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[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

Quick comments about the current turn:

- Game seems to be down. I'll head to the university for some hours, but will be able to finish our turn in the afternoon so you don't Harry need to worry if you have a long working day ahead of you. YM has not played yet either..

Suggestions:
- Let's put one worker onto forest SW of Königgrätz this turn. It can chop in a defensive bowman for the city or if we feel more confident those hammers can go e.g. into granary/barracks. It would be nice to have an option to finish a defensive unit in 3 turns if suttree starts moving towards us..
- I think I already said it, but let's put one hammer into bowman in Gallipoli and possibly whip it next turn.
- Do we want to whip the axe in Dunkirk?
- This is clear, but in the north we move the settler to desert hill and cover it with spear while the bowman can protect worker if needed (i think dtay had his sentry chariot in range)

(November 3rd, 2013, 18:04)TheHumanHydra Wrote: Re: road - only if the jungles E and SE of Hastings are chopped - otherwise he could get onto defensive terrain before our zone defence stack could hit him, and then we'd be forced to take his collateral at Hastings.

Yeah, I'm fine with delaying the road and taking care of eastern front first. Note that thanks to our border pop suttree can't anymore move onto tile SE of Hastings without us knowing in advance.

Quote:A bowman there could be worthwhile in a little while if we're stretched too thin right now. I'm more concerned about getting borders or a galley in position at Jamestown so we can see that gems tile. What units will be available to defend Koniggratz?

Currently there are 2 bows + spear. I think we want to whip another bowman next turn in Gallipoli and chop a bow in königgrätz so I think we will have at least 4 bows + spear in the city at the time when suttree can attack (if he attacks). Note that the city is on a hill so our bowmen are pretty strong defenders so suttree needs to send a significant force if he wants to take that city. (couple of cats + 7-10 axes will of course do it, but that might leave us an opening in the eastern front.. So I think suttree is not allowed to send too big or too small stack towards Königgrätz if he both wants to take the city and defend his border city in the east)
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
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(November 4th, 2013, 03:07)Fintourist Wrote: - Let's put one worker onto forest SW of Königgrätz this turn. It can chop in a defensive bowman for the city or if we feel more confident those hammers can go e.g. into granary/barracks. It would be nice to have an option to finish a defensive unit in 3 turns if suttree starts moving towards us..

We have two workers in the area, Worker N just finished the road, Worker F is waiting with the spear. We should move F to do whichever is the priority, NE road or chop. I'd suggest doing the road first as that means that F builds the road like so:
t110-2 road NE of K
t113-5 road NE-NE of K

We also have worker C who has just finished a mine S-SW of Dunkirk, he could move to the tile S-SE of dunkirk to start roading from that direction too.
t110-2 road S-SE of Dunkirk
t113-5 road S-SE-SE of Dunkirk

(November 4th, 2013, 03:07)Fintourist Wrote:
(November 3rd, 2013, 18:04)TheHumanHydra Wrote: Re: road - only if the jungles E and SE of Hastings are chopped - otherwise he could get onto defensive terrain before our zone defence stack could hit him, and then we'd be forced to take his collateral at Hastings.

Yeah, I'm fine with delaying the road and taking care of eastern front first. Note that thanks to our border pop suttree can't anymore move onto tile SE of Hastings without us knowing in advance.

If we complete the farm this turn then:
t111 - A & B move to E jungle and chop it to 3/4, K moves to SE jungle.
t112 - A chops 4/4, B moves to SW of Hastings, K roads 1/2
t113 - K roads 2/2, A moves to SE Jungle and chops 1/4, B roads 1/2
t114 - B roads 2/2, A chops 2/4, K chops 3/4
t115 - B moves somewhere, A chops 4/4, K moves to northern dye to road.

This way the road is complete t115 and has a link to Dunkirk and the jungle around Hastings is gone. At Koeniggratz the sugar should be cleared around t118 and the tile NE of Koniggratz could be a little earlier.

(November 4th, 2013, 03:07)Fintourist Wrote: - I think I already said it, but let's put one hammer into bowman in Gallipoli and possibly whip it next turn.
- Do we want to whip the axe in Dunkirk?

Dunkirk is stacking a lot of whip anger (27 turns currently), but there isn't a lot else to do with the extra pop is there? I'll say aye to this. I don't want to whip Gallipoli unless necessary, but without sight on Suttree's stack we don't know when that is. frown

Feel free to play, I'll be home around 7pm, so can take it if needed.

