[PB25-SPOILERS] The Lunacy of the Reign of HAK Continues

[MindyMcCready]

Some good news this turn....
Next turn we found the other chokepoint city as the Settler is now on that tile with the Chariot.

Good stuff.

Also when I logged in, I had an Open Borders request from retep....

Wow,...unconditional OB to the guy with TGLH. That's a very big shout out for an alliance.

Bedazzled now more than pays for itself.

That's great. Kinda makes me wonder why you stopped building settlers.

Below is the island. I'm currently inclined to settle on that hill if I can eventually get a settler over there before Grimace. Though I'm also considering the spot 1N of it.

What about 2N1E? I guess it can be forked, so that's a disadvantage but it gets shared deer + 1st ring food (which we need).

I need to save gold for 3 turns, and then 3 turns after that we'll have Construction. So I'll be able to build some Catapults & WE's to shore up our defenses while we get everything else in place.

We won't get WE on our current tech path. With only 18T left until the hammer drops we probably can't keep to the Engineering/Machinery tech path. We'll have to discuss.

Efficiency Notes:
-Sleepy. Wet rice = 7.5H; GHM = 4.5. We need 3 more settlers, we'll get +2/+3 happy from a market. I cannot think of a sufficient justification for losing 3FH per turn.
-The 1/2 price Lighthouse means that either 1 whip (30H) or 1 chop (30H) will complete it without any other investment (besides 1H to prevent a dry whip).

Military:
-Archers useful life is ending soon. They don't really shut down G3s, and the don't stand up well to knights. So why so many? We need spears by Master Commodore and Axes by Grimace.
-For cats to work we need critical mass. Until we're ready to crank out that critical mass a standard defensive unit is probably better (spear/axe/sword).
-Swords, Cats and Spears all have a very long useful life.
-Southern islands need naval superiority. We have a choke point in that straight SE off Warrant to prevent G3 forking at low cost.

Next Tech: Construction vs IW
-No WEs from Construction
-Swords better for a small engagement with Borsche (we could send say 3 swords for a raze, where as 3 cats need additional support).
-KTB. We know that at least Grimace has IW so switching the order may get some beakers.
-With intact walls + fortify Swords will have defensive odds on a C2 Knight or even a Shock Knight. Same scenario CG1 archer only has 21% chance.

-----C2 Knight (Shock) vs------
CG1 archer 79% (74.7%)
C1 Spear 35.7% (35.5%)
C1 Sword 34.8% (37.2%)

So as of right now the sword is a pretty good generalist unit if a little expensive. I'm not sure how much you know about combat, but the sword's 50% attack bonus is actually a subtraction against the defenders strength. So versus an archer a sword's bonus means 3*(-50%) = -1.5, while versus a rifle it's 14*(-50%) = -7. Right now a sword is an 'expensive' unit, but later game they're a dirt cheap way of generating decent offense. If any of this combat stuff is a surprise to you, speak up and we can discuss more.

Speaking of Anxious, I keep waffling back and forth on what to build there. Currently putting hammers into a Spear mostly in case GJ decides to be a pain and attack me....this way I can whip out a Spear if need be. Also have some hammers in an Axe if that needs to be whipped. Also have hammers in a Barracks, I think.

-You're aware that hammer decay does occur eventually.
-GJ won't give you a chance to whip. He'll either hit with 2-movers with zero warning or he'll play last.
-Unfinished builds generates zero rate of return so a bad habit without sufficient justification.
-If you feel threatened better to get the spear in there now.

Grand Strategy
-We need those 3 more cities. Given TGLH we should not delay this. Cities = land = power and for us it also equals commerce. We need those cities to move up the scoreboard,...we need to run faster than the other potential prey.
-If we get up to 16 cities we're going to look a little unappetizing to Master Commodore.
-Combined with having visible CBs with the possibility of multi-purpose pikes and I think that that'll be sufficient deterrant to make him look elsewhere.
-We need a golden age to put the nail in the invasion coffin. How quick can we get a second GP? Stressed maybe? We'd need to work 4 specialists starting almost immediately but this would be an effective deterrant or boost to output if we're invaded or a superboost to infrastructure if Master Commodore looks elsewhere.
-While I was writing this out but have completely changed my mind. I'll have to post again later.

[HitAnyKey]

Only have a couple minutes before a conference call, so here's a quick update of this turn:



Both GJ & Commodore each triggered Golden Ages with their great people.....eek!

