I'm seeing a fairly persuasive case for pinkdotting GT here as long as we have a visibly strong defense in play quickly, and the messaging from Ginger appears positive. It's unfortunate that we can't get the city on a hill without losing the pigs, but the river is a significant help.
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[SPOILERS] swance bitten, twice shy
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Yeah, I'm similarly perplexed.... As for AGG, we'll have to see, I guess; part of the logic for taking it was as a late-breaking economic trait when we all have gigantic armies running around, and it's hard to predict what the value of that will be. It is already saving us 3 GPT which is not bad, more than ORG would be saving at the same date, but I imagine our unit bills are on the high side compared to our opponents...
re the pinkdot, well, we COULD put it on a hill, 1NW of the pinned site, which would keep all the resources from the pinned site and add furs. That trades the hill bonus for being on the wrong side of the river, though, which would make it harder to move troops back and forth, and more concerningly, it would leave the city vulnerable to a plant 3 tiles away from GT with the pigs and floodplains in first ring, which would indeed steal them away. I think that latter reason is sufficient to justify losing the fur IMO, if I got pinkdotted in such a way and were pissed, but a sub-open war level of pissed, a counter-pinkdot to take the pigs back is probably what I would do... But it's also true that Ginger's fur won't last forever (in particular if we do reach a strong position they'll likely embargo us) so maaaybe it's worth the risk to secure our own supply...
Turn 74 - Zululand
I was really tempted to wait for Ginger to play to see if we could get a response to our diplo before moving troops, but.... that would be playing clock games as this is technically the earliest I had time to play, so I won't do that. Report from the GT border:   A new axe is slowly lumbering over in presumed response to us showing our chariot; other than that it's the same axe + spear pair from previous turns. Axe + spear could attack 3t after the city founding, but due to a convenient lack of roads SE of GT's capital, the new one is a full 6 turns away. I think I'm going to go for it, but after playing the rest of the turn first so I have more time to brood lol  It is true! The land has ended and we can expect the Rickety/Gav pair to be faaar to the west, way beyond our capacity to influence. Which is a little concerning given the likelihood of one of these eventually devouring the other, but sadly that seems to be a problem we'll have to rely on naufragar and superdeath to contain...  omg, good thing i built this scout! depending on how close greenline is, this wheat/dye/horse spot could be on the menu. Believe it or not the wheat is on our side of the presumed midpoint line - 12 tiles from our capital, 15 from where I believe theirs to be. So it is not insane to imagine this as a potential border spot, and maybe one we should prioritize over some of the more remote spots like the 5 floodplains + spice + gold area  which as you can see is a million tiles from ANYone and so we should be unlikely to have to race Greenline or GT or Mjmd for it...  You can see that I'm weakening our Ginger defenses significantly to make this play for the pigs, with only the archer and one chariot in theater. So I decided on the following micro play to soothe my paranoid soul: come off the scientist for a turn to let the city grow, and put exactly 4 hammers into an axe, so if we feel we have reason to, we could double-whip the axe next turn and overflow into walls or the impi. That does mean we will be 3 beakers short on masonry completing this turn, but I don't think that really matters too much as I'd rather whip a unit if threatened here than walls anyways. I would like to say we will definitely get a chance to whip before they attack us even if they threw everything at us next turn and have chariots one tile away in the fog, buuuut that's not true  What they could do is this: move 3-4 chariots onto the forested hill on their next turn and declare war to claim the second half of the turn timer. Then, on our turn, we could whip but they'll get to hit the city before the whipped unit was produced. So moving the extra chariot and newly-produced Impi from the capital away is not strictly safe and I feel a little uneasy about it.... Again, we