Turnplayed Thread #4

[Sullla]

Some quick thoughts from looking at the save:

- Uh, what are we going to do about our research? We're going to run out of cash on this turn. I'm guessing the plan is to run a turn of zero science, then back onto Nationalism (?) T-Hawk, soooooo, you're the experts on this stuff.

- I don't really like the spy build sunrise suggested in Saxon. We finally got Moai finished (yay!) and I think we should focus more on infrastructure as the city continues to grow. I'd rather have a library, forge, or courthouse in there next, personally.

- Defense concerns aside, we're starting to get some "we fear for our safety!" unhappiness in the unguarded cities from lack of military police. Do we have any outdated warriors/archers that potentially could serve as warm bodies there?

- One final long-term point. If we're going to be doing some heavy drafting in the near future, we really need to start laying off the whip. Many cities are already under double-whip penalties, and if we start laying draft unhappiness on top of that... Well, it probably won't be pretty. I'm not saying we were wrong to whip, because we absolutely needed those units. Just that we have to be careful in going forward, or we'll cripple ourselves with unhappiness.

Overall, I think our position looks pretty darn good, considering our situation.

[sooooo]

We asked banana for a loan to commence this turn. I'll go and chase that up.

At saxon, it's a library for me, it's a cheap build and benefits us immediately. That's unless we need to build a ship for defence.

@Regoarrarr: OK, good skillz.

[T-hawk]

Imperio galley: Why not solve both parts of the problem by getting a Trireme ready to whip at Red Herring instead? Then Cape Town stays on good units, and Red doesn't sink hammers into a not-really-useful longbow.

rego's MM on the Upper Burgundy granary looks good. If the rice will become available, we want to work the mine longer instead of swapping to the wines.

Next issue: "The Tile" at Cape Town is down to 52% RB (from 54% last turn). That is worrying. I estimate that we will lose it on T149. That will allow Imperio to reach Cape Town instantly with two movers. The problem is that although we currently create 9cult per turn in CT compared to only 3cult per turn Chichen Itza generates, the tile is diagonal-diagonal from CT but straight-diagonal from Chichen Itza.

More generally, the tile lies at culture level 3 distance from Cape Town but culture level 2 distance from Chichen Itza. The way tile ownership works is to apply each city's culture every turn, PLUS 20 culture per "excess" level that the city has beyond that ring of tiles. IIRC, right now Cape Town and Chichen are both at culture level 3 (between 100-500), so the tile gets 9 per turn from Cape Town, but 23 per turn from Chichen.

To hold a tile that's in closer proximity to an enemy city than to yours, in the long run, requires that your city either A) always remains one culture level ahead of the enemy city, or B) outproduces the enemy city by 20 culture per turn. That latter will never happen absent a Great Artist or several wonders. We've been using A.

Once Cape Town reaches 500 culture, we re-establish A, and apply 29 tile ownership per turn (33 after Heroic Epic doubles) to Chichen's 23. We will slowly gain the upper hand again until Chichen reaches 500 or somehow raises its base culture production above 13.

*All of our units are in staging areas. We need to prey Templars don't have a 2-mover stepping out of the fog and then back in at Jericho this turn.

Templars could have a spy too. We can't 100% assume that anything is invisible to the enemy.

[sooooo]

One other factor to consider at Cape Town is that once we go to mercantilism, we will probably hire an artist here since it's either an artist or a citizen. That's probably not until (if?) we get the Taj Mahal (T154).

[sooooo]

Imperio galley: Why not solve both parts of the problem by getting a Trireme ready to whip at Red Herring instead? Then Cape Town stays on good units, and Red doesn't sink hammers into a not-really-useful longbow.

This is a good suggestion. A trireme costs 50 hammers, so it needs a double-whip, but the city is only size 3 and will grow in 2 turns. I would say switch to trireme this turn. We still cannot whip next turn, but it gives us flexibility. If, unexpectedly, Imperio sails a galley with support of a caravel next turn, a trireme will be useless and we have the option of changing to a longbow a turn before we hit size 4.

[MyOtherCar]

The most a caravel can do, is 'park' on a seafood tile. So we may loose some food, but it can't be pillaged.

