Turnplayer Thread No. 5

[sooooo]

Sunrise - are you still out of action due to the non-patching?

These turns are quite important and it's probably best that you manage our troops if it's at all possible. Probably we should wait as close to the 24hr mark as we can in the hope that snoopy patches and you can log in.

I can do the non-combat worker actions if you like to save you time, and if the game isn't patched by the 24hr mark I can do the turn again.

[sunrise089]

Sorry Sooooo, I am indeed out of action. I'd prefer to not have to reinstall civ....though I can if the no-patch situation continues indefinitely.

[Swiss Pauli]

Logged in to double check that Banana can boat Acre with galleys (they can).

Action - selected Granary at Jericho.

Suggestion - can we spare one of the Cape/UB workgang to road the rice by Cape/Mutal? Now would be a good time to this. We could also farm the rice to give cover to what is essentially a military move

[sooooo]

Suggestion - can we spare one of the Cape/UB workgang to road the rice by Cape/Mutal? Now would be a good time to this. We could also farm the rice to give cover to what is essentially a military move

Two of those 3 workers are needed as combat engineers near Jerusalem. The other one I suppose could road the CT/mutal rice, but I think it would tip Imperio off somewhat. Yes I know they did it to us, but I think we should retain the element of surprise. IMO we should road that tile on the turn we use it if we do. I was going to have him farm Upper Burgundy's rice.

[ruff_hi]

T154 - Next turn, Erik will start Upper Burgundy's rice farm.

Do you guys realized that we settled Upper Burgundy on T144. Remember all of the discussion be upper and lower Burgundy? We ran some numbers and one of my big assumptions was that the rice would be farmed (and irrigated!) pretty quickly. 14 turns after the city is founded isn't that quick. The city is still size 1 with only half of the food box full.

How big would Lower Burgundy have been now?

I know that we have other things on our plate so I am not complaining (too much ) - I just think that we should have factored in a very slow growth start due to pressing concerns and included that in our Lower v Upper Burgundy discussion.

I think the team made a very small mis-step here. Not huge, but a mis-step anyway.

[sooooo]

We have 4 hours left on the clock so I'm planning on making the moves in the next hour.

@Ruff: Probably you're right. On the upside however the granary is complete because most of those turns were spent working a plains mine.

[T-hawk]

How big would Lower Burgundy have been now?

And how much smaller would Pink Dot be from having its cow swiped? Lower Burgundy was robbing Pink to pay Paul. Upper can stand on its own.

Most cities start small while building the granary. Upper will get going pretty soon.

[ruff_hi]

And how much smaller would Pink Dot be from having its cow swiped? Lower Burgundy was robbing Pink to pay Paul. Upper can stand on its own.

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it.

However, I thought we squashed this 'stealing the cows' argument. My analysis of Upper (New) v Lower (Old) here was based on Lower NOT using the cows, just using the farms that we had already put in place / required to build for GA.

In 14 turns after founding, with the tiles we had to improve, Lower would have been size 3.

[sooooo]

Turn played, mainly just manoevering and healing ready for an invasion next turn. Full report this evening.

[Sullla]

I seem to remember we deliberately had Upper Burgundy work a plains hill mine to get the granary done faster; that is, keeping it at size 1 was a conscious choice, not a result of poor management. And of course while it was doing that, there wasn't an urgent need for farming the rice. (In those 10t, we did finish the granary, incidentally.) Now I think the plan called for swapping over to the rice tile after about 5 turns to start growth going, and that's something that we didn't do. But 5t after T144 was T149, and that's the turn we were attacking Jericho...

Overall, yeah maybe Upper Burgundy wasn't optimized perfectly - I think things turned out OK though.

More seriously, let's run an Artist specialist for one turn at Jericho on this turn. We're working a 2/0/0 unimproved grassland tile, so no loss there, and the Artist gets us to expand borders a turn faster. Then we work the cows there next turn.

[sooooo]

Labour Advisor

In the North, Helmholtz finished the chop into Saxon's forge, which is now due in 4. Steve started chopping Frozen Clams' granary and Dave finished a silks plantation at Bluebell just in time for the city to grow to work it. O'Brien and Bernard were roading. Erik started farming Upper Burgundy's rice and our final farm at Green Acres is 1 turn away from being finished. Our two pairs of combat engineers did what they do best: build roads. Parsons and Syme built the last road needed for the southern attack route. Winston and Mustapha couldn't reach their tile this turn and road it, so they spend a "free" turn roading Jericho's cows. Next turn they will road the key tile 1SW of Jericho for the troops to roll in.

Domestic Advisor

Something Fishy will finish its missionary next turn and Pink, who started a forge this turn, will get Islam next turn. SF can then either build a worker or complete its catapult (2t).

China Beach started a confucian missionary (due in 3) for A1.

