Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[kjn]

Agree on the need for all military. A bank in Mansa's Muse is probably the only exception. Also remember that as we grow the prior German cities we will get a natural economic recovery from there, no matter what we build, simply by working more strong tiles. Keeping those cities at size 5-8 will allow us to whip and draft efficently, and still work almost all good tiles due to the close city spacing.

Another thing I'm thinking of is our offshore cities. If we can get them to size 11+ it can bring 3C-trade routes to all our cities. As such, it might be better to simply grow them once we have the granaries and lighthouses in place.

[mostly_harmless]

Our NAP with WPC runs until T200, correct?

mh

[Sullla]

Turn 165 - 1050AD

The vultures on the other teams circle as we try to break out of our diplomatic quagmire.



We attacked and won again with our maceman against the barb city in the deep south. The mace is up to 5XP, will promote next turn to CR2, and should be able to raze Ghuzz. The capture gold will be welcome, small or not.



Here are our units moving over from the former German cities. The main stack is in yellow, the other smaller stacks in white. The group behind the rest are catapults who needed a second turn to heal after being redlined in the final battle at Huron River. Until we hear something otherwise in diplomacy, we need to assume that we're going to be attacked in 5t in the west. These units are moving to meet that threat.

This is the massive western front we have to defend, and even this is underselling things because it doesn't include the Seven Tribes / Let It Snow area in the deep south. It's the distances that make this so difficult, not so much the units involved. (If CivPlayers/Apolyton could only hit one city, we'd be in far better shape.)

Most of the recent draftees have been heading to the tile two south of Ditchdigger, northwest of the horses. This is not my favorite tile to put one-movers on; I would prefer a tile east, if that wasn't a peak. However, we need these units to be able to cover Ditchdigger or Brick By Brick instantly, and so that's the tile we need to be on. Fortunately neither city can be hit by two-movers without giving us a turn to reinforce. Also, as strange as it may seem, CivPlayers does not have vision on that tile I mentioned before, nor do they get vision from one of our cities via espionage there. And if they would try to attack that tile, it can only be with two-movers across a river, where our muskets should clean up their knights easily.

Mano is much more difficult to defend, since it can be hit by two-movers instantly on the first turn of an attack. I'm going to put our old maces inside the city (they can just move inside on T170 itself) and that combined with city walls (eot 169) and castle (eot 171 if the city is still standing) should hold against any two-mover threat. CivPlayers doesn't have Gunpowder tech, which means a castle will basically stop them dead. We just need the warm bodies to stall for time, and we'll have that coming down from the German front.

There isn't much of a plan for The Gauntlet, since we can't hold the city against a rifle attack. I should have insisted that we settle on the iron resource itself, which we would have a decent chance to defend. I did not anticipate Apolyton getting to rifles so quickly (with the help of all that gifted gold from CivPlayers, naturally) or them going aggressive so quickly. Ideally, we stand off CivPlayers behind castles along the border, and hit Apolyton's forces somewhere in that desert as they move across flatground. Have to see what they do first.

Does anyone know if a spy can be caught if you move into enemy territory and move back out the same turn? Is that safe (?) We'll be able to do that to check some of the CivPlayers cities on the border starting in the next couple of turns. I intend to move in our two spies on T168, stand stationary on T169, and fire off a counterespionage mission right at the start of T170. We'd have to be phenomenally unlucky for both spies to get caught in those two turns. And while they're standing there, the spies will let us see inside Costalot and the border city down by Brick so we can position our own defensive units accordingly. Them having vision on our cities definitely doesn't make this easier.

City stuff:



Here's a compromise at Mansa. I swapped a grassland cottage for the gold resource, kept the specialists as normally configured. We're losing 2 food/turn with 20 food in the box, so we can run this for a while for the extra commerce and production towards the bank. If you don't like this setup, we can always change back. Please do not run Priest specialists here, they are pretty far inferior to the Merchants.



Ditchdigger is waiting until we get that stone back to insta-complete its walls with 25 production overflow. I put our newest population point into a Spy specialist, since it's worth 1 beaker and 5 EP (with Nationhood bonus) and that felt more useful than working the 1/2 workshop tile. We need to save some pop here for the castle whip, don't go using it up on too many drafts, at least not yet.



