[SPOILERS] Smackdown Game Thread

[Ichabod]

It seems we get LAM's graphs after eot, so we might want to take some screenshots for analysis.

[mackoti]

I supose after getting sailing we could gift fur to sumeria so we stop that unhapines, and that spear can get back in city.

[SevenSpirits]

t41 we settled the city, gifted it to Rome, gifted the workers to Rome too, and started the farm. The founding of the city immediately created a trade connection between our civs, which allowed a gift of furs, which returned the Sumerian cities to happiness.

t42 the farm is done, we built a road segment which will hasten religion spread to the city, and will now begin work on two math-OR chops and a grass cottage.


Up in the north, our next Roman city is planned to go here. No more GLH duty, but it's just a really strong spot.


And the next Sumerian city. We just whipped a missionary for it all the way up in Pad Thai. This is not the strongest spot available, but it's probably the one we have to be in the biggest hurry to claim.


I talked with Mackoti and we decided to NOT go for the GLH. I think we would do better by settling more cities and getting more population, basically, since we already have a really good beaker multiplier setup. There is also still the risk that the land to our west isn't actually a separate continent, and therefore island trade routes will not be available.

Here is the land which is probably a separate landmass to our west. Looks really dry so far.


Here's the other (or possibly, only) island - I forgot if I already posted a picture of it.


Military situation is under control. We got copper hooked and a couple of units out before anything bad happened.


Our national product is gross:

(Disclaimer: opposing GNP values are uncharacteristically low.)

[novice]

Our national product is gross

Badum tish.

[Ichabod]

Our national product is gross

Badum tish.

I agree with the decision about TGLh (even after making over 9000 posts about it). We are too beaker focused right now, we don't need even more beakers when we risk losing land.

I like the proposed Sumerian city. Good spot that needs to be settled early.

Early Organized Religion will be great. What a break we got with landing Judaism.

-Conspiracy Theory: That island in the screenshot is shaped as an "M" letter, signaling it has marble in it!

[zakalwe]

To be honest, I dont see why we should pass over the great lighthouse if we can get it. Even if it isn't a foolproof path to early dominance it's still very strong. I'm not so worried about "overflowing" with beakers. It should help us get bureaucracy faster, just to name one benefit.

[SevenSpirits]

Well we have math, and will have currency, priesthood for Ziggurats, IW, and calendar soon. And we have a religion. And we hope to have 2 island cities. (If we don't, then GLH definitely isn't worth getting!) And one of us is ORG and the other FIN. All of these things enhance the power of additional cities and additional population in those cities by a lot. I also feel that we have a strong enough teching setup that we won't crash our economy. So I feel very good about just expanding and growing right now.

The main argument against GLH is therefore opportunity cost. It costs us a city right now, and probably costs us 1-2 more cities by compounding of production. We are expecting to be in settling races in every direction, especially as the perceived favorite. And in particular we share a large border with LAM, who bring the delightful combination of Commodore + Joao. So we are pretty much thinking there's no time to lose.

Another argument against GLH is risk. There are really two risks: one, we don't know if we can reasonably settle a 3rd/4th island city in the near future. (So far we have uncovered a grand total of one dry wheat on what we think is probably an island, and the neighbor who we are contesting this land with has metal casting.) (Actually, we know it wouldn't be the near future, but I guess the near future after that near future, or maybe the one after that.) The second risk is we might be beaten by another team. 4H in particular has a coastal Bismarck. And since we got masonry for early Judaism, we can't tell if anyone else has it. (We know that 2 out of 3 opposing teams have sailing, btw.) Being beaten to the GLH sucks because we would only get a 1 for 1 gold return on our hammers.

A third argument is perception. GLH often scares people into thinking you are getting so much stuff for free. OK, it's true. You get stuff for free, and it's great. Point is though that it puts an even bigger target on our heads in a way that standard expansion doesn't.

Finally, I would also like to point out an alternate way of looking at the opportunity cost. Think about wonders we might want soon: Hanging Gardens, Mausoleum, Great Library, Parthenon, Statue of Zeus. We're definitely not getting ALL of them - we need to balance them with expansion. Building GLH greatly reduces the amount of effort we can put into the others - it comes earlier and therefore has a big negative impact on our expansion that in turn discourages later wonder builds.

All that said it's certainly good and it wasn't an easy choice. (Btw the choice is pretty well made at this point, as the starting turns of the plan I had have already passed.)

