LP1: That's the wrong end of the gun

[Norvin_Green]

Nictel, if we don't hear from Cull today we might skip/swap and let the next player (dalamb) I believe come up with a PPP in order to keep the game moving along.

 

[dalamb]

Cull did log in today, and I think yesterday too.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I'm going to defer to Norvin. He's dead on for long term learning. Like he said, i'm gaming the level.

 

[Cull]

I'm going to have to leave this SG. I have way too many RL issues at this time. Sorry guys

 

[dalamb]

I have the save. I'll post a plan later this morning.

Now that Cull has dropped out, should we add Admiral Kutzov? He wanted to play but we filled up before he posted. That would mean the roster would become:
Nictel
ChuckDizzle
dalamb -- current player
vranasm
Norvin_Green
Admiral Kutzov

 

[Norvin_Green]

Sounds good to me but will defer to Nictel as it's his game.

 

[dalamb]

OK, here's my first draft of a plan:

1. Like NG said, REX first, war later; first step is the FP city for commerce to support the Viking Empire.
2. When do we chop the forest from the grassland hill? That plus mining gives +1 but maybe we want to wait until after Mathematics? It's an issue for what the worker does next after the quarry.
3. For efficient whipping we need a granary before a settler. Working 2 tiles instead of 2 tiles gets the granary out in 9 turns, so the invested in the settler won't decay. Furthermore, we'd whip the granary at 2 pop anyway, so 9t is an upper bound. So I propose switching immediately to building a granary.
4. We don't need Agriculture just yet, since we won't settle near the corn right away, so I'd prefer to switch to Archery (defenders) and finish Agriculture later after possibly a couple of other techs. Archery would be done in 5 turns. invested in Agriculture won't decay.
5. Sailing connects the FP city to the capital immediately, without having to road to the river, plus enables the UB. Given the death of our scouts and the desirability of exploring more coast (to open up trading with anybody else on the coast) I think Sailing is more important than Agriculture.
6. I really, really think we need a 2nd worker soon; until the 2nd settler he could have helped improve the capital and after that cottage floodplains. But he's after the granary anyway, and we might need to finish off the settler first just to avoid losing invested in the settler (IIRC they start to decay after 10 turns on Normal with no intervening investment). So I think worker 2 is later than the segment I'd play.
7. While regrowing to happy cap after whipping the granary, build archers. At the happy cap, finish the settler. May need micromanagement to make sure the settler doesn't go more than 9t without additional .
8. After Sailing (whenever that is, which could be later than my turn) build a lighthouse.

Thus build order is granary > archers > settler, and tech order is Archery > Sailing > maybe Agriculture. So I think a good stopping point for me is right after whipping the first settler, or after Sailing (if we agree to it), whichever comes first.

Edit: Cool thing about dotmaps: if I make one running BUG 4.4 in CustomAssets, and save the file, then of course that dotmap isn't visible if you run plain BtS without BUG. BUT if you save from plain BtS and load back into BUG 4.4, the dotmap becomes visible again! So those of us running BUG can see the dotmap without interfering with anyone not using BUG.

I don't know if we all need to have the same version of BUG; this is the first time I've used the CustomAssets mode of installation.

 

[vranasm]

that's a lot of whipping and I have to say I dont like it (15 turns for whip at epic speed). I see there 3 forrests that should be chopped asap (2x grassland, 1x hills) to free spots for better improvements.

for granary it's too soon, too much wasted hammers that should go for other things.

finish settler, start immedietely worker, maybe 2. Maybe even make first worker then the settler (leave settler in queue) and chop the second worker. Chop settler. (those 3 tiles i mentioned), definitely need at least 3 workers. Probably would start 4th and then another settler.

Then i would continue with chopping outside bfc, hills and grassland, leaving plains forrested.
i kind of dont see if those bears are improved with camp, but we have 5 pop and 3 improved tiles, 5 with bears camped?

 

[dalamb]

I must say I'm surprised at the "no granary, don't whip" advice because that's the opposite of what I've learned from other people in the past. What do the rest of you think?

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

@Nictel, can I sub for Cull?

Will rethink with eye on REX

edit: something off the wall

I agree AG can be put off.

For discussion, what if we chop one forest towards the settler, settle FP and then chop out the Great Wall? avoids all those nasty barb problems. We will have stone soon. then we don't need archery.

Been a while, so I don't really have a feel for the flow of the AIs, but could we chop one forest for a settler for horsey, while running for priesthood and oracle? If we settle FP, build the GW in the capital and whip out 1 or 2 workers, I think we may have a shot at oracle in the FP city. If we cottage the FP city, whip out a monoment, could we whip out the oracle? machinery slinger?

research towards COL for the confused religion. Not exactly a REX strat, but I think Otto will go for the wines in the NW.

don't think we have a prayer for the gems. maybe the ivory.

@NG, let me know if I'm blowing

remember, I am an idiot.

 

[Nictel]

@Nictel, can I sub for Cull?

Will rethink with eye on REX

As for your plan dalamb:

Get those slaves to work!

 

[dalamb]

I expect to be able to play out the round tomorrow afternoon (Eastern time), so can happily take into account any other discussion that happens up until then (and can delay play a bit more if more work is needed to reach consensus).

