[SPOILERS] Team EggHeads: DMOC and TeddyKGB (Now Lurker-Friendly!)

[TeddyKGB]

I'll post in 2-3 hours.

Now, maybe we could move settler to SE location with deer?
We could use 2 galleys to unload it next turn.

I dont really like marble location now. There is no food and only forest to chop is close to Rome's border.

[TeddyKGB]

T127.

I was carried away a bit. Did 2 more whip after Cornell, but I think its ok.

I put CM on wealth now, cause we dont need Col yet. Col is a 1t build for CM now, we could complete it later, as we need. I agree, no more whip in CM unless something unusual reason.

Put GT on Settler, wanna whip it next turn and plant city on SW with Deer on your sign.
Moved one worker to chop forest there. It could go to new city or to GT.

Wanna whip some more cities next turn: Stanford, Austin, Cal. Maybe more.

Moved 2sci from Berkley, as we agreed.

We should use OR bonus while we can.
As I understand, we are aiming for Theo civic when we able to produce Cataphracts.

Cities. (Plus my chat with CH)

NOW, we still got 2 workers(on tundra near Stanford), Settler and all military units unmoved (including Galleys). What we should do with them?

[DMOC]

1. For the 2 workers on the tundra, we can leave one to finish up the cottage, and then have him later chop forest 1 of iron (for market in Stanford) and then mine the iron. The second one can go to wherever we found the 15th city with the current settler. I agree that the marble location isn't that good of an idea but the spot on the deer isn't that great of a spot either (but it's still better, I concede). Sure, we can found the 15th city by that deer spot (i.e., north of Rome's Ravenna city). And the 16th spot will go south of Georgia Tech.

2. I think we'll need one more worker now with all this new stuff coming up (and with Civil Service) so which city can get us a fast worker? Can GA Tech give us a worker after it whips the settler?

3. Good call on the wealth builds in UCLA and CM, might as well save up the hammers until we can milk the bonus.

4. I think I probably would have held off on whipping Wisconsin or Washington, but it's not like that's a terrible thing to our civ.

5. I'd be a little cautious about whipping Stanford next turn. There's value in working these cottages, and we can get multiple chops in for the market, but let's re-evaluate next turn. I just don't want to make sure we're whipping wildly. I do think caltech needs a whip soon to get Hinduism to Berkeley, though.

EDIT:

Some additional stuff after checking into the turn:

1. I can devote plenty of time to the next turn, but it won't be until late in the timer (roughly the last 3-5 hours). Feel free to take a look and suggest stuff to do.

2. Rome whipped five cities, but no war yet.

3. Workers: I'm not sure why the 2 workers at stanford went over to road near the wheat and the tile 1 of it. The wheat doesn't need a road and we also won't be needing a road on the tile 1 of the wheat for many turns. I would switch one of them back to the cottage and send one over to the city 15 area, making sure to pre-chop some forest or pre-road along the way.

4. I wasn't considering Theology as part of our plan. I always assumed we'd just have barracks in cities that'd build troops, plus stables for those high production cities so we can get +3 or +5 in general. We have lots of production but comparatively weak research so Theology is a high price for us, and Aesthetics to a lesser extent. Or we can just ignore Theology and just use Vassalage + barracks to get 5 xp cataphracts everywhere? Our capital has too much coast to be a truly effective bureaucracy city so it's not that much of a loss. And I don't really see the benefit of adding on an extra +2 to get +7 everywhere when I consider the cost of doing so.

[DMOC]

EDIT: Rome is going to declare war on Dinosaurs soon. I'll check into the game but I think we're safe since Rome has over 50 units (including about 30 praetorians) heading in Dinosaurs' way.

Yeah, signing the defensive pact with DT and BC was probably our biggest mistake in the game, but nothing we can do about it ...

Say, we might want to consider unloading our settler in the same spot as we had it before. That way it can found a city 1 north of the silver next turn, auto-building a road that can lead our stack in to raze Antium. I don't think we want to proceed any further than that, though, if possible.

[TeddyKGB]

Some random topics.

- I wasn't sure 2nd tundra cottage is such a good idea. It will be some time if we decide to grow Stan to next pop size. I moved one worker to the deer tile, it could start road before we plant city there and another worker could join him after chop. One worker could go back and finish that tundra cottage if you like.

