Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[Sullla]

Turn 68 - 1280BC

Lots of work to do, lots of decisions to make.



Here's the north and the event logger. The expansion of borders at Horse Feathers gives us pretty good visibility of potential incoming barbarians up there. Since we want to make sure to defog the area around the gems city, I've got our warrior moving to the northeast for now. The long term plan to use this unit as military police inside Horse Feathers. Our spear will head west next turn onto the jungle hill tile, and continuing moving towards the gems site. It will be the military unit on guard duty at least initially, with plans to get an accompanying axeman down the road. That city is scheduled to go up on T71, not far away at all.

The event logger contains record of our 61 failgold from the Oracle's fall, as well as a Great Scientist. That is almost certainly Apolyton at work, laying claim to their early Academy. They have been impressive thus far in this game, along with CivPlayers. I definitely see them as our two biggest rivals, with CivFr possibly also in the mix. The other teams have been thoroughly unimpressive to me so far. (Good news: we are surrounded by weakish teams!)

Forestry operations at Mansa's Muse:



Congratulations on your new Oracle settler! Well, better than chopping and losing a coin flip... This settler will need two turns in transit, and then found the gems city on T71, as mentioned above.



Here's what our cities look like at the moment. We have some unit micro to figure out. In particular, we need to get all these axes lined up for military police and barb defense purposes. Let me give you my suggestions, and we can figure things out from there.

* Axe inside Focal Point killed the barbarian on the copper, taking one hit in the process and grabbing a second experience point. Because we moved on a roaded tile, I was able to move him back inside the city for faster healing. I have not promoted this unit. This axe probably stays inside Focal Point to defend the city.

* Axe on the floodplains cottage is at 4.7 health and has 1 XP. My initial thought was to stay in place and heal, then whack the incoming barbarian warrior next turn, but we are going to need some kind of unit in Horse Feathers to keep it from becoming unhappy. As such, I think we should move northwest this turn, then move into HF over the next two turns. That will also mean we don't need to worry about invasion in the northwest.

* This would then mean that the new axe in Mansa's Muse moves southwest-southwest this turn, so that it could kill the incoming barb warrior next turn. This unit would then become the defender of clams city. One possible issue: this axe would not be in place to defend clam city right when it was founded. If we would see a barb unit, we could then move the floodplains axe listed above to defend it. (This is why the floodplains axe moves northWEST and not northEAST this turn, to be able to cover clams settler if needed.)

* The new axe to be completed next turn in Focal Point would then be free to head out and explore the south, or at least be free after this current wave of barb warriors are all dead. That would be my preference, so that we could finally see if there are horses nearby down there. This unit is essentially free to move and put out any crisis fires that might pop up in the next turn or two.

What do you guys think? Any superior suggestions that I'm not seeing?



Our Demographics are not terribly impressive at the moment. Keep in mind that we did whip 7 pop points in the past couple of turns, and none of that pop has grown back yet. We have granaries in place, and much of that whipped pop was invested into two settlers and two workers. Things will look smoother when we jump from 4 to 6 cities in rapid fashion. But for right now, I do not like seeing us behind that much in the Food category, even for one turn.

Iron Working looks like it will take us about 6t to research, even with our Oracle failgold. Techs are EXPENSIVE on this map, even something like Iron Working. We desperately need more happiness as well; those gems can't be completed soon enough. I definitely think that we may want to revist the topic of Monotheism / Monarchy versus Sailing / Calendar as a team. We can only pursue one of these paths next. We are not going to be getting a free Golden Age any time soon for civics changes. What do we want to do next after getting Iron Working for our gems connection? (If we can defog a trade route along that river, and if we see a genuine island with our exploring work boat, then Sailing / Calendar is probably still superior as a path. Still, it's worth discussing this as a team.)

Over to everyone else. I have not moved any of our axes so far this turn (aside from killing the one on our copper) and I have not ended turn.

[Fintourist]

Thank you Sullla for the report! Novice's micro plan includes whipping an axe in HF so there is not necessarily need for any other military units.

Adding to my previous comment: I think the axe that now moves NW and guards Keep Clam can take care of scouting in the south. Either the axe from MM or FP can cover in couple of turns. If we don't bring an axe to Junglegems and decide that spear and warrior are enough, we have one axe (IMO the one built in FP) left that can play zone defence and help with any new barbs.

