I Am America and So Can You! (Kuro/Whosit Spoiler Thread)

[Whosit]

I'm assuming you whipped New York's Worker like my micro plan said? If so, good job on following the plan, and bad job on me because that's going to make this all a bit harder. I didn't plan that Worker micro around additional Wonder construction. :/ Well, I'm still working on the numbers. The upshot is that I miscounted, and New York has 6 forests. 7, actually, enough to 1-shot this if you don't chop that forest between Washington and New York.

EDIT: Alright. There's a couple ways to plan this, but the question becomes: ARE YOU WILLING TO WHIP NEW YORK INTO THE GROUND IN ORDER TO GET HAGIA SOPHIA AS FAST AS POSSIBLE? I believe that we can get it EoT83 (4 turns after Great Library), but it will require some... sacrifice.
Short version:
*Move to immediately whip a Conf. Missionary out of New Jersey to go to New York.
*Config NY for max hammers to get Worker done EoT79.
*Start Forge, maintain Max hammers. 3-pop whip on T82.
*6 chops finish T83, and overflow from whip should be JUST enough to get Hagia Sophia EoT83 if my numbers are close.

New York will be size 3 at the end of this.

[Kuro]

I am not sure if I chopped the forest between Washington and New York or if I chopped any other New York ones, though if so they'd only be completing now so we could just put it into Hagia anyway. What EoT could we have if we didn't whip New York into the ground? Since I am not sure Hagia will be a highly sought after wonder. I do know that I did whip a Worker in New York, though.

[Whosit]

Without really crunching the numbers, if we didn't whip NY, probably get it EoT86. Maybe 87.

[Kuro]

Since New Jersey doesn't matter and New York is only pop 6 anyway, I say we go whole hog and whip that baby to the ground. It's time for some New York Riots, baby!



As you can see here, Commodore has replaced Slavery with Serfdom, sacrificing it for a Hagia effect. I would say 3 New York pop and 1 New Jersey pop is a small price compared to that. You can also see that Mapoleon will get Music in 2T, so sadly that is a bust. It turns out I did chop one forest in New York, but I basically have full overflow on it, so I put it into the Hagia, so we should still be good. Workers everywhere are moving out to help New York with this, except ones necessary elsewhere (Like in Washington or that are too far away to matter). You could even say they're...New York Globetrotters. This does mean that we do not get the Worker from New York but I figured that the overflow was more important since it was a full forest and the most it could contribute anyway was a full forest.

With Music out of the question, I think Civil Service has to be next, because so many of our cities need Irrigation. Finally, we should consider National Wonders: Moai is still unbuilt, Maine, Boston or even New Jersey are all viable places for it. We could also build the Forbidden Palace technically, but I do not feel there's anywhere really worth the hammers. Besides, we are for FREEDOM not...FREEBIDDEN.

[Whosit]

It sounds like you're starting on the Hagia now... but my calculations assumed the city has a Forge to add its production boost. If you chop the forests into the Hagia Sophia now, before we have OR and a Forge in the city, we're not going to make it. Please clarify the actions you have taken so that I can factor it into a more detailed micro plan, thanks!

Also, that image is broken.

Anyway, damn shame about losing Music, but to be honest, I'm not surprised. They had a lead on us. At least they aren't the ones with the MoM, but they ARE the ones we probably want to attack, so that's no good. I mean, we could probably attack Ruff, but he has the Statue of Zeus, so we'd have to be able to make very rapid gains at minimal cost to avoid throwing our cities into anti-war chaos.

Agree about Civil Service as the next target now that Music is off the table. Moai... the thing about that wonder, is that even if you have Stone (which we don't), the cities that it's worth building in can't build it at a decent rate. So I'm not sure. I don't think I'd put it in New Jersey because it's just such a terrible city that nothing is going to make it better. :| Your call if you want it anywhere else, though. Let's be optimists and save the FP for when we've conquered enough of someone else to make it worth it. :P

Not sure about other Nat Wonders at the moment. I'm not sure if we'd want to put the Globe Theatre anywhere. I was thinking about nationalism and drafting, and maybe things will change after CS, but most of our cities are so food poor that I don't think they'd recover from drafting terribly well. Maybe you have another take on that.

