Tactics and Strategy T130-T150

[cav scout]

So how bout we nail down the plan for Aktau so as to avoid any confusion? How bout something like this:

Right now run priests and slowly produce knights while letting unhappiness expire. Then when we switch civics to go on a war footing start whipping units with the overflow going into the National Epic.

For Atyrau I suppose we should just grow until one big whip will finish Maoi. Then we let the city grow and produce units normally instead of whipping (since the coastal tiles will yield so much).

 

[Sommerswerd]

I like continuing to run priests but as far as whipping goes, I would say we should only whip (if at all) when whipping will not cause us to have to run any less priests. I would leave the engineer specialist on as well for now to maximize production for knights whule we wait for faces to expire.

FYI, Aktau makes knights much faster when we run priests and engineer, since both give

 

[cav scout]

Petro should really get the missionary over Baikonur- it needs the culture vs. SANCTA

 

[damnrunner]

So how bout we nail down the plan for Aktau so as to avoid any confusion? How bout something like this:

Right now run priests and slowly produce knights while letting unhappiness expire. Then when we switch civics to go on a war footing start whipping units with the overflow going into the National Epic.

For Atyrau I suppose we should just grow until one big whip will finish Maoi. Then we let the city grow and produce units normally instead of whipping (since the coastal tiles will yield so much).

I agree with that general plan. For Atyrau, once we get the Moai we also discussed building the HE there as well. I think we may want to hold off on that and focus on building units right away. But it could go either way.

 

[damnrunner]

Kulturkampfin'

With Drama we can build theaters - which I believe are the cheapest hammers per culture output. I think a theater in Taraz might make sense. How are our cultural borders holding up in the valley?

The fish city is gaining cultural push from pavlo iirc. I think the missionary makes more sense in the Whale city - as it will speed access to the whale. If we do need cultural pushback on the fish city - a slaved theater might make more sense. Buit I do not think it is needed.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Petro should really get the missionary over Baikonur- it needs the culture vs. SANCTA

I agree with that... IF there is NO religion in Petro we should send the Mish there. Baikonur already has Daoism, so there is a higher chance that Mish would fail to spread.

I agree with that general plan. For Atyrau, once we get the Moai we also discussed building the HE there as well. I think we may want to hold off on that and focus on building units right away. But it could go either way.

As soon as Moai is done, I think we should start by making 3 Frigates in Atryau, Cavalieros should give us Chemistry this turn. We can even whip the units and put overflow into HE... but we should be careful to only whip when the Pop points are working unimproved tiles, as has been suggested.

With Drama we can build theaters - I think a theater in Taraz might make sense.

I think the missionary makes more sense in the Whale city - as it will speed access to the whale.

I agree about the theatre in Taraz. As far as the missionary goes, remember that Baikonur already has Daoism. You only get one culture point for religion, no matter how many religions are present, so spreading Confu to Baikonur will not speed acces to whale.

 

[damnrunner]

Sommers – so have we won you over on whipping?

Now that we have Moai every ocean tile could be considered to be developed. So it probably makes the most sense to let the city grow without whipping. As to what to build, we do need a bigger navy – but we also need more ground forces. Winning on the sea would mean nothing if we can’t win in the valley. I’d rather be building ground forces in the iron city for the time being.

My thoughts on a navy is that we hold off on getting astro from Cav as long as possible and focus on building the far cheaper galleys, triremes, and caravels. Then we can upgrade them once we trade for astro. Right now we have access to more $ (from MS and Cav) than hammers we can build on our own. As to building these ships – slaving the fish city and building in Haz, and Aktau would be my preferred locations due to proximity with Sancta.

Side note on the Iron city. How should we improve the grassland and plains tiles near the city? Farms and workshops (max production) or cottages (boost commerce). I believe the city was one of the ones that got the library and university – and all the ocean tiles will result in a decent amount of commerce. For that reason my preference would be cottages.

