Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[fluffyflyingpig]

Only our team gets into discussions about discussions (with the occasional discussion of that discussion) about things that we can't even do anything about yet.

well right now we are having a discussion about the discussion of the discussion, to decide if its even worth discussing the discussion. Jury seems to be out.

Bigger, I am disappointed. This was not a productive contribution to the discussion discussing the discussion discussion decision. Please try to keep the the discussion at hand.

[Ceiliazul]

The scary part? There's still 39hrs left in the turn!

[pindicator]

[Sullla]

Turn 132 - 425AD

You guys do know that instead of talking in circles for hours, anyone could have logged into the game and figured out how much production was sitting in the box for CFC's Taj Mahal build, right? As it turns out, everyone was looking in the wrong place...



We'll get to everything Taj related in a minute. Here are two more of Apolyton's cities, their capital of Aurora and the city of, err, Apolyton. Not at all confusing. It seems a bit silly that they would deny us a map trade and then calmly let a scout walk through and reveal all their cities, but hey, works for us. I'm not complaining. We've got about half of their territory uncovered now, and the scout continues to make progress.



We have just about all of German territory scouted out now, and I'll be returning that war chariot to home soonish to avoid arousing more German suspicion. The Woodsman II axe will poke around the jungles to the south and see if he can reveal the new CivPlayers city. We've discovered most of what we can in this part of the world.



In the deep south, our war chariot found something potentially useful, a tundra deer resource off to the west. That will make a city of some kind over there probably worth founding eventually. We might even send the next settler over there if we turn up another resource, it wouldn't be too hard to reach or defend. The galley and another war chariot should be able to reveal the last corner over there in the southeast. Remember that we're finishing a settler in the capital this turn - where are we sending this one again? Don't get too caught up in Taj machinations and forget about that.

I realize that I accidentally shrunk this picture down in size twice instead of once - sorry! Too much work to go and fix it now.



OK, I figured that with another war chariot and the galley poking around on the other side of this body of water, this war chariot would be better used scouting around Indira to get a better view of the CFC capital. While we can track what infrastructure is in the city itself, our map vision of the surrounding tiles is outdated. Even if it's a minor advantage, I figure we might as well move the war chariot through and make sure we make no mistakes on our Taj build.

After I moved all of our units, I went ahead and ran the numbers for production tracking in all of CFC's cities. Well, their capital doesn't pose much of a threat for the wonder. They just finished a forge last turn, and they currently have 68 production sitting in the capital's box from overflow. We have 291 production inside our capital, and another settler whip adding more there this turn. Even with third or fourth ring forest chops, CFC isn't beating us to the wonder in their capital of Indira. I mean, we'll keep tracking the production, but it's not happening.

Unfortunately, they aren't building the wonder in their capital. They're building it in the city of Lakshmi, which has 352 shields in the box right now.

Alright, now that's the bad news. Before anyone goes and loses their head, this isn't necessarily the end of the world. I'm pretty sure that CFC has already burned production overflow from a forge and the remaining forests around Lakshmi to get so much production so quickly in that city. The scouting war chariot will be over there in two turns to check for sure. The good news is that Lakshmi is only size 8. It can only whip 4 population points towards Taj, not the 8 pop that the capital could potentially play around with. Each whip produces 30 x 2.5 production in Lakshmi, due to marble/forge/Organized Religion, so each whip is worth 75 shields. Normally 4 pop would get you 300 production, but there's a halving penalty for wonders, which means that they can potentially whip their 4 pop for 150 shields worth of production. In other words, Lakshmi needs to get over 550 shields to be able to whip. That's still another 200 shields, and even with all those bonuses that won't be cheap.

What kind of production are we looking at in Lakshmi? Well, they will probably be running a food deficit and working the 6 hill tiles. I don't think they can get much more than that; even if they work the corn and floodplains tiles, that still leaves them at a sizable food deficit (at least -4 food if not -5 food). Anyway, working the 6 hills grants them 21 production (with center tile) which becomes 52 production after all the modifiers. They'll still require 4 more turns of production before they can whip the wonder to completion. That would be as follows:

T132 352 shields
T133 404 shields
T134 456 shields
T135 508 shields
T136 560 shields -> whip to completion

However, we can 6-pop whip the wonder to completion at eot 134, or 4-pop whip the wonder to completion at eot 135. In either case, we still finish a turn ahead. That's all assuming that there are no more forest chops going into Lakshmi; if there are, then we are probably hosed. Well, that's why we're sending a unit over there to scout and see if there are any forests remaining. Watching to see what production Lakshmi has in the box next turn will be critical.

