16-02-2003 10:54									#1
	What about Hurricane? Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

If my calculations are correct, if we switch Hurricane to building a spearman in our upcoming turn, the spearman would be finished the following turn with no wasted shields. That means that if we don't switch immediately, we're pretty much committed to trying for a wonder unless we're willing to throw away shields.

There are three basic approaches we can take with Hurricane:

1) Build a wonder now.

2) Build one or more military units, and then start on a wonder.

3) Don't try for a wonder in the near future, but focus on our military instead with an eye toward either invading the mainland or taking out Vox, whichever makes more sense when the time comes.

If we don't build a spearman now, we're pretty much locked into the first option. If we do, we can still choose which of the other two options we prefer.

Please take some time for thought and discussion before your vote, but this does need to be decided by the time we play our next turn. Sorry about the short notice; I hadn't caught the fact that growth in Hurricane would cause us to get a spearman quite so quickly.

Nathan

	16-02-2003 13:14									#2
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I really think we should consider the Settler from Hurricane first if building the Pyramids. The Settler should be definite if we are going for units.

Our estimate as to when we can be in a Republic is about 40 turns, and pumping the city up to size 10 allows us to build the Pyramids in 42 turns from now (650AD) without having to touch EotS' Fur Plain.

I've run the timeline, and it works. All the tiles are improved before we need them, even mining the Iron. We get our next city founded 5 turns earlier, and our city after that gets founded 5 turns earlier as well. This is a pretty big jump this early in the game.

We don't want to build the Pyramids much before 650AD anyways, so the slightly slower production shouldn't matter. The date without the Settler would be 4 turns earlier, 730AD.

	16-02-2003 17:38									#3
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No vote from me yet, but in theory I'm all for going for a wonder in Hurricane. Aeson's build-settler-before-adding-workers strat seems strange, maybe promising, but I have reservations on creating one city 5 turns earlier if we don't have the military to defend it. Also, the risk gets higher on losing the pyarmids (or any other 400 shield wonder) with every delay, when we first planned on doing this, we were anticipating 1000 BC for the GL, now this date has already slipped to 730(?) or 650 BC. The longer we wait, the more chance there is that 2 other civs build a wonder before that, and maybe the GL will be the first to be built, but the Pyramids will most likely be second.

So, in theory I vote for continuing the prebuild, but I'll give it a few hours more time to see if someone has some other valid arguments to make. From the first results of nye's test, one thing seems obvious: we have enough growth-cities to not worry about Hurricane's production, so there are many advantages to let one city grow to decent size early in the game. Only the amount of commerce Hurricane is going to produce will be an asset, so why not build a wonder there.

DeepO

	16-02-2003 22:44									#4
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Aeson, I still don't get the logic of building a settler in Hurricane and then pumping workers into it. We'd be losing 30 shields - about two turns on the Pyramids - for only half a point of population in EotS. Is there something I'm missing, or do you just consider the half-point of population a lot more important than I do?

	17-02-2003 04:48									#5
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I say no for the spearmean- we can't delay anymore, and i fear losing the Pyramids (we are thinking in that direction, right?) more than an invasion one more spear could save. Although i would support a certain buildup of force, but not in Hurricane.

	17-02-2003 07:50									#6
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If you'll look at my experiment with NYE's test scenario, I think our military will be far too weak if we focus Hurricane on a wonder at this time. We might be able to do just a little better than I did there, but not much. The problem is that EotS and Cyclone can't produce troops because they're focused on settlers and workers, Bolderberg doesn't have much production, and the other cities take long enough to get up to speed that they can't make up for the lack of military production in our first three cities.

At a minimum, even if we want to build a wonder in Hurricane, I think we should build a spearman, then four vet warriors, and then probably another spearman first. That would avoid cutting our defenses quite as thin, although even that would leave them a good bit thinner than I prefer.

Nathan

	17-02-2003 08:21									#7
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Keep going with the Wonder. If we focus on military and REX with our other cities, Hurricane will be the "ace up our sleeve". We do everything the other teams are doing, plus a Wonder. Now that's a way to break the game open.


Dominae

	17-02-2003 08:23									#8
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We will not be needing those defenses in the timeframe that Hurricane can produce them. Since the other teams are a non-issue so early, are we expecting an attack from Vox?


Dominae

	17-02-2003 08:39									#9
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I know we don't need the extra forces now, but if we go for the Pyramids, we're looking at almost 50 turns before we could get Hurricane back as a troop producer. By that point, our defenses would be spread very thin. We'd probably be okay due to distance and our good relationship with Vox, but if Vox and someone from the other continent would decide to ally against us, we'd be in huge trouble.

