Cheater Hater's PBEM58 Thread (with a surprise post lead!)

[Cheater Hater]

T30 Report and C&D:
I'm tired today, so not that much in the report section, just the usual:






So B4ndit was building a settler in the capital--I wish him well on founding his second city
Seriously, if we assume the warrior in the east is going to guard that settler (admittedly not a safe assumption, considering the lack of guard in his last city), and assume that he can see my axe,


I believe he can see my axe, since it's on a hill and 2 tiles away from his borders--is that right?
that only gives him 3 turns to do something about my axe. I checked, and he is not in Slavery yet, so if he is going to whip something that takes a turn off his reaction time. I also don't see a connection that gives him copper in Edirne, so the play of "revolt to Slavery and whip an axe" is off the table. We also haven't seen a tech-related power increase, which rules out Archery as an out (even he got Hunting this turn and somehow got Archery right after, he still can't build the archer without whipping it and eating the anarchy turn--can you 1-pop whip an archer first turn even including the whip penalty?). I feel like the worst case we'll see is 3 warriors: the one we saw wandering around earlier, one he was naturally building right after, and one he dry-whipped. I don't know what I'd do in that case to be honest--remember B4ndit probably (will? I should calculate that) will have 40% culture defense in Edirne thanks to the Hindu culture, which means even though I'll still be able to get through one or two warriors easily (because axes are so much more powerful, as discussed above), three might be too much, even ignoring B4ndit probably would have the foresight to build an axe and shuttle it over to Edirne--or worse, try to take my new city.

On a related note of the culture, I think I'm going to have to actually declare next turn, or risk Edirne expanding borders and engulfing my axe, delaying my attack a crucial turn.

Now onto C&D--first we'll check in on B4ndit's espionage numbers:


That seems like a lot of production in Edirne, more than a simple worker--I don't know the exact numbers (I said I wouldn't focus on it, but the formula would be helpful here ), but since it appears there's only 2 hammers in Edirne (the city square and the oasis), it's a lot more than one turn's worth (an single turn's worth of production in eastway's capital was only 86 points, and that would have had only 3 hammers at that point, though I think he was building a worker at that point, so the food would have been added--that points to a worker being built in Edirne as well )

Now on to normal demo stuff:


Score increases! B4ndit, AT, and Twinkletoes all researched techs on this turn, and that will help lead to the massive 8k total soldier increase. To help with deciphering that, we have B4ndit's graphs, fresh:


It appears B4ndit researched a 2k tech (compare the first increase--Mining--with this turn's increase), so we have yet another Hunting/AH research. After that, we have an interesting 6k. I would normally say it was 2 techs and a warrior somewhere, but we have another interesting fact--the max solider points is now 25k. AT was our leader, but he couldn't gain just a single point without a pop increase (or a civ-specific building), so it looks like we have someone from the back coming up to the front. Obviously it's not B4ndit, so it's either Twinkletoes or eastway, and Twinkletoes actually researched a tech this turn--I suppose it could have been a Barracks and an Axe, but it looks like it's pointing to Twinkletoes researching Archery!

Thankfully we don't have any pop increases, so I can do what I put off last turn--but not now
I'll just do the standard rankings and confirm what we know--or at least, what we're reasonably certain we know:
Soldier Points:
AT: 24k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting/AH+3 Warriors+4 pop)
eastway: 21k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH/Hunting+Warrior+6 pop)
B4ndit: 22k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting/AH+2 Warriors+4 pop)
Twinkletoes: 25k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+Archery+6 pop)

Score-based:
Base score for everyone (land+wonder-1): 65
Population Points:
AT: 5 population (Capital=4, Second=1?)
B4ndit: 5 population (Istanbul=3, Edirne=2)
Cheater Hater: 4 population (Rome=2, Antium=2)
Twinkletoes: 7 population (Capital=3, Second=?, Third=?)
eastway: 7 population (Annuminas=4, Brithombar=2, Calembel=1)
Techs:
AT: 7 techs (Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Fishing, Pottery?, AH/Hunting, ?, ?)
B4ndit: 8 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Mysticism, Polytheism, Fishing, Priesthood/?, AH/Hunting)
Cheater Hater: 8 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Agriculture, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Animal Husbandry)
Twinkletoes: 9 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, Fishing, Hunting, Archery, ?)
eastway: 9 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Agriculture, Mysticism, Meditation, AH/Hunting, Priesthood?)

[SevenSpirits]

He can see your axe, yes. In the majority of cases sight it symmetrical - your unit can see his borders so his borders can see your unit. Just knowing that is good enough for most circumstances.

