SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Dhoomstriker]

PPP is being worked on; here are some preliminary comments
Our Shipping Yards are in Full Production Mode
I'm still working away on a PPP, but I have a neat aspect of it that I can share.

Particularly, instead of building a Work Boat in Risaia for Goldfish (that's what I'm going to call the City by Saladin unless someone wants to propose a better name), I'll build a Work Boat in Crabs for Goldfish.

Three Clams will complete a Galley and then will whip a Work Boat for Sugar Daddy.

Meanwhile, Risaia's Work Boat will go to Three Clams just as Bedrock is pushing out a Galley to "team up with" the Galley from Three Clams.

It feels like it is all one big happy shipping family.


Science Rate for starting on The Great Library and Gold Demands from the AIs
I'm still not sure how accurate my Science will be to the real game, so I'll plan to finish Aesthetics and complete Literature a turn before I need to start on The Great Library, so that if I'm off by a turn, I'll still be able to start work on that Wonder on time.

After that, I'll probably put most of the remaining cash into Paper before building up Gold reserves again. Basically, I'll be employing the strategy that BLubz was advocating, with trying not to keep a large Gold surplus. Whenever we are researching a tech that will almost for certain be a Monopoly tech, this approach is the way to go. It's only when we're potentially going to be researching a tech that we could piggyback off of, such as Aesthetics, that it makes a bit more sense to delay switching to a 100% Science Rate.

If you have 500 Gold, an AI will likely demand 450 of it. If you don't have much of a "Traded Fairly" positive Diplo modifier with that AI and you accept the Demand, you'll get some "Traded Fairly" positive Diplo points plus the +1 for accepting their demand.

However, if you only have 200 Gold, they can't demand 450 of your Gold; instead, they'll probably ask for closer to 180 Gold. You might get a bit smaller of a "Traded Fairly" positive Diplo modifier bonus, but you'll still get the +1 for accepting their demand. Since we can always get the "Traded Fairly" bonus by trading away a tech that we don't care about, it is to our advantage to only be asked to give out a small amount of Gold when a Gold Demand is made.

The only way to keep Gold Demands small is to keep your total Gold level small. The alternative would be to be the biggest and most powerful Civ to just deter Demands, but some AIs like Zara and Isabella are "whiny" and will just demand things anyway.


Silverado Build Order--Kind of a question
I'm going to try and get a Confucian Missionary to Silverado before we start work on Moai Statues.

Thanks to the interface's lie in regards to Hammer decay, we still have all of our 13 Hammers invested into the Courthouse. My guess is that we'll lose these Hammers if we complete Moai Statues first, but my other guess is that the team will think that it will be worth it to complete Moai Statues and lose the 13 Hammers rather than try to pump out the Courthouse first and get Moai Statues immediately afterwards.

So, does anyone want to get the Courthouse before Moai Statues?

If I delay building the Courthouse until after Moai Statues and all of the Courthouse's Hammers have decayed, we'll likely build something else instead, such as Missionaries.

Note that whichever building we start to build (Moai or a Courthouse), it will not be completed within my turnset.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Buddhism vs Confucianism
We'll eventually want to make the switch to Buddhism.

Assuming that we get it in Goldfish via a Missionary instead of via natural spread (the worst case scenario in which we actually obtain Buddhism), it will take us a while to spread Buddhism around.

If we get any demands to switch into Buddhism, we should accept them, but then be willing to convert back to Confucianism 5 turns later.


That way, we'll still get to use our Religious Civic bonus after 5 turns of not being able to use it.


Also, note that until we can get a bit of Buddhism spread around, we'll have to run Organized Religion instead of Pacifism--it makes no sense to try and build a Buddhist Monastary in Goldfish, and we can't build Missionaries without either the corresponding Monastary or Organized Religion. Organized Religion it is, even for the period of 5 turns where it is consting us a lot in Maintenance (as an expensive Civic) without giving us its building bonuses to any of our Cities.

