[SPOILERS] enough is ENOUGH! scooter opens some windows and finishes first!

[dazedroyalty]

Pretty sure that works, yes. Also the fort can be built (started) before the border expands, it just won't work for ship travel until it's inside your border.

But on another line of thinking, you don't have to settle on the elephant. If it's inside your borders, you can connect the resource with a fort and road. 2W 1S of the ivory would be an excellent city with a bunch of resources and doesn't need fort tricks to get a galley and settler there.

That's a lot of worker turns on the island! Plus we couldn't use it for intercontinental domestic trade routes. I'm not in game so I can't see what the land looks like but that's my initial reaction.

[T-hawk]

That's a lot of worker turns on the island!

Just as many as building the pink star fort in the first place

I'm not in game so I can't see what the land looks like but that's my initial reaction.

There's a nice screenshot in Scooter's post 5 above this one.

[scooter]

Thanks for the comments all - excellent stuff.

Serdoa actually managed to play the turn today, so we got a turn in. But I spent some time with the previous turn while chatting with Dazed and tried to formulate a plan to get the elephants ASAP. Dazed also pointed out Commodore could potentially bulb Guilds. That's HORRIFYING, but it's possible. On some further inspection, he'll need to get lucky in order to do it, but he can still do it. Anyways, I'll respond to some of these comments and then in a couple hours I'll do a proper report on the plan to get the elephants asap.

I think elephants are worth settling towards him.

If he has multiple, nearly equidistant opponents and only one of them has elephants (which he can obviously see. If he can't, then show it to him!), it won't be you he is going for.

By settling that city, you guarantee someone else gets crippled instead whilst you continue economy mode. Sounds like a win-win to me. Of course, if regular diplo is on (is it?) this just got a whole lot easier.

If AI diplo is on, i'd be tempted to offer him a resource trade once ivory is hooked up. Or better yet, offer him ivory- in exchange for something he would never accept (multiple cities etc.). That shows him that you're aware of his plan and can stop it. His plan, if it is how you describe it, has been ambitious but brilliantly executed. He'll much rather go for a guy that is not ready and pre-warned than one who is and has the only feasible counter.

This was my feeling too, so I'm glad you both agree. I really feel settling "towards" him is less risky if I'm proving to him I have elephants. Unfortunately this is AW CTON so I can't communicate it to him at all, so he'll have to figure it out himself. I mostly need to hope he comes by with a scout between the time I settle elephants and the time he starts moving Cataphracts. Either that or build a WE and park it on an easy-to-see hill between me and him and he should get the message.

Pretty sure that works, yes. Also the fort can be built (started) before the border expands, it just won't work for ship travel until it's inside your border.

But on another line of thinking, you don't have to settle on the elephant. If it's inside your borders, you can connect the resource with a fort and road. 2W 1S of the ivory would be an excellent city with a bunch of resources and doesn't need fort tricks to get a galley and settler there.

Cool. Borders popped at end of this turn though, so borders are not an issue. Issue is finishing fort ASAP - it's 7T on quick. I think I have a plan worked out to get it quicker.

Dazed nailed the reason why I'm not really considering settling OFF the elephants:

That's a lot of worker turns on the island! Plus we couldn't use it for intercontinental domestic trade routes. I'm not in game so I can't see what the land looks like but that's my initial reaction.

Both of those reasons are huge. I'm already going to get one IC route from the town island, and I'm just about at Currency so I'll get a second one this way in every single city. That's going to be pretty huge for funding my overexpansion. I can actually need to build a fort no matter what to get the elephant (either 1 to get a settler there or 1 to hook it up), and this way is much quicker.

[scooter]

Just as many as building the pink star fort in the first place

Sort of but not quite. I'm not planning on building this fort with 1 worker - that would take 7 turns. However, I can easily fort the pink star with 3 workers rather quickly because my road network is solid and there will be minimal worker turn loss - I'll road that fort tile while waiting for Maths and then the spare 2 workers will join and help finish it quickly. If I want to put multiple workers on the elephant tile, that's 3 turns of them traveling by galley and 3 turns back - that's TONS of lost worker turns. Plus, again, IC trade routes. Also, it'll a bit easier to defend the island city because walls will make it really tough to crack because all attacks will be amphibious. Serdoa is not in this area, so no Viking worries.

[scooter]

Spamming it up but this is pertinent - Commodore's score did shoot WAY up again (to the tune of Medieval and not Classical), so yeah, he took Machinery.

[SevenSpirits]

Just as many as building the pink star fort in the first place

Well a couple more since the worker has to land on the island and then leave again, and because it's ice.

Btw he'd still need to build a fort or canal city to get a galley into that sea to carry a worker. The issue isn't not owning a city on that sea, it's that the sea isn't big enough to build ships on.

[scooter]

ALRIGHT PLAN TIME YOOOOO. I realize this is lengthy and borderline tedious, but I'm doing this for myself as much as I am for the lurkers.

