[SPOILERS] scooter's Industrial Revolution

[scooter]

Turn 268

As Sullla already noted, the barbarian city fell.



Let's hope he doesn't feel like killing our explorer. I doubt he will. If he does, I'll seriously consider taking our spare rifles and choking Bombay for fun.



Yeah, I think he'll leave our Explorer alone. To be honest, I'm sort of tempted to move even closer with one of the rifles, but I think they should stay put for now. If he settles somewhere else with his first settler, then I think the race for that forested hill is on. What I don't really want to do is to tip him off that we're thinking about that spot, or else he's that much more likely to go for it first.



Before I get too far into this - we are absolutely certain the Engineer in Steam Engine will pop EoT and not this, right? I seem to remember that the age of the city (or maybe the age of the first GPP) was the tie-breaker, but I don't know for certain. All I know for sure is that Steam Engine always popped first when I play-tested this.

We've defogged all but one tile of the northeast island, so let's take a look at it.





I could have defogged that last tile, but I'd rather not end turn on the coast in case Gaspar's got a boat out.

In any case, my general feeling is still that this island can wait until roughly settler number 4, give or take 1. I'm going to think a little more and propose a rough settling order.



That rifle in the middle is just sort of hanging out for now. It'll take the Galleon a couple turns to get down here anyway. I'm actually thinking about putting the new Grenadier on the Galleon instead (or maybe both). The thought process is that if we come across a barb city via boat, a Grenadier is good enough to kill a warrior OR a rifle, whereas the single rifle is only useful if the city still has warriors in it. It should be noted that this being Prince, we should get a free barbarian combat.

[scooter]

Real quick - REM just triple whipped a settler (I'm assuming) in his capital (6 -> 3), and two other cities of his are at sz6. Yeah so let's just be happy we aren't that guy's neighbor.

Settler Planning

I threw together some screenshots proposing a possible settler order. I'm not married to this at all, in fact I'm already changing my mind about some of these. I basically just threw some signs down and took pictures. But consider this a rough draft or first proposal, and we can work off of it. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the good/bad/ugly of this stab at it. Also, we have tons of time to decide this stuff. It's just on my mind, so I may as well get some thoughts down. I've numbered them in proposed order of settling. The plain "c" signs are TBD.



For the purposes of our discussion, I'm going to assume Donovan's first settler does not go towards us. This is hardly a lock, but I really believe he'll go elsewhere. I have to imagine he's going to be very badly stretched going east so soon after grabbing a barb spot in the far opposite direction - I think he's more likely to want a supporting city over there OR lock down a spot that REM could contest with him. If this proves to be wrong, well we have plenty of time to adjust plans. Going city by city.

1) The only one currently etched in stone.

2) Very strong site previously discussed.

3) The bridge to 2 to ensure it's not overly exposed. It's not an amazing spot, but it's still pretty decent. Optionally, this could be reversed with 6, but this prevents 2 from being too vulnerable.

6) Solid spot that gets pushed a little further down the road purely because it doesn't claim any land. It should probably either be moved to 3rd or delayed even longer, depending on how much we like #3.



4) Locking down a border with pindicator. It's a little exposed, but I don't want to delay this too long and invite Pindicator to settle in our face. Letting him settle this area would be really bad for us and leave our capital really exposed.



Here's the spot suggested earlier. I'm not really sure how much Gaspar will prioritize all this, but with the array of important settling options on the mainland, I suspect the islands will get delayed a bit, especially because people will probably care more about their northeast island than their south island.

(The western "c" should very likely be 1N of where it's placed here.)



Finally, here's two spots that I didn't rank in the top-6 that arguably could be prioritized more. There's a ton of strategic value in that deer/incense spot. If we were ever to attack Donovan, a fort 1N lets us boat Bombaby out of the fog. It basically give us access to another body of water that we wouldn't otherwise have.

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Alright, there's my VERY rough draft. Interested to hear some thoughts and/or alternative plans.

[Sullla]

Dp101, you can work backwards from the "Sabotage Production" and "Revolt City" costs on the espionage menu to tell how much production sits in the box for each city, if you have vision on the center tile. The exact formula is = (Sabotage Production / City Revolt * 650 / 6 ). If I had more time, I'd track how much production was in every enemy city every turn. Instead, I'm keeping an eye on cities that pile up a whole bunch of production, since it usually indicates settlers.

Since scooter posted, Noble/Gaspar have settled their fourth city. It must be pretty close to their capital since they only had two turns of transit time (or they built a really nice road network). I'll guess somewhere west of their capital. Their team joins Donovan and REM at the four city mark, and Dreylin finished a settler with a Universal Suffrage cash-rush and will shortly join them. I'm not thrilled that we're going to be one of the laggards to hit four cities, but I also don't think we wanted to slave our capital back down to size 3 to get our a fast settler. This game will be a nice test case on whether to whip away at the capital for fast settlers versus building up the capital and then building them manually (as we're planning to do). I mean, we might be idiots for all I know here. But I think that most of the forest chops are gone now for the other teams, and we really will be able to do 5 turn settlers once we finish the levee in our capital. Hopefully that won't come too late, after the expansion phase is largely over.

