[SPOILERS] - scooter's thread

[scooter]

Got an absolute bomb of an email from Serdoa. He's hardcore about KO'ing Dazed . I've been trying to figure out how to respond to this for like half an hour. I think I'm on board with the idea, but... it's just one of those messages that leaves you at a loss as to how to respond. Here ya go. It's long. Very long...

scooter,

I thought about tilted axis when I read your last email, but as I have never played it, I was not sure. I am looking at an old screenshot and it seems you are right. That would be great, because then expansion is a little bit more feasible.

Btw: By my rough estimate our continent (without the isles as I have no clue how big they are) will only be a little bit over 1/4 of the total land mass available.I first thought we have exactly 1500 land tiles, but after the first border pop it appeared to be more like 148x tiles. And if I am not mistaken, our continent should have around 400. Anyway, there is enough land for us both I guess - we only need to take it

But anyhow, on with answering your email. I had also plans pushing overseas soon, so I can fully understand you. The reason I want to get Dazed out of our way is that we do not need to fear him going to war when we push out quickly and start to rack up score points. And I am pretty sure that we will do that as it seems that we both have civs and leaders which are suited for a fast expansion.

The other thing is that I can tell you right now that you have copper under your cap - because I have it there .

For the war plan itself. It all depends a little bit on what he is doing. Do you have espionage points on him? That could help to determine what he is building in his cap. I try to get myself again going with the demos, so I know what he might have as defences. Anyhow, the plan would be to either

1a) push my settler out before his gets to the site south of me (and I am pretty sure I can do that with Imp), secure it with an Axe or two and depending if we can get knowledge about his builds wait with all that till his settler is near enough to take it away from him before he can settle (yeah, I need ~43 hammers for a settler and 30 for a worker - it really does not make that big a difference for me if I get his city or not)

1b) push my settler out, but settle southwest of my cap, building up axes and kill his city (but I would rather do plan a honestly, because I will not have to start a bloodbath if he has an archer or two and not letting him build the city will make the remaining part of the war much easier)

After that I would try to start discussions with him so that he hopefully does not build units all the time till we do the 2nd push.

2) In the meantime, you settle to his north, basically giving him only breathing room on his island or to the west

I would think that all of that will happen till turn 25 latest, what do you think?

3) At around turn 30 (again, we need to get more knowledge about what he is researching and building) I go with 5+ axes and if he has AH with some spears, and you with either axes, spears or chariots (I do not want to push AH as it seems there are no resources for it on our landmass). If we both bring 5-7 units, we should have enough to kill his cap.

Depending on what he does, it might be better to have 10 each. That will cost us some pop by whipping and maybe some forests but I think it is a good deal for having more room and one less opponent to think and worry about. Oh and we will need the axes for our big expansion push after that anyway for barbarian reasons Well and by my calculations I will be able to push 1 axe per 2 turns at turn 20-25 without issues with still 7 food more then I need (5 pop). That should be the same for you. So turn 35 and 7 axes seems doable for me right now. Sure, we stunt our early expansion with that, but that is the reason for NAPs and settling rights with your other neighbour right?

If all goes according to plan, we should be finished by turn 40 and be able to push out expansion then. But as I said, that is all a rough plan, without me calculating exactly the time needed to grow, possible overflow, research and so on. Really, the only thing I am worried is that he would start to produce soldiers already at turn 20 if I can kill his settler. But that is something we have to see then. Still, we should have at least double his forces, probably a little bit more.

You see, that plan will need to be finetuned really and the first thing is to get espionage points on him and city visibility to track his builds and find out what he is researching. Well, and getting your ideas because that is really rough and dirty done and there are probably some things to be done better.

For your last question: Whatever we do, I do not think that we need a NAP or something like that. If we work together on something like that we should trust each other enough to not get issues until we are the last ones in the game. So really, I would hope that we work also afterwards together - for example, you will stunt your expansion for that as will I. But I can produce settlers faster then you. On the other hand, you have a religion. I am sure there are possibilities. Also when it comes to expand to the islands or terra-like continent. There are only two others which can expand there when Dazed is gone and if we work together, we should have it easier there as well. Some months till then, but still, we DO have some good reasons to work together even after that war.

