Japper leads the Imperium of Man to death or glory

[Japper007]

Turn 58:

The siege of La Venta has begun in earnest, I think we capture it in about 10 turns



I built the iron mine in Macragge, giving us boosts for both Iron Working and Wheel. Legions!





Pindicator asks for open borders, I accepted as his scout has already visited all my cities anyway. I hope he extracts it now, he already moved away from the Crater Lake spot so maybe my Warrior was unnesesary after all? If so, oh well, still better than delaying my city.

[Mikeforall]

“It is the unemotional, reserved, calm, detached warlord* who wins, not the hothead seeking vengeance and not the ambitious seeker of fortune.”

~ Sun Tzu


*[or Warrior in the older, incorrect English translation] 

The warrior purchase means my city will be delayed a turn, but it's not the end of the world, luckily I had the gold to buy one outright.

Why... just why?

I totally agree one should not let a settler walk out alone, especially not with a potential enemy unit near it to capture.
However, buying a warrior is just a waste of money. It could be produced in a few turns. 
Not only that, but that now-spend money would be of much greater use for buying a good adjacency district tile, or a trader. 
Especially a trader in fact, since you deff need one, if not for the city-state then just to connect your capital to either Fenris or (when captured) La Venta, depending which of those you want to place further forward-settles.
[for lurkers not getting what I mean with this: The roads traders lay are essential to make sure you are able to defend a forward-settlement, because it significantly lowers the amount of turns needed to get troops from your central empire towards the forwarded settlement in question].  


Now, regarding the settler:
I think you should not settle Crater Lake yet, but instead put it on a good position east. 
My reasoning: Despite the river there being a really nice location, it is uncontested due to the position of Fenris. 
There is a lot of land between you and Alhambram's visible city. However, if he plans a far forward settlement, there is nothing we can do against it in military terms for at least 20 turns, and even longer if you renew the DoF. 
This means that, if he were to forward, all the land between him and the forward would be his to claim (unless Krill or Jester is south of there and we have not found them yet, but either way we would be out of the contest). 
Now, this exact argument also counts for the lands south of us, though due to limited discovery we have no idea how close Pindicator and others actually are to us. 
The settler however is in the north, so I would go for a north-eastern forward. 
Due to the land east of Fenris, once we have a trade-route road from Rome to Fenris, it would be very doable military-wise to uphold an eastern forward-settle. 


So, as to ease the post:
Nice going on La Venta! It will be history soon!

WARNING: PBEM 7 spoiler

If it had spawned near us in the dual-mp game, it would have been a blessing. 
However, in this game its bonus is quite useless to Rome, and thus the sooner it is taken, the more use you can get out of it

As a last note:
I mentioned it earlier, but some score updates would be nice.
I know you like to do those every 10th turn, but that makes it rather difficult to predict what is going on in other nations this early for us (dead)lurkers.

So could you perhaps post some score-updates more often? 
Would also be nice since we might be able to deduce what is going on with Jester and his strange apparent army-above-builders playstyle. 
And of course to see how Pindicator and Alhambram are doing.
Pindicator is a potential problem we can deal with when it occurs, but we must really watch out for those Mamluks. I have said it before, but it would be best to deal a significant blow to Alhambram before he reaches the middle ages. And a forward-settle beyond Fenris, especially with a road connecting it to the cap, would make a military campaign much more doable. 






Also apologies for not posting much for the last 10ish turns, but (as you know ofc, since you got the same problem) I got an aweful lot of work for University atm, so I am not very active here.

[Japper007]

I explained my reasoning for the Warrior purchase, it would delay my city too much. But lets go into some detail:

1. All my cities are building critical science infrastructure, I saw no free oppertunity to build a quick warrior anywhere, and I really don't want the only scientificically inclined civ on the map (Arabia) to pick up that Scientist. Hypatia is one of, if not THE, strongest GS in the game (maybe apart from the Spaceship rushing ones)

2. This was the last turn I could purchase a Warrior at all, as I discovered IW the turn after, Legions are a substantial pricehike

3. A trader or builder purchase would have been 7 turns of at least, city now>trader in a few turns, besides all my gold income will go into Legion and Crossbow upgrades by then anyway.

