Project Taj Mahal?

[sooooo]

This is a thread for the possible build of the Taj Mahal in Airstrip One.

Nationalism is expected to take 12 turns. Banana, in their recent email, said that PAL's nationalism is due in 6 turns. However, PAL are definitely using binary research. I expect that 6 turns to be longer, but I'm not sure if we can estimate how long that will be. Maybe our C&D department can make an estimate from their GNP graph and comparing it to ours?

The question is: can we beat them to the wonder and is it worth trying to beat them to it. Our problem is that we want to revolt to nationalism and that removes the bureaucracy production bonus to Airstrip One and is a turn of anarchy. One option, which I'm not advocating, just throwing it out there, is to delay revolting to nationalism. That (a) gets us better production for the Taj and (b) gets us better research for gunpowder and oromo warriors.

Our C&D department could be a big help here. If PAL build the wonder in a city we have sight of (eg their capital), we can figure out the hammers they are putting into the wonder, and any forest chops that go into it. If they have not started the wonder in a city we have sight of, it may be worth trading maps with banana once they get paper. Banana are estimated to get paper at around the same time that we get nationalism.

Anyway, not a lot needs to be done right now, but this thread is a starter for all discussions Taj-Mahal related.

[sunrise089]

Question for number experts:

Do we gain more hammers with an empire-wide golden age or the 10 turns of drafting we could build for swapping to Nationalism right away?

[mostly-harmless]

The C&D dept suffers from a major break down in computer resources. Yesterday my private desktop went down (with BtS installed and all the screenies.) Today my work laptop went down (with all my excel tables and analysis files on it). Needless to say I am extremely busy trying to somehow get those files back somehow.

If PAL started the Taj in a city we don not have line of sight, we don't need to trade maps with Banana, we simply have to ask them to do a bit of C&D math themselves to check the progress.

mh

[darrelljs]

I would be in favor of trying for the wonder. With Marble, the hammer -> cash conversion is worth it even if we lose the race.

Do we gain more hammers with an empire-wide golden age or the 10 turns of drafting we could build for swapping to Nationalism right away?

You get the hammers much earlier drafting, so I would vote against waiting.

Darrell

[ruff_hi]

I would prefer to swap to nationalism, draft for Bloodbath and build Taj at our capital with the aim of not getting it - it is sort of like running 0% tech while you build up cash for your next tech.

[Zeviz]

By the time we get Nationalism we should know where PAL is building Taj Mahal, so we'll have an idea of how long it will take them. At this point, we don't know enough to make plans.

... Yesterday my private desktop went down (with BtS installed and all the screenies.) Today my work laptop went down (with all my excel tables and analysis files on it). Needless to say I am extremely busy trying to somehow get those files back somehow.
...

ouch Good luck with your computers.
Maybe check the data for vuruses once you restore it in case that was the cause of simultaneous failure. (Although I once had 3 hard drive failures over a couple months, all for mechanical reasons.)

[sooooo]

Other option is Bluebell Woods, as mentioned by someone else somewhere else.



That's a lot of forests! If we could get a missionary into here from A1, those forests are all 70 [EDIT: 75] hammers, (30 base hammers +25% forge, +25% org. rel, +100% for having marble). The Taj Mahal costs 700 hammers so if we were to purely chop the wonder then it needs 10 forest chops. We have ... 10 [EDIT: 9] forests . Regarding workers we could spare, the four at Green Acres will have just finished their duties. We also have the one that is at Bluebell already, plus we could spare Steve (from Frozen Clams) and Erik (from Cape Town).

Snagging Taj Mahal under PAL's noses would make me chuckle rather a lot. I think we could honestly do this. Let's get to work!

[T-hawk]

those forests are all 70 hammers, (30 base hammers +25% forge, +25% org. rel, +100% for having marble).

psst... 30 x 2.5 = 75.

And I count only 9 forests in the BFC.

Can we get enough worker labor here to chop out all the forests quicker than Airstrip One could do the wonder? Building and even whipping extra workers from both China Beach and Saxon are both on the table. 10 forests takes at least 40 turns of worker labor including travel time.

[sooooo]

Damn-it, that's why I'm a chemist not a mathmatician :P

Whether we have the worker turns available and how many workers we need to commit all depend on what PAL's eta is.

[Krill]

Chemists are the most interesting people (sorry for the spam)

PS. I only count 9 forests? Just checking that I'm not actually going blind atm

[regoarrarr]

Just as a note of encouragement - over in the CFC demogame, team SANCTA (comprised of many of us RBers) built the Oracle in 1 turn through massive overflow and chopping.

