[SPOILERS] Serdoa goes to war II

[Serdoa]

Turn report for T61. First I wanted to check on my chariot which I moved in Commists lands last turn. Well . . . (dun dun DUN)



I guess that means he did have a defender there after all Apart from that though there was not much interesting going on this turn, so I'll not bore you and simply show the demos for before and after EOT.

Before:



After:



Lastly I took a look at the victory screen.



Being 5 players I hold nearly 1/3 of the worlds population. If we all would be even I should have 20%. Thats... a lot I feel. Of course I will whip away some of that because I frankly don't have enough improved tiles anymore in some cities. Not that it matters all that much, I had planned to whip workers and settlers anyway. I'll hope to get 4 more cities in the next 5-6 turns, though I might actually not be able to do that. We'll see.

[Serdoa]

A new and exciting turn has dawned. First a introductory picture



Yes, you see right. Thats a city from Lewwyn, newly founded with only a chariot defending. And thats me, having a galley with an axe and a spear in reach of this city. Now, how did it came to this?

For that we have to go back some turns. On T60 I showed this screenshot



But I knew earlier that he had a settler and a chariot there. See that galley in the corner? I was on the eastern fish on T59 and saw his units before I moved it back to my city.

Now, against every other player Lewwyn would probably have been fine. As you can see he hasn't settled in the T60 screenie and I had whipped my city down, producing a workboat. There was no way I could produce a spear in time here and an axe would not get odds amphibiously. But... I am PHI. And that means I can airlift. And I did. I managed to squeeze out (with some starving) a spear in the capital at EOT60. Airlifted over to the new city T61. Moved the galley in T61, boarded the spear (I had boarded the axe on T60 already, airlifted T58 or T59) and moved back to the corner spot. And T62? Well, I attacked. Spear first, having 90% odds. Easy win.



Wow. Just wow. I mean, I shouldn't be too surprised. 10% odds to lose means I'll lose every 10th of those battles. And now I am really glad I brought another unit. So, the axe goes in. 5 str -50% against 0.24 str. I can only win, I mean, there is no fucking way I'd lose that battle too, right?

RIGHT?

Fortunately no, I really can't lose that. I mean heck, even the combat odds state 100%. Not sure why I still lost 15 hp in the process but hey, I guess that means he is now a battle-hardened veteran

So, next thing after that episode was to clean up a scooter warrior which he sent next to my borders on a hill. Chariots to the attack



Wow, thats awfully close for a 90% battle. I mean c'mon game, I already lost a 90% one. I shouldn't be near dead after another one. Guess the RNG wasn't on my side this turn, but at least I didn't lose so all is good. Especially because I had another "game-first" moment:



GG. What to do with him though? I don't feel I need a super medic right now, I expect to defend in my land only, not go on the offensive. Would it still be worthwhile? Or should I better settle him? I'm against that, solely for the reason that I not yet have a 10XP unit to unlock HE. And I am researching the tech for that wonder right now anyway. Getting that into a high-hammer city should be worth a lot, especially as I will adopt Vassalage anyway (no need for Bureau in my cap, or rather, starting all units with 5xp and having some more free units will be worth more right now). Anyone wanting to give me a different view on that? Right now I lean on making one super unit. Just... one super medic? Or better a super-defensive LB? I could use an archer for that and with 4 promotions make it Guerilla II, CG2. Free upgrade to a LB as soon as I have Feudalism. Nah, thinking about it, super-medic seems more appealing. I will have 2 promos anyway and CG2 will "only" add 45% bonus. Which isn't all that much if you already get 200% bonus.

Well, I'm open to suggestions.

[SevenSpirits]

Airlift, nice.

[Serdoa]

I'm using airlift quite frequently now. The empire is big enough that especially the one-movers need some time to reach their destination. And settlers are much quicker. So I have moved several settlers alone (having normally vision enough to be sure no surprises wait in the fog as I settled most cities with overlap) and simply airlifted an archer as soon as the new city was founded. Also workers are great to airlift, being able to get them from the middle of my empire to the outer reaches in half (or even less) the time it would cost to travel their via road is just great.

