[SPOILERS]PB46: (In Search of) Fine Foreign Dining, by Hannibal of England

[Juri]

What makes the AP good for this map? The size? Or something else

[Krill]

Number of cities. For a fixed hammer cost of wonder (Apostolic Palace, Spiral Minaret, and University of Sankore), you can an output that scales from number of cities (Yes, you have to build the temples and monasteries, and slso have to push to Divine Right but if you get all three wonders the pay off is humongous). TBS' thread in PB31 is an example of the stupidity of the profitability of this approach on a...food poor...map.

But you are only competing with players that have got a religion (although this is one of the circumstances that building a wonder purely for denial can be the right move IMO). In this case, Pindicator and GKC have the ability to bulb Theology to found Christianity and open up an AP build. Someone else can bulb Taoism but you need to have either Drama or CoL, AND Medication AND Monotheism; no one will research their way there because they are ignoring military techs for too long.

My view? If we could grab Confucianism, there is no real difference between grabbing a forge and a GE, or a temple and a GP (except the temple is cheaper to get in beaker and hammer cost), and theoretically we could end up with a chance to grab a religious wonder IF we have a production city. If we wanted to make a run at Literature after Currency (with military techs fitted in as needed) we could do without that much difficulty, and then the GL is a 18 turn build in the capital (hahaha). As much as I hate the idea of spending a GE for the GL, that's probably our only way of building it. And whilst we have a great NE city I should found, I think we have no choice but to use the capital as the HE city (oh look, want to make a run at the SoZ?) If we don't grab Confucianism, I figure we should just push Monarchy for the 25 commerce in wineries it unlocks...and possibly bulb Philo? That would mean in a GA we could at least run Pacifism. And we probably want machinery before Feudalism, just to open up windmills (and Xbows as I figure we end up getting Construction before MC)

I don't know. Just too much stuff and we are extremely hammer poor. The only path I can see is to just be huge...

[Krill]

Turn 056

The barb warrior moved to annoy the copper area. I definitely can't be having with that. 25% chance my warrior dies though. If that happens I'm kinda screwed and I'll have to reconsider options. Quite likely I have no choice but the settle the horse area, as I can't get military units to the copper to deal with the barb. This is a big hold your breath moment for me.




There is an argument that I should just double whip a lighthouse if the barb wins, but I wouldn't buy it. I'm going to need copper to deal with barbs, or failing that horse and I need a settler. That capital is the only city that can build it.





Another food! Fish! It doesn't matter about scouting now. I know I'm settling 2W of the wheat and 1E of the wheat, and I'm probably going to use the triple food city as the NE location. It's not like finding more food down here is going to change that decision. This locks in the 5 city locations I want: 1S of copper, 1W of sheep (semi-filler, settling this city earlier delays the need to pop borders in two cities), 2E of sheep, 1E of wheat and 2W of wheat.





Note avoid growth is off.





Those demos are dreadful. Praise be unto the RNGesus that the barbs do not make them worse!

[Krill]

Warrior won, taking one hit, but another barb warrior popped up in the far west next to Cavendish. Update tomorrow after I've rebuilt my pc and laptop...fun times.

[Krill]

Turn 057

Well, weird few days. Played this last night, just as my SSD was starting to act up, and then it's packed up completely this morning. Well, less the SSD, that works, just the PC wouldn't boot. Nothing a (planned) reinstall of windows doesn't fix (and the old SSD is in my 12 year old laptop, so I should not need a sub for the week commencing 25/11/19.

Anyway, the good news: the barb warrior died. The kind of bad news is that there is another warrior nearby, but far enough away that it could not even attack Owlthorpe until T63. Copper is hooked T62 so worst case scenario I could one pop whip a warrior and it would queue upgrade into a spear







The warrior is only at 83hp, so it does not have fantastic odds on defence, even on a forest the odds would be worse than the previous fight. Healing in place for 10hp is enough to swing it to a 80% chance of victory. Theoretically I could move one tile firther west, but I'm not sure when unit healing and fortification bonuses are calculated, so another question for lurkers: production occurs at the end of a turn, and barbs move after this. When are unit healing and fortification occuring? Before production? After production but before movement? Thanks for your previous input RefSteel, going to try for 2/2?

Depending on the answer, I may log back in and move the warrior over this turn, but the reality is that standing in place to heal to 100hp gives better odds on defence than 5% fortification, and the barb could just ignore the warrior whatever happens.





I'll do a world map on T61 with city 4 down.





I've gone with the library build. By swapping this turn, I'm keeping the option to one pop whip a queue upgraded spear, or whipping the library for 1 pop on T62 (with immediate regrowth to size 3). This next warrior would also cost me 1gpt in unit costs IIUC (although if I am wrong, I'll accept the public humiliation here).








I will note that I have another problem here: copper is hooked on T62. WT is expected to build a worker and then whip it on T61, and the warrior will only be 12/15 (so it turns out I should have worked that forest a little bit more). The only solution I can find is to work the plains hill for a single turn on T59 to finish the warrior but that means no worker whip until T62, or to delay the copper mine but I need that for the granary at City4. Poor planning on my part. I think I'm just going to suck up the inefficiency because I need this warrior for happiness (but I don't need the warrior at Owlthorpe).

