Ok, I finally had some time looking at the save.
- Artillery: yes, now that the English have rifles, we need some. Thanks to railways, the speed-factor won't be much of a problem.
- Research: the idea of going for the upper branch indeed had some charm. (Panzer ...
) But after thinking about it, I feel that Panzer will be too late to make an impact in the English war (still 6 techs to go). So getting Hoover quickly will be more beneficial. (Only 4 techs to go.)
- Therefore, we should aim at getting a factory now in all cities, where it makes sense. However: Trondheim has already collected 293 shields, so switching now would waste 75 shields. So I would let the Military Academy finish there now. (We don't lose a prebuild: instead of 400s MilAc we can then use 400s Armies as prebuilds, if we need it.) See next point.
- War against English: in 5 turns we'll have the Military Academy. We probably won't need to build Armies by hand, if our MGL luck continues like in CBob's turnset...
But MilAc has another important effect: the strength of an Army is increased by like 25%. A 4-Cav-Army will then have attack value 12 and defense value 6. (See Theoden's formula.) Even fortified reg Rifles in cities will no longer be a problem. (The Brits don't seem to have many vet units...)
Together with a bit artillery support protected by Infantry, this is now my recipe for a speedy victory. (And perhaps we'll still need to re-use those Armies against the Mongols, if the come too close to ToE, who knows... Though I too think that if we keep up our research pace, there will be no danger.)
- Combat settlers: ok, but only in crap towns, not in our core please...
- Tech speed: yes, I think we can achieve something like 5 turns per tech on average for the rest of the Industrial Age. We did Industrialization (3600b) in 5 turns with ease just now. Medicine and Scientific Method (3000b each) can be done in 4 turns without problems. Then come Atomic Theory (6000b) and Electronics (5400b). These are the most expensive (besides Flight), and I think we'll need 6 turns for each of them. Perhaps (depending on the speed of our Hoover prebuild) we can afford to do another cheap one before tackling these two? Corporation (3000b) can also be done in 4 turns already, and perhaps by then our economy is strong enough to do at least Electronics in 5 instead of 6?!
- Stavanger: hmm, I could swear I had seen a fish in its second ring, the last time I looked... It must have swum away?!
Well, anyway, a courthouse will bring it down to 58% corruption, so should net us 28bpt when fully improved.
- Please send more workers back to the core. It still isn't railed completely!?! And Aarhus, Eisenstadt, München and Catan still haven't reached size 12! A lot of potential not being utilized atm. (I think we have an old foodmap somewhere showing how each of these cities can be run at size 12 and +0fpt... It may have to be optimized for magical shield numbers, but otherwise let's use that work.) 27 workers doing railway duty in enemy territory is too much. Rather advance a bit slower, but finally make our core fully productive, that'll finish the war faster.
Also one of Trondheim's satellites hasn't been founded yet. Before using settlers in combat, let's rather set that one on track.
- Holy Cow: the English have now founded Bath in exactly the same crappy tundra location where I destroyed the last Viking town...!!
There must be oil, aluminium and uranium in that 3x3 square...
- @tjs282: Why do you want to build ToE in Kolussusstadt of all towns?! We should assign that wonder to one of our good producers and rather try to get SETI into Kolussusstadt. Hamburg can get 4 extra shields with a few rails. These 4 shields can be given to Kolussusstadt, and two more rails for Kolussusstadt will bring it to 14-15 spt, depending on corruption. With a factory and Hoover, that'll be 28-30 spt, so quick enough for the 1000s SETI. We still have an estimated 56 turns to go to the Modern Age, so if Kolossusstadt can get a factory within the next 20 turns (and Hoover will be ready in about the same time), it'll get SETI just in time.
- Why is Wilhelmshaven using the bananas and wasting a lot of food at size 12, when Catan is still at size 9? Also I think I had left a few irrigations for Catan to quickly reach size 12?! They are now all mined... And why 3 scientists in Wilhelmshaven? Specialists in first ring cities doesn't make any sense at all.
We need more mines for Wilhelmshaven and Trondheim.
- It's too late now for me to make a wonder prebuild plan. And in addition: it will be much easier to calculate things, once all our good producers have their factory. (And when Hoover gets online, it'll change things once again...) So let's wait a few more turns and hope we can still make it then...
I would say, factories now in Oasenstadt, Königsberg, München, Eisenstadt. (And Trondheim, when it's done with the MilAc.) Oasenstadt will probably first to get a factory (don't let the Cav finish this turn! Switch to Bank as prebuild), so it should then probably start right away with Hoover. O'stadt will make 40spt with a factory, so it will need 20 turns for Hoover. And roughly 6 turns for a factory. So we should speed up the factory with a shortrush. Let's say 3 turns for the factory and then 20 turns for Hoover, that will be good enough. (The techs being ready in 21 turns.) Or let it build the factory in 6 and do Corporation before going at the expensive duo of AT & Electronics. Then we have 25 turns for the techs, and 26 turns for Hoover. That should still be fast enough for SETI in Kolossusstadt.
In any case: I think using Königsberg for Hoover will be too slow.
Regarding artillery: I would even go beyond what choxorn said: I would be quite happy, if artillery in Vanilla/PtW would target population, improvements and units "at random". But whenever I play a high level GOTM, it rather feels like the artillery targets population first, then the improvements and only when the town is down to size 1 and all improvements are destroyed, it finally starts taking hitpoints off the units...
![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
(Though that may just be my notorious RNG luck combined with Murphy's Law...) For that reason I've completely stopped using artillery in PtW, even on Deity.
In C3C, however, artillery works just fine for capturing cities.
]. If you just want increase our free-unit support, though, it would be best to rush the Settlers in the outlying 3rd-ring/ ex-Viking cities, rather than tying up productive and useful core cities.
As mentioned above, I think keeping the tech costs higher for the AI make it worth delaying the bottom half of the tech-tree. Unless it's more worth it to get access to Hoover that much sooner?
)... I don't think we need any MAs vs. the English though, if they're not going to be able to build/upgrade any more Cavs. We should be able to take them without help, we don't want the Mongols bombarding 'our' resource-tiles (if they get Ironclads), and we certainly don't want them getting any major footholds on our continent before we've sealed off the ex-English coastlines with ICS science-farms.
), it can start prebuilding Hoovers using Palace, MilAcad, (or ShakesT?), while we research AtomThe+Electronics (in ~10-12T? @ 45SPT = 450-540s on the Hoovers prebuild, plus any banked shields); while Hoovers is being (pre-)built, building Factories one at a time in our remaining high-shield core cities shouldn't impede our Cav/ Inf (/Arty?) output too badly. By the time we get Electronics, the Hoover-prebuild should only need another ~8-10T(?) for completion.
for our 3 freebie-techs and research boost to the stars...
). And then the Modern Age freebie-techs, combined with the nearly-complete SETI and Internet prebuilds in high-SPT cities elsewhere, would give us an almost immediate sci-boost across all our cities.
So a Factory in O'stadt, yes, but at 40-45 SPT, surely it would be better to build 2T-Cavs/Inf until our 'turns to Flight' is lower than O'stadt's 'turns to SETI'...?
We can't. Though I was kind of expecting our core to be better railed than that by now, since we've had Steam for about 25T(?) already...