- Wash got enough overflow to 1t worker if you want. Another options: 1t Missionary, 3t Temple or Market.

- Wisconsin probably could use another 24h chop or two. One worker currently building farm on plain tile. Cottage is done on another riverside plain.

- Our GNP improved after market+courthouse whip, maybe we should whip some more this turn. I'm not sure yet. I suppose we agree on whip GT (settler) an Cal (Missionary) this turn?

I could login 2-3 hours later and play most of the turn.

Main question: what to do with our DP now after Rome DoW on DT? Should we DoW?
I was gonna chat with Yos and coordinate with him. He is not happy with DP either, but as you said nothing we could do about it now... Seems like a right play at the time

[DMOC]

I should be back into this game in roughly 3 hours (sorry, still have some important stuff to do), then I can devote my full attention. We can chat at that time if you want.

Just quickly:

-Workers near Stanford: I'll think about it a bit more
-Washington: a worker is fine, imo we just need 1 more, 15 is fine. Main reason is for more farms after civil service and us founding additional junk cities
-Agree on whip GT for settler and Cal for missionary
-Yes, we should definitely DoW, we had a defensive pact up to turn 130, we should honor that.

[TeddyKGB]

I moved most of the worker except 2. One near Stanford and another near Michigan (he could go south to deer or north to farm). Also, galley with settler+Axe is unmoved.
I suppose its too late to move workers to road toward Rome.
Whip GT+Cal.
Moved scout and one chariot from Wash. All other military units unmoved.
Didn't DoW yet.

Yos is online and didn't finish the turn either.

So, after DoW we should probably scout Antium. We could use 2 chariots and galley.

I'm online, waiting for you to chat.

[DMOC]

Turn 128 - 325 AD

This was an exciting turn. Lurkers, you finally have something to do other than see us and Yossarian complain about suttree! First, let's indeed confirm to everyone that Rome did declare war this turn, on DT. They must have used some chariots to capture a size 6 city from DT. Since Rome declared war, both Blame Caledorn and us declared war on Rome as part of our Defensive Pact, so each of us will try to take or raze the nearest Roman city to us. That's Arretium for Yossarian and Antium for us.

First, I decided to see what was lurking in the waters. One (empty) galley went into the heart of Rome. Next turn, it can pillage and since Rome doesn't even have Sailing, they won't be able to do anything about it. Our second galley unloaded our settler to the north and went back into our territory after I realized that one galley could see both Ravenna and Antium. The galley in our culture has a single axe loaded in it. (I don't think I want that settler to be founding the city there -- more on that later.)

Here are the two northern Roman cities. Fortunately, most of their army is away in DT's area. I used 'sign mode' to indicate the city I'm highlighting in the following two screenshots.

Here are the 23 units we have on the silver tile.

After discussing in chat, the three of us (me, TeddyKGB, and Yossarian) decided that I'd move my non-catapult units one tile north of Rome's silver, and all seven catapults one tile north of that. We had kept our catapults in Illinois, so they only had half a movement point left when they were on the silver. That was a mistake, and is going to cost us one turn in attacking Antium. The plan is for us to attack and raze/capture Antium on turn 132.

Next turn, the southern galley pillages, but the northern galley can unload its axe and take on 2 catapults to facilitate transportation. We'll re-evaluate based on what Rome does.

Here's a combat 1 chariot who's looking into Rome's land. He's safe unless Rome has a chariot in the fog.

Here are images that DT sent us before Rome attacked (I think this was turn 127):

Say, DT makes really good images. Why don't they update their spoiler?

That last image has 27 praetorians, 10 axes, and 6 chariots.

And images that Yossarian sent us today (turn 128):

Here's what I mean about saving our settler in reserve. If we're going to be at war with Rome, why not have that city there to serve as an extra (inexpensive) buffer to us that can potentially reap significant rewards down the line with the marble? And if we attack Antium and can raze it, that city by the marble is what we'll want to have anyway. So unless said otherwise, I'll keep moving that settler over. It's not a huge deal that we didn't settle last turn; our costs are so high that it might actually be economically beneficial to keep settlers waiting.

By the way, I also tried to get India involved. I'm not sure if it'll work, but just an idea.

Here are the demographics:

Rome has 574,000 soldiers. I'll have to do a quick calculation but I think we're pretty much safe.

