[SPOILERS!] Grimace and wetbandit hope to stay on their side of the DMZ

[Grimace]

Turns 94 & 95

Given what we saw on T94, it looks like we'll have to adjust our city placement. Even if we plan to burn or capture that island city, we need to get ours down soon...even a suboptimal coast placement is better than no city given the GLH and Currency.

In any case, meet Lady Lex:


The Lexington was ordered in 1916 during WWI as a battlecruiser, but during initial construction it was decided to convert her into an aircraft carrier, and she was launched in 1922. She performed a number of humanitarian missions, including providing supplemental power to Tacoma, WA during a drought in 1929 and delivering aid to Managua, Nicaragua after a severe earthquake in 1931. In early 1942, after the Japanese brought the US directly into WWII, she (along with the Yorktown) was sent to Coral Sea to intercept any Japanese advances, where they fought the first US carrier battle at the Battle of the Coral Sea. The first day, they found and sunk a Japanese light carrier, and on the second day they engaged the two Japanese fleet carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku. Lady Lex was badly damaged during the battle, but amazingly enough was still able to recover aircraft and it seemed like she would be able to fight on. Unfortunately, sparks from an unattended electric motor ignited fuel vapor from leaking gas tanks and a series of explosions started fires that were impossible to control. The ship was abandoned and the destroyer USS Phelps scuttled her with five torpedoes.

Musashi will complete a work boat next turn which will be sent over to grab the fish. A worker is also chopping the forest NE of the city into a monument, as we need to fight off Elum's culture ASAP.

I also sent our galley a little bit north just to see what's going on, and found this:


Looks like we're going to be fighting Elum for control of those sheep. Luckily the city is worth it regardless, but it'd be nice to have the extra food.

And finally, our settler is in place ready to found our next city near the copper, with his original spot altered 1W in order to accommodate Elum's borders. It's not a terrible placement -- we lose the clams, but gain first-ring fish, allowing them to be worked immediately. A workboat from Yamato is on the way there and will net the fish on T97.



I also switched builds in Yamato from a worker to a settler, because we need to settle the elephants and towards Whosit ASAP. So Big E's settler will head towards Whosit and Yamato's settler will go grab the elephants. Do you have any concerns with my suggested placement for the elephant city? And the city down near Whosit as well (1E of our warrior)?

Because of this, I'm thinking we should go IW after CoL, so we can chop that jungle and get us those elephants, and also to get us swordsman if we have iron, which is likely.

[wetbandit]

Placing the city on that location will force the Whosit-front city from being placed on that hill. That's not in your dotmap, but it makes that city less defensible, it also doesn't have a food resource of its own now, but it is strategically important.

Elephant city positioned ok, just not a priority right now until we get IW.

I didn't think that we'dhave the most border pressure with Elum, but we do. We know WHosit has a galley around there so that next city needs a strong garrison.

[Grimace]

Well, long term we might be able to wrest the seafood from Whosit if we can build enough culture, but other than that there are no food resources near by. On the other hand, there's a lake right there which allows the grassland to be irrigated. The combination of those two cities also blocks off sea access from that bay which gives Yamato some defensive depth.

Bismarck just completed an axe which is on its way to cover the new copper city, and will have another one in 3 turns. PoW should complete a worker next turn and will start building units...probably a chariot, but I'm open to whatever.

[Grimace]

Turn 96

First off, let's welcome our new city, Yorktown:


I deviated from my previous pattern because, well, I felt like it. The Yorktown was a bad-ass carrier.

The Yorktown, unlike the Lex, was a purpose-built aircraft carrier, launched in 1936 and commissioned in 1937. She provided a lot of convoy escort and scouting duties prior to the outbreak of war, and was actually in Norfolk when the Japanses bombed Pearl Harbor. She was rushed to the Pacific theater, and in concert with the Lex fought at the Battle of the Coral Sea where she was struck by one bomb (after avoiding 8 torpedos and numerous bombs). Though damaged, she recovered aircraft, and withdrew after the battle. Though estimated to need 2 weeks in the dock to be fully repaired, techs at Pearl Harbor working around the clock made her fully functional in 48 hours, allowing her to sail with the Enterprise and Hornet to intercept the Japanese attack on Midway.

The Battle of Midway was complex enough that I highly recommend reading a book about it, as no blurb can do justice to the bravery and tenacity of soldiers on both sides during that 3 day period. During the first attack, Yorktown was struck by 3 bombs and brought to a stop due to damage to her boilers. A little over an hour later, damage control was able to restore steam pressure and she got underway again. During the second attack, she was struck by two torpedoes, causing extensive flooding and complete loss of power, without which pumps could not hope to counter the incoming water. When her list reached 26 degrees, the captain ordered her abandoned. By the time the captain left the ship, her list was so bad water was lapping into the hanger deck. Despite this, she stayed afloat all night, and a salvage attempt was made the next day. A tug arrived from Pearl Harbor and began towing her, electricity was supplied by the destroyer USS Hamman, and planes and guns were pushed overboard to reduce her top weight. After a few hours, the water level inside had been reduced, clearing the way to access some of her engineering compartments, and the list had been reduced by about 2 degrees. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, the Japanese submarine I-168 was able to sneak into attack range and launched four torpedoes, completely by surprise. One struck the Hamman amidships and broke its back, sinking it rapidly. Two of the remaining three torpedoes solidly struck the Yorktown, and she was ordered abandoned again. Surprisingly, she stayed afloat another night, until the next morning when she finally capsized and sank.

