Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[Lewwyn]

Whip it, Whip it good.

[antisocialmunky]

To be fair, our land advantage has basically shrunk to just a few cities.

[Azoth]

We'll need a name for the sheep city to be founded next turn, suggest away.

"Catherine", i.e. Adventure Twelve. For its coastal, Plains Sheep start.

[Sullla]

Our team and CivFanatics were the only ones who hadn't ended turn, so I logged in and took care of that. I did whip the forge in Tree Huggers; I think that this game is going to continue on for quite a long time, and we'll get the production back via worked tiles and bonus whip output before the game is over, along with the bonus happiness from gold/gems. It is definitely worth considering this question of the value of the forge though, good discussion.

I offered Open Borders to CivPlayers in-game, and left them a short message on the chat window telling them that they could bring their chariot back home via OB. I'm guessing that they'll probably accept, it's that or delete the chariot. They have no real reason not to accept, we had Open Borders just a little while ago.

Only other change was swapping The Covenant onto a settler this turn, after looking at the amount of food in the box. It made more sense to swap this turn than next turn, to avoid that settler growth thing we mentioned earlier in the thread.

We should be ready now for Turn 137.

[Sullla]

Turn 137 - 540AD

This is a pretty quiet turn. Our first round of drafting will get underway.



We did not discover anything noteworthy on the northern side of the map. Down in the extreme polar south, we did find another silver resource, although no food bonuses as usual. With a lighthouse, those freshwater lakes will become 3 food tiles, but it's still pretty grim pickings down there. Maybe something else will turn up with more exploration. The galley will pick up the other war chariot and ferry it over to the island in the east next turn.

Remember last turn how we chose not to move the Sentry war chariot directly west, just in case there was a barb nearby? That worked out pretty well:



Based on our past history, I just assumed that there would be a barbarian axe in the worst possible spot... and that's exactly what happened. But instead of being next to the axe, we were instead safely off to the north two tiles away. Very nice. We should be able to explore the rest of the southwest in safety from here, at least until we hit CivPlayers borders somewhere off in the distance. Let's hope that the barbs aren't able to triangulate on our war chariot, I wouldn't put anything past them in this game.

I think that I like the tundra tile southeast of the deer for the next city down here. It can share the crabs tile with Let It Snow and the deer is a fairly good tile in its own right (it's 4 food / 1 production). We would also get 9 coastal tiles, many of them shared of course, and could mine the two hill tiles if desired. While it's a fairly crummy city, it's one of the best we can found in this area. It's also towards CivPlayers and would claim some mildly disputed land. Any better suggestions for down in this area, other than the offshore silvers?



We did found a new city this turn, and I went with the suggested name of Catherine. Odd choice for an odd city. This spot will be mildly terrible even with the sheep resource, and is majorly terrible before that. Fortunately we had a Hindu missionary present immediately for instant religious spread; 5 turns for the border pop. The workers will chop two forests while waiting, good for a granary and theatre here. I'm thinking of growing the city to size 3 and then working the sheep and two Artists for a little bit to pop the 100 culture borders quickly. Catherine desperately needs irrigation to come over from the wheat, and we'll need double border pops to make that happen. Without grassland farms, this city won't amount to much of anything, so we may as well get that extra food over there ASAP.

I watched our finances as this city went down, and it ended up costing us basically nothing. I think we lost 1 gold/turn or something like that. The instant presence of four different 2 commerce trading routes from Great Lighthouse made it economically viable immediately. This suggests that we may as well found the other cities down here soonish, since they aren't costing us much of anything. I like the spots SE-SE of the furs (which can share furs and crabs along with its own deer) and the tile either west or northwest of the other deer. Probably west, to preserve the tundra forest for chopping. Feel free to dotmap this southern area now that we finally have vision. I outlined the spots I like, but I'm hardly the only one with an opinion.

Speaking of finances and spreading religion, check out this screenshot:



This shrine is pretty disgusting. We have 29 cities already with Hinduism present, and with the market that's 36 gold/turn independent of the slider. While running 0% science this turn, we hit the 100 gold/turn mark in Mansa's Muse. What an awesome city.

The other main issue to cover this turn is the draft. We discovered Machinery tech at the start of the turn, and that means it's time to start drafting maces. Here's our current city list:



We have 19 cities with the addition of Catherine. (Unfortunately the list only covers the first 16 cities.) And since that isn't too helpful, here is the overview of our territory:

We can draft up to 5 units per turn here on this Huge map, and I suggest that we do so immediately. We want to get the draft unhappiness ticker going down right away, so that we can draft again as soon as it wears out. We do not have enough happiness to double draft in most places, and I would rather save that for a true emergency. Best to start drafting now though, and get that counter ticking down in the same way as the Slavery unhappiness metric.

I suggest that we draft these cities: Horse Feathers, Forbidden Fruit, Eastern Dealers, Brick By Brick, and Starfall. The first three will all regrow immediately next turn, and they all have enough happiness to absorb the draft unhappiness penalty (if just barely at Eastern Dealers). Brick By Brick is basically at the food cap at size 9, and won't start regrowing for real until we draft it. Might as well do that immediately, in that case. Starfall gets drafted just because we can draft it so cheaply, and we want to abuse it as much as possible even before we get into the Globe. I would draft even more but that's the cap for a Huge map. Only 5 cities per turn. We'll get more of them next turn. How do those cities sound to everyone else?

