27-02-2003 06:09									#1
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We have never had a vote on this and think that it is about time that we did.

A lot has changed since the O2E was first proposed. At that time we thought we were fairly isolated with no easy way to reach the other civs.

It made sense to try to address the major isolation problems that we might be facing: falling behind in tech and reaching the other civs. Solution: Go after the Gr Library and Gr Lighthouse. Great idea! (at the time)

Now we know that RP's area is very close and now with the possible discovery of Mystery Isle - and the extreme likelihood that it may be the same "island" that Glory of War was talking about, it doesn't appear that we are nearly as isolated as we first thought. (And that is without seeing yet what is beyond our western coastline)

So it makes sense now that the Gr Lighthouse is dropped, and admittedly Pyramids make a lot of sense for us builders.

But can we afford to build 2 wonders at once? Jackson is well on its way, but Panama seems to be draining our precious resources from the other cities. We could really use those 2 workers that are being used there now (and are going to be joined to Panama in the O2E plan) and perhaps even another REXing city for our expansion.

Right now nearly half of our current cities are working on these 2 wonders or in preparation for building these wonders. And what is our backup plan if we miss one - or even worse both of our planned wonders?

Oracle - not worth it plus I dislike expiring wonders as much as Vondrack dislikes warriors

Great Wall - useless, especially for us being on our own

Great Lighthouse - really not needed anymore with the Bob continent so close

Pyramids - very good wonder, but very good chance of not getting it either

Colossus - good but limited wonder

Great Library - how many techs are we really going to get out of this wonder? Probably the monarchy path mostly and perhaps a few others - but once it was revealed that we had the Gr Library - I bet all the others will zoom toward Education as soon as possible and may stop trading as much to prevent us from gobbling up their techs.

plus we can't get Pyramids + Colossus or we will get an early Golden Age

Last edited by Sharpe on 27-02-2003 at 08:06

	27-02-2003 06:15									#2
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I voted for Wonder in Jackson but delay Panama - I am not sure about Panama but I don't want to drop the idea completely yet. But we really do need the workers and resources shifted elsewhere.

	27-02-2003 10:52									#3
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Sharpe, I can't vote because the option I'd choose is not there. That would be:

Continue building wonders in both cities, but not "full speed ahead". I mean, I wouldn't use all of our resources for this purpose; I wouldn't send all of our workers there and wouldn't add any to Panama. If that means 2 or 3 truns delay, so be it.

In case we lose one of the wonders it will be the Pyramids, and I'd be content building the Colossus instead (a wonder I like and almost always build) or the Oracle (for its cultural value).

Edit: rereading the options again, I could vote "delay in Panama", but I wasn't sure what do you understand by this. I thought you would delay it by building something else first, this is why I didn't vote it.

	27-02-2003 13:18									#4
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If we miss one wonder, the back-up plan is build Colossus. I prefer Colosus over the Pyramid (but I'm crazy).

I we miss both wonders, than sh*t. This is very unlikely, but it could happen. We would get a less useful early wonder, but it won't be a total loss.

From reading Sharpe's argument, his only objection is using the workers exclusively for the wonder cities. Since the Pyr or Col would be fine, for the second wonder, we could use only one worker. I don't support this, but it's an option. I support full steam ahead with Operation Vondr....ahhh...I mean Operation Double Edge.

	27-02-2003 13:31									#5
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Supposing that the "delay" thing means not sacrificing all our workers for Panama, I voted "delay wonder building in Panama".

	27-02-2003 14:25									#6
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I voted to continue with the plan....

I'd rather not lose the workers but I see it as a simple matter of gambling on a couple of very useful wonders. I prefer the Pyramid over the Glh by a long shot because it is going to help us expand so much and I'd even go as far as to say we should try and finish the Pyramids as early as possible.

I don't think the plan is going to slow down our REX by too much more. We will soon have 2 cities working on Settlers and from what Vondrack says we will have a settler every 4 or 5 turns. Thats more than enough IMHO. The lost workers will also soon be replaced.

In 3 turns we will have Iron Working and we will be able to see where our iron deposits are (lets hope there are some!). If we find iron around Panama or Jackson then that will speed up the plans somewhat.

I'm also not convinced that we need another Galley yet. Lets see if theres an island or not then we can worry about what sort of Navy we are going to need.

	27-02-2003 16:17									#7
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Ahhh, Steve... you are giving me tough time...

Look, I do understand your concerns about slowed REXing (even though I hardly share your feeling that we are "losing drive" - just the contrary... after a thorough preparation, we are now going for sort of a Big Bang). But your objections are presented in a way that is at least biased:

1) Workers

One of your primary objections seems to be the loss of two workers added to Panama. Well, workers are what we have no problem with, actually. They are damn cheap! Even the most corrupt distant cities will be able to keep producing 1 worker every 10 turns, unless they have NO grassland (or other 2-food source) in their inner ring. We will soon have lots of them, since the S/SE cities will be able to produce workers very efficiently (unlike anything else). Plus, a golden rule says that you should keep one worker per city. Well, keep in mind that it actually means one worker per every city you are still improving! Both Jackson and Panama will be - until the end of O2E - fully developed and will need NO workers at all. Jackson will, as an added benefit, spit out a worker right after finishing the first wonder, making great use of the food accumulated while at pop 6 (which would otherwise be wasted).

