[SPOILERS] Lewger goes for the Bigwyn

[Brian Shanahan]

praets are swordsmen, so they should have the +10 to city attack bonus, right?.

Actually it is a -10% malus to the defender, which usually is slightly worse than if it were a bonus.

Remember all % boni apart from the Combat line hit the other unit for a malus rather than buffing your one.

[Bigger]

well this is awkward. turn rolled, we picked up Iron working and reclaimed the #1 score as expected. We don't have a second Iron spot,unfortunately, only the spot we ganked from Azza. Here's where the awkward comes in:

a few things
1. we can actually finish sailing in 4 turns, burning through all our cash, at 90% research. not completely sure its worth losing a commerce or two to rounding by not using binary. but my gut says yes, because getting that silver city one turn sooner will mean a lot to our economy.
2. barbs!! the one to the left is the second warrior that was heading towards tenacious D, I believe. founding Beowulf must have caused him to change his path. Artesmis, in Beowulf, injured but promoted, has 58% odds . Achileus III, 1 tile north, uninjured and unpromoted, still only has 78%. im not comfortable attacking with either. but we have to start mining that Iron immediately with our 2 workers in the area. (we can't count on the barb to attack azza's warrior - aza hasn't played yet and will surely retreat it leaving us to deal with the barb). I think the only correct play here is to start mining and bring BOTH chariots to the iron tile to defend from the barb attack. most likely the barb will lose (im sure he'll have less than 10% odds) but we need thte second chariot so we don't lose our workers just in case he wins - that would be the biggest disaster.
we could, alternatively, take our chances and have achilleus attack at 78%. if he wins, that would allow artemis to heal fully.
but if he loses an injured artemis will have to finish the job.
3. barb to the east appeared this turn as well. Odysseus II (new chariot, 1 north of the Odyssey) can make it to beowulf this turn in preparation for dealing with him. we also have diomedes in the odyssey, a chariot with combat 1 that can heal fully at the end of this turn and can make it to attack either barb if needed in one turn. This also means we must have a chariot escort the Aenid when it is founded - although once it is founded we won't have to ever worry about barbs from the east again.
4. this is going to delay our scouting efforts, unfortunately . but better that than delay our spears.

[regoarrarr]

1. we can actually finish sailing in 4 turns, burning through all our cash, at 90% research. not completely sure its worth losing a commerce or two to rounding by not using binary. but my gut says yes, because getting that silver city one turn sooner will mean a lot to our economy.

One thing I like to do in situations like this is run 1 turn of say 50% and then 3 turns of 100%. A lot of times (if you have even commerce) you won't lose a beaker to rounding at 50% and then you have enough to run 3 turns of max. Naturally make sure you can still actually research Sailing in 4t like this

[Bigger]

1. we can actually finish sailing in 4 turns, burning through all our cash, at 90% research. not completely sure its worth losing a commerce or two to rounding by not using binary. but my gut says yes, because getting that silver city one turn sooner will mean a lot to our economy.

One thing I like to do in situations like this is run 1 turn of say 50% and then 3 turns of 100%. A lot of times (if you have even commerce) you won't lose a beaker to rounding at 50% and then you have enough to run 3 turns of max. Naturally make sure you can still actually research Sailing in 4t like this

I don't think it will work. that leaves us with an excess of 7 gold (we are exactly breakeven at 70)%, and since we only EXACTLy get sailing at 90%, I don't think anything with an excess of 7 gold will get us there. Haven't done the exact math tho .

[Bigger]

demos at 90% research:

we are tied for 1st at 100%.

serdoa founded his 4th city, so looks like he's catching up. Azza probably will be pretty boxed in soon. he'll have to expand east towards the stone. which is fine with me, really, in the short term.

here's more iron in bfe:

and here:

the first is really far away, past the 1 copper we can see. The second is the city we would have had to found 4th or 5th if we hadnt been able to raze birds of Tokyo. its looking like a decent 6th or 7th city (grassland iron + pigs + two grassland river spots + lots of forests to chop), but it will be rather exposed to barbs
so there's no rush to do it pre-currency.

here's a power graph. 2 turns ago would have been when Azza offered white peace. with the graph we can start to see why:



I'll take lurker requests for more pictures if I'm missing anything .

