Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[kalin]

Just saying out loud: we can cancel OB with the Germans if we want to get rid of their chariot in our territory right? Also, let's keep the teleporting of that chariot in mind when we declare: we don't want to lose workers or even a city.

Kalin

[Sullla]

All drafts and whips done for the turn, we'll finish it up at the end of the timer tomorrow.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Just saying out loud: we can cancel OB with the Germans if we want to get rid of their chariot in our territory right? Also, let's keep the teleporting of that chariot in mind when we declare: we don't want to lose workers or even a city.

Kalin

On that note, we should use a sandbox to try to figure out where chariot ends up. Teleportation rules are confusing.

[NobleHelium]

Generally speaking you can expect the chariot to teleport towards their nearest city.

[Sullla]

Turn 149 - 780AD

War is about to be declared next turn. Our final preparations are under way.



First of all, here's our scouting war chariot about to enter WPC territory next turn. He confirmed that their eastern border is absolutely wide open; there's like one axe in each city and nothing more. Please email this over to WPC before the end of this turn; I'll post something in the diplo thread to that effect. I also offered a World Map exchange with WPC in-game, no reason for them not to have the most current info on where German stuff is located. With so much of the German army down by us, I actually think WPC will have a lot of success, and I realize that's a total reversal of what I was writing just last week. Needless to say, I was not expecting the Germans to send the house after us and leave their north/east borders completely open to attack...

Also, I do get a kick out of the name of that German axe on the hill.



We'll start by looking at the northwest frontier again, where our prospects look very strong at the moment. The Germans have prepared for the fighting by getting 3 units in the Wolfratshausen area: an axe and spear inside the city, and they rather interestingly chose to put their Woodsman II axe in the jungle to the east. Umm, ok? This should not pose much of a threat. I was more worried that they would whip walls here, as that would at least give our maces bad odds, but this makes us all but a shoo-in to take this city next turn. (The Woodsman axe outside the city... I do not get this one.)

We have a jumble of units ready to move onto the staging tile one north of Ditchdigger at the end of this turn. (Note that we're basically playing in turn order already; outside of my egregious scumbaggery of double-moving the main stack at the start of this turn, we've been playing and moving our units after the Germans for the last few turns.) The Germans do not have vision on the tile north of Ditchdigger, so hopefully this will come as a bit of a surprise. Our assorted units tally up to 4 maces, 1 elephant, 1 knight, and 2 war chariots. The hope is to use the one-movers to attack and raze Wolfratshausen, saving the three mounted units to do this:



Note that the city behind Wolfrat, the city of Wombat, is brand new and does not have cultural borders expanded. We can therefore move into the spices forest next to Wombat once the initial city's borders are down, and presumably can raze a second city on T151. I would be shocked if there is more than an axe or a quechua in there, and since we'll be playing AFTER the Germans on the turn of the initial war declaration, they won't have much of a chance to reinforce. If all goes according to plan, we'll raze these two cities on the first two turns of the war, and then immediately plant our own replacement city on the tile north of Wolfrat. Note the settler build in Ditchdigger, which we will 3 pop whip this turn.

You may also have noticed that the size 1 city of Wipperfuerth was reinforced with 3 axes this turn. That means we won't be capturing it with the Woodsman II axe, or at least not right away. I'll probably keep the Woody axe in the area just in case they all move away, and we have that avenue of attack open up. The good news is that we've drawn away 3 axes from the main stack to this strategically unimportant location. They are out of the immediate battle in the center front.



Here is that main front in picture form. We double-moved the Germans across the turn timer, and left their scouting chariot completely in the dark. It has already moved two tiles north, to the grassland hill pictured at the south of this image, and they have zero vision on the main "T149" stack. I tallied up the units on the left side of the screen for the curious, and this doesn't count any knights we whip or maces we draft this turn either.

The plan for next turn is fairly simple. We will wait until the Germans play their turn and end it. Do not move anything next turn - we have to wait until after they play to act. When we're up, we will declare war and immediately move our Sentry chariot onto the jungle hill tile north of the gems. This will reveal everything in the area (we'll even be able to see into Worms because it's on a hill!) and dictate where we move the main army. If we're really lucky, the Germans won't realize we can hit Wasserburg and the knights/war chariots can take it immediately. That's unlikely, but it is possible since they lack vision on the main stack. (The only unit they can see is the catapult northwest of Tree Huggers.)

More likely, they will pour all their units into Wasserburg. If they do that, I suggest that we move all our stuff NE-NE and prepare for a large battle. Yes, I know it's on flatground, but that's part of the idea. We want to draw them into a big battle in the field where we have the superior units. They'll get cleaned up if they try to fight us outside the city, and we want to destroy their field army ASAP, before they can tech to Feudalism. Speed is the overwhelming goal in this war. Push the action as much as possible without getting careless. Anyway, we'll see what they do and respond accordingly. It's a minor miracle that we were able to get into this position without them seeing the exact location of our main stack.



Here is the northeast on a more zoomed out view with the units labeled. Unlike the other fronts, I have not moved these units yet. That German chariot is what concerns me, or more specifically where it could teleport to when we declare war. We're fine if it goes next to Simple Life, since there's maces inside. The Covenant is also fine; we will almost certainly whip it for a knight this turn, and we can draft it at no penalty next turn. If we get a teleport down to the CFC area, it's a little more tricky. Starfall is fine, as it will finish Globe Theatre in 2t and can draft maces to defend itself. I'm slightly worried about Eastern Dealers, where we have only an axe on defense (not great against chariot attack!) and no units coming anytime soon.