Either that or else we can just put 5 less Hammers into Goldfish while we slip into Paganism, and then plan to whip Goldfish once we revolt again 5 turns later, which would also be a viable way of dealing with a request to switch into Buddhism.


Further, Riverdale currently relies on Confucianism to keep Zara's borders at bay. In fact, the +5 Culture from being Confucianism's Holy City is approximately 1/3rd of the Cultural output of Riverdale. We'll have to keep up the Cultural-building production in that City if we want to run Buddhism for any length of time (which we most certainly will want to do if we want to court enough Buddhist Voting Allies to win the game).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Goldfish
Please recall the following advice, so that we don't accidentally give away Goldfish to Saladin.

Please note that I edited parts of the original quote to make it more applicable to our current situation--the original quote talked about Riverdale.

WARNING about Goldfish!!!!!!!!!!111111111 111111!!!!!!!!!!!!111one one!!!!!!!!!!one 111!!!!!!!! NOTE: Applies to all players
On the turn after we build Goldfish, or OFTEN AFTER ANY TIME THAT YOU OPEN THE SAVED GAME AND END YOUR TURN, you are likely to be given a prompt with 3 choices. Don't pick the first option, or else Saladin will own Goldfish.

Either the middle option or the bottom option will let us keep our city.

The same pop-up message may appear if you save the game and load it on your turnset. It should stop appearing after we get an Artist Speciliast expanding Goldfish's borders, but that won't happen during your turnset.

Here is that pop-up message:
Sire, the citizens of Goldfish are rightfully asking to
join the Arabian Empire. Allowing them to do so
would make Saladin quite pleased with us.
Fine, do so at the next opportunity. <-- Gives away the city
Forget it, I'm the one in charge here! <-- Keeps our city
Wait, let me examine the city first <-- I always click on this option, as the pop-up message doesn't return after you exit the city view, so you will keep the city. It's also further away from the dangerous top option, reducing the chance of a mis-click. Call me paranoid if you'd like

 

[Mitchum]

Thanks to the interface's lie in regards to Hammer decay, we still have all of our 13 Hammers invested into the Courthouse. My guess is that we'll lose these Hammers if we complete Moai Statues first, but my other guess is that the team will think that it will be worth it to complete Moai Statues and lose the 13 Hammers rather than try to pump out the Courthouse first and get Moai Statues immediately afterwards.

It is my understanding that we will lose 1 hammer per turn, every turn, once the courthouse has reached the decay point. That means that we will lose 1 hammer per turn during the turns we're actually building the courthouse. If this is true and it will take us more than 13 turns to build the courthouse, then we'll lose all 13 hammers whether we build it now or build the Moai Statues first. If it takes 10 turns to build the CH, we'll lose all but 3 hammers.

In my opinion, we should consider those 13 hammers lost and build Moai Statues first. The sooner we have Moai, the sooner Silverado becomes a productive city.

BTW, is Silverado building a Lighthouse now?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

It is my understanding that we will lose 1 hammer per turn, every turn, once the courthouse has reached the decay point.

True, under certain conditions.

That means that we will lose 1 hammer per turn during the turns we're actually building the courthouse.

Not quite accurate.


Here's how the algorithm works:
1. At the start of a turn, check to see what the first item in the build queue is.
2. For every other item that has Hammers invested into it that is not the first item in the build queue (regardless of whether it is in the build queue or if you have removed it from the queue), add "1" to its "decay counter."

So, as you can see, as long as we are building the Courthouse, we will not lose Hammers to decay. Also, if we complete the Lighthouse and leave the Courthouse in the build queue, we will gain an "extra turn of no decay" by not having put any Hammers into the Courthouse, due to the way that the in-beween turns action happens.

Specifically:
At the end of our turn, all yields for citizens are immediately added and any build item that will complete on this turn is next automatically added for us.

