Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[kjn]

Turn rolled, and earlier than I had expected. CivFr planted their tenth city just before ending their turn as the last team.

We landed the Statue of Zeus, so we've managed to increase the cost of any future dogpile, and Brick by Brick will be able to dominate its area.

The spear in the south conveniently moved next to Lew.

[Dp101]

How's the war chariot in the south doing?

[kjn]

How's the war chariot in the south doing?

Haven't moved it, and no enemy units visible. I think it should hug the coast for now, and I think we should send our scout in Spanish land southwards to check out CFC's city for which we can spot the culture.

[Sullla]

Turn 114 - 25BC

We built Statue of Zeus successfully! Now the failgold train begins to roll in...



Here's a picture in the far west, where our Woodsman II axe fortunately found a barb warrior and not a barb axe. While this might look pretty mundane, check out the culture layer:



Aha! We've found the location of CivFr, very close to CivPlayers and probably their most likely target other than us. Poor CivPlayers got squeezed in between the top teams in the game. Bad luck for them. Our scouting axe will make contact next turn by moving southwest (we'll be able to see the border across the water). We just need to survive a battle against a barb warrior, which feels pretty safe. I will check the GNP with all of our visible techs before and after making contact, as a way to see what techs CivFr possesses.

Kjn, I saw the border of the CFC city in the far south last turn, and I turned the scout in the other direction anyway. We'll get vision on that city with our war chariot moving through CFC territory in a few more turns. The scout in Spanish territory will serve us better by continuing to push east, rather than moving back to the west. We have absolutely no idea what's over there, and I want to keep moving into the unknown.



Here is more of the German core, with two more cities now visible. We've spotted five of their ten cities so far. Weil der Stadt is their newest city, size 1 with no infrastructure yet (axeman defending it). Wien is their fifth city if I remember correctly; like every other German city, it has a terrace and barracks. Check out the name of their axeman too: definitely a team of German speakers! This appears to be the western border of German territory, so we'll keep heading to the east and unveiling as much as possible.



Our war chariot did not find anything of note in the south. At least there are some grassland tiles, everything else looks to be slim pickings. Heroic axeman Lew killed the barb spear as highlighted above, although he fell into the yellow range in the process. He can actually stay on the current forest tile to heal, because Seven Tribes expands borders next turn. (This is why I wanted to kill the barb spear this turn; it would have teleported to god knows where between turns. Best to eliminate it immediately.)

Note that Gourmet Menu has finished its library and been set to Great Lighthouse. I discussed this in the micro thread; the basic idea was that we might as well try for Great Lighthouse instead of building a market (200 shields against 150 shields). The wonder is worth 2 commerce x 2 trade routes x 5 coastal cities = 20 commerce/turn and possibly more with additional cities. Seems like it's worth a shot, why not. We finish it T127 in my sandbox, right at the end of the Golden Age. Speak now if you want a different build here.



This is the north of our territory. A couple things going on here... Tree Huggers has run itself out of improved tiles again, and will be triple-whipping a settler next turn as a result. It has to work the bare plains tile of shame for one turn until that happens. Settler is going to the spot next to the rice marked above, which ensures that we don't waste any tiles in the north. We only need one more city along our northern border, to be placed two tiles west of that western rice. We need Civil Service to chain irrigation over there first, however, so it needs to wait just a little longer.

Simple Life has 17 overflow from its chopped granary; I have put that into library for lack of anything else useful. Feel free to offer alternate suggestions, that just feels like the best choice out of the available ones. Eastern Dealers picked up a forest chop to finish its lighthouse, which will allow it to grow up to size 8 over the next five turns. (Without the lighthouse, we have nowhere near enough 2-food tiles to work.) Forbidden Fruit is hitting the cap on improved tiles again, which means that we swap to worker this turn, double-whip it next turn, and then overflow/complete library. Even with 21 workers we have tons of tiles to improve.



Workers reconnected stone this turn at Starfall, and Horse Feathers timed a forest chop and worker whip overflow on the same turn to insta-finish Moai Statues. Now we grow up to the happy cap, work all of those 2/1/3 water tiles, and use the Golden Age to build Heroic Epic. The micro here not only finishes Moai with the overflow, it also lines up the city for perfect growth to size 8 (we need 18 total food and the city gets +9 food each of the next two turns). Planning and sandboxing is fun.

Overview / tile micro:

Adventure One got a non-river plains cottage and began working it this turn. It will add another one in 2t and can finally fire that Scientist specialist. Mansa (5t Great Person) and Focal Point (4t Shwedagon Paya) are still running their same setup in preparation for our Golden Age. Starfall and Eastern Dealers both finish their lighthouses in preparation for some sick growth. Other cities are just doing their typical thing, growing upwards and working cottages.

