Turnplayer Thread #2.

[Zeviz]

Additional benefit of Regoarrarr's plan is that it helps keep up our bluff. (If Imperio units notice that we aren't in a rush to connect Copper, they will assume we have another source.)

[Sullla]

Wonder of wonders, Imperio and Banana both ended their turns, so we roll over to the next turn about 2 hours early.

Highlights from T71:

- PAL logged in and had this chat with me:



So we can expect Alphabet a little after our Iron Working research. More importantly, look at the cities list on the left side: PAL just settled their sixth city, Alexandria. They are totally out of control - Rabbits have three cities over there, and Banana has two. I'm starting to worry that the incompetence of the eastern teams is going to cost us the game: PAL has seven warriors guarding five cities! They would collapse in a sneeze if faced by a real attack. Stupid role-playing teams, argh.

I think it's clear PAL is ignoring expansion costs and plans to trade their way to victory. It's not a bad strategy, especially given their central starting spot that contacts all six teams. Hooray for the map maker's extremely unbalanced starts...

- OK, back to more positive stuff. We have a city management question at China Beach. Parsons just finished a pasture on the plains cattle there (3/3/0 tile). Do we want to swap off the clams resource (4/0/2) to the cattle? My instinct says no, since we're pushing growth and research at the moment, but it's worth discussing. China Beach is currently size 1 (8/22 food in the box), with four turns to growth.

- A pic of our eastern front:



I've arrowed where each of the units is heading. It's unknown where the Imperio settler went, but my best guess is up the northern coast. There's a wheat/gold location up there that would make a nice city. (Grassland gold tile... yeah. Thanks again map maker!)

- I had O'Brien put another turn into the horse pasture at Cape Town, since that seemed to be the consensus. We can still cancel at any time and start mining the copper.

- Templar Soldier points went up by 6000 last turn, confirming they researched Archery on T70. As expected.

- Imperio's soldier point count went up another 4000 last turn. They built another unit, either a holkar or chariot. If this continues to go on, we may need to start worrying. I don't trust them, even with a NAP (that they asked for!) in place.

We continue to do very well against every team except PAL, who is destroying everyone.

[regoarrarr]

I think we need to keep the clams tile, at least for the next 2 turns. Switching to the cattle drops our actual bpt from 30 to 27, which means that it will take an extra turn to get IW. I don't think a few hammers on a granary make up for that (especially given that loss of food too). We'll pick up the cow in 4 turns anyways.

[regoarrarr]

I saw something about reloading to our auto save and we may need to play again? Did that happen?

Sullla Edit: Yes, but it happened two days ago.

[Sullla]

A new turn has finally started, yay! Here are the highlights for T72:

- Jennifer has spotted the Imperio settler. It looks extremely likely that they're going to grab a spot on the northern coast:



Will they take the current spot or keep moving? I guess we'll find out! Also a bit daring of them to be moving the settler with no escort. Wouldn't it be awesome if a barb ate their unit? Odds of that are pretty low though.

- Note also that we finish the pasture on the horses at Cape Town next turn. I think I'm going to go ahead and build the road there too, so that we can build a chariot or two in the near future. It seems like a waste to build the pasture and not connect the resource to me.

- The other issue of discussion for the turn is the management of Pink:



First of all, what tiles do we want to work? The cattle and rice are a given, naturally. The debate is whether we want to work the 2/0/2 lake tile, or the 1/3/0 grassland hill tile (both circled above). Generally speaking, this goes along with what we choose to build here.

Someone (mh?) logged into the game earlier and selected granary. I personally favor another archer here, followed by additional military units (chariot, axe, spear, etc.) as we connect the proper resources. There was general agreement on using this city as a military pump, after all. To give you some numbers:

1) Working the hill tile gives us 3 additional shields/turn. The hill configuration can build granary in 8 turns, and an archer in 3 turns. Pink will grow in 5 turns.

2) Working the lake tile gives us two additional commerce/turn, and one additional food/turn. Pink will grow in 4 turns with this configuration, and our research increases from 23 to 25 beakers/turn (TRUE: 30 to 32) However, the granary would take 14 turns, and the archer 5 turns.

3) Our work boat should clear the northern fog passage in either 3 or 4 more turns.

My personal feeling is that we should work the lake tile (growth configuration) and build an archer. That will take about 4 turns to finish, after which Pink goes to size 4 and can start a chariot, thanks to the resource connection at Cape Town. Presumably, the city would swap to a max shields configuration at this point. But that's far from the only way to do things, so let's figure out a course of action here as a team.

- Other stuff... our cottages at Airstrip One are ripening. 2 and 3 turns for the pair to turn into hamlets.

- With the cattle at China Beach pastured, I'm taking the two turns to build a road on them as well. We have enough time to do this and still build a cottage on its floodplains tile before the city hits size 3.

- Soon it will be time to start thinking about placing a fifth city. I personally think we should seal off the south next, grabbing the marble down there. The tile one SW of the marble grabs a fish and provides a buffer with Templars. Perhaps something to go after in about 10-12 turns (?)

