Turnplayer Thread #3

[Zeviz]

...
Q: Is settling a back yard city the best use of a settler at the current time? Should we hold this settler for BA while we build the required defensive units?

Yes. Because our greatest threat is long term power of PAL and Imperio.

If either Imperio or Templars decide to attack us soon, we'll see that through C&D department and be able to easily outproduce them. However, if they improve their economy while we waste resources on fort-cities and military, we'll lose our economic advantage and then we will be in danger of losing a war.

Our greatest advantage is information from C&D that allows us to see exactly what everybody else is doing. So we should use that to its full extent. Right now, C&D doesn't show anybody gearing up for war, so we need to keep working on economy, until we see military units coming out of their barracks. (Although I do suggest taking 4-6 turns to research HBR after we get Monarchy.)

[mostly-harmless]

Well put Zeviz. Just because Imperio declines that tech deal, does not mean they come at us in 5 turns.

I have been quite on the C&D front for a variety of reasons. I hope to get something done soon.

mh

[ruff_hi]

hmmn - are we relying too much on our C&D department?

Intelligence collection, analysis, and production must be related to the needs of policymakers. The five phases of the "intelligence cycle" include planning and direction, collection, processing, production, and dissemination. Collection is accomplished by various means, each defined by their sources: human intelligence (HUMINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), electronic intelligence (ELINT), communications intelligence (COMINT), and technical intelligence (TECHINT). Policymakers' decisions often result from accurate intelligence, much of which comes from precise reconnaissance. People frequently confuse reconnaissance and surveillance, but whereas reconnaissance necessarily involves a mission focused on specific targets, surveillance is simply a systematic and generally passive observation of an area and its people.

Maybe we should bring some humint assets into play?

[mostly-harmless]

C&D: Sword and Shield of Realms Beyond .... Tada!

We have a settler in 2 turns.
We either have him sit around waiting for escort units to be built to settle Bad Ass or march him straight to the west coast where he can be converted into GNP & shields.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Well, if they have no interest in the Aesthetics or Literature wonders, the beakers have zero value to them for quite some time to come. And us researching Aesthetics is a pretty clear telegraph that we want wonders ourselves. So it's quite understandable if they decline - why give us something vital in exchange for nothing useful?

I think we're all a bit too used to single player games against AIs that are very predictable in taking trades based on beaker count.

Not sure they wouldn't beat us to Paya and ToZ as they have the multiplier for each...and everyone wants National Epic so I don't agree that Aesthetics is useless to Imperio. Having said that, I was intentionally painting the grimmest possible picture as we certainly don't want to 'misunderestimate' our opponents

[Sullla]

Here we go for T99:

- Canceled the horses trade to PAL right away. First thing I did! No more whipping for you.

- Intel update on the eastern continent: we finally get to see PAL's main stack!



There is another War Chariot on the tile 1N of the main stack, which I have circled in yellow. The answer to the question, "how many War Chariots did PAL whip?" is at least three, and probably quite a few more, seeing as how PAL's Soldier count has dropped already from a high of 146k down to 123k in the fighting...

The good news is that a lot of those units are injured, and it seems as though the initial thrust at the Rabbit city has failed. If the Rabbits are smart, they'll keep whipping out archers and city walls, and wait until PAL has to sue for peace. We should get a look inside the Rabbit city real soon, right after Sharon sneaks a peak inside Heliopolis next turn.

- Cape Town finished its Spearman this turn, which I have named Jamie Lynn's Spears. It is hanging out in Cape Town for the moment, along with our axe Gillian. I set the city to build an archer next, because that will take 2 turns, and we will also research Literature and have Betty Hur reach 10XP in exactly 2 turns for Heroic Epic. Can be changed to another spear or axe next if desired, both take 3 turns.

- Next turn is BIG for us, and not just because it's T100. We finish worker in Airstrip One (onto research for 1 turn, as per Ruff's plan), settler in Pink, and work boat in Something Fishy. Plus, Green Acres gets a border pop - lot going on! Let's talk about what we want to do next with these couple cities in the south:



Cape Town is going to be tied up on Heroic Epic for about the next ten turns, so we won't be getting any military out of it. As a result, I propose that we have Pink take over the military duty for a little bit - we're still weaker than I would like here in the south, even with Adria (axewoman) arriving from the north. So if Cape Town works on HE, the capital works on Great Library, and Pink is on military, who builds the next couple workers/settlers?

