[SPOILERS] Cornflakes Returns to Civ 4: Forget 1UPT, STACK OF DOOM!!!!!

[Old Harry]

What kind of geological feature is a Cuzco?

[Cornflakes]

What kind of geological feature is a Cuzco?

What?! Have you never heard of Cuzco? Not geologic, but that’s not the theme   

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Some time I’ll remember to re-name those cities. 

In other news, if Donovan declares war on someone then he’s definitely playing clock games. According to PBSpy he was logged in to PB44 for 3 hours, yet we are approaching 36 hours on  the current turn in this game and he hasn’t played yet 

[Cornflakes]

Another thing I'm trying to determine is whether it is worth the investment to build Barracks and/or Stables. I have 8 cities so the hammer cost would be 60*8 = 480 for barracks and 480 for stables. That is over 1/3 of the total raw beakers required for Guilds if put into Research [actually rather than research I'd probably build wealth after Currency and run higher slider to take advantage of the two libraries I built]. 880 hammers is also 11 trebuchets or 10 knights.

Vassalage can get me the 1st promotion on the knights for 0 hammers investment. Vassalage would also get me the 2nd promotion when paired with Barracks, therefore Stables I'm fairly certain will be skipped altogether. I already built a Barracks at Woolly Mammoth since that is my largest production center at around 25 base hammers, 30+ with forge, and will be putting out a greater proportion of my military. I may build 1 other barracks somewhere that I'm not building wealth/research over the next 25 turns, but in general I think I'll skip the barracks throughout most of the empire in favor of the extra knight. (The extra units are also front-loaded either by speeding up acquiring Guilds and/or by allowing me to fill out my Trebuchet requirement before reaching Guilds).

Over the 20 turns from bulbing Machinery to unlocking Guilds I would like to build the following:
• 10 Trebuchet, 800 hammers. Mostly in the south but maybe 2 in the north to deter/defend against Elkad/DZ funny business. Woolly Mamoth alone can account for most of this production.
• 5 Crossbows, 300 hammers. Great Unconformity could output enough hammers for these. Note that I cannot start building them until I acquire Iron Working + Archery.
• 10 Swords, 400 hammers. The swords will be cheaper expendable units. I will use the swords + Trebuchets to capture Superdeath's border cities, and then march the stack towards his capital.
• 5 spears, 175 hammers. For stack defense and border security (and defending cities that I capture).

That's 1675 hammers worth of military. According to the city overview screenshot I am generating 115 hammers empire-wide. That's about 2800 hammers at my disposal allowing for completion of Courthouses, without considering growth. Above I estimate about 1500 beakers devoted to research builds to accomplish the tech requirement so I'm just about there with the total number of hammers. I may have to cut down my military builds slightly depending on how my economy holds up with the growing military support costs. But overall the initial assessment looks promising

[Old Harry]

Oh yeah, it's scientific mysteries - I forgot. From physics you could have dark matter, dark energy and what happened before the big bang.

[Cornflakes]

Well DZ did not declare war on anyone so I don't know what is going on over there. DZ has delayed about a third of the last dozen or two turns with no explanation in the tech thread.

Oh yeah, it's scientific mysteries - I forgot. From physics you could have dark matter, dark energy and what happened before the big bang.

Thanks for the poke on the city names. I like your "before the big bang" and have renamed Cuzco > Infinity Past. I had totally forgotten about renaming Tiwanaku but that has been fixed as well:

   

I adjusted some builds to research to ensure that I could get Currency in 2 turns. Delaying the courthouses by a turn or two makes sense to get the +18 commerce from additional trade route. In hindsight I probably should have gone Currency > CoL and gained the arrow bonus on CoL. Oh well, too late now.

[Cornflakes]

My scouting chariots found a German (Elkad) stack of approximately 4 swords, 3 axes, 2 spears, 1 archer, with 4 chariots slightly further back but in range. The stack is positioned to enter my territory next turn after I play (me first in turn order). On the defense I will have 4 axes (2 full fortify) and 3 Spears (2 full fortify) on a hill behind walls. I don’t think I can hold but I should deal at least as many casualties and take the teeth out of Elkad’s stack.

Currency will be completed end of turn, I’m 4 turns from bulging Machinery. Next tech will be Iron Working to locate and connect Iron, then Archery to unlock Crossbows. My northern cities will all be devoted to military starting next turn. As long as JR4 doesn’t take this opportunity to strike at Woolly Mammoth I should be fine. I’m certain now that killing Elkad’s settler to found DNA was a mistake. Even if DNA holds it has cost me more than I probably will ever get out of it. I would have been much better served to give up that territory and let Elkad’s wrath fall on DZ for his city raze.

