Turnplayer Thread #3

[ruff_hi]

Since we're only protected by a piece of paper, how many turns are left on the NAP M_H?

It was until T100 with a 20 turn grace period - they cannot declare until T120 (if they stick to the NAP).

[sooooo]

The power graph does not show a troop buildup for imperio, and they just switched to peaceful civics. It's weird they're roading that tile I agree, but currently our power is higher than theirs. I think we should devote a worker from Airstrip One to start the road toward Cape Town from the other direction, to allow reinforcements to get there quicker should anything bad happen.

[ruff_hi]

A galley in the fyord would be much more efficient at getting units there

[Zeviz]

6 workers isn't a problem. The problem is that all of them had been busy chopping around the capital for the last few turns. We might need a couple more workers, but not very many more. Just sending more workers to the south should solve the woker shortage.

For southern city, I'd whip the Granary, and then whip the next build. That city has only 3 improved tiles for now, so whipping might be more efficient than letting it grow to size 4.

Training a worker out of Pink Dot sounds good, but I'd either start it right away, or put 3 turns into either Granary or Corthouse. Since city has a good food surplus, I am more inclined towards a corthouse.

How soon will C&D department need corthouses to be able to keep up with demographics graphs?

[mostly-harmless]

Re ice - why are we complaining?

We are complaining, because we went through all the trouble and effort of sending out a discovery mission only to be stopped by the map design on both the sea route and the land layout. Very annoying to me, as I was getting interested to discover new lands.

There is of course a tiny chance that the ocean tile 1N of the ice turns out to be coast if their is a island nearby. Definitely worth investigating.

How soon will C&D department need courthouses to be able to keep up with demographics graphs?

It is not that urgent. The moment someone else gets courthouses we need to have them as well to keep up. I guess I am guilty of role playing for the C&D here.

6 workers isn't a problem.

I have to disagree. We will soon have all our 7-9 cities on growth and in need of improved tiles. 6 workers are not going to take that load.

Regarding Saxon (Barb city):
I ran a few numbers.
Here are the scenarios:
A: Working the forest tile for 1h & 1f + 1h from city tile:
-> Growth to size 2 in 107, accumulated hammers up to now = 36. That is more than an archer (25) or an axeman (35).
So either barbs can already build longbows because of Imperios tech lead, in which case we will see a longbow on turn 110, or this scenario is not happening.

B: Working the deer tile for additional 2f and growing naturally. Not valid as we would have seen a pop increase already (T96).

C: Working either the deer tile or the forest tile or the grassland hills and building a worker.
That would give them a worker on T105, which will hopefully go to the deer tile and we should be able to snatch it. It would then take until T116 at least for the city to grow to size 2.
My money is on this scenario. We would have to decide if we wait for the city to grow to size 2 or if we just snatch the worker and raze the city, because we are faster with our own settler.

C&D would like to free at least on chariot to scout out Imperios land to get a line of sight into Mayapan and confirm where they put their next city. On top of that, I would like to get a line of sight into Damaskus and Constantinople via step-in step-out tactic. We would also reconfirm Sulllas estimate of Imperio units and would spot any bad things heading our way. (After all it could be Imperio roading that tile at Cape Town for a Templar sneak attack).

In the short term I suggest we move one chariot 3 NE onto the sheep hill. Their it should be hidden from view but able to snatch the worker from the deer tile. We also bust some fog.

Regarding the Imperio roading of the tile near Cape Town.
Cape Town will grow in 2 turns, increasing production, finishing Heroic Epic on T109. Bringing about the 3rd ring pop on T113. Now the cultural battle for that critical roaded tile starts. I ran a worldbuilder test and it takes until T140 (assuming current cultural buildings on both sides) to wrest control for that tile from Imperio. That is too long.

mh

[mostly-harmless]

Stupid busy server makes me double post.

[Sullla]

Hmm, we have recommendations all over the place on how to manage Pink and Something Fishy next. Before we finish this turn, we need to figure out exactly what our plan of actions is for these two cities. So far, the proposed options are:

Pink
- courthouse (sunrise)
- axe to worker (sooooo)
- worker or courthouse (Zeviz)

Something Fishy
- finish granary naturally, then swap to worker (mh)
- courthouse via whip (sunrise)
- granary complete naturally, whip next build (sooooo)
- whip granary, whip next build (Zeviz)

Mellow Yellow (new city)
- build granary with 3 shield plains hill (mh)
- alternate choice: grassland forest or clams tiles?

OK, so we're not quite marching in lockstep here. We need to sort all this out. I think there's a common consensus on wanting at least one more worker for the south, so where is the more efficient place to build it right now? I would personally say that if we want another worker, the best spot is in Pink Dot, and the best time to do it is now, taking advantage of the fact that we don't have the happiness to grow right now.