Unless BTS has changed the way religion works from Vanilla Civ - if you have a state religion you only gain culture from your state religion. Therefore - no culture from Taoism. Baikonur is effectively generating not generating any culture right now. The fish city, on the other hand, benefits from the cultural coming from Pavlo which is producing the needed cultural push back against Phoenix. I can't log into check, but the cultural %s near the fish city should be fairly strong in our favor.

 

[Sommerswerd]

You are right about religion only popping borders with your State religion sorry... So that means Petro and Baikonur BOTH need a Confu Missionary sent there.

In that case, I would send it to Baikonur to get the Whale first, then make another mish for Petro. Maybe when Knight finishes in Oskemen or when Pike finishes in Shymkent.

I am fine with not whipping Atyrau, I just mentioned it as an idea.

We already have Astronomy... MS sent gold for us to upgrade a boat. I prefer to get a Frigate from our Trireme as opposed to a Galleon from our Galley.

We already farmed one of the shared Grasslands between Kyzy and Atyrau (2S of Kyzy). Workers currently farming the second shared Grassland (2N of Atyrau) and the Plains NE of Atyrau. We can then decide whether to farm (b/c of irrigation ) or Cottage the Grassland 1E of Atyrau.

(Doesn't irrigation farm last even after connecting irrigation farm is destoyed? If so, we can still cottage the Plain later, after we farm the grassland) Including that tile there are still 4 tiles near Atyrau that can be cottaged (1 grass, 3 plains). We still need to decide what to do with the Tundra hill NW and tundra SE.

 

[damnrunner]

I think we can totally skip a missionary for petro. I don’t believe the city is facing much cultural pushback, and I’d rather put the hammers into a unit.

Right, a frigate makes more sense than galley. Though we don’t want to alarm Sancta too much.

If you cut a link in a chain of irrigated tiles all downstream tiles lose the +1 food irrigation bonus. So we don’t want to do that. My question was only for the tiles that are not already farmed. It comes down to will the city be 100% production or mixed production / commerce.

 

[cav scout]

CAV just gifted us ivory (we have two now) and spices in exchange of our surplus gold. We should consider revamping our trade with MS, giving them back their ivory and getting our furs back would be good.

Sommers- not sure about your worker management. You are building a bunch of improvements for cities that don't need them right now (more farms for Aktau when you have it at zero growth?) while other cities are working unimproved tiles or will be shortly. Taraz is working 3 unimproved tiles right now. Pav is 3 turns away from working an unimproved tile.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yeah, good points... I will start sending workers to cottage Taraz when they finish current projects. Any other ideas for workers?

 

[cav scout]

2 of the 3 eastern workers are in range to start building a farm south of pav. The other eastern worker (the middle one) should stop farming near Aktau and finish an Oskemen farm. The western workers should focus on getting the grass farm going for Baikonur, the head to taraz via the Kyzl mountains (roading as they go).

 

[Sommerswerd]

I noticed your cute little sign... funny . So, The worker farming the Plain NE of Atyrau is irrigating to the grassland (which is why I asked about irrigation connections earlier)

I thought I explained this earlier, but I must have forgotten or been unclear. Atyrau is already working all the improved tiles it can, plus 1 unimproved tile, and it grows in 1 turn, so that will make 2 unimproved tiles. The worker is irrigating to the grassland E of Atyrau so we can farm it.

There is a second worker 2N of Atryau that is farming the grassland but that grassland is shared with Kyzylorda. Kyzylorda is also working all the improved tiles it can, and it grows in 1 turn, so it will be working an uniproved tile until the grassland farm is done (3 turns).

Baikonur is already working one unimproved tile and grows in 2 turns, so that will make 2 unimproved tiles. There is one worker irrigating the plains to get to the grassland NE of Baikonur. A second worker is mining the grasshill E of Baikonur. Baikonur has no production, so it needs a mine right away to get the basic buildings (forge, l'house).

So... 4 workers spoken for (we have 7)... The other 3 workers were sent to Taraz to improve the 3 unimproved tiles that Taraz is working(as you mentioned was needed). I would build 2 cottages and a mine, because Taraz also has no production to get the basic and cultural buildings it needs.