[Cornflakes]

T111:   I’m saved! Donovan moves a stack of a half dozen chariots and stuff onto Elkad’s border (I wonder if DZ has another city there)

   

Elkad wipes out the stack with minimal (if any) losses. Apparently Donovan is still the bigger stench in Elkad’s nostrils. This screenshot is actually from last turn. With currency in now I’m building wealth instead of research and will have Iron Working in 2 turns followed by Archer the next turn. Now that I think about it, I might be able to swap and go Archery this turn and built up enough overflow to get IW in 1 next turn. But it is still 3 turns to the Gengineer for the bulb and I’ll likely have to at least build a road on the hill where Iron pops, or mine the flat tile. Hopefully my only source Iron doesn’t pop under a town 

I’ll put a crossbow in DNA and flash one in the Superdeath/JR4 border, then start building Trebuchets. I would like to leave them not-quite-completed for a while in some of the build queues in order to save on the maintenance costs. I can do that with a few crossbows as well, and even swords. Then start completing units in earnest about 7-10 turns before the [70% hopefully] Guilds bulb. Leaving the units in-completed will somewhat hide the buildup. Graphs seem to be 3 turns delayed so my power spike will be masked somewhat hopefully allowing Superdeath to builder away in blissful ignorance 

[Cornflakes]

T112:   here's some blood for the lurkers:

   
Elkad razed a DZ border city. DZ whipped 5 times for 8 pop so there will be some retribution coming  slug it out to my north fellows  nothing to see here, I'll just focus on taking out the rest of the competition while you keep yourselves busy.

   

This GNP is fake since more than half of my hammers are on wealth (something like 80 this turn). I swapped out of Organized Religion a couple of turns ago in order to save 5gpt on civics costs since my large hammer output cities were finished with their courthouses. Next turn I'll queue up Markets at Great Unconformity and Woolly Mammoth since that will give me +2 happy. The market also has a payback of 15 turns of 0% slider vs. the 15 hammers of wealth ... but I'll drop back into Organized Religion for 5 turns while completing the Markets and the remaining courthouses. Then probably back out or of OrgRel to save the civics costs again and at that point go all units or wealth/research. That will essentially complete my infrastructure builds for the core. Probably just Courthouses in captured cities plus Forbidden Palace in Superdeath land.

After conquering Superdeath the goal will be to demoralize the remaining 3 contenders of JR4, BGN, and Wetbandit (assuming Elkad is crippled and DZ's economy is crashed and therefore I can leave him to last since he isn't a threat to reach the next generation of military). Therefore I don't really need to keep any territory from those rivals. I can play a delaying action, running around with knights forking cities and pillaging cottages. I can pick off and raze weakly defended cities, then dash off. I can hopefully catch one of them off guard expecting me to be fully occupied when really I'm just striking opportunistically. Razing a core city from each rival should put a damper on the morale and bring about concession. I just need to make sure that I don't play a repeat of PB9 and get hit hard as soon as I conquer Superdeath   

Stick around folks, this is shaping up to be an exciting game! ETA approximately 20 turns to Guilds and then fireworks, with much nail biting and crossed fingers in the meantime. My power will start to creep back up as I get a couple crossbows and then trebuchets out and I'll concentrate that at Woolly Mammoth so I should be able to deter JR4. I won't respond to any fish/fish-type deals from Superdeath. I will not echo back fish/fish-type deals to either JR4 or Superdeath as my power spikes. Let JR4 stay on his toes and build some military to keep him honest and slow down tech pace.

[thestick]

The T111 and T112 screenshots aren't showing for some reason.

[Cornflakes]

Give it 24 hours on the screenshots. There have been times I've been unable to see screenshots from a last post or two that magically cleared next day.

Received a PM from Superdeath informing me that he declared war and offered peace, thus ruining our trade routes   so what to do? Iron working completes end of turn, archery will complete the next turn, and I'm bulbing Engineering the following turn for Crossbows + Trebuchets. But I don't want Superdeath building military now. I'd much rather have Superdeath building courthouses for me to hopefully capture in 25 turns. On the other hand a protracted war for 20 turns with no invasion might just lull Superdeath into not paying attention.

Another thing to consider is that I don't want to give JR4 any ideas of piling on.

Also Superdeath had a scouting chariot that may have teleported to a less-than-ideal location (I have 2 un-defended cities and capital has just a single Quechua). If the chariot is in a compromising position then that trumps all and I take the peace no question. On the other hand I had my own scouting chariot that may have ended up in a compromising position    I'll sleep on it. 70/30 peace/phony-war. Turn rolled early enough this evening that it's possible I may have a new turn waiting in the morning.

Can someone remind me all the tricks that are available for looking around in-game without canceling out of the diplo window?