Turnplayer Thread No. 6

[sooooo]

Here's a general plan of how I see the next 10 or so turns proceeding on the domestic front. Let me know if you disagree.

For the next 3 turns our university cities are on high-production and 4 of them will get whipped on T170. Bluebell can probably be drafted from just before it gets double whipped too. On T171 those cities then concentrate on growing as fast as possible, probably with Saxon and SF building some much-needed missionaries as they do so. Bluebell continues its bank and China Beach probably starts a boat.

A1 will have to stay on max-production as it starts oxford on T171.

The two cities we have been whipping for settlers (Red Herring and Mellow Yellow) are now at size 4 and growing. I'd like these two cities get to size 6, then be drafted and both double-whipped for a worker each. Workers are desperately needed for our civ and these two cities seem to be the best place to build them with others wanting to grow instead.

For military we can do a lot of drafting over the next few turns. Our junk cities of Jericho and UB can be building cats. Cape Town will presumably be on Curassier duty. Pink Dot too can help out after T171. That's not a lot of cities on full-on military but we are drafting a lot of oromos. In addition to the oromo from Green Acres we have drafted every turn and will continue to do so, I expect us to get an additional 8 oromos from this round of drafting (Pink, SF, FC, RH, MY, Saxon, CB, Bluebell).

[Sullla]

That's very similar to how I envisioned things playing out. With our junk cities (heh, poor UB and Jericho! That was one of the most critical spots on the map 15t ago, and now Jericho is a junk city) producing catapults, Cape Town training cuirassiers, Green Acres producing an Oromo almost every turn, and the rest of our empire contributing drafted soldiers whenever possible, we should be in pretty good shape on the military front. Domestically, we need to grow those new cities as quickly as possible and get more workers in play. No doubt about that! Templars were horribly bad at tile improvements, and their entire core needs to be fixed up.

After we complete the current round of universities in about a half-dozen or so turns, we can evaluate the domestic economy again and see what needs to be done next. With our huge and growing territory, we absolutely should be able to catch up to PAL's economy eventually - if we have enough time to grow our cities!

[sunrise089]

Does anyone have any input on how to move the naval units next turn? I can think of three options:

1) Log in and do all of the moves during the last hour or two of the turn, like I did today. Hope Imperio doesn't notice or assumes the ships have a peaceful purpose.

2) Log in early, move, but don't end turn. Log in again late during our 16 hours and move the ships and end turn. Hope Imperio logs in to check on things after our first login and doesn't notice the change.

3) Some sort of crazy diplo message telling them we're sailing the ships to Banana or Rabbits as a gift or something.

Thoughts?

[sooooo]

It's not improbable that we would be sailing a fleet round to take on PAL.

Probably we should just move them and hope they don't work out what we're up to. I don't think it matters at what point in the turn we do it since Naldo doesn't log in during the first 16 hours anyway.

Hopefully Imperio will be too pre-occupied by capturing Acre.

[Iamjohn]

I don't think we should say anything about the fleet, the more we make it noticeable, the worse the chances IMO.

[regoarrarr]

At what point should we turn down science to save money for a post-Oxford science binge?

[Sullla]

I doubt it matters either. Definitely don't say anything. I very much doubt Imperio will whip a unit in Chichen Itza (which has been building infrastructure for the last dozen turns, and is nowhere close to finishing its current build). Here's one suggestion I will make: move the two galleys but NOT our trireme. Imperio's own trireme seems to have moved off to the north, and moving galleys alone looks a lot less threatening. (We can move up our trireme to cover the galleys on the next turn.) Or is this too risky, sunrise?

regoarrarr, we are already at 0% science saving up for a post-Oxford research push.

[T-hawk]

- I'll echo sunrise that there must be a better tile to work at Upper Burgundy than the unimproved grassland! Plains forest would be OK, but mined plains hill (0/4/0) is probably the best call, even if it drops us from 4f/turn to 2f/turn. That would give us growth in 7t, barracks in 7t. Even though we can draft at size 6, I still think it's better to slow growth a bit, get the barracks out sooner, and work improved tiles for the better total yield. sooooo, T-Hawk, thoughts?