Whipping on the first turn is 2/3 efficient, so you can get 13h with one pop whipped. Archers are 16h so it's not possible.

Hammers invested = (Sabotage production cost) / (Support city revolt cost) * 650 / 6


Thanks for the detailed reporting!

[Cheater Hater]

And thank you for the mechanics info in turn

Plugging Edirne's numbers into the formula:

((315/975)*650)/6=35
That confirms that it's not just a hammer unit--it's probably a Worker in that case, just as I thought

[Cheater Hater]

Okay, now there's the excitement in B4ndit's thread, as well as the lurker thread

For all the lurkers bringing the , a quick summary from my side, in case you don't want to read through 40 posts of turn reports and C&D:
(for reference, my southern dotmap)

• After being scared out of settling my second city to the south (city 7 on the dotmap), I decided to plan towards settling my third city at the western plains hill (city 6 on the dotmap), sending an axe along with it since I expected the good land around there to be highly contested by eastway.
  
• Scouting in that direction, I found Edirne, B4ndit's second city, and not only did it have no defenders, my C&D determined B4ndit hadn't even built any military units.
  
• As such, I continued my plan with minor alterations (I changed a scouting warrior to a axe for backup/defending my third city), with the new intention of the original defending axe to be attacking Edirne on T33.
  
• B4ndit has done little to help reinforce Edirne at this point--he has built two warriors (one of which can guard Edirne in time), appears to currently be building a Worker in Edirne, is not in Slavery, and made Edirne the Hindu founding city.
  
• I believe that because Edirne will expand borders either this or next turn, I need to declare war this turn to avoid being knocked away from Edirne and giving B4ndit a crucial extra turn to defend.
  

At this point, unless I see strong evidence that the attack would fail (most notably I see an axe this turn out of the with my scout, or possibly if B4ndit declares war this turn to knock my scout out of his borders), I think I'm committed to the attack--but notably, I don't plan to take anything more than Edirne under any circumstances--I only have 2 axes in the area right now (although I'm building the third right now, and I'm roading such that it gets there a little more quickly--and that road is hooking up horses for chariots if necessary), and I know I can't defend all three cities (my third city, the captured Edirne, and Antium, which is surprisingly close to B4ndit's western border) and try to attack the capital at the same time. Other than that, enjoy the fireworks!

[Cheater Hater]

T31 Report:


I thought about just leaving you with that picture for a report, but you want more--you need to make sure that B4ndit is the green line of course

Honestly, as far as turns before war is declared, it's kinda boring
I mean, B4ndit having a flat power graph is good, but that's a false indicator, mainly because of this:


Hooray, you get two whips: a warrior out of Edirne and an axe out of Istanbul, though that axe isn't coming for a bit (since Istanbul is size 3, you can't 2-pop whip it for a turn or two). Maybe you actually stand a chance--T33 I'll kill the first warrior, and then I'll see what happens--actually I should sim out this attack (axe vs 2 warriors, one fully fortified), and see what shape the axe is in, and assuming I win both battles, if the promotion (to Combat 1) will leave it in good enough health to defend the city if the axe comes 1/2/3+ turns later.

Of course, the key is that I don't have to declare war this turn, like I thought I would--the borders won't expand until end of T33, which not only means I'm not getting kicked out, the fight against the fully fortified warrior will only be against 20% culture defense! I always like it when I'm overestimating the resistance I'm facing

Now to the boring stuff:






Okay, maybe the last one wasn't so boring
Settler is currently under my backup axe, and will settle the same turn I start my attack. At Antium, I'm roading the hill instead of doing my second chop, with the plan being to 1-pop whip the library as soon as I can, then start working the scientist immediately. Depending on when the whip actually happens (I know it's soon, but I haven't calculated when), I'll probably road the pigs, pasturing them as soon as the borders expand. At the capital the road to the horses (and to B4ndit) continues, and obviously the axe crusade continues. One thing that's worrisome on the war front is that B4ndit is getting ready to hook up horses--he won't have them for a while (2 turn road, 4? turn pasture, 2+ turn build in Istanbul, 2 turn move) and I want to get peace right after I take Edirne (I'm offering straight peace every turn after I take the city, in addition to a hopeful "peace for the city" next turn), but it certainly means I want to research Hunting soon, if not taking a detour there right now.

