[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Fintourist]

B - NW-SW to the jungle - if we then fall back to Hastings he can't crack it, but he can move north, pillage the jungle road then move NE and hit Jamestown. Having workers in range of tile C to road it will let us try to kill the stack on the flat.

Have I missed anything?

I think that covers it! Scenario B would be interesting. I don't think it will be a problem to organize appropriate worker support. T104 all our workers improve dyes, T105 two workers move east and pre-cottage the tile W of Hastings. T106 we can road the tile C and attack. Suttree's timeline would be: T103: move NW-SW, T104: move N to jungle. T105: pillage the road and move rest NE to threaten Jamestown. T106: Find out his units are dead..

In any case I think we need to research AH this turn, then if we can't build a pasture next turn beg horse off someone (I don't think banana will swing it - perhaps sugar, whale or dyes?) and complete chariots with the Jamestown chops.

Good bye 30 commerce! Well, if you think that this is necessary and important I will accept it..

Our units should all get Shock promos if available and heal in place this turn. We should also move the GG down to 1W of Hastings this turn, if things turn nasty upgrading the warrior and sprinkling XP may be necessary.

I was about to suggest exactly this. Let's promote Mero to Shock. I think the emergency GG play will look something like this (depending on what suttree does ofc): Move warrior E of Hastings, move GG to same tile, attach it to warrior, upgrade the warrior, take morale + shock promos, kill an axe. The relevant part is of course doing the upgrade before taking morale promo so that the unit can attack immediately.. WB test probably required in order to secure that things work like this, but I'm 99 % sure..

EDIT: "D - NW-N to the flatland - he won't do this. If he does we have to take the shot at the stack."
- Despite the catastrophic results of last time (from suttree's perspective), he might still do this. This is the only way how he can isolate our defenses and actually have a chance to take a city from us during the next turns. Of course, he needs good RNG luck to achieve that, but anyways..

Btw, We have to be happy that suttree was so hasty and did not wait for these units to arrive. Imagine that he would have moved in and forked us with a stack consisting of 3 chariots, 9 axes and 1 spear (the units he has displayed so far).. Our current situation is better by a huge margin..

[Old Harry]

Turn 103 part one

Mostly_harmless beat TBS/Jowy to colossus Although they only have 52 gold so maybe they weren't building it (unless the failgold appears next turn?) TBSJ won't be that bothered - they got the Hindu Shrine to make up for it. Open borders with them might be a problem if we want to stay Taoist... Lord Parkin keeps trying to find that axe and I'm sending Rowain back towards France.


We met plako, the borders of either of these cities could pop at any moment and block our progress, so I'll just push forward and see if I can uncover a city tile. I think France is a snakey continent, not an island.


In the war zone the Barb Axe is joining in too, almost as if Suttree was communicating with it somehow... I've moved Yossarian, but didn't want to do anything else just yet.


To take my mind off the war I thought I'd amuse myself with some known-tech calculations:

Research	GNP
Myst	93
CoL	107
Aesth	108
Alpha	108
Masonry	107
AH	146
MC	109
Compass	107

We're producing 127 base beakers per turn, so I don't really understand why most of those are lower. Do you subtract the expenses from the adjusted beakers and culture?

Culture = 2+1+2+1+1+1+0+1+1+0 = 10
Income = 7
Expenses = 66
Espionage = 4
10 + 7 - 66 + 4 = -45

Col and Compass we can be fairly sure we don't get a known-tech bonus on, so 127 * 1.2 = 152 (rounded down) - 45 = 107

For AH we should get:
127 * 1.4 * KTB = 45 + 146
so KTB = 191/177.8 = 1.079

For Myst
127 * KTB = 45 + 93
KTB = 1.0866

For Alpha (which we know only m_h has):
127 * 1.2 * KTB = 45 + 108
KTB = 1.004

For MC (which two players have):
127 * 1.2 * KTB = 45 + 109
KTB = 1.01

All of which means that we'll get an extra 12 beakers because of waiting so long to get AH and six extra for Mysticism. Take that Suttree!

