Turnplayer Thread No. 6

[Zeviz]

I wouldn't whip FC until we obsolete colossus (which is likely to happen soon). At that point, whipping courthouse there sounds like the best idea, given that the city is costing us over 8gpt.

[sooooo]

The problem is that the city is at the happy cap and cannot grow any more. We could simply whip a courthouse now of course, but that doesn't raise the happy cap.

[sunrise089]

Imperio caravel NW of Frozen Clams.

This turn we capture the two worker, I guess and advance towards Calakmul.
The Imperio whip went into Oxhuitza I believe. Ox is also on a hill. Do we want to review our attack plan and go for Lakamha instead with our 2movers?

mh

What does the team think about the 2-mover squadron? I think sending horses to a city we want to capture and hold is silly, and don't we want to keep Lakamha?

My suggestion is we scout Oxhuitza with one unit and evaluate from there.

[Zeviz]

The problem is that the city is at the happy cap and cannot grow any more. We could simply whip a courthouse now of course, but that doesn't raise the happy cap.

In that case I'd whip courthouse.

What does the team think about the 2-mover squadron? I think sending horses to a city we want to capture and hold is silly, and don't we want to keep Lakamha?

My suggestion is we scout Oxhuitza with one unit and evaluate from there.

I agree.

[Sullla]

Yes, definitely sunrise. Lakamha is going to be the jewel of our eastern empire - sending in a Mounted stack that can't take and hold the city is silliness. Oxhuitza is in a terrible location, and will be razed regardless. Alright, here's some thoughts after popping open the game:



- The Imperio double-whip last turn was indeed at Oxhuitza, probably a longbow. This isn't the worst news, however; at size 2, the city is too small to whip anything else on THIS interturn. I would move one of the Mounted units to the tundra hill tile, see what's inside, and then move the rest unless we see a strong defense. I'm predicting a single longbow, which we should be able to take with minor losses. (We want to raze this city to clear out Imperio culture in the north, and give us access to a gold tile at Chichen Itza for much-needed extra happiness. If we can raze Oxhuitza, we can keep a minimal garrison at Chichen and send everything south.)

- Well, Imperio moved their workers right where we expected, and they're not even bothering to guard them. That's an easy capture for us this turn. And once our longbow/Oromo/elephant foursome captures them, they block the road leading south into Acre! Imperio's units around Calakmul are all pikes and longbows (with one cuirassier); I don't think they're going to get too aggressive attacking at low odds.

- Our main stack moves NE next to Calakmul, with the now-healed units moving up behind them onto the same hill tile they vacate (1E of Damascus). I think we can also send the two Oromos (Lou/Mamie) forward with them, as the injured units from last turn (Adria/Barbara/etc.) will pile into Damascus to heal. Along with the longbow and pike in there, we're set against anything reasonable Imperio can throw at us. Our reinforcements will also move up onto the hill 1E of Damascus; it should be quite crowded there! Bombard the defenses down at Calamul next turn (T173), city captured the following turn (T174). No walls, so the defenses will fall quickly.

- sunrise, what do you think about using the O'Brien/Mustapha worker pair to move onto the hill tile 2W of Damascus and road there the following turn? The idea would be to start pushing roads up north from there, towards Damascus, to offer another entry into Imperio's culture from the direct south. If this is a total waste of time, and we don't need roads in that area, we can just start moving them west towards our developing cities, where there's plenty of work to do. (I'm assuming that the captured Imperio workers will move W-W next turn (T173) and road that hill tile at the start of T174, providing us an instant road into the captured Calakmul.

- We can (and should!) draft Red Herring this turn.

- Because Cape Town is looking pretty safe right now, maybe it's finally time to move the excess defenders there (an axe and archer) to cities that lack military protection. Upper Burgundy and Bluebell would be my recommendations for where to send the excess units.

- I hope you won't mind me doing a couple of the more complicated worker actions, to make sure we had everything straight.

