Turnplayer Thread #2.

[sunrise089]

I'm not sure I understand how people are coming to such different conclusions about which of the prospective new cities are vulnerable. I agree with Sullla that marble/fish city is just much safer. In MP, the main defensive priorities are being able to have units in a position to cover multiple cities so the enemy cannot split them, and having time to slave additional defenders. One sentry warrior can cover the approach to marble/fish giving us lots of notice of an attack (and hence time to slave a unit(s). Twin peaks on the other hand can be roaded and 2-moved from Templar land and there is little we can do about it.

[Zeviz]

Originally posted by sunrise089
I'm not sure I understand how people are coming to such different conclusions about which of the prospective new cities are vulnerable. ...

Some people (including me) play exclusively SP. So if Marble City is the right answer from people with MP experience, I'll switch my vote to that.

[Swiss Pauli]

I was thinking that the Airstrip-Cape-Peak triumverate would cover each other, whereas Fish-Marble & Pink are a bit cut off from the rest. However, I'm no expert, so I'll happily bow to Sullla & sunrise on this point!

[Sullla]

Yeah, Multiplayer is completely different from Single Player in so many ways. There's absolutely nothing wrong in seeing things differently - that's why having people with experience in both is such an advantage for our team!

Once our position is a little more settled, we'll pop out a couple of extra warriors to serve as a sentry net in key locations around the map. Timing is EVERYTHING when you're playing against humans. If you can see it coming, you can almost always stop it. (If you can't, you're really screwed!) We're also going to need at least one, preferably two, galleys to guard the southern coast against a possible boating attack eventually. That can wait a little bit though.

If I were going to invade Templars, for example, I'd fake at Constantinople with a weakish force, to draw out their mobile defenders. Then I'd boat them with a dozen units at Jerusalem and burn it down before they knew what was happening. Or something similar, anyway. Naval attacks are devastatingly powerful in MP against humans who are used to SP, simply because the AI doesn't act that way.

[mostly-harmless]

No Iron, huh? I bet we will be swamped by Aluminium! :-)
I would not reject Sulllas Iron capturing Twin Peaks spot that easily.
We do have Copper, but Iron is necessary for the following units:
Swordsman, Pikeman, X-Bow, Knight, Cuirassier, Cannon, Frigate, Ship of The Line, Ironclad.
Some of those units are really important, so justifying a bold move to grab that Iron!
I would even suggest forgetting bout the rice and moving Twin Peaks to a spot 1SW of the cows, grabbing that iron in 5 turns after settling (2nd ring pop).
Together with Pink Dots 3rd ring (popped in ~15 turns) and Cape Town it will make a solid border, which we can then discuss with Templars! ;-)

Seriously, we have no guarantee to acquire Iron from elsewhere. Trade routes pre-Astronomy will be blocked by an Tmp-Imp alliance in case of hostilities.

Fortify Twin Peaks with an archer, chariot & spear and see if Templars (not knowing Iron Working yet!!) will go to war above that spot.
Imperio is still bound by our NAP.
Templars are just delaying us on the diplo front, so lets rush to that spot now!
Even if that means loosing out on Marble-Dye city in the south (which I doubt Templars will go for). We can secure Marble and Dye elsewhere.

I hope I made a strong point towards grabbing that Iron. Loosing it, could well be show stopper for that game.

mh

[regoarrarr]

Yeah - I kind of lean towards securing that iron too. But I am fine either way. I guess I just feel like we should make bold moves or we'll just end up in the middle of the pack.

And do we really think that Templars and Imperio will really get around to communicating anything solid in the next.... well ever?

[Sullla]

Nice to see you back, mh. Do you want me to send you the screenies you requested for the past two turns? I also have a question or two about score point vagaries to run by you. But without further ado, here is the summary for T79:

- Most important news: Templars have settled their third city which they named Libyan (?) for some reason. It doesn't look like its on any of our borders, so probably somewhere to the east. Too bad we lost that scout behind their borders to a barb earlier!

- In domestic news, we finished our first chariot this turn at Pink, which I have named Betty Hur according to our female theme. Pink has started a settler, due in 7 turns. Ideally, we need to make a decision about where to plant this next city within the next turn or two, to start moving units towards the spot.

- There are barbs moving around in the center of the map! We're well-covered, but here's a screenie anyway to show the situation:



The two barb units are circled in black, both warriors. I have an archer (on a hill) and a chariot (across a river) defending the most likely moves at Pink, so hopefully the barb in the south with suicide itself next turn. The one in the north can be taken out by one of our chariots in a turn or two.

