Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[NobleHelium]

Never mind.

[Ruff_Hi]

Turn 168 - 1080AD

Sorry for disappearing over the last week - work and home life keeps on getting in the way of the important stuff. T168 seemed like a pretty dull turn. The possible (HA!) war declaration on T170 sparked most of the discussion for T168 with some of it concentration on the actual end of the NAP (start of T170 or end of T170). I am pretty sure that everyone knew it was start but most of the people were talking (wishing?) about it being end of T170.

T167 --> T168 occurred on or about Aug 8th at 10am (RB time).


WAR! not quite yet.

General Sunrise updated his estimation of enemy strength while Mayor Noble chipped in with some management news.

There is some good news / bad news in the General's report ...

(Sort of) Good news - a full range of drafts by Poly this late actually suggests they may wait 1+ turns before coming in. Unless we're missing a city location, they only need to draft 4 cities the two turns before they move in (and 3 the turn before) to get every drafted unit into our lands.

Bad news - the RB portion of the spreadsheet will shrink a bit this evening when I log into the game and check builds. This is due to a few cities where we're putting overflow into infrastructure as well as cities where we won't be able to 2pop whip units out next turn.

... as well as some extended information about the collateral system in Civ4 (gathered from discussions with very learned individuals ([source: IMs with pindicator, Novice, Ruff, and Seven])

He finished with this estimate ...

In my middle estimate we need more. 32 attacks @ 41% means 13 kills, 19 losses. Same 3 kills versus jans. Then, and this is approximate, 17 kills versus the old units. 30 cats losing twice. Then cleanup (19 rifles, 2 jans, 3 old units, 2 cats for 27 total). That's 108 attacking units needed.

Novice chipped in with a screenshot showing that cats don't take all units to 50hp via collateral. There is a max deduction based on unit strength differentials.

General Sunrise then proceeded to run some simulations ...

Sim 1, 30 cats, fewer RB promos: 13 knights (as the last attackers) managed to flank away all 14 cats. We lost 53 units (30 cats and 23 others).

Sim 2, 30 cats, more RB promos: 12 knights (as the last attackers) managed to flank away all 14 cats. We lost 54 units (30 cats and 24 others).

Sim 3, 30 cats, more RB promos, muskets rather than maces: 14 knights (as the last attackers) managed to flank away all 14 cats. We lost 51 units (30 cats and 21 others).

Summary so far: Rifles getting to the collateral max is hurting more than anticipated, and so even 30 cats isn't maxing collateral, leaving a few ~strength 11 units. If we have enough other units to hit first though 15 knights are effective flanking cleanup units.

Sim 4, 35 cats, more RB promos, muskets rather than maces: 12 knights (as the last attackers) managed to flank away all 14 cats. We lost 46 units (34 cats and 11 others).

Revised summary so far: There's an eventual cap where more cats aren't needed, but 30->35 is still in the sweet spot. After the Poly battle we should have ~50-60 standard units left even after accounting for the civplayers front, but basically no cats.

Sim 5, 20 cats, more RB promos, maces -> muskets -> knights: 15 knights (as the last attackers) managed to flank away all 14 cats. We lost 41 units (20 cats, 14 maces, 7 muskets).

Geo-Political Update

We got visibility on a number of new cities following our map swap with univerCiv. As such, I updated the Geo-Political map.



You can also have the 4000px version.

The main take away for the upcoming war is that Apolyton have a very small attack corridor while CivPlayers have a bloody enormous one.


Diplo Update

Scooter did what Scooter does. Talk to people. Here is another attempt with Apolyton and CivPlayers ...

Apolyton and CivPlayers,

I'm sending this to both of your teams since it has been clear for awhile that you are working closely together. I understand the position you guys are in. You don't want to commit to peace with us, but you don't want to leave us alone to tech peacefully. That's completely fair. However, I think you guys are smart enough to know that a full war with us will just be a stalemate. I'm just going to be 100% honest with you guys: we are tracking your builds very closely, and we basically know what you guys have and what you might attack us with. We know it's enough to do some damage, but we also know we will be able to stop it before you guys gain too much. We've even done some simming on killing different stack compositions. Needless to say, our warmongery members are a little too eager about the idea of killing off a dogpile . Regardless, I think the only winner in this conflict would be CFC, and I don't think you guys want that any more than we do.