REM deserves special mention, as he triple whipped his capital for his second settler / fifth city this turn. That's the play we were expecting, although we were hoping not quite so soon. Imperialistic is a really good trait for late era starts. As scooter said, we're glad that REM isn't one of our neighbors. Let other teams deal with the headache of Imperialistic settler spam. (I think it's a very strong strategy, and it might well be a winning one. The tradeoff is that REM has to be suffering in economic terms; he doesn't have Serfdom civic, he's been whipping heavily, and his cities are quite small in population. But will that matter if he ends up with double the cities of anyone else?)

On the settling discussion: this is a great topic to bring up, and I think I see things a little different than scooter. We both agree on the red dot (#1) location for the first settler, and that's due to be settled on Turn 275, seven turns from present. After that, a lot will depend on what other teams are doing. I'm not as enamored with the #2 spot that scooter identified for a couple reasons. The first is that it's a clear reach for us, and although I think we could defend it, I also think it would force us to commit more resources than we want to do so. A city there puts us into a military race with Donovan - it would be a very provocative place to settle. I'd rather settle slightly further back and have a less contested border. We don't really want to pick a fight with Donovan, after all. I'd rather avoid a mutually destructive military buildup caused by settling 2 tiles away from his border when most of the map is wide open.

Now the #2 spot is a definitely a strong one, in particular with lots of food. However, it lacks one critical thing: a river. We're investing heavily into an early Steam Power tech via the Great Engineer lightbulb and quite a few turns of using Build Research in our non-capital cities. I don't feel like that's a waste, since the levee will be amazing in our capital (and really good in the #1 spot too), but we could conceivably be building a settler instead of Research in Telegraph. Again, we're kind of building a settler in Telegraph while building Research because we're funneling three forest chops into an eventual settler... but you know what I mean, right? If we're going for early levees, then we should settle cites that can use early levees, and that's how we can help close some of the distance in the expansion race. Hopefully, at least.

That's why I'm really liking the #5 spot on the northern island for our next spot after the #1 location. It might seem strange at first, but I view that location as being enormously important. If we claim that location, Gaspar/Noble have no real ability to settle that island at all. We can run a Caste System Artist specialist via Mercantilism (plus build a cheap theatre) and pop the 100 culture borders without much trouble. Where would they found a city? We'll have cultural control of the whole shebang, plus that would ensure that we could safely found THREE more cities down the road: one in the west by the silks, one south of the crabs, and one down at the southern tip of the island by the silver. The island is also critical for strategic purposes, as control over that island gives us effective control over that entire sea - which we need to avoid enemy teams boating our core. Further down the road, control over that sea could also open up a potential play to boat the Gaspar/Noble core from the south. I think they've chosen a poor leader/civ combo for these settings, and I haven't been terribly impressed with their opening thus far. Obviously this is building castles in air at this point, but that would be a really strong longterm play. And finally, that #5 spot is also on a river, with something like 7 tiles that would benefit from a levee, making it a very powerful spot indeed in the long run.

Seriously, my one great fear is that Gaspar/Noble load up an early settler on a ship and go for that island themselves. Now they're more likely to try to settle their own island to the northeast, but we can't rule it out completely. We need to secure that territory; I think it's more important than just about anywhere else on the map. I don't see how we can ever defend our core if someone else sets up shop on that island, in easy range of boating half a dozen of our cities.

Anyway, we're going to settle the #1 location on Turn 275. After that, our next two settlers will come out at roughly similar times. Telegraph should be finishing a settler just after Turn 280, and although I haven't gotten that far in the sandbox yet, our capital should be producing a settler (post-levee) around Turn 283 or Turn 284. I would propose sending one those settlers to the #5 location on the island, and the other one to either the pindicator border location at #4 or a Donovan border city in the west, depending on how the game is playing out at that point in time. We're also going to be swapping into Caste System more or less permanently as soon as we finish Steam Power tech (thus keeping the worker speed bonus) to juice up our workshops with the production bonus.

