[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[pindicator]

And workshops don't?

[SevenSpirits]

I think it makes sense to compare serfdom + watermills to caste + shops like Noble is doing. Or is anyone arguing that serfdom + shops is a better strategy than both the others?

[Zed-F]

Glad to see your plans are coming together. Where are you expecting to strike with the knights following the capture of Red Spring? Obviously it will depend to some degree on what Nakor does, but how are you thinking he'll respond?

I think it makes sense to compare serfdom + watermills to caste + shops like Noble is doing. Or is anyone arguing that serfdom + shops is a better strategy than both the others?

Not as far as I am aware. I was thinking of Caste+shops vs Serfdom+watermills originally. The latter certainly seems more situational given more stringent landform requirements for it to work, and less flexible overall as a result, but in the right circumstances might be a good choice. I guess Pindicator's question would be, how often in practice do those circumstances obtain?

[NobleHelium]

I think it makes sense to compare serfdom + watermills to caste + shops like Noble is doing. Or is anyone arguing that serfdom + shops is a better strategy than both the others?

I made my post partially in jest, hence the smiley. I'm not sure it makes sense to count the Serfdom bonus when considering the worker turn cost of mills, because that can be considered Serfdom's "other" bonus that should be compared to Caste's free specialists. Having it only negate the penalty of slower improvements may mean that there's no Serfdom "other" bonus at all. Of course there are improvements other than mills, so that reduction may or may not be roughly equivalent to the Caste specialist bonus. Also, I haven't actually calculated anything in terms of what the end number turns is (partially because I don't know what the exact Serfdom bonus in the mod is now), so perhaps the mills end up being cheaper than shops after the reduction.

[Zed-F]

I tend to think it makes sense that Serfdom should value the high-investment tile improvements more than the low-investment ones, though; otherwise there's no reason ever to use the high-investment ones if there's no way to make them affordable and a better return on the investment in at least some situations. If there is still a problem with the value of Serfdom+ high-investment tiles relative to the value of Caste+ lower investment tiles, maybe the answer lies in buffing Serfdom in some other way to make it applicable in more situations, rather than in watering down the distinction between the two tile improvement strategies by reducing the cost of watermills.

(partially because I don't know what the exact Serfdom bonus in the mod is now), so perhaps the mills end up being cheaper than shops after the reduction.

The bonus to worker speed is +75%, so an 8-turn watermill becomes 32/7 which presumably rounds to 5 turns per tile, or 1 turn less than the workshop. This nets +6 hammers over 2 tiles (in Serfdom) relative to +4 hammers over 2 tiles (workshop/Caste).

[pindicator]

Scooter, if you can't get the turn today I will have time to play it after I get home from work. Nakor has already played

[scooter]

Turn 138

Pindicator - first off, I was cycling through Red Wings, Tigers, and Orioles, because it didn't seem like they were going to be able to hit the target dates for Knights like you said. Then I shuffled tiles, and I found a config that works for all 3 of them. Here's how it is. I've ended turn, but let me know quickly if this is not right for some reason. It doesn't seem super ideal (working the plain forest in Red Wings while a river hamlet goes unworked at Tigers), but it's what is necessary to get the Knights out on time. Here's those 3 cities:

Orioles could actually finish a Knight this turn, but that requires working that newly built workshop, which Tigers needs in order to hit its date on that Knight. Anyway, let me know if there's any problems here. We have a new city!



Well, it is at sea :P. The galley can head back to NFC North or Big East and steal one of those workers. Speaking of Big East workers, I did a little shuffle:



This worker was freshly completed out of Valiants, and Valiants is about to complete another worker with that chop... So I grabbed him, loaded him up, and figured he is badly needed on the mainland right now anyway. Anything in particular you'd like to do with him? I'd say Trailblazers could use another tile or two, but we've pretty much got it locked into the stagnated hammer config in the near term. Any thoughts?

To wrap things up, here's just a broad overview shot of our Island Core:



There's 3 easy backfill locations between Big East and NFC North, so we've got room to settle more cities for sure. Boilermakers is pretty much the backbone of this group, as its 10F surplus has let it explode out to a nice size. It can do two more sizes before it is at both its happy cap and all out of coast (two more ocean tiles would be available, but that's kinda meh).


Mackoti has 21 cities. The less that's said about that, the better.

[pindicator]

Scooter, lots of thoughts actually:

With Tigers, give the plains hill mine back to Red Wings and go ahead and work the hamlet.  What we need to do is finish the plains farm that's at 4/5 turns and have Tigers work that for 2 turns instead of the hamlet - that will let it complete the knight in 4 turns.

After that knight finishes we probably have Tigers build longbows or catapults.  Maybe we can build our missionaries here since it's Confucianist, although it does have a barracks.

With Orioles, go ahead and keep it as is.  Getting that knight an extra turn sooner won't speed up the attack or gain us an extra unit for the war.


We probably will want to start growing Trailblazers again soon.  So let's figure out when we give the wheat back to the capital - maybe after we attack for real on t143?  Or after Red Wings grows another size?

And with workers, we really need more in the islands.  Well, I know we need more on the mainland too, but I think we can build those at Bills or Timbers.  So keep spamming them out of Valiants.  That city should be worker, worker, worker on until we feel we have enough.  Maybe chop a worker a Packers or Lions (i forget which one has the forests).  We still need 3 workshops built at Boilermakers; farms and mines on Legends; and lots of farms and workshops and chopping at NFC North.  Not to mention workers needed for Seahawks.

I think with Boilermakers, after it grows to size 12 we give the fish to Wolverines.  We're going to lose a happy pretty soon when we declare war on Nakor anyway.

What do you think Boilermakers should make?  I figured some longbows are needed to prevent against Commodore sneak-attacks, but after that we could really use more navy as well.

[scooter]

Do you think you can make the changes? I'm running out the door right now.

[pindicator]

Do you think you can make the changes? I'm running out the door right now.

I'll be home in an hour and a half.
What are your thoughts on the other things I brought up?