RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Senseless]

Short on Workers? No, we're going to have an excess of them. That's the whole thing about being able to road wherever we please early on.

I dunno, I don't consider 2 workers to be a glut. Going for stonehenge now lowers our worker and settler count, so we have fewer workers than if we went for pure expansion. We do have some spare worker turns now to start roading towards our goal. Is that what you mean?

Think of the Pig-Gold site as effectively increasing our commerce output by 50+% early on. That is, simply put, massive.

Yeah, I don't deny that the gold would be great for our research. I guess I just favor production and food over commerce at this point in the game, which the rice-horse site has more of.

[Yamps]

I don't quite see how Horses would come too late for protection because it's a huge map layout. That's the opposite of what should be the case, isn't it?

Too late if some warrior commes harrasing or sth similar very early, but generally I agree it's not a problem.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree here. Aborting Stonehenge at this late stage would be worse than making a shot at it, I think. I also think you undervalue the nationwide culture, happiness anund priest slot bonuses from the wonder. Just because one city site doesn't immediately need a border expansion doesn't mean we should cancel Stonehenge all together.

Yup, we disagree here. I don't think it was late stage at all, there's no commitment to the project after just Hunting -> AH. You could still get the obelisks manually for culture, happiness and priest slots. The map has gold and furs, horses to the west and possibly copper in the east. In my mind, it would be much better to get those city sites earlier. This way you'll have only 2 cities while you could have 3 good spots so yes, I think you're wrong here with SH so early.

No, that's the thing. The capital doesn't need any mines to build Stonehenge. They wouldn't complete in time anyway. The Mining tech will, however, be online just as we're ready to improve the Gold, so that should work out fine.


Switching to Mining now IS giving up on Stonehenge (or at least greatly reducing our chances of getting it). I'm not quite sure why you think Stonehenge can't be done without mines. It's preferable to do it without mines, because that gets it out a lot faster. And even if we had mines, it would only offer +1 hammer per turn once we reached size 4 (nothing while at size 3). That's hardly much of a boost.

This is of course hard to assess just by looking at the screenshot. By working 2 deers and a cow at size 3 it looks like 8 hammers/turn. I can't check the SH costs at Monarch at the moment, but I think you'll at least need 10 turns to get it. How many settler/workers could that be? When you grow to size 4 you'll work unimproved tiles, this doesn't feel like an optimal game opening.

EDIT:

With that Silk tile nearby, possibly Luddite was reffering to that city in his message. Hmm...

[dinamo]

I think Yamps its right, If you don't build a settler before Stonehenge your workers will build just roads for 15 turns.

[Yamps]

@dinamo

There will be warrior->settler before SH in anycase to get the gold city and to explore the east, I'm pretty sure that's LP's plan. What I'm suggesting is to continue with expansion immediately after that, following with another settler or maybe a third worker while at size 3. With SH, horses and furs will be settled later giving LP (imo) a weaker position. Fur spot also needs a warrior to get it explored completely. If there's some sea food, with commerce from furs it would be a nice early city.

[Bruindane]

I think Yamps its right, If you don't build a settler before Stonehenge your workers will build just roads for 15 turns.

They can also build farms.

[Lord Parkin]

I dunno, I don't consider 2 workers to be a glut. Going for stonehenge now lowers our worker and settler count, so we have fewer workers than if we went for pure expansion. We do have some spare worker turns now to start roading towards our goal. Is that what you mean?

Sorry, I was talking about the relative ratios of Workers:Settlers. Before Bronze Working, two Workers are definitely more than enough for one city, so in that respect we have "more than enough" Workers. But you're right, if we skipped Stonehenge we'd be able to build another Settler (roughly speaking), so that would in turn mean we'd need more Workers.

Yeah, I don't deny that the gold would be great for our research. I guess I just favor production and food over commerce at this point in the game, which the rice-horse site has more of.

Food at the Pig-Gold site actually seems about as much as we can find anywhere else on this map. Usually I'd favour production over commerce at the start too - but in this case we have a river-gold easily workable right nearby us, which is the best commerce tile in the game. Given how slowly the tech pace is crawling along at the moment, that tech boost would be really useful to get ASAP. Think of it as shifting the ability to chop forward by several turns.

Too late if some warrior commes harrasing or sth similar very early, but generally I agree it's not a problem.

Given the home field advantage, we can probably build Warriors to reinforce faster than they can send them in to attack. Not to mention how hugely inefficient it would be for someone to send a bunch of Warriors 15-20+ tiles all in the same direction early on in the game, just in the vain hope of stealing a very distant capital (which they don't even know the location of yet). Logically I just can't see it happening.

