TH3 archipelago high seas tropics immortal

[Loki Strikes]

Good math Nocho, but we start with fishing and hunting, no mysticism or mining or wheel.

To get the stone quarry up we need a road + a quarry wheel + masonry. I will build the GW or SH without stone hooked up because of this, we just can't afford to delay on immortal if we want both GLH + another wonder. We can probably use our stone on Mids, HG, and Oxford though(Sankore is kinda poor when production poor)

If we started wheel + mining I might advocate quarrying stone, but we just can't afford quarry + roads in terms of time.

it will be 6 turns for quarry + 1 turn move on hill + 3 turns road, 10 turn delay from researching masonry to stone hooked up


If we wanted to do a potentially stupid potentially brilliant move... we could settle ON the stone, losing an unirrigated wheat and a clam, research mining-mysticism-masonry with workboat-worker-warrior-GW-SH-Trading Post-GLH-Mids (chuck some settlers in there)

Big risks of this, we wind up with 1 mediocre food resource and don't gain any hills or additional resources.

I would probably vote against this course as it is quite simply not the smart move, and I think we should try to demonstrate good, solid, winning play, but hey if I was messing around in SP I might do it...(probably end up retiring in the BC's because of it with my luck, but its SP who cares)

 

[Dave Hartwick]

Nocho has a point. If we can manage Stonehenge without chopping more than a couple forests, we have a better chance at the Great Lighthouse.

Both are good, of course, but the latter is better IMO.

Loki, I'm surprised you're contemplating the Pyramids. You were never interested before, and we had stone in THI as well.

 

[Whosit]

Deleted (temporarily) because I'm convinced that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

 

[nocho]

If we don't use the stone for stonehenge, I'd rather forget about it all together and use those forest for TGLH or even the mids. To me, building SH without stone is like flushing 90 hammers down the toilet, to be frank. Especially since it's not that crucial a wonder either.

Settling on the stone, like you say Loki, seems a bit too risky to be worth it.

Maybe we should just play as if we wouldn't have stone and go for the normal shot at TGLH. If after that mids is still up, we might go for it.

 

[Dave Hartwick]

If anybody has the time, please play a few immortal starts so we have an idea of when Stonehenge and TGLH will be built by the AI. Also, I'd like the hammer cost for those two.

It shouldn't be a difficult task, just set up the start high seas archi tropics immortal and whack enter a lot while teching myst, masonry, and sailing.

I'm confident from my games last night that we can do both, although I found that I had to get on Stonehenge early, like before building the first settler.

 

[Whosit]

I'll see if I can set up a test start sometime tonight, though no guarantees.

Out of curiosity, are we waiting on anything other than us figuring out what the heck we're doing before we officially start? Not that I mind having a clue, of course.

 

[Dave Hartwick]

Ideally, we'll have a strategy in place when we start that'll net us the following:

2 workboats
1 warrior
1 galley
1 worker
Stonehenge
1 settler
1 trading post
The Great Lighthouse

I think that's it. The early game takes the most micromanagement and we have an ambitious shopping list. I think it's worth delaying the start to get what we want.

However, I wouldn't mind if somebody put in a short set to explore and build the first workboat.

 

[nocho]

If somebody plays that set, research must be mining in any case! And work the stone hill, while building the WB...
In any case, we may wait as well. Apart from the island layout we won't get much more information on how to proceed. Unless we get one of the needed techs from a hut of course.

Dave, dunno if your shopping list is in chronological order, but galley surely must go after SH if we want to build that. If anything, I think my calculations more or less showed that...

And do you have a roster in mind already, Dave? Of course I'm more than willing to take the first set for 63 turns till stonehenge!

By the way, my half serious suggestion of playing the start to stonehenge in both (or more) ways and then choose from the best position for me could be taken into consideration. Apart from Loki maybe, I think for the rest it's the first try on immortal anyway and it's not like we're stacking the odds that hugely in our favour. And I've seen a lot more experienced players do the same on immortal...

 

[Dave Hartwick]

I always went with a random roster previously but delayed here until we got the plan. And you're right about the galley, I'd guess put it in before the worker, depending on what's available to settle. Always good to get that offshore city for the trade route, though.

