Specializing cities

[donsig]

First, I want to say how glad I am to be on this team. The team I was on last game had little input from team members. This team is very friendly and we're all contributing from our individual strong points. I like our effort to this point. I'm not very good at micromanaging, being a big picture guy. I think the time is ripe to turn our focus to some intermediate term strategy. I'm starting a new thread for this because I don't think this belongs in the Grand Strategy Thread.

Turn 54 has just been played. We need more settlers, more workers, more warriors, more curraghs, a forbidden palace and a wonder city. What is our current status and what are our options for improvement?

Settlers: The Chamber is currently pumping put settlers every four turns though there is a proposal on the table to build 3 workers and then a library there.

Workers: No worker pump yet. The Gulag has been switched to a granary in preperation for turning it into a worker pump. Plans are to chop two forest tiles to speed construction. There are also plans to irrigate the wheat tile just opened up by the settling of The Silo. We will soon be settling the pink dot city. Should this be considered a worker pump since it will have two flood plains tiles?

Curraghs: The Admiralty has been making curraghs. The current rate is every 5 turns but that will increase to 4 turns after the next is built. Can we get it to five shields per turn for a curragh every 3 turns? There is also a proposal to try building the Great Lighthouse here. If we try that then the pink dot city becomes the only other city where we can make curraghs.

Warriors: Should we devote a city to military production (preferably with a barracks)? We are currently producing regular warriors here and there.

Forbidden Palace: There is a proposal on the table (hey, that would make a good city name!) to build our second capital on the green dot site, now known as The Silo. The proposal is for an immediate pre-build.

Wonder city: There is talk of attempting to build the Great Lighthouse in The Admiralty. What about a science city? I like the idea of building the colussus since commerce is one of our strengths. Trouble is, we don't have a very productive coastal city.

I think the key question is what will be the role of the pink dot city? Worker pump, shipbuilder or wonder town? I look forward to hearing what The Council has to say.

 

[Paul#42]

No wonders in Pink Dot - too little production.
It should build a Libary, harbor and a casual worker.

Here's my suggestions (first build of the queue already in progress):
1. The Chamber: settler-worker-worker-worker-library
2. The Admirality: curragh-Lighthouse (or Colossus as fallback)
3. The Silo: MoM (FP prebuild) (or Courthouse - FP)
4. The Treasury: warrior - library-barracks-warriors
5. The Gulag: granary - workers (library casually)
6. The Igloo: worker - barracks - warriors (library casually)
7. The (Pink Dot): Library - worker - harbor - worker
8. The (Yellow Dot): barracks - warriors

On team spirit:
I'm used to even more team input from SGotm - but I think we (and especially our turnkeeper) are doing a fine job for now . However I see discussion decreasing lately and I'm slightly nervous facing the rising efforts in both discussion and playing.
Maybe discussion becomes more vivid again when we got first contacts.

 

[peter grimes]

Just to let you all know - I check in here just about every day. I may not speak up much, but that's usually because other people have already posted some wise advice on the topic at hand. I'm not the greatest MicroManager, as everything I know I learned from the last MTDG.

I will say, thought, that the above production schedule doesn't seem to get us as many workers as we need. Wouldn't it be better to have all newly founded towns build a worker first, then buildings?

About the MoM: We must make sure we don't accidently build it!

 

[Aigburth]

I agree that we should start a pre-build for the Lighthouse – like you said, hopefully we're ahead of the curve on sea exploration, and are first to realize the real importance of the Great Lighthouse.

However, if we happen to lose, as you've noted, we have some good options for consolation prizes. (Great Library would be my first choice) – even the Statue of Zeus could be considered, depending on how many shields we have invested into the build.

As for where to build it… Brown dot sounds fine, but it seems like if we want a good chance to get it, we might want to get started sooner than that? The Admiralty is currently our #2 shield producer, and will finish it's current Curragh in 3 turns (I believe) and could get started.
But I'll gladly agree to whatever the more advanced players think is the best location.

No chance for brown (or orange, strange color I chose) or pink dot to get GLH in the next 80 turns. To weak, their production. The Admirality builds it or none.

I'm not too keen on building wonders for others who rather build units to capture them - but getting GLH would give us safety till Astronomy at least - and no doubt we want to be the first to research it. So that would be a good investment, mainly because noone else can build it.

