Japper and Cornflakes' team thread

[suboptimal]

By the way, how does one re-name a city?

Normally you'd open the city info panel, click on the city name and then type in the new one.  IIRC CQUI may let you rename a city by clicking its name in the city info box.

[Japper007]

Peace, why? They do realize they got nothing out of this whole adventure right?

Well I took the deal on my turn as you said you wanted to take it too. And yeah it does accept it for both of us. That gives us ten turns of peace to upgrade swords for you, Ngao for me. We do need to bear in mind that Chevs Slinger will probably be archers for the most part when this is over too. Who knows maybe the shoe will be on the other foot once the ten turns are up!

Now I'm really lost on Woden and Chev's gameplan, did they really build this whole rush army only to burn down a single city?

[Japper007]

Btw if you cordon of the area with your substantial military we could think about resettling a border city to really rub salt in the wounds. That's gotta be some points on the psychological front right? Oh so you raised our city? plant!

[Cornflakes]

Peace, why? They do realize they got nothing out of this whole adventure right?

It does seem like a huge investment for virtually nothing. They can now settle another non-freshwater city on their side of the connection and re-settle a city near Aranyaka ... surely these sites are not better than other sites they could have settled on their main continent.

Well I took the deal on my turn as you said you wanted to take it too. And yeah it does accept it for both of us. That gives us ten turns of peace to upgrade swords for you, Ngao for me. We do need to bear in mind that Chevs Slinger will probably be archers for the most part when this is over too. Who knows maybe the shoe will be on the other foot once the ten turns are up!

Now I'm really lost on Woden and Chev's gameplan, did they really build this whole rush army only to burn down a single city?

No complaints from me for the 10 turns of peace! On the other hand, I don't think they had any better option than peace. We would both have Iron Working by the time they could have advanced through that jungle so they weren't going to make any further gains until they came back with something more advanced anyway. Overall their attack has set them back relative to the other two teams while gaining them nothing. And they have also earned the enmity of our team.

Btw if you cordon of the area with your substantial military we could think about resettling a border city to really rub salt in the wounds. That's gotta be some points on the psychological front right? Oh so you raised our city? plant!

I don't think pushing forward is wise at present. I don't want to leave my army exposed for possible resuming of the war in 10 turns. I'll advance my turtle warrior into the straight to keep eyes on their activity, but I'd rather take out the barb camp in the west and then fall back to a defensive front. I'll upgrade one sword and give you the gold to upgrade as well. I think it would be best to just upgrade one of your UU for now just so they see your city strength increase, but hold off on a 2nd/3rd upgrade to save the maintenance. Here's a tentative dotmap (old screenshot since it's my only wide shot on file):

   

One constraint in making this dotmap is that I did not locate any cities on the coast due to England's naval superiority. Green doesn't have much for 1st ring tiles but is on a hill for a defensive position. I don't like how that looks though and will probably move it in the future. Yellow and Red are probably my first 2 expansion targets, with Red first. Those locations have enough tiles to work for now with the investment of some builder charges, and with the pantheon have excellent Holy Sites. I'm leaning towards Red first since that has 3 Wheat and I could build a watermill for the Construction eureka as the first build there. I can use the last charge from my builder to farm the wheat, and then grow onto the PFH. After the current settler I can make use of Colonization to build another settler for Yellow and then swap to Ilkum for a couple of builders. I'm planning to plant the HS immediately to lock in cost but not complete them for a while. 

Orange I was originally thinking in the circle location where the aqueduct can boost 2 farms in a feudalism triangle to the west. However that is a very production poor site. By shifting 1W I can get 1 PFH 1st and another 2nd ring. The Banana could be harvested for a farm triangle to the south of the city. Orange would probably be timed after a city in the GREEN vicinity.

[Japper007]

That's a nice dotmap, I'd go Orange first to block off Yellow and Red for backfill.

At green I'd put the Aquaduct one North of the city rather than the SE spot you planned, it avoids wasting a hill and you can chop the jungle into farms. Green is also almost as awfully exposed as Aranyaka was.

Side note: I know Feudalism farming triangles are neat and all but in practice I prefer mining hills and improving amenities over them the fast majority of the time. You don't need as much food as you do in Civ IV or 5. They are a good use of later Builders though and maybe they are worth it as Khmer, though as I said I have like 0 practice with them.

