July 17th, 2019, 02:29
(This post was last modified: July 17th, 2019, 02:30 by Old Harry.)
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If your screen resolution is high enough you can grab the map and drag it around. Alternatively f5 should let you figure out where the chariots are.
I wonder if pausing the game will make the diplo window disappear until you unpause? (Certainly would be if you were an admin and paused before logging in.)
Completed: RB Demogame - Gillette, PBEM46, Pitboss 13, Pitboss 18, Pitboss 30, Pitboss 31, Pitboss 38, Pitboss 42, Pitboss 46, Pitboss 52 (Pindicator's game), Pitboss 57
In progress: Rimworld
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Yes, if the game is paused while you go in the diplo screen does not appear. At least this was the case in PB40 before we had the server change.
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T113:  neener-neener, come and get me Superdeath
Military advisor confirmed that no Superdeath units were in compromising positions, but did bring to my attention the fact that no communication had been received from my own scouting chariot. Dragging around the minimap confirmed that my chariot was dead. With Iron Working complete and iron located in an easy-to-connect spot, and the GEngineer and Archery both due next turn I decided that I can't let Superdeath's murder of my chariot pass un-punished. I have enough overflow at Woolly Mammoth to complete another spear this turn followed by a 1-turn Crossbow next turn once the pieces have fallen in place. Infinity Past can 2-turn spears/axemen currently and could whip out a Crossbow turn after next if required. I have a vision advantage over Superdeath at the border since I can see into both of his cities and all tiles within 2 turns movement of my cities.
I refused the peace treaty and did not offer cease fire or anything in return. At this point I will likely turn down any offer from Superdeath without any response whatsoever. I just don't see how Superdeath could hurt me. The power graph confirms that Superdeath is lowest in power and the demographics reveal that he is 20% behind me in power. Most of Superdeath's units are archer city defenders. He can't have more than a couple of chariots. My MFG is more than 50% higher than the next closest so even if he swaps into Police State he will still lag my hammer output. I have already decided that I am mostly finished with infrastructure outside of the couple courthouses and the market at Great Unconformity. I'm already planning to build up military over the next 20 turns. I would rather keep Superdeath on his toes rather than watching the enforced peace timer count down while building in peace.
And if Superdeath responds with all-out war preparations making an invasion look too costly when I get to knights, then I just offer peace and declare war on JR4 when ready and start that war off with 10 turns of secured peace on my southern border. Superdeath would have ruined his economy in the process making him unable to reach the next generation of military tech and I ignore him until it is convenient. All in all I think I come out better making Superdeath uncomfortable. With Crossbows + Spears + Trebuchets I should have ample defenses.
This is the city overview from end of turn. Note the GPP counter at 1 for Ice Age which is a 100% engineer.
This is the border region between me and Superdeath. You can see the superior vision that I have into Superdeath's territory. I have solid and steadily growing cultural control over the tile 1NE of Jeffrey. This war gives me a valid reason to target Jeffrey and take it out. I will likely proceed with an assault on Jeffrey prior to Guilds. Trebuchets get odds on archers once the walls are down so I could potentially capture that city with minimal losses. The best thing from my perspective for Superdeath to do would be to stuff Jeffrey full of defenders that I can collateral away with odds. Any defenders that I can draw away to the west are also fewer defenders in the Pyramids city that is my real first target of the war campaign.
The GREEN tile marked with sign mode will be my first watermill. I will have 3 workers busy turning the fertile river valleys around into an even more productive watermilled landscape. I really would like another market there at Woolly Mammoth for the +2 happiness boost to work a couple extra tiles. The food surplus can support probably 5 more pop if I had the happiness.
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T115:  Give Peace A Chance. So after all that posturing I decided to offer Superdeath a peace treaty for the cost of 59 gold (all he had, but effectively 2 gold per hammer for the chariot that he killed). Let's see how he responds.
In the mean time I'm building more wealth/research than military right now:
The Research build was a Jewish Missionary at the time I took the screenshot. The missionary is currently at 20/40 but as I was thinking about it that is just a waste of hammers. The research build puts me over the hump of researching Monarchy in 2 turns.
