Turn 143 and Turn 144
I'm going to try something a little different and go through the cities again, but showing both screenshots from during and after the GA; it's not like there is much to see in the difference and the tile yields are easily understandable, but hey, more pictures means it must be better, right?
First of all, going over the world map. It's worth reading the prior post written in reply to Dreylin. If you check the demos, you can see I have 20% more land than second place in land area. I believe that even though my GNP is pretty crap, I'm probably further ahead in the development of this land than other players are in improving their expansions: by this I mean other players will have to expand again to match me, and those new cities will be behind in development, so I will get a window of opportunity to attack someone, somewhere, whilst other players still recovering, growing and improving their land and cities. The downside is I have given other players an opportunity to attack me whilst I and still recovering from crashing the economy and growing that final wave of expansion cities, but Lewwyn and superjm are weak and OH is taking on superdeath, so it seems like I've covered that window well enough.
It's also questionable who has space to grow and where. I think there is space between Lewwyn, superjm and OT4E but it seems to be islands, and that will be easy to take and hold, so will require solid defenses as well, which sucks up more resources. That just widens my window of opportunity.
Second of all, I've been considering tech.
What does religion have to do with Tech? Theocracy. It costs 1k adjusted beakers to research to it, and 40 hammers per city to spread religion. Vassalage appears to be a much cheaper option to get units up to 5XP, and will surpass the value from Bureaucracy quite soon (around the time the next GA is available for sure). Bureacracy costs 8 gpt more than Vassalage, and Vassalage saves 21gpt on units. Add in inflation, and it's fair to say that right now Vassalage is worth about 40gpt in saved gold compared to Bureau. Bureau is worth 30 commerce per turn, which through multipliers is worth a little bit more than Vassalage (breakeven slider is about 25%), and with the Academy, I'd happily accept that Bureau is worth 45, even 50gpt. But to run Bureau and Theo will cost 1K beakers, or I could just ignore Theo, and religion completely until and unless I capture a shrine.
That 1K beakers is Optics. It's Most of Feudalism. It's 8 turns delay on Guilds. It's not worth it right now. I don't need the happiness anymore, so I'm going to stay without a state religion, and will reconsider at the next GA.
With this in mind, I think tech becomes much simpler. I want Guilds ASAP for knights and workshop hammers, but I need Optics first: I don't have fantastic port cities, and I want to start getting Carracks out from WB, and two stacks east and west to so I can respond to attacks on DZ and superjm. I need the navy built and in position before I build the army. Construction and Engineering come after Guilds for the road movement and Castles trade routes (I have stone from Superjm, I will build a few walls with it but I doubt I will have stone for Castles). Banking needs to be timed to come for the start of the second GA, or the end. Given I can start the second GA on T150 if I don't get a double Artist, and I really need to, I can't be sure when I need it, but I really, really want it as it's worth about 80 beakers or gold per turn (I will run a few engineers), which breakeven is a 60% increase in beaker output.
Right now I'm saving gold on Compass. I will save 125gpt, and I have enough gold saved to get Compass this turn if I want it, but then have nothing left in the bank. I'll save gold until I have the ability to get all the way to Optics, which is something like 2 turns of max tech and one turn of 50%. Each turn of max tech costs 370 gold. ETA Optics eot151 without additional wealth building.
I made a decision on T143 to build more workers. I was working out how long it would take to improve all the tiles, and it was absurd. So I'm building a further 8 workers. There will be one gang of 9 improving the northern river for both HE cities, a gang of 6 improving the western river, gang of 4 improving the SW and a gang of 6 improving the south, and a couple of workers otherwise finishing specific cities (1 is hooking a spare source of furs). This way both HE cities will have all tiles improved for when they finish growth around T150, and the south should have everything improved as growth completes as well.
Onto the cities, with F1 first.
Compared to pre GA figures of +41gpt at max tax, 4ept and a max beaker rate of 430gpt, and first turn of GA making 172gpt at max tax, 612bpt at max science, now make 114gpt 22ept and 517bpt at max tax and science respectively.
