RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

OK, where to put the western city:



As you can see, on the river has "2" more commerce, though potentially more if we cottage rather than farm, however, it does have less food and hammers pre-levee. It also gains 2 health for being on the river, and becomes a lot better hammer city post levee. Note I'm making the assumption it won't culturally win one FP, and won't be stealing the cows from PR.

So, what is the advantage of building it off the river then? Only this: It pretty much ensures we culturally control that untra rare bananna. If we try to get it with our thrid ring boarders, we might have a fight on our hands, and, remember, we're building grocers everywhere, so that bananna is TWO health, not one.

So, how much of a fight would we have? Potentially a MAJOR one. Noveria is going to be fighting a culture war with an Indian city for 3 FP, so Byz is going to be pumping it full of cluture right quick. Per a chat several weeks ago

6:03 PM bobchillingworth: ugh that gems city. I need cutlure there very badly
me: if you were planting 1 south of the archer, we were thinking of moving the other city off the river to grab the banannas as a workable tile
bobchillingworth: Going to whip the hell out of that thing
whip monument in 2 turns. Whip a granary, then whip a hippodrome, then whip a library
6:04 PM me: we're not gong to get that floodplain then probabably. we'll never out culture you for it
6:05 PM bobchillingworth: haha I'm not worried about your culture there
India is taking 2 fp I want
so, culture war
figure monument, library, hippodrome, artist specialist should give me enough

This doesn't even take into account Eden Prime, which just recently popped third ring, and will eventually pop 4th. Therefore, I say we settle off the river so as to get the bananna. We'll probably have to chop up some culture there ourselves...

[Maniac Marshall]

BTW: I do think you still get prerequisite or something like it discounts even if the techs are required. I loaded up an old sandbox save. It said 16 turns to research Rifling. I gave myself Gunpowder, PP, and RP and magically it was a 13 turn tech.

In our actual game, it says Rifling is a 12 turn tech. I would expect this means it's really more like a 10 turn one for us, maybe only 9 by the time we're on to it, depending on how much rollover beakers we have, and how many cottages we're able to work and stuff.

Also, if we manage to pop an engineer... do we really want to use one of these on a GA? I'm probably being wonder obsessive, but... lot of great things we could use one of these for... If it's a priest or an artist, sure.

After giving revolt strat some thought, If we revolt after we get RP in 6 turns, then great. If we feel like we need to wait till after we get Rifiling... we might as well wait till we pop the great person at that point (especially if we're willing to burn an engineer on this) as to will only be like 5-8 more turns to wait by then.

[Maniac Marshall]

Turn played... btw, I did neglect to notice that we're putting a needed University on hold for about 10 turns to pull off the plan at Feng Shui... however, we're getting a Grocer, a Missionary, and THREE workers out of here in 10 turns. I think it's worth it.

If this is majorly undesirable, let me know. I do hate losing beakers like that, but we ARE #1 in science, and sometimes we need to address other areas. We're looking at about 10 beakers a turn lost to do this plan, for about 10 turns total. I think the three workers make up for it, and will help us more than 80-100 lost beakers will hurt us.

If we can live without the missionary and one of the workers, I can probably get the Uni done much faster. Let me know which you prefer. We're getting a Missionary from Teminck just in time to convert Savannah, and I can probably build one at PR after it finishes its worker and actually get it done faster. I'll look into it tomorrow.

Whoever plays the next turn, please note there is a barb warrior east of Pride Rock. Where he came from, I dono. I don't think there is anywhere he should have been able to legally spawn. Lets just be glad he's a warrior. Sir Charles Perault the knight is now healed and is headed down from the north to deal with this pest.

[Morgan]

From top of head; 100 beakers or 3 workers? the workers have it for me tbh.

I saw whipping on Civstats, however I see your logged in and the turn has rolled - was worried for a minute.

[RefSteel]

Do we think an extra trade route in each city is worth a turn of anarchy?

Hmmm. If we're planning on getting a GP out of Kilrah (see below) and start a Golden Age as soon as we get him, we would get the benefits of FM for less than 20 turns. According to the back of my nonexistent envelope, the benefit would be on the order of 800 beakers (plus a little extra happy space from HR, for which our need is minimal anyway). As you mentioned, we'll be making something upward of 400 beakers per turn at that time, so it LOOKS like a net gain of ~400 beakers ... but we'd also lose a turn of the world's best crop yield and above-average hammer production. Looking at the demographics screen, I'd say ... no. Definitely not.

At 228 fpt (which will increase by then) and 122 hpt (which will also increase by then) we could accomplish the same thing more efficiently by spending ~400 hammers building research and replacing most of the production with 8 or 9 whips. I do NOT suggest doing this!!! But for that reason,

I agree that FR would not be good for us at this stage. In addition to your excellent point, we're relying on the +25% production for buildings a lot in the near-to-mid-term. FR can come later when our infrastructure is better developed, more of our cities have multiple religions, we're closer to our happy caps, and our economy has developed to the point where +10% beats Sankore (this WILL happen, but not yet, especially with Monasteries still in play).

ONE LAST THOUGHT: The can't whip to the last hammer thing would have bit us at Kilrah as well, as the grocer there was going to be whipped to the exact hammer too had we gone grocer before temple... So, yeah, REALLY glad you pointed that out!

Yeah - I have no idea why it happens, but it does. (My best guess right now is there's a greater-than sign where there should be a greater-than-or-equal-to.) I'm not sure if it applies in all cases, but I have definitely run into it from time to time.