[Fintourist]

Mostly_harmless beat TBS/Jowy to colossus Although they only have 52 gold so maybe they weren't building it (unless the failgold appears next turn?) TBSJ won't be that bothered - they got the Hindu Shrine to make up for it. Open borders with them might be a problem if we want to stay Taoist...

Does open borders actually impact the spread probability? I'm somehow remembering that only having a possibility of a trade route matters.. Not sure though!

Lord Parkin keeps trying to find that axe and I'm sending Rowain back towards France.

Sounds good! I assume Lunch checked that the axe is not on the tile E-E of Lunch? Next turn we reveal a hut..

We met plako, the borders of either of these cities could pop at any moment and block our progress, so I'll just push forward and see if I can uncover a city tile. I think France is a snakey continent, not an island.

Interesting! & Sounds good! It seems we will will be having "open-borders-with-the-civ-with-GLH-prisoners-dilemma-discussions"..

In the war zone the Barb Axe is joining in too, almost as if Suttree was communicating with it somehow... I've moved Yossarian, but didn't want to do anything else just yet.

Very nice overview Annoying with that barb axe.. I'm very happy that we have now Yossarian around to support.

I think we move GG towards Hastings and probably that spear into Hastings (just to have one extra unit in case something unexpected happens). Then we promote Mero and rest just heals/waits unmoved.

To take my mind off the war I thought I'd amuse myself with some known-tech calculations:

We're producing 127 base beakers per turn, so I don't really understand why most of those are lower. Do you subtract the expenses from the adjusted beakers and culture?

Yes! As you also calculated..

All of which means that we'll get an extra 12 beakers because of waiting so long to get AH and six extra for Mysticism. Take that Suttree!

Excellent!

Btw, if we go AH first and want to get Alphabet we need increasing amount of wealth builds (not necessirarily this turn, but during the next couple of turns. BoP? Agincourt on T106? Dunkirk? If we can afford to do this, those wealth builds would have a quite nice quick payback.


I'm super interested to see what suttree actually does. Is he really going to feed us again 6 units on flatland..

Damn I'm annoyed that he throws everything at us.. Is it ever possible to attack anyone without getting an eternal-rage type of reaction. I don't think he can gain anything (except some kind of satisfaction) from this revenge, but sure, that's not the purpouse of revenge either.. I think we did a good job in taking control of this region and bringing enough forces that this kind of countering should not make sense, but well.. I guess this is all just part of civ 4 meta-gaming. We just have to deal with it and things could be worse..

[TheHumanHydra]

Yes, bring the spear up.

Has he had a GG birth? If so remember he can use morale too.

[Old Harry]

Okay, I finished up the worker micro, moved the spear to Hastings and Rommel 1W of Hastings.

I swapped Dunkirk to a bowman (to finish next turn rather than the axe to finish in four), Hastings and Jamestown are both on bowmen, jamestown can whip next turn and overflow with a chop into an axe, Hastings can whip t205 if it's still needed then. I thought there might be something we could do with workers B and A to make sure we get at least one chop next turn - if we move B to A then whatever Suttree does we get a chop into Jamestown. If not then we get the whip and (possibly) B's chop next turn and the chop from A the turn after. Since we've got the whip I think its better to stick with the original micro plan and hope Suttree goes the other way. Although if we want a chariot to play with t104 then we should move B.


The galley ended turn next to a Plakonic work boat. To kill or not to kill?

I just realised we don't need AH to build chariots so I can offer Ichabod and m_h horse for whale (which will make BoP and Cannae unhappy, but allow us to get chariots in Dunkirk and Jamestown started this turn.) IIUC as soon as someone accepts the other offer will be cancelled, then we can get on with alphabet. I'll do this soonish...

[Fintourist]

I swapped Dunkirk to a bowman (to finish next turn rather than the axe to finish in four),

Hmm.. The thing is that a C1 bowman won't have attacking odds against an axe, but C1 Shock Axe of course does. Consequently I'm not sure whether we want to do that. I mean, if suttree advances, we attack and everything goes bad we could then whip the axe to completition. So I'm not suggesting anything, both options are justified, just reminding..

Hastings and Jamestown are both on bowmen, jamestown can whip next turn and overflow with a chop into an axe, Hastings can whip t205 if it's still needed then.

