RBP3 [SPOILERS] Hannibal of Byzantium (Bobchillingworth, ManiaMuse & SleepingMoogle)

[SleepingMoogle]

The turn rolled over earlier. The Citadel grew to size 2, and is currently working the rice and sheep. Anoleis finished the road on the Sheep tile and is set to start Pasturing them next turn.

Jenkins moved along his path, revealing no new tiles (although next turn we'll get a very nice view of the south).

A couple of teams increased in score this turn:

Sockboy + ad hoc + WarriorKnight + Pegasus: Increased to 47
Sandover + scooter: Increased to 43
Cyneheard + haphazard1 + antisocialmunky: Increased to 46
Kyan + Twinkletoes89 + Whosit: Increased to 46
And our score increased to 39.

Next turn will see both Animal Husbandry research finish (keep your fingers crossed for horses!) and we will also finish our second Warrior. I think Pvt. Fredriks would be a good name for him.

[ManiaMuse]

Woop not last in score anymore! Though PB1 and 2 seem to have taught the lesson that being top in score is not necessarily the best thing. Also PB2 seems to have become really bitchy lately, both Jowy and Spulla have become really arrogant over an issue that could probably be resolved with more restrained discussion. I seriously hope that turns don't slow down to such a crawl when wars break out in this game though I can't see turn timer issues going away...

I think Pvt. Fredriks would be a good name for him.

Sure, why not

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 24:

We had plans of crushing our enemies in glorious charges accompanied by the clapping together of coconut shells. But then we found a better alternative:



So yes, we do have Horses! They might not be in the optimal spot for us, but let's not look in their mouths too closely. Research was set to Mining, which will complete in 8 turns.

In the meantime, our Worker Anoleis started building a pasture for the sheep which will finish in 3 turns. He is now protected by our second Warrior, Fredriks.

There were also a number of score increases this turn:

Cyneheard, haphazard1 & antisocialmunky: Increased to 48
Kyan, Twinkletoes89 & Whosit: Increased to 52
Dantski & Mukha: Increased to 44
Broker33, dsplaisted & Swiss Pauli: Increased to 46
Sockboy, ad hoc, WarriorKnight & Pegasus: Increased to 53
And we increased to 45 courtesy of our Animal Husbandry tech.

I actually don't mind not being first in the score for now. It's not nearly as indicative of progress early on like GNP, Production and Food numbers are and it will leave us off of the radar for teams that do base threats on that figure.

Anyway, the discovery of horses may necessitate a change of plans. The terrain to the SW of the Citadel isn't great, however is it good enough to move our second city there?

At a glance, I can see two options:

*Plant on the desert hill tile Jenkins is currently on.

Positives:
Early access to horses
Extra defense from planting on a hill

Negatives:
3 Desert tiles and 2 Desert Hill tiles
Slow growth until we expand borders and clear the jungle off of the rice


*Plant on the grassland river tile 1NE of Jenkins (The tile currently marked T27)

Positives:
Access to more floodplains and grassland rivers would make it a better commerce city.
Can share the rice tile with the Citadel to grow a little faster

Negatives:
Needs a border expansion to get the Horses into range

At the moment, I slightly favor the latter option, because planting on the desert tile gives us so many undesirable tiles and very slow growth. We would need to chop out a Monument quickly in this case though.

Alternatively, we could plant our second city more to the east as we planned originally, and place our third city somewhere to hook up the horses. We could plant it on the Jungle Hill tile NW of the horses in that case to get access to Stone and Spices there (and planting on the tile N of that would make for an good production city). But I'm not sure we'll want to wait that long to get a solid strategic resource. We could even make that Jungle hill tile our second city site and plant the third city south instead even though we wouldn't have a food resource that way.

Lots of options! We should agree on how the horses affect our immediate plans before moving our units in T25.

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh man, horses!


Sorry for not commenting here much lately, I've been busy exploring Erebus and laying fell curses on Bioware for not providing single-core support for Mass Effect 2 (although apparently a patch is on the way...)

Anyway, both of you have been doing a fantastic job laying out strategic options and ploting moves, so consider me in silent agreement for anything and everything unless I post something here (I do try to check this thread several times a day and log in a least once daily).


So, regarding the horses, I'd like to suggest an alternative city site of the jungle hill to the west. The advantages are that the horses can be hooked up quickly, it has the hill defensive bonus and is surrounded by easily defensible terrain, it has freshwater for health, and most importantly doesn't interferre with a future major commerce city that can work the jungle rice & several floodplains. The disadvantages are that it's poor-to-average on just about everything, particularly food.

