Turn Discussion Thread

[HitAnyKey]

Meant to post while I was at work today, but forgot. When I played the turn this morning, we got a Great Merchant when I ended the turn. That GM should be able to get us Metal Casting (if my checking of the bulb order is accurate). This should allow us to then research Archery, and then move right on to Machinery if we so desire. Or are there any other tech paths that you think we should take?

Next turn when I log in, I'll try to take a couple screenshots to give an update of what it is we are building across the nation.

[TheHumanHydra]

Let me look at the game next time I open up Civ (tonight), then I'll get back to you. GM is good news, though.

[TheHumanHydra]

I sorta feel like Metal Casting is a cheapish tech and bulbing it would be a waste ... though there's nothing good to bulb after it (if I read the CivFanatics Great Person bulb preferences list right, Alphabet is next, which is useless, then Code of Laws, which is cheaper than Metal Casting). Do you think anyone would be willing to let us get a trade mission in? What do you think the pros and cons are of bulbing Metal Casting vs. settling him?

The only change I made was that I deleted the Hindu Monastery you had building in Chicken Coop (no hammers sunk) - it looked like you might have forgotten we're in OR and don't need them to build missionaries. It defaulted to the barracks you had next in the queue; I don't know if you want to switch it straight to a missionary or what.

Looking at the graphs, we're not actually that bad off in power and MfG, even though our garrisons seem weak to me (especially in our easternmost city, whatever we called it, bordering both the Trolls and TEAM). Our worker count is acceptable but should probably be augmented (I see we're doing that). The biggest thing is that we need more cottages; we've hardly any and our GNP is suffering. I see that a good number of our workers are building them; that's good.

I agree with going Metal Casting next, whether we bulb it or not. If we go Machinery after that we're going to need to sneak in Iron Working at some point so we can actually build the crossbows. We might want to consider Code of Laws, though; city maintenance is killing us. Well, not killing, but it's costly, and we need to catch up in GNP. Even the Pirates have caught up to us ...

If you would like me to play any of the turns this week, HAK, I'm pretty available, since it's reading week; I don't know if you'd like a break. If you're happy, though, by all means!

[HitAnyKey]

I had Chicken Coop building the Monastery for two reasons. We need the research boosts that they give us, and we need the extra culture to take back the tiles that the Gillette culture took from us awhile back. I also think it was going to take exactly 3 turns to build the Monastery (and 3 turns to grow in Pop). And after the Monastery/Growing I was going to have that city build another Settler or Worker. But if you want to get out that Barracks first, that's fine.

I'm not sure I consider Metal Casting a cheapish tech. It is one of the more expensive ones that we have available to us in the shorterm and the only one of such that a GM an bulb. And I don't recall the benefits of settling a GM, nor do I really know if it's worth it at this point in time. I think I would almost rather find a time to use him for a Golden Age than settle him.
I don't think I've ever done a trade mission with one, so don't even know what that would do for us. Nor do I think anyone would let us do so anyway. What benefit is it for the other person?

As for playing the turns, anytime you see the turn flip you are welcome to log in to play it. Especially if it happens during the day (which it looks like might happen today).
Though for this one if you do log in today after it becomes our turn, only do moves that are obvious. Don't end the turn yet, because I'd like at least some sort of decision on the GM before we end the turn. Need to figure out what the best benefit of him is.

[TheHumanHydra]

I'm confused; Chicken Coop is nowhere near in cultural conflict with Gillette. If you wanted it for the research boost, that's fine; it just looked like you might have gotten confused (I've done that exact thing before in single-player).

Hmmm, point taken on the relative cost of Metal Casting. Great Merchants give +1 food, +6 gold to the city they're settled in. Could boost our shrine city into mega-commerce-land. Golden Age would certainly be a worthwhile use, but it looks like it'll be a looong time before we get another Great Person, unless we run specialists to speed it up. I'm not sure that would be worthwhile doing anywhere right now, but we could hang on to him for when we feel one of our cities has "capped out". Trade mission gives you a crap-ton of gold, like several hundred or several thousand depending on various factors, but yeah, no one's likely to allow that. This is a difficult decision ... as a long-term thinker, I'm inclined to want to settle him, but you may be right that in the short-term bulbing Metal Casting is the best option. All right, if you haven't changed your mind, let's try that. Could we grab Iron Working quickly after that? We wouldn't want to pin our defensive hopes on crossbowmen and then discover we can't build them, even though I find that unlikely.

