31-01-2003 20:03									#1
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To be edited by the leaders of the Scholia.

Status:
- Researching Writing at 100%
- 84 gold cash, -1 per turn.

Urgent questions:
Is my (Nathan's) proposed change of orders (see "Change of orders" message) acceptable? It's not optimal if we don't try to go for the Great Library quickly, but it gives us a way to go for it without neglecting our defenses quite as much. Sorry I didn't think of it sooner so there would be more time for discussion, but the worker needs to move this turn.

Military:
- Slash moves into Bolderberg

Economy:
- Hurricane builds barracks. Next build, Warrior. (See my "Change of orders" message.)
- Cyclone laborer goes back to wheat.
- Worker #2 finished road to Hurricane, moves 9 onto forest.
- Worker #3 at the wheat starts mining?

Diplomacy:
- none

Last edited by nbarclay on 01-02-2003 at 10:20

	31-01-2003 20:46									#2
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Hmmm.. I'll repeat my request here: move Zobnk onto the worker, so that both he and Cyclone are protected. And if we want to have the South barb free, move him farther South.

DeepO

	31-01-2003 21:14									#3
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Probably a good idea. I'd forgotten about barb horsemen; that probably argues in favor of Slash not moving quite as far north too (since otherwise, a barb horseman in the wrong place might outrun him).

	31-01-2003 21:20									#4
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The thing is, we should want barb camps and units to appear in regions that we can protect.

	31-01-2003 21:24									#5
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay Probably a good idea. I'd forgotten about barb horsemen; that probably argues in favor of Slash not moving quite as far north too (since otherwise, a barb horseman in the wrong place might outrun him).

I haven't seen barbarian horsemen this early in any of my games (though barbarian appearance patterns may have been changed in PTW). Can anyone share his own experience with barb horses?

	01-02-2003 07:00									#6
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Let's move the warrior out and try to clear as much of the Fog of War as possible, cutting down on barb encampments. We're in serious build-mode right now, and are very, very light on units. Normally, in SP play, I'd be ok with playing fast-n-loose with barbs and shooting for making money off raiding the camps. But not in this game. Let's play it safe.

-Arrian

	01-02-2003 10:03									#7
	Change of Orders: Remove this text

I think I just came up with at least a partial compromise between the "Let's go for the Great Library" crowd and the "Let's not neglect our defenses" crowd, and I've gone ahead and changed my worker orders to reflect it. As our settler nears completion, there's going to be some tile contention between EotS and Hurricane that forces Hurricane to vacate one of the furs for a turn. If we have Hurricane build a warrior (reflecting a momentary drop in production using grassland a turn) and then a chop-assisted spearman, we get our first vet spearman and a potential vet swordsman a lot earlier than we would otherwise and increase our unit count to fend off barbarians. And delaying the Great Library for an extra chop gives us an extra tile Hurricane can work to make up some of the lost production. (Irrigating all the plains lets us mine and work the iron mountain, which is the tile mix we'll want eventually anyhow.)

Also note that in connection with the Great Library project, if we go for it, we'll need not just improved tiles around Hurricane but also more improved tiles around EotS. We could add three workers to Hurricane as quickly as there are enough improved tiles to support them (likely sometime around the time Hurricane would grow to size 3) and then wait until Hurricane grows to size 7 on its own to add the remaining workers. Letting Hurricane grow two instead of one on its own makes a lot more sense in light of our delaying worker production to build a settler first, and would let Hurricane grow one larger than originally planned without the need to build an extra worker to add to it.

This approach should still give us an excellent shot at the Great Library while at the same time preserving EotS as a settler pump and not neglecting our defenses quite as much as we would otherwise. How does it sound?

Note: This change of orders commits us to waiting six turns before starting the Great Library. If there are any serious objections to that from Great Library advocates, we need to hold up the turn to settle them, but remember that one of the votes that makes the "go for the Great Library" idea look so popular is mine and I support this delay. Edit: Great Library opponents may also have some objections since if we don't crank up Hurricane's production, the chop isn't really the best use for our worker.

Nathan

Last edited by nbarclay on 01-02-2003 at 10:21

	01-02-2003 10:14									#8
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Arrian, if we go with my latest change of orders, we'll have a couple extra units in six turns after this one. Would that make barb farming practical in your view?

