Smith's College - General Discussions

[Arrian]

Bump.

Ok, EotS is a few turns away from hitting size 2. Is the plan to work another floodplains for max growth?

-Arrian

[Blake]

I don't see why not. Is there really anything gained by having the garrison out earlier?
In any case min-maxing suggests we should put at least one turn of high food into the buffer because we can always take it back out later if we need to .

[Arrian]

Well, the only thing I can think of is gunning for the western hut asap, or allowing Grog to range farther afield b/c EotS will be defended.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Any thoughts on the "alternative CS slingshot" idea?

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147732

Requires postponing Masonry for a while and the use of a Great Prophet. It means early CS w/o the Oracle, though.

Cons:

-requires that we generate a prophet, which means the use of a priest or the construction of Stonehenge.

-requires using this prophet to lightbulb (most of) CS, which means *not* using him to found a shrine.

-requires ignoring masonry, which means no pyramids or great lighthouse & the inability to properly use any stone or marble we may find.

Pros:

-early CS without having to build the Oracle. Given the commerce & production potential of EotS (both solid), being able to use Bureacracy is tantalizing.

-Arrian

[Blake]

It'll be a pain to generate the prophet and our research is going to be crazy good. I don't see the need.

[Dominae]

I think we should definitely keep this in mind. It's a nice trick in the right circumstances. The best way to capitalize on our unique (or so we think) start is to get an Academy and Bureaucracy ASAP. This is one way of doing just that.

Foregoing the Shrine could be very annoying though. We know that we have a natural trade route with two other civs. This means very good opportunity for Religion spread to their lands without Open Borders, something that Shrines are really good at.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Blake
It'll be a pain to generate the prophet and our research is going to be crazy good. I don't see the need.

I hear you. But Bureacracy is crazy good. I was just thinkin' that the opportunity cost might be worth it.

Otoh, it might be better to get a scientist for an Academy in EotS and just research CS ourselves when we can.

-Arrian

[Aginor]

Grow to 3, Worker, It's just obscenely efficient out of a flood plains start. One of our neighbors is Vox, we know they went civvy (probably religion) and they started with a Scout, so no early raging adventures there. Just keep our early Warriors close and play it a bit paranoid, and that should work out fine.

Are you prepared to sacrifice a full pop point of food/hammer/cottage commerce production in EotS for 34 turns for the alternate slingshot? You could make a case for it if we bagged Stonehenge/Oracle via the chop or if we were Philo. As is, I don't see it. Bureaucracy would indeed be hot, but it would take way too long to return on the investment IMO given our civ characteristics.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Aginor
Are you prepared to sacrifice a full pop point of food/hammer/cottage commerce production in EotS for 34 turns for the alternate slingshot? You could make a case for it if we bagged Stonehenge/Oracle via the chop or if we were Philo. As is, I don't see it. Bureaucracy would indeed be hot, but it would take way too long to return on the investment IMO given our civ characteristics.

I assume we would get our Prophet from an expansion city, one with a few farmed Flood Plains to work. It's definitely a hit on our economy, then again it pays for itself big eventually. Not researching Masonry does not seem like such a big deal given what we are seeing so far.

The major competition for this strat is the quick jump to Organized Religion (which requires Masonry). They're both interesting paths.

[Arrian]

So we have growth (to size 3) in 6, warrior in 7. Then a worker? We won't have hunting yet, so I guess so.

By the way, I've changed my mind about farms vs. cottages on FPs. Cottaged FPs do indeed rock (esp. for FIN civs). My bad.

-Arrian

[Blake]

Yeah.
Sims suggest that growth in 6, warrior in 6 is possible, by switching from a floodplain to a 1-2-0 tile (altough that does leave us with no food buffer so may not be good idea)
After that, train a worker to completion.

After that we need a settler and granary... we could build the granary then whip the settler, vice-verca, or build both then whip in a 2nd settler for a double-expands, or build a 2nd worker, a granary, then whip in the settler. About then Monotheism completes. In the expand(s), quickly get them to size 2 and at the right hammer level for a 1-pop 60 hammer whip (assuming religions spread to them, if we have both hindu and Juadism we just need to juggle religions). This micromanagement will benefit from expand #2 having access to a FP farm and the mined sheep.

One thing I firmly believe is we simply don't need to pasture those sheep. In terms of food+hammers, all we gain is 1 commerce. I'd rather work a FP cottage + mined sheep, rather than sheep + mined PH.
The health only matters at size 6 (where due to whip-weary we'll be unhappy until monarchy), and generally we only spend one turn there before whipping. If health is a problem we can hook up the deer too, which gives the cap a health limit of 6.

So no animal husbandary will work okay. Especially if we get copper. Maybe if we have no copper then we'll want to see horses more urgently. But for now I'm very happy having those sheep mined until the end of time (or our city is stable at size 7 anyway).

And a tech path which looks really good is:
Monotheism->Priesthood->Monarchy. Monarchy will research in just 10 turns due to having both discount techs, and our beakers being like 35/turn. If we settle on wines with 3 cottages that site quickly brings in 16 commerce.

This kind of assumes that one of the other teams will bag CoL and conf if we screw around getting Juadism. If we go full-tilt for CoL we could probably get it, but that could be ruined by a fast oracle, a fast prophet, or just higher research / more direct research. So given we have wines I think that Monarchy is a pretty good deal.

[Arrian]

I agree we want Monarchy. I wouldn't beeline it like that if we don't have copper, though.

We want archery relatively soon, for security reasons. Thus, I'm now thinking:

Poly-Agr-Pot-Arch. Then we re-evaluate and decide between BW and Monotheism.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

And please let us not forget Alphabet.

[Blake]

Hmmm. Help me out here, what typically is the value of alphabet in multiplayer?

Is it so we can see the techs that other teams have? If that is the case does it also reveal our techs to non-alphabetters?

[Dominae]

Is No Tech Trading on?