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Dominae
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If we do not hear from Vox, I suggest Grog moves up to explore the chokepoint, Slash moves West to intercept Tim and Hack moves up to shadow Willy (I believe everyone is agreed on this course of action).
Our second city will begin by building a Warrior, correct? If so, I think Ouch should begin moving North either this turn or the next, since there is no danger of Barbs from any other direction.
We should check if we're going to have Pottery by the time we accumulate enough Shields. How full is the Food box?
Dominae
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:24
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Food box: We're about to grow to size 3, so it will be empty.
Aording to my test scenario, we'll do fine on research. We can max our science rate once we have our second city, which should put research time down to four turns - one turn ahead of completion of the granary (assuming we work one FP and two furs each turn).
My current though is to have EotS use a FP, an irrigated fur, and the forest fur by the river this turn and then switch to using both irrigated furs and a FP from then on until it reaches size 5. That sticks Hurricane with an unimproved grassland along the river most off the time, but it gets our granary finished quickly and puts us well on our way to a settler for our third city. It also times things so we grow shortly after building the granary instead of shortly before (since using both irrigated or soon-to-be irrigated FPs would delay building the granary), with the paradox that by growing the city later, we actually end up ahead in the size/food combination. I'm not thrilled at stunting Hurricane's production, but I think starting to exploit #3 more quickly is more important. (By the way, watching for opportunities to exploit the delayed-growth paradox as granaries near completion is a key ingredient in settler pump strategy.)
Ouch needs to stay home, since building our next settler ASAP means we can only have one more warrior by the time it's ready without compromising growth and thus future production (unless someone can find a better way to manage our builds).
Barbarians from the far South are a very regular feature in my test scenario. We can't rule them out in the actual game.
Nathan
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Food box: We're about to grow to size 3, so it will be empty.
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Good, I was just thinking about the Settler-pump strategy you just described. Glad to see we're on the same wavelength for once!
quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Ouch needs to stay home, since building our next settler ASAP means we can only have one more warrior by the time it's ready without compromising growth and thus future production (unless someone can find a better way to manage our builds).
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Are you saying Hurricane will produce 1 Warrior, then begin a Settler immediately? If so, where will that Settler go? Assuming it is to the nearest site (in the Desert), we may not need a defender in Hurricane: by placing the new Warrior somewhere in the Mountain range, Barbs will appear far enough away that we can muster reiforcements easily. So I think Ouch should get his butt up North. If Hurricane is to produce 2 Warriors, there is no problem and Ouch should again move North.
Concerning the chokepoint, it is definitely an important place for a city, but I think we should get settle closer to home first. Once we have 7 or so cities, maybe we can consider sending a Settler that far North.
Dominae
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Dominae
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Come to think of it, we're lacking a Warrior to protect the Settler that will be going toward our third city site. So if Hurricane is only building 1 Warrior, Ouch should not move North but return to Eye of the Storm to help defend our third city.
Dominae
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Dominae
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I've done no testing of this myself, but is it really a good idea to be produce three Workers in our Settler-pump city during our REX phase? The competition of resources between Eye and Hurricane is frustrating, but Settlers should be our top priority.
Dominae
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Dominae
I've done no testing of this myself, but is it really a good idea to be produce three Workers in our Settler-pump city during our REX phase? The competition of resources between Eye and Hurricane is frustrating, but Settlers should be our top priority. |
We might possibly be able to get away with one less, but we'll need workers eventually and I want to avoid snags that would reduce the total number of settlers+workers that EotS can build. And the workers all serve useful purposes.
(1) We want a road north for military, settling, and trade purposes (and the settler who builds it may end up stopping to serve as #13's worker).
(2) City #3 needs a worker (who can road to it along the way), and supplying the worker from EotS lets it kick into settler pump mode sooner. (I've about made up my mind I want a second settler/worker pump there.)
(3) We need a road to the horse site (starting off following the road to #3), and eventually to the city we'll build next to that site.
(4) We need to irrigate to the horse city if we want any kind of growth in it.
(5) Once Hurricane gets a barracks, I want it to be a fair-sized town, not something that builds settlers as quickly as possible, so it can become our leading supplier of war chariots. And it may even attempt a wonder sometime. That calls for more tile improvements around it.
That (plus a little work around EotS one or two of them would do first) accounts for our original worker, the one Hurricane produces, and the three EotS produces. It's not like we'd be building workers who have nothing of any short-term value to do.
After the three workers (or two if a test that way works out), EotS can start focusing on settlers until we get to a point where workers are our bigger problem again.
Nathan
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
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Well, I vote for 3 early workers, if this is possible to combine in all the plans. We need roads, lots of them, and these are not going to build themselves. Plus, we need to cross the jungle asap.
