AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[AutomatedTeller]

Jowy planted a new city in a place we don't much like:



Not that it is surprising that he plants there, of course.

I'm going to whip in a missionary - we get a border pop in 5 turns. jowy, being creative, also gets a border pop in 5 turns. No matter who gets the actual control of that tile, we lose it the next turn, since jowy will be throwing more culture into it, thus we need the religion.

I think whipping in a monastery and temple will be useful.

I'm beginning to want the Sistine chapel - border clashes like this just go away with that.

[AutomatedTeller]

A momentous-ish turn.

First, the inter-turn (I was logged in when the turn rolled... which wasn't really that itneresting)



Cornflakes/Qqqq made peace AND have the lighthouse. I am thinking I should close borders with them - the lighthouse is powerful enough as it is. Right now, I'm giving him an extra 9 cpt, which is not small. On the other hand, having the ability to have a scout in his borders to see if he's coming after us is pretty good. I dunno...

We got a free religion spread in Magnum PI

Took a look at Jowy's city



Personally, i think it's in the wrong place - any of the 3 red circles would have been much better for him and put us in a much worse spot. As it is, we can probably keep control of the purple star tile, whipping in a monastery if we need to.

Hopefully, he'll go somewhere else... it's not long till we find out because...



Jowy has HBR. Elephants are coming. I whipped a spear in NYPD Blue - plan will be to get another spear and maybe a dog there and have A-Team, Magnum PI and NCIS switch to cats. it'll have 4 archers, a spear and a dog, plus catapult support.

TT has Aesthetics, too, which sucks cause he'll trade that for everything, thus making construction completely worthless.


Demos are looking sucky:





My actions this turn:

Whipped the spear in NYPD Blue. that overflow will go to either a spear or a dog, I haven't decided.
Whipped in a misisonary in A-team. Overflow will go to an archer, i think.
Whipped in the WB for LA Law - that will flow to alpha to preserve the overlow for a cat.

Chop in CHiPS goes to the granary - will be able to whip that in next turn. Will go for a trireme there - we need one and it's the best place for it, i think.

Chop in SWAT goes to a granary...

[AutomatedTeller]

I'm actually going to change my mind on the chop in SWAT to a granary - I'm going in to change it to an archer.

I'm typing this here just in case, for some reason, cornflakes has declared war on us and dropped 4 axes next to SWAT - I want it clear what I'm doing, so it's not just me reacting...

[MindyMcCready]

I'm actually going to change my mind on the chop in SWAT to a granary - I'm going in to change it to an archer.

I'm typing this here just in case, for some reason, cornflakes has declared war on us and dropped 4 axes next to SWAT - I want it clear what I'm doing, so it's not just me reacting...

That's not going to save you from me assuming that you're reacting. Watch out,....here I go.

I'm totally on board with the SWAT chop. A granary does us no good if its in the hands of Cornflakes.

However,...I am here to officially protest the whipping of NYPD Blue and ATeam. NYPD Blue would grow onto a 2/0/4 tile and A-Team could grow onto a grassland hill, a 1/1/4 riverside hamlet or better yet two 3/0/4 lake tiles.

From what you've posted, I don't think that we have any reason to assume that Jowy's coming any earlier than T120 given his power level. It was pretty clear that Jowy would pursue HBR after Construction, so no surprise there. Its a little surprising that he got there that quick, but that doesn't change our timeline by more than a turn or 2. He's still got expensive units to build and travel time.

But those military whips seem like you've been spooked. Either that, or we have basic disagreement on when its best to whip or not. I've provided my advice to not whip productive tiles in the past. You've never indicated that you think that its incorrect,...however, it appears that you are ignoring it. If you think that I'm wrong about not whipping away productive tiles, please say so.

I'm not surprised that our GNP, Mfg and crop yield are lagging given the whips. I'm also not sure what benefit the Colossus is if we don't work more tiles and I'm bound to point out that we're losing our relative advantage of being financial; and we're losing our relative advantage of being charismatic if we don't have larger cities. If these whips were going into productive infrastructure, or defense of city from imminent danger, or into a settler for strategic reasons, I'd have less to say.

Anyway, a clear statement from you indicating that you don't agree and think that whipping produces more output will stop me from making these kinds of posts. Or alternatively, explain why your spider sense alarm rang and got you spooked all of a sudden. But as of right now we're becoming part of the 2nd tier group despite catching up in cities and having awesome wonders like Stonehenge and Colossus.

Anyway, onto other topics:
1. Azza. He made peace with Cornflakes. I don't suppose Cornflakes lost any cities or anything,... Anyway, I don't understand what his objectives are when he plays. I don't think that he'll ever be anything more than a minor pain in the side of Cornflakes. Essentially, I don't think that he's any kind of reliable ally,...he just seems to do whatever. I don't want to make an enemy of him per say and I'd like to part of a trading block with him, but I also wouldn't hesitate at being opportunistic towards him if its to our benefit since he's probably not going to be a significant player for too long. Guy has, and will likely continue to sideline himself over the course of this game.
2. TT and Commodore. BFF. TT because he borders Jowy. Commodore because he borders Jowy and Cornflakes and because he can boat us from Lake Superior if he sees fit. Now that Cornflakes has landed the GLH, I think that we should signal our friendly intentions to TT and Commodore.
3. Cornflakes. Its a tough call, but we probably need to close borders with him. He's ahead of us by virtually every measure ; he's got a heckuva trajectory on food, overtaken us in mfg and there's no reason that his GNP is anything less than scary now. He's also got no reason not to plant another half dozen cities given most of them can be water based and he appears to have a decent amount of infrastructure to support it.