ONE BEYOND LAST THOUGHT: We're looking at losing roughly 225-250 Hammers for the GP. We're not losing any food, as we'll be working the GP rather than the plains hill mines. One thing we're neglecting to notice is that those hammers can be made up in the GA that that person creates, so I'd say we should do it. The only other place that will have an inerrant advantage will be the capital (2 sci points from Sankore), but we're not going to run specialists here for sure.

Good point on the hammers-in-GA. Are you sure we won't have enough population to work specialists and plains hill mines simultaneously? Bear in mind that there will be no need to whip the Grocer (in fact, we can interrupt it for units if you want) if we're growing too slowly to return to unhealth. It does make sense to work one forest in place of a hill initially IF it will speed regrowth to size 13, but otherwise I think the hill-mines are better at this size, especially for this city. I think we'll want to work a few turns of a GM here at some point to get the Great Whatsit a bit earlier; if someone can tell me the amount of food the city has in the box and the number of GPPs it already has (it's t137 now, right?) I can make a more specific recommendation.

[Maniac Marshall]

I'll send you the requested info later. Now I have 2 requests.

1) Can you direct me to that spreadsheet program you're using and

2) Can you set up a sheet for Feng Shui. With the +10/+11 Food potential of this place, it's an excellent city to 2 whip stuff "endlessly" and grow right back, and I'm hoping to take maximum advantage of this. Fierias, Pride Rock and Temminck are mostly "straight forward" cities, as in what they can/should be doing is rather easy to figure out, but FS... This city has options, and lots of them.

EDIT: A sheet for Temminck would also be swell, but less priority.

[RefSteel]

Before I get to the rest, this one's easy:

1) Can you direct me to that spreadsheet program you're using

I use the spreadsheet program from OpenOffice.org - it's a free download. As I mentioned, Google Docs also works, and is easy to share.

[Maniac Marshall]

I'm fine with whatever you prefer. I am, however, incompetent at making spreadsheets. I know about enough to use one...

I assume yours is doing the math on things, and is not meerly graphically pleasing.

I'm trying to set one up in google docs, but it will only be decorative. I'll share it to FK. If you know how to actually make the thing do the calculations, you can edit it to do so?

Nevermind. I fail even at this. I'll just have to type it all out in text and hope I didn't make any mistakes later, or make sure I play the turns myself from my notebook calculations.

[RefSteel]

So, how much of a fight would we have? Potentially a MAJOR one.

I think it would be fun to spot them 15 turns in a city they think is in a culture war with someone else and win the cultural battle anyway. And we could win it. But it's probably a better idea to move the city off the river, as you said.

One curious possibility: What if we placed the city in the jungle 1W of the original sign, instead of the hill 1NW? The hill spot is better in the long term, but the jungle spot gets off to a very fast start:

- Loses two Grassland tiles (one with jungle on it) neither of which is riverside, and gains back only one river Grassland (the jungle grassland south of the bananas doesn't count, as it will be controlled by Byz)
- Loses three plains tiles, two of which are riverside, and gains only one (riverside) one back
- Loses one grassland hill but gains another
- Gains three forests, one of which is first ring
- Gets Wheat in its first ring so it can start getting improved right away
- Loses hilltop defense bonus

For that matter, in case of an eventual attack from Byz, which I understand we aren't expecting, but still:

- Will culturally control the peak tile (good for visibility on Byz)
- Can be 1-moved by mounted units in Noveria

It also would theoretically allow a city at the "Filler City" sign, for what it's worth.

I don't favor either spot right now, partly because I don't know why there's an "X" on the "Filler City" sign's tile in your illustration. (My comparison above assume it would be available to the city at the site you mentioned.)

[Maniac Marshall]

I think it would be fun to spot them 15 turns in a city they think is in a culture war with someone else and win the cultural battle anyway. And we could win it. But it's probably a better idea to move the city off the river, as you said.

I know we could, but, it'd piss Byz off. I'd rather not piss Byz off.

One curious possibility: What if we placed the city in the jungle 1W of the original sign, instead of the hill 1NW? The hill spot is better in the long term, but the jungle spot gets off to a very fast start:

That's a shitload of overlap with that Byz city. There is also this:

I know we could, but, it'd piss Byz off. I'd rather not piss Byz off.

- Loses two Grassland tiles (one with jungle on it) neither of which is riverside, and gains back only one river Grassland (the jungle grassland south of the bananas doesn't count, as it will be controlled by Byz)
- Loses three plains tiles, two of which are riverside, and gains only one (riverside) one back
- Loses one grassland hill but gains another
- Gains three forests, one of which is first ring
- Gets Wheat in its first ring so it can start getting improved right away
- Loses hilltop defense bonus

For that matter, in case of an eventual attack from Byz, which I understand we aren't expecting, but still:

- Will culturally control the peak tile (good for visibility on Byz)
- Can be 1-moved by mounted units in Noveria

It also would theoretically allow a city at the "Filler City" sign, for what it's worth.

All that sounds great, except that it will piss Byz off, and I'd rather... you know the drill by now right?

I don't favor either spot right now, partly because I don't know why there's an "X" on the "Filler City" sign's tile in your illustration. (My comparison above assume it would be available to the city at the site you mentioned.)

That one is easy. We get the tile, but I "canceled it out" of the calculations, because the other site has a river plains tile (look straight down a few tiles where I canceled that one out too)