Commitee of Strategic Planning

[binTravkin]

you mean to have priests in Beijing? Great Prophet won't have a chance close to 100 % in there. Is Beijing going to be our GP farm?

We can only afford one city generating GPP, because we don't have so much good food sites for more, therefore Beijing should be our GP farm for foreseeable future and has to do with whatever points it can get.
Going at the current rate Prophet chance will be something around 1/3 when next GP is born.

Both Prophets and Merchants can be very useful for us at this point, Engineers are a bit less, but still could be user to either rush Library or be settled.

[binTravkin]

Some analysis about razing or not razing the Banana 3rd city.

Pretense
Following our doctrine of coastal city building some members have expressed support to razing Banana 3rd city.
Below are some points speaking for and against this idea.


Pros:
- Our additional upkeep is 3-4 gold per turn less (the city would likely add 6-7 upkeep until courthouse is built, while the city tiles +1 gold and 2 trade routes will generate +3 more gold resulting in a -3 to -4 net result)
- The coastal cities get some more space inlands and one of them - a cow resource


Cons:
- 100hammers plus food are instantly lost (settler). This could be even more if the captured city contains any buildings
- Unspecified amount of food, hammers and even commerce (from the moment courthouse is built there or some cottages boost city's output over added upkeep) is lost. With our current settler build capacity of 1 per 10 turn we're not gonna resettle that area for at least 25 turns. Even if we multiply that with current output of the city, the values are pretty big, likely exceeding 100hammers.
- The copper resource is left unused (although we could make a city to cover both wine resources and the copper)


Overall:
I think that leaving the Banana third city is more beneficial than razing it - we'll get quite enough gold form conquering Bananas to keep a good research level until we've done courthouses.
The city is quite well situated spanning copper and cows, being on the river and being able to become a local area mixed production-commerce center (indeed, a single cottage there would effectively eliminate it's negative effect on our economy!).
My main argument about leaving it is basically that we dont have enough resources currently to afford losing a city.
The argument about its radius overlapping with future coastal city radiuses is quite weak as it's only 1-tile overlapping and coastal cities wont need much inland tiles anyway as they will strive to work as much sea as possible.

As we gain more information about Bananas we could draw up a clear estimate how much more production that city would earn us if left intact.

[Mart]

I would keep the city too. In order to minimize cost for now, a worker might be rushed loosing pop to maybe 1?

[PJayTycy]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Cons:
- 100hammers plus food are instantly lost (settler). This could be even more if the captured city contains any buildings

only if we want to resettle there. If we raze the city, I think it's because we don't want to settle there, so we won't make a settler for it either. We only "lose" a settler if we raze and then rebuild.

Originally posted by binTravkin
- Unspecified amount of food, hammers and even commerce (from the moment courthouse is built there or some cottages boost city's output over added upkeep) is lost. With our current settler build capacity of 1 per 10 turn we're not gonna resettle that area for at least 25 turns. Even if we multiply that with current output of the city, the values are pretty big, likely exceeding 100hammers.

I don't follow your point here. The current output of the city in gold will be negative, while there is no such thing as direct food / hammer output. You could argue about units produced in this city that will help other cities. Buildings usually only benefit the city they are built in.

Originally posted by binTravkin
- The copper resource is left unused (although we could make a city to cover both wine resources and the copper)

Don't we already have copper access ?




For me, the only really important thing would be gold. How much gold do we gain (by trade routes and working tiles) <=> how much gold do we loose due to city upkeep.

I can't predict city upkeep right now. Does somebody know the formulas about that ?

[binTravkin]

For me, the only really important thing would be gold. How much gold do we gain (by trade routes and working tiles) <=> how much gold do we loose due to city upkeep.

=>

- Our additional upkeep is 3-4 gold per turn less (the city would likely add 6-7 upkeep until courthouse is built, while the city tiles +1 gold and 2 trade routes will generate +3 more gold resulting in a -3 to -4 net result)

a single cottage there would effectively eliminate it's negative effect on our economy

I don't follow your point here. The current output of the city in gold will be negative, while there is no such thing as direct food / hammer output. You could argue about units produced in this city that will help other cities. Buildings usually only benefit the city they are built in.

Let me illustrate this with an example.
Go back to when we settled Tassagrad but instead of settling, disband the settler, then calculate how much more turns it would take to build that worker and these chukos we're now building there.


Yes, buildings built in a city only directly benefit that city or rather work with that city's resources, but most of them are built for global benefit.

I can't predict city upkeep right now. Does somebody know the formulas about that ?

I'll search the strategy forum a bit later, someone should have cracked them at least approximately.

Don't we already have copper access ?

Copper resource, whether we have access to it or not is a good source of hammers.
EDIT: we could have that copper in other city's radius, but that would be far future.

[binTravkin]

A somewhat more compact build plan for Beijing, leaving out Galley and Swordsman for now, but managing to build 2 settlers, lighthouse and Great Lighthouse in 16 turns as well as including 2 anarchy turns for civic and religion switching.

