AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, some plans come together, some do not.

The barbs all attacked, which is generally the preference. of course, sometimes the RNG doth screw you, and the axe won a 17% battle and killed my C1 shock archer that was on a hill behind a river Another one beat holy hell out of a dog soldier before dying.

I'm not really complaining about the loss (i've had something like 25 battles with barbs and lost 3), and the worry about the loss is why i didn't put the settler or worker underneath the archer.

The dog followed up and killed it, thus allowing a plan to come togehter, which was the founding of The O.C. (was going to be called L.A.Law, but I think The OC is a better name for a town with fur and silver)



I have a worker improving the sheep (which will get the fin bonus, which is nice) - that's 4 turns. I'll have MASH build it's workboat at one point. MASH has a lot of duties right now...

Speaking of MASH



We get Collosus next turn, with 72 hammers extra. If my math is correct, that will turn into 32 hammers overflow, add to 12 base is 42, or 55 hammers.

4 more turns of 12 hammers + 1 more chop gives us 167 hammers by the end. So, Oracle is done in 5 turns, one way or another.

Still half hoping it falls this turn so i can turn these hammers into settlers - but then, I've caught up (basically) in cities - way ahead of Azza (who founded a city last turn and lost another one), behind cornflakes and commodore. I have to assume that Commodore is running into issues with his expenses, since he's not financial and doesn't have courts, currency or alpha yet.

Speaking of Azza - what the hell is up with this?



I haven't yet found Azza's borders (and I may never actually see an Azza city, given what Cornflakes is doing to him - I'm guesing that Azza didn't have metal and Cornflakes is killing him with Impis), but they can't possibly be over here, can they? Unless he's coming over to mine copper/iron? Well, I'll get to read him thread sometime and I'm sure it makes sense.

Speaking of plans, it's time to start planning for a Great person:



13 turns for a prophet, which obviously goes to MASH. Probably should build a monastery in ATeam and spread some missionaries - jowy might like one, I dunno. need to come up with a plan for that.

NCIS:



Growing nicely. That's still an insane tile. with collosus and a lighthouse it will be 7-0-4. My plan is to let it grow to size 4, chopping wood into a settler, then whip it the settler. That will go to the pigs site.

Didn't grab a pic, but chopped a forest into a settler in NYPDBlue. That goes back to growth and an archer. I'm hoping it gets to size 5 (corn, clam, cow, 2 hills) and then I'll build another settler, which goes to marble. I might change that plan to get it earlier.

one thing I think I have to be careful of is letting my military get too low.

Demos:

[AutomatedTeller]

One thing I am looking forward to when reading the threads is the "collosus?????" exclamations

[AutomatedTeller]

I love it when a plan comes together!!!

Unsprisingly, we got Collosus. Which, honestly, feels a little underwhelmin - our GNP went up by 11 (6 culture, 5 commerce)

55 hammers will overflow into Oracle (44 *1.25), so my math is good.

Did some figuring, and I'm pretty sure that cornflaks hit azza with HA. I'm pretty sure that someone has HBR, might be more than 1 person, and since cornflakes is being all aggressive, I'd assume it's him. That means that spears are a bit of a priority for us, since we have painted the term "target" on us. that said, a spear or two will be able to hold MASH against any set of HA and a dog and archer will hold it vs. any combo of impis. Axes require more dogs, obviously.

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 89 pictures:



interturn events - in other words, nothing but us


Demos:



MASH


We have a GP in 18 turns from MASH, though not really, of course. If we get oracle there, it'll be something like 50% engineer, 30% merchant, 20% priest, I think. Though, the shrine will have some effect there.



The yellow represents areas barbs can't spawn. I should have put a unit or test busting to the west much earlier. Easier to stop them than scramble to cover.

[AutomatedTeller]

What to do with A-Team?



Right now, it has 11 turns of whip anger to lose - 1 of 2, 10 of 1. I can convert to buddhism for 1 more happy, and I have 2 happy resources, which gets me to size 10 in 11 turns. that's 3 food, 3 river cottages and either 2 lake/2 hills or 4 hills, depening on if I'm growing or building.

I have the following to build:

Lighthouse
forge
library
monastery
Market (well, not yet, but I will)

Forge and market will get me to size 12, 16 with ivory and silk. Forge will help me build things faster... lighthouse helps me grow faster.

Clearly, i want to go forge/lighthouse in some order - just not sure which.