#3 into another pump: I thought we more or less agreed on this (at least I do  ), but I've got 2 questions: first of all, we need to settle #7 soon to get to our horses. Second, for #3 to work at topspeed, we should settle #4 soon as well (or build a temple in #3), so we get access to another wheat, and some extra SG. More testing will be needed to see if we get time to build these settlers from EotS...
DeepO
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
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Not exactly for next turn, but something to keep in mind: when I was testing the pyramids, chopping the forest gave the shields to EotS, even if Hurricane was closer (but it was building a wonder, and couldn't use the extra shields). If this same thing happens now, we might need something else to build in EotS. If so, I would vote for a temple, which should be built in 3 turns + 2 chops, giving us a bit of time to grow some more, not wasting shields on settlers we don't have pop for.
2 extra advantages: we might avoid to need to settle #7, as our cutlure would increase, and secondly, we can do something about that early culture, because I find it disturbing that so far nothing gets planned culturally. I'm not saying we need to build a temple before 2500 BC, but we should start planning on building something early. Vox is not our main problem culturally, which should give us some breathing room, but I rather have some safety wrt other teams as well.
DeepO
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Dominae
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I'm must disagree with the Worker idea. Setting up cities is more important than building up infrastructure at this point. I ran a test run with Eye producing nothing but Settlers as quickly as possible (with all other cities either producing Warriors or Temples, apart from Hurricane which built a Barracks), and expansion was absurdly fast. Even a couple of pop points lost to disease did not slow things down much. A nice side-effect of this plan was that Eye and Hurricane did not compete too fiercely for tiles, since Eye was usually between size 2 and 4.
If we want to start building WCs immediately (which I recommend against), then clearly we'll need to put a Worker on the Horses. Connecting all the cities to the trade network is not really necessary at this point, since at Regent we do not really need the Luxuries all that much. The military road network to the North probably will not be used very much. Corruption will remain low because all our cities are aroud our more or less central core.
So, I propose: zero Workers until sites 1, 3, 4 and 7 have been settled. Cities 3, 4 and 7 have good enough tiles to be able to be respectably productive without Worker action. City 1 will share a Flood Plain and a (chopped) Fur tile with Eye and Hurricane, which the Worker will need to start on. If the Worker moves 7-9-3 and performs all relevant actions (chop, road, etc.), our three core cities will be connected and nicely productive. Thoughts?
Oh, Sir Ralph, would you mind including along with the normal set of screenshots a shot of Eye of the Storm's city view?
Dominae
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Dominae
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Concerning Temples, I propose we pop rush them in any city that can only produce 1 Shield per turn initially, due to Corruption, but is getting 2 Food per turn. The city grows in 10 turns, and there is exactly 20 Shields left for the Temple, which can be immediately rushed.
All cities which are producing 2 or more Shields should produce Warriors, Barracks, Granaries and Settlers (when enough Food is accumulated).
The other option would be to produce Workers every ten turns. Given that we're setting up Settler/Worker pumps already, I favor the first option.
Dominae
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
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Dominae: sure, you can have a lot of cities fast, but what are those worth when they aren't good in producing shields and commerce? With one worker set aside for it, we can have #3 ready as a pump around the same time you would settle your 6th city, meaning we can quickly regain the initial city loss. 2 workers is more or less equal to 1 settler, and I'll gladly have one city less if this means we can have all our cities connected (some 15% less corruption, meaning an extra commerce if we produce 6), and all worked tiles improved.
Further, we really need a road to the North, no matter if we are going to attack Vox, need to defend, or simply need to expand. As a rough guess, it will take some 40 worker turns to get to the chokepoint with a road, so either we start very soon on it, or we need to commit multiple workers (maybe even both).
WCs might not have the highest priority (aside from battling barbs), but if we see problems coming it would be silly to only then start planning on connecting the horses. That would be much too late, as a safety issue we should do that within the next 20 turns at the latest (connecting a road, which does not necessarily mean working the city).
It might need some testing, but having 3 workers instead of 1 could very well mean we get an extra tech by the time you would have built your 6th city, certainly this is no small gain. Plus, don't forget that if you would avoid all workers, you need to double their efforts later on to catch up again. I already suspect that by the time we would have 6 cities, we should have 4 or more workers running around, I don't want 6 or more of them 
DeepO
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
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Randolph, we should be okay on needed border expansions for the next few cities, most of them can work enough tiles initialy, and all tiles once the neighbouring cities are built. There are a few exceptions, of course, but very little IIRC (haven't got access to the screenshots right now).
Poprushing temples in high corruption cities is of course good, but the only problem is that in those same cities we don't have enough gold income to pa for the temple. We can only do that if we keep the core cities on a larger size, so that they will produce more commerce. It's a tactic I use a lot, but we might look out, it sometimes is tricky to balance. And in this game, the initial focus is more on researching than in my SP games, I always have too much cash, too few techs.
