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

[WilliamLP]

Just more building, which doesn't make for thrilling turn reports.




Both Boheme and Don Giovanni are now size 2 and can easily whip walls if they have to. So Ichabod's best window for attack is passed now, if he were going to do it.

Peace with Retep runs out in 3 turns, so I'm very conscious we have three turns to act after this one before he can declare. It's an advantage of playing first, to get one more turn of forced peace for peace deals. We have 4 cats in the western force and 3 in the east, so honestly if we knew that Ichabod would leave us alone we could do some real damage already. Bacchus has a military presence now though so that's another concern. If we ever tried an assault on Suit Up I'm sure Bacchus would be looking at the action to see if he can scoop up what's left.




Note the dip in Retep's power. I think that means that he and Bacchus are actually fighting!




So I figured out what's going on with the Exports minus Imports, and I'm a noob! We need sailing to get the foreign trade routes. Knowing this now, I probably would have prioritized it over Monotheism, but I think we can 1-turn both fishing and sailing after this, and our econ should finally start to pop.

Oh well, it's good to screw up and learn basic mechanics where we're not competitive anyway.

Resource trades: One player or another can make a trade connection.

Religion spread: The spreadee can make a trade connection to the spreader. It's not necessary to have the other direction. (Does religion spread work the other way too? I.e. could I spread religion to someone without sailing, if I had it?)

Trade routes: Open borders, plus you need to be able to make a trade connection. (Which we can't, but Fintourist can.)

The good news is that -24 is a pretty big magnitude! And he has more cities than us, so when we get sailing it should actually be worth some amount more than 24 commerce per turn, which is a lot!

[MindyMcCready]

Retep vs Bacchus: Based on PB13 info I'd be writing that off as another diversion. PB11 cross-over effect makes this a legitimate attack.

I'd have preferred a great prophet, I'd definately say its worth more. Can't complain about the timing of a GM though.

So Mono --> Fishing good.

Tech choice - this pretty much may be our game defining decision.

Calendar (350b less 2 prereq)
+2 happy (spice + silk); +3 with market.
- Requires Sailing (100b)

Monarchy (300b less 2 prereq)
+1 Happy (if we can hold the city)
+HR
-Allows Feudalism

Feudalism (700B less 2 prereq)

COL (350b prereqs Writing & (Priesthood OR Currency). So that's 3 pre-req?)
-Courthouses.

We're up to 9 cities now with the NE of Stranger plant and look to have 5 strong cities to plant before we enter into marginal or Retep territory. So whatever helps us to plant, keep and produce the most from our 14 city sites.

Our 75H markets will help with our support numbers and shouldn't take too long to build which makes me lean towards COL as a means to keep our infrastructure cities on infrastructure. Scenario: if I had to pick one tech and then crash into absolute 0 gpt,...well I would choose Monarchy in that case; so that's telling in my mind.

Tied to this decision is our meta-game choices.
1. Crossing our fingers that Ichabod is going after Cheetah with all that power - what is our response going to be? Do we take advantage of the high likelihood that his army is stretched to the other side of the continent to disrupt his plans? Or do we let him have all of Cheetah's cities undisputed? In a regional game, interrupting Ichabod would probably give us our best chance at surviving him in the long-term. In a world-wide game, it's suicide of course but on our own terms. Are we playing a regional game or a world-wide game helps to inform this decision.

2. What to do about Retep? If we reposition our cats + axes + some spears we could end the threat and take that land while he's busy with Bacchus and Bacchus is weakened and busy defending. Doing this and establishing the border we want would hugely increase our chances of having a role in a 'world-wide' game in my mind. Moving on Retep means staying away from Ichabod of course. Given the positioning of his units, this seems like a very easy win and one that I would risk sacrificing NE Stranger to achieve. Of course, re-diverting to the seafood city would mitigate this issue and is now viable now that we bulbed Currency.

