Gillette Turn Discussion

[Old Harry]

Turn 176

The Troll great person onslaught begins - I expect this guy to bulb sci meth or Physics for them. The plan for our caravels is to track what is being built every couple of turns - so the settler that was in White Russian a couple of turns ago is probably on that galleon heading to the tundra island... I'm really looking for stuff that might be heading to SFL and things look good so far on that front.


They have upgraded one of our gifted galleys to a galleon. This one could be bound for another tundra island? Hopefully...


Quama is starting to look very good - I think we'll be best 1-pop whipping the (part-built) work boat next turn, overflowing enough to 3-pop whip the courthouse at size 6 or 7 and just stacking the unhappy faces.


Whipped the universities in Gladius (3 pop), Longsword (4), Machette (4) and Pike (3) which is so painfull, but Occam can get on with Oxford (due eot186). We have some grocers completing in the next few turns so next turn I'll switch on science to get liberalism, then switch it off again when we have more cash-generating power.

Also whipped Urumi's granary. Our score has gone down 60 points this turn

[Cheater Hater]

Things look good--no lighthouse in Quama before the harbor? Use that whip early and often on SFL--we have tons of food on the coast, and we can bear the unhappy since we're still in HR. Speaking of HR, how much is it still needed in the big mainland cities?

[Old Harry]

Turn 177

Nothing happened in the event log this turn. However Trolls settled their 23rd city on the fur-sliver tundra island. We're currently on 28 cities and will settle two more the minute communism is in, so shall we just ask them to conceed?


I cancelled our fur gift to Trolls, and we will get silver and gems on line soon so Hereditary Rule isn't having a huge effect - but it is still needed in Occam. Dirk is marginal, but we could happily run representation otherwise. If we could spare the beakers to research it... Speaking of Occam, at 100% science it's making 432 of our 1046 beakers - with Oxford due to complete in ten turns. :Twirl:


It'll take about 1.5 turns to get Liberalism, if we did Sci Meth now it'd only take three turns, then Communism takes three or four turns. Except that we run out of money half-way through the communism run, so we need to try and put enough beakers into Sci Meth that the great scientist we're due eot182 bulbs it with no overflow. It doesn't really matter if it completes with the bulb or just gets very close as its communism we're after.


I'm not sure what to do with Naginata - it's a bit of a mish-mash - I think we want to grow it on the coast then switch it to production using the workshops once we have state property - barracks and stable or just barracks and start producing catapults and zerks?


On SFL I've categorised the cities for commerce or production and once all the food is improved will build cottages or workshops. Which of these need changing?

Quama can get five workshops and a mine, it whipped the work boat this turn and is going to be +13 on food almost forever. I guess we'll need to run specialists or build settlers here to stop it getting unhappy. I've added a Trading Post ahead of the harbour - we can 3-pop whip the courthouse in two turns, then the rest should be really quick.


Scimitar could whip the courthouse t184, but if we're aiming for Communism t187 that seems a waste, so I've switched it to build a forge. It already has one workshop and can get four more and two mines, the food surplus will be about +6 eventually.


Trident looks like a good hammer location, again the food surplus will be massive, so it could produce settlers or whip heavily (or both).


Urumi looks good for commerce - with the dye and the rivers (although the plains farm is chaining irrigation for the rice, so probably can't be cottaged.) It's building a work boat for Yakuza.


Voulge just recieved a missionary in time to whip the granary next turn. Again a courthouse wouldn't be whippable until t185 so I think a forge next is more useful. Dye and river make this a good commerce spot although it could give the dye to Blunderbus and concentrate on hammers.


Woldo will complete the granary naturally t180, then can whip the forge or courthouse t188. Again Dye and river for cottage cheese.


Xiphos has Dye, Gems and rivers for the ultimate comerce city. Its just a bit slow to start - the new pop will work the gems until a work boat can get here.


Yakuza is most in need of work boats, but is just so far away... It'll be about five turns before the clams are netted and productive. :/ It could get four workshops and three mines for decent production numbers.


