[SPOILERS] William discovers a source of horse. FDR of Mongolia

[Commodore]

That southern island city needs to be "Cartwright". That's not just a horse...that's a Hoss.

[MindyMcCready]

Apparently the reward for this could be 11 Keshiks!!

You're aware that those Keshiks come with 0 XP? I still think that it's definately the best option given our tight quarters.

I'm also guessing that they'd show up at the capital? Zanth would get very minimal notice of that jump. In fact even if he looked at the graphs the turn that the appeared he still wouldn't see anything. Those 11 Keshiks could be at his ivory city before he has any data that they might exist.

Gawd, combined with a successful west coast naval hit, we could really gut his western cities. Could fake him out with a move on that stone city. I think that I need new maps when you have a minute.

Probably still better to hit MYKI and outgrow Zanth but boy its tempting with this type of surprise factor.

[MindyMcCready]

That southern island city needs to be "Cartwright". That's not just a horse...that's a Hoss.

Yeah, that city would be monstrous. I can see why William wants to start there.

So,...would he get a dot-map fail for that city? :LOL:

[WilliamLP]

Wow! That is enormous. We'll have to re-evaluate everything. Those 11 Keshiks combined with stacked mulit-whips could be enough to take out Zanth with some luck and planning. MYKI looks like a future soft target anyway so I wouldn't automatically waste such a surprise on him.

Well that's a pretty ambitious plan! How the next 15-20 turns shake out will tell us a lot about how feasible it is, but I'm not discounting it out of hand. I do think this quest is now the center and most important point of our game plan, whatever the details are. So we need 11 cities able to make Gers, and since the small outer cities will take longer the inner cities can afford to make forges first.

Those guys are a naval invasion terror. While they did absolutely amazing on the initiative in PB13, they sure were relying on the soft mercies of Mack. They're a risk to our island, but seeing as how they'll be 'away from home' often enough they're likely to also be vulnerable.

They're quite far away which is a good thing, being to the southeast of Pindicator. I haven't looked at their thread yet, from the sound of it they had quite a lot of adventures being next to Mackoti.

That south spot has no advantages as I see it and invalidates alot of other locations.

You just said it has no advantages, while naming its main advantage. I'm worried about the nuisance of another team grabbing a corner spot right now if we plant anywhere else.

The other main advantage is that it would give the entire south half of the island a single point of defense, which would be very difficult to attack. And I think incentive to attack can be more important than actual ability to defend.

(Unless, the dot map is so suboptimal economically that someone rages out and feels the need to attack and raze cities just to correct that! Heh, I haven't actually read Commodore's thread yet, just saw the echoes of it in the lurker thread.)

You're looking for 3 strongly defensive, maybe profitable, vital cities.

Yeah, for sure. At this point in the game happy cap is high, and distance and number of cities costs are much higher, and beakers are at a premium since there are so many techs with large advantages to getting there. We can afford to make long term economic decisions since we're the tech and power leader in the immediate region. (Other than Pin, perhaps.)

I'm looking at 5-6 continuous whip, power-producing size 6 cities that are working coast strictly for the purpose of being whipped away into land units or navy.

Well, this is RBMod. A continuous whip city is worth 3 hammers per turn if you're whipping down 5->4, at the cost of 1.4 food per turn. That isn't that much, when the city could grow onto another mine instead. Or +5 hammers and -2.9 food per turn if you're whipping 6->4. These things are good in the early game when timing is everything and happy cap is limited, but we're past that point, and the best investment of food is to grow cities - for compound interest instead of fixed rate.

Every city takes a fixed cost of 100+60 for the granary and settler, plus whatever units are defending. Forward coastal cities along a strategic focal point aren't going to get away with having a single archer, no matter how many boats we have. And that fixed cost, plus the continuous commerce investment, has to be made up by more cities having that much more output than fewer. And infrastructure builds scale up with city size: almost anything is as valuable to have one of in a size 11 city as two of them in size 5 cities.

We're also not in a position where coast is useful, so that's another factor.

To be sure, I highly value a seafood resource in order to increase our whip ability. Having navy + naval mobility + constant whip island cities + high food cities is the offense-based alternative to your defensive approach. Best defense is a good offense and all that.

