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Lanzelot said:

However, I have to scold a little carelessness in micro management here. This must have escaped your attention:

(Aargh, I just realize, that I misspelled the above sentence and forgot a "hill" in there...1 ) Anyway, what I meant by it: Oasenstadt could have used Königsberg's hill, while Königsberg still had another improved hill to work on elsewhere. By this single tile re-assignment we would have gained an additional 50 beakers and 10 shields over the course of the last 10 turns.

Now the situation is even worse: Königsberg is now building workers at 19 shields a piece!!!! (2 x 9 + 1 on growth). Why that? Königsberg could use two roaded hills (while the workers do other more important stuff) and one of the mined hills could have been given to Oasenstadt (speeding up HE by 1-2 turns) and the other one to München. (With a worker join, München could now make 12spt instead of 8spt - a whoopy 50% increase and marketplace in 9 instead of 13 turns, just by a little tile re-assignment accompanied by a worker join.)

And:

Kolossusstadt is still running at 4spt?! At that speed we even run the risk to lose Copernicus to one of the AIs (especially if a cascade is going on at that time).

These are just a few examples to illustrate that such seemingly "minor details" can indeed make a big difference. If these things add up over the course of the game, the impact can indeed by huge, e.g. it can mean the difference between launching the ship at 1800 AD or at 1400 AD (or on Deity: the difference between losing the game or winning it).

Also worker management still needs to be improved. For example: why did we build two roads on the banana jungles at Bananenstadt?!? That took 18 worker turns and did not serve any purpose at all. Also the two mines on the dyes and BG tiles are completely wasted, as corruption eats that extra shield anyway. That's another 12 worker turns. Instead of that, the swamp tile for Catan could already have been fully improved.

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I am sorry about Oasenstadt, Kolossusstadt and Königsberg. They did escape my attention and I do not know how they did. I knew I was missing something but could never put my finger on what it was. Now I know.

You had your notes where I could see them and your notes were in reply to what I had posted. The fault is mine, not yours.

Worker managment could have been better. But don't complain about the jungles at Catan. There was no mention of making that a priority in anyone's notes. I pointed out that we had two workers assigned to that task. No one spoke up to say if that was enogugh, too many or that we neededd more. All the worker talk was focused on growing Kolossusstadt, Hamburg and Aarhus. My first thought for the new workers we got from Königsberg was to send to Catan but that was not the plan. And even if I had not roaded the bananas, those workers would have gone to Kolossusstadt, Hamburg and Aarhus also.

On building walls in Neu-Oslo and Bananenbucht, well, that was posted before I started my turns where I listed the next city builds. I can agree that they are not good choices but I made no secret about building them.

To recap:

Mishandlng Kolossustadt and Copernicus, and swapping tilees between Oasensstadt and Königsberg: Yep, I blew it. No excuses.

Worker mismanagment: Could have been better in places (Trondheim) but making a higher priority of clearing jungles at Catan was never mentioned.

Building walls in our cities on the English frontier: I followed my posted city build plan. If you didn't read the plan that it is your fail and not mine.

Now, let us get back to our war plans with England and our grand desire to get into space and learn how to play a better game.

Buzz Lightyear said:

To infinity, and beyond!

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Hey, no need to apologize or to defend yourself. I'm just pointing out these things so that we can improve. Everyone of us is deep into the game, can open the save and try these things out for himself and see the difference. I think this is an excellent learning opportunity, one can get a first-hand experience of how these little details indeed make a big difference, instead of just reading about it in an abstract theoretical strategy guide, and one can sharpen his eye and get a feeling for what to look for during a practical game.

The pressure has abated for this game: we won't lauch in 1400 AD, so we can as well use it as a great learning-by-doing experience...

Regarding the walls: I wasn't sure myself, what best to build in these towns, and it doesn't matter too much anyway. So it's ok to just let them collect shields for a while. Only when they are shortly before completion, one should go back and re-assess what might be the most useful. (Perhaps the situation has meanwhile changed or clarified.) This is what I wanted to "kick off" here, as the walls are going to complete during my turnset.