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Here's my Evil Plot™ to capture Pyramids:
Yellow is my most likely route of attack. It's not really a fork because I'm planning to put a small stack on PURPLE_SQUARE a couple of turns before launching the YELLOW attack. The Purple stack will be a feint of AI-incompetence-proportions. I'll move a single Trebuchet to Purple and slowly start bombarding the city defenses down over multiple turns. Along with the trebuchet I'll move in a couple of spears, an axe or two, and a crossbow to cover. I'll move a similar but probably slightly smaller stack adjacent to Jeffrey. I want Superdeath to think that he has a chance at holding those cities. I have research visibility on Superdeath so I will be able to track if he has Catapults. As long as Superdeath does not have Catapults these stacks should be relatively safe (and in worst case my stack gets wiped out my mounted stack can clean up). I may also send a couple of ancient era units through Elkad's territory to cause another distraction on Superdeath's southern border (axe + chariot + spear).
I'm considering moving up the attack timeframe with the YELLOW stack to be primarily Horse Archers (maybe the first knight or two that I get out). Time is of the essence. I'm reconsidering the military that I'll build. I'm going to go lighter on Trebuchets and heavier on Horse Archers. I'm also going to speed up the 2nd GEngineer by about 5 turns. That will reduce the odds of landing the engineer from 75% down to 60%, but if I miss the engineer the down-side date of Guilds will be increased by 5 turns as well.
The RED attack path would be more of a fork, but I don't care about the other city. I can't hold Manson on the JR4 border long term. Also if Superdeath has OB with JR4 he could very likely spot the mounted units at the staging tile with a wandering chariot. ORANGE could fork the capital but has no direct access the tile from outside Superdeath's culture even after the two border cities get captured. Once I capture Pyramids I can use PINK to fork the capital and Chickatilo.
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I love the sight of a good attack plan in the morning. 
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T115: Superdeath predictably turned down the peace offer, instead flipping it around so that I would give HIM 59 gold. Superdeath is 2nd to last on the scoreboard and below average on most metrics (probably delayed due to the effort expended on Pyramids, and all of the early Barracks he built to pop borders). What incentive does he have to give me peace? After all, shouldn't I be paying him off to keep a secure border? Superdeath is researching Metal Casting with 3 turn ETA but still making 50 gpt so I can only assume that he is running a ton of specialists and/or research builds. I wouldn't be surprised to see Superdeath used the GEngineer that he birthed a few turns back to copy my Machinery bulb. That would make swords un-appealing (although hammer-for-hammer I could still exchange swords for crossbows favorably).
I'm not locked in to war with Superdeath. If Superdeath really militarizes over the next dozen turns then it's quite possible that I go for a softer target. I need my first war to be quick and decisive acquisition of territory to build my MFG base. My current territory cannot support the MFG of world domination. Elkad would be another potential target. Elkad has the disadvantage of bringing me into contact with Wetbandit on the flank but has lower MFG and overall population base to whip, and is highly unlikely to reach Machinery to defend with Crossbows against swords.
Superdeath's territory would just integrate so well with my current territory. In addition to Pyramids as a clear target, there is a huge bulge of land directly to my south that would only be contested by Elkad and therefore easy to defend. Superdeath's far eastern neighbor is BGN but that appears to be a small border where I could have a single fortress city on a hill (raze and re-settle to get a nice comfortable border if necessary). JR4 is already a neighbor and although the border would be lengthened it could still be effectively guarded by the same mobile force. Maybe I blundered diplomatically in not taking Superdeath's offered peace 5 turns ago? Time will tell. For present I'm still full-steam-ahead wealth/research to Guilds and then all MFG > Military.
