Turnplayed Thread #4

[T-hawk]

China Beach (building settler next) has the option of (a) finishing the theatre this turn but not growing and having 34/35 food in the box or (b) finishing the theatre next turn and growing to size 8. I think I remember that it's best to whip with the food box half-full, so maybe we should switch to grow next turn and delay the theatre by 1 turn?

"Whip when half full" is only for whipping a granary. Since filling the second half of the food box is enough to fill the granary's internal storage to full capacity, the granary derives no benefit while filling the first half of the food box. So it's best to wait and let the laborers work for an extra handful of turns before whipping a granary.

For anything else, the best time to whip is just before growth, and specifically so that the food box shrinks and gets the regrowth at a smaller food cost.

34/35 food is not possible, the food box is always an even number on normal speed, should need 34 food to grow from size 7 to 8. Assuming it's at 33/34 right now, this is a great time to start a settler and whip it next turn (assuming we want the triple whip in general.) Post whip, the food box will read 33/28 at size 4, and the city will grow in size even while building the settler, which is a fine way to minimize the impact of both population lost to the whip and food inefficiently lost to hammer conversion during the settler build order.

Mellow Yellow, if the box is half full now, should wait a turn and whip next turn. Then the last laborer exists and produces for an extra turn.

Something Fishy, I'll have to look at in more detail when I can get to the game (though that won't be until tomorrow night US time.) Offhand, I think the best whip target is the stable, since both the theater and lighthouse are 1-pop whips.

At Bluebell Woods I think we should we work our new mine instead of the silks?

Improved or unimproved silks? Improved ahead of the mine, unimproved should work the mine instead IMO.

[sunrise089]

I'm rather disappointed that the templars retreated their stack but it was the right thing for them to do. It looks far too strong in the jungle to attack.

Me too, it was a good attack plan I think. I suppose we can leave the hill empty though...if they want to take it back I guess they wouldn't have given it up in the first place.

Not sure what to do with our 2-movers.

I'll keep all of them on the neutral territory desert between all the peak tiles. They can be in Pink or Cape in 1 turn from there and Templars cannot see the tile.

Engergetic erik should road the tile 1S of his current location IMO. Helmholtz can probably be spared to go south.

Actually, I really want the plains forest 1S of Energetic Erik's tile to remain unroaded. If Templars road that neutral tile they can get on our road network without moving off roads. I don't want our neutral-territory roads to link up with their roads anywhere.

I think our workers should keep with the plan of roading the grass forest occupied by the macemen because that tile would be valuable tactically if roaded. Perhaps it is more efficient if just one of them goes in there because we don't have 2 movement penalties of moving a worker into an unroaded forest? The other could road the tile 1S of where it is.

As mentioned below I'm combining this suggestion and M_H's and having the workers road the mace forest and then towards the Templar hill with the crossbow, axe, and HA.

Going for a longbow next at Pink Dot could be a good choice. Occupying that hill is a nice plan.

Build changed, due in 5, sure wish we had 2 promos...

Could they be moving to meet up with Imperios stack that is 'missing' right now?

Sure, but the only two real targets are Pink Dot and Cape Town, and they've withdrawn from both of them. Considering our road network we'd have lots of warning if they dove for Airstrip One now.

First of all. Turnplayer, please read the turn log.

I'll try to remember to do this.

At PD we can do a variant of our attack plan against the central hill garrison.
First road the forest tile, as intended but with one worker. Have the other worker road NE-E of PD under cover of a pike.
We could then attack the central hill in four or five turns. Or at least make Templars nervous.

This sounds good, but I'd like to burn the worker turn and move both workers into the mace forest this turn. It delays the plains road a turn but gets our maces back in play a turn earlier.

Also, now could be a good time to move our PD stack out of the city as Templars do no longer have a line of sight into it.

Done. Charsi hasn't moved though because she needs one more turn to completely heal.

I think we should retreat Hannah the Pike from Jericho, as it will be up against a Xbow and an axe.

This is a close call, but I think the Pike is worth keeping in the forest. The pike should be strength 9.9 right now, which is better than the unprompted crossbow. Really I think two of the three possible scenarios benefit us:
-->Crossbow kills pike = RB loss
-->Crossbow dies to pike but axe kills pike = trading hammers, but RB is producing units faster, so slight RB win.
-->Templars don't attack OR pike kills both attackers OR pike kills crossbow and suffers little damage = mace takes forest and has visibility for a long time with woodsman 1 and strength 13.6

Where is our spy heading?