In an effort to not kill the bandwidth of people with a million pictures (I took 10 pictures for this turn, even if I'm not posting all of them), even this short turn gets a separate C&D post

[Cheater Hater]

T31 C&D:
To start with, there's a lot of movement on the top cities today:


Not only is AT's 5 pop capital a new high, we see another whip from eastway--a 2-pop whip this time. Now to the demos and score talk:


To start with, all the score changes:

• eastway has gone down 14 point, the 2 pop points he whipped away
  
• AT has gone up 21 points, 3 pop points of increase--obviously the capital grew, but both his second city grew and he founded his third city
  
• Twinkletoes went up 7 points, a pop increase not in the capital--you know what, I don't care exactly which of Twinkletoes' cities grew until I actually see him--if you want to join me as a dedlurker and calculate those population numbers, feel free--I have all my demos screens in the thread and/or in Dropbox, and I showed you how to do it, but I just don't feel like it's worth the effort
  

As for soldiers, you saw the graph earlier, which helps confirm that even though the total increase was 1k, it came from a 2k increase by AT and a 1k decrease by eastway.

Next, we have a bit of espionage to share:


Both Istanbul and Edirne have no hammers in them right now, a sign of a changed build combined with the anarchy--there's no way to sabotage the production of something not currently being produced, I'm assuming?

Now on to the Soldier, Population, and Tech rankings--that needs a better name, since SPT isn't catchy enough--eh, it works
Soldier Points:
AT: 26k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting/AH+3 Warriors+8 pop)
eastway: 20k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH/Hunting+Warrior+4 pop)
B4ndit: 22k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting/AH+2 Warriors+4 pop)
Twinkletoes: 25k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+Archery+6 pop)

Score-based:
Base score for everyone (land+wonder-1): 65
Population Points:
AT: 8 population (Capital=5, Second=2, Third=1)
B4ndit: 5 population (Istanbul=3, Edirne=2)
Cheater Hater: 6 population (Rome=2, Antium=2)
Twinkletoes: 7 population (Capital=3, Second=?, Third=?)
eastway: 5 population (Annuminas=2, Brithombar=2, Calembel=1)
Techs:
AT: 7 techs (Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Fishing, Pottery?, AH/Hunting, ?, ?)
B4ndit: 8 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Mysticism, Polytheism, Fishing, Priesthood/?, AH/Hunting)
Cheater Hater: 8 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Agriculture, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Animal Husbandry)
Twinkletoes: 9 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, Fishing, Hunting, Archery, ?)
eastway: 9 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Agriculture, Mysticism, Meditation, AH/Hunting, Priesthood?)

Okay, something's wrong with Twinkletoes's population--according to my score increases Twinkletoes should be at 8, but my power rankings say it can't be 8--math double-check!
168-65-(9*6)=49, 49/7=7
Okay, I must have added an extra point somewhere--Twinkletoes is still at 7 pop, crisis averted

One thing I need to remember is that in around 10 or so turns I'm going to need to add individualized Land points, since each civ is founding their second cities at different times, and the borders are expanding at even more different times--and then I'm going to have to go back through my demo rankings to figure out how many tiles the other cities have--hopefully I won't have too much of a problem with that, or maybe I'll actually find Twinkletoes, AT, and the rest of eastway's city by the time it's relevant --nah, that will never happen

One more before I go: thanks for all the commotion in the lurker thread. I know you can't say anything to me regarding the war until I get results (and not that much even then), but I'm sure I'll have a lot to read in many months time--and hopefully not in two weeks because this plan horribly backfired and I lose my capital or something

[Old Harry]

[Cheater Hater]

T32 Report:
It's time for the decisive turn, and it looks like everyone's showing up to watch the fireworks!




Yes, I met Twinkletoes and AT on the same turn--both are at 3 cities as I C&D'd, and they both have naming schemes

And yeah, there's the whip as expected. Since I still have open borders with B4ndit, I might as well use my scout to see if I'm facing only the warrior they whipped, or if the wandering warrior made its way back in time:


Really? Your loss I guess...


Okay, so at least he has a miniscule shot at keeping the city, I guess? He can't whip in Edirne now, he can't get anything from the capital in time, and his power graph shows no movement, so I'll only have to face one unfortified warrior at most. I did send the offer of peace for the city to:

• Be nice--he would have to stop sandboxing to build a defender in Istanbul if we continue war, and we can't have that!
  
• Avoid tanking my game on a bad RNG roll--is there a good combat simulator somewhere, or do I have to sandbox it myself?
  
• Avoid city revolt--is there a way to calculate how many turns a city will be in anarchy? I know it's based on size and stuff, but I don't know the exact formula.
  
