Turnplayed Thread #4

[sooooo]

Something that totally slipped anybody's attention is the fact that Imperio canceled Open Borders last turn!
However, we still have all trade routes and resources. (?)

Woah, that is the best news I've heard all week! No idea why it is so though. I bet it was a shock to Imperio too! With our ivory supply secured, elephants at Cape Town sounds excellent.

Both Something Fishy and China Beach will complete their current builds (cat and forge) in 2 turns and grow in 2 turns. Both are out of improved tiles. Do we want to use either of these cities to triple-whip a settler or anything like that?

Settler would not be my choice in the current climate. Something fishy IMO should whip a barracks. At China Beach we could just let it grow and build a spy or something. The unimproved tiles are not so bad when it's colossus coast. I'd go for building a spy then whip a worker.

[Zeviz]

If we still have trade routes, that's great. I wonder if we'll get to keep them when they declare.

Should we still be training HAs, considering that opponents can now train Pikes, making them obsolete? Maybe it's better to invest production into maces or cats, which are still good and can even be used for counter-attack if Templars suicide their stack.

[sunrise089]

...With our ivory supply secured, elephants at Cape Town sounds excellent.

...At China Beach we could just let it grow and build a spy or something...

I'll queue up and spy and then worker at China Beach. Since the Templar attack isn't very impressive yet I'll actualy queue the barracks up at Something Fishy before the cat finishes so the unit get's promoted.

If we still have trade routes, that's great. I wonder if we'll get to keep them when they declare.

Should we still be training HAs, considering that opponents can now train Pikes, making them obsolete? Maybe it's better to invest production into maces or cats, which are still good and can even be used for counter-attack if Templars suicide their stack.

I would think the routes would be canceled in Imperio declares, but I don't know why if closing borders didn't do so.

I feel we should still build HAs. Once we have Gunpowder and Nationalism we're not going to be able to devote too many cities to Knight production, and we will have 2-movers in our offensive stack to snag lightly defended cities and to flank. In the meantime, HAs are super-useful. They are our best defenders against obsolete units since they can reach more tiles, and once we settle the "bad-ass" spot they'll be able to reach Cape Town or Pink Dot in 1 turn.

[mostly-harmless]

PAL captured and kept Navajo [size 2] (the barb city north of Heliopolis)
Which is nice as now we have a full set of intercontinental trade routes again. (Red Herring was trading with A1 before)

mh

[sooooo]

Logged in. The only thing I am slightly concerned about is if Imperio send their 3 mounted units at our core cities, where we only have 1 HA and 1 warrior covering (and 1HA built from A1 next turn). I think we need an elephant to cover those cities, so I think we should build one from A1 next turn when the HA completes. Can we at least move 1 elephant and 1HA down from Cape Town. They can still rejoin the action in time if Imperio declare this turn.

I changed a coastal tile at both China Beach and Green Acres to a plains forest tile as I think it's better during the golden age. Doesn't change the growth times for either city. Also changed the auto-assigned coast tile at Saxon to our mine.

At pink dot then maceperson next seems fine.

At Green Acres then I'm fine with just growing the city until we get drama.

If Templars do not advance this turn, then we should be at liberty to move Mariah 1NE onto the desert tile, then have Syme and Bob the Builder move onto the same tile to rebuild the road. I do not think the mine on their current tile is a priority because Pink has 3 unworked mines already (granted one will get worked next turn when it grows and one is unworked because the templars are sitting on it).

We might as well revolt to Islam + Org_Rel too. It helps with Green Acres' forge at least. If we were on the ball then maybe we could have gone into vassalage for 5 turns, but we only have 4 turns left on the golden age now.

[mostly-harmless]

Vassalage was voted down by T-Hawk based on his calculation.

mh

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Woah, that is the best news I've heard all week! No idea why it is so though. I bet it was a shock to Imperio too!

Sometimes I think maybe Imperio has (or had) no idea what taking away our trade routes would do to us. I mean, judging from the rest of their play so far...maybe they never realized this.

Or they did, and know more about the game than us, meaning they knew we would still have trade routes...

I'm really curious to see what happens when they declare. Or should I say if they declare?

