RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[Sockboy]

T118 has rolled round, I've done some of the worker micro.

Big News, we have Tech sight on Carthage, they're on Nationalism in 8. Oh the other big news is that Babylon got Education this turn, so they've started their run at Liberalism I presume. We're still poised to get it at the start of T121 (bulb it on T120). I think we won't need to build any more research but I could be off by a bit, in which case we build it in whichever cities are necessary. So we'll be a handful of turns behind them on the final stretch.

Knights will finish this turn in Zingara and Aquilonia. Nemedia and Brythunia have knights out in 2 turns. Cimmeria I've decided to let grow once more size in the interest of running more mines later, so it's knight will have to wait a little bit longer.

[WarriorKnight]

I've been trying to co-ordinate with sunrise by finding a tile where we could be invisible, but most of the tiles are visible or can be visible if they move. Kinda annoying but that's what you get.

With Carthage confirmed going Nationalism, and Maya getting Education (which means they are heading for Gunpowder, why else?) I really think that PAT will try to Lib MT. I'm still undecided between Economics and Nationalism after Edu (I originally thought Economics was the right way to go for the GM, but we might be forced to draft our UU).

Now that we have Carthage's research, I've switched to putting EP's on Babylon as well. We won't be able to hide our research, but city visibility is something that we don't want anyone in PAT to get. Plus we want Babylon's demographics too.

Why bulb on T120? Since Babylon can see our research, wouldn't holding back and actually getting the tech when we bulb it be more of a surprise? Unless you're unsure about the actual ETA and where we need to build research isn't really obvious.

Could you start doing the worker actions later in the turn? We need to make sure that we don't break any double move rules. The new staging tile is 1N of the plains forest, and sunrise wants everything to be there by the end of this turn (I've mentioned that Carthage could see it if they've moved their units right). How many workers can we get there by the end of this turn? (I can log in again just before the turn rolls and if Rome doesn't log in I think we will have another pause).

BTW, we get Engineering next turn, so don't move any units then until we get it (road bonus is too awesome).

[Sockboy]

Why bulb on T120? Since Babylon can see our research, wouldn't holding back and actually getting the tech when we bulb it be more of a surprise? Unless you're unsure about the actual ETA and where we need to build research isn't really obvious.

Yeah, this is SP thinking . The rationale is that completely bulbing techs technically wastes beakers. However in this case saving a handful of beakers isn't the issue, it's letting the other teams know we have Education. We should bulb on T121. I'll make sure we can bulb completely on T121.

Could you start doing the worker actions later in the turn? We need to make sure that we don't break any double move rules. The new staging tile is 1N of the plains forest, and sunrise wants everything to be there by the end of this turn (I've mentioned that Carthage could see it if they've moved their units right). How many workers can we get there by the end of this turn? (I can log in again just before the turn rolls and if Rome doesn't log in I think we will have another pause).

BTW, we get Engineering next turn, so don't move any units then until we get it (road bonus is too awesome).

Will do, I presume we're moving second in the war phase then? Is waiting until there are 10 or less hours on the clock ok? If we're getting Engineering next turn then it pays to wait anyway.

There are two plains forests in the region in question is it 1S or 1S2E of Zingara? (I'm assuming the latter). We can only have one worker on the tile at the end of the turn (unable to act), but we can have two additional workers in place to road the tile next turn, assuming we have Engineering.

Techwise we've got four techers with 3 of us finishing in the next few turns (Education, Engineering, Banking). Gunpowder isn't too far away either if I remember correctly. Why not line up Music, Nationalism, Liberalism and Economics as the next set of techs? The other alternative is to swap Music for Printing Press or Chemistry. We'll need Music for Military Tradition unless someone wants to spend a Great Artist on it.

Also them taking Military Tradition isn't completely terrible for us, as Janissaries will be on par with Cuirassiers (12 v 9*1.25) and that's not taking any promotions or defensive terrain into account.

Edit: The only workers left to move are the three potentially combat workers.

If we only need two workers and not all three let B complete the mine on the hill he is on.

Otherwise move him to where H is currently. J should move to the marked tile and farm for a single turn. Both B and J should then be able to move to the staging tile and road next turn (Post-Engineering). H can move directly to the staging tile this turn. We really don't have any other workers in the area (not at such short notice).

[WarriorKnight]

Forgot to say before that the AP resolution this time is stop trading with DIM. We'll be opening borders again next turn.

Yeah, this is SP thinking . The rationale is that completely bulbing techs technically wastes beakers. However in this case saving a handful of beakers isn't the issue, it's letting the other teams know we have Education. We should bulb on T121. I'll make sure we can bulb completely on T121.

Agree 100%. According to Ruff, Babylon is now researching Banking instead of Liberalism. Since our ETA is still 11 turns in-game, PAT must be thinking 'There's enough time to grab Banking before Liberalism'. They shall find out the truth soon enough (if we beat them to Lib because of this )

Will do, I presume we're moving second in the war phase then? Is waiting until there are 10 or less hours on the clock ok? If we're getting Engineering next turn then it pays to wait anyway.