So I have one last idea for a peaceful compromise:
* NAP until T230 between all 3 of us
* RB will be generating two great persons in the next 15 turns. We will gift you each one of them. You guys can decide between yourself who gets which one.

This is the absolute best offer we can make. It's actually a little too much in my opinion (there is quite a bit of disagreement within our team over this), but our team has decided to offer it. I'd remind you that when it comes to keeping pace with us, this is basically denying us a golden age. If you don't take this, we'll be using this for a golden age at a very decisive time. If you take this, we'll be passing up on that, and our economic recovery will be slowed down considerably. We've also invested heavily in military to defend against both of you rather than building economic things, so you would have accomplished your goals of slowing us down, not to mention the bonus you both would get from a great person.

I would also ask that you please let us know your answer pretty quickly. This offer will have to expire as soon as the turn rolls to T170.

Thanks!
scooter - Team RB

Noble provided an update on our next two GPs ... first one out of Mansa's Muse (11 turns) and the next out of Eastern Dealers (11 turns but out to 13 or 14 once the GP comes out of MM). Both cities mixed GP population.

Their reply didn't take long ...

Reply from Apolyton at 9am NYC time (about 9 hrs after sending the email) ...

Team RB, Scooter

I'm afraid it's too late for peace at this moment, it is since we saw how easily you conquered inca's land.. you got it almost for free, getting every city while inca used their army against wpc, who got 0 cities, then we saw cfc getting into war with maya... so we came into the conclusion that war is inevitable and that we should not waste time or else we will have even less chance to slow you down.
We have no illusions that this will be an easy war for us, right now our hope is that we can make this war more costly for you than it will be for us, but even this is not guaranteed.
So we are looking forward to have a little "fun".

mz

So much for giving them time to think about it.

This generated the typical RB response (internal consumption only) of ...

Ok, finally caught up. Whew. Valiant efforts all the way around, but no dice. Apolyton is the senior partner, no way junior breaks with them at this point after backing Apolyton to rifling. In for a penny, in for a pounding, both of them.

Let's whip the 50pop and send a screen shot of civstats to both teams when it's done with:

... and this from our diplo guy ...

Apolyton,

Ok, let's have some fun then.
I hope you realize soon that this is not productive for either of us. Let me know when you're ready to start catching up with the new leaders instead, and we'll be happy to talk.

Best regards,
scooter - RB

You can see why we keep Boldly on the inside of RB only. Not that we want to ... but we have to.


In other diplo news ...

Nice! Deal!

Could you please give us a rough estimate of when you expect to reach Rifle? That would help us planify our development.

Yuufo

... and the reply ...

Yuufo,

We are estimating that with your help, we can get Rifling on roughly T181-T182, give or take a turn.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

Cloak & Dagger

No Steel for CFC. CivPlayers performed lots of whips which seemed a little premature (no gunpowder, no military tradition) so it was mainly for Knights(?) or cats(?). KJN was able to update that 'estimate' to a 'definite' ... knights!



Stream Archive

The stream for T168 can be found on twitch.

http://www.twitch.tv/noblehelium/b/443412444



Other

The T168 award for rudeness goes to Pindicator ...

What are RB promotions? Barrage? Wasn't it discussed above that this just gets units to the collateral max damage level faster? What other promos are available? Will C1 increase the change of getting a few hits on the defending unit?

How do you get this C1 cat and why do people keep suggesting it?

... and the 'We Hate CFC' trophy for T168 goes to Noble ...

You forget that CFC controls the turn roll (all annoying roads lead to CFC).

[Ruff_Hi]

Turn 169 - 1090AD

T168 --> T169 occurred on or about Aug 11th at 6pm (RB time).

This turn can be summed up by one post ...

Turn rolled. Some quickie notes:

CFC's golden age has ended, and we lost the southern spy in CivPlayers land as well.

Lots of techs. CFC researched Steel, WPC CoL, Apolyton Chemistry, CivFr Banking, and CivPlayers Military Tradition.

Univers has a very high gold generating capacity, they are getting 522 gpt right now (was 242 gpt last turn).

Ok, maybe two ...

Poly has 1,000+ gold. Civplayers has MilTrad. Would not be shocked to see neither with any gold at the end of this turn.

And thus the CivPlayer scheme is becoming clear ...