If, for example, you are about to complete a Lighthouse, you will first get 1 Food + 2 Commerce from working a Coast square, then the Lighthouse will be awarded to the City (so you will not get an extra Food for owning the Lighthouse, since you only "own" it AFTER the square's yield gets awarded to your City). Next, you'd see an AI take their turn.

At the start of our next turn, we'd already have completed the Lighthouse. If we are smart and leave the Courthouse in the build queue, then a Courthouse will be listed as the "first item in the build queue" and thus it will pass the "Hammer decay" check and no value will be added to its "decay counter." However, if we are silly and "like to see a clean build queue and thus decide to remove the Courthouse as the second item from our build queue," then when the start of the turn comes around, the Courthouse will fail the "first item in the build queue" check and thus the Courthouse's "decay counter" will be incremented by 1.


The "decay counter" can reach 60 * 1.5 for Epic = 90, without reducing any Hammers. That's 90 turns of not building the building PLUS any turns where we keep the Courthouse as the next item in the build queue. Since we did so for the Settler, the Granary, and will do so for the Lighthouse, we get 93 turns of not having the Courthouse getting any Hammers while still not suffering from any decay of Hammers.


We must be getting close to this 93 decay counter value, since I am the one who started the Courthouse during my previous turnset and then switched to a Settler partway through that turnset.

However, the question is: if we can save all of these 13 Hammers by building a Courthouse after the Lighthouse, do you want to do so?

Obviously, if we start to lose more than say, 3 Hammers before that point, the value of trying to salvage the remaining Hammers will go down and I likely just won't even bother trying to save them. So, it's only if we can save all or almost all of the Hammers woud your answer apply.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I got myself the answer: Moai Statues next
I ran some spreadsheet calculations.

By the time that we can complete the Courthouse, 34 turns after completing the Lighthouse, we will already be at City Size 8 and will be working all of the Lake squares.

The 2 to 3 Commerce saved per turn won't make up for the 6 Hammers lost per turn.

The sooner we have Moai, the sooner Silverado becomes a productive city.

The corollary to that statement being that we will make more Hammers by building Moai Statues first than we will lose in decay, so we'll be able to "catch up" and even beat the Courthouse-first model. Add to the fact that we plan to chop into Moai, getting Moai sooner, and we have ourselves a winner.

The only exception might be if we were to whip the Courthouse, but I'm pretty sure that we want to keep whipping in Silverado to a minimum, so I won't consider this possibility to be a viable one.


So Moai Statues first, it is.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Flood Plains square Failure
Apparently, the Flood Plains square that is not on the River isn't going to be of as much use to us as we'd hoped.

Not only can I not chain Irrigation to this square, but I also cannot build a Cottage on this square.

I can put a Fort (whoopdie doo) or a Road there, but otherwise it's going to be similar to a Grassland Farm (without a River for Commerce and without the ability to Cottage or Workshop the square).

Oh well, I guess we will just suck it up and move on.

 

[Mitchum]

Flood Plains square Failure
Apparently, the Flood Plains square that is not on the River isn't going to be of as much use to us as we'd hoped.

Not only can I not chain Irrigation to this square, but I also cannot build a Cottage on this square.

I can put a Fort (whoopdie doo) or a Road there, but otherwise it's going to be similar to a Grassland Farm (without a River for Commerce and without the ability to Cottage or Workshop the square).

Oh well, I guess we will just suck it up and move on.

Wow. That sound like a bug. Although, a flood plains tile is actually desert, which cannot be farmed or cottaged, so I guess it makes sense. For example, you can farm a riverside tundra tile but you can't chain irrigate to a tundra tile not on the river.

BTW, I think the map maker must have manually added this flood plains tile since the map generator would never put a flood plains tile away from a river, right.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Although, a flood plains tile is actually desert, which cannot be farmed or cottaged, so I guess it makes sense.