Here's our capital:



I will requote notice's Taj Mahal plan again here for reference:

Here are the facts about our Taj Mahal build:

* On t132, we whip the settler. We can work a farm over a plains cottage this turn for +1 hammers towards TM.
* On t133 we resume the TM build and we need 4 food to grow back to size 12. We can either work a plains cottage for 20hpt and 2fpt, growing back in 2t, or we can work a farm for 19hpt and 4fpt, growing in 1.
* If we just keep slowbuilding the TM it completes eot137.
* We can chop the deer on t136 to complete the TM eot136. So whipping on t136 doesn't make sense.
* If we grow back to size 12 eot133 by working the farm, we can 6-whip the TM on t134 to finish it eot134.
* On t135 we can 4-whip the TM to finish eot135.

So we should do the following, to have emergency options for completing TM on both eot134, eot135, and eot136, with eot137 as the scheduled non-emergency completion date.

t132: Whip the settler, work the farm over a plains cottage.
t133: Grow back to size 12 by working a farm over a plains cottage.
t134: Work max hammers (21hpt). 6-whip if necessary.
t135: Work max hammers (21hpt). 4-whip if necessary.
t136: Work max hammers (21hpt). Chop deer if necessary.
t137: Work max hammers and complete TM at eot.

novice, let me know if these tiles don't look correct. It appeared as though working the 1/1/5 plains village and the 2/0/6 grassland town had exactly the same effect this turn, so I picked up the grassland town and gave the plains village to Gourmet Menu. Let me know if this does not work.

I made one foolish mistake this turn. I should have run the production tracking numbers BEFORE moving all of our units. This was simply stupid. If our workers were still unmoved, I could have moved three workers down to the deer forest THIS TURN, then we could have chopped the tile next turn, and 4-pop whipped the wonder to completion at eot 134. Instead, if we want to claim the wonder on that turn, we'll be forced to brutalize the capital with a 6-pop whip. We'll probably do exactly that, as we don't want to fool around with Taj. Ah well. I can still move those workers over to the deer next turn, and have it chopped on T134, but that won't help us with whipping until T135. Still probably worth moving the workers there; they can always road the deer tile even if they don't end up chopping it, right?

OK, all of that was exhausting. Let's finish up with the turn.



Eastern Dealers is working away on National Epic. It's really a shame we have to rush Taj so much; we'd prefer to kick off a Golden Age around T138 or T139, right when National Epic finishes construction. Still, we can work something like 4-5 specialists in Golden Age while finishing the wonder, and that should be good enough to push out the Great Person of our choice.

Overview:

We're just short of finishing Metal Casting tech. We'll likely run 10% science next turn and complete the tech while building up more gold again. I noticed that we're getting a huge known civ bonus for this tech; I think something like 4 or 5 teams already have Metal Casting. I believe some even discovered it on this very turn, cheapening it in the process! Nice.

There's not a great deal taking place elsewhere. Starfall double whipped its barracks, and that was about it. More workers moving and such.



Demographics. As I said, we're getting a substantial known civ tech bonus in Metal Casting, which does inflate our 100% research GNP number a bit. Someone else is also ticking up in Soldier count a bit.

I expect that by the time I look at this tomorrow, there will probably be 50 or something posts about Taj Mahal. For some reason, that brings everyone out of the woodwork. It's rather amusing, since we already have our exact plan in place, and it's largely up to watching CFC at this point. Well, we can finish the wonder eot 134 if we're willing to do a major whip, and that's likely what we will indeed do. Pray that there are no more forests at Lakshmi to be chopped down, because we can't really increase our own Taj ETA at this point.

[SevenSpirits]

You can see directly on the map that Lakshmi still has two forests...

[Sullla]

Well we last scouted there like 30 turns ago. I was under the impression that the map does not auto-update jungle clearing and forest chopping.

[SevenSpirits]

That said, 352 hammers in one turn seems high. Do we have info of the previous turns' hammer amounts, and a screenshot of previous turns' forest sitaution, to verify that this production was truly added in a single turn?

[NobleHelium]

Cleared forests and jungles update immediately in the fog.

[SevenSpirits]

Well we last scouted there like 30 turns ago. I was under the impression that the map does not auto-update jungle clearing and forest chopping.

Oh - yeah, forests and jungles (and flood plains, if cities are settled on them) update in the fog.

[Sullla]

Well, in that case there's not much to say. They'll chop the forests next turn, and they'll be able to whip on T134. We'll have to decide if we want to whip our own capital for a 50/50 coinflip on a Golden Age. Unless they somehow mess things up, that's the situation we'll find ourselves in.