My suggestion is that we move one mace down to Eastern Dealers just to be safe, and continue moving everything else towards Simple Life / Cutting Edge. One more mace up there probably won't make the difference, and we don't want to lose a city to some silly teleporting chariot. Sound OK?

One other thought: I would like to cancel Open Borders with the Germans at the very end of THIS TURN (T149). This will teleport the German chariot away, and make it impossible for it to re-enter our borders unless the Germans themselves declare war (somewhat unlikely!) It will also make it impossible for the Germans to scout out our main stack. We'll be hitting Wasserburg from the fog with them completely blind as to where our units are located, and ditto for our units on the northwest frontier. They get no chance to scout our units at the start of T150, and once we take the second half of the timer with our war declaration, they have no chance to react before we're at the gates of their cities. Isn't that a much better way to do things than the proposed "Let's be polite and email the Germans to tell them we're about to attack"?



Now we get to the stuff not directly related to the war. Here is our south, with lots of new cities still growing up to speed and a settler en route down to the silver. It can hop on the galley T151, unload T152, and plant the city on T153. I checked with our chariot, and no, there is no seafood down in the ice as expected.

The cities to be drafted this turn are Adventure One, Mansa's Muse, Focal Point, and Cutting Edge. All of them had a previous draft wear off this turn, making them easy targets to hit. I haven't done any in-game as yet, but will do so tomorrow.



Now for knight whips. Tree Huggers is the most obvious case; the knight is a 2 pop whip, and the unit will be right there on the front lines ready to take action next turn. Done deal unless someone has a gigantic objection.

The Covenant doesn't necessarily have to be whipped, but I would still do so anyway. This city has no production at all, nor a forge, and we may as well take the 3 pop whip right now. Thoughts on this one?



Here's the knight whip that's most debatable, at Gourmet Menu. It's still a whip for 3 pop, not 2 pop, but this city also has terrible production and overflow isn't the worst thing to get here. The city is about to grow to the next size, and the previous whip penalty is almost out, making this the right turn to whip. So we do want to crack the whip here... right?

The other knight whip cities (Seven Tribes, Forbidden Fruit, Frozen Jungle) look better to have their whips come out in a turn or two. I suggest holding off just a touch longer.

Overview:

Although we don't have enough gold in the bank to finish Engineering tech, I suggest we might as well turn on research anyway this turn. We may be getting a fair amount of pillage gold, and we would dearly love to finish Engineering sooner rather than later. So why not, right? Two turns of max science will get us about 90% of the way to the tech, although we're about 100 gold short of being able to run that. Let me know what you think about this one too.



Demos are about the same as usual. CFC has racked up a very impressive Power rating of their own to go along with ours. Our GNP looks awful here at min science, but it does go up to 640 when we run 100%, which means that things are not quite as bad as they might seem.

So we've been investing in military for the last 15 turns now, and we've got a pretty darn good army for this stage of the game. That is the main reason why our Demos don't look as good as they did a little while ago. The moment of decision is now at hand: we must convert that military investment into territory and population. The outcome of the war will probably determine the outcome of our game. Wish us luck.

[Shoot the Moon]

In the NW, after taking Wolfratshausen why not move the 2-movers to 2NE of the former city site? Because of the roads and the culture situation we'll still be able to hit Wombathausen on the next turn (NW-W-W) but if that city only takes say 1 WC can also use the remaining 2-movers more effectively to either threaten Wipperfeurth or even Weil der Stadt, which should be very lightly guarded considering how much of a back line it is. Being able to hit that on only the third turn of war might surprise them. Hell, we could even move NE-E the next turn and fork the two cities.

In regards to Eastern Dealers, what about moving the chariot currently in The Covenant 2SE this turn instead? If their chariot happens to teleport toward Eastern Dealers on t150 we use that WC to mop up. A WC obviously gets odds on the chariot and the axe can mop up if we happen to get a bad roll. If it doesn't get teleported that way then we simply move the chariot back into The Covenant for police duty and thus have that mace freed up (I assume that the WC in The Covenant is primarily for happiness, am I correct on that?).

Whipping off coast sounds good to me at Gourmet Menu. I agree with the other whips as well.

[Dantski]

Is Dantski the axe still hanging out in Eastern Dealers? I thought he was going to be a useful city taker in our wars.

[Qgqqqqq]

Can't we just draft ED if the chariot is pushed there?
I don't think its likely anyway, even though the rules don't always turn out properly. The cost is not THAT large if its wrong (if we're last in turn order we certainly won't lose a city), and giving them certainty of war (by cancelling) or losing a unit from the stack is a decent cost.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Is Dantski the axe still hanging out in Eastern Dealers? I thought he was going to be a useful city taker in our wars.

My warrior TyrantXenu is going to deliver the killing blow to take the last city, I'm sure that was written somewhere in the strategy plans. Probably on the back of the last page where it could be easily overlooked. (This is in spite of his last known whereabouts being somewhere near the capital, hiding away from any real work and "guarding" the palace).

One more turn....!

[novice]

Woodsman 2 + road doesn't allow the axe to move 3 tiles. We don't have engineering yet.

Just restating this. Our woody II axe can hang around though waiting for an opportunity post-engineering, if he has nothing better to do.