[BTS] SGOTM 13 - Gypsy Kings

[bcool]

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

Funny...I was just looking at maintenance in the Sevopedia, it doesn't say anything about colonial maintenance? I was sure it was added in CivIV...

no colonial maintenance if the "no vassals" option is checked

[Ronnie1]

Originally Posted by bcool

cough cough, well defending silver medalists

Sorry...silver and gold before that of course. OSS is off to a solid game also, I think their pace is a bit slow maybe though.

[Ronnie1]

Originally Posted by bcool

no colonial maintenance if the "no vassals" option is checked

Never noticed that before, I guess I don't play without vassals much.

So distance and number are the only factors. Moving Capitol makes no sense then. Forbidden Palace does make sense.

Hastings does look like a decent candidate for HE maybe. It is a little short of food though.

[bcool]

BF might be a good worker pump.

PC has a lower max hammers than BF but needs a lot fewer worker turns to get it going. So it is a contender for the HE.

Hastings has 5 forests (4 in BFC) it could chop to get the infrastructure for the HE. Forests would build the granary, courthouse, and barracks (assuming it doesn't keep anything or have anything for us). then it has good food for growth and could have significantly higher hammers for HE. Hastings is a strong candidate if we can get workers over there. Or capture them from vicky.

Hastings will have the lake fish and plains cow, grass marble It will grow reasonably fast on this and has some early hammers while it grows. assuming lots of worker turns. (maybe a worker instead of a barracks in London...) The barracks is nice in GT city but not super necessary.

[mabraham]

Thanks for the discussion about HE and stuff - I regard it as ongoing, but here's a draft PPP for now:

There's three turns of anarchy planned, and not a great deal to be done with the war under control and little whipping to do, so I think this is reasonable as a 13-turn set.

Tech Path
100% on compass, then see if WvO will do drama+compass for machinery (we'll have same religion by then). If not, do 0% on CS until we have enough cash to see how much he wants for machinery, and then put just the right amount of tech on Mach for him to trade. Then continue binary research on Optics. Trade Drama only if it makes sense to trade with two AIs at the same time. Note that Joao doesn't know anybody yet, and his exploring workboat seem unlikely to do him any good in the next few turns.

Civic changes
Anarchy is still one turn. Switch to Taoism T199 (spread in CC already, want to get diplo benefits with WvO earlier) then Paci+Caste T200 (keep slavery as long as possible in case of needing to whip trireme in GH)

Religion Changes
As above, Taoism T199. Anything to be done with other AIs before they start to hate us for our religion?

Tech Trading
bc and I had a discussion about trading drama to Joao - he now has it anyway. We could get Vicky'sCathy's 110 for Drama, or Ragnar's 70 for Monotheism. By the end of the set, we hope to organise a Drama+Compass deal for Machinery with WvO once WvO likes us a bit more. Trade Drama for cash only if we can sensibly do two AIs at one time. If Joao meets (say) Cathy and we have a chance to trade drama to Cathy for HBR and/or , in order to short-circuit their trading.

Other Trade Opportunities and Diplomacy

• Maintain current trades
• We traded away our marble to Ragnar for wheat for the , but we hope to change that during my set if something looks possible.
• Once someone has something worthwhile to offer for iron - even a few , I think - I wanted to give that away and build some warrior MPs. We don't really need them at this stage, but once the wars start and we lose trades, I thought we might want them. Currently we're +2 from trades (and another in forge cities for the gems). We do have dye, wine, ivory, our own silk and silver still to acquire soon - maybe we don't need MPs at all?
• Reject "Stop Trade" demands, particularly with Cathy, Ragnar and WvO who make up our 14 overseas trade routes.
• If we have an excess resource, unload it if we can get some cash
• If we have an expired deal for (easiest to check on the F4-"Active" screen by mousing over deals) and they have more income, cancel and try to get more. AIs will normally trade all their excess income for a resource up to about 10 (or more)
• Check if there are other deals that can be canceled/reevaluated.
• Reject research demands of low cost (<300 ) techs from others - we want their cash, not their liking.
• Reject other research demands (but will check with the team if at all possible before doing so)
• I'm thinking we accept a demand to go to war with Izzy (but probably AI won't ask since we are at war?) Will reject other war demands

Espionage
Adjust allocation to maintain a view of WvO research, but put any excess towards Cathy.

Great People
One in the middle of the set, after the revolts. About 85% scientist, 9% merchant, 6% artist, 0.1% engineer. Save them all, for bulbing Astro and war-time Golden Age as appropriate. I don't think it's worth waiting 6 turns for the chance of a non-GScientist Golden Age to save the anarchy turns, or various hybrid plans.

