The Antisocial Team

[Mist]

It appears to me that Yuris and our team got a little boxed in by the other players due to capital location, but I may be biased and wrong.

We actually have probably most space of any team with exception of Dave. Generally , the problem is Palaven, if it wasn't there we would be able to easily push north some more. Note that Commodore is flatlining in city count for quite a while and has to resort to a desperate reaches like the last one.

Commodore settled that rice to our north. I think we should consider the use of a culture bomb there. I think I'll demand the city from Commodore, I think he can do 2 + 2 and realize we are threatening to bomb him. Maybe offer some token gold for it.

That city has to burn. Preferably now while it's not defended heavily and cant be reinforced. It's settled in a very bad location from our point of view, and we wouldn't be able to defend it even if it was handed over. Scramble some HA's and let fly, the capture gold will fuel some more research. Culture bomb would be a waste and Commodore's pink dots with poor power graph need to be punished.

[Ichabod]

People like pictures, right? So I'll give you some visual eye candy instead of the boring all written reports of late.

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We got the Music Great Artist, he'll likely be used for a Golden Age, except if we decide to bomb Commodore's face for his inconvenience:

And here's Commo-san far reaching city:

Mist suggested that we try to raze it. I have a different plan, though, which I need to discuss details with him. Don't keep your hopes up, though, because it's a fairly boring/peaceful plan.

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We also got a Great Scientist, that one was generated naturally, by working two scientist in a city:

He'll probably build an Academy in First Touch, our capital.

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Not only we got gold, a city and severely damaged one of our neighboors, but the war against Yuris also resulted in a Great General. He was used as following:

We now have a medic 3, morale chariot (3-moves). But we did mostly to be able to do this:

After the HE is ready, this city will probably build units forever, maybe with a forge inbetween. We are probably the only team with an HE unit, let alone a HE city. Yes, Cataphracts will be built here.

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The other things that are happening is that we went on a Wonder building frenzy. We already got the HG with a stone loan from Davey. Was it worth it? My offer was 5gpt + marble + fish for Davey while he gave us stone. We built the HG (11 or 12 cities, can't really recall) and 90% of the Moai statues with it. I think it was a good deal.

We recently got The Great Lighthouse too, with 7 coastal cities.

And we are building:

The Parthenon, for general benefit + cultural power against Davey's city of Palaven. Yeah, not working those cottages also hurt me, but growing another size would only man unhapiness. This city will benefit massively from HR, because it needs to keep a powerful garrison due to Palaven's placement:

The SoZ, so we won't be swamped by Yuris culture when/if he resettles Istambul. It's the cheapest wonder we could build for the task (especially with Ivory + Forge), and it's also useful.

Finally, we are trying to get The Great Library too. Davey has a Great Engineer, so he might beat us to it. But if I understand the Banter thread right, he went for Theology, trying to get Christianity + the AP. So maybe we have time to get it, maybe everyone will think it's a given that we'll get the TGL and they'll let us go through with it. Who knows?

You can see in the picture above that I'm using other cities to grow cottages for the capital. Most of them are pretty developed already and that's really nice! When we get more happiness, this city will really shine, together with the FP city of Bravery.

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Finally, demos:

GNP is 100% gold, with no tech selected.

[Ichabod]

For example in pbme 23 yuris discoverd guilds 2 turns faster than me, after 6 turns he had like 9 practs maybe more me after 4-5 turns discovering guilds i had near 40, thats the difernec between preparing for a tech discovering and not,with 40 prsct he could run over sian in like 8-10 turns.if you falow any of my games with that litle report youl see knigs have an high estemeb 9,pb23,pb29 , and mostly of my duels.I consider here at RB best era to atack in free for all pbem or always war are knigs and you cave uber ones.

I dug out this quote from mackoti from way earlier in the thread for two things.

First one is that I think it's time for us to start preparing for guilds. If we want to win this game, the easier way is to attack someone with Cataphracts. And that someone is likely Davey. I have some attack plans that i want to discuss with Mist, but most importantly we need to figure out how to prepare for slaughtering someone after guilds is teched.

Currently we have two cities with barracks + stable. There are 2 more cities that we defientely want to have stables and barracks, which are the HG city and Technique (the TGLh city). Probably the city near Davey too, which we plan to use as a whipping city. And There are 2 more cities we can settle that will have a lot of forests and no resources worth of mention. That are prime candidates for being used as whipping/chopping cities for Phracts.

