[SPOILERS] Cornflakes and giraflorens PB49 - any stock traders out there?

[Cornflakes]

   


Scout eliminated with flawless victory for +2xp. With an archer now fortified in Carthage and the pigs covered by 2 warriors I decided to retreat my warrior. I'm hoping Raskol pursues so that I can dance around and keep him from concentrating forces on killing the copper bowman and planting a city there. An archer + 2 warriors should be able to kill my bowman and Carthage can whip out another archer to prevent my warrior from sneaking back around. T45 looks like my timeline to get a 2nd bowman on site to effectively cover the copper. Carthage also got another tech this turn which I'd guess is Animal Husbandry to reveal horses.

I'm proceeding with Sailing research in order to have the option of settling on copper and auto-connecting to all my cities if needed. It will also establish internal trade routes which are currently lacking due to roads required. Also it will allow me to settle offshore for overseas internal trade (although that will be 5th city after my own copper and and the Carthage double-wheat sites)

Notice the panther panther in the bottom-left corner of the screenshot. That should earn us 4th xp for medic scout.

[giraflorens]

Good. At this moment, with few units, the game is like chess. The match depends on each movement. But the cities on the hill are going to be hard to defeat.

[Cornflakes]

It is a lot like chess in the early game. I like maneuvering like this and trying to out-play the enemy (which is why I like the Civ 6 1UPT rules).

Ras fortified 1 warrior on pigs and moved one forward to the forest. I moved 1NW onto another forest to continue tying down those warriors. I have 90% odds on defense with the forest vs. a single warrior.

[Cornflakes]

Raskol just double whipped  that can’t be military though because archers are the best he can build at only 25h. So either a barracks or Granary.

[Cornflakes]

   

Carthage will resettle for horse next turn and has a worker 1N as well to chop. I decided to use my warrior to take the 10% shot at killing the worker on the forest. Failed, but the risk/reward of that attempt was worth it. I will settle on copper T48, which will auto-connect all three cities thanks to Sailing. I can whip a warrior at Technical Analysis T38 which will queue-upgrade to spear I’m still planning to push my Bowmen forward to continue blocking Copper in force. With Horses alone Carthage can’t really hurt us.

[giraflorens]

What copper are you talking about? the one SE Carthage?

[Cornflakes]

What copper are you talking about? the one SE Carthage?

No, the copper directly to our southwest. I had previously debated settling on copper or 1SE of copper. Given the military situation it seems prudent to settle on copper for immediate connection. The 3 hammer city center also makes this a very quick starting location which will counterbalance the weak tiles in the intermediate term. Copper will be settled T49 (connected immediately throughout the empire via Sailing) and that same turn I'll whip a warrior at Technical Analysis getting to 36/15 ... Can a lurker confirm queue-upgrade mechanics and that this will indeed result in a spear end of turn 49?

   

My bowman positioning may seem odd. I've sent 3/4 of my current bowmen to fortify on the copper. I see the #1 priority as preventing Carthage from settling on copper. I'll squeeze Carthage with a T54 settlement on the double-wheat-hill (another settler 2-chopped immediately out of Risk Management). At least 1 bowman and probably 2 will move to the city hill timed with the settler and a spear. At that point, loss of the copper tile isn't catastrophic since Carthage would need to plant adjacent and invest worker turns to connect copper and would then need to guard copper from being pillaged. Carthage then would be confined to 2 cities plus a filler for copper. The weight of my larger empire will ultimately allow me to assimilate the Carthage peninsula at leisure. Ideally I take (and keep) the horses city prior to Carthage unlocking Numidian Cavalry. I'd guess that Carthage is now working on HBR with a 15-turn ETA which means capture by T60 ... Is that realistic? 

Oddly, Elkad declared war on Carthage this turn. I'm not sure what is going on there. Wait, I just remembered seeing a scouting workboat in the pass by so it's nothing.

[Cornflakes]

Ruff gets payback on Superdeath from their previous PB by capturing (and keeping ) one of Superdeath's cities last turn. I have not met either of those players so I know nothing about their geography or graphs.

I confirmed warrior > spear upgrade in sim I would like nothing better than for Carthage to invest significant resources into chariots now, only to find my spears ready in the nick of time. Chariots can be defeated easily by spears on offense or defense while more archers fortifying cities would be a real pain.

[Cornflakes]

No chariots visible on the border or power graph last turn. But Ras whipped (I think the new city) for 1 pop which could be a chariot. Settled on copper and whipped the warrior but did not complete it yet since I'm 2nd in turn order. I will have at least a turn of warning even if Ras builds roads. I now have a spear at 36/30, Bowman 8/25, and I just put 4 hammers into an Axe this turn for a future 2-whip. I spread the hammers into different units to leave the options open to whip on consecutive turns and pump out units in short order. I'm considering whether this would be best in order to capture and keep the Carthage Horse city. In any case I will complete the spear this turn since I want it to guard the settler for double-wheat.

[Cornflakes]

Now for the real reason you all are following along at home ... How is the stock trading, you ask? Ummm   QID hit my 20% at-the-close stop loss yesterday. Oh dear. What do I do now? What's that I hear you saying? Stop losses are mechanical? Don't second guess? Don't throw good money after bad?

Let's take a look at the charts:
   

Here are the ETF's for the Nasdaq (QQQ), Dow (DIA), and Russell (IWM) 6-month daily thru yesterday's close. I marked two time periods "A" and "B". Note the divergence in both. In period A pre-February-crash:

• QQQ made a noticeable higher-high (about 5%)
  
• DIA made a higher high, but barely (<1% higher)
  
• IWM did not make a higher high (down about 1%)
  

In period B recent 5 or so days:

• QQQ made a new intraday rally high but closed lower (orange box)
  
• DIA gapped down to break the higher-lows trend, "closed the gap", and then retreated down.
  
• IWM also gapped down but (at least as I have it drawn) didn't yet break the higher-lows trend. But IWM also closed the gap and then retreated down like DIA.
  

The next couple days will be interesting to see how the divergence will be resolved. In period A, QQQ dropped to join the other indices in a crash. Will we see a similar outcome here in period B? Will DIA and IWM vault upwards to join QQQ in continuing the rally?

Given all the above I have decided to hold QID through at least today and give it a chance to respond and resolve the divergence down, or confirm continuation of the rally up. If we close with a new rally high today I'll probably close out the QID trade and take the loss.