[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

If a) TAD has not declared or moved up troops in an obvious prelude to war when the DoF ends and b) I don't think I can take Writing on the Wall back with a first strike (likely), I may actually just kind of...wait to declare war until I see TAD actually start moving their troops in for an attack. It may be that TAD thinks there is some reason for them to wait a few turns and not attack immediately when the DoF ends, and I'd love to encourage that if at all possible. I believe any delay, even if it's only a small one, in the opening of hostilities will favor us as the side with the production advantage but numerical disadvantage.

Also, while I am 95% certain TAD is coming for us at this point, I guess I shouldn't assume too much about how well I can read a player's intentions based on my perception of the strategic imperatives of the position. There may be a chance (a very small chance, but a chance) that TAD is refusing our DoFs so we can't go after suboptimal and is mass-upgrading ships to defend against us should we turn on them instead rather than planning immediate offensive action. You did say that TAD would be sabotaging their game by declaring eternal war against us...while I'm not as confident as you are that that would be true in practice (IMO the attack is quite a strong one and has a decent chance of paying off), if it is the case, it's at least possible that TAD sees that and isn't planning an immediate war after all. While that's very unlikely and I'm not trying to imply otherwise, I think we should at least consider trying to preserve that chance by not declaring a pre-emptive war that doesn't actually pre-empt anything.

Another observation from last turn - ouch, suboptimal's milpower is really starting to decline, even as MPF's whole empire is burning. Our odds to win might look fairly grim right now, but I do like our chances better than those of either the CMF/MPF or sub/roland teams. As you predicted, that war has become seriously self-destructive for both participants, and as CMF starts to turn the tide and reverse sub's gains I think that will become even more true. If TAD gets locked in a long war with us that drags us both out of contention, though, I actually think the most likely outcome will be CMF winning the game almost by themself by slowly conquering sub/roland and amassing a single-player empire larger than that of any other team. That would be a pretty magnificent outcome, and one that is well-deserved for them karmically after PBEM18 .

Miscellaneous observation: I was thinking about using traders for hammers even in cities not about to grow onto hammer tiles (eg Mitla/Runic), but I think the math says that that's wrong. A Cuneiform TR at 4 hpt will yield a caravel in 240 / (4 * 2.5) = 24 turns, whereas a gold TR with China will give us a caravel in 180 / 16 = 11.25 turns. The hammer TR will become a comparable and arguably better payoff if it allows the city to grow onto hammer tiles, as for Linear B, Abjad, and maybe Linear A and Abugida, but not if it's at a city like Mitla which will just grow onto blank coast tiles that will never produce anything useful or one like Hieratic and Demotic that is essentially already working all the good tiles it will ever acquire. Thus, I think my plan will be to do Cuneiform TRs at Abjad (done already), Linear B, Linear A (only one mercury left unworked but this still seems fine), and maybe Abugida once it has the bananas acquired, and send the other 4-5 TRs over to China for gold.

edit: If TAD rejects our DoF, do you think I would gain more information by offering them 1 diplo favor for 1 diplo favor and seeing what happens? If they accept, I think it would be at least a small breach of good faith for them to then immediately declare war at the first possible opportunity. If they reject, then we will have a more definitive signal that an attack is coming and should be able to declare pre-emptive war if we need to without having acted in bad faith ourselves.

edit2: Depending on if TAD has reached Civil Service, we may have one more avenue available to convince them not to DoW - if I offer them an economic alliance, their TRs to Cuneiform would be worth an insane 26 gpt each, way more than they can likely acquire from any other source, and TAD would also make 2 gpt from my TR to them, for a net boost of 18 gpt on TAD's end immediately if they sign. If I also throw in some more GPT as tribute to sweeten the deal (10 or 15, maybe?), I could just maybe see TAD considering it. TAD might come for us in 30t anyways even if we pull that off, but we'd be in a way better position to fight them then, and I could also run TRs to a bunch of different TAD cities in the meantime to build up trading posts and diplo visibility. I really wish I had had this idea before giving away WotW so I could be offering to give them the city on this turn as part of the alliance deal...but we didn't have CS yet and I didn't think of it, so oh well, that's just a lesson for future me to hopefully internalize, I guess.