Without a lighthouse, I have 10 food (city, clam, fish, rice). With lighthouse, I have 12 now, 14 with the 2 lake tiles (which I want to work)

On the other hand, forge will be a happy neutral whip once I get silver hooked up. it would probably end up being a 3 pop whip, which means 6 turns to recover from it. I think that's the right move - grow for 5 turns while building, switch to buddhism once oracle goes (to me or others), whip in the forge, then grow into the lighthouse.

Any thoughts?

[AutomatedTeller]

Once again, no Oracle. I'm actually thinking I'm going to get it. Cornflakes is killing Azza, Azza is fighting for his life and Commodore is trying to choke his economy.

I am guessing that everyone gave up on the idea of getting Oracle with 3 Ind civs.

I may get it.

Found out why Azza had a worker on that side - I found his newest city, named ..., near some gold. Offered OB, so I can go through and see the battlefront, maybe get some intel on whether cornflakes is about to come kill me.

No real change to anything.

[MindyMcCready]

Currency vs Machinery
This is causing me a bit of anxeity. The short version of this is that I think you need to either tech or Oracle military tech ASAP. Landing Machinery this early is a very unique opportunity at this stage of the game that will help to protect your investments in wonders.

Key Considerations as I see them:
#1. T88 AT is top of the scoreboard.
#2. OUr close proximity neighbour UU is BALISTAPHANTS.
#3. We have probably the best wonder in the game given the map. (Even if you were underwhelmed, the have-nots will not see it that way).
#4. In a tech trading/no tech bartering game commerce/science takes a massive discount relative to food and hammers.
#5. As per #4 assume that commonly held tech can be purchased for 50cents on the dollar.
#6. We've seen Azza takes some lumps at the hands of Cornflakes.
#7. THe jewel of our empire M*A*S*H, with the Colossus, hopefully Oracle and soon to have Buddist shrine, is a border city.

Some geography based observations:
#8. Lake Superior will never be safe for us. That will forever be an area of vunerability unless we've won the game.
#9. Contolling both sides of Lake Blue will be precarious due to travel times. The land above Lake Blue will be highly contested by 3-4 civs. Whoever controls this area will have a significant, maybe game winning, edge in land. Whoever tries to claim that land without the military to back it up will lose.
#10. Lake Erie is a high risk area. If we were to control the other side of it we would massively increase the security of our core and allow us to redeploy our (currently nonexistent) future navy to Lake Superior or Lake Huron (or is that Lake Tanganyika?).
#11. North of Jowy is jungle. My observations from experienced players is that they avoid jungle until significantly late in the game when they have a substantial number of cities and workers. Jowy likely won't be settling that are too soon if he behaves like other experienced players.

So this is my frame of mind when considering our options, especially as it pertains to this Oracle bulb.

Machinery to me represents 3 things:
1. Crossbows
2. A fast track to Engineering.
3. A monopoly on these techs for a substantial time.


Crossbows:
-with CG2 + fortify we're defending at 10.2 + FS. Put him on a hill an its 11.7.
-Our current answer to elephants is a C1 Spear for 9.4. A C1 spear on a hill is 10.4.
-We now have a defensive answer to Jowy's Ballistaphants that wouldn't get eaten alive by an Axe on the offense.
-Give them Drill II and your opponent may consider leaving his Axes at home.

Engineering: (1000 beakers with 2 prereqs so 800)
-Pikes. Nearly completely removes the risk that someone will try to take a 2-pronged attack at us with a hammer stack and bunch of fast movers. You land those, and you only ever have to be concerned with a slow moving stack attempting to overwhelm you.
-3 moves. The kind of mobility we'll want before we try to take control of the north side of Lake Blue.
***We can bulb this tech with a Great Engineer!!!!***

CURRENCY: 400 bulbs 20% discounts for math and alphabet.
-So 240-320 if you research it yourself.
-Valued south of 200 if traded
+1 trade route per city. Estimated Value between 5-10 gpt.
-marketplaces 150 hammers. Fur, ivory, silk, whale

Just like the forges, I can't see the value of a marketplace in the near term for anything other than our capital and/or our buddist Shrine. They just cost us too many hammers when we're behind in city count and we're a juicy target. Only the happy will be worth it, but that's currently +1 from Fur.

