Learning Capria FFH SG

[kjn]

Timing:

We will get the gold connected on turn 215, and we can sacrifice growth in Santo Domingo and have the whale connected on the same turn. This gives us a bound on city growth.

Builds and city management:

Bologna: Great Library next. Then a Stonewarden.

Paris: Cancel the Market, build a Library instead. Set the city to grow faster, since we will have gold+whales soon. Work the farm and grassland cottages. The cotton is the least important tile in the city (except for maybe the tundra cottage).

Oxford: Set for measured growth. Build a Carnival next, and settle the gorilla (and any other animals we get). Then archers.

Salamanca: Continue on the GLH.

Coimbra: Get a Stonewarden next, not a pagan temple. Should probably hire a merchant too.

Praha: Should maybe hire a priest or two, especially if we are to found OoH after getting Sanitation.

Krakow: Can be microed to grow in 3. Should probably hire a specialist or two or switch off high-food tiles after that, so it won't grow into unhappiness. Any infrastructure here is decent.

Wien: Should we make Wien our National Epic city? If so, I think the next build should be a Library.

Heidelberg: Work the farm, not the plain FGH.

St Andrews: Should we make this our Heroic Epic city? Needs a road to the rest of our empire ASAP!

Worker actions:

Eric should leave the lumbermill now, and road towards St Andrews, starting with the FPH west of Paris. Lars should abandon the plantation, and road eastwards, starting with the sheep.

Lois should connect the gold, and then road northwards towards the mountain pass. Cover her with an axe or warrior!

George should probably be sent north towards Heidelberg, and Diane to improve Tlatleloco (via the galley ferry). Katherine Kerr can do the remaining improvements around Oxford.

[kjn]

Oh, and the spider. Try to get Mobility 1 on it, and use it to scout out the land of the Clan of Embers.

[haphazard1]

OK, I have the save. The Bannor have grown nicely since I last checked in -- good work! Plenty of things to do around our lands, but we are making good progress. We are actually solidly positive in gold at 50%. Admittedly this is with a golden age, but still -- progress is progress.

Some thoughts and planning:

- Diplomatically I do not see anything urgent. No tech or resource deals worth making, no one seems to be threatening us at the moment.

- Tech path. I agree with the current choice of Sanitation, but what do we want after that? Some options:

-- Military Strategy for the great commander and to unlock Heroic Epic, but we can probably delay that a bit yet if we want as Jonas does not have Philosophy and no one else has Warfare (possible problem: the last unknown AI; maybe we should hurry this?)
-- Currency for another trade route per city and Guild of the Nine
-- Way of the Wise and then found Order, or pick up Honor to unlock the rest of the Empyrean units/buildings
-- Knowledge of the Ether and get an adept or three gaining XP
-- Stirrups and more powerful mounted units

Other stuff is out there as well, but the above are what looks attractive to me at the moment.

- Current threats are pretty limited: a barb archer by Santo Domingo (we have an archer plus terrain advantage), some bears, whatever pops up. Our neighbors don't seem aggressively inclined right at the moment.

- Religion. Our newest cities lack religion. Do we want to push to get RoK in them, or wait and hope for some free spread of something? Wait and get Order founded in one of them?

- General goals for the turnset:

-- Get the Great Library under construction
-- Continue working on the Great Lighthouse
-- Get St. Andrews connected to the rest of our empire
-- Get new resources hooked up: gold, whales, stuff at St. Andrews
-- Run some additional specialists to take advantage of our golden age/pacifism/arete. Coimbra, Prague, possibly elsewhere
-- Capture some wild animals, particularly an elephant or three and maybe that lion
-- Get a settler party together for the south (settler, garrison, worker, etc.). I like 1E of the labelled Brown site: uses some tiles to the east that would otherwise go to waste, reclaims a marsh tile, and the tiles lost to the west would be claimed by Magenta anyway. It can use the corn which is already inside our borders, which we can farm ahead of time. And it will provide ivory for another happy cap boost throughout the empire.

Include the various recommendations from kjn for most of the cities, although I may try to squeeze in an extra worker or two somewhere. We have 13 for 12 cities right now, with plenty of work around new and upcoming cities, so I think we can use at least a couple more. And I would like one more hawk, for general coverage of our cities, keeping an eye on Amelanchier, etc.