[Woden]

If a) TAD has not declared or moved up troops in an obvious prelude to war when the DoF ends and b) I don't think I can take Writing on the Wall back with a first strike (likely), I may actually just kind of...wait to declare war until I see TAD actually start moving their troops in for an attack. It may be that TAD thinks there is some reason for them to wait a few turns and not attack immediately when the DoF ends, and I'd love to encourage that if at all possible. I believe any delay, even if it's only a small one, in the opening of hostilities will favor us as the side with the production advantage but numerical disadvantage.

The longer you wait, the more gold he gets and you run the risk of him establishing a trading post.

Also, while I am 95% certain TAD is coming for us at this point, I guess I shouldn't assume too much about how well I can read a player's intentions based on my perception of the strategic imperatives of the position. There may be a chance (a very small chance, but a chance) that TAD is refusing our DoFs so we can't go after suboptimal and is mass-upgrading ships to defend against us should we turn on them instead rather than planning immediate offensive action. You did say that TAD would be sabotaging their game by declaring eternal war against us...while I'm not as confident as you are that that would be true in practice (IMO the attack is quite a strong one and has a decent chance of paying off), if it is the case, it's at least possible that TAD sees that and isn't planning an immediate war after all. While that's very unlikely and I'm not trying to imply otherwise, I think we should at least consider trying to preserve that chance by not declaring a pre-emptive war that doesn't actually pre-empt anything.

I am 99.9% sure TAD is going to attack us. I am pretty sure his DoFs with the other teams were made after yours and after my initial DoF offer. No reason to build up a massive navy and do a missive upgrade just to wait and go after someone else.

Another observation from last turn - ouch, suboptimal's milpower is really starting to decline, even as MPF's whole empire is burning. Our odds to win might look fairly grim right now, but I do like our chances better than those of either the CMF/MPF or sub/roland teams. As you predicted, that war has become seriously self-destructive for both participants, and as CMF starts to turn the tide and reverse sub's gains I think that will become even more true. If TAD gets locked in a long war with us that drags us both out of contention, though, I actually think the most likely outcome will be CMF winning the game almost by themself by slowly conquering sub/roland and amassing a single-player empire larger than that of any other team. That would be a pretty magnificent outcome, and one that is well-deserved for them karmically after PBEM18 .
[/qoute]

This is CMF's game to lose. He is generating just under 250 per turn and can do a lot with that faith. It also means he is getting a bunch of production thanks to work ethic. It doesn't matter that his partner is being burnt to the ground. He can replace all of those cities with monumentality settlers easily. He can also burn down all of suboptimal's cities and replace them, all the while building ships in his cities because no need to build builders and settlers. Also, he can build the Grand Master's Chapel and buy units to defend them. Even if TAD takes us out, by the time he does, CMF will have taking a big chunk out of suboptimal. In contrast, suboptiaml is only making 60 or so and can only buy Jongs every, what, 10 turns (not sure their faith cost but assume it is something like 600) and a lot of his cities are off the coast but still in range of Frigates. Also, notice CMF's science. He is top of the game and both you and TAD are juiced by golden ages. In 20 turns, both of you will significantly drop, while I am pretty sure CMF is in monumentality, meaning his science is here to stay.

[quote]
Miscellaneous observation: I was thinking about using traders for hammers even in cities not about to grow onto hammer tiles (eg Mitla/Runic), but I think the math says that that's wrong. A Cuneiform TR at 4 hpt will yield a caravel in 240 / (4 * 2.5) = 24 turns, whereas a gold TR with China will give us a caravel in 180 / 16 = 11.25 turns. The hammer TR will become a comparable and arguably better payoff if it allows the city to grow onto hammer tiles, as for Linear B, Abjad, and maybe Linear A and Abugida, but not if it's at a city like Mitla which will just grow onto blank coast tiles that will never produce anything useful or one like Hieratic and Demotic that is essentially already working all the good tiles it will ever acquire. Thus, I think my plan will be to do Cuneiform TRs at Abjad (done already), Linear B, Linear A (only one mercury left unworked but this still seems fine), and maybe Abugida once it has the bananas acquired, and send the other 4-5 TRs over to China for gold.