I'm really struggling to grow ITM, because Kalamazoo can't give up the pig. This is something else that is pushing me towards Vassalage. I'm windmilling the hills, so it will grow, but it's not that important compared to improving the other cities IMO. ITM is going to finish the Xbow and will probably just prebuild a mace and HA waiting for Vassalage or wealth. I'm keeping a record of how many cities that this decision is coming up, because a mace and HA prebuild is almost a full turn of saving gold, and every turn I save on reaching Optics and Guilds is on one extra Carrack and one extra knight from the HE cities.
LBJ is going to stagnate at size 12 as previously discussed. A few tiles moves around, it reaches 12 base hpt. Same plan to prebuild mace and HA (or we go for wealth in thesse cities, but I figure this is a quicker way to hit the power spike if we can pump out a bunch of knights and maces right at the start of the GA without whipping). So that's 2 cities.
Minor fuck up here, I cottaged a tile needed to allow boats through from the western ocean out through 3S. OTOH, If I need to move a stack through, I'll just fort over the cottage: needs must etc. Can't quite get MtK to 12 base hpt (without farming over the tile that should have been forted) until Merc is in. Same plan, prebuild Mace and HA or wealth. That's 3.
TX will go straight onto Carracks once Optics is in, and needs that hill windmilling. It will give the corn back next turn.
Kalamazoo will has built one worker, will build another. Then likely onto wealth. The second worker is going to head to the farm 4E1N of Kalamazoo to chop the forest and prepare the irrigation chain that leads up to the BCR corn. It will start the long, slow growth to size 11 after the worker is done. I reckon it won't reach size 11 until T170. But as it is wealth or unit prebuilds, that's 4.
Growth@11 eot144, growth@12 eot147, growth@13eot149, growth@14 eot152. So fast the workers can't even keep up, but they should finish around T155 with the city capable of hitting 40 base hpt. Or rather, it would do if I had Guilds.
Poor JJ. Thinking about it, I could let JJ have the sheep and grow a little faster, yet it only grows onto base coast. Given I will send two workers up here as BCR finishes completion, all remaining tiles can be farmed and the two grasslands can be cottages to let it grow again. JJ has done its job, it hooked furs, it kept the economy afloat whilst we failed to build Mids, it got the galleys out to explore and get the island city, it got several settlers out. If it's left working 4 coastal tiles for 20 turns, I'm not complaining: it has the courthouse, it's still productive.
I'm going to try something a little different and go through the cities again, but showing both screenshots from during and after the GA; it's not like there is much to see in the difference and the tile yields are easily understandable, but hey, more pictures means it must be better, right?
First of all, going over the world map. It's worth reading the prior post written in reply to Dreylin. If you check the demos, you can see I have 20% more land than second place in land area. I believe that even though my GNP is pretty crap, I'm probably further ahead in the development of this land than other players are in improving their expansions: by this I mean other players will have to expand again to match me, and those new cities will be behind in development, so I will get a window of opportunity to attack someone, somewhere, whilst other players still recovering, growing and improving their land and cities. The downside is I have given other players an opportunity to attack me whilst I and still recovering from crashing the economy and growing that final wave of expansion cities, but Lewwyn and superjm are weak and OH is taking on superdeath, so it seems like I've covered that window well enough.
It's also questionable who has space to grow and where. I think there is space between Lewwyn, superjm and OT4E but it seems to be islands, and that will be easy to take and hold, so will require solid defenses as well, which sucks up more resources. That just widens my window of opportunity.
Second of all, I've been considering tech.
What does religion have to do with Tech? Theocracy. It costs 1k adjusted beakers to research to it, and 40 hammers per city to spread religion. Vassalage appears to be a much cheaper option to get units up to 5XP, and will surpass the value from Bureaucracy quite soon (around the time the next GA is available for sure). Bureacracy costs 8 gpt more than Vassalage, and Vassalage saves 21gpt on units. Add in inflation, and it's fair to say that right now Vassalage is worth about 40gpt in saved gold compared to Bureau. Bureau is worth 30 commerce per turn, which through multipliers is worth a little bit more than Vassalage (breakeven slider is about 25%), and with the Academy, I'd happily accept that Bureau is worth 45, even 50gpt. But to run Bureau and Theo will cost 1K beakers, or I could just ignore Theo, and religion completely until and unless I capture a shrine.
That 1K beakers is Optics. It's Most of Feudalism. It's 8 turns delay on Guilds. It's not worth it right now. I don't need the happiness anymore, so I'm going to stay without a state religion, and will reconsider at the next GA.