However I won't be surprised if others already have a promising prebuild going. Their second town (before granary) should be their "wonder town". Some good players will see the power of GLH for this game way earlier than we did. Let's have a look, which wonder we get away with...

So let's start a build in The Admirality after the next curragh.

I think maybe this is a better thread to discuss where to build Lighthouse and where to build curraghs so have copied the accross.

Regarding the Great Lighthouse, I agree with Paul in that the admiralty is the only city we should consider building it in.

At size 6 'The Admiralty' can produce a max of 9 spt after waste (and assuming no bg revealed by jungle chop), lighthouse is 300 shields meaning it will take more than 34 turns to build it, would it be better to build 20 curraghs during this time instead?

The lighthouse is, however, a commercial wonder which of course we may need to construct at some point to trigger our goldern age.

Maybe we could have brown and pink cities building curraghs whilst The Admiralty builds the GL, if we do this I would prioritise at least one of brown or pink for our next settler and maybe even switch The Admiralty immediately to save a couple of turns.

 

[Paul#42]

I will say, thought, that the above production schedule doesn't seem to get us as many workers as we need. Wouldn't it be better to have all newly founded towns build a worker first, then buildings?

This is quite expensive, a town is much more productive at bigger size, while I agree with this on corrupt towns, we should not build workers in our core towns (up to ring 2) unless we are about to grow to a size where no "good" tiles are available to work.
Somewhere else I mentioned I would like to build even more than these three workers after the next settler in The Chamber. It might be like 10 workers and some workers from The Gulag should join the production in (60-20)/4 = 10 turns from now.

It's a trade-off between settlers and workers and a library that The Chamber should get soon, too.

At size 6 'The Admiralty' can produce a max of 9 spt after waste (and assuming no bg revealed by jungle chop), lighthouse is 300 shields meaning it will take more than 34 turns to build it, would it be better to build 20 curraghs during this time instead?

The lighthouse is, however, a commercial wonder which of course we may need to construct at some point to trigger our goldern age.

Bigger than the GLH's direct benefit for ourselves I see the benefit that no rival has it. A rival with GLH will be able to access our shores without any risk before we got railroads and H'watchas. If we have it, we are save till the others reach Astro.

Maybe we could have brown and pink cities building curraghs whilst The Admiralty builds the GL, if we do this I would prioritise at least one of brown or pink for our next settler and maybe even switch The Admiralty immediately to save a couple of turns.

Pink dot is the last town on short term's schedule according to my plan. However I suggested library and harbor first before curraghs - but that's the typical concurring advisors' problem...

Best solution: We don't see further curraghs sinking...

 

[donsig]

At size 6 'The Admiralty' can produce a max of 9 spt after waste (and assuming no bg revealed by jungle chop), lighthouse is 300 shields meaning it will take more than 34 turns to build it, would it be better to build 20 curraghs during this time instead?

That is a key question we need to answer. As Paul#42 has pointed out, if we get the GL then no one else does. Another benefit of having the GL is that it gives our ships a much greater range of safe passage. Not only could 4 mp galleys safely reach all the shallows we've found so far, they could rest in safety in sea tiles and who knows how easy we'd find other civs then.

How far could those 20 currughs go towards finding others? We've found a couple crossings to the north and one to the south. Here's the north:



The arrows show unsafe resting spots for curraghs.

The northern most route:
Curraghs have a 50% chance to reach the safe tile.
Galleys can reach it safely.
Galleys with the GL can safely travel (at least) one tile beyond the safe point.

The NE route:
Curraghs have a 50% (or less) chance of reaching safety.
Galleys have a 50% (or less) chance of reaching safety.
It is not known what galleys with the GL could do here.

Conclusion: For the northern most route (on average) two curraghs would be needed to do the work of one galley (w/o GL).

The south offers much more statistical insight:



Blue arrows show unsafe resting spots for curraghs, pink arrows show unsafe spots for galleys (w/o GL).

Thus far there are three sea crossings in this route. All three are unsafe for curraghs, the first two are unsafe for galleys (though with the GL galleys can get past the last shallows safely).

