Announcement

**vmxa1** · August 1, 2004, 12:02

While it is a good idea to think ahead (in terms of who is next), have we really made a determination as to the target?

It could be that we don't even need one, but likely one will be looking for us anyway.

**DeepO** · August 1, 2004, 12:07

Sorry, CH, very little time for comments. I'm trying to get the save out the door, and if possible will comment after that. But it will probably be something for tomorrow.

One thing, though: without more cash, we shouldn't upgrade all of our rifles yet. We need some to keep deficit spending towards radio. RP is not sending us anything for the next 3 or so turns.

defense plan, first iteration. Comments please!

Start

- ND sends us 672g. They should only have paid us 480, so I'm sending 192g back to them.

- RP sends WM. Send our WM. Can't send horses. Does anyone knows when Steel arrived, and if we can trade it yet?

- We discover MT! set to radio, slider to 90%, all but the Arashi inf set to tanks. We could set the slider to 100% tech and get it in 5 turns, but in this case we'd be spending too much gold, and won't have any for upgrades. Better not too rush too much.

- EotS builds our first tank, starts tank

- strange... something is wrong with Hurricane. Need to look into that.

- D-ville builds tank, starts tank

- Tempest builds tank. Starts tank

- Tornado builds transport. Starts DD

- Arashi builds inf. Starts tank

- Inchoff builds market. Starts explorer (needs shields!)

- Blizzard builds DD, starts DD

- WoC builds sub. starts sub.

bug problem
okay. This ends the first run. I just found another bug in the programming, but I'm a bit reluctant to ask for a replay again. The following happens: when you mobilize and are building a transport, the game does not give you the bonus (See Hurricane). When you then change the build to e.g. a carrier, the shields in the city view are correctly updated, but not the calculated spt in the box. Next turn, you do not get the bonus you were entitled too.

In short: while we should have had 60 spt in Hurricane ending our carrier in one turn, we currently only get 42, and do not finish it in time.

Best solution: go back one turn, and set it to Carrier before mobilizing, and no bug will happen.

my solution: spend a knnight on it this turn, and get that carrier now. However, with a knight rush, we would end at 179 shields out of 180, and there is no possibility to shortrush. So, before the tank is build I switched a tile with EotS, giving EotS 100 spt instead of 102 spt, giving Hurricane 44 spt. disband the present knight in Hurr, and let the turn continue.

Trip, if you don't agree, we need to go back one turn. It will save us the knight, so I'm in favor of it.

---------

do everything as planned, and do it again.

Damn.... the carrier is built as it should have been, however when setting Hurr to a tank, it doesn't update the spt

Turn halted, we need to look into this. CH, can you confirm it's happening similarly on your PC?

Where's Trip?

- 1961 gold, 70%, 690 bpt, -121 gpt. (Mass prod in 2 of 4) 2659/3360 beakers collected.
Strange. The calculation doesn't fit, I'm missing 11 beakers somewhere...

tech cost

shortrushes
Hurricane set to DD. knight disbanded. 5 shields rushed. set to Carrier

forces
(- 7 knights, 12 MI, 2 galley)
- 14 art
- 37 workers (+0/turn)
- 1 settlers (+.2/turn)
- 76 rifle (+0/turn)
- 0 tanks (+ /turn)
- 12 galleon
- 8 destroyer (+/turn)
- 9 transports (+/turn)
- 1 carrier

- Strong in strength to GoW, average to ND and to Lego. This is before upgrading any infs

I hope anyone is willing to go through the trouble of finding out how many units Lego has (should only be a rough guess) With our rifles, we just turned average. I'm now starting to upgrade them (3 at the time), in our red cities first.

after 24 upgrades to infs, we turn strong to ND

after 42 upgrades, we're still average to Lego. Willlfort them next turn, and upgrade the rest to see how we're doing.

Moves
In general, the specific worker moves are not covered anymore, it gets too tedious. Only important stuff is mentioned.