• Avoid getting counterattacked in five turns by chariots somehow--I did forget to switch to Hunting this turn btw, I need to do that soon, especially if I don't get peace.
  
• Be able to keep my axe I just built in Rome to stop AT from trying anything funny--seriously, I'm more scared of AT's scouting warrior than all of B4ndit right now, and it's probably going to make my worker go inland instead of immediately roading the pigs (that, and I still can't 1-pop whip the library).
  

Seriously, seeing no resistance what so ever from B4ndit is making me wonder if I'm making the right move by taking Edirne. I know my tech rate is going to slow to a crawl, but I'm going to run 1 (soon 2) scientists in Antium to help that, Edirne has two 4 commerce tiles immediately, and the city I'm founding next turn can work a lot of coast. That should hold me over until I can get more cottages in Rome and Edirne

C&D coming a bit later than normal--I still getting over the shock that B4ndit isn't even trying to keep Edirne (though in retrospect, it probably was lost as soon as he saw my axe, so whipping the worker isn't that bad a play--he just got unlucky since I was already sending the axe down there )

[Cheater Hater]

T32 C&D:
While the lurker thread explodes, I'll do some number crunching--but first, I'll show the top cities now that we've met everyone:


I also know all the cities of both Twinkletoes and AT:
The order assumes cities are listed in order of their founding in the diplo screen, is this a correct assumption?

• Twinkletoes: King's Landing, Winterfell, Casterly Rock
  
• AT: Ozymandias, Say My Name, Felina
  

Next, we have demos and score stuff:


Lots of score changes here:

• B4ndit went down 7 points from his whip--he's going down some more next turn
  
• Twinkletoes went up 14 points from both Winterfell and Casterly Rock growing
  
• eastway went up 7 points from a city other than his capital growing
  
• AT went up 6 points from a tech
  

Now to soldiers--6k total increase, Min increase to 21k, Max up to 30k. Not that cryptic to start--1k from eastway's pop increase, 1k from Twinkletoes's pop increase--but AT got a 4k increase, and there's no 4k techs left--4k could either be 2 warriors, Hunting/AH and a warrior, a spear, or a chariot--I'm going to assume it's either the spear or the chariot, but I'm not sure at all--I'll keep tabs on it

Time for the SPT rankings--when I have to keep track of land points it will become the SPLT rankings (pronounced "spilt") and it becomes much better--just ignore that wonders exist
Soldier Points:
AT: 30k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting/AH+3 Warriors+Spear/Chariot/?+8 pop)
eastway: 21k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH/Hunting+Warrior+6 pop)
B4ndit: 22k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+2 Warriors+4 pop)
Twinkletoes: 26k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+Archery+8 pop)

Score-based:
Base score for everyone (land+wonder-1): 65
Population Points:
AT: 8 population (Capital=5, Second=2, Third=1)
B4ndit: 4 population (Istanbul=3, Edirne=1)
Cheater Hater: 6 population (Rome=3, Antium=3)
Twinkletoes: 9 population (Capital=3, Second=?, Third=?)
eastway: 6 population (Annuminas=2, Brithombar=2?, Calembel=1?)
Techs:
AT: 10 techs (Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Fishing, Pottery?, AH/Hunting, ?, ?, ?)
B4ndit: 8 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Mysticism, Polytheism, Fishing, Priesthood/?, Animal Husbandry?)
Cheater Hater: 8 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Agriculture, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Animal Husbandry)
Twinkletoes: 9 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, Fishing, Hunting, Archery, ?)
eastway: 9 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Agriculture, Mysticism, Meditation, AH/Hunting, Priesthood?)

I also need a naming scheme soon, so I can stop referring to cities by the dotmap--I have an idea, I just need to make sure that I have enough candidates

[Cheater Hater]

T33 Report and C&D:
Okay, it's the big day! Time to finally see if my C&D pays off, time to attack the city and...he accepted my peace deal and gave me Edirne. Maybe I shouldn't have hyped it so much

Either way, we now have a new city in a really good position (though it being one tile off the coast means it's not perfect ), and I also founded my next city on the plains hill, just as planned. Considering the war is over (and I don't have that really good plans for after the war), it's time for some overview shots, as well as a discussion of where we're headed--just a warning though, this update is heavy on text, but not so much on graphics, since not much happened other than the city transfer, and I don't have new scout moves focusing on the war effort anymore:




