Turnplayer Thread No. 6

[Swiss Pauli]

- Similarly, barracks needs to come before courthouse at Frozen Clams. We need the barracks for happiness and drafting purposes there. Courthouse probably should be the next build there, however.

This can't be right either: FC produces 1 base hammer per turn and we can already whip the barracks for 1 pop. I already suggested whipping the CH, and therefore complete the barracks with overflow, but this got nixed, so I'm wondering what exactly the plan is for FC?

[Zeviz]

- Disagree with Zeviz about Bluebell Woods. Courthouse does little good here, because the city is so close to the capital. Saving 3gpt isn't anything to write home about; better to get a bank going, which will permanently increase gold by 50%. Yes, it may be the same 3gpt right now, but the bank will pay off much more in the long term as the city grows and works more plantations/cottages.

Let me clarify:

We are currently losing money at 20%, but will likely recover as courthouses and cottages come online, and we'll get cash from capturing cities, so running cash 80% of the time is the most optimistic scenario for the bank.

Scenario 1 (Bank before Courthouse):
32 turns of nothing while building bank = 0$
80% * 16 turns of 6gpt while building courthouse = 13*6 = 78$
Total: 78$

Scenario 2 (Courthouse before Bank)
16 turns of nothing while building courthouse = 0$
32 turns of 3.2gpt while building bank = 32*3.2 = 102$
Total: 102$

So in current conditions building Courthouse before Bank in Bluebell will give us extra 24$ by the time both buildings are complete. (The payout of Bank will increase if Bluebell works more cottages, but will decrease if we can run more than 20% science, so one of our MM experts can probably create a couple best case and worst case scenarios, but my guess is that on average my conclusion above will still hold.) Income from Bank will also be lower if we whip away some citizens to construct buildings faster. Whether it makes sence to do so will require more detailed calculations.

[sunrise089]

That sounds right Zevis, but are we confident we can go Bank/Courthouse or Courthouse/Bank? If we have to build a different building or a unit after the first build that can change the numbers.

[Zeviz]

Since Bluebell is one of our primary commerce cities, it's better off building infra, rather than units. So the only question is whether enough new cottages will come online by the time both buildings finish to make bank look like a better first build. I can't answer that question without knowing worker schedule, city growth rate, etc.

PS Talking about worker schedule, we should prioritize cottages, rather than farms. (Sulla is assigning several workers to irrigation duty.) We are already better at production than commerce, and are about to obsolete Colossus, making coastal tiles 2/0/2, instead of 2/0/3, so we have to build cottages for all our southern cities to work as quickly as we can.

[sooooo]

Logged in and had a good look around. Pretty sure that bank is better at Bluebell. Bank only makes 6 gpt right now but that's because it's just been whipped. It'll grow soon to work the other silks, then when it grows again it can take over RH's hamlet, then it has another cottage to work etc.

I think China Beach is much better off building a quick courthouse than another catapult and I made that change. Once that build is finished we'll get the city on boat duty.

I have a plan for Frozen Clams: Switch to a spy. It is the perfect number of hammers (40) to do a double-whip, then finish off the barracks with the overflow (needs 20 more hammers).

Looking at the military, I think Lakhamba should be no.1 priority for the Islamic shrine. That will solve our cash problems. Our number-of-cities maintenence is already sky-high and I don't think going after the Mayan northern cities is worth it since we'd be compelled to take them. IMO our curassier stack should strike at Lakhamba immediately. I'd be willing to sacrifice most of the mounted units to get the city earlier. There are a lot of Islamic cities out there and the sooner we can get the income and whip a bank the better. [EDIT: City already has a bank, even better]

Probably granary is indeed better at Chichen. And I agree that theatre in Damascus is superfluous if we're getting Calakmul soon. Forge may be better.

Worker next turn at Red Herring and we can draft the city too.

A comment on the worker actions:

Don't think we need to road the cottage at Constantinople. I'd like one of the trio at Constantinople to enter the unroaded jungle/sugar tile at Jerusalem and the other two to chop the roaded jungle there. That way we only waste 1 turn entering the jungle since the tile it should be chopped by the time the other workers want to plantation the tile. Otherwise fine.

[sooooo]

PS Talking about worker schedule, we should prioritize cottages, rather than farms. (Sulla is assigning several workers to irrigation duty.) We are already better at production than commerce, and are about to obsolete Colossus, making coastal tiles 2/0/2, instead of 2/0/3, so we have to build cottages for all our southern cities to work as quickly as we can.

I disagree with this comment. We have 9 workers in the south (3 at each of Constantinople/Jerusalem, Sweet Tooth and Jungle Fever). They aren't building cottages granted, but they are all doing useful jobs. The sugars and banana tile will all be plantationed soon and then we start the mass-cottaging. Plus what cities would actually work a cottage if it had one right now? I don't see any. The food and the production is important to build soon and then we get into the cottaging plan. I think the timing is fine between early production for building/whipping granaries, then growth and finally working cottages when the city is bigger.

The four workers assigned to farming are 3 at UB and 1 at Jericho. The 3 at UB will be finished in 2 turns time. For Jericho, I just don't think it's worth cottaging all those bare grassland tiles, since it will take a long long time for them to pay off with anything. The best hope for this city IMO is just to farm the grass tiles, lumbermill the forests and build troops. It will eventually get biology to help the farms and then maybe some workshops will be useful. But cottaging this city just doesn't seem worth it when war with PAL will not be too far away. It's a different case for the more fertile grounds in the south since those cities have food and production to build the necessary infrastructure needed for a commerce city.

[Swiss Pauli]

I had a poke about in-game, and notice that there is an unseen road 1E of the goldmine by Oxi: if you zoom in on the area you can see roads leading to that tile from the city and another adjacent tile. So for maximum safety, we should send units further north.

[sunrise089]

Look at that - Imperio logged in and played, and whipped something.

[sooooo]

What do people think of my idea of whipping a 40 hammer spy in FC, then overflowing the 20 hammers to finish the barracks? Sunrise did say we want a spy.

[sunrise089]

@Soooo - I would like a spy. I don't suppose it is essential if we roll quickly over Imperio, but it could be very nice to know, for example, whether Lakamha is vulnerable to a 2-mover stack at any point.

Plus, we can certainly use the spy in the PAL theater eventually.

[regoarrarr]

soooo - I like it.

[mostly-harmless]

I am against a spy. I can see his benefits in scouting, but then a small scouting party of 2movers does just the same and spies die to often in this game for my taste.

mh

[sooooo]

OK, but then how do we finish the barracks in FC? There is nothing else to build for 40 hammers. If we whip a courthouse we get no overflow unless we use up a missionary (which seems a big waste). We could single-whip a barracks but that misses the point of building it for the happy benefit.

I think a spy will be pretty good - it can help in the imperio campaign a little but more importantly it's available to send over to Egypt afterwards. We are getting quite a lot of EPs against PAL now with our courthouses and nationhood bonus.

[Swiss Pauli]

How about a cat after 1 turn of production?

[mostly-harmless]

Imperio caravel NW of Frozen Clams.

This turn we capture the two worker, I guess and advance towards Calakmul.
The Imperio whip went into Oxhuitza I believe. Ox is also on a hill. Do we want to review our attack plan and go for Lakamha instead with our 2movers?

mh