How many knights will 1000g upgrade to cuirs?

I think cuirs are 50g, so 20.

I thought civplayers still need gunpowder for upgrade...

They probably plan on having it when they attack.

Build knights while saving coin / getting coin back from Apolyton and then mass upgrading to cuirs. After stealing gunpowder first.

Our Rilfing estimate was updated ...

Here's a new assessment on how quickly we can get to Rifling. I estimate 7t of research - I doubt we can get it down to 6t (we were at 6.5t last I checked beaker values, so we have some buffer).

Our gold now: 1684
Gold required: 7 * 811 = 5677
Gold needed: 3993

We get 520gpt from Univers (excepting this turn), so that's 3120g over 6t. We also get 60gpt ourselves from the shrine and specialists. That's 3480g, meaning we need an additional 500g. One turn of 50% science might be able to fix that, but we'll have to see.

Ie, I think we look at a Rifling ETA of T177, maybe T176 if we are really lucky.

But we should turn on the research spigot this turn.

... and, finally, General Sunrise's update on enemy units.


Diplo Update

On the diplo front, UCiv started sending us gold ...

From UCiv:

Today we gave you 800 Gold.

Awesome, thanks guys! I see you are getting around 520gpt right now. Is that normal for you? We are trying to better estimate how quickly we can get Rifling. If you are able to supply us with that much gold every turn, we can shave several turns off the estimated Rifling completion date. smile

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

... and scooter returned to his 'nailing Jell-o to a tree' activities ...

CivFr,

We are about to get declared on by Apolyton and CivPlayers (NAP expires t170). Our CFC NAP expires on t175. While we've painfully converted enough population into military to deal with Apolyton and CivPlayers (hopefully only losing 2 or 3 cities), we won't have enough left over to stop CFC from taking a sizable chunk of our land should they move in five turns later. Given CFC will probably win the game if they claim our land on top of Spain's, we were hoping you would be willing to help us in two ways:

1) Can you loan us 200 gold? If you do this, we will give you back 300 gold by T190 at the absolute latest.
2) Refrain from making peace or signing a NAP with CFC. If they are forced to defend their border with you, its possible we can scrape enough units together to slow them down, though defending our Globe Theater seems impossible in any case =[

You guys don't owe us anything, so I will completely understand if you just ignore this and do your own thing. If you do decide to help us, we will do everything in our power to help you in the future, even if it costs us. We would like to win of course, but more important to us is that CFC does not win, as we feel their dealings with us have been dishonest. I would like to think we both feel the same on that last point.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

Scooter chatted to CivPlayers and reached out to UCiv about the 'no civic / religion spy mission' agreement with the hope that they will sign on.


Stream Archive

The stream for T169 can be found on twitch broken into two halves ... survey and then play.


Other

'We Hate CFC' trophy for T169 goes to Noble ...

I'm pretty sure CFC's face violates the spirit of the earth, but that's never stopped them.

[antisocialmunky]

Our greed knows no bounds, we are becoming the moon!

or an anthromorphic banana:

[NobleHelium]

Assuming CivPlayers ends turn in about two hours as stated, there will be a stream at 6 PM EDT or roughly four hours from this post. Main focus will be discussion of how to defend obviously.

[kjn]

City notes:

Adventure One: switch mine to farm?
Gourmet Menu: overflow to bank
Tree Huggers: overflow to bank, then whip courthouse (3-pop)? Or overflow to courthouse, 2-pop whip next turn? I think the bank is far more valuable in the city than the courthouse.
The Covenant: whip knight
Starfall: draft musket; cannot draft next turn
Simple Life: again, I think the bank will be more valuable, but the city has less production capacity, so probably stay on courthouse
Let It Snow: whip forge?
Mano y Mano: overflow to walls?
Doppelgänger: draft and whip catapult
The Gauntlet: work wines instead of sheep this turn? We will lose the city next turn, this will give more commerce

[pindicator]

Walls don't do anything against cuirs, do they?

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, we are not building walls.

[NobleHelium]

Okay, this is more interesting. There's a small stack southwest of Mano and CP has moved up some more units within range of BB. More to come on the stream in 40 minutes.

[kjn]

Some screenies, big-ass screen shots as usual.

Our city list:

Demos (before our whips and drafts):

Our budget (before our whips and drafts; note that we have enough gold to run 100% science this turn):