Suggestions, comments, violent disagreement? If the plan looks OK, I will try to play sometime tomorrow evening, roughly a day from now.

Edit: Forgot to mention, a close look east of Santo Domingo shows a barb city border just peeking out of the fog. So that island may be bigger than first thought. And we may need some troops over there to conquer it, assuming it is worthwhile. This is one place I want to get a hawk.

[kjn]

Yes, the demos look excellent, but with one caveat:

Check the power graph! Jonas's power is spiking. I'm also worried about Auric, with the three stooges moving around Sopor (very aptly named, that city, "sopor" is trash in Swedish).

The best units we can build right now are Stonewardens, since they can improve the rest of our forces. Since we're in infrastructure civics, lets hold off on more units, though it'd be great if you could slot in another archer in Oxford (we should probably get another archer city soon, too).

Right now we get relatively few high-value trade routes, so Currency isn't that valuable (it's +1 commerce per city).

Between Markets, the Festival in Oxford, GL, and GLH, we don't have too much options to build more military infrastructure right now. So my choice would probably be Military Strategy (for the commander) or WotW. More cities with Empyrean gives more income, and the Order shrine is even better - OoH spreads easier than any other religion, and it gives law mana for reduced maintenance.

We should get a hawk and a hunter over to Santo Domingo, and maybe a real military unit too, to scout the island. Notice the barb borders on the water. We have a C3 cover axeman who is 2 XP short from Mobility 1 in Bologna. Maybe he can be ferried over to deal with the barb archer, and then there's the axe in Heidelberg. Pity the galley is poorly positioned for ferry duty.

I don't think we have the hammers to spare to push thanes or can build enough stonewardens to found temples. Lets hope for a few free spreads.

I think I like 1E of brown - it reclaims a marsh tile and gets four hills for production. However, if we settle the southwards, the real prize is the area around Yggdrasil. Gems is +2 happy in most of our cities, and Yggdrasil is +1 happy/+2 health. Add in the dye, and we're at +4 happiness. And Jonas has Sailing and Trade now, so can island-hop from Sorodh.

Thus, I'd rather push westwards first: Yellow, and maybe a push straight to Yggdrasil. Only question is where to put the cities - there is plenty of marsh around.

[Brian Shanahan]

The Bad

Why build a market in Paris?!? It has the highest science multiplier in our empire thanks to its Academy, and the malus on science output will hurt more there than anywhere else. Much better to build a library or a courthouse! I'm sorry, but that's hammers down the drain, in a city that's seriously hammer constrained. (A normal market gives +2.2 gold after beaker adjustment, but here it is +1.8 gold. And it will only be worse after we get the library built.)

As regards chopping in Coimbra, by the time I had actually any workers free the chop wouldn't have gone into the library. Most of them were doing jobs like farming a jungled tile which were too long to get in place in time, when I got the save. The workers were simply not there, so by the time I had one free it was more efficient to build over the forest than chop it, as it would go into the next build anyway.

As regards Paris, the market was simply based on hammer efficiency, it would take twice as long to build anything else (at the minimum), and while I'd have much rather built a library than a market, 60 turns of a build horizon was way too long for it to be worthwhile to build. Market got my choice because it was the only build within a useable timeframe.

The main problem with why I didn't do what you wish is that I had too few workers to do the jobs needed. We had cities at the start of my turn with only 4-5 improved tiles and quick growth curves, which were reasonably developed and lots of workers improving them. These cities were in the South-West and St. Andrews was in the North-East and even if I neglected needed jobs in the South-West I would only now be able to begin the road to St. Andrews at the end of the turnset.

As I said before we do not have enough workers, and should have built more. But team consensus was always on prioritising other builds so I went with it.

[kjn]

Brian, most of our cities are over-developed, and has more tiles improved than they can use. That was true in turn 199, and was even more true on turn 209. Just check our number of never worked or unworked cottages.

And which cities with only 4 or 5 improvements are you talking about?

St Andrews? On turn 199 it had but one improved tile and was in urgent need of development and a secure connection to our core. The two best tiles to improve are the corn and the sheep, and the sheep is on the way to the rest of the empire.