-Kylearan

[Zeviz]

...
I feel we should still build HAs. Once we have Gunpowder and Nationalism we're not going to be able to devote too many cities to Knight production, and we will have 2-movers in our offensive stack to snag lightly defended cities and to flank. In the meantime, HAs are super-useful. They are our best defenders against obsolete units since they can reach more tiles, and once we settle the "bad-ass" spot they'll be able to reach Cape Town or Pink Dot in 1 turn.

Aren't Oromos (our musketman replacement) 2-movers? Or am I confusing them with something?

Either way, a single pike can kill several HAs, so I am not sure what value they have at this point.

[Sullla]

Horse archers flank catapults, Zeviz (not to mention get a 50% combat boost against them). That's their main advantage; you hit an enemy stack with your own cats, kill the top units with your top units, and mop up their siege units using flanking units. Aside from that primary role, 2-move units can be surprisingly good at capturing cities from humans. You move your giant stack of slow movers towards the main target, human defender rushes all his units into it, then - bang! - you suddenly peel off a dozen HAs/knights/etc. into the back lines where each city has an archer or warrior on defense. Look at Templars; Banana told us that Antioch is completely undefended at all right now! The AI spaces out its forces equally, but humans don't. Even in a game without double-moving the other guy, having a stack of two-move units is critical.

Also, you're thinking of the musketeer. Oromos are single-move units, but get free Drill I/II promotions and immunity to first strikes. They are extremely good at killing outdated units (which is essentially everything when they first show up!)

[darrelljs]

Aren't Oromos (our musketman replacement) 2-movers? Or am I confusing them with something?

No, that's the Musketeer (French). We get some first strikes (blech).

Darrell

[sooooo]

I made a list of the actions I would take next turn:

Bluebell Woods to start a forge.

If Imperio have not declared, move an elephant and all 4 HAs from cape town to 3S of cape town. It would give Templars a shock and may make them defend Jericho more than they would. Also the HAs could get back to Cape Town and attack an Imperio stack if necessary the turn after.

Helmholz and Mustapha to start a silks plantation on the roaded, chopped tile.

Another elephant at cape town.

Pink Dot maybe a catapult?

Airstrip One to start elephant.

At something fishy I think we want the catapult asap, so I don't think we should swap to barracks and whip it before it is completed.

Syme and Parsons to rebuild the desert road tile, covered by Mariah the pikeperson.

With Templars sitting on that hill there is not much that Parsons and Erik can do. I think I would just send them to Mellow Yellow and get cottaging. At mellow yellow there is an unroaded grass tile and a roaded jungle tile. However, the unroaded grass tile is 4 away, so we would get a "free" worker turn from each of them if we were to move it there, which we would probably use to chop the jungle anyway . So therefore we may as well simply send them onto the roaded jungle and chop it completely and then start a cottage on the same tile, since the extra turn spend chopping the jungle is compensated by moving on and off the unroaded grass tile (and also we get a jungle chopped). Is that convoluted enough for you? To summarise: Parsons and Erik to Mellow Yellow's roaded jungle and start chopping.

[Dreylin]

Syme and Parsons to rebuild the desert road tile, covered by Mariah the pikeperson.

I think that we should probably only use a single Worker for this - Desert tiles take 3t to Road, so we "waste" 1 Worker turn if we can only guard one tile.

Also - since it is in Neutral territory - as long as we are not at war, the Imperio Chariot can just move back onto that tile and pillage it again out from under our Mariah's feet.

Actually, maybe we do use both Workers, but don't finish the road ... just stop at 2/3t and then do the same on the other tile. That way we can re-connect quickly, but don't expose it to pillaging right now.

[mostly-harmless]

Imperio DoWed. So much for their diplomacy.

They got another failed spy near Cape Town!
A HA from the south and one from Chichen Itza have moved towards Cape Town and pillaged a road each.

Their main army still sits in Chichen Itza.

We have lost all international trade routes!
However all resource trades are still intact!

mh

[ruff_hi]

they sent us a peace deal - see Imperio thread.

[ruff_hi]

I asked Krill for a turn order ruling ... his response ...

If by finished you mean ended turn, and that's what happened, yeah, you have initiative.

Something I need to ask, because it could come up in game, is can all of you come to a conclusion how you would like to handle the Templars/Imperio turn order? There are arguments both for and against having a set turn order for each turn (ie RB>Templars>Imperio) or keeping each turn order separate and treating them as separate wars for the turn order and unit movement.

It's not really covered under the current rule, which was not designed for a 2v1 war.

So, any suggestions from us about how we would like it to be?