Yeah, again I keep coming back to the fact that need some fronts where the game plan isn't to go berserk but to be solid and defend against more with less.

I think your red plan is quite fine if we had more turns to set up, and farther enemies.

Triemes! Triemes! These are the tool to force Molach concede or have his cities starve!

I'm working on it... I'm even delaying Moai right now to get another settler out while still getting at least one Trireme to the front soon.

Love your new Avatar - Tremble before the Tapir the largest animal in South America!

Thanks! I can't really fight it, so I might as well own it.

Happy to be back. Now build me my naval fort! hammer

So attack Zanth while marauding through 2-3 civs by boat to the west at the same time, got it!

Well going back may or may not be kind. I was apparantly considered insane for the advice I gave you on more than one occassion. Thankfully Tapirs and their ded-lurkers have think hide skin. lol

The lurker thread wasn't bad, actually. It's all I've read so far. They talked about our civ more than I was expecting: I guess it's an effect of reporting a lot. I was surprised that in game my view of how far Mackoti was ahead was much more than was perceived, or was reality. I'm kind of sad it didn't play to the space race.

Oh, I didn't have any idea how much 2metra's peace offer was sympathy. Him expecting me to recognize the significance of 1 gold in the trade was quite too much credit. But it makes me feel better about just deciding to end the game fully passive.

If the main criticism I get is being indecisive and way too cautious, well duh... It's a strength as well as a weakness though. Way better than "easy to kill".

[WilliamLP]

From the PYFT thread:

Btw, I'm going to a vacation for approximately a week. It seems I would have internet and be able to play, but cannot be sure.
Most definitely I won't be able to play next move, but w/ all others I hope it would be OK.

So if anyone would be able to back up me it would be fine. I don't think that moves should be difficult.

I don't know what can be done about this kind of thing, but this is pretty huge and extremely valuable spoiler info for us - that he doesn't anticipate the next week of moves will be difficult.

[MindyMcCready]

That south spot has no advantages as I see it and invalidates alot of other locations.

You just said it has no advantages, while naming its main advantage.

Yeah,...:LOL:

I'm looking at 5-6 continuous whip, power-producing size 6 cities that are working coast strictly for the purpose of being whipped away into land units or navy.

Well, this is RBMod. A continuous whip city is worth 3 hammers per turn if you're whipping down 5->4, at the cost of 1.4 food per turn. That isn't that much, when the city could grow onto another mine instead. Or +5 hammers and -2.9 food per turn if you're whipping 6->4. These things are good in the early game when timing is everything and happy cap is limited, but we're past that point, and the best investment of food is to grow cities - for compound interest instead of fixed rate.

Every city takes a fixed cost of 100+60 for the granary and settler, plus whatever units are defending. Forward coastal cities along a strategic focal point aren't going to get away with having a single archer, no matter how many boats we have. And that fixed cost, plus the continuous commerce investment, has to be made up by more cities having that much more output than fewer. And infrastructure builds scale up with city size: almost anything is as valuable to have one of in a size 11 city as two of them in size 5 cities.

We're also not in a position where coast is useful, so that's another factor.

I understand what you're saying,....it's just that I think that island is going to come under repeated attack over the course of the game- it's the one pivot point on this map. So infrastructure will be hard to come by and I'm imagining alot more of 6->5 whipping than I am of productive Size 11+ cities. So I am seeing this as defensive investments who's rate of return is measured in how safe our interior coast is from attack.

With a granary + lighthouse the coast is adequate for storing hammers before the whip/draft.

The other huge value of this island is that it might allow us to outproduce Zanth and/or MYKI. Seek a return from mainland conquests while using this island as a whipping mule. I wouldn't mind at all if these cities never got much past size 4 due to stacked whips if that secured us a solid mainland. I'm very much more concerned with whipping out the power necessary to hold the island and take our mainland than I am with getting an economic return on this particular landmass.

To be sure, I highly value a seafood resource in order to increase our whip ability. Having navy + naval mobility + constant whip island cities + high food cities is the offense-based alternative to your defensive approach. Best defense is a good offense and all that.

Yeah, again I keep coming back to the fact that need some fronts where the game plan isn't to go berserk but to be solid and defend against more with less.