DeepO
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
Dominae: sure, you can have a lot of cities fast, but what are those worth when they aren't good in producing shields and commerce?
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In my experience, settling is always better than building tile improvements. I would very much like to hear the results of an actual test for our game that proves me wrong.
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
With one worker set aside for it, we can have #3 ready as a pump around the same time you would settle your 6th city, meaning we can quickly regain the initial city loss.
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I do not think you're taking into account that an extra city is worth more than its Shield, Food and Gold revenue, because it acts as an extra production center. Having such a prodcution center around earlier means earlier pop-rushed Temples, earlier extra Workers and earlier units to combat Barbarians (and, perish the thought at this point, Vox). Compound this rapid appearance of production centers across all new Settlers, and I believe you've got more "purchasing" power than 3 Workers can accomplish. Again, I would like to see a test of this.
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
2 workers is more or less equal to 1 settler,
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Like I said, I believe that during REX 1 Settler is worth more than 2 Workers (maybe even around 3).
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
and I'll gladly have one city less if this means we can have all our cities connected (some 15% less corruption, meaning an extra commerce if we produce 6),
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How many cities will we have producing 6 Commerce anytime soon other than our capital? Probably around 1: Hurricane (maybe 2 with the Gold city). But these cities are close to the capital, so the 15% effect probably does not appear until much later.
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
Further, we really need a road to the North, no matter if we are going to attack Vox, need to defend, or simply need to expand. As a rough guess, it will take some 40 worker turns to get to the chokepoint with a road, so either we start very soon on it, or we need to commit multiple workers (maybe even both).
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If all goes well with Vox, the only reason we would need a Northward road would be to expand. I believe 40 Worker-turns is too big an undertaking at this point (i.e. while we're REXing) just to fulfill that purpose.
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
Plus, don't forget that if you would avoid all workers, you need to double their efforts later on to catch up again.
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This is true, but does not take into account the fact that we're going to need to double our Settler efforts if we do not build them early on.
Dominae
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
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I guess opinions can differ, especially on these kind of things. I agree we need some testing, and once I get home from work I'll try some to more clearly focus my mind. But, it will be difficult to test, as it focusses on different things.
In the mean time, some comments. Production is going to be important, and my feeling is that with 2 workers, we get more production out of the worked tiles then with 1 extra settler. Note that I was conservative: I said 1 settler = 2 workers, you seem to believe we could get 3 out of one settler. With 2 extra workers, certainly our production would be a lot higher in all cities, resulting in at least 1 shield extra per city (one mine), and 2 gold for a size 1 city. Multiply that by let's say (again very conservative) 4 cities, and you get 4 shields, 8 commerce. You can not gain this by settling an extra city, or it should be quite special. Note that this takes into account size 1 cities, the effects should be larger when calculating with size 2's.
I'm not sure on the rounding effects that 15% gets, maybe alexman has a clearer idea. Otherwise, we certainly are going to need to test this (I'll look out for it). It could very well be that you start to notice the effects once you get 4 commerce (as that one commerce could be rounded up instead of down), which is a situation that is going to occur quite often, certainly if #3 is going to grow into a pump. Note that the roads have a double effect: it gives less corruption, and more commerce. We can't do without them.
Road North: expansion is certainly one aspect, but no matter how close we are going to be with Vox, we need it for defense, easy transporting, lux trades, barb patrols, you name it. That road is going to cost precious resources, but it simply needs to be build asap. There is no question in my mind we are going to delay it, but of course I'm not the one to decide.
And the double worker comment: you're right, what counts for the workers counts for settlers as well. And I think it more or less compensates, but still favours the more workers approach. With 1 extra city, it will be harder to build 3 extra workers than it will be to build one extra city with the 3 initial workers. Don't forget that with more workers, we not only get more roads and more mines, but also more irrigated wheat and game... faster growing cities are faster settlerpumps. Adding a city does little to speed up population growth, and can only build one exta worker at the time, not double the amount of workers needed.
DeepO
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
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Arrian, X-posted with you. The thing where every new city receives a worker sounds like my gameplan too, but I do shift production sometimes to let one city concentrate on workers, and the next one on settlers (not really pumps, as no granaries are in place). That definately sounds like a good plan to keep to: 1 worker per city we build (more or less, of course).
I don't know if you're answering to me about the 3 extra workers, but if you do, let me clarify: I was saying I vote for 2 extra workers, meaning 3 in total. Not 3 extra workers, that would be too much at this point in the game. Let #3 build one early on, that should be enough.
DeepO
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03-01-2003 04:19
. Either 2 or 3 depending on tests. They should certainly be built in EotS because of workers high pop. to shields ratio.
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