RP Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Darius I of the Holy Roman Empire

[Nakor]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 77, 950 BC:[/SIZE]



Kassitte is renamend Crydee and will be in revolution for the next 3 turns.'

We've got 170 gold, CoL takes 17 turns at -10 gold, so I decided to go for 100% science (we can still change that).

Sethanon grew to size 3, we can whip again but might want to wait a bit. It only takes 4 turns to grow to size 4 and then we can whip for 2 (maybe a library?) We can change our build according to that plan.

[DMOC]

Ok, looking good. Keep research at 100% until we get Code of Laws (or if we are forced to turn it down). I hope we can found Confucianism!

EDIT: Read the email further down, do you think we ought to switch to Math - Constr?

The emails are very interesting.

Nakor, I think we should set some goals and guidelines for the war. Do you think that getting, say, 4 axes, 2 spearmen, and 2 chariots is a reasonable goal to send out by turn 100 while at the same time having 3 axes, 1 spear, and 2 chariots back home to defend our civilization? This way we can counter swordsmen, we can counter chariots, and we can counter spearmen. Our weakness will be attacking archers in cities, but the 8-unit stack should be good enough to attack, say, a city defended by 2 archers.

Also ... for the war ... almost always try to get units on defensive terrain. Know the location of the cities so we can have units on opposite sides of the river. Be sure to remember that going to a city center diagonally is faster than going vertically/horizontally since the fat cross means that only one move is needed to enter a city from the corner before the units are next to the city center. More details as the war approaches.

I'd keep Sethanon growing to size 4 and whip either a granary or a library.

We need a Great Scientist ASAP. Which city would be best for that?

[DMOC]

PS: Nakor, the more I look at this game, the more I like our situation. We weren't rushed (Zulus), we're not caught in a war (Byzantines), we're not threatened by a war (Korean Empire), and we're probably not the target of 5 other people (India).

[DMOC]

Another email.

From jowy.

Hey all,

Sorry for taking a while to chip in. I've been waiting for India to accept a NAP, but I think it's pretty clear now that their NAP offer to me is just a decoy and their real goal is to attack me once they've signed NAPs with each of you. While 24 turn military build up might sound good from your point of view, it also means that India will have 24 turns to eliminate me.

Recently they've activated military wise. They've researched archery and started whipping units. There's now some axemen and chariots running around. They've set their research to 100% commerce. Atm they have 5 cities and I saw a settler ready for the sixth one. They'll probably have around 10 cities at turn 100 or even more if they manage to capture mine. They have copper, horses and iron all near their capital. They might be easy to pillage atm if we had troops, but by turn 100 they'll probably have alot more cities to surround those resources.

Things look very bad. Hopefully my heavy whipping of defensive units will make them change their minds and not attack me. I think we've lost all surprise factor.. either there's a leak who's telling them everything or they simply saw it coming. Me and Mali had planned an attack earlier, but I doubt that's possible anymore and Mali wants to wait till turn 100 anyway.

We can't do this half-assed. If we actually want to hurt India and have any chance of winning this game, each of us has to actually come with as good troops as possible, not just send in a warrior or two you don't need anymore.

Questions, comments?
~ Jowy

And the CoW response to that (we're involved):

Hello Everybody,

Well that looks a little disturbing. The biggest thing I can suggest
is do your best to not give any ground whatsoever. If you can hold out
perhaps Romali and the HRE can communicate closely and attack at the
same time from the South. I believe Romali has an NAP that ends T90.
Is there any chance the both of you would have 5-7 Units each ready by
that time? If not it would be best for the both of you to wait for us
and the Galactic Empire on T100.

Also given that they are currently on 100% commerce, I'd bet the farm
they will head for construction once they have enough gold. I recall
reading something by Sullla once that a no tech trading game in it's
early stages is a race to construction. Also we had an ingame chat
yesterday and as we discussed our war with Byzantine I downplayed our
timetable for attack and he said you basically need catapults to crack
cities stuffed with Archers. So by T100 expect to see the first few
catapults wandering around Indian soil. We shall probably be bringing
a lot of Horse Archers to the party anyways, so don't despair yet
Jowy. If they declare anytime soon, just keep your cool and hold on.
Attack their stacks when you can, and hold up in your cities when you
can't. Some of their power spike is going to be from discovering
Mathematics and Archery so just because they have some initial
stronger units running around doesn't give them a stack to run in and
attack.

As for a leak, I highly doubt there is one. The 2 running the show in
India probably know more about this game and MP play than all of us
put together so don't be surprised that they decided to stop running a
paper thin military when they've got neighbours with good power
ratings and neither wants a long term NAP. They have such a high
understanding of how to use the graphs and demographics that to have
them understand they need to keep a respectable defence shouldn't be
unexpected.

If anything this news should help us recognize we need to come even
tighter together as a group, and communicate quite well in order to
keep India in check. We must put all effort into organizing a sound
plan to which will hurt India greatly.


Athlete for A/K
Ottomans

I'm logging in the game today to check stuff.