Demos:






And I think I need to start thinking about where I want to get Moai started. Should try to get it done before GJ decides to get rid of my stone city.
I'm leaning towards putting it in the spot where my next settler would go. It has good amounts of water, has enough forests still there that can be chopped into it, and the land tiles around it will gladly be used by the other cities.



Got my two Merchant specialists going in Happy. Will have the GP in 9 turns. Now just need to hope I didn't screw myself with that one turn of Scientist I ran. With my luck, the low odds GS will pop and not the GM that we need.

[MindyMcCready]

Thanks for the update.

I'm beginning to think that Master Commodore is (way?) ahead of Dtay's T119 Guilds. The fact that he ran a GA with the great prophet rather than build his shrine speaks of great urgency as well. Presumably we have 100% EP into Master Commodore for this tech?

We probably have a snowball's chance of getting Engineering and probably won't even get Machinery by the "dead"line. So we need a new plan.

Looks like we'll have to settle for WE, HA, spears, cats for our defense. So I'm good with construction next. Probably needs to be followed by HBR.

COL after that? The GP probably doesn't need to be put into Metal Casting and we could use it for a golden age,...either to fight off Master Commodore or quickly build our UB if he's gone elsewhere. Overall, if we can get those 3 more cities and are sitting around 16 cities (lots of whippable pop) Master Commodore should probably look to Grimace but we can't really take a chance of only having ancient age trash as defenders.

So the GP,...can probably run all slots to get it faster? Optional. Ideally, we'd use it for a spree of infrastructure before kicking Borsche and/or Gj and or Grimace off 'our' landmass.

[MindyMcCready]

I did a really quick check on Master Commodore's power since it's starting to worry me.

You'll have to update my assumptions but here's a quick guess for now:
11 cities sizes 12, 10,10,8,8,6,6,4,4,2,2
Buildings: 4 x barrakcs, 1 x wall, 5 x Forges, 2x stables
Techs: IW (10K), HBR(10K), Machinery (8K), Construction(4K), Metal Casting (4K), and all the other basic power techs.

T102 power graph puts him at 223K power (note top power for T103 is alot higher at 265K). So either Master Commodore isn't the top power or he's ramping up pretty fast.
-68K from tech
-35K from pop
-28K from buildings
-92K from units
A possible example of his current miltiary power
1 warior + 2 chariots + 6 axes + 6 archers + 2 HA + 4 spears.

So that doesn't seem like an invasion ready force given his many borders. So we should be safe for now. We nevertheless need spears for Master Commodore and axes for Grimace more than we need archers.

[HitAnyKey]

Will be somewhat busy today with some work, plus starting to gather things together for our vacation, so starting out with a quick reply to a few of your comments.

1. For the island...yeah, I guess 2N1W (I assume that's what you mean, since E puts the city into the water ) is also a possibly good option. Does allow for Grimace forking the two cities, and does put it on flat land instead of on a hill. But getting those Crabs 1st ring will probably be best. And if the intention is to conquer Grimace, then worrying about him forking us there wouldn't matter. But still think this city after the 3S1W of Sore is my plan. Since currently leaning towards that city for Moai, which I'd like to get started asap before we lose our stone.

2. Some of these last Archers I was making was for the cheaper MP units. Some of our inner cities need these units in them to keep them happy long term. But yeah, these were the last of the Archers I was going to make. Your talk of Commodore's power and such things just got me thinking, so I just logged in and switched both Sleepy & Hungry to a Spear. I'm going to whip both spears next turn to have the overflow go into the Markets while they regrow.

3. Two chops go into the Market at Stressed next turn, which should bring it to completion. That city will then start the next Settler.

4. While I was logged in just now I decided I think I also like the idea of finally getting IW right now. Two reasons. One, I'll get it in 2 turns (have enough gold to do that) because of various KTBs, etc. Two, because if I have Iron in my borders (which I'll die if I don't) I want to know where it is and start getting that hammer boost from the resource. Hopefully it's somewhere I already have a mine.

5. If we get a Great Merchant in 9 turns, I'm still not convinced I should use it for a GA rather than to pop MC. But still got 9 turns to think about that. Not even sure I'd want to use the Great Scientist (if that's what pops) for a GA rather than something to help with research. But we'll see.

[HitAnyKey]

I did a really quick check on Master Commodore's power since it's starting to worry me.

You'll have to update my assumptions but here's a quick guess for now:
11 cities sizes 12, 10,10,8,8,6,6,4,4,2,2
Buildings: 4 x barrakcs, 1 x wall, 5 x Forges, 2x stables
Techs: IW (10K), HBR(10K), Machinery (8K), Construction(4K), Metal Casting (4K), and all the other basic power techs.

