Gillette Turn Discussion

[Old Harry]

Hmmm, do we need iron for maces too? Okay, lets go for COL->CS->Iron->Machinery. If we are saving money from the end of COL until the academy is in place we might be able to burn through the last three quite quick and surprise M3...

We could attack Trolls t141, but until our galley checks out their shore line I'd be reluctant to commit to that. Our border with them is just weak, whereas our border with M3 is pretty strong. I think our only chance with Trolls would be if we could burn their two big border cities (copper and gold) with 2-movers before they get themselves in gear. I think it'll be a lot longer than t141 before we get to knights won't it?

[Cheater Hater]

No, you don't need Iron for Maces--Maces are the best unit you can get with only Copper.
For Knights we would need Iron Working->Horseback Riding->Feudalism->Guilds, and we could start that path right now if we wanted too--I'd just want to check their shoreline first. Where are our Galleys going to be soon? The island city needs a defensive unit and a worker, but not much else, and then our galleys are free for a while.

[Old Harry]

The first galley can start heading that way now, I'm not sure we need the second galley right away, so maybe we should switch to a workboat or market in Dirk.

We should do some tentative attack planning, with 2-movers, to see how an attack on the Troll borders might go. And compare it to the impact we can have on M3. Then we can decide which tech path to follow...

[Old Harry]

Turn 102

Trolls got the Mausoleum. Troubling.


These are the finances before we settle In The Stone


Then we settle


Then we have 10 extra commerce, but an extra 9 in expenses. So it just about pays for itself...


Camera flying shows there are islands off the coast for Trolls, but they aren't in range of a galley.


Occam will start on the market next turn, but it'll take a while (t115 if we mine the second plains hill, longer if we don't)


BOG finishes the missionary for Dirk next turn - I'll get it to make a scout next turn, which we can investigate M3 with - then we can start building something else. A market gets us 2 happy...


Smooth can probably just pump out archers for the forseeable future, whipping out a settler or worker every ten turns or so.


Dirk is 11 turns from a great person. I've switched to work boat for In The Stone's crabs, can finish the galley afterwards.


Epee will grow then 2-pop whip a settler for Katana.


Foil can whip the library in a couple of turns. M3 are up to 29% culture on the horse.


Gladius' borders pop next turn and we can work the crabs. The forge will be completed with a chop and a 2-pop whip eot 110, then Colossus is done eot 113. We need to think about how much we want this, Colossus requires that we work a lot of water tiles, so we need more coastal cities, and is obsoleted by Astro, so we'll want to put off getting galleons. If you're happy with that (I think I am) then we should go ahead and build it.


Halbard will start growing when the first sheep is improved t106. Library then market for a commerce city?


In The Stone is making 6 commerce from the trade routes, just about paying for itself. Am I right in thinking a harbour would push it up to 4 per turn?


Attacking Trolls:
Bloody Mary: with a road NE of Jemmy the 2-movers can get onto the forested hill on the first turn of war. Then attack on turn 2. Scout units can check out the lie of the land and defensive forces from the same hill.
Gold City: the 2-movers could get on the forest on turn one of war, then get to the gold city on turn two. Scouts can check out the lie of the land if there is a road 1e of the wheat.


So do you prefer that to attacking M3 from the sea? We should get info on M3's cities and defences in three turns.

Power


Demos - Our export/imports seem pretty good. Even better than M3 with their nice lighthouse

[Cheater Hater]

Yikes on Trolls--seriously, what did they give up to get Aethesics, Literature, and Calendar well before us? Even if we assume they skipped the religious tree, Metal Casting was just a bonus for us, and what else are they missing? Currency? Monarchy obviously, but still :/

Nice on Into the Stone! We got it out about as early as we could

Isn't Occam going to run across the happy cap sooner or later, or are we just putting half our military in there
I notice it's hitting the health cap soon, so that'll slow it a bit--maybe it would be worth a 2-whip on the market, since we're running out of good tiles?

When you say "investigate M3" do you mean in their borders, or just around the borders in the dead space--don't we still have a bunch of warriors out there somewhere? (I noticed we have a supply cost in the finances) I don't think BOG wants a market; instead it wants a courthouse? If it needs happy we can just stuff it full of units

Rest of the city micro seems fine--Foil should keep the horse for a while, Colossus seems fine, though we should push up the peninsula city if we do (make it the next city after Katana), why isn't Halberd building the library now?

