[Spoilers-PBEM14] Hannibal's Ottomans, Lewwyn and Luddite

[Lewwyn]

Turn came in. Good news and bad news. Good news he doesn't have any archers in his city. He whipped a warrior. He could be getting archery this turn in which case the over flow would go into an archer, which would be just as bad... so here's to hoping. The bad is that the southern warrior while not a threat will help protect him by slowing me down. You'll see in a minute.

Let's look at the field:





These two screenies show it all. Serdoa has 3 warriors next to my city and he whipped a new on in the city. Question is how fast can I get axes up there? Turns out not very fast if he pillages the road in the south. You'll notice the warrior on the roaded forest in the second screenie. I could have upgraded 2 axes in the border city and had a decent chance of rushing the city from there, but this warrior in the south will have 40% odds of taking the city if I don't upgrade the warrior in Eureka. I can't take that risk
such a shame. If he had waited one turn to declare that warrior would have been on the road as was my intention, but he'd only been built at the end of turn. So I upgrade him and sadly put my dreams of taking Besh on hold.

If the warrior runs I kill it. If he pillages the road I kill it. But if he pillages the road that 3 worker turns to get it back up and a two turn delay for axes coming from Eureka until its repaired, not to mention it cuts copper to Mt Nebo(though Mt. Nebo is going to build a monument next).

So he's slowed me down and prevented his destruction.

Lets look at that first screenie again, I have a warrior there in the middle of his territory, but its safe. Why? because his capital is where I indicated and he would not have a unit on a road 1 tile out from the city. Its either in the city or 2 tiles down the road. So I fear nothing there. In Besh he has one warrior which will have to cross a river to hit me. I feel relatively safe there too. Now that warrior can pilage the road and connection between the two cities (the capital has no other connection to the river) but I'll probably lose the warrior because Serdoa will move a warrior next to it next turn. Or next turn I could head towards the copper.

Now Serdoa says in his email he'll have axes and spears in 2 turns. Well thats an exaggeration, especially if he doesn't have archers in Besh yet. His settler is probably on the way there and most likely he meant the settler was 2 turns from settling on the copper. That means the settler is in the Eastern x right now and will move to the western x this turn. On my next turn I can move to the forest next to the settler. He can then settle the city and I'll move next to the city. If he doesn't have an escort, he's dead. If the escort is a turn behind he may pull his settler back and wait giving Scooter time to get his chariot there. And if he pulls back then my warrior can get ahead of him.

Its a race. If he has a warrior on top of his settler or even trailing by 1 tile I might be too late to prevent the city from going up. Serdoa's tech has dropped precipitously. You can bet he's running 0% for gold. We'll see if he can make enough gold to upgrade a warrior in his copper city before Scooter gets there. And even if he gets his warrior into the city, I might risk it and throw my warrior at him.

What does this boil down to? I'm in race to stop copper. I'm going to have to delay my rush. I'm probably going to have to go with the defensive/pillaging war and tech cats ASAP. You may notice I've set my tech to 60% and have writing in 6 turns. It says 4 after the turn end because the cap grew and is working a cottage. But, thats whipped next turn for a granary.

Esoteric is 4 turns from a WB too. Given my position I can have Keystone and Esoteric focus on economy. Eureka can pump out axes (whipping 1 next turn) and Mt. Nebo can build a monument, granary and a warrior or axe if need be. Even if the rush falls apart I'm in a better position to expand and grow and thus more likely to tech up and be able to crush Serdoa in the future.

[Lewwyn]

Diplo from Scooter last night:

Lewwyn,

I need to update you on what all's going on with Sandover. I don't much like NAPs, but I came to a "creative NAP" with him that basically entails that neither one of us will ever invade each other with ancient era units until myself or him reaches Machinery or Feudalism. This means that War Chariots won't be rushing into my land... I had built a second chariot for myself to put some pressure on him, however now that Sandover can't hurt me with it, I will send that Chariot to help with Serdoa. The second chariot will likely be about 2 1/2 turns behind the first one, but I can give you a more exact date if you want (I'll have to count the tiles). It might be inconsequential, and it might be hugely important. We'll see.