Workboats
We need three for the silver site and one for Hastings, and probably one for Vicky's eastern iron site. We have two en route. We also need one for GH which is nearly finished in GH.

City Builds

• CC... Grow to 11 happy next turn and run seven scientists after the revolutions (plus two from GLib). Build Courthouse next (verrrry slowly - 30 turns if we don't help it, but finishing is worth about 32 per turn) (Edit Ron suggested a Monastery, which would take the same length of time, but that length of time takes us to about when the path is complete and the monastery would have very little value, and a courthouse will keep doing something more useful for the rest of the game, albeit still small)
• FH... Whip courthouse next turn before revolt, continue with workboat working fish, Gmine and coasts, unless switching Gmine to coast gets growth one turn earlier. (Basically, a workboat elsewhere will get those growths even faster...)
• SM... keeps fish, switch to something to 2-pop whip next turn (theatre?)
• PC... whip courthouse next turn, then workboat or finish trireme (do not run any artists, and turn off the damn spy!)
• MC... continue courthouse, then theatre
• BF... switch to barracks to whip, get marble back and build HE. Do not bother with artists to pop border
• FC... whip courthouse next turn, theatre
• GH... finish WB (run one artist to accelerate border pop to sync with WB), finish archer, finish trireme while growing to at least 8 before running merchants
• SR... whip missionary next turn, then work max food tiles while growing and finishing the granary
• London... has just been poisoned, but if we whip a granary next turn, a chop will finish the courthouse and we can continue with theatre and barracks to prepare for GT.
• Nottingham... courthouse with artists after Caste to pop border ASAP, then max food
• York... chop lighthouse, artists for border pop ASAP, then courthouse while max food

Still need two more theatres from somewhere...

Workers

• Strauss workshop N of SR
• Eiffel workshop N of SR for a turn, then to jungle, then one turn on horse pasture, then onto Beta and NG galley chain, then offload on jungle south of BF to chop and workshop
• Stevenson chop forest, workshop south of FC (maximises chance of forest growth)
• Hoover get off in Nottingham, chop forest NW of Nottingham, then start workshop there, then move to forest 2N of Nottingham to chop it after the border pop
• Yeltsin pasture horse for three turns, then onto Beta and NG galley chain, then offload on jungle south of BF to chop and workshop
• BF worker (near SM, named MacAdam) workshop north of SM, then NW of SM, but interrupt to load onto Beta and go to BF to chop and workshop there.
• Nottingham worker (in Nottingham, named Goethals) moves along roads toward London, then to the forest 2N of London to chop. This maximises the chance of a forest regrowing while we chop the others.
• Captured worker (SW of York, named Brunel) moves to forest S of York to chop into lighthouse. Then chop forest S,SW of York after running artists to pop the border.

War Plans

• Edit I think there's no rush to pillage the eastern iron - there's no route to Hastings, and since Vicky settled only between T189 and T193 (from the city count in those saved games), and at best has built an iron mine, she's probably going to get about one iron unit, if she beelines it. She does have a C2 sword somewhere (unless Ron killed it London) and I expect to find that in Canterbury.
• Edit I think we would want to keep Canterbury, except maybe for the maintenance. It's not in an ideal location, but we have other things to settle with what few settlers we can afford to build - like the site to the SW on the CGT island, which incorporates the fish Canterbury didn't. However, Canterbury is going to get two 2 trade routes (we've saturated the world until we find Joao and Izzy), 2 from its fish and one from its city tile, and cost at least 12. It will have no buildings and likely no workboat. It will be our lowest priority for precious worker time. However, the grassland-iron-and-fish tile combo is pretty nice, and it will be OK to put out granary (12 turns of iron+central) and courthouse (19 turns of iron+central) and get up to drafting size in a relevant time. So I think we keep it.
• Fetch Great General from GH when the missionary arrives, and take him to the HE city to settle. Edit Ambiguity here is deliberate until we make a decision!
• Catapult to hill near Hastings under the axe (Edit promote axe to Combat1), bomb down Hastings. Attack if she leaves only one unit in Hastings.
• Take uninjured sword and two axes in/near York to wine en route to Hastings.
• London catapult waits for a turn, then 2SW onto forest, then S onto stack arriving from York.
• Upgrade one cat CR1 and attack Hastings. Will have second cat from London available as needed, and four uninjured swords and axes, including CR1+CR2 sword. Should be fine.
• Other two swords, cat, axe and archer heal up one tile north of York. This allows the stack to cover either city as needed, and still move on Canterbury (1N of eastern iron) soon.

