RBP3 - [SPOILERS] - Team DIM (Mehmed of HRE)

[Ilios]

DIM's border pops again next turn I think. So we could move its warrior 3-4 turns before the settler finishes in the direction of the Horse site. We'd agreed to revolt to slavery, so we can always whip out a warrior in DIM if necessary. We then move Midas' warrior to DIM a turn (or two) before its warrior finishes.

I'll check tonight how we best use the workers, and then we can look it over together.

Edited to add Diplo messages:

To A4

To the leaders of the glorious Ottoman (or should I say Hyborean?) empire,


The tech trade of the cheaper techs can be iniated between the members individually. We can trade Hunting/Masonry for Writing, not a problem. The more expensive techs (Monarchy, HBR, IW, Alpha, Maths, Currency, MC, Aesth, CoL, Calendar,...) should be traded to each member once it is discovered. You will be able to trade it around once you get Alpha from Krill. This will give us a small but important tech lead with the remaining teams.
I suggest you talk to Krill soon so he can lay out the general plan again.

The trick is to keep this as quiet as possible, because as soon as the teams that are left out get wind of our alliance, they will immediately band together and try to take us down. That's why it's important the initial trading round contains as many teams as possible. We were thinking of around 9-10 teams for the alliance. We definitely want Carthage in, which is why we need to meet up with them in the near future.

We have recently met England, and they already have a sort of loose agreement (the thing A4 and DIM had before the alliance) to research certain techs. They've met Mali and Babylon, whom we shall probably leave out of the alliance. I will be discussing this with Krill, but we'd like to include England as well.

Do you know if Carthage has met other teams and is considering a tech deal? If not, you could already send them a message you would like to talk to them about it after Carthage meets up with us. We hope to get our warrior at the lake soon. I might have to give you his coordinates in relation to your capital, so you can guide us should we miss the rendez-vous.

Thanks for the info on your gold/sheep site. We will plan accordingly so we can get some culture at our marble site.


Let's keep in touch as much as possible.


Highest regards,


Ilios for DIM

And to CHASM

Hi there,


According to our C&D, France does not have a second city yet.

As our warrior is moving along your border, would a short NAP (till around T70-75) put your minds' to rest?

Do you have any news concerning the Mali unit which I think you said is around?


Highest regards,


Ilios for DIM

[Ilios]

England's reply

Hey guys,

In the interests of getting back quickly, we have lost sight of the Mali warrior Keef, there are a lot of trees obscuring our view. Cyneheard probably knows where he is but I think you'll bump into him if you keep moving south. As for the NAP, that would be wonderful. I'm sure we'll accept but I can't get you an affirmative until I can talk with everyone else.

Thanks for the intel on France, let us know if you need anything.

-ASM @ CHASM

[Ilios]

Update for T50:

Dim's borders have popped, and for some reason our cities are not connected. I'm hoping that this is due to the game type, and that they will be next turn.

Ruff's warrior has moved out of the fog, and is currently S of Brute (temporarily renamed to "Hi Ruff!" ). I have already sent him a short greeting.

To the leader of glorious Azteca, bringer of lights, etc


Hello and well met!


Our respective explorers have finally been able to meet each other, thanks to our friends the Indians (AKA bad music). Our little adventure has at least confirmed that the world is round, and is about 64 stadia (i.e. tiles) wide. You fine nation is the 6th we've met so far: Hyboreans (né Ottomans), Morpork (né Egypt), DJ Civ (né India), France and England.
As you seem to be included in Krill's ongoing "cunning plan", I can already tell you that we, Ottoman, and ofcourse India have already joined the little get-together. We are trying to meet up Carthage to have them align as well. England we've met recently. France, it suffices to say, have been most rude to us. Due to our somewhat odious encounter, you can understand they are currently persona non grata. (let's say they have difficulties making friends).

Have you met other nations not mentioned yet?