Indeed, we were tricked, but it's not that bad--we can still use it as an equivalent square to a Farmed Grassland square, and that's what we're doing with most of our remaining unimproved squares--Farming them.

The benefit is that we just saved ourselves 8 turns of Worker actions.

BTW, I think the map maker must have manually added this flood plains tile

That, or possibly deleted a River and forgot to adjust for it.

since the map generator would never put a flood plains tile away from a river, right.

It would depend upon whatever is written in the map script, but generally, you are right. Though, there are some crazy map scripts (have you tried, oh, what is it called, a Fantasy map?--the kind where Jungles appear in Deserts and on Ice, etc)...

 

[BLubmuz]

Slower posting and faster playing, please!

Do we wanna finish in time? 45 days to go.

 

[Mitchum]

I know it&#8217;s a bit late, but this game is just screaming at us to run a Specialist Economy. Why?

1. We&#8217;re Philosophical
2. We have the Pyramids
3. We have the ability to run Caste System, Representation and Pacifism
4. We have a lot of food resources and rivers on our continent.
5. We need a TON of great people to bulb techs and to fulfill our requirement of 4 extra at the end of the game.
6. Our tech path is such that Great Scientists can bulb techs the entire way until we get to Radio
7. We need the most food possible to support city growth such that we are the largest civ in the world at the end of the game. Food is also required for an SE!

Every aspect of this game points to SE, so why not go with the flow rather than trying to swim upstream? It's often said that the SE can run out of steam in the mid-game until Biology is learned. However, we really never get to this mid-game point since we are on a beeline that is fully supported by Great Scientists.

What do we need to do to make this work? Funny you should ask. Let me tell you:

1. We need to stop building cottages right NOW.
2. We should be farming absolutely every green tile and most plains tiles. We may even farm over some cottages in Riverdale once we&#8217;ve hired enough scientists to keep our tech pace up.
3. Every city needs a Granary.
4. Every coastal city needs a Lighthouse
5. Every city needs a Library as soon as the Granary and LH are finished.
6. Every city should eventually have a University and Observatory
7. Once we&#8217;re working all food positive tiles (+3 or more), we should start hiring scientists. This can start by hiring 2 scientist pre-Caste System if said city has a Library already.
8. The science slider won&#8217;t affect our research rate too much since our research will be fueled by Representation-powered scientist specialists, bulbing Great Scientists and science multiplying buildings. Everything is set up. Caste System let&#8217;s us run a ton of scientists. These scientists generate a lot of beakers and a ton of GS gpp because of our Philosophical trait and Pacifism. This give us a ton of Great Scientists to bulb as many techs as possible along our MM beeline.

Once there are no more useful techs for Great Scientists to bulbing (i.e. after Electricity), we can keep 4 cities on great person duty (or 3 if we calculate that the GP Farm can spit out 2 great people) while the rest of the cities go into high-growth mode, firing all specialists and working every 2F tile as well. We&#8217;ll only do this if we&#8217;re worried about being the largest civ and if firing the scientists doesn&#8217;t really slow down our tech pace on Radio and Mass Media.

Our cities get big and fat, we learn MM, we build the UN in 2 turns (I have done this in a test game with 1 GE, 3 chops and the whip in a size 16 Riverdale). Game, Set, Match!

I've attached a test game that I altered via World Builder to show what our economy could look like running an SE about 75ish turns in the future. Of course our expenses will be a bit higher due to inflation since the game I altered is still in the BC years, but you'll get the idea. Here's what I did:

1. Buddhism in every city
2. Every city working every food positive tile
3. Excess population are scientists
4. Every city has a Library, University and Observatory (OK, we can&#8217;t have Observatories yet, but I world built them in and I&#8217;m too lazy to take them out).
5. Oxford in the capital
6. National Epic in GP Farm
7. Moai in Silverado
8. University of Sankore in Delhi
9. Buddhist Temple and Monastery in every city.

