[PB66 Spoilers] Miguelito and Ginger split the bill

[Miguelito]

On the phone so incomplete sentences

Size 2 settler -> good if the next tile would be just 3fh, probably bad if it is a pastured pig . Here we have a mix of both, as the growths finish before the pastures. Would it make sense to build the settler intermittently and time growth with the pastures? Your latest sim with no food on the box also goes inn the right direction, sure. I did not refine as much yesterday.

I tried to argue yesterday that India is not only about the first worker getting the initial improvements or faster, but also about t35-100+ where you generally have to compromise between workers and other priorities. Plus combat workers, and wonder chopping. I get that you disagree?

Egypt enables the 3 great prophet play. You hinted earlier that you don't want to play that, and if it's that we can drop it of course. But I don't think the start is as bad as you make it look, and I feel that you're not responding really to the points that I've tried to raise.

I don't hate HRE, although I'm bummed by Mysticism. What I tried to argue earlier regarding early courthouses was that with t60 or 80 or 90 CoL you generally don't really want to build them, because costs were often still low and yours just ave 1-2 coins in the core cities that have the capacity. Maybe I'm off after the experience of 59's minimal distance maintenance. Now you can make the point that with rathouses the return increases, so they should become worthwhile earlier. HRE is a good option, I just want to check alternatives.

Riesengarde - off boats, and yes with cannons. Seems plausible, as on a water heavy map the lower branch of the tree can often be mandatory. But of course the main selling point is the techs, and that nobody has played it.

[Ginger()]

I tried to argue yesterday that India is not only about the first worker getting the initial improvements or faster,  but also about t35-100+ where you generally have to compromise between workers and other priorities. Plus combat workers, and wonder chopping.  I get that you disagree?

I don't know what it is, but it just does not "pop" for me. Mys/Min seems significantly worse than the other starting tech options, setting us a turn or more behind on development. I don't think the fast worker is worth that, it's just a gut feeling I can't shake. Yes you're right about tactical opportunities with combat workers and faster chopping, but it just, idk it doesn't seem to fit. Also looking at our starting area, I don't see very many hills or forests. Extrapolating that to the rest of the map makes the Fast Worker feel like a wet firecracker. 

Egypt enables the 3 great prophet play. You hinted earlier that you don't want to play that,  and if it's that we can drop it of course. But I don't think the start is as bad as you make it look, and I feel that you're not responding really to the points that I've tried to raise.

I think the best combination for the Egyptian prophets would've been to pick Gandhi. I don't think non-PHI can really afford to run the Obelisk priests early to produce 3 prophets and no GA. I also think that we really want an academy for this cap, and that's one GP down, and the costs start scaling so maybe the rest go into GA?
I'm sorry, because it is a really cool idea, but I just don't quite feel like playing a great person-powered monk beeline because I just finished that game.  
However, the War Chariot is very compelling considering we're opening with AH. I'll look again at the Egypt start and see if I can tweak it to compare better against Hunting. Maybe I'm being too harsh. 
You're right that I'm guilty of not responding in full engagement, I just find it psychologically difficult to make decisions between more than 2 things, so I try to cut away until i get to 2.

I don't hate HRE, although I'm bummed by Mysticism. What I tried to argue earlier regarding early courthouses was that with t60 or 80 or 90 CoL you generally don't really want to build them, because costs were often still low and yours just ave 1-2 coins in the core cities that have the capacity. Maybe I'm off after the experience of 59's minimal distance maintenance.  Now you can make the point that with rathouses the return increases, so they should become worthwhile earlier. HRE is a good option,  I just want to check alternatives.

In PB 63, in my mid-game development and monk infrastructure push, when I was piling up the medieval techs and before I launched my invasion of Cornflakes, city maintenances was ~100 gold for 16 cities, almost all with courthouses. HRE would've been at least 40 gold there. Civic maintenance was 120 gold. As a result, being HRE would've resulted in a bonus 2/3 of the ORG trait savings. Now the ratio of these numbers varies from map to map but this brings me to my/your second point. 
I love stacking bonuses on things that might be good ideas anyways. Mint is a top 8 UB simply because you build forges almost everywhere. Similarly, ORG builds courts everywhere, whether it's earlier or later, the bonus of having more is pretty significant. (Sorry, my heart is stuck in Aachen it seems). 

Riesengarde - off boats,  and yes with cannons.  Seems plausible, as on a water heavy map the lower branch of the tree can often be mandatory.  But of course the main selling point is the techs, and that nobody has played it.

Ichabod played it in 59, used Riesengarde to dismantle Cornflakes with Piccadilly. Yeah, I'm fine with playing Germany if you think it's the thing to do. Feels like a long wait for our toys but I'm sure we can make something happen with Chemistry. 

P.S. about growing intermittently on the Settler—why? If we're gonna end on size 3, working all tiles, what is the point of not growing to that size first? The settler doesn't come out any faster because the cost of filling up the food bar remains the same, we're just changing when we pay it. We'll have to grow anyways, the hammer dumps into warriors is useful since barbs are on (and cheap mp), and we lose the modest gains from working 3yield 1commerce floodplain or sheep.

[Miguelito]

My last shot at Egypt:


One turn behind your HRE settler. The worker can move yet. 3 turns behind on BW, but of course we are up Agri and Wheel while down only Myst. Agri might be very handy if the second city wants it. Myst as well of course . But we saved a bunch of coins with double arrow AH.
An upside is that the worker can build roads and connect city two, if necessary. With HRE I would actually consider delaying BW for Wheel (incl. chariots) and/or whatever food tech we need.