So, yeah, I can open the save, but I'll need you to point out the moves you made and then I can do my best to tell you how to get us another Wonder. I do want to point out that Com is Brennus, and is thus Spiritual. He's no slouch, and while that does leave him vulnerable for about 5 turns, what are the chances that anyone else is going to declare war on him during that time? He knows that everyone else is going to be busy repairing the damage that the AI has done, and then he can do a free revolt back to slavery whenever he needs to. I remember some discussion on the merits of Serfdom, and I recall people saying how it pretty much just gets used on advanced starts. This is kinda like that, so it's actually a pretty good move by him, I think. He doesn't have to build a Wonder for it, certainly.

...And even if we started to whip out troops and throw everything at Com, I'd put my money on his ability to defend. Also, we'd be vulnerable to attacks. However, no one is expecting an attack now.... but our military is kind of terrible, so it's not really a reasonable option. I think that about 10 turns from the start, most people are going to be getting on their feet. Ah, though I do hope you've made sure to defend any workers that get near enemy borders.

[Kuro]

"It sounds like you're starting on the Hagia now... but my calculations assumed the city has a Forge to add its production boost. If you chop the forests into the Hagia Sophia now, before we have OR and a Forge in the city, we're not going to make it. Please clarify the actions you have taken so that I can factor it into a more detailed micro plan, thanks!"

I had a Worker chopping a forest before we came up with the idea to build Hagia in it. The chop came in this turn. Because we have 1T until Metal Casting is finished, there were no options to put the forest to still help Hagia, aside from Hagia herself. I put the Forest (+ whipped Worker overflow) into Hagia, then next turn will proceed to begin the Forge as your micro plan said. It's my mistake for chopping the forest the first turn we started before we had any plan. The image is not broken for me, but I will re-upload it anyway and edit it in. All other Workers are just pre-chopping forests for when we execute the one turn.

I actually forgot Commodore is Spiritual, heh. I made sure to defend Workers by putting an Axe etc on them, yes.

All I did this turn was move Workers towards New York's forests, put the New York one chop too early into Hagia, start New Jersey on a Confucian Missionary (to send to New York), started everything on Workers except for Boston (Which is building another Temple to run a 2nd Priest because it finishes in 2T w/ overflow), whipped the Washington item as you instructed with all the chops coming in next turn for a 1t Great Library and had Seattle's worker build a cottage on the non-forested Grassland to give it something to do.

[Whosit]

I see that picture now, cool. Hm, also Vassalage. That's interesting....

Thanks for clearing things up. Just the one forest, cool. I'll load the save this evening to check things out and put together a turn-by-turn. I always forget how Worker/Settler overflow works going into something else. We might end up 2-turning the Wonder now, but as you said before, it's unlikely that anyone else is going to make a play for it.

I'm pretty excited about the Great Library coming in. I'm pretty sure we can't lose it to anyone else, either, because we have Marble.

[Kuro]

Thanks for doing all this micro, by the way, Whosit. You're a lifesaver.

[Whosit]

Hey, how many workers moved onto forests in range of NY this turn? Was it at least 5? I'm gonna do another pass of the numbers, but the overflow you put into the Hagia Sophia already was a lot more than I was expecting. I don't think we need to whip at all. I don't think we even need the Forge (although we probably want it, anyway)! We do need the missionary.

If 5 workers start chopping on turn 79, and they complete on turn 81, as long as you get the Confu spread in that turn, I think you can simply swap to the Hagia Sophia and finish it without having to whip the Forge.

1 forest = 20 base hammers.
+5 hammers for OR
+20 hammers for Marble
Total = 45 hammers

45x5 = 270.
It looks like you've already put 98 hammers towards a 335 hammer project, so add this and you get 368. In fact, I think you could even save one of the forests for later. That would reduce the total to 323, but the natural production of the city is BASE 14, which becomes 31 with modifiers, and that would be enough to complete the wonder that turn.

Soooo.... this could be finished EoT 81. Ha ha ha.... that was easy, right? :P When the next save comes around, I'll take a look at where the workers are to see if any forest is a better candidate to be "saved." I don't think I actually did that much work here, after all, but how does that sound? I think at this point, the Forge would have just 28/80 hammers invested, so that extra chop could go into that, and it could probably be whipped at a reduced cost, or you could just let it finish naturally if you decide to be merciful to the town.

[Whosit]

One more thing, next turn I again strongly suggest focusing EPs on the Inca, because we could possibly get city visibility across most of the empire. We can also investigate their border city, and I saw that it is 14 turns from popping borders (I snapped a pic, might edit it in after a bit). My rough calculations say that completing the Hagia Sophia in NY EoT81 means NY will pop borders at about the same time, and will have more cultural output overall, so that should keep our border in the region safe.