[SPOILERS] Charriu and Zalson are fighting the honorable post count war!

[Charriu]

While we are waiting for a decision on reload or not, let's talk about why Magic would need a reload.

It's hard to say. Intent is pure on all sides; nobody knew there was a [redacted], heartbreaking as [redacted] was. It's something that could happen any number of times without you all locking yourselves into a PBEM sequence.

So looking at civstats I would say that the two players involved in this reload are Magic and Shallow. Both were online at the same time, which could easily cause a reload. My guess is that they both were involved in a settler race without knowing it. This would explain the pure intent. Another important factor in my guess is that Shallow settled his 5th city while they both were online. So if there will be a reload you could argue that Magic should move before Shallow because last turn Magic moved before Shallow, too. This would mean that Magic could settle before Shallow, which would be really great for us, as it is a delay in Shallow's expansion plan. Of course the other important info out of this is that Shallow and Magic have contact either now or for some longer time.

[Charriu]

Hitru and I have only just had a chance to catch up - as I said, once reason I played when I did was because I knew I would be busy today. Apologies for the silence. I'm afraid it won't be very different tomorrow.

We favour giving the lurkers a little more time to (hopefully) come up with a satisfactory ruling, frustrating though it is.

Well this post by Shallow confirms that he is involved in this reload.

[Cornflakes]

The key with whatever path you choose for long-term victory is to identify the biggest obstacles, identify the minimum requirements you need to overcome the obstacles, identify the critical path and limiting factors (commerce, hammers, etc.) and cut out any fat that does not help you achieve the necessary objectives.

Coming back to Cornflakes good advice. In my opinion the biggest obstacles for winning are Coeurva and Shallow, who are running away with this game. I would say that I'm better or on even terms with RFS, Superdeath and Magic, which is mainly because of the "War of no gains" between Superdeath and Magic. I'm currently behind Coeurva and Shallow and is absolutely important to get on even terms with them or better then them. There's another thing to consider in here and it's the fact that those two are natural allies in this game, so I don't expect any early or mid conflict between those. Being between those two I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Like you already mentioned my traits don't give me that much of an early advantage like Imp and Exp does for them.

So what to do about this situation. Like you already said the only way to get even with them is by expanding and conquering another players home. I need to expand to the gold and gems quickly to deny them these vital resources and I'm already working on this. With 3 or 4 cities inland I should be good so far. I also don't see any land worth expanding to in the northern directions. Most of the good land so far is accross the shore. This leaves only conquest to grow my empire.
Attacking any one of them early will just strengthen the other one, so that's off the table. I also need a rather quick conquest without so much of delaying my own progress. This leaves RFS as the only target for me. That's good because he's propably the easier target then Shallow. The only problem here is that Shallow will propably start conquering RFS, too. So RFS will very likely be divided between Shallow and me, which leaves both of us as the only southern players. I don't think that Shallow will start conquering my land after RFS in this case, as it would just slow him down and give Coeurva an edge. I should get on good terms with Shallow, because we may need to work together later. It will also be very important that Shallow and Coeurva will be neighbors in the future. So conquering land that will put me between those two will not help. They need to start fighting at some point in time to preserve the balance of power.

This leaves just the question of how to conquer RFS. I think the best way is to use some 2-movers together with 1-movers shipped around via galleys. The crucial techs for these are Horseback Riding, Iron Working, Metal Casting and Machinery. My gut feeling tells me that I need to be quick and ready to conquer RFS before Shallow does it. Teching for Mysticism->Polytheism->Priesthood->Oracle (Machinery), might be too late. I think going for Iron Working after Writing would be the best; it would be finished in T78. By that time I would have already build the rice and gold city and would only need to build the gems city, which could happen while I'm researching Horseback Riding. For comparison Priesthood would also be finished in T78, but then I would need to research Metal Casting and build the oracle, which takes more time as Horseback Riding. There's also the chance that somebody gets the oracle before us, which would totally destroy our plan. So going Writing->Iron Working->Horseback Riding is much more reliable. I may also don't need Horseback Riding right away, because chariots might be enough for RFS.

For this plan to work I will need Wind Raptor and Siren get on hammers, while Exdeath provides enough commerce to keep afloat. The southern island city will provide good trade income and I may be able to put out a galley or two from there, but it won't contribute that much to military production because of lack of hammers. Karlabos will have to provide me with workers and stuff that I need in the backyard of my empire. Gold and rice city will also need to contribute military.