We can also 3 pop whip the forge in Forbidden Fruit if desired, and I think there's a good case to do so. This will drop the city to size 6, but it will immediately regrow to size 7, and it will be dropping two immature grassland cottages (2/0/1) and a plains hamlet (1/1/4). The cost is not trivial, but we will be able to regrow fairly quickly, overflow into a missionary for Cutting Edge, and then we'll have the forge present for all future whips/production for the rest of the game. Again, give me your feedback on this suggestion.



Here are the Demos, and yes, we are now ahead by a full 100 Food over the next best team. (We won't be after drafting though, heh.) Production is hard to evaluate given the three other teams in their Golden Ages. CFC and German team are about halfway through their Golden Age, CivFr and their Mausoleum still has quite a ways to go. We are third in GNP at 0% science, and if you can believe it, we actually make a profit at 50% science right now! With zero courthouses and 19 cities on a Toroidal map! That's pretty silly. All the other categories are also... silly.

Our 50% science rate is 290 beakers base / 350 beakers modified before drafting. At this rate, it will take us roughly 10 turns to research Horseback Riding, Feudalism, and Guilds. We won't have many knights on Turn 150, but we'll have a couple, and we'll be training them in large numbers thereafter. I put us on 0% science for the turn and selected Horseback Riding, although we can also research the tech in one turn at 50% rate right now. Up to everyone how we set the science rate, most people have preferred the 100% / 0% binary science stuff, which I'll keep doing if no one objects.

There were no major tech discoveries between turns, a lot of teams continuing to stockpile gold. CFC now has 800 gold in their treasury, expect them to start burning through techs in the second half of their Taj Golden Age. They could go for any one of the Aesthetics line, the Paper/Education line, or the Machinery/Guilds line, and each would have a different meaning. Kjn suggested that Apolyton is probably heading for the Economics free Great Merchant, which I agree is very likely. CivFr, who knows at this point. Education, maybe? They just discovered Paper recently. German team spent down from 200 gold to 0 gold and picked up a Classical tech of some kind. Monarchy is the best likely guess; since they are in a Golden Age, they'd have a free revolt into Hereditary Rule civic.

I've been pleasantly surprised at the generally slow tech rate. Most teams remain extremely backwards compared to where we are. There has also been little attempt by anyone to build a military or discover military techs. We were the first to get Machinery this turn, and not even one team has gone for Feudalism. This bodes well for us and our attack, if no one else in the world has maces or longbows or elephants on T137. It will be interesting to see how teams respond once they see our drafted maces coming out. Too bad there's no way to disguise the surge on the Power chart. Let's hope the Germans aren't paying very close attention.

[Fintourist]

Nice report as always, let's start drafting!

About Catherine, I feel that those chops should go into granary+lighthouse instead of granary+theatre. Lighthouse would give us 5 quite reasonable coastal tiles to work with and thus help to get Catherine also up to a draftable size. I don't see a huge reason to hit 100 culture that soon. If we want to hit 40 % defense bonus or get some extra vision before our NAPs end we can spend couple of turns working artists as you said.

[novice]

We need the tile 3W of Catherine in our culture before we can lead irrigation to the city, hence Sullla's theatre suggestion.

[kjn]

I expect Apolyton and CFC to burn through a bunch of techs going forward. Especially Apolyton who have low costs and by far the highest beaker multiplier in the game right now.

The Germans are Isabella of Spain Inca, so free revolts for them!

I really hope that silver in the middle of the screen shot has some food nearby. Doubt it will have it, though. But nice that there are two silvers we can grab.

As for our next city, I think the deer-crab spot by the galley would be best. Helps to secure that large bay with Starfall and two food resources, so it can at least do something. The spot SE-SE of the fur is a junk filler spot. Worth settling sometime, but never a priority.

Would prefer that we scouted some more to the southwest before we started to make real dotmapping plans there. At least a sentry chariot can uncover lots of tiles quickly.

I'm thinking it might be worthwhile to whip draft Seven Tribes in the first round. That unit has a long way to go to reach the front, and if CivPlayers start to make noises I'd like to have some strong units in the area. Maybe instead of Horse Feathers or Forbidden Fruit? Also can we 3-whip the forge in Seven Tribes this turn? Gourmet Menu can pick up any cottages, instead of working coast.

[novice]

As for our next city, I think the deer-crab spot by the galley would be best. Helps to secure that large bay with Starfall and two food resources, so it can at least do something. The spot SE-SE of the fur is a junk filler spot. Worth settling sometime, but never a priority.

I'm pretty sure Sullla meant SE-S of fur and not SE-SE. Anyway I agree that the next city should be 3W of our galley. In addition to its strategic location it has two forests and two dedicated food resources.

[T-hawk]

I watched our finances as this city went down, and it ended up costing us basically nothing. I think we lost 1 gold/turn or something like that.

We probably have hit the cap on number-of-cities maintenance cost. I forget exactly what factors go into it. But once you hit it, new cities stop costing a ton because they don't penalize you empire-wide, they only add their own costs.

What's our current number-of-cities maintenance cost in the core cities? If it shows a round number like 8.00 or some such, that's probably the cap and we've hit it.

This shrine is pretty disgusting. We have 29 cities already with Hinduism present, and with the market that's 36 gold/turn independent of the slider.

I have to pipe up here. 36 gold/turn is not particularly gigantic. That's like half a mid-sized city. Yeah everybody loves shrines, but they're really not all that much in the grand scheme. It's good, but don't get carried away.