[SPOILERS] swance bitten, twice shy

[aetryn]

Can Ginger see the empty city? If not, might be worth rolling the dice that he won't attack it. War/peace OTOH, potentially allows him to step in and see it before accepting the peace (or not accepting it at all, if he thinks he can burn the city). Also, does your chop plan keep the workers safe? Losing 3 workers to a raiding warrior would be pretty catastophic also, possibly more so than a city with no infrastructure.

Your plan could work. I'm just a bit worried how Ginger will see it. Two of our cities have gone east, he may be worried we're trying to box him in and may be unwilling to give us peace.

[ljubljana]

they can't yet, but if they step west onto the plains hill next turn they will see it, and they should be able to see the borders in the fog so i can't imagine why they'd make any other move next turn. unless MAYbe they were worried we have an impi or something in the city who will snipe their warrior, but if so i don't think declaring war will be what disabuses them of that notion.

Chop plan would target the forest SW of the city center - we have vision on all surrounding tiles so it would take a 2-mover in the fog to the west of Kirishima to snipe us - seems highly unlikely imo. and tbh if ginger does somehow have a chariot lurking there, we're dead anyways

I assume they're not going to give us peace immediately, they are in a great position to choke us with that warrior for very minimal investment. But equally, because they are in such a good position, I think we are effectively at war anyways, and should probably claim whatever advantage we can get by being the one to formally declare while we can... Surely a player of Ginger's skill level is not really going to step onto that hill, see an empty city with no visible units, and NOT declare war to at least force us to show some defense there, right?

edit: if ginger does think we're boxing them out, isn't the move for them to accept peace so they can expand toward us safely and prepare to attack later? i can't imagine they will already be ready to fight us for real in the next 10 turns

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[ljubljana]

another option is that we could claim the second half of a peacetime turn split.... but it sort of sounds like from Takeel's earlier comments that it might be preferable to just formally DoW them. and also, if we do that, we will HAVE to move workers to chop next turn, which we don't want to do as it wastes several worker turns and delays the cow pasture at Kirishima. If we warpeace them there is at least a chance they will take the peace and we won't have to make compromises on our growth curve... probably not a huge chance, but a nonzero one

i think we really need to get the second half of the turn formally this turn somehow - otherwise i do not think we have the worker labor available to both get the new warrior into our city and produce a second warrior via chop in time to meet Ginger's warrior, and we are risking our game on warrior v warrior combat (albeit with a promotion advantage and river defense bonus)

[ljubljana]

i am seeing 10% odds if they attack and we just have one unfortified warrior. not amazing odds but potentially worth taking if we were in their position. if this is how this is fated to go, i do think it's worth spending some worker turns and a chop to turn these into 0% odds. plus with two warriors, they can't just cross the river and win that way

[ljubljana]

did it, since i'm now holding the turn and have to go soon anyways



accidentally sent them the peace offer twice instead of once.... i'm hoping that doesn't screw anything up

is there a way to check what deal offers you've sent to a player after you send them in a turn? or once you hit "offer trade" is it just lost into the ether?

also the sign is on the wrong forest lol - we have to chop 1S of that one

also also, i did indeed pause research this turn - i honestly might just switch to archery now, we are definitely doing a chariot next in Mitakeumi before the monument

edit: potential issue number 1: i guess they could step on our cow with the scout to try to stop us from working it? if that happens i may whip the mitakeumi chariot or start a new one in the capital which i then whip, which would be a significant growth curve setback... but hopefully they won't do that on the assumption that we have at least SOME units here to murder them with

[ljubljana]

Turn 46 - Zululand

so uh



they uh, they accepted? i have to admit, i was not expecting that, but of course it seems like our best-case outcome.

am i correct in thinking that, because the deal would have popped up at the start of their turn, they would have to have accepted BEFORE moving onto the plains hill next to Kirishima here? i wonder why it was so important to them to accept that they didn't even want to look around and re-offer peace on their turn.... maybe they were worried they wouldn't get it? or that their warrior would get eaten by an axe hidden in our unknown milpower demo if they moved next to the city...?



