GeneralKilCavalry and thestick talk it out

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Mr. Cairo 2 pop-whipped capital.

[thestick]

Quick update, we're going to whip the Settler T45. This will get us enough overflow to finish off the Spear and regrow to Size 4 T46, then start sinking more foodhammers into another Settler T47. Planning on settling the Red (pigs) city as the fourth city. Arcole (corn city) will be settled T47.

Polytheism will finish T46. If we get Hinduism, the new worker from Lodi (Murat) will go Pasture the second-ring Sheep, and probably start chopping stuff. If we don't, we probably send Murat to cottage Toulon or start roading to the Pigs while we polish off the Barracks.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

At worst, hinduism will coinflip. I think, however, we're getting it, since Rask has gotten stonehenge a while ago and would've gotten it by now had he been focusing religion.

We should consider Oracle in the city north of the capital. It has the most forest of any city we will found next, and we seem to be fine on worker turns. I don't suggest we rush it, however, just see how the flow goes.

Now, for the obvious question, what tech next? I think the options are:
Writing
HBR
IW
Sailing

I list HBR because I bet you superdeath or cairo will absolutely not be expecting any form of  HA rush from us, instead building axes to counter us.

IW is the obvious choice - we have praets and there are jungles to the north, and we need to find that source of iron and connect it asap.

Sailing is interesting - we could build a galley to start ferrying settlers over to the islands we know about and claiming a few. These are backlines that can focus on development while the mainland militarizes

Writing would let us build a library in the capital in preparation for its cottages or maybe run a specialist for a first golden age.

I'd say go with sailing or IW. We also probably want sailing for a lighthouse in the capital and our upcoming 3rd city.

[thestick]

Minor foreign news, Cairo just settled his 3rd city. SD is still on 3 cities.

Let's see, where will we be in 10 turns? Arcole will and Lodi will both be working on/just finished Granaries. Ney and Murat will be chopping into those Granaries, probably. We'll probably have another Settler out of Toulon, and Toulon should be all improved up with cottages, letting Davout road to the new city.

Eyeballing and babbling, Arcole has 40 hammers of choppable forests first ring and 40 more second ring. Libraries are 90 hammers, so can be one-pop whipped by chopping both forests and a bit of mining. Green city has 3 forests first ring and at least 2 second ring =50 hammers, and one grassland mine 1st ring and at least 3 potential second ring.

--------------------------------------------
Eyeballing at breakeven:
Masonry: 5t
Writing/Sailing: 7t
Monotheism: 8t? (don't know how the research prediction takes into account known tech bonus)
IW: 15t
HBR: 19t

I think HBR is out for the moment. Chariots will be fine for barbs, and we still need development. Probably too early for Monotheism.

Writing is interesting for an economic option. I think if we did force Scientists for specialists, it should be in Arcole. It has no grasslands, so the opportunity cost of running those specialists is lower. We could stagnate at Size 4 and swap the Crabs with Toulon if Toulon needs to grow. I think Toulon will be too busy popping out Settlers and working Cottages to run Scientists.

Sailing would be nice. No need to defend the city, besides a defogging boat.

IW, I think we should get before we settle the Green city, to chop out the first ring jungles.

-----------------------------------------------
I'm waffling back and forth on this, but I think we should go Writing -> Sailing -> IW. Preface, I am definitely willing to be talked into Sailing before Writing, and can be easily talked into IW first.

I think we have enough good options without IW. Militarily, we're still early, so Axes/Chariots should be plenty against the barbs, and we're not immediately running into anyone. And we have two good spots, the island and the Red pigs, that we can settle without researching this expensive tech.

Another thing is that IW's economic/development benefit is in chopping jungle, but I don't think we want to do that just yet. Green city will be a major military and Worker sink, since a. we'll need to defend it from barbs that can walk into the first-ring jungles and b. we'll need Workers to chop said jungles. Meanwhile, there are relatively defensible and low-Worker intensive sites nearby that I think we should settle first.

The thing that tipped me over the edge is the vision of how the next 10-15 turns will go. I see the next 10-15 as a period of consolidation, where we chop Granaries in Lodi/Arcole get up Toulon's cottages, etc. In 10-15 turns, we'll be in a good place to chop/whip out a Library in Arcole for an early academy, and build a Galley in Lodi. That 10-15 turns is just enough for Writing/Sailing, so we'll be ready after the Granaries finish.

Though I'm unfamiliar with the meta. How will the Monarch tech costs work? Is this too early for an Academy? (Library ~T65, Scientist ~T85-90) .When will non-Warrior and Archer barbs start showing up?

---------------------------------------------
Re: Worker turns, we're going to be short of them if we get Hinduism, since the current micro plan has us using Murat for cottaging. Not quite sure where to squeeze out another Worker, though... Lodi will want to grow and doesn't have it's Granary up, so it's not an ideal place, but I don't see where else. Toulon is out, since the foodhammer conversion is terrible, and Arcole will be too small.

