What happens after the war?

[Blake]

Are you talking about not working the sheep?

edit:
... and... getting two workers, in order to improve the floodplains, long before we have pottery, needed to improve the floodplains...

Sorry I need convincing.

[Blake]

Hmmm.

Playing around with sims. I have to say this build actually looks quite good:

Skirmisher, Skirmisher.
Train settler.
Train settler.
Skirmisher.
Whip Settler
Whip Granary (two whips in a row because of furs).

It gets straight to the point with founding our cities... gets the extra +1 happy early on.
No extra worker, it's up to the new cities to get their own worker.

I'll try and do a side-by-side comparison tommorow.

[Arrian]

Three settlers? Wow. I'm definitely up for 2... but three? Why not 2 + worker & something else (barracks?)?

-Arrian

[Blake]

To claim all the floodplains and the furs to get an extra happiness to work with. Note two of the cities come with an immediate extra +2c from the city tile.

Workers are for faster commerce (in this case) and settlers are for faster production/growth.

We'll have loads of commerce.

[Arrian]

So we're looking at founding cities at the wines site, the fur/copper site, and the site NE of EotS, in that order.

Some questions:

1) Can we properly defend all those cities and still choke Vox?

2) If circumstances require a change of plans partway through, is it a big deal if the 3rd settler becomes something else?

-Arrian

[Krill]

Well, as soon as the new cities reach size 2 they can whip a Skirm if need be...

But I'll be hionest and say the first thing that comes ot my mind:

Barbs. How do we control them?

[Blake]

So we're looking at founding cities at the wines site, the fur/copper site, and the site NE of EotS, in that order.

I think I'd go with Wines, floodplains 2, Furs.

Some questions:

1) Can we properly defend all those cities and still choke Vox?

2) If circumstances require a change of plans partway through, is it a big deal if the 3rd settler becomes something else?

1) Well since we have a presence in Vox territory we'll be able to see any excessive archer buildup, and also "Escort" them back to our territory if they try making a move on wines. This knowledge of their movements should give us the time to shift gears.

2) Not at all. A skirmisher is a quick 2 turn build so we can pretty much throw in as many as we feel we need. The mass settler plan pretty much goes with no whipping, so that the next settler trains more quickly. This means we maintain the full 12hpt, hammers on-tap.

[Arrian]

Ok. To clarify, my question re: defense included barbs. They're not set to raging, so it shouldn't be all that difficult, but we will likely need to fit in some more units than you plan calls for in order to both choke Vox/defend against Vox *and* prevent barbs from ripping up tile improvements.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

I think 3 Settlers is a bit greedy. That's leaves only 2-3 Skirmishers to choke, over a period of 20 or so turns. We may in fact have to defend our new cities from Barbs, or from Vox who might see what we are trying to do and counter. Garrisons for 4 cities plus choke units for Vox would spread us pretty thin.

A Worker instead of a Settler would give us a lot of flexibity. Just putting a Cottage on a Flood Plain gives us the additional 2 Commerce that we would get from founding on the Wines. Not to mention the option of building up Roads if we discover we need them in a hurry (fast movement toward a choke site is good - ahem, Impi versus Skirm debate).

Going Worker-first in each of our expansions is okay, but again not very flexible: once in Slavery, we could grow these cities to size 2 and thus have the option of poprushing a Warrior in an emergency (or a Skirmisher, with a little up-front payment).

Pardon my ignorance, but do we have a Barracks yet? With all our units 4/5 of the way to the Cover Promotion we would drastically reduce Vox's chances of breaking our choke, given that their best unit for the foreseeable future (perhaps their entire existence!) is the Archer.

In short: although I agree that now is a fine time for expansion, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we are at war.

[Arrian]

Dom said it better than I have, but that's what I'm getting at (and finally someone who thinks we need a barracks!). I think the reason we don't have the barracks yet, Dom, because we needed to punch out some units and get them over to Vox in time to claim some tiles. A barracks for a non-agg civ is a fairly large build. Still, I'd like to get one up soon.

How about this:

Skirm
Skirm (chop assist)
Settler
Granary
Worker
Barracks

-Arrian

[Metaliturtle]

This thread is a great read, I'm trying to fathom just how each plan works, they all sound awesome, I'm glad you guys are discussing this, I'm clobbeing my roommmates now

[Arrian]

Clobbering



-Arrian

[vmxa1]

I am glad someone brought up barbs, I had inented to but getting senile nowadays.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Blake
Skirmisher, Skirmisher.
Train settler.
Train settler.
Skirmisher.
Whip Settler
Whip Granary (two whips in a row because of furs).

It gets straight to the point with founding our cities... gets the extra +1 happy early on.
No extra worker, it's up to the new cities to get their own worker.

I don't particularly care if we go for superspeed, or super economic growth. The only thing I hate would happen is if we would be undecisive, and half-implement part of both strategies.

That said, if we don't go for superearly rush, this plan has my full support. The more settlers, the better. And as soon as we can get them too, please.

I do have one problem, though: we need more skirms. If your plan assumes a skirm/axe first in every new city, and whipping it the moment it reaches size 2 (which completes the skirm in 13 turns), I can live with it. Otherwise we need to find more units somewhere.

If we want to choke, we need to pressure Vox into building loads of units. With upkeep, that will stop their research. And that is the real choke: no tech, no growth, no way of improving their situation. Even if another civ came along, they wouldn't have anything to trade with.

DeepO

[Velociryx]

Just back from out of town...apologies for the delay in the ongoing discussion.

Re: Blake's question of the need for a second worker before we get pottery.

As you made mention of yourself (in previous discussions), the one worker we have is gonna be VERY busy for the foreseeable future. This tells me then, that there is no shortage of work to be done, cottages or no. Add to this the fact that we're now talking about building at least one fast city (and possibly two)--which will, by definition, greatly expand the work to be done--and I think you'll agree that even if we don't have the capability to plant cottages NOW, the workers will be kept quite busy with good projects (including another idea of yours, to farm one of the FP's). Plus the fact that cottages aren't terribly far off in our future, and the build times to do all this (even chop assisted) would mean that we wouldn't get our second worker terribly many turns ahead of pottery anyway, so I can't imagine it would be this huge point of contention (ie., if it's 4 turns from our next skirmisher, ~7 turns to the settler and we pop to get the worker in that approximate timeframe ~12 turns or thereabouts, and we're projected to have pottery in...what was it...seventeen turns....I'm not seeing where it's a big issue....it gives us a fast second worker, and he has time to do approximately one non-cottage job before we get the appropriate tech.

-=Vel=-