Lanzelot said:

The pressure has abated for this game: we won't lauch in 1400 AD, so we can as well use it as a great learning-by-doing experience...

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Don't know about anyone else, but I didn't feel any particularly urgent pressure to launch in 1400AD in the first place. As I said way back near the beginning of this game, just surviving at Emperor would be a good start for me...

Yeah, I guess this is also a great exercise in "expectation management"...

Lanzelot said:

Hey, no need to apologize or to defend yourself. I'm just pointing out these things so that we can improve.

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Well, I just can't believe I missed the big things and the little things stung more than I expected. I embarrassed myself and then over reacted. Sorry.

Lanzelot said:

The pressure has abated for this game: we won't lauch in 1400 AD, so we can as well use it as a great learning-by-doing experience...

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Like tjs282, I am not concerned about launching by 1400 AD.

I would like to launch before the last HOF game for our game settings.

And, it would be nice if we could launch before the launch of Beyond Earth!

Ok, here is again a brief summary of the things I want to get done in my turnset:

• Get maximum cash out of Theology as indicated by choxorn. Then finish Education asap (perhaps 7 turns is possible) and pick up Gunpowder for Education (and again as much $$ as possible...)
• Re-assign MM of a few cities for maximum production. This includes Kolossusstadt to get Copernicus done faster, and also Oasenstadt, which I'll try to get to 20spt. We can then decide, whether 2-turn maces or 3-turn Knights are better. (Depends on whether we can afford the 40g shortrush every three turns.)
• Move a couple of workers to the core for the leftover work: more tiles for Catan, mining some plains for more shields in Wilhelmshaven and Oasenstadt.
• Bring some workers to Trondheim in order to prepare for the Forbidden Palace: chop a forest or two, prepare 11 tiles for maximum production, then pump Trondheim up to size 9-11. (Depends on our happiness as well as on Trondheim's corruption. Would be nice to get it to 5spt, if happiness permits this.)
• Sign a RoP with Liz and start bringing troops into position.
• Cities that have completed their infrastructure program go back to re-armament.

Should I play 8 or 10 turns? I played 12 turns last time mainly because CommandoBob didn't want his 20, and because the Anarchy period fell into my turnset with not that much to do. This time I got quite a bit on the agenda, so I would like to do the full 10 turns...

Lanzelot said:

Ok, here is again a brief summary of the things I want to get done in my turnset:

• Get maximum cash out of Theology as indicated by choxorn. The finish Education asap (perhaps 7 turns is possible) and pick up Gunpowder for Education (and again as much $$ as possible...)
• Re-assign MM of a few cities for maximum production. This includes Kolossusstadt to get Copernicus done faster, and also Oasenstadt, which I'll try to get to 20spt. We can then decide, whether 2-turn maces or 3-turn Knights are better. (Depends on whether we can afford the 40g shortrush every three turns.)
• Move a couple of workers to the core for the leftover work: more tiles for Catan, mining some plains for more shields in Wilhelmshaven and Oasenstadt.
• Bring some workers to Trondheim in order to prepare for the Forbidden Palace: chop a forest or two, prepare 11 tiles for maximum production, then pump Trondheim up to size 9-11. (Depends on our happiness as well as on Trondheim's corruption. Would be nice to get it to 5spt, if happiness permits this.)
• Sign a RoP with Liz and start bringing troops into position.
• Cities that have completed their infrastructure program go back to re-armament.

Should I play 8 or 10 turns? I played 12 turns last time mainly because CommandoBob didn't want his 20, and because the Anarchy period fell into my turnset with not that much to do. This time I got quite a bit on the agenda, so I would like to do the full 10 turns...

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Goals and plans all look fine to me.

