Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[Sullla]

I finished up the current turn this morning. Ditchdigger was drafted, Starfall was 2 pop whipped for its catapult, no other population action taken. Most people wanted a market as the next build in Tree Huggers, so I swapped over to that.

To answer other questions, I do not anticipate us drafting Horse Feathers (Heroic Epic city) any time soon. Having that city sit at size 14 and produce 60 production/turn into military units is the best thing that we can do for the moment. We have plenty of drafted maces coming from other cities.

I still do not want to work the 0/4/0 plains hill mine at Gourmet Menu. If we work that tile, we finish a market in 3t and grow in 5t. But instead we can work a high food configuration, grow in 3t, and then pick up the plains tile at the next size (which is the happy cap) and finish the market in 5t total. I still prefer growing and picking up more tiles here, especially since we're running 100% science or close to it for four of those five turns.

We won't have to dodge one of those barb axes in the southwest because CivPlayers killed it with a Combat II horse archer. They have been just about the only other team to emphasize military stuff, I hope we can avoid a war with them. Not really in our interest that I can see.

We could still use some time spent experimenting with the war declaration rules of this particular mod. Is it possible to set up a Pitboss game to test this?

[Ruff_Hi]

We could still use some time spent experimenting with the war declaration rules of this particular mod. Is it possible to set up a Pitboss game to test this?

I started a thread to discuss the tests that need to be run.

[Sullla]

Turn 144 - 680AD

The countdown continues. Six more turns to go.



Our exploring chariot in German territory has just about traversed their whole land at this point. We've seen no units other than axes (a lot of axes), spears, chariots, and catapults thus far. Based on the unit and city builds that we've been observing, we know that the German team researched Iron Working, Currency, and Construction techs. They do not appear to have Monarchy tech thus far, judging by their lack of Hereditary Rule civic (and remember, they are Spiritual so they have a free civics change as soon as they discover that tech). This means that they are still a very, very long ways away from Feudalism and longbows, and the clock is running out for their team to get that tech.

I'm going to swing this chariot into WPC territory next and shadow their army when it moves in for the attack. We might want to send WPC a message just to let them know about us bringing an observer along.



Here's a quick screenshot to demonstrate the usefulness of Sentry promotion: note that we can see into Xochicalco from three tiles away, because the city is located on a hill. The field of vision these units create is a lifesaver when you're at war. Anyway, this chariot will have time to rejoin the main attack force for the Turn 150 invasion. Two more war chariots from the deep south are heading up to the main army as well.



This is the standard picture of the western half of our core. There's a couple different issues to discuss here.

Brick By Brick finished an elephant last turn (being ferried over on the galley to Horse Feathers) and had a third-ring forest chop finish another elephant at the end of this turn. The next build should be whatever auto-upgrades to a knight; can someone remind me again which unit does that - war chariot? Horse archer? I can set up a Worldbuilder test here, but if someone just knows, you can save me some time.

We want to do something similar in Horse Feathers, setting things up so that we can build a knight on the same turn that we discover Guilds. Right now, the city makes exactly 60 production per turn (into military units, but that's all we're building). We have 14 production overflow right now, and therefore are getting 74 production on this turn. My thought is to finish some 50 production catapults to bank a little extra production on the next two turns, like this:

eot 144: catapult (74 production)
eot 145: catapult (84 production)
eot 146: auto-upgrade knight (94 production)

Plus, we need more catapults over more war elephants anyway; we have 4 of them going along with the main stack, and that should be sufficient for anti-mounted defense. We can always get some pikes a little later if the Germans would turn up with horse archers.

The other issue here is where and how best to split up the main stack while awaiting the arrival of Turn 150. We don't have too many turns to go here, so don't get too elaborate, but feel free to suggest where and how to put these units in the meantime. There's a German chariot up north of Tree Huggers that may move into our territory, and there's an Apolyton chariot just off screen over by Ditchdigger that looks primed to move into our territory as well. Just keep in mind that the stack needs to be on the tile northeast of the rice / southwest of the gems on Turn 149.

Then that leaves us with Cutting Edge:



We're whipping the forge in this city... right? I think? This is intended as a production city, and we're in the process of mining those remaining hill tiles right now. There hasn't been a particularly clear decision on whether to whip or not whip this city so far. Well, the time to make that decision is now. What to do with this city?