So, obviously the biggest problem is that my economy is in shambles after gaining two cities on the same turn, although it could be a lot worse obviously. The 30% break-even should improve soon once I start building cottages all over, but it will take a short-term turn for the worse in a turn or two when I whip my capital yet again--of course by that turn I better have scientists to help prop up the tech rate. Anyway, enough rambling, on to plans for each of the cities:
Also, in case you didn't notice, I finally have non-default names for my cities! Bonus internet points for whomever figures out the reference

• Caldisla (Rome): The granary is just for a turn to grow to size 4; next turn I'm swapping to a worker, and then I'll whip that worker to start cottaging around the capital, hopefully not going into strike for the couple turns I'm not working the gems. After the worker, I'll slow-build the granary, then possibly build a chariot or two for scouting/defense. The other option after the granary is to chop out a library to help out my tech rate if I think I don't need the defense and/or can wait until I hook up easily-accessible iron for Praets.
  
• Norende (Antium): I better be able to whip that library next turn--my worker's running out of roads to build
  To be honest, though, I might not improve the pigs even if my borders had popped because of AT's warrior--I really can't afford to lose a worker right now. After the library I think I'll be slow-building/chopping a granary while working the scientists for the early Academy for Caldisla.
  
• Lontano Villa (Cumae/City 6): I'll build a worker here, then start improving the tiles, getting cottages and pasturing the sheep, as well as hopefully getting a Hindu spread to not have to worry about popping my borders--between the extremely likely Hindu spread as well as Yulyana Desert getting an early third ring, I shouldn't have to worry about running out of tiles to improve anytime soon.
  
• Yulyana Desert (Edirne): I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here--I'll build the granary until Size 2 at least (since I need that hamlet to stay solvent when I whip the gems tile), then probably build a worker to cottage more tiles/mine the gold.
  
• Tech Path: Obviously I want to finish Iron Working to figure out where the iron is so I can plan a possible attack of opportunity of someone with Praets (probably eastway, if he tries to settle my City 9 without adequate defenses ), then I'll need to backfill to Hunting. After that, I'm not sure where I want to go--I guess the "defaults" are Monarchy for Hereditary Rule to grow my cities, Metal Casting for Forges to improve my production, and Currency to make my economy solvent with trade routes, Markets, and gold builds. I think I want to go for Currency (through Mathematics obviously), mainly because I want Forums everywhere to push my Philosophical Great Person advantage. After that, if the Pyramids haven't fallen (considering that's probably in 20-30 turns at least, that seems optimistic), I could backfill Masonry and try to really make my specialist economy crazy, but that's looking way too far ahead considering I'm at 30% tech rate
  

Now onto C&D--not much other than the demos this turn (only other new thing is that B4ndit's new city is named Ankara), so let's see them!


Only one score change today--Twinkletoes is up 13 points from a pop increase (not the capital) and a tech. Now to soldiers--3k increase by AT, pointing to--a barracks? But wait--Twinkletoes is up to 10 pop and should get a power increase, but the max being 33k means AT got all 3k. Double-checking my work, apparently I can't do math, since Twinkletoes went down 14 points last turn, not up 14 points, so Twinkletoes is at 8 pop now, not 10--now everything makes sense, except how I didn't completely screw up last turn's power rankings

Time for the SPLT rankings--let's not completely screw them up this time
(though to be honest, I'm half asleep right now, so I need to check these sometime--I don't trust them, especially after the last problem)
Soldier Points:
AT: 33k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting/AH+3 Warriors+Spear/Chariot/?+Barracks+8 pop)
eastway: 21k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH/Hunting+Warrior+6 pop)
B4ndit: 22k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+2 Warriors+4 pop)
Twinkletoes: 26k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+Archery+8 pop)

Score-based:
Base score for everyone (land+wonder-1): 65
Population Points:
AT: 8 population (Capital=5, Second=2, Third=1)
B4ndit: 4 population (Istanbul=3, Ankara=1)
Cheater Hater: 6 population (Rome=3, Antium=3)
Twinkletoes: 8 population (Capital=3, Second=?, Third=?)
eastway: 6 population (Annuminas=2, Brithombar=2?, Calembel=1?)
Techs:
AT: 10 techs (Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Fishing, Pottery?, AH/Hunting, ?, ?, ?)
B4ndit: 8 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Mysticism, Polytheism, Fishing, Priesthood/?, Animal Husbandry?)
Cheater Hater: 8 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Agriculture, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Animal Husbandry)
Twinkletoes: 10 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, Fishing, Hunting, Archery, ?, ?)
eastway: 9 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Agriculture, Mysticism, Meditation, AH/Hunting, Priesthood?)