This city just had its second draft penalty wear off; we have 20t of draft unhappiness right now. We can draft it again, or whip the courthouse for 3 pop. I have not touched this city yet. We are probably going to draft this city twice more for the triple draft penalty before all is said and done.



When do we whip this city's granary? Now? Half food box? Someone will know the answer to this. We're at 5/24 food and 6/60 granary production.



This was the last turn that I sent units west. From here on, units will be collecting over in the CFC border region. I actually think we could hold off Apolyton/CivPlayers without much trouble. It's the presence of CFC that makes things really bleak. Where do we get units for another front? Well, this southern area for starters. All of these cities don't need to be particularly large in size. We'll likely draft all of them 2 or 3 times to scrounge up something for the CFC border. Along with units skimmed off the top of other cities and the constant abuse of our Globe Theatre city, I can probably get up to 25 muskets on the border by T175. But it will be only muskets, not much in the way of other units. We need to crush our opponents in the west (where the war starts first) and then turn and wheel back to deal with CFC in the east, fighting a holding action until that can take place. I have no idea if that will work. It depends on what CFC brings to the party. Thank goodness they are not drafting yet, although I'm sure that's coming soon.



Demos for the turn, pretty much the same as before. Apolyton picked up Aesthetics tech, UniversCiv grabbed Banking. That was all for this turn.

I drafted Starfall, Focal Point (instant regrow), and Brick By Brick this turn. Drafting Brick allowed the city to regrow in 5t, which means we can draft again on T170, that was the idea there. We have two more drafts to play around with this turn if we want.

The actual moving of the units is not that bad, to be honest, and with all that's going on this would be a poor time to hand off who's doing that. What I don't enjoy doing is all of the reporting stuff, which eats up an enormous amount of time and energy. (This post took an hour to write, for example.) What I will try to do is cut back on the writing side of the game and some of the other tedious stuff, which means no, we're not spending 5 minutes discussing every promotion on every unit like we were doing before. That stuff really does not matter, and it was doing a lot to kill my enjoyment of the game, so you'll have to trust my instincts on the small stuff. Anything major or important we will obviously discuss as a team.

One last thing: Rifling over Military Tradition right now by a country mile. We can draft rifles for essentially nothing, while cuirassiers cost 100 production each. That means this is not even close as an issue. We're also building military in every city that has any kind of production, so please no more of the "SWAP EVERY CITY TO UNITS" stuff. We're already doing that everywhere it matters. The only change I could make would be to change the capital from its bank to catapults, and that I don't mind doing if people want that.

[T-hawk]

Does anyone know if a spy can be caught if you move into enemy territory and move back out the same turn? Is that safe (?)

This is safe.

Please do not run Priest specialists here, they are pretty far inferior to the Merchants.

We worked out that the priests are indeed better. The bank coming sooner makes up for the lesser gold production.

Each priest-turn produces 1/13 of a bank-turn, because the city is producing 13 hammers per turn. Each bank-turn is worth about 40 gold. So each priest-turn is worth 40/13 = more than 3 gold, which is more than the 2 gold difference between the priest and merchant.

When do we whip this city's granary? Now? Half food box? Someone will know the answer to this. We're at 5/24 food and 6/60 granary production.

Half food box, unless you care about the whip anger clock ticking sooner (which we don't). That will be next turn, when it will be at 10/22 food after the whip.

One last thing: Rifling over Military Tradition right now by a country mile.

Agreed. Glad that we at least considered MT, but drafted rifles make up way way stiffer defense than produced cuirassiers.

[sunrise089]

First, thanks for Sullla for playing the turn and for the usual excellent report. I do appreciate the thanklessness of the task.

However, I'm not convinced we're fully appreciating what we may be facing in just a few turns, or at least I don't think we're doing our best to try and deal with the threat.

If CivPlayers/Apolyton could only hit one city, we'd be in far better shape.

My discussions with teammates about the map have suggested Apolyton can only hit one city. I know Apolyton units could walk the long way to Civplayers or be boated down their sea, but it seems much more likely given their number of drafts that Apolyton plans to make a direct assault on us in 5-10t, not run their rifles around to get at our southern border.