Yup, we disagree here. I don't think it was late stage at all, there's no commitment to the project after just Hunting -> AH. You could still get the obelisks manually for culture, happiness and priest slots. The map has gold and furs, horses to the west and possibly copper in the east. In my mind, it would be much better to get those city sites earlier. This way you'll have only 2 cities while you could have 3 good spots so yes, I think you're wrong here with SH so early.

Stonehenge is only ~80 hammers for an Industrious civ, thus approximately the cost of a single Settler. It's not really that bad of an investment. Plus, with the general poor quality of the land around us, I think it's worth our while investing in a wonder early on to help us out later (don't forget Stonehenge guarantees us a great person well before turn 100).

This is of course hard to assess just by looking at the screenshot. By working 2 deers and a cow at size 3 it looks like 8 hammers/turn.

It's 9 (boosted to 13 with Ind), as the plain-hill tile the capital's on gives 2 hammers. Plus, as soon as we grow to size 4, it's 10-12 (boosted to 15-18 with Ind). Not at all shabby. Stonehenge will only take 8 or so turns at that rate.

I can't check the SH costs at Monarch at the moment,

It's always 120 hammers on normal speed. Difficulty level only affects unit/building/wonder costs for the AI. The only thing that affects hammer costs for the human player is game speed.

but I think you'll at least need 10 turns to get it.

Less than this, as I mentioned above.

How many settler/workers could that be?

Just one (and not one of each either).

When you grow to size 4 you'll work unimproved tiles, this doesn't feel like an optimal game opening.

One unimproved tile, which will likely be a 1f/2h tile, which only yields 1h less than an improved tile. You can't always be working improved tiles in this game, especially when the tech rate is so slow. Moreover, it definitely isn't worth delaying growth just because you don't want to work unimproved tiles, when those tiles will still do much better for you than not growing.

EDIT:

With that Silk tile nearby, possibly Luddite was reffering to that city in his message. Hmm...

Could have been. See the upcoming turn (which I'll post soon), there's some interesting new info there.

I think Yamps its right, If you don't build a settler before Stonehenge your workers will build just roads for 15 turns.

See below...

There will be warrior->settler before SH in anycase to get the gold city and to explore the east, I'm pretty sure that's LP's plan.

Yeah, that's the plan at the moment, although I'm vaguely considering starting Stonehenge without the Settler. That would get it out 5 turns earlier, although at a bit of an expansion cost. I guess it's not that optimal.

What I'm suggesting is to continue with expansion immediately after that, following with another settler or maybe a third worker while at size 3. With SH, horses and furs will be settled later giving LP (imo) a weaker position.

I think the border expansions + happiness + guaranteed early Great Prophet(s) more than make up for the 5-10 turn delay on some cities. In fact, with the (mostly) crappy land we're seeing immediately around us, I'd suggest Stonehenge puts us in a much stronger position than non-Stonehenge.

Fur spot also needs a warrior to get it explored completely. If there's some sea food, with commerce from furs it would be a nice early city.

Yeah, we'll get to work on exploring up there soon.

They can also build farms.

And mines as well, by the mid 30's. Not too shabby.

[Lord Parkin]

Bob moved 1SW, and confirmed that luddite does indeed have a river-Gold spot (which it looks like he just discovered too). Good food, on a choke point, and closer to his capital than our site is to ours. Geez, does he have to one-up us on everything?

Logical movement is 1W-1SW for Bob... let's see what else luddite has at that Gold site.



Joe headed 1SW, and it seems he found the other Gold resource luddite was talking about, as well as another Silk. Could potentially be a decent city site 1SE of where Joe's standing providing there's seafood around. Worth moving him there next turn to check, anyway.



In domestic news, the second Worker was finished and pre-built one turn on a farm while he heads to help finish up the Cow pasture next turn. We'll have a new Warrior built next turn in the capital, and another 3 turns after that one (coininciding with growth to size 3).

[Lord Parkin]

In the rest of the world:

- Luddite finished a tech, which I think he started on turn 11 (after switching from Mysticism), if I recall correctly. An 11-turn tech... hmm, could be Pottery like he mentioned he might be going for. Failing that, not sure. Animal Husbandry maybe?

- Locke grew to size 2 at last. Seems about in line with the assumption that he's gone Worker-Worker-Warrior.

