[SPOILERS] Smackdown Game Thread

[NobleHelium]

Courtesy of the great T-hawk...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=342624

[SevenSpirits]

Thanks! So it looks like on quick, you can actually swap FOUR civics until you have (on a large map) 15 cities. At that point you can only do three. At 29 cities you can only do two at once.

[NobleHelium]

Hmm, yes. I guess darrell's case in 17 that I was remembering was after he hit the first threshold, which makes sense since it was a while into the game.

[SevenSpirits]

t55:

I used a micro trick called "I dare you to feel bad about working that tile this turn."



Our economy is better than I was estimating a couple turns ago. We are doing about 140bpt without wealth builds. On the Roman turn, I set us to research calendar over 4t, because there's no way we are building ziggurats while LAM is invading us anyway.

[Ichabod]

I see you sent the scout built in the capital north. Do you have something specific you want to investigate with it? I ask this because I think we need a sentry unit south of Rome. LAM's attack on Sumeria seems a bit forced, I really can't see why they are going for it. I wonder if they are not planning an attack on our powerful Roman core while making a feint against Sumeria. LAM's power graphic is pretty high after all.

Of course, whipped Praets will soon suffice to stall whatever attack LAM plans against Rome. But we can't whip them yet, so I think we should be really careful. When in doubt, military units, I think.

Why the WB on OJ?

[SevenSpirits]

I see you sent the scout built in the capital north. Do you have something specific you want to investigate with it? I ask this because I think we need a sentry unit south of Rome. LAM's attack on Sumeria seems a bit forced, I really can't see why they are going for it. I wonder if they are not planning an attack on our powerful Roman core while making a feint against Sumeria. LAM's power graphic is pretty high after all.

Mackoti wanted to get a full picture of the frozen north and make sure we weren't missing any marble or stone up there, for example.

From my impressions of the power graphs, LAM's attack on Sumeria consists of pretty much every unit they could get there at the time. It's true that their power has continued to go up after that, so I am expecting more units to show up somewhere, and that could be at Rome. I think it's more likely they will be thrown at Sumeria though, where LAM can make territorial gains, and also where they are in theoretical danger of being counterattacked.

Why the WB on OJ?

That build was started a long time ago (8t, maybe?) when we thought we would be settling two island cities that were likely to have seafood, and when LAM wasn't going heavy military. I'm not planning to finish it now, but I try to leave everything that has hammers in it in the queue to remember it's there. I also kept it queued up between the whipped worker and GLH to hide that we were overflowing into something with 58 hammers in it already, so maybe it's good for something.

[SevenSpirits]

t56:

Whipped the archer in Lemonade, and the overflow will complete a second archer. Also last turn I moved the warrior from OJ towards IT, so this turn the spear garrisoning IT could move towards Lemonade and incidentally cover a worker who chopped a vulture in IT. Also, a vulture is incoming from Ginger Ale.



They have 2 axes, 4 chariots, and 2 warriors. There's no danger of the city falling for now, but their force could get annoying if it moved into range of Iced Tea, too. It would be really nice if they attacked instead, though.

I really wish we had horses.

[Ichabod]

They'd have to be pretty lucky to take the city (I'm assuming the archer is there too, right?)

Will IT have 20% cultural defenses when they can attack it, in case they beeline it? It'll have 2 vultures, 1 spear and 1 warrior minimum. Whip/build another spear next? You can also move the first archer to where the spear is next turn (the spice tile), since with the second archer completing on Lemonade, we'll still have the same number of units defending on the city. Than we can reinforce as needed, be it IT or Lemonade (am I clear in this descriptions?).

They can't pass IT. I'm guessing we have odds on his axes with our vultures on flat ground. Especially that combat one. If they get their stack of defensive terrain, we can whipe it (we'll have massive odds without the axes).

Definetely agree with HBR after Calendar. Depending on worker timings (plantations on the worker plans/horse city settling plans), we could even get it before finishing Calendar. I guess we can have both before enabling horses, though.

[SevenSpirits]

They'd have to be pretty lucky to take the city (I'm assuming the archer is there too, right?)

Yes, the archer's there too. And they won't take the city with just those units. Axe vs archer is 30%, axe vs vulture is worse, warriors don't make enough of a difference. And well, spears are good against chariots.

Will IT have 20% cultural defenses when they can attack it, in case they beeline it? It'll have 2 vultures, 1 spear and 1 warrior minimum. Whip/build another spear next? You can also move the first archer to where the spear is next turn (the spice tile), since with the second archer completing on Lemonade, we'll still have the same number of units defending on the city. Than we can reinforce as needed, be it IT or Lemonade (am I clear in this descriptions?).

I don't remember, but I am almost sure it will have 20% defense by the time axes can attack it, but only half sure that it will have 20% after next turn, when chariots can attack it.

The most annoying thing they can do is move their stack 1N. Then I think we have to fall back with the spear on the spice to protect against a strike by 3 chariots, which could be trouble if they then bring reinforcements and converge back on Lemonade.

It's sad, because we are close to actually just being able to kill their stack in this case, but it's too risky.

An option we have if things look scary is to dry-whip a unit in IT. We get only 26h this way instead of 40h, but if it improves the tactical situation significantly it could be worthwhile.

Another option I just thought of (good idea about moving the archer): we could even move the archer to to the jungle hill 1S of IT. I think this could be really strong, pretty much forcing them to take a casualty if they want to reach the best forking spot.

They can't pass IT. I'm guessing we have odds on his axes with our vultures on flat ground. Especially that combat one. If they get their stack of defensive terrain, we can whipe it (we'll have massive odds without the axes).

Yeah, if they move onto flat ground between our two cities (perhaps, because they want to pillage the road) we can just kill them. We are even close to being able to do it on the jungle! We don't have a C1 vulture in range though, to be clear. Though I guess you are talking about the 3xp one NE of IT, which will be able to join the party very soon.

Definetely agree with HBR after Calendar. Depending on worker timings (plantations on the worker plans/horse city settling plans), we could even get it before finishing Calendar. I guess we can have both before enabling horses, though.

Yeah, I would love to have HBR as soon as possible, but we won't have horses until later anyway. I kind of would have liked Construction too, and catapults don't need a resource, but Mackoti preferred to go ahead with Calendar.

[SevenSpirits]

t57: LAM moved their main army 1N, so I put an archer from Lemonade plus the 3xp vulture on the jungle hill. Attacking those units should weaken his force enough that we can take it out.

I also had to defend IT with a spear because 3 chariots are in range of it, and we did have one available on the spices. However, I am wary of chariot reinforcements moving up to threaten Lemonade while the stack returned 1S, leaving our units in IT and on the jungle hill helpless to affect the battle. So I left this spear in range of Lemonade and dry-whipped a spear in IT. Slightly sad, but there will be great value in driving these units out of our lands with no city losses.



I moved our galley south to explore, and found this unguarded worker. In order to maintain the illusion that our galley could contain units, I did not advance the galley a second space. Btw, I am planning to turn that WB around now.



We found something very interesting over here - stone! Most pertinently it's clearly in RMOG lands. (The two columns I've marked "midpoint" are exactly opposite our midpoint with RMOG on the far side of the map, and the one marked "mid", specifically, is opposite the centerline of the H-shaped island that seems to be in the center of everyone.)

Hopefully, we can find some marble and/or stone in our own sphere of influence too, though I wouldn't be surprised if this other land were very random compared to the "mainland" in terms of resource availability.

Btw, check out the icy land in the center top of the picture. It's theoretically possible that this is a real island. I want to find out.