[Bigger]

oh, one more thing. the two chops into gilgamesh didn't even speed up the settler by one turn . oh well, not too bad, it will mean more overflow into a chariot or spear once completed.

[Gaspar]

1. we can actually finish sailing in 4 turns, burning through all our cash, at 90% research. not completely sure its worth losing a commerce or two to rounding by not using binary. but my gut says yes, because getting that silver city one turn sooner will mean a lot to our economy.

The beaker/gold or two lost to rounding is really overstated. The real value of binary is not those few beakers - its the advantage of having gold on hand which allows you to make the decision as fluidly as possible. For example - if you're running breakeven researching Sailing and you suddenly find out you have Iron it might take you 8t if you swap immediately to research IW. If you're running binary and have been saving gold for Sailing, you can swap immediately and it only takes you 4t for IW because you've already been doing the gold saving. Basically, by always saving gold first you can react to the game in a superior fashion than if you run breakeven, with no loss in terms of tech.

By the same token, as rego suggests, you essentially always want to research at the lowest possible rate first, to preserve that flexibility. In your case, if one turn @50% and 3t of 100% get you there, then that's the right play. But if the tech is important to you, and that doesn't get your there, then 4t of 90% is vastly superior to 1t @0% and 4t at 100%. Ignore the fact that in this case its pretty easy to tell whether you'll gain more commerce from having Sailing sooner than by running binary, at the end of the day those 1-2 beakers/gold here and there are never as important as getting the techs exactly when you need them. You can always micro to pick up a beaker or two anyway, especially post-currency but even before.

[Qgqqqqq]

praets are swordsmen, so they should have the +10 to city attack bonus, right?.

Actually it is a -10% malus to the defender, which usually is slightly worse than if it were a bonus.

Remember all % boni apart from the Combat line hit the other unit for a malus rather than buffing your one.

This may be true, but not of Praets.
Without CR promotions, they get no benefit attacking into cities.

[Bigger]

1. we can actually finish sailing in 4 turns, burning through all our cash, at 90% research. not completely sure its worth losing a commerce or two to rounding by not using binary. but my gut says yes, because getting that silver city one turn sooner will mean a lot to our economy.

The beaker/gold or two lost to rounding is really overstated. The real value of binary is not those few beakers - its the advantage of having gold on hand which allows you to make the decision as fluidly as possible. For example - if you're running breakeven researching Sailing and you suddenly find out you have Iron it might take you 8t if you swap immediately to research IW. If you're running binary and have been saving gold for Sailing, you can swap immediately and it only takes you 4t for IW because you've already been doing the gold saving. Basically, by always saving gold first you can react to the game in a superior fashion than if you run breakeven, with no loss in terms of tech.

By the same token, as rego suggests, you essentially always want to research at the lowest possible rate first, to preserve that flexibility. In your case, if one turn @50% and 3t of 100% get you there, then that's the right play. But if the tech is important to you, and that doesn't get your there, then 4t of 90% is vastly superior to 1t @0% and 4t at 100%. Ignore the fact that in this case its pretty easy to tell whether you'll gain more commerce from having Sailing sooner than by running binary, at the end of the day those 1-2 beakers/gold here and there are never as important as getting the techs exactly when you need them. You can always micro to pick up a beaker or two anyway, especially post-currency but even before.

ok, good points.
I think running 90% is the only way we get sailing in 4 turns, so we should do that.

[Lewwyn]

praets are swordsmen, so they should have the +10 to city attack bonus, right?.

Actually it is a -10% malus to the defender, which usually is slightly worse than if it were a bonus.

Remember all % boni apart from the Combat line hit the other unit for a malus rather than buffing your one.

This may be true, but not of Praets.
Without CR promotions, they get no benefit attacking into cities.

RBMod gives them 10% CR as a balance to 7 STR.