[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[Woden]

Offer a 6 gold for 6 gpt. Hopefully he catches what happen last turn and takes the deal. It still benefits him 1 gpt but if he realizes it was a mistake, he might take the deal. Otherwise, I think you need to eat it. I don't think we can afford a jong rush right now.

Edit: Otherwise, is there a lurker here who could ask if it was intentional? No need to respond to us back so it doesn't spoil anything, just maybe bring it up in their thread.

[ljubljana]

Yeah, I guess I'm worried because if I offer 6g for 6gpt and roland a) notices but b) misclicked last turn, I think there's a good chance they'll just think I'm trying to pull one over on them rather than correcting a presumed mistake, which could also blow the recent cooling of our relations. 7 gpt for 30 turns is still well less than the price of one bireme getting blown up by a Jong, after all.

I second the ask for a lurker to bring it up in their thread, though maybe lurkers should also discuss amongst themselves whether it's appropriate for us to ask for that? Not sure it's in the spirit of the game for us to get a Kennedy-Gorbachev-style red telephone on this, even thought it seems overwhelmingly likely that it was just a mislick.

If I end up having to eat it, I guess I'll have to think about hand-building the lighthouse in Cuneiform instead of buying it. The opportunity cost from doing this is a whole settler, which between Magnus and +150% hammers actually costs less to build in the capital than the lighthouse does, but who knows if I'll be able to afford losing multiple caravel upgrades 20 turns from now.

EDIT: Looks like a bireme -> caravel upgrade will set us back 180 gold in Professional Army, or at least that was the case as of October 2019. That's really pricey! Even with my strong gold income, I don't think I'll be able to afford more than 10 or so of these by the time Cartography comes in, not to mention Frigates will cost even more - maybe I should start saving now and hand-build the lighthouse either way? I also have some leeway on the ES math from that barb camp clear, so I can afford not to buy the builder in Demotic this era too if it comes to that.

[ljubljana]

Turn 95 - Phoenicia

Anyways, I think the next step for me is to offer roland 6g for 6gpt regardless of whether the lurkers post in their thread or not, so I'm just going to go ahead and do that and pass the save to avoid holding things up. I did that, offered sub 6g/6g, and offered DoFs to TAD and Kaiser.

Founded two cities this turn:



Oracle Bones is worth a ton of era points and not much else, but it'll hit 9hpt at size 3 at least, which, unfortunately, is better than a lot of my cities. More importantly, it is free from loyalty pressure and sheltered against naval attack to maximize my odds of actually holding onto this spot - once this city gets walls, we'll even have interlocking fields of fire against any ship that tries to attack Hod through the channel. I think it's out of range of a super Cuneiform trade route, though, so I don't think I'll be building too many more cities down here unless I have settlers sitting around with nowhere else to go. Free builder will farm the 2/1 plains tile (which gives one more ES), mine the copper, and quarry the gypsum. Since I just realized I'm getting the 1 ES for free here, there really isn't a good reason to buy a non-Feudalism builder at Demotic - now that I'm thinking about it, I think the play is to either just buy the Cuneiform lighthouse or to buy nothing. If I'm going to buy a builder, I should at least start saving now and then wait until Feudalism, and even then Geneva needs one just as badly as Demotic. Anyways, the city goes monument-first because half its production tiles are in the second ring, and because its close proximity to Hod gives it some hope of someday picking up those third-ring fish tiles and becoming much more useful.

By the way, those 6 ES break down as follows: +2 from the camp clear (thank you for taking out the spear for me!), +2 from the first settlement on Atlantis, +1 from the volcano, and...+1 from an aggressive settlement on my border with Norway . I should have figured that this game would probably do that.

EDIT: wait, I need a third farm with these two free builders to go find Feudalism (in addition to the ones at Mitla, Akkad, and Linear A). Okay, let me think a little about how to do that... I guess a second farm at Oracle Bones is almost okay to help the city grow up to size? Then it can grow to size 4 on the two plains tiles while doing monument-Serfdom builder and then work 3 production tiles while it makes the Cothon and lighthouse... with 5 charges, that second builder can make two more farms, the lumbermill, and two mines for a halfway-decent city (by the standards of this map ).