- pollution control

- irr Hurricane 2, 3

- mine Cyclone 7

- 2 workers added to Cyclone

- RP didn't move off their hill, so it has no fort.
- rest of our workers skipped turn.

in total, 5 more forests remain. Our workers are becoming obsolete, everything is done. Radio in ~7 turns, after which we'll convert them to radar towers

- Horatio now has 2 destroyers next to it (skipped turn). We also spotted a Lego transport right off their coast. They are changing their pickets, it seems, another 2 ironclads (waste of good shields) moves into view.
- DD in Inchoff forts
- D from Typhoon automoves towards Hurricane
- galley arrived at its spot near Pica. automoves the galleon present there towards Sufa
- carrier automoves towards Blizzard
- I'm forting the pickets again, instead of sentrying... I don't like it that when one wakes, I can't spot a number of tiles anymore.

workforce shuffles
- Cyclone: damn. one thing I didn't check last turn, and of course it happens: explorers don't get the mob bonus! We can't get Cyclone to 20 spt without it... maybe Inchoff is 20 spt once the market completes, in the mean time I'm building one here, at 2 turns... afterwards it's probably going to be a unit of some sorts.
One citizen set to taxman
further, gives game to BB, takes mined plain from EotS, gives all bonus grass and a wheat to Tornado.
- Other cities compensate (EotS takes irr plain from BB)

- Typhoon gives one grass to Cyclone, set to subs (50 spt)

- Monsoon gives hill to WW. Needs to retake it next turn.
- WW takes hill, instead of sea. next turn sea, turn after hill again. In total, it cuts the eta of the tank-1 (but costs 2 food, and as it is at a 3-turn cycle, and Monsoon at a 2-turn cycle, will have to wait a little before we can do it again)

- Elipolis gives grass to Inchon gets coast instead
- WoC gives grass to Inchon. Will probably change to Inchoff next turn, but that was already perfectly timed on the market

- SA gives grass to D-ville. Takes grass from Blizzard
- D-ville loses coast
- Blizzard takes coast

- Blizzard gives desert to SS, takes coast instead
- SS on schedule for 5-turn settler, by swapping with mountain. Next turn, take back mountain

Current Builds
long term plans for our cities

Eli : catyhedral in 2
Inchon : aqua in 7
WoC : sub in 1
Inchoff : market in 1. (explorers next?)
D-ville : tank in 1
Santa Ana : Battlefield Medicine in 2. (Tanks next)
Blizzard : destroyer in 1. (destroyer next)
Monsoon : tank in 2
Arashi : inf in 1
WW : tank in 3
Tempest : tank in 1
SS: settler in 3
Hurricane : Carrier in 1. I hope I was correct in calculating: I didn't change before mob. It could be that I'm one shield short (should have 1 over)
OG : DD in 4
EotS : tank in 1
Bolderberg : DD in 2
Cyclone: explorer in 2 (see above for explanation)
Tornado : transport in 1
Typhoon : sub in 2
Sufa : market in 89

Other

- Lego got SM. I'm sending it to ND, RP, and to GoW.

Not a bad move from Lego, as they can be sure MT will devaluate (we need to send it to GoW sometime soon)

- CH: message to GoW (when you get back

) please: Lego going for AT? we will delay MT for as long as possible, notify us when you need it
oh, and if they can spare any gold (they still owe us 1k5), it would be welcome, as we're upgrading our defenses right now!

- in F11, we're #3 in production at 701 Megatons. (last turn 697) before Mob (and before irr near Hurricane: turned 693). Also, when putting our slider down, we were passed by ND in GNP as well, we're currently only 4th. And it's not so close either, as productivity is also 4th.

after mob, we're at 866 (it's been 900 as well, when shuffling builds and tiles). total production back in 3rd place (1831)

- this was one of the longest turns I played, even with the preparation. Took over 3 hours!

