Turnplayed Thread #4

[sooooo]

Our road network around Pink is pretty bad. I'm willing to delay plantations for a while to get our troops moving efficiently. Pink is going to get slaved down pretty badly, and a plantation vs cottage is not that much of a difference while growing back again. We're in a fairly bad way down there with all of those new templar units appearing, need to crack the whip and build roads for a while I'm afraid until their initial units are dead.

[Dreylin]

They already cut the road though, so did they move at the end of the last turn, wait 12 hours, and then cut the road?

Well as the rules see it, they took their turn at the end of the last turn. Turn ended. RB took their turn (and pressed "End Turn"). Then Templars took this turn cuuting roads. Since it was after the RB turn, it doesn't matter how far into the turn it is.

[Zeviz]

What I am worried about is the following scenario:

1. Templars and Imperio sacrifice all their mounted units to pillage Pink Dot and A1 to stone age.

2. After that they go on defensive, or even sign truce, but refuse to open borders.

This would leave us with no sources of income, which would kill us in the long term as surely as loss of Cape Town would.

To defend from this scenario we can do two things:

1. Make sure we are ready to kill pillagers in Pink and A1 areas before they can do much damage.

2. Get cottages going around more than just 2 cities.

EDIT: What I am saying is that while we should pull a large army out of thin air right now, if we keep delaying those southern cottages, it will not matter whether we win or lose this war, because we will fall hopelessly behind economically.

[sunrise089]

In my experience using mounted units to pillage only works when the defender is afraid to move their horse-killers out of their city. As long as we have good roads and enough defenders we can punish pillagers pretty well.

[sooooo]

I'll make some changes after watching this episode of the wire. 5.3 hours left on the timer.

[Sullla]

Upgraded spearman (Britney's Spears) to pikeman in Pink Dot, for 95g. We did not have enough gold left to upgrade an axe, so I left the rest of our units alone. We will have the option to upgrade two axes or two pikes next turn, assuming the war declaration doesn't come at the end of this one. (If it does, then upgrade one of our spears to pikes immediately - assuming that Imperio and Templars don't declare at exactly the same time!)

Looking over things in the south, Templars can do some pillaging damage but that's about it. We can upgrade, reinforce, and whip more than enough defenders to keep Pink Dot. Their stack there is heavy on mounted units, lots of chariots and horse archers - and has zero anti-melee axes/maces. Two pikes could hold off that stack for a half-dozen turns if need be. The one real danger is them ignoring Pink and beelining for Airstrip One; hopefully they don't see that...

The turn change is going to come in the middle of the night here, so someone in a non-Euro area (sunrise?) is going to have to handle the turnover, assuming we want someone logged in them. (Which we almost certainly do!) The moves should be pretty straightforward, aside from these little finesse moves:

- Serious Steve builds road, NOT pasture, on the sheep. (This actually allows the other two workers to get there next turn and complete the pasture faster.)
- Helmholtz chops the silks forest at Bluebell Woods, completing it. He is already on the correct tile.
- Parsons slides one tile NE temporarily in order to complete the dyes plantation at Pink next turn (and Pink grows next turn too, lucky coincidence!)
- Make sure the road to "red" completes before moving the settler!

I think everything else is straightforward, and I trust whoever is playing the turn to make their best judgment with unexpected military situations that creep up.

Most of the stats are in the State of the Empire thread for this turn, but here are the foreign builds. Also, did we ever get the normal C&D report from this turn from mostly_harmless?

Foreign Builds from C&D

Templars 176EP
Jerusalem = 13 shields (-)
Infrastructure: Palace, Barracks
Damascus = 246 shields (-)
Infrastructure: Terrace, Barracks, Forge
Jericho = 41 shields (-)
Infrastructure: Walls
Acre = 28 shields (-)
Infrastructure: Monument

Templars spent last turn in Anarchy - going to Serfdom, of all things! - so none of their builds changed. I swear, this team is as insane as Imperio. Why would you swap *OUT* of Slavery right before going to war?!

Imperio 244EP
Mutal = 16 shields (-14)
Infrastructure: Palace, Barracks, Granary, Monument, Stonehenge, Oracle
Lakamha = 44 shields (+44)
Infrastructure: Barracks, Monument, Islamic shrine
Chichen Itza = 6 shields (-20)
Infrastructure: Granary, Monument, Lighthouse, Barracks
Uxmal = N/A, zero shields invested
Infrastructure: Monument, Barracks, State of Zeus
Mayapan = N/A, zero shields invested
Infrastructure: Monument, Barracks, Granary
Calakmul = 18 shields (+18)
Infrastructure: Monument, Library

Mutal swaps to a different build of some kind, as does Chichen Itza. Uxmal finishes the Statue of Zeus; also, its mystery 50-shield build from a few turns ago was a barracks, not a horse archer or cat as I initially thought. Mayapan stays with no production in the box - it must have finished a granary, because now there's one present there that wasn't before.