Eight turns or ten? Take the full ten. I am not keeping count of the number of turns everyone has played. Playing extra turns during a time of government changeover is not that big a deal. I don't feel cheated out of any turns because of it.

CommandoBob said:

I would like to launch before the last HOF game for our game settings.

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The table for Spaceship/Emperor/Standard Size Map looks like this:


So the date to beat would be 1620 AD. We are now at 470 AD, and 34 Techs to go (not counting Gunpowder, which is already as good as ours...). Let's assume we can do 4 turns per tech and don't get any help from the AI, that would put us at 136 turns. The first 78 turns (until 1250 AD) are 10 years per turn, and then we have 5 years per turn till 1750 AD, I believe. So 136 turns would mean 1250 + (136-78) * 5 = 1580 AD
We can't quite do 4 turns per tech yet, but we'll get some help from the AI, but still I think beating 1620 AD is quite ambitious... At this point, a date in the 1700s looks more realistic.

Lanzelot said:

--> Copernicus prebuild. BTW: let it use the mined plains tile at 0fpt and 7spt (if necessary, we can give Kolossusstadt the irrigated plain Hamburg is currently working, because Hamburg still has an unused irrigated plains further east). At 7spt Copernicus will finish in 36 turns, which will coincide perfectly with our expected arrival time of Astronomy.

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I could not make this happen. Copernicus's Observatory and The Great Library both cost 400 shields. At 7 spt per turn, it will take longer than 36 turns.

At 11 spt it takes 35 turns.

The attached save is the 370 AD save, with the Kolossusstadt, Hamburg, Wilhelmsberg, Oasenstadt and Königsberg tweaked as I think you wanted them.

Lanzelot said:

Should I play 8 or 10 turns? I played 12 turns last time mainly because CommandoBob didn't want his 20, and because the Anarchy period fell into my turnset with not that much to do. This time I got quite a bit on the agenda, so I would like to do the full 10 turns...

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You could take 8, then see whether or not it makes sense to take another two.

CommandoBob said:

I could not make this happen. Copernicus's Observatory and The Great Library both cost 400 shields. At 7 spt per turn, it will take longer than 36 turns.

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Yeah, stupid mistake on my side: Heroic Epic was used as pre-build, and I thought that Heroic Epic costs 400s (like Military Academy and Pentagon) and therefore took "time for HE" = "time for Copernicus". But Heroic Epic is only 200s...

Yeah, stupid mistake on my side: I thought that Heroic Epic costs 400s (like Military Academy and Pentagon) and therefore took "time for HE" = "time for Copernicus". But Heroic Epic is only 200s...

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That doesn't mean that we should put off our war, does it? But it does mean that once we take London, we would have to hold it until (or be able to recapture it before) we finish Copernicus. So how long is that likely to take?

(I'm at work and don't have the save to look at, so what follows is back-of-the-envelope stuff)

If Cop's costs 400s, and we've only been putting 4SPT(?) into it for ~20T, then at 7SPT, we would still need ~320/7 ≈ 46T to completion. I don't much fancy trying to fight a >40T war (even interspersed with temporary PTs), so that should probably be reduced if at all possible...

According to my/our food map, if K'stadt were to work all its BFC land-tiles (and the mPlains was irrigated instead), it would have 15SPT (assuming no corruption/wastage) and net 0FPT, for completion of Cop's in 22T -- but that would seriously hurt production in both Hamburg (-3SPT) and O'stadt (-5SPT). So a compromise to help speed things up without crippling us might be to temporarily give K'stadt the mSugarPlains and the iPlains next to W'haven, bringing it up to 10 SPT and net 0FPT (Worker-joined civizens can still go fishing for 2FPT), for completion in 32T instead.

Obviously taking any production-capacity away from O'stadt and W'haven is not ideal, but they would 'only' lose 1 tile each, for -2SPT and -1SPT, respectively. And much as I do like the idea of giving O'stadt 20SPT (and presumably short-rushing a Settler for 40g before the second IBT production?) for 3T-Knights 18SPT would still allow us to build MM-free 4T-Knights there instead (albeit with 2s overrun).