Alternatively, the cat can wait in London while the York healing stack does so in York, and the cat leaves London to meet the York units on the tile 1NW of iron. Since Hastings is unlikely to build any/many more units, I think this gives sound odds of taking both cities fast to get rid of the motherland unhappiness.

Triremes
Trireme "La Couronne" heads into PC to heal up - what promotion, if any?
Trireme "Paralus" heads up to bust fog near the silver site
Other triremes RIP

Galleys

• Argo RIP
• Kon-Tiki off-loads settler in Nottingham and continues to the silver site crab tile. Settler walks along roads to the tile 1N of corn. Then to iron and tundra and finally to the silver city tile if necessary. It could stay on the boat at plant at the same time, but we would not have vision of the tile 1N of the iron at the time we offloaded. K-T then continues through the new city with Paralus to provide vision near Hastings, and later a landing force for Hittite.
• Nautilus could accompany the above
• Beta lurks near the horses and prepares to take Eiffel and Yeltsin via galley chain to jungle south of SM, then to tile 1S of MC to get the second missionary (who won't produce until after the revolts), take him to GH, get the GGeneral and take him to HE site. The timing seems to work.
• New Galley moves to clam SW of CC to set up galley chain for Eiffel and Yeltsin
• Ferry heads east to move MacAdam to BF once the border pop is due.

Stopping/Pausing Conditions
A barbarian spawns in an awkward position that I can't immediately deal with
AI declares war on us
war with Vicky goes badly

Checklist every turn before hitting end turn
double check MM and whip timing for each city
check tech trades available
check if and what AI have researched from F4 screen
check for new/better resource trades
check espionage screen for large sabotage production values in all visible AI cities
check if any AI went into war prep mode
check for any barbarians
turn off spy specialists
save the game

While scouting
will put a note that notes the most recent location of barbarians
will put a note that notes the most recent location of all AI units

[Ronnie1]

Comments in blue

Originally Posted by mabraham

Thanks for the discussion about HE and stuff - I regard it as ongoing, but here's a draft PPP for now:

There's three turns of anarchy planned, and not a great deal to be done with the war under control and little whipping to do, so I think this is reasonable as a 13-turn set.

Tech Path
100% on compass, then see if Joao will do drama+compass for machinery (we'll have same religion by then). If not, do 0% on CS until we have enough cash to see how much he wants for machinery, and then put just the right amount of tech on Mach for him to trade. Then continue binary research on Optics.

Civic changes
Anarchy is still one turn. Switch to Taoism T199 (spread in CC already, want to get diplo benefits with WvO earlier) then Paci+Caste T200 (keep slavery as long as possible in case of needing to whip trireme in GH)

Religion Changes
As above, Taoism T199. Anything to be done with other AIs before they start to hate us for our religion?

Tech Trading
bc and I had a discussion about trading drama to Joao - he now has it anyway. We could get Vicky's (Cathy?)110 for Drama, or Ragnar's 70 for Monotheism. By the end of the set, we hope to organise a Drama+Compass deal for Machinery once WvO likes us a bit more.

Other Trade Opportunities and Diplomacy

• Maintain current trades
• We traded away our marble to Ragnar for wheat for the , but we hope to change that during my set if something looks possible.
• Once someone has something worthwhile to offer for iron - even a few , I think - I wanted to give that away and build some warrior MPs. We don't really need them at this stage, but once the wars start and we lose trades, I thought we might want them. Currently we're +2 from trades (and another in forge cities for the gems). We do have dye, wine, ivory, our own silk and silver still to acquire soon - maybe we don't need MPs at all?
• Reject "Stop Trade" demands, particularly with Cathy, Ragnar and WvO who make up our 14 overseas trade routes.
• If we have an excess resource, unload it if we can get some cash
• If we have an expired deal for (easiest to check on the F4-"Active" screen by mousing over deals) and they have more income, cancel and try to get more. AIs will normally trade all their excess income for a resource up to about 10 (or more)
• Check if there are other deals that can be canceled/reevaluated.
• Reject research demands of low cost (<300 ) techs from others - we want their cash, not their liking.
• Reject other research demands (but will check with the team if at all possible before doing so)
• I'm thinking we accept a demand to go to war with Izzy (but probably AI won't ask since we are at war?) Will reject other war demands

Espionage
Adjust allocation to maintain a view of WvO research, but put any excess towards Cathy.