Re: Oracle, agreed to keep in back of head if the opportunity arises.

As another random thought, we're probably going to have to micro/swap around a bit to whip out Workers for the Expansive bonus and overflow/slowbuild Settlers. 21/60 for that one-pop whip is the number of the day.

[thestick]

T46 Pre-Report
We got Hinduism, and we got a free spread in Toulon. 

   

Think we should convert next turn after the Spearman/Worker complete, for the happy in Toulon.

In bad news, SD has 4 cities.

Will have to rethink micro later. Am starting to think Sailing, since I'm guessing we'll be short on Workers for a bit and will be whipping Workers, not Libraries, in Arcole. Maybe.

EDIT: On second thought, I think we should do the obvious IW. Think it's a bit too early to focus on tech/research. Build Granaries for the next 10 turns in consolidation, settle the next city for iron, crank Praets, Workers, and Settlers with those nice Granaries, then landgrab and crash the economy.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

We need to do IW so that we know where to send the next, or the settler after the next.

You mean Spearman/Settler in Toulon? I don't think we need to be doing another worker there - SD has 4 cities and we can't be this much behind. If anything, do a worker in Lodi.

We can also whip a worker out of Arcole after a granary gets chopped, or perhaps put some whip overflow into a worker along with a second chop into a worker.

[thestick]

Yeah, agreed IW next.

I mean 'we should convert to Hinduism next turn, since a Spear finishes EOT in Toulon, and a Worker EOT in Lodi.'

Gut says that we should go Granary in Arcole, Axe (or Worker?) -> Granary in Lodi, and regrow -> Settler in Toulon. Then in 10-15 turns we'll have Granaries, Iron, and happiness for Toulon's cottages, so we're all set for the landgrab.

[thestick]

Quick back of the envelope Arcole Granary calculations:

Assuming we convert to Hinduism next turn and chop a forest at Arcole after farming the corn, we can one-pop whip the Granary starting on T56. At that point, we will have 21/24 food in the box at Size 2, with +7 from the 5/0/1 Corn and 4/0/2 Crabs.

Whip immediately T56:
T56: 21/22 +5
T57: 4/24 +7
T58: 11/24
T59: 18/24
T60: 13/26

Whip T57:
T56: 21/24 +7
T57: 4/26 -> whip 4/24 +7
T58: 11/24 +7
T59: 18/24 +7
T60: 13/26

...huh, I expected T57 to be better. Well, whip T56 to get that whip clock started.
-------------------------------------------------

Ran first-pass micro. Highlights:

T54 Toulon first cottage
T57 Lodi Granary? (Need to refine this)
T57 Arcole Granary
T57 Toulon Settler?
T59 Toulon second cottage
T60 Arcole Size 3

We have enough Worker labor to keep our cities improved for the next 10-15 turns. The big problem is getting Worker labor to our fourth city (Red pigs?). Plus we need to wait for IW to come in to figure out where to send the Settler.

Toulon is whipable T56. I'm starting to think that instead of the Settler, we should whip a Worker. We get ~11 foodhammers with Settlers, so we can one-pop whip a Worker after two turns or so. Then we polish off the Settler and it should complete around the time IW completes.

(We have the happy to whip Toulon more heavily, but I think we shouldn't push it. I think we should just let Toulon grow as Davout adds riverside cottages.)

Thoughts? And any ideas for 4th city/4th Worker names?

EDIT: Should we garrison Lodi with that Spear?. Are you going to use the Scout for scouting, or fogbusting? Any ideas for how we're going to scrape up hammers for scouting units going forward?

Incidentally, I like to imagine that Raskol was going for Hinduism, but we threw a wrench in his plans, which is why he's logging in and out.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I'm going to shoot a pm to gavagai about some tech trades/allying vs superdeath.

If we wait that long to whip a settler we'll be at 4 cities when SD will be running around with 7. We need to cut a few corners to meet targets, and cottages won't be up till turn 56 anyhow. We have a large happy cap to tap into and insane growth. Going for another worker who will just be cottaging is too optimistic.

Perhaps we can get one more city rapidly out of Toulon, and then use Lodi for some whipping.

More specifically on the micro, I would have Lodi whip the axe, have 31 OF into the granary, then complete it by turn 56, grow to size 4 on an axe, and then pump a few settlers. I really am afraid on falling behind in expansion here.

Let me log in and think about this situation.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Some thoughts I had - I think it is very much worth to whip the axe out of Lodi. It allows Toulon to work the PH mine in the meanwhile, and means our worker can have time to road to the sheep, which will save us multiple turns down the line, especially when sending a settler to the orange dot.

Next, I think with the spear going out to fogbust, and the scout swinging through the jungle, we absolutely should be building another settler in Toulon, perhaps to go for green dot, instead of red dot. This way, we can get a city up and running to grow out cottages at size 2, instead of wasting the very productive capital on this in the short term, when we need growth and need it fast. However, it is a less defensible site... I will think about thiis more - I converted to Hinduism so there's 1 turn of thinking.