For Something Fishy, I would like to see us either whip the granary and then build courthouse, or finish the granary naturally and then whip the courthouse. One or the other. Something Fishy has the highest maintenance costs of any of our cities, as it's the further from the capital. It can also regrow quickly with that fish tile. We definitely want to get some cottages going here ASAP. I'm intrigued by mostly_harmless' idea of building a granary at Mellow Hellow using the forest plains hill tile until the work boat returns. Can someone look at the numbers on that versus trying to grow with the clams or grassland forest tile?

More long term, my conception of Pink Dot was that it would be our backup military city (behind Cape Town) and serve as our wonder-building city for the future. Lots of food and shields, few cottages. Hanging Gardens would be nice to try there, for example, if we can get Math in a reasonable time frame. However, we could also build some cottages and run it as a hybrid production/commerce site, swapping tiles depending on what our current goal happens to be. That might be the best way to do things...

Incidentally, I agree with mh on using a chariot to scout out Imperio's extra city (soon to be two extra cities) and revealing the center tile of Templars' missing spots.

Now let's sort this out in the next 24 hours.

[Dreylin]

My thoughts are:

Pink - Axe->Worker
Fishy - whip
Yellow - m_h's plan

[sooooo]

Another reason for axe before the next build (that will benefit from the chop) at Pink Dot is that we are still intending to put a military presence in the twin peaks area and then send a settler over there. While we are building heroic epic we otherwise won't have any cities on units.

[sunrise089]

One possible Imperio war scenario in spite of power disparity.

Imperio only needs more power than us to threaten the entire Civ, not to take a city. We have one city with good access to their lands, our only metal, and in a direction they might otherwise expand into. It would take very little for them to capture/raise-and-replant the city and then put 2-3 longbows in it. Are we really going to take it back? Are we going to threaten their other cities when they can just whip an emergency longbow defender? Are we going to boycott trading with them and let PAL get further ahead?

I'm not saying this is likely, but keep in mind power differences alone might not foretell an attack.

[Sullla]

Well, we didn't get a whole lot of responses, which I'm sure has something to do with the fact that Apolyton's website was down for about 12 hours today. Because the counter was ticking down to 5 hours left, I had to go and make the final moves.

- Sharon moves back to the north. There is a sizable Rabbits army moving towards Heliopolis (2 axes, spear, plus Great General chariot). At their current speed, however, I'm sure that they'll never take it before PAL reinforces. Will shot a screenshot when the new turn starts.

- I went with mh's suggestion of having Mellow Yellow run the plains hill tile, for 0 food/turn and 4 shields/turn until the work boat returns to its clams. Granary due in 15 turns at current pace.

- For Pink, I went ahead and started a worker. It will only take 4 turns, and that's not even counting the forest chop that's coming, so we can change our mind quickly if it's not what we desire. It seemed like most everyone wanted another worker down in the south.

- Something Fishy doesn't have to be whipped until next turn, so no need to make a decision just yet.

New turn coming in less than six hours!

[Sullla]

New turn (T103) started. It was too late at night here to record the stats or write the turn report, but I moved most of our units. Two highlights to report so far:

- Someone generated a Great Scientist. (Hopefully not PAL or Imperio, but likely so.)

- Imperio has researched Horseback Riding! Time to get started on the diplomacy with them, and maybe see if we can get PAL to cancel that ivory trade.

[Swiss Pauli]

- Imperio has researched Horseback Riding! Time to get started on the diplomacy with them, and maybe see if we can get PAL to cancel that ivory trade.

It looks to me that Imperio plans to use Serfdom (and Maths) to chop an army, rather than whip it and with our strategic weakness (lose Cape Town in this epoch and we're - sooner or later - toast), I'd say we're looking at a full-blown potential crisis.

My additional suggestions:

- Let's try to appear blasé about the NAP with Imperio, so as not to make our fears too obvious.

- Make extra-nice with Templars: grant them stone-banana, send a map, delay bridging city to let them control the cows, add a NAP into the bargain, and trade/gift Wines.

- Try to get a spare military resource from PAL/Rabbits.

- Complete Monachy then go HBR, Maths, Construction.

- Get the Galley back to ferry units to Cape Town.

Also, I think we're going to have a lot of discussion about this, so should we start another thread?

[sunrise089]

All of Swiss's recommendations seem like good ideas. We should also consider trying to get someone (PAL?) to rush to Feudalism and trade with us...I don't know the tech situation perfectly, but if Imperio can leverage serfdom into a short-term hammer advantage with superior units then we're in real trouble with longbows.

EDIT: In real trouble that is if our metal gets cut.

[T-hawk]

How long would it take to research Feudalism ourselves after Monarchy? If we're going to have problems with resources and city defense, longbows of our own would seem to be just the ticket.