[sunrise089]

Ok guys:



We have 1 healed cuirassier, 2 wounded cuirassiers, and 4 additional horse archers we can move up. I recommend we move either all of the units or all of the healthy units. Moving everything makes it very likely we take the city, but truthfully if there are enough units where 1 cuirassier and 5 horse archers can't take the city (like a pike+longbow+additional unit) we may not want to attack at all.

[Sullla]

LOL. I would probably leave the injured cuirassiers in place and let them heal. As you said yourself, if 5 horse archers and a brand new 2-promotion cuirassier don't have decent odds, we won't be attacking anyway. (We do want to take out Oxhuitza, but it's not worth losing more than 3-4 units to do it.)

EDIT: Just noticed the chained irrigation heading towards Chichen Itza. We only need to do two more tiles to reach our wheat at Chichen. Thanks Imperio!

[sunrise089]

Turn 171

Ok guys, check this out before readings the rest of my exciting report:

Spoiler:

I propose we capture the workers with a wounded Cuirassier. We then move the other Cuirassier and the two Oromos from Chichen Itza into the forest next to the workers. We move the other two Oromos I have between Chichen and Cape Town into Chichen. That way even if Imperio kills our wounded Cuirassier they have to delete the workers or allow us to capture them again.

City Report:
*Airstrip 1 - Oxford due in 8.
*Pink Dot - Theater due in 1.
*China Beach - Courthouse due in 7. Cat on hold.
*Cape Town - Cuirassier due in 1.
*Something Fishy - Islamic Missionary due in 4.
*Green Acres - Islamic Missionary due in 12.
*Mellow Yellow - Bank due in 169.
*Saxon the Beach - Islamic Missionary due in 2.
*Bluebell Fields - Bank due in 31.
*Red Herring - Forge complete. Worker due in 6.
*Upper Burgundy - Barracks due in 4.
*Frozen Clams - Barracks due in 19.
*Jericho - Another cat due in 6.
*Jerusalem - Courthouse due in 3.
*Jungle Fever - Granary due in 42.
*Sweet Tooth - Granary due in 12.
*Constantinople - Granary due in 4.
*San Sebastien - Granary due in 50.
*Chichen Itza - Granary due in 61.
*Damascus - Theater build is gone again and now a Forge is due in 121.

Worker Report:
*I used the O'Brien/Mustapha pair to move onto the mined grassland hill 2E1S on Constantinople. Roading that tile and the hill NE will allow us to put troops coming in from the west right onto a defensive hill in Imperio's land. Because Imperio's musket could have 5xp I covered the workers with an Oromo.

Domestic Military Composition Report, defensive units in blue, offensive units in red, other units in pink:
*Chichen Itza garrison - 2 Oromos
*Northern defensive units - 2 Oromos, 1 archer
*Jericho garrison - 1 archer
*Constantinople garrison - 1 Oromo
*Damascus garrison - 1 Pike, 2 Longbows, 1 cat
*Acre garrison (for Banana) - 3 maces
*Northern strike army - 3 Cuirassiers, 5 horse archers
*Southern army -
-->Wave 1, outside Calakmul this turn - 5 Oromos, 1 elephant, 2 maces, 2 pikes, 4 cats
-->Wave 2, outside Calakmul next turn - 5 Oromos, 2 elephants, 1 mace, 2 cats, 1 chariot
-->Wave 3, in Imperio territory later - 1 Oromo, 2 maces, 1 GG chariot
-->Wave 4, in transit - 10 Oromos, 1 cat

Enemy Military Composition Report:
*Imperio southern troops: 1 Cuirassier, 2 pikes, 3 longbows.

Military Action Report:
*I went ahead and moved the double hill longbow back into Damascus. Everything else in Imperio's territory advanced.
*I didn't move our wounded units 1 NW of Acre and rather moved the GG chariot. 2 of the units will now heal in 1 turn.
*Obviously the 2 Imperio workers were captured.

Spy Report:
*Probably time to consider building a spy for the Imperio campaign.

