[SPOILERS] Donovan Zoi and AdrienIer: Slümhund Millionaires!

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 103/104 - 275 BC

I sure picked the wrong time to try and have a social life this weekend, as things have really gotten interesting over the last few turns. First of all, there is our face off with retep. On the island, retep is has 3 cities to our one (Chesapeake) and is guarding one of them (The Bishop) quite well:




On the other hand, there are two other nearby cities where the garrison is not quite as impressive, with only an Axe in the new Wine city (Look Down) and and Archer/Chariot in the landbridge city (One more Day). These are two cities I want in order to give Yorktown some room to breathe and build safe production across the channel. They also are named cryptically as some sort of premonition, but we seemed to have our bases covered for the time being against retep as far as I could see.




Next up, here's some recent graphs showing power and production of our rivals:

Power




Production




A few things of note here:

Elkad: Since building the Walls in Rotterdam, Elkad appears to have just gone back to domestic production as his powergraph has flatlined. He also falls far behind in production, mostly because many of his cities have fallen to Size 2-4. So this is reason why we need to grasp this opportunity.

Gavagai: You don't see it here (this graph was 2-3 turns ago), but Gavagai's power has spiked to the point where he significantly surpassed even Commodtay, dwarfing our own power in the process.

Turn 103

With that in mind, Adrien was right on in suggesting we trade maps with Gavagai in the hopes of forging a better relationship. But how would he respond? The news was good and bad.

The Good News

Yes! I could tell right away upon login that we got the map! That has got to be a good sign, right? Let's take a look at his lands while you mull that over....




And Now the Bad

Let's zoom in now for an aerial shot of our good friend's border town of Kerkouane:




WTF?? I think I mentioned earlier that could be an issue, so I wasn't suprised by this in the slightest. But really, another game as Gavagai's punching bag? Suddenly it all became clear...

WELL, THIS IDN'T GOOD! Time to enter panic mode. But why would he agree to the map trade then? Upon closer inspection, I did notice that if Gavagai had enough workers nearby, he could complete a road to take Dunkin Donuts from Borsche instead.

I was planning on amping up the suspense here, but one look at CivStats will tell you that this is exactly what happened. At least that is what I think; I'll confirm next turn.

In the meantime, I did orchestrate a response to the Numid stack before knowing this. Stay tuned!

[Donovan Zoi]

My Response

So, here we are. Turn 103 and I have only an Axe and a Spear in Sainte-Foy to counter the advance of 10 Numids into our territory. Despite what looked like an aggressive move against us, I still felt justified in playing a wrap around turn (again) for two reasons:

1. War had not technically been declared against us yet.
2. There was no way for Gavagai's stack to reach Sainte-Foy in T104.

This allowed me try to muster up a respectable enough group of ragtags in Sainte-Foy to hopefully make Gavagai think twice before engaging us. I moved a Spear from Frontenac and one from near Oswego to arrive in Ste. Foy at the outset of T104. Then I dropped of a Spear from our Chesapeake Galley that was only available because I forgot to unload the units on board before it departed the island. ---> So now we have 4 spears behind walls before Gavagai plays, while he was now at 11 Numids. Not bad, but it was apparent that more units would be needed.




Oswego, Frontenac, Sainte-Foy: 1-whipped units that would have completed anyway (Axe, Cat, Spear respectively) so that the overflow would parlay into a 1-turn Spearman in T105.

Salmon Falls: Started on Catapult with the intent of parlaying it into a Spear on T106.

Duquesne: Considered 1-whipping Barracks next turn for another Spear parlay.

Carillion: Changed production to a 1h Spear to be 2-whipped to parlay another Spear.

So that would have quickly given us 10 Spears against 11 Numids, with enough happiness to repeat the parlay process if necessary. But now that the threat is presumably abated for now, I may tweak the above plan a bit.

Rounding out the city production list:

Chesapeake: A well timed chop will get us the Lighthouse next turn, followed by explosive commerce growth. Good call, Adrien!

Savannah: 2-chop Granary completes next turn with WB netting the Crabs at the same time. So food storage at Size 2.

Niagara Falls: Now our 2nd City at Size 8! Library in 7, but may whip it soon.

Red Bank: Granary can be chopped once borders expand in 2 turns.

Yorktown: Kept it at Walls due to retep Galley in area, but may change to Lighthouse. Walls can be 1-whipped now, so I think it would be best to get a Lighthouse going. We will also need to start the overflow plan for Moai here.

Back to Gavagai, I also offered him Gems for 6 gpt. We'll be connecting Furs soon, which may give us another chance to increase our research gpt with another player. We'll see if Gavagai takes the Gems.

Not To Be Ignored

All this talk about three other rivals, and I failed to mention anything about our first adversary in the game, GermanJoey. This is mostly because we have both left each other alone since the Marble standoff. He was even nice enough (or intimidated enough) to leave the Marble unconnected for quite some time, though it is mined now.