[Nakor]

Yes, I like this game as well.
Our NAP with Korea untill turn 135 and the upcoming war at turn 100 makes us very safe.
Therefore I do suggest we keep at CoL - Sailing - Math - Constr.
If we do the same as all the others, we'll never get an advantage, and with Rathauses going up our science will greatly improve. Also landing a religion would be great for our happiness.

Regarding that GS, I think Sethanon is the best place maybe? With Rice and Sheep, working the Gold/Marble it can run a specialist. Therefore I suggest a library in Sethanon soon.
Rolan, the other option, is to important in production right now.

How do you suggest we make that army? Where do we build what and when do we whip? I think 4 axes, 2 chariots and 2 spears are a good plan. We can be building defense still at turn 100 when the must move to the front.

[DMOC]

Ok let's keep it at CoL.

I whipped Sethanon for a spearmen. I ddin't want to, but working a 2 food tile is incredibly inefficient. Sethanon should work on a library next.

Also, it works well with my plan for the city.

(Nakor, check back in abotu a half hour, I'm making an extremely detailed city plan for every city we've got now, the post will be long).

[Nakor]

Great! Thought about whipping Seth, but wasn't sure. Let's change it to Lib for the GS.

I'll check later to see your plan.

Are your college things finished? What grade are you in btw?

[DMOC]

[SIZE="6"]Turn 77 - 950 BC[/SIZE]

City Plans

-Tell me what you agree and what we should work out on.

-Be aware that the following discussion about "food surplus" is based on the assumption that we want our cities to grow as high as possible, with little regard to speed. You'll see why as you read. Farms can make a city grow faster, but are ultimately unnecessary if the goal of the city is to grow to size 21 (assuming no unworkable tiles) and it has the food to do so. There was an article by DaveMcW at CivFanatics which included that farming and THEN cottaging was best, assuming unlimited workers.

[SIZE="6"]--------------------Sethanon--------------------[/SIZE]

As stated before, I whipped Sethanon for a spear since all it has to work now are lousy 2F tiles. It's best to use the whip for something productive now. Culture is 6/10 now.



Here is an outside view of Sethanon.



I have calculated the food surplus of Sethanon. It is, amazingly, break even! We get +6 food surplus AND -6 food deficit, so Sethanon can grow to size 20 without additional farms (although it will definitely not be that high since we'll be working the gold which slows growth). This food balance does not include the rice, which I assume is part of our production city. My conclusion is that additional farms are unnecessary in Sethanon unless we want this city to be a whipping/Great people center. Sadly, Sethanon only has one riverside grassland, so our first farm or cottage will ideally want to go there. Being financial, we should always aim to get riverside grassland/floodplain cottages. As you can see, the worker just finished the road so he's at 0/2 movement points. The city is at 6/10 and will border pop on turn 81. Therefore, he needs to do something for the next 3 turns.

Options:

-Build a cottage on the tile
-Build a road on the gold mine
-Chop forest
-Go away and do something else

In my opinion, option (2) - roading the gold, is far superior. This way, once Sethanon's border's pop on turn 81, we not only have our gold, but we also have a road on it. This also goes well with that spearman whip I just made. That spear can move on top of the gold mine tile before our worker does, just in case there are some barbarians out there. The only thing the spearman has to worry about is if a barbarian axemen is somewhere out there. However, if there is one, we're dead anyway. Speaking of barbarian axemen, we've got an axemen near Krondor which is exploring the coast. I suggest we move him a couple of tiles, but get him back to protecting cities ASAP.

In conclusion:

Turn 78: Move worker on gold tile.
Turn 79: Worker roads.
Turn 80: Worker finishes roading.
Turn 81: Worker starts mining the gold
Turn 82: Worker moves towards the rice.
Turn 83: Farms Rice
Turn 84: Farms Rice
Turn 85: Farms Rice
Turn 86: Farms Rice
Turn 87: Farm is finished

The worker moving towards the farm is just a possibility of what he could do after mining the gold. I rate getting the rice higher than getting the marble hooked, but it's awfully even since unirrigated rice is kind of uninspiring.

I had a nice paragraph length summary on what to do but it got deleted so I'm just going to leave us with the turn plan above.

What's the proposed build order for Sethanon?

1. Library (work 2 scientists) - whipped?
2. Granary

There's mine, what do you think? Sethanon will probably need that grassland farmed or borrow the rice. The grassland sheep + city center support 3 scientists by themselves (so for 2 scientists, there's a +2 food surplus because 2 scientists = -4 food), so we will want some additional food surplus to get the city growing since it will probably be working the gold tile. The city center + sheep counteract the effect of 2 scientists+gold so if we borrow the rice, the city will grow with +2 food surplus while still working the gold and supporting 2 scientists. This city will be size 5 at this point.

[SIZE="6"]--------------------Rolan--------------------[/SIZE]

I added 7 yellow dots to where we should build cottages. It's such a shame that only one of those is riverside.

We can support all of those cottages. If you count up the surplus food we have, and subtract it from the food we need to work tiles less than 2F, then we get a +1 food assuming no lighthouse. With a lighthouse, crabs becomes 5 food, so we have a food surplus of +2. In theory, we can support a size 21 capital without any extra farms as long as we keep unhealthiness at bay.