Conclusion: Figuring (again on average) that it will take two curraghs to cross each unsafe leg of the route we have (2)(2)(2)=8 curraghs to reach the last shallows. If there is another unsafe crossing (which seems likely) then that raises the average curragh cost to 16 to reach the next safe spot. If we're faced with more than one such route then 20 curraghs doesn't really seem like such a lot, does it?

Costs of building the Greal Lighthouse:

Trying to build it puts us into another race and forces us to change our research goals to get map making. (We might also want to get another tech for a back up wonder). This delays our drive to republic. We'd also have to rely on an as yet founded city to make curraghs in the interim. Putting all our eggs into the GL basket (by not making curraghs while trying to build the GL) would really leave us strapped for contacts if we lose the race. Unless we want to rely on other civs to find us.

The lighthouse is, however, a commercial wonder which of course we may need to construct at some point to trigger our goldern age.

Something we dont' want to do yet!

We do need a worker pump. The Gulag is our current choice and is only fifteen turns or so from production. At first I thought pink dot would be a better worker pump since it has the flood plains. Sticking with The Gulag for workers lets us use pink dot for curraghs which lets us use The Admiralty for wonders. In the mean time we can build workers here and there as our outlying cities grow.

I'm leaning towards a run for the GL. Anyone else?

 

[Paul#42]

I'm leaning towards a run for the GL. Anyone else?

Before we get Masonry, we won't have more than one prebuild
We will already be quite late for TGL - unless we get a SGL I see little chance to get it - except for the rare case someone else robs our GLH and Colossus.

Right now I'd start exactly one wonder in The Admirality (the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced to switch now). We will see, what this build will be at the end.

Every 100 shields we might have a poll to decide if we switch to build the one we could get next turn

edit: Conclusion: Start our only available wonder prebuild MoM right away in The Admirality

edit: On general multiplayer gameplay: Do we get the same notion of foreign wonder builds as in single player modus? A message "has started wonder xy" for every rival who knows the building civ?

 

[Niklas]

I think the benefits of the GL on this map are simply so huge that we can't afford not trying. Maybe even a bit too huge (*grumbles in the general direction of the orca guy* ), but what's there is there. I say switch to the torch in The Admiralty right away.

 

[Aigburth]

I'm convinced about the importance of building the lighthouse so I also say switch to pre-build in admiralty right away!

 

[General_W]

I think the benefits of the GL on this map are simply so huge that we can't afford not trying.

Let's start the Great Lighthouse right now.

We must attempt great things to achieve great things.
or
Better to have built and lost, than to never have built at all



(But all the same, I also think we will want to adjust our research priorities to make sure we have fallback plans before we risk getting stuck)
EDIT: Nevermind, I forgot we're going to have Literature soon, and we can always switch to that "other" GL – the Great Library.

 

[peter grimes]

I'm glad General_W clarified in the last post - from Donsig on down, I wasn't really certain if people were consenting to the Great Library or the Great Lighthouse. Acronyms can be ambiguous, sometimes.

I'm pro Lighthouse, and anti Library.

Someone asked about the wonder build info in mulitplayer: Yes, once you have contacted a team, you can see if they are building a wonder, and where.

 

[donsig]

Sorry about the GL confusion. Would GLi be better?

I'm curious as to why you are anti-Great Library? It seems to me that would be another defensive wonder to build. If we build it no one else can. The Great Lighthouse is better. Not only defensive but it gives us a benefit the GLib where the GLib really wouldn't (assuming we are able to trade for or pop cheap techs).

Also, what would be your back-up preference in case we lose the GLight race?

 

[peter grimes]

Pyramids.

Great Library would be better to have as a defense against other civs getting it. It doesnt' make economic sense for a commercial and scientific civ to invest that many hammers in something from which they will derive little benefit.

 

[Niklas]

I agree with PG. If possible we should get the Pyramids, though I'm even less optimistic about that than about the Torch (how's that for disambiguation ). Hanging Gardens is another nice AA tech, but I strongly doubt we'll have Monarchy any time soon, if ever.

Oracle and MoM seem entirely useless. Great Wall could be useful as a deterent, but we'd prefer it in an inland town in that case. GLib and ToA are moderately useful. Among all the AA wonders I'd rank

Torch > Colossus > Pyramids > SoZ > HG > ToA > GLib > GWall > 0 > Oracle > MoM

 

[General_W]

First, for the record, My main intent in bringing up the Great Library was just to point out that we can use it as a very large shield storage bin while we get a different tech for a wonder we'd rather have.

