Fully agree on 1) but self-sufficiency without worker labour is the advantage of the baray curving out mostly-developed cities I had meant (you can leave a generic last tile unimproved since it'll get +2f).
There's only one case where the baray edges out any other building, and that's when you can both improve a high-hammer tile at this city (which will repay the baray within reasonable time, and also yield more than e.g. a library would) and will also increase your happy cap -- but only 3-4t from now. Alternatively, it works if you have a forest hill sitting around. In that case, the baray doesn't need to repay the whipped-off citizens (because they would have done nothing) and essentially brings in more *hammers* after taking ~15t to repay them. Thus I believe you could time your Guilds unlock around queueing 2-whip barays compensating for the food loss in a mass transition to workshops, for instance. Other than that, the baray might work as a mediocre safety net around bad midgame micro? Not an attitude to picking that wins games, though.
I agree that it's a bad trade to whip barays for any cost if the citizens could just be working improved tiles instead; you're trading an improved tile for a 2/0/0 that also costs 50h. Also, regardless of whether it refers to barays, I enjoy your argument to keep it simple about extra builds.
It's no problem if you find the Ottomans boring. I got bored of cothons (to Joey's baffled reaction) in PB37 not least because they would have been too obvious
and then crashed to what felt like 20gpt at 0% after the Golden Age. I'd probably never build a hammam until like T160.
Don't worry. If nobody takes it first, we're taking AGG/EXP or CHM/EXP of Rome. Also I was inaccurate about hwach'a because bonus vs melee probably just means they engage archers first
but if they force an enemy to build more archers, they're still supporting these RtR swords since they'll go up against less melee; if the enemy builds more melee instead, there's less archers in the way for the hwach'a. So they can't substitute for a quantitative advantage, but you don't have to be as careful about the siege--sword ratio matching the defending stack's make-up as with regular cats.
There's only one case where the baray edges out any other building, and that's when you can both improve a high-hammer tile at this city (which will repay the baray within reasonable time, and also yield more than e.g. a library would) and will also increase your happy cap -- but only 3-4t from now. Alternatively, it works if you have a forest hill sitting around. In that case, the baray doesn't need to repay the whipped-off citizens (because they would have done nothing) and essentially brings in more *hammers* after taking ~15t to repay them. Thus I believe you could time your Guilds unlock around queueing 2-whip barays compensating for the food loss in a mass transition to workshops, for instance. Other than that, the baray might work as a mediocre safety net around bad midgame micro? Not an attitude to picking that wins games, though.
I agree that it's a bad trade to whip barays for any cost if the citizens could just be working improved tiles instead; you're trading an improved tile for a 2/0/0 that also costs 50h. Also, regardless of whether it refers to barays, I enjoy your argument to keep it simple about extra builds.
It's no problem if you find the Ottomans boring. I got bored of cothons (to Joey's baffled reaction) in PB37 not least because they would have been too obvious
and then crashed to what felt like 20gpt at 0% after the Golden Age. I'd probably never build a hammam until like T160.Don't worry. If nobody takes it first, we're taking AGG/EXP or CHM/EXP of Rome. Also I was inaccurate about hwach'a because bonus vs melee probably just means they engage archers first
but if they force an enemy to build more archers, they're still supporting these RtR swords since they'll go up against less melee; if the enemy builds more melee instead, there's less archers in the way for the hwach'a. So they can't substitute for a quantitative advantage, but you don't have to be as careful about the siege--sword ratio matching the defending stack's make-up as with regular cats.
)