The marble/fish spot is marked above with a red dot (there's an unseen fish resource on the blue spot). mostly_harmless' proposed iron location is outlined in purple. Let me be clear: I LIKE the purple iron spot, but if we get attacked, we cannot defend it. Not anytime soon, at least. We should go there next if we're 100% convinced that Templars and Imperio are not going to attack us. Diplomacy means a great deal here. Do we want to pull the "Imperio switcheroo" again, signing an NAP and then immediately settling on their border?

One final nice thing about purple: it opens up the rice for white dot much later on. Just how daring do you guys want to be? We've been pretty aggressive so far - do we keep going for broke? Imperio might call our bluff, I'm not sure I see Templars doing it.

- Imperio production has decreased slightly in the last few turns (from 25 shields/turn to 22/turn) and Templars have been holding steady at 19/turn. Over the past four turns, our rivals have been mostly stagnant on the military front, while we have increased our Soldier count enormously:
52k [T75]
56k [T76]
66k [T77]
69k [T78]
73k [T79]
So this might not be the worst time to run a military bluff, with us looking stronger than we are. Also, we'd better grab the iron location before we trade Iron Working to Templars, if that's the plan! Still not sure red coastal location isn't the better move though.

- PAL increased their score from 202 to 219 this turn. Land points or a huge population surge, mh? They didn't discover Alphabet.

- Both Imperio and Banana failed to log into the game and play the last turn, according to CivStats.

Whew! Lots to talk about. Let's get cracking on a plan of action, and use that in our diplomatic messages. I've sent Open Border requests to both Imperio and PAL in-game without receiving a response yet.

[sunrise089]

I have no problem settling Sullla's purple dot above if the diplo corp is confident no one will contest it.

Sullla is right about it being vital to see an attack coming to stop it. This is even more true in BtS in fact, because horse archers no longer get a city attack penalty. That's why purple spot is so hard to cover...a horse archer stack can sit in Templar land, move into our land with 1 second left on the clock, and then hit us 12 hours later. That means we won't be able to slave units and will only be able to move units in from 2 tiles away on roads. Against skilled human players you try to always settle new cities within 4 tiles of your previous border - you can then part spears, axes, and cats in between them and always get the units in the city to defend unless the enemy units can hit your city the turn they move in (a one-move). Purple can be defended by units in the city of course, but units defending it can't help defend Pink or Cape Copper.

[Swiss Pauli]

Looked at the map again, and, unless there's Iron in the fog by Jerusalem, then there's only 2 Iron for three civs. I think we should send a map to Templars with Rice/Cows as our city, then invite them to place one (they don't have IW) to sort out the borders.

[mostly-harmless]

@ Swiss Pauli:
Templars are likely to research IW right now. They have not landed a tech in 9 turns. At the current speed of diplo they will know about Iron before finalizing a deal. Also, Imperio could already have told Templars about the Iron location. Imp has nothing o loose.
So, I don't like that approach.

@ Sunrise:
By the time Templars have HBR and a sizeable Horse Archer stack, we can easily have 4-5 spears sitting behind city walls with 60% cultural defense. I'd rather have that scenario, than a stack of swords coming for Pink Dot if Templars grab that Iron.

We only have one hold on strategic resources right now. That is Cape Town, which everybody agrees, is hard to defend against a determined Imperio attack. Securing a second source of metal is vital.

@ Turn report:
Libyan is actually a Barb city iirc.
So Templars captured and kept a barb city. Increases in land tiles by 1 and pop points by 1 are consistent with acquiring a city that is currently in revolt.
In that light I have to go back to turns 72-74 and check those slave revolts again.
Does anyone know how to set up events (slave revolt) in the world builder?

@ Sullla: Yes please send those screenies over. I will send you an eMail. What score issues do you have questions about?

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by mostly-harmless
@ Swiss Pauli:
Templars are likely to research IW right now. They have not landed a tech in 9 turns. At the current speed of diplo they will know about Iron before finalizing a deal. Also, Imperio could already have told Templars about the Iron location. Imp has nothing o loose.
So, I don't like that approach.

I think you're wrong about the degree of co-op between Templars and Imperio: Sir Aidun was quite explicit in his latest email that they couldn't really communicate properly with Imperio.

If we suggest a city to link Cape Town with Airstrip 1, it's not obvious that we mean to steal 'their' Iron. If they object, I assume they'll tell us why. If they do object to our proposal, we can always argue that they are trying to cut off Cape Town. If we go ahead and slap down another city in their face before border discussions then it'll damage relations (possibly fatally given our current strategic weakness).