[Side note: We don't need to connect our cities! We're Rome, every road a trader can build for us between our cities is already built!]

Going east is too much of a risk right now, we need more units before we can defend that from Bram, otherwise we just get Mameluked to death.

I'll look into posting more score updates, I'll have more time starting tommorow (winter holidays)

[Mikeforall]

I explained my reasoning for the Warrior purchase, it would delay my city too much. But lets go into some detail:

1. All my cities are building critical science infrastructure, I saw no free oppertunity to build a quick warrior anywhere, and I really don't want the only scientificically inclined civ on the map (Arabia) to pick up that Scientist. Hypatia is one of, if not THE, strongest GS in the game (maybe apart from the Spaceship rushing ones)

2. This was the last turn I could purchase a Warrior at all, as I discovered IW the turn after

3. A trader or builder purchase would have been 7 turns of at least, city now>trader in a few turns, besides all my gold income will go into Legion and Crossbow upgrades by then anyway.

[Side note: We don't need to connect our cities! We're Rome, every road a trader can build for us between our cities is already built!]

Going east is too much of a risk right now, we need more units before we can defend that from Bram, otherwise we just get Mameluked to death.

I'll look into posting more score updates, I'll have more time starting tommorow (winter holidays)

1 & 2. Still think the builder purchase was rushed. Not saying you should interrupt the science infrastructure (science is always good) but that getting the builder itself was rather impulsive, which as Sun Tzu already wrote down 2500 years ago, is something a good strategist should never do. 

3. Ups, forgot about Roman bonus. Still rather used to Civ V rome. Better to indeed put the gold into Legions then.
However: That in fact even more stipulates that we would very well be able to hold an eastern outpost up. 


Needing more units now to defend against mamluks in the future? Wut? I do not get that reasoning at all. 
You are planning on producing Legions and Crossbows in a few turns, as you stated in point 3. Which means that, by the time Alhambram gets Mamluks, you already got an army up.
Besides, as I argued earlier, you should not let it come to him getting mamluks safely in the first place. 
As I stated above, to which you not yet answered (but hopefully will in the next post) A military campaign against him is inevitable, so best to start one before he has Mamluks than after, especially since early game no unit can match Legions (especially not when they are backed up by crossbows). 
And a forward settle, as stated earlier, would be very beneficial to that campaign as both a fall-back hideout, a way to spot enemy units going towards you earlier, ánd just to prevent him from settling closer to our heartlands.

[Japper007]

Mamluks are faster to beeline than Crossbows (you can theoretically just go AH-Horseback Riding-Stirrups), if you skip the Eureka you can get there in 60-ish turns. If he doesn't already have the tech for them he will in a few turns. If we wanted to rush him we're already to late. My strategy instead is to show him I'm not interested in his lands, but also that I'm a bitch to take down as yes I have a powerspike at the same time he does. This will hopefully make him consider warring whoever is on the other side of him. This  is why I have been friendly with him for so many turns. It is in both our best interests to not trade UU's but instead invest them into taling out neighbours without them.

I don't see in what world spending the next 20-ish turns with that settler just sitting in Fenris while we build our army is stronger than just getting another city down now. Not to mention it's another ten turns of walking to get up there.

A forward settle can't defend itself at this stage, the bulk of our army is out of position at La Venta.  At least 30 turns from the front. Building a new army from scratch will also take at least another 30 turns. This is not Single Player where a naked forward settle can hold out for 20 turns while you scramble defenders. This is Multiplayer, where a city with defenders can fall in a few turns.

Also I can throw that pretentious Sun Tsu quote right back at ya. Purchasing a Warrior is adapting to a changing situation, and Sun Tsu reviled unadaptive thinking. Meanwhile forward settling a neighbour when this has A) less short term gain and B) we don't have the army to defend it. Now that is rash and impulsive!

[Japper007]

Turn 59:

The first Great General fell to Krill on his turn.

Pindicator built Stonehenge, I think, he earned 3 Great person score this turn (a Great Prophet?) and 8 tourism per turn.