Next Turn
- when discovering MT, set all inf builds to tanks... except for the Arashi one (which will only net 90 shields)

- tweak terrain around Monsoon

DeepO

**asleepathewheel** · August 1, 2004, 13:50

That sucks. I'm not suprised this hasn't been noticed before, as I image few pbems survive til mobilization, and even fewer of those are as scrutinized as this.

**DeepO** · August 1, 2004, 13:54

I've been thinking on how to work with it, in case it is unresolveable. We could set all cities to units before hitting mob, but there are a few problems with this: Elipolis and Inchoff are still finishing other builds, and won't ever get the bonus they deserve. In case of Inchoff, that's not that bad, as it was destined to build explorers. But Eli will be hurt.

More importantly, we've got a problem with SA. It finishes the BM next turn, and can't be switched. But the extra shields in that city...

sorry, got to run
DeepO

**Cort Haus** · August 1, 2004, 14:13

If this is just on the 1st turn of mob, with things straightening out afterwards, it could just be tough titty. If the mechanics don't work as we were expecting them, well too bad - that's the same for everyone, and if one team has the benefit of experience then fair play to them.

**Cort Haus** · August 1, 2004, 15:28

OK, I reproduced the problem with Hurricane.

If all cities who don't start with a valid mob unit on switching get stranded with non-mob shields, then we're looking at a lot of shield-loss, right?

**DeepO** · August 1, 2004, 16:57

let me first continue with the previous.

SA is one of our main producers (currently #4, after our 3 100 spt cities in mob). If that doesn't function right, we're looking at a tremendous loss. Not because its 70 spt are usefull, but because we can distribute that surpluss to 3 other cities.

The one exception would be Cyclone, which we could set to a unit, mob, and then set it to explorer, getting an unwanted bonus.

There is solution to this behaviour, and that comes in the form of repeatedly declaring and offering war to e.g. RP (Vox would be better, as it doesn't require any deals to end. But they will also know what is happening). That way, we can remobilize each time, getting the bonus correctly. However, I've got to think on how to use this, as on first thought we either get hit by WW, or by losing one turn of bonus shields. But perhaps there is a certain procedure that gets the job done, especially considering the moments we discover techs (so we can mob before production).

It's going to be messy, though.

Oh, as to the cost of all of this:
- Hurricane is costing us 1 DD every 3 turns (40spt). That can easily be corrected by going back, and mobilizing after setting the build to carrier.
- Elipolis suffers 10 spt at least
- Inchoff suffers over 5 spt in case we don't go for explorers)
- Tornado suffers over 10 spt
- SA suffers over 20 spt.

in total, that's 85 spt. We might be able to compensate a little, but that's over 10% of our global production. Worth fighting for, I would say.

DeepO

**DeepO** · August 1, 2004, 17:06

Re: Turn 224: 1090AD

Other stuff I didn't had time for before

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I assume we're upgrading the rest of the Rifles this turn, so to save DeepO a little checking I can confirm that we still end up average in strength to Lego with all Rifles upgraded. They have a lot of Inf - though some of that strength will probably be in Cavalry.

hum... to be more precise, we will not upgrade our infs, or at least not all of them, unless we get some major funds from GoW. As flight will end our research advantage in Hurricane, I want to have as much of research as possible done. We need gold to have deficit spending on tech.

Are we looking to upgrade the Med Inf sooner or later? If sooner then I need to press MZ, though I'd rather not press for the money when we're recommending thay hang back on receiving our tech. Cash on Delivery, they could argue.

Definately later. If at all. guerilla aren't that useful, and they cost a lot. If we get into trouble upgrading, those units are the first to leave behind, in the first place because we've got tanks as attackers, and infs as defenders. If we've got the money to burn, I'm in favor of keeping them, otherwise I just see them as ways to make it difficult for Lego to bomb our resource tiles.

A thought on tech - I don't think it'll be easy to shut the door on the tech relationship with GoW now (as has been suggested), while maintaining a healthy military alliance against Lego. I should say that this is in line with my aversion to the proposed policy of backstabbing GoW should the Lego campaign be successful.

