Project Taj Mahal?

[sooooo]

What is the limiting factor for our finish date for the Taj Mahal? Is it the worker turns chopping forests? If so, could we shave a turn off of the finish date by borrowing a few more workers?

Yes, it is worker turns chopping forests. But unfortunately we cannot spare more workers. We could spare probably 2, but they wouldn't even shave a turn off.

[mostly-harmless]

We are not up against Pi-Ramesses, because a) it is on some other build for a few turns already (so it's bad timing) and b) it does not have Confucianism.

In fact none of the PAL cities we have visibility into has recently finished a build apart from The Warning & Alexandria. The Warning is the capital, getting +50% from Bureaucracy, but is overall a weak production city. Alexandria is only size 6 with no forests to cut. There is also Thebes, one of the cities we don't see. Size 12 and it has Confucianism (according to my religion analysis).

Those are the two possibilities.

mh

[T-hawk]

What is the limiting factor for our finish date for the Taj Mahal? Is it the worker turns chopping forests? If so, could we shave a turn off of the finish date by borrowing a few more workers?

Yes, it is worker turns chopping forests. But unfortunately we cannot spare more workers. We could spare probably 2, but they wouldn't even shave a turn off.

Correct. Just to clarify for any lurkers or casual fans, we're chopping 4 forests all together on T153 to complete the wonder. So to speed that up any would need all 4 chops to be accelerated, which won't happen.

[mostly-harmless]

Both The Warning and Thebes got triple whip this turn. This could mean some "max overflow" timing on behalf of PAL. This also means, they have not started the Taj yet (if they plan on using Thebes or The Warning)

mh

[regoarrarr]

But no matter what kind of whip be it single, double or triple, they can only get 29 base hammers overflow

[regoarrarr]

Has (can?) anyone looked to see what PAL might be doing?

Or if one of the C&D experts posts what we need to look for I (or someone else) can check

[Swiss Pauli]

I had a look and so did m-h and we concluded that if they were building Taj, it was in one of their hidden cities (Thebes/Elephantine). If Thebes whip overflow goes towards Taj may shave a turn off their completion date.

In the espionage screen, you're looking for very high, rapidly increasing sabotage costs, I believe.

[sooooo]

Mostly Harmless, do you know if Thebes or Elephantine is the more northern of the two hidden cities (the one with the high production)?

Thebes is earlier in the city name order, in fact it is probably the second city they settled.

[mostly-harmless]

Ok, some update.

I don't know for sure which of the two hidden cities is where. Thebes was indeed the second city. My gut feeling is that Thebes is the northern city. But I feel they planted it actually 1S of our sign, so on the plains hill. This will allow it to work two cow tiles, the copper, 2mines and some more plains tiles. The city is size 11, so we can expect it to work all the hammer tiles in range. My counting yields 23base hammers (as a worst case scenario if the city was planted on the hill and steals tiles from its neighbours.)
In terms of modifiers I calculate with:
k= 1 + 0.25(forge) + 0.25(OrgRel) + 0.5(industrious) + 1(marble) = 3
Thebes is by now the only city that could have started the Taj. It was last whipped on T146. Lets assume max overflow of 29 base hammers.
147: invested = 0 (+156h [{29overflow + 23base} *3])
148: invested = 156h (+69h)
149: invested = 225h (+69h)
150: invested = 294h (+69h)
151: invested = 363h (+69h)
152: invested = 432h (+69h)
153: invested = 501h (+69h)
154: invested = 570h (+69h)
155: invested = 639h (+69h)
156: invested = 708h Taj completed!

They can't speed it up by forests, as they don't have any forests. They can speed it up by starting a GA (if they get a Great Person soon). Unlikely. I believe thay already got an GA from Great Person, right? Anyone remembers?
They can of course whip it to completion. PAL is happy to whip away large quantities of population. Lets assume Thebes manages to grow to size 12. That allows for 6 pop points to be whipped.
Whipping a wonder gets a penalty of 50% (I believe, someone double check). So they get 6 x 15base hammers max. Multiplier applied gives 270hammers!!!.
If they whip that much, they can't work all the hammer tiles anymore, so I think they can whip for some 5 pop points on T152 to complete the Taj on T153. One turn before we finish, right?

This is assuming max overflow from whip in T146, Thebes pulling in 23base hammers (a lot!) and that they whip away half their population.

A close call.
And I believe we cannot speed up our time by whipping, correct?

Here the situation for reference: (the lines indicate the area where the cities could be settled)


mh

[sooooo]

And I believe we cannot speed up our time by whipping, correct

This is true. The way I see it is that there's absolutely nothing we can do to speed the wonder up, so there's not much point worrying about it. Either we get it or we don't. PAL whipping the wonder with 2 hammers to spare on T152 all relies on a lot of things and is the absolute worse-case scenario. Also, maybe it's just me, but if I was settling Thebes I wouldn't put it on the plains hill since it's 1-tile from the coast in both directions.

I do think there's a good chance that they'll whip on T153. Does that mean it's a pure coinflip as to who gets the wonder?

[mostly-harmless]

I believe I read somewhere that in MP it is really a coinflip.

If they settled on the "signed" tile at the coast they get only 20base hammers max.
They can still whip on T152 I think.

But as you said, nothing we can do about it.

mh

[sooooo]

Holy crap, maybe we can get it on T153

I don't have access to the game, so this will need to be checked, but I think we can get away with just chopping 7 forests. We have 4 already chopped. A fifth is due on T152 anyway. If next turn we send Steve and Helmholtz into Bernard and O'Brien's forests then we can chop 7 forests by T152.

OK, so the hammers. We got 29 base hammers overflow from the whip. We have put 12 base hammers of production in (6 each from T149 and T150). That's (29+12)x2.5 = 102 hammers. 7 chops of 75 hammers each = 525. Add those two together and you get 627 hammers, a deficit of 73 hammers. If we change from the silks to the plains forest, we get 20 hammers per turn after multipliers (8 x 2.5 = 20). So T151 and T152 we put 40 hammers in, leaving 33 hammer remaining on T152. That's enough for a 1-pop whip even with the 50% penalty for whipping a wonder, right? The whip would be worth only 15 base hammers, but 15 x 2.5 = 37 hammers. We'd make it by 4 hammers!

Obv I'd like it if someone checks my maths.

[sunrise089]

Skilled players I know in MP say it's generally a coinflip. Other, less reliable players say there is some sort of system based on the order you joined the game.

[regoarrarr]

For simultaneous MP games (which I think is what this is, right?), the turn order is shuffled at the beginning of each turn, so it does end up being random

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7233336

[Dreylin]

The Banana boat we originally met in Rabbits' land sailed up the East coast, right? If so, I don't think there's any way it could have got past the Northern signed spot without seeing a city there. That either means that the city is on the plains hill, or that it was settled later on the coast.

Also, the Egyptian city order starts with Thebes then Memphis so I doubt that they would have placed their first three cities with as much overlap as the Northern city has. I'm pretty certain the Southern of the two cities is Thebes, placed to grab the Copper.

Edit: m_h, how does the sim change if Thebes is the Southern city?