We'll get to that "more with less" when we have a secure island to our west and a crushed Zanth and MYKI. . I'm half kidding but moving up the conquest timeline whether it's a crippling blow to Zanth before he gets to those super Pikes or 'replying' to MYKI's nice litle set up that exposes 4 cities to us. If we get a W2 Axe we can 2T walk a stack of protected HA right up to his copper mine city. Those forests that he's got around those cities are just begging for a Woody2-Keshiks attack.

So attack Zanth while marauding through 2-3 civs by boat to the west at the same time, got it!

Excellent, now we're talking. . Seriously though, the HA probably won't come in for 20T I'm guessing (do we even have 11 cities?) and we'll see what the situation on the island (and/or mainland) is by that time. This is all just brainstormng of course, but in any event with 11 HA + whatever 4-7 XP units that we build we should be able to move up your conquest timeline on somebody especially if our island strategy (whatever it currently is) pays off. That we have some ability to choose the timing that these 11 units appear out of the ether is pretty huge.

If our island strategy pays off the stars will be aligned for you to be the block bully. Tapirs are huge.

[WilliamLP]

Turn 108-109:

Molach accepted a ceasefire, which surprised me. It means he's not going to be contending for the island soon, because if he were he really wouldn't want to let me play twice in a row by going back to the first half of the turn.




Things are looking good here! Unless there's a settler in the south fog right now, we're going to get this site. Sorry, the site the settler is on right now seems overwhelmingly to be the right settlement, even if only to be sure we don't lose the site by one turn with the extra move. The site is a monster, extremely strong even for a capital. When you do the math on a size 10 city vs 2 size 5 cities, everything is just extremely in favor of the first.

Defensively, it's not a weakness, it's a fantastic position, easily reinforced from the mainland, and enemy boats have to go a very long way around to threaten it, and it's a single point of defense than can have walls if they're even needed.

Finally, tempo in growth is crucial and this way allows two workers to improve the pig immediately for the dream +6 food start.

I have another settler on the way over, and another one was 2-whipped on T109, so we can get 3 cities on this island pretty quickly.




The big news is that on Novistats, DazedRoyalty razed a city on MYKI's other side! So he's MYKI's other neighbor, he's occupied, and they're not best buddies.

War is possible with MYKI on turn 110. All he's showing is 2 axes and a spear, all divided. I'd really like to wait for Riz to be size 2 before considering attacking, but it's pretty greedy and if it's just going to offer up free experience... It's going to take some thought next turn.

I don't think Mindy will love me putting forges everywhere, but it feels like the right move to me. It's the big advantage of IND, and we're going to build them everywhere anyway. There isn't an ultra-critical need for units a couple turns earlier, being the power leader and with Molach not racing us for anything (apparently).

If you make long term plays, and you don't die, it's a large advantage.




So we've got 10 cities, and the Keshik quest is going to be limited by the 11'th Ger. So there's no rush to spam stables until the point when the new city can build one. And I'm definitely going to consider whip / chopping it out before the granary there. Actually, it could be time to get out the pencil and paper and simulations again, to make sure we can optimize this to the turn.








I have to say here, if we control the whole island and have forges in all key cities and land the 11 keshik quest... then I love our position, and we'd be set to make some waves in this game.

The next tech isn't obvious to me. CoL isn't needed soon, even at 60 hammers a courthouse isn't going to be the correct build anywhere for a while. We could actually run at an early CS though - this is a bureau capital for absolute sure.

Iron would give some free hammers somewhere (probably) and we need it for knights. And the newly buffed swordsman is interesting, but I'm not sure we'd build any.

It doesn't feel like the position to go for the Aesthetics, Lit, Music line. We'd need a 10xp unit for that.

The obvious direction is to catch up on the religious techs and go down to Monarchy / Feudalism, but I'm not sure it's the best one.

[WilliamLP]

Turn 110:

Well, MYKI,




I was looking at a peace treaty that just wore off, a city that just grew to size two, and a player that thinks axes are adequate solo city defenders when there is fog a chariot could attack from. I couldn't pass on it.

Chariot vs axe at 79%: win.
Axe vs fortified spear on hill at 80%: lose. A spear mops up though at 99.9%.




MYKI's third axe is stranded and harmless for this turn, so I moved the second chariot into Riz in case he has a chariot to attack from the fog over the defensive river he kindly gave us with his choice of city site.