Well, Joey is back on page 1 momentarily because:




He just built the Pyramids!

I know we never made a play for this, but it is nice that we now have a Confucian Holy City, Marble and the 'Mids all within our grasp. I think we need to stay the course for now re: Elkad, but I would put Creole Osceola and Apache Hunters on our short list of future objectives if we can hit and run quickly. Thoughts for another day.....

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 105 - 250 BC

Gavagai

OK , so Gavagai did indeed capture Dunkin Donuts from Borsche and all but one of the Numids have vacated Kerkouane. So that frees us up to go after Elkad again. In fact, taking over Elkad is a necessity now since Gavagai will likely pull ahead in the coming turns. We will need to keep pace.

Research

I moved the slider up to 70% in order to get IW in 2 turns. Moving up to 100% risks not getting the tech in time. I also started building Wealth in Oswego and Frontenac so that saved overflow could be used for Swordsmen. This has shaved the negative gpt somewhat.

Workers

Believe it or not, our FWs are running out of things to do fast. I am planning on dedicating a few of them to hasten the advance through the Dutch territory, but others will be just sitting around if we do not get them a tech they can use.

Techs..So Many Choices, None of Them Wrong

Those two techs are Metal Casting and Calendar, and we may want to consider one of them before HBR only because I think we will be fine with Swords/Cats in the early stages. I think Calendar helps us the most financially, plus allows us to build some key strategic roads (should we need them) under the guise of connecting resources. But MC is fine too because it allows us to build Workshops on many of the non-river grasslands in Lighthouse towns.

Then there's Code of Laws, which we may want in order to keep Elkad from getting a 25% defense bonus from Chichen Itza. That would certainly be a nice wonder to have if we intend to pick off border cities caught napping.

Now that I have played around with Wealth I can see how utilizing Wealth in some high output cities can help our binary efforts considerably. We'd want to make sure we are covered militarily first but converting production to wealth could help us get key techs at or near their 100% rate for the short term.

[AdrienIer]

What do we need now ? Well I still think we need WEs and we also need a better economy. But as the production leader in the game I think forges are needed even more. Workshops + forges + wealth means we can get an incredible army up or tech to glory. Which are both of our objectives. Plus triremes could be useful. I couldn't care less about Chichen Itza to be honest.

[Donovan Zoi]

What do we need now ? Well I still think we need WEs and we also need a better economy. But as the production leader in the game I think forges are needed even more. Workshops + forges + wealth means we can get an incredible army up or tech to glory. Which are both of our objectives. Plus triremes could be useful. I couldn't care less about Chichen Itza to be honest.

I couldn't either, but at least we keep Elkad from having it. Then again, I would imagine that rolling up on him with a decent sized stack would be an even better deterrent.

We are kind of in a weird flux as far as what we need to do. Obviously the war against Elkad is the primary objective, followed by Project Lighthouse. The Wealth idea will be helpful, but we would be utilizing it against our need for Swords. Still think it will be worth it since it affects both ends of the slider.

I am fine with a Wealth-fueled MC next if you are. I can parlay a few Swords at the same time. Then HBR and Calendar, CoL.

[AdrienIer]

How many catapults do we have ? They'll be the most important part really. I think we should get our army together while waiting for MC to arrive (we need our production going into cats and swords right now so low use of wealth is best IMO), then build forges around, then wealth our way into technological advances.

[AdrienIer]

Commodore just planted another city... How are we supposed to beat them if they're left with an insane amount of land like this...

[Donovan Zoi]

I wonder where else he has land available? Elkad is up to 10 cities now. 10 vulnerable, practically unwhippable, doomed cities.

[AdrienIer]

No idea. How many of Elkad's cities can we reasonably expect to take ?

[Donovan Zoi]

How many catapults do we have ? They'll be the most important part really. I think we should get our army together while waiting for MC to arrive (we need our production going into cats and swords right now so low use of wealth is best IMO), then build forges around, then wealth our way into technological advances.

I can live with that. I may try to work a hybrid arrangement, where Oswego and Duquesne are the Wealth cities. This is because Elkad typically plays first and has eyes on both cities. So I really don't want him to see Swords or Cats sitting nearby until it is too late to react.

We have 2 Cats right now, but I expect to start with at least 4 Cats and 4 Swords, with Axes and Chariots available for sentry/cleanup.

How many of Elkad's cities can we reasonably expect to take ?

I'd actually consider the campaign a victory if we just came away with Rotterdam and the Hague. Those two cities give us all we technically need from Elkad: a possible +3 in new resources as well as the Holy City. Plus we get our Pigs back in Oswego.

Amsterdam will be a rough haul due to culture and a total grassland approach that could leave our Swords vulnerable, but getting it would definitely open up our game to the east. We may also want to sweep the northern coast and hopefully clean up there with minimal resistance, so long as the cities are Size 2 or above. Then even if we let Elkad live, we won't be on the receiving end of his UU later.

As we start pumping out Swords, I am confident a decent plan will emerge.