I've been thinking the same thing. However, we could for instance trade them rocketry for computers, or something similar. If we want to win by war, we only have one choice and that is to get to MA first, and take a large piece out of a Bobian civ. Otherwise, we're doomed, as others have far better production capabilities as us.

Besides, who wants to play for over a year for a SS victory.

Oh, and we're planning here to win, but let's stay realistic. Our first goal has to be our survival. Giving a superior producer equal research is very tricky, especially as they know we might not have the production to stay in the race long, but currently have the firepower to e.g. take them out. Don't forget we can attack GoW in less then 10 turns, and most likely wipe them out in case no other civs intervene (ND will intervene, of course)

DeepO

**DeepO** · August 1, 2004, 17:07

Originally posted by vmxa1
While it is a good idea to think ahead (in terms of who is next), have we really made a determination as to the target?

It could be that we don't even need one, but likely one will be looking for us anyway.

Indeed. Survival first, please.

And let's just get ourselves prepared so we can fight another war after the Lego invasion. Any war.

DeepO

**Jon Shafer** · August 2, 2004, 01:03

I'm still here. Computer got shipped off to Texas to get fixed (video card burnt up... laptop). I only have a couple minutes online per day until I get it back (in a couple weeks) so I won't really be able to assist you much with this one.

If you want to go back a turn, it's up to you, since it's definitely a bug. Seems like a damn shame though after all the time you've put in on the past couple turns. If you wish to replay last turn then go ahead, explaining that I said okay (really don't have much Poly time lately...

).

**DeepO** · August 2, 2004, 05:09

Trip, would you agree that we now try to compensate with putting Cyclone to a unit before building explorers (to compensate the loss partially), and that we ask for RP or Vox to have a 1-turn war at a specified time to counter some of the effects (so that we can switch from buildings to units and receive the bonus)?

Whatever we try to circumvent it, it's going to cost us or RP in either shields or happiness (with all associated troubles)

DeepO

**Cort Haus** · August 2, 2004, 06:01

I'm not sure the game can be considered playable if all teams have to keep replaying old saves and agreeing to faux wars (which themselves seem to cause the diplo screen bugs).

Also, whilst they're going to notice the mobilisation soon enough anyway, it will certainly focus publicity and attention on it to have everyone jumping through hoops for it. What if someone else wants to mobilise - and needs to do the same thing? Chaos.

**DeepO** · August 2, 2004, 06:56

This is only temporarily, if we can agree to compensate and not have perfect results. e.g. Cyclone: we can make it a 1-turn explorer by abusing the bug, instead of a 2-turn explorer. This gains us 10 spt.

Don't forget: in 2 turns time, all our domestic builds will be finished. At that time, we can put all our cities (except Inchon and Sufa, which are of no importance) to units, mob, and get the bonus we deserve. I'm only thinking on how to make sure we get no WW, but still have all the effects we need.

Does anyone know if, at a time of ending a war, you are asked if you want to continue to be in mob, or are you automatically demob'ed? This makes a big difference: if the question is asked, we can almost certainly do it without too many losses (perhaps only losing a lux to RP for a turn or so).

CH, I totally agree that it will focus attention, and that in case someone else wants to mobilize, it's going to be an unpleasant affair. But do we really have a choice at this moment?

DeepO

**notyoueither** · August 4, 2004, 22:51

Re: Turn 224: 1090AD

Originally posted by Cort Haus
A thought on tech - I don't think it'll be easy to shut the door on the tech relationship with GoW now (as has been suggested), while maintaining a healthy military alliance against Lego. I should say that this is in line with my aversion to the proposed policy of backstabbing GoW should the Lego campaign be successful.

Best way to turn a friend into an enemy in this game is to change deals. Our suggestions to Vox that the arrangement which was very good for us at one point was no longer so good and we would like to change it brought on the first war.

I'm not sure of the specifics, but think about it. How wholeheartedly would GoW pursue a war with Lego if we were showing signs of... change in the relationship.