Most of the recent draftees have been heading to the tile two south of Ditchdigger, northwest of the horses.

Given that, unless I missed where a consensus was reached on this, I think we should at least consider stationing the units closer to the Gauntlet. If Apolyton moves second in the war it's possible for our southern units to not reach the rifle stack until the fifth turn of the war. Admittedly that would probably involve an unlikely movement path, but I'd still prefer if we could threaten the Apolyton stack earlier.

I completely agree with much of the plan here, namely hiding our units from enemy vision where possible, blocking a Civplayers 2-mover snipe, and using anti-siege buildings to delay the enemy stack, I just think our drafted muskets should be focused more on the Apolyton threat.

This was the last turn that I sent units west. From here on, units will be collecting over in the CFC border region.

I think we need to be really careful about this. CFC has a NAP for 5t longer than our western neighbors, plus we suspect they plan to attack with cannons (an expensive unit that can't be drafted) via Steel (an expensive tech that can't be easily bulbed). I suspect CFC will move in on the later of T175 or 5-7t after they get Steel. I agree 100% with the plan to crush the western push and then turn east if we can, but to do so we need to make sure we don't have units that could be useful in the west shifted east even a turn too soon.

We're also building military in every city that has any kind of production, so please no more of the "SWAP EVERY CITY TO UNITS" stuff. We're already doing that everywhere it matters.

Tone aside, I'm not sure this is true. Looking at the screenshots, I see 11 cities at useful population on non-military builds. Rather than "where can we give up infra to sneak in a unit" I think the point of view should be "let's put every single city we can 2pop whip over the next 1-2t on a cat right now, and then pull a handful back if needed."

I worry this comes from a little bit of a meta-disconnect.

I actually think we could hold off Apolyton/CivPlayers without much trouble.

I absolutely hope this is right. I hope this dogpile can be broken up or the participants are involved less than wholeheartedly. But so far we have absolutely every indication that they're gunning for us 100%. I mean at minimum 50 units from Apolyton, 30 from Civplayers, and 40 from CFC seem inbound if the attack doesn't get called off. If WPC could send in a 40-unit army I think we're risking ruin if we don't plan for at least a somewhat competent attack.
_______

Two other big picture things. I've resisted speaking up out of respect, but while pretty mellow about civ even I have a limit.

The actual moving of the units is not that bad, to be honest, and with all that's going on this would be a poor time to hand off who's doing that. What I don't enjoy doing is all of the reporting stuff, which eats up an enormous amount of time and energy.

This is cool. I certainly prefer Sullla as a turnplayer to me, because he's a good player and great reporter. But I don't really understand three posts asking for a replacement, followed by replacements coming forward, followed by a 'never mind.' I won't try to speak for Lewwyn, but I know I spent a lot of time planning and discussing things in both RB and real-life before posting publicly. Again I don't want the job, I only want to ensure the turnplaying fits into what we're trying to accomplish as a team. I do feel though this could have been handled better.

...which means no, we're not spending 5 minutes discussing every promotion on every unit like we were doing before. That stuff really does not matter, and it was doing a lot to kill my enjoyment of the game, so you'll have to trust my instincts on the small stuff...

Rifling over Military Tradition right now by a country mile...That means this is not even close as an issue. We're also building military in every city that has any kind of production, so please no more of the "SWAP EVERY CITY TO UNITS" stuff. We're already doing that everywhere it matters.

I responded to the in-game side of the last part above, but in general I don't think this tone is conducive to the team getting along and people being excited to contribute. I 100% agree personally with rifling over miltrad, but our tech path and unit builds are important big-picture decisions that shouldn't be cast aside without discussion unless there is an urgent this-turn reason to move forward. Likewise whether 'small stuff' like unit promos should just be left to the turnplayer is a fair question, but I don't know why it needs to be presented as a fait accompli.