Alhambram is now producing 3.1 GS points, we better get those campuses and the library finished fast. Worst comes to worst we are a dead lock-in for the second GS if Alhambram grabs this one.

We're dead (and I deliberately emphasise DEAD here) last in military score, even with the Warrior purchase. I need troops, and Legion/crossbow upgrades. Fast.

We are slowly wittling away LV: we do 45 damage per turn, it heals 20, it has 150 hp remaining. This means we capture it within 10 turns (the city get's weaker as we go along so it takes more damage every turn, but the calculation for that gave me a headache, so I'll keep it at a rough back-of-the-napkin 10 turns...)

[Japper007]

Turn 60:

First the good news:



Fourth city founded! With the fall of La Venta we'll be at 5 cities before turn 70! I zoned in a Harbour, though I'll build a Builder first, as the Harbor costs me 115 turns to build currently.

Now for the bad stuff:




Hypatia unfortunately fell to Alhambram, he must have cash-rushed her, the next GS up is also pretty good though, so I'm still going with the Campus/"Tall" plan for now. I'll start knocking out a wave of settlers after the two Campuses and the library are out, though some troops first (I want at least three legions on the map, and possibly some more archers on the northern front).

[Mikeforall]

Hypatia unfortunately fell to Alhambram, he must have cash-rushed her

It was a campus project. 
First of all, looking at the points needed back at turn 50, when you last posted a screenshot of the great person screen, it would have been a very steep buy, certainly not a good way to go about with your cash. 
If you even got cash enough for it in the first place (which you can check btw, just go to the diplomat screen and pretend to make a deal with them, you can then see their gold and gold/turn).
Second: He has 5gpp in the new one already. With his 3.1 sciencepoints you mentioned at turn 59, it would would be impossible to have 5 points already after buying or normally gaining one, unless you completed a project.


By the way, Am I correct to assume Alhambram just forward-settled us? 
I see a new yellow city on your minimap very close to Fenris, but you did not mention it in your post.

[Japper007]

Turn 62:

Alhambrams "forward settle" chokes out my prefered fresh water spot (the pin in the south) but there is still a decent freshwater spot in the north



A new archer appeared at La Venta, I took it to 40% health in one shot, though that does mean less damage on the LV city center. I smacked it with the Warrior to continue the downward trend (I came up with just 15 dmg with one archer, as the other had a promotion to lvl 2 already, so I had to get >5 dmg to counteract the healing). I expect the archer will fire back on my promoted one, giving it enough XP to level up to lvl 2 (it needs only one point).



With interface up to speed with my city founding, lets look at the scores:



Something is clearly wrong with Jester's and Alhambram's scores, Jester has also dropped to second last military (only above our pitiful civ), if he is in an active conflict with Krill (as I suspect, don't have diplo vision yet, and no time to build scoutships) things aren't looking bright for him at all, especially now that Krill has a general. No idea why 'Bram is slacking so much though.

Pindicator took a city state I think, his empire score is ahead of mine, and I just dropped another city last turn. I also see now that I had mistaken him getting an early prophet from Stonehenge or any Wonder for that matter, as he has no Wonder score! I can't explain the Tourism then, any ideas Mike?

[Mikeforall]

Pindicator took a city state I think, his empire score is ahead of mine, and I just dropped another city last turn. I also see now that I had mistaken him getting an early prophet from Stonehenge or any Wonder for that matter, as he has no Wonder score! I can't explain the Tourism then, any ideas Mike?

Wether he got that prophet from Stone Henge or bought/projectrushed it does not really matter, he found a religion, and thus he is getting religious tourism if I am correct. 

There is something more worrying however regarding pindicator.
He has more civics than we do, and around the same technologies. In other words, he is currently forming a cultural powerhouse without a science delay, which is quite dangerous. 
Since he has it this early, it must mean he did not focus much on military. I thus do not think he has taken a city state as of yet, but more likely just built settlers to settle the lands around him. 
Though it could be he managed to take a city state with very few units. He did seem like a good strategist in earlier PBEM's. 

What is his military score? What is his raw culture and science output? And his Gold per turn? Would be useful to know those in order to make some more accurate predictions.