RBP7 - SPOILERS - Genghis Khan of Egypt

[sunrise089]

Micro question:



As you can see I'll complete a worker this turn and get 2 hammer overflow. I'll also grow to pop 4, onto the 3/0/1 cow tile which will be reassigned to my second city as soon as it's improved. I plan to build either a worker or an axe in my cap, sending the latter to the west towards the possible location of Rome.

The cap shows 6 happy faces and 4 unhappy right now, but it's actually only 3 unhappy since I can put a warrior back inside easily.

The question is whether I should whip this warrior. One idea would be to whip the warrior, overflow into a worker, then slow-build the axe while growing to pop4, and double whip a settler. Another idea might be to overflow into the axe, send it out, and either slow build a worker at pop3 or build a barracks.

I could also put whip hammers into a settler now, but both my next city spots are pretty limited by tech and/or culture. It's 17t before my cap's culture will cover the gold+clams at my coastal city, and it's 15t before I'll have Iron Working for the gems up in the jungle.

Speaking of Iron Working, I also welcome advice about the next tech. The nominees are, Iron Working for the gems and possibly cover swords at 14t, Pottery at 6t, Fishing at 4t (seems too early, but will want fishing as soon as my city plants for the clams...will probably settle->chop workboat, so ideally I want to plant in ~15t), or Hunting in 4t for spears (remember double moves are allowed, so a single chariot is really scary).

Demos coming next turn, I'm waiting on my copper being hooked to see how things look.

EDIT: All that said, I now realize I'll lose hammers overflowing from a warrior with that many hammers invested, so sort of nevermind

[darrelljs]

I would not whip the Warrior even if you didn't lose hammers.

Darrell

[regoarrarr]

I'd say Fishing -> Pottery. If you want Fishing in the short term anyways, might as well do it before Pottery. Though if you can get a granary or any cottages earlier based on what your worker / build queue looks like, you could go Pottery first.

[T-hawk]

Whipping a warrior is way overthinking things. Size 4 is a fine place for the capital to be, and you are just about to improve that cow, right?

Whipping pre-granary isn't all that effective, a conversion of just 24 or 26 food to 30 hammers, and you almost always lose out on the opportunity cost of tiles the killed population could have been working. Usually you only want to whip pre-granary when you have like 5+ food resources and the angry faces are otherwise inevitable.

[novice]

Whipping pre-granary isn't all that effective, a conversion of just 24 or 26 food to 30 hammers, and you almost always lose out on the opportunity cost of tiles the killed population could have been working. Usually you only want to whip pre-granary when you have like 5+ food resources and the angry faces are otherwise inevitable.

YMMV. If you're whipping a settler or worker (what else would you whip, really), there's an opportunity cost to delaying their completion by not whipping.

[T-hawk]

YMMV. If you're whipping a settler or worker (what else would you whip, really), there's an opportunity cost to delaying their completion by not whipping.

But there's also an opportunity cost to whipping of course, since you killed population that could have kept laboring on a tile instead. Whether that killed population (including idle angry faces) outweighs the productivity of the newly founded city or newly worker-improved tiles is the balancing act at the heart of so much of Civilization. The general rule is not to whip a resource or a grassland hill but anything else is fair game, but that highly varies situationally of course, like if the settler will go start working a better resource.

[sunrise089]

Exciting times in the Egyptian empire.

First, the Roman warrior that killed my scout continued to be aggressive and entered my land. Now I was in no real danger - I had three aggressive warriors, but at the same time it would have been tricky to kill his unit while ensuring a good hammer exchange. Unless...



Ok, problem solved. Yes, I cash upgraded. Was this a good play? Probably not, which is why I need a teammate But let me run through what I see as the pros and cons:

-Burned through much of my cash, meaning slower tech later.

+But I still have enough or nearly enough cash to go Pottery (grass river cottages)->Iron Working (2x gems) at 100%.

-Burned though much of my cash, meaning I can't cash upgrade again without running zero gold.

+I don't have hunting anyways. That means no spears, and anti-chariot is the main reason to cash upgrade. A chariot double move is still my biggest risk at this stage. How do I try to mitigate that risk other than going Hunting soon and putting a spear in each city, which I think is too costly...

-->Keep at least a warrior in cities that can be double-moved. Chariot vs Agg warrior in city isn't a 100% battle, especially if the warrior is fortified, within cultural defense, or on a hill.

-->Try to game the timer within reason. Don't give people a chance to double move me if I can help it, especially by logging in to each turn early.

-->Watch the power charts. 2+ chariots is a lot scarier than 1.

-->Keep enough population to slave an emergency defender.

-->Get war chariots....see below though

-Not really a negative to the decision, but killing his warrior didn't stop him from seeing my gold or one of my corn tiles. Enemies have now seen 3/4 of my good capital tiles.

+I do stop him from further scouting, attempted pillaging, or tying warriors down.

+I at least make him ponder me running that axe in his direction

+I have a nice defender for my next city that can safely hold versus a roaming axe or skirmisher.

+I avenged my scout.

So, speaking of scouting...



As you can see I've made a friend with that....Chinese? Babylonian? unit of pindicator's. Have I mentioned I dislike renaming civs so this becomes non-obvious? The 1...2...3 path is how I'm going to ask him to move. I'm actually trying to act honorably to both pindicator and Mali. I'm going to guide pindicator to Mali on one of the quickest paths, and Mali can come meet him if they want. On the flip-side I'm not telling what exact tiles the scout is on if I can help it so Mali can't ambush it (though at least they would still meet). I'm getting two things out of this: a scout path that is at least less revealing of my lands than it might be, and tile intel of the fogged land between me and Mali. You may have noticed pindicator owes me a favor but I've not said what it is other than that it's non-military. That's because the scout may be killed by a barb, animal, or enemy unit. If it survives to reach the tile 4N of the "2" in the above image I'm going to have him move onto two fogged tiles and tell me what the land is. If the scout dies I'll be asking for general directions to what other civs he's met so I know who is to my south or west.

In other domestic news you can spot both workers on a forest tile. That's because they had to burn a worker turn anyways after hooking up the copper and getting to the cow. I think it makes more sense to land them in a forest and chop it even if it means hooking the cow up 2t later. They're going to chop a third worker in the capital, which will synergize nicely with Pottery tech due in 4t. After that the workers can build a cottage on the tile they just chopped or start roading to the Northwest for the settler I will build in the capital next. This might be another mistake - over-expansion before I have the tech for those gems. But that new city can take a corn from the capital and work river cottages right away, and it can start work on the Obelisk it needs for the second gems tile. Despite the whip/don't whip discussion above, I plan to 2pop Imp whip the setter, but I can certainly be swayed. After the settler the cap will grow while working on a granary and barracks while building a settler in time for the gold/clams city.

Earlier I mentioned I'd like to build some War Chariots. Here's the problem:



The nearest visible horses are...not exactly close I'm hoping for some up towards Mali.

Finally, the promised demos. This deserves a big thank you to Mist for my awesome land and the lurkers for their great comments....even you Krill!



Looking pretty good. The only question is the land area. I don't THINK that means someone has to have a third city. I assume it's like a capital with creative borders or something. Too lazy to check for sure....

[regoarrarr]

You should have renamed your Axeman to "Warrior"

[sunrise089]

You should have renamed your Axeman to "Warrior"

I thought about it, but a) in BtS the combat log tells all, b) I want him to be warrior I'll send the axe towards him. If he's close I'd like him to make his own axe and sit it at home or something similar...

[oledavy]

You should have renamed your Axeman to "Warrior"

Renaming it Modern Armor would have been more fun

Like renaming a spear 'machine gun'....