Zatoichi I don't know about - but I think we're going to want more production cities so I'm leaning towards workshops in spite of the incense. Any thoughts?


Arquebus will grow onto the clams next turn and can get four workshops and a mine, we could use the coast for commerce but it won't ever produce much of that so I think hammers are the best option...


Blunderbuss is a nailed on commerce city with gems and eight riverside tiles and could steal the dye from Voulge.


So that's six production and five commerce cities. I guess the question is should we bother with the comerce at this point in the game? If we're going to defensive war t200 or offensive war t210 would hammers be more useful? Our GNP at 100% is a little despiriting:

[Old Harry]

A little post-turn note - we put 1331 beakers into liberalism this turn, our base rate is 1056 so our actual rate on a tech that Trolls already know is 1.26.

Our cash reserve is 2405 and will be ~2200 when we finish Lib, that's enough for four turns of 100% science, so not enough for the next two techs.

A great scientist will get us 1500 + 3*180 = 2040 beakers leaving Sci Meth needing 1392 beakers. It's already got 181, so 100% for a turn should get us there or there about. We want Sci Meth to be as near 1392 beakers as possible the turn the great person is due in Foil.

Progress eot177:
liberalism - 1331/2002
Sci Method - 181/3432
Communism - 0/4004

[Cheater Hater]

Hooray for big empires! (even if the micro that comes with them is one of the reasons I don't play as much :/ ) For reference/perspective, how many cities do the other three teams have?

Yes, making Occam the super-duper city it is was the defining part of our early game--though part of that may have just come from that we researched Monarchy super-early, which was probably at least part of why we're behind in tech in general (were you the primary player at the time we did that? I don't remember--on a related note, we should start trying to re-recruit some of our lapsed members if they aren't playing in much right now *cough*scooter*cough*)

So our tech plan for the next couple turns is:
T180: 100% Science, finish Liberalism, put ~500 beakers into Scientific Method
T181: 90/100% Science, put ~900/1000 beakers into Scientific Method
T182: Bulb Scientific Method, start putting beakers into Communism until it finishes (T186/187?)

So after that, what happens? Presumably we'll get the great spy (Trolls don't have Scientific Method yet right?), and save that for the 2-person GA--when is the second GP coming, and can we afford to wait until then to switch into State Property to avoid anarchy? Do we shut off research after Communism until after Oxford completes? What will break-even be after we go into State Property, both during and after the Golden Age? Do we want to change any other civics when we move into State Property--are we going with a Pacifism/Caste System GP push like last time, or do we need to stay in OR (and even Slavery) to continue developing SFL?

Developing Cities:
Naginata: How advanced do you think Trolls' military will be when we attack? If they have Rifles I don't think we can rely much on Knights (and we have Stables somewhere else right?)--our land unit plans will probably be Muskets, Zerks, Cats, and hopefully Grenadiers and/or Cannons, with Rifles and Curiassers/Cavs on the backburner, which means for now Naginata can just build the support buildings then fill in with Catapults and Zerks until we get better units.
Voluge: I like making this a production city--it's close to Trolls meaning that it can get units to the front lines quickly (but more on that in a sec)
Xiphos: Why can't the new pop work the unimproved clams over the unimproved gems? Or are the gems getting mined as we speak?
Zatoshi: I agree with making it a production city--is incense even that good? Granted, I rarely encounter it on non-desert, but it's still only going to be 1/1/6 post-improvement?
Arquebus: Why not go full-food here and make it a GP producer? Other than the 3 food sources, it doesn't seem that good at all :/

With regard to the Commerce vs Production question, the only reason you would completely neglect production is if two conditions hold:
1. We can beat Trolls in the upcoming war without going all the way to Rifles and Cavalry
2. We can cripple Trolls enough and hold enough territory so the game will end after this war
Since I'm not sure about either of those points--certainly the first point, but I don't know if we can hold our mainland territory, SFL, and Trolls' acquired territory without crashing our economy (especially if we don't build economy in SFL), and I believe M3 would be thinking along the same lines and declare whenever our NAP runs out (to say nothing of a culture backdoor by Pirates or something)--we need to keep developing at least some commerce cities in SFL. In addition, production on SFL isn't going to do much in the upcoming war I think--we might get the main infrastructure down around T190-195, which gives us a limited time to ferry units over to the mainland. The main thing SFL will be used for is producing tons of frigates so we can keep our sea advantage, as well as defending SFL (and making it so we don't have to spend production defending SFL that well other than a token defense).