No problem on the chariot info - I'll be headed straight for the copper. The borders should not be popped when I get there... If Serdoa gets out a copper unit, it'll be an axe, so I might very well be able to kill it with my chariot given my bonus and all. What would be wonderful is if I showed up and found a size 1 copper city defended by a freshly whipped axe so I could raze the city and kill his axe in one shot! Probably wishful thinking, but fingers are crossed.

Do you think you'll be able to raze his SW city on time? I'm also assuming that since you were planning to move in on T42, that means you will be upgrading to axes on this turn (T41) right? Archers will make this difficult, so hopefully he goes for copper units first (espec since he gets agg bonus on those and not on archers) and hasn't bothered with archers yet. Hopefully. If you reduce him to one city you can basically kill him at your leisure.

My third city went on a hill for the pigs/cow/sugar site SE of my horses - if you remember the screenshot I sent you. My fourth city just was planted this morning (T41) for copper west of my capital. I'll take a brief pause to get up my worker/granary count, and then continue expanding. I will not go further south of my 3rd city - there's other spots to fill to my west, north, and northeast.

Anything else you need from me?

scooter

I replied this morning after I got the turn:

Hey Scooter, an update now that I've seen the save.

Serdoa has no archers right now, he just whipped a warrior and the over flow will be a second warrior. Unfortunately I had to upgrade an axe in my second city instead of two at the border. He slowed me down, as much as it pains me to say. Now he can slow me further by pillaging the road. He'll lose the warrior, but set me back 3 worker turns since the road is on a forest. I'm about to pillage the road connecting his cap and 2nd city though. It will be interesting, but I don't think he had archery last turn... This turn on the other hand he might start some archers. We'll see how it turns out. You're going to have to wardec him to get your chariot to the copper because you'll have to go through his 2nd cities culture, but then since you didn't sign a NAP with him he'll be expecting you, just not this soon. Damn if he had waited one turn...

Lewwyn

Interesting about Sandover. I think Scooters gonna be dealing more with Sandover than I.

[NobleHelium]

Wait, so are you planning to keep or raze Beshbalik?

[Lewwyn]

Oh I'm gonna keep it. Scooter said raze in his email, but I'll keep it for sure because it helps keep Serdoa boxed in and has some nice river grass for cottaging. It's a bit off the dot mapping, but If it can share tiles with my other cities it'll be good. Plus the city is on a hill. That could be good for holding Serdoa too.

[Lewwyn]

Also to clarify... That city is a terrible 2nd city. You want your second city to be able to contribute right away and yet this city requires a monument before i can even get access to resources and higher yield tiles. Thus the start up cost is much higher and slows down overall growth. If that city had had pigs or wheat in its first ring he could put off the monument, start a granary and be around size by now and very productive. Instead he was forced to chop a monument, grow on a 2 f tile and monopolize worker time.

The city itself can be good in the long term, but this is his 2nd city of the game. It's weak and more of a drain on growth until it gets a monument and worker attention. So that's the diagnostic of the city. For me the city will be good because I can already work the pigs and have Mt. Nebo work the rice.

[Lewwyn]

Interesting turn. He pillaged my road, I killed his warrior. Put my worker back on the forest to road it. In the north, he retreated and surrounded my guy:



Scared? He move a warrior out of his capital and a warrior out of Besh XD

It will probably save him though, I moved NW:



Yep, there's the settler. No escort. Both of those warriors can use roads to attack my warrior next turn. I'm not hopeful, but if I'm lucky, my warrior will kill both of his on defense with the forest. We'll see. If he survives he has to retreat his settler. If not he can settle the city on turn 43. (This turn42 move 1 East, Next turn43 move onto copper and settle.)

The good news is he needs a road to it the city. His capital is landlocked according to the maps from Scooter. So the only way he can connect the copper is through a road! You can see the two workers feverishly going as we speak.

I've moved my axe from Mt. Nebo north to the pigs and he's going to run straight at the copper. Even if he can't make it before teh city is settled he can pillage the road so that only that city can build copper units. Plus the chariot is coming. If he builds an axe I can have my axe protect the chariot while it kills Serdoa's axe. If he builds/upgrades a spear my axe kills the spear. Next turn I'm moving up two axes from Eureka, but they'll be delayed by the road pillaging. If i can get the north axe up and stop his copper, those axes can make a huge difference.