I think we'll be moving second. Sunrise is moving India's stack at the end of each turn, and we'll probably have to join them in the 2nd half.

I think 10 or less hours is good. It all really depends on when Krill and Carthage end turn.

There are two plains forests in the region in question is it 1S or 1S2E of Zingara? (I'm assuming the latter). We can only have one worker on the tile at the end of the turn (unable to act), but we can have two additional workers in place to road the tile next turn, assuming we have Engineering.

Actually, the current staging tile is 1S of the wheat (1S1E of Zingara).

Techwise we've got four techers with 3 of us finishing in the next few turns (Education, Engineering, Banking). Gunpowder isn't too far away either if I remember correctly. Why not line up Music, Nationalism, Liberalism and Economics as the next set of techs? The other alternative is to swap Music for Printing Press or Chemistry. We'll need Music for Military Tradition unless someone wants to spend a Great Artist on it.

Gunpowder isn't that close, India needs a fair amount of gold before they can start teching it, and they don't have that yet. The other 3 do come in within the next 3 turns though.

Otherwise, that's mostly what we are doing, although we have swapped Music for Printing Press (which leads to Rifles). India is supposed to be bulbing Chemistry with a GS from Ruff after Gunpowder but I'm not sure when that will happen (or even if that's a good thing to do). We can decide to go for Nationalism or Economics next but I don't quite now yet what to head for (I'm leaning towards Economics).

Also them taking Military Tradition isn't completely terrible for us, as Janissaries will be on par with Cuirassiers (12 v 9*1.25) and that's not taking any promotions or defensive terrain into account.

True. I think we'll have Janissaries before they can get MT. Just moreso concerned about other CUDDLE members then ourselves.

Edit: The only workers left to move are the three potentially combat workers.

If we only need two workers and not all three let B complete the mine on the hill he is on.

Otherwise move him to where H is currently. J should move to the marked tile and farm for a single turn. Both B and J should then be able to move to the staging tile and road next turn (Post-Engineering). H can move directly to the staging tile this turn. We really don't have any other workers in the area (not at such short notice).

Will do.

[ad hoc]

True. I think we'll have Janissaries before they can get MT. Just moreso concerned about other CUDDLE members then ourselves.

Pikes are also equal with Cuirassers so shouldn't be to hard on other cuddle members

[Sockboy]

Micro for T119 completed (Except for combat workers). I was going to wait, but I'm headed out tonight and wanted to make sure they didn't get forgotten.

We've got knights finished in both Aquionia and Zingara. Next turn knights complete in Nemedia and Brythunia with Cimmeria providing the last one the turn after that. What should we be building next? I like Aquilonia, Zingara, and Cimmeria on military for the moment. Brythunia is low on hammers and should probably start it's University I think (maybe a turn on build research?) Nemedia could either provide military or if we can get the marble from DIM start on the National Epic or a Uni? Ophir needs to start on another settler soon, maybe next turn (size 7) or once it hits size 8?

I've queued Aquilonia on another knight at steady food, it's 3 turns for the first one and then they should be two turns each for quite a while after that (43 hpt with knights = 90hpt). Zingara I've put on a catapult(4t) for the moment. Feel free to adjust that if we want a different unit there.

Techwise we're at 1187/3240 for Education. Our GS bulbs 1662 beakers and we're teching at 170bpt (base). So two more turns get us 340*1.2 = 408 beakers (actually slightly more since two enemy civs have Education) to get us to 1595 beakers. Then we can bulb. My calcs have us fully bulbing with 17 beakers to spare (That's without building research). There's one or two ciies that will grow by then as well so we've got a margin of around 20 beakers or so. Can someone check my numbers please? It'd suck to miss out on this because I didn't carry the one or something. I've requested cash from Ruff, it looks like we don't have very many funders at the moment...

[WarriorKnight]

Well, as you can probably tell from the IT thread, war has broken out. Now we are trying to figure out the double move rule before we can resume hostilities. We can't do anything else ATM but here is what has happened:

1) We've lost the chariot N of Krill and the chariot S of Nemedia (as expected). If Carthage go before us (which I think will happen), we'll lose the chariot E of Fort as well.

2) Krill has moved a sentry chariot into our land, which can now see the stack. That is the only unit in our land so far and we can kill it with a spear when we can mve again.

Anyway, India/Carthage/us came to the agreement in the IT thead, only problem ATM is that Krill hasn't agreed to it yet (he left before we finalised it), and now England have joined the party, splitting us up in the turn order. I think it'll be alright though (we need to move before India in any case), but i guess we'll have to wait and see.

In other news, sunrise wants us to slave another knight from Zingara this turn, and we might have to add the knight from Aquilonia as well. I'm not sure if we can do this now we are in a 3v1. (ok well 3v2, but India isn't involved except for the HA stack whereas we'll have to be defending).

[ad hoc]

Other point is that I've misclicked (or mismoved?) next to Ottomans as well...

this was posted by Krill in the e-mail thread when he "mis-clicked". i hope he didn't use the mis-clicked unit to kill one of ours or this is the biggest bit of bad faith i've seen in the game

[Sockboy]

I think all of our chariots were always at risk of melting the first turn of war.