Turn	Build	Done	Prod.	Growth(pop)	Surplus	Whip	Remark
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0:725	Settler	73/100	+23	24/28(4)	0	3
1:700	Settler	96/100	+12	24/28(4)	0	2
2:675	Lighth.	0/60	+6+8	24/28(4)	+6	1
3:650	Anarchy	-	-	16/30(5)	-	0	civics
4:625	Lighth.	14/60	+11	16/30(5)	+4	0
5:600	Lighth.	25/60	+7+97	20/28(4)	+5	10	whip+chop
6:575	GL	0/200	+10+96	25/28(4)	+5	9
7:550	GL	106/200	+10	16/30(5)	+5	8
8:525	GL	116/200	+10	21/30(5)	+5	7
9:500	Anarchy	-	-	26/30(5)	-	6	Yangism
10:475	GL	126/200	+18+60	16/32(6)	+4	5	chop
11:450	Temple*	0/80	+3	20/32(6)	+7	4	GL Done
12:425	Temple*	3/80	+3	27/32(6)	+7	3
13:400	Settler	0/100	+12	18/34(7)	0	2	
14:375	Settler	12/100	+12	18/34(7)	0	1		
15:350	Settler	24/100	+12+90	18/30(5)	0	10	whip
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* - Temple can be replaced by anything else except worker (as the city needs growth) here, though I expect by that time us to have some need for happiness boosting facilities if we are to use our coastal potential to the max.
We could also be doing well with the captured gems and ivory from the Bananas.

EDIT: The main point here of course is that we can switch to Yangism in 9 turns and finish GL in 11 turns, as well as start using our coastal potential in 7 turns.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I like this plan up untill the Second Settler in Bejing, why not produce that Settler in Tassgrad and run more Great People in Beijing. We will be in representation at that point which will give us a big science bonus (11 net with 3 specialists) and bring our next Great Person in as fast as possible. Were going to want to get to CoL for courthouses and the Great person will probably be vital to getting their.

[binTravkin]

I expect Tassagrad to be busy pumping out military at that point, similarly as Xian (after outputting a couple of missionaries).

If we will take the Banana cap with initial 6 troops, then we could think of different schedule for one of our military cities, but I think at least one of them should be continuously building military until the war with Banana ends and we reach some kind of border agreement with GS (if Vox is dead by then) or until war with GS ends, should such war start.

EDIT: Anyways, this is more of a proposal, we can approve the part until finishing GL and think up something else past that.

[N35t0r]

I think that that last settler will depend on which nana cities we keep, and how we're doing maintenance-wise.

In any case, it's still a long way away

[binTravkin]

Yes, we can decide it later, but we need 8 cities to build 8 courthouses for Forbidden palace.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I think we should again prioritize a major wonder ahead of the resource that it uses. I'm speaking of the Great Library this time, which could prove as much of a boon to us as the Oracle has.

We can see that the other continent now has Alphabet and Sarantium/Mercs traded a whopping 8 techs putting Sarantium on par with Nanas/GS. They could now be researching Literature and planning a stab at the Great Library especially if they have Marble. We should pull out all the stops to beat them to it by making it our highest domestic priority after the war is over.

We will need to research Literature in a timely fashion and likely spend down what ever we pillage from Nanas to catch up on the tech then use our superior production to tear through the wonder without waiting for marble.

The Great Library's 2 scientist under representation and in Bejing will produce 15 total research and contribute 8 Great Scientist points doubling the point rate their and hugely increasing the chance of an extremely valuable Great Scientist which could boost our research rate still further with an Academy that could net 12-18 additional research in short order. With that kind of Super science city we can zoom past everyone else technologically while still expanding at breakneck speed. Additionally we save 7 maintenance by delaying the 8th city which was to be built mainly for marble connection.

With a Forge, Organized Religion and our Industriousness we get +100% for GL even without marble and only need to accumulate 175 raw hammers. If we begin around 12 turns from now shortly after the Great Lighthouse is completed and build up Bejings population to 8 (by not diverting food to a settler) we can perform a massive quad whip for most of the necessary hammers which should be sufficient (much more math is necessary of course).

[binTravkin]

I agree, Im a bit scared about our prospects getting Library after their massive trade too.
It is the most valuable project in short term to both Sarantium and Mercs as of their philosophical bonus.

Im just thinking how much time exactly do we have.
Sarantium has stone, that is my suspicion, in which case they're unlikely to have marble.
Mercs haven't shown any project building thusfar, so they might as well have that resource.
Anyways, if any of those teams has it, it puts us on par with them in building wonder in question, which in turn means that we can play advantage only on:
- having started the wonder earlier
- having superior hammer output

Now, further analysis of those two points.

1.Having started the wonder earlier means we must start it ASAP, which means we should switch to Literature in research. An argument in favor of this is that we will gain more additional research from Library (+12 base) than from Currency(up to +7 base) in short term. It's actually a shame we hadn't looked deeply in this idea before, as suspicions about the other continent researching Alphabet have been around for some time.

2.Having superior hammer output isn't really a hardness for us, but to ensure it we'll have to use both mines of Beijing and add an engineer on top of that.


The only problem with this I see is the cost of the project and the constant nature of it's return, ie, we can get huge sums from Lighthouse, depending on the amount of coastal cities and trade routes (and their quality) we have, but only a constant amount of benefit from Library.

[N35t0r]

There's also a myriad of marble wonders up the religion tree which they might prefer over GL, as they don't need any further research...

[binTravkin]

They want +16 GPP GL would give them, that's for sure, the question I think is only how soon they are able to do it.

[N35t0r]

Also, as we built all 3 wonders in consecutive turns, they will higly suspect we've got marble or stone in order to be able to do that. They'll probably think we've got marble rather than stone as it's easier to build oracle than pyramids, and they'll bet we are the ones who popped a GE.