So I guess my ideal would be:
- deal Retep the fatal blow. If we hit the capital quick enough his units should strike. Watch out for declaration of Peace unit repositioning though.
- stay clear of Ichabod.
- settle what we can towards Bacchus
- tech to give us the best chance of profiting from these cities. --> COL.
- COL --> Monarchy --> Feudalism gives us our best balance of build + protection + happy.
- Our response to Ichabod would be either building units or building wealth towards Feudalism
- Estalish a front line city with Cheetah that's purely defensive the minute we see Ichabod make a move. We're going to need a very strong front there. Longbows on a hill there would save us a lot of unit maintenace in our other cities.

[WilliamLP]

Retep vs Bacchus: Based on PB13 info I'd be writing that off as another diversion. PB11 cross-over effect makes this a legitimate attack.

Heh, I still wonder why is this even a thing? Isn't it hard enough weaving a tangled web of diplomacy in a single game?

Tech choice - this pretty much may be our game defining decision.

Calendar (350b less 2 prereq)
+2 happy (spice + silk); +3 with market.
- Requires Sailing (100b)

+ The tile yields themselves are pretty good.

Not sure if you read the last report yet, but Sailing is a no-brainer now, since we don't get foreign trade routes without it. The cost-benefit is just immense, like 30 commerce per turn or more.

Monarchy (300b less 2 prereq)
+1 Happy (if we can hold the city)
+HR
-Allows Feudalism

The odd thing is still that we don't have many happy problems. Either Monarchy or Calendar would solve them all, pretty much. We do have health problems but with seafood, and also trading surplus happy for health (we could probably get 2-for-1 with someone), that would go away too.

COL (350b prereqs Writing & (Priesthood OR Currency). So that's 3 pre-req?)
-Courthouses.

+ Spiritual switch to Caste for ultra-fast border pops. (At the cost of not having slavery for 5 turns.)
+ Espionage per courthouse, not a small thing.

We're up to 9 cities now with the NE of Stranger plant and look to have 5 strong cities to plant before we enter into marginal or Retep territory. So whatever helps us to plant, keep and produce the most from our 14 city sites.

Yeah. We'll also have the next settler out in 2 turns. "Keep" is the hardest variable to quantify.

Our 75H markets will help with our support numbers and shouldn't take too long to build which makes me lean towards COL as a means to keep our infrastructure cities on infrastructure. Scenario: if I had to pick one tech and then crash into absolute 0 gpt,...well I would choose Monarchy in that case; so that's telling in my mind.

I was pretty pro-feudalism for a while, but with foreign trade routes, our tech is suddenly going to be quite good so we may be able to afford the basic anti-stagnation (CoL, Calendar) techs really soon. The only threat I'd say we absolutely require Feudalism for is when Ichabod gets maces, though it would make elephants a lot less painful too.

2. What to do about Retep? If we reposition our cats + axes + some spears we could end the threat and take that land while he's busy with Bacchus and Bacchus is weakened and busy defending. Doing this and establishing the border we want would hugely increase our chances of having a role in a 'world-wide' game in my mind. Moving on Retep means staying away from Ichabod of course. Given the positioning of his units, this seems like a very easy win and one that I would risk sacrificing NE Stranger to achieve. Of course, re-diverting to the seafood city would mitigate this issue and is now viable now that we bulbed Currency.

Yeah, getting seafood going now seems an easy decision. Bacchus has a lot of power now, and only one place he needs to focus his forces.

With new info, Ichabod has a pretty cozy and positive-sum relationship on his other side. Ichabod is basically getting a lot of his tech from Fintourist's alphabet! So I don't know if that border is really all that tense. However, Fintourist doesn't need Ichabod. As much as I don't like the change, the diplomatic and strategic effects of Alphabet in RBMod are interesting.

Yet another eye roll for you maybe but I don't think we're near the point where taking out Retep is cost-effective. We'd need to do it decisively enough that Bacchus couldn't march in and take out the injured units that are left. Ichabod has more power than us now, and he may not react, but if he's thinking of it it would certainly increase the likelihood that he does.

-

COL --> Monarchy --> Feudalism gives us our best balance of build + protection + happy.