Edit: Also what are the chances that YuriMack is trying to fool us with the odd war declaration?
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(November 3rd, 2013, 18:51)BRickAstley Wrote: BTW, since you said this earlier, I have to remind/rag you about it....

(October 28th, 2013, 11:22)Old Harry Wrote: Some excitement on the interturn - Commodore must have got the Hanging Gardens, catapulting him into third. Why isn't he near to Pindicooter this time? cry

lol

I know - it's brilliant! twirl They have to start fighting soon don't they? please I wish I could read Noble's reaction when he found out... Geopolitically that continent is great, I can't wait for it to combust. The only problems left for us are that Ichabod and m_h are the only brake on Plako, YuriMack will want to attack us at some point (after they eat one or both of our neighbours we hope) and dtay is score leader with TGL and SoZ under his belt. Apart from that we've basically won now smile
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Turn 110

I started the turn in the north:

[Image: PB%2013%20T113%20dtay%20north0000.JPG]

Dtay is guarding the site where we want our city M in couple of turns. It looks like the site is not yet taken, but maybe we are in a race..? Anyways, WB moved back for now so that we don't reveal our plans too early. Next turn it has to approach the new city so that we can net the clams timely..

In the south we settled Königgrätz:

[Image: PB%2013%20T110%20K0000.JPG]

Actually settling this city brought us more commerce that it cost us gpt. (+7 commerce, but only -4 gpt) yikes The reasons are, 3 commerce trade routes, increased amount of free units, 1 less unit (settler), decreased "units-outside-cultural-border" costs. The maintenance reduction from AGG also helps of course.

Btw, Königgrätz took bananas from Gallipoli after taking the screenshot and gallipoli started a bowman. We had a marathon chat with Old Harry and we think that we will get 5 bowmen + spear (+ maybe some chariots) before suttree can hit the city with his main stack. This assumes that his units are not directly in the fog.. In the end we decided to delay the road between Hastings and Königgrätz and use our workers during the next turns for more economical tasks.. smoke

If suttree sends a stack that is big enough to kill 5 bowmen on a hill we probably make a move and attack his border city in the east. That could become totally crazy.. crazyeye I wonder what the reaction from other players will be when they see us trading cities.. Every turn feels currently like it could be our last..

In the north our settler is in place to found our 12th city next turn:

[Image: PB%2013%20T110%20L0000.JPG]

dtay's chariot is watching the process with a great seat. Spear is covering the settler and bowman is covering the worker SW of the city. Dunkirk 1-pop whipped an axe and Hastings received a chop that finished another axe. Both just for the safety of Hastings and Jamestown. rolleye

Because suttree's power is constantly increasing:

[Image: PB%2013%20T110%20Power0000.JPG]

Blah, blah, you ruin our game, blah, blah, Hydra's latin statement, blah blah, go attack yurimack with your units, blah blah. smoke

When you take into account that suttree is forcing us to forget our economy, the demos are acceptable. 3rd in GNP, 4th in food, above average MFG. Not where we would like to be, but when we also remember our weak starting position (compared at least to Lewwyn & Ichabod), things could be worse I guess.

[Image: Demos%20T1100000.JPG]

We also talked about some random issues with Harry:
- Our geopolitical situation is challenging, potentially game-losing. We are located in the centre of the continent with 4 close neighbors and Ichabod in the west. Meanwhile yurimack only borders m_h and suttree (we believe), who are both not doing too well..
- We wonder how much dtay invested into his war against TBS/Jowy. The main difference is anyways that after the fighting TBS/Jowy seem to try to get back into the game while suttree is just building military. rolleye

And finally here is the shot of our first beatiful 6-food tile! jive It only took us 110 turns.. rolleye

[Image: PB%2013%20T110%20Jamestown0000.JPG]
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
Reply