That leaves two choices if we want to go for a wonder without seriously compromising our defenses. We can go for the Colossus with the idea that we'll get Hurricane back as a unit producer not too terribly long after the earliest galleys might reasonably be expected to reach us. Or we can build some extra units before we start on bigger wonder; we don't need the extra forces now, but we'll have them when we do need them.

Nathan

	17-02-2003 08:42									#10
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Look, I get how great the Pyramids would be.

But, please, someone explain to me how missing this or any other GW ruins our game?

Balanced play. Military strength. A great GA. Taking out Vox.

The basics.

Anybody watch the Superbowl?

(damn, that was a good one)

	17-02-2003 09:00									#11
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Based on my latest run with the test scenario, the only way I see it making any sense to take out Vox in the ancient era is if they build up practically no military. Otherwise, we'll be too busy REXing to build up the kind of numerical superiority needed to fight without taking heavy casualties (and thereby costing us more economic strength than conquering Vox would give us). This isn't my ethical reservations talking; it's my cold economic cost/benefit analysis of whether an early war is worth the price.

It's starting to look to me like our best bet is going to be to make Leonardo's a high priority. At that point, our options would be:

1) Go after Vox with massive knight upgrades.

2) Partner with Vox to go after someone on the main continent who is threatening to get out of hand.

3) Keep working with Vox on an economic effort to get cavalry as quickly as possible and make our move then.

So I think it makes sense to plan our military forces around deterring a war and being able to handle one if one comes rather than around actually starting a war ourselves any time soon.

Nathan

	17-02-2003 11:36									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae We will not be needing those defenses in the timeframe that Hurricane can produce them. Since the other teams are a non-issue so early, are we expecting an attack from Vox?

Did ND expect an attack from Lux? Good for them, that they were prepared.

	17-02-2003 12:03									#13
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Did Lux attack ND?! Sheesh, I'm so out of the diplomatic scene right now...In any case, attacking a neighbor is quite different from attacking overseas. Quite different.

I'm all for being prepared, but there's being prepared and there's being paranoid. We know Vox does not even match our pathetic military. What threat do they pose?

I can see that, in the event of an attack down the road, we may not be as capable of defense as we could be (because of Hurricane's focus). But that's a gamble, plain and simple. I believe it's a gamble we can afford: the worst-case scenario leaves us fighting for our survival; the average-case scenario puts us ahead of the game. That's good enough for me (especially considering that we can work hard diplomatically to prevent a strike from the mainland...).


Dominae

	17-02-2003 12:57									#14
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Gambling on high stakes (survival or not) in a MP game?

	17-02-2003 14:01									#15
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I'm not sure it is a gamble anymore Sir Ralph.

In playing through the 1675 scenario we can have 2 or 3 barracks cities producing before Vox comes out of REX. In the meantime we can monitor the MilAdvisor and switch EotS out of REXing mode if Vox comes back to average. EotS could build worker-unit-worker-unit-worker-unit or go full out on units if the situation warrants.

	17-02-2003 14:36									#16
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EotS lacks a barracks to build units. Do we really want to waste shields on regulars?

	17-02-2003 15:21									#17
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We could insert a Barracks into the que if needed. It will be a sizable city and could build one quite quickly.

	17-02-2003 17:09									#18
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Well, I have to agree with NYE, plus I'd like to point out one problem with Nathan's thinking: we have so few troops in the test scenario, because both pumps were pumping settlers, and workers get build elsewhere. So the ratio between cities and troops goes down. If EotS gets converted to a worker / unit pump once Cyclone is up, expansion would be a little less swift (but still far better then what Vox can deliver), but much more balanced. We wouldn't need Hurricane as a troop builder, as we can defend our empire with what we have.

So, the problem with Hurricane is that as our second city, it obviously is good as a unit producer, but it could become a wonder city as well. But, by making both EotS and Cylcone into purely growth pumps, we lose balance. So, we can either destroy a wonder city, or take back our enthousiasm on the 2 pumps... I definately vote for having one pump set to workers some more, instead of pumping out cities that our military thinks are hard to defend (which I more or less agree with).

With more workers, there are a couple of advantages, better and faster growing cities, better defensive road network (we need a lot of workers to get the roads done in a timely way, look at all the mountains we need to cross. Forts would be nice as well), and with an abundance of workers, we could supersize Hurricane, building the Pyramids faster, and getting it back faster as a super unit producer.

I think that much more logical than building another 5 units in Hurricane, which will mean our army size will be nice, but our chances of building a wonder get awfully slim.

DeepO

	17-02-2003 17:23									#19
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With the 1675 scenario I believe both Nathan and I were using EotS for almost purely Worker production. It slows the Pyramids down a bit, but inserting some units would not be catastrophic. Or, new cities build their own workers and the Pyramids stay on schedule.

Cyclone at 4 turns per Settler fills the space fast.

