[SPOILERS] Charriu, chumchu, and Magic Science in Pitboss 45

[Magic Science]

   
Good news: Ghuzz is guarded by warriors. Interesting news: Ghuzz was settled on furs.

We will need a city in the my-land snowy wastes to claim them, but the location of that city is still an open question. On the furs, or one tile south? If Ghuzz has seafood in its second ring in the fog to the north, then the furs are the best choice. However, if there is not any seafood, then one tile south of the furs is the best choice. A city there would be slightly cheaper and have better tiles. Compared to Ghuzz, it trades four oceans and a snow for three coasts, a plains, and the snowy fur itself. That is a small improvement, though, and a long-term one, so I do not think that it is worth paying for a settler to make it happen when we could stick with Ghuzz for free.

The situation is made more complicated by Ghuzz’s strange behavior. We first spotted it when Kuala Lumpur’s borders expanded on Turn 66, so the city must have existed at least since then. 23 turns is enough time for it to have reached size 2, even at only +1 food per turn from a basic coast, yet Ghuzz has not grown. It must have worked a citizen for +0 food on some turns, and if the barbarian governor is willing to work citizens over coasts, then I am not sure that we can count on Ghuzz growing anytime soon. “Anytime soon” means “about the next ten turns”, because I am not waiting any longer than that for my furs. If Ghuzz hasn’t grown by then, we will need to autoraze it and settle our own fur trading post.

   
Our next city will be settled here within five turns. I favor settling for the whales over the crabs. The crab city is closer, so it costs less and can be founded sooner, is quicker to start from having its resource first ring, and is better long-term from having a stronger tile, but the whale is a luxury, and our first six cities are all at or close enough to the happiness cap to need to worry about it. Another happiness point could help them all quite a bit.

   
The continued existence of Mr. Cairo’s city of Baal is the result of a mistake, at least in retrospect, on my part. When it was first founded, I considered attacking it, but decided not to because the discovery of the fish by Tyre’s island revealed that there was another good “overseas” spot to settle after all, and I thought it unlikely that the garrison would be weak enough for two axemen to defeat. It turns out that, unless Cairo has moved units out of Baal since then for some bizarre reason, two axemen could have burned down the city back on Turn 83.

I am considering trying to rectify this mistake. I think that if we can capture Baal, we should. Baal is a city that will probably be worth more than one city to us, because it opens up settlement of whatever islands our brave workboat is soon to discover, and the problems it creates in our relationship with Mr. Cairo are not discouraging enough for me. Baal should not become a continuing tense point in the same way that Titan, for example, would be if captured, because it is neatly divided from the rest of Chinese civilization by a few tiles of distance and a thin, defensible chokepoint.

However, it is not clear that we do have the ability to capture Baal. The best plan I can come up with has us landed and attacking with one chariot and three axemen on Turn 98, with a yet undetermined amount of reinforcement units a turn behind. Eight turns is enough time for Mr. Cairo to strengthen the garrision sufficiently to hold that force off, so planning to capture Baal means planning for Mr. Cairo to continue making the same mistake he made before. Is that reasonable? Maybe. The only cost of setting up to capture Baal is 100 hammers for two galleys that we would otherwise not need yet (we need the military units anyway), and Turn 92 is the final turn for deciding rather or not to do enact the plan. The galley from Malacca needs to be sailing on Turn 93 or it will not be able to reach Baal in time.

[Charriu]

New cities are interesting, but more importantly how do we improve our economic situation. +7 on 0% isn't that great? I would wait with setting the whale until we stabilized the economy. The maintenance could killus. Same goes for Baal, but there at least we get capture gold.

[Charriu]

Anything new from the great Babylonian Empire?

[chumchu]

Hey!

Sorry for not participating much. You two seemed to work fine just me so I have been reading instead of commenting. I concur with Charriu that an attack might not be wise at the moment. You seem to be ahead in land and behind in economy so fixing the economy with research builds into currency seems to be better than conquering new land. For that to work you want international trade routes as well. If it is a four way on the main continent it would be prudent top wait for someone else to attack first and then vulture someone.

[Magic Science]

New cities are interesting, but more importantly how do we improve our economic situation. +7 on 0% isn't that great? I would wait with setting the whale until we stabilized the economy. The maintenance could killus. Same goes for Baal, but there at least we get capture gold.

