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As a French person I feel like it's my duty to explain strikes to you. - AdrienIer |
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[SPOILERS] Cornflakes brings the popcorn (because creativity is overrated)
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September 15th, 2018, 09:15
(This post was last modified: September 17th, 2018, 07:28 by Cornflakes.)
 (September 15th, 2018, 08:07)Sullla Wrote: This is a really impressively played and well-reported game. Thanks for the kind words! This proposal from TheArchduke was waiting for me this turn. I almost accepted, but hesitated because I need the gold right now in order to purchase the Colosseum tile. It would take me about 10 turns to accumulate the 80 gold necessary for the tile purchase. That both increases the risk that someone else will be able to steal the wonder, and also negates some of the benefit of purchasing the great work. I'd be basically trading +4  /turn now for delaying +12/turn by about 8 turns. It would take 20+ turns of owning the Great Work for that to break even. Another consideration is that giving TAD 80 now is basically signing Banzailizard's death warrant. That would give him enough gold to upgrade and support 3 swords. Combined with his massive archer-based army he would have sufficient force to overcome BL. I suspect that was TAD's motive for making the offer.I countered by offering 6 /turn for a total of 180 over 30 turns compared to 140 total in his offer above. I'm willing to trade 6 gpt for 4 cpt.
TheArchduke accepted my offer 6
/turn for his Great Work of Writing. I am quite please with the deal, and I imagine he is as well since he was able to immediately convert his 2nd GWriter charge into an income stream rather than just a glorified scout. This bumps up my culture rate to 25/turn and has the secondary effect of increasing my border pop rate at the capital since the writings are housed in the palace. My objectives for the following 25 turns until the expiration of the Declarations of Friendship are:
A look at my planned city sites. I was initially looking at YELLOW in the north, but settled on ORANGE instead. ORANGE picks up 2 rice for quick growth and 2 hills 1st ring, plus additional 5 hills 2nd ring for long term strong production. In addition it also pick up 2 forests 1st ring to chop for quick initial development. RED is the replacement for my previously planned horse + rice city. This revised location is still withing 6 tiles of Colosseum, but it pick up the Tea as well as locking down the border with Banzailizard. Between these 2 expansions I invalidate all city locations between us except for a dry plant directly on that plains wheat which is just a terrible site. The arrows show where I'm tentatively planning on building the settlers from. RED is overall a very weak site but still worth the settler cost simply because it pick up Tea and is within range of Colosseum for free +2 /+3 amenities. I'll get a district or two out of this site and that's about it.A look at my tentative district plan: On the subject of Peace in the Hemisphere ... I'm concerned about TheArchduke hitting me at the end of the declaration of friendship, seeing that my yields are quickly outpacing him and Banzailizard. I'm working on the feasibility of getting Gunpowder + enough gold to upgrade 2 muskets + 2 crossbows. I think that amount of force should be enough to discourage attack. It's going to be a tall task but I think within the realm of possibility.
District musings:
Cribbage - IZ where carnival is marked, with carnival pushed to 2nd ring adding adjacency? Possibly chop riverside jungle for additional CH rather than 3rd ring harbor (due to gold constraints). Free Cell - add harbor (#1?) to compensate for dropping the one at cribbage Sushi Go - add encampment? On the hill 2S on the border. That plus walls would make Sushi Go quite a fortress.
September 18th, 2018, 06:59
(This post was last modified: September 18th, 2018, 07:06 by Cornflakes.)
Some little oddities noticed with the district discount mechanic ... this turn I didn't complete a tech or civic, yet I noticed that I could plant the 2nd carnival district at a discount. However the discount did not apply to the 2nd Industrial Zone this turn. I do not know why it would apply to one type of district but not the other. The 2nd carnival I placed at Free Cell where shown above, 40
 cost with 2-turn construction time thanks to 35 remaining overflow. I decided to go ahead with the carnival first rather than granary since this carnival in combination with the CH completing at Sushi Go in 3 turns will lock in the discount on both the HS and Harbor even if I don't complete a Theater first. I want to proceed immediately with unlocking and placing down harbor because that will allow me to get traders out quicker and generate the much needed upgrade gold.
23 turns until DoF ends. As I take stock of my situation and growing yields I am ever more nervous of attack at the end. On the bright side, I'm almost certain that TAD will not have the research capacity for both knights AND crossbows. And I don't think he'll have all that much more gold than I for upgrades. I'm also still hopeful that hostilities might break out between TAD and BL at the end of their DoF (surely it must be ending any turn now!)