Now there is no way we can achieve all of this, but we can get close. Check it out:

1. +11 gold/turn with no Courthouses. Current city maintenance is 115/turn. If all cities have CH, we&#8217;ll be at +68 gold/turn at 0% science. Build order in cities once all fishing boats are completed should be Granary -> Lighthouse (if possible) -> Library -> University -> Courthouse&#8230; and the occasional wonder, of course. We also need to figure out when to squeeze in the Buddhist buildings for the +2 beakers from the UoS.
2. +813 beakers/turn at 0% science. +1290 beakers/turn if/when we run 100% science. Science would be in the mid to low 700s without the Observatories, I think.
3. Tons of gpp being generated in most of our cities such that all but a few will generate a great person some time in the next 100 turns for sure.

I can almost guarantee you that the top teams will be running something similar to this. We are a bit late in getting getting started, but better late than never.

Now, who on the team has experience running a Specialist Economy? I've done it several times, but it's been a while. What are the team's thoughts on giving it a try?

 

[unclethrill]

I like the idea of the SE. We will need to crank out about 3 more workers ASAP though.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I like the idea of the SE.

Me, too. I'll have to adjust a few things in the PPP that I am working on, mostly switching from building Cottages to building Farms instead. If we're going for an SE economy, further Cottages at this point will not pay off.

We will need to crank out about 3 more workers ASAP though.

Would that be only if we fail at getting The Hagia Sophia or would you want to do so even if we build it?

 

[Mitchum]

We will need to crank out about 3 more workers ASAP though.

Would that be only if we fail at getting The Hagia Sophia or would you want to do so even if we build it?

I think we need more workers with or without the Hagia Sophia. If we are laying down farms, our cities will grow. As they grow, they will work more farms, growing even faster. The only time growth will slow down is when there are no more farms to work and we start hiring scientists or when we whip something like a Granary, Lighthouse or Library.

It will be very hard for our current workforce to keep up with this fast growth, especially since we'll be sending one worker each to Goldfish, Sugar Daddy and Ivory.

Regarding Libraries, don't forget that we need to have at least 6 of them by the time we learn Education. We also need sufficient population and/or forest chops so that we can quickly chop/whip Universities in these six cities as soon as possible.

So, our focus should be on growing our cities and building the necessary infrastructure in every city. If/when we nab Buddhism in Goldfish, we'll have to add to this the task of building a lot of Buddhist missionaries, which would be a good job for Delhi and supplemented by Goldfish...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Latest Test Saved Game
There are a number of inaccuracies, but there are also a lot of updates that bring it closer inline with the real game.

Really, it is what it is: a test game that helps to figure out build orders and Worker actions.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

One thing I'm trying to decide upon is whether to try for a Great Scientist in Grt Person Farm prior to completing the National Epic.

We might be able to speed up Education if we do so.

It's not clear whether getting Education faster will help, though, if our Cities aren't able to grow enough to be able to whip both Libraries and Universities.

 

[Irgy]

I'm happy to use a specialist economy. I don't really see why we can't still build cottages in the capital though. Beaurocracy. which is compatible with the other civics, doesn't give +50% to the scientist beakers, but it does give it to the cottage commerce.

 

[BLubmuz]

I'm OK, with an SE, mainly with a Philo Leader.
Some sottage, mainly in Capital will only help.

What i don't like, even if i understand the need to testing, is how slowly we're proceding.

I think we'll be forced to use long TSs and less detailed PPP to finish in time.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Cottages without Bureaucracy
Free Speech isn't really going to beat out Bureaucracy unless you have a lot of matured Cottages in your empire. So, let's say that it is a pretty safe bet that we won't be running Free Speech.

We also seem to want to at least run SOME Specialists, so Representation would also beat out Universal Suffrage.

We are not Financial.

That leaves us with a Printing Press bonus to our Villages and Towns of +1 Commerce, in addition to the up to 4 Commerce that a matured Cottage can offer to us.


