[PB60] Lazteuq and Civac

[Lazteuq]

I leave in a few hours so I might get the next turn, depends on how soon Amica/Van play. I'll definitely be back on Monday (5th), possibly Sunday.

Since superdeath managed to settle near Mjmd, we should be able to do the same to Amica/Van. Establishing cultural dominance over that water is an important goal for the distant future because culture will take a long time to build up. Whoever gets monument/library/temple set up on islands first will have a 1-way sea lane I think. Maybe our next city should be on that little forested plains hill island.

[civac2]

From symmetry, there should be 2 forested whale island in that sea. You'd have to settle them both.

[Lazteuq]

You'd have to settle them both.

Hmm, not as appealing then. Maybe we shouldn't settle any new cities for a while.

We got Pyramids!!!
Now we make 0gpt at 0% because of the new cities and the extra cost from OR and Rep, but I think we're doing great anyway! Because of Representation, Library scientists are way better now, but we don't want to whip as much... a bit of a dilemma.

Ok, now I'm actually leaving.

[civac2]

We only got one turn in because Mjmd was dogpiled by his family apparently.

I did endeavor to to as much damage to your worker management in that one turn as possible though. You had two worker on forests near the jungle city and one worker on the last unimproved plains hill near the capital. Neither of these cities needs production right now so I sent them all cottaging. You could instead farm the river tiles near the jungle city. Considering we have the pyramids and may want to watermill these tiles eventually I would be fine with that. The capital needs to get its last cottages done and the wine farmed. That's much more important then the plains hill. PH mines are terrible tiles anyway.

I also changed the tile assignment in Uxmal to allow for 2pop whipping the missionary with overflow into a second missionary. Please produce missionaries this way as a matter of course. The longer they are in the build list the fewer missionaries we can produce per turn. They first two should go to Oxh-wathever in the south and the island city and then we should prioritize cities that need the happiness.

Edit: Forgot the AP. We need to consider how and when to build it.

[civac2]

I asked you a while back how you plan to win the game and didn't get much of a response. Unfortunately, this is exactly the weakest area of my game as well. Strategic decision making (and long-term economic management). For what it's worth, my thoughts on our current and possible paths to victory:

We are currently a bit behind economically due to lack of economic traits and expanding into the floodplain valley too slowly. (That was a significant mistake.) On the other hand we have the pyramids and this map does have a ton of food. We are also SPI which can be used to switch into caste system (and Pacifism). So we can probably out-tech the others in bursts but not long term.

The map is very structured and it is difficult to break into someone else's biome without getting backstabbed by 1-4 others. Any offensive military action needs to be conducted with even more overwhelming force than usual. The typical technological milestones are knights and galleons/frigates/grenadiers(/cannons). Perhaps, cuirassiers and rifles are also an option.

Knights: This map does not have elephants (or does it?) so knights are a reasonable choice if we can get there really fast. Compare Miguelito/Rusten's game in PB 54 for a blue print. They had a very similar position to ours with the small distinction that they had access to cataphracts. We would need Great Merchants and GAs to sprint to knights.


Grenadiers: Astronomy and Chemistry can be bulbed efficiently with Great Scientists which makes this faster than it looks. Frigates on the seas would be a huge advantage and could easily be transferred from one side to the other. Downside are that grenadiers suck a good amount and can be beaten by earlier units. In particular, they get their clock cleaned by Pinch knights. Moreover, we likely would need to skip knights. Knights are both better defenders than pikes and would allow us to take offensive action opportunistically. Skipping them is a huge cost. I'm also not sure how this can be leveraged into more territory outside of the islands.

Cuirassiers/Rifles/Cavs: Haven't thought about this much yet but the upper part of the tech tree does have its attractions (Pacifism, Taj, bureau capital with Oxford, Replacable Parts).

Outside of a timing attack, staying peaceful is an option. As mentioned, this map makes attacks really difficult. Long term we will get outteched by some of the competitors. Keeping up with FIN/ORG Jowy is simply not a thing that can happen in the long run. We could go for a monk economy with Sistine and aim for a cultural victory. That does seem like a recipe to get dogpiled however.

[Charriu]

Knights: This map does not have elephants (or does it?) so knights are a reasonable choice if we can get there really fast. Compare Miguelito/Rusten's game in PB 54 for a blue print. They had a very similar position to ours with the small distinction that they had access to cataphracts. We would need Great Merchants and GAs to sprint to knights.