	01-02-2003 11:53									#9
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Yes, it would.

Give us that extra warrior & spearman, and I have no worries about barbs.

I like this plan. I'm excited to be a part of it. Let's do it! [/Bill Murray - Ghostbusters]

Night!

-Arrian

	01-02-2003 15:04									#10
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I'm in support too. This would certainly get a lot of worries off our heads.
Btw, the turn is here. We've got about 3 hours and 50 minutes before the end of our green hours.

	01-02-2003 15:37									#11
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The turn arrived, but I won't play it yet. We have four more green hours left. Let's discuss a bit more about Nathans change of orders. I support it, it sounds reasonable.

	01-02-2003 15:45									#12
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Sir Ralph, would you feel reasonably safe about adding workers to Hurricane and going for the Great Library with the vet warrior and spearman built first?

	01-02-2003 15:49									#13
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Sir Ralph, how about if you go ahead and load the turn and see how our military advisor thinks our military compares with others? (I'm at work right now making up hours I lost to negotiations with Vox earlier in the week, believe it or not.)

	01-02-2003 16:18									#14
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Hmmm... an extra 6 turns delay is not my problem, but don't we need the forest? In my test game, I used it from time to time to get a shield more... but that was before we discovered iron, it might have changed now.

I thought all along that we were going to stop at size 6, letting Hurricane grow to size 3 on its own. If you're proposing to let Hurricane grow to size 4 on its own, I have to vote against it, because it will slow down our build to much. And size 3 only comes in 10 turns... it would be best if we get the iron mined by that time.

What timing is concerned, if we let Hurricane grow 2 more on its own, it will take 20 turns. This should be enough to have everything improved, and to have few workers on stand by to add. Maybe this is not so bad after all, it won't have a big impact on when we grow, given our capacity when it comes to creating workers.

On second thought, go ahead! It should silence the worst fears of the GL opponents, with little impact on the building of the GL. With only one catch: this assumes we do add workers to Hurricane, either 5 to get to size 9, or 6 to get to size 10. With the delay, I would favor 6 workers... it should give us 15 uncorrupted shields (if I counted right), and 15 uncorrupted commerce.

DeepO

	01-02-2003 16:20									#15
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay (I'm at work right now making up hours I lost to negotiations with Vox earlier in the week, believe it or not.)

Ouch... At least you find the time to discuss things here, even while you're catching up with work

DeepO

	01-02-2003 16:35									#16
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Keep in mind that we have to improve not only tiles around Hurricane but also tiles around EotS (including chopping and mining a forest fur there) in order to use Hurricane as a wonder city without crippling EotS as a settler pump. Not only that, but we need to borrow a worker for at least a couple turns to get Cyclone going as fast as I want to in order to make up for some of the time we're losing in EotS, and if we settle the gold city, I'll want to borrow a worker for five turns to irrigate and road a flood plain to help get that city jump-started. Considering that we won't even have all our workers built ten turns from now, I'm skeptical that we'll be ready to do all the worker adding we'll want to in 20 turns, much less in 10. This is not a simple operation.

Nathan

	01-02-2003 17:06									#17
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Nathan what about timing on Cyclone's part? Do we need the second wheat soon (i.e. in the next 20 turns)? Otherwise we shuold go for site #4, instead of the gold one.

I agree we need a lot of workers, and 6 workers in 20 turns is rather hard, but there are a few good things: we can hopefully use some of Vox's slaves if we decide to let them participate in the fun, and the moment we go to size 9 or 10, we can use all the workers we have at that moment, if replacements are on their way. We should be able to get to that goal without comprising improving our other cities too much.

What is the plan with the worker building a road towards Bolderberg, is it meant to also irrigate up to Cyclone and Bolderberg? it can bring water to Bolderberg in 17 turns, just in time for it to hit size 3. After that, it can easily help Cyclone out... which already has a worker on its own.

DeepO

	01-02-2003 17:06									#18
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Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to recall the idea of borrowing workers from Vox.
Nathan, do you think that 1/2 free early medieval age tech of their choice for every worker would sound fair?

