[PB37 SPOILER] Coeurva, Bacchus -- Cyrus of Carthage

[Coeurva]

From the tech thread: Gavagai made a mistake on auto-pilot and says it doesn't really warrant a reload, but nobody opposes the reload and Krill can't play for a while.

Reload does not slow anything down, I would not oppose it, and if it were granted just do it ASAP.

I think I have to inform him via PM that he's forfeiting a 1.3% combat result (galleon losing to trireme).

I also wonder if I have to repeat my own auto-pilot mistake (that is, my fascination with moving ships onto the single possible ocean tile) in case the reload is granted. I'd prefer to just move it onto a coast tile instead, where Krill's triremes can still hit it, and where I wouldn't be revealing new information -- since if Gavagai is allowed to correct his mistake here, why shouldn't I?

Difficult, because I'm not looking forward to consciously repeating what I've already been kicking myself for, but then it would be fairer to Krill to stick with my mistake.

EDIT: Sent him this.

Hi Krill --

You'll lose a 1.3% combat result (one of your triremes sunk a galleon on defense) if we reload for Gavagai.

I've also mismoved one unit, which I noticed right afterwards and I'd rather rectify as well. It's about a defensive terrain bonus.

In the event of a reload, I'll offer you to replay the turn exactly, including my movement mistake, although I'd obviously prefer not to repeat it deliberately, but I also see why that would be fair to you.

The alternative is for the unit to move as I'd prefer, which would not reveal new information or evade the range of any of your units (at least not those we've seen).

Cheers,
Coeur

I'd prefer him to choose whether he wants the ocean mistake / trireme of steel combat result to remain. There's no spoiler information in here, he could see both the combat result and mismoved unit immediately by logging in.

[Old Harry]

Hey, just had a chat with Krill - he suggests a reload, you get to change your mistaken move but instead of fighting the Trireme and winning you delete the Galleon instead. He misses out on some XP, but otherwise it's status quo.

If you're happy with that then I'll reload asap.

[Coeurva]

I'm fine with that. In fact, that's more generous than if Krill had allowed us to reroll the empty galleon's combat, while we had to leave the loaded galleon on the ocean tile where it was.

EDIT: We'll still sink both of his triremes, so if the first galleon wins this time, I'll delete it after the second one wins. It would be funny if I deleted the first one and then the second one rolled three hits again, but admittedly not for me.

I can't play tonight and possibly not until tomorrow evening, sorry.

[Coeurva]

Well, I replayed the turn rather listlessly at midnight and forgot to whip the galleon in Sphinx. (I did delete the second galleon after winning, as per Krill's request.) Now I'm suddenly wide awake before sunrise, and oddly engaged to puzzle out how to recover from this mistake (we needed it to ferry three siege units) while also getting a missionary and longbows into Emerald Isle, as well as bracing Ignis for impact, while also building cothons at those same cities -- while everything about our aggressively mediocre empire seems to sink into stagnation. This is like a groggy shipbuilder witnessing his first finished work hitting an iceberg on her maiden voyage and impulsively developing a joyous fascination with textbook problems of fluid dynamics. Alternatively, I'm actually role-playing Pseudo-Prussia and cannot escape my fate of claiming a place in the sun ™, forever.

But that's boring. Concrete details:

* We have ~15 active workshops benefitting from Guilds (before modifiers; for instance, three of those are located at Vermin).
* I wonder how much we should invest into espionage -- both in the short and long term. Tied into that, what's a sensible conversion of EP to gpt to assess whether courthouses are more efficient than wealth builds (with OrgRel, we're certainly approaching that point)?
* I wonder whether I should have been working much more 202 coast rather than whipping it off so often.
* I wonder whether we shot slot in Drama at some point (Music is too expensive beaker-wise, unless we pursue a cultural victory) to try and regain cultural control of the fish at Boneless Foals from Joey. (Fountain Head hasn't been an issue.) In general, I think we need to go Printing Press -> Replaceable Parts as soon as possible to recover our economy (should have ~20 villages/towns by the time we reach the tech; even more mines, I think we have about 30-40 but should count next turn), but this would prevent us from pursuing frigates at Chemistry for a while yet.
* Observatories will remain ornamental unless we can generate much more gold, because we can barely get to 100% sci every 4t (maybe 3t if we built wealth everywhere, but that's not an option while at war). Banking before Engineering surely leaves us without castles if Savant decides to come back early with knights, though, and JR4 could cancel the stone deal any time (although Donovan will settle on stone next turn, so that's a backup plan -- or we ask Savant )
* Should we build (non-EXP) markets and run merchants? I'm rather apprehensive about how inefficient these seem to be versus building wealth from mines with a forge, and in case we do pursue culture, we don't want to pollute GPP pools.
* Castles have double synergy with a terrible economy and attacking all your neighbours. Not only will we get +1 trade route again (with cothons in nearly all cities) and require walls everywhere anyway, we'll also be nowhere near the first to Economics. All according to plan!
* There's still an island close to Joey that nobody has claimed, west of Chastity's Ark. It would cost ~10gpt in maintenance, work a 5f banana and a plains horse. Settle?