You really want to make good cities for TAD, don't you. You need to send all your next available traders for gold. We have so much to upgrade and need lots of gold. You can't think about the long term here, need to focus only on the short term because if you don't, there will be no long term.

edit: If TAD rejects our DoF, do you think I would gain more information by offering them 1 diplo favor for 1 diplo favor and seeing what happens? If they accept, I think it would be at least a small breach of good faith for them to then immediately declare war at the first possible opportunity. If they reject, then we will have a more definitive signal that an attack is coming and should be able to declare pre-emptive war if we need to without having acted in bad faith ourselves.

edit2: Depending on if TAD has reached Civil Service, we may have one more avenue available to convince them not to DoW - if I offer them an economic alliance, their TRs to Cuneiform would be worth an insane 26 gpt each, way more than they can likely acquire from any other source, and TAD would also make 2 gpt from my TR to them, for a net boost of 18 gpt on TAD's end immediately if they sign. If I also throw in some more GPT as tribute to sweeten the deal (10 or 15, maybe?), I could just maybe see TAD considering it. TAD might come for us in 30t anyways even if we pull that off, but we'd be in a way better position to fight them then, and I could also run TRs to a bunch of different TAD cities in the meantime to build up trading posts and diplo visibility. I really wish I had had this idea before giving away WotW so I could be offering to give them the city on this turn as part of the alliance deal...but we didn't have CS yet and I didn't think of it, so oh well, that's just a lesson for future me to hopefully internalize, I guess.

They will reject my offer and we will be at war. We need no more signals. Massive build up with ships, denial of a DoF, and DoFs with everybody else. Thinking there is something else is a pipe dream, he is coming after us and I am pretty sure he will push towards you first to take out the power before swinging south to come after me.

[ljubljana]

I mean, I think the 4f/4h domestic TR at Abjad makes sense, our choices there are a city stuck at size 1/2 that can contribute next to nothing to the war effort and a city making 20 hpt and going Cothon - endless stream of caravels (or even skipping the Cothon), and a TR is the difference between those two pictures. Linear B I think is also defensible, it has 5 hammer tiles that no other city can work and the TR is the difference between working three while starving and quickly growing onto the fourth and fifth. A TR only needs to add one hammer tile to a city to be a roughly even short-term investment to a 16 gold TR, 8 hammers makes a caravel in 12 turns with Press Gangs + Cothon whereas the 16 gold TR will take 11.25 turns to give us an extra caravel upgrade. Those two domestic TRs both add multiple hammer tiles in the next 10-20 turns and so will match or outproduce a gold TR as measured in caravels over the course of this war, not just in the long term, and so I think they're worth getting. I don't think TAD will really benefit from my having slightly nicer cities either, they will have to raze everything for loyalty reasons until they can get to Cuneiform and much of the extra population will die in the conquest anyways. Otherwise, though, I'll defer to you here and send everything over to China for gold. If any city appears in the meantime worth more gpt than 16, that also sends this analysis goes out the window, but I don't think that is too likely given that our two neighbors are respectively in the process of trying to kill us and slowly dying.

You are right that waiting longer gets TAD more gold, and that's reason enough not to do it. I am pretty sure that I will actually get a trading post before TAD will, though - TAD's first trader is just leaving Cuneiform right now, my trader to TAD is just leaving the TAD city, and my route is shorter. There should be a window of a few turns in which I can attack before TAD's route completes and gain an extra +3 CS. That window won't come for another 15t or so, so probably the extra gold TAD would get makes it not worth trying.

I hope CMF by themself is the favorite. I don't know how much longer they have in monumentality (the ES lift to get a third GA is going to be a really tough one), and if they miss it TAD and Kaiser may be able to keep pace with their expansion with the escalating cost of settlers. But on balance I think you are probably right, and I'd definitely rather see that outcome than TAD steamrolling us on their way to a win so I am glad to hear you say so .

Yeah, thinking there could be anything else but war coming is a total pipe dream. I think I still have a fair ways to go to get over my builderitis, and it's really showing here, but this game has been really helpful in that respect, so thank you for that .

[Woden]

It is not about a single trade route but sending the next 4 or 5 traders for gold to get your income to the point where you can upgrade a caravel ever turn.

If it takes 12 turns to build, it will take an addition 6 turns to reach the front. So you will have a new caravel fighting in 18 turns. The gold will give you an upgrade near the action in 12 turns. Still a better option. Abjad is not going to make a difference in this war. How long before the Cothon is built? Then you need to start building boats, then they need to travel.

You have 10 or so biremes that can be upgrade and actually make a difference right now. And then, I have a bunch of longboats to upgrade. How is Abjad going to help with all that?

[ljubljana]

Abjad will do the walls in 4 like everywhere else, then Cothon in probably 6 or 7? Okay, that won't pay off unless the war goes long which is not a guarantee, so I can accept that sending a TR there was probably a mistake (unfortunately there's a "was" in that sentence rather than a "would be" because I was so sure the hammers would be worth more over the course of the war that I did it a few turns ago ). I will send the rest of the TRs for gold (until and unless we turn back TAD at least) and not do the same at Linear B. I will have 4 more TRs in 5 turns at least since the one from Hieratic - Cuneiform is about to elapse as well.