	01-02-2003 17:09									#19
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Just to elaborate, we're already one improved tile short of being able to support Hurricane at size 2 and EotS at size 6 simultaneously without someone's being stuck working an unimproved tile. That's with us working three FPs at all times, but we'll need EotS to drop to just using one FP part of the time, so that's two more tiles needed. Have Hurricane grow by two on its own, and that's a total of five tiles that need improved just to make up those gaps. Plus, each worker added needs to improve a tile either to work once he's added or for a displaced EotS laborer to work. Then there's the fact that one of the tiles involved is a forest that needs cleared before it can be mined and roaded, and also the little side trips I mentioned above.

That means we have to average about two tiles improved per worker before they can be added. But if we add some workers early to get Hurricane working as many furs as practical as early as practical, that leaves still more load on the remaining workers. That's why I don't see us being ready to grow Hurricane beyond size 6 in much less than 20 turns. And if it's almost there anyhow, we may as well let it get there and either save a worker or end up with one higher population.

Nathan

	01-02-2003 17:21									#20
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Ok, I loaded the turn. Compared to Vox, our military is average (I check that every now and then).

Important news, Vox plopped Dissidentville 1 tile south of the jungle wheat. I didn't see the settler run, it must have slipped through when Grog was hunting barbarians.

As for the vet warrior and the chop assisted spearman, well, it's not an appropriate defense, of course, but it's a beginning. Some more forces to hunt barbarians and to monitor our terrain. As for my support for the GL project with added workers, I support it, if matters of continued growth and defense are addressed appropriately. Apart from the 2 vet units, we should build 2 barracks (the one in Hurricane not counting, as it would be not usable for unit building for long) and after this build more spearmen, one more vet warrior (we don't have more upgrade money) and a couple of WC's. My second concern, continued expansion, should be addressed as well, making sure, that we won't have to wait till the settler factory in Cyclone is ready, but that EotS will be put into condition to build more settlers after the workers, although with reduced speed.

Discuss!

	01-02-2003 17:22									#21
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO What is the plan with the worker building a road towards Bolderberg, is it meant to also irrigate up to Cyclone and Bolderberg? it can bring water to Bolderberg in 17 turns, just in time for it to hit size 3. After that, it can easily help Cyclone out... which already has a worker on its own.

One thing I need to do this weekend is catch the team up on my long-term planning.

1) My plans to get Cyclone the food it needs involve working one wheat and chopping and irrigating the game forest. That leaves the remaining wheat for other cities. (And Bolderberg can eventually take over the irrigated game in order to mine more plains, assuming workers are too busy working new tiles to modify existing ones.)
2) Toward that end, the worker heading toward Bolderberg will move 1, then road, then move onto game forest and start chopping.
3) The first new worker from EotS will irrigate the two previously roaded tiles. (He can get help from the second worker on the second tile if necessary, but if I remember right, it won't be.) That will allow Worker #1 to irrigate the game tile as soon as he finishes chopping.

From there, if the worker Cyclone built mines and roads the wheat and then starts mining and roading shielded grasslands, Cyclone should be at size 4 with a granary and able to pump out 2-turn workers in 20 turns (assuming I calculated correctly the other day). It will need a little more mining before it can grow a little more and start building settlers, though. (If I can get to it, I do need to verify that a workable 4-turn settler pump pattern exists for Cyclone; otherwise, it needs to start building 5-turn settlers at a smaller size.)

Nathan

	01-02-2003 17:29									#22
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My goal is that EotS will resume full-speed settler production after it finishes the workers.

Regarding warriors for upgrades, we'll be taking in huge amounts of gold (well over 20 per turn) once we add those workers to Hurricane, so a lot depends on how we feel about building veteran warriors for possible upgrade versus upgrading regulars and using our shields to build other units.

Nathan

	01-02-2003 17:50									#23
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Nathan, let's assume for the moment we're aiming for size 6 in Hurricane in 20 turns, no earlier then that. No need to try to calculate any timing before that, it won't be possible...

With the worker movements you suggest, we should have enough to improve all Hurricane tiles (except the iron, perhaps) around turn 20, and have a few workers running around making other improvements, no? It should leave us the option of starting on a settler immediately in EotS, while other cities are already working towards a worker (the gold city would be nice to build a worker fast), or very close to it.

