Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[novice]

Civplayers are going to war. They whipped pretty massively. I suspect that's not with us given our NAP but it's not totally sure. They also hinted at common action in their last diplo email, didn't they:

Can we get involved as part of that plan, would it give it any added value? Could we count on you for any military actions?

Not sure what we can do here, but I'd like to hear some thoughts.

Kalin

We would have nothing to gain from warring with their other potential targets, they're too far away.

I also think it's more likely that they're aiming for one of their weaker (and closer) neighbours, since they've mentioned cramped borders and since we have a running 10t cooldown NAP (IIUC). That said, flashing a few cats and phants can help make sure we're not bumped to the top of their hit list.

[Ceiliazul]

agree.

[kalin]

@novice: I didn't express properly what I meant. I meant that their hint at common military operations is a sign of them not wanting to attack us, but maybe someone else. I didn't mean at all that we should do anything together, given the distances and just that we are not prepared to engage in war yet.

Kalin

[Sullla]

Turn 104 - 275BC

I'm sorry for not posting this report last night when I first played. It was a bit late and I didn't have enough time until today.



First order of business was to ask Spanish Apolyton for Open Borders, complete with smiley face in the message. This was essentially a no-lose scenario, as the worst they could do was reject the initiative. Instead they accepted it when their turn player logged in, and we now have international trade routes in every one of our cities. That's two 2 commerce trade routes times 12 cities for 48 total income (actually 49 since we get a single 3 commerce route with CFC's capital). In other words, a lot of dough there. This is why rushing early Currency is so strong from an economic perspective; even without building the marketplaces, the second trade route grants so much additional income. Code of Laws, on the other hand, requires you to build those courthouses for the economic benefit, and they have to go up in your furthest-flung / weakest new cities for the savings to be most effective. This is why Currency >>> Code of Laws in most games. Very small or very high difficulty maps tend to be exception.

With Open Borders from the Spanish, our scout in the far east will now swing down to their borders and try to pass through to the other side. We actually do not need any kind of deal with UniversCiv at this point, although it might be worth it to send them another message just to keep dialogue going. We have no reason to be on bad terms with UniversCiv, since there's nothing contested between the two of us. But we no longer need their trade routes for economic benefit, and in fact we'll still be fine when we plant our next couple of cities, as there are CFC cities still left untapped for trade routes right now.

CivPlayers and their "two workers for OB" can go burn in a fire.



Here is the north where we have visibility into that terrible resourceless German city. No infrastructure yet, as expected, and defended by a chariot for some reason. Um ok. I'm also vastly amused to note how the exploring CivPlayers warrior is now blocked from moving any further forward by our culture and that of the Germans, and of course CivPlayers doesn't have Open Borders with either one of us. Sucks to be you guys! Good luck finding any other teams, you're sure as hell not passing through our territory to do it.



Our Woodsman II axe has found a friend while healing. This is why I didn't move out the axe last turn; I knew there was a barb axe in the area, and this is way too good of a unit to throw away in a coin flip battle on flatland ground. We'll heal again this turn, and dare the barb to attack us while defending in the forest (total defensive bonus about +100%). If it doesn't take the bait, we move on past to the south. From the hill, we'll be able to see if it's safe to move onto the flatland plains tile heading further west.



Here is the border region with CivPlayers. We have a settler and a worker on the galley, to be unloaded next turn and both move towards the ivory. City to be settled on T108, ivory connected to our trade network T109. Axeman Wyn in the north killed a barb warrior on the tile that you see above; he'll go ahead and heal in place over the next turn or two. That axe has a promotion available if we need it later. I still see no indication that CivPlayers is planning on settling at the ivory. Looks like they are going to declare war on someone (hopefully not us!) instead.

The team wanted to move our surplus axe from Seven Tribes over to the Brick By Brick theatre, and you can see that unit shuffling forward over on the right right of that picture, southwest of the capital. We have Lew (the C2/Shock axe with 10 XP) and a spear posted at Seven Tribes, with a war chariot planned to go there in the future. Axe/spear/WC is probably a decent garrison there for the moment. We have 3 axes and 1 spear covering the Brick By Brick / ivory region including the one moving there right now; that is definitely not enough, and we'll be getting an elephant or two over there as soon as we can do so.