Personally I think that it's entirely worth it, and would advocate setting there as the 2nd city for as early as possible chariots. Right now our two biggest weaknesses are an inability to scout far beyond the capital and a thin defense. Chariots will solve both those problems until enemy spears show up, which ideally won't be for many more turns. I know that we want to have each city be a strong contributer to justify the maintenance costs, and that it's difficult to swallow settling a 2nd city with zero food bonuses, but it's not a terrible location, and it should pay for itself in due time with 4 cottages and the spice. We could settle there for a 3rd spot, but that involves a lot of risk for not a vast amount of benefit in terms of our growth curve, unless we intend to settle our 2nd spot with one of our corn resources right next to the city.

If we do settle my suggested location I propose building a monument while we wait for the pasture and road to complete, then switching to chariots for the next 3-4 builds before reverting back to the momument. I figure we probably want two chariots scouting early on and at least two for immediate defense. I haven't run any sims because I'm writing this all down as quickly as I think it up, but I think it would be pretty easily accomplished via a combination of chops and working the horse tile.

[ManiaMuse]

Hmm choices, what do the lurkers think?

I quite like the jungle hill site that Bob proposed, it manages to pick up the stone as well so long as we chop out a monument soon enough which could be useful for whatever reasons. Yes there are quite a few disadvantages such as it being pretty food poor so we would have to farm all the grasslands, it's quite far from the capital for a 2nd city so we need to make sure that we can defend it, and it doesn't really take advantage of financial since we won't be building cottages there. However I think it might be worth it.

The rice isn't going to get worked for a while since we need IW and pottery is still a bit off so it could be an idea for our 2nd city. Although I think we definitely would then need to make sure our 3rd city is a commerce city. Hmm, let's see if moving the warrior next turn reveals anything more.

Again, lurker comments?

[SleepingMoogle]

The jungle hill is pretty nice yes, but how about the grassland tile 1N of it? It's pretty obvious the city would be aimed for production rather than commerce, and this location would lose some desert and plains tiles, and get more grassland and hills in play. We will lose the hill defense bonus and need to wait for a border expansion for the horses this way, but even though the city would be the same number of tiles away from the Citadel, it can be argued that it's actually closer since its borders exactly match the capital's rather than leave space in between.

Given that we need IW to make use that second rice resource, we could just leave it for the third city. If we get Pottery after BW, we can probably have the Citadel serve to temporarily boost commerce with a cottage or two. And if we do select this city for our second city, planting the third city south and developing that one as a commerce city becomes pretty much a necessity.

[ManiaMuse]

One benefit of settling on the jungle hill is that it will stop jungle spreading in that area. I do think it is important to get the horses in 1st ring because even if we chopped the monument it would still delay hooking the horses up by quite a while.

Another option might be the plains hill to the N of Jenkins since it would get the horses first ring and might be able to share the job of growing cottages with a commerce city further to the E.

[SleepingMoogle]

Here's a quick dotmap with possible city sites. Apologies for the mess.



Hopefully it outlines the reasoning behind the yellow dot location.. by moving one tile north, you move from one grassland hill to four, and lose some desert and plains tiles in the process. This would change the city from a resource grab with little further potential to a pretty decent production city: 4 grassland hills, stone and horses should do very nicely.

I also included the location 1N of Jenkins as the green dot. It has some potential as well but the city probably would become a filler wedged between a commerce city to the east, and production city to the NW.

[ManiaMuse]

My reasoning for red dot (or green, not so fond of that one since the desert hill leaves it quite vulnerable to attack) is mostly based on the fact that this is MP and getting strategic resources in first ring is really important. If we were to go for yellow dot, which I agree has better long term production/commerce potential, it would 10 turns to pop the cultural borders plus however long it takes to chop the monument then the time it then takes to build a pasture. Basically red or green have quicker set up times and we could do with chariots for exploration and a marginally better defence as soon as possible.

Yes it would be a filler/resource grab city but gives us a better settlement claim on the riverlands both to the E and w. I quite like the strategic potential of red because of the way the lake is set up and there are no hills surrounding it. If our uber-catapracht-rampage-the-whole-world plan ever comes off then its only natural for our enemies to target our horse city first.

Any thoughts Bob/Moogle/random lurkers?

[ManiaMuse]

Moved Jenkins to reveal more juicy floodplains. Wasn't sure if Frederick is just going to be used for worker defence for the time being or not. I mean the worker isn't really in any danger where it is at the moment but then again I suppose there aren't any tiles that Fred could reveal in just a few turns so left him unmoved but didn't end the turn.