[SPOILERS] Serdoas and Nobles Thread with a little bit of Gaspar sprinkled in

[Serdoa]

The issue with A+B doing stuff together is that we need the pasture on the sheep in order to grow a turn faster. That's the reason for that plan. Even then we don't work the horse for a turn but a 3/0/1 tile. That speeds us up by 1 turn which I think comes out ahead. But if go with your plan we would have to work the 3/0/1 tile for 3 or 4 turns instead of the horse, which isn't worth it for 1 turn growth.

So basically: Do we want to grow 1 turn faster but lose 2 worker turns (we lose 1 by moving the worker on sheep, then 2 when moving them on gold, but we would lose 1 anyway with the sheep worker when moving over to rice - or build a road with the other worker first on the rice, but that's basically 2 lost worker turns in itself right now - so 2 turns lost)?

As for C+D you certainly are right that it can be done better. City location has not been moved from where it is on the map right now (2S of copper).

edit:

1t moving on sheep
4t pasture
2t road on sheep
2t moving on gold
2t road on gold
4t farm
2t road on rice
----
17t total

1t moving on gold
4t pasture
2t road on sheep
2t road on gold
2t road on farm
4t farm
---
15t total

So yeah, we lose 2 worker turns

[NobleHelium]

Okay, up to you regarding Pagle. Your plan has the added bonus of being less vulnerable to barbs so that's nice. I think I agree with it since we're growing faster now whereas before the chop was going into a settler which delays growth anyway. Do we build the archer in time if we finish the granary first?

I can work out the stuff in the south sometime this week.

[Serdoa]

Ok, I thought quiet a bit about it now, but I still believe we are better off getting the sheep improved asap. I was one off with the food in my earlier plan, we get one more than I counted. I've also come up with a different plan for that city. Another settler probably doesn't help around T58 with us having not enough workers as is. So, I think we should do:

T49: 86/60 Granary - 8/26
T50: 16/25 Archer - 15/26 (work FP over horse)
T51: 24/25 Archer - 21/26
T52: 32/25 Archer - 27/26
T53: 15/25 Archer2 - 21/28
T54: 23/25 Archer2 - 28/28
T55: 13/60 Worker - 14/30 (1 unhappy)
T56: 77/60 Worker - 14/26 (2-pop whip)
T57: 44/25 Archer2 - 28/26 (need gold roaded and mined for happy)
T58: 36/100 Settler - 15/28
T59: 53/100
T60: 70/100 (could 2-pop whip again instead, needs ivory connected).
T61: 87/100
T62: 104/100

[Serdoa]

Ok, I go ahead with the moves for this turn then. With those the above plan can be followed or the first one I laid out. So we still have time to discuss that in more detail.

[NobleHelium]

Uh sure that seems fine, do we really finish the settler on t58 if we build it instead of the worker though? Also, we don't need to road the gold because it's on a river.

CH's chariot withdrew.

[Serdoa]

Do you know why we still don't have a trade-connection to Overspark? I think it is because not all parts of the river are in our borders yet, right?

As for the settler: Yes we do, because we don't build the second archer either. That's why I like the second plan more, because we get more workers and military, both necessary for further expansion. And getting the settler this early is kinda unhelpful anyway.

[NobleHelium]

Yes regarding the trade connection, although I had forgotten about that before you mentioned it. That's annoying but I think we'll get a connection when borders expand next turn.

[Serdoa]

You are right, connection is done. That's great as we need the happy from the gold and will not have to build a road there for now, which works out to be exactly what we needed, as the mine takes 5 turns (desert).

At Nat Pagle, one barb moved away again, but another Barb warrior came from the northwest. I guess we do really not have a close neighbour there. I don't know if the barb can already enter borders, I believe there was some kind of restriction before they can do that. Also we should have an added bonus when fighting against barbs for the first few fights due to the difficulty-setting, shouldn't we? Reason I'm asking is that the barb is 2NW,1N of the city (above the mountain) so we could move our warrior to the forest 1E of that mountain. That would give +50% defense-bonus if the barb attacks. That only makes sense if he can move into our borders though. If we don't move there and he can move in and does, we can't defend the pasture, the mine and our workers. And protecting the workers the next turn on the jungle-gold with the warrior isn't really what I want to do either, as losing that fight would cost both workers as well. Protecting the pasture though does mean that we would have to move the warrior there next turn anyway. But only with 25% defense bonus.

Basically:

a) Can Barbs already enter borders?
b) Do we get a bonus against them on this difficulty? (we fought once against barb-warriors so far, though if animals also count we surely have used the bonus up already)
c) If Barbs can enter borders I suggest we move the warrior on the forest as it gives the best defense bonus we will get against the barb.

Else if we don't move out and he moves in, we need to defend both workers and the pasture but can't with the units available. So realistically I don't think there is a better move than baiting him onto an attack against the +50% defense IF he can move in.

[NobleHelium]

I don't know whether barbs can already enter borders, sorry. I guess we should have considered that before panicking about barbs before. :P We don't get any bonus against them on this difficulty or else it would show up on the odds tooltip. Some lower difficulties give you automatic wins on the first one or two barb fights which do not show up on the tooltip, but that is definitely for difficulties lower than this one and we've already exhausted them even if we had them.

We have 90% chance to win by moving onto the forest, so yes, we should move there. Worst case our new archer will clean up the injured barb warrior afterwards.

Donovan built another impi judging by the graph, but I think we're fine, he probably would have attacked us already if he was going to. We can keep peeking with the scout until borders expand though.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Info from 2008. Use at your peril. But I don't see any reason for a mod or expansion to have changed this aspect of barb behavior.