Why can't we attack Trolls with only 1-movers? We can attack On the Rocks from the sea, then move slowly on their marble city, gold city and Bloody Mary. However, I have almost no experience with Civ warfare period, much less in MP, so I will defer to you on that--of course, I wish we had more opinions on this kind of stuff (please come back scooter/mackoti/SevenSpirits!).

[Old Harry]

It's taking about 25 food to get every new citizen in Occam now, so killing them for 30 hammers isn't a great return... We'll have crabs and sheep for health soon, but whipping the market might be a good option - lets see when we get to that point.

Investigate M3 means

- building a road at point A (a worker is doing that right now)
- putting our scout on staging point B (out of sight of M3)
- sending the scout along one of the yellow lines
- deleting the scout

It breaks the no-scouting clause of the NAP, but they won't know that until they read this (if you want a justification I wasn't totally convinced by their explanation for exploring BoG, justifications are for losers though). And if it turns out their city defences are great it means we might not attack them... Gaspar did this in a pbem (I forget which) with fast workers, so I don't think it's frowned upon, but it'll mean people are less keen on open borders with us in future...

Looking at it we're not going to get visibility on the lighthouse city unless the scout starts from point A. Do you think that's worth the risk? If he's hidden under the worker and spear who are there now there is a good chance they won't notice...

On attacking Trolls
- with 2 movers they have one turn to react, so they can (dry) whip the cities once and get any units within 2 tiles into the cities
- with 1-movers they have two turns to react, so they can whip twice and get units from 4 tiles away

Both cities are going to have strong cultural defenses, so I don't see us winning without huge numerical superiority. If we include enough cats to take down their 40% defenses then it could be just about even. Either way I think we need to do some scouting...

I'm exactly as MP-war-noob as you are, so don't take anything I say as gospel!

[Cheater Hater]

I don't think it's worth the risk or the hammers, unless you really think we should attack M3 instead of Trolls--M3 would certainly be simpler, but we would need another NAP extension to do so, and I'm not sure how long it would then :/

I thought the point was that we'll beat them with pure military strength over numbers, using either Berserkers or Knights--I guess cats would be useful in either sense, we just need to figure out where they fit in our plans (either finding room on the boats or moving to a one-mover plan on Troll's side)

You've at least played in games though, which is more than I've done

[Old Harry]

The reason attacking M3 is easier than Trolls is that we can take out their two border cities, PigPen and Orient Point t1 of a war, then their Lighthouse city on t2.

If we can take a lot of land off M3 that puts us in a very strong position in the late game when number of cities seems to matter most.

The reason attacking Trolls is a good idea is that they are score leaders and have all those great wonders. If we take their cities we need to raze them - they'll have too much power for us to hold them. Unfortunately the ones we can get to aren't Troll's most important cities - if they had MOM or TGL in one of them it'd be a different matter - and while the loss will hurt them, building the military will hurt us, letting TEAM or M3 overtake and leaving us in a weaker position.

So yeah, I'm still not sure which way is better. Maybe we shouldn't attack either? But that seems a bit boring...

Anyway the turn is in, I'll go have a look around.

[Old Harry]

Turn 103

Ah crap. Beaten to Confucianism by TEAM by two turns... So I've turned research off again. Do we want to be building courthouses now (120 hammers, save ~3-4 gpt in each city), or should we wait for the Academy in OR before turning tech on again?


Settling Jemmy hurts the economy to the tune of 6gpt - but when the road finishes next turn to link it up it'll just be 2 gpt. This city should set up pretty quickly though.
Before


After


I think we do want library and market eventually in BOG - as the budhist shrine will net us at least 10gpt - we can chop and slave them quite quickly. For now another missionary is needed for Katana.


Epee will 2-pop whip settler next turn.


Foil will 2-pop whip Library next turn.


Gladius popped it's borders and works the crab now.


Power - what are TEAM up to?


Demos



One last thing on warfare. We're quite exposed on the Troll border due to culture, so attacking them before they attack us might be a good idea. I wish I could make my mind up...

[YossarianLives]

I'm thinking that attacking M3 and buddying up with Trolls (for now) will give us the best long-term chances of winning. Hopefully TEAM can help put a roadblock in Trolls' plans to keep them from getting too far ahead. M3 has the softer targets and gives us more immediate gains, which is what we need from war to make it worthwhile.

My preference is that we should use the scout plan only after our NAP expires when we are about to declare war. Send the scout(s) out first as advance units. If they see something that makes us reconsider the DOW, then we can hold off. But this way it's clear that we're not violating a "no scouting" clause, since it is part of our DOW anyways.