The whale city, Vancouver, is a net benefit to the economy. It reduced gold per turn by seven when settled, but the whales are improved now, and the output of the seven happy population points that would not exist without them is worth more than seven gold per turn.

   

Well, it is too late to not attack now.

Baal is ours. Four Babylonian units landed in the forest to the north on Turn 97, just as planned, and found that the city had been reinforced only by one spearman since our last sighting of it. Thanks to good luck, only one of our axemen was lost in the Baattle of Baal. Capturing Baal revealed two pleasant surprises: that it was not on the mainland after all, and that there was another Chinese city, Nostramo, further south on the same island.

Two axemen by sea and one chariot by land raced south to see if they could capture a second city in this war, and on the last turn before all three units could attack, Nostramo’s garrison consisted of one warrior. Sadly, Mr. Cairo finished a spearman, which killed our chariot, and upgraded the warrior to an axeman before my turn came again, so Nostramo lived. Oh well, forcing Mr. Cairo to spend gold on an axeman and delete a worker (the spearman was finished by chopping a forest south of the lake right before my chariot arrived on that tile) is a pretty good result for an attack that wasn’t even part of the original plan. In hindsight, I think the war with Mr. Cairo has gone well and was worth waging.

The problem, as I am sure the observant, intelligent people who take the time to read my reports have already noticed, is that we are STILL at war with Mr. Cairo. I offered him a binding peace treaty back on Turn 101, but he refused! Why? I think he thinks he can make a successful counterattack within ten turns. None of the other reasons I considered (to lull superdeath into a false sense of security, to cause me minor problems in the development of Baal and Florence by threat) seem like they are worth sacrificing Titan’s clam tile for, and as of this turn, I can see the components of a counterattack assembling. There are at least three galleys, one in Titan and two west of my southernmost galley, and quite a few assorted land units, including three swordmen.

To counter the counterattack, I plan to position one galley south of Baal’s clams, another north of Titan’s clams, and a third south of the plains hill at the end of Florence’s peninsula. That configuration will allow me to force Mr. Cairo to either attack our galleys or land his units more than one tile away from their target, rather or not that target is Baal or Florence. Even with circumnavigation and Mathematics, for building canals, I do not see a way for his galleys to dodge my galleys. Baal is defended by four axemen on a hill who will be fully fortified and behind 20% culture by the time Cairo can attack, and I invested a turn of production in a bowman there this turn, so Baal could whip one to completion if it needs to. Florence is defended by two bowmen and one axeman, but it will have finished another axeman and bowman before Cairo can attack. I think that Mr. Cairo needs to attack with ten units in three or four turns to have any hope of capturing Baal or Florence, and it does not appear that he can do so. I hope he recognizes that and decides to make peace rather than continue escalating the war.

   
Do you see our scouting workboat? No? Exactly. It was treacherously slain by the accursed Vikings a few turns after we met them, may they be forever known as villains and scoundrels of the worst degree. They let it live when it encountered a scouting trireme of theirs as it passed Stone Island, but killed it with a galley as it rounded the north of Raikonen’s Island. The loss of the workboat is not much of a problem, since it had already achieved its most important task, but GeneralKilBoat's declaration of war on us is a problem, because it reduced our prolonged peace trade route multiplier to zero. We could each be earning nine commerce per turn from intercontinental international trade routes, but now that cannot happen for another twenty turns. I have been unable to make up for that loss with our continental neighbors either. nausten refused my open borders offer, and our cities have no trade routes with superdeath’s even though he did accept my offer. Our import-export demographic is -9, indicating his cities have trade routes with ours, so I think the problem is our war with Mr. Cairo.

