The Quarterdeck - Turn Discussion Thread

[Cornflakes]

Is rival WorSt power M3? Just checking...

And were sure that Trolls actually gifted an army and his isn't a bluff?

Can't be certain until the graphs update in a turn or two. I do know that last turn Rival Worst was approximately equal to our power. Also Trolls just made peace this turn and may need another turn or two to complete the gifting.

why are we settling another city if were gearing up for war?

New city would be solidly within our territory. 2-movers couldn't even hit us without us seeing it coming and countering/reinforcing. It's on a hill and with stone can get Walls really cheap. It'd overlapped with San Juan, but still quite a decent location for a border town. Full BFC available with no overlap to any rival civ. The cost in hammers is the same a one Grenadier, and the investment will repay quickly.

I think we should swap to Nationhood theology NOW.

Bureaucracy is netting us over 40 commerce. Multiplied by +250% that's 140bpt (1/6th of our research)!!! But while saving gold it's only +25%, or 50gpt (1/9th of surplus), and some of the loss will be recovered in lowered civics cost. Since we're SPI I would recommend alternating between Bureaucracy and Nationhood every 5 turns. Wait 2 more turns while we burn gold to get Military Science, then Nationhood for 5 and a round of drafting all around while running 0%, then back to Bureaucracy and tech Steel while the unhappy wears off. It'll delay Steel until T1812 or thereabout but like you said, we have enough Cats for defense now. We can keep Theology indefinitely. Won't be building infrastructure for a while.

[thestick]

Fair enough. As for diplomatic... troLos wants to get the most benefit for least cost, and that's by making q a satellite state. We aren't in any position to try and stop trolls from supplying q. What I think we should do is check of trolls are falling behind in military tech (I don't know), then tRy to organize Gillette and M3 against them, enticing Gillette with 'trolls are gigging away their army, now is the time to strike!'

OF course, old Harry's probably smart enough to realize were trying to take out the leader without spending a dime. still, I like the idea.

also, will be back hey late tomorrow, so look at Sunday morning for actual 'back'.

[Cornflakes]

The message to Troll is not phrased as a demand at all. It's phrased as requests, each one stepping a little further. I would be happy just getting them to stop future unit gifting since Q won't tech to build advanced weaponry himself. The other points are just extra. If anything I would start by cutting out points (2) and (3) and just send #1. After coming to some sort of discussion regarding unit gifting we can bring up NAP and/or long-term neutrality.

Tropical Trolls

TEAM (i.e. Q) is threatening invasion when our NAP expires T180 and is trying to extort concessions from us for continued peace. Having bought your army at premium price he appears determined to wring concessions from us. We have no intention of budging an inch and fear that war is inevitable, but we are prepared to defend our territory at all cost should he attack. Can we have your promise to cease all unit gifting after Turn 175 (allowing you time to complete your current obligations).

We appreciate your cooperation and will not forget to return the favor in the future should the opportunity arise.

The Pirates

Of course we probably won't ever want to war with Trolls ourselves, but at least it's a talking point. And what is this really agreeing to? No unit gifting. If we attack ourselves we won't be gifting the units away.

M3 has already mentioned fishing around for a dogpile. I think our best approach here is to come off as annoyed at Trolls unit gifting to Q and say we're all for dogpiling ... but saying that without actually committing anything (although we'll be attacking Troll's "vassal").

[thestick]

Ans yes, diplomatic with q officially blew up in our face. HHatever Lurker are left, laugh away.

still, w aren't in a position to make requests. Asking trolls to stop selling g units to q seems a bit pushy. Howbbout a simple asking the frills 'what is your take on the brewing war'.

and if m3 asks for oogpile, w have enough on II hands.

[Cornflakes]

Well, what can Trolls do to us other than continue gifting units? They're already gifting resources too. I highly doubt the'll forgive the debt or gift gold. And Trolls won't want to get involved in a war with a clearly-losing team that doesn't even share a border knowing that the sympathies of all other teams will be with us ... actually we do share a border now, but it's still a long reach for offense and we can defend with ease.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think that asking could make the situation any worse.

[thestick]

You're right, we don't have anything to lose. Send away. And send aquick message to Q that you'll have to take the gold from our cold dead hands?

[Cornflakes]

Sent email to Trolls.

I saw that Q had played so I decided to log in and check status before sending anything off to him. This was waiting:




What are we to do? Certainly no give up anything, I'm inclined to be warlike so I'd say go through with war even if he offeres NAP at no cost since he's pushed already and forced us to divert tech and resources from our Astronomy > island grab plan. I really think we have a good opportunity to take some territory here. Even this turn we'll have 7 muskets, 10 cats, and 5 pikes in zone defense on the border which is plenty even if he decides to sneak attack (plus the emergency reserve of 3 drafts with a civics swap). We let the NAP expire and build up until maybe T185.

M3's power is still higher then TEAM, so he must be Rival Worst at about 50k more than us which will be rectified by Grenadiers coming online in 2-3 turns. We lost Troll graphs this turn so swapped EP that way.

[Cornflakes]

I'll turn over the turn playing back to you if that's alright. For unit movements we don't have much that needs to be done other than move troops east and road a bunch of tiles. I think the best place defensively for our stack is on the hill 2N of San Juan. I put a worker there last turn to road, but until the road completes the stack can wait 1E on the corn. From the hill we can reach any square that Q could land a stack next to either of our border cities. They cannot be hit by 2-movers from that hill either, which is good because we want to stuff all our pikes into Maracaibo which can be hit along SE the diagonal. NOTE: at this time TEAM does no have Engineering tech so only as 2 road movement.

Trolls just planted a city south of the hill I'd picked out. We still have the option to plant a city in the area, but we can't reach that Wheat anymore. I still think another city is worthwhile. There are 3 farms pre-built that we can claim. It'll be defended on the east from TEAM by our large culture buffer and on the SW from M3 by the lake.

[thestick]

Fine with resuming turnplaying, just have to wait for Old Harry to finish.

Logged ingame, Old Harry has 16 cities visible on the continent. Once he logs out and I can open the trade window, I'll see how many cities he has total.

Chatted to Old Harry ingame, he like the map swap idea but thinks his map is too valuable to simply give away. I told him we can negotiate the price later.

Still skeptical of our odds to beat TEAM, attacking is insanely more difficult than defending, we can't draft Rifles, Grenadiers versus Longbows aren't as good as you'd expect, etc. Ignoring the effect of sunk costs on decision making, Astronomy and colonizing might still be better.

[thestick]

Colonization is a worse idea than I thought. Old Harry has 27 cities, meaning he has 11 island cities!

Moved the stack to the hill, will start stuffing Maracaibo with Pikes next turn. Trolls' power hasn't dropped much. Stupid me is starting to feel confident.