T102 power graph puts him at 223K power (note top power for T103 is alot higher at 265K). So either Master Commodore isn't the top power or he's ramping up pretty fast.
-68K from tech
-35K from pop
-28K from buildings
-92K from units
A possible example of his current miltiary power
1 warior + 2 chariots + 6 axes + 6 archers + 2 HA + 4 spears.

So that doesn't seem like an invasion ready force given his many borders. So we should be safe for now. We nevertheless need spears for Master Commodore and axes for Grimace more than we need archers.

Just realized I forgot to check his cities while I was logged in. I'll do that next turn. The other thing that made me think to get out these couple spears quickly is that he just moved an exploring WorkBoat along the coast to a spot where it could see into Hungry. So he would have just seen that I have only an Archer/Axe there. So think I need to flash a couple Spears up that way to nudge him to think elsewhere for conquest. Too bad his workboat wasn't 1 turn behind on it's movement...since the borders of Hungry pop next turn, and that would have kept the workboat from getting close enough. Oh well.

[MindyMcCready]

1. For the island...yeah, I guess 2N1W (I assume that's what you mean, since E puts the city into the water ) is also a possibly good option. Does allow for Grimace forking the two cities, and does put it on flat land instead of on a hill. But getting those Crabs 1st ring will probably be best. And if the intention is to conquer Grimace, then worrying about him forking us there wouldn't matter. But still think this city after the 3S1W of Sore is my plan. Since currently leaning towards that city for Moai, which I'd like to get started asap before we lose our stone.

We haven't settled that city yet? What are we waiting for? Ok. I see your point #3 and will calm down. I totally missed that and was wondering why the city count wasn't what I was expecting.

So we need 3 more cities very, very soon. They are worth it. We have to drag ourselves up from the bottom of the scoreboard in order to avoid an invasion or alternatively have enough pop to whip to the ground to fight off an invasion.

I'm going to backtrack on suggesting another city near Borsche, however. We'd need a strong garrison for that city while the other 3 probably require significantly less.

As for Grimace I think that we need to focus on outproducing him rather than direct defending. One of the 3 of us won't be long for the world once Master Commdore gets Knights. So I doubt that we'll actually come to blows and if we do naval supremacy is key to the defense of the island. Grimace doesn't appear to have much of a chance against us in that regard.

1. For the island...yeah, I guess 2N1W (I assume that's what you mean, since E puts the city into the water ) is also a possibly good option.

Actually, if we're worried about Grimace slipping through or us not being able to maintain naval supremacy, then my 2N1W suggestion isn't that great since he can park right next to our city on the hills. 1N and he would have to travel on flatland to either of our 2 cities letting us get a first shot with axes.

2. I'm going to whip both spears next turn to have the overflow go into the Markets while they regrow.

Ideally those spears are part of a 10T whip cycle but since it would be an absolute disaster if either of our 2 major chokes is broken do what you have to do. My check on Master Commodore's power suggests he's probably not ready for an invasion (despite the high power level) so we must only prevent against easy opportunism. Yes, a couple of spears is part of preventing opportunism. If my assumptions are wildly off and/or he has the top power and just chunked on 35K his army could be bigger than my estimate (less pop/less tech more military for example,...)

3. Two chops go into the Market at Stressed next turn, which should bring it to completion. That city will then start the next Settler.

Right,...let's get on that,...[insert chorus - every city makes money and produces food and hammers and drags us from the bottom of the scoreboard/foodchain].

I find your build order a little funny. Why rush out the market in Stressed when you're just going to stagnate on settlers? The extra happy probably isn't doing much good. The extra commerce is ok but we'd get more total output from a new city sooner I would guess.

4. While I was logged in just now I decided I think I also like the idea of finally getting IW right now. Two reasons. One, I'll get it in 2 turns (have enough gold to do that) because of various KTBs, etc. Two, because if I have Iron in my borders (which I'll die if I don't) I want to know where it is and start getting that hammer boost from the resource. Hopefully it's somewhere I already have a mine.

:LOL: Why is it that I convince you after convincing myself not to. I think that we need to talk about this.

We can skip IW if we're not going for our UU,...which we pretty much can't. So the IW gets us swords which are ok on the defense and good for an offense that we won't likely be able to do.

The opportunity cost is COL much sooner. Something that will make a very material difference in our economy.

Now that I think about it further, WE will be our main deterrant with the ability to attack into a stack of knights with coin-flip odds. We need 2 techs before we can start building that deterrant so IW might be a costly delay in getting our deterrant up and running.

