GeneralKilCavalry and thestick talk it out

[thestick]

T95 Report

Everything going according to plan in Lodi.

   

We're going to force out a Great Scientist for an Academy in Abukir.

   

Our borders in Friedland found another island, we have a Settler/praet pair heading there. GKC mentioned wanting to go for the Great Lighthouse to make better use of these island cities. Not sure where I stand on that.

   

Also, we should probably backfill Archery at some point... or see if we can get someone to throw it in for cheap. Really hope we can scrape up a Settler for frontline fort white dot at some point, as a meat shield for our core in Arcole.

In foreign news, SD has 11 cities and IW, so he's on track to keep running away with this game by settling the jungles. Also, Gavagai whipped away about 9 pop last turn and this turn, so he's probably getting unnerved by SD. Frankly, I'm starting to get unnerved myself. Maybe we could shuffle some spears/praets towards Arcole? The problem with our army is that it's slow, so if SD attacks in force with HAs, we might not have enough time to react.

EDIT: Also, why aren't we working the Corn in Arcole? The whip wears off next turn.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Apparently colossus will take two turns, slight miscalculation on my part? Not sure, the overflow seems to be less than it should be. Oh well, I doubt it's a problem.

[thestick]

Err, I made a mistake in the overflow. I divided the overflow this turn by 1.25 (Forge) instead of 1.5 (Forge + OR), which means we're 3 hammers short of finishing the Colossus. Whoops. If I had known, I would have had us work the blank plains hill for a turn or something stupid.

[thestick]

T98 Report

We got the Colossus.

   

I have no idea how we beat Raskol, who is Industrious and Oracled Metal Casting, but I won't argue with it.

After this GKC is angling for the Great Lighthouse, which is actually a really good idea since every city except Abukir and Marengo is coastal. Plus we're about to settle our third island city, so we'll get another ~2 GPT in every city post-Currency.

Incidentally, any reason you didn't unload the praet for the new island city? We should probably start preparing a Missionary/Work Boat pair out of Arcole to pop borders and get the Crabs second ring...

The Colossus isn't so hot at the moment, however. We're in a huge happy crunch, so we don't have the happy to work that Colossus coast yet. We're hoping that Monarchy (Wines) and Calendar trading (Spices and Silks) will help with that. It'll be great in about ten turns once those issues are resolved, but at the moment, we're still in a bit of a hole.

   

The world is re-militarizing rapidly. Still have an eye on SD...

   

Now, time to babble. I guess once we hit Monarchy, and assuming we can trade for Currency and MC, the tech path should be a bog-standard Civil Service beeline. Backfill to Archery (HAs) and Priesthood (prereq bonus on CoL), then CoL -> CS. Maybe stop by Meditation (or whatever unlocks Temples) to build a Temple in our GP farm to trickle out a Shrine. We're planning on burning all of our trading capacity for the next 50 turns into getting Calendar and Currency, so we'll need a strong economy moving forward.

Moving forward, where do you think we should put our GP farm? Friedland is probably a good place, assuming we can keep SD off of our backs. Two fish and little else, perfect for running specialists.

Expansion-wise, we have room for one island city near SD and one backline city (near the ruins of Sakae), then it's all jungle. We'll probably need to grow tall for a bit onto the Colossus coast before the next wave of major expansion. Though maybe we could sneak out a Forum in Toulon (money) and Abukir (Great Scientist shenanigans).

...was Bureaucracy nerfed in the mod?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

We're immediately switching to spears in every cities, with emergency whips. Cairo has a stack of 7 HA's mustering in his lands. AGG spears + AGG praets will trivially hold off unpromoted horses, but I believe Cairo plans to strike very soon. We got currency this turn.

TBW saved our economy AND civ in one message.

[thestick]

T100 Report

Well, that's great re: TBW, bad re: Cairo. Guess we're buddies with TBW for near-life now. I'll leave most of the on the ground generalling to you, since I'm not much of a fighter in Civ 4. Plus hopefully I'll learn how these last-ditch defensive wars work... definitely take everything I say with the entire salt shaker.