Here's Horse Feathers putting the whip overflow from the settler into Moai Statues, knocking out about a fifth of the total cost this turn. I made sure that we'd be able to have the stone connected for the whip overflow here before we trade it to CFC. We'll need something else to build while waiting to connect our second stone resource; perhaps a barracks? We are under double whip penalty here for the moment, and so I'd prefer not to whip for a little while unless necessary.



Here is the southeast, where we've found our old enemy the barb axe with the blood of Ruff's war chariot on his hands. Fortunately it's only at 3/5 strength (barb units do not pause to heal if they take damage, only use promotion as they get them) and should be easy meat for our war chariot. I will move our war chariot in Starfall to the tile SE-SE of Focal Point before the turn ends, from which point we can hit the barb axe no matter where it goes. Even on the forested hill, I think we get about 98% odds to kill it. I just don't want to move a unit our of Starfall and leave it totally undefended until we get towards the end of the turn timer. Too tempting for other teams. I'll make that chariot move when I end turn, probably before I go to bed tonight.

One of our axes here is moving towards Starfall and intended to be its permanent garrison. The other one is covering a worker in the forest chopping S-SE of Focal Point; that axe will be the Focal Point defender moving forward. Some old workers are serving as Hereditary Rule military police in Mansa and Forbidden Fruit. (Note that Mansa is only 2t from Great Wall. We were able to work the tile configuration we wanted because CFC won't get stone until T106.)

Starfall got its religion spread this turn and will pop borders in 3t. Given the way things played out, I think it was the right decision to send our missionary here instead of towards Gourmet Menu. Of course, we couldn't have known that CFC would settle so stupidly... A worker has moved onto the plains hill near the city to chop and complete a work boat for the fish. We'll follow that up with a chopped/whipped library for the maximum culture available right now, religion + monument + library. And then since this is our Globe Theatre city, we'll be prioritizing a theatre here too, and can surely run from Artists for cultural push. (Same thing at Eastern Dealers, our National Epic city, which can run max Artists all day, every day.) Delhi will be able to hold its first ring of tiles, but we should get most everything else, with the one exception of the tile north of the stone, which is second-ring for them but third-ring or worse for our cities. With enough cultural pressure though, who knows. It's really a shame that they planted such a poorly located city.

If this were the AI, then I would settle a city northwest of the stone, and blitz that idiot plant with culture from three sides. Don't think that would be a good idea in this game though!

Finally, we did also whip Starfall this turn for its granary. We'll presumably get the Hanging Gardens free pop between turns, magically restoring the city back to size 2 instantly. Another reason why spreading religion here worked out nicely, as we get the OR bonus on that granary whip as we overflow into work boat.



This is the northeast, where WPC has a couple of units exploring around. No real danger however unless they are the biggest liars ever. We connected the final grassland spice this turn (the one two tiles north of Forbidden Fruit) so we once again have a surplus spice to trade. Unless someone is watching the F4 screen, it's going to look like there was no trade at all with CFC: we had 2 spices last turn, and 2 spices again this turn. Tricksy!

Forbidden Fruit ended up out growing its supply of improved tiles when I simmed this, so therefore it's swapping to a missionary this turn, then when we finish Hanging Gardens next turn, we two-pop whip the missionary and overflow into library with the OR bonus again. Eastern Dealers is a gigantic whip magnet where we want the OR bonus, plus we want the culture anyway for the CFC border wars. I'm really amused to see how they expect to win that fight with a city that has no forests to chop and a single non-irrigated rice for food, against two cities with double food bonuses (fish/corn and pigs/clams/floodplains). This region that we effectively stole from WPC is shocking good in terms of land quality. Everything is grassland, there are food bonuses galore, and there's about 40 tiles that border the river. Give us another 20 turns to chop the jungle and plant our final city in the north, and this will be an enormously productive region.



And this is the biggest action, the one turned Hanging Gardens play at Seven Tribes. Two forest chops + 99 overflow from aqueduct = 321 production. GG. We're guaranteed at least a coin flip at this point, and with not even one other team have stone connected that we've seen, I think we are looking pretty good here. Keep the fingers crossed.