With this in mind, I think tech becomes much simpler. I want Guilds ASAP for knights and workshop hammers, but I need Optics first: I don't have fantastic port cities, and I want to start getting Carracks out from WB, and two stacks east and west to so I can respond to attacks on DZ and superjm. I need the navy built and in position before I build the army. Construction and Engineering come after Guilds for the road movement and Castles trade routes (I have stone from Superjm, I will build a few walls with it but I doubt I will have stone for Castles). Banking needs to be timed to come for the start of the second GA, or the end. Given I can start the second GA on T150 if I don't get a double Artist, and I really need to, I can't be sure when I need it, but I really, really want it as it's worth about 80 beakers or gold per turn (I will run a few engineers), which breakeven is a 60% increase in beaker output.
Right now I'm saving gold on Compass. I will save 125gpt, and I have enough gold saved to get Compass this turn if I want it, but then have nothing left in the bank. I'll save gold until I have the ability to get all the way to Optics, which is something like 2 turns of max tech and one turn of 50%. Each turn of max tech costs 370 gold. ETA Optics eot151 without additional wealth building.
I made a decision on T143 to build more workers. I was working out how long it would take to improve all the tiles, and it was absurd. So I'm building a further 8 workers. There will be one gang of 9 improving the northern river for both HE cities, a gang of 6 improving the western river, gang of 4 improving the SW and a gang of 6 improving the south, and a couple of workers otherwise finishing specific cities (1 is hooking a spare source of furs). This way both HE cities will have all tiles improved for when they finish growth around T150, and the south should have everything improved as growth completes as well.
Onto the cities, with F1 first.
Compared to pre GA figures of +41gpt at max tax, 4ept and a max beaker rate of 430gpt, and first turn of GA making 172gpt at max tax, 612bpt at max science, now make 114gpt 22ept and 517bpt at max tax and science respectively.
I'm really struggling to grow ITM, because Kalamazoo can't give up the pig. This is something else that is pushing me towards Vassalage. I'm windmilling the hills, so it will grow, but it's not that important compared to improving the other cities IMO. ITM is going to finish the Xbow and will probably just prebuild a mace and HA waiting for Vassalage or wealth. I'm keeping a record of how many cities that this decision is coming up, because a mace and HA prebuild is almost a full turn of saving gold, and every turn I save on reaching Optics and Guilds is on one extra Carrack and one extra knight from the HE cities.
LBJ is going to stagnate at size 12 as previously discussed. A few tiles moves around, it reaches 12 base hpt. Same plan to prebuild mace and HA (or we go for wealth in thesse cities, but I figure this is a quicker way to hit the power spike if we can pump out a bunch of knights and maces right at the start of the GA without whipping). So that's 2 cities.
Minor fuck up here, I cottaged a tile needed to allow boats through from the western ocean out through 3S. OTOH, If I need to move a stack through, I'll just fort over the cottage: needs must etc. Can't quite get MtK to 12 base hpt (without farming over the tile that should have been forted) until Merc is in. Same plan, prebuild Mace and HA or wealth. That's 3.
TX will go straight onto Carracks once Optics is in, and needs that hill windmilling. It will give the corn back next turn.
Kalamazoo will has built one worker, will build another. Then likely onto wealth. The second worker is going to head to the farm 4E1N of Kalamazoo to chop the forest and prepare the irrigation chain that leads up to the BCR corn. It will start the long, slow growth to size 11 after the worker is done. I reckon it won't reach size 11 until T170. But as it is wealth or unit prebuilds, that's 4.
Growth@11 eot144, growth@12 eot147, growth@13eot149, growth@14 eot152. So fast the workers can't even keep up, but they should finish around T155 with the city capable of hitting 40 base hpt. Or rather, it would do if I had Guilds.
Poor JJ. Thinking about it, I could let JJ have the sheep and grow a little faster, yet it only grows onto base coast. Given I will send two workers up here as BCR finishes completion, all remaining tiles can be farmed and the two grasslands can be cottages to let it grow again. JJ has done its job, it hooked furs, it kept the economy afloat whilst we failed to build Mids, it got the galleys out to explore and get the island city, it got several settlers out. If it's left working 4 coastal tiles for 20 turns, I'm not complaining: it has the courthouse, it's still productive.