Gillette Turn Discussion

[Old Harry]

Turn 165

Our great person from BOG is a great spy at a chance of 10%, I'll start the GA in a little bit but for now here is a bit more abuse of our agreement to stay out of TEAM territory. This city is empty and that's their only source of copper. They do have two sources of Iron and a horse too so this isn't too worrying for them. Trolls are two turns from Economics, so I think we'll have to give up that great merchant. (They still don't have Astro). I moved the boat out of TEAM land after the picture.


First thing I whipped the forges in Naginata and Oathkeeper (I'm pleased with this one - 120/120 - unfortunately one of the 4 overflow hammers is lost to the forge bonus, but what can you do? )


Ishikawa (the Japanese Robin Hood, apparently executed by being boiled alive) launches our first golden age. Turn 165 is a bit late for that isn't it?


First we revolt to Buddhism. Amazingly we don't have any other religions - Quama is the only natural spread we've had all game.


Next we revolt from Slavery and Paganism (upkeep 94 gpt) to Caste and Pacifism (78 gpt).


But our costs go up due to our large standing army, this is before the revolt:


And after (will the free support increase as we settle new cities?):


Next I set up our specialist cities. ITS produces 100 GPP and loses 5 food per turn. It'll produce a great scientist (96%) eot 169, then its probably about an 80% chance for a scientist eot 178.


Gladius starts from 98 GPPs and will produce it's GP eot 172. I think we want to keep working two mature cottages here - we could work the farms instead, but the great person gets born long before the food box is empty, so I think the 80ish commerce is more use than the extra 14 food.


Foil will get down to two food in the box before working a couple of farms and bumping along at 15 GPPpt after the golden age and producing a 75%-ish scientist eot 188.


Then we have a choice with Occam - we can mine one of the plains hill windmills next turn to get our university eot 175 rather than eot 177 and to get Oxford eot 187 rather than eot 192. And we could mine the other in two turns, which gets us the University eot 176 and Oxford eot 185. That is worth about 150 beakers at break even, and more if we're going binary. But it costs us 40 commerce over the 20 turns and stops growth dead. So mine both hills?


In BOG I want to get the population up as high as possible now so we can work lots of cottages and build commerce and beaker multipliers and eventually Wall St (if the game gets that far).


Smooth Criminal completes the globe in three turns, but then we can't whip or draft because we're in the wrong civics - so how about putting a few hammers into a bunch of units (zerk, pike, longbow, crossbow, knight and catapult) while growing so that it can whip every turn when slavery comes back online?


Dirk completes the Heroic Epic in two turns, at which point we can make galleons or other units, do work boats get the HE bonus? Also, I noticed that the new cities on SFL have trade routes with Occam and Dirk for 4 and 3 gpt, I think Dirk will be worth 4gpt when it gets to size 18 in five turns, so that extra pop is worth as much gpt to us as we have cities on SFL...


The rest of the cities are all looking good too. Although I might need to rename Trident and Scimitar to get the order right again... Where suitable we're building units as the OR building-building bonus won't happen until t173. We want more work boats if possible, any other requests?


Our workforce is hard at it on SFL. The numbers missing from the bottom are 4 spears, 3 pikes, one catapult and our navy. At the moment we haven't got a single military unit on SFL - too busy transferring workers and settlers - have you guys got any thoughts on how we should be garrisonning those cities and what new units we need to build? Zerks to be upgraded to amphibious rifles or longbows for putting in hill-cites?


And whilst I'm doing the biggest report ever this is how close we are to winning:


And this is our power:


So those questions are
1 - One mine or two in Occam?
2 - Which units to build in Smooth Criminal?
3 - Any other units or buildings you think we're lacking generally?
4 - How should we be garrisoning our cities on SFL?

[Cheater Hater]

I think we're fine mining the windmills, but only if we windmill them back in a reasonable timeframe, and I don't know how many worker turns we can spare at this point--how many workers are going to be left on the mainland by the time we've transferred so many to SFL?

I think that's a fine plan with regards to units--I'd build the units we're going to garrison SFL with (so longbows mostly), unless we're going to accelerate the war timeline (more on that in a bit )

So I don't see any settlers in the current queues--how many settlers are currently in transit to SFL, just to Z (the c? we discussed earlier)?

I have no idea how to garrison them--it depends on how rapidly the other teams can reach Astronomy, but we obviously can't just leave all the cities empty until then--is a trivial defense of a longbow or two the same thing? How much of our HR cheap garrison is still needed for our big cities, and how much could be used to fill inland cities?

Wow, Trolls' power is really dropping--our NAP with them is until T190 right? Have we heard any updates on the diplo front from M3 about resuming our attack? If the Trolls/TEAM war continues for another 15 turns or so at least, we could start our buildup right after the golden age with our mainland cities, while we continue the infrastructure buildup in SFL. Maybe it's time to start asking how things are going with TEAM too (now that they hopefully can play the turns regularly).

[Old Harry]

I think we're fine mining the windmills, but only if we windmill them back in a reasonable timeframe, and I don't know how many worker turns we can spare at this point--how many workers are going to be left on the mainland by the time we've transferred so many to SFL?