Something Fishy! I want to have one of our workers mine the grassland hill outside Pink, and the other one mine the grassland hill near Something Fishy, the two circled tiles. At size 4, working the fish + marble + two grassland hill tiles, Something Fishy will get 12 food/shields each turn, for 5 turn workers and 8.5 turn settlers. We should use this spot to continue pushing empire-wide growth while our more mature cities do their infrastructure builds. Sound like a plan?

- I don't want us to give up on Imperio just yet. Let's send them another email asking if they'd be willing to trade for Monarchy. We can offer them a sweet deal of Monotheism + Aesthetics for it, for example. I just don't want us to waste time researching a tech that's so widely known already. Keep pushing this team - we definitely want to get either Math OR Monarchy from them. Not getting either would be a real setback!

- mh, PAL got a big increase in score this turn, and I don't think they got any techs or much of a population increase. Can you verify for me that this was due to land points? Thanks.

Just as a final note, I won't be able to play the next turn until Monday morning, so don't worry if a few hours go by and I don't post anything. Thanks.

[Sullla]

Stats from T99:

General

Active Turn Player:
Sullla

Status:
Played

Tech:
Literature (2t)
100% research (73 [88] beakers/turn) @ -21gpt
121/286 beakers overall

Gold
71g in treasury

Cities

Airstrip One [guarded by Xena]:
Worker (1t)
Emphasizing commerce and research

Pink Dot [guarded by Britney's Spears]:
Settler (1t)
Intended for protected "yellow" spot

China Beach [guarded by Ms Piggy]:
Barracks (49t) for Green Acres

Cape Town [guarded by Diana and Billy Jean Tell and Gillian]:
Archer (2t)

Something Fishy [guarded by Svava]:
Work Boat (1t)
Intended for upcoming yellow city

Green Acres [guarded by Robyn Hood]:
Granary (56t)

Non-Combat Units

Scout [Sharon]:
Scouting out the eastern continent

Worker [Winston]:
Prechopping forest tiles at Airstrip One
Roading current tile (done!)

Worker [O'Brien]:
Roading plains hill N of Cape Town (2t)

Worker [Parsons]:
Chop/mine grassland hill N of Something Fishy
Roading (done!)

Worker [Syme]:
Finish road connection between Pink Dot and Something Fishy
Roading (2t)

Worker [Bernard]:
Prechopping forest tiles at Airstrip One
Roading current tile (done!)

Military Units

Galley [RBS Discovery]:
Exploring the eastern continent

Axeman [Gillian]:
Guarding Cape Town (for now)
Heading to Twin Peaks eventually

Axeman [Adria]:
Moving to Pink Dot region

Spearman [Jamie Lynn's Spears]:
Guarding Cape Town (for now)
Heading to Twin Peaks eventually

Spearman [Britney's Spears]:
Guard Pink Dot

Chariot [Betty Hur]:
Moving to barb city of Saxon (1t)
9XP - need 1 more!

Chariot [Lady Godiva]:
Waiting to attack barb city of Saxon

Archer [Ms Piggy]:
Guard China Beach

Archer [Diana]:
Guard Cape Town

Archer [Billy Jean Tell]:
Guard Cape Town

Archer [Robyn Hood]:
Guard Green Acres

Archer [Svava]:
Guard Something Fishy

Warrior [Xena]:
Guard Airstrip One

Warrior [Jennifer]:
Exploring the eastern continent

Foreign Builds from C&D

Templars
Jerusalem = (139 * (148 + 100)) / (3 * 575) = 20 shields (+10)
Jericho = (186 * (148 + 100)) / (3 * 550) = 28 shields (+5)

Just building up the cities still. Can't tell what they're working on until they finish.

Imperio
Mutal = (257 * (126 + 100)) / (3 * 524) = 37 shields (+9)
Lakamha = (614 * (126 + 100)) / (3 * 537) = 86 shields (+20)
Chichen Itza = (94 * (126 + 100)) / (3 * 510) = 14 shields (+4)
Uxmal = (102 * (126 + 100)) / (3 * 551) = 14 shields (+4)

We find out next turn if Lakamha is building a settler. Looks pretty likely to me.

[mostly-harmless]

PAL build the Great Lighthouse!
Also a Great General was born.
It pays to open the game log now and then.
Interestingly the GLight was not built in The Warning.

