t78
Hashoosh logged in and rejected our offers. I did not give up hope. I waited for him to log in again and actually end turn. When I logged in again he had re-offered OB with horse for ivory. I accepted it.
The immediate damage is two cities in unhappiness. In general though, this is massively throwing current plans away in favor of other plans. I will step through what's going on.
First thing to note: we are only getting three trade routes, even though he has four cities. Hashoosh, man, you should connect your cities. So we only net +6 gold per turn, not +8. Minor bummer.
Second thing: our exports - imports is now 9. So he is not getting any benefit from us. Understandable - he can't without Sailing. I expect he knew this? Max value of this stat, btw, is 15, and min is -15. So someone out there is getting 10 bucks a turn free because they met someone else. I guess I should complain about how unfair that is?
Now to the situation. Why did I even offer that deal? Well, the trade route money is quite significant, for one. Suppose the deal lasts for 10 turns: that's 80 commerce. Er... that's 60 commerce. Well, still, almost!
The second reason is that the horse is actually quite valuable for us to borrow for a few turns. I mean wow, with chariots + impis we can easily deal with barbarians. Chariots are much better defenders against barb axes for three reasons. 1) They have massively better odds of surviving. Odds of our axes vs the barbs, even when defending with a bonus, are almost in the unacceptable range. 2) They can kill barbs proactively rather than defending a single tile. It's surprisingly bothersome when defending a city and associated improvements to be stuck with a single unit that can only protect one thing at a time. 3) They move twice as far every turn. This means we don't need as many of them to defend against barbarians, and they can also more easily switch between barb duty and garrison duty. As a final bonus, they are cheaper!
Now about those elephants. It hurts to see them go. Our capital, Going Postal, unfortunately grew the previous turn, and is at happy cap - now happy cap minus one. So that plains cottage is not being worked. Similarly with Hogfather: it's being forced to forgo a cottage this turn, though it's less painful in HF's case because it's building a settler, so the unhappy citizen doesn't also cost food. Other cities are growing and may be temporarily affected over the next 5-10 turns. It is worth noting that we can get furs hooked up as a replacement in 5-6 turns, and plan to cancel the horse for ivory deal in 10 turns. Hopefully Hashoosh will not cancel the OB in response.
So here's the tactical situation with barbs:
As the sign says, last turn our impi was slayn by a lucky barb axe. The axe should have earned 5xp and can thus promote twice, healing most of the way back and potentially taking shock. As such, none of our copper units would be that great against it. This turn, the axe is within one of the marked tile. So it could be moving south and walk onto our pig two turns from now.
Jingo doesn't grow until next turn. Under the old, copper unit plan, it was going to dump its overflow into an axe this turn, and whip the axe if necessary two turns from now. We could also bring in an impi so there could be a second unit defending in the city. Even so, there would be a decent chance of losing the axe we just whipped, and also a decent chance of losing our pig pasture. Not great. Under the new, horse-based plan, we are starting a chariot in the capital, and, painful though it would be, we are willing to whip it next turn. In this case we can slay the axe before it even has a chance to inflict harm. Whipping the capital is a bother but at least it's making use of its otherwise unused whip timer, I guess. Meanwhile, Jingo doesn't need to build an axe, so it's starting something it can 2-whip soon if desired.
In the west, we haven't seen barbs in a couple turns. I am edging this impi out 1 space every turn to fogbust.
By the way, here is Hashoosh, and the lands in between us.
And our reconfigured cities:
GP can hopefully start on a settler next turn instead of whipping the chariot.
HF recovers from unhappiness this turn. It was going to grow and stay happy; now it just stays this size and becomes happy. It's making a settler sometime soon for the sheep/lake spot to its southeast.
Growing to size 4 and claiming a garrison impi. Then it will pump out two chariots.
Still in its initial growth phase. No change of plans, except, hey, why not start a chariot?
Finishing the granary with a chop...
And starting on that galley. A galley should be more effective than a workboat for convincing people to OB with us. And it can also settle islands.
Oddly enough, we still have top food. Worst approval rate though.