MYKI has tension from at least 3 directions, so he's in some amount of trouble in this game. But if he doesn't want to be viewed as a newbie target for opportunism from first contact, he's going to have to stop making plants and defense like you do vs an AI.




Apparently the horses in Bonanza had names, so that's the theme of the island. Chub is, by leaps and bounds, the most valuable asset on the island, maybe twice as valuable as the rest put together. Molach shipped down a couple of triple-promoted axes. Where he got them, I'm not sure, maybe a war? I've got 2 axes, an archer, and a spear on the forest to his SE, so he's not going to be attacking into that. And I will show him a catapult next turn.

Chub can actually get a Ger before granary by EOT 115. The two workers finish the pig next turn and then each chop a forest for it. We actually could complete the quest that soon. But EOT 116 is a better date which needs fewer whips to pull off.




So, we're finally playing into the Civ and naming scheme, 110 turns later! Pin could wreck our day by razing Horse, probably, but he's doing well enough to be thinking about winning the game, and turning his safe sea border into an insecure one right now isn't his way to do so.

In a few turns we can decide just how many war fronts we want. It would be fun to actually use their all-terrain mode for something unexpected. Or we just ship all 11 to other continents and scout the whole map in record time. Become the new lurker civ.

Meeting tons of people:




We found a square of Azza's culture to the southwest, and HitAnyKey found us with a work boat at the Bonanza island. Someone could probably tell an interesting story looking at every leader/leader pair and the diplo modifiers and pairwise EP spendings, and who is connected to whom. It won't be me.

[MindyMcCready]

Turn 108-109:

Molach accepted a ceasefire, which surprised me. It means he's not going to be contending for the island soon, because if he were he really wouldn't want to let me play twice in a row by going back to the first half of the turn.

Interesting, but I wouldn't read too much into this.

Things are looking good here! Unless there's a settler in the south fog right now, we're going to get this site. Sorry, the site the settler is on right now seems overwhelmingly to be the right settlement,

I have another settler on the way over, and another one was 2-whipped on T109, so we can get 3 cities on this island pretty quickly.

I don't mind this despite my earlier feverent posts. The speed and smaller investment required in landing fewer cities will allow us to focus on other mainland objectives without the timelines slipping much if any. I can even live with you going for 3 cities and stranding that north fish - but we'll need to land that north 2-tile island to make up for it. Can we fit another settler + military in for that location? A couple of archers should hold that location against any casual attack.

The big news is that on Novistats, DazedRoyalty razed a city on MYKI's other side! So he's MYKI's other neighbor, he's occupied, and they're not best buddies.

War is possible with MYKI on turn 110. All he's showing is 2 axes and a spear, all divided. I'd really like to wait for Riz to be size 2 before considering attacking, but it's pretty greedy and if it's just going to offer up free experience... It's going to take some thought next turn.

I'm not sure that I'd attack unless we're getting a city out of it.
1. There's no reason to have MYKI militarize now if we're going to make a surprise 11 HA run at him. Let's keep working your rep for dovish peaceful ways.
2. "Riz" is a defensive liability for him. So long as that city's there it'll occupy a handful of units that aren't in "Or" or "Mine de cuivre". He's more exposed to a committed attack while Riz exists so unless we're getting a profit out of it, let him develop it. When the time comes, he's most likely to make a military mistake trying to reinforce that city and we might catch his units between cities especially with Keshiks.
3. We're actually at war with Molach despite this cease fire and that island is a much bigger priority. Molach would be foolish to completely abandon the island to you after one opportunistic city raze. We're in the 'might-makes-right' diplomatic zone right now and he certainly hasn't seen a trieme yet and probably hasn't seen our troop committment. Until he gets a peak of our committment to the area (we are committed right?) we won't have seen the last of him.

I don't think Mindy will love me putting forges everywhere, but it feels like the right move to me. It's the big advantage of IND, and we're going to build them everywhere anyway. There isn't an ultra-critical need for units a couple turns earlier, being the power leader and with Molach not racing us for anything (apparently).

I am not comfortable with this. Most players would not conceed so quickly on the island as you appear to be presuming Molach will. The key to an easy/low-cost island victory is to show Molach that he doesn't have a chance. Then, it's yours basically for free.