I've been on this site a long time, and I have mixed feelings at best over the general trend towards mainstream play and PvP games. That doesn't mean though that thoughtfulness should be replaced wholesale with as sooooo termed it 'LoL-style rants.' Again don't mis-read me - I prefer even a terse Sullla to me as a turnplayer. But I most of all prefer a turnplayer who is a skilled player, a good reporter, and is having fun with the game. Maybe this is such a competitive game that no one feels the need to sugarcoat, but I think a lot of discussion is being left on the table so long as people are being told ideas aren't worth discussing.

[Bigger]

spies can only be caught in between turns, or if they are performing a mission. so moving into Enemy territory and back in on the same turn is safe.

[pindicator]

Here are my suggestions. As an overview, I think we need ALL cities to swap to military and whip or build a round of units. Infrastructure is a luxury, IMO, in light of losing cities to a stack of rifles. I would only not whip a city if we think drafting it would be more important. It is starting out to be a bleak picture and we need to commit forces to 1) show our enemies we won't be caught unprepared and 2) to get the units in position before we need them, instead of whipping them at the start of the war and needing 5 turns to get them to the frontlines.

Would pikes be useful to whip and move into Mano y Mano? I'm not sure we can get a whip out of Mano next turn and still be able to whip walls & a castle in time, but if we can then we should.

Ditch-Digger: This has 25h of overflow stored up, correct? How about we swap to a pike this turn. it will be 28/60 at end of turn. Then we whip it next turn, and have 30h overflow that we can continue to save for the walls. Plus we get a pike. We could also do this with a knight for 3, or a catapult but then we'd only get 20h overflow for the walls. Either way, we need units and this is a great spot to whip one out.

Frozen Jungle: Either draft or swap to a catapult to whip the catapult. Actually, let's do both. Draft this turn, whip the catapult next turn. Overflow can go into the courthouse.

X-Factor:

If we whip this turn (values are what it will be at end of turn):

Turn	size	food	hammers
t165	1	9/22	72/60
t166	1	13/22	9
t167	1	17/22	12
t168	1	21/22	15
t169	1	24/22	18
t170	2	18/24	21

If we whip next turn:

Turn	size	food	hammers
t165	2	10/24	12/60
t166	1	14/22	78/60
t167	1	18/22	12
t168	1	22/22	15
t169	2	16/24	18
t170	2	21/24	21

You can also choose to avoid growth on turn 168 to gain 2 more food, but will have to weigh if that is worth 5c from not working the flood plains village for a turn.

I would definitely whip next turn, and considering doing the avoid growth trick on turn 168 to gain 2 more food from the granary.

[Mardoc]

It's been clear to me since the beginning that this is Sullla's game, with an excessive amount of dedlurkers. He's made it clear that although he'll read 20 pages of discussion, the final decision is his. I haven't minded, I don't think many people mind. He does bow to logical arguments, and he does read all the discussion. But I haven't had any illusion of control, either.

[kjn]

I agree with everything Sunrise said about the way we play the game as a team.

Given that I do my C&D differently right now, I think one possibility is to do a dual turn. We have a few players who take responsibility for making an initial turn report, basically describing the state of the game and setting up an action sheet that we can use as a basis for discussion.

As for your questions Sunrise:

According to the C&D sheet, Apolyton got Rifling T163 (ie they had it eot 162). I'm not sure if whipped muskets or maces are auto-upgraded to rifles.

We do not have graphs on Apolyton, so basically have little clue on how their power developed either before or after T160 - except that we know it has likely increased a lot since they got Rifling. We also don't have graphs on CivPlayers.

As for builds:

Adventure One has just started on a bank, and I'm willing to switch to something military. Mansa's Muse is on the bank, and that's the single most important economic building we can get right now. Agree on that priests are probably superior there right now.

Tree Huggers is on a market, and it will finish this turn, so I see no reason to not finish it. The market in Seven Tribes is at 120/150, but we can probably finish it with the overflow from a catapult whip.

Eastern Dealers is on a market, but we can probably switch to something military.

I'm thinking whipping the courthouse in Forbidden Fruit (70/120) and French Riviera (44/120), and swapping Gourmet Menu, Simple Life, and The Covenant to something military.

[Commodore]

Muskets are auto-upgraded. Maces follow the grenadier->Machine Gun path.