Heidelberg? Yes, it could certainly need more worker help. One option would've been to build a worker in Bologna instead of the market, once the start of the GL was delayed.

Wien? Six improved tiles, and two more improved tiles shared with Oxford. IIRC it had at least one more tile in the process of improvement. Has a ToK for specialists.

Krakow? Seven improved tiles, and building a ToK for two specialist slots.

Praha? Ten improved tiles, one more than the current happy cap, and has another three shared with Coimbra. Four slots for specialists.

Coimbra? Ten improved tiles, three of them shared with Praha (which doesn't need them). Three specialist slots.

If you want to, I can do a shadow playthrough of turns 200 to 209, and show my worker and city micro. Yes, I did plan it out, though I never wrote it down.

As for market vs library in Paris, yes, it will take a long time to get the library built, since Salamanca will need the mines and sheep to get the GLH for the foreseeable future. It is just because the city is so hammer constrained that we should be extra careful with what we build there.

[haphazard1]

Yes, the demos look excellent, but with one caveat:

Check the power graph! Jonas's power is spiking. I'm also worried about Auric, with the three stooges moving around Sopor (very aptly named, that city, "sopor" is trash in Swedish).

With the switch to pacifism/arete just done, we are not really set up for military production during my turnset. But we can set our tech path to prepare us for more military once we can change civics again. Military Strategy is certainly an attractive option, or we could pick something like Stirrups.

The best units we can build right now are Stonewardens, since they can improve the rest of our forces. Since we're in infrastructure civics, lets hold off on more units, though it'd be great if you could slot in another archer in Oxford (we should probably get another archer city soon, too).

Sounds good.

Right now we get relatively few high-value trade routes, so Currency isn't that valuable (it's +1 commerce per city).

Another off-shore city would provide another 2 cpt TR for all our mainland cities. We could target those islands NW of Yggdrasil, which would also block Jonas from island hopping into our south. Or we could come up with some troops for the barb city east of Santo Domingo. But even without off-shore TRs, Currency would provide 1 cpt per city. So let's not delay it too long.

Between Markets, the Festival in Oxford, GL, and GLH, we don't have too much options to build more military infrastructure right now. So my choice would probably be Military Strategy (for the commander) or WotW. More cities with Empyrean gives more income, and the Order shrine is even better - OoH spreads easier than any other religion, and it gives law mana for reduced maintenance.

I will plan for Sanitation, Military Strategy, and (if time) Way of the Wise.

We should get a hawk and a hunter over to Santo Domingo, and maybe a real military unit too, to scout the island. Notice the barb borders on the water. We have a C3 cover axeman who is 2 XP short from Mobility 1 in Bologna. Maybe he can be ferried over to deal with the barb archer, and then there's the axe in Heidelberg. Pity the galley is poorly positioned for ferry duty.

I will look around for possible military, but we need to keep decent forces in place to deter Amelanchier. But I will definitely try to get that barb city scouted.

I don't think we have the hammers to spare to push thanes or can build enough stonewardens to found temples. Lets hope for a few free spreads.

OK. We do have plenty of other priorities right now. Hopefully we will get lucky.

I think I like 1E of brown - it reclaims a marsh tile and gets four hills for production. However, if we settle the southwards, the real prize is the area around Yggdrasil. Gems is +2 happy in most of our cities, and Yggdrasil is +1 happy/+2 health. Add in the dye, and we're at +4 happiness. And Jonas has Sailing and Trade now, so can island-hop from Sorodh.

Thus, I'd rather push westwards first: Yellow, and maybe a push straight to Yggdrasil. Only question is where to put the cities - there is plenty of marsh around.

Yggdrasil is the big prize and we need to move on settling the south. But 1E of Brown will get us a new happiness resource (ivory) and can work a strong tile or two immediately upon founding. Farther west towards Yggdrasil is going to take a lot more worker support to get going. I will try to fit in a couple more workers along with at least one settler -- this turnset will be a good time for building non-military and we need to get moving on expansion.