So, while I can see that a road connecting Legopolis to Red Bricks would be nice, its importance is negligible in comparison with the effect of, say, The Pyramids. Sacrificing such a huge opportunity to keep one or two expendable workers alive is just insane, IMHO...

2) Great Library

It is 100% true that I presented The Great Library as our guarantee to catch up on techs quickly once we make contacts. However, it certainly is not just that. The civilization enjoying the benefits of GLib has a very high degree of freedom as far as preferences and flexibility of play is concerned.

You can press full speed ahead in the non-Education branch, leaving others to fill in the techs from the Education branch, gaining a tech lead. You can shut your research mostly down and save money for unit upgrades or whatever...

You can research only the wonder-enabling techs, granting yourself the convenience of being the first able to build the key early medieval wonders (and there are several of them - Sistine Chapel, SunTzu's, Leo's... every one of these wonders is worth a fortune. Sistine will be crucial for us, since we got screwed on luxuries (and will need every bit of happiness boosting stuff). SunTzu's AoW would make our defenses unbelievably strong since we would have barracks in every city of ours (and our units, if attacked, would fully heal between turns). And Leonardo's Workshop would save us thousands of gold on future unit upgrades. Do you realize how great an advantage it is to be able to research Engineering, knowing that you will get Feudalism and Monotheism through the Great Library?

So, The Great Library is much more of an advantage than just a guarantee against lagging behind tech-wise.

Plus, keep in mind that if we are two or three techs behind NOW, it does not mean we would be doing as well in 10 turns (which would probably be the earliest moment we could make our first contact). While our research huts are used up (maybe one more in the shrouded part of Legos Minor, but that's it...), others keep researching. Within 10 turns, we may find ourselves lagging by as much as 5-6 techs. And what would we offer for them? We will have no exclusive to tech-whore around... so we would have to use our money, workers, we would be pressed for maps...

No, I will do my best to prevent meeting others in the inferior role of an "orphan" civilization needing help of their more fortunate rivals to get back into the main race. I will do anything and everything to emerge as a true superpower, setting the pace rather than desperately trying to keep it...

Your assumption that other civs will "unite" in order to bring our scientific superiority to an early end... do you really believe this? Especially the Bob continent seem to be just overcrowded with civilizations eager to cooperate... And if they stop trading? Even better! Since we will get those techs anyway, sooner or later. But if every one of them researches all of the techs the hard way (in the futile effort to prevent us from getting them through GLib), we will be able to gain even bigger lead tech-wise, since we will be able to focus on the non-Edu branch and press full speed ahead, while leaving others bogged down... Do not overestimate their desire to stop us. They primarily have to follow their own proactive strategy rather than just focus on defensively stopping us. Every one of them will have lots of more important things to do. Especially the Bob continent civs will no doubt go after military techs, rather then wasting time on Monotheism, Theology, and Education.

3) The Second Wonder

I 100% agree that The Great Lighthouse is now out of question. The Great Lighthouse was meant as our means to get to the others while preventing others from getting to us. Well, we now know that there is no easy way to prevent others from getting to us. So the only defense against anyone trying to settle our lands is - to settle it faster. But that's exactly what The Pyramids are for! With faster growth, we would be able to produce more workers, more settlers, we would have higher population and thus higher shield output. That is now our best way to secure Legos Major against outsiders.

At the same time, I am not really fearing anyone else settling and being able to keep their settlements on our landmass. We would sure be able to wipe anyone out with quite little efforts. But we would have to go to war and that's something we would rather avoid... wouldn't we?


Speaking of our chances to build the two wonders we want... let me include a brief summary:

Luxes (Ottomans - sci, ind): out of race
Voxes (Persians - sci, ind): AFAIK, they do not have that much land at their disposal, so going after The Pyramids would certainly be less than effective for them, plus there is the threat of GS - they will have to compete for their continent and I am sure Voxes realize that and prepare for war (that will make best use of their awesome UU) instead of wasting efforts on a wonder they may never get a chance to benefit from.
Gathering Storm (Egyptians - rel, ind): this is most probably our biggest competitor as far as wonder building is concerned. However, I somehow believe that they will not be very eager to pursue wonders very much, as they have a big threat in the neighbourhood (Persians). They are likely to work on their defenses first.
Glory of War (China - mil, ind): too small to be able to focus on any 400-shield wonder. Building any of them would be just sheer nonsense.
RPers (Spain - comm, rel): severely hampered by the lack of the industrial trait. Just think of how tight our schedule is regarding the improvements being built for the wonder building cities - and our workers are industrious. There is no way RPers could have two cities as productive as we have. I very much doubt them having even one such city. Besides, if they do not lie, the only wonder they are interested in is The Great Wall.
Neu Demogyptica (Arabs - exp, rel): ditto plus they were warring, so no chance to enter the race, IMHO.