More later, maybe. It's better than if I rambled on about some basic applications of foldr or whatever I else manage not to forget in a day.

[chumchu]

Lurking on.

I would value espionage at significantly below wealth since there are no active spy missions and a lot intelligence can be gathered by other means. As long as you have graphs on your neighbors you are ok I think. Courthouses are more about upkeep costs, with the EP being 10% to 20% of the benefit. If your current upkeep costs are 10 then a courthouses should pay itself back in roughly 15 turns (if you have OR).

The main thing though is what your empire needs the most, is it more hammers for military or wealth for teching? If it is the latter then build economy. As pure eco courthouses should be better than observatories and castles in your situation. With wealth slider at 75% markets and especially banks are good in high wealth cities. Running merchants without representation is really bad, better to work coast. Or do you mean in conjunction with mercantilism?

[OT4E]

Chumchu, I think you underestimate effect of EP leadership. At some point it gives you city visibility and if you neglect your own espionage you will most likely reveal everything to your enemies or it will cost them just 100-150 gold to get info they need. All people one day start having military but what is exactly and where is it worth a lot to know.

[Coeurva]

Disregarding EP, courthouses bring in about 4gpt for 120h, while castles with cothons bring in 5-6cpt and are sped up by stone, although, in our situation, gpt are probably more important than bpt, as our main problem is that our break-even research is too low. Banks would be best, but the hammers saved by castles (less need for garrisons) can be put into economy buildings, providing a stealth benefit that's harder to quantify.

Except, EP are the catch. Joey has research vision on us, and we don't have his graphs; same for Mongolia. These are the two people I'd like to stay at peace with, but there's no telling for us what kind of force we need to provide a disincentive to them planning war against us. Fortunately, dtay doesn't have courthouses yet, either. Savant has a few but doesn't invest against us.

Problem is that we require military against three of our neighbours, possibly four of them (if JR4 is planning war).

T148

We've taken Mandrake. Lost all three catapults (as expected) and two swords (nearly all battles after the siege had 73% odds), but our surviving units are barely injured. Krill also rammed a trireme into our southernmost galleon, which survived at 3.5 str, and moved the other trireme eastward to cover two galleys within range of our 6-movers. I didn't attack those, though -- it makes no sense to expose injured galleons to possible 30%-odds counterattacks, we can't do anything without these ships.

Krill is forced to split his defenders between Bracken and Foxglove against an attack on T151 (with siege) / T150 (if we don't wait for siege -- I think we should wait in this case, though). I'm hesitant to try anything else (like moving to raze Hemlock) but we can certainly try that. A galleon from Maud will arrive at Mandrake next turn, packing 2 cats, 1 treb (all double-promotable).

Suggestions for movement?

EDIT: The sign for Mandrake isn't accurate. That's what Krill had inside the city some 4t ago. The other signs are truthful.

F1. The invisible cities are building granaries or walls.

The galleon in Styx overflows 30h before all modifiers into Moai, which will be reinforced by spreading Confu to this city next turn (hopefully; screw that Buddhism spread). The galleon in Gyve gets 2-pop whipped (regrow onto 150 iron mine) on T149.



Demographics. Capturing Mandrake pushed Krill off #4 Crop Yield. GNP is embarrassing.

Problems: Savant has Compass (starting to build harbours) and our defenses are still light; he's acquired a Great Engineer on this turn. dtay has siege in Cuckhokia, five catapults (most of them injured, but the Medic III knight will fix that). I've sent one catapult southward to compensate a bit. The plan for Spire continues to be a constant 2-whipping of units whenever it hits the tail of its size7 food bar; if we ever switch out of HR, that city will be burnt out.