Okay, I think the right move as far as land units go is to leave the horse and sword at home so they can contribute in the very likely event of a TAD stab, and send Ulysses the warrior on the longest journey of their life down to Oracle Bones, where they can upgrade to a sword and, with your warrior, block the land approaches to OB in the unlikely event of a ground -based attack.



I went with Runic over Jiahu for this city's name because it feels a little more in keeping with my naming scheme for some reason. This city will do its best to use the marble culture to bootstrap its way to the cow, and the cow culture to then skip a monument Hieratic-style and start with the Cothon. That's the argument for this city, anyways - the argument against is its extremely low production ceiling even with a trade route. Mostly I settled this location because the settler was already up here to potentially go for a tundra spot for ES and I didn't want to waste even more time backtracking. It'll be a decent enough economic contributor once it gets its lighthouse up and we get Cartography - working three fishing boats, a lumbermill, a marble quarry, and a pasture is fine if unspectacular (I guess). Also, that pinned CH should obviously be a campus, whoops - I'll fix that next turn. Builder here is doing the lumbermill and then rerouting to Linear B to start fixing the appalling housing/food nightmare that city has labored under for the last approximately one million turns (well, after a pit stop to repair the fishing boat that TAD pillaged).



Core screenie. 7 ES for the GA means the farm at Oracle Bones, +3 campus, and +5 CH will get us there in 5 turns, one before the era change, unless I'm missing something (don't tell me it now has to be a +4 campus as of the latest patch or something...). Demotic will start a builder next while I wait for the discount to come online for the CH, everywhere else will build either lighthouses (if I get the DoF) or Ilkum builders to stall for time while I make Limes walls. Or, well, maybe I'll just put Veterancy in the wildcard slot and run Limes too when Monarchy comes in if I have to, delaying the lighthouses any more is probably pretty silly.

Okay, I think this is the fastest economic jump-start: first do Veterancy + Limes/RL and have all the 10-ish production cities (Hieratic, Linear B, Geneva when I send the trader over) make lighthouses. That'll give some housing headroom, so I can swap out Limes/RL for Ilkum and make Serfdom builders in the faster cities + Demotic while the slower cities (Mitla, WotW, OB, Runic) are still making Cothons. In the meantime, I'll buy the lighthouse at Cuneiform and make traders at Linear A and maybe also Demotic, which, respectively, will get the lighthouse done extra fast and won't have to make a lighthouse at all (though Demotic wants a market quickly-ish for more or less the same reason, so maybe not that). Those traders will then run 2f/4h routes to Cuneiform to turn the slow cities into fast cities, which can then do the same thing themselves. Note that I've picked out Geneva for the Hieratic trader because it reeeeally needs a Serfdom builder, so I want to make it a fast city to avoid having to slowly ship one all the way down there from somewhere else.

How many turns is it until you get a religion again? I'm probably going to want to do Theology in a little while for a civic swap, but obviously I'd rather wait for the boost to come in first, if you're planning to go back and grab it sometime soon.

Also, would you be able to let me know where the Niter is in my territory? It's not super essential, but I'd like to know where it is so I can plan districts around it and lay down any district that it's going to invalidate before finishing up the tech.

Oh, and one more question: will we be able to sign alliances with each other at Civil Service? That could be one way to get a strength advantage over CMF, since it's probably coming up pretty soon.

[Woden]

I will pin your niter on my turn and I will have a religion in 4 turns, complete Theology in 5 turns. I started it last turn and will switch off it this turn. Feudalism in is the second column of the Medieval Era, after Divine Right. Civil Service is the other civic after Divine Rights, below Feudalism.

[ljubljana]

Thank you!

Feudalism after Divine Right! That's awesome, I'm going to start it ASAP then. That might mean going builder before lighthouse in some of these cities (Geneva, Demotic, Linear B which already started one before the big boat push), but given the just appalling shortage of builder labor I'm facing right now I think that's probably better anyways. That, or maybe I can connive to found two cities the turn I swap to Feudalism and steal some free builders that way. Now the question is whether I should buy the OB builder or (heretically) make it before the Cothon. Probably the latter, honestly - this city's pretty marginal and I'd rather have two more caravel upgrades honestly.

