If the other members of the coalition are increasing their power it could make you a more attractive target - that flat power line of yours is worrying... You want to be building up your power in any case for the eventual BowAvio attack so can you afford a few more units?
We have a NAP with BowAivo for 20 more turns. My plan was to try and get Monarchy then Construction by T130, and then turn off research and spend the next 10 turns whipping the army at the last moment. But you raise a good point about painting a target on our own back by neglecting military now. And Caledorn is taking the reigns soon, so I probably shouldn't give him a burning wreck being consumed by praets to take over. So you asked for it, let's see where we can afford more units.
Overview:
I'm just posting that to refer back to, look at distances between cities, etc.
Server Problems
Overflow is from a chop last turn. Missionary is slated for Reloads, Constant Pauses, or Runaway Civs, all of which are at their happy cap and will be growing soon. Plan was to switch to Wealth next to keep us afloat as we run out of money. 11 hammers invested in the spear so we could finish that this turn and pop out another unit pretty quickly. Distance to the front means the spear and maybe one other unit could arrive in time to defend against Rome's earliest (1-mover) strike.
Silent Neighbor
With a barracks, it's a clear choice to go units next here. But I really want to apply the +125% to the overflow for the temple. We could switch to the copper tile for more overflow into our first unit. At 9 hammers per turn, we'll get 4-turn axes/spears from here without stacking whip anger. It'll take our 1-movers 3 turns to get to the southern front.
Bad Economy
We could switch to the forest for 7hpt for 5-turn units. We could also chop the forest into units, or stack whip anger. It's close to the southern front, but has no barracks. Switching off wealth would mean we'd probably have to just turn off research and stock up for a few turns before turning it back on. In that case, we'd probably have to skip Monarchy and just go straight for Construction in order to get it in time to get catapults in a decent timeframe.
Government Shutdown
Barracks - Check! Hammers - Check! However, distance to the front means that it probably isn't worth sending anything other than chariots towards Rome. Still, the units would be ready to use against BowAivo, and the boost to power to avoid getting attacked at all is the main point. Side note, a missionary is timed to arrive here and convert the city next turn to keep up with growth. The original plan was to whip a missionary next to convert Taxes, and use the overflow to 1-turn a temple. Also, see above about losing the wealth build.
Serdoa's Chariot
This is a border city so we maybe should put the overflow into a unit. It has no hammer potential on it's own, but we do have those three 3rd-ring forests we can chop (in the teeth of Rome) and a shared forest with Bad Econ. Original plan was to 3-pop whip the Courthouse next turn.
Reloads
We're stagnating waiting for religion to spread here from the capital. Little hammer potential, but it could chop/whip units for the northern front. Losing the 2 wealth is not going to hurt us much, but losing the ability to whip a missionary to continue spreading religion in the north would be unfortunate.
Hangovers
Religion is arriving next turn in time for growth. I wanted to whip the courthouse and overflow into a temple, but that maybe delays troops out of this barracks city for too long. 1-movers will take 5 turns to reach the southern front.
Constant Pauses
Another city waiting for a religion spread. Units can be whipped here for the northern front if we're willing to lose the wealth. I guess we could also put in a tundra mine pretty quickly for a few more hammers.
Taxes
I was hoping we'd get religion here from Gov't Shutdown. This city is furthest from the front, so it can't efficiently contribute any defense against Rome. Any units it builds would probably just be to boost our power score and wait for BowAivo.
Runaway Civs
And yet another city waiting for religion. This is the northern border city, so maybe we should get walls and then units here instead of the courthouse (slotted to be 3-pop whipped next turn). We have forests to chop and we'll get a mine on that plains hill in a couple turns. This is the city Rome could reach fastest, but it would also mean they'd have to pass right under DMOC/Teddy's borders, so hopefully they would send something south to help us out if Rome attacks here.
Pitboss Crashes
Too far and too new to make much immediate difference.
Dogpiles
Again, too far from the front.
Traffic Jams
We'll whip the terrace next turn, making it a bit before we can whip units. We do have the workboat and workers lined up to improve the crabs and furs as soon as borders expand in 6 turns.
Rainy Christmas
Our newest city and probably now the best target for Roman aggression. The Terrace will be chopped in next turn, and then I suppose we could chop out real units instead of wasting turns on a quechua.
...