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T117: Graph dump since I have obtained BGN's and now have a complete view of the world:
Overall the pack is pretty close and includes everyone but Elkad. My recently-overtaken score lead was primarily due to being #1 land area for most of the game thanks to culture from terraces and Oracle, and widely spaced cities. My MFG lead is intentional (maybe a Civ 6 habit that will ultimately turn out unhealthy back in Civ 4) and you can see how on the food graph I was immediately overtaken when I began emphasizing MFG. So far the Wealth/Research building through the forge +25% boost has kept me competitive in GNP. We'll see if my Knights time horizon ultimately turns out to be enough to bring in the victory. I'll have knights by T130, and from there I'll need to decisively overcome a neighbor and win in about 30 turns or I risk being out-teched. 50 turns might be the outside limit (T180). Pikes and engineered roads will make things difficult for me, as will muskets ... but drafted muskets would pretty much put a stop to my ability to apply pain to that empire unless my conquering spoils give me enough MFG to simply throw enough warm bodies at them.
Ultimately I think it will come down to psychological fortitude of my rivals. I want to make each of the major rivals feel like they specifically are the target of my aggression. I will have to play things by ear and be open to opportunities as they arise. To that end I will build mostly a mounted force of HA + Knights. HA at the lower production cities and Knights at high production cities. I want each city at minimum to produce a unit every 3 turns. All eligible riverside tiles will be paved with Watermills, even towns (side note, I don't think I agree with not allowing a player to re-purpose land in the latest RtR version). Production will be king in my quest for world domination 
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Annnnnnd ....... we're waiting for Donovan again. PBSpy shows Donovan was logged in to PB44 for nearly 8 hours  game was paused for 5 of those hours but that's still 3 hours playing the turn ... in the Classical era  ... and no turn for us here in '43. I hope the game doesn't die.
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T117: Superdeath has research set to Construction now (4 turn ETA but Superdeath is still accumulating 50 gpt with 200+ in the bank so he could probably reduce ETA to 2). I will have HBR end of turn as well as my first Trebuchet at Mammoth to assault Superdeath's border city. I'm still keeping myself flexible. If Superdeath arms to the teeth then the probable course of action at this point is [capture OR raze] the Superdeath border city to make a more comfortable border in the south, and then focus on blitzing Elkad. I will remain at war with Superdeath in order to entice JR4 to declare on Superdeath. I've been thinking more about JR4 and I don't think it's the worst outcome for JR4 to capture Pyramids if that allows me to snap up the western side of Superdeath at minimal cost. I am not strong enough to single-handedly take on the whole world so I will need a partner and ally in the short term. Having JR4 as an ally and splitting the conquest cost will likely save me more hammers than I would gain from Police State. I will have to walk the diplomatic tightrope in order to ultimately pull off victory.
Elkad is probably trying to limp towards Construction now. It appears from the above-posted graphs that Elkad turned on tech after a very long time of saving, however he has expended his reserve already down to less than 30  . It is to my advantage to take out Elkad before he reaches Construction and builds up a defensive stack of Catapults. Also by taking out Elkad my empire will wrap around to the south of Superdeath giving me a strategic advantage through being able to hit from either or both sides (or feint on one a turn or two in advance of launching the real attack on the other side).
This is the current location and composition of Elkad's stack. I have been following it with my chariot while it has been wandering around somewhat. It started to turn north, then has moved back south over the last couple turns. There is only 1 worker in sight where indicated so not enough to build a road SE of the stack unless he previously invested a turn into the road. I'm completing the nearly-finished axe in Ice Age for security, and can follow up with a 2-turn Crossbow with the overflow (and some previously-invested hammers) or whip the crossbow immediately if necessary. I have confirmed an Elkad galley to my south so I'm starting to build some military to guard the undefended cities on the western peninsula. My plan is to garrison with a crossbow at each, and keep 2 horse archers within range of either city (inclusive of units that complete EOT). Superdeath may also build a galley or three to try and put pressure on my backlines but I should be able to respond in time.
I'm also reconsidering whether it might be better to keep OB with Wetbandit. That will allow me to keep an eye on his border when I invade Elkad. Also presenting myself as a trading partner may help turn his gaze elsewhere rather than trying to poach my fresh German conquests.
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