[SPOILERS] Roland and Suboptimal Team Up

[roland of gilead]

Sub can you get me pictures of all the horse sites on your turn tonight please?

[suboptimal]

Turn 18

Animal Husbandry complete. Where are the horses?

Indonesia:




That’s making this area quite a bit more intriguing.

China:




Good guesses with the pins, Roland.

Western warrior mounts the hill, camp assault starts next turn. Eastern warrior moves to the coast and then east:




Hello, friend. Now I know where that scout came from. This one’s on a hill but the assault will begin shortly. It’s also coastal so I may be at land’s end over here. I’ll go up on the hill for my own protection and a better view before assaulting the camp. I will also need to heal for a turn or two in order to take it.

With the horse and the rice up there I need to plot out how a city up at the end of the river over there will fare. The appeal and is a bit better than where I’ve got city #2 pinned but Campus & Holy Site adjacencies are worse.

[roland of gilead]

city 2 for you leads to some dead space now i think.

Very awkward placing.

knew it would be lol.

[suboptimal]

Depends on what you call "dead space". If I settled the tea region and the coast north of horses there's just enough room to put in a filler city exactly midway between the two. It'd likely need to borrow the wheat from the capital and/or the rice from the eastern city to grow any but there's the possibilty of a farm triangle to its west (chop a forest and there are three plains there).

I did run some numbers comparing my pinned City #2 spot vs. the northeast coast. The exact spot is the open plains tile that is on the western bank of the river delta, two tiles from the marsh, horse and rice.

First 20 turn yields:

Pinned location: Found on Turn 25, 2 pop (growing to 3 pop start of 21st turn), 52 16 9.6 60 76
NE Coast: Found on Turn 24 (but), 3 pop with 17, 84 22 13.2 0 82

The "but" is that my warrior would need to break off from the camp in order to escort the settler since there's a scout running around up here. Outside of the stark difference in generation the NE coast location is better in terms of yield output. I'd need to buy the rice upon founding and the city culturally acquires the horses 17 turns after founding. Yes, there's no luxuries over there but it has everything else, particularly .

The capital is going builder -> settler after the current settler unless the barb camp spawns; the settler will settle the pinned location on Turn 41. The second city will push out another unit, likely a warrior, then get to work on a monument.

[Bruindane]

Perhaps the forest chop can go towards a unit, building, or a Holy Site to be completed after Stonehenge.

all chops should go to non wonders as that gives maximum flexibility. Except this one as getting the religion is so important. Suboptimal is correct the best course is not to chop this as crazy as that feels. Better bang for your buck on a builder charge. Also allows me to start Stonehenge 2 turns earlier. 

i don't think we get stonehenge any earlier as the limiting factor on that is the second builder arriving. What we may get is  not to have to buy the tile at 2nd city or save a builder charge if we do. extra growth in 2nd city also possible.

As a thought experiment to preserve the value potential forest value, build a builder prior to Stonehenge.  I expect the builder to cost 54  after you buy the first one.

23: Buy the plains hill tile and work, to yield 5  per turn towards builder costing 54
23-31: Buy builder, chop forest for 25  when animal husbandry is researched, hurry Stonehenge by 45%
30: Builder 2 ready, 1  overflow, switch production to Stonehenge
30-33: hurry Stonehenge by 45%
34: Stonehenge built 2

Alan McGregor can now build a shrine instead of a builder to generate extra 2  / 3  to speed the pantheon, then an extra 2  when the religion is founded.

edit: updated to account for Urban Planning, which adds an additional 1

[roland of gilead]

Perhaps the forest chop can go towards a unit, building, or a Holy Site to be completed after Stonehenge.

all chops should go to non wonders as that gives maximum flexibility. Except this one as getting the religion is so important. Suboptimal is correct the best course is not to chop this as crazy as that feels. Better bang for your buck on a builder charge. Also allows me to start Stonehenge 2 turns earlier. 

i don't think we get stonehenge any earlier as the limiting factor on that is the second builder arriving. What we may get is  not to have to buy the tile at 2nd city or save a builder charge if we do. extra growth in 2nd city also possible.

As a thought experiment to preserve the value potential forest value, build a builder prior to Stonehenge.  I expect the builder to cost 54  after you buy the first one.