Although, I'm not quite as down on the Great Library as Niklas and Peter seem to be. Not only is the denial aspect relevant, but when you consider the fact that with 5 players, there's likely to be a lot of tech trading and just oldfashined research that puts two (unknown to us) techs frequently in the hands of our rivals. This is even more relevant if we choose to aggressively pursue getting our Hwach'a's in the Middle Ages (very likely, I'd say if we lose out on the Great Lighthouse)... it'd be nice to share in some free techs from the peacful side.

Now – the only reason we're discussing fallback plans is because one of our rivals has the Great Lighthouse, and we're at extreme danger of being an early target. With us focusing on military techs, what better way to keep our foot in the scientific/commercial tech game, than by having the Great Library help us with the peaceful branch of the tree? My biggest beef with the Great Library is that it would make us an even juicer target, just as our fears of Naval invasion become most real.

The Pyramids are, of course, fantastic – but since we won't ever have that many cities on our continent – I have a hard time believing the 400 shields will be worth it, when we could just build granaries, and use our wonder pre-build to get something we can't get via civilian buildings. IE, the Statue of Zeus or the Colossus. Both of these wonders are appealing to me as backup plans, for if we lose the Lighthouse bid, we're going to want Math and Bronzworking (on the way to Iron Working) without great delay anyway.

My Top 3, for what it's worth would look like this:

Losing the Torch with 250+ shields in the bin:

• Statue of Zeus (now 300 shields)
• Great Wall (300 shields)
• Great Library (400 shields)

Losing the Torch with less than 250 shields in the bin:

• Statue of Zeus (now 300 shields)
• Great Wall(300 shields)
• Colossus (200 shields)

Obviously, I'm taking a much more military approach, but I think it's warranted – we need to face the reality that if we lose the Torch, we're going to look like a pretty appealing target to whoever has the near sink-proof Galleys. We're last in score, we have no Ancient Age UU, and we're likely to be a late game powerhouse. Add a nice juicy civilian wonder into that mix (Like the Pyramids or GL), and I can't imagine NOT getting attacked.
It would take some pretty fine diplomacy, or being luckily too far away. Hence my preference for getting a nice defacto AA UU – the Ancient Cavalry from the SoZ– or else getting city walls everywhere and bonus to our barb-hunting unit-leveling up and gold gathering

 

[AutomatedTeller]

actually, if we do miss the lighthouse, I think SoZ is what we want if we can get it.

AC will make us safe against the ravening hordes!!

 

[peter grimes]

Wow - I can't believe I forgot about the Colossus! I've been in cIV land for too long

So my Wonder Prefs would be Lighthouse, Colossus/Pyramids, Statue of Zeus. See, the pyramids don't just get us granaries. They also speed the production of every first worker from those towns.

 

[Paul#42]

Torch > Colossus > Pyramids > SoZ > HG > ToA > GLib > GWall > 0 > Oracle > MoM

Pyramides > GLH > Colossus > SoZ > ToA > GWall (only inland) > 0 > Oracle > MoM > TGL

Here's why: If we have the Great Library, it will shine like a torch to those backward civs who did rather build army than research. I would hate to feel like that one stupid AI that builds it on my >=deity level games - one day one rival lands 20 swords and 5 spears and makes his way to it to hold it for a single turn and then burns it if he's not sure he will finish you off quickly.

However, if we build GLH first, I would feel save enough building it inland, because any invader must have Astro (> Edu) to invade us with more then 4 units...

So my Wonder Prefs would be Lighthouse, Colossus/Pyramids, Statue of Zeus. See, the pyramids don't just get us granaries. They also speed the production of every first worker from those towns.

I thought the first was the only worker not sped up by the Pyramides

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I am thinking we need a town with a barracks, so we can build a sword or two, or at least upgrade our warriors when some soul with mapmaking (BABE, in the worst case) comes calling.

 

[tomasjj]

I am thinking we need a town with a barracks, so we can build a sword or two, or at least upgrade our warriors when some soul with mapmaking (BABE, in the worst case) comes calling.

Yup. Good call.