Hoping to hear from you soon,


Highest regards,


Ilios for the Principality of DIM (né HRE )

Tricky moved SW on the forested hill for some extra view.
Brute is healing, ready to move in 2 turns.
Stakhanov has started chopping. Sysiphus has moved E on the forested hill.

I haven't ended the turn yet (I'm at home most of the day) because I want you guys to check the following:

I have changed DIM to a settler. We can either wait one turn, have The Wheel finish and then switch back to the worker who can then start on a road to Horse city (Dazed, thought of a name yet?).

Or we could put two turns in the settler, and then switch back to a worker when the first chop comes in, for an extra 5 hammers.
The worker is currently at 51/60. With a chop and the worked tiles that would bring us at 51 + 25 + 13 = 89/60. That would give us a very good overflow of 29 food/hammers.

Or we could just finish the worker, but he'd only be able to chop.

I'll try to fix a microplan to check which alternative is the best.

Edited to correct overflow

[meatbalz]

ouch... had written something up but deleted it

not sure if it's correct sysiphus started chopping this turn, stakhanov moved to forest?

if that's correct, getting a worker out asap would allow another chop to be put into the settler, getting it 5 turns from now instead of 6.

again, assuming the current worker status is the above, if we're able to get the settler out 1T earlier (and can provide adequate cover w/ a warrior), then we can work the improved horse tile 1T earlier, which would pay us back most of the 5 hammers we lose from not chopping into a worker + lets us start a chariot 1T earlier.

not sure how correct the above is as i don't have access to the game.

edit: again, IF the above is correct, we'd have 12 overflow when the settler is done, giving us a 1T warrior to defend DIM.

[Ilios]

The way I see it, two chops into the settler should be more than enough. We should keep the rest for worker chops, or to build wonders after Maths comes in. I've come up with a microplan that should combine a good date for city 3 with the possibility to make a chariot in DIM

T50 Settler (0/100) [Worker 51/60]
Stakhanov chop A, Sysiphus moves to forested hill
T51 Worker (51/60) [Settler 12/100]
Sysiphus chop B
T52 Settler (12/100) [Worker 64/60]
chop A done, Worker #3 moves SW and starts road, then cancel order
T53 Settler (47/100)
chop B done, Stakhanov moves W, worker #3 moves W and starts road
T54 Settler (79/100)
Stakh starts chop C, Sys build road, Worker # 3 finishes road
T55 Settler (91/100)
Sysiphus finishes road, worker 3 moves SW starts road
T56 Worker (0/60) [Settler 103/100]
Chop C done, Sys moves to SW of DIM, finishes road, then Settler moves SW - W - SW, worker # 3 finishes road ---- REVOLT TO SLAVERY----
T57 Worker (47/60)
Stakhanov builds road, Sys moves towards Horse site, but stays in borders, Settler + worker #3 move to Horse site
T58 Worker (0/60) [Worker 60/60]
Horse city founded, worker #3 moves to horse and starts pasture, Stack road finished, Sys moves SW on wheat starts road, Worker #4 moves SE - E on forest
T59 Worker (13/60)
Stack moves NE and starts mine, Sys road finished (Horse city and DIM connected), Worker #4 chop D
T60 Worker (26/60)
Sys moves to Horse Pasture, finishes it with worker #3 [Horse strategic resource connected]
T61 Worker (39/60)
Sys moves to forest N of Horse site, worker #3 moves to wheat, starts farm, chop D finished
T62 Chariot (0/30) [Worker 77/60] - DIM max food (2/1/1-4/1/2-4/1/0-1/3/1-3/0/1)
mine finished, Sys chop E, worker #4 S, start road, cancel orders, worker #5 moves to copper
T63 Chariot (23/30) DIM max hammer 2/1/1-4/1/2-4/1/0-1/3/1-0/4/1)
Stack builds cottage?, Worker #4 moves to copper and starts mine with #5
T64 Axe/Spearman (0/35) [Chariot 33/30]
chop E done, copper mine done [Copper strategic resource connected]

Added a screenshot to locate yourselves:



We should probably start putting the microplans in a spreadsheet, so we can easier follow the different city builds.