So, what our chances to build both our edges are? Consider me naive or overly optimistic, but I believe that they are very good. Very good, if we use all we have to build them as fast as possible.

If building two wonders would slow our REXing, it would be something to seriously consider. But in several turns, we will begin a REX phase none of other teams will be able to half-match! A settler every 4-5 turns!

The only drawback of the O2E plan is that we will get a little bit thin on military. But due to our isolation, that is a risk we can take, I believe.

So, my vote is naturally: full speed ahead on O2E.

	27-02-2003 19:34									#8
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If the plan continues unmodified (as it seems right now) I request a worker in Legopolis after the settler.

It would be used to:
1. Connect a luxury
2. Build a river-mine for Legopolis
3. Connect Legopolis to the southern cities
4. Starts roading "the southern highway". the road supposed to make our REXing faster, by moving settlers on already built roads to their destination.

	27-02-2003 20:12									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Tiberius If the plan continues unmodified (as it seems right now) I request a worker in Legopolis after the settler. It would be used to: 1. Connect a luxury 2. Build a river-mine for Legopolis 3. Connect Legopolis to the southern cities 4. Starts roading "the southern highway". the road supposed to make our REXing faster, by moving settlers on already built roads to their destination.

Well, the problem is that producing a worker in Legopolis would seriously mess with the flow of our Merc+Settler combos from there... the current balance is very precious and taking one pop out would mean throwing this balance away...

ad 1. connecting the luxury is not urgent, we can use the luxury slider to handle unhapiness, when it becomes a problem

ad 2. a river-mine for Legopolis would actually be just wasting the worker's time. Legopolis operates smoothly without it and has no need for it. With production of 7-8 shields per turn, it is able to produce 30-shield builds in 4 turns (7+7+8+8). Increasing it to 8-9 shields would not change anything. Also, with alternating +2/+3 food surplus, Legopolis is growing every 4 turns (3+3+2+2) - it would not grow faster if +3 all the time (as 3+3+3<10). You were the first to verify this, Tibi!

ad 3.+4. well, we would save how much, two turns per every combo? considering how much it would mess with the production queue in Legopolis and how long it would take before the road was actually finished and thus effective (1+12+2+1+12+2=30 turns, if clearing the jungle first, 1+5+1+5=12 turns, if building a road only), I doubt it would be worth the hassle. Besides, our new Red Bricks worker shall be assigned exactly to this task, I suppose - first finishing the road between Red Bricks and Farmerville, then connecting Red Bricks to Legopolis.

	27-02-2003 20:31									#10
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I feel very strongly that we should do everything in our power to get the GLib, though I am less attached to the Pyramids. That said, I still think we should continue on with the plan as-is, not withstanding any future world changes. While we could be doing other things with the workers, granted, having wonders will not only confer the benefit of hte wonder onto us, but also give us a good cultural base, which we have been ignoring up to this point.

Regarding the worker in RedBrick, I would not want him to start roading Lego-RedBrick at this time. A road system from RB to the future site of Karina is a much more useful investment in energy as I see it. Once we have another few workers running around, then we can engage in some jungle clearing up around the capital.

Regarding galleys, once we find out how the continents line up, it is possible that if it is only a small gap, that we could indeed blockade it. Whether we need to, or want to, is something we can decide once we see the situation.

On a side note, just got Master of Orion III and like you may have heard, you better read the manual

	27-02-2003 21:17									#11
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Got MOO3 too, its damn hard going. Don't really see the point yet but i'll read the manual later.

	27-02-2003 21:42									#12
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Workers should come exclusively from our wasteful Southern towns.

	28-02-2003 00:06									#13
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And who will clear the jungle? You have already taken away one worker that should have worked Red Bricks and cleared the jungle. Now if the next worker will road to the south, who will actually improve Red Bricks?

Also this "we would save how much, two turns per every combo" is flawed. For a merc+settler combo the trip to Zargonia or Karina will take 12 to 15 turns without a road, while 4 to 5 turns with roads. We would gain just 2 turns maybe for the first combo, but Legopolis is supposed to build 4 or 5, is it not?

What is this sudden "we don't need workers elsewhere than Panama" philosophy? So before ODE the 2 workers we are adding to Panama were useful, but now that we are going to dispose them, they don't need to be replaced ?!

Don't want to build it in Legopolis? OK, let's build it in Farmerville. Or do you know some other city that could build a worker in a reasonable time (less than 5 turns)?

	28-02-2003 02:30									#14
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Oh, oh, oh... Tibi, mate... take it easy, please. I did not mean to sound harsh - if I did, I honestly apologize.

Let me explain:

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius And who will clear the jungle? You have already taken away one worker that should have worked Red Bricks and cleared the jungle. Now if the next worker will road to the south, who will actually improve Red Bricks?