Hell, even leaving the SugarPlains with O'stadt, and just hijacking W'haven's iPlains (for 8SPT in K'stadt) would still bring Cop's completion-time down to 40T, which is better than a kick in the teeth...

Or are we just going to hope we get an SGL from Education or Astronomy?

As far as I remember from when I had the save open, we can bring K'stadt to 8spt without interfering with Hamburg and O'stadt too much, and that would finish Copernicus in 38 turns from now.

If that is not fast enough, we could take some more shields from O'stadt on every first turn of a 3-turn Knight cycle and then pay like 48g instead of 40 for the "settler-shortrush". O'stadt would still be producing 3-turn Knights (albeit at a slightly higher price) and the extra shields would perhaps bring Copernicus down to 35 turns. Of course the involved micro-management may not be to everyone's liking... The likelihood that someone forgets to re-arrange the tiles at some point, is quite high... And it would probably lead to a 4-turn Knight with lots of shield-overrun once in a while and/or losing 1-2 turns on Copernicus...

Play 10 turns, it's ok.

Also, try and condense micromanagement things that need to be done as well as anything else relevant in your handoff notes. It is easier to look at one post than multiple posts.

I still might miss something, but I'm going to try my best not to.

Preflight: Rearrange tiles a bit: Oasenstadt 17spt (for the next two turns I'll use the forest at -1fpt to finish HE in a total of 3 turns). München 12spt at -1fpt bringing the market from 9 turns down to 6. Next turn I can join a worker to make fpt positive again. Kolossusstadt 7spt, which would mean Copernicus in 44 turns. But that will be increased still a bit more in the next couple of turns. (I'm using the Great Library now as prebuild, so we can easily see, how long Coepernicus would still take...)
Goldberg can take one of München's irrigated grasslands for a while for growth in 6 turns. (At +1fpt it would have taken 18 turns to grow from size 3 to 4.) Library will finish in 4 instead of 3 turns, but that doesn't matter. The faster growth will more than compensate these lost two beakers or so.

Sell Theology around:
Mongols 367g + 72gpt
Korea 141g + 40gpt
India 38g + 33gpt
Scandinavia 32g

We are now stinking rich: 914g on the bank account and making 86gpt at 80% science, 20% lux...
Education due in 6 turns! (I changed our taxmen to scientists as well.

I cash-rush the courthouse in Trondheim for 308g.

Catan and Eisenstadt changed to aqueduct.

IBT: Japan asks for peace. Certainly not...

T163, 480 AD: Trondheim courthouse -> marketplace (the courthouse is already paying off: already at size 2 it is making 2spt!)
Join a worker to München and one to Oasenstadt for 18spt, HE in 2.

Move workers around. I just notice: we have build roads on 10 jungle/swamp tiles?! It's much better to first clear these tiles and then build the road in just 3 turns.

With that much $$ in my pockets I decide we can afford to make the most out of the food at Wilhelmshaven: I cashrush a courthouse for 248g, then switch to aqueduct and give Kolossusstadt another plains tile. (W'haven can finish the aqueduct in 4 with 5spt.) Hamburg has to give up another plains as well, and K'stadt is now making 8spt, Copernicus due in 37 turns.

Barbarossa has healed and moves towards British territory. That reminds me of signing a RoP with them... Lizzy wants 12g for it!

Change Catan to +2fpt for growth in 3 instead of 6.

IBT: Chinese are starting the Great Library

T164, 490 AD: Königsberg worker -> worker
Goldstadt gets another iGrassland for growth in 3.

T165, 500 AD: Oasenstadt Heroic Epic -> Knight
Join a worker to Oasenstadt and rearrange tiles for 20spt. The first Knight will roll off the assembly line in 3 turns, accelerated by a forest chop for the missing 10s.