Overview / tile micro:

We grew 5 pop this turn, and are poised to grow another 2 + 12 = 14 pop next turn. Along with the 16 points for the Hanging Gardens itself, that's going to give us a massive jump in score, and then we're planning on following that up with Construction tech and another wonder (Great Wall) the following turn. Expect to see a big gap opening up with the other teams. This is why getting deals in place with teams like CFC before we appear as the obvious runaway was so important. Just imagine that you are playing as Parkin from Pitboss #4 for the right diplo mindset.

We picked up more beakers than I expecting into Construction last turn due to known tech bonus giving us an extra 3%. Spanish Apolyton, of all teams, is the one we have pegged as knowing Construction. (CivFr may also have it but we don't know them.) With the trade routes from the Spanish, added after this picture, we make 265 base beakers / 328 modified beakers into Construction. Since we have 300 beakers into the tech right now, and it costs 630, this leaves us exactly 2 beakers short of the tech. But that's fine, as we don't need it next turn for anything, and we can run 0% science and pick up Construction the following turn while also piling up 120 more gold for the coffers.



These are the start of turn Demos, after I whipped Starfall but before any other teams took any population actions. It will be fun to do the comparison after we presumably land Hanging Gardens next turn.

That's really all for this turn. I see the biggest issue at the moment in working something out with CivPlayers, hopefully seeing them attack someone else and not us. See what we can do about that during the rest of this turn.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Great turn report. I feel like we will probably look back in 100 turns and see these past few and the upcoming turns as the time we secured an eventual victory.

[novice]

Let's work the mine instead of the coast in HF while we still have stone. A barracks there once the stone goes offline sounds good. Let's time a whip to complete the Moai with whip overflow on the turn that stone is reconnected.

What's our planned tech path? What's our GP ETA in MM assuming we land TGW? I think both Epics are looking attractive atm, so I'd prefer getting Literature closer to t120 than t150.

Hopefully our WC in Starfall can go on to scout the rest of the south after avenging its predecessor. Fingers crossed for marble and furs in the tundra.

[Ruff_Hi]

Here is the border region with CivPlayers. We have a settler and a worker on the galley, to be unloaded next turn and both move towards the ivory.

Q: Where is the settler going to be unloaded? Is it into the city and them move it along the road onto the jungle (2NE of the city)?

Another option is to move the galley onto the northern-most water tile and unload onto the jungle there. Both jungle tiles are 2 tiles away from the ivory (we are settling on it, aren't we?) but I think the jungle between the peaks completely hides the settler from any snooping Aztec unit (if any).

[Shoot the Moon]

Let's work the mine instead of the coast in HF while we still have stone. A barracks there once the stone goes offline sounds good. Let's time a whip to complete the Moai with whip overflow on the turn that stone is reconnected.

What's our planned tech path? What's our GP ETA in MM assuming we land TGW? I think both Epics are looking attractive atm, so I'd prefer getting Literature closer to t120 than t150.

Hopefully our WC in Starfall can go on to scout the rest of the south after avenging its predecessor. Fingers crossed for marble and furs in the tundra.

I agree on all the points, especially the mine over coast while we still have stone.

[kjn]

Agree with barracks in HF, and the tile switch. We can probably whip a missionary for overflow into Moai - that or a worker, I think.

Current planned tech path is Construction > Code of Laws > Civil Service. But we might have to slot in HBR somewhere, depending on how CivPlayers behave.

We have circa 144 GPP remaining. It's 48 turns now, then 28 without running any specialists but with the Great Wall, but we have plenty of civizens and more than enough slots (2 scientists and 5 priests IIRC). 2 specialists should be more than enough for a T120 GP.

[kjn]

Another option is to move the galley onto the northern-most water tile and unload onto the jungle there. Both jungle tiles are 2 tiles away from the ivory (we are settling on it, aren't we?) but I think the jungle between the peaks completely hides the settler from any snooping Aztec unit (if any).

Bad idea. We don't have tile visibility on all the surrounding tiles there.