Yep, agreed, I'll try to micro it so they are changed back to windmills as Oxford completes. I don't think we need many workers on the mainland right now, there are a few cottages being built around Pike, but other than that every tile is productively improved. When we get state property and chemistry we could probably change a bunch of farms into workshops, and at railroad we need to get our rail network set up quick but right now I think improving SFL is the only productive thing for them to do.

So I don't see any settlers in the current queues--how many settlers are currently in transit to SFL, just to Z (the c? we discussed earlier)?

We have two in place to settle next turn, then five more in transit should take us up to Z - I think there are a couple more in the queues after current worker builds, to fill the last gap at the SE of the island. After that I wonder if we can get settlers whipped out of the more developed cities on the island itself?

I have no idea how to garrison them--it depends on how rapidly the other teams can reach Astronomy, but we obviously can't just leave all the cities empty until then--is a trivial defense of a longbow or two the same thing? How much of our HR cheap garrison is still needed for our big cities, and how much could be used to fill inland cities?

At some point we want to switch to Nationhood and draft some units (rifles or muskets?) so they can be used in the vulnerable coastal cities. Our happy cap is plenty at the moment so we could send over a bunch of archers and warriors too for the safer cities.

Wow, Trolls' power is really dropping--our NAP with them is until T190 right? Have we heard any updates on the diplo front from M3 about resuming our attack? If the Trolls/TEAM war continues for another 15 turns or so at least, we could start our buildup right after the golden age with our mainland cities, while we continue the infrastructure buildup in SFL. Maybe it's time to start asking how things are going with TEAM too (now that they hopefully can play the turns regularly).

The Troll NAP is to t200, the M3 NAP is to t190. I'm imagining we have two golden ages - this one lasts to t173ish and at the end of it we switch to OR and spend the next few turns building the infrastructure that has been lacking in our mainland cities (although SC, Dirk and a couple of others should just pump units), the next one probably starts t187 and we switch into Nationhood, State Property and perhaps Vassalage (unless we want to get some more great people for more bulbs or a 3-person golden age?) and start seriously drafting and building units then. That only gives us a 13 turn build-up against Trolls, and we'd need to extend the NAP with M3, but drafting and the GA hammer bonus should get us a lot of units in those 13 turns...

[Old Harry]

I thought I'd check if all our planned new cities can get ten culture in by settling before eot169 and running a caste artist t169, t170, t171 before we swap back to slavery t172.

Based on current timings I've re-named a couple of sites and I also swapped over Scimitar and Trident to satisfy my alphabetical order OCD. Sorry if that's confusing, this is the latest dotmap with the correct letters:


Urumi and Voulge will be settled t166

Woldo is t168 - we need to decide if we give up the banana for the plains hill 1N here.

Xiphos, Yakuza, Zepplin and AA will be settled t169

Katana and Jemmy can both produce settlers eot167 that can (I think) be galleon-chained to settle AB t171 and AC t172 - so these cities need a missionary. Alternatively we could have the settlers sitting there and not build the cities until we think they are needed - worker labour is at a premium and we don't want to crash the economy so we can't get to communism...

[Cheater Hater]

That makes sense--if the new cities aren't paying for themselves, we can't make them grow, and there's no threat on SFL (barbs are off, right?), we don't need to settle them--and it gives us more time to find A* names

[Old Harry]

Looks like Q isn't going to be the magical solution we hoped for...

[Old Harry]

Turn 166

Not much happened over the interturn, we've just uncovered a bit more TEAM territory. The TEAM - Troll war goes on with war weariness of 284 and 355 respectively (wish I'd thought to track this earlier) and Trolls haven't got Astro yet - they are two turns from Economics, with 207 gold in the bank.


Settling Urumi cost us another 13gpt. Its working an artist to pop the borders and will whip the granary once we are back in slavery.


Voulge on the other hand only cost 7gpt to settle.


Next turn we settle Woldo - I'm inclined to putting it on the W? hill, then improving the dye while the artist pops the borders. Let me know if you disagree. We have work boats being built in Naginata, Gladius and Machette which will net the fish you can see on our coast and the clams over this side of the water.

I've worked out when we need these seafood to be ready, if anything I think the work boats are going to get there early.

Also did a bit of dotmapping of the interior, its very tight and will need to wait until we have state property, any thoughts? Cottages, watermills or Workshops on the floodplains?


After the turn rolled Dirk finished the Heroic Epic (I've cancelled our marble deal with M3) I want to try and 1-turn units here from now on. If we build a longbow next turn we can get a galleon out the turn after. Then we can alternate more longbows and work boats (which surprisingly seem to get the production bonus) with galleons or Zerks, Pikes or Knights. I'd probably go for Pikes just now unless you want something else?

[Cheater Hater]

You can track WW of other civs? How?

Hopefully Trolls will have to take another prolonged research break after Economics--have they gotten another great person to trigger the 2-person GA, or will they have to send it on a trade mission?