100% sci makes us lose 400gpt. I'm not sure where to slot in wealth / economy builds more than what's happening right now, though.

We'll use OrgRel and forges to get courthouses -> castles -> banks up in the west and center/north. It's taken too long but I think we can still fix it.

[Bacchus]

I say that for now we reinforce Mandrake with lbows/xbows, and build up a bit more of a fleet. Mandrake is beautifully positioned to kill any counter-advances by Krill, and force him to keep both the army and the fleet split. Overtime, I would use 6-movers to unload an army next to Bracken, enjoying the fact that 6-movers can unload units and return to port on the same turn, without remaining in open sea.

Buildwise -- more galleons, more lbows for now, and maybe Sicil can switch to building Wealth. I do think we need courthouses everywhere now, espionage points are worth a lot when we are this far back. When we are making ~0.75 EP compared to the leader, we are ok.

I prefer Castles over Markets. But also, Banks. Maybe Banking before Engi? But we also need to switch out of OrgRel after courthouses finish.

[Coeurva]

Indeed it's possible that Krill is trying to bait us: whipping lbows at his visible front cities to prevent amphibious strikes, while all the whips we can't observe are not lbows/xbows and such, but galleons, and he's gathering them at some point probably close to Hemlock.

On the other hand, I'm content with acquiring Bracken and Foxglove and signing peace afterwards. Once these two are secure, we can slot in two more cities on this sea and should be able to match his production afterwards, having forced a fairer split of the land and time to grow our recent acquisitions since Chehalis. As it is, Krill simply has too many and established size10+ ports in the region compared to us, and I think playing too defensively against him would only put us further behind.

There are ample possibilities for 3-forking and/or feinting right now -- for instance, splitting our galley/trireme stack into two halves and sending one half towards Bracken, the other towards Foxglove. Don't even have to be loaded, just make Krill aware that we're aware of being able to fork him.

There's also Gavagai having whipped eight cities on his turn, and his power climbing (should be close to 700,000). Could be knights destined for Krill, who is a softer target than million castles dude right now, all considered, and the shrine is quite close to Gavagai's borders.

I'm assuming that a T151 attack is slow enough that, if Krill has set a trap, he'll get uneasy the same way that I'm worrying about his production capacity. We also have the sentry chariot (and sentry Numid) on Mandrake island to keep watch of possible 5-move galleons.

I think Sicil can't switch to wealth, unfortunately, because Savant had a few trebuchets inside Sorpigal last we checked; we need some counter-siege for Ignis, which itself must build galleons.

Disagree that we should ditch OrgRel; it only costs 18 gpt compared to Paganism. When you consider that the civic we really want to have is Theocracy (medium upkeep) for 4XP CHM ships, the high maintenance cost isn't all that much of a drawback. We also lack infrastructure and will shortly unlock a few more economic buildings. OrgRel + forge + stone makes castles really cheap, after which it should already be paying back. Banks cost 200h; there's no way we can build those without boosted whips. Once we can grab these buildings, our lack of pop will not be as much of an issue, since most cities cap out on 202 coast tiles or plains workshops; working three of those is worse than, say, 3-whipping them off for a market, and markets aren't all that great.

Galleons, lbows seem good. In the south, since Vermin can now build 2 knights every 3t and we'll have enough siege in reserve to take two more Krillian cities, I think our goal should shift to a defense in depth: stuff Spire full of lbows/siege (plus castle) to make any attempt to take the city very costly for dtay, and keep a knight stack in reserve north of the city to counter-strike, or to load up onto galleons suddenly.

I think Engi before Banking is better because of the cheap extra cothon-boosted trade routes, and +1 road movement cuts reinforcement times for Ignis from the surrounding cities by 1t. We can grow a bit building the castles, and whip it off for banks afterwards. Banking -> Engi would easily be my choice if we had SPI, though -- one free merchant per city would mean 66 gpt.

Roger on courthouses. To be fair, Joey is in a Golden Age and everyone else has crashed considerably in the GNP graphs as well (Savant's GNP, for instance, is almost the same as ours, but then Savant's position isn't really the best, either), while dtay's 30 cities and Colossus coast distort the food score (iirc we're just behind Gavagai). Joey unfortunately puts out ~40 EP/t (not into us, but he could), so we need about 15 courthouses by your suggested target.

[Bacchus]

Also, Castles give +25% EP!