I'd be happy with everybody having a go. Loki's our ideas guy (at least he's our loudest ideas guy I kid, I kid) and he's going to be busy until the weekend going by what he posted in another SG.

Whosit, Sengir, what do you reckon? I should have a chance to play tomorrow night. We could get this show on the road and get over this analysis paralysis. I know in my tester starts I was able to get Stonehenge most of the time.

 

[Whosit]

By "everybody have a go" do you mean we all test the game starting from the save? Or just "let's start?"

I'm up for just starting and playing by the seat of our pants. Having a sound plan probably would be best, especially at this difficulty level and especially with this being an SG where everyone has slightly different ideas . . . but it's also an SG, so I'm willing to ignore logic and play a roller coaster.

 

[Dave Hartwick]

I mean what nocho said, everybody plays to Stonehenge and see who can do it fastest.

 

[Whosit]

Oh. Of course. Missed that somehow . . . . Well, I'll see if I can do a set this week and utilize some of the discussion strategies.

 

[Loki Strikes]

Yeah I am busy till this weekend, AP crap, 3 concerts, 4 rehearsals, Social life issues, I think we should just do 20 turn sets, Immortal is really not that big a step up from Emperor in all honesty, increased maintenance, AI techs faster, but its comparable to monarch - emperor

I would favor having only one turn set to avoid potential spoilers in all honesty however...

I would favor going mining - mysticism - BW(chop + mine forested hill immediately, chop out LH + GLH too) - Sailing - masonry(only if we want mids, otherwise stone mine is fine) - wheel-agri

Workboat - worker - Workboat - stonehenge seems fine, have the worker mine the Stone, then the grass hill, then I would chop ONE forest for SH, we won't need any more chops for SH in all likelihood and a 3 forest buffer for trading post - GLH should be enough. Chop the three remaining forests as soon as we start work on trading post as it doesn't matter if chops go into trading post or GLH as we have no hammer multipliers and the earlier we get trading post, the earlier we get +1 F on both our water tiles we will be working(as well as turning our lake into a farm for all intensive purpose)

First player should play to SH in then stop, I really think only 1 person should play though, to avoid spoilers/different randoms if at all possible.


Why do I think Mids this time instead of last time? In THI we didn't have stone hooked up for quite a bit and we had NO happiness at all so HR was more useful than early rep.

Mids are situational as is nearly everything.

 

[Dave Hartwick]

Well, nocho's put a lot of work into the planning, I reckon he should go up first and play up to Stonehenge.

Might want to whip a warrior into the Henge as otherwise we could run into hap cap trouble. The scout doesn't provide garrison happiness.

Also, I said earlier that there would be a discount on masonry if we have myst + mining, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Sengir's been absent a while and I miss his input. Loki has a good point about spoilers, but I like the idea of a friendly competition to see who can get the henge built fastest without thrashing the city with whips and all that, but really, random events can screw it all up. Also, Whosit was against, so my call is:

Rotation:

nocho
Whosit
Dave
Loki
Sengir

I hope that suits the schedules. I should be able to swap with Loki so he can have a weekend slot. Nocho, if you can't play tonight, I can swap with you and get the ball rolling using Loki's directives. I don't think I could do it in 63 turns, though. In my tester games it was 70+ turns to Stonehenge and I was using a similar approach (I think my best go was workboat > workboat > worker). So if you reckon you can do it in less than 70, you should have the honors. Remember to name the team, eh.

 

[nocho]

Of course I appreciate being first now! However, that makes me feel torn between my quarry plan and the stonemine-thing. O muse, tell me what's the way to go!

I'll redo some of the calculations then. However, with just one forest chop (like Loki says) with a stone mine I don't see SH coming in quicker than with the quarry. And if in either case we miss SH at least the hammer-to-gold yield with the quarry is double, so I still feel inclined to go that way....
But as said, I'll do more calculations and then will start the way I honestly feel is best.

 

[Sengir]

Hi guys,
Sorry for my absence, but RL keeps rearing its ugly head. Got a deadline by monday, so after that it should be better.