Ok, I'm sure you have enough of my opinions for a while..

[novice]

I agree with Fintourist's suggestions, although I think the axe from MM should do the zone defense as it takes longer to reach KC due to moving off the road network.

To summarize:
- Warrior and spear guard gems city.
- The axe on the flood plains moves NW this turn. Next turn move with the settler to the KC site. Then scout the area south of KC for a new city location.
- Axe in MM moves SW-SW, next turn whacks the barb warrior on the flood plains village. Then plays zone defense against barbs.
- Wounded axe in FP fortifies.
- Axe built in FP at the end of this turn moves NW-W next turn and then moves to garrison KC.
- HF changes its build to an axe, to be 2-whipped into a Library at size 4. The whipped axe garrisons HF.

I don't have any particular opinions under this plan on how to move the work boat.

[Sullla]

All right then. Here's where we are at end of turn:



Axe in Mansa's Muse moved southwest-southwest. Axe on the floodplains cottage moved northwest. Production in Horse Feathers changed to an axe. I want to point here that if we do whip the axe in HF we'll have a double unhappiness penalty for quite some time. The current penalty from the last whip still sits at 8t. If we stack on another whip, we cannot grow this city beyond size 3 until the gems are connected. I'm not sure that I think this is the best plan... hoping we can find a better way to use this city than capping it at such a low size.

More happiness can't get here soon enough. If we could get a few more free religious spreads of Hinduism, I think it would be worth it to convert, just for the happiness.

I drew in our tile micro as well. Adventure One working the deer and five cottages. Horse Feathers on its two bonus food tiles, corn and fish. Mansa's Muse has to work the plains hill mine for one turn in order to complete the settler in 1t. It can go back to the plains cottage next turn. Focal Point regrows from its own triple whip by working its two resources and a grassland river cottage. (Note: Focal Point can regrow to size 4 next turn if we work a second grassland cottage over the copper tile. It will be exactly 1 food short otherwise. I think we should do this as we have no pressing item to build inside FP right now.)

Next turn Horse Feathers will regrow a pop point, our two settlers will continue to move into position, and our work boat will hopefully spot something interesting over by the stone. Check back in another 30 hours after the other teams finish.

[antisocialmunky]

(Good news: we are surrounded by weakish teams!)

I wouldn't exactly call it good. The bad players tend to get goaded into proxy wars against their better neighbors from what I've seen from diplo games. Templars against RB, Jowy/Dantski vs Spullla, Nakor vs Parkin (We were allies of convenience IIRC)... etc I guess as long as you keep them happy, get them to view their failure as being caused by someone else (because the last people bad players blame is themselves), and make token concessions (bribe them) for them to like you more than someone else, you should be fine.

As for the discussion... Sailing/Calendar feels like it would get us Mono/Monarchy faster than Mono/Monarchy would get Sailing Calendar if that makes any sense. So my vote is for Sailing/Calendar.

Plus making OB friends is always nice.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I like Sailing/Calendar as it gives a little bit of vertical growth, but alot of horizontal growth from trade routes.

That and I want a head start on the MoM.

[luddite]

So if there's an island with stone in the west, what do you think the odds are of having an island with marble in the east?

[mostly_harmless]

Sullla, please make sure the workboat goes NW-NW next turn. That southward course this turn was not ideal, I feel.
Although it probably won't matter as from the tile bleeding, I would not be surprised if we are not seeing the majority of that lake already.

mh

[kjn]

Agree on NW-NW for the work boat, and I agree with m_h that we shouldn't get all worked up about intercontinental trade routes of our own yet - it might be an island, but it's very possible it's not.

[kjn]

Just had an idea:

We can't do anything about the happy crunch in AO or HF yet, but we can do it in MM and FP.

What about doing the revolt to Buddhism on T69, when both of our settlers are in transit? It will delay IW 1t, but if I read the micro plan correctly this won't impact the time we will connect the gems, since the constraint in the plan is worker labour, not culture or tech.

Of course, this route will make HF even more starved for good tiles, since AO will want to use the cottage by the lake more often.