As for the jungle below Panama-Legopolis-Jackson city belt, we do not need to clear this RIGHT NOW. These cities are having (or will have) improved tiles enough. Keep in mind that we shall be adding the two workers to Panama on turns 77-78. That's 16-17 turns from now! By that time, we will have two more workers from Red Brick and yet another one from Forkmouth. That's three for two we will add to Panama. Then there will be Rover and Jason and Jimbo... that's no lack of workers!

As for the next Red Brick worker roading to the South...

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius Also this "we would save how much, two turns per every combo" is flawed. For a merc+settler combo the trip to Zargonia or Karina will take 12 to 15 turns without a road, while 4 to 5 turns with roads. We would gain just 2 turns maybe for the first combo, but Legopolis is supposed to build 4 or 5, is it not?

It's not flawed, I just did not fully explain. By roading the two jungle tiles, our worker will use 12 turns, if not clearing them first (30 if clearing them first), resulting in speeding the combos by two turns - I am talking about the jungle part of the road ONLY.

Using the same 12 turns that the worker would need to road the two jungle tiles (1+5 + 1+5), he will be able to road 4 non-jungle tiles (1+2 + 1+2 + 1+2 + 1+2), speeding the movement of our combos twice as much. That's why I suggested to use the new Red Brick worker to work on the southern "below jungle" part of our "North-to-South highway" first rather than starting with the much shorter, but quite difficult part between Legopolis and R.B. I believe that it's also exactly what Zargon mentioned.

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius What is this sudden "we don't need workers elsewhere than Panama" philosophy? So before ODE the 2 workers we are adding to Panama were useful, but now that we are going to dispose them, they don't need to be replaced ?!

Now I'm totally lost. I have never said anything like that. The philosophy is "we need the workers primarily in Jackson/Panama now". Until we have more to assign to other tasks, Leopold, Robbie, and Jason shall focus on that area. If you closely look at my initial plans for O2E, you will see that all the worker moves I am now insisting on were planned exactly this way. There is no "sudden" philosophy change, I am just following the plan, trying to prevent it to be slowed down by detours that might bring visible short-term effects, but would (seriously) threaten the O2E goals.

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius Don't want to build it in Legopolis? OK, let's build it in Farmerville. Or do you know some other city that could build a worker in a reasonable time (less than 5 turns)?

The workers would come from the new, quite corrupt cities being plopped over the S/SE of Legos Major. Out of the cities we currently have, Panama & Jackson are building wonders, Legopolis & Farmerville have shield output too good to waste it on workers, so that leaves Red Bricks for building workers. But most future S/SE cities will start as 1 shield, +2 or +3 food surplus cities. Such cities are great for producing workers, as they build a worker in 10 turns, the same time they need to grow pop+1. That way, they are useful... however, to build a Temple takes them eternity.

I guess it would be a good idea to summarize our priorites as I see them ATM:

1) Operation Double Edge (includes Jason, Leopold, and Robbie)
2) REXing (producing settlers & some escorts; uses Legopolis & Farmerville)
3) building a "highway" between Legopolis and Karina area, starting with the easiest parts first (uses pretty much the rest of our resources)

4) checking our coastal waters (G.G.)
5) charting Legos Minor (Angus)

Hopes this clarifies my previous posts.

	28-02-2003 03:20									#15
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I did not want to sound harsh, either. Sorry for that.

I really don't have the time to react in detail to all this, but I can tell you that it just botheres me that you (well, not you, but the plan) took away 3 workers to work only Panama, while we would need them elsewhere, too; and now, you object building new ones, too. Building a southern route would greatly incease our settler deployment time, and honestly I don't want to wait until some not even built city will build in the unforseen future a worker.

Maybe the difference lyes in the perspective about this wonder building plan; I don't see this O2E as our saviour; it is great plan, yes, but we won't win the game with it; it would be great to build both wonders, but it isn't more of a priority for me than settling and improving our continent.

Edit: I wouldn't put in your 1-2-3 list in a specific order; for me, all 3 of them are equally important.

	28-02-2003 03:27									#16
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Anyway, since the majority seems to follow "blindly" your plan, I will obey with the desire of the team.

	28-02-2003 03:35									#17
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quote: Anyway, since the majority seems to follow "blindly" your plan, I will obey with the desire of the team.

Actually, I don't think we're in agreement at all. Everyone seems to have a different (albeit slightly) view of how the whole "grand scheme" will work out. I wouldn't say we're blindly following, I'd say we're all stumbling in generally the same direction The worker shortage you've pointed out is a very real problem, and one that I think needs to be dealt with, regardless of O2E or not.

	28-02-2003 03:46									#18
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Tib, i don't think there is an objection to building new workers. As a general rule of the game you should have one worker per city. Currently we have this. By the time we lose 2 workers to panama we will have built at least 3 more. in 16/17 turns from now we will have 2 more cities, or have 1 and almost have another. I imagine the first build of these cities will be workers. I agree that we need workers to build the roads and clear the Jungle but I think we are accounting for that.