My major concern at the moment is that we've still not got our cash from Ruff this turn. I think we need to request some of it from India (which I'm obviously not going to do whilst the game is paused, I've made that mistake once already, I'd like at least 30g really).

A knight from scratch costs 4 pop I think (it's 3 in the capital but that's under Bureaucracy). That's 12 out of the 17 spare beakers, not taking into account the tiles it'd stop working , but we'll regain that from other cities in the next two turns assuming we don't need to whip any more before turn T121. Otherwise we should bulb before we whip. TBH I'd rather wait a turn then whip the knight without the penalty, 3 pop with around 34 overflow = almost free catapult, in fact I think it's very possible to get the catapult the turn after the knight.
EDIT: Checked in a test game, looks like we can get 60+ hammers into a build the turn after the 3-pop whip (Forgot the forge bonus on part of my calcs above) so we could get a pikeman instead if that seemed prudent. Either way it's a free military unit by delaying a turn.

My other concern is allowing Carthage a double move may let them snipe one of our workers (Fredor who's just finished roading N of Nemedia). We should make sure that doesn't happen.
EDIT: They could also pillage our spices which would lead to unhappyness in Aquilonia I think. I'm pretty sure everywhere else has sufficient happy cap to deal with this. I think there is a catapult which could spend a turn or two providing garrison happyness in Aquilonia for the three turns until we hook up the spices near Stygia.

In other war news, Krill has a warrior camped out in the forest next to barb hunter . Unfortunately Barb hunter is currently covering two workers (who have both moved this turn). There is a single tile where a two-mover could take the workers if we leave them uncovered. Do we want to wait a turn before taking out the warrior, or do it this turn once we get to move?

Final question for the team, We can get two turn knights from Aquilonia if we're willing to delay our GE (working a plainshill mine rather than an Engineer specialist). Is this something we want to consider in the short run? I think so.

[WarriorKnight]

I think all of our chariots were always at risk of melting the first turn of war.

Yeah, I guess that was expected when putting obsolete units on sentry. Ah well. Note that we should think about getting a better sentry up when we have the units.

My major concern at the moment is that we've still not got our cash from Ruff this turn. I think we need to request some of it from India (which I'm obviously not going to do whilst the game is paused, I've made that mistake once already, I'd like at least 30g really).

India are now a techer, so asking gold from them is counter-productive. Aztec, Inca, Rome and Byzantium are funding, so you should ask from them (probably whoever hasn't ended turn or logged in yet).

A knight from scratch costs 4 pop I think (it's 3 in the capital but that's under Bureaucracy). That's 12 out of the 17 spare beakers, not taking into account the tiles it'd stop working , but we'll regain that from other cities in the next two turns assuming we don't need to whip any more before turn T121. Otherwise we should bulb before we whip. TBH I'd rather wait a turn then whip the knight without the penalty, 3 pop with around 34 overflow = almost free catapult, in fact I think it's very possible to get the catapult the turn after the knight.
EDIT: Checked in a test game, looks like we can get 60+ hammers into a build the turn after the 3-pop whip (Forgot the forge bonus on part of my calcs above) so we could get a pikeman instead if that seemed prudent. Either way it's a free military unit by delaying a turn.

Yeah, it seems really painful given that now we'll need whatever we can on military. I think including the knight from Aquilonia this turn could work instead.

My other concern is allowing Carthage a double move may let them snipe one of our workers (Fredor who's just finished roading N of Nemedia). We should make sure that doesn't happen.
EDIT: They could also pillage our spices which would lead to unhappyness in Aquilonia I think. I'm pretty sure everywhere else has sufficient happy cap to deal with this. I think there is a catapult which could spend a turn or two providing garrison happyness in Aquilonia for the three turns until we hook up the spices near Stygia.

I think they'll pillage the spice tile. While that sucks, I think Portugal mentioned that they will have a spare soon, and aren't there some spices near Stygia that we should hook up soon?

In other war news, Krill has a warrior camped out in the forest next to barb hunter . Unfortunately Barb hunter is currently covering two workers (who have both moved this turn). There is a single tile where a two-mover could take the workers if we leave them uncovered. Do we want to wait a turn before taking out the warrior, or do it this turn once we get to move?

Not sure. Chances are that there won't be anything on that tile and getting Barb hunter closer to 10xp would be very nice, although with the current war threat I think we might be getting another one sooner rather than later. On the other hand, if there is a unit on those 2 tiles then....

I don't think we should risk it, especially when it's our potential HE unit without any backup. Hopefully we can find some more appropriate war targets later.

Final question for the team, We can get two turn knights from Aquilonia if we're willing to delay our GE (working a plainshill mine rather than an Engineer specialist). Is this something we want to consider in the short run? I think so.

I think so to. I don't think we'll be getting it in time for Taj, and that means we'll probably use it on a National wonder. That means it can be probably be delayed for a while.