All right, I'll partially play the turn if I see it flip this afternoon ... but at that time I may be lodged deep in my own Civ game and unable to see it. But if I do play it, won't do anything with the Great Merchant until I hear from you.

Good discussion we're having!

[HitAnyKey]

I just realized I mixed up which city you were talking about. I thought you were talking about the city in the SE (which I now remember is PigPen). Chicken Coop is our horse city in the NW, so yes that one I had building the monastery for the research boost since that city is working a lot of tiles that have gold out put. So I figured it would be useful for the research boost. That city had just finished making a Missionary, so that wasn't the confusion.

As for the other stuff, I am certainly leaning towards bulbing MC as the best idea. And yeah, we should research Iron Working next. Was starting to think that as well. Plus, wherever our Iron pops up (hopefully next to a city) will give that city added production. May as well get that as soon as possible.

Also, the turn has flipped already. Tasunke has just forgotten to post in the turn thread again. I might log in right now while on my lunch break and play the turn, but if you beat me to it...go ahead.

[HitAnyKey]

Always fun to have a 34 point bump in score over the course of a turn. This was an eventful turn, do to use getting a Great Merchant last turn. After some discussion in chat with THH, it was decided that we should bulb Metal Casting this turn.
So I did that, and then we switched almost every city to building Forges. Only 3 cities were left on their original build, and that's because two of them were finishing something (Worker & Barracks) this turn and the other is our new city that's going to eventually whip out it's Granary. Also turned research back on since we had accumulated some gold, so at the end of the turn got Archery. And next turn we have enough to complete Iron Working in a single turn as well. We'll move on to Code of Laws after that since we will be needing those Courthouses.

[TheHumanHydra]

I played the turn this time (thanks, HAK!). We had decided we would whip forges on a case-by-case basis, basically in cities that would be whipping off hammers tiles and not cities that would be whipping off or growing onto commerce tiles. So:







Did I really only whip three cities? It felt like more. I would dearly have liked to whip more, but as I said, we had agreed not to whip off of commerce tiles, since we really need commerce right now. As you can see, the whipping will produce some nice overflow next turn, which might I suggest we put into markets?

HAK, I wasn't sure what your intentions were with all the unit movements, but I tried to do what seemed to follow most. Note what our scouts revealed:



A Trollese settler heading up near our borders. Uh, looks like the other screenshot didn't take, but the Trolls have a scientist and an artist in their capital for future golden age use.

At the end of the turn, we discovered Iron Working, revealing two sources of iron in our territory:



One is even in Hershel's Farm's BFC! That city is awesome ...

Lastly, our demographics (GNP is only for 50 turns so it's easier to see):









Oh, and I almost forgot some important events!



That's the SoZ city.

[HitAnyKey]

I guess those whips will be ok. I had actually intended to not whip Animal Farm since we've been trying to get it to grow into it's happy max and it was only going to take a few turns to slowbuild the fordge. But that's ok. It should regrow somewhat fast enough.

Based on where their worker is, looks like Trolls are going to settle that city near the Marble on the lake. That's a spot I was expecting them to go to eventually. And it's more close to Gillette than it is to us. So them closing in on the Gillette borders is something I like to see...more contention between the two of them.
They're probably saving their Great Scientist for a tech. I think they actually just got it like last turn. That Artist will be a future Golden Age for sure. And they also get 50% longer Golden Age's. It's gonna really suck for us all when they eventually trigger that golden age.

[HitAnyKey]

So very cool...in just a handful of turns, we've gone gone from 3 or 4 in Mfg & Power to being #1 in both of them. :happy:



PigPen will be making it's settler in a couple turns. I just want to make sure that you agree on my city placement for it directly to the west. And then the city after that, will be the one I have marked as Next City #2. I think that's one of our better backfill cities, which we need to start churning out.