You can build elephants with iron in CtH. And before you ask why it is implemented that's because mapmakers tend to forget to place ivory sometimes.

[Lazteuq]

I'm back!
First, thanks for looking at the micro stuff. I really don't expect that of a dedlurker at this stage of the game, but it's very nice.
I agree we don't need the hammers from chops. I'd been planning to road those forests though. I really like to road forests, it's helpful for defense (my PB59 for example) and its good whether you leave the forest, chop it, or lumbermill it. Not very important though. Since we no longer care about Monarchy, you're totally right about farming the wine. I'd been planning for Chichen to work that capitol plains hill mine since it has such a shortage of decent tiles. Is coast still just always better
What you said about missionaries makes total sense, I'd forgotten about the limit of 3 at a time.

Do you think we should get CoL pretty early for Caste? (right after we beeline Currency?) I think Markets are far too slow most of the time for generating Merchants, and getting Artists is even tougher. Also with Rep, we may want to run lots of specialists in any random cities just for the raw beakers. As I see it, a Rep scientist turns 2 food into 6 beakers before modifiers. Only luxury resource tiles can beat that normally. Merchants can help us run at higher slider percentage, and Artists are great for cultural battles, which might be really important on these island borders. In other words, I really think we should get CoL soon.
Next cool civic to play with would be Pacifism from Philosophy, which leads into Nationalism anyways.

The AP gives 2 hammers per religion building right? That sounds really nice with our cheap temples, and I like the idea of denying it to our neighbors. 400 hammers with no resource modifier sounds rough, but it does get the 25% from OR. I think the capitol can do 24 hammers easily. Even without a forge, that's 14 turns. I think we could easily have the AP on T120.
I think we should keep the capitol's GPP pool clean. (only prophets and engineers) That way we can plan for GAs easier without having to worry about getting too many scientists or merchants. Even if we never run a scientist, I think a capitol library is good for the multiplier alone. Could switch to AP as soon as we're ready to focus on hammers though, library can wait. I suppose we could build AP somewhere else, but I don't see where or why.


Ok, so about that whole winning the game thing...
I've become a little disillusioned with Knights. Among this field of relatively equal players with tight chokepoints, I think they would fall flat against hordes of spears and cats. I think Mig/Rust's success in 54 was exceptional - they were very dedicated and had weak/passive neighbors. It almost looked like they were playing singleplayer with how quick the conquests were. I don't think the cataphracts were even necessary. I think we can't expect anything close to that level of success.  You're right though, the situation is similar. Same leader traits, Pyramids, religion.

That grenadier bulb idea sounds interesting, I think I'm going to try it in singleplayer and report back. I haven't played with grenadiers much. Chemistry is an important prereq for Steel, and I love cannons. I think Astro is critically important, and decisive action will probably happen on the water. A strong navy will let us reach out to 4/5 opponents, which is better than you can say for most maps. I think Cannons are a better breakthrough unit than cuirs or cavalry, despite the slow speed. Steel isn't just for cannons though, getting early drydocks could be pretty important.

Top of the tech tree seems like solid standard play. Nationhood for drafting is exceptionally good since we're SPI. Taj is always good for anyone. I feel like Mjmd will get Taj unless we Engineer it. It's still possible to grow an engineer, but Amica/Van have a head start on us there with Metal Casting.
Rifling doesn't feel very good, and I worry Cuirs alone aren't powerful enough to get much done. They seem popular in PB57 though. Maybe I just don't understand.

I think we should stay peaceful for a long time. I have trouble imagining any military success with medieval units on the mainland. We may soon see a neighbor start to fall behind, and then we can make plans. Surely someone will screw up eventually. Currently I think it's going to involve GKC, but I'm not sure if he will become the leader or the lagger. I should monitor the demographics more closely. Culture victory doesn't sound viable at all though, because this map makes boat attacks pretty easy. I don't think we'd be able to defend three legendary cities even if we went super fast.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 102/103: Amica/Van are preparing to hit Izamal on Turn 104.


The threat is 2 axes, 2 chariots, 2 spears, and whatever may or may not be on a galley. They have four nearby workers available to road so their 6-8 units can be one tile outside Izamal, in a jungle, on the second half of turn 103.
We'll have 3 axes, 2 holkans, 1 chariot, and 1 warrior on defense, in various states of fortification and promotion.