I think I can get behind that. (With sailing inserted in first. It won't take long.) Metal Casting is also great for RBMod workshops and forges but it's too much a "nice to have" rather than a requirement still.

- Estalish a front line city with Cheetah that's purely defensive the minute we see Ichabod make a move. We're going to need a very strong front there. Longbows on a hill there would save us a lot of unit maintenace in our other cities.

That's a good point, and maybe it's worth planting a fairly poor city in that zone just for that purpose, to be a buffer.

[MindyMcCready]

Both Boheme and Don Giovanni are now size 2 and can easily whip walls if they have to. So Ichabod's best window for attack is passed now, if he were going to do it.

Yay! Hopefully our terrace gamble will pay off.

Peace with Retep runs out in 3 turns,

+ risk of teleporting units.

If we ever tried an assault on Suit Up I'm sure Bacchus would be looking at the action to see if he can scoop up what's left.

2T after DOW and we're at his capital that is probably defended by no more than 3 archers. Sure, we could get into a stand off over his copper city.

Note the dip in Retep's power. I think that means that he and Bacchus are actually fighting!

Crazy.

So I figured out what's going on with the Exports minus Imports, and I'm a noob! We need sailing to get the foreign trade routes. Knowing this now, I probably would have prioritized it over Monotheism, but I think we can 1-turn both fishing and sailing after this, and our econ should finally start to pop.

Oh well, it's good to screw up and learn basic mechanics where we're not competitive anyway.

Ouch. 25 gold and we didn't get anything? Well I surely would have made the same mistake. Full steam to sailing to recover.

The good news is that -24 is a pretty big magnitude! And he has more cities than us, so when we get sailing it should actually be worth some amount more than 24 commerce per turn, which is a lot!

That's a lot! Maybe Ichabod won't be so scary after that.

I know little about trade routes so I'll be interested in seeing what happens after we get sailing.

[MindyMcCready]

Retep vs Bacchus: Based on PB13 info I'd be writing that off as another diversion. PB11 cross-over effect makes this a legitimate attack.

Heh, I still wonder why is this even a thing? Isn't it hard enough weaving a tangled web of diplomacy in a single game?

I just don't see any other reason for his sudden interest in Bacchus' formerly unguarded cities and/or his sudden disinterest in causing us harm.

Calendar (350b less 2 prereq)
+2 happy (spice + silk); +3 with market.
- Requires Sailing (100b)
+ The tile yields themselves are pretty good.

And I'll add to what you added: trade value since we have extra spices and silk I think.

Not sure if you read the last report yet, but Sailing is a no-brainer now,

Agreed.

The odd thing is still that we don't have many happy problems. Either Monarchy or Calendar would solve them all, pretty much. We do have health problems but with seafood, and also trading surplus happy for health (we could probably get 2-for-1 with someone), that would go away too.

Calendar just went down in cost too given Sailing.

COL (350b prereqs Writing & (Priesthood OR Currency). So that's 3 pre-req?)
-Courthouses.
+ Spiritual switch to Caste for ultra-fast border pops. (At the cost of not having slavery for 5 turns.)
+ Espionage per courthouse, not a small thing.

Yeah, my list was pretty incomplete. Calendar went up in value and so did COL.

On that happy + no whipping topic. It's fairly common knowledge that the net benefit of whipping drops off after a certain city size. That spreadsheet I did confirms what's intuitive and/or can help determine the size where whipping becomes ineffective.

We're up to 9 cities now with the NE of Stranger plant and look to have 5 strong cities to plant before we enter into marginal or Retep territory. So whatever helps us to plant, keep and produce the most from our 14 city sites.

Yeah. We'll also have the next settler out in 2 turns. "Keep" is the hardest variable to quantify.

Yeah, don't you love those sweeping mission statements. Onwards and Upwards! :LOL:

Yeah, getting seafood going now seems an easy decision. Bacchus has a lot of power now, and only one place he needs to focus his forces.

Yeah, he's got the food to complete with us for total units. But he doesn't have cats yet so shouldn't be able to threaten any mature cities too easily. Lots of spears on that border.