If settling new cities does nothing but improve our economy, I think we should settle the Xs north of Jamestown and south of Dunkirk as soon as possible, as well as the promontory NW of Endor and the entirety of the island-continent shared with Ichabandit. Like friggin' double our number of cities. With foreign trading-partners, we should have enough intercontinental trade routes to make all of these worthwhile, right? None of these should require extensive defensive commitments at this time, even the large island-landmass since we would only border Ichabandit in one place no matter how deeply we settle and naval logistics would be difficult, and an investment, for them if they chose to contest it. Tech HBR in a little bit for zone defence here and at home. Seriously, if cities are nothing but an economic gain and do not require extensive defensive commitments at this time, which I don't think they do in most places, just do it; break the game open, forget about "balance" in priorities, 'cause there's little to balance, and devote everything to expansion, especially in that island-continent that doesn't have to worry about suttree. Play like it's the start of the game again, but you have a half-dozen capitals and no economic limit to expansion. REX like it's Civ 3. *catches breath*

(Obviously still building units in the eastern cities under threat.)

But you guys are probably already planning to do this.

Anyway, on a random note, here's a screenshot of my desktop which I think you'll appreciate:


Reply

(November 4th, 2013, 16:10)TheHumanHydra Wrote: If settling new cities does nothing but improve our economy...

...

REX like it's Civ 3. *catches breath*

lol We try! Next cities coming up on T111 and hopefully T113! My comparison was maybe a bit misleading because we are creating part of those costs that we are off-setting by sending a settling party outside our borders.. mischief And next cities will again be a bit more expensive. But yeah, our economy can still take more cities. Especially I think we want to settle new cities on that western island very soon.

The plains hill city N of Jamestown and the filler S of Dunkirk are probably our lowest priorities. The first one does not capture a single new tile that creates more than 1 food IIRC and the city S of Dunkirk needs quite a lot of worker support and is vulnerable to suttree's actions. Later when we have the required support we want it though.

But thanks Hydra, this is a good topic to raise. Where do we want to build a settler for our 14th city? Maybe Isandlwana could do it? Endor can soon start another settler, but it's a bit slow so that could be our 15th or even 16th settler.. It would be nice to let France grow, but due to its geographical location, maybe it should sacrifice itself for the greater good of our civ and also build another settler after it has regrown from the whip that we perform next turn.

Quote:Anyway, on a random note, here's a screenshot of my desktop which I think you'll appreciate:

rolf That's commitment! I like it!
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
Reply

Yes, that stitch you did, Old Harry, is my desktop. bow

I don't know why I'm double-posting right now, but I forgot to share my geopolitical thoughts since you guys brought it up. Long-term, I suspect we're screwed, because just like in PB8 plako is relatively isolated with a weak neighbour, with islands to settle, and look at that beautiful choke-point and open stretch before we get to Bacchus, another weak player. Based on geography and known skill, plako should have this in the bag; we could probably concede now, except for that getting to that point will be so entertaining (seriously, I'm enjoying this game immensely; I check the forums constantly and I'm not even playing in it).

Long-term (like, Astro, but maybe sooner), I think it's almost certain we will face a naval war with Ichabandit for that island unless he becomes the target of William's or slowcheetah's medieval or Renaissance aggression, and possibly with slowcheetah and/or plako as well. (William might be better advised to clean up retep and take out Bacchus, however, and it looks like slowcheetah's got his back to the wall.) I suggest holding it via zone-defence cavalry, not ships, because attack could come conceivably from any direction and ships would have to circumnavigate it, while somehow being on station immediately to respond to a threat, whereas cavalry could take a direct route to any threatened zone and respond (though it might be interesting, as a supplement, to think about forting those desert tiles in the western-centre area of the island to serve as a canal; I think one of you may already have mentioned this). (This will be beyond obvious to the three of us, but evidently we're going to have to keep separate SoDs for each of island and mainland - it's almost like having two separate civs, and I think we should treat it as such, especially if new cities honestly don't cost us a thing and we can just expand up the wazoo.) Dtay and m_h could conceivably threaten our island too, but I think it's safe to say it's far more likely they'd attack us on land, at least primarily, if they chose to try and do us harm. This does segue into the next important point, however, which is as you guys have already pointed out,

We're in the goodness-forsaken centre of a continent of five other players, one of them the leader, all of whom may seek to do us harm. This sucks.

(Said in good spirits; we will crush them beneath the iron horseshoes of our knights and cavalry and bury them in the lead of our shot.)

(Who is this dtay guy anyway? I thought he was some random newb who probably sucked till I saw him at the top of the scoreboard. No offence to newbs; I pretty much am one.)