Another thing we want is acess to Theocracy and/or Vassalage - Vassalage is a given, because we need Feudalism for guilds. Theocracy, not so much. But since I plan to start spreading Hinduism around, it could be useful. Vassalage would allow any city to whip Phracts with a promo, which is a big thing, or 2 promos with a barracks. So it's important to plan things around this.

But I want to ask mackoti and the others: what do you think is planning for Guilds? Here's some more specific questions:

1. Upgrading HAs is worth it? Since we'll have a HE city soon, that already has rax + stable, we can keep on pumping HAs there and later upgrade them. We could gun to get a Great Merchant to help us with the money.

2. Most of the preparation seems to be having big cities ready for using the whip. So when we are reaching guilds, it seems to be best to stop whipping cities for buildings and start growing them to get Phracts. When is a good time to start this? Is it worth growing cities into unhapiness to have them as big as possible?

3. Any other tips/tricks?

BTW, spies are on. So it's possible to revolt Davey cities and attack after that.

[mackoti]

1.Its not worth.
2.Yep its worth.
3. using vasalage think its not worth getting other stables beside you already you have.

[Mist]

So, we had a chat on how to go forward from here.

me: So let's hear about that plan :]

Mozarth: Just posted it in the thread. I think that we need to turtle for a bit now, and prepare for a cataphract attack on Davey. His lands are perfect for us to take, since they won't give us another flank to defend and we can attack by two different points - maybe get some catapults to take Palaven and a fast-move stack for the other part. I don't think we can afford to get that Commodore city, let Gaspar and Davey fight with him for that

me: I mostly agree, I said "burn" because if we want to settle that rice it has to be from the south, not from the north. Palaven makes that city untenable for us as it is planted now. GA from artist is still worth much more right now than a culture bomb. As for your questions - cash upgrading is not worth it, we don't make nearly enough money. We need a Globe Theater city somewhere, preferably somewhere with high food, that place will be able to be whipped at insane pace without break. We want every city to build HA's just as we're about to finish Guilds, the build queues should auto-upgrade ( need to check this, I'm not sure knights obsolete HA's )

Mozarth: they do, almost certain... both HAs and chariots

me: OR will give us more mileage than Theo - more 'phracts is better than more experienced 'phracts. Vassalage only if you want to delay Bureaucracy by a lot. We have a very good capital with an academy, Bureau will be very strong and not worth giving up. I think we should find time to tech some boats and send some HA's to Dave's backline as a part of preparation. If he focuses on defending the frontlines few ships landing HA's in the back will be a cause of unholy terror :] Up for discussion - Engineering before Guilds? Three move roads would be a tremendous tactical help in shuttling reinforcements about. Also, I think we need few farm/workshop cities. Actually, any new city should be a farm/workshop proposition. Cottages don't have enough time to pay back for themselves now and we'll be in huge need of hammers as we near and after guilds. Thoughts?

[COLOR="orange"]Mozarth: sorry, was finishing a thing. I'm certain that we'll revolt for OR and HR right now. Theo or Vassalage would be just a revolt near the time of the whipping spree, and, yeah, giving up on Bureaucracy would certainly be hard
so, I'll make preparations to make Theocracy useful, because that helps the happiness and OR cause as well. I agree with new cities being farm + workshops, especially since we have space for only two more right now and both would be bad commerce/cottage sites. What about Globe Theater in Pace? It has a nice mixture of Food + Hammers. I think we should wait in a National Epic city, maybe use a captured city for it - I agree that the fish/horse city would be the best for it right now, but I don't really see the need to get it so fast.[/COLOR]

me: That's true.

Mozarth: We could wait for a better place and make it later.

me: Palaven :]

Mozarth: Yup, good idea Regarding Palaven - since building HAs isn't a good idea due to the cost of upgrading I think we can start building catapults in Composure, and attack Palaven with a Cat stack later.

me: Yes, and maces/x-bows once we get machinery.

Mozarth: Yeah, that's it. Having that stack ready will be a big boost. I'll place a sentry chariot near Palaven soon, so we always have vision of the city

me: And it'll help against Yuri in the meantime

Mozarth: I don't think using boats will help us, because Davey will be able to see them coming. Unless we go through the other side, and that means a lot of ground + Yuris.

me: Not if they are ocean, but that might be too much detour.

Mozarth: Yes. Astronomy is very expensive, and we need to make our research tight. We need to make the 'phract window as long as possible. That's why I think Engineering should be teched after Guilds since it'll help mostly with reinforcements.

me: OK, works for me.