So, everything is okay for now. Really, he's on the defensive and I don't even really need to worry about defense. In fact, Keystone just whipped a granary, Mt. Nebo started a monument and Esoteric is building a WB in 2 turns. I only have eureka producing axes (1 every 2 turns). So I can grow and expand mostly in peace, while Serdoa is scratching out hope.

He did update his thread with a post. My bet is he's saying something about how this game has turned. Probably angry at me because now its obvious I planned this. Probably angry at Scooter for not signing a NAP. I just hope he's not giving up. As much as I like beating people I don't like crushing spirits... too much. Also, I hope he understands that the map pretty much forced us into each other. One of us was going to have to give.

[Lewwyn]

I wanted to do a bit of micro and show you my plan for my newest city, Esoteric. It's a really great city and it's going to be even more important then simply a copper city:

Here's a pic:



You can see the copper, the rice, the clams, and in the south 2nd ring there is a fish. My goal is to get the city to pop 4 with each of those 4 tiles improved asap. The tile yield at that point will be 23 with 4 pop -8 = 15h per turn when building workers settlers! Worker 40h and settler 65. When you go worker settler you get a 3 turn worker (45/40) with 5 over flow into the settler. That gives you a settler in 4 turns. So alternating the two you get a 7 turn cycle. How to get to that point?

It seems that the optimal turn that I achieve this is Turn 54:

T42 – Pop 1 – Food 5/14 +2, WB 6/20+5; Worker Farm rice eta T44 ; Work Copper
T43 – Pop 1 – Food 7/14 +2, WB 11/20+5; Worker Farm rice eta T44; Work Copper
T44 – Pop 1 – Food 9/14 +5, WB 16/20+1; Rice done ; Work Rice
T45 – Pop 2 – Food 0/16 +5, WB 17/20+5; 1 Worker to forest ; Work Rice/Copper
T46 – Pop 2 – Food 5/16 +4, Monument 2/20+5; Worker Chop eta 48, Clam hooked; Work Clam/Copper
T47 – Pop 2 – Food 9/16 +4, Monument 7/20+5; Chop eta 48; Work Clam/Copper
T48 – Pop 2 – Food 13/16 +4, Monument 12/20+18; Chop in; Work Clam/Copper
T49 – Pop 3 – Food 1/17+7, WB 10/20+5; Work Clam/Copper/rice -Culture 1
T50 – Pop 3 – Food 8/17+7, WB 15/20+5; Work Clam/Copper/rice -Culture 2
T51 – Pop 3 – Food 15/17+7, Warrior 0/10+5; Work Clam/Copper/rice -Culture 3
T52 – Pop 4 – Food 5/19+7, Warrior 5/10+5; Work Clam/Copper/rice/cottage -Culture 4
T53 – Pop 4 – Food 12/19+7, Granary 0/40+5; Work Clam/Copper/rice/cottage -Culture 5 border pop EOT
T54 – Pop 5 – Food 0/21, Worker 0/40+15; Work Clam/Copper/rice/cottage/fish

Since I have to wait for the Monument and border pop it takes a little while longer and as such give me pop 5 at border pop. But as a plus I get commerce from clams, fish and the cottage from there out. The cottage is great because that will grow while the city pumps out workers and settlers. The city ends up an great worker/settler pump AND commerce center.

I was wondering though if I could possibly get the monument done faster. SO I went back and checked about switch to the monument turn 43:

T42 – Pop 1 – Food 5/14 +2, WB 6/20+5; Worker Farm rice eta T44 ; Work Copper
T43 – Pop 1 – Food 7/14 +2, Monument 0/20+5 WB at 11; Worker Farm rice eta T44; Work Copper
T44 – Pop 1 – Food 9/14 +5, Monument 5/20+1; Rice done ; Work Rice
T45 – Pop 2 – Food 0/16 +5, Monument 6/20+5; 1 Worker to forest ; Work Rice/Copper
T46 – Pop 2 – Food 5/16 +5, Monument 11/20+5; Worker Chop eta 48; Work Rice/copper
T47 – Pop 2 – Food 10/16 +5, Monument 16/20+5; Chop eta 48; Work Clam/Copper
T48 – Pop 2 – Food 15/16 +5, WB 11/20+19; Chop in; Work rice/Copper – Culture1
T49 – Pop 3 – Food 4/17+7, WB 10/20+5; Work Clam/Copper/rice -Culture 2
T50 – Pop 3 – Food 11/17+7, WB 15/20+5; Work Clam/Copper/rice -Culture 3
T51 – Pop 4 – Food 1/19+7, Warrior 0/10+5; Work Clam/Copper/rice/cottage -Culture 4
T52 – Pop 4 – Food 8/19+7, Warrior 5/10+5; Work Clam/Copper/rice/cottage -Culture 5 Border pop
T53 – Pop 4 – Food 15/19+0, Worker 0/40+15; Work Clam/Copper/rice/fish