Mutal unless there are objections.

34/35 food is not possible, the food box is always an even number on normal speed, should need 34 food to grow from size 7 to 8. Assuming it's at 33/34 right now, this is a great time to start a settler and whip it next turn (assuming we want the triple whip in general.) Post whip, the food box will read 33/28 at size 4, and the city will grow in size even while building the settler, which is a fine way to minimize the impact of both population lost to the whip and food inefficiently lost to hammer conversion during the settler build order.

The city currently has 28/34 food. The game reports it is currently producing 19-14 food in the city. I don't know how surplus food gets converted into food-box food.

Regardless, I don't think we can start a settler yet without delaying Globe Theater. Therefore I've not changed anything and the theater will finish next turn.

Mellow Yellow, if the box is half full now, should wait a turn and whip next turn. Then the last laborer exists and produces for an extra turn.

Ok, I'm glad I didn't whip yet this turn as planned.

Something Fishy, I'll have to look at in more detail when I can get to the game (though that won't be until tomorrow night US time.) Offhand, I think the best whip target is the stable, since both the theater and lighthouse are 1-pop whips.

Ok, unless I hear otherwise I'll stick with theater->lighthouse->whip stable.

Improved or unimproved silks? Improved ahead of the mine, unimproved should work the mine instead IMO.

Improved silks, so I've kept that tile assigned.

[sunrise089]

FOLLOWING THE DISCUSSION ABOVE, THIS IS THE FINAL TURN REPORT

Turn 139

City report:
*Airstrip 1 - Theater due in 1. Missionary for Saxon next.
*Pink Dot - Mace complete. Longbow to cover Pink's border grassland hill due in 5.
*China Beach - Theater due in 1. Settler next, to be whipped for three pop.
*Cape Town - Theater due in 1. Unit next.
*Something Fishy - Theater due in 1. Lighthouse next finishing via chop, the stable next finished via whip.
*Green Acres - Barracks due in 2, whipping next turn. Globe Theater next.
*Mellow Yellow - Theater due in 21, and I now believe I'm supposed to whip this next turn. Barracks next.
*Saxon the Beach - Moai due in 13 turns.
*Bluebell Woods - Forge due in 24.
*Red Herring - Granary due in 18.

Worker report:
*Bob the Builder has started on the "burgundy" farm.
*Our road network through the center desert is almost complete. We have 1 tile to go, which will finish next turn.
*Our two Pink Dot military engineers moved into the grassland forest covered by the mace. They will road the tile next turn and then road the plains tile 1NE 1E of Pink Dot on turn 141.

Domestic Military Composition Report:
*Cape Town garrison - 8 strength-eight units, 2 horse archers, 2 pikes, 5 cats, 1 axe, 4 archers.
*Pink Dot garrison - 5 maces, 2 pikes, 1 horse archer, 2 cats, 2 archers.
-->Only 2 archers in city.
-->2 maces covering the grassland forest SE of the city.
-->3 maces, 2 pikes, 1 HA, 2 cats hidden from Templars on the roaded hill NW of Pink.
*Central garrison (units in open) - 1 elephant, 1 mace, 1 pike, 4 horse archers, 2 chariots.

Enemy Military Composition Report:
*Cape Town opposing force - 6 longbows, 1 pike. Other units in fog estimated at 7 strength-8 units and 7 cats plus any new C&D unit discoveries.
*Pink Dot opposing force - 1 mace, 2 crossbows, 1 horse archer, 1 sword, 4 cats, 3 chariots, 1 spear.
-->I believe the mace is a PROMOTED sword since there is one fewer sword and Templars kept the city raider promo on the mace.
*Central opposing force - 1 crossbow, 1 horse archer, 1 axeman.