[Old Harry]

Hooray for big empires! (even if the micro that comes with them is one of the reasons I don't play as much :/ ) For reference/perspective, how many cities do the other three teams have?

I'm really enjoying the micro (even if I should have farmed the rice at Scimitar last turn ).

M3 have 13 cities, Pirates have 11, TEAM have 10.

Yes, making Occam the super-duper city it is was the defining part of our early game--though part of that may have just come from that we researched Monarchy super-early, which was probably at least part of why we're behind in tech in general (were you the primary player at the time we did that? I don't remember--on a related note, we should start trying to re-recruit some of our lapsed members if they aren't playing in much right now *cough*scooter*cough*)

I just looked back and it looks like we hadn't got the oracle when I took over. I'm pretty sure the reason we're behind Trolls in tech is down to not knowing how to counter their pyramids/great people/MOM/golden age splurge. I'm still not sure what I'd do about it now!

I think Scooter went and spoiled himself on other threads didn't he? If not I'd love to get some input from someone like him...

So our tech plan for the next couple turns is:
T180: 100% Science, finish Liberalism, put ~500 beakers into Scientific Method
T181: 90/100% Science, put ~900/1000 beakers into Scientific Method
T182: Bulb Scientific Method, start putting beakers into Communism until it finishes (T186/187?)

So after that, what happens? Presumably we'll get the great spy (Trolls don't have Scientific Method yet right?),

Almost - next turn is t178 so our choice is:

Code:

T178: 100% science for 1331 beakers, finish Lib and overflow (671/1.26)*1.2= 639 beakers to make 852/3432 in Sci Meth leaving us with 1802 gold.
T179: 0% science for ~ 32 beakers and 200 gold, Sci Meth = 852/3432, gold=2000
T180: 0% science for ~ 32 beakers and 200 gold, Sci Meth = 884/3432, gold=2200
T181: 0% science for ~ 32 beakers and 200 gold, Sci Meth = 916/3432, gold=2400
T182: 30% science for ~ 342*1.26=444 beakers and -40 gold, Sci Meth = 1360/3432, gold=2360
T183: 100% science for ~ 1300 beakers and -600 gold, bulb for 2040 beakers, Communism = 1300/4004, gold=1760
T184: 100% science for ~ 1300 beakers and -600 gold, Communism = 2600/4004, gold=1160
T185: 100% science for ~ 1300 beakers and -600 gold, Communism = 3900/4004, gold=560

or, because Trolls are 3 turns from scientific method:

Code:

T178: 50% science for 552*1.26= 695 beakers and -200 gold, finish Lib and overflow 26 beakers to make Sci Meth = 207/3432, gold=2202
T179: 0% science for ~ 32 beakers and 200 gold, Sci Meth = 239/3432, gold=2400
T180: 0% science for ~ 32 beakers and 200 gold, Sci Meth = 271/3432, gold=2600
T181: 0% science for ~ 32 beakers and 200 gold, Sci Meth = 303/3432, gold=2800
T182: 80% science for ~ 868*1.26=1094 beakers and -440 gold, Sci Meth = 1396/3432, gold=2360
T183: 100% science for ~ 1300 beakers and -600 gold, bulb for 2040 beakers, Communism = 1300/4004, gold=1760
T184: 100% science for ~ 1300 beakers and -600 gold, Communism = 2600/4004, gold=1160
T185: 100% science for ~ 1300 beakers and -600 gold, Communism = 3900/4004, gold=560

The former is more straightforward but the latter preserves the 0.06% bonus on the overflow into Sci Meth until Trolls complete it. Only worth 32 beakers, but every little helps.

and save that for the 2-person GA--when is the second GP coming, and can we afford to wait until then to switch into State Property to avoid anarchy? Do we shut off research after Communism until after Oxford completes? What will break-even be after we go into State Property, both during and after the Golden Age? Do we want to change any other civics when we move into State Property--are we going with a Pacifism/Caste System GP push like last time, or do we need to stay in OR (and even Slavery) to continue developing SFL?