PAL 76EP
The Warning = N/A, zero shields invested
Infrastructure: Granary, Barracks, Lighthouse, Library, Forge, Confucian Temple, Obelisk, Harbor, Academy
Heliopolis = 59 shields (+13)
Infrastructure: Granary, Barracks
Alexandria = 74 shields (+14)
Infrastructure: Granary, Forge
Giza = 52 shields (+2)
Infrastructure: Granary, Lighthouse
Byblos = 42 shields (+18)
Infrastructure: Obelisk

The Warning finishes something in the 75-95 shield range: a harbor confirmed by line-of-sight. Byblos appears to be getting shields from distant forest chops, because it can't pull that kind of production on its own.

Rabbits 48EP
Caerbannog = N/A, zero shields invested
Infrastructure: Palace, Barracks, Library, Great Wall
Digger's Burrow = N/A, zero shields invested
Infrastructure: Barracks, Monument, Granary, Walls
Phrygian = 5 shields (+2)
Infrastructure: none

Caerbannog finishes something else cheap, again. Archer most likely. Ditto for Digger's Burrow.

Banana 31EP
Doal = 6 shields (+1)
Infrastructure: none

Yawn.

[sunrise089]

Ok, I can play the turn changeover. I'll go ahead with the worker actions already set up above, but then we'll need to consider using workers for the war effort.

I switch into serfdom all the time before declaring war when I'm spiritual in MP. That way 2 workers can let you move your stack in quickly. I'll watch for Templar workers on the border at the end of the turn.

[sunrise089]

Alert: Banana finished their turn early. Playing the next turn now.

[sunrise089]

Ok, spoke with Banana in game. He said he was in a hurry and figured we'd be along soon. I introduced myself and was friendly, talked about the Imperio/Templar threat, but didn't give any map info or other sensitive stuff.

I preformed all the workers actions Sullla specified above. I'm not sure why it was important to build the road to Red before the setter moved though, since the settler could make it to his hill either way.

Cape Town is currently set to a 2-turn Mace. The only thing we can build in 1 there is a cat.

Bluebell Woods has a chop this turn, so it COULD build a 5-turn HA, cat, or longbow instead of a 3-turn granary if we wanted.

Since there isn't a DOW yet I only upgraded Mariah in the open to a Pike. She's a very important unit and I want to be able to move her at will next turn, so I spent the 95g. The rest of the money (309g next turn) can upgrade a pair of defenders if needed.

Finally, Bernard the Worker and I made a compromise. I told him he could finish the mining job he was working on since he had already moved to his non-roaded hill. In exchange several of his friends are going to take up roading duty next turn.

Quick stat: Number of cities on military builds: 4. Number of units done next turn: 2 (Pink Dot Mace, Airstrip One Horse Archer).

EDIT: I note how sub-par this report is compared to Sullla's. I'll put something better together during the remaining 47:30 of the turn for the lurkers.

[mostly-harmless]

Also, did we ever get the normal C&D report from this turn from mostly_harmless?

Not yet, as mostly-harmless was away over Easter. I will get going on it in the next hours.

mh

[Sullla]

EDIT: I note how sub-par this report is compared to Sullla's. I'll put something better together during the remaining 47:30 of the turn for the lurkers.

No, this is fine. I can do some typing myself later today when I get back from work in the library. The important thing is that someone was there to play the turn.

[sooooo]

Do we have any screenshots of what Imperio/Templars did with their units at the end of last turn or at the beginning of this one?

[sunrise089]

Do we have any screenshots of what Imperio/Templars did with their units at the end of last turn or at the beginning of this one?

EDIT: M_H's screenshots are much better than my memory.

[Sullla]

Wow, this forum is amazingly quiet. Was everyone waiting for me to post something about the current turn? Like I said, I was hoping to step down as Turnplayer and let someone else take over for that job... are we making any progress in that regard?

[mostly-harmless]

Soooo will take over if I read that thread correctly.
Nothing much happened in the last 24hours.
I guess we are waiting for Imp and Tem to make their move.

Speaking of which, Templars logged in recently.
I will have a look shortly.

mh