I know I mention it almost every post, but commerce is worth very little in this tech trading/no tech brokering game. Food and hammers are just so much more important. I'd go so far as to work that river-grassland-hill over the riverside cottage. I don't know if that is smoke or not, but it just seems to me that we're not behind in tech and we've got more than enought tools (Financial, Colossus, imminent Shrine) to catch up in tech if we do fall behind. Food and hammers, on the other hand, need improvement. I'm blabbing on about this because I think that you want Currency for the commerce.

Regarding Jowy:
-If I could wave a magic wand and claim any piece of land it would be the other side of Lake Erie. Point #10 is the single biggest thing that we could do to improve the safety of our core long term. I totally feel that we need to remove Jowy from the game to have a chance at winning. Easier said that done of course.
-Jowy will attack us for either rational reasons or irrational reasons. I'm not trying to bring up Red Star again, but I just want to illustrate a point. If we planted Red Star, Jowy's irrational reasons to attack us increase while his probabiliy-of-win based reasons decrease. If he thinks that he can win, he'll attack no matter how little we settle towards him.
-If you Oracle Currency in 5 or 8 turns his rational reasons to attack you have increased AND you don't have a decent chokepoint to discourge him. In essence you don't have a deterrant and you're pinning your hopes on Jowy's goodwill.
-The best way to have a long happy relationship with Jowy is to plant 2 pikes in each of our border cities + a mobile stack of cats. If you do that we'll have a long, happy relationship with him. Crossbows will also help to make our friendship stronger.

[MindyMcCready]

Last suggestion: Post military tech investments I hope.

If we end up making a GLib run, pushing on to Music is exactly what the doctor ordered for controlling the North side of Lake Blue. Plant a city and Culture-bomb the whole area for instant control a al Krill in PB5 or Speaker/Sulla in whatever pitboss that was.

There's just a lot of synnergy here with the Heroic Epic + Great Artist to give us control of north of Blue Lake.

[MindyMcCready]

Regarding ATeam: No real opinion. Unfortunately, I don't even have CIV installed right (too addictive) now so I can't help you with a sim or anything.

In general, I'd just want it to act as a settler/worker pump until we can get caught up in city count. I can't claim to have done the math or even simmed it, but I did lay off whipping in SP and it paid dividends.

I started not-whipping after reading PB(7?) where T-Hawk was lurking Sunrise he made the point not to whip away productive tiles. Also Plako in PB8 indictated that he got better results from just not whipping but instead turned that excess food into workers and settlers. Krill in PB5 playing Krillmod dominated and he wasn't even in slavery! So its not me making it up, its coming from established talent.

Some of those quoted games were Krillmod, and few if any had this kind of excess food, but still you are whipping away really great tiles and stacking unhappiness. If you grew onto 4 grass hills you could get those improvements pretty fast. And of course, you lose a degree of emergency reaction ability which we may need.

As for what's better lighthouse, forge, market? Rough back of the envelope:
Lighthouse: Assuming that you grow onto the 2 lake tiles and then build workers/settlers then 4/5 foods is pretty tough to beat. Cost 60H
Forge: If you grow onto the 4 grassland hills and build workers/settlers- 13 hammers x 25% = 3 hammers + 1 happy. 120H
Market: Assuming your breakeven gpt is 50% and your total commerce is 36 by growing onto the the 2 lake tiles and build workers/settlers then 18 gpt * 0.25 = 4.5 + 1 happy. 150H.

So ite seems like the lighthouse is the winner short term but maxes out at +5 food but does provide a very quick return on its 60 hammers.

The return on the forge won't increase very much as the 4 hills are pretty much the hammer output max excluding whipped foodhammers. My assumption of workers/settlers keeps things simple.

The market, is probably better than the forge long term if you land silk and ivory. But that's for the happiness, not so much the commerce. Of course, the more we crash the economy (which we should be doing), the better the return on the marketplace.

So those are my non-simmed ramblings. For A-Team Lighthouse first, then market. For any other city the market has a terrible rate of return except for the happy until you have a lot of commerce. So lighthouse > forge in general.

Hopefully, I'm not spouting out too much 'never done MP' nonsence.

[AutomatedTeller]

no, no nonsense

You are making good points. Machinery is a very tough thing to pass up - and, with collosus, maybe currency isn't that important (it's just an extra commerce right now, since I'm not building wealth any time soon)

I am going to switch to Iron working - if we have no iron... well, it's a consideration. I assume we will, though quite possibly in a very unlikable location in the ice...

I disagree about commerce not being important, though - A) it's a large map and B) I'm financial. However, I also agree that hammers are at a premium on this map (or, at least, in my civ).