23: Buy the plains hill tile and work, to yield 5  per turn towards builder costing 54
23-31: Buy builder, chop forest for 25  when animal husbandry is researched, hurry Stonehenge by 45%
30: Builder 2 ready, 1  overflow, switch production to Stonehenge
30-33: hurry Stonehenge by 45%
34: Stonehenge built 2

Alan McGregor can now build a shrine instead of a builder to generate extra 2  / 3  to speed the pantheon, then an extra 2  when the religion is founded.

edit: updated to account for Urban Planning, which adds an additional 1

I will have a look into that and see how it pans out. I think the trouble is I don't get 3 charges to improve tiles. 

It has some advantages though of course.

[roland of gilead]

TURN 19

Busy Busy Busy

Astrology completes.



I kill the spear and get boost for archery and start work on Mining. This is the limiting factor for when I can place Stonehenge 6 turns.



Settler moves toward city 2. Warrior goes towards camp which is a mistake. We have 3 scouts out there it should be escorting the settler. I can kind of correct that but may still be a little risk.

[suboptimal]

IIRC you can't move a purchased unit on the same turn you purchased it. This boosts the overflow on the constructed second builder to 3 but pushes the builder completion to Turn 31 and Stonehenge to 35. One thing you must do now is place the Holy Site on your next turn - that'll be 50 and the Holy Site will cost 63 to build.

Some options at the capital:

- Work the marsh + 2/2 forest for 8 turns to regrow the city then go max production (9/turn). That gets you 112 from T20 to T35. Holy Site completes on T30, builder on T36 with 4 overflow. This also gets you 4 and 2.4 that the following options don't.
- Max production from T20 to T27, work the marsh + 1/3 forest after that. That gets you 112 from T20 to T35 and the city grows on T36. Holy Site completes T27, builder on T36 with 4 overflow.
- Max production from T20 to T35 (8/turn). That gets you 128 in that time period. Holy Site completes on T27. Builder on T34 with 3 overflow.
- Max production from T20 to T27, work the 1/3 and turtles after that. That gets you 120 in that time period. Holy Site completes T37, builder completes T35 with 3 overflow but you get 8 that you don't get in the other options.

With the third option you can buy the builder and PFG at the second city, start Stonehenge immediately (pave over the forest), work the rice until the city grows and then work the PFH and plains hill. The builder mines the plains to the SE then puts three charges into Stonehenge. Capital builder beelines and puts one charge into Stonehenge on T37 and it completes on T38. The builder has three charges remaining for improvements and you have 22 when Stonehenge completes. You should get the pantheon on Turn 39 and found the religion on the same turn. Alternatively put all four bought charges into Stonehenge and use the capital's builder for improvements. Stonehenge completes on T39 and the pantheon comes on T40. The downside is that the capital's growth is stalled until after the builder completes and you lose from not working the turtles or gaining populatin. The upside is that the builder has 3 charges for improvements.

With the other options a builder charge wastes quite a bit of production since the builder can't use a charge until T39 and by then Stonehenge is at 166/180. If it overflows great, if not, meh.

I think you (we) should consider Holy Site first at the capital. IMHO Stonehenge at T37 should be enough to get us the first religion, especially since neither Russia or Japan have possibly finished Astrology yet. Remember, no one else has found a natural wonder (we'd see a team gain a total of 4 era score when that happen) so they all have an extra 6 turns of research compared to us just to start building the district. If/when we see Kaiser or CMF get their second tech that's when the religion countdown clock starts. CMF or Ljubljana might have a pantheon by now depending on what their era score bonuses were for but no one else has one. Kaiser could have slotted God King on Turn 15, CMF on Turn 16.

[suboptimal]

I see we crossposted. Not being able to place stonehenge until T26 pushes option 3 back a turn or two. However, options 1, 2, and 4 are now viable with minimal waste and would not be delayed by more than a turn. Regardless, I suggest you place and build the Holy Site first as that will get you your pantheon the fastest.

[roland of gilead]

Tile bought and Holy Site placed and building

I need to work the turtles in order to get mining in 6. I need to work it all 6 turns for that. It's also a 4 yield tile. Also working the marsh until size 3 then go PHF and GHF + turtles.

capital does HS - worker - Shrine.
2nd city SH - monument - worker.

ten both probably do settlers. need to finesse workers and settlers with cards.

campus is first district at city 2.