[Krill]

Turn 058

This turn was played as a test to see if civ was working, so the screenshots were taken hastily.




Barb is making for Owlthorpe. Warrior2 to heal in place and ensure City4 is not molested.





Not shown here, but TBW is faling behind in EP yet he has not revolted religion or civics: he has met someone else. If he does not put any EP into us we should get tech vision in about 10 turns.





Barb cities spawn according to different rules, according to DanF. They can spawn in a fog tile. If they are going to spawn, I want them to spawn where I want the city, so I'll jig the barb-busters.

[GermanJoey]

I'm not sure that we want two GA back to back. Without religion the only civics we drastically want are Vassalage and Serfdom, so I think we want to try for one late GA and plan to get into Merc at the end of it, and we do backwards from that.

If we could get all the way to Merc by the end of GA 2, that would be great. I was just thinking in terms of extra output from tiles. I've tended to throw my first GA near the end of the classical era, start of the medieval, and my second near the end of the medieval era, start of ren. So, my thought was delaying the first one might be fine, but that shouldn't correspondingly mean that the second one gets delayed as well or else we'll fall behind.

[Krill]

Simply put: If we can use the first GA to get into HR/Vassalage/Serfdom/Merc/OR, the second GA can be used reactively to manage a tech situation or potential revolt into Nationhood rather than be proactive. Not saying we would never be proactive, or use a second GA to potentially build up and attack someone if that suited our needs, but if we end up having to use the second GA to get into Merc we lose all control over how we use it for any other strategic need.

It's probably fairer to clarify the quoted statement: "I'm not sure that we want two GA back to back, but if it makes sense we should do it. If it doesn't we should try to conserve it for a more pressing time".

[GermanJoey]

Number of cities. For a fixed hammer cost of wonder (Apostolic Palace, Spiral Minaret, and University of Sankore), you can an output that scales from number of cities (Yes, you have to build the temples and monasteries, and slso have to push to Divine Right but if you get all three wonders the pay off is humongous). TBS' thread in PB31 is an example of the stupidity of the profitability of this approach on a...food poor...map.

Yeah, this. Exactly. 

The secret of the AP and friends is that the +2h you get on your temple or whatever is actually way better than +2h from a citizen working a bare plains hill because you don't need a citizen to work it nor even a tile to work!. You don't even have to pay upkeep on the citizen, nor does that citzen increase the size of your city's food bin. So, it's more comparable to a citizen working a +2h, +2f, +1c tile.

But you are only competing with players that have got a religion (although this is one of the circumstances that building a wonder purely for denial can be the right move IMO). In this case, Pindicator and GKC have the ability to bulb Theology to found Christianity and open up an AP build. Someone else can bulb Taoism but you need to have either Drama or CoL, AND Medication AND Monotheism; no one will research their way there because they are ignoring military techs for too long. 

It's possible they could throw a bulb into it, but I think it's more likely they'd save the Prophet for either a shrine or a GA. 

Don't forget that the AP does have a significant risk-mitigation factor built-into it: we save gold on Theology, but if we notice that someone founds Christianity, then we could bail on both the tech and chasing the wonder. That said, we would have to spend the beakers on all the religious prereq techs beforehand...

By view? If we could grab Confucianism, there is no real difference between grabbing a forge and a GE, or a temple and a GP (except the temple is cheaper to get in beaker and hammer cost), and theoretically we could end up with a chance to grab a religious wonder IF we have a production city. If we wanted to make a run at Literature after Currency (with military techs fitted in as needed) we could do without that much difficulty, and then the GL is a 18 turn build in the capital (hahaha). As much as I hate the idea of spending a GE for the GL, that's probably our only way of building it. And whilst we have a great NE city I should found, I think we have no choice but to use the capital as the HE city (oh look, want to make a run at the SoZ?) If we don't grab Confucianism, I figure we should just push Monarchy for the 25 commerce in wineries it unlocks...and possibly bulb Philo? That would mean in a GA we could at least run Pacifism. And we probably want machinery before Feudalism, just to open up windmills (and Xbows as I figure we end up getting Construction before MC)

I don't know. Just too much stuff and we are extremely hammer poor. The only path I can see is to just be huge...

That sounds fine to me. FWIW, I think the GL is one of the best wonders to rush in general because rushing it lets you put it in your NE city, which generally otherwise doesn't have the hammers to build it.

[Krill]

Turn 059

I've been writing a stream of conciousness post, but I think I can boil it down to two screenshots:




Westminster: Whip settler T60, overflow warrior, whip lighthouse T63, whip worker5 T67. Use all current workers and worker5 to mine whatever is needed and fit in a galley.

WT: finish warrior T61. Triple whip lighthouse T64, triple whip settlers T70 (city 7 location) and T75 (silver city or island, probably island). (Next settler T81-T83).

Owlthorpe: Finish warrior eot59 and send out to help barb bust around city 7 location. Grow on an axe, except now as no copper, grow on the library instead. Single or double whip two workers as appropriate and get the road to city 7 in place for founding on T73, and then get a granary double chopped and a library single chopped (Founded after maths is is and plains cow makes up the rest of the hammers).

City4 (Still need a name): After the granary is built T65, build units (possible scout for the island? This is dependent on the galley timing), no food hammer units, and no whipping until size 4 (not improving the plains ivory for a bit)