Military Action Report:
*Our mace is one turn from being in the forest next to Jericho, but Templars have built a Crossbow there. It will have slightly less than 50% odds on our pike if they want to try it.
*Our 2-movers in the middle are now hanging out on the desert tile between the peaks. They can reach Pink Dot and Cape Town in 1 turn. We really could move the remaining 2 HA's down from Cape Town as well, but I've left them there in case there is an opportunistic worker grab or other cheap kill that appears later.
*You may have noticed above that an elephant is now in the "central garrison." He's covering Winston based on the slight risk Templars have a 2 mover in the one desert tile we can't see.
*Templars didn't move their crossbow-HA-axe stack off their grassland hill.
*BIG NEWS 1 - Templars have moved off of our grassland hill! I assume they won't move back on it next turn since they just left in. We'll have a longbow to put on the tile in 5 turns or less.
*Knights are going to be lovely again the Templar units as we see them now. 3 knights would probably kill the small crossbow hill stack with no losses, and once we use our two cats knights will likely have odds on the big Templar stack even on a hill.

Spy Report:
*The first spy is built and will be in Imperio land by turn 144. It is heading towards the road network between Mutal and Chichen Itza.

Questions and notes:
*BIG NEWS 2 - Wounded PAL caravel north of Red Herring! Probably working on Magellan's voyage. Maybe we'll get lucky and another barb boat will kill it.
*Chatted with Banana in game...no news, but he says he will be responding to our email soon.
*I think next turn will be the first one in a long time with no units produced. We've really done a great job gaining military parity in a 2v1 situation, which is a testament to how well we've managed our cities as well as the decision to use the great person on a golden age. Our course technically I think our enemies still have 200,000 power power than we do, but a lot of that is accounted for by techs and buildings. Overall I think we're certainly holding our own.

[sooooo]

Logged in to take some screenshots and I pressed End Turn. Note that if we settle Burgundy next then Bob the Builder needs to suspend his farming and get into Green Acres' grass forest next turn (see the WDWSN? thread).

EDIT: Also we should probably turn up research to 100% next turn in case we manage to get some gold from somewhere.

[ruff_hi]

*BIG NEWS 2 - Wounded PAL caravel north of Red Herring! Probably working on Magellan's voyage. Maybe we'll get lucky and another barb boat will kill it.

If it got wounded by a barb ... isn't that poor play. At this stage of the game, I always park my caravels 1 tile off the coast and laugh at the barbarian / enemy AI galleys.

[sunrise089]

If it got wounded by a barb ... isn't that poor play. At this stage of the game, I always park my caravels 1 tile off the coast and laugh at the barbarian / enemy AI galleys.

I'm not sure....I've built like 1 caravel ever in civ

Perhaps they had a blind move for the last movement point though.

[mostly-harmless]

Where is our spy heading?

Mutal unless there are objections.

What for?
I see currently three sensible missions for him:
1.) get line of sight into Constantinople
2.) reveal tiles around Jerusalem
3.) Find Imperio's main army (before they show themselves)

Seeing how Imperio has burned 4-5 spies already with only one successful mission, I would like to minimize our spy's exposure in enemy lands. I's rather have him perform step-in step-out maneuvers, completely avoiding capture by that. Unfortunately that only works with road connections across borders, which we don't have at the moment.

I fell just having him look at Mutal is not giving us much information but runs the risk of losing 40h.

mh

[sooooo]

Main mission is to find the Imperio stack. After that he should retreat back to our lands and maybe check out constantinople.

[sunrise089]

Sorry M_H, I should have been more clear. We know the main Imperio army is south of Chichen Itza. I figure they are between that city and Mutal, so I want to go look for them.

[sunrise089]

ACK - Meant to copy and instead edited out old post.

Post-Templar turn:

*Templars Adopted Bureaucracy
*Templars did not retake the Pink Dot Hill
*Templars did not attack the pike in the forest outside Jericho, so the mace will be able to get in the forest next turn.
*Imperio moved a HA into Chichen Itza.

[mostly-harmless]

deleted

[ruff_hi]

got any evidence of that?

[mostly-harmless]

No I don't. In fact I might have been confused here.
Forget that I mentioned it. C&D making me too paranoid.

mh

[sunrise089]

Post-Templar turn:

...

I need to watch my wording. The above should read "Report following Templar turn, of actions which presumably took place during Templar's proper 16-hour movement period."

[Sullla]

Templars spent ANOTHER turn in Anarchy?! Geeze. We're lucky that Templars and Imperio don't seem to understand how to pull off civic swaps properly. (Do they know about the BTS Golden Age rules?) They've both wasted multiple turns in Anarchy since the war began, although going to Bureaucracy at least makes sense.

Good news for us.