Great People
One in the middle of the set, after the revolts. About 85% scientist, 9% merchant, 6% artist, 0.1% engineer. Save them all, for bulbing Astro and war-time Golden Age as appropriate. I don't think it's worth waiting 6 turns for the chance of a non-GScientist Golden Age to save the anarchy turns, or various hybrid plans.

Workboats
We need three for the silver site and one for Hastings, and probably one for Vicky's eastern iron site. We have two en route. We also need one for GH which is nearly finished in GH.

City Builds

• CC... Grow to 11 happy next turn and run seven scientists after the revolutions (plus two from GLib). Build Courthouse next (verrrry slowly - 30 turns if we don't help it, but finishing is worth about 32 per turn)CH is worth about 32, Monastery gains us at least 6 + ability to continue to spread if we need to.
• FH... Whip courthouse next turn before revolt, continue with workboat working fish, Gmine and coasts, unless switching Gmine to coast gets growth one turn earlier. (Basically, a workboat elsewhere will get those growths even faster...)
• SM... keeps fish, switch to something to 2-pop whip next turn (theatre?)
• PC... whip courthouse next turn, then workboat or finish trireme (do not run any artists, and turn off the damn spy!)
• MC... continue courthouse, then theatre
• BF... switch to barracks to whip, get marble back and build HE. Do not bother with artists to pop border
• FC... whip courthouse next turn, theatre
• GH... finish WB (run one artist to accelerate border pop to sync with WB), finish archer, finish trireme while growing to at least 8 before running merchants
• SR... whip missionary next turn, then work max food tiles while growing and finishing the granary
• London... has just been poisoned, but if we whip a granary next turn, a chop will finish the courthouse and we can continue with theatre and barracks to prepare for GT.
• Nottingham... courthouse with artists after Caste to pop border ASAP, then max food
• York... chop lighthouse, artists for border pop ASAP, then courthouse while max food

Still need two more theatres from somewhere...

Workers

• Strauss workshop N of SR
• Eiffel workshop N of SR for a turn, then to jungle, then one turn on horse pasture, then onto Beta and NG galley chain, then offload on jungle south of BF to chop and workshop
• Stevenson chop forest, workshop south of FC (maximises chance of forest growth)
• Hoover get off in Nottingham, chop forest NW of Nottingham, then start workshop there, then move to forest 2N of Nottingham to chop it after the border pop
• Yeltsin pasture horse for three turns, then onto Beta and NG galley chain, then offload on jungle south of BF to chop and workshop
• BF worker (near SM, named MacAdam) workshop north of SM, then NW of SM, but interrupt to load onto Beta and go to BF to chop and workshop there.
• Nottingham worker (in Nottingham, named Goethals) moves along roads toward London, then to the forest 2N of London to chop. This maximises the chance of a forest regrowing while we chop the others.
• Captured worker (SW of York, named Brunel) moves to forest S of York to chop into lighthouse. Then chop forest S,SW of York after running artists to pop the border.

War Plans

• I think we need to pillage the iron right away....I don't see that in the plan???
  Also, are we keeping the eastern iron city or razing it?
• Fetch Great General from GH when the missionary arrives, and take him to the HE city to settle.Where is that? Hastings with some workers!
• Catapult to hill near Hastings under the axe, bomb down Hastings. Attack if she leaves only one unit in Hastings.Promote the Axe for better defense???
• Take uninjured sword and two axes in/near York to wine en route to Hastings.
• London catapult waits for a turn, then 2SW onto forest, then S onto stack arriving from York.
• Upgrade one cat CR1 and attack Hastings. Will have second cat from London available as needed, and four uninjured swords and axes, including CR1+CR2 sword. Should be fine.
• Other two swords, cat, axe and archer heal up one tile north of York. This allows the stack to cover either city as needed, and still move on Canterbury (1N of eastern iron) soon.

Alternatively, the cat can wait in London while the York healing stack does so in York, and the cat leaves London to meet the York units on the tile 1NW of iron. Since Hastings is unlikely to build any/many more units, I think this gives sound odds of taking both cities fast to get rid of the motherland unhappiness.