At this point, I don't think that Molach has any reason to conclude that he doesn't still have a shot at the island so I don't put any stock in this cease fire at all.

So we've got 10 cities, and the Keshik quest is going to be limited by the 11'th Ger. So there's no rush to spam stables until the point when the new city can build one. And I'm definitely going to consider whip / chopping it out before the granary there. Actually, it could be time to get out the pencil and paper and simulations again, to make sure we can optimize this to the turn.

I have to say here, if we control the whole island and have forges in all key cities and land the 11 keshik quest... then I love our position, and we'd be set to make some waves in this game.

Yeah, so the quest can wait a bit but you know that you can lose the quest to another player, right?

The next tech isn't obvious to me. CoL isn't needed soon, even at 60 hammers a courthouse isn't going to be the correct build anywhere for a while. We could actually run at an early CS though - this is a bureau capital for absolute sure.

Iron would give some free hammers somewhere (probably) and we need it for knights. And the newly buffed swordsman is interesting, but I'm not sure we'd build any.

It doesn't feel like the position to go for the Aesthetics, Lit, Music line. We'd need a 10xp unit for that.

The obvious direction is to catch up on the religious techs and go down to Monarchy / Feudalism, but I'm not sure it's the best one.

Monarchy
-We have wines
-->Feudalism
-Nobody can take our islands
--> Guilds.
-We need to take over our continent soon if we're going to have a good standing in this game.

I don't think that you can afford to delay your original plan too much. The Keshiks attack will be a good early start but I think that we'll need to follow it up. Zanth is going to be a long-term problem with his UB and UU. If we can get to guilds before he gets to his UU we'll have the initiative there.

What's new about the swordsmen?

[MindyMcCready]

MYKI,...

Awesome. That's a nice city. Let's hope that we can convey dovish peaceful messages until we're ready to move on him.

Apparently the horses in Bonanza had names, so that's the theme of the island. Chub is, by leaps and bounds, the most valuable asset on the island, maybe twice as valuable as the rest put together. Molach shipped down a couple of triple-promoted axes. Where he got them, I'm not sure, maybe a war? I've got 2 axes, an archer, and a spear on the forest to his SE, so he's not going to be attacking into that. And I will show him a catapult next turn.

Chub can actually get a Ger before granary by EOT 115. The two workers finish the pig next turn and then each chop a forest for it. We actually could complete the quest that soon. But EOT 116 is a better date which needs fewer whips to pull off.

Well I'm more than a little surprised how quickly we can land this. I'm going to guess that you have no intention of landing it this early and are only teasing? :LOL:

We wouldn't be ready for real war since a handful of archer whips could blunt our 11 HA attack. We could easily settle our island issues but that would be a costly loss of surprise. My feeling is that it would be better to pump out military and then land the last Stable when we're ready to make our move.

Whatever we do, we need to get serious about that island. Showing Molach a catapult isn't going to do squanto if he's got another handful of units bound for the island. I think the fact that you didn't see a settler in that little stack tell you something about his intentions,..."from our cold, dead hands". I'd say that we're very close to being involved in a very bloody war that's going to set all of our other plans behind. So,....military now because it probably can't wait.

Pin could wreck our day

Resources are scarce but a spy down that way would be our low-cost alternative to actual defense.

In a few turns we can decide just how many war fronts we want. It would be fun to actually use their all-terrain mode for something unexpected.

Well you might have militarized MYKI so that's not optimal given you could be as little as 6T away from an invasion. Can we send MYKI a luxary peace offering (after killing that extra axe - no use him having another unit) and plan everything around a T120/T121 attack? With some luck, MYKI will just kick himself for planting that city and conclude that the city was inflammatory and that we have no further immediate bad intentions towards him.

Stacked whip unhappiness which cranked out another dozen or so HAs would be well worth it. We'll need to extract every unit we can if we want to make real, substantial gains against MYKI (or expecially Zanth).

Are you delaying all those forge builds, or is this just teasing?

My perference would be:
-An immediate, minor military build up to guarantee the island. Did I mention a trieme or two?
-Steady military build up either real or hidden.
-Peace with MYKI until T120-T125 and land the 11HA at that time for a quick little invasion with the objective of landing somewhere between a handful of cities to a full wipe out.