Turnplayed Thread #4

[mostly-harmless]

Is it worth borrowing some money (4g) from someone so we can quickly upgrade the spear at Pink Dot to a PIke? We are facing 4 mounted units from Templars.

mh

[mostly-harmless]

Hmm, Imperio just sold Rabbits Mathematics for 4gold!

Looks like someone messes with our financial plan here.

mh

[Sullla]

First of all, way to go General sunrise! We got all the unit moves accomplished almost flawlessly, we are ready to SMASH the Imperio stack when they declare war, and we preserved first-mover advantage for the war as well. Fantastic!

OK, now for some other issues from the turn:

- The Great Scientist should definitely stay in Airstrip One for now. If the Engineering trade doesn't go through with PAL, we use him on lightbulbing Philosophy. If it does go through, a question arises: Academy in Pink or super-specialist in the capital? I think we all agreed that a Golden Age was a waste without tying civics changes to it. Can we have someone (T-Hawk) look at the numbers on which of those two options is more effective?

- I would have had John build road on the chopped tile, in preparation for moving to Mellow's dyes tile next turn, but that's really minor. It may even be better to have him chop the current tile anyway.

- What do we want to build in Something Fishy? sunrise has a horse archer queued, but keep in mind, that city has no barracks. I think it would be a good place to whip a cat next turn, since collatering-damage cats don't really need any promotions, and we could get it to the likely Pink battlefield in time to make a difference. sunrise, what do you think about that suggestion?

- Since we can't finish anything in Cape Town this turn, one idea would be to build the work boat for Red's crabs on this turn, with major overflow allowing us to build a cat next turn. Maybe a crazy idea, but we do need that work boat, and since we can't build any unit in 1t right now anyway at the Cape...

Templars have moved 7 units in two small stack to the Pink border area. 2 swords, spear, horse archer, 3 chariots.

I'm laughing my butt off here. Seriously? That's your stack? Building SWORDS of all units?! I do think that Templars probably have more yet to come, however. Let's not get so focused on Cape Town that we get overwhelmed at Pink. I would probably do the axe -> mace upgrade at Pink next turn, not Cape, although I admit that I don't have as much MP experience as sunrise.

If I'm right, the operating belief here is to smash Imperio's stack and then heal up our survivors and use them to crush Templars' force in turn, right? With only one cat in the mix, Templars are gonna be waiting a long time outside Pink before they can attack there (and remember, Pink is built on a hill!)

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. Now we mostly play the waiting game and see what Imperio and Templars do this turn. Do we want to send a final "warning" email to Imperio? It likely won't serve any purpose, but maybe we should do it so we can demonstrate to other teams that they were unequivocally the aggressors (?)

[mostly-harmless]

Red can stay alive without a workboat for now. Lets put any hammers we have into military. Keep in mind we constantly loose GNP with each turn the war drags on, so a quick end is necessary. I rather have another unit in 4-5 turns than a quick workboat.

Cat or HA is fine by my in SF. We probably eed 2movers to pillage and take the fight to our enemy's land.

It is clear from PAL's latest message that the trade for Philo is not going to happen, so lightbulb away, I say.

mh

[T-hawk]

- The Great Scientist should definitely stay in Airstrip One for now. If the Engineering trade doesn't go through with PAL, we use him on lightbulbing Philosophy. If it does go through, a question arises: Academy in Pink or super-specialist in the capital? I think we all agreed that a Golden Age was a waste without tying civics changes to it. Can we have someone (T-Hawk) look at the numbers on which of those two options is more effective?

I've been doing the numbers in the Tech Discussion thread. I didn't look at super-specialist, will do so now. But Golden Age is actually not far behind the lightbulb and we could really use the hammers now in wartime.

- Since we can't finish anything in Cape Town this turn, one idea would be to build the work boat for Red's crabs on this turn, with major overflow allowing us to build a cat next turn.

I'd like to, but I fear we can't pass up any military. I think a better plan for Cape Town is to put one turn into some unit this turn, then whip it next turn to create overflow for 1T units for several turns to come. Red can chop out its own work boat (should come before its granary.)

[sunrise089]

@Sullla - Sorry about the worker judgment call. Anyone who say my SP games would know that isn't my strong point.

I'm fine with swapping Something Fishy to a cat. My favorite no-barracks build is an anti-horse unit since they defend in a city almost as well without the promo. But since we're not guaranteed Iron for long a cat build makes sense.

Although work boat in Cape Town gets us the same number of units on turn 132, I don't like burning even that many hammer at the stop of the crisis. Maybe I'm over-doing it, but I'd rather be able to get a stronger unit out in turn 133 due to overflow to help clean up the Imperio stack.

Sullla is exactly correct about my plan to kill the Imperio stack and then shift south. Imperio has too many cats to let them sit outside Cape Town, and Cape Town is on a hill. We're running a risk that Templars don't have a way to fast-track the attack in the south, but I think it's a necessary risk. That's my reasoning for the emphasis on upgrading the units in Cape Town. Frankly, Imperio's stack is better than ours (fewer obsolete units), and my tests show additional strong units to make a big difference. We of course run the risk of not having copper in the future, but it's difficult to weight that against the need to dominate quickly in the northern theater.

Someone mentioned trying to get some additional gold this turn for upgrades. One idea might be to ask Banana to run 0% science like we are, and promise some sort of beaker credit later...like maybe 50 or 100% more beakers than we would otherwise exchange for X gold. Ideal would be some combination of trades and wealth builds that would let us upgrade both of our axes to maces next turn. I think we would need around 60 gold for a 125g upgrade and a 95g upgrade next turn, and a (probably unattainable) 90g to upgrade both axes.