We've begun researching Civil Service and will pick it up in 3t.



This is a rare turn where I didn't whip something, but don't worry, we'll be whipping 5 pop next turn. Demos look about the same as usual. I believe that Apolyton is the #2 value in GNP, and they are not running max science right now; they appear to be running break-even from their trade screen. That means that their research power is almost certainly higher than ours, although it's hard to tell because we have such massive costs weighing down our GNP value. Well, we'll be in Bureaucracy soon enough (6t) and have our own Academy a little after that.

Questions / comments welcome as always.

[Ceiliazul]

Any sign of the Spanish war in the event log or war weariness counts?

[kjn]

Very little signs of the war so far, only the loss of an odd axeman that I could see, probably for CFC.

Anyway, we're up to T115 now. The barb warrior by Sian moved 1S so we are free to make contact with CivFr. I've noted down our GNP values for the different techs, and there are no changes since last turn (CS, HBR, Philosophy, Alphabet, and Theology known by one team each, and Archery by four teams).

I assume Sullla had planned to move our scout in Spanish lands 2NE this turn, but there's a barb axe on that hill now. The barb warrior down by Seven Tribes has also gained company from a barb axe. Would love to have a war chariot down by that frontier to scout and gain some XP.

We'll have to see if this turn will help me solve the various issues with last turn. Visibility on the last Spanish city would help a lot, I think.

[Ruff_Hi]

I've noted down our GNP values for the different techs, and there are no changes since last turn (CS, HBR, Philosophy, Alphabet, and Theology known by one team each, and Archery by four teams).

How do you do this? Does the beakers on the main screen change? Does the GNP on the demo screen change? Other?

[kjn]

I've noted down our GNP values for the different techs, and there are no changes since last turn (CS, HBR, Philosophy, Alphabet, and Theology known by one team each, and Archery by four teams).

How do you do this? Does the beakers on the main screen change? Does the GNP on the demo screen change? Other?

By quantifying the known tech bonus. Our C&D sheet has a function for computing it based on F9, the budget, and the culture generated, but I usually eyeball it now. Right now we get the following GNP for various techs:

355: MC, Literature, Compass, Drama, Feud, -> 0
366: CS, HBR, Philo, Alpha, Theo, -> 1
402: Archery -> 4

Each team knowing a tech gives us a circa 3% bonus, and this comes to a diff of 11 or 12 in reported GNP. So I simply select the various techs we can research and note down the resulting GNP.

[Ruff_Hi]

Thanks - I'll test that in one of my pbem games.

[Sullla]

Turn 115 - 1 AD

We made it to the AD years just as we hit the 3000th post in this thread. There's a lot going on this turn, so here's the accompanying picture dump.



This was the message from WPC that greeted me on logging into the game. These guys have some real balls to them; they not only dictated exactly where we should move our missionary, but they also insisted that we send them a third missionary, and then proposed the laughably unequal sheep for gems deal. Uh, thanks but no thanks, chief. I'd think that a team in their position wouldn't be quite so pushy, but what do I know. I've never found myself that far behind in one of these games.

Here's what I sent back to them:



I did move the missionary as requested, after decoding that horrible number pad system of directions that they used. We don't have any current plans for an extra missionary right now; we can discuss that later as a team. And I don't think I was going out on a limb by sending back a polite "no" on that sheep for gems trade. Maybe we can trade for their dyes, which would be about a thousand times more useful than extra health. Then again, they are a long ways away from Calendar tech.... Hope I wasn't stepping on any toes here by replying to their message.

The missionary in their territory didn't find anything of note. I'll post a picture if we spot their city next turn. More importantly, we found CivFr and made contact:



And apparently we've had a trade connection to them for some time now through various other teams. Here's what that looks like:



Here you go, folks. This is our biggest competition for the game, and it should be immediately obvious why. CFC is the only other team with anywhere near this number of resources connected. We have an edge overall:

Strategic: RB = 4*, CivFr = 2
Food: RB = 18, CivFr = 9
Luxuries: RB = 9*, CivFr = 4
* Counting the spices/stone we are trading away

So yeah, we are definitely ahead there, no question about it, but CivFr still has more resources connected than just about any other team. Note the confirmation of marble that we long suspected. That's almost certainly why we lost Mausoleum. Note as well that CivFr also has their own gems (so they almost certainly have Iron Working), and the presence of Calendar resources means they have that tech too, because duh, Mausoleum and all that.

Also with regards to CivFr, GNP tracking revealed that they already have Literature tech researched (and therefore Aesthetics as well). This is very useful information for us: with Literature tech and marble, that's a guaranteed Great Library wonder for CivFr in their capital. No point in even challenging this. They also have the inside track on the free Great Artist at Music tech, which I doubt we can beat them too if they really want it. You do not want to be giving free Great People away to the Mausoleum team. See why CivFr is so clearly the top competition?