We could settle the two city spots between us and Generalboakil in less than fifteen turns, but I am not sure if we should. The closer one will cost 13 gold per turn, the farther one 16, and I do not want to sabotage our economy that badly when it is just about to finally be fixed. There is also the military aspect to consider. If Mr. Cairo continues to refuse peace, it will be difficult to ensure the safety of a new frontline city distant from the rest of the empire and with no capacity to aid in its own defense. Generalboakil is the concern for the farther city. They have triremes and we do not, so a naval war against them would be unpleasant and not reasonably winnable, and I worry that they might be provoked to declare one against us if we claim that island. The course of action that appeals to me most is to not settle the nearer city for a few more turns and to never settle the farther island unless it is somehow still unclaimed when we have triremes of our own.

   
nausten has samurai. They bulbed Machinery on Turn 90. This may seem terrifying, but I have concluded that for us it is not. Strength three units need a net combat bonus of 170% to win against strength eight units more than 50% of the time when defending. Against Aggressive samurai, that requires combat bonuses adding up to 180%, and against Aggressive samurai with City Raider I, that requires combat bonuses adding up to 200%. Bowmen do not struggle to achieve such high bonuses against samurai. 50% for fighting a melee unit and 50% for being in a city and 25% for full fortification and 25% from City Garrison I add up to 150%, and some combination of walls, culture, and hills can make up the rest, allowing our 25 hammer units to defeat their 80 hammer units.

However, because we have no good way to defeat samurai in the field, nausten can still threaten us by forking. If they position a stack between Bratislava and Kuala Lumpur, we will need enough bowmen to defend both cities at once, or we will be required to choose which city to defend (Kuala Lumpur, no contest). Since Bratislava is not a strong city, and building that many bowmen would be expensive, I have elected to not do so and write off Bratislava in the event of a Japanese attack. We are about the settle a city to connect the furs, though, and the furs will be worth the output of a very strong city, but scattered across the empire rather than concentrated in one place, just like whales. That may be worth building two armies of bowmen to keep safe, or maybe we could build a fleet of galleys in the bay instead. With a galley fleet, most of the bowmen could stay fortified in Kuala Lumpur, but if nausten moves north to attack the fur city from Bratislava (Bratislava is still a write off under this plan), many of the bowmen could board the galleys and arrive in the fur city in time to protect it. But building a fleet of galleys large enough to make that worth would be about as expensive as building the army of bowmen, and their usefulness is far more limited, so maybe that is not such a good idea.

(Also, note that I captured and autorazed Ghuzz this turn. Ghuzz had been working a coastal tile for a few turns now, but we will be ready to settle our own city one tile south of the furs in three turns, so I cannot wait any longer for it to grow. I am glad I waited this long to capture it, though. 87 gold is a lot more than you expect to pillage from a one-pop barbarian city! This haul should allow us to finish Currency in three turns. The difference between five and four turns without spending gold is the difference of switching two or three population points around, and spending the gold should speed research up by one turn on top of that.)

   
nausten has been at war with superdeath for at least 14 turns, but they captured their first city of his, Draft Dodger, this turn. The three tiles I have signs on are the three tiles the city could be located on that account for the pattern of connection of the nearby resources that I observed back when it was first settled, but I do not think they will be necessary anymore. Draft Dodger A is the correct one, because superdeath birthed a Great General in his capital last turn that died in combat this turn, and Draft Dodger A is the only one he could have reached with movement left to attach to units in one turn.

The Battle of Draft Dodger lasted two turns and was very bloody for both sides; take a look at the power graph:
   
Yikes!

I was worried that nausten had catapults, and that the long wait with no war weariness was because they were waiting to finish bombarding their target city, but now I am not as worried. If they had catapults, then this battle should have been a one-sided slaughter, but it wasn't.

It remains unclear rather or not nausten can press their advantage and maintain a shadow of a chance of victory by taking over the rest of superdeath’s cities. Only time will tell.

[Magic Science]

Lastly, for your edification, allow me to present:
DEMOGRAPHICS:
   

AND 

VICTORY SCREEN:
   

And Charriu and chumchu, thanks for sticking around as dedlurkers even through my terrible reporting. I appreciate it and will try to do better.

[Charriu]

Well it looks like it works out for you so far. Good to see that Currency finishs soon. We desperately need it and with that many cities the benefit will be noticeable. I agree with settler plans for the east. Depending on Mr. Cairos action we may want to join the war against naufragar, while Superdeath is still alive and fighting. But I suspect Mr. Cairo might be the easier target for now. By the way how many cities do our neighbors have right now?

[thestick]

How do you calculate how much GPT the island cities will cost?

[Krill]

He lives! Nice to see you around thestick!

[Charriu]

Anything new from the magical civilization of Babylon?