[SPOILERS] naufragar and Rusten get nickel-and-dimed

[Commodore]

A note, a city's queue doesn't differentiate like that. You have an axe, you whip the axe. That whipped axe is then always the axe that finishes first. Having a second axe in-queue just ensures overflow goes that way.

[naufragar]

Hey Commodore, thanks for the info! Sorry, I didn't see your post. I kept my tab open and your post was onto the next page. I did come to this independently hence my edit, which now looks ungrateful. (Just to assure any lurkers that the advice wasn't untoward!) Thanks for pointing that out. Would've been...interesting, if I followed through.

The ramification is this: we're probably going to have fewer samurai but more ancient garbage, specifically axes. A Combat 1 CR 1 axe trades against fully fortified, culturally sophisticated archers at a rate of 2:1. This is fine if we have some samurai to crack the city open at the start. In cities with forges, we just need 56 raw hammers. This isn't bad at all. Still, I'm trusting that well-trained, well-equipped troops can stand up to many more than linear arithmetic would seem to indicate. Build axes->get some samurai the turn Machinery comes in->pick up one more from Pajarocu on the march down->roll the dice. This means maybe 5-6 mainland samurai supported by a flanking element of a samurai and an axe from Lander in a galley.

[naufragar]

It's a beautiful day outside. Surely I can find something better to do than daydream about civ? Did you know samurai aren't the only units unlocked at Machinery? I had forgotten.

[shallow_thought]

It's a beautiful day outside. Surely I can find something better to do than daydream about civ?

Nah.

[naufragar]

We are whipping.


It hurts me to look at, but we're very crunched for time.

It's a beautiful day outside. Surely I can find something better to do than daydream about civ?

Nah.

What can I say? It's my hobby. I was thinking about the attack because I wasn't happy with the odds we'd get, when suddenly I remembered. "Machinery unlocks Trebs?" "No, surely we'll also need Construction or something." Well, gentle reader, I checked, and Trebuchets need nothing but what we're getting. One treb is enough to make me feel happy about the attack. After a treb bombards with the city bombardment promotion (hilarious), a blank Agg samurai goes from 73% to 78% against a fortified, cultured archer, which is no great shakes, but a City Raider 1 samurai goes from 80% to 90%. That's better. Pajarocu will make this treb.

Expect more whips. There's so much to do.

[Rusten]

Given your PB history I'm surprised we're not the ones with axes attacking into someone who just got samurai.

I think you'll finally have a good DoW experience. The only advice I will give is to go all out. We'll have a huge tech advantage and this is our big timing for the game, so don't be afraid if you see those science flasks go to zero. Keep pushing and keep making units. We may want to sprinkle in some settlers to fill out the land, but don't worry about research. Like I mentioned in my PB41 thread, civ 4 is a game of bursts. I had periods of 0 science and then periods of great recovery. It would not surprise me if we take out another civ after SD, if not the whole continent (let's wrap this up before PB46 takes up all my time ).

- - - - -

I'd be wary of building a forge in New Viron personally. It's not the most productive city, but if you give it the grassland hill you can justify it as it will reach 8 HPT for favourable rounding (2 extra hammers from forge). If we're also getting a forge in our capital I recommend running an engineer there later. It will push that one to 8 HPT also (PH+city center+engineer), and in the long run that engineer GPP could turn into an engineering lightbulb. Engineering would speed up movement and secure us from falling too far behind and getting bamboozled by knights (although we'll have war elephants at least).

But I've no idea on the build timings, so I leave it all to you on whether there's time. In fact, how do you feel about trying a low% GE right away? We can run 2 scientists and an engineer in our capital for 33% at engineering right away. We don't have that many forests, so I'd be fine with not bulbing maths. If we get the GE we can quickly get a GS after it. If the Pyramids is still unbuilt we can rush that one too -- that would be the best case scenario. I'm all for the capital forge if you include engineering GPP to your plans. The city will have so much food that it can whip and run a specialist at the same time.

To put things into perspective, are you settling deer+horse and getting a New Viron forge? Because there's no way a forge in New Viron will give as much production as having that city, and they're of similar cost. If we have to choose between the two I'd definitely get the city.

[Rusten]

Or the 3rd option, skipping both forge and settler in New Viron and simply getting 3-4 more axes instead. I feel a forge is the worst of the three, but am undecided between more axes for numbers or settling city for more samurai reinforcements. Depends on how easily you think you can break SD.

edit: But do make sure we reach IW for gems (happiness) before we go broke!

[naufragar]

You're post is a lot to digest too! Let me try and be organized.

To put things into perspective, are you settling deer+horse and getting a New Viron forge? Because there's no way a forge in New Viron will give as much production as having that city, and they're of similar cost. If we have to choose between the two I'd definitely get the city.