Ok, enough from me for now, I think that email got rather long anyway.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

PS: I forgot to ask you about dividing the land of Dazed. Well, not really forget, I do not like to talk about those things before we have won the war, but anyway I guess it should be done before so: we agree that north of you is yours, south of me is mine. Regarding the 5 tiles where his cap is - well, one will get the cap and the other one a city west of it - agreed? We also might think about that the one who is getting the cap (as I attack after you I might have higher chances for that if we do plan 1a) gives the other one something in return as he will be at 3 cities and the other one only at two. Maybe a settler or the gold which we get for taking the city. I do not mind really. I want to get that land free for us, not discuss if one of us invested a hammer more or less then the other but I do not want to get to a point where one of us has hard feelings because he feels he got the short end.

Oh boy. Anyone want to write up a response for me?

[scooter]

The attack is on. Dazed is going down. I sent Serdoa a brief acknowledgment last night that let him know I was on board with his plan, but I didn't give him a full response quiet yet. He sent another brief message back, but I'll skip that stuff unless you're interested. Here's the response I sent:

Serdoa,

Okay I'll take a look at that when the turn gets back to me tonight. First, some info on Dazed:

-His first city will likely go to the port city between you and him, grabbing the 2-fish coastal city that everyone seems to have in between them.
-His second city will likely go towards me just to my northwest, on a site that I ceded him in return for getting the coastal site from him.

Ideally we could hit him EARLY - before he gets to three cities... You may be able to easily raze the city that gets founded towards you, and if I'm quick about it, I could get to his capital before it gets heavily defended. IF you take the coastal spot between you and him, then he may very well gear up for war to take the spot (or send units at me for all I know). At least I think so - he seems to value the spots as much as I do.

As for dividing up his land, I actually would like to request that I keep the capital, and yes I'll explain why . I agree with your theory about the vast majority of the land being OFF of our strip, and if my Tilted axis theory is accurate (I feel very strongly about it because of the trees), then all of it will be off of the east coast that we are on right now. This means that ports on this east coast are VERY valuable... If I get to hang on to the capital, then we should have 3 ports apiece... Here's my breakdown:

-The port to my south will be claimed by SleepingMoogle. He wants it a lot - probably enough to race for it, so I cut a deal with him.
-My capital obviously is the first port for me
-The city between me and Dazed would be the second port for me
-Dazed's capital will be my third

And yours:
-Your capital will be your first port
-I believe you said you negotiated with Twinkletoes to get a city between yourself and him? If so, that would be your 2nd port
-The city between yourself and Dazed would be your third port

So with that, we would both have 3 coastal ports and we would likely be the only players with 3 ports, so we would have a huge advantage over everyone else... I would happily give you a bit extra of the land to Dazed's capital's west to make up for the fact that I'm getting a capital. I hope asking for his capital isn't too much to ask - I think we can come to a fair conclusion here.


Very interesting that copper is under our capitals... It makes sense. I am researching Bronze Working now, and it will complete soon after my settler finishes. I'm considering going straight to axes right after my settler finishes... I'd revolt to slavery real quick, and then go full-hog on axes. I already built a work boat, so with irrigated corn + netted fish, I have a high food surplus so I can whip like mad, even without a Granary (for the early stages at least). I've got to get back to work now, but I'll give the actual attack planning some more thought, and hopefully have more to say later when I send the EP information.

Thanks!
scooter

Now I just have to be paranoid about Dazed and SleepingMoogle doing the same thing to me. Wouldn't that be something...

[scooter]

So the mine finished on the hill, so I did a fairly minor tile adjustment:



1/3/1 tile over a 2/2/0 tile while building a settler... Breaks even on food + hammers, but gives me an extra beaker towards Bronze Working which speeds it up by a turn. Which snowballs ever so slightly because Serdoa told me that all of us have founded on copper, which means my center tile will turn into a THREE hammer tile.

I forgot to mention that here when I posted Serdoa's email - I was so caught up in all the war planning talk to note here that I'll have copper under my cap. So next build after the settler will, in all likelihood, be an axe. During the one turn difference between finishing the settler and getting copper, I'll start a warrior and the hammers will turn into axe hammers. Wait - I have Quechas and not warriors. It still works that way right?? Quecha's still obsolete once copper is hooked right?

So the copper blows my theory out of the water on no strategic resources on this strip. I still will bet that Krill at least considered it, just out of evilness.

[SevenSpirits]

Warrior hammers get converted into Spear hammers if you have Hunting. If you don't, Warriors are still buildable alongside Axes. I don't know if Quechas are any different.