could gain a large advantage here by moving after Ginger this turn to eliminate that possibility, but that feels like playing timer games, and I'm starting to get this persistent guilty feeling about the number of times that statement has appeared in my head over the last 30 turns or so. thrawn, you asked earlier about the biggest differences between Civ4 and Civ6, and at the time I didn't yet realize that this is probably the biggest one, and the one most likely to drive you insane if you were a Civ4 player lol Ok, here's the plan, assuming I move first and they immediately attack when they see the plant: t75 - I found the city, double-whip the axe in Hoshoryu, start roading the forest east of the new city, move up archer in Hoshoryu and chariot + impi in Takakeisho. GT's axe and spear move to 2 tiles away (only one worker so they shouldn't be able to do a fast road on the pigs) t76 - We finish the road and move the chariot and archer into the city; GT's pair moves next to the city. Hoshoryu finishes the axe and overflows into an impi. t77 - We chop the forest east of the city into something (probably walls) and move the new axe, new impi finishing in Hoshoryu that turn, and impi from Takakeisho into the city. GT can attack with shock/cover axe and C2 spear across a river into the following stack: 1 PRO archer 1 AGG axe 2 AGG impis 2 chariots We will NOT have walls up in the new city when they attack on t77..... note that we COULD, but we'd once again have to play timer games to do so as we would need to settle on the second half of next turn so they can't attack us until the first half of t78. I don't want to do that, so I think we'll have to accept that their promoted axe can have a decent shot at killing our top defender if it tries. We could still get our asses kicked if one of the following things happens: - GT has pre-roaded the pigs without our knowledge so the axe and spear get here one turn early - GT has extra units in the NW or SW fog for some reason - Ginger moves 3 chariots out of the fog onto the hill in range of Kirishima next turn but that's why they call this kind of thing a gambit! I think in the final evaluation, I feel that the odds of those things happening are small enough that the expected value of this move is still positive, but we'll see  edit: alternatively, we could still get walls up t77 if we rehire the scientist in Kirishima to finish Masonry this turn (and therefore NOT grow to size 4 for potential axe-whipping) and also waste 2 worker turns by moving both workers west onto the unroaded forest next turn, so we can chop BEFORE finishing the road. That seems like an overcommitment, but I might do it anyways depending on what you all think. Rehiring the scientist for now just to leave the option open, I consider GT having extra units in the fog to be a liiiittle more likely than Ginger attacking literally this turn, which would be on the turn our initial cow for cow expires (i believe we proposed it t63) 
Nah, Masonry can wait. I'd rather have 4 hammers into an axe or Impi (it's a good 2-pop whip later anyway when you need one). One of the things you often want to do with Slavery in Civ 4 is get maximum overflow from a whip into another thing that you want to work on (especially a wonder, since those eat a penalty to hammers with whipping but not OVERFLOW from whipping something else, but also workers and settlers so that you spend fewer time not growing, or heck, anything really). You seldom want to 1-pop whip past the very early game. We're already at the point where we should be aiming at 2-pop whips, and axe/spears are a classic - put <5 hammers in one turn, whip it in a subsequent turn for a unit+most of 30 overflow hammers. This can be a second unit if we really need one quick.
Also, is there a reason if we fear Ginger chariots that we're making an axe instead of a Impi? Finally, Walls are moderately overrated in Civ 4. They're not terrible in this scenario where we are PRO and have founded border cities we want to defend before they have cultural defense. The problem is they do absolutely nothing to stop the enemy pillaging, and that's usually pretty bad also - though here with minimal tile improvements in the new areas it's probably okay. We'll probably put Walls lots of places when we get close to Engineering and can promote them to Castles which are somehow economic buildings (add an extra Trade Route for a city), but before them we should be avoiding them as much as we can.