Here's the worker plan + screenshot:



As you can see, our worker will finish a road in two turns which will be for our new city site. After he finishes the road, I think we should move him over to the forest to the "3" of the capital center. (I.e. the only riverside grassland that we have that isn't rice.) The worker chops, then cottages (or maybe just cottages directly, does that save a turn?) there. He should then move in a counterclockwise motion and cottage the tile to the "9" of that tile, then the "8", etc. until all the cottage spaces are cottaged. While this is good in theory, that's not likely to be our plan since we'll be hard pressed to get a city that big, so what we should do is have him cottage until we determine that his duties are best suited elsewhere.

-The fact that the worker's on the road means that he should be able to get to that forest to the "3" of Rolan's center in just one turn from his spot in the screenshot above.

Turn 78: Finishes road.
Turn 79: Moves onto forest.
Turn 80: Chops
Turn 81: Chops
Turn 82: Finishes chopping
Turn 83: Cottages
Turn 84: Cottages
Turn 85: Cottages
Turn 86: Cottage in Rolan is finished. [First riverside + financial cottage in Rolan]
Turn 87: Move onto the next cottage-able tile and cottage.

Build order for Rolan?

1. Granary
2. Worker (hopefully we can get the worker started when Rolan is size 6 due to gold happiness)

The worker we make should definitely start roading towards the former barb city site and road the furs in the process.

[SIZE="6"]--------------------Krondor--------------------[/SIZE]

As with Rolan, I calculated food surplus. Rolan, right now, could support a size 20 city since it's food surplus is exactly equal to its food deficit. The food deficit is -5 because of our 5 plains tiles, and our food surpus is +5 (+2 rice, +2 city center, +1 cow). However, in theory, we can improve the rice once we've got Civil Service. So that's a +1 food balance overall. So we don't need farms unless we want this to be a growth + whipping center. However, I think we should play to our stengths here and cottage these tiles. Here is my proposed plan:



The yellow tiles are the ones we should definitely cottage. The reddish bluish color circle, however, is one that we should probably farm. This means that once we research Civil Service, we can get chain irrigation to the rice to make it +1 food, for +5 total. That extra farm also means that we can have a +2 food balance, enough to support a specialist! The worker is currently chopping the forest.

Turn 77: Chops forest (3 turns)
Turn 78: Chops forest (2 turns)
Turn 79: Chop is finished.
Turn 80: Worker moves to and cottages the tile to the "6" of the tile it was on last turn.
Turn 81: Cottages
Turn 82: Cottages
Turn 83: Cottage finished [Riverside + Financial]
Turn 87: Worker moves to tile to its "1" position (directly above Krondor).
Turn 88: Cottages
Turn 89: Cottages
Turn 90: Finishes cottage
Turn 91: Worker roads the rice. This is why I decided to have the worker cottage the tile directly above Krondor and not to its "9". We need a road network to move our troops north, so I figured that we'd road tiles that also contain resources so we get them connected.
Turn 92: Worker finishes roading the rice.
Turn 93: Worker moves to forest north of rice.
Turn 94: Roads forest
Turn 95: Finishes roading forest
Turn 96: Chops forest

I want the farm to be close to our outside border rather than inside since farms can easily be replaced if Dantski's culture in the northern city overwhelms that tile, but cottages can't say the same for themselves.

Build order?

1. Settler
2. Axeman
3. Spearman

[SIZE="6"]--------------------Other Cities--------------------[/SIZE]

-Former barb city, should get started + whip monument asap
-"Production city" - work the horses and get a monument there.

I suppose we can rely on culture from confucianism if we found it but that's no guarantee.

-------------------------------------------------

LAST THING:

Our exploring warrior is here. Do we continue searching this direction? (Move him to the "3" position?)




...

Power graph:



In conclusion, of the ones displayed here we have:

1. Galactic Empire
2. Korean Empire
3. Us
4. Romamalinese empire

Still, the plan I have doesn't give a lot of leg room for making military units, hopefully Cassite + production city can make at least 1 unit of each. I don't think we should build a barracks since unit count is more important now.

[Nakor]

Sounds lika a solid plan!
Can I presume that we're going to build a lot of military after turn 85 or so?

I suggest we put the chop at Krondor into a worker. Do we chop the other forest as well before starting the farms and cottages?

I'd like to get another settler as well before turn 85-90 to claim the city east of Krondor near the coast... where shall we build that?

All-in-all a great plan!

Edit: barb warrior should follow the donut to ottomans and then go back scouting.
I also suggest we use an axe/warrior to scout out dantski.

[DMOC]

Our unit scouting out Dantski should join our other units once we attack.

Chop in Krondor can go to a worker, that's fine. Second chop (turn 90ish) goes to axe. I'd rather we save chosp until we need them. In Krondor there's a forested plain, that should probaby be saved until after Maths.

Yes, we definitely need more military. We'll probably have to whip Krondor and Rolan once each. That's 2 military units.

The more I think about it, the more we might have to delay a monument in "production city." Production city should probably build units at the start. Axe - Chariot - Spear.