As for our other cities:
Shymkent - 6 turns to grow - not working unimproved tiles
Oskemen - 5 turns to grow - not working unimproved tiles
Aktau - 4 turns to grow - not working unimproved tiles
Hazrate - 11 turns to grow - not working unimproved tiles

As you said, Pavlodar has 2 turns to grow and is working 1 unimproved tile, but Pavlodar is already a well developed city, with good production, commerce etc... Our workers should prioritize our less developed cities, Im sure you agree. Plus, If you look at the numbers, there are more unimproved tiles being worked (in a sooner number of turns) in the West so the math dictates that our focus should probably be there.

At any rate, hopefully this clears up the thought process with the worker actions. Your earlier post, and the in-game sign (a little much TBH) indicated that you thought the worker actions were being chosen at random or something. Not so!

 

[cav scout]

you are farming a tile that already had cottage work done on it. And farms irrigate through cities and diagonally too.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Cavscout, Please take a look at this image:

Spoiler :

See the grassland square that is E of Atyrau? That is the square that needs irrigation for farming. Now look and tell me how the irrigation "diagonal and through cities" makes any difference for farming that tile? It is not next to any cities or tiles (diagonal or otherwise) that are farmed... is it?

Yes, the tile lable "c1" had one turn of cottage work done on it... so what?

1. That cottage work should never have been started... that is precisely why it was discontinued.
2. We have to irrigate through that tile to be able to farm the grassland tile
3. If after reading all the numbers crunching that I did to determine what to do with the workers, the only pitiful complaint you could come up with is "you killed 1 turn of cottage work" , then I think this issue can be laid to rest.

I will say this though. I owe Kaleb an apology. Sorry Kaleb. In these few turns I have learned how frustrating it is to have every single judgment call you make criticized, scrutinized and second-guessed, especially without any good reason and super-especially by people who are perfectly capable of logging in themselves. So again... So Sorry Kaleb.

 

[Kaleb]

SANCTA got Circumnavigation

Dang. How did we miss this? East Indiamen with +1 movment is going to be a real pain for us

 

[cav scout]

I agree with Damnrunner that Atyrau should have a commerce focus for it's land based tiles. This city already has a library and university and it is the best candidate for our next academy (Haz and Shym already have one) because of the rich water tiles.

When Moai is complete we are going to want to grow the city, working the iron and the seven 3 coastal tiles up pop 8. After that we should work the one grassland farm that is already there (needs to stay for irrigating the western cities) 1 grassland cottage, 2 plains cottages, 2 ocean tiles and then the furs.

More farms for Atyrau don't make sense unless we want to continue whipping, effectively negating the benefit of Moai.

 

[cav scout]

Dang. How did we miss this? East Indiamen with +1 movment is going to be a real pain for us

We neglected gifting optics to CAV right after we got it. They were ready to whip a caravel but the plan was forgotten (by both teams) with all the turn player switches.

 

[damnrunner]

Cav Scout - I share your view on boosting commerce at the Iron City - but don'y know if we want an academy there.

We get +18 beakers per turn (after multipliers) from settling a GS Haz. To match this the iron city will need a base of nearly 40 commerce (@100% science). Working all the sea tiles and the furs give a base of only 29 commerce. With cottages and trade routes the city will eventually get over 40 commerce but not for a while.

 

[cav scout]

Cav Scout - I share your view on boosting commerce at the Iron City - but don'y know if we want an academy there.

We get +18 beakers per turn (after multipliers) from settling a GS Haz. To match this the iron city will need a base of nearly 40 commerce (@100% science). Working all the sea tiles and the furs give a base of only 29 commerce. With cottages and trade routes the city will eventually get over 40 commerce but not for a while.

Ah good point, we should probably settle our next GS in Haz instead of making a 3rd Academy. Haz could even do an observatory after Oxford- the place is just going to be oozing science.

If we ever decide to do a third academy though then Atyrau is the place for it. And even without an academy the commerce path is still the way to go for this city.