Whew! What do you guys think? The game is paused for another day or two, so we have time to change things around from their current state. Caledorn is sick in bed, but he said he would chime in here when he's feeling better.
I suppose the places where costs are ~10gpt could really do with courthouses, I'd start building axes in Silent Neighbour (I know the extra happy would be great, but that city can manage at size 7 for a while and you'll have monarchy soon anyway), Gov't Shutdown (there are a lot of forests still to chop, so I'd get onto that ASAP) and Hangovers (more important than the courthouse I'm afraid). For the places without barracks its hard to say, if you're sure GG are going the other way you don't need to panic. In fact if you're going to play for the win you have to take risks...
I noticed you had a spear in a queue - have GG got HBR or a lot of chariots? You will need at least one spear in each border city (and you always need them quicker, so build them before axes).
You've got axes as your garrison troops on borders where (I think) you've got NAPs, so I'd be tempted to build enough Quetchas to cover them (in low-production places without barracks) and get those guys over to the front.
BTW, with Server Problems and Silent Neighbours bumping the happy cap you could plant another city to take the corn for a while and work cottages for the capital...
Thanks for the feedback Old Harry. We chatted a bit today also. I went ahead and switched Silent Neighbor (you spelled it wrong btw ), Gov't Shutdown and Hangovers to unit builds. I actually put GS and Hangovers on Quechuas to release the garrison axes to move to the Roman front. I am not concerned about a human attack from the west, but BowAivo has been so slow to settle those lands on his side of our border agreement that I needed axe garrisons to protect us from barbs! I think we should be ok for now though.
Ultimately, it's up to Caledorn how we should play this out since he's going to reap the benefits/consequences, but until we hear from him I will put up at least a nominal effort to increase our military.
Alright, seems like the game is finally moving again. It's been a month since we've had a 24-hour timer!
We had a couple missionaries ready to spread religion this turn. We had a nice surprise with a free spread in Hangovers so that missionary will now make his way to Taxes instead.
Rome still hasn't attacked anyone. I remain hopeful that they will attack Dinos and not us. The new revelations in the tech thread about them playing together on the Polish forum makes me a little more worried, though. It's probably a good thing that we've started building units in some of our cities. Here's the new power graph:
We'll keep getting small upticks in power from now until either Rome attacks us or we attack BowAivo.
I wanted to go check out classy's land with this scout, but I double-checked our OB deal and we're not supposed to scout them. So I just peaked into this city, and will now head back over to keep an eye on BowAivo instead.
That's what our cities are doing now. Still not a lot of focus on military, but we can change that quickly if we notice any Roman troop movements.
Just dumping this chat I had with Old Harry a few days ago that Caledorn asked to see.
Quote:YossarianLives:
Hi Old Harry, thanks for your post! Old Harry:
Hey, no problem, hope it doesn't sound too much like instructions! YossarianLives:
No, it's awesome
I need an outside perspective slapping me around a little bit Old Harry:
Heh
I'll try to be meaner then YossarianLives:
You mentioned planting a new city to share Server Problem's corn
Are you thinking southwest of SP? Old Harry:
Yep YossarianLives:
We can't get a city east of the inland sea that would share the corn
Ok, interesting Old Harry:
It'd only share one cottage
unless you cottage those hills YossarianLives:
I wasn't putting a lot of priority on getting a filler city there until all the unclaimed lands were settled Old Harry:
Fair enough
Don't forget I haven't looked in-game, so you've got the best view of what everything is doing...
I'm just throwing ideas your way. YossarianLives:
Well I really appreciate the suggestions, like I said YossarianLives:
My in-game view is that Rome will not attack us. But I might be somewhat blinded because I don't want them to attack us. Old Harry:
I was wondering about that. YossarianLives:
The spears are in queue because Rome has a lot of chariots that could eat through all our axes on their front
I had a paranoid moment where I thought they would do well by throwing all their praets at Dinos and all their chariots at us, so I started production on the spears Old Harry:
If they do attack then you aren't going to win the game, so the temptation is to assume they won't YossarianLives:
Then I got lax again and put them all aside in favor of other builds Old Harry:
Yeah, spears are needed...