About the game. I'd rather not have everyone play the first set, for spoiler info and it is stacking the deck which I'm agianst.

Can't say much in the quary vs mine debate as I don't have time for calculations (nocho: for the tech costs it is best to start up a testgame to check for beakercosts because of the discounts). Unless we pop masonry off course (so better wait with popping any huts untill you've researched mining to increase the odds).

 

[nocho]

Settler: Stop right there!
Scout: Why?
Settler: I'm getting tired. We've been running around for time immemorial and I want to settle down.
Scout: Urr, well you got 2 movement points as well, so let's keep running.
Settler: Nah.
Scout: Ok, then. You settle, I'll keep running.
Settler: Thanks, mate.
Scout: So what will be our name? You know, if you settle down you should give our peoples, or at least our leader, a name.
Settler: You're right. Anything in mind?
Scout: Uh, no. But it has got to do something with what we stand for. What do we stand for?
Settler: Well, we are godfearing peoples who want to quench our bloodthirst by imposing our rule on the rest of the yet unknown world.
Scout: Well, marketing-wise I would advise against that. Can't you rephrase that a bit better?
Settler: Mmm, maybe. We, uh, will offer redemption for the rest of the world. Yeah, that's it. Team Hartwick Offers Redemption. THOR!

Ok, I did some calculations again before starting this off and with the quarry I got to 62 turns. With the stonemine and just one chop I couldn't get it under the high sixties, something observed by Dave in practice.

So my quarry it was and it turned out wonderfully with Stonehenge built on turn 62.

The bad news, however, is that our island sucks... Well, let's look at it from the bright side, we can settle two cities more on our island, both with access to fish and on top of that we have two islands in sight!

I followed the micro of the last calculation I posted. I was however very positively surprised that Masonry only costed 13 turns at 12 beakers per turn. So obviously we got the discount from the 195 it nominally costs despite not having mysticism yet. So mining alone must give that discount then. This also saved time of course and I even managed to get to bronze working already and have 1 turn invested in Sailing.
So to recap it was mining-masonry-wheel-mysticism-BW-sailing. A warrior is being built and suggest settler next. Agri after sailing for the wheat. On the penultimate turn I got an event that destroyed a road I just had built the previous turn on that wheat. No big deal of course.



Teched:

 

[Sengir]

That's a rather small island.

Nice set. About the discount: each or-prereq gives a 20% discount, so having Masonry + Myst would have given 40% (IIRC).

Not sure about the settler first. The southern spot is rather useless, though I suppose we can chop some threes and farm it for some more growth. Plainssite is not that great either as it encroaches on our cap a lot. Might be worth it though... Not too sure. But it might be better to see if we are short in land before settling those sites.
Otherwise getting a galley out asap (start settler while researching sailing, slot in galley and when done finish settler is an option).

 

[Loki Strikes]

I vote for an exploring workboat +start settler while we research sailing, then go trading post-GLH chop 3 forests into trading post if you can get pre chops, if not improvements are more important. I would settle both cities on our island eventually, but I would prioritize the exploring work boat before I say when we should settle them.

Nocho mind sending me some of your math btw? I am curious on your micro analysis.


Also looks like I am now no longer the only Norse God on the scene

 

[Whosit]

I'll remind myself to take a closer look at those calculations since they seem to have paid off. It also seems like I'm up next. At first I thought I'd have to wait until tomorrow, but I think I can squeeze in a turn set in about . . . now.

I agree with Loki on the exploratory work boat first. I also agree that we need a better idea of what's out there before we start settling our little spit of an island. Settling on the southern desert nets a few grasslands for cottages . . . otherwise, working fish and water tiles.

Oh, I should ask before I do anything . . . are you guys using "trading post" and "Great Lighthouse" interchangeably? That's the sense I'm getting, and I figure going after the GLH next is of utmost importance, but I don't want to do anything regrettable.

Also, since we're financial (right?) working coast tiles isn't too bad, and it'll be better with the GLH.

Edit: Never mind about the trading post thing . . . figured it out. Can you tell that I've never played as the Vikings before?