I considered putting holkans in the jungle by Izamal to force an attack, but realized their axes will still get decent odds even considering the Woodsman promotion. Of course I pulled the forward Holkan who spotted this attack (What a hero!) back to Izamal and brought in an axe from the north. I also cold whipped another axe in Oxhuitza. If their galley actually contains chariots, that's unfortunate, but I doubt it. If that galley is empty and there are only 6 attackers, we can surely hold.
At first I'd written a whole paragraph about how I thought we should retreat from Izamal and let them autoraze it to conserve our forces. Then I realized we could get 2 more axes and a warrior in place, and ran it through VODKA. The situation is not too bad actually.
VODKA says they have less than 10% odds if that galley holds 2 axes, so I'm feeling pretty confident. This is assuming their units are generally not promoted, like ours. I really doubt they've built many barracks. I didn't see any blue glow on the axes or spears, so only the galley units and chariots are unknown.

-On the second half of t103 (right now), they can move everything to the coastal jungle by Izamal. For the units on their galley to participate in the attack, they will need to unload here as well.
-In the first half of t104, we should know if it's 6 or 8 units. We'll be able to bring in a third axe and warrior from the north. If it's only 6 attackers, we can easily stay in Izamal to tough it out. If 8, I'm not totally sure, but the numbers do look pretty good. In case SD shows up with 6 warchariots or something, we have a solid retreat path to the deer forest that I'm roading a second path to.
-In the second half of t104, they will be able to attack Izamal. I'm sure they're using VODKA too, so we'll have the same information. If they delay the attack, we can continue fortifying and whip walls, really shutting down the push. I doubt they'll try to bypass Izamal and go for Oxhuitza, but that could be tough. A superdeath attack is what I'm more worried about. I'm pretty sure he sees what's going on here.

Also Superdeath has a trireme down south, in about 5 turns he could be threatening our outer coast by pillaging nets. We may need two or three galleys on the coastal chokepoint to stop him. He's expressed peaceful intent though, so I'm not super worried just yet. Maybe he's organized a dogpile with Amica/Van? That sounds like a worst case scenario where we might face a stack of war chariots in the south as well, and losing Oxhuitza would be really bad. That's part of the reason I initially wanted to pull out of Izamal. I'm hoping SD and Mjmd fight eachother instead, especially since Mjmd's power is lagging. Edit: Actually I was looking at Jowy's power. We don't have graphs on Mjmd at this moment.

Peace treaty with GKC ends on t104. I really doubt he'll throw praets into the meatgrinder that is the hill island of Altun Ha. Without Amphibious, it will be horrible casualties. I still think we should whip walls there next turn for deterrence though. He can get amphibious praets with 2 promotions, thanks to aggressive. I'd like to get more axes and maybe another holkan in there in case he really spams chariots on us.(That would be weird)

On one hand, I really don't want to get caught in a serious war here. Izamal isn't worth much more than the settler which built it, and losing it wouldn't hurt too badly, especially now that our happiness issues are reduced. The troops in Izamal get no bonuses other than fortification, so I see no great reason to defend there. On the other hand, the VODKA gods say we should probably be able to hold.

Their power isn't higher than ours, so what we're seeing has to be the majority of their field army. So I'm not very worried about them attacking in the north as well, they can't have much. In the north I am worried about Jowy or GKC dogpiling in 5 turns or so on once they see the war starting. That could be really bad. Right now Jowy's forces seem pretty light and he's about to found a city near GKC, so let's hope they fight eachother.
I am a little worried about Amica/Van attacking in the north along the coast, because they could get a nasty galley fork on Xukpi and Calakmul. I think we should station a galley to block this, but they may have triremes, which really sucks. To prepare I put a few hammers into an axe in Calakmul, maybe we should do the same in Xukpi.

I considered cutting OB with Amica/Van, but I was afraid of their warrior teleporting to a weird spot. Maybe they'll start off the turn by moving next to Izamal with a spare worker while still at peace under open borders, see the units they're up against, and give up. That might be best for us, since no-one else will even see the war declaration. That could help prevent any dogpiling.

Jowy has Currency btw. Inspired by this, I'm thinking we should push for currency instead of IW. Math also leads to catapults which may be necessary, depending on how hard we get dogpiled. Our spiritual pyramids and theology bulb shenanigans as well as top demos are attracting some negative attention I think.