[kjn]

As regards chopping in Coimbra, by the time I had actually any workers free the chop wouldn't have gone into the library. Most of them were doing jobs like farming a jungled tile which were too long to get in place in time, when I got the save. The workers were simply not there, so by the time I had one free it was more efficient to build over the forest than chop it, as it would go into the next build anyway.

Turn 199:

Isaac moves 1W, onto the FGH.

Bologna assigns merchant to cottage (31 fhpt). Coimbra assigns merchant to unworked GH mine (14 hpt).

Turn 200:

Charles moves NW-NE. Diane moves 1E. Eric moves NE-NW. Isaac chops (202). James finishes cutting jungle.

Wien picks up a riverside mine.

Turn 201:

Charles cuts jungle (204). Diane chops (203). Eric chops (203). George and Harry finishes cutting jungle. James starts mine (204).

Oxford finishes archer, starts library, due on turn 206.

(Oxford gets 10 overflow from archer. With the chop the city must generate 90 hammers, or 6 turns @ 17 hpt. An extra hpt can be generated by moving off two grass cottages, and borrowing the farm shared with Wien and using the grass hill cottage.)

Turn 202:

George builds farm (206). Harry builds mine (205). Isaac finishes chop.

Coimbra finishes Granary, starts library, due on turn 206.
Krakow grows and works hamlet 1W of city.
Praha grows and works riverside GH mine.

(Coimbra gets 9 overflow from granary. With the two chops the city must generate 71 hammers at 14 hpt. However, on turn 204 Coimbra grows to 10 and can work the PH mine NE of Praha. This will net another 8 hammers.)

Turn 203:

Diane and Eric finishes chops.

Bologna finishes settler, starts library, due on turn 206.

(Bologna gets 9 overflow from the settler, and generates 28 hpt. Another hpt can be gained by using a priest instead of a cottage once the settler is finished.)

Ie, we need three workers: Eric, Diane, and Isaac to start the GL on turn 206. And all of them can go on to other tasks on turns 203 and 204.

As regards Paris, the market was simply based on hammer efficiency, it would take twice as long to build anything else (at the minimum), and while I'd have much rather built a library than a market, 60 turns of a build horizon was way too long for it to be worthwhile to build. Market got my choice because it was the only build within a useable timeframe.[/quote]

The main problem with why I didn't do what you wish is that I had too few workers to do the jobs needed. We had cities at the start of my turn with only 4-5 improved tiles and quick growth curves, which were reasonably developed and lots of workers improving them. These cities were in the South-West and St. Andrews was in the North-East and even if I neglected needed jobs in the South-West I would only now be able to begin the road to St. Andrews at the end of the turnset.

Which cities are you talking about?

Wien has eight developed tiles (two shared with Oxford). Will get new ones on turns 203 (cottage) and 205 (mine). Has a ToK so can run specialists.

Krakow has seven developed tiles (one shared with Coimbra). Will get new ones on turns 203 (farm), 206 (mine), 207 (farm).

Coimbra has eleven developed tiles (three shared with Praha, and one with Krakow). Will get one more on turn 207 (mine, though a crappy one).

As for St Andrews, the city will expand borders on turn 200. Cancel the busywork on the plantation this turn, and move to the sheep on turn 200. Start road on turn 201, finished turn 203. Meanwhile, Eric goes to the tile 1E of Salamanca turn 204, reaches the PH mine by the mountain pass turn 206. Roads it turns 207-208, and the tile 1E on turns 209-210. Lars can road the scrubs tile in the intervening turs, and either pasture the sheep or help with the plains tile.

As I said before we do not have enough workers, and should have built more. But team consensus was always on prioritising other builds so I went with it.

Well, you can always say that you will build a worker regardless, if you deem it needed. And I'm the first to admit that the loss of Barbara hurt us badly - then Eric could've moved to Heidelberg after chopping and helped there, and St Andrews would've received needed help much earlier.

But hardly any of our cities are constrained by worker labour. We have more developed tiles than we can work.

As regards Paris, the market was simply based on hammer efficiency, it would take twice as long to build anything else (at the minimum), and while I'd have much rather built a library than a market, 60 turns of a build horizon was way too long for it to be worthwhile to build. Market got my choice because it was the only build within a useable timeframe.