[scooter]

Ahh, so they never upgrade to axes. Hmm... Not sure what the best decision is then. Maybe I'll stick some hammers into a work boat for one turn, switch to axe, and then let whip overflow finish the work boat and send it to my second city. That might work... That would allow my second city to start whipping much sooner which would pay off for spending hammers on a work boat instead of an axe.

Thanks for clearing that up. Diplo update with Serdoa coming in the next post.

[scooter]

Hi scooter,

I can live with that capital being yours for some land to the west, lets see that when we have won the war, I trust you that we both will find an agreeable solution.

But for your information: I will not have 3 ports. Yes, you are right, the city to my south will have to be my second port but I am as of now unsure how to settle it best for the war efforts (and my settler might be finished turn 17 already if I want, thats why I would like to know what Dazed is building ) but the city between TT and me will not be a port city - it will be one off the coast as of now (though I might think about that again now - but really, that is such a good cottage city if I do not settle it on the coast and I have a deal with TT for that already).

Still, 2 ports for me and 3 for you is doable from my point of view - especially as I understand that we both intend to work together for a longer period of time and then a settler for ship deal comes to mind.

Anyway, I will plan tomorrow my exact plan for the next 10 to 15 turns and will share it with you. If you can also produce very soon troops, we might be able to finish that not even started war within the next 20 turns. I guess we both agree that we have to hold him back to one city if at all possible, right?

One thing scooter: Dazed will maybe tell the other teams that we worked together, so for them, I think it might be best that if we are asked we officially say that we only had the same "idea" and don't tell that we worked together as close as we did. That will probably make our further discussions with other teams easier and also if it gets known that we work together TT and SleepingMoogle will maybe do the same - and we both do not want that.

Serdoa,

Don't worry - I WILL make sure you are adequately compensated with land to the west of the capital. I don't believe in short-changing allies... Assuming our war is successful, we can evaluate where we are after the war and I'm sure we will divide up everything fairly. So here's my plans:

Settler will finish in my capital in 3 turns. Bronze Working will come in 4 turns... So I'll build a Quecha for one turn which will change to an axe right? From there on out it'll be all axes all the time. I'll revolt to slavery real quick, and I'll assemble axes as quickly as possible. I don't like turn-by-turn micro, but for this case I might just do it for the first time. I guess what will really dictate what happens is where he sends his first settler.

Honestly I HOPE Dazed isn't building a settler quite yet but will soon... Once he gets in BW would be the perfect time for us, because that's that much time that he's NOT building axes. Worst case scenario we can put on a nasty choke and finish him later, but I'd like to finish him sooner rather than later.

I completely agree about not broadcasting the fact that we worked together. Try to paint it as more of an opportunistic dogpile - we're both cramped and we both attacked him. We could get really devious and fake a dispute . Meaning we casually mention to the other two players that we weren't happy with the way his land was split.

Oh - nearly forgot. About the EP issue... You have to have city visibility in order for it to work, and I actually don't have visibility on any of his cities. I made a deal with him early that both of us wouldn't come within one tile of each other's borders for the first 20 turns - so that we could both build our workers in peace. So I unfortunately can't help you on that ...

I feel like I"m forgetting something... Oh well. Maybe I'll remember in a bit.

Thanks!
scooter

[Cyneheard]

The Quechua will not change into an axe. Units auto-upgrade if and only if both upgrade paths are available, namely spears and axes. And the auto-upgrade for warriors and Quechua is to spearmen.

[scooter]

Thanks guys. Just sent off a quick note to Serdoa on top of what I wrote above. Wasn't going to post it, but it's sort of a "thinking out loud" kind of email similar to some of my posts here, so I'll post it just so see a little more planning/brainstorming:

Note - I have since been corrected in my thread that the Quecha will NOT be upgraded to an axe. So much for that idea.

Something I'm thinking of though, is we're going to need a lot of axes to take down that capital. It's on a hill so extra defense plus creative cultural defenses. Also, we're on quick speed, so he'll probably be able to whip and end up with like 3 axes from the time we declare war, and that's assuming he doesn't have any others. Is there copper anywhere else on the map that you can see? Or is it only under our capitals? I'm thinking then that the best course of action will be for us to just beeline his capital, and THEN take out his other city if he has one (I'm sure he will by then). That way, we'll eliminate his access to copper permanently. Agree/disagree?

scooter

[scooter]

Oh one more thing. I need a vote for next city name. Any kind of cheese. Any favorites?

[novice]

Great updates. I nominate Jarlsberg, a norwegian cheese whose name means Earl's Hill.