Yet another eye roll for you maybe but I don't think we're near the point where taking out Retep is cost-effective. We'd need to do it decisively enough that Bacchus couldn't march in and take out the injured units that are left. Ichabod has more power than us now, and he may not react, but if he's thinking of it it would certainly increase the likelihood that he does.

I'm not really sure why you feel that it couldn't be cost effective. It's by no means a guarantee, but Retep's consistently left almost no army at home. 3 archers would kill off 3 axes or 3 cats and then simply die to the follow up attacker. He can't whip anything substantial. So this isn't much if any more expensive than a settler but comes with improvements.

Also, we're at peace with Retep and Bacchus now (right?) so Ichabod wouldn't have reason to think that we're drastically out of position. 2T later we've got our prize and can redeploy. That's not too much time for Ichabod to really commit.

The only real risk that I see while he's in Bacchus territory is that his units teleport back.

The main prize would be Suit Up because it seals off the rest of Retep's land. We'd then be able to put another 3 killer cities in that area which brings our 'easy' cities count from 14 to 18 (counting Suit Up). But we could easily make a more aggressive move to land another city or two in Bacchus' direction. And I think that we probably should do so especially if we think that our commerce can support it.

Retep was practically offering his cities to Bacchus for free. Bacchus never had the army to capitalize on that. Now he does. Also, in part due to PB11 we're now being offered the same opportunity that Bacchus has been offered all along.

With the exception of opportunism from Ichabod, I'm not sure what we really have to lose. Bacchus' army is at least as likely as our to be banged up. And we have the production to beat him to it if we commit ourselves. LAND=Power and taking suit up gives us access to 4 cities. We should not be lightly passing up those kinds of opportunities.

If it doesn't work out we can always so bravely and boldly retreat to the safety of our borders. :LOL: We'll be in forest or on hills so it should be so risky. It's also not like we'll be suffering a diplo penalty.

COL --> Monarchy --> Feudalism gives us our best balance of build + protection + happy.

I think I can get behind that. (With sailing inserted in first. It won't take long.) Metal Casting is also great for RBMod workshops and forges but it's too much a "nice to have" rather than a requirement still.

Yeah, I forgot how good Metal Casting is now. +2 happy per forge.

But still not good enough to bump Feudalism I don't think at least not right now.

[WilliamLP]

On that happy + no whipping topic. It's fairly common knowledge that the net benefit of whipping drops off after a certain city size. That spreadsheet I did confirms what's intuitive and/or can help determine the size where whipping becomes ineffective.

The reason is just that the amount of food to grow increases with size. I also think it's not usually a good idea to whip a city that has both cap room and good tiles that are unworked, with the obvious exceptions like granaries. (Because you throw off an entire curve.) I have a lot to learn about city micro and planning though, and I don't have the time or stamina to go watch 100 hours of Krill's videos.

Yeah, he's got the food to complete with us for total units. But he doesn't have cats yet so shouldn't be able to threaten any mature cities too easily. Lots of spears on that border.

I think we can assume Bacchus will have cats very soon, if not now. His tech rate has been better than ours for a while. It's about to shoot up, also, with contact to Fintourist's scout.

I'm not really sure why you feel that it couldn't be cost effective. It's by no means a guarantee, but Retep's consistently left almost no army at home. 3 archers would kill off 3 axes or 3 cats and then simply die to the follow up attacker. He can't whip anything substantial. So this isn't much if any more expensive than a settler but comes with improvements.

He'd have 3 turns to react, since even with 2 minute turns anyone can see what a big stack 1SW of Barbiere means. I would assume he can get nearly all of his 1-movers into Suit Up by then, unless we can prove otherwise. I don't think there's any evidence that his fighting with Bacchus is more than seeking around with 2-movers. And of course his 2-movers can always come back and defend as well.

We'd also have to at least consider a base-race scenario where Retep whips all the archers he can while going for our core with everything he has.

