Puzzle for the math heads!

Capt Dizle · June 20, 2002, 10:18

Okay, lets suppose you are aggravated with the movement restrictions in enemy territory and decide you simply must move your infantry unit 10 tiles into enemy territory in one turn.

How many settlers and workers would you need to do this. Assumptions: Standard worker rates, 50% of workers are captured, government Demo, roads are present on all enemy tiles but no RR, all terain is grassland.

?

Marquis de Sodaq · June 20, 2002, 10:21

Without a RoP agreement, you'd better use a paradrop.

Capt Dizle · June 20, 2002, 10:22

Additional assumptions: War footing, no airdrop, no ROP.

dawidge · June 20, 2002, 12:24

Helicopters. No amount of roads or railroads will change your movement cost through enemy turf. Your units will pay the unimproved sector cost to cross AI turf (which, for infantry, means 1 sector. Load em up in choppers and deliver them where you want them.

If, on the other hand, you want to capture/raze everything between you and the destination with mobile troops and build your RR across the friendly/neutral territory, then you'll need 6 non-industrial workers for plains/grass/desert. Significantly more for forests (18 workers), hills(12), mountains(didn't calculate). Treat captured industrials as normal workers, and captured non-industrials and 1/2 worker.

Bare minimum: 60 workers to put rails on 10 roaded grasslands, plains, or desert. IIRC, Industrialization (the tech) speeds up workers some (50%? reducing that total to 40 workers). Industrialization (the trait) doubles your worker speed and makes captured industrial workers operate at normal non-industrial speed.

Fitz · June 20, 2002, 12:36

jt, I assume you plan to place a settler down to change the territory to your own?

The problem with that is that you get only the 8 basic squares as your territory. Since you can only place a town 2 suares from another, the next settler must move at least one square into enemy territory to stick down. That means at least one turn per city created in (formerly) enemy territory.

Sorry, no workaround I can see. I suggest mod the helicopter to 8 squares and use more of them. Or give Infantry a Base speed of 10.

Ogie Oglethorpe · June 20, 2002, 12:42

Or modify settlers/workers such that they can be carried by helos.

Use helo drop settler form up city. Move in workers make rails. Repeat rinse etc.

Ignorance · June 20, 2002, 15:12

Actually you could make a city, move another settler to the released square, abandon the city, and build new one with the second settler.
That would mean 9 or 10 settlers. Couple of more if you want to keep the read from closing behind you.

Fitz · June 20, 2002, 15:33

Devious Ignorance, very very devious.

Now why do nasty little tactics like that never occur to me?

Ignorance · June 20, 2002, 16:31

Where you see units and actions, I see potential for abuse of the game rules.
The "abandon city" option was added in the patches, and was clearly not originally planned to be there.
It has potential for great evil.

Coracle · June 20, 2002, 17:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Ignorance
Actually you could make a city, move another settler to the released square, abandon the city, and build new one with the second settler.
That would mean 9 or 10 settlers. Couple of more if you want to keep the read from closing behind you.

That makes just as much sense as not allowing an invading military to use exisiting roads.

Roads should be usable to an invader until pillaged by the defender to prevent the enemy's quick movements.

dawidge · June 20, 2002, 18:10

Okay, then you may not need any workers at all if the RR runs right up to the first place you want to put a city (RR gets built automagically and stays behind when it is abandoned.

This is sickening.

5 Settlers for each 4 sector stretch

=========abcdefghij

build at a
move a ton of settlers to a, advance one of them to b
abandon a, build b
advance all but one settler from a to b, move one of those to c
lather rinse, repeat, leaving settlers at a, d, and g

when you build d, rebuild a and keep it
when you raze g, rebuild d
when you build j, rebuild g

You'll need the enemy cities to be far enough apart for it to allow you to build your city channel, and you aren't guaranteed your 8 sector ring. Enemy culture can encroach directly up to your city center sector.
13 settlers total for a 10 sector advance, and no workers needed. It's not too late for Firaxis to put a hold on the "June patch" until they can resolve this... probably by nuking the "abandon city" option. It's either that or they have the automatic improvements (like roads and railroads being wiped out along with the razed city... although that just means that you'll also need the aforementioned 60+ workers).

Capt Dizle · June 20, 2002, 18:21

kring · June 20, 2002, 19:51

Just for fun one game, I sent in my workers to another civ, railroaded a path to each of the other civ's cities, then declared war. Using enough fast troops, I was able to capture the civ in one turn. By sending in enough fast troops in small groups, this left the rest unused until I knew where I would need them. Another option would be the old RoP Rape cheat. I don't normally play this way; I was just testing to see if it was possible.

dawidge · June 20, 2002, 21:28

I often sell Steam Engine at cut-rate prices for this very reason. It depends on how big a tech lead I have. I definitely won't be giving anything away until I'm ready to build tanks, but why should *I* have to build the RRs.

Beware civilizations bearing gifts.

... then there was the one game where I had no coal, could see that my neighbor had coal, and knew I wouldn't be able to take him out for a long, long time. It's amazing what Persia was willing to give up for the Steam Engine...