Turnplayer Thread #3

[mostly-harmless]

double post

[mostly-harmless]

What do we attribute PAL's score increase mid-turn to? If it's a tech then I cannot figure out what it was. The log doesn't report them taking a city.

PAL started settling again.
The city of Byblos was founded.
There are a couple of likely candidate spot on PALs northern border, which I marked (6 land tiles gain, so its a coastal spot). Jennifer (warrior) can check them out easily. I think the spot south of Jennifer is a good one (3 food resources).
The good thing is, that each new PAL city gives us +1gpt from international trade routes.

I am in favor of some more military next instead of workers.

mh

[sooooo]

RBS discovery sees Giza. After all that it didn't even have to move into PAL waters.



China Beach whipped, turn ended.

IMO we should road to Blue Dot via Saxon the Beach.



We need to build two of those roads anyway, so it's only one extra road to go this route. I think our new worker should go onto the hill 1E of Mustapha in his first turn, then put 1 turn into a mine. Next turn move 1NE, build a road. Then he should camp the deer at Saxon.

[mostly-harmless]

Just when I thought the turn ticking over will take some more hours, lots of teams rush and press enter.
We are in T121.

Templars finished Theology and founded Judaism in Acre. Got a free missionary as well.
In other news Imperio pulled back their units to Chichen Itza.

A few suggestions for unit movement:
The Chariot chasing down the northern axe should just move 1NE to avoid being attacked next turn (and loosing the attack bonus vs. axe). The barb hides somewhere in the northern most 2 tiles.
The RBS Discovery should move 1SE 1SW to get a better look into PALs lands and avoid trespassing into Templar waters.
The scouting warrior should move 1 SW onto the hill to check out one possible position for Byblos (PALs newest city).
The scout should probably move 1NW to finish off those fogged tiles.

mh

[sooooo]

I played most of the turn, with some units unmoved awaiting orders from the team.

We gained two new workers this turn at China Beach and Green Acres. We also started another worker at Green Acres and plan to whip it next turn. After that, our worker need will be somewhat satisfied and we can concentrate in other areas for a while. The new worker from China Beach (Serious Steve) carried out my suggested move of going onto Saxon's grass hill and putting 1 turn into a mine. Next turn he will move 1NE and build a road on that tile. He is eventually going to camp the deer at Saxon and then move on to improving Blue Dot. Our new worker from Green Acres (Bob the builder) is unsure what to do.



T-Hawk suggested to mine Green Acres' grass Hill while Sullla said he should go and improve Mellow Yellow. My vote is that he should improve MY, and have the next worker we whip from green to improve its hill. I think MY has more urgency to improve its tiles whereas Green Acres has a strategy if its hill mine gets delayed (whipping!).

At Pink Dot we also have two decisions to make. I was going to automatically have Syme coordinate with Parsons on the cottage that Parsons began next turn. But I think that he may be better served starting the Pink Dot - Cape Town road. Parsons will finish the cottage in 3 turns and Pink Dot will grow in 2, meaning PD will be working an unimproved tile for 1 turn. Parsons is probably OK improving Pink on his own now IMO. The second decision to make is what should the city build next. I can see arguments for any military unit here, but I think another Horse Archer is probably best.

At China Beach we started a Horse Archer (4t, with lots of overflow from the whip) and the chop will come in in 3 turns so we will get a large amount of overflow into the next build.

Bernard finished his cottage at airstrip one and the city started working it. Forge is delayed from 2 turns to 3. Bernard to complete the Airstrip One - Cape Town road next?

At Cape Town our catapult finishes this turn with decent overflow. What should be built next? Another catapult (1 turn) or something else?

The RBS discovery has a choice: to explore bananaland or to unfog the coast route through templars. Sorry to ask this again, but I wasn't sure: Are we certain that we will still have a trade route to bananaland if Imperio close borders? Could a worldbuilder experiment confirm this? If we do still have OBs then we may go and explore banana. If not then we need to unfog those tiles south of Jerusalem. Templars did say we can sail a boat in their waters.

[sunrise089]

I know there is a large incentive to use worker turns for workable city improvements first, but I certainly vote for the road and chopping jobs between Pink and Cape.

EDIT: I vote another cat or a jumbo at Cape. Slight preference for a cat.

[T-hawk]

Is the game down? I tried and it couldn't connect to host.

I agree on Serious Steve going to Mellow Yellow. I looked only at Green Acres last night and didn't think that far afield for him. Bernard I would have start improving the Burgundy area with a winery.

The RBS Discovery, if it double-moves, can get to neutral territory south of Giza even without permission. We tell Templars we went through PAL waters and tell PAL it went through Templar waters.

I would send it out scouting Bananaland. As soon as Templars connect Acre by road, we have an Imperio-free trade connection to Banana (and PAL) regardless of the Jerusalem area. Also, if we do need to unfog Jerusalem, Something Fishy could do another boat. Finally, if we want to be players in the circumnavigation race, getting RBS Discovery as far east as possible could be key.