Both ways if we run some research builds we can get communism EOT185. The Great Person from ITS is due eot184. Unless Trolls snipe Communism from us and get the great spy we can launch the golden age and revolt T186. Then waiting for oxford sounds good to me - I presume another caste/pacifism great people run is in order, perhaps we even stay in caste for the rest of the game as we'll have a lot of workshops up and running by then...

Edit: There is a good chance that Trolls will take Communism, they are 3 turns away from sci meth whilst saving cash, so I guess they will turn research on and get communism around t183. Our main hope is that they are after physics instead for the great scientist. I could have disguised our research this turn by switching back to 0% on Sci Meth, leaving them unaware we're nearly done with Liberalism, but I don't want to engage in that sort of scumbaggery, so they will know that Communism is what we're after (they'd be idiots not to) and I think they'll get there before us. In which case we just have to eat the turn of anarchy and decide what to do with the great person from ITS.

Developing Cities:
Naginata: How advanced do you think Trolls' military will be when we attack? If they have Rifles I don't think we can rely much on Knights (and we have Stables somewhere else right?)--our land unit plans will probably be Muskets, Zerks, Cats, and hopefully Grenadiers and/or Cannons, with Rifles and Curiassers/Cavs on the backburner, which means for now Naginata can just build the support buildings then fill in with Catapults and Zerks until we get better units.

Sounds good.

Voluge: I like making this a production city--it's close to Trolls meaning that it can get units to the front lines quickly (but more on that in a sec)
Xiphos: Why can't the new pop work the unimproved clams over the unimproved gems? Or are the gems getting mined as we speak?

Yeah, the gems should be ready to work next turn.

Zatoshi: I agree with making it a production city--is incense even that good? Granted, I rarely encounter it on non-desert, but it's still only going to be 1/1/6 post-improvement?
Arquebus: Why not go full-food here and make it a GP producer? Other than the 3 food sources, it doesn't seem that good at all :/

Great idea - farms everywhere and have it ready for our next golden age!

With regard to the Commerce vs Production question, the only reason you would completely neglect production is if two conditions hold:
1. We can beat Trolls in the upcoming war without going all the way to Rifles and Cavalry
2. We can cripple Trolls enough and hold enough territory so the game will end after this war
Since I'm not sure about either of those points--certainly the first point, but I don't know if we can hold our mainland territory, SFL, and Trolls' acquired territory without crashing our economy (especially if we don't build economy in SFL), and I believe M3 would be thinking along the same lines and declare whenever our NAP runs out (to say nothing of a culture backdoor by Pirates or something)--we need to keep developing at least some commerce cities in SFL. In addition, production on SFL isn't going to do much in the upcoming war I think--we might get the main infrastructure down around T190-195, which gives us a limited time to ferry units over to the mainland. The main thing SFL will be used for is producing tons of frigates so we can keep our sea advantage, as well as defending SFL (and making it so we don't have to spend production defending SFL that well other than a token defense).

Yeah, SFL for navy seems like the best idea to me. If we can build enough frigates to beat down their coastal cities and remove their tundra island city I'll be happy. I think building Zerks and upgrading to Grenadiers to attack Troll Rifles from the sea might be an effective way of decapitating their boat-building capacity.

Our NAP with M3 is now until t250 and I don't see pirates or TEAM researching Astro any time soon, so our Troll border is our only achillies heel right now - I'll concentrate on that for the next turn report.

Trolls NAP with us is t200, with M3 it's t210. I wonder if there is any way of us getting Trolls to sign a rolling 10-turn cooldown NAP and then cancelling it straight away so M3 and we can both attack t211?

[Old Harry]

Turn 178

I forgot to screenshot it, but Zak asked for the fur that I cancelled last turn - he thinks it was a trade to t200, I replied:


HAK also offered this - I accepted as it's better than letting the bannanas go mouldy.