the reason for the axe in kirishima was that i wanted the option of a 2-pop military whip as you said, and the city already has a mostly-finished impi in queue.... i did not think there was a way to start a new one from scratch while also keeping our progress in the old one.... but is there?? if there is i will login asap and try to change it before the turn rolls and also be very grateful for your wisdom <3
re walls yeah. they're overrated even in VI where they are as strong as static defenses have even been in the franchise... the reason to build them here though is that i do not think someone would attack us JUST to pillage if there is no prospect of taking a city, esp because as you've said it is expensive to pay for troops wandering around in enemy territory. they wouldn't help retain much win probability in the event of a serious attack, but if that happens there won't be much of that to preserve anyways lol; imo it's more about making the prospect of tangible gains against us sufficiently remote that it'll seem like a bad idea. esp since it looks like both our GT and ginger borders will consist of one very valuable city for the next long period of time
turnturnturnturnTURNturnturnturnturnturnturn
75, which i think means i owe yall an overview?? i'll think about that later though  hahahahahahhaa yes we'll take it  niceeeee... this stupid mountain totally blocks us from defogging a coastal route along the east coast. or does it...? if our route to dreylin consists of the river connection with Ginger's territory at Ankyra, then a defogged road from Ankyra to Ikonion, then a sea route from Ikonion to a dreylin city, does that still count for purposes of trade connection?  well, so much for that idea.... greenline's city here is as far from their capital as Tobizaru is from ours, under the (perhaps false) assumption that their capital is where i believe it to be. i am wondering if i should be a little shit and run our chariot and impi down here to, um, check out whether this city has any non-warrior defenders yet :D though it'll be some time before we have real defense in Tobizaru so maybe that's reckless. idk, lemme know what yall think. if you do NOT think we should harass the city (and i GUESS i agree that we probably shouldn't) i will offer open borders to at least scout out their land. furthermore this wheat/cow/horse/floodplain spot makes a reasonable border city, assuming we're seeing the second-ring borders of (Creative) greenline's plant. it's almost a carbon copy of mitakeumi and mitakeumi's doing ok (March 4th, 2024, 23:13)ljubljana Wrote: the reason for the axe in kirishima was that i wanted the option of a 2-pop military whip as you said, and the city already has a mostly-finished impi in queue.... i did not think there was a way to start a new one from scratch while also keeping our progress in the old one.... but is there?? if there is i will login asap and try to change it before the turn rolls and also be very grateful for your wisdom <3 Ah, no, there's no way to work on a fresh Impi if you already have one being produced. Axe it is then. Let's pick one fight at a time. Greenline is too far away to conquer. I'd just offer OB and go scout them. Re: Trade connections. I THINK you can use all of Ginger's internal routes whether or not you have defogged them as long as you have a legal connection to his trade network. As long as you have a legal connection from Ginger's network to you, and Ginger's network to Dreylin, and you have Open Borders with Ginger, you should have a connection to Dreylin. It's vulnerable to disruption if Ginger closes borders though. Someone with more experience with this very arcane part of the Civ 4 engine can correct me I'm wrong.
re greenline: yeah i'm pretty sure you're correct, i offered OB and will subdue my overweening need to be annoying. i may still try to get a border city SE of tobizaru but we can think about that later, based on the intensity of GT's response to our new city
overview i guess  capital has been growing onto cottages and....spamming impis without an ikhanda, because i have not yet felt convinced that our widely-spaced frontiers are safe enough to pause doing so. probably will do another impi or a chariot after this too, for the south if we're going to go for the ambitious double food greenline border city. i am not sure exactly for HOW long i should keep growing like this.... we have the happy for size 7 (gold about to come in) or even 8 if we divert the worker for a minute to hook up the ivory. but my mad lust for settlers demands satisfaction so i will strongly consider a triple-whip here soon.... the question is when, and at what pop. the city has one worker allocated to it who can cottage about as fast as the city grows so we COULD go all the way to size 8 like this, but idk if it's right to slow expansion that much  mitakeumi, in contrast, has to whip soon, and will probably make a settler as soon as it hits size 6. the reason is worker labor - we do have a worker here who just finished that cottage to the east, but they are veeeery very urgently needed in the north to chop a fishing boat at our to-be-established 8th city. i suppose i COULD whip a, um, worker if the city can't grow for, um, lack of worker labor, but i am told i can be a little overenthusiastic with the worker builds lol (but if anyone thinks we should do that i will be very convincable). and again if we want