Unfortunately we can't build everything much as we would like to. Personally I would like it if we had more settlers but I realise the importance the 2 wonders could have for us. We are going to be placing more importance on REX than the other teams imho, therefore we fall behind in military and possibly infrastructure for a while. Great Library allows us to keep in touch in the technology race and the Pyramids allows us to get to the point of total expansion a lot sooner.

I gather that you don't like the plan Thats fair enough, it does no harm to have differing opinions I think its a bold plan, risky in some senses but the payout will be considerable. There are some things I would prefer were different, such as producing more workers but in the end the long term gain outweighs the short term one. Having one city sprinting towards the Pyramids is much better than 6 or 7 cities slowly building granaries.

	28-02-2003 03:49									#19
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I would blindly follow great Vondrack to the edge of the cliff.....but no further.

ZargonX, Tiberius and others are correct about the worker shortage. I feel the new cities can be worker farms, but that is a general statment; NOT A PLAN. From which cities, when, and what will they work must be answered by a plan.

OK this is where I present my grand plan. Well I don't have a plan or a clue. But I do have a basketball game in 30 minutes, so I better go.

	28-02-2003 05:16									#20
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I am gravely concerned about the workers being added to Panama and the fact that a LOT of our available resources are being directed to Panama.

One of my arguments against the double wonder plan is that it reduced our flexibility to do things. In just the past few turns:

- It was suggested that we should road the dye that is now in our territory
- I suggested moving a unit to the coast in case we want to land explore mystery isle
- We really should be getting rid of those jungle squares between Legopolis and RedBricks to connect our northern areas to our southern areas by road in order to reduce corruption a little bit there and to get our Legopolis settlers down there faster

All of these were rejected by you because "we need these for the O2E plan" - if it isn't restricting our flexibility I don't know what will! This is becoming extremely frustrating!!

The truth is that we have 2 of our 4 cities building wonders - no I am not including RedBricks - which isn't yet a viable city but really just a size 1 labour camp at the moment building nothing but workers and will continue to do so for 20 turns to replace the workers that we will use up by adding to Panama)

With the Bob civs closer than we thought we desperately need to accelerate our REXing - especially with our long lull between building cities that we are now in. Radek talked about "we are ready to explode in growth" but I hardly call 2 cities REXing exploding - we will still be getting only 2 settlers every 10 turns plus travel time - and if we have to accelerate our REXing we probably need a 3rd REXing city. Forkmouth won't be able to for 15 to 20 turns and under the O2E plan, RedBricks will have to replace the workers that Panama will use up. (We need at least one worker per city - which is what we are at now)

Working on 2 wonders at one time was fine when we thought we were isolated and no one could reach us, but that is clearly not the case anymore.

My proposal for delaying in Panama is to give us a little flexibility. I am fundamentally opposed to adding the 2 workers to Panama - we need them for other things especially the dye and clearing jungle situations listed above.

We can decide whether we want to continue building a wonder in Panama at this slower pace or switch the production in Panama to something else for a while.

For instance, if we built a temple in Panama we would have need for one less military police there and the borders would expand to include an additional plains square and a forest square (and lots of coastline admittedly ) If the dye is connected that might help out too.

Or we could build a 2nd galley there to speed up the exploration of the west coast if Galleyleo has a lot to explore in Mystery Isle (given that we are still no where near the north there I am not discounting the possibility that the island could be fairly large)

Building one wonder this early will be an amazing accomplishment - building 2 at once until we are able to have enough cities to work with may be putting us in a real bind. We must try to minimize the time that we have 2 cities working on wonders. Delaying the Panama wonder a bit will allow us some flexibility to do other equally important things.

The funny thing is that more important wonders in my opinion are in the middle ages - such as Leo's, Sistine, JS Bach etc. And yet we may be using up too much energy building these early wonders - and we also have to build the Forbidden Palace small wonder as well. By the time we get to the middle ages we may not be able to afford to fully work on these more important wonders.

Last edited by Sharpe on 28-02-2003 at 05:37

	28-02-2003 06:37									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Sharpe - It was suggested that we should road the dye that is now in our territory

Steve, why the rush to connect the dyes? We are not suffering from happiness problems, so why the rush? There is the luxury slider. The fact that it was suggested to connect the dyes does not mean that it is something we really need and in turn does not mean that not being able to do so is actually making us less flexible. The flexibility of doing unnecessary things is something we can do without.

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe - I suggested moving a unit to the coast in case we want to land explore mystery isle

This is the only drawback I will grant you. We really are running thin on military and I readily admit that. There is no plan without drawbacks. Yes, O2E makes us need every single unit we have here, at Legos Major.

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe - We really should be getting rid of those jungle squares between Legopolis and RedBricks to connect our northern areas to our southern areas by road in order to reduce corruption a little bit there and to get our Legopolis settlers down there faster

Just BTW, when doing my sims for Farmerville, the first thing I did was I connected it to Legopolis with a road. Guess what... NO change in corruption/waste! The city is already so far away that under despotism, the 10% or 15% corr/waste road-related reduction (can't remember the exact number now) actually has no visible effect... at least now (Tibi, could you check it? I am not exactly sure how far I went with my sim at that time... though I distinctly remember that at least for the current Farmerville it had no noticeable effect).