Templars don't want to fight us (they look to be going for a religion-fueled CV), but I think they would fight if they felt we were being too aggressive towards them.

[mostly-harmless]

Originally posted by Swiss Pauli

I think you're wrong about the degree of co-op between Templars and Imperio: Sir Aidun was quite explicit in his latest email that they couldn't really communicate properly with Imperio.

Did we not do the same thing? Telling Templars we could hardly communicate to Imperio, but having negotiated a NAP ready to sign at the same time? Also if I am not mistaken, you have to be logged in the same to time to get an Open Border agreement. So with the role playing Templars and We-don't-need-to-log-in-every-turn Imperios that is some pretty coordinated action right there.

Originally posted by Swiss Pauli
If we suggest a city to link Cape Town with Airstrip 1, it's not obvious that we mean to steal 'their' Iron. If they object, I assume they'll tell us why. If they do object to our proposal, we can always argue that they are trying to cut off Cape Town. If we go ahead and slap down another city in their face before border discussions then it'll damage relations (possibly fatally given our current strategic weakness).

First of all, Templars do know nothing (location, resources) about Cape Town except maybe the name up to now, unless they got some real detailed info from Imperio. We have not seen a Templar unit in that area for ages and don't know they even un-fogged the cape in the early days.
No need to tell them "we, uh, have that very important isolated city up there and would like to secure it, if you don't mind". In that case, we will delay the issue until Templars know Iron's location and will just tell us to settle in the initial Twin Peaks spot (which was next to the rice iirc).
Secondly, since when do we nicely ask them about city placements?

Originally posted by Swiss Pauli
Templars don't want to fight us (they look to be going for a religion-fueled CV), but I think they would fight if they felt we were being too aggressive towards them.

Proposed Iron snatching "Pink Peaks" is the same distance from Jerusalem like Pink Dot. So the aggressiveness is limited.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by mostly-harmless

Did we not do the same thing? Telling Templars we could hardly communicate to Imperio, but having negotiated a NAP ready to sign at the same time? Also if I am not mistaken, you have to be logged in the same to time to get an Open Border agreement. So with the role playing Templars and We-don't-need-to-log-in-every-turn Imperios that is some pretty coordinated action right there.

A yes/no to a NAP or OBs is easy to do, a co-ordinated alliance is not easily achieved even without language difficulties.

First of all, Templars do know nothing (location, resources) about Cape Town except maybe the name up to now, unless they got some real detailed info from Imperio. We have not seen a Templar unit in that area for ages and don't know they even un-fogged the cape in the early days.
No need to tell them "we, uh, have that very important isolated city up there and would like to secure it, if you don't mind". In that case, we will delay the issue until Templars know Iron's location and will just tell us to settle in the initial Twin Peaks spot (which was next to the rice iirc).

The key here is offering up some interesting, but ultimately worthless, information about Cape Town to disguise our play for the Iron. We don't tell them which tile we're planning to settle (as we're officially 'undecided') but more the general location. If they ask us to settle to the north of this area & miss the Iron, then we know they have designs on spot Zeviz marked on the map. Then we can make an informed choice to disregard their wishes, or not.

Secondly, since when do we nicely ask them about city placements?

Proposed Iron snatching "Pink Peaks" is the same distance from Jerusalem like Pink Dot. So the aggressiveness is limited.

It's more the attitude of: 'I've put my city where I wanted, now let's talk borders' that would be (rightfully) perceived as aggressive.

[Sullla]

Personally, I don't favor giving out any city info on Cape Town to Templars that they don't already have. Why should we help them in that regard? Better to leave them in the dark, IMO. That said, we could tell them we intend to put our next city "near the rice and cows" SE of our capital, and state that we'll agree to their border agreement so long as it includes that city too. This sounds pacifist, while actually disguising another naked land grab. Would that potentially work out?

sunrise, your military observations are excellent, as usual. I just don't think the Templars are competent enough to pull off the move you described. Their team is entirely made up of SP people, and horse archers are greatly undervalued in SP games. Most humans skip researching Horseback Riding entirely, since it's not very useful against the AI. In other words, I'm not too worried about your concern, given our likely opponents.

mh, I'll send you my two questions (both about PAL, no surprise) along with the screenies later today.

[Zeviz]

Is Iron required for both Pikes and Knights? (Shows how long since I've played CIV.) If that is the case, I agree with proposed Iron City. If we send an email to Templars either today or tomorrow, we might do the Imperio-like "NAP while a settler is coming" trick. I've posted a draft in Templar thread.