[SPOILERS] Panzersmackdown with Justinian (Mack/Seven)

[SevenSpirits]

We got Azza's graphs. They show clearly that his MFG has stayed the same, so he is still working the plains forest hill after finishing the worker. This means one of:
1) He is going worker-worker (dubious move given he has neither wheel nor BW (or even mining) (nor is he teching any of those as you'll see) so I expect his workers would be quite idle.
2) He is going worker-settler and is doing bad manual tile micro. (He could be working an equivalent tile with +1 commerce.)
3) He is pumping out a quick warrior/scout before he grows on the completed 5f wheat farm.
4) He is starting another worker for now but plans to switch to warrior/growth once the wheat farm is done.

With the caveat that I don't have complete information, all of these seem like dubious choices to me. The most common mistake around here seems to be going worker-worker when it's not appropriate, but Azza's new, so I hesitate to conclude anything.

Anyway... we can also see his GNP went up by 4 after he finished Agriculture. (Easy to tell because our own GNP on BW (which should be +2 compared to him on Agriculture) is exactly between his old and new GNP values.) Only one possibility there, since we know he has Hunting, Fishing, and Agriculture: He's teching Animal Husbandry. Fine by me!

[SevenSpirits]

Now THIS is bizarre. Despite having finished the wheat farm last turn, demos show that he still worked the PFH last turn. This is significant support for the bad/careless play hypothesis.

[regoarrarr]

Now THIS is bizarre. Despite having finished the wheat farm last turn, demos show that he still worked the PFH last turn. This is significant support for the bad/careless play hypothesis.

Aren't the graphs delayed by a turn?

[SevenSpirits]

Thanks Rego, of course that was it. They are delayed by two turns because the game is silly.

We're up to t28 now. The game is advancing extremely slowly seeing as it's normal speed and we have a grand total of 2 citizens, one improved tile, and next to no technology.

So what's new?

1) We have copper. Actually that's 7t old news. So we teched wheel, slowbuilt another worker with 1 chop, and are on track to connect copper and complete an axe in 5 turns. We can then add another axe via whip and/or upgrade up to two axes from warriors using our hut gold. They way Azza's heading currently I think we'll have to do all of those things.


2) Just this turn I sent a scout into Azzaland, to check out the rest of his tiles. Turns out he has a second riverside grain, pretty sweet. And no horses unless they're on that fogged tile. He currently has 19h invested in something; I'll check again next turn to get an idea of what it is. Furthermore it looks like he's teching archery (his GNP is 2 higher than his tiles would indicate, and he currently has fishing, hunting, agriculture, and AH). So that's too bad. I expect Azza to complete Archery t30. Also note, I believe him to currently own three warriors.


Big picture view.


There are only two land passages connecting us with the rest of the continent, so if we can take out Azza our position will at least be pretty defensible, if incredibly behind.

[oledavy]

There are only two land passages connecting us with the rest of the continent, so if we can take out Azza our position will at least be pretty defensible, if incredibly behind.

Reminiscent of the SM-TT border in PBEM3, eh?

[SevenSpirits]

Mackoti agrees we'll need to whip a second (fourth) axe and also suggested roading along the way, so I rejiggered the micro to optimize for this case.

EOT28 we build another worker (W2).

P1-P10 are the 10 steps in the path our axes will take. P1 is the plains hill; roading it also connects copper. P2 is the plains SW of it. P3 is the forest, though we could go 1N onto the grass and save a worker turn. (Couldn't use it well though in this plan.) P4 is a desert, P5 is the gold hill, P6 the obvious grass, P7 cow, P8 grass, P9 the tile next to their capital.

Code:

TURN  W1               W2              Other
29    finish mine      move to P1      Wheel completes
30    move to forest   road P1
31    chop             road P1         Start Axe
32    chop             road P2         Whip Axe
33    chop             move to P3      Start/complete Axe2
34    move to P1       road P3         forces to P2
35    road P2          road P3         forces to P4
36    move to P5       move to P5      forces to P5
37    road P6          road P6         forces to P6
38    road P7          road P7         forces to P8
39                                     forces to P9
40                                     attack city (P10)

Alternately, we don't send the workers along except give a little boost at the start. And we use the alternate P3, one north of the spice forest, so that one worker is enough.

Code:

TURN  W1               W2              Other
29    finish mine      move to P1      Wheel completes
30    move to forest   road P1
31    chop             road P1         Start Axe
32    chop             road P2         Whip Axe
33    chop             road P2         Start/complete Axe2
34                     road P3         forces to P2
35                     road P3         forces to P4
36                                     forces to P5
37                                     forces to P6
38                                     forces to P7
39                                     forces to P8
40                                     forces to P9
41                                     attack city (P10)

[regoarrarr]

So given that this is a "friendly" game, what are your plans regarding the war declaration? I know that you can't double move within 2 hours or whatever, but I didn't know if you had plans to try and minimize your time between when he might spot you and the actual attack? Or are you just going to declare when you declare and if he spots it then he spots it?

Are there war turn-split rules for this game or anything?

[SevenSpirits]

So given that this is a "friendly" game, what are your plans regarding the war declaration? I know that you can't double move within 2 hours or whatever, but I didn't know if you had plans to try and minimize your time between when he might spot you and the actual attack? Or are you just going to declare when you declare and if he spots it then he spots it?

Are there war turn-split rules for this game or anything?

The only hard rule is if we're the last to end turn or don't end turn, we can't move in the first two hours of the next turn. The soft rule is, we're to not constantly hold the turn to manipulate the timer to suit us. We've definitely been following this, usually being one of the earlier ones to end turn even when our scout is in danger of being double-moved, and certainly never holding the turn past when we are physically able to play. (Unlike Parkin who's logged in twice this turn already without ending turn, for example. )

For this attack, we'll try to move into his view after he ends turn, but if he is really late in playing I guess we'll move before him. Ideally for us we also move before him the following turn, but it's not a particularly big deal.

Between Mackoti and me we have pretty good timezone coverage, an advantage that turn-split rules in other games try to remove.

[Thoth]

Given that Mackoti is one of the turnplayers on this team, I have two questions:

1) What is your ETA on the 'Mids?


and


2) How fast can you have Vampires in play?

[Gaspar]

(Unlike Parkin who's logged in twice this turn already without ending turn, for example. )

I would recommend getting used to this.