How many chariots do you think they have? YossarianLives:
It's hard to remember exactly because of the long break, but I think the allies and I have spotted some 5-10 chariots acting as sentries around their land Old Harry:
It'd be hilarious if all this time that you've been building axes to defend against Praets they've been building chariots to kill axes... YossarianLives:
The reason I'm convinced that they'll go for Dinos is because Dinos settled right up on them and they have touching borders, whereas we've stayed away from Rome and there is still empty lands between our empires
And I have sentries in those empty lands to spot them if they do decide to go after us after all Old Harry:
Plenty of warning is very good. YossarianLives:
And we have EggHeads on our side of Rome that can help us out if they a ttack, while the Dinos are slightly more isolated. Old Harry:
Cool
And you think they'll go for dinos on t130 when your pact runs out? YossarianLives:
Some 50 turns ago I had a moment of panic and set ourselves back by whipping out a bunch of axes. Then an attack didn't come at all, so now I think I've also been jaded and lulled into a false sense of security
Well supposedly they shouldn't know when our pact ends
I had posted earlier that I thought Asterix knew, but when DMOC denied telling Asterix, I went back to review my chat logs and couldn't find any evidence to show why I actually thought that Asterix knew about the date
So I think I just made that up Old Harry:
Ha!
I dunno what's taking them so long then
They should have attacked already! YossarianLives:
Yeah, I think we made them think twice when we told them about the defensive pact. That is what has delayed them
But instead of changing course and starting up diplo, they apparently decided to dig in and just whip / chop praets for the next 50 turns
So they now have close to 50 of them, while all the other teams have raced ahead in tech Old Harry:
Crazy. How far are you from Maces? YossarianLives:
Pretty far... Old Harry:
Actually, can they invade all of you at once? YossarianLives:
We need IW=>Machinery=>CS
They might be able to... Old Harry:
That would be funny too. YossarianLives:
I only hope they split their stack and try that
I think we should be able to stop some 10 praets with enough warning
And all our allies should be able to, also Old Harry:
Construction... YossarianLives:
Yes, still need construction
6 turns away at current tech pace
Should I skip Monarchy and just go straight for construction? Old Harry:
I'm not sure
Have you got Wine?
if not then it's just +1 for your cities
(happy)
are all your cities at happy cap?
Do they have good tiles to grow on to? YossarianLives:
Yeah, I have 2 wine
So one for us, and one to trade for another happy resouce Old Harry:
If the answer to any of these questions is no then Construction might be best YossarianLives:
Many of the cities are at the happy cap. I am trying to use religion now to grow them, and then HR + Wine to keep growing them
But of course, the bigger they get, the worse the tiles they have to grow onto
We have plenty of workers to be improving tiles, but all resources and most riverside tiles are already being used
So we're just talking about mines and non-river, non-financial cottages, or lakeside farms, that we can grow onto Old Harry:
Let me just count them up YossarianLives:
I've got to run (conducting an all-day training at work), will you be around in a few hours to keep chatting? Old Harry:
Can silent neighbor work the copper instead of a cottage and still grow?
Cool
cya
I'll be around later YossarianLives:
Yeah, Silent Nieghbor can work the copper
I went back and forth on that one, then decided to go for the food+commerce as more depsarately needed than hammers
Ok, I'll catch you later Old Harry:
cya
Just for later - I only count five improvements to grow onto (not counting Moai water).
I think your choice is:
- choose construction and move your workers to chop units (especially catapults) until GG attack or you hit Bowavio, or
- keep the workers building improvements and go for monarchy with your fingers crossed and hit Bowavio a bit later... YossarianLives:
I prefer the fingers crossed approach, but I guess really it should be up to Cal since he is the one who will have to deal with the consequences
You counted five tiles that are currently improved but have no population to work them, you mean?
If we ditch the wealth builds in favor of units, I think construction will take 7-8 turns to research
So we can get axes and spears for now, then switch to cats everywhere once construction arrives Old Harry:
Hey
Those five include the two scientists somewhere. I'm inclined to agree that the fingers crossed method is the better one... All or nothing! YossarianLives:
It's tough...
If Rome doesn't attack us, then it's obviously the best choice Old Harry:
And if Rome does attack you've lost the game anyway... YossarianLives:
But, like you said, not preparing might be exactly what prompts/invites an invasion Old Harry:
Catch 22 YossarianLives:
So maybe building troops is what prevents the attack and thus prevents ending the game Old Harry:
Do they have tech visibility on you? YossarianLives:
Damn Rome!