These shots were all taken on T43, but I'll wait to do the "official" T43 report until after I've charted out the elephant plan. So consider this a prelude of sorts to explain what I'm thinking here. I don't know where to start, so I'll start inside Sante Fe:



As planned, double-whip settler here. Now, one thing I obviously need here is a Galley. As a result, I'll overflow into the galley and the galley should finish right around when I'll need it to load up with the settler. The WB has enough hammers invested that it can be completed at any time. I'll probably actually pause and finish it before finishing the Galley (if I can afford it - I think I can) [later edit: nope I can't, it waits] so it can go towards another city... And if I can't afford it, I'll have it wait and it can net the crabs at elephant city. Problem though - I'm NOT having a settler just sit here idly for 7 turns or so. So this settler will need to go somewhere else. I have two places in mind for it - either north of Holocene for cows/fish or northeast of Simple Math at a little peninsula that also has seafood. So I need another settler to be ready on time:



I grow to size 4 here at end of this turn, so next turn I'll swap to a settler. I could let the Monument finish, but honestly the monument is so unimportant in this particular city that I don't mind it waiting. Although, if I could wait on the settler for 1T and not delay settling elephants, that'd be nice. I'll need to check the numbers on here. Thing is - I'll probably put just 1T into settler and immediately double-whip, so it won't take long to produce a settler that'll be ready to galley up. So next thing to figure out is when and how to build the fort:



So here's the deal. Maths says 3T til completion, but in reality it'll be 4 because I'll run out of deficit spending (breakeven which is 60% says 4T). 4T is perfect. 1T is moving onto this plains forest, 3T is roading it while I wait. Then:



These guys come in. I had them road that tile this turn since might as well while I was walking over it. I'm actually thinking I'll just have them lay down roads along the way on the sheep (1t) and then grass river (1t) then move onto the plains forest (1t) and then fort it the following turn. Now, that still leaves 1 dead turn so... I'll think about it. Though - Sante Fe did pop borders at end of this turn so I could road the sheep, road the grassland, then sink 1T into a grass cottage and THEN go fort which would be perfect. Alternatively I could have 1 move ahead and the other briefly backpedal and complete that mine, but I won't need that mine for awhile so that seems less important than the grass cottage.

So everything's perfect. Let's get a timeline here and put the pieces together, starting with T43 which is the turn you see right now. I was hoping to found eles city within 10T. So let's see if it works. We'll let SM finish Monument before settler.

Project Elephants

T43: Maths due 4. worker onto plains forest. 2 workers road plains. Sante Fe double whip settler. SM grow to size4 at EOT.
T44: Maths due 3. worker begins road (1/3t). 2 workers road sheep. Sante Fe overflows into Galley - I THINK 6h(see spoiler below). SF hits sz4 at EOT. SM is sz4 and finishes Monument at EOT. SF settler runs off to somewhere else.

Little unsure on amount of overflow into Galley:

That shows 11h extra, but that's with Imperialistic, so it needs to be "downscaled." My gut says it's 6h because 6h + 6*.5 == 11h. However, I'm getting a lot of food surplus which is a straight 1:1 so I feel I might get better than 6h here. Any ideas? I'll assume 6h (worst case) for now.

T45: Maths due 2. worker continues road (2/3t). 2 workers road grassland. Sante Fe at 9/33h (6 OF +3 base from last turn) on Galley and @sz4, and gets +7h. SM starts settler.
T46: Maths due EOT. Worker completes road on fort tile. 2 workers sink turn into grass riv cott. SF at 16/33h galley and gets +7h. SM double-whips settler.
T47: Maths in. All 3 workers start fort (3/7t). SF at 23/33h galley. Micro SF to work corn+phmine+two plains forests for +10h - so galley complete EOT. Settler moves to tile 1W of Sante Fe.
T48: Load settler onto galley. Maybe bring warr with it and transfer SM warrior to SF to cover. Galley moves to tile A (see below picture). Workers continue fort (6/7T).
T49: 1 worker completes fort. Other 2 workers are free to proceed with their lives (maybe go improve floodplain SF just got in border pop). Galley moves to tile B.
T50: Galley moves to tile C.
T51: Galley moves to tile D. Settler jumps onto island
T52: We have elephants!



Also, keep in mind that once the galley completes a work boat will complete in 1T. That WB will trail 1T behind the galley and go net the crabs. I'll rely on that crab to whip out Monument, Granary, Lighthouse, etc. Monument will let me go improve those deer which should help dramatically. So the goal was to get elephants within 10T and this plan lets us do it in 9T. I'm happy . In case you're better aware of how overflow downscaling works, please do check my question in spoilers as the plan is easier if I get more than 6h overflow into the galley and it's harder if I get less. It'll be doable either way though.

Phew, that took a little while. Hopefully it's remotely easy to follow. Helps to consult that big overview screenshot just above the timeline.

[scooter]

Also, I fully expect to be the first person to Elephants by a good gap . I'm curious if anyone else will even get within 10T of me. Hopefully this will dissuade Commodore enough to make him go at Serdoa who is the other runaway threat here (Henge + Mids + Philo is nearly as scary as these super early Phracts). If THAT happens, I'll have a real good shot at this game. If Commodore goes at someone else, it'll be more of a challenge to keep up. I'll certainly have the expansion lead, but that may not necessarily be enough by itself.

[T-hawk]

The issue isn't not owning a city on that sea, it's that the sea isn't big enough to build ships on.

Ah, right.

Forts replace forests, I do believe... make sure you account for the worker time to chop the forest too.

[scooter]

Forts replace forests, I do believe... make sure you account for the worker time to chop the forest too.

I just ran a WB test and that's apparently not true - forts keep the forest and would give a +75% bonus when used together. So that's good. Though I did consider getting my extra workers there a turn sooner and chopping out that forest for the galley. Doesn't look like that's necessary though.