No opinion on what unit to build next at Cape Town.

[Swiss Pauli]

I'd train a WE at Cape Town next. Imperio could have its units in place to declare on T124, so better to train resource-dependent units whilst we can. We can focus on cats after their DoW as it will take them half a dozen turns to bomb down Cape's defences.

The galley should keep on exploring, and Steve should head to MY.

[Sullla]

Hey, back and I'll have a chance to spend some time messing around with the game tonight. I'd like to thank sooooo for putting together some fantastic turnplayer reports over the weekend, lots of excellent descriptions and illustration.

As far as our current builds go.... definitely a cat at Cape Town; we only have one cat currently, and as sunrise will tell you, building up more cats is probably the single most important thing we can do defensively there. I like a general build pattern of elephant/cat/cat for the moment. I would also like to see China Beach build the suggested horse archer, and Pink complete a second horse archer as well. That gets us 4 horse archers total, which is enough to shred a mid-sized stack of cats pretty well.

I think I agree with all of the worker moves suggested, although I'll have to log into the game and see for myself. Bob the Builder should definitely start going south to improve Mellow.

So long as we don't get a dual war declaration from Templars/Imperio out of the blue, our position in the game is looking excellent.

[T-hawk]

I like Swiss's suggestion of War Elephant at Cape Town. That's our most precarious resource supply. I agree with Swiss that we can build cats later once the resources get cut.

[mostly-harmless]

Scouting units confirm PALs new city in one of the two indentified spots (south of ex-Mountain Hutch).

I am in favor for the galley to turn east and search for Banana, because I think we do have a trade route through Templars reaching PAL and I actually think it does not matter as Templars will team up against us anyway.

That said, I would sleep better with a bit more emphasize on military. Even if Templars leave us alone, we should not be turtling up in Cape Town, but try to wreck some havoc in IMperio land.

mh

[darrelljs]

Should we whip any unfinished elephants on turn 123 in case we get a double DoW on turn 124?

Darrell

[sooooo]

Elephant at Cape Town next turn is fine by me. Syme to road the plains tile 3N of Pink Dot this turn. Bob the Builder to head to Mellow Yellow. We should probably try to build up a stack at Pink Dot, to warn off Templars. Maybe one or two archers from Cape Town can start the journey down south. Cape Town is probably OK for archers with it building a unit every turn!

Sullla, are you going to finish the turn? If not, I will do it in the morning.

[Sullla]

Already ahead of you, sooooo. I moved Bob the Builder south, and sent Syme up north to start the great Cape/Pink road, as suggested by several team members. I have not ended the turn, but I don't think there's anything else to do. Game looks great right now.

One request: mostly_harmless, can you post a screenshot of the standard Demographics screen from T120, the one that just passed? I can fill in a couple of holes in my charts if you do. Thanks.

Anyway, we now have Banana Demographics data - had it starting last turn, actually. So here's a quick update on where all of the teams stand in the major categories that I'm tracking:

Score (really obvious, but still worth noting)
RB 691
PAL 678
Imperio 637
Templars 476
Banana 471
Rabbits 230

GNP
PAL 220
Imperio 197
RB 160
Banana 126
Templars 75
Rabbits 26

Food/Production
PAL 137/76 (213)
RB 107/70 (177)
Imperio 97/69 (166)
Banana 67/38 (105)
Templars 54/40 (94)
Rabbits 24/21 (45)

Soldier Count
PAL 240k
RB 221k
Imperio 201k
Templars 166k
Banana 129k
Rabbits 128k

We are essentially in second place behind PAL in virtually all statistics; the GNP number is somewhat dubious, because we are running min science and getting no research multipliers from buildings or pre-reqs. Our GNP goes to ~280 when we turn on research next turn. PAL and RB are using binary science, while the other teams are running steady-state research. We are still quite a ways behind PAL in Food/Production, although that's partly due to heavy whipping recently. No one has whipped more than PAL and our team - no small reason why we're the ones doing so well!

As best I can tell, Banana has concentrated on research to the detriment of military and expansion. Their Food/Production numbers are barely above that of Templars (and that's BAD), their military is a joke, but their GNP is pretty respectable. Banana definitely makes a good "little brother" alliance partner, someone who can feed a larger civ techs while having no shot to win the game themselves. No wonder PAL and our team are both courting them!

I'll try to get in a Stats post tomorrow morning, if I'm not too tired. We'll see.

[Zeviz]

From Urban planning thread, here are a couple suggestions for optimizing worker and settler training:

4. Immediate actions:
4.1 Green Acres should switch from Worker to Settler, because we need Settlers in the north and workers in the south.
4.2 Something Fishy should put in a worker(5), because it's about to start working unimproved tiles, and it needs a second worker.
4.3 Mellow Yellow grows to size 4 (4 turns), then puts in a Worker to be whipped.

After this, we should have enough workers for immediate needs and can train a pair of Settlers after Green Acres and Mellow Yellow recover from whips.

Note that if you like this idea, we have to switch Green Acres from Worker to Settler this turn.