19-01-2003 18:48									#31
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Yes, have Hurricane's laborer work the grassland. Next turn, he'll be able to take one of the irrigated furs when EotS goes back into growth mode, and if disease strikes again as expected, we'll have another irrigated fur available by the time there would be contention over who gets one. So we'd be setting back Hurricane's growth a turn for just two shields, and that doesn't seem worth it.

Actually, this is costing us five turns in terms of growth - 2 pop points at 2 turns each, plus we got thrown off our two-turn growth pattern. That's definitely a full city, and that's definitely painful! (Edit: assuming, of course, disease actually does strike twice.)

Nathan

	19-01-2003 19:37									#32
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Ok, playing turn now.

	19-01-2003 19:50									#33
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Turn and screenshots sent. No power screenie today, power went straight down.

	19-01-2003 19:53									#34
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Oh, darn, I just saw I forgot to switch Hurricane to barracks. We'll have to do this next turn.

	19-01-2003 20:38									#35
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Does putting Hurricane on Barracks mean that no Settlers are going to come out of that city? I'm thinking it would be better to produce 1 Settler there at the first opportunity, then Barracks when we near hooking up our Horses, then military units aplenty.

We still only have 2 cities (soon a third, yes), and we've just been struck by disease! Growth is still our main concern, no?


Dominae

	19-01-2003 21:10									#36
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Vox are in a hurry. They know that they need to strike as early as possible.
If we don't start building up our defenses now, we could get caught with our pants down when immortals start rolling down Vox's military road.
Besides, we already have EotS as a settler pump and we'll have another pump, reinforced by wheat, next turn. They both have great lands for growth, but Hurricane doesn't. Its landscape of plains and mountains depicts a production city, not a growth city.

	19-01-2003 21:57									#37
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If we're so sure that Vox is going to attack us soon, why are we trading with them? If we're just getting what we can before war breaks out, this is bad for us, because any tech they obtain they can trade to other civs, which we cannot do.

Cities that do not have food sources are still good candidates for a Settler or two, once their pop gets high enough. It is silly to restrict Settler production to those cities with food bonuses and Granaries.

I admit we need units. But I think there is time yet before they will put to good use. Let us use that time to grow.


Dominae

	19-01-2003 22:04									#38
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae Does putting Hurricane on Barracks mean that no Settlers are going to come out of that city? I'm thinking it would be better to produce 1 Settler there at the first opportunity, then Barracks when we near hooking up our Horses, then military units aplenty. We still only have 2 cities (soon a third, yes), and we've just been struck by disease! Growth is still our main concern, no?

I think there's a fair chance Hurricane will build a settler eventually, but not until we feel comfortable about our military situation.

	19-01-2003 22:06									#39
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Hurricane can grow to size 3 in 19 turns from now. In this time, it can produce a whole bunch of shields, at least much more than 30. If we switch it to barracks now, it can catch the 2 chop boni and will finish the building very soon. I haven't got the time now to do the math, but I'm pretty sure it can even produce a spearman or 2 this way, before it can switch to settler (foodwise).

	19-01-2003 22:11									#40
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We're trading with Vox because right now, that's the only game in town. We need Iron Working for defense, and we need Alphabet for Writing and maybe eventually Map Making to get contact with other civs. Trading with Vox gives us a way to get both in a reasonable amount of time.

	19-01-2003 22:25									#41
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph Hurricane can grow to size 3 in 19 turns from now. In this time, it can produce a whole bunch of shields, at least much more than 30. If we switch it to barracks now, it can catch the 2 chop boni and will finish the building very soon. I haven't got the time now to do the math, but I'm pretty sure it can even produce a spearman or 2 this way, before it can switch to settler (foodwise).

I'm not sure yet whether we'll want Hurricane to get both chops or just the first. The question is, will the third chop come at a time that would let it help build the third settler right after the second? If so, the same logic by which we originally wanted the chop to go to EotS may still apply. That's not something that needs decided right away, and I'd feel more comfortable waiting until I see exactly where we are after next turn to run the projection.

	19-01-2003 22:29									#42
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By the way, assuming the real game matches the test scenario, Hurricane loses a shield to waste when it goes from generating four shields per turn to generating five. So we're looking at three shields per turn at size 1 (except for this turn, since we're working grassland) and four per turn at size 2.

	19-01-2003 22:35									#43
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Does connection to the capitol reduce waste?

	19-01-2003 22:37									#44
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay We're trading with Vox because right now, that's the only game in town. We need Iron Working for defense, and we need Alphabet for Writing and maybe eventually Map Making to get contact with other civs. Trading with Vox gives us a way to get both in a reasonable amount of time.

IMHO, above all we trade with Vox in order to keep in par with the civs on the main landmass.

quote: Originally posted by nbarclay By the way, assuming the real game matches the test scenario, Hurricane loses a shield to waste when it goes from generating four shields per turn to generating five.

In your test scenario, did you connect Hurricane to EotS with a road? This significantly lowers corruption.

quote: Originally posted by Dominae It is silly to restrict Settler production to those cities with food bonuses and Granaries.