As for the great general, I'm thinking about building a GG-WE with C2, Amphibious, Cover 1. That should be fun when it hits someones city unexpectedly from a 3-(soon 4)move-galley Or building simply a 4-move-galley right away. Issue with that is only that I will in around 12-15 turns adopt Vassalage. Starting with Navigation 1 due to the Trading Post, I think the two XP should be enough to two Navigation 2. So, thats kinda wasting the GG for not much gain.

Anyway, I owe you still the analysis what to do with my cities. I'm sorry that this analysis is not in one post or at least one after the other, but I'm realizing most of the stuff only when I try to write it down to explain why I do it. Most of the time I also realize at that point that I forgot something, so I rethink it and then it starts to get more time-consuming. So, I'll probably not get it finished today either. But lets start and see where it leads us:

We (read I) had decided what the next techs should be. This is the list right now:

Aest -> Lit -> Construction -> Poly -> PH -> Monarchy -> Feudalism

Now the next step was to decide what to do with my cities, before I would decide how to get that done best. So, lets look at that picture with my cities again:

Some key data: Happy-cap right now 6, with Rep. 9 (5 cities). 3 more with Calendar directly available (might have to work it in somewhere). Workshops not available yet. Potentially possible to switch to PS for +25% military unit production.

Lets start in the south at 6 o'clock. I'll go counter-clockwise but will put together first the production, then the commerce-cities.

Lödöse: 21 raw hammers per turn at 9 pop, with Forge 26. Production city.
Birka: 21 raw hammers per turn at 9 pop, with HE 42. Unit producer (port-city, ships possible -> do they count as military unit for HE-purposes?)
Nidaros: 21 raw hammers per turn at 9 pop, with Forge 26. Production city.
Tonsberg: Moai city, unit producer.
Uppsala: 16 raw hammers per turn at 6 pop, with Forge 20. Production city.
Roskilde: 16 raw hammers per turn at 7 pop, with Forge 20. Production city.

Jelling: 3 specs at 5 pop, 4 specs at 8 pop (Library, Market?). Commerce city.
Sigtuna: 5 specs at 8 pop (Library, Market, Forge?). Commerce city.
Björgvin: 5 specs at 8 pop (Library, Market, Forge?). Commerce city.
Rock: Capital, Commerce mostly, can switch to Hammers if needed.
Haithabu: 5 specs at 9 pop (Library, Market, Forge?). Commerce city.

I'm still undecided for the GLib + NE. I would like one of those that can run 5 specs to get it, but Haithabu doesn't have enough hammers (still 3 forests though), Rock we decided already not to give it the capital, Björgvin has even less production then Haithabu (and only 2 forests left). Means it is either Jelling or Sigtuna or another, newly founded city. I could put it in the city with double fish, deer, floodplains. But that is a border city and I'd rather not get it razed after I invested in the wonders. Jelling has 12 hammers / turn max, but not forests left. Sigtuna would be better, having 3 forests left and 14 hammers / turn. But its long-term potential is pretty meh (I see 7, with Biology 10, specs max.). Maybe in the north, double-fish and banana? But that maxes out at 6 specs, even worse. Whats a good number for such a city anyway? I mean I see most 15 citizens possible with the happy cap as it is right now for the near future. If everyone could feed 2 more (so grassland pigs all around) that would give 10 specs, 5 citizens to feed them. In an unrealistic city. So actually Sigtuna seems fine, looking at it like that.

[SevenSpirits]

Post and you shall be rewarded with corrected misunderstandings!

* WEs can't take Cover.
* You need Flanking 1 to take Navigation 2.
* You need Poly for Lit.
* Yes, ships are military units.

[Serdoa]

BW would have really been the smarter move for whipping, but without granary there is not that much difference yet. Still, I am a little bit stunned that it is actually that good, despite us having so many "good" tiles (Crabs = 5/0/0, Corn 6/0/0, RR Mine 0/5/0, Deer 4/1/0). Thats 4 tiles which I thought are more worthwhile to work then whip away. But it seems I was wrong -> simply due to Imp and only in case of a settler or is that a general misconception in my mind? T-Hawk, enlighten me

I wanted to come back to this post of mine. I thought about that from time to time and I think I finally found the misconception I had (some time ago already even). Of course whipping is strong, even for those tiles, if I whip a settler with 50% bonus on hammers. Because all those tiles are foodtiles which do not get the bonus. That makes the whipping exceptionally strong because the standard food conversion for whipping is skewed in favor of the hammers.

