Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[Qgqqqqq]

No

[spacetyrantxenu]

Just looks like we're gearing up to fight and WPC is bolstering its defenses. Nothing to see here, please move along!

[Sullla]

Turn 138 - 560AD

This is another quiet turn. The turns are moving pretty fast right now, which is a good thing for us. Less time for the other teams to exchange messages, make plans, and evaluate the Demos.



We didn't really discover anything of note this turn down here in the polar ocean. The galley picked up our war chariot over in CFC territory and will drop it off on the southeast island next turn. Just looking for probably non-existent seafood amongst all of the ice. The war chariot on the mainland will stick around in that area to fogbust and prevent more barbarians from spawning.



Speaking of barbs, they are absolutely teeming to the southwest of Seven Tribes. That's two barb axes and a barb warrior moving around in this region. I'm glad that we have the Great Wall so that they all go and bother other teams. We have yet to turn up anything of interest here beyond a large stretch of tundra tiles. There's water peeking out from the southwest corner of that screenshot under the fog, so perhaps we'll find out more in the next few turns.



We were the last ones to play on the previous turn, and I may have used that opportunity to do a little step-in / step-out scouting of CivPlayers cities without our Woodsman II warrior. In any case, we now have vision on the central tile of Tula and the aptly named Costalot. CivPlayers have already spread Buddhism in that location and finished a plantation on its sugar tile. Maybe we'll be able to trade for sugar with them when they connect a second source.

Ditchdigger popped its 100 culture borders this turn, allowing us to fire the last Artist specialist in the city. This will allow us to control the tile southeast of the German city indefinitely; they would need to hit 100 culture themselves to start pushing back against us, and that won't be happening in the next dozen turns. Needless to say, however, this region is extremely cramped on culture between these three teams. We will probably have to raze Wolfratshausen and replace it one tile further north (which is where it should have been in the first place!) The current location is indefensible against attack, both from our team and also against CivPlayers. In a post-German world, I don't want quite that much overlap with CivPlayers. A tile north would be much better.



Here is the western half of our core territory. There's not too much going on this turn, the main issue is where to draft. I mostly agree with sooooo's ideas here; we definitely do want to draft Tree Huggers and Seven Tribes. Both of them are 1t away from growth and so will return to their current population immediately, minimizing the draft hit. They also both have enough surplus happiness to be OK. Gourmet Menu also looks like a good target, since it is currently working a number of water tiles and doesn't have room to grow further. That makes 3 cities.



The other two cities to draft should be Simple Life and Cutting Edge, in my opinion. They are both size 6 and will therefore cost the least food to draft away a population point. Cutting Edge and regrow immediately after drafting next turn, despite what the city interface suggests in this picture. Simple Life will take 2t. I would prefer to wait until cities like the capital and Focal Point are closer to growth to draft them. We'll still get them, naturally, but next turn looks better than the current one.

The Covenant is planned to triple whip its settler this turn, with the overflow going back into its library build. That's probably the only whip we need to do this turn. I mean, we can whip cities like Gourmet Menu and Seven Tribes for their forges, but do we really need to do so? I'm not sure that the need is that immediate. I would prefer to let them regrow the lost pop point from their drafts and only then whip. You could certainly talk me into whipping the forges, but with a lot of pop going into these drafts, I'm inclined to wait a few more turns for growth to recover first.



Here's the current state of our military, prior to drafting this turn. We should be able to get 16 maces out of the first round of drafting, and then another 18 out of the second round. We'll also build some elephants out of our stables cities while awaiting Guilds tech to build knights. (Did you know that at size 14, Horse Feathers can build 1t elephants? We'll do that until we have Guilds/knights.) We also have 6 catapults right now, plus however many more we can build prior to Turn 150. In other words, at a bare minimum we should be attacking with something like 30 maces, 8 elephants, and 10+ catapults. Then we build a lot of knights to add a mobile component, and we should be able to draft out 20 muskets in the third wave starting around T157. Barring something weird happening, I think that will be pretty tough for the German team to stop.