I think you have some very good observations here and I agree with about all the big-picture political situation, and RFS being the best avenue for expansion in the mid term. The question then is how soon (before/after currency), and how much power do you need to bring (swords? HA? Catapults?). These are somewhat related questions, because the longer you wait the more advanced military you will need to bring. Can your economy support 3 additional cities without currency? (assuming we get capital + eastern border + ivory cities)

HA on their own can be stopped by spears, and they also do not benefit from either AGG/PRO. Swords are slow but galleys can mitigate that somewhat, but are additional non-combat units that you have to build. Do you have a combat odds calculator that can compare sword/HA/Axe/Chariot vs. axe/archer/spear combinations fortified in the flatland border city and/or hilled capital?

Here's a first-draft quick-and-dirty look at a potential attack plan. No extensive analysis, just observing the terrain and throwing some army men figurines out on the map for discussion sake ... I haven't done Civ 4 combat in a couple of years (and never in RtR) so the unit mix all theoretical  :

   

Wow, that turned into a busy screenshot   Let's looks at things color-by-color, shall we:

• First the MAGENTA ... star is a mountain that is definitely in the 2nd ring of RFS's culture. That mountain will have vision on all the pink dots.
  
• LIGHT PINK dots ... indicate water tiles which will be visible from RFS's 2nd ring culture
  
• ORANGE ... indicate tiles visible from the ORANGE mountain is RFS expands borders to 3rd ring [NOTE: galley staging tile would also be visible from 3rd ring land].
  
• Based on RFS vision we can now determine the best staging tiles. LIGHT BLUE CLOVER is the closest tile we can get with the galleys. Ideally they would stage further back, and move here on the turn we declare war. YELLOW DOT is a decent tile for chariots, although other options may exist depending on the roads in the vicinity at that time.
  
• GREEN ... if we move 2 workers here the turn before declaring war we could move the chariot staging tile forward into the city, such that we could road the hill and advance to the plains tile 1SW on the turn we declare war. Moving 2 workers there would be essentially a dead-giveaway if RFS is paying attention, but is probably worth doing but may be worth considering.
  
• LIGHT BLUE ... galleys. Could continue along the coast towards the capital, either full or empty, as a threat to the backlines. Can transport 1-movers to the corn tile, or attack amphibiously.
  
• DARK BLUE ... galleys could use the city center as a canal to enter the lake and theoretically threaten the presumed city on the NW coast of that lake.
  
• RED ... even if the rest of the units don't disembark, one galley can drop 2 axes on the corn as cover for a chariot stack. The chariots can defend vs. other chariots at 50/50 odds, and the axes can defend the chariots vs. spears. That now-empty galley can backtrack on its 2nd move to pick up more units from the RED STAR tile, which would be able to join the attack amphibiously on the following turn. Alternatively if the galleys drop all units on the corn they could all backtrack and be loaded with a 2nd cargo from the RED STAR tile.
  

Based on this, my rough-and-dirty ASAP attack plan would be:

1. 2 galleys, carrying 2 swords + 2 axes ... to be dropped on the corn
   
2. Galleys backtrack to pick up 3 more swords + 1 axe from RED STAR
   
3. 4-6 chariots following YELLOW
   
4. A couple of archers from Wind Raptor advance along YELLOW to hold the city following capture
   
5. The re-filled galleys then have the option to continue along the coast to the capital or move through the captured canal towards the northern city based on then-current intelligence. The one axe can be promoted to Shock to cover the 3 swords when they land.
   

Ok, start poking holes in this plan  One pitfall could be an RFS galley poking around the border. An extra empty galley to sacrifice in softening up RFS's would be necessary to overcome. Another possible pitfall is an RFS land unit stationed in the forest 3W of Wind Raptor, which would be able to spot the galley stating tile. A possible rouse we could try is moving 3 workers onto the 3rd ring forest 3W of Wind Raptor (covered with an axe + spear) as if we were trying to chop the 3rd ring forest in 1 turn for the hammers, when really we just want to build a road there and use it rather then the hill 2N for the chariots.

I analyzed Shallow's power graph and found this:
[...]
All in all my fear of an attack by Shallow was not justified. But if his axeman comes closer to Karlabos, I have to send an archer into the city.