Jericho started a granary with decent overflow. It will pop its borders next turn.

EDIT: Mellow Yellow can draft an oromo on T157 and whip the settler that turn

I mmed Red Herring to both grow and finish the library on the interturn. Probably it will start a forge next turn, but may be drafted too. At this city I'd like to draft back to size 5, then grow to size 6 and triple-whip a settler.

Cape Town finishes a forge next turn. It could go for a 1t stele, which may be worthwhile. If we can steal the key imperio tile then that's an extra turn of warning we get over an attack. On the downside the stele will obsolete when we get astronomy.

Military Advisor

Betty Hur isn't going to heal - she has headed to Mayan lands and will enter them next turn to scout. I moved our trireme into the city of chichen itza, which revealed a mined but not roaded gold. It can head back next turn if needs be.

Without Sunrise being able to log in and not much feedback to my post on Operation Sweetheart, I just followed the plan I set out. The troops are divided into two stacks to invade next turn. The main stack is invading via the north and will consist of:

5 elephant
7 mace
5 catapult
2 pike
3 HA
2 knight

Also there are 2 knights and 1HA that will make it onto the plains hill a turn late, but since they are 2-movers they can catch up to the main stack.

This leaves a Jericho defence of:

1 longbow
2 mace
1 pike
1 healing knight (7/10)

It is no bother to change which units defend Jericho and which are used to attack, so speak now.

The southern army consists of:

5 catapults
1 mace
2 pikes
1 elephant
1 longbow

And Ruby the Horse Archer who can kill Squire Loc next turn.

I would really like feedback on the composition of these forces. I am slightly concerned if the templars attack the southern stack, but they don't seem to be building catapults. Their journey is through jungle and there is a woodsman mace and a longbow so their attacks should have poor odds.

Some Screenshots:

[Sullla]

Well sooooo, there's not too much for me to comment upon because I looked over the troop movements you suggested last turn and didn't see any real improvements to be made. Yes, Templars can kill the southern stack, but they will have to lose far more than we're sending down there to do it, and since we can replace our forces more quickly than they can, that's a losing proposition for them. They can also probably re-capture Jericho if they send the house at it, but what does that gain them? We'll capture it right back, and by sending their units off to attack us, they lose their capital in turn.

Our main stack has 178k worth of units in it - that's more than the entirety of Templar's military (which is ~120k, if I've done the calculations right). We'll have defensive cover on most turns, our HAs and knights will prevent the cats from being flanked, and we'll be able to get the favorable matchups as the defender if they go after our stack. The only danger is if they sacrifice like 7+ cats against our main stack, and honestly, I don't think they have those units! Our peek into Constantinople suggested few defensive cats. Hercules is not an MP guy - I doubt that he knows the proper mixture of units to build to defend effectively against a human player. Plus this is the Templars! They'll probably throw away a couple of units in stupid attacks, then get scared and turtle up in their cities.

In short, I think we're good to go. We've done all the preparations, now let's watch the our labors bear fruit.

EDIT: OK, let me comment on the domestic builds too. I like the idea to whip out some settlers - we're definitely putting at least two more cities in the south near Jerusalem, and possibly three. Those moves get my thumbs up. I don't think we should do the stele in Cape Town - we'll probably have Astronomy in less than 12t. Not worth it - I'd rather have another 1t cat there.

What do we think about Something Fishy? I'd probably rather have Cape Town replace our cats (which we'll be losing more of - need to keep cranking them out!) and have SF get us another worker. We definitely need about another 5 workers to get all our new cities up to speed!

The rest of the stuff seems good. Maybe another worker or settler out of China Beach after it recovers from whip anger and grows a bit more (?)

[Sullla]

Fun random stat I noticed before going to bed:

With 15 hours to go on the turn timer, various people from Realms Beyond have logged into the game six times. Rabbits logged in once to play their turn. And none of the other four teams have even opened up the game yet on this current turn.

That's why we're ultimately going to win. Because our planning is the best, and we just want it more than they do.

[sooooo]

Well I don't think we can win - did you see the GNP graph? After PAL whipped those universities and Oxford, their GNP is massively higher than ours and we're in a golden age! One can only be thankful that they did not land the Taj Mahal.

PAL haven't opened the game yet because they have all patched.

I'm also predicting that Templars don't have many cats left. I would have thought that most of them would have been in that attacking stack we wiped out near Pink. I reckon that most of their soldier points are from longbows and crossbows.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Well I don't think we can win - did you see the GNP graph?

I'm not yet completely sure about this. The upcoming war with Banana will slow their research down, as did the current war for us. And while they probably will maintain a big tech lead for the rest of the game, the question will be if this lead will be enough for them to be able to invade our lands. Maybe we *can* land a cultural victory. It may not be the most exciting option to win this game, but I don't care about that.

The game is not over yet.

-Kylearan