- Quiet C&D turn overall, most info comes from the Templars. Their food went down by 3 and their production up by 5, a clear indication that Constantinople swapped from the grassland rice to the plains copper. Templars also finished a 6000 Soldier point unit last turn, and since it's not a swordsman, horse archer, pikeman, or longbow - they clearly built an axeman. Templars now have an axe, chariot, and seven quechuas by my reckoning.

That's all for now.

[ruff_hi]

ha! just tried to log into the game to find that our slot was taken - someone must be in the game. Why do we want pink to grow - it is at the happy cap already - or do we have a happy resource coming online soon?

[mostly-harmless]

- With that new Imperio city we have to negotiate Open Borders to let our scouting boat through.

- Connecting the Horses sounds fine. Since Imperio and Templars are now even with us in soldier points, we should field some serious units soon. Chariots also make good barb-axe killers, and we will see those soon enough.

- Pink Dot: Yes, I choose the Granary, simply because the game asks you to do something when being the first to log in. I have no preference for a granary there though. So another archer sounds fine and then some chariots. This said, we should time the completion of the archer with the connection of the horses and the clearing of the north west passage. So the lake tile is better.

- Fifth city: I was looking hard at the map and think the southern marble is the best spot to grab next. If we want to have a shot at the Great Lib it will surely help. I think the diplomatic penalties will be rather small with Templars, as Imperio settled northwards, leaving the land to the south east still open for Templars expansion. The second best option in my book would be the Twin Peaks area.

- Little C&D info: Mutal now has a granary, as can be glimpsed by looking closely at the city.

- Templars: 9 units for two cities is big. Even more important for us to filed a couple of chariots and "conduct peace keeping maneuvers and parades" close to their borders.

mh

[mostly-harmless]

Pink has one angry pop left from whipping, that will be gone in a couple of turns.
Happy cap is 6 for the capital and 5 everywhere else.

mh

[sunrise089]

It has whip unhappiness right? I imagine that will wear off soon.

[Sullla]

Yeah, the whip unhappiness wears off in 1 turn. Sorry, I neglected to mention that.

Happy cap is actually 5 at the capital, 4 in all other cities. We really need to push for Monarchy soon (+1 from wines, +at least 1 from HR garrisons).

[Zeviz]

If we are planning to whip Pink Dot regularly, Granary might be a good investment. Can somebody run the numbers on production via whip (working Rice, Cows, and up to 2 mines) vs. production via working cows and 3 mines?

If the numbers indicate that whip is better, we can whip Granary. Otherwise, the Archer->Chariot plan sounds good.

(Or what about Archer->Settler for southern spot everybody is talking about?)

[regoarrarr]

I also vote for archer and lake tile

And I figured someone had replayed the turn but I just hadn't seen any activity on the forum for a few days so I thought I would make sure!!

[Sullla]

Zeviz, I was thinking something along the lines of archer -> chariot -> chariot -> settler for Pink. (Obviously very theoretical at this point, don't want to plan too far ahead!) At size 4, we can work the cattle tile and three grassland hill mines, for 13 shields/turn. That makes for 2-turn chariots (25 shields each, right?) so we can crank a pair out in short order. And a settler would only take 7-8 turns itself, a nice deal.

[regoarrarr]

Okay. I'm not entirely sure that I did this right.

Assumptions:
From the picture, we look like we have no food in the bank, and 5 hammers overflow.
Also assuming that we can mine both those hills in the next few turns, which is probably not valid - which subtracts some hammers from the no-whip scenario

In 4 turns of working the cattle, rice and lake, we grow to size 4. In 5 turns of working those tiles and the grass river hill, we grow to size 5, at which point we could double whip something (maybe the granary?). Obviously we'd have to figure out how to massage the shields to make sure we can double whip (ideally 31 hammers to go, right? I think that would take 2 pop and provide 29 hammers overflow but I could be wrong). It then takes another 6 turns to be at size 3 and then back to size 4 to catch up with the food of the no-whip scenario.

So, that config produces 153 hammers (93+60 for the whip) and 56 commerce.

Working the lake tile for 4 turns (to growth) and then swapping off the rice and working the cattle and 3 hills produces 172 hammers and 36 commerce.

So the question appears to be whether 19 hammers is worth more than 20 commerce. I would tend to think yes, but it's certainly possible my math is wrong

I did not account either way for the food-filling properties of a granary since it's conceivable in either scenario that we could build one (in the whip one we almost certainly would as there aren't too many things we could double whip otherwise, but we could also slow-build one)

Spreadsheet attached

[Sullla]

regoarrarr, I agree that 20 hammers are probably worth more than 20 commerce, especially at a city where we have no science/gold multipliers. If you don't mind, could you look at the numbers again, in a situation where we double-whip a SETTLER instead? That might be the best way to make use of the food surplus at Pink.

FYI - Imperio settled on the spot indicated above. (I'll post a new screenshot when the next turn begins.) Also, PAL double-whipped something in one of their cities, which I really hope isn't another settler.