I disagree. The problem with cities like Hurricane is that the population doesn't regenerate fast enough. In cities like EotS or Cyclone (site #3), the population that we lose when we build settlers and workers regenerates quickly, and production is restored to full capacity faster, whereas if Hurricane builds a settler, it would take it a much more significant amount of time to grow back twice to retain its production capabilities previous to the completion of the settler.

I think the most efficient thing to do is to build settlers and workers in our pump cities, and build settlers in non-pump cities only when the population is growing too high.
Cyclone should get a granary ASAP and then be allowed to grow to at least size 4 before it starts cranking out settlers, in order to retain a high rate of production.

	19-01-2003 22:40									#45
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus Does connection to the capitol reduce waste?

It does (thank you Alexman for this wonderful thread and the corruption calculator!).

	19-01-2003 22:50									#46
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Sir Ralph, I was not aware that Hurricane was getting so little food. Is it not possible to give it at least 2 per turn?

Shiber, if a city is growing at a normal rate (2 food per turn at sizes 1 and 2), then it is definitely worthwhile to build Settlers in the early-game. That's the whole point of rapid expansion. Setting aside towns too early for military production seriously reduces growth, and wastes gold. And, the "loss" of production in Hurricane is more than made up for by the city the Settler will found.

Nathan, is it possible to get the Settler out before the Barracks? Doing Barracks-Spearmen-Settler is wasteful compared to Settler-Barracks-Spearmen.

And about the tech-trading thing, I agree that we need to get Iron Working to make sure we're militarily potent (love that word!). But the more we're convinced that Vox is going to attack, the less it makes sense to trade with them. Who knows what they're getting from other teams for our techs? Worst-case scenario: gold for Immortal upgrades.


Dominae

	19-01-2003 22:57									#47
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The corruption figure I gave is for after the fur by Hurricane is chopped and roaded, which connects Hurricane to EotS.

	19-01-2003 22:57									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Shiber I think the most efficient thing to do is to build settlers and workers in our pump cities, and build settlers in non-pump cities only when the population is growing too high.

I guess I missed this quote earlier. In my SP games, I've found that, apart from Settler pumps, the best thing to do is to ensure most cities finish a Settler the turn they grow to size 3. Admittedly this has a lot to do with difficulty level, since on Emperor you do not want you cities to grow much beyond that. But still I'm not convinced that slowing our growth to build an early Barracks is a good idea. We proposed this way back when we were figuring out our early Eye queues, and voted against it then. The situation is definitely different now, but I'm thinking we still have time to prepare.

Another general point that just came to mind is that we're never going to produce enough Spearmen to set up an adequate static defense in the eventuality that Vox does strike early. They've got too many Jungle, Hill and Mountain tiles to sidestep us with. Thus Spearmen at this stage will not be very useful. Better wait until we can produce WCs, IMO.


Dominae

	19-01-2003 23:14									#49
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Hurricane is getting two surplus food per turn, and will continue to do so. But it just dropped back to size 1 building a worker, so it has to get to size 2 before it can go to size 3. That's where 19 turns to size 3 comes from.

In a REX built on exponential growth, setting towns aside early and not having them build settlers is really bad for growth. But in a REX strategy built around high-powered settler pumps, it's not nearly as big a deal because a single settler pump can do the job of four or five cities with no granary and only two surplus food.

Hurricane should get its barracks in either 10 or 11 turns; I'm not going to try to pin it down more precisely right now. If it's eleven, Hurricane could build the barracks and then still build a settler as soon as it hits size 3. If it's ten, we'd actually need something in between the barracks and the settler to avoid throwing away shields. So even if we have Hurricane build a settler shortly after it hits size 3, a barracks won't get in the way.

Nathan

	19-01-2003 23:16									#50
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Dominae, we need both Spearmen and WCs. WCs only would leave too many mountain / hill attack paths for Vox... we have to funnel them down onto flatlands for the WCs to be effective.

	19-01-2003 23:16									#51
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What I want most defense-wise, assuming iron is available, is a few vet warriors we can upgrade to swordsmen if Vox starts threatening.

	19-01-2003 23:34									#52
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay In a REX built on exponential growth, setting towns aside early and not having them build settlers is really bad for growth. But in a REX strategy built around high-powered settler pumps, it's not nearly as big a deal because a single settler pump can do the job of four or five cities with no granary and only two surplus food.

Would expansion not be even faster if the Settler-pump cities were complemented by Settlers from the other cities as well? Given your willingness to produce a Settler in Hurricane, I think you agree.

quote: Originally posted by nbarclay Hurricane should get its barracks in either 10 or 11 turns; I'm not going to try to pin it down more precisely right now. If it's eleven, Hurricane could build the barracks and then still build a settler as soon as it hits size 3. If it's ten, we'd actually need something in between the barracks and the settler to avoid throwing away shields. So even if we have Hurricane build a settler shortly after it hits size 3, a barracks won't get in the way.

