Micromanagement Sims/Planning

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I personally don't like the plan of an early GScientist and Academy. I'd rather put the 4 food per turn into fueling settler and worker whips.

I mean, do we really need the research? We're going to be tops in beakers researched anyway. What matters more is maintaining our long term growth and snowball. Plus, since we need rapid horizontal expansion anyway, that means we're going to tank our science slider and the academy won't be worth a damn.

I say GScientist for our 3rd GPerson, once we've established a nice core and can afford to work scientists in some out-of-the way place.

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, I'm not really convinced that an academy is the best move. However a second prophet would be pretty useless unless we're close to golden age time, and there is always the Music GA for that.

I doubt our slider will drop all that low, however. We're at 70% after Currency and our cottages will continue to mature. Plus we're FIN and all that. The period before Currency is generally the only point where you might have a really low slider (<= 30%). I doubt we'll drop below 50% breakeven all game if we land Oracle.

[SevenSpirits]

Academy is going to be a great investment at some point during the game but I'm also doubting that we should start going for it now, at a measly 6 gpp/turn for our second or third great person. It will be much more effective to do one or more of the following:

* Wait for multipliers like pacifism, national epic, or a golden age
* Use caste system in a golden age to hire more than two scientists
* Build GLib to get a city that produces at least 14gpp/t (using library specialists) not including multipliers.

Plus, doing this (racing out a scientist) really damages the value of the 5gpp/t we will already be getting for free in MM.

[spacetyrantxenu]

However a second Prophet would be pretty useless unless we're close to golden age time, and there is always the music GA for that.

Would it be a good idea to keep a great artist in our back pocket in case we ever want to culture bomb someone? More map info will tell as the game plays out, but as borders close in toward our rivals we may find that a settler/GA bomb/roading worker stack could come into play if we try to blitz someone.

[NobleHelium]

I actually love culture bombs. Just ask Gaspar.

Normal speed means only 4th ring bombs, keep in mind.

[NobleHelium]

Well let's see. If we get our shrine on say t75, that means we'd get the second prophet on t115. How far from the first golden age at that point? I'd like MoM before we pop it, naturally.

Or maybe we shouldn't worry about it at all and aim for GLib to outrace the prophet later, as mentioned?

[SevenSpirits]

Before we start the golden age we'd want to research at least:

* Sailing - Calendar (and build MoM)
* Monarchy, Code of Laws and Civil Service
* Either Masonry - Monotheism, or Meditation - Philosophy, or Mediation with Aesthetics (and build Paya)

Additionally, I'd expect us to get Iron Working and Aesthetics - Literature before that point. And there might be other techs we want to get before civil service, such as music, metal casting, and construction. If someone wants to calculate the total beakers required for all that, it might be interesting to know.

Perhaps a more relevant question though is whether we want to use a golden age this early. Golden ages obviously get more powerful later in the game, a fact which can compensate for the drawbacks of not using your powerful capabilities ASAP. It might be just as effective (and diplomatically smarter) to save our golden ages for a bit later, when we can literally end the game with them.

Couple other random thoughts:
* With my current microplan I believe we can actually get the shrine t74, if we want.
* MoM golden ages on normal speed are long enough for 3 civic swaps, which is pretty cool.
* I bet that if we don't accelerate our second prophet much by hiring priests, he will come out at a pretty good time to start a golden age. And being able to leave Music until after CS is certainly a benefit.
* Paya might be great for us (later), since we have gold, techs are more expensive than usual, and we have priesthood anyway (so don't benefit as much from Mono's path to Monarchy).

[mostly_harmless]

Is there any advantage in using the first GProphet on the shrine, but on an early Golden Age? It would allow us to revolt to OR and also Hinduism, I guess, while speeding up the 2nd GP generation.
Just an idea.

mh

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Nope. Too early, not enough citizens to take advantage of a GA, and we're planning on building the MoM anyway. Plus we can't even make a benefit of stacking GPPs.

[kjn]

I personally don't like the plan of an early GScientist and Academy. I'd rather put the 4 food per turn into fueling settler and worker whips.

I mean, do we really need the research? We're going to be tops in beakers researched anyway. What matters more is maintaining our long term growth and snowball. Plus, since we need rapid horizontal expansion anyway, that means we're going to tank our science slider and the academy won't be worth a damn.

I say GScientist for our 3rd GPerson, once we've established a nice core and can afford to work scientists in some out-of-the way place,

The case for an early academy:

The academy will be more expensive the further we wait, unless we wait for things like Pacifism and a Golden Age. A GS as our second GP will cost 67 scientist-turns, as our third it will cost 100. MM will pump out 5 GPP per turn the entire game no matter what we will do - they are as effective now as any other time.

We are unlikely to tank our economy with our current plan, since we will have a very early shrine (worth 2 gpt guaranteed already) and early Currency.

We will soon have four strong cities. Peeling off the strong food tiles from the capital to the other three so they can whip and produce units and settlers won't slow down our expansion markedly.

And what will we use our second prophet for? Unless we have a good plan for that I think a GS as our second GP will be stronger.