Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[kjn]

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.

Can we do that? There is four tiles from the staging tile 1N of Ditchdigger to the spice via the road network, but we only have one war chariot on the staging tile this turn - the knight and the other war chariot are stuck 1S and 1SE of the staging tile.

Thus, I think it's best to move the two-movers to the tile NW of Wolfratshausen. They can attack Wombatshausen on T151 from there.

You may also have noticed that the size 1 city of Wipperfuerth was reinforced with 3 axes this turn.

I believe these are from a separate stack than their main stack, since the name and the promotion doesn't fit with those found in their main stack - might have been some group of axes they had up near their Apolyton border.

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.

The tiles 2N and 3N are still fogged (blocked by the forested hill). What about moving a single mace either to the gems tile or 1N of the gems this turn, so it can move 1N next turn? That way we can protect our sentry unit (which needs a name!) in the main stack for now.

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. [ ... ] 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.

If we cancel our deals with the Germans this turn (which I agree with), then we can observe where the German chariots go. If it ends up close to Eastern Dealers, we can move the war chariot in The Covenant to ED directly afterwards.

Agree on the knight whips and turning on Engineering research. With decent pillage gold from from Wolfratshausen and maybe a wealth build we might be able to run 100% next turn as well, and Wasserburg should give quite a bit. We finish Engineering in 3t with 80% slider and -222pt, so we will need circa 670-700g to get Engineering T152. Two or possibly three cities (one size 5 or 7) should give enough pillage gold for that. In worst case, we can set a few cities to build gold.

[mostly_harmless]

Cancelling German deals and starting Engineering this turn gets my vote.

mh

[Sullla]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I'll try to respond to some of these comments in turn.

* Shoot the Moon, your attack route for the two movers over in the northwest is definitely a better call. I simply did not see that possibility myself. However, as kjn has pointed out, a couple of those units are stuck a tile too far behind. They'll have to go on the route he outlined. Still, maybe the following turn we'll be able to push and threaten backline German cities.

* Eastern Dealers is a terrible city to whip or draft, for all the reasons we've been going over recently with regards to specialist management. I'll see where that German chariot gets teleported at the end of this turn, and react accordingly. I would probably rather move back one mace than one war chariot, both because two movers are so useful on the front lines, and a mace would get 99% odds to kill a chariot, while a war chariot doesn't get such great odds versus a normal chariot. We'll see where it ends up.

* I'm sorry Dantski, but a City Raider II axe is not very useful at this stage of the game, and we're not spending 125 gold for an upgrade to mace.

* Seven and novice have correctly pointed out that we can't move the Woodsman II axe into the nearby German city without Engineering tech. That said... we're about to get Engineering tech, and it's not like a Woodsman II axe is all that critical elsewhere. I would prefer to keep it in range of a possible swipe later if the Germans move out their defensive axes.

* I like the idea of moving a mace onto the gems tile this turn, so that it can take the forested hill tile 2N of the gems next turn. I will make that move at the end of this turn as well. EDIT: Actually we don't have any maces available to move onto that tile, sadly. We can move a mace there on T151 though, and will look to do so.

I've gone ahead and drafted our four cities for this turn (Adventure One, Mansa's Muse, Focal Point, and Cutting Edge). I have heard no objections to the 3 knight whips (Tree Huggers, The Covenant, Gourmet Menu) so I will do them at end of turn. Speak now if you are opposed.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Turn 149 - 780AD



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?

Do we have an economic building available to put the overflow in here? I don't see a courthouse, but we haven't emphasized those much. This is a good commerce city, and even more if it ever takes all the cottages from Seven Tribes. Perhaps a grocer, to be finished by a future whip/overflow? I see us running gold for a good number of turns as we absorb the costs of our newly acquired territory to the north. In the current configuration, the grocer would be worth 16.25g/t.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Grocer is far superior to courthouse I think. That city is right next to the capital.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Grocer is far superior to courthouse I think. That city is right next to the capital.

Courthouse: -8.33/2 = -4.165, so -4.17, or net gain of 4.16/t (if I've done that properly, but it's close anyway)
Grocer: 65 * 1.25 = 81.25, or net gain of 16.25. Clear winner.

[kjn]

Courthouse: -8.33/2 = -4.165, so -4.17, or net gain of 4.16/t (if I've done that properly, but it's close anyway)
Grocer: 65 * 1.25 = 81.25, or net gain of 16.25. Clear winner.

The grocer only works in 50% of the turns, though. But it's still a clear winner, even after the EPs from the courthouse are added in.

That said, the effect of the grocer will continue to increase with time as the city gains more commerce (trade routes, and maturing cottages), while the courthouse will increase more slowly in effect, and then lose some once we adopt State Property.

I think courthouses should primarily go in our production cities, that won't get much benefit from other economic buildings but can get the courthouse built quickly.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Courthouse: -8.33/2 = -4.165, so -4.17, or net gain of 4.16/t (if I've done that properly, but it's close anyway)
Grocer: 65 * 1.25 = 81.25, or net gain of 16.25. Clear winner.

The grocer only works in 50% of the turns, though. But it's still a clear winner, even after the EPs from the courthouse are added in.

That said, the effect of the grocer will continue to increase with time as the city gains more commerce (trade routes, and maturing cottages), while the courthouse will increase more slowly in effect, and then lose some once we adopt State Property.

I think courthouses should primarily go in our production cities, that won't get much benefit from other economic buildings but can get the courthouse built quickly.

I'm not sure what our current slider rate is, or where it figures to be in future, but we're a vast empire and working lots of tiles, so I assume a generally lower slider for some time to come, so more benefit from the grocer. And, come the industrial age, every bit of health is needed anyway, but that doesn't factor now. Just on the gold issue it's a winner, even if we are running gold ~50% of the time.

High pop/low commerce cities for courthouses, when we can fit them in, I agree there as well. But, really, as game leader, we're not likely to have much room in build queues for luxuries like that. We'll be churning units for ages now that we've gone to war.

[sooooo]

Yes, let's whip Gourmet menu. I think we should overflow into a university, we may as well start the long journey to 8 universitites before we can start Oxford. Adventure One can also start a university next turn.

I think I'd whip Frozen Jungle this turn too to get the knight into action quicker.

Yes to turning on engineering research this turn.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Don't you have to divide out the market's +25% and get back to base commerce before you add back in the +50% combined for market + grocer?

Looks like base would be 52 commerce, and 52 base * 1.5 = 78, not the 81.25 posted above. So the grocer isn't quite as good as indicated above, right? But I think it's still better than a court house here. I think we'd have to run 100% science less than 1/3 of the time for the courthouse to be better than the market, or something like that. Maybe that's better written as we're better off with the grocer instead of the courthouse if we save cash more than about 2/3 of the time.

But it's close, I think in a wash we'd care more about being able to run merchant specialists versus spies if we wanted to anyway. The +2 EP isn't a huge deal.

Edit: x-posted with the previous two posts. I disagree about building universities for now, I don't think we should stop building units until we've obviously won the war.