IBT: Delhi completes Great Library (well, in two turns we can trade them Education... )

T166, 510 AD: Königsberg worker -> worker
Science rate reduced to 70%.

IBT: the English start the Sistine Chapel and the Vikings the Knights' Templar and Leonardo's Workshop. The Koreans start Leonardo's Workshop and the Chinese the Kights' Templar. The Mongols start the Knights' Templar and Leonardo's Workshop as well. Bombay finishes the Great Lighthouse.

T167, 520 AD: Catan aqueduct -> market
Wilhelmshaven aqueduct -> market
Goldstadt library -> market
Fischberg harbor -> courthouse

Join two more workers to Kolossusstadt. Reduce science rate to 60%, send scientists back to work (harbor in Fischberg finished) and change the last remaining scientist to taxman.

England knows Gunpowder. Bad as we might be up for a tough fight now. Good as it's no longer a monopoly tech, so we'll definitely get it for Education.

IBT: the English and the Vikings start Leonardo's Workshop (again). The Vikings the Sistine Chapel and the Chinese another Knights' Templar. The Mongols Leonardo's Workshop and the Sistine Chapel. (Will they finally make up their minds as to where which wonder is going to be built!)

T168, 530 AD: Education -> Astronomy.
The Brits offer Gunpowder, 23g and 5gpt, the Koreans 28g + 22gpt, India 1g + 20gpt (India has no more to give, so I gift them Gunpowder for free), Mongolia 31g + 29gpt (they also get Gunpowder as courtesy from Germany... ) Korea, India and Mongolia are now all gracious.

Oasenstadt Knight -> University.
Königsberg worker -> worker
München marketplace -> Knight

Oops, the Knight from Oasenstadt is only regular... completely forgot to build barracks first...

There are two sources of saltpeter on our continent: one next to Richmond and one in Viking territory. ( both not yet connected.) I'm sending a unit to Richmond, perhaps we can block it, before they can connect it.

If it weren't for Hamburg, we could raise science to 90% and do Astronomy in 6 turns. So I switch Knight to marketplace and rush 80s into it via courthouse (118g).

Join a worker to Wilhelmshaven.

T169, 540 AD: not much. Barbarossa detects quite a good road network when approaching London.

IBT: the Chinese start another Knights' Templar.

T170, 550 AD: Königsberg worker -> worker
Copenhagen settler-disbands. (With the iron mountain it was producing 3spt, so that got done rather quickly.)

I decide to switch Oasenstadt from the Oasis to a mined plains tile, running -1fpt. We can do that for 20 turns, as the food box was still half full. The Oasis can now be given to Kolossusstadt for 10spt, Copernicus will finish in 24 turns.

A second forest just got chopped into Trondheim, so I cashrush the market for 160g.

Barbarossa arrives at Richmond, but the Brits have just moved a worker onto the saltpeter...



IBT: the Indians are building Sistine Chapel. What else...

T171, 560 AD: Trondheim market -> Forbidden Palace (At size 4, Trondheim is already making 3spt. I guess we can easily bring it even to 6 or 7 spt.)
Eisenstadt aqueduct -> market

Oasenstadt is now getting Hamburg's floodplain for some more food. I can rush the missing shields via courthouse next turn and still complete the university in 2 turns. Kolossusstadt gets Oasenstadt's oasis for 12spt and Copernicus in 19 turns. We need to speed it up a little now, as there are so many 600s wonders currently built, and I'm not sure we can hold back Astronomy until after the cascade.

We have way over 1000g currently on our bank account, so I decide to cashrush 80s into the marketplaces in Wilhelmshaven and Catan. (Eisenstadt will follow next turn.) Then they can finish the markets in 4 turns, and afterwards go back to large-scale unit production, while being able to grow without happiness problems. Gold spent: 478

IBT: Koreans are building Knights' Templar.