There is no solution to this, other than to prioritize military techs (Guilds ...) and stay on our toes. I still think we should probably try and take suttree out in the Middle Ages, but we'll have to be careful someone doesn't swoop in and try and decapitate us.

If on the off-chance we manage to subdue our continent (not as in conquer it all - we'd have won the game by then - but emerge sufficiently stronger than all our neighbours so as not to feel threatened (still a tall order), we might think about starting a culture play in some nice protected inland cities plako etc. can't reach SOONER than Bigger did in PB8. This whole scenario is I think rather unlikely however.

Speaking of plako, as I see it if we want to win this game, we (yes, we; I don't think we can rely on anyone else) is going to have to, after emerging in a sufficiently strong position to do so, late in the game, make a massive boating attempt on all his cities, launching from the island-continent. Realistically, I think this is the only possible endgame for us, assuming we survive that long. Given his aforementioned position and skill, he will outplay us all for the victory if left in peace; I don't think we can count on a peaceful/domestic victory whatsoever for that reason, unless by some miracle we do manage to set the stage for a difficult-to-disrupt cultural victory (that is, one started early and in inaccessible strongholds, not one in general). We will have to use force, taking advantage of the vulnerability of the defender imposed by the sea. I think we should bear this in mind all game as the end to which we must of necessity be working (we can, of course, debate that necessity if you guys feel otherwise).

With all this in mind, then (also tl;dr), I project these as the future stages of our empire in its course to victory or final defeat (note this list necessarily assumes success at every stage):

1. REX madly, claiming almost the entirety of the island-continent and every other scrap of available land while outteching our neighbours to Guilds.

2. Crush suttree with knights while holding against our other neighbours and developing the island-continent and its defence and teching toward the Renaissance.

2. a) Probably have to defend against at least one of our mainland neighbours in the medieval and/or Renaissance periods.

2. b) (Optional; depends on degree of success of 1.) Drive Ichabandit off the end of the island-continent if a low investment.

3. Get to drafted rifles and "lock down" our holdings on the mainland for good; prepare to receive guests on our island-continent.

3. a) Probably have to defend against Ichabandit on the island when they reach Astro.

3. b) (Optional) If in a position of strength and it would be cost-efficient, destroy one of our other neighbours on the mainland and develop our land-base further.

4. Prepare to attack plako by sea in the oil-powered navy era.

5. Win or lose.

Hopefully I didn't forget one of my steps. I've probably forgotten something somewhere in this post.

Anyway, now to absorb the post Fintourist apparently made as I was composing this (no longer a double-post.)
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(November 4th, 2013, 16:27)Fintourist Wrote:
(November 4th, 2013, 16:10)TheHumanHydra Wrote: If settling new cities does nothing but improve our economy...

...

REX like it's Civ 3. *catches breath*

lol We try! Next cities coming up on T111 and hopefully T113! My comparison was maybe a bit misleading because we are creating part of those costs that we are off-setting by sending a settling party outside our borders.. mischief And next cities will again be a bit more expensive. But yeah, our economy can still take more cities. Especially I think we want to settle new cities on that western island very soon.

Mm, okay, maybe my grand vision needs to be revised. Seriously, though, I think that island-continent is our future, and we need to settle all of it as fast as possible before Ichabandit does any more. Basically I am advocating, if they aren't already, that our cities there become nothing but worker-settler-escort pumps. Just like the early game; nothing but REX.

(November 4th, 2013, 16:27)Fintourist Wrote: The plains hill city N of Jamestown and the filler S of Dunkirk are probably our lowest priorities. The first one does not capture a single new tile that creates more than 1 food IIRC and the city S of Dunkirk needs quite a lot of worker support and is vulnerable to suttree's actions. Later when we have the required support we want it though.

Actually, this was in response to our settling of the city on the desert hill up there; that city is (IMHO) even worse (no offence; we want them both!), so I thought if we're doing that, we should do the other one too! lol As for the one in the south, I perceived it (again, and perhaps wrongly) as not very threatened by suttree; basically a backfill. If you think it's vulnerable, by all means don't settle it (though I'd think those five archers and whatever should be able to cover it by zone-defence, like in the NE? Anyway ...)

