[SPOILERS] Margarita and the Lurkers

[Catwalk]

2. Team Dinosaurs: Whiteye / Raptorous - Darius of England - dinosaurs.team [at] gmail.com
Info: South west of us, seems weak

* Either we will all fight India (Dinosaurs NAP with them expires T135 and Rome was also interested in being part of it, although communication with Rome is very slow)
OR
* We would fight India and they would fight Rome, also no reason for either of us to rish 2-front war
* They will not settle or capture barbarian or Classical Hero's cities beyond NS line going more or less through our capitol
* We won't settle the silver between us

Lol, did you notice that DT has already captured that barbarian city? Isn't that violation of our deal?



(After clicking this message, game centers map on this barbarian city!)

Make sure to call him out on this, be very factual at first and ask him to confirm that such a deal was in place. Make sure not to make any premature threats, just let him know you're keeping an eye on him.

[Catwalk]

So what are your proposals espinage/techonology cooperation with Yuufo? What should be our starting position? Gold? Btw, what are the regular "widely accepted" prices for units? Equivalent of their hammer production cost in gold? In other words, how much should I will be willing to pay for Fast Worker (60 hammers)? Or what price should I consider "good" for our spy unit (40 hammers)? One to one ratio hammers to gold?

A hammer is usually worth more than one gold. I'd be happy to pay 75 gold for a fast worker. Try to sell your spies for 80 gold a piece, going no lower than 60.

I suggest starting with a 10t NAP with a provision that you will not steal techs during said NAP without permission. It only lasts 10t, we're free to steal afterwards (and he has nothing now or in the foreseeable future). Try to get him to say what he thinks are fair prices for various techs, such as Monarchy. 100 gold is probably a high price to pay, if he wants you to make an offer start with 40 gold and point out that it's pure profit for him on a tech that's valuable to him as well.

[B4ndit]

OK. Yuufo confirmed NAP until t140.

[Catwalk]

Update your thread B4ndit

[B4ndit]

Small update today, hopefully there will be bigger tomorrow or the day after tomorrow Today I'm too tired with all the math and calculations which I have done today.

We are developing friendly relations with both suttree (I have undergoing discussion about co-operate spionage with them, if that won't work out, I hope at least for some benchmark prices for stealing a technology). Same goes to Yuufo, I hope that he is negotiating in good intentions and we will get long term NAP in next couple of turns. If not... in few turns Maceman spam

I have digged out from Astrerix's diplomatic correspondence, that Barbarian city Cherokee has been razed by England. England also have just settled deer location to our south:

So "Settle if allowed" is not an option anymore We can go for "very good city" or for "frontier city".

Unfortunately for us, DMOC is negotiating long term NAP (until t160-170) with Yuufo Theirs blood bath couldn't harm us... I'm still hoping for long term NAP with Yuufo and peaceful cooperation with him.

Stay tuned for next report with construction plans/progresses

[Catwalk]

I would keep pursing good relations with Yuufo, including deals for buying fast workers and technology. You don't need to be greedy there IMO, part of those deals is making him more willing to sign a long NAP. You can easily have run away with the game by the time those NAPs expire, GLH is huge and you're Financial.

[B4ndit]

It is turn 124 and The Great Lightouse is ours Bumped our gold output by ~40 gold per turn. Since my takeover we had played just 3 turns. On t121 I have whipped (for 2 population as i remember) lighthouse 2 pop, t122 switched to TGL and on t123 we made a difficult decision to whip TGL for 6 () population. But we made it. Basically we had three options:

TGL will be done:

• in 6 turns WITHOUT whipping/chopping.
  
