Gillette Turn Discussion

[Old Harry]

Turn 179

This turn we strike a tiny blow for fur freedom from Trolls.


However their new island cities won't prevent them getting communism this turn. And they got another great person. The good news is that they finished SP, giving us 145 fail gold in Longsword (next turn? If we put some more hammers into it this turn does that number go up?)


I think a bank in BOG gets us about 15 gpt at break even. Economics doesn't do anything for us, but it lets us get corporation for +1 trade route which will be worth ~70gpt...

I've lost track of the Troll golden ages - they had the Taj one when we attacked them, I think they had another before and I don't think they had one since, so this is their 2-man golden age. It should finish t182.

Not a lot else to report - is there anything you need catching up on? Power:


Demos:

[Cheater Hater]

Really, they found time to finish Paya along with everything else? Can you tell if they brought workers along with the settlers to the island cities?

What is everything building right now? I believe the first wave of Universities finished and Occam is building Oxford, and I know SFL is building Granaries, Forges, and Courthouses, but what is the rest of the mainland building?

Really, Trolls even passed us in land area with those island cities? Granted, if we settle the two cities we're waiting on we'd pass them again, but that's still not a good sign when our extra land is the main reason we have a chance

How many workers have we moved over to SFL? What cities are they focusing on?

Corporation is an expensive tech I'm not sure we can afford to research while Trolls are building up
I noticed Pirates are going to finish Banking next turn--could we finish it in a single turn without significant deficit research as a result? How long would it take to build the Bank in BoG, and when could we slot it into Occam's schedule--right after Oxford, or is there something else we want there next?

[Old Harry]

Turn 180

Aaaaaaand we're back. Trolls finished communism just to spite us - they are still in mercantilism - and are 1-turning gunpowder. The cash from Paya will come in handy though. Trolls had two workers on each island that I saw.


Here is the overview of all the cities - in our commerce cities where there are commerce buildings to be built I'm doing it, if not I'm building research buildings (I'm unsure about the courthouse or a Uni in ITS - both have a few hammers in and will take forever to finish). Elsewhere I'm building cats and Longbows, along with Zerks (although not this turn) and missionaries (eight more needed). All the SFL cities are starting to grow quickly. Quama is now only paying 7gpt maintenance, while Trident is up to 20gpt (a net loss of 5 even at 0% science). I'll whip the courthouse in trident in two turns.


Banking would cost us 350 gold to finish this turn, but in BoG it'll take 12 turns to build a bank and Occam can't build one for another seven, so I think it needs to wait until after Communism, especially if we are using the great people to launch a GA instead of for bulbs (are you happy to do that?) as we'll need all the cash we have to power through. At that point we want gunpowder, chemistry, steel ASAP, so perhaps we can't even afford banking then?

This is where the workers are - 24 of 25 are on SFL. On the east coast they are all spread out while on the west there are four on top of each other. I'm just about staying ahead of the population size, thanks to the whip, but chopping jungle for a workshop is 10 worker turns, so we can only complete 2.5 per turn...


Checking up on Trolls again there is a settler and galleon here, if they want to settle the eastern peninsula of SFL they can get a crappy spot t185 or a good one t186. I'll have Katana whip a settler next turn that can be in place to block the settlement by t184. If they are going to go to the south of SFL and force us to settle Carbine or Desert Eagle they can get there around t185-6, depending where they want to go. I'll try to track the galleon, but I don't know how easy that'll be...


Demos:


Power:

[Cheater Hater]

Don't forget, Trolls can't actually change into State Property until next turn if they researched it EOT this turn

So, for Banking, when you're saying "cost 350 gold" do you mean cost from break-even or cost from 0% science?

Did you catch any military units going into that galleon? I'm assuming they aren't going to load that archer as the only defense for a mainland SFL city (as we could probably capture that with our skeleton force currently over there ), so that would delay the settler more--keep an eye on it

How much unimproved land is there on the mainland? What is the one worker left is?

Builds look good--how much good are the Wealth builds in Foil and Halberd doing?

[Old Harry]

Don't forget, Trolls can't actually change into State Property until next turn if they researched it EOT this turn

So, for Banking, when you're saying "cost 350 gold" do you mean cost from break-even or cost from 0% science?

at about 70 or 80% to 1-turn it we pay 350 gold.

Did you catch any military units going into that galleon? I'm assuming they aren't going to load that archer as the only defense for a mainland SFL city (as we could probably capture that with our skeleton force currently over there ), so that would delay the settler more--keep an eye on it

I think they're confident we won't break our NAP, given we have no defense against them at all, so landing the settler might be a cheeky attempt at provocation. What I'd like to do is wait until they land him and then settle the city, leaving them with nowhere to go...