In a City that does not have Bureaucracy, we can run either two Grassland Cottages or two Grassland Farms.

Assuming that we have sufficient Happiness and Healthiness Resources, those Farms will eventually support enough growth for a 3rd population point, which would be our Scientist Specialist. If we were limited on Happiness, say, we'd be forced to go the Cottage route, but I'm pretty sure that with a lot of good Diplo relations planned in our game, we'll be able to trade for sufficient Resources to justify the extra population points required in a Specialist economy.

In addition to the Flasks from a Scientist, we also get GPP.
Further, we do not have to wait for 105 turns (15 + 30 + 60) to achieve the "full upgrade" to our Scientist Specialists like we will with Cottages that need to mature; instead, our Scientists are effective as soon as they are hired.

Further, the Grassland squares, while the City is growing, make for much better Hammer-producing squares due to the whip, so your Farm-based Cities will be ahead of the Cottage-based Cities in terms of having more multiplicative bonuses from buildings, such as from Libraries.

So, the Specialist Economy not only gets "instant" Science, but it also gets GPP and Hammer production.

That's a pretty decent tradeoff for providing slightly less Flasks later than a fully-matured Cottage could provide.


Bureaucracy vs Oxford University
The question of running Cottages has to compare the costs and benefits of Bureaucracy vs the City's bonuses, and Oxford University is going to provide the most significant building bonus in Delhi.

If we weren't building Oxford University in the capitol, we wouldn't have this dilemma.

Also, if we were building Cottages in other Cities, so that we could toggle between a 0% and a 100% Science Rate more frequently, we also wouldn't have this dilemma.

But, since we plan to build Specialists in most places, we'll be running at a 0% Science Rate once the Specialist Economy really gets going, as per Mitchum's test saved game.


While on the outset, Bureaucracy's bonus to matured-cottages looks good, the issue is that the bonus goes towards producing more Gold. Gold by itself is not a bad thing.

But when you have Oxford University and you are producing less Flasks (by hiring less Scientist Specialists) in favour of working more Cottages (thereby making Gold on most turns, based on how the Specialist Economy is planned), then you are giving yourself a poor tradeoff.

Simplistic math shows that Bureaucracy's 50% bonus is smaller than Oxford's 100% bonus.

And, we are likely to have an equal or additional "step up" in Flask bonuses over Gold bonuses in the capitol for a while:

1. When we get a University, we'll have a Library plus a University vs just a Market
AND
2. When we can finally build a Grocer due to trading for Guilds, we will likely have Astronomy to match its bonus with an Observatory
AND
3. Only when we are finally able to trade for Banking can we get a little bit ahead, but then we still have more of a Flask bonus due to having Oxford University


Sure, the two Towns that we will have will be nice:
4 Commerce each + 1 from Printing Press = 5 Commerce * 2 of them = 10 Commerce * 1.5 for Bureaucracy = 15 total Commerce, which on most turns will be converted into Gold

In exchange, we could have 1 Scientist Specialist, while working the exact same Grassland squares (thus cancelling out any Commerce obtained from Rivers, which is why I excluded this value from the calculation). That would be 6 Flasks. Yet, once we get Oxford, that value will be doubled to 12 Flasks.

For the ability to "instantly" hire such a Scientist, the Specialist Economy can compete on a very close scale with the Towns, plus will provide us extra GPP at a Philosophical rate, in a City that can actually MAKE USE of those GPP due to having many Wonders and thus the chance to generate many Great People.


The trick is comparing the opportunity cost of spending 105 turns working 2 Cottages just to get to that stage. If we only have Villages with Printing Press, then we just have 4 Commerce each * 2 Cottages = 8 Commerce * 1.5 Bureaucracy bonus = 12 total Commerce. Since we're unfortunately going to be running a 0% Science Rate for most of the time that we are employing the Specialist Economy, that Commerce will come out as Gold and will thus ignore the Oxford University bonus.