And I have already pointed out that building the road between Legopolis and Red Bricks would save every Merc+Settler combo of ours two turns. Considering the output of the cities we are going to found with them, that would be like 4-6 food and 2-4 shields per every combo. Is THAT worth lowering our chances to get The Pyramids (and every turn of delay IS lowering our chances)? Only the accumulated shield output increase in Panama is higher than that...

So neither corruption reduction nor movement speedup make clearing that jungle and building a road between Legopolis and Red Bricks a priority higher than trying to get The Pyramids as the second "edge".

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe All of these were rejected by you because "we need these for the O2E plan" - if it isn't restricting our flexibility I don't know what will!

Flexibility is not doing this or that without a well thought-out plan. I do realize that connecting dyes, maybe exploring that island, and building a road from Legopolis to Red Bricks would be nice. But IMO, the benefits are far lower than a good chance to get The Pyramids. With the sheer area of our landmass and number of cities we intend to build, The Pyramids would be awesome. And I have already explained why I consider The Great Library so important.

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe With the Bob civs closer than we thought we desperately need to accelerate our REXing

WHY? Do we see anyone coming? As far as we know, there is no other civilization having Map Making ATM. Do you consider the possibility that another team would land a settler on our landmass within the next 30 turns REAL? Why would they do that? They have absolutely NO idea about how our landmass looks like, they (with the exception of RPers) have no idea WHERE to go. And they would have almost no means to hold against us, if we decide to wipe their "overseas colony" out. So WHY would someone bother wasting a settler, galley, and an escort unit?

Even Trip, whose PRIMARY goal is to get here, estimates that it will take him AT LEAST 30-40 turns to show up. But at that time, we shall have one wonder finished, the other very close to completion, and at least 5 more cities.

So WHY do you think that we desperately need to speed up our REXing? Do we see another civ REXing with like two cities?

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe For instance, if we built a temple in Panama we would have need for one less military police there and the borders would expand to include an additional plains square and a forest square (and lots of coastline admittedly ) If the dye is connected that might help out too.

One or two MP units we may need if unwilling to use the luxury slider may be warriors built at 10 shields each. Temple costs 60 (SIXTY!) shields. Under the current plan, Panama will have 7 improved tiles in the current city radius. So what exactly would be the benefit of a Temple?

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe Building one wonder this early will be an amazing accomplishment - building 2 at once until we are able to have enough cities to work with may be putting us in a real bind. We must try to minimize the time that we have 2 cities working on wonders. Delaying the Panama wonder a bit will allow us some flexibility to do other equally important things.

Pardon me, but this looks like you think it is possible to "delay" building wonders. But it is not. You come late to the party and there is no champagne left. One single turn and all your shields are pretty much wasted. You do have the dyes connected and there is a nice clean road connecting Legopolis to Red Bricks, but if you want to get to the same point as if you had gotten those bloody Pyramids, there are about 24 granaries to be built, each at 60 shields, many of them in hopelessly corrupt 1- or 2- shield cities.

Honestly, I am getting a bit tired of this... I believe we have discussed all the possibilities. Everybody expressed his concerns, everybody had the chance to contribute. But nothing from what I've heard so far made me think we should alter O2E - and that's not because it would be "my" plan. It is because I strongly believe it is the best thing we can do.

This game will not be won by trying to take care of everything at the same time. This game will be won by doing the right thing at the right time. I am convinced that for us, building The Great Library together with The Pyramids IS the right thing to do now.

Sorry, I will not be adding any more comments on the O2E. Unless those that voted "full speed" ahead say here they change their mind, I am going to follow the plan as proposed.

I am not that concerned about what we build in Legopolis and Farmerville. I know that the current plans guarantee us 1 settler every 4.5 turns, one of them escorted by a Merc. If you believe that this is not a Big Bang and want to "speed up" our REXing by building a couple of workers, let it be your way. Put together a plan, I will put together mine and let the team choose. But be so kind and start presenting your concerns and objections as PLANS, not just concerns and objections. If there is another plan presented, an ALTERNATIVE to O2E and Legopolis/Farmerville on full REX, I will be happy to have the team choose.

But so far, I have not seen any other detailed plan submitted, but O2E.

	28-02-2003 07:26									#22
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quote: Honestly, I am getting a bit tired of this...

Actually Radek, so am I . I initially favoured only working one wonder, but I compromised to delaying it or by slowing it down to use our workers better. You don't think we should change anything - that's your opinion - I am entitled to mine - and truthfully we never did fully vote on O2E before now.

All right, if no one changes their mind, we have the votes for O2E as is and the matter should be closed.

It will just have to be a matter of disagreement between us on our strategies for the game Radek. I am worried that this is becoming personal, and there is no reason for that - it is only a game.