	17-02-2003 17:29									#20
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DeepO, in my test run, I built exactly three settlers in EotS, two while it was growing back to size and one using a chop on our last fur forest around EotS. The rest of the time, it was pumping out workers to try to catch up and keep up with our growth (and to pile into Hurricane once we got a bit ahead in tile improvements). I'm not sure I built any workers anywhere but EotS and Tempest through the whole test; it wasn't a case of building workers all over the place so new cities stay small.

	17-02-2003 18:33									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph Gambling on high stakes (survival or not) in a MP game?

Since the average case gets great payback and the worst-case is extremely unlikely (IMO), this is hardly reckless gambling. Plus, any strong player knows when to gamble and when not to. Or should we play "too conservative"?


Dominae

	17-02-2003 18:39									#22
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Hmmm.. sorry, I didn't had time to thoroughly check your tests now. I noticed at least a few settlers, I was thinking last night of trying the scenario with only workers produced (after the first settler which we can't stop anymore). Cyclone is fast enough, that's not the issue, so the workers can help.

BTW, did anyone considered using workers to pump the size of Tempest or Bolderberg? Or any other barracks city? Workers are cheap when produced from EotS, nobody has said that they an exclusively be used on wonder cities. Tempest seems like a good choice too, as it is also a high commerce site (with the river), which can't both grow and produce at the same time.

Even if the vote atm is in favour of the spear, it is by a very small margin. I don't feel very comfortable using it in our turn, however I do agree that we can't postpone things indefinately, so let's go ahead..

DeepO

	17-02-2003 18:50									#23
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO BTW, did anyone considered using workers to pump the size of Tempest or Bolderberg? Or any other barracks city?

I had considered it, but didn't say it loudly, because I didn't want to anger the wonder folks yet more. By the way, I did so in a PBEM game of mine, where I'm under siege of, ahem, the black plague. This, combined with some mild poprushing, works a charm.

	17-02-2003 18:52									#24
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That would make a good comprimise IMHO.

	17-02-2003 18:57									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph This, combined with some mild poprushing, works a charm.

Or so pink-men think.

	17-02-2003 19:04									#26
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Two Immortals.

That's all... and we'll be sh-tting in our pants.

As Aeson said: what would we do to beat us?

	17-02-2003 19:16									#27
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SR, why would it anger the wonder folks? I consider myself one of them, and if adding workers to other cities can get us out of this defense problem it would be good for my beloved wonder.

I want to at least get a balance in terms of production in the game, and having 2 settler pumps with 1 or 2 barracks cities is simply not enough. Having Hurricane on troops instead of on a wonder might still not be enough, as those 2 pumps are too good for us, and we need to deal with them anyway.

So what we have is an opportunity to build a wonder in one city, an opportunity to get good in commerce in another (Tempest), 2 super growth cities (size++ each 2 turns), and a few moderate cities which we plan to use military. Rather then sacrificing the wonder, to get balanced, I'd rather sacrifice a bit of growth as it is cheaper (unless disease hits us). Each worker added to a city is likely to give us an extra shield, which means that in 40 turns (which is about the period were looking at), that worker is worth 2 spears. The trade of pop to production is a valid one, and it may be the tool we need to get both Hurricane as a good wonder city, and the needed military to feel safe.

It's not exclusive, I don't mind if EotS builds 20 workers in those 40 turns, uses 6 for pumping Hurricane, 8 for regular improving, and another 8 for pumping barracks cities. I don't think that workers need to go either to Hurricane or to other cities, we will have enough to do both.

DeepO

	17-02-2003 19:30									#28
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If EotS skips the second of the three settlers I'd planned, that would get workers down to help out #4 a lot more quickly. Two workers down there could get it caught up on tile improvements at a fairly rapid pace, and then one worker could join the city to get its production up to a decent level more quickly. EotS could still build what I'd planned to be its third settler when we're ready to chop the last fur forest, so we'd only be one settler behind in our REXing pattern.

Opinions?

	17-02-2003 19:32									#29
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Sounds good

	17-02-2003 19:36									#30
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My opinion is that what you propose can be a start, but I'd like to test it out what pure worker building in EotS can do to us. My guess is that if e.g. Bolderberg gets pumped to size 5 or 6 (using a mountain to balance), it could be a good barracks city. #4 would be my least choice of pumping, as it has extra food on its own. But if there are enough workers to add, it certainly can help as well.

One note to take into account: a worker is in EotS cheaper then half a settler, and on our production and commerce it is many times better to add a worker to a good city, then it is to create a bad, new city. Of course, in the end you need more cities, but we won't lose this capability by making better but fewer cities early on. ASs long as we make sure we can catch up, of course, but catching up won't ever be a problem with a city like Cyclone helping us. We simply need to make sure that we don't overproduce ourselves.

DeepO