland cows are 4f2h compared to Grass rice's 4f0h, right?

Another thing to consider is that part of our road will be not in our borders, meaning that barbs (or Templars) could cut it if we don't protect it a la the "Banditos" in the Cuban Isolationists game. Probably not really an issue but might be worth watching over.

[Zeviz]

I am not sure about the balance between saving worker turns and getting resources improved faster. Since we have to wait for border expansion in 5 turns to access the cows, the road will be pretty close anyway. At that point we might as well wait 2 turns for the road to get there and have both workers improving the city twice faster.

[darrelljs]

The Rice will be 5F since it is on a lake. Let's see, 7 turns to road down means probably 3 turns to walk down. 5 turns to border pop.

My vote is we road with both Workers for two turns, then have Worker #1 run to the Cows so it is on them (with movement left) on the turn borders expand. Worker #2 continues the road until just north of the hill tile between the Rice and Cows, then moves to the Rice to start the Farm. Worker #1 after finishing the pasture builds a road on it, then a road on the hill tile (connecting the cities), then joins Worker #2 to polish off the Farm and help with the road. If I did the calculations correctly (see below) it is a choice of 8/12/4 > 7/10/8 > 11/2/10 > 15/2/0 (food/hammers/commerce), permutations aside.

Darrell

P.S. My calculations if anyone wants to check:

1. One Worker runs to farm the Rice, the other Worker continues the road. Farm complete in 8 turns. Road for Farm 2 turns after that, Workers meet on grassland forest hilll between resources on turn 11, road it on 12 (citied connected), pasture done on 14, pasture roaderized on 15. Net over 15 turns from improvements is 14 food from farm and 1 food/2hammer from cow = 15 food/2 hammer.

2. Both Workers continue road. Cities connected on turn 7, rice farmed on turn 10 (one worker moves to Cows). Turn 11, slow Worker moves to grassland forest hill, while other Worker starts Pasture. Turn 13 road is complete. Turn 14 pasture completes, turn 15 pasture is roaderized. Net 10 food from farm and 1 food/2hammer from cow. So overall net is 11 food/2 hammer. At the cost of 4 food, we connect the cities 5 turns earlier (worth 10 commerce, right?).

3. Both Workers continue to road. Cities connected on turn 8 since I assume we'll road to the hill for a Cows first approach. Pasture done on turn 10. Cows roaderized turn 11. Rice Farmed turn 14 with a Worker move left. Rice roaderized on turn 15. The overall net is 5 food/10 hammers from the Cow, 2 food from the Rice for a net of 7 food/10 hammers. Cities connected will give 7 commerce.

4. (suggested) Both Workers road for 2 turns, then Worker #1 continues while Worker #2 runs to Cow. Pasture done on turn 9. Pasture roaded turn 11. Worke #1 goes to farm Rice while Worker #2 roads hill. Hill roaded turn 13 (cities connected). Rice farmed turn 14. Rice roaderized turn 15. So we get net 6 food/12 hammers from cow and 2 food from farm and 4 commerce. Hmm...that is 8/12/4.

[regoarrarr]

Looks good to me

[darrelljs]

So is there any disagreement to splitting off a Worker after next turn for the Cows?

Darrell