Well I get the border pop 1 turn faster. And I get to pop 4 faster but if I want pop 5 I have to wait until 54. This also requires more rice working at the beginning. I lose out on working the clams until T49 which is 9 commerce. Not much I know but every bit counts when you're racing for cats.

The first route seems to be the optimal one here. I would have to wait until T 54 for pop 5 anyway.


Also that cottage... I'm considering between cottaging the spices and a plain grassland. The grass land will get to 3 commerce in 6 turns (Turn 58), where as the spice town would get 3 commerce until turn 6 and 4 commerce after T58. That a difference of 12 commerce for the first 6 turns and 1 commerce every turn after that. The trade off though is that when I get calender do I destroy Spice town? A plantation makes it a 3f/4c tile. Whereas by the time I get calender it will probably be a 2f/5c tile... Yeah, I'm gonna cottage the spice. Makes waiting for the 5 pop even better.

[luddite]

For what it's worth an agg combat 1 warrior has a 20% chance of killing an unpromoted warrior in a forest tile. Most likely he'll kill it with the second one, although there's a chance (I think about 20%) that you could kill both warriors with yours.

Here's my thoughts about building a monument in Esoteric. It's definitely a great city location, and the monument will be good in the long term, but I think it's already good enough in the short term that you can just concentrate on getting more axes out.

The cost of a monument and a workboat is almost as much as two axes. Now, I THINK the war will go well for you, but it's hard to be sure at this point. No such thing as overkill for a multiplayer war! A lot depends on if scooter can stop him from settling the copper with his chariot. A horde of AGG axemen coming down would be bad news! Even if he doesn't, Serdoa could possible build enough archers to overwhelm pillaging axemen if you're not careful.

Even without popping borders, Esoteric an work clams, copper, rice, and farmed spice or coast, which I think is fine for this point in the game.

[Lewwyn]

I will agree that you need overkill in MP wars. I'm not sure that I need it from Esoteric though. And if I can cause as much chaos as possible with as few units, well you know.

This build for Esoteric is really the dream build of what I want to do with the city. If Scooter and I fail to stop the copper, then yeah... I'm going to have to throw in an axe build or two down here. Hopefully that's not going to be the case.

Serdoa has a Capital (A great one) and a size one city. He's racing for copper and there are units converging to stop him. He's in a terrible spot. Ever since he declared war I just keep thinking, "I fooled you, I fooled you! I got pig iron, I got pig iron, I got all pig iron!" :neenernee

[Lewwyn]

So my warrior did die. He won the first battle, but lost the second. He had 31% odds to hold on, but failed to even hurt Serdoa's warrior.

The Field:



So here's the plan. Serdoa has 4 warriors currently. The settler will settle next turn, but the 2 workers will only have moved onto the forest. He will not have copper connected. If I pillage the road where the X is then I cut the copper connection even after he gets it connected. This means he gets copper for one turn. Then on my turn I cut it again. If he has enough gold he will be able to upgrade one unit. If he upgrades an axe in Besh then I might lose my axe, but he will lose the copper city to Scooter's chariot. If he upgrades the warrior in the copper city then I hold Besh hostage while I bring up 3 more axes. 2 can make it to Besh on turn 47 and another one will be 2 turns behind. So we'll see if the copper city is more important or if getting an axe is more important. Either way, I will be preventing copper for the long term. The best he can do is 1-2 upgrades, 1 whip in the cap. I am worried about him being able to get enough money for 2 upgrades, but I don't think he will.

Demos:



# 1 in soldiers. #2 in crop and MFG. Lat in GNP