[spoilers] Gaspar and Commodore welcome you to the islands, mon!

[Gaspar]

Did i miss something here? With your temporary infinite science code, why would you concede this on a map it is PERFECT for? You even have the doubler, so failgold doesnt suck.

disclaimer: I haven't looked at Rego's thread lately, so i have no inside info.

Well, its a bigger waste if you miss it, because you wasted hammers on a worthless Aqueduct. Also, given that we've only settled 4 cities right now, it wouldn't even be worth anything. I'm sure T-hawk or novice or someone has specifically figured what the value is in terms of how many cities you need to have it be worth the investment, but I generally go with 8 as a number in my head. By the time we get to 8 cities, I'd think someone would have landed it. But for me, its primarily the completely wasted 67 hammers on an Aqueduct if you fail.

Commodore and I need to find some time and bash out a macro plan for the next 50 turns, then it will be a lot easier to make these decisions intelligently.

[Lewwyn]

Kill, Burn, Pillage.

[oledavy]

Kill, Burn, Pillage.

Seconded

[Ceiliazul]

Also, given that we've only settled 4 cities right now, it wouldn't even be worth anything.

I have always figured it was a smart build if the +1 pop could be whipped off to recover the hammers invested. There's residual value in the engineer points, and also on low-hammer maps it can be worth something to transfer hammers from your production center to your hammerless outlying islands.

But all i was really picking on was the "concede to Rego" gibberish. Trolls concede to nobody!

[Commodore]

I'd concede the point to you, Ceil, except Trolls concede to nobody. :neenernee We're going the smart way to Currency (only an idiot would go for HBR before Currency ), so if the opportunity presents itself, we'll hit that, but it's not a priority. We are about to have seven cities once the productions resolve.

Oh, also got it.

[T-hawk]

Well, its a bigger waste if you miss it, because you wasted hammers on a worthless Aqueduct.

Right... and the workaround for that is to choose ahead of time a city that _will_ benefit from the aqueduct fairly soon even if it misses the HG. There's usually at least one city that's off fresh water with a few food resources which will bump into the health cap around size 10 or so. Zuldazar is actually pretty appropriate for that.

The math for how many cities isn't hard. Using normal speed numbers, it's 100+300 without stone, or 100+150 with stone. 250 hammers is just above 8 cities worth of whipping for 240, yes. It becomes worthwhile some time before that figuring all the other factors: sometimes population has more utility than getting whipped, there's Org Rel and forge multipliers to whipping, and the long-term health and GE points.

It is hard to gauge when to build HG in multiplayer. In SP against AI opponents, you can pretty much always delay it until you have 8+ cities, since the AI doesn't build the aqueduct ahead of time. And you can watch AI city production progress via cloak & dagger analysis, since they don't pull tricks like chopping a wonder entirely in one turn. In multiplayer, presumably somebody will build it as soon as it becomes a net gain for them, and there will be somebody on the map with stone.

[Commodore]

Well, first of all, here's the story of the game in one simple screen. I'm more and more certain that Rego is going for a Spiritual priest economy, which is a beast I am sad to admit I have very little experience with. CoL is more and more the best looking shot at our own religion, by the way.



Also, the game, unaware of any human ban lists, is very, very sarcastic. Man, you're right game, the GLH would be an awesome wonder for this map. I did the boring thing and went settler instead, although another worker wouldn't go amiss soon.



Zuldazar and Zim'Torga are both going to be able to whip settlers next turns, and the galleys will be in range to pick them up then. What about the clams/crab site 4W of Zim'Torga for one of the new beasties?



We see more good sites, but they're either second/third ring,

...or already claimed.


Ah well, our traits rock, at least. Whipped a granary in Echo Isle, overflow will almost finish the lighthouse immediately.

[Commodore]

Got it, played.

[Commodore]

So call me crazy, but I think we need another worker. I queued one up in Zandalar where it's a 3-turn build, feel free to countermand if you want but I think we need the dude before an unsupported settler gets to a tiny island without WB or worker support.

General micro plan next turn, south galley moves 1N, then loads Peon and settler, then off to super-food. North, settler moves into galley, which moves 1W, loads Peon 2, then off to wet wheat.



Tossed EPs at Rego, as we have Yuri's graphs. Here's the lines, if you're into that kinda thing:

[Commodore]

Okay, two turn today whilst RB decided to take a nap. In honor of me the management here decided to host on a single Commodore 64. It did not end well, apparently.

Anyway, first off, Project: Catchup on Cities, is going off very well. Wet Wheat, which needs to be "Yojamba Isle", will be settled and the wheat farmed next turn, finally. Also seen south is the double-seafood spot we need to get before Sian's borders expand once more.



The other city we're making next turn is "someothername", the super-food site. The workboat will hook up clams immediately, and then the camp and second nets are going to be up in a couple more turns. This city will be pure win once we get the happy to actually use it.



What is visible in above shot as well? Why it's a troll first, a real live cottage, only taking fifty-six turns to get down. Economy is going to be mostly cothon-based, apparently. The worker will be picked up next turn and immediately dropped off in Zuldazar.



Cothon-based economies need trade routes, and as Gaspar suggested, Pindicator would be our preferred trading partner if he's not still mad at us. Well, he may still be mad, but he agrees.



I can see why he's somewhat less than threatened. This is after whips, with no tech selected, but still, yikes. Good news is, Currency is due in 8 more turns, which is exactly when our 100% supply of gold runs out. Nice, eh?



The western galley has just enough time to swing by the south of this island before heading back to pick up the capital's settler. This is definitely expansion site primo #1, probably Echo Isles' settler target once they pop up.



The Echo Isles are actually a pretty nice site, and need three more turns of growth before swapping to a settler->two pop whip (picture taken t55). Our awesome traits are huge in getting all these islands up to snuff very quickly.



Das Kapital finished this worker at the end of turn, and can either work on the settler for a 3-turn settler, or make a warrior and grow 1 turn, then make at 3-turn settler with a ton of overflow left (enough to 1-turn a WB, to immediately hook up crabs). Depends if we think we can afford to wait 7 turns to settle the island. Of course, if we make the settlement in 6 turns and then borders pop, it's going to be a pretty sad city anyways.



Brian melting as that little mirco OCD stuff is, we could get meltier f we wanted. I'm fairly sure I could manage to get us to 9 cities and the HG in 9 turns, with the HG built in Zuldazar for a city that wants to get a forge ASAP anyway. We could, actually, manage to still go for our bulbing plan only five turns delayed...if we think Rego or Pindicator won't snag the wonder first. Turn order is a helper, there, but it'll probably be tight.