Yes. My whining about "Oh we have so much to get done" has nothing to do with the invasion per se. That would actually be very simple: start building units now. Don't stop until opponent dead. The trouble is I also want 2 settlers (gems and horse) and at least one library, preferably two (Capital, Gaon), all while building as many forges as I can. The plan in my head was to get both settlers from the cap and give New Viron the forge, but now that you mention it, I might be able to give the cap the forge and get the horse settler from New Viron. I do mine that grass hill (and finally, our cap gets some fp cottages), so a forge is useful in New Viron. It's more that a forge is like pre-building 14 hammers worth of samurai for every samurai. I was thinking more about speed (despite forges being great). I'll think of a plan that gets the cap a forge.

In fact, how do you feel about trying a low% GE right away? We can run 2 scientists and an engineer in our capital for 33% at engineering right away. We don't have that many forests, so I'd be fine with not bulbing maths. If we get the GE we can quickly get a GS after it. If the Pyramids is still unbuilt we can rush that one too -- that would be the best case scenario.

I had thought about running an engineer in parallel for Pyramids, but I dismissed it as being too slow. I don't know why I hadn't thought of adding scientists to the mix to speed it up. I like this plan a lot. I imagine we're going to have tech problems as we conquer Superdeath. I liked that bulbing Math sped up our time to Currency. Rushing Pyramids would similarly get us out of a tech hole. Although I'd love to bulb Engineering (1380 beakers!), it'll take us a while to get to, and I'm sort of predicting we crash our economy. I vote we run the mixed specialist pool and see if we can nab Pyramids. If 'mids have fallen, the Great Lighthouse should also be gone (both to B/GKC, I'm sure   ), so bulbing Engineering would be a consolation prize. If we get the Scientist, we pop it for a significant chunk of our path to Currency.

It would not surprise me if we take out another civ after SD, if not the whole continent (let's wrap this up before PB46 takes up all my time ).

Sure thing!   I know we haven't even made a single samurai, but I'm already thinking about what happens after SD (who, readers should remember, has had practice defending against desperate odds). I was thinking about Cairo's Cho-Ko-Nus which are not very fond of our samurai. The thought occurred to me that if possible, we should raid him after cutting through Superdeath, just to slow him down. This gets back to my post forever ago about being a bully. Cho-Ko-Nus shut down a samurai offensive hard, so while we have samurai it makes sense to be a jerk to Cairo even if we won't make too many immediate gains. It would be very good to keep him from every getting to Machinery. (Cairo is Fin and seems to be our rival for top GNP.) Magic Science, who is at the top of the score board with the most cities and Charismatic gets a pass, unfortunately.

Pseudo-edit: You're not gonna ninja me this time! If the question is, "In the early Classical era, should we keep growing or keep up offensive pressure?" the answer is almost always "Yes."   We've got to keep building cities. That's guaranteed tiles, whereas SD land is, for all our expectation, potential. As of now, I think the plan for New Viron can be: whip granary next turn, grow back while building fishing boat, build settler, as many axes as possible. Pulling number purely out of thin air, I expect the work boat and settler to take a combined 11 turns. I expect us to have Machinery in 21 turns (is that right?? Wtf happened to my Machinery date?! I thought we would be at like 19. Gah.) So we'll hopefully have some time for at least a couple axes.

Gems will be nice. (Please Superdeath, don't settle them with a stack this turn. ) Before hearing your Great Engineer plan, tech path in my head was something like: Writing-IW-Currency.

[Rusten]

To put things into perspective, are you settling deer+horse and getting a New Viron forge? Because there's no way a forge in New Viron will give as much production as having that city, and they're of similar cost. If we have to choose between the two I'd definitely get the city.

Yes. My whining about "Oh we have so much to get done" has nothing to do with the invasion per se. That would actually be very simple: start building units now. Don't stop until opponent dead. The trouble is I also want 2 settlers (gems and horse) and at least one library, preferably two (Capital, Gaon), all while building as many forges as I can. The plan in my head was to get both settlers from the cap and give New Viron the forge, but now that you mention it, I might be able to give the cap the forge and get the horse settler from New Viron. I do mine that grass hill (and finally, our cap gets some fp cottages), so a forge is useful in New Viron. It's more that a forge is like pre-building 14 hammers worth of samurai for every samurai. I was thinking more about speed (despite forges being great). I'll think of a plan that gets the cap a forge.

I'll make it easy for you, the library in Gaon is a complete waste of hammers. Our science % will drop closer and closer to 0 -- nullifying the library. I'd much rather get a samurai with 20 hammers on top. Gaon can still contribute to the war by 3 or 2-pop whipping samurai whenever it grows into unhappiness. A library I will veto.
Even a settler is much preferable to a library.

[naufragar]

I'll make it easy for you, the library in Gaon is a complete waste of hammers. Our science % will drop closer and closer to 0 -- nullifying the library. I'd much rather get a samurai with 20 hammers on top. Gaon can still contribute to the war by 3 or 2-pop whipping samurai whenever it grows into unhappiness. A library I will veto.
Even a settler is much preferable to a library.

I also notice you logged in, so you might have noticed that because I whipped this Pajarocu this turn, it needs two turns to grow back.   I didn't wait a turn to whip because I'm actually concerned about happy cycles there. We've just whipped, then we one pop whip the forge, one pop whip an axe, and two pop whip a treb. It's going to be a little raw.   Promise I'm not just pressing buttons randomly. (This time. )