Turnplayer Thread No. 5

[sunrise089]

Turn 150
Get ready to veto some whip proposals

City Report:
*Airstrip 1 - Longbow due in 1. I'd like to whip this and start a knight next turn.
*Pink Dot - Cat complete. I'd like to make another cat, due in 1.
*China Beach - Knight due in 8.
*Cape Town - Cat due in 1. I plan to produce several more cats to replace losses.
*Something Fishy - Knight complete. Another knight due in 6.
*Green Acres - Globe Theater due in 12 before chops.
*Mellow Yellow - _____ complete. I set the city to finish a spy, due in 14.
*Saxon the Beach - Barracks due in 3 turns.
*Bluebell Woods - Taj due in 26.
*Red Herring - Library due in 14. I'd probably whip the Trireme and Longbow the city has hammers in, since the city doesn't have very good tiles to work.
*Upper Burgundy - Granary due in 3.
*Frozen Clams - Granary due in 54.

Worker Report:
*The five workers assigned to the Taj project moved to the tiles Soooo indicated.
*John the Savage finished a forest for the Globe.
*Bob the Builder finished a farm at Green Acres.
*Mustapha, Winston, and Erik all moved next to Pink Dot in preparation of roading a desert tile next turn.

Domestic Military Composition Report:
*Cape Town garrison - 2 elephants, 2 pikes, 1 axe, 4 archers.
*Jericho garrison - 4 maces, 1 elephant, 1 pike, a medic III chariot.
*Northern army - 2 elephants, 6 maces, 8 catapults.
*Pink Dot garrison - 2 archers.
*Southern army - 4 knights, 1 elephant, 5 horse archers, 1 cat, 1 longbow

Enemy Military Composition Report:
*Cape Town opposing force - 10 strength-8 units, 4 horse archers, 3 pikes, 6 longbows, 1 pike, and 11 cats, 1 galley.
*Pink Dot opposing force - 2 maces, 2 crossbows, 1 horse archer, 1 sword, 3 cats, 3 chariots, 1 spear, 1 Quechua.
*Central garrison - 1 crossbow, 1 axeman.
*Constantinople garrison - 1 mace, 1 crossbow, 3 longbows, 1 cat, 1 Quechua.

Military Action Report:
*Ok, here's what I'm planning.

Spoiler:

-->Next turn our three workers near Pink Dot road the desert tile 1SW of our 6 mounted units in the central desert.
-->That will allow those mounted units to hit the Templar stack outside of Pink Dot next turn if they move to attack.
-->Our worker on the grass hill N of Something Fishy is covered by a knight and the plains forest 1E of the Templar stack is covered by our longbow.
-->Even without cats, our knights will have over 70% odds on the Templar stack next turn. With the two cats we'll have in play we can easily take our nearly the entire stack next turn.

Spy Report:
*No spies

Questions and notes:
*Notice the distribution of our units in the north. We have an elephant in Jericho in case Templars want to road and hit the city with a crossbow. In Cape Town we have two Elephants in the city to deter a mounted attack after the disputed tile flips.
*Imperio's power has been very flat over the last few turns...so no real risk of knight stacks in the short term.
*Our first Trireme is in the channel between Cape Town and Chichen Itza. Any name recommendations.

[Swiss Pauli]

sunrise's rather outré whip suggestions were, as he expected, vetoed, but I can't be bothered transferring all the replies to the above post

[sooooo]

I thought I'd post the replies to sunrise's turn report.

I agree with Sullla - please do not whip Airstrip One! Each cottage tile here is worth 2.25x as much as elsewhere thanks to Bur/Academy. I think it should do a bank ASAP. One city on commerce infrastructure, thanks to the multipliers and mature villages, is way better than zero cities on commerce infrastructure.

Oh, I know you guys won't actually go for these suggestions...I just like putting them out there to make sure the short term side has its voice heard

Right, Sunrise, your plan to move those mounted units through the desert via roading next turn is genius. Templars could be finished if they advance on Pink this turn.

However, your city builds leave something to be desired!

Airstrip One: Nononono please let's not whip this city. It only has a 2-food excess. I think once it grows we should work the plains mine and build a bank as fast as possible. We could do with getting banking this turn.
Something Fishy: A knight is not a sensible option because it won't finish naturally before we have to give horses back. And we really can't whip this city. We'll draft it on turn 154 back to size 6 where it is working some great tiles (3 x mine, dyes, fish and marble). No whipping please! I'd go for a spy or a catapult. Spy preferred.
Mellow Yellow: We can't whip this city until T154 because it needs to be size 6 to draft from. I'd set it as max-growth and build a courthouse.
Red Herring: Nononono don't whip anything from this city until it is drafted (again, not to sound like a broken record, at size 6).

I agree with sooooo, with the exception that I'd weakly prefer a cat instead of a spy out of something fishy. Strongly against whipping airstrip(and in favor of a bank there), but would be fine with a knight before the bank if we have to invest hammers in something before banking is traded(and if would finish before horses are canceled).

I agree with Soooo's build suggestions, and have to add a reminder about worker actions:

We still have no cottages in the south!

It's been almost 50 turns since we've founded those commerce cities, but they still aren't proper commerce cities. After Project Taj Mahal is over, we have to send half a dozen workers there to make sure every grassland tile has a cottage on it. We also need to start building courthouses, but cottages are an even more immediate need.