Here's the rest of the eastern cities. We have a forest chop coming into The Covenant which should just about finish its library; I think it goes to 88/90 or something like that. I would assume that forge is the next build there. Eastern Dealers was about to grow into unhappiness, so I hired an extra specialist for the moment:



We dropped the grassland river farm for the Priest specialist; I figured that was more valuable here than the Artist. The forge is coming along nicely, and we can probably do a courthouse next (working 2 Scientists + Engineer at size 11 or size 12).



And here's Starfall, since I haven't shown a picture of the city lately. We are still following the plan that Seven outlined a few pages ago in this thread, which I believe finishes the Globe on Turn 152. The overflow from the last catapult whip puts a gigantic 51 production into the Globe this turn, and we'll swap over to another catapult next turn to do the same thing. This is something that we haven't talked much about compared to other teams; we're the only one of the major competitors who teched Drama and built a bunch of theatres. Well, maybe CivFr did, but we can't see any of their cities. Everyone else is still dozens and dozens of turns from setting up the Globe Theatre, while we'll have a permanent drafting camp churning out new units almost every turn as early as Turn 152. It's basically like having a second Heroic Epic city, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Overview:

We've finished over 90% of Feudalism tech, and will continue to run at 100% science for the moment. Two more turns of max science will get us very close to finishing Guilds, and we should be able to run 70% or so science on Turn 146 (possibly with a Wealth build somewhere) to finish Guilds at the end of turn 146. Keep that in mind if we're looking at these cities as possible places for knight whips. (The economic builder in me requests that we keep these fairly limited, and whip markets or courthouses instead in most of these cities. Pretty please?)

You might have noticed that CFC was listed as an "AI" in some of these screenshots. While I was playing, they logged into the game and Paused it, which is also visible in the pictures. I have no idea what that's about, and whoever was logged in left immediately, so I couldn't ask them in-game. There is nothing posted about it over at CivFanatics as yet. Maybe one of our representatives could ask what exactly is going on with this team?



Demos are roughly the same as they've been in recent turns. Our GNP continues the slow climb upwards as we recover from drafts and forge whips. Most core cities have forges by now; I'm looking forward to economy-focused whips for their next big projects, markets and courthouses as appropriate. We also continue to invest much more heavily in military than anyone else:



Can you tell when we adopted Nationhood civic? The draft penalty for the first 5 cities wears off in three more turns, we're getting close to the second round of drafted maces getting underway. The German team has a pretty flat line on this graph, and they recently 4 pop whipped a market in one of their border cities with us. I genuinely think they have no idea that they signed a Turn 150 NAP with our team. I mean, it was like 6 months and 100 turns ago that we made that agreement. This has the potential to be a complete blindside war declaration, they don't seem to have any idea at all what's coming.

Oh, and do people want me to cancel the gems/spices deal and reoffer it as just spices? Did we ever agree on that? Let me know how you want me to play that with the Germans. Thanks.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I still think we should just ignore cancellation unless we have something better to do with the gems right now. I want to initiate as little diplo with the Germans as possible. So whatever is the least suspicious, do that.

[T-hawk]

The next build should be whatever auto-upgrades to a knight; can someone remind me again which unit does that - war chariot? Horse archer?

A horse archer does, so build that. Pretty sure regular chariots also do. I'm not sure about war chariots; some UUs let you keep building them even after the next unit (notably the Praetorian being cheaper than a maceman). I don't remember if the WC does that, but it's moot since a horse archer will work.

[novice]

I think we should draft Cutting Edge, and whip the forge when the city is about to grow past its happy cap.

[pindicator]

I think we should draft Cutting Edge, and whip the forge when the city is about to grow past its happy cap.

This makes sense to me as well.

[kjn]

I think we should draft Cutting Edge, and whip the forge when the city is about to grow past its happy cap.

Cutting Edge has 4t left of its draft unhappiness, and no whip unhappiness. I think it's better to whip the forge now, and then we can draft T148 or so. There is no real need to draft early in the city, since it's so close to the front.

We can also finish the barracks in the city before getting the next drafted mace if we whip first. 1 XP isn't much, but at least it's something.

[novice]

Cutting Edge has 4t left of its draft unhappiness, and no whip unhappiness.

In that case we should draft it now and again in 4 turns.

[kjn]

Also, cancel the gems+spice, and offer the spice in-game. If I were the Germans, I'd start wondering about why we aren't cancelling the gems trade.

Initiating diplo doesn't factor in here - this is a pure in-game transaction, that they've already written us about.

Another thing: we are as far as I know the only team that knows Drama. Neither of our Alphabet friends know it (CivFr went Literature->Music), and I haven't seen any theatre in any other city.