Finally, I think we should seriously consider burning our second Great Person on a Golden Age. Again, yes, it would be earlier than we want, but I think having an early front-loaded Golden Age to push us forward to Communism tech and help us keep pace in expansion could be just the ticket we need. As long as we get a fair share of the land vis a vis teams that are slaving their capitals down to size 3 repeatedly, I like our chances long term. And we can use the Golden Age to force out a Great Scientist pretty easily (with Caste System/Pacifism help) for the planned Scientific Method lightbulb. We'll be ages away from another Golden Age anytime soon, but how much do we really care? Our strategy is weak right now, at the beginning of the game while Slavery civic still holds value. Our strategy gets stronger and stronger as the game goes on, because we'll have massive production and long term staying power, rather than the short term expediency of whips. Why not boost ourselves to get us over the early game hump? At the very least, if we would roll a Great Engineer, I think it's a no brainer. The other options (save for a 1000 beaker lightbulb in 20 turns, save for an unspecified future wonder, merge as a super-specialist) all seem like wastes to me.

Well, there's some food for thought. How crazy do I sound?

[Sullla]

Also remembered: don't worry about the Great Person pop, it proceeds in order of the F1 city list. We will spawn a Great Engineer in the capital, I've tested it in our sandbox. And loading up a grenadier in our galleon and going poking around for barb cities (or exposed player cities?!) sounds good to me.

[Kurumi]

Call me crazy aggressive, but I think settling towards Donovan is the right play. You could move the machine gun there, a city on a hill and quick boost to culture for defense should be annoying enough to deal with. I believe that Donovan's neighbours are vary already of him because of the barb city - he painted a huge target on his back. If you don't want to settle at least make it hard for him to do so. Did he pull any of his starting riflemen for that barb city, or did he produce more just for the sake of taking it? I do not see him holding this city without at least 3 rifles of garrison. This will thin his forces out. The barb city is extremely premium. I do not think there is a good way to compete against Donovan bar some farmer's gambit or warfare. When he settles his sixth city, or even stays at 5, he could pump military and still be ahead of everyone else I fear.

I just want to punish him for his sparse settling ;_;

EDIT: I mean, how can Donovan punish us? Arms race, fine - but he is going to be locked on building units anyway. He would have to feel extremely cocky not to build military after that capture. So if he builds army anyway - then the arms race argument against settling on him is moot, if he doesn't build army - then he can't punish us.

[Sullla]

Hmmm, I'm afraid I have to disagree. Capturing a size 2 barb city with no buildings inside does not make Donovan a runaway. He has no settler in production; he just finished a university in his capital. His first natural settler will likely be slower than ours. I see no reason why we need to rush to settle right on his border. Let Donovan and Dreylin focus on each other, now that they border one another.

Remember, most games at RB are lost due to overagression (though certainly not all). I believe time is on our side. Let's avoid a silly brinksmanship game and concentrate on settling the map. Besides, I think the island spot is more strategically important anyway.

[Kurumi]

Hmmm, I'm afraid I have to disagree. Capturing a size 2 barb city with no buildings inside does not make Donovan a runaway. He has no settler in production; he just finished a university in his capital. His first natural settler will likely be slower than ours. I see no reason why we need to rush to settle right on his border. Let Donovan and Dreylin focus on each other, now that they border one another.

Remember, most games at RB are lost due to overagression (though certainly not all). I believe time is on our side. Let's avoid a silly brinksmanship game and concentrate on settling the map. Besides, I think the island spot is more strategically important anyway.

Oooh. I missed that. I really, really missed that. I thought he was going forward with expanding. Touche.

[scooter]

Good stuff all-around and lots of food for thought. I'm still processing here a little bit, but I have some thoughts. I disagree with some stuff and agree with others. Let's try to organize this.

I think you're underselling how much Gaspar would be unhappy with #5 and overselling how much Donovan would be unhappy with #2. I think the reaction would be at about the same level. In fact, I'd go a step further and say #5 is more threatening and stakes off more land than #2 does. If I'm in Donovan's shoes, I'd be disappointed at losing 2, but I'd get over it. Reality is that Pindicator is going to get that same spot to our east, and we aren't fretting over it. But if Dreylin settled that #5 equivalent to our south early on and completely prevented us from having a foothold on that island, I'd be pretty unhappy. So I don't think the worries about sparking an arms race are really valid. #5 is five tiles from Gaspar's capital. #2 is nine tiles away from Donovan's. Now, don't get me wrong, I have no problems annoying a neighbor with a settler. It's a tight toroidal map, so every spot is up for grabs, and you either annoy a neighbor to claim your share of the land, or you annoy nobody and end up with not nearly enough. Neither Donovan nor Gaspar have the ability to do anything about it, so we should definitely just claim what we want and don't worry. Like I mentioned - both of them border REM. I think they'll both have bigger fish to fry than messing with Montezuma.