P.S. If anyone is lurking and doesn't know about this "VODKA" thing, here's the link: https://civ.zulan.net/vodka/

[civac2]

Amicalola's forces looked more like a settler party to me so I was a bit too relaxed about them. If you think it's an attack you should switch Uxmal to an axe (<5 hammers invested). Consider the possibility to switch to Theocracy. we can also upgrade the warrior if necessary.

I agree with whipping walls on the GKC island as well as adding another axe and holkan. It's probably better to 3->2 whip it though if slightly risky. But so far noone has any serious power so no praets.

We could go for make a GM with caste system for a trade mission. This would require some way to get it to a capital though.

[civac2]

I'm back!

Welcome back. How was your trip?

I really like to road forests, it's helpful for defense (my PB59 for example) and its good whether you leave the forest, chop it, or lumbermill it.

It's inefficient to road the forests now, especially if you want to chop them. But even with lumber mills building a road you would not build otherwise is inefficient. If you are worried about the defense implications of the forests chop them away. In the jungle city specifically we should do that once we have Iron Working. Before that there's no point.

I really think we should get CoL soon. Next cool civic to play with would be Pacifism from Philosophy, which leads into Nationalism anyways.

Yes, we could grab it even before Math, Currency as mentioned but maybe better not.

The AP gives 2 hammers per religion building right? That sounds really nice with our cheap temples, and I like the idea of denying it to our neighbors. 400 hammers with no resource modifier sounds rough, but it does get the 25% from OR. I think the capitol can do 24 hammers easily. Even without a forge, that's 14 turns. I think we could easily have the AP on T120.

It does. I don't think there is any particular rush to get the AP. I doubt there wil be competition. We should grow the capital to the happy cap on cottages first at least. Could also make a forge first.

Ok, so about that whole winning the game thing...
I've become a little disillusioned with Knights. Among this field of relatively equal players with tight chokepoints, I think they would fall flat against hordes of spears and cats. I think Mig/Rust's success in 54 was exceptional - they were very dedicated and had weak/passive neighbors. It almost looked like they were playing singleplayer with how quick the conquests were. I don't think the cataphracts were even necessary. I think we can't expect anything close to that level of success.  You're right though, the situation is similar. Same leader traits, Pyramids, religion.

Spears lose even against catapults, let alone shock xbows or something. They can't stop a knight attack. Elephants and catapults can though. Thanks Charriu for reminding me that people can build elephants with Iron.

That grenadier bulb idea sounds interesting, I think I'm going to try it in singleplayer and report back. I haven't played with grenadiers much. Chemistry is an important prereq for Steel, and I love cannons. I think Astro is critically important, and decisive action will probably happen on the water. A strong navy will let us reach out to 4/5 opponents, which is better than you can say for most maps. I think Cannons are a better breakthrough unit than cuirs or cavalry, despite the slow speed. Steel isn't just for cannons though, getting early drydocks could be pretty important.

Top of the tech tree seems like solid standard play. Nationhood for drafting is exceptionally good since we're SPI. Taj is always good for anyone. I feel like Mjmd will get Taj unless we Engineer it. It's still possible to grow an engineer, but Amica/Van have a head start on us there with Metal Casting.
Rifling doesn't feel very good, and I worry Cuirs alone aren't powerful enough to get much done. They seem popular in PB57 though. Maybe I just don't understand.

I think we should stay peaceful for a long time. I have trouble imagining any military success with medieval units on the mainland. We may soon see a neighbor start to fall behind, and then we can make plans. Surely someone will screw up eventually. Currently I think it's going to involve GKC, but I'm not sure if he will become the leader or the lagger. I should monitor the demographics more closely. Culture victory doesn't sound viable at all though, because this map makes boat attacks pretty easy. I don't think we'd be able to defend three legendary cities even if we went super fast.

I should have made that clearer in my previous post. Bulbing of Astronomy or Chemistry requires avoiding a lot of the top half of the tree, in particular Civil Service. With Civil Service, GS prioritize Paper, Education, Printing Press. Since we researched Meditation we would also need to clear Philosophy.

Hence, it is probably better to play a monk economy game (AP, Sankore) with a strong Bureau capital (cottages, Oxford). I doubt we can get Taj but who knows. We should still make a knight stack as a deterrent and to allow us to pounce if there is opportunity.