Triremes
Trireme "La Couronne" heads into PC to heal up - what promotion, if any?
Trireme "Paralus" heads up to bust fog near the silver site
Other triremes RIP

Galleys

• Argo RIP
• Kon-Tiki off-loads settler in Nottingham and continues to the silver site crab tile. Settler walks along roads to the tile 1N of corn. Then to iron and tundra and finally to the silver city tile if necessary. It could stay on the boat at plant at the same time, but we would not have vision of the tile 1N of the iron at the time we offloaded. K-T then continues through the new city with Paralus to provide vision near Hastings, and later a landing force for Hittite.
• Nautilus could accompany the above
• Beta lurks near the horses and prepares to take Eiffel and Yeltsin via galley chain to jungle south of SM, then to tile 1S of MC to get the second missionary (who won't produce until after the revolts), take him to GH, get the GGeneral and take him to HE site. The timing seems to work.
• New Galley moves to clam SW of CC to set up galley chain for Eiffel and Yeltsin
• Ferry heads east to move MacAdam to BF once the border pop is due.

Stopping/Pausing Conditions
A barbarian spawns in an awkward position that I can't immediately deal with
AI declares war on us
war with Vicky goes badly

Checklist every turn before hitting end turn
double check MM and whip timing for each city
check tech trades available
check if and what AI have researched from F4 screen
check for new/better resource trades
check espionage screen for large sabotage production values in all visible AI cities
check if any AI went into war prep mode
check for any barbarians
turn off spy specialists
save the game

While scouting
will put a note that notes the most recent location of barbarians
will put a note that notes the most recent location of all AI units

[mabraham]

Thanks for comments Ron. I mostly responded in edits to the PPP. I don't like the CC Monastery (too late), don't care about the eastern iron (Canterbury is too small and new for it to matter), and think we should keep Canterbury (will draft OK, won't cost too much and we can't afford many more settlers). I accepted the minor points you made.

[Ronnie1]

You really think BF is better than both PC and Hastings for HE? Hastings in particular seems much more suited.

I liked your first plan of getting navy from BF and keeping the ground troops coming from the line.

I still think an early super medic should be considered also. It might really speed our next war to heal better.

Do we know when Canterbury was founded so we can estimate growth to size 2?

[mabraham]

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

You really think BF is better than both PC and Hastings for HE? Hastings in particular seems much more suited.

BF with Caste+Guilds and three workshops produces 14 base , as does PC. BF grows that to 17 with Chemistry, where PC only grows to 15. Yes, BF needs more worker effort to get there, but we're going to expend that worker effort whether HE is in BF or not. So I think BF > PC, but not by much.

HastingsNottingham would be nice, but it's got courthouse, barracks and HE to build in about 30 turns (with three forests to chop), and it is only size 3 with a excess of 2(central)+2(sheep)+1(lake)+1(lake)=6. Once the granary is full it will take about four turns each to grow new population up to about 8 - so 20 turns. At size 8 it can work sheep, lake, lake and five Gmine/Gworkshop tiles for 2(central)+4+3+3+1+1+1+1+1 for a excess of one. Another growth lets us work all the six available Gworkshop tiles (and not the Gmine, which will be worse than the workshops once we have Chemistry) for 26 base . While growing we'll produce few hammers here, however.

Hastings can't build a lighthouse and will have zero buildings when we take it, but it isn't all bad. The SM workboat arrives to plant on its fish, and if we rush-chop its forests and focus worker effort on it, then it can get HE up fairly fast. I'll have to consider it more carefully.

York would also be nice, but it's got to work hard for food, starting at size 6. Cows plus four lake gives an excess of 7, with two more Gfarms to get to +9 during growth, but it's got to get to size 12 to work cows plus 4 lakes plus 3 Gmine plus 3Gworkshop plus 2Pworkshop. It would take 3-4 turns each for those six growths, so call that 21 turns. Then if we magically convert all the farms to workshops, we will have 1*3+4*0+3*3+3*4+2*5=34 base hammers. York has a chop for the lighthouse, and then two more chops for courthouse-barracks-HE, however it gets hammers while growing from the cows and its forge will help also.

Barracks is 75, courthouse is effectively 90, HE is effectively 150. So York needs 315 post-forge - call that 260 base . After one chop goes the lighthouse, there's about 44+30 more from chops, so 186 base from tiles. If we want to be complete in 30 turns, then that's an average of ~6 tile per turn. Four of them are coming in automatically from the cows and central tile, so I think the ~9 turns of post-growth will cover the balance easily.

HastingsNottingham can't do it that fast because its food sources don't come with any hammers.

I think I've convinced myself York is best. Any other ideas?

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

I liked your first plan of getting navy from BF and keeping the ground troops coming from the line.