I'm not picky on Woldo--the main reason for the original spot is to pick up the banana, but it already has two food and the plains hill helps a lot (the banana could then be taken by an inland city, right?)

No idea on inland cities--the improvements we choose will probably be based on how far behind we are on tech at that point, as well as if we're closer to Democracy, Replacable Parts, or Chemistry at that point--if we wait until State Property, that's certainly a point against cottages

Why pikes? Did Trolls build a bunch of Knights while I wasn't looking? I'd go with Knights if we're still planning on attacking around T200.

[Old Harry]

Turn 167

The turn comes back within 36 hours! Amazing! This is how you can check war weariness between opponents, I don't know how you figure out your own though.




Trolls seem to be sandbagging economics - they're going for gunpowder now. In other news Pirates are the first to get Theology, I cancelled our marble deal with M3 and we got a crappy judaism spread in Dirk (which still doesn't have Buddhism - BOG needs to build some more missionaries I guess).


I'll go for the benefit of settling woldo on the plains hill, if we work an artist straight away then we need to net the clams by t171. I think I want to road the dye then move over to improve the rice before coming back to finish off the dye (couldn't move the workers straight onto the rice from the galleon)..


For AA and Zepplin we only have one worker to begin with - should he go to the banana (9 turns to improve for 5 food) or the rice (5 turns to improve for 4 food) whilst artists pop their borders. I'm inclined towards the banana for AA as Zepplin is closer to the mainland and can get reinforcements quicker, but if you can prove with maths that the rice is better let me know!


Xiphos and Yakuza similarly will spend three turns popping borders, we could be getting work boats chopped from Rapier to net these clams, but perhaps those forests will be better going into a forge? I think the rice is better to improve first as then we can get the gems hooked up for extra happy and commerce.


Occam finishes the Observatory and grows this turn, then we can turn research back on next turn to finish paper. I'm going to mine the second windmill next turn as that doesn't affect the eta for the uni or for oxford. We may need to whip universities in other cities to start oxford on t176 and so finish it t185. All this is dependent on finishing education the turn the great scientist is born in ITS, so should we try and put in the number of beakers it'll take to top up the lightbulb on the turn before?


BOG would need to 2-pop whip the uni which I don't much like, but we probably have to take it.


Dirk can build up overflow on three longbows over the next three turns to get a good head start on the university and complete it in plenty of time. I was thinking pikes because they'll be useful for a long time, but so will longbows...


Foil could continue building the market, but it's just not a commerce city, so I'm going to put it on wealth instead. The great person is out t189 I think...


Gladius could build a university if we abandon the work boat - it hasn't got a library yet


It would make sense for ITS to have a uni, but it'd need to whip a lot of pop to do it, so I don't think we want that.


Katana could get a uni, but wouldn't get much benefit from it.


Longsword can whip one for 3 pop and gets a bit of benefit.


Machette should get a library and a uni - it can 1-pop whip the library, then 4-pop whip the uni two turns later.


Pike can just about whip a university in time, but it needs budhism if that's going to happen. Where to get the missionary from? I've switched BOG on to it from the grocer.


So that's Universities in six of Occam, BOG, Dirk, Gladius, Katana, Longsword, Machette and Pike. Any thoughts?

Graphs

[Cheater Hater]

What does that WW number mean? How many points equals one unhappy?

On one hand, Gunpowder is not Astronomy--but on the other, maybe this wasn't an Economics beeline, but instead a Rifling beeline?

Could we afford to build a monastery somewhere other than BoG before Scientific Method? Also, we'll be able to build Missionaries anywhere when we switch to OR in a couple turns (just don't forget to research Monotheism )

Which city is getting the clams long-term: Zepplin or AA? I think it's Zepplin (2 and 2 vs 3 and 1), which means I agree with the AA banana I think

How much production is Rapier going to be doing? Getting the food on these cities is crucial (though we have a grace period since all our cities are using artists to pop borders for the first couple turns)

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong, but it looks like we're going to pop the ITS scientist a turn before Paper (even if we build research to make Paper 4 turns, the ITS GS looks like it's 3 turns at first glance), so it doesn't look like we'll bulb Education as soon as we get the scientist regardless.

2-pop whipping BOG shouldn't hurt that much, since we'll be whipping 2 1-food tiles (BOG will grow onto a mine before we whip it looks like, and we'll whip that and the plains cottage, the latter quickly growing back)

Has Dirk grown enough that we want to turn the river farm into a cottage yet, or do we want to keep it there for other reasons (Great People producing?)

Why is ITS building a theater? Globe has already been built, right? Am I missing something? It could probably slow-build a University after the courthouse, but it certainly shouldn't count for the quick Oxford

Wow, Machette is building surprisingly fast for a fishing village :o

University layout seems fine--I haven't commented much on the micro, since you presumably have a much better handle on that

What the heck's going on with Pirates? M3 could sneeze them off the map at this point--are they really researching Theology just for Theocracy? Why not go into Vassalage for their Grenadiers (which they apparently they aren't building any of, considering their power graph), or do they not even have Feudalism yet?