Scouting Appropriations

[dutchfire]

Well, the forge is complete, so we need to know what to build in IS by the time we get our turn. We need 1 workboat in the next 10 turns for sheep, or we delay growth there for no good reason, really, and hence the date for the Collosus. (I'll post the poll for the name sometime this week). We need one axe from IS (and one from JD) to defend JD and the workers/settler as they road to city 5. That allows the axe that is currently loitering around JD to head south or south east, SE makes most sense as it should have 2XP and hence isn;t that far off woodsman 2.

If we build 2 workboats (in addition to what we need for sheep), then we have to delay the settler from finishing turn 71, to finishing turn 78, a delay of 7 turns in settling city 5. It also stops growth in IS to size 8 for another couple of turns. So it delays growth in IS, in city 5, it delays getting chariots out, and it delays worker improvements to all cities to the east and south of IS.

We can have sailing researched by turn 75, by our own efforts, or traded for it from Kaz by turn 71/72 for IW (doubt we can trade for it, it's possible, but I wouldn't devise any plans that hinged on it).

If we settle the yellow site at a safe pace (getting those two axes from JD and IS, city 5 settled t75), we can have horses hooked and chariots being built by turn 78.

I know what I want to do, but what does everyone else think we should do, given this infomation?

I think sending a workboat east wouldn't do us much good, all he'd find is Kaz. How much delay would building one workboat bring?

 

[Ronnie1]

I think sending a workboat east wouldn't do us much good, all he'd find is Kaz. How much delay would building one workboat bring?

Why would we only find Kaz??? They have more contacts than just us...why wouldn't we find those contacts also?

 

[Krill]

I think sending a workboat east wouldn't do us much good, all he'd find is Kaz. How much delay would building one workboat bring?

Building the workboat now would mean that we have to go axe>workboat>workboat>settler, so delays the settler by 4 turns, or delays the Collosus by at least 2 turns.

Axe>Settler>Workboat means that we could immediately build a trireme from turn 75 if we go sailing next while growing to size 8, or build a galley and an axe/scout from IS/CK immediately afterwards. Again, to stress the point, we could be building chariots by turn 80, so ideally we can fit in domestic builds around this time; we need 2-3 more workers after the settler, to put it into perspective, but IS and CK don't stop growing until t79, so ideally we could get all of the scouts built in those 4 turns, although I accept that ideality isn;t always attainable.

 

[Ronnie1]

I am personally torn....

I totally get trying to get cities up 1st.

But I am also worried that we may get left out of the early tech trading.

Which scenario leads to long term success??? A new city X number of turns sooner, or new trading partners X number of turns sooner. That is the trade off that we are actually talking about.

I am unclear how it affects the Colossus build...we need 1 WB for city 4 (Colossus City) anyway, the "option" comes when we decide what to build post WB#1 in IS.

Option 1 = settler for sooner C5
Option 2 = WB>WB>settler for later C5 by 4 turns.

Then the risk is that the WB's die before they actually do any good.

I still think that trading earlier will yield better long term results, but my experience is lacking as it relates to MP with tech trading enabled, so my point of view may be skewed.

 

[Krill]

We are starting to fall behind Cavs and Kaz in expansion; we cannot afford to really fall behind Cavs, with their traits they could be a monster in the middle ages.

We have MC, which changes the game really, we don't have to worry about breaking into the trading circle, for two reasons. Either we meet up with the other teams, and trade MC for tech, and stay competitive that way, or Kaz, Cavs and MS already have a trade plan in place to exclude us and Saturn; in which case, scouting is completely counter productive from a diplomatic PoV (though useful for a militaristic PoV when we cram a stack down MS' throats).

Then again, I'm personally in favour of killing MS at all costs to speed this game up, but I suppose you all know the way that I feel about them.

_

We need to be careful how much we spend on scouting. We could easily go overboard; we have 1 great scout, one OK scout, and one good scout that will shortly be leaving, hopefully Zuur will kill a few barbs over the next 10 turns and become another great scout. Because of the direction Zuur is taking, a boat to the east is overkill.

A boat to the west does make sense, but we want to be careful what we do with it; Barentz could head up in that direction now making use of woods2, meaning we only need to send a trireme in that direction instead of a galley carrying a few units to drop off, and a chariot can explore to the S of CK later on

OTOH, if Barentz heads SW and S, we could justify a galley, scout and axe/chariot; this would be expensive though, 100 hammer investment.

The "cheapest" scouting force we could get away with that could stand up to barbs though is this:

Barentz to the NW
Zuur to the SE
Stuy to the W
Trireme to the NW
Chatiot to the S of CK
Chariot to the S of IS (pigs area)

This would cost a mere 110 hammers above what we have already invested, and wouldn't have to be put together until turn 80 for the chariots and the trireme can be built while growing to size 8 in IS in 3 turns, finished first and then one chariot out of IS and CK each (the domestic build would be a lighthouse, or possibly a galley to send over a settler and axe to the gold city. Building the trireme while growing means that we have more time to build workers out of IS, so this is possibly the easiest scouting group we could put together without overly damaging our growth aims).

So this keeps all of the domestics stuff on track, and provides two fast explorers for the south, and Zurr isn't required for guard duty thanks to the extra axe out of JD. Zuur could leave as soon as he is healed, he's not critical to defense, which is turn 69 (turn after next)


I think building a galley and units is too expensive at this stage of the game. If we had easier cities to settle that didn't require a large upfront investment to get them settled (we need galleys for transports) it might have been a better idea. The trireme will have alot more survivability as someone stated before (azzaman, AT? Sorry, can't remember who originally posted about it), which by itself is worthy reason, along with the fact that it doesn't impinge on city 5, and that we have a unit that could explore the land that would later be explored by the galley, while later on building two fast units to scout the area Breatz would leave unexplored. Because of this, I favour sending Barentz to the NW passage.

 

[Memphus]

not to mention if we show up with a tireme finding people ...they may be more inclined to trade....