Questions and notes:
*Again, I did NOT offer Acre to Banana, since their galleon movement means we wait another turn, right?
*Exact tie with PAL for power at the start of the turn...and we loose the coin toss and fall to 2nd place
*I didn't swap frozen clams to a spy yet because I want to confirm the team doesn't want to build a galley there and in Saxon. Obviously we'd like to wait for Optics (2 turns) but we will loose some seafood if Imperio decided to pillage us with their caravel.
*Optics research is back to 100% and due in 2 turns.
*Drafted Green Acres and Red Herring this turn. For the first time since since we started drafting Green Acres will NOT be able to next turn.

[Sullla]

I propose we capture the workers with a wounded Cuirassier. We then move the other Cuirassier and the two Oromos from Chichen Itza into the forest next to the workers. We move the other two Oromos I have between Chichen and Cape Town into Chichen. That way even if Imperio kills our wounded Cuirassier they have to delete the workers or allow us to capture them again.

This sounds like a pretty good plan to me. Now, just for the purposes of complete information, Imperio had a musket, a longbow, a pikeman, and a warrior on the tile NE of the Mutal location (S-S-SE of Oxhuitza) on T170. They did not login that turn, so those units were still there last turn, T171. Where they are now, I have no idea... not in Oxhuitza though! In short, there's a pike running around in this area, although it's anyone's guess whether or not it's in position to reach our cuirassier if we snatch those workers.

We should still capture those workers anyway, because even in a worst-case scenario, I think it would go down like this:

- We capture workers with damaged cuirassier (T172)
- Imperio kills cuirassier with pike, captures workers back (T172)
- We kill pike with Oromos, retake workers (T173).

The only way this doesn't work is if Imperio has pike, musket, AND longbow from the missing stack in position, and sends them ALL onto the tile to recapture the workers. But in that case, those units can't guard Oxhuitza and we burn it down with ease! So Imperio is kinda screwed either way, and that's still assuming that these units are in position at all - which they very well might not be. (There's a good chance Imperio moved them south to the Calakmul/Lakamha area.)

I think we can all agree that it's worth it to trade a cuirassier for THREE workers, right? (FYI, If it looks like we're going to pull off the worker capture, there's no need to whip the worker in Red Herring as planned. Along with the two workers captured in the south, that's a full FIVE workers! 300 free shields!)

Too bad about having to research Optics now, instead of waiting for Oxford to finish, but that Imperio caravel forces our hand. Won't be a bad idea to get some galleons in the water for the upcoming struggle with PAL either.

*Exact tie with PAL for power at the start of the turn...and we loose the coin toss and fall to 2nd place

You always get listed second in the event of a tie on the Demographics screen.

[kjara]

Well, if they notice they can't keep the workers, they may end up deleting them. In that case its likely trading the cuirassier for a pike and costing them the 3 workers, which I still think favors us, and we may be lucky that they don't delete.

[sooooo]

I think it's worth the risk. Imperio should have deleted their other two workers near acre but didn't.

I agree that we hold off whipping anything at FC in case we need to whip a boat. Even grow the city into unhappiness. Next turn we can put a turn into a galley and then the turn after a galleon will be whippable once astro is traded for.

[Dreylin]

*I didn't swap frozen clams to a spy yet because I want to confirm the team doesn't want to build a galley there and in Saxon. Obviously we'd like to wait for Optics (2 turns) but we will loose some seafood if Imperio decided to pillage us with their caravel.

I didn't think Caravels could pillage even when you were at war? Maybe that's changed recently, but I'm sure that was something which always used to annoy me.

[sunrise089]

@Dreylin - I'm not sure either. There isn't any MP era I play where caravels are really used.

[Swiss Pauli]

I also don't think caravels can pillage nets.

[sunrise089]

Update: Workers captured with injured Cuirassier, 2 Oromos moved into the forest 1W of the captures workers, and 2 more Oromos moved into Chichen Itza.

I also ended turn.