Rough estimate of Rome's military:

In DT's land:
28 praetorians, 12 axes, 9 chariots, and 2 warriors.

Antium and Ravenna: 5 praetorians, 4 axemen

Rome (the city) and Cumae: 3 praetorians, 1 axemen, 2 chariots. Cumae is size 6 with 1 praetorian.

Other stuff near Yossarian: 5 praetorians, 2 axemen, 1 chariot

Not sure what's in Neapolis, I'd estimate 1 praetorian.

Total estimated military: 42 praetorians, 19 axes, 12 chariots, and 2 warriors. That is 2*2000+12*4000+19*6000+42*8000 = 502,000 already!

From techs, Hunting + Mining + AH + BW + IW + Wheel + Mathematics is 34,000. So all together that's 536,000.

Now we have population. They have cities of size 6,6,5,4,4, and 4 for a total of 29 population points. That should be 14,000 so that is now 550,000 power.

Now, they've also captured what was a size four city (I'm pretty sure DT whipped it for 2). I think capturing a city automatically decreases it by one? Even so it won't really matter, that contributes 2,000 or 3,000 so being on the upper end that's 553,000 power.

Finally, they have 6 cities that have barracks in them (I'm pretty sure they built them everywhere). So that's 18,000 total power, and thus we're at 571,000. So roughlyspeaking, we're only missing out on some mysterious 3,000 power! That could even be a barracks from the captured DT city, or could be some difference as a result of Rome losing 1 chariot to attack DT's city but getting another unit in return. I think we've basically figured out their entire power! In other words, there should be no hidden stack that will ambush us!




Whew! That was a lot of war-related stuff. Here's the non-war stuff.

Our city builds:

Note: the Hindu missionary is going to Berkeley. After that spreads, MIT is the only major city we have that doesn't have Hinduism. We'll get to that soon. And notice that Washington is 1-turning a worker. That will be our 15th worker, and I think we're set for the game. Finally, don't worry about happiness; we're going to hook up our dyes soon.

Here's capital, which I assume will just grow onto the mine next turn and keep all cottages. I'd like it to be size 13-14 ish and with academies/markets, etc., the coastal tiles aren't too bad.

Some amusing consequences of us being Creative and culturally pressuring India:

Technology. I don't see any updates so SutOxy and Cat/Bandit must not have teched anything. Say, Cat/Bandit haven't responded to my emails to them.

I'll keep watching the gold count, to see who is researching and who's not. And to see if Rome's going to lose any gold per turn.

Our other settler:

Miscellaneous:

-All cities have surplus happiness (i moved a chariot into UT Austin) except Stanford. But we get dyes soon.
-Worker M I moved on a forest can do a 24 hammer chop into Stanford for market
-Workers L and K are near Michigan. If we just save our settler for that marble/silver/deer/crab spot then those two workers should just continue cottaging and roading Michigan. But reserve 2-3 tiles for farms.
-Workers near wisc: yeah, sure let's chop that other forest there. Hopefully arki won't be upset but he really should have founded a city there a while ago (but he has higher priorities)
-We'll found UC San Diego on turn 130 (best choice imo, because we have 2 workers already on the forest and there's no need to get the city founded one turn earlier)

When the turn rolled, SutOxy got a Great Merchant, and our trade with DT was canceled (we were gifting them spices).

By the way, who got the Great Engineer this past turn? (T128?) Yuufo/Bisons?

[DMOC]

Whew! All done with that report! Took a while but here it is, including a full estimate of Rome's power.

Now the big thing ... should we extort peace for Rome, and if so how much? If we're going to do this then we better figure out a use for our stack to help out BC and (especially) DT, perhaps by splitting any gold we get to them? And if Rome sees our stack and hypothetically offers peace, how could we quit the game to discuss it over before deciding? And is there a way to see the map before deciding on this?

[DMOC]

Two more things before I head out for work today. (I can devote full effort tonight, same as last time we chatted.)

1. We have an extra spices; let's find someone to sell it to for 5 gpt, Aivoturoso?

2. We should extend our NAP to turn 180 with Arki if he is willing to attack SutOxy. We can gift units if needed or ask that he gift us cities in payment for us gifting him cataphracts. Teddy, if you agree I'd like to send this message ASAP. I know he's a pretty soft target but India has much better developed land, and we also have Rome as a future conquest destination.