At least my user name is appropriate! Old Harry:
Or alphabet
Heh, yeah YossarianLives:
They shouldn't have tech visibility
But I haven't actually crunched the numbers Old Harry:
Shame
You could save money on construction, so that they think that's the tech you're going for and are less likely to hit you.
Then switch to 100% on monarchy and get it quick
I'm trying to balance building enough troops and keeping our economy afloat so that we can remain in the running for this game.
Server Problems completed its missionary which is headed north to convert Constant Pauses, and now it will focus on troops. It had a spear in queue, so I guess we'll finish that first. Silent Neighbors is finishing an Axe that had been in queue, and Runaway Civs chopped into an axe, so those will both finish next turn. Hangovers and Gov't Shutdown finished their quechuas and released the axe garrisons to move towards the east. They'll both keep building units for the foreseeable future, switching to cats once Construction comes in (which I hope to be able to get in 5 turns instead of 6, but we'll see). Serdoa's Chariot will 3-pop whip the courthouse next turn, then I'll probably chop some units out of there. The forests are 3rd-ring and right by the Roman border, so we'll need to send units to cover the workers. Most of the rest of our cities are still on wealth so that we can keep moving towards Construction. We'll see if we can get Monarchy next...
We won't be getting any new vision of Roman lands after this. I'm not sure if we should keep this quechua around here to try to spy any praet movements, or send him northeast to try to peak in on India.
We're in 4th place in the major categories. A decent amount above average, but well below the leaders. I still feel hopeful that we can catch up if we're able to mostly stay out of trouble to the east, and if we can take advantage of our weak neighbor(s) to the west. We'll see how that goes soon enough.
Here's a closer look at some of those categories.
Food will stagnate for us a bit until we can get Monarchy and increase our happy cap. Or until we take more land to our west, I guess.
We're going to continue struggling in GNP against all our Financial competitors. Not sure what we can do about that. You can see how pathetically Rome (GG) is doing. I'm kinda pissed at them for throwing away their game just to ruin the game of all their neighbors. Things could have been much different if they had engaged in diplomacy. I guess that wasn't the game they wanted to play, but then I don't see why they signed up in the first place...
At least Rome hasn't built a new praet in awhile. They got a 7k power increase this turn, but that's not enough for a preat, fortunately. DMOC thinks that they will be dividing their forces to attack all three of us at the same time. If they do that, our allies should be able to deflect 1/3 of their troops easily enough. We'll probably struggle the most, unless we can get cats before they hit us, which is absolutely possible. We just need a few more turns of peace...
(January 20th, 2014, 19:21)Old Harry Wrote: Must. Keep. Pressing. Reload...
That's the spirit! Let's keep those thread views growing! At the very least, we have to stay ahead of the Cat Burglars as they get a new flurry of lurkers with the regime change. Cal had a crazy theory that Maga = Asterix = B4ndit, but as host he was able to confirm that the IP addresses don't match, so that fortunately isn't the case.
Turn 123
We are continuing to spread the faith. Religious conversion has slowed down though as we refocus more on troops.
Mostly units in the cities that aren't building wealth. I think once we hit construction, we'll want to turn off research so we can ditch those wealth builds. It really is hurting us not being able to build anything useful in half our cities.
Just a reminder of how much warning we'll get if Rome does decide to attack us from the south. Dinos are guessing that Rome will not attack all three of us at the same time, but they are splitting their praets to defend against the two teams that they don't attack.
We'll have less warning against a northern attack. The quechua there is just going back and forth between the ice hill where he is now, and the forest next to Rome's silver. Rome had been keeping a couple units on top of the silver (presumably to protect from opportunistic pillaging), but they pulled those off recently. Once we complete a road in a couple turns connecting the border cities over here, it will take 4 turns to shuffle troops from the south to the north.
Demos:
EggHeads have asked us to try to line up with them and Dinos by playing after Rome. That is going to be a huge pain, since Rome usually waits until the last 5 or 6 hours to play. Oh well... When we hit enter, the turn flipped.
It looks like the other teams have been able to get wonders and GPs while we have to focus on army
So Cat Burglars whipped TGL while India got Colossus.
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), Gov't Shutdown and Hangovers to unit builds. I actually put GS and Hangovers on Quechuas to release the garrison axes to move to the Roman front. I am not concerned about a human attack from the west, but BowAivo has been so slow to settle those lands on his side of our border agreement that I needed axe garrisons to protect us from barbs! I think we should be ok for now though.
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