I guess what I should actually do is not place districts over the niter but treasure the fact that the game's giving me like two extra production tiles . Wow, is it ever going to be a struggle to build stuff in the late-game if this game goes long. My best late-game producer is the capital with like 6 production tiles, a +5 IZ, and a +5 Cothon + Shipyard, and I don't think it tops out at much over 50 hpt (10-turn tanks, hooray...). That's yet another reason to save as much gold as I possibly can post-lighthouse buy, obviously.

PBEM18 spoiler:

I wonder if this map's balanced for oil and the other lategame resources? It was made before the big problem with Kaiser's oil came to light, so I sure hope so...

[ljubljana]

Hi there....I need to hold the save to consult with Roland over a couple of things.  Due to the time zones I might not complete this until tomorrow unless he's still up (it's about midnight his local time).

Why do I have an ominous feeling that this has something to do with them deciding whether to change their attack target to us over my 6g for 6gpt request...

Of all the ways to lose a game...I guess I can't deny that that one would be pretty funny .

[Woden]

Hi there....I need to hold the save to consult with Roland over a couple of things.  Due to the time zones I might not complete this until tomorrow unless he's still up (it's about midnight his local time).

Why do I have an ominous feeling that this has something to do with them deciding whether to change their attack target to us over my 6g for 6gpt request...

Of all the ways to lose a game...I guess I can't deny that that one would be pretty funny .

You sent it to roland, right? They would have had all day to discuss. This most likely has something to do with the players that play between them (so one of the other teams). The only real way it involves us would be if they didn't accept your deal and suboptimal came up with the idea to send me a friendship before you see if the deal has gone through to prevent us from declaring war to end it.  If sub does send a friendship request, I am going to decline and have you offer it to them. That way, you could check if it was accepted and you would get first strike when it ends if we want to go that way. If I accept, I don't know if it ends at the beginning of the turn (i.e. you can attack sub before he plays) or if it ends when he starts his turn (I know they end at the end of the turn but don't know how teammates are affected).

[ljubljana]

yeeah I did send it to roland, so that makes sense and sounds like a plan. One other way it could involve us is if TAD/Kaiser just accepted my DoF request...it could be that sub was planning to attack us on the assumption that our fleet was busy in the west, but that the DoF is making them rethink it. If that's what's up, obviously it's a good sign that they're taking time to discuss instead of just committing to an attack .

Honestly though, it could also just be that roland got the 6g/6gpt, played the turn while sub was asleep (which is what happened IIRC, roland played at 2:46 AM EST) and didn't make any firm commitments about how their team would respond, and now they're talking over a definitive strategy after sub saw the deal in roland's turn report. Since sub owns all their troops, it's possible that roland's move just doesn't impact the response all that much, and it's suboptimal's turn that determines whether they're going to take an aggressive posture towards us or not.

Either way, if roland rejects my deal and none of the lurkers weigh in, I think I'm just going to let it slide...frustrating though it is to get swindled out of 210 gold (or 203 gold, I guess, after removing the 7 they sent me), it's really not all that significant in the grand scheme of things. I spent more than that just a few turns ago on a bireme to minimize damage from a small portion of the TAD war, clearly I'd value preventing a war with sub much more highly than that. The +10 Cothon at Geneva comes online in like 3 turns anyways, so it's not like my gold income will take long to recover.

EDIT: If I were in their shoes, I'd assume Phoenicia misclicked and would not try to start a war over that . Despite my paranoia, my best guess is that they'll reject it but send 5g/5g to signal that they assume I misclicked and aren't mad at me. Maybe there's also some chance they'll double-check their accounting and realize something's amiss too, if they're spending this much time thinking about it. Hopefully, though, none of that's even close to true and they're just debating tactical plans for attacking CMF's cities on that central island.

[Woden]

Sub did offer a friendship and I did decline. If he didn't offer you one, offer him one. I pinned the niter near our cities.

[ljubljana]

What if they did offer me one? Should I decline and re-offer or just accept? I think I'd be inclined to just accept - I'd hate to blow our budding alliance by looking like I'm trying to connive to get the first strike in a stab 30t from now especially because on the 50t scale that is quite possibly exactly what I will be doing and I don't want to give away the fact that I'm not actually completely naive and trustworthy .