But yeah, in general just settle everywhere as fast as you can safely and economically, as you are; I'm just urging not too much restraint, more like "abandon" in fringe areas that aren't too threatened, since these cities don't seem to be costing us much or are even an economic boon. Basically, in a game of 18 players, we're going to have to make some big plays to win. Getting that island, and every other city we can cram in, so we outnumber a chunk of the field in terms of city-count, I think is one of them. Killing someone with knights is another, albeit fairly standard, and possibly someone else in the Renaissance. Boating plako is the last and most dangerous one, but as I said I think an absolute necessity given the geography. So yeah, just push it to the red where you can (over the sea ...), and keep up the cautious play to defend ourselves at home in spite of my constant misunderstanding of how vulnerable those jungle cities are (though TBH we can take some risks here - vis-a-vis suttree - 'cause it is jungle for him to slog through and we have a large stack in the northeast to turn his flank with if he moves away). /rambling

(November 4th, 2013, 16:27)Fintourist Wrote: But thanks Hydra, this is a good topic to raise. Where do we want to build a settler for our 14th city? Maybe Isandlwana could do it? Endor can soon start another settler, but it's a bit slow so that could be our 15th or even 16th settler.. It would be nice to let France grow, but due to its geographical location, maybe it should sacrifice itself for the greater good of our civ and also build another settler after it has regrown from the whip that we perform next turn.

No clue, 'cause I confess I can't follow MM/city specifics without being able to log into the game (sorry again), but yeah, I would encourage to "sacrifice ... for the greater good" wherever you can over there in the jungle. I'll stop harping on this.

Quote:Anyway, on a random note, here's a screenshot of my desktop which I think you'll appreciate:

(November 4th, 2013, 16:27)Fintourist Wrote: rolf That's commitment! I like it!

lol I feel so silly ... I hope no one from real life ever sees this desktop ...
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EDIT: this is a response for your earlier post, next post must wait until tomorrow.. lol

That's a lot of interesting points Hydra! thumbsup I definitely have to read your post again, but here are some quick comments.

- dtay is surely doing well, playing well and has currently very good demos. I think Harry had read somewhere positive comment of him doing well at CFC or something. nod However, if we did not have this burning situation with suttree I would say that we will have a fair chance to beat him at our continent. I think I already mentioned in our discussion with Harry that I think that dtay's early-game land was stronger than ours, but in the long-term we could have a very competitive amount of grassland tiles to workshop/cottage and end up ahead (Even from our current position where we already have invested a shitload of hammers into military which is costing us way too much gold). Of course, there is this fellow suttree and we are just waiting when the huge dice rolling begins so we might not be able to compete with anybody... rant

- plako does not actually look that hot to me. Yet. He is doing well of course. He has those 2 powerful wonders, but I think he has paid for them with slower expansion. Next time when I log in I count his pop points so that I have some data to support my claim. What's of course worrying is that his geopolitical position is so easy. rolleye It seems that he has only Dhalpir as a close neighbor and I guess plako will crush him when he runs out of peaceful expansion room. I really hope that Dhalpir proves me wrong here though. If Serdoa had kept on playing I would have a more positive feeling about that area, but now I'm worried..

But yeah, need to read your post again. First sleep!

@Harry: I will have little time to check the new turn tomorrow morning, important meeting in the early afternoon and again more time later in the afternoon/evening.
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
Reply

suttree is so annoying (in-game, of course). I'm always so tempted to suggest just whipping HAs and killing him now.* I guess that's what a player who's game has been wrecked is naturally inclined to do, take the other guy down with him, but it's annoying when it's like "it's not our fault your game was wrecked, even if it was by our hand; you're the guy who planted without being able to defend it, in a zone we needed to expand into!" It does some vaguely unfair to become the target of someone's eternal indignation because of this; seems to reward bad play if players have to consider holding off on punishing bad play because of the threat of suicidal retribution. You don't know how glad I was the Pirates accepted their losses in the Demogame; it increased my "in-game" respect toward them. (Nothing of this refers to out-of-game character judgements or anything so silly.) Anyway, yeah ... oh well, I guess we just accept our punishment (and run our snowball over him later devil).

Oh, since I thought of it, if anyone's confused as to my little Latin phrase, that's what Cato the Elder repeated at the end of every one of his speeches in the Roman Senate before the Third Punic War - except it referred to some forgotten country called Carthage or something like that - bah, details). So, since I haven't ended any of my four (!) posts today with it yet -

Suttree delenda est!

#postspam
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