Similar scenario here - we were beaten to Meditation (I think?) and knew we were going to have to really resort to extraordinary measures to land it.

But I think we can do it - we've shown that when it comes to these types of optimizing exercises we really turn it on!

And plus, even if we fail, the cash refund will be nice too.

Someone is in the game right now, but I'll try and log in a bit later to take some initial stabs.

[Swiss Pauli]

If we're soon to go into Nationalism then A1 will be a lot less able to build Taj quickly, as it's only got two choppable forests remaining, and it can produce other useful stuff for our empire, so the opportunity cost is greater trying to build it there.

Bluebell seems a decent bet. Given it will be building Taj while we're chopping it, the 7-8 base hpt should get us down to 8 chops, or less if Team RB Micro can come up with one of their cunning plans

[MyOtherCar]

Well, I'm not good in calculating this, but it seems we need to get a missionary up there pronto for the OR bonus. Secondly, we need to time the forge to finish the turn we get Nationalism. In the mean time we should let the city grow as much as possible. Snce the ETA for Nationalism is about 7 turns, we could delay the forge for about 3 turns, and perhaps whip it the last turn for overflow into the Taj.
I've attached an excel-sheet with the tiles we can work. But I didn't finish since I don't know food and hammers stored.

[sooooo]

With settling those two cities then nationalism will unfortunately be longer. We can get it in 8 turns if we borrow about 100 gold from banana. If we borrow about 200 gold then we can get it in 7 turns.

[regoarrarr]

So what turn will you have the Taj on?

Okay. I started making a worldbuilder save but didn't get that far. But that didn't stop me from making a few calculations. I think the best we can hope for with our current force is 7 turns from now (counting the current turn as T0).

First, the assumptions
A) We can get Nationalism in 7 turns from now. Currently listed as due in 5 but I know we'll have to run at least 1 if not 2 turns of gold.
B) We can get a missionary from somewhere in the next 4-7 turns (for the exact time we need it, see open question #2)
C) We can use the 3 workers that are already within 2 tiles of Bluebell, plus 3 of the workers near Green Acres.
D) We need 8 chops for 600 hammers, and the remaining 100 hammers (~42 base) can be made up through natural production or even whip overflow from the forge.
E) We can figure out how to complete the forge and store chops without wasting them. I believe we can build "Research" which just stores up forest chops?

Next, the plan
There are 9 forests in the BFC, which I have labeled as so, starting from the south and working counter-clockwise (mostly) - all directions from Bluebell center.
1. The grass forest 2S
2. The grass forest 1SE
3. The grass forest 2ESE
4. The grass silk forest 1E
5. The grass forest 1N-NE
6. The plains forest 1N
7. The tundra forest 2W
8. The plains forest 1S-SW
9. The plains forest 1SW

And here are the locations of the workers:
A. On the grass hill 2SE
B. On the tundra 2NW
C. On the silk 1W
D/E. 4S of Airstrip One on the road network
F. S-SW of Airstrip One but not on (or particularly close to) the road network
G. Erik who is on the desert E-SE of Cape Town.

To sum up, we have 3 workers that can move to a choppable forest on T1, 2 that can move to one on T2, 1 that can move to one on T3, and one on T4. Since it seems like somewhat of a waste to move Erik 4 turns to chop one forest and then move back to the front, his part could be substituted by a new worker from either Saxon or China Beach. If it's Saxon it has to be built EOT3, if it's China then EOT2 (in both cases to spend T4 moving to a choppable forest).

T1: Possibly switch to an Islamic missionary in Saxon to whip next turn (see question #2), B move to forest 6, D and E move to Airstrip One, A moves to forest 3, and C moves to forest 4.

T2: D moves to forest 8, E moves to forest 9 (the only 2 forests D and E can reach this turn), F moves 1N onto the road network and then 2 more tiles north (to the tile SW of forest #1), A, B and C chop.

T3: F moves to forest #1, D and E chop.

T4: F chops, A, B and C's chops are done.

T5: D and E's chops are done, A moves to forest 2, B moves to forest 7 and C is released.

T6: F's chop is done and is released, A and B chop, D moves to forest 7, and C moves to forest 2

T7: D and C chop and (along with A and B) finish.

1 chop each from A-F, and a chop each from A-C and B-D, 8 in total.

Last, the open questions
1) Can we "build research" and store the forest chops?
2) Assuming the answer to #1 is yes, does a forest chop count for its adjusted value with the boni at the time of chop, or the time it's cashed in?
3) Where do we get the missionary?
4) I closed the game but it looks like worker F, by moving SE on to the road network, could reach forest #1 on T2 instead of T3

PS I made up that quote from Krill