Also, we're at peace with Retep and Bacchus now (right?) so Ichabod wouldn't have reason to think that we're drastically out of position. 2T later we've got our prize and can redeploy. That's not too much time for Ichabod to really commit.

There's also the possibility he's thinking of an attack anyway, and would catch us with our pants down like Retep did with Carmen before, where we could have defended if in position.

The only real risk that I see while he's in Bacchus territory is that his units teleport back.

Yeah, if he even needs that. I don't think we can assume he's moved in with any 1-movers, and horses could run back in time anyway.

With the exception of opportunism from Ichabod, I'm not sure what we really have to lose.

Commerce from unit supply, and aggression from Bacchus (both while fighting as a third party, and also an attack toward the new city and Manon). Also, we still have peaceful development to do, and attacking Retep will become more realistic as every turn goes by. In the current situation we don't even have to worry about Bacchus taking him out because we could do the same thing I'd be worried about him doing: moving in with a large stack to split the difference after he sieges, suicides cats, and attacks.

But still not good enough to bump Feudalism I don't think at least not right now.

Yeah, without Feudalism, I'm not sure we're even playing this game in 30 turns.

[MindyMcCready]

I went back and, you know, actually looked at the map. Yes, Retep's units are definately NOT out of position. We should be watching for opportunities but this is not yet one. Attacking through 20+ units to win 1 city is definately not cost effective.

Sorry, I'm very busy at work now - you're getting half-baked suggestions. Please read these things as a general desire for bloodshed rather than actual advice.

Also, agree with the 'has cats' assumption.

Ideally, when we're ready or a real opportunity presents itself we should move in a way similar to the pic because that's some pretty valuable land over there. Fork defending between Manon & Barbiere in the invisible location may also give us some setups.

[WilliamLP]

I went back and, you know, actually looked at the map. Yes, Retep's units are definately NOT out of position. We should be watching for opportunities but this is not yet one. Attacking through 20+ units to win 1 city is definately not cost effective.

Yeah. We can definitely think about a "judgement day" attack when axes start to become obsolete to the world, but can still be useful after enough cat suicide. Bacchus being there with the same incentives does complicate things, when the best case for both of us is to get there just after the other.

Please read these things as a general desire for bloodshed rather than actual advice.

Don't worry. My assumption is that you want to attack Retep on every turn, so I read how urgent it is at any given time, heh.

Ideally, when we're ready or a real opportunity presents itself we should move in a way similar to the pic because that's some pretty valuable land over there. Fork defending between Manon & Barbiere in the invisible location may also give us some setups.

It does seem like a nice approach route, with a forest and hill to protect the route. If Retep were serious about this game, he should really be chopping those forests during enforced peace, if he even has any workers now, heh.

Also I actually wonder how close Barbiere is to being able to take some cultural control away. E.g. a 1000 year old library is 4 culture per turn and Retep doesn't have religion. I haven't checked in a while.

[WilliamLP]

The Tales of Hoffmann


"The Tales of Hoffmann" is Jacques Offenbach's opera featuring three stories from ETA Hoffmann, who was known for fantasy and the grotesque. ("The Nutcracker" is based on one of his stories.) The most famous scene is probably the one above, where the mechanical doll (who Hoffmann believes is real because of magic glasses) sings her song. This blog article tells the story of a soprano who was understudying the role, and got called to make her Met debut with three hours notice when the lead got sick. And during the repeat she interpolated the tune to include the highest notes ever sung at the Metropolitan Opera! The video is most effective especially if you've heard the aria a hundred times and are caught by surprise - and you can hear the audience actually gasp at the notes she puts in.

Anyway...




During peacetime, I have no excuse not to have worker pre-action down a lot better than I do, other than laziness and just playing the turns unit-by-unit as they come. It would have been nice to have the two chops finish immediately on the turn of settlement.

Hoffmann increased costs by 6, and it's actually producing 5 science with the Oasis (2 trade routes), so when they become foreign, I think new cities that can work commerce are actually still paying for themselves right now.




Ichabod pulled clam from us (he probably got sheep elsewhere, I didn't check). This is fine, it was a net neutral trade for us anyway.

