Micro Thread

[plako]

I need to take a closer look to the map concerning the city positioning in the middle. Philo bulb is good alternative also. Then we can slow build or skip Paya. It seems we've 2 main candidates to consider:
* Build fast Paya and settle Scientist. Fire GA when Paya is ready and CoL researched and Hindu spread
* Research CoL and bulb Philo. Fire GA after we've spread Taoism to key cities. Gives us also Taoism as potential religion and free missionary so we might do without Monastery
* Some other alternatives?

I had to think, but I think these are quite equal alternatives. At the moment I've a minor preference on building Paya assuming we can find a spot for Taj Mahal.

We know Great Artist situation before we can settle Great Scientist. So that is not an issue.

I like Hindu especially for the reasons Pling mentioned. There is no guarantee that TEAM or Gillette builds Shrine and it will be pretty hard for us to generate Prophet in the time frame we would need it. Main reasons to consider other religion are Apostolic Palace and free spreads.

[zakalwe]

Anyway, the Taj is 700 hammers. With marble, organized religion and a forge that is still 280 base hammers. So I really don't think there's any way we're chopping it out of a brand new city. (We would have no forge, then, either.)

White Russian might be a good option. It still has 3 second ring forests and a third ring forest, and can be primed as a high production city before then, with cows and four grassland hills. After the chops it would need to produce ~180 base hammers, which it could probably do in 9 turns.

A 9-turn Taj build... that doesn't sound so great, but can we really do much better? Maybe add in some whip overflow and it will be ~7 turns.

Edit - the horse city definitely could do it faster if we save all the forests.

[plako]

We can easily 1T Music now. No need for extra Scientist.

Bulbing Philo seems best option now after 3M's latest settlement

[novice]

We can easily 1T Music now. No need for extra Scientist.

Bulbing Philo seems best option now after 3M's latest settlement

So we can chop the TTTTM in the horse city, you mean?

[plako]

We should plan a little what kind of Great Persons we should generate during GA and where to spread Taoism (assuming it is our best candidate for religion). Current GPP tallies in the most potential Golden age Great Person farms are:
Caipirinha 120 (100% Scientist, +12/turn)
WIFOM 89 (32% Scientist, 68% Engineer +3/turn)
HN 0 (+7/turn - Rare occurence of no Scientists allocated)
Bitter 17 (100% Scientist +4/turn)

edit. We need 300, 400and 500 points for our next Great Persons.

[plako]

hmm. took a look at Great person tech preferences and we need to research Alphabet also before we can bulb Philo. I'm starting to 2nd guess again, if Paya would be better play here.

[zakalwe]

We also need Philosophy for Nationalism, though. So if we go with the Paya plan we would both be blowing the forests we need to build the Taj, and making it harder to reach Nationalism early.

For aesthetic reasons I would love to see a handful of settled scientists in the capital, but it seems like bulbing really is superior, at least if it's along a critical tech path.

Unrelated - I'm wondering if it might be better overall to let HN keep the wheat after all, and stay in its previous configuration, with two scientists and -1 fpt. The ivory city's growth will be delayed, but the overall configuration is a lot more efficient, and that city doesn't have any great tiles to grow onto yet, anyway.

[NobleHelium]

We can easily 1T Music now. No need for extra Scientist.

Bulbing Philo seems best option now after 3M's latest settlement

So we can chop the TTTTM in the horse city, you mean?

I'm going to start thinking that you've developed a stutter at this rate.

[zakalwe]

About which cities can produce GPs. If we can get one out of WIFOM, that would be nice. Particularly if we also land the HG there, as the chance of an engineer will be quite significant. But either way it would be nice to cash out those GPPs. Other than that I don't know if it makes sense to use any other cities than HN and the capital. HN can work 6 specialists while starving 2 fpt at size 9, or while starving 1fpt at size 10. Since it's a 12-turn golden age, that should be better than starving the city down. If we really emphasize growth in Weissbier, then maybe we could grow it large enough that starving it back down would make sense. I don't know anywhere else where that would really make sense. OTR has a lot of food but I think it wants to work its tiles during the GA. Or at least, it seems a shame not to.

With 6 specialists, HN will produce 21 * 4.5 = 98 GPPs/turn.
With nothing but its 2 free specialists, the capital will produce 8 * 3.5 = 28 GPPs/turn. But there is room for a quick burst here if needed.
If we land the HG, WIFOM could work 4 specialists and produce 16 * 3.5 = 56 GPPs/turn.

So maybe we can make the capital pop the GP at 300, then HN the one at 400, then WIFOM the one at 500, and finally HN another one at 600. The hardest part there is probably getting WIFOM to 500 in time.

I guess a trade mission to the ToA city might be lucrative? Still, it might be equally good to just pop 4 scientists and use them all for settling or bulbing.

[plako]

I mostly agree Zakalwe. However luck plays a role here i.e. which cities get free spreads and where is Taoism founded or do we get it at all. It might even be that Taoism isn't our best option at the time we get it. Bitter is good because it has high population and losing few non-riverside cottage turns is not that bad. We should try to get GP out of WIFOM too. Engineer could really make a difference when trying to land Taj Mahal.