T172, 570 AD: Königsberg worker -> worker
Weizenheim founded at the wheat (Weizen).

Spend 296g on 80s in Eisenstadt.

Join another worker to Wilhelmshaven.
Reduce science to 70%.

Handover notes:

• F11 says we are currently no. 2 in "productivity" (combined food, commerce and shield output) and have one of the largest populations (and most of it concentrated around the palace, unlike the AI, which has spread it out in small and far away towns). So I think we will soon take over the number 1 spot in all categories. Also the AI is already helping as good as it can, we are currently getting +223gpt from the AI.
• Astronomy is going to finish in 3 turns. Please check next turn and the one after, whether we can even lower science to 60% and still get it done in the same time. Could net us some extra gold. Don't sell Astronomy around. Perhaps we are lucky, and the AI won't research it before we have finished Astronomy. There are currently so many AI wonder builds going (a total of 12 and some of them in pretty productive capitals). A cascade may happen soon, and Copernicus is such a cheap wonder for the AI (320s) that one of the AI pre-builds could snatch it right before our nose.
• Don't change the MM in Oasenstadt: it'll finish the university interturn, even if it looks like it doesn't. (A mine is going to finish interturn for the missing 20th shield.)
• The plan for Oasenstadt is to mine another plain (after the one finishing this turn) and then give another plain to Kolossusstadt while taking Hamburg's floodplain again for 20spt at -1fpt.
• The two workers right next to Trondheim should move to the floodplain 1N of Weizenheim next turn and irrigate it in 2 turns. Then Trondheim can grow from 5 to 6 and from 6 to 7 in just 3 turns each. After that workers can be joined and as many of the plains as possible can be mined for maximum shields. It looks like it has only 50% corruption, so we can perhaps bring it to 7-8spt and still have the FP at least for the second half of the GA. (8spt would mean FP in less than 30 turns from now.)
• There are currently 5 medieval infantry, 2 pikemen, 1 Knight an Barbarossa at London or on their way down there. London has only a reg pike on top, it is currently not producing units (building the Knights' Templar) and they appeared quite broke when I sold them our techs, so perhaps we are lucky and they don't have the necessary cash for musketmen-upgrades once their saltpeter is connected. Therefore I think this taskforce of 8 units plus Army should be enough for taking London and holding it for quite a while. The only risk is a culture flip. (For this reason we should keep the Army outside.) If you are unsure, send 2-3 more Knights down there and then let the soon to be produced units man the walls in Bananenbucht and Neu-Oslo and then start the war. I've been building a lot of aqueducts and markets in my turnset, more than first anticipated, but now we are done with it, the towns are able to grow to size now, become very productive and build only units for quite a while.
• There are a couple of forests in the core, which can be chopped whenever 10s are needed and can then replaced with a mine. I wanted to use forests as well for Oasenstadt's 20spt, but not enough worker power... so I used mines. We can still harvest those forests when everything is done and we have spare workers again, e.g. in the phase shortly before railways.
• What to research next? There are Banking and Chemistry, and it's a 50-50 chance, which one is currently researched by the powerful AIs (England/Mongolia). We could just toss a coin. However, perhaps it's better to do Chemistry and then quickly towards Magnetism. Then we would have Newton's University as backup, if the AI gets snatches Copernicus from us. We could switch Kolossusstadt back to 1spt if necessary, until we have reached Magnetism. (Of course we should hope for getting both of these wonders, but it's not guaranteed.)
• Let Goldberg grow one more time with +5ftp before using the gold hill.

Assessment

War with Japan and China, at peace with every other civilization we know. It looks like all the civs we are at peace with are giving us GPT through deals. Good.

Plan

Science

Play with the science slider to net the greatest gold per turn while still researching Astronomy the same amount. Once Astronomy has been researched I think we'll go for Chemistry while we push for TOG (not magnetism btw but I knew what you meant so it's ok) *just in case* the AI manages to take Copernicus away from us.