If we got surplus, we can pump the size of Hurricane faster, but that won't net us as much as getting it to final size fast. Shields should balance out: if we add a worker on an unimproved tile, shield wise it's exactly the same if that worker improved the tile first, and was added after that. But in commerce, there is something to say for getting more tiles quickly, as it will provide more commerce for each tile worked. The best to do is to add workers as quickly as a newly improved tile can be worked, as long as it doesn't keep us from improving a next one (the iron might take 2 workers to be done quickly)... we should be able to get Hurricane to maximum size in 20-25 turns.

DeepO

	01-02-2003 17:52									#24
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Re: Dissidentville:

Is there now any reason not to accept the border treaty as proposed? I'm voting to get the treaty ratified asap. We already lost what seemed to be the primary discussion point: the location of Vox's closest city. From now on, we can only gain from signing it.

DeepO

	01-02-2003 18:10									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph Important news, Vox plopped Dissidentville 1 tile south of the jungle wheat.

Regarding location: I understand why they're settling this site so early. Although it's farther from their capital than several other sites and will suffer from high corruption (at least until it is connected by road. Still two more tiles to go), they need the food for growth. Ok, we've discussed this already. But what's important is that their production capabilities will be very limited for the time, since Dissidentville will focus on growth and settlers/workers, and can't build much even if it wasn't corrupt. Furthermore, the fact that they settled a growth city prior to a production city means that they're not aiming at producing mil. units at the moment, but settlers and workers.
All this should significantly lessen our fear of an early immortals rush.

Regarding name: this implies that Dissident is a key player in their team. IIRC, one or more of us is playing a PBEM game with Dissident. Is there anything you can say about his strategies?

quote: Originally posted by DeepO Is there now any reason not to accept the border treaty as proposed? I'm voting to get the treaty ratified asap. We already lost what seemed to be the primary discussion point: the location of Vox's closest city. From now on, we can only gain from signing it.

Agreed!

	01-02-2003 18:20									#26
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If they want Dissidentville for food for growth, I suspect that they'll be disappointed, especially since they planted it in the worst of their possible sites in terms of corruption. They'll probably need to gross four shields, maybe even more than that, before they can net more than one, so the best the city will be able to do is 10-turn workers and an occasional pop rush. (Pop rushing could do sustainable 21-turn settlers, which is actually worse than a closer city could put out.)

Last edited by nbarclay on 01-02-2003 at 18:37

	01-02-2003 18:38									#27
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I just cant figure out why to build Dissidentville there so early when much better positions were available near the isthmus.

Either Voxians are drunk or that is some very clever plan we havent figured out yet.

I sure hope its Dissident who is making the calls in their team, since his playing style is somewhat irrational, i just destroyed one of his cities in Earth PBEM - he had no units in a border city Even tho he had seen my units coming that way for several turns.

	01-02-2003 18:40									#28
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Nathan isn't Dissidentville located at a site you and Vox havn't talked about- wasn't this supposed to be located "1" and and not "2" from the wheat?

I see that the Voxian right hand doesn't realize what its left one is doing, or at least doesn't care. Indeed, a very bad city site, but we need to revise the border treaty, and make sure we are compensated.

Re: revised order- my full support, as this will give us further versatility.

	01-02-2003 18:58									#29
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quote: Originally posted by zeit Nathan isn't Dissidentville located at a site you and Vox havn't talked about- wasn't this supposed to be located "1" and and not "2" from the wheat?

It's exactly where Nathan suggested that it be built, according to the latest plan in the GS mailbox.

quote: Originally posted by Conqueror Either Voxians are drunk or that is some very clever plan we havent figured out yet.

I don't like to underestimate my enemies, but I'd guess that they're just drunk. This isn't the first time we see evidence to how unorganized and unwise our neighbors are.

	01-02-2003 18:59									#30
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Jon had expressed a desire for that site, and I guess in light of our having two more cities than I'd originally calculated when we were negotiating, they decided to press the issue. Definitely a dangerous game for Vox to play, but very possibly a deliberate decision on their team's part to grab what they could while there is no treaty to stand in their way. Now if we want a border treaty, we have little choice but to accept that spot.