This Time for Sure: Mardoc reprises the Lanun

[Thoth]

Well - we could go Trade then HBR . I agree we want it, it's just that it appears the magnitude of the benefits from Trade are so huge that having them four turns earlier is enough to pay for the missing prereq bonus, even if we fail to expand beforehand. If we get an offshore city or two founded, then it's positive.

Yeah, I haven't run the math....hence I'm undecided.

I hate throwing away free beakers (from pre-req bonuses) and having access to Horsemen and the Mobility line would be awfully handy.

We're looking at 7/8 turns to Trade if we head Writing/Trade directly.

I don't think we can build the boats we need + Settlers + Deruptus in that time frame. (and we *really* want Deruptus ASAP) which tends to reduce the effect of Trade for us.

Our tech pace will be increasing dramaticly as Mizzenmast's coves come online + Tiller's Cove + netted fish + growth and more tile improvements.

HBR first (after Writing ) will likely only cost 2/3 turns on Trade, and it'll be worth more at that point (with 2 offshore cities which should be just about do-able).

Both paths are good. I remain unconvinced about which one is better.

Remember we'll be losing 1f per farm and 1 health per city when we swap out of Agrarianism, so FT isn't pure gain, there is a tradeoff to be made.

[Mardoc]

Our tech pace will be increasing dramaticly as Mizzenmast's coves come online + Tiller's Cove + netted fish + growth and more tile improvements.

HBR first (after Writing ) will likely only cost 2/3 turns on Trade, and it'll be worth more at that point (with 2 offshore cities which should be just about do-able).

Ah, now this is an angle I hadn't considered. But you've a strong point - I am building an awful lot of cottages and workboats, aren't I? And...it's true, we will be happier keeping Agrarianism while we're still doing wild growth. And we only need to knock probably one turn off the HBR time to make it the better plan anyway.

Ok, I can agree to keep HBR first. Not considering your point, it was only a slight preference for Trade, so it only takes a little bit to tip the balance back to the conventional method.

[Mardoc]

We're getting close to being able to foodhammer again .


In other news...not much. Our current round of warriors will be our last full round of them, that'll put us to 16 warriors/8 cities. After this, we'll have to find other things to grow with, like, oh, Elder Councils, Markets, Temples to the Overlords...there's a lot we could use.

[Thoth]

More than one EC is a waste of hammers. We're hammer constricted, not commerce/beaker constricted.

Markets would be ok, once we tech Festivals.

Bilge and Hold can grow while building Training Yards. Bilge has a limited number of tiles it can work and we're 9/10 turns from being able to draft Axes (with a training yard). Hold will be a very good hammer city (please don't chop *all* the forests, we'll want 3 lumbermills here to supplement the mines) and can build Axes the old-fashioned way.

Our other new cities can grow on warriors, build workers if out of good tiles, build (Cheap Org) lighthouses ect.

I've been mulling over tech/buildgrowth plans for our core....I'll see what I can get done up in terms of tightening some of the tile/growth/production micro.

But I'm currently liking: Finish Brewery in Mainmast/build lighthouse/grow to size 15/build settlers. Send the current WB south to Mizzenmast for it's second cove while Mizzenmast builds either Galley/Lighthouse/Settlers or Lighthouse/Galley/Settlers. Topsail can build the WB for Tiller's Cove and then swap to Worker production at happy cap (if needs be we can dump some hammers into a LH while growing, or possibly a second Galley.)

After looking at the Demographics and thinking a bit, I'm not in much of a hurry to start meeting other people. We're not a runnaway yet, but we're poised to become one. Best if the other players didn't have confirmation that we're first in all the demographic categories other than approval rate and life expectancy for awhile yet.

First pass suggests we can hit Writing/HBR/Trade by ~t83/84 with a settler due from Mainmast around the same time. I haven't looked too closely at Mizzenmast yet, but we should be within a turn or two of another settler there by t84. If there's only a turn or two to go on the settler, I suggest we delay the anarchy until then so that we can spend the anarchy turn in transit.

[Mardoc]

Missed reporting on last night's turn - mostly I was just correcting micro as per Thoth's suggestions. This turn was similar, although of course less needed correcting.

We're starting to use up our happy caps - for two more turns until Dereptus comes in . We should manage to get a couple more workers on the board soon, and then yes, it'll definitely be time to get some galleys and settling parties established.



And...here's why Thoth is afraid to meet other people at the moment:


Yes, that's a 50% lead in GNP, coupled with an 80% lead in Food. We're only 20% ahead on hammers, but of course all our cities are food-optimized at the moment to try to grow.

Err...that is, on the nearest rival for each category. Against the worst - we're talking 4x, 2x, and 5x

Aside from one city in the south to grab the incense, our next few cities will all be offshore. We want at least four of those to provide our intercontinental trade routes for our soon-to-be 4 trade route coastal cities....actually, now that we're seriously considering lighthouses, we ought to aim for 5 offshore cities. 6 if we want to build stables .

Yeah...we're back to that Queen song. We just want all the land, immediately .

Which means we need to start scouting pretty soon. I therefore want to stick a galley into Mainmast's queue, ahead of lighthouse/settlers, so that we can identify a dotmap for the islands before we've got settlers en route .

Aside from that - we're essentially good on warriors, and have our last required workboat in production. A couple more workers, and we'll be good to go on that front as well. It's only a smidgen more before there are some settlers in the queue.

[Thoth]

Scouting Galley sounds good.

Not so sure about the Sage in Mainmast. We'll never produce a GP here so we're better off working a tile (stolen from a satellite city if needed) than a 0f/0h/3c tile (which is what a Sage who will never produce a GP is).

Tight city spacing like we've been doing can be very effective, but you do really have to pay attention to the tile micro every turn.

(if the F1 was from after EOT, then NM. Stupid Governor ;p)

[Mardoc]

Tight city spacing like we've been doing can be very effective, but you do really have to pay attention to the tile micro every turn.

(if the F1 was from after EOT, then NM. Stupid Governor ;p)

Gah! I looked, but I didn't see. Forgot that the governor does specialists too, I can't just check the tiles. Next turn he'll be back in the fields, I promise.

[Thoth]

Gah! I looked, but I didn't see. Forgot that the governor does specialists too, I can't just check the tiles. Next turn he'll be back in the fields, I promise.

It's not the end of the world, but we get more use out of working tiles than a spec who will never produce a GP.

And...here's why Thoth is afraid to meet other people at the moment:

Not so much afraid, as just not in much of a hurry to let people know that we're the ones leading in *every* demographic category. That sort of thing tends to make people nervous.

The other players may well suspect that we're leading in a couple of the demos.....but no point in letting them know the true situation until we're a bit more combat worthy.

[Thoth]

AND FFS STOP BUILDING COTTAGES AROUND POOPDECK!!!

Those are wasted worker turns that could be going into the PH mine and farms on the River grasslands (currently forested).

This will be our GP farm and GP farms have no bloody business working anything other than Farms, Mines and specialists. We have plenty of other cities to produce commerce from. This city needs hammers (for a Library, The NE and a Temple of OO) and food (to support specs and maybe build another worker or two IF we run out of other things to build here).

[Thoth]

Sorry to be so harsh Mardoc, but it's a bit frustrating to see you fritter away an excellent opening through ill considered worker actions.

In the interests of keeping the paint on the wall behind my monitor unblistered, I've done a bit of micro planning for you:


The NW:

The SE:

Poopdeck:

and Mainmast: