Gillette Turn Discussion

[Old Harry]

Turn 78

So the deathly silence has it - Blades of Steel will be planted on the plains hill. However M3 have an axe on those hills just north, which could be preparing a site for their next city, which will stop us founding on the hill. Our settler is born eot, then takes two turns in transit and can found on t81. If there is a settler under their axe on t80 when our settler is due to move onto the hill, I think settling 1s of the hill is the best move. If the settler is there by t79 then settling over on the eastern front is probably better.


Monarchy finishes this turn and we haven't got any other civics lined up soon, so I'll revolt us next turn. At which point the settler will be in transit.


After Monarchy we could go for sailing (to get the trade route with M3 without having to road into their territory) or Maths->currency. Sailing should only take 2/3 turns to arrive so I'm inclined to go that way. If anyone has a strong opinion please speak up.

GNP we haven't been doing great:


MFG looks good though:


And crop yield holds up well too:



So what can be done to liven this up for everyone? Research horseback riding and take the Great Lighthouse from M3 with horse archers and chariots? Head on up to Civil Service or even Guilds and do the same? Any thoughts?

Demos:

[Cheater Hater]

The problem is that there doesn't seem to be much happening, and I don't know what our ultimate plan is--when you play the next turn, can you be more detailed, and also post the full map so we can see what's happening? I even thought about playing the turn, but I don't know what I should be doing.

[Old Harry]

Sure, this is my first time reporting so please tell me what stuff I'm not telling you...

Feel free to log in and look around, but I think having two turn-players could cause trouble. The micro spreadsheet is pretty detailed to explain the next few turns, but yeah I'm not sure what the long term plan should be either. Wish we'd listened to you on maths - currency though...

I'll go play the turn now.

[Old Harry]

Turn 79

The world map.


Foreign affairs
M3 have got Stonehenge and the great lighthouse. They have a galley out scouting, open borders and a NAP to t105 with us. They have open borders with Trolls and only have four cities.
Trolls have expanded well, are butting up against the borders we've agreed and have five cities. We have a NAP until t115.
Team gave up a city to Trolls in return for peace, they have five cities now. Other than that I have no idea what they are up to.
Pirates lost a city to M3 and seem to have been crippled - they have half the score we do and only four cities.

Home affairs
We are revolting to Monarchy this turn. We can then get sailing in 3 turns or maths-> currency in 10+20=30 turns:



I'm not going to go into detail on the worker micro - you can see that in the micro spreadsheet here suffice to say they are concentrating on cottages for OR and setting up the two new cities.

Occam's Razor - building warriors for MP at the moment, it could grow to 13 cottages eventually...



Blades of Glory - proud owner of an Oracle, currently building missionaries for new (and old) cities. We haven't revolted to Budhism yet.



Smooth Criminal - a troop pump - I've got it on a forge at the moment (will take about 11 turns) but could go back to chariots, warriors or settlers if you'd rather.



Blade Runner - the library is taking forever, but we'll be able to whip it in a couple of turns. Then we build a workboat and watch it explode.



Smooth Operator - wheat complete, missionary on the way, lots of forests still to chop if we want anything here.



Blades of Steel - we have at least a 50-50 chance of getting the hill we want here - no M3 settler has shown up yet. That axe has slowed the setup though, I didn't want to leave any workers within tempting range... Will they try to snipe the settler before it can set up?



Over on the eastern front we need to get cities down soon or they'll be swamped in Troll culture...



Demos



What have I missed?

[Old Harry]

I'm going to be off grid from this Saturday until late Monday, can anyone play a turn or two or shall I post in the tech thread suggesting a Christmas break or a longer turn timer?

[Cheater Hater]

Let's see if I can deduce some of the missing information first:
Going clockwise, the team positions are:
Gillette->M3->Pirates->TEAM->Trolls->Gillette
(Blue->Green->Yellow->(White)->Red->Blue)

Blades of Steel is being settled T81, Missionary same turn--10 turns until border expansion, works wheat (farm finished 2 turns after settling assuming the axe moves?), build Granary?

When is the next settler being built, and where is it going? I'm guessing it's the bottom right "CITY!", and I'd agree that's most pressing. After that we can either continue to block off Trolls with the two cities north of Smooth Operator (the plains hill right next to SO, then the plains hill next to the lake), or backfill the good cities near SC and OR. The former is an aggressive move and would require more military (which we probably should pursue regardless), but if we did the latter, that would force us to start exploring the island to our west.

What are the builds looking like for each city? Blades of Glory should probably go to a forge after finishing the missionary (unless Smooth Operator needs a missionary), Smooth Criminal is building a forge already, and Blades of Steel will probably build a granary. Smooth Operator will finish a granary, then go onto something not completely obvious--I don't think it needs a library yet (it can get a missionary soon, though it doesn't need to expand borders desperately), so it should either build a forge or military probably. Occam's Razor is building Warriors though--why is that? If it's going to build military, shouldn't it build a forge first?

Other build-related things:

Speaking of the island earlier, can any of our cities afford an exploring workboat in the near-future?

Do we want another worker sooner rather than later? I'll admit I'm not the best at worker micro (especially long-term), but it feels like we have a lot of cottages to put up to support all our cities.

I feel like Sailing is fine for now, so we have a little basis for our push to Currency.

If the other teams don't need a break, I can cover you for the weekend probably, if no one else is here--hopefully everyone else is still around and being silent, like I was though

[YossarianLives]

Hey, sorry about my absence. I was out of the country, and then I was having computer problems. Thanks Old Harry for keeping up the turn reports, especially the recent summary.

Sailing next sounds good to me.

It looks like the m3 axe is keeping tabs on us more than staking out a city site. I'm hopeful we'll get BoS in our desired location.

Since we're investing so much in spreading the religion, we should probably convert soon to get all the benefits.

[Old Harry]

Hi Guys, it's good to have you both back, I was wondering if I was alone here...

Let's see if I can deduce some of the missing information first:
Going clockwise, the team positions are:
Gillette->M3->Pirates->TEAM->Trolls->Gillette
(Blue->Green->Yellow->(White)->Red->Blue)

Spot on.

Blades of Steel is being settled T81, Missionary same turn--10 turns until border expansion, works wheat (farm finished 2 turns after settling assuming the axe moves?), build Granary?

I hadn't added this to the micro spreadsheet yet, but this plan sounds good to me.

When is the next settler being built, and where is it going? I'm guessing it's the bottom right "CITY!", and I'd agree that's most pressing. After that we can either continue to block off Trolls with the two cities north of Smooth Operator (the plains hill right next to SO, then the plains hill next to the lake), or backfill the good cities near SC and OR. The former is an aggressive move and would require more military (which we probably should pursue regardless), but if we did the latter, that would force us to start exploring the island to our west.

Not sure where the next settler will come from. I think we need to secure the M3 border and start on the colossus before worrying about the Troll border. Our NAP to t115 with trolls includes a (slightly generous to them) settling agreement, so we need to have our cities over there in place by then, but not straight away. On the east of this image I think we either need to settle the northern "city?" or the "c?" which is more defensive but gives us one fewer city.

What are the builds looking like for each city? Blades of Glory should probably go to a forge after finishing the missionary (unless Smooth Operator needs a missionary), Smooth Criminal is building a forge already, and Blades of Steel will probably build a granary. Smooth Operator will finish a granary, then go onto something not completely obvious--I don't think it needs a library yet (it can get a missionary soon, though it doesn't need to expand borders desperately), so it should either build a forge or military probably. Occam's Razor is building Warriors though--why is that? If it's going to build military, shouldn't it build a forge first?

OR is building the warriors for cheap Hereditary rule MP, it could build other stuff too if you'd rather, but has poor production, so won't build anything quickly. I think we should stop whipping it and avoid settlers or workers from here until it is huge.
BOG - forge sounds good, perhaps after one more missionary?
SC - forge then military to be ready for NAP expiry. Although we could go settler first?
BR - Library, work boat, exploring work boat/galley? We also want a Great Sci for an academy which I thought could come from here...
SO - Granary, then ? worker or Setler for Colossus?
BOS - Granary then ?

I feel like Sailing is fine for now, so we have a little basis for our push to Currency.

Glad you both do too. I think we could get trade routes with Trolls too with sailing, then see if we can get people to close borders with M3.

If the other teams don't need a break, I can cover you for the weekend probably, if no one else is here--hopefully everyone else is still around and being silent, like I was though

Great. I'll try and make sure the micro spreadsheet covers the whole weekend, so it should be easy to follow.

And yes, Yossarian, we probably should convert soon. I don't think we're at our happy cap anywhere with religion yet though....

[Old Harry]

So M3's axe has moved forward, I don't think they'll break the NAP but a settler or worker is enticing bait. I'm tempted to move the chariot to the settler tile so it can't be attacked, but can come back and hit the axe should he attack.


Do we move the settler into danger? They've seen it, so will hang around the area if attack is their plan. If we do I think the worker might as well start on the wheat this turn.

[Old Harry]

So I think I have a plan. If we move the settler into place to found next turn, move the warrior 1NE and move a worker to the same tile as the axe then if M3 declare war the Axe should be teleported back towards their capital, 1NE on the yellow arrow.

Then if they attack the warrior or worker the chariot can kill the axe.

The worker loses a turn - could put it into a road - and we could lose a worker (unless they don't think to delete it straight away) for an axe. But the city will get founded and should be safe. Hmmmm...