Edited to answer we don't need to build a warrior in DIM, as we can simply shift the warrior from Midas when it's warrior is near completion (in 6 turns)

Edit 2: I forgot to include the revolt to Slavery when Settler finishes on T56, I'll need to have another look at the plan, but it shouldn't change dramatically...

[meatbalz]

that looks good from the micro perspective

we've talked about the short-term priorities often and i think we're all pretty clear on what we need to do for the next 5-10 turns. looking a little further out, we as a team have to start asking ourselves a couple of questions:

- if we're saving worker chops for wonders, which ones? we've seen teams go after wonders very early so far in order to make sure they get them w/ 16 teams competing. you can bet krill will go after parthenon, ottomans will target HG (hammams in every city), everyone wants the GLib... what do WE go after? No point saving chops if we don’t know what they’re going towards when they could be going into faster expansion NOW which translates into multiplicative gains down the line.

- per the micro plan above, we're going to have 5 going on 6 workers (assuming midas also builds one?), for 3 cities and 3 warriors - tricky and brute don't count. also i think barbs start showing up when 3rd cities get founded - we're still 15 turns from a real unit. it's a bit of a farmer's gambit.

- when are we planning on having marble city founded. corollary to that, how many "real units" would we consider to be a sufficient skeleton defence to have DIM start the required settler - 1? 2? 3? When do we get the ottoman chariot? Ottos are ahead of us in terms of settling, remember we need a big head start or to get some serious culture in there, otherwise the city is crippled.


These are the techs Ilios mentioned would be part of the tech trade
*Iron Working
*Horseback Riding
*Monarchy
*Mathematics
*Metal Casting
*Currency
*Aesthetics
HBR is cheap, but we’re a civ whose main strengths are economic. If we forego HBR (hopefully England picks that up), what do we go for? Any progress w/ Egypt in terms of Mono? I still think our chances of getting it are negligible. Would it make sense to target Aesthetics (for GLib) or Currency (for CoL). And more generally, what is our plan as far as getting CoL is concerned.

We’ve done a pretty good job on the near-term picture but at the moment we’re playing without a long-term plan in place. It’s probably the right time to start thinking about it. I'm just bringing this up because while the micro looks good, we're ignoring the bigger strategic elements (what do we do about rome? what is in OUR best interests to research for the first round of trading? do we go balls-out for CoL once the trades are in? who, strategically, make the best allies for us? do we join at the hip with ottomans until the late game?) - again, we've done the right thing to be focused on the short-term until now, but this is the right time to start forming some longer-term plans.

[Ilios]

You make a few very valid points MB, I'll think on it and keep this post free to reply.

Just one thing, Hanging Gardens doesn't put a Hamman in each city (allthough Ottomans would need to build a Hamman to build, HG - they have stone to their west). HG increases every city's pop by 1 and adds an extra health permanently.

[meatbalz]

yeah, i was just saying that they're sure to have a hammam in each city, in which case getting an extra pop point in each makes a huge amount of sense

[Ilios]

Had an interesting chat with Rego, I'll post the pertinent information (and leave out the banter)

9 minutes

4:01 PM DJ: cool
4:02 PM we apparently met rome this past turn
me: their near you cities?
*they'e
*whatever
4:03 PM DJ: i think so
me: i can't remember if we told you we've met England?
DJ: i think he has a warrior near one of our cities
yeah - south of you?
4:04 PM me: yup
yeah he came from Portugal
which I guess is why Dantski and Mukha kept waiting for them to end their turn
DJ: oh
i didn't know they were doing that
4:05 PM me: yeah Krill told me Rome was moving around Portugal's second city
and not playing nice
French style
4:06 PM DJ: hmm
me: Rome should be to our east I guess
4:07 PM DJ: i think to your north, as i understand things
i thought portugal was to your east
me: ah
4:08 PM figures though
Portugal Korea Ottomans HRE
4:09 PM DJ: right that's how i am reading things
me: Exploit you Aztec Rome
DJ: exploit me, aztec, inca, rome i think
me: you' ve met Inca?
DJ: have you confirmed that ottomans are directly to your west?
no but ruff has
4:10 PM me: Ottomans are about 12 tiles west
couple of tiles north
DJ: so have you seen our capital?
me: then Rome is to our NE