well well well, i guess that's why. so border city, indeed Kirishima is and will remain. this area is a strong candidate for early or long-term bullying, but equally it's clearly going to be their copper site so we need SOMEthing here to withstand the one spearman attack. i again am eyeing archery despite myself, and/or that copper to the west of here - a city over there would be unbelievably trashy for a long time but Kirishima can chop out the settler quickly. idk, i have to sim again and with my schedule this weekend it's not looking like i'll have time to do so for a minute

but ok, we prayed for maintaining our growth curve at the third city without wasting chops, and so it has been granted. we finish Kirishima's cow and start the corn farm. we finish Mitakeumi's horse and swap from ikhanda to chariot. one worker on the horse is free, and moves to the forest SW of mitakeumi to chop the chariot -> monument. warrior remains pretty much in place this turn in case a GT warrior appears from the WEST of Kirishima (unlikely but if it moves and this happens we lose the city) - next turn i think it will be safe to start transferring to the west to guard the fourth settler path. then that will finally free up western scout Natsuko, etc etc



mysticism next turn, and i'm likely but not certain to go for archery after that i think. gotta sim moreeeee

demos starting to look ok, we are just one below average in food and are increasingly hilariously out in front in production



EXHALE

[ljubljana]

so in summation, what happened here was.... apparently seriously funny

so ginger couldn't stop to look around, because they weren't going to take the 50/50 on Fuyuko and therefore we were going to scout their settler on my turn. if they hadn't given us peace RIGHT THEN, we would have realized they were in a super fragile position and probably not given it to them

but because they didn't look around, they missed the chance to scout our empty city first, and if they had done that then THEY probably wouldn't have given peace

maybe it's past my bedtime but that is just the silliest way to end up in a detente

we have such a jump on them in terms of development up here that i think there's a fair chance we could chop out a few chariots and run over this city before it gets a spear, or could go for fast copper and slam a few axes into them. i don't really think it's worth it over just using our chops to expand peacefully, since i think it's unlikely we could conquer them whole (alTHOUGH i'm getting the strong impression that this is their intended copper hookup, so maybe if we kill it immediately the rest of ottomans actually would follow?)... but it's worth consideration

at any rate i rated ginger as one of if not the favorites for this setup so it's nice to be in a position to directly influence that if it does come to pass. and also nice that they are next to at least one group of sociopaths who will hopefully force non-eco builds out of them. especially right now where they can see how many chops we are about to cash in up here and are probably well aware that they MUST have a spear here in 10 turns or their city is toast

ok, i'd like to solicit opinions on the following question: if we believe that there is no way ginger can defend their plant in 10 turns, should we try to take/kill it? we can get probably 7 or so chariots up here in 10 turns and i am not sure they can make a spear in time if they don't have copper elsewhere. i do not reeeeally think we can push on to their capital with just those chariots, but perhaps at that point our next step is to whip axes with ginger's copper and just eventually grind them down with a 5-3 city advantage. and even if we don't press on to the capital, well, we'd get a rival who hates us for the duration but is probably too stunted to keep up long-term, and have badly hurt a team i expect to otherwise strongly contend for the win

edit: also note, they may not even make a spear if they don't scout our horse, since we only met two turns ago and they won't get our graphs until it's too late :D

edit2: hey, how do autorazes work in this game? if a city was ever size 2 do we get to keep it? or if they grow to size 2 and then whip something will that force a raze?

edit3: ugh, thought: can ginger now just run their warrior around our city and obnoxiously pillage all our roads in neutral territory? if they do that i'm gonna lose it lol

[Tarkeel]

accidentally sent them the peace offer twice instead of once.... i'm hoping that doesn't screw anything up

is there a way to check what deal offers you've sent to a player after you send them in a turn? or once you hit "offer trade" is it just lost into the ether?