[ljubljana]

Turn 124 - Phoenicia



I upgrade a caravel, and am planning to do two frigates next turn. For whatever reason, TAD isn't moving ships up yet even though the DoF is about to end - probably because they are waiting on Cartography. SE of WotW is the only place I can really hide ships undetected, and is also where I want the ships to hit WotW, and is also where the most fragile-looking portion of TAD's navy is (a bunch of frigates with few meat shields), and is also where what choke points we have available to us can be found, so that is where I think I will concentrate my navy initially. As for Abjad, I think I should probably skip the Cothon and just move straight on to caravels after the walls - those will be 8-turn builds in Press Gangs, which is not too bad. As you can see, I will have a bunch of traders finish over the next few turns for gold finishing in the next 4 turns, and will get another from reassigning the Hieratic route as well.

As for Linear B, the reason I was pushing for a route there as well is this:



Three unworked hills and no food to grow onto them, in a core city that needs to be building ships at the best possible rate. With two more pop and a TR, it will have 22 hpt for 4.3-turn caravels right at the front, but right now it is languishing and can barely build them in 10. That seems like a better ROI than a gold TR to me, but I also understand your hesitancy and will wait on that until my GPT is in better shape if you think that's the better play.

If TAD doesn't move ships up, I think the play is to declare on t126, move up six frigates and two caravels, land ground troops to start a siege, and start bombing down Writing on the Wall. If TAD does move ships up (and hopefully they will), I think the plan should be to attack those ships instead if we can get at them. Does that seem right to you?

[Woden]

As for Linear B, the city has the food and housing capacity to grow. When did you finish the lighthouse? You should have run a higher food surplus once it finished so your city would grow onto its tiles. As for now, I would swap the horses to the city and slow Linear A's growth curve for a minute. I think you said Linear A has a mercury it needs to grow onto so it should lose production. It will add a turn onto the walls but you can finish them in 4 turns without the card. Once walls are done, go heavy food for a few turns until Linear B grows and grow onto the tiles there.

Also, Linear B might be worth a high food trade route. Production potential is a lot higher than your other city. I would still run it and have the city work some food to speed growth up to at least 5 population. Then you can go for a more productive set-up while have somewhat of a food surplus.

[ljubljana]

The lighthouse was finished quite recently, on t116. It has been building quads nonstop since then, which I didn't want to slow down, so I have been working more hammer tiles than I otherwise would have, but in retrospect I have a few extra quads sitting around right now so that may have been a mistake. You are definitely right about the horse - I will swap Linear B onto that next turn, and should have done so a few turns ago once it because clear that I would need to slow Linear A's growth. Linear A is working all the mercury in this shot, but I will swap over the hill 1W of the horse to Linear A so it doesn't lose production. If I run a food TR in Linear B, the walls wouldn't even slow down at all, since I can run the route with the trader about to complete in the capital and have it up in 2t.

With the food TR and horse (and fish, which I think is mandatory for gpt reasons if nothing else), I can still have a +7 food surplus at size 4 while working two hills. That should be plenty to grow onto the lumbermills in time to contribute lots of caravels to the war effort.

[ljubljana]

If I do manage to capture Writing on the Wall, do you think I should consider razing it? The argument in favor of doing so is this: I can't do much in the way of tactical positioning if TAD has a city here, and there is no way I could keep it out of TAD's hands long-term, so maybe it is better to get rid of it so I at least have a chance of catching TAD off-guard with some portion of my ships. Keeping it does have some advantages too, though, since it would distract fire from my ships for a turn while TAD retakes it, which might be exactly what I need to get in a first strike against TAD's navy. I could liberate the city, too, but I don't know what its defensive strength would then be - if it would retain the mid-50s defensive strength of the rest of my cities, it could make sense to liberate it, but if the defensive strength would drop down a ton I'm not sure it's worth it, since I don't really see us being able to attack any walled TAD cities with caravels anytime soon save perhaps for WotW itself.

[Woden]

CMF offers a DoF. I am thinking of accepting it and trying for a economic alliance. Might be able to get a few decent trade routes from my eastern cities. What do you think? I will hold the save for a bit. I don't think we have any reason not too.