Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[novice]

Do you only get 1/3rd of the hammers when whipping wonders? I thought it was one half of the hammers.

[NobleHelium]

Never mind, I'm blind.

[Ranamar]

Diplomatic message from Commodore, amusingly titled, "Terrifying explosive gasbags..."

Hey Seven,
Just a quick note, would you mind moving your airship(s) away from basing in my cities? Party of the peace treaty with Egypt and the Ottomans has a "no third-party scouting" clause, which I'm pretty sure includes allowing third party air scouts to use our cities as forward bases. There is no similar ban on information sharing, so if you need an updated world map, by all means, let's trade.
Cheers,
-Commodore

I know we'll probably need it for full world coverage, but we should do that for him. For one thing, we're definitely not doing it for the map.

[Ranamar]

I'm looking at the turn right now, and I enacted turn 1 of your plan. (Yup; 4 turns... if we just leave it in Bureaucracy.) Oh, and Barad-Dur's governor seems to insist on not working that grass town in favor of an engineer whenever we're building a wonder. Rather than argue, I passed it back to the other city, signposted it, and swiped a desert windmill (also signposted) from Khand, because that governor wasn't using it, either.

Logistically, the turn after we whip the factories, we're going to finish a bunch of units unless we stick buildings in to catch the overflow.

Thus, I'm inclined to suggest we delay whipping them a couple turns so that we finish the factories the same turn we finish the Pentagon. Several of the factories will have finished by then, but I don't consider that a loss, as cities that can build them that quickly don't get much of a gain from whipping there anyway.

Alternately, we could just bite the bullet and apply the engineer on the Pentagon, but we probably should have done that this turn, because it'll finish it with this turn's production.

also, response to commodore's message:

Hi.

I just checked, and I believe we do not have any airships actually based in your cities. If I am in error, please let me know.

Of course, this doesn't mean we don't have a bunch of airships based right next to your borders, but we don't actually need any foreign bases to scout the entire world.

--Ranamar

I suppose that last line was kind of unnecessary, but it was rather tempting.

Edit: and reply...

Hey Ranamar,

Yeah, I figured you had more or less complete coverage anyway, it's just a treaty thing. I spotted one in one of my island cities, I think Xapur. Good luck on your Richard Branson adventures.

-Commodore

Check that next turn, would you, assuming you get it?

[SevenSpirits]

Do you only get 1/3rd of the hammers when whipping wonders? I thought it was one half of the hammers.

It depends on the wonder - each one has its own field for rush penalty. In practice I think national wonders are 1.5x, most world wonders are 2x, and modern wonders are 3x. In any case, Pentagon is definitely 3x, I checked.

[Lewwyn]

:wink2: I'm glad we're just building along. I haven't been putting in any notes of late, but I've been following. Not much for me to do at moment. What's our timeline on possible invasions from our opponents? I know we have some long NAPs, I wonder what the chances are we face a 3v1 when they end? Not that we couldn't handle it.

[SevenSpirits]

Logistically, the turn after we whip the factories, we're going to finish a bunch of units unless we stick buildings in to catch the overflow.

Thus, I'm inclined to suggest we delay whipping them a couple turns so that we finish the factories the same turn we finish the Pentagon. Several of the factories will have finished by then, but I don't consider that a loss, as cities that can build them that quickly don't get much of a gain from whipping there anyway.

I think we should go ahead with the whipping. Right now our cities are horribly bloated since we've been unable to whip for a while. They're working specialists that are actually less productive than not having the citizen at all would be. (e.g. an engineer is -2f, +2h, and the food is about 50% more valuable than the hammers just in terms of hammers, because we have the kremlin. And that's a GOOD specialist.) We can overflow into Marines; most of them won't finish. If they get near finishing pre-pentagon we can temporarily swap to infantry or other builds.

Alternately, we could just bite the bullet and apply the engineer on the Pentagon, but we probably should have done that this turn, because it'll finish it with this turn's production.

Yeah, I thought about it, but I think saving the engineer for the Dam will be best. Getting 50% production in all cities four turns sooner is INSANE.

About Commodore, I did mention I put an airship there in the last turn report (which wasn't even very long). I'm scared to find out how you missed it - did you use shift-enter?

[Ranamar]

About Commodore, I did mention I put an airship there in the last turn report (which wasn't even very long). I'm scared to find out how you missed it - did you use shift-enter?

No, I think I moved it and failed to register where it actually was.

[SevenSpirits]

OK, I looked at last turn's save.

GES started a golden age! That's a tiny bit relevant to the Pentagon thing. I checked his cities, and both Alpine and Stone have finished their builds, luckily. But Ballast Point is still going and went up by a hundred hammers. As it turns out, Ballast Point in a golden age starting slightly behind is only about 30h ahead of the previously-calculated Alpine without the golden age, so I think we should continue with the previously discussed pentagon plan.

[SevenSpirits]

So given your capital micro we can actually complete Pentagon in the same time WITHOUT a second turn in Bureau, as long as we never swap to slavery. It will fiinish EXACTLY! (837h) I think that's worth it, as we lose quite a lot of science/gold by leaving Free Speech.

New civic plan:
Swap to Free speech next turn. No other swaps. No slavery, theo, etc.

Make sure the capital continues to work the same tiles for 176h/turn.