to be assertive about establishing our greenline border, i think either this city or the capital had better whip a settler soon before those IMP nerds manage to. mita really SHOULD pause for an ikhanda soon since it has non-capital maintenance costs on top of pumping military, but of course kirishima is undergarrisoned too so idk when to do that either  kiri is perpetually freaking out and stillllll has no cottages and no worker :| that will change soon though as i am reallocating the mita worker here, as soon as it chops the fishing boat at 8th city. until then it is semi-usefully running 2 scientists for what i THINK we want to be a mathematics bulb. we'll have to see how strong the capital's looking in 16 turns i guess  hoshoryu was whipped pretty close to the bone to defend our new plant, but it has such a strong food supply that it'll recover quickly and once again start pushing up against the limits of its improved tiles. there are FOUR workers here and at the new plant which explains some things of course. i will consider just maaaaybe swapping one to takakeisho so mita can have a worker again but....this area needs them urgently too to start cottaging this long river and eventually hooking up the new city's resources, AND chopping stuff at the upcoming NE coast city which probably gets whipped when we hit size 6 again here, or shortly thereafter  dear kotozakura is unenviably ass, and for lack of anything else to do, i have been dumping its 6 foodhammers into a settler for as long as i can remember (like 8 turns). however! it will not be so forever, as in 2t it expands borders and we will already have a worker on the sheep ready to pasture and another on the forest with a turn into the chop. overflow + chop + working copper finishes the granary JUST in time for the food box to hit half-full, then we can grow with the sheep and approximate a normal city. eventually i guess this will be a hammer (and perhaps heroic epic) city, but for now it gets 2 grass cottages like everywhere else  tobi can whip its monument next turn, and once borders expand it will be quite functional.... but for now it exists to sit at size 2 and work the gold. i am going for the mine here first despite the growth curve slowdown because some of our real cities are close to the happy cap and crave that mineral. after the farm, i'll start roading in the general direction of greenline i think, for tactical reasons and to make plausible a border plant in the southeast (i believe greenline as well has no idea where out capital is.... only drey, ginger, nauf, and superdeath have put much effort into scouting us so far  greed.com, named for the sumo wrestler who got social media banned for the entire Japan Sumo Association after an "instagram scandal" involving a younger stablemate and a bondage photo..... we need 16 hammers of natural production plus two chops to finish the mega-urgent items, which i consider to be the walls and monument, so i will work the PFH for 3-4 turns and then floodplains. I Sure Hope This Works :D demos, which i can't quite assess the crappiness level of:  if the point of the t75 overview is to assess who has 6+ cities and can contend, and who has 5- cities and is therefore food, the answer sure is "everyone can contend, no one is food", with ginger the last to 6 cities that we know of as of this turn. maybe i shouldn't, but i like our position as of now - we should be able to throw down 2-3 more cities really fast with the settler about to complete in Kotozakura, chop + overflow at Hoshoryu which could turn into a settler, and Mitakeumi and/or the capital threatening to triple-whip one soon. now SHOULD we do that is an open question, we are already overextended and feel badly short of...everything really, including workers even though we have 10 (i mean, LOOK at all the unimproved land we still have) and military (aggro plants on both our neighbors will do that although we have a crapton about to complete) and settlers (don't we have to be, like, actually AHEAD of the pack in expansion to contend in this game?) and population to work cottages (the 5 we have now is a LOT more than 0 but ugh, don't look at our GNP stat pleeeease). anyway civ4 is fun i hope we don't get murdered byee  (March 5th, 2024, 00:25)ljubljana Wrote: niceeeee... this stupid mountain totally blocks us from defogging a coastal route along the east coast. or does it...? if our route to dreylin consists of the river connection with Ginger's territory at Ankyra, then a defogged road from Ankyra to Ikonion, then a sea route from Ikonion to a dreylin city, does that still count for purposes of trade connection? The bigger issue is that the coast is not likely to be claimed by culture, so you need to use Ginger's land-route. Which shouldn't be a problem, he's likely to have a coastal city on either side. In general you want to run the whipping-cycle on as low pop as possible due to the escalating costs to grow, but personally I think it's more important to work all the good tiles.
This is the time to check the relative yield of cities and time to Currency. Given how widely spread we are (higher distance maintenance), I'm concerned if we go to 10 cities we may absolutely tank our ability to get to Currency quickly. At some number of cities we might need to pause settling until Currency comes in (and then settle a bunch that turn).
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