I'm Exp, markets are cheap, and have been running the slider lower than 50% on average lately. Markets are better than libraries for multiplying commerce in this kinda scenerio!
Last night, I had pretty much decided to attack Furungy when our peace deal expired, but the FSH sure do know how to piss me off. I will attack them instead now. Why? It's because they decided to dump what seems to be a full 100% slider worth of EP on me, presumably to get city visibility Last turn I had clearance on their demos by like over a hundred EP, but now I only barely have them. I don't see what good it will do them, as I can now fork pretty much their entire empire with my 5 and 6 mover Galleons... but now I can't move troops over to Furungy. So sure guys, I will put my troops where you can see them, don't you worry - you'll get a nice close look.
Gawdzak is funneling EP on me again too, although I'll still have his demos for a couple more turns. He finished Chemistry this turn; I can have it in 4, although I'd prefer to wait an extra turn to let a couple libraries and Universities finish first.
Here's what I'm looking to get out of my iceball fillers, by the way:
Not all will even have as bad of tiles as this one; some will even be able to get a solid workshop or two to work, which will get a market. I need to calculate whether its worth it to get a granary or not in some of these really shitty ones... it might ordinarily sound like a no-brainer, but if I'm only growing up to size 7 anyways and have to work an 0/3/0 tile for 15 turns to get it... it might just be better to just go lighthouse->cothon. I guess we'll have to see. My goal is 50 cities by T200, many of which will look just like this.
ok. I have three different types of iceballs planned, a 1h plant in each case:
1.) a fish in bfc + ice/tundra mine, like the above city
2.) a fish in bfc + tundra workshop
3.) a fish in bfc + plains workshop
for simplicity's sake, lets say we want to grow them to size 7 like Greasy Grossman here; lh coasts are worth growing onto, but lh ocean is not.
let's say that borders are expanded with a caste artist right after plant, and that some other city builds our workboat for us. (which won't always be the case, as some fishies are walled off by ice from the main waterway). that means we get 8h between the time of planting and border pop + growing to size 2.
the best case for lh first is probably 1.), for a city exactly like Greasy Grossman, so let's look at that first... putting all the math in spoiler tags.
it will take 13 more turns for the city to get either its first building - either a granary or lh. the city starts out at size 2, 3/24 food in bin, gaining +3fpt and +4hpt. it will grow to size 3 in 7 more turns, at which point it works a coast, and grows at 2fpt for 6 more turns.
so, lets say we get the granary first. we're at size 3 + 12/26. the granary will eventually save us 13+14+15=42 food total, but we have to work that mine for 25 more turns to get the lh and cothon. we get +2fpt for 7 more turns, then +1fpt for 8 more, at which point we'll be size 4, 22/28. when the lh completes, we'll get +4fpt for 10 more turns, which is coincidentally the time we need to grow to size 7. so, our city is "complete" 25 turns after the granary.
if we get the lh first, we get +2fpt immediately, and only need to work that mine for 10 turns. we'll need 14+28+30+32=104 food in total to hit size 7; we get +4fpt for 10 turns, then +6fpt after that, which means it'll take 21 turns to "complete" our city - 3 turns faster than granary first!
now let's take a look at 3.), the fish + plains ws case, which is probably the best scenerio for granary first.
it will take 9 more turns for the city to get either its first building - either a granary or lh. the city starts out at size 2, 3/24 food in bin, gaining +3fpt and +6hpt. it will grow to size 3 in 7 more turns, at which point it works a coast, and grows at 2fpt for 2 more turns. it will have 2 OF hammers once the building is complete.
so, lets say we get the granary first. we're at size 3 + 4/26. the granary will eventually save us 13+14+15=42 food total, same as before, but we only have to work that ws for 16 more turns to get the lh and cothon. thus we get +2fpt for 10 more turns, then 4fpt for 6 more, at which point we grow at 6fpt. it'll now take only take 5 more turns to hit size 7 - 21 turns after we complete our first building. a thought occurs to me that we might be able to do better than this by delaying growth at size 2... i'll check this later.
if we get the lh first, we get +2fpt immediately, bringing us to +4fpt, and only need to work that ws for 6 additional turns before we get +6fpt. we'll need 22+28+30+32=112 food in total to hit size 7, which will take 15 more turns, or, in other words 21 turns after we got our first building - same as granary first!
in both cases, it's pretty clear that if we want size 8 or higher, granary-first wins. so, I think my rule (as I'm not redoing this calculation for every specific iceball I settle) will be that if my projected max-size is 7 or lower, and I get at most 5hpt, then i go lh->cothon, but otherwise I go granary->lh->cothon.
btw, a market in a city like turns out to be only worth it if the city can pull in at least 8hpt, if I want the building to break-even within 20 turns.
Gawdzak's gearin' up... I've seen a few scattered Galleons in other places, too, but nothing else like this concentration of ships.
He doesn't have OB with Gavagai at the moment - I think he's his most likely target. I'd think its like 45% likely the attack target is Gavagai, 35% me, 10% Donovan's northern island, 10% dtay. I need to warn Gavagai somehow... that said, I'd really prefer if Gawdzak hits him instead of me () as I'm still 3 turns from Chemistry, and realistically 5 turns from having a sizeable fleet of Frigates available on my north-eastern coastline. If he started moving against me now, I'd be able to stop reinforcements, but not the initial wave of troops.
Gawdzak's putting heavy EP on me too, enough to make me lose demos, so I put another (ugh) 10% turn of EP onto him to stop city vision. I can still get Chemistry in 3 though it is annoying... I have 2 Universities and 2 libraries finishing this turn. =/
Gawdzak draft 4 times last turn and 4 times this turn, and plako drafted three times this turn. I wonder if I'm not #1 power anymore? Someone else was just 1k soliders behind me when I played my turn, and, from looking at power charts, its not anyone I had demos on, which means it was either Commodore, Plako, or Gawdzak.