Yeah I still think that's a good model - there's nothing stopping us using the HE for our navy and having fewer navy cities, except that we now don't have such an obvious place to stack our settled GGenerals. But if most of the troops are drafted, and some of the bombing is being done by frigates, we don't actually need highly-promoted high-tech units...

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

I still think an early super medic should be considered also. It might really speed our next war to heal better.

Totally - our existing C1 4XP axe goes all the way to Woodsman3+Medic1 with +20XP from the GGeneral. However, if (say) our first target is Cathy from her west, then Willem, we'll actually be setting up another stack out of SR to take out Ragnar, so the value of a super medic is somewhat diluted when we expect to have multiple stacks in different parts of the world. We'd send him against the tough opponents, of course. We might end up with three stacks - one on Izzy, one on Joao and one mopping up whoever needs it.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

Do we know when Canterbury was founded so we can estimate growth to size 2?

bc would have to look in his saved games, but 16 turns from founding (between T189 and T193) is probably more than the time we'd need to send a critical-sized force against it. So if we want to keep it, there's again no rush to head for Canterbury.

[bcool]

bc would have to look in his saved games, but 16 turns from founding (between T189 and T193) is probably more than the time we'd need to send a critical-sized force against it. So if we want to keep it, there's again no rush to head for Canterbury.

settled T192

[bcool]

I am really worried about Cathy. I don't know if espionage is any indicator for war target or not, but Cathy does have a significantly higher espionage against us than any other AI (256). I think we might want to get compass before the revolt (so delay revolts to T200) in the off chance we could bribe willem to war with Cathy with compass and drama if the worst happens and Cathy declares on us.

If it doesn't come to pass we can possibly trade compass and drama for machinery from willem as mabraham suggests.

If she does we would have our pants down.

I also want a trireme sent her way to give us at least a bit of warning. So I would whip the trireme in GH obviously before the revolts

I think hastings is the HE city, and we should whip another worker instead of a barracks in BF to help with the large amount of chopping to be done in Vicky's lands.

Delaying the revolts might allow us to get a worker out of london too. modifying the whip plan I posted a while back replacing a worker with a barracks.

[mabraham]

Updated test game. Various minor glitches as noted on tiles near the relevant city. Fortunately only I have to use the damn thing, and the usefulness of the test game is running out fast. London's poisoned water will be impossible to model.

Edit: removed broken test game

[bcool]

CC... Grow to 11 happy next turn and run seven scientists after the revolutions (plus two from GLib). Build Courthouse next (verrrry slowly - 30 turns if we don't help it, but finishing is worth about 32 per turn) (Edit Ron suggested a Monastery, which would take the same length of time, but that length of time takes us to about when the path is complete and the monastery would have very little value, and a courthouse will keep doing something more useful for the rest of the game, albeit still small)

I'm happy with the courthouse, and I assume we won't have hammers to use the monastery since it is all scientists all the time after the revolt.

FH... Whip courthouse next turn before revolt, continue with workboat working fish, Gmine and coasts, unless switching Gmine to coast gets growth one turn earlier. (Basically, a workboat elsewhere will get those growths even faster...)

sure

SM... keeps fish, switch to something to 2-pop whip next turn (theatre?)

maybe a trireme instead of a theater, we need to find joao, and izzy their trades routes would be valuable for us.

PC... whip courthouse next turn, then workboat or finish trireme (do not run any artists, and turn off the damn spy!)

workboat I think after the courthouse, let SM whip a trireme

MC... continue courthouse, then theatre

maybe a warrior instead of a theater it will have time to build the theater. I want MP, just in case we need an emergency upgrade.

BF... switch to barracks to whip, get marble back and build HE. Do not bother with artists to pop border

I would rather whip another worker here and build HE in hastings.

FC... whip courthouse next turn, theatre

Maybe we let the chop finish the courthouse and so preserve a pop. Then maybe this can be drafted too?

GH... finish WB (run one artist to accelerate border pop to sync with WB), finish archer, finish trireme while growing to at least 8 before running merchants

whip trireme here I suggest for early warning against attack from cathy and more scouting, then finish workboat, then archer

SR... whip missionary next turn, then work max food tiles while growing and finishing the granary

need to look at ideal hammer/food mix for granary build.

London... has just been poisoned, but if we whip a granary next turn, a chop will finish the courthouse and we can continue with theatre and barracks to prepare for GT.

T198 I think worker this turn
T199 whip worker next turn, start granary
T200 whip granary, finish worker (after revolts)
T203 finish worker
T204 finish granary
T205+ theater? (skipping barracks until after the Globe theater)

Nottingham... courthouse with artists after Caste to pop border ASAP, then max food

sure, chop here for courthouse too I think.