This discussion though does worry me as it seems that we seem to have a variety of ideas even among those that are in favour of O2E - some favour Colossus, others Pyramids, some Gr Library - I personally could care less if we get the Gr Lib as we aren't that far behind in tech - and once we get Libraries and Republic up and going we will be flying through techs - Gr Lib or not

Some have said the Colossus is a backup. Ok, it is a decent wonder - but we can't built it if someone beats us to the Gr Library as it and the Pyramids would trigger our golden age. We need a backup for the Gr Lib and to be honest I don't see one.

So I fervently hope that we get the Gr Lib as I don't believe that RP is going for the Gr Wall. It is rated among the worst wonders by a lot of people - with 200 shields they could get 10 cities walled for the same cost - and I doubt they would wall that many cities - I think that it is a decoy for another wonder.

	28-02-2003 08:47									#23
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I'm probably gonna vote for both wonders, but I agree the RPers claim about pursuing the Great Wall sounds ludicrous. If they have to be lying to not be going for it, then they are lying; it's one of the worst wonders in the game, and it doesn't even match any of their civ traits (which would help with a peaceful GA). So what are they going for? I'd imagine pretty much anything is up for their consideration: Colossus, Great Lib, Pyramids... we may have to race them to it.

Which, of course, makes every turn all that more important if we do go for both; so if we do go for both wonders, we should devote all we can to them.

	28-02-2003 08:58									#24
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My guess is that RP is actually going for Pyramids with Colossus as a backup.

While Pyramids doesn't fit with getting a GA from it, it would be a great advantage on such a large continent and might give them an edge over ND as with their religious trait they can keep the unhappiness under control easier (but so can ND of course).

	28-02-2003 09:24									#25
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quote: But be so kind and start presenting your concerns and objections as PLANS, not just concerns and objections. If there is another plan presented, an ALTERNATIVE to O2E and Legopolis/Farmerville on full REX, I will be happy to have the team choose.

I did submit a plan - not as detailed as yours admittedly - it was a modification of the O2E plan to delay the start of the building of the wonder in Panama while continuing to build the Jackson wonder. By doing so we could move the workers to other tasks - my priority would have been to connect up the dye and to start clearing the jungle between Legopolis and RedBricks and to allow RedBricks to grow a bit so that it can be more useful. As for what Panama would be doing, I left that flexible - my desire would be for a 2nd galley, though a Temple or continuing to work on the wonder at a slower pace would have been acceptable too.

Perhaps I am influenced by my work as an accountant, but when it comes to mid-range plans, I leave my options more open to deal with unexpected events and not to close off any opportunity while striding toward more fixed long range goals and targets.

	28-02-2003 14:37									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Sharpe Actually Radek, so am I . I initially favoured only working one wonder, but I compromised to delaying it or by slowing it down to use our workers better. You don't think we should change anything - that's your opinion - I am entitled to mine - and truthfully we never did fully vote on O2E before now. All right, if no one changes their mind, we have the votes for O2E as is and the matter should be closed.

Fair enough, I appreciate this. Unless there are members changing their minds, let's consider O2E the official plan we are going to stick to.

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe It will just have to be a matter of disagreement between us on our strategies for the game Radek. I am worried that this is becoming personal, and there is no reason for that - it is only a game.

Nope, nothing personal, Steve, believe me. If you look at my posts, I am always questioning your arguments, intentions, and reasoning, never your person or ability to submit ideas.

Speaking of this, I might mention something... Yesterday, when I was telling Karina news about our game, I was describing our heated debate over how to proceed from now on. She asked me whether it would be better to simply accomodate those of you that feel worried about the two wonder strategy, slowing down a bit. I hesitated for a moment and then told her that I believe my task here is not to keep everybody on the team happy... my task is to lead us to victory. Unless there is a majority of members disapproving my plans and intentions, I shall stick to what I consider best for the team. Knowingly going for an inferior option (read: for an option I consider inferior) would make me a bad, weak Prez.

To that purpose, I will go to great lengths defending and pushing my plans, that's for sure.

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe This discussion though does worry me as it seems that we seem to have a variety of ideas even among those that are in favour of O2E - some favour Colossus, others Pyramids, some Gr Library - I personally could care less if we get the Gr Lib as we aren't that far behind in tech - and once we get Libraries and Republic up and going we will be flying through techs - Gr Lib or not

Well, not sure if I understand the discussion correctly, but it is my understanding that we are in agreement that GLib+Pyr is the combo we want now. Only in case we lose the race to one or both of them, we will need a backup wonder to cascade to... and then, I agree, we differ in opinions. However, that's quite natural, I believe, since none of the remaining wonders offers any significant advantage for us.

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe Some have said the Colossus is a backup. Ok, it is a decent wonder - but we can't built it if someone beats us to the Gr Library as it and the Pyramids would trigger our golden age. We need a backup for the Gr Lib and to be honest I don't see one.

This is true only in case we failed on GLib, built Pyramids and wanted to go for Colossus as the second wonder. In that case, yes, we'd suffer quite a setback, having to waive Colossus in favour of another wonder that will not trigger our GA. However, if we miss on GLib, which I seriously doubt, btw, we will know it between turns 80-93, when Panama will be at 81-189 shields. Depending on the actual number of accumulated shields, we will have more than one option: waive a couple of shields, building a harbour or a library... slow the wonder construction down and switch to republic before finishing the wonder... slow the construction down and use the unfinished wonder as a prebuild for one of the early medieval wonders (SunTzu's AoW comes into my mind). That's pretty good as far as flexibility is concerned, I believe.