Mozarth: So we need the following right now : Meditation + Priesthood, CoL, Monarchy and Calendar.

me: Not Calendar, MC. Silks and incense can wait.

Mozarth: I was just listing, not in order.

me: Even not in order calendar can wait.

Mozarth: Do you say wait for now or wait for after Guilds?

me: After guilds.

Mozarth: Sounds good to me. So, CoL, monarchy, MC (try to get the Colossus, since it's cheap and will help growing the coastal cities, since working coast will be decent/good)

me: Construction, Machinery, Feudalism.

Mozarth: We need to decide on Civil Service

me: After feudalism, before guilds so we can revolt to Bureau with Theo together

Mozarth: Then we'll need theocracy. I mean, theology. Maybe try for the Paya somewhere, since we have more hammers than commerce.

me: Paya instead of Theology. Less to tech and there should be no competition for it.

Mozarth: We could start it in technique next turn, what do you think?

me: I'd build some infra there, in Pace maybe? Helped with overflow from workers?

Mozarth: But Pace would be our Globe Theater city. That makes me think - what about trying to get CS in this GA? And triple revolting to HR, Bureau and OR? We'd need to delay the GA and get some more stockpiled gold, but it could be worth it.

me: Humm, we could do that, but gold would have to be stockpiled because that's another 800b to tech. But yes, might be worth it.

Mozarth: We probably have to tech some techs first. I'd do the following - get Medi + Priest + CoL after we settle the academy. Save the GA. Then we stockpile some more gold and use it. We'd get access to Caste during the GA and we could get a Great Person of choice during it. Merchant/scientist/artist are the options. And we'd revolt to Bureaucracy + HR in the last turn.

me: There's 10t cooldown between civic switch.

Mozarth: (and back to slavery). 5t.

me: 5t for religion. I'm sure civics were 10t.

Mozarth: I think that's FFH only, and it's the thing that make civic switch annoying as hell in FfH.

me: Okay if it's 5t I'm okay with it, but build Paya first. We can then do Caste + Pacifism in GA which will be way better than just Caste. And in that case build Paya in city that can do it fastest, so probably Technique.

Mozarth: OK, we'll see what we can do about that. With Caste + Pacifism, we can get 2 GP in the GA. Or at least get one and let the other one really close to completing.

me: Then make one of them artist so we can culture bomb Palaven. The other a scientist for the fp city?

Mozarth: Sounds good. I'm thinking though, if we really want to try and speed things, maybe getting a GM and bulbing CS during the GA. I'd have to make some calculations to see if that's indeed possible.

me: Yes, needs checking. GM+GA or GM+GS?

Mozarth: I'd go for GM + GS

[COLOR="deepskyblue"]me: GA would give us undisputed control over the center of the map, that's going to be pretty valuable going forward. But I can see arguments for both,
so won't argue either much.
[/COLOR]
Mozarth: Well, one point towards the GArtist is that if we get TGLibrary, we'll be getting a GSci sooner or later. I'll study the save a bit and see what we can do.

me: OK.

Mozarth: Bah, Great Merchant bulbs Alphabet

me: Damn

Mozarth: And MC too before CS.

me: So GA+GS it is. Tech CS the hard way.

TL;DR

• We're turtling up until guilds now.
  
• We're delaying golden age until we build the Paya.
  
• We want to spawn GA+GS during the golden age.
  
• We want to adopt HR+OR+Bureaucracy by the end of it.
  
• All new and most of the recent, yet unimproved cities will get Farm+Workshop treatment.
  
• We'll build the Globe Theater in Pace for a no-unhappy whip camp.
  
• Dave will get 'phracted first.
  

[Nydaeli]

I'm really impressed by the level of planning you're doing, not at all autopiloting through the midgame as I tend to do. I think you missed a few wonders though, where are you going to build Chichen Itza? :neenernee

[Ichabod]

I'm really impressed by the level of planning you're doing, not at all autopiloting through the midgame as I tend to do. I think you missed a few wonders though, where are you going to build Chichen Itza? :neenernee

Here's what I posted about this game in the very beggining, when talking about myself as a player:

[COLOR="Silver"][b][SIZE="4"]Who am I? Why I am who I am? Thise are very difficult questions. I'm trying to solve them myself, so any help is appreciated. The key thing is: I'm trying to improve.