• in 3 (or 4) turns WITH two (or one) chopped forests. Two forests chop would give 107 hammers (30 * 1.25 buddism * 1.5 bureaucracy * 2 forests)
  
• WITH whip 6 pop but WITHOUT chopping it will be done this turn
  

We were thinking about whipping (t124) or chopping (t126). Because of the time needed for chopping we didn't have an option to combine one chop + smaller whip So we evaluated whipping effects on our capital:

After 6pop chop our capital would have:
- 12 food surplus
- 4 hammers of base production (sic!), compared to current 15
- 33 base commerce, compared to the current 37

so basically our production would suffer a great hit, but with such food surplus I wouldn't be so worried about it. Pop recover speed:

after whip we will have 22 food from granary,
pop 7 in 1 turn after whip
pop 8 in 3 turns after whip
pop 9 in 4 turns after whip
pop 10 in 6 turns after whip
...
pop 12 (full recovery) in 11 turns after whip

and estimation of our profits from TGL:

with assumptions:
- new trade routes will give us on average same income as the existing

we will get additional:
- 37 RAW commerce per turn
with 50% science slider (I'm taking in to the account existing libraries and marketplaces):
- 23.125 additional science per turn
- 20.75 additional gold per turn

with new trade routes giving us ALWAYS ONLY 2 gold we get:
- 32 RAW commerce
- 19.5 science vs 17.5 gold at 50% slider

So here we are

[Catwalk]

Well done! This bodes well for the future, you just won a big economic advantage that is going to last you a long time. We can afford to plant a bunch of filler cities now, as long as they're coastal. I suggest that all cities get busy building either workers or settlers unless they need to grow badly or need a granary. Just about everything else should be lower priority.

[B4ndit]

In 2 turns I will have a net settler which I'm planning to use as a benchmark: how much new cities will cost me? Hopefully TGL will re compensate higher maintenance costs and I indeed will be able to spam new cities quickly. However economy is barely balanced at 40% science slider and I don't have much prospects in the closest future to improve this situation (beside growing pop in cities and working more tiles). My higher production cities will be switching to maces production shortly and I want to produce at least 10 medieval units (maces/crossbows) ASAP. One city will do it next turn with more following in couple of turns. Why not just right now? I want to have both barracks AND forge before switching to military units production.

So right now i have:
- smaller cities growing and building "the essentials" (granaries/lighthouses)
- one medium production city market
- three highest production cities going/finishing path forge -> barracks -> military units
- one city finishing settler
- two hopefully high production cities in 10+ turns building forges. After forge they will go (depending on the development on the border Yuufo) either economic path market/courthouse/(maybe settlers if planting new city will workout well) or military path

That leave us with the Capital and Temple of Artemis (I can get it in 5 to 13 turns depending on chopping. 8 turns with only one forest chop). After calculating it, regardless that it is generally speaking crappy wonder, it should pay of for me. With TGL and bureaucracy it will give me 4 base commerce from 4 trade routes (each trade route should go from 3 gold to 4 gold) + 1 gold from free priest * 1.5 from bureaucracy * 1.25 market/library = 8.75 gpt + 1 hammer from free priest + 2 great merchant points + 3 great prophet points (from priest). And that for something equivalent of 3.5 macemans (in terms of production time). Not bad In a comparison to for example building courthouse in my highest maintenance city that would save me only 4.5 gpt for 1.5 maceman.

Where to place next city? Exposed on far south between DT and classical_hero? Or on the Northern coast (Moai?)

[Catwalk]

I agree that Temple of Artemis is an okay build. I like the merchant points, trade missions are very valuable.

I strongly disagree with building military at this point. TGL is in play, your borders are 100% secure and you have room for expansion. Don't worry about income dropping temporarily, you will catch up in no time and be set for a major long-term advantage. Now is the best time possible to fill out your remaining space, your economy can easily bear it. What do you want military for? Yuufo is willing to NAP you without them.

In summary, I would build workers and settlers in all cities that don't need imminent growth. Production cities are particularly good for this, as they only lose hammers (rather than food) on them. I would not prioritize forges or markets at all at this point.

Make sure to plan your dotmap around coastal cities, obviously. One strategic city in the south if needed, especially the one with a bunch of resources by it.