Zevis,

Your point is well taken, but we need to keep something else in mind:

In tech trading games it doesn't pay too much to fly way out ahead in tech, since you start to loose trading partners. I know in SP we emphasize commerce, but in MP hammers are so important. That doesn't mean I don't like cottages, but it does mean we need to generate hammers through some method. Cities on all cottages who don't whip aren't going to contribute a whole lot to our civ during wartime. After all, getting Nationalism a few turns earlier would have done almost nothing for us, whereas 5-10 fewer units would have made either the capture of Jericho, or the defense of one of our border cities impossible.

PS - We still have plenty of commerce tiles in the south, even if we could have more cottages.

I am fine with sooooo's ideas and like the sunrise desert crossing plan.

[sooooo]

Logged in and hit end turn. I named our new knight, catapult and trireme to Gwinny, Karine and The Good Ship Lollypop respectively .

I was wrong about Something Fishy - a knight is fine because the chop will ensure the knight is made on T153, just on time for giving the horses back on T154.

I changed Mellow Yellow from spy to courthouse and set it to max-growth. I think we should slip in a spy from Airstrip One before it starts a bank because that's only city to be free and a spy would be very useful. It could build it in 2 turns.

Worker recommendations:

Helmholtz to move into the tundra forest 1N of Saxon, ready to chop next turn. Saxon needs both growth (because it has great tiles from Maoi) and production (needs to get key buildings quickly), so a chop would be very useful here.
John the Savage to move 1SW and start a farm (second green acres farm).
Bob the Builder to move onto the grass forest at Green Acres and start chopping.
Syme to start a cottage to keep Zeviz happy

After the Taj is chopped I've got Steve in mind to chop the forest at Frozen Clams, Dave to make a second Silks plantation at BW, O'Brien to finish the mine at Red Herring and Bernard to build a road from BW through Red Herring to the front line. Upper Burgundy's rice is unfortunately going to have to wait for the irrigation team at Green Acres to finish their task.

[sooooo]

And here are pictures of some of our forces for the gallery:

[Zeviz]

Zevis,

Your point is well taken, but we need to keep something else in mind:

In tech trading games it doesn't pay too much to fly way out ahead in tech, since you start to loose trading partners. I know in SP we emphasize commerce, but in MP hammers are so important. That doesn't mean I don't like cottages, but it does mean we need to generate hammers through some method. Cities on all cottages who don't whip aren't going to contribute a whole lot to our civ during wartime. After all, getting Nationalism a few turns earlier would have done almost nothing for us, whereas 5-10 fewer units would have made either the capture of Jericho, or the defense of one of our border cities impossible.

PS - We still have plenty of commerce tiles in the south, even if we could have more cottages.

In a regular MP game you would be right. However, this game will go on much longer than typical MP games do, so we have to plan for the long run. And just as we can't survive in short run by focusing on infra builds, we can't win in the long run by letting our GNP fall too far behind.

If we are hoping for military victory, we have to maintain technological parity with PAL. Even if we go for cultural victory, we have to get the right corporations in place before PAL becomes strong enough to invade us, which still means getting a lot of research done reasonably quickly.

As for tech trading game, the alliances are already established (RB+Banana against PAL+Imperio, with Templars and Rabbits irrelevant), so there is not much room left for negotiations.

[sunrise089]

I was wrong about Something Fishy - a knight is fine because the chop will ensure the knight is made on T153, just on time for giving the horses back on T154.

Actually, you were right. The chop will go to Pink Dot. Or are we talking about two different forests?

[sooooo]

No, the same forest. But it is 2 tiles diagonally from SF and 3 tiles from PD. I just assumed it would go to SF. If it doesn't then we should change the build.

[T-hawk]

I'm not sure of the rule on chop targets at that distance. It's easily shown in-game: click on the worker, mouseover the "chop forest" button, and it'll say "+20H in City X".

[regoarrarr]

I believe it's 1 tile for each horizontal and vertical square, and 1.5 for each diagonal, which in this case, means it's 3 to both. So yeah, not sure how the game will handle that - like t-hawk said, we'll have to check in game

[sunrise089]

I checked, chops go to Pink.

[regoarrarr]

So then we need to change SF to something else, right?

And I'm sure you're already way on top of this, but the knights and HA will move SW-SW-SW into Pink Dot to attack out of the city, so that any wounded ones are covered by the city defenders?

[sunrise089]

So then we need to change SF to something else, right?

And I'm sure you're already way on top of this, but the knights and HA will move SW-SW-SW into Pink Dot to attack out of the city, so that any wounded ones are covered by the city defenders?

Yes sir!

[regoarrarr]

Here's a thought - would it be worth sending our GG Medic Chariot with the knights and HAs?

I'm showing from the above pic that our 2 knights are at 8.0/10 and 4.6/10 (will be 7.3/10 after promo) and we have 3 full strength HAs and one at 2.6/6.

It seems like they would be better served with the medic than the forces in Jericho, at least for this turn.

Or are they ineligible for healing since they've moved?

[sooooo]

Units cannot heal if they have moved unless they have march. Probably best to keep General Godiva where she is.

At Something Fishy we may as well wait to see Templars action before changing the build.