@T-Hawk - In MP games we whip like crazy, and big battles are generally fought around all-size-1cities. But it seemed like Cape Town was setup so well on a max shields no growth setup that I was fearful to suggest whipping it.

[sooooo]

I logged in and noted the following things to do:

Move Britney's Spears into Pink Dot. Move Mariah (spearperson in Airstrip One) down the road toward pink too. Whip Green Acres, China Beach and Pink Dot. Set off golden age (?).

Diana: I'd stop her journey to Saxon and instead send her down to Pink Dot.

Oh, and I changed Airstrip One to work its new cottage and Something Fishy back to working the dyes.

Golden age gets us an extra 5 base hammers in Cape Town which gives us 10 hammers when doubled, or 58 hammers. So catapult is the correct build.

[sunrise089]

Agree with the tile assignments, Diana the archer, Mariah the spear, and the whips.

I don't want to move Britney yet. Templars aren't allowed to double-move Pink, so I'd rather have Britney covering the road to Airstrip one a bit better.

I'll complete all of these moves before the turn timer reaches 24 hours unless someone objects to the whips before then. The whips and tile assignments can technically wait until the second half of the turn if someone feels we need the time to discuss them.

[ruff_hi]

are we 'allowed' to move units after we have finished our turn ... we need to make sure this will not lose our 'first move initiative'.

[sooooo]

Imperio or Templars haven't even logged in yet, let alone finished their turn. Do it as soon as possible though.

[sooooo]

The 24 hour thing has no meaning once we have logged in. No point in using that as a boundary for anything. I'll do it right now if you are busy/at work

[sunrise089]

Go ahead an do it Soooo, that's fine.

None of the special rules really matter yet since we're not at war. The reason I logged in right when the turn started and ended turn was that so if Imperio had declared war right away we would have still got our unit upgrade done, and there would have been to question of who got to move first in the future.

In order to be totally safe and preserve early-move right, I think we should do the following:

1) Log in before Imperio each turn before the war begins, make moves, and end turn, which ensures RB will have first moves during the war.

2) Don't make any unit moves once Imperio has logged in.

3) Once the war begins, make we log in during the first 24 hours, make moves, and end turn.

4) Still don't make any unit moves once Imperio has logged in.

and log in within the first 24 each turn after the war begins.

2)

[Sullla]

Some major questions:

- Are we convinced as a team on using the Great Scientist for a Golden Age? I mean, I saw some discussion on this in the Tech thread, but that's a gigantic step to take. Are we really OK if PAL doesn't trade us Philosophy, and we use up our Great Scientist that way?

I have no problem going with the team consensus, just want us all to be clear on this. And it impacts everything else we do this turn in terms of preparation.

- I would still rather we didn't whip the mace in Pink, especially if we are going to pop a Golden Age. Can't we at least wait to see what Templars do first? We really don't need that unit to be whipped if they stay on the sidelines, right?

I fully concur with whips at China Beach and Green Acres though.

- Please do not whip Cape Town in anything but an extreme emergency situation. It has barely any food and will get massively fewer shields at lower sizes.

- I was actually thinking we could send Diana the archer to "red" dot, since it would be good to have at least one warm body in there. Agree that Saxon definitely doesn't need a defender now.

- Plan at Something Fishy is still to whip a unit there (cat?) next turn, correct? Just making sure we're all clear on this.

I will try to log into the game tomorrow morning to do Stats and come up with a full list of all unit moves for when the turn rolls over.

[sunrise089]

I support the golden age, and I think there is something of a consensus for it. Not that most people have voted for it, but rather that very if any have expressed a preference for the other options. Honestly, the reason I support the GA is because I think the other options are kind of week right now. The Academy in Pink has a LONG payoff, so it's generally better to bulb Philo. But then Philo is a fairly cheap non-monopoly tech. Which PAL may still trade us. The golden age will at least get us a state religion and vassalage, plus we'll be better able to make emergency upgrades. If the cap didn't have an academy or if Philo was a monopoly tech that PAL wanted to buy I'd be a lot less golden-age-focused.

We certainly don't have to whip the Pink Dot mace this turn. The question is just how close we want to cut it in the south. Whipped mace this turn makes it easier to get another unit out before the Templar stack arrives. Of course who knows what the Templars will actually do. For what it's worth I lean towards whipping it but don't consider it critical.

The other two whips are clearly the right calls to me.

I'm not sure why we want to send Diana to Red Dot. Is Red Dot exposed to attack? If not we should probably send the unit to the front.

I think we should start a cat at Something Fishy this turn and whip it next turn, yes.

[Dreylin]

- Are we convinced as a team on using the Great Scientist for a Golden Age? I mean, I saw some discussion on this in the Tech thread, but that's a gigantic step to take. Are we really OK if PAL doesn't trade us Philosophy, and we use up our Great Scientist that way?

Well, as soon as the trumpets sound, I think our chances of getting Philo from Pal go up. Coupled with that, our latest assurances may be able to seal the deal.

If not, we would still have T-Hawk's proposed plan to hire 2 extra Scientists in A1 and use the GA to accelerate the GPP accumulation to result in our next GS in 7turns.

I would be in favour of waiting until after the war declaration before commiting to it, as long as we are comfortable that it does not break the rules. (I agree with the viewpoint that if we can change build orders & tile usage in response to opponent's action, we should be able to pop a GA ... however that might run into problems if we get as far as aircraft & bombardment)

TBH, I suspect that Imperio & Templars coordinated the declaration for next turn and that the tile flip is going to come as a surprise. (Templars really don't look like they're ready to declare this turn ... unless they're that disorganised) It will be interesting to see what happens when they finally do log in....