Overview:

We turned on 100% research into Horseback Riding tech, which will easily finish it at the end of turn. We should get quite a bit of overflow into the next tech as well (Feudalism), something like 350 beakers by my best estimate. The timing of Horseback Riding is perfect for stables construction, with Horse Feathers and Brick By Brick about to complete their forges. They should be able to do the stables quickly and then turn out some double-promoted elephants as we research towards Guilds.



Demos look about the same as usual. Drafting 5 maces last turn didn't hurt our Food stat too badly. It did increase our Power very noticeably; sadly, there is no way to avoid this. Each mace is worth 8000 points, so drafting 15 of them will cause us to go up by 120k even before we add catapults and elephants and all that. Not to mention, even forges increase Power by 3000 each. Ah well. GNP is also looking very nice. Remember, three competing teams are all in Golden Ages at the moment (CivFr, CFC, Germans).

There was again surprisingly little movement in techs from other teams. Apolyton and CivFr ran break-even research and didn't finish anything. The Germans went with 0% science and gained 150 gold. CFC went 100% research without finishing a tech. My best guess is that they are researching Paper, and will finish it at the end of this current turn. CivPlayers and UniversCiv both stockpiled 200 gold each. There are quite a few turns with a lot of gold in the treasury, so expect some techs to fall over the next couple of turns. But for the moment, no one appears to have Machinery or Feudalism, and time is running out for the Germans to get those crucial defensive techs. (German team does have Construction though, as we saw catapults in their territory. That was to be expected.)

Let me know what you think about which cities to draft/whip, I have taken neither action thus far.

[Dp101]

The other teams might think that the sudden spike in the graphs is upgrades.

[Merovech]

The other teams might think that the sudden spike in the graphs is upgrades.

I don't think that is very likely, but maybe.

[Ubercannon]

We also have 6 catapults right now, plus however many more we can build prior to Turn 150. In other words, at a bare minimum we should be attacking with something like 30 maces, 8 elephants, and 10+ catapults.

Hmm, is there any way to squeeze out some more cats? I'm worried that if they whip walls everywhere, the invasion would be slowed down greatly just waiting to bombard walls, especially if it splits into multiple stacks. It takes 12 cats to completely take down walls in one turn.

[Ceiliazul]

Dp101: mass upgrades are inefficient, so good teams wouldn't do them. They are also expensive, and everyone can see our gold balance in the trade screen. Combined with our painful civic revolt to nationalism, there's no disguising what's going on...

and also no stopping it.

edit: I agree we need more cats. 10 to start doesn't leave enough for suicide strikes past the first big battles. Cats are too slow to catch up for a 2nd wave, unless we extend the war way past 20t.

[kjn]

Well, they can try:

De gente fera Aegyptiusa nos libera.

Or perhaps:

Bet´t Kinder, bet´t
Morgen kommt der Ägypt´

[novice]

In any case, we now have vision on the central tile of Tula and the aptly named Costalot. CivPlayers have already spread Buddhism in that location and finished a plantation on its sugar tile.

It looks like this may have been where their infamous missionary was headed. Understandable that CivPlayers didn't want to elaborate on that.

The other two cities to draft should be Simple Life and Cutting Edge, in my opinion. They are both size 6 and will therefore cost the least food to draft away a population point. Cutting Edge and regrow immediately after drafting next turn, despite what the city interface suggests in this picture. Simple Life will take 2t.

Yeah those cities are good draft candidates. In fact, what is the happy cap in those cities? If we have enough happy resources I'd consider double-drafting cities like that.

[kjn]

Nice report as usual. Agree on the need to raze Wolfratshausen and re-settle 1N. More defensive, and get the cow too. Pity CivPlayers didn't settle Costalot 1S, it'd make for a much more sensible dotmap for all involved.

Anyway, that means we need to have a settler available no later than T151 or so. Otherwise we risk CivPlayers grabbing that spot. And we will need to start getting culture on the northern gems as quickly as possible.