[zakalwe]

Ok. I admit I was throwing that out without really considering the context of the map. If we're not sure that we can settle (and protect) any offshore cities, and we're also in a tight land race, then skipping it makes sense. Of course, we could still keep an eye on it, with a view to snatching it with a late 1-turn build if it remains unclaimed. Though it may be hard to find a site for that, too.

[SevenSpirits]

t43-44:

4H got Math before our t43, so we are getting some nice free beakers on it. As far as I can tell this is their first tech since they researched Writing 9 turns prior. In this meantime we finished off the last few beakers of Polytheism and Masonry, researched Monotheism and Sailing, and got enough of Math to finish it two turns later. So we are certainly stacking up well there. In terms of wonders, IMO Bismarck + Math means we stop worrying about GLH and HG. I hope we will find some marble though! (And stone for Moai would certainly still be nice.)

Stir Fry is coming along. Once we get math it will get its granary chopped in. We are not working unimproved tiles, I just like to set next turn's tile configurations ahead of time. It will have a cottage when we do work it. The missionary is heading west to banana city.


Worker activity up north. This city will be settled t46. Then there's a corn to farm, a forest to chop for the granary, and a second fur to hook starting t49.


Here is the incredibly barren island to our west. In addition to the workboat, we now have a galley, and I built a scout to ferry over onto the island.


Ginger Ale was whipped twice in too-quick succession, so it's slow-building a worker while it waits out the unhappiness. Then it will grow to 6 and start doing some 3-whips.


Banana city site. LAM have a warrior nearby which is annoying, since our vulture won't be there for a few more turns, and spears only get 78.3% against warriors hiding in trees. I brought in the garrison spear from Iced Tea to help scare the warrior away.


Btw, unit costs are brutal on Immortal. It's 0.9g per unit and only 2 free units, compared to 0.5g per unit with the first 8 free on noble.

[SevenSpirits]

t47 (t45-46 not reported)

LAM is being annoying with warriors near Iced Tea and our planned jungle city. I pretty much had to move the garrison spear out of IT t45, resulting in 1 unhappy t46 after it grew, so I started a worker there, and whipped it t47. But the result is thankfully that we have two spears capable of attacking the annoying warrior that is camping on our city location. So this turn I did the attack, at 76.7% odds. (The alternative would have been to delay the city a turn to wait for the Vulture, who would get much better odds. But I thought a quarter of a spear was worth less than a city-turn.)


Success! I covered with the other spear, just to be safe, and moved in the settler. This meant I couldn't start the road segment that's supposed to connect the new city to our trade network immediately, but that's OK, because of the new worker that will be born next turn in IT. The pair of workers can finish the road before the city is founded.


We also got a forest growth near Ginger Ale! It's the one with a blue circle around it. I claim that this magical forest correctly primed the random number generator so that our spearman would win a glorious victory. In the future, let's treat any suddenly-appearing large groups of trees as good omens. Also, you can see that I decided to start a Barracks in Ginger Ale. I thought it would be nice to have one city with a barracks, and GA needs more turns than a typical city to regrow after a settler whip. So a nice cycle for that city might actually be to whip a settler and then overflow into units, instead of into a worker and a unit. And if we are building 2-3 units every 6-7 turns, maybe 3xp on all them would be nice. The other reason for the barracks is it's a way to use our hammers from the forest chop which arrive next turn, that doesn't interfere with the desire to grow to 6 over t47-48 and then 3-whip a settler.


For completeness, here is Rome. First pic is (obviously) the southern half. Stir Fry just grew to size 3 and the tile that was added will be fully cottaged by the time it's worked. We had 19h available in the city this turn, due to the substantial overflow from chopping out a granary while in OR, and I dumped it into a library. I did consider a warrior or missionary, but warriors are not super appealing when they cost 1gpt, and our other cities are better suited to missionary production - SF could use a library best, and I thought getting a second library in the near future was worthwhile, what with our good rate of expansion and Currency coming in soon. Btw, the Currency ETA pictured (t51) is probably correct. (If not, there will be a 1t delay.) Rome will have to run 50% gold for just one turn, I think, which is pretty sweet.


And here is our newest city, Greek Salad. It got an improved Corn on its second turn, and it will get half its granary chopped on its fourth turn, and whip it to completion on its fifth. Then it's back to the workboat build, with help from the 9 overflow from the granary due to OR. The corn workers are going to run back to the furs and improve them by t51. They are 1t behind when they could be - the culture is there a turn earlier than they are taking advantage of - but such is life. (Well, at least, such is life without a sandbox that comes with the dedicated team of planners that's needed to figure out two empires' worth of coordinated micro. Also the planners are psychic.)