Btw, does Hastings need to be on a bowman? It already has hammers in one so that we can whip it if needed, right? Overall, we don't want to whip those cities unless it's absolutely necessary. Delaying granaries would be terrible economically and reduce also our military production capabilities there in the future.

I thought there might be something we could do with workers B and A to make sure we get at least one chop next turn - if we move B to A then whatever Suttree does we get a chop into Jamestown. If not then we get the whip and (possibly) B's chop next turn and the chop from A the turn after. Since we've got the whip I think its better to stick with the original micro plan and hope Suttree goes the other way. Although if we want a chariot to play with t104 then we should move B.

I think chop in place is the way to go. There is also the scenario, where both suttree and the barb axe move in and we have to retreat the workers into Jamestown anyways. So let's get at least those 2 chop turns in immediately.

The galley ended turn next to a Plakonic work boat. To kill or not to kill?

Hmm.. He can move first next turn anyways, right? There's a fair possibility that we do not want open borders with him at any point so we might as well get us a new enemy if he leaves the WB in range.. Well, let's think about it next turn..

I just realised we don't need AH to build chariots so I can offer Ichabod and m_h horse for whale (which will make BoP and Cannae unhappy, but allow us to get chariots in Dunkirk and Jamestown started this turn.) IIUC as soon as someone accepts the other offer will be cancelled, then we can get on with alphabet. I'll do this soonish...

Hmm.. I'm not sure I like the prospect of unhappy citizens The thing is that if suttree moves in next turn we have to deal with those units without chariots anyways. If he does not we could offer the deal next turn when we have sugar to compensate for whale and we can divert a chop into chariot if we do the trade. Of course, that means that we don't get the chance to delay AH, but I think that option is still better than those unhappy faces in BoP & Cannae.

We could still try it with bananas though and see if Ichabod/dtay is friendly.. Although I'm a bit afraid that the horse trade offer gives our neighbors a weak impression of us and they become confident in settling towards us.

[Fintourist]

Has he had a GG birth? If so remember he can use morale too.

Very unlikely, he has not received a single XP point from the fights against us so far..


An overall comment:

We are 2nd in soldier points and we have 2 shock axes, 6 bowmen, 2 spears, 1 warrior + a GG to deal with those axes. And our units are better promoted too. Consequenly I'm all the time more concerned about making too many economical compromises than actually being able to defend against those units. Of course I admit that losing a city and making emergency whips too late is the most expensive practise, but I just want to emphasize that we are not playing for the 2nd place!

Btw, our demos already start to look more like it..

[Old Harry]

Good point about Dunkirk and Hastings - I'll change them back. I agree on the workers too. Although I'd be tempted to leave Yossarian on that hill it's probably best to cover the city.

I'm changing my vote to continue with Alphabet then on the turn roll tonight send the horse-whale deal to everyone we know has horse. If no-one goes for it we complete AH next turn instead.

I'll offer banana-horse to ichabod and m_h now...

[TheHumanHydra]

on can build chariots w/o AH - gah why am I so dumb sometimes. Yes please offer someone such a trade, and in that case I'm okay with delaying AH a little longer.

Thanks for the answer re: GG; nothing to worry about in that regard yet then.

Fintourist, regarding your point about military vs. economy - I don't know, the way I look at that balance sheet is basically we have a safety net of two bowmen, that's it. At the same time you're right that we can't cripple our snowball for the sake of peace of mind. Two not-immediately-helpful comments from this: I kinda do wish whoever it is to the south of suttree would take this opportunity to attack him, so we could get some heat off of us and security till we reach medieval units, and perhaps we need to start thinking about how soon we can get the HE for constant unit production in one city without impairing the rest. What's our highest-XP unit, and what's a realistic timeframe on teching Literature and building the thing? Is this a reasonable goal given our other priorities?

Finally, I wouldn't attack plako's workboat - 100 turns into the game, I don't think the relatively insubstantial damage to his snowball would be worth the distrust down the road.

[Old Harry]

Logged in to end turn. Plako wants to trade world maps. I declined, but he might be another good trading partner. m_h didn't go for the banana-horse trade, but I've left us on Alphabet.