At Valletta I get my first ranged unit completed on T69! That is certainly a break from the norm around here. Archer was at 59/60  for a full agoge boosted 63 stone harvest => 93 overflow. That is more than enough to 1-turn the 80-cost encampment. The remaining overflow will probably go into the Market?? The following turn I'll have either the builder or settler card slotted and will the start whichever of those units gets the production boost. I'm leaning towards builder card first and then settler card. Wait, I was going to build a Barracks or Stables here. Hmmm ... I might stick with the Market now and wait until I can slot the Encampment + buildings policy card booster, especially since I'm considering adding an additional encampment at Sushi Go. I could therefore make use of that policy card at 3 cities simultaneously.The archer was able to immediately get in on some action against a barb scout. Rolled very low unfortunately and left the scout at 6 HP  I'm not sure where that scout is headed by the way. Is there a barb camp on the single fogged land tile above Lisbon? I had originally assumed that this scout came from the coastal horse camp in my northeast but he hasn't beelined back that direction???Speaking of the northeast ... my strike force is in place to begin assault on the camp next turn. I've revealed another rice which doesn't change where I'd like to locate my city up here. The horseman finds a good Petra city location, but otherwise worthless desert peninsula except for the Silver. And my galley is finding nothing but ocean thus far. That's a little disappointing since I was hoping to find a connection to some city states. Just keep swimming though. And finally an empire overview shot. Notice Iron revealed since Bronze Working completed last turn. I have 1 source connected already at Pinochle, and another 2nd ring to Chess. I have a border pop pending in 4 turns at Chess which should pick up this Iron tile, and it is ideally located adjacent to my Industrial Zone! I was looking at a 1/4 lottery pick to grab that hill tile and boost IZ adjacency, but not anymore  I have 3 district completing this turn in time for the T70 civ comparison boosting me to 8 total districts! Oral Tradition is now providing 4 /turn and is actually better than GotOS at this point since my planned double-cows ORANGE DOT was invalidated by TheArchduke. Oral Tradition was also extra incentive for me to get those plantations built and get the gold generation from them. At this point the gold is probably my most-needed yield. I'm still trying to figure out how to come up with 500 in 20 turns. Adding the +5 from the new CH minus maintenance on encampment + carnival gets me to +8/turn next turn. Combined with current and barb camp gold this natural generation will get me to about 250. I have another plantation coming in 5 turns for +2 more (30 total). But that still leaves me far short. I'll also have a trader in 5 turn that can run a +4 route (60 total). Both of my existing traders will finish their routes about 5 turns before the DoF ends and can bring in a combined 30 (assigned to Russian routes so that they teleport home in the event of a DoW from TAD). I still need to come up with 150 more! Where there's a will there's a way, I just need to figure out how ...
T70 Civ Comparison
Biggest improvement over the last 5 turns was Banzailizard's culture rate which nearly doubled, up to 16.6 from 8.8! I'm attributing that to 3 monuments completed (one in the city I have not yet defogged). My culture also shot up thanks to the GWork purchase, 2 banana plantation, and a coffee being worked. Another interesting note is that TheArchduke's gold has dropped to 40 with no corresponding increase in military strength. Hmmm ... a quick check of his city strength confirms that he did in fact upgrade at least 1 sword. Each turn I'm surprised to see that the Russian-German DoF is still active. Does this upgrade signify it ends next turn?  I'll have my GScientist recruited in 1-2 turns and if war does break out I'll send him off as war corespondent for 10 turns until he is required in his true field of expertise.Here's a breakdown of where my Science is currently coming from ... total: 29.2  2 Campuses: 7 Population: 16.8 Palace: 2 Iron: 1 Autocracy: 1 Amenities: 1.4 And breakdown of culture ... total: 27.6 Population: 7.2 Palace: 1 Great Work: 4 Autocracy: 1 Oral Tradition: 4 Monuments: 2 Coffee tiles: 5 Pyramids: 2 Amenities: 1.3 Population is by far the driving force of Science while Culture is coming from a hodgepodge of sources. The turn begins with the assault on the barb camp. Next turn it will be eliminated without difficulty. No land barb units spawned from here so I wonder if my galley will run into a quadrireme soon? Hopefully not. Still no connection to another island yet but I did see a tile of as-yet-unreachable shallow water across the ocean to the east. Hopefully I'll find another island as I round the eastern tip of our continent in 2-3 turns. My cities are growing nicely. 3 will gain another pop over the next 5 turns, and probably another 3 over the next 5 (pinochle up to 6). Trader #3 is coming out of Valletta I think in 4 turns after a tile swap. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to run an internal route to Valletta for the +3 or external to Russia for +3/+1/+1 . As much as I need gold right now it's still very hard to pass up the cogs. 3rd Archer is being built in Sushi Go simply because the other cities are occupied with other builds, and Agoge is fast approaching obsolescence at Feudalism. At my next civics swap T75 I'm going to swap out of Agoge for Limes. I'm contemplating swapping out Maritime Industries as well in favor of Conscription since it will be worth +6/turn. Not sure as this point what I would build instead. A harbor would be a good placeholder but I don't know if I'll be able to finish Celestial Navigation in time. My one complaint with the map so far is the complete lack of seafood on my coast.D&P will complete this turn to unlock Theater districts. I'll be planting one immediately at Pinochle. I saw another anomaly in the district discount mechanic this turn, as the discount applied to the 2nd Encampment even though another tech/civic was not completed last turn (2nd Encampment planted at Pinochle). Oddly though the discount anomaly did not apply to the Industrial Zone. I'm hoping that completion of a civic this turn will trigger recalculation of the discount for the Industrial Zones so I can plant the 2nd 1E of Cribbage, 1-turning it with archer-chop-overflow. If the discount doesn't apply to the IZ I will put a Theater here instead. The +1 is pretty insignificant but I do need the extra GWriter points since recruiting a GWriter is an inspiration on the critical path to Nationalism. Eventually the adjacency can be boosted to +2 with an entertainment district in the 2nd ring.Tech is set to Stirrups as a placeholder. Notice the pins in the lower right-hand-corner. Those are reminders when to start the respective techs when my science rate will result in the lowest possible overflow to avoid any potential loss. I will have significant culture overflow this turn and my fingers are crossed that it'll carry over properly. Next turn I'm debating whether to swap tech over to Astrology > Celestial Navigation or continue direct beeline to Gunpowder. I think I have to unlock Harbors sooner than currently planned in order to hit the 4 trader inspiration in time. Also the 1st GAdmiral seems like a pretty good one for the ancient era ... forms a fleet from a unit! I can use this to make an MG fleet once I unlock Nationalism, and it would be effectively worth a free MG since I won't have to combine 2.
Actually I think I have a slight change of plans. Cribbage can get base production of 11, which multiplied by 1.55 = 17 modified production into a settler. Each chop right now is worth at least 50 (51? 55?), so modified = 75. I have 2 chops available, one next turn into Archer for full overflow, plus another 3 turns later. If I swap in Colonization next turn I can get the following:
T71: 75 overflow + 17 natural production = 92 T72: +17 = 109 T73: +17 = 126 T74: +75 chop = 201, thus the chop completes the settler on T74. Northern city founded on T79, with a builder charge available to farm immediately. Another builder charge can arrive just in time to mine a hill for the first pop growth 5 turns later. Getting that settler out so quick will allow me to swap Ilkum in at a point when I have 3-4 build queues available to get +30% production boost immediately in advance of Feudalism completing. I think I could have Feudalism complete as early as T80, with 3 maybe 4 builders near completion.
I'm rereading your whole thread to see how you've built such a commanding lead without any aggression or the usual tricks. Just wanted to know that you're admired and appreciated <3
I Think I'm Gwangju Like It Here
A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about. (October 3rd, 2018, 18:33)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: I'm rereading your whole thread to see how you've built such a commanding lead without any aggression or the usual tricks. Just wanted to know that you're admired and appreciated <3 As best I can say from my perspective it was the early production focus over everything else. I moved 2 turns to plant my capital on a plains hill, started out working the plains forest hill, never ran God King, planted my 2nd and 3rd cities on plains hills. I also skipped building a scout until after I had a builder + settler out, starting builds: Warrior > Builder > Settler. One other thing that I did differently (and I think contributed) is that I never built slingers. That really helped because IMO 1 warrior is about equal to 2.5 slingers when fighting against barbs. My warriors were able to fortify and absorb barb attacks on defensive terrain, plus take advantage of healing back HP each turn. Rather than spending my early gold on slinger > archer upgrades I was able to purchase an extra builder (and since I didn't have any archers I didn't need Conscription and was able to run Discipline for much longer once I built all my warriors). Even though I've killed 6 barb camps so far this game I have never really felt pressured by barbs and never had to make emergency military builds Quiet turn for me yesterday after the long pause. Not so much on the rest of my continent. War horns are sounding out west  and it doesn't look good for Banzailizard. I may have made a slight mistake when I offered to gift Iron to Banzailizard this turn. I think it is in my best self interest to let TheArchduke have early success in his attack. If my Iron gift allows Banzailizard to hold Lisbon then this will indeed be a mistake. Ideally what I'd like to see is TAD make a quick capture of Lisbon, push forward aggressively, and then get bogged down at that point after capturing maybe one more city (with Banzailizard refusing to give peace without regaining his cities). May be irrelevant though since I don't even know if BL has iron working yet to be able to upgrade into swords immediately. In any case he only has enough gold for 1 sword.In the east my galley found more shallow water, but still inaccessible across the ocean. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thanks for providing so much detail - looking forward to seeing the first round of Carnivals appear!