Furthermore:
Pal now has two gems resources. We could ask them for one of it for 10 turns as a return favor for our horses. That would bridge our happiness problem.

Also looks like there is another PAL city north of The Warning.

mh

[ruff_hi]

I've updated the Operation Great Library thread with the latest game situation. If we don't get maths, we have to modify A1's tiles (move to 16 hammer mode this turn - T99 and then to max science 36.25 beakers on T100) and find 1.25 beakers from somewhere else in the other cities (this turn or next) to land the GLib on T105. If we just leave it run as is, we finish the GLib on T106 (sans maths).

If we get maths, we finish the GLib on T104 and it doesn't matter what our current tile layout is.

[sunrise089]

Regarding the PAL attack - the only long-term error in thinking the MP guys may fall into is thinking of the game in 2-city-elimination terms, since that's all we tend to play. Considering that archers are decent defenders and resourceless, it's conceivable PAL didn't attack with enough troops to finish the rabbits off.

[mostly-harmless]

Well, bad news.
PAL took and razed Valley Hutch.

Rabbits are down to two cities.

And another Great General was born. So it is clear that there is one for PAL, one for Rabbits.

mh

[mostly-harmless]

double postttttttt

[Sullla]

Darn. I thought the Rabbits might actually be able to drag out the war into a stalemate. They didn't whip any units the last two turns either. While it's possible that they didn't have any excess population left, I still think they probably just stink at Civ.

PAL building Great Lighthouse is really bad news for us too. They get "intercontinental" trade routes with everyone on our island, and we can't even cancel borders with them because then they'll simply draw their income from Templars and Imperio. Catch-22 for us, unfortunately. This game would have been vastly better balanced if we had simply had one continent (as the map was initially), or if we had used an actual map script that creates two continents!!! The poorly done, narrow little channel of water, has created all sorts of balance problems that PAL and Imperio have been able to benefit from.

PAL only lost 10k Soldier points in the attack too, likely an axe and a war chariot. I'm keeping those stats tracked and starting to get a good picture of their military. That's the only good thing to come out of this...

[mostly-harmless]

The Great Lighthouse gives 2 additional trade routes to coastal cities.
We have visual confirmation of two coastal cities (The Warning & the city to it's north). C&D data points to a third coastal city.
So that is 6 additional trade routes (13 altogether throughout PAL empire). All of them foreign & intercontinental. So we are looking at an increase of 18gpt plus the additional culture from the wonder itself. There should be a 24GNP jump in their graph next turn.

A significant boost to PALs research ability.

mh

[Sullla]

Alright, here we go for T100!

- The big news internationally was more heavy fighting between PAL and Rabbits. PAL's Soldier count dropped from 113k to 98k, and based on what our scout Sharon can see, it looks like they lost their primary strike force. No idea if more units are advancing from the interior, however. In fact, Heliopolis is completely unguarded right now, and the Rabbits have a Great General chariot that could currently move into the city and raze it! I think we should send them a message to this effect... (Will cover in Rabbits diplo thread.)

Here is the compilation screenshot of Rabbit military:



PAL has a War Chariot 1N of the cattle (pictured), and a Great General not attached to any units alone in Heliopolis. If Rabbits' chariot moves SW - SW - SW - W it can raze the city... although PAL will probably reinforce when it comes time for their units to move!

- We finished a settler at Pink, and started an archer (2t). This is a good call, as we currently have no units to garrison "yellow". We may want to build some infrastructure in Pink next though, because we are now back to being #1 in military power by a fair margin.

- We finished work boat in Something Fishy, which is going to reveal the black tiles in the south near Templars, as requested.

- Airstrip One is on target for the Great Library:



There are now five tiles completely pre-chopped. We will cash in three of them next turn, then two more the turn after that (T102). This is slightly different than what Ruff posted in the Great Library thread, but has the same effect, and was more efficient based on the actions I had been assigning the last couple of turns. If we manage to trade for Math with Imperio this turn, we would also get full chop value from all of the forests next turn! Keep our fingers crossed there.

- Betty Hur will be ready to attack next turn for her 10th XP. Still waiting on Saxon to reach size 2, however...

And that's all. Please follow the discussions in the Rabbits, Imperio, and especially PAL threads, as we have several important messages to send and trade deals to work out. My laptop's battery is running down, so I'll have to post the stats and C&D Foreign builds tomorrow.