I admit I'm biased a little bit here for (perhaps unfair) meta reasons. I think Donovan might be in a little over his head here. I think the early academy play is going to end up looking pretty bad, and it's only great luck that's helped him (his Bombay site is way better than what anyone else could have possible settled, and the barbarian of course helps). I have no idea how he's going to get settlers out - he's got no slavery/UniSuffrage, and he seemingly hasn't really prioritized hammer improvements. Now I'm not crazy about Gaspar's situation either, but I'm just a little more wary purely on reputation. He's whipping out settlers as non-IMP which may or may not be worth it (he likely has no choice as non-SPI), but at least he's got an obvious plan in place to get them out. I'm not sure that Donovan does. Same with Dreylin - I've got my doubts on doing this much cash-rushing, but at least he's got an obvious plan to expand, and if he can bulb his way to Kremlin like I'm expecting he'll be fine (unless BGN beats him there first). If I had to bet on first player exiting the game, I'd still put money on Donovan, and that's biasing me towards settling in his direction, because I want to be able to take advantage if he falters going forward and the sharks start to circle.

All that said, the points in particular about getting value from Steam Power and the importance of having the eastern water are well taken. I have to remind myself that combat will be heavily navy-driven, and the eastern water is the only water we definitely cannot afford to lose for that reason. I think you're very likely right that I'm undervaluing that northeast island spot. I'll think about this a little bit more.

[scooter]

One more thing...

Finally, I think we should seriously consider burning our second Great Person on a Golden Age. Again, yes, it would be earlier than we want, but I think having an early front-loaded Golden Age to push us forward to Communism tech and help us keep pace in expansion could be just the ticket we need. As long as we get a fair share of the land vis a vis teams that are slaving their capitals down to size 3 repeatedly, I like our chances long term. And we can use the Golden Age to force out a Great Scientist pretty easily (with Caste System/Pacifism help) for the planned Scientific Method lightbulb. We'll be ages away from another Golden Age anytime soon, but how much do we really care? Our strategy is weak right now, at the beginning of the game while Slavery civic still holds value. Our strategy gets stronger and stronger as the game goes on, because we'll have massive production and long term staying power, rather than the short term expediency of whips. Why not boost ourselves to get us over the early game hump? At the very least, if we would roll a Great Engineer, I think it's a no brainer. The other options (save for a 1000 beaker lightbulb in 20 turns, save for an unspecified future wonder, merge as a super-specialist) all seem like wastes to me.

I'm warming a little bit on a golden age in this case, but I think I'd want to do different things with it than you would, namely use it to spit out a couple more great people.

Basically, I think I disagree with you on how useful a 1k beaker lightbulb is. Now, in this case I agree that saving it for 20T makes it much worse (1k beakers now > 1k beakers later), but I'm thinking of a different bulb - Artist bulbing Communism. Yes, I still like that idea . The main thing here is that great people are very cheap in this setup. Typically at this stage of the game great people cost like 700GPP, but out first one is going to cost just 80GPP. In addition, we've got Pacifism, so it's like generating cheap great people while being Philosophical. Let's take this Engineer for example that we're getting end of turn. He's popping out EoT268, which means we generated him while working 19T of a single Engineer. That means:

* He generated 4.2GPP/turn (3/turn during OR, 6/turn during Pacifism).
* He generated a whopping 52.6 beakers/turn (!!!). That's 1k beakers across 19 turns, and it's not accounting for the Representation beakers.
* He generated an unknown number of future worker turns by speeding up Steam Power by about 8T and an unknown number of hammers by speeding up our capital Levee by about the same amount.

As a simple example, even if generating an artist costs us 240 GPP over 20T (12GPP/turn - 2 artists + Pacifism), that means the artist would be worth around 25 beakers/turn (100/20/2). The point I'm getting at is that a golden age would increase that beakers/turn number because we'd get an additional 100% modifier during that time. Obviously in the case of getting a second Engineer next, we'd still want a scientist first for Scientific Method, but if we settled that northeast island spot, we're going to be forcing Caste artists anyway... It's something to think about.

This is why I like bulbing here a lot more than you, especially at the beginning. It's by far the fastest and most efficient way to get important early techs, like Communism in this case.

[Brian Shanahan]

As the man who proposed site no. 5, I'll clarify that I wasn't suggesting an immediate settle, but the spot as the place I'd settle given what we see of the island. It is clearly the best single spot there, with enough food, hills and river to make a strong production site down the line.

Given what was said in discussion, what I'd look to do is settle red, settle the forest hill that scooter wants and as soon as is possible settle behind it with strong defence to get a line of communication from the core out there if Donovan gets aggressive. Now I'm nowhere near the level of scooter or Sullla so I'd not pull it off as well as they could, and I'm not actually sure its feasible.

But for me it looks the strongest near term play, you pin down a strong border against a player who doesn't look to be all that focused and if pulled off it dictates your western border for a large number of turns, because I think your current strategy will mean you'll have the whip hand over Donovan for a good while (without being strong enough to eliminate him). I'm guessing too that Gaspar will likely want to fill out his continent before planting cities, and any cities he has on that island will either be on the south coast or cowering under the existing cultural borders. Either way you can exploit that situation.