Turnplayer Thread #2.

[T-hawk]

In single player, the production phase happens before barbarian movement, so your question can't even come up. I'm unsure how Pitboss behaves on sequencing between turns, but I'd be pretty surprised if the game would actually have a citizen work no tile.

[sunrise089]

In normal MP when an enemy unit (I don't play with barbs) moves onto a tile the governor automatically reassigns it.

[sooooo]

I think you get the production, then the barbarian moves, then the govenor reassigns it. So I don't think we have to worry.

[mostly-harmless]

Originally posted by Sullla
- PAL whipped three pop last turn, and two more this one. Their GNP went up last turn though, so they may be whipping libraries (?) Not sure what's going on.

PAL got opne borders with Templars either since last turn or the current turn. That would increase their trade route output by either 2gpt or 4 gpt depending on whether they has OB with Banana and/or Rabbits already.

mh

[Zeviz]

There is another way we might try to win race for Iron: We could let all our offensive units (both chariots and a spear) be seen in the area. Since we don't have a NAP with Templars, they might decide to guard the Settler better, which might cause them to delay by a few turns while gathering more escorts. Should we try this?

[mostly-harmless]

I don't like that idea. What if their settler is already well guarded? One Templar spear and one axe would be enough.
We can't actively delay them, I believe.
What we could do is use our chariot to move into Templars territory by one tile and move back immediately. That would give us a better glimpse of the route their settler would come through. It is technically a violation of the no scouting clause, but so are spies. Templars will only notice if they are logged in and looking.
I would recommend the same thing for Sharon the Scout to actually see the city square of Damaskus. (Moving onto the Cows tile there and back.)
Thoughts?

mh

[Sullla]

Good idea! Templars would never know, as long as we moved when they weren't logged into the game. I will definitely try that on the next turn.

[mostly-harmless]

Originally posted by Sullla
I think it's likely that whiplash is overdoing it (as he's mostly an MP guy who doesn't think long-term as much), but time will tell.

HHm, about that theory that whiplash is playing it alone.
There are at least four different usernames logging for PAL (PAL, PaL, workboat, gitbliss) now and then. Could be it is all the same user of course.

mh

[sooooo]

Originally posted by Sullla
Good idea! Templars would never know, as long as we moved when they weren't logged into the game. I will definitely try that on the next turn.

Well they could work it out by the direction the chariot is facing and the fact it appeared to not move 2 squares.

[Zeviz]

Sharon could still see Damascus from a hill NE-NE of it without violating any treaties. However, either this or stepping on Cow tile would delay boarding the galley by 2-3 turns. (12-13 turns for Sharon to check on Damascus and reach the Galley vs. 10 turns for the Galley to get there)

I'd prefer not to step into Templar territory if there is any chance of them figuring it out. (For example, by the fact that our chariot hasn't moved.)

On whether to convert to Islam, after Library is complete, it would take us 2 turns to grow, and about 10 turns to research Monarchy. So we'd have about 8 turns of working an extra cottage for 3cpt. Extra 24 commerce looks pretty tempting, so I no longer object to immediate conversion.

[mostly-harmless]

@soooo:
Ah, very good. In that case we have to do it via a double move. It is not war time, so we should be ok, no?

mh

[Sullla]

T85 has gone very badly for us. The Templars - who were obviously full of BS with their borders agreement talk - double moved a settler at the end of last turn and the beginning of this one. CivStats clearly shows them logging in with mere minutes left on the turn, moving their settler, then immediately moving it again at the start of this turn. Not technically illegal (since we didn't have our own settler in the region), but definitely pushing things.

They founded a new city called Jerico *ON* the iron:



Our chariot is actually sitting in their city, since Lady Godiva was scouting it out last turn. Could we have beaten them to the spot if we had whipped our settler? Maybe... I think we would have been founding on the same turn, and it would have been a click-fest. Not entirely sure.

In other bad news, PAL founded their seventh city this turn, Pi-Ramesses. How are they paying for all of these? Probably with trade route income, sadly. We can't even cancel OB with them, because all it will do is make their other routes more profitable. Hobson's choice.

Finally, to add insult to injury, the barb warrior killed our own warrior Gogo (fortified on a forested hill tile) at 3% odds. Sorry guys, can't do anything about that one. The only good news is that we picked up another XP point for Betty Hur, who now has 6XP and is getting closer to Heroic Epic range.

Anyway, rather than getting mad, let's figure our how to turn the situation to our advantage. The immediate issue that we must discuss is the new location of city #5 (setter comes out next turn). My first instinct is one NW of the Pink Peaks sign (the old Twin Peaks location, if I recall correctly). Our Creative-ness would deny them the cows, and cripple Jericho's defense long term. It's a complete ass-hole location to settle, naturally... but the Jericho location is an ass-hole location too, right? I don't see any possible way that we can stay friendly with Templars anymore.

Secondly, I personally view the Templars' diplomatic reputation as worthless now. You do not write endlessly about the importance of securing border agreements, then DOUBLE MOVE a settler into a disputed zone to hide a city from the other team until it's too late. We have every right to send them an indignant letter in response, and should do so IMO. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that we've got a moral justification (even if flimsy) for any future acts of aggression on our part against their team.

Anyway, we did start research this turn and are doing so at an excellent rate. Monotheism due in 3 turns at 47/turn base, 60/turn "true" research. GNP has leaped right amongst the leaders. I'm not going to get too down, because I'm looking forward to founding a jackass city that abuses Jericho culturally.

More to come later in a State of the Nation post.

Edited because Apolyton's uncool forum censors the word "ass-hole" for some reason.

[mostly-harmless]

Yep, I was about to post last night about Templars having logged in multiple times without finishing the turn with only a few hours on the turn timer. That smelled double move 5 miles against the wind. But we could not have prevent that short of declaring war.

Do they even left the city undefended?

Will have more to say in a short while.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by Sullla
Anyway, rather than getting mad, let's figure our how to turn the situation to our advantage. The immediate issue that we must discuss is the new location of city #5 (setter comes out next turn). My first instinct is one NW of the Pink Peaks sign (the old Twin Peaks location, if I recall correctly). Our Creative-ness would deny them the cows, and cripple Jericho's defense long term. It's a complete ass-hole location to settle, naturally... but the Jericho location is an ass-hole location too, right? I don't see any possible way that we can stay friendly with Templars anymore.

I'd think that Twin Peaks would be a better choice for city #6. I think we should send the settler beyond Pink Dot to either Southern Marble, or maybe even to the jungle Rice/Stone spot. Found Twin Peaks fairly quickly afterwards, however.

This will cause Templars to complain about our promise, to which we retort about their double move to settle Jericho showing their attitude to a border agreement.

If there's something to learn from this, it's that we need to bear in mind other teams' likely plans: with hindsight it's obvious that Templars would have readied a Settler to time with learning IW, but the signs we there for a to be read (Jerusalem at size 4, no techs learnt for a while).

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by mostly-harmless Do they even left the city undefended?

No, there's a whited out axe & spear in Jericho in the screenshot, as well as the three troops outside it, so they realised we wouldn't be best pleased with their choice!