York... chop lighthouse, artists for border pop ASAP, then courthouse while max food

yes, I think Forbidden Palace after lighthouse and courthouse. I think chop for lighthouse and courthouse if possible.

[Ronnie1]

If you can get me a save of the test game 1-2 turns earlier I can make most of it right.

[Ronnie1]

RE: Monasteries....I thought we were to quit teching before Scientific Method? IMO, if we have to go past SM in this game we played poorly. If we don't obsolete Monasteries, then one in CC makes a lot of sense. CC currently produces almost 1/2 of our sustainable beakers 77/157, and that number will increase with the switch to Caste. At 0% science, CC will produce 100% of our science which will still be 57b/t base, so even here the monastery offers a decent payback time. For the same investment of hammers as a CH, we get a much better ROI. The benefit of a CH here is only 2.4(now) up to maybe 3 g/t + the 2EP.

After we get Compass, if we can trade for Machinery we can bulb Optics and get some Caravels out. If we can't trade for Machinery, we can bulb it with the GS. and move onto Optics or wait.

What is our long term research path if we are working/bulbing our way to Astronomy now? Beeline Gunpowder then Liberalism, or straight to within 1 turn of Liberalism.

CC... Grow to 11 happy next turn and run seven scientists after the revolutions (plus two from GLib). Build Courthouse next (verrrry slowly - 30 turns if we don't help it, but finishing is worth about 32 per turn) (Edit Ron suggested a Monastery, which would take the same length of time, but that length of time takes us to about when the path is complete and the monastery would have very little value, and a courthouse will keep doing something more useful for the rest of the game, albeit still small)

If you really don't see a benefit to a monastery, then I would lobby for either mp's for outer cities or navy, something that can be whipped in an emergency. I just don't see the need for a CH here.

SM... keeps fish, switch to something to 2-pop whip next turn (theatre?)

I am in the Trireme go scout SE camp.

PC... whip courthouse next turn, then workboat or finish trireme (do not run any artists, and turn off the damn spy!......the spy is in BF)

I would build Trireme > WB after the CH just to be a bit safer. The test game seems to show a bit of an increase in barb activity about T202-204.

MC....either way really, a few warriors, then the Theater is the safer route for sure. If we are not in a hurry for the Globe, then I would vote safer. If Cathy is targeting us from the west, we are not very well prepared on that side.

I would rather whip another worker here and build HE in hastings.

I was leaning towards the worker....but here is a great reason to send at least 1 unit onto the hill at Canterbury! From the hill we get to see how many workers we have the chance to capture. We may not need to build as many as we think. I would build either Trireme or Galley, or WB I guess. We need 3 more WB's total as of now. Try not to build anything not directly related to navy.

Are we thinking of settling the Ivory city S of York? If so, that should really happen ASAP. Maybe get a settler out of BF or ???

FC... whip courthouse next turn, theatre

Why not whip it this turn?... no reason to wait to whip since it is only a 1 pop whip. Get to the Theater build sooner.

GH... finish WB (run one artist to accelerate border pop to sync with WB), finish archer, finish trireme while growing to at least 8 before running merchants

I like whipping the Trireme this turn, finishing the WB with the overflow and then finish the archer. Then probably pick up the navy builds for the rest of the game.

Here is another option for building late settler(s) with all the excess food.

SR....

Whip missionary yes, granary yes, but probably want to work the mine some as bc was hinting at.

London... has just been poisoned, but if we whip a granary next turn, a chop will finish the courthouse and we can continue with theatre and barracks to prepare for GT.

Again it would be great to know how many workers we can look to capture. If we are close to getting workers for free, then I would lean towards mabs plan. If no or few workers, then maybe whip a worker here.

York... chop lighthouse, artists for border pop ASAP, then courthouse while max food

You convinced yourself this was the best spot for HE....does Forbidden Palace still fit here? I don't think we have time.

[bcool]

I can't address everything ron suggested but I can address the monastery question

RE: Monasteries....I thought we were to quit teching before Scientific Method? IMO, if we have to go past SM in this game we played poorly. If we don't obsolete Monasteries, then one in CC makes a lot of sense. CC currently produces almost 1/2 of our sustainable beakers 77/157, and that number will increase with the switch to Caste. At 0% science, CC will produce 100% of our science which will still be 57b/t base, so even here the monastery offers a decent payback time. For the same investment of hammers as a CH, we get a much better ROI. The benefit of a CH here is only 2.4(now) up to maybe 3 g/t + the 2EP.

