Arcturus tile improvement: Lord Parkin should mine the copper. This was worked out in a test game, and allows us to hook up metal the fastest. We need to build cottages for the scientists in Sirius to work before we mine the iron, so the copper is the best source of metal, and it gives Arcturus a good hammer tile. (As an aside to AlphaShard, and anyone else, the current plans for the next few turns are in the first post of the Micro Plan thread.)
Sorry, I kind of reopened the debate here because a couple of things had changed - the iron, and the chance to revolt to HR+Slavery. I agree with everyone else about copper first though.
Arcturus first build: The Micro Plan thread calls for a warrior, but as we discussed in this thread, those hammers would go to a spearman when the copper is hooked up (when the mine is done, since it is connected by a river). I would vote for an Archer until the copper is mined, and then an Axeman followed by finishing the Archer. If we build the Archer first, it would finish on turn 75, but it would take about 6 more turns for the Axeman after that. If we switch mid-build to an Axeman, he will be completed on turn 77. I think it better to get an Axeman out sooner.
I think the archer on 75 is better than the axe on 77. An archer is almost as good as an axe for protecting the copper, while both are much better than the warriors we have, so a couple of turns sooner is more important to me. I don't think it likely matters much though.
Where to put Vesta: As I argued above I think the jungle hill 1S of her current position is best until the first border pop, since she can both spawnbust around Arcturus and move to defend the worker should a barb appear to the south. I think we should save the promotion until we need the healing, or have a better long term plan for her.
Sounds good.
Where to settle next: We are currently building a settler in Canopus and will build another in Sirius after the worker. This will give us settlers on turns 71 and 77. As much as I’ve argued that the horse site would be a good idea, I think the next two cities should be at site “B” (the silk tile) on Sol and the clams/pig site on Bode. The reason for this is that both those locations will have resources in place to get the cities up and running faster. In particular, since The Amazons have built the Great Wall, any city on Andromeda will be subject to barb harassment . I think we want to get an Axeman to the horse site first to spawnbust and secure the location. In contrast, we already have 2 (and soon 3) warriors on Bode to help with defense. I have not thoroughly tested this, but my current thinking is the next city should go at the B site. This would let us work the iron hill, which we are going to improve anyway, and allow us to hurry improvements with chopping.
I second all of this. I like B first more for the fact that we want more protection for the pigs/clam site than we'll have on T71.
When to revolt to Slavery/HR (and OR?): We should get Monarchy from Amazon on turn 68. I think we should delay the revolt at least until we finish CoL (turn 69), so we can assure ourselves the religion, and probably not until the first settler is in transit (turn 71). If we do found Confucianism, we should consider adopting OR relatively soon for the 25% hammer bonus to constructing buildings, of which we’ve built none to date.
T71 sounds good to me. I suggest we revolt into the following four civics in two revolts:
HR, OR, Slavery, Beaurocracy
Plus a third revolt for confucianism.
Now obviously we don't have Beaurocracy yet, so we need to decide which of the other three can wait. If we're building workers, settlers and military, then OR can wait. If we're not going to get above our happy caps anywhere anyway then HR can wait. If we have no plans to whip anywhere, then Slavery can wait.
I actually think all three of those factors are probably true, so it's a matter of which on is the most true.
City specialization: Canopus and Arcturus both seem like good production cities, and Sirius seems like a good hybrid/Bureaucracy capital. The Bode pigs/clams site could be a great person farm (which we could save for post-alliance bulbing) or a commerce site. The horse city would be a good commerce city.[/QUOTE]
Pigs/clams is about as good a production city as you'll ever get. Food resources and grass hills is perfect. I'm happy to convert it to the GP farm later on, but for the early game it's best for production. Commerce from Sirius will carry us through on its own for a long time to come, we only need to set up ther commerce cities for the long term. I think every city on Anjennida is going to be commerce, it's all good cottage land but without a lot of food resources. Canopus is something of a hybrid, I'd like to keep the cottages on the flood plains and it will be working the gold, so it's worth building commerce buildings there, but it will have a lot of production capability as well.
I even specified the tile I thought would would be best:
Why did the game give me "Press enter to end turn" without asking me to build something then? That's wierd. I've never NOT had to put something in a build queche befeore.
OR can wait for Beauro, especially if we plan on going Civil Service next.