First, it won't take 60 turns bo build the library. Once Salamanca finishes the GLH, Paris can use the sheep and the two mines shared with Salamanca, and complete the library relatively quickly at 8-10 hpt.

Second, the market is fixed in output, and its efficiency doesn't vary where it's placed - with one exception. A beaker in Paris is 20-50% more powerful than a beaker anywhere else in the empire. Thus, the beaker malus hits harder in Paris than anywhere else.

Third, the library is NOT fixed in output. Paris generates almost twice as much commerce per turn as Bologna, and the library in Paris will thus be twice as effective than the library in Bologna.

ETA: Savegame, showing three libraries due in 4 turns on turn 203. I did the micro a bit differently here than in the writeup above, in that Charles chopped in Coimbra instead of Katherine, who went to chop and mine in Wien.

[haphazard1]

Junior Commander haphazard's report for the 209th through 219th years after the Emergence. This was a productive period for the Bannor, but the threat of Jonas Endain and the Clan of Embers is growing in the west.

Turn 209 (inherited)

- Shuffled various tiles worked, build orders, etc. Assigned a merchant in Coimbra to speed GPP.
- Bump up research a notch to finish Sanitation a turn earlier. The boost to our farms is worth the deficit spending.

IBT Auric demanded HBR. Refused.

Turn 210

- We get an event where a dwarf tries to sell us an iron orb containing the soul of a long-dead Patrian scholar. We could buy it for 99 gold to get either +2 beakers from our library in Coimbra (with +2 to AC) or -1 to AC (by destroying it). 99 gold is pretty steep for a very small benefit, so I refuse.
- Jonas' golden age ends.
- We hear rumors of an angelic procession in Calabim lands. I assume this is an event of some kind, but I am not familiar with it.
- We spot a combat 3 scorpion in the desert west of Tlatelolco.
- Hawk recon east of Santo Domingo reveals the horribly placed barb city of Deluoc. It has copper and 2 furs, but 1N would be so much better -- gaining a sheep and another fur. I have added a sign to burn the city down and replace it 1N. There are two archers and a barb axe with bronze weaponry in the city (probably because it is settled on copper).
- Our fearless hunter captures the bear out in the desert. I took it first to avoid the risk of being badly wounded capturing an elephant and then being attacked. And bears are always useful.

Turn 211

- Fellowship of Leaves spreads to Tlatelolco.
- Kill a frostling that showed up near St Andrews.

IBT the barb archer east of Santo Domingo attacks our archer (which I had moved to the forested hill blocking the island) and dies.

Turn 212

- Jonas builds the Catacomb Libralus.
- Sanitation completes, begin Military Strategy.
- Jonas moves a very unpleasant stack into view, 3S3W of St Andrews: Rantine (with tons of promos), a catapult, and 10 shaman. The shaman all have body I, fire I, nature I, plus some combat promos. Jonas is not in WHEOOHRN...for now. If and when Jonas researches Sorcery he can turn all these guys into mages instantly...with fireball capability. We are going to need to get some stack damage units of our own, either catapults or adepts or something.
- Flauros is willing to trade Way of the Forest, but he wants Code of Laws for it so no deal. Not that vital to us, anyway, so why give up a useful tech of any kind?
- Capture an elephant.

Turn 213

- Zzzzzzzz

Turn 214

- Complete Military Strategy, and a great commander is born in Bologna. (He is still there, as I was not sure what to do with him.) Start Way of the Wise.
- Jonas has a settler moving east from Sorodh towards the jungle corner south of Tlatelolco. We should try to grab that area for ourselves -- it is a potentially strong city and controls a mana node. We don't want Jonas with any more mana than he already has.
- Whales and Gold are connected, boosting happy caps across our empire.
- An intrepid hunter explores the dungeon east of Sorodh, and frees a great commander who had been trapped within! (This guy is now waiting in St Andrews, moved by hawk express.)

Turn 215

- Complete Way of the Wise, start Orders From Heaven.
- The Great Library is completed in Bologna.

IBT the lion we have been stalking attacks our hunter and is captured. Also, Jonas founds Naga's Tail east of Sorodh -- we can still get a city into the jungle corner to claim most of the resources and the mana node, assuming he does not beat us there with another settler.