Pros (to closing borders)
-his GNP will be less awesome.
-A signal to other civs that coordinated action might be beneficial

Cons (to closing borders)
-We could very well be in a conflict with Jowy within the next 12T. Cornflakes behaving opportunistically there will wreak our game.
-It might be prudent to close borders later when we get a better feeling on what Jowy is going to do. But we lose the ability to signal our intentions of coordinated action.

Can we propose to stop trading with Cornflakes to the others?

4. Tech path: With TT landing Aesthetics, I think that pretty much ends our chance at the GLib. He's a full tech ahead of us and we're not teching fast enough to have a chance to land it. This also lowers our chances at the Great Artist or Sistine. I'd recommend moving towards Feudalism and hope to catch up in trade once we land this.

[MindyMcCready]

Regarding TT. Cozy up to him now and we might be able to get Literature for cheap and get our Heroic Epic. I know he pushed for a hard bargain before, but still one can hope.

[AutomatedTeller]

On whips: in my opinion, the A-Team one was necessary. (this was for a missionary, btw)

LA Law makes 1 culture. Horizon (jowy's city) makes 2. Currently, they expand on the same turn, and we won't get control of that tile. with a missionary, we will expand before him, though, and get control of the tile and he won't be able to get it without a lib. Which he might do - but we can put as much cuture in the with a monastery if we want to. Plus, the 25% bonus for infra chops/whips is very useful.

The problem with waiting is that if we wait, we lose the culture battle.

NYPD Blue might have been a little overreacting But Jowy could crash whip 3 or 4 HA next turn and have them at our door soonish - a spear makes it very difficult for HA to take the city and we didn't have any really strong hammer tiles to grow onto.

1. I think there was some battles there - azza got to use praets, I'm sure. maybe got some promos? I dunno.
2. I agree - I want commodore as a friend in the short term. Really, i want commodore as a friend I can throw under the bus-that-will-be-jowy, but you can't always get what you want I'd like to be friends with TT and 2metra and azza, but commodore is the guy, really.

4. I think you are right - 3 civs now have aesthetics and it has no value in trade. Plus, we have 3 other very high priorities - not dying on the tusks of elephants, continuing to expand and building infra. In a non-Jowy-having-ivory-world, the GLIb was a possibility.

Tech:

In 9 turns, we get a new GP:

it's either a merchant, a priest or an engineer. Engineer's bulb machinery (xbows make us safer , priests bulb theology (trade for stuff) and merchants bulb currency. however, with currency, a merchant bulbs CS, which is very useful.

My thoughts are the same as yours - we research feudalism. It's currently 26 turns - my guess is that we can get it in 15-20.

My current thoughts on what to do with cities:

LA Law, Magnum PI, NYPD Blue and NCIS prepare for Jowy.

A-Team builds infra.
MASH and SWAT defend against cornflakes - I think it's not likely he attacks us, but you never know.
The OC builds infra (lib/court)
CHiPs builds a trireme and then a settler to get us another source of iron.

[MindyMcCready]

I'm going to put the risk of a Cornflakes attack as very low. He's going to rex with his new GLH, so I think that we should too before he nabs some of our choice locations.

2 archers + 1 spear + 1 dog is sufficient protection from this low risk attack. Better to get MASH on settlers to land the other chokepoint.
A-Team: Agree.
MASH: Once SWAT is secure, I still want to sneak in a settler for '1NE B'.
OC: Sounds good.
Chips: Tireme (yes!), settler for Iron? Thats the ivory location along Azza? If so then YES! But I want '1NE B' first for the security and the low worker requirements.

[MindyMcCready]

I forgive you for the missionary whip. However, I'm not sure that control of that tile is worth the cost.

LALaw is going to have to be a fortress city having walls and a strong garrison of fortified spears and Archers. If that's the case he's not going to attack it with HA without taking awful losses. 20T or so from now if we plant a couple of Longbows his prospects become even worse.

Also, if he plants another city in the yellow box we can definately fork him, so in a sense he's more vulnerable than we are once the age of Elephant supremancy is over.

By holding that tile, you're going to make him more nervous of being one moved and if push comes to shove he's going to win the culture war at a lower hammer cost than we will.

Its a bit more of a risk, but I'd rather put the hammers into a library in a city that'll have more commerce than this city will. Or I'd like to build a bit more military and fork him down the road.

Also, if we plant 1 south of the incence with some fancy manoeuvres we can boat this city,...so let him think that he's safe there.

[AutomatedTeller]

well, it's an extra turn of warning we get - he has to walk across our land, rather than just dump a stack on our iron (and cut it off, which will be a high priority, especially if we bulb machinery and have xbows. that said, if we get xbows, he may just go somewhere else - there's no real counter to xbows and cats. )

I doubt we'll be able to hold the tile - eventually, a creative civ will put something there we can't overcome, especially if we aren't getting sistine chapel (which we aren't)

[MindyMcCready]

Just a question on naval mechanics. Can our Triemes/Galleys move anywhere in the lake or do they have to stay close to the coast? I guess I've been assuming that any boating is going to have to be done along the coast. Is that the case or could there be surprises in store?