Now for the good news. Despite all of that, CivFr is far from invincible. They have half the food resources that we do, and they are not the #2 team in Food (which is CFC according to our numbers tracking). They have 10 cities and we are about to plant our 15th. They do not have a religion, while we have a self-founded religion plus a shrine with almost 20 following cities. Their second trait is Creative, which scales poorly into the later stages of the game. (Expansive isn't great either, but the bonus health can be very useful in the Industrial era.) So yes, we are unquestionably ahead, but don't get cocky. This is a very good team with strong players.

Diplo team should send over a message and try to get Open Borders for their yummy 3 commerce trade routes with their capital + second city.

Oh, and other stuff also happened this turn too.



More scouting of der Germans revealed a sixth city, which appears to be their version of Mansa's Muse. Webringen is their capital, Worms under the interface was their second city, and this one Wittenberge was their third. It has the usual barracks + terrace but actually also has a library, the only one we've seen in German territory so far. There also appears to be a sizable body of water to the north of the Germans. Perhaps an arctic ocean along the Toroidal worldwrap? We shall see.



Over in CFC territory, we've found their 12th and most recent city Hansa. I think this is a pretty smart city placement, able to share the grassland cows and work the floodplains tiles. It's also very close to the Spanish border, located on a hill and with city walls as the only infastructure. Yeah, no granary or religion as yet, just walls. Our chariot will move further southeast and see if it can find any evidence of fighting. No clue if the Spanish tried to go after Hansa and were turned back. They are still at war for now.



In the south we have naturally found yet another barb axe next to our war chariot. Sigh. We've got Combat I promotion this time, and that means about 2/3 odds to win this battle... but I still expect that we'll likely lose this one too. If we survive, we'll be able to finish up scouting out the south. The land appears to end down there in the ice. Sure would be nice to know one way or the other though.

Now for some city pictures:



We did finish Moai Statues in Horse Feathers. Here's the obligatory picture of what that looks like. This city is going to work the corn for the next few turns to grow rapidly up to size 10, then work all of the coastal tiles during the Golden Age to knock out Heroic Epic quickly. We'll eventually take back the iron and grassland hill tiles and have a city that can build 1t catapults or 2t cuirassiers. Which we will do. A lot.



Meanwhile, Starfall and Eastern Dealers are at the other end of the spectrum, cities with massive food surpluses assigned to future Globe Theatre / National Epic duties. Starfall has 5t to grow at +12 food/turn in preparation for popping out a Great Scientist during our upcoming Golden Age. I have workers assigned to chop down all three of those forests to the west into a library, for the dual purpose of giving us the +25% bonus research while running 6 Scientist specialists, and for adding the extra culture to push back against CFC's city. Later on, we can go crazy abusing this city with the whip since it will be getting Globe Theatre eventually. Oh, I have all kinds of evil whip abuse planned for this location later on...

Overview / tile micro:

We whipped five pop this turn, a settler in Tree Huggers and a worker in Forbidden Fruit. (Don't feel too bad about losing five pop, since we grow six pop back next turn!) The settler goes to the filler spot in the northeast next to the rice. I do have a quick question about the Forbidden Fruit overflow: the original plan was to overflow into and finish the city's library, but we can easily overflow into a missionary instead. Should we send a third and final missionary to WPC just to get them off our backs diplomatically? Let me know. It's very easy to do either one.

Three turns to Shwedagon Paya, four turns to Great Person in Mansa. Even though CivFr does have Aesthetics tech and could be in the running for Paya, their total lack of any kind of religion, and their recent building of Temple of Artemis + impending Great Library play, suggests to me that they are probably not pursuing the wonder. I'm cautiously optimistic at this point that we'll land the wonder.

We are about 150 beakers short of finishing Civil Service at end of turn, and will overflow a lot of research into Literature afterwards. We picked up over 100 failgold between turns, which is why we're still over 500 total gold despite running 100% science last turn. I hope the other teams are scratching their heads about that one.



Demos after our whips. We've crept up to 3rd in Power now, but someone has leaped up enormously in GNP. My best guess is Apolyton with their Bureacademy capital. It could also be CivFr though, which is currently running an unsustainable 100% research with like 20g in the bank. As I said before, we're likely going to be slightly behind in research until we trigger our own Golden Age and revolt to Bureaucracy in 5 turns.

Our edge in Land Area remains stunning. This has been a fabulously succesful landgrab. Stonehenge for the win indeed.

We should get on the diplo phones and see what we can work out with CivFr. Now we finally have contact with everyone.