I'm going to keep Astronomy to myself until another AI civ knows the tech. Then I'll see what I can get for it from the other AI civs who don't know it and may trade if it's worth our while.

England War

I noted while looking through trade deals we have England giving us 5 gold per turn for the next 15 turns while the ROP expires in 11 turns. This means we absolutely cannot war England (or at least start the war) until the 15 turns are up. If we do once the other gpt deals expire on the AI they will withdraw them, which will result in us losing gpt.

Because of the gpt deal, I'm not going to attack England myself. If they attack us then hey not our fault the other AI's will continue to treat us kindly.

I'm going to use the ROP to scout as much English territory as possible so that we can know the empire layout better for when the war does start.

Production

I'll take care to do all the micromanagement Lanzelot stated in the handoff notes. In productive towns I'm going to build knights. We will need plenty of them when the war starts. For towns not quite as productive I'll focus more on growth than military units.

MrRandomGuy said:

Assessment

War with Japan and China, at peace with every other civilization we know. It looks like all the civs we are at peace with are giving us GPT through deals. Good.

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Mongolia and India's MAPT deals just expired- I'd cancel them immediately, we're not getting anything more out of those (other than a paltry 2gpt from Mongolia) and we stand to lose lots of gold if they sign peace with China before ending the deal.

MrRandomGuy said:

I'm going to keep Astronomy to myself until another AI civ knows the tech. Then I'll see what I can get for it from the other AI civs who don't know it and may trade if it's worth our while.

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Even if someone researches it, I'd strongly consider holding onto it to ensure the wonder cascade doesn't continue.

MrRandomGuy said:

England War

I noted while looking through trade deals we have England giving us 5 gold per turn for the next 15 turns while the ROP expires in 11 turns. This means we absolutely cannot war England (or at least start the war) until the 15 turns are up. If we do once the other gpt deals expire on the AI they will withdraw them, which will result in us losing gpt.

Because of the gpt deal, I'm not going to attack England myself. If they attack us then hey not our fault the other AI's will continue to treat us kindly.

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I'm not sure if cancelling deals where only the AI gives you something hurts your trade reputation- that being said, we're about 19-20 turns from Copernicus anyway.

On the subject of war- if the plan isn't to say screw that deal, fight England anyway but rather to wait until we're closer to finishing Copernicus, would it be a good idea to go "liberate" Scandinavia's gunpowder? They're weak, we could probably grab it in short order with a few Knights.

MrRandomGuy said:

Once Astronomy has been researched I think we'll go for Chemistry while we push for TOG (not magnetism btw but I knew what you meant so it's ok)

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Ah yes, Gravity... Stephen Hawking hasn't discovered the formula yet, so Magnetism and Gravity are still two fundamentally different force fields...

MrRandomGuy said:

I noted while looking through trade deals we have England giving us 5 gold per turn for the next 15 turns while the ROP expires in 11 turns. This means we absolutely cannot war England (or at least start the war) until the 15 turns are up. If we do once the other gpt deals expire on the AI they will withdraw them, which will result in us losing gpt.

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I'm pretty sure that canceling a per-turn deal, where we are on the receiving end, does not affect the trade rep. (Otherwise I wouldn't have made that deal.) I think we can attack once all units are in place, which should be in 7(?) turns. The longer we wait, the higher the risk that England produces a significant amount of Muskets. And then we'll get a bloody nose with Knights and Maces...
The British worker started connecting saltpeter in T171, so it will be ready in T177. Then they still need to produce a 48s unit (or have 96g in cash for an upgrade), which will also take a while. So I think, if we act quickly, we can still make a big dent before they get muskets. That was also the reason, why I didn't go for the Viking saltpeter: it would have slowed down the attack on England and would not have given us any advantage in attack. (Only in defense, but if we fail to take the objective, there is also no need for defending it... )

MrRandomGuy said:

I'm going to use the ROP to scout as much English territory as possible so that we can know the empire layout better for when the war does start.