Therefore, two Villages in the capitol will offer 12 Gold, while 1 Scientist can offer 12 Flasks (assuming that the non-Oxford Science-multiplying and Gold-multiplying buildings can roughly cancel each other out over time). The Scientist Specialist also gets us GPP, while the Farms let us grow that much faster so that we can make quicker use out of our excess Happiness and Healthiness.

So, unless we have 105 turns to spend on maturing Cottages, during which the Cottages will produce less total Commerce or equal total Commerce to what our Scientist Specialists can provide, but without the GPP and with a slower growth rate while growing up to our Happiness and Healthiness caps, I think that we will better off building Farms in the capitol for our remaining improvements.


We will get more short-term benefit, more medium-term benefit, and if you factor in the GPPs to be roughly equal to 1 Commerce each in a City that can make use of them like Delhi will be able to do (thanks to it having all of the Wonders), then you have equal status when you are working 2 Towns as when you are working 1 Scientist at a 0% Science Rate in an Oxford-enabled Bureaucratic capitol.

If you want to throw in a slightly higher Science Rate, such that the Commerce sometimes gets the Oxford bonus, then I will throw in our Philosophical bonus to those base 3 GPP, netting us an extra 3 GPP.

If we are also going to run Pacifism during this stage, since more of our empire will be able to benefit from that Civic, I could even throw in yet another 3 GPP, just to compete with any chance at all of raising that Science Rate, say, up to an average of 40%.


Mitchum's Example Test Game
Mitchum's example, which had us running a tiny Gold surplus at a 0% Science Rate, did not account for the Inflation costs that we will see later in the game when our empire actually achieves that status.

So, if you take the time to download and open his game (and you should--it will give you a good appreciation for the Specialist Economy and what it will mean to our empire), while I think that his test game example is valid, I do not think that we can expect to be able to run more than a 10% to 20% Science Rate on average (10% = 0% for 9 turns and 100% for 1 turn under Binary Science).

And even if we do get as high as a 20% bonus, that's only 20% more Flasks when you are working 2 Towns, but you're still not making up for the difference with a 20% bonus during the 105 turns of working Cottages, Hamlets, and Villages on the way to creating those Towns.


So, all in all, I believe that it is too late in the game to start working more Cottages "from scratch" and that we will get just as much benefit from Scientist Specialists in the Bureaucratic, Oxford-based capitol, compared to working Towns at a 0% Science Rate, and even more benefit when compared to Villages, Hamlets, and Cottages, even should we manage to keep a slightly higher than a 0% Science Rate.


If we were to put Oxford somewhere else, we could make more of a case for wanting to use the capitol's Bureaucracy bonus on Cottages, but the only other viable location for Oxford, Grt Person Farm, lacks sufficient production to be able to both build Oxford and run Specialists for a long enough period after building Oxford to make up for the opportunity cost of having to whip a ton of buildings and units with overflow Hammers (while not running Specialists during that time) just to be able to build Oxford.

Since Oxford doesn't increase the number of GPP, I can't see us justifying the loss of those GPP in Grt Person Farm as a valid opportunity cost for building Oxford in Grt Person Farm.


So, Oxford goes in the capitol and the capitol will keep its 2 currently-partially-matured Cottages, but it is my belief that Delhi will benefit best if we simply build Farms for the rest of its improvements.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Galley Placement
Do you have any thoughts on where to dock our Galleys?

Specifically, I'll have 4 of them. If we lose 1 of the 2 that I'm whipping for the Barb Galley that threatens Three Clams' Clam, then I'll have 3 of them.

One can stay in the east, near Isabella, in case we want to send units that way.

One can stay in the west, near Saladin, in case we want to send units that way or transfer Buddhist Missionaries to our home continent, should we snag Buddhism from Saladin's Missionary.


Where would you like to see the other 1 or 2 Galleys go?