[regoarrarr]

Okay I logged in and noticed / did a few things:

* Since it seemed like consensus, I swapped Red Herring to Trireme and Saxon to Library
* Banana accepted our gold deal. We now have 174 gold, and are losing 86 gpt, with Nationalism due in 2 turns, with a whopping 2 gold surplus!
* There are 4 cities that have no defenders: Saxon the Beach, Red Herring, Bluebell Woods, and Frozen Clams. The only spare archers are 2 at Pink Dot, 4 at Cape Town, and Persephone who is fog busting in the north. It's possible (I forgot to check) that once Frozen Clams expands borders in 2 turns she will not be needed. Saxon, at size 5, is the only city who is whining, and currently stands at 10 happies to 7 unhappies.
* The 2nd workboat for Frozen Clams is timed perfectly - it will be able to net the clams in 2 turns right when the borders expand.
* Winston and Eric are able to spend T148 moving to the tile NW of Jericho, and T149 roading that tile to speed up our reinforcements. Are they needed for further Operation Joshua duty?. If they aren't, they can spend T150, moving to Burgundy's rice and starting the farm, which will be completed on T152. If they are needed for Operation Joshua (which is obviously a higher priority), there are really no other workers available that I saw - the 3 other ones in the north and the worker due in 2 from China Beach are all busy with the Taj Mahal, and I did not see any other ones anywhere close. T-hawk - can you verify your numbers that we should work the plains hill before wine with the rice? It looks to me that the best would be to keep on the wine, which would mean on T154, we're at 59/60 and 10/22, and then swap to the rice then to grow on T157. If we keep on the plains hill till the rice is done on T152, we also grow on T157. The plains hill plan gains us 2 food and 3 hammers at the expense of 15 commerce (I think), which does not seem like a good tradeoff. If you want to crunch the numbers to verify, that would be great.

[dsplaisted]

* Banana accepted our gold deal. We now have 174 gold, and are losing 86 gpt, with Nationalism due in 2 turns, with a whopping 2 gold surplus!

Will operation Joshua affect this, due to higher unit upkeep from units outside our borders?

[sooooo]

Logged in and took the very important action of switching Bluebell from the mine to the lake. Next turn we will get 119/120 hammers into the forge and can whip it for maximum overflow .

Also swapped something fishy from the dyes to the new mine in order to reduce the time for the knight by 1 turn. Next turn the city grows and can work the dyes again.

Airstrip One needs a build to start next turn. I think I'd go for a longbow in order to guard against any shenanigans with Imperio galleys. Cape Town I would go for a trireme.

Will operation Joshua affect this, due to higher unit upkeep from units outside our borders?

It will, but I think we'll be fine because it looks like we can dial down to 70% next turn. Even if we can't, we should just be a few gold out so could put a city on wealth for a turn if necessary.

Worker actions for next turn:
John the Savage to start chopping.
Mustapha and Bob the Builder to move to the grass tile 1SW of their current position and start a farm (green acres draft optimisation).
Syme moves 1E and puts another chop into the jungle.
Winston and Energetic Erik are detailed into General Sunrise's command.

We need a task for Parsons, he has just finished the mine east of Something Fishy.



As I see it the options are (a) cottage another tile at SF, (b) help Syme chop and cottage a tile at Mellow Yellow, (c) head north to help at green acres or (d), the option I favour, go into the hill 1N of his mine to chop the forest. Hammers are important right now and the boost would be good for something fishy. Also I think we should road that tile because it shortens the route from SF to the templar front line.

[Dreylin]

(d) sounds good for Parsons.

[T-hawk]

T-hawk - can you verify your numbers that we should work the plains hill before wine with the rice?

Will do, tomorrow night after work. I just finished an 8 hour drive coming back from the holiday weekend, and need to go to sleep about an hour ago.

On Nationalism, we can definitely dial down to 70% next turn and convert a few laborers to scientists if needed. We'll get it.

[Swiss Pauli]

Parsons - (d) chop the forest 1N of his current position (then head north to help at Green).

Saxon - how about a Barracks rather than a Library seeing as Nationalism is coming soon.

A1 - another Knight, as we need units that can cover multiple cities.

Cape - cat (to replace those being sacrificed at Jericho).

[sooooo]

We don't really want to whip Red Herring for a trireme if we can avoid it, the only reason to start one is in case Imperio set sail this turn. If they do not, then Cape Town should build one (starting next turn) and we should swap Red Herring back to its library.

Barracks at Saxon sounds OK. I had forgotten that it lacks one.

[Swiss Pauli]

That can't be right: if Imperio sets sail this turn, the trireme won't be ready in time anyway as Imperio can drop off units next turn next to Red (and we have to switch to longbow at Red). If Imperio doesn't set sail then we can whip the trireme at size 4 and send the overflow into the library.

[mostly-harmless]

The situation is like this:
The galley sets sails this turn. (if so grab a screenshot of the Chichen Itza garrison to see who is missing).
The troops land next to Red Herring next turn.
Red Herring attacked the turn after.

Solution:
Either have a defender there in time (2mover on its way this turn or whip a defender in time.
Solution 2: Intercept the galley with a trireme from Red Herring.

mh