Turn 77, 975BC

[Hot Mustard]

Turn 77, 975BC

Units

Warriors
Spinebreaker: 1.3/2 9/10 Exp (W2). Heal (4 turns)
Thug: 2/2, 0/2 Exp. Forted (EotS)

Skirmishers
Cantona: 4/4 0/2 Exp. Forted on Forest Hill (mourn for lost brothers)
Schumacher: 4/4 0/2 Exp. Forted on Hill (mourn for lost brothers)

Axemen
Axemen I*: Forted in Winestrom
Axemen II*: Forted on road hub

Scouts
Scout I: Move 1-7?

Workers
Worker I: Move 3, Cottage
Worker II: Cottage (2 turns) (double speed)


Science
Current (29/turn +2): Masonry complete, resume Mathematics (267/357) (3 turns)


Cities

Eye of the Storm (Size 5)
WF: 1, 44, 74, 7, 78 (same)
Growth (-/turn): 0/30
Production (12/turn): Building Axeman (24/35) (1 turn)

Winestrom (Size 3)
WF: 2, 4, 7
Growth (6/turn): 7/26 (4 turns)
Production (1/turn): Granary (23/60) (37 turns)

Taz City (Size 2)
WF: 2, 41 (growth)
Growth (5/turn): 03/24 (5 turns)
Production (1/turn): Skirmisher (8/25) (17 turns)


In-Game Diplomacy
Expect to receive Iron Working from Yang

[Solomwi]

Do we want to shuffle Schumacher over to start re-establishing the choke or at least fogbusting for those Vox archer(s)? He's got hills/forest the whole way, and we can put Axe I on the hill for denial purposes. There's no immediate threat to Winestrom, though I'm not sure what units they have out and how quickly those present a threat.

NB: My mind isn't made up to support this idea; just throwing it out for discussion.

Edit: Never mind. I just noticed the happy cap in Winestrom. Moving Axe I out sends it into unrest.

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Solomwi
Edit: Never mind. I just noticed the happy cap in Winestrom. Moving Axe I out sends it into unrest.

Ah yes, thanks for reminding me - do we have a plan for this?

Should Winestrom continue to exclusively work FP, or can we mix it up a bit, since growth will just lead to an unhappy citizen?

[Solomwi]

It's late, so I'm just throwing a couple of ideas out without really evaluating them. Winestrom will grow in 7 turns, so we've got time to whip the granary. Alternatively, we could switch to a skirm and whip him after one turn. The third option that springs immediately to mind is working Schumacher Hill rather than the unimproved FP. That would give us five hammers. The granary will need 35 hammers when we get the 975 BC save. That's one turn and whip, if we want to rush the granary.

[Hot Mustard]

No kidding about not evaluating...as you yourself pointed out, Winestrom has hit the happiness cap - not much point growing like a weed or rushing the granary until we can push that cap up. Furs city and Monarchy are a ways off still.

[Arrian]

Does Winestrom still have whip anger? If so, the cap will go up by one very soon. If not, yeah, I see your point.

In general: more axes/skirms, obviously.

I would indeed shuffle schumaker (replacing him with the axe in wines and that with the axe on the road hub) in to try and grab a forest tile to re-establish the choke. I assume the two Voxian archers in their north will now march south post-haste to claim the forest tiles we have just vacated.

Well, the loss stings, but we'll be ok.

-Arrian

[Blake]

I think we should not reapply the choke.

Put simply, the original choke has served it's purpose, we are now far ahead of Vox on the exponential growth curve. We will get Catapults and Vox will not have an answer for them in either quality nor quantity.

Basically we may as well let Vox improve some tiles, if they're dumb enough to do that, and it saves us the cost of some military units.

We should however focus on securing the north with Axemen patrols and just generally keep some axemen on their borders.

I'm not sure about not rushing the granary... but I don't have time to look into it or think about it right now... but I will before the turn comes back around. Basically, effectively doubling food surplus is a good thing and is justified even when you lose some of that food to unhappy/unhealth.

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Arrian
Does Winestrom still have whip anger?

Oh yeah - forgot about that. It's likely, but I'm not going to open the save to check - had it open too much the last couple of days.

[Solomwi]

I just checked it. As far as I can tell, the problem should work itself out in two turns. IOW, yes, Winestrom still has two turns of whip anger left.

On rushing the granary, even at the happy cap, it will be useful for whip recovery.

[Krill]

If we really want an extra unit, we can MM it so that there are 29 hammers in the granary build and then whip it for 2 pop, and get most of an axe out of the deal. Or we could put it into a barracks, but we really ought to slave 2 population I think.

[Solomwi]

We can't slave two until it grows seven turns from now.

[Krill]

Use another flood plain to speed growth and stop accumulating the hammers from the plains forest.

[Solomwi]

True, and that puts us at 5 turns to growth, which puts us perfectly at 29 hammers. Nice plan.

[Blake]

Random note...

Whip anger fades one turn before you expect it to (before it "should"), in other words, when you see "11 turns of anger", THAT is the turn to whip, because that 1 remaining turn of anger doesn't get counted - if it's currently resulting in an angry pop, that angry pop will become happy during IBT and his food and hammer yield (but not commerce) will be counted for the turn ("Phantom Worker"). This results in a mismatch between what the game showed you would happen, and what actually happens.

This is something to keep in mind, especially once we have the granary. Note that in my games I shamelessly exploit the "11 turns..." whip although I don't typically bother worrying about phantom workers, but it probably is something to pay attention to in the DG.

[Hot Mustard]

We have entered the Classical era.

There is Iron:
- 88 of Taz City
- 66 of The Voice
- 22 of SpineBreaker

Still no barbs around SpineBreaker.

Vox split up those two archers - returning one to the hill near Winestrom and taking the second forest hill with the other. The Vox Warrior can no longer be seen.

Nothing big this turn I think, so I'll play the turn this evening unless someone says to wait.