Of other interest, Buddhism spread to Tirpitz, increasing it's culture output to 2 per turn.


Dreylin is the founder of Buddhism (and, amusingly enough, Judaism). Given that he's currently last in score, has fewer cities than anyone we've met, and his graphs don't look awesome, his is probably the least offensive religion to have if we miss Taoism.

Oh yeah, we got demos on Dreylin this turn. He's lower than us on most of them and only has 8 cities. Whosit has the same number of cities as us at 10, and CH and Elum are slightly ahead at 11 each. Speaking of Elum, look what I found:


A city with no border pop and no defender, with a chariot exploring. Tempting, no?

I pumped our science up to 100% to check out demos, and this is where we are:



Elum is probably "Rival best" as his graphs show him at 100% science and he's above everyone (including us at 0%). Even at 0%, though, we're 4th in GNP. Prod looks good, but we're still sucking wind on CY. Overall, not great, but not bad. We're certainly not sticking out like a sore thumb. Sadly, Dreylin looks like a good target right now, though. Of the people we've met, he's weakest by far. Unfortunately we can't take advantage because it's hard for us to get to him.

Nevada will grow in 4 turns to size 6 at the same time it finishes its granary and will start on a settler. Otherwise, things are moving along nicely.

[wetbandit]

Re: demos and graphs: Demos arefrom current turn, graphs lag two turns behind.

I netted Yorktown's fish when I logged in, and didn't move anything else. I saw that Nevada wasn't working its other clams, is that part of a granary plan?

I think PoW needs to start growing more, there's a lot of decent tiles around it for it to work. You can keep all the builds on track currently by working the un-worked mine in Yamato, grabbing the now free mine vacated by Y in Big E, moving the corn to Bismarck, and using the Rice for PoW. We want to land CoL and its religion, so I wouldn't not work the silver, but moving from the horse to the rice will have the city grow in 6 turns vs 11. You can also squeeze another growth out of Bismarck by moving from the plains mine to the farm this turn if it gets the corn. Building wealth in PoW isn't a bad idea either for the extra gold, given that its axe will now be delayed.

Unfortunately, there's a minor threat heading towards PoW in the form of an Elum axe/spear pair 1 NE of the busting chariot. He also scrambled some defenses near our chariot, a warrior in the city and an axe outside of it. I'm sure you know, but be careful with archer-only defense around Elum because of his annoying Immortals.

Someone jacked up their research and top GNP is 125, we do ~104 at 100%.

I think a map trade will be beneficial. Let's ask CH, I don't think I'd want to give maps to Whosit or Elum, but CH and Dreylin make for goodtrading partners.

[Grimace]

When I checked the trade screen this turn, Elum didn't have horses, so at this point I don't think we have to worry about Immortals. In fact, I think he was planning to go get the horses near Tirpitz judging by where he placed his warrior over there for fogbusting.

I didn't have Nevada working the other seafood because it was growing fast enough without, and I thought long-term it would be better to keep putting turns into cottages. It'll hit max size the same turn it starts building a settler, and that seems good enough when we can generate extra commerce. When it starts the settler we'll switch to the seafood to generate more foodhammers.

I'll look at what you're saying about swapping tiles around the continental cities. I wanted to keep Enterprise working max foodhammers while working the cottage tiles as well to keep them growing, which is why I've had it keeping the corn. I figured whenever we switched off settlers/workers, Bismarck could take the corn because E won't need all that food (hammers will be more important). Did you check to see if giving up the corn would affect how fast the settler comes out? Because right now with our border pressure with Elum I think turns matter with settlers coming out, and I've been working to keep our GNP high as our breakeven point on the slider is below 50% right now, so every little bit helps.

[wetbandit]

I didn't even check to see if he had horses yet.

I'd still favor growth in Nevada, the faster we grow to happy cap, the new pop can work tiles quicker and the clam pop can work a cottage/mine when it stagnates.

The settler still finishes in Big E in 3 turns if it gives up the corn.

[Grimace]

LURKERS! READ THIS POST!

So you saw from my last post that I found an unoccupied city of Elum's. It turns out that Elum double-moved this turn (ended the last turn and played immediately afterwards) in order to get defenses into the city. Now, despite my joking about it, I really didn't intend to attack his city, so I don't want to call for a reload or anything, but can someone please mention to him that double-moving in this situation goes against the rules? I have before/after screenshots to illustrate the issue:

Before



After



You can clearly see he moved the warrior that was 1N of my chariot into the city for protection, and that axe would certainly not be where it is without a double-move. Theoretically, I could have killed the warrior on the hill and been able to take the city before a defender got there if I wanted to attack if he had only single-moved, so it really could have seriously impacted the outcome. I don't think he did it intentionally, and he probably just figured he'd take his turn immediately, but I think it's worth it for someone to point it out to him so hopefully he'll think about it should the same thing happen again in the future.

[wetbandit]

I had hearing that lasted until 6, so I wasn't around for PMing. Did you PM Elum/Mack about double moving or did any lurkers contact you?

[wetbandit]

Played the turn based on what we talked about, moved the settler towards Whosit, built wealth in Bismarck, moved some other things around. Made a call to build a worker in Big E instead of wealth, it would grow to unhappiness instead. Whipped monument in Hood. Shuffled some tiles around in Big E to grow a cottage while keeping a 4t worker.

CoL is in 3 turns now. Dreylin built the Colossus. Here are some other shots:

CH is building up even more. Whosit is poking around with his galley by Yorktown, I moved the new axe that way. I also moved the chariot in Musashi out to get a sentry around Elum.