Critical: Construction & HBR
Economic: COL

5. If we get a Great Merchant in 9 turns, I'm still not convinced I should use it for a GA rather than to pop MC. But still got 9 turns to think about that. Not even sure I'd want to use the Great Scientist (if that's what pops) for a GA rather than something to help with research. But we'll see.

Well the GA if used to build infrastructure (cheap courthouses) would be very strong. Metal Casting isn't that expensive (I think reduced in RTR) but was absolutely vital as progress to Machinery/engineering.

If we're not pushing for advanced techs then we could pick up Mono (discount for COL, I think) and adopt whatever religion that made it's way to our region as another option.

[MindyMcCready]

he just moved an exploring WorkBoat along the coast to a spot where it could see into Hungry.

RED ALERT!!!!!!

That's a BIG RED ALERT! That wb has no business doing anything except for spying. He almost certainly doesn't have OB with anyone so he's going nowhere except for causing problems.

Set our galley sail immediately in his direction to keep an eye on him. He's probably got Triemes so he'll make short work of us but we need the eyes. Maybe the galley isn't a good idea, LOL. I'm probably being a little jumpy and will just get the galley killed.

[HitAnyKey]

I find your build order a little funny. Why rush out the market in Stressed when you're just going to stagnate on settlers? The extra happy probably isn't doing much good. The extra commerce is ok but we'd get more total output from a new city sooner I would guess.

4. While I was logged in just now I decided I think I also like the idea of finally getting IW right now. Two reasons. One, I'll get it in 2 turns (have enough gold to do that) because of various KTBs, etc. Two, because if I have Iron in my borders (which I'll die if I don't) I want to know where it is and start getting that hammer boost from the resource. Hopefully it's somewhere I already have a mine.

:LOL: Why is it that I convince you after convincing myself not to. I think that we need to talk about this.

We can skip IW if we're not going for our UU,...which we pretty much can't. So the IW gets us swords which are ok on the defense and good for an offense that we won't likely be able to do.

The opportunity cost is COL much sooner. Something that will make a very material difference in our economy.

Now that I think about it further, WE will be our main deterrant with the ability to attack into a stack of knights with coin-flip odds. We need 2 techs before we can start building that deterrant so IW might be a costly delay in getting our deterrant up and running.

Critical: Construction & HBR
Economic: COL

Well the GA if used to build infrastructure (cheap courthouses) would be very strong. Metal Casting isn't that expensive (I think reduced in RTR) but was absolutely vital as progress to Machinery/engineering.

If we're not pushing for advanced techs then we could pick up Mono (discount for COL, I think) and adopt whatever religion that made it's way to our region as another option.

Ok, now you're confusing me and I'm trying to figure out what to do....and have a short time to do it since only Donovan left to play his turn.

So you're saying to not switch to IW and keep on the Construction path? I would still like to push for my UU kind of as quickly as possible. If Commodore picks on us first, I don't think there is much of anything we can do to stop him....but if he picks on someone else first and I can get to the UU....that'll keep him from coming at us too quickly. That was my thought there.
But getting out some WE's will also be good. And some Catapults in the meantime while getting other techs we need. So maybe I should log back in again and switch back to Construction.

I'm currently having a lot of trouble planning ahead with the techs. And don't really have much time to think it through this week, and with my being on vacation next week, that'll make it even tougher. I haven't had time to try to build the sandbox, and I doubt I will have time before I leave on Thursday.

And yes, I'm sure my build order is a bit funny. Like I said, I haven't had time to plan any of this stuff long-term. So I'm mostly picking builds by the seat of my pants as those decisions come up. And when I've had large overflow or whips coming in, I chose Markets to get that 100% hammer boost. And they'll give at least a little gold boost for those turns I'm at 0% research and for helping deal with whip unhappy, allowing me to whip certain stuff more frequently. I've probably been cracking the whip a lot more than I should be.

[HitAnyKey]

Oh, on the topic of Golden Age instead of bulbing MC...yeah, I kinda have had some of those thoughts too.....I have had two different religion spreads. Grimace's religion spread to Stressed and Commodore's religion spread to Ranting. I was hoping to wait to see which one spread to a second city before choosing which religion to adopt. That's why I haven't been in any major thoughts to rush a GA.
But if we can get Monarchy quickly before the GA ends....that would also be good because then we could adopt Hereditary Rule (and also finally hook up those bazillion Wines of mine). But not sure if I have the skills to figure out if we can get Monarchy before the GA is over (especially with us also wanting Construction ASAP).