Hashoosh logged in and rejected our offers. I did not give up hope. I waited for him to log in again and actually end turn. When I logged in again he had re-offered OB with horse for ivory. I accepted it.
The immediate damage is two cities in unhappiness. In general though, this is massively throwing current plans away in favor of other plans. I will step through what's going on.
First thing to note: we are only getting three trade routes, even though he has four cities. Hashoosh, man, you should connect your cities. So we only net +6 gold per turn, not +8. Minor bummer.
Second thing: our exports - imports is now 9. So he is not getting any benefit from us. Understandable - he can't without Sailing. I expect he knew this? Max value of this stat, btw, is 15, and min is -15. So someone out there is getting 10 bucks a turn free because they met someone else. I guess I should complain about how unfair that is?
Now to the situation. Why did I even offer that deal? Well, the trade route money is quite significant, for one. Suppose the deal lasts for 10 turns: that's 80 commerce. Er... that's 60 commerce. Well, still, almost!
The second reason is that the horse is actually quite valuable for us to borrow for a few turns. I mean wow, with chariots + impis we can easily deal with barbarians. Chariots are much better defenders against barb axes for three reasons. 1) They have massively better odds of surviving. Odds of our axes vs the barbs, even when defending with a bonus, are almost in the unacceptable range. 2) They can kill barbs proactively rather than defending a single tile. It's surprisingly bothersome when defending a city and associated improvements to be stuck with a single unit that can only protect one thing at a time. 3) They move twice as far every turn. This means we don't need as many of them to defend against barbarians, and they can also more easily switch between barb duty and garrison duty. As a final bonus, they are cheaper!
Now about those elephants. It hurts to see them go. Our capital, Going Postal, unfortunately grew the previous turn, and is at happy cap - now happy cap minus one. So that plains cottage is not being worked. Similarly with Hogfather: it's being forced to forgo a cottage this turn, though it's less painful in HF's case because it's building a settler, so the unhappy citizen doesn't also cost food. Other cities are growing and may be temporarily affected over the next 5-10 turns. It is worth noting that we can get furs hooked up as a replacement in 5-6 turns, and plan to cancel the horse for ivory deal in 10 turns. Hopefully Hashoosh will not cancel the OB in response.
So here's the tactical situation with barbs:
As the sign says, last turn our impi was slayn by a lucky barb axe. The axe should have earned 5xp and can thus promote twice, healing most of the way back and potentially taking shock. As such, none of our copper units would be that great against it. This turn, the axe is within one of the marked tile. So it could be moving south and walk onto our pig two turns from now.
Jingo doesn't grow until next turn. Under the old, copper unit plan, it was going to dump its overflow into an axe this turn, and whip the axe if necessary two turns from now. We could also bring in an impi so there could be a second unit defending in the city. Even so, there would be a decent chance of losing the axe we just whipped, and also a decent chance of losing our pig pasture. Not great. Under the new, horse-based plan, we are starting a chariot in the capital, and, painful though it would be, we are willing to whip it next turn. In this case we can slay the axe before it even has a chance to inflict harm. Whipping the capital is a bother but at least it's making use of its otherwise unused whip timer, I guess. Meanwhile, Jingo doesn't need to build an axe, so it's starting something it can 2-whip soon if desired.
In the west, we haven't seen barbs in a couple turns. I am edging this impi out 1 space every turn to fogbust.
By the way, here is Hashoosh, and the lands in between us.
And our reconfigured cities:
GP can hopefully start on a settler next turn instead of whipping the chariot.
HF recovers from unhappiness this turn. It was going to grow and stay happy; now it just stays this size and becomes happy. It's making a settler sometime soon for the sheep/lake spot to its southeast.
Growing to size 4 and claiming a garrison impi. Then it will pump out two chariots.
Still in its initial growth phase. No change of plans, except, hey, why not start a chariot?
Finishing the granary with a chop...
And starting on that galley. A galley should be more effective than a workboat for convincing people to OB with us. And it can also settle islands.
Oddly enough, we still have top food. Worst approval rate though.