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Don't scout too much: you need to keep the taskforce close to London and be ready to strike at the first opportunity.

choxorn said:

Mongolia and India's MAPT deals just expired- I'd cancel them immediately, we're not getting anything more out of those (other than a paltry 2gpt from Mongolia) and we stand to lose lots of gold if they sign peace with China before ending the deal.

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Yep, excellent attention to detail!

choxorn said:

Even if someone researches it, I'd strongly consider holding onto it to ensure the wonder cascade doesn't continue.

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I agree. Almost any AI currently has a "wonder-prebuild", so any AI not knowing Astronomy yet reduces the risk of losing Copernicus in the cascade. We can again get tons of cash, when we discover Chemistry. (At the moment the AIs are broke anyway, and giving Astronomy away for free does not increase the likelyhood of the AI researching something useful for us: Banking they can already do now without Astronomy, and Physics they cannot do, because it also requires Chemistry as prerequisite. So there's no use in giving Astronomy away.)

choxorn said:

On the subject of war- if the plan isn't to say screw that deal, fight England anyway but rather to wait until we're closer to finishing Copernicus, would it be a good idea to go "liberate" Scandinavia's gunpowder? They're weak, we could probably grab it in short order with a few Knights.

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As I said above, saltpeter doesn't help us at the moment (two pikes are even better than one musket in terms of "defense value per invested shield"...!), but it would hurt us badly, if the English get muskets on a large scale. So time is essential. We should strike as soon as we can. Which means: once the units I mentioned in the handover notes have reached London, and perhaps 1-2 more Knights will reach London in time. 7 turns at most - even earlier if you can.

I just had another idea:
- On the first turn capture London with a mace and then gift it immediately to the Vikings. (If the Army captures it on its second attack, we need to defend for one turn, and then move the Army out the following turn before we gift London to the Vikings.)
- Then our London task force can work its way northward under the cover of the Army, while we assemble an new taskforce at Bananenbucht to march southward.
- If they try to attack our peninsula, we can quickly ship a few units from Wilhelmshaven.

The loss of London should break their resistance and also remove the annoying walls from the other towns. Once we have captured a few of them, we can make peace again, and then re-take London from the Vikings the turn before Copernicus finishes (or even earlier).

I'm pretty sure that canceling a per-turn deal, where we are on the receiving end, does not affect the trade rep. (Otherwise I wouldn't have made that deal.) I think we can attack once all units are in place, which should be in 7(?) turns. The longer we wait, the higher the risk that England produces a significant amount of Muskets. And then we'll get a bloody nose with Knights and Maces...

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You're right. Declaring in 7T won't hurt our per-turn trade rep, according to Bamspeedy's article -- but definitely will hurt our RoP rep (so we won't be able to sign one with the English or the Vikings again, so this betrayal had better work the first time...). It might also annoy AICivs who are currently 'gracious' towards us (might it be worth making MAPTs against England on the same turn we DoW them?).

But yeah, if the English have already got Gunpowder and access to Saltpeter, I agree that we must not allow them enough time to build/upgrade Muskets. I'm not sure where your 96g upgrade price comes from though. Pikes cost the AI 24s at Emperor, so the upgrade cost per unit should be 3*(48-24)=72g (or 36g with Leo's), assuming the AI is subject to the same multipliers as the human...

Oh wait, just realised that Spear --> Musket = 96g. But the English have had Iron since the beginning of the game -- and didn't they get Feudalism before we did? -- so (shurely) they're not still defending their cities with Spears...?

BTW:
I am away this weekend, and going on vacation at the end of next week. Depending on how fast MRG's plans are discussed and implemented, I may need to skip my turnset this round (which might actually be for the best, if you all want to have any units left for the next phase of the English war... ).

EDIT:
Just noticed I hit >100 posts, and have been promoted to Warlord. I blame you guys