 

[vranasm]

I must say I'm surprised at the "no granary, don't whip" advice because that's the opposite of what I've learned from other people in the past. What do the rest of you think?

biggest problem with whipping is that it's cumulative and at epic speed very long (15 turns is really a lot) so you really want to whip only important things. For example granary could be such good thing. But always whip at least 2 pop. So it's better used for example for library.
But we are right now in expansion phase so investing to granary (don't know right now the amount of hammers) could be equivalent of 1 worker or maybe 1.5 worker.
On the other hand chops don't limit your happiness cap, they are less useful now then after mathematics, but that is from my experience very relative. And they clear the land for more useful improvements. Those hills should be mined to get production going. Those 2 grasslands could be cottaged (I think they are fresh water even? giving 3 commerce right away?) and for that we need workers and we need to expand.

So that's why I would promote workers+settlers for a while in cap. And whipping such things limits production of them later.

I maybe lately don't whip "enough", but that's how I lately am feeling playing on Prince and having good success with early expansion (at least from my sight ).

 

[Norvin_Green]

Sorry but I don't have much time to look at the save right now. Here are my suggestions. Don't want to whip Nidaros as it has many high commerce tiles to work. Better to tech faster so that we can get our cities settled so that we can go stomp some AI. Finish Ag>Archery - why? The FP city will grow slowly without a food source so I'd actually farm 1 or 2 FP's initially to help it grow. Which leads to another worker. In Nidaros I'd go Barracks>warrior>worker>settler. If I recall we have 1 more pop until we reach our happy cap. Being aggressive we will knock the Barracks out quickly, get a promoted warrior and then stall our cap while we pump out settlers and workers.

 

[dalamb]

The point about not whipping in Nidaros makes sense, though I'd like to point out that just means not whipping below the number of commerce-heavy tiles. So, no granary, but I'll switch to barracks, which will finish the same turn we grow to 6 pop (the happy cap) and the worker finishes the quarry. Then the worker should chop the hill and mine it, with the hammers going into the settler. I think we can defer the grassland forests until after Math, since initially we don't have enough population to work all those tiles and for a long while the fur tiles are better.

That just leaves tech order. The point about farming a couple of FP tiles makes sense, so I'll finish agriculture. REXing means not spending time building the Great Wall right now, so I should then tech archery. Does Sailing make sense next for opening trade possibilities? We won't be building the GLH if we're REXing, but I was looking forward to exploration with a Nav I galley and a scout for popping near-coastal huts.

If not sailing, then perhaps writing for libraries. The 2nd city will need something to pop its borders; a library will take a long time with only the 1 from the city tile, so we should start it soon if at all.

 

[vranasm]

i am using monuments, cheap and quick. i even saw someone chopping monument (that's no possibility here of course).

That fresh water cottage would be immediately 3 commerce (or am i completely wrong?) that's even before it grows, 15 turns for 4 commerce. Kind of dunno how much commerce we are getting from furs, but that is grassland, so it's 2 food.
Maybe just check it if it wouldnt be wise to chop the grassland next to that lake.

 

[dalamb]

It sure does seem to be hard to agree on a plan here I've read 2-3 SG threads before but never checked the inter-posting times before; is this kind of interval between playing segments typical?

Monuments require Mysticism; is a monument in the FP city so important as to be worth going for a tech that we don't need for anything else right away? With Writing > Aesthetics we can probably trade with somebody for Alphabet and then back-fill any needed religious techs via trades. If we're not going for the Oracle we don't need Polytheism until going for Literature (for the Heroic Epic).

Instead of building a monument we might be better off just building a library (for 135 turns ) until somebody else' religion spreads to us (or we get to Code of Laws and can switch to Caste System and run an artist for a few turns).

I'm beginning to think the lack of pre-border-pop production in the FP city (on the east side of the rivermouth) means we need to rethink its location.

Spoiler for example :

For example, the light blue city gets all the floodplains plus has some pre-pop production -- but eliminates both the yellow and red city sites we'd been talking about:

However, that doesn't affect my turn, which was just going to go a short while until we finish the first settler.

I note that barbarians can wander in from the east, which we haven't fogbusted yet, but that's an issue for some segment after mine.

 

[vranasm]

@dalamb don't forgett we are complete strangers to each other that are probably used to play solo so they like theyr preferences and theyr experience that could be completely different.
so it's really tough to agree on something. What bothers me more is that there is not much conversation going lately. Mostly discussion between 2 of us.

To the situation of the second city. Well library is really hammer costly as you noted, one thing that could help there is whipping if we farm some land as was suggested.
Growing border could be critical because of the gold. I didnt used sooner much monuments (mysticism was low on my priority list), but lately with non creative leaders i really appreciate their cost and usability.
Can't see right now the ammount of turns, but we need more warriors and I think second city could start building warrior waiting for monument, but it's somewhat not that effective. But the second city will not have that much food to feed regular scientists and we want in the future cottage the whole place. So it's somewhat misplaced building in my eyes.

 

[Nictel]

Yeah dalamb should just start playing, I think we're a bit too afraid to and too obsessed with getting things perfect.

So I would say from now on the game plan should be:
Post a Pre game plan
If nobody complains all too much in 24 hours
Play and post turnset.

 

[dalamb]

@vranasm: That's a good point about whipping in the FP city!
@Nictel: A good plan. I am happy to be part of this plan. (Ghostbuster reference)