Any idea whether SD will pile on?

The Cairo front.

   

Unfortunately, all of our cities are on flatland. Fortunately, the line of hills means that Lodi is not in immediate danger.

Where do you think we should defend? Personally, I think we should pull back from Austerlitz and protect our core cities of Lodi and Abukir.

For Workers, what about roading 1NE of Lodi and 2SW of Abukir to keep his HAs from cutting off our lines of reinforcements? And maybe 1SE of Toulon, if we think he'll try to fork Toulon and Lodi.

Cairo's power isn't spiking, so hopefully he's not 'all in' on this, and a power spike of our own will keep him away.

   

----------------------------------------------

On the economic/technology front, we got Currency, pushing us back to 50% breakeven. We're about to hit Monarchy for Wines, and should probably trade it for Calendar for Gavagai for more happy for more whips, or Construction for TBW for jumbos.

   

   

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Thanks for posting the images, it's been a great help.

Here's the stack. Should be no problem against combat 2 spears.


charriu i have encountered error while chatting with SD

[Charriu]

Ok thanks I will have a look at it

[thestick]

Thanks for the TBW image.

I'm less worried about the HA stacks' strength as I am about its mobility. If Cairo immediately moves against Abukir or Austerlitz, he'll have enough to burn one of the cities, since we won't be able to shift a large enough concentration of spears in time. Or if he forks Lodi and Abukir, he can probably force us to abandon Abukir, since the cities are five tiles apart so it'll be harder to play zone defense.

Then again, take this with the entire salt shaker.

Wow, we need more map knowledge. Looks like TBW found more land overseas, and his maps show that SD is boxed in by us, and by Gavagai's city just to the north of us. Definitely explains why SD's power was spiking, and makes me wary that he'll try to dogpile us. The caged enemy fights the hardest, and all that.

Really wish we had Scouts/Chariots to see if SD is building up forces in his empire...

PB 49 spoilers:

I'm really hoping that we don't end up like Miguelito, who didn't see a Commodore attack coming because he thought that Commodore had more land/expansion prospects. Instead, Commodore had to expand into Miguielito to survive, and Miguelito wasn't prepared.

[thestick]

T101 Report

Military buildup.

   

No idea what that praet is doing 2E1N of Lodi... I think it's coming back from shielding our Colossus-chopping workers?

If we can get a couple turns, we should be alright in our core. Austerlitz is a lost cause, in my mind. This is working under the assumption that Cairo's HAs are unpromoted, of course. In my mind, the big danger is that Cairo moves to Red Dot and forks Lodi and Abukir. If we stuff everything in Abukir, then he moves south to take Lodi. To protect against that, I think we have to build up enough Spears/praets to take out his stack immediately.

Of course, I really wish we had more intelligence. Planting a Scout on the Sheep hill 3E1N of Lodi would give us an extra turn of warning, and having a Scout running around in SD's lands would let us make sure he's not planning on 2v1-ing us. Bit late for that, of course.

On the tech front, we flipped Metal Casting to Gavagai for Calendar, bringing us up to tech parity in everything important except Construction. With an incoming 3 happy from 2 Calendar resources and Wines, we should be able to whip up enough spears to protect our core if Cairo invades. Then we can build up HAs to have a rapid response force.

   

We've burnt up our beaker quota for the next 30 turns, though, as we've traded away ~1250 beakers out of a total of 1500, and everything we can trade away except for the cheap religious junk is over 300 beakers.

EDIT: On a higher level, I'm surprised how well going for MC and trading for Currency/Calendar worked. Looks like the keys will be a. keeping the diplo situation good enough that we can keep trading (preferably with TBW), and b. having a good enough economy that we can afford to beeline trade bait. That means production > beakers, I suppose.

That also means that it'll be hard to get the military edge to make 1v1 wars of conquest productive, so going forward, I think we will have to play like the Bismarck's Germany. In my opinion, we will either need good diplomacy so we can stave off a 2 v 1, or we will need enough land/food/MFG that we can survive a 2 v 1.