- WarlordDR grew to size 3... again, a significant delay on when he "should" have grown as an Expansive civ. Not quite sure why that is.

- Nakor grew to size 3 as well, slightly later than he could have but in line with his later growth to size 2.

[Yamps]

Ok, just a note for completeness: hammer comparison gives SH roughly equal to settler, but the question was to make the comparison for the build time period. There will also be 7 surplus food/turn when you improve the cows so the comparison should be settler + worker vs building the SH and growing to size 4. The 4th 1f 2h tile will also cost 2 food, it's not that good.

All in all, it's a judgment call. I prefer staying at size 3 with another settler and a worker to get horses or maybe furs if there's more food there. With SH there will be a ~10 turns delay with this plan, for better or for worse. (I'm assuming that you plan to start the SH immediately at size 3 after the gold-pig city settler.)

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As for prophets, each prophet generated is pretty much one less GS or GM in the pre-renaissance period. I'm not sure though what's your general strategy, are you planning a military push helped with GS bulbs and GM trade routes after Oxford for unit upgrades?

EDIT:

Actually, the city should be at size 5 by the time SH is done for another unimproved tile. (assuming the workers go to pig-gold) This is the main problem that I see with this plan, a lot of food going to city population too early. This is a high food low hammer city, but you are still strongly determined to get the SH from the beginning. Hmm...

[Lord Parkin]

Ok, just a note for completeness: hammer comparison gives SH roughly equal to settler, but the question was to make the comparison for the build time period. There will also be 7 surplus food/turn when you improve the cows so the comparison should be settler + worker vs building the SH and growing to size 4.

Ok, in that case there's 0-1 turns difference in "building time" - a Settler is 7 turns at size 3, while Stonehenge is 7-8 turns growing to size 4 (depending on overflow). So they're pretty much equivalent; Stonehenge for us as an Industrious civ is about the same investment as a Settler, roughly speaking.

The 4th 1f 2h tile will also cost 2 food, it's not that good.

I think you have a very odd way of evaluating how good tiles are. 1f/2h isn't bad, especially considering the best we can possibly do for a grassland-hill hammer tile until railroads is 1f/3h anyway.

All in all, it's a judgment call. I prefer staying at size 3 with another settler and a worker to get horses or maybe furs if there's more food there. With SH there will be a ~10 turns delay with this plan, for better or for worse. (I'm assuming that you plan to start the SH immediately at size 3 after the gold-pig city settler.)

It's 7 turns delay if the build is after the Settler. Not too bad. You're right that it's a judgment call, but I think it's the right one, especially given that we've already set up a deal specifically to stop luddite taking it.

As for prophets, each prophet generated is pretty much one less GS or GM in the pre-renaissance period.

You only really need one Great Scientist (for the capital Academy). I don't really find Great Merchants that valuable. The thing is, even though the benefits of some other great people are arguably slightly greater overall, timing is far more of an influencing factor. It's far better to get a Great Prophet very early on even if it slightly delays a later great person.

I'm not sure though what's your general strategy, are you planning a military push helped with GS bulbs and GM trade routes after Oxford for unit upgrades?

Can't know for sure about the military strategy until more exploration gets done. The lay of the land will dictate to a large degree who our targets are (or if we even have any). So military-wise I don't know yet. If there's a convenient enemy nearby, teaming up with luddite to take him out would be an option. If luddite's our only neighbour within a reasonable distance, we can probably skip military campaigns for a fair chunk of the game.

Either way though, one thing I'm reasonably certain of at the moment is that a big settler push towards the centre of the map will probably feature in the general strategy at some stage. This is based on the information luddite's relayed so far of lush lands and great resources down there (which we've confirmed so far).

Actually, the city should be at size 5 by the time SH is done for another unimproved tile. (assuming the workers go to pig-gold)

No, pretty sure it was size 4 when Stonehenge finished in most of the sims. But if it manages to get to size 5, that's not a bad thing.

This is the main problem that I see with this plan, a lot of food going to city population too early. This is a high food low hammer city, but you are still strongly determined to get the SH from the beginning. Hmm...

Uh... you're saying the complete opposite of what I'm thinking. This is definitely not a high food city - at least not compared to any typical map. We have two excellent early hammer resources (the plains-hill-forest Deer and the plains-river Cow), so we're actually quite good for early hammers. The main issue for this city will be getting enough food to work the (many!) hammer tiles available. So to me this is a fairly low-food, high potential production capital. Completely the opposite of what you just said. I'd be interested to hear your logic though, if you want to elaborate.