Turnplayed Thread #4

[T-hawk]

If Imperio declares this turn, do we want (and do we have enough hammers) to change to a 1T catapult in Cape Town? If we're hitting their stack next turn, one catapult is better than an unfinished mace.

edit: nevermind, the "mace in 2T" report was from last turn.

[sunrise089]

The mace will be done next turn T-Hawk.

[T-hawk]

I logged in to make a few domestic comments:

- Why are the three workers at Pink hiding in the city? They could each move to Pink's dyes or cows or back towards Green Acres. Templars can't reach any of those in a single move. If Templar chariots do move to a place where they could reach the workers next turn, we move the workers first again farther away.

- Red Herring should chop a work boat before its granary. Both functionally double the city's growth rate, but the work boat does it for half the price.

- If Templars Imperio declares and we lose ivory and gems imports, Airstrip One will go into anger. The best solution to this would be to adopt Islam for the happy.

- Agreed that Pink will need to whip the mace next turn. Note that doing so will get it to regrow one turn sooner (right after the whip) so there's not much lost there.

- Can we have Real Quiet (HA) cover Winston, just to be safe? Between RQ and Mariah (pike), they can handle Cuauhlti (chariot) next turn.

[ruff_hi]

If Templars declare and we lose ivory and gems imports, Airstrip One will go into anger. The best solution to this would be to adopt Islam for the happy.

Is there any downside of doing this religious swap anyway. Anything to 'fight' Templar.

[T-hawk]

(I meant if Imperio declares, not Templars.)

The only downside of picking a religion now is the lock-in and opportunity cost. Since we only have 5 turns of Golden Age left, we won't have time for another free change. I don't think there's any ramification for foreign espionage - what matters is whether the attacker's state religion is present, not the defender's.

(OK, we lose the 1 culture per turn from the other religions in Mellow Yellow and Cape Town.)

[Zeviz]

If we are going to adopt religion, should we switch to Org Rel? (If we are building any infra in Muslim cities, might as well get the advantage.)

[sunrise089]

I logged in to make a few domestic comments:

(1)- Why are the three workers at Pink hiding in the city? They could each move to Pink's dyes or cows or back towards Green Acres. Templars can't reach any of those in a single move. If Templar chariots do move to a place where they could reach the workers next turn, we move the workers first again farther away.

(2)- Red Herring should chop a work boat before its granary. Both functionally double the city's growth rate, but the work boat does it for half the price.

(3)- If Templars Imperio declares and we lose ivory and gems imports, Airstrip One will go into anger. The best solution to this would be to adopt Islam for the happy.

(4)- Agreed that Pink will need to whip the mace next turn. Note that doing so will get it to regrow one turn sooner (right after the whip) so there's not much lost there.

(5)- Can we have Real Quiet (HA) cover Winston, just to be safe? Between RQ and Mariah (pike), they can handle Cuauhlti (chariot) next turn.

1) I believe having workers ready at the front is vital for the war effort. We have a lot of workers, and I've only moved four forward. Hooking up yet anther dye tiles just isn't as important as being able to hit the Templar units if they dive south with their 2 movers. Much better to have the workers in place than to have to (for example) slave a unit in Something Fishy at a whip penalty. This is really just about me being risk-averse and trying to minimize the threat of the unexpected. Our units in the south can cover the visible Templar units, but we have no idea what's in the fog. I'd rather be in a position to defeat the units quickly and at good odds and therefore free up our forces to defend against new threats, as opposed to playing defensively and letting our enemies try to strike where our units aren't.

2) Done

3) I imagine you're right. I won't do so yet though since we're ok on happiness until they declare. If they still haven't done so by the end of the turn we can do so then.

4) Ok, I'll be sure to whip it.

5) I'd actually rather the pike does it if we're that fearful that Imperio will leave the road and randomly scout that tile. As soon as we move Real Quiet off the road network we loose the ability to quickly intercept the chariot if it dashes north.

[Zeviz]

We can't afford to waste worker turns doing nothing. If we absolutely need an ability to lay down 1 turn roads, keep a pair of workers in reserve, but not all 3. Once again, this isn't MP. It's not going to matter whether we win or lose this war if our economy stagnates.

On that note, maybe we should stop upgrading units except any axes in the south, if there are any left. We had stopped research a long time ago, while Imperio is still researching at full speed. At this rate, they might beat us to Nationalism.

[sunrise089]

We can't afford to waste worker turns doing nothing. If we absolutely need an ability to lay down 1 turn roads, keep a pair of workers in reserve, but not all 3. Once again, this isn't MP. It's not going to matter whether we win or lose this war if our economy stagnates.

On that note, maybe we should stop upgrading units except any axes in the south, if there are any left. We had stopped research a long time ago, while Imperio is still researching at full speed. At this rate, they might beat us to Nationalism.

I will defer to the majority, but I just don't agree with this at all.

First, lets all agree that getting our land carved up and pillaged isn't good. If that's true, we're trying to fight a 2-front war against 2 civs that have been focusing more of their cities on military than we have. In that case upgrading makes tremendous sense - we can focus on infrastructure and then upgrade to play catch-up.

Next, I think it's silly to say wasting a handful of worker turns is that damaging. We have many workers. Our best cities have EXTRA tiles improved. The impact of workers hooking up a resource 5 turns earlier pales in comparison to the impact of defeated units or an emergency 3-pop whip. Plus the worker turns weren't wasted, they were used getting in position to road.

[mostly-harmless]

I am in favor of doing the Islam / Org Religion swap asap. We can have one of the minor cities be on missionaries.