I spread budhism to Rapier. The courthouse could be whipped t182 - will have to check if the money that would save makes up for not working the gems...


Trolls are about to settle a second tundra island.


And this galleon is coming back from the third. In spite of that they'll have communism in two turns and beat us to the spy. I guess we'll either have to eat the anarchy or use the two great people we're due over the next six turns to launch a golden age and have that speed us to communism rather than the bulbs? I'll turn tech off again next turn and we can think about it.


This is the ETA for our Foil great person.


And this is for ITS (we could work more specialists, but this way it hits 600 gpp the same turn as Foil, which will get the great person due to being earlier in the city screen).


On the Troll border we need to take back this tile - its now on 41%, so not moving fast enough to get back by t200, but by running two artists our borders will pop again on t197 - I know there are complex calculations you can run about how much culture has gone into a tile, but I'm just hoping that getting an extra 20 per turn will quickly get it back for us. Perhaps if we go into Caste System during the proposed golden age we can run more artists to pop it earlier?


Looking at a more strategic level we have three cities that are in imminent danger:
- Jemmy has a tile that can be roaded and it can be walked into by 1-movers. It's on a hill and I hope to take that tile back, but can guarantee nothing
- Epee is vulnerable to 2-movers and is on flat land
- Katana is vulnerable to 2-movers and is on a hill.
Originally I was thinking we'd keep cannons in Epee to hit 1-mover stacks coming at any of the cities, but they can't hit the red-circle tile SE of Katana or anything north of Jemmy. The blue circle could protect Epee and Katana, but would be visible and vulnerable to 2-movers. If we can borrow a big stack of rifles from M3 they could go here, but they would be more usefully deployed inside the three cities. So I think that the pink circle is best for cannons to defend Katana and the southern half of Epee. Meanwhile the green circle defends Jemmy (if we can claim that tile back - if not we might as well give it up as a lost cause), Halbard and the northern half of Epee.


Jemmy, Epee and Katana are going to need a lot of pikes or rifles. Do cavalry ignore walls and castles? If not its probably worth putting castles in each city.

And here are the graphs. Score - we're back where we were before killing all those people to build universities:


GNP


MFG


Food


Power


Demos

[Cheater Hater]

*sigh*--the problem with banning corporations is that it makes Communism the one right choice, even though we clearly need it a lot more than Trolls do

Will the Golden Age get us more beakers per turn than the bulb? Probably, but we won't have early Communism in that case, and it means we won't be boosting Oxford and a developed SFL--when is the third great person coming?

Regardless, we'll need to go into a golden age before the NAP runs out, just to get enough bodies out--if we run the artists in Jemmy then we should be fine.

I'm not sure how much of our troop layouts can be decided before we know how Trolls decides to proceed--if they decide to power through Communism that means they have less gold to power down the Rifling path, and since they're behind on power right now we might have a shot--we'll see how much power they build in their probable upcoming golden age.

What's going on with Troll's sudden MFG spike? Are they building Workers and Settlers in an attempt to colonize SFL? Or are they just that far ahead

[Old Harry]

Yeah, is there anything more Communism than "to each according to his need". And we need that spy.

I don't know on the golden age v bulb, although I presume GA works out better for us. We have a 75% scientist from Foil t182, then a 65% scientist from ITS t184. So if either of them isn't a scientist we can launch the golden age straight away and use it to power through to communism, perhaps we can even get communism in the first couple of turns and revolt twice during the GA... Alternatively we have to wait for ITS to create the next great person, which I think will be about 20 turns...

Banking and economics could be our next techs followed by gunpowder, chemistry and steel? Or should we just cut to the war techs?

The MFG spike is probably because trolls are in yet another golden age although they also built three settlers for the tundra islands.

[Cheater Hater]

I think we need to go the war path after Communism--how much would Banking get us (obviously a lot in BoG, but how much everywhere else?), and how long would it take to research? (and does Economics give us any benefit at all? )

This is the 2-person golden age right? When will it end? I guess that's a little better than them just dominating :/