The expanded Traviata now has really nice vision, and even captures a wheat. There aren't many tricks that Retep could pull from that way.




Note the peak 2N2E of Suit Up is third ring for both Retep and Barbiere, and it's 40% ours. A temple and monastery in Barbiere to try and get it (both for vision and vision denial) might not be crazy, but I don't know if it's worth it at this point.

Organized religion is costing 5gpt, but also worth it. Sailing should come in at the end of next turn with the fishing overflow. The settler above actually finishes this turn.

I'm thinking about how much standing army we really need dedicated to Retep at the moment. I don't think actually very much, and I'm going with about 4 spears, 3 axes, 2 cats. If we see him move we'll have warning to move more distant troops in or build some. Everything else we've got can hang around the east and able to defend Hoffmann. Bacchus isn't exactly going to be loving us or that city site right now.

Not shown, but Ichabod is still ramping up power quickly.

[MindyMcCready]

Some points on Retep: I guess I want to know what you mean by 4 spears + 3 axes + 2 cats. Well I understand what that means, but is that all the units allocated to the Barbiere/LT front? Does that include the MP in the cities themselves? If so, I'd say that's a little bit light and you're tempting fate. Hoffman's our future and all, but we can't take a chance with Barbiere given Retep's city visibility.

1. Chopping the forest NW of LaTraviata will reduce our response time there by 1 turn. Retep could launch from Horse city and be 2W of LaTraviata on the first turn. No chance to whip in that case. Recommend keeping that forest. Even better with a spear on it. River + forest would be too costly for him to bother with.

2. We still only have 1T of notice in Barbiere which means no whips. T115 he had 5HA + 4 chariots visible that could be at Barbiere in 1-2T.
-His peak power looks to be the 183K which I estimated to be 8HA + 5 chariots + 6 axe + 3 spear + 1 archer.
-His power looks to have dropped to 175K, 8K probably means he probably lost a pair of chariots.
-So I'd still say that you need to be able to repel 8HA + 3 chariots on 1 turns notice with the rest of the stack 1T behind that. If Retep sees a weak spot, he'd whip to add a HA to that stack.
-Those units can/should sit in Barbiere. With the extra visiblity, we can beat him to LaTraviata now so long as we don't chop that forest mentioned above.
-Those units you mentioned would make for a close battle at first glance. C1 spear with full fort has 56% chance of surviving a second HA. So we'd be on a coin-flip chance,....cats then defend against chariots,...axe defends against a lucky HA. Probably be ok for the first round. Second round we get whatever's already built at the time in Turadot & LT, Manon; nothing whipped would make it in time other than a Barbiere whip. With city visibility, you're making that a pretty close battle and maybe a little too tempting for him to pass up given his dogmatic objectives so far.

3. I wouldn't spend hammers on a cultural battle over a city that won't be there for too long. Whether it's us or Bacchus, that culture shouldn't be there 50T from now. Right? :LOL:

4. We can pre-farm that wheat tile for a very rapid growth on our next city presumably 3W Turandot (next after fishing that is). Probably should be very well timed with a missionary to remove that as a weak spot as soon as possible. It would be a little risky to plant there with Barbiere, Hoffman, LaTraviata all being weak spots (not that LT is weak, but spreading out the same troops over those 2 locations).

5. Hoffman's not worth battling it out with 21 units and its certainly not worth putting Barbiere at risk. I'd also happily trade Suit up for Hoffman.

Can you post the power graph as well as latest pics from Ichabod's lands? We've been assuming that he'll head towards Cheetah, but I'm getting a little nervous that that's a dangerous assumption. I'm hoping that that sheep trade cancellation doesn't mean that Ichabod plans on acquiring his own at our expense.

We should also think of any ways that we can help Cheetah without infuriating Ichabod too much. Pics of Cheetah's land to help us see if his strategic resources are at risk? If they are we may have to consider gifting our own to stiffen Cheetah's defense. Double-edged sword and all. Also, builds may be interrupted.