The monastery benefit is better than the courthouse, however we won't benefit from it until it is built.
We are planning to run 7 scientists 3 clams and the corn farm in CC after the revolts so CC hammers will go down to 3 per turn (1 from city tile and 2 from great prophet)
So the benefit of the courthouse won't come very soon either, but at least gold and espionage will help near the end slightly with wars where as the research benefit of the monastery won't.

I agree that the courthouse contribution is small so we could consider a MP here. However it is unlikely that we will finish any type of military unit before it becomes obsolete, so that unit might not finish anytime soon either. I think a warrior has a chance so we can look at that if we can trade away iron for something soon.
An archer would probably convert to a longbow build before we finish the archer and would eventually be built. This doesn't depend on the iron trade.

I was leaning towards the worker....but here is a great reason to send at least 1 unit onto the hill at Canterbury! From the hill we get to see how many workers we have the chance to capture. We may not need to build as many as we think. I would build either Trireme or Galley, or WB I guess. We need 3 more WB's total as of now. Try not to build anything not directly related to navy.

Are we thinking of settling the Ivory city S of York? If so, that should really happen ASAP. Maybe get a settler out of BF or ???

even if we got 3 workers from vicky I would want another one in BF. We have a huge number of forests to chop and then workshops to build. More workers will get these done faster. Then they can be sent to new lands we capture. More workers is almost always good.

The ivory site is good as is the old GT site we were considering. I think BF could slow build workers and/or settlers after it whips a worker.

York... chop lighthouse, artists for border pop ASAP, then courthouse while max food
You convinced yourself this was the best spot for HE....does Forbidden Palace still fit here? I don't think we have time.

I think we can convince him that hastings is the best spot for HE. And then we can build the forbidden palace in York.

[bcool]

There is some chance the Ducks have won the game already. We took out Vicky with 1/4 the power they have. They started earlier and could probably have taken everyone out by now. Our izzy and joao were really backwards. If they hit Cathy and Willem early and hard they could have finished the game I think with the power they are showing.

[mabraham]

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

The first thing I see is that I want to send the healthy promotable Axe to the hill overlooking the new city. From there decide how we can best utilize our troops to take out both cities asap. She has about 1/2 as many troops as we do based on the demo screen. We should be able to split our forces and take both her cities quickly.

As partly mentioned already in my PPP updates, I think we're in more of a hurry to ensure we take Hastings fast (especially if it might be HE city), and to let Canterbury grow to size 2 (around 16 turns from T193).

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

Would we consider moving our capitol to the English landmass? We would have much reduced colonial maintenance because most of our other cities are on single city landmasses. Not sure we can spare the hammers, but wanted to throw it out there,

Sure, as discussed there's no colonial maintenance, and with all the worker effort focussing on the HE city and London for the GT, I'm not sure there's much ability to get a fast Palace. Off the top of my head, a palace is 300 and our courthouses are effectively 90, and CC wouldn't build one in decent time, so moving the palace would make sense only if there were more than three cities in England that would prefer not to build a Courthouse.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

Sort of on the above note, why are we building a Courthouse in FH? Will it really pay off that close to the capitol? It is only saving us 2.1g/t at the current size, a bit more as it grows. If we moved the capitol, it would make great sense, as would one in CC.

It will pay for itself when we get many cities and that part of the maintenance equation dominates - but we can delay it for other things.

[mabraham]

Originally Posted by bcool

Hastings might be good for the HE depending on what it has after capture (sacrifice a courthouse maybe?) I think we want the forbidden palace in York. This would allow us make skipping a courthouse in Hastings more palatable.

Yeah, York could do FP if we didn't worry about growing it much.

Originally Posted by bcool

I want to scout cathy, there is a small chance she is targeting us. It is very small but if she is, it is devasting. I think we might want to whip the trireme in GH and send it over to scout between us and cathy to give us time to see any fleet coming our way.

OK

[mabraham]

Originally Posted by bcool

pushing revolt to T200?
idea for london, granary T198
T199 whip granary start barracks
T200 whip barracks, finish granary
T201 finish barracks
T202 finish? courthouse with OF

Seems plausible - I like the subsequent worker suggestion rather than barracks. We have soooo much work to be doing.

Originally Posted by bcool

BF might build worker and whip for OF into a barracks HE on T200 (when we can cancel marble trade I believe)

oops would have to build the barracks first

Can do.

I am concerned that we need to get side theatre production started, else London will have nothing to do fairly soon.