Most pertinent is at the bottom (looking at you MB )
There's more...

me: which tech you will be researching
4:35 PM DJ: oh
i think we'll be saving gold at that point
me: yeah sure
DJ: we'll finish masonry around t59 or so?
i don't think we have a strong preference
guess it depends on where this alliance goes
me: true
4:36 PM DJ: i know our team would be interested in working with you guys as part of kind of an "inner" alliance
or alliance within the alliance
me: why would you want that?
DJ: well 8-10 teams is good for a few things
a) maximum tech coverage
b) making sure the people NOT in the alliance are less than you
but it can get unwieldy fast
so say there are 10 of us
and we kill the rest of us
4:37 PM me: i will get unwieldy
DJ: the rest of the civs i mean
me: *it
DJ: at some point the 10 are going to break up
so it would seem to make sense to try and ensure that you (and us) are on the GOOD side of the breakup
does that make sense?
i think you guys and us are good natural partners
me: yeah it does
DJ: we met early, even though we're geographically far away
so we've had time to build up trust
but we don't have to worry about border tension
4:38 PM and we could share some of the same common enemies / borders
me: and you're worried about Krill
DJ: well of course
i'm sure some folks (possibly you included?) are worried about us
at least from "name recognition"
me: about you not really
4:39 PM but I was secretly hoping you're found your second city 4 tiles from our capital :D
4:40 PM j/k
DJ: that would be SOME maintenance!
and that city was equidistant between us and the ottomans!!!!! :-D
4:41 PM me: the words out of my mouth!
DJ: (in some manners of speaking)
so obviously you don't have to commit to anything right NOW
but we will want to firm some things up sooner rather than later
4:42 PM me: well, I think you'll find us a pretty decent and honest bunch
I'll take up your offer under consideration
DJ: okay post it in theread get some comments and let us know what ou think
4:43 PM i mean at this point we have no real formal plans or anything
me: what are your thoughts on the Ottomans?
DJ: just more of a general idea / understanding that we want to work together
haven't met them yet
haven't met them yet
me: i understand, but you will have border tension
DJ: really?
me: with them i mean
4:44 PM DJ: well i guess
i have them 15 tiles east and 12 tiles south
me: there will be some
DJ: they're more south of ruff i think
me: yup
DJ: yeah eventually you're right we'll probably border them
me: they're pretty decent bunch i think
4:45 PM australian too
DJ: yeah i don't know any of them
4:46 PM me: would you include Ruff in said inner alliance?
DJ: i think that could make some sense for us
and he seems to be a nice guy
me: flank protection
DJ: exactly
4:47 PM me: ok then let's assume it's you, us, Ottomans, Ruff
gives us a solid block
easier to defend
DJ: yeah
4:48 PM me: anyway, like you said, pretty early for all of this
DJ: right at this point just kind of talking in generalities i guess
but wanted to throw it out there
this is regoarrarr btw
me: ilios
4:49 PM DJ: cool
me: gotta run
DJ: later
me: i'll talk this over with my compatriates
cya

Plots within plots...

[dazedroyalty]

oooooo.... this is getting fun!

I support working with Rego, et al. I like them as players and while we can't "trust" them in this game just like any team since we all want to win, I do trust them as far as honor and skill go. It's still early to anticipate the demise of the tech alliance and yet, it is a reality that it won't last all game long and it's much better to know where the chips will fall when the s*** hits the fan, if at all possible.