[Cornflakes]

By the way, I'm about 3 turns into Drama & Poetry now, of the 13 turns estimated, so you will be getting that inspiration shortly [10 turns]. The 13 turn research time will more than cover the 10-turn sanction requirement to stay in Chiefdom. I'm not sure whether to go on to Theology now or up to G&R/Defensive Tactics. I think part of that will depend on whether I think I can get the Construction + G&R boosts from a watermill at RED in time. If delaying to Theology first will give me time for the boost then it makes sense.

Is Oligarchy still the best government option for you and I? I could go to something else first with the option to slip into Oligarchy when going into combat.

[Japper007]

Ah yes I've been putting culture into Drama since discovering PP, I'll stop at halfway point then.

I could give you the boost to Games and Rec with a Water Mill at my cap too, which would go up after the Settler. I kinda want one there anyways... It would mean I head to Construction after Wheel hits 50%.

On governments, as is so often the case with civ, the answer is depends. What do you want out of the coming 20-ish turns? Do we want to punish Woden and Chev for screwing us without actually finishing the job? If so: Oligarchy, Agoge out Swords, go back on the offensive. Or do you want to boom and build (my preffered option too, the terrain is not really conducive to warring), if so Classical Republic with settler, builder, and production policy slotted in might be better.

[Cornflakes]

If you want a watermill anyway then go for it. The timing will work out better on your end anyway to research construction while I go for HBR to give you that boost. [EDIT: forgot that HBR is a prerequisite for Construction. I'm going to swap tech to that next turn to get you the boost. You have better things to spend a builder charge on than pasturing desert sheep. I'm still 1-2 turns short of 50% on Iron Working, but with 10 turns of enforced peace this is not a concern.]

I definitely want to punish W/CMF but I would rather do that after getting a couple more cities down and growing a larger production base. I'd like to try putting the hurt on them in about 40 turns. Something to consider would be having me run Strategos with the aim of a head start on the Medeival GG to boost crossbows/knights. I can slot in Classical Republic and build nothing but builders and settlers for 15 turns, then swap to Autocracy for two military policies and Heavy Chariot + Archer builds. Then we re-settle Aranyaka and use it as an upgrade point as we pour into the gap. You could even stay full-on economy while I build up for war. Two armies would be a nightmare maneuvering down the isthmus. I can focus my more limited science & culture on purely military objectives.

I'm strongly opposed to Orange first. Orange is a very slow starter and I want the other two sites first to boost the snowball. Here's how I would develop Orange in an ideal world (2 builders already on-scene and some gold in the bank):

1) I would plant on the Diamond location
2) immediately buy the 2nd ring PFH and Banana tiles
3) have a builder on both the Aqueduct swamp and banana tiles to harvest both (harvest not subject to the growth penalty).
4) With production set to walls, work both PFH until walls almost complete. Then put 100% chop overflow from PFH into Aqueduct replacing the forest with a mine.
...) Maybe buy a couple of the 3rd hill ring tiles from Aranyaka's sphere of influence to get more production

[Cornflakes]

The above military action against W/CMF does not synergize well at all with the religious setup that I'm playing  As far as war is concerned it's like I'm basically playing with a blank civ & pantheon. I have the pantheon which boosts faith from tundra HS adjacency. I have Khmer's missionaries which want me to spam holy sites with temples and booted faith production. Gearing up for total war in 40 turns means completely abandoning the religious side for about 60 turns. There is no time or spare production for holy site builds. I need an early encampment at my 2nd city instead of a Holy Site, followed immediately with a Stable or Barracks in order to get the GG within 40 turns. 

I did forget momentarily about Domreys though! Let's look that up and see how that can be incorporated into the plan ... 

   

hmmm ... It's an expensive unit for the era at 220 but it does look ideal for a quick offensive war, being able to move and shoot unlike Bombard/Catapult. It is also boosted by the Medeival GG! First-impression is that 3 of these would be ideal towards the back of the ranks. I can press quickly through the isthmus with GG-boosted movement on Knights + Crossbows. Bypass the cities with the initial Knights/crossbow wave and focus entirely on units, and then the Domreys roll [march?] in and bombard down the cities.

One logistical advantage I'll have vs. W/CMF is that Woden is the one earning the GG points, but he is further away. In order for him to get into the action he has to first cross CMF's lands. Which means that he either has to anticipate the attack and build up forces on our border earlier, or we will be able to cross the chokepoint of the straight before he has time to get on the scene.

Given the choice of "turtle up & faith production" vs. "Fame or Flame" all out war, I'd pick war most any day. I am admittedly rather weak overall in the long-term economic department, but I love the tactics of war and consider myself a halfway-decent general.

[Japper007]

The main draw of the Domrey is it doesn't get penalties to wall attacks (as it's a "Siege" unit).