Oh, and apart from that my math was wrong as I calculated the whips with +100% hammers instead of +50%. Shows me how much any lurker has really paid attention to it

[Serdoa]

Post and you shall be rewarded with corrected misunderstandings!

* WEs can't take Cover.
* You need Flanking 1 to take Navigation 2.
* You need Poly for Lit.
* Yes, ships are military units.

Thanks Seven I think I should have finally learned that mounted units can't take cover, not sure why I still try to put it on them. Didn't know that about Flanking 1 for Navigation 2 though, I thought only Navigation 1 would need Flanking 1. Interesting that they put it as pre-req for both Navigation promotions, I think that is not the norm. Medic 1 for example needs C1 or D1, but neither Medic 2 or Medic 3 mentions it. So that probably was only put there as a direct nerf on the UU-ability of the Vikings? Makes sense... kinda, I guess. CHM Vikings still could get Navi2 just with Theocracy and Vassalage, but thats the only way to reach Navigation 2 before Drydocks, short of a GG, right?

Oh, and I have already teched Poly. I'm not sure why I had it on the wrong place in the tech-chain. Sorry for that, didn't want to confuse anyone.

[Serdoa]

And lastly turnupdate. Yeah, I'm learning how to up the thread-postcount, guess which thread I click most often in PB5

(Un)fortunately there was not much happening. I simply moved some units around, thought that I really should have gotten my build-orders for the cities done already, got happy when I realized that I'll be at 14 cities in a few turns, saw several more spots I want to settle right now as well and ... thats basically it. I also moved my axe which razed Lewwyns city 1SW, in the direction of his nearest city. He has 2 workers 1W of it, farming the wheat there and a spear 1SW. If he doesn't have a chariot in the area my axe should be alive next turn. I kinda hope he moves the workers away but leaves the spear nearby so that I could potentially kill it. I guess in that case I would instead load my axe on my galley and sail away, just to show him that I don't want war, I only don't want him to settle any more to the west (or east as thats basically the same by now). Just go north Lewwyn, scooter needs it Oh, wait, I have the game still open, so here is a screenie of the situation:



Apart from that, I am doing pretty good. T63 (480 BC) shows crazy research:



Demos:

[Serdoa]

T64 was not really eventful, so I thought I'll do an update together with T65, but it doesn't look like we get another turn in today. So, T64:



Lewwyn killed my axe and someone (Lewwyn?) founded Confu. Thats it. And as that is not very much, I did another map stitch. Used it to think about possible attack routes Commist may use, how to defend best and where... but I haven't finalized my thoughts on that, so you'll only get the map showing the rough borders of my opponents (some guessed).

Seems that scooter, Commist and Brian already touched on each other. And looking now at it, there should probably be some Lewwyn borders in the SW of the map, in the middle of the black space. Well, whatever, it's not meant to show that exactly (too much land I don't know about), but to give a rough idea, especially of my surroundings.

[Serdoa]

Well, Lewwyn was not really in the mood to play the turn and it seems Brian later on had also already enough for the weekend, so no turn for me yesterday. Played it a few hours ago but I want to go to bed now, so just a few words with screenshots for the last two turns:

T65:

Started with



Then I looked at the spot I wanted to settle my next city:



I did send out a worker and a settler without military escort. What to do? Well, I had a galley nearby so obviously...

.
.
.
.
.
.



I settled my city The galley then brought the warrior from Birka and I airlifted an archer which "happened" to be in my capital and waiting for orders into this city. That led to this end situation:



T66:

Brian moved his chariot away, showing his "peaceful" intentions - or just accepting the fact that a archer on a hill will have good odds to win against it and even if he loses the warrior can attack + I can airlift another unit into this city.

Nothing else of importance happened this turn, except maybe for



Not sure who got it.

For closing just some numbers. First, beakers per turn at 100%



Second, score:



Not good. Why? Well, my 4 wonders account for 64 points of this. So scooter is actually in range of me, probably even in a better position long term as I will have to defend against Commist. Besides he is also the only one to keep up at all.

Lastly, Demos:

Yeah, scooter is basically at the same level in food as I am only slightly behind in mfG. It is just my GNP that is killing him, and I have by far the most culture now, so that looks much more worse then it actually is imo.