Hm, too bad the timing is off. Perhaps the Worker was not such a good idea in the first place. In any case, your plan with what we have makes sense.

Theseus, Vet. Warriors sounds like a better plan than Spearmen (I had forgotten that we were even going for Swordsmen). Like I said above, we need a lot of Spearmen to effecitvely funnel the Voxian troops, and this is assuming they will attack with one big stack. I think a dynamic defense based on counter-attacks is better. The only problem will be generating enough gold for the upgrades...

Edit: Just a minute. How were you planning to funnel them with Spearmen, Theseus? Maybe we do not need so many after all (somewhere around 4). I still prefer Swordsmen for counter-attack, though.


Dominae

	20-01-2003 00:04									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae Would expansion not be even faster if the Settler-pump cities were complemented by Settlers from the other cities as well? Given your willingness to produce a Settler in Hurricane, I think you agree.

I agree that we'd grow faster. What I'm skeptical of is whether we'd grow enough faster to be worth the military risk involved in building a settler instead of having the city focus on units for a while first. That's doubly true with the #7 site city (also intended to be a leading producer of military units) delayed by several turns.

quote: Hm, too bad the timing is off. Perhaps the Worker was not such a good idea in the first place. In any case, your plan with what we have makes sense.

Dominae, have you been watching Hurricane shuffle its laborer back and forth between fur forests for production and unimproved grassland for better growth? We needed that extra worker pretty badly. Further, when EotS works both irrigated furs, Hurricane couldn't stay at size 2 without cutting its food production in half due to not having enough tiles with decent food to work.

	20-01-2003 00:27									#54
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay Dominae, have you been watching Hurricane shuffle its laborer back and forth between fur forests for production and unimproved grassland for better growth? We needed that extra worker pretty badly. Further, when EotS works both irrigated furs, Hurricane couldn't stay at size 2 without cutting its food production in half due to not having enough tiles with decent food to work.

Admittedly, I have not been following the Laborers too closely lately. I was commenting on the big picture, and did not consider the (important) details. So strike my Worker criticism from the record. I just feel it is my role at this point to push for Settlers, because everyone else is thinking about war.


Dominae

	20-01-2003 00:28									#55
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We not only need ironworking to build swords, we need to know exactly where to attack their resource chain. Thus, I would put trading for this on a high priority.

	20-01-2003 01:12									#56
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae ..., because everyone else is thinking about war.

I doubt, that anyone seriously considers war at this point, but to overlook the obvious military road building and to neglect on our defense, would be very dangerous. An MP game needs a balanced development, growth and defense are equally important. Remember, they can compare our strength compared to theirs in the military advisor screen. To be "strong" compared with us could give them thoughts. In SP you can neglect on defense, because the AI is predictable.

	20-01-2003 01:43									#57
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True... I think that is the whole point here. I don't mind building settlers, or better yet workers from Hurricane, but not to let it hit size 1 again. The best would be if we can balance our expansion so that Hurricane is always at least size 3 or 4, which makes it a verry powerful unit builder. This takes the pressure off the other cities... remember that of our 4 first cities, 2 won't build units for a long time, we need to compensate this.

Further, we need a few spears, as we can't rely on WCs alone (and swords are a bit too expensive on defense). We don't need vast hordes of spears now, that won't do any good, but as always, balance will be most effective.

And, Dominae, you're right in the tense situation with Vox, and thus the weirdness in trading techs right now, but it is for the moment our only chance. We need them to get some techs, and get to other civs quickly. Also, the faster we can get all civs to a certain level in tech, the better it wil be for us. We have the best prospects of researching ourselves (even with our bad luck, of getting hit by disease), so we should build on this advantage. The faster Vox gets all the basic (level 1 and 2) techs, the faster their research will halt. If we can reach this point with a decent defense, we will have put them aside, and make them a good target for a later war. Trading techs will in this respect be best, we should be the first of us two to reach the middle era.

DeepO

	20-01-2003 02:00									#58
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DeepO, in general I agree with you. But:

quote: Originally posted by DeepO Also, the faster we can get all civs to a certain level in tech, the better it wil be for us. We have the best prospects of researching ourselves (even with our bad luck, of getting hit by disease), so we should build on this advantage.

How do you know we have the best prospects for research? Do you mean between us and Vox, or among all other teams?


Dominae

	20-01-2003 02:37									#59
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Well, the disease was unfortunate, as it might disturb our greatness. But most likely, we will have the biggest expansion, due to our EotS settler pump. Further, we have nice terrain, with a gold city as 5th city, and already a river through 2 cities (which will grow a bit bigger, because we need them at a certain size, and not at size 1). This combined mean that we will have the best commerce, thus the best research posibility. Of all teams.

BTW, it will only be temporary, as we need to build libraries everywhere if we want to keep this position, and we can't predict now in what kind of a situation we will be.

DeepO

	20-01-2003 02:43									#60
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EDIT:
x-post .
So nevermind

Last edited by alva on 20-01-2003 at 03:24