Turnplayer Thread No. 6

[Zeviz]

I'd like to attack PAL as soon as we are done with Imperio. However, we can't do it without Fregates, and that would require Banana to research Chemistry.

[mostly-harmless]

I'd rather take out a PAL coastal city now, with a gifted Galleon, than waiting for both of us engaging in a fleet arms race and both side prepared for surprise boating.

mh

[sooooo]

OK, looking good sunrise. Slightly unlucky at Uxmal but it's worth it. I like the way that our economy is surviving on gold plunder. We seem to be making about 100 gold per turn .

I'm going to put us on max-production at Sweet Tooth so that we can whip the granary next turn.

City builds for next turn:

FC I assume will start a courthouse.
Upper Burgundy can start a missionary now that it has Islam. What I think we should do here is next turn draft the city back down to size 5, then work the 2 wines, the farmed grass, the newly irrigated rice and the plains hill. That gets
7 hpt and still +4 food surplus.
Pink Dot we have many options. Some of them being: Missionary, market, grocer, catapult, cuirassier. Maybe missionary?
I don't see why the settler at Red Herring has been vetoed. It still takes 5 turns from now to found New Mutal. 1 turn of hammers to avoid the whip penalty, 1 turn for whipping, 3 turns to travel and found the city. Surely we don't imagine Imperio being in a state to raze that city in 5 turns. We could even put a defender in the city!
Constantinople: Courthouse? Or forge?

Reccomended worker actions:

Robert and Paul I'd have chop the plains forest 2E of Chichen. I think we should whip a granary and chop a lighthouse here. Colossus may soon obsolete but coasts are still the best tiles at this junky city. Also that forest needs to be chopped for irrigation purposes.
Waldo I think should start a cottage 1E of Upper Burgundy. That city has a library and a couple of wines so the rest of the grasslands should be cottaged.
Bernard and Yojojo should move 1S and finish the plains cottage at CB. That gets them back onto the road which is good!
Winston chops.
In ex-templar lands I think we should chop the final two forests at Constantinople. I'd send one worker into the shared forest with Jerusalem (can go into the FP) and any other spare ones to chop the roaded forest at constantinople.

[shadyforce]

1. Imperio is no threat and our economy can barely handle the cities we have (for now) so while it would certainly be a 'nice to have' to eliminate Imperio a turn or two earlier, taking out another PAL city (or even a hopeful try) has to be the vastly superior option. So add my lurker-vote to using the Galleon against PAL.

2. Getting Frigates (and to a certain extend Galleons) as early as possible should be our number 1 priority. I understand that the theoretically optimal way to run science is 0% now and 100% after Oxford and nobody has questioned this strategy yet. I suggest that losing a certain number of beakers through inefficient binary research might be a small price to pay for galleons a few turns earlier and should be considered. I would also do whatever it takes to convince Banana to get Chemistry quicker. Throw money at him if necessary.

Once we have Frigates/SotL and we control the channel, we win.

[Sullla]

OK, two points in response to that shady:

- I'm not a fan of the idea of taking our one (single!) galleon and boating a PAL city. That offers little more than small tactical advantage, and it brings an angry PAL into the war against us. The way I envision things, I would prefer to have us eliminate Imperio first, build up a mid-sized navy of Galleons and Frigates, and then deliver a crushing, paralyzing blow to PAL when we do attack them. (We can easily hit 3, 4, even 5 cities at once in PAL's poorly defended back lines if we prepare ahead of time.) Meanwhile, PAL and Banana will be slogging it out all the while on their front lines, weakening them both. Much as I love Donovan, Banana and PAL fighting each other is the best possible situation for us from a strategic perspective.

In short, I'd rather see us concentrate on a massive, crushing hammer blow instead of a dagger that gains us only minor advantage. Not to mention, if we enter the war against PAL before we have Frigates ourselves, they can strike us wherever they please and it will be tough for us to fight back (see next point).

- The key limiting factor is not Astronomy (which we can get whenever we want from Banana) but Chemistry. Banana does not have Chemistry yet, thus we cannot build Frigates even if we rush research on Optics and trade for Astronomy. I completely agree that Frigates are literally *THE* critical unit for us to gain, but it makes no sense to waste money researching before we have Oxford, and to obsolete our Colossus, if we're only going to have to sit and wait for Banana to get Chemistry.

I absolutely agree on the larger strategy though: build enough Frigates and control the Channel ports, and this game is effectively finished.

[mostly-harmless]

Well, I disagree with Sullla here. Having a chance to completely erase any PAL presence in the channel is worth the risk.
Anyway, looks like this is academic as both Imperio and PAL are not going to play this turn.
And there is a end of game review from Auckland in the Disputes thread. Who is he again? The same as tonyciv?

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Yes, I think Auckland is tonyciv, and with PAL & Imperio not playing their turns again I'm losing my enthusiasm to play this out

[Sullla]

PAL has multiple cities on their north coast; aside from Alexandria and Akhetaten, they can also build ships in Navajo and Eisenburg. In particular, PAL has been getting a lot of military power out of Akhetaten and Navajo by whipping these cities regularly. If it were as simple as "capture Alexandria and remove PAL's coastal presence from the Channel", then yes, I would be in favor of a galleon strike now. But it's not that simple, and they have four different cities that could hit us in turn if they chose.

And Jesus Christ, PAL - what an unbelievable bunch of pansies and quitters. "We're not in first place, so we're going to whine and cry and ruin the game for everyone else. Waaaah!"

Unbelievable. Thanks a lot guys.

[Sullla]

Anyway, I logged into the game to grab some screenshots, and our new turn has started (T176). I set all of the completed builds to "Culture"; discussion points for builds include:

- Pink Dot, any thoughts here on what to build next? Units seem like a waste at this point, IMO. Maybe a market or grocer at max food while we grow the city over time (?) I would suggest a Christian temple/monstery, had we not defied the AP resolution earlier.

- Upper Burgundy finishes its barracks, and I did select an Islamic missionary here. Remember to draft this city this turn.

- Constantinople: we completed the granary, still the only infrastructure in the city. I personally like Forge here next, as Constantinople is close to Jerusalem (future Forbidden Palace) and a courthouse therefore isn't quite as pressing a need.

- Jungle Fever: sooooo and I both like a Forge here next. We could also go with some other stuff... but I think forge is best for future whips.

More thoughts to come later, assuming that PAL stops whining and gets back to playing the game.

[sooooo]

I would say missionary at Pink Dot. It both helps our shrine income (in 2 turns time ) and our new cities build their core buildings quicker.

Need to whip Sweet Tooth's granary this turn.

Notice that our WW has shrunk after capturing the statue of Zeus! Down from +7 to +4 WW in A1.

[Sullla]

Right, but you can only build 3 missionaries at a time on a Standard-sized map, and we already have 3 in production at Something Fishy, Green Acres, and (new) Upper Burgundy. To build a missionary at Pink Dot, we have to cancel one of those... do we still want to do that?

I saw the decrease in war weariness too, yay!

[LiPing]

Notice that our WW has shrunk after capturing the statue of Zeus! Down from +7 to +4 WW in A1.

Glad I was wrong then

[Kodii]

Donovan has posted his game conclusion summary. Just need the Rabbits to follow suite and the game is essentially over

[sunrise089]

With all the "ending the game" talk I kind of let the end of the 24 hour window sneak up on me. I will make it home in time to play the turn though.

[sunrise089]

Turn played with a minute to spare. Report coming later, but the only combat was a successful attack on the pike in the open outside Lakamha.

Also, Rabbits declared war on PAL.