So, how can I improve? I feel that my main problem in civ games is not planning things well after the early game. I play mostly by gut, so it's enough when you have few cities. But when you start to get more, it gets difficult. Then I end up stopping expansion, losing focus, not making objectives and eventually, failing.

That being said, I always need to have objectives to look for and try to accomplish. I may not know the right paths, but at least I need to take one and commit to it. And I need to plan things more, in order to make them more efficient.

So, yeah, my style is also start autopiloting after a while. Most of my solo multiplayer games ended up going that way (all the FfH games and PB7). The big difference in this game (for me) is that Mist is making me keep on planning things. There was a time a little before the razing of Yuris capital that I kind of started to just let the turns go by, but having someone to discuss things with helps a lot. Because you have to think about the game if you're going to discuss it with someone.

I wouldn't have gone for TGLh or HG if not for Mist, neither the Parthenon or SoZ. The Yuris attack (which started as the attack on Dave) wouldn't have happened. I was going to settle the cities way more defensevely (not getting the gold city would have been our doom, Technique would have been delayed a lot too) and wouldn't have gone for the top of the tech tree.

So, yeah, there's a lot to be gained by playing with a partner. And that's even despite the fact that I'm not much of a team player.

Regarding wonders, it's kind of a win/win situation here. We are trying to build good wonders with the doublers. And we have a hammer advantage against the other teams, so we are not wasting essential resources by doing it. If we get the wonders, we get good bonuses. If not, we'll get a good deal of gold, which is always useful.

Building the Paya also allows us two things - first, a run at Pacifism during the GA for the GPP benefits. Later, the option of going Theocracy for the XP. Overall, it's a pretty useful wonder, because it works for our objective of reaching guilds quick, with little derailing as possible. We can afford the hammers, not so much the commerce.

[Mist]

Few words about last turn :

Yuri moved up with a 8 unit stack ( that spear in the back is in range too ), we're not in any danger at Work Rate, but we should dry-whip an Archer in it anyway. The less hits HA's take on defense the easier time we'll have cleaning up afterwards.

Commodore built Colossus, this makes MC slightly less appealing but we should get it as planned regardless for Workshops and Forges.

Dave adopted Caste, means he just teched CoL. We have at worst 2 turns to build Library, at best about 4. He fortunately has no gold to fund deficit research towards Literature and he probably can't one turn the techs without that. I suggest we bite the bullet and whip it to completion when possible.

Tech Meditation next, we need it for Paya.

We're starting to lag behind the leader in soldier count, we probably want to keep up so noone gets stupid ideas and people stay on their toes.

[Ichabod]

Regarding the attack by Yuris, our other option is building culture for a turn to get the 20% defense bonus (it would happen naturally at the end of next turn), insted of dry-whipping an archer. We have 2 axes (with combat 1) and an archer (CG 1) there that would benefit from the cultural defenses + 3 HAs that wouldn't (2 combat 1, shock and 1 combat 1).

Yuris has 2 axes, 3 spears (the 4th spear can't attack us, because he can't use the hill road) and 2 chariots. My calculations last night showed that we'd have ~90% odds at the battles if we did culture. I'll do more math before playing to see if getting the archer is better.

Pretty interesting about the soldier count, I hadn't noticed it. I think we have graphs against everyone but Commodore, so we can probably tell who is number 1. Hopefully it's not Yuris... It seems he decided to go full war against us . I'll offer him peace again, just in case he thought he could get something with this stack.

[Ichabod]

So, I went with the culture build. My calculations showed that the 20% added defense for the archer and axes made a big difference in some scenarios. Next turn we can chop an archer, if needed. There's a chance that he takes the city, since he has 1 more unit to attack than we have to defend, but that's highly unlikely, because I think we have odds in all battles.

Normal outcome would be to lose 1 or 2 units tops, while he loses 5 or 6. Praise the RNG gods.

Pictures (noob me forgot to take screenshots of the battle):

TGLh:

TGLibrary (changed capital from cottage to mine to speed it by 1t):

Power graphs:

The leader is Commodore, that we don't have graphs on. That's lucky, because he's the furthest away from us.

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The battle stacks are as following:

Yuris has:

2 axes - no promos
3 spears - no promos
2 chariots - combat 1

We have:

In a flatland City with 20% cultural defense:

3 HAs - 2 with combat 1 + shock/1 combat 1
2 Axes - both combat 1/1 with 10% fortify
1 Archer - CG1 and 10% fortify

So, what do you think is our odds? I think the expected outcome is us holding the city.