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe So I fervently hope that we get the Gr Lib as I don't believe that RP is going for the Gr Wall. It is rated among the worst wonders by a lot of people - with 200 shields they could get 10 cities walled for the same cost - and I doubt they would wall that many cities - I think that it is a decoy for another wonder.

Well, utility of a wonder depends on circumstances... RPers are apparently concerned about their security a lot. Building a wonder that will provide every new city with instant walls is not a totally bad idea, especially considering the low cost of the wonder.

But I would like to point something interesting out. If you check the Top5 pictures from the last couple of turns, you will notice that RPer's capital is now at pop 5, NOT GROWING since Turn 60. They hit pop 4 on Turn 55 (pop 3 on Turn 50), which means they either have a granary or a +4 food source there. Now, they may be just building units or something, but even if they work on a wonder... count with me:

They built a settler on Turn 47 (since they dropped down in pop on that turn, by 2). As gaining pop+1 took them 10 turns between Turns 36-46 (while building that settler), they do not have a granary, but must have a +4 food tile in their capital city radius (I believe they chopped down and irrigated a game forest tile... that would explain the "normal" growth before Turn 47 and their fast current growth). What is the maximum shield output of a pop 5 city with such a tile?

city tile ... 1 shield, no exceptions
tile 1 ... +4 food, 1 shield max
tile 2,3,4,5 ... 2 shields each max (mined hills and bonus grasslands)

That's 10 shields. They don't have iron in their capital city radius, as I recall Togas or Arnelos mentioning that only ND had iron connected. If RPers had iron so close they would have connected it ASAP. So, that gives us the output of 10 shields...

They started at turn 47 with pop 2:

Turns 47-49 (pop 2), 3 turns at 3 shields max = 9 shields
Turns 50-54 (pop 3), 5 turns at 5 shields max = 25 shields
Turns 55-60 (pop 4), 5 turns at 7 shields max = 35 shields
Turns 61-63 (pop 5), 3 turns at 10 shields max = 30 shields
ATM, they would have 99 shields accumulated and need 31 more turns at 10 shields/turn to build the GLib. That's two turns more than we are going to need in Jackson, assuming we get no iron near that city.
I know that the actual progress could not have been as described - it must have been a little bit worse due to working that high food tile, but even this impossible best case scenario still puts them behind us.

We will be wiser in about 10-15 turns, since if they really are after the Great Wall, they should be done around that time (unless their shield output is much worse then I assume). If they remain at pop 5 and continue building, then they may be going after a bigger wonder. However, even in that case, we will still beat them to GLib as shown above.

And as for building a wonder in another city... that's highly unlikely. Keep in mind that they have non-ind workers. They would not be able to improve that city area enough...

Considering all this, I do not think RPers would be in a position to beat us to the Great Library.

quote: Originally posted by Sharpe I did submit a plan - not as detailed as yours admittedly - it was a modification of the O2E plan to delay the start of the building of the wonder in Panama while continuing to build the Jackson wonder. By doing so we could move the workers to other tasks - my priority would have been to connect up the dye and to start clearing the jungle between Legopolis and RedBricks and to allow RedBricks to grow a bit so that it can be more useful. As for what Panama would be doing, I left that flexible - my desire would be for a 2nd galley, though a Temple or continuing to work on the wonder at a slower pace would have been acceptable too.

Correct, this was a plan, even if not as detailed as O2E, I agree. So, we have had the poll and O2E gained the majority support - let's go for it at full speed then.

This said, there is the other part of my plans - keeping Farmerville and Legopolis on full REX, producing only Settlers (and Mercs in Legopolis). As changing this part of the plan does not interfere with O2E, I am open to discussion... if majority feels that sacrificing a settler for 2 workers is the way to go, let's do it (in Farmerville). We would need one less escort/garrison and we might start doing things Steve sees as priorities - connecting the dyes and building the road between Legopolis and Red Bricks. I am not THAT strongly convinced about this part... I can see that taking this way would have some benefits over spitting out only settlers... the difference in my eyes is small (even though I would still favour full REX with no more workers from Farmerville).

	28-02-2003 22:17									#27
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quote: Originally posted by redstar1 Got MOO3 too, its damn hard going. Don't really see the point yet but i'll read the manual later.

The manual is definitly a must, I spent a whole day with the manual and still don't think I understand everything.

	01-03-2003 00:48									#28
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Oh I almost forgot, check out the Infogrames/MoO3/Strategy forums and look for posts by Chadmium; they are BIG help in filling in the gaps in the manual.

	01-03-2003 22:43									#29
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Ok, I realize I am responding to my own posts and threadjacking, but I know first hand how frustrating learning MoO3 is and this FAQ helps a lot.

MoO3 FAQ