How much unimproved land is there on the mainland? What is the one worker left is?

He's building a cottage for Pike and Oathkeeper to share, then he'll make a workshop for Katana, before windmilling the mines in Occam. We could do with another worker on the west coast to change Dirks farms into cottages now that we're size 20. Other than that I'm pretty happy with our land use. Probably not enough workshops though.

Builds look good--how much good are the Wealth builds in Foil and Halberd doing?

Approximately 5 gpt. Foil is producing the great person and Halberd is just growing, so they make very few hammers. Could do with some workshops for Halberd actually...

Looking forward to playing you in PB13 by the way, sounds like you've got the ideal team mate - and just imagine a turn pace of better than one per day!

[Cheater Hater]

Yeah, I just officially confirmed I'm with Bacchus--though we'll see if the turn pace is better than this game (PB8 wasn't exactly burning through the turns once we got past the early game, and with so many players we'll probably need a lot more reloads). It'll be interesting how I'll do being involved with a game from the start, instead of taking over many turns in.

Getting back to this game, things look fine--could you spare a worker build on the mainland somewhere?

[Old Harry]

Probably need to have a clear rule about the kind of stuff that deserves a re-load. 18 players does sound like a lot!

Good idea, I'll slot a worker in over on the west coast somewhere (perhaps Dirk).

[Old Harry]

Turn 181

Trolls adopt state property as you predicted. On the first turn of a war a galleon sitting on this staging tile can hit all three of the nearest coastal cities.


I didn't see where the galleon went - its probably on the highlighted tile, perhaps heading towards the ? by Trident to cause us trouble...


Two turns until the great chap from Foil.


Halberd is just growing right now. It can give Longbow all the cottages and perhaps concentrate on workshops or creating great people?


ITS will get to 599 GP points this turn, then Foil will create the great person next turn as it's earlier in the city order, meaning that ITS gets its GP two turns later. Fingers crossed they are different.


So I think the best plan for our great people is:

If we get a scientist from Foil eot182 we'll keep him on ice hoping the second GP is something else to launch the golden age t185 to help us finish communism. I'll micro our beakers to end up as close to 1362 into Sci Meth as possible the turn the second GP is born. If he is also a scientist we bulb Sci Meth, then plough through communism. After communnism we might as well bulb and finish off Physics to deny the scientist to Trolls (they are on a riffling bee-line right now).

If we get a non-scientist eot182 we turn science on and when the second GP is born we launch the golden age, plough through communism and head towards chemistry and steel.

If we get two artists we culture-bomb Jemmy.


What do you think?

Power - Trolls are on replaceable parts right now.

[Old Harry]

Turn 182

Still no sign of that Settler+Galleon - I don't think they're aiming for Trident, Perhaps its for the mainland or the south of SFL?


I'm pretty sure this one isn't it, but our local settlers are in position to settle if needed...


Dirk just finished it's grocer, it could build an observatory, but as our Heroic Epic city it can 1-turn most units, which I think is more useful to us. We currently have 10 longbows, 3 crossbows, 12 Zerks, 4 galleons, 4 cats and 9 knights. At turn 200 if we have those zerks upgraded to grenadiers and some frigates to bombard city defences we can do some damage (upgrading is going to cost 110 gold each) I think we want a couple more galleons and more knights, but given the cost of upgrading I'm not sure we need more than those 12 Zerks, what do you think? There are four island cities and ten on the Troll mainland for us to hit. We won't get them all, but I'd like to get a few, especially the tundra island ones.


Foil produces it's great person this turn, then can grow a bit and produce knights..


ITS won't produce the great person this turn, it'll be eot184. Fingers crossed.


We should get a nice discount on researching gunpowder and Banking when we get that far... I turned our science rate to 50% just in case we don't get a scientist from Foil and we want to start burning through Sci Meth straight away. If we do get a scientist I'll put it back to 0%. Fake Edit - Great Scientist it is, so research is at 0% with 1035 beakers in Sci Meth.


Power


Demos

[Cheater Hater]

Make sure to settle before the settler disembarks--if we don't, the settler will bounce inland (though I don't know if Trolls would settle then--and I believe there's a small gap inland regardless, even after borders pop).

Next time you want to weigh Observatory vs units, don't block the commerce output
How much upgrading will we be able to do? We have to research to Military Science and save enough to upgrade, and we'll have to do so early for the units on galleons--yes we'll have the golden age helping us, but it's still a lot for ~15 turns, right?

On the C&D front, we can tell from the soldier counts on the demo screen how much Trolls have been going up in power each turn, and thus get a rough idea what they're building, right? Or are unit soldier points too homogeneous at this point?