Working 0-4-0 rather than 2-0-0 functionally converts 2 food to 4 hammers. This is on par with a typical granary whip (15 food to 30 hammers), but is considerably behind drafting (15 food to 80 hammers). If drafting is the end goal, stick to the food. "Barracks out sooner" is a red herring - remember the barracks doesn't actually do anything until a unit is produced.

At what point should we turn down science to save money for a post-Oxford science binge?

Mathematically, right away. The gold:beaker ratio skews more towards beakers after Oxford is completed. If we don't have a need for any particular tech before Oxford is completed, it's correct to run full gold until Oxford is done.

[timmy827]

Also, the barracks is only 1XP on a drafted unit, which is really not that big a deal. Often green units win 2XP in their first battle anyways.

[sooooo]

I don't think the end goal of Upper Burgundy is drafting. I think it's raw production is valuable since it is one of the few cities that can afford to build catapults. Any old city can draft an oromo, but cats are in short supply. Sure we can draft the city anyway when it gets to size 6.

I can understand an argument to ignore a barracks and just build unpromoted catapults though.

[Sullla]

Imperio played their turn (technically just after 16 hours passed, but I don't think it matters at this stage vis a vis Templars) and so I logged in to check it out. Imperio and Banana were logged into the game together for about an hour, and they logged out simultaneously, which means they were probably chatting. What is Donovan up to? I don't like the implications of that, especially with him sniffing around about an RB attack on Imperio last night.

Perhaps not surprisingly therefore, this message popped up when I logged into the game:



Obviously I clicked out of the screen without accepting... What are we going to say to these guys to stall them? We only need ONE more turn to put our grand plan into execution! Let's carry that discussion into the Imperio thread (I'll repost the image there).

Militarily, things are going swimmingly:



Imperio will attack and kill Templars next turn, as we suspected, and they moved SW right onto the absolute perfect tile for us to hit them. From that tile, they do NOT have visibility on our staging tile (boxed in red). As proof of this, note how our own stack doesn't have visibility on the tile with the pink marking, SE-E of its position. Similarly, they won't have visibility SW-W. We simply need to stall for one more critical turn!

Side note: wonder why Imperio didn't capture the Templar worker with their knights? Would have been easily done... Hopefully Templars don't delete their workers this turn, Imperio captures them on T168, and then we capture them from Imperio on T169.

[Iamjohn]

Hopefully at this stage there isn't too much they can do unless they *know* that we're going to knife them and decide to toss everything into the wrong spots.

[Kodii]

Next turn has begun... 12 hours early!

[Sullla]

Woot! The faster the turns go, the less time we have to stall vis a vis Imperio. I'll jump in tonight and do an early C&D report, so that we know exactly what the production looks like in Mutal.

Never thought I would be grateful to Templars, but they really helped us out by ending their turn!

[sooooo]

Logged in and had to vote for the AP constroller. Given the choice of Imperio and abstain I went for the latter.

PAL got Printing Press and Banana got Astronomy.

Banana was logged in and we cancelled the horse deal. Awkward chat. He suggested with Imperio that banana and Impeiro sign an in-game defensive pact. Imperio weren't keen, kept saying they want to stay neutral. Banana then asked if we'd consider not attacking Imperio if Imperio agree to turn on PAL. I didn't answer the question and said that that scenario is very unlikely. He then says "It's the only chance I've got" and I broke down crying. Well, I would have done if God had fitted me with an organic heart instead of this stone one.
Banana cancelled resource deals with Imperio and reoffered them with a astro-MT trade attached. If they refuse then we know for sure which side their bread is buttered re. PAL.

Set Cape Town to Cuirassier, Jerusalem to courthouse and FC to barracks (city is unhappy!).