There are still a lot of archer that we need to upgrade to longbows. For this we need some more cash.

I am fine with having at least two workers at Cape Town to reconnect sabotaged resources.

mh

[T-hawk]

1) I believe having workers ready at the front is vital for the war effort. We have a lot of workers, and I've only moved four forward. Hooking up yet anther dye tiles just isn't as important as being able to hit the Templar units if they dive south with their 2 movers. Much better to have the workers in place than to have to (for example) slave a unit in Something Fishy at a whip penalty. This is really just about me being risk-averse and trying to minimize the threat of the unexpected. Our units in the south can cover the visible Templar units, but we have no idea what's in the fog. I'd rather be in a position to defeat the units quickly and at good odds and therefore free up our forces to defend against new threats, as opposed to playing defensively and letting our enemies try to strike where our units aren't.

2) Done

3) I imagine you're right. I won't do so yet though since we're ok on happiness until they declare. If they still haven't done so by the end of the turn we can do so then.

4) Ok, I'll be sure to whip it.

5) I'd actually rather the pike does it if we're that fearful that Imperio will leave the road and randomly scout that tile. As soon as we move Real Quiet off the road network we loose the ability to quickly intercept the chariot if it dashes north.

1) OK, I'm convinced to keep two workers in standby on Pink for roading, but not the third. Actually I think I'd move the third to the hill with Syme so they can both road that together next turn.

3) Our only three Islamic cities at the moment are Airstrip One, Something Fishy, and Green Acres. The first two are on military and Green Acres is building forge at 6 hpt. Org Rel would cost 3 maintenance per turn (after inflation). I don't think 3 gold is worth the 1 hammer and lock-in of the Islam/Org Rel choice right now. Islam becomes worth it this turn only if we lose the resource imports and need the happy.

5) Count all the tiles carefully. If Real Quiet moves to Winston's forest, RQ can catch Cuauhtli no matter where it moves. Cuauhtli can't move any farther east than column 3 or north than row G, and RQ can catch all those squares in one turn from Winston's forest. J3 is the only exception but that's way too far to threaten. (More generally, moving the pike to the forest will cost another turn moving it back out. But moving the HA doesn't, since it can regain the road network and move further all in the same turn.)

Edit: proof of #5 attached. The chariot can reach the X squares and anything inside them. Real Quiet can reach all the X squares from the forest next turn. O is the only exception but that's too far too threaten. If Cuauhtli moves south, either Pink's HA kills it, or Mariah herself. Actually I like the idea of moving Mariah to M, which traps the chariot entirely unless it retreats all the way to O or P. That also puts Mariah in a strong position to help at Pink next turn too.

Regarding when to stop spending on upgrades - the breakpoint is to save enough cash by the time of the Philosophy lightbulb that we can slam 100% on Nationalism nonstop. I'll do that analysis tomorrow; will take some time to subtract out all the Golden Age income.

[mostly-harmless]

1)
3) Our only three Islamic cities at the moment are Airstrip One, Something Fishy, and Green Acres. The first two are on military and Green Acres is building forge at 6 hpt. Org Rel would cost 3 maintenance per turn (after inflation). I don't think 3 gold is worth the 1 hammer and lock-in of the Islam/Org Rel choice right now. Islam becomes worth it this turn only if we lose the resource imports and need the happy.

Yes, but we will be spending some effort to spread our state religion around. And we are now in a GA with the 2nd far in the future. I'd rather spend those additional 3gold for a few turns (until we spread Islam to another infra city) than to waste a turn of anarchy later. No?

mh

[Sullla]

Urgh, I started feeling under the weather on Wednesday, and yesterday I woke up and felt sick as a dog. The one thing worse than being sick normally is being sick overseas in a foreign country, and trying to find an open clinic nearby. Needless to say, my mind wasn't on the Demogame yesterday.

So, uh, what did I miss? Anything important going on?

Looks like we did a great job of handling adversity between turns. (Honestly Templars, declaring war with 3 minutes to go? Maybe that's not against the rules, but it is incredibly bad form.) sunrise should be our turn player for the immediate future, IMO. I fully agree with keeping a few workers on reserve in the Pink area too. Getting a key road connection up can be the difference between success and failure.

One key comment:

One topic for possible discussion - we may want to upgrade an archer in Pink to a Crossbow. Templars will probably move their second stack onto the grassland hill this turn, and if so we'll be in a position to have great odds attacking it next turn. The ideal move probably is to wait for the cat to arrive and then kill the stack in 2 turns.

Disagree here, sunrise. There's no need to attack the Templars on the grassland hill. We might as well wait for them to move down onto the flatland tiles surrounding Pink Dot, and then hit them with everything we've got when they have no defensive bonus. Unless you think that they might turn and retreat away from Pink, and we want to kill their stack before that happens (?) I don't see that happening from the brilliant military minds that promoted a spear to City Raider I. They have no idea that they're walking into a killing field.

In other words, we may want to upgrade the archer to crossbow, but I don't think we want to hit Templars on the hill tile. We can use that extra turn to heal the injured maces too.

[mostly-harmless]

Templars do know what they are walking into as IMperio scouts out PD for them.
But I agree, attacking across river onto a hill seems a bit risky to me as well.

mh

[T-hawk]

MH, I mean we do want Org Rel / Islam before the end of the Golden Age most likely. It's just worth waiting till closer to the end of it, on the off chance we get some free spreads of another religion, or somehow pick up Theocracy.