My idea with Egypt was not as radical - 1st prophet before GA, 2nd during, ideally with lots of slots from the shrine if the holy city has enough food. The 3rd prophet is not strictly required and would most likely come from a dirty pool.
Again from PB59 experience I think we used 5 GP for non-GA purposes before t200 (2bulbs, 2engineers (WS/Mining), 1 trade mission), while still launching three GAs (with GPs). And the 2 engineers were sitting around for a long time. We landed Taj but could not afford caste during that GA iirc. Point being, with Asoka I think we should be able to achieve similar, so using 3 prophets and one GS for academy sounds feasible? At least if the map is as loaded with food as it appears.
The GA would then have to be the 300GPP person and the 3rd prophet 400.
I've never built an academy and generally have preferred to conquer them. The payback time vs a regular bulb seems very long, but maybe I'm wrong.

And yes, absolutely Gandhi would have been lovely for that, but remember?

So this will be the last time I make the case for Egypt, and again, I see the strength of HRE as well. Give your thoughts once more or just place your vote if you prefer, and then we decide between HRE and Egypt.

I suspect you might be right and Mongolia should be up there, but I guess I'd rather play it Cha, and I'm not excited by it at all. Germany - you've sort of talked me out of early whipping, and there goes a lot of the appeal. India - you're probably right that it should be left for another game where the techs fit better, and if you jsut don't feel it I can follow you, and we need to narrow it down anyways. So I think HRE/Egypt is the binary now.

[Ginger()]

hmm that revised Egypt save is very tempting. Mys traded for wheel and 3 turns short in exchange for Argiculture. For whatever reason I had in my head that Agriculture was too cheap a starting tech for us to benefit from the prereq bunos on AH, but here it shows differently.

As far as trade routes go, it looks like we'll have a second city either west or southeast along the river, so maybe wheel isn't critical for 2nd city, but it is a great tech anyways.

As far as the civ UBs go, given our traits I like Rathaus much better, Spiritual Caste-ing can supplant Obelisks almost entirely, but War Chariots exist and Landsknechts kinda don't. Hmm this is a difficult choice. For theme and flavor I still like HRE. CoL (either via Currency beeline or Oracle) is fun gambit to run with Asoka, but the power of having an early UU with which to "negotiate" settling is very tempting. Hmm...

I concede that you’re right, it’s a strong option, but another personal problem I have is that I’m already playing SPI Egypt

Edit: haha, Vanrober took one of my original combo ideas, Zara of Mongols

[Miguelito]

another personal problem I have is that I’m already playing SPI Egypt

Ha,  I truly hadn't realized that. Let's just say that that's what tips the scales.
 
While I was increasingly warming up to the techs and UU, I also concluded that the map is probably not ideal for the full on monk economy that initially motivated Egypt for me.

So now we're holier than them all but will need some stellar buildup and micro for the first 100 turns in order to keep up with the early birds. looking forward to it .

[Ginger()]

So now we're holier than them all but will need some stellar buildup and micro for the first 100 turns in order to keep up with the early birds. looking forward to it .

 
Holier than thou micro. Luckily for me that's your department  
How should we write oppo analysis? Should I write it out and you kibitz, or you write it and I kibitz? Or do we give em a blurb as we meet em?

[Miguelito]

I'd lovefor you to write some analysis if you feel like it. I know I won't find the time.

Claimed & settled:


How does Egypt look now ? (Actually, not that much better, as Wheel is not required for city 2).
Stone! I suppose we are not the only ones with access but if this doesn't call for a mids mission.
The rice is dry, so that should be coast.
I want to check out possible connected spots on the river, then circle counter clockwise. Onto the corn next turn though?

Obvious question for a city here is wether to found on the tundra or lose a grassland. It costs the forest and a monument plus whatever x turns of not working corn. So probably no.

I did not select a tech so that we can discuss wether we want agriculture first. But I don't think we do, considering it would leave the worker just idle for 2 turns.

Feel free to log in and also play the turns. I'm only available on EU evenings, so I alone might hold up an early 2-3 turns per day pace. The password is ah. Just remember that by turn 3 we should select a tech (I think 4 also works, but others have suffered accidents before, and it defaults to Fishing.

We need a naming theme. I've been to Aachen recently and that place is not capital of anything, and I don'tlike the other names much either. To keep up with the thread title - restaurants? Famous tightwads? (is that the word?)

I'm pretty tired, hopefully tomorrow I'll have energy for some strategy discussion. Basic thoughts atm: Mids, not GLH. Critical of Oracle because we need hammers and don't need CoL that early. I it fallslate of course we can consider.

[DaveV]

We need a naming theme.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series has a very funny bit on Bistromathics, involving the impossibility of splitting restaurant bills. So, characters/planets/races/etc. from the books?

[Ginger()]

So I experimented with working floodplain instead of deer for the second half of the worker, which delays worker by 1 turn and speeds up Agri -> AH by one turn so it can go straight to pasture, but it seems that the one turn worker delay snowballs into 2 turns delay on the settler.
So it seems that we'll have to stick to the straight AH plan and build a mine with our worker's spare turns. However, then we won't have Agriculture in time for the second city unless we delay BW.

[Miguelito]

That's a good idea! I can't make sense of your result though, if the worker is delayed by one turn, shouldn't everything afterwards also have the same delay? I suppose you're already growing on FP over deer before the camp finishes?
Let's keep turns slow until we figure that out


Dave, that sounds cool. Problem is, while I had a copy of the book I borrowed or you a friend in school before finishing it, and he never returned it. And that was like 17 years ago, point being, I know nothing about the Guide save a few memes. Well maybe I should just get a new copy, always regretted not to have read it, just when am I going to find the time... Ginger, what do you think?