[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[WilliamLP]

This morning's edition of the Retep report:




He's just pulling back. He basically has to because he can't be sure his units are safe on the no-man's land grass strip.

[MindyMcCready]

You don't want to try to fit a settler in? We'll pop borders in LT in a couple of turns; WT is getting close to being able to fend off anything other than a dedicated attack; and HorseyCity is looking ready to near-instantly contribute; and we've now got eyes where we need them to keep Bacchus honest; couple of tiles are already improved around Carmen,...

I'd like to get our front all hooked up and I think that you're right that we can outmuscle Retep if he tries to move in with his losing odds on his top 5 defenders. We'd maintain the same tactic of occupying the triple-fork tile and/or the Barbiere/Carmen fork tile and blast anything that gets too close.

Also, are you whipping the Terrace in WT this turn (before growth)?

If we're replanting Carmen we won't strictly have to replant it in the same location. The problem with Carmen's location is that invalidates that nice plains-hill that the Quecha is currently standing on as well as being more difficult to fork-defend with those rivers (but that ceases to be a concern with construction, right?).

I think that I still like Carmen where it was,...but worth a double think.

[WilliamLP]

You don't want to try to fit a settler in? We'll pop borders in LT in a couple of turns; WT is getting close to being able to fend off anything other than a dedicated attack; and HorseyCity is looking ready to near-instantly contribute; and we've now got eyes where we need them to keep Bacchus honest; couple of tiles are already improved around Carmen,...

The axe build above was unchangeable after Retep's move (though we may have considered changing to a settler with foresight), so I think we might as well spend the 1 turn to finish it. Then it's possible to 1-turn a promoted chariot or two. I'd really like to send an axe or two east - then the plan of watching the SE hill with an archer or two becomes more feasible.

I don't feel like a 3-4 turn difference in settling New Carmen is going to make or break us here, where extra military could mean the difference between another stalemate vs crushing victory the next time Retep pokes in, which is likely.

Also, are you whipping the Terrace in WT this turn (before growth)?

I don't really want to, because it means losing a turn of the gold for not much benefit, and WT has tiles to grow onto. Building naturally finishes with the food about half full to 3 which is what is wanted. I don't think 1 turn faster borders is critical. I think there was probably a way to micro it better than I did, but at this point I think the whip is inferior.

If we're replanting Carmen we won't strictly have to replant it in the same location. The problem with Carmen's location is that invalidates that nice plains-hill that the Quecha is currently standing on as well as being more difficult to fork-defend with those rivers (but that ceases to be a concern with construction, right?).

I think that I still like Carmen where it was,...but worth a double think.

I'm the same. Fork defending from the west seems more pressing than the east too.

[MindyMcCready]

Also, are you whipping the Terrace in WT this turn (before growth)?

I don't really want to, because it means losing a turn of the gold for not much benefit, and WT has tiles to grow onto. Building naturally finishes with the food about half full to 3 which is what is wanted. I don't think 1 turn faster borders is critical. I think there was probably a way to micro it better than I did, but at this point I think the whip is inferior.

The filling of half of the Size3 food box didn't strike me as particularly efficient so I double checked this against my possibly faliable spreadsheet.

Results were that the two scenarios actually had identically filled food boxes 6 turns later. That was based on me guessing what was currently in the food box (guessed 14F).

So based on that the Whip it scenario is ahead by 28H at a cost of 11COMM. It also benefits from the the earlier borders and earlier defense [edit - is it only 1T for 4T earlier Terrace?]. It loses a bit of miltiary flexibility for a sum of 2 or 3 turns, and it has 5T of whip unhappy but both of those are neutralized after 5T.

You might want to world builder this because that's a pretty strong benefit.

[WilliamLP]

Before spending the effort, you know that only 1 turn's food goes into the food box when you whip a granary and then grow, I presume? (Not the full 50%)

[MindyMcCready]

Before spending the effort, you know that only 1 turn's food goes into the food box when you whip a granary and then grow, I presume? (Not the full 50%)

If I follow you, yes.

Whipping retains the current food box at wherever it is. The next turn you've got the granary and you get the 1T food growth so I believe that you want to whip the granary out 2T before it would naturally grow.

I have tested my spreadsheet moderately against Master Krill's PB5 screen-by-screen snapshots and it seems to work the same once I figured for his tile sharing between cities so that's the good news. The other good news is that you'll only have to WB 6T for each scenario since that's where I found that they equalized. Hope I'm not disturbing your Friday night plans. :LOL: These PB games are a pretty big committment.

[WilliamLP]

You can check my quick mock-up spreadsheet?




The city is at 23/24 now (granary at 53 / 60).

I'm assuming we work the grass farm (3/0/1) at size 3.

I have No-Whip at size 4 and 13/28 in the box on turn 89. Whip is at size 3 at 14/26.

On turn 83, whip grows to size 2, and has 1 food (overflow) + 5 food (production from dry corn) + 5 (from granary).

No-whip is up by 1 full population and 12 comerce on turn 89. Whip is up by 28 hammers.

I didn't world builder this, please correct me if I'm wrong! I'm not going to play the turn for quite a while.

[WilliamLP]

Hope I'm not disturbing your Friday night plans. :LOL:

My Friday plans are as rich as you could infer from the amount of time I spend on RB forums! Actually, ironically I have a rehearsal tonight for an opera in concert I'm singing in.

[MindyMcCready]

You can check my quick mock-up spreadsheet?




The city is at 23/24 now (granary at 53 / 60).

I'm assuming we work the grass farm (3/0/1) at size 3.

I have No-Whip at size 4 and 13/28 in the box on turn 89. Whip is at size 3 at 14/26.

On turn 83, whip grows to size 2, and has 1 food (overflow) + 5 food (production from dry corn) + 5 (from granary).

No-whip is up by 1 full population and 12 comerce on turn 89. Whip is up by 28 hammers.

I didn't world builder this, please correct me if I'm wrong! I'm not going to play the turn for quite a while.

Without checking your spreadsheet too thoroughly, I realized that I was looking at EOT81 and we couldn't whip.

We can't get the benefit from whipping unless its 2T before the natural growth. So we missed the boat of whipping to retain a full food box and then having he granary materialize. Consequently your results are probably correct as of SOT82 that whipping is bad.

Well, now you can do that extra bit of practice for the rehearsal. Have fun!

[WilliamLP]

Without checking your spreadsheet too thoroughly, I realized that I was looking at EOT81 and we couldn't whip.

If we would have whipped on T81, the city would have grown immediately. In fact even on T80 it would have grown immediately (it was at 17 / 24, whipping puts it to 17 / 22 and losing the gold makes it +5 food). But we couldn't have whipped on turn 80 anyway because that was when the chop happened, and also when we got Math.

There was probably a better micro option to have it at 16/24 food on turn 81 or something by sandbagging 4 food for 2 hammers (work the grass forest for 1 turn instead of the corn actually 1 turn at a food deficit...) But that's too hard for me that far in advance... and then we'd lose 2 turns on the gold if we spend a full turn at size 1. If you want to do an exhaustive study of what we should have done in the last five turns, I'm interested.