What is your time frame to get a chariot in the area? That is a very effective counter to a Shallow axe. With your first headed to Gold area it's probably a while until you get another one out this way?

[Zalson]

One hole I see immediately: It takes 3 worker turns to road desert.

[Charriu]

Wow, awesome work there Cornflakes. Love the screenshot. I will look deeper into this plan of attack in the next days. I have some additional infos and things to say:

• We already have one galley. And just like you I was thinking about adding one extra galley to transport 4 units.
  
• About RFS culture: He never build any culture building so far and I'm constantly watching the culture graph for this. I think that it's very unlikely that he will get 3rd ring by the time we attack.
  
• I totally forgot that I could move galleys into the lake from that city. That's a really great bit of information.
  
• The sign "another RFS city?" does not indicate that there actually is one. It just looks like a nice spot for a city.
  

Here is my overall plan to conquer RFS. I think I will do it in two attacks. The goal for the first attack would be to conquer the city called Lighthouse, scout the area ahead, maybe take his 3rd city if it's easily reachable. The goal for the second attack is to conquer his capitol. It's propably on a hill and I may need cats for this.

About the axeman from Shallow. I will have to work a chariot in my plan, but it's propably not coming in time. The first chariot will out in Exdeath in T66. By that time the axeman could already be standing on the cow tile. I could attack his axeman in T67 with the chariot. Currently should I remain in front of Shallow in the turn order, I should be able to destroy his axeman before he can pillage.

[Charriu]

I'm sorry to interrupt the strategy discussion. As some of you have noticed I'm starting to get the hang of C&D. I currently trying to analyse the GNP graph to determine the techs of the other players. That's where I stumbled across this:



This is an older screenshot and I'm wondering about my drop and the immediate increase in GNP marked in the screenshot. This should be right when I discovered Bronze Working and started Fishing. What I'm wondering is not that the GNP decreases after Bronze Working, but why the GNP increase just after that. I expected that the GNP drops back to the level before Bronze Working and not even lower and then back again. Here is some additional info:

• This happened around T22
  
• I only had Exdeath at that moment
  
• Exdeath popped grew to 3 right when I discovered Bronze Working
  
• According to my notes that I took from the demo screen it did not decrease in the way seen above.
  
• My commerce count did not decrease instead it increased from 11 to 12
  
• Obviously culture and espionge did not change.
  

If some C&D wizard could explain to me what's happening here, that would be great. Thanks a lot.

[Zalson]

I dropped a chart tracking GNP in your spreadsheet. It looks like the chart in the game got confused by starting fishing. From what I can tell, the GNP graph is different than GNP in the demographics screen. I wonder if it was the growth to 3 increasing maintenance plus the loss of the +20% tech bonus for knowing mining.

[Charriu]

T62 Part 1:

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Puh, it get's increasingly difficult to do my turn in the morning. I only had time to look at the situation in game. First of all the barb warrior moved into me territory and is now 1NW of the spice. It's very likely that he moves to the spice next turn and from there my archer will have the chance to kill him. Unfortunatly that means that I suffer 1 turn of unhappiness in Wind Raptor. I have the option to either delay growth, which hurts the production of the next settler or to delay the work boat for the southern island (Magisa). Right now I would delay the work boat.




First of all I looked at Shallow's city which confirmed the barracks and that he has pottery. Nothing to wonder there.



Shallow moved his axeman towards me. I think he only wants to chase away my warrior, who will move 1NW as soon as I'm able. But I miscalculated his moves. Actually he will have vision on my city in T64 from the hill NE; move to the cow in T65 and pillage T66. I can move in an archer from Siren in T64, propably before he has vision on the city. That should deter him from trying to attack Karlabos with one axeman, which leaves only the question if he will go in to pillage the cow pasture. I'm currently looking how I can get a chariot in the area.



In other Shallow news. He just connected his horse, which also confirms that he has Animal Husbandry.



Coming back to the food leader. I still believe that Coeurva was the one with 54 food.

[Dark Savant]

The graphs (for anything) measure at the beginning of that turn, and don't adjust when you select techs to research, work new tiles, etc.  Those changes only become visible the next turn, and are combined with other changes that happen at the end of that turn.

The demographics screen does adjust on the fly.  You can log in multiple times per turn and take snapshots of demographics to see how it changes after others play, if you have extra time and aren't in a turn split. 

[Charriu]

Ah thank you very much, for clarifying that.