Turn 216

- A lizardman is threatening St Andrews. Shuffle units to guard improvements.

Turn 217

- The lizardman retreats west, but now a barb axe has shown up to threaten St Andrews.
- Amelanchier demands Way of the Wise. Refused.
- A great engineer is born in Coimbra! I move him to Prague for safe keeping.
- Jonas does have another settler (damn warrens), plus 3 fawns escort. It is heading into the central desert area, probably to grab the copper and extra flood plains north of Sorodh.
- I have been moving an archer and the axe from Bologna towards Deluoc, and send the axe to attack the city at ~80%. Slightly risky, but the archer is covering on a forested hill and we might be able to reduce the barb city on the cheap since the axe has cover and combat promos. The barb axe defends first, and is killed. We gain enough XP for a promotion to speed healing.
- Capture another elephant.

IBT the scorpion attacks our hunter and is captured. The hunter is badly wounded and poisoned, so he will retreat to Tlatelolco for healing.

Turn 218

- Jonas founds Dark Sky with the settler, taking the copper and flood plains area as expected. Hawk recon reveals large numbers of fawns around Sorodh.
- Our axe by Deluoc apparently ate something bad during his victory celebration, and will be unable to move for a few turns. He was going to be spending some time healing anyway, so not a big problem.
- Kill the barb axe near St Andrews. Still have to deal with that pesky lizardman, though.
- Our stealth spider has been working westward to explore Jonas' lands. It seizes a target of opportunity and kills 2 unprotected Clan workers.

IBT the lizardman attacks an axe and dies. St Andrews is free of visible enemies once again.

Turn 219

- Found Brown at the 1E of original label site. (We need a name for this city.) The corn is already farmed and a dancing bear is settled immediately. A worker moves to the ivory tile to road; other workers are nearby farming and mining and can move in once the road is ready.
- Crab is connected at Santo Domingo.

Current situation

We need more military! Defenses are too thin in Coimbra and in the south, as our pacifism period made producing units inefficient. We should change our civics this turn and get some units going. I did build 2 archers that finished this turn (Oxford and Bologna), they are unmoved and should probably be sent south.

Also, Jonas' power is spiking hugely. Warrens in full effect, no doubt. Jonas is not in WHEOOHRN (no one is), but as his power grows he may decide to attack. And if he gets Sorcery....

There are several units still unmoved this turn to give the next player some flexibility: both hawks, a hunter, the two great commanders (Bologna and St Andrews), and the great engineer (Prague).

The captured lion is on its way to Oxford to join the settled gorilla.

Salamanca is 3 turns from finishing the Great Lighthouse. Keep the priest -- that extra hammer is saving a turn.

Orders From Heaven can be completed next turn if desired (about 95% complete), or we can switch to another tech if we want to delay it for whatever reason. Several cities have just finished builds and can be switched without abandoning hammers. We have two more turns of golden age left.

There is a settler nearing completion in Krakow. We need more military for escorts but we should continue pushing into the south, especially towards Yggdrasil.

Remember to change civics!

The Save - Turn 219

[kjn]

- We get an event where a dwarf tries to sell us an iron orb containing the soul of a long-dead Patrian scholar. We could buy it for 99 gold to get either +2 beakers from our library in Coimbra (with +2 to AC) or -1 to AC (by destroying it). 99 gold is pretty steep for a very small benefit, so I refuse.
- We hear rumors of an angelic procession in Calabim lands. I assume this is an event of some kind, but I am not familiar with it.

IIRC, if you buy the orb, you get a free tech! But hard to know if you haven't peeked at the events list or encountered it before. And the angelic procession is an event that lowers the AC, and has an extra benefit for the Elohim.

- Complete Military Strategy, and a great commander is born in Bologna. (He is still there, as I was not sure what to do with him.) Start Way of the Wise.

We probably want to build a command post with him in our Heroic Epic city. Until then, he can be attached to other units, giving them +1 STR and +1 EXP from every combat. With planning, he can be used by two units per turn, too.

- A great engineer is born in Coimbra! I move him to Prague for safe keeping.

Great! Now we have a lock on Guild of Hammers!

Sounds like a solid set of turns. Can't take a look at it right now, but will probably play this evening or on Monday.