Turnplayer Thread No. 6

[sunrise089]

You're right, 24 Oromos are plenty for the Imperio battle. But since they will eventually be obsolete, and it will be more than likely too expensive to upgrade any except the Drill IV troops, we can put them to use garrisoning cities that PAL could attack with ships. As long as they have a long-term mission I think it makes sense to produce them in GA where the food/hammer conversion is so strong.

[sooooo]

Is it worth considering a revolt to bureaucracy? Taking the anarchy hit and then going back to nationhood after we get rifling (with a golden age).

[mostly-harmless]

Hmmm, our civic upkeep will increase by at least 11gpt. We will lose the +2 from barracks, which is an issue for A1 and PD at the moment (and more cities if we keep on piling up WW). The gain in epts is not an issue.

On the other hand we get +7 raw hammers at A1 (not that much) and +28 raw commerce, which is nice.

Now I am not sure whether this gain will outweigh the loss due one turn of anarchy but I suggest to wait until we have the gold at Chichen Itza hooked up to compensate for the happiness hit.

I also suggest to work the plain mine for +10hpt at A1 (instead of a village) and finishing Oxford 1 turn earlier.

mh

[Zeviz]

I was considering a revolt to Mercantelism, given our high number of cities and low number of trade partners. How much anarchy would we take if we went for Merc+Beurocracy? (And how much trade income would we and Banana lose?)

EDIT: If we do decide to revolt, the earlier the better, because more cities might force us to suffer an extra turn of anarchy.

[sooooo]

Indeed. It's tricky to calculate because presumably we'd have to up the culture slider while we get 2 military police into A1 and Pink Dot (say 3 turns). I am not sure either if it's worth it or not.

I commented earlier that getting oxford out 1 turn earlier is not worth the starvation and loss of income since we may as well leave the slider at 0% until our GS is born (he's due on the same turn as Oxford currently).

[sunrise089]

@Soooo - I understand the Oxford/food trade off, but if we knock out Optics in 2 can't we trade for Astro right away? While Oromo production winds down (and I personally would like to keep the 1 free Oromo we get 19 out of 20 turns rather than get the Bureaucracy commerce bonus) wouldn't it be nice to build some Galleons? The Mercantilism upgrade makes more sense to me. Even better would be Mercantilism + Theology

[mostly-harmless]

Indeed. It's tricky to calculate because presumably we'd have to up the culture slider while we get 2 military police into A1 and Pink Dot (say 3 turns). I am not sure either if it's worth it or not.

Uh, touching the culture slider, just to battle two cities' unhappiness sounds bad. Rather wait for the gold to be connected.

I commented earlier that getting oxford out 1 turn earlier is not worth the starvation and loss of income since we may as well leave the slider at 0% until our GS is born (he's due on the same turn as Oxford currently).

Oh, ok.

mh

[sooooo]

@Soooo - I understand the Oxford/food trade off, but if we knock out Optics in 2 can't we trade for Astro right away? While Oromo production winds down (and I personally would like to keep the 1 free Oromo we get 19 out of 20 turns rather than get the Bureaucracy commerce bonus) wouldn't it be nice to build some Galleons? The Mercantilism upgrade makes more sense to me. Even better would be Mercantilism + Theology

We can research optics and trade for astro whenever we want to build some boats. It's a lot more efficient to raise the slider once oxford is built, but if we need to do it now then that's OK. If you're saying let's get oxford quicker to get optics quicker to get boats quicker, then 1 turn of boat building isn't worth the starvation and loss of 6 GPT.

[sunrise089]

We can research optics and trade for astro whenever we want to build some boats. It's a lot more efficient to raise the slider once oxford is built, but if we need to do it now then that's OK. If you're saying let's get oxford quicker to get optics quicker to get boats quicker, then 1 turn of boat building isn't worth the starvation and loss of 6 GPT.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I am not saying to speed up or slow down Oxford - I'm sure you know best. I am saying my personal preference is to get Optics and hence Astronomy sooner rather than later to build some galleons. Maybe it's a fools errand to even try to build a fleet when PAL has frigates, but with galleons in the water we can at least threaten PAL's cities even if we can't go toe-to-toe with their ships.

[Zeviz]

You have to consider commerse loss from obsoleting Colossus. We are only at +27gpt at 0% right now, so our financial situation is critical. Look at it this way: every turn we delay Rifling, hurts us much more than every turn we delay Astronomy, and losing Colossus income will hurt us a lot right now.

[mostly-harmless]

City growth and the ultimately the capture of Lakamha will help our economy a lot. I don't think there are any instant solutions to get us lots of money.
Lets ease off on the drafting and whipping of our developed cities and get some cash from three Imperio city captures as well as the Islamic shrine.

mh

[Sullla]

Umm... I think changing civics right now makes no sense at all.

We have 21 cities right now, and still increasing. Bureaucracy doesn't mean very much to us anymore. I don't even know if it's worth it to go from "None" upkeep to "High" upkeep, frankly, and that's leaving aside the turns of Anarchy we'd have to waste to get there. As Memphus and Krill have written in the SANCTA team forums, Bureaucracy is overrated. Once your city count gets into the double digits, you're usually better off swapping to something else.

Frankly, I don't think we should stop drafting either, but I'll make that argument later. (We need tons of garrison troops, and trading ~15 food for an 80 shield, state of the art military unit remains an insanely good deal.)

We don't want to leave Organized Religion either. Theocracy? By the time those units get out, we'll be finished with Imperio. Meanwhile, we've got a massive crop of young cities that are in the process of developing their infrastructure... and every one of the Imperio cities we'll be capturing will come with Islam already present in it. Sounds like a perfect Organized Religion situation to me! Why would we want to move out of this category right now? I don't get it...

Now we absolutely do want to go to Mercantilism at some point, but again, the question is the Anarchy period. My gut feeling was that we piggyback a double-switch at some point about ~25 turn from now, going to Mercantilism + Representation, which will really kick our civ into high gear. However, if it's worth it to go into Mercantilism immediately, that's always a possiblity. I don't think it would be worthwhile to take a turn of Anarchy though for a single civics swap. Just my gut feeling; I hate Anarchy and try to avoid it like the plague. We've done a great job in that regard in this game.

More thoughts to come later tonight, I've got some questions and ideas to type up for us.

[sooooo]

OK, I've come round to courthouse at Damascus over forge. Courthouse is at least whippable in a handful of turns while forge will take a long time to build.

I think we whip Jungle Fever's granary next turn. Probably lighthouse next here. Whip courthouse at Jerusalem next turn too.

We're currently working 19 coast tiles, so colossus will lose us 19 gold per turn at 0% science. Think it's probably best to pick up optics+astro in 8 turns, when hopefully we'll (a) have oxford, (b) the war will be over or nearly over and (c) we'll have chemistry for frigates.

I think we should send Patricia down to help Pink Dot's hapiness. There's not much likelihood she'll be useful for the Imperio war. Maybe Jezebel will also be too late so could be used for MP.

Where is next turn's missionary from Saxon going? Another attempt at Jerusalem?

Recommended worker actions:

Yojojo and Bernard move 1N and start a cottage on CB's grass tile.
Max (at JF) moves 1NE. That looks like a good tile to road and cottage.
Parsons finish the stone quarry, John moves onto the grass jungle hill at JF (anyone see anything better to do here?)
Winston, Erik and Nok Tok finish the sugar at Jerusalem.

[sooooo]

Here's the F1 screen for a view of our cities:

[Swiss Pauli]

Thanks for the list...I'd say Chichen for the missionary: has pop, needs infra, and has happy problems, so it looks likes the biggest win to me.