Unfortunately, no. What will happen is that if they accept the first, they will get a second blank offer. People sometimes take advantage of this and first send a deal in which they demand something for peace, and then a second white peace after.

am i correct in thinking that, because the deal would have popped up at the start of their turn, they would have to have accepted BEFORE moving onto the plains hill next to Kirishima here? i wonder why it was so important to them to accept that they didn't even want to look around and re-offer peace on their turn.... maybe they were worried they wouldn't get it? or that their warrior would get eaten by an axe hidden in our unknown milpower demo if they moved next to the city...?

The deal will pop up when you log in next time, with very limited list of things you can interact with. Most people will dismiss it to look at the situation and then send it back.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

so in summation, what happened here was.... apparently seriously funny

so ginger couldn't stop to look around, because they weren't going to take the 50/50 on Fuyuko and therefore we were going to scout their settler on my turn. if they hadn't given us peace RIGHT THEN, we would have realized they were in a super fragile position and probably not given it to them

but because they didn't look around, they missed the chance to scout our empty city first, and if they had done that then THEY probably wouldn't have given peace

maybe it's past my bedtime but that is just the silliest way to end up in a detente

Exactly! This is what I wanted to drive home - everyone always has their own stuff going on, and I've noticed that people are acutely more aware of their own vulnerabilities and weaknesses than their enemy's, which makes sense given the lack of perfect information. So while you were worried about what they were taking so long on - did it portend an attack? What are they plotting? What was likely happening in reality was that "oh shit the Zulu are RIGHT NEXT to our next plant. How the hell do we take this city and defend it from a potential horde of impis?" was being debated in the thread. 

I don't think you messed up by granting them 10 turns - as noted, you can use those 10 turns to prepare more effectively to take that city than they can to destroy it, and removing the ability for them to screw with you and your four workers over the next little bit helps. Now you just need to decide - is taking that city the most impactful move you could make in the next little bit, or is there something that would give you an even greater advantage? Personally, my belief is that there are few things likely to trump the city, but you do need to consider your other flanks before committing.

[ljubljana]

I don't think you messed up by granting them 10 turns - as noted, you can use those 10 turns to prepare more effectively to take that city than they can to destroy it, and removing the ability for them to screw with you and your four workers over the next little bit helps. Now you just need to decide - is taking that city the most impactful move you could make in the next little bit, or is there something that would give you an even greater advantage? Personally, my belief is that there are few things likely to trump the city, but you do need to consider your other flanks before committing.

If we had known they had a settler literally right here, maybe we did mess up a little - in 10 turns they are at least going to hook up this copper, and if they can't get a spear in the new city they probably will have time to get one in the capital to prevent being devoured whole by chariots. But of course we had no way of knowing that, and getting this warrior off our backs for 10t will be seriously advantageous if we DON'T try to kill Ginger, so I'm not really regretting it as of now.

Despite the intensity of my sudden overwhelming thirst for blood, there are seemingly a few good reasons not to just immediately jump on them. One is just civ4 expansion economics - with settlers costing a flat and cheapish 100 foodhammers, if we're thinking it would take 7 30-hammer chariots to kill Ginger's city, we could have fully two of our own settlers for that price... If we could roll on to their capital that would be one thing, but I think they are most likely going to have enough copper time to get a spear in there at least, so I don't think we should count on getting more than just their new city. Another is that apparently the diplomatic meta in this game is to respond to early city razes by declaring game-long blood feud... which would be fine if we think we can just roll them over, but not fine if it means they're whipping out archers or chariots every 10 turns from every city just to maximally stalemate/hurt us...

Re the other flanks: another cost to committing is that we probably won't have the units to also secure our ambitious western border plant against GT. But equally, because the distances are so long, as long as we don't settle toward them I don't think GT can meaningfully intervene to stop us. We'd just have to use the settler coming out of the capital for a significantly crappier city in the northeast that will exist pretty much just to hook up copper, I think.